Alex Newmann: Breaking Free from Founder-Led Sales

Founders need to be crystal clear on what type of like initial foundational team that they want to have. Coachability, self-coachability, resourcefulness, adaptability. These things are things that you can't teach somebody. Hey everyone, welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us. And today's conversation is with my friend Alex Newman. Alex and I have known each other for a while. He's the founder and CEO of Newman Consulting Group, a sales coaching and consulting firm helping B2B companies transition out of founder-led sales and into a scalable and repeatable sales team.

He's got a great background for this. He actually went to school. I learned this for venture capital so he knows it really, really well and has started companies, have been part of just super aggressive growth and himself as a founder. So if you are a founder, if you're thinking about being a founder, this is the episode for you because there are so many challenges about founder-led sales and how as a founder, I don't care what your background is, engineering, it doesn't matter. You have to be the number one sales rep for your company until you can systematize this and process it so that you can hand it off to somebody else. And all the mistakes that founders make getting there is what we talked about in this.

I actually have a whole talk track on the founder's dilemma and why there's such a mistake, especially for engineering founders. But Alex has some great tips and ideas on how to get out of founder-led sales, how to create a process around your sales process that can be repeatable so you can transition it to other people. And again, some of the pitfalls to avoid as you go through that journey. We finished up by talking about entrepreneurship. I mean, this is really just two people who have found their groove with entrepreneurship and how the perception of entrepreneurship versus what it actually is. And it's not as glorious as it may seem in so many cases, but it's a healthy stress for me. Now, if you figured out how to work it in the corporate world, God bless you.

I'm actually jealous of you because I think the track that both Alex and I have taken has been a little bit more difficult because we haven't been able to play the game. But the entrepreneurship game is a whole different model and a whole different game, and it's a fun one to play. So if you're interested in that, you're going to like this episode. So I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Let's make it happen. Alex Newman, what's up, brother? Welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast. How are you doing? What's up, man? Excited to be here. I listen to you all the time. It's fun to actually be on the show, finally. Yeah. It's like the people listening sometimes are like, I don't know if you feel it because you're on social a decent amount too.

There's this weird celebrity status of people who you see on social all the time and then you kind of meet them and you always have that never meet your heroes type of thing. There's some people I've definitely idolized online. I'd be like, oh man, that person's so fucking cool. And then all of a sudden I meet them in an event. I'm like, ooh, they're kind of a douche. You're just as cool online as you are talking one-on-one. I mean, we've been talking for years now. So it's, you know, the juice is worth the squeeze. I appreciate it, man. I did. I go back to authenticity, right? I don't understand people who are two different types, right? Where they're one type online and they're one type in person.

So it's like, why would that takes too much effort, man? Just fucking be you. So it's too hard. Hard enough being me. I can't, can't be two people. Exactly, man. I got enough problems. So Alex, talk to us. Like you said, we've been talking for a while and I love your journey here, especially with what you're doing now. I'm always a huge fan of people going off on their own and breaking the fucking system and not having to be part of, you know, the, the, the matrix, if you will. So, uh, but let's talk, where'd you come from parents growing up, all that fun stuff. What gave you the entrepreneurial itch and let's go from there. Yeah. So it, uh, so from Chicago, um, I grew up, my, my uncle owns, uh, a business here called victory auto records.

It's a big junkyard, big car guy, big engine guy. And growing up, he had the yard here in Chicago. Then he had a business in New Mexico. He had a bunch of other things going on and he could travel around whenever he wanted. And on Tuesday mornings, he would fly to wherever he floats, would fly to. He would, uh, had a place in Paris. He had a, he built this monstrosity of a house in, in San Diego. Uh, and I just kind of fell in this, this, this love of his lifestyle. And I would always just pepper him with questions. And he used to say, learn how to sell and you'll never go hungry. And I drank that Kool-Aid. I, I drink it every single day. And my first job really ever was selling Cutco knives.

So you were the one and I did pretty good at it. I mean, I, I did it more like I ran a branch. I did the whole thing. I did it for multiple summers and I sold it just a ton of Cutco and you know, the door knocking and the cold calling and the scripts and the figuring out your way in and, you know, positioning. And you know, it's funny when you think about it today, like some, some kid walks into a house with like $4,000 worth of knives with somebody alone by themselves. Okay. Like that would never fly today. Um, but you know, I, I used to think about it in terms of like, Hey, this is amazing. I did Cutco cause it was back in the day. It is going to date me a little bit, but it was 15 bucks per appointment and I'm putting them was like an hour, hour and a half.

So I got 15 bucks an hour and my buddies who were, you know, wait, waitressing or waitering or whatever it is where, um, you know, five bucks an hour or something. And I was like, this is great. I could crush as many meetings. I don't even care if I sell anything. And, um, so I did that for, for the first two weeks and I sold a hundred, I think it was $169, which is about the worst that you can possibly do with the number of meetings that I did. And it got to the point where the manager came in and like, I've never seen someone do this much work and sell nothing. And I was like, thanks for the confidence boost, man. Like I really appreciate it. And you know, I grew up in a household. My parents aren't big cooks.

Like I didn't understand what expensive cutlery was like they did. They, but they still had the like 1947 knives they got when they were married, all that kind of stuff. So I, I just had this kind of like a meeting with the manager and he's like, Hey, if you don't figure out how to sell something, like you got to go. And my mentality just growing up is figure it out. Like do not back down, do not quit. Like no matter what, like you go figure it out. Like I'm not a quitter. I never, I've never quit anything that I truly really was passionate about. And so, you know, I did a whole bunch of things. I did ride alongs. I studied, I learned real fast that I didn't follow the script. I completely went off on whatever I was, I wanted to do.

There was a lot of lack of confidence. Um, when we talked about pricing, I totally just folded like so many people today. Um, I struggled to ask for the order. Like a lot of the things that so many sellers today struggle with and I took it upon myself trial and error and I figured it out myself. I mean, I, I had help and I, you know, did things with other people and then I figured it out and it just like sky was the limit and I got to control my own schedule and I worked when I want and I had more money that summer than any of my friends had. And that was it. Like I was hooked and I did it in college. Uh, and then after college, I did subprime lending at Wells Fargo and then business banking.

