S6E22 - Cory Terre - The Best Way to Evaluate a Potential Unicorn

Foreign.

What's up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Surf and sales podcast. I am Scott Lees, co host, co founder of the Surf and Sales Summit, here with my good friend and co founder, co host, partner Richard Harris. What's going on, buddy? How are you doing today?

I'm good, man. I'm, I'm excited I get to come down and actually see you in person in a week.

Oh, that's true. Yeah. One week from tomorrow, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm excited for that. I'm doing well. How are you?

I'm hanging in there, man. I'm hanging in there. I'm pretty excited to talk to our guests today. I know, you know, you don't know that, but you don't know the backstory, but this guy used to work where I worked. My first job in Austin, Texas in 2013 or so. I think he graduated in 2012. That's how old I am. I'm already a VP of sales order. This guy graduated, shows up as a kid right out of college, stays at that job for like seven years, sees it through a nine figure exit to a big huge company, pivots, goes to another startup in town led by a fellow Main street hub sales leader, grows that business massively. And now he's a sales performance coach at a company called cellfire, which was founded by the original founder that he worked with way a long time ago. This is a very like Austin text scene scenario. We're here with Corey Terry, who's the sales performance coach over at Cell. What's going on, Corey?

What's going on? Thanks y'. All. Thanks Scott, Richard, for having me on the, on the, on the show.

Yeah, no worries. So Scott, did you actually hire Corey or was it you at this, Were you at the stage where you already in the ivory tower and you let someone else hire for you?

I going to be honest with you, I do not remember. Does Corey remember?

Yeah, you did not, you did not hire me.

I, I did not hire him. Yeah, you just somebody else hired him.

Yeah, yeah. Wasn't a part of the interview process there, I believe. Back bounce 2013 now.

Holy moly.

I must have been, I must have been in the ivory tower by then, Richard. Or, or, and, or on my way towards the exit.

The ivory tower, though, just to be clear, was the glass office that was directly behind my desk where you were just staring.

He remembers that part. Oh yeah. The vps sales right behind me, watched my other move.

Brutal pressure. Yeah, that's me. That's me just watching him. You Know, watch Parts Madness or whatever he was doing and being like, what the heck is going on? Corey, why don't you tell everybody what the heck sales performance coach means so they have some context for your role at Cell Fire and then tell everybody what Cell Fire is all about.

Yeah, absolutely. It's a good question. Like, what the heck is a sales performance coach? You know, to, to, to put it clearly, it's to help coach folks on how to better perform in sales. That's the obvious answer. But to get into the weeds there, I have a background in learning and development, training and development, building onboarding programs, and we can, we can talk at length at that. Sales materials, that kind of stuff to set people up for success and then ongoing training programs to continue that success. Right. So specifically at Cell Fire, what my job entails is, is I come in whenever a company hires us for, you know, we can talk what we do. We provide software and we provide coaching. Right. I'm specifically on the coaching side of things. So when I come in to the coaching journey, as we call it, I work with the executive team at that company to develop a sales playbook, a sales process to help enable sellers to sell more. We test that process out, we optimize that process, we coach reps to increase revenue per rep per day to prove that out, and then give that company that sales playbook and sales machine to help go scale other sellers and help grow their customer base. So I come in, I work with sales leaders, sales reps, I train them, coach them, build sales processes to put into place to coach to, to those, those things and systems. So that's, that's what I do in a nutshell, is I come in, help put in a process, coach to that process and help you perform better so you can take that process and scale in the future.

The reps, when I interpret that as all that post it note stuff I used to use when I coached reps has been coalesced combined into an actual program.

Right?

Yes. The sticky notes and sticky notes.

Yes.

Sticky notes on the monitor. Yes.

I've got one or two over here. I, I, I, I bring that up only because I gave that reference earlier today about sales coaching. Someone asked me, well, did you ever coach reps? I'm like, yeah. It's like, well, how did you. Because I was concerned about the distraction of the software. It's like, well, how did you do it? And I was like, oh, it was way worse. Like it was a post it note. It was like you sat there writing post it notes, telling reps what to say.

A live call. So the rep.

The reps that you coach now, Corey, they're different from you and how you came up. How.

Oh, dear, man, I. I came up in.

