Speaker 1: 0:26

Hey everyone, welcome back to Marketing Qualified. I'm Mike Griffin and I'm Chris Newton. Very happy Friday to you, Chris. Anything exciting for your weekend lined up.

Speaker 2: 0:35

Absolutely nothing. Pretty much all of our neighbors are gone for the weekend, so we have the whole neighborhood to ourselves. So I think tomorrow's not going to be the nicest, but Sunday we might actually go to Portsmouth walk around a little bit with the dog. But yeah, I mean usually like when in the summer, like we were just talking about this in the summer, when everyone else is gone, that's when we usually like to stay around, and then we go on vacation when everyone else is working.

Speaker 1: 0:59

So the old switcheroo opposite is great. Gives you a chance to get back to uh. For me, what am I doing? I'll tell you what. The. What no one talks about in terms of financial burden as you become older is all the fucking little kid birthday parties you have to attend and show up with the present. Man, I swear this is like our seventh consecutive weekend of having some like satellite friend of javier that we have to go like see and provide some present for like the. The worst part is like you actually feel like you care, so you want to get like a contextually relevant present for them and it's just like kids like books. Right, let's get a book. Who knows, uh, whether or not it's ever going to be used and whatever, it's a whole thing. So one of those and then, uh, absolutely no clue what lies ahead besides that nice yeah well, uh, don't, don't, uh don't, get my buddy larry started on on that.

Speaker 2: 1:47

His, his, pretty much his entire summer weekends are booked up by by, uh, by children's birthday parties. It's gotten so bad that he's actually ended up having to like take off time in the middle of the week and like lie to his wife about being at work so that he can like just go fishing by himself. That's the only time he gets, he gets free. He'll be like he tells his wife that he's at work and he tells his work that he's a, he's off on vacation or whatever, and then he's actually just like off by himself, like fishing, gone fishing right like, literally like a cloud. Yeah, like a classic meme of like like old man, like he's like mid-30s, going on like 70 what's the old man?

Speaker 1: 2:24

beer too you would drink. It's like a schlitz or something like a keystone light.

Speaker 2: 2:28

He's got just like a pack full of those ready to go out in the when I think of an old man, yeah, when I think of an old man drinking beer, I always think of, like clint eastwood in uh, drinking pbr, like what. Oh, what's that movie? The um great grand trino, I think great trino.

Speaker 1: 2:42

yeah, I think he did yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:43

Yeah, yeah. That's literally like like Larry is is pretty much a Clint Eastwood, except less.

Speaker 1: 2:51

Well, don't forget to throw in the old man fishing with. Like a sad bologna sandwich is literally just like bologna and like cheese, not even like mayday. It's just the two things between a slice of bread Uh, a slice of bread Kind of gross. I'll tell you what else is gross. You and I were texting about this the other day. We have an agenda, we'll get to it. I just want to say on the air for posterity agree or disagree with the following statement If you have any variation of yourself as a cartoon for your LinkedIn profile picture, you're a fucking asshole.

Speaker 1: 3:25

Agreed, simple, right. Who is this for? What are you doing and what are you trying to hide that? Yeah, you know. What they should be hiding is their shitty fucking takes that they have. It's always the people that are the cartoons that have the most outrageous things to say and it's just like rage, bait, common engagement kind of thing. That has been my observation about the kind of person that has this profile. Anything that I know you're trying to do, like your detox, right? Have you seen something similar across your social?

Speaker 2: 3:55

sphere. Honestly, I haven't. I don't think I've logged into LinkedIn in like two or three weeks and it's probably been like the best two or three weeks and it's probably been like the best two or three weeks of my life. Yeah, I don't really have anything to add to. Yeah, I mean any salt I've seen on LinkedIn lately. Occasionally you'll like send me stuff that triggers you and I'll like click into it and be like, yeah, this is bullshit yep, yep, don't sit there and let it ruin your day like I do just get all frustrated.

Speaker 1: 4:27

Good on you, good on you, okay. Uh, enough about that. We're going to talk about linkedin tangentially here. Insofar as is glassdoor as shitty as linkedin? We all know glassdoor. We've used it to see the culture, reviews and potential, like salary expectations. There's a particular angle I know you have for this that you want to discuss. We're going to spend some time talking about that. We have a broad as listeners that the two of you are aware. We like to give credit where we can to salespeople. We like to point out some areas for improvement where we can. We're going to spend some time in the ladder camp today and that is just like can you make your own fucking PowerPoints? Like, oh know, it's like a, it's a design thing. That design kind of falls under marketing. But like, if you're actively selling things like, listen, tell me if you disagree with this. You know what? I'm going to save this for the actual segment. But we're going to talk about salespeople and making slides. I'm going to derail us for the full 40 minutes.

