Melanie Fellay: Critical Thinking Skills in an AI-Driven Sales World

Teaching critical thinking, critical listening skills, that is a skill that no matter what fricking happens in the market, no matter what career you're in, those are lifelong skills that you need to know and master regardless of what career you're in. Hey everyone, welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us. And I have back with us one of my favorite guests and favorite people in general, Melanie Filet. She's the CEO and founder of Speckit. It's one of the most innovative, just-in-time learning platforms on the market right now, really taking enablement to the next level.

And she was also 30 under 30 in Forbes and spoken at tons of conferences and just an overall great person. And Melanie and I, every time I have a conversation with her, not only do I learn something new, but I just feel much better walking away from it. And we both went through some stuff over the past couple of years. You know, we met at Dreamforce, I think it was about a year or two ago, where we talked about some of the struggles both of us were going through from a business standpoint. And I don't want to say it was a low point, but it was one of the low points for both of us. And now we're both back on the other side of this one and are super optimistic about what the world, what the future holds for both of us.

And so we talked this time about really feeling pride and doing your work again and getting back to loving what you do versus feeling like you work for your own company. I mean, we both have companies that we own and run, ours is obviously a lot bigger than mine. But the whole point of entrepreneurship is that you can go try your own course. But when you feel like you're working for your own company, it's actually worst case scenario, right? Because you don't get any of the benefits, you get all the stress and, you know, you don't get the benefits of actually running your own company. So we talked about that and how hiring is everything these days and trust is everything. You know, both of us have trusted some people that we probably shouldn't have and put us in some difficult spots.

And so really, but when you find that person that you can trust, it changes everything. And it did for her business and it did for mine as well. Some of the other things I was curious with her about, like in her growth, is how you know when to pivot versus keep grinding, right? Because there's some times where you just got to get through that grind. But there's other times where you're just grinding and it's actually not the right direction. So when you pivot, also how you know that you're the one, right? A lot of people talk about stages of a business and how certain people are really good at certain stages. And then they reach a point where their just skill set isn't there yet. And so how do you know that versus how do you grow and learn about taking that next stage?

A lot of things we talked about here, including skills, information overload, learning agility, and really what the future is going to look like for the sales rep and what those skills are going to be necessary. So packed with great information, awesome conversation as usual. I hope you enjoyed as much as I did. Let's make it happen. Melanie, welcome back to the Make It Happen Monday podcast. How are you? I am great. Thanks so much for having me. Is this our third or fourth time? Well, I think third and a half probably. Third and a half. Okay. I think, yeah. So I think probably fourth total. But yeah, it's, and it's always a blast. These are always, you know, there's some, there's some interviews and conversations that I have that I really need to make sure that I'm like, all right, I need to prep for this person.

I need to know all that other stuff. And my conversations with you are always so natural. Not that I don't prep. I do prep. I do background, but it's always awesome to talk to you. So I'm looking forward to this conversation. Love it. Me too. So I don't think we need to give you background. Usually I say, okay, your origin story, but you know, we've had enough conversations where I don't think, and I think people need to just go do some homework on you. But one of the things that I really wanted to get your perspective on, because you're at a different level than I am when it comes to, you know, companies and funding and growing things, right? I'm back to being a solopreneur, right? And I've never had shitloads of funding, but you've rode this wave now of getting a ton of money when times are great.

And then all of a sudden, and being on a rocket ship, right? When money was free, basically, and grow at all costs, and then just having it kicked right in the teeth in a couple of different ways, but more specifically a couple of years ago. And I remember, was it two or three years ago when we were at Dreamforce, when you were just, you know, we kind of grabbed that drink, and both of us were just like stressed out of our minds. But I forget, it was before things fell apart, right? I think it was probably two years ago. Well, we've caught up every Dreamforce. It was two years ago would have been September 2022. And so that was after we had to do our first layoff. And so I can definitely talk through all that.

And that was one of the most painful seasons of my life, period. And then last year, we caught up right as things were still challenging, but turning the corner. So both times was feeling stressed, very different than today, actually. So very, and I'm more than happy. You know, I think it's important that founders, that CEOs, that everyone gets real about kind of the journey that a company goes through. And I think, you know, for anyone listening, like, I never thought I was going to start a company, right? When I was 25, I came across a problem that I couldn't shake. And had I known what things would have been like, like, hey, you're going to get hit with a global pandemic. Then, you know, have to move everyone to remote the day after you move into your office.

And then, oh, by the way, the economy is going to, you know, change overnight. And half your customer base is going to be doing layoffs, which impact you. So I think had I known all that stuff, who knows, maybe I would have second guessed it. But at the end of the day, like, I think it's important that we talk about it so that, you know, employees can understand, reps can understand, you know, that, that we see how hard it is for them out there to, you know, selling in an environment that still is, hasn't fully turned the corner, though, that was starting to get better. So happy to share. Hey, I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. I want to take a quick minute to share with you what I'm working on these days with my new JB Sales membership.

It includes live monthly training delivered by me on my two signature courses, which are filling the funnel and driving a close that cover all aspects of the sales process. It also includes monthly workshops that I'll be running on specific sales skills and different tech skills like ChatGVT and how to leverage AI throughout the entire sales process. Finally, the membership gives you access to my entire online catalog with every course and every tip I've ever done. And as an exclusive offer to my podcast listeners, if you go to jbarrows.com, click on the individual membership link and use coupon code podcast at checkout, you'll get 25% off. Now let's get back to the conversation. Well, and it's also just, you know, perception and reality in a lot of ways, right?

I think the, the, it's funny, I forget who said it. It's like, you know, what advice do you give to entrepreneurs, you know, who want to get into this? And it was, don't do it. You know what I mean? Because if you, to your point, if you knew all this shit, the video, funny enough, he's like running the most, you know, valuable company on the planet. You got to be bad shit crazy to do this, but let's for some context, right? So, and I think this is where you and I connected early, which was, you know, the whole concept of just in time learning, right? That was that itch that you couldn't scratch, right? Where you just were like, why is it that I have to go learn something? And then a month later, try to remember and try to use it in line.

So walk us through kind of your original vision and then, you know, quickly kind of to the point where you got funding and everything was going great and, and your perception of things, but then the reality of what happened to us in that September and where you started to, right. And then we'll take it from there as far as the decisions that you made and how you shifted things. And then we're going to get to how this relates to sales reps going through similar challenges right now, but I'd love to just get some context for, for the audience here. Yeah, for sure. And I'll try and make this the, the, the background story short, but in short, I started the company spec it really born out of my own frustrations, trying to support our teams, um, at my last company, which was just new products were launching constantly.