It was. I think it was a lot more. It was a lot more scrappy back then. There was less technology. There was less data informing, you know, where to go, what to, what to get better at. Although, like, you know, that company we were at back in 2013, there was some processes out there. But I think, like, what's different now is, is that, like, reps now have much more technology at their fingertips, much more data helping steer the direction of. Of. Of where to go. And. And, yeah, I think it's. Yeah, I don't know. I think one of the beautiful thing that is about what we do is we come in and we help provide a playbook and a blueprint that you get to follow. Right. Versus just like winging it on the phone and figuring it out and sinking or swimming. Right. Like, we are helping guide you. We're giving you a roadmap, the quickest route from A to B, and coaching you along the way to try to improve your performance and letting data sort of inform that process.

So I have a question, because, you know, and Scott, you have a learning and development degree, right? Isn't that part of your. Was that your master's or your.

That's my. That's my master's degree. Yeah.

Right. So question for you, for both of you. And. And I'm wondering if it's changed, Corey, because you. You're. Feels like you're a little closer to the ground level than Scott and I are, based on understanding how humans like to learn, which is really a part of what that learning and development degree is. Can you now better understand all the way in the interview process, what you're looking for? Right. Like, you know, I think coming along, you know, we were all like, I want to find someone who's coachable and, you know, those kind of things. But is there something meatier than that? Because you now understand. You understand that concept. You also understand and you have experience with being a rep, being coached, then also building out this organization in coaching. Like, what are the things we should be looking for in hiring salespeople that are better indications that they're coachable? Because you guys both have a little bit more of the book knowledge to this stuff.

Yeah, I think it's a good question. I think, like, you know, growth mindset, like, what is that? Right.

But yeah, what's that mean? What's Coachability, growth, mindset.

Yeah. It's the willingness to get better. It's the willingness to, to learn. It's I, you know, and it's kind of hard to test for that behavioral thing in an interview. Right. I think you nailed one of them and I know that's, you know, something that it always rings true.

Right.

But I think like, you know, having a strong work ethic, having a growth mindset. Right. A positive mindset and then being coachable. I think those are the three behaviors that I always look for when I'm interviewing sales reps. And I think like it's about putting those behaviors to the test. Right. If you're interviewing folks, it's about, you know, having them give you real life examples where those things happened. It's about role playing, whether that's a script or a piece of your process and then giving them direct feedback on that and seeing how quickly they're able to adapt and like implement that feedback. I think is important. I think it's also too like not putting people in a box like adults, you know, the adult learning theory. Right. Like people, people less when you get an adult like to be just instructor led. This is what you need to do and it's more like self guided. Right. They need to figure out and tell you the way that they want to learn. And I think that's a big piece now that you know, we incorporate into, into training and development.

That's something I've never heard. So, so as you become an adult, I want to make sure I heard you. As you become an adult there's more of this self guided piece or they actually just want to be instructed.

Yeah, no, it's, yeah, more, more self guided. Right. Like I think they're, they're, you know, versus telling somebody how to learn. Right. We need to ask questions and understand how people want to learn.

Right.

And there is a self guided element to that of you know, different activities and different things that you can implement along the way for them to put things into practice and actually have hands on experience where they're self guiding that learning themselves.

That that's why Gen X and Boomers are so frustrated because they're, that's not what we got as a Gen X. Well, Right, well. And therefore the millennials and the Gen Z's have been like, you know, you guys are idiots. Because you could get more out of me if you, you know, you know, coached me like what, what I, I believe what millennials and Gen Z's think of as coaching. I would have thought of this micromanagement. Yeah, right.

Yep, yep. I think like, I think too, like there is an element of you need this self, you need to instructor led and have self guided things in the training world. Like they're definitely, you need to teach people things, but how they learn. Right. And how you break those concepts down is a different thing entirely. Now when it comes to coaching on the floor. Right. Like we have a very prescriptive process.

