208: Kevin Ellis On Mentorship And Commitment

What's poppin' y'all? I'm your man, James Say What Sales Buckley, and we are back with your weekly edition of Make It Happen Mondays with your host, Jon Barrows. Big thank you to our partners, Sales Loft, Gong, Proposify, Vidyard, and Rise. Jon has an extensive history with this week's guest. Mr. Kevin Ellis, VP of Sales at Thrive, is going to be joining us today. And along with how Kevin's career has been impacted since meeting Jon for the first time over 15 years ago, Kevin's also going to be discussing how he feels about underdogs and their hustle for the win mentality, learning in the moment, which is how we all learn, and commitment and transparency, something that's becoming more popular, and I'm sure buyers everywhere appreciate that.

Kevin's entry into the sales industry was the result of Jon's training and mentorship, and he's now the VP of Sales and has stayed with the same company for over 15 years. You can find this kind of success in sales with the right foundations. Start learning those foundations today by subscribing to JB Sales On Demand at ondemand.jbarrows.com. Your future success awaits. Invest in yourself. Let's throw it to Jon and Kevin to get some education today. Take it away, guys. Good afternoon, everybody. This is Jon Barrows. Make It Happen Monday. Hopefully you had a fantastic weekend. I am still down here in Aruba, so I am enjoying my time, and I am actually, out of all the podcasts that I've done, I'm going to say this is one I'm looking forward to the most because me and this kid go way back.

My boy Kevin Ellis were my first sales hires. How are you, my friend? I'm doing well, JB. Doing well. Great to see you. Thank you for having me, and I'm up here in Boston where it's been snowy and cold, so stay down in Aruba as long as you can. I'm going to try, man, but like, look, I've been actually telling Kevin, like, can we just extend this stay down here until the shit gets over, it's like, until the COVID's over and the snow's gone, because I have no interest in coming back home right now, but... Hey, we were just talking about, you know, the remote world. There's no need for you to ever really come back at all, right? No, except for Charlotte. Like, she's got the school, so that's the only thing that holds us back, but I wanted to have this conversation because, just for some context, everybody here, Kevin called me up, what was it, last week that you called me up?

Yep. With something that brought things full circle on us, and we're going to get there with his experience, but back all the way up, I tell this closing story, so I do the training right on closing, and I talk about hard close and soft close, right? And I always say I'm a pretty hard closer, and one of the things is, if you soft close me, I get disappointed. I'm kind of like, oh, man, you're right there. Just fucking ask the question, right? And I use you as an example when we hired you. Do you remember, like, when you came into my office and we interviewed and how that played out? Because I'd love to hear your perspective on it, because I've definitely embellished the story when I tell it, but I want to hear your perspective on it, and then we'll get to it.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I'd be interested to hear the embellishment of the story, and I will tell you that I have met reps over the years, people who will reach out to me on LinkedIn and say, hey, John Barrows, I took his sales training, and he tells a story about you. And I'm always thinking to myself, like, well, I've hung with John plenty of times, even outside of the business, so I'm wondering what some of those stories could be. But yeah, so I just remember, you know, that, you know, back in the, that was 15, 16, 17 years ago at this point, you know, coming in and interviewing with you, and at the time, Jim, and it was really, you know, my first real job out of college, I had had a, you know, cup of coffee with, with trying to hawk printers, and, and that kind of thing.

But, you know, I really liked your style, I liked Thrive, and the company, and I wanted to be in the technology space. And so it was really, it was really something that I wanted, and that I wanted to go after. So I just remember the interview process being kind of like the typical interview process. And then it was like, it was something like, you know, hey, sell me something, pitch me on something. I just remember, I was, I was challenging you and Jimmy on how you could communicate better if you had next health phones, right? Because those were like the thing that I was pitching up, hey, do you have to talk to him? And sometimes, you know, get ahold of him really quick. And anyways, you guys liked the pitch, I thought, I thought it was creative.

And it was something that, you know, on the spot, I had to think of. But then it was, you know, well, we'll let you know, we're gonna, we're gonna make our decision, we have a couple candidates. And, you know, I really wanted it. You know, you know, gave you some amount of time, and then just said, Hey, look, like, do I have the job or not? You got to let me know. Because if not, I'm going in another direction. Which, you know, at that age, and, and, you know, I didn't have a lot to lose, but, but it did take the balls, because you could have just said, you know what, could screw off. But, you know, at the end of the day, like, and this is, you know, one thing I always talk to people about when I'm when I'm working with young sales reps, or teaching young sales reps is, you know, something that you've shared with me as well, a long time ago, like, the second best answer we can get is no, right.

And that's it. And so, you know, I always think like, you know, hey, if you have a full funnel, right, it's okay to force people into a no and don't waste your time on things that aren't qualified. So even at that early age, I was like, look, these guys can, you know, go back and forth for a couple weeks, I have another opportunity I can go take, but I want this one. So rather than let you just tell me maybe for the next three weeks, and I missed the deal that I really should be working on, because you're quote, unquote, unqualified, right? You just come to the table and get there. So it's some of that getting to know, right? A hundred percent. And that's why like, like, you pulled like three things on that, that is just innate.

