Lessons from a first-time sales manager

Speaker A: When pulled, 58 to 60% of uh, first time frontline managers receive zero formal training before stepping into their role. Zero formal training. So I think most of us would think that was pretty crazy as a rep, if you were a first time rep, whether that was an sdr, maybe for many of you listening to this or you become an account executive, like the onboarding is such a big experience, right? You watch tons of videos on like product and company stuff, hopefully you get some hands on training on how to actually do the job. But this is rarely the case still for most frontline managers. And we're starting to see a trend at Outbound Squad with many of our clients where they will create or have us help them create a frontline manager program, a formal onboarding. But this is a real problem because there's, you know, we're doing a big engagement right now with a bunch of managers and there are very tactical things that you need to do very well as a manager that you just don't have to learn as a rep. Um, some of it says, you know, straightforward as how to run a, a one on one. So how to get a rep excited to come to your one on one, what they should prep, how to get them to take more ownership, how to run solid team meetings that don't put your reps to sleep, how to manage your week, prioritize your time. And one of the common problems we see is that, you know, managers will spend a lot of time in what we call player mode. They will do a lot of things for the rep. They'll step in and close the deal. If they need to, they'll step in. And if the rep is having trouble putting together a complex proposal, they'll just do it for them versus spending time in what we call owner mode, right. Where they're not working their week like a customer support rep working inbound ticket requests. Right. They are proactively figuring out where to spend their time and prioritizing the reps that they'll have the most impact on. So today in our interview, I'm going to talk to someone that's a current client that I actually started working with many, many years ago when uh, he was an account executive. But he's a first time frontline manager at the time of recording this, about six months into the role. So we're going to talk about that in a second. I'm really excited for you to listen to the episode if you're coming to Outbound Squad for the first time. My name is Jason Bay. Um, I'm CEO At Outbound Squad, we're all about helping you turn complete strangers into paying customers. So we focus on a couple things, but really everything is focused on outbound pipeline generation. So that's working with uh, full cycle sellers and account executives and making sure that there's a standardized language or methodology that the entire org uses to pipegen. It's helping them with their self sourcing, it's training the managers on how to reinforce it. We've done this for some great Companies like Shopify, iHeartMedia, Amex, all the way down to your startups rolling out their first SDR motion and everywhere in between. But that's the number one thing we help with, is generating quality pipeline, training your team, working with your enablement team to make sure that your SDRs can do that, your AES, your AMs, if they're in charge of upsells and cross sell conversations and all of that good stuff. So today we're talking to Matt Rogers, who like I said, was an account executive when we first met and he moved to a company called Neo4J. So he works with Brian Evans who we had on the podcast before. That's his VP of sales. Um, Matt this year became an rvp and this is his first foray into sales leadership. I mean we talk in the first half about how he thinks about pipe gen and the buying environment and how he connects really like great point of view statements and how he's enabled his reps around that. And then we talk a lot about being a first time frontline leader. I mean, I'm always curious honestly, like why people decide to do this because he was crushing it as a rep. And oftentimes, at least initially, it's oftentimes a pay cut, um, it's certainly much harder. There are way more demands on your time. Um, he talks about having less free time. Right. Less mental space for dream deep work. Um, we talk about the difference between coaching versus doing so. That was the player versus owner mode thing I was talking about earlier. We talked about accountability, conversations, taking care of your mental health. I mean this is a really fun episode. I got to do this in person with Matt when I was in Austin, Texas, uh, a few months ago. So this is, this is a really fun one. Before you get to the episode, there's two things that we at Outbound Squad can do to help you. If you've listened to this episode or other episodes, you're like, we would really love, you know, some help implementing some of these, you know, pipe gen motions and getting our team to generate More pipeline. Uh, reach out to me@jasonoutboundsquad.com I would love to show you how we've helped some really great organizations increase qualified pipeline by 20% or more. We create the playbooks and the plays and standardize them for your team. Everything we do is 100% custom tailored for you. We coach the managers on how to reinforce it and then of course we do a lot of hands on work with the reps to make sure they can do that as well. And that's BDR teams that we'll work with. We'll work with account executive teams that need help with self sourcing and then if you have ams that you want to self source more opportunities within your customer base, we do that too. If you're just looking for free stuff for now, this podcast of course is a great resource for that and we also have a free outbound masterclass course as well. So it's about three hours long of our very best content. I went in a studio to record it. It's all of our tactics, methodologies, all of that great stuff. So go make sure to check that out. Outboundsquad.com masterclass feel free to check it out, send it to your team, all that good stuff. Let's get to the interview. So I'm super excited to be not only in person because we've gotten to see each other a couple times now. I think the last time I was in Austin, last year, we got to meet up for a little bit. Um, but it's going to be really good to sit down and kind of talk through your career and especially some of the things that you're learning now as a first time frontline leader. So I want to take us back a bit though. Dude. I saw that you were in like videography or something like that. So like prior to 2015 when you got into tech sales, I have to ask because hardly anyone I know gets into sales on purpose.

Speaker B: Totally.

Speaker A: So how did you get into sales?

Speaker B: I mean, you're absolutely right. I don't think anybody. There's one person I know that actually picked sales as a career and he's actually not a sales guy anymore. He went to the dark side in engineering. So, um, yeah, I went to school for film. I had a dream and aspiration of being a director. Um, and the beauty and translation of film is that one is like rent's due at the first every month and film is not a, uh, career that is very consistent. I'll have a bunch of shoots, uh, one month, no Shoots the next month. And like as a kid fresh out of college, like I needed the consistency to pay my bills. Right. And to make it in Austin. Like this is not a cheap city to live in and it's definitely not a cheap city to live in.

Speaker A: There's a lot of competition for videography and stuff like that here too.

Speaker B: There is. And you, you kind of have to grit it out for like you know, five or 10 years to kind of get to the point where you're like jobs are coming to you or you have to start your own firm, which I tried to do and I honestly had no idea what I was doing. Um, so uh, failed business number one. Um, I started out my sales career as a door to door sales guy, uh, selling gym memberships at LA Fitness. And I've put on a little bit of poundage since uh, I was in my early 20s. Um, but in my early 20s if you go back and look at pictures of me.

Speaker A: Shred city or what?

Speaker B: No man, I was like, uh, I was a cross country runner so I was like very, very skinny. Had the LA Fitness shirt on that was like probably three sizes too big. Trying to tell somebody to come and join the gym because you're going to get shredded.

Speaker A: So you're going door to door, like business to consumer B2C.

Speaker B: Mhm. Yeah. Or to like a business to try to get them to do a corporate membership which there was no training. I had no idea what I was doing with that. So it was more just like, hey, here's my free pass. Say my name at the front desk so that I get credit for your membership when you come in.

Speaker A: Um, what did you learn through that?

Speaker B: I mean I hated door store. That's one thing I uh, think I enjoy like when I was able to like talk to people and like get them into the gym. Like there was a lot of stories that I heard about like why they were coming in. I hated that time in my life. Just to be really clear, like it was really effing hard. Uh, but uh, that was kind of like the little hook where I was like, hey, like I really like capturing or telling stories over here on the film side. Maybe there's some translation over here on like the sales side. And then fast forward, like started leasing apartments. Fast forward from there. There was a bunch of people like in the apartment building that you know, were affording this awesome downtown high rise. And I was like, uh, you guys are like the same age as me. We're probably the same people. I've kind of maybe like no egos aside, like, I might be a little smarter than you. Like, what are you doing differently?

Speaker A: Did you say that to them I might be a little smarter than you?

Speaker B: No, I didn't say it. But, like, I'm thinking, like, man, like, definitely, how are you living here? And like, I'm living, like, on outskirts of town.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, anyway, so found, um out, like, most of them worked at Indeed. I kind of got my way into Indeed. There was a leader there that took a chance on me that, you know, I had no business, I had no experience, but there's a leader there that took a chance on me. Um, and kind of the rest is history from there. As far as, like, sales go. So, like, got into B2B sales, wanted to get into the enterprise level. That was the next career jump. Wanted to get into SaaS, that was the next career jump. And, um, and then now leadership. Right. So I think the theme across all of those is really two things. One, um, sales is really storytelling. I mean, at the end of the day, you're trying to take, uh, a problem or like an aspiration from a customer and, um, bottle that up and convey that message or through somebody. Right. Like, help them tell their story of why they want to do something or why they want to make a change. Uh, and the second part, in all real humility. I wouldn't be anywhere if I didn't have people. There's specific people throughout my career that took chances on me that put me in positions to probably fail, um, and kind of helped me through those spots to propel me to the next level, um, in each of the phases of my career. So that's the lesson there, I guess.

