Speaker 1We all have that phone call that when it comes in, you go, oh, I don't wanna answer this, right? Don't be that person. How do you not be that person? Be a human. These are just people, like our clients. My clients are my genuine friends. I want to talk to them. I want to hang out with them throughout the years. We are friends because we've gotten to know each other on a personal level and same with my team, right? If you don't have that human connection and that ability to do that, your ceiling is only gonna be this high in many ways.
Speaker 2Welcome back to another episode of the Revenue Builders Podcast. I'm John Kaplan with my co-host, John McMahon. I met today's guest, Michelle Bovee, in my force management office in Charlotte. And it didn't take long to understand why the people who've worked for her and worked with her talk about her the way they do. Michelle is AVP of the East at WIS, running strategics, majors, and enterprise. Before WIS, she built her game at PTC, AppDynamics, and Zscaler, some of the sharpest sales cultures in all of enterprise software history. She's closed the deals nobody else could get into. She's mentored some of the best sellers in the business and become one of the best leaders in all of cybersecurity. In this episode, Michelle takes us inside what it actually felt like to win in the toughest times. What separates the best sellers and the best leaders she's ever worked with, where she sees AI heading in sales, and the work she's doing personally to bring more women into cybersecurity leadership. This is Michelle Bovee, AVP, WIS. So, Michelle, it's great to see you again. I think the last time we saw each other was in my Charlotte office with Michelle Bovee, AVP, WIS. I'm so excited to see you again. I'm so excited to see you again. I'm so excited to see you again. I'm so excited to see you again. I'm so excited to see you again. I'm so excited to see you again. Steve was it Steve Mullet it was yeah and uh it was the first time that I met you uh and it was I was really really really impressed so I'm thankful that you're on the podcast welcome
Speaker 1thank you so much for having me both of you are idols to me growing up so very cool to be here
Speaker 3thank you awesome hey so one thing girl grown up now I'm all grown up that's a little joke
Speaker 2that's right all grown up my older years one thing we didn't really talk about we were I don't we were just kind of rapid firing in the Charlotte office it was awesome having that conversation with you but I didn't really understand like your origin story like how you got into sales so do you mind starting there and then we'll kind of kick it off sure yeah that's great so I mean
Speaker 1growing up I was extremely competitive played every sport a little bit of a tomboy my family would say a lot of a tomboy and you know I just loved competition and my parents really said hard work is earned so in seventh grade they made me get a job I was a soccer referee making 30 bucks an hour and I understood that that was a lot it's still incredible job by the way just saying great pay especially for young kids but I really liked it and my dad was actually the ref coordinator for where I grew up in the hometown and he would say to me hey a ref just canceled can you ref this game you know let's see if we can do it and I would say yeah sure dad but for an extra ten dollars and he'd be like what and he knew just at a young age I'm hustling I would hustle people on the basketball court pretending I didn't play so I was like very into competition but also earning money and learned that if I wanted to go to the movies with my friends or if I wanted a new soccer outfit head to toe I had to go earn that money and do that so I started to learn about hard work and making money myself and then secondly while I was in high school and college and even coming to college I actually did a job at a three-person company and I was sales and there was a CEO and there was an accounting person crazy business and I just learned rejection really quickly how to go do sales by myself door-to-door and it was honestly very cool but also humbling at the same time and I started to love this but I realized wow each win led to more cash in my pocket and I love that feeling and then lastly I think this is really what did it for me for the rest of my life I think it's like okay so you know you like sales you know you're competitive you know you want to work hard to earn money but how does that go into software sales well my dad's friend told me that oh you know I'm in tech sales and what that means for me is I get to go to expensive dinners and I get to travel the world on work and I came from a place where we didn't really go on vacations growing up and we had spaghetti and meatballs five to seven days a week at home never really going out to dinner so I heard that and I said wow that's what I want that sounds incredible and I'm like incredible I haven't traveled anywhere and when I interviewed at PTC where you guys both know very well you know I was 21 years old I interviewed their biomedical sales um pharma sales and then PTC for software sales and they said to me I'll never forget Dave Coe that hiring manager said yeah you'll come get to come to something called sales kickoff on your first day of work in Las Vegas at the Wynn Hotel on Monday if you come here and I said what I get to go to Vegas and I went home told my parents they're like they're lying to you this doesn't sound real and I signed and on Monday I was flying to Vegas and it was the most fun week I couldn't believe it I just came from college which was amazing and fun to now this job and it was competitive it was you know all friends and people of similar competitive um feeling and yeah I started to go to restaurants I had my first bite of sushi at 23 I spit it up on the plate uh because I couldn't take the consistency but now it's my favorite thing to eat my teams know if if Bobby's coming in town we got to do sushi so I've come a long way I've learned some etiquette and yeah it's been incredible I love sales because it is how hard you want to work how disciplined you are that's what you're going to get rewarded and I if I could tell like any young kid out there I'm like get into sales it is the best career it is incredible what you can do and how you can provide for your family with it and it's so much fun and you're never really sitting at your desk all day you're doing a million different things so I love it I love that
Speaker 2I love that story give me your impression of like go a little bit deeper on some of these things that you would tell people especially like sales today what would you tell people that they have to have or other leaders what to look for um as it relates to sales so obviously the the personality traits that you're that you talked about of being you know very energetic very uh willing to learn and willing to work what else did you kind of pick up in some of your early career sure so I always say to be really
Speaker 1good at this job you have to be an organized obsessed psycho passionate person uh in the nicest way my husband knows I tell him I'm a psycho in sales but in a very calm psycho who's absolutely obsessed with what I do it is my passion so first is you know and there's actually questions and ways I can dig into this with reps about their passion and stuff like that but I look for a ton of different things I look for like ability a lot of people think oh it doesn't matter if you're likable it does people buy from people they like people want to work with people that they like and it's the biggest thing in deals is building champions and executive relationships and you can't do that if you're not likable so I always say likeability is a lot higher up on that list than people might think and then we talk about intelligence being not just the IQ but the also the EQ the empathy that you can have in your job because you're dealing with so many different relationships so many fast-moving parts and then you're dealing with so many different relationships so many fast-moving things and then there's many other things like discipline over motivation everyone can be motivated I can go motivate someone for a day or two or bring them to sales kickoff they get motivated coming out of it for a week but can that person when they come home from sales kickoff go actually self-assess their business every day from there on after right I have a rep Jake Alscher on my team who I don't ever have to check in with Jake I just know he's being harder on himself and critiquing himself more than I could ever check in with him and I don't check in on him because he is disciplined right he's not only disciplined on every day making sure deals are going well but he's also disciplined with his customers and customer obsession right