127: Sales Careers & Values with Dave Crow

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 Barrow's Make It Happen Mondays. Hopefully, you all had a fantastic weekend. I am sitting here with a guest who I met the first time when I was absolutely shattered drunk at a Patriots game, and my good friend Todd introduced us, and Todd was like, oh, this is my great friend. He's running sales, and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's great. What's up? Nice to meet you. And I'm glad you stuck with me here, Dave, because I was not exactly in my prime form.

But Dave Crowe, thanks for coming on board here over at Seismic. You want to introduce everybody and tell me what you're up to these days? Yeah, sure, John. It was a good game. It was the opener a couple years back. Yeah, when we met, I was running sales at a startup in downtown Boston, a German headquarter company, but ran US Ops and US sales for them. And now I'm over at a company called Seismic Software. So we're a leader in sales and marketing enablement, but I'm not going to do the full pitch. But I'm running their strategic accounts, heading up a lot of key deals for their largest accounts in a vertical we call global. So I'm over with an old boss of mine that recruited me to come in and kind of jive to what we're going to be talking about today.

So I've been here since March, actually. Nice. Good change and a lot of fun. Yeah, cool. So yeah, I mean, and that's kind of, again, leads into the conversation today. Because, you know, we're talking, we're going to chat a little here about like careers and values and how do you really map out a career to be happy in doing it and have a, you know, and obviously an angle on sales for us, right? Because we're both, you know, we've both seen a lot of success in this career. I think it's done a lot for both of us. A lot of us stumble through it. And I think fortunately for me, I've been able, I've been fortunate that most of my decisions and everything has led me to where I am. I don't necessarily know if I was purposeful about that, especially in my early parts of my career.

And I wish I was. And so I think we're going to dive into those a little bit here. And so let's start with that, Dave. Like, I don't want to get into how old either one of us are. But like when you, you actually didn't start in sales at all. You started in engineering, didn't you? Yeah, I was on the, yeah, I started when I got out of college and I won't say what year it was. So we can stay with that. We're both Gen Xers. Let's put it that way. Right there. We're at a good spot. But when I got out of college, I said, you know, I knew at some point, I think I wanted to move into a customer facing role, but I started in operations. I actually, it was funny. You and I talked about this in the pre-call.

Um, I took a, I had a job offer at IBM and a job offer at this startup in the greater Boston area. And my, uh, I'm like, I can retire at IBM. So let's go to startup. So I said, um, went over and I started up in the, in the operation side. I was helping and set up support for the first time at this company. And we got things going and fast forward a number of years. And I've been doing everything from installing servers, figuring out how to make this internet first SAS type thing going. And we got it up and running and, and, you know, learned a ton about how it works. And then I found myself being, I was running a team. I had a international team underneath me and people in India and the U S.

And the funny thing was the sales team kept calling me and it would be every, every key deal was Dave, can you just come on and tell us technically how this works? You know, the SEs would do their job and the, and the reps would do theirs. And then finally I found that I was doing 60% of my time on calls doing this work. And I was in management. I was headed to the table. I was, I was going finally the VP of sale and I were like, let's just do this. So I traded in my window, looking over the front of the building and traded that in. And I had a little cube in the back with no window anywhere nearby. And I was the tech sales guy. I was the first one they brought in for global work. And I, and ever since then, I've, it, it took me figuring out how it all works, the market into became a solution consultant and solution architect.

And then I was doing demos like every other SE and value consulting with everyone. And I learned from all these different mentors along the way. And finally I just took and said, well, I can either keep doing this or if I want to keep growing in my career, I should just carry it back. And that's how I got into it. And I haven't looked back. Now you, it seemed like you had the itch early though, uh, from an entrepreneurial standpoint, right? Cause I'm looking at your background. You went to Northeastern, which is where my sister went. I love that school. I love the whole co-op. You know what I mean? Where you go and then you work and then you go, you learn, work, learn, work. I wish all universities were like that, but, but you got your MBA there in marketing and entrepreneurship.

Yeah. Did you know early that you wanted to be like, did you have that entrepreneurial itch early or did you just kind of experience, did you kind of get the itch later? So, you know, it's funny. So I did my, when I did my undergrad back at RPI, Rensselaer Polytechnic, which by the way is not in Rochester. Everybody always asks me that. So anyway, I went to RPI for my undergrad and I got out and I said, you know, someday I want to be, I set two goals that I want to get my MBA and I want to be a sales engineer. I didn't really know. I knew other people that went right on for them. And I said, you know what? I think I need to work a bit. And then that's when I mentioned, you know, I'd started, went to the startup and I said, well, this whole startup world is amazing.