Speaker A: Yeah. So the storytelling piece is something because I've always, during the time I've known you, which I think we met probably when we started, like a group coaching program, I think is how we probably met through that. So this would have been maybe 20, 22, 2023, somewhere around there.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, the thing that I've always known you for is like, the strategic AE and the storytelling piece is interesting because I think it's one of the biggest misconceptions as a rep moves up and starts to sell larger deals is that they think they need to be much more, and you do need to be a little bit more data driven and have a tighter business case and stuff. But really a lot of the business cases around, like, the narrative and the story that we were telling around the transformation. What was that learning curve like for you in learning how to become an. Like an Enterprise and strategic rep from the stuff you were doing at. Indeed. I would assume at first was probably pretty transactional, like SMB type of stuff. Yeah. What was that learning curve like?

Speaker B: I mean I was making $150 a day to then having a book of like 10 customers. So like that, that's a big difference right. In what your day to day looks like and um, how thoughtful you can be and specific in a conversation. Um, I think everyone should cut their teeth on the hard stuff of sales. On doing the volume and kind of getting the repetition. Cause I think there's some value there. Um, I don't know that I would ever go back right. Like to that level. I think uh, the storytelling aspect of what you can do with strategic sales is really, really fun. Um, uh, I think you're onto something on the business cases though.

Speaker A: Um, this is kind of your thing. When I've observed you in deals and especially at Neo4J, when we did that whole sales process rollout, I was like, dude, this guy fucking gets the. You know, Nate Nisralla.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: All of his stuff that he talks about around the one page business plan. I've learned a lot from him. I've learned a lot from just observing how you guys sell. Because I didn't uh, you know, honestly before we worked together know anything about graph databases or any of that kind of stuff. And that is often the case when we're working with a client that tells a very technical solution for the first time. You know, we have to learn about that solution. And one of the things that just stuck out to me is like it's ah. One of the first things we ask for is like, let's see some example business cases. And it's like that's the part that you seem to really light up, uh, by. And it's the part that you're like really good at. Um, so yeah, I'm just curious what that was like, learning how to.

Speaker B: Well, simplicity sells like.

Speaker A: Yeah, it really does.

Speaker B: So like on both sides of the equation. Right. Like it's really difficult for me to learn something if I don't understand it. If it's too complex. Like there's, there's a dumbing down aspect for a state school bachelor of arts grad that, you know, got a degree in communication. Like I don't have a degree in mathematics or science or like any of the things that the people I sell to.

Speaker A: You're talking to a college drop out here. I mean.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean we're basically in the. I'll spare you my GPA for the sake of this being recorded here. But like the GPA was not high. Right. Like, and there was not a lot of class attended, uh, you know, my time in San Marcos. But um, the idea of simplicity selling was something that um, I got plugged in with Nate around the same time that you and I met. And it uh, was like a chance meeting. But he had this idea of kind of selling through your buyer, um, and making a message travel. This is before AI had really taken off. So we're writing these things out manually. And in order to write things manually at scale, you've got to be simple, you've got to be brevity is key. And you've got to have a really simple, clear, concise message. And to your point, obviously it has to be backed by data. Um, so you've got to back up whatever the narrative of the story is with data to say this is the reason. Here's the metric you have today, here's how we're going to influence it, here's what we expect to see as an outcome. But that idea of a problem statement of despite whatever it is that they're doing today, it's still hard to get the outcome that they're going after. Right. Like that idea of being able to say that in like one or two sentences and distill down the problem to that level I um, think is like critical if you want to be successful in enterprise sales.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's like your ability to distill down a multiple six or seven figure deal into two or three sentences. It's pretty wild. Like the skill set that is required to do that and like really the understanding of what they're trying to accomplish and being able to articulate it in their words. Um, so we're gonna come back to this. Probably I wanna talk to you about like kind of the first big topic. Just because we talk about outbound Pipe Gen a lot is. And that's how we started working together was, you know, we had that group coaching program and uh, it was all about Pipe Gen. Yeah, that's how we kind of came up with the name Outbound squad too. Um, so yeah, one of the things that's really helped you in your career has been your ability to like build pipeline right into self source deals and get your foot in the door and all of that kind of stuff. So if we start with Pipe Gen, walk me through a little bit more about like your approach and especially around how you develop your point of view. Because this is essentially the hypothesis for the business case before you have all of the information that you're going to get through the discovery process. So you're doing like a super light version of a business case almost. Um, but that's like really where it starts for you. So if we were to get tactical here, how do you think about the point of view and developing that? And like, how does someone get started

Speaker B: with that, man, if you go back to, like, again before AI, like, this was a multiple hour, really time consuming. Like, I gotta read some earnings call transcripts, some 10Ks, listen to a podcast that an executive was on, or like, wherever I can find information about the company. It's wild, like, how much you can do with things like Claude or Gemini or even in the last five months, the folks transitioning to this role, the folks that are in the field today are taking AI to the next level in a way that I couldn't even do right. So it's banana land. What information is available at your fingertips but to get really tactical? Um, I mean, I learned this from you, man. I don't know that I can take credit here, but I've definitely taken and run with it. Um, this idea of there's no such thing as a cold call or a cold outreach, um, I don't believe in that. Because if you're doing cold outreach, yeah, it's going to suck. Uh, not only for you, but also for the buyer. Because you're coming to them with a limp noodle. You're coming to them with no context or why should we talk? Or what's our reason to meet? Or any of that stuff. Um, when you do your research and you come up with a point of view on, here's the specific problems that I see that you have in your business. Right. And there's a ton of information online that you can find both public and private businesses. I don't think, like, we can use private businesses as an excuse or a crutch anymore. Like, people put so much out there. Yep. Um, so here's my, here's my point of view about the things that you're trying to solve. Your headwinds, your tailwinds. Right. Like, where are you guys at as a business and what are you trying to be? Um, and here's where I think we can plug in and here's where we've done it before. It's that simple. Um, and if you make it more complicated than that, then it becomes this big burden that you're never going to get done. Um, but if you come up with one or two bullets, on, here's where we could plug in here. And here's where, I think, where we can influence whatever the goal is that you guys are trying to achieve or the compliance issue that you might be having. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter across industries or across companies that you're selling for. Um, then you're taking that to that customer and you're saying, like, hey, I have an idea. Here's your problem. Here's how I think we can help. Does it make sense? Am I off base here? And it's human nature to correct other people, right? And so that human nature, you're gonna get a response, right? Wrong or indifferent. And I would actually prefer to be wrong. I think I learned this from you as well. But I'd prefer to be wrong where they correct me on what it is that they're actually trying to solve for and how they're thinking about it. Because then I now have a refined point of view. And not only can we, like, work together from, like a one to one, but now I can take that refined point of view and say, like, hey, I was just talking to Jason. Uh, we were talking about this problem that you guys are trying to solve, and now, like, with his input, I think we could actually solve it with, you know, ABC or xyz. Right? Uh, so now I can, like, multi thread that. So anyways, um, I'm kind of bird walking on your. On your question there, that the. The point of view makes your outreach warm. And I think that point of view is just. Just that initial baseline problem statement of, like, here's the thing, as I'm seeing, you know, either in the industry, in the space, whatever, to whatever granularity that you can get. The more granular, the better. But work with what you got there, and then that theme is gonna follow through all the way through the deal cycle. And it's gonna get refined. It's gonna get refined. It's gonna get refined. And when you have somebody that's in the boat refining that with you, that's like a really powerful and almost magical thing where you guys are solving a problem together now versus, like, I'm selling to you and trying to get you to do this thing that maybe you don't want to do.

Speaker A: So one thing you said while we were prepping for this is you said you're not interrupting their day if you bring value to their day.

Speaker B: Oh, totally.

Speaker A: And this is the value that you're talking about. And this is the thing that really warms it up. I love the. The way that You've kind of set that up and thought about it is I think what can make coming up with that point of view really hard for Outbound is if you just think about it as a way to get the meeting. If you think about this in the context, and this is why I think that as an account executive, it's so much more powerful if you have that self sourcing muscle, no knock on the SDRs, uh, in saying that, it's just, you have context through the full sales cycle.

Speaker B: You've done the hard work to get to that idea and so now you've internalized that information.

