Guest:

Danielle Peretore - Director, Sales Strategy & Analytics @Glassdoor

(Formerly @NerdWallet, @LinkedIn, @BCG, @HBS)

Guest Background:

Danielle Peretore is the Director of Sales Strategy & Analytics at Glassdoor. Prior to Glassdoor, Danielle worked in management consulting and business operations in the tech industry. She graduated from Brown and Harvard Business School and has a soft spot for the East Coast. She spends most of her free time doting on her two rescue dogs.

Guest Links:

LinkedIn

Episode Summary:

In this episode, we cover:

- Biz Ops Team Structure & Hiring - Best Practices

- International Markets Selection Framework

- Data-Driven Executive Decision Making - Executive Profiles, Challenges, Solutions

- Translating Executive Strategy & Data to the Field - Sales & Customer Success

- Building Commercial Structures for Scale

- Company Superpowers - @Glassdoor, @NerdWallet, @LinkedIn

Full Interview Transcript:

[Naber] Hello friends around the world. My name is Naber Naber, welcome to The Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented, and highly skilled sales and marketing minds on the planet from the world's fastest-growing companies. Enjoy.

Hey everybody, today we have Danielle Peretore on the show. Danielle's the Director of Sales Strategy and Analytics at Glassdoor. Glassdoor was acquired back in 2018 for $1.2 billion.  worked in management consulting and business operations in the tech industry. She worked for NerdWallet, who has a $500 million valuation, and $105 million capital raised. And she also worked at LinkedIn, who was acquired by Microsoft back in 2016 for $26.2 billion. Before that, they went public in 2011. Danielle graduated from Brown and Harvard Business School, and she has a soft spot for the East Coast. She spends most of her free time doting on her two rescue dogs. Here we go.

 

[Naber] Danielle, awesome to have you on the show. How are you this morning?

 

[Danielle Peretore] I am great, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

 

[Naber] Thank you.

 

[Danielle Peretore] Although it's actually evening my time.

 

[Naber] (laughs) Well happy evening, and good evening. So what I think we'll do is first talk through a little bit of your personal story, get into you as a kid, some of the decisions you made, interests you had, et cetera, and then we'll start to lean into probably 80, 90% of what we'll talk about which is your professional jumps, and some of the superpowers that you've acquired, accumulated along the way, and some of the things that you're great at, and know a lot about. And we'll talk through some of the methods and mindsets that you have around those things. Sound okay?

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yeah, sounds great.

 

[Naber] Okay cool. Let's start back in Jersey, where it all started.

 

[Danielle Peretore] Oh boy.

 

(Naber laughing)

 

[Naber] 25, 35, minutes outside of Newark it seems. Tell us a little bit about you as a kid.

 

[Danielle Peretore] So, I think I was the ultimate nerdy kid. I read all the time and everywhere, and I was horrible at sports. I got kicked off of six sports teams in high school, actually six.

 

[Naber] You counted.

[Danielle Peretore] About half for skill. Oh yeah, I mean about half of them were for skill and about half of them for having a bad attitude. So, you know, kinda evened out. But yes, I read a lot of books. I went to a lot of really nerdy camps. I went to computer camp, I went to science camp, I went to math camp, all of the above.

 

[Naber] Yes, this is so cool.

 

[Danielle Peretore] Is it, is it so cool, or did I have a tiger mom? I'm not really sure.

 

(Naber laughing)

 

[Naber] Fair enough, fair enough. So maybe both are true. This is great. Tell us about a couple of the camps that you enjoyed the most and why.

 

[Danielle Peretore] Which camps did I enjoy, actually I loved computer camp because you could play games all day. Actually, you weren't supposed to but I did. Do you remember that game Frogger that was really big in the 90s?

 

[Naber] Absolutely.

 

[Danielle Peretore] Of course, of course. Okay great. Yeah, I loved Frogger, so I played a lot of Frogger there. I also learned how to code in HTML, back in, this must have been like 1998. So I was ahead of the curve and then I totally lost it, never became a coder, you know my mom's dreams of me becoming a female engineer just went out the window. That's a story for later, but anyway I coded these, Danielle's home page, it was always rainbow and sparkles, whatever. So yeah, I loved computer camp.

 

[Naber] Very cool.

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yeah, yeah.

 

[Naber] And what was the first way that you made money?

 

[Danielle Peretore] First way I made money. The first actual paycheck I had for the summer before I went to college, my parents were, you know I'd been a nerdy kid just studying all through high school. And so they were very determined, they said that I needed to have a menial job. It was incredibly important to them that I understood what life would look like if I dropped out of college. And so they signed me up to work at a, it was like a shack that made french fries. So I made french fries and like chicken dinos. It was at like a, I think it was at a local pool. Yeah, it was at a local pool. And I spent my summer mopping floors, lots of clogged toilets. It was great, it was great. By the time I got to college, I was like, yep I'm gonna figure this thing out, I'm gonna stick it out. I don't want there to be any more clogged toilets in my future.

 

(Naber laughing)

[Naber] That's a good story.

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yeah, my parents had a little bit of a shock and awe strategy in terms of raising us. They were like yeah, you don't wanna do the things that we think you should do, or that you should do, let us shock you. Like, throw you in the deep end.

 

[Naber] That's funny. Was that the way it was for all our siblings as well?

 

[Danielle Peretore] Oh my gosh, yes. I think my other sisters, one of them worked, she actually, she was going to Harvard and then she spent two summers scooping ice cream. Where she got in trouble because apparently her ratio of ice cream to sprinkles was not right, and it was pretty funny when then she had to explain to them, she's like, "I promise I can do this. "I'm going to Harvard next year."

 

(Naber laughing)

 

[Naber] All right, great. And one last question, and we'll move on. What was your personality like as a kid? How would you describe it?

 

[Danielle Peretore] Well, believe it or not, I didn't talk really, as a kid. This is shocking to anyone who knows me now, but I was silent. I didn't talk to anyone, except my parents, and I really didn't like other kids. I was not into it. I just wanted to hang out with the adults. I basically wanted to be left alone and reading all day. I didn't wanna sweat. Sports was just a no go, I didn't really wanna be outside. I was like an 80-year-old woman as a 10-year-old.

 

[Naber] Interesting.

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yeah.

 

[Naber] Were you always like that, like did your parents say that you were like that when you were really small, like when you were a child?

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yes, yes. Yes, I was always like that. I never, there's all these pictures of me as a kid where all the other kids are together and I'm in the corner by myself not talking to anyone. Yeah, but it's funny, as I got older, so my middle sister used to be the really talkative one and so she would answer questions for me and whatever, and then we totally flipped and now I talk all the time, I always wanna talk. And my middle sister is really quiet and wants to be left alone.

 

[Naber] Well, you're making up for lost time with words, I love it.

 

[Danielle Peretore] I mean, yeah it's been about half my life that I've been making up for lost time so I should probably pump the brakes a little bit.

 

(Naber laughing)

 

[Naber] Fair enough. All right, so you're getting out of high school, you're making the decision to go to uni, why Brown University? And why cognitive neuroscience and Brazilian Portuguese studies?

 

[Danielle Peretore] Oh God, that's the question of the century. Why Brown, I'm wearing my Brown sweatshirt right now actually. I went to Brown, well really 'cause it was the best school

I got into and as I said I had a tiger mom. So there wasn't much negotiation there. However, I loved Brown. I loved everything about Brown. Brown is just such a weird, wacky, wonderful place. There are no requirements, you take whatever you want. The weirder you are the better.

I was considered so normal at Brown. And it was not cool, you know, it was not cool that I was normal. My friends from Brown are, they're just doing weird cool stuff. Brown was the best. I just had my 10-year reunion and it was a dream, I loved it. I think I got there and I was like, oh it's a bunch of weird kids who wanna sit in a corner and read, like me, great.

 

[Naber] Why cognitive neuroscience, and why Brazilian Portuguese studies?

 

[Danielle Peretore] Also great questions. So cognitive neuroscience, as I've said like 10 times during this conversation, I had a tiger mom, she really wanted me to get a science degree, and I did not wanna take Organic Chemistry. So I literally found the one degree I could get that did not require me to take Organic Chemistry and I signed myself up. But that's the funny side of the story, which is very true, it's very true. But I also, I've just always been really interested in why people do the things they do. It's part I think why I work with sales teams, which we'll get into, but I love it. Like what drive people, why do people make this decision, why do you do this thing that makes no sense, that's totally irrational. And so I got there because I was trying to appease my mom and also not do what she wanted at the same time. And then I stayed here because I really liked learning about that.

 

[Naber] Very cool. And you're at Brown, thinking about making your move into the real world,  your first jump out of school. Tell us about your professional ride so far.

 

[Danielle Peretore] Sure, yeah. So I graduated Brown in 2009  and that just goes to say that the world was ending when I graduated. It was basically like, whatever job you got you held on for dear life. And so I got really lucky, I interned at BCG, the Boston Consulting Group, management consulting, during my summer, my junior year summer. And honestly I did 'cause that I didn't know what else to do. You know that's the thing that's, I'm not gonna say all of us, but so many college kids who don't know what they wanna do, they get tricked. It's like, go into management consulting, I'm gonna get to do a lot of things. When actually you're gonna get to do one thing, which is run an Excel model and put it into PowerPoint slides. So yeah, signed myself up on that train. I did my summer at BCG, and then came back and was like, well there are literally no other jobs. So I went there full time. I joined the BCG New York office, I moved right to Manhattan after I graduated college. It was actually, a funny sidebar, my roommate was, she an amateur boxer training for the Golden Gloves and her boyfriend who lived with us was the starting linebacker for the New York Giants. So it like a real, yeah, I know. And then there's me. You guys can't see me, but I'm under five feet tall. So it was a real trip.

 

(Naber laughing)

 

Otherwise, they were great, but yeah. So then I was living in New York, working at BCG, and frankly, I just didn't love the buttoned-up culture. It just did not fit me. So I did it, I got through kind of paying my dues there, and then I was like, I don't wanna wear a suit to work anymore. And I was a kid from New Jersey, I had big hair at the time, big hoop earrings, I had a Jersey accent, and I was like, this is not my scene. So anyway. I had a great experience there, I'm really happy, I learned awesome skills, but then I jumped from there. I had always loved California and had done a bunch of trips there when I was younger and loved San Francisco, and so  LinkedIn reached out to me. They were looking, it was right before they were about to IPO, and they were looking for someone who spoke Portuguese, and I studied abroad in Brazil in college, 'cause they were about to open the Brazil office, and so I was like, all right, I'm outta here. Flew across the country with two suitcases, lived in a basically condemned apartment building as you do when you're 22 years old and moved across the country. And it was super fun. So I was at LinkedIn for about two years through an awesome period of their growth. They went from I think about a thousand employees to about five thousand by the time I left, it was over two years, it was wild. LinkedIn went public and I was still trying to figure out where the cafeteria was. It was just such a crazy experience. And I had no idea how crazy what I was living through was at the time but I had the chance to work with really awesome people there. And then I decided that so, back to tiger mom, my mom had signed me up for the GMAT when I was in college during a  break. She was basically like, you don't need time off, you're just gonna take the GMAT. And so my GMAT score expired like I had to use it or lose it.

 

[Naber] Oh no.

 

[Danielle Peretore] So I applied to business school, went off to HBS for two years,  and then came back, after HBS I was recruited by my boss from LinkedIn, so a company called NerdWallet. And then I was recruited from Nerdwallet by another boss from LinkedIn, his name is Christian, he's now the CEO of Glassdoor to Glassdoor. And here I am.

 

[Naber] Excellent. So let's pull up here. And we'll talk about a couple of different things. One is, you've been at some great companies. And you've been at those companies through the prime of part of their hyper-growth phases.

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yes.

 

[Naber] And one of the things that I'd love to hear from you is around, specifically the biz ops and strategy superpowers that each one of those businesses have. So let's start with LinkedIn. What was LinkedIn's superpower, what is something that they did extremely well, better than the rest, that you said like, this is the thing that they were elite at, from a business opt and strategy perspective that you lived through, that every company should have, whether it is natural or learned?

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yeah, so I don't know if this is technically biz ops and strategy, so tell me if I'm going down the wrong path, but something that I think that LinkedIn did incredibly well, and credit to their CEO Jeff Weiner, is they defined a mission and vision, and managed to use that  both in communicating externally, like it was very clear what LinkedIn was here to do and what they were looking to be, and also internally. They drove it down through the ranks internally in a way that there is no way that anyone who worked at LinkedIn, from the most senior levels down to someone who was on a contract basis, didn't understand the purpose of what they were doing there every day. And I thought that was truly exceptional. When I first started at LinkedIn I was young, it was my second job. I didn't really have much experience at different kinds of companies, and even I knew from the minute I walked in that door,  this is what we're here to do. This is my job today, and this is how I'm impacting both LinkedIn and the world. 

 

[Naber] That's great. Okay, while we're on LinkedIn. What were a couple of the coolest projects you worked on at that time? There's a lot of different definitions for biz ops and not necessarily for strategy, but a lot of different definitions and ways that one would kind of ring fence or define biz ops. And as we go through each of these companies and talk about what they're great at, I'd also love to hear some of the really cool one or two projects you worked on. So at LinkedIn, what were some of the coolest one or two projects that you worked on?

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yeah,  sure. So I worked for a guy at LinkedIn, he was a VP of biz ops, his  name was Dan Yoo. He's an incredible, incredible person. He's been my mentor for a long time. He wrote my recommendations for business school, recruited me to NerdWallet. And he, I think arguably, really did a lot of the definition of what biz ops is today. And there are two different types of Biz Ops teams. Biz ops evolved a bit later in the tech lifecycle, as tech was a bunch of small companies, you don't really get a bunch of MBAs running around.  And there've now been companies with two different versions of biz ops. One is the dedicated biz ops model, where you have a team that is, you have biz ops for all the different leaders of the organization. Biz ops for products, biz ops for sales, biz ops for marketing. That's Dan Yoo's view of the world, and what it looked at LinkedIn and NerdWallet. And Glassdoor is similar but slightly different. It's more of a centralized team that works on broad, cross-department initiatives instead of having a biz ops partner exactly devoted to marketing and only what the priorities are of that marketing leader or the sales leader. It becomes a bit broader and you’ve projects that really no one else can get done, 'cause they don't stay on all those different teams.

 

[Naber] What are the strengths of both of those models? Just quick interjection.

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yeah. I think the strengths, it's a really good question. So I think there's a lot of pretty obvious strengths to the dedicated biz ops business partner model 'cause then you are literally infusing really smart strategic thinking throughout the whole organization. What I always recommend, what I don't think is great, is when you do that and then have those teams actually report up through the functions, they report up through product or through marketing, 'cause then you lose that connection. What's awesome is to have a biz ops for marketing person thinking with the biz ops for product person, applying unified frameworks. So if you have a centralized team that's dedicated to the different parts of the business, what you end up doing is infusing that thinking through the organization, in actually a holistic way. But the downside of that model is, sometimes companies just kind of aren't big enough to bear it. If you think about the background of someone who's a biz ops or strategy person, they're someone who likely has, they may have an MBA, they've thought about leadership, they've thought about strategic thinking, they think about the path forward for any organization. Having a biz ops leader parallel with every single leader of a different business unit or a different function, it can be overkill. And so I think it's really dependent on both the company's stage and size, and also how the company functions. You know, do things really get done centrally, is there central strategic thinking, or is it more that you wanna infuse strategic thinking, but you wanna make sure that you're not overdoing it as well.

 

[Naber] Excellent. Okay, sorry to interrupt your thought, carry on.

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yeah, so at LinkedIn and NerdWallet, they were both run by the same guy,  by Dan Yoo, and so they were much more the centralized team, but dedicated business partner model. Biz ops for product, biz ops for marketing, biz ops for sales, and then teams underneath them. And then at Glassdoor, it is a little bit different. So it's a stellar team, it's super smart people, but they work a bit more on cross-functional products. So we'll have someone who's biz ops for all international, they own our international expansion strategy. Then they'll have biz ops for our jobs marketplace, and our jobs marketplace under rides, it touches product, it touches marketing, it touches sales. But really no one else other than the biz ops teams could own these areas, because they're centralized, they're super smart, and they're really close to the executive teams, they can get things done.

 

[Naber] Okay, let's wrap LinkedIn. So at LinkedIn, can you give us maybe an example of a really cool, nerdy project, fun project you worked on LinkedIn that you think was, maybe either the biggest project you worked on or the most fun project you worked on.

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yeah, the answer to those is probably the same. So I built our expansion strategy into Latin America, which it is was funny, I was originally hired to LinkedIn too, partially 'cause I spoke Portuguese, they were looking for someone who could work in Brazil, and then they kind of launched Brazil and let it run, so I didn't touch much of it from there, but two years later, they were deciding whether they should expand into Mexico and Argentina, et cetera et cetera, and I travelled down to Mexico, met with a bunch of different people down there to determine if we  should open up an office there. Did a bunch of research on Latin America and then eventually published our expansion strategy. But I think the coolest part of that was that I built a framework that I heard was still in use, probably not today, but a couple of years back was still in use. It was a framework to use for prioritizing markets for entry. You know to figure out where to go next. And I loved that, that was super fun. I mean it also involved me going to Mexico with these two amazing and hilarious Brazilian men and me. You know, so they were toting me around, so I'm in the back trying to take notes in these languages that I 50% understand. So that was pretty fun.

[Naber] Nice, cool. And can you tell us a little bit about that framework? About the framework you built?

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yeah. So you're really testing the limits of my memory, 'cause this is now like six or seven years ago, but I'm gonna try. So what the framework had, it basically was evaluating in any decision to enter a new international market, I think something that I have seen companies get wrong is basically saying, there's a massive potential in this market, and therefore we should go for it. I mean the most classic example obviously is basically Google trying to enter China. Right? It's huge, you feel like you gotta be there, but the environment is just. There are really three elements. There's like, is it a big market, but is the environment hostile, and then also what is your, what are your consumer metrics like there? You know, when companies think about expanding internationally, the first, and web companies obviously, this is tech and internet companies, but the first thing that you do is you get a domain in that country and you start trying to build up your UGC, your User Generated Content. So for Facebook, they want members there, they want people posting. For Google actually I'm not entirely sure  that they want, what their UGC might be, but they're probably trying to launch Google Photos, get people using the platform. For LinkedIn, it was getting members there. For Glassdoor, it's getting people to post reviews and salaries et cetera. So building up that UGC pool. And then at that point, you can make a decision on entry. But really if any of those three factors are off, you're in trouble. One, market size. Two, hostility. Maybe not hostility as too punitive, but essentially how friendly this environment is, both to business just generally and also to your particular brand of business. And then thirdly, what does your own consumer penetration look like there? What do you have to build on?

 

[Naber] Awesome, that's great. Thanks so much.

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yeah, oh sure.

 

[Naber] So, let's jump into NerdWallet. What's the one thing they do extremely well?

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yeah, so NerdWallet is such an interesting business. I mean that business is just a crazy cash cow. It is nuts. I've never seen anything like it. I think I've always, the other companies that I've been at have been along the enterprise SaaS model, which I love. I love working in enterprise businesses, I think they're really interesting, a lot of people don't but I do. they get a kickback, and it's brilliant. And so it's really, what I thought was really cool at NerdWallet, they have two superpowers. One, the way you win that market, the way you win the search market, is just having, there are hacky ways to do it that everybody knows. There's Ask.com and whatever that Google's always trying to kind of take a hit at. But so, let's, assuming you don't go the hacky way, the real way to do it is you build an incredible content asset. And what NerdWallet has done, which I think is so cool, they have their head of content is this woman named Maggie, and she's super impressive. She has an awesome background in journalism. And they have hired a team of badass journalists. Really great writers, really badass people who are experts across different parts of the personal-finance spectrum. And they do two things, one is some writers have managed to marry writing on interesting topics with what that's actually going to mean for search results, like how is this going to appear in search results? How is this going to get your page truncation? And then secondly, they now have an investigative reporting arm. Which is so cool. So they've got a team that goes out and digs into personal finance issues, and potentially at their own risk in terms of not really ingratiating themselves to some of the financial players, they'll publish exposes. But they've built is amazing. I mean at least when I left it was, that team was probably almost a hundred people. A lot of them are remote, but really talented, really strong people. So that's one amazing thing they've built there. The second thing that again comes from Dan Yoo, who you're gonna hear me mention a lot, at biz ops, I'm sorry, in biz ops at LinkedIn and then of course at NerdWallet.  To some extent, we got this, by the way, from Jeff Weiner at LinkedIn. And so, just, I've never seen, or not that I've never seen in a sense I've worked for these guys for a long time, but in comparison, they are incredibly data-driven. And data-driven in a way that it flows down through the entire organization. Kind of like I was mentioning with mission and vision at LinkedIn as well, but they're data-driven in a way that every single person knows what metric they are driving towards, and what metric they are responsible for. This is really, really hard to do. Building a culture that is that data-driven. Not everyone you hire top-down throughout the organization. Data-driven executive decision making, and then translating that data and those insights and that strategy to the field is something you've had to do at multiple businesses, multiple roles, something you obviously get quite good at. Let's take each one of those one at a time. So firstly, can you explain data-driven executive decision making, and how do you think about it, what's your mindset, what's the method and process you use to go about doing that?

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yeah, no it's a great question. So that's something that we have, we have been working through really actively makes all decisions based on data, And the inherent thing about data is it will always contradict itself. Always. So you can have two metrics that are beautifully defined, the data can be clean and accurate, and I guarantee you, they will at times clash. If they're aiming to do the same thing or measure the same thing, they will at times contradict themselves. It's just how data works, and especially data in the world that we live today where tech companies collect a ton of data on their users, on their customers, et cetera. And so in the worlds where you've got a leader who wants a ton of data and a ton of metrics, you could often end up where you are both using too many resources to produce data and produce metrics. You're just spending too much time on it as a company. Two, you're actually confusing executive decision making, it's very hard to come to a consensus. And then three, you're just kind of at a point where you may truly not know what to do with the business. You need to have data limited enough that there's one or two metrics that you use to drive your  decision making, and you don't introduce all this confusion. And so I think those are the watch-outs in that first scenario. In the second, take a leader where you have someone who makes decisions based on their gut, you have to really train them to use and trust data. That's really hard to do. It's really hard to get someone who, and this I think especially happens with leaders who re founders, or leaders have been at the company and built the company for a long time. What you'll hear from them is, "I know the data says that, "but I've been here, I've seen how this company was built, "I know how customers buy X company, "how they buy X product." And so that becomes a real uphill battle. And in that instance I think what you need to do is spend a lot of time thinking about what are the few metrics that you know are indicative of the business,  and then even if it's not a focus of discussion, just bring it up, every single week, in the management meeting, we're gonna look at this metric. And then provide the appropriate level of commentary, so that what'll happen is, they'll see the business shift, and see the metrics shift in that direction over time. But that requires a lot of time, and there's really no way around just showing that this business went in this direction, remember that this metric was indicating that about 10 weeks ago, here's how you marry them.

 

[Naber] Okay, great. So, we talked about data-driven executive decision making. Let's say you get to a point where you're making a decision, you're going in a specific direction. How then do you translate that data, that information, those insights to the field?

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yeah. This is something I think about a lot. And the reason I think is, so I  think I mean it's obviously important for the reasons that I talked about earlier with both  LinkedIn and NerdWallet where I thought something that was so amazing was that every single person at those companies knew what metric they were driving and how they were contributing to the business. So it is an incredibly powerful thing to roll data, and specifically, not just data on how to do your job, be data on the core business metrics and how we as a  company are driving to that, down to the field, and down to the lowest levels of the organization. It's massively valuable. What you then end up having is, you're having a conversation with executives on noticing that a metric is up or down, and you know exactly what to go do to drive that metric in whichever direction you want. So let's say one of your metrics is down, and the question becomes, how do we fix it. If let's say your sales reps, or your customer success reps, or  whoever's responsible for that metric, is not only monitoring, but also responsible for, incentivize on that metric, all you do is say, "Great, we're gonna go talk to that team." It becomes like a really beautiful loop. That said, there are a lot of metrics at the executive level that are not really appropriate for the field. And so this is where it gets complicated. At the executive level, for example, the number of calls that a sales rep makes is really important for how good they are at their job. Super basic, super important. Should the CEO be tracking the number of calls that a sales rep makes? Absolutely not.  Should the CEO be tracking the sales rep's overall productivity in dollars? Absolutely. That said, you're not gonna drive, let's say, you're not gonna say to sales reps, "Well, the team you're on "has been less productive this year, "and we need you to drive that up." They're gonna be like, "What do you want me to do about it?" What they need to know is, make more calls, send more e-mails, have more in-person meetings. And so figuring out how to balance the need for at the executive level to have macro metrics, metrics that are large enough, that encompass essentially a broad enough swathe of the business that they're meaningful, and having metrics that go to the field that are actionable, something they can specifically drive. And so I think that balance is really important. And so as awesome as it is when you can find a metric that you can drive all the way through from the CEO all the way down to the field, that's amazing, sometimes you need modifications and tweaks in order to do that.

 

[Naber] So when you're doing that  for different types of teams, like marketing, sales, customer success specifically, in the commercial stack, do you have to approach that translation and that rolling out in different ways based on those types of themes, and if so, what are some of the differences?

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yes, definitely. There, I'm laughing as I say this, because definitely. Those teams, one of the great learnings that I've had of working on the go to market world, is just how differently these teams are driven, even though they work so closely together. So the most core example of that is, what does a salesperson respond to? They respond to more pay, basically, it just comes down to pay. So tell them how to hit their quota, so they can make more money, they're on board. Someone in marketing, not only are they not on a quota, and therefore you can't just pay them more, but also someone who goes into marketing, that isn't, they're just a very different person from someone who goes into sales. Especially I think in marketing, customer success, you get a lot of people who just really love working with clients, they love working with customers. They really thrive in the environment where they're thinking about, how do we get our message out there, how do we ensure that people understand who we are, how do we make sure that someone has a quality experience? The thank-you that they get from a customer can be as valuable as an extra $20,000 is to a sales rep. And so these teams work so closely together, but they're, not only are there incentives in terms of how they're paid so different, but literally their incentives they often share clients, but they are so different. And so for salespeople, again, it just comes down to, think about their incentives structure. Think about their compensation plan. Beyond these very early days of a start-up, you're going to be hiring salespeople whose behaviour will be driven by how you pay them. So if you pay them to just go out and get dollars, they'll just go out and get dollars. It doesn't mean they're getting dollars the way you want them to get dollars. “and here's what I'm gonna give you "if you sell this product." The same would go for if you want them to drive certain activity. It might be that for example, some companies have hybrid sales reps, and it is always easier to just go and try and sell more products to a customer that's already convinced, that already buys from you, than it is to go make a new sale to someone who has no sense of your company and who you  are. You may need to incentivize reps to go and do that new business motion which takes a lot more time, is a lot harder, than kind of going and fishing in the existing pools. So my biggest lesson of working with sales teams is incentives are everything. Customer success is a whole different animal. Customer success, I mean customer success obviously takes many different  forms and it can mean many different things to different companies, but typically the people  ho take a job We had a product where we had a very strong hypothesis, which I think by the way was the right one, which is that most employees when you sign up for a healthcare plan through your employer, you have literally no idea what you're choosing. You have no idea if it's the right plan for you, no idea if it's the right plan for your family. And so we built a tool that would plug into your healthcare plan options as an employer, and that you would then roll out for employees to use in onboarding so they could select, I go to the doctor this many times a  year, I need these kinds of specialists, I have this many dependents et cetera, and it would spit out the healthcare plan that was the most effective and efficient for you. And it was really cool, I mean I loved working on it. But we ended up folding it. And the big lesson that I took from that is one, healthcare is really, really, really hard. Regulated spaces are really, really, really hard, they're also where we're going to do the most good for the world, but they are so difficult. And you need to be really dedicated to figuring that out. And then I think secondly, I just learned a  good lesson there on what companies are willing and not willing to pay for. Which is a great lesson for someone who works in the enterprise business and has been working in SaaS-like spaces. Companies, essentially if we were able to say to them, we're going to reduce your healthcare costs by rolling out this tool, they'd be like, "Awesome, we're totally on board." But this was just a way to make things easier, and the value prop was just not quite as clear in that way, right. I guess I wouldn't say the value prop in the sense that there was value, there was clear value to it, employees loved it. But the specific value to the employer we couldn't quantify. And it becomes so important to quantify. If you can't quantify, it's basically dead in the water.

 

[Naber] Yeah, good one. Okay, Glassdoor, what is something that, what's one of Glassdoor's superpowers? What's something they do extremely well?

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yeah, Glassdoor's superpower is actually easy, and I should say, I love Glassdoor. I think it's an amazing company, I'm so happy there. Part of this is because Glassdoor, what Glassdoor does well is they are an excellent employer. And we should be, right, we literally collect data on what it means to be a good workplace. But we truly walk the walk and talk the talk in a way that I haven't really seen any company do before. I mean again, of course, this is our product, right, our product is talking about what makes a great workplace, what makes a great manager, how to ensure you're fairly paid. But Glassdoor lives those values to a  tee. Glassdoor has an exceptionable executive team, a really exceptionable executive team, who are, they're incredibly smart, they're incredibly talented and driven, but they care deeply about their employees and their employee's experience. Employee happiness surveys, we send Glint surveys twice a year. We have a full 360 review twice a year, there's a lot of feedback and a huge focus on how to be a good manager, how to treat your employees well, and then from the HR side, Glassdoor publishes studies of its own data on whether we're fairly paid, all the time, across all of the metrics, across genders, across races, et cetera. It is an exceptional and deeply thoughtful place to work, and we leverage what we learn in the marketplace to be a great employer ourselves.

 

[Naber] Wow, that's great. I love the proactive transparency behind all of it too. If you need to talk speak categorically about this, go for it, but an example of a really big or cool project that you've worked on, or are working on at Glassdoor?

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yeah, something I have thought a lot about is you first, and there are  companies that have inverted this and gone for start-ups first, but often you tend to go for large enterprise-type customers first, they've got budgets, they've got money, you sell a bunch of enterprise customers, you build, sometimes even a custom product, you definitely have a super customized service motion and model that you have for them, and that's how you get out and you get product-market fit, you start to build your base of customers. And then over time, the enterprise space is finite. There's only so many Fortune 100, Fortune 500, Fortune 1,000  companies out there. And something, and forgive me if I misquote this, but something like 60% of employers in the US have less than 10 employees. So tons of SMBs out there. That goes to goes to say the SMB space is huge, and then so you start to figure out how you can sell into the SMB space. And as you do that, and that is kind of, I am equating that with when a company scales, although of course as I mentioned, some companies will start small and go big. Either way, for your first initial customers, you likely are building a relatively high touch service model. They've got two or three people who are at their beck and call, they need anything we're there, providing super superior service. But over time, and as you scale, you can't do that anymore. One, because as your company grows, you just run out of venture money, you just get to a point where profit matters. Uber is Obviously defying all of these truisms, but for most companies eventually, you need to start turning a profit. But secondly, as you start to sell into smaller companies, or you have smaller deal sizes, it doesn't make sense to have a dedicated team servicing a really small customer. So what do you do? And that's where automation comes in. And I think that this is an interesting space in that a few years ago, automation was kind of super hot. Everyone was buying tons and ton of different products. it's been something that's been on the table at all the companies I've been at, 'cause all of the companies I've been at have been in hyper-growth.

 

[Naber] Okay, I've got one more question for you, and then we'll wrap. If someone's looking to build out a biz ops and strategy team,  or biz ops and strategy function, do you have a couple of best practices or a mindset that they just need to nail these one or two or three things that they're gonna build out that function and be really successful?

 

[Danielle Peretore] Yeah, that's a  good question. So I'd say a couple of things. One, your biz op, the person that you hire to lead your biz ops team, you want them to be a strategic thinker, So you need someone who's going to be able to walk into that room and convince a sceptical executive team of the importance and the value of data. So that first hire is really important. And then also as I mentioned, of course, they've gotta be a really strategic thinker. This has gotta someone who sees the whole picture of the company and can play ball with executives and those senior levels. And the reason they need to be a really strong people leader is the kind of people that  you wanna hire on a biz ops team, they're gonna be super data-driven, super strategic like their  leader, and they're also going to be pretty intense, and going to be people who are, they're  really looking to build a career, they wanna know what their next steps are, they've gotten, the   was never good enough for them, they got the A plus. And so enabling, you want someone who's going to enable the people who do both attract really strong talent and then manage them well. And managing people who are really high octane, really high output, sometimes it's easy to let them run, but they actually, they need a lot of support. They certainly need a lot of coaching, they're going to want a lot of guidance, they're people who are going to seek out their manager for help. So having someone who's a really strong people leader is incredibly important. And then I think in terms of who you hire next, something that I've found is really useful is I send a homework assignment. Again, maybe self-evident, but I think this is something that, send, obviously clean-up the data, make sure that the data that you're sending out is not proprietary, I don't want anybody getting in trouble, so these are not things in that proprietary  data, out a data exercise, someone on my team did, again, scrubbed, can't say that enough, scrub that data. And then I ask them to both manipulate the data, but also to put together a  presentation. And I do this actually pretty mu h across all levels. You learn so much from that.  There are so many people that you'll say, oh they've got a great background. But what you don't know, and I think one of the major flaws of interviewing and hiring in general, is you just really ever know, you're just asking questions. You don't know how someone would do with the job, to actually do in the job So send them a sample piece of work. See how they handle it. It'll tell you 90% of what you need to know.

 

[Naber] Hey everybody, thanks so much for listening. If you appreciated and enjoyed the episode, go ahead and make a comment on the post for the episode on LinkedIn. If you love The  Naberhood podcast we'd love for you to subscribe, rate, and give us a five-star review on iTunes. Until next time, go get it.

 

Guest:

Ryan Bonnici - Chief Marketing Officer @G2

(Formerly @HubSpot, @Salesforce, @ExactTarget, @Microsoft; Writer @HBR, @Forbes)

Guest Background:

Ryan Bonnici is the Chief Marketing Officer of G2 Crowd, where he’s driving the growth of the world’s leading B2B technology review platform that’s helping more than 1.5 million business professionals make informed purchasing decisions every single month. With previous positions leading global marketing at HubSpot, Salesforce, and ExactTarget, Ryan’s marketing and SaaS expertise has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Entrepreneur, and LifeHacker. 

Guest Links:

LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

How We Grew Our Organic Traffic to 1 Million Monthly Visitors in Under a Year

The Most Important Marketing Metric You're Not Measuring

Learn.G2.com

Episode Summary:

In this episode, we cover:

- The Inbound Marketing Playbook

- The Art & Science of Marketing Metrics

- Ryan's Methodology - Hiring and Retaining World-Class Talent

- B2B Brand Building - What can we Learn from B2C?

- Social Media Strategy - Ryan Talk's the Talk AND Walk's the Walk

Full Interview Transcript:

Naber:  Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to the Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest-growing companies. Enjoy!

Naber:  Hey everybody. Today we have Ryan Bonnici on the show. Ryan is the Chief Marketing Officer of G2, formerly known as G2 Crowd. They have a $500 million evaluation on $100 million capital raised, where he's driving growth of the world's leading B2B technology review platform that's helping more than 1.5 million business professionals make informed purchasing decisions every single month. With previous positions leading global Marketing at HubSpot (who IPO'd back in 2014, they currently have a $7.5 billion evaluation), also Salesforce (who also IPO'd, they have $124 billion valuation), and ExactTarget (who Salesforce purchased). Ryan's Marketing and SaaS expertise has been featured in Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Entrepreneur.com and Life Hacker. Here we go.

Naber:  Ryan, awesome to have you on the show. How are you?

Ryan Bonnici:    I'm doing well, Brandon, thank you so much for having me.

Naber:  Good. It is amazing to...I can see you right now, see your lovely hair, and hear your lovely accent, which is always a treat for me. You're in Chicago right now, correct?

Ryan Bonnici:    I am, yeah. I moved from Australia to the US a few years ago, and it's beautiful, sunny and warm outside, so I can't complain.

Naber:  Awesome. I've done some solid research on your personal and professional, from all the content you've put out there, and I'm pretty convinced, based on the moves that you made, that you're doing your penance for growing up in beautiful, best in the world to live Sydney and Cronulla, by trying to attempt to live in the coldest, major market cities in the US - in Boston, Chicago.

Ryan Bonnici:    Haha, yeah...this is true.

Naber:  No slag on those cities because I love both of them. Lived in Chicago for about five years as well. Hey, let's jump in. So, I know that you've had such an amazing career and, in the intro everyone's heard a lot of your accomplishments as well as a bunch of the companies you've gone through. So, what we'll do, I think today is we'll jump into some personal stuff first, for maybe a few minutes, and go through what it was growing up as Ryan Bonnici, and then we'll hop into some of the professional, and that'll be the meat of what we talk about. Sound okay?

Ryan Bonnici:    Sounds amazing.

Naber:  Cool. Trinity Grammar School, growing up in Cronulla, going through all the interesting things you did in your childhood to become the person you are today - which I believe, a perennial overachiever, which I'll talk about in a second. But talk about a little bit about, maybe three or four minutes, on what it was like being Ryan Bonnici as a child and growing up.

Ryan Bonnici:    Good question. Gosh, I think in one word, what it was like growing up as Ryan Bonnici as the child, would be "lonely" a little bit. Yeah, I was an only child. And, my parents wanted to have more kids, but they stay separated when I was young. And then I got back together, and they eventually divorced, but they didn't really want to have a second child because they weren't sure about what was gonna happen with their relationship. And so, I don't know. I remember just growing up and always wanting a brother or sister or someone to play with. And so, I definitely feel like I was a very different person then than who I am now. But I don't know, I think that shaped me to be honest, in good ways and in bad ways. So I think, early on and growing up, decided that I was going to put my self worth on my accomplishments, which I wouldn't recommend people do necessarily because you will always be unfulfilled because you're always trying to get the next best thing, or to make yourself better, or be better. And flash forward 30 years, and through a lot of therapy, I've been able to unfold a lot of that stuff. But, yeah, I don't know, that's probably the one word that would best describe me - maybe "lonely", and probably not very social. Which is bizarre, because I think across Linkedin, and Instagram, and Twitter, and different social networks, I probably have a few hundred thousand followers, which I share a lot of content with. So, I come across really social, but I'm secretly just an extroverted introvert. I grew up in Sydney, Australia. I didn't really focus all that much on school up until year 11 and 12, which are the two final years of high school, in Australia. And I don't know what it was, but something just clicked in my mind, and I was like, I really want to get a really good GPA because I want to be able to get into any University in the world. And so I worked my butt off and I got a 4.0...

Naber:  Wow.

Ryan Bonnici:    And then went to university for a year, and I was a bit burned out at university, and then I took a couple of years off from studying to be an international flight attendant, which kind is random.

Naber:  That's pretty cool.

Ryan Bonnici:    Really fun. It helped me save up to buy my first investment property back when I was 19...

Naber:  Wow. Wow.

Ryan Bonnici:    Yeah, and then I can jump into the career stuff, or happy to answer more questions on the growing up, or wherever you want to take it, Brandon.

Naber:  No, that's good. That's good. Let's pause there just for 30 seconds, and then we'll hop into some career stuff. But, you mentioned, you mentioned the word "lonely", and you've talked about - in a lot of the content you've put out around mental health, mental health in the workplace, and how it shaped you professionally - can you talk a little bit about that? Because you're really passionate about it. And, I think that's probably a good place to start because you talked about how some of the events in your childhood had shaped you up until who you are today. Can you just give us a little bit more about that, and how it shaped you as to who you are right now?

Ryan Bonnici:    Yeah, sure. So I think mental health is just something that, I think it impacts everyone to some degree. Some people have good mental health, somebody will have poor mental health. And I think everyone will experience poor a mental health, at certain times of their lives. I think for me, and my family anyways, there's definitely a genetic component because my mum, my mum's mum, there's quite a significant amount of depression and suicidality in our family. So I think some of my own experiences growing up, as well as some of just my genetics, I think predisposes me to have more issues in that space. Which I think I used to view as a problem, but now I just view it actually as something that needs to be trained in the same way that I train my body by going to the gym, I train my mind by going to therapy and doing different therapeutic modalities. And so, I think growing up as an only child and experiencing bullying when I was in primary school, just sort of...I think you attachment to your friends, your attachment to your family, your attachment to these key figures in your early years is really paramount in your formation of the world, and relationships, and whether or not you, when you interact with someone, whether you are going to over-index for them being trustworthy, or you're going to over index for them being someone who's going to take advantage of you, or whatnot. So I think for very good half of my career, I was definitely the latter. So I, unconsciously anyways, viewed everyone around me as a potential bully. And so that meant that I was super competitive and was always thinking about how people around me were going to, I don't know, get in my way, or take me down, or stabbing in the back, which sounds really dramatic. And it wasn't like I was going through my jobs and literally thinking that, and like planning behind the scenes. But I think what I've learned for therapy now, is that I think, and in some ways, I think I've grown a lot of empathy actually toward those parts of me that felt that way, and still sometimes do feel that way, because they were defensive and they were protective, right? They protected me when I was young by not trusting peopl..kids, when I was younger. It protected me from enduring more bullying. But once I was no longer at school, and in university, and at work where that doesn't really ever happen all that much, still sometimes happens, but not all that much, it's definitely less helpful of a strategy. So I think that shaped me in some ways and meant that I focus more on, I'll talk about it a bit later, but I think in career success you really need to focus on relationships and results, the two R's. And I think, it probably meant for me the earlier on in my career, I over-indexed on results. And I think now I do a better job at,equally indexing between results and relationships.

Naber:  Wow. That's great. That's a really good framework for people to think about. Thank you. And then I really appreciate you sharing all of that as well. We're lucky enough to know each other personally and professionally, which is really cool. So, I wish we had three hours, four hours, 10 hours to talk about this stuff right now. So that's actually a really good segue. You mentioned getting into university and then getting into your first few gigs and over indexing on results. Can you walk us through some of your, just walking through your professional jumps in the roles that you've had? Maybe in three or four minutes, and then I'll hop into a couple of questions about some of the superpowers I know that you have, and some of the things you've written about as well, so we can get a little bit more of your mindset.

Ryan Bonnici:    Sure. Yeah. So, I basically started, my career in tech started at Microsoft, into Microsoft for their, I forget what it was called, but it was basically their accelerator program, their leadership program. Microsoft either hires people that are fresh out of university that they identify as folks with leadership potential, and they fast track them to management, or they hire people with 10 plus years of experience. Microsoft almost exclusively never hired anyone with from one to nine years. So I entered through that leadership track, and that was my first exposure to Marketing. I always knew I wanted it to be a CMO. And weirdly, I always knew I wanted to be a CMO before 30. So yeah, I started my career at Microsoft. And then, after spending some time there and learning a lot about B2C Marketing, a company called ExactTarget, which was based out of Indianapolis, in the US, was growing internationally. And Microsoft was a really big user of ExactTarget's email Marketing platform, of which I was a user. And so when they launched Asia Pacific, they hired me as their first Partnerships Marketer. So I then joined ExactTarget, and spent a few years at ExactTarget. And there I really was able to move up, in both experience and in leadership. And so, I built out a big team there across Asia Pacific while I was at ExactTarget. And then ExactTarget was acquired by Salesforce. So I was able to then spend a few years at Salesforce running their Marketing for Asia Pacific. Again, a really remarkable super innovative company, but quite a bit smaller than...a little bit bigger than ExactTarget, but quite a bit smaller, the Microsoft. So I was running all of their B2B Marketing. And so, at ExactTarget, I suppose I was able to really refine, I would say my enterprise B2B Marketing playbooks. So how do you work with Sales to create net-new Sales opportunities for Sales, as well as nurture and accelerate existing Sales opportunities to move them through Sales process faster. So it's very high touch, low volume game, the enterprise B2B playbook. And I had done that for quite a few years and really enjoyed it, but I felt I had really pushed it to its extreme. And, at that time, I was really interested in the company called HubSpot because I was fascinated by how they were doing Marketing, and I love their product. And so I then moved to HubSpot, and was the first Marketing hire in APAC, and then built out their APAC Marketing Team across Sydney, Singapore, Japan. And what I loved about HubSpot, and what was really important to me in my journey, was that HubSpot was still B2B Marketing, but it was B2B at scale, right? So we were selling our software platform, which was an all in one Marketing and Sales platform to small and medium businesses. I think the average sale was about a thousand dollars per month, for HubSpot. And so when you're selling a product that, it's less about high touch and more about, high volume. And so that was really important to me because, eventually I still do want to start my own company. And while I love the enterprise playbook that I used at ExactTarget and Salesforce, when you're throwing big events and doing a lot of that high touch, high hand holding activities, it's really expensive, right? We're talking millions of dollars. Whereas at HubSpot, we had much tighter budgets because we were much more focused on ROI-focused Marketing, and the biggest driver and the most effective driver for ROI-focused Marketing and B2B, and in B2C actually in a lot of senses, is content Marketing. It takes a little bit more time than some of the other strategies, but once you build up traffic from content, the leads, and the MQL's, and the revenue just keeps flowing. So I love...probably prior to G2, my time at HubSpot, those three years, the most proud, time of my life. It was also really challenging, but I learned so much in that first year, about how to do scalable Marketing. So I'm so grateful to have worked there, and just genuinely love the team there so much. I then moved over from Sydney to the US with HubSpot to run their Global Marketing in the sense of digital, social, brand campaigns, PR - and that was fun because it exposed me to another part of Marketing that I didn't have as much exposure to in APAC. And then about, gosh, a little under two years ago, then moved to G2. And the reason why I wanted to move to G2 is that I love B2B, but I think eventually I realistically want to get back to B2C or a B2B / B2C role. And what I love about G2 and a lot of the most innovative businesses today - like Uber, Airbnb, they're all marketplaces...

Naber:  Marketplaces, yeah. Two-side or three-sided marketplaces. It's amazing.

Ryan Bonnici:    Yeah. And they're really fascinating, and super complex and difficult. But I wanted that challenge. I think, if you look at my roles from moving in B2C at Microsoft, to Enterprise B2B, to SMB B2B, I don't like it when I'm comfortable, because I don't feel I'm learning. And I find it takes me a year to basically, without sounding an arrogant douche bag, it takes me a year to become an expert at something. So, my first year at G2 I was hopeless maybe. First year at HubSpot, I wasn't hopeless, but I didn't feel I could add as much value necessarily as the other marketers on the team had been there longer. And I find, typically it takes me six to 12 months to learn everything from that industry and that company and the existing people on the team. And then at the six to 12 month point, I'm able to have a bit more of an integrative understanding of what we should do next because of all of the experiences that I've had. And so, yeah, I always find that when I do my best work is from years one to three, the end of years one to three. Yeah.

Naber:  Very cool. That's actually amazing to know about yourself. You know, wot many people really have that self reflection, understanding of where their best work comes from, how long it takes them to be good at something, what the expectation of themselves, and how to manage that. That's, that's great. I've always been so impressed, impressed by your career, for a lot of reasons. You've accomplished more in a shorter space of time than most, and at really high velocity. But a lot of people that do that, they usually go usually a "T". As in they usually have a lot they have very thin breadth across a lot of things, but a lot of depth in one thing. You have depth and so many things across a Sales and Marketing spectrum because of you're unique set of circumstances, that you both put yourself in, and that you were put in a for the roles and responsibilities that you've had. All the way across, operations, digital, and Sales, and Sales Development. You actually, mentioned that, your job is part marketer and part Sales person and one of your articles. And I think that that's just a true testament to your background, your experiences, to have that mindset. But one of the things I want to talk about right now, you just mentioned, all the amazing businesses you'd worked with. I want to talk about talent. And how you think about attracting, pipelining, hiring, retaining great employees. So you and I both subscribe to the same mindset, I believe, from the content that you've put out there and from having conversations, that talent and hiring is the number one priority for every business. And should be for every single hiring manager as the CEO of that hiring process. So always be pipelining, even and especially when you're not hiring so you can get rockstars on your team, regardless of having readily available headcount or budget, regardless of of having those things open. So let's break those things down. attract pipeline, hire and retain. You talk about in some of your content, I think it was in an Entrepreneur.com article, you talk about not just thinking about Sales and Marketing from an inbound perspective, but thinking about recruiting, hiring and attracting talent from an inbound perspective. Can you talk a little bit about that mindset, and how you apply that to the way that you hire talent?

Ryan Bonnici:    Sure, sure. Yeah. So, I think the reality is, and the way I think about recruiting is, most people that are actively looking for a job are actively looking because they're probably not good at their job, and that's the reality. And people that are good at their job, they don't look for jobs. They are constantly...they're working hard, they're doing a great job for the company that they're at, and it's businesses that intrigue them that they might want to speak to. So, I'm at a loss for words for the exact word that I described this. I did a talk on this once at a big HR conference in Singapore. But you've got people that are actively in the process, and then you've got your inactive folks. And you're active folks make up something like 10% of the pool, and inactive or dormant candidates, which again, that's not the right word for it, make up 90% of...

Naber:  Passive candidates.

Ryan Bonnici:    Yeah, your passive candidates are making up...they're the best candidates, but they're not the ones coming to job boards and looking for you. And so you really need to be focused on how do you attract them. And so I'm a really big believer in that, for really key talent. you need to be proactively meeting, and building relationships, and learning about people and what they're doing and working on. And so I probably do job interviews...I interview about, I don't know, maybe five to 10 people a week. Sometimes for roles and I don't even have open. And when I say interview, that's a very loose term. It's more so, 50% of those might be official interviews, 50% of them are literally just coffee catch ups - where I've sent a note to let's say, the Head of PR at a big marketplace that I won't say because I have spoken to someone recently in that space, and I'm like "Hey, I absolutely love the PR that you're doing at your company. I read a few of these stories, and they're fascinating. Would love to just sync up marketer to marketer and see if we could learn from each other and just chat" And I genuinely actually do, I just want to get to know these people and learn about them. And all of the best hires I've ever made have been passive candidates, because it's based off of their work, not them being actively in the cycle. So whenever I see a great company running a great campaign, I'll look at, okay, who runs campaigns at that company, and I'll then stalk them on Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, and slide into their DM's, and work out a way to meet with them because I'm genuinely interested in their craft. And it's not a Sales pitch because I am genuinely interested, and they can see that and they get it. And that's how I open up. That's how I like to fill funnel right now. That's not to say I don't work with a recruiter. I have a recruiting of here at G2 that's constantly hiring roles for me. But most of my director and above level roles, I rarely, rarely hire...not because I choose to, but I find that most people that I will hire at director or VP level will be folks that I have found myself. Because I think that if you're a passive candidate...and I get emails all the time from recruiters and I'm passive in that I'm looking for a new job, but I rarely respond to them. But if a CMO or CEO at another company that I was really interested in, reached out and said, "Hey, love what you've been doing at G2, and how you completely changed the brand, and how you've grown traffic, and I listened to on a podcast - would love to catch up." That's something that I'm like, yeah, YOLO. I want to meet other smart folks, and I like to hear that the things that I'm doing are getting noticed, selfishly. And so that sort of thing - that works. And so that's how I think about recruiting. I'm pretty process oriented. When I'm going off after a candidate - a passive candidate - I'm a little less process driven because it's very much that I am just looking for great people out there. When I'm in Director-level or below interview, when someone's in our active recruiting cycle, and whether or not we've found them or they found us, I use a bit of a case-based method for how I interview. So I basically start off the interview, where I want to learn a bit more about them. But then I asked them a pretty simple question of, "What were you brought into your company to impact?" And so this has helped me really quickly understand, if they give me a really long answer or they can't answer that, it just shows me that they don't really know why, what their role is at the company. So I'll ask them that to understand. So if someone asked me that at G2, I'd say "Well, I was brought into G2 to drive more Sales revenue, increase our brand, and drive more traffic. And then I'll follow it with a specific task. So I asked them, "Can you please describe the task, or the challenge, or the project, or the problem that you were brought in to solve?" So they might say, "Well, I was brought in to to increase our MQL to SQL conversion", right? Or Blah, blah, blah. And then I will ask them, okay - after whatever they say - then I'ill ask them, "How did you measure your success on that thing?" And then they might say, and this is the worst response ever, they might say, "I wish I could measure it, but my company doesn't really care to measure those things." And then I would dig in further, "Oh, okay, that's okay. Let's say your company did measure those things, how would you want them to be measured?" And that way, I can work out is their brain thinking about measurement in the right way? And then after I understand the measurability component, I then go into action. So, "What projects or tasks did you specifically work on to reach success?" And what that helps me understand is - did they actually do the job? Because companies have lots of successes. We as a Marketing team have done a ton of success, and we talk about it as a team. So it would be easy for someone to take ownership, or pretend that they drove the success of the team, or something else. So this "actions" thing is important to me because it helps me understand, from start to finish, what was their involvement? Did they partner with someone? Where did the idea come from? Did they hit roadblocks? That's really key. And then I'll ask them, "What results we're actually achieved?" And then I'll go into timeframes, "So, how long did it take to get here?" and scale around what would they maybe do differently, or would they do it again or not? And so, that's just really quickly, at a high level, the case flow that I like to go through when I'm interviewing a candidate that has a core set of skills that I'm trying to get deep into and understand how they think. Separate to that though, I think, for me, I really care about people that are data-driven, growth focused - so they have experience in growing things. And the data stuff, the growth stuff, that will come through in this case method that I use. I want people that are lifelong learners, that are obsessed with...if you do want to work on my team and you aren't on social media, and you aren't obsessed with how ads work, and how tracking works, and how digital works - this isn't the right team for you. So I can tell from a lot of their online presences already, whether or not they're probably going to be right for me. And yeah, that's high level how I think about the actual nitty gritty process of it. And then when it comes to retention and growing employees, I have a pretty direct approach where I connect with most people on the team every other month. I connect with, obviously, all my direct reports every week. But I try and encourage them to really understand that transparency is the most important thing to me. And I try and mirror that to them. And by being really transparent with them and sharing with them, what I am working on, what I'm finding challenging, why I can't do what someone has asked me to do, and giving them the logic. And I think today with employees, that they crave to understand "why?" you as a leader make the decisions you make. And, I think, for a long time, leadership decision were made behind closed doors, and people were just told what to do. And I think Gen-Y's, and most employees now in today's workforce, want to be involved, and want to be able to share their opinion, and I'm really encouraging of that. But I also explain that this isn't a democracy. And I want everyone to share their opinion, so that I can make the best decision. And I might make a decision that is different to what you want, but that doesn't mean that I won't listen to you and respect your opinion. But I have to make a decision at the end of the day, and I might have a broader perspective than you because I'm getting all of your input, and then I have all the inputs from my job, and being on a leadership team, that you might not have. So yeah, that's really quickly, I guess how I think about, recruiting, interviewing, and then developing and retaining employees.

Naber:  That was great. You did my job for me - all the way down to the method, and the process you use, some of the questions you ask, the examples you gave. I really what you said around the vulnerability and transparency of communication...openness of the communication within your team. You write about that and some of the things you read about making sure people can share.

Ryan Bonnici:    I really think...I can always keep doing a better job, this is something that I need to work on - partly, it's something that I have needed to really focus on consciously, because it's so different than my style a few years ago. And I think that's partly through a lot of therapy, and a lot of my own work, I realized that some of those defenses that I used to have as a child that were helpful then, weren't helpful as an adult, as a leader in business. And so I've had to develop there further. But I think that...this is a bit of a, not a sad story, but I had a colleague yesterday who I love that they're on my team, they're amazing, who we were meeting for a one on one, and they texted me and they said...let's see if I have the message (*searches phone with Ryan Bonnici style, focus, grace, and precision)...it was basically, long story short, "Hey Ryan, I'm really sorry. I'm not going to be able to make our one on one right now. I think I'm having a panic attack, and I might head home." And naturally I was, "Please, do what you need to do for it, and take care of yourself." And I don't think an employee would have sent that to me previously. They might've said, "I'm out sick" or something. But I have said to my own employees in the past, over slack, when I was having an anxiety attack at some point, I just canceled all my meetings that day and took a mental health day, pretty publicly. And I was like, "I'm out today guys, I'm taking a mental health day." And I was in the office, and I had to go home because I just wasn't feeling it. And the amount of people that texted me after for that to say that they appreciated me being so public with that helped them feel they could bring their whole selves to work. And if they are feeling similarly, they don't need to lie about how they feel. They can just be open. And not to say that they have to, but I think again, it's all about sort of living it yourself, and showing others that they can do the same thing.

Naber:  Totally. Setting the standard, demonstrating the standard, so you can hold the standard. I talked to someone about that, about culture the other day and I believe it's the exact same thing with mental health in the workplace and openness of communication. That's a really good example. Thanks for sharing that. And you keep that openness, from a retention perspective, I think the openness that you keep with the way that you talk to your employees and the way that you talk to your teams - it sounds from the way that you're writing and the example here, I read an article that you'd written the other day, sorry I read the other day that you'd written, talking about encouraging your best employees to consider outside job offers, and having that very open dialogue and open discussion. Can you talk a little bit about that mindset and what that means to you?

Ryan Bonnici:    Yeah, sure. So I think part of it is that too many leaders and people in business tip toe around the idea that people are going to work for a company forever, right? And I think the reality is that the average lifespan of a marketer at a company is, gosh, two years maybe. And so yeah, if you look at my track record, it's three years on average.

Naber:  I read the other day, it was something like - those coming out of college right now are poised to have something like 13.2 employers throughout their life.

Ryan Bonnici:    Yeah, that makes sense. And, I'm really open with people because if you look at my track record, I've done the same. And so what I really want to encourage people to do, is if reaches out to you for a job offer because they think you're a good fit for a role, you should respond. I mean assuming you want, you don't have to, but you should...and I do this, I would always respond to them. So recruiters hit me up all the time, and they be like, "Hey Ryan, I have a CMO role or CEO role at this super sexy high growth company, blah, blah, blah." My first message back, I have no niceties, I'm like, "Thanks for your message. What is the company?" Because that's all I care about, right? Who is the company that we're talking about? Because there's heaps of roles out there, but I don't want to work for just anyone or for everyone. And so once they tell me that the company is, then if it's an interesting company, I might chat to them or their leadership team to learn a bit more. And I think why that's important is because it helps me solidify to myself if I am in the right role myself. By chatting someone else and seeing what other roles are available and by asking questions I can work out, "Oh gosh no, in my role today, I'm so much happier." But it also helps me have a baseline understanding of - what roles are out there? What are the typical skillsets that are needed,? How much are people paying for my skillset? Which helps give me visibility into, do I need to be asking for more money at my current company, or am I paid fairly. And so I think if you treat your employees really, really well, and be open and honest with them in that, they're not probably gonna work for you forever, and that you want the best for them in their career, because you understand that they'll then be an advocate for you and your company afterwards, then they're a little bit more open about these things. And so, and yeah, I just do that with my team, and I practice what I preach. And so it means that that encourages folks to feel open about that they can come to us and say, "Hey, I have this job offer from this company. I don't necessarily want to leave, but they're offering double what you guys are offering me." And if this is an employee that's amazing that we couldn't do without, then we'll try and do whatever we can to keep them. And that might mean more responsibilities, if they've shown that they deserve it. It might mean more pay. It depends on why the person's making the decision, right? And that's case by case, but I think you can get a better understanding of that, and help them see as well, by asking them questions about the role and the company...I often times find that I will uncover things that they don't know, or haven't realized. Like, they haven't asked how much budget they might, or who their boss is going to be, or if they were told that they could run a team - but is it going to be in writing that they will get to run the team? And just these things that they haven't asked. And they start to then realize, holy shit, I have so much more potential and bandwidth here on Ryan's team. Yes, the grass might seem greener on the other side because they're offering more money, but there's a reason why they're offering more money. It's because they can't get good talent. So, I don't know, and by doing that they may realize that, yes, they should leave, or not. And so, I think I preface always these conversations with my team with a bit of an asterisk, in the sense of that you might go through that process and come to us and say that there is this offer that you're going to take, and we might say to you, if we don't feel you are contributing well on the team or you're not someone that we want to change the situation for, you should take the role.

Naber:  Take it.

Ryan Bonnici:    Yeah. No, exactly.

Naber:  That's the best case scenario for everybody too, it's great.

Ryan Bonnici:    Yeah, exactly right. Yeah. You should take that role because we think that you are paid fairly, and as per your last performance review, we've made it pretty clear to you in terms of what you would need to do to get to the next level, and you haven't done that yet. So, we're happy for you to stay here and keep developing you, but if it's money that you want, you're not going to get that here until you put in the work that we've shown you. And I think just from having that dialogue, they can better understand how much more quality coaching and development they are going to get with you than another company. And they can then make their own decision. So that's how I try and think about it.

Naber:  Awesome. Thanks. Thanks so much for the multiple, multiple layers you went into with that. And you've been, you've been at so many businesses where you've had just amazing people at those businesses, built awesome cultures. I think one of the things that people want to hear about is, how you think about talent. We just talked about that. And then also, a couple things around the science of what you've done. So building Inbound Marketing Engines, you've been at the Mecca of Inbound at HubSpot. And I couldn't even count on two hands how many amazing people I know at HubSpot, and how many reasons I love the culture there, as well as love the products. And so even people outside the business feel that way. But, tell us what you learned at HubSpot about building Inbound Marketing Engines that translates to G2 and how you've built that engine right now, as well as every subsequent Marketing engine you're going to build. What translates that everyone should be doing as they're building their Inbound engine.

