Masters of MEDDICC | Lucy Williams-Jones | The Formula Behind 25 Presidents Clubs in a Row

Lucy Williams-Jones: AI is taking away so many of the tasks that we would have had to have done manually, making salespeople a little bit lazy. So if you're clever with the prompts on ChatGPT, it is phenomenal what it can do. It's so, so powerful. A buyer coming to you saying I've got this problem, can you fix it? They're not just going to you, they're going to six other vendors.

Host: What's changed?

Lucy Williams-Jones: Where should we start? Buying committees have just grown and grown and grown. You know, before it be maybe one or two people in it that would need to sign off and order a transaction for a solution, even, you know, a solution of 100k plus. Whereas now you're looking at buying committees of maybe 10 to 15 people. An EB should be your champion because if they're not your champion, they're probably the competitor's champions, but they're going to have their own win. Why are they doing it? And if you can find that out early, what's in it for them? You're going to be able to then work with them to go and do something together in partnership. And if you've not done that yourself and ChatGPT has given you your call script, how are you going to adapt if the person throws a curveball at you?

Host: 25. That is the amount of times my guest today has qualified for Presidents Club in a row. That's over two and a half decades of over achievement and not just at any company. Some of the greatest companies in our uh, industry, companies like BMC, MongoDB, Datadog and now Astronomer. Today's episode is all about taking you from inconsistency to consistency. It's all about the difference between having a lucky career and a legendary one. Welcome back to the show, Lucy Williams Jones.

Lucy Williams-Jones: Thank you for having me. I think the last time we did this was five years ago. It was Covid and we were on Zoom.

Host: We were on Zoom.

Lucy Williams-Jones: Things have uh, changed.

Host: Yeah. We're now in a, in a purpose built studio just for you.

Lucy Williams-Jones: Feels really professional.

Host: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. 25 years. So what's, what's changed?

Lucy Williams-Jones: Where should we start? I think let's, let's start with culture first and actually um, take us back the millennium when we used to going to an office every day. We had a desktop, we had a phone with a headset, we had a notebook and pen and we had a fax machine in the middle of the floor that used to ring at the end of month, hopefully many, many times. Um, I think the biggest change that I've seen over the last 25 years is probably around the use of AI, dare I say it. Um, and the fact that all of that great stuff that we used to do 25 years ago has kind of really gone out the window a little bit now. Um, with the use of lots of tools such as like Groove, where you can now Automate your emails. ChatGPT, that you can put a company report through and get all your content you need. It writes your emails for you. It puts them into medic. Yeah, it puts them into a slide deck. Um, I think the biggest change I've seen is that AI is taking away so many of the tasks that we would have had to have done manually 25 years ago. Um, and it's actually probably making salespeople a little bit lazy.

Host: Yeah.

Lucy Williams-Jones: Um, which for me is a little bit sad.

Host: It is a bit sad. Do you think it's taking away as in like maybe put the question to you like this. If you were, uh, back on the tools as an individual contributor now, because now you're in leadership, but if you're back on the tools, would you find yourself being lazy or would you find yourself using AI in a different way?

Lucy Williams-Jones: That's a really tricky question because I think there's a fine balance between using them entirely and using them to be more productive and efficient. So I think that there is elements of ChatGPT, for example, that can be used to enable you to prepare yourself. But there's nothing like actually doing the research that you know in your head, because you need to be able to adapt quickly on a call. You need to be able to change, you need to be able to ask the right questions. And if you've not done that yourself and ChatGPT has given you your call script, how are you going to adapt if the person throws a curveball at you?

Host: Yeah, I, I, I have like a, a way of looking at this where it's like for me, if you're a professional salesperson, AI, you should see them as like a junior analyst that you've now got working for you. Right. And so they can go and do some of the sort of soft tasks that you, you like. You say to go and find those reports or those examples of where somebody has used a quote or been quoted in the press or whatever it is, something from an annual report that may be relevant to you. Because I remember like the days where you'd actually write to the company and they would send you the physical annual reports and I would sit there with post it notes and I would highlight a pen. So now, you know, great, I don't have to read through all the stuff that doesn't account. I can say, just go through this document, find me bits that you think are relevant to me. And, you know, you can also prompt it to the things you're looking for. But I'm still going to go and read those parts. I'm not going to say, find me the questions to ask relating to this, because for me, the magic happens in that moment of where I'm just in my own mind contemplating, you know, what does this mean? And, you know, as I read, um, uh, a goal that they may have. I'll say, oh, that's just like one of our customers who had that same goal and one of the problems they had, one of the challenges they had stopping them from achieving that goal was this. And how our solution helped them overcome that was this. And all of a sudden I'm forming my point of view. And that point of view is what gives me the credibility in front of the customer for them to feel comfortable opening up and, you know, seeing me as a trustworthy partner in that point, who might therefore introduce me to their boss, who could be the economic buyer and so on and so on. And so for me, that's where the real magic in preparation lies. It's not just that you can come out with some script of questions to ask, it's what's behind those questions and the point of view that carries, um, the credibility that you have to have for the person you're talking to to actually want to answer those questions.

Lucy Williams-Jones: Yeah, I agree. And I think as well, if you think about when you've moved from that discovery call into, like a new business meeting, that first step, if you've just put everything, um, you know, recorded your call, put it through ChatGPT said, Write me the new business meeting deck. So if you're clever with the prompts on ChatGPT, it is phenomenal what it can do. It's so, so powerful, but you've not actually had to think about it. And then when you're in the meeting trying to showcase to a wider audience, oh, these are the pains you're having today. And this is why a solution can help you with that. You're going to fall flat on your face. So you need to. I think there's a fine balance between using it to be better and quicker and ramping. Actually ramping new reps, I think is quite clever. With ChatGPT, for example, because you can put in your questions, you can, um, Put in a simulation and you can see and test yourself, like, have you got the right, the right answers? But I also think we are creating a maybe slight world of laziness because people think they don't need to put the amount of prep in that they need. They should have done. Um, if you were going back 10, 15 years ago.

Host: Yeah, yeah. I also feel like customers are going to become fatigued with AI. I'm already feeling it with my inbox. As a buyer now, you know, I'm getting probably 10, 20 emails a day that are beating the spam filter that are just basically, you know, it's like dear person name and then insert here what, like what the AI has deemed from what uh, our website is. And then you know, how their solution solves for whatever that thing is. And it's, it's, it's so disappointing because I'm just like, straight away, I'm just like this person. I'm just, you know, I'm just part of a cadence to them. Whereas the ones that really stand out are still the ones where like, it's a, it's a different, it's a pattern disruptor, which has always been the way, whether you're cold calling, whether you're outbounding, whatever it is, if you can just take the time to show the person you have the credibility to earn their, you know, the right for their attention, then I think it makes a big difference. And I feel like that's going to carry into, like you said, like MBM decks starting to have these like this sort of AI undertone to it where, you know, everyone's just going to sound the same, like robots. And that's exactly what people have been trying to not do for sales for, for the longest amount of time.