Speaker A: Exactly. So if you were thinking about how would I prep for a first sales call with this account and you were thinking about my first draft of the business case that I put together, what would be the missing pieces that I would put in? If you're able to think ahead just a little bit there. The point of view when you're going Outbound is basically, I'm just starting at the very beginning of the conversations here through a closed one deal. Like, I need to bring the car through the manufacturing plant and bolt on all of these things. But it's kind of interesting to think about it in advance of when you might need that kind of stuff because again, you're essentially. Everyone knows that to close a deal you need a strong champion or several of those champions. And that's really what you're trying to do with Outbound is like, am I guessing correctly? What they might care about and the people that m. That might care about that the most.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, so with the point of view, what specifically are you looking for? And I don't know if you're able to share any examples or even they could be a little, you know, you could kind of make them a little fictitious if you want to remove the company names and stuff. But what are you looking for in terms of like the trigger event or the problem that's going on? Like, if we were to get a

Speaker B: little more specific, I mean, I'll use an easy one, um, for this, you know, just for the sake of this conversation and like, for like any young rep listening, I'm purposely giving an easy example. Like, it doesn't always come this easy. Right. Um, and so like, it does take some research, but like the tariff issue, um, with shipping and logistics. Right. It's like a super hot topic. There's a lot of changes. And one of the things that we do when we sell is like, we're able to map the relationship between changing data points. Really, really Fast in real time. And so it's just a very natural, easy, very quick to click use, uh, case for us. Um, and so just having a baseline understanding of, hey, this is how your business is going to be impacted by this. Um, and this is how, like, this uncertainty is going to impact your business. Like, what if we could provide some certainty? There, um, is a very easy way to start a conversation. Right. Like, I'm using this example because it's simple, it's easy to digest. It's not always this easy. Right. But like, you're looking for, like, you're looking for like, events, you're looking for, uh, ideas, you're looking for job changes, um, as folks are coming in or leaving. Right. As you know, there's, there's kind of the impetus for change. Um, you're looking for like, what would drive this organization to stop doing the thing? Because, like, yeah, I used to sell utilities. And the challenge with utilities is, is, um, you know, it's the infrastructure that keeps your lights on. Like all the lights in this room just, you flip a switch, you forget that, like, there's a whole bunch of stuff behind that that has to make that happen. Right. And so there's not a lot of desire to change in that industry. Because if it's working, if the electrons are flowing through the wires and getting to the buildings that they need to get to, why would we mess with that? Why would we do anything to change that? Um, it's kind of like if you had a thorn in your foot and you've had that thorn in your foot for 20 years, you forget that it hurts. So you've got to find a reason to remind them of why that thorn is like, actually really bad. Maybe it's infected or, you know, maybe your foot's gonna need. I'm, you know, going down a. Yeah, bad example here. But like, uh, maybe you need to, you know, do uh, something about that. You've gotta, you gotta make them aware that they've got an issue. Um, if you don't have that trigger, um, you know, that a blind spot that they might, might not be seeing in their business.

Speaker A: Yeah. So if we're using like our outbound squad, like that RTM framework, the reason to meet you have like these kind of tension buckets, maybe where there's like two or three major problems that customers experience, let's say in this vertical that you've aligned to a common use case tariffs, for example, and then just the visual for people watching. If you imagine like, uh, the triggers that flow into those Tension buckets, there are tariffs would be a trigger, the hiring, et cetera. You're purposely aligning uh, the triggers to those tension buckets that match to your use cases. And, and then the third part is the trust. That's the social proof and the customer stories and all of that kind of stuff. So you're putting a lot of thought and intention into that. Is there anything else around? Cause you have so few accounts. Oftentimes with Stratton, the one thing that I always think about is disqualification and disqualification prior to sending out an email or phone call. Not like on a call or during a discovery conversation, just deciding who you're not going to spend time on. How does that kind of factor in this around like account selection and choosing where you're going to spend time? How have you approached that in your career?

Speaker B: Man, there's so many different ways that you can slice the apple on that one. Um, I think when I started here, um, I picked this up from somewhere. This wasn't an original thought, but the things uh, that I ranked into three buckets of uh, ABCs or one if I, if I knew they had budget and they had a use case like that ranked as an A and that.

Speaker A: How did you know that they had budget?

Speaker B: Usually by talking to them, uh, or like, hey, there's a signal that they're hiring for somebody that has XYZ experience that is like directly related to the product I sell. Yeah, right. So like I know that they're a build shop in that, you know, we're a database. So like it has to be a, uh, company that's willing to take on like a build motion versus a buy motion. And not every company is willing to do that. So like that could be one.

Speaker A: Probably more so nowadays I would assume

Speaker B: with all of the AIs definitely been an accelerant. It's been a happy, um, uh, accident. I didn't get into this space knowing that AI is to be.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think you guys are gonna freaking. And you guys are crushing it right now, but I think you guys are gonna freaking blow up, dude, in the next year or two.

Speaker B: It's, there's a lot of tailwinds for sure. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely a good place to be. Um, but yeah, so there's, there's budget, uh, and use case B would be like, I know there's budget, but I don't know what the use case is. Right. Or vice versa. I know there's a use case, but I don't know if they're build versus buy Shop like I can't find the signals that I'm looking for there. Um, and then C would be. I just don't know about either of them. And so what I think about on the account ranking, kind of what I've been coaching the team on is like, um, it's okay to change that ranking but I want you to do it on like a less frequent, like I don't want you to do it every week. Um, we should do that like on a maybe a quarterly basis where we re look at, you know, what's our A, B and C tier based on what we know and what we've learned about our accounts. Um, and then let's swap and reprioritize, you know, where we're spending our time.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, there's a rep on my team that does this really, really well. Um, and she actually has taught me a ton, um, you know, in the short time that we've worked together. But she has like an even more in depth um, like scoring matrix. So she takes the art out of it and puts like a really heavy science to it. Um, where it's like uh, you know, executive triggers, use case. Like she, she ranks it like from 1 to 5 and so then you get like a number, a numerical score at the end of it of like what's this account score? And so then she's re ranking that on a quarterly basis. So there's a lot of different ways to think about this. But I think as long as you have a method and you stick to that and you, you do it uh, less frequently than like, you can't change this thing every week or every month. Right. Like you need to stick with it because outbound does take time. Right. Regardless of whether it's warm or cold or whatever the methodology is. Right. Like, yep. Um, you've got to get somebody in that idea of like that buying state if they're not already there. Um, and so that's going to take some time too. So you need to kind of sit with your list for a little while.

Speaker A: Love it. So once we've determined the account that we're going to go after, we have a clear point of view on why they should have a conversation with us, a reason to meet. What are some of the things that you're seeing working from a pipegen standpoint? We talked about, you know, getting the referrals, we've talked about some of the thought leadership events in person that you guys do. You guys are really big on in person, which I, which I love. I mean that's why I'm in Texas this week. Right. Is doing in person stuff. Getting, um, in person with folks. What are you seeing working to, like, really break in TV accounts?

Speaker B: That's a good question. I started, like, um. So I started in this role as a leader, uh, in January. So prior to that, I was, like, frontline rep. M. And when I started at Neo, uh, I started in a territory that hadn't hit the number in three years. So, like, it was a pretty cold.

Speaker A: That's what you're walking into.

Speaker B: Yeah, it was. I knew that coming in. Right. Like, my. My leader.

Speaker A: How are you feeling about that, by the way? Were you, like, challenge accepted or were

Speaker B: you feeling a little nervous? Game on. Like, I had. I had run my course at my previous company, and I was looking for, like, a good challenge with good people with good culture. And so I was ready to take that on, knowing, you know, I was gonna go learn something. Um, and I think that's something that I've looked for my whole career is like, where can I go and grow and learn? Um, and that was like, the big thing here with Brian Evans and getting to see him come up in his career. I worked with him, um, very briefly when he was rep and watched his career kind of take off, uh, into leadership. And so had never worked for him, but, like, had heard the. The pedigree that he had. And I was like, dude, that's a guy I want to work for. For sure. Like, I will run through walls for a guy. Yeah. Ah, absolutely. So, uh, so came into that territory knowing that it was a cold territory. I'd never worked the East Coast. I've always covered the West Coast. I actually prefer the east coast now. Sorry. Um, to my west coast friends. But the east coast just tells it like it is.

Speaker A: The communication styles. I've been talking about it all week, man.