We were having systems changes constantly. We've rolled out Salesforce. It was a disaster. We were rolling out new tools every other day. We were onboarding people and like, it was just a mess, right? We had some documentation in five different places, be it Confluence or Google drive. If the answer existed, it was probably out of date. Meanwhile, our reps were like, you know, getting their, you know, hand dealt to them on calls with competitive objections and questions. And it was just really difficult to try and, you know, make sure that our reps just knew what they needed to know. And I was like, okay, there's gotta be a better solution, you know? And so at the time, I'm sure I Googled something like, you know, employee, you know, performance, magic bullet or whatever it is.

And, you know, pretty quickly the answer was, well, you need an LMS and you need a CMS and you need a digital adoption platform and you need a knowledge management solution. And I was like, hold on. Like, this is just insane. Like, I just want to be able to meet my reps where they are selling, right? Whether that's in Gong, in Salesforce, in Outreach, LinkedIn, with the exact information they need in that moment. Whether that's, I'm actually learning to, you know, let's say, do my account research. Like, hey, how do I actually go about that process? Where do I go? What does good account research look like to, hey, I just got off this call. I know I'm competing against this competitor. I'm trying to find the perfect case study to share because I know that one exists, but I don't even know what I'm looking for.

How could I get that content recommended to me right when I need it so that I could share with my buyer? And the whole idea was that it would almost feel like this, like, enablement assistant that's, like, really personalized to you and your needs in the moment so that you could feel confident as you went about your workflow. And so the long story short is that we initially went to market. So I lost my job, took the leap. We initially decided not to raise venture capital because I'd worked at a company that had raised a lot of capital, really great team, amazing product. But ultimately, like, they hadn't found at the time they needed to raise a Series D a path to profitability. And so they couldn't get funding.

And I saw the messiness of that. As a company and just saw some bad actors on the VC side, the CEO got replaced. And I was like, you know what? We're going to do it differently. My co-founder is amazing. We're like, you know, we're going to raise some friends and family money and just kind of do it our own way. And so we went that way for the first year and a half. And pretty quickly, it became clear that just, like, the cost to play the game, meaning the cost to attempt and have a booth at a conference, you know, nine months before you see the return on it, the cost to do any sort of paid ads, the cost to hire any sort of a team was virtually going to be impossible with the kind of platform and experience we wanted to build and the kind of talent that we needed to attract.

And so we decided to raise capital basically in 2019. So we already had, like, 30 customers at the time, you know, kind of initial use cases. We really went to market initially with, like, a Salesforce adoption use case because that was the one that I felt the pain the most on the kind of roundup side. And it was like, hey, we embed anything you need to know as a rep inside of Salesforce so that you can navigate before expanding out. And so we got really lucky with the seed investor that we brought on. Brett Cleaner was our lead investor. He'd worked for Mark Benioff for, like, 12 years. He knew what great looked like as a company in terms of both, you know, bringing a category to market, right, the whole no software marketing campaign sales first did, but also, like, the operational excellence that was required to get there.

Mark Benioff, I think, still reviews, like, every product that goes to market. And we got really lucky with a few angel investors. So that's kind of where we started. And then pretty quickly, we saw some good traction. I will say in the first, you know, year and a half where we had, like, $50,000 in the bank, $100,000 in the bank, we were ruthless when it came to our cash management. Like, you know, everyone was wearing a million hats. And, like, we were really racing as if, like, you know, there was no tomorrow. Because to a certain degree, like, if we couldn't prove out and get that next check, there wasn't. So we raised our seed. We're still very, you know, efficient just because, you know, when you've only got $2 million in the bank, well, that seems like a lot, you know, with salaries and rising costs of living, et cetera.

Not a whole lot. And we started really seeing a certain velocity there, right? As everyone went remote, now teams need a better way to train their reps. And it's like, hey, I can't just turn to my rep on the side. You need to empower all these reps that are sitting at home, excited to start new jobs, and, like, basically left on their own to figure things out. And I was like, well, this is a perfect fit, right? Let's meet them inside of their tools and have this, like, guided experience. And the market thought so, too. So we had a lot of success kind of selling this, like, tool adoption, training, process guidance, use case. And at the time, I didn't fully appreciate that we were in, like, you know, the best market we'd ever seen, right?

I hadn't been selling that long. So it was a full year. You and I both. You and I both. It was like, you know, oh, my gosh, like, people just, you know, love this, need this as best thing ever. And we had a lot of growth. We grew quickly on all fronts, including the team. Can definitely talk about some of the learnings I've had there. And we eventually raised a Series B in December 2021, which, looking back, was pretty much at the peak of the venture capital market in terms of, like, valuation prices. And, you know, none of our raises were easy, per se, because, you know, at the end of the day, I had to defend to anyone interested, like, why were we going to be able to disrupt an industry where there's literally hundreds of solutions across LMSs and CMSs and whatever.

But I knew that there was just a better way, a better experience for reps. And so we closed, you know, $45 million. So at that point, we'd raised about $60 million in December 2021. And that's when we really went on a hiring spree, because, you know, in this model that we're all on, especially kind of like the venture-backed rat race or so at the time, you know, you're setting these really ambitious goals. Now, you're basing them off of your, you know, quote attainment and your retention rates. And at the time, we had, like, world-class rates across the board. And, you know, when you're trying to triple from, you know, 5, 6 to 18, 20 in a year, like, you need to higher direct capacity for it.

And so we hired lots of engineers, lots of reps. We built out a partner team. I mean, we were really entering, like, okay, it's time to, like, scale. And come basically May or June that year, so just a few months later, after we got in all these plans approved and everyone was on board, we started seeing, like, the first early warning signs. And in fact, one of our investors, Kraft, they posted a memo. It was about burn rate. But they saw it early on. They were kind of, like, starting to get that message out in the marketplace. And it became clear that, you know, winter was coming. Now, I thought winter was coming meant, like, oh, we're going to, you know, grow 20% less faster than we thought we would.

I don't think anyone looking back was going to be able to predict just how significantly the market was going to shift. But when you saw, you know, valuations in the public markets and private markets, you know, dropping by anywhere between 50% to 90%, right, all of a sudden, it just became very clear that, like, the pace at which we were spending money relative to now the expectations from revenue growth that we needed to hit to be able to, like, not even just grow and exceed, but maintain the valuation that we had to make our investors right. Plus, just give us the time to really get this business right, no longer was on the same time horizon that we'd plan the business. And I take responsibility for that.

You know, at the end of the day, like, looking back, hindsight's 20-20, but I would have done things differently. I would have been more intentional even from the get-go. I think we still hired too fast, as many companies did. But how do you, though, so, yes, and, right? Like, how do you, I mean, obviously, hindsight's 20-20 and everything, right? But in that moment, everybody was doing that. You know what I mean? So, for you to slow growth, for instance, for you to take a step back, for you to not hire as fast as you would, you would have gotten slaughtered by your investors. You would have gotten, so, I guess, what's your learning lesson of the relationship, I guess, you have with the investors and the market when, you know, when I guess we all had blinders on.