Speaker 2: 5:20

Yeah, I was going to say that might take up the full 40 minutes. You might as well just stop the agenda there.

Speaker 1: 5:25

Cut us off there. We're going to try to be speaking of sales. We're going to do a little game that we have called Should we Be In Sales. Instead, we have hovered around this topic in several other episodes and given some unsolicited advice, some of it's even quality. We're going to play a little game that sees should we in fact be in sales? And then time pen and we have a couple of other fun things to do. But just given the two sales oriented topics, we should probably be a little bit pessimistic about the rest of this. So those are the big three. We're going to try to get to pleasantly surprised. We get to the others last door as shitty as LinkedIn. That's a very high shitty bar to try to overcome. I'm going to let you set the table here. What is? What is up with Glassdoor?

Speaker 2: 6:09

So I I've never like left reviews on on Glassdoor. Like usually, like whenever I leave a company, like there's some kind of if there is severance or whatever, like part of the severance is like you can't talk shit about the company and I think that they do that just so that you don't leave a bad Glassdoor review. But I mean, my original use case for Glassdoor was I'm interviewing at companies. You want to check out the reviews, see what other employees are saying, see if it looks like a toxic place or if it looks like a good place to work or whatever. That was the original use case of Glassdoor, which I think is good. I think that transparency and all that stuff is great and it is good to. I think that transparency and, like you know, all that stuff is great and like it is good to see employer engagement on there, like if there is a negative review, having like the head of HR reach out and be like, oh, we're so sorry that you had this experience and a favor to reach out with us. Blah, blah, blah, blah blah. I know HubSpot was really big on that at one point and they actually had pretty good reviews, at least back when you and I used to work there. So that's all well and good.

Speaker 2: 7:03

I feel like Glassdoor, in their efforts to expand, they've gotten pretty far away from the original use case of like the reviews and stuff. Like a lot of times, like in the past, when you would Google a company, like the first one of the first things that would come up in the results would be like the Glassdoor reviews or whatever. So I don't know why, but like I have an account, don't really use it for anything, like I've never reviewed any companies or whatever, but I occasionally get emails and like I feel like they're pushing more like the community play now. Like I guess, like before we go too far down the rabbit hole, are you like, how familiar are you with Glassdoor? Do you have an account? Do you get like the emails? Like do you actively go to the site?

Speaker 1: 7:46

I haven't in some number of years, so it's changed, but I do know what you're talking about with respect to like the type of insights you get, like the feedback, and even back when I was using it a bit more actively, there was a bit of a push towards, like joining certain groups and discussions that might be relevant, based on I don't know what they based it off of. But, yeah, I have like a vague familiarity with what you're describing, based on I don't know what they based it off of.

Speaker 2: 8:05

But yeah, I have like a vague familiarity with what you're describing. Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's trying to become like a LinkedIn, where it's like you post jobs, you post company reviews and everything, but they're they're really pushing like the community aspect and like they're almost trying to make it like a like I feel like a almost like a Reddit or like a LinkedIn for like jobs and like employees and like it's just like the. The shit like basically the conversations and the shit that I see on glassdoor is like the same kind of bullshit that you see on linkedin, but like almost to an even dumber level, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 8:36

How can that possibly?

Speaker 2: 8:37

be, Like I wish I say some examples of stuff that I actually saw on here recently, but like it just seems like such a toxic place where, like so much, so many people are just like complaining that they can't find a job, or like you know, the kind of stuff that you would never, really, that you shouldn't be sharing online. It's like overly personal information, like you know. You know that kind of person I'm talking about, like I do, I do. They're like why can't I get a job? Like blah, blah, blah, but meanwhile they're sharing like all their, their personal struggles and like being a debbie downer and that's like well, you know, maybe you should look in the mirror, like maybe don't be sharing all this stuff online when you're actively trying to find employment yeah, yeah, I know the type you're talking about.

Speaker 1: 9:18

uh, it reminds me of the old do you know the condescending Wonka meme? Yeah, yeah, yes it. This is. This is back in the day when I was like immediate post grad, so super outdated at this point, but you know it was condescending Wonka said oh, you're posting pictures of yourself smoking a joint online. Tell me more about how you can't get a job.