he covers an account where he's selling to them and I already know he's sending me stuff from their annual report the other day where he's already sold to these guys he's you know very healthy with them but he's for fun at 9 30 at night reading their annual report about their business understanding how they make money and tying that back to whiz's technology like that when you find people that are really like that it's unbelievable and then the third thing is really human connection I talked about likability but human connection with clients I really look for that and what I mean by that is and just talking about Jake continuing this example right he covers a few accounts where he brings them together he will do dinners with both of them so that they can network together he helps them get promoted he is one guy that really wants to get promoted because the CISO is leaving and he's trying to help him get that promotion right he's caring about the people he realizes that they're people and it's not just a software selling to a company it's like no we're in this together we're trying to do this together and understanding that human connection is such a big part of it so you always hear the coachability and you know all those types of terms and those are important too but for me i'm just looking for someone who's so passionate who's customer obsessed and who is disciplined enough to go do this by themselves i'm going to be there to help our teams are going to be there to help but really can they go self-assess their
Speaker 2business and criticize themselves as well i want to pick up on the likability part that you said because it's really powerful i just had a conversation this morning with somebody and i thought the way you articulated it was so good i was struggling a little bit to to give the person the feedback on likability they weren't bad they weren't a bad person but how they showed up in front of the in front of the customer was it wasn't warm it wasn't open it wasn't uh it didn't have like capacity in the conversation and i found myself struggling like i am now to really describe what that likability means how do you find it like well how do you describe it because you know it when you see it but how would you describe it to like a second level leader who is recruiting on somebody that's likable yeah and and i'll even just say on your
Speaker 1piece right there that person might be likable in real life like talking you and him or her but the second you put them in front of a client they stiffen up they become a different person yes like where have you gone right we have some we have some reps like that where we've kind of shook in them and said hey i need you who's fun and loves to do you know this sport and do this with their family i need that to come through in the meetings because in the meetings you go from fun person to instantly like so business that it's almost a turnoff and a lot of people do that because they're afraid in the meeting and they don't know how to do it's like so i always say for reps and to teach them how to do that is in the first one to two minutes of every meeting we don't just jump into business we don't do this for eight minutes and waste a ton of time but the first minute we're humans we're asking people of course how their weekend was or if you saw something on their linkedin that they played soccer in high school or college or whatever and connecting or hey i saw you came from this company i work with them every day do you know you know john smith from this company oh yeah i do like you connect you drop the walls and once you get to the bottom of it you know you're like oh my gosh i'm going to do this i'm going to do this i'm going to do this i'm going to do this so there's a way to coach on it with reps too it's i've seen it uh very much happen but then also you know how to train our leaders to go higher talent of likability and people like that it's very hard but you have to do two things number one you have to ask interview questions that really gear towards that and that's for me i always ask like hey who's your best executive relationship or who's your favorite champion and hey if i need to call someone right now from your customers and say you know go who can i call to be your reference it has to be a customer not not a co-worker who are they going to who are you going to tell me and why walk me through that is you know and there's certain questions that rds or directors can go ask in an interview and then secondly i always say the beer test or whatever it is the lunch test whatever it is you might interview somebody and they are flawless over zoom or they are great on the telephone but seeing someone how they interact at a lunch is very different or how they interact bring a third person to that lunch see how they interact with somebody else you will know in that hour if that person can hang and be likable and other people want to speak to them see how they treat the waiter see how they treat the other co-worker whatever it may be and you can learn a lot from being in person with someone yeah
Speaker 3you're asking them to be themselves just asking them to be authentic and like you said sometimes they go in a sales call and you you do sit there and think what happened to him he was great 10
Speaker 1minutes ago in the car correct i have a cio somebody else yeah i have a cio that will tell me stop sending me these boring reps like we joke about it because i've worked at different companies and he's like put somebody on my account that's fun and that i can hang out with and want to go to dinner with i always say you don't want to be we all have that phone call that when it comes in you go i don't want to answer this right don't be that person how do you not be that person be a human these are just people like our clients my clients are my genuine friends i want to talk to them i want to hang out with them throughout throughout the years we are friends because we've gotten to know each other on a personal level and same with my team right there's plenty of people on my team that we are all such good friends and we want what's best for each other if you don't have that human connection and that ability to do that you're going to end up in a situation where you're not your ceiling is only going to be this high in many ways you're never going to get that huge deal you're never going to get that deal in the timeline you want and you're not going to get the career progression you want is either because you don't have those internal champions you have
Speaker 3to have to pick up the phone when i was calling but i was calling about the forecast and he was like oh my god i gotta take this call this is awful exactly now those are different i feel bad
Speaker 1when my that's a whole nother podcast that's a different call you know i'm gonna change this i'm
Speaker 2calling it the robo test i first of all all joking aside i really love how you're talking about this topic because there's some people that will say oh relationship selling or oh you know you got to be more business like and you got to be mature you gotta all those are true and correct but it's almost like you know relationship selling has gotten like uh have you ever heard feedback when somebody says oh that person's a relationship seller and i'm like yeah what does that mean like so i love i love how we're talking about this mine was the robo test and you just helped me make it like i think the lunch or the beer test the robo test for me and i'd always write it down on a piece of paper if i got stuck in the middle of a lake with this person in a robo without any oars great question would i stay there or would i freaking and i'm not a great swimmer would i jump in anyways just to get the hell away from this person right but you've brought in something that's my likability but it's not it's not the interaction that they have with others so you could see how they can modulate it so bringing another person in or going to lunch or going to that environment i think that's really wise i like that thank you
Speaker 1and i will say we do the same thing on retainment right you're always looking at your people who's the best who do we want to keep who's not doing well should we move them out whatnot right you want to be surrounded with a talent everywhere i always ask my rds there if they're on the fence about a rep i say if they quit tomorrow what would your call be to me would it be i'm so excited they're gone or would it be shit we just lost this person i'm devastated or is it somewhere in the middle that tells you a lot so i ask people on the spot if this person quit tomorrow what are you going to feel and if it's oh my gosh my world is over okay then you need to go sit down with that person and have a conversation dig into their why again make sure they're happy figure out how to retain them figure out you know recognition is so important um you know we talk about money is everything for reps but i was talking to one of my vps tj o'Shea about this he says recognition is just right after money for a lot of these people sometimes recognition even more than money so retaining the best is not just about them making money but also and that's a whole different topic but giving them the recognition that they deserve what about the like the the