Lucy Williams-Jones: I think it's taking that human element out of it a little bit, to be honest. And I think, you know, let's look at observability just as a, um, solution. Unless you're writing the prompts in something like ChatGPT differently, the email will actually be very, very similar because you've pulled the data and the research on the person the same way. You're solving a problem that's maybe come out in their annual report in the same way. And you're saying, write me an email to Mr. M. Jones and it will be the same email. So that person, beginning of the year, new budgets, new starts, they're probably going to get from all of the different observability vendors the exact same email six times.

Host: Yeah, yeah.

Lucy Williams-Jones: And, yeah, I just think it takes a human element away. I remember, you know, we used to actually have to pick up the phone. We actually didn't even rely on emails back 25 years ago. It was all about phone calls. It was around making sure that you have that human interaction from step one rather than relying on like the LinkedIn in mail messages or um, actually sending emails that just go unanswered. Yeah, um, you just don't have that anymore. I think cold calling seems to be a little bit dead.

Host: Yeah, it's a question for you. You're building a team at uh, Astronomer. You have the choice. You either have, you can either have eight players in your team that can use zero AI or B players in your team and they can use as much AI as they want.

Lucy Williams-Jones: I would like A players in my team that use zero AI.

Host: Yeah, I thought you'd say that. And I would be exactly the same as well. And so what we really, what's interesting here about what I'm getting from this conversation is it's like AI is a um, productivity tool. It's perhaps not finding anything that the a player wouldn't have found should they have put the time in, but it can just shortcut their ability to get to the end result. But then there's also a hazard where if you, if the customer feels like, you know, you've kind of taken those shortcuts which will come across. If, if particularly if you haven't put the hard work in to be as passionate and credible about the points you're making or the questions you're asking, um, then it's going to show up to the customer. So it's, it's almost like it's got, it's not just a potential that you don't be your best, it actually puts you on the back foot as well because it kind of knocks your credibility with the customer.

Lucy Williams-Jones: I think so and I think because now as well with like copilot and all the recording so you can use, if you're like doing a zoom and then putting that through to write your follow up email, even that removes all the human element because you're seeing the emails come with bold types, some really weird emojis, the spacing's wrong and some people even take written like chatgpt out of it and it's still there as like the line at the bottom. So again, I don't know how I would feel if I was a buyer and I'd invested my time into trying to find a solution and have given an hour or 30 minutes on an initial call and then I was sent that as a follow up. It would be actually an interesting question to ask from a buyer's standpoint.

Host: I had one last week.

Lucy Williams-Jones: Oh, okay.

Host: Buying something at the moment and at the bottom of the salesperson's email it had the um. Would you like me to put this into a slide deck? Um, or something else for you? You know how sometimes at the bottom. Yeah, one pager at the bottom. And so they'd obviously clearly. And in fairness the I kind of. I can see how you'd fall into this strap because all the person could have done. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. They could have written an email and gone copy to paste it into ChatGPT and say can you make this more punchy? Because I do that sometimes from like make this more succinct or you know, make it easier to read or something like that. And it still would put that bit at the bottom. So I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. But I did get it and I was like, oh, I felt so. I just felt so. I'm giving the benefit of the doubt because they've done a good job in everything else they've done but it hasn't helped them. I would have rather received a scruffy email without it.

Lucy Williams-Jones: Yeah, fair enough. I think as well you're right. Like putting emails through it to say make sure it is targeting the right audience or punchy or softer. My emails can sometimes be a little bit hard so I want to try and make them a little bit softer and there have been times when I would use it for that reason and I think that's really, really good use of time because you've written it, you put the, you put the hard yards in and then you're just asking it to tidy.

Host: Yeah.

Lucy Williams-Jones: You're not asking it to uh, completely do your work. And I think that's the risk is, you know, we've got a lot of SDRs right now coming into the businesses when they're kind of 22, 23 years old and they're not learning the hard way, they're not learning the core skills that will make them an a player in five, 10 years time. And that's my worry is that we're just going to have actually robots could probably do the job in 10, 15 years.

Host: Yeah. Well my theory here is it's, it's like sales is like game theory. Right. And so someone of your experience has been through so many sales cycles that you've seen so many times what works and what doesn't? You, you meet a scenario and you know, well, the last 10 times this happened, I had a 90% success rate by doing this. So I'm going to do that again. If you're an SDR using AI, you and you're, you're accelerating, you're just doing big numbers. When you actually get that bite, that nibble of like, oh, I'm interested, let's have a conversation or someone asking me for some more feedback, you haven't, you've not been in touch with what it's been from your endeavor that has caught that person's attention. So you've lost that sort of chemistry of like, well, what works and what doesn't work and you're just going to be blind to it. So all you know, if you're an SDR today doing those big numbers, just using AI to pump, pump, pump out more and more and more emails, you're not going to know what works and what doesn't work. You're basically just pulling a lever that's going out rather than being someone that's sitting down contemplating what, what value can I bring to this customer? Where have I shown, I've brought this value before? What might, what might be the stakeholders pain. What might be the stakeholders goals. How can I really kind of show them that they should be having a conversation with us? No, it's just like, okay, press like input here, pain, you know, input here, why this, why we're relevant, all that kind of stuff and it's just not going to resonate.

Lucy Williams-Jones: And if you think about that, like the sellers, um, have got a lot more data now, but that's also on the inverse. The buyers have so much data. So again, something's changed in the last 25 years is buyers have so much data now, they're coming to conversations already knowing probably who they want to choose. They're coming with pricing questions because they can go and do so much research which wasn't readily available before. Before you would cold call, you would get a bite, you would understand the pain. You would then go and say, actually the solution works, it will help you solve that pain. You're then going to a new business meeting and you're both engaged at the same level all the way through that process. Whereas now a uh, buyer coming to you saying I've got this problem, can you fix it? They're not just going to you, they're going to six other vendors who do moderately the same thing.

Host: Yeah.

Lucy Williams-Jones: So I think the amount of data that's now readily available is great, but it has changed the way that sales cycles work.

