S5E9 - Chuck Brotman - Sales Hiring in the 2024 Landscape

Hello, everybody. It is Richard Harris here with another edition of the surf and sales podcast, season five, episode nine. Scott, we are greatly over the 400 level mark. We're going to try and get to 500 before we die. Total episodes. Right.

I feel confident we'll get there.

Yeah, I do too. I do too. Well, at least that's good to hear from you because traditionally think you're kind of dying all the time. Yeah.

You may be older, but I'm liable to go first.

This is true. This is true. How you doing, man? I haven't talked to you a while. You good?

I'm hanging in there. I'm just trying to get to Friday because I'm out of here on Friday. Spring break begins and audios for a little bit.

Where are you headed?

We are headed to Kauai.

Ah, Chuck, where are you headed for vacation?

I'm headed to Oahu a week after next week, so. Yeah.

So that's gonna miss each other in transit.

Yes. So that is our guest, Chuck Brot, who is the founder of Blueprint Expansion. So Chuck, tell everybody what that is. What is Blueprint Expansion? What are y' all doing? What pains are you solving?

Yeah.

For the conversation.

Yeah, happy to provide it and thank you so much. I'm delighted to be on the Surface Health podcast. So thanks for having me on. Blueprint Expansion is a go to market roles recruiting firm. We work with startups and scale ups to help them find exceptional sales, marketing and customer success talent from SDRs to VPs of sales. And we've been doing this for just about four years. We kind of pivoted the business a bit from an initial focus on office expansion, which didn't, didn't do well during COVID and shifted to recruiting and have enjoyed the work since then. Cool.

Well, thank. I know, I know this will be a great topic for us to talk about in terms of hiring and what's changing in hiring. But before I do that, Scott, before you jumped on, Chuck shared with me that on his vacation to Hawaii, he and his family are going to learn how to surf.

Right.

So since it's the surfing sales podcast, what advice do you have for Chuck on learning to surf?

Scott, be patient.

True.

Don't. Don't expect a miracle on day one from, from anybody. Maybe if you're going with your kids, maybe your kids will pick it up super fast. But any normal person, you know, it takes a good amount of time. It took me a long time before I could stand and do anything good.

So I'm going to shockingly Because I know people don't believe this. I'm going to shockingly disagree with Scott and tell you that my advice would be make sure you hire someone to actually give you surf lessons.

Yeah.

Because they will definitely help get you up on the first day. It won't be pretty, but you'll get up. So I also think it depends on sort of where you're surfing in that area. So anyway. But on to the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So on to the show. So, Chuck, hiring for sales, hiring in 2024. It's my impression right now. It is. It is March 5, 2024, and we're still seeing a lot of the headlines around big layoffs, but I'm also seeing little percolate bubbles of, oh, so and so starting to hire again. So and so starting to hire again. Where are we? Is it really still doom and gloom? Is it. No, it's getting better. We're almost there. Or is it like. Well, it's kind of in between.

It's a great question. I, I ask that often myself. I, I think, I think we're somewhere in between. Right. There's, there's definitely a sense of. And you see it on LinkedIn every day. More companies, you know, across more outsides of tech are hiring again, like, no names, like new ventures. There's just a lot of hiring taking place across go to market and, you know, a lot of enthusiasm behind these hiring posts. And it's encouraging and exciting to see at the same time. You know, we still see news of reductions in force and layoffs and often very unexpected news coming from companies that we thought were done doing that. And there are a lot of people, like, still in job search, and that's always challenging to see. I mean, people sharing on LinkedIn their struggles and challenges to get opportunities. So we're in this weird spot where it feels like there's a lot of reason for optimism or cautious optimism, but I don't think we've kind of escaped the market of, you know, 2023. And, you know, definitely a lot of people that are, you know, in search mode and, and struggling to find great opportunities. And, you know, our, our hope as a firm is, is that, you know, we can help. We can help companies think, think better about, you know, how to find great people and that we can help great people, you know, get better results in their search. But it's still challenging.

We're sort of. We're sort of in the market equivalent of the San Francisco Giants franchise. We're not the worst team out there, but we are nowhere near making the World Series.

Yep, that's a good one.

That's what I gather.

Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. And, and, and I think actually it's interesting. If you stick with that, that might explain why there is, you know, maybe a lot of negative sentiment. Right. So if we stick with the Giants analogy, this is a team that's accustomed to winning championships and having lots of success. And so when you have success in the rearview mirror and, you know, there have been so many, you know, projections that were out of it, and we're not there yet, I think people may be seeing the glass half empty, more than glass half full because of that. Yeah.

