166: Sarah Brazier On The SDR To AE Transition

What's up everybody, thanks for joining us for another episode of Make It Happen Mondays with your host, John Barrows. This episode is brought to you by our partners, Sales Loft Gong, Vanilla Soft, Vidyard, Proposify, Owler, Sendoso Out of the Box, and Zoom Info. On this episode, we're talking with Gong's Sarah Brazier. She recently transitioned from SDR to AE, which is a very popular career path for sales professionals. She's going to tell us how she got started in sales, how her acting experience was super useful in adopting the skill sets, and where it's led her thus far. A ton of insights will be presented to you in this episode. Remember that JB Sales On Demand is available to you. Just visit ondemand.jbarrows.com.

Sales pros everywhere are looking to up their game, and prospecting and closing and using social selling in new and exciting ways is the future. So develop your own skill set and invest in yourself by joining us at ondemand.jbarrows.com. Now let's give it to John and Sarah. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrow's Make It Happen Mondays. Hopefully, you all had a fantastic weekend. I am here with a very interesting guest going through a very interesting transition that I think a lot of you are going to appreciate. So, Sarah Brazier, how are you? Account executive over at Gong. How are you doing? I'm doing great. I'm doing great. You still, you missed it. It's Brazier. It's okay. Brazier.

Oh, shit. Brazier. See, I had it as Brazier, and then I said Brazier. And you even said Brazier. Brazier. It's fine. Sarah Brazier. So, Sarah, talk to me. Give us a little bit of background from where you're coming from here, because you've been at Gong now for almost two years. But let's talk. Let's back up a little bit for it, because you've got some interesting backgrounds that we can pick into a little bit with public speaking and SDR Nation. So, walk us through that journey a little bit here. Yeah, sure. So, a long, long time ago, when I was young and in high school, I did speech and debate, and then I ended up doing speech and debate in college. And then in college, I ended up getting a job working for the National Speech and Debate Association.

And so, that's how I became a public speaking coach, is I just spent a lot of time working with students from middle school to high school to the collegiate level, coaching at a bunch of different universities and schools and different camps all over the country. So, I did that for a really long time, and I ended up teaching at a middle school down in Texas called St. Mary's Hall. And I had a moment where I was teaching drama, coaching speech and debate, and feeling like, oh, what is life? What is life without the stage? And so, then I made a pivot. So, I made a pivot from speech and debate to teaching to then a pivot to acting. And then I ended up being an actor in the San Francisco Bay Area for a while.

Nice. I have an older brother who works in tech. So, I slept on his couch. There you go. What were some of the things, just out of curiosity, from an acting standpoint, what were some of the gigs that you got? Oh, yeah. Good question. So, the first show that I did, so, like, the way I ended up in the Bay Area is, like, I was working as a teacher. I came out to work at this theater arts camp in the Santa Cruz Mountains in Little Basin, Phoenix Big Basin, and I basically, like, slept in a hammock in the woods for three months, and I would wake up every morning and go make up plays with a group of kids who were at the camp for two weeks, and I just get, like, a new group of students every two weeks, and they call me Nomad, and it was, like, some kind of Disney princess, Snow White, a campfire, very kumbaya, and I thought, man, I really love teaching, but I really love California, and I really, I love performing more.

I love, I love performing, and I love acting, so I just, I called up the school, and I was like, hey, I, I think, um, I think I need to not teach, um, and I decided to pursue acting, so I, I finished up with that camp, and I went to my first audition, like, a week later when I officially decided to live in the Bay Area, and it was for the show called Women in Jeopardy, and, uh, it was my first audition, and I showed up, and I had no idea what I was doing, uh, and, uh, they called me back, like, two days later, and they're like, you got the part, um, and that was great, it was, like, a great entrance, and I was like, I can do this, you know, like, that was, like, probably the best paying gig I had the whole time I was acting, so, and I was getting paid minimum wage by the city of Walnut Creek, um, and I don't even think I was actually getting Bay Area minimum wage, I think I was making, like, which is, like, 15 or 16 bucks an hour, I was making, like, $10 an hour, um, and I was like, I'm gonna do it, so I was going to rehearsal during the day, and then I was going to auditions at night, and, um, I got a job as a bookkeeper at a church, so I was bookkeeping, I was acting, and then I was going to auditions whenever I had a minute, and then I, um, the bookkeeping at the church was, like, an interim role, and so I ended up doing, like, being in this show, and then rehearsing for another show at the same time, so I'd get off stage, and I'd change really fast, and get on BART, and go from Walnut Creek into the city, which is, like, an hour commute, and then I'd be, you know, in the city, rehearsing in this theater that was full of cockroaches, just, it was so gross, and that was just kind of, like, that was it, like, it was just, like, gig to gig, finding ways to make money, I worked as a barista, I worked as the front desk girl at a, uh, at Optimizely, um, yep, yep, I, uh, I worked at, um, I worked, I kept coaching speech and debate on and off, I worked at a private, private, like, after-school program down in Fremont, which is, again, like, another, like, hour and a half commute, so I was just all over the place, at some point, I was, I was doing, like, a internship in Sacramento, which was also awful, I was, it was, they paid me a hundred bucks a week to do this internship, and I did, I woke up in the morning around, like, four in the morning, and I'd get dressed, and I'd go, I'd walk to the theater, because I didn't have a car at the time, I'd get to the theater, and then we'd drive out within a hundred fifty mile radius of Sacramento to go put on these children's shows, um, and you have, you all, you have all the gear with you, all the set, which is, like, really heavy, it's, like, 50, 60 pounds, and we didn't, like, someone had wrecked the trailer, so we had it all in, like, a 15 passenger van, we, like, pulling all this stuff up, and setting it up, and we'd perform, like, school, like, school shows for little elementary school students, and, um, I'd do that all morning, we'd do three shows a day, and then I'd get back to the theater, and I'd go change, and I'd go, um, clean, clean the bathrooms of the theater, and then I'd work the bar at night.

