143: Leading With Empathy During Times of Uncertainty With Ralph Barsi

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 had a good weekend. You're staying healthy out there. I have one of my good friends that's going to be joining us here today on the podcast. I'm very excited to have him on because he is one of the more mindful people and considerate people, but also successful people that I know. I'd like to introduce everybody to my good friend, Ralph Barsi. Ralph, what's going on, brother?

What's up, John? Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, thanks for coming on, man. I appreciate it. Ralph, could you give the audience a little bit of a background of where you're coming from, what you're doing these days? Are we going to put a little context around this conversation? And also, you know, you and I, you know, we've been on the circuit before as far as, you know, all the trade shows and all that shit that we go to, right? And you always speak about, you know, being present, about remembering people's names and the importance of the little things. So could you put, as you go through your little background of where you're coming from, could you put in perspective of why you take the approach that you do from a mindfulness standpoint?

Because that's going to lead into our conversation today, if you don't mind. Yeah, I'm happy to, John. Thanks for having me. Those who don't know who I am, my name is Ralph Barsi. John and I go back close to a decade now. We've known each other for some time. I've worked with John and his team in various companies and with various teams that I've led. Most of my career is really centered on building and leading sales development functions. So my focus is often at the top of the funnel. However, I have a pretty rich background as an individual contributor. So I've walked in the shoes of an account executive and understand the deal mechanics and navigating through crazy waters in that respect.

Today, I run the global inside sales organization at Trey.io. I am based in San Francisco. And yeah, we're seeing some craziness right now in the market. These are unprecedented times. These are uncharted waters. But there's a lot of blessings in disguise if you think about it, especially when you're initiating conversations with businesses that you ultimately want to work with or partner with. And there's no better time than now than to lead your conversations with empathy and with kindness and with sensitivity and transparency. But frankly, it's what we should be doing all along. This is how we should lead conversations to begin with. Maybe this is a unique catalyst event that's going to hopefully drive this moving forward to make it a standard.

But that's what we're talking about on our team today. And it's really resonating. So I hope that addresses your first question, John. I mean, we can go in a lot of different directions just considering all that's going on. Yeah. I mean, I think you and I share a similar mindset. I mean, it's horrible as what's happening right now. I almost think this is a forcing function for all of us to stop and kind of recenter a little bit and realize what's important, both personally and professionally. You know what I mean? Like, who are you know, it's interesting, like the people I don't know about you, but we do it. We're doing a lot of zoom hangouts with friends and drinking and stuff like that. And, you know, reaching out to people and it's funny, like I think about the people that I am proactively reaching out to that I might not have talked to in a year.

You know what I mean? But they're the ones who are important to me. And so I'm starting to remember like, shit, you know what I mean? Like, I want to reach out to that person because that person is important to me. Now, there's a whole bunch of other people that before I used to hang out with that I just hung out with because they were there. You know what I mean? They were part of the, you know, part of the crew and whatever it is. But those, I haven't hung out with them. You know what I mean? So there's that. And then also, Morgan and I had an interesting conversation where I talked to him and I was like, you know, like this recentering and getting back to basics, right? Because, you know, we've known each other for a while.

Like the basho or the email, right, was all about personalization and going deep and that type of stuff. And look, 10 years ago, 100% it worked. Then there was the advent of all these cadence tools and everything else. And kind of, I went kicking and screaming into that world of automation because I hated it, right? I was like, you know what? If it was up to me, I'd have a half an hour to do research on every single account before I sent an email. Now, I understand why, right? Because we need volume. Companies need to hit their numbers and that type of stuff. So I understood it. So I kind of shifted from personalization to relevance so that we could do more volume and cadence-oriented things.

But Morgan, you know, brought up a good point. And he goes, John, my generation has grown up in the point-and-click generation in the sense that anything I've ever wanted has been a click away, right? Like you and me had to wait in line at Blockbuster to get that video and hopefully it was still there. And you know what I mean? Where he wants it, just lights up Netflix. There it is, right? Binge-watch the entire thing. You know, if he wants food, boom, Uber Eats, props it right at his door, right? If you want to send out a thousand emails and hit your numbers this month, push a button and you're good, right? But there's no thought. I think we've lost a lot of compassion or even just giving a shit about the person that's on the other end of that email, the person that's on the other.

We don't look at them anymore in sales as a person, specifically on the prospecting side. Maybe once we engage with them and meet with them and those type of things. But when we're making our calls and we're sending our emails, we're usually using a generic bullshit elevator pitch. And we're just trying to hit a number and that's why we bant and all that other crap. And I just think now is that like, like now is like, okay, let's get back to, to, to really giving a shit. Yep. And, and that's where, you know, you've heard me. I've talked about death of the average sales rep for a long time now. And I thought that was in the advent of technology. I think technology was going to slowly replace sales reps over the next 10 years.

This is a forcing function, man, of those average, and I don't mean just average sales reps. I mean, average people in general, like people who have been going through the motions in their jobs. Those are the first ones that are getting slaughtered right now, as far as layoffs and that type of thing. So, so with that, I mean, with your message to your team about like kind of getting recentering, how are you now as a leader within your organization? How are you balancing that, that understanding that we need to get back to empathy and, and everything else with, we still got to hit our numbers here. So has your organization kind of reset goals and, and with this in line, and have you been able to align with that?

Like, how is that working internally within your team and how are you creating, and how are you balancing that message with your team? Uh, we're anticipating, uh, adjustment of goals, but we have not adjusted goals yet. We have not lowered the targets. Okay. Uh, and you know, it, it, it goes back to the roots, John, like you're talking about, it goes back to effort. And it reminds me of a formula from Cal Newport's book called deep work. And the formula is basically to produce high quality work. It equals time invested times intensity of focus. So if you really focus on the number of accounts that you want to at least touch in a given day or week, and you really focus on who those call points are and we'll use your, your, uh, your training as a guide.

