234: Shelly Gupta Correa on a Journey of Career Change at 30 and Flexibility in Life

Hey everybody, so what you're about to listen to is a podcast here with Shelly Correa, who is our new director of training. We brought her on board recently and really high hopes for her. She's just a great person. She has a great story too. So what I wanted to dig in with this one is what is her story? You know, her parents came over from India, they were entrepreneurs themselves, the values that they instilled in her, her journey is a really, really interesting one. And I hope you all can pick up some stuff that, that relates to your journey or gives you some things to think about here on how to make decisions and how to look at risk and everything else. So hope you enjoy it. Have a great one.

What's popping y'all? It's your man, James. Say What Sales Buckley. And this is your weekly Make It Happen Monday's episode with your host, John Barrows. Huge shout out to our partners, Sales Loft, Proposify, Chili Piper, Gong, Zoom Info, Vidyard and Salesforce Sales Cloud. These companies are great people to work with. They truly care about elevating the sales profession. So be sure you check them out when you're building your sales stack. Let's give it to John to intro someone. I just know you guys are going to love. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrows. Make It Happen Monday. Hopefully you had a fantastic weekend. Mine was pretty decent. Weather was good. My attic is coming along.

And I am excited to have this conversation for more reasons than one. So I would like to introduce to our audience, our newest director of training, Shelly Correa. How are you, Shelly? Hello. I'm very excited to be here today. Yeah, we're going to have some fun with this. So for everybody who doesn't know, Shelly joined our team. Shelly, when did you actually come on board full time? August 2nd, August 2nd, first August. August 2nd, perfect, right? So we're, yeah, shit. I mean, yeah, we're not even a month in. Damn it. It's been like, it's been actually longer than that. It's going to be a very exciting wrap to the month. But yes, it's been a month. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. So Shelly, what I would love to do today, you know, one of the things as you go through the interview process here at JV Sales is, you know, I've actually taken myself out of the equation because I sometimes make too subjective of decisions when new hires come on board here, I'm like, oh, I like the person, all right, good.

But then I don't do it. I'm not a details guy, right? So usually by the time it goes through the gauntlet of hiring and of all the other people and gets to me, it's just a cool conversation. I just got to make sure our vibes are cool, but pretty much you're hired at that point. And I like to know a lot more about kind of your back, like forget about your results and, you know, numbers and all that shit. I like to talk a lot more about kind of where you're coming from personally, where you're coming from parents and all that other stuff. And I loved your story. And I think the journey here is what people care about most. So what I'd love to do today is chat with you a little bit about that. Let's go back to kind of how, how you got here.

Cause I think there's a lot of learning lessons in your story and we can pick it apart. And then we'll talk about kind of what you're excited about moving forward. Cause you said that we're ending the month on a high note here, right? We got a couple Thursday, Friday, everybody's coming into town. Actually, are you in, no, you're, you're still in Georgia right now, right? Yep. Flying in tonight. Flying in tonight. All right, cool. So, um, so we're going to talk about some cool shit and about where we're going, but let's talk about Shelly. So give us a little background here, Shelly, where would, and we start, let's start again with your parents. All right. Cause that's the foundation of almost everything here from a value standpoint and everything else.

So let's start there and let's walk through everybody through how you got here. Let's do it. Um, okay. So I, um, first, first of all, I'm very, if I keep saying how excited I am, people are not going to take me seriously because I am just that excited. Um, okay. So gosh, we go back and I just want to say one more thing before we keep going is the interview. It wasn't just a conversation when it got to you. I keep telling all my friends and family that it was a conversation through and through from the moment I talked to Megan and every conversation there on after it was, it was, I was talking to almost like a friend and like, yeah, we, we talked about what have you done, but it was very conversational.

It was very organic. It wasn't, it wasn't an interview. Like, what did you do? What, what, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So, um, that was, it was, that was by far my favorite. And I've, you know, if, if every company could do that, it would, it would be, it would be awesome. Well, you know what, actually just to jump in on that and just for people listening, it's also, you know, how you should be with your customers. You should be like scripts and pitches and that type of stuff. And, and canned questions and those types of canned responses. You can't really get to know people that way. And, and you can't build trust. You can't build relationship. Well, you, I mean, you, I guess you can try.

Um, but most guys, it's funny, you know, I talked to a lot of executives out there and, and I always ask them, Hey, what, you know, what do you want sales reps to bring to the table for you? How do you want them to treat you? And all this other, and to a T they're all like, could you just treat me as a normal human being? Can we just have a normal conversation here? They try to, you know, impress me with all the words that they know and all their, you know, and all their business acumen and, you know, thought leadership and shit. And all they really want to do is have a cool conversation with somebody to get to know them. And, and I look at the same, I do the same thing from an interview process standpoint.

It's like, and that's, that's what I said. It wasn't, I didn't feel, and maybe I shouldn't, you know, I, I shouldn't say what I'm about to say. It didn't feel like an interview. It really didn't. I, I wasn't, I wasn't tense. I wasn't tense the entire time. I was very just like, okay, I got this. Like, this is, this is, we're having a conversation, but, um, okay. So to take it back, um, I'm Indian, my family's, my, my, my parents are from India. Um, they came here, they came here a little bit. My dad came here a little bit before 1980, um, followed suit of his, uh, brother and his cousin. Um, my uncle is what I call the patriarch of our family here in the States. Uh, so my dad came out here. Um, my mom and dad got married after seven days of being introduced.

I remember that. That's insane. Yes. I love its first sight thing. Like, I'm like, man, good for them for having that happen and sticking it out. Cause sometimes that happens, but it usually doesn't last. They will be 40 years this year. That's insane. That's awesome. It's insane. Yeah. So, um, uh, they've been married 40, there'll be 40 years together. Um, they met after they met in seven days, got married. My mom came to this country, having never flown on an airplane. I will never forget the story. She was by herself. Cause my dad had come back before she did. She didn't speak any English. She came by herself. And at that point, I remember her telling me she had a layover and she had to, you know, disembark off the plane and she left her suitcase in the, in the, in the top of the, you know, overhead compartment.