And I did telecom cause I thought that was tech, which obviously isn't tech. Uh, and so I did all these different sales things and I got really good at sourcing business and closing business. And I know you and I talk about this a lot, but I grew up in the pits. I grew up in cold calling. I grew up in door knocking. I grew up in you, you got a source of yourself if you're going to kill it yourself and get the commission on it. Like there is full cycle. Selling wasn't a thing. That wasn't even a turn. It was just called. It was just sales. Yeah. And so I, I got to this point where I'm like, this is amazing. But I always had this thought where I want to be an entrepreneur. I had this, this bug from my uncle and I'm like, I want this lifestyle.

So, um, I met some friends when I went to grad school and we started a company called pivot desk, which was in Boulder. We went through tech stars before anyone knew what the hell tech stars was. We got a bunch of money from David Cohn and founder group and, um, kind of just took off from there, fell in love with early stage technology. Uh, I ran revenue and sales and the thing just went kind of gangbusters. And I worked my way up all the way to VP of sales and just absolutely fell in love, fell in love with the building of it, fell in love with figuring out product market fit selling. And then I'm very good at selling, but it kind of got to the point where I was like kind of getting bored. Like I knew I could do it, but I was just like, this isn't the same challenge.

So then it was, I'm a manager and I sucked at that too, for a while as so many do. And I figured that out. And then it was like, I want to develop people. And then I want to develop people who can then develop other people. And it's just kind of transpired into what I do today, which is I want to teach you how to build a system in order to have a repeatable sales process in order to have your company flourish because so many founders suck at it. Yeah. Hey, I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. I want to take a quick minute to share with you what I'm working on these days with my new JB sales membership. It includes live monthly training delivered by me on my two signature courses, which are filling the funnel and driving a close that cover all aspects of the sales process.

It also includes monthly workshops that I'll be running on specific sales skills and different tech skills like ChatGVT and how to leverage AI throughout the entire sales process. Finally, the membership gives you access to my entire online catalog with every course and every tip I've ever done. And as an exclusive offer to my podcast listeners, if you go to JBarrows.com, click on the individual membership link and use coupon code podcast at checkout, you'll get 25% off. Now let's get back to the conversation. Yeah. I mean, we're going to get into the founder led sales and how most I got this whole talk track on, you know, the founder's dilemma, right? Of, you know, they're passionate about what they do.

So, and they came up with the idea and, you know, you've heard me say this before that sales is the transfer of enthusiasm, right? So you have, and this is why like a lot of engineers have this issue, which is, you know, they start a business based on their knowledge of this thing because they created this awesome thing to solve a problem. And, you know, because they get to, you know, they're going to go out and talk about it to, to usually a very friendly audience, right? Friends, families, and fools. Like that's going to be their first, Hey, I got this idea. What do you think? And because they're friends, families, and fools, they're going to give positive feedback. And because that engineer is describing it so passionately, right?

Engineers don't think they're, they're, they're sales. They are right. It's, it's the transfer of enthusiasm. So when you see somebody passionately describing it to a friendly audience that, you know, usually, yeah, shit, man, I want some of that. You know, let me make a recommend. That sounds awesome. And so after a little while, they're like, all right, great. You know, this stuff's fucking easy to sell. Um, so fuck it. Let me bring in a VP of sales. Let's go. And because that VP of sales doesn't have the passion, they don't have the knowledge. They're not talking to friends, Shanley's and fools. They tend to fail miserably. And so then the engineer goes, Oh, and I knew sales was a joke here.

You know what? Nevermind. I'm going to hire Mark. I'm going to do marketing. And I'm going to go to the boards with marketing and just drive inbound so that people, because everybody wants what we do. And then obviously that might work to a certain level and then it slams into a wall and then they got to do sales again. And I, and I coach a lot of, I'm curious on your perspective, at least you've seen that if you've seen this is, I've coached a lot of sales reps who are looking for jobs, obviously like, Hey, I got, you know, I'm looking for my next challenge. And my first tell my, they're like, John, what should I be looking for? I'm like, go through the value exercise and all that stuff. But, um, is to who's the founder, who's the CEO and is the CEO and engineer?

Because if the CEO is an engineer, unfortunately, my experience is they treat sales as a second class citizen. And if you don't have an organization that is, that is circled around sales and everything support sales. I've never, I've very rarely seen a company fail because of lack of product market fit or like, you know, the features weren't right. I've seen the vast majority of companies fail because they can't sell it. So what do you, are you seeing this? Yeah. I mean, I think it's, I think it's spot on. I mean, when you get into these kind of like technical founders and it's really just like non sales founders. I mean, a lot of my clients are accountants, uh, you know, ask strategy people, uh, coming out of the big corp and they were, you know, something non sales, even just like business analysts or something.

And I look at it and one, I don't know why there's this, this strong negative connotation with seller. And I know with all the AI bots and all this stuff like sales and just in your face, like it's getting, it's, it's helped or certainly helping hurting it. But I think the point is, is people are like afraid of the work of sales. Like I don't want to be defined as a salesperson. And one of the things I go is who cares? Stop thinking about it in terms of labeling or definition. You're trying to build a company. You can't build a company without customers. Somebody has to sell this thing. And to your point, yeah, friends, family fools, like that all is great. And then they hire people and it doesn't transfer and they go, well, why not?

And sometimes they go the marketing route and other times they go hire another VP of sales or five more VPs of sale or, you know, all these B2B plays and they're dumping money into ads before they even figure anything out. And I'm like, what are you doing here? And it's, they're always looking for shortcuts. And it reminds me of even way back when I first started, I would spend hours on, I don't even say, I think it was internet explorer back in the day, looking for like, what's the cheat codes? What's the shortcuts? What are the magical phrases to find new customers and close new customers and all these things? And you know what it is? The cheat code is, is do the work, like actually go in and do the work and listen to what the person's saying and, and, and articulate what they're saying and go after it.

And I think, I think a lot of the technical people or non salesy people are afraid or just don't want to do the work. And they think they can like, their product is so great that they can do it in a different way. That's well, and I think that's, it's kind of like my dad, right? So he was an engineer, like true and through engineer, like what literally one of the smartest people I'd ever met in my entire life. And he had the issue where he was one of the smartest people I've ever met. And, but he felt like to your point, the work should, should speak for itself. So he never really got the promotions. He never really got to the, you know, the levels that other people, and he would always get so pissed off at these people who were incompetent, but we're getting promoted because they were selling themselves.