Ryan Bonnici:    Gosh, okay. So, I mean, as you mentioned, working for HubSpot has taught me everything that I know about Inbound. And that was actually, when I mentioned before why I was so grateful for work there, was I just was able to work with the smartest Marketing minds, and I just fucking love that team, and miss them so much. They're a big customer at G2 actually, and I got the chance to head back to Boston last month because we recorded this amazing customer success video with their CEO, Brian Halligan and Kip Bodnar, their CMO. And they were talking about all the value that they get from G2, and why they couldn't connect with their customers if it wasn't for G2. And so it was so fun to get to go back there and profile this company that I was so proud to have worked at, and that was a big customer of ours. It was really quite nice. Look, what I think what I learned there is that...HubSpot literally wrote the book on Inbound Marketing. And so, I think what I learned about was just how to take a really data driven approach to drive, to creating content that drives results. And I think, blogging and writing, Content Marketing is something that can be done really...most people do it horribly wrong. Because everyone can write, so everyone thinks they can be a blogger or a content marketer. And anyone can actually write good content, if they have the right training or if they use the right assistance tools. The problem where I think most people go wrong with content Marketing is once you've decided what you're writing about, if it's not the right topic, you can't optimize it for something whereby no one searches for that topic. So, optimization, SEO optimization when it comes to content Marketing, happens before topics are even selected, before pen touches the paper. And that's why my VP, Content & SEO is an SEO by trade. He ran SEO at Atlassian, and now leads SEO and Content for us G2. And the reason being is, you need to look at...you to just start with keyword research and work out, okay, where are people searching? And which searches indicate that this person is our persona that we are trying to attract to our website, blog, etc? And then you need to work out, okay, how high quality are the keywords in relation to the persona - like, is 50% of the traffic that we're going to get for this keyword with a million searches going to be our buyer persona, and if so, that means 500,000 of the 1 million is going to be out traffic. Or, alternatively, there could be a 700,000 terms per monthly searches that has a 90% percent alignment to your buyer persona, which is going to be higher than that 500,000. But if you just chose the biggest number, you might not get as much of the right people. And so we take a super data driven approach. And we, we literally published, just yesterday, I had the team publish a playbook. And it's a five part playbook - on learn.g2.com (https://learn.g2.com/hub/1-million/how-we-grew), which is our learning hub - which was literally the entire play by play that we created to create a blog at G2 just last year, around seven months ago, that went from zero visitors to over a million monthly visitors within seven months or something like that. Insane growth, right? This blog now makes up...this blog is driving millions and millions of visitors, and it hasn't existed - per month, I should add - and it hasn't existed for more than a year now. You know, HubSpot's blog drives about 6 million monthly visitors, but HubSpot been working on that bad boy for about 10 years.

Naber:  Wow. That's a great proportional perspective for how fast your blog has grown.

Ryan Bonnici:    Yeah. We are on track to hit 4 million monthly by the end of this year - that's goal that I set the team for the blog alone. Our total website, we'll be at about 10 million monthly by the end of this year. And when I joined G2 our traffic was around, it was less than a million a month. So, in two years to go from less than a million monthly visitors to 10 million, which is where we're on track for, that's fucking insanity.

Naber:  That's literally 10x. That's insane.

Ryan Bonnici:    And that's not just my work, it's not just the Marketing team's work. We have a great product team that we work with, we have lots of contributing content writers that create content...But majority that traffic's all organic as well, I should have said. We don't do any paid content. And so, yeah, that's one thing that I'm really frickin' proud about. Because, I mentioned earlier, relationships and results. Relationships are super important, but results are as well. I think, you said I was able to fast track my career. And, I was, I got the Cmo role at G2 when I was 29, and I couldn't have done that if it wasn't for really overindexing on results. And what I mean there, is if you tell me to hit a million monthly visitors, I'll hit four (million). And it's not because I'm trying to show off or anything, it's basically because I derive a lot of self worth through my work achievement. And, over time I'm getting better at disconnecting and finding self worth from who I am as a person, regardless of job, but that's still something that's really important to me. And so, I'm thankful for that part...that lonely boy role that I played when I was younger because it helped get me here, and I don't think I would change it looking back.

Naber:  Wow, that's an excellent answer. I love it. I hope everyone...I don't think people could write down notes fast enough as they're listening to that. So can we dive in one more layer on that? So two things. One, what are the phases you go through as you're thinking about building a strategy - for one year, two years? If I'm listening to this as a Head of Marketing or Head of Sales & Marketing, and I'm thinking about - what are the phases I'm going to go through? You've directed this movie multiple, multiple times. So what are the phases you go through as you're building a strategy. And then two, what does your scorecard look like do that you know how to measure it?

Ryan Bonnici:    So, I guess, it can be a bit different depending on if you've been doing content Marketing for awhile, or if you're just starting out, it's slightly different. If you've been doing it for awhile - and I wrote a big blog post Entrepreneur magazine called The One Marketing Metric That You're Not Measuring, which outlines this process in more detail. If anyone Google's The One Marketing Metric That You're Not Measuring and my name, they'll find it. But basically, if you've already been creating content for a while, step one would be explore all your Google analytics data, map it and connected to your CRM data, and worked out which blog posts are driving the most organic traffic, and what's the conversion rate of that traffic into leads, and leads into MQL's, and MQL's into revenue. And then you can start to connect, what content topics that I'm writing about? If I think of HubSpot, one content topic they might write about is Marketing automation, and another content topic they might write about is social media, another contents topic they might write about is Marketing budgets - because, all of those things are things that a Marketer would be searching for, and they sell to a Marketer. And so, you would then group all of your content in pages around those topics, and see, okay, in the aggregate how much traffic has the social media content driven to our blog organically, how much of those organic visitors to social media content have been converted into leads, etc. And you can start to work out what content topics are driving the most revenue at the bottom of the funnel. Yeah. Does that kind of make sense? Connecting the two?

Naber:  Yep.

Ryan Bonnici:    And then, so that would be what I would recommend you do if you've already got a lot of content, you are driving organic traffic, and you want to get a bit of an understanding of what is and isn't working. If you're just starting out fresh - and then once you've done that, you then can still do what I'm going to suggest now - but if you are starting out fresh, then what I would suggest is just, you know, your buyer persona better than anyone. Think about, sit down, and think about what does this person do in their day to day life. And I if use the HubSpot example again, the Marketing persona that we were trying to attract, I don't just think of about their job in the context of my software. So what I mean by that is, yes, HubSpot's platform does email Marketing and social media. So those were two of the topics that I touched on before. HubSpot product does nothing around budgeting, but we still created content around that topic because that was something that a Marketer needs help with. They create budgets - they go to Google, and they search for budget templates. So it's not just about creating contents that are close to your product, it's about creating content around topics that your buyer persona would be searching for regardless of whether or not they are looking for your product at that moment in time. Okay? And that's a really important piece because if you just create content topics around the things that are in relation to your product or service, they're way more competitive typically than other topics because that's, that's the simple "dumb" Marketer to thing to do. Sorry, that's a bit mean. I shouldn't say the "dumb" Marketer thing to do. That's just the thing that everyone does naturally. You don't have to be very creative to think about doing that. And so, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't do that, but you should be thinking broader as well. I feel bad now the saying "dumb" Marketer.

Naber:  Ha, I think people will forgive you based on all the valued you're delivering, so don't worry about it.

Ryan Bonnici:    And so, once you start to look into those different topics, that's when you start to do keyword research and using tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs. But, ideally come to G2, and search for the best SEO software, and we'll give you personalized recommendations. And then you can start to look at some content tools that are out there, and group these different topics to see what kind of volume of people are searching for the topics? How difficult is it to rank for these topics? So most of the different platforms will give a difficulty score of one to a hundred. A hundred - meaning it's impossible, you are never going to rank for this unless you are facebook.com. To one - any person that launches a new website can rank for it. And so you want to choose a mixture of difficult terms because they typically have higher volume, and a mixture of some easier terms because they typically have a lower volume. And the easier terms are good because they start to drive immediate traffic to your site because you can rank for them quickly. But also, once you start driving organic traffic, then you start to create the flywheel effect whereby, okay, all these new people that are reading your content are going to enter your subscription process. And then they'll be return visitors for email Marketing. As well as, they're probably creating, if they're marketers and that's who you're attracting, they probably have their own blogs. If they really liked what you wrote about, they might link to you. And then if they link to you, that helps you increase your domain authority, which then helps you rank for more difficult terms. So you want to be doing both. And I think that's a mistake that we made early on at G2, where...and it was my fault, I joined from HubSpot, and we had a domain authority of 92 out of a hundred at HubSpot. And so when I joined G2, I think we had a domain authority only around 80. So some of the terms that I wanted the team to go after very early on were just too difficult. And so we didn't drive any traffic to them until six months later. And the team was smart enough to say, "Hey, while we've created some of these really difficult, high volume content, we need to do some easier content that's going to be a quicker win in the meantime to get the flywheel going, to get Google noticing our site. I know I explained that really quickly to a certain extent, but I know we have limited time. And there's...I could talk about this literally for 24 hours. There's so many details to this, and it seriously...if anyone wants this step for step, they should just go to learn.g2.com (https://learn.g2.com/hub/1-million/how-we-grew) because we published the playbook for this yesterday.

Naber:  Awesome. Do you remember, for the audience, do you remember what the title was?

Ryan Bonnici:    I think the title of it is literally, how we grew our organic traffic to 1 million monthly visitors. (https://learn.g2.com/hub/1-million/how-we-grew)

Naber:  Okay, sweet. Very original title - that's good.

Ryan Bonnici:    Haha, yeah, very original.

Naber:  For everyone listening, I'll put the link to in the description of this, of this episode. (https://learn.g2.com/hub/1-million/how-we-grew) Hey, last thing I want to talk about because I know we do have limited time, is one more superpower that I think is really clear to everyone - that both follows you on social, understands how your career trajectory has gone, as well as the businesses that you've helped build - is around brand building. You just went to Cannes Lions, and you wrote a Linkedin article about it being a big chance for B2B marketers to learn from top B2C Marketing strategies. And you talked about B2B brand building a little bit in that. You also have on social media, your following...you mentioned it a little bit earlier, but I couldn't believe the numbers that it was looking at. I mean, I could, but I couldn't at the same time. And you have 21,000 fans on Facebook, 56,000 followers on Instagram, 20,000 followers on Twitter, 32,000 followers on LinkedIn. Every single one of those platforms is extremely challenging to get even close to a fraction of that, let alone have that consistency. So could you talk a little bit about, building brand from a,B2B perspective, and then also from a social perspective where you can marry those two things together, however you think about it. But I think a lot of people are going to struggle with building their B2B brand because you mentioned, B2B is so far behind B2C and being able to do that.

Ryan Bonnici:    Yeah. Yeah. So, I think B2B Marketers are traditionally the worst at building brands. And it's because, B2B typically, when you're selling to businesses, you're typically selling a higher value product. It's very logical, rational. You're solving a very specific problem. Which means that because it's so Sales driven, and because Sales focuses time on those pain points with prospects, Marketing just seems to always be quite clinical and boring and corporate. So the reason why I went to Cannes was because, I think the B2C world do a much better job when it comes to...When it comes to CPG, consumer package goods, and fast moving products, it's far less logical and rational, and it's far more emotional, and gut, and instinctual. And so their content and campaigns are always very visceral. They're very much about making you feel a certain way. They're about surprising you, delighting you, making you laugh, making you cry. And I don't necessarily think that, B2B should go completely down that path. But I think as a CMO it would be silly of me not to, it would be dumb of me. Here we go, I'll pay myself out and make up for my last comment. It would be dumb of me not to go to that event, at least once, because there's stuff that I can learn from that industry. And I think that's actually, funnily now that we talk about it, a very good proof of what I said before, that I am obsessed with learning from other people in other industries, selfishly because I want to steal all of their great ideas and apply them to my world, and integrate them better than anyone else. And I think I genuinely do a pretty good job at understanding many aspects of Marketing, more than I think other CMO's that have just stayed in one lane. And it's because I just push myself out of my comfort zone. So, yeah, I don't think B2B CMO's do a very good job at that. And I don't think we have done a very good job at G2. And so, I want to upskill myself so that I can help upskill my team, etc. I think, if you look at software today, right? There is something like 60,000 pieces of B2B software out there. There's probably, there's something like 250, maybe a thousand different email Marketing platforms. And so in the B2B space, B2B used to be a differentiator...so B2B software - SaaS - used to be, I think a thing that could differentiate you in terms of winning or losing. If you're a company that got in on SaaS and software early, that gave you an unfair advantage. And I think today everyone uses software. Everyone uses 50 different pieces of just email Marketing software alone. The software is less the differentiator today, and it's how you use the software. And so, once you move into a parody market where you're selling products that are similar to everyone else's...and not all software categories are like this. CRM certainly is, email Marketing certainly is, Social Media is kind of like that. These categories where there's tons of different options, they're all kind of similar. People, when they're making the decision, they're going to lean more into some of the emotive components because if your products are all the same, who wouldn't want to work with the brand that's a bit more fun, and is a bit more enjoyable, they like more. And so that's kind of my thoughts B2B branding, and that's why we at G2 went through a rebrand earlier this year, where we dropped the Crowd from our name, so we're just G2 now. We completely redid our logo, our brand colors, but it was more than just a visual refresh. It was more actually that we as a company changed our mission, and our focus, and shifted because we understood our buyers a little bit more. So that's what I would say on the B2B branding side of the house. On the personal brand and building your own brand on social, I talked about this at Drift's conference last year. I keynoted there and spoke about how to build your career and your brand. And I think sometimes people feel embarrassed to toot their own horn, and it doesn't need to be that. But I think the way I've always viewed it is that, the bigger my clout as a person, as a marketer, basically the more interesting I am to people so that they follow me, that they want to interview me, they talk to me, they allow me to talk at events - the more valuable I am to an employer. Because I already have a platform to talk to people, right? So, if you think of me in my current role, right? When I go into my next role at my next company - which no idea when that will happen because I love G2 - I've published content for HBR, for the World Economic Forum, for...fuck, there's just so many publications now. I all of these connections there because they trust me, and they know that I'm not writing Salesy content. I am exposing my flaws, and talking about wins, and I'm giving their writers something of value. And so when I go to my next company, now immediately I have this rolodex of companies that I can write for, and all the buyers they're going to say Ryan as the CMO, GCO, etc. of this new company. And I'll naturally...I'm a Marketer, so I'll naturally pull in a very natural, lovely way, a mention of that company that's super authentic to what I'm writing about, obviously - and, yeah, it's a win-win. And so, I think my lesson for folks listening that are yeah, okay, well it's easy to get press when you're a CMO and write for these companies - when I wasn't a CMO, I still was doing it. You just have to start smaller. And so the step by step process that I told people to do is - you probably already worked for a company, so tap on your content Marketing teams door and say, hey guys, hey gals, I would love to create some content for our company blog. And no content Marketers are going to say no to that because they have really big traffic goals, and they want more content. And say to them, hey, what topics do you guys need content around, and let's see if I can find a crossover of where I have a skill set and where you need content. And then work with them, publish some content, publish more content, that helps get you on the map. And then you then might get noticed by someone, and someone might ask you to write for them. But now at least you can at least proactively reach out to tier three publications, and say, "Hey, I write for insert company publication here', and here are a few links to some of my work. I just recently put wrote this piece of content about topic x, which I think would be a really good fit for your audience. I've pasted it in the email below, let me know what you think. And if you publish it" And that just kind of gets you up and running, you know? And so if that person doesn't reply, try another tier three publication. And that's genuinely how I did it. And then I went from tier three to tier two. And then when I started creating content for tier one, I referenced my tier two work, and you just slowly work your way up. And then after a while, you don't need to reference it anymore because people would just Google your name and they'll see all of the content, and that's the proof, kind of thing. So, yeah.

Naber:  Excellent. You've been doing this for so long - personally and professionally.

Ryan Bonnici:    Oh - The only thing I would add as well, Brandon, is that I think for...the biggest asterisk on all this before, and it's kind of like what I mentioned with content Marketing, if you don't have the right keyword and topic idea from the get go, you will fail. With building your personal brand and writing content. If you aren't authentic, and if you don't have something unique to say - that's key - no one's going to publish your bullshit. If I wrote a blog...that blog post that I wrote for Harvard Business Review about why I tell my best employees to seek other job offers - if I wrote why I love to run one on one meetings...like year, no shit, Sherlock. Of course we all know that that's important. Like, "Oh Ryan has a different view on career progression and letting people leave." That is interesting. So, that's where you need to be a marketer, and you need to think about storytelling. You need to think about your unique skill set, and how you can tell a story that people will want to read. Because I think if you don't have that from from the beginning, that no one will ever reply to you and this won't work for you.

Naber:  Love it. Unique and authentic. I've heard that over and over from a few different businesses that are great at it, people that are great at it...You've just been doing it for so long, that's extremely valuable, and thank you for the examples and all the detail. You're running short on time right now. I want to get one rapid fire question, and then we'll wrap. Is that okay?

Ryan Bonnici:    Sounds great.

Naber:  Okay, cool. So this is a question, and I explained this to guests each time, this question I usually ask people on their birthdays. Your birthday's not until October, October 3rd, I believe, and we both have October birthday, so I got excited when I saw that. It's not creepy, maybe it is that I know that. But anyways, the question I was asking is, what's the most valuable lesson you've learned in the last 12 months personally?

Ryan Bonnici:    The most valuable lesson I think that I've learned in the last 12 months...

Naber:  Personally, we'll get to professional in a second.

Ryan Bonnici:    Yeah, I was just going to go there anyways. It was probably could be more...to be kinder to myself. I think has probably been the biggest lesson that I've learned in the last 12 months. Because I think, this job and this challenge, which was bigger than I had ever taken on, definitely pushed me to my limits last year. And I think, and I'm in a really good place now. But I got pushed into...and I'm saying "got pushed" is maybe just a defeatist way of saying that I let myself get too stressed out, or whatnot. As tough as I am on others around me, I'm 10 times as tough on myself. So that little Freudian slip of "dumb marketers" means that secretly, I think that I am a dumb Marketer. And that's, like fact. Like, deep down I'm insecure that I am that persona. But, I think, I've definitely learned over the last 12 months, through a shit-ton of therapy, to just be kinder to myself. Because everyone is fighting their own battles, whether you can see it or not, and most often times the folks that piss you off the most or that activate something in you, have something deep going on inside of them, but that what you're seeing is just their defense mechanism to help them avoid dealing with whatever it is that they were trying to avoid. And I've been there. And so, I don't succeed at being kind to myself and others everyday. But I think it's something that I'm actively working on.

Naber:  Awesome. Be kinder to yourself. I actually need to steal one more thing because I feel the extra two minutes is going to be worthy of the way that you feel after it, because you've given a lot of really good career advice. What's your best career...I think you're going to expand on it a little bit earlier. But what's some of your best career advice that you have for young professionals as they're navigating their career?

Ryan Bonnici:    Well, I think my best career advice that people today, young and old, would be that, we're really lucky today because of social media, it's so easy to find interesting people. And so I touched on before, in terms of what I do when it comes to recruiting, when you see a really cool ad, or if you think about the brands that you love, or the companies that you'd want to work for, going to Linkedin, to Twitter, to Instagram, and follow all of the leaders at those companies that are doing the awesome work. They're sharing content on how they think, how they feel on all of those channels. And so you can learn so much more about them that way. And who knows, maybe you can reach out to them because you study them so well, and you have a really poignant question to ask them that they think was an impressive question. And then they'll take time to have coffee with you. And then you get a job offer...I really think that the best way we learn and can grow in our careers is by looking out there and finding who are the best people doing the best work. Let's learn from them, and let's copy them, and let's recreate what they're doing in a better way. And so that's probably my best career advice. And I think next to that is just, don't forget about the relationships in career. And I think, I would say that that was something that I needed to realize a few years back. I think most people though over-index on relationships, and don't over-index on results. I was the other way around, which wasn't great either. But I think you need to crush your results, right? If your boss tells you to jump here, you jumped double there, or you jump to where they are asked, and show them something else that you jumped to where they didn't know they needed to jump. But you also need to do relationships, I think, at the same time. I think you can burn bridges if you don't do that.

Naber:  Awesome. Ryan, you the man. Thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate your time, brother.

Naber:  Thanks for having me. Brandon was nice to chat.

Naber:  Hey everybody, thanks so much for listening. If you appreciate it and enjoyed the episode, go ahead and make a comment on the post for the episode on LinkedIn. If you love the Naberhood Podcast, we'd love for you to subscribe, rate, and give us a five-star review on iTunes. Until next time - go get it.

Guest:

Oliver Jay - Head of Global Sales & Partnerships @Asana

(Board Director @Grab; Formerly @Dropbox, @NEA, @HBS)

Guest Background:

Oliver Jay is the Head of Global Sales & Partnerships at Asana. Prior to Asana, he scaled the Dropbox sales team from 20 to 100 people across multiple geographies. Previously, Oliver worked at Morgan Stanley and New Enterprise Associates (NEA) where he invested and worked alongside entrepreneurs in consumer internet, cleantech and enterprise SaaS companies. Oliver earned his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and his MBA from Harvard Business School.

 Guest Links:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Episode Summary:

In this episode, we cover:

- Top Talent: 4 Hiring Criteria & Step x Step Recruiting Process

- The International Expansion Playbook

- Upstream: Product-Market Fit to Freemium to Enterprise

- Building Sales Engines - Self Serve, Online Sales, Enterprise, Partnerships & Channel

- 3 Criteria for Picking Horses (the Right Hypergrowth Companies)

- The Role of Unit Economics for Sales & Marketing Leaders

Full Interview Transcript:

Naber:  Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to The Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest-growing companies. Enjoy!

Naber:  Hey everybody. Today we have Oliver Jay on the show. OJ is they call him. OJ is the Head of Global Sales at Asana, a $1.5 billion valuation company, a Unicorn with $213 million capital raised. Prior to joining Asana, he scaled the Dropbox Sales team from 20 to 100 people across multiple geographies. Dropbox IPO in 2018 $9.6 billion valuation. Previously Oliver worked at Morgan Stanley and New Enterprise Associates, NEA. We invested and worked alongside entrepreneurs in consumer internet, clean tech and enterprise SaaS companies. OJ is also on the Board of Directors for Grab, who has a $14 billion valuation and $9.1 billion capital raised. OJ earned his BA from the University of Pennsylvania and his MBA from Harvard Business School. Here we go.

Naber:  Oliver Jay, awesome to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  I'm so glad to be here, Brandon.

Naber:  Excellent. Thank you. It's July 4th. I'm sure you don't have anything better to do, so I'm really glad that you're spending it with me this morning. and I really appreciate your time. So we've got a lot to talk about. We're lucky enough to know each other personally and professionally, so I get to talk about some of my favorite things and hear about your story personally, and we'll hop into professional as well, hop through some of your career journey and ultimately, spend the bulk of our time in your professional journey, talking about a lot of the strengths, experiences, and ultimately superpowers that you've built up over time, that you've been able to study about, but also execute on that at several different, really, really high growth businesses. So let's start with on the personal side, little bit about you growing up, a little bit about what you were like as a kid. I mean, Hong Kong, Concord, New Hampshire, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, San Francisco, Sydney, San Francisco 2.0, been all over the planet. And I'd love to walk through you as a kiddo and talk about some of your interests, some of the things you're interested in, and then your journey through school. And then we can get into some professional stuff. Maybe in five to seven minutes, et's talk through what was OJ as a kid?

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Awesome. Yeah. Well, so I grew up in Hong Kong. My parents are still there. And, I think even as a child I was always, I was the Lego kid, I was the builder. I was a total nerd throughout. And I excelled in math and science. Not a surprise. And it got to a point where my parents were , okay, math is only going to get you so much here. So they then sent me to boarding school in New Hampshire.

Naber:  And that was St Paul's?

Oliver Jay (OJ):  And that would be St Paul's. So I went there. That was my entry to the US was a ninth grade.

Naber:  Nice. Excellent. So, what were some of the interests you had or the hobbies you had when you were a kid?

Oliver Jay (OJ):  My main thing was tennis. Tennis was my major hobby growing up. And I think a lot of who I am came from just that sport, because that sport, just like any sport, requires you to be excellent. You just have to be, continue to grind away. A lot of, how I think actually came from that sport and competing, learning how to lose graciously, learning how to stay calm when there's, when it's things are looking rough. When you're down a set, what do you do? I'm thinking about how do you change your tactics in real time? That all comes from tennis.

Naber:  Absolutely. Especially in an individual sport. We have to be so iterative. Where you do things a thousand times in practice, and it just becomes a transaction when you're in the actual match. That makes a lot of sense. So when you moved to St Paul's, and you were in Concord, New Hampshire, out of your comfort zone, tell us about that transition. And then let's talk about some of the things that you were interested in when you were in New Hampshire and high school.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Boy, so the interesting thing was Saint Paul's is one of the top high schools in the US, and that's pretty much all my parents knew. And my parents said, you're very strong in math and science, but your English sucks, and it's just really bad. And they're like, you need to supercharge that. And so they looked at the list, I think it was a US News and World Report list. And they had a couple rankings and some names that people have heard of, Exeter, St Paul's, whatever. And then so I applied and got in. And I mean St Paul's is a real school, in that it's academics is intense. And it's in the middle of nowhere. I mean, you're literally in the woods. I grew up in Hong Kong, I grew up in the heart of the jungle, a concrete jungle, and then I'm literally moved into a jungle. The school had, I think 200 acres. And I mean, it was nuts. But I learned to adapt. I learned about the American way. Yeah, it was tough, but it was certainly, also the best four years of my academic career.

Naber:  Nice. Very cool. And did you play tennis when you were there? Or what were some of the activities that you were doing?

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Yeah, yeah. I was on the tennis team, I was captain of the tennis team there. We were decent, we were decent. I did that, and then I was just lots of part of lots of clubs. But honestly, high school was tough for me. I didn't have that much spare time. Obviously, it should be clear, I have tiger parents, right? Obvious. So I did play a violin as well, but I was terrible at it. But I did the orchestra thing, but I was, I was so bad, so bad. But I survived, and I was okay. But I mean, I just, I worked so hard because my English level was far, far, far, behind my peers at school.

Naber:  That must have been so challenging. Learning all that curriculum at such a high level, while you're learning how to master the English language yourself. That is immensely complex.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  It was crazy. It was crazy. But, it changed my life. Because when I went to college, I studied philosophy, politics and economics. I went to Penn, right? So I didn't go to Wharton and just do a bunch of math and talking about strategy. I mean it's funny, I'm in business now. It's so easy compared to a career, or studying old philosophy texts, and debating, and writing papers or why you disagree with Socrates. I mean that's...But if I didn't go to St Paul's, and then of gotten out of my comfort zone, I wouldn't have done that.

Naber:  That's cool. That's actually a really good way of looking at it. The most challenging class I think I've ever had in Uni was my logic class, my philosophy class - deductive reasoning, and logic, and going through all those different frameworks, and squaring everyone from old philosophers, and folks that...it's just almost, it feels it's impossible with their life experiences to contend and debate with. But that's, that's really interesting. You moved to U Penn. Why did you decide to choose U Penn?

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Actually it was specifically because I really liked this program. So PPE, philosophy, politics and economics, is the most popular major in Oxford, in the UK. And Penn was one of two schools that adopted this program. It sounds fancy. Sometimes when I tell people that, it sounds I tri-majored. It's not true. It's more than one, but, it's this integrated curriculum of three disciplines that I think are really, really tied together. So that's why I went to Penn, for that program specifically.

Naber:  Got It. So I won't tell anyone you didn't tri-major, but it sounds really, really stimulating. So you were at U Penn, What were some of the things you're interested in at U Penn? Before we get into your first job.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Like I said, Saint Paul's really opened my eyes to the world of humanities, and that's why I really loved that. But my interest had always been in business. You grow up in Hong Kong, you're going to be in business or you're a doctor, right? Or maybe a lawyer. It's just what you do, and it's in my blood. And so even when I was in high school, I was reading Peter Lynch books on how to invest. And so I've always been interested in business, but I took a couple of business classes and I was like, especially the management ones, and I was like, this is ridiculous. I'm not gonna pay this tuition to learn how to work as a team. Not to dismiss it, but I'm like, I don't think I'm going to have a chance again to, to read about Immanuel Kant, and how he thinks about the world. So in college, what I did was I spent most of my time academically on humanities, and then extracurricular was where I got scratch my itch on business. And my biggest thing there is I started the Wharton China Business Society. And back then, it was 2000. China had just gotten into the World Trade Organization, this was before China is the China we know it as today. But you knew it was going to be big. And it's cool, that society is still running now. I'm still getting their emails. Well they keep asking me to for donations.

Naber:  That's how you know you made it. All right, cool. So you're you go through UPenn, you tri-major, obviously we talked about that. And you're interested also in studying business. I know you've always been interested in studying companies. I don't know if that's at the cost of studying people, but I know you've always been interested in studying companies. Is that when that started? Or did you get more practical with investing at Morgan Stanley, at NEA, at Harvard, before you started studying companies a lot?

Oliver Jay (OJ):  I think the turning point was Morgan Stanley. I mean it was probably that summer internship. I just find it really fascinating. So when I got to Morgan Stanley, and I picked Morgan Stanley because I always liked tech as well. So I've always been a geeky, nerdy guy. And so at Morgan Stanley, I joined the tech team. And I ended up joining team that covered hardware. So companies Cisco, Juniper, and all the companies that died, Nokia, Motorola, they don't exist anymore, Nortel. But I just found it so fascinating to think about how a lot of these companies basically sell commodity hardware. A Cisco router is not that much better than Juniper router, or vice versa back then, at that point.

Naber:  That's like a nightmare for software, I mean you're selling on features and pricing.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Exactly, exactly. And, but you were able to see very, very different trajectories. A lot of these companies no longer exist. A lot of them are still strong today. And that's just because of a different strategy that companies took. And I had the opportunity to go really deep. So that's why I joined equity research as opposed to a lot of my colleagues that joined investment banking to work on IPO's and deals. Because, it's probably my humanities background in education that I had led me to want to dig in deep, as opposed to more of a transactional finance job. And that's why I ended up in equity research. And through that experience I've really got to learn how to dig into companies.

Naber:  Yeah. Very cool. That's a great transition. So while you're at Morgan Stanley...What's the top thing you learned from Morgan Stanley? The top learning you had, before you moved into NEA. And then we'll hop into NEA after that.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Ooh, top thing from Morgan Stanley. I actually, I have two things in my mind. So can I give you two?

Naber:  Give me 10 if you want to, I've got time.

Naber:  Yeah. Yeah. So the first, is I think of all places, I was extremely fortunate. And I had two great Managers at Morgan Stanley. They were my first bosses. And they say your first Manager really impacts you and your career, more than any other, right? I was just so fortunate because normally you don't get that on Wall Street.

Naber:  Yeah. Statistics aren't on your side.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  And I got placed with Scott Coleman and John Marchetti, and they were up and comers. And they rose through the ranks, and so they know what it took to move up. And they just had a very empowering mentality from the beginning. So they just pushed me, and I always asked for more. But every time, they just really gave me great feedback, pushed me, I learned so much. And they empowered me so much that by the second year I was they put me on stage at the Morgan Stanley tech conference, interviewing tech CEOs. And I was like 2 years out of school. And I think that was a very formative experience because I got to benefit from that, and I know what that did for me, and my career, and my confidence. And we'll talk more later about building teams and managing teams, but I've taken a lot of that philosophy from them. I was so lucky. I mean, that would be the number one thing. I will give you that, that was my number one thing I got from Morgan Stanley.

Naber:  Nice. That's great. I mean, you're going to talk us through NEA. I mean you've worked for incredible companies, and you're on team building. Let's talk about that. Hiring great teams. One of the things that I know is your superpower from hearing from other people, from talking to you personally, talking to you professionally. But the result speak for themselves. You've hired incredible individuals that I know, because I used to work with them, or I know people that used to work with them, are just the best at what they do. And you consistently do it time, over time, over time. What's I'd love to hear is one, what's that hiring philosophy that you took away from those guys, as well as any additional things you've applied today? And then we can talk a little bit about your actual process. Because clearly there's something you're doing in execution that is better than most, if not better than almost all. So what is your philosophy around hiring that you took away from those guys as well as how you think about it? And then we'll talk through the process like, candidate profiling strategy, how do you attract and recruit, how do you close? So we'll talk about those things as well. So, what's on your mind?

Naber:  I love building teams. I mean, it starts there...let me start with why I care about it. And I think for me, that's literally why I think...That's where I find meaning in my life. Bringing in high potential talent and seeing it grow, and creating opportunities. And I've always thought of myself, on my deathbed if I'm seen as the Y-Combinator of talent, I'll be really, really happy. And so because of that, I think that it impacts what I look for, because I really look for people who I believe we can go on a journey together, and they can learn from me and I can learn from them, and we're going to achieve great things together. That's the high level mentality that I have. I really don't look at...no matter how senior or whether someone's a fresh-out-of-school graduate. I think I can learn something. If I can't learn something from you, then I don't think you're a good fit. But that's how I see it. And so it's interesting, at Asana, we recently distilled down what are our Sales attributes, the hiring profile, not profile, but what are the attributes or values, depending on how you define it, that we look for. And I was very, very involved you can imagine, because in many ways I think I codified the things that I really value. So there are four pieces that I really care about in every single person that I hired. No matter, again, fresh out of school or you're going to run EMEA. The first is someone who really "pursues excellence". What I mean by that is, I want to see evidence that someone knows what excellence means. Because in high growth companies, you're growing 100%, 200% early on, 300% in the super early days. Every knows...information is everywhere now. So you can imagine you've got great competition. And so, you gotta go for people who really, really...Well, if you're not excellent, you don't even have a chance. You don't even have a chance to survive. And so, if you're fresh out of school, and I'm digging into your profile, and I don't see one thing...And I don't care, it could be a violin. If you've gotten really good at violin, I'm like, oh yeah. And this is sometimes why I think some of my best hires have been teachers. Because, gosh, if you can teach, especially if people from Teach for America, if you can teach math to inner city kids who have no interest in math, okay, you've pursued excellence here. And I think in this world, you either get it or you don't. You've either seen excellence, and you know what that means, and what it takes to be great, or you just don't. And it's very binary, and you can tell very quickly. So someone who does that is something I value a lot. The second piece is, we're calling it, you "lead with empathy". And in Sales, of course, if you don't have empathy, you're not going to understand your customer's needs, and you're not going to relate to them. You're not going to build a good relationship with them. But I think a lot of this is also empathy just in terms of how you work together, right? Like in Sales...you never win because of Sales. This is a huge thing, where a lot of times I've talked to other founders and they're like, oh, okay, it's time to monetize, but I need to hire some Salespeople. Those Sales people are gonna fail, right? Because Sales is just a part of a bigger engine, because you've got to work together. And working together is fricking hard. It's really hard. So if you don't lead with empathy, you're not going to know how to work together cross-functionally. In Sales, what do Sales people say all the time, every single Sales person, every single Sales leader, I need more leads. Marketing's not developing more leads for me. I'm like, okay, great. Tell me more. How could they be developing more leads for you? And why? Most people can't answer that. If you can't answer that, just like with a customer, you're not going to be able to partner with Marketing to generate the leads that you actually want, right? It's not transactional. So anyways, so leading with empathy I think is something really important. And really behind that, what I'm looking for is self awareness, right? In a fast growing company, you don't have the time to coach every single person. You really don't. I've got some Managers right now who are managing 14 people because we're just growing that fast. And I couldn't hire Managers fast enough. That means that of the 14 people, honestly, they're not each individually getting the top quality mentorship that, say, I got from two guys at Morgan Stanley. But, if I hire people who are self-aware, they're going to teach themselves. They're going to look for ways to learn. And that combined with pursuing excellence, you're going to get good people. The third piece is what I call, someone on our team defined it as, "do the hard". And this is simple, this is like, you've got to grind. I mean, no one has achieved excellence without grinding away. And Sales is really tough. I mean, literally it is the definition of a grinder job. But also, do you take shortcuts? Sometimes the hard way now is actually the easy way long term. And that's what I look for. Are you willing to do, the hard work today so they easier for you later. And the last thing we call it "ascending together", which is your ability to work as on a team. It's like, thinking like an owner, right? That's something LinkedIn, I think it was one of Jeff's big things. It's one of my big things too. I remember when I was Morgan Stanley, that's what John Mack said when he was running the company. Now this is a big bank, Morgan Stanley. When he first said that, I was like, yeah, how am I going to change the trajectory of Morgan Stanley as a first year analyst. But, I did think that way, I really did, and I love that. So, those are some of the high level qualities that I look for in anybody.

Naber:  Nice. That's awesome. One follow up on that, that was really well articulated, thanks. And the one follow-up on that...Do you have a particular process you go through? Let's talk about hiring directly on your team, your team, your directs. Do you have a particular process you go through around candidate profiling, attracting that candidate, and you reaching out to them either personally, or the message that you craft? Going through the recruitment, and interviewing process, and then closing. Do you have any tactics that you think completely set you apart from, maybe what other people do, just based on the results that you've gotten? You know that they work.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  I don't know if it's differentiated, but I'll tell you how I approach it. I think the first step is you really have to understand the nuances of the role that you're trying to hire for. This is a mistake I see a lot in companies. Especially early stage companies, at some point they have like 10 Salespeople, they're hitting quota, kind of. And then the Board's like, you need a VP of Sales. And then they go and the hire some kind of recruiting firm, and they load them up with VP Sales candidates, and they just hire someone to do VP Sales. And that happens every day. And, I think there's so many nuances to the rule. What kind of Sales? How do you want to build it? And, what types of talent would you want this person to bring in? And, so I am a big believer that you don't know how to hire for that role unless you've done that job yourself, for at least a quarter or two. I think as you get better, you use pattern matching and shortcut. But in the beginning, you have to do it yourself...in the Sales world, so you know what type of companies are you really, really going after and such. And so that's my first step. Because even though I'm desperate for bandwidth, and I would just love to hire someone right now to just take the job, if I don't dig in myself, I don't think I'll hire her right, the best person for that job. So that's first, and I think that helps a lot downstream, and I'll come back to it. Second is, I leveraged my network. So I leverage my network, and I go talk to people. You and I have talked. I'm like, hey, I'm looking for this person. And now I know what I'm looking for, right? Who's the best two people you know? And I don't need to recruit them, but I want to talk to them.

Naber:  You do this a lot. You do this a lot. To the point where sometimes I know you're in the market for someone because either I'm close with someone that might be one of the best in the market, and I'm hearing that you had a conversation because he or she and I will talk, and hear that, OJ had a conversation. You do this, it is perpetual, it is in your nature, perpetually to do this all the time.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  And I think part of it is, I find it interesting, right? It's like, you get to learn. It's free education, why not? And so I constantly do that, that's true. And then I get referrals. I remember when I moved out to Australia to run, to start Dropbox APAC, and back then LinkedIn when you were there, LinkedIn was one of the top SaaS organization. Smaller than Salesforce, but the talent was super high quality, right? I canvas the top three layers. I talked to every single person across Sales, Marketing, Talent Solutions, everybody...and that's how I met great people Gareth. So, that's step two. Step three is then obviously building that list and talking to people. And I think this is one where, I don't know if it's different, but I do it myself. I do it myself. I reach out. I mean, I'm looking for a Head of BD right now. I'm the one who's InMail'ing people. I don't outsource it to a recruiter. And I think that makes a big difference. Because if you're a top talent, you want to hear from...you want your best shot at this person, right? So I do it myself. And when I get in touch with these people, and I think this is where having done the job yourself for at least a quarter to really, really make a difference, because then now you can talk about the role in a much more sophisticated way. You're not like, I'm just hiring someone to run east coast...Someone is interested it when you're able to map the distinct qualities needed for someone to be successful in a certain role, and why that candidate is a perfect fit.

Naber:  There's something ultra sexy about that. There's something ultra sexy about that from a candidate perspective.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Because the candidate, people have choices. There's so many great companies out there. And what candidates want to know, ultimately no matter where and who, is that they're going to be set up for success. And so I think that comes across when you actually know what you're looking for, and then you can talk about why that person...Hey Brandon, I'm talking about you, and you specifically, because of XYZ, and that XYZ is exactly what I'm looking for. And that makes it a lot better. And then I also think a lot, again, you gotta develop that relationship, especially if you're hiring General Managers...If you treat it as just a process, that's where I've seen these things fail. I mean, I've seen bad hiring practices, even at Dropbox where I was, where you meet a lot of hiring mistakes. It was when you make these critical roles that you just rush through a process. I'm gonna go find an executive recruiter from, they're gonna bring me 20, and then I'm going to whittle it down to three, bring people back onsite, pick one. Those almost never work out because you don't have that trust developed, or you can't close. Because that trust has not been built up throughout the process.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Those are great. Those are great. All right. I feel people are going to be furiously writing down notes in audience, much slower than you can talk about this stuff. All right, let's move into NEA...So you're at Morgan Stanley, you make the jump to NEA. Why do you make that jump? What are you doing there? And then I've got a couple of questions for you.

Naber:  Cool. NEA was the world's largest venture capital fund. And back then they were, they had never hired pre MBA analysts before, so I was a guinea pig of the first class. Essentially all of these partners just wanted people to do their work for them. And fast forward, now NEA I think has 20 analysts because it's like, wow, that's great to get people to do great work, do all that work for them. NEA - why did I join NEA? Well, first why did I join venture, go into venture capital. And when I was in equity research, I got into the business of studying companies, and giving buy, sell, neutral ratings on every stock, right? You go to CNBC, and there's someone talking about their stock, that was me. Well, that wasn't me, I didn't go on TV, but that's the work I did. Behind that analyst on TV, there's some baby, junior OJ who is crunching numbers. What I realized about my job that I liked was actually understanding the company, the strategy of companies, and the technology of companies. Back then, that was right when iPhone came out. And I made a bad call, by the way. I was like, Blackberry, RIM, remember Research in Motion? Blackberry is for consumers. Remember this company called Palm - PalmPilot remember? Palm is for prosumers. When the iPhone came out, I was like, this is for consumers. Don't worry. Buy more Blackberry. Buy, buy, buy. Obviously I was wrong. But anyways, I love that analyses. What I did not care about was the actual finance. I can do the job, but whether Cisco is going to trade to 35 or 33, I just didn't care. It was almost too easy. It was like, okay, I can look at a stock chart, after a month be like, okay, it's going to pop back up.

Naber:  Humanities OJ comes out again.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  I think so. It's just not for me. It wasn't fulfilling. if I made a really great call, and I helped a client make a ton of money, I just didn't find that rewarding. So, venture sounded interesting because it sounded it was like, okay, I'm still leveraging some of my analytical background, but I can dig deep into strategy and technology. So that's why I learned to venture. And there was a really a crazy adventure where I got to work with a great farm. Also, so fortunate work with some such great Managers, who empowered me and challenged me. And that's when I got closer to entrepreneurs, and founders. And my job there was due diligence for deals that came in. NEA got great deal flow because it was one of the best firms. So the pressure was more on diligence, and then working with companies, which is great. And then as I worked more with companies, and if we fast forward, that's why I ended up working as, becoming an operator. I was like, wow, that seems fun. It was funny because it gave me that kind of exposure.

Naber:  Nice. I read a quote that you had mentioned, in a couple places, that you saw the fun the operators were having, and you wanted to hop on that side of the coin. And I think it's well said. So when you were there at NEA, I've got two particular things that over your career, you've been good at...But since we're on NEA, and you've had a ton of exposure to a lot of different types of companies and deals, it could have been one of the places where the seeds were planted for these two things. The first one is around picking horses, picking the right companies that are going to take off, and understanding the process you need to go through in your mind for one, picking that business, and two, evaluating as to whether or not you would want to hop on board. You've done an amazing job with evaluating them for the companies that you've joined, Dropbox and Asana as an operator, as well as a bunch of businesses you've helped, either been a Board Observer, or you've been a Board Director on a bunch of different types of companies. So when you're thinking about picking horses, what is the criteria you think about for joining a company? And like you said, people have options that are the best...that it being worthy of one, you looking at it, and two, you hopping on board?

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Yeah, it's I absolutely learned that from venture. And as a result of that, I look at everything from a investor lens now. When it comes to picking horses, I think...two of the most legendary investors in the valley, Dick Kramlich was a founder of NEA, and Forest Baskett who is still a GP there and just incredibly smart. Basically, when Tableau was founded, he worked with the early founders in the NEA offices to start Tableau. And I asked them, hey, what's what's the secret? Because there are some venture investors that are just clearly better than others. What's the secret?

Naber:  Yeah, top quartile year over year.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  What's the secret? I mean, when I asked them, I was amazed...Dick was like, find companies that are going after really large markets. And you're like, okay, duh.

Naber:  Let me just write that down.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  But as I've matured, and I've looked into different companies, and how markets have matured, I can't tell you how many times I've told people on my teams who want to go to some company gave them some VP Sales job, and it sounds great, but the category is just not that big. And I think that's number one, you have to pick a company that has an exploding market, and most importantly is timing. Is the market about to explode now. Let's take a couple of examples. Let's look at Zoom and Slack, two examples recently. Zoom was one of the best IPO's of all time. I mean incredible IPO. Messaging, I mean, I remember the days in 95 when we were using ICQ. I don't know if you ever used ICQ. I still remember my ICQ number, right? We were messaging. Slack versus ICQ, or later MS Messenger, is honestly not that different. And then there was Skype in the middle. So, why is this so different? Do I really believe that the UI is so amazing that that's the reason. Like, okay, maybe, but I don't know if that's a $20 billion difference. It's just that somewhere, in the B2B world around 2014, the market tipped. There was a need in the market for more dynamic communications because the pain of email was just too high, for that use case. And CIO's started believing in it. And that's when it tipped. And that market, the enterprise messaging market, basically tipped in 2014 to 2016, I would say. In those two years the winner, it's a winner take all market...There's good research that shows that when a category tips, you get a flood of competitors, and then within two years, 18 to 24 months, the leader ends up taking I think 78%, something that, call it 80% market share of the market. But if the market is huge, you can go into a big market and you'll still be okay, right? Remember there's a company called Jive, right? And remember Yammer? Remember there was a Chatter? All the still did okay, but if you want the get the $20 billion market cap that Slack got, you have to be the winner during that window when the market is ready to tip. And I would say the same thing about video conferencing. Zoom...this is nothing new. I mean, that's how my wife and I developed a relationship, right, over video conferencing, over Instand Messenger - AOL, by the way, another messaging tool. And look, somewhere between 2015 to 2017, maybe even later, was when the need really, really tiped, and now you see Zoom taking off. And you and I now, we're doing this podcast via Zoom, and we use it all the time. Same thing with file storage. Dropbox, is generating $1.4 billion in recurring revenue for file sharing.

Naber:  Fastest company to $1 billion for a SaaS business ever? Is that right?...ARR.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  That's right. That's right. And they didn't invent file storage. I remember when I first used Yahoo in 1995, I got to upload a file into Yahoo, and then download it when I was in the library. It was life changing. Yeah, it was amazing. So it's not new. Cloud storage wasn't new. It's just that the market tipped at that point where people were starting to move away from servers. And in 2013 to 2014 was when mobile adoption in the enterprise had hit a certain rate, and that's when you needed cloud storage. Because on mobile, you can't access files anyway. So number one, you've got to pick a huge market, and most importantly, you've got to join that market right before the market tips. And so you have to make a call. I joined Asana when people were like, what is this project management thing? I don't know what it is. Forrester and Gartner haven't written reports on it yet. But I asked the most progressive CIOs, what's next? They're like, well, I just put in Slack, and now all my work is fragmented even in more places than before. I need something to pull it back together. So I'm going to look into this project management, work management space. And I'm like, oh, interesting. So I developed this hypothesis that the capstone of the new modern collaboration stack is going to be something like Asana that pulls things back together, at least for the things that I really did matter to that company. And I'm seeing that market...we are in the heart of the race right now, that 18 to 24 month window. So that's number one. Number two is obviously what people generally look for which is technology, right? If this market is going to tip, does this company have the right technology to win? And this is very much a venture thing, where you need to some make some calls on the architecture, how they built it. What are customers saying about the product, right? That's when you get some feedback. So the second thing is, does this company have the right product to win the market. Because I do think, especially in the B2B now, SaaS more and more, is dictated by the end user and what they use. So you gotta make sure you're the one that people are gonna pick. And then the last part is, do you have the right team? Does this company have the right team that you're going to back? And that's probably the number one thing, besides the size of market, that venture capitalists bet on, is the people. Because early stage you don't really have much of a business yet. Or even a product. And I think in terms of picking companies to join, same thing, right? Let's say you join a Series C company, what is the management team? What are the dynamics? When things go south, which always happens, how does that management team work together to solve them? Or is there finger pointing? 90% of the time it's fingerpointing. 90% of the time Sales says Marketing didn't generate enough leads. Well, no, let me start...Customer Success and Support says Sales as closing crappy deals. Sales says well, what do you expect? Marketing is driving these bad leaves? Marketing goes, well, what do you expect our Product is missing all this stuff. Product goes well, that's because design is a bottleneck, and it's not shipping. We're not shipping fast enough because design is not ready. Design is like, well, you know what, it's not my fault. I can't hire enough designers, it's recruiting, right? Recruiting..it just goes on. And when I say 9 our of 10, I think that it's 9.8 out of 10. And I made this mistake myself. Before Dropbox, I joined a company that I probably shouldn't have. So a lot of people look at the company profile, and the executives, and where they came from. Oh, this person was at Google for 20 years. Well, you know what, so have like 10,000 other people. And you've seen this at LinkedIn, not everyone's a star at LinkedIn buddy. A lot of stars. But, quite a few duds too.

Naber:  Totally. I mean, nature of large numbers like that, for every one of those businesses.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Totally. Totally. Or they haven't seen the right stage that's relevant for your company. So, finding the right team that you think you can bank on just to get through the hard times is really, really important. Don't just look at the profile.

Naber:  Nice. Awesome. Great answer. Okay. So, we've gotten through NEA right now. At this point, I believe you jump into Harvard, correct? HBS.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Yeah.

Naber:  Cool. So take us through the reason you decided to go get your MBA. Why Harvard, which may be self-explanatory. And then take us all the way up through your decision to join Dropbox. So through that period, Scientific Conservation, Harvard, etc, up through the point where you're joining Dropbox. And then we'll talk about what you were responsible for there. And I've got some, a couple of questions for that.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Yeah, sure. So I decided when I was at NEA that I wanted to be on the operating side. So I was like, they have all the fun. I didn't understand how much pain they had either, honestly, but I was like, it sure seems fun. And, the short answer of why I decided to get my MBA...I was like, okay, well if I got into a great school, I might as well take a break because I'm going to make this career switch anyways. So I'll just do it. And that's literally the logic. And this was mainly...I remember one of my mentors at NEA, John S., who's a fantastic guy, fantastic...Remember remember there was this company called The Ladders?

Naber:  Yeah, of course. Yeah. The $100K+ jobs is their thing, right?

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Yeah, yeah, yeah. What happened with them?

Naber:  They died. I have no idea. It was almost overnight. Because I remember, I mean, I did a lot of research on ladders for at some point in my career. Anyways, I don't know, they just died at some point.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  So we we're going to meet with The Ladders in New York. I remember this clearly. This was right around the recession starting, and John's just like, you need to apply to business school. And this was October, and the deadline was coming up in December. So I was like, all right. He convinced me that would be good. I mean, I might as well, I'm going to try it. John's like, you're probably not going to get in, and that's cool, but why not try? Because getting into business school, certainly getting into HBS, is a total crapshoot. It's a total lottery. Yeah. I got some friends who were way more qualified than I am and didn't get in. And I now know it's for sure a crap shoot. So anyways, I applied. And I only had time to apply to one school, and that was not the plan, but I just didn't have time because I had to take the GMAT, write the essays, get the recommendation, all that. I only applied to Harvard assuming that I didn't get in. And then I got in.

Naber:  Stop it. Hold on. This is unbelievable. Hold on, hold on. So you only applied to Harvard and you got end up...

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Yeah, it wasn't because I had so much confidence or that it was the only school that I would go to. I was gonna apply to like five. But dang it, man, these essays, they take like...I haven't written these essays in a long time, and they go back to humanities OJ. It took forever. I just didn't have time. I think the the application was due January 1st or something, and I remember over Christmas I was writing these essays and I was just like, I don't have time for this. And I just applied one. I really didn't think I was going to go to business school, and then I got it in. And I'm like, oh, okay. I guess I'm going.

Naber:  No one can see me losing a right now. Laughing silently while I'm listening to this, and not believing it. This is a great story about getting into Harvard Business School. Such a good story. All right, so you're at Harvard, what's the biggest thing you learned there? And then take us through up to you joining Dropbox.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Ah, man. Yeah. So Harvard was great.

Naber:  You must have met some really cool, interesting people.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  I met some amazing people. And people that I considered to be my best friends today. That's where I met the co-founders of Grab, I'm on their board now. I met a lot of great professors.Look, I think the thing about business school...A lot of people poo poo on business school. They're like, it's expensive, you don't learn anything, it's just networking. I mean, I call bullshit on that. Because I'm a nerd, I to learn. And so I studied. I'm like, wow, this is interesting. And I'll tell you at that point I was going through this big clean tech phase in my life. I was really interested in clean tech. I was doing clean tech investments at NEA. I was part of the environment group at HBS. I was super active. I thought I was going to build a career in clean tech. And now that I'm selling productivity software for the past seven years, it's given me a different kind of perspective looking back. But I was so into clean tech. And I met some great people through that, through other who have similar interests. But I'll tell you, so my first job was Scientific Conversation - they basically sell building automation software to help optimize the equipment in commercial buildings to optimize their energy spend. Think of it as HVAC optimization software. I would not have been able...and I took a Sales role coming out of school, which is interesting because very few people go to HBS to come out to be a Sales guy. It's pretty rare. And I sold to real estate developers. And if I did not take a real estate class at HBS, I wouldn't know how to speak that lingo. Cap rates, and TNI, and whatever. I mean it's just, there's different things. I learned that from school. And then what was really interesting was then Scientific Conversation went through a big period of restructuring. And I had to be a big part of that. I took this class called turn arounds, because it's a new topic, when you learn about - how to turn around companies? How do you learn about bankruptcy law? You learn about how to negotiate with your creditors so you can live to die another day, so to speak. And then I used those skills. I literally looked up my notes on bankruptcy. Because I would call our creditors, and it'd be like, hey man, we're about to go under here. I'm going to give you, I know I owe you $2 million, I'm gonna give you $2,000, or you can have a shot at bankruptcy court. Anyways, long story short, business school was awesome. I met great people, and I learned a ton, got great exposure, and I actually implement the things that I learned.

Naber:  Wow. That's great. Great Story. Okay. So Boston, Beantown, you leave. Scientific Conversationis next, you join in a Sales and Partnerships capacity. Every Harvard Business Schoolers dream, joining Sales right after that.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  That's why you go to HBS.

Naber:  That's right. #HBS. So what is the biggest thing that you learn at that business, and why did you join Dropbox?

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Well, a lot of my lessons learned around the people, in part, was what I learned at Scientific Conservation. It had on paper, all the things that most people look for, right? I said, oh, pre rocket ship, hot industry, a team that looked really, really strong on paper. That's what I went for. You know, hypergrowth. I remember Kleiner Perkins, NEA, Accel. Everybody was like, this is the next one, this is the next OPOWER. This is the commercial version of OPOWER. I thought it was the best thing. But you know what, just didn't have the right team to execute going through the tough times. and that's what I learned. That's honestly the biggest lesson I learned. I met a lot of great people. But that's where I really realized, wow, so much of execution is the people, and the chemistry of those people. And that's what I learned there. So why did I Dropbox? Honestly, I mean...we had to do a big turn around in Scientific Conservation. Within a year we went from 30 people, to 180 people, and then I had to play a big part in restructuring down back to 90 people, and then down to 50 people. I mean it was a year that felt 10 years. So Dropbox, I showed up, people on scooters, drinking from coconuts...you've been to the office. It was just a different world. I'm over here trying to make payroll, literally. There was a payroll period where I...

Naber:  And letting people go daily.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Ugh, brutal. People always ask, what's the biggest done, whatever. I'll say the biggest deal I've done was in...I broke my lease, the Scientific Conservation lease with a real estate developer...Because we had signed this Embarcadero Bay Bridge View Office for a seven year lease, even though the company was making zero in revenue, so that tells you something. But thankfully, the one thing that went in our favor was the rental rates have actually gone up in SF. Far, far greater than our committed rate of increase in her seven year lease. So they way I made payroll was, I went to the developer and I said, I will break the lease if you give me x amount of money. Well, they didn't know it was how we were going to make payroll. It was hilarious. And then negotiation, at the end the thing that clinched the deal was office furniture. I was like, I'll throw in the office furniture.

Naber:  Stop it. I always find it mind blowing when in residential, someone rents someplace for like, a few grand more a month just because the furniture's included. And that was your deal with the developer. That guy has done tons of deals, tons of deals, and this guy closes over the furniture.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Honestly, I probably would have gotten it done anyways. I was actually in my head thinking, I don't want to pay to get rid of the furniture. That was what was going to be my head.

Naber:  Oh, that's a good win-win. All right, so you join Dropbox. There's coconuts, there's cupcakes, there's all of it. So walk us through in one or two minutes, what you were responsible for and the jumps that you made at Dropbox. And then I've got a few questions around some of your super powers, okay?

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Yeah. So Dropbox I went in as one of the first business generalists. There wasn't a role, it really just do everything. So, looking to our payments gateway infrastructure, looked into capital financing for our data center to help raise capital. I looked into real estate because they're like, oh, now you're a real estate pro from my background. So I had to try to figure out finding office space. Andthis was all in the first three months. We were moving so fast. And and then there was this business called Dropbox for Teams that was starting to grow really, really quickly. And the Head of Business, our COO was like, can you just take a look at that. Basically, do the Sales Ops work to see what's going on. And that's how I got into it. And then one thing led to another. So took that role on, started adding some visibility into the business. And then moved into actually managing part of it. And ended up running a lot of it, growing the North America Online and Inside Sales teams to 70 or so people. And then got the opportunity to co lead our APEC expansion efforts.

Naber:  With Tony, is that right?

Oliver Jay (OJ):  With Tony, that's right. And they're like, all right, figure it out. I mean, that was it. Figure out APAC, period. So then we did that, that led to both of us moving out to APAC for a year and a half. Started the Australia office, Japan office, I was gonna think about Singapore, but didn't end up doing Singapore. Also looked at Latin America, when the new CEO joined. He's like, well, there's another continent. Someone's going to look at it. And they just put it on our plate. And then did that for a while. And then when I came back to the US, transitioned into the Corp Dev team, so think about M&A at Dropbox. And then through that experience I realized I really missed building teams. Which is why I went back to the Sales world at Asana.

