John “JT” Turner: From Google X to Grounded Leadership

I'm hopeful because I think it's kind of going where you and I believe, which is like it's a profession. But if you don't take it as a profession and you're kind of the, hey, the past 10 years, I could just let it rip and go for it, you're going to get run over. 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. Today's conversation is with John Turner or JT. He is a seasoned sales executive team builder and leadership coach with a reputation for turning good teams into great ones over his career that spans banking, big tech, startups, and moonshots at Google X, which was really interesting and we dove into.

And he's built and led high-performing sales organizations from Silicon Valley to Europe. He is best known for his authentic leadership style, driven by values, rooted in culture, and obsessed with execution. And he's got a new book coming out about authentic sales leadership that we dove into. But before we did that, we got into his background story. Like you always know, I love origin stories. He's got a fun one here about where he learns early on about his drive to win, especially in his fourth grade, I think it was basketball. And then at 17 when his dad passed away and the impact that that had on his life. But what I was really curious was his time at Google X and this moonshot idea of cybersecurity and how they 10X every idea and really got him to stretch.

So we peeled that back about what he learned there. And he said it was an absolute game changer for his career. And then we got into other aspects of the leadership styles and coaching and brought up one of my mentors, Jeff Hoffman, who he knows really, really well based on his time at Trinet. And really the focus on this was the art of sales and the EQ versus IQ. And we all know that AI already, you know, the IQ component of what we do is pretty much irrelevant at this point. So we really need to tap back into EQ. And so I talked to him about like, how do you coach EQ? That's a hard thing to coach because a lot of it just comes with experience. And he is a big believer in leading by example and authenticity and really making sure that he stays grounded with his team and how he's built great organizations.

We also tapped into the challenge these days of investing in organizations and people early in their careers, knowing that they're probably not going to stay with you. So what's that balance from a business standpoint of how to invest in people, knowing that you might not get the ROI out of them. And then we talked about some very tactical things about his victory plan and a few other things that's different than most other sales processes out there. So this one was filled with really good, insightful discussion, plus some tactics that you can pull away and hopefully drive some results immediately with. So hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Let's make it happen. John Turner, welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast, my friend.

How are you doing today? I'm doing great, John. Excited to join this with you. Yeah, thanks. As we were just talking right before we hit record here, I think this is going to be a fun conversation because we're both on the same page, at least, I think, where everything is going right now. But before we get into kind of the lovely art and science of sales and where things are going and AI and how it's going to either empower everybody or kill everybody, who knows? Let's go origin stories here, John. Talk to us about where you came from, parents growing up, all that fun stuff, just so we kind of get a sense of your journey a little bit. And, you know, the stuff we can't read on LinkedIn. So give us that perspective here.

Yeah, it's great. It's a good one. So born and raised in Daly City, a suburb of San Francisco. And yeah, I think what's worth noting, one of the things that you'll never see, and you're going to think it's kind of funny, but something that formed me that I think a lot about, I mean, I grew up with great parents and a great family and a good environment. But when I was in fourth grade, man, I was on the fourth grade basketball B team. It was my first organized sports team. And we went undefeated and we won the championship. And I got this little trophy, which sounds like the dumbest story in the world. But it was something about like my whole family was at the game. I remember our family priest was there.

I mean, it was like this big deal. And I don't even know what's going on other than this is really fun winning. Then I get this trophy. It feels good winning. And I got to say that was a real like forming, you know, event in my life because it's like winning and everybody rallying around you and how good it felt really drove this, I call it today, almost this addiction to winning. And so, you know, fast forward, you know, I played competitive basketball throughout my years. I was actually a four-year walk on at Santa Clara, but then my dad died at 17. And that was another, I think, again, you won't see it on my LinkedIn, but he died very suddenly. He was a community president of community bank.

And like, it changed my life overnight because I went from like, hey, the world is my oyster. I can go or, you know, I can go all over the country and do things to like, hey, I need to stay close to home. So I went to Santa Clara University. It was beginning of my senior year. And, you know, then I went to Santa Clara and had a great run. But it really, I'd say when I think about things you wouldn't know about me, this kind of idea of winning, but also this idea of understanding that life is short and you really don't have time to waste are kind of two things that I think really formed who I am. Yeah. Those are early, especially early age, you know, like, you know, when you're young, my dad passed when I was, you know, back in 2021, but, you know, I was old enough to, it sucked, but it was, he was 82, you know, that type of thing.

And so as, as hard as it was, but I can't imagine being a kid and losing a parent that, that kind of rocks you in a totally different way. So. You grow up quickly, that's for sure. And, you know, I kind of became the, you know, I guess the patriarch of the family at 17, which I probably didn't even know what I was doing, but, you know, you have instincts and I had a good family, good role models that kind of taught me how to, how to do things. Love it. Now we're going to be talking about leadership and stuff. So I want to ask about the fourth grade experience though, from a coaching standpoint. Yeah. Yes. Winning's fun. What was your coach like though? And, and did you, did you remember anything of how he or she coached that winning culture?

And was it like the hardcore bootcamp coach of like, fuck you, you're going to win no matter what? Or was it like a super lovey dovey one? Like where, where was that, that mentality? Cause four year old, fourth grade is a, it's kind of a, you know, there's a psychology around it. There's this, right? So some coaches are really hardcore and some aren't. So walk me through a little bit about what you learned in that experience from a coaching standpoint. Well, that is so good. And I haven't thought about this one in about 4,000 years since I was in fourth grade, but coach Cunningham, I remember him to this day, he drove a truck for mother's cookies in the Bay area. His son was the assistant and he was just a good guy.

And I just remember him being positive. I remember him like creating a level of excitement with the team. I have no idea if he knew anything about basketball or not, but I remember like all this time later, what a great guy he was. It's so funny. You asked that question. I haven't thought about him and I can't believe I even remember his name, but it says something about his legacy though. The fact that I remember him to this day, the impact he had, and now I'm talking about the impact it had me on today. And we could talk all about coaches I've had, the good, the bad, and the ugly, because it's one of the reasons why I wrote the book, because I think how you coach and teach and how you develop people has changed radically over the past, over the past few years, for sure.