For example, you know, how you tier accounts into tier one, two, three, let's say those tier ones are the most precious logos that could essentially adjust the whole trajectory of your company and ecosystem. Well, you should be doing, you know, grassroots stuff like printing out the logos, uh, you know, and pinning them on your bathroom mirror until you get a, a quality meeting in that logo or until you convert it. Uh, then you take it off and replace it with another and in doing stuff like that, you're going to start to eat, breathe and sleep the people who are making that logo, what it is and moving that logo forward. So what I mean by that is now you're starting to focus on them more than you are you and your product and your team and your history.

Uh, now you're focusing on the problems that they're trying to solve for their potential customers as well as their install base. And now you're, you're asking yourself better questions. And when you're researching them, you're actually researching them with, with their lens on that way. When you do engage with them, be it by email or by zoom or by phone, you are super, super relevant. Uh, now the next question might be, well, how does that scale? Well, maybe it doesn't right now, you know, maybe it doesn't, maybe you need to triple down on the effort against those precious logos to produce a high quality work we're talking about. And I think that's actually an interesting thing to pay attention to right now with the forcing function of, okay, you know, cause I am begging people right now to stop the, to stop the template of cadences, begging them.

I'm not saying stop cadences. Some people are taking this misconstruing what I'm saying. So for the record, same. We are too. We've paused them. Right. Cadences are fine. Like multi-touch cadences and a tool to use them. I'm a, you know, I'm a huge sales loft fan, right? Um, but I'm talking the template bullshit cadences, the ones where there has no like, Hey, here's my product and it's awesome. And did you get my first email? Just cut the shit there. And what I'm seeing, what I think it might be a really interesting thing to pay attention to is the conversion ratios of what we're doing now. Right. Because with volume, you can have a low conversion ratio to lead and then, you know, and then even that low conversion ratio, when you get that meeting, it's probably not a very good meeting with a very good opportunity.

And so the conversion ratio from that call to the demo is probably not going to be high and so on. Right. But now I'm actually real curious to see if we slow way the fuck down and go really deep. Can we actually produce the same results, if not better than if we got this volume game going on? And if that's the case, man, there's a silver lining to this whole thing that I will cheer for as we go through. So what do you think? You think there, you think that's, uh, well, I, I do. I, I just, I mean, obviously it depends on what you sell and who you sell to. I mean, I think the, the, the SMB, you know, if you're, if you're, you know, ACV is, you know, five grand or something like that. It's still a volume game, you know what I like for us, we've gone oddly enough, man.

And I, and like, this is my business here. We've actually gone the opposite route we've gone because our ACV went from, you know, I mean, charge 15, 20 grand a day for the onsite stuff. And that was 70% of our revenues. Um, all of that has been ripped away from us. Right. So we've had to restructure our content and deliver it remotely. So now what I used to deliver for $20,000 is $5,000. So our, our ACV and we're doing $99 stuff for the public just to try to get, you know, three, four, 500 people, right. That type of thing. Yeah. So for me, my ACV, thanks. Um, but for me, my ACV has gone from 30 grand to like two grand, you know what I mean? And so to me now it's much more volume oriented and, and cause I got something that I know can help to the right clients.

And so therefore it's almost, it's, it's actually less discovery right now for me. It's, Hey, here's what it is. Are you facing these problems? If you aren't cool, good luck. Or if you're in lockdown, good luck. Here's some free shit. I got to go find some, like, I got something I know helps, but if you're not the person that I can help, I understand that. Right. And so we're just burning through like, okay, cool. In and out, in and out, in and out. Now with the clients that we are focusing on, like the logos that we're focusing on, we are like, we are putting together cadences. There is a personalization component to it. And what we're finding is that, that video now is becoming the best way.

LinkedIn video right now for us is bananas powerful because talk about showing empathy, right? It's hard to show empathy in an email. It's hard to, right? Tone comes through. It doesn't come through that type of video though. If I get on and I say, hey, Ralph, man, what's up, man? I was on your profile. I noticed where you guys, and I didn't, I'm just making this up. Like, pick another person. Like, hey, I noticed where you just laid off like 20% of your sales staff, man. That's fucking brutal. You know, we're working with teams who have their sales teams to try to drive revenue for that remaining so that you can keep the rest of your staff, man. If you got something, let me, you know, if you're interested, let me talk.

So now it's like this genuine, and you made the point, it's now easier to personalize than ever. Because every organization is talking about this. Every, you know, every CEO, every leader is tweeting, sharing something about their position on COVID-19, what they're doing with it, that type of stuff. So it's actually really easy. Yeah, they're expecting it too. Exactly. And my, I guess my question, so that translates to my question here for you, which is, how do you, how do you show empathy without, without being full of shit? And I'll, and I'm going to make the transition. I'm going to make the, the, the analogy here, because you've heard me say it before. You know, I used to be, how you introduce yourself over the phone.

Hey, how you doing today? Right. I used to say that all the time. And that was just my kind of, hey, how you doing today? And I didn't even give a shit. I was like, I'd be like, hey, Ralph, how you doing today? I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction. So, so for years, so after I realized how dumb that was, I stopped saying it and I think it's, and it's disingenuous because you don't care. You know what I mean? So, so now I'm like right to the point, but give you an example. Three weeks ago when this thing hit, right? When it really, three, four weeks or when it really started to hit, I was like, lead with empathy. Okay. Fucking over anything else. Stop the cadences, lead with empathy.