They were, they, and I'm like, dad, your work, it doesn't matter about your fucking work. Like, yes, that's almost table stakes at this point. Like you have to be good at your job. You have to be, you know, in our world, like the product has to do with the fucking products as it does. Okay. But I think Gong had this nexus a while ago, which was, which I fully believed in. I had it and they just kind of crystallized it, which is sales, you know, success is not about what you sell. It's about how you sell, right? If you're in this feature function game, like you're going to lose because AI is going to get better tomorrow and you're going to keep chasing that. So it has nothing to do with that.

As long as your shit's okay, as long as it does what it says it's going to do, it's all about how you sell. So how do you, let's talk about this founder sales thing with like, I think there's, there's, there's a bridge here, which is friends, families, and fools, because I'm just talking, right? I'm, I'm, I'm talking like, I know what the problem is. I know what I'm trying to solve. How do you start as a non-sales, uh, like founder, how would you start documenting the process or, or where would you start so that you can eventually hand that over to somebody? Cause this goes back to art and science, right? Like you don't want as a manager, you don't want your best sales rep to be a manager because they're typically the artist that's just fucking good at what they do.

They have drive, they have passion. They know you want this. I want the B, B, B minus sales rep, B plus sales rep, maybe who has a structure and a process and can tell me why. So how, what are some things that, that founders can do to start documenting the process to eventually transfer to somebody else? So I think it comes down to essentially six things initially. First thing is going to be talk to me about what are the problems and the pain points that, uh, from a hypothesis point of view, if you're that early, to be able to say, who is it that cares about this? And like, what's the problems that they're struggling with? And I don't mean like, Oh, like I'm having a hard day. I'm talking about what is it that they can tangibly like say that they're really, really, really frustrated with.

I call it the, the venting moment. They're sitting there, they're talking about it. They're, they're having a bourbon at night or a glass of wine and they're struggling. Oh man, this is really frustrating. So like I talked to founders who struggle with sales and I'm like, Hey, I bet you have zero ability to have an accurate forecast. I bet you have no idea how to bring on a new seller and have them sell the way that your other sales reps do and blah, blah, blah. And they're like, you totally get me like that's a tangible problem. Now tell me about that. And they'll just vent for like 20 minutes. Right? So get them. And it's not, I need to be able to say you have these problems and you say, yes, I'm saying you need to have them articulate the problems to you.

It's too easy for them to go, uh-huh. To agree with what you're saying. Second one is going to be your value props. It's not going to be your features. Nobody cares what your product does. They care about the value props and the benefits that it provides. So you need to be able to speak to that. And the, and the buyer needs to actually care about what those things are. Third one is going to be, some people call them objections. I just call them questions. Objections are, I'm not listening to what you have to say. Questions are, I need clarification. So anyone who has these types of problems should be asking questions because they are intrigued to listen to more of what you want to do. They don't necessarily need to be able to know how it's done, but they need to know what does the end state look like and then potentially how they can articulate it.

But those questions mean they're engaged. If they're not like, Hey, I'm not interested. That's not an objection. That's just, I'm not even paying attention to what you're saying. Fourth is going to be the use cases. You need to be able to explain the use cases in the real world. It's too difficult for someone to just say, Hey, it can do all these different things and expect that your buyer, your prospect is going to figure out how it magically fits into the world. Tell them how it fits into their world and walk them through a scenario. So I talk a lot about, well, walk me through how you ramp up a salesperson and how they get on board and how you sell and so on and so forth and how you do a B and C.

And they go, we don't know any of that. Well, how do you get the second and third? Like the story, when I asked them that literally unfolds and they go, that makes sense. The fifth one is going to be next steps. And this is where I think so many people struggle with is unless you are selling like SMB one call closes, like there has to be some next steps, even if it's two conversations and oftentimes it's five or six or 20, but what are the next steps? Because nobody's buying a hundred thousand dollar piece of equipment or software like that after a 30 minute conversation. So what are the next steps? And then the sixth one is the story. So it isn't a feature. It isn't like, Hey, we're this mobile marketing platform, data driven analytics, blah, blah.

Like who cares? But it has to be around the story about either founder story, or if you're further enough along to have customers, the customer story. And there are frameworks that you can build to say, Hey, this customer is the exact same as this customer, which is exact same as this customer. And you start to see that repeatability. That's how you can get to starting to actually bring people on and sell without you having to do everything. Where do you, so where do you start from an ICP standpoint? Right? So I, you know, you hear this all the time on like, on a shark tank. Well, our addressable markets, if I just got 1% of a trillion, this, this size of market, it's like, dude, dipshit. Like, first of all, that's, they get kicked out these days, which is awesome immediately.

But it's like, no, you don't want to sell to everybody. Like I, whenever I come across, Oh, everybody don't fuck off. Not everybody needs your shit. And these days it's like you, it's my, it's so important to get like, so laser focused on not just like the company ICP thing, but literally the person you're selling to. Like, what's her name? Is it Sarah? Does Sarah get up in the morning? What is she, you know, those types of things. So, so how do you help get that TAM, if you will, that everybody's so enamored by, because it's a $8 trillion market that all I need to get is 0.001% of down to like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Here's where you're going to get the biggest bang for your buck, because these are the ones that actually have that can get the biggest value from your solution.

Especially early stages when you don't really know. Well, I think it's, I think you really have to start with some of the initial reasons as to like, why you built this company. And so often it's because you experienced the pain in some form or fashion, and you were at a specific company size and a specific situation and your friends did or so on and so forth. I look at it in terms of, it's not to say that you can't go after the TAM. It's not to say that you can't do the 0.001% thing, but you have to start someplace. And if you start too broad, how the hell do you know what to write about? So if I go talk to a large automotive company and then a small tech company and then a medium size like accounting firm, yes, they kind of have the same problem, but it's, it's in different flavors and different colors, different people are involved and it's just, it's impossible to replicate.

And so the whole point is, is it may be in the very, very, very, very beginning. You need to have some hypotheses around who these profiles are. It's okay to have two or three in the beginning, but I think there's a testing motion to it to figure out like where you're going to get some of this. And so I look at it and go less around selling and more about just natural curiosity. You have to be obsessed with the thing that you're selling, but you have to be obsessed with the problem that you're solving. And then you have to eventually be obsessed with the thing that you're using to be able to solve that problem. I am obsessed with helping founders transition out of founder led sales. You can call me, you can call a bunch of my competitors.