Was there any learning lesson for you in that regard that would have kind of woken you up? Because I said the same thing. Like, I'm not an econ major. But to me, like, the fact that I didn't understand fundamentally the impact interest rates we're going to have on the market, I was really disappointed in myself, quite frankly, because I was on the train like everybody else. I was up to the right. Oh, my God. Let's hire people. This is fucking awesome. Let's go. And I was not operationally efficient. I did not, you know, cross the T's and dot the I's and do the stuff that I usually do as a solopreneur who's very frugal with the money that I spend. But I just wonder, like, would I, would there have been a circumstance where I would have been like, you know what, let everybody else go crazy here and hire.

I'm just going to stay methodical here and do things the quote unquote right way. Like, would you have been able to slow down even if you saw it? I don't know if I have a great answer to that. You know, what I'll start by saying is I've never wanted to be like everybody else. So there's a part of me that's like, you know, I, and I took a lot of pride. Like, I was so proud early on that, like, I had had no sales background, like no traditional B2B SaaS. And before hiring our first reps and hiring just a VP, like many founders do, I was like, no, I'm going to learn how to sell. I mean, that's literally how you and I got connected. Like, I went looking for sales training, came across your podcast and like, listen to it religiously for like my first year before I knew it, before I knew you, excuse me, and like learn to master discovery.

I took your course. Like, I was like, I'm going to learn how to sell. Now, a lot of founders out there don't do that. They're just like, I'm going to hire a phenomenal VP of sales and sell, just like marketing. Before I hired out, like I built our own website. And so I'll say, I remember what it felt like to take a lot of pride in like actually doing the work myself and also like modeling that for the team. And so, and when I look back, I think part of the reason why I had some level of dissatisfaction, you know, in my role of just CEO overseeing things is that I wasn't doing the work. I wasn't doing the things that I loved anymore. And so I'll say that like, if I really look back at like how I was running the company and, you know, what I was tolerating, what I was approving at the plans that I was, you know, getting behind, I think that there is the part of me that isn't necessarily as likable by everyone else because I'm up in everyone's business.

I'm paying attention to the details. I'm reviewing calls. I'm in deals that I kind of let go of. And I think had I like stayed more true to myself and how I naturally operate, I think I could have ran the company a bit differently. I think what was happening at the same time, and you and I have talked a little bit differently is while these interest rates and everything was happening, there was also a really interesting marketing, market dynamic, excuse me, around, you know, there was this employee scarcity. And so like every company was, you know, rolling out more and more benefits and like more things to be like perceived as like the best place to work in the world where, you know, there was this whole idea that like, well, we don't want the founder in our business.

I want to run my sales process the way I want to run my sales process, you know. And so there is this interesting dynamic just like in the hiring market where you were hiring this, you know, cohort, I'd say of employees that, you know, were ready to join the rocket ship, but they also really wanted to feel empowered in the, I don't want anyone in my business versus empowered in like, hey, I'm going to make sure you have the contacts you have, and I'm going to empower you to make decisions, but I'm going to inspect the quality and the details of everything that goes. And so I think that's probably something in hindsight that I spent a lot of time thinking about, like was like, where did I kind of like lose my natural sense of operating?

And I think over the last two years, I've definitely leaned back into that. I think in terms of just like the business plans and revenue, like I think if you really double clicked on the metrics, I think there was a lot of assumptions that were all modeled off of best case and companies felt comfortable doing that because everyone was doing it versus are we being conservative? And I think at the end of the day as a CEO, like it's my responsibility to be aggressive and risk-taking in terms of like our innovation and products, but rational and more conservative when it comes to like really thinking through the business off like fundamentals or operational efficiency, the team, because at the end of the day, like I make a commitment to the team when they join the company that I'm going to take care of them.

And I think that having to do layoffs because of those mistakes is one of the worst, most painful lessons you can learn as a CEO, let alone for the people that felt that on the receiving end, which I still to this day feel guilty about. That's the same on my end. It's like, you know, the fact that I didn't see it and put us in a position to then have to unfortunately make some bad, you know, or some really hard decisions towards, you know, towards the end of that was just heartbreaking to me in a million different ways. Do you think that you got caught up in the perception of what a CEO should be versus what your reality wanted to be? 100%. And so what did you perceive? So, so let's, let's use that.

Like, what was your perception of what a CEO of a funded company should be doing versus who Melanie was? My entire life. Like I, I remember like when I, my dad always tells this story about when I was little and I'd be like, you know, six or seven years old and we'd go to dinners at my friend's house and I'd have like, you know, the young kids that I was there, their friend's age. And, you know, there was the kids table, the adults table. And by the end of dinner, I would always move from the kids table to the adult table and like join in the conversation, voice my opinion as if like I was, you know, I should be part of that table having conversation. Like I've always held my opinions. Like everyone thought I was going to be a lawyer.

Like I've always cared so much. I'm so passionate. I think I'm right about everything. Definitely not. And, and I care, like I want to know the details. I want to understand the root causes. Like I, I'm very curious. I want to understand the inner workings and the thinking that went into things. And that's just, that is my natural mode of operating. That is just how I am. And if you look at how the company is being run right now, like, and I like doing the work. Like I actually love working on our narrative, working on our product designs, working with the team, like I actually like doing the work. Now, I think what happened is, you know, as we scale the company, et cetera. It's like, well, you know, you can't scale as a CEO if you're doing the work.

And there was this whole kind of like almost mindset in management school where it's like, you need to hire great people and trust them to do the thing. There's an element of that. That's true. Like I need to hire people that are better than me in every single function. But I think this whole concept of trust is where things went wrong for me. Because, you know, I think I interpreted that as like, I need to just trust that they know what to do and know the best option and know and have the same level of context that I have or have the level of experience and skill that I assumed they do when we hired them. And that goes at all level. But really, ultimately, the level I'm the most responsible for is at the top.

When at the end of the day, like I don't have 20 years of marketing, but I've thought more about marketing this product than anyone I could possibly hire in our marketing function. And so I do think my opinion counts. Now, that might be uncomfortable. And like what I do want to be is I want to be challenged. But I can't be challenged in my thinking unless I'm willing to voice that and not feel like I'm disrupting or asking. Like I felt like I was all of a sudden asking for permission to be part of certain meetings and to be part of certain initiatives and to review certain things because I was always being this nuisance. And when I look back, I think that at the end of the day, like I think my job is to be that quality control.

