123: Finding Your Sweet Spot in a Sales Career with Amy Volas

Thank you to our sponsors, LeadIQ, Costello, SalesLoft, WorkRamp, and Dialpad for helping us produce this podcast. Head over to jbarrows.com slash blog for the highlights of this episode and explore resources you can use right away. Let's make it happen. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrows. Make it happen Monday. Hopefully you all had a fantastic weekend. I am very excited for my guest today because I feel like I know her. I feel personally connected to her, but this is actually the first time we've actually had a conversation. Amy Volos over at Avenue Talent Partners. Say hi to everybody. How's it going? Hello, hello, John. Same thing. It's like I feel like you're my old friend without really knowing you until today.

So thank you. Of course. I mean, that's what we were talking about getting into this. It's like that's the power of social and branding. It's like you get to know people without really getting to know them. And then once you have a conversation with them, it's actually a really easy conversation, right? So I think that's what we're going to have today. Amy, tell everybody what you're doing now. And then if you don't mind, I always love just to kind of hear people's story, obviously, you know, like the 32nd minute view of kind of how you got to where you are right now because you're running your own firm. Could you just kind of walk us through how you got to where you are and what you're doing these days?

Sure. So I'll start with these days. So this week, we just celebrated our four-year anniversary. So it's like this proud moment. Thank you. Blood, sweat, and tears, right? And so really the space that we occupy is sales is my first business love. Startups would be my second. And I started the company to help sales get it right in terms of hiring. And that oftentimes is with founders or technical founders or sales leaders that either have struggled to get it right, and I'm helping them clean that up, or they know what getting it wrong looks like, and they want to get it right the first time. So we support enterprise sales through executive sales leadership. That's where we concentrate. And all of this came from me spending a bunch of time in my career in and around the recruiting and talent acquisition space for HR tech and selling products and services.

And paying attention through the years of the number one thing people have said to me is, I don't have a problem having conversations with people. I can find all sorts of people, but it's the right people. And if I don't get that right, it really hurts me. And then on the flip side, candidates are people, and it's their lives and their careers. And I am really sick of all the nonsense that happens and abuse, quite frankly. The stats are insane to me of a sales leader's tenure is 19 months and shrinking. A rep is 16 and a half months and shrinking. And I work really hard to help my clients defy those odds. So all of that goes into the blender of enterprise sales is something that I've always done.

I was thrown into. I fell in love with no turning back. Also was in sales leadership, was bitten by the startup bug, made some of these mistakes myself firsthand, saw other people making the mistakes, saw it was working really well. And I think you start a business for one of two reasons. You're either Steve Jobs, and you're brilliant, and you're going to change something, which is not me. Or you've been around the block for a while, and you see a tremendous opportunity to make something better or to fix it. And that's totally me. So that's my jam. I love it. I love talking about why you decided to get into doing it. I mean, taking the jump to start your own business is not a trivial jump, right?

Was it really just the experience and you getting sick of what you saw out there that drove you to do this versus going with another firm that you thought might be able to be effective on this? Like, what was the driving factor for you to start the firm? If you seriously would have asked me, I just said this before we got on a call. This guy was asking me about this. And I said, if you would have asked me five years ago or told me, you're going to own a sales recruiting firm, I'd have been like, hell no, and been grossed out. Like, there's no way. And with that comes opportunity, right? So my story was, I started a business in 2008. 2008 was 2008. We're going to leave that right where that is.

And it served me a dose of growth, learning, humble pie, kicked my rear end and then some. But I knew once you're bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, you're bitten, right? And I knew I wanted to do it again. At that time, I had a business partner and I had to recover and I had to learn and I had to grow. And you just don't do that overnight. So going through that, knew I always wanted to do something else, didn't know exactly what that was. And when I was going through, I have an executive coach. And when I was going through that and really thinking about what that would look like, we broke it down into two buckets. Like, no, I'm not this innovative mindset of creating something that's never been seen before.

But I have a lot of experience and a unique blend of experience for my space. And I also was sick of being hit up by gross recruiters and like, you know, there's something broken there. And the feedback that I received through the years, what were the common pieces of feedback and could I really fix it? Because for me, if you don't know your why, so I'm loving some Simon Sinek, you don't know your why and you don't have that North Star and you're not really passionate about why you're meant to do something or why you're doing it, you're going to fizzle out. And so that was like table stakes. And this, I feel like I'm like Joan of Arc of what it is that I do because I choose to work with my clients as much as they choose to work with me.

I'm not just whoring myself out being like, hey, job orders, let's do it. It needs to make a difference. And if it doesn't, I'm not interested, no matter how much money I could make. And on the flip side, these are people's lives and their careers. And some of the best clients I have were candidates that wanted the job that I had to say no to, but they loved what we did behind the scenes. So that's, that's like all the stuff that I think about that I had been through over the years. And I was like, this is nonsense. This needs to be fixed. It pisses me off. It makes me feel a certain way. And honestly, four years later, it is in the fiber of every part of my being. I was put on this planet to do this business.

