https://www.listennotes.com/e/28d43668ca1544eb989b34707587bb98

Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome to the 454th episode of the Surf and Sales Podcast. I'm Scott Lees, here with my good friend and co host of the surfing Sales podcast and co founder of the Surf and Sales Summit, Richard Harris. What's going on, buddy? Good to see you again.

Good to see you, too. I am, like, surprise you, like, shot out of a cannon today. I know you don't drink coffee, but you are in a fantastically good mood. Did you close the deal today?

I did not. I did not.

Interesting.

No, I have not really closed it. I closed the deal Friday.

Okay. All right.

Maybe I still have, like, some leftover hangover joy.

There you go. A hangover joy. Exactly as Scott Leese would say it. It's not enjoy, it's a hangover joy.

Yeah.

There's no such thing as pure, unadulterated joy anymore. Everything. Everything is tainted in one way or another.

I just really want to go through and pull all These comments from 454 episodes of Scott's negativity.

1. One per episode, I think would be. And then I'll have to make a counter piece of content. It's like, yes, the 454 times I said, richard, you're on mute. And then it's just 454 times of. Of us getting you off mute. That's. That's okay. If you have been living under a rock somewhere and don't know. The Surf and Sails Euro summit is coming to the first week of October, October 5th through 9th, in Peniche, Portugal. We hope to see you there. We have eight different countries represented so far. I don't know if you knew that, Richard. Are you frozen, Richard?

No, I'm right here.

I asked you a question, Richard.

I did, and I answered. And I said, who are they?

He did. Did he add. Listen. Did you hear him?

Okay, well, I did, so. Well, anyway.

Okay, well, two people say you didn't. But anyways, eight different countries represented. I won't ask Richard where they're from. We already sort of let the cat out of the bag. We've got a very special guest here today, Melissa Gaglione, who is the senior sales manager over at Warmly, which is making all sorts of noise right now. She's also the CEO and founder of Async Sales Company. Welcome to the show, Melissa. We are very happy to have you here.

I am very happy to be here, and I'm very excited to see where our conversation goes.

So are we. Because we never.

We are too. We never know. Yeah.

Yeah. Half the time it's just our guests listening to Richard and I squabble.

Yes, yes, exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Tell everybody. Melissa, a little bit about warmly. I know you've only been there for a short period of time, but what's warmly all about? What are you working on? And tell us about your role over there.

Yeah, so of course the pitch evolves based off of who I'm talking to because we help sales, marketing and a little bit of revenue. But I like to consider it your, you know, AI demand gen helps you identify who's interested or potentially interested in your product through signal based sales and, and then taking those signals to orchestrate into some outbound motions to just have a very relevant conversation when they come in.

Well, what are some of the biggest and brightest signals right now that people should be looking for and paying attention to?

So it's interesting because it does depend on the industry and it does depend on where your, your buyers are. And this might sound surprising, but just because someone likes your post doesn't mean that they're ready to buy. So you gotta be mindful of the different signals, but the strength is really in stacking those. So yes, people on your website, great, they know who you are. That's helpful. Were they there for 10 seconds? Were they there for 30 minutes? Were they playing around with your super demo on there, that's a little bit stronger or you know, are they also doing some research intent? Are they commenting on your CEO's posts? Are they also, you know, showing up in these different social signals? Do they change jobs? Are they also, you know, in the media talking a little bit about it or researching stuff? So it's more of like the strength of taking multiple signals and stacking them up to identify the strength of someone. I don't think it's just one individual signal alone. Alone that is going to be like your silver bullet of like this is the perfect prospect for me.

Wait a minute, wait. I just want to make sure that because it's, it's March, right? It's March 5th, and when I have my first conversation with someone today, when my CEO calls and says, well, are they going to close and it's a $250,000 deal, they shouldn't take that first phone call as a signal that this person really wants to buy. Like, I, I just want to make sure I understand you correctly because for.

It'S almost like she's saying, don't put that one on the verbal board yet.

Exactly. Don't, don't put it in the CRM yet. Right. Don't convert it to an opportunity. I just, I'm just, you know, just making sure we all understand the context here of, you know, that's not a good enough signal.