And, you know, very simple things. But for example, you know, when we would be there's a day that I woke up and it was really tough because my co-founder had to step away from the business that now was at the same time in 2022. My co-founder had to step away from the business in April 2022. So after we raised her serious B, she'd gone through an insurmountable amount of personal trauma in her life. I know, you know, and I'm not going to revisit it here, but that was heartbreaking in every way because she's an absolute badass and we built the thing together. But now I was responsible. Like I was basically her CTO for a short period of time until I hired someone new. And that was an incredibly difficult process because we'd scaled really, really quickly, which meant that, you know, I was pushing on growth and innovation a lot, but I wasn't actually looking at like the retention of our usage and features.

And so what was happening is that like all of our metrics showed that we were up and to the right. And so I was like, we need to out innovate, we need to push. And what was happening is that we were launching a lot of capabilities that were kind of in like MVP format. Like, hey, this is good enough for market, but we weren't going back and revisiting them. What ends up happening is now you've got this product that has a bunch of good enough features that many of them I haven't fully reviewed, et cetera. And one day I woke up and I'm like, holy crap, like I'm not, I don't feel the same pride as I felt in the past. Like today I'm sitting in front of you right now. I'm so goddamn proud of the product.

Like I'm so fired up when I get to, I'm demoing again. Like I love demoing it. I'm so proud of the team. But there was a period of time where that was no longer the case. And, you know, I realized like I'd remove myself from design reviews. I'd remove myself from our support tickets channel. All those pieces were like having the CEO looking over your shoulder felt like, you know, I, and some of this was in part my own thinking that was flawed. Some of it was getting feedback from team members that I probably shouldn't have listened to that. It's like, well, it's going to intimidate people if you're in the room. You should be intimidated. You should be intimidated about the quality of your work.

Not intimidated from a personality standpoint, but if you're designing something, if you're bringing something to market, if you're designing it, you should want it to be the absolute best work. And so you should want to present it to someone that's going to, you know, quality, that's going to give you that feedback and challenge you and give you, like, I know I want to. And I've come to appreciate that I want to be surrounded by people who want to do their best work. And I don't think going around and just praising people and giving high fives or not being in the room because if you're there, it's going to intimidate them is the right way to lead. And so I think that's a lot of the shifts we've made.

And I think that, frankly, I've got a way better rapport and relationship with the majority of the team. There's definitely times where, like, I challenge teams and I'm harder than they'd probably like me to be. But I do think if you look at the quality of the product two years ago versus now, it speaks for itself. And that's what I care about. At the end of the day, I want to have a product experience that's the best damn enablement experience on the planet for reps. And the only way you do that is if you hold yourself. I need to hold myself to the highest standard. I need to hold the team to the highest standard. And I have to be in those meetings and in the weeds to be able to do that. Oh, yeah.

You said something that hit me, which is, you know, a lot. But, you know, asking for permission. You felt like you were asking for permission. The same exact thing happened to me. Like, I grew my company. You know, I only had 20 people. But there was literally eight of them that really didn't report to me because I wasn't the one that hired them, you know, that type of thing. And anytime I needed something, I honestly felt like I was asking for a favor, right? Because they were all focused on this. And I was like, hey, could you maybe do that? And I'm like, wait a minute. I'm the fucking CEO of this company. Like, I'm paying your fucking, you know what I mean? And part of me was like, fuck that.

I should be hardcore with this. But I think I did the same thing. I just, I trusted people probably I shouldn't have trusted. I let go of the reins because I'm not, I love being in the weeds of like doing shit. Like, I love creating and I love doing. But I don't love the details of accountability. Like, I know that's my biggest flaw is that like, I'm the guy you want in your forecast review because I'm sitting there, we'll come up with creative shit and all that other stuff. But literally, as soon as like you miss your forecast, I'm like, oh my God, I don't want to have this conversation. Like, pips literally make my skin crawl. You know what I mean? Like, I'm like, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew. Like, aren't, can't you just figure this shit out type of thing?

You know what I mean? I hire good people. I spend a lot of money. I give you access to me. Let's go. But you bring back to the trust factor. And I have honed in on this. And I realized that at the end of the day, trust is everything, right? Because if I don't- And it's earned. It's everything and it's earned. And it can't, and that's the challenge with hiring, right? To your point, I would love to have a bunch of people who challenged me, who got shit done, who had massive work ethic, who were all in that type of stuff. But it is so fucking hard and rare to find those type of people. And when you make a mistake at that level of bringing somebody in because you might not have had some confidence, you know, for me, like, I didn't have a lot of confidence that I was the guy to take us to this level at a certain stage of my career.

So it's like, okay. But then that guy, quote unquote, comes in and I'm like, wait a minute. Motherfucker doesn't know what they're talking about. You know what I mean? I know what I know more than them. So I guess where for you, as you've gone on this journey, how do you know that it's time for you to offload something and find somebody else versus you continuing down the path? Because I talk a lot in the context on this is I talk a lot about stages of growth, right? And my experience is I've seen certain people be awesome at a certain stage of a business's growth, right? Zero to 5 million, everything's chaotic. Who cares? Like, there's no process and whatever it is. And then there's like the 5 to 20 million where there's process and there's structure and that.

And then there's like the 20 to whatever and then IPO and go from there. And certain people are really good at getting company from stage one to stage two. But there are very few that are great at all the way through. Kyle Porter is one of the perfect examples that I point to. That dude, I mean, first of all, you hit on just, you know, September of 2021, right? Like he goes on the Mount Rushmore of exits from for sales loft, right? But he was zero, burned his company account three times, then got funding and he was the CEO all the way through it. And he's one of the only ones that I've seen. So I guess from your perspective, how do you know when you've hit a wall that you are not the one to take it to that next level versus just having the confidence in yourself to figure it out?

That's a great question. I actually think I've got a good example of this. I'll say that the more like we've talked about this on past podcasts, I feel like you and I have this in common, but like taking time to like really reflect and check in with myself is something that I've realized is really, really important to have the kinds of inflections or insights that only you, like you need to come to terms with. No one else can tell you. There's no article you can read online. There's no podcast you can listen to versus asking yourself those deep questions. And I think it really comes down to like the, how much fun am I having? Like I've just realized like, I love hard work. I love building. I love product.

I love working like I was actually talking to my fiance last night because I was working work late and then we, we had a quick dinner and frankly, then I took my laptop, my bed and I was, I was recording a demo because I'm so excited about some of the stuff that we're launching and I was like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Like I want to talk. He's like, it's fine. He's like, just admit it. You love it. I'm like, I love it. I'm having so much time. He's like, he's like, you love a lot of your work. He's like, just remember how lucky you are, you know? And it really just struck a chord. I was like, I am lucky to love how much of what I do. And so I know that if I'm not having fun doing something, that it's pretty clear that like I either need to delegate it or I need to get clear on like why this work doesn't feel fun.