Speaker B: It's incredible. Like, uh, the west coast will smile and then, like, kind of like, shank you in the back. Yeah. The east coast will, like, say, like, here's my knife. I'm about to shank you. So, like, either we need to work together or not. Like, they're very. Just blunt. Uh, and I. I love that. I love to know where I stand, um, in any conversation. So it's been. It's been refreshing from. From that perspective. Um, so, yeah, like, coming into a cold territory, um, you gotta kind of get creative and gritty on. On what you do to get into accounts outside of just the basics of picking up the phone, sending an email, or getting on LinkedIn. So one of the things that worked really well, um, and I think still works really well today is, is, uh, getting involved in like, the local networking groups in each of the cities. So I live in Austin. Yeah. I covered companies that were headquartered in Atlanta, in Florida primarily. Right. Um, I never covered. I don't have a network, I don't have a Rolodex of people. I can just call up and say, like, hey, I'm the new rep. It's xyz. Like, can you introduce me to some of your friends? Right. Or like some of your, you know, colleagues, whatever, blah, blah.

Speaker A: Uh, these were called accounts that you guys had no relationships.

Speaker B: That's right. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. So, um, like, numbers wise, I started off, I think with maybe one or two logos that were, were like, um, existing customers. I left that territory with. I think we left nine. Um, so like we, in the two years we landed nine Fortune 100 logos, like very long MSA cycles. And I say that to say, like, uh, it is possible. Like, there's nothing special that I did as a rep. Like, I got in person, I got in front of these networking groups. I.

Speaker A: Well, let's talk about the networking groups, because when you brought this up, I was like, that sounds like a lot of work. Working group in a city that you don't live in. So how did you, like, walk us through that approach? Because I think for you it might just be like, really obvious. Like, yeah, of course, that's what I would do. And like, all of this other kind of stuff, I think for some of the folks listening, that might not be so obvious in terms of, like, hey, there's something I can do besides, you know, calling Colt into this account and trying to email a bunch of people. Like, so how did you think about what groups you were going to go to? Like, what was the intention behind it? How did you know if it was going to work or not? Like, all of that stuff?

Speaker B: Well, there's a lot of, like, there was no certain, Like, I knew it was going to work. It was like, hey, here's my educated guess. And man, I hope this pays off because I got a young kid at home and I don't really want to be on the road if I don't have to be. Right.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So, uh, there was a guy that was, uh, my peer, my counterpart, um, who covered some of the other accounts in Atlanta and I had just point blank at like, what are the. Where do our buyers hang out? And so one of the things, uh, was like, in the data analytics community there's, um, it's a very small community. Um, you're looking at like, you know, kind of this, like, micro group within it, um, that handles data. Um, and so they all kind of run in the same circle where, yeah, they absolutely compete with each other, but they also, like, you know, share best practices and ideas. And so there's this group called tag, Technology association of Georgia. Within tag, there's a data analysis analytics segment, um, and there's a gal named Beverly who, who basically has, like, put this group on her back and like, kind of built this thing up into this, this networking, um, cohort. And so we started off by just like attending an event just to see who was going to be there. Um, and it was like all of my accounts were there. Um.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: So it wasn't necessarily like the C suite person that I wanted to get to, but there was like a foot in the door where I could go. Just like, you would do it at like a trade show. Like, I could go have 15 conversations, 20 conversations, test my hypothesis on all of those, get real time feedback and then iterate that as I went through the room, um, and for a new rep, ramping up and trying to get, break into a hard territory. Right. Like, that was the critical mass for me to be able to say, like, okay, cool. I just spent an hour, hour and a half, you know, doing some networking. It's awkward. I'm an introvert. I'm an extroverted. So, like, sitting out there and like, putting myself out there and walking up to a group and introduce myself is not like the most comfortable. I would prefer to do like, hey, Jason, we know each other, like, let's talk kind of thing. Yeah.

Speaker A: Ah.

Speaker B: So, um, that's not like the fun part for me, but.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, but getting in there and just like saying, like, hey, like, I actually know your company. I did some research. This is kind of what I think you guys are doing. Like, is that, is that accurate? Like, skip the pitch for a second. Yeah. And then, yeah, like, we have a conversation about it, we get some intel. Like, oh, cool, man. Like, I actually think we might be like, are you the right person to talk to? Is there somebody on your team? Like, how do we take this? Like, we don't have to talk about this right now, but, like, how do we take this from here? Maybe like, in a, you know, virtual conversation, I can come to your office. Like, let's figure out a way to, like, have the conversation where, you know you're going to get bombarded by salespeople in this thing.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Because there's other salespeople here. But, like, how do we have that conversation? So how did you reach out to Beverly? Uh, I.

Speaker A: Did you just show up?

Speaker B: No, I just. We just showed up. We paid for a. Like a. Like, you can pay to, like, as a non member, to show up to a lot of those technology associations or, like, associations in general. Um, it's a lot more expensive. But before we committed and then. And then how that evolved, which is really cool, Jason, is, um, we had that first one. I was like, dude, this is literally where all my people are. Um, and they. They keep coming back. Right? They're all buddies. They all want to hang out with each other. And so they all, like, do this on a regular. Some sort of regular cadence. Um, we ended up doing a dinner where, uh, we partnered with one of the hyperscalers. Um, because we don't have, like, we're small. We're now at the. At the time, I think we're like $150 million company. So we're like the leader in our space, but we're not a big household name either.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So we don't have the pull to say, like, yeah, if I host my own dinner, if I do my own roundtable, if I do my own event, like, people aren't gonna show up.

Speaker A: It's not like, AWS doing something.

Speaker B: Correct. So to use that name of a hyperscaler and then the association to fill the room for a dinner, hey, we'll pay for that. It was like $3,000. It was relatively inexpensive, you know, for What a, uh, 25 person dinner would cost.

Speaker A: And were you able to get more senior folks into those dinners?

Speaker B: We had 25 executives in the room

Speaker A: and, like, m. Sitting across proven play.

Speaker B: Totally. And I'm sitting across from, like, the gal that I wanted to meet for a deal that we were trying to basically accelerate. You can't manufacture this stuff. That was.

Speaker A: Ah.

Speaker B: And by that point, I'd already had my reason to meet. We'd had the tension, the trigger. Here's the thing that we want to talk about. Uh, Ms. Customer or Ms. Prospect. Um, here's where we want to go with this. So taking from that first, uh, event, I would bring Brian sometimes to tag team with me. Hey, this is.

Speaker A: Brian's tall, like, all American, like, lights up the room kind of.

Speaker B: Kind of dude, you know, if you're

Speaker A: gonna go in person, uh, bring Brian with you.

Speaker B: 100%. No. 100%. Well, so we would look at, like, who's the panel speaking? Right. And like, can we catch that panel after they're done speaking? Uh, and is that like, we'll try to stack some other meetings so it's not just flying out for one meeting. Right. But like, that's worth the time to get in front of those folks. Like, hey, I'm a human. So when I reach out, you know that, like it's me reaching out. We had this conversation and then, you know, to the point earlier on Warm outbound, like, it's warm outreach because I've shook in your hand. Um, I saw your talk or whatever. We had a quick dialogue afterwards. I did a fast follow. Um, and now we're. And now we're rolling from there.

Speaker A: And there's so much that once you start to talk to some people at that account, the multi threading is. Hey, I just talked to Matt. He shared this. Was curious about your brand. It's like you just need that in.

Speaker B: Totally.

Speaker A: So at Neo4J, then, as an account executive, I'm assuming your first 90 days is probably like a lot of PG. You're probably doing a lot of stuff like this. You.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, yeah. I mean, it was longer than that for me, but yeah, it's like we

Speaker A: didn't have like, these are big complicated deals that you guys work and what you sell is. It's not like something you just buy off the shelf and pay for a hundred seats of.

Speaker B: You don't get. You don't get value. Like, it's a build, it's a database. Right. So it's a blank slate. You don't get value from Neo4J until a year plus down the line. Because you've got to, like, once we provision you a license, like, that's just the beginning. Now you've got to go build something on it. And, and that's gonna take time and you're gonna run into roadblocks and you're gonna run into like, changing expectations from your business. Like, so there's two sales. There's two sales cycles on the front end and then there's the sales cycle on the back end to get it to stick. You're selling to tech and it. Right. Like to get them to say, yes, this is the right technology that we wanna use here, but you've also gotta have a message that travels to the business to say, this is why this is gonna solve your business problem, even though you can't see anything right now. So, like, your message has to be really effing strong.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And really, really clear and concise so that it travels through it and the business.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Right. And that's where new reps typically go to diet neo4j is they forget about like that parallel business side of things. And that's why the business case is so important for us and the reason to meet and all that and like tackling that multithreading of both sides of, of of your deal here. And then once you close the deal, you've got to keep the business engaged on like, you know, everyone has a short attention span. Like, here's the reason why we're building this thing. It's going to be worth the wait because you're going to get X, Y, Z, return or whatever. Right. Um, and then you've got to keep it dialed on. Like, here's the project plan. We gotta deliver on this thing. Yep. So it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's probably the most complicated thing I've, I've sold. Um, and I like in hindsight, I mean, man, I could have stuck in the application world and had a much easier time.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But it's been fun. So.

