The Exchanges

Q said about pain there. One of the biggest pains that I see enterprise sales leaders have is urgency. It's the, how do I get it done? How do I get it over the line? When you think about Biggest lessons on how to instill a sense of urgency in a conversation as part of that process. What works and what doesn't, and how do you advise those sales leaders listening?

A To drive urgency, what a lot of people are really good at is they're really, the greatest sales reps even are great at finding the pain, quantifying the pain, inserting their, you know, differentiators in the decision criteria. But they never ask, Hey Harry, when you have these pains, if you don't do anything, you don't try to solve these pains, who suffers and what suffers? And then Harry says, well, I would suffer because my job measure is tied to these pains, and if I leave it the way that it is, I'm gonna suffer in my job measure. I'm also getting website outages all the time, so that suffers, and maybe we don't get the, the company doesn't get the revenue that they need to get. When you ask those questions of who suffers and what suffers, and there's different ways of asking it, but that's essentially what you ask. I've now have implicated the pain. So now when I call Harry back next week, he says, ah, John, ah, it's, yeah, I, it's good to talk to you, but look, I'm really busy. I don't have any time. Well, Harry, hold on a second. Last time we spoke, you told me that if you don't solve the pain, here's what happens to your job measure, and here's what suffers in the company. Harry all of a sudden says to me, I got five minutes, what do you got? Next thing you know, I got, he's got 30 minutes. So, if you don't implicate pain, you can't drive urgency. You can't make it, you…

AI assessment note: “if you don't implicate pain, you can't drive urgency.”

Q said about pain there. One of the biggest pains that I see enterprise sales leaders have is urgency. It's the, how do I get it done? How do I get it over the line? When you think about Biggest lessons on how to instill a sense of urgency in a conversation as part of that process. What works and what doesn't, and how do you advise those sales leaders listening?

A To drive urgency, what a lot of people are really good at is they're really, the greatest sales reps even are great at finding the pain, quantifying the pain, inserting their, you know, differentiators in the decision criteria. But they never ask, Hey Harry, when you have these pains, if you don't do anything, you don't try to solve these pains, who suffers and what suffers? And then Harry says, well, I would suffer because my job measure is tied to these pains, and if I leave it the way that it is, I'm gonna suffer in my job measure. I'm also getting website outages all the time, so that suffers, and maybe we don't get the, the company doesn't get the revenue that they need to get. When you ask those questions of who suffers and what suffers, and there's different ways of asking it, but that's essentially what you ask. I've now have implicated the pain. So now when I call Harry back next week, he says, ah, John, ah, it's, yeah, I, it's good to talk to you, but look, I'm really busy. I don't have any time. Well, Harry, hold on a second. Last time we spoke, you told me that if you don't solve the pain, here's what happens to your job measure, and here's what suffers in the company. Harry all of a sudden says to me, I got five minutes, what do you got? Next thing you know, I got, he's got 30 minutes. So, if you don't implicate pain, you can't drive urgency. You can't make it, you…

AI assessment note: “if you don't implicate pain, you can't drive urgency.”

Q And so you desperately wanted to prove yourself to him?

A Yeah, I guess you could say that. And then, if we're getting into therapy session, which isn't too bad, it's also, you know, he grew up, never went to junior high school. His mom died when he was born. His dad was an alcoholic and left him and his brother on the streets of New York to fend for themselves. You know, as an example, I asked my uncle, my dad died at 48, my uncle lived to 93, but I asked him, like, they really didn't want to tell stories, but he told me that, you know, when they were 13 or 14, they got sent to a Farm out in Long Island, and the woman who was hosting them lost the farm and then went to the neighbor next door, farmer next to us, asked if you could take these kids in, and he said, yeah, I could take them in, but they have to live in the chicken coop, and they lived in the chicken coop for two years in the harsh winters and summers. Then I think about my father and think the way in which he suffered, at least for me to have a decent childhood, that I wasn't going to let that, you know, go away without me trying to be somebody.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I guess you could say that. And then, if we're getting into therapy session”

Q What do you mean locking down the decision criteria, sorry?

