87: Perception vs Reality with Melanie Fellay CEO Spekit

I'm bringing the whole Jay Barrows team to Rainmaker in Atlanta, March 11th through the 13th. Visit salesloft.com slash Rainmaker for the details, including mine and Morgan's session. Welcome to Make It Happen Mondays. This is John Barrows. Hopefully you all had a fantastic weekend. I'd love to introduce my guest today because I'm really looking forward to this conversation of perception, reality, and sales and doing what you're supposed to do versus what you should do. I'd like to introduce Melanie. Melanie from Speckett. I want to introduce everybody of where you're coming from. Hi, everyone. I'm Melanie. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Speckett. Speckett is a just-in-time learning solution that embeds your knowledge and training when and where your employees need it.

It was really created for my own experience managing Salesforce and managing business operations at a fast-growing startup. We really had a lot of challenges around data quality and training and onboarding. The root of the problem was that our training couldn't keep up. Salesforce was constantly changing. We didn't have a way to easily update our manuals and our PDFs and LMS. Then our sales folks wanted to focus on selling and meeting their lofty goals. Unfortunately, all the training was in an email somewhere or external to their workflows. It was really built around those challenges I had. I love it. You and I could have a much bigger conversation, I think, about just-in-time learning and where that whole thing is because we're in lockstep on that.

I think what really struck me about this conversation that we're going to have is your journey to being a CEO and being that lead salesperson that every CEO needs to be and the perception versus the reality of it. Talk to me a little bit about, before we were jumping on board here, you kind of said you launched Speckit at Dreamforce this past year. Yeah. Talk me through that journey. Well, actually, let me back up a little bit. Why did you start it? You said you started it, but you went from, was it a reality share? Yeah, reality shares to Speckit. What was the impetus for that? You wanted to, all right, you were a chief of staff there, right? Yeah. And you, what made, first of all, I'm always curious on what makes people decide to start their own business.

What was that driver? Was it, was it like you saw an opportunity or you had an itch to do something? That's a great question because I feel, you know, when you talk to a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of them always knew that they wanted to start a company. And that wasn't really part of the story and vision. I always saw myself, you know, eventually kind of climbing the corporate ladder and being in some sort of leadership position. But I think the desire to start a company started after working at a number of startups. You know, I worked at a technology company right when cannabis got legalized in Colorado. And that was really exciting, you know, getting my toes wet there. And then when I moved to San Francisco and worked for realty shares, you know, I joined when it was super early on around 15 employees.

And the best analogy that I've heard someone else say about startups is that it's really playing a game of chutes and ladders. You know, what's so unique about Silicon Valley is that you, you know, you're not studying, you know, growing steadily within the company. If you take whatever opportunity comes your way, if you show initiative, you know, we, the, the great thing about startups is there's a whole lot of problems to solve, right? There's no process in place or constantly hiring. Everything's constantly changing as your business evolves and you're really learning by doing. And, you know, I kind of took the approach where I'm just going to take whatever comes my way. You know, I'm happy to raise my hand whenever there was a problem to solve.

And through that, I really, you know, got excited about or got in that mindset of constantly identifying opportunities to solve. And the biggest one was obviously around that training issue that that was pretty constant for us. And so that's when, you know, I started really thinking through what would this ideal solution look like? Because I'd spent a lot of time, you know, in business operations, evaluating solutions like that. So I'd spent a lot of time seeing what was currently out there and then envisioning what I would want out of a, the ideal solution. And it was only when my now co-founder, Zari, you know, I pulled her aside. She's a rockstar product manager at the company. I was like, hey, you've seen this problem from like the technology side and of the company.

I've seen it from the end user side. Let's, you know, let's spend a little bit of time just like, you know, not anything serious, just playing around with the ideation. And as soon as, you know, she's like, hey, I'm not going to spend any time on this unless we do it right. Let's start getting surveys. Let's get out there. You know, let's read competitive app reviews, identify the weaknesses there. And so it was after doing quite a bit of research and realizing it wasn't just our problem. We were solving, there was a bigger problem to solve. We were like, hey, let's, let's do something about this. I love it. Now, so, and did you get funding or did you bootstrap this from the start? Yeah. So Zara and I were along the same mindset where we didn't want to bring on funding until we were clear that we'd identified not only the right problem to solve, but the right solution as well.

So we did invest both personally, you know, and, and not take a salary for quite a bit of time. And then we took on a bit of angel funding because the reality is, you know, when you're building a software, there's a lot of upfront costs from a development standpoint. There's marketing as well, you know, in order for us to do Dreamforce, that's pretty penny there. So we did take on some angel investment and now we're starting to think about, you know, what, what's next from that standpoint. I love it. So I, like I said, I always love the journey into entrepreneurs because it's, it's either you had it, like, I never knew I had it in me until I, until I was introduced to it. And I'm like, wait a minute, this, I like this a lot better than that.

So I'm going to go do that no matter what. Right. Cool. So, so you started this out, you hit Dreamforce. And I, and I think this is what really struck me about when we were talking was it's still as somebody who's been in sales for 22 years. Okay. I've been selling now 23. Um, you know, the whole, the switch, you know, I still get people saying we need to switch to solution sales. Now solution sales came out back in the nineties or something like that, or the eighties where it was like, Hey, stop the product pitch and, and really solution. So where you ask the questions and then you deliver what the client's asking for. Right. But there's still a massive group of people. And I think it comes from perception reality that think the product is what sells.

So could you help me understand kind of your perception of how you thought you needed to sell going into Dreamforce and then the reality of what you got hit me? Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah. So Dreamforce was our big launch pad. You know, we went, we went all in because my mentality was, well, if we don't do it this year, then we have to wait for another year because our product was focused on Salesforce. You know, that was just the natural launching pad. Um, and it was a great experience for us. You know, we got a ton of intros, people walking by. I mean, Dreamforce is just exceptional from that standpoint. You actually get to speak directly to the decision makers, which I've now learned is a lot harder than, than most people think.