So I think you got to talk to people, too. Like, and people might have the interest. You know, you might. You might have gotten them to come in on the call, but you really don't know until you talk to them and really, you know, understand or try to understand their business as best as you can in those 30 minutes, which is hard to do. And, you know, understand if they have problems. And if. If you can't solve it, then you just have to let them know, of course. But, you know, it's. It's really just signals is really just a way to find the hand raisers. Instead of totally throwing spaghetti at the wall and going through your account list all the time, it's a way for you to also see if you can, you know, grab anyone else of interest in these other ways.

I don't disagree. I don't. I'm just, you know, I'm just making sure that, you know, those. We're empathizing with our sales listeners and we're criticizing our founders and CEOs.

I mean, you don't be surprised. Just because someone was on your pricing page for 45 minutes also doesn't mean that they're ready to buy.

Yeah, no.

Talk to people.

No kidding.

Yeah. What it, what it probably means is they were on the pricing page, then they got distracted by something and didn't close the tab, and they left the tab open for four hours straight.

Right, right, right. Probably promoting a guide, like, again, that doesn't mean that they're ready to buy, but, you know, if they're. It just gives you a great opportunity to start a conversation and to see if there's any opportunity there between you two to help educate.

Yeah. Yeah. I got a question for you. You know, it feels like 2025 is better than 2024. I think people in 2024 were hoping that it would be better than 2023, and it took them six months to realize it wasn't. I'm curious to your take, though. Right. And. And I'm. My, my take is jaded based on what I do of sales training and the number of conversations I'm having around that topic.

And.

But I'm also getting these mixed signals. I'm seeing people hiring and I'm seeing people firing, like, constantly right now. Constantly. What's your take on the marketplace? Because I feel like you're. You're you know, you're closer to the ground level than I am. What are you seeing?

I follow the money, to be honest. Like I went, I went to deal and I was a founding global payroll account executive there. So I was building out and selling their newest offering that was going from a transactional sale to a transformative sale. And obviously right place, right time, I mean a fantastic example of that was as crazy as it was when the SBB bank crash went when that happened, if you guys remember that, like a year and a half ago or so, maybe it was two years ago now when that happened. Our competitor at the time Rippling had, was had all their money in sbb so they weren't able to pay out their employees during that time. And so what Deal was doing was providing the funds so people can pay out their employees if they purchased, you know, for a few months. Our newest offering, which I was selling. So right place, right time, even though that happened like I was having 15 minute meetings for like, you know, 16 hours straight for about three days, just bringing as many deals in as I could because of the, that timing. So I guess the example of what I'm trying to say is you have to be aware of like where the market is going and where can I make money here? And certain industries, you know, of course deal skyrocketing. We see that they're smart, they're figuring out how to go into global hiring, which was during the pandemic. Prior to Deal, I was at a company called Live Person. Perfect timing to sell customer service chatbots. Amazing time to sell that. And then the next thing was when I was, you know, looking at because I want to be more in sales and marketing and talking to sales and marketing. Like I just like the ICP and I see warmly which is going into the, the forefront of signal based selling. And that's where I see the money is for this type of industry. So you're going to see it, it's going to fluctuate depending on where you are. But if you got to keep your eyes and ears open and see is this the right time for my market? Am I in the right place? And if not, if I'm seeing these, these areas where people are being laid off or you know, numbers are getting completely, I can't, nobody can reach them then is that the right selling environment for you to be in? And I encourage people to, you know, do what's best for them. We have our own families, we have to feed. So it does, it's fluctuating for sure. And there's a lot more companies now than there ever were, of course, a lot more AI companies that are expecting very fast growth asap. So I, maybe that was a not clear answer to that. I'm not sure.

Well, I understand, I understand the concept for sure of follow the money. It's like bet on the right horse in a sense. You know, the best place to sell in 2019-2021 was Zoom. It doesn't necessarily mean that if you were selling at Zoom during that period of time, you're a great salesperson.

Right.

