111. Creative Chaos With Meshach Amuah-Fuster

Speaker A: Thank you for listening to the sales co leadership podcast. My name's Kevin Tealer. I'm the host and also the founder of Salesco. Do you know when I m ask sales leaders like you, do you have a great sales team? I normally get a response back which is I've got some great salespeople. So the question is, how do you build that into a team? Because your sales team is a massive investment for your company and a huge responsibility on your shoulders. So how can you be sure you're getting the best out of each and every player? Well, look, if you want to find out how I can help you to do that, all you got to do is find me on LinkedIn or email infoalescode.co.uk enjoy the podcast. Our guest this week is Meshach Amwa, uh, Fuster Meshak. How are you today?

Speaker B: I'm great, Kevin. How are you?

Speaker A: I'm pretty good actually. It's been a funny old day, weather wise. I don't know what it's been like in London, but down here in Bristol we seem to have. It's April showers, isn't it?

Speaker B: It can't make up its mind. It was nice, uh, and sunny yesterday and now it's cats and dogs.

Speaker A: Yeah, but we live in the country where we love to complain about stuff, right? And we are a nation of whingers. So, you know, it gives us something else to, to bemoan. Actually weekend was pretty good, so I had a nice time. And Mondays I'm not a great Monday person, but today I'm feeling pretty perky. It must be because you and I having this conversation,

Speaker B: you know, if you could be perky on Monday, then you're definitely doing something right. So I think so.

Speaker A: Well, maybe it's because I tell you what, I love doing this stuff, right. I think it comes across. People tell me, I love these conversations with sales leaders like yourself because I just learned so much. So even if I often say to people, even if no one else was listening, I'd love to do this because I just learned a ton out of it. So let's kick off with question number one from the Sales Code podcast book, which I'm going to write one day. What is it you get paid to do today?

Speaker B: So my job is to help owners, whether that's VCs or private equity principles, execute on their growth strategies. Whether that's top line, revenue, bottom line or both. That's in a nutshell, kind of what I do.

Speaker A: What does that mean though? I mean, that sounds very sophisticated. Now, is this Driving up revenue? Is it increasing profit? Is it uh, achieving an earn out or a sale? Or could it be all of those different things?

Speaker B: Uh, all of the above. So it always depends on the modus operandi of the owners? Uh, yeah, different goals. Some owners may want to buy and hold for as long as possible. Some may want to acquire, uh, have a growth strategy that will last anything from two to seven years and then exit at a growth rate. And the determining factors of what that growth looks like has different market implications and things that determine that. Um, and then there are those that focus on profit as well. Um, and profit's always good and that results in the dividends for shareholders. So it really just depends on what they want to achieve. And then my job is to figure out strategies that allows owners to do that and then bridge the gap between ownership and the entity that they've acquired.

Speaker A: Wow, that's quite a bit to, um, unpick there. What happens in that gap then if you don't get it right?

Speaker B: Well, if you don't get it right, then there's a misalignment between execution and the, uh, and the framework of the, of owners. And so what that means is the acquisitions that they make won't achieve the goals that they want. Now my job is to bring real mechanics and division to what those owners want. So that could be, we want to get to a revenue, we want to grow 20% year on year for the next four years and then exit. Okay, well then my job is to figure out the strategy around that. So I'll look at key KPIs, I'll look at, um, different metrics and I'll look at how we can grow those. So a very easy example is, okay, your ARR today is US$10 million. Um, we need to grow that by 20 year on year. Let's look at your ordered values. Let's look at how many cells we can make over the next, you know, four quarters and then times that by three, four, five years. We have to look at your churn rate. How do we reduce churn rate? What are the key factors? That's going to be product stickiness. It's going to be how happy customers are. How do you figure out how happy customers are? Do net promoter scores, do campaigns, it all trickles backwards. So my job is to do one of two things. Either create the framework that the owners can understand and agree to and, or work with senior leaders as a mentor to help them execute on their strategies. Because ultimately companies that are acquired know

Speaker A: their business more than Anybody else sounds very scientific. Me it is.

