107: Katy Tynan - Talent and Engagement Consultant

Congratulations, LeadIQ, on the launch of your new product, Scout. If you haven't used LeadIQ before, head to jbarrows.com slash leadiq, all lowercase, to get 100 credits to use for emails and direct dials. Good morning, everybody. This is John Barrows. Make it happen Mondays. Hopefully, you had a fantastic weekend. I am sitting here with, like I always say, I'm really excited to have people on my podcast and all that other stuff, but this one's especially fun for me because my good friend, Katie Tynan, who saw me grow up in business and cut my teeth and figure the fuck out what I was doing at a very young age, is here to join us today to talk about career development, as a matter of fact. So, Katie, introduce yourself to the audience.

Hey, John. Thanks so much. It's so great to be here. And yeah, we had some really good times together, some of which are shareable and some of which will remain where they are. But yeah, no, I spent 10 years in tech, and a big part of that was working with John at Thrive and collaborating with him on sales, which was awesome. I did a whole lot of different types of consulting, and what I started to realize after 10 years in consulting is a lot of people think it's technology that's the problem, and it's almost never the technology. The technology does what you tell it to do most of the time. It's the people and the process and the leadership and the communication. So, what I do these days is I consult with organizations that are trying to figure out how to get people and technology to work better together, how to change and get people to do new things effectively, and all that stuff.

And a big part of that is figuring out how you keep your skills fresh, how you get really good at what you do, how you keep your passion level high in the work that you do, and all of those things. So, that's what I love to do. That's what I'm super passionate about, and I'm so glad to be here to talk about it. Yeah, I know. And it's funny, just so for those listening here, like, seriously, you've heard me talk. They heard me talk a lot about, like, Thrive Networks back. Like, that was, you know, I went from DeWalt to Xerox and then started Thrive, you know, or was the fourth member of Thrive. And, you know, 25 years old, I would say, I had no fucking idea what I was doing. None of us did. No, none of us did.

But you were actually way more mature than the majority of us. Like, we were all a bunch of degenerates and you came in and kind of gave us a little bit of credibility, I think. And I remember, you know, learning a lot just, again, in business, working with you and Dylan and, you know, from different perspectives, right? And from an IT standpoint, because I didn't know what the hell I was talking about. So, one of the things that we could actually talk about, I think we could do a whole other podcast on, is, like, the sales rep slash sales engineer relationship. Because, man, I abused you guys real bad early on days when I didn't know what I was talking about. I actually used the joke all the time.

Like, because I didn't know what I was talking about, I used to bring a sales engineer with me all the time. And so, I'd be like, hi, everybody. Thanks for coming in. So, anyways, Katie. And John would say, hey, we can do that. And I'd say, no, we don't do that. That's, like, the constant tug and pull for, like, sales and engineers. It's like, yeah, sales says, we can do that. And so, it's going to go, fucking way. We're not going to do that. It's like, but come on, we've got to get the business. But no fucking way. Yeah, we can do that, but it costs twice as much. And it's going to take twice as long as you just said. But it's not good. So, I digress. Anyways, we could, like you said, I think you know where the bodies are buried more than most.

So, we'll talk about that later. But let's talk about career development because, you know, it's actually very timely. This week, this past week, I was in, I was doing a bunch of trainings. And I, a lot of times, get reps coming up to me and saying, John, you know, like, career advice. You know, I'm either, A, I'm not happy with where I am right now. And I'm wondering how I should look at things. Or, and what was interesting this past week was, you know, a kid came up to me and said, hey, John, you know, how do you stay so passionate for, like, for so long? I mean, you've been doing this now. I mean, I've been now doing training now for, I don't know, 12 years. So, then I'm fucking 43, whatever.

And, you know, how do you still have the energy to get out there and go do what you do? And I said, A, I love what I do. But B, I have a plan. You know, I'm working towards something. So, one of the things that's interesting to me is this, is that I tell kids this all the time. In your 20s, try everything out, right? Because there's limited risk, right? So, you know, you can sleep on your parents' basement, you know, in your parents' basement if you fuck up, whatever. 30s, you should start to figure out kind of really what you're great at and go in on it. Hopefully, yeah. Kind of, right? I'm doing buckets here. And then 40s, if you kind of haven't figured it out in your 40s, you're kind of screwed.