On how we coach people and how we give people feedback, actionable feedback, not overwhelming them with feedback. Right. You know, Scott, lease back in the day, you know, and this is definitely a thing now nowadays as well. And it's something that the cell fire platform, the technology allows you to do. But you know, whispering on calls and actually live coaching on calls and, and, and giving people words to say so we can close a deal down. I think that's a big element still of coaching. But when I, when I, when I think about that as development, you sort of black out and you just, you just are regurgitating the words that your sales leaders saying. And then I've seen it all too often over the last 12 years where their sales team all of a sudden is dependent on their sales leader of hopping on closes and helping them close their flail in their arms because we're fishing for them instead, instead of teaching them how to fish. So it's about, you know, taking a second, pausing, asking them questions to get them to understand the reasons why we said certain things or paus and breaking that call down to find moments of, of Aha, right. Of moments where they're like, oh, that's why that clicked because we brought it back here or we asked this question which took it here versus just woohoo, you got the deal, go ring the gong. Right. So yeah, so I kind of went off on a tangent there. Right. But I think there's a coaching element too. And then there's also like a developing a development element as well. All right.

I want to move on to something slightly more important which is the favorite topic of the show, which is when I ask questions about working for Scott Lees. So Scott's, you know, got his hands, his head in his hands at the moment.

So I'm just always nervous of what's about to happen.

But people, really, people love you, man. I've always said it. You get you don't you don't you collect disciples, man. I know you like, there's just, you gotta hold me.

They don't always feel that way in the moment though.

Right.

Time has passed yes.

After. After we've healed. Yes, I'm well aware of, you know, we've gone through some detox and healing. You know, in 12, you have to.

Go through a therapy journey afterwards.

But, you know, so what? Because I worked for Scott early in his leadership career. You work with him, definitely, as he was really on that accelerated way up. You know, one of the things you remember about working with Scott, and it may be more.

Culturally how we built the team, because I don't know how much interaction you actually had with them other than him looking over your shoulder.

I do have a story, and I.

Do want the dirty stories, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, here we go. Here comes the story.

Oh, man. So what? I joined the company in April of 2013, Main Street Hub. And then I think you were there till like, like on my stint. I think you left in, like July or August.

So it wasn't thinking it was the summer or something like that.

Yeah, it was.

I think it was like four or five months together. Yeah.

Yep. Yep. All right. Like, I guess culture wise, you're right. I guess we didn't, we didn't interact a ton, but Scott Lease was present on the floor and would get very, very mad whenever the floor was quiet and there wasn't a lot of phone calls and conversations happening. You know, I think we would run Spiffs and stuff where we would have iPads and we'd have different things, AirPods and all that stuff. And, you know, I do remember Scott Lees a few times popping out on the floor, like, why is it so quiet? Does nobody want to win this and you. Nobody want to make money and all that stuff? I think, you know, Scott Lease was very, very direct. It was my first sales gig too. Like, as Scott mentioned, I graduated college actually with a bachelor's in fine arts degree, so drawing and painting and photography and all that stuff. And you get out of college and you realize that's not going to make a living right away. Right. So you got to get into sales and you got to make money. So that's hence why I joined Main Street Hub and put some of the phone skills to the test. But I think, Scott, you know, you, you created a culture. It was very direct and transparent and we knew what was expected of us. I. I think, you know, you pushed us a lot. I do remember. I'm going to tell this story because I've told this story to. To sales classes before. Mind you, I've trained sales. Sales classes over the last, you know, eight years or so. Seven. Eight years. Big Sales classes. And so sometimes I'll. I'll tell this story and it's something I learned early on in my first month of cold call sales on the phones. And it was end of April back then, I think if you didn't get a deal, like, I think you. You were in jeopardy, like losing your job in the first month. It was brutal.

It was cutthroat.

It was like you, you didn't.

It was leaf fish part two.

I was part. I was part of a class of like six. We had like you know, 15 people on the floor maybe or something. So rounded it out to about 20 and you know. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.

Just. Just for context, because I. After your. How long was training? A week. Was it one of those one week training things?

It was, yeah. A few days. I mean, it was, it was.

And then how fast did you have to close your first deal before you were gone? A week?

Yeah.

Two weeks.

Yeah, it was basically like in three weeks.

The first month. Yeah, yeah.

Inside the first month.

That's pretty good.

So that's less about me and more about the CEO.

That's. Yeah, well, we make it sound.

You make it sound like I wanted to get rid of people. When we worked together after three or four days, I was the boss man, dude.

Right?

Come on.

I was like, just to give context for people. When I first worked with Scott, it was two days of training, Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday. And I think by Friday you had to close a deal. Within a week, maybe you got to the second week. Does that sound right, Scott? And that wasn't necessarily you. Like, it was brutal, but it wasn't.