Jesus Christ. So, wait a minute, hold on a second. So, A, work ethic, B, what the fuck? Like, so, did, was, were you doing all this with, like, a bigger plan in mind, or were you just trying to figure shit out as you were going? It was, like, a little bit of both. So, so, in the world of theater, um, you, you don't, you don't have, like, any rights. Like, you're, you're just a piece of, you don't have the backing of the union until you have a certain number of hours with union certified theaters, and if you become, and the union is called equity, um, it's like SAG, like, but it's really hard to get in the union, and so, I was doing shows that were both non-union and union, because I needed to build up my resume.

If you work in a union show, you work regular hours, so you work, um, you work daytime hours, the way that we go into the office, you go, except the office hours for theater people start around, like, 11 a.m., that's early, early for theater folks, but when you're, when you're doing a show, you, you know, the show ends at 9, 10 p.m., and then you have to clean up, and go get notes, and do all that other good stuff, so it ends up making sense. Anyway, I was just trying to get my equity card, which is why I took that internship, because the promise was, like, if you, if you work for us for four months, uh, for 100 bucks a week, but you also have to pay us $100 for your room and board, um, but you guys, it's just room, because you didn't, you, you had to, like, buy your own food, in the, I have the employee's handbook still, I keep it as, like, a memento, but you couldn't, um, they suggest that you get, uh, food stamps, that's, like, one of their recommendations, before you start, you apply for your stamps, and, um, you're not allowed to take sick days, unless you go get, um, evaluated by your manager, um, so the rule is, like, if you, you know, you have to come and show up, and show them that you're sick, and then your manager will decide if you should just lay down and take a nap on the couch, um, if you should just tough through it, or if you can actually take the day off, like, it's, like, that kind of crazy, at some point during the, it was, like, two months into the internship, and I was, like, this is kind of bullshit, I think, I don't think, I don't think I need this to get my, I don't need this to get into the union, because you're literally doing all of that, so you can get your equity card, so you never have to put up with that ever again, because then you have the power of the union behind you to negotiate on your behalf, and get, like, health insurance, because I didn't have health insurance either, but would it, but you said it was part of a bigger plan to kind of get that, to get to that next I wanted the equity card, and I was just trying to find any gig that I could work to get to equity, and eventually I was, like, this is, this is stupid, this is totally stupid, I'm working so many, like, survival jobs that I don't have time to go to auditions, and I'm exhausted, and the shows that I can work into my schedule are kind of crappy shows that I'm not really, I don't feel good putting my name on that, so I need a different, I need a different plan, and that's when I got a job in sales.

So you're like, ah, fuck it, I'm going to get into sales, which, after all that, had to seem way less chaotic, or, like, because I think a lot of people have this fear of sales, and how it's like this grind every day, and don't get me wrong, it is, I think sales is one of the hardest professions in the world, if, you know, you really dedicate yourself to it, but not anywhere near the eclectic, uh, different things that you were doing, and, and, and how hard and many hours you were working, so why sales, though? I mean, I, I think I can make the connection, obviously, with public speaking, and being on stage, and all those other things, and how it kind of leads to, uh, um, a comfort level in sales, but why was sales something that you were like, you know what, I, I want to, I want to take this level, outside of just the money part, which I'm assuming was a big part of it, but was there anything else that drove you to that?

So, there were a couple things, um, one, I had a couple people in my life tell me, like, Sarah, if you went into sales, you would, you would just, you would excel. Brush it, yeah. And I was like, okay, noted, I'll just keep that in my back pocket. Yep. Um, the second thing is that the barrier to entry to being a salesperson is relatively low. If you, if you can articulate, um, an idea, if you can be persuasive, or at least be, learn how to be persuasive, um, if you have decent writing skills, most of the salespeople, I know, don't even have that great of writing skills, but, you know, if you, if it is. I'll tell you, right, there's a small sidebar on that. You know how much, so I, you know, prospecting, all that stuff.

I get in converse, more conversations these days where the executive will say, hey, look, John, that prospecting stuff, you know, like sales, you know, great. Um, do you have anything on teach my reps, like grammar? And I'm like, well, what? Like, like how to write? And they're like, yeah, just like sentence structure stuff. I'm like, what did they go to school for? Like, what are they teaching in school right now? But you're right. I don't think so. I don't know whether it's because we're in the tweet world where everything's shorthand or whatever it is, but it's amazing to me how the, the lack of writing skills is so apparent in sales specifically. When a huge part of our job is writing proposals, writing emails, writing all that other stuff.

And the fact that nobody can actually write in a way that makes sense is, is scary. I think it's actually like across the board. It's not, it's not just sales. It's just that sales is so public writing, you know, you're, you're constantly sending emails to prospects, you're looking over people's shoulders, what we're exposed to. But I think, I think a lot of people actually lack really solid writing skills, which is why people talk about, Oh, soft skills are so important that we have to cultivate them. Yeah. Writing is, is one of them, but my degree is in broadcast journalism. So you write a bunch and speech and debate. You have to write speeches. I was going to say. So. So you got into sales.

It was, you know, there was the money there. It was also people were telling you about it. Um, and then you got into, um, I see, did, is that when you, what was your first job in sales? I worked as an SDR. Yeah. SDR. Is that when you started a SDR nation nation? No, SDR nation is really new. That's like, it's only been around for like, Oh shit. Yeah. No, it's July. I actually just started that. Sorry. I just saw it. I just noticed that. And, um, it's a Charlie Locke and Michael Gagliano. They came up with the idea, a couple, they approached me like five or six months ago and their whole premise was, we want, we want to give SDRs an opportunity to get the coaching that they deserve. Because in my first SDR job, I actually really struggled.

It wasn't, it, it, you know, I got to sleep a normal amount of hours at night, but it was actually incredibly frustrating in another way because it should have been a walk in a park. I thought, because I'm, I, I know how to write. I know how, how to articulate myself. I am not afraid of rejection at all. Being rejected on the phone is so much easier than like, I've gone into auditions and just been torn apart, you know, just like verbally abused, basically like you're so bad. And so when someone's like not interested and they hang up, it's like, okay, mate. Oh yeah. That's cool. Um, so I was, yeah. So I was just like, why can't I be good at this? And I, and I asked for help and I could not get the help that I needed.