Speaker 2feedback that you just gave to that manager how how do you help them to retain them how do you help managers understand how to be intimate enough with their reps to be able to answer that question like i'm sure that question puts a lot of people off they're like well the number they think about the number the gap they're either helping me or they're hurting me how do you get them to think about that uh yeah you know that that connection of what that person means to the team what they mean to customers because that's not always intuitive right it's
Speaker 1not just if someone's hitting their numbers right i've been i put myself in rep shoes a lot just because i was a rep and i remember those days like yesterday and i remember watching peers of mine have you know maybe an easy path to their number easy to 200 no problem and that's okay that's what it is based on timing territory talent and then myself working day in and day night still at zero percent and i'm like how is this happening and i say that because i remember working harder and knowing i worked harder than some reps that hit way more percentage than me because i was like i'm not going to be able to do this i'm not going to be because maybe the timing of the territory just hit different and i try to put myself in those shoes so when i talk to the rds and if i have a rep that's underperforming maybe they're underperforming because the timing is off in their territory and let's go dig into their accounts so we'll set up i've done a ton of skip levels where i myself will get on with the rep and i say hey walk me through your patch what are your top prospects and what are your top existing accounts let's bring up org charts let's talk through it who are you talking to who are you just internal deal strategy or account strategy uh sessions with the reps and we can usually determine if this rep is really trying hard and just not having luck and maybe coach them on how to go alter their route so that they can get back on track or we figure out wow they are not doing the job they are not prospecting like they should be they are not going to meet with clients which is something we demand especially in existing accounts they're not doing qbrs they're not doing whatever it may be we coach them we help them and document it and then if they come back a month later and they haven't done anything that we just gave them a whole list of coaching to do we know that person probably needs to move out if we give them that list of things to do when they come back a month later and show that great progress we know hey it's not a work ethic with them they just need to be coached and now we're going to help them and get them back on track so there's different ways to coach around it and then i also say to people you got to build trust with them right being an rd is one of the hardest jobs and i think people look at the rd job and say i'm just going to go hire people that i can coach people that i'm really much really better than so that when they start i can coach them and help them every day mistake i say go hire people your goal is to hire people that are better at sales as a sales rep than you when i was an rd at zscaler i took over this team of legends okay and these are guys i had it was all guys in the team at the time and i took them over and these were reps that have sold more software than me times 10 and that's intimidating for an rd because you're thinking oh i'm going to come in i'm going to help them sell i'm better at being a rep than them that's why i got promoted no you get promoted for other reasons and you have to humble yourself when you become an rd but secondly i could have said oh i'm intimidated by this and back away instead i leaned in i sat down with them one-on-one each of them i said i hear you're really good at this what do you need out of a manager this is what i'm really good at when i was a rep i'm a brand new leader this is where i think i can help you but where do you think i can is to help you win more these are my strengths and they would put me in here and there one of them was like i'm terrible at prospecting but i'm amazing once in the door i'll go close a massive deal the 90 of the way but i need help on the first 10 so i said perfect i'll prospect for you so like each person needs to be managed differently i had another person that said i'm not good in the executive suite i i can't get there as easy i'm more comfortable with the technical champions feature function i said great i'm going to help you get to executive so you have to as an rd really understand your team really understand their individual strengths and weaknesses and be open and transparent about yours as well don't pretend you know it all listen learn from everyone you can learn a lot from the people underneath you just as well as people above you and your peers so if you're humble about it and you learn from them and kind of just realize we're all in the same boat rowing the same direction trying to win as a team it's going to help you a lot but go try to hire that a talent and have the best of the best people that you can then by the way when you promote one of them now you start to create your tree of really good people that always work for you or with you whatever it may be and you're always winning together and it's great you made
Speaker 3a couple really good points here one is that most managers actually treat all their people cookie cutter exactly they think they can motivate them all the same way that they are developing them all the same way even though they learn differently yep have different strengths and weaknesses and what you did is you what you need to do is you need to be able to motivate them all the same you need to do is look at each individual completely different and understand their strengths and weaknesses and that's that assessment for people is really difficult at the rd level because sometimes they're the first they're a first-time manager and they've never done that before they know what they're good at and they think everybody else is good at the same thing that they're good at but they don't understand that you know everybody's completely different with completely different strengths and weaknesses and needs and securities or insecurities but what you did is you went in and you did a lot of work and you did a lot of work and you did a lot of and open up, open them up by asking them what I'm here to help you. Where can I help you? What are you strong at? And what are you weak at? That's an art right there because not a lot of people really want to open up to a manager and say, well, you know, I'm weak at getting the economic buyer and weak at prospecting. Right. That's really hard. So you did a great job there, you know? Yeah. I tell them you did a great job and not looking at them as like cookie cutter.
Speaker 1Exactly. Thank you. I will always say, I usually go first. I say, this is what I'm not good at. This is what I'm really strong at now. And then that usually helps, you know, lower that wall and let people in. And it's the same thing with clients. I tell them all the time, here's what I need. What do you need? But first let me explain my point of view. If you're just open with people and transparent, like it is not fake. We talked about authenticity a little bit. It is real. Like if you are real and just realizing we're all people trying to do our jobs the best we can and bring that. To these people and like actually get to know them and understand their why it'll be so much better. But yeah, I, I even hired when I was at Zscaler, a guy that I know if we took IQ tests, he would absolutely blow me out of the water, James Marshall. And I remember watching him in with the CISO, the top fortune five, and he blew me away. And I knew in that moment, I'm like, he is smarter than me and I'm a smart person, but he is for sure smarter than me. And that is someone that I want to keep taking, getting promoted. Now he's doing unbelievable. I think he's number one RD there. And yeah, it's, it's incredible to watch people to grow and get what they deserve in their careers. But I always say to RDs, go hire better people than you. That is your goal. Not people you can just go.
Speaker 3That's the old saying, you know, A's hire A's and B's hire C's.
Speaker 1It's so true.
Speaker 3It's so true.
