183: Galem Girmay On Building Relationships In Online Communities

What's poppin' y'all? It's your man, James, Say What Sales Buckley, and we are back for another episode of Make It Happen Mondays with your host, John Barrows. This episode is made possible by our partners, Sales Loft, Rise, Vidyard, and Proposify. We've got a very special guest today, co-founder of the very popular networking Slack group, Rev Genius. She is a valuable resource for me personally and professionally, and you will admire her as much as I do by the time this is over. Galem Jermay is with us to discuss community, its meaning, its value, and what it means to be truly engaging and engaged. This is going to be one of the best episodes of 2021, I assure you. Get ready, Galem is legit.

As always, we encourage you to invest in yourself and subscribe to JB Sales On Demand and skill up your sales game. The profession of sales has changed consistently over the years, and the more skills you have, the more effective you are. Learn our ways at ondemand.jbarrows.com and subscribe today to get more results more often. Let's go to the good stuff with John and Galem and make it happen. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrow's Make It Happen Monday. Hopefully you had a fantastic weekend. I am continuing to enjoy myself down here in Aruba, away from all the cold and insanity that is what we're dealing with right now. But I am super excited to have this guest on for multiple reasons.

She actually had me on her podcast. And I don't get emotional very often, but I was close on this one because you were asking some good things. But I'd like to introduce Galem Gourmet, the, let's see, a bunch of stuff here. Sales executive at Go Contractor in her new company, co-founder of Rev Genius, what we're going to be talking about, and also podcast hosts of What Is Your Legacy. Galem, how are you? I'm doing great. I am just relaxing, having a good time in between my jobs and yeah, just chilling. I always love that kind of in-between job, just kind of euphoric, like, ah, I don't have any responsibilities. I can leave all the other stuff behind and I don't even have to do anything yet to prep for my new job.

So there's like that Zen week of, ah, so good for you. And I appreciate you taking the time during that week to jump on board with us. So congrats on the new job, by the way. Thank you. Thank you. So Galem, give us a little background for the audience here. For those of you don't know, for those of the audience that don't know you, give us a little background of where you're coming from and what you're up to these days. And then we'll dive into what I think is a really interesting topic about communities and how to engage and how to build and all that other stuff. So talk to us of where you're coming from here. Yeah. Born and raised in Sweden. I grew up there until I was 20, 21. Moved to the U.S., spent the next nine years there in the U.S., outside of Boston, where you normally are, John.

And then I moved to London, UK, to work here and continue the journey. I've worked in SaaS sales for two plus years now. And prior to that, I worked in retail sales and a couple of other fun stuff interacting with people. So that's kind of the quick backstory to me. I co-founded RevGenius middle of last year in 2020, and that just blew up over the past eight months or so. And it's been a really exciting journey for many reasons along the way. I love it. So talk to the audience about what is RevGenius, because I think that's going to be the parlay into our conversation here. Yeah. It's a community for revenue generating professionals. So anyone who's in sales, marketing, RevOps, leaders, and it's a community online right now that is just focused on leveling up to help educate, empower, and inspire revenue generating professionals all around the world.

And it's grown to now close to 10,000 members, which is just mind-blowing and super exciting. Yeah. And that's what I'm super curious about, because communities are kind of like the hot thing now, right? And they have been for about the past couple of years. I remember Sales Loft back, I think it was two or three years ago, they were looking to build a community. I even got up on stage at Rainmaker and talked about it. And Salesforce now is reaching out about, hey, let's build a community. And everybody wants to build a community because they understand marketing is really shifting right now from, hey, look at us and how great we are, to advocates, right? And if you build a community where there's active people engaged with there, and you are associated with that community, there's the benefit.

Now, it's not a hard ROI in a lot of cases, but I think a lot of companies are waking up to this idea that, holy shit, we need to build a community and we need to have control over our own community as opposed to a LinkedIn community or something like that. So what do you, let's talk, I want to talk about the two sides of this. One is building a community and what are the key components of an effective one that has made 10,000, you know, has gotten you to 10,000 and engagement and all that other stuff. So what are some best practices around that? But also, if you're in the community, how do you get the most out of it? And what are some do's and don'ts? So let's start on the front side of what, from your perspective, have you learned with Rev Genius that has made it so successful over the past, specifically, you said past eight to 10 months, right?

What are some of those key core components that make a community successful? Yeah, I mean, the first thing that I think needs to be understood is that a community shouldn't be about the people who created it. It's about the audience. It's about the people who are going to enjoy spending time and energy and effort into the community because really what we're dealing with is just the attention span of people. What are we providing them with that they're going to come back for again and again? And because there's so many other communities out there, now there's more competition in terms of people's attentions, energy, time, and engagement. So keeping that in mind, it's really important to think about why am I here?

Why am I doing this? And who is this for? What are they going to get when they get into this? And I think, John, for you, you have your own little community too with the on-demand and in the community within that. And then you have the social aspect of it. And you do have a level of control, but then the engagement might look a little bit different than what it would do in a community like RevGenius that has the social already, but also have a community in terms of the platform in Slack, as an example. So that's that. And I think from a company organization standpoint, you know, you can absolutely start your own community, but you can also get involved in another community. And, you know, you mentioned Sales Loft, who's been one of our first sponsors in the community because they really value that kind of relationship and they want to build within our platform, their own little home.

And they've been able to do that really successfully with us. And so I think as an organization, you need to be able to look at it from both sides. Like what really is the value of us doing this, going out on our own? Is it just going to create more noise out in the sales marketing RevOps world, or is it actually going to bring value to those individuals? Because you have to think about it from an individual perspective. If you think about, let's say I'm a person who did not co-found this particular community. I am another person out there who's involved in various communities. Think about all the different things that I'm involved with already. I have my job, I have my side hustles or projects, if I have that.

And then I have like four or five different communities. Imagine how thin my time and energy is spread over all of those. So what's going to make you stand out? Yeah. I mean, that's always been my challenge, right? It's like, I remember when social really started to kind of take off and I was like, all right, I'm on LinkedIn. Obviously that was kind of my original, I was, I think I was a member 10,132 on LinkedIn. So it was super, super early adopter. Right. So, okay, great. Um, and then like Facebook and then Instagram and then Snapchat. And I just remember like my team coming to me and like, Oh, now you got to do a podcast. And I'm like, Jesus Christ. Like how I'm not doing any of these well, because like we had a Facebook group and I, and I was like, Oh, this is a good idea.