Nothing's defined. Nothing's, you know, there's no set path. I can go work with all these really smart people and I can get it going. So I really, I built something up within the company as far as getting my own kind of, just like you, I didn't pick the path. It's just kind of open. And I said, all right, let's, let's go with this. And we didn't offer hosting when I started. We offered, you know, a CD type download, you know, before the SaaS world and we had to pivot and our customers said, you got it. So then I built out a hosting environment. That's what I did. So then finally I had my first kid a number of years later and my wife still laughs at me with this one. After we had the first kid, I said, honey, I just enrolled in an MBA program in Northeast.

And she looks at me and she goes, what the fuck are you doing? Why are you doing this now? I said, well, because this kid, I set goals. I'm going to be, I want to be there for soccer and baseball or whatever. If I don't do this now, I'm never going to do it. So I said, Hey, let's go. Went. And it's funny. By the time our second kid came around, I remember my wife said, turns to me, this is a funny story. He goes, I think I'm going into labor. Okay, great. Can you go take a shower? I got to go finish my homework. Went in the back. I'm sure she appreciated that. Oh, totally. I had to walk in the back. We had this little cape in Wakefield at the time. John and I were both Boston area guys. So we, you know, so I go one in the back of the house and I'm just typing away and hammering out this quick paper.

My wife takes a shower and calls my sister to watch, one of my sisters to watch the, watch my first son. And, you know, then we finished the whole thing up and I look back on it. It was like these experiences of wanting to do something with that. And I said, you specialize in marketing or you specialize in business or finance. No matter what I do, whether it's at a big company, you can be entrepreneurial within a department or within a product line. You're at a small company. You've got to be entrepreneurial because you don't have the resources that you got to think about how can I make this happen and what you're going to do about it. And I, and I, it's funny, I look at my career and I went from the startup that I spent 14 years at.

We sold it off to IBM. Everyone had a great time. I got to IBM and I said, okay, it's time for me to look at some other options. So I went on to the startup and I kept, I went to a couple of others and each place I went, even when, when I was with IBM, but I knew it was time to go. When I was with, you know, SEAL software, it was, we're just trying to figure things out to make a market. And that company, if you look them up, you know, all did a great job getting them going. And then I was over at another startup and, you know, you get on these and you got to figure out which organization can you be entrepreneurial at? And that's where I'm, I don't want to have one hat and just, that's all you're doing.

You've got to come up and be creative to, to succeed. And it's pretty exciting. So with that, like, so that kind of leads to the value conversation, right? Because you were looking for organizations that fit something that you knew you wanted to have the autonomy to be able to do it, but within a structure potentially to, to help you grow. Right. So, and, and I think, you know, as, as we talk again, both of us kind of stumbled into and that, that to a certain degree, that's a good thing. And the bad thing about a career in sales is I think is, you know, I always tell people that if there's one thing I was blessed with, like, I, I'm not a smart kid. Like, again, I, you know, I went to Maryland, I drank my way through four years of college.

Like, I'm not dumb, but like, you know, I graduated like a three, three or three, four or something like that. So, you know, whatever, but I'm not the Harvard kid, you know, that's going to go out there and get their brainiac degree or, or build servers or anything like that from an engineering standpoint. The beauty of it is the, in sales is I always said, for me, I'm, I'm, I have a very opportunistic lens in the sense that I've been blessed with the ability to, to assess a situation very quickly and with very few data points, be able to put them together and say that makes sense or no, that doesn't. And I'm going to take that calculated risk. Like I'm not a straight risk taker of like, fuck it.

Let me just live on mom's couch and eat ramen noodles and see what happens here. Like I'm a calculated risk taker. Right. And I think that's been huge for me because I've been, I've been making those decisions along the way and they've been gearing me towards where I am today, which I'm very happy with, but there's a lot of kids who are just stumbling through sales right now and trying to figure out their way. So what are some hacks? Like let's, let's talk about some tactical, tactical, tactical shit here that like, if you're a sales rep, right? Trying to figure out, and you know what? I said this in our pre-call, let's use my, my, uh, my cousin as an example. So my uncle, he is, he's always been my, my business idol.

Like this guy, I always say this probably about like 5% of the sales population that are just the natural born sales reps. Like the ones that just, Holy shit, have it where they have the charisma. They know what to question. And they're not in a sleazy way, but just in a, Oh my God. Right. The rest of us have to work our ass up. He's so him, my business idol all the time, his son, right? Just graduated college with an economics degree, uh, from Oregon. Super good kid, right? Um, called me up the other day, said, John, I think I want to get, I'm down in LA now. I want to get in sales. He's like, so do you have any suggestions? I'm like, uh, welcome aboard, my friend. Uh, my, and my biggest one was the first three or four years of your life are going to absolutely suck.

