Name: Webinar: A Career in Sales — Is It Right for You (and How to Climb Faster!)
Uploaded: 2025-11-04T19:16:08.779Z
Duration: 1 h 1 min 16 s
Description: Webinar: A Career in Sales — Is It Right for You (and How to Climb Faster!)

Transcript for "Webinar: A Career in Sales — Is It Right for You (and How to Climb Faster!)": Hello? Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello We were doing openers. We were doing, objection handling, brush offs. It god, that was a good time. So we're gonna keep talking about sales. And our goal today, folks, is is this career right for me? Maybe you're not in sales today and you're thinking about it. Maybe you are and you're thinking about getting the hell out. Maybe you're wondering, how do I get promoted? And that's just my very favorite thing to do. So I brought my BFF in sales, James, James Buckley, to the show. Let's come on on stage to join me in this conversation. We're gonna share tips. We're gonna share stories. Mostly, we're going to answer questions. We're gonna have a good damn time. Welcome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited to be here. We're carrying over all of our incredible energy from the cell phone or show. This is about to be a blast. Shout out to ahead. Let me know in the chat, has anyone ever said to you when you were younger, you know, you'd be great at sales. Oh, yeah. Yep. Give us a yes or a no or a hell yes in the chat. I never knew what that meant, but I feel like most young kids that get told you'd be great in sales, they end up being great in sales or marketing, one or the other. But okay. Can we just start right there for a second? Because to me, that is the power of encouragement. And and, like, if if I were to go down with one word on my tombstone, I would want that to be it. Right? Encourager. That might not even be a real word. But You know, I'm excited. We need that as humans. Encouragers in the space that I know. I know that you open your keynotes up every time with this pride of we're in sales, damn it. And, like, it always gets me jazzed. Yeah. So I think that we get told you'd be great in sales because we're fast connectors. We don't mind talking to people and we're not shy. Tell tell me what you think, some of my people in the in the audience. What I think that it means what it means when you hear this when you're young is that you have a magnetism to you. There's an energy that others are attracted to. And when you think about what it is to be a salesperson, it's literally speak to strangers. And when you have that level of energy that's attracting others, it's easier to talk to strangers. It's easier to meet them in the first place. They want to talk to you, and that is the first chasm that must be crossed if you are to become a great salesperson. How do I get people to want to talk to me? So I think that's what's meant. I I think you're right on. Right? So you're quick to connect to people. You have an attraction characteristic. You're and and what I think you're also talking about borders on confidence. You you don't just the level of confidence, but I also believe that confidence comes from competence. So there's this marriage that happens in our careers, probably really early on in our careers, and we we're probably gonna get here eventually, naturally, I would think. But as a cold caller, let's say it's your first SDR job, for example, you probably have about thirty days on the phones on your own before you realize, I absolutely hate this. Or, oh my gosh, I've scheduled six meetings this week. I'm never going to leave sales. Mhmm. This is my life moving forward. And that is basically the user. Comes on Thursday. Alright. Alright. So let's ask everybody also in the chat. Like, give me a number in how many days it took for you to either get hooked or think this is not for me. I because I was like I put my number. Four weeks. Yeah. Yeah. One day. You day one? Is that you're a monster. How did you know day one? I love that. Yeah. And if you made it fun, I think that and Shauna's of the month, same with you, JV. Yeah. That's a number. I about a month. I think that's fair. Okay. So I wanna talk about different superpowers for a second. Most people who get told they should consider sales are the things we've talked about. Right? I'm confident. I'm magnetic. Right? I talk a lot, etcetera. And then where are we laughing? I gotta see if nothing's cracking up. I don't know. Seven years? After seven years? It's good. It's good. I that that's because it's good days and bad days. Right? Like, it is never the same day twice. But I think there's this other superpower to people who are great in sales, and those are the listeners. K? The listening is the superpower. The reps who are all talk and all confidence and all bravado, that gets them dialing the phone, but it doesn't get them connecting to customers. So I think the people who are curious and want to learn and love building relationships is this whole other source of strength and greatness in sales. And if I can be so bold, there in lies some of the difference between men and women. What do you mean by that? I don't think that's too bold. I think that's spot on. I will say that I find that the women I have brought onto my teams and brought up into sales from another industry, they catch on real fast. Whereas some of the younger gentlemen that I've brought onto my team, it took their their ramp was quite a bit longer before I could, like, let them go. Right? So I think there's a level of learning there, and maybe that's not man, woman specific. That might be individual. Right? And that's fine if that's your take on it. After fifteen years of working with salespeople, you pick up on these kinds of patterns. Right? But there's another thing that I think women do that help them to move along faster in the let's get going sales space. Right? That this is my first foray. I was a bartender yesterday and I'm a salesperson today. Right? It's the example I always use. But I think women are great multitaskers. They they can learn something new, execute on that new thing, and still do the thing they've been doing when they get like, day one, when they get there. Right? Like, that that's just it's baked into them. I find most young men are even, like, middle aged men. Like, we are very, like, I need complete silence while I focus on this one thing, and only about 20% of it will be retained. Oh my god. That is exactly the YouTube video I just sent you. Hilariously, it was making fun of husbands who think their wives are missing, and the and then it cuts to the wife. She was like, I was visiting my sister. I told them 800 times. Yeah. That cracks me up. Alright. So I think that we're I think that if we're gonna talk about gender in sales, right, there aren't enough women who take the risk to get into sales because it feels a little risky. And and I think that after years and years of being in GirlsClub, we've learned that there are job description things that attract some women to sales or repel some women from sales. What's your take on that? The risk and the right? My initial thoughts on this are that I agree, one, that sales has been too bro y, the very bro culture for far too long. Two, I find that most of the time, when you think about personality traits, you have to think from both sides of the fence and we don't. When you think about salespeople, we think about extroverted people. We think about big personalities. Like, I was talking earlier about the magnet. Right? A