Speaker 2: 9:39

yeah, it seems like a lot of that kind of stuff and like I don't know like they call them, like I guess bowls, like like glass door bowls or whatever is like the different communities and stuff you can. You can join. I'm actually on the site right now trying to see if I can find any um.

Speaker 1: 10:00

Well, as you're looking for that, let me give you some suggestions that I have for Glassdoor, because of course they're listening to this. I think that you know how there's like a. They have the company rating. You have like top reviews, good, bad perks, all that stuff is called out, and then they have like a um, and it's it's like some type of CEO rating, right, like what is theo's approval on there.

Speaker 1: 10:22

I think that that should be expanded significantly to include the rest of the c-suite. Right, like I would have made some vastly different career choices had I had a clearer sense going in about like what the cmo was like, right, what kind of feedback is given to like the head of sales or the head of growth or whatever? I think it should just be like a community thing, because all this stuff, all like the like, the lamenting tell me if I'm off the mark here, but I think that's anonymized Anyhow, it's not like. It's like oh, chris Newton has this to say about the company or the person. You have like a username that posts it, so like it's safe enough. What's the fucking difference between that and doing like those bullshit anonymous survey collections that people do internally that you and I know damn well are not anonymous, like I don't know. Open it up, open up. We should just fully commit to this, and I think Glassdoor has a real opportunity here. How that makes them money, I don't know, but I think it would be a way more fun user experience.

Speaker 2: 11:10

Yeah, I mean, I feel like the way that they make money, like I don't know if they do ads or like you know if they did that I think it's a great idea. You know, I think that there needs to be more C-suite accountability across the board and it's not always on the CEO a lot of the times, although the CEO does have direct ability to, you know, hire and fire the C-suite. So, like negative impact, negative feedback on, like, the people that report to the CEO directly could be a reflection on the CEO, but I could see them not doing that just because the people who made the decisions to spend money with Glassdoor are those people who would be getting raked against the coals on Glassdoor. Is that even a saying? Did I say that right?

Speaker 1: 11:53

Yeah, no, you nailed it, it's just funny.

Speaker 2: 11:55

Sometimes I take sayings like that and just completely butcher them. At least you don't make up words like I do. My buddy Ben back in the day, instead of saying he's going to kill two birds with one stone, he used to say he'd kill it all with one bird.

Speaker 1: 12:15

Whoa, what does bird look like?

Speaker 2: 12:20

Which I think is actually a better saying, but I digress. But yeah, I think that your idea is great, you know. I think that getting back to that original use case for Glassdoor, you know, would be valuable.

Speaker 1: 12:30

Do you want me to tell you why I think it would be like and where, like for a marketer specifically, it can be useful? Is like, if you get things about like I would, we I would want to know, stepping into a role, if I am being, if I'm likely to be, bait and switch with respect to, like, quarterly budget made available to me, right, like I would want to know, oh, I was promised like this amount you could. Like you could make the numbers like opaque, right, but like, oh, I was promised a certain amount of money going into the quarter for a variable and then I actually ended up getting like a 40% decrease in that and, by the way, like my MQL quota went up by 20%, right, so, like you can see that math, I think that would be really useful to see. I really would enjoy seeing, like the camaraderie, or lack thereof, with a sales organization, right, like, are they receptive to feedback? Are they adhering to the SLA that's been put in place?

Speaker 1: 13:25

That's a big thing in my current gig right now is like marketing is generating all these leads and then they're just sitting in that lead status of, like new or prospect or whatever it is in the org for way too long and actually need to like follow through on contacting these folks when they're coming through. I would want to see that on Glassdoor. I think that could be really useful for marketing Any other things that you would want to know and you could glean from Glassdoor before stepping into a new marketing role.

Speaker 2: 13:50

No, I think that's actually a great idea because, as we all know, not all companies are created equal. It is good to see company reviews at a high level, like is this company a good place to work for, but I've worked at companies that are quote unquote a good place to work, but only if you're an engineer or only if you're a product manager. You know what I'm trying to say.

