#121 The SDR DiscoCall Podcast - Kyan Burke

Hey, it's Neil from Happy Selling, and a quick note before the episode starts. Alongside hosting this show, I also sales coach SDRs, account executives, CSMs and founders, especially those without enablement support or looking for that external voice. See it as Sales Therapy. Coaching with me is 100 % confidential, recorded and bookable on demand via Zoom.

Sessions start at £150 sterling with no long -term commitment. If you're curious, just email me at neil at happyselling .io and I'll send you the details, alright? Let's get into today's episode.

Hello fellow subscribers, watchers and fans of the SDR Disco Course Show. Welcome back to what promises to be a super cool episode and one that I'm super excited about. If you're stumbling in or this is the first time you're joining this show or perhaps one of your friends or colleagues recommend joining in, what is it all about? So we work in the world of tech sales and within tech sales, we have a function called sales development.

These are the people that are drumming up leads to get people and businesses excited in the world of prospecting and then handing over to our counterparts in sales to close those deals. My name is Neil Boyan and I'm your host on this journey. What I like to do is go find cool and interesting people within our industry to bring them to your eyes and ears so that we can learn about their lessons, their stories, their minds as to how did they get into this industry. and what insights can they share with you to help you become what we call happy sellers.

If you're listening to this in your local podcast platform, something that would really help us out is if you can go like and share this episode with your peers out in the industry, or if you're watching this on YouTube to help out in the algorithm by giving us a like, a comment and subscribe down below. What you're actually doing is telling the algorithm that this is good content and it helps get the reach out there. So please make sure you go do that ASAP. But with this guest here, this is somebody that has been on the show before.

And what was really strange is we realized back in 2023, this is the exact same date that their show went out. So everything happens for a reason. And it's great to have this person back through the doors. But without further ado, guests, could you please reintroduce yourself?

Who are you? Where are you based in the world? And what do you do today, sir? Brilliant intro, Neil.

Thank you so much for having me back. I'm Kyan Burke. I am a sales leader at a fintech called Capital on Tap. Previously BDM, a growing through the ranks of all of the sort of tech sales roles from the beginning, and I'm based in London.

Love it. And Kian, a pleasure to have you back, my man. I really appreciate you coming back through onto the show. And as it sounds like you have been on one hell of a journey and we really want to learn more about that as well.

But for the audience that are new with you, Kian, could you tell us like outside of the cells, who is Kian? What do you like to get up to and what's your interest? Yeah, I like to stay pretty active. So I'm into boxing, football, similar to Neil.

I love a good podcast. So I love listening to them, creating content as well. And one of the things... One of the things that I'm sort of trying to do more of that I have been doing over the years is speaking.

And again, outside the realm of sales, I've got various topics that I'm quite passionate about when it comes to mental health, mental performance. So constantly finding ways to control, optimize my brain so I can do better in life. Love that, mate. Absolutely love that.

And as you can hear, there are a lot of passions and interests that Kyan has entered into the world of, and I've been seeing his stuff all over LinkedIn and on socials. And we definitely want to bring those in today. And you did hear right, Kyan has his own podcast. And we're going to talk about that in a moment shortly.

But with all of our guests, you'll be able to find their links, LinkedIn profiles, et cetera, within the show notes. So feel free to scroll down on the phone or if you're watching this on YouTube and connect with Kyan. But also we had Kayan back on the show back in 2023. And back then Kayan, we were talking about, you know, that you came through via Traneo in terms of enabling you to get into the world of tech sales.

Big shouts out to all the crew out there and Oman crew. We spoke about things such as that journey from BDR. to account executives, the trials and tribulations and things that going in through there. And you know, like kind of what it meant to become an account executive.

And with most of our guests, that's kind of the path that they want to go onto. But obviously since we've had that show, and as a reminder for the guests, I'm going to be putting in that show into the show notes, so feel free to check it out. But I want to come back to your LinkedIn profile because a hell of a lot has changed since then, Kayan. So if we head over to your LinkedIn profile, where are we?

Here we are. Cool. So again, Kayan's LinkedIn profile will be in the show notes. Please connect with him.

This guy does a hell of a lot and he's so, so, so super cool. But what we can see is coming through here. So let's come down to your experience. So in the last episode, we spoke about, you know, those things of Traneo coming up through becoming an account executive.

And again, with Kayan, he has his own podcast, The Mental. Performance Coaching, a Kynberg podcast available on Spotify and all platforms. Make sure you subscribe and make sure that you give them a rating as well and check it out. And your boy Neil has been on that show as well.

So thank you very much, Kyn. But as we can see here, you've been on capital on tap for the past year and a half. You've done a hell of a lot of cool things and you've moved up into sales leadership. But without spoiling the show, Kyn, like take us back from the last time we met to what's changed and what's new with Udo.

Yeah. So, um, I've been a BDM, which is essentially an account executive full 360 role at Cap on Tap. And to be honest, Neil, it's something that I put a lot into. And what I found is that over the months while sort of smashing targets, I was helping a lot of my team when it came to different processes, ways to close deals, things like that.

Leadership kind of were planting the seed for me to head into leadership. And there were various months I was saying no. Not for me, never gonna do it. I think they had a plan in the background, but it kind of all synced up, especially with my content as well on men's performance, controlling your mind and discipline.