lot of people said, yeah. Sure. Lots of people said I would be great at sales. Right? When you bring both men and women into the scene, you also have to look at personality types. I think all the time, buyers like a certain personality that sells to them just like sellers sell to a very specific personality. It's why we need to This is not man woman. This is diversifying your Salesforce to be able to attract and sell to the most large percentage the largest percentage of your TAM, your total addressable market, as possible. That takes a lot of different personality types. Hire introverts to sell to introverted buyers. Hire ambiverts that can switch it on and off at will whenever they need to. And hire extroverts that attract heard that term. I love What ambivert? I'm amazed that how many people have ever I've never heard any. That's so good. Are you an ambivert? No. I am a true extrovert. I have to speak to form thought. Yeah. I it it's tough. Yeah. I would like to see a better curated test to see where I fall on that spectrum because, you know, people are getting that you can be an extroverted introvert or an introverted extrovert. Yeah. And now you'll yourself an introvert. Alright. If you are new and you haven't been here before, what I'm sharing with you is, this movement that I have been a cheerleader for for seven years. It's called GirlsClub. It's kind of the take on, you know, the good old boys club. Well, we've created one of our own as well. And by the way, tons of men in this movement, so we're never gonna exclude you. But I think allies. Everybody in this room that is of the male gender can be an ally for this movement. You can also be an advocate and a mentor and a sponsor and all those kinds of things. But what we've learned, like, the thing I've been going after is so many incredible women at the top of sales who aren't raising their hand to get into management. So this came about because as I play in my executive circles, if you will, or talking on stages and I always get this answer. How come there aren't more women at the top? And, folks, it is it is bad. It's about, like, less than a third, right, that get to the top in these organizations. And I wanna see more of us going for that. And so what we try to do is help meet reps where they are today, reps who have a little bit of a dream. Right? Like, hey. Maybe someday for management, and then we help get them rapidly promoted into those roles. That's what the GirlsClub movement is about. Now you know me from James Buckley's show at Factor eight. I do sales training. I do management training. Right? I have communities of people, but this is all about my passion project. So what we're gonna talk about for the rest of today is the different roles in sales, how to get promoted, and what people are looking for in those roles. And, of course, I want you all to think about this GirlsClub movement and how maybe you can encourage somebody. And so let's take just a second and talk about that. And by the way, if you scan this QR code, you can come and learn more about it. What I want everybody in the room to do is think of one person who is a woman in revenue. It could be on the customer success team, Could be on the inbound service team. Could be a BDR sitting next to you. Probably is you. Somebody you think is a leader, who could and should think about getting in the leadership someday and go and encourage her to learn about what we're doing. That is how most of the people get into our program because look at this, 0% felt ready when they joined us, and yet 70% got promoted within that first year. So it it really is magic in a bottle, and we're doing a great thing in the world, and I'd love your help. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that. Alright. Let's dig into talking about the different roles. Right? So give me a one if you are currently a BDR, SDR, right, or thinking about that job in the chat. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We are. Every person in this room should put a one in there. I think even CEOs are BDRs and SDRs. We have to all realize that that is the forever job when you sign up for a sales career. Let's get started with that. I have been doing that all week long, a 100%. Doing the outreach. Some of it's cold, some of it's warm. Right? Every company does this a little differently, and people like, let me ask you, James Buckley. Is there a set always true difference between BDR and SDR or is it company choice? Because I've heard all the I don't I don't think BDR, SDR is is are any different. I think what's happening is that one role is splitting into two factions, and it's been this way for a couple of years now. I think one side of the fence is SDRs that sit at the end of a marketing cycle. They get a lot of scored leads. They get a lot of warm connections. They get a lot of people that have some kind of beacon context for you to be reaching out to them. There's another kind of SDR. These are the ones that people say are dying away. They're not dying away. They're just really hard to find. Those are the SDRs that are like me. I talk to strangers that aren't expecting to hear from me today. And you see how those two types of prospecting are wildly different. And those are the two SDRs that matter most right now. You know what? I couldn't agree more. Why tell us why you say that. Well, I think that it's important to have a team of people that are reaching out contextually with leads that have done something, taken an action, downloaded a form, filled out some form that puts them in front of that human. You know, some people will say, well, you can AI the crap out of that. Well, that's true. You can. And if that's your move, then go for it. I would advise you to know your buyer and ask yourself whether they would appreciate that sort of approach before you just do it, but that's me. The other piece of the puzzle there is that reaching out cold has become more difficult than ever before. Buyers are so guarded with what they give their time to, who deserves to be on my calendar. There are entire careers built on guarding our decision makers' calendars. What does this mean? This means that your ability as a seller has to be top notch if you're going to continue to be a salesperson. If you are looking at sales as a potential career and saying to yourself, well, that's just my first stop, the sales world. I'm sorry, but it will be your first stop and likely your last. So I feel like there is a disconnect between what reality is when you start a sales role and what that role really means. If you had told me in 2015 that my BDR, my inside sales BDR role would lead me to host the longest running daily sales show in the world and work with some of the top sales training organizations on the planet, I would have said you were absolutely full of shit and that will never happen. Alright. So I've got some perspective on this because I do agree with you that everybody is a BDR. I do agree with you that outreach from a human makes a massive difference. I disagree that it's harder than ever to get a hold of people. And you know why? Most people aren't doing it. I used to get a couple sales calls a week. Now I get a couple of quarter. People are not calling as often as they used to, and we are hiding behind our AI generated email campaigns and LinkedIn campaigns, etcetera. And I think that that human touch makes a huge difference. So So marketing and AI gets you so far, but when people are ready to actually like, they