So when Charlie and Michael said, Hey, we want to provide, we want to provide a resource for SDRs who want to be good, want to get better. Would you be interested in helping? I was like, yeah, I do. No one should go through what I went through because there's so many people who really could be amazing salespeople. If you went off the numbers that I, that I achieved in my first job, you would be like, why are you on the show, Sarah? Yeah. No, I mean, a lot of us, we get, we need that right mentor, that right leader, that whatever, that right opportunity. And then it clicks. But if you don't get it, that's why I think the stats are still that three out of four people that get into sales every single year, get out.

Because like, if you get set in the right situation with the right training and the right leadership and all that other stuff, I want, it's not easy by any stretch, but it, it opens up a whole new world of opportunity for you and you get to see what this job can be. But if you don't get the coaching, you don't get the mentorship, you don't get those opportunities. I mean, you, you wonder what the, like within six months, you want to want to jump out a window and run away to go do whatever else you want to do. Cause this is just not a, you know, it's not a fun situation, especially if you're not in a, in a one that kind of puts you in a potential to succeed. Right. Unfortunately, I think there's a lot of that out there.

Well, it makes me think of, um, speech and debate. When I started coaching speech and debate, um, there were kids who, you know, their parents made them join and it's kind of like the SDR who gets a job as an SDR. Cause they graduated from college. And what are you going to do with a BA in English? Nothing. Going to sales. Exactly. BA in psychology, going to sales, like whatever, going to sales. But in speech and debate, it was like, I knew that if I could get the student from my workshop, you know, from the classroom to the competition, if I could just get them into a competition, then that environment would create the drive within them to come back to my classroom and actually practice. And I feel that way about a lot of SDRs that if you can get an SDR a win, if you can get them to just have a couple wins, you know, book your first meeting, nail an objection handle that, then they will get addicted to the sensation of success, the immediate gratification of booking a meeting.

And then they will get excited about that. Then the next thing that will happen is they'll start chasing, chasing the number one spot on the leaderboard. And then that will give them satisfaction. And then what happens is they start realizing the earning potential the world of sales has and the ability to, you know, dig into these complex problems, to develop a business acumen, to start learning about how the world works on not the social level, but on the business level and the delightful complexities of that. And then they'll start loving the work for the craft itself and also the paycheck. What percentage do you think, if given the right opportunity, would take that journey that you just mentioned, right?

So versus the ones who are just going through the motions. Like if you would, if I were to say like, and let's pick on SDRs for a minute, I, we're going to get to the point where I think, you know, SDRs are the hardest job in all of sales and all that other stuff. So I respect SDRs obviously at the highest level. The question that I have is you just painted a very, very positive picture of when given the opportunity and put in the right situation, there's that hunger for that next level, right? There's that endorphin rush of, Ooh, I got a meeting. Great. Ooh, I got that. I dealt with that objection. Ooh, I want that next level. I don't believe there's, there's a large portion of the people out there that will take those steps and have that hunger.

But I'm curious based on what you've seen with the SDRs that you've been around and that type of stuff, how many are, are on that track of hunger for that next step? If given the right role versus just, um, kind of, you know, going through the motions type of stuff. Um, see, that's a hard question because I've only been in like two SDR organizations. So I can tell you that at my, I, I, I think that a lot of it has to do with the type of leadership in place, both top down, you know, from the C level and how they invest in their SDR team and how they talk about their SDR team to, you know, your direct manager. Um, but at my first company, there was a total dismissiveness and they would, um, there was this idea that SDRs were a dime a dozen.

They wouldn't say that they would say the opposite, but everything about their actions, you know, I remember pinging, uh, asking my manager a question. My manager didn't know the answer. So I went to the next person above them to figure out what the answer was. Um, and it was actually about something that they had written in Slack, a directive that was like, all SDRs do this thing right now. And, um, talk about bad writing grammatically. It didn't make sense. And I was like, I'm confused about these instructions. So to avoid embarrassing this person, I DMed them being like, Hey, um, you said this thing. I'm confused. Can you help me understand? And instead of responding to me, they, um, uh, put me and my manager in a message thread and said, can you, with like, can you, can you answer Sarah's questions?

It's just like, instead of just, just, just, you know, they wouldn't, they wouldn't respond to me because they wanted to make sure that I knew that I, that I, I wasn't worth their time, that if I, I should just, and I just thought like, I, I'm messaging you for a reason. I don't just waste people's time. I go to the person who has the answer and I ask the question. I'm not, I'm not the kind of person on Slack that's like, Hey, how are you? Tell me about your life. Oh, by the way, could you do me a favor? I'm just like, do you know the answer to this question? Boom. That's it. So I was so, and that happened multiple times with multiple different people that I was like, well, how is anyone supposed to get anything done?

If you can't, if we're not a flat, transparent organization that you say we are anyway. So needless to say, when I left that company, um, the, I remember being asked what my numbers were by my recruiter, um, when I was applying at Gong and I said, you know, they're not good, but I will tell you that more than over 50% of this organization will hit less than 50% of quota for the quarter. So I think whatever I tell you isn't going to be impressive, but when you put it into the reality that only three people in this organization of about 50 SDRs are even going to hit quota, I think that there'll be a little bit of empathy. Yeah. I hope so. Yeah. And then when I started working at Gong, um, Tina Robinson was leading the team.

He's now an account executive and he was just, he was an SDR turned SDR leader. Um, they needed someone to lead the team. They were, they didn't have leadership. And so they put Tanner in place cause he was the, he was a great human who was also hitting quota consistently. And, um, he just had incredible leadership qualities and he took that team from also struggling to hit every month to everyone was exceeding quota. Nice. And, um, I think that if you have the right kind of leadership in place, this is a really long way to answer your question. I'm with you. Yeah. But I think if you have the right leadership in place that understands, um, how to read different personalities, how to motivate different kinds of people and how to invest in the areas of weakness within your SDRs or AEs or wherever say, Hey, I see, I can see where your holes are.