Sort of giving that to the team basically was a natural step for me. And when the role came up internally, I went into it, we're sort of five months in now. So the big changes for me were realizing that I was showing a lot of leadership tendencies and skills. And then going into that role myself, which I'm living on a day -to -day basis now.

I love that. I love that. And congratulations to you on your journey kind and a cap on tap like that as well, right? So walk me through like you coming into that to help the team, like being that BDM, like, you know, you're, you're hitting your targets in a thing, but then you're helping others.

And before like leadership started planting those seeds, what was that like transition like and journey for you? Like being with that team. like doing it yourself and then helping them with it. What was that journey like for you guys?

That's a brilliant question, Neil. It's quite funny because with my team now, they ask other BDMs how I was as a BDM. And they generally described me as someone who was quite closed off, locked in, but willing to help the team when needed. So that involved things like me, you know, doing a bit more later on, you know, coming in a bit earlier to learn things and then networking well within the company.

So yeah, beforehand, I guess kind of just did the leadership things. And I didn't realize that that's what leaders do. I looked at leadership and management as two different sort of things, but you know, we've had conversations just now off air about that and the key differences behind it. I love it.

Thank you for sharing. And that's the thing I'd like to just pick up on even a little bit further is, you know, like when they were asking, like, what was Kian like? as a BDM, you know, somebody who was locked in quite quiet as well. The reason that I ask is I was coaching somebody yesterday and this person has become a top performer, right?

Over the last couple of months, they've smashed their target, they're at 228 % of their target for the year. And one of the questions that we were asking him was, what can we do now to take things to the next level? And we went through kind of like a plan to come towards the end of Q. But one question that I asked him, I said, what's one thing that you should stop doing in order to move forward?

And this person alluded to, they need to connect better with their team. They need to be a bit more social because similar to yourself, they were very locked in and that's how they got the results. But part of them is just like work is work and they just shut off and they detach from that. They don't get too close.

But they said that, you know, they're thinking about leadership, which is funny now that we're talking right but to you sir like spending that more time with that team like coming from that person that's locked in zoned in doing your thing and now adding that dynamic within the team what was going through your mind and when that was put to you of you know you need to be with them a bit more what was going through your mind that's a really good question to be honest there's such a there's such an added benefit to it so at the time I just thought, okay, if I have a skill set in prospecting that the team feels is a growth area, let me just do it.

And at the time I thought, you know, I was helping the team, but selfishly there's also added benefit for you because when you've learned something and you're re -explaining it and repeating it over and over again, you tend to learn it better as well. I think the key thing that I always preach to my current team at the moment is osmosis. If I keep repeating something and people keep learning it and we all get better at it, then it just elevates the performance as a whole. There's a stat, I probably got the percentages wrong on this, but I think if you sit next to a top performer, you may increase over time by about 40%.

If you sit next to someone who's less performing less well, you may decrease by a lot more. So yeah, that was my thinking behind it. If I just keep practicing it and sort of telling people what I know, They get better and we just get better as a whole. I love that.

And you're right, you're right. Like it even goes back to that thing of if you surround the people that you surround, the five people that you surround yourself with the most, you'll probably become the sixth person within that. So sitting alongside top performers, that stuff will definitely rub out onto you as well. And I think, you know, going back to when I was in that position a few years back of doing the job, being really good at it, but then having to opening it up to a team, there was an element of fear that comes into it.

And it's the, maybe it's a little bit of imposter syndrome of does this stuff actually work? And now other people are going to go test the hypothesis of what I was doing and can they do that? So there's an element of vulnerability that you're opening up, you're sharing knowledge, but you're very right. The best way to learn is teaching other people what you've learned.

Was there any sort of fears or, you know, things going through your head of, okay, now I'm going to tell other people how to do it, but then they have to actually go do it themselves and then have a result. What was, where were you there in your, in your mind? Yeah, most definitely. Even before leadership there, there is that imposter syndrome.

I think the best way, as you mentioned that the top performer that you're speaking to, what does obviously help is that when you've got proven results, you'll get the buy -in. And when you've got proven results and doing things in a specific way, people tend to just go ahead and test it anyway. So yeah, I believe that was a huge advantage to things. But at the same time, I think what's important is to show people the why behind it as well.

It's all good and well saying, okay, let's improve on this area, but why are we improving on this area? That also increases the buy -in and removes the imposter syndrome. 100 % because I think if people get that context as why, rather than just do it because I've said to do it, it helps them understand where is this coming from and then helps them add all the pieces. And I think, you know, um, to give another example, somebody else coaching this week, um, they're a BDR and they're relatively new to the role.

Um, and they came into that session with fear of cold calling. Right. Now old manager Neil. would normally come in and say, well, all right, cool.

Let's, let's do a role play. Here's a script. Show me what you've got. Um, and let's like try and get you confident and ready to call.

But the nail of now is, is before we go to the script kind, let's talk about what is that fear all about? So because I was ready to do the role play, I had the script ready, but I said, nah, let's part that for a minute. So I just then started asking this person, um, what's going through your mind before you do the calls. And they're telling me this fear of they think they're going to be interrupting somebody.

They're going to be asked who they are. And they're worried that in the first 10 or 15 seconds, it's going to bomb. I said, okay, cool. But then I took it further.

I was like, where is that stemming from? You know, and they said, well, I'm new to the role. The people I'm speaking to have degrees and all of this. And we spent 30 to 45 minutes just unpacking the fear.

And there was no role play or anything, but we was walking through hypothetical situations. Well, how do we answer this? How do we do that? And at the end of the call, that person then said to me, I feel ready.