It just means you were in the frickin right place at the right time. And so as certain things get hot, if you're smart, that you might say, hey, I should go sell this thing, because that's what's flying off the shelves right now. Right. And if your thing is in a market that's dying off or less hot, that's going to be real hard, you know, to sell. And so there's a lot of common sense in that. I think it's sound advice. I think that there's a potential problem with it though. And I'm curious what your take is. It could lead to this constant sort of grass is always greener vibe where you're always looking like, oh, over here, and you're chasing trends all the time. Therefore you're potentially not really sticking in one place long enough to like get really, really good at selling, overcome some difficulty, kind of have that badge of honor, if you will, on your arm. And I'm not talking about staying someplace, you know, 10 years or something like that that doesn't work anymore. I just don't necessarily want people to think, well, let me go here for a year and then there for a year and then here for a year. So how do you, how do you marry those two? Because I think there's sense in what you're saying, but I think there's a little bit of sense in what I'm saying.

Oh yeah, it does depend on your families and what you need, if you can. Some people can be more riskier than others. I was able to be a bit more riskier. I was able to go and chase, you know, larger titles to build something or go from the ground up. Because I was able to risk it just with, you know, I don't, I don't have kids, I don't have that, that I need to support. I have a house which is, you know, takes all my money, but other than that I didn't have a lot of people. So I was able to be Agile and move around. If you can stay where you are and if it's a. And I always tell people that are at deal, I'm like, do not leave. Like, literally, I don't care, do not leave. I don't care if things are, you know, if you're stressed or anything like that. I'm like, this is where you should stay for sure. Industries like that where you, where you should stay for sure. But if you're at a place and it's just, if it's just not fruitful and you're turning as much as you can into something and you're still not hitting your number, it comes to, is it me or is it them? And it's a hard conversation to have because you have to be really realistic. And you know, I have to start with yourself first. Like, what the hell am I doing wrong and what do I need to change about myself? So that way, if I do leave, then it's at this point, I gave this everything, no regrets. There's nothing else that I had in me. It was, you know, and I don't want to blame a location, but were you set up for failure? Were you set up for success? But if you're set up for success, then like stay and get it under your belt and keep going with it so that way you can continue to be great. But if you're, you know, kind of set up to fail, then put yourself in the right place to be successful so you can be great.

So what I want to know. Rewinding the tape. I want to know what got you to this mindset of follow the money, Put yourself in the right position because I'm gonna do a five second snap critique of your background.

Yeah.

Because I look at your background and I'm like, you were an elementary school teacher.

Yes.

And then you moved to being a news reporter and journalist and then you got into sales.

Yeah.

So that's a perfect background.

I'm thinking. So I'm thinking to myself, like, if I don't know you, I'm thinking to myself, okay, well, you didn't follow the money in the beginning.

No.

Something happened. Something shifted your mindset or opened your eyes or something. Can you talk a little bit about that journey and what kind of opened your eyes or changed your perspective?

You know, I never thought I was going to make money. And I always joke myself, you and me both.

Yeah, yeah.

My older sister's in sales and, you know, she's a five foot, fiery redhead in New York City. And. And I was like, I am not like you, we are so different. She was always really good at, you know, making sure the family gave her money for something, like, she was just there for it. And since we were always so different, I was just told to be a teacher, to be honest, like, that was it. I. I didn't have any other option. My strict Italian father was like, you're going to be a teacher on Long Island. This is what you're going to do. And at the time, I was like, well, I want to be a news reporter. That's really what I want to do. So I went to school and I. I even got my master's in education because I thought my purpose was to teach and help, which it kind of is, but to teach and help. And I had never worked longer hours in my life. I had never been so exhausted. I had never been so emotionally drained, and I wasn't doing what I always wanted to try. So, you know, when I was younger, in my early 20s, that was when I said, okay, I'm going to go risk it, and I'm going to go be a reporter, which my dad nearly had a heart attack over. I raised. Not raised. Funny, I say, I raised. The only reason why I was able to do it was because I gambled and made enough money to pay for a journalism school. So I can go and do that. Went to journalism school while teaching full time, and then landed my first news reporting gig at the end of the school year, so I can go and try it. And I was making $24,000 a year as a news reporter.

Sounds like a teacher.

It was worse than my teacher money. Miss my teacher money. And from there, I realized, you know what? This also sucks. So why do I keep doing things, everything, Work is always just going to suck. Like it just is. Like it just is always going to suck. And I.

Do you hear the Italian ness in her right now? Richard? Did you hear what she said? Where have you heard that before?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I have a foggy memory, but it.