Naber:  Nice. After hearing your story, and I saw a lot of firsthand when I was working with teams at Dropbox and I'm working with teams at Asana, now I get that, why you made that jump. Or at least why that was the right time in your life, and in missing teams to want to make that jump. Wow. That's really interesting. Okay. So a couple things about Dropbox. There is a theme, and you've done this really interestingly coming at it from, let's call it the Sales Ops angle first, and then jumping into manage these teams. Which some of the best operators I know from a Sales and Marketing perspective, have come from the Ops side. I look at them as the Ying to my Yang. They speak a beautiful language and I want to hear all of it. So as you're doing that, you're building things from scratch. And you are building at one phase at Dropbox, and you go through a lot of different phases of growth in your international expansion playbook. You're also going through phases you've been in before at Asana, and planning for phases that are things you've seen before, and things you know a lot about. So let's talk about your international expansion playbook. As you're going through phase by phase, and one, making the decision as to whether or not you should do it in the first place - Expanding outside of, let's call it the US for now, into other markets? And then two, once you decide yes through that evaluation process, you want to go about doing it. What's your step by step process you're going through in order to expand internationally? You can use the Dropbox example or the Asana example, or both, If you just want to say, hey, this is what we did then and this is what we did then. But either way, what's your phase by phase and step by step approach as you're executing on this expansion playbook.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  So I think the first is understanding that international operations is not...Adding international operations is, honestly from management overhead perspective, it's the minute you go international, for every new region and office you add is equivalent of adding two, and the next one you add is like adding three. There's a complexity, the overhead is so much more, and sophistication is so much greater. And that's not to say it's not worth it, right? Obviously I do it, but it's something that I think you need to be really, really honest with yourself, with your teams on whether or when are you ready for that? Because honestly, one of the things that I think about is, most companies go international too late, right? I think Slack is a good example. Slack to me, and I have a lot of good friends at Slack, so maybe you have to delete this. But, international is only 30% of their revenue, or 35% of their revenue at this scale. And I think Microsoft got a jump on them internationally. Well Microsoft has a jump on everybody, but especially internationally. And so, you want to go fast, but you got to make sure you commit. So step one, before you commit 100%, what you can do is just play the digital game. Localize your product, localize your ads, localize your website. And I would say probably even in that order. Again, it depends on what product you have, right? But if you have a user facing product...and in Enterprise it starts with the product. In many countries you may have one or two people who aren't very comfortable with English, but the rest of the team may not be. And you're not going to get good adoption that way. So I think that's important, localize your product, as long as you feel you have enough confidence that it's worth the engineering investment. Because it's a big investment. There's a certain threshold where you're going to start seeing...Whether it's tickets that come in asking for your language, or your community, you'll get that ask. Yeah, I mean, maybe French and Spanish, the website, that's as an obvious one. But what's interesting is you can some good lift from just localizing the ads, in Dutch or Japanese, and it points to an English website. You're still going to get some incremental dollars there. So play the digital game. And then at some point, and you have to come up with a framework, and it's different company to company, and you don't have to be that Scientific. But at what point do you feel you're ready to go open an additional office? And almost always, you'll see English speaking markets adopt first - UK, Australia, are the next two, and Canada. Large markets that, for many reasons, and we're not gonna have enough time talking about them, but they usually are the next to adopt technologies. And so your next move almost guaranteed is going to be somewhere in Europe, right? And you pick between Dublin, Amsterdam or London and we can talk about which one, why, but it's going to be one of those three almost guaranteed, right? So setup your Europe hub. And then depending on the type of company, you can think about growing from there. So then the most obvious, next markets would be France and Germany in Europe. And so then you got to make that decision on whether you want to service those markets in whichever hub you've picked, or you go even more local. And I think that depends on the type of company that you have. We talked about Australia, that makes a ton of sense already. The minute you're looking into the UK, if you have the bandwidth, you should look in Australia as well. I would think that the market demand would be equivalent in terms of the time. And then Japan. Japan, people forget, is the second largest IT market in the world. And they're early in their cloud adoption. But for SaaS companies, it's really starting to take off. And so Japan is a market where investing in early can pay off dividends three, four years down the road. Japan is Slack's number two market. It's Salesforce's number two market. But it takes years to build up that market. And so you can start thinking about that. So the order of sequencing, I guess I'm not even...I guess I've done it enough now to just know the sequence instead. I mean the first time I did this at Dropbox it was like, okay, how many users do we need to see before we go green light here? How much revenue? How many businesses? How many domains we want to see? And, I've traveled so much in the last couple of years. This is the order that I would go in,

Naber:  Good one. Awesome. You know what's really interesting about that, is you mentioned you've looked at the data, and from the data side it says to do this, this, and this. What you're saying is don't necessarily do the work that everyone else has has done. This is an all likelihood, the chronology of the markets that you will go into next. And that's really interesting. Don't redo all the work. Do not reinvent the wheel. I have two follow-up questions to that. One is how do you know whether to hire local, even more local, versus doing it from a regional hub? How do I know whether or not I should sell from Dublin or London or Amsterdam into France, Germany, Spain, Italy, some of the Nordic countries, etc? Or hire local in that particular market? And by that I mean, when do I do it? And I'll ask the other question after that.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Yeah. To me it all depends on your target audience. Who are you trying to go after and how? So if you're going after SMBs, this is primarily going to be Inside Sales function. You're not showing up. It's not a relationship sale. Then there is so much value in centralizing to the last minute that you can because you're still trying to figure it out. So Asana is small deals, we start with small teams and then we expand them. And, we essentially have a big machine in Dublin. Why? Because the French rep who has learned some new insight selling to Mid-market & SMB companies in France can share with the Nordic Rep, and those best practices when you're early in a region, you got to learn quickly, and you're gonna to learn from the field. And that information transfer is so valuable. And then eventually you go the other way. You launch a new product, you've got to enable the team. There's a lot of operational overhead to enabling lots of people in the field, versus you just fly into in one office, and you basically enable a team all at once. So huge, huge advantage to centralizing. However, if your Sales cycle and process relies a lot on relationship building, whether it's for bigger deals, whether it's a complex deal that relies on partners, then you need to go in the field. And that's where showing up makes a ton of sense. And what changes is the unit economics of that office, where if you open an office in Paris, now showing up at a mid-market opportunity of a 10K Pounds deal, normally is not going to justify a flight in, hotels, make it work. But now it's just, down the street. I mean not down the street, but now you can justify making that visit, and absolutely everything that increases the conversion rate. So there is benefit there too. But balancing operational overhead, learning earlier, I am a big believer that you should hold off as long as you can. Because once you're decentralized, there's no way you can centralize again. Or you can, but it's very painful. You gotta shut down offices, and it's really painful. So you want to wait as long as possible.

Naber:  Nice. Great answer. Thank you. And then, second question is...So you're going through this process of massive expansion, within Dropbox and Asana, and you're going through different stages of growth. One of the things that you need to constantly think about...which I don't necessarily believe that a large number of Heads of Sales and Heads of Marketing are very good at this. One of the things you need to constantly be aware of...and coming from VC, you've got interesting perspective on this, and not all the people who have gone from VC to operator and done it with the amount of, not only success, but the amount of speed that you've done it...So a Head of Sales and Marketing needs have the right mindset, with planning and execution, with unit economics in mind. So how do you make sure that you have the right mindset? What is your mindset when you're thinking about balancing, things LTV to CAC ratios, versus booking in revenue growth rate expectations, versus the growing pains of teams and the engagement of those teams. How do you think about incorporating unit economics into your approach? And how do you think about that as a Head of Sales and Marketing?

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Okay. So I would say there's a couple of things. First in terms of mindset, if you're leading Sales and Marketing, let's say your company is growing at 100%, right? My mindset, and I tell this to all my Managers, is that my job is to plan and execute as if we were 12 months from now. My Manager's job is to execute and plan as if we were six months from now. Your IC's are the ones who were executing to quarter to quarter. And I think that's something that I always drill into my team, and my Manager because most people manage to the quarter. And by the time you manage to a quarter, you've already forgotten about the next one, and you're basically accumulating debt. And I think part of what's challenging and exciting about managing in high growth, is you've got to balance executing and the job at hand, but at the same time develop the vision of where you need to get to - So if you're a line Manager six months from now - and you've got to do both at the same time. So as my leads, they got the quarterly number, that's great. I just assume they're going to hit it. I mean just tell me if you're not going to hit it, but I'm assuming you're going to hit it. What are the programmatic things you're building in right now as if you're six months from now? Because that is going to take time to build it. And then once you build it, boom, now you're ready. My job is 12 months. So right now, I'm thinking about what my team needs to be doing this time next year. Because, well, my team is getting pretty big now. It's hard to steer a big ship. And so if I'm optimizing for something for the end of the year, not to say that's I don't do that, I do that. But I also push myself to think longer because for me, and from my angle, what's going to happen in the second half of this year has already been shipped. Our performance, our unit economics, our, whatever programmatic infrastructure we build is going to be, it's already too late to change that. So I'm thinking ahead. I think that's important because, you mentioned about unit economics, your unit economics need to change over time. And so you got to work with your management team, your finance team, to understand what unit economics you need to have this time next year. So that you can slowly migrate there. Otherwise you're just hiring heads, heads, heads, heads, heads, and eventually you're like, oh, one day you wake up and finance is like, okay, you're going to get three heads next year, but you have the grow revenue revenue by 50%. So that's the high level mindset that I think is really important, to understand end state first, and work with finance to understand what that looks like. And so I know next year what my unit economics need to be. Now, I can start back filling. And then this is what I do to backfill. So what I do is, I ask my teams to now start thinking about, not unit economics first though, strategy. First strategy, then tactics, then numbers. So for example, my team in Europe. Right now, it's July, and it's the end of our quarter this month. The leads are going to come over to the US and present their strategy for next year, so basically the next 18 month strategy. What do I mean by strategy? Who's our primary customer? Who are we trying to win over and outserve everybody else. Why? And where are we going to focus? Because you can't go after everything. And when I think about Europe as an example, a microcosm of the world, the UK is very different than Germany, which is very different than Spain, and very different than the Nordics. So, if someone calls me and tells me this is my EMEA blanket strategy, I'm like, that's not a strategy. I want you to define what winning looks in the Nordics, and define what winning looks in Spain. Portugal, not as important to me, lump it into that region. Iberia, right? Or something. But, I think it's important that to have a view where you define success. Okay, this is what I'm trying to accomplish in Germany. Align on that first. That's a strategy. Then the tactics. How are we going to do that? Okay. in Germany we're going to go after this segment hard. Now what's the tactics? How are we going to do it? What are what are the resources that we need to make that happen? How much revenue? Well, we won't get a numbers yet, but just tell me how are you going to get it done? For example, at Asana, we think in Germany there's a big digital transformation push, moreso than any other countries that we see, right? And there's historical reasons why that is, but it is moving. So to us, it makes sense that the tactic is to really build field, right? And that's why we're going to build field in Munich and not Berlin, because it has a lot more of in your more iconic traditional companies, Berlin's a tech hub. The strategy in Germany, for field, is to go after digital transformation opportunities. I would say a lot of companies make the mistake and they go tactics first. They go, oh, okay, this is what we're doing right now. And so the next year we're going to do this. And you don't actually understand what it ladders up to. And your tactics may not actually end up hitting the strategy that you actually really want. You got your strategy down, on a region by region basis. You got your tactics. Then you've got to figure out numbers. What is the target that you want to get? Because remember, we've already defined success region by region. Now we're going to deploy resources, and see what do you need for that? How much field Marketing do you need? Oh, I need to sponsor this conference, I need two Sales Engineer's, five AE's, three SDR's, and whatever. Okay, great. And then I can come in, and I know my unit economics 12 months from now, and I can see overall where are we over, where are we under, where can we push. Because some regions I'm okay with having poor unit economics because we just started, right? The Munich office, they'll have terrible unit economics for the first year. I'm okay with that. But I have a portfolio view, and I can make sure it happens. And once it happens, sometime later this half, I will start aggregating all of these different regions, and strategies, and then I'll be like, oh okay, I'm way over. And this always happens. This always always happens. Everybody wants 50 heads, and then basically we have to iterate them. Then we'd go back, and we prioritize, and we say, Hey, this is the unit economics we need to hit. We are this over. And so let's stack rank our priorities, and then we'll cut it. Right? So maybe we'll cut an office here, or maybe we'll cut some resources over here, that may impact top line. And so we just iterate and you go through a couple cycles.

Naber:  Wow. That is a great comprehensive, step by step answer. Nice moves, OJ. Thank you for that. All right, so we've gone to your phases that you went through at Dropbox. I've got one more major topic to cover, and it's a good segue, after you talk about Asana. So, why make the move to Asana? And tell us what you're up to there, up through now. And then, I've got one final topic to talk about. It's a bit meaty, but it's a good one.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Okay. Hmm. Exciting. Cliffhanger. Asana's easy, right? I mean, I told you my criteria already, so, I made the call that this space is gonna blow up. It's going to explode. It's going to be huge. It's going to attract a lot of competitors. It's going to track a lot of interest. And I don't still know exactly what the category is being called. I mean, Forrester is now calling it collaborative work management. 451 is calling it enterprise work management. Gartner keeps cold calling us, I'm not sure where...but there is heat. I think that the technology is differentiated for many ways. I love the product. Our users love the product. And then the team, ultimately, the team. I've never worked with a team that is as committed to co-creation as Asana. And just great culture, starts from the top. Our founders really care about how we work, as important as the product itself, and the market. And so I feel we are going to be tested in battle, and we will win in the battle. So that's the short version of why Asana, and I feel very strongly about all three of those dimensions.

Naber:  No, go ahead. So, then let's talk about what you're responsible for there, and maybe one or two minutes and then, I'll hop in.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Okay. So I run our Sales teams our BD practice. So on the Sales side, we have three lines of business. We have a big self-serve business. This is not what you think about traditionally when you think about Sales. This is a lot of working with product and Marketing to make sure your conversion funnel is really strong. Those of this as like Netflix. Netflix knowing which movies to pump in front of your face, so you buy them. Or Amazon, right? So a lot of this is Growth Marketing and Conversion Marketing. And that's a practice that is a strong one for Asana. We have another one called Online Sales, which is layers on top of self service, and this is high velocity Sales that takes advantage of our freemium model. And then we have enterprise Sales that is, more traditional. And their approach is really around driving big expansions in companies that we've already landed. And BD, there's two components. There's a component around channel, which is how do we develop an ecosystem of revenue partners who can help us? And then strategic partners. So how do we partner and build alliances with folks like Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Adobe, just kind of more software partners.

Naber:  Awesome. Okay. This is great. And you guys have just grown, it's a massive rocket ship, and you've got enough cash, and you guys have all the right criteria for everything you mentioned earlier for how you're evaluating. Okay. And that's a great layout. So let's start with the topic, going from freemium to enterprise, and knowing when to do that, and we'll talk about how to do that. So you mentioned, and I was listening to a couple of your podcasts you'd done in the past, and there was a really interesting structure you laid out about going from freemium to enterprise, and the steps you take in order to do that. One of the first steps you've talked about in thinking about freemium was the right audience and the right product category. Can you explain those two concepts and how people should think about that?

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Yeah. Most freemium products start this way. They come out of Y Combinator, something didn't work, and then it didn't work a week before demo day, they pivot, and they figure out something that works. They copy and paste in the Stripe snippet. They get everybody else in the same y Combinator class to buy, it's like this thing. And then then demo goes well, and everyone's like, wow, look at the LTV to CAC. It's amazing. Usually that's what happens, right. And it's a product-first view based on an insight of potential perceived pain. Now 8 out of 10 of these don't make it out of the gate. The pain is obviously not big enough to warrant more funding and such. But 2 out of 10 are great...I mean, these are smart, smart, smart founders, a lot of them. And they find a pain that that's actually pretty big, and they put it on the website. You can do a free trial, or you can download for free, it's pretty easy. And you start getting data on people that are starting to starting to sign up. And the word of mouth effect is something that is extremely...you have to have lived in Silicon Valley to understand what that means. And this is something that I think is different globally. But boy, technology that comes out of Silicon Valley, that word of mouth is effect is very strong. And so, if you got something, it will go viral pretty quickly, and you can start seeing people starting to sign up. And then usually it's for one particular pain that you think you're solving. But the reality is the market is going to find your solution actually solves a number of different kinds of problems that you don't even know about. And so this is where I think it's super interesting. Once you get to a certain scale, right? Let's say you get into single digit millions in ACV, or maybe in terms of customers, or let's say you get over a thousand customers...You have enough information now to just look across, and just do an analysis of, hey, what kinds of companies are these? It's going to two hours. Okay. Because a lot of these will be SMBs, and you can't just run data, and match, and stuff. But you can start inferring what types of companies are getting value from your product, and to solve what pain. That second part is very, very important. A lot of companies misse that. But if you're doing it in a freemium model, just looking at which company uses you doesn't tell you anything. Because usually it's a small team, solving a small pain, within a bigger company. So you've got to pick up the phone, or you do a survey, and you understand. At some point you're like, okay, makes sense. I have some hypotheses on where I have great product market fit, and it's a big market, and I have a differentiator - to continue to double down on this pain, and do it in a differentiated way. Then I would start building, adding humans to the process. So the first piece I love is always Inbound Sales, or Inbound chat, or Inbound support, whatever. Basically get some humans in there to test your hypotheses, right? You've got some data now...hey, maybe government is where the sweet spot is in solving this type of thing. Okay, great. So then higher one or two Inbound Sales people, and their job is to do a couple of things. One, for the companies that you've identified to be in the middle of your bullseye, call them up, build a relationship, and you'll see that there's probably some good expansion opportunity right away. So again, because of the word of mouth dynamic should be pretty strong...If it's not strong, you gotta go back to the way, back to the whiteboard. If it is strong, you should be getting a reasonable amount of traffic on the website, right? It's not going to be thousands of leads every day, but maybe 10 a week and the the beginning, right? You want to man them, you want to take advantage of each one of them, validate your hypotheses. Obviously try to close the deal as well. But to me, revenue is secondary. And I do see this in a lot of management. They hire one Salesperson, and they're like, here's your quota. And that's, if that is your primary objective for that person, you're not gonna get the insights that you really want. And the insights are way more valuable. So your first couple of Sales people, I think you really drive the people to get you the insights. I'm like, hey, where's the sweet spot? What pain are we solving? What are the additional pains that we could solve. That is more valuable than whatever, 20k MRR that you're going to get...So you do that and...mainly you take that feedback, work with product to really improve or expand the problem that you're solving and make it excellent. And then that should bring in more people, and more people. And then at some point you can start building out the team more, and then you start segmenting more, and eventually you can start going outbound. And outbound I'll put in quotes. What does outbound mean? Does it mean you're just traditional outbound...and Linkedn...and I mean, you are the expert here. This is like, okay, I'm going to create opportunities. You figure out your persona, you know who you're targeting. You get them on the phone. People don't do phone anymore, people don't even do emails now. I don't even know, now people are sending books around. I don't know. But you find a way to get in there. You prospect. Yeah, that is traditional outbound. I think premium outbound, you'd have something kind of in between, whereby you can go after companies that you already have some traction, and let's say they're healthier. Those are essentially your leads for an Enterprise play. And I'm a big believer that if you can't even drive big expansion deals where you've already landed, it could be a small land, but if you can't even drive some big expansion there, you've got no business to go - let's call it true "outbound". So you know what, go outbound in accounts that you already have landed to some degree. And that motion, by the way, is not easy. You're at Nike, you're trying to get into Nike and you've got 50 people, super fans love Asana, and they want to use it more, and they're really happy. And you're like, okay, well how do I navigate that organization? Right? It's hard. There's a craft. It's a different art and science to how you go about doing that. You've got to get that motion down first. So that's the process that goes through my mind.

Naber:  Nice. Awesome. And so let's say that you get to that phase, and you're going to start building out your Sales Engine. You're going to start building out your team of humans. What are the first few phases you go through and steps you take in order to do that?

Oliver Jay (OJ):  So the way I think about it is, you gotta first understand what are the selling motions that you want to build. And I think this depends company by company. But for me, now, there's a selling motion...it's not really selling with humans, but just growth optimizations, right? How does your website convert? That is a motion that you're gonna have to get good at. So I built a team around that. I have a team called Online Sales, which basically uses a lot data process automation to intelligently know which are the teams that likely came in through a self-serve funnel, that have a high propensity to close or expand. That's another selling motion that's very different. We talked about that Enterprise expansion play. How do you go after companies where you've already landed and then you want to expand? That's another motion. So, I think depending on the company, this is I think more first principles, right? You've got to understand what are the motions that you really, really need to develop. And you basically organize and start developing these teams to start building out those practices. And then as you do that, you can sort of reallocate resources depending on which ones are doing better and not. But I think the critical piece here is you need to be able to articulate and identify what is the motion that you want to build.

Naber:  Yeah. Good one. Last last one, and then we'll wrap. You've been so generous with your time. I really appreciate it, OJ. Thank you. Now you just talked a little bit about your org and how you structure it, and you kinda just went through a few different motions that almost map, very closely, to the same org that you were just talking about. So within each one of the Self Serve, Online Sales, Enterprise Sales, BD, and Strategic Partnerships, can you give us one or two things you absolutely have to nail, or one or two best practices you absolutely have to think about if you're going to nail each one of those? Maybe we could start with Self Serve first.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  Sure. Self-Serve number one thing, you've got to get cross-functional alignment. You talked to many, many growth teams, this is what where it falls behind. This goes back to my earlier comment about, you got to find a team that actually works as a team. Because that Self Serve business touches upstream, acquisitions...I mean, you can even go more upstream with branding. So brand, to acquisitions, to conversion funnel, to the actual adoption of a product in the first first 30 days. That's this Self-Serve business...and then eventually, and also retention. So it touches everything. And so if you don't have a cross functional alignment, you can forget about it. Literally forget about it. Don't even waste time because most companies are so small, where you really need the whole full funnel to work together, otherwise you're not going to move the needle. So that's number one in this Self-Serve business, you gotta get that alignment, you gotta get that commitment, and that's hard. So it's hard. Before you even build it, you've got to spend a significant amount of time and energy to align with all the other functions around the company that Hey, do you all agree this is an important practice to build? And if so, this is how we're going to build it and how we're going to work together, otherwise not worth it. That is, Self Serve. Online Sales, so this is high velocity Inside Sales that sits on top of self service. A lot of this is depending on whether you have the systems, and operations, and data science to support that kind of velocity, right? On our Online Sales teams, each person closes above $1 million per person. That's a tremendous LTV to CAC, can't be that.

Naber:  Whoa, I just gave that my stank face. Ooh, Whoa, that's really good.

Oliver Jay (OJ):  It's real good, real good...and they're going after SMB and Mid-Market. You can only do that if you have really good automation, data science, that picks out which are the leads and contacts that you should invest your time in, and you get a bigger deal, right? Let's say each rep closes about 20 deals a month. So it's not a ton of deals. You've got to really, really make them count to retire that money. And so making sure you have invested in the Ops, and the Systems, and the Tooling to make that efficiency work, is something that I think most companies underestimate. I continually underestimate it actually. I thought I'm ahead of the game, and then a month later, I'm like, ugh, I'm still behind. So having that platform, thinking about the business as a platform, super important. Enterprise, for freemium businesses...I think the most important thing to tease out as a leader is understanding how much of the revenue is actually driven by the reps, versus how much revenue probably would have come in anyways. A lot of companies have the problem where the Enterprise reps essentially just piggy back, and put their name tied to an organic expansion, that likely would have happened anyways. So that's where I think people need to spend some time thinking about...Because that's not scalable.

Naber:  Right. Alright. Business Development, Strategic Partnerships. You've done this at multiple businesses and extremely well. What are some of the best practices when you're thinking about doing that?

Oliver Jay (OJ):  So with the Partnerships, you got to ask what is your North Star? Are you trying to use Partnerships to drive awareness, which is much more around co-Marketing and branding. Are you trying to use Partnerships to drive leads? Are you trying to leverage a Partnership program to address product gaps to get into a new vertical? Are you trying to use Partnerships to just drive more user engagement? These are the questions that you got to answer first as a company get. Because I think where a lot of Partnership programs fail is, Partnerships go out and try to find Partnerships, and then eventually they bring it back into the company and people are like, there's no resourcing for it. Marketing doesn't want to support it, Product doesn't want to build it, because people aren't aligned on what you're trying to build. What are you going to solve for? And that's kinda the age old thing with Partnerships. Partnership folks generally want to do deals. But do those deals map and ladder up to a important initiative? If it's not a top initiative at a company don't even bother. And so I would say that's the most important thing when you think about Partnerships, of any kind, whether it's Channel, whether it's Strategic, same thing.

Naber:  Hey everybody, thanks so much for listening. If you appreciated and enjoyed the episode, go ahead and make a comment on the post for the episode on LinkedIn. If you love The Naberhood Podcast, we'd love for you to subscribe, rate, and give us a five star review on iTunes. Until next time - go get it.

Guest:

Ryan Burke - SVP, International @InVision

(Formerly SVP, Sales & Custome Success @InVision; Formerly @Compete, @Mainspring, @Goldman Sachs)

Guest Background:

Ryan joined InVision in 2014 as the Vice President of Sales. He quickly grew his remote salesforce of 3 to over 100 talented professionals responsible for identifying new market opportunities for collaborative design, developing new revenue streams and managing both enterprise and inside sales. Ryan was eventually promoted to SVP, Sales before taking on his current role as the SVP, International leading their international expansion efforts around the world.

Prior to InVision, Ryan was at Moontoast as a member of the senior management team. He created and managed both enterprise and inside sales functions, selling both SaaS and custom solutions to clients including Toyota, P&G, GM, Microsoft and others.

Prior to Moontoast, Ryan was the SVP of Sales at Compete which was acquired by WPP and later became Millward Brown Digital. He led all sales efforts, including a senior vertical enterprise team as well as an inside team selling the Compete.com SaaS product.

Guest Links:

LinkedIn | Twitter

Episode Summary:

In this episode, we cover:

- The 3 F's to Build Your Sales Team from 1-50 - The InVision Story

- InVision = 1,000 Remote Employees: How to Hire, Onboard, Manage and Communicate w/ Remote Teams

- The Role of Sales in Creating & Cultivating a Global Brand & Community

- Inside Sales vs. Enterprise Sales

Full Interview Transcript:

Naber: Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to The Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest-growing companies. Enjoy!

Naber: Hey everybody. Today we have Ryan Burke on the show. Ryan Burke joined InVision back in 2014 as the Vice President of Sales. InVision has a $1.9 billion valuation and $350 million in capital raised. Ryan quickly grew his remote salesforce of three to over 100 talented professionals responsible for identifying new market opportunities for collaborative design, developing new revenue streams, and managing both Enterprise and Inside Sales teams. Ryan was eventually promoted to SVP of Sales before taking on his current role as a Senior Vice President for International @InVision leading their international expansion efforts around the world. Prior to InVision, Ryan was at Moontoast as a member of the Senior management team. He created and managed both Enterprise and Inside Sales functions, selling both SaaS and custom solutions to clients including Toyota, P&G, GM, Microsoft and others. Prior to Moontoast, Ryan was the SVP of Sales at Compete, which was acquired by WPP and later became Millward Brown Digital. He led all Sales efforts at Compete as the SVP of Sales, including a senior vertical Enterprise team as well as an Inside Sales team selling Compete.com SaaS solutions. Here we go.

Naber: Ryan, awesome to have you on the show. How are you doing?

Ryan Burke:     I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. Brandon.

Naber: I've seen you with a beard without a beard and a lot of my research I've been doing in the last few hours here. I like the beard and without the beard. It's very rare you can say that about someone you like it equally, and I typically lean towards beard by, I really like both.

Ryan Burke:     And now it's the grey beard. Now it's the grey beard.

Naber: It's like, you go from all bald on the face to some salt and pepper, to a lot of salt, and then you're just, it sinks in. This is just a grey beard. This is just a great, love it. Love it. You and I have gotten to know each other personally over the last few months professionally as well, which is quite cool. I'm happy that we get to, go through a lot of this, as content today with you. What I figured we could do is go through some personal stuff first. So start with Ryan Burke as a kid, what you're interested in. Then ultimately graduate into, pun intended, where are were in school with Baldwin the Eagle up in Boston, and then all the way through your professional jumps into your time at InVision. And in that time we'll just cover a bunch of superpowers as well as things that I know, people have said that you are very good at. And I know that you excel at given a lot of the places you've worked, and roles that you've had. Sound okay?

Ryan Burke:     Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Cool.

Naber: So Westford, MA. What was it like for Ryan Burke as a kid? What were you like? What were you interested in? What were some of your hobbies? Let's go.

Ryan Burke:     Yeah, definitely, definitely. So Westford is about 40 minutes northwest of Boston. Typical New England town with the centre of town, and the old church, and the common, and all of that. And it was great. Kind of prototypical New England childhood riding a bike around the neighbourhood and doing that whole thing. It was funny, my first job actually was, snake busters. So my buddies and I, when we were, I don't know, maybe 12, decided that we were going to rid the neighbourhood of snakes. So we would walk to people's houses, knock on the door, and charge a dollar a snake. It went well, it went well. It went well. We made all these crazy tools and t-shirts. We ended up just grabbing them with our hands, harmless garter snakes. But it went well until my mother came home one day and found a giant trashcan in the garage that had about 40 snakes in it. That was the end of, that was the end of snake busters.

Naber: Did you call it snake busters?

Ryan Burke:     Oh yeah, we did the tee shirts that we hand drew. I mean, it was right around, I mean, I'm dating myself, but it was right around the Ghostbusters days. So, that was, that was my first commercial endeavour. Got me started in, got me started in Sales. But. Westford was great. I was kind of the athlete, whatever, captain of the basketball and soccer teams in high school, it was great. National Honor Society, I got kicked out my junior year, and came back in my Senior year and won the leadership award. So, it was a fun time and nothing but good things to say about Westford. I had a great childhood. I stay in touch with a lot of my friends still from Westford, pretty close to the community. And the Grey Ghosts, which was our mascot, which I still think is a great name, and I was the 200th graduating class of Westford academy. So it was public high school, but 200.

Naber: So, one more question then we'll, we'll talk about your move up to BC. What did your parents do, when you were growing up? And what were some of the hobbies and interests you had outside of sports? Because obviously, you were quite athletic.

Ryan Burke:     Yeah, definitely, definitely. So my dad was, that day and age was still the time of the long runs at companies. And so my dad was that a Digital Equipment Corporation. So he was at DEC for shoot, 30 years, I think, a long, long time. He ran manufacturing for a couple of plants there. My mom worked there as well for about 10 years.

Naber: Is that how they met?

Ryan Burke:     No, they met outside of Hartford, Connecticut, in college. But my dad had a great run in Digital. My favourite thing was during his retirement ceremony, they renamed the big board room, the Bill Burke Board Room, and then they did a top 10 Bill Burke famous quotes. The number one quote for Bill Burke that I'm not sure what it says about him for his 30 years. There was f*ck 'em. I mean it was celebrated, and it was a quote on a plaque, and all of that. But for 30 years that was interesting, and it kind of describes my dad, in a nutshell, a little bit.

Naber: It's funny because people that know your dad if you gave him 10 guesses, they'd probably guess it. People not knowing your dad, like myself, if you gave me a hundred guesses, that wouldn't have been it. I'm so glad that that just happened.

Ryan Burke:     Yeah. So, and then the hobbies. Like it's interesting, you grew up in Massachusetts, but for whatever reason, my brother and I got really into fishing. And so, that's become a lifelong passion. I actually started and ran a fishing tournament for about 13 years on Cape Cod, kind of post-graduation. The Headhunt. The Harwich Headhunt. And yeah, it just became a passion, and I still fish all the time, and I've gotten my kids involved, and all of that. But that was one of the things that my brother and I would sort of hike through the woods, and find little ponds, and build our little boats or whatever, and float out there, and catch bass and perch and whatever all day. And then we got the bug and started to get closer to the ocean and do some of the offshore fishing, which has been great.

Naber: Wow. Very cool. All right, we're going to get into BC, but I have to go rogue on this one. If you're not heavy into fishing, what's the best part about fishing? Like, why do you love it?

Ryan Burke:     Yeah. I mean honestly now that we get out offshore and go out on the ocean, you're just so in such a different environment and a different mindset, and really things just kind of melt away. And just from the stresses of the world being 10-15-20 miles offshore in that type of environment, we go to tuna fishing, there are whales jumping, whatever's going on, it's just a real escape. The phone's half the time don't work, and so, it's just...a lot of times we'll go out for an eight-hour fishing trip and my wife will say, well, you didn't catch anything. What the heck did you guys do out there? You're in this small confined space with like three other friends. She's like, what do you guys talk about the whole time out there, not catching fish. And so, it is a fairly intimate experience as well with your buddies, and there are beers involved, and all of that. Yeah, I just liked the whole like mindset change when you kind of get out on the boat, and you're heading out, like everything else sort of melts away the further you get offshore, and I really enjoy that.

Naber: Wow, that's great. And from your sons perspective, as they're growing up, that's so cool that you're bringing them into your headspace and that world, to truly disconnect like that. That's really special. All right, you're away from the Ghosts, you're moving onto the Eagles - Baldwin The Eagle, your best friend. Why Boston College? And maybe a couple of minutes on what you were looking like in University.

Ryan Burke:     Yes. So, it's funny, BC was the only local school that I applied to. I really want to go to Duke, didn't get in. I almost went to Wake Forest. For whatever reason, I wanted to go and explore another part of the country, but I ended up, going to BC. Obviously great school, a lot of fun. And I'll say I'm really happy with the decision based on what it was able to give back to my family. And so what happened at BC, the football games and the tailgates. And so my dad, my mom would get season tickets and they'd come to every game. And they just developed a great relationship with all of my roommates and friends. Sometimes inappropriately with like, the conversations, they would hear were just crazy. And they get to meet other parents. And so over the four years, like my parents were really involved in my college experience. And for them to be honest writing the checks, like I felt like that was an opportunity for me to give them something back. And I always cherish that, bringing them into that experience. And we still talk about the glory days of the football games and beating another game Notre Dame, or whatever. So it was a great experience, and being in Boston was a lot of fun. Even most of the friends that I had at BC, were actually from outside of Boston. But yeah, BC was great. We were sort of in the heyday of sports when I was there too. We had some good runs, they're obviously terrible now. But I also, all things considered, I liked having a team. Me and my wife went to Holy Cross, and I kind of give her crap all the time because, it was great school as well, but like having a team and a brand that you can sort of follow. And I'd still all way too close to I know every high school recruit that football team is right now and I read it every morning. And it's a little creepy, I know, but I'm pretty involved.

Naber: That's a job because they come from all the country to BC obviously.

Ryan Burke:     And I did it, I did it as a job a little bit. So I got so involved after graduation that I actually started writing for a BC website that was all focused on recruiting. And so I did that for about three years, just on the side for shits and giggles, and go to the game, sit in the press box, interview Matt Ryan after the game on the field, and all of that. And I was when I was still trying to figure out if I was going to get into the sports, as a career. But it was a lot, it was a lot of fun to do that.

Naber: You know, it's really interesting. We're going to get into your professional jumps. That's a really good segue. But what I find when I'm talking to a lot of these, a lot of folks in this podcast and a lot of the folks I really admire professionally with an entrepreneurial spirit, it comes out in so many different ways. And I actually don't think that the person talking about it really knows that it's coming out. So from snake busters all the way through to, like you have side hobbies you've turned into like organized things that you do. Like, getting into BC sports, writing about it, making an organized effort and project around that. Same thing with fishing, 13 years of running that tournament. Like, taking your hobbies and turning them into something organized, structured so that everyone can enjoy and you're the driving force behind it with your effort because effort is the great equalizer within entrepreneurship. I think that that entrepreneurial spirit always comes out in people's hobbies, and I don't think that most of the people talking about it often think about it like that. But it's coming out in your hobbies right now. That's pretty cool.

Ryan Burke:     Yeah. And if you want, I can do a quick sidebar into a hobby that turned into somebody that, did you hear about my book club?

Naber: Oh, don't tell me, scorpion something. What is it?

Ryan Burke:     Scorpions.

New Speaker:  Scorpions. Yeah. Tell me about it.

Ryan Burke:     Something I'm proud of and something I will also say is potentially my biggest regret. But my wife was in publishing, and she'd go to these book clubs and she would come home have a couple of glasses of wine and saying, Hey, did you talk about the book? Nah, we just sorta talked, and chatted, and drank wine. And I was like, you know what, this is a bunch of BS. I'm going to go and I'm going to start a book club to spite your book clubs, and just show you that I can build a better book club than any of the book clubs you've been a part of. And she's yeah, yeah, whatever. And so I was all right, I'm going to call it the scorpions. I came up with a tagline that was "Read. Bleed.", and it was all sort of tongue in cheek. So in Boston, it was like the all hard guy book club. And so I got about seven or eight of my friends who were smart, a bunch of entrepreneurial folks as well, a few guys that have been CEOs and sold companies. And we all read. And so what we did was we would go to places like dog racetracks, or shooting ranges, but we would actually talk about the book. So we would actually talk about the book. We would do trivia about the book. And then we would typically end it with a physical challenge to see who could pick the next book. And so what happened was one of the guys that was in the book club worked with my wife in publishing, and he released a press release. Because my whole point was I'm going to create the Anti- Oprah Book Club. I'm going to create, where a woman can walk into a store and know exactly what book she should be buying her husband, boyfriend, or whatever with a scorpion stamp. And so we read a book, and then we released a press release just for fun and games. Scorpions select, I don't remember what the first book was. Scorpions select this book as their official monthly book club, Dah, Dah, Dah. And we did it a couple of times, and the next thing you know it starts getting picked up. And I get a call one day from The New Yorker. And the New Yorker says, Hey, we want to do an interview with you. We do a feature on a book club every month. And we read about the all hard guy book club, the Scorpions. And we're like, all right. And so, called and interviewed me, Dah, Dah, Dah. And they put it on their website. Called back the next day. Hey, this has gotten so, so many hits. We want to go front page tomorrow. we need more pictures. I'm like, I don't have any pictures. Like literally get up that morning with my wife, take my shirt off, put up World War Z, which we're reading the time up in front of me with a bottle of Jack Daniels, and she snaps a picture on her iPhone. And that next thing you know, that's on the front page of TheNewYorker.com next day. And so then it gets picked up, and Gawker picks it up, we had these magazines reaching out. And what happened was it snowballed very quickly where authors, I mean agents were calling me and saying, Hey, we want you to review our author's book. We want you to give it the scorpion seal. We made like a seal and all this stuff. And we're what is going on here? And we had people calling us from all over the country. Can we start a scorpions thing? A reality TV show reached out to us. My buddy called me at one point, my roommate from college, and he's like Hey, what did you start some stupid book club? I'm like yeah, the scorpions. He's like well I'm reading the 50th-anniversary edition of Playboy, and you guys are in here. And I was what? And so we picked up playboy and we're in there. So we almost got a book deal. We almost got a TV deal. And the whole thing sort of faded. It was at that stage, we're all just having kids. A couple of guys were going to sell their company, and so we really give it the attention. But finally I was able to go back to my wife and say, listen, I proved you wrong, I started a better book club. And now there's talk of bringing it back because I still think there's actually an opportunity in the marketplace for that sort of Anti- Oprah Book Club. And we actually read good, compelling books. And so that was my tie into the hobby question.

Naber: You know, it's funny. One of the reasons I love doing the personal side before we jump into all this other stuff is, before you reach out to somebody, before you first have conversations and when you just look up on the pedestal of this person at this company with this title, and your background, your experience, I think it's quite intimidating before you start having conversations and humanize the experience. And that's one of the things I love about, about this section. But that's a perfect example. If you're hey, quick sidebar, I want to tell you about something and the entire Scorpion's book club, love it. It's great. So cool. All right. So that is, that is not a segue, but I'm going to create one, into, you're leaving Boston College. And so Scorpions Book Club, the best thing you ever did, but we'll talk about some of the second and third best things you ever did after, after that. You're leaving BC, and run us through your professional experiences, up through the end of when you're at Compete so we can jump into InVision. So just run us through, the companies you were at, and the roles that you're in, maybe like five to seven minutes so we can, we can get some detail on there as well.

Ryan Burke:     Yeah, definitely. Definitely. The first job I had out of college...I still get amazed at the jobs and internships that today...I'm really impressed. Like back in my day, it was kind of like, all right, we're going to travel to Europe, we're going to screw around after graduation, whatever. And so when I was midway through my Senior year in college, a buddy called me - this is 1996 the Olympics in Atlanta - and he said, hey, I work for a staffing company, Randstad, I've gotta hire like 20,000 people. Do you want to come work for the Atlanta Olympics for the summer? And I was sure, I got nothing going on. And I became known as the kid on campus that, like, I'd walk into any party and be like, hey Burke, I heard you can give me a job with the Olympics. And I'm like, yeah. So people giving me their resumes to work at the Olympics. So I think I got 40 kids from BC jobs at the Olympics. So we all went down there, and we all rented condos in the same little complex. And this was back in the Buckhead days of Atlanta too, the bars were open till five the morning before Ray Lewis ruined it. So worked for the Olympics. Great experience. I ended up staying there for a year, working for the Olympic Committee for a year. And it was just a really, it was a really cool experience. And then randomly, again, I was still trying to figure things out, and I had a buddy call and say, hey, you want to move to San Francisco? And I said, yeah. And jumped in the car, and we moved to San Francisco and slept on a floor for six months, and tried to figure it out. Did some temp things, and then I ended up getting into finance. So I got into a small kind of Muni Bond Equity House, which was, which was really cool. It was a really small, company. I touched so many different parts of the business. from the trading to the operational side and it was good. Series 7, Series 63 the whole deal. And then I use that as a springboard to get into Goldman Sachs. Worked in the private client services group in San Francisco, with Goldman. This was sort of during the heyday too. So, managing some of the early Amazon folks back in the day, and making some of those trades. I was what am I doing wrong? So it was great, and I had a good experience at, Goldman. And then it just, I got to the point where there were some family pulls back to the East Coast and at the same time I was at that stage where I was, on a pretty good trajectory in finance, but it was just something about finance that wasn't really getting my juices flowing. And I just knew. I mean just the culture of it. It very, obviously, money-oriented, and people are doing very well. And I just don't know, it just wasn't for me. And so I knew, okay, if I didn't get out then like I was just going to double down, sell my soul, and do the finance thing. And so I pulled the plug. I found a job back East at a tech consulting company. So this is the tail end of sort of the internet boom, and I got into a company called Mainspring, which was really interesting. It was a really smart group of folks from BCG, and McKinsey, and Bain that basically wanted to create a digital strategy consulting firm. And this is just at the time when all these companies are trying to figure out a digital strategy, nobody knew what it meant. And it was also interesting, in that they had a Sales function. So I joined as an Inside Salesperson, which was, your typical cold calling bullpen environment, and weird because you're dialling for dollars for high-end strategy consulting. And it actually differentiated us in the market a little bit, but I really cut my teeth in Inside Sales there, and just opening doors, and prospecting, overcoming objections. I really liked it. Mainspring actually had a pretty good run for a little while. We ended up going public. And then, the market sort of tanked. And then IBM ended up acquiring Mainspring. And so, it ended up working out in that, it was kind of offered a package. I could have stayed at IBM. It was another one of those decisions where similar to financial services, it was all right, I can take a job with IBM, but do I want to do that long-term at this stage of my career when I knew I wanted to be in something smaller and entrepreneurial. And I liked the small team environment, even at Mainstream when I started it was only 100 people or whatever it was. And that's when I got into Compete.

Naber: You spent 11 years there. There's a lot of learnings here. So if you want to take your time and go through the next few minutes to talk about some of the things you learned as you're jumping through each individual step that you had, that's all right because that's probably helpful.

Ryan Burke:     Yeah, definitely, definitely. And so Compete was interesting because that was back in the incubator model days. So basically Compete was an incubated business. David Cancel, who's the CEO of Drift, was kind of the first employee founder there. And I journal joined early on. It was basically, we had a web-based panel that we aggregated data and sold back competitive intelligence to companies. So, Hey, my website traffic is this, how does this compare to my peers? My conversion rate is x on my site, how does that compare? And you know, there were some dark days early on. There was your typical start-up, really young management team, screaming matches in the glass-encased conference room that was like raised four feet above, so everybody could see it, you know. And there were a few turnovers of Senior Leadership early on. A few turnovers of the entire Sales team that I survived twice early days. And we did that for the first probably two to three years. I was kind of the top Salesperson. And worked with some really smart people. And again, that entrepreneurial environment that I like, we had trouble figuring it out. And then for us at that point, the inflexion point was really when we decided to go vertical. And obviously not something that I think every business needs to necessarily do, but from a competitive standpoint...I helped found a kind of the wireless practice, and this was back in the Nextel, Singular, AT&T days, and they were all so hyper-competitive. And so we had this really rich data set to show like, how much online traffic are each one of these sides getting. What is their conversion rate to get people to sign up for bill pay? What was their conversion rate for e-commerce? And really valuable data. And so we built some dashboards, we layered on a consulting component on top of that. And it was really, it was really interesting. And that started what was a pretty big catalyst. Wireless became the biggest vertical at the company. I sold the biggest deal with Sprint, which is $500k, when our ASP was like $30k. And it was interesting in the fact that as a Salesperson, what kept me there as well, is when I started that vertical, I was able to position myself as more than just a Salesperson. And I became a wireless expert. And I would go speak at conferences, I would write white papers because that always gave me the credibility when I wanted to go and sit in a room with Senior folks. I mean we would do crazy stuff like I had business cards made, different business cards for like the big wireless conferences, the CTIA's or even the CES's, and I'd get invited as press because I would write white papers, and so they would put me in as pressed. So like here I go to these things I get to sit down for 10 minutes with the CMO of Verizon and the CTO of AT&T to do briefings. And inevitably you share some data. And the other thing that we did at the time was we partnered with Bear Stearns, who was a big analyst in the Wireless space. And we created this really nice white paper that they distributed - a glossy cover, Bear Stearns, and it was all our data. And free data for Bear Sterns, whatever. But that became a little bit of every meeting we would walk into that was on somebody's desk. And so it was very easy to point to that and say, oh, that's our data in there. And they're like, oh really? We didn't know that. Tell us what you did. And so, building a brand beyond just being a Salesperson was really valuable to me from a career perspective. And partnering with somebody like Bear Stearns at the time was really powerful in the space from a wireless analyst perspective. And using that as a vehicle for content was just so big in building our brand at the time. And so, that was the kind of the earlier part of my career at Compete. And there are always times that thought about leaving, but every time it was sort of thinking about it, there was a new opportunity that would arise. And so then I moved into more kind of Sales leadership, and that was a new challenge. And building out sort of an Inside Sales and an Enterprise Sales team. Then `we were required. So the company was acquired by TNS, a big research firm. And then six months later by WPP, so essentially acquired by WPP, became part of that world. And that opened up a whole new world of opportunity and challenges, and that kind of put me into a new role. And then I became Head of Global Sales, SVP of Sales, across Compete. And that was within sort of the WPP, umbrella organization. So that was fun. So yeah, I was there a long time but worked with some really sharp people. My old boss Scott Earnst, I sort of followed him up as well, and he became CEO, and one of my mentors to this day. And so it was a really interesting ride. Definitely a really interesting ride.

Naber: Very cool. And that brings, does that bring us to your jump into InVision at this point?

Ryan Burke:     I did have a quick move, between there, I went to a company called Moontoast.

Naber: Oh, that's right. Yeah, Moontoast. So, hey, before you do that, I want to talk about, you mentioned managing Enterprise and Inside Sales Teams. You've done this at three different organizations if not more if you've done some advisory work on this. But you've done Inside and Enterprise Sales at the same time. A lot of the people listening will either start a business, have started businesses, will be the VP of Sales, VP of marketing, whatever. And they'll either inherit Inside Sales or inherit Enterprise Sales. And usually, they kind of tack one onto the other or they graduate from Inside Sales Leader into Enterprise Sales. You've managed both at three different businesses. Let's talk about that for a few minutes here. What are the main best practices or tips that you have in managing Inside Sales as a contrast to managing Enterprise Sales? And we'll get into the top tips and best practices for that, but Inside Sales first. Inside Sales, what are the biggest differences between managing Enterprise and Inside Sales teams? When you're talking about Inside Sales, what are the best practices and tips for doing that?

Ryan Burke:     Yeah, that's a good question. And I think the end of the day it's still, Inside Sales is obviously a lot more transactional and so it's a lot more around kind of that process. And Enterprises is around the process as well, but obviously very different motion, trajectory, timing, all of that. And so, with Inside Sales I would say one thing that's probably most important is figuring out what that customer journey is upfront, and really defining that path, and finding those friction points, and then building a process around what are the activities and behaviors that..like to me, everything kind of boils down to behaviors and activities when it comes to Sales. And that's relatable to Inside and Enterprise. And so performance in numbers is one thing, but you just need to figure out what the right activities are for Inside Sales. So break apart that funnel, figure out what those metrics are, and then really measure on those activity metrics. And that's been probably the most important thing. The other thing is, even when I started at InVision, we'll talk about it, making sure you have the operational infrastructure to define that for Inside Sales, whether it's hiring an operations person, like to me, you can never hire operations too early. I probably waited, I probably waited too long at InVision, and getting that in there early for Inside Sales, and building out, we even call them the leading indicators of what will drive you to a particular transaction. And so I think those behaviours and activities are incredibly important for Inside Sales. And then you just have to evolve it for Enterprise because that's a different motion, different ASP, whatever it is. And so same concept around leading indicators, behaviours and activities, it's just a different framework. And the hardest part is obviously, you sort of view Inside Sales as a stepping stone to Enterprise. And that's not really the case from a mindset standpoint. And that's, you almost have to break bad habits and rebuild them because the Inside Sales folks, currently really good at transactional, driving acquisition, boom, boom, boom. And then you move into Enterprise, you're like, whoa, slow down, let's talk. Now we're value selling, where before it's much more of a product sell. Inside Sales is much more of a product sell. Enterprise Sales is a value sell. And that's a big transition from a mindset standpoint where, step back, make sure you're asking these questions, figuring out obvious things like pain or whatever it is. And again, when we promote Inside Salespeople, sometimes there's that period where the onboarding for Enterprise is just as important as when you're onboarding them as a new employee for Inside Sales because it's a totally new framework and mindset. And if you're using the methodology like MEDDIC or Sandler or whatever it is, you've got to kind of break them down and rebuild them again.

Naber: Yup. Yup. That makes a lot of sense. Okay. So moving from Compete to Moontoast, let's hop into why you moved to Moontoast, and then give us a summary of that, and then we'll hop into InVision and I've got a few questions on some of the superpowers that you have, some of the things you've done really well, and a couple that InVision has as well.

Ryan Burke:     Yeah. And so Moontoast was a social advertising, kind of rich media, social advertising - rich media within the Facebook feed predominantly, or any social feed. Part of it was at the time I was looking to get out of Compete. Moontoast came along, social was obviously very sexy, they just raised some money. Kind of wanted an opportunity to go in and be the guy from day one, and build it up. And you know, everybody's got a miss on their resume, and this was a miss. I came in, and we had some good momentum, really enjoyed the product team and sort of the position we had in the market. But we also existed within the Facebook ecosystem, which I don't care what you say, they just own everything. It's really hard to do exist. They make one change in their technology and like 20 companies go out of business. So I built a really strong team. I've hired my top guy from Compete, brought him over. Hired some really good Salespeople, a few who I've actually taken to InVision. But the product, we had to re-pivot product, and we ultimately had to re-platform it to try to fill the gap with services while we got the platform, then Facebook changes. We missed it. We just missed the window and things got a little ugly. It was one of those startup things where it was a little messy. And so I ended up leaving. I ended up just saying, you know what, and Moontoast not seeing their Future, we'll leave it at that. But I left. It was a good learning experience, met some really good people there. Social space was interesting, I'll never go back. Then I left there and then that was when I had the opportunity at InVision. And I can tell you kind of how that's how that started as well.

Naber: Yeah. So this is good. So people are gonna want to hear the story. You joined really early. You're employee number 35, I believe at InVision, you've got upwards of almost if not above, around the thousand employees or so, shed load of them remote if not all of them remote. Exactly, all of them remote. Like the largest, that I know of, tech workforce in the entire world that is remote - it's unbelievable. So, tell us about the story. Run us through the journey that you've been on so far, and then I've got a question around building your Sales teams from one to 50 that we'll cover, after you kind of tell us what the journey is up until now.

Ryan Burke:     Sure, sure. And so the quick story of how I ended up at InVision was, I quit Moontoast so I was out of a job. I was in sort of this panic mode and got some opportunities right away. And I was I don't want to act, move too quick. And then, just really stressful at that time in life, couple kids, like the whole deal. I was like, what am I doing? And was really close, I had paper in hand to an offer as the CRO of another company in Boston. Ended up being out on a boat with a few folks for my old boss, Scott Earnst, goodbye from Compete, and was sitting with Dave Cancel, we're having a beer on this boat, and tell them about my situation.

Naber: I've heard so many good things about Dave, by the way. So many good things through the grapevine. I'll meet him sooner than later. But as far as he's such a good guy.

Ryan Burke:     Yeah, he is. And just sitting on the boat, and he was like, Hey, don't sign that paper. I was like, why? He's like, you need to talk to Clark at InVision. And I was I don't know anything about InVision. And he's like, design prototyping software. I'm like, I don't know anything about it. Just talk to him. So I didn't sign the paper. We had a couple of conversations, he introduced me to Clark the next day. Had a couple of conversations with Clark, Clark Valberg, the Founder & CEO of InVision, who is just an incredibly interesting, inspiring person. And so the way it went down was, it was like a Wednesday night at probably 9:00 PM in Boston. And Clark, who was in New York, calls me and he's like, alright, I want you to come down tomorrow and meet with the board and meet with me. I'm like, alright, what time? He said, eight o'clock tomorrow morning in New York. And it's like nine o'clock at night in Boston. I'm alright, I'll make it work. And so I go down there, meet with a board member. Clark comes in, and I've never him met in person or anything, and he just sits down and he said, all right, I'm going to spend the next two hours convincing you that this is the wrong job for you. I'm like, interesting. And so we ended up having about a four-hour session on design space, and how Enterprise might not work for design, all of these things. I remember at one point he was like, oh wait, when is your flight? I was well, I missed, it was like an hour ago. He's like, why didn't you tell me? And I was like, well, I want the job, this is super interesting. And so it was great. So we hit it off. Quick background, InVision before me had two VP's of Sales - one lasted a week, one lasted a month. And so I was pretty intimidated, and they were clearly a rocket ship. Even from the early days, you could just see the momentum. And that transactional business, like I had done some the Inside Sales stuff, but like not to that scale before, and build on it from a freemium model. So it was a pretty big leap for both sides and forever grateful for, for Clark taking the chance. And obviously it's been a successful path so far, and a lot of fun. But that's kind of how the whole thing kinda started, which was interesting.

Naber: Great. Great Story. And so tell us, tell us about how many people were there when you got there. Like, what the Sales team can seem consisted of, which I'm pretty sure was like two people plus you. And then give us maybe a couple of stats on where you are right now as a company, so we can understand that growth trajectory. And then I'll hop into how you did a lot of those things. Okay?

Ryan Burke:     Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So when I joined those 35 people, I think there were three people on the Sales team, that I inherited. And the Enterprise business really didn't exist at that point. It was kind of formally launched a few months beforehand, but really there wasn't, there wasn't much revenue there. But what we were doing is we were getting about a thousand people signing up for the product every day to the free service or the self serve plan .So just incredible product-market alignment, and that momentum, and those signals for the business. And so I came on, now we are about 900 employees globally. We work with 100% of the fortune 100. We are fully remote. Raised $350 million total. So it's been, it's been a ride, that's for sure. And it's been a lot of fun.

Naber: Man. Unbelievable. You've got almost a $2 billion valuation on that $350 raised. You've been there for about five years now. Is that right?

Ryan Burke:     Yup.

Naber: Wow. Amazing. First of all, congratulations on all the success you guys have had. I just think it's an iconic company, an iconic story. And I think you guys are can't miss, can't lose, badass product company who is, building so fast, doing it the right way, which is great...From the outside looking in, and that's even before you and I started having conversations, I'm so impressed. So let's talk about a couple of things. One, you have, you talk a little bit, in the past around building your Sales Team from one to 50. And you talk about it using the story of InVision, so let's use that story. But you talk about, building your Sales team from one to 50, you got to think about the three F's - the First Five, the Foundation, and the Future. Let's walk through each one of those bullets if you don't mind. Why don't we talk about the First Five, first? Actually, you know what, if you want to tee this up at all, that's fine. But I want to hear about the three F's for building your Sales team from one to 50 because it's an excellent framework.

Ryan Burke:     Yeah. And so, the way I was thinking about it when I kind of looked back and break it apart is really, figuring out the right people for each stage. Because it evolves and it changes. And then the customer journey changes as you mature, and the deals get bigger, and you move more into the Enterprise. And so you kind of have to chunk it up and hire the right people at each stage, address the customer life cycle at each stage, remove friction points. And so, the biggest thing for me early on was getting the right people in the boat early. And fortunately for me, my first two hires, two Salespeople, that one is now a manager for me in Amsterdam, the other one's the top rep in the US, still here. Which is good because right before I took the job, Mark Roberge from HubSpot, a buddy of mine, called me and he was like, on speed dial who are your two best Salespeople? And I gave him these two names because I have a job. And they both got offers from HubSpot. And they both turned them down. And thankfully...Roberge was like, what the hell? I'm like, I don't know man. And so then I got the job with InVision a month later, and it just worked out like, I called both of them, and I was like you guys are on the team, and it ended up working out really well. And I think, back to the First Five, I think some of the important traits for those folks early on is, they weren't necessarily just Salespeople. Like they were product managers almost at that stage and they just, they knew the product inside and out. And without having, proper Sales Engineer support, or any of that product support on calls, like it was a little bit of the wild west and we had to do our own thing. And InVision couldn't be further at that point, especially couldn't have been further from a Sales culture. Like it was a free product, free value to everybody, designers, it wasn't a push market, it was fully pull-motion, it was all bottoms up. And so we were definitely a little bit out there trying to figure it out. And so, hired these folks early on, that really could talk to the customer, understand their concerns, and their process, and their journey. And then ultimately we built the Sales process around that. And the other key thing about those first people are, you've got to get the people that are on the boat that want to join a company at that stage for the right reasons. If you want to make a lot of money as a Salesperson startup, like InVision at that stage and start, that's not the right place. It's just not, go work at Salesforce. And so, you need to find people that are there because of the opportunity. They want the career opportunity. They want to be co-owners and building something. And that's what the early folks on the sales team, I actually think to this day we still hire people with those profiles...with the trajectory of InVision, like it's still early. And um, that was really critical to find people that wanted to join for the right reasons and not just purely on the financial side. And so getting those builders in early, the ones that can have those product conversations, that was really important for us early on.

Naber: Very cool. Yeah, I think in one of the talks that you do, you talk about focusing on key traits - resilience, adaptability and fighters; and then focusing on key motivations - opportunity, vision and ownership. Those six things I think are so important. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

Ryan Burke:     Yeah. And I would say resilience is probably the biggest one because, at any startup, you're gonna have so many challenges. And so, I mean, I've even made some decisions where we've hired people that have had really good runs at really big companies and their resumes are great, and you hire them to a place like InVision, and it doesn't work out, and they're not ready for it. We probably hired them at the wrong time, the people that are better off, like I even tell our recruiters like, go find people that had a big run at a company, at a really successful company. Then went to a startup that ran out of money or a startup that went out of business. And they've gotten their nose bloodied, and they know what it feels like because your nose is going to get bloodied at a startup inevitably at some point. And so you need the people that can take the punches and be resilient and battle through that. Not only can do it, but want to do it. And some of the folks we hired, like they just didn't want to do it at that stage in their career. I don't blame them either. So, you just gotta figure out that profile and make sure that things like resilience that is so important for those early hires.

Naber: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's incumbent upon the person hiring them to help those Salespeople to make that decision. Like oftentimes you don't know that you need to go get your nose bloodied, or you need to go have a failure somewhere else after your first jump from an organization or you've had a really good run or a long run. Like you have to go get that, that that failure, you have to go learn and have that learning experience. Like it is incumbent upon the person hiring those individuals to help those individuals realize whether or not it's the right time in their career to make the jump into that startup or not.

Ryan Burke:     Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so, yeah, that was really important early on. And then in, the only other thing was that I talked about is finding all of those friction points early. So, mapping out that customer journey and figuring out why aren't people buying your product. Is it the price? Did they not trust you? Not know who you are? They do not want to sign up for a longterm commitment? Is it particular features? Like, whatever it is, you've got a map that out, and then start to figure out how do you remove each one of those and address each one of those. And that's really important early on. And that will evolve once you move into the Enterprise, you're gonna have different friction points and you have to readdress them. Security and things like that all start to come in a little bit more, overtly. But early on, like just why don't people have the product in their hands? And do everything you can to remove those friction points to get the product in their hands.

Naber: Yeah. Awesome. So there's a couple of examples that you use and some of your past content. Like, if the price is a friction point, using free trials and freemium, you are getting the product into their hands with free trials. Seeing the product in action, doing group Demos. You talk about understanding how they use it, pre-populating the assets and pre-populating the product. Lack of trust in your brand, building customer testimonials. Longterm commitments to a product, offer an opt-out, just get them on board. And then lack of features, sharing the roadmap for the product team, from the product team, getting them involved with that journey, and setting them up, setting the customers up with the product team to help evolve that journey. And I thought the examples you used and the solutions to them, I think those are extremely valuable as you're thinking about each one as different friction points, both as you get started and sometimes you don't solve those problem points with those solutions that you just talked about until mid-stage, late-stage and building Sales teams. So sorry to kind of steal some of that thunder. But I thought you've talked about this a bunch of times in the past and using those examples, I think that that's really valuable for people and it's just great content.

Ryan Burke:     You did your homework. You did your homework, Brandon.

Naber: Hell yeah, brother. I'm always doing my homework. It's all about the prep in my world. So that's First Five. Now let's talk about Foundation.

Ryan Burke:     Yup. Yeah. And so the Foundation is sort of when really want to start building out the process, and that's when, like I said before, like that's when it's really important to hire operations because you're going to start to build out those leading indicators that I talked about - what are those activities that you want to measure? Because again, at this stage it's less about the results. I know that the results are important, but you really need to figure out like all of the specific activities and that'll lead to potential success. You can start to understand like what are the points, even in the Sales process, that you need to, that you're struggling with. And these aren't, these aren't things that are meant to beat the team upon. There's always like this head trash, and people are like, ah, I don't you to measure how many meetings I have a week, and I don't want you to measure many prospecting calls I'm doing, whatever. And it's like, that's not the point. The point is not to like manage you out if you're doing it. The point is to help identify the coaching opportunities for the managers to say, okay, you're not able to get people to respond to your emails. Like, let's go through those and evaluate. You're not getting enough meetings. Like, let's look at some of your other outreach. You're not converting meetings opportunities. Let's go through your talk track in those meetings. Their guidelines and they're really coaching opportunities is what they essentially are.