And because I've always said, like, you're, you're somebody I've always from a, I've always admired how you can read people. Like I've always said, like, you're one of the people I've come across that you can read people real fast and know how to react. Right. And you, you read this, you read the room better than anybody because you pulled the walk away. You're like, look, it wasn't just one job. I think you were like, dude, I got like three or four other offers here. And, but then you straight up said, you're like, I want to work here and I want to work for you. So like what? And I vividly remember being like, God damn, like I'm a little like, like this kid, use the hard clothes on me and shit.

I'm like, I feel a little uncomfortable right now. It's nice. Right. And I even remember, I'll be like, cause, cause you know, I always, I always do the, the, the end game with every interview. Right. I talk about closing throughout, but then I end almost every interview with, all right, you know, thanks for coming in. We'll be in touch. And I'm waiting for the person to say, Hey, will you recommend me to the next level? You know, how did I do in this interview or whatever? And if you don't do that, I'm like, all right, well, that kid didn't pick up what I was putting down. So fuck him. Right. But you were like, no, no, no. I don't think you heard me. Like I want to work here. I want to work for you.

And I was like, God damn. And I vividly remember like we had given more, we had, I don't want to name the kid. We had given this other kid, uh, the, the job and we were only hiring really one. And I remember like I rolled into our CEO's office and Jimmy's office. And I was like, dude, no, like I want this kid. Right. Cause the other kid was look, he was all right, but he was more of a pedigree kid. Right. Like he top of his class 4.0 got his MBA, whatever. And I, you know me, I'm not a pedigree guy, right? Like I'm a state school drank my way through college type of person. And so that your background with like home Depot and shit like that. Like I was like, all right, this kid's got a similar background to me.

He's a grinder. I like him. But then when you pulled that shit, I was like, nah, fuck that. I'm like, I was like, dude, we need to hire this kid. And they were like, no, we have already, we've already set the stage for this kid. And I was like, nah, I'm like, you know what? Here's the deal. I'm like, we'll hire both of them and I'll treat them exactly the same. And I'll fire one of them in 30 days. And I remember Nate was like, what? I was like, I will, I literally, because Massachusetts, right? Hire and fire at will. Right. So I was like, no. And then, and then we sat down. So we hired and Nate was like, well, you got to take on extra quota and all this other stuff to bring this kid on. I'm like, done.

Right. So I brought you. And then we had that equation, right? 400 dials, got eight meetings and whatever. And, and, and you just fucking head down and just grinded. Right. And then Jonathan, and tell the story of like, when we were, when I had dragged you to that sales call and I got that call from him. I'll never forget it. So, and I'll even go back to before that. So like, you know, when we started, it was basically, and you put the two of us in an office, right? So we're in the same office and it's like, almost like lab rats in a cage. You're running this experiment that we don't even know about. Right. And you know, to the point, right. It's, it's 400 dials a week. You got to book eight meetings a week.

You basically have what amounts to a phone book. And even back then, like there was little in the way of like, you know, I think we had like done in Bradstreet where we could look up like very basic information, not the stuff today where, you know, you can go on LinkedIn and find out, you can find out anything about anyone and come up with some interesting hook to get somebody. We're just, you know, pounding away, sitting there, you know, smiling and dialing. And it's a, it's a job that, as you know, no matter how good you are, you fail 95%. And so we'd be in there and, you know, I'd have my head down and I, you know, I don't want to say entitled, but like you talk about the pedigree, right?

Like, I don't know. I just, this kid just continued about, well, this isn't fair. Like we're not going to have success. And you know, I, I, we're not making enough money. And like, we, we got to go back and I'm just like, dude, shut up. Like we've been here for like three weeks. You haven't done a goddamn thing. You haven't booked a meeting and you're going to go tell these guys like, you need more money. Like just chill out. Um, so, you know, I, I, I kind of let him do his thing and I kept my head down and I knew he was kind of seething about like, Hey, we're not, we're not, we're not making any money. We're not booking any appointments. And I was booking some appointments. And so I had earned the right to go out with you on a sales call and I'll never forget, you know, we, we left, I'm not even going to mention the name of the company, but I do remember where we were.

It was like an ice rink kind of like conglomerate, whatever. You probably remember the name. And we came out of the meeting and I just saw you look at your phone and you're like morally and you're like, what the, like, what, what, what this kid. And I'm just like, Oh boy. And you're like, when we get back to the office, I'm going to fire that kid. So we get back to the office, you fired the kid. Um, and I remember at the time, you know, this was my first job out of school. I think, I think my salary at the time was $30,000 a year. We also had a recoverable draw. I'm sure this was Nate's doing, uh, but we had a recoverable draw, which was basically like for every meeting that we didn't book, we were paying.

So I think by the time, by the time this all came around, I think I owed the company money. Uh, but you know, it was for me, it was a, it was a lesson, you know, in like, Hey, keep your head down, work hard, earn your stripes, earn everything. You know, you don't have the right to ask for shit if you, if you haven't earned that right. And so, you know, we went back that day, morally got fired. My recoverable draw got removed. I got a new comp plan and I got a raise and I'm like, okay, well this worked out. Yeah. And that was, I mean, I vividly remember like, and this is where I think the entitlement factors is always. And I worry about that for kids these days too, like coming in and thinking like they're hot shit.