Oh my God. 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'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 chatGVT.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, I remember I had a, you know, I, I, I just had mostly bad coach. I had a couple of, Mr. Wilson was a great soccer coach of mine. Um, but the back, I remember I had a high school JV basketball coach and literally the guy's philosophy was he didn't want us to eat before games because he wanted us to be hungry. And I'm like, you do understand the, the literal version of that and the figurative or like, I understand being hungry to win, but you want us to be physically fucking hungry to play the game. I'm like, even at like 15, I'm like, are you a fucking moron? I'm like, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Like I'm starving here and I'm running up and down the court and I don't have any energy to play this game.

Like, so like that, that's a bad coach. So I know, well, you know, we could go through the list of the, like I said, the ones who came up with these crazy things and you know, there's such a, there's such a thing that I've learned and I've watched my sons play sports and I've watched coaches and the world has changed, man. And if you're not moving to it, you're not going to connect with people. You just not going to connect with them. It's actually, I'm skipping ahead here, but, um, it's kind of my feel on, on, for instance, Bill Belichick here, you know, in Boston, right? Like he was an insanely great coach for a period of time. And then the NFL shifted, dude, you could tell. And he was still using his mentality of like, it's my way of the highway.

And the every, and, and look, when you're winning, I will say when you're winning that hides a lot of warts, right? You can get away with a lot of stuff if you are winning, but once you start losing, if you don't adjust your style, you lose a lot of people and you don't, you don't attract anybody else either. You do, you do. And you know, that's why I, you know, I much respect to coach Belichick, no, no doubt, but you know, the people that resonate with me are coach Carroll, like coach Carroll is going to take on another, another gig. And that guy's reinvented himself 15 times. And I don't know how old he is. I mean, he's got to be well into his seventies. Well into his seventies. Yeah. I mean, he is a role model to me.

And I've been, I've been told, which I I'm about 1% of coach Carroll, but I've been told that I have a bit of that leadership where he just adapts and connects with his people. And I think earlier in my career, this idea of connecting with the heart was like a novel concept. I mean, coach K wrote a book called connecting with the heart. And that was supposed to be some sort of big thing. And that wasn't like, I mean, your, your JV coach, my coaches not, weren't always connecting with the heart. It was yelling and pushing and shoving and cajoling and everything else. It was funny. And again, that's a, Pete Carroll is a great example because when he came to Boston, when he was a coach of the Patriots, it was, it was before that was really a thing.

And we ran him out of town. Cause we were like, you fucking fluffy piece of shit here. Nobody wants to be hugged here in Boston. Kiss my ass as far as hugs and kisses and everybody like we want hardcore, no bullshit. Boom. Right. So we legit made fun of him for that. Like Boston is a collective. We were like, who is this loser? And now it's full circle, right? Now he's coming back. And that coaching style is what you have to have to, to manage these kids these days. So let's back up a little bit more before we dive into the kind of the specifics of the coaching for you. And what made you, so I picked up your dad was a banker. Yeah. Right. So is that why you went into banking at first from a college standpoint is that you wanted to follow what he was doing?

It is, you know, when he passed at the funeral, there was a moment, I think I might've talked about in the book where as we were driving down the street, the main street of daily city, like there were people who were business owners who were standing out in the street, watching the kind of funeral procession go. And it really, I mean, my dad was part of the people who helped create the hospital, who helped fund the hospital, who helped fund businesses. Like he was just somebody embedded in the community. And I really respected and admired kind of his service to others. So it kind of, you know, I said, Hey, I'm going to follow in banking. And so that was a big driver was really, I saw how he served others and how he made a difference in people's lives for sure.

So what then, what then made the switch to business sales, right? Like if you were in that, going to school for it, wanting that vision, kind of what was the, yeah, what was the transition there or why was the transition there that you got into business? Well, I think there were a few things going on. One is like, I'm a competitor. I like competitive situations. I, I think when I was younger, I was a little bit of a kind of a Draymond Green type where you needed me on the team, but sometimes you probably didn't want me on the team, but you know, I was that guy you kind of needed to help win. And I would do the dirty work. And I think when I was in banking, I found it very constricting. And then I think another thing, again, this probably is in my LinkedIn.

My wife, Amy at the time was in tech and she was making more money than me. And I saw these tech guys when I was in that bank and I'm like, I don't think they're any smarter than I am. Why not go for it? And so I probably did the world's dumbest thing. I, uh, I was a VP at Chase Manhattan bank and I transitioned because none of the tech companies, they all said, you're a banker, forget about it. You don't know anything about sales. I went to a hundred percent commission job at a Silicon graphics far for Lord's sake. So, uh, to do it and just get into it. So it was, and then, you know, I talk about the book, I got into Gartner and man, I saw the competition, the drive, the reward for excellence.

And I'm like, Oh my gosh, this fits perfectly. It's like, I'm home, right? Yeah. Seriously. I just, Oh man. It was like, where has this been? Cause it matched so much my personality and how I was raised. And is that like, cause that's a big bet, man. Betting on yourself a hundred percent commission. Like I was always scared shitless of going into a hundred because I'm like, ah, what if I don't, you know, perform or whatever. But man, when you do that, I I'm a, I'm a pretty self-motivated person, but if you want to be motivated, man, like be a hundred percent commission rep, because when you realize you wake up in the morning, you don't work, you ain't getting paid. Like you better start working.

So is it where you just like, you know what? I have the confidence in myself. I think I can do this. Fuck it. Let me try. I think you're giving me way too much credit. I just don't even know if I was that smart. I just said, Hey, I'm getting into this thing because I didn't really understand technology. I mean, and I'm like, I'm getting into this damn thing. And I did and you're right. I fought, scratched, scraped, and got my way through a year of it through commissions and through just, just hunger. And then, uh, and then, you know, Jan Rufino, a digital who I mentioned in my book, digital equipment was a big time, you know, kind of well-respected tech company. And she was one of those people that just saw something in me and hired me.