Naber: Diagnostics. Exactly.

Ryan Burke:     Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so, building that Foundation. The other thing, for a specifically for a company like InVision early on, is, how do you offer value beyond the product? And I'm really sort of incredibly lucky and proud of what we do at InVision because we offer so much more beyond the product. But that's really important early because to some extent you need to build the trust and the credibility with your customers when your product doesn't always fulfil every promise. And that buys you time, especially early on. That's really important. So even when the Sales team, I never want somebody to prospect and try to set up a meeting to just talking about the product, it's like, offer something of value - a piece of content, whatever it is, but like offer value to somebody all the time. And you can, there are opportunities to do that beyond on the product. I mean, just a quick, a quick thing. I mean, our CEO is a brilliant marketer. And one of the things that we did is we made a movie. And so, even when I first started, Clark was Hey, we're making a movie. I was like, what are you talking about? And he's like we're making a feature-length film on design. It's like, you're crazy. And we hired this production company out of New York and flew around the country, and we made a feature-length movie called design disruptors. And it was an intimate look at companies that were using product design to disrupt entire industries. Google, Airbnb, Netflix, all of these, all of these companies. And we made this awesome movie, and we weren't in it. InVision wasn't in it, but it was brought to you by InVision. And so what we did was, we did a world premiere in San Francisco, Castro Theater, red carpet, press, the whole deal, VIP dinner after. Then we did one in New York, and we did one in London, and they were huge. And then what happened was, we were like alright, we're going to release the movie. But then people started emailing us and saying, hey, how can we do a screening here? I want my executive team at Uber or NBC or at Salesforce to see this. And so we sort of weaponized. And we didn't release it to the public. And we said, all right, if you want to do a screening or at your community, you know, wherever, we will host it. And I think we've probably done 500 screenings across the globe at this point. You name a company, we're doing...we're doing one next week in Europe with a company, and what an opportunity to one, reach out to somebody and say, Hey, we've got this incredible story that will help your management team understand the value of a design-centric approach. It's super entertaining. Why don't we come on, have some drinks, get a couple of hundred people in the room, whatever it is. Sometimes we'll even do a panel, we'll get people and product leads. We'll do a panel discussion after the movie. And it's been such a great a vehicle for us. I mean, now we have a full, we have a whole film team now at InVision, we did a documentary with IBM or called The Loop on their process, celebrated and evangelize their process, which, sort of strengthened our relationship with IBM. But again, offered value to the community, which the movie then ultimately did. Like it was a free offering from us to the community. Here's some really good content, best practices, examples, in an entertaining format that we are going to deliver to you as part of what our brand represents. Now we've got a new movie that we're releasing this fall. And it's been incredibly successful. It's just another example of how do you go ahead...And not everybody can make a movie, I get it. But although I've seen some good copycats over the last six months or the last year, it's coming. It's getting out there. But, Clark Valberg, this is yours. Valberg this is yours. It was a really powerful vehicle for us.

Naber: Nice. Very good. And so you talked about adding value beyond your product. You talked about focusing on behaviours and activities. You talked about some of the activities. And you talk about hiring your first layer of management. You talk about hiring coaches, and not managers. Can you explain a little bit about that?

Ryan Burke:     Yeah, I just feel like early, early days you just, you need folks that are, they're not about coming in as a manager for title reasons. And you get people in there that are really good at coaching because that's what is so critical. Using those leading indicators, using those behaviours and activities, finding those opportunities to help coach the team. And that's why your first Sales Director, or whatever it might be, they've gotta be a really good coach. Because it's gonna be all about the failures, and the misses early on, and the objections, there's going to be so many objections you're gonna face, whether it's product, price, competitors, whatever it is. Like you really need to figure out how do you coach the team on overcoming those. And so that's why it's really important from a profile perspective that you really dig in when you're interviewing in terms of, talk me through, talk me through an example of where you identified something with a rep, and coached them through it to an improvement. What was the result? Those types of things are really important when you're building that Foundational team.

Naber: Nice. Awesome. Okay. So that's that's the First Five, then we just talked about Foundation. Now let's talk about Future.

Ryan Burke:     Yeah, and the only other thing that I'll mention on the Foundation, now that you're kind of bringing up the topic, which is just one of the things that we did that was interesting at InVision, was it's so important to understand your customer and like everything about their customer. This evolves at every stage. And so, early on, like I hired one. And so I hired a designer onto our team instead of a Sales Engineer. I hired a designer, this person came on boards, still with the company, he's great, but just gave that credibility to the Sales team in terms of the day in the life of what a designer deals with. And could hop on calls and give us some credibility in terms of talking to designers, which is a very unique persona to sell to. They don't like to be sold to. They want to touch and feel the product, learn about it, and then use it, and if they like it they'll tell their friends about it. So, figuring out who your customer is and then hiring them was really important. The other thing that we do now, which is an interesting kind of nuance is around understanding the customer. We now have a program called delicious empathy. And every person at InVision anywhere, again, fully distributed company, we have people all over the world, and anybody at the company from Operations, to Sales, to Finance, has the ability to take a designer out to dinner once a month and expense it. And the only rule is you're not allowed to talk about InVision. And so it's just about, again, building those relationships, understanding the motivations, the personal motivations even of your customers. And that just feeds into everything that we believe in and do as a company. And so that's been another kind of interesting thing for us to do across the company to help people build empathy with our customers.

Naber: Yeah. Yeah. It's great. You call it, I think you call it relentless focus on the customer. It's a pretty cool example. Delicious empathy. I love the Pun. Delicious, as in, take you out to dinner, that's good. I'm not usually a laggard on the jokes, that was a good one. Le's talk about Future. so you talk about a Foundation for building the Future. Go ahead.

Ryan Burke:     Yeah. So the Future is, I feel like, at this point, this is where, you built the Foundational team, you've got some infrastructure in place, you're moving into the Enterprise. Like this is when things will break. Like things are gonna start to break. And you've got to kind of revisit the overall customer journey. You've got to revisit the friction points as you move into the Enterprise, things like legal process, security, all of those are going to be new friction points that you're going to have to learn how to address. And this is also, in a lot of cases, this is also when you make that shift from a transactional product-focused sale to the value-based one. And that's when you've got to hire a different profile of Salesperson at this stage. You've got to have all your motion at this stage. And so, now is kind of when you're, when you're really selling, and you've got to get people that are, again, stewards of your brand. Along all of this, your brand is so important these days that just, I think people sometimes underestimate the impact of hiring the wrong Salesperson on their brand. And like, you gotta think about is this somebody that you would want in a room with 15 of your prospects, your customers? Would the be someone you would want presenting at a community event on behalf of your brand? And if the answer is no, they're probably not the right person. Even if they're the best seller in the world because they are representative of your brand. And you've got to create that value through your Salespeople and that represents the value that you want to project in your brand. That's really important. And the other part about this stage is you've got to find people that are really good storytellers. And that's so important. Can they tell a story? Because at this point, people don't really care about your product. Like this is when the transition switches on the customer side as well. They don't care about your product. They care about what the promise of your product can deliver. They care about the results, they care about the examples of what other customers have done to drive tangible business value from the product. And so there's that shift, and this is where you don't need the product experts in the Sales team. And this is where you can introduce things like Sales Engineers, or Product Specialists, or whatever it is to fill some of those technical gaps. But this is where you need people that can actually tell that story and sell the dream of what your products and more importantly what your brand represents. And that's really important at this stage as you kind of build out the team.

Naber: Nice. Okay, so I want to hop onto a different topic or anything else you want to talk about before we conclude on that?

Ryan Burke:     No, I think that's good.

Naber: Okay, cool. I've got two more topics I want to talk about and then we'll wrap. First one is, hiring, onboarding, and managing, remote Sales teams, and really remote workforces are what you guys have to manage as an entire business. But specifically hiring, onboarding and managing remote Sales teams. So there are a few different things that I'd like to cover. I think there's five in total. First one is hiring profile and hiring execution. How do you search for the right person that is a great person to hire as a remote employee. What are some of the things you look for in making sure that they can do that? And then what's your execution process look like considering you're hiring people all over the world, you're not necessarily sourcing them in one city or one industry. You're looking for them all over the place. So what's the hiring profile and how do you execute on the hiring process?

Ryan Burke:     Yeah, and I think we are the single largest fully remote company in the world now. It's a little crazy. There's definitely cracks at times and things. And just a little, a little bit of context. It started where our CEO wanted to hire the best engineering talent. So we started to hire folks in different places. Even when I started, he was like, Hey, if you want us to open up a Boston Sales office, you can. And I did the whole tour of real estate in Boston, and almost pulled the trigger, but then it just in part of our culture. And so we started to hire some people from all over, and you could kind of place people strategically in these maybe lower-tier markets, or whatever. And so it became really, really, valuable for us. And it's a big asset. On the hiring, you've got to find people, not everybody is ready for it. The last person you want is the person that found you on a remote job site, and you ask them what they like about InVision, and they say, oh, I want to work from home. Like, they're out. You do need to find people that are proactive. Like you need to find people who seek help because sometimes it's hard, and you can get lost or and you can hide. And you've got to find those folks that are very proactive in their approach and sort of ask questions around that in in the interview process. That's really important. But the biggest thing in one of the biggest lessons we have learned here is onboarding. Onboarding is so critical because it can be very intimidating your first day sitting there and not having anybody to talk to. And so we've evolved our onboarding process, pretty dramatically over the last couple of years to, we kind of map out everybody's first 90 days now. And they need to know exactly who they're talking to, exactly what they should be focused on, exactly what the expectations are. And we can still improve that. But even from things like time management, like I think there are still opportunities for us to improve there, especially for some of the younger folks that come in. And they're living with four other buddies in San Francisco, or they're off on their own somewhere, wherever, and they get up in the morning like, how do I spend my day? And so we're getting a lot more prescriptive in terms of just even time management training. And what percentage of the time per week should they be focused on these types of things? What percentage of the times did we focus on these things? Even like learning and development. And so the onboarding process is something that it's just so critically important for a remote team, and there are still opportunities to improve, but I think we're doing a pretty good job now.

Naber: Nice one. So you just talked about hiring profile and some of the things that you need to assess to make sure someone's ready for that. You've talked about time management. And you also just talked about onboarding. Can you give the audience an understanding of like, how specifically prescriptive you're getting? When you say like your first 90 days you're mapping it out, without giving, you don't need to give all kinds of detail, but just like how prescriptive are you getting with the time management piece? Or like the first week? Or is it hourly? And what they should be doing each hour? Or is it a chronological cadence that they should be going through? Like, how does this work and how prescriptive you get? Because I would venture to say that you guys would have a best in class, worldwide onboarding program. So talking about this a little bit would be, I think, helpful.

Ryan Burke:     Sure. And yeah, I mean it's pretty prescriptive and very detailed. And the way it works is we've got sort of a company-wide onboarding program. The first designer that I hired, he now developed and runs that whole program. That's all about, it's like the first day is just logistics and get everything set up from a technical standpoint. Being remote, we actually give everybody $500, when they start to set up their Home Office.And so we know it's not easy. If you need a monitor, you need a chair, whatever. We also, another small thing is we give everybody a card that has $100 per month for coffee shops. It works in any coffee shop. And so we know people are going to need to get out of the house and have some social interaction. They're gonna work at Starbucks or whatever. Early days, we used to have unlimited Starbucks cards when I started. Everybody had an unlimited Starbucks card, and it was awesome. But you can imagine Starbucks sell a lot of food. Things get a little crazy early on. So we had to ratchet that down pretty quickly. And so now we've got limits on them. Starbucks cards, fun facts, Starbucks cards work at some grocery stores in San Francisco. And some of our BDR's found that out. So it was interesting. But enabling people for all of those things out of the gate. And then after you kind of move through the companywide onboarding, then it goes into the roles specific. And there's sort of different tracks around day in the life as a Salesperson, what you need to know. And then it's sort of product is really heavy for us as well upfront. How do you learn the product? And then content is really big for us. We have so much content, best practices, all of that. And so it's like along those tracks that we really invest, here's what you should be learning this day, here's who you should be meeting with on this topic. And like going through that. We also do a buddy system for the role. And so, you buddy up with somebody, they kind of check-in with you at the end of every day, and then you have check-ins with the head of onboarding as well, that does check-ins with that class to make sure everybody's on track. And yeah, it's been pretty, I mean, you basically detail out everything that you feel like somebody needs to know to be successful with their job, and then determine in order what they should be focused on, how deep they need to go, who the resources are that they should be reaching out to for it, and what the content is and just, basically given that as a resource.

Naber: That's awesome. It's an ultra type-A exercise documenting all of that. And most of the time that gets lost as people leave the organizations as well, and that'll obviously never be lost for you. It's a retention exercise for content as well as headspace, and you won't have brain drain as much as well. So let's talk about, one more thing within that, which is, communication, and how that plays into the culture. So how do you sustain a culture, and what is it that you guys do for communications to proliferate that culture and keep it?

Ryan Burke:     Yeah, it's interesting because like we've talked in the past, like, so the communication and collaboration can be addressed through technology in a lot of ways in a remote environment. Like everybody, we're on Zoom, which we use. Slack we live in. And InVision we use obviously. And so those are kind of our primary communication vehicles obviously with email, and collaboration, and tools. Those are really important. But it's interesting, like, we've almost got to the point where Slack kind of not breaks, but at our scale, you got to figure out when something should be an email where it's a little bit more trackable versus when it should go Slack. And so we're sort of revisiting that. But you really, in a remote environment, you got to double down on the culture. And you've just got to really over-invest there. And we do a lot of things. One of the biggest things I would say is, really in any company I feel like instituting values is really important. And so how do you institute some core values that you want people to operate within. And that's how you should be hiring people based on those values, managing people based on those values, put them in the performance plans, put in their comp plans, all of that. And so what we do is we celebrate those values a lot. Like every meeting, we have a value award winner, and we celebrate the value. Or there are just little things like we have, there's a tool out there called Bonusly, which is really interesting. Basically, it's like a kind of like micro-rewards where we integrate into Slack with a Slack channel, and everybody at the company gets $30 or $50 per month that you have to spend. And so what happens is, I'll say, hey Brandon, this is a great podcast, boom, I'll shoot you $5. And everybody sees it. And you could throw on their two bucks or hey, you crushed that prospecting meeting, here's three bucks. And you can attribute it to a value, or hashtag a value, and it adds up and people see it. And so because we're remote, you don't get, a lot of those pats on the back, or shaking hands walk into meetings. So it's a really powerful and engaging way to just give those little quick hits of recognition that are again visible to everybody. And people make real money off of it. Like people are buying bikes, and Xboxes and stuff cause the money adds up, and then you can exchange it into a marketplace for things. Like those types of things are just really important in terms of celebrating. Because you have to learn to celebrate. I think one of the things in a fully remote company you do need to understand is like you kind of have to learn how to do everything remote. We can't say, all right, we're going to be remote, but we're going to get together every month and train in person and we'll do our celebration. Like you're going to have to learn how to train remote, you gotta celebrate remote, you gotta hire remote. Like everything, you gotta build that playbook. And it's not always easy, and there are still opportunities to get together and we do that. But for us, we get together more. We do one annual thing that we've now done two years, which is great. Everybody's so enormously positive when you haven't seen somebody in person like it's such a love fest, and it's great. But we do, we overemphasize getting in front of our customers and our community and tying those...like, we over-invest in sending people to community events or customer events. And so you get to meet and talk to folks on the team, but you do that and kind of tie it to customer interactions as well.

Naber: Wow, that's really cool. Man, that example - Bonusly - and putting that into Slack or your calm channels to give virtual pats on the back, plus you've got the reward, and you've got the recognition, and it's peer-driven, and you have 30 to 50 bucks and you have to spend it. I mean, that's both prescriptively tactical, thank you for that. And then also a great example of how to do, both in-person companies as well as fully remote companies, or somewhere in between. Like anyone can do that. Any Organization can do that. All right. Sorry, go ahead.

Ryan Burke:     No, I was gonna say it's funny, we do have a slack channel as a fully remote company that's called house swapping. So people go in there, and literally will just say, I've got a place in Toronto, I'm heading out for a tower for a month. Does anybody want my place? And somebody else will say, yeah, I got a place in London, who wants my flat for a week. And people trade houses. Or people go, we had a group of folks on my team that rented a house in the South of France for like a month. And like four or five people went and worked together. And it was just funny because I was like, uh oh, here we go. These guys are going to be whatever. And so I actually measured their productivity before and during their time in this house in the South of France, and their productivity was actually higher because I think when people understand that they have to earn the right for this remote benefit. And people take it very seriously. And so, I think we have that culture. We know like maybe this isn't for everybody, but for me personally, it's really rewarding to spend time with family or travel or whatever. And like you got to make sure that you're held accountable, and you're available, and you're earning the right every day to have that type of benefit. And I think that's pretty pervasive in the InVision culture,

Naber: Man. That's great. Good examples too. Hey, we're going to wrap here. I've got one more question, it's a rapid-fire question. And I asked this to every single guest, I explain to the audience each time that I usually ask this question on people's birthdays. Your birthday is in February, I believe, so I don't think it's now, which is August. So I'm pretty sure it's not. What is the most important learning or lesson you've acquired professionally in the last 12 months?

Ryan Burke:     Oh, in the last 12 months.

Naber: Yeah. I put a time parameter around it. So you really have to think about recency.

Ryan Burke:     Yeah. Interesting. I mean, the one thing I'll tie to this book that I've been reading, The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath is all about like how do you create these interesting and compelling moments. And whether it's personal, they talk about some examples of hotels and things like that. But from a workplace, like especially in a startup, you've got to create those legends. Whether it's their first day of work and doing something interesting, or we held training in Amsterdam a couple of months ago, and I brought out like champagne, and we all toasted it and took this crazy picture. But it's like when we all leave here, you're going to look back at those moments. And so now when I go into our off-sites or whatever, and especially when you go through turbulent periods, like how do you figure out how to create these memorable things that everybody's gonna look back on when their InVision story is over and say, remember that? So I've sort of started to bring that into things that we're doing, and think about it in the framework of how are we going to create something that is going to be a memorable, significant point in their InVision story? And how do we celebrate that and make it a point moving forward?

Naber: Hey everybody, thanks so much for listening. If you appreciated and enjoyed the episode, go ahead and make a comment on the post for the episode on LinkedIn. If you love The Naberhood Podcast, we'd love for you to subscribe, rate, and give us a five-star review on iTunes. Until next time - go get it.

Guest:

Daniel Dackombe - Head of Sales, EMEA & LATAM @Mixpanel

(Formerly @LinkedIn)

Guest Background:

Dan is the Head of Sales, EMEA & LATAM @Mixpanel (Series B, $865M Valuation, $77M Raised), where is leading Mixpanel’s rapid expansion into EMEA & LATAM markets. 

Prior to Mixpanel, Dan was at LinkedIn as Global Sales Director - Search & Staffing focused on growth and strategy of the Search and Staffing vertical globally. Prior to this, during his 8 years at LinkedIn, Dan built, managed, and led the Search & Staffing vertical expansion throughout EMEA from scratch to a 9-digit ARR business w/ over 150 employees.

Guest Links:

LinkedIn

Episode Summary:

In this episode, we cover:

- The EMEA B2B SaaS Playbook: Market Selection, GTM Considerations

- Compete AND Compliment- The New Fragmented Market Reality for Sales

- Hiring Profile Tips - Sales Reps & Sales Managers

- Global vs. Regional Leadership - Influence, Focus, Consistency vs. Flexibility

Full Interview Transcript:

Naber:  Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to The Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest-growing companies. Enjoy!

Naber:  Hey everybody. Today we have Dan Dackombe on the show. Dan is the Head of Sales, EMEA & LATAM @Mixpanel (Series B, $865M Valuation, $77M Raised), where is leading Mixpanel’s rapid expansion into EMEA & LATAM markets. 

Prior to Mixpanel, Dan was at LinkedIn as Global Sales Director - Search & Staffing focused on growth and strategy of the Search and Staffing vertical globally. Prior to this, during his 8 years at LinkedIn, Dan built, managed, and led the Search & Staffing vertical expansion throughout EMEA from scratch to a 9-digit ARR business w/ over 150 employees. Here we go.

Naber:  Double D, Dan Dackombe. Awesome to have you on the show. How are you this morning?

Daniel Dackombe:         I'm well. I'm well. Thanks, Brandon.

Naber:  You've got your go-to tee shirt on. You're ready to rock in the morning and had your cup o'tea. I'm loving it. Hey, what I think we'll do in our chat, go through some personal stuff first, and talk a little bit about you growing up. What Dan Dan was as a kid. And we'll go through some of the decisions you made as a kid, and what you were like. And then ultimately, go through the bulk of where we'll spend our time, which is professional stuff. Sound okay?

Daniel Dackombe:         Sounds great.

Naber:  Awesome. All right, let's start with Dan Dackombe as a kid. So Crawley, England, I could have said that horribly, with the American accent. Totally understand that. However, Crawley, England, believe you grew up there. What were you, what was Dan Dackombe like, as a kid? What were you interested in? And what were some of your hobbies and things that you were doing when you were younger?

Daniel Dackombe:         Oh, man. Yeah. So, I'm the oldest of three. Two younger brothers. Yeah, my parents divorced when I was about 12, and they both started another family each. So there are five brothers all in all basically. Which is, which is pretty cool. So I'm the oldest of five really. I was, I was pretty intense. My Dad was a rugby guy, so I played a lot of rugby growing up. So yeah, I'm not great at the kind of default, what's your favourite football team? I kind of have to take a bit of a back step in terms of my credibility around anything regarding football, more of a rugby guy growing up. I boxed through it while I really enjoyed that for a few years. But yeah, I was a pretty social guy, pretty social kid. I was, I was always...and this is quite an interesting dynamic actually because I've thought about a lot of these ideas. I was always the worst kid, in the top class. Okay, and so what that basically meant...And that has kind of scarred me and blessed me. Take sports. I remember being on again, my son's 14, so this is really like...I remember being 14, 15 in the cross country race. So you imagine a freezing cold, February morning in the UK, frost on the ground, and there being a big line of in my mind, giant 15-year-olds. And there'd be like, me, and I always got smashed. So I'd always be like, maybe not last in the top group, but I definitely went the champion jog. And so I was always frustrated that I'd worked hard enough to get to the top group, but I was never kind of capable in that sense. And likewise, academically, I always found I did pretty well at school. I wasn't the most gifted, but I was always in top sets, but I wasn't one of these people that were crazy naturally gifted. I had to revise really hard. And so, I think a lot of that translates to both, I think what helps set me up for future success, but probably also like, it has caused a lot of the scarring and imposter syndrome that we all kind of face. Maybe it'd be different if I was in the one class down and like, the top kid there. Yeah, it was great. I was, I enjoyed growing up with where I lived, had a whole bunch of friends I'm still in touch with. Probably half a dozen of them. You don't see someone for a year, two years, three years, and then you catch up in a bar or pub and telling the same mom jokes, or talking about the time that someone did something stupid. And you know what man, we just been repeating these stories for like 30 years. It's nice to maintain those types of relationships.

Naber:  Oh, that's great. That's good, that's a really good start. You got me smiling a lot over here. It's great. And you always do. Okay, so, two more questions. What was the first thing you did to make money?

Daniel Dackombe:         Yeah, I mean I've always had a pretty good work ethic. And so I worked from a pretty young, I mean I did like, standard, paper rounds at a young age, gardening work. My first actual employment I worked, cleaning the cars on the four court, on early, early Saturday mornings. So that when people are out looking at new vehicles, they can go in and again the cars don't look like they're covered in crap. But this was a show that was right in the middle of an industrial estate, right next to this great big dual carriageway. So I used to come into work every Saturday when these cars were like rotten. I was like, I gotta clean every single one of these calls again. It used to kill me. I just think maybe like, I don't understand how they get so written off. So I did that probably 14 or so. But yeah, I spent a lot of time, doing construction jobs. My Dad was a construction guy, ran his own companies. I mean, you wouldn't do it now. I mean, I would probably be, yeah, my first salaried wage. I could have been maybe 15, maybe 16, and you'd be working in a building site in central London. He'd like dropped me off. I mean he dropped me deep in. And so talking about learning confidence. And building relationships with like, grown men who are kind of in the construction stage, and I'm like 16. And my dad was the boss and no one knew this. So basically, I was the boss's son. He would drop me off, and at the end of the week. I'd meet him in the pub, as you do when you're 16. And everyone would be like, Oh man, you know...I'm like, that's my dad and all of these guys be like, oh man, we've been bossing this kid around for a week, and this is the boss's son. I, I've got a whole bunch of stories I can probably tell you in the pub about my time doing that sort of thing. But yeah. So I've done some different jobs and worked from a pretty young age.

Naber:  The things that folks have done when they were younger that they don't think are that fascinating, or just normal, are fascinating to a lot of other people. So you're saying that you worked for your dad's construction company, you just got dropped off and then picked up. That sounds a crazy, interesting scenario for many people that didn't have that as their normal day to day as they're growing up. So maybe it doesn't come to mind, for you or for the folks that are talking on this on our show a lot, but it's really fascinating. That's really cool. It probably, I mean it forms and shapes you.

Daniel Dackombe:         Totally, I mean I've got a really vivid image in my mind. Bearing in mind this would probably be early to mid-nineties. So it wasn't quite deep in the eighties, but there was still that 80s hangover of music, what people wore. And so the work that we did was a lot of, like, data centres and dealing floors. And so basically just as the trading community began to really digitize their business, and they used to have big data centres basically, that's what my dad did. He built out trading floors and data centres. So all of my work would be in the city. Okay, so you'd be all of these companies that had been doubling down on technology. And so I remember being in a bar in the city and there was like, two divides. I mean on one half of the bar you had all of these construction dudes, and on the other half, you just have all these traders. You know, handmade suits. And it was really interesting for me too because it was like, hey I'm here, but it baked this aspirational, I want to be on the other side of the bar, and I want to be with the traders crowd. Those are the guys that are drinking bottles of champagne, and you know all of the builder guys were pretty dismissive about them. And I kind of was looking at them in a fairly, sort of aspirational way. Like yeah, at some point I'm going to be, I'm going to be that guy on the other side of the bar.

Naber:  I love that. Cool. That obviously shaped your mentality for a long time. Great Story. All right. So, you're making decisions about where to, about where to go to school. You head over to University of Surrey, in Guildford. Explain, why you went to University of Surrey, and then we'll hop through some of your first professional, gigs and up through, up through TotalJobs to LinkedIn.

Daniel Dackombe:         Yeah, sure. I mean, I loved history and I loved...The A levels that I did, so I did English, I did history, and I did an early, what was called then, a media studies course. And in that media studies course, we studied a product and a principle called the information superhighway. Okay. And that was the first name of the Internet. So basically, I remember writing essays and stories and dissertations on potential outcomes and the impact that this would have in terms of like, they were really around personalization. I mean basically what we wrote about then, in terms of IoT and personalized content, seems so abstract because we didn't understand the hardware and the kind of infrastructure requirements, and that felt too advanced. If you can let go of the how you're going to make it happen, and kind of focus on the what, it becomes quite inspirational. So, so I did that. So I applied for two types of colleges. My number one choice was, nautical archaeology in North Wales. Okay. So my life could have been very different. Then the other piece, so the Surrey course was a BSc in media production and business. And so it was all in documentary making, filmmaking, radio shows, graphic design, web design and business around that. So a lot of my pals from college went on to do some sort of media production based job. And I, yeah, I mean, I loved it. It was great. It's a great course. It was really practical. I didn't really apply myself I think as well as I could've done. I think I did the classic, straight from high school, did A levels that were pretty intense. Then straight from there went to college, and at that point, I was just like, I wasn't there with a purpose apart from kind of having fun really. Yeah. It was a, it was a great course. Made some great friends there. Still in touch with those guys. And yeah, really, really enjoyed my time there, but it was mainly focused around media production and business.

Naber:  Nice one. Awesome. All right, so you're leaving Surrey, you're getting into your first gig out of school. Walk us through the first few gigs you had a school and take us up through the end of TotalJobs, and then we'll talk about your jump into LinkedIn. Because we'll spend the bulk of our time in LinkedIn and Mixpanel and talking about a few of your superpowers and going through some mindset and method on some of the things that I know that, one, you're really passionate about, and two, that you're really good at.

Daniel Dackombe:         Yeah. So, I mean, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do when I left college. The career track if you want to kind of continue some type of media production based job is that effectively you leave college and try to effectively get an apprenticeship or an internship. And I just was too impatient for that. And to be frank, I needed the money. And I couldn't wait around, in terms of what I wanted to do in my life, and where I wanted to go. And so, I struggled. The idea of kind of like, dragging myself up into central London, to work for some sort of media production - pre or post-production business - for almost minimal wage with a view that at the end of a period of time they may or may not offer you a job. I was like, man, I don't know if I've kind of got that in me. And so I'll paint for you because it gives you a nice snapshot of the times. So I was in a pub smoking cigarettes. Back in the days when I used to smoke cigarettes and back in the days when you could smoke in a pub. I'm reading the Guardian, which is a pretty left-wing paper, back in the days when I was fairly left-wing. And it had hundreds of pages of job adverts, and this is pre job board, so the technology of job-seeking was sitting in a pub looking at a newspaper, which kind of suited me quite well. And there was an advert in the back of this newspaper saying, are you a graduate? Do you earn 30,000 pounds a year? I was like, yeah, that's an easy take on those two. Circle. I'll go and grab another beer. And basically dragged myself up to London for an interview. I had a phone interview, go invited it up for a second interview, and walked into this place that was basically a massive contract publishing business. And they had like two hundred people, on this huge Salesfloor. There was a huge amount of energy. There's a huge amount of fun going on. I used to get paid weekly in cash, which was hilarious. It was just a real boiler room basically. And basically the end of that first year, I was the number one Salesperson. I'd paid off my student loans, I'd bought a car, and I'd bought my first flat in my first year. And so basically, I used to get paid weekly in cash. I was living on my Dad's sofa at the time because I came out of college and I was like, I needed to get into London. My Dad worked in London. And I was like man, I'll just bunk up with you for some time. And that was it. The Sales bug, you're hit man as soon as you start moving into that world. So I did that for a couple of years, beginning of the .com boom. Headhunted for an Inside Sales role. Went over, joined that company, and that company went on and was rebranded to coming from Stepstone. And I stayed there for a number of years, moved into my first leadership role, managed a pretty big team there. So I moved on to managing probably 18 people. And then literally the DOTCOM bubble burst, share price completely tanked, we had to fire half the people. I kind of walked away from there being completely disillusioned with management and leadership because I just personally found it so hard. I left there, pretty bruised, to be honest, I'd kind of gone through a pretty tough time prior to me leaving there. Had burn out periods, took a couple of months off. And in many ways that's actually one the best things that happened to me because that has really helped me sort of, mediate and moderate my own thinking around work. Mental health in the workplace is another topic that I'd love to talk about. But maybe that's another, another topic for another time. Went over to TotalJobs, which was basically the digital division of RBI, a large publishing business owned by Reed Elsevier, a global FTSE business, Anglo-dutch company. Went to their digital division. Started off as a Field Sales guy. I'd spent, up to that point, I'd been an Inside Sales guy and Inside Sales Manager. Managed a team, then managed two teams, managed the channel team and the advertising agency and RPO team. So moved up the ranks there every period of time, had great fun. They're highly, highly competitive. Highly in the UK. So kind of learned a lot around just operating as effectively as you could against the backdrop of peak competition. And then really the big change for me at that point, I was then headhunted again by LinkedIn to basically be their first EMEA Enterprise Sales Manager. So I was responsible for and launched the UK business. And there's, there's a whole other chapter to follow on after that, I guess.

Naber:  Excellent. So that's your jump into LinkedIn, first role at LinkedIn. So, let's pause there for a minute. You were at TotalJobs for eight years. I mean that's a long, long time. What were one or two things that were the biggest things that you learned that you took with you throughout your career from TotalJobs? And then we'll hop into your roles at LinkedIn and I've got some specific questions around your superpowers there.

Daniel Dackombe:         Yeah, so I think, key lessons learned, there were one, around the importance of short term execution. This was a business that would operate with pretty strict deadlines. And so as opposed to the kind of annual quota philosophy, there was almost a monthly execution. And I think that created a good sense of kind of both urgency, and then how do you kind of manage a team to kind of operate so that there's like, twelve billings periods as opposed to one or even four. And so I would say that was definitely one of one of the key pieces. And then, actually the back end of my time there, the global credit crunch had really just started. And so actually it was a really, the year before I left, it was actually really quite tough. And basically we got to the point whereby if a bunch of headcount we'd removed from the business. And we were down to right, this is the skeleton crew that we need to run. But if we don't hit the following financial milestones, further cuts will need to be made. And I was quite transparent about that with my teams. I was like, look, this is where we are with it. And so I guess out of that adversity came a belief around the importance of honesty, transparency, authenticity, and then how the team then galvanized. And basically, you would get to a point whereby at the end of every month or the end of every quarter people were working for each other, working for a particular cause. And I come on to this, but I've always believed people work better for a cause than the company. And that cause for us at that time was like, we don't want to lose anyone from our team. And so, those were, I would say, the urgency of the billing, but then also the importance of galvanizing a team around a particular mission. Even if at that point that mission was pretty negative. But it still showed me the importance of relationships, and how to lead through adversity. And those, I would say probably the two things that really stand out.

Naber:  That's great. Okay. So you jumped into LinkedIn, you're headhunted into LinkedIn. You've talked about what you're responsible for in your first role, so jump through maybe in two minutes, the responsibilities you had in that first role again, and then through your jump from Mixpanel and just run us through what you're doing at LinkedIn and what you're responsible for. And then we can jump into a couple of topics.

Daniel Dackombe:         Yeah, sure. Okay. So, I mean, there were 30 people in the UK, probably no even many, 20 people in the UK. Maybe 50 people, not even 50 people in Dublin. There's now what, 3000 people in Dublin? So, one of the early guys. I spent my first six months literally interviewing, I think I did 133 face to face interviews in my first year at LinkedIn. Literally, I was just focused on building just building the best team I possibly could. And so we built a team of, 18 Enterprise AE's. And we covered the UK market at that point because we had no other Sales functions outside of the UK covering EMEA. My guys would also cover particular geographical territories. So I remember at one point, you had people covering like, all of public sector UK and the Middle East. You look at LinkedIn now, and you look at how many people are employed in those two sectors, I mean, it's hundreds. So, it's that greenfield opportunity, which in itself brings a number of challenges around prioritization. And so yeah, my first year was building up Enterprise AE team, and then help to launch a number of different offices. I helped hire the guys that and onboarded the guys in Sweden who ran our Nordic office. We opened the Paris office and helped with the training and support in getting that office up and running. The UK RM business was launched that point as well. And so, the business really started to kind of build, and grow, and scale-out. So my first year was around hiring, building, specifically focused around the Enterprise AE space. Moving into the second year, I then managed Senior Enterprise AE's. And so there was, those were guys that...we had different gradients of Enterprise AE's. And then also managed our first kind of efforts in regards to channel and partnership program, in terms of both re-sellers and lead referral program. That was, that was really interesting to see that, and there's a whole bunch of challenges around that. By then, started to diversify the Sales team to be focused on different verticals. And that kind of moves us into my third year at LinkedIn had the opportunity to put together a business case for a specific vertical and then spend the next four years building that business up in EMEA. And built that essentially from scratch to over 200 people, 163 million ARR, 12-13,000 customers, 33% growth year on year. Even bigger than that obviously, in the first few years. And then that took me to my last role at LinkedIn, which was effectively a global overlay role for that entire vertical. A fantastic opportunity. But those are, I guess, the the main broad chapters of my time at LinkedIn.

Naber:  When you were at LinkedIn, and now at Mixpanel you've built out a playbook for building an EMEA-wide B2B SasS go-to-market strategy and plan. And you've done this over the years, you've iterated on it, and then you've obviously you added on the global remit you had at your later stage of being at LinkedIn. Let's talk about that playbook for building an EMEA-wide B2B SaaS go to market strategy and plan. So, I'd love to hear a couple of different pieces of it for the audience so they can hear how you think about it. So a couple of pieces being building strategy, selecting markets and when to start to expand into them, building product and enhancements to product, and then ultimately team and building out the structure and timing of your team - physical geography as well as hiring, managing them. So let's go through building strategy. So if you're thinking about building an EMEA-wide B2B SaaS go-to-market strategy, how do you think about building out the strategy and building out the market selection that you're going to then go execute on?

Daniel Dackombe:         Yeah, so I think I would start off by thinking around, it's a case of having, you start off from directional confidence. And I think, at this early stage, getting to a point where you are 80% comfortable and confident in the decisions that you're making, is really how you need to operate. And so some people say, oh, you have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. And I think that's BS, because the nature of being uncomfortable is, it is uncomfortable. But my interpretation of that is you've got to be comfortable with being 80% confident, and it's okay to kind of...Because actually, the time it takes to get to the point of 100% confidence is actually dead time most of the time in a kind of scale-up phase, well, I guess I'm talking about both start-up and scale-up. And so in terms of that directional confidence, you look at really just triangulating a number of different data points. And those are both hard and soft data points. And so, those could be things like, do you have an existing customer base? Do you have an existing user base? Do you have an existing user base from customers who are billed outside that particular geography? So whether you're a consumer business or a B2B business, understanding where is the traction that's currently, in the product, that's currently being made. If there's an associated user base to it, what is does the user base look like? What are the growth rates geographically for each of those sectors? Have you got companies that are growing far quicker than some other sectors? The other pieces of information you'd probably overlay on top of that is looking at the existing customer base in terms of, are there any characteristics within that, in terms of company size, company type, industry? And so I guess it's a case of, really looking at all of the various different data points that you've got available to you in terms of what you understand about your products, the product-market-fit, and also the individual psyche of the marketplace that you want to sell into, and their ability to buy the products. And I think that's actually quite often overlooked, and it's quite often overlooked from a cultural perspective, certainly with North American, West Coast technology companies. And so I'll give you, I'll give you two examples of that. So number one, when we launched in EMEA if you looked at LinkedIn, one of the proxies we used for potential success was, well, how engaged is a particular geographical region in regards to LinkedIn.com? And the assumption we made on that was we'll actually if there's significant traction on LinkedIn.com we think we can sell the concept of that audience to people within a particular geography. So, for example, we had a high degree of engagement amongst members within Denmark, But actually the notion of direct sourcing and headhunting from your competitors from a cultural perspective, was something that actually locally in Denmark is like, really, that's not the case now but certainly 10 years ago, whatever, the principle of direct sourcing kind of from an ethical perspective was something that they were uncomfortable with. So unless you happen to know that, a bunch of decisions could be made in North America based around data, in terms of wow, okay we've run an algorithm based on penetration of membership, growth of online Sales agent within the product. We've identified Denmark as a top-four market EMEA. But actually, the reality of that is there are cultural blockers to that particular product that we weren't aware of. So another practical example of that as well, is you can have a customer that in principle looks they should really use the product. But actually, when you dig into the particular persona of that company, do they actually have the capabilities of using the product? And so, I find that in lots of technology companies or lots of technology that I've sold to, you can have on paper a company that looks the perfect persona that you should sell into, but actually, they've got no evidence of purchasing similar products before in the past. They've got no evidence of being a pro-technology company in terms of the investments they make. And in addition to that, from an organizational point of view, they didn't have someone internally that's the right person to use the product. So, an organizational understanding and sector understanding should be one of those data points that you kind of look at now. So you go back to my original point of like, directionally accurate. If you took the Nordic region and kind of made a series of assumptions, you're like, okay, yeah, we believe that that is a market that we want to be kind of going after. That is a core market for us. And effectively the way that I would categorize EMEA would be, what are your kind of core and emerging markets? And have a framework around how you define what your core markets are based on a bunch of data points that you triangulate to basically create an algorithm and a scoring mechanism. And then you can have a bunch of core and non-core markets. You then orientate Sales teams around those core markets with a percentage of their time focused on non-core markets that when they reach a particular tipping point, you kind of pull them into the fold and put more of a focus on them.

Naber:  That's great. Thanks so much, Dan. This is a good transition and segue. As you started to think about it within your playbook, building out those teams, what's your mindset for hiring in EMEA in general? And then maybe even any regional nuances that you know that you need to go through, or process changes you need to have, or mindset shifts you need to have. Let's start with reps and then we can go to Frontline Managers. So as I'm starting to hire out my first few reps, within my Sales team. How do I think about going about doing that within my playbook?

Daniel Dackombe:         Yeah, so I think one of the key things to think about is who do you need for the job that you need right now? And I think some of the mistakes that I've made before in the past is I've hired people that are the people that you would need in three years time. And so for me, I think, there's a whole bunch of challenges in selling technology now because companies have changed the way in terms of how they buy technology now. Technology purchasing has been, in many ways, it's been democratized by the employee. And so if you look at companies Slack as an example, you can have a company that's got 5,000 slack users, and they're not an official Enterprise customer of Slack. You've just got an employee base using a product. So you've got, companies now buy technology through individuals, through departments, and then at an Enterprise level. And so I guess the part of you understanding your own go to market strategy of, are you trying to go in at an Enterprise level? And is it a major infrastructure project? Or is it a rip and replace a competitor? Or is it land and expand? And so depending on your approach on how you want to go take a product to market, who your audience is, and the channel in how you want to introduce your products to that company, really depends then upon the type of persona, or personality, or experience of the person that you're looking for. So just being conscious of that I think is probably the first thing to think about. Off the back of that, you can then start to build out a whole bunch of skill sets and characteristics around what it is that you're actually looking for. I think one of the key considerations now is if you look at the backdrop against cloud computing and really the commoditization of every sector. If you look at, any business now needs to think about, okay, in three years time we will have five times more competitors. And all competing for the same budget, with the same decision-makers. And so, the very notion of that means the persona of someone that you need to be able to operate against that backdrop is really different. And so that's definitely something that I kind of think a lot about. And so the ability for people to then, be able to build relationships and network with an organization, help create consensus around how a decision is made, is key. The case of like, I'm going to try and sell to the CEO because he's the decision-maker, those days are gone. People don't buy like that anymore. Companies don't buy like that anymore. And so there's a whole different set of skills that you need from people in terms of their softer skills, their ability to market, their ability to communicate about how your product both compete and compliments their existing technology stack in the sector, is key as well. Customers, by the way, won't even know this. If you go look at, I don't know, the Sales industry as an example. Five years ago you had LinkedIn Sales Navigator and a couple of other pieces of technology maybe. When you look at that sector now, I mean there are literally dozens of players doing dozens of different jobs there. And if you look at marketing, jeez, I mean that's an even crazier marketplace. And so your ability to be able to articulate, to a customer who themselves may not fully appreciate all of these different pieces of kit, and how you can either complement, enhance what they've already bought, or actually how you can compete and say, Hey, I don't think you need these other three vendors because we can do the following things. And so that mindset and that skillset are different. So what you've got to be able to do to be able to identify...a, have an awareness of that. B, be able to work out what are the skills and the behaviours that you need to be able to do that. So there's a good book, The Sales Acceleration Formula by Mark Roberg is a great book around, scaling business. He's one of the early guys at HubSpot, and I actually think that's a really super practical book. So I definitely recommend reading that. For me, two things that stand out that I always look for - You've got grit and curiosity. And grit is to execute with passion and perseverance over time. Intellectual curiosity, someone is genuinely...I talk about this technology sector because I'm genuinely interested in trying to understand why are customers buying the products they're buying? What is it they're trying to do? And how can you help that? And then the ability to be able to articulate and communicate the reasons as to why you think your value proposition makes sense.

Naber:  Awesome. So let's say I'm building out my first Frontline team. I've built out my reps, I'm hiring for the job I need now. I'm thinking about how they need to build relationships, build consensus, communicate internally around how the product competes, enhances and compliments within the market. And then I've hired against grit, curiosity, and communication. Now I need to build out my Frontline Managers. What's your mindset, some of the methods you use for hiring Frontline Managers?

Daniel Dackombe:         I'm a fan of the core, strategic, and venture kind of methodology. Where you take a particular topic, and things that are core to that you assign 70% or seven out of 10, strategic is two out of 10, and venture is one of 10, 10% whatever you make to look at it. And so I think, for me, for a Frontline Manager, if you take the notion of, the science and the art of that. It's almost like, right, what are the core attributes, what are the strategic, and what are the venture? So what are the must-haves, nice- to-haves, and it would be good if but that is not as important? And so you're never gonna find somebody ticks the box on all of those things. There's always gonna be trade-offs. What are you not going to trade off on? One hasn't got or illustrates the following things, they're just simply are no. And that's across the two sectors of the science and art of management and leadership. So for me, it's having an under having a selection framework where you feel you're clear on exactly what the key skills and attributes are that you're looking for. Having an understanding or an appreciation of where you have a level of flexibility on that, and where you don't, are some of the key things. And actually taking the time to really go through that process in a pretty data-driven way, in terms of making sure is there a scoring mechanism against these things. Looking at other performers in the business who are doing really well, and how can you benchmark them against that particular person. And then also, hiring a leader for the role that you need now, and that you need in probably the next 24 months to 36 months are the key things. People talk about over hiring, and I think that's a good point, but if you overhire someone who has been a Frontline Manager, but then spent the last five years as a VP of Sales, and then you want to drop them back into a Frontline Sales Manager role because they've got lots of experience, that doesn't work out. Because actually what you need them to be able to do is to have the appetite and the energy to focus on the core nucleus functions of a Frontline Manager, which involves deep level forecasting, deal coaching. So, who do you need to do the best job right now is one of the most fundamental questions I think you need to ask yourself, separate Frontline Leaders.

Naber:  Yup. Got It. Excellent. So we've covered a lot of the different pieces of the playbook than that you've built out, especially when you started at TotalJobs, built out even more expansively when you're at LinkedIn, now that you're Mixpanel. We've talked a lot about some of those pieces around building strategy, market selection, team and hiring across the different levels that you need to hire at. One more thing that I want to talk about is the difference between - and we talked about building these teams within EMEA - a lot of your mindset sounds globally applicable. However, I know that you have been in roles where you've had a global remit and managing teams that are in EMEA, both at the same time as well as consecutively. So can you talk a little bit about some of the best practices that change when you are managing a regional team in EMEA versus managing on a global remit?

Daniel Dackombe:         Yeah, so I mean, I, I would say, so I would say having a clear set of expectations around what are the objectives, goals, and KPIs around the global piece of the job. And don't underestimate how difficult it is to influence and implement a global-wide initiative. And so I think, some of the things when you think about from a global basis, I think you've got to change your mindset in terms of, if you're a hands-on Frontline Manager or even regional Director, you're personally in the region, you've got a management team, you may not be on the Frontline with your reps or even front line Managers, but you've got people that are within touchable distance from you. I think when you were then thinking about, well actually if there's an international organization, you're relying on and going to be working with a whole bunch of people across different continents, different geographies, different roles. And so managing and leading through influence becomes then a completely different kind of skillset. And I think the advice I would give on that is, if you take on more than you can effectively deliver, you will fail. So say, this sounds crazy obvious, okay, we want to do three things. And people always say, pick one of them and do that really well. And then in the back of your mind, you're saying but all three of them need to be done. And so you kind of try and delegate two of them out, and whatever it may be. But I would have a clear set of expectations with whoever you're reporting into to make sure that you can identify, okay, this is the global initiative or global change that I want to put in place. And just have a far more thorough and intensive approach to that kind of either change management or implementation of that than you think you need to do. And then just when you think you're kind of there, double down on it. So really prioritizing, pick the one thing that's going to impact globally, and drive that. And then for the things that fall underneath that, you either need to be comfortable that you're going to park that for a period of time, or that you're going to allow that to be managed and interpreted in a different way across different regions. And so I think that was one of the things when you've got to a global overlay role, it's like, what are what's the systems, processes and methodologies that you want to see global consistency on. And actually, where do you want to ensure that you can encourage a more local dynamic approach.

Naber:  Okay. That's a good time to talk about your jump into Mixpanel from LinkedIn. So why did you make the move to Mixpanel, and talk a little bit about what you're responsible for there. And then I've got two more topics and we'll wrap.

Daniel Dackombe:         Yeah...I've got kind of like a Venn diagram answer to that question. And so effectively, the assessment process that I go through in regards to any opportunities. Number one, the first circle is like, is there a big enough macroeconomic backdrop driver that makes this product or company important enough to matter or viable enough? And if you look at the impact of industry 4.0, you look at the huge exponential growth around the app economy, you look through the digitalization that all companies are going through in terms of how their digital products are now their company. You talk to a financial institution, a major bank, their online experience for their customers is now no longer a nice to have, that is what their business is built around. So you've got these, this huge backdrop of industry 4.0, digitization, the applicant economy, consumer behaviour. It's never been easier for a consumer to switch any product. You look at how cloud computing has commoditized all industries and all sectors. There's basically this massive backdrop of opportunity around the digital economy. I've always been a big fan of, during the gold rush be the guy selling shovels, or pickaxes, or whatever. And so for me, that was a pretty big backdrop. The second piece is around, so how does the product that you're selling actually impact that major global trend? And so when I assessed Mixpanel, Mixpanel was already nine years old, 26,000 customers, 40% (four-zero) were based in EMEA and there were less than a half a dozen people in EMEA. You had companies from one person, digital-first companies in Finland, to major Enterprise companies in Turkey. And so you've got scalability of the product in terms of geography. You've got scalability of the product in terms of company size. And scalability of the company in terms of sector. And so that was the second piece for me. And then thirdly, it's around the people. And to be frank, this is more important, really, is around the people and the culture. Mixpanel has brought in a new CEO, a guy called, Amir Movafaghi. He's like, just one of the best leaders I've worked with, really inspirational. He's an ex-Twitter executive. He's was like the Mr Fix it at Twitter. He's an incredible leader to work for. And I believed in his vision of what he wanted to do to build and take the company to its next level. So those were the three criteria that I looked at in terms of assessing any opportunity. And for me, Mixpanel fits squarely in the middle of those three things.

Naber:  Awesome. Okay. Just tell the audience what you're responsible for it Mixpanel, and then I've got two questions for you.

Daniel Dackombe:         Yep. So, I'm basically the Director of international for EMEA and LATAM. So primary responsibility for building out the go-to-market teams in those two regions. I'm based in London, but we've just opened a new office in Barcelona, we've opened a new office in Paris, and we're opening in Amsterdam. Taking the team from when I joined at 10 people, to we've got a financial headcount plan for the end of the year, it'd be probably, 110, 115 people in EMEA alone. So 10x in the business in terms of headcount, and obviously trying to grow the revenue contribution pretty exponentially on top of that as well. So I'm at that early expansion phase. This year I've done a hundred interviews. We've now got ten AE's in the UK, four RM's. We've got 10 AE's in Barcelona, and four RM's. We've got a half dozen people across Amsterdam, and Paris. We've stood up an SDR team in Barcelona as well. We've got a whole bunch of pre- and post- technical Salespeople that we're introducing into the company. And so we're building the EMEA business from the ground up in terms of not just our Sales teams but all of the cross-functional partners that we need in place to be able to execute as well as we can.

Naber:  Nice one. I love how your 10x'ing, the headcount this year. In three or four years from now, you and I are going to have a conversation about how early that sounded, and how early-stage that sounded for where you're going to be in three or four years. Okay, great. So thanks for that overview. And then the last topic I have is, let's talk about Mixpanel. What does Mixpanel do extremely well? That is a competitive asset because they're just excellent at it naturally. It's at the core of what they do.

Daniel Dackombe:         Yes. I think there is an institutional belief and passion around what it is that we're trying to do and the impact that we are trying to have for our customers to help them be successful, to help them build better products, to help them operate against this backdrop of huge disruption that we see. And I think the passion and belief that runs right through this business is something that's both powerful and intoxicating, and absolutely a competitive advantage. So, belief in purpose, belief in the vision, and collective alignment around what it is that we're trying to do collectively creates a really powerful unified business. The power of the pack is the wolf, and the power of the wolf is the pack. This definitely, definitely feels like an aligned business. And that's one thing that is built by having good leaders in place, having a great vision, having a great mission, having a product team listens to customers. One of the things that we do better than any other company I've seen, this is the single best company that I've ever seen in regards to, how we truly listen to our customers and don't have this arrogant perception that we know better than what our customers want. And this is definitely a competitive advantage.

Naber:  And what have you seen are some of the ways that the leaders in the business are making sure that you keep those core competencies?

Daniel Dackombe:         Yeah, I mean it's kind of the notion of, to some extent it's the Jeff Wiener notion of Next Play. Whereas like, you don't allow your successes to become overly important, and you don't allow your losses to pull you down. If you think about ultimate performance is like a flat line, okay...that big spike up, the higher that spike up, the longer it takes to get back down to your optimal performance. If things go bad, and that drop falls through the ocean floor, it takes longer to get up to the optimal motion. So it's, recognize what you're doing well, be happy about it, move on. Something bad happens, learn from it. Don't do it again. Move on. And the quicker you can kind of go through that cycle - of celebration, recognition, learning, moving on, through to failing at something, learning from it, and then moving on - the quicker you can operate.

Naber:  Hey everybody, thanks so much for listening. If you appreciated and enjoyed the episode, go ahead and make a comment on the post for the episode on LinkedIn. If you love The Naberhood Podcast, we'd love for you to subscribe, rate, and give us a five-star review on iTunes. Until next time - go get it.

Guest:

David Katz - VP, Sales @Tessian

(Formerly @Intercom, @Dropbox, @LinkedIn)

Guest Background:

David is the Vice President, Global Sales @Tessian - Tessian has raised $60m from legendary security investors like Sequoia and Accel and have over 150 employees located in New York, San Francisco and London.

Prior to Tessian, David was the Senior Director, Global Sales & Customer Solutions @Intercom - Responsible for the Account Executive, Account Management, Sales Engineer and Customer Success teams (100+ people) Globally across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC.

Before joining Intercom, David was the Director, Mid-Market & Enterprise Sales @Dropbox - Responsible for a regional direct sales team of more than 40 Mid-Market and Enterprise Account Executives working out of HQ (largest P&L globally). 

Prior to Dropbox, David was Manager, Mid-Market Sales @LinkedIn.

Guest Links:

LinkedIn

Episode Summary:

In this episode, we cover:

- The Art, Timing, & Tactical Guidance for Moving SaaS Upstream

- Full-Stack Commercial Teams - Functional Hiring Best Practices

- Team Prioritization & Effective Stakeholder Engagement - Mistakes, Lessons Learned, & The New Mindset

- Talent = #1 Priority - Evaluating & Onboarding Top Talent

Full Interview Transcript:

Naber:  Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to The Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest growing companies. Enjoy!

Naber:  Hey everybody. Today we have David Katz on the show, DKatz as he's lovingly known. David is the Vice President, Global Sales @Tessian - Tessian has raised $60m from legendary security investors like Sequoia and Accel and have over 150 employees located in New York, San Francisco and London. Prior to Tessian, David was the Senior Director, Global Sales & Customer Solutions @Intercom - Responsible for the Account Executive, Account Management, Sales Engineer and Customer Success teams (100+ people) Globally across Americas, EMEA, and APAC. Prior to Intercom, David was the Director, Mid-Market & Enterprise Sales @Dropbox - Responsible for a regional direct sales team of more than 40 Mid-Market and EnterpriseAccount Executives working out of HQ (largest P&L globally). Before Dropbox, David was Manager, Mid-Market Sales @LinkedIn. Here we go.

Naber:  DKatz. Awesome to have you on the show. It's great to see your bearded face. How are you?

David Katz:       I'm great, BNabes. And for those at home, you should also clarify what our full names are, although nicknames are great. I think I once called you just BNabes or even beautiful Nabes.

Naber:  I dunno if you remember that. I mean that would've been, that's going pretty deep back into the archives of my history and memory.

Naber:  Haha, that's pretty good. If you called me beautiful, first of all, I think I do remember you calling that, second of all, you may be the only person that's ever called me that. So if I don't remember, that's pretty bad cause that's an amazing story for myself. Thank you for that. Appreciate the confidence boost as we get started. And I'm just looking, I'm just looking to match your beard skills and your hairstyle. I feel like you've nailed the combo. I feel like you've really nailed the combo.

David Katz:       So for those at home that are just listening to the audio, if you went and actually just googled David Katz at Tessian or found me on LinkedIn, you'd see this shiny bald head. And yeah, I mean when we worked together, I had some hair, but maybe one or two of the things we'll talk about is the high pressure environments I put myself in more recently that caused me to lose all said hair. But I say like, dude, this look without a beard and glasses to soften it up. Like, if you could imagine this, without glasses. I'll take them off so you can see and then imagine now, if you take those things away, you're getting into the Doctor Evil territory. And I don't know if that's necessarily all look that is inviting and encouraging of future conversations. So anyways, I appreciate that.

Naber:  Yeah, it's an evolution. I'm sure that it feels right that Dr Evil is what you're moving towards in your life. But I'm sure you've perfected the morning routine pretty well with the head, the beard, the glasses. Like it's gotta be a pretty solid morning routine at that point.

David Katz:       Less than five minutes.

Naber:  Nice. Awesome. That's what I like to hear. Every, every guy wants to hear that. All right, so let's hop into a couple things. One, we'll go through some personal stuff first. Mr Smarty pants grew up in New Hampshire, went to Syracuse, some interesting history, interested in debate, and government, and voracious reader obviously, and I'm sure that started at a really young age. So we'll talk about all that fun stuff as a kid, what you were like, then we'll hop into the professional stuff, talk about some of your superpowers, talk about tech businesses you've worked with, and ultimately get into your superpower mindset as well as methodology, and some frameworks around some of the things you're really good at. Sound okay?

David Katz:       Yeah, let's do it.

Naber:  Awesome. let's start personal first. So 5,000 population town lake Winnipesaukee. I'm totally gonna screw up any one syllable that I'm sure. So, you grew up in that town. Let's talk about what was it like being DKatz as a kid? What were you interested in? And what were some of your hobbies and things you were good at growing up?

David Katz:       I was a high energy and devious child, but not like in a malicious way. Like I wasn't getting arrested or lighting Barbie dolls on fire, per se. But I was a bit of a menace to society or to my teachers at least. I definitely was always pushing the boundaries of what I feel like I could get away with. And I feel like that's pretty much just continued throughout my entire life. Let's just see how far we can push this. And now I'm being penalized by having a two and a half year old that's doing the same thing. And what my mom used to tell me as a kid, whic is now coming true, which is, I hope you have a son just like you someday. For better, for worse, that's coming to fruition with my two and half year old. So yeah, I mean you said it, I grew up in a small town, 5,000 people. And it was an amazing, beautiful place to grow up. It just wasn't super diverse. Like there wasn't a lot of opportunity to be exposed to a lot of different things. It was a it was a very touristy environment that I grew up in. The population would grow by like 10x in the summer. People love to coming up to the lake. I mentioned to you earlier, Jimmy Fallon named his daughter after Lake Winnie, this lake I grew up on. It's just like a beautiful, nice, small town that kind of grew up on. But yeah, always interested in government, government affairs, and debate. I had this amazing teacher in high school, Mr Zoolof, who was very supportive and encouraging. I just felt a strong connection to. And, from taking classes with him, decided to really pursue a career in political science and public policy, or this thought I wanted to. So that's when I went to school for up in the upstate New York at Syracuse University.

Naber:  Very cool. Shout out to Mr Zoolof off. I like that. So one more thing about, DKatz growing up. What were you interested in? What was the first thing you did to make money? Tell us a little bit more.

David Katz:       Yeah. So, I was very interested in extreme sports growing up, or what I thought were extreme sports at the time. So it was a bit of a daredevil. I spent a lot of time in the emergency room. But I was very into freestyle skiing, wakeboarding, mountain biking, hiking, climbing, pretty much anything where I could lose a sense of gravity for some small period of time. I really enjoyed as a child. And it wasn't until my twenties where I started having real serious injuries that I didn't rebound from so quickly, and I decided maybe need to slow down. But yeah, I mean like I was a bit of a speed freak. I wanted to go, high and far in the air in whatever I was doing. So, outside of school and things I was interested in politics. I was really most first and foremost interested in just, thrill and just kind of chasing that feeling, as a kid.

Naber:  Okay. So I have a hundred questions on that stuff, but we've got to move on so I won't indulge in my own curiosity. So you're going through high school, you're making a decision to go to, upstate New York, Syracuse University, The Orange, which I think is like one of 11 schools that have a mascot that don't end in "S", I believe, something like that. One of 10 or one of 11. We don't need to go through the trivia, but that's actually a fun trivia question. So why do you make that decision to go to Syracuse? Walk us through what you were like for a couple minutes while you were at Syracuse.

