93: Josh Guttman - Prospecting to a new VP

April 12th in Indianapolis at The Gem, and Morgan's going to be running this time, all right? If you want information on it, go to jbarrows.com slash indie for details, and I wanted to thank the sponsors once again, Sales Loft, Lead IQ, and Costello for helping us make this happen and bring the pricing down as low as possible so we can get as many people in there as we can. This content is fire. It's sales-ready messaging. How you can take sales-ready messaging and put it into your emails, phones, cadences, whatever you want, because the challenge that we find right now, everybody's looking, you know, there's templates, and there's emails, and there's phone structures, and all that stuff, and cadences, but the biggest challenge people have is coming up with sales-ready messaging and what to put in those emails, calls, and cadences, so that's what this is all about.

You will walk away with some extremely actionable things that you can apply immediately to drive better results. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrows with Make It Happen Monday. Hopefully, you all had a fantastic weekend. I had a break, which was great, but now it's back to the grind. It's the end of the quarter right now, trying to get my shit in order and plan for another insane Q2, which is all good, but I am very happy today to introduce my guest, Josh Gutman. Josh, say hi to everybody over out there on the Jay Barrow's Make It Happen world. Hi, everybody. Great to be here, John. Thanks for having me on here. Yeah, thanks for coming on, man, and actually, we got some history together here, Josh, right?

This goes back about, you actually just busted out. Show that thing again that you just brought out there that... Oh, take a look at this right here, this beauty from 2008. That is a classic. Hold it near and dear, near and dear. Yeah, so for those of you on the podcast, let's listen to this one. He just showed a manual, a Basho manual that I used about eight, nine years ago when I first started training Salesforce, which is great, which is where we first connected. And that was when you were at SDR, right? Correct, in SDR, yeah. Yeah, and so one of the things that this conversation, I was interested in having this, is because your evolution from SDR to VP to taking a new job, and now you're the regional VP over at Top Hat?

Yeah, I'm one of the regional VPs over at Top Hat, yeah. I oversee basically half the company's revenue rolls up to me. Love it. So you have a pretty unique perspective on prospecting, right? Because you were, that's what you started banging out, right? Doing the stuff, using the triggers and all that other stuff and reaching out to people just like you are, like people like you today, back then you were reaching out to you, right? And now you're on the flip side where you're a VP and you're being prospected into. And so I wanted to kind of explore with you that evolution, if you will, right? When you were an SDR and you were reaching out to people, you had said before we jumped on here, you were kind of frustrated sometimes because you would think that you were reaching out to people at the right time with the right reason and all that other stuff, but you just didn't have the right perspective.

So could you kind of share like your early days of prospecting, what your perception was? And now that you're in a VP role and you're being prospected to what your perception is now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a great question. Very interesting. So think back to my SDR days, right? I was using the Barrows approach. It wasn't called the Barrows approach at the time, but I thought I had the perfect email template. I had all my Google alerts set up, job changes, new funding, virtually everything going on in the region that I was prospecting for. And you'd see a note or an alert come up and it would be like, oh, you know, so-and-so company just got $20 million in new funding to ramp up their sales and marketing efforts and, you know, hire sales professionals and work for productivity and all this stuff.

I'm going, this is perfect. All right, I was working for Salesforce. Seems like a great fit. I'd reach out right away. Like, hey, I just read the funding news. Congratulations. Take the why you want now approach and, you know, send it right off right then and there. Or same thing with like someone's new job change. You know, they came from a prior company. They're all of a sudden, you know, a VP of sales or a CRO. I don't even think that role in this at the time. But, you know, I'd get that alert and that day send out the same type of email based on their goals. I'm like, I'm not getting any responses. Like, what's going on? It's perfect. And, right? And it's pretty funny. So, you know, when I made the transition over to Top Hat, right, a little bit of background on Top Hat, it's a Canadian company.

It's a lot smaller than Salesforce or other companies I've worked at. And, you know, it's about 350 employees. And so, as a VP, you're pretty senior up there. You're at least an influencer and definitely the decision maker in a lot of things. And, right, as soon as I shifted my job change on LinkedIn, I was getting the same emails. And I'm like, oh, God. I'm thinking back to like when I was sending these. Like, no wonder why I'm not getting these. I'm two days into the job. I don't know anything. I'm still learning. I can't make a decision now. Like, the wrong time. It's funny to see that. Yeah. And it's funny because, you know, I mean, even like seven or eight years ago, I mean, I think that the advent of LinkedIn was probably like when it, I forget when LinkedIn really started taking hold.

But I think it was like early 2000s. You know, like early 2000s is when those things worked, right? Like when I, if you did jump into a new job and I got the alert that you jumped into that new job. And I, you know, because nobody else was really doing it at the time. Like now, so many people are doing it that it's almost like, you know, I, there's a book out there, Blue Ocean, right? Go, go where nobody is, right? Like if everybody's doing it, then stop doing it. So for instance, funding, you know, I stopped using funding years ago for, as a reason to reach out to people because, you know, God help that person that's on Crunchbase once that thing hits. You know what I mean? Because 8 billion people reach out.

Sorry, I got a bunch of money. Let me show you how to spend it. Like that type of stuff. Or, hey, congratulations on your new job. Or what drives me nuts these days is like the LinkedIn work anniversary shit where you just get, hey, congratulations on your work anniversary. It's like, that is like, that's like the, the, the, I think that's actually a negative thing now. Cause I'm like, that took zero effort. You're pretending like you give a shit and all you're doing is clicking a button. Like, I'll give you an example. Like as sad as this sounds, I know who my, who my real friends are when my birthday comes. And, and as sad as this sounds in today's state, it's because I get a text message from them and I don't get the Facebook happy birthday, John.