And I said, hey, look, and it's a, and it's not even just an empathy. It's personal empathy. Right. So start with, hey, I hope you and your family are doing well. Okay. But then a week after, and I'm not the one who made that up. Obviously everybody's doing that. But then a week after I said that every fucking email I got in my inbox said, John, I hope you and your family are doing well. And so look, when I get an email from you, Ralph, like you and I are friends, right? Yeah. If you reach out to me and say, and your first thing is, John, hey man, how are you and the family doing? I hope you're doing well. That's going to resonate with me. Okay. But now I'm getting reps saying, hope you and your family are doing well, who don't know me.

And then they move into this pitch of the solution that isn't, that doesn't connect to anything that I would be fine. You know, any details of what I would really need. You know what I mean? Yep. So I guess how do you balance, so what I'm telling first, for instance, I'm telling people right now, stop with the intro of, I hope you're doing well today. I hope you and your family are doing well because it's coming off. And if you, and just, you know, tactically, if you look at an iPhone, right, you look at the name, you look at the subject line, you look at the first, if I don't know your name and I don't like the subject line in the first sentence is, I hope you and your family are doing well.

I'm deleting that without even thinking saying, so how are you, how are you with your team getting them to be actually empathetic and translate that into their messaging when they're reaching out? Yeah. Well, it starts with you. First of all, have to decide to give a shit. Yeah. You know, that's the very first step. Like you need to step into your workday going, you know what, I really, really care about the people I'm about to reach out to. That's number one. Number two, I'm going to try to establish common ground as early as possible. John, look, we don't know each other, but I do hope you and your loved ones and those who matter most are doing well. You know, in some respects, you could say, look, I'm the father of three boys and they're all home with me right now.

So it's a blessing in disguise that I'm here with all my kids and it's awesome. You know, they're older kids now. One of them is away at school. You don't have to say all that in an email per se, but it's that type of content and copy. And it also behooves you to become a much better, more concise writer because you hit it right on the head, John, when you said, look, it's so tough to convey your true authentic tone through an email. Well, get good at writing, you know, because when you take an approach of every word earns its right onto your email, you're going to write some pretty kick-ass emails that will mean something to their recipient. So those are a couple of things that we're doing.

We're also keeping in mind, you know, the details of leaving a voicemail greeting. So I could say, John, Ralph with Trey.io, 510-435-1010 is my number. But look, no need to call me back. Things are absolutely bananas right now. I will follow this message with a concise email that tells you why I'm even calling in the first place. And I'm sure we'll be able to cross paths within the next few days or weeks. But I do hope all as well, and I'll talk to you when I do. Done. And then, yeah, things like that are really helping. We also have leveraged, you know, as you mentioned in one of your online trainings, the three buckets. Like, we're asking them to help us gauge where they're at. I mean, is this DEF CON 1 where all hell is breaking loose, people are getting let go, the company's sinking, et cetera?

Or is it more DEF CON 4 or 5 where it's like, okay, we do have some breathing room, we're still getting after it, et cetera? And unless you ask, you're never going to know really how to come at them moving forward. Yeah, it's actually funny you bring that up. I think that I was talking to a prospect who we were in the sales cycle, right, and they were ready to go and then boom. And, you know, all over. And so, you know, I'm giving away, you know, free hour consultings, Q&As with the teams for the clients that were in a sales cycle but now are like, sorry, man, we're locked for 30, 60 days. I'm like, all right, why don't we just do a free Q&A because that benefits both of us, right? I get in front of their team, get, you know, good vibes.

So hopefully they remember me when they come out of this. But there was this one group and she was just like, yeah, our reps are really struggling trying to figure out how to have the right tone and how to, because she's like, so what can we offer them and that type of stuff? And I said, well, why don't you ask? Why don't you flip your organization, right? I mean, I don't, you know. Try that one out. But why don't you flip your organization over and at least maybe in the short term here during like the shit, you know what I mean? Like we're at, we're close to a peak, you know, for the next three weeks, we're going to be at peak, right? So for now, why not stop trying to sell and start leading with your polling your audience effectively, right?

So you're basically doing a survey to say, hey, Ralph, thanks for taking a call, man. Hey, real quick, do you have a couple of minutes? Well, not really, John, but who is this? What do you want? Well, you know what? This is John with JB Sales, and what we're doing right now is we're talking to sales leaders just to get a pulse on where they are right now with their teams. And because the reason for that is we're collecting information so that we can actually provide more value to our audience based on some data that we're trying to collect here. So would you mind giving me like five minutes just so I could ask you a few quick questions about how your team's doing through this? You know, how are they, you know, like four or five or six things?

And then just, and then, and that's it, right? Love that. I love it. Hopefully, hopefully what that, the goal there is, is to lead, you know, to open a conversation that then potentially leads to something that I could offer them. You know what I mean? So it's like, so, but I'm not, but that's not the goal. The goal, so, so the primary, because to me, insights of what's happening right now is almost as, almost, I say almost, because if I don't have revenue, then I'm not going to be able to get those insights, but it's almost as important. It's a great secondary to revenue, right? And so what I'm doing with like Morgan and James right now is guys, they're on the front lines, okay? They are on the front lines.

I'm not cranking out cold calls right now, right? I'm, I'm, I'm doing trainings. I am just a fucking animal right now. I'm just trying to train as many fucking people as I can, right? Yeah, yeah. But they're the ones making the calls to the cold accounts, those type of things. So I said to my guy, I go, guys, I need you to keep a word or a Google doc open with a spreadsheet. And I want you to, every single call, I want you to write down who the person was, what their title was, what industry are they in, and then where are they on their one, two, or three scale. And, and then some other variables so that at the end of every week, we're doing a scrum and we're saying, okay, what are, are we seeing any trends?