Speaker A: Yeah. The complexity of the solution is the two sided, you know, kind of buyer is interesting. So you find these networking events, you go attend the thing. I don't want to gloss over with this dinner. Was, was there an intention there with a partner? Mhm of Neo4J. So I'm just thinking for someone else that wants to apply this, you have a partner ecosystem or a channel. Ah, ecosystem. And then you, you just reached out to them and said, hey, we want to host a dinner. Like here's what we're thinking, here's who we're gonna invite. Who can you invite? We'll pay for the dinner, et cetera. Like how did that part work?

Speaker B: That was a part that like, um, I like couldn't believe it was happening as it was happening because it's, it's like hard, it is hard to manufacture these things. I don't want to gloss over that either. Yeah. So Beverly, who runs the tag group for data analytics was, had uh, this idea where she wanted to host like a dinner series and she wanted like it's a, it's a. I don't know if it's a nonprofit, but it's like not a, it's not a, um, like they don't just have money to throw at these things. They need people to sponsor them. And so that's where she comes to folks like us to like say hey, like, you know, blah, blah, um, from a hyperscaler perspective, uh, you know, they naturally have the Relationships in a way that we don't because you've got these large organizations that are spending massive amounts of money with, with these hyperscalers to power all of their backend stuff. Um, and so we found a, a gal within that, um, within that hyperscaler scalar who was uh, able to kind of like move through all of the different teams. Um, she was like, her job was to help partners kind of succeed and like connect the dots for folks. So figuring out who that person was was um, an unlock. And then connecting the dots on like, hey, we want to have a dinner. These are the types of people that we want to see in the dinner. This is the, you know, these are our target accounts. Like if we can get, you know, these five here, this would be a win. If we can get these 10, it would be really badass. And then if we get these like 20 or 25, like, yeah, oh my gosh, this would be incredible. And they were.

Speaker A: What was the incentive for her to

Speaker B: help, uh, to get.

Speaker A: Cause she primarily got the butts in the seats, it sounds like.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: How did you set this up? And the reason I ask is that a lot of people try to do the dinner thing and it's not successful. I've actually tried to do a decent amount of dinners too and it's, it's very hard to get like the people that you want into the room. But yeah. What was the incentive for her to do that?

Speaker B: Her incentive is to um, like it's an, it's in the hyperscaler space. It's called isv. Um, like an ISV rep or coverage or I don't know what their official title is, but like their whole job basically, basically is connect the dots on um, like co sell motions. And so for her like um, it goes back to like the comp plan. Her comp plan incentivizes her to connect those dots. Uh, and so finding that person, I mean everyone, like you could apply this to like your direct seller, you could apply this to your channel, you could apply this to whatever. Like everyone has a OKR incentive that they're getting measured on. Yeah. So finding the people that have the OKR or incentive that aligns with whatever you're trying to accomplish. Like that's the key there. And so finding her was uh. Because I was beating my head against the wall for partners for that because candidly if I'm a rep at a big, you know, Google AWS or Azure, like I don't care about a hundred million dollar company that's trying to Sell their product. There's 1500 of those banging down my door every day trying to like, get me to sell their thing to my customer. And so I'm going to say F off. I'm not going to talk to you. Right? Like, so you have to figure out like, how do I come in the same way that I come with my customer with a reason to meet. How do I come to this ISV with a reason to meet. Um, and I think that's a piece that I didn't understand coming into Neo that I understand now is like, um, if you want to get somebody to work with you, you've got to like help them understand kind of the what's in it for them. And that's across the board. Internal with your own teams, external with partners, external with your customer. Right. Like, that's where I see really, really strong reps succeed and coming, going full circle back to that point of view. There's a rep on the team that's uh, leading the pack. Here she comes up with these one page points of view, um, where it's like, here's where I think we can help this organization. And she uses that both internally and externally. So she's not creating a bunch of work for herself or anybody else. But in all of her prep, both with her partners, with her internal cross functional overlays with everyone, everyone's on the same page. And she does a really good job of getting everyone to beat to the same drum. So we're all saying the same message in all of our conversations. Um, and then that's how she's been able to like in her first, what, five months. She's leading a leaderboard right now on both pipeline meetings, evaluations. Like she's just blowing it out like, better than I ever did, just to be clear. Uh, but like she's doing really well because I think of that.

Speaker A: Yeah, Love it, man. Um, let's shift gears.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: So we've talked pipe gen, we've talked a little bit about your career. Big career moment for you. 6ish months ago, I think, uh, January, Frontline leader. So you've decided to, uh. Your hair is going to look like mine, dude, in a couple years if you're not careful.

Speaker B: I don't know about a couple years. Might be like end of the year. If we check in, we need to do a measurement point because it's already gone back from the first grade the other day. Um, yeah, it's, it's, it's gonna happen.

Speaker A: So let's talk about what you're learning. Um, I think it'd be fun to. For you to share why you decided to become a frontline leader. Because you're crushing it as a rep, and you can get to a situation as an enterprise rep where things are. You're working hard still, of course, but things are more comfortable, right? Like, you have a good, you know, customer base. You figured out how to sell the thing, and, you know, you're making really good money, all of that kind of good stuff. You have a lot of autonomy in your schedule. Like, it's the dream job, dude, in sales for a lot of reps. Ye. Uh, so why frontline leadership? And then let's dig into some of the. Some of the lessons that you're learning.

Speaker B: Someone has a lesson on how to keep your hair. I'd love to. Love to hear that one.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: No, in all serious, it's funny, my, um, wife asks me pretty regularly, like, are you sure you still like, like, is this. Was this the right decision? Uh, because it's. It is a change, man. Um, and it's, uh, it's something that I've wanted for a long time. Um, so, so, like, the, the reason for leadership, just to be really clear there, like, and, and kind of tying back to the beginning comments around, like, the people that invest in me, um, I didn't get here by, like, uh, skill. I got here by, um, somebody saw something in me and they were like, hey, like, I want to take a chance on that guy and I want to, like, give him a shot. Right? And I mean, for whatever reason, I was able to. Maybe not all. All on my own, right? Uh, definitely not all on my own. But I was able to figure it out based on these folks, like, investing their time, energy and effort in me. And so the goal would be to turn around and pay that forward to the next group of sellers, right? Whether it's folks that are. I manage folks all the way from a little bit younger than me, all the way up to in their 50s, right? So it's a wide range of. Where I don't know how much knowledge or wisdom I can impart on the whole crew, but I'm going to do my best to try to, um, help them get to a level that they're trying to get to, um, because that's what people did for me. And so, like, that, to me is like, the most rewarding thing that you could possibly do. Um, and it's been very rewarding so far to see some of the, like, breakthroughs, um, even small ones, uh, with the team um, like there's no better feeling than that. So I think if you're, if you're thinking about leadership, this job's really freaking hard. And it's definitely way harder than being a rep, in my opinion. Um, yeah, dude, I have worked more hours for less money in the last six months than I've ever worked in my entire career, I think. Um, so, uh, if you're doing it for the prestige, this is not the job for you. If you're doing it for, uh, the goal of helping others improve their careers, this is a very important.

Speaker A: That's where you're getting your energy from.

Speaker B: Totally.

Speaker A: Yes. It's going to be when you, when you have a one on one with someone and you're talking about something they're struggling with and they do the thing and it works and you're just like,

Speaker B: well then you see their best feeling and unlocking their brains. Yeah.

Speaker A: Ah, that is what's going to give you the energy to sustain through that and get through the learning curve and all of that stuff. So yeah, you're like, at this point in your career where you've gotten really good at the skill and this is like a natural inflection point that people hit like a decade into doing something. Is that like, oh, I want to pass these lessons on?

Speaker B: Um, right.

Speaker A: So there's like one question before we dig in. What have you noticed that you've gotten better at by having to learn how to teach it and coach it in other people? Does anything stick out to you, man?