Host: Yeah. And here's the thing, like, uh, it does change that too, I think, for the B players. Right. Where the B players are like, oh, okay, Mr. And Mrs. Customers turned up and they've got a really strong point of view of what they need. And I better get better get around to answering how our solution can support those needs pretty fast because, you know, they seem like they really know what they're talking about. Whereas like A players we know, they go, okay, tell me a little bit more about why you think you need that. And what they end up doing is taking the customer on a little journey of, uh, their point of view, which of course is designed to introduce them and inspire them to what a broader decision criteria, which of course is going to be aligned to their strengths. And all of a sudden we've gone from this classic A player behavior of, okay, this customer's turned up and they think they need these five things. Um, whereas the B player would run off down that road and start talking about how we can deliver those five things. The A player has gone, okay, well let's just like, let's just agree that you do need those five things, but let's talk about these other five things you may not have considered and let me show you about why you should consider them. So whatever the, whatever the person's style would, would be the right approach for them to introduce those things. And all of a sudden everyone else, all the B players for the competitors, uh, are talking about those five things. And, and, and the A player, they've got 10 things. And five of those 10 things are things that they're strong in, if not the best in. And all of a sudden now they're not only the customer's not only seeing that a player as the vendor of choice because they've got 10 things, but they also trust them more because they're seen as the person that brought more value to the table. Um, and so if we go back to the AI situation, the AI is just going to accelerate how you run down that B player path rather than saying, stop, pause, let's just try and understand what you're trying to achieve here. And so the outcome of that is you got differentiation, you've got unique differentiation, you're seen as a trusted divisor, and the person you've been talking to is more likely to introduce you to other stakeholders because it's going to make them look good.

Lucy Williams-Jones: Yeah. And don't forget now another thing that's changed in 25 years is the buying committees have just grown and grown and grown. You know, before, it'd be maybe one or two people in it that would need to sign off and order a, uh, transaction for a solution, even, you know, a solution of, you know, 100k plus. Whereas now you're looking at buying committees of maybe 10 to 15 people. Um, there's paperwork, there is roadblocks, there is finance, there's security, there's getting DPAs in place. Like, this was not a thing 25 years ago. You had a shrink wrap MSA that you ticked yes to. Um, and that was about it. So I think buying committees and how you can actually navigate around a buying committee now is going to be really, really important for anyone that's trying to move their way into enterprise, sales and beyond. Because you can't just rely on one person who is an eb. Because actually, and I hate the term EB and ultimate eb. And how many times have I had conversations with my team of like, well, who's the eb? Oh, it's this person, but there's actually someone else who can say no. So the ultimate EB is actually this person. Yeah, that's right. Well, now you've probably got seven or eight ultimate ebs across, across the lines of business, and you have to make sure you're getting across all of them.

Host: Yeah, it reminds me of the logic of, like, computer games. You have like, the boss and then the final boss and the final, final, final boss. Yeah, I agree totally. And I think, like, this is why, uh, you know, if you think about Medic in its kind of classic state, where it was very much like, you know, you have like an individual Persona almost for each role. Like, economic bar is one person, champion is one person. It just doesn't work anymore. It has to be seen as an open Persona. If you're basically looking for the people who, in the case of the champion, have that power and influence, the vested interest and therefore selling internally for you. And you have. You mean, it's not that you can have. It's like you need to have multiple champions and multiple champions in different, you know, different, um, different sort of disciplines almost. If you think about particularly some sort of transformational deals, you're going to need champions not just in, you know, the IT office. You need a champion in the business who's, you know, who's going to be winning from whatever the value the solution brings. But then there's also things that, you know, we would talk about how you can differentiate yourself in this, um, age of like cloud marketplaces where there'll be someone in that business who sees the cloud marketplaces, their responsibility as their win and that's a potential champion for you. Maybe they're not going to move the deal forward that much, but they can give you insights and they can be in the room picking you up when, when others aren't there. And that's before you even get into the economic bias.

Lucy Williams-Jones: As you said, they're typically the people that have to put the order through the marketplace and actually accept it. So you actually need them to be on side because imagine at the 11th hour and you haven't ever spoken to the person that has the authority to accept a uh, marketplace order and they've gone on holiday for two weeks and your door slips. So you're right, there's even those people that hold the admin roles. So imagine if you haven't gone and touched all bases and you've got someone that actually has to accept the marketplace order and you've never met them, you think they're just going to be a click and a click click person and um, they go on holiday. You need to make them your champion because at the end of day they're probably going to have six or seven different click throughs that they have to do before the end of the month or the end of the quarter. And what makes it that yours doesn't get done versus someone else's? It does and it'll be that relationship. So you can't overlook anyone within a sales process and that's why it's so important. And with buying committees now becoming so large, convoluted, you have to triangulate and build champions out of all of them. And even the ebs, like an EB should be your champion because if they're not your champion, they're probably the competitor's champion. And we need to figure out how we can, um, change that.

Host: Yeah, we were talking about this earlier where we was discussing about the amount of competitive deals that are lost, not lost, uh, with the eb, um, where it's, you know, you've, everything else has been looking good, if not great and all of a sudden an unforeseen angle has come from a competitor that's taken the deal away.

Lucy Williams-Jones: Yeah, I think so. If you think about a lot of people, there's a lot of movement in the industry. People move, they do two and a half, three years and then they go move on to a company that's maybe similar to or in a more senior role. And throughout your career, um, as being as a, as a buyer or as a cio, cto, head of infrastructure, head of application, you're going to have the tools that you've used and your die hard tools that you've bought in every single organization. So you could have a customer that has got wall to wall. Your solution, there's a change of the guard and that change of the guard has implemented a competitor's tool in their last three organizations. An RFP comes out, you know, the RFP is written for the competitor which is why you should never answer a blind rfp, um, unless you've influenced the decision criteria of it. But you just never know. So getting to those EBs early and ensuring that those EBs understand the value that you're bringing, how it aligns to what they want to do for their new tenure, you know, their new year, you know, January is a great time to try and get back in front of your ebs to understand what their priorities are for the following year. But keeping those ebs close to you and making them your champion is going to make sure that the deal or any transaction gets done in a lot more of a smoother way.

Host: Yeah, yeah. As you're talking there, I was thinking about for us obviously our business is selling medic to sales teams, go to market teams and I was just thinking there about the amount of times where a uh, customer of ours, a CRO, let's say has joined a new business and they've, you know, they've been, you know, whilst on gardening leave have been texting us saying hey, like all this new gig and I need, you know, to, to catch up with you guys when I land. And, and it just occurred to me in those situations we don't, we don't worry uh, a beat about the lay of the land. We're not thinking, well what if they use you know, some other methodology or something like that or like in our mind it's like oh great, like you almost like throw it straight into commit because it's like they're the economic buyer, it's part of their playbook as you say. So it's the same with, with solutions particularly you know, at the more enterprise level those your economic buyer is going to be the person that's, you know, in many cases made a name for themselves. Our solutions have underpinned a lot of the success that may have even led them to get that new role that they're going into. So of course they're going to want to bring it in as part of their playbook, as part of their stack, so to speak. So it's not surprising.

Lucy Williams-Jones: Yeah, it is. It's really tricky because everyone thinks change can sometimes be good. You know, you've got a new EB coming in or a new champion coming in, but you actually don't know what's happened at their previous, um, organizations. So, um, getting in front of them quick, early and showing your worth, especially if you're an incumbent, um, is definitely there. And if you're not an incumbent and you're trying to win the business, then getting to that EB as soon as possible is always the key.