Are we seeing any trends? Because literally we're, we're changing week to week here. You know what I mean? We're, we're, we're changing week to week. So it's almost like we want to turn into a, go back to your existing accounts and, and, and try to help, you know, gain insights from them. What can you do to add value there? But even as you're prospecting, like if you can't get a sale, if you can't get that next step, then try to gather some information that'll help your organization shift to maybe come up with different products, different, you know what I mean? Whatever you can do. Yeah. And to your point, lead with value in those conversations, because we will get through this, this will pass.

And when it does, uh, you want to make sure that you've led with enough value so that when the opportunity does surface, you have a seat at the table when they're thinking about, uh, you know, adjusting their business process now or getting through some of the hurdles that they're running into. And it keeps that mindset, as we talked about, focused on others and not ourselves. Yeah. Did you see that post I did about, uh, asking people like, cause that's another struggle that people have. And I'm curious to see how you're doing. And this is like, so say you have a decent, so say your team gets somebody on the phone, right. It has a good conversation, you know, and it's a prospect, but they're like, dude, you know, we're legit on lock.

There's nothing you can do about it. Don't try to any fucking technique with me here. Yeah. Yeah. You know? So, so we're on lock for 30 days. All right. We're on lock for 60 days. How are you suggesting your team, um, stay engaged with that prospect so that when we do come out of this, we are top of mind, right? Because I'm, I'm telling people right now, people are going to remember the way you treat them right now. Okay. And treat them like shit. If you're a vendor right now, that's putting the screws to somebody and not letting them cancel their contract. Fuck you. You know what I mean? Like, like if I'm a small, like I'm going to be a CEO, I am a CEO right now. There will be a time if this thing gets worse and worse and worse that I'm going to have to go to some vendors and say, look, I like your product, but I'm going, I, if I, I need to cancel it or suspend it and go.

Right. And if they don't let me do that, fuck them when I come out of this, right? The vendors that are proactively working with me on this, you guys are great. So how are you, how are you adding value without, without again, being disingenuous? Cause what, the last thing I want is a bunch of sales reps send me random ass content to try to pretend like they stay top of mind. So how are you coaching that? Yeah. It's about approaching with caution and humility. Number one, number two, it's, you know, you have to earn the right to continue to communicate and correspond with this person. So it's asking open-ended questions around, Hey, is it okay? That's a yes, no, of course. But how do you feel about me reaching out to you every couple of weeks?

Because what you should be doing internally with your team is do batch work. You know, you mentioned industry trends. So for example, maybe you're only focusing on one persona or one vertical at a given time, or even one location in the world. Start monitoring outside of your correspondence with those prospects. What the hell's going on in their world so that when you do come back in, there's not necessarily an ask yet. It's like, look, when the time is right and this makes sense, we will connect. But I have found this, that, or the other happening in your industry or in your location or among like personas, people who are in the same role as you with similar remit and responsibility. Here's how those challenges are being overcome.

Here's how we're weighing in and intervening and helping overcome those challenges, et cetera, et cetera. Hope all's well and looking forward to, you know, connecting with you when the time's right. I mean, actually give a shit and be sensitive to their, to their schedule. Yeah. It would, would brings up the, you know, I think going back to giving a shit and going deeper, you know, we're trained in sales to, uh, well, hopefully we're trained in sales to focus on our ICP and tear out our accounts and our personas. Right. I think it's incumbent upon us now, uh, to look beyond that and to, to look at our customers, ICP and our customers personas, like who do they sell to? Right. Right. Because if they sell, like, if I'm selling to you, like say, I'm like, Hey, what's up, Ralph?

Right. And you, you're a cool company and I got to see all, but your major, uh, industry is, uh, travel. You know what I mean? Like travel got slaughtered, nothing like, you know, hotels, travel, all that other stuff. So if that, if your major industry is travel, I now can know that probably 50% of your revenues just got ripped out of you. You know what I mean? So therefore my friends at a trip actions, they're, they're really having a tough time right now and they're, they're thriving as best they can, but they had to make significant adjustments. So, you know, my heart goes out to them. Yeah. I mean, I got the, we got a couple of ones here in Boston too, where I'm like, Oh my God, they laid off, they, you know, uh, I forget who we're using out.

No, not Alice, but, uh, they, uh, you know, they just moved into a beautiful, you know, top floor office in Boston, you know, end of last year. And they, they just had to lay off 80% of their fucking employees. You know, it's just like, Jesus Christ. So, so I think, um, so with that, right. I mean, cause you guys are there on the front line, your team's on the front line. Oh yeah, absolutely. Um, and now I'm guessing everybody's working from home. Yep. Right. Yep. Um, what do you feel a little more lax about now? Yeah. You know, like a month and a half ago before this hit, uh, I was a, I was a stickler, you know, about, you know, there's power and proximity being together as a team in the, in the respective pods that you're working in.

And if I'm not going to trip as much when someone comes to me and saying, Hey, I think I'm going to work from home for the week. I'm just not going to trip like I would have six, eight weeks ago. Anyway, we digress. Sorry. No, no, no, no, that's no spot. I mean, cause I think, I mean, well, that leads to man. I think the coming out of this, I think there's going to be a lot of companies that really rethink a lot of stuff. Oh yeah. Because if you are productive right now, you know what I mean? Like say your company right now, say you, say you get through this, you know what I mean? All your employees are still there. You guys maintain your numbers and you, and you know, and you do really, and I mean, if I'm a CFO, I'm looking at this going, wait a minute.