Like apparently on, apparently on my birthday, 8 million people remember me on my birthday and I'm so special. Right. But it's only because Facebook tells me, Hey, it's your birthday clicks, click happy birthday. Right. I don't even thank people anymore on the happy birthday wishes. I'm like, whatever. I don't even like their comments anymore. Cause it's, it's almost disingenuous in a lot of ways. But when I get a text message from somebody saying, Hey dude, just want to give, give you a heads up. Happy birthday. Hope things are going well today. Like that's at least a little bit more personalized. And I think the same thing holds true with these triggers and stuff like that, which is, you know, when you see something that is so commonplace, if you will, use it.

I use it as now a reason to let you know, I'm paying attention, but not a reason to actually, uh, have a conversation. So I'll say, Hey Josh, congrats on the new role, man. I hope things are going well for you. Done. Hey, congrats on the recent round of funding. I hope that means something for you personally and professionally. Like those types of things are now my touching base and checking in emails, as opposed to the reason I want to talk to you emails, if you know what I mean. Yeah. Right. And there's something genuine about, you know, taking a little bit of time and a little bit of effort. Like, Hey, I read, like when I moved to top of that, folks were reaching out. I read a little bit of top of that.

I heard great things, right? Congrats on taking that step. I'm curious why. And let's, let's connect sometime in the future. I know you're probably pretty silent, but that's pretty nice. It's taking a little bit of effort to, to do it. Um, you know, there's no ask. There's just, you know, real recognition a little bit more than a, than a click of a button. Right. And obviously, you know, when it comes by text message, absolutely. It's a little bit more genuine, right? You're not filling the, the, the, the, the in-mail inbox up with, uh, whatever. And, but there's just a little bit of effort and a little bit of thought and, you know, trying to take yourself back and put in that position in terms of, okay, right.

I, I, maybe I'm an executive and I made a job change and I know what's going on. So I'm not going to overwhelm this person or just, just being a little bit respectful by, you know, being genuine and not making an immediate ask. I've been listening to a few of, I've been listening to your podcasts and regularly. And one theme that, that constantly has come up recently is, is the theme of authenticity, right? And authenticity is so important when it comes to, you know, any update, any change, any outreach, it's just, it's, it's absolutely crucial. And a lot of these quick links, right? These Facebook quick links for happy birthday, these LinkedIn quick links. I mean, even Gmail now is starting to auto fill your emails.

It takes authenticity ahead of the picture and it's, and it's noticeable. It's funny you say that. I literally wrote a blog post last night on, on, and it's called, and it's going out tomorrow. It's called, why is authenticity such a big deal these days? Like it's actually, it actually is now a competitive, as sad as this sounds, it's actually, authenticity is now a competitive differentiator, which blows my mind that, that people being real, like you don't have to actually have the best product or service anymore, but if you and I can have a genuine conversation, you're going to want to work with me, you know what I mean? As opposed to like me pitching you the perfect solution and trying to cram it down your throat, pretending like you and I are boys when we're not, you know what I mean?

Like Kevin Dorsey, I, you know, I think I brought this up even Kevin Dorsey, who I don't, do you know, Kevin? I don't know. No. So he's, he used to work at Service Titan. I forget where he's working now, but he's, he's a great coach. Like he's a VP, but he's a, he's an incredible coach. Um, you know, I've learned a lot from him too. And it's funny because we were at Rainmaker recently and literally like him and I would get up on stage, we do our keynote or whatever it was. And look, I get, I expect, I hope that when I get off stage or when I get done doing a presentation that the feedback's positive, but I, my hope is that the feedback is positive based on the content, right? Holy shit, John, thank you so much.

That was great. I can use that, that type of thing. That's what I strive for, right? The majority of the feedback this year, when I was speaking at Rainmaker had almost nothing to do with the content and the quality of the content. It had everything to do with my realness, quote unquote, or, or authenticity. People are like, oh man, thank you so much. Like that was just a breath of fresh air. That was just so real. That was just authentic. And I'm like, why is this such a big deal that people feel compelled to proactively come up to me and say, thank you for being real. Like that to me is just a sad state of affairs of where we are right now, but also a real big, like, holy shit, if that's the case, then let's leverage authenticity to, to, to really change the game here.

So, you know, it's just, it's something that's been really kind of bothering me quite a bit. But hey, let's leverage it if we can. Right. Building on that though, like it's not just prospecting emails. It's not just like outreach and communication, right? It's also people's careers. Like they want to work for authentic people. I'm like, you know, I've known Lucas who works for you. I've known him for years and years and years and long before he even worked for you. And I, I asked him, I thought it's so interesting. He made this move to bear. I was like, why? And he's like, you know, John is just like an authentic, good human being. And like that goes a long way. So even when it comes to folks, careers and conversations around, where are you going to go next?

Who do you want to work for? Right. That is super meaningful as well. Authenticity plays a factor in the air. So this, you know, kind of veering off the topic, but I'm curious on your, on your thoughts on this and how you chose Red Hat. Right. And the reason I asked, sorry, Top Hat. The reason I asked is because, you know, I, so a lot of kids ask me for career advice and that type of stuff. And what I tell them all the time is like, first things first, identify, write down what your values are. Like, what are your core values as, as a person, right? Of what, what do you, like, what's your why, right? But then what's your core values that drive your why? Then once you really are honed in on what your core values are, then go look for organizations that fit those core values.

Okay. Because this is something I said at Rainmaker with, when it came to the, um, I was on a panel for like communities and stuff like that. And I said, look, when you're building a community, you have to outline the values of the community and you have to attract people that share those values, not share your opinions, share those values. Okay. Because as long as you and I share values, we can disagree, our, we can have different opinions. We can argue on stuff and all that other stuff, but at the end of the day, if we, you and I do not agree on values, it's not going to work. That's why in the States, we're in such a shit show with our politics right now, because in America, I genuinely believe we've lost our core value of what I'm being an American means, right?