A When you lock down the decision criteria, so first you might think about the process again, the pains in the process, the quantification of the pains, who's involved for each different step in the process, the technical process, plus the decision process itself. And what you're trying to do is find a champion that can help you lock down the criteria. The worst thing that you want to have happening in a sales process is you show up and things are moving around on you. I talked to Harry. And he says, yeah, John, we're thinking about these three or four things are in the decision process that we're going to test. I come back the next week and things have changed. Then I come back the next week and things have changed. I'm constantly getting surprised. I'm not in control. My sales process is very unpredictable. All of a sudden I make Harry a champion. He buys into the fact that my product can solve the problem better than anyone else's product. Now Harry starts to take control of And understand why I need these differentiators in the decision criteria, because it solves Harry's pain. And now Harry starts to say to the organization, because he has influence, that's why he's a champion, we're gonna lock down this criteria, and here's what it's gonna have in it. Now my sale moves from unpredictable, and surprises every time I walk in, to very predictable, because Harry's now helped me…

AI assessment note: “we're gonna lock down this criteria, and here's what it's gonna have in it.”

Q yeah. So tell me, how has the art of sales changed?

A I don't think that the art of the sale has really changed much, because there's an art to it, and then there's a science to it. So the art hasn't really changed, because you're dealing with people, and that can be, you know, dependent upon your style, and how, and whether or not you can have, like, a rubber band effect to reach out to different types of people, because you're going to run into analytical people, you're going to run into drivers, you're going to run into expressives, you're going to run into amiable people, and it's your ability to To deal with people, that's the art part of it. I think what's probably changed a lot, and has become a lot more formal, is the discipline around the sales process. That I think has changed, become a lot more regimented. People have really figured out, you know, what is the sales process for my product, and what's the right messaging, and then even on top of that, what's the right ideal customer profile that I should go after.

AI assessment note: “I don't think that the art of the sale has really changed much”

Q What do you mean locking down the decision criteria, sorry?

A When you lock down the decision criteria, so first you might think about the process again, the pains in the process, the quantification of the pains, who's involved for each different step in the process, the technical process, plus the decision process itself. And what you're trying to do is find a champion that can help you lock down the criteria. The worst thing that you want to have happening in a sales process is you show up and things are moving around on you. I talked to Harry. And he says, yeah, John, we're thinking about these three or four things are in the decision process that we're going to test. I come back the next week and things have changed. Then I come back the next week and things have changed. I'm constantly getting surprised. I'm not in control. My sales process is very unpredictable. All of a sudden I make Harry a champion. He buys into the fact that my product can solve the problem better than anyone else's product. Now Harry starts to take control of And understand why I need these differentiators in the decision criteria, because it solves Harry's pain. And now Harry starts to say to the organization, because he has influence, that's why he's a champion, we're gonna lock down this criteria, and here's what it's gonna have in it. Now my sale moves from unpredictable, and surprises every time I walk in, to very predictable, because Harry's now helped me…

AI assessment note: “find a champion that can help you lock down the criteria.”

Q Remote work. Total bullshit for sales teams, or a new generation of how sales teams work?

A I think it still has to be a combination. I understand that there's times when you can get access to people and even people at higher levels through remote work, which I didn't think was possible years ago, but it is possible. So that's a benefit of it. I think the downside of it is what I loved is one of the powers that I thought I had is had really good intuition. So I would go in a room and walk around the table to introduce myself, and I'd try to say, Okay, this person's a gatekeeper. This person was told to be here, but they don't give a shit. This person could be a champion. This person, the way they looked at me and, or didn't look at me and shook my hand, they're a potential enemy. So I would do that, and then I'd match it against what was happening in the meeting, so that I could see whether or not my gut was right or my gut was wrong, and constantly adjusting my gut. And gut feel is something that's really difficult to do, at least for me to do, over Zoom. But if I'm in a room with you, I can feel you, and I can feel, like, whether or not you're resisting me, or you're with me, all of that stuff, and I think intuition for a salesperson is something that is super powerful, because then you have two processing engines. You have your own, your brain that's processing information, but you also have your gut that's processing information, and I like to know that they ring …

AI assessment note: “I think it still has to be a combination.”

Q When you're bringing people to a team that, you said they're about CRO going from 50 to a 101 that always strikes me is, would you rather have someone with experience in a domain, or would you rather have someone with experience selling a ticket size that you are selling?