So let's just get out of that, out of the way first. But what are, what should he be doing right now out of college looking for jobs? Cause he's all over the place too. He's like, I don't know if I want to do tech sales. If I want to work for Patagonia, I don't want to do. So I'm helping him boil it down. But what are your thoughts on a kid starting their career? What are some things they should do to create that foundation that helps them get a better lens of where they, what that job should be? Yeah, I think it's a great question. Cause I think that I look at these guys and I, and I shared this one in the, in the pre-call my, my, I'm very proud of my last summer. I had a great intern, the, um, uh, Andre shout out to Andre Sasso.

What's up, Andre? Um, the, uh, but Andre is the same situation. One of my sales mentors, his son was my intern last summer and he got out and he said, you know, Dave, I got a finance degree out of UNH. What am I, you know, I think I want to pivot and get into sales. And I said, well, Andre, what are you looking? So what do you mean? I said, well, you can sell anything. I mean, you can sell cars, you can sell retail, like you said, you get Patagonia or whatever. You can do any of these things. I said, well, what do you want to do? He said, well, I think I want to get into software. I said, all right, tell me the truth. Well, besides your dad doing it, why? He said, well, you know, I, I, I'm passionate about solving problems and I want to, and I think it's exciting.

It's exciting space to be in. It's always changing. I'm like, all right. So you think about Andre and your, your friend's son, right? You got to be, think about what you're passionate about. Like, do you want to, do you really just want to go dial for dollars? And do you want to just take orders over the phone? Great. There are plenty of customer service jobs that'll do that. And technically that's sales. There, but I think the, the only way you're really going to want, you're going to have, we're not our parents. I don't know about you, but my, my dad worked at one company. He did spin through a bunch, but a bunch of iterations within, he was basically at this large company for most of his career.

And my mom was a teacher for, you know, 25 years of all I. So we're not like that. Everybody's going to a couple of different jobs and it's not a bad thing, but the key is you have to learn from and set yourself up for success at each place and know when it's time to move on to the next. Cause everywhere you go, you have to learn something. If you, the, this is more on the experience side than the question you asked me, but you got to know when you, when you stop learning, it means you're at the wrong place or you're in the wrong job at that place because you're, you have always got to be looking at. So the, the young people coming out, looking for a job, finding the right culture. That's going to match what you want to do.

So you have to have an environment that is open to your success. That's, you know, whether there are plenty of large companies that do it, there are plenty of small companies, but you also have to find out what market you want to be in and you're not going to get it right. You're going to get it wrong. Everyone gets it wrong at least, at least once move. It's okay. But learn from each of those. And I think, how do you, so let's, let's go on that learning and then come back to the values piece, but on the learning side, you know, I think a lot of people jump ship too soon because they're, they're expecting the learning to be given to them in a lot of ways. Like, Oh, you know, I don't, Oh, I, I haven't gone through training.

Like the company hasn't invested in training in me for six months. So, uh, you know, I'm not feeling valued. So I'm going to get the, going to get the fuck out of here. So how do you, first of all, I think it's unfortunate that not too many people have the consistent learning mentality of, I always want to get better. I'm always trying to learn something new. Right. So is there a way to, um, to instill that in yourself, right? So that you understand when it's you versus the company, right? Cause that's what I'm trying to get at here. It's like, how do you understand? I completely agree with you. Once you get to a point where you're just like, all right, like a perfect example, like thrive networks, my first startup, right?

I was 25 years old, literally had no idea what we were doing. Right. And I worked with a bunch of engineers. We did outsourced it support for the SMB market. I was a sales guy. I didn't have a clue, but I knew I could work my ass off. Like that's what I had going for me was that I had a work ethic that most other people didn't at the time. And so I just said, I was going to work harder than everybody else. And the cool thing for me is I was figuring shit out along the way. So for seven years, I built this company and we actually, I implemented predictable revenue, like that model of segmentation before predictable revenue was really a thing. And so we had this engine and I will say at a certain point, I, after about six or seven years, I mean, fastest growing company in Massachusetts and stuff, I got bored because I wasn't, I was like, ah, there's, there's, yeah, I can make tweaks to this and whatever, but I was starting to get itchy.

And then we got, we sold to Staples. So Staples came and bought us. Right. And that kind of perked me up because like, oh, here's a new learning experience. Okay. Now I'm now the head of sales trying to integrate my little $10 million company into a $20 billion organization. And I got some new cool shit to figure out. The problem was, is I didn't know that I wasn't the right fit for that next stage of the business. Because I, you know, there's, I always say to people like there, there's stages. And once you figure out where you fit, it's a very liberating thing. So for instance, there's some people that are pure startups, right? Where zero to 10 million chaos, fuck it, go. Then there's 10 to 50 million where it's, there's structure, there's process, whatever.

Then there's 50 to IPO or whatever. And then there's after that. Yeah. I wasn't the guy, even though I, I didn't see it. I, they had to fire me for me to see it. Um, well, offered me another position, right? No, I just, yeah. Yeah. Fire. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. Um, so not in corporate America, right? So, um, so I guess how, a couple of things on that, how, how do you know where you fit and how to, where, you know, it's the company and not you? Yeah. So I think, you know, going back, there's a couple, couple of things, you know, we went through there. And one of the things is you own your own learning, no matter what. Yep. And I, you know, I'm not going to pull the millennials this and that, cause I actually love them.