Facebook group. And then we got a bunch of people in there, but then I had zero time to engage. And I was hoping that the audience and the audience is pretty engaged on our Facebook page, but like, it could be so much more on that. If like I was in there actively adding value and commenting and posting and those types of things. And so I kind of said, Hey, just like you, you, you know, you measure everything and you get no insights, like figure, measure the stuff that matters. Right. Same thing with the social networks and the communities. It's like, pick the ones that you can go. I think you should go deep on two or three of them so that you can get the most value out of it and, and try to go there for as long as you possibly can.

And then if you're not getting value out of it anymore, move on. So example for me is like Gary Vee, I bounce in and out of Gary Vee's community because there's certain times where I just, I'm sick of hearing the same stuff, right? I like, I hear the same stuff from him and his audience, but, but then I let it go for about a couple of months. And then I come back and I'm like up some new fresh stuff here. Cool. Now I'm getting value out of it again. So I even bounce in and out. So how do you keep the audiences? Like, first of all, should you, should you be niche niche in the sense that should be your why, if you will, of this community? Should you be niche with who the focus is on? And then how important is your why?

And did you come up with a why for RevGenius? Yeah. Um, so first of all, to go back to something that you brought up was, it sounded like to me that you felt like you had the responsibility to jump on that Facebook group and, and, and make a conversation or engagement happen. And I don't look at it that way. I look at it more like, let me help other people create that community within what we started. So that don't you have to lean in on it a little bit. Don't you have to be the catalyst? Absolutely. And you do. And we did, and we still are. But what I'm saying is that you don't have to be that all the time. You shouldn't be the one driving the conversations all the time. Instead, you should empower other people and, and engage with them in a way that allows them to do that with you.

And sometimes for you too, because there's only so much time you have, like, I haven't had a lot of time in between my jobs right now this week. And I've had to set the boundaries and step back a little bit to just have other people do certain things that I just can't do right now. And I think when you're at that place of recognizing that, and instead flipping it and saying, let me help somebody else get empowered to do the things that I normally would be engaged in. And that works. It's just having that belief in other people and trust. Like this is something that you and I've talked about before, is having the trust in other people that they're going to do the right thing. They're going to move this in the direction that we've set this out to go.

But that also means that we really need to be communicating that early on and stick to that. And that's just like the framework of it. I think that goes to the core values and the why, right? Like you have to get people on board to start this thing that all have a very similar vision for what this is and purpose from a value standpoint. So how did you do that with RevGenius? Like how did you, how did it come together for you that you and the other co-founder said, here's the purpose. We all share similar values. And this is the community we're going to go build it for. So how did that come together? Yeah. It started with talking about the values. Like the very first thing Jared and I did in the first week of starting this, and we didn't even know what we were starting until it just happened.

Right. And then all of a sudden a weekend of knowing each other, we're like, we should do something with this. This is exciting. And we started like the very first conversation we had was just being very upfront about what are your values? What are my values? And, and what does that look like? And what happens with this once we figure that out? And so that's really where it started. And then it was just connecting with people. And it started with 38 people on a LinkedIn group chat and then kind of merged into, all right, we need to go somewhere else. And that happened to be Slack. And then it grew from there on from 38 to 100, 500,000 and so on. And during that transition going from 38 to 100, 500,000 and beyond very early on, we talked to the people who were part of that core group, the founding members.

And we said, what do you want? Like, why are you here? What do you, what do you really want to get out of this? And how can we help you? And that's how we started figuring out what the pillars of the community are, where we're going to spend the attention and time and focus on to develop more for the members. So that's really how it started and kind of, it keeps growing in different direction. And sometimes we have to adjust that in different focuses. Like eight, nine months ago, we never thought that there was going to be a thing called Clubhouse that we could engage the community in. Never in a million years could we think that's going to, because we didn't, we can't think about the future.

We don't know what's going to happen, but you have to adjust to those movements that are happening in real time, which means that you have that responsibility as the founder, co-founder, CEO, whatever your title is, you have that responsibility to be in it and to adjust that to align with what the members are looking for. So when our members are on Clubhouse, and that's where they want to spend their time right now, then guess what? We're there. We're there too. We're there on Clubhouse, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, you got to be nimble enough to adjust. I mean, I think it's the, I've always struggled with what's a fad versus what's real and those type of things. And yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day, you just got to keep testing things out to see, to your point, like where is the audience and where are they getting the most value out of it?

Because they will gravitate towards something else, you know, TikTok versus, you know, you name it. And it's kind of confusing out there, but I think to your point of continuously polling the audience about where else are they spending their time, what else, how else would they like to engage and incorporating those things and seeing if it takes off. And if it does, great. If it doesn't, whatever. Clubhouse is a, I'm just tipping my toe, tipping my toe into Clubhouse. I'm like, all right, I got to figure this out obviously, because everybody's there now. Like people are having these conversations. So I think the, you know, how do you stand out though with, with this? And I want to go back to that niche kind of conversation, which is every time there's a new community, I kind of feel like, yep, yet another, right?

Yet another one for sales and okay, might be SDRs, right? Great for SDRs, but it just like, how do you figure out, should you be more broad or should you be more niche these days with your topics and who you're focused on? I hate this answer, but it depends. Like, you're not going to find me in a very niche company that's practical and specific if I don't have the experience in that. Because that doesn't, that doesn't mean anything to me. And it's not credible enough for me or the audience to learn from that. So I'm very, very particular about that. And I think it's important because there's so much noise already out there. Once you start digging into Clubhouse, you'll know exactly what I mean.

You'll jump into a room. You'll have people there who just talking and giving advice and all of the wrong things that people do in Clubhouse, webinars, podcasts, and not putting the disclaimer out that, hey, I haven't actually done this or I haven't done it enough. You know, like you can read a book and get really practical advice and talk about it, but then not do it. So it's hard for me to answer, like, should you go niche? Should you not? Because it really depends on who you are and what you bring to the table. And for me, not having enough long-term experience and time is one thing. And what you do with the time is another thing, right? I've had two plus years. I've learned a lot of things.