Right. And, and that earn it factor I I'm feeling is getting lost a little bit, but I mean, there was, I mean, he was trying to put like charts and graphs in front of me about how, why his meetings were better than yours and why he should get paid more and all this other stuff. I'm like, who the fuck are you? I'm like, are you out of your mind right now? Like the fastest way to piss me off is put a fucking chart in front of me when you haven't even produced a goddamn thing. There was a team bonus that we were all supposed to share. And his email started with, if the definition of team is this, then I'm just like. That's right. Oh, that, and that was the one that pissed me off the most. Like he actually pulled out the dictionary on me.

He's like, the definition of team is, and I'm like, who the fuck? And then it just got worse. And I'm like, nope, that's it. Right. And I probably shouldn't have told you like all that stuff. But I was like, I was like, all right, I know this kid's good. Cause he's, he's the, he's the horse I bet on that other kid. He's out. And I went straight back to the office. I was like, nope, sorry. Now I'm sure that was a learning lesson for him and I'm sure he's doing great these days, whatever. But you know, but at the end of the day, like there's, I think we all need to get woken up every once in a while about like, we're not as good as we think we are. And that was one of those ones. Right. Absolutely.

And then, you know, and then the journey, man, we just, cause that was, I mean, that was early, early days of thrive. Right. And now I would say that was like 2004. Yeah. Probably 2004. Right. Yeah. Yeah. 2000. So we, June of 2000 was when the company started. I came on like 2001. I think you came on to that like 2004, give or take. Yep. Yeah. And then we just, we just, I mean, we just smoked everybody. Right. And like, as far as all of our competition in this space, like the I cores and all that other stuff, we ended up doing this. And what were some of the things that you noticed about us compared to like, you know, the competition out there you think was making us as good as we were or growing in an industry that was usually pretty stagnant in for the most of the part, for the most of the competitors that we were up against?

Yeah. I mean, I think, I think, I think we had strong vision. Right. I think, I think that's important. Right. We had a, we had a particular focus and we didn't really deviate from it or fear from it. Right. And I think, you know, that's one thing that I'll say about thrive today, which is, you know, we'll talk about periods between the, you know, the, the golden age versus today, which is, you know, huge mega growth. And, and, um, you know, but the vision in, in both of those circumstances was crystal clear. And to me, it was, you know, let's concentrate on what we're good at and what, what the end goal is. And for us, it was always, you know, we're trying to drive a specific model. It's based on recurring revenue, right.

And it's based on capturing, uh, long-term relationships that are going to be mutually beneficial for us and the customer. Uh, and so we wouldn't sacrifice, uh, okay, well, you know, well, let's just take this big hardware deal or this big project, you know, because, you know, it's a lot of money and it's, it, maybe it's a good commission. Like we never, we never deviated from the path, which is build a business that has, you know, predictable revenue model. Um, and, uh, you know, we'll throw off good margins and continue to grow. Um, and we didn't deviate from that. So I think that was one piece of it. And I think also, you know, your, I think approach towards sales and having a, you know, even as a, as a young company with a lot of young reps.

And I know at that time, you didn't even have, you know, nearly the experience you had today, but you had a playbook, you had a framework, you had a, you know, Hey, if we put the proper measurement around what we're doing and what our inputs are and what our activities are, we can, we can predict what the outcomes would be based on the percentages. Right. Um, and so, you know, I think we did that pretty well and we followed the playbook and it worked. And I think that, that structure, cause I always talk about art and science, right? I mean, I think that, that, that science of the structure and being able to look at things, but then the art about knowing when to pivot. Right. And I think I, I, I put, I put, again, I put you in that position of the art of being able to read people being, now, have you always had that ability, uh, to like kind of size people up pretty quick and know how to like, just like just growing up or anything like that?

Or is that something you've evolved over the time? I always kind of felt, I was kind of felt that way. Um, and I always kind of felt like, you know, not sales would be the way for me, but, but something that was interpersonal and involved interaction and, you know, just being around people. Um, and you know, I just, I've, I've always kind of felt that way. I can, I can build close relationships very quickly. Um, because I'm kind of like you, I'm, I'm, there, there's no middle of the road with me. It's like people either like me and they gravitate towards me or they say, this kid's a little too much for me. Um, you know, but, but I've always, that's funny. I joke sometimes my parents telling me a story the other day of like, yeah, I remember sitting at your high school graduation, you know, next to your vice principal saying, you know, I don't know how this kid's ever going to make it, you know, finish school, the high school with, you know, straight C's and, and, uh, you know, like you probably drank and partied my way through a lot of college and, you know, but then kind of got my act together as I was going through college.

But even at that time, the vice principal had said to my mom and dad, like, don't worry about Kevin. He's got away with people. He'll be absolutely fine. So I think it was, I mean, it was sales for me. Um, you know, some type of, you know, account management, relationship building, you know, people centric type, type, type role for me that it's really all I was going to do ever. Yeah. I don't remember what was, what did you go to school for? Like, what was your major? Uh, marketing. Yeah. Same here. So that's, that was kind of the marketing person that, you know, I got to figure out a way to make money when I'm young. Uh, they go into sales. They go into sales. Exactly. I mean, I, I vividly remember, like, I didn't even know what the hell I wanted to do.