I'm actually, I, some of the smartest generation coming up that's out in the workforce now and doing it. And I have seen plenty of times, I have some people that, that I, that worked for me that thought the company owed more to them than others. And so the same experience, you know, that comes up and that's not a generational, that's a person, you know, personal choice that to say, I'm going to blame the company. And I think everyone, you know, whether that's the, the, your buddy's son or, you know, Andre or even the seasoned guys that are starting a new, a new position, you got to first take responsibility to own it because even if the company gives you training, you better go through it and not just hit the next button and, and go on.

You've got to learn from the formal stuff, but I think is it, maybe it's because it's the entrepreneur side of me or the, just like you would thrive, me at M Taurus. I didn't, it was a book. We had to go figure it out. Yeah. And I think if you're passionate about what you're trying to do and you can see whether it's from your mentors, your mentors along the way, whether it's from your friends, whether it's in the office or out. I learned from Todd, you know, Todd that introduced John and I together. It's like, you know, that guy's the most intense guy in the world. And I learned every time I talked to him, you know what I mean? I mean, I know exactly what you mean. Yeah. Intense guy, but it's, it's because you get passionate about things and there's something that you want to do.

And on the learning side, whether if you're not getting the learning, you know, that the environment in your current company, then you've got to stop and say, well, one, should they, cause is it about your current product and you need formal stuff and fine. You got to work with your management and say, how do we get that? Maybe it's not a formal training. Maybe it's a mentorship program. Maybe it's a, somebody next to you that you can ride along with. You know, I, all the good sales guys that I learned from any one of them, if I, I still call them up now, I'm like, Hey, you know, call my buddy down in Houston. And I'm like, Hey, let's go, you know, we'll bounce this off you. I, heck I called a, one of my friends five minutes for our call.

And I said, Hey, you know, Adam, I'm getting on with, with John Barris. And you, you know, give me a couple of nuggets on, on what you think of these topics. And, you know, what are we doing in, you're going to figure out your network of people, whether it's your peers, whether it's, um, old, old bosses, whether it's a buddy, you're heck, I don't call them that much anymore. I'm sorry, dad, but I should, but you know, you got to call the people in your world. My dad, I, he was in marketing product marketing for, for years. And I said, dad, you know, am I making the right call here? And you know, what are we doing? And you got to work through these. And then now knowing if it's the company side is when I start getting into, I put the learning really on me, but I put the culture and knowing, is it the right environment and the right setup on the company?

So if I look at places, you know, I've, I've been at, um, you know, a few companies in the last four years, you know, as I look at each one of them and in the great spots and why I left, so we got bought by IBM, I had, I learned they had a great global sales school. So any of the big lures out there, you know, GSS is actually a great program and it added the formal side of things to my unstructured side, which was great. But after that, I was like, I'm done. I'm bored. I'm, I made, I made, I had a very successful career and I made some good money there. And it was like, let's go on and try to do that somewhere else. And then when I got to the end of my time at seal, I was like, you know, I was still learning every day.

And I had a great sales leader, great, great guy that I still talk to on a regular basis. And he was teaching me stuff. Not really. I was learning from him. He wasn't actually just teaching me. It was came out in interaction. But the product and culture of the company was, it was time for me to go. I was like, you know, I'm not, I'm not seeing my growth here as a human and as a, whether it's into sales management or whether it was into another product or selling to another industry. I said, you know, it's just not for me. So then I, you know, went over and I had a great opportunity to leave sales at another company. And I said, it built things up that entrepreneur said, what do we do? And I just ran into my old boss in the street, you know, at lunch today.

And we were talking, smiling, it's a great relationship. They're a great company. And I said, yeah, the reason why I left though is all around, culture was perfect, tons of learning, but I didn't, I stopped believing in the product. And that was me. They've got a good product for them, but I stopped believing in our vision. I didn't think I was going to succeed there because I didn't believe in what we were doing at that point. And that's when I knew when that, and Ed Callman and Robert Flynn over here at Seismic sat me down and we talked and I took a step into an individual contributor role here. And it was basically because I looked at it and I said, holy shit, I have every problem that you guys solve.

I could sell it. Yeah. And that's when I said, because I'm learning and now I'm learning all about another, I was in a term before now I'm selling the sales and marketing. And it's like, you know, I knew when I got in here that this is something that it's a problem that I had. I could relate every VP and CRO that I talked to. It's like, yeah, we're on the same level because I had the same problem. And that's how I got passionate because I knew as I changed positions, what I was, this is where I want to be because I get it. I believe in the vision. So you got back to the young people, you got to believe in the, you know, if you go to a company and you're doing something that like, I don't know, that you have no passion for the industry.