You can buy tech, you can hire 50 people. Like there's a bunch of different ways to do it, but I'm obsessed with the problem. And so that's why I oftentimes win deals is because I've done it, I've gone through it, all those types of things. And so if you're not there yet, that's number one, but you have to narrow it down to, Hey, I think it's this size of company, this department, this size of team, they're going to have these types of problems with this type of flavor. A lot of times people will say, I want to go to the enterprise because they're the biggest deals. I always say, never go to the enterprise first. It's a fucking terrible idea. Start. I typically say, start with like midsize, maybe small, midsize, middle, midsize, but don't go too high because they're all going to go.

Who else is using us? You're going to go through a million hoops compliance, sock to procurement, like build the product for me. It's got to integrate with it. Like you're going to get destroyed and it's going to be a company killer. Get it to the point where you have a few people who will be like, I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. And I think it's okay to have a couple of different personas, but you have to be able to test fast enough. So I'll be like, go talk to 10 people who are mid-market accounting firms and see what they say, specifically the directors, or go talk to VPs of sales at technology companies who have raised a series B and specifically talk to them to see if they have that problem.

And I think you need to find a little bit of like, there's idea market fit. And then there's actually like problem, like in interest in order to get the problem entry and problem market fit. And I think that's how you get to it. But I look at it and go, you have to make some tough decisions to say, I'm going to start here with the expectation is, is you will go wider and that's okay, but stay like this. What are some of the mistakes? Uh, like, again, I think we've already talked about some of them, but just the assumption, right? No structure, uh, no repeatable process, but what are some of the other kind of big ones that you're seeing that, that founders make early with sales, um, that are really hindering their, their growth of their company?

Um, I think a lot of founders think that because they have the foundation themselves that, um, they can hire anybody and they'll just go figure it out. Um, I think that they think that they can hire an SDR who's a $50,000 hire and go, Oh, that person's cheap and that's what everybody's doing. So I'm going to do that. And they think that that person will go like make magic. Um, I think for themselves, a lot of times, and I see this, they do a discovery call, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. The first minute is, do you have any questions? No, I'll just move to demo. And then it's just follow up, loop back around, check in, like, or some of that. Um, I, I think that people tend who are not salespeople tend to go, I have other important things to do so they don't actually spend the time.

And so the whole idea of practice, I know that you're big on this too, but it's like practice your script. Like I'm not a huge script guy, but you initially use a script to get it so that it doesn't sound like a script. And it sounds very natural, which I think most people are kind of like, no, no, no, I got it. What's building in your head. And when it comes out are two different things. Totally different things. Dude, I even, even when I just, so I just went back to studio, right? With all my content. Now, you know me, man, I've been doing this for 20 fucking years. I've been training this shit. I've said this, I can say this stuff in my sleep, right? But when I sit in front and so I, the first time I did it, I was like, I don't need a fucking teleprompter, man.

Just throw the camera on, let me go. Right. And as soon as the camera went on, I'm like dirt, did you, uh, uh, uh, uh, you know, it fucked up. So yeah, like sitting there and practicing and reading it through and thinking it through, I think is a critical factor that again, most people discount because it's like, ah, yeah, whatever. I got this. I know this stuff like the back of my, but there's, there's knowing it and there's being able to articulate it in a way that makes sense. Cause what I found in, I don't know if you see the same thing. I see, I see founders, they'll, they'll, they know the story, but it's like word vomit and, and you're kind of having a hard time following their train of thought and, and understanding how it's relevant to me.

It's like, okay, it's interesting that your kid did this in the morning in that, and then that light bulb went off and you had these things, but like, who the fuck cares? Like, why do I care? So really distilling it down into a succinct story so that other people can deliver that story too. Right? Cause that's the part of this is the repeatable process. You had mentioned something in the show notes of like creating a repeatable process, something that, that other people can do. Cause if you can't create that repeatable process, no way you'll scale. It's like, have you read the book? Um, I'm sure you have the E-Myth, right? Yeah. Yeah. So E-Myth and E-Myth Revisited. I actually just read E-Myth Revisited and the whole concept there is, is, is, um, franchise your business.

Even if you don't want to franchise it, treat it as if you would franchise. Cause if you think of McDonald's, right, when you show up at a, like if you buy a McDonald's franchise, there's no, there's no subjectivity here. Here's how do you cook your fucking burger. Here's how that, you know, you step one, step two, step three. So any idiot can walk into that. And until you create your business like that, you'll never scale in a way that gets you out of the equation. So how do you get founders to create that structure that can be transferred and repeatable process? Well, I think a little bit of it starts with some tough love. Um, I think, I think it's a mindset shift. I think some people are anti sales.

Uh, I think some people think that they can, um, hire someone to do it for them and, and they find a huge mistake, by the way, go back to mistakes, hiring the whole, Oh, VP of sales. Come on in here. Fucking everybody wants this. That's one of the biggest mistakes I see. Uh, and, and along the lines of that is that to your point of transfer of knowledge, a transfer of enthusiasm is the fact that a founder has all this passion. This VP of sales, a is taking a massive risk to come to your tiny little company, calm career, everything. But then you think about it in terms of like, they're not as passionate about this as you are. They're, they're looking, they have their own goals. They have their own aspirations.

And it's just like, to think that that's the same. It's just absolutely awesome. Well, actually on that, sorry to interrupt one on that point, as I think of the art, do you think it's better to hire a, a VP of sales as your first hire or kind of a sales rep who could grow into a VP of sales? And I know there's a lot of, you know, variables there, but is it better to start small and build or is it better to bring somebody in at this level and offload? Uh, always the former, the, or excuse me, the latter, the sales rep. I think the thing is, is if you hire a VP of sales, the only way that that actually works is if they're a co-founder. Otherwise you are the leader. The founder is the leader of the sales team.

You bring in full cycle sellers who generate their own business. And I think one of the things that you look for in the hiring process is certain attributes like coachability, leadership, self-drive, resourcefulness, things that that could potentially make them a leader. But I believe that you hire them for the job that you need them to do, not the job that you hope that they can turn into. Cause that bites you in the ass because I've seen it so many times. You're like, Oh, I want to hire the player coach. Well, the person wants to be the coach. They don't want to be the player. They've already done it. But right. And that's the person like a buddy of mine calls it a sales pioneer. It's just the person who it wants to sell, wants to go figure it out.

