147: Addressing Layoffs In Sales With Amy Volas

Hello, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Make It Happen Mondays with John Barrows. This episode is brought to you by our partners, Sales Loft, Vanilla Soft, Gong, and Vidyard. We appreciate their support. Thank you so much for everything you do for the sales community. Amy's going to be discussing what it's like to hire salespeople. So much has changed over the years about what we look for, how do we vet these people that come in and apply as candidates to be salespeople for our organizations, what kind of characteristics should we look for, and how do we navigate this process. Amy is a phenom, and we look forward to the feedback that she gives us on what she goes through when looking for salespeople.

Thanks for coming on the show, Amy. We hope this is an informative episode for everyone joining us. Let's make it happen. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrows. Make It Happen Monday. Hopefully you had a good weekend and are staying sane through this fucking mess that we're in right now. I am super excited to bring back one of my favorite guests, Amy Vollis, the CEO and founder of Avenue Talent Partners. What's up, Amy? Hello, hello. Thanks, John, for having me. I feel like I'm at home, like it's an old comfy couch and we're back together again. So thank you. I appreciate it. This is going to be an easy conversation because I think both of us share a very similar mindset in a lot of different ways.

Coming at it from different angles, though. And we were talking before this and I usually pre-record podcasts and then release them, whatever. But we've kind of scrapped all that and we're trying to be as relevant as possible with what's happening right now. And we've hit on a few topics recently about empathy and how to redefine your ICP and all these other things. And what we haven't looked at is what's going on with reps right now who are who unfortunately are now out of a job. And so that's what we're going to be talking about today. So I wanted to start with this question here because I kind of feel bad, but I don't when I say this. You know, I've been I've been talking for years about death of the average sales rep.

Right. And when I say that, like when I start every single one of my presentations off with death of the average sales rep, you know, and my whole thing, and I said average for a reason. Right. Not good sales reps, not great sales reps. People think sales reps are going to get replaced. I think that's absolute horseshit. I actually think sales reps are going to be much more in demand. The good ones, really good ones are much more in demand. Right. But the average ones. But my thought was always, well, technology was going to replace. COVID comes punches a square in the face. Right. So instead of a gradual, okay, you know, sections of the sales community are going to get, you know, chunked out eventually, whatever.

Now, I mean, people, there was a hatchet that just got taken. And so and we all know that. I mean, outside of companies having to lay off everybody, right, then that's nobody's fault. But when there are layoffs, it doesn't exactly start with the top reps. Right. It starts with the bottom ones. And so and it kind of and then it moves up, you know, the worse it gets, it's like, okay, shitty, you know what I mean? Like, so I look at it. And I say a lot of the average reps who are going through the motions, historically, are the ones right now saying, shit, I don't have a job anymore. And they might have gotten punched, you know, like, oh, like, if they thought they were okay, because they were at they were good, they were okay at what they did, but they just weren't excelling for whatever reasons.

Is it wrong to think that that right now, because what I'm getting at is the where should your head be at right now as a rep? Should you be looking at it as Oh, my God, I got fired because I'm not good? Or are you making excuses now because of COVID? Let's talk about the psychology of somebody who got laid off right now for a second, if you don't mind. I think it's the seven stages of a loss, right? And each one of those stages has a different thought process. I think the first thing is denial. And we're going to end up with going through each stage of major self awareness is how you come through this. So when I think about denial, if we go back, if you and I could press the rewind button, and go back two months ago, um, those same individuals, and what they thought and what their reality was, the market was so insane.

And there's so much going on. And I'm probably going to catch major heat for this. You didn't have to be that great to be okay in sales. And this is a potential colossal course correction. And so I think, you know, in terms of denial, it's like, Oh, my gosh, I just lost my job. I was foundational to the team. I was really good. Why did I lose my job? What's next? What's going to happen? How do I do this? Um, it wasn't just me. So I'm still really good. And you have to think about it, not just from your own lens, but like the best sellers have the ability to think outside of themselves and think about their buyer and the people that they're trying to engage. And the same rules apply with this.

And when you think about how layoffs happen, they happen in a number of different ways. If you're a really big company, operations finance, you could have just been a number on a spreadsheet. And I hate to say that in your cut, because it has to be a numbers game for smaller companies. It could be that, or it could be, you know, I'm going to be the bad person here to say it out loud. I can't tell you how many conversations. So in the last, I don't even know what day it is. Like I've lost track of time. Like I have a hard time, like remembering what my name is half the time. Now I'm like, what? However long ago, this all went down to now I have had conversations with VCs, PEs, founders, sales leaders, reps, and the gamut in between that.

And what I find consultants, you know, like the list goes on. And what I find interesting is, um, for many that were being laid off in the first round, if you weren't part of industries that just got pummeled by this thing, it was a really good excuse for them to trim the fat. And that's how they looked at it. Like I was going to fire this person anyway. It just makes it easier now because of COVID. Um, I know a ton, I know a ton of people, same thing. It's like, Oh, how's it going? Oh, we had to lay off three or four, you know, four or five, six people. I'm like, Oh, that sucks. I'm sorry. And all of a sudden they're like, yeah, well they kind of, they were dead weight anyways. And it was like, Ooh, okay.

So you're right. They're using it as an excuse. So again, I think that plays to the psyche, right? Like, so walk us through those seven stages, right? Cause I forget what they are. It's first denial. Then what is this? What is it? Oh, I think then I like awareness, like I'm sorry. Hey, you brought it up. No, but, but like, it's like denial. It's sadness. It's anger. It's acceptance is the last one. Right. But like, there's, there's the seven stages of all these emotions and then some, um, but I think, and I don't want to sound like I need to disclaim this entire conversation. This is not me being insensitive. This is me coming through with some straight talk for people to really think about this so we can get better.