So, how should, let's talk, because the majority of the audience here, I'd say is, you know, probably anywhere between the ages of 22 and 28 years old, starting their careers in sales. I always used to look at the question when I would get interviewed as a kid, like, hey, where do you want to be in five years? I always kind of rolled my eyes at that. I actually think that's a pretty important question right now. So, if you're a rep right now and you're a little bit frustrated because you don't have a lot of direction, what advice would you give to a kid to say, like, hang in there or here's how you should look at it? Like, what's that typical conversation for the kids to ask you those questions?

Yeah, I think your original advice is spot on, right? The whole idea that you can't know what you're going to like or not like until you do it. So, let's just take me for an example. I have a psychology degree. I 100% plan to be an elementary school teacher. I am so not an elementary school teacher. In fact, I spent about, I don't know, 30 minutes in a classroom during my college career and was like, that sucks. Let's not do that. You don't know until you try things. I would never have told you that I was going to get into IT if you'd asked me when I was in college. And when I was in my 20s, if you asked me what I was going to be doing in 5, 10 years, I didn't really know. I was sort of following that path of, I like this, I'm good at this.

It's something to find in yourself is observing what you do every day. What things come really easily to you that maybe are hard for other people? Or what things, when you do it, you just lose yourself in that work and you're like, God, I could do this for days. So, it's really a self-observation process in your 20s. And I agree with you. You've got to experiment. You've got to throw yourself into it. And you're going to suck at stuff the first time you try it, right? Like, the first time you do anything, you're not going to be knocking it out of the park. Nobody gets in the pool and turns out to be Michael Phelps on day one. But you've got to try it. You've got to like it enough to keep trying it.

So, it's no good to keep banging your head against the wall on something that you really don't enjoy either. So, that's my big thing is go to- Let me ask you on that. Let me ask you on that. Because I think there's a lot of people that look at, like, I think millennials get a lot of shit these days for reasons that they shouldn't. You know, and I think a good friend of mine, Richard Harris, he actually has a really good perspective on this. He says, you know, the main reason that I think millennials get a lot of shit from our generation, from the Gen Xers, is because we're, to a certain degree, jealous. You know what I mean? Because it just, like, there's so much opportunity now. And it's so easy, it's so much, it's seemingly so much easier now to gain access to information, to, you know, all this stuff compared to what we did.

So, we're a little bit jealous. Like, I wish that was me, right? So, that's where he's saying it's coming from. And I, to a certain degree, agree with that. The one thing that I do have a little bit of a concern with, though, is with the younger generation is the lack of patience and the work ethic factor, right? Because they all want to be, they all want to, because I think we're living in an Instagram world right now where everybody shows the outcome of how awesome it is, but they're not showing the journey of what the fuck it takes to get there, right? So, I'll give you an example in our world, like SDR, sales development reps, right? That is a shitty job, period. You're making fucking, like, depending on the company you work with, it can be fun, obviously.

I think it's the most important job in sales, but, I mean, you're banging away 50 dials, you know, your hand, so it gets really mundane. So, I can easily see where a rep wants to get out of that as fast as possible. But there also is something, and so, to your point, like, I could easily get into an SDR role and be like, fuck, I can't stand this. You know what I mean? How do I get out of this? But what's the temper, what's the, like, how long should you go into something to determine whether you really don't like it or to get really good at it so you can earn the right to get to that next level of your career, right? Help me understand that because I think that's a big problem that's happening right now.

Yeah, no, it's huge. And I spend a lot of time in the startup space, and you know, because we were there, but I've mentored a lot of startups. And one of the things that you find is it's actually, it builds strangely bad habits, right? Because everybody tells you, you have to keep beating your head against the wall. Even if you get a hundred no's, you got to get a thousand no's. Even if you get a thousand no's, you got to get a million no's because eventually you're going to get there. And sadly, some people just aren't ever going to get there, right? So there's a balance. I think you need to give anything enough time. And to me, enough time is three months. If you can do something, and I'm sort of making up that number, but I'm sort of not, right?

That's the habit amount. If you look up how long it takes to form a habit, it's about- It's like 21 days, right? Isn't it 21 days in a row doing something 21 days? 21 days in a row or three month period of time doing something consistently, say three to five days a week. So if you're building a habit, that's how long it takes for you to basically get good enough that you're competent at it. And so if you've tried something for three months and you're still not good at it, you still don't like it, and you still think it sucks, then I would start thinking about other things with a big, huge caveat, right? And the big, huge caveat is every single person, sales, not sales, whatever your role, should have at least five to 10 people in their network that are sort of ahead of them, right?