I actually want to go call now. And I was like, cool. I love that. But I think also understanding the why, but on a rep level, helping them understand and connect the dots as to why they're doing what they're doing.

What would you think? That is leadership versus management 101. Um, and I've had to, I picked that up so quickly. Yeah.

Of course we can look at stats. We can look at data and then tell people to do things. They may do it for a period, but I think Neil, if you're, if you're able to do that, or if you're an individual contributor and you're able to understand why you're doing something, that's when you're going to get sort of maximum results. So completely agree with that.

Thank you, sir. Um, so the next bit that I want to talk about is so Your leadership are planting seeds and like pegging you that way to become a leader, but you're like, nah, I don't want to do that. Can you help us understand why that was happening and like, you know, how you were dealing that and how did they convince you? That's a brilliant question.

And this is the first time really that I've probably said out loud or publicly why it's similar to your example. I had a preconception that sales management was the hardest job in sales and Again, if we go a bit deeper, and I think why, I think about the sales managers that I've worked with who've been brilliant. And I've seen them have to go into forecasting meetings with maybe the VP and I've seen how pressurized that was. And I've seen how they found it hard to influence or affect the numbers from other team members.

And I thought, I don't want to ever feel like them. And they were brilliant and they did a brilliant job. And then I thought, okay. maybe the way that they were managing or leading affected the overall results, which affected why they sort of had those struggles.

Maybe I don't have to have those struggles if I tweak a few things or do things differently. So that was my deep why. It was literally just thinking about... other sales managers and the stress that they went through, whether they were friends in different companies or ones that I'd worked with and thinking, this is the hardest job in sales.

Never want to do that. Yeah. And I can relate like, you know, seeing like having great leaders yourself and seeing an example of what great leadership looks like and what it feels like and being on the receiving end. And I think sometimes before you make that leap, you may question yourself as to how do I do what that person did?

you know, seeing the stresses that they go through. And I've seen it with SDRs as well, where initially they wanted to become an account executive or a BDM. And then, you know, working with their BDM and loving it, they're like, actually, that seems so stressful. I don't want to do it.

And I think for me, when I had the same thing, I was hit with, let's take you into leadership. And I was like, nah. And my original no's were because I couldn't foresee putting my neck on the line. for somebody else's outputs and results.

And the reason for that is because I don't really have control on that person and individual. And I can't bank on them or say, they're going to do this, right? But when you come into leadership, you have to have that pitch to your VP as like, yeah, this person is going to do this. This is what they're going to deliver a result on.

But I think going through the journey and what I've learned with great leaders is when they've said to me, I don't have all the answers. But my job is to help you find the answers and we'll find that out together. Or, you know, Neil, as a leader, I've made a ton of mistakes and I've got things wrong. And me, myself, I've held up my hands multiple times that I've made a mistake as a leader.

Whether it's the strategy or this is the rep that's going to smash targets or actually they ended up on a PIP and exited the company. They weren't the right fit from hiring and everything. But taking on the reins of leadership. is a whole new level of responsibility.

But I think the best bit of advice that I gave to leaders that I've either coached or helped promote to is you don't have to have all the answers on day one. Right? Because I think there is this fear of you get promoted, you get the title and you have to do the job straight away. And I kind of put it akin, kind of I'd love to get your thoughts on this.

It's that I've had this conversation like earlier this year where I said to somebody where they just got the promotion and they're worried to hell. And I said to them, I said, Tell me this, when you started off as an SDR, how much did you know before you started that job though? Not much. And I said, how long did it take you to become proficient in that?

So it took me about nine, 10 months to really know what I'm doing. And I was like, cool. And then when you went into this team lead thing, what did you know about running a team up on that point? They're like, not much.

And I said, it took you on a little bit of a journey, right? So again, coming back to yourself with a question. What was going on when you took that leap when leadership convinced you and what were those first couple of weeks? Were you know the first month or two like doing that?

Brilliant question. It was completely alien bunch of imposter syndrome Dynamics change because some people that you work with you made now manage Yeah, some people in different teams now see you as a manager Some people are actually friends outside of work because you've been in the same team. So it was complete imposter syndrome and adjusting to dynamics. I think what you said is crucially important.

I believe a lot of ways that I sort of earn respect quickly from my team is by saying that I don't know certain things. However, I would always point them in the right direction of someone who did. So if I didn't know a certain process, I'll tell them, look, this is a growth area for me. I will get better at this, but this person is the best person to speak to and we'll make sure that we'll get the answer.

I think that probably earned more respect than trying to figure things out myself, getting it wrong for them. And they know where I'm working at the moment. So being transparent with them in my first few weeks was, I think, crucially important. And leaning on other leaders in the team as well, in different teams, sorry, I think was something that I did quite well.

I love that. And again, within that kind of some things I'd love to pick apart is something that does happen a lot is you said the dynamic changes, right? Cause these have been peers that you've been working alongside. And now on paper, there's an element of a title has gone up within yourself.

And back in my day, when I was, you know, first SDR, then I became a team lead. Team lead for the team was just like Neil's like top dog because he's been here for a while, so it makes sense. But then when Neil became SDR manager, it did change the dynamic in the team and they weren't as forthcoming and they did kind of see me as this, well, at first I was a dick. I was a horrible manager, right?