Um, and, and so it was exciting because after Dreamforce, you know, we had a ton of leads and we'd actually done demos for almost everyone, you know, because our, our sales team was so small. I said, you know, we don't have time to follow up with all these people that we just got random business cards from, you know, I need someone to have at least seen 10 seconds of the product so that they at least know how to differentiate, you know, my emails from the 30 emails that are going to follow up after Dreamforce. Um, and it was great. You know, we got a ton of demo requests and, and I got really excited because I was so busy, right? It was finally, we were, we were getting our pipeline filled and I was doing, you know, on Sundays, eight to 10 demos a day, which, you know, sounds great.

But the reality was that, you know, I wasn't spending any time preparing for them. I was just kind of going into them still with, you know, thoughts from the last demo going straight into the next one. And, you know, because I hadn't really studied what a proper sale looked like, I was a hundred percent focused on features. I'd go in and I'd ask a couple of questions. You know, now I realized they were all closed ended. Like, do you have documentation solutions? Do you have training problems? You know, all yes, no answers more so to check the box that I'd asked a few discovery questions rather than actually getting to the root of, well, why are they interested? Is it because of onboarding? Is it because of training?

Is it changing? You know, what is the root of the business problem and the value they're trying to solve? And I'd go in super excited and show them everything our product could do because, you know, my mindset was, well, if they see every single feature and all the different things and all the different problems we can solve, it's going to be an easy sell. And the reality was quite different because, you know, one of the issues is we had two very different audiences. One was more technical, one was more, you know, sales and learning. And I was selling the same pitch to both. And, and, you know, everything from the words I was choosing to the stories that, well, I in reality wasn't telling, but, but every example I was giving was trying to meet this kind of general use case rather than being very specific to the value that that particular individual wanted.

And, you know, after about a month of doing that and not really seeing any tangible results, you know, I wasn't doing the proper follow-ups. I mean, there's a ton of things I was doing all wrong. Perspective, not, not sending follow-up meetings. I finally was kind of at a breaking point because I was exhausted. I felt like I'd been doing so much, but not really seeing the results to show for it. And the conversations I was having weren't really getting into that next level. And so I decided to go to the sales 3.0 conference and, you know, for two reasons. One, the audience was mostly sales and sales operations folks. So I figured, well, this might be a really good way to, to kind of understand that their thought process and have some just real conversations with folks.

But the other one is just to learn. I, I, I finally came to the realization of how much I had to learn about selling, right? It wasn't something that I could just wing and pick up. And one of the first, the opening keynote talked about, you know, the, they, they had done this, this big survey of sales sales folks and they'd identified the weakest group and the highest relating factor amongst all of them was the desire to be liked. That was the one thing that prevented them from, you know, following up properly, right? Because you don't want to be imposing. And that was definitely something I was doing. You know, if someone showed expressed, had expressed interest, they, they, they thought that, you know, they, they said they liked it.

I fell up once and then I didn't want to intrude on their, on their busy day, right? I figured out, well, when they, when they're interested, they'll come back. Um, and, you know, I wasn't asking the hard questions. I wasn't getting the point of, you know, not only is this something that they like and that they're willing to see a demo for, but is this not something that they're, they're willing to prioritize, that they're willing to allocate budget to? Um, and, and a really interesting moment happened when I was standing at a high top table surrounded by, you know, six men in their, in their like forties, you know, CEOs or kind of experts in the sales space and they were all talking and I was, you know, trying to, to fit in and really, you know, take part in the conversation.

And then this, this one individual standing next to me, we kind of, you know, started having our own conversation and turns out he's actually a sales trainer and coach. And, and he started, he asked me a very unique question, which was, you know, when you're in the sales process, what, what energy do you lead with? Do you lead with your masculine or feminine energy? And, you know, there was kind of a pause because I didn't know how to respond to that. I hadn't ever really thought about it. And, and so he gave me a couple of examples. He's like, well, do you lead more with your confidence and assertiveness and put your best, you know, foot forward, which would be more with your masculine energy?

Um, I was like, well, yeah, I guess that's, that's what I've been trying to do, trying to fit into what the bold of a CEO selling to an enterprise looks like. Um, and he's like, well, have you ever considered leading with your feminine energy instead? You know, because I, I, I sense this strong female energy from you. Um, but you seem to be leading and trying to fit into this masculine energy instead. It's like, have you ever considered leading from, you know, a place of trust and empathy and compassion and, and leading with, with that instead? And I was like, wow, I've never thought about that. Um, and really from that point forward, you know, it, it struck a chord in me that I'd been trying so hard to fit into what I thought was a person selling sales, you know, versus what the reality was, you know, people buy from people and the more authentic I could be, um, the more myself I could be, which is more of a, you know, nurturing and empathetic personality.

Um, that would, you know, leads to some very different results. And so that was really the, the pivoted, the pivoting point for me. I find that fascinating. First of all, I think we should all lead a little bit more with our feminine, feminine side these days, but, um, the, you know, we were talking about how I wrote that post of stop, stop doing what you're supposed to do. You know, I think so many of us are caught up in what we think sales should be, or what, what we think we should be doing or what we're being told to do. You know what I mean? Like, and I know, look, as a, as a young sales rep, you know, for me, for some reason, I've always kind of had that inner pushback of, if I didn't think it ever made sense, I would, I, I never had a problem saying it, you know, it's like, have you read challenger sale yet?

No, I have not read challenger sale. Um, and you know, in the mental, there's two components of challenger sale. One is lead with insights, which is the whole idea of kind of educating your audience to say, Hey, this is where just in time learning's going. This is what, you know, attrition is causing, and this is how blah, blah, blah. Um, but the other side is challenge, right? It's to, is, is to actually push back on a client. And when you think that they're not looking at it the right way, you don't say this, but effectively what you, what you think is, look, you make this decision once a year, maybe I help people make this every day. Let me share with you how, when people make the right decision or the wrong decision.