Host: Let's talk a little bit about your advice for that planning stage. What can people do to kind of give themselves that economic buyer energy, to really kind of hit the ground running and capture the attention to talk, not just get access to the economic buyers, but to be able to stay in the room with them, earn the right to be in that boardroom with them?

Lucy Williams-Jones: Yeah, sure. So I think in the first, um, instance with an EB, so you've mapped your EBs, you know who you're trying to go after and this could be that a um, transaction that was in flight from the previous year that maybe fell over, or this could be a new acquisition that you're trying to go and get to. So you're mapping your stakeholders and you've got to start with strategic intent and not just activity. There's no point blasting an eb, a C level, a director, a VP with content that's not going to be relevant for them. So I think the first thing you need to do is go and actually do your research on them and understand what they are trying to achieve in that fiscal um, and also maybe what has gone wrong in the previous um, fiscal year or if it was a transaction that slipped, why did it slip? Did it deprioritize? So really go with the point of view around the market, the trends, maybe what other organizations are doing. Um, a lot of the emails that I write with my team are saipab framework, which is um, situation, complication, implication is the first kind of three kind of paragraphs and then position, um, action and benefit. So the sigh always goes sci. But the PAB could be in any order depending on how you want to write it. But it always ends with an ask and it always ends with the benefit. So I think. And again, you can't really. Well, maybe you could put that, I've never tried. Maybe you could put that through ChatGPT. But no, the idea is not to put it through chatgpt. M It's to do the, um, do the research and write a really, really strong email that's going to give you a point of view to the eb, understand why you're contacting them, and not just, hey, I want to understand what your plans are for 2026. Um, have a real, real point of view, um, with action and a benefit that they can then come back and say, this is why I want to take the meeting. If you've already got a relationship with them, it's going to be a little bit easier. But if you haven't got a relationship with them, I would really probably recommend finding a champion that can then take you up to that EB access. And that's a great champion test to take you up or across the organization. Especially if you've got multiple ebs, you're going to need multiple champions in the lines of business to take you up there.

Host: Yeah, and it's, yeah, it's such a good test, but it's also that thing I think so many people miss when they think about testing their champion. I think a lot of people not. It's not part of our definition of a champion, but I hear it a lot. Where people will say a definition of a champion is that they will introduce you to the economic buyer. The problem I've got with calling that as a definition of a champion is that it makes it sound so binary. And it's not really a, uh, trait of a champion to do that because that's not in line with a good champion. If all they're going to do is introduce you to somebody else, what you're really looking for is for that to find, to be seen as so valuable as such a great partner in the eyes of that champion that they want to get you in front of the economic bar because what you found is their vested interest. So you've aligned your value and your solution to their vested interest. So they're thinking, wow, I really, really want to work with Lucy because I think if Lucy can, can become a partner of ours, we can get whatever goal is or overcome whatever challenge it is. And the best way for me to be able to accelerate that happening is for me to get Lucy to do what she does in front of more people, which is basically, you know, find their vested interest. And that is where the real magic happens, is where we can then that person will want to introduce you to economic buyer because it's in their interest, and then they do the selling internally for you. I think so many people miss that, and I think it's Such a. It's one of the risks of having um, that definition of a champion being that they introduced, introduces the economic buy. It's not as simple as that, right?

Lucy Williams-Jones: No, I don't think it is. And I think as well, like a champion is a champion of course because they have access and they are um, well respected within an organization. But they're going to have their own win. Why are they doing it? And if you can find that out early, what's in it for them? You're going to be able to then work with them to go and do something together in partnership and that's when it will come alive. It could be promotion, it could be I'm having to work weekends and I can't spend the time with the kids. It could be as simple as that. But what is it that's going to make them be your champion, not a competitor's champion, and actually be a champion that's valuable to use across the organization? Um, and that's the bit when you're building your champion plans at the start of the year. So coming back to the question earlier, like what would you do at the start of the year? Um, champion plans, access plans, all of these are going to really format a um, really strong go to market plan that you can then go and activate on to hit the year running.

Host: Yeah, yeah, I totally agree with that. Yeah. I think um, the idea of the, the traits that we have for a champion being power and influence, which is, you know, is the one that is the non negotiable. Like for a champion they have to have power and influence because otherwise they can't be a champion. Doesn't matter how strong their vested interest is, doesn't matter how much time they spend selling internally. If they haven't got the influence to capture the person's attention that they're trying to sell to, it's not going to go anywhere.

Lucy Williams-Jones: They'd be a coach. And coaches are great too. Yes, love a coach.

Host: Yes, totally agree. And here's the thing as well, which is like a point we really try to get across to people we work with is like this idea of like sales being this linear path that if you do this you're going to end up with, you know, if you, if you uh, do great discovery and great research, you can end up with a champion. And then that champion, if you do a great job with them, is going to introduce you to the economic buyer and so on and so on. It's not a linear path. You know, if it was, then you wouldn't need, you know, there wouldn't be the difference between high performers and low performers, and people wouldn't consistently be top performers. Those consistent top performers are consistent top performers, not just because they're great at finding champions. They're, they're great, the consistent top performers because they're the fastest to identify things like, I do not have a champion, I just have a coach. And they're the ones that have the confidence to put their hand up and say, oof, I'm in a bit of a bother here. I haven't got a champion and I'm not sure if I can see that person where I am right now. So I've got a big decision to make. Do I either, uh, you know, go off piece a little bit to try and find somebody and potentially upset this person that's front of me, that's a coach, or do I qualify out? And I think that, I think is the number one thing that you see if it differentiates A players and B players is this ability to have confidence in what they know are the, you know, the really important parts, which, you know, does get codified into medpic, but it's just, it's just, it's an innate understanding of selling. Right.

Lucy Williams-Jones: Yeah. And I think as well, champions are funny things. Because you might think that the person that took the initial call, gives you loads of data, sits in the new business meeting, wows at your demo, is really, really vocal. That's my champion. But if they don't have that access, they're not your champion. Um, they're a coach, which is great, as I said. So over the last 25 years I've seen a lot of changes in champion traits, actually, because back in the day you used to sell in the bars, in the restaurants, on the golf course, um, and you don't do that anymore. It's a little bit more tricky, especially with a lot more females coming through. Um, champion or building champions can be quite tricky for some females, especially in a male dominated environment of tech. So I think the key facets for me of a champion is someone that is not always available. If you've got someone that's always on the end of the phone, WhatsApp text probably would question whether or not they're busy enough to be a champion. Someone that just wants to go out for dinner, drinks, probably not a champion, but someone that is actually always thinking about that strategic intent and what the product or the solution can do to help them and how they can then filter that back, that's a sign of a strong champion. If you're in a broader room with a broader audience and you've got maybe some competitive champions speaking up, them taking your stance and giving the feedback and selling on your behalf, that's a sign of a really strong champion.