David Katz:       Yeah, I mean, first and foremost, I didn't get into Georgetown, which was my number one. And I just, I didn't get it, and I was pretty bummed about that, honestly. I just really wanted to be in DC. I really wanted to be in that, that environment cause I really want to study political science and public policy. But I would say in hindsight, I was very fortunate that I didn't get in that I went to Syracuse. It was an incredible program that going to be part of, I met my future wife and mother of our son, and soon to be our second son. She's due literally any day now. And yeah, so it worked out for the best. One of the things that was really attractive to me about Syracuse was the curriculum for the public policy program was very hands on. It was actually a much less academic approach to learning. Most of the curriculum was made up of internships and kind of co-op style work. So you literally get thrown in the deep end. Even as early as being a freshman and a pimply faced 18 year old there I was working on different programs, like the Syracuse Housing Authority. And I'm getting to be involved in the community at a young age. Really kind of shaped the way I thought about learning and our education system more broadly, which is probably another topic for another time of things I'd like to do much, much later in life regarding education. It was just super hands on curriculum you actually got to get out there in the world and mix it up and meet people. But probably most importantly was, the Head of the Department Dr Bill Coplan, who I got to be a teaching assistant for, told me, I can't remember if I was either a junior or senior, he told me, he's like, Katz your wasting your time man. Like you're not, this isn't going to be a career. You're to be in Sales. And I've said this before in other podcasts, but I was like so offended by that. Because growing up in a small town in New Hampshire, I didn't know anything about Sales other than like the guy at the footlocker trying to sell me shoes, or like the guy selling my parents their car. That was my only in the sense of like what Sales was growing up.

Naber:  Yeah. I always say that it's viewed as a dirty word often times. We're coming around as a society, especially in Western countries. But it's a bit of a dirty word as you're growing up. Yeah.

David Katz:       And it was to me, certainly when I was a young student. But I'm fortunate that he did plant that seed and ended up coming to fruition years later. And I personally credit him for that.

Naber:  Cool. Love it. And do you, what you don't say in that whole explanation is you were very good student. Obviously really intelligent, very obvious to people that have a conversation with you within seconds. So, you meet Shana, going through University, and you're gonna make your first decision on, what's next after uni. So why don't we do this. Walk us through. We're going to get up to LinkedIn. And then we're going to hop through LinkedIn, Dropbox, Intercom, and your recent move to Tessian. We're going to hop through those with some questions and going a little bit deeper on your playbook. But walk us through your decision out of school for the first job that you got, all the way through LinkedIn. and then we'll stop at LinkedIn and we'll pause for a couple of different things. I want to talk about that.

David Katz:       Yeah, totally. So, coming out of uni as you said, and for the Americans, that also means college. But having led and worked with international teams, it's definitely called Uni or university outside of the states. Same as resumes, their called CV's, right? Or curriculum vitae.

Naber:  I did a calculation on this. Like 5% of the world's population or so is in the US, and 95% is outside. You do the math, it's actually staggering as to how much the sociopolitical environment as well as, a whole bunch of other things that the US does and makes decisions on affects the other 95% of the world. But the disproportionate amount of people that actually vote for those things, which is like 1.7 to 2% at any given times, just depending on how many people vote, of the world's population votes on, and has say in what types of things happen in our environment in the US, then subsequently affect the rest of the world. And I just always think it's interesting when we talk about some of that terminology because when all of those folks are listening, they think to themselves, obviously it's called that, but it's just cause that's their mindset obviously. Anyways, keep going.

David Katz:       And that'll come back later too, I think. When you new companies, part of the onboarding experience is just getting a sense of are we speaking the same language? Because every company I've joined, and I'm sure this has been similar for you, and more recently in your consulting experience, people use terms so interchangeably. And what I learned early on is like, don't take that for granted and make sure you're really clear. Like, when you say that, what do you actually mean? Like, especially if you're going to work with companies that have international teams, people interpret language very differently. And even like, when I say inside Sales and what that means here in the States, that's viewed very differently, and has a different connotation in Europe. So anyways, just a little point there. So yeah, coming out of school. So I had no idea what the hell I want to do. I just realized through my internships in school that I didn't want to pursue a career short term in the government and nonprofits space. And I honestly, through a weird series of events, just fell completely backwards into a very interesting small Executive search firm called J Robert Scott that was a wholly owned subsidiary of Fidelity Investments. I'd never heard of it. It's not something people go to school and study and say, I want to work in Executive search when I grew up. I had no idea recruiting was a thing, and an industry, and it's actually massive. And so I fell back words into it, and it was just like the biggest point of luck in my early career to have that type of opportunity because I got exposed to so many cool people in cool industries. So we worked with hardware, software, medical device, biopharmaceutical companies. We primarily worked with early stage venture-capital backed companies, and we were working to like bring additions into their Executive team as they were growing and reaching different stage of maturity. We would help them add different roles, and functionality, expertise to their Executive teams. And so I was like such a cool way to essentially get paid out an MBA, straight out of school. And I got exposed to a lot of very interesting people, and got a sense of the way the world works, at least as it pertains specifically to the VC world.

Naber:  Awesome. I love the narrative to that value prop as well. That's really cool. Cause you say Executive search, it can mean so many different things for the value prop. I'd like that narrative a lot. So J Robert Scott, wholly owned by Fidelity Investments, and you're at J Robert Scott. What's the biggest thing you learned from there, and then why the jump to LinkedIn?

David Katz:       The biggest thing I learned was, there's no reason that I can't aspire to be a successful Executive at a company at some point in time. And the reason I said that there say that is I had so many people, I was like, how the hell did you become CEO and president of this company? And it's kind of funny and to say it that way, but like it gave me a lot of confidence. I can do this. And I think when you're young, or if you're a Sales rep, or if you're an aspiring Executive within the commercial realm, or really any role, I think you look at these people and you put them on such a pedestal. And the reality is they're just humans like you and I. And getting to sit in on some of these board meetings and hear some of the things that they would discuss, I was like, these people aren't that special. In many cases, they really think they are. But there's no reason while others can't have the type of success that they are, at least perceived to have, if you just work hard and kind of pursue the right things.

Naber:  Nice one. That's great. I liked that. That's a really good takeaway. And so you're moving into...

David Katz:       Yeah, you probably weren't expecting me to say that. You thought I was going to say something completely different. Something that would've made more sense like, the importance of hiring the right talent, and talent is the key to everything. Yeah, I could have said that. But you know what, like, no, that's what I really learned personally and selfishly.

Naber:  So, you're making the jump to LinkedIn. Why do you make that decision and kind of walk us through your journey at LinkedIn, for the time that you were there for each of the roles you subsequently jumped into.

David Katz:       Yeah, so when I was working in Executive search, I had an opportunity to move to San Francisco and help our firm establish a west coast presence. And so we actually hired a partner from one of the big Executive search firms on the west coast...amazing firm, been around for a very long time, very successful. And I think, I don't know if they're public now, but they were at one point in time. And anyways, we hired this awesome partner, Eric Lund, and we had a great working relationship. We got to work on a couple of projects together and really establish like a good working relationship. And he invited me to come out to the Bay Area and work with him. So I leapt at the opportunity, convinced my then girlfriend, now wife to move out with me. But as soon as I got here, like it's just, the environment's infectious. It's so hard not to get excited about wanting to go and work for one of these companies. And I was just so envious being on th outside looking in. And after about a year of helping Eric kind of establish our west coast practice, hire some other folks to join the firm, I was like, I gotta go get into one of these companies. I started thinking, what do I want to do functionally, like what kind of role would I want to go for, and then what type of company? And I think given my more recent experience, when when I decided to leave J Robert Scott, I was doing selling and I didn't really realize it. I was selling candidates on thinking about opportunities outside of what they currently had. I was selling those candidates then on our clients that we're working with to help them kind of place people at the companies they were invested in and part of. And then I was selling other, potential clients on hiring us to do work for them. And so I didn't realize it because it wasn't like a less structured way of, I didn't have quotas per se. I'm like, you more traditionally did in Sales in a SaaS Sales role, but really I was in Sales. And it was a pretty challenging role, because it's not a business risk, it's a personal career risk, right? You're selling people on why they should think about leaving one role as an Executive for another one that might be much more risky. And so it took a lot of listening, and I really learned how to listen very carefully to what was really important to people and see if it would be the right opportunity. But anyways, so then I figured out, okay, Sales is probably somewhere I could play. Then I started thinking about what's a Product that I'm super passionate about. I spent all day on LinkedIn as anyone in recruiting, right? So, I decided I wanted to pursue a Sales career specifically in LinkedIn. I actually didn't apply anywhere else. I didn't even apply to LinkedIn. I cold called my way in. There was a guy...Tyler Hubs, who had a background similar to me, and I literally cold called, left a voicemail, and he actually called me back. And he invited me down for lunch, and I got to go down and meet in Mountain View with him, with some of the team, and our then VP of Sales, James Volpentest, who I know you're very familiar with and worked for. And it was at a point where, LinkedIn was growing like crazy and they're like, yeah, like we'll take a shot on this guy. And I think the opportunity cost was low enough that they were willing to kind of take on bet on somebody who'd never done software Sales before. And so I joined, I joined as a Sales rep and that was, let's see, I'd say, I think I accepted my offer towards the end of 2010. And I think I joined in January, 2011.

Naber:  January 5th, 2011. That was our start date. Nice one. Okay, so you make that jump. Now walk us through your journey at LinkedIn for the different roles that you had.

David Katz:       So I started as an Account Executive, and loved it. Learned mostly through trial and error. Just because it was such a fast paced environment and things were kind of like half-built as you would imagine they would be at a company in that stage and for how fast they're moving. But I was super fortunate given the kind of culture at that company. And it's still, the culture at the time was just so collaborative and so focused on development. And my peers around me were so willing to invest in me, and give me time, and let me shadow, and learn more about their processes. They would sit in on my process and give me advice. And so I was fortunate, I got off to a pretty quick start at the beginning of the year. And then about halfway through the year, we had this weird situation where, there was a cohort of us that were doing pretty well, and then there was several cohorts of people who were not. There's like this huge gap where there was either people like blowing out their numbers, or there are people really not even coming close to their targets. And we had pretty aggressive goals that year. and we were getting ready to file and go public. And so it was important to get more predictability in the business. And so they offered me and several other folks this opportunity to become a team lead. Which at the time I thought I was like the coolest thing ever, and if I actually think more critically about it, I'm like, wait a minute. Like, I was kind of taken advantage of here. They were like, hey, how does this sound? We're going to pay the same amount of money, but we're going to, quadruple your risk. And we're going to have you take on quotas for four other people. Don't worry about the fact that you've closed more revenue than all four of them combined in the first half of the year. Like this is probably gonna work out just fine. And when I joined LinkedIn, one of my mantras early on was, I wanted to like really be part of this journey, and I wanted to sign up and take risks. And I wasn't sure if Sales was the right thing for me. I wasn't sure if software tech was the right thing for me, but I told myself like, look, I'm young at this point. I wasn't married. I didn't have kids. I didn't have a mortgage. I'm just going to say yes, I'm going to take on as much risk, as an opportunity as I can and see what comes of it. And so I jumped at it. I didn't really think about it too much. And was like, great, let's see if we can figure it out. And we did, and that second half of the year, I'm proud to say that the team I got to work with were exceptional people and their willingness to listen to some punk kid, who didn't have a ton of experience in SaaS Sales, and work with me, and work as a team was incredible. And we turned around and we hit our second half targets. Three of the four folks actually hadn't achieved their annual targets. Some of them got promoted. And that was the big inflection point for me. That was when I realized like I had found my calling. And I'm so fortunate, and honestly just lucky, that relatively early on in my career I had this Aha moment, where I was like, this is what I was meant to do.

Naber:  Very cool. Very cool. So, walk us through then your navigation into leading Sales Dev teams, and then your Mid Market Sales Management role that you had. And then we'll hop into one topic that I want to talk about because I know you started flexing your muscle pretty hard on it at LinkedIn. And then, we'll jump into Dropbox.

David Katz:       Yeah. So, after those six months as a team lead, I jumped at any opportunity I could find to get into a management role cause I was like, this is what I want to be doing. And I was fortunate enough there was an opening for a role managing a Sales Development team in San Francisco, and I interviewed for and got the role. And we actually, this is where BNabes and I got closes, we actually were both peers and we're managing, Sales Development teams. And our boss, Jeff at the time, like I think somewhat begrudgingly gave me the role. Like, I think he had his concerns. And if anyone, this is a total inside joke, but if you knew Jeff, he would know like he's not afraid to just tell you his concerns early on, and just make sure they're out there and open. Which is something that I learned is actually, an incredible trait to have is just be open and transparent with people. And he told me why he gave me the role, but he also listed all the concerns he had, and things he wanted to make sure I avoided early on. And fortunately he gave me the role, and he gave me a lot of coaching, especially in the early days on how to be successful as a people Manager, as a first time people Manager. So yeah, I inherited a team. My initial team was 15 or 16 reps, which is like twice the size of the team you should give to a first time Manager. And on top of that, Jeff, who was my boss, but it was in Dublin. So like we had this eight hour time difference. So it wasn't like he was on the floor helping me all the time, or if I had like some in the moment need, I didn't have him to go to. Luckily had some amazing peers that I worked with closely in the San Francisco office that would help kind of guide me and make sure I didn't screw up too bad. So I did that for a year. It was amazing. I loved it. Working with, developing people early on in their careers who want to pursue Sales, which just like such a rewarding experience. And I quickly made my goal just to get as many of them promoted as I possibly could and get them on to the next role. And this is where I actually learned about the power of brand and being viewed as a multiplier in people's careers, and how that would always mean that I would have my pick of the most talented people to recruit. And so advice for any of you who are in a management role, at a slightly larger organization where there's a lot of internal promotion, you want your brand to be known as a multiplier. You don't want to be viewed as an empire builder who just hoards the best talent. That will serve you well in the short term, but in the longterm it's going to bite you in the ass. You want to be known as the person who is focused on the development career of others. And if you do that, people will be knocking down your door to get on your team. And I feel fortunate, like I was able to establish my brand that way. And look at served people well on my team, but selfishly, like it served me well too. I always had the most talented people wanting to work with and for me. So it worked for all of us. So I got to do that for a year. And then in my last year at LinkedIn I went back to actually managing the team I initially joined. Which is such a weird full circle to go through in my time at LinkedIn. And so I got to go manage Account Executives, SMB & Mid-Market Account Executives that next year at LinkedIn as well. And cool enough, got to bring some of the Sales Development reps that I hired along the way on that journey with me.

Naber:  Awesome. Okay. So, I know that you started flexing really hard a muscle around hiring. Especially onboarding and hiring, and bringing on great talent. By the way, the skill that you just mentioned...it's talent, but the also skill that you just mentioned, but you're naturally good at it, so it's a talent...around making sure that you become and are known as a multiplier. Like that just has so much more effect on not just the people that, are coming to work for you. People that have worked with you, but like the people that are your peers, like your peers would want to come work for you also or the people that you've worked for would want to come work for you also and work with you because that's your style. It's given back to you company over company role of role. I mean, I feel that personally towards you and I know a lot of people that have worked with you feel that way as well, not just the people that are working for you. So it's got an amazing effect, and a big halo, including sideways and up. But one of the things I know that you started flexing your muscle on his hiring and onboarding great talent. Let's talk about, your philosophy around hiring and bringing on great talent, which you've done well beyond obviously those roles into Dropbox, into Intercom, and into Tessian now. So what is your philosophy on hiring great talent? And let's go through some of the methodology you have. If you have any best practices around each piece of that process as you try to bring them on board. From profiling the role, to sourcing and interviewing them, to evaluating, closing, onboarding, etc. So what's your philosophy, and what's kind of your methodology, and your processes you go through, with some tactics that you use?

David Katz:       Yeah, first I would say I am a recruiter's worst nightmare as a former recruiter to work with as a hiring Manager . And if any of them were listening to us, they'd probably laugh. And I think ultimately we have good working relationships, but like to say, I expect a lot, and I have a very high bar for hiring is an understatement. I would say what I learned from my recruiting experience, and then what I learned from some mentors early on, was the two things I was hiring for were mentality and dynamic. And I think the second one is something that people don't pay enough attention to when they're hiring. And I think it's really important to be intentional when you're putting a team or teams together that you also need to be hiring for a team dynamic, and you have to have the right blend of backgrounds and experiences of people in that team. And if you just hire a lot of people with with the right mentality that are just high achieving people but won't create the right team team dynamic, that team's not going to be actually as effective as they could be. so I'm pretty quickly realized that you needed to hire for diversity and hire for a specific dynamic. And that ultimately meant that there were times where I passed on people that I knew would have been very successful individually, but wouldn't have an additive to the team and the team dynamic. I would say like that's a big thing I learned early on, at LinkedIn. And the second thing I learned was you have to be intentional. So what I mean by that is intentional around your recruiting process, and your interview process, and be consistent. I think the tendency when you're moving really quickly or an environment where you're hiring fast is you just need to just hire great people and set them free. And I think people don't spend enough time up front really defining and being intentional about what their hiring process should be. What are the types of interview questions and interview experiences and exposures you want to have for that person that's coming in to make sure you're consistently testing for certain things, to see if they're going to be successful in your environment, but also make sure that they're going to be happy in your environment and for the state that you're in. And I definitely learned the hard way several times that you need to hire for the current state of things, and don't oversell an opportunity or role. You should not be afraid to talk about all of the hairy problems that your company has. And the people that are going to be right for you, like when you mention all of the challenges that you and the team are facing, they're going to light up. You're going to literally watch their body language change if you're in the room with them, where they're going to lean in and be like, tell me more about that. Like they're going to be attracted to those types of problems and that environment. And so often I see people, especially at high growth companies trying to hire people, just been there and done that at larger companies, and have been, quote unquote, in the end zone, so to speak. And that's really risky because if you've hired people who've only worked at very large established companies, they might have great training, but they might not, possess the mindset to be successful in a fast paced, ambiguous environment.

Naber:  Awesome. I like that. I've heard that consistently from great leaders that are excellent at hiring great talent, is the underestimation of the last thing you just mentioned around the importance of it. So, very quickly, you've hired a lot of people and a spectrum of different roles. Can you go through and talk about how you onboard really good talent as well? What are some of the things you've learned about onboarding great talent that you felt have been consistent, regardless of, of the role that you're bringing on?

David Katz:       Yeah, that's a good one. I think a onboarding is a staged kind of sequenced process that you can't try to throw everything at someone upfront in the first two weeks. They're not gonna retain 90% of the information you give them. And so I think you need to be very specific and intentional around the prioritization of what they need to know and at what time you need to teach them it. And really make sure you get the sequencing right there. And that'll be the difference between like, an okay onboarding and a really rapid one, is like what's really critical in the first couple quarters for the person to know and learn, and really focused us on those things. And then get comfortable, not teaching someone some of the finer skills that they're gonna need, six or 12 months later and stage it out. Make sure that those things are things you focus on as like the next onboarding once they're six or nine months in. So really think about those things. The other thing I would say about onboarding is I'm a huge fan of situational leadership theory, or the Hersey and Blanchard theory on coaching. And for those, go Google it and check it out and you can watch a quick video or it's just a Google image on it and kind of map it out. But the other thing I realized early on is no matter how much experience someone has, they are hiring, they're early onboarding you actually need to be very explicit and very directive with them around what you expect and what you want them to do. And no matter how much experience they have, they actually find a lot of confidence in having this like blanket of you being really directional. And I think the hesitation people have is like, well, I don't want to micromanage someone. And like, I don't want to seem like I'm being overly burdensome on them. It's like, no, I know that's your instinct. We don't want to do that because no one really likes to be micromanaged. But early on when you're new to a company, people find a lot of safety and confidence in that. So I think it's really important to be directive early on. Also be very clear early on of around the expectations of the role. Define what excellence looks like in the role and how someone should be kind of conducting themselves, and what their performance should look like over time, and what behaviors they should exhibit, and how they match back to your culture or values. Really lay that out early on. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to where I'm like, what are your cultural values and how do you talk about them in the first, the first two weeks of onboarding? Or even just companies that I've interviewed, or spent time, with or advised, where I ask them what their cultural values are, if you can't name them off the top of your tongue immediately, something's missing and you need to go back and revisit that.

Naber:  Awesome. All right DKatz, let's move into your jump into Dropbox. Why'd you move there? Walk us through, in a couple of minutes, the roles that you had. And then we're going to stop and talk about one or two topics there as well.

David Katz:       So I moved there because of a lack of patience and a naivete, most likely. Like I think, I got my first taste of success at LinkedIn, and if we're being honest each other, I probably took it a bit for granted. Like I looked back on it so fondly, and I made some incredible friends and mentors and I learned so much, and like as I said, literally changed the trajectory of my career and it helped me find my calling. But like, if I'm being honest, could I have stayed for a couple of more years and learned a lot more? Yeah. Did I probably prematurely leave because I thought I'd figured out everything in the world? Yes. I was definitely in that category of millennial, first time people either who knew everything. And also just, assumed that all of my success was due to like my own skill, and it wasn't any element of luck, or just working for an amazing company with amazing Product. So like I definitely felt this sense of like, I'm owed this opportunity. And all of a sudden this company Dropbox comes along, and everyone at that point in time had heard of it. It's one of the hottest companies out there. They raised a stupid amount of money at a stupid valuation. And for whatever reason, like they were willing to give me this opportunity to come and build something. And that was an opportunity I wasn't going to have, immediately at LinkedIn, and I decided to go and pursue it. Looking back on it, it was the best thing I ever could have done, but it was also 10 times harder than I thought it was going to be. I was all of a sudden out there in the real world, and building something from scratch without a lot of mentors or people who could coach me along the way or provide a playbook to me that I could rely on. And I had a lot of really brutal hard lessons in those early days, and that's when I started to lose my hair most likely. So I don't regret it. It was amazing. The type of talent and the things I learned from that experience were just incredible. And I was so fortunate to work with such incredibly talented people at Dropbox. It's funny, so many of us stay in very close touch and look back at like this, this alumni association we have of former Dropbox'ers, and it's incredible how willing people are around the globe to just drop what they're doing and help you if you guys overlapped together at Dropbox, is just insane. It's just, it was really special. So, yeah, it was definitely the naivete.

Naber:  And then, what were you responsible for? Walk us through your jumps to while you were at Dropbox.

David Katz:       Yeah, so I came into help them build a outbound kind of direct Sales motion and go to market strategy for their SMB and Mid-Market segments. At that time when I got there, there really wasn't a business Product, they were just getting ready to launch it. They'd been playing around with like an early iteration of it, and they were doing pretty well, from a self serve perspective. And they had some early traction with a small enterprise team. Just going out and literally trying to just win logos. But no one was paying attention to or focusing on like SMB and Mid-Market at all as a segment. And so I was brought in to help them see if we could figure out a direct Sales motion to cover those segments in North America. And so early days it was about trying to understand the build out a playbook of, what did we think they're going to market motion was going to be? Why would people want Dropbox for business? What problems can it solve for them? And then why did they need that in addition to what they were getting for free from Microsoft or Google, or are they already paying for from Box? And so we're kind of figuring out what our value proposition would be. And then once we figured it out, we started thinking around what was the hiring profile of people we wanted to bring that would help us, figure out something that wasn't completely built. and so I spent a lot of time focused on those things. And then, I joined there, let's see, that was the end of 2013, and we did some light hiring early, but then we really hit the go button in 2014. And I hired, well in the first five quarters, so including Q4 of 2013, I hired 55 people. In order to hire those 55 people I must've interviewed, upwards of 500 plus. Yeah, definitely more than 500. So it was crazy, spent whole days and nights interviewing. But it was, it was wild. We had some early success. We've found something that felt repeatable. We found kind of our ideal customer profile. We started figuring out the value proposition, why they would need us, how we could make that Sales motion repeatable. And then we started to start training the team on it.

Naber:  Awesome. Love it. Thank you for that. So, one of the things that you've done multiple times in your career is managing and building out that playbook for the upstream motion to go SMB, Mid Market, Enterprise. What does that playbook look like for you? And what are the steps that you need to take in order to be successful as you're building out, and executing on that playbook?

David Katz:       Yeah, it's it's a really fun motion. And to to your point, I did that both at Dropbox and then at Intercom as well, where we were moved from a very down market, more self-serve, kind of motion, or at least certainly as an acquisition strategy. Where it's kind of like, get in, land and then through kind of viral organic growth, and strong Product adoption, and Product love, we'll see some natural kind of organic growth, after they become a customer. And we saw that Dropbox and at Intercom. In both cases what was also similar is, and why I joined in both cases, was there was this sense that you could just move that self-service very efficient, acquisition model up market and start winning larger and larger customers over time. And what they realized in both cases was no, that wasn't the case. And there's kind of a natural breaking point where you get to a certain company size where you have clear definition of roles, and subject matter experts, and decision making processes, where the buyer is now all of a sudden removed from the end user. And where those things start to separate is usually where the self-serve motion tends to stop working really well. And so what you have to do once you figure out you've reached that point of ultimate decision maker and end user are now separate, is start thinking about how are we going to go to these decision makers, outbound after them and get their attention and interest in, and tell them why they should start thinking about us. And also the way you market, the look and feel of your company. B2C Marketing is very different, it's much more user-focused than B2B. And then, the same can be said for more SMB, Mid-Marketing Marketing focus, and Product Marketing in general, and brand, are very different than Enterprise. And if you go and look at companies, you can see this where, with an SMB mid-market you're still closer to the end user. So you can be more playful. Like your messaging is more playful. People are more willing to take risks, there's less, there's less cost for picking, the wrong solution, right? The deal sizes are smaller, the deal cycles are less. And ultimately, if someone makes a mistake it's okay, and you can kind of move on. Whereas you start getting into these larger companies with a lot of legacy technology and systems, it's going to be very challenging to switch something on in their environment, and get the adoption you want at a smaller company. And so the risk is much higher. And so therefore also, the education around how you're going to make them successful, the trust you need to build with them, is much different. And what I always found interesting from Dropbox and Intercom was trying to figure out the timing of how fast you move up market. And there's no great scientific way to go about it. Anyone tells you that if you're at the science, I just think they're lying to you. There's an art to it, of trying to figure how quickly you can move your Product up to larger companies and win them in a repeatable way. And then also, what are the one off really large companies that you're willing to go way up market for to win, knowing it's going to take all ton of your resources and time to make them successful. And there you're gonna have to set the right expectations with them around what your Product can and can't do in the short term. They're going to want to have a very heavy hand in your roadmap, and you've gotta be willing to hear them out on that. But trying to figure the timing of, how quickly can you take a certain Product and a team up market because the Sales motion is different. So there's a lot of education of your Sales team and training to get them ready for that. Many times you're hiring in a different profile, as you're moving more market, of Sales rep. The way you do lead generation is very different. You go from a lot more online webinars to live events and industry events, right? All of a sudden you're doing things like talking to analysts, like Gartner and Forrester and those things are really important. Your up-market, large buyers, there's just so much more risk associated to them making the wrong decision. And so there's just so much education you need to do to make them successful. And so like I always love trying to figure out like how fast you can move up-market and that's the kind of experience I had, at both those companies. The thing I would say I learned from both experiences is, you have to really know your segments, really define your customers, and what the different customers will look like over time as you move up market. And you have to do a ton of upfront research for your larger potential customers around what the Product has to look like, and what feature and functionality you must have, if not immediately, in the near term in order to make them successful and for you to be very credible. So I would say the biggest lesson I learned there, is you have to know your Product inside and out, and know its capabilities and its shortcomings, so that you can accurately wedge in and figure out how quickly can we move up market. And then in terms of working cross functionally, how willing is our Product partners to move up market and to build these types of things that larger companies will just need, just to gain entry into them. And so like really developing those relationships and having lots of R&D conversations where you're talking about feature functionality and roadmap. And really aligning to what are the things we're going to build and in what order, that'll help us move up market. And if you're very close to your Product team, and you guys have a good understanding of what you need to build and over what time period, that will then inform how quickly you can move up market and take on larger potential customers.

Naber:  Awesome. Love it. So we're on Dropbox right now. You've talked about a bunch of your experiences that transcend the companies you've worked at. So one quick question that actually, how do you make sure...so one of the biggest parts of this is making sure that you have a closed loop process, and a closed loop feedback system for Product. How do you make sure you do that from a Sales leader perspective? What does that stakeholder relationship look like? And kind of what's the cadence there?

David Katz:       Oh, that's a topic I can talk about for a long time. This is something I learned the hard way at Dropbox. Cause I would say I set myself back by thinking about it wrong early days. So, you have to realize that when you move into a role, at a certain stage, your idea of your teams changes the order of priority changes. And so this idea of like different teams. So there's the company team, there's your peer team, and then there's your team that you're responsible for. And you actually need to focus on developing relationships in that order. And also your decision making process has to, has to be in that order. So you have to ultimately, first and foremost as a senior leader, I don't care what your role is you have to do is right for the company, right? And for your customers. Even if that means, pushing back or deprioritizing things, that short term would be really beneficial to you and to your team. Right? You have to nail that. And if you don't, you're going to have a very short stay at on the Executive team. The second thing is you have to realize your second team is your peers. It's your cross functional partners, and they actually come before your team that you're directly responsible for. And that's a weird thing to say. And if you haven't been in that role yet, pay attention to it and you'll get, you'll feel what I'm talking about. And at some point in your career where your number one priority is understanding the motivations and the priorities of your partners in Marketing, and Product, in recruiting, really every function in the company, and that's your first team, and you need to support all of them. Even if it comes at deep Productizing things that would be important for your team and your team is shouting for, you have to support each other. And so when I learned early from the Dropbox experience, that carried over more successfully to my Intercom experience would be, make sure you are just very clear on your intentions, and why you have the beliefs that you do, and develop strong relationships built around trust with your partners. You need them to understand your motivations behind the things you're asking for, or that you are lobbying for with them. You're not always gonna see eye to eye on the roadmap, as an example. Or, from a Marketing perspective, the qualification criteria for opportunities. Or where you should be investing your SEM and SEO dollars. And so you need to know first and foremost that you're here to help them and make them successful. And you have to show them, through your actions, that you're willing to put their priorities and their interests ahead of your own teams. And so if you do that really well, you'll get to a place of like deep understanding of each other, and a good working relationship. And so, like I said, I said to myself back by coming in and kind of guns blazing and a little too aggressive in Dropbox, and I kinda came in a little too aggressive and it was like, we need to build this, then this, then this. And they were kind of like, Hi, yeah, I'm sorry, what's your name? You've been here for what a minute. So I didn't realize that there was a lot of work I needed to do there. And fortunately I was able to rebuild those relationships over time there, but it helped me get off to a faster start at Intercom. And so, so much of it is like how are we going to focus on the roadmap that I think is going to be the most beneficial to our current and future customers. And so you have to approach this as a partnership and ask them what type of input they want from you. You have to make sure that you have an input in their roadmap process. And I learned quickly that R and d teams are much more interested in hearing about problems to be solved versus solutions. Don't tell a PM or Head of R&D, Hey, I think this is what we should build. Like, that's not going to go well for you ever. But talk about customers. Ultimately all of us are passionate about our customers and want to see them be really successful. And no Product hears when the Product they have is painful to their customer, and not doing what they needed to do. And so get out of the way, and let the voice of your customer just come through very strongly. In fact, take your R&D leaders if you can on road shows, and have them just meet with prospective customers, current customers, and former customers, and just get out of the way. Don't voice your opinion, just let the voice come through directly to them. and you'll have a much more engaged, and much more open to feedback, partner within R&D.

Naber:  Love it. Excellent advice. Okay. moving into Intercom. Very natural transition and segue for us to leap into that. Why make the jump to Intercom? What were you responsible for? And I've got one more topic for us to chat about before we wrap up

David Katz:       Yeah. So, I used to get this question a lot when I was interviewing people at Intercom as well, and it was foremost my boss. So I was very fortunate, to first meet a woman that you know, Laurabeth Harvey, goes by LB. LB and I worked at LinkedIn in a bunch of capacities.

Naber:  Quick side story on this. I was LB's SD. Yes, that is how LB and my relationship started. I knew you love that.

David Katz:       That's so good. So yeah, so I was really fortunate to get to be exposed to and work with LB in a bunch of different capacities at my time together at LinkedIn. And then when I left, we stayed in touch. And if anything, our relationship got tighter. We would just start to compare notes, share war stories, I went to her for advice on a lot of things as I was trying to figure out what the heck I was doing at Dropbox. And I just always really respected her, and took so much away from every one of our conversations. Funny enough, like I had some catching up with her that, after eight incredible years at LinkedIn, she was starting to think about, potentially going and doing her own thing as a VP of Sales at an earlier stage company. And it just so happened that I had been reached out to by someone I knew at Intercom, who was doing the Executive search. And I was like...he started describing to me what he thought Intercom needed, and I was like, that's LB, that's my friend LB. I remember I immediately texted her and I'm like, Hey, this guy's going to reach out to you. return his call. And one thing led to another. And I think literally within like a month, I was doing a reference call for LB with Owen, the CEO of Intercom. And so she joined. And I never would've recommended she take that call if I didn't think that Intercom was an incredible Product, solving interesting problems, and like really on to something new, and nascent, and interesting. And so she joined, and then she spent the next couple of months trying to recruit me to come over. And pretty quickly her remit grew pretty substantially. She initially joined to lead direct Sales, and then for a number of reasons, she pretty quickly became responsible also for the customer support team globally, which was a pretty big team, as well as the self service business, and was responsible for the self-serve revenue as well. And so all of a sudden she had a lot more responsibility and it was like, I really need someone to come help me with this direct Sales component of this. And I was like, well, that sounds fun. I've only ever managed, led, and built Account Executive teams, and I've really only ever done it in North America. And so to have an opportunity to come in be responsible for the full stack, so to speak, of building a commercial team, from Sales Development, to Account Executives to, Account Managers, and success Managers, and Sales engineers, and getting to build new offices, and new countries, which is like too cool an opportunity to pass up. And to get to do it with a cool company with someone that I loved and respected, and had worked with previously, I was like, how can I not do this? So it wasn't really that, I felt my time had come to an end at Dropbox. It was more like, this is too cool of a thing to pass up. And they didn't fight me on it. I think when I laid out to my former boss at Dropbox why I was going to do it, he was kind of like, yeah, that sounds pretty awesome man. I'm gonna miss you man, and good luck.

Naber:  Very cool. LB amazing for so many reasons. so I love that story. I love the transition, and thanks for talking about, what you're responsible for. The last topic I want to talk to you about is best practices for building and maintaining those functions. You've had an interesting, spectrum that for in firsthand managing, all these different types of teams. Most the time people either inherit them or we'll take on one at a time. You have firsthand and frontline managed, and ultimately managed leaders of, all these different teams. So let's hop through them, and just talk about maybe one or two best practices for building and managing that team and the mindset you should have. and that's the last topic I want to talk about. So Sales Development, one or two best practices for building and managing those teams. So Sales Development, Account Executives, Account Managers, success Managers and Sales engineers. Sales Development first. One or two best practices as well as a mindset you should have when building and managing those teams.

David Katz:       Yeah. So, and this kind of applies to all roles. I'll take a half step back is, at some point in our careers you get to a place where you're responsible for things that you are not an expert in whatsoever. And that can be kind of scary, but like embrace it because it's true of anyone. Like you're going to get to a level where you're like, yeah, I have no idea how this thing works, but I'm now responsible for it. And it's an exciting and terrifying proposition. And so the first thing I would say is, that's okay. You're not alone. And everyone gets to a point in their kind of journey and career where they ultimately might have that situation. So the best thing to do in that situation is, hire people who know what the hell they're doing. The first thing I would say is, and this is what's really scalable, and it's surprising cause it seems so simple, but so many companies get this wrong from my, my experience, is hire in really senior leaders that will scale and build that function for you. And so really make sure, like, this is what I did when I started building out a Sales engineering team at Intercom. You know, I had worked with Sales engineers, I knew what a great Sales engineering partner looks like, but I didn't know how to build that function. I didn't know what the right KPIs were. I didn't know what the right comp plans were. Like, I had no idea. And I was fortunate to have some friends that led those functions that I could rely on early days, and be like, all right, what the heck do I do here? Like, how does this work? But the sooner you can go and just hire us subject matter expert in, who's an incredible leader, who's probably overqualified for the role in the short term, convincing them to come onboard is the right thing to do because that person will scale that, not function for you. So that would be my first piece of advice is like, you're going to find a certain situation, like go hire an expert. And then just trust them. Like, let them run, create a framework for them, but just to let them go and do their thing. And if you've hired really well, like you're going to be fine. So that's what I would say. But back specifically to Sales Development. Like what are you looking for? Again, I would focus more on the leaders then, versus the reps and individual contributors. So I would think about what are the really important skill sets you need for these different roles for frontline or Manager of experience. To me, Sales Development is operational excellence. You need math whizzes. Like I think there's obviously an art to it, but there's also science, and you need data junkies. Like you really want leaders who love looking at conversion rates, open rates, response rates, measuring every little piece of the funnel, and the top of the funnel, and also really have an interest in Marketing, and Digital Marketing, and can develop strong working relationships with your Marketing partners. Like focus on people who look and feel like that, have that expertise, and they'll really help you scale that function. For Account Executives, it's not to say that operational excellence isn't still really important, but I would say look for very strong coaches. I think the mistake a lot of people make is they hire people who are really high performing in their own right as individual contributors and as reps. And like, I just don't think that translates often into people who are going to be amazing leaders. So you need to focus on finding people who are like exceptional coaches, really good listeners, very situationally aware, have very high emotional intelligence and self-awareness, and are very strong when it comes to hiring. You can test for all those things when you're interviewing people. But for AE's, and also for that matter, for Account Managers, that's who you need. You need really amazing coaches. And that's the areas I would focus on, those leaders, in your early days, is look for those softer skills and those people will be very successful. As long as you're getting the right guidance. For Customer Success and for Sales Engineering, they're more technical roles. And so you also now are looking for people who have a strong affinity for, and love for Product. And kind of geek out on Product, and they're builders, and they're tinkerers in their own right. And those are things that you see come through in their experience, and things they like to spend their time doing outside of work. And so I think, you need to look for people who are very biased towards Product, and working closely with Product, geek out on it, and are very excited about it. And blend that together with like an amazing ability to be good coaches and be strong people leaders. And if you look for those things across the different functions, you're gonna do well, and you'll be successful. And you'll also be more confident that you can be outside of your bounds of experience, and that those people are going to be doing the right things. I think something I see people do all the time is, when they hire people into disciplines where that's not their area of experience, their domain, their just like so paranoid about it, and they spend way too much time worrying about whether or not, are we doing the right things? Is this person really good? Is Our team really good? It's like, no. Define on paper and get feedback from others on what you're looking for, make sure you're clear on the on the skills you want in that leader, but then just them, let them run and do their thing.

Naber:  Awesome. I have one more - what I think is a quick question - around, picking companies. You've done an amazing job, and this is a good transition for your move to Tessian, you've just gone through this process recently. You've done an amazing job of picking great businesses to work with at the right time, for both your experience, as well as what you can stretch and learn on, as you grow into the scope of the role and as you take it on. What are some of your career navigation and picking company best practices or tips that you have for doing the same?

David Katz:       So first and foremost, look to the team. And if you are considering joining an early stage company as the VP of Sales, or in any leadership capacity, first and foremost, it's the team. And I think the older you get, the more experience you have, the more you know what's personally important to you. And I think what you're solving for later in life is more, the people I'm working with and for, do they have the same philosophical beliefs and values that I have? That's what I would tell you to look for first and foremost. Do these people believe in the similar things and put the same weight on things are just like so important to me. And I tell them all the time, like the older I get, the fewer things really matter to me, but the things that do matter me matter exponentially more. And so really you start getting a sense of what are your core things you must have. And you can start asking and testing for those. So first and foremost, I would say that. Second then is, it depends on what you're going for, but if you like playing this crazy game of high growth company like, you want to be doing it at a company that has like massive upside. Like, I think it's silly to say that anyone who's joining as an Executive at an earlier stage company isn't financially motivated. Like, I want this thing to be big. I have very meaningful equity and I want to see that come to fruition for me and for my family. And so like you need to find places where you actually think that company has a chance. And so I think what you're looking for is big market opportunity. Like don't look for niche companies, look for companies that can sell their Products or Services to massive audiences. Second, the Product or service has to be something that is like to you when you hear it and you learn about it, like this is so straight forward, why is no one ever done this before? Like, anytime I've felt that way, that's when I made a career decision. And that was true at Dropbox, Intercom, and Tessian. It's kind of like, this seems so simple. Why has no one done this? And then you start digging in, you realize like, oh, this is really hard. But if you have an initial reaction, this is so simple, why haven't we done this? Like this seems such like such an obvious problem to solve. Then you're on to the right thing. And the last thing I would say is look for problems to be solved, not for feature functionality. The way you go to market, and the way that Product is sold will change and morph so much as you learn more about how's this going to resonate in the market? But like, if the Executive team that you're joining is focused on what problems they're looking to solve, and you believe that that's a big market opportunity to solve those problems, that no one's really done that before, or these are just new problems with the evolution of technology and the way we work, and that these are just new problems that need to be solved, that no one's thought about them yet. Like, then you're probably on this something. And so that's the last thing I would say, and the plug I would say for Tessian, is when I met Tim and Ed, our cofounders - our CEO and CTO - I was blown away by them. And I realized like, we just saw the world very similarly in terms of our values, and the things that informed our decision making, and what we were willing to make concessions on and what we weren't. And I just was like, so blown away by them and could really envision working well with them. And because if you're joining company this stage, like there's going to be times where you're celebrating, there's gonna be times when you're banging your head against the wall being like, what do we do now? And it's going to be hard. And you really want to feel as you're coming in as the VP of Sales, that you're going to be supported. And that you guys are in this together, and that you're going to work together through the hard times and figure things out. And if you don't feel that way, keep looking. That would be my final advice.

Naber:  Hey everybody, thanks so much for listening. If you appreciated and enjoyed the episode, go ahead and make a comment on the post for the episode on LinkedIn. If you love The Naberhood Podcast, we'd love for you to subscribe, rate, and give us a five-star review on iTunes. Until next time - go get it.

Guest:

Jenn Knight - Co-Founder & CTO @AgentSync

(Formerly @Stripe, @Dropbox, @LinkedIn, @Bluewolf)

Guest Background:

Jenn has worked with hypergrowth businesses like LinkedIn, Dropbox, and Stripe. At LinkedIn (IPO 2011, Acquired by Microsoft for $27B in  2016) Jenn was the Manager of Solutions Architecture. After 3 years at LinkedIn, Jenn joined Dropbox (IPO in March 2018, $10.5B Valuation). She was there for 3.5 years where she was the Head of Business Technology, managing technical teams spanning financial systems, sales systems, web services (CMS), integrations, and business intelligence infrastructure. Over an 18 month period, she scaled her teams from 15 to 35 people. Jenn has since joined Stripe ($20 Valuation, $785M Raised) for the last 2 years as the Head of Internal Systems.

Guest Links:

LinkedIn

Episode Summary:

In this episode, we cover:

- The Playbook for Building Business Systems, Tools, and Technology Teams - Mindset, Structure, Chronology, Methods, and Best Practices

- The Internal Business Technology Team Superpowers @Stripe, @Dropbox, and @LinkedIn

- How to be an End-to-End Process Thinker

- Stakeholder Management Tips & Advice

Full Interview Transcript:

Naber:  Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to The Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest growing companies. Enjoy!

Naber:  Hey everybody. We have Jenn Knight on the show today. Jenn has worked hypergrowth businesses like LinkedIn, Dropbox, and Stripe. At LinkedIn (who IPO'd in 2011 and was acquired by Microsoft in 2016), Jenn was the Manager of Solutions Architecture. After three years at LinkedIn, Jenn joined Dropbox (who IPO'd in March, 2018 and they have a valuation of $10.5 billion). She was there for three and a half years where she was the Head of Business Technology managing Technical Teams spanning Financial Systems, Sales Systems, Web Services, Integrations and Business Intelligent Infrastructure. Over an 18 month period, she scaled her teams from 15 to 35 people. Since Jenn has joined Stripe (who has a $20 billion valuation on $785 million capital raised). For the last two and a half years, Jenn's been at Stripe as the Head of Internal Systems. Here we go.

Naber:  Jenn Knight. Awesome to have you on the show. How are you?

Jennifer Knight: I'm doing well. Thank you for having me.

Naber:  Awesome. Thank you for coming. It's amazing to have you. I'm excited for so many reasons. we know each other well and we've worked together in the past. But your brain, and getting to share that with people in the audience is really exciting for me. it's hard for me to contain some of the excitement with my emotions. But, I'm excited to go through some personal stuff today. So go through and dive into who Jenn is as a person. Start from where you grew up, and some stuff from your childhood. So people can get to know you a little better, like I do. And then, we'll hop into some professional stuff. Why don't we just get started. So, you grew up in San Francisco, you're smarty pants. Anyone that has met you for more than a minute knows that, but it's written in you DNA as well as your GPA, as well as your accolades. Walk us through, a few different things about what Jenn was like as a kiddo, and what it was like growing up with as Jenn Knight.

Jennifer Knight: Well, I grew up north of San Francisco, in Sonoma County, in Petaluma, which was a ton of fun. It has changed a lot now, but in the early nineties, it was very rural still. Get on your bike, ride into a field, find some mice, hang out. I was a pretty nerdy little kid. I grew up in a house that didn't have a TV. My Dad is an engineer, so we were always puttering on things. He had a garage full of tools, and we're always being taught new things. I was always encouraged to be outside or around. Got a computer pretty early, which was neat. My brother and I, very nerdy, would love to do things like see how many files we could delete to destroy the operating system, and then rebuild the thing. Built a few computers growing up, but really enjoyed that part of life. Yeah, I was a kid who had a little bit of a different experience growing up just because of the nature of my house. And spent lot of time outside, and a lot of time building and poking on computers, and just hanging out.

Naber:  Cool. Were you a particularly social kid?

Jennifer Knight: That's a funny question. I always had good friends, a few good friends. I think I'm still that way. I'm someone who finds people that resonate with me and I keep a few close. I really enjoy the company of others, but I've always been someone who has had two or three really close friends, than whole big group. And growing up I had to change schools in middle school. And so at 12 years old I had to move across to a school across town. And that taught me one that you can make new friends but was pretty scary I think at the time. So you get close to people in elementary school and then didn't get a chance to stay friends with those people. I had to make new friends at 12, which was great in the sense of it taught me that you can, and you can survive. But it definitely meant that I had a few folks that I kept close.

Naber:  Cool. I like it. A small, very close circle. And you said you were always building things, or tinkering, and having some nerdy fun. Tell us about a little bit of the nerdy, fun hobbies that had.

Jennifer Knight: I think, I actually laugh when I look back on this...A very good example of this is my fourth grade science project was about different forms of energy, and it was about potential versus kinetic energy and the conversion. So my Dad had me worked with me to solder a little, wind mill thing that was powered by candles. That might give you a good picture of what my house is like. And then we did things like gardening. That was always fun in the summer. Petaluma was a great place to grow a garden in the backyard, so my parents did that. Just those kinds of projects. Those are the ones I remember the most, I think partially because you get pictures of them, and they're the stories that get told. But there were always a million little things we were playing around with.

Naber:  Yeah. Cool. Love it. That's great. And let's see, quick stop on high school. What was high school like for you?

Jennifer Knight: High School was a lot of fun. I wanted to get out of Petaluma. I knew that that wasn't where I wanted to be, and I knew I wanted to go somewhere for college. In my family education was really important. So, all growing up it was, you're going to go to school, you're going to do well. You're gonna learn a lot. You're capable of learning a lot. You're very smart. Put your head down and learn. Go get opportunity. So that was just the ethos of my growing up. One thing I will say is my parents were not obsessed with grades, they didn't push me to be perfect. I weirdly pushed myself, and at some point they were like, you need to calm down a bit. But high school was a lot of fun. I had a really close, like once again, handful of very close friends. We all encouraged each other to go after where we wanted to go next. Really great study groups. It was also for me a hard time. My Mom was sick when I was growing up, and she got really sick again when I was about 16. So that was hard at home. My parents dealt with it really well, but I had the mix of trying to be the kid who was studying and then dealing with some things at home. So I think once again, close knit group of friends is really important for me because they were people that I could lean on and really knew what was happening in my life at. And the rest of it, was just getting through it.

Naber:  Interesting. Some things a lot of kids that age don't necessarily have to deal with obviously. So you wanted to get out of Petaluma, but you were trying to be perfect so you could have all the opportunities in the world to do that and chase your dreams. Your dreams brought you to Beantown Boston. So tell us about going to BU. Tell us about why, and what were like at BU.

Jennifer Knight: Yeah, so, my parents had saved a bit for us to go to school, but couldn't go anywhere. So one of the reasons that studying was really important for me, was ultimately getting scholarships, and getting the opportunity to go to school. And I actually went to Boston site unseen. I'd never been there. I didn't know anything about the school. Yeah, it was funny. So they reached out to me, and they offered me a really amazing scholarship, and it actually brought the price of the college down to closer to what a UC would be for me. And so I was making a decision whether to stay in California, or go somewhere else, and my parents were very open to encouraging me to try something new. My Dad said...he always jokes that I was running away from them. He said to me, "Leave California now. If you don't like it, wherever you go, you can always come back. But if you don't leave now, you may never actually leave the state, and and you may not see what the rest of the world's like." So, I accepted to BU, and I had a choice for my parents to come with me for orientation or to help me move in. So my Dad came with me for orientation, and that was the first time I saw saw the school and saw Boston.

Naber:  That's a very Jenn Knight thing to do. You're so adventurous and fearless. I love the courage and the fearlessness. It's cool. It's a good example.

Jennifer Knight: Looking back on it, it's funny, I think I was mildly terrified. But I really wanted to study international relations, and or something along that, and the UC schools that I was looking at only had international economics, and I'm more interested in people problems than technical problems actually. So BU had an amazing international relations school, and that was ultimately what encouraged me to go.

Naber:  Awesome. And international relations. And you also studied French in for a year in France, correct?

Jennifer Knight: I did, yeah. So I was a international relations major. Foreign Policy and Security in the Middle East was the focus of my studies, but I also did a minor in French.

Naber:  What was your experience like in France?

Jennifer Knight: It was an amazing experience. Once again, it's a different time now. At that time there were cell phones, but not really. There was internet, but not really. I didn't have a laptop with me that could connect to the internet very often. So it was an interesting experience at 19 to get on a plane and fly all the way across the world, and then get a calling card and get on a pay phone at seven o'clock at night to call your family, to handle the time zone difference. I was ready in that I had studied French in high school. I was also not ready in that I had not studied it for a semester before I went. But I had an a pretty incredible experience on my way over there. Being from the West Coast, the program that my school ran didn't actually coordinate my flights because they coordinated everything for kids on the east coast. So once again, I was put on a plane, and my parents said good luck. And when I landed in Paris, I had no idea that Charles de Gaulle was kind of a mess. I was running through the airport. and I saw the group that I was eventually gonna study with being guided through the airport by an adult. And I was running for a gate, to miss my flight. But I got to the gate, and right behind me showed up a woman who's about my age, and she had actually been studying English and in the US during the summer. And I had no idea what to do. And she just grabbed ahold of me, and she took me to the ticket table, and she handled everything. And we went to a different airport, got on a flight together to Leon. And then her parents drove me to Grenoble with her because they were going home. And it was totally surreal experience, but also one that I think back on a lot that the world is actually a very generous place, and it's a very kind place often, if you're open to it. And I know it has its rough edges, but at a young age being able to travel over there and see that people are people across the world, and people are willing to help, was really incredible start to the journey. And that things don't always go perfectly, but they will end well, was something that was fun. And then it was a crash course in trying to navigate another culture, which I've always looked back on and really appreciated what the program gave me. So it was a fun year.

Naber:  Very cool. Good story too. Good story. I always feel better when I talk to you, Jenn. You keep such an optimistic, positive light. So you studied at BU. Walk us through your first couple of gigs, up until before LinkedIn, so up through Bluewolf, and let's do some hops. Explain it. Typically we go through a few different things within those gigs. What I want to do is get to LinkedIn, Dropbox, and Stripe and talk through a couple of examples, and some of your superpowers, and we'll get there. But anyways, why don't you hop us through just so we have a good understanding of where you came from professionally. Hop us through some of those gigs and what you're up to. Maybe in like maybe like five, seven minutes.

Jennifer Knight: Yeah. Seeing as I studied a bunch in high school, I actually entered college as a sophomore, finishing in three and a half years because I took a bit of extra time to go to France. So I graduated actually December 2006. For family reasons with my Mom being sick, and not being very clear how long she was going to be doing well, I decided I wanted to come back to the west coast. I had the most useless degree on earth to come back to the west coast. There, there is very little to do with international relations with a focus on the Middle East in San Francisco Bay Area. So I came back had to figure out what I was going to do. And I ended up just on craigslist looking at jobs. That was the way back then, that and the newspaper. Which was 2007, and it sounds crazy, but that's the truth. LinkedIn was, I suppose, kind of a thing, but it was very, very small, not really a thing. It's just starting out. Right.

Naber:  It had volume of users, but not a lot of density and a lot of engagement. So it's just less useful at that point.

Jennifer Knight: Yeah. So I just applied, I mean, toeverything I could. And then I ended up getting a job as an Office Manager at a solar company in Berkeley. And I, with my college degree, went and answered the phones and opened to the mail. But it was the thing that afforded to me to get my first apartment, and my first foray out into the world. It was a great community of people. It was an opportunity for me to be in an environment where I could just see how I could help. And so I learned as much as I possibly could. I had a lot of fun working with the outsourced IT guys who would come in and help with the servers. And then, we hired a Director of IT, and he was a bit overwhelmed and he asked me if I wanted to help him Administer Salesforce, and so I started doing that. I was there for two and a half years. The company's split, part of it was sold off - the residential was sold off, stayed with industrial side, learned Salesforce development. I was quite lucky in that I became a Salesforce Administrator right before Salesforce opened up as a platform. And then my boss at the time taught me how to program on the platform. It's very similar to Java. Apex is Salesforce is language. So I got to iteratively roll into this platform as it was growing. And I was one of the first 500 administrators certified, which is very...I look back on it, and it's a nerdy moment in that...but just a good timing moment. So I was doing that, but I was pretty stuck. And after two and a half years, I was pretty burned out actually. When the company split, I was the only person doing my role. And I enjoyed a lot of my coworkers. I have, actually, one of my best friends from that job. But I just wasn't loving it anymore, and I was too tired actually to really look for what was next and know what I wanted to do next. So I decided to take six months off, and this was in 2008-2009. So everyone thought I was out of my mind. But I did, and it was really fun. I moved to San Francisco. I worked in nonprofit, so I actually did nonprofit work at, Salesforce nonprofit, at a women's community clinic and at an urban garden. So the women's community clinic in San Francisco and at the place that does urban gardening in Oakland. Helped them set up their Salesforce instances. The urban garden one was amazing. We use Salesforce to track plants, and pests, and tools, and acreage, and all sorts of crazy stuff that you wouldn't imagine. Yeah. So I did that, and when I moved to San Francisco, Craigslist again, my craigslist roommates - one worked at Salesforce as a Sales rep and one worked at Bluewolf as a Sales rep. And my roommate Chris, who worked at Bluewolf said, hey, we're looking for developers. I don't think you want a full time job right now, but do you want to come contract with us, and check it out? ...did some contract work, and then after probably four months I decided to join full time. And that was the first time...and one of the reasons I did it, that was the first time I got to figure out if I was any good. And when you do something alone, you have a sense like I knew I could make things work, I knew I could solve the problem, but I had never been around other Salesforce developers where people with technical backgrounds, to find out if I was actually good at it or not. And I had an amazing group of people and an amazing support system at Bluewolf to help me grow and some great mentors there. So I couldn't be more thankful for them. They were extremely patient as I was plotting through things, and then also threw me at some really, really tough challenges. So I was doing a lot of the development for west coast projects, by the time I left. Did that for about a year and a half...um, I am not a consultant. I love the design. I didn't love flying in, building something, and then leaving it. I also didn't love being on a plane all the time. So I hadn't really known that I was going to do with myself, but I put my profile up on LinkedIn, and then LinkedIn found me on LinkedIn. And that's how I ended up at LinkedIn.

Naber:  Nice. Awesome. Okay. We've got to LinkedIn. That's a really good story. You got to work on some, excellent cool projects, while you were trying to figure out your actual depth of your prowess around this new set of skills you were learning. But it's probably also really stimulating for you because you're such a smart person. You're also trying new things all the time, and wanting to build. So I'm going to guess that was really stimulating to learn this whole new world of technical bricks that you could build with.

Jennifer Knight: It was, it was a lot of fun. It also taught me that that skill set around Salesforce is something it can be really can be used anywhere. And it's something I talk about with my teams now. It's quite fun, and I think a lot of skills in a lot of different areas of the business are transferable, but if you want if you want to work at a small company, if you want to work at a big company, if you want to work in nonprofit, if you want to consult, there's kind of a home anywhere. And that is pretty liberating because you get to go pick your family, and pick where you want to be.

Naber:  Cool. Love it. All right. So, give us a quick chronology of what your responsibilities were, and what you're up to at LinkedIn. And then I have a couple of questions for you to follow-up and dig into your brilliant mind a little bit.

Jennifer Knight: So I joined LinkedIn as the first Salesforce developer, joined the team that was in existence. There were five at the time, and the were two of us who joined, myself and a woman who was also doing Salesforce administration at the same time. So we grew to a team of seven. I still work with today, one woman from that team. I could not be more thankful once again for what they taught me in terms of how to approach an environment and how to approach work, just work. I was the youngest by far, and I was coming down from San Francisco, and I'd come from...Bluewolf was a really young environment as well. So that ethos of chaos, and running around, and experimenting, and trying new things, and to go from that to a place where people were far more measured, I hadn't seen that before. It was, yeah, we can do this. Like we're gonna think about it, we're gonna make a plan, and we're gonna go after it. It was really intense. We were building a ton, but it was very focused and measured. and it wasn't all over the map, and that was both due to the team that I had around me, and also a lot of the partners that we had at LinkedIn. So I joined as a developer, and then I helped grow out the Salesforce Technical Architecture and Development team over the course of my three years there. And so I was responsible at the end for our project work. We restructured the team, our lead structure the team as a Plan, Build, Run. So PMO, a business analyst doing the business requirements gathering, build was my responsibility - so those were the big project work, and then run was kind of the day to day administration, and keeping the lights on, minor enhancements, things like that. My team would do both technical development, but also if there was a administrative component of configuration, we might partner with an Admin to do that.

Naber:  Nice. Very cool. One of the questions I have for you, and this is actually a good segue into that...you had a lot of experiences, at a lot of different teams, also built a lot of differe teams with LinkedIn, Dropbox, Stripe. You can go across those if you need to to pull experiences. But, is that the typical anatomy of a Internal Business Systems and Tools team? Or, if it's not, what is the typical anatomy, and can you give us a little bit of a breakdown?

Jennifer Knight: Yeah. So those functions are the three behaviors that you see across the board. Alex, who's my Manager at Dropbox, said way back in the day...it's people, process, technology. And that is true always. So do you have the partner, does the partner know how their processes articulated? Do you understand how to reinforce, and support, or automate, or speed up, or whatever you're trying to achieve, that process with technology? And then there's the iterative, like, continuing to keep that alive and continuing to improve it. I think about the world in that framing all of the time now, that's how we approach it. And so our team is staffed for each of those areas. The plan side is always about, let's sit down with the people we're partnering with, and let's understand their process. Now that team on my team is responsible for really understanding the business partners' process, and then starting to think about who do we need to engage with from the technology side to support that process? Then the build side is the actual team that's saying, okay, now I've got the process. How do we empower this with the tools we have? Or what tools do we need to go buy? And run, of course, being the day to day maintenance. Those functions always exist. They are not always carved out as specific teams because depending on size, you just don't have the resources. When I joined LinkedIn, each one of us was a little mini plan, build, run. There were only seven of us, and we were supporting a lot. And so we would go sit down, and get the requirements, and then we would go off, and going to build something, and then you're the one who kept it alive. And and then eventually when you got a little bit burned out on that area, you'd switch it to one of your other team members. So I ended up with Sales Development work because April was done thinking about that problem...and then we've cycled through. But those, those pillars exist. They just evolve. And how you structure the team varies quite a bit. There is not a perfect way to do that. I think it depends a lot about where the organization is, what they're valuing at the time, and then who do you have on staff. But the core behaviors that remain the same across LinkedIn, Dropbox and Stripe.

Naber:  Okay. That's awesome. That's a really good answer. Thank you so much. And while we're on LinkedIn, can you explain,what LinkedIn does extremely well from a Systems, Tools, Building leverage resources? And when you do that, could you lean into some of the things you do really well within the respect of Sales and Marketing? Because I think the audience is going to want to want to understand each one of these businesses, both what they were good at, why that's important, and how do they do it?