Scott, can you, can you clarify this a little bit for me? And can you put this, use the same analogy, but in the, in the reference of the Denver Broncos, where's the job hiring market in relation to my Denver Broncos?

It's actually pretty similar. It's actually pretty similar. They're just sort of middling, not very good, a little bit rudderless, directionless. They're not the worst, capable of having a nice little hot streak, but really nowhere near challenging for a title.

And, and as Bay Area fans that we all are. So the warriors are better than the current job market. Are they middling too? Are they a little bit ahead, like doing.

Oh, my goodness, I don't know. The first couple months they were, they were definitely like in hell still. But now it's looking like a little better. Maybe, Maybe you are kind of middling. You might be right. So.

Let'S get back.

Let me go, Let me, let me try to get some practical advice here. For early stage founders in particular.

There'S so many different.

Complexities that bubble up, but the first one is always, when is the right time to hire for these sales roles or this head of sales roles? You've been doing this quite a while. What is your opinion on that? How do you tell a founder if it is the right time for them or if it's not the right time?

Yeah, I mean, it's a good question and it's, it's, it's tough to, it's tough to answer because a lot of it depends on specifics of, of their business and, and the track record they have. I mean, obviously, you know, you, you wanna, you wanna confirm that you have some level of product market fit and I know, like, definitions of that can vary company to company, but some level of repeatable success at solving problems for your customers and delivering outcomes that can excite others with similar problems in the market. And so I think, you know, as a starting point before you hire sellers in general, like, you want to make sure that you've personally identified that or done that with, you know, fractional Talent or, or 1099 is helping you like, figure out a market, you know, whether or not you need more than that before you hire your first seller or your first pair of sellers. I think some of that maybe depends on your just appetite for risk taking and, and also your willingness to be transparent with the talent you're hiring about, you know, about what you know and what you don't. So I think there are many companies that maybe haven't figured it all out, but, you know, want to make hires because they're looking to, you know, learn better about a specific industry or help figure out some, like, delivery and service things. And that's where, you know, the kind of wearing of multiple hats metaphor often comes into working early stage because you may be asked to join a company where you're, you're running sales, but also helping to figure out customer success and maybe marketing as well. So I think a lot of it depends on just, you know, what you actually need to solve for, like as a business in terms of outcomes within the business and then how much you figured out about what you're solving for your customers in the market. And if you've got, you know, good answers to both questions, I think you're, you're ready to hire. And that just comes down to making sure that you define the role well and, and figure out what success looks like in the role and what that then leads to. I'd be curious to hear your response on that. If that sounds like it's dancing or kind of on point.

It doesn't sound like it's dancing. It sounds like you are a proponent of some degree of founder led sales.

Yep.

As you said, you know, they've got to have some repeatability and whatnot. Well, the only person capable of doing that repeatability in the beginning is a founder. So if a founder hasn't done that, would you tell them, hey, y' all are not ready to hire go to market roles?

I wouldn't say not ready to hire go to market, but I would certainly like if, and we've seen this, right. If they, if they're looking to hire someone that, you know, can drop, you know, a million dollars on the board in a year, I would sort of challenge them about sort of where that confidence or expectation is coming from. Right. So I think there's an argument for hiring at a stage where you don't have all that figured out. But then the question becomes like, again, what is success going to look like and based on and what are the specific needs that you have? Maybe it's more around just driving more awareness in the marketplace or generating more leads, in which case maybe you should be thinking about a founding SDR or a founding growth marketer, depending on your sales motion and target markets and the like. So I think there can be an argument to bring people in really early stage before you have that repeatability and if you've got, you know, the, the cash to support that and, and willing to take those risks. But it should, I guess some things I'm just huge on in all things hiring a team building is like it should. There should always be easy transparency about it, right? Like you. If you can't have the conversation about the risks and challenges with the person you're looking to recruit, you're not ready to make that hire. Right. And if you can, and you can get people in the talent market excited by it and seeing an opportunity to help you get to those outcomes and understanding the risks, understanding where this fits in your business strategy, then I think there's an opportunity to go forward.

So I love what you.

Go ahead, Richard.

I was just gonna say I love what you said there about if you aren't comfortable having that conversation during the hiring process, you're not ready to hire that person.

Y.

Right. And that can be a couple of things that could also be. Might not be the right word, but the maturity of the founder, right? Like, it could be that they do have 30 customers and it's time to go get someone, but if that founder still isn't ready to have that uncomfortable conversation, then that might be more of a maturity thing, human thing, than it is, you know, is the business ready for it? And I think that's a really important thing. And I think people who are listening, who are thinking of taking that first sales role, because I actually have some questions for you around that.