Like, that's what I want to do in the beginning is, is I don't need to be a manager. I want to go sell. The greatest part of sales is when you get that customer that goes, that's fucking awesome. I need that. That's exactly what I'm looking for. That gives me so much energy to go do that over and over and over and over and over again. Yeah. It's, there's that, I used to say there's a very specific profile and this is non HR friendly, but it's like, you want the, you want a kid who's going to come out of like, like that, that drive, like that sales rep who comes out of a bigger organization. So like, for instance, I went to Xerox, like my first job with DeWalt, because I didn't know what I wanted to do.

And I was marketing background and whatever. I was like, fuck it. All right, DeWalt, let me do, Oh, I'm in sales, I guess. Oh, and I got Xerox and that's where I got trained. So I had a logo. So, you know, whatever, I understood the corporate thing. I got the shit kicked out of me for sales, cold call and all, and I got trained. And then I went to my startup. My startup was, I was like the fourth person on board is two friends of mine. And to your point, like, I just wanted to fucking sell. Like they gave me the VP of sales title, but I was like, just get out of my fucking way. Let me go figure this shit out. Like I want to go sell this stuff. And eventually I became a player coach and it'd be a real VP with people under me and everything.

Like, but you want that person that's not brand new in sales. Cause you're as a founder, you don't have the skills to train that person. Uh, but you don't want them so senior that they expect certain things, right? Like an admin and, you know, resources and all this other stuff. You want the grinder who just wants to fucking sell. And what I always tell them is have that person make calls because you're the best sales rep as the founder, you're the best sales rep. So have the kid make calls and set up meetings for you. Bring that kid on those meetings so that understands the nuances and tell them to shut up and just sit in the corner and pay attention. And eventually they'll be able to start to do what you do, but you still have to be the primary sales person as you get to it.

And until that person you feel comfortable can take it over with the same level of passion, but not the same level of dedication. That's the problem. You see a lot of founders get frustrated with their employees that they're not as passionate. They're not as driven. They don't work as hard. Do you see that? I get it all the time where people are like, but I gave them the opportunity. Like this could be the biggest company in the world and they could be billionaires. First of all, you know, all the stats around how many, even the founders become billionaires or even millionaires, but you look at it and go the opportunity. I drank the Kool-Aid back in 20, whatever, 15, 20, 12, and it's dates me.

Um, but I look at it and go equity. Isn't the same as important today as it was back then? But I look at it and go cash is king. It always has. It always will be. And at the end of the day, yeah, like there's a people that went at Uber and Stripe and all these places that are going to make plenty of money and that's great for them. But like, that's not really a common scenario. Like I'm super happy for them. That would have been awesome if I did that, blah, blah, blah, could have, would have, should have, but I didn't. And that's totally fine with me. And I look at it and go, it's almost like people are looking for this like secret shortcut to be like a gazillionaire by saying, Hey, well, I picked the right company.

I'm like working at a startup is no easy joke. Working at even a tiny company is no easy joke. I don't care who you raise venture capital from. If it's Sequoia or general catalyst or whatever, like these companies, just because you got like funded by them, you still got a mountain of work and just shit that you got to slog through to figure out. And you're going to earn every single one of those pennies, but more likely than not, you're not going to get any of it. And I think the key is, is there are people I call it the, do you want to work at a company like a startup? Or do you want to want to work at a company like a startup? And I think most want to want to, cause they're not willing to actually do the work, the grind it out, the build the list to figure out the cold call script to hear not a hundred nose, a thousand nose.

At pivot desk, I would walk down Pearl street and Boulder knocking on doors day after day after day crafting my pitch. Yeah, man. That's, and I think that's interesting in your perspective on this one too, because I had somebody, uh, actually my, my cousin, second cousin, you know, he's, he's new in business and, uh, you know, he's at a corporate, he's at a company and he says he wants to be an entrepreneur. And I'm like, do you? And he was like, yeah, you know, I want to, and so what he was talking about was going and working for a small business. And I told him, I go, that's, that's not an entrepreneur. Like, at least my understanding, like the way I look at it is entrepreneur is the one who says, fuck it.

I'm working for myself and I'm going to figure this shit out and I'm going to hire some people. Being hired by an entrepreneur is not being an entrepreneur. So I think there's this, this false narrative right now of what an entrepreneur is and how sexy it is. Cause first of all, it ain't sexy. Like you said, like it's a fucking dogfight every day. Um, I personally love it because it's my stress. Like we were talking about before we got on, like I got no problem handling my stress. I can't stand handling other people's stress. So I'm, you know, that, that drives me, but just because you work in a small business doesn't mean you're an entrepreneur. So where's your head at with some of the founders that you see?

And what are the characteristics of actual entrepreneurs versus people who might just have a good idea and think it's white or, you know, like just working in a smaller environment? Like what's the traits you see for the successful true, the real ones? I think the big ones, uh, are going to be, do they actually have a vision of where this can go? Um, they have something more. I mean, I, I think, um, you know, the shark tanks of the world have really messed up what it takes to actually build a true business. Um, I think even some of this like quote unquote overnight success, which people don't truly actually understand, which took 10 years to happen because they don't want to dig into it. I think it gives people a false sense of security.

I think you only hear the stories of, Hey, I became a bazillionaire overnight and I made this company or this tech thing. I think, I think the thing is, is there's a lot of people who like the idea of what entrepreneurship is. And it's interesting because there's so much content and information about what really is going through the day to day in an entrepreneur's mind. I mean, you know, and I know that it's, you're not just selling it's finances, it's accounting, it's operations, it's delivery, it's customer management, cleaning the wall, you know, like, yeah, like setting up Comcast. Like I hated doing that. Like I put together chairs and tables for three days once. Like it's all those types of things that it doesn't get done unless you actually do it.

And I don't think that people think about it. They just go, Oh, I'm going to start a business. And now it's like, I'm going to go on Instagram or LinkedIn or YouTube and I'm going to make some posts and I'm going to sell courses on something. And then bam, I like, I, you know, I'm the next, you know, guy like that. And I just think that it just, it's more of like what they want to happen versus really what they understand to be able to get in and think through like, this is going to be a slog. And that's where, and it comes back to like people being like, Oh, I don't want to tell you my idea until you sign an NDA. Take my idea. I got so many ideas. You can have them all because you know, like not passionate enough about them to actually do anything about it.