Definitely not me.

Yeah, yeah. That was a CEO thing. But I just, I'm glad to see that Scott matured to give people a moment. So that's. Anyway, I digress. Get back to the story.

No, no, it's. That is. It was. It was pretty. It was intimidating. Right. I joined and you know, my buddy who had been working there, he. He was crushing it. He was doing really good at the time. And so I'm like, man, I gotta figure this out. Like, I got this. So anyways, so what's the story you tell? The story I tell is like one of the early lessons I learned in sales is. Is you. You have to be assertive on the phones. And this comes from you, Scott. Lease. So like, we, We. You pulled us into a room. It was our new hour class. I think one person had already quit. So there's like, you know, four of us in the room, five of Us in the room. It was like two weeks in, three weeks in. I think you were going around the room and you were saying, like, what's up? Why don't we have a sale? Why don't we have a sale on the board? Talk to me. Why don't we? And I think I jumped in and I was like, hey, like, I'm scheduling demos, and I'm like, I've got decision calls and, you know, some people are flaking on me and this and that. I don't. I don't. You know, I've got people that are supposed to call me back, right? Like, things like that. And I think you looked at me and you said, corey, you said, you seem like a nice guy. You go, you're probably a million times nicer than me, but I'm a million times richer than you. And I was like, oh. I'm like, man, I'm like, that was brutal. But I understand what you were saying in that moment. After reflecting on that and not bruising my ego too much, I was allowing people. I was allowing people to push me around and wasn't holding people accountable politely and respectfully and assertively on the phone, scheduling a solid time in the calendar, having clear expectations that we're going to come to a yes or no decision, buttoning things up and making sure the appointment holds when you schedule a demo. I mean, there's a lot of learnings out of there that I think, like, you know, I imparted wisdom on sales classes to come. Because when you first get into sales, you know, you may be a little timid and shy on the phone, and you're a little bit like a gun shy on, like, holding people's feet to the fire. But I think what I did after that exercise is I went back to the table and I said, you know what? I go, this is my salary. Now I'm going to calculate my hourly wage, and I'm going to calculate all these demos I ran that were an hour long, like 18 of them or however many, probably wasn't even that high. And I said, if I just held 25% of these people speak to the fire and close that this is what my hourly rate would be added to my. My hourly rate for my salary. So I was like, you know what? Like, you're right. Maybe I need to start respecting my time and valuing my time and, you know, not being, you know, not being aggressive on the phone, but being assertive on the phone and value my time. I think that was a good lesson. So that was A lesson where, you know, it was like in your face type thing, but lo and behold, I didn't close a deal in my first month. I did not. And y' all said you got a week. You had the first week of May to get your first deal. And I got my first deal and I got my second deal. And I tell you, I was the last person to get a deal in that class for the people that stayed there. And I was the last one freaking there training sellers every single month. So I think that's a.

That's a good story that there is a lesson there. Because in my. My first ever sales job, I got hired with like 20 people. Ish. Same deal was like 4 hours of training. And then after lunch, we got thrown on the phones straight away. That was a Monday. By Friday, I was the last person in that class who had either not quit or already closed a deal. The last guy. And I closed a deal that Friday night, late, I was cold calling Hawaii. What. Not close the deal. It's very similar kind of story, man, that it goes to show that the first person out of the gate to close the deal is not necessarily going to be. Be the best salesperson.

That's it.

And I think it was said for.

Struggling at first, fighting through it, figuring it out, having your head stuck in the guillotine, not panicking, digging in, you know what I'm saying? And you learn the.

You learn the work and you learn the effort, and you learn the resilience it takes to get there.

The great ones do, Corey. The great ones.

Yes, that's. That's right. And so. And I think that, you know, going through that experience and then all the experiences I went through as like a sales manager there and then the lead trainer and then senior manager at sales enablement for GoDaddy and like, all like that my whole journey there through the exit and everything, I think, you know, like training so many people up and people being faced with adversity at first and having that comfort of like, you know, telling stories of actual experience of what you went through and the trials and tribulations. The people that do grind it out like that, you know, they. They have the wherewithal, they have the.

The.