need help, that's where the human connection comes in. So I first of all, I wanna support what you're saying a 100%, but I wanna talk about why it matters. I agree that the human touch is definitely the thing that sets us aside in the modern age. But when you think about the perception of what a sales career looks like in the eyes of a new seller, there are a lot of disconnects. I'm a big fan of my good friend John Barrows. A lot of folks in the room have probably heard that name. We've been friends for many years. And he talks about the movies that we grow up watching and thinking about sales in that way. So I'll give you the couple you know what? Let's just play with the with the audience here. What is your favorite sales movie? Drop it in the chat, and we'll just play with a couple of good options here that as they come in. Now the two that I think come to mind the most yes. Thank you, Ken. Favorite sales movie, that's what we wanna see in the chat. Some Wolf of Wall Street. I knew you would be it was gonna be you or it was gonna be Boiler Room. Those were there it is. Boiler Room. Candice and Angie. I knew it. Here's the problem. Old enough to go to go Glengarry Glen Ross Glen Ross. That was the old number. Put it in. Yeah. There it is. Thanks, Ivan. Internet hotpot. Hon, moneyball is a good one. Okay. Let's talk about the options that we have in the chat already. I see the conversation line. First of all, boiler room and Wolf of Wall Street are extremely unrealistic perspectives of what it is to be in sales today. They are reflections of a past sales environment that no longer exists. And if it does, it is deemed toxic. Guaranteed. So right out of the gate, Boiler Room and Wolf of Wall Street, not good models. Though they may be your favorite sales movies, they are not good models for what a realistic sales life looks like. Now Glengarry Glen Ross he may be your personal role model. Yes. He may be your personal role model. He might be a model. I think you That's not what sales is doing. Yeah. Whatever. That's my point of view. I I will say Glengarry Glen Ross. Fantastic eight minute scene from Alec Baldwin. The rest of the movie is absolutely soul crushing, and no one should watch it because that's, like, the terrible right? Yeah. Right? Okay. Now, Maurizio, my guy Maurizio, has one of my favorites in there, and it's pursuit of happiness. And I think the pursuit of happiness is far more realistic. That was so much more rejection than it was acceptance, and that is far more realistic. Wall Street, I think, is a stock movie, Candace, not necessarily a sales movie, but I can understand why you would feel that. I wanna point at one that me and John agree is the best sales movie of all time, and it's Tommy Boy with Chris Farley. There you go. Right? It is there it is again. But what's fun about this is is that you're you're showing that it's persistence. I love that about pursuit of happiness. Right? And you felt his soul and his want and his why, and that was so important. But nobody talks about the fact that, let's be honest, sales really is 90% rejection. And so we have to be and I don't wanna say tough. I don't wanna say thick skinned. I wanna say resilient. I wanna say focused. I wanna say, right, determined and know that we're doing this for the good of the customer. And and there's more rejection in your BDR, SDR role, especially our outbounders like you, James, than there are in what's often considered the promotion, the next level up. Now I wanna give a nod to the fact that this BDR split to AE, split to customer success person, this is because of SaaS. This is because of that world. K? They created this five, six years ago. It used to be when you started in sales, you were full cycle, and you owned full cycle until you got too full and then they brought in somebody else. And I still have clients that do it that way who aren't in the SaaS world. So the if you don't see yourself on these screens, it's okay. Know that you're gonna hear different words out there. Right? So AE is account executive, and they often get appointments made for them by the BDR, SDR. Now I will pause I will pause you right there, Lauren, because I know you weren't. In the SaaS world, in the tech and b two b SaaS and tech space, most account executives will agree they are being asked to cold call, cold prospect more than ever before right now. Some of them are even being charged with sourcing up to 33% of their own pipeline, as well as managing the existing pipeline that they're currently working. That is a good realistic perspective. And the reason I said at the beginning of this, never think that you take your SDR, BDR hat off when you're starting a sales career. It always stays there. Exactly. So the in in many ways, this ISR or sales rep or full cycle or account professional, everybody's got a different title, folks. Right? And it all means sales. This ISR is full cycle. I've gotta hunt it. Right? I've gotta close it. I've got to often farm it too. So the a is taking it from often from the beginning, but in theory, you're handing me something that's a qualified lead. My job is to start at this discovery process, do the demo, close the sale, then I'm gonna pass it off to customer success who's gonna manage and farm and care. The ISR is soup to nuts. Right? I do all of it. And there are pros and cons that the toughest one being, I think, time management. I mean, have you ever had a role like this? Okay. So I wanna talk about time management for just a moment. I'm so glad you brought that up. Thank you. Time management and task management aren't the same thing, but we confuse them frequently when we start in sales. Took me a little while to grab on to this. Right? I, anybody using a task management software of any kind? Kind, drop it in the chat. I use a product called Asana. Asana is a SaaS solution that my there you go. Notion, Jira. Oh, Jira, you're in the trouble ticket world, Madison. Alright. So in my yes. It sucks. Thank you. I'm I'm glad that we agreed. Jira, I'll be reaching out for sponsorship tomorrow. So, I will tell you that in in my in my experience here with task and time management, time blocking is the bridge. And people don't bucket these things together. We see our task load. And let's be you know, yes or no in the chat. Do you get handed projects and tasks that are not sales related even though you're a salesperson? Right? Yes. Everybody in this room would be yes in the chat because we all get handed those things, and we're like, this is not what you pay me for. Right? But we have no choice but to do them because they are our tasks. So when you see that task load coming your way, in Asana for me, that's where it lives. So I look ahead every Monday morning, and I see my tasks for the week. And then I look at my calendar, and I have some white space there. So I block off the time for those tasks each day that those tasks are due through the week. Now my time management is bridged by time blocking to my task management. This makes it so that all my sales stuff can get done. It's already got time on my calendar. It's there. It's ready. It's good to go. But then my task time is also there. And if you're smart, you'll take the rest of what's left of that white space, and you'll label it prospect. But we can't forget to block time for those parts of the sales job either. Right? And so if has to already be set in stone for you to build around it. Right? This is the time management, task management marriage. Yep. 100%. 