Be Proactive: Find Companies That Are The Best Fit with Kyle Norton

Every company has breakdowns in their revenue process. Sure thing. Deals slip into next quarter, competitors creep in and swipe deals away at the last minute, and deals getting single threaded that don't get to power. These are just a few examples of revenue leak, but there are a ton more and they're preventing your team from reaching their sales targets. That's why I'm such a big fan of Clary's Revenue platform is the only tool that actually helps leaders take control of their revenue and thrive through any market conditions, especially when things get tough. You can't afford to miss a single detail, but you also can't be leading by gut. Clary combines the science and the art of sales and sales leadership. So go to clary.com if you want to answer the most important question in your business. Are you going to meet, beat or Miss on revenue? Welcome to the live Better Sell Better podcast with your host Kevin Dorsey of Inside Sales Excellence, the number one Patreon group and YouTube channel for tech sellers and tech sales leaders, where we dive in deep for tactical advice on how to book more meetings, close more deals faster, and lead sales teams to success. But we don't stop there. We also focus on the person in salesperson. We talk about mindset goals, time management and so much more. So thank you for listening and if you're interested, head on over to patreon.com InsideSalesExCexcellence now with that, grab a notepad, get ready and let's dive into the good stuff. What up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the live Better Sell Better podcast. This is your host Kevin Dorsey, AKA kd. And today we're going to not talk about career trajectory, we're going to talk about company choice. Because so often people focus on the trajectory of their career, how fast they can move up. What's the next title without ever really thinking about what type of company should I be working for? What type of role should I be working for? What to look for in a company to know whether or not it is worth the risk or reward. And that is why I'm so excited to have Kyle Norton on the show with me today. He's the SVP of Sales over at Owner, but he has done it all. Small company builds, big company builds, building startups within a company. He has gone through this as a builder and as a leader and so has a very unique perspective on how do you vet an opportunity, how do you vet yourself on what's best for you and how to bring it all together to land the role. So Kyle, my man, welcome to the show. It's a long time coming. Yeah.

Yeah. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to it.

So let's do this dude. Because I think this is such an interesting topic around, you know, how do I land not only the right role, but the right role for me? And right before we started recording, one of the things you mentioned was actually starting with yourself.

Right.

So not necessarily focused on the company or the role first, but looking inward first on what is right, what you're looking for. So let's talk about that first. Like what question should I be asking myself before I'm looking for another job?

Yeah. And to even take it one level up. The important thing is that you do it. Like the specific questions will help. But I think especially in the last bunch of years where the market, market was drunk basically and opportunities were getting thrown around like crazy and comp was accelerating like mad, many of us were very reactive in that market. And a recruiter called comp is 50% more company was growing, you know, 5x per year, all of this stuff. And we were being led through our career as opposed to certain folks like leading their career being choiceful, thoughtful and intentional about where you wanted to go. And so now that we're in a very different market environment where a lot more risk is certainly present, there's still maintains to be incredible opportunities up there. But you know, risk is present. No doubt. It's important for us to actually pause and think through what is next. What do I want, what's important for me, what are the unique skills that I bring to bear and how do I match those unique skills with a company that has a, has a great trajectory? And so there's a few vectors that, that are critical here, like what type of job, like what's the work that gives me energy? What's the type of role that is going to suit the things that I want to do a lot of? And that could be continuing down a path of BDR leadership or it could be hunting, you know, higher and higher segment roles as a rep or getting off the, the enterprise trajectory as a rep and flipping over into management. There are lots of cool things to do that are not so linear or it's, you know, veering over into CS or solutions engineering. But many of us don't stop to think about like, okay, what is the thing I want to do? What's the work that gives me energy? That's normally a good, a good path to follow and where is that type of work really present when it comes into roles. So the type of work's really critical, the size of company, big companies, small companies. Do you want the chaos and upside of a small one or, you know, the learning environment and rigor of a big one? We can double click on that one. But step one is like being really thoughtful and pausing and reflecting and we can dig into what that means.

And so is that something you continued to do in your career? Because if you look at your trajectory, I mean, you've done so many different things. Is that something that you ask regularly? Is it something you kind of ask just at the beginning and then that's the track you've stayed on? Like, how often are you checking in on this?