And I think that's why Gong is great. Cause he can literally use Gong to see where the gaps were in our own performances. I'm going to help you close the gap. Well, then you have a much higher percentage of SDRs who will take that chance and want and start chasing, chasing the dream, not the competition, you know? So from those two experiences, like the first organization, everybody morale was low. Nobody wanted, nobody was trying. Nobody was trying. Cause if you tried, you still didn't catch a break at Gong. It was like, if you tried, if you tried, you asked for help, you could get there. See, that's what I'm worried about that right now with, uh, SDRs and the motivation piece of it. Because A, what you just painted there is from a management standpoint is so fucking rare.

It's ridiculous. Like a manager who A gives a shit, B is willing to figure each one of their team members out and coach accordingly and, and help close each individual gap, but also be a positive motivator. I mean, there's so few out there. It's ridiculous. Um, but also what am I, the, the whole idea now that when, you know, I talk about sales, SDRs being the hardest job in sales, like it used to be somewhat tolerant, like you used to tolerate it to a certain degree, because when you were in the office, you were in a bullpen of other SDRs getting their asses kicked. Right. So when you had a bad day or a bad call or whatever it is, you could turn to your colleague and be like, well, did you hear that?

Like that person just shredded me. That was a disaster. You want to go grab a drink? Like that, you know what I mean? Whatever. And so if you had a cool bullpen and a decent manager, you, the grind was, you know, you could get through that grind. My worry now is that these reps are sitting at home now without the bullpen, without the camaraderie, without all that stuff, and maybe, you know, a lack of really good leadership. And now they're sitting there saying, you know, what the hell am I doing at this point? So we're going to transition to AEs and your transition to AEs, but what are your thoughts right now on those SDRs that are listening right now? They're sitting at home that don't have great leadership and, and are trying to determine whether sales is the career for them or they should keep grinding this out or they should go look at something else.

Like, do you have any advice for them? Yeah. I mean, I was in their shoes two and a half months ago and it super sucks. I like that. That was a really big low for me. I had my career at Gong has been pretty much a series of highs and, you know, just getting on. Business Club, Quota Crush. Yeah. I mean, you're doing, you're doing, it looks like you've been doing fantastic all the way through. Thank you. Um, but like, I, you know, even last in the last quarter, yeah, last quarter that I was in SDR, I exceeded quota by some percentage, but it felt, it didn't feel good. Those were, that wasn't, I mean, I cried. I went into my bathroom and shut the door and cried because they don't want anyone to hear me, you know, because it's, um, the things that make being an SDR really fun are that sense of camaraderie and it is, you know, you get to see your name up there.

You get, you get the high fives, you get to go get drinks together afterwards. And, um, yeah, when you don't have anyone to celebrate those wins with, it's really hard because the job in and of itself is incredibly redundant. And it is boring. And if you're good at it and you don't feel challenged by it anymore, like I, this is really terrible, but I didn't really work that hard last quarter and I still exceeded quota by significant amount. And I, to entertain myself, I did podcasts like these and I, you know, called my mom more and I went on a lot of runs and I, you know, I was like finding other things. I listened to Harry Potter. I just, you know, like, um, and I did a lot of trying to prep for the chance to become an account executive, but I feel much more fulfilled because there, my day is so much more varied and I'm dealing with lots of different kinds of problems.

And I get to think critically about how my solution can help outside of my 30 second dog and pony show that I get to give someone on a cold call. And, um, if, if I were an SDR, if I, if they were like, Hey, Sarah, listen, we can't promote you for another year. Um, that would have been really hard. At least I would have had a date in mind, but, um, yeah, if I was an SDR right now, I would be pretty frustrated and I feel like it would be pretty unhappy. And I think that the call to action is that actually managers need to find a way to empower their SDRs to challenge them more. Like there, there's so much more SDRs are so much more capable than, than what we allow them to do. So there has to be more for them to actually do on a regular basis that will challenge them so that, cause if you're don't, if you're not mentally stimulated, you just get depressed.

No, absolutely. I mean, once you get bored, you know, and I think there's, but there's a balance here that I'm trying to figure out. And we had talked earlier about kind of the millennial gen X divide and those types of things. I feel like there, there is to a certain degree, a level where people get bored of doing what is necessary to do to get to that. Cause it's not sexy anymore. You know what I mean? It's like, Oh, I, I I'm good at that. So I'm kind of bored with this. I need to get to that next level versus mastering that skill and using it as the spring. You know, there's a, there's a little bit of a kind of like, yeah, everything isn't all rosy. Everything isn't always cool and fun. Like you do have to do the shit work for a portion of your career to get to that next level for you.

But to your point, if you're completely bored because you are literally monotonous doing the same shit every day and your manager isn't, isn't challenging you, you got to find ways to challenge yourself. Right. And you look, it sounds like you did it by extracurricular activities, like reading and all that other stuff, but there's, you know, there are, there are ways to kind of, and this is that transition to the AE of kind of putting yourself in that position to say, I got to learn something new here. Cause the way I look at it is I can, I'll do the same thing over and over again. Fine. If it's going to get me to another level, but if I'm not learning something new, then I get really bored and then I got to go figure out something else to do.

And so it's like, I almost challenged myself to learn. All right. I'm going to learn how to deal with that objection. You know, even if it's just micro learning about mastering one small aspect of what it's going to take to put me in the best position to get that next role. What's up everyone. This episode is going super smooth. So send me your sales wins at james at jbarrows.com to be mentioned in next week's episode. Today we're highlighting Ishan Mattu of Lucid, an SDR who joined JB sales on demand in August. He's recently begun using video in his prospecting and already seeing some major results. Thanks to Sean. Way to make some changes. We'll see you soon. With your transition, right? Let's talk about that transition from SDR to AE, because you've been in an AE now for a while, a couple of months, you said two and a half or so.