Jennifer Knight: Yeah. So it's been a few years since I was there, so I'm sure it's evolved. But one of one of the overarching things that I remember from that time is actually just Focus. I think LinkedIn did very well...and as a partner to it, I appreciated it a lot after I left. There's always thrash. Nothing's perfect, the business evolves. Part of my responsibility is to be flexible enough to accommodate the fact that business has changed. They chart a course, but it's not like...Product Development is exactly the same way. Factors change and they can change fairly rapidly. And so the needs of the business can change fairly rapidly. That said, knowing more now and seeing, having seen different environments, in the face of that, I'd say LinkedIn did very well on remaining focused and what the core objectives that they were trying to enforce were. And then systematizing those. And maybe doing some experiments on the edges of other like creative things that we could potentially do to drive the business, but making sure that we were focused on being excellent at a few things, doing those very well, and those being backbone things for the business. So it was the first time that I had to work on some of the end to end workflows around Demand Gen. And how do you think about that, and how are you optimizing that? And not about a lot of bells and whistles and not always about crazy experimentation. It was first let's get it right. We have a core business objective, and the objective is not changing. It's reduce the time to touch. Okay, let's go like nail that one to the wall. And then once we get that one done, we'll be find the next one, and we'll like nail that one down. And those are the focus areas that don't change, right? Even if your approach changes, or your markets change, they're just really core parts of how you want to operate a business. So that was something LinkedIn did very well. One of the reasons that I left LinkedIn though, on the system side, is that at the time that I was there we were very silo'd. So we had a lot of autonomy in the space that we operated in, in partnership with our Sales ops partners. But some processes are actually cross business units. And some Systems work best when they're integrated across. A good example of this is a CRM to Oracle. A CRM to an ERP. So Salesforce to Oracle, or Salesforce to Netsuite, or I mean, no one uses anything besides Salesforce. That's not entirely true, but, Dynamics to SAP, any of those. Those flows were something that were interesting to me, and I didn't have the opportunity to work on as much. We could influence it. We could encourage. We couldn't work on it as much. When I got to Dropbox, that was the first place that I was able to think about end-to-end flows. And that was an area...because I had the autonomy to go own those. So that was an area...I think LinkedIn did very well on the focus, focus in depth in a particular system space. But we struggled a bit on the cross Systems, from where I was sitting. This is not a universal picture, but but from where I was sitting. So when I moved to Dropbox, I got the opportunity to think more cross platform, and that helped smooth some of the edges across teams, which was a lot of fun. At Dropbox we were in a bit of a different mode, so we were doing a lot of crazy growth.

Naber:  Awesome. This is good. This is a good transition. So ell us what you're doing with Dropbox.

Jennifer Knight: So I joined there to do Sales Systems. It was still really early days. We were still hiring out our Sales operations team. And so, I at that point, learned the importance of the people process part. When you put technology first, it it proves to be a bit of a challenge. That one was...I learned a lot more about meeting my business partners where they were. I actually leaned more into some of the operations and business analyst part of my role. That was not what I was doing at LinkedIn, but at Dropbox by necessity, you're saying there's these three functions, I was doing plan and build and run. And as I hired my team out, I hired them to do run first, and then started building from there, so that I could figure out what the needs of the business were, and then try to make some educated decisions around what we were going to invest in on the technology side. We had a ton of fun and we were building from scratch. There are things at LinkedIn, even by the time I was there, that had become so complicated that you kinda didn't want to touch them. When I got to Dropbox, it was the first time I got to build an order to cash process. And had amazing partner, who was also new. He had never built it before, and he was coming from the finance side. And he was really passionate about making this a really amazing experience for people. And so we just partnered really closely together to make that happen and thought about how we did it end to end. We ended up over the course of probably two years, building a flow that I'm still very proud of, but it was very focused on these business objectives again. We wanted the experience of someone who was buying Dropbox through a contract, from a provisioning perspective, to mirror the experience of someone who was buying with a credit card. And that was our goal. So we set that as our goal, and then we also set a goal that along the way that we had as smooth as possible process with the Sales team, so that there was a lot of transparency about what was happening. Contracting, as some of you know, can be very complicated from the Sales side because there are legal people coming in, there's financial approvals, there is these multistep processes, and it can feel like it's taking forever and you have no idea what's going on. And then maybe the thing is signed, and now you don't know why your customer hasn't been given the Product because it's fallen into another manual process where someone has to go into some backend system. Or in the case of, and this was happening when I got there, you as a Sales rep now have to go into some backend system that you maybe don't fully understand and punch a bunch of buttons, and then hope that everything works out, and that your customer gets the Product they want. So we started once again with that focus, and we were really successful there. And those kinds of activities were the things that made my team successful. When we could find those focus areas, through our rapid growth, those are long pull items. They take a long time to get right, and if we kept focused on it, we were able to drive impact. So we were really...I brought that from LinkedIn, that focus in our space.

Naber:  Hey Jenn, can we pause there for a minute?0 So let's use the order to cash process that you built. Can you walk us through the phases you go through to build the case for it, plan out the project, resource and manage the project, you've got to have Internal buy-in, then you've got to have pull through for people, actually making sure that they do what they need to do in the field and the business? Can you walk us through using that as an example for number one, what the steps are? And number two, from a Sales and Marketing or just really from a stakeholder perspective, what are some of the best practices in working with your team so that we can be better at doing that? As you go through it.

Jennifer Knight: Yeah, so, let's break it down. How do we approach it? So now, one of the things that I think a lot about when I'm approaching these types of projects is how do we think about, an ask, and it's end to end? So one of the things about working with a Systems team is that we're ultimately accountable for the overall health of the Systems. And it's an interesting process for us to understand what a business is asking for. And then trying to put that in the context of either another set of business asks or the platform on the whole. And we also have situations where, there are multiple stakeholders. And order to cash is a good example of one. Demand Gen flows is another good example of that. Where as a business owner, or as maybe a Sales Manager, you're saying, in your inner mind thinking, it's taking too long for my teams to get contracts out the door. And then on the other side, the finance Systems team is thinking, like, I need to be able to ensure that this contract has the correct margins, or is feeling good about that. And the legal team is sitting there thinking like, what are these contracts terms? Let's make sure that those make sense for the business. So when we get these asks, part of what we think about on the more complicated asks, but even on the smaller ones, is who are all the players in this ask? What is it in the context of the larger process flow? And what is it in the context of the larger Systems? And that's something that I've had the opportunity to do a lot, and something I quite enjoy is how do we put this in, frame it out, and where it wants to be. The other thing that we need to do on our side, is thinking about how we get from point A to point B? And can we do it in one shot, or to your point, does it have to be a multistep process? And some of these things are quite complex, and so we're not going to win it all at once. So for us, starting with that problem statement and then working through with our business partners to get an alignment on the overall problem statement, what we ultimately want to achieve, and then agreeing on how do we iteratively get there. So what are interim wins along the way, or something that we benefit from, and we benefit from that partnership. In terms of resourcing and implementing a thread...I'd say it varies wildly depending on your circumstances. And Systems tends to be lagging behind the business. I have yet to be an environment where we weren't coming in two, or three, or four, six years late. It's just the nature of it. I think SaaS has this sheen on top of it, where you're just oh, I can just get a Salesforce account and probably have one person manage it, and it's going to be okay. Like it's easy, right? And actually, that's not wrong for a period of growth. But then when you start to get into these more complicated asks , or you start to get into Architecture questions, or you start to need to do development, then that tool becomes something quite serious to take charge of, and you need a team that is dedicated to it and experienced. I talked to folks about this a lot, where there's a whole period of time where you really just go experiment, like try to find your way. You don't need to hire a technical architect, and a full team, and everything right out the gate. But as your business starts to take off, and you start to have those needs, having an experienced person, who's seen it before, come in can really help you figure out what you want to navigate over the course of the next two years. So I think the resourcing thing, it's very varied. But if you want to tackle a more complex workflow, or you want to really empower a part of your business, that's the point where you start to think about these dedicated resources. And that's when I'm looking at it...for my team, when I come in, I look...survey the landscape. What are our biggest challenges? What do we want to think about? And what are our business partners talking about? What aren't they talking about that is probably going to doom us anyway. And then how do we line those up, and what kinds of resources do I need? Do I need a lot of business analysts? I might need a lot of business analysts right out the gate because I may need to spend time helping the business articulate their ask. That actually is a weird one. Often I work with business partners, and they're like, where's where's the admin? And where's the developer? And I'm saying, well those are execution folks and you want a partner right now is going to help you think through your process, and then make sure that we're reinforcing the right behaviors. So I'm going to actually get business analysts to define that. And then once we have those definitions, we have a bunch of different levers we can pull in terms of execution. I personally enjoy building teams that are really dedicated to the business. So we always have a mix of technical and BA full time on the team. Most of our projects, the big ones take 12, 18, 24 months. So you really want someone who is excited about the end to end and will build the continuity. But there are amazing, I worked for one, they're amazing partners who will come in and help you with resourcing. And we also pull that lever a lot on our team. But we do it in the context of making sure that we have the business requirements anchored, and we know what we're going after. S to kind of rewind back to your question to how we approach these things. What's important for us is understanding what we're solving, and being able to really work with the business to understand what their objective is. And if it's a project where we know it's going to take more than a quarter of more than a month to go after, making sure that that objective is something that is very solid. And that's what I was talking about earlier. Your objective being speed to lead, your objective being speed to contract...there's those kinds of objectives where even as time passes, we're going to keep after that. So we feel successful together over the course of the year or two it takes, and that we can measure our progress against it. The failure modes that I've seen is when we don't know what we're solving for and instead we get the kind of partnership where it's, I need this field, I need this thing. I've already solved it for you, justt go build it. We can do that. The probability that it will ultimately build into the kind of system or process that we both want together, is not super high end. On the margin, it's okay. We'll put in a field, we''ll kind of get going. We are here to empower and enable the business. And that's something that I talk about with my teams quite a bit. Like, our responsibility is to empower the business, and so we should understand where they're coming from and then try to get them there. Ideally we do it in partnership, and process, and Solution design. Sometimes we just have to crank.

Naber:  Cool. So that was awesome. That was an awesome answer. I love it. It's almost like you read it out of a book, so, and maybe you wrote the book. So, one more question, and then we'll move on to Stripe because you already gave an example with the order to cash and that was great. Actually, two more questions. You mentioned a couple things that Dropbox was doing well, but what's the one thing you think they do extremely well from a Business Systems, Internal Business Systems, Business Systems and tools, leverage resources that they're building, etc. What's one thing they do world-class? Why is it important? And how did they do it?

Jennifer Knight: An interesting question.

Naber:  I mean, LinkedIn was focus, if you had to say it in a few words, Dropbox is obviously world-class at a few things.

Jennifer Knight: So what I would say, and it was very different in its approach. When I got there, like I said, I started to do Sales Systems, and I got to grow in my role and pick up other teams. And so that's where I learned about Finance Systems, and ended up taking that over and building that. I'd say, maybe the flip side of what I was experiencing in terms of rigidity at LinkedIn, Dropbox had an environment where if you wanted to go tackle a problem ,and you could rally your resources around it, and you could get get the team together, we can go tackle the problem. And that was super, super fun. Obviously from a system side, I think that was a strength there, where we had once again the autonomy to go try to solve these problems and could get sponsorship to go solve these problems. If you could find your partner on the other side, and shake hands, and go after it we could move ourselves forward. And there wasn't resistance to that. There is a push to, however we get to a better place, let's get to that better place. Not about who you are, or what team you're sitting in, or my priorities versus your priorities, and how our roadmaps, and all that fun stuff. It was hey, we have this problem, and yeah, it's going to involve like three or four teams. Let's go figure out how to do that, and we'll get together, and we'll go agree on the problem, and we'll go solve the problem. And so we got that was one of the things that helped us build some of this really cool stuff and these experiences. And I'm really proud of the teams that did that because we thought about not ourselves. We thought about what we wanted to achieve both for our customers, but also our external customer experience, and we were able to drive to that. Even when it wasn't easy, even when we weren't aligned on exactly how we planned, that was something that we did really well there. And I think the culture of the company of empowering people within the company to go tackle those kinds of problems made that successful.

Naber:  Do you have any idea how they did that within the culture? Maybe it was like one or two things that empowered people to be able to go solve those problems, and have that autonomy?

Jennifer Knight: Yeah. And it was that way pretty much from day one. I mean, so there's flip side. Anyone can buy anything, right? Which, on on the system side, is its own like special crazy. But there wasn't like a specific tenant that we followed. There wasn't anything like that. The one thing that, Dropbox also did well, and LinkedIn had this, but they stressed it in a different way, was this concept that we called cupcake there, which is let's have fun together in this. And so I think that that empowering you to go out and like build community, build team, and have fun with it, was something that Drew and Arash really instilled. But there's not a like phrase or a specific behavior other than encouraging an environment of community, and communication, and through that you could go find your people, and find your path.

Naber:  Yeah. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense, and it's extremely empowering. I felt that when I was at Dropbox as well. But cupcake, it's a really good thing to add. Like having fun while we're doing it, and working on cool shit together That's pretty cool. And that's a good place to start for all the stuff you want to work on versus just what's necessary or having a less creative mindset around it or vantage point? Awesome. All right, let's move on to Stripe. So yyou're leaving Dropbox, you're heading to Stripe. Why do you make the jump to Stripe, and what are you up to there right now?

Jennifer Knight: So, it's been a progression of scope actually. Something that I laugh...I love my job because I get to be incredibly nosy and learn everything about the back end operating of a world. So at LinkedIn I got to learn so much about how Sales and Marketing think, what they prioritize, personalities, what's top of mind, what are the pressures, what are the challenges? I mean I knew it because I actually interviewed for some Sales jobs. I will never be a Salesperson. That is a such a hard job. And being on the technical side, I also appreciate the challenges of a technical world. But having the opportunity to be in with Sales teams and Marketing teams, and see how they think was something that I got to do at LinkedIn. I got to Dropbox, it was doing that and then I got the opportunity to learn how accountants think because I took over finance Systems. But it dropped off, and it's totally different world. I took an introduction to financial accounting after sitting in our first CFO's staff meeting because, I was like, I literally understand none of the terms. And I had an amazing partner in our revenue accountant. She was Sarah, she was patient person. I took over the finance Systems team, and we were working on a project. And she was describing debits and credits, and she's walking everything through with me, and she's willing to repeat herself as I'm stumbling through it. And I got to really understand that the pressures in their world are really fundamentally different than the pressures in Sales and Marketing. And they have external pressures with GAAP, and all of these other requirements that they're marching to. And so it got to learn about that. At Dropbox though, there was no mandate when I was there for the Business Technology team, we were slowly picking up pieces. And that was a fun way, but it was also hard. Sometimes, I was picking them up and they were healthy, and sometimes I was picking them up, and they were in an interesting place. So I'm going through that, and we were getting pretty big, pretty stable as a team. And then through a friend, ended up chatting with the CFO at Stripe, and they were looking for someone to lead Internal Systems. And that would be Finance, Sales, Marketing Support, People, the whole set. And that's what ultimately pulled me there. Also the fact Stripe earlier reminded me, in tone and approach, to LinkedIn in the early days. There was just something about it that, frankly, just felt familiar. And so that was why I decided to take that opportunity.

Naber:  It's amazing how often someone's tone and what they say...when you've been at a few different tech businesses, you understand what good culture looks like. And you walk into a place, and you're having all these conversations when you're going through the recruitment process. It's amazing how often it comes up where, some version of, it felt like I was coming home, or it felt like I was going to something that I already knew, and I could see like where the movie was going. I've seen this movie before. I've directed it. I like the culture because it feels like coming home. A few of those different things happen a lot when you're making your third, fourth, fifth jump into a lot of these businesses, you start to get a really good sense of the bullseye for what you want as well. Maybe I'm just ahead of my skis on that, but it sounds like that's you felt as well.

Jennifer Knight: Yeah, I think it's very true. At some point...So, I think everywhere you go, you learn, right? Every situation you're in, you learn. And you learn what works for you, and what doesn't work for you. And it's not even a judgment call. It's just part of who we all are, and what makes us happy. We find our people, and we're successful with our people, and hopefully we get an opportunity to meet many, many people of many different approaches. But I think at the point that you're talking about, for me, I think about the fact that...Of all the three places that I've been, that are roughly similar shape, they all have the same problems. So you're actually solving the same base problems very frequently.

Naber:  Can you run through some of these as you're thinking about them?

Jennifer Knight: Yeah, so, actually the reason I talk about order to cash is that's a problem for everyone, everywhere. It's a really complicated, really tough flow. It's hard to get right. It's really frustrating when it's not supported. And that's one that I've seen everywhere as a challenge. Data models, everyone gets their Salesforce data model wrong, everyone - like, it just, it happens. One of my first projects at LinkedIn was fixing the data model. One of my first projects at Dropbox was fixing data model. That can be really hard to fix. You can be like, oh, like that sounds simple. But you put the wrong data model in place, and then you lock it in place with a bunch of integration, and a bunch of automation, and a bunch of tooling. So by the time you get to the point where you need to roll it back, you have to roll back a lot to get back to that place.

Naber:  You're duct taped, and scotch taped, and glued everything together.

Jennifer Knight: Yep. So in order to do some data model work at Dropbox, it took me 12 months to rewrite a piece of code that was running on a python script under someone's desk, so that we could unlock it. There's that kind of work. The exercising the capability and the muscle around planning, planning your Systems change. You're often in an environment where everything is moving extremely rapidly, and on the process side you're iterating, and you're iterating and iterating. And then Systems don't always benefit from that rapid of iteration. There's a point where you have to be able to experiment outside the system. And when you get closer, you don't have to be perfect, but when you get closer to your ideal process, then you want to systematize it. So when a team like mine comes in, one of the big challenges we face is not actually a technical challenge. It's working with our partners to say, I know this feels like we're slowing down. We're not saying no, we're not saying stop, but we have to take a step back, and we have to once again put this in context, and figure out how we rationalize this within the system. And so that muscle, it's a challenge for everyone. It's a challenge everywhere. So that's one we face. These problems are very similar. And to your point when I'm making a decision now about where I want to go, you're living with this community and in this environment for a pretty significant portion of your day or your life, over the course of time that you're at that company. And everyone that has worked in tech knows it's not nine to five. If you've managed to pull 9-5, you're lucky. So you're probably spending most of your waking hours for several years, in that environment, and that being one that you feel supported in, feel excited to go to, that resonates with who you are. And where you are in that moment in your career and your life, I think is incredibly important. You can't always get it right, and you're going to find an environment that isn't the perfectly resonant one, but that's okay because then you learn aspects of that. And I think even there, you can take aspects of those environments, and take them with you going forward. But I agree. Especially the third or fourth time around. I think it's true. We always try to find a place where we feel might be a bit more like home.

Naber:  Cool. Good one. All right, Stripe. Two things - why don't we start first with an example of a major project you're working on, and maybe you could talk through as much as you can give us without giving confidential information obviously, but what are some of the really cool major projects or one major project even to give us an idea of the type of stuff you're doing at these different companies. So you've given really good examples so far. Give us a profile of Stripe and some of the things you're working on.

Jennifer Knight: Yeah, I'd say actually I'll do a little bit of a different answer than a systems answer because I always loved the technical stuff. The project that I'm working on at Stripe, and that's been the thing that's so top of mind for me over the last two years, is actually establishing the team. And establishing a team that is proactive and not reactive. Understanding what our actual needs are. So to give you a sense, my team when I joined, there were a few people in the organization who were part time working on Systems. And so the Systems were pretty underfunded, and that was one of the reasons they asked me to join. But putting language around what it actually looks like to manage these Systems well, putting language around the fact that we have huge gaps right now, and with that language also still keeping my team motivated, is that dance of being able to say we're here, we're growing, we're here to support you, and in the same breadth, I appreciate and understand that there is a laundry list of things that we were not able to do. And keeping that dialogue going, and figuring out how we grow up into Stripe as an organization, and how we try to close that, as rapidly as possible, close that gap. Which on the surface frequently looks like we aren't moving fast enough because some of these things, I mean they're around hiring, they're around team structures, they're around normalizing as a team. They're around that the thing that I just mentioned about learning how to partner with our partners, helping our partners understand planning processes. The big project that I've, there's a bunch of technical projects, there's a bunch of these kinds of negotiations, but actually the big project that I've been working on at Stripe is around that area. How do we understand how to best serve the organization? How are we getting out of this proactive mode? How do we become, I think we always are a value add, but how do we really drive that value forward? And how do we become a team that is not a handful of people who are just heads down executing, and trying to like scramble to the next thing, and are more laying the foundations and partnering to lay the foundations with our business partners? Knowing that we're a couple of, frankly, we're a couple of years behind, so we have a lot to lot to catch up on. That's really been, if I look at it across all of my teams, and what my function is doing right now. We are working on technical projects, we're delivering things every day, we're trying to move those forward. Kind of core things, core capabilities that I've discussed before are projects that we're working on. But really more than anything right now, we're focused on - how do we partner? How do we partner for success? How do we understand what we should be investing in with our partners? And how do we really surface their underlying needs versus the rapid fire day to day?

Naber:  So that is really interesting. I've got a question for that. So can you explain what the end result looks like? What does euphoria look like when you get to this place where...maybe not euphoria, you get what I'm saying though... you get to this place where you're being proactive, you're working with the business on the things you should be working on, and it is working like a smooth machine that is operating on all cylinders. What does that look like, and what do you guys accomplishing when that happens?

Jennifer Knight: Yeah. So maybe I'll start with what it doesn't look like. There's no world in which we're done, and there's no world in which there's no backlog, and there's actually no world in which we are doing everything the business wants you...all 10 items, every sprint. That just, that has never happened in the course of my career, regardless of the team size or anything like that. There will always be needs. There will always be needs that we can't serve immediately today. And part of that is actually the right investment model for the business overall. So we're always looking at prioritization. I think when it's smoothly, the factors that I look at are..We have transparent and clear communication with our partners. They know what they're getting, and we're delivering that in the way that we've committed to delivery. They are actively engaged and partnering, and feel good about the prioritization. They know why. They know the business impact, because they're defining it. But there's a lot of really clear communications there. And then on our side, like I said, we're delivering on time or delivering in a way that is thoughtful and accountable to the rest of the ecosystem. So we're not breaking each other, and we're not breaking the system. That actually gets quite difficult at scale. If you have five developers on a platform, and sometimes they have overlap, you have to make sure that they're all developing the Product that is your CRM or the Product that is your Marketing automation platform in a way that is conscientious. So, we are, when we're operating smoothly, we are not blowing up each other's work. That's a pretty obvious one in my mind. I think when we're operating smoothly, we are responding to the right things, with the right urgency, in the right SLA's. So this is one of the reasons we end up with a Run function. Not every ask has to be treated like a project, but not every ask can be treated like a quick win. So you want to have varying SLA's and varying approaches, and when we're running smoothly we have an intake process that allows us to triage those, and be very quickly responsive where it's appropriate, and be thoughtful and measured in our approach, where that's appropriate. But not trying to do a one size fits all. Those are the core tenants that I look to when I think about how my team is running smoothly. I think that maybe one that we don't talk about with the business as much, is we also spend some time thinking about the technical foundations, and how those potentially need to evolve because our SaaS partners are evolving different features, and giving us different capabilities. So maybe we set up an integration one way four years ago because that was what Zendesk allowed us to do. And that might be really difficult for us to maintain and manage. And on the business side, it may look like it just works. And on our side, it may be a ton of toil and work to keep it alive. And Zendesk releases a new feature that simplifies that. How do we also continuously bring technical, underlying improvements, infrastructure improvements, into our roadmap. And then when we're working really well, socializing those up with our partners so they really appreciate why us doing that work actually improves their world and makes us more efficient together. Those are the high level things that I look for when I think about my team operating well. And like I said though, the work will never stop. It will always be there. Which is the exciting and fun part. So really it's about transparency, and process, and prioritization.

Naber:  Nice. Awesome answer. Thanks so much, Jenn. So last question, and then we'll wrap. Okay. I've got one rapid fire question for you as well. So, one of your many superpowers, that you've alluded to a little bit, throughout your answers, but is...As you're going through every single one of these projects and all of your decisions, thinking as an end to end process thinker, where you're keeping the big picture in mind while you're able to zoom in and out of the details and the different requirements, and how do all these things stick together over an entire project over a sustained period of time. How do you bring stakeholders along with you in that journey? Because you're saying no a lot, you're saying yes a lot, you're saying no a lot more than you're saying yes. And you're also telling them, hey, please wait. Being a Sales and Marketing operator myself, I know that we could be inpatient every once in a while. So how do you bring stakeholders along in those conversations, and what are some of the best practices that you use for communicating with stakeholders? Because you're so good at that naturally, but that is not necessarily a Sales of Marketing operators forte as they're thinking about, just what they want to do for that quarter or that half of that year.

Jennifer Knight: Yeah. Yeah. So I've had a couple of different approaches. I think once again, this is an interesting one...That you say it's a strength that I can think that way. And sometimes one of my weaknesses of getting it out of my mind, and onto a piece of paper. And so what I've gotten better at over time is making sure...everyone who knows me knows I love a whiteboard. I actually don't think that most people in these complex scenarios, there's a few of them that can, if you describe it with words, actually can follow along. I'm someone that, if someone starts, if I focus extremely hard and someone is describing something, I can usually think that I've understood. But sometimes when they put it on the board, I realized actually I didn't. So one of the techniques that I use, and I actually encourage everyone on my team to do, and I encourage our partners to do, is write on the board. Write your process on the board. On our side we will write then the system on the board. And let's all look at it, and then talk about the areas that we don't understand, or talk about the areas where we want clarification. In our side, when I start to think, okay, here's our end to end process, now you have all these Systems. Helping people come along, part of it is by laying out, here's the areas that maybe we're gonna be able to accelerate quickly, and here's the areas where I either don't have complete control - I'm going to have to negotiate with a partner, or is technically complex. So let's look at the whole thing end to end. But starting that visual from the process. And it doesn't have to be elegant. It doesn't have to follow all the fancy flowchart, actual diagrams. I do love that stuff sometimes, but get a pen out, sit down together, and make sure that you both are actually speaking the same language. And then that your priorities align. So I might get really passionate about some part of the process that somewhere else I've seen be really interesting, and that might not really be what you're passionate about. Or I might be able to bring some insight because I've seen this at a larger company. I can say, hey, two years, we don't have to face it today, but two years from now we're gonna need these kinds of controls. I'm telling you that I want to build this foundation in today because I'm looking forward. Do we agree that that's an okay thing to do? But even to get it out of your mind, get it onto a board. That's a huge one. Then, like I said, on the transparency side for our team, we have milestones. We are sending out sometimes weekly or biweekly updates on how we're progressing against those phases of the project. We're checking back in what has changed. Have our priorities changed? Have some more micro points within the plan, do we need to adjust? Have we learned something new that's going to shift something out? Those are the muscles that we exercise. But I think the first and most important thing is - can we all get in a room, and can we look at this thing end to end, and do we actually, are we speaking the same language? And I'm not going to say it verbally to you. I'm going to show you. And then pull out a pen, and mark it up, and tell me where it's crazy, or tell me where it doesn't work, or tell me where your world is different. And that way we on my side of the house, have the context of where you're coming from. And you on the business side, can understand how we're thinking about the approach. And no one is surprised. That would be the tactic that I think about a lot.

Naber:  Man...I wish I could wrap that thought up and hug it because I loved it so much. You and I have a similar brain in some respects, and I'm loving that answer. Okay, last question. We're done with going through all these different examples, all this information. As you wearing like a tweed jacket and a hat right now, because you just professored everyone with all of your knowledge. So, one rapid fire question. So, I ask this to people on their birthdays every single year. It's not your birthday, but I'm asking anyways. Our audience has heard me say that a hundred times, apologies, but I'm explaining for the guests because they don't know. Maybe they've listened to all of them, nope they haven't. Most important learning or lesson you've acquired professionally in the last 12 months?

Jennifer Knight: I would say, I've always been a patient person. But in the last 12 months, I've actually gotten much better at learning how to be both patient and persistent. Which is kind of a weird abstract learning, I'll give it that. But in environments where a lot of changes driven by influence or cross team collaboration, and everybody is under a lot of strainm under resourced in their own way...Figuring out how to navigate that in a way that continuously feels constructive, is not something that I would say was my strength in the past. I am definitely someone who likes to get things done, and I'm a bit principled in my approach. But same thing happens to my team. People are coming to me and saying, Jenn, can you do this thing? Can you do this thing? And I'm saying, no, we have to put it in this roadmap. Learning how to be the customer on that side. And how do I navigate that? And how do I continue to emphasize the importance of something or being respectful and patient of the process that I'm in? And being okay with that patient. Part of it is with my partners, and part of it for me is actually with myself. It's knowing that when you're turning a really big ship, it's slow. And some months and quarters you have this moment where you're like, what did what have I accomplished? And those accomplishments are a bit abstract. They're maybe not, I delivered this project or made this great presentation. They're like I hired these people, and these people are ramping. That means in two quarters it's going to be awesome. Or I changed part of a culture around an approach. Or I encouraged another team and my team to participate together in a project. And yes, that project hasn't started, but the train is slowly leaving the station. That patience with myself, with my team, and with others, and really thinking about how to be persistent, but patient with the process, is something that I would say I've learned quite a bit about in the last 12 months...

Naber:  Hey everybody, thanks so much for listening. If you appreciated and enjoyed the episode, go ahead and make a comment on the post for the episode on LinkedIn. If you love The Naberhood Podcast, we'd love for you to subscribe, rate, and give us a five star review on iTunes. Until next time - go get it.

Guest:

Nick DeMarinis - Director, Enterprise Growth @WeWork

(Formerly @LinkedIn, @Yahoo)

Guest Background:

Nick DeMarinis is Director, Enterprise Growth for WeWork based at their HQ in New York City. Previously he spent 13 years in the technology industry with Yahoo and LinkedIn. At LinkedIn, he held various leadership roles across both North America and Asia-Pacific while based in Hong Kong. 

Nick holds a Bachelor's Degree from Saint Leo University in Tampa, Florida and a Master’s Degree in International Business from St. John's University in Rome, Italy. 

On a personal note, he has identical twin boys that just turned one, and prays that one day the New York Knicks will be relevant again.

Guest Links:

LinkedIn | Twitter

Episode Summary:

In this episode, we cover:

- The Trusted Advisor Equation - The Numerator, The Denominator

- Recognition Mindset & Method - Gratitude, Strengths

- The Power of Storytelling

- Your Personal Board of Directors

- Nick's Go-to Coaching Framework - The GROW Model

Full Interview Transcript:

Naber:  Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to The Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest growing companies. Enjoy!

Naber:  Hey everybody. Today we've got Nick DeMarinis on the show. Nick is a Director of Enterprise growth for WeWork (a Pre-IPO Unicorn with a valuation of $47 billion). Nick is based at their headquarters in New York City. Previously he spent 13 years in the technology industry with Yahoo! (a $4.5 billion acquisition by Verizon) and LinkedIn (a $27 billion acquisition by Microsoft and they also IPO back in 2011). At LinkedIn, Nick held various leadership roles across both North America and Asia Pacific, while based in Hong Kong. Nick holds a bachelor's degree from Saint Leo University in Tampa, Florida and a Master's degree in International Business from St John's University in Rome, Italy. On a personal note, he has identical twin boys that just turned one, and he prays that one day the New York Knicks will be relevant again. Here we go.

Naber:  Mr Nick D, in the house. Good to have you on the show, man. Thanks so much for coming.

Naber:  Naber, anything for you my man. Wow, anything, I like that. Don't. Tempt. Me. So, I am so excited to have you on. You're a world-class dude. So many people in my inter and outer circle know who you are, have crossed paths with you, have worked with you, have worked for you, you've worked for, or just some sort of combination thereof, and there's just not enough nice things to say about you as a dude, let alone, as a professional. So, I'm excited to have you on. So one of the things I want to do is, we're going to jump through some of your personal life, a little bit about where you grew up, how you grew up, what you were like, all the way through school. And then what we'll hop into is, the bulk of what we'll talk about today, which is your professional experience. And both the strengths and learnings you've gained along the way, but some of your superpowers that you are just top 1% in the world at, and talk about some of the frameworks and principles that you think about. And then we'llget into some of the methods as well, and some of the process and examples. Sound okay?

Nick DeMarinis: That sounds great. Excited to be here.

Naber:  Awesome man. So basketball player, ice hockey, soccer, Jesuit high school, Tampa, Saint Leo, St John's in Rome. Hong Kong, New York, identical twin boys. We'll talk about all of it. What I want to hear as we go through that is, let's first talk about maybe four or five minutes on how you grew up. What was the life of Nick D as a kid? What were you like? Tell me about some of your interests, go through school a little bit, and tell me about some of your hobbies. And I'll interrupt you, hopefully not too rudely, to ask you maybe a little bit more detail.

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, totally. Well, before we kick off, thanks again for inviting me. The minute I got your email, I was excited to see what was in there and to reconnect. I know we've always stayed in touch, but it's been awhile since we able to connect, and really talk through what's been going on in life. And as you mentioned, you're putting this together to pay forward all of the learnings, and the coaching you've had, and I'm excited to do that as well. And every day I learn more and more, and it's just exciting to share all of my experiences and people that helped me along the way. And as you said, it starts for me at a very young age, right? Where and how I grew up. My parents grew up in New York. They met when they were 15, got married and they were 19, had their first kid at 20, and then had six children. Fast track six children. Irish, Italian family. We drink with one hand, we talk with the other. And you know, my dad was in Sales his whole career, right? My Dad was Sales his whole career. And he always valued relationships, and he was very successful, end to end and his career on the basis of relationships. Me being one of six kids, growing up, we're always very competitive. Who's the first one to get to the bathroom in the morning, take a shower? I was also a middle child, so I had to be pretty diplomatic in my approach, right? I couldn't be this authority as the oldest, and I couldn't be like, Hey, I can get away with anything. I was a baby. I kind of had to play both ends of the spectrum. So I learned that early on of how to manage relationships up, and down, and sideways. We just love sports. We love being competitive, all of us. And I never really got too deep in a single sport because I just loved the ideas of other sports, and trying those out, and getting good at those. And in particular I just love team sports, right? I think individual sports were fun, but I loved the idea of going into battle with others, with the team behind you. And you know, although I grew up in Florida, unfortunately my father raised me a New York sports fan. So I had to adopt the New York Knicks and the New York jets, which are horrible sports teams.

Naber:  I saw Stephen A. Smith's video of his, basically a nervous breakdown, or his breakdown he had on TV. And I thought of you immediately. I felt miserable for you in that moment.

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah. Yeah, it's been bad. But you know what it's taught me...and through my dad's professional career, through their marriage of over 50 years, through being in New York Knicks fan, as hilarious as it is this idea of loyalty. There's been a lot of lessons around loyalty through...and it might be tough times for a very long time, and there's gonna be ups and downs. But, that's what I learned a lot about growing up. It's just the value of family relationships, and loyalty, as much as it can hurt some times.

Naber:  That's an amazing lesson to learn. I mean, it give back to you so much over time as well, loyalty over time.

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Naber:  Cool. So, what was the first thing you did to make money?

Nick DeMarinis: First thing I did to make money. I sorted through a bunch of baseball cards that I inherited from my older brothers, and I went through the Beckett magazines that showed how much these cards were worth. And I tallied all that up, and I thought I was going to make thousands of dollars off these cards. But I was kind of talked out of it to hold onto those as an investment for later in life. So that's not how I made money. I thought that that's how I was going to become rich. First way I made money, it was really concession stand at at the little league field. Spent a lot of time as a young kid playing baseball, and then once it got to that certain age, I think it was 13, which is when they allowed you to actually work the concession stand, and sell M&M's, making whatever the minimum wage was, that was it. So yeah, it was a very efficient way to make money because as soon as my shift was over, it's back to the field, back to playing ball.

Naber:  Nice. Love it. Love it. So your middle child, you're going through school, you're selling M&Ms, and you're playing a ton of sports, competing on first to the shower, first to the bathroom, first to the dinner table, first inside if everyone's outside playing, totally get it. One of five kids myself, so that rings a bell for me. So when you were in high school, tell me a little bit about some of the things you're interested in outside of sports, and then we can get into why you went to Saint Leo, and what that transition was like.

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, I mean, it's funny, it was really all about sports in high school for me. A funny enough, it's funny to say, but I went to an all boys, Jesuit high school, right? So I was also really interested in girls. There was a sister school nearby, but we just didn't have a lot of interaction. So it was like, you're at that age of adolescence throughout your teenager years, and it's this fascination around your first date, and what does prom look, and all that fun stuff. But outside of that, what I was really interested in is the world outside of where I grew up. And I was really fascinated about New York, about where my parents grew up and I didn't, I grew up in Florida and I visited. I was really fascinated about where my grandparents came from in Italy. I was really fascinated about like, what's outside this world of Florida, of Tampa where I grew up. And I know that's kind of the case for a lot of people. So, throughout high school I really started to think about that, using sports as a way to be able to maybe travel, or get to another state, another country, and then think about that as I get into college. I made the decision to stay in school in Florida, nearby for a variety of personal and professional reasons. But then, as I've gone through University, that's where I decided to make the leap to study abroad in Italy, which really eye opening for me see the rest of the world outside of where I grew up.

Naber:  Cool. Love it. That's a great transition. You make the jump to St Leo. Why Saint Leo? Tell us what it was like, maybe a couple of minutes about what life was for you in school in Uni.

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, totally. I don't have the greatest story actually about Saint Leo. I was a hockey player in Florida, and I was pretty good, in the state of Florida. You compare me against kids that grew up in Michigan, and I was definitely below average. But I wanted to play college hockey, and we we're on a few recruiting trips, and we decided that really the cost of schooling at some of these Northeastern schools versus the in-state tuition in Florida...I had to make a call whether I want to enjoy university and the life that comes with being a student versus playing a college sport, and struggling with tuition costs, and being at the mercy of 5AM practices. And I made a call there. And Saint Leo was a nice balance. Had smaller classroom sizes, it wasn't University of Florida or FSU, which you're in an auditorium. I wanted a smaller, more intimate environment where I could just get to know my professors, get pretty hands on with the curriculum, and that's how I went to Saint Leo, and enjoyed every minute of it.

Naber:  Nice. Awesome. So, you had a life changing experience when you studied over in Rome. It's obviously kicked off your, not just to quench your appetite, but really over time when you live enough places you turn adventure into lifestyle, and then you just kinda never go back. But I'm guessing that was the start and the first step of that for you. So tell us about heading over to Rome to study there, and then we'll hop into your first role after school.

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, I mean, I couldn't have said it any better. That absolutely was a turning point in my life where I turned adventure into a lifestyle. And that adventure and overcoming it, as tough as it felt in the moment, has been the foundation of how I think about all future challenges and future adventures, as small and big as they are. Because for a lot of us growing up in the US, or anywhere in the world, for you to branch outside of your comfort zone, into a new world, with this new language, it can be really scary in the moment. But I decided, it was my senior year of college, and there was no time better than to make that leap. And I had roots in Italy, right? It's where family came from. So, there was a lot of self interest, and what I wanted to accomplish and get out of that experience, so that's what I did. So I made the move there. Funny enough, on day one, I met a girl there who was all studying in the same program, who's now my wife.

Naber:  Whoa. That's how you guys met? Awesome.

Nick DeMarinis: That's how we met. There was another girl that went to the same school and I asked her how's your living situation? I'm living with five girls. She said, I'll be there in two minutes. And when I got there I was introduced to Diana, and that was my future wife. So that was the best part of that experience. But I think outside of that as well, it was just, just opened up my eyes to, there's another world out, there's other cultures, there's another way of living life and doing business. And I enjoyed it so much in that study abroad program, which was one semester, I basically stayed there, and then applied to graduate school. Saint John's had a program there. Ended up staying in Italy for almost two years. I really just wanted to learn more business. I wanted to learn a language. I wanted to not just have this four month point in life. I wanted to embed myself. So it it was a great journey, expensive journey, but a great one.

Naber:  Yeah. I mean, the Euro's not friendly to the USD at that point either. Great story about how you got how you and Diana met, and obviously now you have two beautiful identical twin boys, Luca and Max - is that right? We'll get into that a little bit later. I don't want to get you on a tangent here because you're going to turn into #prouddad. So you come back from Rome, walk us through your first couple of roles up through the point where you're going to make a jump to LinkedIn, and we'll pause there and ask you a couple of questions. But you had some really interesting, good, significant learning experiences before you got to LinkedIn. Let's walk through those.

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, what's not on my profile is I did work on Wall Street for two days. Actually it was a day and a half I think. When I was going through college, a little bit of a direction from my father was get into finance. You're going to make a good living, it's going to be stable. That should be your path, and you're pretty good at it. And that's what I studied, and I wasn't really sure if that was my path, it's hard to really understand until you get into the professional workforce. So I moved to New York, I worked on Wall Street. It was a small commodities broker. And I don't know how I realized this, but I realized pretty quickly it was not for me. Maybe it was this specific company, maybe it was the environment, it. I just got an idea that I don't think this is right, and my gut tells me that. I remember quitting. I called my father and I said, you're going to be really disappointed with me, but I just don't think this is the industry for me, I don't think this is the path, I need to do some searching here. And he was so supportive. He was like, I'm so proud that you've figured this out so quickly - to fail quickly is this thing that is really hard to do. So I did that, and went back to the drawing board. This is the first idea that I had around really building this personal Board of Directors. I started to think through, okay, who can help me figure out what is the industry I should be in? What is the job? What function should I be looking for? And I got some really good advice from some people in my corner. And I landed a job at a place called University Sports Publications. It married two things that I thought I'd be really passionate about, which is Sales and speaking to people, and sports, right? So, that was a good experience. It was kind of a boiler room setting. It was a lot of phone calls. It was a lot of rejection, you're selling advertising and it was Game Day sports programs to contractors and subcontractors. So it wasn't as glorious as the job description sounded, but what it taught me was resilience, right? This idea of following the Sales structure, of overcoming objectives, of the value of sharing peers and name dropping others in the industry that are using that. So it taught me a lot about the frameworks of a Sales process, and how to be resilient in that, if you have the right solution. So kind of sucked in the moment, but it taught me, taught me a lot there. Again, the culture wasn't something I was really looking for. It was very, very results driven, very cut throat. And I got a referral to get an interview at Yahoo!. And had a few interviews there, and really felt that was a company that more aligned what I was looking for in the technology space. And Yahoo!, the culture at the time, was way more accommodating to my type of personality. And yeah, joined Yahoo! in 2007.

Naber:  Awesome. Walk us through the roles you had at Yahoo!. You were there for about four years. So walk us through a couple of those roles, and then I've got a few questions on some of the things that you learned while you were there.

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, so the roles at Yahoo!, it was primarily different Sales roles. So I was either selling recruitment advertising to recruitment agencies or to corporates. There was a little bit of an Account Executive, so selling to first time customers, bringing them on board, a lot of prospecting, a lot of Sales Development, a lot of cold outreach. And then later on in my career, Yahoo! was more around relationship management, and how do we help them, and make sure they're having success using our solutions, and make sure they're happy customers, and we're leveraging that to the best of it's ability. So that that was mostly the crux of my time in the four years at Yahoo!.

Naber:  Nice. And what do you think was the number one thing that you think you've learned at Yahoo!?

Nick DeMarinis: The number one thing I learned at Yahoo! would probably be, it's the value of your boss. I had some really great bosses at Yahoo!. I think, before that, my bosses were this dictator type figures. and the bosses I had at Yahoo! were very much more around my leadership philosophy, which is way more democratic, right? Anytime we were making decisions, we're thinking about a way to approach the business, or approach our customers, it was very much involving everybody. And there was always a sense of authority when they needed to have it, right? If we had a healthy the debate around something, that person also also knew when to come in and say, great, I value all the feedback, and this is where this is how we're going to move forward. But, really took the time to value everyone's opinion, and have it a team approach in terms of how we solve any types of questions, any types of problems.

Naber:  Nice one. Good. Okay, let's hop into LinkedIn. I think actually, I'm going to save my other question for after you get through this. So walk us through the journey you had at LinkedIn over the next few minutes on, the roles that you had, the jumps that you made, and what you were responsible for in each one. Maybe three or four minutes.

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, absolutely. So jump to LinkedIn, right place, right time. Yahoo! HotJobs, which is the property I was working for, was bought by Monster that was going through a transition I wasn't incredibly happy about, and LinkedIn was opening up a new office on the east coast. I got introduced to James Volpentest and Scott Nelson. And we had dinner, and they were looking to build, a Sales team in New York. So I was part of the first Sales team in New York. There was about 12 or 15 of us in a serviced office. And and that was an incredible journey. At a tim, LinkedIn had about 80 million members. And we were really bringing on our earliest customers in terms of using this professional network as a platform to find passive talent. So that was a Sales role, pure hunter, selling the dream about what this professional platform was going to become, and how it can help companies solve a lot of their hiring needs. So the biggest jump from there moving to Hong Kong. So, you want me to go ahead and take you into that decision as well? Yeah, totally. So, I realized pretty quickly on at LinkedIn, this is going to be a global platform, no doubt about it. It's going to global network that a lot of people in professionals would really benefit from around creating economic opportunity. And we started to think about opening offices, and as you know as well, opening offices all around the world, in Asia, and Europe and going back to that adventure of living in Italy, I thought, how can I parlay that into an adventure somewhere else? Maybe a bit more of an intelligent risk for me. And I was thinking about different offices. There's Dublin, there's Sydney, and I wanted something a little bit more of a challenge. So we started talking internally about Hong Kong. And it was a very strategic market for us, as a gateway into China. And we wanted to be that first professional network into China. So, I spoke to my Manager time, I said, what does it take? We need people there. And this is about a year before that. And his advice was, just be great at your job right now, and then when the time is right, we can discuss that opportunity. So, that's what I did. I just put my head down. I tried to master the role I was currently in. I wanted to be very, very clear about, what value am I going to bring to a new market in terms of bringing that LinkedIn headquarters culture and DNA, and making sure that that's being spread through new markets and new cultures. And made the jump to Hong Kong in 2013.

Naber:  Awesome, man. That's great. And tell us what you're responsible for in Hong Kong, and and how your role grew a little bit.

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah. So initially a little bit of everything. I think of the role as, you're helping hire for the team, you're helping bring on your early customers, you're helping define your early culture. You're doing a little bit everything. And we were all doing it together. It wasn't a figurehead of the office, it a few of us that come together to drive that. So, I help bring on some of our earlier customers, help make a lot of decisions around our hiring and building out the team, setting some of the traditions around our office such as new hire introductions, and special talents, and costumes. Just things that lightened the mood that are consistent with the way LinkedIn does things. And of course as the business grew and the team grew, that evolved into a leadership position. And I was raised my hand of, hey, I'm ready to be a utility player in leadership of where you need help. So, at that time we were thinking about growing our teams in Southeast Asia. So I started to manage Account Executives in Singapore, and Japan, and start to build our business and build our customer base in those markets. Which was a great experience for me. Just being able to manage the remote teams, and all the challenges that comes with that, as well as managing multiple cultures. In Japan specifically, managing teams that hardly speak the same language, right? And it's really hard to be able to add a lot of value, even when I go on customer engagements, when it's speaking a different language as well. So I had to really think about where's the areas I'm going to be able to add value? A lot of that for me was like, removing a lot of internal barriers for them. I can't help them in how they're speaking to their customer, but I can help remove the process, and remove some of the friction that's helping them get their job done. So that was a lot of my learnings in terms of like, I gotta be really clear about where I'm going to be able to add value, and where I'm not right, when you're managing different teams and different cultures. And then, towards the end of my time there, it was managing more of a holistic team across the Hong Kong office. So, end to end from Sales Development, to Global Accounts, and how I brought those teams together, and I just went really deep within the Hong Kong market specifically, across different teams in different segments.

Naber:  Awesome. It's it is an amazing journey, and you were doing it so early in the life cycle of people moving to international offices from one or another us hub. So from San Francisco, from Chicago, from New York, and you did early in that time, where you didn't necessarily see or have a playbook in order to be able to do that. It's kind of like, figure it out as you go and learn with other people as they go around setting up some of these offices, especially, in Asia. You've sold for a long time, and helped sell for a long time. I know from hearing from other people how hands on and close to the frontline you are with being able to help out with your Sales reps, and teaching and coaching them on how to sell, best practices, etc. And one of the things that I've heard both from you, and from other people, is this concept of becoming a trusted advisor. So when you're talking to your sales team, both at WeWork and LinkedIn, and you're giving advice, tell us a little bit about the concept of being a trusted advisor, and how you explain that to people.

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't be more passionate about the equation that comes with being a trusted advisor. And I think some people snooze off as soon as I start to give them an equation. But hear me out, hear me out. This idea of trusted advisor, it gets thrown around quite a bit, right? And there's different definitions, but I think this one I really subscribed to, and I really hammer it home as I think about our relationships, our Sales process, qualifying deals, qualifying our Accounts. And I think it's really telling as we break down the different parts. So, if you think about a trusted advisor, there's a numerator, and there's a denominator. Now in the numerator, there's really three parts to how you become a trusted advisor to your client. And that can be a client that you've worked with forever, or a client that you just met yesterday, right? And the first is credibility. Are you credible in what you're speaking about? The industry, your product, how it's going to perform, right? Like, you need to be able to get to be a subject matter expert on what you're sharing to your client. And this goes with sharing to candidates as well, and hiring, there's a lot of ways to apply this. So credibility is one. I think, on reflection for me and we work, I've been here four and a half months, that's an area of development for me. I'm in a new industry in real estate. There's a lot going on. We're transforming the industry. I'm not as credible as I want to be yet, and I'm taking a lot of steps to be able to build that. The second part of the equation is around reliability. So you know that's as simple as, are you following through with what you say you're going to do? Are you delivering on your solutions? Are you saying, Hey, I can get you that proposal by Friday at 5:00 PM - are you doing that? For me personally as well, if people do what they say they're going to do, then, you know that shows reliability, right? And the minute people start saying, we're going to do this, we're gonna do that, and they don't follow through with that, you start to lose not only your credibility, you lose your trust and becoming a reliable individual. Lastly...so we have credibility and knowing your subject, we have reliability, which is you're going to do what you say you're going to do. And last is around intimacy. I think this is the most important. I couldn't be more passionate about the idea that people buy from people, right? I do it all the time, and there's a lot of value and things that I buy, but I really like to know who I'm buying from, and why I'm buying from an individual, and getting to know that side of things. So I think a lot about intimacy, and how we approach our customers, right? How well do we know them? How well do we know how this is going to impact their personal lives. Do we know their dog's name? The more we can get to know, and get to intimate with our customers, and whether that's someone that's buying from us, or we're going to be hiring them, there's just that much stronger of a bond, that much stronger of a relationship there. And you can even ask for favors sometimes, right, as you get stuck in certain areas based upon that relationship.

Naber:  Nick , let me ask as a question. Do you have go to categories that are attached to people's hearts, so that you can get closer to them, or more intimate with them more quickly? Do you have certain categories that you go after where you're like, ask questions about this, this, this, this, and this?

Nick DeMarinis: A lot of it comes down a lot of it comes to research, right? Looking at whether it's there LinkedIn profiles, or checking them in the news, just finding out what they care about, right? And making sure that I can align that with the intimacy factor, right? If someone cares about wolf conservation, I've adopted rescue dogs from Hong Kong. There's maybe some parallels there. And just trying to get to know why they care about that. Family is an easy one, right? Me having twin boys. We did an Executive event last week in Chicago at the Rolling Stones Concert, and a lot of them had families, right? And I just wanted to really get to know about their families, their kids, the schools that they're looking to attend, and just really got to know them on an intimate level around their families. And I was able to share my own experience right now as my kids are very young and growing up. So there's not really specific categories. I just try to do a lot of research and understand their personal lives, what's going on, what do they care about?

Naber:  No, that's good. That's good. All right. Sorry. Keep going.

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah. So on top of all of that, in terms of trusted advisor, there's the denominator which is self orientation. So I think people can be very credible, they can be super reliable, and you can be very intimate, and really getting to know your customers. But the minute that self orientation is showing really high, that there's a lot more in it for me that I'm trying to gain out of it. That starts to ruin a bit of the trusted advisor type of relationship that you have with the customer. So, I think a lot of people try to focus too much on on the top, and then they don't think enough about self orientation and what's in it for them. And that's sometimes starts to shine at certain moments, which can really ruin the equation there. So I think that that's really important - taking self orientation out of the equation. If you're solving the right thing for your client, if you're incredibly reliable and intimate, they should be able to want to move forward regardless of what you're wanting to gain out of that.

Naber:  I love the equation. Anytime someone breaks down something into an equation, or a framework, or a data driven approach, or something along those lines, I think people's ears perk up because it's repeatable, and you can also pass it on a more easily as well. So you've managed a lot of Sales teams. You've hired a lot of people. One of the things that I've heard about you from a lot of other people as well, is the power of coaching. And I know that you've gone through certification with Marshall Goldsmith, and I'd love to learn a little bit about, and have the audience to learn a little bit about some of the top learnings and the top takeaways you had from that Marshall Goldsmith training and learning process. And also how you apply those, maybe with some examples that you use across your teams.

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, Marshall Goldsmith was just an incredible investment that I was fortunate to be able to go through, go through that workshop, a world renowned coach. And there's a couple things that I've learned from that Executive course. And Marshall Goldsmith, his coaching framework is really centered around stakeholders, right? I think of coaching in two ways...there's firsthand observations, objective observations, and being able to coach that way about what's observed. Not about how I feel that person did, but I observed this, and I'll talk about that a little bit later. Marshall Goldsmith is really around, perception is reality. Let's find out what do your your stakeholders think about what you can do to improve, and perception is reality there. And let's use feed forward to be able to help an individual improve on that. `So here's how he breaks it down. I think, first around coaching is, making sure that that individual picks the one or two growth areas that they want to focus on, put that in their court, right? What do you want to focus on to get better at that is important to both, you, but also aligns with your organization, right? So let's say for example, it's managing through change, right? That's important for me. It's also important for our organization. This place is changing every three minutes. The next is, next is to lead the change and the coaching through stakeholders. So really involving your directs, your peers, your bosses. There's this idea of Marshall Goldsmith, which is, capturing feed forward rather than feedback. So, if I'm asking you to give me some feed forward on managing through change, I wouldn't say Brandon give me some feedback on how I've managed change in the past. We don't care about the past right now. I would say, Brandon, give me some suggestions on how I can get better at managing change moving forward. And it's a really cool, powerful tool around feed forward, which is like, you're we're not reflecting on what's happened, you're reflecting on what could be beneficial to us moving forward? And that's really the crux of it. The individual that's being coached then takes that, they've identified they want to get better at, they're getting feed forward from the people around them that they care about. And again, it's this idea of perception is reality. Whether they're right or wrong, these are people that have suggestions for someone to get better. Perception is reality. Let's take that. Let's put an action plan together. And then part of the Goldsmith plan as well, is to regularly check in to see how that person's performing moving forward.

Naber: How do you build in the importance of recognition? And how do you think about recognizing others when you know it's both one the right thing to do, but two you may not want to do too much. Because a lot of Managers, they put a premium on recognition so they don't do it maybe as often as they should, or if they just don't do it that often at all. So how do you think about recognition? Because I've heard a lot of people both on your team, as well mentees of yours in the past, say I learned a lot about recognition from Nick. How do you think about it? What's your framework?

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, I'm probably in the camp that there is no such thing as too much recognition. I think that there's so much success that individuals and teams have because of the confidence that they're getting from other individuals. And whether it's a small task or a large task, if they're hearing that people are grateful for what they did, or they're proud of what they did, I think confidence is really what drives people forward, and creating that type of environment. So I try to build in recognition in so many facets, right? Whether in the way people lead, in the way they deliver results, in the short interactions that they have with individuals... I try to bake it into to my daily life. And whether that's a quick email, or over Slack, or whether it's a phone call...There's something that that I do every Friday, which is a 6:00 PM recurring calendar invite, which is actually more centered around gratitude. So it's more around, rather than recognizing an individual for what they've done. I try to do that as I go throughout my day, and it spurs at different moments. I don't really have a framework around that. But I do have a framework around making sure that I thank at least one or two people every Friday at the end of the week for what they've done. So whether that's an individual that had handled it difficult customer call, and I want to thank them for at least stepping up and showing leadership. Or for example, last Friday, I sent a note to a peer of mine who was really instrumental in helping me ramp here at the company, was really selfless in his time and walking me through the internal relationships, and how to think about now they gave him the company. And without that I probably would continue to be lost here at WeWork. So that's a few ways I think about it. I think recognition, it's never too much. I think that we should be recognizing small things, little things as much as possible. In my mind, I feel that just continues to build confidence in individuals, for them to continue to push themselves forward. And then I think about, gratitude as really powerful recognition. Not just for those that are making an impact to me and to the team, but also it feels good for my side to really be able to show that the impact that they're having on me, it's really meaningful.

Naber:  Yeah. Love it. And two questions on that one. One, how are you doing this? Is it email? Is it verbally? Is it walking over to their desk? Is it a one on one? Is it closed door conversation? Is it in front of the team? There's so many different ways to do this. How do you think about that, and how are you doing this? What's your strategy around it?

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, so mostly around a recommendation, right?

Naber:  Yeah, exactly.

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah. So I try, I try to 100% of the time to do it in person. I'm a big believer in, I think this goes with every type of interaction, I try to be very, very conscious and mindful of the setting and the atmosphere, right? So around recognition, I try to make sure, whether it's in a walking meeting, or outside, or try to have it over...it's gotta be in person, for me. And it could be just hey, let's take a walk to the lobby of our office. I try to have it in some type of a warm, casual type type of environment. So mostly the recognition is always in person. I feel like it's easy for us to be able to use online platforms, and texts, and whatnot. But be able to look somebody in the eyes, and be able to tell them wholeheartedly...to be able to speak to them and really have that moment where, hey, you, you've made a difference, you made an impact. Whether it's small or large, it's important that we share this in person, and I thank you for that. That, 100% of the time in my mind, needs to happen in person. It's really easy for us to be able to use so many different communication platforms, and ways to connect. Being able to do that in person is for me is really powerful.

Naber:  Nice. Good one. And my follow-up to that is, what have you seen is the pull through of that? What happens when you do that right? What are the next couple of actions, or what have you seen as some of the results from the people that you're saying thank you to, and your being grateful towards verbally, out loud? What does that do for both, them, for the team? What's the environment that it creates? So that people, that are going to be more conscious in the audience of doing this, like you mentioned it, what can they expect to be the output?

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. One of my superpowers is positivity, right? So, I'm always trying to index on bringing in a positive atmosphere, positive feedback, as much as possible. And I'm also a big believer in focusing on strengths, not weaknesses. There was a Harvard Business Review podcast around constructive feedback is kind of pointless, and that we should be focusing on what people do great, and focused on their strengths. So, when I think about recognition, for example, there was an individual a couple weeks ago that really managed this Sales process in a short time frame really, really well. It was really tight around the beginning of discovery, understanding what the client wants to achieve, to understanding the deal leverage that we had in order to be able to accomplish it in a short period. And I recognized that individual, and what I'm hoping that the pull through that I'm hoping to get out of that is, I asked the individual to share that forward. Like, this is a strength of yours. I want to recognize you because you did a great job at that. How do we scale this goodness? How do you take that and share this experience? Share your deal review with other members around you. There's so much that people can learn from you. And what I hope to get out of that, which happens a lot of times, is that person is then...there's a ripple effect around the benefits of what that person accomplished, and they're getting so much confidence from that. They're like, wow, I did something really well. I'm able to share a lot of individuals.; And they're going to take that forward into their next actions, their next couple of days of work, with so much confidence around, I did something great, I was able to share that with other individuals, and I know how to bring this forward to the rest of my week. So those are a couple of things that I think about in terms of recognition is like, let's focus on the strengths. How do we take whatever you did really good at, how do we share that? How do we scale that across others? And recognition for me, and I think it's always to inject this amount of confidence in individuals that they can then just continue to find success in whatever they're doing, moving forward.

Naber:  Love it. Love it. Good example too of the pull through. Thank you for that. And you alluded to this already...When you're thinking about developing others and also developing yourself in navigating your own professional development, you talk about focusing on strengths. Explain your mindset on that. How do you think about focusing on strengths? And how do you make sure that when you're talking to and giving advice to people around their professional development, their career development, how should they think about the strengths?...Sorry, How should they think about focusing on strengths as a strategy for moving forward?

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah. So, there's a couple parts to that. I think there's a lot of different tests out there to figure out what your strengths are, and how does that compare to some of your weaknesses, and how do you think about the two of those? There's Clifton Strengths Finder, which I think is a really cool one that I to use with my team sometimes. There's also, Travis Carson runs Marketforce, and it really helps you understand your style, your style indicator. So for example, for me and my market force style, I'm pretty balanced, but I'm moreso power. And the strengths in that for business for me are sustaining relationships over time, and very focused on tangible results. So, whatever platform someone wants to use to figure out what their strengths are, I think they should harness that and figure out how they bring that to life in their daily environment. When it comes to weaknesses, I think that's just how you compliment each other, right? If I'm strong in certain ares, but...I'm probably not that good in terms of process, and driving process across a Sales team or a sales org, I look to be able to buddy up with somebody that's really good at that, right? So that's how I think about the two. I'm working on that right now, and there's a few individuals that I work with in my leadership group that are really good at thinking about structuring a Sales process, and thinking about daily inputs, and pipeline, and what that means. I'm just not good at that right now. So I try to learn as much from that individual, but continue to focus on my strengths, which is building connections, and building meaningful relationships, and being able to be deep and intimate with my team, and in what they care about, and how they want to develop. And that's how about that, the two compliment each other.