It used to be, here's our, here's the constitution. Here's what our core values as America are, Statue of Liberty, you know, that type of stuff. But now it's fuck off. You know, it's like, like that, that, that you asked two sides of the equation and their values of America are different. And so that's why everybody's now just yelling into this vacuum. And it's the same thing with, with, you know, companies, right? If you, if you and I, I actually do this with clients. Like if you and I don't align on values as far as how sales should be done, I don't want to work with you because you're not going to enjoy this and you're not, you're not going to get the most out of them. You know what I mean?

So when you, when you were looking for a new challenge, right? For, for your, your new career, you had left the exit and you were looking for something else. How did you really define, see that, what was your process? Cause I want to ask you two things. One is what was your process for identifying the company that you wanted to extend your, you know, take the next challenge in your career with, but then let's talk about your 30, 60, 90 and kind of get back to, you know, you know, what happens when you, but, but how did you identify Top Hat as a company that you wanted to work for? Yeah, it's a great question. It's, it's, it's, it's really funny because back in 2013, now I was going, I was, I was living in Chicago, helping to build that Chicago Salesforce office.

And I took a step back and I'm just like, okay, I'm really liking what I'm doing, but you know, my, I know that my wife and I are going to end up moving back to Toronto at some point in the future. And I'm like, you know, whatever, whatever happens next in the future, let us continue on at Salesforce, whether it's moving on after Salesforce, you know, I want it to make sure that it aligns with my core values. And I actually took a, took a step back and I spent a lot of time and I wrote down my, my top 10 core values and ended up being 12 core values. And from that point on, right. From, from that point on, like all decisions about career, about life, like they, they misaligned with those core values, I wasn't going to, I wasn't going to take them.

And so I ended up moving back to Toronto from Chicago, uh, 2015, 2016 ish. And at that point, right. I was approaching 10 years of Salesforce and I still loved it there, but, but I was open to something new. I was being receptive to, to taking some conversations and top hat is a, is a, is a Canadian, uh, tech darling, right. There's not a lot of Canadian companies that, uh, that, that get to grow to, to, to this size. You know, there's a few like big names that we all know, but, but not too many get to this point in time. And one of the leaders reached out to me and it was a great actual, I'm going to jump back to the topic of LinkedIn, which we can't later. It was a LinkedIn reference, uh, LinkedIn outreach is in January, 2017.

It referenced a mutual friend that we had, somebody that we both trusted and respected, talked a little bit about, uh, about top hat and said, Hey, we, we should just have coffee because this person said you're awesome. I'm like, you know what, that's, I'm, I'm interested in top hat. Let's hear it. I'll have a coffee with you. Absolutely. What an interesting way of approaching it. Like wonderful. We had a coffee, we sat down and I became like enamored with, with the mission of top hat. And I became enamored with the technology and what they were trying to do. And just, just like, you know, I, I have two bachelor degrees, an MBA and a certificate. I spent a lot of time in the education system and like what top hat was trying to do, like personally hit home to me.

I was really excited about it. And keep in mind, this was January, 2017. I didn't join until October, 2018, right? Almost two years went by. And the reason was, is that while this leader was, was great, uh, really sharp person. Um, you know, our values just, just didn't align, right? And it wasn't good or bad, right? He, he was growing the business, he was doing a great job as salesman, but our values just didn't align and, you know, business was going, everything was great. But, you know, when you get to that, a lot, that misalignment of values, you don't want to work for this person. And, and it's like, no harm, no fail. Like I still want to keep in touch. I still want to keep him in such high regard at what, what he's done, what he's accomplished.

And he's the CEO of a company now, but there's just that misalignment going back to my core values. And then, you know, over time, you know, this person moved on and took the CEO job, another company. Awesome. And, uh, a new leader came on board and somebody that I knew reached out and was like, Hey, you know, meet up with this new leader. And so I met up with this new leader, sat down and we started chatting about what's important and values and just, just recognize that our value system really, really aligned. And now it took a little while, you know, I had already made the move over to the X and took a little while to make sure that, you know, we had that mutual connected to big shift going from like a public company based out of the U S to a, to a smaller company based out of Canada.

It was what I wanted, but it was that values, that alignment and value myself in this leader, as well as like the alignment values with the company being so mission driven, being able to personally relate to it. And, uh, you know, how the CEO thought about the business is so passionate. And so, you know, relating back to what you said, it's like almost like kismet, right? Like what you were sharing is exactly, uh, how I chose and top hat and came to join the company. And, you know, it relates back to those core values that I wrote down. And, uh, I don't, I don't want to, uh, talk too much, but here's, here's something else that was interesting is that, you know, sharing with, uh, with, with my, my new leaders, the chief revenue officer of the company.

Um, and we actually sat down and, you know, he was curious, he wanted to review my core values. And so I, we sat down and we, I presented them and we talked through it. And like, it was, it was, it was just a really cool experience. Love that, man. It's funny. Cause I, I, I don't know if you've seen them, but I have like 12 personal guidelines to success and, and they're out there. I posted them and somewhere I don't, I really wish I could go back and find out how, how that came about. Like, did somebody, I don't, I don't remember if somebody suggested it to me. I don't remember if I read something about it or whatever, but I remember very strongly saying, I need to write down what I believe in, in order to give myself direction.