And I was like, all right, well, marketing kind of, first of all, it's kind of easy, right. From a degree standpoint. And second of all, it kind of combines like the cool stuff that I like, you know, artistic stuff and, you know, creativity, whatever. But then man, when I got out into the real world and I was looking around for jobs, I was like, uh, no, I don't want to do any of this. And, and so I'm like, I kind of did the whole, I, I'm pretty good with people, you know, let me, let me try this out. And, and thankfully for me, I was able to graduate through like with DeWalt and then Xerox and that it's funny because if you look back in, I bet you, if you look back at solution selling, right.

Uh, and if you were to go back and read one of those books, you would notice that Thrive was basically built on that. Cause when I started, I mean, I was what, 23 and I had just gotten out of Xerox who basically invented solution selling back in the eighties. And now I'm, I got to build a sales org. I'm like, uh, I don't know. Okay. So I grabbed my binder from Xerox. I was like, all right, well, I guess this is what we're going to do. And it, and it worked. Yep. Yep. And thinking about too, going back to like the school days, I, you know, I picked a marketing major because again, I also wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. And it's funny because you think about people who kind of influence you and, and, and, you know, you probably recall I did.

And I know you've made a living off of like, Hey, they don't teach sales in school. Like there's no curriculum. Right. Except I did find one sales class in at UMass when I was there and I introduced you to the guy. I think you even. Oh, that's right. I do. Yeah. That was cool. He became a guest speaker and he had, you know, he was very, very old school, the sales tip of the day. And, you know, but, but take, you know, and I always say this, like I've been to solution selling training. I've been to Miller Hyman training. I've been to negotiation tactical training and, you know, all those types of things. And, you know, none of it's perfect, right? Like none of it, you can't, but you take a little bit nugget from, from everything.

And, and there was certain nuggets I took even from, you know, that kind of old school sales professor that, that I still use them in my everyday today. Hell yeah. So, yeah. I mean, that's why I like that. One of the reasons I gravitated towards the Basho training when I took it the first time, cause it wasn't a methodology. It wasn't like, okay, you have to do all this. It was like, Hey, here's, here's this nugget. Here's this tip. Here's this thing. And I was like, all right, I'm going to take a little bit of Miller Hyman. I'm going to take a little bit of Basho. I'm going to take a little bit of this and, and kind of build my own, my own thing here. Right. Cause that, and that's the way it should be.

It should like, there's not one size fits all in this whole, in this game. So cool. So let's, let's talk about the acquisition of thrive for, for the first acquisition, the staples one. I'm curious on your perspective. Cause when I, you know, I remember that I tried to say, all right, you know what, I'm going to go over with Jimmy and I'm going to try to figure out this staples channel here. Well, well you guys keep the thrive engine going. What were some of the things that, that from your side of the house? Cause I, I always get my ass kicked on that side. I mean, obviously I am not a corporate person, right? Um, yeah. And so, I mean, I was trying, I thought I was, cause I was actually, I was a little bored.

I gotta be honest. Like for seven years, we had figured out this engine and the engine was going and we were, I mean, I mean, you were on at that point and for a few years and it was kind of like, yeah, we, we got this, you know what I mean? So it wasn't really like interesting for me. And so when the acquisition came, I was like, Oh shit, this is something cool. Right now, little did I know I would, it was not for me. I mean, it was a big learning lesson, but how did you see that whole thing playing out from, from your side of the house? Um, you know, I think, so first of all, I would say it was such a huge dichotomy, like such a huge pivot. And if you go and think back on it, like, you know, it was really like, okay, we have this, you know, very small, agile, like stop on a dime type business that is run by a bunch of 20 somethings really.

Right. Um, you know, is fairly startup like mentality in the way that we act and operate. And then all of a sudden, okay, well now you're owned by a fortune. I think at that time, 50 company, like $20 billion, one of the biggest companies in the world. Um, and that's just like jarring. Right. So like we're talking about, you know, integrating into a business and a channel that, that, you know, doesn't speak the same language that, that, um, you know, I thought like on the surface, kind of when I heard the, you know, what's the, you know, what's the deal thesis here? Like what's the purpose of this acquisition? Right. And I think at the time, you know, staples was thinking ahead of the curve, right?

Like they're looking at, okay, we've been hearing forever, a digital world, the digital world, but now we, now we're here. I mean, we weren't truly there then, but you know, uh, a company that relies on selling a lot of things like, you know, paper and associated toner and staples and paperclips, like they're like, okay, we got to diversify the share of wallet we have with our existing customer base. Right. So they bought us, they bought Janssen product companies, they bought industrial packaging companies, they bought transactional technology companies. And the whole idea was, okay, we can get a deeper share of wallet within our existing, very strong contract and commercial customer base, um, which I think worked well for them in a lot of those other areas where it didn't work was when you have a staples account rep asking the office manager to speak to the CIO about VMware.

And I just don't think anybody could ever really make that connection as smart as the idea was to bring that level of technology service and sticky recurring revenue, uh, to their customer base. I think, you know, what, what probably hurt us was the brand recognition, the brand being so strong and so well-respected for something that was so like distant from, from what we did. So I know you, you know, that was your thing to try and figure out me and kind of the, the group that was, was on the ground selling and working with those reps and trying to integrate. And I think a lot of it was, was like you said, good lessons learned. Um, it was very interesting, you know, even after, after you were gone and, and, you know, you know, working with and learning from, you know, really seasoned and accomplished business executives from a, you know, such a huge company, um, I definitely learned an awful lot.