So she'd like run back and go get it. But she, she just didn't know, you know, that was her first like trip into the country. Um, and they, you know, they, they did what they had to do and they did. I mean, they tried different things. My dad went to, you know, grad school to get his MBA, but while doing that, he was working at the post office. They then started their own business, which was a little deli. Um, people make fun of me, but I'll tell you guys what it is. It was called baby Shelly's deli. Um, but that, that was something they tried. Um, and then my mom got into the jewelry business. Um, she started selling loose stones, um, precious diamond stones and other colored stones. Again, didn't really speak a lot of English, but she, she, she did it.

And, um, I, she is, she's great. And, you know, 35 some odd years later, she's still doing it. She's still with the same company. Um, she's a phenomenal salesperson and my, you know, I maybe just dawned on me a few weeks ago. I was like, Oh, I got it from her or something, you know, there, there we go. I never give my mom enough kudos. That's the point. We never give our mom enough credit. Um, and then my dad, um, he was an accountant. He did his thing. He realized he wasn't into, you know, corporate, corporate America, if you will. Um, we actually moved over to the East coast and we bought a business. And within that business, we started another business, which was wholesale distribution of watch parts.

Um, sounds crazy. I still think to a little bit of a degree, it's crazy because I wonder how many watches people are getting fixed, but, but it's, it's there. Um, and so my parents raised my sister and I, my sister is seven years younger than I am. Um, we're very fortunate because we grew up in a very open, open family. And what I mean by that is again, we had my uncle and my cousins took a look up to, but you know, whenever we had sleepovers, everybody would come over to our house. We didn't go over there because everyone felt very comfortable coming here. And then as far as career choice, you know, again, I say I'm Indian. I was supposed to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer. I didn't. And they never pushed us.

Let me, let me ask you on that. Cause it is interesting that your parents did make that switch. A, did they, was it to follow the American dream or, or B or, and B, you know, from my understanding of, of the Indian culture, it is very traditional. There are very traditional roles, you know, responsibilities, the way things. And it doesn't sound like your parents followed any of that track. So I'm curious why I'm, I'm curious why, and especially I can understand somebody your age, our age, you know, my age, even, um, breaking the rules a little bit, you know, Gen Xers being like, Hey, this is different, whatever. And then F absolutely, you know, otherwise, but our parents' generation, your parents' generation.

So what, what was about them that was different that wanted them to break from tradition, if you will? Yeah, I think I go back to, again, I mentioned my uncle at the beginning, the patriarch of our family. And I think when he, I, he's just, he's, he's, he's the different, he's, he's a different guy in our family. And I think when he came here, he wanted to come out here, do something new. He left his country and he wanted to like immersify himself sort of the way Americans did. And so he just followed suit. And I think, again, my dad followed that. And then my mom got on board too. Um, and I give, I get that example a lot just because it, it's carried through in a lot of things, not just, again, I didn't go, I didn't go to an Ivy league.

Um, I, um, I didn't marry an Indian guy, even though I was convinced I was going to, but I think it was just what, what makes you happy. And I used to actually put more pressure on myself to do things that would make what I thought would make them happy. If that makes sense. So again, in my mind, I went to college straight after high school, I went to community college. Did I like it? No, I I've never, I mean, I, I, I'm not a school person, um, but I did it cause I thought it was the right thing to do. Yeah. Um, I wrote a blog post a lot, I wrote a blog post a while back called stop doing what you're supposed to do. Yep. You know, the whole, the thing that was when, you know, in two points of my life, I had to be woken up, which is when I got fired from Staples and when my first fiance broke up with me and I was, you know, I knew it was wrong, but I, I just was doing it because that's what you're supposed to do.

You know, you're supposed to get married. You're supposed to have kids. You're supposed to buy a house. You're supposed to get a job. You're supposed to get promoted. You're supposed to work hard. You're supposed, you know what I mean? Like all that stuff. And then I was like, uh, wait a minute, fuck what I'm supposed to do. Let me start doing what I want to do. Right. But I had to be, I had to be woken up. It sounds like your parents kind of instilled that a lot in you along the way. I think what it came down to for me was the external pressures, believe it or not, as much as my parents would say, Shelly, do what makes you happy, do what makes you happy. I think just seeing what was happening outside with our social circles and the family and friends around us, that pressure really hung over me a lot.

Um, but again, it didn't, I still did it. Was I happy along the way? Maybe, maybe not. But again, it got it eventually things end up working out, right? That's how I look at it now. Um, and I think a big part of that was my husband changed a lot of that for me. And now my son, it's totally different, totally different. You asked me 10, 15 years ago, I could not have this conversation and be smiling or be looking at the positives of it before I'd be like, what, what am I doing? What am I doing? Yeah. And I think a lot of people, when I think a lot of people that that's, you know, part of this journey on this podcast and me sharing things is, you know, one of the reasons I do what I do is to hopefully allow help reps, skip a few steps.

I don't think you should skip all the steps, right? You do need to get your teeth kicked in. And you do need, I actually, I mean, this is, you know, maybe not popular. I genuinely believe that people should literally, like as kids should literally get punched in the face. Like, and I mean that, like get in a fight so that you know how to react to stuff. And I mean that both literally and figuratively. I remember vividly one day when I was, when I was in junior high or something like that, high school, I got punched so hard in the face, like dead in the face. And I, and I hit the floor and there's weird thing was happening in my head. Cause at first I wanted to cry, right? Cause I'm like, Oh my God, I got hit.

But then I got angry and I'm like, fuck that. And then I got logical. And that moment, genuinely that moment helped me figure out how I would react. And it happened in a second. You know what I mean? It was like, boom. And I went, I went from crying like, Oh my God, you're going to be mommy, mommy to fuck this guy. I'm going to go kill him to wait a minute. John, think this through. If you go after this, that guy's bigger than you. He's got friends on his side, figure out another different way out of this. And within like a 10 second mind, like thought process, I checked off like 15 boxes and all of a sudden figured out who I was, you know what I mean? Fight or flight. Like, what were you going to do?

That type of thing. So both physically, I think people should be hit, you know, literally, but also figuratively like that. We have to get knocked down, but if we can skip a few steps, maybe share some learning lessons where somebody doesn't have to, it doesn't have to be as painful. For instance, I think those are a lot of the things I'm, you know, want to explore. Yeah. Yeah. As you were saying that, I mean, I thought about it and I did, I've never gotten knock on wood. I've got, I've never gotten punched in the face. Thankfully. I sort of equate my example as I was, as soon as I graduated from college, again, I, I grabbed a public relations major. Great. I got it. Whatever. I got the diploma.