Um, it's not to tell people necessarily what they want to hear, what we want to hear sometimes isn't the reality of the situation. And that's really my position that I'm trying to take with people is to help them understand truly what's going on. So first stage is obviously denial. I do know that. Um, well, can I, sorry to jump in, but cause I, I, I agree with you. So like the, and this is where I do think straight talk is necessary, right? Cause if you fool yourself right now and you think you're better than you are, then you're going to have an even harder time coming out of this. And I remember Jack Welch. So I worked for Jack Welch for a couple months and you know, he's always been really, uh, demonized for his, uh, distribution of talent and his top grading and all that other stuff, right.

Or whatever, where he fires the bottom 10% all the time or something like that. But what he said, which I really appreciate, he goes, what do you think's worse? And cause it, and it's so relevant to where we are right now. He goes, so say I fire somebody, right. Uh, so there's two approaches here. One is I'm afraid to have the real conversation with this person. So I give them mediocre performance reviews for the majority of their career, right? Hey, you're doing okay. You're doing okay. You're doing okay. Right. So then all of a sudden layoffs come COVID-19 hits, right? And those are the people that get let go of the first, the bottom gets let go. So now for years, you've been told you've been okay at your job, right?

So you really haven't had any problems, right? But now all of a sudden you're laid off. And then the psychology around that is, wait a minute, I thought it was okay at my job, but now I'm getting laid off. And those other people aren't. So obviously I'm not. So now you got this psychology of like, shit, Jack's approach is, look, I'm going to fire you. Okay. Now. And it's not because you suck in general. It's because you suck here. So I'm going to actually rip this bandaid off and let you go find what you're great at. And I, and a lot of people thought he was like an asshole for that. And I actually thought that was really merciful, if you will. Right. Because now you're, because now it's like, yes, it's hard to accept that.

Like, wait a minute. I'm like, wait, what? I just got fired. But when they say you, it's like, instead of dragging it out. And now I think there's a whole bunch of people right now who have been told they've been okay at their job for a long time, sitting there going, why the fuck did I get fired compared to everybody else? And it's because nobody was willing to have that hard conversation with them. Well, I think if you, if you've never been in a tough spot and for many, they've never been through something like this before. And let's go back to unemployment was the lowest we had seen in our working lifetimes, right? And people couldn't hire people fast enough. People with barely a pulse could get six figures and a base salary and get hired.

And that doesn't mean that you're amazing. It might mean that you need a lot of coaching. Maybe you had a bad sales leader and you got coached the wrong way. So it doesn't mean that you're a terrible person to your point, to Jack Welch's point. It just means that maybe, and by the way, I've seen really remarkable people get displaced, especially for companies that didn't necessarily understand sales from a startup perspective. And they look at how much time that's going to take. And they look at the results and they don't have enough money and the whole team gets wiped out. And those are a players, or you've got people that don't necessarily understand the semantics of sales. And, oh, it's really easy for me to just wipe out my SDR team.

It doesn't mean that all SDR sucks. So, you know, like nobody's making absolute statements here, but I think, um, for people to put their head in the sand, I, I literally had this conversation two days ago where, um, a client of mine who was, I called him the fabric, like he was brilliant and he was embedded in the organization. They laid off 30% of the staff. I don't know what the logic was because he would be the last person that I would lay off. And he was part of that. And we were talking, he's like, I have a colleague, they were a BDR here for four years and they absolutely like, they were okay. They weren't awesome, but they weren't terrible. Like they performed. Um, but they absolutely don't want to be a BDR.

They want to be a senior AE. And I was like, now's not the time. He's like, what do you mean? Now's not the time. And I said, I hate to break the tough news, but there are really great AEs flooding the market and companies. We now went from a candidate driven market to an employer driven market. And that doesn't mean that candidates are now bad or that employers are evil or that employers were once great and candidates are bad. It just means that this is the world that we're living in. And to have unrealistic expectations, there's that perception versus reality versus entitlement, like thinking you're entitled and getting, or not thinking you're entitled, being entitled and getting caught up in the blame game of like, well, this happened to me and I should have this.

That's not going to serve you well, looking for your next step. And I explained to him, I said, his best bet, because the great AEs will get gobbled up in those jobs now, you know, from the days of having 20 different opportunities, knocking on your door are now, um, very few and very far between for those people that have that luxury. That's not going to be a luxury anymore. It's not going to be a reality for a long, long time. And so in my mind, and what I said to him was his best bet is to think about what did he do really well? What does he really like? What's interesting to him and to find a phenomenal leadership team that cares about coaching development, that has a path that can point to other people on the team that you started as an SDR, here's our program.

And within a year you're at this and he can speak to other people. That's when maybe you have to pay your dues a little bit longer and you don't want to do it. But if you want to be in sales, you don't leapfrog, especially with this going from a BDR that has less than four years of experience in working in general, let alone sales to senior AE, because you think you deserve it. That's the mindset that we're dealing with here. Or even think you should do it. I'm going to, I'll give you a real interesting, uh, use case. Well, first of all, I got a question. Have you ever been, have you ever been fired? I, um, have not. Well, yeah, I was laid off where I worked for a startup that didn't understand enterprise sales.

They didn't have enough runway. I didn't have enough information that they were willing to give me in my decision-making process. Um, I believed in the product. I got there and they were an SMB play and I got there and they were unwilling to customize the technology to what the enterprise buyer needed. And within nine months from the CRO down and across my whole landscape, we were all wiped out. So, I mean, I've been part of that. It sucks. Um, I mean, I was like, I was fired at, I was fired at Staples. So you mentioned that one, like that person who was like the last person you'd expect to leave. Right? Like when my little company thrived, we got bought by Staples. Right. I knew what was wrong, but I kept fighting it.