Speaker B: And that's what I like about it. You know, there is an element of science to it all. It's all numbers. At the end of the day, you know, it's cagr, it's ebitda, it's customer lifetime value, it's nps, it's internal rate of return, it's net revenue retention, it's non reoccurring revenue, it's annual recurring revenue, it's gross revenue retention. As long as you are able to understand the metrics, know how to move the needle. Ah, then, then you know, you're usually in a good place and it's not, you know, there are three levels of understanding, I believe. One is knowing what a formula is. Number two is knowing why the formula is important. And number three is knowing how to change the formula and why. Basically knowing how to change. How to change the. The number you have. Like how you get to 30% IRR versus 15% for example.

Speaker A: Were you good at maths at school?

Speaker B: I was, I was, um, my mother was good at maths as well. I was good at math. I am m good at math. My brother's very good at math. So maybe, maybe it may be something in the family, but uh, I was always, I always like math. Just because you either know, you don't. There's no gray area with math. Um, show your work and you know, I've always liked the fact that if I didn't know something was nowhere to hide. Whereas with an essay. Essays are great but you know, you can get anything from 40 to 80%. Um, I've seen people winning essays. Right. But you can't win maths. I don't believe you can. And you can get 100 in math, which is great. So I've always loved math. I did my, you know, GCCs a year early, which was amazing. M and did at A level as well. And I even did a module at university as well. So yeah, I've always been a statistician and like the, like the math side of things. Absolutely.

Speaker A: So since we're back in the school years with you.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: Did you, did you remotely imagine you'd be in this kind of a job when you were 16?

Speaker B: Um, well, I was 16, so I come from a. You know, my father's a musician. I have relatives that are musicians as well. So I kind of always gravitated towards that.

Speaker A: I've got to ask you now, what sort of music?

Speaker B: Well, my dad's a percussionist, so he worked with the likes of um, Paul Simon from Simon and Garfunkel and Barzo. Hugh Massakella.

Speaker A: Really?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's actually my uncle. So it's, uh.

Speaker A: Who's your uncle?

Speaker B: He must. Akela.

Speaker A: No way.

Speaker B: For three to four years ago. Yeah. South African. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So m. I was born in that environment where I saw people in the studio working.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Drinking, smoking and, uh, having a good

Speaker A: time and doing a professional job.

Speaker B: Doing a professional job, absolutely.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So, um, so yeah, I was, you know, that was basically in my psyche from a young age, so I kind of gravitated towards that. However, a lot of West African parents do encourage academia. That's been a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant or whatever it might be. And I ended up gravitating towards economics. I didn't want to be an economist, but I did like the idea of leveraging mathematics with business. You know, I love it on economics. So I ended up getting an economics degree and, um, I got a job. And I got a job in sales. I was gravitated towards sales. They like the idea of a commission based approach where I could be rewarded on effort and.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Quality of effort.

Speaker A: Uh, money and achievement. Money and achievement and. And you're a competitor, aren't you? I sense that in you.

Speaker B: Yeah. I've always played sports and played football in school and in basketball and we did really well there. And I was the only person in the first university to play for the Boston team, for the whole university. That was pretty cool. But, yeah, you know, I've always gravitated towards that. And then work became very, you know, got a few promotions and then I managed to kind of excel there and was in, you know, with an individual contributor for nine years and entered leadership. Uh, and so, yeah, it's, it's been a. It's been. I love what I do. It allows me to achieve things that might be slightly more difficult when you're in a role that isn't based on output. Ah. And based on the quality of output, based on value that you provide. So. So yeah.

Speaker A: Did you say you were IC individual contributor. So bank carrying sales rep for nine years.