Took me in the middle of Amarillo, Texas. It smells like shit. If I'm allowed to say that. It smells like cow. I have no money. I'm eating cabbage every day because that's all I could really afford. And I call up my best friend. I'm like, I just want to do fun shit with my friends. Why am I here? And that was when I said, you know what? I'm getting out of this. I'm focused. I'm now going to just make Money so I could literally just do fun and that was, that was it and I fell into.

Great, great answer.

Love that.

So.

What do you see? I have a question for you about skill set. Right. Because you. I've always said that I would hire teachers. I've worked in education, sales and teachers are some of the best salespeople. Right. And then I think you're, you know, you're unique in the journalism part because that's also about asking questions. Right. Like you, you interview have, you've interviewed people, dig deep and then you know how to re. Explain something back to a third grader, so to speak.

Yes.

Right. So which is most of our customers? What do you feel like the skills that are going to be missing from the next generation? Right. Like the gen Alphas and the, and even a little bit of the Gen Z's like I'm getting this sense of they're lacking a certain level of social dynamic to engage in sales in a way that's proper and that might have to be taught a little bit more. But are you seeing that, Are you hearing it? I mean you may not even be conscious of it or like I've never thought about it before for. But what do you, what do you feel like is the skill set that's going to need to be addressed in the next three to five years of sales?

You know, I think they're going to be super. To be the positive side. They're going to be super resourceful.

You know that's not Italian of you.

Well yeah, but they are going to go and figure out a way if something sucks during their day, they're going to find a way to make it suck less and so they're going to try to find something that can help them with it for sure. If anything I'm a little worried more about the critical thinking of it and being able to, yes, of course, to converse and to like have these deeper conversations but to have like their own stronger like unique POV as to why a company should be either changing their mind or changing their minds or what it is that they're doing or their operations. Like I do believe in following a script especially in the beginning and then you start to adapt and learn like what really evolves with them. But I guess I'm a little bit more worried about like if they're able to because they're just so used to being spoon fed if they're going to be able to take pieces of information and put it together to tell that story and then be persuasive or you know, maybe not persuasive, but be able to explain their product in a way that isn't regurgitating. You know, here's what we do. It's. Here's what you can do as an option. So I think that will be a little bit tough.

Scott, that's what your new Tick Tock series is going to be. Sales training on Tick Tock. Right. How to. How to teach them how to do this in 45 seconds or less. That'll be Scott's new. You know, that's his new. Yeah, yes, exactly. So what I'm. I think I'm. I'm curious about, was it the money that made you leave journalism? And more importantly, what did your dad say when you said you were going to go into sales?

I know. Well, I didn't mean to go into sales, but yeah, it was definitely the money. I was just tired of being poor and drowning in student debt. Like, drowning. It was so bad. I had, like, you know, 60k of debt that I had to pay off, which was terrible. And realizing that work sucks, no matter what you do, there's going to be parts of it that are great and then parts of it that just suck. And, you know, I realized, like, why am I kind of working for free? It was like this moment where I wanted to buy an avocado, and it was like, $5. And I was like, this is 30 minutes of my time for this one avocado. And I remember crying and calling my sister, and she was like, you should just leave. Right, let's go.

Right. So I love what you said. You're basically working for free, right? If there's no money, if there's no extra money, at the end of the day, you're working for free.

Yeah. None of it. And I didn't like that. The harder I worked, the less money I made. Or not less money. But, like, that wasn't changing the amount of money that I was making.

Right. You're working longer hours and your salary stays the same. So you are making less money.

Yeah, like, that just. That stinks. So, yeah, I applied to be a corporate event producer for this company called IQPC that does, you know, corporate events. And after one interview, they were like, we're putting you in the sales department. They're like, we don't need you to produce anything. Like, you should be in sales. And at first I was going to decline because I thought salespeople were scary. But then I was like, I'm poor, so let's try it. Like, let's see what Happens.

What made you. What made you fall in love with sales? Aside from money? Let's say, aside from.

At the end of the day, I am just helping people. Like, you are just talking to people all the time. You are just trying to help them solve their problems. And if I can't solve it, maybe someone else can. And just being in the know of helping. So it is a mix of teaching, it is a mix of, you know, having deep conversations with people, which was what I loved about journalism was meeting someone for the first time and then, you know, learning their. Their depths, learning deeper about them. Because it, to me, money isn't the number one priority anymore. In the beginning, it was to get out of debt, but now it's just about, you know, I don't know. I try to have fun with it. I just try to talk to.

