213: Melanie Fellay On Making Funding Decisions And Building A Team

What is poppin', y'all? It's your man, James, Say What Sales Buckley, and we are back with another episode of Make It Happen Mondays with your host, John Barrows. Huge thanks to all of our partners, SalesLoft, Gong, Proposify, Vidyard, and Rise. We appreciate you guys. You are amazing to work with. Today, we are pleased to bring back Melanie Filet, CEO and co-founder at Speckit, a digital adoption and enablement solution that accelerates onboarding and just-in-time learning. Melanie and her co-founder, Zari, realized that there was an opportunity to change the way that people learn by building something that instinctively sees a chance to put topical learning materials in front of users in the moment.

From management of finances to where you spend your time, these leaders at Speckit have successfully navigated the startup waters to become what they are today. And now, a new milestone has been reached. Speckit is definitely one to watch. Before we get started with this episode, I want to stress that it is no one's responsibility to make you a successful sales professional. That job is all yours. Leaders can guide you and peers can make suggestions and lessons can be learned the hard way. But ultimately, it's the resources that you invest in yourself with that are the decisions that will propel you to the top of the leaderboard or drop you to the bottom. Have no fear, we've got you covered.

All the skills and development that you could ever want or need can be yours as a JB Sales member. So join us today at ondemand.jbarrows.com. So much has changed over the last few years, it's essential that we take steps to stay ahead of the curve. Again, that URL for you is ondemand.jbarrows.com, where a growth mentality makes growth a reality. We'll see you there. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrow's Make It Up on Monday. Hopefully you had a fantastic weekend. Mine was decent. The spring's coming here in Boston, the weather's getting a little bit better. So everybody's a little bit happier. But man, am I excited to have this conversation today and bring back Melanie from Speckit, CEO over there.

How's it going, Melanie? How you doing? Doing great. Thanks for having me back. I was actually reflecting, I think I was on right around this time last year and right around the time before. So it's almost like a time capsule of our version of the company. Nice. We could kind of do the history of Speckit in podcasts, right? And first and foremost, as my buddy Chris just came on right before in the prep, I wanted to say congratulations to you. And when you say you're doing well, I know you're doing well, because for everybody out there, Speckit just landed a $12 million Series A round funding and is off to the races. And that's what we're going to hear to talk about. But Melanie, just for the audience, just to make sure, just in case anybody doesn't know you and hasn't caught up on all the other ones that we've talked about before, give a little background of who you are, what Speckit's all about, and then we'll get into it because I am super curious about this money and where it's going and how you got it.

Awesome. Well, thanks so much. Super excited to be here. Always have a lot of fun. My background was in sales ops and sales enablement before Speckit, working at high growth tech companies and really kept running into the issue that, you know, with all this high growth comes constant change, new business lines, new processes, new tools, all this onboarding. And we were just really challenged with just like helping employees be successful and be productive because all of our information was scattered between PowerPoints and Google Docs and LMSs and you name it. I'm like, there's just got to be a better way to both onboard our employees and also make them, you know, just more productive in their day-to-day by making all that information accessible to them where they work.

So three years ago, took the leap, started Speckit after quite a bit of research in the space. And it's been a lot of fun getting to this point, obviously, as you know, getting a company off the ground, especially, you know, year two going into a pandemic comes with its challenges, but you know, now we're about 16 employees across... 16 or 16? 16. 16. Holy shit, I didn't know that. Yeah. And actually, last time I was on here was about 15 of us. So we've grown a lot since then, which has been really exciting. And obviously, my role is changing every quarter, as probably any other founder that you speak to, but it's been a lot of fun. We're, you know, starting to go a little bit more up market, starting to find the right size customers for us.

And yeah, this run of funding, I think is really, you know, there's different philosophies on it. One, it's kind of a means to an end, like funding is just funding. It just kind of gives you the traction that you need to keep going. But for us, it was really a moment of celebrating, you know, the last three years of hard work and sacrifice and, you know, finding such awesome team members, finding the right kinds of customers that were patient and helped us get to the product where it is today. And super excited for where we're headed. Yeah, I think it is a point of validation, if nothing else, right? It's like you built something that somebody else outside of customers sees value in. And I think that's any entrepreneur's dream, if you will, is whatever the number is, to have somebody be willing to write a check of some significant amount that we can't write ourselves to say, I believe in you, and I believe in the future of this.

So, you know, that's fantastic. Yeah, I mean, and as we were talking, look, I've, I've always taken a different approach to, to growing a business. And it's mostly the hard way, right? Because, because I, from a startup standpoint, I never, I never said I wanted money. I never, because I never really wanted a boss, if you will, right? And I always looked at specifically VC cash as, okay, now I have a boss boss, like somebody who is literally looking at every single number, every single metric, right? And can fire, absolutely can fire you, yeah. So, so that's what always kind of scared me. But I've also lived in a professional services, you know, world for the most part, and, and haven't looked for that hyper growth.

So, so, a couple of questions for you as you came to this point, and then we'll talk about what you're going to do with it. But did you always, like, was the plan to get funding? And when did you know, when, when, what was the benchmark that you said, now we're ready to go get it? And why didn't you get it in the, or, well, let me ask it in a different way. Did you think about getting funding earlier? Yeah. Right? And then based on that experience, what led you to realize, okay, this is the moment that is the right moment to get funding now to take this to the next level. Walk us through that kind of progression there. A lot of questions, but I think I can take it step by step. You see what I'm talking about though, right?

Yeah. So we went three years ago. So when Zari, my co-founder, who we used to work together, she was a product manager and I am not a technical co-founder. I'm more of a go-to-market side. And when we started the business, like we really took it like little by little, right? First, we really did, you know, the first thing we need to validate for ourselves is like, is this a real problem in the marketplace? Or is this just like our problem where, you know, we're just not doing it right? So luckily I'd spent about a year looking at the market, looking at every digital adoption platform, knowledge management platform, LMS platform on the market. And I was like, these just seem like such outdated ways of doing things, right?

Like learning being this like event or destination versus part of how you work. And then we, she's very data driven. So she made us do surveys and stuff. And so before we even took the leap, like we, we had built our own confidence that there was, you know, value in leaving. Cause frankly, we were living, you know, great San Francisco salaries and like had a lot going for us in our careers that, you know, taking the leap, no matter what situation, like it was definitely like a setback in terms of our personal lives. So we started off, you know, we got really lucky. Our former CEO at the company that we met, you know, wanted to invest in us. And we knew that getting off the ground, we needed some level of capital.

You know, we both invested at the time, like $20,000 each. That's all we had to invest plus kind of sustain our own lifestyles. We both made a lot of personal sacrifices along the way. She downgraded to a studio in San Francisco, which like, and her team, she's originally from Pakistan. So her development team was Pakistan. She was taking like 10 PM standups in her bathroom. So she was working after her ex-husband at the time. And like, you know, that was it. I moved back to Colorado, was living with my grandma, who unfortunately was like in the last leg of her life. And so, you know, it was just, there was a lot of that happening. And, you know, as we were starting to build a team and we realized like, one, we're in a crowded space, right?