And for me, I've always kind of been inherently a challenger sales rep because anytime it like, anytime I thought you were looking at it the wrong way, I would tend to push back and be like, help me understand. Like most people that I talked to don't look at it that way. So could you, and they're unraveling it that way. Um, but I kind of fell into the same problem or kind of thing you did, which was early in my career. I thought the pitch was it, you know what I mean? Like the elevator pitch, you get the elevator pitch down. You just say it as many times until your ear bleeds. Right. Um, or your demo, you just demo. So, you know, you, you find the right client, your demo and that's it. And this is where you'll, you might, I don't know if you read this one, but you know, the word digest hit me strong.

And I don't know if you heard this, but I think that's the killer word after every demo is that after you do one of those canned piece of shit demos that you and I have done plenty of that, they come to you at the end and they say, wow, that was really impressive. I'm going to need a little time to digest what you just told me there. Yeah. And I tell everybody, if you hear that word at the end of one of your demos, you've done a miserable job. And I used to be so proud of myself because I'd walk out of those meetings being like, Oh, what's up? I crushed that. Like, absolutely. And the dude would literally say, Oh, I need to send. And I said this one time, um, coming out of a meeting, I said, these words legit came out of my mouth.

I said that dude, I was so excited engineer with me. I said, that dude didn't even know what to do with the information I put in front of him. And as soon as I said that, like this was my turning point because my engineer looked at me and said, what? He even, even he knew that was a dumb, like, I'm like, wait, Oh man, wait a minute. He didn't even know what to do with the, right. Right. So now talking about tailoring your pitch. And, you know, I talk about sell to the 20%, you know, there's really only 20% of what people buy of your shit. That's the only stuff they care about. So focus on that. But I love the idea of being your authentic self. Yeah. So how do you combine being your authentic self with the sales component of it, of the stuff that you know, you need to do like the follow-up, the prep and those types of things.

So talk to me a little bit about your journey of, of how you come once that kind of light bulb went off of, you know what I should be, I should stop trying to be somebody else of whoever I'm supposed to be. I want to be myself. But if you were yourself with no training and guidance or any of that from a sales standpoint, you would probably just have really good conversations with people that still didn't go anywhere because you wouldn't want to push them. You wouldn't want to follow, you know what I mean? So talk to me about what, what was the connection you made between the empathetic self and I know I need to have the foundational sales pieces in place here. Yeah. So I think there, there's a couple different pieces to that.

You know, one of it is, and I think you alluded to it, there's a strategy behind every sale, right? We can have a conversation all day and yeah, I'm good at having conversations. I can talk, I mean, when you're off, but at the end of the day, you know, there needs to be some sort of a process that you're following. And actually where I saw, where I observed one of the best sales processes was drift. I'm a big fan girl of drift. I think they're just an incredible company. And, and I just remember, you know, when I was working with our, our sales rep there, his name was Michael. He, he emailed me and it was just the most casual, you know, after I signed up and it was just the most casual email, like, Hey, saw you were checking out, you know, drift would love to find some time to connect about your problems.

And, you know, I get hit up every day as a CEO, I'm sure you do too, or like all these sales pitches. And this was just one or two lines, super simple conversational tone. I was like, wow. Yeah, I'm sure. Let's have a, let's, let's have a chat. And, you know, we went on the demo and it was same. It was very conversational. You know, he put on the video and that's one of the biggest lessons I learned is as I was doing all these demos, I wasn't actually putting on the video. There was something that I felt uncomfortable, I think, putting on my, my video in the sales process. And so I wasn't seeing who I was speaking to either. You know, I could go off their LinkedIn profile, but if you look at my LinkedIn profile, I've got my arms crossed, you know, when in reality, I, I'm more of a jokester.

And so I, I wasn't really building that authentic relationship at the start where, you know, when you smile with someone and he, and you, you see those, that authentic smile, you, you already break down those barriers that are just so hard to do over the phone, no matter how crafted your pitches, how good those questions are that you're asking. And, and honestly, that's one of my strengths. Um, so anyway, so it was after going through that sales process and what they did really well, you know, is there was clearly a sales process they were following, you know, after a demo, he sent me this personalized video of, of drift on my, with my logo. I was like, wow, this is really cool. And, and then, you know, and then he put a little bit of pressure on me to, to get the sale done within a certain timeframe, but I was bought in, you know, I wasn't just bought into the product, but I was bought into like that, that sales process that I was part of, you know, that relationship that I'd been building.

And, and anyway, and that, that strung another order with me of chain, you know, going back and looking at the emails I was sending after emails, which was, you know, again, I, I use some, you know, default yes or templates. Like here's what we talked about today. Here are the three features that we, that we agreed would add value to your business. And here are the, you know, the questions that you had. And, you know, and I was following these various templates and I'm like, do these things even work? Like, is that what people really want us to recap? Cause I'm pretty sure we were both there for the same conversation. They remember what features I showed them that add value, you know, and it's not to say that you shouldn't reinforce what you went over in the demo, but, but taking a much more conversational approach, you know, added and, and adding smiley faces, if there was something that made me smile and, you know, exclamation marks where, you know, I used to go back in and almost erase that natural tone that I was using in emails.

Whereas here, I just, you know, okay, let me just roll it off my tongue, not use these like preset templates as much and just be a little bit more, more authentic. And I started seeing some real results from there. I love it. Yeah. I mean, I think that I call that, uh, you know, catching your sales groove is when like you, you go from trying to be something that you hear, you know what I mean? Like, okay, I need to be this. This is my template. This is my pitch. This is my, and then there's that moment where you kind of wake up a little bit and it's when you've stopped pitching your solutions and you start having conversations about your solutions, you know, and to your point, drift, natural conversation.