A year, two years, five years ahead of them that you can go and talk to and say, hey, how did you feel when you were in this shitty role, right? How did you feel when you were doing this work? Did it get better? When did it get better? What did you progress to? How is it now? So that helps you if you're going to keep beating your head against the wall, have some context to put around that and say, oh, maybe it did suck for three months, but maybe six months, all these people say, oh, at six months or at a year. So, because there is a point like that, that I agree with you where it clicks, right? Where it's just like, okay, and it just becomes a little bit easier because you've been doing it enough times.

And I think in sales, there's, but I also look at that like three months, six months, but I also look at it as you have a 40-year career ahead of you. You know what I mean? And the problem with sales is it's usually the default profession, right? Because we don't go to school for it. We rarely, you know, I think there's about 70 universities now where you can get your major in sales. So, which is way better than it used to be. But the fact of the matter is, is people kind of get into it with this perception. And then what happens is they get the shit kicked out of them because it's not easy. And then they give up a little bit too early because they're like, oh my God, like that, no, absolutely not.

But if they stuck with it for a little bit longer, you know, and evolve, they might be able to really create a great career for themselves if they just got over that hump. So, my fear is, is that too many reps are too eager to get through that shitty part without really focusing on it. And one of the analogies I always use is like Picasso, right? I mean, you know, like my original major was art. And Picasso is, you know, he mastered each medium, right? So, it was like he went into the blue period and then he did that and then he went to Cuba's, you know what I mean? And he perfected each medium before he went to the next. And I think there's something about that. And so, I worry that reps aren't giving it enough of a chance and realizing that it's a building block for a much larger and much more fruitful career if you get through that part of it because it's never easy that first part.

You know what I mean? So, I mean, are there some things like let's talk about the plan, right? We were talking about this before we started recording. I think one of the most critical parts is to really look at your life, if you will. Forget about your career for a second, but your life and ask yourself, you know, that question, like what do you want to be in five years? I used to think it was a total bullshit question when I was a kid. Like, oh, I want to be a fucking manager and yay. You know, but now, and I don't know just based on experience or what, I actually think that's a really important question, but it's not necessarily where you want to be in that job in five years. Where do you want to be in your life, like lifestyle-wise?

What kind of car? What kind of, you know, do you want to be married? That type of stuff and then based on that lifestyle, back into it, it says what kind of job and what kind of money do you need to be able to make and then back into here because I get so many reps asking me, John, I'm not really happy as an SDR or BDR or something like that and I'm looking for a new gig, what should I do? And I say, and I ask him, what's your plan? What's your plan? And they're like, well, I don't know and I'd say, look, if you don't have a plan, look, if you have a plan, okay, if I have a plan five years out or whatever it is and I am doing something shitty right now, if I'm eating a shit sandwich right now, right?

But if that shit sandwich is going to get me to that next level that's going to help me get to ultimately get my plan, I'll eat that shit sandwich all day long, right? But if I don't have a plan, I'm just going to go from eating shit sandwich to shit sandwich to shit sandwich and trying to find better taste in shit sandwiches, right? So, so how, so how do you give that kid the patience short term with a plan who's in their 20s who should be trying all these different things out but, but not like giving up too soon? Yeah, so there's a couple of things on that and first of all, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to throw some real theory at you, kids, so learn from Professor Katie. In psychology, and you can totally look this up on the internet if you feel like it, there's a guy named Abraham Maslow and Maslow is the guy that created this pyramid which you've probably seen of the hierarchy of needs.