Speaker 2: 14:12

Not all departments are created equal, so I think that the departments that do tend to frequently work together, like marketing and sales I've worked at companies where that relationship is terrible and it makes it a terrible place to work as a marketer. I think that having that double click into individual groups within companies would be good, especially as companies get much bigger thousands of employees. Everyone's experience is going to be different depending on what, what department in the company you work, and I think that's actually a really good idea, cause I know that you can do, um, you can leave reviews at the company level. You can leave reviews of your like position and, like, if there's a lot of similar positions that could be helpful to like see how people rate their experience in that individual role.

Speaker 2: 14:59

The problem with you and I is that, like, if we, if you left a review of your company right now and you're like what's your title? Like director of growth marketing or something like that, something like that, who knows, nobody even knows what Mike does. But yeah, like, let's say, your title is director of growth marketing, and you leave a review about your company, which is probably like 5060 people or whatever, and you put your title as your director of growth marketing. It's like oh, I wonder who left that review Two stars.

Speaker 1: 15:23

Yeah, yeah, exactly, it's really easy.

Speaker 2: 15:25

Someone's got a target on his back now.

Speaker 1: 15:29

It's so funny. You say that Literally. Last night my wife and I were talking about this how, like, if you're giving feedback in those surveys but you're like a team of two, it's like oddly specific out of the gate, like who it is that's giving it. It's so obvious. I got two other things for you, I think, on Glassdoor, before we press on. One of them is I just want to share I forget, because I've looked at hundreds, probably, of companies at this point on that platform.

Speaker 1: 15:52

There was one in particular, that, to your point about team-specific feedback and different parts, different departments being more receptive to working there than others. It was the sales team for this place and the biggest point of negative feedback that kept on popping up again and again was the volume of the music being played on the sales floor. I saw one note about it, I saw a second note about it and then, without exaggeration, chris, I kept scrolling and by the time I got to the eighth one, one, someone actually had put in all caps, like seriously, you guys, the music is. No one going to address this. It keeps showing up in these reviews. Just turn it down. And it made me laugh really hard. Uh, so for all those times that you hear places talking about like, oh, they really value your feedback. They don't. It's just like a showmanship kind of thing, not showmanship. So there's that.

Speaker 2: 16:44

Speaking of the sales, I think the sales ones are actually the funniest to read because, I mean, these people don't really beat around the bush, they'll just like. They'll call a spade a spade all day, which is one thing I respect about salespeople Totally. I remember reading one I wish I could remember the company, but it was like it was like a startup and you like the classic startup thing is like, oh, whenever you make a sale, you like hit a gong or something. Well, they had like a this like. It wasn't like an actual gong, it was like a sound effect that like an automated sound effect that would play on the speakers Anytime a sale was made in.

Speaker 2: 17:16

Like literally like, because it was a high volume sales role. It was like going off all the time and they said it was so loud, like similar to your music. They said it was so fucking loud that we literally scare the shit out of people every time we go off. And it got to the point where it's like you know if your sales team is like terrified of making a sale because, like, you don't know when, when the sound effect is going to go off, and like scare the shit out of you, it's like, oh, oh, maybe I don't push close on this opportunity maybe.

Speaker 2: 17:48

I just you know, leave it open, but move to the next quarter. You know, right, exactly. So key takeaways from glassdoor uh, the community is as shitty as linkedin as most internet communities are. Yeah, and uh, the the department specific feedback would be really cool. Um, they kind of, you know, do it based on the role in the overall company right now. I think department specific feedback would be really cool. They kind of, you know, do it based on the role in the overall company right now. I think department specific feedback would be good, as well as better transparency and accountability for the entire executive leadership team, not just the CEO, cause I think that you know you could have a great CEO, but if you have a terrible, you know CMO, for example, like the marketing team, is going to really suffer, whereas the rest of the company might not even know how, how bad it is. Um, I think I can't confirm more transparency and accountability at the executive level is is a good thing all around, for sure totally, totally.

Speaker 2: 18:30

Before we jump on to the next thing, before um, before we keep going um on the concept of of the anonymous stuff, yeah, um, so like we, you know talking about, like you know if we're the only person in the role and we leave a review on class door, I worked at one company where you know the EMPS, the employee NPS survey that basically, like you fill it out, you fill it out and it goes immediately into the executive span folder. Yeah, yeah, I worked at one company where you know it was a startup and they said that like all replies are anonymous or whatever. And they sent the EMPSs. Like the survey was like three questions or whatever, like how would you rate your experience, how would you rate your manager? Like blah, blah, blah, scale of one to 10, you know, like standard NPS stuff, a place for comments or whatever they're like this is a hundred percent anonymous. And they sent it as a Google form where at the very top of the Google form it said literally your email is being recorded with your response. Perfect, it's the perfect.