Right. I was like, no, I got this. And I mean, I was the guy, when I tell you I was the guy, not only the founder of the company, but I was, I stood up every fucking month and I gave the rah, rah speech. Like, yeah. I mean, you cut me. I bled blue all over the place. Right. And all of a sudden I got fired. I mean, I was in everybody in the organization's mind. I was the last person on the planet that, that would have gotten fired. And it was like, uh, and even though I knew it was wrong, you know what I mean? I knew I, I, it is, wasn't right. I still kept fighting because, you know, and they were the ones that had to wake me up to that. And thank God they did, because that was like probably one of the best things career wise that's ever happened to me is getting fired.

And I, and I want to translate that to, I think that the mentality of that people have, that people I think should have right now is like, I think you might look at this as an opportunity to reinvent yourself. And this might be that kick in the ass that you needed to, to really reassess what, to your point, what you're good at, what you like doing and, and where you fit. Because, you know, give you an example, James, right? James Buckley, right? Brought him on board, made him a, like Morgan James, made him a trainer, like go. And, and, and this is, this is a tough job, right? Like you have to prospect, you have to be an SDR, you have to be an AE and you have to be a trainer, like with what we do.

Yeah. James has basically been a career SDR, you know what I mean? And he dabbled in AE for a little while, but he didn't, he didn't really like it. And so I'm trying to stuff him into this, you know, round, you know, square box in a round hole, whatever it is. And, and it was, it was just, wasn't working. And so we just recently were like, dude, like you haven't like closing, obviously like, you know, what's going on here? I'm listening to a call and like, oh man, what's happening. And it's just not what he likes to do. The kid loves the hunt. He loves being an SDR. So we're actually now teaming James and Morgan up as like an SDR, AE relationship right there. And we're going to optimize the hell out of that.

But now he's just like, ah, so it's almost like you have these ideas of that, that kid who's been in SDR for four, they think of, oh, I want to be a senior AE. Why the fuck do you want to be a senior AE? Like how do, how can you help a kid like that? For instance, who has a perception of the, the, the story of sales now with predictable revenue, all the segmentation, you come in at SDR, you go to a BDR, then you AE, SMB mid-market enterprise. Like that's the, that's the playbook, right. And the, the coup de grace or the, the, right. Is, is becoming a senior AE enterprise. How do you coach a kid who's 20, like 25, 26 years old that that might not be for them? Um, well, how to figure out whether that's really what they want.

I think first of all, it's mindset. Are you coachable? Like this person is not coachable. The advice that I gave was like, then if I don't have that, then I don't even want to do it at all. And it's like, but then what do you want to do? And it's like, I don't know. Well, here's the thing. The number one reason why people don't get jobs is they can't get specific. So if you don't know what you've done or why you've done it, where you do it, how you did it, what the outcomes were, what you learned from it and how that applies to me and my business and making me better. I don't know how those dots connect then. And so I can't coach somebody. This is like leadership stuff, right? Like I can't coach you.

If you don't want to be coached, it's like somebody telling me, Amy, I want you to stop doing something. I'm not going to stop doing something unless I really want to do it. And otherwise it's just like in one ear and out the other. So what I've suggested to people is if you find yourself, because even if you don't know, and a lot of people don't know what they want to do, I talked about this earlier this week. It's okay. It's okay to say it out loud. Um, I think what's really important is to go inward then. And I've suggested people embracing the power of a scorecard, but before you can even do a scorecard because a scorecard is now, you know, what the key traits and factors and criteria are that you have to anchor yourself to many people don't know what that is or what's next.

My suggestion is before you do one thing, you whip out a journal. I don't care if you want to type it up in one note. I don't care if you want to write about it. Um, and you ask yourself the same three to five questions every single day and you don't look back every day as a fresh perspective. And you write about those questions. And then week over week, you go back and you look for the themes. Like, what are the things that are really interesting to you? And I will say this, whether you've lost your job or you're about to lose your job, or you're thinking about leaving your job, or you're trying to survive inside of your current company or what's next, all those different scenarios. This right now is an incredible time to level yourself up.

What you put into yourself is what you get out. Couldn't agree. So, and I look, look, I'm going to put a pin on that one. Hold it for a second. Cause I want to go back a little bit on, on what you said about scorecard and kind of understanding, first of all, those questions, those five questions. I want to some, I want some examples of what those are, but I also want to like going back to kind of going inward, right? I've always said that I think that you need to figure out how, what your core values are at a certain stage of your career, ideally as soon as possible, but a certain stage of your career, I think there's a reflection point where that hits where you have to kind of do a self-assessment and, and forget about your strengths and weaknesses for a second here.

That, that, that's obvious, right? But, but literally look inwardly and say, what, what do you value? Right? Like what, as a human being, do you value money? Do you value relationships? Do you value doing the right thing? Do you care? Like all these different pieces of what makes you really core at the core go there? So it's funny. I talk about that a lot. I have my own core values, you know, it's 11, less than 12, um, guiding principles, all that stuff. But, um, how do you suggest a rep do that? Like, do you have any ideas on how to look inwardly and start to foundationally look at your values? Because what I feel like is once you know what those values are, then you start looking for opportunities that marry up to your values.

Because look, Amy, you and I could argue all day long. Okay. As long as you and I have the same values, right? We can skillfully discuss like all this other stuff. Cause we'll, we're, we're, we're coming from a foundational place. Now I can get macro here and say, the reason that I think our country is so divided right now is because we've lost our core values of what America means. You know what I mean? Like American core values, you ask Democrats, you ask Republicans, they are completely fucking different. Right? So that's why we're just screaming at each other right now. Whereas before we used to, all right, we're all grounded on this, so we can come to some sort of agreement here. So how do you, how would you do that right now?