I think that one of the best business ideas is going to be redesigning all of healthcare for self-employed one, two person businesses. Cause it's horrible right now. I had no desire to build that business, but if someone does, I'm definitely going to be a customer. But it's like, that is a slog of a business. And I have a million of these things that take it away, like get the feedback. And I think people are afraid of how to actually build a business and what it takes after three or six months. I love this one. I'm sure you probably get it too. Where like friends who, because you're in tech and you're in sales, right? Oh dude, I got this great idea. Like, Oh, I got this app, like this awesome app idea, you know?

And you can just have it like, like, I just want to see it done. Like you just, and it's like dipshit. Like fuck it. I always say ideas like assholes. Everybody's got them, right? It's, it's the ones who are willing to put in the fucking, I'm like, do you know what? So yes, interesting idea. Might even be a brilliant idea. Do you know what it's going to take to bring that idea to fruition? You are not willing to put in the work and I am fucking sure is not willing to put in the work on your stupid idea because, and they think they're almost like doing you a favor. It's like, dude, Oh, don't, you got to do that. Like this, this is for you. It's like, no, I don't want your piece of shit idea. Yeah.

No. And I, and I think a lot of founders make that mistake as they feel like, Hey, I'm giving you this opportunity. And you know, they're looking for someone who's going to work for dog shit. They think that they're going to work a hundred hours a week. They think they're going to work for, you know, 0.002% of the company, like all these different things. And they don't think about what is like by you hiring this person, you're slowing down your own company, like pay a little bit of money, get someone who can work on their own, who can be resourceful and be a self-starter who can work alongside you. And if you can't afford them, then slow down a little bit because you're trying to do something you can't and venture capital and angel investing is not the only way to build a business.

This business that I have, the business that you have right now, this is, there's no external investment. This is sweat and lack of hair and a whole bunch of things that are going into this, build this business. Now I've done the venture capital route and that's a different thing, but it is a vehicle in order to build a business. And I think a lot of people think about it in terms of it's a safety plan because they're like, oh, if I can raise $3 million, then I can still pay myself a hundred grand every year until I build this business. And I'm like, that's not how that, that's not what this is for. And that's when investors are like, no, not investing. And people are like, oh, no one will invest in my company.

I'm like, you're not thinking about it in the right kind of way. Yeah. Yeah. That, that the other, you know, when people say, well, I, you know, I wish my employees would work as hard or, you know, this is an opportunity. It's like, I ask him, I'm like, how can you expect your employees to work as hard as you? Like, well, come on, man, it's a huge opportunity. I go, do they own 50% of the company? Yeah. Because if they own 50% of the company, then you could absolutely expect them to work as hard as you do. Yeah. But if they don't, and they're just an employee, expect them to do their fucking job. Period. Don't expect them to do anything more. And they're going to do 60 grand worth of work. Maybe like 60 grand worth of work.

You know, like that's the whole point is, is don't expect them to be Yeah. I mean, I do think that, so my first startup, the, the thrive net with the one that I joined my buddies for some weird reason, we were able to attract very similar, like the three founders were the three founders. They've literally kept like 90% of the business. And they, I only got like 1% because I was 22. I had no fucking idea what I was doing anyways. And then, but we hired a whole line of directors like along the way. And I, for some weird reason, the, the three founders were able to find a group of people who actually did work twice as hard as what we were getting paid for. So, and it wasn't because we were promised this huge thing.

It's just, we all had a drive to us and, and a purpose behind what we were trying to do. So you don't necessarily have to promise people the world that you're going to be a trillionaire. You just have to make sure that you create a culture of, of excellence. And so how do you, how do you breed that? How do you, how do you teach, like teach founders to hire, um, the right type of people that might have those characteristics that could go the extra mile, even if they're not getting paid for it, even if they're not getting, you know, equity for it? Well, I think to your point, a little bit of it is the times. And so with the way that social media and so much, so much is just prevalent online, I think it's different.

I mean, I think that people were just, they didn't understand. I mean, still today, most people don't really understand options and equity and points. I don't, I'll tell you that. I don't. I mean, I, I majored in venture capital in grad school. That's probably the only reason I actually do know, but, and so it, but it's, it can be very confusing. And I look at it and go back then there wasn't so much noise. There weren't so many options. There wasn't like indeed and all these things that didn't exist to be able to go find people in job hop. People waited 20 years. Like I, I remember telling my dad after like six months, I was great at Wells Fargo. I'm like, I could totally see myself being here for the next 30 years and I'll work my way up and be CEO.

And thank the Lord I didn't do that. Uh, but you know, you look at it and go, I think there's difference. But in terms of that, when I hear from you is there was a cohesive unit of what you guys collectively wanted to build. And I think that's the same thing that people struggle with today is they don't know what they're looking for and they don't actually know even how to interview for it if they even know what they're, they're looking for. And so I think there's this like two part problem where so often founders are like, I just want to hire a salesperson and just like take this off my plate. And I think that mindset and that thinking ruins the hire. Absolutely. And then they're like, oh, well, I come in and I go, Hey, you should have a sales co-founder.

Now I don't want to give away all this equity. And I'm like, well, don't you want, you know, 50% of a lot more than a hundred percent of nothing, blah, blah, blah. And so I think about it in terms of one founders need to be crystal clear on what type of kind of company that they want to be, what type of necessarily, I don't want to say culture, but what type of like initial foundational team that they want to have. And I think about it in terms of attributes where it's like, I want just natural, unrealistic, like drive. Like I want it just oozing out of you. I want no matter what, I will figure it out. I want problem solving, proactive sellers. I want people who are like, you know what, John, I get you're my boss.

You're not available. I'm going to go figure it out. I'm going to do it and ask for permission. And if you say that I shouldn't do that way, I learned from it, but it's better for both of us to move faster and less like is going to be absolutely detrimental to the company. Coachability, self-coachability, resourcefulness, adaptability. Like I think about it in terms of these things are things that you can't teach somebody. I can teach you how to sell. You can teach anybody how to sell. You give me enough time. I can teach an eighth grader how to sell to enterprise companies given enough time. But the whole point is, is I don't think I can teach you how to give a shit. I don't think I can teach you how to be like, I'm going to go two, three, four level questions deeper because I'm just naturally curious.

