Meet Buyers Where They Are - With Rex Galbraith

I was a good AE. I was a good SDR. I had proven it. As a leader, I had not. And I also learned in that moment that just because you can close doesn't mean you can lead. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between. We guess who I truly respect and I, I think, make a positive impact on the world around us. Now, today's conversation is with Rex Galbraith. He is the CRO over at ConsenSys. And this is a cool conversation because if you've been listening to me before, you know that I think demos are the absolute worst part of the entire sales process. And it's mainly because of the way the sales reps demo and they just go through motions.

And what ConsenSys is doing and what Rex has identified is a way to really expedite that and control the process a little bit more by putting the power of the demo in the hands of the client, but controlling it a little bit. So this is a really cool conversation because we talk about what it really takes to meet buyers where they are today and how his team is building tools that do just that. So we go deep in on this one where why reps need to disqualify as much as they need to qualify. Getting bad revenue is terrible. Also, how ConsenSys uses UCPs, which is the unideal customer profile, which is something I haven't really heard before to avoid bad revenue. We talked about why interactive demos aren't replacing reps.

They're freeing them to sell way smarter and way better, which is why we have to evolve. The difference between getting deals in the door versus keeping them, right? Because recurring revenue these days is the name of the game. Actually, retention is the name of the game because a lot of this AI stuff has fallen off the map. And then the evolution of what it means to be a valuable AV in the era of AI. So we also talk about fatherhood, finding our core values, and the hard lesson Rex learned. Building a company, the main company, through layoffs, rebranding, and grocery store headquarters, which is actually pretty cool. So hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did on this one. Let's make it happen.

Rex Galbraith, welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast, my friend. How are you doing today? Doing very well. Glad to be here. Yeah, thanks for joining. I've been looking forward to this conversation. And even more after I saw your recent post about kind of some of the trials and tribulations of the early days of the business era that we're going to get into. But before we do that, my audience always loves to kind of hear the origin story here, man. Like, where are you coming from? Give us a little bit of a sense of family, environment, kind of where you got the bug for sales and entrepreneurship and business and all that fun stuff. Stuff that we can't read in the LinkedIn profile here. Yeah, so I'll go way back even to like before I was born.

So I have a mother from the Philippines, a dad who has Scottish background, Utah, met in Hawaii, moved here. My mom sponsored all of her sisters and siblings. And now a lot of them live in Utah. And what I love is that Utah is kind of the bed that kind of helped me get the background that I have and the technology that's there. And so so now I'm here, lived in Utah most of my life. And crazy enough, my real background in terms of just work started in a warehouse, became a warehouse manager and the only reason I got into sales was because the software that we purchased in the warehouse, I, when, when I was getting probably four or five years into it, a guy came to me and said, I think you'd be really good at sales.

The warehouse software guy said, you should come in. And, uh, and, uh, I was like, I don't know, sales. And I was, I wanted to be an engineer, uh, um, uh, um, a mechanical engineer and, um, I was good at math and all those things. And so I was like, I don't know if I want to do sales. What's the comp? And he said, $40,000. And I was just like, I, at that point I was like, I've never had a salary. Uh, and I was like $40,000. We could buy what are newlyweds that I could buy whatever I want. And it's guaranteed. And then he said, oh, and there's a variable piece. There's another $20,000 that you can earn. And I was just like, I, everything I was, it kind of just turned my world upside down. And money was a scarce thing for us at that time.

So me and my wife, newlyweds, um, when I got into it and, um, I started learning that this ability to control my income and my destiny wasn't dependent on a manager or political, it's just performance. It was performance based instant. And that's where I kind of fell in love with the sales world. And then 20 years later, I'm here with you, uh, chatting. So that's kind of the beginning. And now I have three kids, uh, seven, uh, 16, 13, and nine. And, um, yeah. So trying to create this harmony of, of a life of high school with my daughter and one in elementary, one in middle school, and also trying to be a good, um, team member to consensus where I'm at right now. Uh, balance is a tough one, man.

I remember when I, the daughter, my daughter was born, she's 15 now. And it was like, okay, I, I have to, I have to reshuffle some, some things here from a priori standpoint. I didn't do a very good job. I'm looking back on it. I'm, there's some retribution that I have to, I have to give back here a little bit. Cause I was gone a little bit longer and more than I'd like, but love the story about getting in, right? Cause a lot of times I hear that where people have not like, you know, they have the perception of sales of, uh, no, I don't know about this, right? Yeah. I'm good with people, but sales, ew. And, uh, and that is a lot of them that light bulb goes off. Like how did, so just out of curiosity, how much you make, it's like, wait a minute, what?

Like I can get paid for this. It's, I always go back to the, and I hate the movie from a sales standpoint, but they have some great lines in there. It's the Wolf of Wall Street. And I remember Jonah Hill at the beginning, like when he's, when he's talking to him, he's like, so how much do you make? He chose like the paycheck for the week or something like that. He's like, if you show me that paycheck, I will quit my job right now. He goes right to the phone. He's like, I'm quitting. See you later. I'm working for this guy. Uh, you kind of get that fun. But I think it's really that, that innate thing in you and me where it was like, Hey, the harder I work, the more I should get paid. I've always had that mentality of salary doesn't make a lot of sense for me because I knew I was going to work harder than most people.