I met a lot of people and networked my way into a lot of different groups and communities during those two years that some people who've been in the game for 10 years have not done half of. So there's that, you know, but that doesn't mean that I have full credibility of saying, here's how you do sales super successfully, or even talking about enterprise sales, because I haven't done that. So I'm not going to talk about that. So I'm also not going to start a community about that, you know? So that's just my personal standpoint of go niche or not. It depends. Yeah. And I think you bring up something that's, that's interesting that I've struggled with, which is to your point, the people who position themselves as quote unquote thought leaders or somebody who knows what they're talking about, but really hasn't done it.

And, and I struggle to a certain degree with that because first of all, it annoys me when somebody who I know, you know, I see out there positioning themselves as thought leader. And then I look at their profile and I'm like, wait a minute, you haven't done shit. Right. And that's why I always never liked trainers because trainers, you know, the, the, the joke is, you know, if you can't do it, train it. Right. Cause it's way easier to train people how to do it than it is to actually do it, which is why I never wanted to get into this profession. But you know, what gravitated me towards was the, when I joined Basho was it, it was the exact opposite. It was like, no, you had to sell in order to train.

And so you had to be a sales professional first. Right. And that's, that's been my philosophy, but on the other, on the other side, like a good idea is a good idea. You know what I mean? So wherever you get it from, does it really matter? And what are your thoughts on that? Like say, say there's some kid out there who read some pretty good books, you know, follows, you know, outreach and sales hacker and, you know, sales loft and all those times and reads all the blogs and gong and everything else and gets out there and starts spewing stuff that, you know, is, is data driven, uh, has some good insights and, and some kid who might look at that person as, Hey, you know what, let me try that. And it works for them.

Now, the person that gave the content might not have the experience to really validate it, but for whatever reason, the way they're, you know, their voice or, you know, whatever they, they connected with some people and it got through. So is it really that bad of a thing to be talking about shit that you don't really have a ton of experience on? And, and what's the balance there? Um, because there, I, I do see a danger of following people who don't know what the fuck they're talking about and putting stuff out there. But at the end of the day, you're going to go try whatever they suggested. And if it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. So, I mean, I think people take sales a little bit too seriously that, you know, I always say we're not brain surgeons, you know, we're not surge, you know, we're not emergency room doctors, try something out and the worst fucking thing that's going to happen is who's going to hang up on you or, you know what I mean?

You're going to lose a deal. Oh, well. So, you know, what's your thoughts on that as far as like the message versus the messenger? Yeah. First of all, you're right. We're not brain surgeons, but some of us can make monies as if we were brain surgeons. Way more money than brain surgery. Yeah. Exactly. I'll take, I'll take a sales job over brain surgeon all day long. Way less stress too. I mean, I ain't going to kill anybody. For sure. I think that, I know what you're talking about. I've seen that too. And your first point was about starting a community. You're going niche and we're not. What it sounded like to me was almost talking about people who are positioning themselves as a thought leader on social, like on LinkedIn as an example.

I think that's one, that that's a separate thing from positioning yourself in a community and starting a community based on a niche position. So I separate those two because if, if we're talking about positioning yourself as a thought leader by bringing up, maybe I would go on LinkedIn and I would take advice that I got from you, from Scott Lees, from Amy, from a bunch of different people that I know. And I would just be like the bridge and communicator of that to the masses. Sure. Go for it. Right. Do you, you know, but if you're going to at some point start positioning as if I'm doing this, I've done it. I know what I'm talking about based on my own experiences. That's a different thing. Because if I'm just sharing your experience, John, because you've been in the game for years and you've done different things and you've met different people and I'm taking those learnings that I've heard you talk about in podcasts, on webinars, in my own conversations with you.

Cool. You do that. And that's awesome because you're actually helping other people along the way. If that's your end goal and what you want to get out of being that person for others is to help educate or to be the bridge of communication or whatever your personal reason is, go for it, do it. But if you're going to start a community based on that, you're going to have a lot of work to do. You're going to, that's going to be your life at that point. If the community is only about other people, why don't you just let them have their own communities? Like I wouldn't get the point of doing that. I would never invest my time in doing that. Yeah. I mean, that seems to me a little bit more of an ego play than anything.

If you're going to start a community where you are the thought leader, I think this goes back to your point of like, you know, you take your ego out of this, you know, it shouldn't be about you. It's got to be about the community. The most successful ones are, yes, there's a figurehead, if you will, that helps coordinate the conversations or potentially stoke the conversations in some cases. But if it's, if it's always you going in there and posting and commenting and stuff like that, then it kind of takes away from the community aspect of what a community actually should be. Yep. So, so let's talk about now being in a community. Okay. Um, there's, I always, you know, I use the LinkedIn stat that less than 1% of people on LinkedIn actually create content.

I got to imagine on communities, there's a similar person, not that probably low, but there's got to be a similar percentage of, of the, the amount of people that are super, super actively involved in engaging and sharing and that type of thing. And then the other people who are just kind of listening and consuming. So how do you get the most, how do you get the most out of a community from a learning perspective? And then also from a networking perspective, right? Cause I think it, let's go learning, networking and sales. Cause I think there's some faux pas around engaging in communities of, you know, that that's a thinly veiled sales pitch or it's like, Ooh, you know, that person needs like, you know, what is it?

A modern sales professionals. I, so I'm on modern sales professionals and it's, it's a great group. It's, I don't, are you familiar with it? Yeah, I am. Yeah. So it, you know, it's got all supposedly VPs and all this stuff. And the, the, the engagement is really good. The intelligence on there, people share some really good stuff, but I one time posted that I needed something right. And you're not supposed to sell in this fucking community. Um, and so I posted, Hey, anybody know blah. Right. And, and I got a few like comments about, Hey John, yeah, you go talk to this person. But I got so many DMS from people who took my name, went outside the community and went to me directly and said, John, I have a solution for that.

I sell what you're asking for. Like, and it was just icky to me. Cause I was just like, this isn't what I was, this is exactly opposite of what this group should be about. Like I got bombarded by like 15, 20 emails from people outside the community because they didn't want to ruin the community, you know, guidelines if you will, and get kicked out, but they still prospected. And even if I needed their stuff, I felt kind of icky about it. Cause I'm like, this isn't the way this should work. So let's, let's talk about a, from a knowledge standpoint first, how do you get the most knowledge out of a community? If you are just kind of an observer, uh, observer, somebody who's there to, to network, if you will, how do you get the most out of it?