Speaker B: Like, the biggest thing is like I, in the first, you can even ask my team, My team's giving me this feedback. But in the first few months, like, I've done the job, like I've been successful here. I've hit the number. So I know like my way of doing things and I know that it works. There's now six people on the team, there's six different ways of doing things and every deal has multiple paths to a close. Right? Like, there's not one way of doing things that's going to be the. Ah. Or we would just all standardize on that one way. Right. Um, so in the first three months it was like, uh, I was talking to RUP yesterday and he's like, man, yeah. You used to tell me like, you've got to ask these specific questions, right? Like, and it's got like. And I knew you were going to listen to my gong call and if I didn't ask him, I was going to be in trouble. I was like, oh man, that's kind of crappy. Like, that's not the kind of leader I want to be. Um, like, and then he. He, you know, said, like, hey, like, you. You had, uh. Like, I've seen the change in you where, like, we were doing a deal review for, like, a prep for another negotiation, and you were like, hey, like, have you thought about it this way? Or, like, kind of let me come up with my. Come to my own conclusion, even if we got to the same spot. So it's. It's less about, like, it's less about doing the job for the rep, and it's more about, like, kind of helping enable the rep in the same way that I would enable a buyer. So, like, that's kind of been the unlock for me is, like, as a salesperson, where I became successful was enabling my buyers to have conversations when I'm not in the room. And so as a leader, I've got to now do the same thing where, like, yes, I know there's a path to do that, but it doesn't always have to be my path.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And if I can enable them to have that conversation when I'm not in the room, then I can scale. I don't have to be the superhero leader. I can get some sleep. I might keep some of my hair. We'll see. But, um, that's been the biggest, I guess, learning unlock, whatever you want to call it, um, in the first few months of both where I've kind of screwed it up, but also where I'm starting to see some progress, one thing

Speaker A: that really sticks out to me is I love the candor that it sounds like you have with at least this particular rep, where they're able to. You two are able to talk about that. Like, that relationship is so important. And.

Speaker B: Well, we were peers, like, we were peers coming. So, like, it's one of those things where, like, when you start to lead your peer, like, that's the thing that kind of scared me the most coming into this role is, like, this guy's older than me. He has a little bit more experience than me, and now I'm going to, like, be his boss. Yeah. That's. I mean, what are we doing here? Right? Like, this is. That's the thing that, like, how's this guy going to react? Right. Or how's, you know, this. These folks going to react where, um, you know, they've. They've seen a successful rep and coming up and, you know, everyone's had that. That rep coming into a leader role. I think that's Like a natural progression in sales. And some people do it really well and some people do it pretty poorly. And so you're kind of like testing the. Are we buying in here? Uh, yeah, but that's been like the kind of the unlock with the team for the folks that have been here for a little while that I didn't directly hire, um, is just being like, hey, like, let's be open. I'm not going to get this right. I need to have as much feedback from you on what is helpful or, um, gonna help you move forward, uh, in your career as much as, like, I'm gonna give you feedback on where we see gaps in deals and kind of having that open, openness there. Um, we can talk about this in a second too. I think Brian talked about this with you as well on the accountability 101. So that's been like one of the tools or methods, um, to kind of have that frank conversation on both sides.

Speaker A: Let's talk about that. How do you think about accountability and maybe talk about that system that you guys have that Brian has rolled out as well?

Speaker B: Yeah, man. I mean, that was like, so what it is just like for folks who aren't doing this or don't know what it is. Accountability can be a scary word, um, especially in sales because you've gotta be upfront about where you're not doing well. And so accountability here is super binary. You're either on plan or you're off plan in a couple different categories. So top of funnel, like new meetings, how many new folks are you talking to? You know, weekly or monthly or rolling 90 basis? How many of those convert into something that you want to do, you know, discovery on? So we call it sao. How many of those convert into stage three or tech eval? How many of those are you doing an evaluation on? Um, and then of those evals, like, how much of that is making it through the funnel? How much of that is converting into like, what we can forecast or commit, you know, to the business and then close? Yep. Um, and so we have, you know, coverage metrics for, for all of those things. Um, you're either on plan or you're off plan. And most of the time, like in my first six months of being at Neo4J, I was off plan on everything. Um, but being off plan didn't mean that I wasn't doing the job. Being off plan meant that, hey, I've got a gap in this area. Yeah, I'm going to be realistic about what that gap is and where I'm running into. Roadblocks. Also, what I think I'm, you know, either what I'm doing or what I'm thinking about doing, you know, to go fill that gap or solve for it. Um, and that allowed me and Brian at the time to have like, a really open and honest dialogue and conversation on, like, here's what we needed to do. And as a result, the number was hit. You know, the ramp number was hit or blown out of the water. The next year, like, I, Brian was promoted up to vp and then I had a new leader. We kept running the Accountability 101s and that's, I think, what got us to the number, you know, the next year you get 12 of those a year. Yeah. Um, so it's. The goal is to be really intentional with that, uh, that time. Um, to just be upfront and open about your gaps and where you have them. Um, and I think that level of openness and that culture of openness is like, hey, you're not going to get fired because you have a gap. But we are going to have a hard conversation if we don't fill the gap. But let's talk about where it is, um, and what we can do to solve and, um, come up with a plan together and then we go execute on the plan and then we're a month later, we check and see, like, have we made any progress or did we not make any progress when we learned that, like, hey, this tag event in Atlanta, like, was a bust and we don't want to invest any more time or money there?

Speaker A: Yeah. So the accountability. What do you call it again?

Speaker B: Just accountability 101.

Speaker A: The accountability one on one. This is a, uh, rhythm that's been instituted into the sales work where once a month there is a very intentional, almost QBR like, meeting where there are cube lights. Yeah, a light QBR where we're gonna look at the numbers. I'm curious compared to what you've experienced in the past as a rep, before you were doing accountability one on ones like this. Did you guys talk about pipeline in this way or was it just like, we do a qbr and I either hit my quarterly quota or I didn't like what. What has happened in other roles.

Speaker B: I mean, QBRs were like, uh. Cause you would get up in QBRs, I mean, just at different companies, I would get up in QBRs and I'd have like, my last company, we were very small. Like, my CEO was in the room and so, like, I wasn't gonna tell my CEO I didn't have a, you know, I Had gaps and I wasn't gonna hit the number. Like I was gonna project. Like I had this thing totally figured out.

Speaker A: So it kind of takes the fluff out of these conversations.

Speaker B: Correct. Like it makes the conversations real.

Speaker A: Whereas this is not a sales presentation

Speaker B: you're giving to like that's what most QBRs, I think turn into where you're projecting on a deal. You're saying like, here's the, you know, here's my med pick or here's my whatever. Right. Like here's my plan, here's my plan to hit the number. You know, I'm going to do all these things. Like I don't anyhow. Or like maybe you know, if you have a culture where you're open like you, you know, you maybe have a little bit in the orgs I worked in prior to Neo4J and prior to rolling through these accountability one on ones, it's like the QBR was a plan. A chance for me to flex once a quarter to say like, yeah, I got my business dialed in. Yeah, don't worry about me. Like I'm going to hit the number.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And to try to get people off my back more than it was of like, hey, this is actually where I need help.

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, and there's no course correction with a qbr. You're reporting on something that happened versus this once a month meeting. It's. There's course correction that can happen a couple times throughout the quarter.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So and to that end, right, like that's where, that's where you can um, like be real. Like it's binary. You're on plan or you're off plan. And there's no like if you're on plan by a percent or 2x of whatever the plan is, you're on plan or you're off plan. Right. If we're on plan, what are we going to double down on? If you're off plan, what are we going to change or potentially double down on to course correct. So it makes it very like there's no emotion in these things. Um, and ideally there's no emotion in the numbers. Um, so it makes it a lot more productive for both parties.

Speaker A: So how do you prepare or think about like when you have to have a tough conversation with someone around performance and let's say that they're just not putting in the activity, maybe that they need to. Which may or may not be the case with some of the people on your team. But how do you, how do you think about those tough conversations and how do you approach them?