Like the sales technology enablement stack has players that have hundreds of millions of dollars of funding, right? And so at first we didn't want to take VC capital because frankly, we both worked at companies where we'd seen the pitfalls of that. And so there was a lot of hesitancy, a lot of insecurity around it. And so we really tried doing it just friends and family. Like we raised an initial like $350,000 between different groups of folks. And then we just got to the point where it's just like, we're just, we didn't have the marketing budget. Like we'd spent, like we had $150,000 in our bank account when we decided to take a bet on Dreamforce and spend $50,000 of that on a Bitcoin. And frankly, one of the best decisions we made, like that's how we got, oh yeah, that's how we got like our first customers, JOL, you name it.

And a lot of that early validation, but you know how it is when we're selling to mid-market enterprise. And we have an SMB business too, but the sales cycle is long, right? You're spending that $50,000 at a conference. You're not seeing the return on that until later. So all these things started, you know, kind of just becoming more clear as we, you know, we're getting more informed on our market and our go-to-market. And it was clear that we were going to need to like raise a seed. And so we ended up raising initially $2 million as a seed round. And that fundraising experience was definitely very interesting because at the time, like I had no clue what I was doing, right? And I think that's the hardest part, you know, not having come from, like one, I didn't have like a CEO network that I could tap into and like hear how other people have done it.

You know, and like I was reading every blog, Reddit post, you name it, that I could find on what it is to fundraise. But, you know, one of my approaches early on was like very practical. I was like, this business just makes sense. And here's the market and here's the numbers. But what you realize pretty quickly is VCs don't invest in practical businesses, right? They invest in like these moonshot ideas that go crazy. So, you know, I learned a lot through that fundraising process. And we ended up getting super, super lucky with our seed investor, Brett. He worked for it up to Mark Benioff for a long time. He knew this problem inside out. It's kind of known as like the king of sales ops in Silicon Valley.

And he'd invested in Guru and Outreach and Pendo and a lot of other kind of these great SaaS companies. So when he decided to take a bet on us, we got super lucky and ended up going there, taking that capital and starting to build the business. And, you know, in retrospect, I think right now, this market, for those of you that aren't familiar, is like basically the frothiest market there's ever been in capital. Like people are raising like seeds of like $10 million, $15 million with no product, no team, just on like these ideas. And frankly, We always hear that, by the way, like, you know, from an East Coast standpoint, right? You always hear somebody meet somebody in a bar in San Francisco.

They write their business plan on the back of a fucking napkin. And somebody's like, oh, that sounds fantastic. Here's $20 million. It's like, it can't be that easy. Like, there's no way. But it definitely wasn't that easy for me. And I think like, you know, there's a lot of things at play there that we don't need to dive into too much. Like gender dynamics, like there's just very few women in the space. And I think there's a lot of just, you know, my style is different than your typical like Stanford dropout that has a robotics and like, you know, double PhD in data science that now is coming up with a robot, right? Like that's a very different pitch than like, hey, I felt this problem firsthand.

Here's a pretty, it seems like a pretty obvious solution. Like, let's just put the information where people work and that way they can learn as they work. So anyway, so with that, you know, for us, it was definitely like her, but it wasn't that hard. I will say like, we got pretty lucky between like a couple introductions to find the investors we had. But this round was kind of different, you know, over the last year, the good news about only having $2 million, which seems like a lot when you don't know what $2 million is when you're building a team and building a go to market strategy. That's really not that much when you're looking at 50 grand here for conference, 50 grand there. But it forced us to take very calculated bets.

And frankly, like if I'd had, if I had to go over and do it all over again, and if any of you guys are thinking of starting a business, like take more than what you think you need. So if you need, if you think you need to take three, because you're, it's always going to take longer, but don't take six, don't take seven. Because I think by not having a lot, it forced us to be really, really smart about who we hired and where we spent our money and just not just take bets left and right. Until we really felt like we found our motion from a go to market standpoint, our ICP, from a product standpoint. And basically, Zara and I invested all of our time into like making our initial customers happy, because that was also a big difference, right?

You see these repeat co-found or repeat founders that go on to build their second, third business. The biggest benefit they have is they have this massive network of all these other CEOs and people in the network that can be their first buyers. We didn't have that, like our first 40 customers, one, I closed them myself and I did have background in sales. Lots of your training helped me with that, but like learning how to sell was like probably one of the best lessons I've had in life, both for fundraising, lots of analogies there, but also in terms of really understanding our customer needs. But I basically like that was paid two years of product research, right? And because all of our customers were truly ground up, they were only buying because they really felt like our solution could fit their needs.

They were trying to give me, their buddy, you know, a favor by buying it. And so we learned a lot about that. And so, you know, over the last year, we had a lot of success. We grew a ton with our customer base. We brought on some phenomenal logos. We were finally getting to the point where it's just like, you know, like I felt confident that we were ready to really start scaling as a business. But even with that confidence going into this fundraise, like I didn't think it was going to be as emotionally or mentally challenging as it was. And frankly, like we had the numbers, we had plenty of inbound interests, you know, Frank, compared to a lot of stories I hear, our series A was actually very smooth and very easy.

But I think for me, going back to like, oh, do you want a boss and like what kind of VC, like there are certain tiers of VCs where they're not going to get out of bed for under a future $10 billion valuation, right? I mean, just to put it in perspective, like you don't raise a series A unless there is a real possible path to a billion dollar valuation, which, you know, had you told me that five years ago that I'd be raising that, I'm like, what could I possibly think of that has that potential, you know? And now I see it, frankly, like I see that path and I think now it's obsessed to execute on it. But for me, on a personal level, connecting to the idea like, oh, you're like, are you ready to take this step?

Like, are you ready to start building that kind of company, right? And what does your personal life become? What does your professional, you know, it's just, there was a lot of questions and then it's, well, what kind of partner is going to be the best? Because, you know, it's easy to get really excited about these big name VCs where you get the hot press releases and you get that name. But I want them to feel excited if we get anywhere close to a billion dollar valuation, let alone, you know, more. I want to feel like we're really succeeding in the way. And what I learned from our first round of investors is they were so patient and so helpful and like they really cared. And I really feel like they do care about us personally as well as professionally.

And actually that really came to light because, so we ended up signing our term sheet probably a month before we announced. So we just announced last week, but that day was both, you know, raising a series A for Zari and I was arguably the biggest professional accomplishment of our lifetimes. And something that we had worked so hard and it was just exhausting in the process. I led most of the fundraise, but it's exhausting because the best way, the best analogy I can, there's two analogies I'll give. One, like the whole fundraising process where you're talking to a lot of VCs, it's almost like a real life game, The Bachelor. And I don't watch The Bachelor, but the best analogy is just like you're talking to all these people at once.

And there's definitely some that you like feel like a better connection with in terms of the value they'll provide to you and alignment. But at the same time, like you don't know yet if you're going to get picked by them with the term sheet or vice versa. And so you kind of need to keep your leads warm. And so it's just a, it's a complex game is the best way I can describe it. And then at the same time, every single call you go into is like the biggest interview of your life in terms of like the level of preparation that you need to have, knowing everything inside out about your business. And like I said, you know, we were in a position where our numbers were really strong, but knowing the market, knowing the competitive landscape, like how are we going to position against this?