Cool. Yeah. I couldn't find a job after that. So my dad asked me, he said, Shelly, why don't you come work for me? This was at the very, very start of our watch part business. Again, I chalked it off to dad again, who's going to do this, but fine. I'll, I'll, I'll do it. I'll humor you. We started off in our old business, which was a mail center, a very small space. Within two years, we actually bought out our competition. So now I'm seeing, okay, something's happening. A couple more years pass. We've grown the business, but as you can imagine, there's, there's, there's an age difference between my dad and myself. So we were starting to just like, okay, well, he's not ready to retire. I'm not really ready to take over.

Shelly, you go do your thing now. Okay. And I said, okay. I mean, that was, that was a decision we both took, you know, and we're very close. And so it was, it was a hard decision, but in doing so I was talking to my cousin at that time during that period, she's older than me. And, um, she's huge influence in my life. And she's going to hold this against me when she hears this podcast. Um, but she, she was, she had just gotten into tech, grew very quickly in marketing to man, Jen, just stellar at what she does. And she was telling me about sales. Like, how do you get into sales? But to do that, you have to become an SDR. And I was like, well, what does that mean? Tell me, like we were walking around at our family's house in Houston.

So she was telling me that. And I was like, well, she'll, if I do that, I'm going to have to take a big pay cut. And she was like, yeah, but that's the way you're going to, you're going to, you're going to, you get into tech, the money is there, you know, you get a lot. This was, this was again, 2013, 2014. And I'm like, oh gosh, got back from Houston. And I sent out my resumes on LinkedIn to probably 60 plus companies as an SDR, San Francisco based companies starting salaries were maybe, maybe $45,000. Okay, cool. Now I'm like, what am I doing? Like, I'm very fortunate. Again, I've got family in the Bay area. Didn't have anyone necessarily in San Francisco at the time, but I was like, what am I going to do?

And so again, I left working with my dad. I was, I was at another job and I was like, I, if, if this is what I'm going to do, I got to go all in. And I was only a year into my relationship with Caleb at the time, but I still, let me do it at that. And again, I had the support of everybody, but in the back of my mind, I'm like, oh my gosh, what am I doing? Like my salary is about to get chopped in maybe half. I'm going to move to the city, which is godly expensive. But I did it. And I, I, I tell everybody now, now in the last few years, I've been very open about it. I was an SDR. I started when I was 30 years old. I turned 30 in October and I started my tech company job in November. That's awesome.

Everyone can do the math now. Right. Well, and I think that's the thing. It's, you know, I did a post a while back on LinkedIn on like the slingshot, right? And it was an image of a slingshot. And it was, hey, don't forget every once in a while, you have to take that step back to fire yourself forward here. And a lot of people are like, but they're, they feel almost stuck in a lot of ways. It's that golden, you know, the golden handcuffs, if you will. It's like, I'm getting paid. I have responsibility. You know, I'm getting a good salary. I don't love what I do, but I don't know if I want to take a step back to, to, you know, kind of go a chart path. Was there a clear plan in your head or goals that you had when you made that shift?

Like, how did you come to the conclusion that this was, how and why did you come to the conclusion that, that this was going to be your path, that tech was going to be your path? Everybody, look, I, I knew that I had a sales bone in my body. Now, again, what was that sales bone? Was it in becoming an AE? Was it becoming, and was it becoming a people manager? I think I was still trying to figure that out. And again, my family had always encouraged me, Shelley, you know, you know, how to connect with people. You know, how to, you know, essentially charm people, get you, you do, do the things that you want to do. So I want to try it. I wanted to see what I think when I joined tech, it really opened my eyes.

Like I, truthfully speaking, I didn't know what demand generation was until my cousin explained it to me. I didn't know how marketing and sales came together. Right. Or how did SDRs even work with AEs? How, I mean, it's really funny. How do I know John Barrows? My AE in 2014 kept sending me emails or kept sending me blogs from John Barrows, you know? So I credit him to that. But I, I didn't have a full plan. I think in my mind, again, I thought SDR, SMB, AE, and then AE, et cetera. Right. But I think what was cool is again, when you're at a smaller tech company startup, I had joined right around series C, I believe, if I remember correctly, you get to wear multiple hats too. And I was very fortunate that my director at the time gave me that autonomy to try different things.

And I was, I was also making a name for myself. When I came in as an SDR, I was cranking. I was like, I can't sit in this position for a very long time. I'm going to get antsy and, but I want to showcase what I can do. And I did. And as a result of that, I kept getting more things handed to me and it just continued to evolve to, by the time I left my company, I was the director of business development. So again, I tell, you know, I tell folks that if you put in the hard work and you commit to it, it will work. I was terrified, John. I was terrified. I was looking at my monthly commission check, like, okay, okay, this is good, but I need more. Like I need more to get anywhere close to what my previous salary was.

And that's why, you know, that's why I love sales. Cause it is a very, you know, the harder you work, the more you get paid, you are in more control of your destiny than most, but to your point, it takes fucking hard work. Uh, you know, that's the one thing I'm a little bit nervous right now with, uh, you know, everybody talks about generational divides and all that other stuff. And I walked, you know, both ways uphill and three feet of snow, blah, blah, blah. But, um, you know, you look at the, I feel like people, they're not willing to put in that level of work right now to be a successful, right? And people want all this stuff. And look, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm on the Gary V train here, which is if you make 40 grand a year and you're happy, you fucking win, right?

I know multimillionaires who are miserable pricks, right? But, but you can't want to be a multimillionaire, but yet still put in this, the, the, the basic level of, of effort, right? So if you don't, if you, if you're not jealous of those people, if you don't want that stuff, then okay, cool, then whatever. But if you decide that you want to go and you want to be successful, you have to put in the work. Absolutely. I mean, still, I'm 45 years old. I'm still up till one o'clock in the morning cranking out, you know, individual emails on trainings and stuff like that to reps and reviewing their shit. Yeah. Because I, I know that, you know, people ask me all the time, John, what's the key to success?

It's fucking working your ass off, period. I'm not the smartest kid. Same thing with you. I'm not a school, I mean, I was okay in school, but I drank my way through four years of college. I partied my ass off. Like I don't read very much. You know, I'm, I'm definitely not the smartest kid out there. There's no question about that, but I got a hard time finding anybody out there who all worked me. And at the end of the day, that's kind of really the secret. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I remember, I'll give you a very, very quick example. I mean, you talk about hard work and I, I mean, again, that was eight years ago. We were, I was a SDR supporting a global team. So there would be nights where I would schedule calls at 11 PM to talk to APAC.