Um, but you know, it was, it was a, it was a stop in the road. All right, y'all. I know you can sense the rapport between these two. Kevin and John go way back. I love the conversation around nuggets versus methodologies as well. There's something to be said for the fact that not everyone is cut out to be in the corporate world. And John learned that early about himself. Kevin, on the other hand, stayed at thrive and learn to adapt to the culture difference. It's all about what you want. You just have to work hard to get where you want to go. That's the key to happiness and longevity, but there's more on that later in the show. I want to hear your stories. How did you close your last big deal?

How'd you break into your latest opportunity? Send me that story at James at jbarrows.com to be featured on next week's show. Today we're shouting out Aramaya at GitLab. He signed up for JB sales on demand and leveraged the filling the funnel course to land his current role. Way to invest in yourself, Aramaya. Keep it up, buddy. We see you. Are you looking to break into tech sales? Are you made to sell software and solutions? Well, reach out to me today and let's talk about your ambitions. A great step to take to prepare for a career in SaaS sales is subscribing to JB sales on demand at on demand dot jbarrows.com to learn how to fill your funnel and build your personal brand among many other skills.

We'll see you there. Let's get back to John and Kevin in the studio. I think that the, the one thing that, I mean, you, you said it, right? We went from a super agile. I remember like, you know, marketing, right? Platts was our marketing guy. Like, and we'd like, I'd get stoned and be like, Hey, Platts, come in here. Let's do this little whiteboard thing. Right now. All right, cool. Get the campaign out, you know, the end of the day, right? He'd PDF something, Photoshop some shit and do some weird things. And we'd be out the door that day. And then all of a sudden Staples rolls in and we go to have this marketing conversation, 16 executives roll into a boardroom and they start talking about this stuff.

And I'm like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. No. And, and, and look, I fought it. Um, but I think one of the things, and I'm curious now on your perspective, because you've now been sold how many times or after that has been really two more, significant ones. So MC partners, um, which is a Boston based private equity company that owned us for, uh, basically the last three or four years, um, was, has been an unbelievable, incredible, you know, financial partner and sponsor for us really achieved the growth. And then more recently we just, you know, within the last 60 days, um, have been recapitalized, uh, with a company called court square, uh, capital, which is a very large private equity firm, 8 billion in assets under management, um, headquartered in Manhattan.

So it is, you know, complete growth mode, growth capital, um, in investments in, in people and technology. So when they, one of the things that was a little learning lesson on mine, it was a little curious was when Staples bought us, right? They looked at the financials, they looked at all these other things, but they never talked to me about the sales process, right? They didn't, they didn't understand, or they didn't dissect the, how we sold and who we sold to. It was kind of more of a surface level. We have small business customers. They have a product that can scale. Let's put those together and let's go. Right. But with these acquisitions, all these other acquisitions, cause you've now, not only have you been recapitalized and you've been acquired, but you've seen all these acquisitions, how do, how have you seen the evaluation and how do you, how important do you think it is?

There's culture and look, that's always super important too, but like literally the sales motion and how you sell compared to how, who else they're acquiring, like how much emphasis has been put on that through this journey of yours? Yeah. I'll say that I also spend like, you know, outside of Thrive being in the M&A world, I've also personally, most of my time from a, you know, a pure selling standpoint is I spend a lot of time in private equity, working with organizations that are, you know, buying platform businesses and growing through acquisition and, and, and we're a lot of times involved in the due diligence, usually the, just the technology due diligence. But, um, you know, I guess comparatively speaking, it's almost like two different worlds.

If you think about what Staples bought Thrive when we were, you know, in our infancy, but compared to where we are now, um, you know, that's a humongous company, basically kind of just, you know, taking a gamble, right? I mean, $10 million to them was nothing. It was like a rounding error. So they're like, okay, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. And I think the thought was, you know, well, we don't really need to worry about the sales because we have the channel. Like we just have to funnel this into the channel, which, you know, ended up not really being the way that it worked. I think today, you know, businesses that, that are doing the acquisitions of, of, you know, what we look at for, you know, acquiring companies is we, we have the channel now, right.

And we have proven and tried and true methodology and growth engine. And so for us, you know, obviously we're evaluating technologies and, and, and, um, you know, platforms that we can integrate, uh, in engineering talent and things like that. Um, but we feel like pretty strongly, like we have the sales engine figured out. Um, and I think the businesses that have, you know, both MC and, and, and, and, and now, you know, court square, um, they're looking at, you know, I think in far more detail, where do the opportunities come from, right? What, what types of, what types of channels are you using to open up a new business? What are the close ratios? What, what, what are the margins? Um, what are the types of service and service mix that you're selling?

Um, because a lot of that in, in terms of how, you know, how the valuations happen down the road, right. Is, you know, what type of service do you have? Right. And for us, a lot of our focus, um, I think the industry focus in general, but for us are, are very high value things now, like high, high, high end cyber security services that, you know, that are not easily replaced, right. You know, uh, hosting services, whether it's private cloud, whether it's, you know, some of the hyperscalers, Azure AWS. So the more of that kind of stuff that you can sell, that is not easily replaceable and, and very meaningful to, um, you know, companies operating today, you know, they, they definitely place, uh, you know, an additional value on that kind of stuff.