Speaker 2: 19:31

It's like let's let's figure out who's unhappy, so we can let them go and then bring in some new, some new fresh blood for probably less money.

Speaker 1: 19:39

You know, sometimes we, we, we, we lament a lot here about ineptitude and like the negative consequence, but sometimes you just have to laugh at how bad it is right like that's like the fucking trojan horse being rolled in through the walls, the gates of troy, and be like by the way, there's a whole fucking army in here.

Speaker 1: 19:54

So you might want to proceed with caution. It's ridiculous, so ridiculous. Hey, there's a fun segue. Speaking of ridiculous, have you ever been asked by a member of the sales organization to provide some type of collateral? Usually it's a one pager, sometimes it's a deck and oftentimes this deck. The request specifically is not for like a growth market or demand gen person. It's really meant more for like a designer like hey, spruce this thing up, make it look more appealing, maybe give us some fucking color to it, so it's not just like a blank white slide with, like times, new Roman or aerial fonts in in black. I'm going to.

Speaker 1: 20:35

What I held off on saying at the beginning is that, for most people that find themselves into like a marketing or a sales role, you have gone through some type of undergraduate degree that is like a business focus, right, maybe management, business, something along those lines. I know for an irrefutable fact that you have to go through at least one semester long course that is exclusively dedicated to like PowerPoints, design, presentation, nailing the pitch. Pitch like this is a big part of what you do for a living. So riddle me this, christopher why the fuck can't sales just make their own decks period? And furthermore, why can't they make them look like moderately presentable without the handholding from a schmuck like me who is notoriously bad at design? Anyway, your thoughts.

Speaker 2: 21:28

I mean, I'm the same as you. Like I'm definitely not a designer by any means. Like I can appreciate good design. You know, I see something you know nice that Apple put down Like wow, this looks really good. Like I can appreciate the work and the effort that goes into this. Put down like wow, this looks really good. I can appreciate the work and the effort that goes into this. That being said, I'm not a designer and I've actively pushed back on sales teams asking me to do this.

Speaker 2: 21:46

It's not my job to make PowerPoints. Honestly, it's gotten delegated to other people on the marketing team for one reason or another. I'm not a brand guy by any means. I'm more of a technical demand gen growth marketer, like that kind of stuff. Yeah, and I actually remember in a meeting that sales got into a little bit of a pissing match with the marketer who was going to be putting together the, the powerpoint or whatever, because, like, she kept asking for feedback, never got any from the sales team and then finally, like, just released the powerpoint into the wild and then like it on calls and they're like this isn't working for us, we need this redone. And she's like for the past three weeks when I was asking you for feedback. Where were you guys? They're like oh, we were making sales.

Speaker 1: 22:28

And like I just like looked at her and I'm just like no, they weren't, they weren't making sales when you can come in right with your technical prowess and be like, oh yeah, where are the ops from this? You'll be like the quantity of activities that were logged in that same time frame. Sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 2: 22:44

That's, that's the entire reason that I pushed back on. It is, like you know, I you know as a demand gen marketer like you have goals to hit, like you have quotas, like you need to be hitting a certain number of mqls and everything. And it got to a point where it's like I was spending so much time doing other stuff that wasn't leading to that. I just started pushing back on all of that. I'm like this isn't going to directly lead to MQLs. I'm not doing it. It's not part of my job.

Speaker 2: 23:05

And sales is going to complain about oh, where's the MQLs, we're low on leads this month, or whatever. Yeah, because I spent 10 hours putting together this fucking PowerPoint presentation To me. There's an order of operations. You need the leads before you have someone to present to. If you have no leads and you have no meetings or whatever, why the fuck do you need a PowerPoint? Right, correct, correct, absolutely. I just think that in general, if I get on a call with a sales team and I'm actively looking at exploring a piece of software or whatever, I don't want to see a fucking PowerPoint. I don't give a shit about the whole backstory and this whole pitch and everything. I want to see the software and I want to see right off the bat if it's going to work for me. Yes, if it's going to work for me.

Speaker 2: 23:53

Yes, why even need a PowerPoint? I think we talked about this in the past. Don't fit me into your very narrow sales process. Don't bullshit me. My time is extremely I'm not going to say valuable, because it's not anymore, but that's a good honest, take my time is extremely precious to me. Let's just say that, and I don't want to be wasting any more time talking to you, more than you want to be wasting any time talking to me.