I wasn't the best manager because I didn't have any training or support to become that. I was just learning as I went along and we had our, you know, reset within the team after I realized the errors of my ways. But it does change the dynamic. And I think thinking back to myself, I kind of like you, like you say, I felt like an imposter.

I was like, I've been given this job title. I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but I'm supposed to get these numbers and metrics and I'm supposed to drive this team towards a performance and getting results. I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if they believe in me or I didn't know if I believed in them because you know, back then I used to think arrogantly, if you can't do it the new way, you're not going to win.

That was just kind of like my mindset, but I'm curious to know like, how did dynamics change for yourself with your team? Were there any things that you had to be mindful of or any things that you did get wrong and how did you remedy them? Yeah. I think one thing that I did to sort of think ahead was I spoke with like the best leaders in the company.

So the first thing that I did was set out a team ethos. And when I say set out, I mean, completely by them, not created by me. So questions like, what did you like in other teams? What did your favorite managers do?

What type of team do you want this to be? Essentially that was them telling me what this team is going to be. Essentially that allows them to be held accountable if we drop below those standards. That was the first thing that I did.

I think the second thing that I did was I needed to create trust, you know, instantly with new people and people that had been on the team and make them aware. I'm not someone who's going to be here to tell you what to do. The quickest way to do that was to get back in the trenches, essentially. So that's regular calling blocks with my team.

That shows them that, look, if we are facing new objections on the phone. My remedy wouldn't be to say, let's make more calls because another stuff is I recognize it instantly. Um, I also show them that I'm going through the same prospects and challenges as them. And I also show them that I can do the job to people who are coming into the team.

They may think, okay, I don't know why this guy's promoted. Maybe the others do because they've seen them, you know, be a BDM, a, but I need to show new people that were hiring, you know, why I'm able to sort of advise on these things and have that credibility. it's all good looking at past numbers, but he could be someone who's telling us what to do. So those two things, allowing them to create the ethos and the standards of what we're held to and also continuously building trust by doing the things that they do daily, even if it is on a minimal scale, maybe a couple hours a week.

I love that because you kind of done it like a sales deal, right? You've got multiple stakeholders that you need to sell to, which is yourself, but helping by them coming up with a team ethos as to, you know, what's great for you as a leadership, what's going to help you out as well. And I love the fact that, you know, jumping into the trenches. So not only saying this is what we need to do, but I'm going to do what I'm asking of you.

And that definitely builds in an element of trust. And I think coming back to my ego days, I remember when I was working with a company out in Belgium and I'd inherited a new team and they'd already worked for an existing company and via the acquisition they came into mind. But they already had their leadership, everything, their team dynamic was defined. But there was this new leader called Neil added into it.

Then it took months for me to get their trust. But we kind of had like one of those reset sit downs where I just said, look, I want to help you. And I have all of this experience of doing it with other teams. but why are we not clicking?

And they just said, you're a great guy, Neil, and we can definitely see that you want to help, but you're asking us to do these things and we can't see you doing, we don't believe you can actually do the things you're asking us to do. And I was like, oh, so you want me to do this thing with you? And they were like, yeah, if you did that, I think that would build some trust in the team. But a part of me, I had to kind of come to terms with it.

Part of my ego was saying this, I was like, I've earned my stripes. I've done this thing. I know how to do it. Why do I have to prove myself to you to show that I can actually do it?

Right. I know it works because I've done it with hundreds of other people, but I had to put my ego aside and it was building that trust in the team. Because if I wanted the best out of my team, I had to give them my best. Right.

So jumping on and doing cold call in prospecting. And I think for my own ego, I helped source like a deal within like three weeks. And it closed and closed one. And when we went for the team sync and I said, well, I told you guys, I can do this thing, but it kind of reminded me of how fricking hard it was.

But also I had the added benefit of not just being able to prospect it, but take it over the line as well. But when the team saw that they didn't just see Neil closing a deal. They saw Neil bringing additional revenue and a logo to the team of team. And that's where the trust was built within the team.

So like you said, like jumping back into the trenches. But I think as a leader yourself, you need to still get your own coaching. So I had to speak to the VP of cells. We had a CMO and a VP of cells and I kept coming to them like a scared rep of like, I don't know what to do with the team.

They're not buying into it. I'm struggling and stuff like that. So I'm curious to know like what questions were you asking of your coaches or your leadership to help you become a better leader? First of all, that's an amazing story.

Thank you. And with me, the head of sales here, he's brilliant. It's quite simple. I think I only asked him one main question.

How do I become a great leader and not so much more of a manager? And the conclusion that we came to is Most of every decision, unless you are underperforming, has to come from them. Every answer has to come from them. That's how you get the buy -in.

So effectively, instead of telling someone to do things, what I would do is bring up the stats of, or an example of what good looks like, what mid looks like, and what poor looks like. We make our decisions. That way we know if we're committing to a certain level of output. It's only going to lead to this.

If we're committing to this level of output, it's going to lead to this result. The question that I asked him was just how to lead effectively. And yeah, the conclusion that I came to was they need to figure out all the answers themselves. So anytime we're trying to get a point across, we do have times where we're trying to jump into it.

Hey, output's low today. Hey, we haven't created enough deals today. Let's, let's do more of this. But it's about showing them, okay, if we continue at this rate, what's this going to lead to?

And it becomes a light bulb moment for both of us. I love that. I love that. And it's great that it comes from them.