Cause it's always, I've always been curious cause I, I've, I know nothing about the private equity world. I know nothing about the venture capital world, um, or how valuations even happen, but I've all, I always found it curious at least back, you know, and I look, I work with VCs and I work with, you know, private equity too, but I've always found it interesting that they put all this effort into the financials. They put all this effort into, you know, the profitability of the business and the scale and all that other stuff. But the, the VCs that I see win these days, especially now they actually take a real deep dive into the sales process and to see, okay, you know, will, will this sales motion fit into our model?

Right. And if not, we either need to completely reshape their sales model or basically just let everybody go. So with your, with this, with all the acquisitions you've seen, how much of it is, is acquiring the technology versus the company? Um, I think it's, it's tough to say. I would say, I would say more of it is, is the company because the technology changes, right? Like, you know, it's, it's really, you know, the technology that we're using today might not be the technology that we're using, you know, three or four years from now, but if we built a solid platform that, you know, when you talk about the company, right? Like, you know, how do we have the platform in place, you know, just from, you know, purely a, you know, building a business standpoint where we can integrate four or five other companies that we've acquired, you know, over a, over a, over an 18 month period.

Right. And do you have the, the, the flexibility of systems? Do you have, you know, the proper backend, uh, platforms to be able to do that and do it quickly. So I think they look more at like the business as opposed to the, the specific technology, but as it relates to sales, you know, I think it's more, you know, do you have, do you have, and have you built an engine that can provide consistent and sustainable and predictable business. And I, I, I'm not so much, um, you know, responsible for reporting up to the board today on, you know, what all the metrics are, but I see what goes into it. And it's just data, data, data, data, data, just the amount of Salesforce data and dashboards and, and stuff that we have that, that goes upstream to, to be analyzed.

It's, um, you know, it's, it's crazy, you know, and you can slice and dice the data a thousand different ways. Um, but you know, it, it really is, can we predict the, the revenue model, uh, and can we repeat it and where does it come from? Right. Is it, is it channel? Is it direct? Is it, is it partner? Is it strategic agents that are providing it? And all of those have different financial metrics associated with them. So it, it, it allows you to, you know, to kind of accelerate where you need to, to, you know, to, to reach your overall revenue and profitability goals. So what's, um, one thing I've also, uh, been impressed with and marveled at just cause I don't think I have the patience is that your ability to stick with this for 15, 16 years now or something like that.

Right. I mean, there's, there must've been a million times where you, you, you double check. You're like, I don't know if I want to do this. So what made you stick with it for as long as you have from, from the, that day that we said, Hey, come on board here to the acquisition from Staples to the flip over to another private equity. And now like what, what, why did, cause there's, I mean, you hear kids state that, you know, flip jobs every two years at this point. Right. So why have you stayed and, and, and what were some of those reasons? Yeah. So I think, you know, I would say the first thing for me is that it's almost like it's a different job every couple of years because what we're doing changes all the time, just, just the space that we're in.

So if you think about it, right, you think back to like when you and I were first doing it, you know, what we would be servicing customers with would be, you know, you know, it service delivery was, we're going to send you an engineer. He's going to come to your office once a week and, and go in a server room and shut the door and check backup logs. And that's what it was. Right. And then, you know, so then, then it evolves and okay, well now we have all this offsite remote monitoring and remote control, and we can do a lot more with a lot less and we've gained leverage in the business. And that's what eventually attracts a company like Staples at that time. And then you fast forward a couple of years later, now you have the onset of virtualization technology, right?

Which starts leads many people down the road of, you know, building out multi-tenant virtual private cloud platforms. And it's like, okay, well, this is way different than what it was when I started, right? It's changing. It's evolving. And so it's, it's keeping me interested. And then you fast forward a couple more years and it's okay. Forget building out your own cloud. Now we have these hyperscalers. We have AWS, we have Amazon, we have, we have, we have, we have Azure, we have Google cloud platform. And, you know, now we need all kinds of solutions around that. Right. And then, you know, it progresses again. And, and, and, and, you know, now it's, it's, it's, I, it's always, cybersecurity has always been a focus, but now it's, it's like crazy.

What, what, what is out there? Because the threat landscape is ever changing. Bad actors are constant and more and they have evolved. And so the cybersecurity landscape has, has really, really evolved and changed. And so it, it keeps, you know, for me, just the industry itself and how it's constantly kind of morphing and changing really keeps me, you know, interested in, in, entertained. And, you know, now it's, it's, it's obviously changing again, right. With the onset of SaaS, as you know, like in, in your line of work, you work with a ton of SaaS based companies and it's being able to, and we were talking about earlier about the pandemic, right. Being able to work from wherever, wherever you are.

And so it, you know, it becomes more about, you know, now it's less about, you know, securing the corporate walls behind a corporate firewall. And it's more about how do I secure the remote worker and how do I handle things like identity and access management? And how do I know that, you know, the person logging into this machine that says he's John Barrows, who's usually in Woburn, Massachusetts is now in Aruba. Do I let him in? Right. Like, so it, you know, it's a lot of that. And now it's, and now it's, you know, digital transformation. So, you know, it's, it, the short answer is it changed so much over time. It really kept me interested. Um, and, and, and frankly, like, you know, you always talk about, you know, find your passion or, or find something else to do.