We don't, we don't have to have the office space that big. We don't have to pay for parking for reps. We don't have to do travel as much. I can literally save 50% on expenses coming out of this. Why the hell would I go back to doing what we did before? Right. So I think this is going to fundamentally shift a lot of stuff about businesses. Oh yeah. That's an understatement. And to the sales development reps watching and listening to us, as well as the account executives out there, this is an opportune time for you to lead and to take ownership of your business within the business. So you constantly see in the list of qualifications and responsibilities in all the job descriptions out there is that hiring managers are looking for self starters.

They're looking for people who are going to take ownership and lead the effort. And there's no better time than right now to illustrate that. So what are, give me, give us some examples. So what are some examples that you would say like an SDR sitting at home? Cause I, cause I got to imagine, you know, there's, I'd say 90, 90% of the SDRs right now who are, um, you know, sub 25 years old, give or take, you know what I mean? Like are sitting there going, fuck, you know what I mean? Like, uh, what do I do? I don't really feel like pro like, I don't know. I feel uncomfortable calling and my boss is telling me I got to hit my numbers still. Um, so that part of it, but then I got my day, uh, you know, like I got my fucking, you know, my cats running around.

And so, so what are some projects or some things or some advice that you can give to SDRs to take on that, that, that leadership role. Right. And, and really stand out because, because that's, I mean, I, when I go back to death of the average sales rep, I mean, look, the longer this goes, the, the more layoffs they're going to be. Oh, no question. And it starts and everybody knows it starts at the bottom and it starts moving up and nobody's immune to it. I mean, you're not immune to it. I'm not immune to it. Right. That's right. Um, but the shitty SDRs are going to be the first ones to go period. So how do you put yourself in a position as an SDR outside of doing your numbers and hitting, you know, and doing what your boss is telling you?

How do you put yourself in a position to kind of lead in a time like this at 24 years old with no real business acumen or not really knowing what to do? Uh, start local and then work out. So what I mean by that is start with a self-assessment. Like, why are you doing this in the, in the first place? Where did you want to be or where do you want to be in the near term, midterm, longterm? And how do you define those terms? Uh, and then you have to start thinking about, okay, I have a problem that I'm facing right now. And that is, I don't know what to do next. Well, what leaders do is they come up with solutions to the problems before they start either escalating it or working cross-functionally to get to root cause of the problem and, and the resolution.

So if you don't know what to do today, maybe your first, uh, order of operations includes writing an email to your, uh, either your peer or your boss saying, I don't know what to do today. However, here's what I'm thinking. I can A, B, C, D. I would just love to hear your thoughts on this to see if I'm missing anything or if I'm right on point. And when you send a message like that, oh, and when you send it either every day or every week, you're going to slowly start to evolve into a leader in your own, in your own right. And that's a great way to start. So, um, you and I have talked about this on stage, John, we, every organization has the A players, the B players and the C players. That's what the A players do.

They're thinking this through and then they're over communicating, be it, uh, you know, at the end of every day, they're aggregating and reporting on all the activities they did today and the accomplishments as well as the failures, or maybe they're doing it on a weekly basis and the, the, the best leaders out there are sending the weekly updates to the team. So everyone knows what's on the radar and how collectively we're going to head North this week. And it's critical if you want to move forward as a business, you've got to, you know, you're going to go far together versus, uh, uh, not far alone. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's funny that, that I think that's huge, right. To say, going back to like what I'm telling Morgan and James to say, Hey, gather the data, give us insights.

Right. So if, uh, I, I would be over the moon, um, if one of my reps proactively came to me with that without me having to say that, like, so if I'm a leader right now and I'm getting an email, even if, even if it's just the end of the week, this is, Hey John, you know, if Morgan fired me off an email and be like, Harry, John, here's the deal. You know, here's the five different approaches I took this week. Here's the good conversations. Here's the bad ones. I'm starting to see some trends in these areas. You know, can, can we talk about maybe shifting our blah, blah, blah. Like, I'd be like, Holy shit. Thank you. You know what I mean? Like your feet on the street right now, because look, you're how many, how many, um, uh, reps are you on top?

Like on top of, Oh, today at trades, 20, it's a relatively small team. So you're, so you're, you're close to the ground floor. Um, but you're, but you're still not the ground floor. You're not making cold calls. You're not, you know what I mean? On a day to day basis. Like I know you're proud. I know you, I know you keep up to date with your team and you do coaching and everything else, but these are the ones, you know, reps are the ones that are, that are hitting up, that are talking to people. Right. That's right. So, so the insight that they can give you and me is huge to make better decisions. Right. Cause I mean, those are the, I mean, you're making decisions right now for your team on like, I'm guessing it's changing.

Like you're looking at it saying, okay, we need to adapt. We need to adjust. We need to do this this week. We got to change. Right. And you're, and it's almost like a, like a, I don't want to say hour by hour, but a fucking day by day thing. Right. Right. Yeah. Well, that, it goes back to the self-assessment. You know, I, I, I have a purpose within that kind of pulls me towards my goals anyway. So every single day, I'm just, I'm a, I'm thankful. The fact that I get to talk to you right now that I get a, you know, nice, fresh glass of water here. I'm in the comfort of my home. I'm online. I mean, there's a lot of goodness going on in the world that I try to steer my focus towards. And then it's like, all right, uh, that means I'm obligated to get after it.