Speaker B: I'm learning on that one. I don't know that I have a dialed in answer for you on that, Jason. Um, I think my team would probably say the same. You know, Matt's probably done some good ones and maybe some really crappy ones. Yeah. Um, so one of the things that like I like as a new leader I wasn't doing is we'd have these accountability one on ones and reps would be off plan and then I'd say like okay, what are we gonna do to fix it? And then a month would pass and then we'd get to the next one and nothing had changed.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And um, there's gotta be a like not a consequence in like that something like deathly is going to happen to you. But like I have a three year old, she's not going to do what I ask her to do if there's no conflict. She's not going to eat her vegetables or like do you know, put her toys away if there's not a consequence of not putting her toys away. Right. Like um, so there has to be like just as much as there's accountability, there's got to be an accountability trigger. Like hey, if this thing doesn't happen, for example, if like if we're not hitting our pipeline metrics then what we need to do now is on a weekly basis review like who are we actually reaching out to? Are they responding and do we need to tweak our messaging? Right. Like what's the thing that's stopping us from hitting you know, these, these numbers or these goals that we're, we're after here? Um, and it's not meant to be like a micro thing because I don't want to micro anybody. And we're to a point like this is an entry level sales. This is like you're, you've had 10, 15 years of experience to get into this role. Um, so like it's not meant to like just be you know, metrics checking. It's meant to like dig into like okay, on a weekly basis you're going to report up to me and to Brian on like what we're doing.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: What's working, what's not working. So there's more accountability there and we can help you along the way versus like just waiting for another month to course correct. So like that was a, I'd run these accountability ones for the first three months and some reps were crushing it and some reps weren't. Um, and the kind of the unlocked over the last like two months has been, you know, we've got to have a trigger if, if the uh, if we're still off plan, like what are we actually going to do and how am I going to help you more frequently? So there's got to be a little bit of pain. There doesn't need to be like the worst day of your life, but there needs to be something. Right. Um, and then I think you asked like how do you have those conversations? I think it's, I mean it's wild what you can do with AI now like to back your conversation with data to say like, hey, like this is what I'm hearing, this is what I'm seeing. This is like where it is in the, you know, in the transcript. Like there's no, there's no making it up. Like.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, and it allows me to scale in a way that I couldn't before to say like.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know, for example, one of the things we struggle with at Neo4J is we talk to the technical buyer a lot but we don't get to the business buyer as much. And probably every company struggles with that. Yeah. Um, but when we're asking questions, you know, in our discovery and it's only technical based questions and we forget to ask about the business value or why do anything, why do it now and why do it with us. Right. Like kind of in those three categories it's pretty binary. Like you either ask the questions to get to those answers or you didn't. And if you didn't ask it like that's where it's very easy to have the conversation and say like, hey, like watch the game tape. You did really good in these areas. But like these are the areas where we want to lean in on and in the next call like let's go set up a follow up call. So in the next call we can ask like the questions that we probably should have asked and figured out like, you know, is this something that's worth spending time on?

Speaker A: So how are you leveraging AI dude throughout this role? Because it's probably very different from what you were doing as a rep where it was probably mostly account research and you know, digging through stuff and you know, using Fluent to uh, you know, pick apart your business case and you know, all of that kind of stuff. How are you using it now as a frontline leader?

Speaker B: Man, if you asked me in a week or you asked me a week ago, it's going to be a different answer. Yeah, um, it's wild how fast this stuff is, is evolving. I Mean so like at the off the jump, like where I started was just crafting a business case with Fluent.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So like I had written those things manually as a rep. Now Fluent can get me 80 this, 80% of the way there which is awesome. Like pulling from my transcripts as a leader then taking like all of the calls I don't like. My team's running on average like 27 to 28 calls a week. Um, and that's across six people. And these are not like short calls either. Like these are like could be a

Speaker A: two hour workshop or something.

Speaker B: Yeah, I don't have the bandwidth to. I would never do any coaching if I just sat through all of those calls. But what I can do is I can use AI to pick out themes in those calls and I can use Fluent does a good job of this. Um, I've used um, some skills on Claude now which has been a cool thing, um, that I just started doing over the last week to say, hey, these are the themes I'm looking for with Medpic or whatever. These are the coaching themes I'm looking for. Um, I have it ground on like the qualified sales leader. Yeah. Um, so anyways, the point being is like I can pick out themes with AI to where I don't necessarily have to watch all the calls but it can direct me to the calls where the themes or like the coaching moments are. Then I can go watch those sections and be like, oh yeah, validated, that's accurate. Um, uh, and then we, you know, makes the one on ones or the coaching times a lot more, more effective there.

Speaker A: So you're using it primarily, it sounds like to scale your coaching efforts. Yeah, I mean that's really the beauty of AI is that dude, I was having this debate with sales leaders at the dinner uh, last night in Dallas and we were talking about AI coaches and I'm like, I really don't like where that's going. I don't think that that's going to take off. You are using AI to surface the insight for you to deliver the coaching. You are not saying go talk to this AI solution to get coaching on your deals.

Speaker B: Well yeah, that's like, that's the delineator there. Jason is like AI is going to give you the median. Like it's not going to give you the best, it's not going to give you the worst, it's going to give you the median of whatever the conversation is. I don't think that even though we sell a solution that gives more context for AI and blah, blah, Blah. Right. Um, even if you had a graph underneath, I don't think we're to a point where you can take the human element out of human intuition of why something is not going.

Speaker A: You won't have a job when that happens.

Speaker B: I won't. But I also don't think that's going to exist because there's still um. What I'm starting to see now is with my reps, for example, everyone's starting to use AI now for research. I was in a meeting, um, on the flip side of the table, I was in a meeting, uh, on site with a customer. Uh, the rep and the engineer were running a workshop. We had like 20 people in the room. So we're just kind of canvassing. We spread ourselves out in the room. Right. Like intentionally. I'm sitting next to a guy and he's asking questions to the engineer and he's fact checking the guy in like real time on ChatGPT. Like I was looking at a screen and I'm like, holy shit. This guy's like literally asking him the question and asking ChatGPT the question, reading it, checking to see if they get the answers are the same. And then he's like coming up with his follow up questions based on everyone's using it. So everyone's getting more or less the same median response. Right. And so if you want to stand out both as a rep to your customers and a leader to your reps, sure. I could use AI, right to you know, come up with all my responses, automate it all and walk away. But like you can kind of tell now. Like I feel like, I feel like it's getting almost easier to tell what's AI and what's human by like what's an original thought versus like what's the median of all the thoughts. And I think that's going to be the differentiator for reps moving forward is like, you can't not embrace these tools. Right. Like my reps are taking, which is crazy now like with Claude, they're taking um, their reasons to meet or point of views or whatever and they're sending it to Claude and Claude's putting it in our branding, our format in a slide deck. They're converting it into all these different materials. Right. Like that's going to continue.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But that original thought or idea, both in like rep leadership and then you know, uh, coaching leadership, like that stuff doesn't. AI is not going to come up with that.

Speaker A: Um, so anyway, 100%, my CEO coach calls it 1080 10. You do the first 10%, that's the strategic thinking. The 80% of comb through 28 hours of transcripts and find this thing. And then the 10%, you take it to the finish line and deliver the thing. 100%, man.

Speaker B: Well, how often have you put a prompt into like one of the tools? Right. And you just give it like it's a wet noodle, you know, uh, prompt where you just say like, hey, come up with this email to respond to whatever it's going to come up with.

Speaker A: Crap.

Speaker B: Right. But if you give it like the exact, like, if you give it a first draft. Here's my tone. I want you to write like Jason Bay because he has this really great style. Blah, blah, blah. Like you get something that you know to your point, you give the 10, then you do the 80 and then you, you get to, to refine the 10. Like you have to. It's not going to come up. It's not generative. It's just, it's, it's AI. It's, it's, it's summarizing or kind of consolidating ideas.

Speaker A: Yeah. And especially at the enterprise and strat level, it's that high level thinking. That's what you're getting paid the big bucks to do. You know? Um, okay, one last thing I want to ask you about before we do a couple surprise rapid fire questions.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Is, uh, how are you thinking about and taking care of your mental health as a frontline leader? Because that's been a different game for you.

Speaker B: Yeah, man.

Speaker A: Than, uh, than being a rep.

Speaker B: So I think time is like the hardest thing. Um, so I'm young, kid in the house. Um, my time, my calendar is not my own anymore.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Like for context, I, and I say this not to brag, but like, I did an ironman last year.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So like the amount of time that I had as a rep to go do a lot of workout on a Saturday, like two hour workouts a day. Like just the ability to do that and have a family and have a normal family life.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: My wife might disagree with that one a little bit. But like, but like the ability to do that, like, that doesn't exist today. Like there's no world that I'd be able to manage the. That plus, you know, like all the other extracurriculars that I want to do, like real estate and you know, I have a real estate portfolio. Like all these other things that are going on. Want to maintain my relationship with my friends and my neighbors and all that kind of stuff. Right. And do Some serving around the city and all. So like that stuff doesn't exist anymore. Um, and so I think, um, kind of, kind of twofold. One, I think there's a really direct correlation to physical activity with mental health. And so uh, I can tell, my wife can tell, like on the days that I've gotten a workout in, in the morning, doesn't have to do anything crazy like I'm not doing, I'm not competing or you know, uh, training for the Olympics or anything but like just getting just some, like even some basic cardio or a basic lift in. Yep. Um, those days versus the days that I don't get a workout in where like my mood or my patience, tolerance uh, is so that, that's one area. The second is, um, if you're trying to be everything to everyone, like you're going to be nothing right at the end of the day, however that saying goes. Right. But I think that's really true. There's some truth there. Um, I have to at least take some time to think. Yeah. Whether that's like in the morning, whether that's going to sit in a sauna, whether that's going to go like do a walk my dogs in the middle of the day, whatever it is. Right. Like there's some, there's got to be a break for your brain to like reset.

