Executive Hiring and Firing with THE Amy Volas

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Katie. Thank you for having me. I feel like I need. I don't have a tissue near me. You got me all teared up over here. Probably one of the best intros that's ever happened on a podcast. So props and thank you and we have a lot to talk about and I'm honored and it's good to be with you and, yeah, let's do this thing. Thank you so much.

You are welcome. And it's fun when it's all truth, too. There was not a fluff in that intro. You have done all that. You are all that, and that's what makes you great. But speaking of fluff, that's why people love the show, is we don't do the fluff. Right? We get straight into the good stuff. And so I'm gonna. I'm just gonna open up a can of worms with the very first question, because you have insights that maybe the rest of us don't. When you look at the 10 years of VPs, of sales, there's this stat that keeps getting thrown around, right, where the average VP lasts only about 18 months. Why do you think that is? And who do you think is to blame?

So start with the why I think that is. I think it's because people take a backseat approach to something that is so important. Right. So that's going to lead into the who I think is to blame. There's a story, and there are different characters in the story, and everybody has part of the story. And so in my opinion, everyone's to blame. It's the hiring authority and the employer, and it is the person that jumped in for the ride. Now, are there exceptions to the rule where bad things happen? That you get bamboozled in the bait and switch? Yes. But it's not as often as people realize. And when I really peel back the layers, there's always that thing that happens, like, nine times out of ten where it's like, I knew my heart of hearts, but I got caught up in all these other things. And that's on both sides of the equation. So for me, I ask the same question to both parties. Whether it's a leader or whether it's a founder or an executive or a vc, most of the work that I do, as you know, Katie, but maybe not everybody listening to this. Nine times out of ten, I'm brought in to clean things up. It's a rare occasion that I get brought in with someone that understands that they don't have the time. They may not necessarily speak sales fluently and they really need help because they get the ramifications of when you get that wrong and you're part of the step that you just threw out that that's really painful. It's a seven figure problem. That's rare that people are really that enlightened. And so most of the time it's. I tried to do it on my own. I worked with a different firm. I cut corners because I didn't want to pay fees. I think I know what's up, whatever it might be. And then there's a mishire. And at the leadership table, it's a seven figure problem and it has lasting effects and it's a big deal. And so my question for them is, well, what did we learn? And it's interesting when people will tell me, here's my place, here's what I learned. I took accountability. Chances are they probably won't repeat it again because of that. Then you've got the other side where it's like, that person sucked. All salespeople suck. I'm not dealing with this. I don't have a lot of faith or confidence that you're going to learn the lessons that you need to learn to. To not continue to get it wrong. So that's on the hiring side, certainly accountability there. That's part of why it's happening. And then on the candidate side, it's. And this happens with leaders all the time. I have a really rigorous process. I've learned a lot through over 20 years of doing what I've done. Being a sales leader myself, deciding as a sales leader, I didn't want to do that any longer. And I wanted to be where the action was with my clients and being misunderstood. That I didn't want to grow because I didn't want to go up. I wanted to go lateral. Having lots of revenue that I've sold and lots of different kinds of buyers and lots of lessons learned. Having been in talent acquisition and hr, tech and recruiting in that community, selling products and services and hearing about all the problems that they're trying to solve. And the number one is I can't hire right. And when I do, I can't keep the people. So these are all things that I think about. But the big thing about someone looking is especially with sales leaders, get over yourself, right? Like this is your life, this is your career and you've got to do the work. And if you can't get specific with me about what's important to you, what you do best, don't tell me that you can sell ice to an Eskimo and just put you in because you're the leader of the world. No, we all have things like, guess what, Katie? I'm an enterprise sales gal. Always have been, always will be. I don't speak the language of inside. I didn't want to learn it. I don't speak it fluently. You think I do business there? I don't because I can't be helpful there. I know what to look for, but I can't be helpful there. And that is okay. It's when people aren't self aware of the things that they do really well, the things that they don't do very well. I think about Doug Landis and he wrote an article about the different kinds of superpowers that sales leaders have. And it's very rare that you have an ambidextrous sales leader that can do all of the things and be strong in all the things. So that's where it starts on that side is you take a backseat approach. You're window shopping, you're collecting offers and you're not paying attention to the things that you need to pay attention to that make it good, safe growth opportunity. And nothing safe, but you know what I'm saying to where it's a good move for your career. There's a difference between making a job move and making a career move. And a lot of the leaders that I see that turn out 18 months, after 18 months, after 18 months got caught up in the job move nonsense. Not the career move nonsense or not nonsense, but the career move loveliness, right?