Naber:  Awesome, man. That's great. All right, let's make a jump into WeWork. Talk about, when you left LinkedIn, how and why you made that jump, what you're responsible for right now, and then I've got a few more questions around some of the things that you, one took from LinkedIn into WeWork, and two how you're applying some of the things that I'm going to ask about at WeWork as well.

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, absolutely. So it's funny, it was about 14 months ago, two weeks before my kids were born. And a friend of mine from Yahoo!, he messaged me, he was now WeWork, and he said, we're growing crazy. We're looking for great Sales leaders in Asia. And I said, absolutely not not the right time, about to have twin boys. And I love what I do. I'm at LinkedIn. I love what I do right now. He was like, I think you should have a chat. So had a chat with them. His name is Nick W. and just absolutely loved the conversation. I said, okay, well let's speak to some more people that WeWork, had a few more conversations. And that was the crux at how this began, was that there was just some really talented, really thoughtful, really ambitious people that I kept speaking to. And that was number one reason of why I thought to move forward with this path to WeWork, was the talent. The second was really around the mission of the company. And as you know as well being at LinkedIn, super powerful, true north mission of connecting professionals to create opportunity. And we saw that manifest itself in so many stories, which is incredible. So I always told myself, if I'm going to to go to another company, it's going to be with one of the mission that I truly care about. And what I saw there was that LinkedIn was really good at connecting professionals online for them to make an impact in their career and their lives. And WeWork was really looking to do that offline, in physical space and physical environments. And I was like, that's really cool. It's almost like, it's almost going back in time. That should have happened first. But WeWorks actually bringing more of that personal touch and element back to networks, which LinkedIn did really good at scaling that digitally. And WeWork's mission of helping people create a life, not just the living. To be able to work in beautiful spaces, and accomplish great things. And when I when I was at LinkedIn in Hong Kong, we had a beautiful space, right? And we took it for granted. People would come in, and we bring clients, and groups, and students, all kinds of people. We turn them around, and 10 times out of 10 people would say, I would love to work in an environment this. And I started to think, man, everyone should be able to work in a beautiful environment. Everyone should be able to really enjoy the environment that they're working in. Not that's just aesthetically pleasing, but also has a community that brings it to life. So that that was a really big part of how I thought about WeWork. Lastly is the growth story, right? I think about transformation and the adventure of going to Italy. I just thought about how do I continue to learn and transform myself? And this is an opportunity to go back in time to a company, that still trying to figure out a lot of things, that has a really great growth trajectory. And I wanted to be a part of that, and take a lot of what I've learned, to apply it to this to the story.

Naber:  Awesome. That's great dude. so, I have three questions about this, and then we'll wrap. First one is, you've been at a few different businesses that are known for having kick ass cultures, really good cultures. And that has gotta be ingrained into the fabric of what people do at all times in order for it to actually sustain and persist over time. What have you noticed as the common themes...and it's still the honeymoon period right now for WeWork, but at the same time, when you know what a movie looks and you've seen the movie before, it can be a little bit different, but you know that you it and you recognize the things that you seen in the other movies that you like. Right? So when you think about LinkedIn, think about the things you really to Yahoo!, what you're seeing right now at WeWork, what are some commonalities between those businesses, that they have in their cultures, that every business should subscribe to, and try to do really well? Because it makes all the difference.

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, absolutely. So I think, the first thing that comes to mind, which I think is probably most powerful is this idea of collaboration, right? This idea, at WeWork we we call it, "We over Me". There was such a team type of mentality, even though you were in individual Sales sometimes, at Yahoo!. And then at LinkedIn we talked so much about building connective tissue across our teams, and building collaborative cultures, and a lot of that manifests in the way we went to market, right? And a lot of the way we conducted our business. And it's our first value at WeWork as well, is "We over Me". Which is, there's no individual that can come in and try to accomplish great things themselves, right? The minute we can come together, and think about how to tackle big challenges, big problems, difficult clients, complex situations, collectively, that's how we're going to be successful. And that manifests in our products as well at WeWork, right? These beautiful spaces that we're delivering, we try to have this idea of community, where people can at some point come together and collaborate, and innovate, and discuss, and drive their businesses forward. And that's been the common thread, I think, across all these companies. There's no type of type of me or individual attitude, it's we're going to win and fail together, and that's going to be our mentality.

Naber:  That's great man. Thanks. That's a good example. And when you're...This is specifically a WeWork question. When you think about the power of a workspace, the power of an office space, for those that are either doubters or neutral on the value of that to a team, from an engagement, performance, happiness, etc perspective, can you give us a couple passion points, or reasons why, or maybe points that would turn their mindset around? Or something that would say this is really important to think about, and this is why you should be thinking about it for your teams?

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, absolutely. So I'll give you, I'll give you two examples for me, personal first hand, around the two different space environments that I was a part of, at LinkedIn in Hong Kong, and now here at WeWork, at Chelsea HQ. Which is kind of a sandbox for a lot of our products. It's not what we advise for clients because it's absolute chaos...It's eclectic for sure. When I think about workspace, I don't think it is much as what it looks, and the feel. I mean that's really important, and having different types of areas for different groups or different cohorts - whether that's focused work, whether that's collaborative areas. I think more around the energy and the activation side of it. At LinkedIn in Hong Kong for example, we had about 14,000 square feet and about 50 employees. And it was really hard to drum up the right amount of energy because it was just too much space that we weren't utilizing. So put aside the financial aspect of like, I think we have too much space based upon our employee count. It was just really hard to get a lot of energy from that. So a lot of what we think about it WeWork is how do we create those right density levels that you're not on top of each other, but you're creating the right amount of energy. And we have so much data on so many companies that we're working with, especially our Enterprise customers which now makes up more than 40% of our customer base. We're able to design really cool spaces that activates, and creates the right amount of energy, at the right density levels for organizations. Corridors, we consciously put them in in a certain type of depth or whatever the metrics you want to use, so that people you have collision zones. And you might be able to say, hey, good to see you, haven't seen each other in awhile. And you create these interactions through how we design spaces. At WeWork, in HQ here, we've really pushed the envelope in terms of density levels, and there's a lot of individuals working in different types of environments. And what that's done is it's created an energy level that's infectious, right? That there's just a lot of excitement, a lot of excitement about what you do. There's constant interactions happening every single day because of how the space is designed. So, I think the takeaway for me in that, is really thinking about space in terms of what type of energy are you looking to have? What type of activation do you want to have from your employees? And being able to build beautiful spaces around that.

Naber:  Nice. Those are some good little tips and tactics for how space can create, almost, not accidental, because it's purposeful, but a meaningful interactions between individuals between work, as well as while they work. That's really interesting. Okay, I've got one more for you, and then we'll wrap. So the last one I want to talk about is something that you pulled from, my guess, both your time at Yahoo! and your time at LinkedIn. And I want to know how you're applying it, at WeWork. So, you've talked about, and I know people on your team were big on...you've also gone through some training on this, is my guess...is the power of storytelling. And using that as a vehicle to inspire - inspire customers, inspire teams, etc. So how do you think about the power of storytelling? What's a framework that you use? And how are you bringing that to life at WeWork, maybe with a couple of examples, that you've applied since you've been there? Or just generally how you're applying it.

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I think storytelling is such a powerful mechanism to inspire, and to motivate, and to bring ideas and experiences to life. I learned a lot about the power of storytelling through when I was running the transformation theme for LinkedIn a couple of years ago. So every year we focused on one culture or value and we tried to drive that home across our global Sales organization. A couple of years ago, it was the idea of transformation. And we thought early on, how do we bring this idea of transformation to life? We're gonna bring it to life through storytelling. So we're going to create a framework for transformation, and then we're going to share that through stories throughout the entire year. The culture of transformation at LinkedIn, we talk about it as transformation of self, company and world. There was a particular story of transformation that was really powerful. This woman in Australia, she really struggled early on in her role. And she also struggled at home. Her son was very sick. And she had to overcome both of those challenges. And she was able to do that through the people that she worked with, and her leader, And through the support of the people that she worked with. And she told this fascinating story that ended up with her son becoming very healthy through support, as well as her becoming very successful in her role. And through through that story, people read and were able to understand how people's lives can be transformed both personally and professionally. And one way I'm bringing that to WeWork, is right now in the moment we feel like there's a lot on our shoulders. We're at a stage of the company, where there's a lot going on...

Naber:  Massive compounding growth, $47 billion valuation, Pre IPO, rapido with employees, tons of stuff on your shoulders, lots of spotlight as well. I totally get that. Makes Sense.

Nick DeMarinis: Exactly. So among all of that, it's hard to keep your eye on the future, right? And I try to always think about that. I think about the story that we're going to go tell a year, two, five years from now. And there's an exercise that I to do that I'm going to be doing with my leadership team coming up, which is, I might be getting the name wrong, but I think it's called "doom or boom" storytelling, right? So what we want to do is like, we're each going to tell a story around two paths. Let's tell a story about, let's just say this gets screwed, right? Where this is going to be a doom, what goes wrong? Okay, we're, going to hire the wrong people, we're going to miss all of our Sales targets, we're going to lose our culture. And I think I want to hear those stories of where things go wrong. And then the story of where things go really well, right? If we're going to be really successful in the next year or two, what has to go right? Well, we brought great people on board. We were selling some of the biggest contracts ever. Whatever it is. And what that does is it helps us really illustrating and picture what those stories could look like. More importantly, I think it helps us identify the trends. Trends in the bad story that we want to make sure we get ahead of now. So there's always a common trends you start to see in these really bad stories. It's like, cool, what can we do to resource and get ahead of these right now so this doesn't happen. Cool, let's do that. And then the story that goes really well, focusing on strengths, right? Let's make sure we double down on those efforts. Whatever's going really well, how do we invest more time and resources in that? So I think the power of storytelling is really important to bringing experiences to life as well as thinking ahead of what you want your stories to be. Let's think about those on two different tracks, and let's learn from both of those.

Naber:  Love it, man. That's great. All right. You've been super generous with your time. I really appreciate it. And I've got two rapid fire questions for you, and then we'll break. Okay. First one, you've been in some really high stress jobs. You've been in some time intensive jobs. what are your best two or three tips on work-life balance?

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, I got two that I feel pretty strong about. One is, I make this place work for me, not work for this place, right? So I don't let a company or role dictate how I need to think about my family, my wellness. I make sure that I integrate that in, and I'm very vocal about that. That leads into the second part of it. Second part is just work life balance is to communicate it. I don't think there's really such thing as work life balance. I think it's harmony. Our lives are just way more connected than we possibly think. But a lot of us are afraid to talk about what we care about and what's matters to us outside of work. Whether that's my kids and dogs, whether that's someone that loves to go to to concerts or they have, they're really passionate about wellness. My biggest tip on that is just let's talk about it. Let's let's share with our peers, and our bosses, and those around us, what we do, what we care about and how do we can integrate that. Let's set expectations around how we work, and how we communicate, what's off limits, what are our pet peeves. And I think that's probably the two things that are more most passionate me. I don't try to find that balance. I try to find harmony in the two, and I figure out ways to make that work. And the second is, I over communicate. Everyone here knows that I try to get home for bath time by seven, because I really care about that with my kids. But I wake up at six, and I'm more than happy to take a phone call at six in the morning, right? Everyone's different. I want to get to know on my team, what they care about, how they to work. I think too many times we think about work life and we try to figure it out ourselves. I think we just need to get it out there, and let's talk about that with our team, let's talk about how we solve that. And it can be a really, really healthy conversation.

Naber:  Nice, love it. Last question, it's got two parts. Because I want to talk about your twins for a second...and that'll be the second part. First one is - and my audience knows this, but I'm going to explain for the guests, I asked this question on people's birthdays every single year - what is the most important learning or lesson you've acquired in the last 12 months, professionally?

Nick DeMarinis: Most important learning or lesson that I've acquired in the past 12 months professionally. That's a really great, that's a really great question. I would say it's gotta be around this idea of being vulnerable, and there's no such thing as a dumb question, something around that. I don't know the best way to frame it. But I think, for me, life and your career, you never have it figured out. There's never a role, or a company, or a function, where you're like, I've got it figured out. My biggest learning is to have just a really high sense of curiosity. To always be able to ask the questions, figure out how and why things work. Be very vulnerable to say, I don't know, I don't know the answer, or I don't know this yet. Can you help walk me through that? More so in the past four and a half months from WeWork than the previous...at LinkedIn I felt like I had a lot of it figured out. Where here I'm in this really uncomfortable situation where I'm trying to still figure a lot of it out. So being very vulnerable, and being able to be like, hey, I don't have it figured out. I have a lot of questions. Help me, walk me through this. That's the biggest lesson that I've learned in the last few months.

Naber:  Good one. I like it. Part B is, you are a fresh, little over one year dad of twinsies - twin boys, identical twin boys. I read a statistic the other day that between 88 and 90% of the human population reproduces. So the odds of someone listening on this podcast, are that they have kids, will have kids, or at least they know someone very close to them. So, what is the most important learning or your lesson you've acquired in the last 12 months, being the father of one year old twin boys?

Nick DeMarinis: Yeah. Good question. There's a lot. Can we extend this an hour?

Naber:  Yeah, sure. Go for it. Get out your calendar, get ready audience, here we go.

Nick DeMarinis: For me, I think the biggest parallel of being father and a leader is, is around sacrifice, right? I think I've always loved seeing others succeed, and be able to sacrifice my time to help others be successful, or trying my best at that. Becoming a father of the last year, you just realize how much you have to sacrifice to be able to support these tiny humans as they go through these different stages of development. And there's so many parallels there. And you do have to sacrifice a lot. Me and my wife, we've really had work together around what the sacrifice looks like, and how do we do the best for our kids. It's helped me realize the bigger picture, that the day to day of our lives and of work is trivial compared to the bigger picture of why we are here on this earth. Raising kids, and just getting so excited about each stage of development, and what their life is going to be like years from now. I think that same way around my team here, and what they're learning now, and what they're going through is really challenging. But they're going to get through it, it's transformation. And I can't wait to see what they grow up to be in their personal professional lives years from now. So I think, there's a couple things to unpack there. I think the amount of sacrifice that you have to to help yourself and to help others really starts to become apparent when you're a parent. This idea of just really looking at the big picture of development, and the story of of your children growing up, as well as the teams that you're working with, and what their careers could look like. It gets you to start thinking way further ahead than just the day-to-day in front of you.

Naber:  Hey everybody, thanks so much for listening. If you appreciated and enjoyed the episode, go ahead and make a comment on the post for the episode on LinkedIn. If you love The Naberhood Podcast, we'd love for you to subscribe, rate, and give us a five star review on iTunes. Until next time - go get it.

Guest:

Nicolas Draca - Chief Marketing Officer @HackerRank

(Formerly @Twilio, @LinkedIn, @Infoblox)

Guest Background:

Nicolas Draca has over 20 years of experience in sales and marketing. He is currently the CMO at HackerRank.

Prior to HackerRank, he was the Vice President of Marketing at Twilio. Prior to Twilio, Nicolas spent five years at LinkedIn, holding the position of senior director, global marketing operations. Before LinkedIn, in 2004, he co-founded Ipanto and served the same company as the chief marketing officer. Ipanto was acquired by Infoblox in 2007, where he spent another 3 years as a Director, building their Demand Marketing function globally.

Nicolas holds a master’s degree from ICN Business School, France. He is also an advisor and early investor in several startups and incubators (like Y Combinator).

Guest Links:

LinkedIn

Episode Summary:

In this episode, we cover:

- The Science of Marketing Playbook - 4 Pillars (Talent, Insights, Operations, and Lifecycle)

- The Formula for Hiring, Onboarding, and Developing Successful Marketing Teams

- Critical Alignment w/ Your Manager and Stakeholders: What is your job?

- Data and Measurement - Moving from Data to Intelligence

- The Account-Based Marketing Method

Full Interview Transcript:

Naber:  Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to The Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest growing companies. Enjoy!

Naber:  Hey everybody. Today we have Nicolas Draca on the show. Nicolas has over 20 years of experience in Sales and Marketing. He is currently the Chief Marketing Officer at HackerRank, who have raised $58 million in capital. Prior to HackerRank. He was the Vice President of Marketing at Twilio. Twilio IPO's back in 2016, and they currently have a $17 billion valuation. Prior to Twilio, Nicolas spent five years at LinkedIn holding the position of Senior Director of Global Marketing Operations. LinkedIn IPO'd back in 2011, and they were acquired by Microsoft in 2016 for $27 billion. Before LinkedIn. In 2004, he co-founded Ipanto and served the same company as the Chief Marketing Officer. Ipanto was acquired eventually by Infoblox in 2007, where he spent another three years as a Director building their Demand Marketing function globally. Nicolas holds a Master's Degree from ICM Business School in France. He is also an advisor and early stage investor in several startups and incubators like Y Combinator. Here we go.

Naber:  Nicolas, awesome to have you on the show. How are you?

Nicolas Draca:   I'm doing fantastic. Thank you for having me.

Naber:  Yes, I'm so glad to have you. Hearing your French accent makes me think about the French holiday I just had, the French holiday that you just had, in addition to being in Greece and having all the amazing food. I am so excited to have you on. I've learned a lot from you in a short space of time when we've worked together in the past. Gotten to know you a little bit personally. Many of the people I've worked with have gotten to know you personally and professionally, and there's just so many good things to say about you, as a person and as a professional operator. So I'm more than excited for the audience to hear what you have to say. So why don't we jump in? What I think we'll do is, we'll get into some of the professional jumps that you've had through your career, talk about your career, as well as a bunch of the frameworks, the mindset you have, some of the methods that you've gone through and used in your playbook, if you will. But first, I think it'd be helpful, if it's okay with you, is to start to get to know you a little bit personally so that they can build up the same fascination as I have with you as an individual, and maybe we'll start back in the day, if you will. Maybe, we'll start in your childhood. So why don't we start with...I mean, you grew up in France, you were based in Strasbourg, you were born in Strabourg and grew up there, you were based in Frankfurt, then Strasbourg again, San Francisco, you've got so many global experiences. What was it like as a kid growing up as Nicolas Draca? And what are some of the things you're interested in?

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah. So I grew up in France, in Strasbourg - border with Germany - East. And what was it to be Nicolas Draca? Well, I would say not much, pretty shy kid. Just following my friends wherever they would go. I was not the leader, that's for sure. I was average in every single sport. I was okay with it, no ego there. It's just, like, anything I would play, I was just average. I think that summaries what it was when I was young. I think school, I was average. Sport, I was average. I think great friends. I lived in the countryside. So after school, I was more about going outside, playing in the forest, playing with my bike. And that was my life as a young kid.

Naber:  Very cool. And what were some of your hobbies, your interests as you were growing up?

Nicolas Draca:   It was being outside, and I think this is still the case today. We lived in a small village. There were like 200 people, in my class were nine, on my level. Being with friends, outside, playing whatever, playing soccer, running around, jumping on our bike, whatever you can imagine.

Naber:  Very cool. Very cool. And as you're going through high school, were there certain subjects or anything you acceled at where you thought at a young age, you were pretty good at it naturally?

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah. I specialized pretty quickly in math and physics. I have boys. I was a boy. I was just going with the flow. I'm just no big plan, no ambition, no nothing. To be fair, ,when I talk to friends today, and they look like where I am today, they struggled to connect between what I was when I was young, and what I do today. Like, really? That's what you've done and that's who you are. So yeah, just I go back to that just an average kid.

Naber:  It's funny, I'm laughing so much, and I have to hold it in because of the microphone, but I'm laughing. That's really interesting...What did your parents do for a living?

Nicolas Draca:   My father was a Sales guy, and my mother was a teacher. And then my father moved from Sales in consulting to building his own company. Actually he created two companies, two startups.

Naber:  Wow. So that was in your genesY

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Part of the education was you started in a job early, starting when you're 16 - it's like, first job, same for my sister, I have one sister. And you're going to have to work. Yeah, that was in our genes, that's for sure.

Naber:  Very interesting. And what was the first thing you did to make money?

Nicolas Draca:   The first thing I did to make money was to work in a restaurant as a waiter. And then the second thing, I ended up driving ambulance.

Naber:  Whoa.

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah. That was my summer job. So this was when I was 18, you'll can only drive in France when you're 18. That was something really unique, learned a ton from it, specifically on the people side. And I think if I didn't have started computer science at that time, maybe I would have moved into being a doctor or something in the medicine field.

Naber:  Wow. What were some of the things that you learned? You're probably about to say that.

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah. Wow. So when you drive when you drive an ambulance, you drive people from home to the hospital, or you drive them back. So quite quickly you understand and you see where they live, and you see all type of people, all social aspects of it. And so that was one part of it, which when you're young, I was like 18, 19, that's just wow, it was pretty surprise, I'd say. The other thing is, we will also doing ER type of thing, I don't know how we say it in English, but like we would go...there are car accidents, and we would go there and pick up the people. And yeah, we did a couple of ones where...once we went for somebody who committed suicide to pick 'em up.

Naber:  Wow.

Nicolas Draca:   so it's a, I mean a, you guys can go a little bit on it to give you an idea, but the, you arrive there and the person tried to, cut is they yeah. And yeah, but, but survived it. And so it was really a weird kind of set up because you arrived, you don't know the person, so you're completely disconnected. whereas there's a lot of drama going on around the seminary. You come here and you just try to do your job and then you have those weird part of the story where actually, which we have to do is to chase a cat with trying to leak the blog. We're story, but we ended up running in the k frame to chase that cat was trying to lead all the blog. yeah. Yeah. It's just kind of weird setup slash weird experience and we had many of those, which I'm not sure I want to share.

Naber:  Oh Wow. That's an amazing short story. You walked into a storm on a bottle and you have to write into the bottle every single time. Yeah. Yup, Yup, Yep, Yup, Yup. Wow. That is, that's probably the most interesting answer I've gotten to that question. That's a really good answer.

Nicolas Draca:   It says a, it was a unique experience actually. I a I still remember that, that job and I think I got lucky to get that job for a couple of months, a few years. And yeah. Do you find a lot? I think where I am today.

Naber:  Very cool. Wow. You always learned something really interesting about somebody. You have these types of conversations, so you're in Strasburg, driving ambulances, working at restaurants, being, being, being, being a average, probably not average. You're probably overselling the average part of it. But, so then you're making decisions about where you want to go to school for university. how, what's the decision you make at that point? And tell us, walk us through, your decision around school. After, after high school

Nicolas Draca:   I started, I had the chance of a started coding when I was young, like 11 year old. I'm 46 today, so 11 mean like in 84. at that time, you do not have access to computer, but we were lucky that intermediate school, we had computer. I think there was somebody who was passionate about it, was able to get a couple of computer for us. And so I'd have passion for it. Then decided quickly to move into computer science. I'm a major, and then got my bachelor in computer science. And then, my idea was you're going to find this weird, I wanted to work in a golf. I played golf. I loved it. I taught my other job, my third job on the weekend. And super weird. So I interviewed for a golf school, to be in management. And at the same time I interview for interview for a business school, meaning to go through the process to be accepted and went for business school and went from my business school aftermy computer degree, the master in business and then, took my first job.

Naber:  Wow. Not In the Gulf company.

Nicolas Draca:   no, not a in a golf company. I still, I don't play actually anymore. but at that age, I don't know. And my parents were highly supportive. They're hey, you want to go? Even though you graduated for computer science, who went to be in the gold business? Go for it. so I had the oldest support up to me to make some decision, super happy about what happened.

Naber:  Nice. Cool. I wouldn't want to, I wouldn't want to compete with you on the links. I'm sure that you're much better than you're saying you right now. So let that, does that get us to GE Capital? Is that the first role out of school?

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah. Out of school. My first job was, a Sales guy at GE Capital. And here I was selling infrastructure, so laptop, desktop servers, printers applications, for a large company in the east of France. So that's what my first job and that's where I met. I started the same day somebody called a Duchenne. Why cool. Founded a pencil, later on with

Naber:  very cool. And so you were up, that's really interesting story. I'm sure we'll get to that in a second also. And you were obviously quite technical walking into that role. Was that really helpful walking in as with the quite technical mind to get into an account management slash Sales role at GE Capital and for it solutions?

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah, it was, it was a, it wasn't nice to have actually two is not that complex. A, it was a new laptop computer, right? Yeah. To have a passion for it. So I had a passion for it, but not treating immediate at that stage. like here was really hardcore Sales. It was my first job, in back in the day you would start, there was no internet then I'm going to speak like an old guy. So actually you had the yellow pages. That's what I remember. And I was pretty shy. Like you have to remember that the, why am I in trail? Good question. and on a on day one, I get the yellow pages, which is not the best way to onboard somebody and say, hey, good luck and go and try to sell. And I had the number of to deliver on.

Nicolas Draca:   the story is as well as the on friends factors actually what is happening in inferences. Sometimes they do a writing test where they analyze how you write. I think it tell them that country, I'm not sure. Yeah. Long Story Short, I started day one and then my boss come to see me and saying, hey, they just finished on an icing your the way you're right and we cannot keep you because more or less a summary, you get a report, three pages on the report. and the reports say you're a loser and you will never be able to handle pressure, and grow in your career. So are, you're going to have to leave tonight, and you can not stay. And I'm what? So it came back pretty upset to meet with the VP of Sales of GE.

Nicolas Draca:   Excellent. its in Paris and then hey, that, that's not how it's gonna play out. Right. You were first from a legal standpoint, you're not allowed to do that. Number two, it's highly, disrespectful to onboard needs to get started to two and then decide after day one based on how I write. I agree with that. My writing is terrible, but then decide who I am as a person. so I kept that, I kept the report, and I showed it to my kids later. I'm yes, that's what your dad was. That's where happened. So that was my first job, actually. They one I came back home.

Naber:  Well

Nicolas Draca:   I'm I'm I was already withmy wife.

Naber:  Yeah. Oh my gosh. so in a marathon you're not supposed to pre sprint from the start, but we are sprinting with good stories so far. This is hilarious and great. It's just excellent. So, what is the, what's the biggest thing you learned at GE Capital? And then we'll talk about your jump to CSC.

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah. So a g tactical here was, so, I learned what it cost to be on the first real job and being a Sales person, what it took and how to be a, leave you smart. And what I mean by that is how can you make your quota the fastest way possible. and here we add professional services on one end, which was like 30% margin. We had a infrastructure which was 5% margin. And of course my quota was based on a much more genuine would bring to the table and decided where as we were in a selling hardware emotion in the company, decided to do all of my business in services, and professional services, sorry. This is my learning is what is the fastestto achieving, to beating quota was the learning of spending a couple of years at GE.

Naber:  Yeah. Nice. That's great. Yeah. You've quoted a couple of times. whatever you're doing, somebody else's probably done it better than you. Don't reinvent the wheel, learn from others and be lazy, smarter. Yeah. I really liked that quote. And it's obviously something you can learn really early in your career. okay. Yeah,

Nicolas Draca:   I actually have the, it's a, it's a big, big one is a, it's trying to look and does, this is what I did unconsciously though looking around me and there was one Sales rep who was highly successful and one was working really hard but not like I was working like 14 hours a day, but not being as successful. So I loved that the successful one. And I tried to understand the dynamic of the deals then and learn from it, then cloned it.

Naber:  Nice. Excellent. Okay. So you're at GE Capital, you're learning a lot about what it's like to carry a bag, be a Sales person for the first time, you're making a jump to CSC. What did you make the jump to CSC, and what were you doing at that job?

Nicolas Draca:   Yes, so CSC, one of my friends was leading one of the team at CSC, Computer Science Corporation, it was in the outsourcing business and it was focusing on transformation. And transformation at CSC will assign hundred of millions of dollars of deals where they will start outsourcing both infrastructure and people, and moving them into CSC. And our friend was putting a team together to help him through this transformation phase. And so you will work on an account for like 6 to 12 months max. And your job would be as fast as possible to be able either from an infrastructure standpoint, from a people standpoint, from a process standpoint, to migrate to CSC. So here it opened up to all of Europe because all of those contracts where across Europe or across the world and more of an international angle to what I was doing before.

Naber:  Very good. Okay. And so you made that jump, and Program Manager. So day to day, what are you doing?

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah, day-to-day the way it would work is we would be in charge of projects, all of those transformation projects. And depending on the project we had lined up, or our goal would be to work with a set of people...I had a couple of project manager working for me, you will have infrastructure people, you will have architects, you will have procurement, and so on. And just being able to orchestrate and to coordinate all of it to deliver on time. So the way it would work is as part of the process before starting on anything, you would send a quote to your customers saying this is a how many hours I'm going to spend, and this is how much it's going to cost. So you just ship within the hours you're committed to.

Naber:  Are you creating that estimate or is someone else creating it and you're delivering on it?

Nicolas Draca:   No, I have to create that estimate. And it was like massive, like millions of dollars every time. So, it was the first time I worked on really, really large contracts, so pretty exciting.

Naber:  Yeah. Excellent. Okay. So you're at CSC, this is what you're doing day to day, and you are six and a half, seven years into your career at this point, your belt to make your first major entrepreneurial jump for Ipanto. Tell us about why you decided to start Ipanto, and the story for how it started, as well how you're ultimately acquired by Infoblox, which sounds like a great story.

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah. So what happened is...one of the projects we were managing - so I was still working with my friend Eric from GE, we went together to CSC - and one of the projects we were working on is IP address management. So what was happening is people were trying to find a way to manage their IP addresses on their network. And they were using spreadsheets, which seems surprising, but that was more or less the go-to. And if you think about it like every single device, like your laptop here, your printer, whatever, has an IP address. And as you can imagine pretty quickly, you can not keep up. If you have 5,000 employee, and I don't know 3-4 IP addresses per employee, you cannot manage IP addresses in a spreadsheet. Then we looked at it for a customer and realized, that there was only one company that was doing that as a software, and they were charging per active IP per year, and it was $1.50. And with the explosion of IP addresses, we looked at it and were like, oh man, we have to create a company. So we started looking what other competitors were doing on the side, and at some point decided to create our own company...We had hired...So what we're doing is more or less, we stayed at CSC as consultants. So we work for them. So our daytime job was CSC. Our nighttime job was building our company, which many people do. So it was all bootstrapped and it took us like a couple of years to get an MVP and we started closing customers. And we did a decent job I think on the Marketing side, we did a decent job on our footprint where people believed we were a large company. With Skype you could open...we had, not fake, but we had numbers in Australia - a phone number in Australia, we have numbers in the US - phone numbers. So, as we had global reach, we will send quote like across the globe, and we would time our email to look like we were in the region. We also created a set of names, so I had multiple names. I was Shawn, the product manager. I was Nicolas, the CMO. I was also John, from support. And so emails we're going out, and we automated all of it, to make you believe that we were a large organization, but to ensure that people could engage with us through support, which we call customer success today. Or through the product team, saying hey, what do you think about the solution? And so on and so on. So, yeah, that's what we did.

Naber:  So you're effectively like the equivalent of a chatbot with all of your names, and you are your own follow the sun model, as in like you did everything probably 24 hours during the day. How many people did you eventually have a on the team?

Nicolas Draca:   So we went up to 10 employees, mostly engineers. So we build a small engineering team in Strasbourg. And then we had that rule, as a Sales leader you would appreciate it, and this was coming from my father. So my father, had a rule for a Sales rep that if you go to Paris at that time, you need to have three meetings a day. If you travel three meetings a day. We applied the same rule at the European level. So if we had people pinging us from any country, and we were able to secure a free meetings a day, we'll go and we'll take a flight. So we went to Dubai multiple times. We went to Saudi Arabia. We went to Turkey. Meaning that's where inbound was coming from. Was it rational in terms of like weighted pipeline and how much money we would make, it was not, we did not have that experience. What is it efficient in term of meetings? Yes, it was. And then we were having long meetings and we built partnerships across most of the Europe, which was pretty cool at that time, and got us to meet some great prospects. And then at some point, we decided...two things happened. I'm going to get you to Infoblox. One is...I don't know for what reason actually, I can not recall...we decided to raise funding. And the plan was, with my associate, he said, hey, you know what, you're going to go to the valley, and you're going to meet with VC. And I never met with VC before, nor have I ever put a business plan together the way a VC in the valley would expect it. So, one of the leaders in the space, Infoblox, just raised 20 million at that point. We send an email through some connection, and we end up with like 20 meetings in one week. I'm like, rule of 3, works. Jump on a plane. And I went there alone, when I think about it, it's pretty, I don't know if it was stupid, but it was interesting. Went there alone with my deck, seven slides. And my first meeting, I think it was Accel, I end up with like five people in the room, like partners. Tell me about your company and so on. I go through the meeting, I explained what I could explain. Was pretty weak on the finance side of the deck, which was the last part of the deck, focusing more on the customers we had, and the dynamic of the business, and the size of the market. But more or less, I did one meeting after the other like this. We didn't raise any funding, to be clear. Somebody told us unless I can call you at 11 first to have lunch together, we're not gonna work together...But we learn a ton through the process. We started discovering how people think here. How do they see the world? How do they manage their businesses? And actually, on the last two or three meetings, people just starting giving us advice, which I highly respect the US for...anybody, like trying to grow a company or be an entrepreneur in general. And people are really nice and friendly to give us advice about what we should do next, and how we should think about our business...And in parallel what we did is we ended up working on a deal with a company called PG&E. So coming from France, I have no bloody clue who PG&E was. It's not that I haven't done my homework, but we had all that inbound and we were just...And so we ended up in final on PG&E against a company called Infoblox. And we didn't win, whereas we had the support from the engineering team. And then Infoblox reach out to us getting really upset just starting to see us in deals, incuding that large PG&E deal. And the BD person, as well as the GM for Europe, Karl, ping'd us and said, I need to meet you. I need to spend time with you. I need to understand who you are. And this is where the initial discussion started.

Naber:  Wow. Really interesting. Someone to reach out to directly from Infoblox and said, we need to meet you. Were you pretty guarded with those conversations? Did you feel like it was a com-partnership, or did you feel like it was more like them kind of feeling you out as competition?

Nicolas Draca:   Yes. So we already had another competitor in the space who approached us, and our first feedback was we're not going to talk to. Like, we don't want to talk to you. And Karl, Karl changed our life somehow. We saw him at a show, and he's like, I want to see your product, like, show me, show me, show me. And we're nah, dude, we don't want to, we already had this. It happened two weeks ago. We were again pretty young, and we're like, no way, we're not showing you your product. That's not going to happen. Screw that. And then he pushed again and got the VP of Marketing and the VP of Sales to ping us and they say, hey, you know what we're going to do? Actually we're going to fly to Santa Clara. And you're going to come and present, and we're going to sign an NDA, pay for your travel, and everything. And at that point we're like, okay, again the rule of a couple of meetings, let's go to the valley. And then based on our learnings, meeting with all the VC in the valley, we were really set up for success in the meeting we would have there - understanding how they think, understanding how they approach things, and being able to engage in the right way through all the meetings. So it ended up being a successful week. There was really a good fit between their team and our team. They really love our technology and loved the way we were working. And then we quickly within a few months closed the deal, sold the company, and moved everybody in California, the engineers, and so on.

Naber:  Wow. That's great. You've been a part of...you were required Infoblox at Ipanto, you had Talentoday that you're an investor in who was acquired by Medix in 2018, you've been a part of multiple IPO businesses. Do you have any advice for people going through that acquisition process, especially as a founder, especially as a Senior leader on the exec team?

Nicolas Draca:   I think when when you go for that process you need to be...so a couple of things. One, we were pretty clear that based on our skillset, and based on our capacity to raise funding, we could not grow the company more. Okay. It didn't end up being a large company, it was a small startup, but we were aware and self aware that hey, we reached our limit. And so we decided to go on the path to...It's not like a week before Infoblox ping'd us we were like, we're going to sell. Like I think we built and designed the company for six months with a path to sell the company. So that was one. There was no ego involved on this one - that was the second one. And number three goes back to what you want to do as part of that opportunity. Right? You as a leader, do you want to be part of the adventure still? Or, I'm going to sell and stay six months and go. For us, again, we were clear we wanted to sell. We still believe in our product, and we wanted to push it and get that product / solution successful and growing, becoming the leader on IP address management. That's what our dream. And we executed on it. The last piece is of course, culture fit, or the fit with the team that are going to acquire you. Pretty often what you see, you get acquired and then everybody disappears, right? And you're not even sure your product is gonna survive that acquisition. And here for us it was really, really important that, we would get on well with the people that are acquiring us, that we were clear that we would be part of the adventure moving forward, and we could still execute on our vision to lead or yeah, to own IP address management, which was what we were doing. And this is what we did.

Naber:  Nice. Excellent. It's a really good segue into Infoblox and you building the Demand Marketing function there. So as someone that went through an acquisition, you're founder or co-founder of the company going into that new company, tell us about what you were doing at Infoblox. And can you give it to us from the perspective of someone who just got acquired? Because someone that is thinking of their business with an exit strategy, it might be good for them to also hear it from a lens of, we were acquired and this was what it was like in the aftermath or the afterlife in the new company.

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah. So first we were acquired. It took us some time to understand that...it was by a smart team. We did not realize - we just moved to the Bay, we had no sense of the dynamic here. It took me like a couple of years actually. I understood they were smart, but those people, it was their 4th IPO. They we're trying to go to their next IPO, they've done three of them. I was like, cool, what is an IPO? Congratulations. But the quality of talent that they assemble and the success they had in the past, I think just facilitated the vision of how we would work together. But again, this we didn't know about, right. I learned it later. But quickly, we agreed...We had a bonus structure based on revenue of our company, revenue of our product, sorry. And what happened, and I think you're going to love that one. So, Ipanto the IP address management product, was a highly successful lead gen product. Why? Because replace your spreadsheet to manage IP addresses was something everybody would understand and would get excited about, versus the other products that Infoblox that had at the end of the day are not that sexy, and actually you're competing with free. So it was kind of a Trojan horse. And the Sales strategy, which I didn't know, was to use our product to enter into accounts, to start a discussion. But the goal is to sell the other products.

Naber:  You're the land.

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah, I'm the land play, but on the discussion, not even selling it. And I got pretty quickly upset about it because again, we had with my buddy a vision that we wanted to lead IP address management, and they were using our leads just to do that, which is to land a discussion. And the piece you're gonna like is what I'm going to tell you now, is at some point this was also channel business. Okay. And they were not managing all the leads. And I found a channel partner to take over all the leads. So I went to see the Head of Sales, and I'm like, Hey, your team doesn't seem that excited. I have a bonus tied to it. And we went to execute on the vision, it's all good - and I was like, Director in that company, Director of Demand Gen, I was a nobody - and I'm like, I'm going to move over all the leads to that channel partner, and actually I'm going to Seattle to train them next week. Okay. And at that point, my boss, the VP, Marketing came andsaid hey, we are we going to have a timeout - like, you have to stop. And I'm like, why?...We understand you have a bonus tied to everything. We're going to pay your bonuses, we're good. And we are going to stick back to our strategy. But I think they did appreciate the commitment and the passion around that, saying, hey that's cool. Now can you do what you do to the rest of the business, and not focus only on your world?

Naber:  Wow, really interesting. I mean you brought an entrepreneurial, founder mindset and you went in hot with an executive that's the Head of Sales. And that is not an easy thing to unlearn that mindset once you're running a startup, once you're a founder of a business, that is not an easy thing to unlearn when you go into a larger environments. I'm sure they really appreciated both the structure and method of the problem solving, as well like you said, the dedication to solving the problem, which is great.

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah. And it's not being a jerk as part of the process. What I say sometimes to my team...we were at some point, agreeing in our disagreement on the vision, and it's about having a discussion saying, Hey, this is the issue, the way I'm going to solve is okay, I'm gonna move on. And I think being able to have that level of discussion in a constructive way, and agreeing in your disagreement, is always a good thing to decide what to do next.

Naber:  Nice. Excellent. And I'm sure that'll play a little part of talking about some different pieces of your playbook a little bit here. So we're gonna jump from Infoblox into LinkedIn, Twilio, and HackerRank. Heavy hitting, awesome, really interesting hyper-growth organizations that you've joined at very different stages, and endured for very different stages. And you've just done such amazing things at these businesses. So why don't you talk about the jump into Linked, what you were doing at LinkedIn, maybe for a couple minutes. And then I'll pull up, I want to talk about a couple of what I know are your superpowers, as you're going through both that role...and you can jump into examples before you get to Twilio, before you get to HackerRank. But just jump into how you joined LinkedIn and what you did there.

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah. So when I joined LinkedIn, I focused initially on the Talent Solution business. It was before the IPO, again, I know you're pretty familiar with that business. And here if the goal was to build a Demand Gen engine to support that Talent Solution business. And if I recall it correctly, I'm not 100% sure about the number, I think our prior year the revenue was like 80 million. And I come, I think their Marketing team was like 30 people all together, reporting into Nick, and my team was like two people. And I look after two weeks, and I put a plan together, super proud of how fast I did my plan. You'll see what happened next. I go and meet with the CMO of LinkedIn, and I'm like, Hey, here it is. Here is my vision, this is how we are going to grow from...I'm going to build an organization to support $500M, from $80M. And he looks at me, and he's like, I like your plan. It's a good plan. It's not ambitious enough. And I say, what? I'm like, 80 to 500. He's like, yeah 10x. Like the rule at LinkedIn was like 10x always. And I'm like, what about 10x? He's like, year, you need to build a plan for to support a $billion because Talent Solutions is going to be our first billion dollar business. And I'm like, you're joking, right? He's like, no, no, I'm not. Can you please come back next week with an update on your plan? And I'm like, of course. So I go back to my cubicle work on my plan. Then he pings me, Hey, can you come to see me in my office the day after. I come to see him the day after in his office, he's like, Hey, I really liked your plan. This was Talent Solutions. It's like I just hired a lead on the Marketing side for Marketing Solutions, and I love for you to help her to build a Demand Gen engine again. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Yesterday you told me to go from 80 to a $billion, now you asked me to to focus on this. I'm like, I cannot do that, I have two people. He's like, nah, figure it out. And this is how is has been since day one. And this is where you learn the scaling muscle, hyper-growth muscle. More or less, I mean you've been through that journey, being on a high speed train and building the tracks at the same time, at scale.

Naber:  Yeah. Speed. The ultimate function of speed.

Nicolas Draca:   Speed. I think it's the ultimate function of, okay, speed and demanding excellence, which is a core value. Because whatever you're going to do as an experiment, if it's works, you're going to have to 10x that experiment. And 10x can mean the same thing you build in the US is going to have to work in Europe, in Australia, in Brazil, or it's going to have to scale across the organization, across all business lines. And when you are initially...I remember the first couple of months being exhausted. But not exhausted because I was working, I wasn't working 16 hours a day, not in like number of hours. It's the intensity of the meeting. Like in half an hour, and again you've been through that, you'll have a meeting in half an hour, and you come with a V1 of something, after half an hour you would be at V5. And if if you had to check your phone for two minutes during the meeting, you would be lost. Like if you did not follow the discussion, you're like what are you talking about? That's level to speed, yeah, you went back to it. Speed, demanding excellence, and all the core values of the company. Yeah, it was incredible.

Naber:  Amazing. Okay. So you're at LinkedIn and you're undoubtedly iterating on and building new pieces of your playbook. One of the things that you've talked about in a few different forums, you've been interviewed on this, you've been on stage talking about this, is your Four pillars of the Science of Marketing - Talent, Insights, Operations, and Lifecycle. What I'd love to do is start picking apart each one of those, because we're at LinkedIn now and I know you've developed quite a bit of muscle fiber putting together a lot of the playbook there, and then ultimately exercising it more and more, and iterating more and more at Twilio and HackerRank. Can you go through, the basics of those four pillars, and give us a little bit of sense for how your frameworks work within each of them. So maybe we can start with talent, and then move from there. Is that okay?

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah, of course. So talent is about, I mean it's number one. And it doesn't come from me, it comes from LinkedIn as the driving force for success. And it's something I learned at LinkedIn. I appreciated at Twilio, and I appreciate it even more at HackerRank. It's about how you're going to build your team, who you're going to hire, and how are they going to be able to scale, right? Not having any compromise on who you're going to hire. And the process we had, and I think it was across the company, but you can tell me, was when you hire somebody...So first we want to somebody for their current job or their job description, but we're hiring somebody for their capacity to grow, and scale, and be in a job two years from now... But when you are in a high growing startup, you never hire people for what they're going to do the next six months. That's not gonna work. And the number one thing is, people who will go through the interview process will decide who will test on what, but at the end of the day when we will regroup after talking to a candidate, 100% have to be a yes. I know it was the same on your end, I think. 100% have to be yes. Otherwise, we'll pass on the candidate. It doesn't mean the candidate was a bad candidate. The guy could be like super smart, super...it's just, it did not work. But two things that are really important. Number one is people knew that if the said no, there will be consequences, right? Meaning that person would not get hired, right? So you have to work with people who understand that. Number two is if somebody said no, you can go back, if you have one out of seven people saying no, you had the opportunity to get back to that person and say, Hey, you are the only no, just doing one last check that you are 100% no, because we're going to pass on this candidate. And the person has to be, I'm going to say smart to even maybe come back and say, hey actually let me re check my notes. Let me check that, and maybe I was wrong, which not many people are able to say. Or I was right, and I picked my my view...And I was wrong, I'm actually a yes, and let's move forward. So first is no compromise on hiring talent and spend the time between needed to find the right person. The other one is hiring is a full time job. And initially when you build a team, it's not the thing you're going to do at seven at night. You just want to block your calendar to just have that muscle, and spend the time partnering with your recruiter, looking yourself in your network, and so on. But it's a full time job. And then when you've done all that job of hiring, next step is onboarding and after it's nurturing, right? It's how you going to help people understand who they are as a professional, and what are they good at, what are they less good at, and it starts there. And what is the path for them to grow? It can be a year plan, a 2 year plan. Whatever it takes to ensure that you assembled the best team possible, a team that is going to collaborate. I think collaboration is at the heart of it. I think specifically in Marketing, I'm not going to talk about other organizations, but in Marketing you are the center of so many things that if you don't have like collaboration / communication skills, it's going to be a little bit hard to succeed. So that's one. The second one for me is demanding excellence. Demanding excellence across anything you do. And the third one is passion. Passion for your job. I can talk more about it, but I think when people ask me what do you look for in a candidate? I'm like, okay, you look for the skills and so on. I'm going to look for culture fit and passion. And both are going to be equally important.

Naber:  Yeah. Excellent. When you were going through these interviews...ABP always be pipelining, like you said, just building that muscle all the time. You're the CEO of the hiring process, you own the hiring process. As you're going through, and you're going through the interviews, what was the calibration exercise like after that? What were the nuts and bolts of that method you use to calibrate with the rest of the team after you were done with the interviews?

Nicolas Draca:   Yes. So they way it was working is, we do this today at HackerRank, we have something called job guidelines. When we agree what are the skill set that are needed for the job. And we defined the skillset and what we expect from them. And the same way I love to had passion for the company, passion for the job, which I have two different, which are different. And then I had culture, values as part of the scorecard. Okay. What we do is everybody has to...so there no like, oh yeah, I didn't have time to update, and I'm just sending you an email and this thing is going to be okay. No, everybody has to [complete] the scorecard. It is super important. At HackerRank, and depending upon your entry level, if it goes Director and above, actually the entire package goes to our CEO, he wants to review it. And it's really, really... Like if you don't have the package ready, he's not going to approve it. Like he's not even going to interview with the person. And if he's not part of the interview process, he's not gonna approve the package. That person would never get an offer and a reference. So it's pretty core. So we have alignment and discussion, a pre-interview process. Not for every interview, but when start a job search. And then what we do, which takes time, but it's worth it, when you interview a couple of candidates is that meeting debriefing session. I do believe that often the first two or three candidates you're going to bring on sight could be for calibration, calibrating the team. What is happening when you are going that path is you have many new hires, and you're going to have to understand their interview style, and what they value, and what they don't don't value. And I think those post interview meetings, meeting with the team of interviewers and just agreeing and - saying, hey, I he was strong of that, and somebody else saying, no, he was like super weak, and ensuring that everybody's on the same page on what we expect, and how we value those skills, is really, really important. So calibration on a couple of first candidates is my take. When you have a more junior team or a new team within the organization.

Naber:  Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Your teams at such hyper growth businesses, those teams are always new, always getting used to the process. Also a smaller business, obviously always getting used to the new process. So as you're bringing people on board and you're onboarding them, do you have any couple of tactics you use to make sure you bring them onboard and starting to onboard them most effectively?

Nicolas Draca:   Yes. So actually took me time to find the right onboarding process. Of course you want to put that document together. That's what you then have to do. And I think that recently, I finally, found a good way to do it. And what is happening now is on my team when you start, you know on day one, it's already on your calendar actually when you start, there is day 30 - you have to present to the entire Marketing team.

Naber:  Very, very cool.

Nicolas Draca:   And what do you have to present? So we provide them a template. I'm a big template guy. And the template is... What is your job - you're familiar with that - in less than 15 words? What did you understand is your job? Less than 15 words. To execute your job, I have something called Relationship 15 - who are the 15 people for you to be successful? We can go deep on that. And list those people. You have five people which are for you to be successful, five for your team, and five for you to grow in your career. Then a stop, start, continue. And people are surprised by it. They're like, I just started. I'm like yeah, but I hired you based on your expertise. If you're super junior in your job, I'm sure you have a point of view on what we should Stop doing, Start doing, Continue doing.

Naber:  And fresh eyes. Fresh eyes.

Nicolas Draca:   Yes. And give your point of view. And it's just to empower people to say, tell me what you think. Like actually, I'd love to know what you think. And the last one is, what are you gonna achieve at the 60, and what do you plan to achieve at day 90? So this is a forcing function for many, many things to happen before the presentation. Because by doing that, by presenting this to the rest of the..So they presented the entire Marketing organization, to my entire team. And the goal is not like to boo them, and say this and that. That's no what it is about. It is about the person to be accountable for what they are going to do. Number two is to understand why they were hired for, and just set a high bar. Like not day one, but it's kind of like you're going to have to do that. And people realize that that presentation better be good. It just sets the bar for how they're going have to deliver and ship moving forward. And three is, for people in the team to understand who they are, and what they're going to do, what the new hire is going to do. So it solves a lot of things, and have those meetings & milestone day 30...Wherever I go next, I'll repeat that because I'm happy with it myself.

Naber:  It's in the infamous Nicolas Draca playbook. So there's so much to pick apart there. Two things I want to you to expand on just a little bit. One is, you talk about, what is your job? I think it's from Fred Kaufman's Conscious Business - 15 words to define it...That you talk about, and when looking at some of your content you've referenced that in the past. You talk also about how that as an exercise can be a good calibration and way of helping manage up within your job? Can you explain that a little bit?

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah. So what is happening, and it happened to me at the Twilio. I worked with somebody called Francois that I know really, really well. And it took us four months to be on the same page on what my job was. And you might find it silly, it's not silly. It's just that, you come as a new hire and you have a vision for what you want to do. And when it grows that fast, and it grows at that speed, you're going to have to be pretty, pretty clear about what you're going to do. And I think you have to be more clear about what you're not going to do. It's as important. And I think the key to it is being on the same page as your boss on what is your job? And we spend four months with Francois discussing it, where even on my one-on-one, I would bring it on a biweekly basis saying, hey, this is what I'm going to focus on. And I will get that feedback saying yes, but maybe. And I'm like, wow, we really have to get to the end of it. And the why of the discussion is pretty simple. One is, let's assume you do that. You decide by yourself and what your job is without agreement with your manager, meaning without sign-off and really being on the same page. After 12 months, you're going to do a 12 months review, and you're going to claim victory! You're going to think you're going to claim victory. You're gonna say, Hey, this is what I did. It is amazing. And the person is going to look at you and say, this is not what I expected from you. And you're like, what? I've been working my ass off building that team, shipping A, shipping B, shipping C, delivering here, moving that KPI. And if you replay it in your head, I'm sure it happens to many people in the past, where the person is looking at you saying, yeah, Nah, that's okay, congrats. And so you want to avoid that type of gap or misunderstanding on what you need to solve for. It's not only about your personal review, and progression in career, and everything, it's just about being sure that you tackle and address things that you were supposed to, in alignment with your boss. Because he or she may have other things to solve for, and they have a bigger vision, they have information you don't have, that needs to be to be solved when thinking about the overall strategy - which you could miss a piece. I had another boss at LinkedIn, it was the same like Nick, where I'm kind of intense, and I move fast, and I love to do things, an so on. And I close on the topic in a meeting, and two weeks later he would come back and say, what about that? And in my head I'm like, I don't understand. We already talked about that. I thought we we closed on it. And then you need to - listening is a big, big thing - pause, listen, and say, okay, it looks like I missed it. And the goal for you is not to push it and just repeat what you need two weeks ago, it's more to clarify and say, okay, what is the gap? What is the issue? And what do you expect from me? And you will see that, and I've seen it multiple times...Where people, and I do it the same with my team...If I have something bugging me, I'm like how can you solve that? And they're yeah, of course. And then they don't do it. And two weeks after I'm going to come back to it because I had it top of mind for me. I'm like, what is the progress on that? And they look at me like, what are you talking about? And so I think driving that alignment, managing up...It's more about aligning than managing-up I think, and setting up expectation, is key to success in a collaborative relationship.

Naber:  Nice. Excellent. And one more quick side note on that. You had mentioned, so thinking about managing stakeholders, and we'll get to that in a second here. But managing close stakeholders in your close sphere - managing up, managing sideways, and managing down. You talk about this also it has an application to managing sideways and managing your stakeholders, correct? Can you explain that a little bit?

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah, yeah. thanks for that, I forgot to mention it. Yeah, good catch. Yeah...So by being clear on what is your job... So first you're clear with yourself, which is a good starting point and this is where you want to start. You have managing up, and then again when you're in a company growing that fast, everybody has priorities, everybody has work to do. And you want, and I ask my teams do that when engaging on projects, when asking for bandwidth, and time from somebody else on your team or not on your team, you want to explain every time the why. Okay, you want to spend time and say, hey, actually I'd love for you to spend time with me, or allocate x hours of your time to my initiative. And let me explain the why and impact it's going to have. It's kind of a Sales pitch internal, it is a sales pitch. And to ensure that that person is going to focus more time with you that they would on another project. And I think explaining clearly the why, and what is your job is part of it, people will appreciate it. And if they disagree, or if they don't understand, just pause, put yourself in their shoes, try to understand what they have to solve for, what are the issues they have and why they're not getting it, and spend the right amount of time on that. When you build a a big Initiative, large initiative, you want to ensure that people are inspired by the project you're trying to lead and push. And I think this will help one, you get successful, two, people understand why they should spend time on it, and three, deliver and ship at scale.

Naber:  Excellent. Thank you for that. Really good tips and insight. And then the last one I want to talk about within Second last thing I wanna talk about within talent. You mentioned the Relationship 15. Can you explain a little bit more about that? You kind of grazed over it, but I do think it's important. So the five, five, five, can you explain a little bit more about that?

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah. So, what we do here is we try to get a sense and invite people, I invite people on my team or I do this across the company, also sometimes I did it here at HackerRank...Is can you please list...And I invite everybody to do that. It's always an interesting exercise...who are the five people for you to be successful personally, that work in our company. Then who are the five people for your team - and the team can be the team you belong to within Marketing... - to be successful? And who are the five people to help you grow in your career. Okay. And all of these people are mutually exclusive. So they are like 15 different people, right? And afterwards you do a 2x2, everybody loves a 2x2. One is connective tissue - low versus high. And the other one is core versus strategic. And you put the 15 names in that 2x2. It's up to you to decide on low versus high and connective tissue. Connective tissue doesn't mean that you need to talk to them on a daily basis. Okay, let me be clear. But it means that if you contact them, or you send them an email, they would reply to that email and make time available for you. So when you do that, people came to come to a realization most of the time that they have gaps. The first they are sometimes unclear about who should be those people. They realize that they have gaps. They realize that, hey, actually those 10 people within the company, they don't know what my job is, and these are the people you should interact with and explain because they are key to your success. They'd better know what you're solving for. And then as people put together a plan to say specifically, there is a gap on the not in your company for you to grow. And they put together a plan saying, Hey, I need to force myself to go to user groups, to conferences, and make friends, or get to start knowing people and learn from them to be able to grow. Again, it goes back from the assumption...Meaning in my day to day life, when when I work on a project, if it's a big initiative, one of the first thing I will do is I will ping between five and 10 of my friends saying, Hey, I'm thinking about that. That's how I would like to do it. What's your thought? What's your 2 cents? And I can tell you like within a day I get everybody's feedback. I listen to feedback. That's really important. That's another part is just not asking for feedback for the sake of it and process it, package it, and get your idea from V1 to V5 or V10, and learn from it.

Naber:  Nice. Excellent. That's great. Okay. let's stop into, so we talked about talent, talk about hiring, onboarding, talked a little bit about about developing a dart, developing that talent as well. Understanding them as people where they want to go. from a, from a development perspective, let's hop into insights. you've talked about, moving from data to intelligence and you also have talked about smart data versus, not just big data. Explain the insights pillar to your, of your science, of Marketing pillars.

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah. So on the Marketing side today we are, we are lucky because we have more and more data. We have data for everything. There is no lag of a, of metrics. on, on one end we're lucky on the other end it's overwhelming. and why? Because there's too much data and now you can spend your days and just looking at spreadsheets to everybody and a, as far as they know, you don't need a business by just looking at spreadsheet. All right? 12 hours a day. So here are the eight year is first based on your priorities and everything. I come from the science of Marketing. it's to be able to, and dishpan how are you going to measure success early on? and maybe the first time you do it, you don't have the right number. But I invite everybody to try it.

Nicolas Draca:   And they're, I'm pick a number. and maybe their first quarter is to test your capacity to deliver up to that number, but what you wanted a success as to being controlled and then descend the dynamic of how you're going to get there. And w w when you are able to do that, the first time, then you'd be able, you're going to be able to build on it and become, become better. But I believe for that, for whatever you do in general, there is a measure of success that you can apply. and you should apply that measure of success, learn from it. My framework all the time is I have a high KPI and then I have free metrics reporting that KPI. I know I'm saying conceptual than meaning is there so many, as I mentioned, you could apply and when you have these under control and when this is working and you are able to predict, okay. Plus minus 10% what you're doing, it's to move to the next level. And being able to leverage meaning machine learning, data science, depending on the, on the team you have, if you have good Ascentis working for you to be a model is a big drewhich is to predict capacity of people to buy or to predict something unless at the time predict capacity of a customer too to buy your product.

Naber:  Yeah. Excellent. And when someone has very little data or limited data, what's the mindset that they should have as they're getting started doing that?

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah, so I think they are. so I don't, so first most of the time of people I have the data,and why? Because you have historical data and so the feedback everybody's gonna share is oh yeah, but they stopped. I'm yeah, okay. But it's still really, that's it. And so every time I build something, I'm going to go like hardcore Demand gen here. You're okay, well many SQL Sales qualified qualifying today, deliver next quarter. And I invite people, I'm like back and they're it's sex. I'm yeah, I got that part. Look back, it doesn't matter. And try to make a guess about how many and then try to define a target for yourself and you show you the next quarter and how many you want to deliver and you will, you will learn. So that's one. because looking at historical data, you always add something to learn.

Nicolas Draca:   There is no perfect data and nobody, no marketer will tell you like you have the best data in the world. So, you just have to put your ego aside and just process of past data to try to understand what's going on. Or you can look at benchmark. of course, they are, there is no lack of website with benchmark data. I think as a core, you should look at historical data. And my guiding principle here is you just want to become better quarter of a quarter, right? If your number was 50, the way you want it to become 60, like something higher and let's these 10%, that's how I look at it. And you need to take into consideration the cycle that it wouldn't take you like three to six months, which is okay to understand it and to be able to grow it. Success all the time is being in control. Agasomething I learned in many companies is you can miss something like the word assist mess and not being in control and not understanding the why. If you're in control, it's a great starting point for you to become better at what you do.

Naber:  Nice. I love that. That's great quote. You can put that on a, put that on a license plate, put that on a, on a tattoo, something like that. So two more pieces I want to talk about with an insights. one is, I mean, I don't know if people know this about you. You have six U s patents. I mean that's, that's ridiculous. So one of those patents that comes from the use of data insights and moving back against an account based Marketing model, yeah, you've gone from a data to intelligence and applied that to how can I impact revenue as much as possible. Can you talk a little bit about, your account based Marketing thought process structure, the mindset? yeah, but let's start there.