And then what happened was when I, you know, when I became a leader, if you will, or had reps reporting to me, what I would do is I would share with them my core values. And I would say, look, we just want to let you know, here's my core values. Okay. Here's my 12 personal guidelines to success and principles of that type of thing. I'm not saying you have to, you have to have these same values. Okay. Cause, cause everybody has their own, but I want to let you know that when you get feedback from me, this is, it's, it comes from this. Okay. So for instance, one of my top ones was work smart and hard. You know, everybody says work smart. I said, fuck off. You have to work your ass off to be successful.

Right. So, so when, when I'm coming in the office and this was back at thrive days, but when I'm coming in the office at six o'clock in the morning and I'm not leaving until eight, nine o'clock at night, I'm not saying you have to work from six to nine o'clock at night. But what I am saying is if you're not hitting your numbers and you're showing up at nine o'clock and you're leaving at four 30 and I'm starting to get annoyed with you, you're you, that number one of work smart and hard is where my feedback is coming from. Okay. Cause I don't see you working hard enough to be successful. Now, if you're crushing your numbers and you're making it rain and all that other stuff, then fine by all means.

Right. But if you're not working your ass off, then you and I are going to have a hard time. Right. Work ethic to me is a core value. If you don't have a strong, cause I can't teach you work ethic. You know what I mean? I can't teach you drive. I can't teach you passion. You have to have that. And if you don't believe in that, then you and I are not going to work together. Right. And so actually, you know, as a, as a, as a, here's a nugget for, for those reps out there looking for a job, you first of all, do that. Outline your values, but, and then look for companies. Um, but question for you, how would you feel if a rep straight up asked you, so say you were hired, you know, you're hiring reps, right?

And so say a rep walked in and say, Hey Josh, you know, and they came to their part. Hey, you know, you told them, Hey, what kind of questions do you have for me? How would you respond to a rep that said, so what are your core values? Like what would your, uh, yeah. What would your response to be a rep of just that simple question, Josh, could you explain to me what your core values are? Yeah. Yeah. I would say, wow. I love that question. I think it's, it's great that you're asking. Uh, I'd probably challenge it just before, before I go into it. Um, you know, why are you asking this? Where is it coming from? Just to see what she or he would say. If it's, you know, we want to make sure there's alignment.

There's no wrong answer to that question, but I'd just be curious and then I, you know, listen, I've got my, my core values. They're, they're, they're like a favorite in my Dropbox. I can list them off. I pull up my phone and I just, yeah, I'd pull up my phone. I had them here and you know, I'd say, take a look, read them. These are my core values. And you know, I don't sacrifice them for, for anything when it comes to decisions. And you know, this is a great question. If there's some alignment, let's make sure that we, you know, we continue this conversation. If there's not though, you know, you might want to think twice about, like whether or not this is the right place and I'm the right leader for you.

I love that, man. So I, so because my, my thought process around that one is if, if somebody is annoyed by that question, that's probably not somebody you want to, you know what I mean? Like if somebody is either taken back or doesn't take that question, if a leader doesn't take that question well, that's probably, that's an indicator right there that you probably do not want to work for that person. Right. Cause if they're like, what, you know, this, you know, I, I don't know, or if they're, or if their values are vague, if they don't, if they don't know them off the top of their head or can't articulate them in a very succinct way of like, Hey, here's my core value. Here's like at least three of them.

Right. Then something's a little off there and you're going to have a hard time relating to that person in a lot of ways. So that'd be a red flag for me if I was looking for a company, uh, to work for wholeheartedly agree. I actually have a question around yours. Have they changed over time? Like since you sat down and you wrote them? Yes. So, so, well, not physically in the sense that I haven't redone them yet, but I'm, I'm waiting to do a blog post to redo them. So, so one of the things that happened was I did, I had my 12 guidelines. Okay. Then I went to Gary Vee's 4d session where you can go and you can get a, you know, one day all his department heads. And then he comes in at the end, does a Q and a, and one of the things that their department heads was really, and it was a great time for me from a business standpoint, because I was really trying to figure out if I was just going to kind of stay my, in my own little world here, doing my consultancy with my thing, or if I was going to take it to the next level and hire some more people.

Right. And one of the exercises they get you to go through is, is to define your why, like what's your why? Okay. Which I always kind of knew like, but I never had, had solidified that why. Right. And so I really, I, after thinking it through, like, why do I do what I do? You know, it's, and it came down to sales done right. Right. Cause my belief is when sales done right, it's the greatest profession in the world. When done wrong, it's the worst. Right. So, so that's my why. But then after that, it was like, okay, now what are the pillars, your values that support that? And I was like, oh, well shit, I already have my 12. Like there it is. Right. But then I really looked at, cause I hadn't really looked at my 12 for a while.

You know what I mean? I came up with them probably when I was shit, uh, 2001, probably 2002. You know what I mean? I was, I was 24, 25 and your values absolutely. I mean, your core values don't change, but I think how you define them and how you articulate them changes. So what happened was I ended up taking the 12 and realizing there was a lot of overlap in some of them. You know what I mean? Like three of them were kind of, I was, I was saying the same thing, but in different words. So I ended up getting those down to about five, five real core values that, that I'm like, no, these are the pillars. These are the absolutes, right? And then, you know, it, it went from there. So I haven't, I wrote that blog post a little while ago about what my five were, but I haven't revisited my 12 personal guidelines to success.

Um, one of these days I'm going to sit down and kind of reassess those. And I've been adding to them. I'll give you an example. Um, I always used to say, or I thought this was a good one because when I got fired from Staples, for instance, I didn't have a plan B. Like I was literally all in on Staples, even though I knew what was wrong. Like after they bought my little company, you know, I was like, all right, cool. I'm in. Right. And I had been seven years. I had started that company. You cut my arm. I bled blue. I was, you know, I was the one who stood up every month and gave the rah, rah speech on all that shit. Right. And they fired me and I was like, what the fuck? Like I was, it was one of those things where I was devastated.