It's something for me that is always top of mind. Like I have a pretty good sense for when I'm having fun at work and when I'm not so much. And I try to stay pretty present with that whenever I can. And so an example of when I was trying to be really thoughtful about this, I was starting to think about something different at the end of my time at League and things were still going fine. I wasn't in a crazy rush and I wanted to be really thoughtful about that process. And so one of the things I did was talk to a lot of folks. So one of the pieces of advice when you're trying to figure out what's next, especially when it's potentially a role you haven't done, is just getting a lot of exposure, talking to a lot of folks, mentors, friends, people that are you're connected to, that are maybe a couple of years ahead of you in your career. And a particular example of this for me was talking to Jake Dunlap, who we both know, just getting some insight. He's a super smart guy, sees a lot of a lot of companies and asked his advice on what I was thinking about next. And that particular piece of advice was actually one of the most critical for me, making the change from a long time in startup land to a big established company at Shopify. Because his insight to me was, hey man, everybody who comes from startups, we all think startups is the only thing out there. Big companies are lame, they're slow, you're not going to learn as much. We just get this in our head for reasons I don't fully understand, but it was certainly in my head. And he was encouraging me to think about, you know, a big company. You learn a lot of things about how a big company works and you look at what best in class means and, you know, being able to invest with a different pocketbook. And that stuck with me and was one of the, one of the things that nudged me to take that Shopify opportunity. And I learned a crazy amount in that three years. Just as much as I learned in startup land. I learned about how great product is, is developed. I learned about how, you know, you can coordinate and communicate with teams at scale. So a lot of incredible lessons that, you know, without Jake's advice, maybe I would have missed out on. So it's really important to like pause and take stock of what's going on, reflect and have a whole bunch of exploratory conversations. A lot of times those exploratory conversations can lead to opportunities as well. But like getting that advice from folks who, who might have seen a little bit more than you is, is I think another thing should be doing when you're figuring out what's next. And certainly, you know, it's what I did, you know, and I had a. We were, we were soon to be expecting our first kid. And so that was like part of me reflecting. I was on the road like 45 weeks out of 52 that year. And I was like, well, I'm not going to do this as a new dad. So, you know, it is something that stays top of mind with me just trying to reflect on fit.

And I think it's important because I think people might ask them those questions at the start. They don't come back to it. They never recalibrate. Right? Because like to your point, you be a different place in life, right? The decisions I make now with two kids are different than the decisions I made when it was just myself and my wife and, you know, all those different things, you know, play into it. So I like the self reflection first because so often when you're talking with people looking for roles, they're talking about the companies they're looking for, right? Like what I want to be in a startup, I want it to be series B, C, da da da. And they're never first starting, like, well, who are you first of all? Let's start there and then go for it. So let's take now that next step. So let's say, all right, I've kind of asked myself those questions, you know, what brings me energy, how I like to sell, do I want the chaos of a security and you know, kind of map that out. Then how do I go about then vetting an opportunity for those things? Things, because oftentimes every job ad sounds great, every recruiter message sounds amazing, right? Like, so how do you actually go about vetting an Opportunity to make sure it aligns with what you're looking for.