Like that's their, that's our whole ethos, right? Is that they try to change marketing from landing page, submit a form, let me call you, with a templated response to, Hey, it looks like you're interested. Let's have a conversation about this. Um, but without structure, a lot of that goes, you know, a lot of that good conversation tends to fall on deaf ears or at least not get followed through on because like you have that really good initial vibe, but it's almost like, you know, I had an engineer who I used to work with. And, um, he said to me, he goes, you know, after I left my company, um, he goes, John, he's like, I think I want to be, he was a CTO. He was my CTO of my first startup. And, um, and he was great in front of a client.

And so after I left, he goes, John, I think I've reached my peak at, as a CTO of a small business from a earning standpoint. And he's like, I really think I could be a great sales engineer and take my career to a whole nother level. I'm like, Oh man, I think you'd be fantastic. Cause I know you'd be fantastic as a sales engineer. And then he said, he goes, because I think if I were to just get a bunch of people, you know, get people to set me up on meetings and then do the follow-up afterwards, I think I'd be fantastic in sales. And I was like, yeah, so would everybody else, my friend, like what you're seeing in that moment, in that meeting, the ease, I'm not saying it's easy. I'm saying it literally is the easiest part of the sale is having the conversation with the client.

It's everything you do to get that conversation. And everything you got to do to now follow up on that conversation. So that switch is a palpable one. And like you said, you start to see noticeable results when you make that shift from pitching to having a conversation. Yeah. And part of it too, just to point out, you know, it wasn't like, I just, you know, observed these two instances and all of a sudden made this shift and it just all started happening naturally. You know, one of the big commitments I made was to actually studying sales. And, you know, I always loved school. I studied finance and accounting undergrad, which is pretty much irrelevant now, but, but that was the one thing that I knew I was good at, you know, just investing time and really learning and looking at it more as a, something I was studying versus just this thing I was doing on the side.

And so I started taking e-learning courses and reading every blog out there. You know, I recently started listening to your podcast, which has some amazing, like very specific topics, like the questioning process or the preparation and realizing that, wow, there is some, some very, very simple tactics that you can put in place to just be that much more prepared before a meeting, such as writing down three questions beforehand that are very pertinent to them. Right. So that you're not just, like you said, having a conversation that is great. You establish that bond, but at the end you don't really leave that true value. So I think that's a big piece to point out, especially for folks like myself that might be transitioning from a different industry or might be transitioning from a different role.

Like, you know, like the example you just gave from engineering to sales, you know, of course, some people just have it naturally. And then there's that EQ component, but understanding that, you know, putting, actually investing that time and, and studying it and reading as much as you can is, is really what has helped me the most I'd say. Yeah. It's, it's, um, you know, the, the, I'm actually somewhat encouraged right now that back when I graduated college, you know, there was no sales. You couldn't get your degree in sales period. Five, six years ago, there's about 20 or 30 universities. Now there's about 70. Um, so, so you're starting to see sales become a profession that is educated, but historically it's been the default profession, which is why we all make it up as we go.

And we have this perception based on movies like Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, Wolf of wall street and all that shit. If that is what sales is, which I think, you know, deters a lot of people from even getting into it. And unfortunately is a perception we have to break down when we have the, when we, when we as sales professionals are having conversations with clients, because that is their perception of us. And the easiest way to break that perception is by doing your fucking homework and not pitching your shit because at the end of the day, they don't care about you. They care about them. Right. So I love it. Um, and actually just, you might, uh, so I'm excited about this by the way, to try to address the lack of education in sales and get people introduced to it early.

Um, I'm actually, uh, I'm writing a, I'm finally writing a book. Everybody's like, Oh, when are you going to write? But it's not going to be a book that everybody is, uh, um, used to as far as sales. It's, it's because what am I going to write that hasn't been written? Right. And I'm kind of a hypocrite, even though I love learning, I don't really like reading all that much, especially books. I think most books are full of shit. Um, but, uh, but I'm writing a book, it's a children's book and it's called, I want to be in sales when I grow up. And it's based on my daughter. It's based on my daughter who I want to get more women into, I want to help more women get into sales. It's her journey of selling Girl Scout cookies.

And it's about like learning the fundamentals really, really early. So I'm super amped to get that thing up. That's amazing. Yeah, that that's great. And that's, that's amazing. Yeah. I think, you know, getting, especially woman, you know, from an early age and the mindset and that's, you know, goes back to STEM as well. Like there's still, you know, despite the, I think equality going on, which is absolutely amazing. I think we've made great strides overall, you know, specifically in the United States. I do think that there's still some barriers at a young age that are put where, Hey, here's, you know, okay, police officer and firefighter. And like, there's, there's still these gender differences around like, this is what a, you know, you do up, you should do as a, as a grownup versus what your, you know, brother should do as a grownup.

So I think that's really great because, um, you know, I sometimes joke that I wish I'd been an engineer. Um, I'd study that cause I, you know, my mind kind of things like that. And I really enjoyed it. And none, there was no girl I knew that I was going into that. I was like, well, I'm not gonna, gonna go in and study with all guys. I'll do finance. Cause that's definitely more balanced. Absolutely. Right. And let's, well, and let's chat about that if you don't mind. Um, cause I'm, you know, to me, I agree with you. I think as on whole, we were, we're doing better as a society. Um, we're nowhere near where I think we should be in from an equality standpoint. And that's frustrating for me to see, but how do you, what advice would you give to, to a woman in sales, for instance, who's trying to find their, their voice, if you will, and living in, you know, especially in tech sales.