Like the questions just, they're really trying to validate, like, can we become the market leader in our space that has hundreds of players? And so it's like the biggest interview of your, of your life, every single call. And you're having four to five back to back days on end while you're trying to keep the business afloat. And that was like Q4 for us. And we had these huge deals in place, et cetera. And yeah, so it was just, it was just a very exhausting piece. And at the end, you're asking them for 12 million. Well, we were asking for eight, but we ended up getting 12, but you're asking them not just for a job, but like, Hey, by the way, give you $12 million. Right. So it's just the whole, you know, game.

And I'm sure once you go through it a few times and I already felt more comfortable, you know, after every call, but it's definitely, it's a unique experience is what I'll say. And I think sales prepared me more than anything for it. I was going to say, you know, part of that, I mean, it's your biggest sales job is your biggest interview. It's, it's all that stuff and the scrutiny, especially coming from an industry that is very used to beating the shit out of pretty much anybody who comes in front of them with an idea. Because I get, you got to imagine they're probably getting pitched a thousand ideas a week at that point. So even to get to the table, to have that conversation is accomplishment.

And then to stay in that conversation for more than five minutes before they're like, nah, this ain't worth it. Peace. Right. How much, how much rejection, and you don't have to name names or anything, but how much rejection did you get? And how did that impact kind of your psyche as far as the next meeting and the next meeting and the next meeting? Did you get a lot of positive, well, I guess, did you get a lot of positive reinforcement that you were moving in the right direction or did you get a lot of rejection and how did you handle that? We were pretty fortunate in the sense that we got a lot of positive reinforcement when it came down to the finish line. We didn't have like 12 term sheets like you hear of people nowadays, especially I think partly because of the caliber of investors we were going after, pretty tier ones across the board.

But part of it was like, we just wanted to get in front of them because most of them are really more Series B, Series C, Series D investors, but you want to start building that relationship now. But we were getting, frankly, some really good positive reinforcement throughout. And obviously, at the end, you start getting rejections. And for us, like the number one rejection we got was like, there are so many other solutions that, you know, and you're seeing the enablement space, Highspot just built an LMS, right? And there are CMS and like, we don't consider Highspot a competitor, but to the investor that doesn't know the business as much, it's like, well, you know, now are you competing against?

And then people are like, well, can Salesforce just build this? And so you're seeing like the overall landscape. So the number one rejection we had is like, it's too early to make the bet that you guys are going to become the market leader. Like we want to see you guys close more of these Ubers and Databricks and Snowflakes of the world to be able to really prove out that, you know, you guys have built really the winning, unique solution in the market space. But what I was going to say earlier, too, is, you know, the day that we were supposed to close our series A, my co-founder's little brother passed away unexpectedly that morning. Oh, fuck. And so when you think about perspective, like that was the call I woke up to at 5 a.m.

on the day that's supposed to be the biggest day, you know, of arguably one of the biggest day of both of our lives in terms of like accomplishment. And then, you know, when you think about the perspective that brings to everything, like who gives a shit, right? And that's the thing, like you and I have talked on other podcasts, like I, I, I'm not a prior, I have a hard time getting in touch with those kinds of feelings, but like, it was like my entire body let go that day, you know, and it was just, I think it was just a really big wake up call around like, you know, all this is so important and we're going to keep driving, but like, you know, your family and what are the things that matter?

And I'm just like balancing all that in the process. And then like, you know, obviously she had to be with her family for the, for the weeks afterwards. And so then I had to focus on her side of the business. And so, you know, all that to say, like, it's really excited to get excited by the announcement. And I really genuinely am about the path forward and there's a lot going on, but it's, I think behind the scenes, there's often a lot more that's happening. And so to your point, those rejections, right. Luckily at that point, we'd already kind of made the decision to close, but along the way, those rejections that do happen, like it's really important. To like separate your identity from that.

And like, understand, like, this is a rejection of the business, not you personally, but at the same time, when it comes to fundraising, whatever investor will tell you is like the number one bet they're making is on the founder. Right. And so that's kind of like hard to digest as well. When you're thinking about like, well, how should I have shown up? Should I have shown up differently? You know, so there's a lot of things that kind of play with anxiety along the way that you just over time start building, you know, a muscle. Or a resilience to it, right? I mean, because I have a hard time to that point exactly believing that you can't take it personal because it is your idea. They are investing in you, right?

And the numbers and the metrics and all that other stuff. But, you know, look, there's been plenty of like, you know, Chris and our team and everything else, even with customers, you know, we evaluate them. Are they good people? Right. And I don't give a shit how much money you have. I don't give a shit if you're a douchebag or if you if you suck or if, you know, whatever, I'm not going to take money from you. So I'm, you know, everybody is evaluating it from a personal standpoint. And I got to imagine that VCs, if I'm about to cash over, you know, right over a chat, I got to like the person, even if their idea is bananas, if I think they're a jerk. You know what I mean? I watch it all the time on Shark Tank, right?

You see the founders. They're like, yeah, we'll give you money, but you have to leave or you have to have that partner because I like the kid who did the pitch. I don't like you. You stay behind the scenes. That kid is the one we're investing in. And that matters. They're so like, I got to imagine that those, you know, I hear founders getting rejected hundred and something times before they get that one yes that turns into the billion dollar idea. And it's like, man, getting rejected. I mean, look, sales is a rejection game. And I think like, I think it did train like to build more resilience. And to your point, like the rejection, it is personal, but like you, you don't really have, you can't afford the time to like sit there because then you've got these next couple of calls.

And like each one, you know, has the same weight as the last one. And so it is a, it is a balance of like, and actually the six weeks leading up to the fundraise, I really invested in my personal health. Like I actually, my, all my parents live in the mountains, but that like, I was working out, like almost, I was like going to beach and like doing yoga and like working out. And I was like, how do I make sure that like my mental health and my physical health going into this phase. And I really think life goes through cycles because when I was during, when I was fundraising, I thought I was like, I'm going to keep working out. I didn't work out once. I was eating, like literally I was picking up McDonald's at night because I was so lazy.

Like I, there's only so much energy I'd left at the end of the day to actually, you know, knowing I had to do it all over again the next day. But I think the mental prep going into it, the physical health I had going into it, like I was starting out like an eight or nine. So even going down to four, I was okay. But, but you, I think just with everything, just like in sales, like when you're an SDR, like those first rejections are disappointing. And then like, by the time you've gotten a number of yeses and you've got brought that confidence into your game, like I knew that we had a business that was worth funding. And I think like that was the biggest mental game for me. It's like, I knew that I wouldn't be able to convince other people that this was a business worth investing in unless I didn't truly believe in it myself.

And that was a lot of the mental prep that I did beforehand. It's like, do I really think that I've got it? Like, do I know what I need to do to grow this business and who I need on my team and what product we need to build and what kind of customers we want to go after. And so that work I did ahead of time. And I think that's just like preparing for like that big pitch meeting when you're in a sales deal, right? If you know that company's K1 inside out and you know everything that you need to know about the company, it's just a completely different conversation you're having. Yeah, and that confidence. I mean, I tell people this all the time. You know, you can't, I don't think you can be truly successful in sales specifically unless you believe in what you do, right?