Speaker 1: 24:15

Just to completely double down with that sentiment, that statement If I cannot get the information that is contained within this albeit poorly designed deck from the website in a pre-sale capacity, I think that's a problem, right like, just from the transparency angle we talk about all the time, there shouldn't be that big of a gate if I'm filling out. I acknowledge it depends on how you're positioning that conversation with sales. Is it a generic get in touch? Is it like a get demo? Is it like let's talk pricing right, like anything along those lines? I just feel like the more valuable thing is to actually show them the thing that you're discussing.

Speaker 1: 25:01

A recent example from an anonymous employer of mine from past experience. It's like, okay, so we have this thing. It's in beta, we can't actually demo it yet, but what we can walk prospects through on the call is, I kid you, not a Figma mock-up of what this is going to look like. And I'm like, should we be talking about this? Is this a better bid for the people that we can like we have in the install base and we should be trying to, you know, bring them aboard as early adopters to this beta? I don't think this is a good idea to be like promising what's the what's the expression? Promising the whole farm, right? When, like, you don't have the basic functionality built yet. Like, if you can't show me how it's going to work, I don't think you should be talking about it yet. It's on the roadmap, right? It's the old cliche.

Speaker 1: 25:55

I think, the phrase you're looking for is betting the farm.

Speaker 2: 25:59

You might have actually combined two different things. Like I said, I'm the wrong person to be asking for those types of expressions. You know, kill it all with one bird. I agree with you. I feel like PowerPoint presentations.

Speaker 2: 26:10

It's kind of a holdback from selling in the 80s and 90s. It's like back in the 80s and 90s, if you think about when you bought anything, if you bought software, if you bought I was a child back then. I didn't have a job in the 80s and 90s, but from what? No work ethic, I know I was such a lazy little prick when I was seven.

Speaker 2: 26:33

But yeah, if you think about it, back in the day, the salespeople were the gatekeepers. They held the keys to the kingdom and the only way to get information was to talk to a sales rep. Whether you're buying a car, whether you're buying a piece of software, whenever you're buying anything for a business back in the day you had to go through a salesperson. So that meant that you had to sit down through their shitty pitch and they would show you the PowerPoint presentation, usually in person. They would come to you, the outside sales reps or whatever. Everyone would get together in the conference room, listen to their pitch or whatever see the PowerPoint presentation and everything, the reason that they did that is because they didn't have a fucking website.

Speaker 2: 27:15

The way that I look at it is like what. I think you actually alluded to this, or you might've even said it directly. Any of the information that's in the PowerPoint presentation that you're sharing with people like people before you even get on the phone with a prospect, they've already probably done their research on the website. They probably already know more than 90% of what people would know back in the nins when you would do this PowerPoint presentation. If you're going through a PowerPoint presentation and there's any information on there that they don't know, you should probably just put it on your fucking website anyways to save you time and save them time, so that when you do get on a call, you can have a productive conversation versus just basically spewing facts at them, stuff that they could easily read about on their own yes, them Stuff that they could easily read about on their own.

Speaker 1: 27:54

Yes, I think that is especially true for and you and I talked in a previous episode about my HubSpot buying experience here. I am a previous employee. I've used it for a decade of my career. What I don't need when I hop on the phone with you is, well, our two co-founders actually invented the inbound method. Yeah, I fucking get it. By the way, here's a general rule of thumb for any marketers listening and for, certainly, the salespeople that are trying to build their own decks or not.

Speaker 1: 28:19

As per this conversation, if it is included in the about us section of your website, you need not include it in your powerpoint. Deck period. Full end of stop. I am very sympathetic, sorry. He says period and then he goes on with his fucking tirade. Uh, I just like man, I've never made a software purchase based on like the co-founder story. Dude, I don't give a baker's fuck where you came from, or like how you got the idea. I just want to know if what you're selling me can help me do my job better and, ideally, if there's something like ROI that I can prove for this. This thing that I'm about to purchase, like it just doesn't. It doesn't matter. I'm empathetic to wanting to tell a story and have like the evolution, but like to what you just said a minute ago is like dude, most of the stories probably told already, like they have the idea about how they came to be here. You don't need to be repetitive.