Yeah. And so it starts by being proactive instead of reactive. So instead of the roles you're considering being, whatever recruiter happened to reach out to you, you take control of the situation. You then click a salesperson. All right, what's my. What are my. What's my. What are my skills? What's my product? Who does that map well to and what are the things that I want to do next? And you go hunting. Don't let yourself be. Be hunted. You go do the hunting. And it's a lot more challenging, for sure. But this is a great way to, to approach a search. So I do. Okay, I'm. Let's take a hypothetical. I have a bunch of experience in restaurant technology and I like these sales cycles and not these sales cycles. So I want sort of mid market, I want a point solution. Okay, what are all the best companies in this space who are growing fast, have great teams, and then, and then going outbound to those organizations to, to initiate conversations versus the opposite because oftentimes the greatest companies aren't doing a lot of outbound because they have so much inbound. They have great sort of networks and relationships. So first off is like proactive versus reactive. Second is the second part of your question there. How to figure out who's good and who's not. And so this is where we as salespeople and job seekers need to think like a venture capitalist. And so how do VCs, what's the most basic framework of how a VC evaluates a company? What's the market like? What is the team, what's the quality of the team, and how good is the product? And it's Mark Andreessen who has that quote. The difference between venture capital firms is basically how they stack, rank, those three things. Team, market, product. And so you can use that as a framework to say, how quality is this? We're just going to talk startups in this example. How quality is it? And the key thing here, just before we get into that framework, is if you're going to go down the startup path, you need to look for asymmetric upside. You're getting asymmetric risk, as we've all seen in this market. Layoffs, companies, a lot of companies are zombies at this point. There's a lot of not great stuff happening. And so there is more risk than being at like a big established company most of the time. You know, we've seen lots of layoffs at big companies too. But if you're going to take that risk and take that sort of chaos and all that comes with startup land. You need to bet big because if you want to be at a startup to accelerate your career faster, that only happens if the company is growing and succeeding and there's lots of roles to fill and you're there and doing well. So finding that asymmetric upside is really the name of the game because there's tons of startups that are going to go nowhere. So all right, then how do you evaluate it? Market is sort of number one. Is this a really big market today? Or is this, or is there a way to go from this market to an even bigger market? And that can be a little tricky to understand, but an example of small market turning into big market. Uber is one people use a lot. It was black cars for rich people. That's a really small market. But global logistics is a much bigger market. PayPal was online payments for ebay, custom ebay merchants. And now, now it's, it is what it is. And so you can back into a bigger market. But understanding, you know, is it a massive market today, like we sell into restaurants, that's a, it's a monstrous market. But if it was only one little type of restaurant, then having an understanding from the company you're interviewing with, how do they back into a bigger one? So markets number one, some people would argue that's the biggest one. You know, great companies are made in great markets. But that's a debate for another time. Yeah, products like is the product great? What are their churn metrics? Win rates? What type of results does that product drive for customers? We can talk about the diligencing process a little bit later. But, but getting to know what is the best product in this market and there's lots of information out on that G2 crowd trust pilot. You can start to, you know, back channel with people that, that know that industry that you might know and then team where I would argue is I fall into the camp of like it's team over everything. Joining not just like a, not definitely not just a good team and I would argue not even joining just a great team. But if you want asymmetric upside in terms of career progression and sort of wealth incomes, you need to join an exceptional team. And that's the thing that oftentimes people don't value enough in this equation. You meet a founder. Oh this founder. Founder's great. He's super smart, yada yada yada. But then what we don't realize is that person needs to be Way more than great. She needs to be exceptional. And exceptional founders will lead to exceptional companies. And so you have to hold this like crazy high bar if you're going to take that, if you're going to take that risk, I think that should be 60, 70% of the equation. To be honest. That was the reason I joined owner, because I'm betting on who I consider to be exceptional founders and building an exceptional team and having that top of mind was like, incredibly critical for me.

I want to jump in there real quick because as a rep, how do you recommend I do that? Because I guess a vp, as a svp CRO, like we get access there, right? Because we have access to it. As a rep. Right. I'm trying to think like, what sort of company to join at a stage in my career. What are some things I can do to vet the team, to vet leadership a little bit, to get a feel. Because, you know, it, like I said, it always sounds great.

Yeah.

No one in the interview process is like, yo, I'll be honest, RCO is insane.

Right?

Like there was like, oh, like, oh, just brilliant. All that's like, what can I do to vet this if maybe I don't have that direct line to like the leadership team?

Such a good question. I would say mentors are, are your biggest asset here because I could give you information like, you know, you want to look at track records and trajectory and this and that. But like, honestly, I've just had so many reps and I'm like so obsessed with the venture capital markets that I. That, you know, I just know it sort of inherently. I think as an individual contributor in the first couple years of your career, you're so right that it is a hard question to answer. Mentors are the most incredible resource in general and I think in particular here it's important. So if you don't have mentors, go get mentors. And you'd be crazy surprised who you can reach out to just on LinkedIn with like compelling personalized messaging that was that Those people will be willing to take. Take some time with you as long as you're an awesome mentee. I would go find, find access people you trust. Everybody can know. Everybody knows somebody through one or two connections that you could access to. But I think that's where I would start if I was an early career of individual.

Yeah, I like that because it is. It's like if you don't think to ask it, but then you don't have access. It's not like you get to sit down Right. The CEO isn't necessarily doing that right now. I'm gonna flip this the other way, and we'll keep going down this path. When do you know it's time to abandon ship?

So, so.

So it's one thing to vet, but I want to go this route for a second. Right. Like, okay, I vetted, I did it, I got in there. When do I know? It's like, ooh, maybe this isn't what.

I thought it was going to be like.

Walk me through that a little bit.