Speaker A: Because Muay Thai for me.

Speaker B: Mhm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So you've got like the time to think and like intentionally blocking that on your calendar and like protecting that time. Yeah. Um, I don't know that I have that dialed in yet. But like that's, that's the aspiration for me where I've seen the days that I've blocked out an hour or two to like just think, to work through a deal.

Speaker A: You're talking like high level like thinking that stuff. That's not something like, so my time for me takes my mind off of work, but time on your calendar as a frontline leader.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Because as a frontline leader it's like you can get in this mode where it's people are just.

Speaker B: Dude, I've never had a calendar. Like literally it's from like 7, 7:30 in the morning till like 5:36 in the evening. It can be just completely blocked. No breaks, no lunch, no bio, whatever.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Like, dude, this is not sustainable.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Like this is not gonna work.

Speaker A: So you've instituted, now you've put some blocks on your calendar where people are not allowed to schedule meetings unless it's an emergency, I would assume or something.

Speaker B: I mean, um, I'd like to say that it's been working really well like that the, the, the time that has really worked well. And I'm gonna sound like a freak for saying this, but like when I get on an airplane, I like will just go, no AirPods, no podcasts, no music, nothing. And I just have like the, the white noise of the airplane for two, three, four hours.

Speaker A: Oh, wow.

Speaker B: That's the most productive time that I get in a week. Uh, because nobody can, you know, I get on the WI fi or whatever, but like nobody can call me, nobody can put a time on my calendar during that time. Like I can actually sit and work through whatever the thing is that we need to get done to progress the team. Um, so like my, my long term goal is to get that without having to do that on an airplane. Right. Like just to have that protection, protective

Speaker A: block or you can have a couple hours spread out throughout the day where you're in, as a business owner, we call it working on the business instead of in the business where you're working on the pipeline and all of that kind of stuff versus in it all the time.

Speaker B: Well, that's like, I think the definition of a good leader. Like, does my team really need me to be in the call or to run the call? Because if they do, then I'm not leading effectively. Um, if I have to be in every meeting to get a deal done, then maybe we need to have a hard conversation about my leadership style or the rep's ability to do the job. And it's probably more on my leadership style because I don't trust the team. Right. So for the new folks that are just starting on the team, certainly I'll be there for them and I need to be in those calls to help them because they just don't know, Right. They're a week in or two weeks in or whatever. But for the reps that have been doing this for a long time, the goal would be more of like a. Let's course. Correct. Um, similar to my marriage, right. We've been married for uh, six years now, coming on seven. And in our marriage we are going to naturally drift. That's a natural human thing that happens. And that's the same thing that happens in sales, right. You're naturally going to drift here or there. And so we course correct through normal, like once every few months we go to like a summarital counseling, right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And so we just.

Speaker A: It's a big fan of couples therapy. It's for sure.

Speaker B: It's just meant to like, here's the bumper, let me bump you back. Right. Or like correct your rudder like on a boat so that you're not drifting, you know, Like, I think if you're like on an airplane, I don't. This is a bad analogy because I don't understand this very well. But like, if you're like a degree off and you go for like 10 minutes, you could like be like 30 miles off course. Yeah, it's the same idea. Right? Like, you just want to make sure you kind of bring them back. But to that end, I don't have to be in every meeting to do that. Right. Like, we can do that through intentional coaching, through intentional time with our one on one cadence, our accountability one on one cadence. And that's like, where you can start to ideally put the system together where the first six months in this job that have been really freaking hard turn into something that's like, sustainable for the long run.

Speaker A: Yeah. Love it, dude. All right, we got a couple minutes left. Let's do some rapid fire questions.

Speaker B: Cool. Um,

Speaker A: we've kind of talked about a couple of these, so I'd be curious. First, how do you like to decompress after a long day or a long work week? You like to work out in the morning, but is there anything that you like to do to decompress or, or prevent or relieve stress or anxiety or anything like that?

Speaker B: I got a three year old little girl. It's a blast to go, like, play make believe with her paw patrol toys or whatever she, whatever she wants to go do, you know, like, kind of just spark her imagination or push her on the swing or whatever, man. Like, go to the park. Um, there's a community pool down the road that we go to, um, just go have some fun with her. And that's like, it kind of resets her perspective on, like, what matters in the world because she doesn't know that. Like, she doesn't know that dad had a bad day at work or like that, you know, these things are going on. She just knows that she's going to get three meals a day and she's got a nice bed to sleep in and doesn't know where all these things come from. But all she cares about is like, time. Uh, and so I want to give her that time as much as I can. And to me, that's the rewarding thing at the end of the day to say, like, yeah, let me spend some time. And then just being intentional with my wife and spending time with her. Uh, this is going to sound really bad to any girl that's listening to this. But I scheduled my date nights, they're on the calendar and that's the way that they happen now.

Speaker A: But I think that, okay, it might not be organically happening off the cuff or whatever, but the intentionality, I think your wife probably loves that.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: The fact that it's like, it's super intentional. You're taking time to do it, like, I love that, man. Um, if you were a first time frontline leader all over again, knowing what you know now, and I would love to ask you this question, yeah, you

Speaker B: could ask me in a little while.

Speaker A: But knowing what you know now, six months into it, what advice would you give yourself, man?

Speaker B: Don't be a hero. Like that's, I mean the biggest thing, um, that I think I've, I've, I'm, I'm still working through. I mean if you ask my team, I still probably over, over rotate in this area. But like just don't, don't be a hero. Don't try to own the deal, um, or the problem or the whatever. Like my goal, my job now is not to be the person that is running the deal. My job is to help enable the deal to run smoothly, um, and help my rep like break through whatever roadblock or barrier that they're dealing with internal, external or otherwise. So simple answer, just don't be a hero. Yeah, that's not the role anymore, dude.

Speaker A: Love it. So, uh, before we take off, um, where can people go to connect with you and where can people go to learn more about Neo4j and are you guys hiring all of that good stuff?

Speaker B: Yeah. Um, so LinkedIn is probably the best way to connect with me. It's the only social media I have left. Uh, so it's the only place you'll find me. Um, I think it's uh, like rogersmatter. I don't know what it is. Just look up my name on LinkedIn and it's the most common name that you'll find. So throw Neo4J and Austin in there and you'll probably find me. Um, the picture looks the same because I did one over the holidays. So it's recent enough. Um, Neo4j.com or Google, whatever your idea is, and Neo4j that the marketing team has done a really good job of like making the site searchable not only for humans but also for agents. Um, which is a, that's a whole different world of like, how do we optimize for, for the, the agenic, uh, space. Um, I am Hiring. Um, so we started the team with four. Uh, we have headcount for, for six total. So, um, if you're in the Southeast, or I'm gonna probably change our team name to the sec, uh, cause we basically are the sec, uh, as far as like, region coverage. But if you're in the Southeast or Mid Atlantic, um, and looking for a role where you, uh, can kind of take it to the next level. Database experience is not like my crux here. I'm looking for culture. I'm looking for folks that can own their business. Um, I'm looking for folks that want to sell through, um, uh, their buyers, not to them.

Speaker A: It's different.

Speaker B: It's a mindset shift there. Um, and then folks that just know their process. I mean, it's been incredible to go through the interview process on how many folks can't articulate why they want a deal. Um, so like, if you're a rep and thinking about like going through the next level, like, advice to you would be like, dig into like, why did a deal close? Like, what were the specific things that you influenced or did? Right. You're not going to do everything but, like, how did that deal mechanic actually work? And if you don't know, like, go ask your buyer, like, they're going to be more than happy to walk you through because they've personally invested in like, you know, this tool or whatever. Um, but like, that's the one thing I think that's missing in a lot of folks today is. So anyways, now I'm bird walking on you on a short question.

Speaker A: Love it, man. It's good having you on the show. Dude.

Speaker B: Dude, thanks for having me and thanks for coming to Austin. This is awesome.