This time our CEO Qasim Virjee is joined in the studio by Shane George - a consultant who helps SaaS companies develop Agile Sales methods.  Shane is also the Vice President of Sales at StartWell member company OnCall Health.

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Qasim Virjee 0:07

back once again for this the fourth episode of the StartWell Podcast. I'm Qasim and today I'm joined in StartWell studios at our King Street location in Toronto, Canada, with none other than Shane George, who wears one hat at a company called on call one of our members, that is a telemedicine platform. He'll tell us a little about not too much. Perhaps me too much. I don't know, we're going to sit down with your CEO, Nicolas in in I think a week or in a few days, definitely. And he'll perhaps tell us even more. But also, you know, Shane is an excellent sales guru. I don't know if that's a over speaking. But he'll explain why I might have said that in a second. And we're going to hear hopefully a little bit about sales technique, direct sales technique for SAS, and some things that that Shane is not only adept at, but but enjoys speaking about and writing about. And with that introduction, Shane, welcome you to the studio and let you introduce yourself.

Shane George 1:13

Geez. Yeah, that was quite the intro. I appreciate that. But yeah, thanks for having me.

Qasim Virjee 1:18

Pleasure.

Shane George 1:20

So I'm gonna just speak a bit more about the

Qasim Virjee 1:23

well let our listeners know firstly, who you are. What did I get your name, right? Yes. That's not a difficult one.

Shane George 1:28

It is also my real name Shane. George two first names. But yeah, I've essentially just been in tech sales for a couple years before that worked in a family business in sales. So Oh, what was the business? Sell Shanda? Leaders in a retail store in Oakville?

Qasim Virjee 1:43

Alright, you told me about this lighting? Yeah, all sorts of not just like, you know, crystal chandelier. It wasn't just Liberace all over the place. It was

Shane George 1:51

floor lamps, table lamps. So basically, from a really young age, it was like a group effort for a whole family. I remember being really young, and my dad saying, Hey, that guy over there, go sell on the light, being a little kid just be like, Hey, don't really want to talk to a stranger. But that was a great intro to sales and trying to figure out how to, I guess connect with people in a way to provide value. And overtime, kind of translate that into tech sales. So yeah, it's been a fun ride so far,

Qasim Virjee 2:24

how did that evolution happen in your career trajectory, like, you know, family business, a very kind of brick and mortar retail experience? Where did tech come into it? For you? Ah, so that's,

Shane George 2:37

I think the best answer is like is probably a lot of luck. Realistically, what happened was worked in that family business, what that really instilled is, what it takes to make it and how hard work is the constant that you need, in order to be successful at all. But I was just a high school kid didn't really know what he wanted to do, and took science and business in Waterloo. As my degree of choice, did a couple of co op terms. And it's, it was a science program. But all of my co op jobs were still in sales for tech companies. So I just kept going back.

Qasim Virjee 3:14

Was that out of choice? Or how does it work? Because I'm unfamiliar with club and maybe some of our listeners around the world. So it's worth explaining a little bit about how Co Op works.

Shane George 3:22

Yeah, so Waterloo, University of Waterloo is actually especially great for this. Essentially, the way it works is you do a, like a school term, normally at the school. And they provide a number of opportunities in the form of a job bank to work for four months while yo