Bottom of the pyramid if you think of it as a pyramid is your basic needs. Can you pay your rent? Can you put food on the table, right? Can you do those things, those basic things that are so important and you have to be able to do that before you can be happy with any role before you can even think about whether you like a role and so I think sometimes when we talk about planning and we talk about, you know, thinking way ahead it gets hard if you're not in a position where you can at least feel like you're safe and so I think everybody has to start out in a position in a role where they're fulfilling their basic needs and unfortunately in sales with a lot of positions being quota-based and commission-based you're so focused on shit I've got to get my quota done I've got to get to the point where I'm making enough money it's hard to think about that planning ahead so I completely agree with you that if you don't know why you're working you're never going to want to work it doesn't matter what job you're doing whether you're digging ditches whether you're the CEO of a big company whether you're a sales rep whether you're head of sales for a multinational if you don't know why you're getting up every morning and going to that job and doing that work you're going to be unhappy okay so actually I'm going to pause on that for a second yeah go ahead I think that's super important like I go through the why exercise for like I did the whole Gary V thing right and did the okay what's your why and I fundamentally believe that as a business right so I came up with our why as hey sales done right like that type of thing and because I believe when sales is done right it's the greatest profession in the world when done wrong it's not and so I'm trying to elevate the profession so that's but that's my business okay now my why personally is my daughter obviously right Charlotte like I'm doing everything I can to put her in a position to be successful my goals have shifted now to try to make it until I'm 70 years old and so I can watch her get married and be successful herself right but when you're a 20 like how do you walk like a kid in their 20s through what their why is like what's what's a kid in their 20s why these days like how should they at least think about that because I never thought I never thought about it when I was in my 20s yeah and I don't think I don't think that every 20 year old knows what their whole life path is going to be or what they're going to want out of life I didn't didn't know when I was 20 when a lot of people and believe me I have lived because a lot of the work that I do is in talent development world I have lived with listening to people talk about millennials for I don't know five ten years now and and it kind of drives me nuts right because millennials are people and so there were all of these consultants and God bless them they went out and spawned whole careers consulting on how you manage millennials and I just look at them and I'm like do you know that they're people do you know you manage them like people because every single one of them is different they have hopes they have dreams they have goals they have goals they have preferences get to know them as freaking people and then you'll know how to manage them and I think the same thing is true in reverse right as a 20 year old you don't know everything you can go try and get some of that information from people who are ahead of you but the fact is you're operating with limited information and when you have kids or when you get married or if you never do any of those things but you decide you want to you know tour the world whatever your life becomes you're not going to have all that information until you get there with that said and I'm going to say something that I'll probably get in trouble for later but money doesn't buy happiness right we know that but it will sure as shit buy you a boat that will sail you right up close to it so you can't solve all your problems with money but you can solve a lot of them and you can have a lot of problems if you don't have money so if you're 20 and you have a grand passion to I don't know go and try to dig wells in Africa or do work that is really charitable in nature go do that that's great but if you don't know my first piece of guidance is go get a job that makes you some money because you're going to need it well I got a similar talk track I said money doesn't buy happiness but it sure shit gets rid of unhappiness yeah a lot of things you can fix with money dude a lot of things yeah so I and that's kind of like Jack Welsh you know his advice and I like this one too is if you don't know what you want to be when you grow up go get a job with a company that has a brand name right because what happens there and especially companies and I say this in sales like if I didn't know you know getting into sale getting into out of out of college and going into sales my advice would be to go get a start at a company like Salesforce start at a company like you know Oracle or whatever because that name that name is going to first of all there's going to be they're going to be massive training they're going to invest a lot of you and you can basically use them to get to the next step of your career because for me when I took I didn't even know it but my second job before Thrive was was Xerox and at the time Xerox obviously is a very well-known brand and they had an insane like well-known training program and so when I was looking for jobs right before Thrive like when I would go out there and I had Xerox on my resume people would be like oh man Xerox like and it was an immediate qualifier for me and I didn't even have to talk about it you know what I mean whereas if you work for some no-name company that nobody has any idea about half the interview on your next job is going to be like well what's that company do and what'd you do when you were there and that type of stuff and so just building the logos if you will on your brand early on and to your point maybe going and finding a little bit more of a secure thing to go make some money doing it while you figure out what you're truly passionate about is not the worst idea yeah and I also think to go down that path a little bit more what you just said about training is also important that you can get hired by a startup tomorrow as a sales rep because every startup is dying for people to go sell their stuff and most startup founders are not very good at sales so you can get a job anytime any minute of any day doing that kind of work but if you can get yourself into an organization that is going to provide you with some and it's not all but some of the professional development that you need to learn because some of it is and we all know this there's stuff you like because you like it and you're good at it naturally there's other stuff that maybe at first you don't like but then when you learn how to do it you get much better at it fast and so you could be banging your head against the wall because you're just doing it wrong