And when I look back at last fall, I had a lot, I had a great team, like a lot of talented individuals in a lot of ways, but things just weren't working. Like there was way more politicizing than was necessary. Our culture was at rock bottom. You know, we'd seen improvements in the product. We'd seen improvements in a lot of our metrics, but, you know, things were just not feeling good. And to be completely transparent, like I had questions. I was like, you know, do I not know how to lead this big of a team? Like, do I need to think about a plan B? Like I asked myself those questions because the business deserved it. Our investors deserved it. And, you know, when I kept coming back at it, like I didn't believe that anyone else, I didn't believe that I could hire anyone else that had as strong as the vision about the product and this space and the amount of passion.

Like I was still so excited about this problem and so clear on where we needed to go with the company and the product that I was like, I don't, I don't think I can hire someone better than me at that. However, what I'm really struggling with is trying to get alignment between our go-to-market teams, like getting sales and marketing and CS aligned. Like we had, you know, a lot of, I don't even like the word alignment because I think it's completely misused. But anyway, the point is things weren't working. It was very clear whether we wanted to admit it to ourselves or not, that like teams were running in all different directions. Like we were having people issues. Like there was just so many challenges.

And instead of looking for a CEO, I started asking myself like, well, what if I looked for a CEO, like what if I looked to bring on someone that would be solely responsible for managing all of go-to-market because I'm not having fun doing this anymore and it's not working. Like I, it's just not working for me. And I feel like I'm good at marketing, branding and ideas. And I've got a lot of ideas that I believe are right, but this just isn't working. And yes, maybe there was a question of like, do we have the right people on the team? That's always something you need to ask. But there's one in time where you also need to do a little bit of self-reflection. It's like, but it didn't work out with the last person either.

So is this a factor of me? And I think it was to a certain degree. And so long story short, I ended up deciding to hire a COO, found the most ideal candidate. We are so blessed to have him. It's just been so much fun working with him over the last nine months. And when he joined, he was like, hey, like I really want to take on people in finance as well, like not just go to market. And at first I was like, I can't let go of, there was times where I was running like 14 people reporting into me. I was like, how can I go from just having a CTO and a COO now? Like two people are reporting to me. And when I really took a step back, I realized like, you know what, maybe it's time that I give away those responsibilities so that I can really focus and take on the projects that I love and the work that I love doing.

And I think looking back, it's probably one of the single best decisions we've made at the company. Our culture is at an all-time high. We've had a few boomerang employees come back, like our current head of sales, who's just an absolute joy to work with. He came back. You've met him before at Dreamforce. He was with us for four years, left, came back. Now he's our head of sales. The product's at an all-time best. I've gotten way more time to focus on the product than I ever have the last few years. We're all having fun. So it's just, it's been a good decision, but it takes me getting to a point of saying like, okay, I need to stop looking outside of me for the problems and start looking inside and realizing that like, this wasn't working.

And like, I didn't think I could solve it by myself. So anyway, long-winded answer, but I'd say that's probably what became clear. And I think that's, you know, it's interesting because I think there's a lot of people right now at a certain inflection point of their careers because I, you know, it's not fun out there right now, quite frankly, you know, especially in sales. I mean, there isn't a company that I work with right now that isn't getting their ass handed to them and therefore the sales reps getting their asses handed to them. And there's a lot of, is sales right for me? Is this, you know, what should I be doing with my life type of thing? So I think, you know, in this, you know, in this time where it's not getting any easier, any, any thoughts for the, the reps out there, forget about founders here for a second.

Cause I think we all have inferiority complexes. We all have self-reflection that we need to do from a, from a founder standpoint, as far as running a business and being responsible for people. But when it comes to what people are going through right now and questioning their careers, questioning their decisions, questioning the companies they work for, where, where do you start to, to, to realize I need to keep grinding through this versus I need to pivot now because I'm not having fun anymore. And, and one more piece of context to that is my fear is that the, because we are in such a short-term gratification culture, right? Where, where it's like, oh, and there's so many different options for me to go.

So it's like me putting in the work to get to the level of like, Ooh, actually I like that. Right. Cause the big question I'm trying to answer right now is, you know, when I 48, again, I didn't have a lot of options. Like I had to go to college, I didn't have to, but if, if I really wanted an opportunity and a job, I had to get a degree and then I had to start kind of at the bottom and then I had to grind and get basically treated like shit and you know what I mean? And make my cold calls and do the grind stuff and then earn the right to do the next level. Whereas now, and so now I have a genuine appreciation and I have a foundation to make decisions from, right? Cause I put in the hard work, I'm not afraid of hard work and I'm ready to, and I can have some perspective here.

Whereas now kids come into the, then there's so many options. They don't necessarily have to put the grind and the hard work into that we did. And, and so I think it's, it's, it's confusing a lot of people because they don't have a foundation to build from and make decisions off of because hard work is punching them right in the face right now. And, and I'm worried that a lot of them are going to give up because it's, it's hard versus powering through to get to the other side where you are. I know that was a big question, but. I love this question. I mean, I think it's really timely. I think a lot of people to your point are, are second guessing. A lot of people are leaving companies hoping that, you know, the grass is greener only to come back.

I'm seeing a lot of boomerangs in the marketplace in general. I'm going to answer honestly, and some of these might be hot takes. So the first thing is, if you're not loving your job, find one that's in an office. At the end of the day, I think that sales is one of the absolute hardest jobs out there. It requires time management like you've never seen before. And there's something about being in the pit, surrounded by other people that are doing the work, not just seeing a win on Slack, but actually hearing people high-fiving that camaraderie that you just cannot replicate at home. And so especially if you're new in sales and you're like, well, I'm not seeing success. I'm not, you know, guess what?

But you've never had the experience of learning in an environment and feeling what a real sales for feels like. Because I live, I work from home most of the time. I travel all the time for work. And I do it because I love deep work. And there's a lot of work that I need to do in my role to be effective. And I can do a few demos. But if I was in the role that I was when I started Specky, which was basically sales all day long, and I wasn't able to turn around to the people around me, I cannot imagine. And so I think, one, if you want to accelerate your ability to learn and grow, just by osmosis. Like, literally, you don't need to do anything. Just being surrounded, ensuring other people is going to help you grow faster in the office.

And I'm not saying that, you know, hey, you need to commute for an hour. Like, is there a company in the area that you can go work for where you believe enough in the product? Because as John Barrow says, sales is a transfer of enthusiasm that you can find. I think I would just be really honest with yourself, because I think there are so many pros of working from home. I could list them all out. We have that policy. But at the end of the day, I think that if you're really questioning your career, knock off every reason first. And one of them, like, experience what it's like to actually be back on a sales floor with a team, being able to talk to product engineering, that'd be one. And again, I know that that's a controversial opinion, but that's my honest answer, especially if you're early in your career, to really look at the product that you're selling.