The resilience to get through the highs and the lows, because they're not always highs in sales, right? And. And things like that, you know, so many different stories around. We used to have those bands there to where you. You'd try to get a promotion, right? If you hit this consecutively, like three months in a row, but if you missed in a month, then you had to reset and restart. I think I went through that twice where I fel. Just such a, such a bummer. And you know, it's, it's. Those are learning lessons too. Right. But be able to, you know, pick yourself back up and keep grinding and go, go after it and finally get it. It makes it that much sweeter.

You're in your third.

Kind of Sprint, if you will, Startup Sprint.

Both of the first two have been in my mind very successful. One had an outcome already, the other one hopefully will have an outcome somewhat soon. Now you're in the third one.

Yep.

As you go about things now, how are you? How is your sort of like radar if you will, starting to fine tune a little bit more to select the right opportunity, the right place to go? Because you got a pretty good, you got a pretty good picker so far. So.

Yep.

Even if we just call the first one luck with. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. You can, you can tell us. But this, you know, you do it a second time, that's pretty consistent. You do it a third time presumably. And I know what's going on. I know you guys are doing very well at the very beginning here. How are you? How do you fine tune that? Because this is an area that so many people struggle with. There's good people who pick the wrong companies. They don't have good product market fit or maybe that product is too early and they can't get traction or whatever the hell goes. Goes wrong. You're avoiding that so far. So talk a little bit about how you analyze these opportunities because you got a freaking, you're batting a thousand so far.

I know, I know man. I've been, been blessed. And you know, also like it's a testament as well to like the, the network that had come from that, that first opportunity. But you know, when you do good work and you work hard, people notice. Right. And, and people reach out and there's, there's offers and there's things that, that, that come your way and been blessed with that, which is, which is great. And I think it's like, you know, taking the time to analyze what I want in the next opportunity. And I think like when I chose my last gig, you know, it was, it was like post Covid right out of COVID early 2021. I actually took that job and I declined a, a higher paying job actually on the first day of that job. And I, I think it came down to a couple of things like, and I always call it the three Ps. It's silly, but it's, it's people, product and potential. So when I'm looking for the next gig, right, like I'm looking at like the people there. I am interviewing the companies that I am looking at and I'm, I'm making sure that like I'm not the smartest person in the room and I know that I can learn from folks there are, there, there, there's, there's great people there. Also, it helps to have people that you trust, right? People that you know that's in your network, right? So I think people is an important part of. If you got the wrong people in place, that's just going to make things that much harder, right? And you got to have smart people. You got to have people. You trust the product. For me, I'm a trainer, right? I'm a sales process guy. I got to get jazzed about the product. I've got to be able to like get excited and get passionate and talk at length and you know, talk somebody's ear off and get excited about the product that I'm building a process for or I'm building an onboarding program for. I'm building product training around. I think that's so critical. I have to be bought into the product. I've got to be excited about the product and then the potential, right? I think the potential is, is, is another thing. And when I, when I look at potential, you know, I've learned this over the last, you know, several years. But you know, I think it's, it's, it's more of, you know, what is. If, if I'm specifically joining and I'm helping in the sales side of things, what is our potential? What's our tam? What's our total addressable market with this product that I like, that's led by great people. You know, what it, what is the potential there? Are we only limited to this certain industry? Are we going to be constrained or capped at this? Yeah, I think that that goes a long way. Is it a subscription model based thing? How do you generate revenue? I think there's just a lot of things that, that I. Questions I ask around that. Right. And things I analyze. What's your icp? You know, what, what's the future of this? We don't know how this is going to grow, but how can we expand that? So again, back to the three Ps, right? Like the people are very important. You've got to trust the people that you're, that you're that you're getting into the business with and they've got to be smart people. And then the product needs to be a solid product that you believe in and then the potential has to be there. There needs to be room to grow, There needs to be opportunity there for, for us to scale this thing.

I think that's a really great framework. The three Ps, people, product and potential. I think if people just thought about that in its most simplistic form, I think that would help them quite a bit. I don't think it's been enough time.

And I think too like on the potential side of things for me, selfishly, like, it's not just about the, it's not just about the product potential too. It's about your career growth and your path and potential in the company as well and what, what you want to do and where those opportunities are. Because like my last gig, like I mentioned, I declined an offer to be ahead of a sales role, Right. Where I could come in and lead a big sales team. Right. But I chose the scrappy startup early stage, sort of lower level role because I knew I trusted the people and the product was better in my opinion and there was more potential there, not only for the product and the company, but for me as well into growing into that, that, that organization and making a larger impact. Right. A little early on.