So I think that I knew, I was like, I'm just gonna open with this one. Cause this is gonna take us wherever the hell we wanna go. So let's talk about the company side first. What are the things they should look for when making this hire? Because I've seen you post something almost to the point of like, founders shouldn't make this higher, right? Or like that they almost shouldn't be involved in some of this because they don't know what they're looking for and how to suss it out. So from a company standpoint, you're about to make one of the most important hires of your company's potential, like lifespan, what should they be looking for in a candidate? And then if we can, how do they suss some of that up? Because we're salespeople, this is what we do, right? We're great at selling ourselves. So what should a company be looking for in a VP or above revenue leader candidate?

So the common theme that we're going to talk about today is getting caught up in the shiny objects. And when you are a highly technical founder and you don't speak the language that you and I speak, how do you know? And I think it can be addressed one is get some help. But this isn't a shameless plug for yours truly. If you can't do that or you don't want to do that or it doesn't make sense, it's letting your business guide you. Meaning are you taking the time up front to intentionally think through the work, the stage, what's required? So many times founders will get funding, right? And their venture partner will say, here's some people I know and they think like, oh, this is my venture partner. These are really great people. It might be a son of a son that played golf with the investing partner and they have no idea whether they're good or not. And you think that you're assuming. So you and I said a word right before this started that the word assumption is almost like a cancer. It really is. And so you've got people that are like, oh wait, let's go time. I've got funding, I need to just hire. I'm going to get referrals and I don't know anything about these referrals and taking them at face value and thinking that they're the be all and end all, that's one thing. The other thing is you're not in tune with your business. I'm a big fan of founder led selling. Even if you are the most brilliant, socially awkward, technical engineering dev founder, that's okay. Get with your customers. They're the ones that pay your bills, they're the ones that hold the keys always and they're going to respond to what you're doing. And if you note that down, what are they responding to? What do you want to repeat? What do you want to stay away from? If you've had churn, why is that? What are the problems that you're trying to solve for? So that when you're scaling your team, the right work is being done. You don't have to be a sales expert to figure that out. You just have to pay attention to your buyer, to their journey, to your segment, to your marketplace, and get over your ego of, well, what I've created is the next thing since sliced bread. And I am so brilliant because I graduated from an Ivy League school. That does not matter in the application of selling something to someone. And so it's taking a moment. I know we all want to go so fast. And I say this all the time, slow it down to go a lot faster later. So I care about scorecards. It's a really good thing. Get it all down on paper. I care about journals. Get it all down on paper. Understand the nuances of your business and then map out the profile from there. What is this VP of Sales really going to do? What do I need to get off my plate if I have been founder led, selling right. Like, what are the things? The seams are starting to kind of burst here a little bit. What are these things? What does this look like? You don't have to speak the language fluently. You just have to pay attention to your business and create a plan that maps back to the work that needs to be done at your stage at the time. Same, same time. Many people, they're like VP of sales, dime a dozen, all created equal, let's just go do this thing. And what do they do? They go hop, skipping, jumping out to the interwebs and they get a VP of sales job description and they're like, that looks good. That's kind of fun. That was written in a nice way, copy paste. And again, backseat approach to something that's so important. So it's not that I think founders shouldn't be involved, they absolutely should be. It's how are you getting involved? How are you showing up for your business? And if you don't realize the work that needs to be done at your stage and map it all out from there, you're just contributing to that 18 months stat that you and I are deeply troubled by.

It's so true though, because I've been in an interview process before where they're not asking the right questions. And I know they're not asking the right questions. Right. It's like they don't know what to ask. Right. Or things will get put across my desk like, oh, this would be perfect for you. This is an Enterprise Sales VP of a 200 person org. If you know anything about me that is not the description of who I am and how I lead, you know, but they get attracted to that shiny object syndrome that you mentioned earlier of like, oh, they have this company in their background or they have this thing and that's the shiny thing that they pay attention to and don't pay attention to where they are. And you mentioned something earlier, stages. I actually want to dive on this real quick. Different stages require different types of leaders. Right? There is actually I think sales hacker. No Saster a while back wrote an article, right. Like they said, like the 18 different VPs of sales. If you think about the stages a startup goes through, what are some of the differences between like maybe your first VP hire, right. You're just getting out of founder led sales to. Okay, yeah, like you're hiring someone to come in and take over 150person.org. What are some of the differences in those stages?