You have no passion for the problem. It doesn't even have to be on a large scale, just a little bit, find the nuggets that are in there. If you're not passionate about it, you're not going to be as successful. You can make some money. Those good sales guys can sell, you know, cash, you know, ice to an Eskimo. I actually disagree. I actually disagree with that. I think douchebag sales reps can sell ice to an Eskimo. I really do. I think those are the ones. That's a great point. And I, and I tell reps all this that, cause you're, I think you hit on the number one thing that I think you need to be truly successful in this, in, in this industry and sales is, is a belief in what you do. Right. Because when I got fired from Staples, I actually had a little bit of a crisis, right?

A personal crisis because I was, I was in it sales for seven years. Right. And I'm sitting there going, and I, I had no plan B. Like I was the blinders on this is, you cut my arm. I bled blue. I was the company culture guy, all this other stuff. And even though I knew it was wrong when they fired me, it was like a what? Like, I don't get fired. Like I I've never been fired before in my life. And so now I'm on the streets looking for a job and I'm having a panic attack here because I'm like, I'm like, what am I? Am I an IT sales guy? Is that really what I am? I'm like, I don't even fucking like computers. I really don't like, you know what I mean? Like, like servers and fucking firewalls and shit.

I'm like, this stuff, but my wife is the actual one who, who got me to, to open up my eyes a little bit. She goes, let's go back and look at your career and why you've been successful at every single stage. Right. She's like, why? So first job out of college was DeWalt, right? DeWalt power tools. Like, why were you the top rep in DeWalt in your region? Right. Well, cause DeWalt power tools are pretty bad-ass. You know what I mean? Like I, I love DeWalt power tools. I love that drill. Right. So, so it wasn't hard for me to talk about DeWalt power. And then, you know, Xerox, I went from there to Xerox and it's not like I loved copiers, but I genuinely believed at that, that, that time that Xerox was the best company in that industry for that product.

So I didn't care about the copier. I believed that the company was the best at what they did. So I could represent that. And then when I went to thrive, it wasn't the computers that I gave a shit about. I genuinely believed in the people that I was representing. So all the engineers, I knew that for the right client, if my engineers went in, they would make a true difference for that business. Right. And so I look back on it and we said, you know what? It really doesn't matter what I sell. It matters that I believe in what I sell. And that literally opened up my lens to all sorts of different opportunities. Right. I mean, absolutely. If you don't believe in it, I think that the, I look at all the spots when I went to CEO, it's like, oh, this is the greatest machine learning and exciting.

I didn't love contract management. God, you're never going to contract it. They're like, it's not fun. But the fact that you can apply something neat to that. And then I went to risk methods and I said the same thing. I said, this is great. Right. The best technology to apply to a business problem. And I think one thing that, you know, and size, I've already given you how excited I am. I think there's one thing that, that the young people don't, you know, someone getting out of college and they see the, the, to quote, to, you know, repeat what you said, the douchebag sales guy. And they see that as a sales person approach. That's not really what selling is. No. What selling is, is solving problems.

Yes. You know, you, if you can solve, you know, you do, you're selling training solution. You know, you're helping out with, you know, make salespeople better. What you're doing, you're solving a problem. You're solving the issue with how they sell and you're helping them get better with the human capital they have. And, you know, you look at that at every company. If I walk in, I just, I had a great sales call last week. We didn't talk about size for more than a minute in a 90 minute call. And it was in person. We sat down, I brought a consultant of mine. We talked, I said, what are you trying to do? And we talked all about the industry. We talked about the problems. We just talked about in general, it's been a roadmap for success.

And I said, and I told my guy ahead of time, I said, you know, we're going in there. And the goal is not to pitch a seismic deployment. The goal is to pitch what this person needs and help them solve a problem in marketing and sales technology. And what just educate this guy. The guy said, I don't even know. I took on this role and I have so much responsibility. I need help. Well, everyone out there, salespeople, a good salesperson is going to be your best resource. Use the people that don't pick up sales, sales calls from a company. You might want to return some because you can learn so much, even if you don't buy it. Don't waste my time completely. I do have qualifying questions. But overall, you do want to use the market.

You know, I talked to if a good salesperson or a good inside salesperson calls me now, as long as there's something relevant that we should talk about, I'll give them 30 minutes. I'll give them 15. I'll give them 30 if they're really good. But I'll give them 15 minutes and I'll learn and they'll learn. And then we'll go on from there. It's definitely the way to go. That's why I always tell people the same thing. Like, I don't sell you shit, right? I either help you achieve your goals or solve your problems. And if your goals aren't big enough and your problems aren't big enough, then let's stop talking. You know, I'll share some insights with you. I'll tell you where else you should probably be looking.