If you don't believe it, because I genuinely believe that sales is the transfer of enthusiasm. You know what I mean? Like, I believe that strongly in what I do, that all I got to do is transfer that over to you. And now as long as, and if you fit the profile, right? That's why it's kind of funny with engineering founders. You know, a lot of people say, oh, I'm not in sales. It's like, no, you are. Because take the dorkiest, nerdiest, you know, most introverted engineer you've ever met in your life and ask them when was the last time they built something or created something or solved a problem. And watch them light up like a Christmas tree to explain it to you. And all of a sudden you're sitting there being, man, that sounds like a fucking great job.

Like, can I have one of those? Like, you're selling. It's just, it's just the word sales has such a negative connotation to it. It's like, people are just like, ew, no, that's not me. But it is. And it's in every stage of life. And it's, it's, it's a lot easier when you believe in yourself and what you, and what you're representing. Now, for you, I think that, and for somebody like you and me, like, I started this company, I, I, I was this company for a while because it was, so it was, it was impossible for me not to believe in it. Because if I didn't believe in myself, what the hell am I doing, right? And same thing for you, you started this and you saw the problem and you got the validation from customers and those type of things to kind of build on that confidence belief that had to have come through on your, on your kind of pitches to these VCs.

And I think that point you make about believing in yourself, like that was like, frankly, that's probably what I've struggled with the most throughout this, you know, because I don't have the profile of every other founder out there. And I'm like, you know, you can't not second guess yourself every step of the way. And like in the initial phase of the company, when it's just an idea and you're first getting your, you know, your first couple of customers, and we were getting so much rejection at the time, like in terms of just the sales, the sales process, you know, at the time it was just waking up, like, I'm not crazy, right? Like there's something here, right? Like literally every single day, we're just like, and luckily having a co-founder, like when I was feeling low, she was feeling high and vice versa.

And like, we kind of balance each other out. And now we have like an entire team and everyone like believes in it so much. And we have all these amazing customers that are out there like spreading the word. And so it's now like my insecurities are less about like, is there a need in the market? It's like, okay, how do I not F it up from here? Basically, it's just like, okay, what, how do we grow the business from here? Who are the team members that we need? How do we scale this business? How do we market it? How do we price it? How do we package it? What features do we build to go from here and like really start dominating the market? And so like the business is going to evolve over time. But I really think it's important to recognize that like your growth as a person needs to exceed the growth rate of your business.

And I say this all the time because like there are a few truths that I believe as much as that. And like, that's the same thing as your role, whatever promotion you're getting, whatever like new kinds of customers are going after, like your growth as a person, your self-confidence, your sense of self-worth, like your discipline and your personal life, your ability to like make time for your family and your friends. And like figure out how to do that with work needs to be your first priority, because that is what fuels your ability to then scale in your role, scale in your, your growth. And like for me to show up as a leader now that the team needs with 60 people across multiple time zones, multiple countries, customers that have thousands of users, it's very different than when three years ago I was trying to find the first customer that would buy 10 licenses.

Right. Right. And so it's just that constant, you know, investment that you need to continue to reinvest and never think that you've hit that plateau because, well, now my role is different and it's reinventing itself constantly. Yeah. I mean, it's funny. It's funny you bring that up because I'm in a little bit of weird space right now. Myself from a founder standpoint, trying to figure out what that next growth stage is for me personally, as it, as it relates to me, but also the business because, you know, back in January, unfortunately, my dad passed and I had to take three weeks. Like I literally just called Chris and I was like, look, clear my calendar for three weeks. I don't know when I'm coming back, but I know I'm jacked up with clients.

I know just cancel everything and whatever. And I unplugged for three straight weeks. Right. And I came back and the business was running like a drum. It was like clients were happy. Revenue was there. The team was cranking. And honestly, Melanie, for the first time in 25, six years of me working specifically 10 with this, it was the first time that I realized that it wasn't about me. Well, like I didn't have to be the main revenue generator for this business to run because I've been working, I mean, similar, you know, from a founder standpoint, I don't know, 15, 16 hours a day, six, seven days a week for with this business, at least eight, nine years. And because the whole idea was, all right, I got to generate.

At first, I just wanted to be me. I just wanted to be a consultant. But then I was like opportunistic and all this shit. And oh, my God, look at the opportunity here. But then I was like, all right, I know I can't be professional services for the rest of my life because that's all 100% me and I don't want to hire a whole shitload of people. So let me start trying to invest in on-demand online stuff to create an annuity. And now we're at that point where, you know, you always talk about the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. And I always joked with myself like, oh, yeah, no, I see it. And I never saw it. I was like, it was so faint. You know what I mean? It was like, I mean, and I thank God for COVID in a lot of ways.

And I feel horrible for all the devastation that it's caused in so many ways. But for me personally, it's been a blessing because it forced me to get off of an airplane, which going back to your point of family and priorities and those type of things was a huge priority for me. And I never saw myself really getting off without that happening. And then with my dad passing, the silver lining was it gave me another milestone to say, well, shit, now what? Right. So I'm actually in this journey now for the next I don't know how long. I'm not going to put a timestamp on it to figure out, like, what do I want to do now? Like, how do I stay? How does my growth outpace, to your point, the growth of the business?

And I actually think that the growth of my business right now is outpacing my personal growth because I've been such an execution artist for the past 10 years. I've been head down. I mean, my title is CEO. It might as well be chief training officer because that's all I'm fucking done, right? And so, but now I'm kind of like, all right, well, what does that mean? You know what I mean? And so I think it's a very valid point of you've got to find that thing that brings you to that next level so that you can bring your company to the next level. And if you're floundering with it, and there's nothing wrong with taking a sabbatical, thinking it through for a couple of months, whatever the hell you need to do.

But you need to ultimately get back into that growth mindset for yourself, right? All right, this conversation is already getting good. Building a team, designing a go-to-market strategy, funding decisions, and hiring choices. Melanie's had a really unique experience building Speckett into the well-known solution that it is today. The recent Series A funding puts Speckett in a unique position to impact millions of sales professionals in the coming months, changing the way they learn in the moment. All right, let's talk about what happened at JBSales lately. We want to hear your sales wins. That's right. Reach out to me today at james at jbarrows.com to share a story of how you won your latest deal.

We want to feature you in the next Make It Happen Mondays episode. Today, we're giving a big shout out to our friends at CMIT. As JBSales members, they saw a 500K increase in sales in just one month. In a 30-day window, they closed 82 new opportunities and pulled them across the finish line. Way to go, CMIT. Keep it going. Are you looking to build specific sales skills? Well, you can develop the skills that you need improvement on as a JBSales member. Want to get better at video? We have tons of content in JBSales that will help you get better at video. Need to be a better cold caller? Simply search cold calling and watch as the content boosts your cold calling skills. Whatever you need, you can find improvement right here in JBSales.