If you're, how would you suggest a kid do that right now or anybody? I think it's hard for people. The more I go through my career and my business, and I'm in the business of helping people, I'm in the business of helping companies scale their businesses through enterprise salespeople and sales leaders. And I'm in the business of helping people with their careers. I think it's hard for people because again, it goes back to that specificity thing and people aren't thinking about themselves like this. Right? So they're like, what do you mean? I had this conversation with a person yesterday where I said, I can't help you if you can't help me understand what's important to you. Because I asked that question.

I was like, what's important to you? Like, that's the first question right down. What is important to you? And if it's like, well, and this was the answer to me. And I was like, I don't even know what to do with this. This person said, I can sell anything to anybody. What's important to me is getting a job. And I was like, please don't say that in an interview. And she was like, why? And I said, because what is interesting to me, and especially now with the market flooding with so many wonderful people, what's important to me, I need to make sure that it's important. And it's always been important to me, by the way, that the people that are around me in my business, they care about the same things that I care about.

They're in this business for the same reason. Maybe they get there differently. Maybe it looks differently. Maybe the actions that they take in the words that they use and the methodology looks different. But fundamentally, we are anchored in the same thing. So if you don't know what that is, first thing that you do is you start reading Simon Sinek books about it starting with why. And then find your why. Like he's got, they're all like, if you see all the books, there's lots of his books there. But I think it goes back to that journal. And I said this to this person and she followed him and she's like, you gave me some serious, tough love. But this was the best advice I ever received. And I just started journaling.

And part of what I said to her was, you have to think about what's important to you. And if you, this is the great time to reconcile from the past. And what I mean by this is, think about your job on the worst days. What sucked? What did you hate? If you think about a job in the future, you have to do that again. Does it suck or did it just suck because it sucked there? Right? Like what makes you super excited? I don't care if it's industry. I don't care if it's part of the job. I don't care if it's vertical. Like I don't really care what it is, but what gets your juices flowing? And if you start writing about that and you go back week over week and you look at the common themes and the number one theme is, I care about helping people.

All right. You should be in sales right on. We're on a great track here. Awesome. Then you take it one step deeper. You ask yourself a separate set of questions of why do I care about helping people? What are the things that I've helped people do that make me proud? What part of that journey? There are still full cycle reps that live and die by. I like the thrill of the chase and I love my relationships and I'm all about landing and expanding. Great. To your point with James and kudos to you guys for figuring that out. Part of how you did that and why it's working so well is James raised his hand and could talk to you because you gave him psychological safety and a culture of accountability and openness to say, Hey, you know what?

Maybe there's something missing here. And he's like, yeah, what's missing is I don't want to be an AE. I love that upfront thing. And Morgan's like, Hey, I like being an AE. Let's like wonder twin powers activate this thing. And I'm old where I go that far back. Oh, trust me. I got the costume. I got the costume. My wife and I were that for Halloween one year. But like, you know, now you've created a dynamic duo where they've got each other's back and think about that in the buyer journey. So it's, it's really about having, um, a sense of what do I really like? What do I really want to be doing and surrounding yourself? So I'm a huge sum of the parts mindset. Who are the people that you're surrounding yourself with?

And we talked about this on our last podcast of like this advisory board thought process of if you're doing your journal and you're pulling out the themes, I'm all about like themes and trends. And then you create a scorecard based on those findings before you do one thing, have no more, no more than five people. Cause you will then start spinning out and you'll be deluded and confused, but a mentor, uh, a partner, spouse, loved one, uh, an old coach, uh, an old boss, an old colleague, people that are not going to yes, you to death that will shoot you straight. And we'll be able to say to you, that's all well and good, but you missed this one thing. And this one thing, if you don't do that, you're going to continue to stumble and fall, or you're going to be dissatisfied in the year.

So I think for all those people that are thinking like, I just care about money. Money is a very tangible like thing, right? It's not fluid. It's like money is money. That's, that's, that's a thing. The best salespeople realize there are lots of other factors that lead into what it takes to get that money. I would challenge anybody thinking about this. If you think your coin operated, fantastic. Enjoy yourself. That's great. But what do you have to have? What's important to you to turn that machine on, to see the coins come through. Okay. So, so say you go through that little exercise where you kind of look inside, you kind of define what you like, what you don't like, what your values are. Now you're in this fucking market with 8 billion other sales reps going for two jobs.

Um, or, or forget about the two jobs available. What do you, how, first of all, how do you even approach a job search right now? Like, do you, do you identify your values and then go find companies that you feel like align with those values? You put together a list of them and like, what do you, how would you even approach? Cause I think right now the danger that I see right now is that a lot of reps are going to have that. I'm looking for a job cause I need a job and that's going to come through in an interview. Right. And if I'm sitting as a hiring manager and I'm looking at some desperate rep who sit in front of me, who doesn't really give a shit about the job, but just needs a job, they're not going to get hired.

Right. So like even in this C, I want a kid who, who wants this job, right. Who wants to work at my company. Right. So, so how do, how do, how do you even approach it right now with so with, you said it's flipped right now. It's now gone from a, uh, you know, employee driven market to an employer driven market. How would you even approach it right now? The same exact way as you would approach your sales job, right? Like if you flip the script where you were before this was an incredibly competitive market where you were knocking on people's doors and you had all of your other competitors saying the same thing, offering the same thing. What did you do to stand out? And so if you think about this, like sales and recruiting or finding a job, they are not dissimilar at all.

Um, and I've done both really well. So I, I like those, that statement isn't lost on me, but when I think about this, it's like, how would you prepare to connect the dots for your buyer to open a conversation? And then how do you continue to stay relevant and stand out throughout that entire buyer journey? And those same principles and those same philosophies and how you plan, I suggest to people instead of spraying and praying, right? That doesn't work in sales. Um, there's that whole, like my friend, Sam McKenna says this all the time and I love it. Show me, you know, me, right? Like I can't care more about your career than you do. And if you're taking a backseat approach to just willy nilly spray out your resume and it's got typos and it looks like crap and it doesn't answer any questions or I've said this a lot.