Kudos to you for figuring out exactly what you want and what's right for you and having a longer term vision of everything. So we appreciate you spending time with us today, Corey. Check out Corey Terry DM him on LinkedIn. Check out Cellfire. Also check out the book that his colleagues released a little bit ago. It's right there. Sales lab scripting. Check it out. From AJ and Butch. Written by the guys over at cellfire. We usually wrap up every show by saying, how can we be helpful to you? Do you have any questions for us? So this is your turn to interview us. What do you got?

Yeah.

Man. First off, I want to know, this is a basic question, but Richard, where are you based out of? You said you're coming down to Austin to see Scott. Assuming you're still here in Austin, Scott.

Yep, I am.

They'll still have them. You know, he, he got his. He did get his rattlesnake quota yesterday, which we didn't even talk about. We should have talked.

We did not talk about that yet.

Yeah, but no, I'm in the Bay Area, so I'm over in the East Bay. So I met Scott when he was still living out here.

That Makes that makes sense. Right? Because first Gig was based out of SF and then they moved over to Austin. And that's what brought you to Austin, right, Scott?

Yeah, that's right. Awesome.

You know, I guess I, I, I, I'm curious as I and our company, you know, gets more into the AI world, right. I'm curious if, and this is like a broad question, but like I'm curious if you've had any recent guests or you've had any recent, you know, products or technology that have come across your way where, you know, specifically in the, the sales world or the learning and development world on your side, Richard, you know, are there any like innovative things that you've seen, you know, outside of your chat, GPT and all that stuff come across the way that that can be a helpful resource?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the evolution of particularly what you and I and do, and maybe Scott does a little bit on the coaching side is that that tool, that software, whatever it is, is going to start, is, is starting to coach in the call in live moments. Right. And then there's the context of understanding the emotional.

Feelings someone is feeling. Like if I'm pitching you the, the tool can coach me on the right questions to ask, it should know your personality. It'll have more context from all the emails and other previous calls you and I've had. And it'll probably be able to tell me, you know, are you really engaged or are you sort of just, you know, zoning out on me and stuff like that? That's where it's coming. That's. Or that's where it is. It's at the beginning of that stage. You know, I talked to a founder today who's doing it. I've seen it. That Agent Force is going to do it out of Salesforce. I've seen some other tools that are going to do it. My question is going to be within that live coaching, like to the whisper moment, right. Because I've used different stuff that does that. You pointed it out is that you kind of black out after you ask that question because it's such an interruption. Where's the human capacity to take that feedback and implement it?

How much can the human interact with while I'm trying to have a sales conversation with you, while I'm also getting this feedback of what to do and say next? Right. From that, though, you should be able to build training stuff so that after doing some of these coaching things, you could then take that content back and then go back and train your team. You know, from from an enablement perspective based on real life, real world best practices. So. So I wonder where the human capacity is. That's. That's always my biggest concern.

But it's coming like, that's. That's where I see that stuff happening. Right.

What I. Anyway, that. That's my answer based on that question.

I'm gonna be honest with you. I really haven't seen anything in like a year.

Or so, Year and a half even. Maybe that's. That's kind of like blown my mind.

Yeah.

We seem to be in this period of.

Replication. Like Corey invents something, and there's 17 competitors doing the same thing.

Yes.

I feel like that's where I'm at right now with all the AI stuff. I. I haven't really talked to somebody recently where I'm like, okay, this is way different.

Mind blowing.

Yeah.

Wow, man. I also think too. I also.

I'm kind of bored and numb. I'm kind of bored. Yeah, there you go.

That's why I'm asking. Because y' all talk to so many people and y'. All, y', all, you know, you, You. Yeah, you learn.

I mean, the call I had before this was like, you know, AI coaching tool. And I'm like, you 47 others, dude.

Well, it's so funny because I think that's the challenge that everybody's rushing to these things to think they're building it. They're building an MVP that is actually just one feature of what it could be. And, you know, they're building something they think is a product. And I think, Scott, you. And I've said for a while now, you're just a feature within a bigger product. Right?

Yeah.

The application.

Yeah. The applications that make more sense is. Is the ones that are solving like a real problem. Like, I did talk to somebody yesterday who's applying AI to solving the rfp.