And I'm going to work harder. I should probably get paid more. And that's where sales kind of, for me was like, all right, this is, this makes sense to me. Yeah. To me, it's performance. And, and, and what I've learned, you know, kind of growing up in sales is that title does not mean value you bring to the organization. I've seen C-level titles that bring organization down. I've seen SDRs that have changed businesses, uh, because they've set a pace and a, and a way of, of bringing, bringing leads that a marketing engine could not, and millions of dollars could not. And it was just a muscle and grind. And so I'm a very big fan, you know, money's has its value. But, um, one of the things that you learn quickly is as it comes in, you're not any more fulfilled than you were when you were at the tranche below.

So I can say I genuinely have more, I had more excitement about that pay lift that, that 1250 an hour to 40,000, the genuine excitement has, that's probably the peak, the peak that I ever had, because you learn that every destination you're, unless you control it, your eyes just get wider and, and, uh, uh, and you can get caught up into the, the only destination is more. And that, and that can be very dangerous. 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 ChatGPT 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, it's an extremely dangerous one. It's like kind of what is enough enough. And I don't think enough people have that regular to, to just stop and spill the roses every once in a while and realize that like you, you're doing pretty well here.

And, and you, but you balance that, like how do you balance that drive to, you know, cause that's a, that's a monetary tactical thing that shows that you're doing better. Right. So, and, and so many successful people, a lot of times they tie their worth overall worth to that number. So how do you balance as, as a leader now that desire to get better and improve and everything else while not getting caught up in the, you know, next level, especially as a, as a, you know, CEO founder, like somebody who's driving, right? Like there could be the argument of the company that like, Hey, we're doing good, man. Like we're, we're pretty good here. We got a good company and everything, but why next to that next level?

So how do you balance those two things? Well, it's a work in progress for me. I struggle with it at times and it can be, there's an ego, especially in salespeople, there's an ego and it's a, it's an easy way. Money is an easy way to feel good about the work. Maybe some of the missed games that you, you missed and, and, you know, holidays and travel. And it's so it's, it's a difficult thing. And I, I still have a challenge with it today. But the one thing that I've, I've made commitments to myself is that I'd never want my kids to see me as an empty chair. I've learned, you know, I just watched a Clayton Christensen video where he talked about it's easier to stick to your standards and morals a hundred percent of the time than it is 98% of the time.

You got to stick to whatever your values are you got to define those and write them if you can and stick to them. Because if you, if you do it a little bit of the time, then you have to make a decision every time. Like, oh, am I okay missing because of the board meeting or whatever? But if you hold to them, it's hard upfront. And so what I've learned is when it comes to tough decisions, make the decision before the actual event happens. You, you know, there's going to come a time where you say, Hey, I need to be home more. Or I, or I don't want to chase the next big thing, make the decision now, uh, lament or be sad about that loss of maybe an opportunity that could have been deal with it, feel the emotion of it.

And then when the moment comes, you are so much more prepared to be like, I've already made the commitment. If you try to make it on the fly, you tend to make the worst decisions. And so that that's what I've tried to do. I'm not perfect at it. I get caught up in things as much as anybody else, but I'd like to say that I'm better than I was when I was 20, um, 25. And, uh, so yeah, make, make the decision now and you'll be, you'll have that resolution and you'll have already gone through the motions in your head and, and you'll, it will come from a base where you've really thought it through rather than, than getting caught up in the, the, the, the flurry of emotions that happens when an opportunity comes up.

I love that. It's a, it's the analogy I use on that one is, uh, it's like, I don't know if you're gamble or anything. I don't anymore. I used to, I'm terrible at it. Um, blackjack used to be my game. Right. And, and the question is always 16, right? So say the dealer shows, you know, seven and you got 16, what do you do? And it's always this emotional thing when I watch people at the tables, right? Cause they're like, oh man, you know, maybe, and they're hit and then they boss straight and like, damn it. And then the next time they're like stay. And then the, you know, damn for me, when I walk on a blackjack table, I don't hit every time. I don't stay every time, but for that shoe that I'm sitting at that table, I'm going to hit every time.

Cause I don't want to, to have that emotion and I could lose five times in a row, but that's okay. Cause if I, if I do that, my choice is to leave in general, but I'm still going to stick with it. No matter how bad it gets, I'm going to stay with it. Cause it just makes it so much more objective than the subjectivity of having to make those decisions. Um, when, when did values hit you though? Like, when did you really understand, like, I'm sure growing up your parents instilled good values in you, but when did you like codify them? And to your point, you said, write them down. When did that light bulb hit that it was that important to do? So I'd like to say that I like had them and then I stuck to them.

And a lot of it was, I just had to trial and error a lot and just do the, I would say I'm, I'm the person that didn't get lucky and found the idea up front. I didn't have the skillset, uh, to just get there. Um, to be honest, I look at myself sometimes and I look at my peers and people around and I'm like, how did I do it? Like I, I feel, I relate more with the Rudy story than I do with like a LeBron James, who was like destined to be great from the beginning. And so I, I tend to, when it comes to athletes, I tend to relate with the underskilled gritty person, the Kobe Bryant that had to put in the, that to put in there. So from a values perspective, uh, it, it's trial and error and realizing that, Hey, when you stick to your guns, when you have a lot of it is not that you have to copy your favorite person's values.