A I would much rather have the athlete over the domain person. Every time. In fact, at PTC, we sold mechanical computer-aided design software. And we did not want anyone that had sold mechanical computer-aided design software before. And ever since then, I've always hired people that did not understand almost anything about the domain. I want the athlete. So I want somebody that's super intelligent, super driven. I say that they have a PhD, persistence, heart, and desire. And the reason those two things are important, I'll get to the other things, are one, if someone's really smart, they're going to pick up the knowledge Of your playbook, and the customer, and the problem, and the competition, and the market. And if they have a PhD, persistence, heart, and desire, then they're gonna have the desire and the persistence to pick up the skills to execute the play, which really takes, it takes a lot of time. If I wanna be a great dart thrower, I'm gonna have to commit to throwing the dart a thousand times a day. If I wanna be a great salesperson, I'm gonna have to commit to certain skills that Aren't going to come naturally to me, and I'm going to have to do that. After that, I'm looking for people that are very coachable. So do you want to be coached? But more importantly, can you adapt? Are you adaptable? Because a lot of people will get coached, but they won't truly adapt. Or as ti…

AI assessment note: “I would much rather have the athlete over the domain person. Every time.”

Q yeah. So tell me, how has the art of sales changed?

A I don't think that the art of the sale has really changed much, because there's an art to it, and then there's a science to it. So the art hasn't really changed, because you're dealing with people, and that can be, you know, dependent upon your style, and how, and whether or not you can have, like, a rubber band effect to reach out to different types of people, because you're going to run into analytical people, you're going to run into drivers, you're going to run into expressives, you're going to run into amiable people, and it's your ability to To deal with people, that's the art part of it. I think what's probably changed a lot, and has become a lot more formal, is the discipline around the sales process. That I think has changed, become a lot more regimented. People have really figured out, you know, what is the sales process for my product, and what's the right messaging, and then even on top of that, what's the right ideal customer profile that I should go after.

AI assessment note: “I don't think that the art of the sale has really changed much”

Q When did you get your ass kicked most?

A So when I just got out of college, my best friend died of drugs and alcohol, well, drugs, and then my dad died a couple months later, and then my second best friend died of alcohol. It was a really shit year, but it set me straight, you know, when a lot of people were still going out and saying, you know, let's go party because, you know, our buddies would still want us to do that. I was like, nah, just didn't seem right to me, so it set me on a different Different trend. At that time, I would, you know, go to work, and then just go to the gym, and until the gym closed, so I'd, whatever I could do, racquetball, lifting, you know, anything like that,

AI assessment note: “when I just got out of college, my best friend died of drugs”

Q Remote work. Total bullshit for sales teams, or a new generation of how sales teams work?

A I think it still has to be a combination. I understand that there's times when you can get access to people and even people at higher levels through remote work, which I didn't think was possible years ago, but it is possible. So that's a benefit of it. I think the downside of it is what I loved is one of the powers that I thought I had is had really good intuition. So I would go in a room and walk around the table to introduce myself, and I'd try to say, Okay, this person's a gatekeeper. This person was told to be here, but they don't give a shit. This person could be a champion. This person, the way they looked at me and, or didn't look at me and shook my hand, they're a potential enemy. So I would do that, and then I'd match it against what was happening in the meeting, so that I could see whether or not my gut was right or my gut was wrong, and constantly adjusting my gut. And gut feel is something that's really difficult to do, at least for me to do, over Zoom. But if I'm in a room with you, I can feel you, and I can feel, like, whether or not you're resisting me, or you're with me, all of that stuff, and I think intuition for a salesperson is something that is super powerful, because then you have two processing engines. You have your own, your brain that's processing information, but you also have your gut that's processing information, and I like to know that they ring …

AI assessment note: “I think it still has to be a combination.”

Q How quickly do you know when someone is not very good?

A That's a good question. It's actually a tough question. Here's what I look for. As a CRO, what happens with a lot of managers is, let's say there is a six month ramp time. The managers feel like they're under pressure to pull the trigger on a rep when it gets close to that six month time period. Because they feel like, hey, he really hasn't ramped. Maybe the CRO thinks that I should fire the guy because He hasn't sold anything, and he's not ramping the right way in the first six months. I don't really believe in that. I think people progress at different speeds. I'll give you an example. I had a guy, can't name his name, but he's even been a CRO a couple of times now, but he worked for me at a company called Blade Logic. He went and went nine months without selling a deal. And Dev, David Acharya, and the chairman of the board told me I would fire him. And I said, no, I'm not going to fire him. 10 months, 11 months, 12 months. They were really on me to fire the guy, and I said, I'm not gonna fire the guy. 13 months, and he sells a 1.1 million dollar deal and a 1.2 million dollar deal. No kidding. No exaggeration. And the reason I wouldn't fire him is because I would go and make sales calls with him, just to see. And every time I was on sales calls with him, or he was in internal meetings, you know, with the whole group, all the sales force, he was always making these incremental…

AI assessment note: “he was always making these incremental jumps. In his skill set and his knowledge”

Q He said that you are world class when it comes to separating signal from noise and focusing on the right problem to solve. He said, I want you to really start on that, Harry. What is your approach to separating noise and signal and that focus? How do you do qualifying?