100%. I love it. Alright. We're gonna talk next about what is the last role I've got on here, this this account manager, and then we're gonna talk about moving between those. So, Candace, this is gonna help you, and then we're gonna really talk about management and dig into that. Is it right for me? What do I like? What don't I like? Etcetera etcetera. So this account manager is often also can be seen as this customer success manager. So, right, they maintain the long term relationships, and your goals look like I need to keep everybody happy. You're gonna be getting inbound orders. You're gonna be getting stuff that is not for you, success, like service requests. But your job, the way you make money, is cross selling, upselling, penetration. Right? Getting renewals if you're in soft but for right? But for more money. Right? I'm not just gonna renew them every year. I'm gonna add more licenses, or I'm gonna add more services, or I'm gonna find new buyers. I'm gonna find different things. So that penetration is the difficult part. This looks the most like your field reps that are out in the world managing existing bases of customers if you were to go between the inside and the outside. So do I have any account managers? Yeah. Land and expand. Exactly. Do I have an account managers in the audience? And whether he's doing that or looking to get into it. I think AMs are probably closest to to revenue at companies. CS sits closest to revenue. I learned this firsthand. It turns out when you hire somebody that's great at customer success, they really know who you sell well to and who keeps your product for long term, who keeps your service for long term. So I feel like I feel like we are smart and we're new to sales, Our best resource for who's gonna be the people I wanna talk to the most is your existing customer success or account management team. They're gonna say, oh, let me tell you about our top five clients and why they love us. It's probably your best chance to build relationships and keep those relationships. Right? If that is what's appealing to you in sales. We had somebody early saying I'm trying to get out of success and more into sales. First and foremost, success is a great opportunity for sales, and you can differentiate yourself there by learning those sales skills and applying them. Right? Whereas most people are just kind of managing and holding what's there, you're climbing and gaining more. To move from success into an AE role, Right? We wanna talk a little bit about the pace of those things. But can we talk about why the, the difference in The difference in in those I I feel like we think differently about where those steps are on the totem pole. Yeah. Right? Some some people believe that the proper the traditional path is BDR, SDR, account executive, and then CS. Some people believe that it's best to start in CS and then work your way into sales. Some people believe you should go from a BDR to CS and then to AE because that's the money position. It can move around. It's a jungle gym, and I think it's finding what you like to do. And it depends on where your company is also focused on their efforts. And some people inbounds the mecca and you make the most money, and other people, that's the starting grounds. So you gotta look at the comp plan and you gotta look at what are the opportunities there as well. So for our friend, Candace, what are the other big differences you see? If I'm going from customer success, if I wanna get into an AE role, what do we need to look at there? Yeah. So I think a lot of skills come baked in. There's a couple that stand out that might be lacking or missing. First of all, customer success people often don't prospect. Account executives are being asked to prospect quite a bit in the SaaS and b two b space right now, but CS rarely gets asked to, quote, find a new lead. Right? Talk to a stranger. That's Yep. Not something they're commonly asked to do unless they're being brought into the conversation from an actual salesperson that's looking to close a deal and team sell, if you will. Right? That's a little bit different experience altogether, and I suppose if you want, we could talk about that. But, realistically, I think when you think about customer success and account executive and how they they move back and forth between where you wanna be, I think you have to look at what makes you the most happy. Right? If you get a lot of satisfaction out of onboarding a new client, having them adopt your process or product in a very efficient and effective way, and then expanding into that account and selling more deals to the same company all over the world because it's huge. Dude, go for that. That's happiness at its best. Right? Like, it's gonna make you personally and professionally satisfied to do that job. On the other side of that spectrum yeah. However, it might also make your blood tingle to demo your product to 17 different stakeholders at a multi billion dollar organization and get signatures that are million dollar signatures, half a million dollar signatures. If that is what excites you and you wanna close those deals, get paid, and then move on to the next one, you're a perfect account manager or an account executive. Right? You're a more I wanna give you more That is the closer. And I wanna like, what Candace is saying is, Yeah. Exactly. And that's where the money is in her org. Sorry to interrupt you. We had a little glitch. So, here's what I think is gonna make you great at it. K? When you are in customer success, you know customers, you know use cases, you know industries, you know how your product is being used better than anybody else in the company like James just said. Right? Now you get to talk to brand new customers. If I were the sales manager, I would jump all over that. You're instantly understanding how different people are actually using the product day to day, which makes you so much better at connecting your solution to their current challenges. Yep. You're gonna be a better storyteller. Oh, that reminds me of so and so who's using my product this way and that way. You're gonna know what questions to ask to uncover those challenges that you've been helping people solve for years. K? So that industry knowledge, the customer knowledge, the product knowledge, all of those, I think, are huge boons for you. Not to mention, I can show it to you. Right? Like, I I can demonstrate what we're doing and how it works better than anybody else in the company could. So I think that those are the things that are there for you. What what's different, like James Buckley said, is, oh, gosh. I've got a prospect. I've got to go out and make calls to people and get them interested. And those are just a few things that you're working on in your skill development. I think you're good to go otherwise. A full cycle sales rep is usually the most professionally satisfied sales rep. Right? They are self content. Whether or not at meetings scheduled from marketing or SDR teams is completely irrelevant to them. If they do, it's just an added bonus to helping them get to their goal, but they're not relying on that seller. So let you know, we're talking about whether or not sales is right for you or how to get move up in the sales world here, and I think it's important to talk about this. Right? This is this is the best slide, I think, because we're talking about all these different roles and how they play into our growth and development. And I'll we can start this conversation