You, you, you look at what's worked in your life and you, you test it just like you do with a campaign. You AB test, you, you know, you go and you look and, and rather than just trying to, to guess it, uh, I remember Jeff Bezos said something about, we get so caught up in making these boardroom decisions. And then we walk in and burn the boats. He's like, you don't have to always burn the boats. You can walk in the door, look around. If it doesn't work right, walk back through and then go through the other door. And, and so I, I, I've learned that, um, if you, you, you got to start somewhere. And, and so I, I'm a big fan of writing them down because I think your mind can jump from, it can jump from one idea to another.

Writing it down requires your brain to go to pencil. There's a physical tactile thing to it. You visually see it, um, even talk about it with other people. And, and I'm a big accountability person. Like I won't go to the gym for myself, but I don't want to be late. If someone's going to pick me up. Um, I, I am, I am, I'm a, that's where I'm not strong. I am willing to let myself down. All this. I'm going to try to say she, so I got to use my people, please. Like, that's something I want to make people happy. I want them to feel good. And so, uh, I used to think of that as a negative thing. Now I'm like, no, like use that to help build up good habits and good things. Um, you know, granted I do need to strengthen my own ability and resolve to go do things on my own, but you can use your weaknesses sometimes as, as advantages.

And so just when it comes to the values, write them down, look at them, get them tested, talk to them about other people. And, and then I like to, when I have a big goal that I'm scared of, I like to tell somebody about it because I want them to bring it up to me when I see them. And that's why when you do meetings with your team and you say, I want you to update me on your pipeline, they're like, Oh, this is so boring. But what it does is the 20 minutes before they're about to meet with you, it helps them solidify is everything in the right stage? Do I have the right ideas? And most of the time they'll come up with the answers that they need to. And, you know, they don't even need you because they just went through the motion.

Yeah. That accountability piece has always been a weakness of mine too, to your point. Like I, I, I know for a fact, like I hate holding other people accountable and I hate holding myself accountable because I mean, I'm pretty good and I keep doing this stuff, but that's why you sign up for the personal trainer. That's why you sign up, right? Not, not sign up for the gym, sign up for the personal trainer who's going to show up at your house. I mean, I just did that recently. I know what to do. I got a home gym. I could easily go to the circuit. I could easily put down, you know, go into Chachi BT and say, optimize a workout schedule for me. And, and, you know, with what I have here. But it, I could easily also hit snooze three, four or five times.

You know what I mean? Come up with an excuse of why this morning I, oh, I'm just not feeling it, whatever. But when that guy shows up at six o'clock in the morning at my house and he got up at five 30 in the morning to get to my house, no matter how bad I'm feeling, it's all right, I'm here. Right. And then it's always, yeah, okay. I should have done this in the first place. So I think a lot of us need that. Well, one, and one tactic that I use for myself, and I don't know if it will help other people, but there's a book I read called the five second rule. And I can't remember the author, but she talked about the psychology of time bounding your decisions in five seconds. So about five or six years ago, for some crazy reason, I thought I should just run a marathon.

I should just do it. I want to try it. Not very many people have done it. I want to push myself. And I think I just had a good run that day. And so what I did is I was reading this book and basically what it says, when you have tough decisions, just count down five, four, three, two, one, make the decision and take one step, like a physical step or a physical click or a physical thing. And so what I started doing is like when I was running, I'd run around this loop. And if I did the loop, it was two miles. And if I just, if I didn't go left because left is home, I'd have to run another two miles. And so I'd have these battles for a mile up to it. Like, oh, should I, this, uh, this. And most of the time my body would win and say, go home.

And so I decided five seconds. So I get up and I go five, four, three, two, one. And if the step goes left, I go home. If the step goes forward, I go. And it's that first step is harder than the next 5,000. And, and what I learned is when you know you're supposed to be doing something, don't let yourself, don't talk yourself out of it. Just, and I can't, I tell you 80 to 90% of the time when I do five, four, three, two, one, I make the right choice. I, I run the extra mile. I spend the extra time, you know, I'm getting ready to sit on the couch because I'm so tired and I deserve to watch TV and my daughter wants to play basketball. Five, four, three, two, one, take a step towards the basketball.

Boom. And then all of a sudden I don't regret that I made that decision. Well then, so let's get into consensus here for a second. Cause first of all, we'll get into, you know, maybe give some context of what consensus is, but more importantly, what, why you started it, right? So kind of where were you and what drove you to start this company in the first place? Yeah. So let's go back to where I talked about that. I went, I went warehouse manager, really good at it. At least I think I was. And I love like the, the, the physical side of products and things. And then I went into the software world, uh, was there for about three years and said, I think I'm kind of good at this selling. And it was more SDR than anything.

I was getting leads and, and calling people all day, every day, go to the next one. And the pays a little bit better. And there's like a real on target earnings. And that was great. Uh, and then I had a buddy of mine, Dan Hicks, and he's now the VP of sales and works with me here at consensus tells me about this video interviewing software, which at the time was kind of new because most laptops didn't have cameras on them yet. And so they would like ship cameras out to people to do video interviewing, um, on demand or live. And that kind of tipped my career to a different level. I was able to manage people. Um, it was just awesome. And then this opportunity came up, um, where, uh, the former CEO of that company was, uh, uh, uh, advisor to this company called consensus.