I did this thing with Justin Walsh and Scott lease on Thursday nights called Thursday night sales. And it's like an open Q and a, and I've said this a lot where it's like, I'm getting bombarded right now. And I've got drift chat. I've got in mail. I've got Twitter. I've got email. Like I live out loud. It's easy to get to me. And I respond to every single person, even if it's a, I'm so sorry, I can't help you. And here's why I can't, but here's what might help on drift. I've got people that are like, I'm looking for a job. I don't even know what that means. Like, I don't even know what to do with that. And for me, I deal with enterprise salespeople and sales leaders and executive sales leaders.

So I can't help a BDR with the work that I do. And if you're making it this difficult for me and I have to do all the work and I am inundated of running a business and all the other things that I'm doing, you're automatically irritating me. Is that the foot that you want to start with? And so it's the same rule and principle that makes incredible salespeople incredible is they care. They've done the homework. They can connect the dots. So think about it like your pipeline, right? Who, what is your ICP? Do that research, pick your top 10 list every single week, create a spreadsheet, get a free CRM, load that in there, put it on a follow-up list. And every time you follow up, make it count, connect those dots.

How do, so buyers buy for three reasons. You make me better. You help me solve a problem. You help me reach a goal. The same thing with hiring. If you can't answer those questions, you have a problem. I talked about this on a different podcast, but it's a great way of thinking about yourself. I could give two rips and I'm sure John, feel free to give me grief for this. I don't care about football newsflash. I don't www.dontcare.com. But what I think is interesting is the Superbowl and the commercials. I'm down for that. Like my husband's going to have it on. We're going to have a party and you know, I'm going to watch the commercials. If you think about how Superbowl commercials work, like that is like the creme de la creme of advertising.

Totally. Yeah. And you have 30 to 60, 30 to 60 seconds to nail it. Same thing with this. And so the best way that you can think about this is prepare for that Superbowl and ask yourself these questions. Why did I do it? Where did I do it? Who did I do it with? What did I do? What was the outcome? How did I get better? What were the lessons learned and why the other person that I'm trying to engage and to have two to three, like power statements that can quantify and qualify it with numbers? Not just, I asked somebody this and they were like, well, because I work harder than anybody else. I'm like, I'm like, what does that mean? And he's like, well, I get into the office two hours before everybody else.

I'm like, if you do that, you could be at Starbucks for two hours jerking around. Like, I don't care about that. That doesn't mean anything to me. Be able to connect the dots to quantify or qualify how you made your team better, how you, um, and not just, I was at 125% to quota. Who were some of the brands? How did you help them get better? Why did they buy from you? It's a lot more magnetizing to me when somebody says, I had a territory of top 30 accounts for the fortune 50 brands and three deals that I closed last year that took me 18 plus months to close equaled $10 and a half million. And I won the business from 50 other competitors. I want to talk to you. Yes. And, and being able to tell those stories, right?

Cause I, cause for, and listen, everybody out there, and this is actually for employers and employees, um, employers when you're interviewing and obviously, I mean, you know this, right? You never want to ask situations. You never want to ask, um, leading questions or hypothetical questions in an interview, right? Because I can tell you, I can, I know what you're trying to get at with a hypothetical and a leading question. I'll answer it. Right. And you'll think I'm smart. You want to ask situational based questions. So a quick example here is, Hey John, when was, uh, so what would you do? Here's a hypothetical. Like, what would you do if you got in an argument with your boss? Right. And if you asked me that question, I'm like, well, Amy, you know what I would do is I would try to take the emotions out of it.

I would take a step back. I would really think it from their perspective. And I would look, I'm a solution guy. I'm not just a problem guy. So what I would do is I would come up with a couple of options and then I would ask my boss to leave and go in a different environment. So we could really have a real conversation and understand what the problem was. And then, and, and after that answer, you'd be like, Holy shit, I got to fucking, I got to like interview, like I got to hire this guy, right? You don't ask that question. You ask John, give me an example. Last time you, you got in an argument with your boss and what was the result? So you need to be as a rep, as an interviewee, you need to, um, be able to answer that question.

Hey, give me an example when you face something challenging and what was your approach to it and what was the result? Right. And, and that mindset to your point of have those stories, have those examples and don't let the numbers are what's on your resume, right? 125% of quota, blah, blah, blah. Who fucking cares? Right. That gets you through the door, I guess. Um, but, but it kind of leads me to the, the other thing about the resume. Like I've, I've been out of the job market for a while now. Right. I, you know, and, and I always cringe when I hear people who are interviewing or who are applying for jobs and they're down because they say, you know, I sent out a hundred resumes last week and I didn't get one response and it, and they did the spray and pray thing.

Right. And I'm like, did, okay. So how did you just literally go on their website and attach your PDF resume and hit submit? Is that what you did? Yeah. But I mean, a hundred, 200, 300 and nobody's, nobody's hiring. I'm like, Oh, you're fucking pathetic. Uh, my thing is I I'm right in line with you. Like treated as a sales, right? I mean, here's a quick tip for everybody out there listening. Easy way to get a job. I'll say easy way to get a job, easy way to get a response, go on a company core values, go on a company's website, look at their mission and vision statement, go see what their C level executive has, has talking about as far as their vision, right. Or the business fire off an email to the CEO and say, Hey, um, I was, I was doing some research on you guys.