But like, I disqualify these days way more than I qualify. You know, I'm constantly asking the questions like, why does that matter? Who cares about that? What's the, you know, what's the KPI you're really trying to impact there, right? And a lot of them have fluffy answers because they've been told to go look at a solution like this, but they don't really know why. And by flipping it around and saying, no, no, no, no, no, hold on a second. You can ask me some qualifying questions later, but let me ask you a bunch of reasons why, let me show you a bunch of reasons why you shouldn't do business with me, right? First of all, that builds a shitload of credibility. And second of all, all those things are going to come up anyways.

You know what I mean? Somewhere down the sales process, somebody in an executive level is going to ask that question of your point of contact and they're going to have a dumb answer for it. And that's going to be the reason why there's no decision on your, on your deal. Absolutely. I mean, sales qualification on all those, it's, it, sellers have to do that qualification and it shouldn't just be about, you know, I, I, I subscribe to the three why's, you know, why do anything, why now, and why seismic, you know, that's what we do. And with any of those, I'm not doing it just because I need to qualify my time, which is really, really critical as a salesperson. Sure. But you brought up a great point is in the sales processes, you, these buyers today, they're going to have to answer that question a hundred percent.

And if you, if you have an uneducated buyer that just said, Hey, my boss said, go call, go call John and go get a, you know, go get a solution here. And it's going to be, you know, learn, learn from it as we, you know, the big theme on learning here, but however, you got to make sure that you're giving them that information about, Hey, if I don't ask you, your boss is asking you, how do you get budget justification? I'm not just asking that because I want to know, you need to know that because you're going to have to buy something eventually. It's the same thing with, you know, whether it's budget justification, whether it's project justification, it's time, you know, these, there's value to everything.

Most things that people are selling these days, you know, you can probably find some stuff that's not valuable that people are still buying, but overall you're going to have to justify that, that purchase. And, you know, you look at, if you're, if you believe in what you're selling, having that conversation is a lot easier than just reading off a script and going, well, what do you think of this and what's your bank, you know, going through bands and just, right. I mean, it's like, come on guys. That's not, that's not going to help. If you don't believe in helping to solve the problem. What's your theory on, uh, scripts to get started? Because I think you and I, at the age that we're at, we've, we've seen enough.

We both are at pretty, you know, high levels in our careers as far as influence is concerned. So I think we also come into a meeting with a, like, I'm here, you know, I, I don't really need your business. I want it. Right. But, but let's do this the right way. So I, but, and, and I'm, you're, yes, you're being pressured from executive level to hit your quarterly numbers and that type of stuff. And I'm being pressured on my, you know, just in general, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, how do you teach that kid to, to slow down and give a shit? Yeah, it's funny. Cause I was thinking about that earlier. So I was called my, my coworker. We're talking about it because the number one thing that I think people forget when they get into it.

Well, I guess there's a couple of key points that I started with my career on. One was you're selling to people. So do you like getting called and having someone sit there on a full word to word script? No, nobody likes it. Obviously not yet. Cause it's not what, what's in it for me? Yeah. If I'm sitting there, I'm going to go, well, what am I getting out of somebody reading off a script? And the second thing is by recognize that these, that you're talking to a human is you have to respect their time and respect that what you, that you have something of value to give them, which is the helping them solve a problem. So doing a full script word by word, I think is fine for internal training. I think it's fine for, um, for even you want to do video yourself.

You want to do that to practice. You want to do with your peers in the office. Great. You go live with that. You're really going to, you're going to get hit and it's not going to work out as well as making it comfortable. If it goes back to that passion, I'll give you a great example. When you're at seismic, when I get, I did my onboarding back in March, we had a great training and we have something called CMO messaging. You're teaching you how to talk to the CMO because we sell to sales and marketing makes sense. And we go through it and there really, it was great. It was a page by page whiteboard, how to sit, how to talk to this track. But the thing was when it came time to deliver the best deliveries that we had, everyone had a slightly different take on it that made it related to themselves.

So the best reps and the best people that did it had the same framework. It followed that script, but it wasn't even, it wasn't just reading off it. And the ones that were kind of robotic and just read it, it came through. And you even look at how many actors out there, when they go into a movie, they're ad-libbing half it. I mean, my kids were asking me about watching the new Aladdin that just came out with Will Smith. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I haven't seen it, but I just think back to my lad, which was with Robin Williams. Robin Williams, the best one ever. How much of that stuff was, he just made that up on the fly, you know? I mean, I remember Mork and Mindy where they, they just gave him a theme.

I mean, now mind you, he was all hopped up on Coke and they had no idea what he was doing, right? But, but like, I mean, they would literally just be like, okay, here's the general theme of the show here, Robin, go. And they would literally have, it was almost like improv where they had to just take whatever the hell he was saying and just roll with it because, and that's what made it so fun, right? Absolutely. And I think if you apply that to sales, you're, you've got to make it, you've got to learn your customer examples, learn the stories, learn the, learn all of that. So you have the background. When you think about how we're, we're, we're able to have a conversation with no, no real notes.