I mean, let's call it what it is. It's, you know, I go in to do trainings and it's 80% male, you know, and it's usually a pretty like, you know, hardcore, but I won't say hardcore. It's not like Wolf of wall street anymore, but it is definitely masculine as far as banging the gong and I'm not saying women don't do that afterwards. There's a lot of hat. Right. So how do you, what advice do you give to young women, um, from a, from a developmental standpoint in, in sales or in business in general to help them find their voice? Like, is there, is there any thoughts that you have around like how you did it or, or any things that, that I don't know that I'm just searching for something to help somebody take that step?

Like you did when you made that connection that I can do this and I belong here and I have a voice and it's not just leaning in, you know, it's like my wife, you know, my wife, we went and saw, uh, Sheryl Sandberg went a dream for us when she was a dream for us. And she had the whole book leaning in, right. Which was great. But my wife sat there and she's, uh, so she's Sicilian and Swedish. Um, so she's fire. She's, she's, you know, I'm the mellow one in our relationship, but she said to me, she goes, yeah, lean in. She's like, fuck this whole leaning in thing. I'm standing up. And that's just my wife. Like my wife does not give a shit. She's like, you could be, you know, the president. Well, you could be a president of an organization and she could tell you straight to your face.

Like I got, she has no problem, but how do you help women who don't have that inherent? Like I got that confidence and fucking, I don't care. Cause they're trying to build their careers. Yeah. So, you know, I think I've struggled a lot with confidence in the past, you know, some of it roots back to, you know, middle school bullying, which sounds so silly, but ultimately, you know, it does leave scars for you later on. And so I've had some major shifts, you know, I moved from Switzerland to the Bahamas as a teenager, very, very different worlds. And, and it was, you know, kind of hard to figure out, you know, what, how to fit in. Let's say, so I was always trying to, trying to fit in. Um, and then in, in college, when I was looking at job opportunities, I was looking at originally to go into investment banking.

Um, and the reason I didn't is because, you know, I went on this finance tour and just looking at the the floor, it was all men and fine. And I got, and I became really intimidated. And then, you know, fast forward, when I started working at realty shares, something really special happened. And I get, you know, I, I do think it's partly attributed to the fact that it was a startup. And so there's just a lot less rules there in terms of your ability to kind of ascend. But, you know, our CEO at the time, one of the things I respected about him the most is that he did not discriminate based on experience, age or gender. You know, if, if you had an opinion and you were willing to, to share it and you had some sort of, you know, whether it was research or you'd spoken to people, like there was validation behind it, um, there was an open floor for it.

And so, you know, slowly, but surely I started, you know, just voicing my opinions more and, and, and, and I was listened to and, and every time there was a problem, you know, I would, I would contribute. And, and I slowly started breaking down this invisible barrier that I realized I had kind of inflicted on myself versus that was really there. And I think that's one of the challenges right now for a lot of women, you know, we have these misconceptions that, oh, well, these careers are only for, for, you know, men or, you know, in order to become X, I need to do Y first. When in reality, we're living in, and, you know, a decade, a century where there's so much opportunity out there. There's so many different ways that you can make your own, you know, you can go into sales because you're fresh out of college and you went there.

I'm part of this, um, sales training coaching program right now, where there's this kid, he's 19, he's in college, he, he sells for Cutco and I've learned more from him as a, you know, as a younger individual in the workforce than, than some of my, you know, peers that had three decades of experience. I don't know if it's, if it's advice per se, but I'd say, you know, just find, find mentors, find some, some people that inspire you, whether they're men or women in that industry and, you know, ask to grab coffee, you know, talk to them and, and understand their journey and how they got there. And the biggest thing you'll find out is every single person, even if they ended up the same result, has a different way of getting there.

And I think that's a big lesson to remember, you know, whether you started off in sales, whether you're just trying to get into sales now, there's nothing holding you back from doing it. You know, find someone to look, look up to, find something that you're truly passionate about selling. And I think that's one of the, the, a big holdback, you know, I could go into selling lead pipes. I could probably, you know, I could spend a lot of time, a lot of investment into it, but you know, is that something that's going to fulfill me day in and day out? Probably not. Right. So find something that you're truly passionate about and find some mentors to look up to, because ultimately, you know, we're living in a world where there are very, there are still barriers, but there are a lot less than they used to be.

And it's up to us to really break those barriers further and show that there is a place in sales for women. And that there is a place for that more female energy that, that many actually, I'm seeing a lot more men adopt, you know, like you said, the, the empathetic nature, that trust and like leading with that versus leading with like, Hey, let me show you why this is going to be such an amazing product. Um, and I think they'll, they'll, they'll see more opportunity than you'd expect. Yeah. I think you're right. Did you, have you seen the Gillette commercial? No, was it, did it play yesterday? It wasn't, no, I was on the Superbowl. This was about a month ago and it's a big, go look on it after this.

It's like what a real man is. And it's, and it's the, you know, the exact opposite of what the perception is. And they've gotten a lot of shit for it, but I think it's exactly where we need to go. Right. Is blending the, the masculinity, if you will, have confidence with the empathetic, you know, female energy, um, to, to really create the best of both worlds. And, and I think that's what we need to support way more of these days. And you said something in there that I found interesting, um, which I think is important for people to think of with your, your, the leader, the, you know, the CEO that you said was didn't matter race, creator, color type of scenario. Um, it's, uh, you know, you said, as long as you, you said, as long as if you had an opinion, share it, as long as you could back it up with some data, with some facts.

Yeah. And I think that's critical for anybody out there, men or women, we need to, to a certain degree, it's almost like you want to take the emotion out of it, but also keep it in it in, in a different way. Like it's like forecast reviews. I used to call forecast review story time. Right. Which is because it were all a bunch of stories. And I would, I would, I wouldn't let my reps use the words feel or think in the, in the conversation. Cause look, objectively, what do we have here? And then let's talk about how you feel about this. Okay. But when we lead with, well, I feel like this is a really good deal, or I feel like this, or that I think this is a good opportunity. Yeah. What's the data that backs that up?