Speaker 2On that, on that authenticity piece, how do you, let's take a little use case of the early frontline manager. That struggles to show authentic self. Like they got promoted there. They are a workhorse. They've done their job. They've paid their dues. Kind of like you, we, we didn't really talk about it, but in the beginning of your career, I know you talk about winning ugly and, you know, you didn't, you didn't, it didn't expect the best patch. You didn't have the best patch. And then when you get to that role, you get to that role of the frontline manager, you get to that role of the leader. You kind of forget that people are on their own journey and you just have these expectations. How do you coach authenticity for another frontline leader?
Speaker 1Yeah, I, a few scenarios come to mind with me. And we've had these and they have actually done a 180 in this sense. So the first thing is, is you have to be direct. You have to give direct feedback to this leader and saying, Hey, I know this might sound tough, but I'm going to let you know, people around you. Like that, or you're not authentic or that you're in it for yourself or they're having issues. You're stiff. You like, whatever it is, you're not a likable person right now. The good news is we can possibly change this, but here's some examples of what they're seeing and who's saying this and why. And we kind of go over those and you do it super direct and authentic, but you say the good news is we're ahead of it. We're going to try to fix it. Here's how I think, but I want to hear from them. Like, what do you think of this feedback? Do you think it's accurate? And once people start to hear feedback, it's like myself. I ask every day to good Mark and Ernest that I'm like, give me feedback. What am I not doing? Right. I asked my VPs it too, that report to me. I'm like, what can I do better? What do people say about me? That what, where's my blind spots? What are people saying behind the scenes that I'm not good at? Like I asked for it probably too much, but once you get feedback and hear it, you instantly are just, it, it hits you in a very good way. And then you go, let them reflect on that for a few days and come back. And then you go, let them reflect on that for a few days and come back. And then you usually when they come back, they'll say, wow, you're right. This is missing. I could be better on this. And then we talk about solutions. So you don't do all of it in one day. You really give people time to soak it in and hear from, you know, hear their thoughts over a few days. And then once you do that, then you go put together a plan on how do we help you become more likable? Maybe it's as simple as going on camera more or doing a team dinner with your team, doing something outside of work that has nothing to do with the forecast. Maybe it's on a one-on-one one, right? RDs sometimes get on a one-on-one saying, what's the forecast? What's this deal? No, that's not what a one-on-one is for. A one-on-one is for asking them how they're doing. How is their life at home? What did they do over the weekend that they're passionate about? Whatever it may be. Then it's digging into how's the job going? What help do you need? How's it, how are you feeling about your year? How do we help you get to 200%? It's more of a human conversation than it's a forecast. And I find a lot of leaders that struggle with authenticity really just talking about the business and revenue, and they're not actually taking a step back and learning about this person and their personal life and their personal goals and their why and how they're going to go do it this year, but then next year and really having that whole, everything tied into one. So there's ways to coach it. If you dig in, you'll see it. And then you document with this RD, and then you check in weekly, you have the ecosystem help you, and then you can see a 180. And we've seen it happen with RDs actually many times it was, now they're doing great and they were able to be coached.
Speaker 3When you're not around and we open up the book on you, what does everybody say when you read the book? And they're like, well, okay, we'll take a guess, you know? And what's interesting is as humans, we all have flaws, but we think that some of them are hidden from other people. And some of them are obvious to other people. What a lot of people don't realize is a lot of those hidden ones they think are hidden are actually obvious to people. And that's where they, that's where they go wrong. They think they're hiding this flaw from people and everybody knows all about it, but they don't think everybody knows about it. And when you tell them everybody knows about that, it kind of, it really helps them, you know, say, come to terms
Speaker 2with it, like deal with it, change it. I think there's a, I think there's a connection there between like vulnerability attracts vulnerability. Meaning if you're trying to help somebody be likable or to be more, you have to demonstrate it yourself because it has to be like, it becomes more that way. So when I struggle with people that are either not being self-aware or not being honest with themselves, I think instead of just calling that out for me, I try to give them the example for myself and vulnerability and just open the door a little bit. Because I know my history and my presence or whatever, I've just, I've got enough feedback in my life of my voice, my, you know, I'm a smaller person now. Johnny doesn't say that I am, but I'm a smaller person than I used to be. That's all part of the way that you approach people. What I found is if you're not vulnerable, if you're not authentic, you won't see it back.
Speaker 3But also they have to believe if you're the manager, it can't be like you're just asking, as Michelle said. Just about the forecast and about other things. And it's all like business, business, business, but they have to believe that you have their best interests at heart. That's how you get to resonate with them and get to get them to open up. If they don't believe that you have their best interests
Speaker 2in heart, at heart, they're not going to open up. They're going to be looking for evidence. That's a great, that's a great discussion. Johnny, I'm about to throw you over.