I noticed what your vision is, is to blah, blah, blah, whatever that is. And it really resonated with me because I'm looking for the next challenge in my career and your value seemed to really align with what I'd look for in my next challenge for myself. And I was wondering, you know, who in your organization would be the best person to have this conversation with, uh, to, to, you know, for a potential opportunity within your business. So don't even apply like this is my approach. I'm not in, you could tell me if this is terrible or not, but I've, I've gave, given that advice, right? Because now the C level executive refers down to the director of HR and that director of HR. Now your resume is on the top, right.

And they actually pay attention to you. Um, is that the mentality people should be taking right now? Like being creative outside of the masses of just applying for jobs, which everybody else is doing? Well, you're talking about standing out and I love that you have like an actionable thing and I'm, I'm all for what you just described, but a couple of caveats to that. So one is don't just go to the company's website and look at mission, vision, value, cores, like core values, like all that stuff. Great. Start there and then go to Google and do a search on said person that you're reaching out to CEO, CRO. I don't care who it is. Do they have any content that they're sharing that embodies what that is and talk about how that struck you?

Cause what I will say is this, and somebody came to me yesterday and they were like, I want your opinion. This is how I followed up with them. They told me that they get back to me. They never got back to me. What do I do? And I said, do you mind sharing with me what you sent? I wouldn't want to get back either. Cause here's the thing is if, if you interviewed and they say, I'll get back to you two days and now it's six days later, a couple of things are happening. One, they're talking to other candidates that are stronger than you. Cause if you were their person, they'd be keeping you really, really close. Um, or they're waiting to see what else happens. I'm not agreeing with any of this. This is just the reality of what goes down.

If you are staying top of mind, because you show that a, I saw your core values or your mission statement or whatever the case may be, but I took it 12 steps further. And I saw that you tweeted about this and then you were on a podcast and at the 45 minute, 32 second mark, this is what was said. That's way more impactful, but it can't be I, I, I, I, I, I, I. And that was the message that I saw yesterday. It was like, I did this, I am this, I am that. When can we talk about me? You're not doing anything for me. Right. But if you're like, I read this, how has that affected and whatever you're reading or whatever you're referring to tie it back to the hiring process, right? Like if their mission is we are the sum of our parts and we can't do this without the people that pour themselves into this business.

And we care deeply about that first and foremost and do what's right. I'm going to weave that in. I'm going to hear it on podcast or whatever. I'm going to weave that in to say, I couldn't help, but to notice this. How does that come through in the hiring process today? When it comes to dealing in a pandemic, you're asking them a question, just like sales, right? Like, it's not like I just wanted to reach out because I think you're hiring. Who can I talk to? I'm not inclined to do that. Right. Give me a reason to drop everything and talk to you. I love it. And with that, a couple more pieces. How should you prepare for an interview? Um, outside of having all your ducks in a row, as far as examples.

Um, well, I'll actually be more specific as a rep. What, or I'm sorry, as an interviewer, what always frustrated me was when I was interviewing reps and I would go through and they'd seem like pretty good, whatever. And then I would, and sometimes I would do it sooner rather than later, just to kind of test. And I would say, all right, yeah, well, you know, why don't we start with, what questions do you have for me? And if they had either the typical shitty questions like vacation and those types of things, or didn't have any questions at all, to me, my personal style, it was an automatic see you later. And by the way, this is even after some people are like, well, John, I've already been through like four interviews with other people.

So, you know, I've, I've gotten my, all my questions answered. Tough shit. You should still have questions for me, right. As whatever the role I'm in, right. Based on. So, so what are some of the, what are some of like the go-to questions that you recommend that reps prepare to ask the company to, to stand out? Cause I think you can stand out not with your answers to their questions. I think you can stand out with a thoughtfulness of your answers to your questions to them. Absolutely. So I don't disagree with anything that you just said. And what I will say is I am not a template. Here are the questions that you should ask. I mean, you can go and Google and HubSpot's going to have the top 30 questions and everybody asks those and it becomes very robotic and you're not really standing out.

What I want to know is that even if it's five steps deep and what I should say is this, this is your career. Every step is an opportunity, just like in sales is an opportunity to discover more, how that doesn't lead to additional questions and get your wheels turning is beyond me, right? Like again, you can't take a backseat to your career. So what I suggest people to do is if it's in the first interview, you want to show that you did your homework, that you're thinking about this, that you have, I call them consequential meaty questions, right? Not like when do you want this job filled by, but more along the lines of you are inundated with people right now, who stands out to you in the interview process and why?

Like, you know, that, that, that creates conversation. It's not yes, no, you learn a lot about them. You have understand what's important to them. And what you do when you're interviewing is it's okay, especially on video to say, and I'm a big fan of setting expectations to say, please know I am actively engaged in this conversation, but I am a fierce note taker. If you see me doing this, it means that I'm taking notes. Please know you've got my undivided attention, but I don't want to miss any of this. Then you want to show that you actually did do that. And so when they say, do you have any questions? You could say, you know what I do? And I didn't want to interrupt you. You talked about X, Y, and Z.

How does that affect your reps when it comes to their, uh, sales process? How long does it really take? We talked about your average deal size take or your average sales, um, process taking 18 months. But that particular thing that you talked about, sounded like it could be shorter. What was that instance and why? Like can it connected in like the light bulb went on? And that's when people are like, Oh my gosh, because people need anybody, anybody that's listening, anyone that's listening to this, please, for the love of God, if there's anything that I can tell you, show up, how you show up makes or breaks your ability to keep that seat at the table, just like in sales, meaning every single step.

It could be an email. It could be an email. It could be a LinkedIn comment. It could be a tweet. It could be a call, anything that you're doing. It could be a video interview. I don't care what it is. Every single step of the interview process. People are thinking two things amongst other things, but these are the top two. Do I want you on my team? Are you going to gel? Well, is this going to be a good fit? And how are you going to be with my buyer? Because how you are here, it's like dating, right? Like the first date I went on with my husband, I looked the best I ever looked besides their wedding day, like ever. And then like six months later, you know, when like I've got pizza grease stains on like the t-shirt, you know, like it never gets better.