Um, I have a hard time with those because I am such a, an engaging person. Uh, I try to as much as possible and it's almost like lurkers and you know, you have those two on socials, right? Like you post something and the same people look at, they never engage with you. Um, and that's one thing, but I, I learned over time that I needed to put my feelings aside and ask myself, like, what's the reason for them not doing that? And I, and half of the time, I don't even know. Cause I don't actually know them. Um, but how do you engage those people? It's such a hard question because you can't force anyone. Well, how do you like, let's take it the other side though. If you are kind of one of those people that's like, I want to, I like Rev Genius, you know what I mean?

That sounds really cool. I'm a little shy though. And, and I don't know how to even approach this to get the most out of it. So what would you suggest to the person that's trying to figure out how they can get the most value out of a community as opposed to just being a part of it? Yeah. I would say engage in the networking, uh, like mid to meet and greets that tends to happen every so often. And this is an area we're going to do more of because it's something that we kind of pushed aside for a little bit as the community was growing and, and a lot of people in naturally started to engage one-on-one with people during a webinar or, uh, afterwards or in, in a particular group on Slack, you know, into different channels.

But there are always those other people who are shy, who are not comfortable doing that, uh, and just putting themselves out there and, or they're lacking confidence in that area. And it's something that they know they need to work on maybe, or they don't know yet. Um, and so I think getting engaged in some of the, uh, meet and greet sessions is, is really helpful. Um, and it's, that's within our own community to do that. There are many other communities out there that are doing similar things or they have something else that they call or something else that they do to engage people. Uh, we also have like weekly round tables for specific topics. So I would encourage people that when you see a round table coming up with a topic that you're interested in, go and check that out because that's your opportunity to meet other people, to ask questions.

Um, and then the other way is just like find somebody that there's a reason how you got there. It's either you randomly found it on LinkedIn or you happen to Google something about communities and RevGenius was listed there or any other place. Or, and this is the best one, when somebody invited you to the community, that's like now you're a buddy and that's the person you go to and you say, Hey, John, I know you invited me to RevGenius. Um, I just don't know what to do. I'm overwhelmed or I'm not comfortable, you know, speaking up or I have questions. I don't know what to do. Could you help me figure this out? Like you have to advocate for yourself for what you need. And that goes to when you're a part of a community, when you're part of an organization, when you're part of a friend's group, whatever you're a part of, you have to be and get comfortable with advocating for yourself when you need something.

Y'all Galem is a gem. I always enjoy our conversations and I know you're enjoying this one too. The way that she talks about her community ensures us that there are so many nuances to being impactful for a large group of professionals. I've admired Galem and the RevGenius group for some time because it has such a strong focus on its members and not specific entities, which can sometimes be frustrating and repetitive. With over 10,000 members, RevGenius is quickly becoming a group to join and get consistent sales value. You can follow JB Sales on Instagram. Just search JB Sales Training, all one word, to see all of our crew members, delivering consistent sales value on a daily basis. We'll see you on the gram.

This week, we're highlighting Brett Long. He used his skills in JB Sales on demands, filling the funnel course to prospect his way into a new software sales role. Identifying the company's target accounts, learning their ICP, and the personas they sell to was what landed him in the new position. Way to go, Brett. Keep learning, my man. We're behind you. You can grab all the prospecting skills that Brett used to get that job on on-demand.jbarrows.com today. Are you looking for a new sales job right now? Cold call and cold email your way into those roles using the prospecting skills delivered in filling the funnel at JB Sales on Demand. That URL again is on-demand.jbarrows.com. Let's get back to Galem and John in the studio.

Yeah, it's funny. It's actually, you know, the world of networking has changed, obviously, drastically, you know, over the years with the online versus the in-person. And I remember vividly when I was, I want to say, 23 years old, when we had started our first company, you know, my buddy, Chris and I, I knew nothing. I had worked for Xerox. So I'd worked, you know, I'd worked for Black & Decker and Xerox. So there wasn't, I didn't network. It was, it was, you know, there was company events and whatever, you know, that type of thing. But then I'm in this startup and obviously cold calling is a way to generate leads, but also networking, right? So I remember my buddy Chris was like, hey, you know, I heard these, these networking events.

Why don't you go to those and see what you can find out, right? Like what, what they're all about. And I'm like, okay, why not? Right. So, and they were at night and they're in bars. And so I'm like, all right, this is cool. So, so I show up and I remember the first time vividly I walk in to this bar and everybody at the networking event was standing in little groups, right? So there's like three or four people over here and three or four people over there. And they were all engaged in these conversations. And I'm sitting there like, uh, okay, like I, what, what am I supposed to do here? You know what I mean? There was, it wasn't like an obvious, like, oh, let me just, oh people, oh John. Yeah.

Come on in here. Right. It was, it was super awkward. And I'm like, what the, okay. You know, and I kind of straggled and I hit a few individual people who were looked lost just like I did. And then I grabbed a beer and I drank, you know, two, three, four beers. And then after about like the third or fourth beer, I'm like, all right, fuck it. And I just started barging into conversations. I'm like, hi, nice to meet you. I'm John. And I had to get over that awkwardness of, of introducing myself of, of just literally to your point, advocating for myself to, to put myself in the position to, to be out there and be connected with people. And what's, what's weird, a lot of people probably, you know, they don't believe this, but I'm not an extrovert.

Like I am not, I'm, I'm, I'm an introvert. I'd rather be in the corner of a party hanging out with like two or three people than the center of attention in any way, shape or form. I actually get very uncomfortable in networking situations, going out there and introducing myself. I understand I have to do it as part of my, you know, for me to be successful and do what I do, but it's not something that comes naturally for me. And now you take that from a face to face, which is awkward because you have to literally look at somebody and say, Hey, do you want to talk? And you know, they could easily be like, uh, no beat it right to now the online format, which is, I think the, still the same anxiety is there, but I think it's a lot less, you know, um, uh, scary in a lot of ways because, okay, I pop into a group and you know, that group doesn't like me, who cares?