If you're in this environment, it is so freaking competitive. It is so freaking competitive. If you do not believe wholeheartedly in what you're selling, it's going to come through. It is going to come through so clearly. You're going to have that sales breath. And I think buyers right now, because things are happening so fast around you, they're not just trying to buy into the product you have today, they're trying to understand the vision, where you're going. They want to get behind a product because the pace of AI, like your product is going to look and feel different than it does today and three months from now and six months from now and a year from now at a rate that you can't even possibly imagine.

And you're seeing that everyone from like the sales forces and I would put now Gong Outreach, like those bigger platforms and the rate of their innovation that's dramatically increased to the smaller startups that are moving quickly. And so, you know, I think you really need to get behind a vision that you're bought into that you can pitch because that's what a savvy buyer is doing. So I'd look at the environment that you're in. And of course, that starts with the culture, the company, et cetera. But I would say, you know, to your point, selling is hard in general. Most industries are struggling. Yes, there were one or two that are doing better than others, but it's more than likely that the next company you go to is it's still going to be hard as heck to sell.

So can you optimize for your ability to do it better? Can you be in an environment that promotes that? And can you be passionate about the product? And then frankly, do you have a manager or coach or another option to help you grow and learn? Because I know, at least for myself, when I feel like I'm truly growing and learning, and guess what? That means putting in the work. That means listening to podcasts. That means like doing things that actually help you bring in new tactics, try new things. Like you need to like keep things spicy. If you're running the same playbook that you were doing two years ago, it's going to get boring. If your talk track isn't naturally evolving, if you aren't trying new discovery questions, if you're not having fun with it, that art of the sale, it's going to get boring.

So like, what are you doing to actually get creative with how you're demoing? Try something new. Like, are you putting in that work to make it as fun as possible? So those would be, I think, a few of the places I started outside of the obvious ones, which is like, do you have a good manager, et cetera? No, but I think there's almost a perfect storm right now, which I'm, again, kind of layering on top as far as the complexity of what's going on right now, which is we're in a short-term gratification world, right? So, you know, work ethic, however you want to talk it. I balance work ethic between options, right? It's like work ethic is go grind, but you have a million other options to do things that are easier and faster and cheaper to make money type of thing.

So I don't really hate it when people have these side hustles, but it takes away the grit necessary to be successful in business. Then you add on the AI component to this, which is disrupting everything. And the question is, and this kind of leads to where you are with your product and what you're doing right now, which is what are the skills necessary to be successful in the future? What should we be learning right now? You know, I mean, you know, I go back to the fundamentals, but even the fundamentals in a lot of ways, at least what I notice is what I would think is fundamentals might not even be necessary in the future. You know, quick example, you know, my daughter, when we were thinking about going to private schools and stuff like that, I literally would ask, I'd let my wife and daughter ask whatever questions they wanted to ask in the admissions process.

And my, I had one question and one question only, which is, Hey, how are you integrating AI into the learning process? How are you teaching these kids how to leverage AI as part of the learning process? And if their answer was, Oh, well, we have a policy against AI. We don't let, I would literally get up and I would walk out and I would say, thank you very much. My daughter's not coming to the school. And so I, I question what a kid is even going to be, is going to need to learn to be successful when it's all going to be legitimately at their fingertips. You know, I, they'll be able to ask any question about history, about equations, about this, about that, and they won't have to actually know it.

They'll only have to know what question to ask. So if we bring that into the workforce right now, with all the stuff that you're seeing with AI and the impact that it's having and how, in my opinion, we are getting squeezed as a sales population because marketing is coming closer and closer and closer to us with all this personalization and, and relevance and stuff like that. And customers are less and less interested in talking to some sales rep that's just going to drone through a PowerPoint presentation and band questions because they want more of a PLG motion and they want to talk to customer success or engineer than they do a sales rep because they don't see a lot of value in it. You know, what, what does a sales rep need to know to be successful in the future?

Loaded question. Um, one that I care deeply about. Um, I think we fill our reps heads with a lot of unuseful information and it's, I think AI is almost being born out of necessity. Like it is virtually impossible for a rep to try and keep track of every new competitor update that product marketing pushes out every new feature update that your product team is pushing out when you're seeing, I mean, I, I saw the other day, like Vanta, like launched a hundred product releases or something last quarter. I know our product channel, like we're launching like 25 new features per quarter. Like how can you possibly expect your reps to keep track of that? Right. And all your competitors and their features and what's changing there.

And oh, by the way, the new is version of messaging, because now that you have this feature, you need to talk about the product differently. Like now we're talking about like, Hey, we're, you know, how do we talk about, we don't want to be talking about a chat bot and then a search and then recommendations. It's like, no, we're just your AI enablement assistant. It's like, okay, great. Now let's get all of our training. Like there is just so much, let alone each of those products that you're using, those tools that you're using to do your job. Oh, they're all changing now. Gone can do this thing and outreach can do this thing. And like, oh, now the UI has changed over here and it's way better.

And oh, by the way, there's this now ask anything. Like there is so much fricking noise. This idea that we're going to get reps that can keep track of it all and master it all is virtually impossible. And that's the entire premise of like my vision in terms of the solution, which is like, you only need to know what you need to know when and where you need to know. I mean, that competitor update that came out two months ago against that competitor that you never go up against, you don't need to know it two months ago. It doesn't fricking matter. It doesn't matter. That course that you're going to be asked to take doesn't fricking matter. It only matters when you're on that call or you're in that deal.

When that competitor comes up and you need to be able to handle that in the best way possible, either on that call or on the next call, that is when that information matters to you. So the question is, how can you leverage signals to identify that that competitor is in the deal before you know it? And that's where there's a lot of products out there that are doing that promise. Or how do we recommend that competitive battle card and tell you, hey, John, right after you finish that call, your enablement assistant is reviewing that call script and says, hey, John, since you last competed against this competitor that they mentioned on that call, an update came up and you haven't seen it. Here's exactly what you need to know has changed about your knowledge so that you can go into that next call.

And in order to go in the next call, here are the couple of questions that you might want to prepare and ask. That's how much you need to know about that competitor in that moment. Not two months ago. So, okay, but surface level depth. So, okay, I don't need to know it until now, right? And so it pops up in this moment, I have this conversation and I might hopefully be able to, you know, use whatever the information is to address that issue right now. But if I don't know it, how do I have the context on how to use it effectively, right? Because you could give me the best objection technique or whatever it is in the moment when I'm having this conversation. But if I don't fundamentally understand, for instance, why someone's having an objection or where objections come from or those type of things, then I'm going to use the surface level of what this bot AI thing told me, but I'm not going to have the context to be able to really give the depth of an answer that is necessary to somebody who knows what they're talking about.