And that kind of gave me my, you know, it industry sales card that got me in. So you're right. It was like, it probably wasn't the world's smartest move. And, uh, maybe on another episode, I'll tell you how I bought my wife's wedding ring, but, um, you know, it's just, it was one of those things where you bet on yourself and looking at it now, I'm like, wow, that was, I don't know if that was the smartest thing, but here we are today. Here we are. Here we are. And it led, I mean, and you had a pretty interesting Gartner, but then the one that really struck me was the Google's moonshot or X. I don't know. I didn't know enough about it until I started reading it. Cause I even had to search like, what was Google X compared to?

And it's moonshot now. And it's this 10 X thing. So could you first of all, explain, first of all, how'd you get there? Right. Because it seems like a very unique portion of the Google ecosystem. And then once you were there, what did you learn? Like what, what, what, what, how did your eyes get open? Because the 10 X thought process is an interesting one to me. So how'd you get there first? And what, what brought that opportunity up? Oh my, uh, it was just, it was incredible. I would have, if you asked me, Hey, could you ever see yourself at Google X, the moonshot factory? I'd be like, I don't even think I could have even imagined that. And I like to imagine things and plan. So I, you know, we had a great run at Trinet.

We brought them public and it'd been five years and it was an amazing run. We were, I mean, it's just great. The organization got big. And as I like to say about it, I do a sales kickoff and I didn't know about a third of the people. I didn't know their names and leadership's very personal to me. So I was thinking it's probably about time to move on. And then I get a call from, uh, from the CEO of a, of a secret project at Google X saying, and the way I got it, and this is why like treating people like whoever you meet, you know, I have a section call. You never know. There was this CEO called a guy who he loved, who had been at Symantec, who was in sales ops. And he said, who's the best sales leader in Silicon Valley that was at Symantec.

And I knew this guy and I was always respectful. We jammed together. He said, John Turner, JT. And so the CEO calls me and said, Hey, I was giving your name. I'm looking for a chief revenue officer for this moonshot project in cybersecurity. What do you think? And so I meet with him and I get into this thing about how they're going to take massive amounts of data and, you know, use the world's most powerful infrastructure to really solve cybersecurity. Cause I'd kind of sworn off cybersecurity. So I look at this thing and I'm like, okay, I think this thing could go. And it was less, you know, the X than it was, Hey, this is really something that can make a difference in cybersecurity. So I went through this whole interview process.

I interviewed with, you know, tons of people, including Astro Teller, who would go around at X. It's an old shopping mall. And he would go, I don't know, he might still do. He goes around in rollerblades cause he's going from meeting to meeting. So I interviewed at this place and it's unbelievable. And I was one of the first enterprise sales leaders to bring in there. So as I like to say, there were probably a thousand people there, a brilliant people. I probably reduced the IQ of the building by five points just by joining it, but it was amazing. And they just, they take on big projects. Um, like the driverless car, you see Waymo's all over San Francisco. And that was, that was born there. You see, you know, drone delivery services now that's becoming a mainstream thing.

I mean, they've come up with some robotics and so much around, there were so many things that went on there. And so it was, John, it just was a slap in the face because as I talk in the book, like I had led in a certain way and there was this kind of, Hey, I grew up in a Brooks Brothers sport coat and Hey, you always got to wear a suit and tie. Hey, you got to do this. You got to do that. Like if you wear a coat sport coat and X, like they'll throw you out or they think you're like an auditor or something like, and this authenticity started coming out. And I, I had this team of people who were early in their career who were brilliant and we got together and then Astro was like, what would 10 X thinking be in sales?

I'm like, I don't know. He said, well, what's the average productivity? I said, yeah, maybe a million plus or minus. He says, what if a rep did a hundred million? I'm like, I don't know. Had thought about it. And you just had this authenticity where we would go visit prospects in t-shirts and jeans and tennis shoes because it was authentic. It was like, Hey, let's just get to what the problems are, the technology and let's get real here. And it was like, and then I had these people that were earlier in the career back. We were talking about coach Carol who like, she just kind of whipped me around and said, JT, you got great ideas, but you got to, you got to update and change the way you're thinking.

And I just embraced them. They embraced me, changed my career. It was a career changer really was in how it taught me about the importance of authenticity. And then let's just throw in the pandemic to make it interesting on how to be. So it was transformational in so many different ways around how you approach things. And it changed the way I think for sure, moving forward. And was it real? I mean, what was, was the fundamental just think 10 X like, okay, this is what the normal thing can do. This is what everybody accepts. Now, what would 10 X look like? And like, I help me with the framework here of, of thinking that way. Right. Cause it, cause you get, you know, the, my, my least favorite person on the planet is Grant Cardone, right?

The 10 X fucking douchebag. Right. And he's just 10 X it, 10 X your goals. And then it's like, okay, thanks asshole. I'll 10 X my goals. And now they're 10 times harder for me to write. So, so give me a framework here of how they thought so that, you know, you can get to that 10 X while still being kind of, you know, not smart goals, right? Cause I look at dumb goals and smart goals. Smart goals kind of limit you in a lot of ways where dumb goals, you open up your mind to it. So how do you get there? Well, it's interesting because what they want to do is they want to take a radical solution, a massive problem and technology. And they put those three circles together and they say, what are, what are projects that we could put together that would do those three things?

Okay. So what was the impetus for the driverless car? Well, car accidents, road accidents are one of the biggest causes for death. People who are older in age that can't drive anymore are limited and are stuck in houses like big problem. Okay. There's a big problem. Technology has evolved where we can use cameras, we can use data and cloud and collect massive amounts of data that could potentially create a car. And there's that. So there's a technology, there's a massive problem and a radical solution. What if nobody drove a car? I mean, 10 years ago, you'd be like, what are you talking about? That's like the Jetsons. I mean, and I don't even know if anybody knows what the Jetsons is, but like, what are you talking about?

And then they start, what they do then is they say, okay, now create a model as fast as you can, like create a model, like build whatever you had. Like for the first version of glass was a pair of glasses, a camera, software, and duct tape. Like Sergey and Larry say, build a model now. Take a radical, take this radical idea, these three circles, do a model quickly. Then what you got to do is you got to bring it to the contact with the real world as fast as you can to see, does it, will it even work? And would anybody do anything with it? So they love getting contact with the real world quickly. Then what they're doing is they have groups of people throughout the process that are cross-functional experts that come from all different parts of the world that help build it.