What did. And what did dad say when you went to sales?

Oh, he was like, very happy, that one. I wasn't in the middle of nowhere, which he was very worried about me. And every time a tornado would come by, I'd be like, outside and be like, and we're getting ready for this tornado to come. And he'd be panicking.

Oh, you were. You were that person.

Oh, yeah.

You were the new chaser, right?

I was interviewing. My gosh, as terrible as this was, I remember one of my first stories. I was in this trailer park in New Mexico and I'm interviewing the man whose son just shot up a library school. And as I'm interviewing him and the whole porch reeks of beer, there's all these horse flies just crawling all over his face. And I'm trying to be so serious about this crazy experience. And the whole time he couldn't believe that his son had done it. And so my dad was like, you're going there by yourself? And I was so. He was very happy that I was going to have a desk job and, you know, he could pinpoint me on a map and knew exactly where I was going to be, and that's all he cared about. So he's very happy about that change.

I would imagine watching your daughter storm chase through northwestern Texas in these regions is not exactly comforting.

No.

So I can respect it much happier. You have now been either a kind of founding AE or early sales leader at a few different companies.

Yeah.

What are you doing now in this opportunity that you didn't do before? Mistakes that you made before that you're course correcting now?

Mistakes that I've made before. I think I'm still making some of the same mistakes, to be honest.

Well, aren't we all?

That's very honest. That's honest of you. Very transparent of you. But I also assume that you have fixed a few.

I have one or two, yes. I have fixed a few, I think. Hmm. It's a little tricky because. And this is still a mistake, but I try to do as much as possible and like, super.

Like Superwoman superhero style, like, I can do everything.

Yes.

You say yes to everything.

Yes. More of like, I want to help as many people as possible. And so when I was founding A E deal, that was one, I was just trying to help everybody, but I had my own quota that I needed to hit. And it was really hard to take care of my pipeline while helping all of these other reps and educating them on payroll itself when it wasn't yet, like, my role. And, you know, as a seller, you, especially if you're new, you do have to just focus on your pipeline and, like, learn the ropes first. So I think that that was a little bit of a mistake because it did. It did slow me down a little bit, I felt. However, it did also open up an opportunity where instead of me being the only GP ae, I became almost like this additional layer or an advisor where I was working with over 40 reps and. And I was working on them with their deals. So they were running the deals and then I was coming in to help them and educate them and teach them and then talk with their clients to help adjust it because I just couldn't work everybody's deals at once. They needed to own their pipeline as well. So that eventually did change. But it's hard to not want to help everybody all the time, truthfully. And I still kind of make that mistake sometimes, to be honest.

I think.

I think we all struggle with that. You know, you want to make an impact. As once you said it well earlier, it's like, initially, I'm in this. I need to make some money.

Yeah.

Then once you have money and that need is kind of taken care of and you've been doing it a while, most leaders that I know, they transition to, I really just want to make an impact and, like, help other people change their lives in some meaningful type of way. So you. You do have to resist the urge to try to help everyone, say yes to everything. Not let somebody fail. Right. But you learn along the way. Hopefully. I have to let this person trip and fall a little bit and then give them some help. Right.

It's the hardest part.

It is. But there is no way to Scale without allowing other people to fail and then coach them up. Otherwise you become a bottleneck. All deals cannot flow through Melissa forever. Right. And it's a tricky, a tricky thing to, to learn for sure, but one that every sales leader and every founder at some point, you know, has to go through and learn for themselves. Let's pivot real quick before we, before we start to wrap up. Tell us a little bit about your other business where you have got this entrepreneurial side to yourself. I know you've run an event or two. Tell us what you do in your other business.