We talked a little bit about topic, but we're just kind of going off the, off the cuff here. And that's because we have the background that we built up over a long enough career that we've, we've been in these spots to actually rely on experience and examples. And the reality is these kids coming out of college don't have that. They have the reality of their experience that they had in college or in high school or whatever in their life. They have to learn by what are the current customer stories and you've got to internalize those. And then you got to do the old, you know, Randy Jackson, American Idol. You've got to make it your own. You know, you've got to, you've got to actually get that talk track down and you've got to be able to believe it.

And it's, it's, it's tough. I feel, I do feel like there's a higher expectation now than when we started in this job. Oh, absolutely. There'll be a higher expectation in three years than it is today. And at the same time with that high expectation, you're going to have to put in the, um, put in the roadwork, you know, something that one of our, Ed, Ed, Ed Callum here, you know, we talk about putting in roadwork, which is that, you know, that's what a boxer, you're, you're out there, you're running, you're doing the stuff. You don't want to do it, but you have to do it. And that's, what's going to let you last those extra rounds because you put in the roadwork. And we actually in our office have a, have a poster, you know, it says, keep going of Muhammad Ali out there going on a run.

And that's the kind of stuff that, you know, it goes into the culture of the, of the company, but it helps your, your sales team and frankly, anyone, you know, and isn't just a flat sales. You need to go out there, you can do that extra work and that's going to catch you up. Cause at some point, then you can rely on what you banked and then you can go on and have that type of conversation. And frankly, you can go sit down, you can go sit down with, um, chief learning or CRO or anyone that has a goal. We're both talking to the same, same buyers, sit down and have a conversation over coffee or a beer and say, this is what you should be doing and why the, the, uh, the young crowd is going to start building that bank up.

Yeah. And I actually think the, a nice hack you brought up there is the case study hack, right? Because the ideal state, if I was a new kid starting at a company, I would grab the case studies. I would get to learn how to tell those stories, not like first. So I'd quote unquote, memorize the story, but then I would see if I could go talk to the customer and get it from their perspective or talk to the AE that closed that customer and said, Hey, walk me through the journey there. Like what were some of the objections? Why did we win the deal? Those types of things. So now I'm reading it on a piece of paper, which is my quote unquote script. I'm now going experientially and asking my secondary and tertiary questions to say why, you know, that type of stuff.

And I'm formulating the story the way I want to be able to tell it. And then even though it's not my story, because I've done those X, that second layer, that third layer of understanding. Now I can actually be more inquisitive or more value oriented when I tell that story. Right. Absolutely. I think the, the, you know, when you get started at a new, at a new spot, whether you're an experienced seller or a new seller, you've got to find a way to get that experience. And it's like you said, I, one thing you can do that I've done, go up to the best, find the best performing rep that will give you time. So that's going to be a tough one. So you've got to, got to balance. So whether it's the one that you don't always want to go to the one that closed the one big deal, right?

Someone that's had consistent success, even if they're on midsize deals, doesn't have to be the mega one-time whale, go find that person, take them to launch. Everyone's got anything, you know, buy them a salad, sandwich, whatever, sit down, get a beer after work. It helps build rapport and culture. Either way, pick up the tab. It's cheap money in the, in the short term for long-term success, you know, and just talk to them, not don't quiz them. Don't go in there with questions. How'd it go? What also, what about this customer? What about this case study? So the case study hack is a great one. I think also asking, you know, about your territory. Hey, any of these customers anyone sold to before you should be, you should have that with CRM and you should be able to look at it, but you should also be talking to people.

Hey, I really think we have a value in this industry. And then the experience rep's going to go, well, actually it sounds it, but here's why not. And now you don't waste your time. So you've got to, you know, prioritize those, those sessions and those meetings and then call, you know, if you can, great, go to the customer, pick up a warm patch, go talk to your, your, your existing customers in there and just talk to them about what's going on, but get started. Even if I walk in, I go to my existing inside sales team that may have more experience at my company than I do, buy them lunch and take them. What are you hearing on the phone? And vice versa, you know, someone comes in and it doesn't, you should definitely make the effort, talk to those people.

I think we spent a lot of time trying to get to management, but I think the reality is you need to be talking to the guys in the field. You got to be talking to the, uh, man, it's going to give a great, great training and great advice, but go talk to that rep. They closed a few deals, been there for three years or two years. If you find, if you're lucky enough to find one of them and, uh, and definitely just talk to them like a normal human being, what's happening. It's amazing how few people leverage their own internal resources that are literally sitting right next to them. You know, I, I, as a, as a VP of sales of six, seven reps, I, it was funny, you know, I'd have a rep come up to me and say, Hey John, you know, I'm having a really hard time.