Well, going back to what I was saying, I think the problem is that rather than actually focusing on the skills of doing proper discovery, which doesn't matter what competitors in question, doesn't matter what buyers in question, like teaching critical thinking, critical listening skills, critical discovery skills, like that is a skill that no matter what freaking happens in the market, no matter what career you're in, sales, you need it better than anyone else. Those are lifelong skills that you need to know and master regardless of what career you're in. But in sales, it matters more than ever. That's not going away. But I think all the other useless information that gets poured onto you in a day-to-day where you're spending way more time trying to keep up on the hamster wheel rather than getting those key things right is what's holding you back.

And so I think that a lot of general kind of knowledge, change management stuff is going to become more what I call just in time. I'm actually skeptical on the whole like real-time information. We can talk about that. But I believe that it's more of a distraction for reps. So the question is like, how can you recommend it right before or right after the call to master prep and master follow-up, which is what matters most. So I believe in your enablement assistant being more useful then versus on the call outside of, hey, let's say you don't handle the objection well, but your manager's on the call. Can you recommend it to them so that they can jump in? Because that way they'll have had a few seconds to like master it before it.

So I think there's an opportunity for real-time information or enablement to answer your question. But to your point, without the deeper discovery and critical thinking skills and questioning skills, like no matter what, you're going to be in future battles. And then it's going to be just like, oh, well, I saw that competitor launch that new feature versus like actually getting clear on like, hey, what business problem are you trying to solve in the first place? And is it one that is really worth solving? And so to answer your question, going back to how you started, I don't know exactly how we solve for this. But I think that critical thinking, which is reasoning with mathematical skills, right, which a lot of people are going away from, and like reading and writing, listening, like being able to really critically think are the skills that I think we need to go back to really emphasizing.

Now, I think AI can do a lot of things for you. But you need to be able to understand, like, does this message feel AI written or not? You need to be able to put that critical thinking lens on this and be like, hey, if I message John Barrows, is this going to feel like AI speed this out or not? Now, one day maybe you won't need to, but in the meantime, you do, right? And so I think that that's really what teams are going to need to get good at. I think technology can be used to surface and identify where those skills are at, what's missing, what gaps there are, what recommended coaching you have, et cetera. I think, but I do think that that's going to require a different type of practice. And I know we've talked about, you know, AI practice and AI coaching, and maybe there's an opportunity there.

But I think that's going to matter a lot. Yeah. And kind of the analogy I just thought of is like GPS, right? Is, you know, okay, you don't need to know directions anymore. I remember my dad was like, hated GPS, right? He was all, you know, he would look at the map beforehand. He would want to know how to get there. And I'd be like, dad, what the fuck? Like, just, you know, just put it in the address and go. But the funny thing is, is now, I don't know if you noticed, like with Waze, right? So I'm on Waze and all of a sudden it recommends me to take the exit. And I'm like, huh? I mean, that's weird. And then I'll do the, you know, I'll look at the routes and it'll save me like one minute. You know what I mean?

By going 15 different lefts, rights, turns and all the way through a neighborhood versus if I just stayed on the highway and stayed, you know, chugging along at the same time, probably a minute. And critical thinking is, if I didn't know kind of driving and where things were and how traffic works and that type of stuff, I would just follow Waze and I would just go through these ridiculous things and neighborhoods and everything else. Whereas I take a step back, I'm like, thanks Waze. I appreciate the guidance on like the most efficient way to get there, but this is actually the direction because it's less stress on me. I don't have to make as many things, you know, that type of stuff. So it's like, without the context of driving, without the context of driving, without directions, without GPS, you know what I mean?

And just jumping into a GPS, I, you know, it'll get me there, but it might get me there in a very artificial way. Whereas if I understand the base of it, I can use the technology the way I want to. And I think that's the thing I'm worried about right now is we're skipping, we're skipping the foundation. We're skipping to the end of the results that this technology is telling us without the context or the foundational components to understand why and therefore really relate that information to people who know what they're talking about. And I guess if you're talking about two people who don't know what they're talking about, you know, fine, because they can kind of fake it till they make it, I guess.

But when you come against an executive who has the experience and you're one of those 22, 23, 24 year old reps that is just using whatever the chat GPT says or the email that it's supposed to send, like you said, I can, I can literally, I don't care how good it is right now, maybe in a year or two, it'll be better. And I won't be, I promise you, I can tell you what's an AI written email. I promise you, I can, I can tell you what's an AI written comment on LinkedIn. And, and the only thing I can say is, is that I call it the give a shit factor of it's the one thing that AI can't do, it can pretend to do it, but it can't genuinely give a shit. It can't genuinely care. And I think that's the ultimate piece is that if you genuinely care, you will stand out.

Authenticity still will come through, but if you don't, AI is going to take over. You know, I talked about that with LinkedIn. You know, unfortunately the challenge is that LinkedIn doesn't reward authenticity right now. It rewards just constant posting. And so, you know, I, I see the AI generated or the same, I spoke to a billion dollar CRO yesterday who told me, I'm like, okay, like that content is so, like, I don't, I don't enjoy going on LinkedIn anymore. And I don't enjoy posting because I, I can't, I have to post from the heart. I have to post things that feel real, uh, and LinkedIn doesn't promote it. So people don't see it. And so I'm like, okay, so I'm, I'm taking a different approach, but anyway, yeah, I, I agree with everything you said.

I think the jury's still out in terms of like what technology looks, you know, addresses it. I will say my perspective is that I think going back to all the noise, right? Like we, we, we use the word noise and instant gratification and stuff. And like, these are like sayings that I think are commonly accepted. They're also rooted in science. Like if you actually go look at science in terms of like how our brains work, like cognitive load is a real thing. Like you have a computing powder in your brain where it can only take in so much information as much at once, excuse me. And cognitive load directly impacts your memory function and your ability to think critically, to retain information. And so if you're expecting your reps to take in all this information, all this noise, all these Slack messages, and then you expect them to go on that call and be able to think super critically and ask that next level of questioning that gets to the why when they are at their 10th call of the day, they've missed three product updates and 10 email.

You're kidding yourself. Like, it's just like, literally, it's just not possible. And I think that's where technology has the, the biggest potential, or that's what I'm the most excited about, which is how can we start tearing away at cognitive load? How can we start removing this mess that we created as technologists, right? This, this market where like, we launched all these products and all these features and you're starting to see some are dwindling away, right? But how can we start taking away this information overload so that the reps know just what they need to know? And they actually have that mental capacity to go ask the right questions. They have the capacity to think. They have the capacity to, to like, want to learn new skills.