with this particular slide, Lauren Bailey, with this comment that I've been saying for years. I don't think we can grow professionally until we're willing to grow personally. Isn't that the truth? Right? It is. It it sales is personal. Business is personal. Life is personal. I like that. And if you don't have that mindset and you're not looking to always sharpen the saw and grant grab new skills and try new things, I I think you're gonna fail out of sales. I I I think that's an honest statement. What do you think? I think so too. Mauricio Yes sensei with the karate kid GIF in there, I think that's so far. Yeah. Don't skewer me if you say GIF. I say GIF. Whatever. I I I still love you. I wanna I wanna add to this by saying that, like, what you're really after when you get the job is money. But after a certain point, it becomes about lifestyle and satisfaction in doing what you're doing. BDR is typically the job we get at a sales role because we need money. And BDR, I'm gonna be honest, it's a path to more money than you you've probably ever made if this is your first sales role. If you're not in sales, you're a fresh bachelor's degree, a fresh associate's degree maybe, you're probably topping out at 50 k a year if you're lucky. Oh, okay. Bachelor's degree and you start as an SDR and there's a $50,000 salary and 30 or $40,000 worth of on target money coming your way if you hit the goal, the motivation factor for you suddenly hits 11. Mhmm. That I remember I I used to say to people all the time when I got my sales job, I got it and my goal was to make enough money so that I could take my family out to dinner without having to check my bank account first to make sure that I could. That feels good. And that felt so good to hit that. But then something happened. It became about lifestyle for me. Mhmm. And I asked myself, is the current role I'm in allowing me, enabling me to live the lifestyle that I want? And the answer was, yeah. It is. I did not know that I would end end up moving and being promoted and changing roles anyway. But in the end, I remain a BDR and SDR. I will always wear that hat before I wear any other hat. Yeah. And and you love it. And you don't want and it yeah. It speaks to you and it it checks the boxes and you do it so well. And I love that now you spend your time teaching others. I mean, that's super cool. It's open to the door it's open to the door for the growth I've experienced. And because of that, I'm extremely loyal to it. Yeah. It's fair. It's fair. Now it ain't for everybody. We gotta be honest. Like, the fact that we start most reps in the hardest, I'm gonna go ahead and say it, job position out there. Right? If you are do using this as a stepping stone, here's what your leaders are looking for. Alright? Top activity is true. K? You cannot show up most days for a couple months and think you're gonna get promoted. You have to be the person who is consistent, and you have to be the person who is willing to put in the activities, and that includes the dials, not just the emails. K? You will not move up. Even if you're great and it takes you less dials, there's this, do they want it do they have work ethic tied to looking at your activity? Always, every leader I've ever known, I'm wearing the tens of thousands. So I have to I I love what you're saying here, and I note this in a simple way. I say that nobody cares if you made 200 dials if you didn't schedule any meetings. I know that's not too large. It's really real. But but but here's the flip side of that. We're saying that that we would agree with each other. Right? So let's say you scheduled two meetings, but every day you're only making 30 dials. Right? I don't listen. You're good, and I'm gonna leave you there, and you're gonna make good money. But I don't want you in charge of other people, and I don't wanna promote that. Because I don't want you as doesn't wanna I'll see that people people really do get the fear in them about activity because they are supposed to do this or they're supposed to do that. Again, James Buckley's yelling in my brain, like, stop doing what you're supposed to do. Right? Because if you let's say you're supposed to make a 100 dials, but you only make 25 and you schedule more meetings than any other rep. No manager in their right mind is gonna come to you and be like, hey. I'm gonna need you to hit those numbers regardless. That's a good way to piss that seller off and be like, yeah. I'm the top performer. Maybe I'll just go do this for another company. We live in that world, y'all. Make no mistake. But the same can be said on the other end. That manager could easily say, I really love that he's our top performer, but, man, I just can't get him to listen to me, so he's gotta go. I'm not saying you're gonna lose your job. I'm saying you're not gonna move up. You're not gonna get promoted if you're the guy who's not putting the numbers and showing the work ethic every single day even if you're getting lots of points. I wanna say that more factors into being promoted than just activity. Maybe that's the better way to say it. Oh, a 100%. It's top of my list here. Right? We're also gonna look at percentages. We're gonna look at results. Your close percentage, your show percentage, booking shitty meetings that nobody shows up to isn't helpful. People are looking for the drive. Right? That's what I'm saying there on the competitive. But look at these like, the last one is what James was just talking about. This is the growth mindset. This is I care about learning. This is I wanna improve. And the structure is like we talked about with time blocking and past flapping or how you're gonna go about your day and when do you call what leads. And instead of I'm just throwing as much crap at the wall to see what sticks, I've created myself. I feel like the CEO of my own business, and I've created myself some structure and some process and some consistency over and over again. These are some of the tangibles and non tangibles that folks are looking for, the BDRs that get moved up to AE. Right? And and some of that isn't, like we said, in training yourself on the new skills. That's fair. Uh-huh. And so when you when you talk about the account executives, it's a great thing to talk about their close rates being the number one metric that they're often measured by. And yet, I think what's the number now? Like, seventy percent of sellers across industries miss quota every year? It's like seventy percent. That's not peanuts. Yeah. It's 50 to 70%. Absolutely. And that's and that's why it's always this competition. Right? It's why sales is a confidence sport. So if you're somebody who can consistently be hitting quota at those high close percentages, you're already on the list. You may be great at developing people. Right? You may be great at building relationships, but if you cannot connect with customers in discovery, if you cannot close deals, you're likely not gonna be promoted up and out of the account executive role. Right? Yeah. Look at that middle bullet point, owning your own lead gen. Willing to dial the phone and create your own pipeline to hit the numbers is critical there. Well, I don't some some account executives, and I think we're gonna talk about management here in just a minute. But some of the account executives are lied to in their role. Right? They get told that prospecting is less important or, you know, when they're hired as a BDR, they say things like, you know, don't worry. This is just a stepping