Speaker 3Oh, no, no. I got one more for her. She brought up. Well, she touched on it. A lot of times you do a skip level and you go down to the first line manager and you're wondering why one of the reps aren't making it or two of the reps aren't making it. And you start asking questions and dissecting things. And all of a sudden you realize I got a problem with the first line manager. Then this territories are not divided evenly because they have one rainmaker or two rainmakers. And when they say we're going to divide the territory, the rainmakers go in the office and say, if you do that, I'm going to quit. So then they never divide the territory equally. And there's two reps that are just suffering because they don't have a good territory. That's so big. I've found when you have to uncover, like, why is a rep not making it? Is it really the rep or do I need to look at the manager also? Because it's too easy in sales and you hear it all the time to say, oh, it's just a bad hire. Get rid of them and toss them out the door. But what did you learn? Did you, did you, did you hire the wrong person? Were you unable to develop that person? It's one of those two, right? It can't be that you don't take any accountability for that. You have to take
Speaker 1accountability. Yeah. I'll even give you an example. When I took over a team and I was a first line leader, my first day, they said, you got to go fire that rep. And I said, okay, give me some data. First I need data, then context. And I got the data. The data looked good. The data was okay. Let me go do some digging myself. Cause this person was doing well, but not great. And I said, I'm going to go have lunch with this guy. But before I have lunch with this guy, I'm going to go call his SE. I'm going to call the ecosystem. I'm going to learn about him. And I went, and then I had lunch with him. And after this lunch, I realized, oh, this guy does not need to be fired. He just needs help with one thing. And we're going to help him with this one thing. And guess what? He went to president's club. I think, you know, after year after year and has absolutely crushed it, but it's sometimes just getting a different leader in number one. But like you said, John, also looking at the territory and making sure they're set up for success. And then third is, have you actually tried to coach this rep and find their gaps and help them get better because we all need it. And if you do those things, you know, you could keep them and then have an A player on your team. And he was an A
Speaker 3player for me. I had the same thing. I walked into a company and the chairman of the board and the chairman of the board said, you know, you have to fire two reps. And I said, well, why didn't you fire him? Well, you have to fire him, blah, blah, blah. And I said, I'm not firing them. Yes. I got their resumes. I made them take the profession profiles, international tests against everybody else. And they turned out both to be super smart. Right. Right. And then I started doing more homework and I came to the realization after I interviewed him, talked to them, I had a problem with the manager. I got rid of the manager and they both made president's club. Exactly. They changed their careers and they went on to be chief revenue officers. I would have killed their careers if I was lazy and just thought, yeah, okay, you said so. So that means I should just get rid of this person. I can't stand that. I hate
Speaker 1that. Yep. I've had the opposite too, like similar to you of where I've come in and I've actually realized the RD is the problem. And I said, I'm going to go fire the RD instead of the reps. And then I dug into that and that is what we did instead. So. And guess what? All the reps on
Speaker 3that team were so happy that you did that. Exactly. Hey, you guys started this conversation on,
Speaker 2you know, skip level. And I want to, that just reminded me of a scenario that I heard about a couple of months ago that really bothered me. So this one third line manager, let's say, likes to do these skip levels. And, and it's a great concept of Michelle, I'll have you talk about it. And, but I think this person was doing it very poorly. So they were doing skip levels in a secretive way, in a, uh, in a way that what came out of them, those conversations was utilized in poor context back with the manager and what that person actually did when they gave me that example, I was like, you just alienated two people in your organization with your skip level. You didn't let the person know what you were doing and why you were doing it, which is fine. But if you're going to go in and use information and then come back and tell them, Hey, I was talking to this person. So I think you guys are getting the drift of what I'm talking about. Give the audience some advice on how to be intimate with your entire organization, but not alienate people with your
Speaker 1position. I can jump into just examples that I have. So I'll say I do skip levels all the time. So I'm a third line leader, right? So I have VPs, directors, and then reps under that. I'll do skip level with the RDs of course, but with reps is a whole different thing. Number one, I do it because maybe these reps are so good that I want to talk to them, see how they're doing it. So I can take, you know, nuggets from what they're doing and then go apply it to other teams that might need help because that rep is so good. Or I might do it to a new hire that's two months in and I want to check in on how they're progressing and see how things are doing or to someone that's not doing well. And I need to come check in and possibly give them direct feedback coaching so that we either move them out of the business or coach them to get better, right? There's all different scenarios of why you do skip levels or sometimes just to catch up to some, uh, with somebody, right? All different reasons. The biggest thing you have to do. And I tell my VPs, so I'll call the VP and I'll call the RD and I say, or I'll text them and say, Hey, I'm doing a one-on-one with this rep tomorrow. Anything that I should know or whatever, how are they doing? I get feedback from the RD and the VP and usually the SE leader. Every single time I go do these, just so that when I go into this, I kind of know what to aim for, what to ask. And if they're doing great, maybe, or, Hey, they need some help here. If they're doing great, maybe, or, Hey, they need some help here. So the first thing is you have to prep. It's almost like prepping for any type of meeting you go into with a CIO. You prep for that meeting. Same with skip levels. You should prep. So there's always prep. Then once you do these meetings, it's very important to kind of talk about why you're doing it and what I see, how these help. Like I will tell them, listen, I'm trying to get you to get into this prospect, or I'm trying to help you go expand this deal because these banks are doing it. And this is the only bank that isn't. So I want to understand why you're doing it. Why they're not help me understand. And it's usually good intention. And then once you figure out like, these are my goals. And then you hear their goals and you talk to them openly, then it's important to document. And once you document, then after that, you say, Hey, great session, let's do another one in two months or two weeks, whatever the timeframe is. But it's so important to then send that back to the RD and the VP to say, Hey, I'm circling back. This is what we did. This is how it went. These are the things I need you to coach this rep on what I'm seeing. And you fill them in. It's just, constant communication is the same thing as running a deal with a CISO and a CIO. We're always sending FYI emails. Hey, FYI, I just met with your team. This is where we are in the POC. This is where we are in the process with procurement. We expect things to wrap up by the end of next week. The same way you keep executives informed at the C-suite relationship. I'm keeping my leaders informed as well. And it's very important to do these. And I know my boss and boss's boss do skip levels with me. And I know they're probably doing the same thing and it's great. It works. And the other big thing about like culture and this whole org about skip levels is we kind of have this flat org where we do all want to help each other, right? Mike Ernest will jump on a hundred thousand dollar deal call. He's our worldwide head of sales. Dave Goodmark is on client calls all day, ranging from 50 K to 50 million. It doesn't matter. We are all here to help each other, but you have to just realize that these skip levels are so important, but you have to document so that you can come back to something. And a lot of people just have a call, forget and never come back to it. You have to come back to it, document and realize where you left off as well for the next time you talk. I think the communication and
Speaker 3everything is so important. Like you said, Michelle, I just think about it. Like it's supposed to happen almost now. Like I'm not skipping levels. Like I'm making sales calls with sales reps. And if a manager is going along at the same time, I'm learning a lot as a third or fourth line manager as a CRO. I'm learning about what issues are they truly facing on the street every day? Who's the real competition what are those what are those issues and I'm starting to learn what my reps can do really well and things that they need help with you know so then when you're talking about okay how are we going to train and what are we going to develop them on it's not some cookie cutter stuff that you come up with three or four levels up in the organization you know exactly why you know you're training and developing those reps on certain issues because you know because you've been on those sales calls that this these are the issues that they're facing you know so I think it's it's more than just trying to help them out it's also you have to know what's going on at the street level otherwise you're just some desk absolutely undercover boss they made
Speaker 1a whole show about it and I'll just say I that goes in my mind every day and I actually have sent myself an email since I was a rep to my gmail with the subject line cro and it just would say like when I was 23 I was sending you know make sure new logo bonuses are a thing or you know or make sure it's sales kickoff you get to hear from the best people of your peers and I tell myself this stuff so that someday when you know possibly a cro I can go back and look at all of my advice from when I was a tiny little sales rep down to an rd to a vp to an avp and see all of that advice throughout the years because you're so right people forget what it was like to be a rep and that's why I'm close with a ton of my reps because every day I call them and I'm like hey am I missing this is this what it's really like tell me and I hear from them and it's so important you don't want to sit in your ivory tower just because you're a leader does not mean you're actually leading people you might be a manager sitting behind an excel sheet be a leader be out in front set an example get to know your people talk to people in every role doesn't matter what they are you can learn from everyone and yeah big big believer in that hey one last thing