I feel very strongly about that. I love it. You know, and to unpack that just for, I mean, it really aligns with, you know, what I truly believe in, which is, you know, you can't, I think the number one thing you need to be successful, and I usually say successful in sales, but I think this is in general, is a true belief in what you do, right? Because if you do not believe in what you do, go find something else to do, right? And, and, and, you know, people say, follow your passion. I actually think that's a bullshit. I, I, I, especially to tell a kid, you know what I mean? Like a 16 or 20 year old kid, follow your passion. Like if I followed my passion, I'd be a stoner painting shit on the sidewalk.

You know what I mean? So like, but, but find your passion. And I don't think you can find that until you try out a bunch of shit. And then it, then there's a certain point of, it comes with experience where you wake up one day and you start to realize this is what I'm really good at. And this is where I can make a difference. And I, and I think I, and you have a unique perspective on this because you, you deal with a lot of kids, if you will, like people coming into sales and those types of things. Do you think there is a, and this is off the topic that I think we're, that we're going to ultimately discuss, but I'm just genuinely curious on this is, do you think there's a level of experience or, or just in general, like, is it amount of time doing a certain thing?

Is it an age or is it, is it experience that kind of all of a sudden you, you wake up and you're like, I got, you know, I got it. Right. Because I, because I always look at it as I kind of break it down very simply in twenties, thirties, and forties, like in the twenties, you have no idea what you want to do. So literally, and there's no risk. So literally try everything, right. Cause you could always sleep on your parents, you know, couch again, if you needed to, there's, you don't have kids. Usually, usually don't have kids. You usually don't have a house thirties. You got to start honing in on what you're good at, right? Like, and, and start to really become the practitioner and that type of thing.

And then in your forties, you, you better know kind of where you fit in the sense that at also in your forties, for me, I kind of woke up and, and all the shit, like, you know, you talk about in your twenties, you're looking up for, for answers and you don't know what you don't know thirties. You kind of think it, and then you're 40, you kind of wake up. And as you just start talking people like, holy shit, like that makes a lot of sense. Right. And it's like, well, fuck, I really does it like, I don't know, you know, and that was at least my experience. Do you see the, the, a certain part of a person's career where they, they get, they all of a sudden they're like, yes, this is, this is what I want to do when I'm going all in on it.

I wish I could say yes, but I mean, I deal with CROs that are in their forties and fifties. And, you know, sometimes I talk to people that are older than that and they have no clue, right. Like they have no clue. Um, or I talked to somebody that's building a business and they're in college and they know exactly what's up. I think a lot of it has to do with self-awareness. I knew for me, like, I never knew I was going to be in sales. And if you would have asked me at a young age, I'd have been like, ew, gross, slimy, icky, yucky. Um, but what I did know. And I was a criminal justice major, right? I want to be James Bond, um, which I am so not. But, you know, I knew that it had to be with people.

Like I am someone that gets energy from other people. I'm naturally curious and fascinated by what makes somebody tick and what did they learn and why did they learn it? And that's the crux, right? So for me at a young age, it was like, um, I know I need to be around people and I know, I know I need to move a needle somewhere in that. And I couldn't define it cause I didn't know what I didn't know. So part of it is as you age, I hope that you take time to harness that perspective of what you did gets you to a certain point. What did you learn and how does that get you to the next point? And a lot of people don't do that. I have this manifesto of if I care more about your business than you do, or if I care more about your career than you do, we have a problem.

Um, and I find that a lot of the folks that are coming up through the ranks, regardless of age, they take a drive by to their career or to their business. It's what they should do. It's what they were told that they were good at. It's what they studied and they feel dead inside. And so part of the way that I have tried to help people, because I've seen people that are 25 that are exactly what, what, where they should be in doing what they should be doing. I've seen people at 55, um, and, and the reverse of that example. But what I try to tell people is to your point, if it doesn't fuel your soul, regardless of whether you know what you want to be when you grow up or not, don't do it right. Like life is too short.

It flies by too much. It's negative energy. That stuff bogs you down. But if you don't, and you're like, well, I kind of like this and I like these pieces and I don't, we don't listen to ourselves. And I have, I mean, I should show you this. Hold on for visual purposes. Because I really do practice what I preach. Hopefully there's more, but wait, there's more. These are all my journals. I make notes. I mean, and some of this is little, right? Like some of this I can like take with me, but, um, I like to listen to other people and to myself. And I'm like, oh yeah, yeah. And there's different categories for these things. I wrote about it for sales hacker and I'm not trying to plug myself, but it is the best advice.

A scorecard kids take the emotion out of it. Listen to yourself. Listen to when you're talking to your mentor, to your friend, to your boyfriend, to your girlfriend, to your partner, to your family member. I don't care. All of that means something or not. And what's the weight and let that guide you because just trying to figure it out overnight, you're not going to, and that's okay. I think the piece in there that I want people to listen to is, you know, I wrote a blog post a little while ago called Stop Doing What You're Supposed to Do, right? I think everybody has this preconceived notion of what success looks like, what their career should be, what they should be doing, right? Based on societal norms.