And they did something similar. It was on demand video, but to salespeople. And if anyone sold to HR, kudos to, it's very difficult. Um, they don't have a lot of budget, uh, sales and all the other departments get priority. Very difficult. And I was like, man, selling some on demand video type tech to salespeople who they know what I'm doing. Like I can tell them, like, Hey, I'm just trying to do a med pick here. Can you tell like, I'll fill out your med pick for you right now. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Or like, don't put me in verbal. Don't put me through. Like, I was like, I love this, that you can like talk openly. They, they, they know your world. And so I was like, and they're like, and you can lead it.

You can be the VP of sales. That, and that's how I made it. That's kind of how I got in. And I was like, I, I'm ready to run a whole sales team and build it around my vision. And, and then the next 10 years was not what I expected. Well, that's, then that's where I wanted to get to. It's like you, you came out of the gate huge, right? Like a ton of inbound and saying yes to everybody, basically. Like no ICP, I read the recent posts and I'm going to put that in the show notes here. But it was like a lot of learning lessons. Cause, and this one's big, right? For companies who are just getting started because a lot of us chase bad revenue or we take on whatever's in front of us, least path of resistance.

And then there is a certain point on almost every company's growth schedule where they have to take a step back and say, uh-oh, we're, we're building a house of cards right here where we have no idea who our real ICP is. We're all over the place, right? So could you kind of walk us through what happened there? Cause, cause, and, and also the timing of it too. So I'm curious, um, of, of the timing as it relates to the economy as well. So it was 2016. I come in VP of sales, uh, you know, there's a small team in place. The company just took on some funding, uh, and there was just a lot of excitement around it. The company's actual name at the time was DemoChimp. And, um, and so I, I didn't know there was a, I didn't know that bad revenue exists.

I'm like, bad revenue. How do you have bad revenue? And, and so I'm like, if somebody wants to buy, they're grown up. They know, like, I'm not holding a gun to their head. They can buy this if they want. And so I, I was just so stoked and enamored about like the volume and I wasn't, I was thinking more about the deal and less about the resale that was going to come in a year. And I was just like, let's give money to the door. And it was, it was coming. Uh, and so ICP, there wasn't really anything written down. Um, and there's a concept that I'll talk about called UCP. It's a, it's a term that I think is good. And I kind of have been pushing it for the last five, six years. And that's unideal customer profile.

Knowing what you're not is as important as knowing what you are going for. And so what happened is we just tractor companies, theme park companies, software companies, enterprise companies, SMB companies, marketing sales, whatever. And, uh, it was awesome. It was awesome. It was reps were making money, high five and going on. And then one day a accountant comes in and operational person is like, we are like at 30 moving towards 40% churn. And I just like, and then I, let me show you the math of how much you have to grow to stay flat. I was just like, oh my, it's unsustainable. So we had to go in, who are we losing and, and, and who is staying? And the people that were staying had very similar profiles, enterprise pre-sales, sales, organizations that are software, SMB marketing, this and that.

Cause at the time we didn't have a lot of today we do, but, um, we didn't know. And it came to the point where I'm like, oh my gosh, like we, and then we tried to do these saves of these accounts that we shouldn't have tried to save. And, and, and we decided, Hey, we, we already did a disservice to them. And I take that on as my responsibility. Um, and they probably didn't have good things to say about us, rightfully so. Um, and what we decided was we're going to build an ICP and then this concept of UCP came up to me and I'm like, ideal means what you would like, but there's flexibility. So we came up with this unideal customer profile and that is who can you not serve? Who should you not serve?

And we decided that if those people came, we would say, no, we would say like we're not a good fit. And you want to know what, how much they respected that. And, and sometimes they'd even want it more. I'll make it work. We'll make it work. Um, and what happened was, and this was tough, like my first, so a year revenues went up. So I'm like, I'm a good VP of sales. I knew I could do this four years in a row, dip, dip, dip, dip, dip, greed, huge layoffs, existential dusting off my resume. Um, didn't know makes people like, I can't believe you had the faith the whole time. Like it wavered a lot. Um, I had, I, there was always a little, but there were times where I was like, you know, and, and this is a story from another time where if we want to talk about it, we, we moved into a grocery store.

Um, we lost a building and there was a grocery store for a hundred bucks. There was an office up top and they give you a $50 gift card for groceries, which was our lunch. Um, and, and so, you know, there's a lot of people that started in garages. We got our new start as a consensus grocery store and we did that for a year and a half. And I will say my wife loved it. Cause I'd always, she's like, can you get milk on the way home? Of course. And it's not right. She never had to go back to the grocery store. Yeah. Before there was this delivery stuff with COVID and all that, like I was bringing home diapers and. You're bringing home the bacon literally. Like, yeah. So when, when we kind of got out of that, it was like, oh man, uh, we don't have someone going to the grocery store every day.

But so UCP, we started saying, and it was tough. We, we, we accepted that we would be turning revenue away. And for the first time, this VP of sales at consensus learned just cause you can get revenue through the door, just cause you are good enough at sales to convince someone to buy more licenses than they should. That's not a good thing. It's actually a bad thing. It's an, it's a disservice to the buyer. Um, and what I learned very quickly is you go and build things that will actually drive value. And if you can't be the first to let them know, one is they'll trust you and they'll either come back or that you, you won't bring that in, have that bad experience. And two, I've learned it's very difficult to expand a company that has 50% shelfware.