There would be times I was on the West coast at the time in San Francisco. I would wake up at 5 AM to call Europe. So you do things you do. Now I didn't have to do that for years on end. I did it for a chunk of time committed to it. And again, the benefits came along with it. And I can't agree with you more. It's, it's, it's a level, it's all on the level of how much do you want? What is your input to get the results that you want? If you're cool with a certain thing, great, do it. You know, I, we're going to talk about this coming up soon, but it's all about what are your priorities? What is that lifestyle? What, what are your ambitions for, for the future? And I think it's very hard as a 22 or 25 year old, maybe to conceptualize that early on.

But as you, as you, as you may be more mature, get into your role, you can figure that out hopefully, but there are some folks that can do it. It's amazing to me how many people, like, I do believe in the law of attraction. I do believe in visualization. I do believe in those things. And then you see people like, you know, Ed Sheeran, who's like, I'm going to be the greatest, you know, I'm going to be one of the greatest, you know, songwriters. Of all time at whatever he did it at, like five or six, you know, 10 years old or something. You got this kid saying it, you're like, who the fuck or what? Okay, sure. No problem. And then, holy shit, you know? So there is something about that, like that vision having it.

But I do think that in your twenties, you should try to, you should try out as much as you possibly can. You should taste as many different things. Cause the low, cause the level of risk is so low that compared to when you have family and house and all that other stuff that really limits your risk taking abilities. But you also have made a very good point, which is the support structure. The support structure is so fucking critical. I mean, I remember, um, was it Cheryl, um, uh, lean in, uh, Sarah Sandberg. Yeah. She, it was funny because she did lean in and there's whole movement around it, but then her, she, then she got divorced and from her husband. And I remember she, she kind of did a mea culpa.

She was just like, uh, cause there was a lot of women out there were like, yeah, thanks Cheryl. I, you know, lean in shore, but I'm a single mom here with three kids and I'm working my ass off here and I need this paycheck. So if I lean in and all of a sudden, you know, get fired because I'm speaking my voice, I don't, that's not an option for me. And Cheryl had a husband who was extremely supportive. You know what I mean? They, they had a lot of money. And so, and she even said, she goes, I was wrong. She goes, you, I wasn't, I didn't have the perspective of other people. She's like, I was coming at it from my angle, but I had such a strong support structure that I could lean in. If I got fired, it wasn't that big of a deal.

I didn't have to support my family with this stuff. So she kind of came back and said, yeah, oops, you know, lean in, but you know, also and I think that having a partner, yeah. And partner, family, et cetera. So I just, it's, it's, it's, and I, I, again, I say wholeheartedly, I'm very fortunate, very fortunate. I got so blessed. So lucky that not even just my parents, my, my, my extended family beyond, like we've got a family thread of 13 people and it's constantly going like great job, you know, like whoever gets fundraising or something, you know, it's a very supportive group. I mean, again, two of my cousins, they went to LA to pursue acting. That's cool. I mean, so, so, so I just to give you again, context, but I was talking to a previous SDR of mine and she's, she's young gal.

She's 20, 22, 23. And she's, you know, she's trying to figure out what is she doing? How is she getting a go about things? And I was like, okay, take a step back. Let's, we'll talk about it. And when she told me all of the things that she had done up until this SDR job, I was floored. I was like, you've done more stuff in the last five or six years of your life than I ever, like, than I ever did. Like you're trying things and that's, what's great is you're, you're trying things out. And I think that's what you have to do. And the other example that I give is Caleb, my husband, he took a year off between high school and college. He was like, I, he was, I was working in a restaurant making oodles of money.

I didn't want, I wasn't ready for college. It was like, I just didn't want to go. He was like, I was working double shift at the restaurant, doing what I needed to do. Didn't care about college. But then as the next year approach, he was like, but I'm ready to go to college now. Super successful. I mean, success or not, but he, he made that decision because he knew it was the right thing to do. And he said, had I gone to college right out of high school, it could have ended much differently. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that goes back to that mindset. You know, I think a lot of people are questioned that one of the reasons I'm so passionate about kind of elevating the profession of sales is, you know, and introducing it to kids at an early age as an actual profession, as opposed to the default profession, because it gives people, I personally think college is a scam.

I honestly think, I think four-year college is a scam. I think it's a great social, social education, but I think it's an awful actual education. And, and I think every, every kid going into college should do the math. Like I'm, I'm actually going to put together a spreadsheet for this and give it out to the public one of these days for free and say, and hook up all the colleges. How much does it cost? Right. What's the, what's the average salary of all your majors, right. Of a four-year degree. Let's do the math of what a loan would look like for the next 30 years. And then let's carry out some expenses of what it takes to live. And then let's see you sleeping in your parents' basement for the next 30 years of your life.

If you go get that psych degree at Harvard, you know what I mean? So it's one of those things where sales allows you to like get, do exactly what he did, which was kind of come in, like say, okay, high school, right. But do I want to go drop $300,000 and go into debt for the rest of my life with a major? I don't even really know if I want to do it 18 fucking years old. Or do I want to go experience some shit? Go, go make a few months, go make some money selling things, right. Build up a war chest here and then use that money to then go to college or something like that. Or be an entrepreneur or taste that, right. It's the same thing with getting out of college. Like if you get out of college and you go right for your MBA, I think that's ridiculous.

Yeah. Because you don't know yet. Like you're not, no practical, no practical and no context. Because if I usually say the MBA is your actual education, because you are now choosing, I want to go learn this. Like, I know I, I know I have to learn, but you can't figure that out until you're out in the world for a little bit and getting your ass kicked, right? Yep. All right, you guys, Shelly's experiences shaped the person that she is. And as we move through our careers, we should always be considering how the person that we are impacts those around us. After knowing Shelly for only just over 30 days now, I can assure you that her kindness, her business acumen, and her sentiment is the real authentic Shelly.