And I point back to two times in my life that thankfully it was forced upon me. And I, right, because, and one was personal and the other was professional. The first one was coming out, like, I think it was end of my freshman year in college. I ended up meeting this girl and, you know, and, and staying with her for seven years, right? So literally, you know, for seven straight years, moved to Boston, brought her from Maryland to Boston with me and, and I knew it wasn't right. I knew the relationship wasn't right. It just inside me didn't feel good. But she was kind of quote unquote dependent upon me because she had a bad, you know, childhood and she didn't have any money and all this other stuff.

So I'm sitting there. I'm like, well, what do you do after you're with somebody with seven, with somebody for seven years? You, you get married, right? And then you, then you buy a house and then you have a kid. Like, that's what you're supposed to do. And thank God she, she actually, we got engaged and she is the one who broke it off with me. And literally at first, like for two days, I was like curled up into a ball. Oh my God. I, you know, but I woke up two days later. And when I tell you, it felt like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders, like a literal weight was lifted off my shoulders. I was like, oh my God, like, holy shit. And then I was able to go, you know, and thankfully then I met my wife, right?

And so that was personal. Professional was, you know, Staples. Like I tell the story a lot where my little company, seven years, we grew it or 12 years, we grew it fastest growing company in Massachusetts. Then we got bought by Staples, right? And at first I was like, oh, cool. Cause I was kind of bored with where we were going. I kind of figured it out, whatever. Now it was like my little chance to take my little $10 million company and integrate it into a $20 billion organization. And cool. This is interesting. But I wasn't the guy. And I am, I mean, I am the reason I work for my, I'm just a straight pain in the ass. Like I do not fit in the corporate world. And so everything about corporate was wrong to me, but I kept fighting it because that's what you do, right?

I mean, this is my company. They bought it. They had to fire me in order for me to be. And again, for a couple of days, I was like, oh my God, I've never been fired before in my life. Like what the, and then a couple of days later, I was like, holy shit. And, and what was interesting, I had a little bit of a panic and, and you'll appreciate this being in your position. I had a bit of a panic attack because I was like, what am I supposed to do? Like, am I an IT sales guy? Is that what I do? Cause I sold IT services. I'm like, gross. I don't even like computers, right? But my wife was the one that, they, that helped me figure it out. She said, well, let's look back. And this is to your point in the scorecard.

She said, let's look back in your career. Why were you successful at every single role you've had? Right? She's like, so let's, let's talk about DeWalt power tools. Why were you successful at DeWalt? Like, why were you the number one rep at DeWalt in the region? I was like, I don't know. Cause I fucking love DeWalt power tools. Cause they're cool as shit. You know what I mean? Like, like it, so like I really believed that DeWalt power tools were the best bad-ass tools. So now Xerox, why was I the best rep at Xerox in the region? Well, it's not that I fucking cared about copiers. It's cause I genuinely believed that at the time Xerox copiers were the best copiers in the industry and then thrive my company.

It wasn't cause I cared about computers. It was cause cause I genuinely believed in the people that I was representing. And so it turned into, it doesn't matter what I sell. It matters what I believe in what I sell. And that opened up a whole host of, you know, and that's where I think my eyes got like wide open and I found my passion and that was, you know what I mean? So instead of following it, which I didn't know, I found it there and ran with it. That's where it's taken me to this part. But that required you to do work, right? And required you to be open to hearing your wife hold you accountable to like, let's go through this. In my world, I hear all about what's wrong and what's broken.

And I'm like, I hear you. And that's the catalyst for the crack in the foundation, our conversation, getting to know each other, whatever that might be table that let's talk about for all the other things. What have you done? Well, what have you learned? How do you apply it? Why? You would be, well, you probably wouldn't be John. Like it's like crickets. It's like deer in headlights. And this is a big problem, I think, societally. And I'm not talking about generations or locations or any of that. We're in this like quick fix, hacking, shortcutting, doing it for me, figuring it out as you go. And that's detrimental in my opinion. And I play in my world, I'm one part recruiter, one part salesperson, one part therapist, and one part coach.

And the therapy tends to be front and center because people, and really talented, phenomenal people, it doesn't occur to them. And it's amazing to me that we let our life happen to us. And it's like, for me, thank God I've got a husband that holds my feet to the fire. And I was scared out of my mind to do this business four years ago. I was like, and he was like, I'm going to push you off the ledge with love, right? But like, you're going to do this because what's the worst thing that happens? You go and you get another sales job. You've always been a top performer. Fine. And I was like, no, but you know, what's amazing is when you've taken the time to hold your feet to the fire and you have people around you helping you do that.

I'm a big believer, like who you surround yourself is huge. It's not just about like, well, you know, somebody told me to do this or I'll figure it out along the way. Figuring it out along the way is obvious to everybody else, right? Yeah. The whole fake until you make a thing, I think it's bullshit. That is total bullshit. When you know, and maybe you don't know how it all comes together, but when you know why you should be doing something that you want to be doing this, what fuels your soul, other people notice and it's magnetic, right? And I don't care if it's sales or something else, but the second you go off course and you're just sort of doing this or I got into sales because I can make a bunch of money and that's your only reason.