Right.

Process. That's like a real use case. I don't know if you ever had a new RFPs, Corey.

Oh, yeah. Time consuming, Crest working nightmare.

Nobody wants to do all that stuff. I can use AI to fill all that stuff out. That makes sense to me. I don't need another AI tool to write better content.

Right? Yeah.

Yeah. Right.

Not to mention it's an enterprise sale. Right. RFPS come to big deals. Right. They're not coming from the smaller. The smaller business.

Yeah, yeah. It's not 1999. A month.

No, no, no, no.

All right, Corey, thanks again, man.

I do have one more question if you've got another minute.

Sneak it in.

I'M sneaking it in. And then I know you got to get prepared for the next thing, but if you had one lesson or one piece of advice that. That you would give somebody. Y'. All. Y' all had extensive careers, and we all are in the same kind of realm. Like, what's one piece of career advice you would give me or the listeners?

Career advice in terms of your personal career or where you are with the organization you're at?

Yeah, good question. Personal career.

I'll go first. Since I know Corey a little.

Yes.

I would. I would actually say two things. I'll give you a bonus one.

Nice.

The first thing is, at some point, if you really want to get some.

Serious liquidity, you're gonna have to sign up to be the man. You're gonna have to be. You're gonna have to say yes to that one opportunity at the early stage who's like, you need to build everything from scratch. You're the guy. Here's one and a half percent of the company. Go turn it into a unicorn. You're gonna have to do that if otherwise, you know, you're gonna. You're gonna hit little singles over and over and over.

Yep.

Right. So that's one is after this one, maybe it's time to sign up and, like, be the man. Right. The second thing is. The second thing is you gotta diversify your income streams. And we haven't talked in a few years, so I don't know, maybe you already are. But.

I give everybody this advice. Who's. Who's in sales, leadership role. You gotta have more than one income stream coming in. Doesn't have to be. I'm not saying, like, go sign up for 2w. 2 jobs or something like that, but, you know, get involved in real estate, get involved in investing, start doing some private coaching, run some events, whatever, because the role that we are all in is very, very unstable. You know, the only thing worse than it is, like, being a. A college or professional sports coach, you know, the guy in Denver wins the championship, a year and a half later, he's fired right before the playoffs.

It's like, yeah, right.

Whoa.

The only other thing that I can think of that you get fired like that so fast, go from hero to zero, is this.

Yep.

So because of that, 18 months.

He made it 18 months. Yeah.

You don't want to get caught losing your job and having no money coming in.

100.

So those two things would be my advice, Richard.

Yeah, that's great. Mine was going to be the second thing that Scott brought up, which is you need to diversify and find something else that, that matters that you can make money at. And I'm.

I'm getting hesitant about the real estate stuff. I've been dabbling with it with my. My father in law has been doing it for years. Like we got out of office buildings because fortunately enough before COVID and I do wonder about housing and apartments because if everybody starts to lose their jobs to air, how are they going to pay for it? So I'm concerned, you know, so I. What do I. And my. Where I. My second. My wife and her family is much more on the real estate side. I'm much more into the stocks. So I'm trying to figure out where are those things where it is very passive income because at some point something's got to make money, right. Some of this stuff's got to do stuff. So I start to get a little concerned around the real estate stuff in the next three years or so because if we're all being replaced, nobody's got income and how are they going to pay rent?

You be I UBI Richard Universal basic income.

Yeah.

Smarter people than me said it by the way. All you Elon Tech bros. Your boy Elon said that. And I don't even like that dude, but he said it. He could be on something with that.

There you go.

You know. But then that's. Then comes the question of does that drive down the rental price? Because the basic income is going to be a minimum wage kind of a situation and therefore if my loan is bigger than what I can bring in, that's. That's what makes me nervous. That's.

Yeah.

In the real estate. I still do real estate stuff but that's.

Yeah. Fair.

I gotta find. I feel like there's gotta be somewhere else. So. Yep, yep.

Already seen that in Austin a little bit. Just kind of go, you know, back sliding just a bit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool.

Well, all right man. Thanks once again.

Great.

Corey. Corey Terry everybody from Cell Fire. We appreciate you spending time with us and we'll see you next time on the surface.

All right, thanks.

See.

Thanks.

See you next week, Scott. Yep.