And we are so pleased to welcome her to the JB sales family. All right, y'all sales requires a growth mindset because if you aren't evolving, you're falling behind. The more you learn, the more you earn. Now that wasn't supposed to rhyme, but it is true. Since you committed to reaching your potential, I want to invite you to join the brand new JB sales membership at on-demand.jbarrows.com. This is the competitive edge that will help you sell more and springboard your career. And we just added some new perks for members. You're going to get career advice from expert sales trainers, proven to work sales techniques in weekly AMAs, ask me anything sessions, 24 seven access to courses and templates used by over a half a million sales pros all over the world.

This small investment in yourself will have a huge impact and benefit in just a matter of days. But I only want you to sign up if you're a hundred percent confident. So if you're on the fence, give me a shout and I will share what you can expect and we can learn whether or not this is the best fit for you. That URL again is on-demand.jbarrows.com. Let's give it back to Shelly and JB. So, so let's go back to, you know, 2013, you know, that was a year that- 2014, yep, yep. 2014. Yep. So you got into being SDR, you wanted to get out quick. You ended up being the head of demand gen for the company. And then, then where'd you go from there? Then was it, was it the next challenge? Was it where, when did you decide to make that next switch?

Yeah. So I had a wonderful tenure, in fact, very long tenure at my, at the company that I started with, mainly because I loved, I loved the environment that I was in, the people that I was working with and the opportunity that I had. But, you know, you and I talk about challenges, what, what's challenging us next. And, you know, you got to a point I had spent about six years and I said, you know, I'm looking for the next, the next thing. So my husband and I chatted and we said, okay, let's, you know, we're transitioning over to the East coast. We wanted to make it a bit seamless for my son. I'm going to take some time off. Now, again, the reason I want to, I pointed that out for a reason, time off, meaning without a job for somebody like me, when I'm supposed to have a job, it was a very, yeah, it was very tough for me to accept.

I mean, it took months for my husband to convince me, go ahead, be okay with leaving. You've done what you need to do. Take this time, spend it with Nico and look for what, look for what you want, right? Because now I wanted to, I was at 130 person company. In my mind, I said, I want to shift over to a big company. I want to see what the big, big companies are doing. We came over here to Atlanta, um, settled in, started looking for jobs. Um, you know, you talk about rejection, failure, getting fired, whatever. I, I thought I had a couple of jobs in the bank early on in December. Didn't have them. I was annoyed, but then I was like, you know what? Okay. It happens for a reason. It's not meant to be, uh, not meant to be, um, I get a new job in, um, February of this year alone, just this year.

And, um, again, BDR manager, big company. I mean, this company, massive growth, hyper growth mode, um, started, got, got on board very quickly. Um, started managing a team of BDRs, outbound BDRs. Now, a little bit different from my previous roles in, this is more, uh, SMB, more mid-market, but they were doing a lot more, um, the sell was to more mom and pop shops. So again, a little bit of different, a little bit of a difference than the strategic enterprise, uh, what I was doing previously. So that's where I landed. And, um, uh, I did that. I actually started out managing a team in San Francisco. Um, but then the opportunity to come to Atlanta while we were here, uh, became, uh, became an option.

So we decided, okay, let's settle down here again, still getting settled into it. Um, I was good. I was managing a team of 10, but you asked, like, what, what, what was Shelly thinking? Like, what are you doing at this time? And I was, I was wake, I was waking up every day, coming to my home office, doing my thing. Um, and then John Barrows pops up on my LinkedIn newsfeed and the rest is history. But yeah. And again, I want to point out, I wasn't looking, but when the opportunity, presents itself, um, I had done your training the year before, right before the pandemic, I had been following you before that, um, that I would have never, you always say like, when do you, when do you take chances?

I'm not a very, I I'm not a risk taker very candidly. I'm not a risk. Me neither. But, um, this was my risk. I said, let me throw my name in this hat. See what happens. Now, by the time I got to this post, 40 plus people had already commented. So I was like, okay, no chance. Let's see what happens. But I said, let me follow the directions. I'm not going to reach out to John. I'm not going to try to do anything like, you know, shady on the side. But I threw my name on the hat. And the next day I got a call back. Yeah. And my friend, good old friend, Scott knows, knows us really, really well and knows what we're looking forward to. So Scott, best conversation. Right. He's such a good person too.

So, uh, you know, and I think that, that opportunistic lens is something that I don't know if you can teach it. Uh, I wish you could, cause I would say if there's anything, that's probably my biggest strength is, and the thing that I've been blessed with the most is a very opportunistic lens. I'm very similar to you. I don't, I do not take hardcore risks. Like Chris, our chief growth officer, he takes risks. Like he was the startup guy. I wouldn't be in startups if it wasn't for Chris. Cause, cause for me going back, even with commissions, right. I went, I went from Xerox getting paid pretty decent, um, to now a startup. And I was the fifth person on board or fourth or fifth person on board.

And I'm like, uh, there has to be at least some type of salary there for me just in case. Cause I don't know what this is going to be, whatever. But it's funny because I was always so scared of not having a salary to fall back on. But fast forward, when I got fired from, uh, Staples and then joined Basho and then Basho went belly up and literally fired us all on the spot. And I started Kensei Partners that turned into JV Sales here. You know, I all of a sudden woke up one day and I was a hundred percent commission rep. Like I was the partner at a company. It was just two of us. We were pure professional services and there was no guarantee of cash coming from clients. So I was now 100% commission rep.

And so I looked at it and I say, I'm a pretty self-motivated person, but man, if you want to get motivated, go a hundred percent commission. Cause when you wake up in the morning and you know that if you don't work today, you ain't getting paid, you'll get up a little bit earlier, you'll get up a little bit faster. So that calculated risk taking, how do you look at risk? Like when you make decisions, uh, is there a process you go through to evaluate that risk and make that decision? Or are you, are you a little bit more of a gut feel on those risks? So it's so funny that you asked that because this job actually kind of changed how I think about it now. And the reason I say that is because most sales jobs, you know, like you said, commission based, you get, you get a salary, you get a little bit of commission.

And that's what I've done at my previous roles. And when this role came about and I saw, you know, salary plus commit, whatever, I didn't even think about it. I literally did not think about it because the way I approached it was. And this, this was a gut for me. This was gut because I said to myself, again, I've done this training. I've seen this guy speak. I continue to follow him on LinkedIn and, and his team that they, they are doing something with so much passion. They're making an impact. Just if you read the comments, right. And so for me, you know, these are everything else. I would always talk to my husband or I would, it would be like an extended family conversation. Like, should I do this?