Speaker B: Nine years, correct. So from 05 and then for an additional nine years, um, to 2013, 2014. My first job was really what you'd call today an sdr. So my quota was how many meetings I would book and my target was like 20amonth. So what a day? Basically that was target. Uh, I remember I was paid 20 pounds per meeting that I booked and I was over the moon just to

Speaker A: get that in the old days it was always one a day, wasn't it?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's always one a day as long as you got one a day.

Speaker A: One a day. One appointment a day keeps your boss away. That was kind of how it used to work.

Speaker B: There you go. And then we. We had this. We kind of made this promotion that if you do five by Thursday, once you hit five, you took the rest of the week off, if you want. If you.

Speaker A: Did you do a lot of that. You managed to get the rest.

Speaker B: I was here for six and seven because I'm a job.

Speaker A: Was it a lot of phone calling in that?

Speaker B: No, that's only quid. You know, back in those days, 20 cricket kids were at least five drinks. Now it's like two.

Speaker A: Good luck. Unless you go to Wetherspoons. Ah, but you need to hang around with cheap people like me. Did you. Did you use. I mean, presumably there's a lot of phone jockey stuff in those days.

Speaker B: Was it? It was, yeah. So what. What I did was I would get the train to. To, uh, Barbican, where the business. And I would literally get a big book and I'll go to a photocopy machine and just print out reams and reams of pages. Yeah. Uh, from the business library, pick them up, get back on the train, get back to the office and just start dialing every single company on these lists. Now, our typical ICP were organizations that had higher headcount, um, a lot of executives or leaders, because I was selling conferencing. And so a lot of these leaders will have their own conference rooms, like what we're doing now. And I would ring up office managers, people like that, um, and pitch them our telephony. Telephony, uh, services.

Speaker A: I guess if you're selling telephony and you're not phoning people, you know. Yeah. You know, really walking. Walking the talk. I.

Speaker B: You're not. And, um, it's funny because a lot of organizations don't use their own products, especially when they use competitor. I've worked well, I'm not going to name them, but I remember working for an email solution and they use a different solution for their email. It's quite poor, isn't it?

Speaker A: I've been there. I know exactly what you're talking about. There's companies I wouldn't name either. So this leg up into management after nine years, how did that happen? Was it something you deliberately wanted to. To do or were you approached or pushed into it?

Speaker B: So what happened was I was always, um, I was always One who understood the importance of quality and quantity, um, strategy and execution. But I was always, I would say 60% execution, 40% strategy. When I was younger I just thought, you know what, ah, even if you haven't figured everything out to its minute detail, just start, just go, yeah, you'll probably figure it out, right? Sometimes experience, the best way to experience is just, just getting up and getting it done. So a lot of my work was based on just effort. And um, what I realized was that I had a knack of creating something out of nothing. So when I was selling, um, I had an opportunity to be the, you know, the first or the second on the ground for organizations that were based in the US as they were, are, ah, to set up European offices. And at that time I thought, well, this is, you know, this is quite a big, quite a big step. But uh, I always kind of never shied away from opportunities that present themselves. And so I decided to do that and managed to do that quite successfully. So looked at creating a revenue playbook which started off with me just selling, which I knew how to do, and then use the revenue from sales to then grow out. Sales team, then business development, then marketing, then pre sales and so on and so forth and then customer success or account management. And so I had experience doing that and a few organizations in the SaaS space. Um, and then that's how I organically became a sales leader. Did that for five, six years. And then the operational side of itself kind of aired its face and um, ended up being more of a revenue operations leader, I. E. GM, M, MD, CEO. Uh, so that's kind of how, how I made that pivot. But it all started out with believing in my ability and capability to execute a revenue strategy for a new market for an organization in the US that wanted to become global. Which is part of how you become part of how you increase the valuation of your business is one of like any eight core metrics and one of them is being, are you a global business? Uh, so it's a key box that needs to be ticked when investors want to buy you out or make uh, an acquisition or an investment.

Speaker A: How did you find that initial transition from IC sales rep to sales manager?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question because we

Speaker A: often think that often the best sales people don't make the best managers, do they?