stone or this is just starting point or this is just a put in the door. One day you'll be an account executive and you won't have to do this anymore. None of those things are true. We always have to be prospecting. We always have to be meeting strangers, talking to new people, you know, writing cold emails, doing cold calling. Right? Like, this has to happen if we're gonna be successful, especially if we're gonna be full cycle. Yvette has a good question in the comments here in the chat. Yeah. Totally relevant to our next group. Exact thank you. Oh, you're way way ahead of them. But but, you know, I do talk about the, the forecasting part if you if you if we could hover on that for just a minute on the account executive side. I think that we if I've got you on the full cycle question. I totally have that. Yeah. We're we're getting that up. We got you. You're living life a couple of minutes ahead of us, so slow down and let us catch up. Forecasting is something that I think we can all improve on regardless of our sales role. And what I mean by forecasting is and let me know in the chat, yes or no, do you change close dates on your deals? Do you move close dates on your deals? And, I mean, if you're if you're a closer of any kind, I better see some apps yeah. Mauricio look at Mauricio with the me? No way. Absolutely. Every one of us is guilty of moving a goal post, moving the close date because things happen in our deals. What matters is that you update the records. You cannot get caught in a one on one as an account executive with one of your bosses. And they're like, what's the story here? And you're like, oh, in a panic mode, going back into the CRM and updating that record in the moment. No. No. Know your pipeline front to back. And that'll be part of the difference of somebody who's out just doing it but not aware at right? It's it's I can analyze my own business, and I can do it objectively is the key. Right? Because we all get excited. Every single great rep out there wants to tell the story of this great call they had, and then they forecast that deal. And it drives managers crazy. Okay? They are they are listening to you to be nice. They are not excited about hearing all of the stories. It's so harsh but true. Work with thousands of frontline managers every year. Right? And so you've got to know the accuracy of it. And that means updating the record, the probability, the move date, the close date, all that. Yeah. That James says he puts February Are you ready? James puts February 29 in for every deal so that it's accurate every four years. That's good. We're really not gonna get you promoted, my friend, but hilarious. I like that. Alright. I'm ready to talk about full cycle. The full cycle. Isn't it that? I don't think it is. What do you think? I don't think it's a dinosaur. I think that it is a rare find. And I think that to your to your point, old school reps is language that I hear often. And what I think you're pointing to there, Lauren, is the generational gap that exists in our sales world today. There are currently five generations at work in the modern workspace. If you think about the difference in execution, expectation, tech knowledge. Right? So many variables are different in those generational gaps. So the reason why I think, quote, old school reps hate hunting is because, man, they're burnt. They've been doing this for years. They've been responsible for sourcing their pipeline for a long time. The difference, I think, is that full cycle reps understand the difference between something that's in their pipeline and something that's on their forecast. Those two things aren't the same, and full cycle reps or ISRs, they understand the difference between those two things. They also understand the difference between hunting and farming. Mhmm. And BDRs are hunters. They throw spears. Account executives are hunters. They throw spears. Full cycle reps throw nets and spears. Account managers throw nets only, and they're big nets. Right? So we have to know the difference between these roles and get to use them throughout our sales career. I would argue in these four boxes that you see on this screen from factory eight and GirlsClub, it would take somebody at least five to ten years if they're lucky to move through this cycle. And I think five years is being very generous. You'd have to be a really fast learner to get here in five years. And you don't necessarily want to. Right? Like, every company has different roles and different positions, and you gotta pick what's right for you. So when I look at ISR and I think, gee, does this speak to me? I like the opportunities to do all levels and have great long term relationships. That speaks to me. It is an old enough model that I'm gonna check out the company's tech stack, and I'm gonna check out the culture, and I'm gonna check out the comp plan first because it is a bit of a yellow flag that says you might be surrounded with a bunch of really old white men and, they're carrying bags. And now but there you go. Hey. I really wanna talk about management for our last section. Is that cool? Yeah. Let's do it. Is that okay? This is just a little inspiration for my ladies out there. We don't have enough of us in sales, and yet when we are in sales, oh, do we perform well? Look at this. Right? You said about 70% making quota. This is the most recent stat. The women are higher. Women are closing deals 11%. More than also great in senior leadership. Right? It's just study after study says that women are great at this, and yet we kinda hold ourselves back sometimes from going for these sales roles and especially for promotions, and that's what I really wanna focus on here. Before we talk about how to earn the manager, I'm gonna stop sharing this, I wanna talk about what gets you interested in management and who should be thinking about that. Right? Alright. James Buckley, talk to me about that. So first of all, let's get something really clear out of the way. Top performers do not always, in fact, most of the time, don't make great managers. They would remain top performers in most cases. If anything, they make great support systems for your lesser performers, the people that need a role model and something to look up to and say, how do they do this? How can I learn? Right? That's that's a better position than leader in most instances. Yes. We will also you're gonna make some more money. Right? Yeah. It's we every single listen. I've stood on the stage before in front of about 600 sales leaders and said raise your hand if you've made the mistake of promoting your top rep. There was not one hand that was down. K? And by the way, the same in a room of salespeople. Have you made the mistake of going for this job because you thought it was sexy and what you were supposed to do or what you were right? And yet you hated it. So here's what I've seen about people who love management. K? One, you're in this role, and your favorite thing is when the new people come in and you get to kinda help them out. You get to be the den mother. You get to be the coach and the mentor. That's a really great sign that you should think about getting into management. Hide bin with me, JV. What's another great sign that management's right for you? So so I just typed in educator in the, in the chat there. I think I think great managers are great teachers. They have this ability to simplify complex problems or make something very clear for you or even adjust the way they're teaching you to your