Yeah. Two and a half months. So, so, so you, that was part of your journey. Like you, you said you, you wanted to be that SDR, you wanted to be an AE. So first of all, why did you feel like that was a necessary next step for you as opposed to SDR manager, as opposed to, you know, going into customer success or whatever else? Like why was AE the next role for you and how did you determine that? Yeah. So in the same way that I think that being an SDR touches so many aspects of, of a business and, um, really allows you, especially in the enterprise segment, when I was working enterprise accounts, that was a very eyeopening experience. I learned a lot about how public businesses operate and function and the different levers they pull to generate revenue.

And, uh, cause I've read their quarterly earnings calls or at least chunks of them. And then, um, based on what I read, I'd tell my partner how he should, how he should invest in the stock market. Nice. Nice. I'd be like, Hey, I'm prospecting into this account and actually like they're doing really well. This little side hustle here of like, let's open up an E-trade account. He made a ton of money. Well, I mean, I hate to say it, but like I, so my stock, you know, my stock, you know, my financial advisor, I work with a lot of these companies and I get to kind of see, and I'm like, Hey, uh, do me a favor, at least buy a few shares of this or buy a few shares of that. I bought Salesforce a while back.

And if that thing has been a rocket ship and Tesla is not a kind of like a, a customer of mine, but I bought Tesla when it was like 200 bucks. And so like the stock market area, like if you can get those insights into your point, you'll go back to the business acumen side of the house. So if you can actually learn that stuff from a skills standpoint in business, you're putting yourself in a really interesting position based on where you want to go, right? From a leadership standpoint, owning a business, entrepreneurship, any of that stuff. So, so you, you kind of had these insights and it, and it drove you to that next level. Yeah. I mean, as an SDR, yeah, that totally did. That was, that was really interesting.

And it, I never, the closest I got to learning any of that was like econ 101 because my degree is in journalism. So I didn't talk about that. Um, so that was really exciting. I found that really fascinating. And I thought, I thought a bunch of things. I thought, um, the world of sales also touches so many parts of the business and in no other way. Well, I take that back in a very specific way drives business forward because it generates revenue. Um, but if you're selling a crap product, it doesn't matter how great of a salesperson you are. Like product has to be good. Um, those, those two sides are really interesting to me. The most exciting part of any all hands that I go to is when product presents, um, I find that also fascinating, but I thought, okay, so sales is where you speak.

You're, you're trying to marry what the vision that the product team had to solve this problem that your customer may or may not know they have, they might feel symptoms of pain. They might not even realize that they're in pain. Depending on, you know, what you're selling and the kind of sales methodology you're utilizing and the salesperson can kind of be this bridge. Um, and, and in being that bridge, they also drive revenue and they, they, their actions can touch so many other parts of the business, depending on, you know, if they're a, if they're a jerk sales person or a nice salesperson, plenty of both. Yeah, there are. Um, my older brother works in product. Um, he also works at grammarly.

So, uh, for us who are trying to learn how to write, they're, they're, they've got a business, um, product anyway. So I just feel like for me, next step wise, it makes sense to be a closer because you only really close in sales and learning how to close allows you to, I mean, think about what CEOs do when they're starting businesses. Think about what being an entrepreneur means, um, it allows you to think critically about the pains of the people that you're talking to and solve problems, which then, you know, if you ever wanted to be an enablement or PMM or sales leadership, there's that. And then there's also, you know, depending on how deep you dive into that, you could also end up being, you know, a product manager if you wanted to be, there's so many places you could go after depending on how you, how your brain works and what you like, but nowhere else do you get to close.

And I thought if I want to be a leader, I need to learn how to close because I can't expect to teach someone that or demand that from other people. If I don't know how to do it to move straight into SDR leadership, I think limits myself because I could make a lateral move into sales leadership, but I don't think I would ever get the credibility that, that I would want from my reps because they'd be like, you've never closed before. Same with enablement. You've never closed before. Yep. Trainers. I like, I always say trainers, the reason people get into training is because they can't fucking sell. So like, like it's hard to listen to a trainer that like my first question to a trainer always when I take training is, Hey, when was the last time you applied what you're about to teach us here?

And could you give me an example? And nine out of 10 of them are like, well, you know, I've been working with clients and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Well, it's like you did this. And if you can't give me an example in the past six months, man, I can't listen to you. It's the same thing with management. If you can't, if you haven't done this job and been successful in this job, it's going to be hard, hard for me to pay attention to you. Yeah. And so I thought there's a bajillion things that I kind of want to do. You look at my resume, you can tell that I've wanted to be a lot of things and then I went to get it. And I was like, this is fun, but next. And I feel like there's so many different opportunities in front of me, but the closing role, I just, I wanted to do it.

And it makes sense to move into a closing position as an SDR who's been at a company for a year and a half by the time I got promoted. So I understood Gong's value prop and understood the kind of clients that we work with. I understood what a good account looks like. So any of that learning, the product, learning all that other stuff, it just makes, you have to do it. Like it just makes sense. And now I can just fully dedicate myself to learning how to close, closing conversations. I love it. And so is that, so right now, how far do you look out? Like, so like you said, like there's all these different things that you've done. You have all these options in front of you. Are you a, are you a, Hey, I'm looking out five years and I'm, and I'm going to figure out how to get there or you are a, I got what's in front of me.

I'm going to master this and then see where this takes me type of person. I, uh, I have vague plans for the future with certain, certain, certain ideas that sound better in my brain, certain visions. Um, and, but I don't, I don't dwell super hard on those things. Um, when I go to audition for a show, I just imagine myself, uh, in the role on stage playing that character. And if I can see it, I know I've got the part and I don't think about it again. And I go on an audition and I just, you know, and then I just say, it's already happened. I'm just waiting to hear the news. Um, and I did the same thing with speech and debate. If I wanted to win or like, I knew that, you know, there's a certain, certain final round that I was going to get into.