And all through the time, they're trying to kill the project. So they're trying to find why won't it work? Why won't it work? Why won't it work? And they're constantly trying to kill the project. And if the project can't be killed, then guess what? It might actually be something. What'd I learn from that? Okay. Well, I'm in sales. I love people who have great ideas. You got an idea? Bring me a model. If it aligns to what we're doing with our victory plan, go for it. Do it. Get out there quickly. A, B test it. Like I learned that, like go try it. If you got an idea and it makes sense, go try it quickly. I learned in deals, like I tell teams when I'm doing deal reviews, my job is to kill your deal.

And they're like, well, that sucks. I'm like, yeah, but if I can kill your deal, we can fix it now. If I can't kill your deal, you might actually get a deal because we're going to find out in the end. I learned that. X actually celebrates when a deal gets killed and they celebrate the team because they went for a radical idea. They went for it. They didn't make it. And they don't want people to feel bummed out. They want them to say, okay, hey, you failed on that one. Let's get you on the next project now. And they have actually a celebration they do when they celebrate dead projects. Why not celebrate? I've done this with reps and I have something in my book that I got from my man, Jeff Hoffman around dead turtles and deals, you know, celebrate the fact that a rep got an opportunity.

Yeah, you lost her. Yeah, we disqualified him. So these are all things that were like manifested in this process that then I started to apply to sales. So you're right. It can't be, oh, 10X. It's got to be more methodical than that. And that's some of what they've built. And do you apply that? So as a manager, just as a small detail on the, on the disc call to kill the deals, you know, as a manager, same thing, right? I'm asking like, why, you know, why isn't this deal? But do you also apply that to the client? Right. So when you're talking to the client, cause I have a philosophy of like, I'm going to qualify just to make sure you look like a duck, smell like a duck, whatever. Right. But then as soon as you kind of fit the mold, I'm actually trying to disqualify you.

I, I, and, and I bring this up because you bring up Jeff Hoffman, who's my mentor, like I, you know, a bash show. I took over. There's only one, the one and only man, literally Hoffman, the greatest professional I've ever come across in my entire life. He's literally an artist and I'm a scientist more, right? Yeah. Um, and I've had this conversation with him and he's like, fuck that. Um, uh, disqualification. He's like, why should I tell you why you shouldn't buy my shit? I'm going to help you buy my shit. Right. So I have a different approach where it's like, I'm trying to find all the reasons why you shouldn't do this because I inherently, I believe that you're eventually going to figure them out, whether consciously or subconsciously, somewhere down this line, you're going to find the reason why you shouldn't do business with me.

So from a credibility and you bring up authenticity standpoint, I'm constantly be like, eh, it doesn't, I don't know, like, why would you still want to do, like, I don't know if this might, why didn't you do this instead of this? So what's your theory on the interface with the client as it relates to disqualification or killing deals? Well, you know, it's, I, I, I tread carefully going against the great Jeff Hoffman. So I'll be very careful treading here. I just think being authentic, like sitting with him and just saying, you know, especially when you're doing executive to executive, like one of the things I talked about this in the book, like good things happen with executives engaged with the prospect, because if I'm making a decision, like this was a, this was an X and we ultimately became Chronicle Security.

I would go into every deal and I would meet with the executive and we would look each other in the eyes and he would look at me and like, do I trust you? Do I believe in you? And when the proverbial, to use a technical word, shit hits the fan, can I trust that you're going to fix it? Because it's going to go bad. I know it will. Everyone does. And so I think having those real conversations of like, are you really going to do this? Like, let's not talk about being sales and like you and me are talking now as executives. Are we going to do this? Why are we going to do it? Why wouldn't we do it? And let's just have a real conversation. And executives appreciate it. I know I would appreciate when someone would come to me because you're right.

The truth is coming out in the end. And I, I tread lightly because yeah, there's times where we kind of got things down the field and we got to close, but I just think, especially in today's world, there's so much information available. There's so much knowledge where I can be knowledgeable about a, about a buy that we got to get real, man. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's why I've always said that. I don't think I'm actually a, you know, when I say Jeff's an artist, like he, if you want to see something that you'll genuinely appreciate is I brought, I don't know if you saw this, I brought 18 practitioners and quote unquote influencers to see Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross. I listened to that episode. I absolutely loved it.

I wish I'd been in the room. Oh man. And, and, and after the fact, the Q and a after the fact, like it was, it was like when I saw it and you, it was funny because I consider myself, I'm actually, I'm going to, I'm a practitioner, but I'm definitely more of a scientist with an art standpoint. And I'm at the art of sales, like the pureness of like being able to kind of get people to think in a different way and all that other stuff. Like, I just, I don't know if I have it. I'd probably do in some cases, but when I watched Jeff start to talk, like you saw everybody start to lean in and he just has this, this, this, this, and I, and it made me actually sad in a lot of ways because I don't know where that went.

And I feel like we've over-engineered the sales process. We've over-processed it. We've over-teched it. And so I guess I wasn't going to ask this question, but since it's on the, since it came up, like, how do you feel like we get back to, to that? The, the essence of sales, because I feel like it is, it is going to be so important now with the essence, because the science is going to be taken care of with it. You know, IQ is over. AI is already smarter than us. So like a plan and an implementation and strategy, like that's all, like I can do that with one prompt in a GPT. So we're going to have to get back to the EQ side of the house and the ability to read people and to be able to relate to people and look people in the eye.

But because we've now grown up, I mean, you and I are old enough to, to, you know, not have technology and be able to shake somebody's hand, look them in the eye and have that kind of osmosis that we, you know, we grew up in just learning just by being around sales. But this generation is growing up in, in a zoom session, in a transactional world with tech and all that other stuff. So how do we get back to that? And as it relates to leadership and coaching? Well, I love this one, John, because it also kind of, it gets into AI as well. And you and I were talking about this a little bit earlier about AI. Like, um, I don't think salespeople are going to be replaced, but on the other hand, I think the puck is going to where people like you and I believe it's a craft.