learning style. Right? If that's you and you're able to do that with people, you probably would make a good manager. There's a second one that's probably twice as important, though. I think that I get more personal satisfaction out of helping other people win than I do making sales. And there it is. When you watch that person succeed, when that does it for you and lights you up, that's your sign for sure. When somebody reaches out to me and says things like, that thing you told me changed my life, or the way that you put that really changed my perspective on something I've thought about for a long time, or I've never thought of it that way or seen it through that lens, That is worth more to me than any paycheck I've ever been cut. And if that's you, congratulations. You're probably a born leader. If it's not you and you're more excited by that check you get cut, just stay a sales performer. You'll be happier. Yes, sir. It's it's sad when I talk to people and they say, well, I'm going up into management because I'm, you know, I'm chasing the dollars. And, and you make less per hour. The stress is high. Now, eventually, it's the road because you will make more when you get to your sales director and your sales leader. These are great high earning positions. But if people asking you questions drives you crazy, if you are in it just for the paycheck, you're gonna hate it, and you're gonna fail out. Right? Here's another one that I've heard from people over and over again that I think is a great step in the right direction, and that is I wanna do it better. Right? Maybe I've had some crap managers. Right? Maybe I can just see myself in the role. I can I can picture myself doing it, and I wanna do it better than what I've seen or experienced in the past, and that is another great reason for it? Most of us just have this calling for leadership, and what holds us back from it is what I wanna address and where we really focus in GirlsClub, and that is you don't have to be all the way ready for it before you apply for it. Think about that. If everybody waited until they knew how to do the job well until they got into the job, we nobody would ever ever ever get promoted. Right? Yeah. Oh, look at this. This is lighting it up. People are saying, yeah. I do wanna do it better. I've had horrible micromanagers. I want to experience that, and that's perfect. I love that. I will talk about No. Go ahead. When it comes to the management part of it, there is a difficulty that you should be aware of, especially if you're thinking, well, I think I'd make a good manager based on this conversation. I will tell you something. The people hacking part of management is the hardest part of management. We have two sides to us as leaders. If you split your brain down the center, think about how you're gonna manage a one on one meeting. That's probably the best setting setting for an example. One side of your brain has to be able to hold these folks accountable for the numbers, the metrics, the KPIs, the things, the performance metrics that you measure for their success and yours. You're held accountable. Your toes are held over the fire for those results. But there's another side of management that has to exist. It's no longer a negotiable. How am I coaching this human to be a better human? Exactly. These people, they are people that have to buy into you as their leader if you are going to be successful. Period. The end, there's no way around that. If they don't support you in their leadership role, you will not be in that leadership role for long. It's it's it I love it. One of the best things I've heard is, if you're not sure if management is right for you, then volunteer to be a peer mentor or a new hire buddy, right, or the team lead in a temporary time frame. And if those interactions with the people are what you're looking forward to most in your days, there's your sign. K? If it is getting in the way of you hitting your number, at which it will, right, and if that's driving you crazy and you just wanna focus on the number, now you know. So, Yvette was asking, can I go from BDR to BDR manager? Absolutely. You don't have to go through. Right? I'm gonna be an AE. I'm gonna be account manager. I'm gonna be an ISR. Absolutely. And every year, we help so many women do it. And I'm gonna tell you a little bit about that secret sauce. But here's what you wanna get. Here's your side of the street you gotta clean up first. Alright? You're not gonna get promoted if you're not hitting quota. K? You don't wanna be the person who's consistently outperforming quota. I always tell leaders to look for that solid b rep. They are showing up. They're getting it done consistently. And that doesn't mean a few months. It means a good year, maybe two years in that seat. K? Doesn't mean you can't pro start preparing for it early. That's the key. You don't ray wait to raise your hand until you feel a 100% ready. You come in on day one and say, this is great, and I wanna learn about the career paths and how can I continue to develop myself and give me feedback along the way? Yeah. Anything else to do that, James Buckley? So I agree with that. I think that the key that stands out to me that you just said was how do I develop myself? Managers are leaders that take steps to improve themselves so that they can take steps to improve their team's performance. If you're unwilling to change yourself, how will you ever change others? Behavior change isn't something that comes natural to adults. With children, it's a little easier. They're very influential. But with adults, they have baked in habits. They have a set a hard set, hardwired mind frame coming into a job. In order to change that adult's behavior, you have to be a very special kind of manager, one that can actually get through to them. And how are you planning on doing that? There's no there's not a lot of management training out there. It doesn't come with mystical handbook when you get the promotion that's like, here's the best way to build a billion dollar organization and manage a team effectively. Such a thing doesn't exist. Look at that. Banner. She puts up the banner right then. She's like, you want that you want the mystical handbook? That's what we built. I love that. Love it. What if We all make it up as we go. Just like parenting. There's no handbook for parenting. There's no handbook for management. Your give a shit factor has to be high enough so that these people are invested in you as a leader, both above you and beneath you. Yeah. It's so true. It's so true. If it so let me tell you a little bit about how we do this in GirlsClub. And it might you may look at this and say, is this right for me? Is this not right for me? Maybe you can use it on your own. And by the way, I'm just gonna tell you that for the first time ever next year, we are also doing a coed cohort. So we get asked every single year, where's the GirlsClub, and how do I do this, and how do I get there, and it's coming to you next year. So the key is to start the development early. I'm in the sales role. I'm thinking about leadership. If you think this is somewhere in your future in the next two or three years, now is the right time for this cohort. The next thing that is really, really important is you start studying for the job you wanna take. So, Jaden, you know this. Every year in this cohort, we're giving tactical, here's how to do the sales manager's job skills. The same one that factor a trainings, right, to big companies around