I'd just like see it in my brain and I'd be like, okay, it already happened. Um, now we just have to go experience it. We just get to go live it. You know, and, and a ton of professional athletes have that same, right. They, they, you know, Tiger Woods, he sits down and he envisions hole one, hole two, and what happens on that hole. And he envisions himself winning it. Right. I mean, Michael Jordan, there's all sorts of examples of, they actually play the whole game in their head before they even walk onto the court. So it's almost a foregone conclusion that they're going to be successful because they've already envisioned that. Um, so, so with this AE role, how are you applying that? Are you applying that kind of on a, on a, on a situational basis or in a role basis?

If you know what I mean? Like, you know, you look at this as a role of an AE and you want to be successful in that role. So you're seeing yourself being that fully well-rounded AE, or is it more, Hey, I'm in this deal. It's probably a little bit of both, but I'm in this deal and I can see myself closing this deal. I got to walk it through and therefore, so are you kind of very short? Midterm or midterm, if you will? I'm like still trying to, to, so, you know, I, I started, so we have like a month. One is a zero, zero quota. Yep. Month two is a, you know, it's like a fifth of a full month's quota. And then month three is a, is a half of a full month's quota. And then month four, you're at full quota.

So month one, I was just like, man, there are so many other parts of the sales cycle. Wow. So that was just like, I didn't, I don't think I did not have time to envision anything because I was just like, it was like, um, I thought I was walking onto a flat surface and then it turned out that there was just like a bunch of like rolly things underneath it. And I'm just kind of like balancing on jello or a slack line, but not the slack line. That's like the trick one. It's the one that's like super bouncy. That's me. Um, so the first month was like, I have accounts. I get to prospect for myself. I just want as many at bats in my objective was just like, how many, how many discovery calls, um, and demos can I shove into this month?

And how many, like how many meetings can I book? So I just booked a ton of meetings and then month two, I suddenly had a lot of business to close and I was like, oh my gosh, even more wobbly. Um, and I think pretty much every night I dream about some stage of the sales cycle. Really? That that's, I don't know if that's disturbing or cool, but. Um, I think I just feel so much pressure to like be successful because I feel like there are eyes on me in a way that I feel like my, my career is very public and I didn't mean for it to be public, but it is. And there are a bunch of people that I work with who can listen to every single call that I have. Um, cause it's in gong and they can also read all of my updates on LinkedIn and it feels very like public.

I feel like there's, there's, I don't, I don't get to be a teenager and cry and no one talks about it. So, um, I feel like a lot of pressure to be good. Um, cause I was good as an SDR. Um, cause I was good as an SDR. So I better be good as an IV. Um, and there's no, I, I feel, and it's really more imagined. It totally is imagined, but I feel like there's no wiggle room to, um, to be like a total failure. You know, I need to come out and I need to like, you know, you need to come out swinging. So month two is just like, like you go through those, like, you know, unconscious, you know, you've seen that whole unconsciously competent and all that stuff, you know, that quadrant where you start and you're unconsciously incompetent.

You don't know what you don't know. And then you're consciously competent. You, I'm sorry, you're consciously incompetent. You know what you don't know. Then you're conscious. No, consciously incompetent, then consciously competent. And then unconsciously competent, right? Where are you on that continuum right now with AE? Do you know what you don't know? I said, I'm so aware of my incompetence. There are, yeah, there's tons of things. I feel like every day I learned something new of like, huh, I didn't know I was supposed to ask that question or, huh, I don't know, I could ask that question or, huh, I think I just blew that one. Like, there's lots of, like, lots of moments. They're great because I learned something new and I try to make the adjustment.

The hardest part is trying to figure out, you read something in a book, then you go do what the book told you not to do. And then you're like, oh, I guess that's what they were talking about. And then you try to make the adjustment in your next call. And sometimes you overcompensate and overadjust. And sometimes you just forget to make the adjustment. Like in theater, when you're, or like when you coach kids in performance, you can only tell someone to make three adjustments max. Yeah. And then it's too much. Yeah. That's what I learned when I was coaching kids. Oh, yeah. I mean, three, I think is a lot even, you know what I mean? Like I, I, I micro dose in some ways for me, I actually pick one thing a month that I want to work on.

Like just because of all the other shit that I have going on. I'm like, and it goes to, look, I'm not a, I'm definitely not an English major. If there wasn't word, uh, uh, you know, autocorrect spelling, I wouldn't ever type an email. Cause I spell I'm atrocious, but you know, so weak words, for instance, when I get weak words in my vocabulary and I go to something like a Toastmasters and, you know, early on my career and they point out the ums and the ahs and the likes and the maybes and that type of stuff, what I ended up doing was like, I would say, all right, once a month, I'm just going to focus on getting like out of my vocabulary. Cause I can do that. Cause I can, I can be hyper-focused on that one thing, everything else, whatever, but I'm picking kind of almost the weakest link each time.

And I'm, I'm working on that thing. Cause I'm a big believer of you work on your strengths, you, you, you, um, you expand on your strengths and you minimize your weaknesses. I don't think you should work. I don't really believe in working on your weaknesses because your weaknesses, your weaknesses for a reason, you know what I mean? Like, so you, you don't like doing it. So why work on it? So instead let's amplify what's great about you and let's just make sure your weaknesses don't get in your way. And that's, for me, it's just kind of that one, maybe two things. But when you said you were working with these kids, like three things, make some tweaks. So are you applying that to now for you is like picking individual things that you're focusing on?

Yeah. I'm not even, I'm not even dabbling. And how many times I say like it. And I know I do. I say, I have, I have tons of filler words and I have the tendency to tangent and I have the tendency to interrupt my own thoughts. I know I have those problems. Um, the thing that I'm working on that Gong has so graciously alerted me to is my lack of patience. I don't do a good job of waiting after the prospect finishes speaking to find out if he'll speak a little more. And so that is, that is one thing on the regular that I'm just trying to work on. Um, on top of that, there are certain qualifying questions around ascertaining timeline, ascertaining, um, budget, ascertaining decision makers. I'm working such small deals.