Need to find a way to ask that question in the interview. Like, how do you handle the uncomfortable conversations? I'm going to be your first head of sales. We're going to butt heads, right? And that's a good, you know, signal based on that answer as to whether or not you think it's going to be a good fit. What is the.

You know, that we all know the rule of 16 months is the average first VP of sales.

What is your opinion of why that happens? You know, the market is, you know, we Talk about it. Oh, the founder doesn't know or the goals were set too high or all those things. But is there something intrinsic in the hiring process? If I'm a founder listening here it says, hey, this is why I Repeatedly see this 16 month mark hit. And here's what you could do to change that. What's your perspective?

It's a great question. I think there's a few things that contribute to it, you know, you know one thing can be, you know, I mean it comes down to the fundamentals, right of really before you run a search as a founder for vps sales, like understanding, you know, what, what exactly do you need in terms of, you know, competencies and skills to take the business to the next level? You know, where can you find people that have those skills and then how are you going to run like a streamlined, effective, you know, process to do that? And but what if they don't know.

What those skills are?

Right.

So yeah, the founder has some, has a VC chirping in their ear appropriately like hey, it's time to interview, it's time to do this. But they're like okay. And then they start to go look at the pedigree or they came from this company or they came from that company, right? What are those skills that a founder should be looking for in their first head of sales that they maybe they don't know, that they don't know like it's happening. Because I think a lot of times they just don't know what they don't.

Know then they need to slow down then, right? So that's bad guidance from those VCs if people, if they're pushing them like that should be the first question, right? If you are asking a founder one of your port coast to start hiring now, what you should be asking is do you know what you need in that first sales hire? And they should be finding that kind of guidance. Have you figured out the key competencies and skills you need and how you're going to assess for that? And it has to start there. If they don't know that, they have to know, they lack.

So what are they, you know, and either one of you, Scott, you can answer this too of like I'm a first time founder, I've got a decent, you know, I've got, I've got traction. I don't have fit, but I got traction. Got a little funding, time to go hire somebody. What am I looking for?

Yeah, that's what, that's what we're trying to drive at. It's like we talked a little bit about when to hire. Now we're talking about who we're supposed to hire. Like what is in the fabric and DNA of these folks?

Yeah, I mean there's certain commonalities that you often see. And then obviously, obviously there can be some specifics like based on the business. But what we commonly see in our search, obviously folks that have a certain level of executive presence, right. Like, is this somebody who can communicate effectively with other leadership in my organization, who can have those hard conversations, who can report to the board and level up their conversation and their dialogue? Do they have like superb business acumen? You know, you don't, if you, if you're interviewing for candidates, like, do they really understand what you're doing, why it matters, the outcomes you're driving, and why these problems will become, you know, more acute, you know, tomorrow versus today. Intellectual curiosity, which is something that we assess for all the time in leadership hiring. Like, do they actually, you know, ask good questions? Are they, are they listening to understand what you're sharing and, and going deeper in their questions to find some of your root cause problems or, you know, opportunities in the market, you know, coaching and develop skills. Right. Like, you know, if you've got, if you're hiring a VP of sales and you've got a team of six in place and three of them were hired in the last six months, well, you need to hire somebody who like is superb at frontline coaching and has that experience versus somebody who maybe is, you know, managed, you know, as a, as a CRO or Level 2, Level 3 manager and doesn't have the experience working directly with sellers who are ramping and trying to learn. If you're really early stage company, you know, you may need more operational acumen because you don't have like full time rev ops in place. You don't know kind of tooling that's out there, whether your process is sound. Right. So somebody who can help sort of make those decisions, help you make your first rev ops, hire and, or find contractors, can help you get efficient, effective systems in place. So there's a variety of core things that we often see and then things that might be more important in certain situations versus others. Right. If you, you know, if your culture is all about collaboration and teamwork, Right. I think looking at collaboration as a competency and making sure that you know how to suss out people who are more about themselves and you know, their narrative than your companies. Right.

Two part question here. Hopefully I can make this clear.

How often do you see industry Expertise kind of over indexed and then have you ever seen somebody coming from a big Oracle type IBM corporate kind of world come into a very early stage startup and succeed?

Yeah, great question. So the first one.

We see companies very frequently indexing for industry experience today. And.

On the one hand I understand it because in this market companies can afford to be more selective on what they're looking for. And if, if you're a company in a specific vertical that's, you know, very unique and has its own nomenclature and buyers and you want someone that has, you know, existing relationships and some of that knowledge. Like I can understand wanting to find people there who will, you know, hit the proverbial ground running faster and, and can understand and make an impact more quickly. You know, on the other hand, I think, you know, I, I wrote a piece on several years ago. I think this also can often be a fallacy where companies get too focused on that at the expense of looking for other competencies that could be more important.