It's a profession. I've always said sales, and I was taught sales is a profession. A CPA is a profession. A lawyer is a profession. Like you have a craft, you learn your craft, you practice your craft. I mean, a zillion years ago, there were companies that wouldn't let you talk to a prospect for a year until you did some Xerox. Xerox, there you go. I saw in your background, I grew up in a Xerox culture at Gartner. So it's like, I think what's happened, and this is, this is what gives me hope, but it also means this next generation is going to need to get on the ball. I was listening, you know, when, uh, you know, when you were, when you were talking with Kelly about the funnel and you and I talked about this earlier, like going through the funnel and I do a five by five sales for sales process.

So once you get to stage three, yeah, you can use AI, you can use intelligence tools, you can use things to get yourself smart to qualify, to get to the point where you really understand, but there's going to be a human element. I think, as long as to your point, we're selling to humans, if we stop selling to humans, then all bets are off and forget about it. But if we're selling to humans and we're selling to organizations and we're selling to teams, as long as there's teams, as long as there's people, as long as there's personalities and processes, it's going to be messy. So what it means is to me for this next generation and my, my oldest son is going to be graduating college and he wants to get into sales.

It's like, how do you think EQ emotional, you know, what's your emotional intelligence? How do you read the room? How do you read a situation? What's your strategy? Think. I think that's a great opportunity. And then if you layer that into what you build and what others around training and development, and now I'm going to really learn my craft. I'm not going to do what was done in the SaaS world. Hey, here's a territory goal. Call 50 people and try to get them to buy something. Being thoughtful now of like, what is my craft? How do I read the room? How do I read situations? How do I engage with people? What's those right things that I need to say, do and act to get somebody connected and get this proverbial vision mesh to get them moved forward?

And how do I build these personal relationships? Not just surface level ones, but ones where people are making like career decisions when they're buying your technology or they're making, they're putting themselves out there to buy it. So I'm hopeful because I think it's going to create, it's kind of going where you and I believe, which is like, it's a profession. But if you don't take it as a profession and you're kind of the, Hey, the past 10 years, I could just let it rip and go for it. You're going to get run over. And I think that's what I think a lot about, which is why I wrote the, one of the reasons I wrote the book. I want them to understand authenticity, being who you are, reading people, caring about people.

So I'm kind of a science guy too, but I also understand hearts. Um, so I don't think AI is going to replace salespeople yet. I don't see it. No, I don't either. I just, well, I think it's going to play shitty sales, but yes, it will actually, um, but how do you teach? You can teach the IQ stuff. You can teach the process. You can teach all these EQ is a really hard thing to teach because you have to experience it. You know, that's like, I use the example of, you know, I, I grew up going, you know, networking events every night and driving around Massachusetts and going face to face. And, and, and I use it. Networking event is a very specific example because those are still happening today and anybody can do them.

And I tell reps to go out every night into a business, social networking event, just because I don't give a shit what they're, who the audience is just uncomfortable, man. Because the art of, of literally sticking your hand out and saying hello to somebody breaking into a conversation and then watching somebody's body language as you pitch them your shit and watch them feel uncomfortable and try to get out of the conversation as fast as possible. Like that's real. Like you can feel that, but it's hard to teach. So how do you teach EQ from a coaching and leadership standpoint? Or what are some things that you've done in your career to, to elevate people's EQ? Yeah, it's man, it's so good. It's why I really believe that my sales managers and my sales leaders need to be coaches.

I, you know, I talk about the four key roles of a, of a sale frontline sales manager, coaching counselor, sales strategist, talent magnet, and a chief inspiration officer. It's hearts and minds, man. So I think what you got to do is you got to take, first of all, you got to coach yourself and develop yourself as a manager and understand what those roles are. And as a coach and a teacher, uh, and then you got to get into your people and model these things. Like you have to model your authenticity. You have to model how you behave people. You have to give them feedback and have the courage of like, Hey, that wasn't really, do you think that, how did you think that went or what did you want? So I think there's modeling, there's studying, there's, you know, read my book, look at videos, like read history.

I mean, I talk about in the book, don't read business books except for mine and probably yours. Like read history, read about Mandela, read about Churchill, read about, you know, I mean, psychology books. Yes. Read that stuff. Those are the greatest. Like, so it's like, I, you know, I'm hopeful because a lot of this generation now, this kind of this gang that's getting into the world of work in their twenties, they want to go back to the office. They know they're getting cheated. Now I'm not going to say everybody because I don't have a million zillion data set, but a lot of the young people I'm saying are like, Hey, can I go into office? Like I want to meet people. I want to learn. I want to be around people.

And I'm like, hallelujah, let's get them back in learning from each other and find out what's going on. Cause you and I learned in a bullpen together, man. I know we did. Absolutely. And that was my point. It's like, I tell kids all the time, like I didn't get a lot of good training when it wasn't first in sales. Like I got shitty training as a matter of fact, but I was around sales. I was in the bullpen and I would listen to the kid next to me, make a cold call back. Oh shit. That was actually really good. The way you handle it. I'd listen to the boss come over and talk about a deal to a rep next over in my cube. And I was like, Ooh, well, that's kind of interesting. So just literally by being around it, I firmly believe that every sales professional first two years of their career, period.

I don't care what your job is. First two years you're in the office. I don't care. Yes. A hundred percent. You just, because you're like, that's something you can't teach. Like that interaction with your office mates helps the EQ side of the house, helps the interpersonal side of the house, which then translates to customers. Totally agree. And you know, I think the companies that, and I get it, it's expensive. You want to find talent everywhere, all these other things. I get it, but I just don't agree with it. I think the first couple of years they got to get into it and learn. And look, I might sound a little old school, but as long as if you're going to go down funnel stage three and a below to close an implementation, you've got to know how to interact with people in today's world, or you're just going to get, you're going to get run over.