Speaker B: They don't, no. Um, it's a bit like sport. You know, some, a lot of people who are really good at what they do, they kind of get frustrated. I watched this clip with Michael Jordan where He, he said he couldn't be a coach because he would be too frustrated at the lack of work rate. Yeah. Of the people in this.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So he'd rather be an owner and

Speaker A: then hire a coach, I think, because

Speaker B: he's compared otherwise, not what I'm doing.

Speaker A: Uh, I mean, what he's doing there is. He's comparing. There's only one Michael Jordan. I mean, there is this sort of theory you should only go and hire A players. I think that works in a small company. When you get to be a big company, actually you need some B players because all the A players want to get promoted all the time. Right.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think everyone does. But, um. Yeah, you're absolutely right. So. You're right. Not every great salesperson becomes a great leader. However, one thing that I've always thought I had the ability to do was be relatively empathetic. I've had great managers who I've worked for and I've had not so great ones. And I always remember the things that they did that I didn't think worked really well not to do those and to do the things that did, you know, make me feel good from a management style, do those things. And, um, you know, I've always believed that I've had relative empathy and I was able to relate to other salespeople in my team and not kind of just put on this massive corporate mask, but kind of humanize the process as well and not, you know, not take people for granted and treat people respect and don't, uh, insult their intelligence, you know, be of service. You know, I think these things are even that difficult, if I'm honest. But I think when we enter large corporates and we have to show ourselves to be in a certain way, sometimes people do things that are kind of question. But I think as long as you can humanize a process and relate to people, then I think you're kind of halfway there.

Speaker A: I agree with that. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think you are an empathetic person, actually. It's not a quality that everybody has, but we can all learn to be more empathetic. I think some people are naturally, you know, like that, and others like me, have to work at it a bit. And it requires you to put yourself second, actually, because selling is all about being the top guy. Right. I mean, you've. Or the top person. You've demonstrated that the way you talk about your own career and you were always striving to be the best, suddenly you have to subjugate your needs. To others to be of service to them, don't you?

Speaker B: You do. And, you know, I will say this. Even though it's important to be empathetic at the end of the day, a lot of the time you do have to make hard decisions.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Like, it is what it is. You can't. It is a business. And if something isn't working, then we. The first thing we need to do is, what's the. What's the issue? What's the problem? How do we fix it? Is it a training issue? Is it a motivation issue? Is it something else? Right. Um, and ultimately, you know, there are owners who expect. And so my job is to make the balance between, um, motivating and putting structures in place for existing headcount to be as successful as possible or changing the situation and the structure that we have. And again, that's not always the best part of the job, but it had, you know, it's part of the job that has to be done. So that's kind of responsibility that comes with that authority as well.

Speaker A: It does, absolutely does. So what is leadership for you, then? What do you look for in, uh, someone you're going to be reporting to? What would be the characteristics and the qualities that would inspire you?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, I'm fortunate enough to have worked with some great leaders. Um, I would say the first thing is to be of service. Huh. It's not to be a dictator. It's not to point the finger. Uh, that does work in, you know, there are some psychology books that actually state that the stick is more effective than the carrot, believe it or not. And, you know, in some instances, that's true. But for me, um, be of service. Um, try and create an environment where people can trust you. Um, doesn't mean you have to be like their best mate, but they have to be able to come into an environment where they want to wake up on a Monday or Tuesday and actually feel that they've been part of something successful, involve people as much as possible. And, you know, I've. It doesn't matter how old you are, how young you are. I've worked with very young people who have amazing ideas, you know, um, bring ideas to the table. Like, we're interested in what you have to offer because you are, you know, the future of the company. And if you can provide something that will be of value to the business and that, that helps everybody, including yourself. So, you know, don't shy away from innovation. Uh, you know, the only shots you miss are the ones you don't take. Right. Well, huh?

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: There's a phase in there somewhere, so.

Speaker A: Well, that speaks to. You have to allow people to fail, don't you?