You know, I have to give back to this community, uh, by way of being a cool person, when I'm talking to people, learning things as if I need to teach someone the very next day, what it is that I've learned. So you talk about, you know, if Morgan is pumping out those updates to you, uh, you know, don't expect the, don't expect a response from your leader by pumping out those updates. The leaders are reading them in time, trust me, and they're gleaning the best insights out of those. And probably you're going to model what you've done and share it with the rest of the team and the larger organization. You just focus on, uh, solving your problems for yourself. Uh, and then we will lean in when it's time.

It's almost like when the, when the pupil is ready, the master will appear. Uh, that is very real and very true. Yeah. We, for those of you who don't think, uh, well, look, and there's some leaders that suck. Don't get me wrong. Um, but, but, uh, if you have a decent leader, if you have a decent leader, um, I guarantee you they're paying attention. Absolutely. I guarantee you they're paying attention, even if they might not say anything, they're paying attention. Um, good leaders and bad ones in my experience. Yeah, absolutely. People who are going back to people, give a shit. Right. Yeah. Um, and you, and you also brought up something as far as the education, right. Keeping yourself, um, learning, uh, through this time.

Uh, what's, what are you giving, like, what direction are you giving to your team or what are you doing right now to keep your skills and you know what I mean? Cause I think this is also a time to, to refocus on us, right? How do I, how do I get better at what I do? How do I improve? So, and then how do I translate that to your point? Like, how do I teach somebody else that? Right. So, um, are you, you know, encouraging or, or, or you, let's talk about you personally. What are you doing right now to keep yourself getting better in this time as opposed to just treading water? Cause a lot of us could just tread water right now. Just be like, okay, I just got to basically get through this shit, whatever.

But those are the ones that when are probably going to get replaced eventually, or when they come out of this, they're going to be just the same as they were coming in. Yeah. Whereas I think we, there's a lot of us that should and could come out of this much stronger. So what are you doing right now to make sure that you're going to come out of this much stronger? Uh, so you asked personally, and there's, there's a lot I'm doing. So, uh, I'm, I am reading a lot. So right now I'm finishing up Malcolm Gladwell's book, which is called talking to strangers. And he's the one who, who coined the term, you know, talking to strangers requires caution and humility. And it directly applies to what you and I are talking about and what my team and your team are doing on a regular basis and what we need to do personally.

So I'm reading that, uh, I've been a subscriber for close to two years now to masterclass. So I'm constantly looking at different types of sessions and topics and getting the best out of those. Most recently I finished, uh, Chris Voss's session on negotiation, which is just off the charts, bananas. So that also I'm trying to stay super informed as to what's going on in the world. So, uh, most recently I plowed through a great study from McKinsey and company, uh, which is all centered on COVID-19 and the implications. For businesses and what the economic knock-ons are going to be, or could be, and how to anticipate those by creating what they call five horizons for a business, which essentially from beginning to end goes, uh, from, you know, Oh my God, what's going on?

What do we need to fix immediately? What can we need to fix immediately all the way to the other side of the spectrum is how can we reimagine and reinvent what the next normal is going to be? Uh, so it's stuff like that, that I'm learning. And then I take excerpts of that and I always share it with the team. Lastly, because of these unique times and we're all at home, productivity is huge. So I'm revisiting books like eat that frog by Brian Tracy. Another one is atomic habits from James clear. And I'm grabbing little bits and bites and just constantly sharing it with the team, not constantly, but regularly sharing it with the team so that I'm not, you know, um, peppering them with too much stuff when I need them to focus on, on the work at hand.

So, so you're a pretty positive person in general. Um, I, I'm struggling. So you brought up the news, right? And staying in current on current events. Yeah. Yeah. Um, how do you do that without fucking losing your mind about where we are right now? And I, and I, because I've, I've, I, I, I feel like almost like a crack addict right now because I'm like, no, I don't want to watch the news because I'm a happier person. Like I've realized that I'm fine until I turn on the news for five minutes. And then as soon as I turn on the news, I'm like, oh my God, what just like, holy shit, you know, that type of thing. And it takes me down into a bad spot. Right. So how are you balancing, like staying up to date on world events with what's happening right now without being insanely depressed about what is happening right now?

Well, first of all, I take it in bite-sized chunks. Uh, so you do have to, to, you know, like a musician would do, you have to know when not to play. So I'll watch it in bite-sized chunks for starters. Secondly, in my experience, John, the best leaders are the ones that are calm and in control and stand as the axis in the midst of the swirl and chaos going around, uh, going around them. So when I'm watching how people are responding in the news and to the news, I'm taking stock and pausing for a minute going, okay, I don't need to respond and react like people around me. Let them be frantic. Let me think through this and let me, let me call, let me call it, uh, in terms of what the next move is and how to lead and be an example in the midst of this craziness.

Now I'm not saying let's just be ignorant and blissful, you know, uh, but I am saying let's, let's take things at face value and let's make sure we have all the facts and understand it comprehensively before we decide. And you know what, I think, I think I'm going to freak out today. You know what I mean? So I'm just trying to approach it intelligently. Gotcha. How transparent are you being with your team as a, from a leadership standpoint, how much are you, um, and I'll, I'm going to use my quick daughter as an example here. Right. Uh, than my team, um, my daughter, I filter a lot from because she's nine years old. Um, she can't handle some of this heaviness, you know what I mean? And she can't, there's no context for her, um, about this.

And so when she sees mommy and daddy getting upset, she gets upset, but she doesn't really understand why. Right. So I, we're doing very, we're very conscious right now of, of literally filtering her from as much as we possibly can while letting her know that things are fucked up. You know what I mean? Now with my team, I'm taking a very different approach. I'm, I'm telling them, I'm, I'm telling you exactly what is going on right now with what the business is to a certain degree. I probably, in some cases, probably to my detriment in the sense that, you know, I told him, I go, look, the only time I will promise you this. The only time you will be surprised is when I'm surprised. I will not surprise you with layoffs.