and then you get some training or you work with somebody who knows what they're doing and all of a sudden it's a different picture you just nailed why I love doing what I do right because from a training standpoint the you know I always say look I don't have all the answers but I've made a shitload of mistakes in my career and so my goal when I do training is to help reps skip a few steps right and I used to try to when I'm doing training like you know say there's 30 reps in a room I would try to reach every single one of them like oh you gotta you gotta pay attention because it's just good it's gonna work and all that other stuff and now I actually don't give a shit about the 30 reps in the room I only care about the ones that really want to learn because there's always the group in the back that's sitting there on their iPhones and I used to try to force that and now I'm like hey that's your fucking problem not mine but but the ones where you can tell they're like I I'm I'm freaking out right now because I got this job I got this quota I don't know and I've been blasting out these bullshit template cadence emails and making calls and I'm getting no success and then I come in and I give them a little bit of guidance and some tips and tools and techniques that work and you literally watch them go fuck like all right like now I get it you know what I mean and I hated it before but now it's kind of interesting to me and that's a huge point of really trying to and that's what I think I was going back to as far as giving something a chance you really don't know that you don't like it until you have been at least given some guidance on some things that work so that you can start to see that momentum build in a positive direction yeah and I think that's it that's a really important element to understand is how we learn right how because everything everything that we do is learning today in our careers and I say this all the time work is just applied learning so we're out there trying to figure stuff out every day most of us don't have jobs that we walk into and know exactly how we're going to do it every single day so knowing how you learn knowing what tools and resources are out there knowing how people in general learn can be really valuable to you as you're trying to build those skills so in the tech world and you know this because we both came from there when I talk to technology people about careers I say look guys it's hard right because you started out and you had to just know hard skills right if you could fix a server you could have a job in IT and the same thing is true in sales if you could sell anything you could have a job in sales but then you have to add on to that your soft skills okay now you know the tech inside and out but can you relate to people do you have leadership skills do you have an understanding of how people other people think and process and communicate differently from you and then finally now everybody wants business acumen on top of that so you got to have hard skills you got to have industry specific skills you got to have your soft skills and now you have to have business acumen as well and that means you better accept that you're going to be in a constant state of learning for your entire career you're never going to be done and that's important if you're going to be happy working because you can't be like shit I gotta learn again today yes you have to learn every day every day yeah that's I mean I have the you know the 12 guidelines to success I think you know about right because I came up with them at thrive and one of them is 1% get 1% better every day and this is that you know what was it raving fans right is like know who you are know what your customer expects of you and then get 1% better every day and I've lived my life by that my entire life which is if I can look at myself at the end of the day and say was I better today than I was yesterday then no matter how bad my day went if I got a little in and I mean that in the sense of the smallest one like 1% that's why it makes it manageable right like did I make one extra call did I go that one extra mile you know whatever it is and if I can say that then I feel good about my day if I if I can't say that I got better today than I was yesterday then I am you know I know I'd have to do better tomorrow yeah then you're better tomorrow is to actually do your 1% exactly yeah so how do you but what do you do like so how do you how do you guide because I'm sure you get a lot of reps who ask you just like they ask me you know John my my company doesn't invest in me they don't invest in training so how would you approach educating yourself and and having that learning mentality and and from a resource standpoint or like what would you do to integrate the business acumen and learning earlier in your career with if if there was a company that really wasn't supporting that yeah so two things first of all I think we we give and I'll call them kids because they are kids coming out of college but and I was a kid too I think we give kids the wrong idea because of the way we whether it's high school or college that you go through just before you get your first job we give people the idea that education comes from someone other than them to them right so first of all you got to bust that right out of your brain and say the person that's responsible for and accountable for your professional development is you and you're the only one that's going to be able to make that happen your company may provide some stuff but let's face it their goal especially with people having short tenures is to just give you what you need to do what they need you to do they're not really motivated even the best of companies have a hard time sort of teaching you all of those pieces and parts and keeping track of where everybody is on that so you've got to own that that's part one part two is thank god we live in the age of the internet because there are so many resources whether it's free stuff that's out there whether it's stuff like linkedin learning or coursera or udemy all of those there's just tons and tons and tons of stuff that you can go and find and john i know you've got a ton of resources out there that you spent years putting together and all of those things are awesome for doing your half which is what can you learn and what's your learning plan what are the skills you're trying to get where can you get them and i think it is important you talked about a plan for your career and that's right but i think you also need a plan for your learning and your development where are your gaps what are you really great at what do you suck at what do you need to be able to do and how are you going to get that learning and the good news is there's tons of it out there but you've got to meet your company halfway or more you've got to own that process and if your company is not giving it to you you're not allowed to go whine and say they're not investing in me you got to go do it you talked about the routine factor because i