So I think I couldn't agree more with you, man. Really couldn't agree more. You talk about lead. You talk a lot about lead by example. Yeah. I struggle with this one a little bit, right? Cause I look at, let's go back to Bill Belichick, right? Yeah. He played football, but he never really played football. Right. But he was arguably one of the greatest coaches of all time. So I, I, I've had this adage where the reason I always say, I'm not a, I'm not a trainer. I'm a sales rep who happens to train because I'm out there selling every day, just like every other, I'm making the calls, I'm sending the emails, I'm managing my accounts and doing all that other stuff. And so therefore I can translate that to real world authentic.

Like that's probably, if there was one thing that people would say about my training and me, it's authenticity. It's like finally somebody who's not full of shit and somebody who knows our world that the shit that we deal with. So, but there's so many managers that get into a leadership role who are mediocre reps, that type of thing. So what's the balance of being a, a good rep who, and somebody who stays active, like a player coach so that they can stay relevant versus a coach who might've sold a while, long time ago and has some good theories and approaches and is a really good coach, but isn't actively selling. So is there a balance for you? Do you, is there one or the other? Is there a mix that you look for?

There is. And, um, you know, the first thing, John, and I talk about this is like, what is your sense of purpose and what is your mindset? And I talk about, Hey, I'll always have the heart of a rep. Like to me, I'll never forget sitting in a cubicle with a list of contacts that I had to call that had no intention of buying what I wanted to buy and trying to get them to actually consider buying what I was selling. And knowing that I had the VP of sales roaming up and down the, the, the bullpen saying, have you sold anything today? Like I will never forget that. And it's why, like, I really get pissed off when I see people push reps around and treat reps disrespectfully. And, you know, they sit in headquarters and kind of give crap to sales reps, like get out there.

So I guess it's why my mantra is the truth is in the field. And I actually had one of my, uh, one of my reps, Nick Terry, one of my enterprise reps, he's like, JT, they're going to put on your tombstone. The truth is in the field. And I said, well, Nick, I think it might be actually the truth is under the field. But I think like my biggest fear, and I watched this with heads of sales, like in CROs, like they just forget about what it was like to be a rep. And if they haven't been a rep, I'm sorry. I just, it bothers me because it's just like engineers. I watched great engineering leaders and some of the best engineering leaders picked up a keyboard and had to figure out how to write something.

And I'll never understand that because I've never written a piece of code in my life, but I damn well know what it's like to have to try to get a territory going when you're given the crappiest territory and have to sell something because you got to pay for your family. Like I will never forget that. So I guess the ones that get disconnected from me and I catch them are the ones who forget what it's like to be a rep and forget the point of view of the rep. The truth is in the field. So I want people that are good coaches, but the only way, and I had somebody once said, you can't hunt moose from the lodge. You also can't sell something by sitting on your ash. You've got to get out there. So from the CRO on through, you got to get out in the field and be with your team and you better dare listen and take it back in.

So I want a combination of them because I don't want super rep, which is what most first line sales managers, you and I both know. I always set my clock to 30 days, 40, it's about 60 to 90 days when a new manager who is a rep promoted calls me and says, JT, I'm swamped. I know you are because you're a super rep right now and you're taking stuff left and right and you got an action item list as long as your arm because you want to be the rep and you don't know how to coach and teach and delegate. So it's a balance, but you can never, I don't care how big, Rob Enslin led a multi-billion dollar business, but I always felt he was a rep at heart. Yeah. And that's what I was going to ask about the characteristics is I see that time and time again, which is, you know, most companies take their best rep and they make them managers.

And I, quite frankly, I think that's probably one of the worst things you can possibly do because you take the best rep out of doing what they're great at. And then, and, and usually they're the artists to a certain degree because they're, they're just that good and, and they can't translate that to everybody else, especially the C players. You know what I mean? They get inherently frustrated with them. They actually have disdain for them in a lot of ways because they were on the same team and they were probably dragging them down and now they're going to manage them. So what are the, kind of the, when you look for leaders within kind of the ground floor, if you will, and you start to see different paths for different people, what are some of those characteristics that you see before they see them?

Yeah. Number one, I want a sense of purpose. I want to understand what is their sense of purpose? Because when I ask them, Hey, why do you do this? And why would you ever like, why would you be a manager and work twice as hard and make half the money? Like, why, why would anybody want to do that? And if they say, Hey, I want, I get it. I get a charge out of seeing people succeed. I love to see a group of people get together and win. I want to be you someday. And I want to prove myself as a leader. Hopefully they're better than me. They probably will be, but like, you got to have a sense of purpose that's beyond yourself. And you know, a lot of the lone wolf, great reps, like they can't teach, they can't coach.

So that's the first thing I want to see their sense of purpose. Then I want to see like, how do they behave when they're not in the room? Like, are they taking the reps that are kind of struggling a little bit? And are they putting them on sales calls? Are they coaching? Like, what are we hearing about their behaviors and what they're doing? Are they just a pure lone wolf or are they trying to help? And I love lone wolves because they help you crush numbers. That's just because you're not going to be a manager. Right. So you got to have a sense of purpose. You got to demonstrate behaviors. And then the last thing is you got to be coachable. You got to want to get better. Like a lot of top reps say they want to hear it.

They don't want to hear it. And that's cool. That's okay. But you're not going to get better. You're not going to become a good manager if someone doesn't teach you how to do it. And that's a bit of what happens. It breaks my heart to see, and I see it all the time. The rep gets from a manager. There's no training. There's no development. There's here you go. And they fail. And then you're like, well, they weren't good. And it's like, well, what did you really do to set them up to be successful? So you kind of got me rolling on this one because... Yeah. Yeah, man. I mean, because it's pervasive. I mean, again, it's one of those things where it's almost like the default. It's like, okay, we're going to promote this kid because he's the best.

It's like, no, you have to look a few layers deeper than that if you really want to build a culture. And I think that's the other piece that I'm curious about here. You talk about building these teams and authenticity and investing in your people. But I just did a deep research thing with ChatGPT to find out that the average SDR doesn't even stay in their company for 1.6 years. That's the average. So there's this balance now where, and I'm working on this thesis, if you will, that I think the predictable revenue model is a joke. I think the SDR role needs to be fundamentally changed for all sorts of reasons. But the struggle here is back in the Xerox days and those type of things, people stayed in their companies for a while, right?