I don't want to work with you. I don't want to talk to you. Get out of my industry. And literally fuck off. Like if that's the only reason you're in sales and if anybody out there is listening to this, if you're listening to this podcast and the only reason you're in sales is to make money, go fuck yourself. And please get out of this industry because you're the one that gives us all a bad name. If I hear I'm coin operated, sales is coin operated, we're all coin operated, I broke all the interview rules when people were interviewing me where they're like, so what do you care about? And I'm like, so I'm a big believer that if you do the right work with the right people consistently, success will always follow.

I don't care about your numbers. I care about doing the right work. And do you give me the latitude to be able to do that? Do you understand what building out an enterprise sales function really looks like? Do you, and it's like, and they weren't used to that. And I'm like, here's what I bring to the table, ladies and gentlemen, either you want it or you don't. And I know it's not for everybody and that's okay, but here's what you will get as a result of that. If we're on the same page and I think it's about taking control for once, take control of your career, take control of who you are, know what that is. And if you don't, like I said, get out your notebook or your virtual notebook and start writing it down and look for the themes.

And maybe you don't figure it out. I had a candidate that we placed two years ago called us and said, I think that it's not okay here anymore. And I said, okay, let's talk about this. I haven't worked with them for a year. I don't have any perspective about the current state of affairs. Help me understand what's going on. So we talked about it and I said, I don't think you're convinced that it's time to go or it's not time to go. And you're talking about abandoning enterprise sales and going to transactional because it's easier money. Nothing's easy money. Here's what you need to do. You need to get a scorecard. You need to stop talking to me. You need to listen to yourself. You need to listen to this conversation.

You need to listen to everybody around you. You need to look for the themes. You need to call me back in two months. And he was like, this is why I called you. Thanks for kicking my ass. Can I, can I, can I dive into that scorecard piece? Like, like tactically, like, cause I use a scorecard actually for clients. Like we actually train this, like what are the gives, what are the gets, match them up, that type of thing. Like tactically as, as for, cause I think this also kind of leads to my one, another question I had for you, which is like, how do you teach self-awareness? Right. I, I think, you know, thankfully I've been blessed with, uh, I'm, I think I'm pretty self-aware. I know exactly who I am and where I fit and what I'm good at and what I'm not.

I've always kind of been like that too. Like I've always said, like, even through high school, I'm an above average guy. You know what I mean? I'm slightly above average at a lot of things, but I'm not great at anything. Okay. Basketball, you name it. Right. And so, but I'm the guy that's going to work my ass off. And I'm also not the one who's the, the pure startup guy, like the, like the take the risk, eat ramen noodles. But I'm the second guy where, where you come up with a company, you bring me on board right afterwards. And I light this thing on fire. I've also even, you know, again, going back to even my personal, like how I feel about myself. I always said I'm a second look guy in the sense that there's, there's the first look guys where you look at a guy and you're like, Oh my God, you're a smoke show.

Like you're wicked handsome. Right. Like, I'm not that guy. Like you look at me first. I'm like, Oh, who's this bald headed dipshit. But if you look at me again, like, you know, like I'm not that bad. Right. So, so I've always kind of been like that. So with this scorecard, like help, like for those people out there that are in this situation that we're talking about, that are really just trying to figure it out and don't want to be that 55 year old CRO that still has no fucking idea what they want to be when they grow up. Like, what does that scorecard look like? How do you develop that? So I have a template, right? If, if you Google it and you say Amy Bullis scorecard, voila, sales hacker has great SEO.

So it's there. Um, and I've actually evolved it over time. It all came from me getting it wrong and being duped into a role where I was completely lagged to. It was the worst thing ever. I'm not a crier. And I called my husband bawling. Like what did I do on day one? And I vowed to myself, I would never get it again. Right. Like that, that this was not going to happen again. And so the way that the scorecard comes together is you've got different categories and it's, it's the way that the template is constructed. What you'll see on sales hacker is you've got opportunities. The first one should be your existing opportunity. What am I leaving? And in my opinion, if you're going to go, it better be to at the very minimum equal or greater, you should be going to something and not just away from something, right?

Because, um, there's this whole thing that's happening in the economy that we live in sidebar really quickly of a way for me to get a raise in, in sales, because your base salary is your base salary. You'd never get a raise is I'm just going to jump around and the next job I'm going to get 10 K more and the next job I'm going to get 10 K more and guess what's going to happen. The economy is going to start going this way and you're going to be the last one that anybody wants to talk to you. And people will troll me for this. I'm a realist. I have conversations with hiring managers every day. I know what they care about. This will be a problem for you. Oh, you'll be the first. Not only will you be people avoid you, but you'll be the first to get fired because if you have a heavy base salary with lower commissions, then that's a fixed cost.

But if you have low base salary with high commissions, I mean, I was just having this conversation with Scott Lease about betting on yourself, man, like I was always afraid of a full a hundred percent commission job, right? I was actually had to, I was always like, Oh no, I need a base salary. Right. But man, when I was forced to, again, forced into when Basho fired us and I started up my own company and I was now 100% commission rep and I bet on myself and I said, man, I'm a pretty self-motivated person, but man, you want motivation. You, you realize that when you wake up in the morning, if you don't go to fucking work, you ain't getting paid. That'll get you out of bed a little bit earlier than you would have otherwise.