Okay. So it's kind of like when we get upset in a meeting or when we feel frustrated, a lot of times the way we react, we react is based on how we feel about how the situation. Whereas if we took a step back, took that feeling, articulated it in a factual based conversation with data to support it, most people would be a lot more open to that conversation. Cause it's hard for me to do something about how you feel about something. You know what I mean? It's easier for me as somebody receiving your feelings to look at what, what was the thing that created that feeling, right? And if you have some data to back it up and then obviously a solution to address it. So you're not just complaining, that's where I think it opens up a lot of doors, right?

And that is a big piece of it. The solution, what you just said at the end, you know, bringing up, Hey guys, I'm observing, there's this big problem. Here's why it's a problem. And then not offering some sort of a solution or, you know, in best case, multiple solutions is I think a big reason why some people kind of gets, you know, are perceived as this, you know, quote unquote, Debbie Downer is great. You're identifying these problems. Yes. We all realize that there's a big problem with our marketing ads right now. We realize that there's a big issue. You know, there's so many different things to complain about every day and to blame as to why things aren't working the way they are. But I think one of the, the, the things that really worked well for me, and that's what I enjoy is thinking, well, you know, not just one solution, but like, what are all the different ways we can solve it?

So you're bringing to the table, like, Hey, have we tried this? Have we tried this? Like who would be the right person to, to lead this initiative? And why might this work? And like you said, backing it with data and looking at other examples. And yeah, I think that's, that's a big piece of, of kind of climbing that ladder and getting respect from people that are much more experienced and higher than you and the organization, even when you might not otherwise have, you know, a place to do that, if that makes sense. Absolutely. So how do you foster that over now that you're the CEO, you know, and you're kind of on, on the other side, right? Cause you're now leading an organization. A lot of times I used to tell my reps, no, I want you to challenge me.

I want you to challenge me, but it was just words. Right. But you know, a 25 year old kid challenging, you know, a 22 year old kid challenging a, you know, a CEO or a VP of sales. That's, that's, you know, no matter how much I tell you, challenge me. Like, okay, John, sure. You know what I mean? So how do you, how are you currently fostering that, that openness that, that, Hey, we're all on the same page here. Is there anything specific you're doing over at Speckett? Well, I think there's, you know, you need to have those open forums. One of the things I realized is I was doing it wrong. We were, we use Slack and we use Slack because we have a, you know, a significantly remote team and it's the easiest way to kind of, you know, have those conversations.

And again, going back to trips, David cancel and Dave had a podcast episode where they talked about how they were wrongly utilizing Slack too, where basically they were using it for all instant messaging, as well as for conversations that might be better suited for email, such as feedback. Right. You know, if there's a real, you know, if you want an opinion that has been thought through by one of your employees asking it over Slack and being like, Hey, this happened today. You know, what do you guys think about it? You're probably not going to get that thoughtful response from them. Um, and so one of the things we shifted to is anything that really, that I wanted someone's thoughtful response on, um, or anything that was a big challenge or a big issue, we would switch to email and use that instead.

And then in some cases switch the phone as well. But I think that kind of gave room for people to really share a more thoughtful response versus the default of Slack. Um, but another one, actually, you know, one of the people I've learned the most from is from our intern. He's, he's still in college. He's, he's marketing and he's a go getter, you know, and he's learned so much in so little time because he's shown that initiative. And, and, and we, you know, we set up one on one. So there's forums for him to talk about more. So like, Hey, how are we doing as, as a relationship? You know, am I supporting you enough? And one of the things I realized is, you know, he was committing 15 hours a week to us, but there wasn't any sort of schedule.

So I was expecting this, you know, this fresh, uh, young, young employee to have the same amount of self-discipline that, that someone like I do. And that wasn't working as well, whereas now we have, you know, we have a, a big schedule. He works for 10 hours and he's doing incredibly well, but, um, I think it's just, you know, like you said, developing that relationship, that rapport, getting on zoom, you know, when he proposes something, I'm always ready to listen. And sometimes I'll push back and say, Hey, this cost doesn't make sense right now. Or did you think about this? Or, you know, what alternatives did you look at? This solution looks great, but sell me on it, right? Like why the solution?

Why drift? Why not intercom? Why yes, where, why not outreach? You know, you, you name it and actually, and get that, that information. So I think that's a big piece of it. And, and just making sure that they know that there's that open channel of communication that if there's a chat, you know, even if there's a problem that we can hop on the phone and talk it out. And I think that, that culture is so important to, to be successful as an organization. Um, the collaboration, right? No matter if you have a janitor or the CEO, if you're all on the same page moving and helping each other, it makes the journey a lot easier, uh, and a lot more effective too. Yeah. And I think that's a big piece to realizing that every employee has that opportunity to, to rise up, you know, I, at our last organization, seeing how different people kind of morphed into their ideal role.

Um, we saw a ton of obviously, you know, vertical shifts, but horizontal shifts as well from people shifting, you know, like you said, from an engineer to sales. And, and I think every, you know, every career that the reality is, is 10 years decreasing, right? People are shifting jobs more and more remote work is opportunity is opening more opportunities, you know, to keep those employees, like they need to have a greater purpose than just going in and selling every day or going in and building product, right? No matter how passionate they are, they need to feel like they're part of something bigger than that. And I think the biggest way to do that is to, you know, Hey, here's this random challenge.

You, you're not part of it at all, but like, let's just think through it. Let's go to the whiteboards and think through why, you know, why did this client respond this way? Or why did this customer support issue stand up and foster that communication, not just with the team responsible for solving it, but with other folks in the organization as well. Yeah. I mean, I go, so you cannot, as a leader, you can't get anybody to do more than their job, unless you paint a vision, right? If they, if they don't understand where you're going and how they fit in and, and, and that type of stuff, they're just going to do what they're being asked of, which is fine in some cases, you know what I mean? You just, sometimes you just need at a certain size of an organization, you just need people to do their job.