The predictable revenue worked because the SDR became the AE and they stayed at the company, right? So how do you balance the idea of like, hey, I got to invest in these people a lot because if I don't invest in them, A, their results are probably going to be bad. B, they're probably going to go bounce someplace else. But balance that with the fact that they're probably going to go bounce to someplace else anyways. So how do you as a leader justify the investments in early stage reps knowing the vast majority of them? You're not going to see the ROI of the vast majority of them. Yeah, it's a good one. And I'm watching this kind of go on because there's so much pressure from investors to deliver fast results, expenses, and all this other stuff.

I actually think it's, unhealthy, but I love the book and the movie Moneyball. And I learned this from Mark Whelan and some of the folks at Salesforce. Whelan was a big one on this around over at CRO at Box. Developing that next generation and creating a program. When I interview people at my company, and I love interviewing frontline managers and reps, who's the CRO you're working for and what program are they building? What is the program? What are you talking about? We're like a Series A or whatever. But someone is running that team. Someone is building something. What is their philosophy? What is their approach? How do they do things? Do they even have a vision for what you're doing? And especially if you get to a larger company, what is the program?

Because what I talk to people, and I think this is where it gets kind of short shot is like, hey, in my world, you're joining a program. This isn't a transactional relationship. This is a relationship where you're coming in and we have a defined way of how we like people to grow within our organization. Because I want you to be a professional salesperson. Because I, 4,000 years ago, joined a program at Gartner where they taught me how to be a professional salesperson that I still carry to this day. And I think that's one of the things when I look back at our programs that has gone well is I've watched people who started off as reps, even sometimes BDRs like a trinette. Some of those people are like CROs now.

Like I think about, you know, we were at Google. I had X. I had five people reporting to me. Most of them had not had any management experience. And I'm like, if we're going to be a billion dollar business, I got to teach y'all how to manage. Because if I don't, you're going to get passed up. And so I wrote my own program called Lighthouse, eight-week program or 10 weeks, whatever, on how to be a frontline manager. They all went through it and they all became managers. They all did a great job. Some of them have gone on to CRO and other leadership roles. And it's like, there's got to be like, you're joining a program and it's so hard. And if you haven't been taught how to do it, I get all the pressure coming down on you.

But if you don't think in the longer term, you're never going to get ahead of it. Yeah. That's a whole good to great philosophy, right? Totally, man. It totally is. And it's back to sense of purpose. Do I care about people? Do I want them to grow? Do I want them to develop? Now, we got to deliver results. The average tenure as a CRO is 18 months in a privately held company. So, you know, you can't fool around as well. Let's finish up on your victory plan here. You know, because this is what you highlight a lot in the book. And talk to me a little bit about why, you know, what's different about the victory plan versus any other sales process out there, you know, pick a process, medic, whatever, right?

So what's different about victory plan? And first of all, what is it, you know, and then why is it different? Yeah. So this is something I was taught at Gartner and I've just carried it forward. It's a one-page business plan in four key areas around business results, customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and operational excellence. And what it does is it takes the task of the sales organization and breaks it down into goals into those four key areas, 13 to 15 goals. So typically for a chief revenue officer, it's going to be bookings, it's going to be a bookings target of some sort. So, okay, here's the bookings target. Here's our values. Here's our guiding principles of the team. What I then do is I bring the management team together and I bring the team together and say, okay, what are the 13 to 15 goals with associated measurements that if we nail those, we're going to ultimately deliver back to the business.

Here's what the beauty of it is. First of all, I interview candidates all the time and I say, does your CRO, does your team have clear goals and a clear understanding how to get an A? No. How does that work for you? I hate it. How would it feel like if you work for an like if you work for an organization where it was crystal clear on what the task was and what you need to do? Oh my Lord, how do I get it? And I get senior reps who are like, oh my gosh, I would love that. So it's this plan. And then what you do is you create this, this organization of accountability because I measure, I measure it. We report it when it's red, yellow, green in each one of the sections. We stop, drop and roll and we fix it.

And it just creates and it's cross-functional. So I work with other groups to say, hey, finance, hey, product, hey, marketing. Like my old, one of my marketing leaders, Rick Kocchi, one of the best of all time would say, JT, when am I going to get my victory plan? So I can now take it back to marketing and we can build our plan that aligns to the sales plan. So I've done these things for a long time at Google. We did four of them, four years. We hit 16 quarters in a row. And so the guiding principles are clarity, accountability, truth is in the field, and you build anti-fragile. I love that book, Anti-Fragile, because when you build plans that are field-based, not top-down, but bottoms-up, and I see top-down everywhere, when you do a bottoms-up, now when problems happen, when you get issues, the field built it based on the truth, it's much more resilient.

When we went through the pandemic, we didn't change the plan. I said, team, do you need to change the plan? No, we're good. We're going to execute on it. They did a 61 on a 60 that year, or 71 on a 70. It was one of the most unbelievable performances because they built the plan and it was built on truth. It wasn't me sitting with a bunch of people in an ivory tower. And then out of that, everything flows. The sales process, the roles, the comp plan, how you measure everyone flows out of that one plan. So it's been great and it's been really fun because I've done it in bigger organizations and we did it back at X when we had five, six people and a dog named Reggie on our team. So it's really been, uh, it's really been a game changer.

I think as far as delivering results. Well, yeah. And I think that's where I think it kind of goes back to, you know, the underpins of authenticity and values and an alignment wanting to help and not trying to sell people. Right. I think that's, I had the, that that's the part that I try to get reps to understand that you're not going to be successful until you start giving a shit until you genuinely start giving a shit about the client, their needs, their problems, and realize that you're a problem solver. You're not a sales rep. That's right. That's, and if you have that, that view all of a sudden, and you have to believe in what you sell, right? Ultimately, I think that's the most important thing to be successful is that transfer of enthusiasm.