think this is also like or the the building a habit right 21 days or three months um and i talk a lot about how in order in at least in order for me to integrate something to into my uh to to do it consistently right um if i treat it as an event like i'll give you an example if i treat learning as an event it almost always gets pushed down to the bottom of the priority list right because something always is going to come up where i got to respond to that email i got to write that proposal whatever it is so that hour i had blocked off to do a little bit of research screw it i can get to that later so what are your thoughts about creating a routine around your your own personal learning and how would you do that yeah so there's a couple things first of all when i teach career development classes in big fortune 500 companies i tell people all the time you need to put two two hour blocks a month on your calendar and they need to be movable but not over writable so you have that block on your calendar that says you're going to sit down and think about your career development whether that means you're going to take an online course or you're going to go read some articles or watch some videos or whether you're going to take a class or read a book whatever that is you put that time on your calendar if you have to roll right over that time because you've got some other priority that's fine you can move it but you can't delete it and again under the heading of meet me halfway lots of people come to me and say well katie why can't i have time during my day my work day to do professional development you can but then you're taking away time from doing the things that you've got to do to be successful so meet your employer halfway if they're going to give you an hour take an hour out of your personal life if that means that at 10 o'clock at night you're reading a book or watching a video that's a great investment of your time but don't feel like all that time has to come out of your work day well and and thank you um because because and you're in it more than i am but what what happened and maybe it's just me because i had my lens on like i never wanted to rely on somebody else you know i and i've i asked my parents this all the time like what did you do to instill a strong work ethic in me right because i'm trying to do things the same thing for my daughter but but it like i feel almost bad telling reps these days that suck it the fuck up do something on the weekend or do it at home like like don't like your eight your nine to five thing like don't try to cram it all into there like am i wrong in that there's a little bit less of a desire these days to do anything quote unquote work related outside of work because i'm seeing that i'm seeing reps like who are like well i don't have enough time to be able to do that john and and i'm like well fucking do it on the weekend like that's what i mean you saw me i worked pretty much seven days of work a week at thrive i was up at a networking event every single morning and every single night you know what i mean working until about one o'clock two o'clock in the morning because i had a drive to be successful and better myself but am i am i mistaken that that mentality is is shifted and now it's like well what's in it for me why should i do this why should i have to work off hours or or am i just being an old fucking back in my day i think it's actually a little of each right i grew up the same way you did with the your work day starts as early as you can get there and you if somebody calls you at 10 o'clock at night you answer the phone and you don't resent that because you're trying to get somewhere and prove yourself and all of that and to some degree i think that's right and valuable with that said i think what we see is a backlash from people who saw their parents do that growing up yeah and who look at that and say that's not sustainable that's a shitty way to live your life that everything you do is work and you never have time and you're always sort of saying oh yeah you know in six months this will all cool down and i'll have time but you never ever get there so to me it's how do you find how you personally are most effective right when is that is it monday to friday nine to five if that's when you're personally most effective and any time beyond that makes you grouchy and makes you suck at what you do then don't do that but if you love something and you're really passionate about it and you want to answer your emails at two o'clock in the morning and drive for that that's great too i mean we haven't touched on this but sales is and consulting is like this too it's a weed out the weak profession frankly and the people who don't want to do the work and don't love it for the sake of it and aren't feeling motivated by the rewards of doing those things aren't going to want to be in it for the long haul and they probably should go find something else to do but i also think you've got to watch yourself and you've got to watch how you message around that because it is possible for people to look at you and think that what you do is impossible for them and so you got to set the bar high but you've also got to say to people look you're the best judge of your life and your goals and your priorities and you figure it out and if you're totally comfortable and you want to you know we know some people like this work your nine to five and then go skiing on the weekends that's awesome too but just don't bitch about it so i think that's i'm 100% on gary v's uh uh tip here where where he says look if you make 40 grand a year and you're happy then fucking amen you win like you and i and i agree with that like if you are and i know and i know plenty of people like this too who literally they work nine to five they have a decent house they live a nice like they play with their kids on the weekends they go to their their baseball games and all that other stuff and they're happy yeah and look like regardless how much money you make if that's if you figure that out like you are you are my definition of success but if you're making 40 grand a year and you're bitching and moaning that you don't get the opportunities or you're not making enough money and you're not willing to put in the work to get more than that then i got no fucking patience for that nope that's right you are dead right that it is about no nothing is free you're never going to get given that corner office and that 200 300 500 thousand dollar a year salary you're just not going to get that by sitting back and so you need to sit forward you need to put your time and sweat equity into your career and you need to do that in a way that helps you get where you want to go so that you see those results so that you don't feel like man i'm just doing this because that's what my boss wants me to do you got to be doing it because it's what you want to do and that's and actually when you bring up the boss factor here i do also think that the the the where management and leadership misses is they don't