I'm going to go pop into somebody else. How do you get over that fear of, I mean, you, you talked about having an advocate for you, you know, connecting yourself to the person that invited you there. You know, what are some other ways that you, that, that people who are just not comfortable, you know, in that world, like somebody like you and I, now I am a lot, very comfortable, right? But I did it, I've done it to build my brand. So I don't have to actually go in anymore. I get people to pull me in. Um, but how do you get over that anxiety of, I don't know why I'm here. I don't know what value I can add. Like, you know, that type of thing. Yeah. Uh, I will get to that in a second. I think you brought up some interesting thoughts for me and it's this idea that it's not, you have your own responsibility, of course, and you do have to advocate for yourself.

You have to put yourself in this uncomfortable situation when that's not something that you maybe want to do, but you recognize that you should do it, et cetera. I think there's the other side of this, which is the other people that you walking into, whether that's physically in a room to make you feel welcome, or if it's virtually when you're on a zoom call with a few people or that round table or in clubhouse, I think the other side of it is to have the other group of people in that room make you feel welcome, right? Like I shouldn't have to be a John Barrows to feel welcome into a room, right? I should just be able and allowed to be myself and other people, the moderator, the host of that group, the organizer of that group should be kind of the person who pulls and gets people more together.

And it can be as simple as, okay, where you and I and five other people are in the zoom call for a round table, and then two other people jumps in. Well, then it's easy for us who've already been there to welcome them. And just like when you are in a sales call, a demo discovery with a prospect, and how do you start off the call with them? You know, do you just introduce yourself and you introduce all the people within your team and the person you're about to speak to? Or do you set the tone for that meeting and allow everyone to introduce themselves so that way they feel more comfortable throughout the meeting to unmute themselves and speak up when they have something to say? Yeah, what do you like?

And I think that's the part of you have to take your own responsibility to create that environment that you're in. Yeah, early days, you know, going back to networking groups, right? So there's networking events, and then there's the groups, which is these communities. And there was one that started off my career, BNI, Business Networking International. And it would, I don't know if you're familiar with them, but it's like almost every town or city has at least a couple of groups. And what it is, is individuals. And you can't compete, right? So there's 20, 30 people, and they usually, you know, show up at seven o'clock in the morning at an office somewhere downtown, pre-COVID type of stuff. And what you would do, I love the format, especially as a young person in business trying to figure out the networking game.

So you literally, every morning, there's networking in the morning, you know, as you're drinking your coffee and everybody's sitting down. And then the moderator would stand up and say, hey, all right, everybody, go over the guidelines again of what this was all about. All right, now let's do some intros. And every single person would stand up and give their 30 second spiel. Like, hey, this is what I do. This is what I'm looking for. Boom. And then after that, then people would stand up and give out referrals, right? So it wasn't like, oh, you should talk to this person. No, this person is expecting your call. So it was a very structured approach to it that made everybody feel comfortable, regardless of how long you were in the group or if you were just brand new, because everybody was given their same spiel every single time.

So it wasn't like there was like three or four really, really, you know, boisterous and people who controlled it. It was a very structured, everybody had their slot. And I think a lot of moderators need to take a little bit more of that structured approach to allow for people to feel comfortable having their voice. So that it's not two or three people that take over the conversation every single time. Yeah, but then what happens when you do have that structure and you get that opportunity? And, and let's say I do get that opportunity, and I'm super uncomfortable with even introducing myself, what do you do? Right? And I think that's, this is the part where you have to look inside of yourself and say, okay, this is making me really nervous.

A lot of people are uncomfortable with public speaking. And they shy away from it. And that makes them not be involved in a particular community. And that's actually hurting them more than anything. So I think the first thing, and I was in that point early on, I've always enjoyed public speaking. I was always the person in class would be like signing up for it and, you know, challenging myself. And I did public speaking courses and all that stuff. I find it like a lot of fun. And it's a good time for me. And mostly at some point it was, I would put myself purposely in those positions because I was so uncomfortable with it. And also because I recognize that this is an area that's making my heart beat a little bit extra fast.

And I'm not liking that feeling. And I don't want to feel that I'm not confident in different areas of my life and within myself. So I have to do it. And I think when you get to that point, because everyone's going to have different things that they feel about this topic. And, and then that leads them to take different actions. Some people might be like, okay, I'm just going to try to at least start to introduce myself and introduction channel and put my name out there. Other people are going to be like, let me start a LinkedIn and get people to see and recognize my name a little bit. So that when I come into a community, I'm not a complete stranger and I'm a little bit ahead. Other people are going to reach out to the co-founder or whoever's in charge of that community, introduce themselves one-on-one, build that relationship and then get involved.

There's so many different ways to do it. But I think before you actually start to take action on what it is, you need to understand what's holding you back because it's not for one particular community. This is just something that shows up over and over again in your life in different circumstances. Yeah. That the whole being uncomfortable, you know, being comfortable with being uncomfortable. I think it's, it's, you know, you don't grow unless you put yourself out there and, and take some chances. And I think the communities these days are easy ways to take chances because they're, they're very few of them are unwelcoming. I mean, the whole point of a community is to welcome new members into that community to, to increase the engagement and the value to that community.

So, you know, it still cracks me up that people, I think that's why clubhouse is so cool right now is because anybody feels like they can jump right into, you listen to some like, like person that's on the news or like a huge, huge name and they're all of a sudden jumping into that conversation. And it's, I think the barrier to entry at this point is so low with, with a welcoming community that if you're not putting yourself out there, if you're not engaging with people, you're really leaving, leaving a lot on the table, as far as your career growth opportunities, you name it. And so let's talk about how, um, like, what are the things you should definitely not as a participant in a community, let's, let's finish up here with what you should absolutely not do.

Like, what are the things that, that turn you into the, oh, there, that guy is again, you know, like, what are some of the things that people should not do in a community? Not, uh, pitch themselves, their product in something that has nothing to do with what the topic is. And there's nothing that drives me more crazy than that. When people are trying to really fit their product or business or whatever their agenda is into somebody else's place, that's just a big, no, no, don't do that. Because now I'm going to get that icky feeling of just, I don't like you. I don't like what you're about. And I don't understand that. Like, like, let's use LinkedIn as an example. Like, I can't tell you how many times, like I do a post on something, right?