Yeah, that's. It's such a good topic. In Annie Duke's new book is all about this exact topic. Talking about, like, how quitting can be good. And she's a professional poker player. So, like, quitting is.

I love Thinking in Bets and Howie Things.

Is this our third one? I don't know. Think I've only read Thinking in Bets.

Okay.

Yeah.

Love Thinking in Bets. And she has another one that is on, like, my shelf somewhere I haven't gotten to yet. But, yeah. So I think it's like, how we think or something.

Okay. This is just called quit. The power of going to walk away. And for a poker player, quitting is a different framing because you're not quitting, you're folding. And so we need to think about that in our careers as well. Like, when is it time to fold this opportunity? And so I would ask the same questions. Market, team, product about your current company, and also get outside insight. And so things that are warning signs for me. You know, I've had a lot of career conversations with people from my tree the last bunch of months, and one of the. This is sort of the advice that I give to them. Be really diligent on Churn. Like, if customers are churning like crazy and it's for product reasons, and there's not like, an insane desire, like code red type of hustle to figure those things out, then that's definitely a warning sign. Lack of transparency when a company is, you know, holds off from sharing information. So if your company's not sharing information on Burn and Runway and Churn and all of their success metrics, you know, you want to ask the questions, you know, ask your manager. Be like, hey, you know, like, curious. Like, you know, I know we've. We haven't really been hiring much lately, and this is going on, like, do you know, can you share much what's happening in terms of our net retention rates or Churn that we've seen in the market? That's a pretty big indicator. Getting outside opinion on the caliber of the team. If you see senior folks coming in and out, especially if they come from exciting pedigrees, that's probably not a great sign. But getting insight from folks around you, but it's a really careful balance because again, the markets have been drunk the last couple years. And I've never reviewed resumes, I've never reviewed so many resumes with so many nine month stints on them as I have in this period of hiring that I've just done. It is crazy. And I'm like, man, do I need to recalibrate like my expectations here? Because normally I see like two or three of those in a row. I'm like, oh, okay, no way. But so many folks that I've seen applications for have that. So you'd certainly want to be cautious of jumping too early. And just because your company's laid people off does not mean it's a bad thing. Because the markets were, the markets were affected by free money, free money and crazy money coming in from the Fed, which caused us, which caused interest rates and sort of the return on capital to be viewed completely different than it is today. And so companies were doing actually like normal things, invest like crazy in growth. Money's free. So your discount, acute future cash flows is like that equation is going to be different. When the cost of money is zero, when the cost of money is 5, 6, 7%, then as a business we are forced to make very different decisions because of the fundraising climate and all these things. So it's not that your company or your CEO is dumb or reckless or whatever. Actually in that environment, those things are pretty normal. Reasonable, smart people could make that decision. Now that the market has changed and the economics of getting access to capital are so different, it is natural to have to make very different and difficult business decisions. So just because your company's laid people off does not mean it's like going in the sewer. In fact, the earlier they've done that and the sharper they've been to make those changes to set the company up for success, the better. And the zombies are the companies that are going to that won't have done it fast enough that didn't take that advice early enough. So you don't want to jump ship too early for sure, because like in challenging environments, great careers will be made. Like so much of my early career success was I started selling in on the 0809 recession. They fired a bunch of people. Then when we were rehiring, I was there as a top rep and I went over and above and we were growing again, so there was lots of opportunities. So. So there's two sides to this coin, for sure.

No, and I'm glad you addressed that because I think it's where it's been so easy to point and say, oh, they were being reckless with money. Or, oh, it was bad planning. And it's like, look, no one at the start of 2022 had their bingo card out and said, okay, 9% interest rates, okay, or inflation, 7% interest rates, a war overseas, a supply chain issue. Like, no one had that planned for. And so the adjustments had to be made. And it does suck to go through, which actually does, I think, take me to the next point I want to make right? Is like, okay, so now the hiring environment is different, right? You could, you could go get a job, be there for six months, and a recruiter would hit you up and you go jump to that. Like, I know people that personally that went from like 100k OTE to like 250 OTE in one year by getting three different jobs like Shopify.

Because this sounds like what happened to my reps. Like, I want to know.

Where they all ended up, because this was happening everywhere, right? You could, you could just put your finger out and get a job. Now it's the opposite, where a lot of people aren't hiring, or if they are hiring, they're 75 applications in the first. How you know, however many minutes of it going live. So what are things to do right now to stand out as an applicant? Because otherwise, you know, you're just getting buried in the resume stack. And it all. It all look. All resume looks the same.