Well, you brought it all back to EQ, right? I mean, that's seeing things from the other perspective. It's one of the reasons why I love value selling. It's not me selling you. It's us working together to find out how we get a vision match and actually help you try to solve a problem that matters to you versus me telling you what I'm going to sell you. So I, um, I couldn't agree more. And I think it's actually the opportunity, uh, for this generation and the next generation of salespeople, actually. I agree. One last question. You took a personal halftime. I did. Right. You took a break. I did. Uh, what did that break teach you that, that business couldn't, that, that, that being at work couldn't?

Oh, John, that's such a good one. Like, you know, um, I've been, I'd been grinding for 35 years. Uh, I don't think I took more than a week. Maybe I took two weeks, maybe once. I don't know. I mean, I just didn't like, I've been grinding and I got to the end of it. I'm looking at this and I'm like, I've got a personal victory plan. And it's funny how those goals that you keep setting year after year after year that just don't get done. Like it was just as much as I said, I was balanced. I wasn't fully balanced and it wasn't a bad thing. Like I'm intentional about my life, but it's like, you can't be a chief revenue officer without, as I, like someone told me, it's like giving a kidney, like it is all encompassing.

And I don't know how to not do it all encompassing, which is part of my own issue of like, how do I not be so all consumed by doing it? And so I got to this thing and I'm like, I'm going to take some time off and I'm going to get after these areas on my victory plan. I haven't gotten to, so I reconnected with people. I started playing more golf. I started getting serious about writing the book. I spent more time with my family and I was much more available to my family. My health got way better and my health was always pretty good, but it got even better. And I I'd say, John, it was just, it was amazing. And I think the one thing it did teach me, it pierced the veil of thinking that if I took some time off, I would be completely bored.

I was not bored for a day. And it kind of said, Hmm, cause I always thought I got to work till I'm a hundred. Cause if I don't work to a hundred, I'll be bored. I'll be in the grave and I'll be gone. And what I learned was, Hey, you can design your life and build other areas in your life that are in part of your victory plan, your personal plan that you've always wanted to get after. And I think that was the pierce of the veil. I went back in and we had a great run at Certinia. And then I, uh, I went back there and had a great time and amazing. And we had a good outcome, but then I'm, I'm redesigning my life, man. And when, when was that by the way? Like how long ago that would have been a couple of years ago?

I think it was like two and two and a half years ago. I think it was about, it was great. It's funny. Cause I, I, I'm the same with you. Like I've been grinding. I've taken a little bit time here and there, but not any significant. And, uh, it's almost now though, like I'm on a dead sprint for like the next three years. And it's because I feel like right now specifically that if you take a step back and, and, and unplug that it, when you plug back in, it's going to be like you'll become a, I don't want to become a relevant, say you'll become a relevant, but it's almost like with the advent of AI, when that kicked into gear, it was like, you know, if you take a week off, you know, for me, like if I take a week off, all of a sudden I plug back in, I'm like, what the fuck?

Like, okay. Like now we can do this. Like, holy shit. So it's almost like, if I feel like if I take another like six months off or a year off, it's like, I'll come back and the world will be so drastically different. I don't know if I'll even still be able to relate for crying out loud. So that's the fear for me right now. People, cause I, I do believe you need everybody is there's an inflection point in everybody's life where they just need to stop. You know what I mean? Like stop the madness, get, get a inventory of where you are in your life and what you're doing. Go through the why, go through the values exercise, all that fun stuff. But it's like that balance right now of like the fear of becoming irrelevant based on how fast things are going.

But my, my contention is reconnecting at the EQ, let the AI keep, keep going. It's going to go faster. But if you disconnect and reconnect with your EQ, when you plug back in, you'll be that much more effective as a matter of fact. I think you're right, John. And, uh, you know, I think the biggest thing that I would say to anybody that I learned is you got to have a plan. So I had a very clear, it was kind of funny because, uh, I'm a planner and I like to know what's going on. So I, I planned that I was going to take time off. I was going to do this half time, six months. And I'm going like week by week, I'm scheduling what I'm going to do. And I got to August and I'm like talking to my, my wife and I'm like, honey, I don't have anything going on in August.

Like, what am I going to do? And I'm like freaking out. And she is brilliant and wise and just didn't say anything. And then that night we had dinner. She said, Hey, you know, I've been thinking about this August thing that you haven't been going on. That's what you're supposed to do. You're not supposed to have a plan for August. I'm like, Oh, okay. And it was getting into that. Like, and I, but I had a victory. I have this plan that says, what do I want my life to be? What are the areas of my life? What are my goals? What do I want to achieve? So I kept going to that North star and I've actually been jamming on a GBT that has the victory, has my own victory plan, has my stuff in it. And now I start to go into, I went to the Louvre in Paris.

I'm like, Hey, build a, build an itinerary for me based on what you think is important, what my values are and what my plans are. And I put together this beautiful, like 90 minute tour based on what was important to me and what my values were and how I could reflect upon it. So I couldn't agree with you more, man. I think, I think you make a good point. And as long as you got a plan, you know, stick to the plan and hold onto it tightly. Love it. Awesome, John. Well, I think we could keep going here, but We could. I loved it. I'll be done already, man. Right. Yeah. Let's tell people where they can find out, first of all, the name of the book, where they can find it and where they can find out more information about you and everything else.

Right on. So the book's name is Authentic Sales Leadership. It's on Amazon. I actually just finished the, which is why I have this microphone. I finished the audio book version, which will be out probably toward the end of June, which probably was the hardest thing I ever did in my life. So Authentic Sales Leadership on Amazon, on Kindle, soft, hard coffee, www.authenticsalesleadership.com, which was available, funny enough. And I'm on LinkedIn. And so feel free to connect. And I love coaching and teaching and getting in the game. So, and thank you, John. I really, this was even better than I thought it would be. And, uh, I'm a big fan and I love, uh, I love your, uh, I love your podcast, man.

Awesome, man. I appreciate you coming on. And if you see Jeff, tell him, I say, actually, I'm hanging out with Jeff on Monday. So he's coming over. Tell him all JT said hello. I will. Awesome. Well, everybody, uh, hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. Like I always say at the end, all these, uh, podcasts here, go out there and make somebody smile today. Cause no matter how bad your day is going or how bad you think it went, if you make somebody smile today, you know, you had a good day in 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.

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