Like the like sales acumen.

Like sales acumen, right? Or even like, you know, like just people who have like, you know, challenger. And I'm not talking about the methodology but just in a general sense people who, you know, are challengers or, or intellectually curious, right. Who might come in and say, well, why do you all sell that way and approaches. Have you ever thought about sort of leveling up to these C levels to have this conversation to.

Socialize this value prop and approaching the market differently and perhaps seeing how that might impact your ecv? Right. So what I generally tell our clients is think about industry experience as a data point. Right? But make sure you're not looking at it at the expense of other things that are, you know, arguably.

Here's what, here's what I hear. Every time someone says they want industry experience, I will literally look at them and say, oh, you want someone to come bring clients with them, right? You want someone to bring in. You want someone to bring the Rolodex. And they're like, yes. I'm like, okay, well they might get one or two.

That's it, right?

Like that's it. And then what's going to happen? And so yeah, I don't think they even understand what they're, they're, they're afraid to admit what they're asking, which is I want industry experience because I suspect and expect and pray that they will bring clients with them, which is not the case, particularly if you're an early stage startup.

Right.

You know, this person's got their own brand. Scott's got his brand and if it's the right startup, he will bring someone in, but he's not going to bring in his best longest term client until he knows that it's the right fit for him at the startup.

Yeah, right.

Like that's, so that's the one thing I always say around the business acumen and stuff. So yeah, I think it's a fallacy.

Yeah, no, I think you're right. I mean I, I, I have seen some situations where, you know, we've had clients have actually said I don't want somebody from the industry. Right. I only want people who come from outside of it. And I think that can be an overcorrection too. Right. I mean it's, you know, there can be people who have that experience who can come in and, and help you disrupt as well, but it's best to look at it along with, you know, everything else you need. And as you're saying, right. To be honest about what are you actually expecting to get from people that have this background and, and then Scott, going to your, your second question. Not often. Right. You know, I do think if you are an early stage company, like it is really important that you look for people who have been a part of early stage environments because there is nothing like seeing it firsthand versus hypothesizing from the outside about what it's like. I know there are, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of people out there who have been a part of large organizations where they've kind of done the startup within the large organization or represent it that way.

And yeah, that, that whole phrase is a red fl.

Right? Yeah, that's like.

Yeah, well I have this transferable skill. No you don't.

Right.

When was the last time you took out the trash?

Right, exactly.

Because at a startup. Yeah. You ever been in a startup where they took away the plant service because funding got zapped?

Exactly.

Motivate your, how did you motivate your team when they took away the plants?

Right.

Because that's a real conversation I've had to do.

Right. But I think, I mean I think there can be something to that. I think similar to industry experience. You know, you want to look at sort of stage experience as a data point, but maybe not always the only thing. And particularly if you have people who have worked in Oracles or saps and who have also, you know, also have some small company experience or maybe, you know, started off working in small companies and moved into, into larger organizations to like firm up their skills. Like I think there's something, you know, something worth looking at there as well. But you're right in general, if your narrative is strictly, you know, mature company, it's just going to be hard to understand what you're getting into because it is so unique. And just like for me, by the way, I would struggle and I've never worked for a company that had more than 2,000 employees. I'm sure I would struggle with the bureaucracy and formalities and having to do things I had never been asked to do before. So I know that goes both ways.

I tap out at about 100 employees. Yeah. Like, I just, I can't.

Right.

And, and I'm kind of known for that.

So we've covered the when to hire and the who to hire. Let's talk about the how to hire because God bless everyone, but so many people get this really, really wrong. They either rush their way through it or they slow play their way through it.

And Chuck doesn't want to do that because then he's going to lose all his appliance. He needs them to make mistakes. He needs them.

So, yeah, but he, I would assume he's got to participate in the hiring process with, with founders. Right. And you know, Chuck's probably run into founders who are like, Richard was amazing. I'm making him an offer. And it was like a 30 minute conversation. And he's probably run into people who are like, Richard is, is awesome. We really like him. And three fucking months later he's still in the interview process and he's on his 9,000th interview. So let's, let's talk a little bit about like, what is the right kind of structure and process look like, how long should it take? Who should be involved? Let's get into some of those details a little bit.