Host: Yeah, I agree. It's a funny thing, isn't it, the dynamics that, you know, I. I never really thought about, um, between. If your champions are, uh, the opposite sex to you. I never really thought about that before. And I had this one instance once where I had this great champion. She was really, really good. Um, and we got the deal done. But in the process of, um, working on the deal, I'd said to her, uh, I don't actually remember saying this to her, but I must have said it to her at one point, let's go out. Let's talk about this over dinner, or something like that. And then after the deal closed, she texted me, said, oh, we can cut for dinner now. And I had this, like, oh, wait, no, that wasn't. That wasn't what I was going with it. And it opened my eyes of like, yeah, that must be a dynamic that, you know, it's the other way around, as you said, with, like, the. You can't do that on the golf course as you could if you're two guys going out. Right?

Lucy Williams-Jones: Yeah, I think it is difficult again, but I think that has changed anyway. I don't think deals are being done on the golf course, in the bars, in the restaurants anymore. That's something that's changed in the last 25 years. And I think now, because there is so much, um, scrutiny on transactions going through just because of the way the economy is right now. You need more than just a strong champion to get a deal done.

Host: Right.

Lucy Williams-Jones: You need value, you need benefit, you need to ensure that their pain is answered. You need that EB access. And EBs don't want to go and play golf. They don't want to go out for dinner. They want to go home to their families and have a nice evening without having to jump on the phone because something's gone wrong.

Host: Yeah, I love what you said about, um, champions being kind of almost like, busy. I think, like, if I think back to some of the greatest champions I've ever had in my career, I feel almost like a bit of nervous energy around them where I want to make sure I maximize their time. I don't want us almost like, you know, I would sort of almost go to a, uh, very sparingly text them, because in my mind, I'm like, I want to. I want you to see a text message from me and be like, oh, Andy needs something here. Rather than just, oh, it's just Andy seeing how my Monday afternoon's going or something like that. And so I think that's almost like uh, something that people should perhaps look for with a champion is it's like, do you feel like, you know, you have to kind of almost deserve their time for what you're going to ask of them because, ah, because it kind of goes hand in hand. You don't really want to sort of waste, um, their time because you're, you're kind of eating away at that currency you have with them. Do you think it's the same?

Lucy Williams-Jones: Yeah, I think so. I, I look at it as like full five gold coins. So use them sparingly because if you're checking in every day, you're going to become probably a little bit annoying, even if they are your champion. And they might be, you might have the best relationship and partnership in the world, but there's going to become a point where if you're asking and asking and asking, it's going to wear thin. So I look, I like to talk to my team about having these like five gold coins, um, and use them sparingly. So use them at the point of infliction where you know you're going to get the most benefit from it. Um, and don't just use them willy nilly. That's not even a word, is it?

Host: It's a great word. Willy nilly. I think that's a great word.

Lucy Williams-Jones: Don't just use them willy nilly because you know that the champions will soon disappear.

Host: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I totally agree with that. I've not heard the five coins thing before. I really like it. But playing devil's advocate a little bit, one of the problems that we see time and time again, far, far, far too much is that people kind of see building a champion as almost like binary as this event they have to do. And so they get to this point where they think, yep, I've got a champion. I've, you know, identified, built, tested them, all that good stuff. And now I'm just going to put this on this pedestal and admire them and sort of, you know, show them off to my manager and show them off in deal reviews what a great champion I have. And they don't actually get them executing, don't actually get them selling internally, don't actually ask anything of them. So how does that fit in with the five coins analogy?

Lucy Williams-Jones: Okay, Fab. Yeah. So I think with any champion plan that you're building either at the start of the year or within a transaction cycle. Um, you've got the identification, the build, the test and the use. I would say the five coins come in more towards the use element, which is at the back end of the cycle. Typically you might see it in the middle of a cycle when you're trying to get to the EB access before maybe a POV or something like that. That for me would be a good ask. Um, but I think with the building it's a continual development and understanding why they care about it in the first place is going to be super, super important. Is it promotion? Is it, as I said earlier, that they are getting sleepless nights because the systems keep crashing. So, um, making sure that you are in constant contact but not too much. And I hate WhatsApp. Well, I like WhatsApp, but I don't like it from a business standpoint because I feel that it's too easy and I have people or uh, in the past I've had people in my teams have gone, it's all right, they're answering my WhatsApp, they're online. It means nothing. So many people hide behind WhatsApps. Bad news, WhatsApps at the end of quarter because you've built that WhatsApp relationship throughout the cycle. So for me, I'd much rather it be a call and then a follow up email to actually confirm what you've spoken about and what's important. Um, but yeah, WhatsApp for me is a tricky one because lots of people just see that as a great sign. Oh, it's great. Then whatsapping me back, amazing. But for me it's not a great indication of a solid champion.

Host: Do you ever build sort of almost like rules of engagement with a champion? I've had it in the past where I've basically got to the point where I feel like I have a champion and I've almost in some cases, depending on their personality more than my own situation, I'll uh, actually tell them that they're a champion. So whether I use the word champion or not again, depends on their personality, depends on how I'm reading them. But I would go from anything from saying, you know, in my world, um, uh, I need something that I call a champion. I see that person as you. And what that means for me is that you are the person that I have found that um, aligns most with what we, what we're trying to do for you and you're the person, you know, just like I'm Your person on the inside of our company, you're the person on the inside of your company. And again, depending on the relationship I have with this person will depend on how sort of blunt I am at this point. But the point I will get to, whether I call them the champion or not, you know, well, just my sort of my. My main contact, depending on how soft I want to be with what I'm trying to say, the point I'll get to is to say one of the things I've seen happen time and time again is there's going to be times when you really need to get hold of me, and there'll be times where I really need to get hold of you. And what I like to do is, like, find out, like, what's the best way of getting you. If I really need to get hold of you, what's the best way I can do it? Trust me, I'm not going to give you. Give you a call unless you really need me to. Um, and calling those things out and how I've seen it work quite well is not necessarily just that they will say, oh, just give me a call. But it'll be. It kind of. It stops what happened, what you described happening there, which is they just send me a text message or WhatsApp at the end of the quarter when I need them and say, oh, sorry, it's not happening. They have to. You know, it's almost like they're accountable to a higher standard. Is that something you guys ever do?

Lucy Williams-Jones: I think it probably is something that should be as part of that kind of champion identification and build checklist of, like, how to work with me? Um, you know, we do that internally with our teams of, like, what works well for you? You know, not everyone's the same, so you have to treat everyone different. Um, and perhaps that could be something that we could implement, which is, uh, how does a champion want to be engaged with? Because you don't want to annoy people, you don't want to use all your coins, or as I said, get into that whole guise of, oh, uh, it's okay, because we're whatsapping all day long. Because that then makes it acceptable for them to do the same back to you. So. Yeah, and I actually really like that idea. Yeah, I might steal it.