Speaker B: Absolutely. I think you know that. We all know the phrase, but if, you know, if you're not failing, you're not doing it right. So, um, everyone who's been successful has failed multiple times.

Speaker A: Just.

Speaker B: They just don't talk about the failures to work with a guy who used to always win every weekend on poker, online poker, this guy won every weekend. I'm like, so if you're winning every weekend, who's losing? You know, so, um, most people don't know or don't talk about. Most people don't talk about their failures. Right. But that's okay. But no one wins all the time. There's always fairness on the way.

Speaker A: So I've been reading Arnold Schwarzenegger's book recently, is kind of. It's kind of an autobiography. Uh, it's. The subtitle is Be Useful. So I think is a great way, which is what you're talking about. Be of service to people. But he also talks a lot about failure, and he said, because I know you go to the gym, because we talked about this before, right? You bench press stuff, don't you? And that's all I know about gyms. Well, I mean, you know, I've occasionally seen the inside of a gym, but not for a couple of years. But the thing is, in weight training, as you know, you have to fail, don't you got to push yourself to the point of failure. Otherwise your muscles don't expand, you don't develop.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So you're absolutely right. So whether it's physical or whether it's mental, the area where development happens is where change occurs. Um, I like to liken it to chaos, actually. So when most people hear the word chaos, they think negative. But actually, chaos is what is needed for development. So a forest fire, for example. Forest fires occur naturally. Um, you need a fire to remove the old vegetation. Vegetation to grow. That's. That's why for. That's not man. That does it. It's nature. So that's nature's way of saying, we knew that we needed new vegetation. Right. Um, when you have chaos, that means that there's probably change. So I think this might be your 109th or 110th podcast. Right. I'm sure it's more smooth than the first one you did. The first one you did probably had more chaos, and there was more of a learning curve, but now you're probably more robust and efficient. In what you do and what you've done, I believe is you've, you've attributed structure and organization to the chaos.

Speaker A: That's true. Took me quite a long time to get around to that, which is my. All the, all the guests get a briefing, uh, guide and we have a prep. Call that proper salespeople really to talk about it before we, we sit down and record the session. You're right, exactly. That bring order to chaos. Which seems to be that. You love that, don't you?

Speaker B: What's that?

Speaker A: Well, the, the whole sense of chaos is creative because it makes space for new things to develop, to grow. Right. We, we grow. When you, if ah, you take forest fires, clears out dead vegetation, uh, new life will spring into being, won't it? And then the, the sense of then that chaos and then bringing order to it, that seems to be something that is. Which is you're good at actually.

Speaker B: Well, it's a bit like any kind of invention. They say necessity is a mother of all invention, for example. Right. And necessity usually comes from some chaotic element which is. And that could be anything. It could be, I need this thing, I need to be able to save time because I spend all of my day hand washing clothes. It's annoying, it hurts, uh, I get blisters, you know. And so there's an individual who says, how can we create something that allows this process to be much easier? It brings that structure to that chaos. Right. I'm not saying I understand that chaos is required for all innovation. Like anyone who sets up a business knows that there's a lot of new things happening, there's a lot of learning that needs to happen and that is the pro, that is part of the process. And you know, I guess the secret sauce is if you can enjoy the chaos, then you know, you know a lot of CEOs are like, you know, they quite, um, they're constantly thinking of different ways and ideas of filling needs and solutions. And There are certain CEOs that need a ratifier who says okay, no, yes, yes, no, no. Um, and then There are other CEOs that are more commercial and then there are those who are more kind of technical CTOs and so forth. You see it all the time. Um, but yeah, I always believe that any invention or any change or it doesn't have to be that it could be any kind of development of your skill, whether it's learning how to kick a football or whatever it might be changing your diet. There's always an initial uncomfortability, which is change, which is Chaos, really. And then the ability to get good at that comes from the structure and organization of that. And you can either become an expert at, uh, that, or you can then move on to the next thing or whatever it might be.