Yeah, No, I love this conversation. And what I generally recommend here is it does come back to if I'm overusing the phrase reign me in here, but it does come down to your fund fundamentals and really defining the competencies. Like what, what skills put to action do you need to see for this hire? And have you, and have you figured that out? So part of your internal intake process should be, you know, having those conversations, right? Creating your internal job description, if you have one, certainly your job description itself, and making sure you have any additional supporting material for that. And then, and then beyond that, I think in terms of a question about who to involve, I think some of this comes down to, you know, based on your stage, like really identifying who are the folks within the organization who represent key functional areas, who have an important point of view, who can be relied upon to complete interviews in a timely fashion, be on time, complete their scorecards, and participate thoughtfully. And I think once you have all that, then it simply becomes a matter of saying, okay, how do we now create a process where all of our required competencies get at least assessed once? With questions that we design in advance and in some cases get assessed two or three times, or we see competencies put to action in the form of a role play. But it's kind of working backwards from knowing what do you need for this? And then how are you going to assess for these skills? With questions organized across a panel of participants that you trust to help run your process. And so from there, I mean, typically for if you're hiring an ae, like if you've got more than four or five steps in the process, the question becomes why? Right. If assuming it's 30 to 45 minutes per person, assuming, you know, eight to 10 competencies. Right. The math should work out in a way where you end up with a, you know, a four to five step process. And then, you know, for a VPS sales. Go ahead.

No, go ahead, go ahead. Four to five step process, right?

Yeah, for AES. Right. For a VP of sales, maybe it's six to eight. But you're, you're, you're creating your questions and your steps and your, your process outline based on working backwards from what you need to vet and how you can do that in a way where you're mitigating risk that you miss something. Right. So with the competencies that are really important, I recommend, know, build two or three points in your process where you have questions, you know, situational behavioral questions to assess for that and where you have sort of some, some definition of what a great answer should look like.

Yeah. So I, I have a couple of questions and then I want to switch it over to the candidate side. Let's talk about for those who are, who are looking for jobs. Let's give them some suggestions too, but two questions first. The first question is.

How many people, hours does it take for an organization to run a five, six or seven step process? Just the interviews themselves.

Yeah.

Right. And. Well, and not just the. Sorry in that. I mean the interview time, the amount of prep time it takes for that company, the amount of time it takes to prep for the prep and then the seven additional meetings that have to happen after the interview. Yes, because you got to circle back six different times over six interviews. Like if I'm going through five Interviews. If I'm running an org and I got to run through just five interviews for an AE, I feel like I'm going to lose 40 to 50 hours of people time of my own people to this process.

And then the big mistake is, you know what? One out of three sales reps actually make it. So now I'm, you know, I'm putting in a hundred hours of wasted time every time I hire three people. Is that, is that an accurate number or is it like, no, Richard doesn't take that much time. It's probably per candidate, it's 15 hours or 20, like, because I feel like people don't realize this part.

No, I think this is a great call. I don't know if that maybe feels a little overstated, but I can't do the math fast enough to correct it. If so. But what I will say, it's a great observation, but the point you made that's most important about this. So a, you absolutely, you should do the math. You should know what kind of time commitments you're looking for and expecting. You obviously should have a target like when do you, when do you want button seat, right? And then working backwards from that to when you're kicking off that search process to make sure you're also factoring in time against the calendar, right? Since, you know, you, if you're kicking off a search, presumably you want to have that, that search complete in six to eight weeks. So you're also looking at time commitments within, you know, within a tight calendar. But that point you made about, you know, three candidates to get your one. Where I think this really gets out of control is a lot of companies that are interviewing 20, 30, 40 people to get one. And they're, they're, they're deceiving themselves by saying, well, we're running a highly rigorous process, right, so we are not going to settle. We need a, you know, a top 1 percenter. But what you're really doing is running a poor process, right? Because you're not, you're, you're, you're not doing the math. Look at how much time you are in this case truly wasting, right? Interviewing 40 people when you really don't know what success. Maybe you do know what it is, but you haven't built a checkpoint in to sit down with your recruiting team, whether agency or, or in house and say, we talked to seven candidates, all seven have not gotten past this step. Let's discuss why and, and review how we can adjust our search parameters to get more qualified people into the funnel.

So what's what is on sales. What's the. Because there's always this number, right. What's the cost of a bad hire? If I hire Scott, which I would never do because I actually didn't. What's the cost? And his base salary is 100 grand plus another 100 OT. And in three months I realized Scott's not the right fit or vice versa. Richard's not the right fit for Scott. What's that cost, that hire? Aside from the time? Did we really just waste 100 grand because now we got to start all over again. Like, is there a number?

I'm sure there is. And it's, it's, it's, it's that it's the lost productivity of not having made a better hire. It's potentially the adverse impact that, you know, a mishire can have in others in your organization. Right. Whether it's through being a resource drain or affecting morale. If it was a bad hire from a culture and values perspective. And then obviously there's the time lost and you know, and then running a backfill search and not having someone, you know, producing revenue in that interim period. So it's a lot.