You can't teach that. And that makes up the foundational part of your team. And I think a lot of times, number one, founders will go in and go, I just want to sell her. Or a lot of times they just start interviewing people and they have no plan. They don't really know how to do it. So they get fatigued and they just pick somebody. Yep. Yeah. Because it's like, I got to get to your point. Like I got to get this off my plate. Right. And I think if you have that mentality of, you know, the whole adage here of like hire, slow, fire, fast, right? Like you better take your fucking time and think that because right now, if you don't, the, the, the, for small businesses, a bad hire could be death, especially in the, in the initial phases.

I mean, I've had, I've heard stories where like they've hired the wrong person and not only have they just been the wrong person, they haven't produced results. They've actually been malicious and siphoned the clients away from them to another opportunity that they're fucking around, you know, that they're doing on the side hustle type of thing. So it's like when you, and that happens when you're, when you're just like, Oh yeah, you're, you're good enough. We got to go, let's do this. And it just seems like everybody, you know, I mean, I think it's our society here. It's just, everybody's in such a rush when I think we just all need to slow the fuck down for a minute here and, and take, you know, take some time to make the right decision so you can go that much faster in the future.

But right now it's like, if you make that bad choice, you're fucked. It's, uh, I have a higher medium fire fast kind of mentality. Um, but it really starts with like, before you even get into any of that, it's, do you even know who you're looking for profile? And then do you even know how to look for it? Because, you know, a mediocre sort of decent person who maybe is the wrong fit. And I think that is, there's a difference between being a great seller and being the right fit for a seller. I think those are two different things. And I think that people hear what they want to hear in the interview process and go, Oh, he could do the job. Like I have a client who, um, where he was, he asked me to interview, um, this one candidate smartest, like wicked smart, like just clearly in the clouds of like smarter than just most people.

And I'm just like, you're not going to want to do what this job needs you to do. You're about three stages past it. And I was brutally honest. And she was just like, you're totally right. I've never had this level of transparency in an interview. And the founder is like, I totally would have made that higher. And it would have blown up my face. And it's just, those are the types of things where like, people just want to like get shit off their plate. Like they just want to be like, I just want to like play chess, but I don't want to be any of the pieces. Yeah. And I mean, look, I don't know about you, but I've fallen into this trap more often than not. Like me personally, you know, and based on what happened to my business, like I, my, I know as a founder, just as in general, one of my biggest, um, weaknesses, if you will, is accountability.

Like, I don't like holding people accountable. I don't like holding myself accountable. I just fucking do what I do. And I know I'm good at it. And my whole philosophy is I'm going to give you guidance. I'm going to tell you what I want done. I'm going to give you all the tools and resources in the world. I'm going to give you access to me and I'm going to expect you to do your fucking job. But like, I tell people all the time, like I'm the, I'm the one you want in your forecast review because we'll come up with strategies and ideas and I'll help you get this thing done. But as soon as you like miss your forecast, I fucking want nothing to do with it. You know what I mean? Like I'm like, and that's a horrible way to, you know, build a business because ultimately I got burned.

You know what I mean? I trusted a lot of people to do their jobs and I did not pay attention to the details. And I'm not saying I could have saved this because 2000, 2023 was 2023. The beginning of 2023 was a fucking bloodbath for the tech industry and 90% of my clients were in tech. So I'm not saying that I, you know, I could have saved anything if I was paying that much more attention, but I definitely probably could have seen the tea leaves a lot sooner. I definitely could have made it a softer landing for me and everybody else when, when the shit really did hit the fan. And that's why for me, I've made the decision where I'm not hiring a single person ever again, because I know what my strengths are.

I know what my weaknesses are. And you said something interesting about like, what kind of business do you want to be? There's another concept here of growth company, lifestyle company. Yeah. Two very different strategies, structures, everything. Lifestyles, maximize profits, higher quality, and just do really good work for limited people, but don't expect to blow the fucking roof off. Life, uh, growth companies take every dollar that you make, throw it back into the company and go and, and, you know, eat later to, you know, give up now what you potentially could give later. But so many companies I see, or founders try to play both, right. They, they want the profits. They want the boat. They want the time off because that's why they started the business, but they also want to grow really, really fast.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's one of these things where they want what is at the end versus want to care about the fun part of the journey. If you saw, I don't know the guy's name. It was the co-founder of Loom. There's a post going around about how he has, I don't know, he sold the company for like $4 billion and he has more money than he could ever do with. And now he's just like depressed and sad and anxious and he has no, he has no desire. He's like, I don't want to build a company. I like, I have everything, so I don't really need to do anything. And it's, it's such an interesting story. And I'm really rooting for the guy to like mentally like break through, but it's interesting not to be like, Oh, you know, poor you or poor you or anything, but it's, it's interesting that if someone were to just transport so many of us straight to the like desired result that we want, you don't appreciate it.

The only reason you appreciate is because you went through everything that you did. Like if someone was just like, you know what, I'm going to automatically make you Michael Jordan of basketball. It's just not going to make the same way. Like you can see in LeBron James's face, like that dude invests every single second of every single day to get in there and do the work. And that's why he's been doing this for however, you know, longer than anybody else. So it's one of those things where like, you have to just be passionate about it. I always say, I don't think I'm ever going to retire because I'm definitely what I do. I don't necessarily know I'll do it at the intensity that I am doing at it, but I love it.

I so love it in the look on people's face when they're selling in the business. It's the next level. That's what it's all about. I get bored. I personally, I get bored playing golf every day. Oh God. Retirement. I always say retirement for me is work because I want to, not because I have to. That's retirement for me. Cause I'm always going to work. I'm dead. There's no chance. I'm sitting on the beach and playing golf every day of my life. There's just no chance. I'd get way too fucking bored way too fast. I can't even take my wife and I have tested this actually. Uh, one week vacation, not enough. Cause I can't decompress enough. Two weeks is great. Cause I have like a, the time three weeks I get bored out of my fucking mind.

Like literally we were in like Bora Bora for like our, our honeymoon. And like, it was our third week and, and we were in the most pristine, beautiful place I'd ever been in my entire life. And I'm like, I gotta go home. Like I, I can't do this anymore. I'm so fucking bored. I need to go do something. And, and we didn't leave early, but I was a pain in the ass the last like four or five days of that break because I just didn't want to be there anymore. I'm like, we, can we go do something? Cause I don't know if you've ever been to Bora Bora. It's like on the Island and it's, there's literally nothing to do. Like it is a pure relaxation, do nothing. The lights go out at eight o'clock and all the lights go out.