They have to come with the answers. And I think one of our jobs as leaders is to help people come to their own conclusions, right? And that's kind of like in sales in general, right? Rather than trying to convince a prospect to go buy your product, it's helping them come to the conclusion of why they need it or what's going to be the benefit for them.

Um, and that's more of an intrinsic motivation to your point, rather than being told you have to go do this, but you're right. There are times where you have to jump in and crack the whip a little bit and be like, team, we're not there. Like we need to like up it and anti it. And that's, I think the elements of leadership and with management.

And as you said, like, like off air, what we were talking about is like, what is the difference between a manager and a leader with the experience that you're having now, kind of like, what's your conclusion of that? Like, how do you differentiate? So imagine where we go back a year to that kind. Right.

And he's this guy who's not sure if he wants to do this leadership thing and you ask your future self, like what's the difference between a manager and leadership? What, what is that for you today? Yeah, I would definitely say a manager is just largely process driven. They set the standard of the team.

They tell the team where they're heading. They tell the team what KPIs we're aiming for. Um, and any sort of, I don't know, issues that need to be sorted out, they're good at handling them. I would say.

I maybe shouldn't say, I do think I'm a bit of a poor manager when something tricky. Um, I mean, if we've got a problem with, let's just say our CRM, that's still a big growth area for me figuring out how to do those things in terms of leadership, setting the tone, the discipline levels and the standards, the atmosphere of the team. I will consider myself like a very good leader. So maybe if we have a problem, I may not be able to get it done as quick as possible.

But if we need a big day, I'm able to sort of set the tone and the atmosphere for us to achieve those outputs. Yeah, I thought I was just going to be largely process driven, largely telling the team where we're heading and things like that. But a leader, I mean, the answers come from them, as you said, Neil, and that creates maximum buy -in and trust. So that's what I would have thought of before.

I love that, thank you. And it's good to hear them, you know, like being honest, like if it comes to the CRM piece, like that might not be your strength today. And I've been that guy, right? And I think what I've learned is it's the same with a CEO.

A job of a CEO is to lead a vision within a company and to get stuff done. And they may know how to do marketing or elements of finance, but they're not the best at it. But their job is to hire people that are smarter than them within that position, hence why they go get ahead of marketing and everything. So the mindset that I kind of got was, you know, I don't have to have all the answers, but I need to go find the guy or girl that knows how to do that thing good.

So, you know, if I ever came into a new company and we've got an underperforming team, one of my first questions to leadership is like, how are you tracking all of this? You know, what are the metrics today? Again, I can't make sense of what you've got yet. But then my next step is who's in charge of rev ops?

Who's the operations person? And I would then have a sit down with them and say, look, I'm the new leader. My role is to help up this team and there's a couple of bottlenecks, but I'm not the best guy with numbers and data. I'm not that guy, but I know what I'm looking for.

And if I can give you a shopping list of filters and things I'm trying to understand, can you help me build this? And I've done this multiple times in companies. And a lot of the time this revops person would say, we've never been asked these questions. Well, we've not built anything like that today, but then they got all hyped and actually, yeah, we could build this dashboard.

We did it. And then you come to the conclusion of, okay, and then they give you this output. And they themselves, even though they're part of revops, they're actually now noticing the bottlenecks. And they said, oh, when, you know, the, the lead is accepted, there is this disconnect between the AE and actually the AEs are not.

converting them when they're supposed to based on our criteria. Hmm. This is interesting, isn't it? And then taking that.

So, you know, the role is you don't have to know all the answers, but going to learn all the answers and then teaching other people how to, you know, find those things. I think that's one of the cool things within leadership, but then the wickedest thing is you learn that and then you take it to the next place or the person you've just taught takes it within them and then, you know, they take it. It's the point of knowledge is to share it out of there. But now You know, you're doing this thing, like when you wake up in the morning, kind of, and you're like, right, I'm a leader on cap on tap and you're coming into the office and you're seeing this team sitting there and you know, they're performing everything.

What's going through your mind there, man? Like, is it like a surreal moment compared to like where you were a year ago or like what, how does that feel? Yeah, as you probably know, Neil, that you think of like random ideas for specific team members, you know, at different hours, it's always about like how we can, how we can optimize things, you know, how this person can improve 10 % or if you're a top performer, how you can improve by 1%. And how do you reframe that to them without, if you're performing well, that could easily be taken as, you know, this is a criticism of you.

However, you could reframe that as, you know, Michael Jordan or Cristiano Ronaldo talk about their coaches a lot. No, I'm here to add that, that 1%. Um, there's so many iterations and we're dealing with humans. So to answer your question, it's just a constant calculation I'm going through.

Yeah. You know, different situations, how can we do this? How can we do that? In saying that sometimes you do have to just sit back.

You do have to just sit back because with problems as well, they only can get fixed in an efficient way. If, if they're deep enough. That's what we talked about, like bringing the team solutions. You may not get buy -in.

Sometimes you do have to wait until the problem arises and then we can fix it as a team or individually as well. I love that. I love that. You're right.

Sitting back is one of the hardest things to do. where, you know, you know the answer to fix things and you know what could be done. But then I think if you try to force it with team members, you don't get nice stuff out of it. Right.

And I think it's the hardest thing to do because you're watching the metrics, you're watching the dashboards. You're having a VP breathe down your neck and saying, Hey, we need this. But sometimes, you know, I think again, taking reps through pips where I've had my head's butting with VPs of cells where they want to cut the person. because based on the data and their gut feeling, this person isn't going to perform.