So that, which is. This is why I think people go into that horrible, rigorous process, you said, interviewing 40 people and they can't make up their own mind. So I, I think that. Okay, eight step process for a vp, right. At a startup anyway. That feels ridiculous. Scott, are you sticking around for eight interviews if something else comes along?

I mean, the only way that I am is I really, really, really want this gig and I don't really have any others in the hopper. So for me personally I wouldn't because I'd never end up in that position. Right. And here's. It's less about kind of spending too much time or wasting my time or whatever. Here's the red flag for me. If it takes Chuck eight meetings with me to make a decision, I'm thinking it's going to take me eight meetings for any decision to be made about anything. And so if I want to swap the water cooler out, I'm going to have eight meetings about it. If I want to change a comp plan, I'm going to have eight meetings about it. And so that just feels like a slog and I don't want to have that kind of work, work environment, basically. That's. So that's, that's the biggest red flag about that process to me.

Can I, can I defend it, please?

That's why you're here.

Go ahead, defend.

No, no, that's it. Thank you for another episode of Richard and Scott Are Always Right.

Well, no, I think I'm curious if this will change your views a bit or maybe there's a little bit of, maybe a terminology thing here because I, I'll just kind of think on the fly here of what, what I think a credible eight step process can look like. So, you know, when we work with organizations to help us with sales hiring, step one is usually an, an informal conversation with the candidate so we can learn more about them. But also we use step one to really give candidates a very detailed overview of the company, the role, our perspective on challenges, and then what we're looking for in this higher end why. And, and I expect at that point, like great candidates, they're going to have questions for us, right? They're going to understand, you know, more on some of the challenges, why the search is being run, leadership style, competitive advantages, et cetera, et cetera. We'll touch briefly on narrative. Obviously I'll have looked at the profiles to see if we think it makes sense to go forward. But step one is an informal conversation. Step two is typically a deep dive narrative review with me, I usually offer that to my clients. That's where we, in a more disciplined way, make sure we're understanding, you know, their accomplishments, their learnings, their remit. Step three might be a meeting with the CEO or the hiring manager and then you might have a step four where you're meeting with marketing and maybe a panel with your finance rev ops, maybe an IC on that call. So that's five steps, right, that I think are all really valuable for the company, but also for the candidates who are getting to meet such a cross function of the organization to help with their decision making. Step with you.

So I'm with you so far. Okay, but what are the last three?

Okay, so step six might be a presentation or a whiteboard. Right. Hey, everything seems great. We want to invite you to join us for, you know, an on site to see, you know, how you might solve a certain problem. We're going to share a certain.

This is the part, this is the part that starts to get dodgy because you can understand why they want you as a candidate to do that. But the flip side is and the candidate feedback and you know, this will be, well, they want me to do free consulting for them, right? You want me to go build this like whole fricking model and then they'll take it and then they don't hire me or whatever. So this part starts to get dodgy but okay, that's number six.

Yep. Number seven, we want. We want to give an opportunity to meet with one of our advisors and maybe an investor. So that could be seven and eight right there. Or maybe it's just an investor. Right. Which I would think would be valuable for the candidate. And then maybe step eight to final call with the hiring manager before offer or the verbal offer itself.

So. All right, I have some feedback.

Yes.

One.

There'S a difference between Scott and I where we have a certain amount of skill set. You know, once you're about five or 10 years in, they want you to come in and do a presentation. It's like, wait a minute. Now you're asking me to do the job, and they're not actually asking for the right thing.

Yep.

They're not. They've been told. So. First thing is, I'll tell you how I would encourage people to restructure that. The other thing is, before you ask me to work for you for free, I want to meet your advisor. Now it's about me. So I would flip those two. Now the company is going to say, well, let's see if they present well before we give them to the advisor. I get it. It's like, well, if I've made it this far and you want me to present.

Yep.

Know what? You should have the advisor figure that out. Right. So that's the first thing. The second thing is in that, hey, come do a presentation, blah, blah, blah. No, that's not what you're hiring for. You're not hiring for their best moment. You're hiring to see how they handle the worst moment. I don't need to hire someone to know if they know how to copy in word. I need to know if they know how to paste. If they know how to paste, they know how to cut and copy.

Right.

So what I want them to do is bring it in and I will say, yeah, I'll go do a presentation. But Chuck, do me a favor. Bring me the hardest objections you've ever had from one of your candidates. From one of your. From one of your customers.

Yep.

Bring me the hardest. Objection. Competitor, Give me all the information I need to know to be a rep. And let's role play that, because that's what you want to know if I can love it.

Yep.

I can do a PowerPoint, you know, standing on my head. In fact, I. Every time I've had to do this, I've rewritten the per people's PowerPoint because their PowerPoint sucks.

Right.