Host: You'd be welcome to steal it. Yeah. I feel like sometimes as well, the you're making the point earlier about the. The more like, for me, I don't want a champion that's gonna be whatsapping me all day. I want to like I said, I want to feel like if I'm messaging them that like I'm, I'm like a bit nerve, a bit nervous about it. I'm proofreading, I'm checking, I'm triple checking because like every moment to me matters and I feel like if I get beyond that layer of, and that level of care, they're not probably a champion, they're probably a coach.

Lucy Williams-Jones: Yes.

Host: You know what I mean?

Lucy Williams-Jones: Yeah, I would, I would agree. Obviously there is some instances where time zones, WhatsApp can really work and again, I'm not saying you should Never have a WhatsApp relationship with the champion, but I do think that there will be, it will show through the level of WhatsApp activity or the level of not being able. Too busy to talk on a zoom or in a formal environment. But okay to answer your WhatsApps.

Host: Yeah, sure, sure. I guess my point is more just like, just make sure you actually need to, you know, don't you, don't be. I once worked for this awful, awful boss and I always remember it that got to end a quarter and you know, he was, he was pretty short tempered anyway, but he was, he turned into almost like some sort of monster. It was terrible. And he would, he, he would just come around works in the office. He would just come around basically table to table, desk to desk, just asking for updates. And, and I, I just remember just lying to him, you know, because it was only like two hours since he'd last asked me and what he was looking for me was to say I've sent another email, I've made another call, I've, you know, and, and the customer in this instance I remember actually kind of got a bit annoyed at me because I was like, they're like I said the last time you chased me that I'll give you an update when I have one. And I just sort of think that that's what we're talking about here is the kind of, the uh, the micro version of that. Whereas it's like, and what, what that person would have seen is work for a good company. We had really great results. And that person would have just seen like the, the, the correlation which is not causation between him bouncing around the desks, banging on people's desks and saying, you know, get me an update and success when actually it was probably pretty detrimental to the success.

Lucy Williams-Jones: If you've got a strong champion and you've got the EB access, you shouldn't have to be asking for updates every five minutes. It's like that scene in 40 Towers where civil was in hospital. Did you ever watch it? Civil was in hospital. Uh, Basil was trying to put the moose head up.

Host: Right.

Lucy Williams-Jones: And every time he'd got on his step ladder to try and put the moose head up, Sibyl would ring him and said, are you doing it? Have you done it yet? Have you got the update yet? Have you done this? It's exactly like that. And every time that he got the phone call, he had to put everything down, get off the step ladder and answer the phone.

Host: And actually, great analogy.

Lucy Williams-Jones: If he had not had the constant, have you done it? Have you got an update? It probably would have got done a lot done.

Host: That's brilliant.

Lucy Williams-Jones: That's how I would see it because. And again, I know how frustrating it can be from a leader to a rep, because I've been there when I was, um, an individual contributor with someone asking every 10 minutes, what's the update? And everyone's getting really overly excited. But if you've got a good EB access and you've got a good champion, you need to trust in them, unless they choose you not to trust, and then they're probably not a champion. Yeah. So, you know, you've got to trust in your champions 100%. And then you shouldn't have to do the constant chasing around.

Host: So that's engaging with champions. When it comes to economic buyers, do you. How do you see it working best? Do you. Because we're talking about planning for next year. Economic buyer engagement. Do you like to get your teams almost like delegating economic buyer engagement to someone senior, like a peer of theirs? Is that a tactic you deploy? Do you want your AES to be having that direct alignment? What's your preference?

Lucy Williams-Jones: I think it depends, um, on the organization. Um, because an EB in a smaller organization could be a director, it could be, uh, a vp. Whereas if you're looking for an economic buyer of a large bank, you're probably looking at, like a group cto, cio, et cetera. So I think it depends. I do think that there is an element of ownership. Like I'm the first to say to my team, if they're not getting hold of someone that they need to. That I'll take it on. You know, when I do PG Fridays and we have PG Fridays every Friday, um, that's my PG is trying to get to stakeholders that my team can't get to. So I will write the emails, I will do the research, and I will get them sent off. M. It might be that we even go even further upstream, VP of Europe or C levels. Um, but I do think it's a team effort with EB Access because not all EBs are going to want to speak to a salesperson, especially if you're not leading with value and content that they're going to find interesting. And I think that's where a lot of sellers do fall short, is they think, great, I've got these great stories, I'm going to talk about features and functions that are going to help someone. They don't care. Uh, they care if it's going to help Release an app 6x quicker than if they didn't have the solution in place.

Host: Yeah, yeah, I agree and I, I'm a big fan of the delegation to the, you know, the peer. So, you know, like you said, depending on the size of the company, who you use. Um, but I'm a massive, massive fan of this idea of finding that, that alignment but also making no ask, at least for the, for the first engagement. And the important thing here is that you do it early on. We see this so often where the economic buyer is what happens when the deal goes sideways and then you get in the war room and everyone's going, oh no, what do we do? And they go, well, you know, senior person, you reach out to them, you, you write to them and you're on the back foot by that point. Our favorite idea is like, if you've got an opportunity that you're excited enough about to think, be thinking at the early stages, who's the economic buyer? How can we get early engagement with them? Well, just, just go looking for that person. Go, go, go, go. Trying to make that engagement.

Lucy Williams-Jones: It's good actually, because that's a really good point about E don't in playbook, you have the EB access before pov.

Host: Right.

Lucy Williams-Jones: So I'll come on to that. Uh, so you've actually got the UB involved from the POV standpoint to do then the playback, do the BVA. So you're already in. It's not the 11th hour, can you sign the paperwork? And that's changed a lot in 25 years. Because before you just go at the last minute and go, oh, they're not signing it, let's go find them.

Host: One of the things with economic buyer engagement is people typically see it as almost like a later stage thing that happens. And the idea there, I think is that, uh, you know, you want to build your champion, you want to build your proposition and then engage the economic buyer when you've Got relevant things to talk to them about. And I think the problem with that is you're often on the back foot by the time it gets there. If they've got other priorities or anything like that, they can almost put like a spanner in the works. We're big, big advocates of this idea of engaging sometimes before you even had a first meeting. And the idea there is that if you've got an opportunity you're excited enough about, then you find the economic buyers peer or you know, your identified economic buyer, you don't know it's them for sure yet. And you find their peer in your business and get them to reach out and in, you know, in your own style or in their style, say, hey, I'm really excited to hear that our teams are meeting, um, next Thursday, whenever it is. Um, uh, I would just like to let you know that in this, if this project has as much value for you as we think it will, then I'll be the executive sponsor. I don't have any ask right now, but I wanted to just open up the line of communication. I'll follow up if, if it sounds, if you know, if this is as exciting as we think it should be after the meeting and let you know how it went. No ask, you know, if you're an economic buyer, receiving that be like, okay, well someone's senior from this business has, you know, let me know what's going on and then the door is open. Well, it's maybe just a jar a little bit. The point is you've opened up the line of communication. The first thing the economic buyer has heard from you is not, oh no, like you've, you've, you shouldn't, you shouldn't kill this project because of these reasons. It's actually you've warmed them up a little bit.