You know, I had never been fired before in my life. And now I'm sitting here after a company that I built. They, they told me I wasn't the guy. So I was, and I was in a panic of, oh my God, like, what do I do? You know what I mean? Like, am I, am I, am I, am I an IT sales guy? Is that what I am? You know what I mean? I went through this crisis of conscience and what, and what, and what, and so I, I added, I had 11 guidelines. I added a 12, which was always have a plan B. Cause I was like, I didn't have a plan B and I was fucked. Right. But I've since changed that. Cause I actually don't believe in plan B's anymore because I believe that your plan B detracts from your plan A. Like I, I do believe you have to go all in on what you believe in.

Right. If you believe that this is the direction, if you have a plan B, that means you don't believe in your plan A. Okay. In, in, in general sense. I mean, there are specific situations you should have a plan B. Right. But what I did was after I got fired, I said, plan B got to have a plan B. Then a month later, I had reached out to the executive that fired me. Right. And I asked for feedback. Hey, like what happened now that I'm gone, could you just give me some feedback here? Right. And he was so open. It was, it was probably the best conversation I've ever had in business. And he, and his feedback to me was, cause I was like, well, would you have been open for a conversation like this when I was working for you?

And he said, why not? And I said, well, because I don't know. I was told that if I did, I might've gotten fired. And he, and he asked me this question. He goes, John, what's the risk? And I'm like, what do you mean? What's the risk? I get fired. And he goes, let me paint two pictures for you. He goes, say you come to me and you go over your boss's head. You come to me and we have this conversation and I rip you to shreds. I'm like, who the fuck do you think you are? I go tell your CEO that who the hell is this kid? Whatever. He's like, would you have wanted to work for me? I'm like, well, no. He's like, well, then do you think you would have gone out of this a little bit faster than you did and not waited for me to fire you?

I'm like, yeah, probably. He goes, okay. Option two, you go over your boss's head. We have this conversation. We connect. We really connect and we have a really good rapport and that type of thing. He's like, do you think your year, your past year would have been a little bit easier than it was for you? And I'm like, because it was a painful year, right? And he goes, and he's like, do you think it would have been a little bit easier and we would have gotten along a lot more? I'm like, well, yeah. He's like, so I'm going to ask you again, what's the risk? So what I did was after that conversation, I then revamped my 12 guidelines, removed, always have a plan B, and I replaced it with be okay with worst case scenario.

In the sense that now every decision I make, I look at it and I'm like, what's the worst case scenario? Like, what's the worst thing that could happen in this scenario? And if I'm okay with that, then fuck it, I'm doing it. You know, so to be tactical here with like going, and this kind of circles back to our conversation, which is like going over somebody's head, right? If you are, if you are okay, like if you go over somebody's head, if you are okay with losing that deal, with getting, with pissing off that person and potentially losing the deal, then fuck it, go over their head and see what happens, right? But if you're not okay with losing that deal, if you are not okay with pissing that person off, figure out a different strategy.

Yeah, and listen, back to the, you know, the original conversation of, of Lincoln Outreach and Prospecting, right? Here's a perfect example, right? Canadian company, sales rep, probably pretty new. I've just joined Yext, reaches out to me about, about the solution and the offering. And I'm like, okay, very cool. Like you, you, you approached me in a thoughtful way. You're a Canadian company. I relate to Canadian companies because I'm Canadian. Yeah, like I'll, I'll indulge, but like, here, I'll just, I'll, I'll send it clear. Listen, I'm not the decision maker of this. I'm not even an influencer. I've been at the company for like a month and I just know all decisions are made of New York. That's all I can tell you.

You know, I wish you all the best and what, I hope you're able to get a deal here. About a day, maybe two days later, I get this email forwarded down from, from, from who I reported to. And this came from the executive vice president of the company where this, this rep had reached out and said, you know, Hey, so-and-so, I just got off the phone with Josh Guttman, new director in Canada. Josh mentioned that so-and-so and so-and-so and this, and this, and this, and this. And I can't imagine that the EVP took the phone call or took a response to the email, but what the EVP certainly did was forward that down the chain and it came back to me. And like, that did not feel good. Right. And, you know, I actually, I wrote a LinkedIn post about it and it got, it got a lot of actions and healthy dialogue around it, but you know, that relationship, uh, that relationship was ruined.

I'm not going to support this person or this person's solution. It's a, you know, it's a problem. It goes back to authenticity and, and, and, and, you know, what we were talking about, because you didn't say like, there'd be one thing if you said, Hey, feel free to reach out to so-and-so tell him, I told you to talk to him, right? That that's one thing. That's an obvious, you put the referral name in there, you know, referred by Josh, that type of stuff. Hey, I know you're doing some cool stuff, but when you and I have a conversation and you tell me I'm not the decision maker, all decisions are made out of New York. Good luck. That is not an open, that is not an open invitation to use my name to an executive, because what what people tend to not realize is when they do that, the person that they do that to is most likely going to be involved in some way, shape or form in getting that deal done, right?

Whether it's an opinion, like feedback on, on, you know, on a trial or something like that, or the implementation of it, whatever it is. So if you go ahead and do that misrepresents the conversation, you're starting the relationship off with a lie. And even if you get that person up top to actually say, yes, we should probably do this, you're going to have to be dealing with this person down here regardless, and they're probably not going to be too happy with you, right? So so let's talk about that, Josh, like how when you were an SDR and moving your way up and you kind of got to the point where you weren't a decision maker, decision maker, but you were somebody that was was evaluating solutions and making potentially making recommendations to help out your team.