It is my creative, fun outlet. It brings me so much joy. It, it's becoming a bunch of different things. But I'm trying to, you know, be strategic over it and it is, my ultimate goal is to, you know, have my own thing. However, I'm still learning and I, it was never too, it's never too early to start a little bit and to talk about the things that you do know and to, you know, kind of ease that out. So what I do with that, it is a side business, of course, with the ultimate goal to be at the end. And originally was just starting with helping companies implement video selling, creating video libraries, how to, you know, sell asynchronously. Maybe it's the first time they were using a digital sales room, how to curate custom content for some buyers. Because that was what I was very strong at doing at deal to sell at scale. And so, you know, as one, I can help a couple of companies, but really only one a month. Maybe I'm very niche over it because I have a 9 to 5 that I have to do. And then otherwise I do webinars to kind of help the masses. And I try to mix it up based off of what I feel people might need a little bit of help with. And it also challenges me to take the practices that I have and to, you know, display them and teach others and put it that way. So it could be a mix of like creating videos on LinkedIn, brand building on LinkedIn. I like employee generated content on LinkedIn. Just the things that I feel that I know. But I'm not going to be teaching people how to, you know, run their revenue dashboards. Like that is not what I can help with at all. So I just stick with what I know. And I'm just trying to learn more along the way. So that way I learn more.

Truthfully, the more you learn, the more you can help other people, right?

Yeah. And I have the yacht event coming up this year, which is exciting, slash I was scared because I didn't really want to do it, but then I was like, I'm gonna do it because I have to slash. It's. It's a. It's a. Events just bring people together, and there's nothing I love more than throwing a party, to be honest.

Hey, now you're speaking our language. We throw overseas parties on the beach the last eight years.

Totally, totally, totally.

So go ahead, Richard.

No, no, no, go ahead, go ahead.

I was just going to say we're kind of wrapping up towards the end of the show. Running out of time here. We try to end every show by saying, how can we be helpful to you? Do you have any questions for us? So we're at your service.

Okay. So I'm going to use this as my own personal consulting time. So thank you so much for.

We take Visa, MasterCard, American Express.

Perfect. My company will bill you, or you can build my company. No, I'm kidding. Okay, So I. I do want to know. You know, there's a lot of. I'm in this kind of wave of, you know, newer managers, you know, trying to build as much as we can. And so my question to you, for companies that are very early, you know, series A, series B, who are in sales, you know, what. What should they be prioritizing right now when it comes to just going to market? Like, should they be prioritizing operations? Should they be prioritizing, like, the fundamentals? Should they be prioritizing like enablement should? Because you can't do it all. All so early stage. I mean, I'm a series A company. Like, what would you advise a senior sales manager to prioritize and focus on to help bring a product, you know, continuously to market?

Well, I'll go first with this one, since this is exactly what I do as I consult series A companies and early sales leaders and whatnot. And then. Then we'll let Richard tell me all the reasons I'm wrong.

Exactly. Right?

Yeah.

Then I will contradict you.

Okay, first thing. The first thing that you need to do. I use this phrase all the time. Yoro y o r o, which means you only ramp once. What I mean by that is everybody's tendency in your role when they enter a series A company is to try to justify their existence as fast as possible because their CEO wants Melissa to make an impact instantaneously. And by impact, they want to see revenue hit the board and pipeline hit the books. So everybody skips over all of the things that actually matter the most, which is you need to Understand that mess out of your industry. You need to understand in and out how your product works or how your service works. You need to know what the hell to say. So you need to have your messaging nailed. You need to understand the operational process of everything, literally. How do we close a deal, how do we use HubSpot, whatever all this stuff is, that should be the number one focus. None of that stuff. If you listen to what I say. I didn't mention pipeline, I didn't mention closing deals, I didn't message, I didn't mention getting to know everybody else in the company. I don't care about all that. You have to put a cocoon bubble around yourself and say, I'm here. I need to learn and master all this stuff before I do anything else. And this is what most sales leaders up over and over and over again. I get it. You want to make an impact. It's inside of you. These people want you to make a revenue based impact. They're going to push you and prod you and pester you and you have to be strong enough to say get off my lawn for a little bit. So that's the first thing you have to do. Learn the industry, learn the product, learn your pitch and learn your process. That's number one. Second thing, nobody prepares for scale in the beginning, meaning they don't put any emphasis at all on sales ops and rev ops and all this kind of stuff. The smartest thing I ever did in my whole career was stopping trying to do all this stuff in a kind of laissez faire haphazard type of a way and hire and invest in revops right away to the point where the last two gigs that I took as a full time VP of sales during the interview process, I said to them, I will not take this job unless I'm allowed to hire a rev ops leader as my very first hire inside of the first like 90 days that I'm there. If that's a deal breaker, I'm out. Coincidentally, my first three gigs I had one exit. My last three, three for three. So investing in sales ops revops very, very early. Those are the two things that most sales leaders don't do that I just described. And it's a big mistake. And so if you take away nothing from any of this conversation, hopefully you listen to at least one of those two things.