But then part of me is just like, no, I see the spark. I just know that if they have this and we help them with that and let them run a little bit, and then the VP is like, well, you know what, you've got two weeks now. But I think the beautiful thing is, is when that person comes into our own and it comes into fruition and they smash it and they come out of it, you're like, told you. But it is that having to sit back and, you know, you're role in essence is sometimes to shield the team from either the politics or the stresses from above.

And I think what I had to do as a leader is I had very hard conversations with my VPs, but I didn't want to bring that stress onto my team. And you kind of shield it, which can be to your detriment as well, because the other side of the coin is sometimes you need to give them the hard truths. But if you try and sugar coat stuff, then it creates this false sense of security. And that's not good for any leadership.

So I think A question I would love to ask you is when you have to have those hard conversations, Kaian, how do you handle them? And like, how do you process that news when you like have to filter it down? Yeah, that's, that's a really good question. I think within our team ethos, one of them, uh, one of the points of that difficult conversations are part of the deal.

And that was the biggest fear of mine going into this, you know, how do I have difficult conversations? Setting that out from the start just allows me to literally start the conversation with. as you guys know, you guys have told me difficult conversations are part of the deal. Here's what's happening.

Setting that as a tone has been a bit of a, I don't know, perhaps a cheat code. Um, cause it just removes that, that stress of things. And I think another benefit that I have specifically here is that top down, I didn't know how much they know about individual reps and situations. And I know that it's not like that other companies.

Um, so for that reason, you know, I'm allowed to sort of communicate things quite effectively, or even people above me are willing to sort of give me advice on how we can fix things. Maybe in other organizations, VPs, head of sales, they look at the broad picture, they communicate to you as a leader, then you have to filter that down. But I've got the luxury here of having brilliant leaders who can probably work out the story behind the numbers to an individual person and allow me to communicate that back to them, which is good.

I love that. And I love how, you know, you know, part of the deal is hard conversations. So it kind of gives you the permission to have those hard conversations. And then I love how you say like, with those great leaders, they're able to see this, they understand the story behind the numbers.

Cause again, as you mentioned beautifully, like we're all human, right? And I think the thing sometimes I had to remind myself as a leader is we're not machines. And yes, we have numbers and metrics and we're measuring everything, but these are people. And everybody's different.

And I think even like coming to motivating people, not everybody's going to be motivated by money. Some people are looking for career progression or they're looking for recognition of their hard work. Or for some it is the monetary element of it, but understanding everybody's built differently. And I think, you know, in my opinion, what I felt was a good leader was somebody that has three hats, right?

So hat number one is they're the operational person. So they know the systems, they know the processes, they know how to create the numbers and calculations as to what needs to be done. And it's put clearly to you so you can understand it simply. The third, sorry, the second half is the manager.

So the person that is able to, you know, create the plays, the person who is able to, you know, help build a strategy. and get everybody on board in moving this forward. And they also understand the KPI element of it, right? What's the output needed and what are the numbers to make this stuff happen?

But the third hat, which is one I wore the most, is kind of being like that sales therapist. So the person that can connect with the individual on an emotional level and sometimes can say, let me just take my manager hat off for a minute and just say, kind of like, what's going on? Like, is everything okay? Are you okay and cool?

And I think now as a sales coach, predominantly what I'm doing, that's the hat I wear the most. Coming back to that rep I was talking about where they had a fear of cold calling rather than doing the manager thing of, hey, let's do a role play with a cold call script and see where we're going wrong. It's the, what's the fear behind it? And I think wearing those three hats, not all managers like to wear those hats and not all do.

And I'm not saying you wouldn't be a good manager if you're not a leader. But I found the leaders that I've looked up to that have worked with me and got the best out of me. They've been able to do those things. So I'm just wondering for you, Kai, and like, how many hats do you feel you're wearing at the moment?

And like, how do you manage those different personalities of you? That's an amazing question. It's so difficult, right? You've got these sort of top down approach.

You're looking at the whole team, the metrics where we're heading. Again, that's such a growth area for me, Neil. I'm able to look behind this to the stories behind the numbers, but. you know, it's so easy just to say we could do more of this or we should do less of this.

You've got the therapist, which was an interesting one because I knew that was a role that I was going to wear, but probably someone like yourself, I'm such a fixer that the biggest lesson I've learned from that is that some people, you just, you're just the venting board. You don't have to actually fix it. Three days later, they may feel, well, they usually do feel completely fine about that. Even if it is a work related thing, you don't have to be the fixer.

You may not like this change or this sort of workflow that we're using. I know possibly there's more an efficient option. Initially I was showing them that efficient option, the data behind it. Sometimes, look, I'm just here to listen.

I do not have a solution for you. So that's like a big, big learning for me. And then you just have the, I would say like environment set up. I can't make the calls for you.

I can't prospect for you. But I can definitely try to create the environment, you know, for us to win, whether that's initiatives, whether that's introducing us to top performers, whether that's things we do as a team, prospecting blocks, calling blocks. So that's another hat that I wear. And then something that we don't often speak of because it's all about the team is the hat that you wear when you communicate upwards.

That just has to be bullet point, precision, quick outcome, solution focused. And that's another hat that, that you wear as well. You're right. You're so right there.

I love how you say like to create the environment for them because that is part of our job in leadership is to have a healthy environment where they feel comfortable. They feel supported. They feel seen and heard. And I also love your element of you don't have to be the fixer.