There typically aren't a lot of DMS involved or I'm already talking to them, but checking my basis to see who else needs to be involved and trying to figure out how I can expedite a deal by saying, okay, great. So we want to set up a pilot this month. If everything goes well, just remembering to ask the question, if everything goes well here, if your mind's totally blown or the success criteria is met, would you be willing to move forward by the end of the month? Like the Sandler upfront contract, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you can say that every call. Yep, you can. Absolutely. You can even do it on a cold call. You know, I tell people all the time, you know, I'll do, Hey, thanks for taking my call.

You got a couple of minutes, you know, John Barrow's JB Sales. The reason for my call is this. I just wanted 10 minutes. And they're like, you know what? I got 10 minutes now. What? I'll throw the upfront contract right there. All right. Well, look, I got four or five questions for you here. After that, I'll share with you some components of our solution that I think might make a difference. And from there, you can tell me whether it makes sense to take a deeper dive or not. Is that cool with you? Right? Same thing with the clothes, right? So that, that, and it's, you know, it's funny because Gong was one of those things that opened up my eyes to a lot of the stuff that I had rolled my eyes at curious previously.

So for instance, when I was 23, 24 years old, I went to a Sandler training. And I swear to you, this is, this proves to me why training is 50% the person, 50% the content. Because the way that the Sandler guy delivered the upfront contract when I was in that training, it was legit the cheesiest thing I'd ever heard in my life. I was like, dude, I am never going to say what you just said there. So for legit 20 years of my entire career, I said F off to the upfront contract. I'm like, this is dumb. It's, it's literally dumb. Gong data comes out, best reps versus average reps, best reps use upfront contracts. I'm like, oh shit, maybe I should relook at this. Right? And I started using it and actually using it with Morgan too and coaching him on how to use it because he was having a little bit of a hard time closing.

But it's a nice little easy way to set the stage for the close. Right? And these are all things that, I mean, it sounds like you're, are you learning these through the, your own experiences? Or, and are you looking, are you looking at what's happening with Gong and the data that Gong is providing from a macro standpoint to make those adjustments for yourself? Yeah. So it's, it's a little bit of both. I'm looking at, I'm doing call reviews myself of my own calls. I'm listening to the calls because I just want to get back to the critical information from conversation with the customer or the prospect because I have a follow-up call. And then I'm hearing myself and I go, that's so dumb. It's tough to listen to yourself though.

I mean, I said like all, I mean, it's the best thing to do from your personal, listen and watch yourself, but ooh, is it painful? Totally. I feel like I'm okay watching myself. I don't really mind. I had, I had that baptism into, wow, you're bad. Like when I was 18 and I watched myself perform for the first time in recording and I thought, oh my God, that's awful. And then I got over it. Cause then I coached myself. That was like, that, that's what I used to do in speech and debate is we would record ourselves performing and then I'd sit down and I'd write myself a ballot and then I'd stand in front of a mirror and I'd fix it. And I would fix it on a very minute level. I would work on just the way I performed a word because I could be that part of myself.

Well, absolutely. Yeah. If somebody else was that harsh on you, you'd be like, come on, dude, that was just a word, but you can be. Well, I, I once had a coach who, um, my first session with him, we worked on, um, three sentences for an hour and a half. Wow. So, but I competed for a very, a very, uh, Western Kentucky university at the time. We were the only team who had won both national tournaments and the international tournament in the same year. So there's just like a caliber of, you needed, you needed to be good and, uh, we were going to get you there one way or the other. If we have to sit here and work on three sentences, God damn it, we're going to do it. We're going to do it. So, so Sarah, let, let, let's finish up with some things that you wish you would have like, so now that you're two and a half months in, I know you've got a long way to go as far as this journey on it as an AE, but if you could tell, you know, go back, say six months, knowing where you are right now, like what are some of the things that you would have done as an SDR?

To put yourself in a better position than you are right now to, to excel as an AE. Mm-hmm. So. Outside of listening to a bunch of gong calls, by the way, because I would recommend that too. I would listen to a bunch of gong calls for sure. Um, I, uh, I would, I would listen to those calls, but I would be looking for certain elements of the conversation and I would have played, um, if I was in this person's shoes, what would I do? Hit the, hit the pause, hit the pause button. Don't listen to what they ask or what they say. Try to run an imaginary discovery with the actual call. Okay. Would have played with that. I would have, um, used, I made myself an active listening worksheet, whereas, so I could fill out what is this person doing in this call and how does it marry to the stages of a, you know, discovery call or whatever.

Um, from there, I think those are, those are small micro adjustments I would have made. I was doing kind of that, but not enough. And then I would have sat down and really tried to shadow how somebody goes from discovery to, um, demo. I think that that is taking me time to master of saying, Hey, what I'm hearing is this. I'm going to tell a story about the pains you just told me. And then I'm going to show you in gong, how this will solve your problem. And then I'm going to wrap it up with an impact statement, basically saying, if you don't have gong, your life is over. Um, and you, and that is, is kind of like playing improv or impromptu where there's a clear structure in the speech game of impromptu.

There's a clear structure for how you, you run a speech, but you never know what your prompt is going to be. So you have to kind of fill in these different parts of the story with, um, you know, value propositions or whatever. And that's, that's how I'm thinking about running this. Um, it's like, what page makes what, what piece of the product makes sense to show you based off of what you told me? And how's the, how's the story to get into this so that I'm not just pulling up a random page and saying, this is how this works. Um, and I, and that is so important. You can't do that unless you've run a really good discovery. And I practiced discovery a ton, but I never practiced the transition of, we just ran discovery.

Now here's the product. So the first couple, the first good handful of demos that I ran were like, here's discovery. I feel awkward. Here's a product. I hope you can make it in my brain. I can see that. Um, and then from there, you have to take what you learned in discovery. And you have to tie that into the success, success criteria of the pilot that you run. And, um, you have to, that, that is something I didn't know to do at all. And I wish that I had known that so that I couldn't run better pilots. And so that I can continue to run better pilots. Cause I don't think they're anything particular or amazing right now. Um, this is all stuff I'm learning right now. Uh, and so this is all taking a lot of time to learn these different parts of the story.