Speaker 2I want to say on this skip love I love this conversation the thing that's important to me is when you are doing the skip level let's say or you're going to another level to speak with somebody it's not like I don't hold people accountable for what they say to me meaning somebody says you know well if I had a better territory I it's not my responsibility to take that information and then go to the other person say hey this person doesn't think they have a good territory I'm now in a position to be able to ask them why do you say that and I'm not going to do that talk to me about your territory what and and there's a saying that I always like to think about if I go to somebody and say hey Johnny or Michelle somebody said this about you I always think about that person saying to me why did they feel so comfortable telling you that and what that means to me is if somebody's going to talk crap about me to somebody who's supposed to be with me right why was it so easy for them to do that does that make sense it does and I think leaders I think leaders sometimes get that wrong they're like let me be the people's choice let me be the you know the woman of the hour and let me go down in here and like you know be the savior and then come back and hold people accountable you're not really doing what we said we should be doing from a leadership perspective I think sometimes people get it wrong like that's not your job right your job is your job is to do what you're supposed to do and you're supposed to do what you're supposed to do your job is to connect your job is also to help all through the ecosystem does that make sense
Speaker 3yep absolutely the reason I liked also going down to the street level all the time was you know if you grow in a company 100 a year you're constantly looking for people that can step up into the first line with your job and it's funny how you'll ask a lot of managers like do you have anybody that could be promoted right now we have like 10 more opportunities coming up in the next six months and they're like no no we don't have anybody that could get promoted because they don't want to lose their top people then all of a sudden you make the sales call with the person and you talk to them and you have lunch and dinner with them and you're like this person absolutely could be promoted right now they're holding on to them you know so you have to you have to go down to that level to figure out what's going on in your organization you have to so true that's such a good point
Speaker 2johnny like michelle even all the like you know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know like most like all three of us the the organizations we've been involved with have been so fast growing and so explosive that if you're not out in the organization which I want to ask you about michelle you know if you're not out in the organization you're just going to miss people being great you're going to miss people doing great stuff but that takes time and I know you got a lot of energy it's clear on this podcast since you got a crap ton of energy things that we've talked about thus far are take a lot of time how do you manage that
Speaker 1oh well I love to do a lot of things in one day I myself am very disciplined so I think some of it is you know how do you manage your time is it being effective versus busy very different things that people you can be busy and have meetings all day but are you being effective so I like to do a lot of things in one day I'm a psycho about it I wake up early I go work out you know I do my job I pass my job I go do prospecting for fun which sounds crazy on linkedin and I like it doesn't matter what it is then um you know other hobbies as well I try to fit a lot into a day every day I am not lazy so first it comes with the person being able to do a lot throughout the day um but also it just comes to like what I talked about earlier do you have that discipline and that almost self-assessment of your business that you're doing everything right are you really you're not doing everything you're not doing everything you're not doing everybody's talking about the three r's are you recruiting are you retaining and how's your revenue doing right you can self-assess and measure yourself every morning on those three things and then hold yourself accountable but also asking for feedback seeing how your numbers are seeing how you're doing against your peers there's so many ways to measure your success but time management is extremely important at my level um but also even at the rep level how are they going to go spend their day which is a perfect question too by the way in interviews or on one-on-ones how are you spending your time on a weekly basis and there's so many ways to dig into time management but well do you prescribe an
Speaker 2operating rhythm or do you help people get an operating rhythm how do you do it sure so I've seen some CROs or third line leaders that are like this is the operating rhythm we're doing prospecting on Tuesdays we're doing executive calls on blah blah blah how do you
Speaker 1what's your philosophy on that yeah so definitely there's science and there's art to every single thing that you do for work and I I have some leaders for example TJ O'Shea he reports to me who is very much process driven and what I mean by that is the forecast calls the deal reviews the operating rhythm whatever it may be and then I have Mr big deal Billy misterzo who is Mr art right this guy if you tell him there's a big deal out there trust me it's going to close and he's going to do it they are very opposite but extremely high level talent on both of them a plus players and they both do what they do so well well we've tried to combine that I mean that's the Dolly way the earnest way the Goodmark way we've all done this company after company science and art and science is what I talked about that operating rhythm we say PG Mondays but you're supposed to prospect every single day and you should you shouldn't be like Mondays come and sure you're getting prospecting out you're getting your follow-up notes you're getting your plan for the week but just because Tuesday comes if you go have a meeting with a company the second you leave that meeting you should say who else can I now prospect to within that company because we're selling a platform you're not selling a niche solution to one person at a company there's tens of thousands of employees you need to know more person than one VP of cloud security you need to know who runs the sock you need to know who runs development or engineering or AI or who the CISO is the CTO the chief architect there's so many people to meet so when you get out of a meeting on a Tuesday that you just had that was really good with a VP of you know engineering or a VP of cloud security your next thing coming out of that meeting is not only to send a beautiful follow-up but it's also to go prospect to more people within that organization and that's where science you can't get stuck in it sure PG Monday but PG Tuesday as well or when you're sitting at home and you're watching a show that you're not really into at nine o'clock at night guess what my husband and I both have our laptops open we've got LinkedIn going we're looking up people he's like I need to get to this person I'm like oh I need to get to this it's pretty sad but you know uh we get a little ADHD watching TV sometimes so we need to be doing something else and we're just looking through people and we're prospecting on a Wednesday night at nine o'clock at night so it's got to be that Psycho passion I talk about number one but you also have to take a scientific process that you have that you're really good at forecast calls every week of course you have to do those deal reviews very important so I have my leaders go look at their deals for current quarter but then also a quarter out top deals and they should do deal reviews and there's a deal review spreadsheet we have that asks 15 questions it saves time so a deal review that asks 15 questions it saves time so a deal review that asks 15 questions it saves time so a deal review that asks 15 questions it saves time so a deal review that asks 15 questions it saves time so a deal review that asks 15 questions it saves time so a deal review that asks 15 questions it saves time so a deal review It saves time. So a deal review isn't an hour, an hour and a half, but it's actually only 30 minutes. And it's simple questions like, what's the close date of this deal and why that close date? If you have a rep fill that out and they go, huh, I don't know why it's that close date. It's that instant self-assessment of their deal on their own. It's questions like, who's the EB? Have we talked to the EB? When is the last time we met with the EB? Who's your champions? When were you in person with them? Right. When was the POV started? When does it end? People are a lot of the time start a POV without an end date. So it's simple 15 questions that they ask and allows you to do deal reviews really quickly. It's a scientific process that works and we implement stuff like this at the company. Right. have that scientific process so I believe in both but the art the art is so much of it too and that is where if you want a sales team to be world class you not only do the science but you also know how to do the art and the art is all the things we talked about and being able to connect with people or going the extra mile so that when you walk into a room with six executives that you've never met before you know what companies they all worked at before what their LinkedIn says what posts they've made what articles maybe some of them have written you know everything about them personally but then you know everything about them professionally you know what their you know internal org looks like you know who reports to who you know what things they're working on and then third is you know the actual meetings that are happening between my team and their team so if you walk into a meeting you can be able to not only know them personally professionally but you actually know what our teams are doing in order to go do a deal so there's so much to it but um at a high level I would say that's kind of what I would say
Speaker 3Talk to us about what's going on in AI what do you what are you what are you seeing the way in which AI is affecting your sales process or your sales people or your interface with customers or your research on customers Sure What are you seeing so far?