You know what the PowerPoint looks like when they give it to me. Slide one is their company name, slide two is their logo salad and slide three is the VCs. That's what they want me to present as a head of sales to a potential client.

Right?

No, I'm not showing that.

Right.

That goes at the back of the deck. I don't need to see the logo salad as a prospect. So like, so anyway, so he got me all fired up.

I love it.

Scott, I got, I gotta slow down. I might have a heart attack.

Yeah, just keep breathing. Just keep breathing over there.

Yeah.

So I want to, I want to flip it. Let's talk about the candidates. I know we're running out of, out of time, but I want to ask one or two questions for people who are, who are being hired or in the process.

How do you stand out in those interviews?

Right.

What are the questions a candidate should be asking in an interview that are not. Tell me about the day in the life of the rep. Tell me about your biggest challenges and struggles. Like how do I. Because to me I feel like that's where candidates stand out is in the questions they ask, not the answers they give to the horrible questions their interviewers ask. What advice do you, what do you give to. What would you advice would you give to those who are interviewing?

Yeah, and just to add to your point too, I think this is where we're looking for some, you know, glass half full moments for folks who are struggling and maybe those who don't have as much like traditional, you know, category experience. This is where you as a candidate can outflank others by having better questions and better preparedness coming into that conversation. So, so it starts, rather than trying to craft your questions, it starts with doing your research on the company. And I always recommend starting with making sure you understand the value prop. What do they do? What are they solving for? Why does it matter? And what does a successful outcome look like? And by the way, in some cases it may not be very clear. And now you have one of your questions, right. That you may want to ask, but trying to make sure you understand their value prop the product set, right. Like if there's an online demo, like if you can go through that demo, like do your research, obviously learn the people that you're meeting with and then like formulate questions as you're going through that and looking at the business and sort of feeding your curiosities accordingly. And so you bring those questions into the conversation. That's, that's number one. And if you're, if it's a new or complex business. If you're interviewing with a DevOps company and you haven't done DevOps, it may take you more time, but if you want to pursue that opportunity, you need to put the time into it to do your best. And then the second piece is making sure that you are an active listener in the conversation because there are things that will come up in the discussion where you'll have certain questions answered and you may have new ones based on things that have been shared with you. And you want to be ready and prepared and comfortable to ask questions. Even if it's an acronym that someone uses and you're not familiar with it, you know, ask that question when the time comes, like, show your curiosity and your courage and you should do quite well. But what I often see candidates do is, you know, they'll come with their questions and then they'll say, well, you know, you've already answered a lot of my questions, but, you know, let me ask you, like, how many reps, like hit their number last year? And it's just, it's obvious that, you know, you kind of put together a list, you know, but you're not really sort of processing and thinking as the conversation goes through.

So you're checking the box rather than being thoughtful about the engaging dialogue.

Yeah.

In fact, that's my recommendation, is to email those questions. Hey, so we don't have to spend time on these questions, Scott.

Great.

How many reps hit the number can you show me when I come in? What's a day in the life like? Let's get that standard stuff out of the way in an email or a quick video recording, because I don't need to. That's a waste of everybody's time. My opinion.

Yep. And also too, I think if things get missed using the follow up or, you know, the thank you note as a way to ask those questions, I get so few quality thank you note. I, I get very few thank you notes in general, which is just remarkable. I think people are assuming that, you know, the recruiter, you know, doesn't need to see that. But a great thank you note that shows that you're processing what was discussed and that you're appreciative of it and looking forward to next steps can go such a long way. I mean, oftentimes as a recruiter, when I get a really good thank you note, if there's a candidate I've recommended, I'm going to forward it to the CEO or the VP of Sale so they can see it. Right. So Those things actually circulate. So your preparedness before the questions, during your follow up afterwards, it is, it is so important. And if you do that really well, that's your opportunity to outperform others who maybe have, you know, the pedigrees that you lack.

And if you don't do that right now, you could be in trouble.

Yeah, yeah.

Because of course, 400 people for every role or 40 people for every role or whatever, you gotta assume some percentage of them is doing that stuff that Chuck's talking about.

Totally. I think there's been a lot of like, healthy dialogue about, like, ways to like, get into opportunities and leveraging your network and, you know, looking for referrals and, you know, a lot of, a lot of good guidance there. But it's like, yeah, it's like people forget what needs to happen once you get into the cycle. Right. And, and it's these sorts of basics that are just so important.

Yeah, I got, I got. We're going to flip it to you to let you ask a question, but one more question around thank you notes. This might be generational. When you say thank you note, do you mean a thank you email or do you mean the old school handwritten thank you card your mom used to make you send to everybody in the family after your Christmas and Hanukkah gifts?