Should I not do this? But I, I told Caleb, I said, I'm applying for this. And if I get this role, there's no doubt. And so it's interesting how, how I've started to, again, approach. And I think this job was the catalyst for how I look at things, you know, same thing. We're in the process of buying a home. Okay. I'm not as like, I'm not five, five, six months ago, Shelly would probably be a nervous wreck about it. Go with it. See what happens. Yeah. I mean, it's very bizarre. See that to me, I am a gut person, but I have, I am, I'm a much more structured process oriented, but a lot of other things. But when it comes to risk, I definitely, I'm not an overthinker. You know what I mean? I, and I, and look, I make mistakes, but at the end of the day, I usually, I'm like, yeah, okay.

That, that, that looks, you know, two, three data points here. Okay. Let's do that. I will say the, the one thing I did shift and it was, you know, 12 personal guidelines to success. One of them was always have a plan. So before I got fired from Staples, it was always have a plan B, right? And it would, no, I'm sorry. After I got fired from Staples because I was caught flat footed, right? I, even though I knew it was wrong, um, I'm like, they're not going to fire me. You know, I've been number one producer of every fucking company I've been at. Right. So who the fuck is going to fire me? And then they fired me. I was like, oh my God. Um, and so then I adjusted my 12 guidelines to add always have a plan B because I didn't have a plan B and I was freaked out about it.

But then after reflecting on it, I actually disagree with plan B's because I think plan B's take away from your plan A, right? You inherently, if you know, you have a fallback, you don't go all in on your plan A. And I think if you find your plan A and you're passionate about it, you go all in on it. Right. But what I did was I shifted that always have a plan B instead of that. And this is how I look at things these days, which is whatever decision I make. What's the worst case scenario? Like, what's the worst case scenario? And if I'm okay with that worst case scenario, I do it. If I'm not okay with that worst case scenario, I have to think about it. I still might do it, but I'll pause for a second.

So I use that to sales. Like if, if you're below power line and you, and you got to get to power, right? What's the worst case scenario? If you go over to that person said, well, they get pissed off and you lose the deal. If you're okay with losing the deal, then fuck it. Go up there. Right. Um, as long as you're doing for the right reasons, buying a house, we bought, we bought a house. My wife and I walked into this house. No joke. 15 minutes. We looked at this house. I legit walked in. I was like, yeah, that was pretty pimp. Like, let's throw a bid on it. It was the biggest decision I'd ever make in my life as far as the monetary value of it. And I legit freaked out that night. I'm sitting on the couch.

Like my wife and I are like, you know, we're, we're on our laptops and stuff. And all of a sudden it dawned on me. I'm like, wait a minute. What did we do? Did we just put a bid on a house in 15 minutes? I'm like, what in the fuck is wrong with us? Right. I started freaking out about all my friends I brought over. Like, meet me at this address tomorrow. Tell me I'm not insane. You know, that type of thing. But you know, the, the, the view, your views do change. You know, your, your perception of certain things do change at certain life stages. It's certain things happen that shift your perspective on things, which I think is a great way to grow. Yeah. I think it's funny because, um, you, you talk about what is worst case scenario.

And if I had to peel back my, my layers, I always think that the fear of failing, the fear of disappointing, right. Um, it took me a long time to, to reconcile this fear of disappointment to others, because again, I can't please everybody. Um, but the fear of failure that it's, again, it's changed because I've got a son now, but I was, uh, I was, I, I love the Peloton tread app, the app. And so I run on the treadmill and the, one of the trainers that I was listening to the other day while I was running, she said, failure is fake. Failure is just redirection. Failure is feedback. I like it. Yeah. And I, I actually went back. I like went back after I was done working out and I went back and I went, what did she say?

And I wrote it down. That really resonated with me because, okay, you fail. What do you, what do you do then? And I, I used to be one very admittedly, whoever's going to watch this that knows me, I would mope about it. I'd be like, Oh my God, what did I do? Failure. But what I didn't realize is I took that failure and turned it around. So again, worst case scenario, failure, but, but that's a failure is not real. So anyway, I just wanted to learn from it. Right. And I think that's the thing it said, you know, I'd tell Charlotte all the time, you know, it's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up, right? Not, not, it doesn't matter how many times you get knocked down. If you keep getting back up, you're going to be all right.

As long as you keep learning from it and not doing the same, you know, stupid mistake that got you knocked down or whatever it might be. So it's helped to, I mean, it was a game changer when I had my son, even though he's still two, like what you, what you channel through a kid and how you, again, I don't know if you feel this way, but being a parent just changes. I mean, it's just everything. It goes from a, it goes from a, you know, an internal focus to an external focus, period. Exactly. You know what I mean? It's not about us anymore. No, well that's, and it's, and it's guaranteed not about us. You know, we, and we think we're selfless before we have parents. We think we're, uh, you know, oh, I care about other people.

No, you don't. Not until you have kids. Until you have kids, it's a whole nother light about how you look at life, how you look at yourself, how you look at your impact on the world, how you look at your impact on them. And, and again, talk about freaking out about, you know, you're now responsible. I always remember when, when Kim and I left the, when Charlotte was born in the hospital. And we stayed a day or two or whatever it was. And then they shipped us out and they give us this little ball of goo with no instructions. No instructions. And they're like, good luck. And I'm like, hold still. Like I need, like, I got instructions for almost everything else in my life. How to put together that desk, how to, you know what I mean?

How to take care of my, I asked if we could stay in the hospital longer. So, but going back to it, you figure it out along the way. And I think those, you know, I always say if you have strong core values, um, and you keep working your ass off, those types of things tend to lead to success more often than not. And whatever success is, as far as the definition for everybody else, which is different. I want to make sure that we keep clarifying that because people think success is money. It's not success is happiness, success is freedom, successes are those types of things. But, you know, somebody else might have a very different, uh, to me, those are, that's what happened. You know, that's what success is.

So look in the, in the last few minutes here, one of the things I had asked you to do, and I'm going to jump the gun a little bit on our conversation for, uh, for Thursday. Cause, um, you know, for everybody listening, we have a Thursday, Friday, get together as a team. It's first time we've all been together. I think there's going to be 11 of us, which blows my fucking mind. We've got a pretty tight agenda on Thursday. Then we're going to have some fun on Friday. One of the things I wanted to know is, is, you know, this pursuit of happiness, right? And what does that mean for us? And, and this isn't kind of a big, huge, this is more, what can this group do to help somebody achieve whatever that is in their life that, that is happiness to them?