Right. And, you know, I, I wouldn't say I'm passionate about technology in that I don't really care what goes into configuring a firewall. What I'm passionate about though is, is helping people solve business challenges with technology. Right. Um, and also winning in, in, in, you know, so those types of things, um, have always kind of kept me interested in the fact that it's changed and evolved over years has, has been, you know, that's been, that's been a godsend for me. Yeah. And I mean, I think just for people out there listening, right. Who, who pop jobs and they get bored with something or whatever, playing that long game, you know, don't get me wrong. I think when you're not in the right fit and it doesn't feel right, like go find something else to do.

Right. But, but if you can look at, you know, have that bifocal view of like short-term stuff, all right, I gotta, you know, do, but there's a, there's a long-term potential here, man. I mean, 16 years later, you're doing all right. Right. Yeah. I mean, and it's funny cause there's been so many times too, where I've always like, look, that's a long time to be at one place. Right. But, um, you know, the company and look, there's been plenty of times where I'm like, Hey, geez, you know, what am I, you know, what am I doing here? But, um, you know, back in the day, but you know, a lot of it too, is the people. Um, and you know, we, we have some incredible people here, um, that, that, you know, are really driven.

Um, and you know, it's, it's, it's like a team mentality. Right. And so, you know, you, you, you kind of never want to let your team down. Um, and, and I kind of take that with me to, you know, to, to work every day. Um, so it's, you know, as much, it's as much about the people that you work with and, you know, and finding, um, you know, not only the right fit for you, but you know, if, if you go to work and you can't stand the people that you work with every day, like, I don't care how much you like it, go find something else to do. Right. Yeah. You enjoy, if you enjoy what you're doing and you enjoy the people that you work with and you believe in the people that you work with, um, you know, our, our leadership here, um, you know, from CEO to CRO to CFO, I mean that the level of, of, um, you know, commitment those guys have and the transparency they have with the, with staff.

It's just a, you know, it's a, it's an easy place to, to continue to believe in. Yeah. And you know, I, I, the life cycle too. I mean, we could have a whole other conversation about the stages of growth and who is, who is good for what stage. I mean, one thing that Thrive absolutely taught me was that there's a certain stage where you, you tend to fit. Right. And once you figure that out, like now you, now it feels comfortable, but like certain, you know, certain people are good from zero to 10 million, right. Or zero to 5 million. Right. Cause it's just chaos and it's like, whatever. Right. And then it's like, all right, 10 million to 50 million. There's a different, there's a different DNA for that.

Right. And then 50 to IPO or, or acquisition different DNA and then there. Right. So I've been impressed with you sticking all the way through that. Cause usually, I mean, if you, if you look at us knuckleheads that started the, you know, the company, it was like, we were just a bunch of idiots just trying to do our best. And we were cool. But then once we got to the point, we just started bickering and hating each other and like infighting. And I swear to God, looking back on it, I, I, I think 50% of my life at Thrive was just drama shit. You know what I mean? Like dealing with like art, you know, I don't want to drop names, but you know, dealing with all these different people and all these personalities, personality and it was like, fuck it.

If we just focused on working, we probably could have tripled revenues right there. But I mean, you know, as you evolve, you kind of grow and you learn about like, what's important. And to your point, like who needs to be on that bus? Right. Right. And it's adaptability too. I mean, it's like, you know, it's like, like you said, like there's different people for different stages. Right. And so, you know, for me, you know, in this journey, there have been times where I've had, you know, I've had teams of 10, 12, 15 people that I'm managing and, um, you know, you know, tracking all of their activity and mentoring them and driving them and, you know, trying to, trying to assist as much I can from them as a, as a manager.

Right. Um, but I always enjoyed the sale, right. Like I've always been, you know, I never got out of that, like player coach mode. Um, you know, I always thought like, you know, I gotta be close to the customer. I gotta, I gotta be able, I can never ever sit back and be like, I'm not pitching. Right. Like it's gotta be, I'll just, you know, and you know, I'll say, you know, you talk about the different phases, like who's good for what phase. And, you know, I think it was probably, I don't know, four or five years ago, maybe, um, our current CEO, Rob Stevenson, and, um, I think he recognized like, you know, managing people and, and, and running reports and, and, and, you know, he's like, that's a waste of your time.

And, and so for me personally, you know, it was like, don't be a player coach anymore. You go on, you go out and hunt and kill. And that's what you do. And in an organization this size that we are now, like our CRO, um, is John Holland. He's a fantastic guy. Um, you know, but, but he's great at, you know, the metrics and having, and he brought like some metrics that I've never even seen, never even heard of on, you know, uh, things like, you know, you know, how to have a predictive business model. If you don't have this number of new opportunity generation, you don't, you know, this, you know, seven X, this in your funnel, mine is your biggest deal with it. You know, all this stuff is dashboard, not Salesforce, like, you know, that level of like commitment to on a much smaller scale, like we did back in the days with, you know, the framework that we put together, but at stage, like, I don't have the patience to do that.