Speaker 1Yeah so I mean AI is only helping it's not hurting it's also creating an advantage I think for people that want to be more in person and do more of the art because a lot of people say oh I can get a lot more done just being on five zooms in a day than going traveling three hours to a meeting or taking a flight and going to that in person so a lot of people think I'm just going to do zoom meetings I'm going to do have AI take my notes and write me an email that works that works really maybe well in smaller deals that you're trying to balance out. You know 10 transactions a month for that rep but if you're a rep that has strategic accounts or bigger deals that you're trying to work that is going to get you a little bit of the way but not at all um not at all all the way there at all like if you have a rep that says you know I have a rep right now that I think Jamie Dara spends in retreat they spend all their time in person with customers on site all day all day that is all they're doing almost more so than. You know the internal emails and all that it's like no no they're just in front of customers every day I think they're on a plane every day they're flying to go meet with executives and champions and procurement people it doesn't matter they're doing the deal in person and they're closing massive deals quarter after quarter year after year never missing. And their customers love them right so I think AI is going to help especially do those smaller deals and companies that are trying to land and expand you know tons of transactions in a month but if you're doing more strategic. You have to be in person and that's going to be your competitive edge because your competitors might think I'm just going to do everything over zoom or over remote whatever it may be but instead if you go in person you're going to have an advantage you're going to build real human connections and people are going to buy from people they like when they actually understand your win right at dinners that we do we make jokes about this there was a no boo dinner that sorry Mike Ernest I went to approval for it cost $7,000 and we laugh about it I know I'm sorry. Him and Dave did approve of it so thank you guys but what happened was is that dinner was very expensive but the ROI on that dinner this company did six deals with us in a year and a half after that and did so much revenue one of the most highest revenue revenue generating accounts for our company and it was worth all of it of course times 100 and we look back and we say it was one of the best meals of our life of course and we all remember it together with the customer and we still talk about to this day. But also at the same time that's priceless right that is not what you're going to get from a remote meeting you're going to learn about these people I know everything about their lives they know everything about my life and we're friends and we're good people because that dinner was breaking bread essentially so it's extremely important and it's priceless and yeah my finance department probably loves my expense reports but the revenue is fine we're doing just great.
Speaker 3You know we had a rep on here called Dan Simon he just wound up going he was like the number one rep at Glean he just went. Over to cursor I just saw on LinkedIn but yes and what's your competitive advantage well I'm using AI to do research on my individual customers and my and the companies that I call on but my second biggest advantage over anybody else's I show up in person every day exactly it's powerful this is such a huge point that you guys are making because when we really look at AI today.
Speaker 2AI today. It's based on transcripts and and technology that is created because you're not in person mostly I'm sure that it's going to take off and be able to do mobile things and I know but when you really think about it most people when they're talking about AI efficiency they're talking about a non in person conversation and so I really like what you guys are saying because there is a balance. And I'm sure the technology is going to catch up but there is an absolute balance for me is that that what you are describing Michelle is the art of the job. Is not going to be replaced by AI. It will there will be suggestions there will be thought leadership on how to how to do that art but I don't see that art going away now I also. See a lot of companies. That don't really understand sales that are saying why in the hell would I spend $7,000 why would I look at the travel if we could just get people to do all this over zoom if we could you know and I think Johnny what do you call it being on the right or the wrong side of history on the right side of the wrong side of this AI thing I've got a wrong side of history basically yeah so it's the art and science the way you said it Michelle I think is it's it's always going to be around I'd be remiss. Yeah. Go ahead.
Speaker 1I'm sorry, just on that point I'll say two quick things number one, AI is wonderful for building decks, helping us articulate feature function of value for the company putting all your notes in asking to do that right, but when you're sitting across from somebody at a dinner, a C suite of this account and you're trying to dig in to saying like, why would you even buy something like was can you help me understand the pain that you're going through walk me through an example, and then you're being audible ready for their. answer and then going, you're, you're knowing when to ask certain questions, you're knowing how to read a room, which is something that we as humans can do, and when to ask questions when to ask hard questions, because asking hard questions is absolutely something a great rep does and you have to do it, but a lot of people are afraid to do it, AI is not going to go do that for you, you have to read the room of when the right time is to ask a hard question and dig in a second and third level question on that. And then the second thing is, AI is going to be great shirts. It's going to help you go sell deals but there's been many times even just at our current company where there was a deal forecasted for let's just say, a million dollars right, we ended up closing it for 4x that 5x that and true story, we closed it on a shorter timeline and we closed it for four to five x and there's many deals like this that happened and it's because we were humans about it. We found out what was wrong we were missing those executive champions we were missing the why they were doing this, and their ideal future state and how to map that back to feature function like we actually went in and did almost like we always say salesman is a tough title for us because I always feel like we're consultants, and we went in map to their current state to future state understood it met with a ton more people we weren't single threaded anymore, and we went and went and did a much more massive deal and we did on a shorter timeline. So, that is important too and that's also the human element that's going to bring in versus AI.