Cause it's important to me that everybody here is, first of all, really enjoys, obviously what they do and is passionate about it. But it's, it's, it's the work-life balance has always been a challenge for me for people to talk about, because I don't believe in work-life balance. I believe in work-life integration. And if we can talk about work-life integration, then easily work can help support whatever level of happiness that person is going for. So where's, what's your vision? What's your picture for yourself here in the next, however many years that, that is, that is stuff you're striving for next in your career at this point in your life. No, forget about your career in your life right now.

Yeah. I, you know, I've given this a lot of thoughts still, still ironing it out, but again, and it's never going to be perfect. But if I break apart the professional and the personal, I mean, from a professional standpoint, I want to be as great as I can in this role as a trainer, right? I think for me making an impact again, showcasing to folks that think that they may not be the perfect sales professional. We're going to work on that. We can do that together if that's what, you know, but that I am an available resource. I want to be, I want people to feel confident, comfortable that they can come to me and they know that I'm a resource without any doubt. And that, that'll inevitably grow.

From a personal perspective, you know, I always, in a, in a weird way, I say, I'm a, I'm a very simple person. And what I mean by that is I, I don't shop big. I don't really know how to, cause I'm very, I'm very spend thrifty, if you will, but I love the experience of things. And what I mean by that is we love to travel, um, culture, you know, again, I'm Indian, my husband's Brazilian. So Nico's little half, and I want to show him where it is, where does his dad come from Brazil? Where does mom come from India? And I bring that up because as I think about my future, you know, we want to be, we want to be comfortable. We want to be good. Do we need to live in, you know, everybody keeps saying, well, Shelly, you live in Atlanta now, what can you do with a million dollars there?

And I was like, hold on, I don't need a 6,000 square foot home. I really, I don't even know what I would do with that. Right. You give me enough, you know, bedrooms for offices and sleeping quarters. We're good. What I want is a lifestyle in which we can go take Nico and we ourselves can go travel. And if that means with our families, which we love to all do, that is what would give me the greatest joy is because, you know, I, I fight with my sister a lot about this. She's, she's always grown up in, in Georgia. She's never moved anywhere else. She was one when we moved from California to Georgia and she never really wanted to travel as much. And I said, Rena, Atlanta, Johns Creek, Georgia. It's a dot on this map.

There's a whole world out there. I said, think about how many weddings we've been to different, different cultures. Let's go see what's out there. And so that's really big. And I mean, I'm not pigeonholing it to travel is what I want. I think it's immersifying ourselves in what's out there. Showcasing. Cause again, you talk about, I don't need, you know, look, I don't need Nico to be a bookworm. I love that. He loves to read, right? School will be there, but I also think that the learning is going to come from outside. And that's not just for him. It's for us as well. And I think that I learn a whole heck of a lot more when I'm traveling. Oh, a thousand percent. I am stoked about Boston because I'm bummed that I'm only there for two days because the history is there, you know, and eventually we'll have to, so, so that's what I'm looking for.

That's what, you know, again, life and priority shifts when you, when you have a family and I'm dedicated to my family. I love that. Yeah. And I think that's, you know, similar to me. I think my, my, my, my journey is, is, is for happiness, but also freedom. And by the way, I'm not the pursuit of happiness is a never ending thing. Right. And it also doesn't mean that you're not happy now. I think that that's some people like, oh, I want to be, no, no, no. You can still be happy and pursue it. You know, for me, it's, it's very similar in the sense of freedom. I want freedom. I want to be able to, you know, when I talk about retirement is retirement to me is a joke, like the 65 years old and that type of stuff.

There's, I'm never going to retire period. I just don't know how to. I just don't think it's in my DNA to stop working, to stop being, well, forget about working, but have a purpose, you know? And I think that purpose matters, right? So for me, retirement has always meant work because I want to, not because I have to, which means I'm financially independent enough in whatever set, you know, whatever realm I want to level off at so that I can then go and travel. I can then, you know, my daughter can be taken care of. My wife can, you know, all that stuff. The environment's, you know, as far as 401k and all that other stuff, fine, but it's the freedom part that, that really excites me. And that's why I'm excited for Thursday because, you know, I kind of officially or unofficially Thursday, I'm going to be handing over the reins from a professional services standpoint.

And, and we're going to be trying some cool shit with, with you guys in the team here. Cause I don't want this to be a, you know, the, the, this I'm trying to create about the flattest organization I could possibly create here. And I think I told you, and I'll probably bring this up on Thursday. I've only fired one person ever here at JB sales, just one. And it was, and, and God bless her. I love her. But it was when I, you know, I thought that I needed a, a executive assistant cause I was so busy and, and I had all this shit going on and, and I'm a, but I'm a control freak. So I can't really give that stuff up. Right. And so we hired what was traditional, you know, Megan actually, it was her, somebody she had worked with in the past.

And this woman was a more of a traditional, um, executive assistant for traditional CEOs, very old school, like very old school. Right. And so, and I remember, and at first I was like, all right, well, look, you tell me what can you take off my plate? Cause you've been there, done that. You've done this for years. I don't even know how this works. And at first I was like, all right, we're just going to have to figure each other out. Like, I'm not going to let off. I'm not going to give up something until I feel confidence that you can do it type of stuff. So fine working out. But I vividly remember, uh, when we were in Vegas and, uh, we're all at dinner. It was like, it was a similar group that we were going to get together here, you know, probably eight people or something like that.

And, uh, and I got up to go to the bathroom and she, and I heard her whisper to Megan something to the effect of, and she didn't say this exactly, but this was the sentiment was, Oh, the CEO just got up. We should all get up. We, we, we should all kind of basically, Oh, you know, John just got up. We need to. And I heard that out of the corner of my eye and my ear. And I was like, what? I go, what did you just say? And she was just like, well, you know, you know, we just want to make sure that, you know, you're, I go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Absolutely not. I go, you do not put me on that pedestal and down here. We're literally all on the same page. Yes. Okay. I do. Does ultimately decision come down to me?