help reps understand how they fit into the bigger picture right because i always say like if you don't as a as a leadership team if you don't have a vision and and the people that you work that work for you aren't bought into that vision and don't understand how they fit into that mission you're never going to get somebody to do more than what they're asked to do yep right i mean that's and that's absolutely true i look back at thrive right and i look back at us i'm like what the fuck like calvin nate and chris did something to find a group of us because we didn't get paid shit and we all worked like like 10 times harder than i think anybody i've ever seen in my life to get that company to where it was with no ultimate real benefit for us i mean i was the one out of those you know those three founders had 90 plus percent of the equity right and i i was the one who had the most outside of that which was one percent and when they sold like not like i remember i don't know about you but i was pretty fucking bitter when they sold you know i got a nice little small down payment on a house and each one of those guys walked away with millions but for some reason we all bought into the vision of thrive right and and i told jimmy on my way out the door after i got fired from staples and i said to him i go dude like right now you need to stand up and you need to tell people look here's the new vision of where we are as an organization now that we've been acquired and here's how we're going to get there and by the way here's your role in helping us get there and if you do great and if you're bought into that fantastic if you're not then please leave and and we'll find a nice transition for you but what do you think leadership's role is in getting people bought it because i think i think leadership has i get a lot i don't know about you i get a lot of these questions john how do i get my reps to work as hard as me and the answer to that is you're never going to get your fucking reps to work as hard as you because they're not they're not as invested i mean sure give them the exact same amount of equity that you have then they'll work as hard as you but if you're if you're an owner and you own 30 40 50 percent of the company and some kids getting a commission check you expect that kid to work as hard as you especially if you don't have them understand kind of what this is going to do for their big picture career and how they're bought into this so do you have any guidance on leadership on how they can get reps to to buy into that and also understand where they fit in the big picture yeah i think there's a couple of things there and and you've touched on them really well right so one of them is why did we do that at thrive i'll tell you why i did it at thrive i didn't do it for the money i did it for the people yeah i was there every day and busted my ass at 10 o'clock at night for two sets of people number one our clients because i was on the hook for it right you and i had sat in the room with those people and told them that we were going to solve their problems and then if something broke i was like well god i better go fix that part of it was that intrinsic motivation i loved fixing things i love taking that worry off of those clients who don't understand that technology if you don't have intrinsic motivation if you don't believe in the product you're selling to such a level that you're willing to spend some of your personal time and spend some of your extra energy on doing that then you need to find a different company that sells a different product that you really give a shit about that's part one part two from a leadership perspective is it is about a lot of different things for different people so i was not as money motivated as i could have been but i was certainly career advancement motivated i wanted to be at the next level of my career and frankly that thrive director level position that i had there way early in my career got me somewhere that i would never have gotten if i was at like fidelity i mean the hell with that i still would have been like an associate consultant yeah i always joke that like i was the vp of sales and marketing at the ripe old age of 24 years old which is a total fucking joke but at least that title got me definitely some exposure exactly so you have to think about all the parts and if you're a leader you have to look at each of those people that are on your team and say why is this person here why did they take this job is it because of the people is it the money is it the opportunity to learn and grow is it that they thrive in this particular environment and then you've got to help them see the connection between the work they do every day and that intrinsic motivation that gets them out of bed and it's going to be different for everybody now that's like ninja management not a lot of managers are great at doing that and so they fall back on I'll just throw money at this person right but it's not always about the money especially at that level in your career you know the money is going to come at some point but you're doing it in order to get somewhere and I think that's what leaders need to understand and that's your point about the vision do you think it I mean you say it's ninja managing but I actually you know the more I think about this I think we're in a world right now where you just have to accept the fact that you're that whoever's working for you is going to leave eventually right and they're probably not going to be at your company so why not create an environment for them where you're going to get the best out of them in the short period of time and be open and honest with them about it right and so I'm wondering if it's if it's almost like if you're a manager out there one of the things that I would do and this is what I did with Morgan you know I asked him hey like what's your what are your life goals here like what do you what like forget about this job for a second like ultimately what do you see yourself doing and because I'm my job here is to help you get there now I want to get the most out of you for us here with this organization but in doing that I want to help make sure that you're developing to get to that next level of your career and like give you an example like Morgan like his number one goal when he came on board was me was he wanted to be the number one motivational speaker on the planet right you want like Tony Robbins type of stuff and always cracks me up millennials love all so many millennials want to be motivational speakers when they like they haven't really done anything yet but that's another story but but I hey I'm all in on that I said all right Morgan like give me three to four years I said give me three to four years and I want you to bleed for me I literally want you to go out and I want you to go train and travel and and generate as much revenue as you possibly can for my company and in return for that I'm going to show you how to run a business I'm going to show you how to like how to manage you know