It, and, and, and all a CFO and a leadership team sees, they don't see the ROI. They see shelfware. That's all they see. It's like a big wart, uh, uh, on, you know, it's like everything else looks good, but it reminds me of that liar, liar show where the guy comes in. He has like the big thing. And all he's looking at is that, and he's not fearing anything like that's what shelfware is. Everything gets silenced. And so once we did that in about two years later, two and a half years later, we posted a, uh, uh, above a 90% GRR. And it was, it was an amazing thing. It was a beautiful thing to know that 92 cents of every dollar was coming back the next year, which made all of the net new growth felt amazing.

And that changed the trajectory of the company. Did you, so that rebrand to consensus and going above the, was that because of this, like you were like, we, there's just too much baggage in this name. Cause we've basically screwed up a bit too much on this one and probably have some bad blood out there for, you know, bad taste. And it's our fault, whatever. Was that our, was that the reason why you decided to move to consensus or was it, was it, we just need to rebrand because we're going in a different direction? Uh, two reasons. Yes. That one, the second was demo chimp just didn't hit. Well, uh, there was a lot of procurement teams and people who took offense to it. And there was probably some sensitive, it just didn't work.

So one, that kind of was the catalyst to it, but consensus was to me, a new big, it was a reset. It was, it was a company that stood by, um, Hey, we're going to deliver a good product to the right people. We're not going to sell the people that we can't service and we're going to focus. We're going to focus on a certain demographic and we are willing to say no to bad revenue. And that, that was the turnaround. And, and it took time that doesn't go away overnight. Um, you know, bringing in a lot of customers that shouldn't be there. That doesn't go away. And, um, yeah, it's something that, um, it's, it's, it's a huge, it's a regret in the sense that I, I, I hope that we would have handled it better, but it's also an awesome learning experience for us.

And, and we wouldn't be who we are today. We didn't, we didn't learn our lessons until all the money dried up. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Money solves a lot of problems, man. And it hides a lot of warts going back to that. Like I, I, I, up and to the right. Like, I think a lot of us in the tech and the SaaS world felt we were way better than we actually were back in those days. Cause it was like, oh, I'm, I kick out. I'm one of the best trainers out there. I'm making it rain. I'm building a business. And then all of a sudden, you know, interest rates go up. I was like, I always say like, apparently I should have paid a little bit more attention to econ class about what interest rates do to economies.

Cause I just kind of associated with mortgage rates. Right. But you know, VCs, uh, oops, uh, came to a screeching halt and then you're forced to, to make some really hard decisions that you probably should have been making beforehand, but the money hid the problem. Did you have to, did you go through a process of firing customers? So I understand that you kind of made the shift of, you know, UCPs. So don't take any more that fit this UCP, but did you have to then, when you had that realization, go and say, these just aren't our customers that probably going to churn. We're not servicing them. Did you have to proactively go and fire some? Yes, yes, we did. And, um, it was very hard. Like, you know, we had real conversations to just say, Hey, like it, it's your choice, but you know, we, we will let you out of the contract if you want to.

Like we, we literally let revenue go because, which was very hard. It's so hard. It's easy to say it here. It's easy for me to consult a company, but when you're compassed, I do it. And, and, and I'm looking at it from this perspective, I was a good AE. I was a good SDR. I had proven it as a leader. I had not. And I'm like, I'm going to be a failure on like, and, and, and I questioned myself like, and I, and I also learned in that moment that just cause you can close doesn't mean you can lead. And, and, and I learned that very, I was like, no, I, if you're, if you just close enough, you're just a good leader. And, you know, we've been talking about sports. Some of the worst coaches are some of the best.

It's almost, it's almost like a district, the better athlete you are, the worst coach you are is there's probably some data behind that. And, um, and it's, it's more of an exception if you're a good, if you can do both it and, and, um, and I could almost say the same thing about selling. You can learn it just like anything else, but you, you will just because you hit two X quota three years in a row, doesn't mean you're going to jump into a leadership position and just be good. And so I, I made mistakes and I'm grateful that, uh, it's worked out this long and that there was faith enough in me to be like, Hey, you can, he can overcome these mistakes. And, um, we're trying to do it right. One of the big things we have a saying here at consensus call when together, there's also this idea of, we don't just win, we win the right way.

We win, we don't. And if that means we do it a little bit different or a little bit slower, like I believe if you win the right way, if you, even if you start a little slower, it will accelerate over time. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's kind of short-term long-term, right? And that's one of the other pieces of trying to balance that right now of, you know, short-term revenue versus long-term value, you know, short-term mindset of, you know, I can get this versus that's not the right way to do this. We got to do it this way. And I think the unfortunate thing I'm seeing right now is that as a society, we've gotten so short-term focus, right? It's the end of the month. It's the end of the quarter.

Like I got to close this. And, and you just see revenue just being ripped out of the equator of profits being ripped out because the month to month grind of getting that short-term contract so we can hit our arbitrary growth metric, whatever. Like, how do you balance that as, as a CRO, as a leader now where you're getting the downward pressure, right? From funding or, you know, your investors and, and yeah, okay. I know we have to hit this, but if we do this this way, we're going to, right. Is it, do you, I guess, what's the relationship with your investors? What's the relationship? Because I think that's another piece of like who you get money from and where that pressure comes from. So could you unpack that one a little bit for me?