We can talk about this later.

I hardly ever look at resumes. I just don't believe them. Like, everyone says great things on their resume. I'm like, I don't even need to take time to do this. So, like, as a candidate, you know, how do I get to the top of that stack? How do I at least get my foot in the door to give the opportunity to land some of the gigs since hiring is a bit tighter now.

It's funny you say that, because I've actually gone through so many resumes the last couple of months, and so few people have a compelling resume. I see so much of the time managed a book of business, met and with clients, and demoed and closed business. Like, I don't care about any of that. Just, like, tell me the results. So I'm glad you're seeing better, better resumes than me.

No, I'm not, because I don't look. I don't even look at resumes ever. I do not for the past three years. I never look. There's nothing for me to see that because either I'm going to have a recruiter talk to them or I'm going to interview them. What you say on your resume does, does nothing for me at all. I just never even look anymore.

So let's, we'll talk about the resume thing and then let's talk about non resume, resume, piece of it. Lead with the results. All I care about, all every sales manager or hiring manager cares about is like results, president's club quota performance performance compared to your peers. If you don't lead with that, I assume it's not good or if you don't, if it's good and you don't lead with that then like you just, you're not thinking straight. So it's also a DQ for me. So like job. If you've got great results, you have to lead with them. You have to find something that is great from your results and that is all that matters. You put it multiple times on the same resume. You put it front and center that that's the most critical piece of it if you don't have crazy results. So say you're like you know, a middle of the road salesperson and you still want something great you to go way over and above to stick out. And so again like you have to think like a salesperson and be, be targeted with where you're going and you have to really be thoughtful about like where is my unique skill set the most useful? And so even if your results are only okay, well if I if it's service titan for example, but my dad is like a plumber or an electrician or if it's restaurants, I've worked in restaurants like then you can find your angle where there's particular individ relevance. But like a salesperson, go directly to the most senior, most decision maker with compelling personalized messaging. What is compelling for you as a candidate? If it's not amazing, amazing results and awards and you got to lead with that, you have to multi thread. So CRO Sales Manager, VP of Sales Ask the head of CS for an introduction. Hey, I'm going to pass you the most high quality deal that your team has seen. Like my results are good but I'm known as the person that takes the most care of customers. Great. Like that's compelling messaging for a, for a VP of CS to maybe like nudge your resume across. You have to do whatever you can to stand out.

And I want to jump in there real quick. You're the SVP of owner, which I think is a phenomenal company. Phenomenal product, has a massive space. How often do you see this? How often is someone doing what you're talking about right now? I can think of, like, two or.

Three at my last role that actually.

Took the time to do this and reach out directly. How often are you even seeing it?

A decent amount. Not as much as I would like, for sure. There's actually a guy that applied late. I'll read you the LinkedIn message. He's like, kyle, in the last hour, your team has absolutely blown me away. I've had great conversations, including with multiple people, including. And he lists like four reps on my team. I can already say after discovering, after just discovering owner a few hours ago, I absolutely want to be a part of your sales team. Then he goes on to talk a little bit about himself. Like, I'm gonna give him an interview for sure. Like, without a doubt. I get maybe one. A message this compelling one every couple weeks. I get direct outreach. Lots, lots on LinkedIn, but, like, really targeted outreach.

But I meant that type of stuff where, like, someone going above and beyond.

Okay, Very, very rarely. And I interviewed him. He did a case study with me today. Like, he's. He's going through the sales process and his resume, like, may not have stood out originally, but he's showing me something that is something that is important for me as a hiring manager. Are you proactive? Do you go above and beyond? Like, I want to hire Keeners. I want to hire people that want to do a great job. And if you're willing to do that, it shows me, like, what you're going to be like as a. As a rep or in this case, as a bdr. So not as much as I would think. So it's a great point. This should be like a call to action for all of our listeners. Like, if you want the great job at the good company where you definitely can't get an interview, just applying, just applying online, which is most of the time, like, applying randomly to people's career page is a total waste of time. Do it. Because then you're in leaver and it's easier for me to, like, go flag you. But all of getting. Securing the interview is in the personalized outreach, the research, and having, like a really tight value proposal. Like, hey, Katie, you want this? I noticed this on your career page. This is how I fit that mold. This is why I'm Great. Like can we hop on a call? One more thing. This would be. And I wrote a LinkedIn post sort of about the same topic of calls earlier today. I've never gotten one single cold call from a candidate ever. And I know that all these candidates have access to my phone number because I get a lot of. I know I'm in zoom info and all of these candidates should have access to zoom info. If you don't, then ask a friend. Call me. You will, it will be 100% I will give you a first conversation if you pick up the phone and call me and you have like a good personalized message and you, you can like have a half decent conversation. That is the phone is the, is the best channel to sell in today. The phone used to be busy and like, you know, making cold calls was too hard because everybody had an executive assistant or a gatekeeper. It was impossible to get people on the phone. You can get anybody on the phone now you can't get anybody to read an email. My LinkedIn inbox is a total nightmare. Pick up the phone and call me.