Lucy Williams-Jones: I think that's a great idea. And I think, uh, as well, sometimes dependent on the solution you're selling or the platform you're selling, you might find that your first outreach is to the EB and then they pass you down.

Host: Right.

Lucy Williams-Jones: You might find that you're selling two hands on keys because it's a real kind of like techy piece of software and they need to take you up. But I do believe that getting to EB as early as possible is the most important thing. Um, in a lot of playbook companies, EB access is ahead of pov. So before both organizations take time, you know, trialing the software, building the value cases, building the business cases, we've met that executive, um, buyer, um, or the budget holder to ensure that they're comfortable with the process. It also enables us to ask, is there anything that you need to see in order that you're comfortable with the sign off? It can be really tricky. That's probably the hardest bit of the sales cycle, is getting that EB access. Because a lot of people don't want to jump above their champions. If they don't have a champion, how do they get there? And they just want to run full steam ahead and get a POV because they believe it's going to sell the software. So it's always that in a forecast call, should we be doing it? And I do believe that we should be doing it.

Host: Yeah.

Lucy Williams-Jones: Um, with no deviation apart from in real extreme cases. And I'm not saying you're going to go to the CIO of a bank and say, I need to speak to you before we run a pov, but there's got to be an element of we are comfortable with the work we're doing in order to move forward, because otherwise you can just run a POV and it will just die. Death.

Host: Yeah. It's one of those classic, you know, slow things down to speed them up kind of things, isn't it? One of the things we find quite funny is that obviously we're selling med pick to go to market organizations quite often sales leaders, um, and you know, in many situations, uh, we were selling to the champion that could be the CRO or a VP of sales or something like that. And we're selling the very behaviors that they want their sales team to take on board. And the amount of time we will find itself with someone who is a proposed champion of ours. And they're telling us, you know, I'm your champion, don't, you know, don't worry, you know, kind of giving us all that, what we think we want to hear, but they're still blocking us from engaging the economic buyer. And it's, it's kind of, you know, if it's happening with people that know how it works and they know what they want their sales team to do and then they're still, you know, in this case blocking it does show the point of that. It's not straightforward and goes back to that point I said earlier of like, it's not a binary linear process of like, just do this and these things will happen. But the point there is, whereas there's difficulty, there's an opportunity to be unique, to be better than the other salespeople that are trying to sell to that same organization as you and it's like we always say, like there's no, you know, the classic line, there's no, there's no traffic on the extra mile. Right. There's, you know, it's like that's the idea of economic buyer engagement. Quite often the harder it is to engage with the economic buyer, the better because it means that you're going to stand out. It's like a very quiet place to be once you get there. So it can almost be worth just going through that. That extra difficulty ahead of the pov. May feel like you're losing traction, may feel you're slowing things down, may think it's like you're actually making things uncomfortable with the champions you may have. But it's well worth doing right.

Lucy Williams-Jones: 100%, I think. As you say, slow down to speed up is the key. And you have to be really thoughtful and intentional about any messaging to an eb because you sometimes only get one chance. Um, but as I said, it will test the strength of the opportunity if you don't miss out that step. And it might take you three weeks to get there, but that's okay because it shows that they have got intent, they show that they want to engage.

Host: Yeah, I agree. It's like one of those situations where it's like you'd rather have a three week longer deal where you've got a chance of winning it than accelerate three weeks to losing it.

Lucy Williams-Jones: It's the same as RFPs. I don't really think blind RFPs are a good use of time to answer, especially when you haven't kind of, um, influence the decision criteria or anything like that. One reason I would answer a blind RFP is if we got to the eb. So that's always for me, a first ask. If we get a blind RFP in, I'll be saying, great, but we want to go and meet the EB who's actually supporting this and whose budget it comes from. We can't do that because we're in an rfp. Okay, then we won't respond. Um, and that was at previous organizations, of course. But, um, you'd then get to the EB and it was one very recently and they said, we can't give you any information. We can't engage. So we did decide not to respond.

Host: And they let you know.

Lucy Williams-Jones: They said, that's a real shame. Uh, but then that shows. Were they ever gonna select us anyway?

Host: Yeah, yeah. You were on the back foot. You just saved yourself a load of time.

Lucy Williams-Jones: Yeah, yeah. And I'd rather my team be doing Intentional PG solving problems that are real than just spending six months responding to a hundred thousand spreadsheets, um, you know, demos to people that don't really want to be there and they'd rather be watching telly. Yeah. Um, so yeah I think that's EB access and building those ebs and Champions is going to be really key especially in 2026.

Host: What's if I'm someone who is trying to join an a company like Astronomer, not just because it begins with a. What are ah, some things that you would be advising to let's say that the 20 odd year old version of Lucy that's trying to break into that a company.

Lucy Williams-Jones: Sure. Um, so I think you've got to treat when you're looking for a new role you've got to treat it like a sales process. So do your research, understand the why behind um, the organization, understand where they've come from, where they're looking to go and actually reach out to the hiring managers in a way that you would pg a prospect. Um, whenever I interview I Medicare candidly so I know how many people I'm against which is my competition. I know um, who my M champions need to be. Um, I know who the final decision maker is. I understand why they're hiring and what they're looking for, um, and what decision criteria they have in order to make sure that I can hit all of those. And sometimes you can't, you know, you might go through the medic and for me um, joining a new organization when you're in the interview process it's as much for them to try and secure the role with you is you to test whether or not it's an organization you want to work within. Because I've been through um, over 25 years, you know a few, a few interviews, I'm not really a serial interviewer. Um, I kind of know where I want to be. I always have a hit list of companies I want to work for. Um, but there has been a few that I've spoken with and I've decided actually we don't fit and that's okay too.

Host: Yeah.

Lucy Williams-Jones: Um, so for me it's really understanding and qualifying the opportunity and the organization and the people and using medic to do it is a really good way of doing it.

Host: Yeah, I agree totally. I found myself going on a bit of a rabbit hole recently where I've been looking at tech sales on Reddit so subreddit all about tech sales just to sort of absorb what people are saying out there and there's this rhetoric on there that working for startups suck. Right, okay. And so I sort of dug into it a little bit. Why? And the answers were pretty consistently. Well, you know, they have bad, um, gtm, bad leadership, um, and bad products. And I was like, well, that doesn't make sense because every company that we know is a success story today started as a startup, so it can't be true. Um, and my point of view there is, well, you can tell all those things from the outside looking in, right? Product, look at G2 crowd, right. Ask, you know, look at their website. If you're really gonna make, if you're gonna change your career trajectory by joining this company, it's worth looking at their website, looking at the logos, maybe even reaching out to some customers who might be using the tech. Right. So product, you should qualify that from the outside in. Right?