Right. So, so cool. Yeah. When I think about, when I think about that, right. And I think about the scorecard, I think you need to do a diagnostic on the current state of affairs. Why are you even thinking about this, the scorecard? Is it just a bad day? Is it just a bad week? Is it a bad quarter? We've all had them. Welcome to the world. Welcome to sales. Yeah. Yeah. And hold yourself accountable. Give yourself some grace and be fair to the people that have hired you. If it's just a bad quarter, okay, can you fix it? Are they willing to fix it for you? What tweaks could you make to make it different? Can you have internal conversations to address that? If you've done all that and then it's broken, totally different ball of wax.

But I think that's an important thing to think about because somebody will have heard about a change that might be happening and they get freaked out and it's like, I gotta go. And it's like, stop making decisions in a vacuum or because you're scared. Fear does not help, right? It's what you do with that fear that makes the biggest difference. So I think, first of all, it's evaluating current state. And then I think it's a second tab and it's not in the scorecard, but it's a second tab of where have I been before? And all of the different things that are important. I care about travel. I don't care about travel. I care about being inside. I care about being outside. I care about commission versus, um, base.

I care about enterprise versus inside. I care about a technical founder versus a founder that's been through this multiple times. I care about the stage of company. Um, I care about this part of my team. I care about this part of leadership. Like all of that stuff means something. And when you're thinking about what you care about, the best way is what your wife did did with you. When you were happy and you were successful, where, why, how, what, with whom? When it was bad, same questions, right? And then get all that on paper. It's going to be messy and ugly, but start looking for the themes. And then on the first tab of the scorecard, here's what's important to you. And, and each one of those things has weight.

And in my opinion, nothing's perfect. Every role you're going to go to has 25% shit. We all have it, right? But it's, what is it, what's in that, that you can tolerate versus a no-go. And that's where, when people, you mentioned lessons that you learned in your own life. And one of those was personal with dating. I absolutely think that there are so many parallels between dating and recruiting and sales. They are not so dissimilar. And so what I find is it's like dating. It's like, okay, I swiped left or right. I don't even know. Tinder wasn't around when I met my husband. Thank God I don't know anything about that. I know. So whatever you're swiping to say yes to somebody, because you think they're super hot or to use words, they're a smoke show, which is awesome.

And then you go on the date and you've had a couple of drinks and you're like, this person's so hot and I want to make out with them. You're like, they're so great. And then you go on several more dates and all of a sudden it's date 10 and you realize that they haven't paid their bills in six months. They don't have a car. They're living in their parents' basement. Like that's not really your fit, right? But you got so enamored by all the shiny objects. Same thing happens. And that's what the scorecard is meant to do is strip out the emotion, hold yourself accountable to what's most important to you. If you have not been able to uncover that in the interview process, you better go back and get those questions answered.

Nobody has your back or should have your back more than you do for yourself. And I did a podcast with Sales Hacker and it was live or it was a webinar and it was live and people were like, I'm afraid to ask the questions. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. If you're afraid, that's a big problem in and of itself. So that's how the scorecard kind of comes through of if it's at a 75% or higher, great. What's that 25% though? And make sure that it ties back to your needs, wants, must-haves, etc. Where do you put values on this scale? And I say that because I've always said it's values first, right? Because if I, and I don't think a lot of people understand what their true values are or go through the exercise.

It's kind of like the why exercise. Why do I do? But what are my core values? Where do you place that as far as importance and how do you help companies and potential employees identify that? I think it's like, that's table stakes. That's foundational. That's true. That's, that's like, that's just like baseline in my opinion. If you, if you don't know what you value. But do you think most people could, if I asked you, I, I, I'm, I know what you'd say, but well, I don't know what you'd say, but I know, you know, but my new best friend now, you should know what are you talking about? But, but I mean, I really do believe that if you genuinely asked somebody in their twenties or thirties, I've shit, almost, I'd say 80% of the people out there.

Just to your point, like most people are kind of miserable, just going through the motions. I think if you said, okay, what are your core values? What do you truly value? I don't think people could just rattle them off the top of their head. I think they would have to sit there and think about it and say, and say general shit like, well, treating people right. You know what I mean? Stuff like that. So, so, so, but, but I had, you know, I went through the exercise early in my career, but I got 12 personal guiding principles exactly of how I run things and how I believe, you know, it's, I call it my 12 personal guidelines to success. And what happened, I don't know, I wish I remember who told me to do that or how I, you know, got to do that because it's been this guiding light for me, right?

Where it's like, okay, now every decision I make, I marry up to my values, right? And, and does it meet those values? Great. I'll do it. If it does not, then no, it's the same thing with customers. If you and I do not see eye to eye from a value standpoint, then it doesn't matter how much money you're going to give me. I have no interest in working with you. I mean, when I brought my CRO on my good friend, Chris, who I've literally grown up with since I was five, like we, we got into partnerships this year and I told him specifically, I go, look, I'm not going to be a NASCAR logo sheet here. Okay. I'm not taking money from anybody. I want the, the number one criteria for anybody we partner with is ethos.