I'm going to show you the keys to the castle of how to do this but I need you to do this for me and there's a plan for that do you suggest that managers take that that approach with each one of their reps which is kind of taking a step back and saying kind of let's talk about your life goals here for a second and how I can help you get there yeah so I do a lot of management development and leadership development work and there are so many theories dude I mean you know everybody and their mother myself included has a book and all of these things that you're supposed to learn and know and do and it can be really overwhelming to managers all the stuff that they're supposed to know and think about and what I tell people is you can forget all of it every single drop of theory you can let it go the only thing you have to remember is to care about those people on an individual basis and if you personally care about and invest in their success they will go to the end of the earth for you because that's all people want they want to know that somebody gives a shit whether they're successful or not and so I think you're right in that partnership idea it's great advice for managers to sit down and say where are you trying to go how can I help you get there and in return here's what I need from you and it's a really good win-win relationship and if it's not working I have written a whole bunch of articles about why retention is stupid and why you should stop trying to retain people right I get it that companies know that it costs them money to replace people but you know what costs them more money having people sitting there on the job who don't give a shit and aren't trying anymore so make an environment where the people who are the right people will be super successful and they'll stay as long as they feel like they can be super successful and then be excited when they move on to something new because they're achieving their goals and they're going to help you make a really lovely warm handoff and they're probably going to help you hire their replacement yeah I mean it's funny because people ask me about thrive like what what was I most proud of it thrive right and and it's funny because it has nothing to do with the fact that we sold the staples it has nothing to do with you know we were the fastest growing company in Massachusetts and all that other stuff my literally my my the thing I am most proud about is that I gave Kevin Ellis an opportunity to do what he did yeah I mean he I didn't I never I'm never going to take credit for Kevin like being as successful as he was because that was him but I I put him in a position to be successful and watched him grow and now where he is in his career like I take a lot of pride in the fact that I was part of that yeah and you should take pride in that and you remember what I said to Kevin Ellis when he was there and he was whining to you because I was hard on him because he wasn't getting it right and I gave him a whole ration of shit and he came to you and said why is Katie so hard on me and the answer is because I wanted him to be successful and so I was going to hold him to that standard because I knew he could do it and I think that's the management that needs to happen to help people understand that you're buying into their success that you're not going to let them do shitty work because you want them to get where they want to go so I think that's important yeah awesome Katie well I think we let's we're coming up on the hour here and it's been an awesome conversation I think you want to like we should have a whole other one of just having a drink and talking about where the bodies are buried but we're not recording that yeah exactly well shit I think people would actually tune into that too like I've actually been toying around with doing a whole podcast being stoned and just having like the stoner sales version of it to see how that goes but I think we'd probably get a ton of viewership but I'm gonna wait a little while on those but so you said you said you've written a book you said you've written a bunch of posts and stuff like that so to tell people where they can find out this this awesome information and for those of you by the way just before you say that and I don't say this lightly you know I say hey you know it was great talking to you you know for those of you listening Katie I learned a shitload from you when I was you know doing the stuff at thrive and I've also read a lot of your stuff and so I truly genuinely not only value our friendship obviously but value the your approach and just whole overall mentality but also very specific advice on this stuff so where can people find that information from you well thank you and right back at you so the short answer is the book that was published a year or so ago was published by ATD press it's available on Amazon it's available on ATD site it's called how did I not see that coming the new manager's guide to avoiding total disaster and you can find me on LinkedIn I am all over the place I'm on Twitter I'm on LinkedIn and just hit me up and I say this with absolute sincerity if you have questions about this stuff if something's bugging you connect with me on LinkedIn and ask I am more than happy to answer questions point you to articles and and give you advice because I want everybody to be successful I don't have all the time in the world but I'll try and and obviously this is what I love to do so I'm happy to to look at stuff at two in the morning too you know absolutely I get my Barry Manilow voice on now because I've been doing three days of I was in Chicago New York and Orlando this week and I got probably about two to three hours of sleep every single night going from airport to airport so my that's why my voice is about two or three octaves lower today than it usually is but you know and but again it's because the the two things that we kind of started this conversation off with a I love what I do and be I have a plan and I'm and I'm executing on that plan which gets me up every single day and helps me stay motivated doing this so well that's awesome and I am so happy for you and the success that you're having and I'm so happy that you can offer these resources out to these sales reps who are coming up in the world and I think it's just fantastic I appreciate it Katie so cool all right everybody will hopefully you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did just like I tell everybody all the time you know if you do nothing else today go make somebody happy if you can make somebody smile then no matter how bad your day went then you know you made a difference in the world and we need a little bit more of that these days so go make somebody happy today and keep getting better every single day thank you so much Katie you know I'm so happy to be happy to be here and I'm happy to be here and I'm happy to be here and I'm happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to be here and I'm so 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I'm so Thank you.