I was actually, I was out to dinner with one of my former managers last night and I was like, I'm probably like sitting on like 100k in my inbox right now and I don't even know it so I can't find it. Like there's so much noise in there. There could be a message in there right now like hey Katie, like we owe you money from like X. And I wouldn't even know it's in there because it's so noisy. The one that stood out to. I've definitely never been cold call I've gotten.

That's crazy. Think about you and me never being.

Ever two videos ever and video to me, I do really like if someone recorded me a video because now they can multi channel that they can send it via email, they can send it via LinkedIn, they can send it via text and it's them conveying that via video. I love that. And I've gotten two of those ever and guess what? They both got hired. Shocking, right? Weird how that works out out. And so actually I think this is a good segue. The last part I wanted to wrap on here is, you know, we're talking a lot about, you know, how to stand out, how to get in front, how to vet yourself, how to vet the company. But right now I think a lot of people feel like it's just all doom and gloom right now where yeah, I mean sure, college is great but like no One's hiring, everyone's laying people off. Like, it's just, it's ugly out there. And what is your take on that? Because are things harder?

Yes.

Like, I don't think there's any. There's no, I'm not questioning that. But like what's your take of the landscape right like now? Or does it make sense to like not change? Should I just stay where I'm at right now until things get better?

Right.

Because it's too risky. Like what's your take on the kind of the macro micro within tech and jobs.

Great thing to end on. So if you look at the data, I should have brought the data with me, but can't remember who. I think it was Sam Jacobs who was sharing it. There was like, like if there was a hundred thousand layoffs in sort of tech sales or whatever it is, there's like 300,000 open opportunities in that market. So. But you know, we know how the Twitter and the LinkedIn algorithms work. If it bleeds, it leads. So if all the bad stuff is what gets pushed because people are rage clicking and commenting and it is not real life. It is like LinkedIn is not real life. And I really want people to. If you take one thing away from this pod, let it be this. Don't believe the noise. Don't believe all the, all the shit that's on LinkedIn right now. Yeah, there's a, there's totally a reset happening. We're going from one set of interest rate conditions and venture capital conditions to another. People don't want to raise in 2023, maybe not in 2024. Like that is totally legit, but it doesn't mean it's bad. It's just different. There's. We don't need to get off on this total tangent, but like very little in life is, is good or bad. It, it just is. And it. And how you respond to those stimulus determines like your lot in life in many ways. And we'll save, we'll do part two on stoicism and sales. But yeah.

Oh, I'm so red. Like we could go another two hours on that right now. Now you got me fired up right at the end end.

But there's a ton of companies succeeding. There's a lot of companies that are in industries that are countercyclical, that are need to haves, not nice to haves or help people save money or make money. Like those companies are still crushing it. None of that will trend on LinkedIn. Like it just that that won't happen. So and in general, where there is change, there is opportunity. So where there is like large upheaval and a lot happening, like, opportunity will present its. So don't dwell on like, I got laid off sucks. Like, too bad. You can either, like, stew about how it's unfair and how the CEO is a meanie and the market's not right. Great. Like, where does that really get you versus saying, all right, like, I got this opportunity, I got a nice little severance because people being pretty generous with it to sit down and really spend the time thinking about what I want to do, how do I want to find it and go find that thing and go make it happen. Because many of us won't get the opportunity to just like, get a chunk of money to chill on for a little while and then be super thoughtful about your job search. Like, the obstacle is the way, you know, I lasted till this point of the podcast was quoting Ryan Holiday. So use this as an opportunity and don't believe all the shit online. Get after it in like ASAP to figure out where what you want to do, figure out what's a great fit, what are the great companies there. And like, take matters into your own hands. Compelling messaging. Pick up the phone and call me. I will interview me. I will interview you. Call me. That's right. I'm still.