A Qualifying a deal? Usually, you know, I use and start with a framework that you've probably heard of, like Medic or MedPic, and then I'll start to go there. And what you're really doing is you're thinking about where is the person in the sales process. So they think about like Google Maps is your sales process. So if I'm going to drive from Boston to New York and I go to Google Maps, it tells me the turn by turn directions. No different than a sales process that tells you Here's the different steps you have to take in each stage of the sales processes in order to get an order in the shortest distance of time. And now, you know, you're driving for an hour, and then you think, hey, I'm 20 miles before Hartford, Connecticut. And you pull off for some gas, and now you're like, how do I get back on the highway? And now you use your GPS to tell you where you are, and GPS says, Harry, you're already 10 miles past Hartford, Connecticut. And here's how to get back on the highway. So the way that I think about it is you stand up to tell me about a deal. The first thing I'm thinking about is where does Harry think he is? Harry thinks he's 20 miles before Hartford. I'm gonna qualify you to figure out, hey, Harry really is 10 miles past Hartford, Connecticut. And the way I'm gonna do that is start to ask you a bunch of qualifying questions to figure out precisely where you are. So let's say…

AI assessment note: “I use and start with a framework that you've probably heard of, like Medic”

Q When did you get your ass kicked most?

A So when I just got out of college, my best friend died of drugs and alcohol, well, drugs, and then my dad died a couple months later, and then my second best friend died of alcohol. It was a really shit year, but it set me straight, you know, when a lot of people were still going out and saying, you know, let's go party because, you know, our buddies would still want us to do that. I was like, nah, just didn't seem right to me, so it set me on a different Different trend. At that time, I would, you know, go to work, and then just go to the gym, and until the gym closed, so I'd, whatever I could do, racquetball, lifting, you know, anything like that,

AI assessment note: “So when I just got out of college, my best friend died of drugs”

Q And so you desperately wanted to prove yourself to him?

A Yeah, I guess you could say that. And then, if we're getting into therapy session, which isn't too bad, it's also, you know, he grew up, never went to junior high school. His mom died when he was born. His dad was an alcoholic and left him and his brother on the streets of New York to fend for themselves. You know, as an example, I asked my uncle, my dad died at 48, my uncle lived to 93, but I asked him, like, they really didn't want to tell stories, but he told me that, you know, when they were 13 or 14, they got sent to a Farm out in Long Island, and the woman who was hosting them lost the farm and then went to the neighbor next door, farmer next to us, asked if you could take these kids in, and he said, yeah, I could take them in, but they have to live in the chicken coop, and they lived in the chicken coop for two years in the harsh winters and summers. Then I think about my father and think the way in which he suffered, at least for me to have a decent childhood, that I wasn't going to let that, you know, go away without me trying to be somebody.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

Q When you're bringing people to a team that, you said they're about CRO going from 50 to a 101 that always strikes me is, would you rather have someone with experience in a domain, or would you rather have someone with experience selling a ticket size that you are selling?

A I would much rather have the athlete over the domain person. Every time. In fact, at PTC, we sold mechanical computer-aided design software. And we did not want anyone that had sold mechanical computer-aided design software before. And ever since then, I've always hired people that did not understand almost anything about the domain. I want the athlete. So I want somebody that's super intelligent, super driven. I say that they have a PhD, persistence, heart, and desire. And the reason those two things are important, I'll get to the other things, are one, if someone's really smart, they're going to pick up the knowledge Of your playbook, and the customer, and the problem, and the competition, and the market. And if they have a PhD, persistence, heart, and desire, then they're gonna have the desire and the persistence to pick up the skills to execute the play, which really takes, it takes a lot of time. If I wanna be a great dart thrower, I'm gonna have to commit to throwing the dart a thousand times a day. If I wanna be a great salesperson, I'm gonna have to commit to certain skills that Aren't going to come naturally to me, and I'm going to have to do that. After that, I'm looking for people that are very coachable. So do you want to be coached? But more importantly, can you adapt? Are you adaptable? Because a lot of people will get coached, but they won't truly adapt. Or as ti…

AI assessment note: “I would much rather have the athlete over the domain person. Every time.”

Q He said that you are world class when it comes to separating signal from noise and focusing on the right problem to solve. He said, I want you to really start on that, Harry. What is your approach to separating noise and signal and that focus? How do you do qualifying?