Speaker 2Hey, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about this because we've talked about it. We've talked about it privately, but I want to set the question up, the hardest part of your job or career. And I know you have an interesting answer.
Speaker 1Yes. Okay, the hardest part so I will say this before I say that I'm a very stress free person, things don't really stress me out. I love my job, I don't find things hard I find it exciting if something's new I'm like, let's go tackle it. There's always a solution right so the job itself, easiest could be not too hard. Not too easy, Dave don't increase my quota to my boss wink wink. But what the hard part and it is a great technology that's the, that's the other thing sell a great technology and your job is a lot better so pick the right company with the right technology. I'll just side note on that. I had a customer say to me, your job must be so easy you get to sell whiz and I said yeah but you don't understand what a quota is. So the client didn't understand that I had a massive quota but yes it's a privilege to sell incredible technology. Anyways, that's all the easy stuff. The hardest part of my job is being a female in this space, and what I mean by that, and I've kind of told you that before is you know, I'm young, I, in my mind I wish I was 22 but I'm 38 years old female in this role, and two things usually happen number one, when you go take over a new company like whiz right I come in, I'm a third line leader. I have people where I'm their first female boss. Number two, I'm. I'm their first female boss that's 1520 years younger than them, and I'm their first female bosses bosses boss right, so I have to walk into a room and instantly build credibility, build trust and say, Hey, I'm in this role for a reason. And here's why, but I don't over rotate on that. It takes time. We talked about this earlier on things taking time. This takes time and you have to let people get to know you and get to see how you work and that I care about people a lot. I do probably too much. Um, but then I'm also hard on people as well. As a Dolly says, I'm black and white, no gray area, but I definitely think for me, the hardest part is walking into a new org and I have to go prove myself to everyone of why I'm in my role as a female who manages right now. I manage three VPs, 10 directors, all male and have to prove to them why I'm in my role. And then secondly, just being a female on part of that young female, we walk into most rooms. Most of my customers, I'd say 95% are male and being able to walk into a room of a brand new group of people and make it known that I'm actually the leader, not the, you know, marketing person or the EA or the sales rep. I've had crazy things said to me in my time that are the funniest stories ever, but people just instantly are like, Oh, who's that? What's in the instantly make a judgment. So you have to just prove yourself every room that you walk into, I think. And it's hard, but it's also a challenge and it's fun. And then once you do, you really have the trust from your team and they know that you're your true intentions and your authentic self. And they know that I'm here to help them. So it's actually great when we're done, but it is probably the hardest part of my job.
Speaker 2And you co-hosted, you have like an executive dinner thing that you've done in the Boston area, because I'm sure that a lot of people are perking their ears up here on this conversation. And again, I said this to you and I really feel compelled to say it again. When I first met you, you didn't impress me for being a woman. You impressed me for, you know, through the person that you brought to my office that, that brought you to my office, who I know really, really well, and how that person was speaking about you, whether you were male or female, you were an incredible boss. And I told you, I think I reached out to you a couple of weeks ago and I played golf with those two birds that still talk about you. And one person doesn't work for you anymore. I really think that your, your, you know, perspective is, is incredible. Are you doing anything more on those dinners? You started something in the Boston area with 17 other kind of women leaders in technology. Is there anything more to that?
Speaker 1Yeah. So there's a few things. So we definitely run CISO circles now as part of WIS, and we're going to do a women's only one where it's just women CISOs, where we're going to get a bunch of women together for a day or two. There are some really bad-ass women CISOs in the state of Massachusetts and New York that can all come down. And it's, we actually did one in West Palm beach before we all flew down there. And it was incredible to not only just kind of hear what everyone else is hearing and going through in their careers, but we're, it's also nice to know that there's other people like me, because for me, if I'm being honest, I know I've used this word before. I know I'm a psycho about sales and passionate about this job. And I don't know many females of my friend group that growing up are like this, right? They look at me and say, I'm maybe doing something else and whatever in my career. And maybe this is too demanding and I'm always on a plane and I'm always traveling and I'm never home and all this stuff, but I love what I do. And for me, it was so nice to be in a room with 20 other women. These are top CIOs and CISOs of fortune 100 companies. And I'm learning, wow, it's okay to be how I am. And we're talking about how long did it take you to email after you gave birth? And they're like, oh, we put bets on it. How long will it take Michelle? Right? So, uh, it's good to know that other people are like us out there, number one. And number two, it's also great because, you know, there's plenty of guys that have my back that I've worked for and that have worked for me. And they don't look at me as a female like that. They just have my back and, you know, we'll do whatever it takes for each other. And we're a team and it's great. I'm maybe a little bit more empathetic than they are. And they're intense personalities. And I kind of say, Hey, let's take a step back. Let's be a little calm and cool. So it's good to have a mix as well. And we all know that it actually fits together
Speaker 2well. And it's, yeah, it's been wonderful. Michelle, you are such an incredible, passionate, talented person. Your reputation preceded you before I met you. I'm so glad that you came on today. I can't imagine, Johnny, how many companies are going to listen to this interview and you better get that. You better get that email, that email section with what to do when I'm a CRO. I have a feeling it's coming pretty quick. Well done. Thank you. I tell Ernest and
Speaker 1Dolly to lock you up before offers start coming. Perfect. Send Dolly and Ernest a text on that.
Speaker 3No, I'm just kidding. We won't have to. We won't have to, Michelle. I'm sure they'll get a lot of texts. Great job, Michelle. Really?
Speaker 1Good to meet you. Yeah. Great to meet you too. Thanks for having me. And I mean, this is great. Like I, I just love to honestly be here with the two of you since it's so funny to me. Like I'm a sports person. So there's the Tom Brady's, there's the Andrew Luck, the Peyton Manning's, the people that I admire on the quarterback level. And you guys are that in the software side. So thank you. It's crazy if I told my 22 year old self that this was going to happen someday. But it's really cool that it is. So thank you very much. And yeah, I appreciate the time. You're amazing. Keep it going. You're amazing.
Speaker 3Michelle and thanks Johnny Kapp. And thanks to everyone for listening to another episode of the Revenue Builders Podcast.
Speaker 4Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you enjoy the content, please subscribe, rate and review the show to help us reach more people. This show is brought to you by Force Management, where we help companies improve sales performance, executing the growth strategy at the best price. That's www.forcemanagement.com for more information.
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