Lucy Williams-Jones: That's exactly what I did with Astronomer. So I reached out to some of my champions from previous, um, organizations to find out where they're using it, how do they rate it and do they find it pivotal to their business to run their business? And the answer was yes across the board.

Host: Yeah, I'm not surprised about that at all for you because if you look at your, you know, your, your, your career so far, you've had great tenures in great companies, but you know, part of the, part of the thing, you know, take Datadog, you said you, I think eight employee 800 or something.

Lucy Williams-Jones: 26, I think it was.

Host: Right, so that was not a sure thing by any means then. Especially coming from a great organization from MongoDB. So you can see how putting that kind of approach in really, really works. So that's the product gtm, you can see from the outside looking in. You can just look at how they are going to market. You can compare them to their peers and you can get a good feel for that and the leadership as well. You should be able to get a feel for, you know, if you're going to be joining a company like a startup and it is a true startup, I would want to meet the leadership. And therefore. So the point being is, to your point, qualification is really, really important for you in the role, not just the other way around.

Lucy Williams-Jones: So I think in a career everyone can have a whoopsie, um, which is that company where you maybe haven't qualified or you've been sold the dream by the C level or been persuaded by stock and big salaries, um, but you didn't do your due diligence on market, um, market opportunity, or is it a solution that's going to fix real world problems. Are the leadership the right leadership for me? So I think the moral of the story on this is, is when you are going for a new role and you want to get into an A, an A company, um, be really intentional about it, do your research, build your networks, ask your champions from your organisations what they think of it and then when you actually are ready to reach out to the hiring manager or even the C level, they depend on the size of the organization. If you're that intent on working for this company, there's nothing bolder than reaching out to a C level or a VP of sales saying, I really want to work with you, this is the reason why. But treat it like a sales process the whole way along and um, use medicine. As I said, um, whenever I'm going for a role I will have it on a crib sheet and I will make sure that I understand exactly what they're looking for, what the KPIs are, who my champion should be and the like.

Host: Yeah, we've just, we've just filled two AE positions in our team and um, in the, the LinkedIn job application alone we had almost a thousand applications. Of those thousand, so in the job description, people don't. People, people get very upset about this. I don't know why I'm bringing it up again, but I'm going to go with it because I thought I saw

Lucy Williams-Jones: the LinkedIn post about it.

Host: Yeah, people get very upset. So in the, in our LinkedIn um, uh, job description it says, you know, sales is all about attention. It's all about standing out, it's all about, you know, making sure, you know, you can capture the person's attention and keep it. And so please don't hit the easy apply button because easy apply applications be ignored. The um, the percentage of people that, that don't do that is less than 2%. So people of those odd, thousand odd 900 and something of them were people just hitting easy apply. And then let's say there's sort of maybe 20 people that did something different. Less than five of them contacted me. And I feel like I understand in most scenarios why you may not reach out to the CEO. Uh, but I don't, but I don't think it's. I think it's like there's never going to be a situation where that's looked at as poorly.

Lucy Williams-Jones: No, as long as your messaging's right, sure.

Host: Yeah. But in my case I'm like, I'm um, quite a public face of the company. We're Not a big company. So it's not like I'm some sort of super senior person. Exactly. So I, it's this almost very surprising to me that that's where the bar is because like I say, if I, I was going, if I was applying for jobs, I would do that right now. I mean I did used to do that. I'd really want to stand out. So, and I guess like one, one thing is for you people watching this for you, there's a book they should probably read.

Lucy Williams-Jones: You're right. So we released the Female Sales Leader to tie in with International Women's Day. So myself, Penny Amarina, spent um, two years creating a book that was built with the intention of helping more females get into tech, but also to reach their dreams of being, you know, future CROs. Um, in the book there's a practical guide around interviewing. There's lots of stories around how you can, um, find where your niche is. A lot around the a player and a companies, um, who are hiring right now. So I would definitely 100 have a look at the book. It's not just for girls. Um, obviously it's written from three female leaders perspectives, but it is definitely for everyone to read in order to get themselves into one of those A18 companies.

Host: Yeah, for sure. I think one of the things that's really interesting right now, I'm hearing a lot of people trying to get into tech sales and then also in those SDR roles trying to get into the field. And we, we hired um, Lisa and our team and she came from an SDR role and she took her first role in the field for us. And that's quite a big, you know, for any company that's uh, a, you know, I don't want to call it a gamble but you know, you're basically taking someone who hasn't done a job into doing a new job basically because, you know, there is of course transferable skills from SDR to AES, but it's not, it's not a clean evolution, I don't think. And just to prove the point around going that extra mile about going deeper, Lisa, um, not only did a great job of engaging with multiple stakeholders, including me, but she actually got one of her mentors to reach out to me as almost to almost champion her as well. And so like, that is just absolutely brilliant. And I think without that Lisa would have got the job because she did such a good job in the process. But like it was, it's only like if you think about it, if you're in a process and you're at the later stages. The company wants you to win. They want you to show up and be brilliant. So if you can do anything else to enhance that, then why wouldn't you?

Lucy Williams-Jones: 100 we want everyone, you know, anyone that's coming through an interview. You've all been there when we've interviewed, and you really want the job. You want everyone to succeed. Um, I'm probably over an oversharer. So, um, if people ask me questions around the next stage of the interview, I'll give an answer. I, um, don't think there's any point trying to trick people or trying to kind of not be open and transparent around what I'm looking for. As long as they're curious and they've asked the questions exactly that.

Host: It's almost like you want to help them as much as you can if they put themselves in a position to ask those questions.

Lucy Williams-Jones: Yeah. And especially if you think about, um, with hiring managers. If I'm hiring for my team, it's my final decision. But there are other people that potentially could say no. You have those in Sally. You've got the EB and you've got the ultimate eb. It's the same with hiring. Um, you know, you are a committee in a way. Is it the SC leader that doesn't feel that they're the individual gel with their sc, for example? So the best thing you can do is make the hiring manager your champion because they're the one that are going to be selling internally around package benefits, working with the cross functions, to say, actually, this is the right person. So I would, um, encourage anyone that is going to be looking for a new role to, um, really do your research on that person, um, and really make them be on their side. And just because they're the hiring manager doesn't make them not have the ability to be your champion.

Host: So hopefully now, Lucy, anyone who is thinking of taking up the awesome opportunity that you have at Astronomer should have at least watched this episode. Um, read the book. But also, I'm not gonna miss a chance here to do a little call out that next we're gonna be recording some episodes with PIM for Med Men. You're only the third ever guest we've had on the show, so I'm really excited about this. And so if you have enjoyed hearing from Lucy, if you subscribe to what makes a, uh, 25 times presidents club winner in a row at great companies, then be sure to check out the Med Men episodes as well. Thank you very much. Lucy.

Lucy Williams-Jones: This is no worries thank you very much.