Like CFO is just, man, I don't know how to speak to CFOs at all. And I'd be like, hold on a second. And I'd open up my door and I'd yell down the hallway. Hey, Calvin. Yeah, John, what's up? Are you a CFO? Yeah, John, I'm a CFO. Uh, do you get calls from sales reps all the time trying to sell you shit? Yes, John, all the time. Do you buy from some sales reps and not others? Yes, John, absolutely. Would you mind if one of my reps came into your office and asked you how the hell to sell to CFOs? Sure, John, no problem. You know what I mean? Or like gatekeepers. It's amazing. When I was at IBM, one of the great things we did, we sold to procurement. That was our, that was our, my buyer was the chief procurement officer and supply chain.

So what we do, I called the chief procurement officer of IBM and we said, Hey, how are we doing? What can we do? And we actually had the VP, you know, Bob had some other stuff to do, but, but at night, you know, she did a great job. She, she helped us, you know, you got to learn. And then, Oh, you're going to try to help somebody with contract negotiations. I don't know. Call your lawyer. You have resources in house that we always skip. You know, you sell the CMO. Oh, do you have a CMO at your company? Why don't you talk to them about, about how things actually work? It's, um, it's amazing. And I think people, people don't do that. Or, or shit, go look at a job description. I tell kids all this, this all the time, literally go on Indeed, grab the job description, and the industry of the person that you're trying to reach out to.

Look at the job description, look at all the things that they're being held accountable for and, and see if there's commonalities in four or five different job descriptions of that role in that industry. And then start making some phone calls and say, Hey, we work with CMOs whose main challenge are main, they're mainly being responsible for X. And I thought it'd be worth the conversation because we can show you how to do that. That type of shit, right? Well, I think the, we all focus on, well, one, if you're not reading a 10 K, then you're probably 15 years too late in sales, you know, preparation, read it, read a company's 10 K to understand some of their pains. That's an old school hack, but you know, the other ones, you go to a meeting, go check out the career site at their current company.

You know, you're calling on a company, they're all of jobs online, go check them out where they hire them for. Well, that means that they're spending money there or they have a problem there and you want to, and you want to get in, look where they're spending their time and effort and then read the, those job descriptions, especially at their own company. You know, you're going to know what they're doing and then look at their competitors. What are they working on? And you're going to get a lot more. It's amazing that that, or just type somebody is the other, just type somebody's name into Google. Yeah. Shocker. Right. And see what pops up. Oh, like heaven forbid, right? Yeah. Oh, did you know that they talked with you, that they were on the phone or they did a webcast with your, with your number one competitor last week?

Yeah. Might be because someone couldn't know, right? You might want to change your, your talk track and probably your value, bro. Awesome, man. All right. Well, look, we got to tie this thing up, man. I think we could chat for a while here. And I think next time we should do this drunk. You know, like drunken history. You ever watch drunken history? Oh yeah. We should go hit up that, you know, one of the places over at Woburn. We just go down the street from your house. Right. Lord Hobo Brewery. Get in there. It's great. Let's just go there for a couple of beers. This would be a very interesting conversation. Yep. I think that would be hysterical, right? But anyways, are you going to any games coming up here?

I think my next one's going to be Kansas City. Or no, I'm going to go to the Cleveland game. I'm not, I kind of got rid of a few games in the middle. All right. Yeah. I'm going to the Giants. I'm only, I think I'm only going to one this there. So we'll see what happens. I sold that for good money. Yeah. Good idea. Somebody else sold it to me because that was the only one that I could go to. So, all right, man. Well, look, Dave, where, where can people find out more about you? Where can they find out more about Seismic and where do you want them to go these days? Yeah. You know, Seismic, leader in sales and marketing automation and content management. You can, in sales enablement, check us out at seismic.com.

You can see seismic.com. Hit me up on LinkedIn. LinkedIn, I think it's David. David M. Crowe is my LinkedIn, but you'll see me online and reach out and make it happen. I love it. I love it, man. Yeah. And for those of you who don't know, cause I, I'm terrible at spelling. It's S E I S M I C. So it's, and it's just seismic.com, right? Yep. It's just seismic.com. Perfect. And their hometown. Yep. Here in Boston. So a little love there. If you got a, if you're in Boston or looking for an awesome company to build your career at, reach out to Dave. I'm sure he'd be open to the conversation, right? Yeah. Give me a call. Check us out. Awesome, Dave. Well, I really appreciate your time here, man. Hopefully y'all got something out of this just like I did.

And, um, like I said, uh, all the time, if, uh, if you don't do anything else today, go make somebody happy, right? If you put a smile on somebody's face, you know, you had a good day, right? So anyways, Dave, thank you so much, my friend. And, uh, we'll talk soon. Talk soon, John. Thanks for having me. All right, everybody. Make it happen. Have a good week. Later. Later.