But if you want them to do more than that, if you don't get them bought into the bigger picture and have them feel a part of it, good luck. So cool. Well, uh, any, um, just in the last few minutes, uh, we have here, any questions, uh, I know you threw a couple on there, but any questions or things you want to pick my brain about flip it over, flip it over. Yeah. I'd actually love to hear your thoughts on business. So we're just getting started with our sales team. Now we're a few months in, we're ready to start building out our sales force. Um, and, and one of the, you know, I, I moved to Colorado cause I want to build out our sales and marketing operations team here. And I'm set on having our A's in house.

Absolutely. I want them to be part of the, um, the organization, but you know, I've read a lot about organizations that have successfully outsourced their biz dev functions and, you know, there's the cost savings component, but there's also an efficiency to it as well, right. Where, Hey, I don't actually have a background in sales, so I can learn what proper outbound strategy looks like, or I could leverage this company that's experts there. And I just have to train them on why spec it and why our value, et cetera. So what are your thoughts on that? Um, from an answer. Yeah. If you'd asked me five or six years ago, I'd say absolutely not run away from it. Like the plague, right? Because it's too many of them were like script oriented, where if they said this, then say that.

And if they say this, then say that. And that goes back to our conversation about the pitch versus the conversation. Now though, with, and I, I think it depends on your target audience and your IC, you know, and that ideal customer profile and the personas that you're going after. And also what your thought process is on the progression of the growth of your sales team, because the benefit of that segmentation is that you bring people in young, if you will, you get them, you know, making calls and that type of stuff. And then they evolve into an AE that is a fully rounded AE and that type of thing. But to your point earlier about so many people have so many different jobs these days, and they're bouncing around all over the place, you really can't count on one sales rep to, you know, be with you for six, seven years until they produce like that.

Ooh, there's that enterprise AE that I'm talking about. Right. Um, so I, I think it's a lot more viable these days. I would look at it as a little bit of a, of a, and what I'm seeing at least right now with the artificial intelligence, because there's a, if you want to see the debate on this one, I read it. I read it. The one between inside sales.com and, and, uh, yeah. Okay. That battle is going on. Right. So Chad Burmeister and Gabe, right. They're literally going at each other on replacing SDRs a hundred percent versus augmenting SDRs. I think it's the augmentation conversation. There's so many tools out there. And I actually think that the inbound, what you can do, I think you can start.

I mean, what's the harm, you know what I mean? Identify your, it puts you through a very interesting exercise to really make sure you hone in on what your ICP is and what your value proposition, that type of thing. And it's a low cost, low risk scenario where, Hey, three month contract, six month contract, see what happens. Whereas I think you can also take, uh, an intern for instance, invest in some tools because there's some crazy ass artificial intelligence going on right now, as far as the, and the insights that we can get with one person sending out targeted messages to a certain group that instead of them being the preceder to a full blown sales rep, they're more marketing operations, but they use the tools to optimize and really hone in on those emails and what's, you know, and that make a few phone calls for you.

So I think as a, as a small business, you know, growing, if you will, looking for that next round of funding, um, it's worth right now. So it's actually for the right company, it's worth taking a chance on three month engagement, see what they can do. You know, three months is around the amount of time where you're going to start to see if they can produce results for you. And after that, you can kind of say, okay, we're moving in the right direction or the wrong direction. While you potentially look for somebody internally that can do a little bit of the triage of that initial. So for inbound leads that come, you're still going to need somebody at a lower level, if you will, to just triage those leads and set people up.

So I think we are in a hybrid role right now. My personal opinion of where this is all going is that I actually think that inbounds, uh, because marketing automation is going to get so much, it's getting so much better and better at targeting and personalization that it's going to drive inbound leads that, that you're going to want somebody at a higher level than a 22 year old kid out of college rep responding to. Right. So you're going to want somebody who's got more customer success oriented that can guide people through the conversation with some structure from a sales. Whereas the outbound cold call, that's still going to be the entree, but I actually think we're going to move back to more of the fully vetted full cycle sales reps.

So inside sales, but they have to find their own business, meet with their clients and close their business, um, into a certain territory. So that's kind of where I'm, I'm seeing the evolution go is that the traditional SDR right now is moving under marketing and operations. Um, whereas sales is going to be more of an inside sales function with a bunch of tools and a bunch of resources, but they're going to manage their whole book. So. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And you also brought up, um, the customer success component, which I think is interesting because we're seeing, you know, a lot of organizations now used to be called customer support. Now it's called customer success.

Actually, one of our advisors, Nicole, she's, um, a, you know, an expert in client experience and she's, she's seen a big shift too, where companies are investing more and more in customer success because, you know, when it comes to, to acquiring a customer for the first time, you put so much effort into that marketing and that sales process. And there's just such a heavy cost associated with it. But when you think of the lifetime value of that customer and keeping them as a customer in a increasingly competitive market, right, where there's new tools, you know, especially with the rate of technology, our solution might be the latest and greatest now, but in five years from now, it's going to feel like a dinosaur solution, right?

So it's going to be up to us to innovate, but the reality is how can we invest in that ongoing customer experience and not think of it as, Oh, this is a support role, right? But instead this is a continuous sales process. Like I am investing my time, my energy, and that's definitely something that we've, that we've adopted. And I think we're going to start seeing a big shift as well in more organizations where the balance between, you know, our last company, we had a couple support people and a huge sales force. I think we're going to start seeing those equalize a little bit more because companies are shifting to that long-term, you know, relationship with that company, but also with that person.