I mean, I mean, there's probably an argument to do that. I'm referring more to thank you emails. And I don't, I don't even. I mean, thank you is kind of the terminology we've used for. I think it's, I would almost say it's better referred to as a follow up note. But whether it's by email or a personal note, yes, you want to express gratitude, but what you really want to do as well is show something that you learned that you process from that conversation that you will bring to the table for that next, assuming you want to continue going. And sometimes that, that, that follow up note can be, you know, withdrawing from the process. Right. Which you can also do professionally based on what you've heard. But if you want to continue, like show something you've learned, an insight, something that actually shows you were present and, and that you process and that can go a long way.

All right, I got one more real question before we let you ask a question. This one's controversial.

Scott and Richard get hired somewhere. Richard gets hired somewhere. Rich, it all looks good. Richard believes that he should keep interviewing for the next 30 to 60 days because maybe the there's stinky cheese in the back of the fridge that we don't know about yet. Do you think candidates should keep interviewing after they accept the job?

I don't have a problem with it. I think, you know, if you're doing that, you know, because, you know, you, you have some questions or you know that you're, you're taking opportunity where there's, there's been clear risk communicated, you're taking that risk and you want to like, do some risk mitigation. I think if you can do that in a way that doesn't take away from, you know, the, the, the, the needs of the day job and really, you know, putting your all into that, I think it's fine. I mean, I, I wouldn't say it's necessarily should be considered, you know, obligatory. There is an argument you always want to have your toes dipped in the water and seeing what's out there and keeping your interviewing skills sharp. I think 30, 60 days in, like, you know, my hope is that you've picked something that you really feel excited by and are ready to, to, you know, to go heads down after. But I don't think there's anything unethical about continuing to interview. I do think that this is another question maybe for another day. I do not like when candidates, you know, continue interviewing after accepting an offer but before day one to try to finalize a process. I think I understand why. I understand companies have treated people horribly, but I think often it's simply a matter of getting better at having conversations with companies pursuing you to line up your opportunities. And so have that difficult conversation when interviewing. Tell that company I need four more days and I've got another opportunity. And here's where you rank versus keeping your mouth shut, signing the offer and then retracting because the company offered you 10,000 more. You can do that. But I think, you know, it's ultimately, you're, you're probably burning bridges that you don't need to burn.

It's good advice.

This has been great. This, like, we've gone through like 50 minutes already. We're like out of time. Flew by.

Really enjoyed this.

Flew by. Well, we want to give you a chance before we wrap up, give you a chance to maybe ask us a question, how can we be helpful to you, that type of thing. Anything on your, your mind?

Yeah. I appreciate you asking. I would be delighted to speak to any folks in your networks who are looking for help with hiring, help with team building, help with GTM strategy and, or like, folks that you think have great points of view on how to run great, you know, hiring processes that, and interviewing and all things related to this that would be beneficial for me. So we're, we're always committed to like, you know, growing our networks and learning and the best people in my network have really helped me learn in this market. You know, we, we really take a long game approach to things and we've seen that, you know, some of our best relationships, you know, yield opportunities for us from a business perspective down the line. There are still. This wasn't a question you asked. But in this market too, there are still, you know, lots of recruiting firms out there and with limited placement opportunities. Right. It's a more competitive market. And so what we've really tried to do in this market is kind of double down on our key clients and just, you know, do more in the way of services and work to make sure they're all delighted and then, you know, looking to see things expand from there. So if there are folks that you think would be beneficial just to connect us to, we're always delighted for interest.

Sure. Where LinkedIn's easiest place Chuck Brotman, B R O T M A N Is.

That the easiest on LinkedIn? Yep. And that to any of your listeners here, you can find me on LinkedIn, our website's blueprint expansion.com and you know, we're, we do our best to be open to talent. Wants to have career conversations. I'm trying to reserve those lately for Friday. So if you want to have that conversation and can clear time on a Friday, happy to share my calendar link with your listeners and I'm happy to sit down and go through your search and, and ways that we can be helpful. Cool.

Well, Chuck, thank you, man. This was super enlightening. Really appreciate it. Could have gone on for another hour. Particularly on that last response you got about the, the, the clarity. Because I think Scott and I would be like, no, sorry, we're not really burning a bridge because who are they going to tell? Who are they going to tell? So anyway, but Chuck, thank you everybody. Thank you for another listening to another fabulous session of the surf and sales podcast. Scott, always good to see you, my friend.

You too, man. Everybody check out surfandsales. Com. We've got two events coming up in November and we hope to see you there.

See you next time. Thanks for having me on.

Yeah, now he can come since he's going to learn.

If I successfully learn. That's the other question.