Speaker A: So Elon Musk springs to mind. He's not, uh, a universally popular figure. I'm threading in dangerous water to mix metaphors here, but did you think. I mean, it sounds to me like. Because he, he does do a bunch of. There's a lot of stuff. He tries lots of new things. Not all of it works, and some of it. But some of it comes off big time, doesn't it?

Speaker B: Well, it's the same with, you know, it's the same with ownership. If I buy, you know, If I buy 10 software companies and I pump 3 million into each of them and one of them does, you know, one of them becomes a unicorn.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Then you've. You've succeeded. Yeah. With maybe nine of them didn't. Right. Those are the bets that organization makes. It's the same with different careers or different opportunities. It's literally everything we do. You know, you try and you try, and if it works after the 10th attempt, great. If you're learning to ski or whatever it might be or anything. So it's about making the effort and, or, you know, SDR, who's reaching out to 100 people? Maybe they get three on the hook. Right. And three of those organizations can see value based on the messaging and the ICP and so forth. It's always about the law of numbers. Um, so, yeah.

Speaker A: Do you think that in Britain we have a different attitude to failure than America?

Speaker B: I would say so. I think, I think America is quite a unique place because, um, it's quite a new country. I think people forget that. And it's hyper commercialization. Right. For lack of a better word. It's literally, uh, yes. Every business focuses on profit. Of course they do. But America is very unique because a. Because it's a very big country. I think it's like, I want to say it's like the fifth biggest country in the world. Something like that. Um, and then secondly, it's a lot of people. 330 million. And the third thing is, each state, while it has some certain different laws, each state is the size of a country in Europe and Africa and Asia. So while each state is technically not a country, there is uniformity across the entire continent, which is the same currency, the same business culture. Um, the time zone difference is like three hours between east and west coast is not a lot and so it's just a big entity and it's also a big entity where most things are private, if not everything. So there's a massive focus on growth, revenue creation, profitability and so forth. So the desire to set up your own organization, you're going to fail at some point and so it becomes part of the standard in places like the uk. I always say, I always say when the US sneezes the UK catches a cold follow suit of the us um, which is, and you can debate about the pros and the cons of that. And then you've got extremes like the Nordics which are a bit more high taxes but less privatization. Right. Um, more is offered from the state as opposed to extracting from the people. Again, not going to go into the politics of it, but it's just different models that work for different, different countries. But yeah, I would, I would agree the, the US has a different attitude to failure than, than, than other countries for sure.

Speaker A: Which I think impacts the ability of us to develop new tech companies, doesn't it? I mean to me it does. There's no, there's a reason why all the biggest tech companies are American owned. A, uh, part of its access to capital, which you know a lot more about than I do. But some of it is the, is the, and these things are linked of course. Some of it is the attitude to risk, the appetite for risk, the willingness to allow people to make mistakes, fail and go again. And we seem to be less, we're more risk averse in Britain I think than certainly America.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And you know we are seeing some of that change. The access to capital is the main one. We are seeing some of that change especially in places like Germany, the UK like the largest economies in, in Europe, Germany, uk, France, Spain, those are probably the big four. Um, and then after that you've got like Sweden and then you've got Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Austria and so forth. But those are kind of be the biggest obviously the Netherlands, a place like Israel, I mean that's, there's a huge tech hub there, massive innovation. Their attitude to risk is I would say probably um, on par with the US actually a lot of, a lot of organizations from Israel popping up as well. So I think, I think the Netherlands and Israel like the two fastest growing economies in Europe.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, but the largest is Germany UK and you know, I need to know stuff like that when it comes to generating a go to market strategy for a US company that want to set up an emea. For example, um, places like South Africa as well, you know, strong tech hub and also obviously the Middle east as well.