Do they genuinely believe that, that what we believe as far as sales done right? So, so is there, how would you guide somebody to help them truly understand what their actual real values are and not like buzzword value stuff is? Cause I think that's important. Well, I think for me, I'm not a surface dweller. So like, if you can't get down to the nitty gritty, I have a hard time with that personally and professionally. Um, it happens all the time. So I believe in the power of discovery, um, and rediscovery. And so if you don't know, right, I think then it's about, so if you're a rep and you're like, I don't know what I value. I would have a hard time answering that, uh, I'm a big fan of a journal, a scorecard, all the things, but I'm also a big fan of, I celebrate feedback.

I am incredibly direct. I am, I, that's just in my DNA. I'm cool with that. Some people are, some people aren't. I'm okay with that. Um, as a result though, I want it back the same way. Right. So I love feedback straight up unfiltered, regardless of whether I like hearing it. That's a whole different thing, but I've got my big girl pants on and I want to, I want to know. Um, cause I'm always looking to like iterate on myself. I want to be the best version of me. I think to understand your values and if you don't know how to get there, you need help. So whether that's a career coach, a therapist, a mentor, a boss, a group of people, a husband, a whatever, get yourself a collection of like three, no more than that.

Cause it'll start confusing. You're going to be overwhelmed by all that's coming at you. Three people that are really trusted that know you, that you can get super vulnerable and raw. And it's okay to say, I don't know. What do you see and write it down and sit with it and let, you know, like what really strikes the biggest chord? Because especially when I was first starting out and I was doing the wrong things, it felt empty, even though I was dealing with people and I couldn't describe it, but I had people around me that could. And so they had my blind spot. So that's one thing with my clients. It's a whole other thing. When we go through discovery and I'm getting known, this is even before we agree to work together.

Like, so why are we talking? Right? Like, let's talk about this. And they'll tell me. And I'm like, so what makes you, you like what, why there's a million sales jobs. Enterprise sales is the number one role, according to LinkedIn, that every tech company is recruiting for. So what makes you different than anybody else? Our culture. I'm like, like, it's almost like I went through Toastmasters as a young girl. And I just think about like that cowbell. And I'm like, wait, I'm like, okay, stop. They're like, what do you mean? And I said, with all due respect, you and everybody else talks about their culture. What does that mean to you? And people really struggle. And honestly, if you cannot give, I'm like software, how you program me is directly correlated to the outcome of what I am able to do.

If you're stuck in buzzword city or it's all fluff and you can't, you just want me to surface skim and take your job order and just get you a woman in sales, not going to happen. So, you know, at the end of the day, if you don't know how to quantify or qualify it, that's a big red flag for me. If you're like, but that's why I need your help. That sings to my soul. I'll help you get there. There you go. Yeah. And I think that, cause I can't, you know, I think so many people, it is sad to me of like 30, 40, 50 year old people in careers that literally just wake up and go to work with no purpose. You know, I think anybody out there listening, it go through the exercise of really like trying to nail down what your real values are.

And then the beauty of that is you look through a different lens. Cause then you look for, then you said this earlier, you know, I do this with prospects too. I disqualify more than I qualify. I look, I ask you all the, like, and, and, and, and this is a, you know, one of my biggest pet peeves in interviews is when I would ask a bunch of questions and then I would flip it over to the rep and say, what questions do you have? Your answers to my questions rarely dictated whether I hired you or not. The questions you asked me and how insightful they were, because I, cause I wanted to see if you were taking your career seriously and understanding like what I could do for you. Like a lot of people are scared to ask that cause they don't want to, you know what I mean?

They, Oh no, this is, I'm being interviewed. So I have to tell you all the wonderful things about me. Uh, like you, if you core those values out and then you search for those values, the real, real people that align with your values are going to appreciate that. And they're going to hire you 10 times over the person that doesn't. But it goes back to what we were saying, John, that like, it just gets like my blood pressure up of, um, how many articles or how many LinkedIn conversations or how many podcasts or webinars that you see. And, and people ask me to write about this. I'm like, not really interested. What are the top interview questions that I should ask? What are the, and it's like, stop, stop, like stop with the cookie cutter and having everybody else do it for you.

What's your business? What are you trying to do? What's important to you? And if you don't, I mean, the word values is big and it's heavy. If you're not ready to get there, right. Think about it like this. What's important to you? You know, like what, and that is the number one question I ask people. So like, forget about the job for a second, forget about all this, what's important to you. And people will be like, and then I get the culture leadership. I'm like, what does that mean to you? And they're like, wait, what do you mean? What does it mean to you? And so like, it's almost like I know how to lead the witness, so to speak. It's like, if you don't know, and, and for anyone watching this, I love being helpful.

It's why I'm doing this with you. It's, it's why I write what I write. I cannot take a million 30 minute calls to talk about how to help you. Just so you know, that's like a different business model that I'm not in. Um, and that's why I suggest having somebody that knows how to do that of why, what I'm listening to what you're saying. This is what I've heard and confirming or denying it together. Um, I don't have capacity outside of the candidates and clients that I work with, but you know, it's, it's something that we're in this autopilot world of like, give me the template. I just had this with somebody that I did a podcast with and he put out something on social that had to do with me, which was great.