What were the, what were some of the do's and don'ts about, about like, so say you and I are talking, right? I want to sell you say, and say you're not, you know, the VP right now. Say you're a director of a group of SDRs, right? And you're like, shit, yeah, man, like this is, this is great. I want to do this. What advice do you give to kids who are trying to take that person? Because I think this is one of the biggest problems in sales. It's we get locked into somebody who's below the power line, who is the user of our solution to a certain degree or the manager of our solution. And we now need to help get to the next level to show this ROI to get this decision, right? So now we need to get to you with where your position is today.

What are some of the things that you've done in your career to help guide that, you know, not necessarily go over somebody's head, but get to power when you're dealing with a good relationship down here? Yeah, yeah. And a lot of it just goes back to, like, curiosity and asking questions in a genuine way, right? You know, build some rapport. If you've gotten to the point where this person who's not a decision maker is on board and, like, really wants to make it happen, say, hey, you know, if you're on board, you know, how do we make it happen? You know, I don't know how long you've been in the organization with, like, what's your comfort level about, you know, bringing your boss or bringing the, whoever the decision maker is on a call, you know, and you can gauge it from those types of questions, like, where they're at, what type of relationship they have, and what type of comfort level they have.

You don't want to say, like, go, go, go, ask your boss, do it, bring your boss on the call, but, you know, help me understand, you know, do you know the decision-making process? Do you walk me through the decision-making process? The decision-making process is, like, an interesting question in and of itself that we can talk about another time, but, you know, just getting that understanding of, like, where they're at, if they're comfortable, and, you know, similarly speaking with what happens, with what happened at Yaks, with a person over my head, a simple question of, you know, are you comfortable, right, authentic, genuine, are you comfortable, you know, are you comfortable giving them permission if I do reach out to this person directly, you know, are you comfortable, and, you know, there's obviously, like, a concept of level selling, right, you know, a sales rep is a sales rep, a sales rep has likely a manager and a VP and up the chain, the person who's on the other end of the phone, even if they might be an advocate, they obviously have their decision-making channel up the chain, you know, are you comfortable if my VP reaches out to your CEO, you know, are you comfortable if we reference these conversations or not?

If you're not, that's totally okay, but it's just having those types of, you know, genuine conversations and, you know, asking questions in an authentic way, in an open-ended way, just to gain that comfort level and, you know, not pissing someone off. Yeah, yeah, I think that, you know, my favorite way of going over somebody's head without pissing them off is, you know, I say to ask questions that they don't know the answers to, you know, and not to insult them, not to make them feel dumb, but to genuinely understand, because I've always said, look, I'm a priority-based seller in the sense that when your CEO stands up in the beginning of the year and says, these are the three things that we got to do this year to be successful, if I can't tie my solution into one or two of those, good luck selling anything of significance.

So my goal is to figure out what those priorities are and figure out how my solution ties to those and what the impact of my solution is going to be on those or what the impact of you not doing something like this is going to be, right? And those impact questions, those questions around, so, you know, I simply, when your CEO stood up in the beginning of the year, what did they say the top three priorities were this year? And how is what we're talking about near, how does it align? And what are some of the metrics that you're going to use to show, right, how this aligns, that type of stuff? A lot of times people below the power line don't really have a ton of insight into that, right? They might know their little piece of the equation, but they don't know necessarily how it all fits, which opens the door to, hey, look, the reason, and this is a very critical thing that I've really started to hone in on from a tip standpoint, which is whenever you ask a question, assume that the person you're asking the question to is going to push back on you and say, why do you need to know that?

So just like I always say with cold calls, like you make sure you have a reason for your call. So the reason for my call today is it's the same thing with questions because I'll, and sometimes I'll preempt the question with, so I'll ask it. And then I'll preempt your answer with, well, the reason I ask is because, right? And if you can get to that point, you have a much better chance of getting, like if you're below the power line right now and I'm selling to you and I'm like, hey, Josh, you know, I did a question for you, you know, from, from a top ad standpoint, like when your CEO stood up in the beginning of the year, like what were the, what were the things that they said that you guys really have to execute on right now?

And how are what we're talking about from a sales training standpoint, how does it align with those and what you're trying to accomplish? The reason I ask is because if those goals aren't big enough and you already have a really rock solid plan in place to be able to achieve those and you know what your metrics are around that, let's get off the conversation right now because, because if I can't impact that, it's not worth us continuing this call. But if, but if I can't impact that, that's why, that's what I'm going to push on you to see if we can get some cool shit done here. And with that approach, you literally feel the person kind of almost like, you almost feel them exhale a little bit and are like, oh, okay.

You know what I mean? Like, that's the reason you're asking this question. So let me give you a real answer to that, right? Yeah, I like that a lot. And one thing that I really like, this was actually growing up in my sales career, a game changer when, when I shifted my mindset in terms of, you know, what's the outcome if we do this? You know, let's talk about what we're going to do if we accomplish to get this implemented to, you know, well, what happens if you, if you don't do this, what, what's the impact if you, if you do nothing, if you don't implement this or, or, or any of the other competitors that you're evaluating that is, that was a game changer. And I, you know, I really liked that, that, that you shared that and for all the folks that are listening, like that, that is a game changer of the question because the answers that you get are very different.

They're very unique and you can glean a lot of information from that. And, you know, you can, you can have some good conversations and, you know, and really help the person on their line out once you, once you know that. I've really, I've really gotten into that mindset of, and I got this from a gong and also, uh, Jim Keenan has his new book on gap selling around this. And the idea here is forget about selling your product or forget about selling your solution or, or the outcome of your solution at first. The number one thing you need to do is get, you get the prospect to agree that status quo is not okay. Right. That, that, that, because our, everyone's number one competitor is status quo. Everyone.