You nailed it. It, it, it, the difference is who you partner with and consensus has been very lucky. Uh, we've worked with album, great company or great, uh, VC organization here in Utah. They're working on their fifth, uh, fund and they believed in us first, uh, Riverside, uh, the Frazier group, uh, and then Sumera, who's been an amazing, but we had, we were looking at all different ones. And when it came to the last round, it was the first time that we had kind of our pick because we were just in such a good place. We, I think we could have optimized and probably gotten more and a better valuation, but it was important to our founder, Garen, to pick somebody, the right people who, who do you really want to work with?

And so one of the things that when you're in the VC world and the VC timeframe, you're almost kind of rewarded for spending the money and profitability is a distant thought. It's kind of beautiful because that that's my natural style is just like, uh, let's do bonuses here and price this way. And then I'm now going through the lesson of like, there's an operational raker that doesn't come naturally to me to be profitable. There's a discipline. Um, and so it's like, keep the VC growth mindset, but I want profitability to luckily, uh, Sumero equity partners, um, who did, it was in the last round. They have an amazing operational group. Uh, I I've heard, I'm not going to name names, but the people, peers of mine, they're like, it can be a nightmare.

Board meetings can be a nightmare. And yes, board meetings can be tough if you're not hitting your metrics and there's tough conversations, but I walk away from ours saying I got input. I got advice. I got good. So I've been fortunate enough that my boardroom experiences have been, there's pressure. There's a, there's a requirement and demand that's there, but they're, they're in the foxhole with you. That makes a huge difference. So what I would say is I probably don't have a lot of experience of having bad investor, but, but what I would say is it's worth the due diligence and worth. Uh, I would not try to maximize the valuation. If you're not on an exit side, I would maximize the partnership because that in the end, that's the slow to get there faster.

Uh, so I've been pretty fortunate. Like, like, uh, I've learned that it's a privilege to have tough experiences. It's a privilege to be tired. And so I have to remember that, that the me 10 years ago was dreaming for these problems. And, and so it's easy to forget that. And, and so it's not, it, it's hard, but just make sure that, um, as those pressures come in, you recognize that one, it's what you've asked for. You asked for those. And number two, if you are going to have a very pressure situation, make sure that the people that have voxel with you are the people you want to be with. Okay. So let's, let's now shift to kind of consensus and, and the prep, this problem you're solving, right.

And, and at a very basic level, and you can give a little bit more context is, you know, interactive demos and allowing the customer to engage without having to drone through their shitty experience of a sales rep going through 35 slides. Um, and seeing what they want to see as far as, as opposed to what the sales rep wants to show them. So, so is it, is that a good enough kind of umbrella explanation of the problem that you're solving here? Or if not, allow it a little bit. So the big problem that we're solving is, and it's for those who have an ego, which is almost all people in sales, buyers don't want to talk to you. They do not want to talk to you. And, and, and the reason why they're more empowered is that in the B2C world, once COVID came, I don't have to look at the delivery person.

I don't have to walk into the store. I, I can go on Amazon. I can get toothpaste. I order it now. It'll be here tonight. So they want speed and there, they will not talk to you till you've earned the trust. And, and, and they don't want to go through gates. They don't want you to have to give your, like, it's, it's not a privilege. For them to get your demo. It's not a privilege for them to get your pricing. And so buyers don't want to talk to you, but if you earn it, that's where you have the competitive edge. And so when we accept, that was hard for me. I'm like, I'm good at selling. People want to talk to me. I'm like, no, they don't. And the data bears it out. 75% of buyers have said, this is Gartner data.

They don't want to talk to the seller, especially early on. And there's also another data point that 83% of the purchase process happens without the vendor present. And if there's multiple vendors, you got to, you got to divide that 17% up into little chunks. And so that's the problem that we solve is how do you earn trust and how do you create a buying experience where buyers enjoy the process and then, and that it acts more in a B to C, which everyone is loving right now. And the Amazons of the world have kind of shown how you, how you deliver quick, touchless digital experiences, and only when they're ready to talk to you, they will. That's the problem that we're going after. And the, the medium is product experiences or demos that can engage with people in between meetings.

Yeah. So let's talk about the value of the sales rep moving forward. And, and also I want to take this from two different angles. One is where does the sales up fit moving forward? Cause I'm, I'm starting to have a challenge figuring that out quite frankly, because especially with AI, you know, all the stuff that we used to do is, it was effectively just managing a process, right? And now a lot of that stuff can be taken care of. So where does it fit? But also on the other side, you know, this, the flip side of that stat that you shared about Gartner, right? I think the one I saw a while back was like, you know, 64% of sales comes from one of rep free experience. But the flip side of that was the other data point was of those four, actually 43% of the time of those 43% that wanted a rep free experience, they had a 23% higher regret rate.

So they regretted the decision more when we weren't involved. So it tells me there is value for us to bring to this equation. It's just different than it ever has been before. So let's take it from the, let's start with the angle of, all right, great. We create a great interactive demo. Client goes in there. They're all invested. So where does the sales rep step in and where does the sales rep bring value in that scenario? So the one fact that I want to say is while we, some are messaging sometimes can come off as like sellers, bad buyers, good. That is not true. Sellers are great. And if you get a good, you get a good seller, they're going to create a scenario where you have a chance to win.