the world. But I think the bigger part is the mindset shift. Like you said, it's about connecting with people. It's about learning to be a great leader, and that takes personal development It's true. To raise our game higher. Right? We talk about building confidence. We talk about beating imposter syndrome. We talk about EQ versus IQ. We talk about taking the risk and asking for the stretch assignment, for the, right, for the promotion, for the opportunity, for the put me in coach. Let me practice these skills kind of things. Mhmm. And then the last part that I love about this community and this program that we've built is the community that goes with it. Everybody gets a mentor. Somebody who is in management now, man or woman, doesn't matter. You get surrounded by other super ambitious, incredible reps who are eager about the future, and it becomes the support group that changes lives. Nobody said they felt ready when they joined, and look how many people left already promoted or feeling ready for that next step. So I know I'm a little pitchy. I want you to hit the QR code. I want you to think about it for yourself, Yvette, Candice. I want you to go encourage somebody else to take a look at this program because it is the fastest, most effective way I've ever seen to rapidly get somebody set up for success. JB, do you know the stat about what percentage of new managers fail? Oh, it's a huge percentage. I don't know what it is now, but last time I checked, I was told it was, like, sixty plus percent. Yeah. Yeah. It's between fifty and sixty five percent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's I mean, I was there. Right? When I was a new manager back when, I didn't get the playbook. I didn't get the training. I've been a rep five minutes ago. I just felt so lost and Yeah. So overwhelmed. I'd what I was just taking a record of I don't think that they fail. I think people quit them. I don't think it's the manager failing. I think they are not ready for the step and they don't know how to be the leader. So the people they're supposed to be leading abandon them. And it's through a home of their own. As we've said, there's no handbook here. Like, nobody is handing you an actual, like, step by step way to be a great leader. And if you're not immediately in tune with how to lead somebody down a path to success, you're probably going to struggle to have them trust you. Again, I don't think that managers, especially new managers, I don't think they fail. I think they lose sight of what the goal of a manager is. Because up here, they're being told the goal is to get results. But down here, they're saying the goal is to help me win. And I can't so I can't imagine what that go between must feel like for middle management. It's gotta be the most frustrating thing in the world. Do you know what? Here's a little secret that nobody knows. That is exactly why I named my company Factory. Because every time I was working with these new leaders, we were drawing circles on the whiteboard. We were like, listen. Up here, they're gonna be talking about numbers and strategy and the and down here, you gotta be talking about life and motivation and you gotta translate it. You can't be the block. You've gotta make that work for people. And when it sings, it is so rewarding, and it is a gorgeous step towards the future. I don't know any entrepreneurs who are successful who weren't in sales and sales management. Right? This is really important. I don't know any CEOs that are successful who haven't gone up through sales organizations. So it's an important investment in your future world. Hey. I wanna answer the question here. You were asking here. Let me come down. I've lost it. How would you describe so, Maggie, this is for you, love. How How would you describe the mentorship and training and growth opportunities in a small versus a midsized company for new sales professionals? Less than a thousand to one to five. And my answer is I have seen it all over the place. We have people that have 10 reps come into factory and buy year long programs to develop them and give them all the basic sales and virtual skills. And then I go into huge publicly traded companies, and they have zero. So it's something to ask about in the interview. James Buckley, any advice you wanna add on to that? I only have one thing to say about mentorship specifically. I think that mentors choose mentees. It's not the other way around. And I don't think enough people realize that truth. It's a hard truth, but it's the truth. I know a lot of people that come to me and they're like, will you be my mentor? First of all, just connect with me on a human level, and I will be your friend. And you can refer to me as a mentor if it makes you health if it makes you feel better. But, like, I'm going to help you whether I'm your official mentor or not. That's literally what makes me get out of bed in the morning. That's a there's a better way to ask for that. I think that's really fair. Hey. I wanna take the last minute and answer Candice's question. What are the biggest reasons that managers fail? I think that JV gave us some already. Right? Like, they get caught up in the numbers, and they're not making it enough about the people. I think that my answer is they don't let go of the rep job. What made us successful as sellers, our competitiveness, our connection with the customers, our desire to go do the win and save the deal and be the hero, and what made us awesome actually works against us in management. So I think it's a lack of knowledge of what good looks like. It takes a year or two to create your sales process. We gotta create our management process. Right? We gotta set ourselves up for success with what are the interactions we have to do with our reps, and how much time do we spend on different things, and how do I translate this goal into, you know, day to day performance for my team. I think it's the that that blocking and tackling stuff that makes me the biggest difference when I see managers go from here to here. Anything you wanna add to that? No. I just wanna say that everybody that's in this room has an equal opportunity to be promoted. It's a matter of how you earn it, not how you demand that it comes your way. There's a realistic perspective we all have to have. I want everybody for involving me in this conversation. I cannot wait for our next one. It's always so much fun to spend the time with you, and I just wanna end with some encouragement. If you think leadership might be right for you, please don't sit on your hands, raise them, and raise them high. Talk to your leader now and say, I think this might be for me someday. Can you give me feedback? Can you help me create a path? I found a training program I think can help me get there in a few years. Are you willing to go in on this with me? Can I get your support? What can I be doing right now to prepare myself? Because moving up is important in my career. Those are all supernatural conversations that I have heard people have with their managers every single day. And if you aren't having it, then you may get passed up. Right? Be the person who takes the action and makes it happen. Awesome. Internet high five. Super happy y'all came. It was fun to hang out with you. Awesome. Appreciate it. Hope to see you all soon. Come ask me for advice and questions on this. I'm here to help make you successful and super passionate about that. Have a good one, everybody. Thanks, David. Appreciate you. You got it.