And I never got cuter after that, right? Like it was what it was. The same thing here. If you're not showing up and you're half-assing it, I'm automatically thinking, how are you going to take, especially if it's enterprise sales. And it's a complex, sophisticated buyer journey where you've got to always be thinking the way that we're thinking now to connect those dots, to pay attention, to uncover way below the surface that comes from natural curiosity. And the more you put that forward, that's the number one thing that people tell me that they want is I want somebody that's curious, that wants to be part of this, that wants to pour themselves in the business of us as well as our buyers. Cause that's when the magic happens.

You've got to show them that you can do that through not just what you say, not just what your words are, not just what your recommendations on LinkedIn are, but your actions walk your talk. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's amazing to me how many people don't like, I think that again, there's a panic, right? Where they're just saying, look at me, look at me, look at how good I am. I'll answer any question that you have because I need a job and not looking at it as a career of this is the next, this is the next step in my career. And therefore I want to make sure it's a good one. Right. And by the way, or, and when I say good, I mean that in a relative term, like it might not be a good job, but it might be a good stepping stone to get that next role.

And, you know, I've always said like, I'll, I'll wash, you know, I'll wash the floors if, if, if I need to, to get to whatever that goal I have of being the enterprise AE, but I want to be the best at whatever it is and not expect that, but just crush this. Right. Yeah. I want to show you that I've earned that right. And you know, if you are out of work right now, and I'm so sorry if that's the case, I know that stress and I know it's, it's a big, big heavy weight on your shoulders and this will pass. I promise it's going to get better, but you've got to understand this, that this is an opportunity for you to dig in deep to get better, whether you're working or not. If you're working, take on extra projects, raise your hand, jump in, be part of the fabric, be indispensable, right?

If you're not, learn something new, read books, connect with other people, learn from them and use that in the interview to talk about, here's what I'm doing with my time. Instead of binge watching Tiger King on Netflix, here's what I'm doing with my time to get better. Here's how it applies to you. Here's what I'm thinking about that you're talking about in your business for your buyers. And these are the things that I'm thinking about as well. Here are the books that I'm reading. What books are you reading? Cause I'd like to read one, right? Like if that were, you're taking this seriously and you're not expecting just because you're out of work that you should get a job. That, that actually is two more last points.

One is that one's huge. Like I got to, if I ask you right now, what have you been doing with your time since you've been laid off and you're joking around Tiger King? Yeah. You know, I just been kind of relaxing a little bit, recharging those types of things. And it's not, well, um, I, I took this masterclass as a matter of fact, and then I actually signed up for the Jay Barrels. Uh, it was only $99. I could actually get John, like the Jay Barrels training for fucking $99. I put that out of my pocket. I was reading these books, the Simon Sinek one I thought was really interesting. And I've actually been down with like these podcasts are some of my favorite. I've been listening to blah, blah, blah.

Like if you tell me that, holy shit, there's somebody who's developing themselves and realize, but if you tell me that you're just, yeah, you know, I've, I've just been kind of, you know, seeing what's out there and do my thing, like forget it. Um, last point in this good transition to closing. Um, how do you close? How do you close an interview? Um, because again, context here, I always, when I used to interview a lot, I would say closing like 50 times in the interview, I'd be like closing, closing, closing, closing, right? And then I would end every interview the same way. I'd be like, thank you so much for coming in today. I genuinely appreciate it. We'll be in touch. And if the rep literally just got up and said, thank you so much.

I'm really looking forward to hearing back from you. I didn't call him back. I didn't, I didn't hire him because I'm like, if you weren't picking up what I was putting down there. So regardless of like not picking up the signs that this is a closing role, for instance, but if it's like, say it's an SDR, you still have to close the meeting in sales, right? It's kind of like leaving a client saying, okay, Amy, you know, let me know if you're interested, you know, uh, feel free to call me back. If you want to do some business together and then just letting you call me back whenever you feel like it, like that's, that's not, and you don't have to stuff it down somebody's throat. And when I'm saying closing, you don't have to Glenn, Glenn Ross, the fucker, you know what I mean?

That type of thing. Um, yeah, please. That's not, that's not good. How do you tactfully close an interview and follow up in a way that is that to your point keeps you top of mind and helps you stand out? So I don't love the word close in general because it just, in my mind promotes all the wrong stuff that was never really synonymous with me. Um, is the question though, for me, how I close an interview as a hiring authority or how I close an interview as a rep interviewing? If you were a rep right now, how would you end the meeting? When I say that to you, when I say, Amy, thank you so much for coming into this. So I'm the hiring manager here. You're the rep. And I say, Amy, thank you so much.

It's been a pleasure talking to you, Amy. You know, we have some interviews, we have some more interviews going on. Um, and so we'll, we'll be in touch. Um, probably in the next couple of weeks, we'll be in touch. Like that's the end of the interview. What do you do? So I like to leave people wanting more and I would reinforce, I would say, totally get it. These were my three things that I took away from our time together that really connect us together. What were your three things? Right. So like, there's that. And then I would say, I, and I would put myself in their position, right? Like I completely understand you have more candidates than you've ever had to interview. And this is a really tough decision.

How do you feel about our time together? And might it be possible? So not, can we, might we, there's psychology there about the language usage. Might it be possible for us to earmark time, even if it's 10 minutes to talk about your search and selection process and why I may or may not be a viable candidate, because I really care about feedback. I care about an opportunity to get better. And even if it's a, no, I'm a big girl, I can take it, but it would be really great to tie this off one way or the other. And for you to know that you can tie this off one way or the other, can we do that? Or might we be able to do that? Not can we, but might we be able to do that? That's how I like that. Cause it's like, oh, you listen to this.