Join us today at ondemand.jbarrows.com. Let's hop back in with Melanie and JB to learn more. And I have a question for you. I'm going to flip it. Please. Yeah, yeah. Interviewing the role here. When's the last time that you, like, completely on your own, went and spent like three to four to five days, like, on your own, disconnected in nature? I've never done it. I've never. Well, let me clarify that for a second. Without my family, without my daughter and my wife? Without your family, on your own. Never. I find a weekend here or there to, you know, but it's never been just to completely unplug. I mean, with Aruba. So we were down in Aruba for January and February. God bless my wife for doing that.

And I will say that was probably the most mentally healthy place, as stressful and as horrible as what I was trying to deal with with my dad. It was the most mentally freeing that I've had in a long, because I'd wake up in the morning, I'd take a walk to the beach, I'd sit on a pier. You know what I mean? I'd just kind of stare out, talking to my dad, you know, that type of stuff. And, you know, and I don't know what I'm searching for. I mean, people search for certain things. They search for signs. They search for purpose. They search for all these things. I don't know really what I was searching for other than just to let my brain take a deep breath. Because I haven't, I mean, for me, you know, I haven't really ever had a chance to really take a step back and think, you know, and like be work on the business instead of in the business.

I've always been in the business. I've always been, you know, executing, driving, going, going, going. And, you know, my strategy is me sitting in my hot tub at 630 at night, stoned out of my mind, calling Chris up, saying, hey, here's a good idea. What do you think of that? And he'd been like, actually, that's fucking brilliant, John. We need more of you. Like Chris even said it during my time when I did have time, because even when I went back to Aruba, I still was unplugged. But then I got to thinking and I start, would start calling Chris with, hey, what about this? And what about this? And he's like, Jesus Christ, dude, this is why we need you to stop fucking training. Because, you know, if you have a day to think, all of a sudden, all this shit comes out of your brain.

He's like, think about if you had a month, think about it if you stopped and all you had to do was think. And I'm like, and I thought about it and I'm like, who fucking knows? Because I don't know about you, but, you know, I have a little bit of an imposter syndrome, you know, because I didn't go one of those super smart schools. You know what I mean? I'm not the smartest kid out there. You know, my EQ is way higher than my IQ is. And a lot of times I'll be sitting at the table with all these, you know, super smart, important, you know, rich, whatever people. And I'm like, fuck, you know, A, do I want to be around these people? Usually the answer to that one's no. But B, like, do I belong at this table?

And I know I do. I can hold my own with anybody. But there is, I have this inherent, you know, imposter syndrome of like, is this worth it? Is it, you know, and it's hard. I've struggled with it, like the majority of my life. That's why I don't think I'm a multimillionaire right now. Because I do believe that if Chris and I did live in San Francisco and came up with these ideas and had some of those connections that we have now. I mean, we have multimillion dollar ideas that we've let go and we've seen get funding. And, but it's this limiting mindset. It's this imposter syndrome. And so I'm struggling with all that right now, trying to figure out what does that mean? Even though some would say I'm pretty top of my game when it comes to this space, at least.

I mean, fucking lead IQ just put out the 16 bracket for the, you know, top, you know, they put me up as number one. I'm like, fucking, I hate these. But, you know, there's proof points out there. You press that, you press. Yeah, but, you know, but it's one of those things. It's like, I've never really put myself in that, in those shoes. And now I think I kind of have to because of the influence we now have, the impact we can now have. And I genuinely believe that if you get to a point where you can have impact, and you can't, and you do have a voice, that you should use it for good. And you should use it to keep lifting other people up. And I just got to figure out what that is for me in the next stage here.

A couple things that popped up. The first one about the IQ versus EQ. I think there's, I think for a long time there was like this wrong association that like to be a genius, you have to have high IQ. I think there's multiple types of geniuses. Like, I actually think, and I only really recognize that, I'd say, in the last few months where I had this aha moment. But I actually think my greatest strength as like a CEO and company builder is actually my creativity. Creativity when it comes to ideas and problem solving. And that I got from my mom. She's an artist, right? And for so long, I felt like, oh, no way. She taught art therapy. So me, I talk science and art. My dad was an electrical engineer, PhD, top of, you know, like super, like literally one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life.

My mom, super smart too, but she went art and she got two masters, one in art therapy. And so I get my creative from her and I get my logic from him. And it's, I've always said I'm a pretty interesting mix of the both of them. Me too. My dad was like in just like finance, most of his career. It's funny because I've always like lean on him whenever I had to make like career decisions or business decisions, even though my mom did have a long career before she went full-time mom and art. But I really think like my uniqueness as a CEO, because like is truly like my creativity when it comes to brand and ideas and being able to like dream up like, hey, we need to have a mascot. And it's going to be an octopus to represent our product.

And like now our customers are writing us all the time. So, you know, one, I, you know, if you're out there and you're one of those people that just kind of thinks about like, oh, I don't have like this high level IQ compared to your peers. Like, I think creativity is actually like one of the greatest strengths you can possibly have. So like lean into that as much as possible. But the reason I asked you about disconnecting is because I hadn't either. Like I had never just like done my own thing and like just completely disconnected. And last August, I planned my first vacation since starting SpecX. We finally, to your point, have like at the time we had 25 people. I was about to have our new sales leader join, who, by the way, was the best decision I've ever made on the business.

One of them at least. But I hadn't taken a vacation so long and I could just feel my energy starting to drain. I'm like, I got to go disconnect. And so I was supposed to go home, but because of COVID, I couldn't. And so then I was planning to go to San Francisco, like it just, I was like really bummed out because I was so excited about this vacation. And I sat down one night and I'm like, hold on. Like, what am I really trying to accomplish here? Like, I feel like I need to just separate myself from the business. Like, I need to like cleanse from like a lot of these just like doubts and all the stuff that was happening. And so I wrote down a bucket list and I live in Denver, Colorado, and I literally, I wrote that down Wednesday and Friday afternoon I took off and I took a five day road trip on my own completely, which I'd never done.

And went to Moab, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Telluride, Crested Butte, and basically just hiked and like immerse myself like in nature and camps and stuff. And like, one, it was awesome because I, like, I could not connect to my email or to my Slack or whatever it was if I tried. So it was like almost like a forced disconnect. And like, I wasn't talking about it. And by the way, I love talking to friends, family, therapist, you name it, around your problems. But it was the first time that it forced me to just like really do that introspection. And out of that came so much clarity for me. And like, it shocked me. Like, I can't put a monetary value on that trip. Like, I can't. It would be absurd if I tried to because of how big of an impact I think it had on my own development.

Both in my personal life in terms of relationships, but also we actually, like the one theme that kept coming back to me during that trip, we used to have this framing product. And it's because there's other SMB players in the space that had this framing product. And like, we just like kept running with it, even though like we knew that it wasn't really resulting, but the analytics showed it. Like there was all these signs, but like until I disconnected and I was able to like all of a sudden, like it's like the clarity and how everything fit into a puzzle. And I was like, wait, we need to let go of this framing product. Like no company that we're trying to go after is going to buy this framing product.

It's just not our business model. That's not how our buyer, our sales app, sales enable people evaluate software. And we're not a Zoom. We're not a Slack that has this immediate inherent value with just two users. And I came back and I wrote our team a super long email and I was like, don't worry, I actually disconnected, but here's what I got. And everyone agreed, we got rid of it. And it's truly one of the best decisions we've made for the business. Like our revenue has truly catapulted since because like we really focused on figuring out like our sales motion for that mid-market and enterprise. We still have the SMB motion and like our SMB customer sprinkler, some of our highest like usage in terms of analytics.