And I think for somebody, that's the thing I struggled with the most. Like, you know, we work in sales, there are problems and we have solutions. So we're always solution oriented. But you're very right.

Sometimes people don't want the answer. What they want to do is be heard and listened to and have that venting or that sounding board. And so I think leadership really helps you become, it helps you to become a better listener. Right.

Um, but I also agree with you. The thing that I struggled with the most was, you know, reporting upwards. Because I saw all the fluffy, cool stuff, like the wins, the love and all of that. And they're very cold, like no, no, I just need the numbers.

I need the metrics and I need it bullet pointed. So I think a tip. that I give to new leaders when they have to do that is if a VP or a head of sales is asking of something of you or a sort of report, the way that you can go into this, imagine you're that VP kind and I'm that new sales leader. I would ask you in a meeting, I'd say, right, I'm going to be reporting to you weekly.

Can you tell me the three things that are most important to you within that report? What is it that you want to see? But can you also help me understand why you need to see as well? And also in terms of how do you want it communicated?

So do you want to have like a weekly sync where we talk about it or do you want it on an email or do you want it on a Slack or, you know, I could even do an asynchronous video or do you just want the dashboard? Tell me how you want it. But then to take it a step further, especially if you're brand new to this and you're not all cool with the CRM and you don't know it all up to date, ask them to send you an example of what they expect on an email. and then they can show you the bullet points and numbers, and that does two things.

One, it enhances your relationship with that leader, so you know what they get, but then it teaches you how to do the thing. So that when you're that leader and then you've either got the team lead that's coming up through the ranks, you can then say, right, this is how I expect to the report it, and this is what I need, and this is a format, so it helps both ways. Yeah, I had those fears of, I don't know numbers, I'm not really a metrics guy, so what is it that you want? I think a great leader is not scared to ask questions, you know, in fear of not looking like competent for the role.

We're all learning, right? But yeah, what's your thoughts on that, dude? No, that's huge advice, you know, that's something that I'll be definitely taking on. In reference of that as well, one thing that I didn't think about is Some things are more important than others.

So yeah, we could be doing many amazing things. We could be lacking in tons of areas, but that three most important thing comment that you made is huge because again, it comes back. If we go back down to the team, we could be lacking on building urgency in our deals. We could be lacking in objection handling.

What is the most important one right now? What is, what's the top three? Cause if I start coaching on all of these areas, it's not going to be very useful. Reporting upwards, there could be various goals.

We know the underlying one's most likely revenue, but below that, there could be a few things. What's the top one? What's the top three? How do I communicate that?

That's a huge learning for me as well. I think that's brilliant advice that you've given there too. Thank you, sir. I appreciate you.

And with today's shows, we're speaking about going into this leadership. Are there any other topics on mind? that you're feeling strongly about or working on at the moment? Definitely.

Mindset is huge for me on my podcast as well. I try to speak about that with my team. As you mentioned, Neil, we are all human. There's a story behind the numbers.

There's a story behind why someone might be late. There's a story behind even why someone might have their phone out in meetings. It may look like they're not concentrating, but they may have a family issue. We need to understand that as people.

before we sort of jump into things or try to provide solutions or criticize someone. So mind is huge with me. I try to make my team aware that we're essentially all the same. You're the same as someone who is top of the leaderboard.

The only difference is their mind. What's the reason for that? They've been here longer. They think differently.

So they prospect at different times. They target these types of companies. How can we use our minds for our benefits? And more so when our mind does take control of us to make us think, I don't want to do this today, or I can't do this today, or I've had a bad morning or family issue.

How can we be disciplined enough and self -loving enough firstly to recognise that, but disciplined enough to do what we have to do? And these are all things that I'm very passionate about with my team. I started for a weekly meeting by asking everyone how they feel. We're completely as transparent as we want to be.

But I think just by allowing us to talk about our losses, maybe some personal things as well, it's huge. We have to, we have to let it out at the same time. There's a balance. We have to be disciplined because again, we're, we're here to make the company money.

Eloquently put, Kayan. And I just wanted for our audience is as a reminder with Kayan and his podcast, this is the mental performance coaching. It's available out on Spotify. I will be putting links in our show notes to go check it out.

You've come across with a lot of amazing guests, including yours truly, but you've had some really deep conversations. And this is like a nice short snippet of a podcast where I've been able to listen to it whilst I've been in the gym or I've shared it with people that, you know, sometimes where I'm coaching and they're going through a hard time. And I know I'm not the guy with the answer or the best advice on that topic. I'm like, go check out Kyon's podcast.

So highly recommend it for our listeners, watchers and views. please go check it out. But one question I wanted to ask is, and this is more a selfish question, when I've been a leader and I've been doing my podcast in parallel, I think sometimes I've spoken to my rep about a topic and then I say to them, oh, I've actually got a podcast episode on that topic with another top performer in another company. And they said, you do a podcast?

And I'm like, yes, your manager does a podcast. It's on my freaking LinkedIn profile. What is it like with your team as a content creator? What are their thoughts as Kai and the content creator in creating content?

That's a really, really funny question. So I don't think my team listened to my content. But there are sales reps in other teams that do, which is really funny. So I'll have conversations about that.

They'll ask me questions. I don't really push my team to listen to it, which is, I don't know. That's good that you brought that up. No, I probably, I probably should do that more, but it's generally reps in, in other teams that that listened to it, which is still cool.