Okay. Okay. What you sell, who you're selling to devil. I know is better than the devil. I don't. Okay. Especially when you're doing outbound, right? Inbound, they're identifying that it's not okay. Right. They're saying I've identified that we have a problem and we need to change. That's why inbounds, you know, you can drive urgency because Hey man, you came to me, but when you're going outbound and you're getting that initial disco call, the first thing that you got to do is get people to say, Holy shit. Yeah. You're right. I need to make a change. And if I don't make a change, right? Gong has this, and I'm actually developing some content around this. Gong has this great new, if you look at the blog, it's like gong.io selling to the C-suite and what they're, the whole thing about selling to the C-suite is it starts with your nexus, which is what is your polarizing statement that, that either gets people to violently agree with you or violently disagree with you, right?

So I'll give you an example, VPs of sales. A lot of times, one of my nexuses is, uh, the methodologies are dead, right? So what do you mean by that? Well, I believe that we are in a world of agile sales. If you are not constantly iterating and figuring out and testing and looking at your process, you're going to be a dinosaur fast and you're going to get crushed by your competition. So anyone who buys into a full-blown methodology from soup to nuts is a dinosaur in this world of sales. Now that's going to polarize a lot of people because there's a lot of VPs out there that are methodology guys or women, you know what I mean? It's like, nope, we are Sandler. We are Miller-Hyman. We are Taz. And don't get me wrong.

There's nothing wrong with those methodologies. It's just going back to values. You and I don't value the same thing, right? Like me and my, me and my business partner, my old business member, uh, Eric Shaver with, uh, with Kensei, great guy, but our values were off. You know, he was a little bit more old school consultant, you know, bring me in. And I was a little bit more new school. Like, Hey, you know, let's get the content out there to as many people as possible, put it online. Right. We just didn't fundamentally agree of how businesses were supposed to be run or, or our go-to-market strategy. So we had to split up because we just kept fighting about our strategy moving forward. Right. And so, you know, wrapping your head around that nexus of look.

And, and so the idea is you start with your nexus because the people that don't agree with it, get out of like, let's stop talking again. It goes back to values. You and I don't, don't agree on that. Okay. But the people that do now, you then share some, like some statistic that's happening in the industry that is kind of something that they don't know about. It's like, did you know that millennials, uh, are, you know, uh, 35% of millennials leave their company because they don't feel invested in. And they think that, you know, sitting through five days of training is actually a waste of their time. And they're looking for micro learning, right? That type of stat. It's like, well, holy shit.

So whether you agree with it or not, that's the thing that's happening in the industry. So, which means you have to change. Now, if we agree to that, now let me show you how I can solve that problem. But until we agree with that, it's almost not even worth us having this conversation. So that piece, right. And you know, what's interesting on top of that is like most of the great companies, at least the ones that I work for, like the companies have values and they revisit. These values, and that's important to you. And that's important both as, as job seeker, potentially looking for the next challenging opportunity, but also as like a modern sales professional looking to align a solution, right?

So going back to the original question that, that, that we had just started talking about around, you know, identifying those values, Salesforce has their, their V2 mom, which is, uh, has been adopted by, by so many other organizations, just as a result of, uh, you know, this being Benioff's passion about driving the company. It starts from the top down, um, top hat right now, you know, we're, we're working on, uh, on, on, on OKRs and we've got, you know, company objectives, corporate objectives and key results that filter down. But one thing I really love about top hat as well is that, you know, the values of the company are, are transparent on their website. And there aren't a lot of companies that have, you'll find a mission statement, you'll find vision statement, uh, but you won't often find like company core values that are adhered to.

And, you know, we recognize folks on a weekly basis based on what they've done that is adhered to this core value of the company that stood out. And, right, these core values are called core values for a reason, right? The core to the heart of the business and whether they're bottom up or top down, likely the decision maker, uh, who's going to be making the decision on the solution that you're trying to sell had some say in those core values. And if you can hit home on those values around how your solution can help that, that's great. But, but as you were saying before, right, those core values aren't always public. They're not always listed on the website. They're also not always there, but hopefully they're there.

But if you can ask the questions around, right, when your CEO stood up at kickoff this year and talked about something, what are the values, right? You can really, you can really make an impact there. And if you tie your solution to that and, you know, again, ask the questions that may not be known in terms of how they tie up to the leader's values, you can, you can help get to that decision maker, you can help move the cycle forward in like a genuine, authentic way, as long as, right, your solution does tie into those values. And if it doesn't, better know now than later. And, you know, shake hands in a friendly way, you know, part ways as friends. You know what, Josh, I think we just kind of talked through a new approach that I'm going to have to map out here, which is, which is, we talk about searching for triggers, right?

When reaching out and that's how we started this, like, you know, the old, you know, hey, you got a new job and those types of things and how disingenuous I think that is, because I think kids are just looking for the motion, you know, going through the motions. It'd be an interesting, I'm going to have Morgan do this. Like, we're going to revisit our values here at Jay Barrows. I'm going to have Morgan put together his values because I haven't had him do that exercise. And then I'm going to have him go through social, identify people that, that have said stuff on social or their business that, that we can glean insights into their values about and then match those up. To me, I think that would actually be pretty fucking powerful.

Cause like, I'll give you an example. If some, cause I posted my 12 personal guidelines, I tell this all the time, like for recruiters. So for those of you who are recruiters out there looking for placements, right? That type of stuff, like, don't send me a fucking email that says, Hey, John, I got this really hot, uh, pre IPO company that's, you know, blah, right in your backyard. And it's going to pay you a billion dollars and blah, blah, blah. Like, you know, I get a thousand of those things a month for crying out loud. But if a recruiter and I'll recruiters don't do this to me, cause I'm never going to take a job with anybody else. But, but I'm saying if they were to, if they were to go and find, cause I put these on my LinkedIn profile, if they were to go find my 12 guidelines, okay.