Nicolas Draca:   Yes. So on the ABM you want me to talk about the patents, like what we did, how did we get there? Okay. so what we do, I go back to the talent buckets that we ensure that we spend 20% of our time experimenting, always. and why is because we live in a world where things are changing fast. and whatever you did and whatever failed six months ago doesn't mean it's going to fail today. So we, we build a culture, all empowerment where you can succeed or fail. And actually if you fail, it's okay. As long as you know why? that's why we go back to, yeah. You need to know why you need to be in control. And so by doing that, there are some experiments that are going to fail and and died and some other that are going to be highly successful.

Nicolas Draca:   And here we were working with a teon the Sales op side, data science side and business insights. Okay. We'd love to predict propensity of an account to buy. And what we did initially, we started on a a on a Friday putting on a whiteboard. Like how would we score an account? And and today everybody in Sales and Marketing you the framework, your called decision, a demon waterfall. And that demon wonderful framework as a little bit of an issue is there's not yet you move from it lead a contact I mentioned to an account I mentioned. So more or less he does not really connect because in a perfect 12 you want to do a funnel, which is a full account funnel from Marketing qualified accounts. That's where the new concept of the time up to your SQL and close one business. So looking at this, we're okay, we need to identify, defined something called working quantified accounts.

Nicolas Draca:   I think we called it ais. I count into our score. Initially the idea was to say, okay, let's look at all the contacts associated to the account, their level of engagement, and do kind of a weighted nps average on how, the account score should be. I'm geeking out a little bit, but as you can see, it started more with a brainstorming with somebody on my team called fat and saying, Hey, how should we think about that? And then explaining the why as a vision, partnering with Sales operation, partnering with a data fence theme and some of the tewe assembled this team saying, okay, this looks pretty cool. let's put some science behind it. what we did is what started an experiment, ended up being a success because it was one of the dimensioned core to how we will plan into account or location or account follow up.

Nicolas Draca:   moving forward, at LinkedIn and with all the support of the company. We went through the patent process and after I think, I'm sure, you also when on the product side, where people looked at it and maybe integrated it in their algorithm. I'm not sure about that. I don't know what they did with it, but, that it was a great story. There's a, an experiment on a Friday afternoon discussion culture of hey, let's push it to the next level, see if it works. Partnering with people who could operation and being able to put it together.

Naber:  Yeah, the common, yeah, that's what I was thinking. The combination of collaboration, cross stakeholder management, cross stakeholder partnerships and projects that you had to work on in order to get that done. Plus it's the vision that you had in order to get that done. It was, it was really impressive. so, one more, one more thing I want to talk about around data. Let's pull it up a level and we're going to talk about stakeholder relationships for a minute. you talk about, measuring from a Marketing perspective and aligning with stakeholders within the business. most specifically you've talked about aligning with finance and aligning with Sales. Can you talk a little bit about the process you go through taking data, taking information, and at the same time going to align with the way that you believe and they believe Marketing should be measured within the company because it sounds like you've got, an excellent methodology that I believe a lot of people would really benefit from.

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah. So I want him to another panel recently we talk about the same. So what's happening? What is, what is the, because there was an issue today, the issue today is sometime the issue is misalignment. Wow. Looks like simple issue, but it's a pretty complex one. and what is the issue in my point of view is Sales as a point of view on what an SQL, if you dig ESCO as a measure of success should be Marketing at the point of view and people don't align.okay. And so the way I've done it [inaudible] I come with a set of like two or three definitions. Okay. And I go and talk to finance to, to Sales. And I'm Hey, this is a freeways, we can do it a n. And really my positioning is pick one. I don't care. because the deficient or like it's more in the details.

Nicolas Draca:   It's not really in the definition itself. It's like it's a detail. And I think an open discussion and explaining against the why saying, Hey, this is option a and this is what's going to happen. This is option B, this is option c, what do you feel good about? And often actually those discussion people are oh, thank I appreciate it first to have a discussion. I appreciate the explanation of all of it. And quite often actually people come back saying, okay, you pick, I agree with, I understand where you come from, I understand what you're trying to achieve. And let's agree on it. And and so quite quick, quite often actually people come back, say you pick, if they decide,I'm fine with it, but what are we going to do is, we'd gone and we're gonna spend the amount of time needed to get to that agreement.

Nicolas Draca:   it's not the loosey Goosey suggest hey, we had a discussion. Oh, I'm running out, I need you to come to a call, a meeting. I'm yeah, we're going to meet after agalike just to be the, I want to hear you say it. I agree with and you're going to say the definition and then we'll be done. Right. and then really, and it's not that you're later. So we get to that and then what are we going to do? on top of it is I think as the, our Sales development, depending on representative team or BDR, depending on the teeverybody has different names, but you want to co own, and this is when I was doing a, I've LinkedIn is what I was doing a Trulia, here's what my team is doing. A HackerRank that number was, was that team and be golden.

Nicolas Draca:   The same number. Okay. Yup. And and this is just going to move from definition to execution where, and being able to do it on the operational side. It is, there is no disconnect. People present together. They the same view on the number and phone and stuff. And you would see it goes back to that alignment, that alignment and collaboration again. I know like just the theme I and again agreeing in your disagreement nation on the same page, to be able to push it and to move forward. Like I don't think if you work in an organization I was sharing, it's where Sales and Marketing or are not like partnering together every single stage, not only at teaching level, you have the CMO and the cro like smiling and saying, of course we know each other up to the board level and down to the lower level in the organization.

Nicolas Draca:   It needs to be across the board. It doesn't have to be a exact only because, because this, this is, this would not work. And I had something else I wanted to add and that's level. Yeah. Once I have, I have, I have a good anecdote. I have, somebody called Dan. one of the company I worked at, they told LinkedIn and once I was struggling withwell I would not align with my str clinical quintuple and he looked at me and I'm Hey, I'm struggling here. It wasn't a big deal. Right. But we were just we were doing planning for the year and we're just not moving forward in one sentence. The he fixed it is Hey N***a,

Naber:  okay,

Nicolas Draca:   if you guys are not able to align, [inaudible] means that we may have hired the wrong people.

Naber:  Yeah.

Nicolas Draca:   and in my head, I froze and I'm yeah, we, we, we, we, we, we'd be aligned by end of week.

Naber:  It's going to be okay.

Nicolas Draca:   Sandy twice. to be frank, it was me and Jeff

Naber:  [inaudible]. Right, right.

Nicolas Draca:   The last name I just get first name. But it was, and we were not struggling in our relationship. Like it wasn't like it wasn't a great relationship, but it was just as the detail of the planning. It's yeah, we do not hire the right people.

Naber:  Yeah.

Nicolas Draca:   In my mind, it was like 10 years ago, I think. And I'm yeah, got it.

Naber:  Well those details matter and that Dan is a very smart Dan. so when we're taking a look at these different pillars, what I want to do is, let's jump into Twilio. You're jumped to Twilio. What's you're responsible for, at Twilio. You making that jump and then jump into HackerRank as well, and talk about how you jumped in and what you're doing right now. And then I've got one or two more topics and then we'll, and then we'll break. Yeah. So Twilio there was a little bit of, another muscle to build here. It was on the growth angle and a business to developer Marketing to developer. agagrateful product, great team internally, very pretty product.

Nicolas Draca:   And here the play was to adapt. And the challenge I was excited about is to be able to learn how to market to a new persona, being developer, knowing that one, so you don't like a marketer and they don't like Salespeople. so it was, that's kind of a challenge when you start. and, and how to be successful at driving engagement and building trust, with that audience to grow the business.

Naber:  Got It. what did you learn about going through that process when you were at Twilio and what were you guys particularly good at?

Nicolas Draca:   So I first starting from the CEO, the relationship was a w meetings. The CEO was a developer first. cool type of c a product to but like hard core developer. And so, the first one was how to keep and maintain a developer law brand. You have to constantly, like in developer, well do you have developer love and developer? so being a developer love brit's all about trust, and, and great product of course, and documentation and psalm. But there is a muscle, tied to it. And the other one of the big learning is the concept of a listening. Meaningless. Listening is a, is a big, big thing. And listening and understanding how that persona, communicate and there is a lot of lessening because there is a lot of learning. so I graduated from computer science. I'm not going to claim to be a developer anymore, but understanding and little bits of persona. But here it was a lot of like nobody really had a playbook about how to like AWS add one. There was the only one but how to successfully build that motion and it was a ton of listening and learning and experiment actually listening learnings and experiment.

Naber:  Oh very cool. road you must have gone on in order to get there. So from a, now the last, the next two pillars reason I want to jump into Twilio's cause operations in life cycle. I'm sure that you had to iterate on your playbook as you're thinking about the operations and life cycle, jumping into that development persona or developer persona and persona, you were, you were a Marketing too. Can you talk a little bit about operations in lifecycle pillar and also some of the best practices one should think about as they're going through executing those two things?

Nicolas Draca:   Yes, of course. And you're going to see, my answer is going to be pretty fruit. Hopefully it will be on point. so as a core, Marketing is about orchestrating customer life cycle. Okay. What does this mean? It means that you need to be able to execute on the right persona, right time, right offer, right channel. It seems super simple actually. It's highly complex, right? And as part of that framework, and if your approach was that frame within that framework, you can not be wrong. And there are two things you want to do. One is customer centricity just puts a customer as a center of it and you want to be relevant. If you're not sure how that event in those four dimensions, you're just going to be unsuccessful. Sure. Okay. So when you think about operations and orchestration, lifecycle and so on, is when I playing that framework, if you put the customer at the center of it and you're relevant and you're able to understand right persona.

Nicolas Draca:   So who's your buyer? So you have a set of persona and defining them and understanding what they care about. right. channel is what channel do they use? How do they engage with you? Right? Time as ours, they're a suspect, meaning they have no clue who you are. Prospects such as they have an idea, but what you offer our costumers, which hopefully they know they'd be more, right offer is what type of content they need or they care about. Right? Is it a customer story? Is it some data sheets of white papers, some demo, some video and so on and so on. So just spending's a time to operate within that framework, agaand putting the customer as a center of it is what's going to set you up for success.

Naber:  Cool. And I know this is, that's a great answer and I love the framework. If I'm going from, I know it's going to depend on the place where I'm starting from, but if I'm going to move to the model you just talked about, around right content, right person, right time, right channel. If I'm gonna, if I'm going to go through and execute against that framework, how long should I expect it to take me as a market, new organization? as I go through an iterate on this, how long should I expect to take to me for me to get it right?

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah. So I think as usual is because it is so complex, you just want to start, learn and become better, right? So I think the, the first step, for example, if you go step one is okay, I have three type of buyers, whether they are type A, B, and c, and it's trying to be able to bucket them in those and to tag them in your CRM saying, okay, so this is type A's, this is type bs, this is type two. It doesn't need more complexity than that. Right? and it started there. That's step one. And being able to, go in details and say our buyer persona framework available on the web as much as you want and start ensuring that the way you communicate to buyer a, B, or c a is different, in your wording and your messaging and what you deliver to them, right?

Nicolas Draca:   For example, if you have a highly technical buyer, you going to be really careful and really thoughtful when, on your messaging and those type of profile. I appreciate more of a nonhuman type of interaction. Yeah. Okay. So only one to empower your Sales development team to go crazy and say good and last then because what's going to happen as in subscribes, whether it be for the roof and they just gonna hate your brright? And if, if, let's assume you find a way to engage with them, you want to ensure that the, the, the Sales team is highly technical or has been trained to have at least a first like five minutes of discussion is a buyers technical again to, to out that, that, that lingo and ends that engagement, right? Because the center approach is as just not gonna work. And I think it's the same applied to every single persona. So to summarize, I think success will come quickly for your messaging, looking at your engagement rate and if people engaging with if they're not engaging with it's just means you're doing it the wrong way. But keep it simple and start don't, don't wait. And don't overthink it. Focus on your persona and your messaging. And this will solve, I think for many, many things to get started and just improve it.

Naber:  Okay, great. Thank you. Hey, one more topic I want to cover. So let's jump into HackerRank. You joining HackerRank, what you're doing, and then I've got one more topic and then we'll wrap. Okay.

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah. So HackerRank so I joined two years ago, two over there to one, build a team again. startup was a series B. It was 120 on police when I started. So it's, to put a team together to execute on a, on a Marketing practice and then to focus really on meaning a couple of things. One, the brand and end the value prop. Also positioning messaging, was a big topic. enablement. we have Salespeople across the globe. was it be topic as well? thought leadership. of course, our current, today's a leader in skill assessment for developer and felt leadership. Like we, we believe we own the discussion, on that topic where as the expert and being sure that we can execute on thought leadership across multiple dimensions.

Naber:  Yeah. Excellent. and thank you for a small overview of HackerRank as well. it's such a cool brand and excellent product. when last topic I want to talk about is, is that transition, into, let's call it an early stage or mid stage business at the COO level, how does your mind need to develop and how does your thought process need to develop as you're getting into that mid stage

Nicolas Draca:   COO mindset, what should your mindset be as you're coming into the organization? What should your first few steps be and what sort of frameworks that you think to apply as you're, talking to other c levels and starting to execute with your team? Yeah, so the a, when you start, I think, all the ways is you don't know what you don't know. Another, a stupid statement, but it's, spending another half time. I think it's a step one. And I was discussing with friends, in the same jobs as do, as many customer meeting as you can, in there for 30 days. So whatever I talked about prior in the 30 days, I apply it to myself, as well. but, but it's it starts with hearing the voice of their customer and it's not to go on those customer meetings to please the Sales organizations saying, Hey, I'm on the Marketing side.

Nicolas Draca:   I did it. Check, let's move on. That's not what it is about is trying to get a sense of, how are you learn so much, right? What do customers care about? the lingo? Like what word do they use? What it is, their perception of our brand? What is the type of issue they're trying to solve? So use case and what does it mean on, on, on their end. so does this is one that I'd spend time with, different size, SMB and Marketing depending on your business, but try to tackle all the segments. Yup. And from a prospect standpoint and a customer stand point, because of course a discussion are going to be different, you're learning are going to be different. Number two is, I do deep dive was all the exact meaning my stakeholders saying, hey, we gonna meet a year from now.

Nicolas Draca:   What is success like you're gonna tell me you gotta you good job because of work and what do you expect? And everybody has a different expectation. So you just want to go around and get a sense from everybody about what they expect. And then step three is just putting a plan together. I tend to define priorities pretty quickly saying, hey, so those are my priorities. This based on my playbook of course. But, and of course I'm at like six months or more, like two years, and get a team and makes the effort saying, okay, I'm going to take all of your teputs them together in a room for 45 minutes, send the preread and I'm going to explain to you what I think I should do and what I'm going to focus on. And so over communicating on that. Okay.

Nicolas Draca:   and go there getting feedback and that just a pan. And what I will do, on my first one oh one wasmy boss in that case, a CEO, I'll use my priorities as a framework to lead for as an agenda for, for a, our one on no, and just builds that muscles things. This is what I'm focusing on this way and it's works meaning it, it's just because he's oh yeah, where are you doing on time? When are you doing on the life cycle? What are you doing in go to market? and it's just to connect the dots between is what he has in his head and what he's expecting from me.

Naber:  Nice. That's great. that's actually a really good transition to my last question about it. how do you get people to, how do you get, other stakeholders, whether it's Sila, whether it's up, sideways, down, maybe even board level, et cetera. what's the exercise you go through, some of the tactics you use in order to get people on the same page about what Marketing is, what their job is and how you define it versus how they define it. What are those types of conversations? Are some tactics you use to get on the same page?

Nicolas Draca:   Yeah, so we have, so we have like any other, a team like QBO, ours, so if you don't have QBR, so even if it's, yeah, so I was discussing recently was a smaller company actually not so small and they're oh, we don't have QBR yours. And I'm what? so, we, we have, so if you don't have cube, yours was your exec teput qprs together. and so this is, this is what I use. for those, for those who don't know, quarterly business reviews can explain a little bit, maybe 30 seconds, explain about the quarterly business reviews. So quarterly business reviews is as kind of a, one thing as you're going to look back. So you're hey, I had five priorities and this is how I deliver against my priority, and what my team has done and look forward saying, hey, is this is what I'm going to focus on on the next quarter?

Nicolas Draca:   It was a session for the look back. He's more hey, this is what happened and the look forward is this is what I plan to do. Is it the line was what you guys spent? Yeah, I'm super religious about those. and what I mean by that is I'm not going to do zen at 7:00 AM for a meeting at 8:00 AM. I'm going to spend time with my team. I'm going to spend time with myself prepping for that and being, like demeaning acceptance of myself as aquatic Cimzia QBR because it ties back to the quality of the work, that, that we going to do. And I'm going to spend time if needed. And if there are some complex topic, I'm going to pre wire it was my stakeholders and if we have a team meeting, at the each end level, I would not be shy of doing even those half an hour meeting of Hey, is, this is what I'm thinking about? What do you think? I'm happy to do five, 10 of those meetings if needed, but I want to ensure that there was no gap. And if your communication, what I selfishly, work on and when agreed and when I get a little bit of feedback after moving to after it's okay, see you in three months, more or less and w moving fast. I think by, by working on, like if you don't know where you're going, you don't know where you're going.

Nicolas Draca:   Agaanother stupid statement, but at for one. And so it means you don't have a pass do anything. and so we try to be pretty clear at all level in the Marketing organization about what is success three months from now and that's what we should for by doing zap. It helped us understand what we are not going to work on and number two is have an impact. And I think with time, if you have this type a little bit of a vision of what you want to do and issue, you know where you're going. except if you are wrong on your destination, that's a different story. But if you are right, you will drive impact, which would drive respect and trust, was in your organization.

Naber:  Awesome. Okay. Excellent. You've been so great with your time. Amazing. Thank you so much. I've got two rapid fire questions. It won't take very long and we're gonna wrap. first one I asked to some people's birthdays. It's not your birthday. We said, well, if it is, there'll be really bad of me not to know that. But it's, I don't think it's your birthday. but I'm going to ask you anyways, I explained all this to my audience are sick of hearing me say that, but I really like to ask to some people's birthdays. what is the most important, learning or lesson you've acquired professionally in the last 12 months?

Nicolas Draca:   What is and what have I learned? The, work, it's a, enjoy. I'm still, it's both a personal and professional is, enjoying the moment. I'm not there yet. and what, I mean, why, why you personally, it kind of makes sense. Why would it make sense? Professionally? It's because we keep running like crazy doing a loan and a lot of things. and we don't spend enough time appreciating either what we're doing or what we've done and I'm still learning process in mind for another 18 months. It will, it will take me another, I've set up a goal on it. I think it's will take more time to be at the level that I'd love to be. I'd love to understand.

Naber:  Yeah, that's such a hard one. if you've got any tactics that you've found are very helpful share, but otherwise, the next 18 months, maybe we should revisit the session and we can talk only about that topic if there's a framework,

Nicolas Draca:   having that peace of mind. I don't know. That's why I'm not there, but I'll find it.

Naber:  Okay, fair enough. let's see. Last, last question is, when you're looking to hire, executives within a business, what are, what are a couple, like maybe your, maybe your, well, let me rephrase the question. Let's say you're at a smaller mid size business uh,

Nicolas Draca:   you're hiring your first a couple of leadership hires. What are some things that your no, you need to hire for in those first couple of leadership hires in order to nail it? Yeah, I think the, so when you, you tend to learn, it's a great question. so I think you learn through the process when the person, I'm going to go, when the person started, like you're gonna learn often that if it is your first, executive team hire, you're going to learn a year later what you expected. and which is a little bit of an issue. So what you want to do is, I'm going to talk about the Marketing function, and I think apply to other function. I meet with a ton of CEO and they're I'm going to hire my first marking. how should I look? And I'm Hey, it's easy.

Nicolas Draca:   what is I go back, what is success, a year or two years from now? Like you need to be really, really clear about what, what is success and not success, like super tactical success. Like what are the three things you want that person to solve? Because I think from that, it will drives a skillset to you. You need and you will have a better send and prioritizing, like [inaudible] kings zos. because what ended up happening sometimes is you're looking for a Unicorn and Unicorn don't exist as far as I know. and so being clear in your head about what you're looking for and stack ranking, who will help you define the skills, that you did and if that's just from the skills number two is a compromise. A culture. Like if you don't hire somebody, like if you have a doubt by the way on culture fit, just go no, like we used to do it anymore because you're next candidate.

Nicolas Draca:   I know executive hires hard and takes time, but I've never seen somebody compromising on culture and hiring somebody and the thing to work it every time it's getting worse actually. because yeah, like you have the unconscious voice in your head and number free. That's I think something that people are shy about doing that. Ask people to present a plan. Even at executive level, Hey, guess what? Love loves the discussion. come and present a plan to the team. And sometimes I've seen it where people are shy about that. Butyou say executive, I'm no, screw that. Right. we want to understand how he thinks and I think this tells a lot, about how like their mindset or they think and how their, their view of it a business. nice. And how prescriptive are you with the plan that you asked them to present?

Nicolas Draca:   You templated about it or did you just kind of let them run with whatever the plan is now it'sno template. There's like winning that level. The guy you should be able to articulate something you don't know like from the session. oh, people, lesson manage time. how does each thing, what do they value religious talk about theirselves do they would do like or if you have a plan, I'm going to go back to Thailand as a guy and they were talking about these telike what, what happened you miss that. Like I add a Sales plan. I've seen a Sales exec presenting and they never talk about the customer. And so every time I weighed like 40 minutes and I'mwhat about meeting was costumer? Oh yeah, yeah. That's why I'm dude, what are you talking about? so I think it's a, when it gets Heidi tactical, but I think it tells you if if you manage it the right way and you know you're because sometimes people have a tendency to say, I'm going to do email. It's hey, email. Decide. You just listen and use two hours to go really deep. you will understand that.

Naber:  Hey everybody, thanks so much for listening. If you appreciated and enjoyed the episode, go ahead and make a comment on the post for the episode on LinkedIn. If you love The Naberhood Podcast, we'd love for you to subscribe, rate, and give us a five star review on iTunes. Until next time - go get it.

Guest:

Daniel Sanchez-Grant - Director, Strategic Sales @InVision

(Formerly @LinkedIn, @Rungway, @CEB)

Guest Background:

Daniel Sanchez-Grant leads Strategic Sales at InVision ($350M Raised, $1.9B Valuation), the digital product design platform used to make the world's best customer experiences. He’s part of the International Leadership Team responsible for growing InVision’s business outside of North America, and leads a group of senior sales professionals who are fully distributed across Europe.

Previous leadership experience includes launching a cloud technology business in the HR/Culture space called Rungway, as well as several years at LinkedIn (IPO, $27B Acquisition) from pre-IPO startup stage to the acquisition by Microsoft.

Guest Links:

LinkedIn | Twitter

Episode Summary:

In this episode, we cover:

 

- A Fully Remote Workforce - How to Recruit, Hire, Manage and Onboard Teams for Success

- Building Great Cultures @InVision and @LinkedIn

- Strategic Sales and Executive-level Meetings - Preparation and Execution

Full Interview Transcript:

Naber:  Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to the Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest growing companies. Enjoy!

Naber:  Hey, hey, hey everybody. Today we've got Daniel Sanchez-Grant on the show, affectionately known as DSG. He leads strategic sales at InVision. InVision's raised $350 million in capital, worth $1.9 billion valuation - a Unicorn. They're a digital product design platform used to make the world's best customer experiences. He's part of the international leadership team there, responsible for growing InVision's business outside of North America, and he leads a group of senior sales pros, who are fully distributed across Europe. Previous leadership experience includes launching a cloud technology business and the HR/Culture space called Rungway as well as several years at LinkedIn, six years to be precise, where the IPO'd and were acquired by Microsoft for $27 billion in the acquisition. He was there for pre-IPO startup stage to the acquisition by Microsoft. Here we go.!

Naber:  DSG! Awesome to have you on the show, man. Thank you so much for taking the time to come hang out with me for a little while.

DSG:     Naber, always a pleasure. Looking forward to the conversation.

Naber:  Cheers, buddy. You're coming from London today, is that correct?

DSG:     That is correct, yeah, based out of the WeWork on Chauncery Lane.

Naber:  Chauncery Lane - write it down, everybody. Put it on your Google Map.

Naber:  it's hard to know with you. You are, you're everywhere. You are all over the place. When I'm looking at your Instagram or any of your social feeds, you're everywhere. So we'll talk about that in a little bit here. What I want to do is go into a little bit of your background, probably personally first, and then we'll jump into professional, and then we'll hop into some of your super powers and some of the things you've observed as well as lived and executed over multiple businesses and multiple roles. I think people really lucky to hear from you today, which is great.

DSG:     Awesome.

Naber:  Why don't we start with you growing up a little bit personally. So I know that you've been mostly London through and through, which is a bit ironic considering how much you are all over the world for snowboarding, traveling with family, traveling with the partner, traveling by yourself, traveling with friends, and with all the global businesses and roles you've had. It's pretty amazing that you've been almost always in London. Give us maybe five minutes or so on DSG, Daniel Sanchez-Grant was growing up, and what your childhood was like.

DSG:     Sure. So, I guess come from an entrepreneurial background. My mum was very successful business woman. She setup a company in the recruitment industry, and went to build that during a time where recruitment, and particularly the agency market in the UK was a really successful industry. And so I grew up in an environment where a high work ethic, a successful achieving kind of environment. Two older sisters, who in their own right very successful individuals, doing different careers. And so grew up in-and-around London, actually from a place called Staines. It's probably most famous for Ali G, of all things.

Naber:  A-mazing, a-mazing. Nothing could come out of your mouth that would make you more proud than that. He's unbelievable, unbelievable. He's an amazing set of characters, and he's an absolute genius for what he's been able to do. And the people he's able to get on this show - what's the email look like, or the message look like, that comes to get that level of success rate and conversion rate for getting those people in your show? It's unbelievable.

DSG:     Yeah. He's he's definitely become synonymous with the place that I grew up, so, that's quite funny. But, so look, spent a bunch of time there. Left school, relatively young, and joined the family business and spent four years in that business. joined with the idea of being there for a couple of weeks to help out during the summer, and fell in love with the whole environment. And four years later was still there and going strong. And so I think that was a huge part of shaping my professional perspective, and work ethic, and just loved being in a entrepreneurial environment and building companies. And so yeah, that was a lot of fun.

Naber:  And what were your set of responsibilities in that business?

DSG:     I think, to be honest, there wasn't anything, there wasn't...when you're building a company of that stage, when I joined it was four people in a branch environment in a place called Teddington. So, you don't really have a set of responsibilities, right? whether it's fixing the printer, or going and covering a temporary assignment on reception for one of your clients. The role was so varied from that point of view and therefore it just gives you a flavor of all aspects of business - from payroll, to customer service, to candidate management, business development. From that point of view, it was super fun. So in the early favor I was 17, totally clueless, probably more of a hindrance than a help to a lot of the talented people I worked with during my time. But, I got exposure to different ways of working. And that was just a small group, but such a talented, diverse group within that environment. Such different styles amongst the three or four consultants that we started with that, as an early career professional, just really inspiring and energizing exposure at a young age. So, how to run a business, how to service as costumers, how to think about building teams and a great culture. It was a lot of fun. So yeah, that was the early parts of my four years there. And I look back with nothing but fond memories of that experience. And I think also, it being a family thing, I think it brings a different level of purpose to the feeling that you get from building stuff and accomplishing things on a day-to-day basis. I think that's hard to replicate in other types of environments.

Naber:  Yup. And that was LPR, correct?

DSG:     Yeah, it was a Litchfield's Personnel and Recruitment, it was called. It started in Teddington, and then grew to be multiple branches, and 20 to 30 full time staff at one point, and hundreds of people working on a temporary basis. So yeah, that was a fun ride.

Naber:  And you went through the roles and ranks to General Manager that business, is that correct?

DSG:     Yeah. My mum, at the time, got to the point where she'd stepped back from the business. It was doing really well and had gone into an early retirement, and me and a bunch of people were running and different branches, different customers at that time. And so yeah, it was exciting...Got to a point where I was fairly integral into the running of that company, and obviously at 20, 21 years old, that's a lot of really good experiences quite early into how to drive a company, how to make sure that people are happy, and all of that good stuff.

Naber:  I want to go off the script from some of these tech businesses that you've worked for, to talk about this just for a minute. So as a young professional...there's a lot of young managers in tech companies and a lot of young leaders in tech companies because, oftentimes, they'll promote internally, or for a lot of reasons. Sometimes that's just what they've always done. Sometimes it's because of speed. Sometimes it's because they have brilliant people, and they're just the best people for that role. But there's a lot of young leaders and young managers. For someone that is a young manager, a young leader, that is either managing or leading people that are older than them, or more experienced than them - that sounds something you had to do when you're relatively young. Is there any sort of mindset, or way that you think about, or set of advice that you've given to other people that are in the same scenario so that they can alleviate confidence concerns or not overthink it? Any advice or mindset that you can deliver to folks that are in that same scenario?

DSG:     Yeah, so I think the first thing is that it's totally okay not to have all the answers, right? If I think about all of the teams that I have and have managed, the best teams, I'm surrounded by people even today who are much better than me at a whole bunch of things, and I love that. And so I think, just firstly, acknowledging that you're always going to be running teams where there's people who have a different point of view, more experience, a better skillset. And I think it's really about embracing that and not being afraid of it. And so, I guess that first thing is like, that's okay, and think about what it is that you do really well and play to those strengths. And then think about what, how do you harness the skills of others around you to make sure that you're benefiting from that collective experience. So yeah, I'd say that would be one of the core things for me. And also just embracing the fact that you're always, if you're going to build great teams, you're going to be surrounded by people that all the time. And that's something to be excited about, not afraid of.

Naber:  Yeah, good point. I mean, you're just constantly working with inspiring people that you'd love to learn from - on the left of you and on the right of you - that's a really good thing to keep in mind. Especially the fastest growing businesses in the world, the people working at those businesses the people listening on this podcast, people that aspire to go to those businesses. It's just going to continue to happen. It's not slowing down, no matter how old or experienced you get. You're exactly right. That makes sense.

DSG:     Totally. And I also think just because someone's on your team, be vulnerable, right? If there's something that they do really, really well, it doesn't mean you can't go and talk to them about how they do it and what they've done to improve that skill. And showing that interest, and recognizing what someone is really strong at, then using that as a conversation to help me improve on this thing, I think can be a really great experience when you're managing people, and definitely brings those two individuals having that type of engagement much closer together.

Naber:  Yeah, totally. I've got a bunch of things I wanted to get to, so we can get into CEB, but one more question on that. Is there any way that you found that you've been able to facilitate one person learning really well from another, either as they come onboard into the organization, or so that your team is learning from each other, or teams that you're managing are learning from other teams you're not managing. Is there any way you found to be able to facilitate that, or processes you've been able to put in place in order to make sure happens?

DSG:     Yeah, sure. So I guess, if you think about InVision at the moment, we're growing really fast, right? So in the last two years in our international business, we've added 60 people across a whole range of different roles and levels as we've grown. That's a really exciting environment to be in when you're bringing on great people. And then you try to think about how, particularly in a fully distributed, remote environment - how do you ensure every individual that starts that they're setup for success. And so, we've learned a whole bunch of things over the last two years, definitely made some mistakes on that journey, but one of the things that we've really focused on is that onboarding experience. What are the steps in a remote environment that are required for someone to get up to speed in their role as quickly as possible? What are the tools they need? What are the skills and knowledge that we need to be able to provide them with? How do we, in this distributed, unique environment, how do, we get that to them as quickly as possible. And so, we spent a whole bunch of time talking to people that had gone through the process, and we built a fairly comprehensive 30-60-90 day checklist - where we detail out in week one, here's all the people that you need to speak to. Here are your buddies across different functions. Here are the tools that you need to embrace. And really tried to create a framework, so that in that first 90 days there's real transparency around the people that you need to have relationships with, the tools, and then the processes. And we found with a tool like that, where the manager and whomever it is that is joining are working through it in a fairly systematic way, we can just ensure that people have connections in to the things that can help them be successful in their role.

Naber:  And obviously we're tweaking and changing this all the time because the business is just so rapidly changing. But that's probably been one way - create transparency around the leading indicators that are going to make someone successful, and then the relationships that people need within that. So that would be one example. Then I'd say one other example - how do you drive collaboration amongst a remote team? Just because we're remote doesn't mean that we don't care about things culture, and learning, and self improvement, and development. So we're really heavily invested in ways in which we can continuously bring the teams together, not just remotely, but in person, and what do those engagements look, and how do we orientate those agendas around specific things going on in the business that are going to enable these people to be more successful. So it's an ongoing process, but fascinating to do it in an organization that one, is so rapidly growing, but two, doing it, in a fully distributed and remote all over the world.

Naber:  Yeah, it's unbelievable. I mean, you guys are the largest distributed remote workforce on the planet - at least for fast growing tech businesses, if not for almost everybody. It's pretty unbelievable what you guys have been able to build. I love the gold that just came out of your mouth for the prescriptive-ness or the prescript-ivity, if you will. I don't even know if that's a word, but I made it up. But the prescriptiveness, that you get down to the details on the first 30 days, first week, you know, who to talk to, conversations to be having, relationships to be having, tools, process, etc. I think that's great for a lot of people to hear, especially those listening on these conversations, because, I think too many people overlook the onboarding experience as an opportunity to not just check boxes and get them access to tools, and email, and hardware, and maybe a buddy here, or a conversation, or a mentor there. It just got to be extremely prescriptive, especially in remote or decentralize environments, like tech businesses are always in. And I think that gold just came out of your mouth is really valuable for all these tech businesses that are out there. It's great. Thanks so much DSG. Let's move on to CEB. So you went from, you went from LPR to CEB. Tell us about that jump and tell us about what you're up to there.

DSG:     Yeah, sure. So, CEB was actually SHL at the time, which were a talent management, technology services provider. They specialized in psychometric assessments. So, ability tests, metric tests, and they were actually one of my customers at LPR at the time. And so we were recruiting for salespeople, who, interestingly had a psychology background. This was an organization that was a leading...a market leader in occupational psychology, and how to really get the best of your talent across the entire lifecycle of an employee. I was really fascinated by them at the time because I'd spent four years in this recruitment market place trying to find companies, just great people at great companies. And what SHL really specialized in is how do you bring science to that process, and give companies the tools that enable you to identify behavioral traits, and preferences, and strengths and weaknesses. And as I got to know them as a customer, I was at this interesting crossroads in my career where I've been working with the family business for four years. I was 17 when I started, four years later, do I want to be running this forever? Or are other things that I need to go and do to test myself, expand my skills. As you can imagine, my mom is still one of my closest friends and mentors, but tough conversations have with someone who I can imagine on a selfish level, it's like, "I don't want you to go". But then obviously as her son was super supportive in me progressing and exploring my career. And so joined SHL in an inside sales role and progressed fairly quickly into Enterprise, field-based sales for them working with large, FTSE 100 companies and helping them with things leadership development, and employee development, talent management, recruitment and how they used assessments and services as part of that mix. Really great experience, and one thing I really took from there is value-based selling. How to really orientate your conversation around the customer and the challenges that they face, and how to build more solution orientated-type agreements. So yeah, it was an awesome experience with some really good people that I'm still in touch with today. And yeah, it was a super tough decision to leave that to be honest.

Naber:  Yeah, I bet. SHL is an awesome business, and becoming part of CEB made them even stronger as well. You have so many good experiences it sounds within that particular role, when you move to LinkedIn, tell us about that jump.

DSG:     Yeah, it was interesting. So I was, let's see, at Wembley Football Stadium for an event that I think an applicant tracking system provider was running. I was there in an SHL capacity with clients. Great day. I was actually sent there as a development opportunity, and I just remember the overall content of the speakers was great. But at the end of the day, a chap called Ariel Eckstein did a keynote at the time - I think it was 2010 - on this platform called LinkedIn.

Naber:  That's so early, so early.

DSG:     Yeah, it was,. It was new at the time, and I think social media, still back then, was a that little bit misunderstood, particularly in businesses. Everyone was like, how do we understand social media? And so, Ariel did this talk and what they were doing, and I think they've hit 50 million Members maybe at that point in time. And just this rocket ship growth, and how they were thinking about the role of something like LinkedIn in the talent marketplaces. It orientates it's professionals and networking. And I just left, totally inspired. It was a 40-minute talk. I was like, this is incredible. And just started hitting up everyone on LinkedIn I could find that worked at LinkedIn, and met a guy called Pat Traynor. And yeah, the rest is history to be honest. So I wasn't, it was one of these things where I wasn't looking to leave SHL, but the LinkedIn message was so compelling that I wanted to find out more. And again, when the offer came, it was a tough decision to make because I had so many good relationships at that company, and everyone was like, yeah, social media and LinkedIn, it's a fad. We're not sure. And it sends shivers down my spine to think that I may not have taken that role when I did, given the the experience I had there over six years and how many great people that I met. And so yeah, just one of these things I want to take a punt on. And yeah, thankfully it turned out in a really good way.

Naber:  So you moved into, that's a great story, you moved into the Senior Enterprise Relationship Manager role looking after a bunch of customers around Europe, Middle East and Africa. Is that correct?

DSG:     Yeah, back then the London hub was the EMEA presence, and I moved into a Relationship Manager role, and it was a new role. LinkedIn had just started to specialize away from these hybrid-type, customer-sales professionals to a more new business, relationship management, customer success type motion. And I went in at a relationship management level, and we were still trying to figure out the playbook for it and what that looked like. And it was fun, but it was chaos at the time, right. Hundreds of customers, no real process, but just a great environment to be in as we figured that stuff out, and new products coming to market, and working through some of those challenges. Yeah, it was fun.

Naber:  Awesome. So I'm going to look at LinkedIn as a whole experience before you jump into the Manager, Global Accounts & Head of Relationship Management scope that you had. Because there's a link between, no pun intended, but there's a link between the businesses that you've been across at LPR, CEB, LinkedIn, Rungway and InVision. The businesses you've been across to been at extraordinarily different phases of the development & growth of that particular business. I want to separate two things right now and ask you about them, because I think these are two of your superpowers, and you've had a ton of exposure that other people can learn from. I want to separate two things - building great cultures, and building & retaining world-class talent and great teams.

Naber:  So let's talk about building great cultures. How do you think about building...because when you moved to LinkedIn, that exposure you had to those cultures, same thing at InVision - I don't know about Rungway culture,, but I do know about CEB's culture - you've had exposure now to so many great high performing cultures of some of the fastest growing businesses in the world. How do you think about building culture? Maybe a set of principles, or a framework that you use, or at least what's your mindset and then I can dive into that a little bit.

DSG:     Sure. I guess, if I think about LinkedIn, Rungway, and InVision - the common theme across all of them is just the purpose in those businesses, right? LinkedIn - connecting professionals to opportunity. I think 600 million people on that platform. The mission that they're sort of living every day, it's great. Rungway's mission - really powerful around, leveling the playing field for people in enterprises and giving people a voice on sensitive topics and access to mentorship, irrespective of what you look or sound, in quite hierarchical cultures. And then InVision - just this really powerful platform that's disrupting the way companies think about digital experiences, right? Every company in the world today is arguably a digital product company. Whether you're in pharmaceutical or automotive, or finance. The user experience now via screens is a huge differentiator for businesses and how they think about reorientating what they're doing, given the competitive landscape.

DSG:     All of these companies had great missions, but I think about the culture in these different phases and really tying that to what you're trying to understand or achieve as a business. So if you think about InVision at the moment, we've got this really exciting products used by 5 million designers around the world, from some of the biggest companies - 100% of the fortune 100 - but we're still building in international, right? That's a lot of great things. But there's also challenging things that come with growing a team at breakneck speed, and adding people and changing process constantly. And so, I think when you think about culture, you've got to pull in the context of where you're at as a company. And really think about defining that with clear vocabulary, so that people can understand what it is the culture represents and the types of behaviors that are going to help you succeed as a business.

DSG:     At InVision we've gone through a company-wide exercise of codifying the values and making sure that that's integrated into how we define what it means to be at InVision and the types of things that are gonna help you be great. And we've gone as far as building that into how we do employee engagement, and how we coach people and how we celebrate people. And so I would say like, creating a vocabulary around the culture and the values is huge. Engage your teams, talk to your business stakeholders, find out what it is you're trying to achieve as a company, and then use that context to define a set of language that people can really internalize and understand. And then think of ways in which you can bring that into everything you do. This can't happen in a vacuum. Too many companies stick values up on the wall, and they're great, but no one remembers what they are. And so I think these businesses, like LinkedIn, like Rungway, like InVision, in my experience, have all done a really good job of understanding the power of culture and creating an environment where people can understand it, and thrive in it, and contribute to it. I think that's an important part. Obviously lots of learnings through those, like InVision, we've grown so quickly, we haven't gotten it all right over the last couple of years. But as you go through these mistakes, you learn, and you try and improve. And we've just got some great people here trying to figure this stuff out.

Naber:  That's great. So when you're thinking about...you mentioned defining, put together a set of language that's common across the organization and applying that to everything that you do. That sounds, both intuitive and maybe not intuitive at the same time, but those are the steps in the elements that you think are very important within building that culture. Do you have any foundational things that managers and leaders need to do in order to proliferate that language and proliferate the documentation, or the definitions you've put together for what the culture is, and how to bring that to the people within their teams?

DSG:     100%. Yes. I think the documentation is really clear, like clear definitions and as many examples that you can bring to what it means, that that are real life examples of people who are living certain behaviors all the time, right? And so how then you bring that into all aspects of when you're recruiting people. Are you identifying those types of behavioral policies in the people that you're interviewing, and how are you doing that, and how can you make sure that that's consistent right through your hiring. Because again, InVision's a great business and we're growing quickly, but it's not great for everyone, right? As sales professionals, we're at a stage where we're growing a pace where things break all the time, and you've got to embrace and love fixing that, and building process, and establishing the fundamentals of the company, not just the selling part. And so how we make sure that as part of our values and how we interview, we identify people who perhaps have got brilliant talent and skill on the sales process, but perhaps aren't quite ready for the stage that we're at as a company where there's a build component too. That's really important. We need to set clear expectations with people coming into this company that there's so much that's good, but there's also some challenging stuff. And if you're not the type of person that wants to thrive in an environment where you're having to build things as you go, and develop process, and help contribute to the sort of foundational things that are going to help InVision grow in international - it's not going to be a great fit, and you're not going to enjoy our culture. But people that look at it and say like, that's exactly where I want to be and I want to have an impact beyond simply the sale, that can obviously be quite exciting for some types of people. So yeah, document it, define it, integrate it into the types of people that you're looking to recruit, and then also set a standard for what great looks in your company too. How are people developing themselves against those examples? How do we celebrate them in one-to-ones...it's got to be throughout everything, right? And if there are people living certain characteristics everyday, as a leadership team and as peers, we've got to create environments for them to celebrate and recognize each other for those because it's those types of things, I think, that just add to the quality of what we're doing culturally, everyday.

Naber:  So you've inched into, thank you for doing my job for me, inched into the land of the other two things. Remember I said I want to separate two things, one culture building. And that was an excellent answer with a bunch of specifics around steps and different pieces that people can use within the organization to then build up a great culture. Let's move over to team building. You mentioned, all the way down to interviewing, evaluating talent based on the different language and specific pieces of your culture you want to bring into the organization as well as develop. So when you're thinking about building great teams, what fundamental common things have you seen or executed - because I know you've executed these at both LinkedIn and InVision - what common things have you seen between LinkedIn and InVision that they do extremely well with building great teams and building high performing teams?

DSG:     So I'd say, both organizations do a really strong job of standing, what it is that they're offering, right? What's the value proposition to an employee joining LinkedIn? And in the same vein, what is it at InVision? Obviously their two distinctly different organizations, and those things will look different, but you've got to understand what is it that you're offering. All of the great things, but also then you've got to be super clear on all of the challenges too, and make sure that as you're taking someone through a hiring process, if they arrive on day one, what they get in the hiring process is exactly what they feel and expected and in that one experience. So I think both companies do a really good job of understanding that a little bit in the context of where they are. And again, we've made mistakes, over the last couple of years, built the team really quick. There's definitely things that we've learned over that process, but we've got to make sure that when we're looking for people, the types of people that we hire are going to thrive and love what it is that we have to offer, and that people that understand it and choose to opt out, that's completely cool as well. And so I think definitely, some pieces there. And then I think InVision, and to a certain extent, I think LinkedIn did this well, how do you bring your teams into that process too, and give people a feel beyond, say a hiring manager, of the different types of individuals? InVision's got some really strong individuals in our teams and they play a big part in our hiring process. if I think about the last few hires that I've made, part of the feedback that we got from them, is they loved the sessions they got with people on my team. And that was a real opportunity for them to dig in on what it's really like. I think bringing your employees into that experience and giving candidates that perspective through someone on the team's experiences is another powerful tool for telling that story.

Naber:  Yeah. Let's actually pause on that for a minute in drill into a little bit more. How does that work? How are you bringing the team in, what's the process, or how are you bringing your teammates into that mutual two-way evaluation process as they're evaluating the candidate and the candidate evaluating what it's actually to be in that role as well as the culture of the business. How are you actually doing that in the candidate experience?

DSG:     Yeah, definitely. So I guess, we have set criteria through the process that we're interviewing people against. So let's say a candidate gets to a stage where I've had a couple of conversations and they're doing really strong, but there's an area that I'd love us to continue to dig in on. I'd provide that framework to someone on my team - give them all of the notes, the context - and they would then be equipped to go and have that conversation. But there would also be a flavor of like, this is a two way process, and I'm always pushing on candidates to own this experience a little bit too. Like, we can do what we can to share our perspectives, but they should be interviewing us as well. And I want candidates coming in eyes wide open to all of the great things and all of the challenges that we face. And I think setting those expectations and creating a framework for people to have them is a great way just to be transparent, and give the team access to the types of people I'm speaking to. And there's nothing better than an individual in the team coming back and saying - this person was absolute an rockstar, and having that cultural validation from other people too.

Naber:  I love how you bring your team into it so explicitly. You've mentioned multiple times something around the candidate choosing just as much as the company's choosing. And I've seen a couple of the things that you've written about, and you're talking about that two way experience and the choices on both sides - the candidates have the power, the company has the power. Reminding themselves that mutual evaluation process is extremely important. You write about that, I think in one of your LinkedIn articles as well. When you're going through that process, what explicit questions or types of examples are you using or asking for to help the candidate evaluate whether or not they are right for the stage of business? Like you said, InVision's of kickass set of products, company, great people, great culture, really fast growing, raised a bunch of cash, high valuation. On paper, it's a badass opportunity. At the same time, it's just not right for people, you said at the, at different phases of a business because some people just aren't ready for that, or they wouldn't thrive in that environment. How are you asking questions or what types of questions or examples you trying to get to make sure the candidate can make that evaluation themselves?

DSG:     Great question. I guess just speaking openly about some of the specific challenges, right? If I think about our sales process here, the designer is so important in our company. The role of design in businesses, we want to elevate that voice, and we see the role of design and having more and more strategic influence in an organization, in terms of when an organization gets it right it's driving true business outcomes. And so the designer is everything for us. But that's just one stakeholder and several that we have to work through. And our process, beyond simply a champion in design, also we'll have a security component, and a data privacy component, and the legal components, the sales process can be long and complex. And then there are some of the cultural norms. In Germany for example, cloud is still in new and challenging technology for a lot of big businesses. And so some of our sales cycles in those markets take a lot longer, and therefore the resilience to work through that time, but also the discipline to manage the process and the stakeholders step by step and do all of those leading indicators up until the point that we're able to work on a partnership with the customer and sign that off - those are certain qualities that not every cell's environment will have. And I think the more that you can be specific about those types of things and look for evidence and examples of someone being able to work through that in what they've done historically, but also thrive and enjoy that type of thing versus other sales cycles that might have fewer stakeholders and the less complicated paper process. And so I think the more that you can be specific on examples in your process and bring that to life for an individual...I'm always looking for people to opt in, sell them a little bit against it where the fight is, like, this sounds exactly what I'm looking for rather than overselling too much, and finding that some of this stuff becomes a shock to people.

Naber:  Great tactic. I love that. When you were at Rungway and and when you were at LPR, when you don't have a brand behind you, and you're still a small business or even if you're really high growth business that's really great at what they do in tech, you are still an unknown quantity or an unknown entity to so many people, that you don't have the brand out there that says, come to us. We're going to attract people right away. So I think it's extremely important to remember when you don't have a brand that you still need...because your conversion rates at the back end and the middle end of the funnel for companies that have great employment value propositions and great employment brands like InVision or LinkedIn, those conversion rates are so much higher than a startup or or a midsize tech business. So I think that small and midsize tech businesses find it extremely hard to play the devil's advocate you just mentioned within the candidate interviewing and recruitment process to make sure that they're telling them transparently - these are the things that aren't rosy all the time, or these are the things that are really challenging that you may find difficult. I think it's even more important in those small midsize businesses when you don't have that brand equity, when it's really scary to do it, because you want to attract the best people and you're scared of someone looking in and seeing all those blemishes, if you will. I think it's even more important to do that. So I think that using that at InVision, using that at LinkedIn as a way to get candidates to, self identify the right opportunity, is is amazing that you guys do it, number one. Number two, I love the examples you used. Especially in different environments, different stages of disruption in the adoption for cloud based technology, as an example. And Germany versus the UK, as an example. I think those are great, nice examples. Solid. Thanks man.

Naber:  Last couple things here, then we'll hop into some rapid fire questions. There's two more things that I want to specifically discuss. One is around building and reengineering a sales process so that it matches a customer facing, customer focus versus an internal focus. I think that you've gone through, in all likelihood in two different businesses both at LinkedIn and then maybe even more explicitly at InVision, where you've gone through a process of reevaluating and reengineering some of that sales process. What would you say to people that are trying to build a customer focused sales process and experience you've had engineering one towards that versus, focusing on yourself and your own internal process?

DSG:     I think, if I take the InVision experience...InVision, has this really powerful brand in design, we love the designe. We spend a huge amount of time going beyond our product to thinking about how do we drive value in the community and the elevate this new growing community in businesses where designers now are differentiators for them. And so, if I think about that community piece, and we do things design leadership forum, which is a community for design leaders where we've got a thousand people around the world that we bring together for these intimate dinners. And it's about networking and it's completely tool agnostic, but it's like how do we create a platform for people that are going through rapid change in their organization where there's not a playbook for the type of growth that they're experiencing, the number of products they're having to design for, the number of stakeholders that are having to collaborate with. And so I guess the first piece is, how as a company do you recognize that you've got to drive value into the community that you serve beyond the products. To help just elevate the overall category and create best practice sharing and knowledge. So there's a piece around just making sure that you're heavily invested in that. And it's really inspiring to work at InVision because the content that we produce and the investment that we make into helping these individuals, and develop these new playbooks, and scale their design teams, and share that best practice - that helps. And I think from a sales process point of view, because the product is so strong and that we started as this self service business where, 5 million people sign up to InVision and now I use it to collaborate design ideas and stake holders, a lot of the conversations sometimes in the earlier phase would start at that product and feature level. And so one thing that we did to help in that early phase of the process was we've developed something called, we call it a value pyramid. Essentially it's just a research framework that starts at the company's most strategic goal, breaks down what their strategic objectives are and challenges, and then ways in which we can create value for that. It's an executive summary slide, and it's really just a framework for researching what's this company talking about online that relates to digital and trends impacting their company, and how can we start every single conversation with a customer around those types of topics as part of the agenda, so that we're not being pulled straight into the products and features piece, but more into how what we do impacts real strategic business outcomes.

DSG:     And so that's one thing that's really helped us elevate our conversations beyond the products, which is important and we want to do, but connects us more to what a company is actually facing in their organization. And how does design play a role in fixing some of those things? That would be one example. Another is how do you then design processes outside of the design persona for us also to create value, right? We have more engineers on the InVision platform now than designers because so much of what's getting created in companies is this design idea that needs to be socialized across so many different business functions. Engineering being one, business stakeholders, legal, compliance, marketing. How do you get as many people involved around the design idea as early in the process so the end outcome is that much better. So for us, it's how do we go to different types of personas and have that value based conversation as well, outside of design, so that we can speak to the value of this operating system for all of that digital product, design, etc. And so lots of work around that. And the final thing, we've developed a customer business review framework, which is really a template for ensuring that in our existing customers we're sitting down at least once a quarter and having a conversation about what's new in their organization, what challenges they're facing as a function, and how we can bring value through the different things that we do. And so, I think these types of tools just give our customer teams, more ammunition to spend more time on the customer than they do on features and our products, etc.

Naber:  Hey, one quick question to dive into a bit of detail on your review documents that you have with the customer. You've done so many of these with executives both at LinkedIn and at InVision, as an individual you have done so many, I know your team has too. Can you talk a little bit about what that document looks like? Either the length of it or the summary of what's in it, just so people get a sense for what you're including in that presentation or that document.

DSG:     Sure. Yeah. I guess, before even getting to the documents, so much of it is about what it is you're trying to achieve as the outcome of the meeting and who needs to be there. So before you even get to the document component, what stakeholders do I need to have in this conversation to ensure that we truly move the conversation forward and are as connected as possible to the challenges of this business faces. So the preparation that goes into defining the stakeholders, selling the value of why bringing those different types of people together in a meeting. You win and lose in the prep and all of that piece. So just make sure that this isn't a tick box exercise, but a truly strategic tool to figure out who needs to be there, why do they need to be there, and how do I communicate the value of these different functional leaders coming together to have a conversation around their company?

DSG:     And if you can get that piece right, selling the value and getting the right stakeholders, prepping to ensure that the outcome that you're trying to design for is the one that you've reach - that's a huge part of it. The framework itself, I think orientate it around a clear agenda that's aligned to the outcome. Make sure that the lion share of the meeting is spent on the stakeholders and the individual challenges that they face, and how those are barriers to the outcomes that they're trying to achieve as a company. If you can leave every single customer business review having understood the three core challenges that a company spicing and why, and what are those barriers to them being successful - To be honest, that's a huge part of it. The rest feels downhill. Obviously the more insight you can bring to those conversations, insights driven from what the industry are doing, perhaps benchmark companies that they look to and see as really inspiring, whether that's in their industry peer group or outside of it, ensuring that you gathered that insight as part of your prep and that you lead with that - particularly when you've get executives who are a key part of making sure all those types of engagements successful.

Naber:  Awesome. Great Segue too. So the last thing I want to talk about is selling to power and selling to executives. You just gave me a great segue. One of your superpowers that I think a lot of people admire is your ability to have really smooth, easy, fluid conversations that are very substantive, while at the same time, hugely impactful. Ha, I'm giving you the feedback that other people have both told me and that I've observed myself. But the point is, those characteristics as well as your structure and your science behind it make you very good at selling to executives and selling to power. Do you have a framework that you use or a set of principles that you use when you talk to executives in executive meetings? You've just done that so much at CEB, at Rungway, at InVision, at LinkedIn, you've done extremely well. What sort of framework or set of principles or using while you're setting up the agenda and having that conversation?

DSG:     Yeah, I would say the first thing that always goes through my mind is to try and look at the meeting from their perspective to try and put myself in as much as what I think is going on in their company. Again, from the research I've done from the conversations I've had. A recent example of someone on my team, they're working with a large financial services organization, and over the last six months I would say the conversations they've had across that organization with all types of stakeholders across the business, and the time they spent just listening and gathering insight and understanding - nothing to do with communicating what InVision does, but really what this business is trying to achieve and the barriers that are stopping them, maybe reaching those things in the context of an annual report or anything else that you can find out about what they're doing strategically - all of that enabled us to, when we sat down with the CMO, in 30 minutes communicate more insight to that individual than perhaps he had been exposed to in a little while. And so I guess for me, you've got to do the groundwork. There's no point turning up to these executive meetings with some sort of discovery conversation framework. You get short amount of time, they want to be educated, you've got to have some type of insight. And you've gotta be super clear on the outcome that you want from that individual. And so for us in that specific example, we wanted his sponsorship on something and we were super clear about that and had earned the right to ask for it because we had turned up with a very clear vocabulary, framework, ask and the insight based on a ton of ground work we've done in that business. And so, for me it's just do the research, do the prep, look at it from that perspective. Know that they've got a short amount of time where they could be talking to any type of vendor, and therefore if they can't leave that room feeling they've learned something or got something clear that they can action, I would say go back to the drawing board.

Naber:  Nice. That's great. One quick follow-up to that. You mentioned prep and doing the pre work multiple times in this conversation. How important is it to have, or do you need to have specific examples within their company on what's going on, or a strategic insights from their business - from an annual report, or inside conversations you've had, or things you can find online? Or do you feel you can go in with some sort of, either your competitor does this this, or other types of organizations you have said x, y and z? How important is it to have something company-specific versus more general but that applies to their industry or their competitors?

DSG:     Yes. It's a great question

Naber:  One quick insert in here. The reason I ask that is because that is a product of a lot of time that someone spends doing the pre-work, whether it's hours, or whether it's an hour. And I know that they evaluate the time that they're going to spend as to whether or not they do it or not. And that's why I'm asking that question, because I know that comes up on a daily basis people sitting down doing that pre-work.

DSG:     Yeah. Çompletely. I would say firstly, it's about the stage in the process & the ask. In the example that I gave to you, the ask was quite clear about how we can help them with a recommendation about their organization. Right? So it wasn't necessarily the start of the conversation where we we're looking to build a relationship. We had done a lot of stakeholder engagement across lots of functions at a quite senior level, C- minus one or two in some cases. And in this example it was like, here's our recommendation, here's how it's been validated across all of these people with all of this business case. Will you support it? So that, I would say in that stage is a different type of executive engagement, where you need to have done the ground work. In an earlier stage where perhaps the executive engagement is more at the beginning of a process, where you're looking to start top down and go straight in at that level. I think any type of insight that is anchored in what you know about the company, what you know about the industry, what you know about their benchmark peers - is really strong. If you're at the beginning of something and your ask is maybe introductions to more people on their team, or them to work with you on a specific problem that you solve really well as a company. I think that's a different type of ask, but equally requires the same amount of prep, right? And I go back to what's the size of prize and what is it you're trying to achieve in the context of the goals that you have? And if this is something that you genuinely believe with this person is going to move your business forward. There's no amount of timeframe on the prep that, in my mind, is not worth doing. If you truly want to meet the outcome and you've decided that that's a key priority for you.

Naber:  Great answer. DSG, you've been excellent with your time. Let me run through some rapid fire questions and then we'll wrap up, that okay?

DSG:     Go for it. Yeah.

Naber:  Your favorite place to snowboard in the world? What is it?

DSG:     Tahoe, dude. Easy.

Naber:  Tahoe, nice! That was so fast! Why Tahoe?

Naber:  I've just got so many great memories there. I learned to board in Tahoe. It became for me and just the group of group of friends, somewhere that we would try and go at least once a year as part of kickoffs that we did and stuff that. And so I've just got so many great memories of learning to board there, great days on the slopes, hanging out with friends. Yeah, it's absolutely awesome.

Naber:  Oh, love it. Okay - second question. Best food city in the world?

DSG:     Ooh. I'll say London.

Naber:  That is such a cheating answer. That's so cheeky that you would say that. So I just saw that you were in Italy not too long ago and I thought to myself, you've been a lot of places with a lot of good food, especially in the last few years. So London is, London is still your answer.

DSG:     Amalfi coast was incredible. Obviously loved the food and Italy, but London's just so international, so diverse, so many great restaurants. Yeah it's it's a pleasure for me. Best city in the world. Love living here.

Naber:  Love it. Love it. Okay, your best one or two interview tips for someone that is going into an interview for a role soon? I know you've written about this, and you've done a shed load of interviews. You've also advised people and companies on this type of stuff. Any interview, one or two interview tips that you would deliver?

DSG:     I would say, research the person that you're interviewing with. Look at the company, there's so much available online now to individuals, there's no excuse for it, right? So Glassdoor reviews, LinkedIn, people that work there, people with similar job titles, who invest in the company, what sort of portfolio do they have? Who's on the board? To be honest, there's so much available to everyone now, and so I would say all aspects of those things would be, would be really important.

Naber:  Awesome. Do the prep. And then last question is around overcoming age in senior roles. You've had a lot of large responsibility at a young age, even in your teens and early twenties. Any advice for making that an asset versus a liability? A lot of people are...I know I asked a question similar to this...but any either general advice or advice to those that are younger with a lot of responsibility?

DSG:     I would just say be yourself. Acknowledged gaps. From my point of view, again, there's still so much that I have to learn and improve on, and I think just be comfortable with that, right? Whether you are managing people that have more experience than you or not, whether you work in environment where your peer group, find common ground with people and just embrace who you are and take a level of enjoyment in what others brings to the conversation too. So I think as long as you're not trying to be something that you're not, then you'll be absolutely fine in my opinion.

Naber:  Hey everybody, thanks so much for listening. If you appreciated and enjoyed the episode, go ahead and make a comment on the post for the episode on LinkedIn. If you love the Naberhood podcast, we'd love for you to subscribe, rate and give us a five star review on iTunes. Until next time - go get it.