And he came back to me afterwards and he was like, that wasn't my point. Because now all of a sudden he's getting pitched with the same template that he put out there. They just copy and pasted different words. And he's like, my point was to give you an example so you could apply it, not rip it off. And that's, what's happening is people want this playbook for how to do everything. And, and nobody knows the playbook of what is in your fiber of your being. Then you do, I hate to break it down. And if you don't know how to weed that out, then get some help. So, I mean, cause you're hitting on something that I'm, I'm personally concerned with, right? Like that, that me short-term gratification, what's the, you know, and, and I related to sales, but I think this is to your point, a societal thing of like the quick, you know, the, the quick fix, the, the, the fastest path to success and, you know, all that stuff and, and sales, right?

I mean, I think we're in a weird transition point right now from a society standpoint in the sense that everybody understands that, that we have to be personalized and, oh, and we have to give a shit and, you know, account-based marketing and all that other stuff. But yet we're still in this world of short-term results. Like every company is, is monthly quota. You got to hit your numbers. And if you don't hit your numbers, you get fired. And if we don't hit our numbers, our stock price takes a fucking tank and we're out of business. Do you, like, how are we going to course correct here? Like, like, and, and I'll, I'll put one more thing out there. I, I, I, I am seeing a glimmer of hope that, that companies are, that, that companies are starting to put like real values ahead of profits.

Like there's a few companies, there's this one douchebag, I forget what his name was, but he's like one of the hedge fund guys. He's, I think I just posted it the other day, this fuck back. Who's like a sick, like a sexist prick. Right. And, and he, he was up on stage and he was grabbing his crotch and all this other stuff. And, and somebody pulled out 600 million from his fund. Right. And, and it's like, finally people are starting to, you know what I mean? And they're starting to say, Hey, if you're a true douche, it doesn't matter if you're going to make me millions and millions of dollars. I just can't align with that. So I'm, I'm starting to see glimmers of hope here, but are you. Um, yeah, I mean, yes and no.

Right. So I, I know that story and I was like, good, more of that, please. But then I read about WeWork and that breaks my heart. Right. Or, um, I think about what drift went through and I thought David cancel did a good job of taking ownership, um, of having Grant Cardone on stage and being a complete and total idiot. And yes, I said it out loud. It was offensive. It was deplorable. And yet people are still booking him. And I don't, I don't get that. So like, that's the troubling side is like you have that. Um, and, and somebody's just shared a podcast between Grant Cardone and Jordan Belfort, the guy from Wolf of Wall Street of them talking about, I just, I can't even regurgitate it. I, I, it's, it's amazing.

If that's success, I want no part of that. Nothing of it. Nothing of it. You have companies like drift that, that go through that and they, they come out better for it because they owned it and they don't want to be like that. And they're setting the example. So here's, here's the thing that I do believe it starts from the top down. Right. So this hedge hedge fund person, I don't even want to say his name out loud because it gives credit. It's like, I don't even want to say Grant's name because it gives credit, but like there was action taken to show that it's not okay. And I think that's the first step. And so seeing that these things are happening is great. I think we have a ton of work to do.

I think it starts way from the top down. So if you're going for money, uh, who are you getting into bed with, with your VC, with your PE, what does that board look like? Um, do they just take a one size fits all approach or is it really custom to helping you do your business well? And what are those expectations? Then it's about the leadership team and back to values. What is it that you value? Is it a, when it all costs, is it, I think I have all the answers when you have none of the answers, cause this is your first time at the rodeo. Um, and, and really for me, I'm a big believer, like try to be the change that you want to see. I select my clients just as much as they select me. And if I see any of that, I'm not interested.

And so for the little space that I can occupy and the little thing that I can do, I'm trying to do that for good. So to your point, it exists. It's an epidemic. It's probably going to get a little worse before it gets better, but you have these shiny examples of people saying not okay, not anymore. Cause I've, you know what I've always struggled with is that I've, I see plenty of people and I'm, and I'm going to, I'm going to put quotation marks for people listening to this around the word success. Cause I think success is defined in a million different ways. It's a personal thing that how you ever define a success, but I've always been disheartened by the Uber successful people. Like the people who are on the top of the top of the list, right?

It just seems like all of them are fucking assholes. And I, and I say that like Steve jobs. Yes, he changed the world, but Steve jobs is a fucking asshole. You know what I mean? Like Mark Zuckerberg, like that dude, if that, if you know, look, I'm not an educated person on this. Like I wasn't there, but if that story was true about him, basically fucking his friend who gave him the money to start Facebook and completely like just cutting that kid's throat. Like if that's true, like he was a douche right now, now he's given back and okay, great. But it just feels like, like Richard Branson's the only one, Mark, Mark Benioff and Richard Branson to me are the two kind of shining examples of, and I'm sure they've cut a few corners along the way and slit a few throats along the way too.

But there's nothing been that has, that has come out that has been like, oh my God, here's a, you know, they were a raging asshole at that point. But I just, it just disheartens me to think that the people who are at the top, I mean, look at our fucking president right now and I'm probably going to get shit all over for this, but I mean, seriously, you know, cause I try to avoid, I really do try to avoid it, but I just can't like, uh, are we going to get to a point where, where that is, that is not the norm. Do you think? I think there's always going to be the asshole and for the good that's in the world, we'll look at that and say, I don't want to be that. And so I think for every, you need some of the ick to reinforce what the good is, right?