I will not surprise you with firing, um, unless something catastrophic happens and I'm surprised. But then you will be the first to know. So how do you balance as a leader being transparent with your team to let them know what's going on and build that confidence that you are that leader that, Hey, things are fucked up, but check this out. This is what their goal is versus sheltering them from what is some scary shit. I'm being way more transparent as well right now, being very candid with people. Um, but I'm also checking in similar to what I would suggest to the father of a nine-year-old girl, you know, how are you feeling? Why are you feeling that way? You know, what did you hear or see that's, you know, prompting this and talking through it with them?

It's actually just fine to freak out and be uncertain because there's so much nuttiness going on. So at least acknowledge it, don't ignore it. Don't try to stuff it or put, you know, put barriers up, you know, to move on and focus on other things. You have to acknowledge it so that you can work your way through it. I always remember sensitive. It depends on who you're talking to. And yeah, I always remember though, think about this transparency, right? I always remember there's this, there was this movie with Matthew McConaughey. I think it was you five, four, seven or something like that. Do you remember that one? Yeah. Where, where the captain of the submarine died, right. Or got killed or whatever.

And Matthew McConaughey was now the captain and there was all sorts of shit going on. And the, and the team looked at him and it was a shit show. Like that was like, he was a fucking mess. Okay. Um, and everything was a mess and they looked at him and they said, what do we do? And he looked back at them and said, I don't know, which I think is a massive failure. So, so, but the balance here, right. A that's, I, I saw that as a little bit of a failure of leadership because people are looking for like, dude, don't just tell me to know, be like, don't, I don't know yet, but here's what we're doing. Right. So, but he was being very authentic. He was like, he was like, guys, I don't fucking know.

Our captain just died. We're in the fucking submarine here. The Russians are coming to fucking kill us here. I don't know. I'm not a fucking genius. So how do you balance that with giving your team confidence in such an uncertain world right now? You know what I mean? While being authentic with what's happening. Cause that's what I'm struggling with. That's it's like, like, okay. Yeah. We're, you know what I mean? Like 70% of our revenues got ripped out. We went from 4 million to 2.5 million. If we don't get this PPP thing, you know, they're probably going to have to do layoffs here in the next couple of months or something like that. You know what I mean? So, but I also don't want to let them freak out because then they're not like, oh my God, I'm not going to have a job in a couple of months.

And like, ah, what do I should do? I got to fix my, you know what I mean? And then all of a sudden they unravel. So what's that balance? Yeah. Wow. That's so tough. I think about, um, the extreme ownership book from Jocko Willink and Leif Babin where they, they just lay out in grave detail, the battle of Ramadi, uh, when they were, you know, in combat regularly throughout each day. And when shit's going down and you're losing soldiers left and right, and people are looking at you, like they looked at Matthew, like, what do we do? Uh, so that's a real tough call. And I'm trying to think of how to, how to apply it to what we're doing every day. I mean, one is stay as calm as possible so that you can think rationally because when you're frantic and all wound up, you're not going to make smart decisions and there are lives on the line and there are others around you that you need to be leading for, uh, and leading by example, those who can't do it right now.

So taking it into our world, uh, it comes down, I, you didn't set this up, John, just for the audience's sake, but Hey man, I've got my coin here that you sent me that you and your daughter created with the acronym of EAT or effort attitude and how you treat people. A number one is effort and encouragement to, you know, there's a great Zen proverb that I typically reference. It's, you know, the student goes to the master saying, master, I'm discouraged. What should I do? And the master says, encourage others. So get out of your own mind and get out of your own skin for a second and just start thinking about the team or your prospects or your customers or your partner ecosystem, anyone, but you, you need to start thinking about and start encouraging those areas first.

Uh, and, and that's how you lead by example in the short term and in, in the now. Yeah. And I think I, I think what I've been doing with my team is look, I don't fucking know, but we're going to figure this shit out together. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that's a better answer than mine. No, well, no, I mean, but you're right. I mean, like you, you take it one step at a time, focus on what you can control, but, but it's like, but there's one thing about this. If you lose hope that we're not going to get out of this, then you're in trouble. Right. Screwed. Yeah. You gotta have hope that, that we eventually will get through this and, and, and, but I think, you know, your, your point is very valid as far as think of other people.

Right. Because if you try to go this alone, you're going to, there's a strong likelihood you're going to fail. That's right. If you go this out as a team and like we've, so I'll give you a quick example. Like we've restructured with the, with the PPP thing, as far as keeping your employees and getting right, you know, it's up to a hundred thousand dollars right now I'm well over a hundred thousand dollars. As far as my salary, my, my CRO, Chris is well over Megan's, you know, Morgan and commissions. I mean, we got a pretty heavy payroll, right? But what I said to him, I go, look, we're all dropping down to a hundred G's right now. Forget quotas. Okay. I don't give a fuck about your quota, Morgan.

I don't give a fuck about your quota, James. Um, we're all in the, now it's teamwork. So now we're going to leverage our strengths. Okay. You know, James, you're really good at relationships and stuff like that. So why don't you go find some sponsors and for some of the things that we're doing and jump over to Chris's team and Morgan, you know, you're just like, get out there and do your positivity and your motivation stuff and give away some free hour long sessions to just get the vibe going me fucking put this shit on my back and fucking just ride me until I pass out as far as training is concerned. Right. And so that, that teamwork and that camaraderie is, is we're all in this together. That's awesome.