But even then, they're happy with doing a demo and then talking to RCS and being like, great, I'm ready to buy versus this freemium that was just slowing down our sales process like crazy, adding all this board in on our product team. And so I need all that to say, like, I have committed to myself and I will hold you to it the next time I come on this, hopefully a year from now, that every summer I'm going to take maybe not five days, but at least four days truly solo on my own. And I think nature and like specifically is the important factor there because I wasn't surrounded by like restaurants and all this stuff. And granted, like I did say a couple of nights in hotels, but like when you're surrounded by arches and by these little natural parks, and I know you like to roger too, like you can't help but feel small.

And like, because you feel so small, your problems, these problems that like in the day to day of your life, like just feel like they're the most anxiety driving, like big problems that are just like, oh my gosh, these are insurmountable. How are we going to get over this? Like whatever you're dealing with feels so overbearing, but all of a sudden, like a six hour drive into the desert, all of a sudden they felt microscopic, you know? And so I think that's one of the biggest lessons I've learned in life is just how important it is to give yourself that gift of true self-reflection and introspection. And I think, you know, nature is the best way to do that for what it's worth. No, I think it's the two.

I mean, it wasn't by myself, but I will say I remember after my first startup, well, no, midway through my first startup with Chris. So we started, he started Thrive Networks. I jumped on board. I was number four, right? And when I tell you again, 17 hours a day, seven days a week, right? I was the sales and marketing team, you know, with everybody else, no money at all. So I was going to every networking event I could go to, every networking group I could belong to, making as many cold calls as I could, driving around Massachusetts like you read about, right? And I vividly remember almost having a, you know, a nervous and a mental breakdown. And I went into Chris and the other two founders and I said, guys, I got to go.

And they're like, what? And I had just broken up. And that was the other thing. Like I had just, my first fiance had broken up with me. And so, oh my God, like, you know, I'm devastated. I was with her for seven years and holy shit and all this other stuff. And I went to him, I was like, I got to go. And they were like, well, what do you mean? I'm like, I have to leave. And let me put it this way. If you guys let me, I'll probably come back. But if you don't, I'm not coming back because I'm leaving either way. So we can do this easy or hard, right? And they were like, well, I'm like, I need three weeks. And they're like, well, why don't you take a week now? And then a week, you know, and I go, no, no, no, no.

I'm leaving for three weeks. You guys tell me whether you want me to come back or not. And they were, they knew, they saw it in me that I had, I wasn't joking. And I remember sitting there and I was toying around with doing this trip, you know, through Europe and backpacking, you know, kind of that fantasy. But I was like, you know what? I'd never, I haven't seen this country yet. I mean, I had seen, I'd been to certain states and that type of stuff, but I'm like, I haven't seen this country yet. And so, but to me, I thought like a cross-country trip would be better with a partner, right? Like backpacking through Europe, I thought was kind of do by yourself and explore and do some really random shit, right?

Whereas going through this country, I felt like I needed a partner. And I vividly remember sitting at a bar with my buddy, you know, who at the time had a side job, side hustle and he was in a band. And I was like, man, I'd love to go with somebody, but I just don't, I don't know who could take off three weeks and just come with me. And he goes, well, shit, I could, but I don't have any money. And I did the quick calculation in my head and I was like, it's not going to cost me that much more money to bring you with me. It's a little, you know, double the food, double the booze. But other than that, you know, whatever was still in the car and that type of stuff. And I was like, if I paid for it, would you come with me?

And he goes, well, yeah. And at that moment I said, all right, let's go. And he goes, what? I go, we're driving to your house. We're going to pack the car with your shit and we're going to drive to my house. We're going to pack the car with my shit. We're getting the fuck out of here. And he's like, are you serious right now? I'm like, yep. And we did. We drove all the way across country and came back. And when I tell you, we didn't go, I didn't go to cleanse. I didn't go to, I just knew I needed to be away. And when I came back, I felt a thousand times better. I met my wife and she was like, oh, you're not ready yet. It's too soon. I go, no, no, no. You don't understand that. If I didn't take that trip.

Yeah, you're right. I wouldn't be ready. In years. But I took that trip and I'm, that is, that is now in the past. Like that is, I have reconciled all of that and I am ready for my future. Right. And, and, you know, things worked out. And then this past, you know, RV trip this past year with my wife and daughter, that was also going in. That was a little bit more nature oriented, going to Yellowstone, going to those types of things. And I agree with you that nature has a, a weird effect, um, on reconnecting and, and re and realizing what's important. And I think COVID did too. I think COVID has helped a lot of people refocus on what's important in a lot of ways, um, and reassess their kind of current lifestyle, you know what I mean?

Current everything. And so I hope people are taking this as an opportunity to take a step back and, and kind of reset priorities, reset expectations on themselves so that they can, you know, start moving forward in a more positive way. Yeah. But yeah, it's a, it's a journey if nothing else. Right. Love that. I love that. And Hey, this, this podcast is typical of you because we went on, but at the end of the day though, like, I think these are, but this is the kind, I think, you know, as a founder, as a CEO, someone that's aspiring to like become, you know, a better version of themselves and like build the, like, to your point, going back to like the resilience piece, like, I think that's what people kind of don't fully recognize of like just the mental tool it takes to be a leader.

And like in a leader, yes, CEOs and founders is one thing, but like SDR managers, like team leads, like sales, like it's just a big mental burden. And I think like, for me, the biggest challenge of really, or what I've had to get really good at as a CEO is just being able to make really fast decisions and be able to like manage my emotions in a way that I've never done before. Because, you know, I actually, small anecdote, but the, the night we signed our, no, a few nights after we signed our series A, I, um, one of my coaches records our sessions and I had this session from December 20, I mean, November, 2019, it was right after green source. And that's when we were still like, I, I was still our only salesperson.

I had no account executives. We just lost this huge account Twilio. And I was like, so he recorded this session that we did. And I actually went back cause he, he guides me through meditations and I'm like, I just really want to like be guided through meditation right now. So I went back to find it, but then I ended up listening to this session that we had, which I'd never done before. Um, and I'm really grateful that I have it. And I was like at such a low, like I literally talked about how I was like back to your point, like on planes, nonstop. And like, I just spent Santa Barbara and then I had dream force and like at dream force, I'm like trying to like maximize my time with customers or prospects.

And then I'm also trying to be at the booth at like 8am. And then I'm also trying to be on my team and like all this stuff. And like, I was running on just like no energy, no sleep, just so exhausted, but having to show up for all these, like seven speaking sessions, having to show up and like be all energized. And, you know, I was talking to him about how like the day before dream force, we like this VP of sales had turned me down and it was like on a Saturday. And it was the first time that I'd gotten really, really shitty news in a safe space. Cause I was at my friend's house on the couch, he has to call me. I thought we were going to get him at the, you'll learn life happens for a reason.