A topic. And then somebody jumps in with their, with, hey, I sell. And it's legitimately, I mean, so far away from what the topic is. And they're just doing it because they see a high engagement on the thing. And they're just looking to get some eyeballs. And I, I, I used to just delete them because I'm like, dude, what are you doing? But now I comment. I'm like, dude, that's like the douchiest thing you could possibly do on LinkedIn. So you write, you just showed this entire audience that you're a hack. Um, you feel free to keep your post here, but this is literally making you look 10 times worse than what you think it is. Um, nothing bothers me more on the ridiculous off topic, but what about the, how do you approach somebody who like, Hey, there's a really good topic here.

I got actually, my solution helps address this. How do you approach that? Like, it's an opportunity. You know, I see somebody in there talking about, Hey man, I, you know, I have a, I have a, you know, I building an SDR team and I'm, I'm looking for messaging and blah, blah, blah. And I'm sitting there like itching going, yeah, that's exactly what I do, but I don't want to come across as, Hey, I want to sell you something. So what's the, what's the tact there to approach that? Yeah. There's, there's, uh, two categories. I see there's the direct and the indirect way of doing it. And I think when it depends on how the question was posed to begin with by the creator of that post, whether that's LinkedIn or on Slack or wherever, if, if you, John posted, uh, I am looking for X, Y, and Z, or I'm comparing this with that.

What, what are your suggestions? That's, that's a very direct question. And I can come in with a very direct answer to that. Here are my thoughts. Here are my experiences. Here's what I do, right? I can do that publicly, or I can just message you and say, Hey, John, um, this is a really good question. I have a lot of thoughts on this, or I have a few suggestions. Let me hit you up separately and then figure out where would you like me to communicate that with you? That's another like super relevant question. Cause you might not enjoy hanging on Slack all the time. You might like me to send you an email or text you or hit you up on Instagram or whatever you want, but that's going to come from you.

And then I do that. So that's, that's a direct way of answering to that question. The indirect way is when somebody is kind of like saying, Oh, I'm struggling with, uh, prospecting and I need some advice on what to do. And I know like, Oh, I really know this space. This is my expertise, or I've been very successful in this. Let me help you. I don't have to reply and say, check me out. Here's like, here's me, me, me. And here's all the reasons why I'm good. I would position myself as saying, Hey, I know a few resources and I'm happy to send those over to you. It's that fact of like bringing value. I don't know how many times John that people come to me and they ask me like, Gail, I think you're really good on camera.

Like, what do you do? And how did you learn this? And I'm just like, well, first of all, I think I'm okay on camera, but thanks for the compliment. Um, here are some other people that I've learned from and I give them those resources. I pointed to Morgan Ingram and I pointed to a couple of other people in some of the places and people I've got inspired from. And then I give them that. And then I also say, let's have a conversation about this. What are you struggling with in specifics with making videos? And I did that with two women from RevGenius and we found out it actually wasn't the tactical things. It was more figuring out how to get comfortable behind the camera and how to build the confidence and how to practice and doing that step-by-step.

And we had a conversation about it and I was able to encourage them and empower them to do more videos. And then they started making more videos and it was an awesome thing to see in real life. But it's not, again, it's not about me. It's not about me putting myself out there to almost 10,000 people in Slack and saying, look at me, I'm so awesome. It's more like, let me help you, John, because this is an area you were vulnerable enough to come to 10,000 people about. So let me make you look a little bit better and not make it about me. Yeah, I don't think that's what too many people, finally, I'm starting to see the tides change over the past few years about at least my industry of sales training, right?

It used to be such a gated community of you had to pay for access to this information, right? And like, look at me, I'm so smart, bring brain on Chad. And, you know, you got to pay me for all this money for me to impart my wisdom on you. And I remember coming into this space and I was just like, I don't understand. Like, why not elevate the profession? When you come across something that's good, why not share it out there, right? So a lot of people, when I, you know, I started giving away, like, I mean, I tell people this all the time. If you go to my web, between my blog, my website, my YouTube page and whatever, you could, if you spent the time, you could probably cobble together 95% of what I actually train people on, right?

And, and what I find is the more you give away, the more like insane value, like stuff that you would be like, holy shit, like, what did you just put in there? Like you just gave away your speech, special sauce on this. The more people are like, well, wait a minute, if he's given that away, then what does he charge for? You know what I mean? Like that, that's where I find a lot where that, that flywheel for me, when I started pushing out all of my content, you know, in nuggets and tips and stuff like that, not the full format. Here's my entire program type of stuff. But it was, Hey, here you go. And now more and more people were like, holy crap. Okay. What else do you got? And I think like Richard Harris does a fantastic job with this on, on modern sales professionals.

Like he'll, he'll put on like three paragraph page email together with exactly what to do and all this other structure. I mean, I see him on there all the time and I know for a fact that he gets a lot of business on the side because of that people like, wow, Richard, I mean, you're super active in that community and, and you add so much value there that I'm now going to come to you when I do need to, when I want to buy something, when I want to take that next step. And I think that, that give component to this is, is undervalued in so many ways for people where they think that what they have is special. And at the end of the day, sorry to tell you, it's not like, you know what I mean? Like, yes, you are special and all that, but your idea is probably some iteration of another idea that somebody else had or whatever it is.

So why hold that back? It's like groundbreaking. And the thing is too, that are you, you have to ask yourself, am I here for the short term or am I here for the longterm? Because if you're coming in with that mindset of, I'm just going to get a quick sale or I'm just going to meet this quota right now. And this is what's going to make that happen. Well, then you're going to go the short route and that's going to be the end of it, you know, or are you looking to network and really build a relationship with people for the longterm? That's what bothers me a little bit about what's going on right now is that so many people are so short-term focused. They, they, they look to get something short-term and they're, they're not patient.

You know what I mean? Like it's, I mean, I, I always go back to, if you're going to, let's say you graduated 20 years old and you're going to live to 80 years old. I mean, you know, retirement quote unquote at 65 is a benchmark, but it's probably unrealistic based on how, you know, things are going. It was probably going to be 75, that type of thing, but the ages. So you're talking about a 50 to 60 year career in whatever you decide to do. And if you think like, this is why it bothers me, like SDRs want to get out of the SDR role in less than a year. It's like, what the fuck's the rush? You know what I mean? Like you have a career, like the, the network. Ooh, I got that. Yeah. Ooh, that was a quick deal that I got, but you just shredded your reputation to do it.