And pick one of them and say, Hey, John, I see one of your, one of your 12 guidelines to success and guiding principles is find your passion or find something else to do. It seems like you're very passionate about what you're doing right now, but I have an opportunity where I have another group of leaders right now who are extremely passionate about doing this to the industry. And I was wondering if you'd at least be open to a conversation to see if those passions aligned. And this was an opportunity, like if a rep ever did that from a recruiting standpoint to me, I'd at least pause and say, huh? All right. You know what I mean? Like the reason I hired Morgan, the, the absolute reason I hired Morgan is because I saw him building his brand, right?

Doing his social stuff or whatever. But then when he got hired, when he got promoted to be an SDR manager, um, he actually did this video and you can look at, if you go on YouTube, it's a, it's a, his SDR chronicles. It's like the top video that he's, he's, he's pinned on it. And it was what his learning lessons over the course of a year of being a manager. And what he was talking about was a lot of the stuff he's like, you know, work hard and smart, you know, uh, always ask for feedback. And as he's like, he mapped out five or six of them, I'm like, holy shit, those align almost directly with some of my 12 and, and that video alone about his values or what I pulled from his values immediately flipped me to look at him as that could be a kid that I could hire.

You know what I mean? And so I think there's a whole, there's a whole topic we could do our whole strategy around value-based selling to align values with the people that you are going after and using that as the reason to connect and then backing it up with your solution that could kick some ass. I wonder from a LinkedIn perspective, right? I listened to the, uh, your podcast with, uh, with, with Jake the other day about LinkedIn branding and right. Talks about being an expert and it talks about, you know, like being an expert in what you're doing and not like, Hey, I went to Preston's club, like 12 years in a row. Uh, I wonder, and I'm curious, your thoughts on this, if you, if you take, if folks have their, you know, top 10 core values and they pick three or even 10 and they put it on their LinkedIn profile, like, I wonder if that would be telling around, if I'm reaching out to a prospect and they're going to look at my LinkedIn profile, I'm reaching out by LinkedIn, uh, if they're going to look at the profile and you know, okay, you're an expert in these things, but then, you know, what would be, would it make a difference if your values were listed up there or your company values were listed up there in terms of success rates or, or, or response rates?

I'm very curious as I'm actually going to talk about that. I'm going to wrap my head. I'm going to wrap my head around that. That's going to be a new little initiative that I have Morgan doing. Um, because my, my, my thought process, let's put it this way. I would hope it would, it would make a difference. Um, my, my fear would be that people would, would be disingenuous with it. You know what I mean? Like those type of that, like, there's always that double-edged sword of like, yeah, you saw that. So good, you know, and you're using that cause versus actual alignment, you know what I mean? That that's my only fear is, and we all know that shit gets bastardized, you know, authenticity. That's why authenticity, going back to another point, that's why authenticity is so rare because like true authenticity is so rare because people fake authentic all the time.

Right. They, they, they fake like, you know, the old days of, of, of sales rapport building. It's like, Oh, I see you're a fisherman. Oh, I fish too. You know what I mean? And maybe you fished once in your fucking life and it's just like, you're trying to make that connection, which is total horse shit. Now, don't get me wrong. If you were a genuine fisherman and you know a shitload about fish and how to fish. And I see that, you know, there's a, uh, uh, uh, pitcher on your wall of you and fly fishing and stuff like that. And there's a genuine thing there absolutely use that all day long. But if you went deep sea fishing on a boat of 75 people once 10 years ago, don't tell me you're a fisherman to pretend like, you know what I mean?

Like if you're not a sports fan, don't talk to me about sports. Right. If like, I'll talk to you, like, you don't have to be a Patriot. Like for me, you don't have to say, Hey John, Oh yeah. Tom Brady, the Patriots, that type of thing to build rapport with me. You can talk shit with me all day long. If you're New York, if you're anybody, as long as you know what you're talking about when it comes to football, for instance. Right. But if, if you just say that you're a football fan and then I, after a few comments, I'm like, you don't know shit about football. You've actually way lost credibility than, than gained it. So awesome, man. Well, I think we could chat for, for days on this shit. And I, but I think, but, but through this conversation, I really do think I I've, you've helped me just think of something that I, I think has some legs.

I think the value alignment approach to prospecting and job hunting and all this type of things is a, is a, is a massively under focused approach that I think could really make an impact. So I'm going to put some thoughts around that and see what I can put together on that. So I look forward to seeing where that goes. Yeah, definitely. So Josh, so let's tell the audience where they can find out more about you, what you're up to these days. If there's anything that, you know, if you're hiring or anything like that, what's the, what's the best way to connect with you? Yeah, absolutely. The best way is LinkedIn is probably best in slash Jay Guttman, J-G-U-T-T-M-A-N. We're hiring for lots of sales roles, lots of customer sport roles, onboarding roles, customer success roles.

It's a really exciting time. Mostly based in Toronto, at least for the time being. But, you know, I look forward to hearing from everybody in an authentic way. There you go. And by the way, Toronto, if, if anybody out there is looking for a place to move, Toronto would be on my list of, of, of my very short list of places to, to head up to because some really cool shit happened in Toronto and it's a, it's a really fun city. So, uh, so if anybody's looking for a move, regardless, Toronto is a place to be and definitely get in touch with Josh. Awesome. All right. Well, Josh, thanks so much for coming on. Um, everybody out there, go make somebody happy today, right? There's too much negativity in this world.

So make somebody smile. It'll make your day worth it. All right. Have a great week, everybody. Let's make it happen. Thanks, Josh. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.