And then when someone decides if they're going to move forward or not, how do you take what you learned in the discovery call that you use to create the success criteria that you use to showcase? And this is the ROI. Does this make sense to move forward? Yes or no. And when they tell you yes or no, you know, then you start, how do you handle negotiation? And, you know, just, I wish that I had really sat down and started, instead of doing as many podcasts as I did, just started really dissecting the, the sales process and understanding why these, why you have to pull these certain levers, why do we ask about timeline and budget in our first call? Why is that so important? Because it determines whether or not this deal can even close this month or if it's going to get pushed.

Um, and just like really trying to understand all these things are so, they're so obvious. They're so obvious retrospectively. Yeah. In retrospect. Yeah. Once you look back on them, but when you're in it, it's kind of hard to see the forest through the trees, right? When you're, when you're like literally getting your teeth kicked in after a demo or feeling that awkwardness of, okay, now here's my product, right? And then, and yeah, and it's baptism by fire and sales. It's like, okay, you've got a quota and then you're just back to back to back on calls. You don't have a, you don't have built-in breathing room. Yeah. Um, and you feel the pressure of a quota so you don't get to build in that breathing room.

So when you've mastered the world of SDR and you hit your quota, however many times again and again and again, and it's clear that you're going to get promoted or you're very close to it. There's, you can, you can take your foot off the gas just a little bit and put the gas on learning the sales cycle truly by shadowing calls or listening to them in gong or interviewing other AEs, asking them to show you, how do you even set up your pilot? How do you put together your slide deck before you go into this negotiation call or whatever? Because then I think, cause now I'm, I'm finding, you know, little pieces of time right now, but it's not enough time. It's not enough time. And so I'm, I'm doing that thing where they build the airplane, but the airplane's flying and that's me.

Yeah, exactly. And it's almost like you have to treat that as almost your side hustle, right? It's like your main job is to go, go, go and try to fly this stupid thing. And your side hustle is how do you figure out, like, let's, let's figure out how to fix the pieces that are falling apart as you're flying it. Well, less would fall through the cracks if I had just figured that shit out earlier. But you know, to, at a certain degree, I mean, you just got it, you know, you do just the sink or swim type scenario. I mean, a lot of people thrive in that just, Hey, I don't know what I don't know. I'll figure this out. And that is going back to the boredom factor versus interesting. Some people get driven by that.

You know, for me, I'm a big fan of just throw me in a pile of shit and see what happens because that is what drives me. I like figuring things out, you know, without a lot of guidance. Um, but other people need that guidance. So I think it depends on kind of where you are in your careers and what you're looking for. So, yeah, I'm the kind of person I like learning, like learning on the job. I, um, I like, I want you to tell me, I want you to tell me the objective, tell me the objective and give me like the couple of like critical elements that I need to make sure I do. And then just kind of like, let me do it. Just let me try. Yeah. That's the, that's the way I am. So also like the things I just painted are also kind of fighting against my personality.

But if I'd been given more responsibility by someone, then I could have been, you know, if my, if my AE let me set up the pilots for her, but I should ask. I never did. I never even thought to ask. Well, I mean, that's the other thing. It's like, why not? Right. Ask for it. And I mean, the worst I can say is no, but I think the more you, you kind of proactively address that, you know, working with your age and say, Hey, can I take this one a little bit further? You know, that type of thing. See where this one goes. You got a good AE. They should be able to, willing to work with you on that, on that transition too. So. Yeah, totally. I should have asked for more. I should have asked for more.

I should have done a bunch of things. That was a bunch of me rambling. No tactics at all. Oh no, but no, but it was more the journey too. I think the, you know, the, you know, there's a very specific tactic stuff, but then there's the journey that people learn from, you know, I think that to me, what's interesting is that journey, right? We can read a tactic on a blog post or whatever it is, but figuring out where you fit in this world to me, and especially going from that SDR to the AE transition, I think it's an important one for people to really think about from a career standpoint and why they want to be that if it's because it's what something they're supposed to do, or if it's because it's something they want to do, because it's going to round out them to be able to get to that next level.

I mean, I think to your point, if you ever do have the desire to run your own company, be a leader, I think you do have to figure out how to close and that type of stuff, just so that you know, like what it takes to close on a round of funding, to close, you know, a client, whatever it might be. But it, again, it depends on, that's why I ask kind of where, if you're a planner and how far you look out, because some people look and say, I paint that vision, I want to be that successful, and I'm going to get there, so all these pieces are putting me in a position to be that successful versus, let me try this, see if I'm good at it, see if I like it, and then kind of adapt and evolve from there.

So we're all on our own journeys. It's an interesting one. Yeah, I want to be a badass bitch on a stage somewhere with a crowd of people and say, like, really smart, it changes everyone's lives. That's what I'm doing. Only Robins, all day long. Awesome, Sarah. Well, Sarah, where can people find out, like, what's the easiest way to follow you? Is it LinkedIn? Like, where are the areas where people can connect with you? Yep, find me on LinkedIn. That's the social media platform I live on. Yeah, me too. Yeah, follow me, hit me up. I'll do my best. And it's Brazier. Boom. Nailed it. For those of you listening and don't know, it's B-R-A-Z-I-E-R. So Sarah with an H, Brazier. Go follow her on LinkedIn.

Hopefully you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did, Sarah. Thanks so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having me. Awesome, and everybody, like I always say at the end, look, even if you're having a shitty day, go out there and make somebody smile. Because if you made somebody smile today, you know you had a good day. And I think we need a little bit more of that in our lives right now. So thank you so much, Sarah. We'll see you soon, all right? Sounds great. Bye. Bye. All right, guys. Hope you enjoyed this episode. We had some great conversations in here. Don't forget to visit us at ondemand.jbarrows.com to check out the on-demand sales training that is designed for frontline reps.

And find me on LinkedIn. Let's schedule a free one-on-one sales coaching session for you to talk about what you're struggling with. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button so that you can hear the latest Make It Happen Mondays episodes each week. And don't forget to send me your sales wins. That email, again, is james at jbarrows.com. This way, I can highlight you on our next episode of Make It Happen Mondays. Have a great week, everybody. I'll see you next time.