The reason why buyers have been jaded by sellers is because we have done a bad job of giving them an experience that matters and that is frictionless. And so I agree with you. If a seller is not involved, the regret rate is going to be higher. But so, so how do you prove that to them? So as a buyer, I know that I do want to talk to a seller. I want to talk to a pre-sales person. I want to talk to a consultant. And so you have to give them as much context as possible and earn that trust as quickly as possible. And so what you do in between the meetings and sales enablement up to this point is what does the rep do? Buyer enablement, which is where we focus on, sales enablement is important, equally as important.

But buyer enablement is what are you coaching the buyer on? So I'll tell you about a conversation I've been having with my nine-year-old who wants to play every sport in the world but does not want to go to practice. We spend all this money doing these things and right before we get in the car, like, do I have to go? Do I have to go? Because I have the experience, I know that you will not show up at games as good as you can be without this coaching experience. But it's our natural inclination. I don't want to go do that hard. I don't want to do the due diligence and the ROI and the discovery. I just want it. And so when you're having dialogue with people, Todd Jansen, who's on our team, he came from Salesforce, he runs our client success.

He said, one of the most important things that when you get on a call is that you have to always be interesting. And by interesting, it means that you're bringing value to the dialogue. You're saying things that they didn't know and they didn't have. So when you have that reputation, when people come onto the meeting, they see you not as an order taker or a person just asking 20 questions. You're coming in with insight. So I believe that the new sales generation are not people who are just good at dropping one-liners. They can actually strategically give you options. And the reason why a salesperson can do that, once the buyer understands, I've been through a thousand sales motions. I've seen this.

I know what problems you're going to have in the purchasing process before you even have them. And that's the experience that I bring to the table. I know that you're going to have a security question. I know what 90% of them are going to be. So my job is to coach and equip you because the person who's really closing the deal is your champion. It's not your sales rep. So how do you balance that though? Because I agree with you wholeheartedly when it comes to experienced sales reps, right? For those of us, gray beards right here, creeping up on 50, been there, done that, seen this a million times. I can bring my insights to the equation. I can disqualify. To your point earlier about qualifying, I actually disqualify a lot.

I ask all the questions why you shouldn't do business with me because you're going to figure them out eventually, subconsciously or consciously. And I'd rather bring them up front to build that trust. But I've been doing this for 30 years. What about that 25-year-old kid that just got promoted to an AE and has no idea about the product, the knowledge, or any of that stuff? And so this era is the best era for an inexperienced person because data and information is table stakes and a commodity now. It's how you're going to be able to deliver. So going back to what you do in between the meetings, they don't have to be the expert on the technical integration, how it works. But you do want to deliver the insights and the story.

And so what our mission is, whether you're using our product or not, what you do and what you empower your championship in the meetings that you're not there, the meeting when they go to the, the more equipped that they are. And that information is there. So we did a study, I believe it's the biggest study on buyer engagement data. Six million data points over the 10 years. We take in millions of signals all the time. And we, one signal came out that was very important. And that was demos, white papers, assets. Once somebody gets to nine views, nine views of content in between a meeting, not live, but in between a meeting, whether that's one person was seeing nine pieces of content or nine people seeing one piece of content.

It took the close rate to 55%. So when we looked across all of those, nine was the magic number. And it's, this report is free. It's available. Buyer insights report 2025. It talks you through that data set. And that is, we keep thinking of what are the activities inside of a live called if drive close rates. It's the activities that happen in between the meetings. And so the magic number that we've seen across all the, you know, we have over 500 customers is that if they have nine engagements with an asset that demonstrates the product or demonstrates the value, the close rates skyrocket once they get to nine. And I think to your point, I think it's never been easier to, for, you know, an inexperienced person to bring value.

And I actually equate that to AI, right? I mean, a lot of people are scared of AI because it's like, oh, the buyer has all the, well, so do you. Like, you know, I did a post this weekend or this past weekend about let's learn out loud with our prospects. Most people are still archaic when it comes to AI. And I think almost every company should have their own, like, internal SE AI bot that joins sales reps on calls. And so if you and I were talking right now and you asked me a question, I didn't know it. Actually, you know what, right? Instead of me saying, hey, let me get back to you on that one or let me bring in an SE. It's like, hey, you know what? Let me open up my little chatbot right here for our internal stuff that has a lot of that.

And let's figure this out together. And just kind of start talking and be like, well, no, just that alone showing, like, hey, let's learn this together to me, I think, builds a ton of credibility and puts that sales rep in a position where they don't need to know everything. Yeah. If anything, a good rep knows what to cut out rather than what to put in. I think most of the time, the reason why buyers come to a no decision, which I think that number will continue to grow, is because we have computer chips that can move at a speed that we've never seen before. And you can get data in front of you and you don't even have to think for yourself anymore. It will think for you. If the rep can help the person think for themselves, cut out the noise and make sure.

So that that's the issue is it's it's a what's that saying of Leonardo when you the art is already in the marble. It's it's it's already in there. They're just chipping away the pieces. I would have that same comparison. If you have the right product and you have the best product and they have this problem, it's a travesty if they should have had it. But because we didn't present it correctly, that they ended up not making a decision at all. And and so it's it's about what do you chip away is probably as important as what you add to it. Yeah, because I think that's the other part of the danger, right, of over enabling the client without the sales rep involved is a lot of times they don't know the right questions to ask.