I hope, you know, that, that works for a period of time, but then the, the wheels start coming off. Right. When, when, if this again keeps going longer and longer and longer, and you know, we haven't been able to adjust our offering to the point where it's consistent, right. Then, you know, hard choices need to be made, but I'm just trying to be as open with them as possible. As far as look at like, well, let's just like, let's take this week to week. You know what I mean? Like this week, this is what we're focused on next. We have to hit these numbers. Right. So at trade out IO, the sales development team, what we're doing is we're asking ourselves as a team, okay, who needs help right now?

And what we did is we pulled the team and we chose a local food bank to give money to on behalf of our, of our team. But we also tied it in with a spiff for the month of April. So everybody's focused on, you know, getting as much points as they can for various components of arriving at your quota. But at the same time, there's going to be a first, second, third place, uh, offering to, um, to win as a prize. But collectively as a team, we're giving to meals on wheels in San Francisco and their focus is helping homebound seniors who can't get out of their wheelchair to go grocery shopping, uh, or to get out of their house. And so we have found that when we're focusing on who really is worse off than we are right now and how can we contribute and give back, it's really lit the right fire under the team.

Uh, and we've got a real positive vibe collectively now, uh, in everything that we're doing at work, because we, we see it benefiting a much larger audience. That's, and I think that's super important is to, you know, if you're a leader right now, like you gotta, you gotta have a rallying cry, you know what I mean? You gotta have something that is a bigger purpose thing right now than quota. Thank you. Yeah. You know, my, we shifted, you know, I told you, you know, we went from 4 million to 2.5 or 2.6 as a goal, but 2.6 isn't my goal. It's not my goal. I could give a fuck about the revenue right now. My goal, and I told my team this, and I want every decision that everyone, everybody on my team, uh, is making.

My goal is to keep everybody employed. Love it. Period. So our rallying cry is let's keep all of us together here so we can continue to make a difference. Right. Um, now decisions get made because of that. You know what I mean? Now we have to cut off, like if, if that's a software that we really liked, but it means either we keep that software or we let go one of our employees as a collective team, what do you guys want to do about that? You know what I mean? Like, and obviously the answer is we'd rather have the person than the technology. So, all right, we make that choice. So, you know, I think that that's kind of the resounding, like, you know, have that North star right now of, of something that people can feel good about doing, you know what I mean, like rallying around, um, and it might, and, and revenue might not be, you know, she's probably shouldn't be the number right now.

I mean, outside of keeping everybody employed. Right. So, yeah, it's going to be different for everyone, but keep in mind, you know, what is urgent versus what's important and constantly reconcile against that. Uh, and to your point earlier, it's, it is a daily effort. Yeah. Awesome, man. Well, look, as usual, you and I could probably talk for fucking days here. So, um, for sure. What's, um, any final parting thoughts for, for the audience right now, um, based on, you know, what you're seeing or any of that stuff. And then tell people, you know, if, if, uh, you know, if you want to share anything about where they can find more information about you, but we're any parting thoughts. Yeah, sure.

Uh, keep in mind that life is a series of temporary events. So this too shall pass. That's number one to take stock of what you have in life and who you have in life. And, uh, if you are, um, alive and well and able to see and hear John and me right now, then feel obligated at the same time that, uh, we need you. We need your strengths and your gifts to, uh, do some good work in the community, whether that's our profession of sales or beyond, uh, but start taking action and start stepping up and leading by example. Uh, if you want to learn more about me, it's pretty simple to find me. Uh, it's Ralph Barsi at linked on LinkedIn, uh, or you can check out my blog, which is Ralph Barsi.com. Uh, and I oversee the team, as I mentioned at Trey.io, you can always find me just by typing in that URL as well.

So John, I couldn't T-R-E-Y, right? It's T-R-A-Y.io. Yeah. Thanks for asking, but I couldn't thank you enough, John, for having me on with you today. Yeah, man. I appreciate you. Um, you know, I think it's, Oh, by the way, are you still, you still playing? You still in the band? Uh, I am. Yeah. I drum in a band called Segway, S-E-G-U-E. We don't really have a strong web presence. We started years and years ago, but we get together, uh, as often as we can. Right now it's tough, obviously, but yeah, I'm going to have to do some live, uh, live, uh, music, uh, feeds, right? I'll chime in for that. You get me fired up, man. Yeah. I'd love to do that. Awesome. Well, Ralph, thank you so much. It's always awesome to talk to you, man.

You're always, uh, you're always very uplifting. Um, uh, and, and, you know, remind me that, uh, that, that it matters to give a shit, you know what I mean? It matters to, to care. Um, you know, the little stuff, like I, I wish, you know, you always give that advice, you know, who I, was it, um, uh, Brian, not Brian, who says, uh, never, not, not never eat alone, but, uh, remember somebody's name. The most beautiful thing is somebody's name that's Dale Carnegie, how to win friends and influence people that a person's first name is the sweetest sound. Yeah. Yeah. And I like that. I tell you right now, man, my, my biggest weakness, if you were to ask me about biggest weakness, it's fucking names.

I've been trying my entire life. Cause I, I do, I appreciate that, but those types of things matter. You know what I mean? Like, like, like the little things matter these days. So awesome. All right, everybody. Well, I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. Um, like I always say, um, you know, uh, no matter, I mean, things are fucked up right now. No question about it, but, uh, no matter how bad of a day, uh, you're having right now, uh, go try to make somebody smile today at the very least. Right. Um, cause if you make somebody smile, no matter how bad your day went, you had a good day cause you had an impact on somebody's life. All right. Thank you all very much, ladies and gentlemen, make it a good week and stay safe out there.

Bye.