You know, there's no TVs, stuff like that where we were. And I was like, no, this ain't me. Mine's a, mine's a month. I, uh, about once a year, I do a month long vacation. Oh, good for you, man. And I'm similar to the stack where it takes me about a week to come down. And then there's that like half week before, and then I, I kind of ramp back up, but I am fully 100% checked out. No phone, no LinkedIn, no email, no Slack, no computer, nothing. I am off the map. And, um, it is like three weeks of just bliss of me just like there. But towards the end of it, I'm like, all right, I'm ready to get back at it. Get back into it. Yeah. Awesome. Well, look, let's, uh, I love the journey that you're on right now and what you're helping.

So where can people find out more about what you're doing? Uh, check out my LinkedIn, uh, Alex Newman. Uh, you can go to alexnewman.com or, uh, my new group coaching thing is victoryhub.io. Nice. Love it. So what's the, what's that one all about? Talk to me about that real quick. So I do sales consulting, sales coaching, specifically one-on-one, which is like my own individual practice. But what I've found is both the price point and then the needs from businesses and founders, they don't necessarily need me there so much. And so what I'm doing is I'm actually putting together small cohorts of like 10, 12 companies who are in the process of trying to transition out of founder led sales and everybody can kind of work together.

So there's no competition from a company perspective, but everybody's at the same stage and going through it. So you still get the frameworks, the training, you know, you get a one-on-one with me, that kind of stuff. And then, uh, I call it the bat phone. So you can do a text thread and it's, uh, you know, it's, it's no fun. It's a, it's a good idea. I love to see you on your own. And like I said, I always like, I, you know, entrepreneurship isn't for everybody, but when, when you're in control of your own chaos, as opposed to somebody else's chaos that they're putting on you, to me, it's just such a healthier stress. We're all going to face stress. Business is stressful. Working for somebody is stressful.

Being your own business is stressful, but the stress of being an entrepreneur for me is a healthier stress than having somebody tell me what the fuck to do. And I love to see the fact that you went and did the same thing and you're enjoying the same time. It's, uh, is one of my favorite things. It's mine. It's, it's me, it's me doing my thing. And you know, it's one of the things in sales, the harder you work, the more you can get out of it. It's not like, I would be a terrible salaried employee because I wouldn't do Jack. No, I'd be sub bare minimum. I had a, like almost an allergic reaction to, to, uh, like when I was like, wait a minute. That's why I knew I wasn't, I was kind of sales was my thing, but even sales wasn't my thing.

Cause entrepreneurship was my thing. Cause when I was at Xerox, I was like, okay. And, and I just did my job. I wasn't even trying. I mean, I tried hard obviously, but I, you know, I was top rep, blah, blah, blah. And they were blowing all the smoke up my ass. And I'm like, okay. So apparently I'm good at what I do. Um, you know, I'm 21. I have no fucking idea. And, uh, I'm like, okay, so this is my job. That's the next one. That's, that's the one I want. I'm like, how fast can I get to that? And they're like, well, you got to do two years doing this and two years doing that, then two years doing this, and then you'll get the opportunity. And I'm like, wait a minute. So that guy over there, who's a joke and I run circles around, he's going to get the opportunity for a promotion the same time I am.

I'm like that, that, that, that's not right. There's something not right about that to me. So fuck that. And that's when I peeled off and thankfully got, got the bug for entrepreneurship. And now it's like, all right, yeah, this is my shit, man. Like I am going to ride or die on what I do. Yeah. No, I, uh, I love it. I mean, it's, um, it's an awesome drug. It's very fulfilling. And it's just one of those things where, you know, it's, you get to build it. And I don't encourage everyone to be an entrepreneur or go out on their own. And there's plenty of times where, I mean, some of my good buddies are very, I'm like, man, you should go do your own things. Like risk adverse. I'm great at this. I want to do this.

I can't do it. And he, you know, stay, stay over here. And they're, they flourishing and they're doing their thing. Yeah. And that's totally okay. And I, you know, there's nothing wrong with it. There's not like a good and bad thing. I mean, I'm actually jealous. Treat your heart. Quite frankly, I'm actually jealous of people who have figured out how to play the corporate game without losing their soul. Like I really have, like there, there are people who are literally in huge, big, huge organizations that are content, happy. They're the people that work for them, love them. The people above them, love them. And they've just figured out how to play that game. I don't have that gene in me. Like I literally can't play the game, but I have, I have envy and, and I am definitely jealous of people who have figured out.

Cause I've looked at it. I'm like, your life seems so much easier at the end of the day by following that track than mine was. Cause I made my life fucking brutal along the way by making the choices I did. But man, like you said, like there's no right path. It's just your path. And I think to your point, like risk adverse, what do you like, what gets you passionate about it. And if working with people within a system is passionate and you're, you can thrive in there, fucking do it, man. But if not, you know, scratch that it, see what happens. You know what I'm jealous of? Corporate world, healthcare. When they pay your healthcare, that's what I'm jealous of. Yeah. That, that definitely does not, uh, that's not my favorite one to pay.

Let's put it that way. That's, that's one bill every month. I don't really enjoy paying. Awesome, Alex. Well, look, anybody listening, it's Alex Newman with two N's, N-E-W-M-A-N-N. We'll put it all in the show notes. Check him out on LinkedIn. Check it out on his website. Join us, especially if you know any founders, uh, send him over Alex's way. Cause, uh, he's doing some fun stuff and he'll get you out of there. So thanks for coming on, Alex. I really appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me. This is a blast. Good talking. And everybody, like I always say at the end of all these podcasts, go out there and make somebody smile today. Cause no matter how bad your day's going or how bad you think it went, you make somebody smile today and you know, you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that right now.

So thank you all very much. And I will see you on the other side. Hey everyone. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did with your support and our incredible guests. We're one of the top sales podcasts out there right now. And I can't thank you enough now to keep the momentum going. It would mean the world to me. If you could go and leave a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform and share some of your favorite episodes with your network. Also, I am super excited to be launching my new newsletter where I'll be sharing everything I know and everything I'm learning along the way while I'm out there selling every day, just like you. Go to jbarrows.com slash newsletter to sign up today.

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