Speaker 2: 29:14

Yeah, and also, too, like I think it comes down to like just talking to people like a human, like you know, being transparent, and like like if you, if you, were on a sales call with me, I'd be like so, mike, you know, tell me what you know about, tell me what you know about HubSpot already. You'd be like, well, like, I've used it in the past extensively 10 years, I work there. I know about the inbound methodology Great. As a sales rep, I can immediately skip the first 10 slides of my presentation because you already know a decent background about the company. We can jump into the actual meat of the conversation. Exactly, don't fit people into a generic sales process. Actually have a conversation with them, ask them questions and then guide the conversation based on the responses to those questions logical order of the deck because it's like a safety thing for them.

Speaker 1: 30:14

Like I think a more tenured, seasoned uh person who uh, can, can pivot, can be quick on their feet and just like have that more discovery oriented conversation that you were describing like cool, let me get into the weeds with you and then, towards the end of the conversation, be like okay, so we've been in the weeds, we got the x and those we talked about, the functionality, just to take a quick set back about like, and then you get into like your usual band, like your timing, what brought you here? Like wait, so what does it take to move to the next step? And like the line on I don't know. That's just a better bid to me than going through like I'm going to force feed you this thing. I don't want to fucking sit through a timeshare presentation right in order to buy a piece of software. That's that.

Speaker 2: 30:46

That's my take I think that the reason that a lot of sales leaders like PowerPoints is like it's a, it's a way to have structure. And I actually had one VP of sales in the past where he kept saying over and over and over I want to, like, create a repeatable, measurable sales process. Okay, fine, I mean not every customer is going to fit into a one size fits all box, but, like you, want to be able to measure stuff and see what messaging is resonating, what's working, what's not working. I understand that to some extent, but at the same time, the sales team was literally making no sales.

Speaker 1: 31:19

They had $0 in sales one quarter.

Speaker 2: 31:21

So why are you focused on building a repeatable, measurable sales organization when you're not even getting any sales? To begin with, maybe try a bunch of stuff and make a few sales and then, once you get a few sales under your belt, then you can try to compartmentalize what's working, what's not working and then try to build the repeatable sales process. It just seems like a lot of them have it backwards. Yep yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:45

I completely agree with that. It is very antiquated. I sat through a similar pitch presentation from a head of sales on the previous, uh, previous, gig and yet, uh, I don't know man, there's some value to it. There's a lot less value, I think more more recently. So I think this all begs the question should we be in sales? Could?

Speaker 2: 32:08

we do it like I don't mean I I feel like there's a there's a a preconception of what the typical sales guy is and, like a lot of them do fit this stereotype of being like super extroverted and like a bro and, like you know, really like personable and like blah, blah, blah. Some of the better sales people that I've actually worked with both, you know, at companies I've worked for and also sales reps I've I've bought from have been some of the more like introverted, like down to earth, like low key types of people who aren't like super pushy and, like you know, ask the right questions and like kind of, you know, guide the conversation based on that. So like I kind of hate the stereotype of sales people needing to be a certain type. I mean sales definitely attract a certain type of personality, but that's not to say that somebody couldn't be good in sales. That has a different personality, if that makes sense. What's your thoughts on that?

Speaker 1: 32:59

Well, the first thing that comes to mind to me is the when we were going through like new hire training at HubSpot right, they're going through the persona building and they were talking about like the CRM targeting for folks and like a lot of the stuff that you just described the stereotypical like extroverted bro who is in a CrossFit and has, like you know nowadays to be like he's drinking his Celsius in the morning right Instead of his coffee and shit like that. Like they didn't even talk about women mostly, right. Like which is kind of crazy to think about how many successful like sales people there are in the workforce now that are women. So that was like a big miss from what I recall in that training. And the second thing that comes to mind is like even at a previous career, stop like the CMO was huge into the challenger mentality I'm sure you've heard about this and like seeing the books circulated or whatever. And just like the art of being able to like tactfully push back on something. That doesn't mean that you have to do it in like a boisterous or even like a confrontational manager or a confrontational manager in like a confrontational way.

Speaker 1: 33:57

I did have a fucking confrontational manager. Talk about a freudian slip. Fuck that guy anyway. Uh, sorry, since we're on there, I saw I said to fatima to like my trainer the other day. He's like such a mundane insult, but but it carries such a big weight. Maybe I said it to you as well. Okay, adhd, I hope this guy has a bad tuna fish sandwich on his flight home Just absolutely obliterates it, anyway, okay, so the point of this was, what are we talking about? The challenger mentality. You don't have to be just like a confrontational dick, right, there's a way to tactfully push back and be like oh, are you sure that's like the best thing? Or like when we were uh, trained, uh, with respect to selling into an install base, the question would be like well, like, what is the consequence of not actually having this rolled out successfully? Right, like asking in a manner like that.