We still are by the coffee machine, like having chats about it. I love that. I think you're right because it's balancing that thing of that, like medium of content. isn't like sales training or like sales methodologies that we're trying to impart on the team.

And there was part of my ego, which is like, I don't want to push something down their throat, which isn't something they've come across themselves. And you're right, it is for other people, but I've been able to pull it and then say the way that I positioned it is look, these are words not from your boss. And it's actually not from somebody internally within our company, but this is somebody that looks like you and another company. that was going through the same thing.

So there are things, you know, to learn within that, but they have to be with the one that wants to actually go listen and watch that. And sometimes my readers will be like, no, I don't do podcasts. I don't listen to them. Cool.

Cool. Not to worry. But before we wrap up today, which is, it's been a beautiful episode and having you back on. Before we go to our typical questions at the end, the other bit I wanted to just get from you is, you know, that you're going, you do public speaking.

And this is something you're doing more and more on. And I saw you like speaking at the ARR Artist Circus with Dominic and crew out in Germany. That's freaking awesome. Well done, bro.

I was wanting to do that, but you know, life got in the way. But then, but for anybody that's listening, that's heard this show today and kind, you're saying you're somebody that does public speaking and you want to get more opportunities of that. Why would somebody Well, what would be an opportunity for Kynan to come and speak to them? Like what topics could you talk about?

What would you like to help with? Let's like give you a little platform here, dude, of things of attracting into your life. Yeah. Why would we get Kynan to do a speaking session?

Yeah, no, that's a good question. Main topic at the moment is anything to do with the mind. And I'm continuously trying to grow my knowledge on that. I think what makes me stand out is that I'm very disciplined as an individual contributor that's been reflected in my results.

There's been. continuous quarters where not just a hit in record numbers, but in terms of activity, I've had like the highest activity in the, in the entire company out of 19 odd teams of BDMs in one quarter. And that's largely due to the fact that I believe we all go through things at various different levels, but that's a testament as to how I'm able to repetitively maybe do the same thing each day, which makes me stand out as a speaker. I look at it like we have creative.

artists when it comes to writing, and I look at myself as a creative speaker. So when it comes to the mind or cells, there are various things that I think of. I do write them down, but I find it more effective sometimes to speak about them. And that's just how I feel.

And alongside AI Artist Festival, I actually spoke at Odeon and Leicester Square. That was to family and friends. And that was around the topic of, you may have been for it, Neil, as well, to be honest. And I think maybe most people do, but for the listeners, if you...

or a version of yourself, let's just say 10 years ago and you meet a friend or a colleague and you've changed in so many ways and some of the things that they say or some of the jokes that they make refer to that person and you get a bit triggered by that. Maybe you were the lazy one or the class clown one or maybe you were the corporate one and now you're a bit more mindful and you want to jump out of that world. and why those comments or why those interactions trigger you, I explored that topic.

So that's what I mean about creatively thinking, thinking about life's elements, interactions, and us as humans, and then bringing that to life in a speaking form rather than maybe a written form or maybe, as you know, you may put them in music, lyrics and create a song. I don't have that talent. So my version is how do I create a talk track surrounding it? So that's why I think that's why I'll be good for any speaking opportunities around those subjects.

Love that. And 100 % vouch for Kyne there. And yeah, there is that thing of 10 years ago and that, Neil, that's triggered now today by those comments. So again, Kyne, if anybody is listening out there and they want to kind of like book you in or like discuss about you coming to do perhaps a keynote, what's the best way to get in touch with you, sir?

Brilliant. So I've got my website, which is kyanburke .com, k -y -a -n -b -u -r -k -e .com.

I've also got my LinkedIn, which is kyanburke. Also Instagram, which is kyanburke1. And that would be a great way to get in contact with me, even for a chat. Love that.

And again, all of these links will be put into the show notes and I'd highly recommend and encourage and vouch for Kayan. So please go connect with him, pick his brains on any of the topics we've discussed today, or if you're looking for a public speaker for your next event. So Kayan, coming to the end of this show today, rather than three, I'd like to put it into perhaps one. If we were to go talk back to the Kayan on the 26th of September, 2023, when you were last on this show.

And you also give that guy one bit of advice to help him on his journey to get to where you are today. What's that one bit of advice? Put me on the spot. That is a really good question.

My advice would have been to, it would have been to just stay completely disciplined, which I think I largely did. Obviously there's always room for optimization, but discipline to the point where there's going to be times where you think sales is not even for me. I'm completely done. But if you just.

do the same thing that you did yesterday, you'll eventually hit a win. At the end of the day, we do have different abilities. It is a numbers game. You can optimize numbers to your benefit in any way.

So it would be stay disciplined and push that extra mile. If you could scroll down and give us a rating and share this with your peers in the industry to get Kaian's message out and also to help us out on the LinkedIn, sorry, yeah, even if you may be watching this on LinkedIn, but also on the YouTube algorithm. If you can give us a like, comment and subscribe down below and perhaps maybe in the comment section, tell us the thing that stood out to you the most or perhaps your biggest question that you'd like to ask Kaian and that will help this content get out there and let the algorithm know that this is great content that's resonated with you today.

I'm your host at Nilbium for the SDR Disco Cool Show, Kaian Burke. A pleasure to see you back on our screen, sir. Really great talking with you. Now wishing you and your team, Mr.

Leader, a great and successful week and most importantly, kind and happy Saturday, sir. Thank you, Neil.