Richard. Well, I just want to contradict you on, on the one part where you said this. The smartest thing you ever did was rev ops. Well, that's the second smartest thing you did after hiring me? Yes.

Yes.

Right. Like, like that's, you know, that was a given. Yeah. I don't know that Scott's wrong or I would disagree. I think the interesting piece of it is, and I agree that you, you have to be very mindful about how you would approach this is that all those things that Scott is talking about does occur by you talking to customers and potential customers. So it doesn't mean you aren't necessarily creating a little bit of pipeline and maybe some business. However, it's not like you're shutting that off entirely, as I interpret how Scott said that. But I'm also very conscious that I wouldn't go in and say I'm going to do all this stuff. And by the way, we're going to, you know, create a little bit of pipeline and a little bit. Because that's the only part they're going to hear. Like, they're only going to hear that part. They're not going to hear this process. I also think it's very different at Series A versus Series B. Right. When I hear Series B, I don't, I don't think of that as a series, as an early stage startup anymore. I, I feel like that's beginning to expand it. What, what I see different is if they're changing leaders between Series A and Series B, well, then it's more like an early stage startup because they up and hired the wrong leader for series A. You know, so that, that's. But again, I could be persuaded otherwise. I also think, I agree with Scott on the, on the op side of stuff and you got to find somebody good so that you can go figure out those other parts of the pitch and have those conversations and understand the process because that will slow you down if you're trying to figure it out.

The worst thing you can do as an early stage sales leader is to live inside of the CRM. It's the worst possible. It is absolute waste of your time.

Yeah. The only, the only other thing, and maybe I'm saying the same thing is at, particularly at Series A, I'm really not that concerned about the CRM. So when people hear process, sometimes they think, oh, I got to go build out my process in the CRM. As, again, as I interpret what Scott's saying is like, no, I'm trying to talk to as many people to understand the industry, to understand my icp, to understand and figure out what my pitch is and all those things and what my process is, but I'm not uploading all that stuff in the CRM right now because I need to have as many conversations as I can not build out my CRM, which then goes back to what else I agree with about Scott is, well, if I have a rev ops person, hopefully they can take what I'm doing from those conversations and build that process in the CRM, right where I'm. Where I'm now, I can execute faster. Right. My rev Ops person is my AI in the early stages. Right. Because they've got to start to build it. And even better, they could probably use AI to help them refine how quickly to build that based on 10 conversations that Scott has that are recorded. And then Scott and the rebops person can debate whether or not they think that's the right process, which isn't. I don't mean. I don't mean not whether they should use AI, meaning, hey, here's what AI spit out. Now let's apply some science to this. And where do we think that we need to tweak it? Because AI is not going to understand all the details yet.

Now the question goes to Melissa, which is how much time have you been spending inside of the CRM looking at and building dashboards and reports and all this kind of stuff?

I've been closing.

Good, good answer.

All right, good answer, everybody.

Right?

Good answer, Melissa. Hey, we appreciate you taking time out of your afternoon to chat with us, Melissa. Everybody should follow Melissa Galeoni on LinkedIn. She produces killer content, especially video content. Check out warmly.com. and in May, I think it's May 23rd. Yeah, May 23rd, she has her. Her second annual B2B on the Bay event going on, so you might want to check it out. The Starship Yachts. What is it called? Starship Yacht, everybody. You ever been on a yacht, Richard?

I have not. Is it an overnight thing, like with. No, I didn't know. Or is it like a happy hour thing?

It depends if you survive the night.

Yeah, it's like a.

It's like a horror movie. They invite 300 B2B professionals onto the yacht and see how many last the night.

Yeah, I wasn't sure if it was like yacht rock kind of an event. Right? Like a cruise ship fire festival, you know, like fire too.

Like that. All right, well, we will catch you all next time. Thanks for listening to the surf and sales podcast and we'll see you next time.

Thank you.