A Qualifying a deal? Usually, you know, I use and start with a framework that you've probably heard of, like Medic or MedPic, and then I'll start to go there. And what you're really doing is you're thinking about where is the person in the sales process. So they think about like Google Maps is your sales process. So if I'm going to drive from Boston to New York and I go to Google Maps, it tells me the turn by turn directions. No different than a sales process that tells you Here's the different steps you have to take in each stage of the sales processes in order to get an order in the shortest distance of time. And now, you know, you're driving for an hour, and then you think, hey, I'm 20 miles before Hartford, Connecticut. And you pull off for some gas, and now you're like, how do I get back on the highway? And now you use your GPS to tell you where you are, and GPS says, Harry, you're already 10 miles past Hartford, Connecticut. And here's how to get back on the highway. So the way that I think about it is you stand up to tell me about a deal. The first thing I'm thinking about is where does Harry think he is? Harry thinks he's 20 miles before Hartford. I'm gonna qualify you to figure out, hey, Harry really is 10 miles past Hartford, Connecticut. And the way I'm gonna do that is start to ask you a bunch of qualifying questions to figure out precisely where you are. So let's say…

AI assessment note: “I use and start with a framework that you've probably heard of, like Medic”

Q future and preparing your champion both take time, and Degnan, who I know is obviously one of your protégés and a friend, always says that really you can only have like six to seven really good meetings a week if you want to be prepped and ready for them. Do you agree with that, and how do you find the best sales reps Can operators spend their time most effectively?

A The best reps spend their time most effectively preparing for the meeting with the customer. So most of them understand, you know, what the use case is, so they understand the process, because they've sold the software a number of times, right? It's not like they're selling it brand new. The really good people have been around a year or two years, have sold many deals, multi-million dollar deals, It's almost like now they're great lawyers that are leading the witness. And what I mean by that is they already understand that the customer has these pains in their process. So now they're starting to ask Harry leading questions. Harry, have you ever experienced anything like this before? And Harry says, yes, I definitely have that pain. And now they can say, that's interesting because we've helped ABC company resolve that pain. In fact, ABC company Also had this other pain in their process. Have you ever experienced anything like that? Right. But they know it so well that they're not asking a question that they almost don't know the answer to.

AI assessment note: “The best reps spend their time most effectively preparing for the meeting with the customer.”

Q future and preparing your champion both take time, and Degnan, who I know is obviously one of your protégés and a friend, always says that really you can only have like six to seven really good meetings a week if you want to be prepped and ready for them. Do you agree with that, and how do you find the best sales reps Can operators spend their time most effectively?

A The best reps spend their time most effectively preparing for the meeting with the customer. So most of them understand, you know, what the use case is, so they understand the process, because they've sold the software a number of times, right? It's not like they're selling it brand new. The really good people have been around a year or two years, have sold many deals, multi-million dollar deals, It's almost like now they're great lawyers that are leading the witness. And what I mean by that is they already understand that the customer has these pains in their process. So now they're starting to ask Harry leading questions. Harry, have you ever experienced anything like this before? And Harry says, yes, I definitely have that pain. And now they can say, that's interesting because we've helped ABC company resolve that pain. In fact, ABC company Also had this other pain in their process. Have you ever experienced anything like that? Right. But they know it so well that they're not asking a question that they almost don't know the answer to.

AI assessment note: “The best reps spend their time most effectively preparing for the meeting with the customer.”

Q When did you have to change most as a sales leader? How did you have to change, and what did you learn?

A It's kind of interesting. Early on, when I first became a manager, it's gonna date me, but I was at a company called HP, and it was early on in HP, and there wasn't any internet yet, right? So you had a desk, and you had an inbox and an outbox. It was two trays, like a tray on top of a tray. I got the cubicle of the manager that had left, So I go into the cubicle, and in the cubicle is like three bookshelves, all full of these loose leaf binders. You've seen those loose leaf binders all full of paper? And then there were two big horizontal drawers of files, and stacked with files. And I closed those up, and I went two floors down to shipping, and I used to play softball with a guy that ran shipping, a guy named John Wagner. I said, John, grab your guys, And hand trucks. Come on up to my office. They come up, and we're standing in front of the cubicle, and I said, you see all those and see everything in this files? Throw them out. Said, you really want me to throw it all out? I said, yeah, I want you to throw it all out. Okay, come on, boys, let's go. They threw out all the papers, all, I had nothing on the shelves and nothing in the file cabinets. I'd go make sales calls every day, and I'd come back to the office, you know, with the sales rep, Take all the papers that were in the inbox, and I had moved my trash can close to the side of my desk, and I threw them all in the trash…

AI assessment note: “when I first became a manager, it's gonna date me, but I was at a company called HP”

Q How quickly do you know when someone is not very good?