They don't know the the you know, the risks involved in certain things. And so sometimes I guess how do you balance the client over qualifying themselves or over analyzing before somebody gets involved to help them kind of guide that last mile their decision? Yeah. So from a seller's perspective is you need to send ungated information because what's happening is you think that you deserve their phone number and that they just want to give it to you. So a lot of the stuff that we do in our clients do is we say, hey, here's a trailer version of what you want to see of the pricing of the product of our value prop, because you know what's going to happen if you don't give it to them? You're at the mercy of chat GPT.

You're at the mercy of how good you can get your information there. And it's a competing market. And so I'm like, make it as easy as possible. You need to shift the mindset, ungate, ungate your information. And then from the buyer's perspective, what I would say is you don't want to buy complex, expensive software. With a credit card swipe, the chances of failure go up dramatically. And, and there's a, there's a reason why you need a team behind you. I would make an argument that the knowledge of the CS and the pre-sales is as valuable as the technology itself. It's just a tool at the end of the day. It really is a tool. One of the things I love, I look at our G2 reviews a lot. The ones that make me the happiest are not their product is the best.

It's I love my CSM so much. They're as valuable to me as the tool. Cause I said, that's what different at the end of the day, any coder eventually can build the same technology. What you can't replicate as easy is an amazing, educated, specialized, strategic, uh, support group to help you navigate. Cause, cause to me that, that is the real difference maker at the end because features come and go. They end up eventually getting commoditized or table stakes. What stays is the client experience. And that's, and that's kind of, again, I go back to my fear for sales professionals moving in. I'm still trying to figure out where the sweet spot is for the value they bring to the table. Cause what you talked about with the, the CS and the engineer and the, you know what I mean?

Like, yeah, those are the people that I want to talk to you. Cause I want to understand how this gets implemented. I want to understand what support looks like. I don't want to be quote unquote sold. Right? So if I could go through an interactive demo to get myself to a point and then go talk to a CS, that's the best case scenario. Right? So that sales rep has to act as a CS has to, has to understand the nuances and the gaps of those decisions that the CS and, you know, and SC might not know, but you know, that's a skill set, man, that, that's a, that's a pretty unique skill set for somebody to be able to navigate and have the values throughout the process without, you know, making the client feel like they're being sold.

Yeah. It, to me, and I don't have the exact answer. What I do know are the low level skills and the mundane skills of an, of an AE are getting automated faster than we can even think. So if, if I was an AE today, which I'd like to think I, I, that's what I love doing is you have, you, it is not about just understanding and reading the sales books and the techniques and it is about understanding the marketplace, their place. You got to be doing research. You have to be more educated and able to carry an executive conversation than you ever have in the past because the, can I show you a demo and ask the right question in one liner, good stuff that is getting automated and there, and the, and the buyer has the ability to get all that information up front.

And so it is your job to bring insights that are valuable, um, that are at a level that a board would go. That is interesting. That's why I just, I keep telling every rep, like if you want to get better in sales right now, uh, whatever techniques, books, feel free to read them. But the biggest thing you can do is improve your business acumen is understand business, you know, go get your MBA or something like that, or go, you know, go take an online course about, you know, PNLs and all those different things and market trends and analysis, because the more you can stay up to date on that stuff and have those level conversations, you'll, you'll get that umbrella picture of how you can really help the business achieve what they're trying to achieve.

Cause I think that's the problem that most salespeople get so focused on the prop, like the actual problem that the client comes to them with. They don't macro out and align it with the strategy of the business, which is why when we're stuck below the power line, talking to people who don't have decision-making authority, it's like, yeah, this is great. But then once it goes up to the executive level, the executives inherently see how it connects with their strategy and if, and the trends in the marketplace. And if there's no connection there, there ain't no budget coming out of that, that, that, that spigot right there. So it's our job to understand that bigger picture and make those alignment.

Otherwise, good luck. So what I would say for sales leaders out there that are training reps, if your reps don't know how to carry an executive level conversation where you would feel comfortable putting them in front of an executive team and they could, and granted, they don't have to be as, but in that particular field, in, in, in the world of, for us, buyer enablement or in the world of conversational intelligence, wherever that is, they have to be able to carry that conversation. And when you're hiring, you look for someone who knows how to do it, or if they don't, they have, you, you see them as having the ability. I, I think because of digital, you think that, oh, I can close stuff far away in a, in a zoom meeting.

I try to make the assumption with everyone I hire that if I put them in a room in, on a, in a desk, would I trust them without me there to carry a dialogue at executive level? Because that's where the value is today. That's where the value of the AE is today. Awesome, Rex. Like we could keep going on this. I wanted to get into like a face to face and all this fun stuff that I think we're missing these days, but I think in the interest of time, we can tie it up here, maybe around two here in a few months or so, but talk to everybody about where they can find out more information to you about consensus and all the work that you're doing over there. Yeah. So go consensus.com. We are trying to help people understand that the buyer doesn't want to talk to you.

We can help you on that front. We also just want to have open dialogue. We have demo fest that you can go to whether you buy us or not. We want to hear your voice on what you're doing with buyers and how you're driving demos in your engagements, but we're, we're here to help. So I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to having this conversation today. Yeah. Thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it. I enjoyed the conversation. Hopefully everybody else did too. So thank you, my friend and everybody else. Hopefully, like I said, you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. And like I said, and all these podcasts, go out there and make somebody smile today. Because 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 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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