And, and your career is going to be a lot longer and more painful if you think about it in short-term snippets. And, and I don't know how to get people to, to, to think about that. Cause I understand we're being asked to do short-term things, like, especially in sales, we got to hit the number, we got a monthly quota, we got to do this. So when I talk to people about brand building, I understand why people don't go ahead and start building their own personal brands because there's no short-term gratification to it. You know what I mean? It's not something that I can tweet something, I can post something and all of a sudden I'm going to hit my quota. It's like, no, no, no. But 10 years later, the amount of shit that's going to come back to you if you do it the right way is like light years ahead of where you are right now.

So how do you get people to realize, that'll be my last question here. How do you get people to realize the, the long-term game here with networking, with communities, with all that stuff when we are in a, such a short-term gratification world? Yeah. I, something I have been doing and just been a part naturally in my life is to compartmentalize things that are happening within me and that are happening in my life and figuring out like what, and being very introspective on this and, and really spending time with myself to figure out why I'm doing the things that I'm doing and what value that brings to me and what value I'm bringing to other people. So for me, it's like, there are blurred lines between professional and personal.

There are a lot of blurred lines there, but there's also like, I'm able to think about them in terms of different parts of me and my involvement. So sometimes they, they can, they can blend together and other times they can be separated and the short-term and long-term is the same idea there. So as an example, uh, if you remember how I reached out to you a couple of months ago, it was on father's day. I had just been out on a run and I listened to your podcast episode on surf and sales. And I was like, this is a really good episode. And I had already watched you. I knew about you way before that episode, but you and I hadn't really interacted like we're doing today, but I heard that. And I was like, I need to like say something about this.

And it wasn't to get anything out of you at that point. I wasn't thinking about anything that this relationship could evolve into. I wasn't even thinking about being on this podcast. And I was never going to ask you to be on this podcast either. Cause that wasn't the goal of it, but I generally was like, Hey, I heard you. And I was then being very specific with the video I sent you. Like, here's what I heard you saying. Here's what I think about it. And here's what I want to do next. And it was a piece of like accountability for the both of us, because I know you now enough from not from our relationship previously, but from me observing you, I know you well enough to know that he put this out there in that episode, uh, about black lives matters and ways to think about that and what you wanted to do to give back to the community.

So I knew like, I can actually hold him accountable for this because he put it out there and I'm going to do it, you know? And you responded back and we met and we had a great conversation and we started building that relationship over time. And that's what I mean when I say like, think about short-term and long-term in the short-term, nothing was going to happen. Nothing was going to change my way or your way in my life at all. But long-term I've gained a person that I really value and I'm able to have really good conversations with you and, and see more parts of your life that I haven't seen before. So that was like the win for me, but it's going back to like, why are you doing this in the first place before I even sent that video?

I was thinking to myself, what do I truly want to get out of this? And why am I spending my time making this video and having him watch the video potentially? And so it's getting really clear with yourself first, why are you doing it? And what is the whole point of this, whether the person responds or not, because I wasn't expecting you to respond to it. I was hoping you would because you were saying something important and I've wanted to hold that, you know, accountability for the both of us, but I didn't have that expectation walking into it and I don't with those long-term relationships. I just do what's right for me and what I want to get out. And if it gets reciprocated, great. And we can build a relationship.

Awesome. If I can give you things as much as you're giving me things, that's fantastic. And it's just thinking about that and not, I'm not a transactional person just naturally. So for me, this isn't like that, that of a challenge, but I've recognized over time talking to a lot of people and observing their behaviors and listening that naturally a lot of people are very transactional. They don't care much about the relationship. They do want to get a quick fix and they do want to get that instant gratification. And that is something that each individual have to get to terms with and figure out what to do with that. I have helped myself by reading books has nothing to do with sales to figure that out.

I meditate every day to calm myself down and figure out why I'm doing the things that I'm doing and sticking within that frame. I do affirmations like last night before bed, I did a meditation for 20 minutes. And for 24 minutes, I was just repeating affirmations. There's 10 specific affirmations. I was repeating them over and over and over again for 20 minutes, nonstop. Afterwards, I timed myself to see how long time does it take me to say these affirmations and truly believe them. And those are the things that are just helping me stay within the relationships that I have. Because if I can believe in myself first, I can believe in that relationship for the long term. And I hope that the relationships I've created with you and many others will be part of my life for a lifetime.

Yeah, absolutely. I think what you're getting there is don't have a hidden agenda. You know what I mean? I think at the end of the day, hidden agendas never stay hidden. You know, they always come out. And when you when it comes out at the end, you basically destroy all the credibility that you built, pretending to like, so for instance, if your hidden agenda was to get on my podcast and those type of things, you'd probably still have gotten there in some way, shape or form, but it wouldn't feel nearly as authentic. And I might have sniffed it out earlier being like, okay, because there's plenty of people that reach out to me and say, hey, John, you know, I'd love to be on your podcast and and by the way, I got this book I'm just releasing this week.

So that that's really why you want to be on this or I get or we start talking to them and we find out that they have this book that they're releasing or whatever it is. So they're really just doing it from a promotional standpoint, not because they actually give a shit about being on my podcast other than the people who are listening to it so that they can get exposure. It's the same thing with LinkedIn, if you're sharing content or in these communities, if you're sharing content that is a thinly veiled, hey, go click here and then buy my shit, like that it's going to get snuffed out real fast and, and you will lose all the credibility. So I kind of that, that selfless, let me put whatever I can out there to hopefully add value with the, without the end game of getting business from somebody, without the end game of whatever it is, but just ultimately to do the right fucking thing.

Right. And then when you take that approach, shit comes back to you, whether you believe it or not, it does. Yeah. And the rest is going to come. It's just like, I hear this all the time, like about, uh, SDRs and AEs and, you know, and as an AE, you should just be focusing on building your own pipeline and whatever else comes to you. That's just a bonus. Right. And that's how I think about these long-term relationships. And I believe that if I just, I am myself all the time. If I believe in what I'm doing and the purpose and the mission of it, and I'm giving more than I'm taking, things are going to come back to me eventually. I'm not going to have to beg for it. And that's just that. I mean, it's just even the last point on that.