I wouldn't replace her or current VP of sales for, for anything, but like I broke down and like, I actually cried for the first time and we were playing chess of all things. I don't know why that felt like the right activity. Look to queen seven. I realized is like, how does I get such bad news on a regular basis? Like, well, frankly, to be honest, not that much nowadays, but at the time, like just from a day to day, like I'd go from like, I just got an off a call, like the week before, like we'd done this phenomenal demo of like this huge potential deal. And then for my two minutes before this next big demo, I checked my email, got the email from Twilio that we'd like lost the deal. And I was just devastated.

Cause like I told our investors about it. Like at the time it was like our, one of our first big tech logos. And I have to go into this next demo and like show up the right, right way, even though like deep down, I'm just like literally crevassing. And then right after that, I wake up to, I checked my email again. And it was like one of our current customers that wanted to expand by like three X they're currently ARR. And so in that two hour timeframe, like the emotional rollercoaster that I wrote, and then I'm like, wait, I didn't even process how upset I am about this like deal that we lost. And then I have to go to my team and everyone else is like as excited, but I have to show up, I can't be like, man, this sucks.

I have to be like, Hey guys, the fact that we made it this far is so exciting. We've got all these other deals, you know, just like, you have to deliver the news in this very, you know, enthusiastic way. And then, you know, and then three more things happened that day before I got home. And so I never really processed those emotions the way I needed to. And so it's so rare that I give myself a space to like really take in that time and like, to like really like let my body just like feel those emotions. And so anyway, long-winded thing to say that I think the hardest thing about becoming a leader and like really rising in your career is just learning to balance all those different emotions and that rollercoaster.

And that's why I think it is so important for leaders more than anyone out there to take that time off and to actually disconnect and to like, just give your heart the space to just like feel what it needs to feel at that point in time. Because most of the time we don't give ourselves that, that space. We can't like, you can't show up at your team and just be as devastated as they are. Like you have to show up a certain way. And like, you know, the pandemic and at the beginning of the pandemic, you know, I didn't know what was going to happen with our business. Right. But I had to show up and like, I ended up raising another million dollars in between because I was like, I do not want to have to make a single layoff or like these big cost cuts.

But you don't know all these budgets are freezing left and right. And so there's this, this weight that you carry as a leader of like wanting to protect your team, wanting to protect your, your company, et cetera. And oftentimes you put yourself last. And I think that's one of the biggest things that I'm trying to learn. Like I have to put myself first in order to be able to show up the way I need to for, for the rest of my team. Yeah. I think I, I, I, I mirror that and, and you know, that's why I told Chris and Megan, and it's funny, I, I almost feel bad right now, but I, I know I shouldn't that Chris is all in. Like he's super motivated because we have this new on demand and like the potential of it is massive.

Right. My team is all in because we're doing some great stuff and they're charging really hard. And I'm now like not the one leading that charge. I'm now in my head being like, I need to kind of take a step back here so I can take that next step forward. But I have the confidence now that my team can run it without me being there. And so I kind of told Chris, I go, I hope you guys don't mind, but it, I feel like this is going to be a little bit of like, you know, the summer of George, like the summer of John to say, like, I'm going to, I'm going to lead it like, you know, just the other day, um, because I've really been focusing on not training as much and, and really being selective and managing my calendar that way and whatever, you know, I, I had like, I don't know, two or three meetings, I had a team meeting and a few other things.

And I was done by five and I didn't have any real big projects to work on. I didn't have any tons of things to, you know, follow up on. And I was like, well, fuck, well, this is what like a quote unquote normal day feels like, you know? And I hadn't felt, I hadn't felt a normal day, at least from other people's perspective in, in over 20, 25 years. Right. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, and I don't know, I almost don't know what to do with myself. I'm like, so I had that day yesterday. I ended up live for the first time in so long. And like I shared, you know, two months ago, when Zari's little brother died, like she, you know, as expected, just completely, you know, spent the time with their family and our engineering and development teams, the majority of them are in Pakistan.

And so I was basically dealing with, you know, preparing for a service announcement, working with our, all of our U S teams, but then also working time zones. And frankly, we're going through just that period of scale with that comes growth pains that are completely natural at this stage. Um, but I was working early time zones, late time zones, just trying to like have that coverage and that reassurance. And frankly, you know, spending that time made me feel more confident that I ever have with our team on both ends, because just seeing to your point, like how these people showed up and like across the board, like it's, it was one of the most fulfilling and gratifying feelings, but I also, I wasn't able to work out.

I wasn't able to, you know, do all these, do all these things. And, you know, now she's, she's back. And yesterday, like my date, like, I just didn't have a meeting scheduled after five. And I'm like, what do I want to do? I went and got my nails done and I went to the mall because I haven't done any of those things in so long, you know? And it just, and it's funny because you feel this guilt sometimes almost. It's just like, wait, like, I shouldn't be doing this when your team's working. It's just like, no, like you need to do that. So you need to fill your own comp so that you can show up in a certain way and can find that, you know, find that strength. So I think that's part of the, this entire journey and like going back to the funding, like all of that is just a reflection of a lot of what we've talked about, like taking that time and like all those lessons that you're learning now that I'm learning now, I'm having to do that at the same time as I'm also figuring out like what's the right pricing and what's the next picture we've been doing?

All the details, right? Yeah. And what kind of investor we want? We don't want an asshole to be care about that. You know, it's just like, that's like, I feel like I've been in like this intense learning mode and it's not going to slow it down. And frankly, like every new challenge is a fun challenge now. I think like a lot of like my mentality is like, I just used to get so like despaired whenever we'd have a new challenge. It's like, oh my gosh, like now I'm like, now I trust our team. I know the company. I know where we're spending this money. So going back to your original question, like, how are we going to spend this money? Like I know the kind of sales people that we want to, that we want to have on the team.

I know the kinds of marketing strategies that I think are going to be effective to go after our market segment. I know the kind of intelligence we want to build into the software to make it more personalized, to take it to the next level. I know the kinds of organizations that we want to partner with and integrate with to create a more streamlined experience for the customer. You know, I know the kind of leadership team that I need to surround myself with to up-level me because I want to be challenged by the leadership team that we bring on. And so, you know, a lot of that clarity came from these months of preparation so that now I'm like, you know, it's going to be a very calculated approach, but all that self-reflection, that self-work, that perspective and everything that I've had to do at the same time, which is the exhausting part.

It's the last thing you want to do after a long day is like, all right, Melanie, now let's think about what you need to do. Yeah, exactly. I don't have, I don't have kids. I'm not married right now. And frankly, like that's been a part of my challenge too, which is like, I haven't really made time for a partner. And that's something that I am making more of an intention. Frankly, I felt pretty comfortable not doing it because I, one, that was just one ingredient and mix and I just did not have space for it, you know, just given the last couple of years. But, but now it's like, okay, part of that reflection is like, but I like, that is a big missing link in my life. You know, like that is something that I want to put more intention towards.

And so I think it's just a matter of like, really, I hate that word, but like be gentle with yourself and like in that journey of like what you're going to do and like where you're going to put your focus and like realizing that like one of the big reflections I actually had last summer is like, you can't have it all. I think for the long run, I always, I always held onto the idea that you had to pick and choose like, oh, well you can't have relationships and a professional life and this insane career. You can't have this and you can't have that. But I realized you can't have it all. You just might not be able to have it all at the same time. What I mean by that is like right now, this season has been like business for me a few months before, you know, the last few months.