Speaker A: Well, let's talk about a go to market scenario then. I'm going to ask you to give some advice to someone that's come to you. Right. And so this, this is a younger person, perhaps the first opportunity for them to step into a revenue leadership position as a go to market leader for a new American software company coming into the UK and they've been asked to put together the classic 90 day plan. And the 90 day plan needs to focus on culture, strategy and execution. Those are the three levers they've been given. Where would you suggest they start? How would you structure that?

Speaker B: So I would say there's on one side of the coin, there's what you should do first and then the other side of the coin is what's the most important. I think those are, you know, you know, they can be, they can be exclusive. So the first thing I would say is culture is probably the most important, uh, in terms of how your organization is structured as a culture. I've seen some cultures where it is work first, life after. I've seen cultures where it's life first, work after. So it just depends on the culture of the organization, the expectation. You know, I've worked in places where if you leave at 5:30, you're leaving early. Uh, it is what it is.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Places where people have been fired after two days. Mhm. Because they couldn't define what something was as.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Of trading. Right. I've seen places where someone hasn't sold anything for a year and a half and they're still there. It just depends on the culture. So the first thing I would say is understand the culture that you're going into and is that in alignment with who you are as a person. And then the second thing I would say is, which is, I'll ah, say the most important is the execution. I think the most successful people are the ones back to the failure piece are those who just get on with it, just execute it. Doesn't mean you go in blindly. Um, but most learning happens from mistakes, not successes. Right. Um, when you burn your hand on the stove, you realize not to do that anymore as opposed to learning from what happens. That when it goes right, you kind of learn from both. So I would say the execution pieces is probably the most important. For me it's not the only important thing, but I think it's just the most important. Just you know, get on with it. You're going to make mistakes. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Those are the things that will actually help you be more rounded and be more educated moving forward.

Speaker A: So you really surprised me there, Meshach. I thought you were going to say strategy, because I see you as very much the strategy guy. It's interesting actually to reflect on what you've been talking about because, um, I am naturally the guy that would charge straight into execution, which is probably why I'm really good at those sort of jobs. Like you, I've done a lot of go to market. I've done six launches for US and European software companies into the uk. Maybe that's why I'm good at that. Where then, where I've struggled maybe is later. I've not spent enough time on developing a strategy or. So what you. I think what you're saying is, correct me if I'm wrong, that a. An average strategy well executed beats a really great strategy poorly executed.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And I'm not saying that strategy isn't important. I'm just. I like to not sit on the fence where people ask me questions I hate.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: But, uh, yeah, I. Absolutely.

Speaker A: You're not going to make a good politician. So you would change that approach. If you want to go to politics, you've got to be able to sit on a couple of multiple fences these days.

Speaker B: There you go. So, uh, yeah, wouldn't do well in politics at all. But no, uh, but yeah, neither.

Speaker A: I'm always giving. I'm always of the inclination to give people a, uh, a straight answer as well, which I love that. I think that makes a lot of sense. I'd like to ask you just for a minute to think about, because you've worked, you've hired. How many salespeople do you think you've hired? Is it 100? Is it.

Speaker B: If you're not including acquisitions. Couple of hundred. Including acquisitions in the thousands.

Speaker A: So it's tons. Absolutely. That we'd like a ton. Just think, um, for a minute of the best salesperson you ever met through working with them, either hired or.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Inherited.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I'm not going to ask you to name that person, but you've got that person in your mind, haven't you? What is it that was good about that salesperson? What was outstanding about what did they do that made them. Sticking your mind to the point you go, that's the best salesperson I ever met.