Like it's even with, when you transition roles, right? So say you go from a, say you're transitioning territories and you've been working this big deal and, and you're going to walk, you're going to have to walk away from that deal to take that next level. I had to do that. I walked away from when I was making 30 grand a year at Xerox, my buddy, Chris started a business and, and, and the CEO at the time was kind of a jerk and he was forcing, he was like, Nope, you got to do it now. And I, and I, I, all I had to do was wait until the end of the year to get a check for like 30 grand in commission, which was doubling my salary. Right. But I decided to say, you know what, fuck it. I'm, this is a, I'm going to take a step back right now to take a bigger step forward eventually.

And it'll come around. So I walked away. I literally, like the kid who came into my territory walked into a $30,000 commission check. And as much as that hurt, I was like, you know what, whatever. But I think so many people get stuck with, well, I earned that and that's mine. And, and, and they, and that holds them back from, from really taking that big next step. So, you know, if there's one lasting message here is don't have that hidden agenda, you know, give that value without any expectation of anything in return. And if you are playing that long game, it will eventually come back to you in one, in some form or another. Yeah. So it's been a pleasure speaking with you. Talk to me a little bit about Rev Genius.

Cause I know you have some cool stuff coming up with that. So what do you want the audience to know here? Well, if you are somebody who is working in sales, marketing, or rev ops, and you're looking for ways to really level up, learn new things, meet new people, I think this is the best place for you to do that. So I would encourage anyone who's in that position or looking for a job as well to join the community. Like we're doing some crazy things right now. We're trying out a clubhouse for those who have that. And I always give out when I have invites to people who, who I know, who reach out to me in a genuine way. I would, I would in a heartbeat give those invites out to people and that will be an opportunity for you.

Let's say you are looking for a job. We're going to do weekly things every Wednesday evening where we're going to have hiring managers on clubhouse with us and moderating the discussion and talking about what roles that they have open, what kind of person they're looking for, and have the direct opportunity to have a conversation with them right there in public with everyone included. And actually so far, it's been really exciting. Like it, it organically just happened because we do a daily standup on clubhouse, the team, and we have people listening in and participating in the conversations. And naturally this happened not long ago where somebody was there and saying, Hey, we're looking for such and such for our company.

And then somebody else was like, I'm looking for a role right now. Let's talk about it. And they openly talked about it. And from there we're like, okay, let's make this into a thing. So if you're on clubhouse, that's cool. Join us there every Wednesday evening for job search in particular, but also we have tons of other things going on. We have webinars, we have round tables, we have a podcast, we have a bunch of different things. And then we have the opportunity to really level up with practical, tactical things that are happening within the community. So tons of opportunities there. And the last thing I would say separate from Rev Genius is the podcast that I have, which I had the absolute opportunity to speak with you, John.

It was such a great conversation and I can't wait for that episode to go live. So for those of you who are loving John as much as I am, that is another episode you should check out because it really gave me a different perspective of you. And it made sense with all the things that you talk about that you believe in, uh, now kind of made so much more sense to me to hear from you about your legacy. So I love that conversation with you. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. That was, that was definitely, uh, one of my favorite, uh, podcast to be on. Cause it was, it was different, you know what I mean? It wasn't, it wasn't talking about tactics or sales strategies. It was who you are, you know what I mean?

And what you, what you want your legacy to be. And, and, you know, I think that's an important thing to think about at the end of the day, because ultimately it ties into a lot of the stuff that we just talked about, which is what's your, why, and you know, what's your purpose around doing what you do and how do you want people to remember you? Do you want people to remember you as a transactional, you know, short-term person or the long-term play? So it kind of all fits together. And what I loved about it that I think about often now after that conversation was you just want people to smile. And I keep thinking about that very often of like, okay, have I made somebody smile today? You know, uh, have I left them with a good feeling?

And I really appreciate it knowing that about you. And that's like at the very, very core to simplify it and what you want to accomplish. That's absolutely fantastic. And I love that. Yeah. I appreciate that. And then, you know, and it's, it's simple, but it's, you know, and I end all podcasts the same way, right? We'll end it today, which is, you know, go out there and make somebody smile today. Cause even if you had a shitty day, you know, you had a good day if you made somebody smile. So Galem, thank you so much for coming on board. Uh, hope everybody listening to this, uh, enjoy the conversation as much as I did. Definitely check out what's your legacy podcast. Definitely check out Rev Genius.

And, uh, I'll probably see you on Clubhouse coming up here pretty soon here, right? Oh, I cannot wait. I have so many ideas for you too that I'll share. I, I got, I got my, uh, so this is a sneak peek for this. I've been thinking about this more and more. I think this is where I'm going to launch my stoner sales series where, because I've been, I've been joking around being like doing a stoner podcast around sales where I just get rip-roaring stone and have people come in who are like that. But I think Clubhouse is actually the better format for that. Cause I could just be like, all right, cool. Let me try this out and see how many stoner sales reps are out there and just have a super interesting conversation about sales.

So keep an eye out for that. Cause I think that's what I'm going to be launching on Clubhouse. Yeah. And it's, it's unfortunate for me because I don't subscribe to it. I have my own little story, which you know about, but I support you. I support what makes you happy. And, uh, I then have some other things that you might be interested in, but excited to have you on Clubhouse. I've been waiting for this day to see you there. Awesome. Well, thanks, Gal. We'll talk to you soon. All right. Talk soon. All right, everybody. Have a great day. Cheers. All right, y'all. I know you enjoyed this conversation. Galem is amazing. I've never had a bad conversation with her and obviously her and John hit it off right away.

Say it to everybody that I meet. You really have to care about what you do. And Galem wears her care so proudly. Her community is one of the best in the business. So be sure and check out Rev Genius. It's definitely come a long way in a short period of time. So much more to come from that community. I know it's going to be bigger and bigger as time marches on. Check it out for sure. Did you know that you can watch all the webinars that we've done for free at JB Sales On Demand? That's right. If you've ever wondered about replays to our webinars, you can find all of them at ondemand.jbarrows.com today. In fact, I strongly recommend that you watch last week's webinar on a framework for effective video prospecting.

It was a blast and Morgan J. Ingram, Carthy from Hippo Video, and myself really dug into what it takes to be successful with video. We'll see you next week, everybody. And we'll dive in for some more. But until then, sell better.