That's right there. That's right there. Go. I don't have his number. Go find it. You're a salesperson. Get over it. Hop on Zoom. Hop on Seamless. Go get your 50 free credits and give them a call and go through this. And so no man, like. And this is a perfect way to wrap on the last question here. I kind of think I know where this is going to go based off where we're starting to heat up towards, right? Because the name of this podcast is Live Better Sell Better. Because I have this weird idea, right, that if we took better care of ourselves, if we were happier, if we had more joy, if we had more energy, that the sales would be better. What would your live better advice be for people listening as we wrap up?

So this is a separate two hour episode, okay. Oh, it's going to be hard. It's either going to be like stoicism and mindfulness or just general health. So let's, let's go the health route. Let's do stoicism because it's like mental health, I think, needs more of a conversation. So you got to work on your mental game, like for sellers to really live well. And I 1000% agree. You will sell better. You'll take better care of your customers and your company if you're in the right and if you're in the right mind frame. But if you don't have a mindfulness practice, go find one. Read the book Search Inside Yourself. That was the book that cracked the code for mindfulness for me. I'm a very skeptical person and mindfulness always felt like woo, woo. And Search Inside Yourself is the book that. It's the program Google built for very skeptical engineers. And it explained the science of mindfulness in a way that was very like, it was built for somebody like me who was like, that's a little, it's a little silly. It sounds like astrology and crystals. It's not. It's been impacted. Like, the science is all there. It's been impactful for me. So go find a mindfulness practice if you can. The follow up would be read the obstacles, the way, go down the Ryan Holiday Daily stoic path, listen to the pod if you can do those things. And then separately, just like, get yourself in a better health spot, everything will get a lot better, especially for salespeople. Like, drink less. Like if you can cut out alcohol in a big way. I have yet to go on a public tangent about this, but that I think is a piece of our industry that we need to, we need to find a way to carve down. But that's not one piece of advice. But we'll cap it there. It doesn't have to be one.

It's just you live better advice. Right? It's not one piece. And I, I agree.

I love both those books, love all of Holiday's stuff.

Have you read how to Think Like a Roman Emperor?

No, not yet.

Oh, he'd love that one. That one's really, really good as well. But it's true, especially within sales of all the ups and downs. If we're able to not make them ups and downs and just make them think things, just experiences, just things that have occurred. That roller coaster gets smaller and allows us to be clearer thinking and everything else. And y' all go read Search within yourself because again, like the science behind it, if you read the benefits of mindfulness on the side of a pill jar.

Yeah.

You would take every day. Every day. A true story. I went to HR not once, but twice and asked him if I could make meditation and mindfulness mandatory. Like, could I make it mandatory? Built into the day, 15 minutes of meditation and breath work. And I was told no. Both times I was like, so wait, wait, wait, I can make I can make cold calling mandatory a soul destroying, soul sucking world thing to do, but I can't make mindfulness. Next time around this is going to be built in. But Kyle comma man, this was phenomenal. And I think the timing of this is so good right now. Where can people find you? Where are you putting out more content? Where can they get in touch with you?

Hit me up on LinkedIn. That's sort of the only place that I'm putting stuff out these days. It's just my name. Kyle Norton. It's ad owner or it's backslash. Kyle C. Norton is the URL. Hit me up there. Add me. I accept all connection requests Cold Call me if you want to, if you want to talk about a job. And man, I appreciate what you do before, before we wrap. Like what you're doing with the POD is awesome. More, more people need to hear that message live. Better sell better. Like sales is hard. Sales is a personal development exercise disguised as a career. And I think if, you know, folks like you can get this message out there, we're going to be in a better spot because, you know, this is a fun, fun career to take on for sure.

It's the best, man. It is the best. If we can learn how to do it the right way. Oh boy, is it fun. So, my dude, this was long overdue. We will 100% have to do a part two just on stoicism and mindfulness because again, I think that can have just as big of an impact on someone's ability to get to quota as all the best sales tips in the world. So appreciate you, my man. This will be great. We'll do a part two soon.

All right, brother. Thanks for the time.

Oh, yeah.