Speaker 2: 34:48

So those are my reactions, any reactions to those reactions um, no reactions to the reactions, but we might have actions based on those reactions. So here's, here's the game that we're going to do. We have about five minutes left. I don't think we're going to have time to get into the game. I do want to get us started.

Speaker 2: 35:05

So, originally, what I was going to do is you know, should we be in sales? Instead? I've got, I think, six or seven fake products that you and I are going to randomly draw one and then basically have 60 seconds to pitch the product. I initially was thinking that we would just do this live on the air, like we would pick the products and then pitch it live on the air. I think what we should do is instead since we don't have much time, you and I I'll read through all the products right now and then you and I will decide on which product we get, and then we'll come back when we record the next podcast in like five months, um, with the pitch that we decide no, but let's record the next one, like we usually record these weekly um, let's figure out the products that we want now and then we'll come back a week from now, after we've had some time to think on it, and then we'll come back a week from now, after we've had some time to think on it, and then we'll do a 60-second pitch to the other person to pitch the product. I love it.

Speaker 2: 35:57

Here's the fake products that we have. Number one is Fan Consoler, an app that makes fans feel better after their team loses in the playoffs or championship, by providing highlights from the season and assurance that next year will be different. Snack sink A lunchbox with facial recognition and built-in recording when opened. No more snacks stolen at work or at school. Bite bite A smart fork that buzzes if you're eating too fast and logs your plates to an app for eating analytics Eating analytics. Dog whoop a wearable technology band for your dog that measures its biometric data, tracks his sleep, stress, activity and more. Boom bot for Zoom a Zoom bot that joins work meetings and waits for awkward silences before automatically delivering an inappropriate comment, dad joke or completely off-topic remark. Also effective for keeping meetings on time by reminding everyone that they have a hard stop no less than three times during the meeting.

Speaker 2: 36:55

Beautiful Grand Gram An Instagram filter pack and influencer kit aimed at helping seniors become viral social media stars. Ask for confirmation. Are you sure you actually want to post this anytime. Before a senior posts something, comments or views an Instagram story Replay Ray Smart glasses that automatically record and capture the last 60 seconds of what you saw and heard so you can rewind and catch up or choose to save clips to your phone. Jesus, so we've got about two minutes left here. I've got a. It's a competitive field. I've got a spinner. Can you see that, okay, mike? Yeah, I can't see the spinner, but I've got a spinner. Can you see that okay?

Speaker 1: 37:33

Mike, yeah, I can't see the spinner.

Speaker 2: 37:35

I've got a spinner pulled up on my phone here. Mike, you want to spin the wheel first. I do. We're spinning, spinning.

Speaker 1: 37:45

There's what I'm secretly hoping for.

Speaker 2: 37:49

The replay ray. All right, you got replay ray, I you got, you got replay ray. Now I'm gonna spin and I've got it's also essentially replay ray so I'm just gonna spin again.

Speaker 2: 38:02

That's actually the one that I wanted. Replay ray again. Do I have that multiple times on here? Okay, well, this wheel decidecom clearly fucking sucks. I just got re-played on the fourth fucking time in a row. Okay, I just got snack safe. So I'll put together a pitch for snack safe. You put together a pitch for replay Ray. I'll send you the description of what that is and on the next podcast we'll go through and pitch these ridiculous products that you know. Actually, the more and more I look at them, they kind of some of them could be good ideas.

Speaker 1: 38:35

There's potential, there's been. I just have one question for you before we wrap with less than a minute here, and that is can I get your help with this PowerPoint?

Speaker 2: 38:45

You're dead to me. I'm finally a new co-host.

Speaker 1: 38:46

Well, next week, sal Well next week, Salty Dan will be back as permanent co-host. I wish you all the best. It's been an absolute pleasure and I can't wait to hear how Salty Dan pitches my shitty product. Good to see you, brother. Have a wonderful weekend and I'll pitch you next week. Sounds good. Thanks, Sal have a great weekend.

Speaker 2: 39:08

Bye everybody, bye, bye, bye you.