Absolutely. A hundred percent. You know, it is my company. I own a hundred percent of it, but if we do not act as a flat organization, there's no hierarchical structure here. And so from a team standpoint, I'm really excited to see what, what you and the team can do. Because we're going to talk about some really different ways of managing a group here than the typical VP plus directors plus executors and that type of stuff. So I'm really excited to see how y'all run with that and give me some freedom to go explore whatever my next, you know, next step is in my journey from a, I've always said, I'm kind of a, you know, I'm a CEO, but my title might as well be chief training officer. Cause that's all I've fucking done for 10 years.

But now it's like, how can I stretch? How can I get to that next level? Your next challenge. Right. And I think that's, that's, what's making me excited is one, you're trusting us to do this, but then two is the people. I mean, look at our group. I think, you know, I, we're the, we're the same people. It's what's weird to explain, but like we get along so well that it's not. Yeah. And yeah, that's when you have core values, when you have the similar core values, that's why our interview starts that way. That's why the partners we work with that when I, when Chris talked to me about, you know, when we were going to start bringing on sponsors and stuff, I said, okay, a, we got to be the best at it.

If we're going to do it. B, I don't want to deal with anybody who isn't, doesn't share our core values. So first things first, do they share our, do they approach things the way that we approach them? Are they good people? That type of, I don't give a fuck how much money you have. If you're a douche, you're a douche. I don't give a fuck. I'm, I don't care about getting on your stupid jet. Right. Those types of things. And so I genuinely believe when you have those core values aligned, we can argue, we can, we can disagree. But if the core is there, then we usually come to a pretty logical conclusion, which is what my fear is right now is happening. You know, let's, let's blast this out from a macro standpoint and let's use Americans here.

I don't believe Americans now share core values. I think back a few years, back, however many years ago we did, there was right, left, middle didn't matter. There was something about the core value of being an American that everybody agreed to. Now you, you ask both sides and they're completely different core values, which is why everybody's just yelling at each other right now and not coming to any type of agreements or conclusions or empathy or any of that stuff. Yeah. Cause that is the essence of, you know, which goes back to, I, one last question I wanted to ask you as far as your journey was concerned. You said you interviewed, you went out 60 employees, you know, 60 resumes went out when you were looking for that SDR job.

Um, that was that just because like, you just said, fuck it. I, I need to, let me see. Or did you select some of those based on what they look like to you? Like from a value standpoint? I needed to understand the pro. So that's funny. I'll be very quick on this. I just wanted to see what it was like to get response. So I said, let me just test it out, test out the waters. Now, what I want to make note of is I sent out 60, 60 applications, whatnot. However, there were 10 companies that I really said, I, I, you know, one, I was very big in a hospitality, every 10, all of the 10 companies that I had narrowed in them. I prospected into after submitting those. I am not convinced. I can argue this till forever.

I'm not convinced that by submitting a resume, you'll get. Oh, no. You have to. Absolutely not. You have to. All of my jobs I have prospected into. And so I had whittled it down to 10 that I core prospected into. I got in touch with somebody or other there and I got the interviews going. And then the job that I ended up taking was, it was because the, the person hiring at the time had a common connection, um, common connection with my cousin. I don't think either of them really knew each other at that time. Um, he said, I really like your resume. Let's chat. And the rest is history. Yeah. That to me, I couldn't agree. I feel bad for people who say I've sent out, you know, a hundred resumes and I'm going to get on a call back.

Like, no, that's just not the way it works. It goes into a dark hole. It goes into a dark hole. I'm going to end this with a very specific tip for everybody out there. If you're looking for a job, the ADA email structure that we train, right. And it used to be called why you, why you now whole concept there again, for people don't know is go do research, right? Find a trigger, make a connection. And usually it was to send it to the executive, get referred down and go, right. If you want a job, go identify your core values, what your core values are. Then go find companies that share those core values. Then go look. And this is a very specific thing. All you got to do is go look at the mission statement.

Go look at a vision statement. Take that mission vision and send an email to the CEO and say, Hey, I'm looking for my next challenge in my career here. I've been paying attention to what you guys are doing. And one of the things that really resonated with me was your mission is to X. I wanted to reach out to see who on your, in your organization, I can have a conversation with about exploring the opportunity to work with you because that mission is exactly what I want to achieve in my career. You send that to a CEO, email that to a CEO and that CEO doesn't respond. That's not a company you want to work for. That's not a company. I a hundred percent agree. So, but if they do, then guess who sits on the top of the resume pile when that CEO sends you down to the HR director, the VP of eight, whatever for the interviews, you're on top period.

I've gotten four kids jobs just by that approach alone. My, my cousin, he did it right. Yeah. And he just followed that exact formula and, but it has to be genuine. You can't, you can't be like, Oh, my core values are exactly yours. Cause yeah. No, no, no. Really go through that intro. Be introspective here about what your core values are. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's great. That's great. Awesome. Shelly. Well, any, any last thoughts before we get off here? No, I, again, I'm, I'm super excited. Let's, we're going to do some fun things. Yes, we are. Yes, we are. And everybody listening here, keep an eye out for Shelly, uh, Shelly Gupta Correa, C-O-R-R-E-A. You can find her on LinkedIn and everywhere else and Instagram and everything too, but can keep an eye out for her cause she's going to be coming in hot, uh, with a lot of social stuff and a lot of training here.

So thanks so much Shelly for the, for coming on here. And, uh, I'm really looking forward to seeing what you can do. Appreciate you so much, John. Thank you. No problem. All right, everybody. Hope you got some cool stuff out of this conversation. Got you to think about your journey a little bit, maybe some decisions you need to make and how you need to make them. And, and, you know, hopefully how you look at things may be a little bit differently coming out of this one. So thank you all for listening as always. And as I always say, look, even if you're having a shitty day, go out there and make somebody smile today. Cause if you make somebody smile, you know, you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that.

So thank you all very much for listening and I'll see you on the other side. All right, y'all. That's a wrap. As always, we encourage you to become a JB sales member and gain access to the JB sales team. Our training, our courses, tips, webinars, and replays are all available for you at on demand.jbarrows.com. Follow us on Instagram for daily sales techniques and tactics at JB sales training, all one word, and we'll catch up with you on the gram. Have a great week. Everybody get out there and serve those clients, catch up with those prospects. Be sure that you are asking the right questions, doing the right things and serving people to the best of your ability. Get out there and make somebody smile today.

It'll make your day and theirs. We'll see you next week when we bring you another stellar guest to help you sell better. Make it happen, everybody.