Because part of that, that's part of the issue. And so, you know, I, I spent a lot of time researching, like, basic memory function and how information gets passed and, and why some information gets stuck in your short-term memory versus long-term memory. Because I think it's at the foundation of how people learn and absorb. And I think like right now, the biggest advantage you can have as a company is learning agility, which is how fast can your team learn basically the change that's happening. And I think that sales leaders and go-to-market leaders and enablement leaders that, and reps that feel like they're on this hamster wheel where it's like, we're doing more enablement, we're buying more tools, we're doing more trainings, we're doing more coaching, yet you're not seeing the results.

Ask yourself, is more really the answer? Because I guarantee you, it's not. You need, you need it to be more effective, not more. Your answer to your reps, not answering, you know, not asking the right questions on discovery, whatever it is. It's not more enablement. You need to look at their calendar and ask yourself, do they actually have the capacity to be having the right kinds of conversations? And so anyway, I've got a lot of, we could go down a few tangents here, but, but I do think that that's part of the issue is like going back to your driving example of the GPS. Do you have the capacity? One, do you have the context? Do you have the experience? Do you have the skills? And then in that moment, do you have the capacity to even ask yourself that question?

Or are you just operating on robot mode? Where you're just falling waves because waves is telling you what to do and that feels easier than just stopping for a second? Pausing and asking yourself, wait a minute, is this the best option? And I think that that's really what teams need to look at. I think that's where the right use of AI, not the use of AI today, but where I think we can go as an industry will get us, which is less information is actually more. Less training is actually more, right? And actually getting to a place where it's more focused on like, what's the right kind of coaching, what's the right kind of training, what's the right kind of practice that enables reps to show up at their best.

Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. I think the hope is that it can take care of all the other heavy lifting so that we have the information we need to be thoughtful, to be curious, to be critical thinking with, but not having to do all the bullshit stuff that gets in the way of that, right? That's the hope, right? The whole stat by Salesforce that, you know, whatever 27% of a rep's time is actually spent selling and the us does admin and those types of things. If we can actually give that time back to the rep so that they're not doing all that heavy lifting and they can have a genuine conversation with somebody based on, you know, some information that they were presented because it was the right information for them to learn at that time.

So, you know, we'll see, we'll see where it goes. I just, I hope that there's a shift back to quality over quantity because I think we've gotten way too ahead of ourselves on this quantity game right now and across the board, you know, society-wise, sales-wise, everything. And more is not always better, to your point, you know. Like, I think that comes with companies really looking and, you know, that product example I gave earlier, we were focused on quantity, not quality. And I think if you look at a lot of products out there, they've reversed that trend. And I think that, at least as a technology company, I think it starts there, but that it emulates in other teams too. And so, like, how do you not do more with less, but actually do less with less?

Like, how do you actually go back to the fundamentals? Like, we just hired a new head of sales. He's like, I'm just focused on the fundamentals right now. Literally, do you have the right people in the deal? Do you know how to talk to them? And do you deeply understand their problem? Otherwise, you're going to be competing in the future wars and you're going to have more pipeline, but it's all going to be air and your close rates are going to be shit. And you're going to be asking yourself, like, keep doing more, but I'm not seeing the results. And so, anyway. But I'm excited. I have a lot of optimism for where things are headed. I think it's going to be a fierce competition, a fierce market, but one that if you're really dedicated to your craft, you can rise above.

So, my caveat to optimism is I am optimistic for those who are willing to put in the work. Totally. I am genuinely optimistic for those who are willing to put in the work and figure it out. But I am not optimistic for those who are going through the motions and want to keep doing it. And I say this all the time. You probably heard me, you know, like 10, 60, 30, right? When a rep asked, hey, John, you know, you train all these reps. How are we going to differentiate? And I said, 10, 60, 30, you know, 10% are you going to take it and run with it? 30, 60% are you going to do something different because it's easy and it makes sense. And 30% ain't going to do shit different. And now I'm being even more direct with it saying, look, those 30% right now, they're irrelevant and they know it, right?

Even the bottom 50% of that 60%, like the ones who are just getting by, right? And just kind of flying right under the radar type of thing. Unfortunately, they're irrelevant and they don't know it yet. It's that, and the 10% is always going to be the 10%, you know, those people you just don't even have to do anything with. But it's that top end of that 60%, the ones who want to get better, the ones who are willing to put in the work that I think the opportunities are going to be limitless for. 100%. And I think companies are recognizing it, right? I think a lot of companies cut back a lot of people, a lot of reps, and they might not be hitting the same numbers as before, but it's more comparable than you think.

And I think that what that taught companies is that like, hey, if you just have really great reps, right, and that's way easier said than done, there's a path forward. And so I think that there's going to be somewhat of like a natural self-selection now of a lot of different careers, just like you're seeing a lot of CEOs stepping down right now and transitioning now. But I do think that people, to your point, that are willing to do the work, that are willing to get creative, and like have some fun doing it, are going to rise above. And I'm rooting for those people. So am I. I tell people I live between the world of the give a shit factor and unconscious competence. Like I can't get you to care.

But man, if you do, I will literally give you everything I got to get you to that next level so you don't have to use any of this shit anymore. But I can't get you to give a shit. And so you have to figure that out first. And that's where I'm hoping that a lot of the reps who are kind of on this journey, if you will, they figure out that give a shit factor. And it doesn't necessarily have to be about my favorite thing or whatever. It's like just give a shit about your profession. Give a shit about your career. Give a shit about getting better and willing to put in the work. And if you got that, you can learn anything, to your point. You can learn anything at any moment. But you can't learn grit.

You can't learn tenacity. You can't learn the give a shit factor. So hopefully more figure it out sooner rather than later. But that was always an awesome conversation. So with all the cool shit, we didn't even get into all the cool shit that you guys are building right now. But where can people find out more information about Specit and all the fun shit you're doing and all the cool stuff that you've got going on right now? Definitely go to our website. Check it out. Specit.com. I guarantee you it's the easiest and fastest way for you as a rep to get the information that you need to close deals. But you as a sales leader to make sure that your teams get the information they need to close their deals.

And feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. I don't, I'm not as active as I used to be. I plan to eventually. But, you know, I love talking about this problem. I love dreaming about the future, thinking about what the best, possible rep experience looks like and how technology can be used to deliver that. So if you've got some ideas and some thoughts, reach out. Well, thanks again so much for coming on. It's been a pleasure as always. Awesome. Thanks so much, Sean. Absolutely. And everybody else, I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. And like I always say at all the end of all these podcasts, go out there and make somebody smile today. Because no matter how bad your day went or how bad you think it's going, you make somebody smile and you know you had a good day.

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

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