A That's a good question. It's actually a tough question. Here's what I look for. As a CRO, what happens with a lot of managers is, let's say there is a six month ramp time. The managers feel like they're under pressure to pull the trigger on a rep when it gets close to that six month time period. Because they feel like, hey, he really hasn't ramped. Maybe the CRO thinks that I should fire the guy because He hasn't sold anything, and he's not ramping the right way in the first six months. I don't really believe in that. I think people progress at different speeds. I'll give you an example. I had a guy, can't name his name, but he's even been a CRO a couple of times now, but he worked for me at a company called Blade Logic. He went and went nine months without selling a deal. And Dev, David Acharya, and the chairman of the board told me I would fire him. And I said, no, I'm not going to fire him. 10 months, 11 months, 12 months. They were really on me to fire the guy, and I said, I'm not gonna fire the guy. 13 months, and he sells a 1.1 million dollar deal and a 1.2 million dollar deal. No kidding. No exaggeration. And the reason I wouldn't fire him is because I would go and make sales calls with him, just to see. And every time I was on sales calls with him, or he was in internal meetings, you know, with the whole group, all the sales force, he was always making these incremental…

AI assessment note: “I don't really believe in that. I think people progress at different speeds.”

Q When we look at the other element which you said there was coachable and adaptable, and people are sometimes coachable but rarely adaptable, Those that want to be, who are listening to this as sales reps or leaders, what would you say to them in terms of how they can show an ability to be coachable and adaptable?

A Well, you can be coachable because, yeah, you want to go through the training or the coaching that your manager or leader has given you, but then you have to go and look in the mirror, and you have to say, now I'm going to change. I'm going to adapt. And that's tough, because maybe you're being told that you can't, just like a sports team, Harry, you can't execute this certain play. And Harry's like, yeah, I know what I'm supposed to do, but I don't know how to do it. Okay, well, we have to work on the how to do it. And that's skill. And that's why the skills are the hardest thing to pick up. And now Harry has to go out there and train himself on those skills.

AI assessment note: “you have to go and look in the mirror, and you have to say”

Q When we look at the other element which you said there was coachable and adaptable, and people are sometimes coachable but rarely adaptable, Those that want to be, who are listening to this as sales reps or leaders, what would you say to them in terms of how they can show an ability to be coachable and adaptable?

A Well, you can be coachable because, yeah, you want to go through the training or the coaching that your manager or leader has given you, but then you have to go and look in the mirror, and you have to say, now I'm going to change. I'm going to adapt. And that's tough, because maybe you're being told that you can't, just like a sports team, Harry, you can't execute this certain play. And Harry's like, yeah, I know what I'm supposed to do, but I don't know how to do it. Okay, well, we have to work on the how to do it. And that's skill. And that's why the skills are the hardest thing to pick up. And now Harry has to go out there and train himself on those skills.

AI assessment note: “you have to go and look in the mirror, and you have to say, now”

Q When did you have to change most as a sales leader? How did you have to change, and what did you learn?

A It's kind of interesting. Early on, when I first became a manager, it's gonna date me, but I was at a company called HP, and it was early on in HP, and there wasn't any internet yet, right? So you had a desk, and you had an inbox and an outbox. It was two trays, like a tray on top of a tray. I got the cubicle of the manager that had left, So I go into the cubicle, and in the cubicle is like three bookshelves, all full of these loose leaf binders. You've seen those loose leaf binders all full of paper? And then there were two big horizontal drawers of files, and stacked with files. And I closed those up, and I went two floors down to shipping, and I used to play softball with a guy that ran shipping, a guy named John Wagner. I said, John, grab your guys, And hand trucks. Come on up to my office. They come up, and we're standing in front of the cubicle, and I said, you see all those and see everything in this files? Throw them out. Said, you really want me to throw it all out? I said, yeah, I want you to throw it all out. Okay, come on, boys, let's go. They threw out all the papers, all, I had nothing on the shelves and nothing in the file cabinets. I'd go make sales calls every day, and I'd come back to the office, you know, with the sales rep, Take all the papers that were in the inbox, and I had moved my trash can close to the side of my desk, and I threw them all in the trash…

AI assessment note: “Early on, when I first became a manager... I was at a company called HP”