You can connect the dots. Now you're putting yourself in my shoes and you're being empathetic to me. And I told you like, it's two weeks, but you know, it could be two and a half months. And if you have that anchoring conversation, that is a defining moment for me as a candidate that they're just window shopping me, or we had a really great meeting and they care about feedback. Like I don't play poker. I, and I say this all the time. So for anybody that listens to my podcast, they've heard me say this a million times. I always look for the tells though. And the tell is if I'm asking you a specific question, it's like dating, right? Like if you closed a date that way and you said, Hey, I get it.

Like we're not in a monogamous committed relationship and you're dating other people. And these are the three things that you said were important to you. And this is important to me too. Not that you do this on a date, but like, let's say that was the case. And the answer is like, yeah, I'll, I'll maybe talk to you in two weeks. Like you didn't think I was that hot. Right. So you need to look for the signals of, are they really engaged with you? And if it's like, thank you, but no, thank you. Um, or thank you. Maybe there's a lot more work than that still needs to be done. And when it comes to follow up, I am a huge fan of a thank you. And I'm not talking about blasting off an email that's already in draft.

So thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing from you in two weeks. I'm talking about being helpful, thinking about what they said, applying it in the thank you, suggesting maybe an article that you thought about that they could think about that helps them regardless of whether they hire you or not. These are the things that we talked about. Hey, by the way, this came top of mind. I didn't mention this. This is a worthy read that really helped our business in X, Y, and Z way. And this is how I applied it. And actually we could do that together. I look forward to continuing our conversation. If you have any questions, please let me know, you know, like that's a very different thank you follow up where you're connecting the dots.

It's not just like, thanks for your time. It was great to meet you in the team. I'd love to be part of your, your team. And people do that all the time where it's like, I'd love to work with you after the first interview. How do you know that you'd love to work with me? You don't know that. And that's that desperation that you're talking about. And I get it. If you're having a hard time paying the bills and you just need a job, I understand. I do. But that works against you. You've got to figure out a way to temper that you really do. Yeah, 100%. Awesome. Well, any closing thoughts for those people out there kind of saying, okay, I got to go, I got to go do I got to go find my next challenge.

Any, any last thoughts that they should be thinking about or, or, or ways to stand out at all? Um, all of the things, like I said, this is a reinforcement, all the things that you would do in the buyer journey are not dissimilar to this. So looking for content, looking for getting personal, not just personalized that, Hey, we both went to Kent state university together. Yeah. Um, reading what's going on in their industry, being helpful, sharing things that could be helpful, making connections for them. And if for some reason, it's interesting when the door shuts, how you act and the way you conduct yourself to keep that door open for the future. And if you weren't the right candidate, because let's say it was sort of in between an AE and a BDR role, and you're really an AE and you realize together that it's not the right thing, but you really love the company.

You really want to stand out. I would immediately follow through and say, here are three people that were laid off that were the cream of the crop from my business that you should talk to. I'm happy to make an introduction. I will not forget that. And I will bend over backwards to help you. It's how you show up consistently. I love it. Awesome, Amy. Well, thank you. And, uh, and hopefully for those of you listening out there that, uh, unfortunately are out of work right now, cause I know there's a lot of you out there, uh, use this, use this time. Like Amy said, use it to better yourself, use it to educate yourself. The amount of free shit that's going on right now of like content and information and learning is insane.

And if you're not taking advantage of it right now, you're putting yourself at a disadvantage in so many ways. Um, but you know, I, I firmly believe in times like this, um, we'll come out stronger. You know what I mean? People will come up. Some people will fold and, and realize that sales isn't for them or whatever it is. And they're just going to have to say, you know what, that wasn't, that wasn't me. And I'm going to go find something else again that I'm better at, that I'm good at and reinvent myself. Right. But those who really look at sales as a career, um, that they want to dedicate their lives to. I, I, I firmly believe that we're going to come out stronger on the other end. Right. A lot of us are hopefully we all stumble and fall.

It's what we do with it that matters and it's how you get through it. And we're all learning lessons in one way, shape or form. Um, I will say this and it's not, I'm not trying to shamelessly plug anything, but we talked about a scorecard and we talked about questions to think about asking and how you create that in the first place. I originally wrote about it for sales hacker in 2017. And I approached them recently and said, this bad boy needs a facelift. I've got even more insight and it just got published last week. Nice. And so for anybody that wants to use a scorecard and is really doubling down on that work that we talked about, that's so important. And it will always serve you well. And it helps to take out some of the emotion.

It helps to reduce that margin for error. It helps to anchor you on your why and values and what's important to you. And the, the questions that you need to ask and the things that you need to think about. And if you haven't go back to that, to make a good decision, all of that is there. And then some, so if you Google Amy Volus sales hacker interview scorecard, it's like the first thing that pops up. It's there. And if you can't find it, hit me up and I'll make sure you get it. Awesome. Cool. And what we'll do is when we post this, um, on LinkedIn next week or whenever it is, um, we'll put that, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll put that in the, um, if we don't put it in there, make sure when we tag you, you, you put the link, put that link in there.

All right. Right on. Awesome. Well, Amy, always a pleasure. Love talking to you. Um, I got you. Thanks man. My kindred spirit. Appreciate it. I appreciate you too. Let's keep doing what we can to elevate this profession one step at a time. Right? Absolutely. And for anybody out there, you got this. I promise it'll get better. Exactly. So cool. All right, everybody. Look, uh, as I always say, uh, if you had a bad day, uh, go make somebody smile today. Cause if you made somebody smile today, you know, you had a good day. So hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. Good luck out there. Stay safe and make it happen. Thank you all very much. We'll see you next time.