Because going back to what you were saying earlier, like people are shifting jobs all the time. That investment you're making in that individual is not just for that company, right? Because this has already happened to us three months into the conversation, that person's, that person's onto the next company, right? But all of a sudden, if you invest the right amount of time into developing that relationship, that might be two deals you get out of it. Because even if that first deal wasn't, you know, the ideal time, now this next one is. And so really focusing on that customer success and that ongoing relationship, not just with the business, but with that individual, like, Hey, what are some other challenges?

Like, do you, do you want to brainstorm? Like, how can we help you solve this further? I think it's going to really differentiate some of these organizations from others. Oh, a hundred percent. And I, and I'm seeing it just on my end from a training, I'm seeing so many more clients pulling in customer success to their sales training. And it's funny because customer success gets into customer success because they don't want to be in sales. And now they're all being asked to sell. Right. And it's, and this goes back to our original, you know, of perception reality, which is a lot of people have this perception of what sales is, but it's funny. I could do a sales training for like the sales team with a few customer success people in there.

Right. And I'll do everything I can throughout the day to be like, Hey, this is how it relates to you and dah, dah, dah, right. But inevitably they walk out and they say, Oh, that was great, but I wish it was more a little customer success oriented. Now, if I do the exact same training, but just for customer success and take the word sales out of the equation, just the word, but train the exact same content, they walk out going, Holy shit. That was exactly what I was hoping for. I needed that. You know what I mean? It finally gives me some guidance and dah, dah, dah, dah. So it's this, we have to break this. I think we're, we're shifting over obviously towards customer success, but having to quote unquote sell.

But again, if you just take the word sales out of it, sales is customer success. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like it's, if you, if you think about it the right way, you're helping. I said this before Christmas or the holidays when I left, I said, this is my parting thought. Cause I usually shut down the last two or three weeks of the year. So here's my parting thing for y'all to think about, which is sales. I'm not trying to sell anybody anything. Okay. At the end of the day, I'm either trying to help you solve problems or achieve your goals. Those are the two things I'm trying to do. And if I can't help you solve your problems or your problems aren't big enough and your goals aren't aggressive enough, let's stop talking.

Cause the likelihood of us doing business together, it's not going to be high. If your goals aren't, aren't big enough and I can't help you get there, your problems aren't big enough and I can't help you solve them. Yeah. Yeah. And, and think of it as a long game too, right? Because I think sometimes like one of the issues I was having is we were trying to get, you know, X amount of revenue and X amount of time. And so I was so focused on meeting that goal that I was taking a much more short-term approach towards that sales process where, you know, as soon as I did start following up, I was almost falling up too aggressively like, Hey, you know, have you heard back yet? And, and being pushy simply because I had my own personal incentives.

And that was taken away from me really thinking of what was best for the customer. Like, what does, what does that client need? Like, why does this quarter maybe not make sense for them from an implementation standpoint? Why should we focus on next quarter instead? And I think that comes from, you know, again, thinking more like long-term with that, that client and I'm thinking, well, you know, hopefully your pipeline's abundant enough that you're not, you know, so short-sighted that you're focused on that immediate, you know, that one client is going to be the, the, the, the depth to your, to your goal, but you know, really focusing on, you know, what's best for the client and ensuring that you're thinking long-term for them and what's going to lead to a successful relationship versus you meeting that short-term quota that you set, um, as an organization.

Yeah. I mean, you just kind of hit on the last point, which is, you know, prospecting, right? Use the pipe, the pipeline. If there's anybody out there listening at the one skill you can get great at throughout your entire career, it's always prospect, always network so that you can have a big fat pipeline because a big fat pipeline solves every other problem negotiation, because you put yourself in a position where you want their business. You don't need it. And when you want it, you sell the right way. When you need it, you do some shady shit. So that's why I'd like, just keep prospecting. Even if your pipeline is full, keep doing it because it puts you in a much better position to sell the right way.

So awesome. Any other, any other questions or comments before we wrap things up? Yeah, I think it was great chatting with you. I'm excited. You know, I've learned so much preparing for this podcast too. I probably listened to 25 episodes and make it happen in the last week. So a very concentrated amount. And it's been, it's been fascinating, you know, especially not coming from a sales background. I think for anyone listening, if this is your first time, because I sent you the link to go listen to it, like it put the time in, whether you're from a sales background or not. I think it's, there's just a lot of wisdom there. Like you said, a lot of tactic, um, you know, advice, not just for sales folks, but for leaders as well.

Um, and yeah, just keep it up because it's, it's been, you know, it's been really, really helpful to me. I appreciate that. I appreciate this conversation. I love what you're doing. Uh, you and me are going to have another conversation offline about just in time learning and where that's all is going literally my, my big picture strategy here. So we'll connect after this. Um, but, uh, tell people where they can find out more information about you and, and, and how they can follow you and what you're up to these days. Awesome. Um, well, at any point in time, feel free to email me Melanie, M-E-L-A-N-I-E at spec it S-P-E-K-I-T dot C-O. Um, or, you know, check out our website. We have a couple of different solutions, both towards, you know, just in time learning and knowledge management, as well as a data dictionary, which is our more technical solution.

Um, and then, you know, I'm pretty active on LinkedIn with love to network and I'll be attending a bunch of conferences this year. Saster coming up, which I'm super excited about drink force and a ton of others in the sales. Um, so if you see me say hi. Very cool. Awesome. Well, Melanie, thank you so much. Keep doing what you're doing. And everybody out there, as I usually say, go try to make somebody smile today. There's, there's too much negative bullshit going on. So just try to make a difference in somebody's life today. Make them smile. Uh, that'll, that'll be a success. Even if you're having a bad day, you can make somebody else smile. You know, you had a good day. So appreciate everybody's support and thanks everybody.

Make it happen. All right. Make it a great week. Cheers. Is selling more of a priority for you in 2019? That's a low impact question. To learn more about high impact questions, join me on a webinar hosted by Costello, February 20th. is selling more of a priority for you in 2019? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh. Thank you.