Speaker B: He held his nerve. So he's. When I first met him, he was quite seasoned already. Um, and he was very good at doing two things. Three things. The first thing he was, ah, good at was was articulate in roi. The second thing he was good at was speaking the language of the buyer. And the third thing he was doing was. The third thing he was really good at was keeping his nerve.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: The deal he was selling was for about 800. I remember it's840,000 pounds a year and our commission was 10%. And I remember him going through this deal and thinking like, like he got to stage. So what I would call stage five of the sale is negotiation. So stage one is, you know, qualification. Uh, two is, you know, um, well, it depends in discovery, qualification, validation, negotiation, commitment, etc. And he got to stage like four, which is negotiation. And um, they said to him, they pretty much gave him a verbal, but they said, you know, look, if you can bring this down to like by 10%, you can. Which would have made still, you know, 840 takeaway, 84, you know, whatever that is. And I said I was good at math, but too much pressure. Um, then they probably would have got the deal signed within the next couple of weeks. Right? 760k, give or take. Mhm. And um, he said, no, the value that you are going to receive, this is a very good deal. And I remember, I just remember this is, I'm. And he won the deal, you know, brilliant, you know, 840k per year, you know, about a quarter of a million tcb. And he ended up buying a Bentley. I remember he told me, good for him.

Speaker A: What a great. That's a brilliant story. I love that. Yeah, absolutely love that story. So you said three things. Articulate, roi, uh, speak the customer's language and keep your nerve. Yeah, I've got someone in mind as well actually.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Ah, it's interesting when you, when you talk about. I would say also he. So. And I won't call out his name, but those three things. Outstanding. It, uh, was, um. This guy I'm thinking about was terrible prospector. I mean he was just never gonna, you know, he wasn't a great, he wasn't great at that. He wasn't super at relationships. But those three things, when you got him in a meeting, you got him in the room, he really kept his nerve under enormous pressure. And I think that's, um, that's, that's very admirable.

Speaker B: I work with a lot of really good salespeople. I work with big, some terrible ones.

Speaker A: I think we've all, I think we have, all of us have.

Speaker B: And you know, he, he's the one, he's the one that I think of. He Was he was, he was like a sniper rifle. Like he didn't do a lot of canvassing, a lot of prospect. He knew exactly how, who to speak to, what to say and but you know, this isn't about pulling the will over people or pulling a fast one. He's providing value.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And he said to me the reason why they're going to buy me shack is because. And he explained it to me because there's this legislation coming into place in six months time. We know that it's going to take X number of months. They can't not do this. The question is who they're going to do it with. We know that they need a specific feature which means abc from an ROI standpoint we know that competitor A can't do this and so on and so forth. So you know, I learned a lot from that and I learned to hold my nerve a bit more which you know, when you're early in your career you probably tended to just give them the 20 off, you know. Um, but as I got older I realized no, ah, you know, don't, but don't devalue your products. That's. You shouldn't do that.

Speaker A: I'm going to ask you to give us one more learning before we wrap this up. As a reflection point, what is the one thing you wish you knew at the beginning of your career?

Speaker B: The one thing I knew is setting up, setting up a business is not as difficult as you think.

Speaker A: Uh-huh.

Speaker B: It's really easy actually. It's actually just especially in this country. It's designed for it to be easy. I think it costs you like 40 quid, takes two, three days. You've got a limited company where you go taxes are slightly lower which tells you what you need to know. Um, individuals are recomm. Are encouraged to set up a business ultimately because you know, whether you sell within an economy or you export products overseas, the economy, which is the UK PLC benefits as an entity, which is why they charge less taxes. So and you get tax write offs and so forth. So setting up a business is actually, is actually um, encouraged and it's very easy to do. You can set up a website tomorrow and so forth. The issue is we're not really taught that in school. You know in this, in, in education we're taught how to listen and remember and regurgitate. Uh, which isn't really always the skills that a owner would use. It would be more research and fail and go out and learn and you know, that kind of thing. So they kind of, there's a slight misalignment there, which might go back to your point about risk in the UK versus the US Right. So, um. So, yeah, that's probably what I would if I knew Younger was. Was selling a business is actually very m easy.

Speaker A: It's been a great conversation. Meshach. Thanks so much for your time.

Speaker B: Thank you, Kevin. Appreciate it.

Speaker A: And, uh, thank you to the listener as well. Please do leave us a review if you like what you hear, because it helps enormously to boost the ratings and the listenership.

Speaker B: Sam.