Now I'm shifting towards like, yes, let's make the right investments, but actually, you know, the six months prior was really family during the summer. Yeah. I reconnected with my sisters and my parents in a way that I hadn't because of COVID and because of my professional career in a long time. So it's just like, kind of like realizing that like, you're going to have these seasons of life where you just need to focus your energy more in one place. And it's okay that other areas are going to go by the way fall. Like when I was preparing for a fundraise, I was not working the hours that I am currently because I knew that like, in order for me to show up the way I needed to for investors, I needed to be in the right mental state.

And I can't do that when I'm working a 16 hour day. Right. And so it's just a matter of like, kind of understanding that like, you just, you can't have it all, but you have to understand the cycles of life and like where you can allocate your energy and like, just don't be so freaking hard on yourself when you're realizing that like, okay, I'm not showing up as like the A star player. I was three months ago right now. I'm showing up as the A minus player, which is probably already 150% of the average player out there. And you know, you're, you're going to be just fine. Yeah. I've been doing a lot of, uh, talking with Morgan specifically about the difference between time management and energy management.

Right. And, and to, to focus your efforts on stuff that gives you energy, not sucks energy away. Cause if it gives you energy, fuck time management, I'll do it all day long. You know what I mean? But if it sucks, if it sucks energy away from you, cause you don't like doing it or it's draining or whatever, then you got to figure out how to flip that on its, on, on its head and take the other approach. Cause the more energy you get sucked out, the less effective you are. And then time management, everything else flows away. So that shift of mental and energy time, you know, managing that versus time, I think is more important. Cause I, I've always said, I don't believe, I don't really believe in the work-life balance.

I think it's actually a false narrative because what you're saying is by work-life balance, it says you work and then you live. Right. And to me, that's pretty damn depressing because we work at least a third of our lives. We sleep at least a third of our lives. So that means we only live a third of our lives. And to me, that's fucking depressing, you know? So like, I, I, I, I have to, you know, work them together. But, and to your point, sometimes, you know, it's all about the timing of the focus point. You know, for me, it used to be flying all over the world, you know, Monday through Friday, doing that, go, go, go, go, go. And then shutting off and then weekend with family. That was my time.

But now with, with being home, now it's five o'clock dinner. Now it's, you know what I mean? Take a walk at lunch. Now it's, you know, to bring my daughter to school every single day, which, you know, makes me happier than you could possibly imagine. So, you know, now I get, now again, for me on that journey, it's figuring out what is the work balance? When is it going to come back? And what am I going to be focusing on? One of those things that really energize you. I think that that's like a piece too. So like for a while I was like, oh, well, I have to sleep. I have to sleep. And granted, I'm still like, I'm not one of those people that can sleep five hours a night. Like I need six and a half to eight most nights.

Like that's what, what I eat for. But I realized like music energizes me, like spending time in nature energizes. Like it's finding like, what are those things that you can tap into that even when you're feeling exhausted, light you up. And like, so example, going to a show, I can feel so freaking tired before and every like rational, like if you're just looking at like your energy from a physical standpoint, like yeah, staying up late to go to a concert, for example, or, you know, whatever it is, is going to exhaust you. But on the flip side, like how music makes me like come alive. And like, I, like I carry that energy around for days. Like if I, if I go to good show, a good music concert, like I am great for like five days.

And so it's kind of finding like, where, where can you tap into that energy? And also like, what are some decisions? And that's a big piece too, like that you need to make, to make time for those things. Yes, indeed, man. Like, like you said, we could go in a million different directions. Um, but, uh, and we, we, we barely even touched on the actual topic that I, that I thought with, which is what are you going to do with the 12 million? Um, but, uh, but let's get into that later. Cause I think, um, you know, I'm, I am curious to, to see the next year, you know, let's definitely keep coming back year over year to see, I mean, we'll talk before then obviously, but, but to see, you know, the decisions that you made with that money and, and what good decisions, bad decisions and what's the next round look like and all that stuff, I'm super curious on that journey.

So, but, uh, as always love our conversation, um, any, uh, any, uh, so it's spec it, but where, where do you want people to go take a look at? Because I, I, you know, just for everybody listening, you know, the reason that Melanie and I click on, on this is because we both kind of see a very similar vision of, and we did when we first met each other of just in time learning of no more idiot like me sitting for a day, listening to me drone on, and then three months later, trying to figure out what the hell I told you it's, you're about to do something it's right there in front of you. You can learn it and apply it immediately. So, so with that, you know, where do you want, where do you want people to learn more about you, about spec it, about all that stuff?

Where do you want to point them? Yeah. I mean, about spec, not for spec it, we actually just acquired the.com shoot to accomplish. Nice. That was part of that money, right? .com or spec it.co, S-P-K-I-T. We primarily sell to like sales ops, sales enablement, sales teams looking to make their teams more productive and onboard their, you know, new employees faster by again, putting things like your sales methodology, JB training, et cetera, right there, right in Salesforce, right in email, right in outreach where the rep actually needs it so that you don't need to go looking for it. And with me, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. I share a lot of things there on Twitter too. They're not very active.

Melanie Flay, I always love connecting with other people that are passionate about, you know, sales and also entrepreneurship. So feel free to run your ideas by me. Awesome. Thank you, Melanie, so much for coming on board. I always appreciate our conversations. Me too. Thanks so much, John. Have a great one. You too. And everybody else, listen, hopefully you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. And you got something out there, got you to think a little bit differently or do something different or to at least take some learning lessons from two kind of founders who have gotten their asses kicked quite a bit, but been pretty fortunate along the way as well. So, and just like I always say at the end of every podcast here, you know, regardless of how your day went, if you're having a good day, bad day, if you're having one of those really stressful days, whatever it is, and you can't see your way out of it, just go make somebody smile.

Because if you make somebody smile, you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that right now. So thank you all for listening and I will see y'all on the flip side. Cheers. All right, y'all. That's a wrap. Melanie and JB have covered a ton of ground. Notice how their backgrounds and life experiences and families impact their decision. We must find that comfortable integration between work and life. Both Melanie and John realize the importance of disconnecting. Sometimes being alone can help you grow internally. The two of them have both had instances where reflection has caused their mentalities to change and evolve. One of the best decisions that you'll ever make for your business is the decision to take the time that you need to be at your best.

Some closing notes for you here. We're pumped to be able to drive sales value to you via Instagram. So follow us today at JB sales training, all one word and get daily tips and insights that will help you grow as a sales professional. Sharing this episode with your network is a great way to build your brand and provide valuable insights to your network that they'll appreciate. So share this knowledge and feel free to tag us in your social posts. We support your attempts to grow a strong following and become a valuable resource in your industry. Lastly, we have some big changes coming up for the JB sales members. So there's never been a better time to join us and start learning alongside your peers and other leaders in the space.

Become a member today at on demand dot j barrows dot com. We'll see you next week, everyone, when we bring in another stellar guests with some great insights that will help you sell better.