I would rather be out in front of the customer. So somebody recognizing that and saying to me, like, that's a waste of your time. You go hunt and kill. Um, and so, you know, recognizing that. And for me, honestly, it was like, you know, it was at first I'm kind of like, oh, but I like managing people. And then like, you know, a month into it, I'm like, this is the best thing that's ever happened to me. Like, I don't have to stay up at midnight creating reports. Like I'm not, you know, I'm not cleaning up after people's messes. I'm not, you know, it's just, I'm, you know, enjoying life selling. It's great. Love it, man. Well, last thing real quick, any, um, what any favorite stories from, from the days of thrive, uh, that, that stand out for you?

Um, besides the, besides the ones we just talked about, I don't think any that I would want to put out into the, uh, public, um, but you know, uh, I think, you know, in general though, I, you know, I think things that, that stick out to me, honestly, it's like, you think about back in those days and it's like, you know, again, a bunch of 20 somethings that, that, you know, sitting on lawn furniture and a kind of, you know, tiny, you know, weirdly configured office and it, you know, what it grew to because of the work ethic and commitment. And like, honestly, that's, that's the type of stuff that kind of taught me to, to, you know, to really become a salesperson and, and, and a professional that, you know, that, that, that was able to do things right.

And I think back about things that I learned, you know, really from you and, and, and I talked about it before, right. Find your passion or find something else. That's something that you've said. And I've, I've always kind of, you know, I've kept with me, um, you know, and, and I think, you know, it's okay to lose. Right. And I think, you know, advice I would give to any, you know, BDRs or young sales reps that are listening to it that, you know, I learned from you is like, you know, Hey, look, like some are going to do it. Some aren't. And you got to, you know, get off the mat and move to the next one. And, and nothing will teach you that like making 400, you know, phone calls a week when you're starting out.

And, uh, but you know, the, the, you know, the lesson that came with it though, is, you know, you're going to lose in sometimes you're going to lose a lot more than you win in sales, but you know, you know, dust yourself off, get off the mat and you just got to keep pushing forward. And that's really what it's all about. And that's what I took from, from the early days of Thrive. I'll tell you right now that may I've said this to other people, like, uh, my favorite story about Thrive is actually, is actually you, like you're my favorite story of Thrive. Like people ask me, like, what are you most proud of as far as that like company is concerned? And I said, it has nothing to do with being acquired.

It has nothing to do with being the fastest growing company in the world. It's, it's, it's recognizing potential. And then, and I will never take credit for your success in any way, shape or form, because you're the one who made it happen. But being, being kind of the, the putting, putting you in a position to, to go and watching what you've, what's happened. And then that call that I got, you know, last week or the week before where you said, yeah, yo, that's really what it's about. And that's kind of taught me. I'm always somebody who's like, you know, don't forget where you came from. Right. So to me, you know, when this, you know, most recent recapitalization happened and it was a great thing for Thrive and it's great thing for me personally.

Um, you know, you just kind of sit back and go, Jesus Christ, like, you know, this has all happened over the course of, you know, X number of years. Don't forget where you came from. And it obviously prompted me to pick up the phone and call you and say, you know, Hey JB, look, you know, I, I, you know, I've been reflecting a little bit on, you know, how things have gone on. And, you know, recently some really great things have happened for us. And I just wanted to call you and say, thank you. You know, it was, you know, without you giving me, you know, the start and, and, and a lot of ways motivating me and teaching me to, you know, to, to, to work hard and, uh, you know, to always do the right thing, you know, it, you know, don't forget where don't forget where you came from.

So, uh, that's why I placed the call and kind of our journey. Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, it was, uh, you know, uh, that was probably the favorite call I've gotten in a long time. So thank you for that. And, uh, cool, man. Well, look, uh, we got to bounce here, but, um, like, I mean, let's, let's obviously stay in touch. I'm looking forward to this next chapter. See where you take things from here. Cause, uh, thrive sounds like you guys are just about to fucking explode even more. And, uh, you're on that ride, man. So yeah, it's a rocket ship. So let's strap in and, uh, and keep going to the moon. Love it, brother. All right, man. All right, JB. Thanks, man. Tell the family I said, Hey, all right.

And, um, look, uh, everybody out there, hopefully you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. Uh, just like I say, at the end of all my podcasts, go out there and make somebody smile today, right? Cause even if you had a shitty day, you make somebody smile, you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that. And thank you, Kevin, for making me smile, brother. I'll talk to you soon. Thank you, JB. All right, take care. All right, y'all. That's a wrap for this week's episode of make it happen Mondays. Kevin has been an amazing guest. Thanks so much for coming out. His commentary around transparency and commitment will really stick with me. That's what keeps you at a company for life.

I was also intrigued by his views on the startup mentality and how it transitions into the corporate mind frame. Finally, something that he said that I think was very impactful. Once you have the sales engine figured out, you can focus on the small things that help with growth. The data won't lie. It will tell you where to spend your time. Now that is some powerful stuff. Our mission remains the same to elevate the sales profession and raise it up to its highest level where it belongs. Sales techniques, best practices, interviews, podcasts, webinars, tips, tactics, and all of our training courses can be delivered to you with an annual subscription to our world-class training at JB sales on demand.

Explore the opportunity to invest in yourself today at on-demand.jbarrows.com. We'll be back next week with another stellar guest. See you next week, everybody. And until then, sell better.