Like it's, it's a balance of sorts. Um, I think we all have choices. Do you want to be the asshole or do you want to be the non-asshole? And if I start thinking about things in totality of like our political climate, um, and all the other things, it's like, that's so much bigger than me. And I don't know how to fix that, nor do I have the ability to fix it. But what I do have the ability to do is what I do, right. And how I act and who I choose to do it with. And I know that sounds Pollyanna. I'm sure people are going to come down my street, but you know, I could give two rips if it's Richard Branson or if it's Grant Cardone, um, in perpetuity of like the ecosystem. Now, if they're coming down my street to offer me a job or to do business together, I really care a whole lot and I don't, I don't care.

It's like how I run my business. People get caught up in like what round of funding, who's behind it, what's going on. And I'm like, I, and that's how founders will come to me. It's like, we're an A round company. We're backed by this. This is what we're doing. I'm like, that's really exciting. Congratulations. And it is good. You've gotten to that point. That's a lot of hard work. I bootstrapped my own company. I get it. But here's the deal. Um, that doesn't really mean anything to our task at hand, right? That just means that you've got some cash in the bank and I don't know what if you're mismanaging it and you have no runway, then we have other problems. Right. So it's like, people are afraid to use their voice.

And I think, you know, it's, it's weird, John, this is our first conversation, but we're talking like we've known each other for years. I love this stuff because you and I are breaking a lot of barriers of what you should talk about. It's like, but how do you make something better if you can't? And I think it starts with doing that. And, and that's why I love Simon Sinek. It starts with why, and I know why I'm doing what I'm doing. I know who I want to do it with. I know what's important. And you use similar terminology. Um, I wrote about it this week. I'm celebrating four years. One of the very first things that I've learned and reinforced is I qualify to know more than I do. Yes, by the way, and I'm okay with it.

Does that mean that my business isn't hard, that I don't go through valleys, that I don't have the rollercoaster ride? No, I'm not saying that I'm this power woman. That's like, I just get to do it. No, but it's like, but it's got to mean something for me. And I'm not going to sell myself to the devil or doing business with icky people when I'm affecting other people's lives, doing that to make a buck. That's just not my brand. It's not me. And by the way, I'm still successful, right? So you can be successful. Like I tell people this, you can be successful without being a jackhole. Like you really can. I mean, I, and again, that's why I said the definition of success is a, you know, I think too many people look at success as a monetary thing.

And I am a hundred percent in line with you that if you do the right thing, money will eventually come right in one form or success will eventually come in one form or another, whether it's monetary, whether it's, you know, an interest, you know, whatever it is, but having that why and doing it for bigger purposes than just yourself, I think is, is something that I think a lot of people need to pay attention to. Um, yeah, so shit. I mean, like we could, I could go, I feel like getting stoned and having, you know, keeping this going for another hour. So, um, by the way, I am going to start a stoner podcast one of these days. Like once, once I really don't give a fuck, like, you know what I mean?

I've gotten to the point where I kind of, I pretty too much don't give a fuck what people think of me. Like, you know, if you have your opinions of me one way or the other, but I haven't gotten to like completely don't give a fuck. But once I get to that stage of my career, I'm going to start a stoner podcast and I'm just going to get ripped around stone and have conversations because these are the type of things I think they need to be have held out loud. Um, and more people need to have them. Right. Um, and we didn't even touch on women in sales, which I know is a, is a huge passion of yours, but you know, that's why I think the conversation needs to just keep, keep happening. Right. Like keep talking out loud about stuff and solutions will come, um, uh, you know, if good people get together and talk about shit, that's not right, then, you know, eventually some, some things might pop out of that.

So, but I mean, it's been awesome talking to you. We're, I'm going to, you know, finish up here. So, uh, most people like it kind of keep it 45, 30 minutes, but let's have, yeah, exactly. Let's have another one of these. I do want to keep this conversation going and, and cause I think there's probably three or four more topics that you and I could talk about that, that hopefully would make a difference, but, uh, how can people find out more information, um, about what you're doing these days and where's the best place, the place to connect with you? Yeah. So first and foremost, thank you. I feel like we could talk all day and, um, this has been like the best first conversation I've ever had ever.

Uh, I like living out loud and I do it across all platforms, but the biggest one where I'm probably the most active is on LinkedIn and everything in any which way to get in touch with me is there. So it's Amy Bolas, um, and I'm on LinkedIn and happy to connect and continue the conversation. Perfect. And for those of you listening, it's V O L A S. Um, and so, I mean, so just go and you'll be, you'll pop up first if, if people put that in there. So Amy, thank you so much, uh, for jumping on. I, like I said, we're going to do this again, uh, sometime here soon, but, uh, hopefully everybody enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. And, uh, just like I tell everybody all the time, if you don't do anything else today, but, uh, you know, go make somebody smile, go make somebody happy.

Right. Cause even if you had a terrible day, if you make somebody's days, uh, better than, you know, you had a great day. Right. So Amy, thank you again. Uh, everybody out there have a great day and let's go make it happen.