So 150person.org, that person's probably going to be a manager of managers. Right. They've got to be thinking about a whole other host of things that map back to the strategic direction of the organization. They don't have the bandwidth to be in the trenches every single day and on the front line every single day. They're thinking about the strategy and if they do, they can't think about the business because they're too far in the business. Right. Then that's a problem. Then you've got the wrong person for that stage. The very. So you go from founder led to now it's time. I don't like the word player coach because that does not work out. But it resembles a little bit of the nuances around why people think that's a good idea. It cannot be a leader that doesn't want to get their nails dirty and spending time with customers and spending time with the team. That leader is going to be a leader of people. People, not of managers. And I mean managers are people, right? Don't get me wrong. I don't need somebody trolling me being like managers are people too. I get that it's a different kind of coaching or coaching leaders instead of coaching reps, breaking down deals, setting foundational process. Right when you step in. If I were to take over your role right now, Katie, let's say you exit stage left, you've got a hundred plus person. Org foundation has been set. I am taking what you have created and I am now managing it. Maybe I'm finessing it, maybe I'm growing it because the business is growing. But the foundation has been laid. When you're coming in at that initial stage, very little foundation has been laid. A lot of it is the wild wild west. You're just going out to get what you can get and you're trying to learn from it. It's an opportunity to figure out what is the tech stack. Most of the time there might be like a shadow of a CRM and that's about it. So what is the tech stack? What is the work? What is the hiring profile? The people that this leader chooses to hire, make or break, what happens next, do they know how to do that? Do they then care about training, onboarding, supporting coaching, deal breakdown, all that stuff has yet to really be established. So if you're a leader that's coming out of a salesforce and no shade to salesforce, that work is still important. It's just different and it's a different stage. Chances are if I get hired right now to a VP role at Salesforce, everything is structured for me. I'm enforcing, I'm leading with the strategy, I'm thinking about the strategy. I am not building it from scratch. There is a big, big difference. And then as the stages go on that starts to get a little gray and this is where people get it wrong. I have some process but sometimes that process is wrong and sometimes you need the leader that knows how to step in, assess, do a swat, fix the broken bits and pieces, then nail it, then scale it, right? These are all different things that go down here.

And so actually, and I want to flip this to the other side, right because as a VP and it took me a while to get here of actually understanding what my Strengths are, right? KD, 4 years ago Someone puts that enterprise role in title in front of me, I probably jump for it because it's like, ooh, that's what's next. Without the self awareness of well wait, that's probably not the best fit for me. So let's flip this to the candidate side How I guess how should a VP understand either like what they're good at or the right types of roles for them? I don't know if I'm asking the question the right way, but we were talking about it either right before we started recording or in it like that self awareness of hey, this is the types of roles that are best for me. Because I think that also starts to solve these 18 month issue too is like if VPs were picking roles that were better for them, things would be better too. So how does a VP I guess identify with these are the types of roles that are probably best for me.

I think first and foremost you have to realize that this is your career and it's not everybody else's. And there's so much nonsense and rhetoric about this is what you should do. This is what the path looks like. These are the things. Just because it's a unicorn and just because there's a big influential sales leader talking about it doesn't mean that that's the path for you. And that is okay, ladies and gentlemen. So I think first and foremost when you show up for yourself versus getting caught up in what everybody else thinks that you should be doing, and you hold yourself accountable to those things, that's where the magic starts to happen. So what does that mean? Those are all fluffy statements? Well, let's get like they're not fluffy. But how do you quantify or qualify it? The first thing I am flabbergasted by, I talk to sales leaders all day, every day and I, when I ask the question of like, so what does good look like for you? I'm not kidding you, Katie, like maybe 8 times out of 10 I get the deer in headlights look like what? What do you mean? Like, what do you mean by that? What, what? And then insert all of the general statements like I'm a grower, I'm a builder, I'm. But what, what does that mean specifically if you can't get specific? And I wrote about this recently thinking about yourself like a Super bowl commercial. Cause the number one reason why candidates don't get through the interview process is they can't get specific. So if you don't know what's good for you, how in the world are you going to be able to project that to somebody else in a meaningful way? Meaning when you think back. So like I'm going to get a little woo woo here and that's okay. It's showing up for yourself to do the work for yourself. So you know yourself to take care of yourself in your career. This is how you make career moves versus job moves. When I have been the most satisfied. What was that? What did that look like? How do I describe it? What are the feelings? What was the work? Who was involved? Who wasn't involved? What stage company was it? What was I selling? What were the products? Was it a service? Was it vc? Was it pe? Was it bootstrapped? Get all that down. All of that is criteria. And by the way, for those people that are like, I don't even know what this looks like or I'm so entrenched in my day to day, I don't have time to think about this. Do a journal. I call it Quadrants. I do it every day. I will show you my journal, but I Don't want people reading what I wrote in my journal because I do it every day. But it's four quadrants and actually I have a fifth because I'm an entrepreneur and I have to think about other things. But the four parts. One is, what do I want to do today? What did I get done today? What am I really proud of that I got done? And what did I leave behind? When you start seeing common themes of what I left behind, you and I just talked about this before we hit record, right? There aren't enough hours in the day to do all the things that we want to do. And you have to prioritize. I don't care what framework it is. You still have to prioritize your time. And so if there is a universal thing that I'm always leaving behind or it's a theme of a thing, I don't want to do it. I don't like it. Step one, get right with self. So I always talk about journal for a good at least month and don't look back in the previous days and then get your highlighter out and look for the themes and get the themes down on a spreadsheet that starts creating your scorecard for the things that really turn you on and most importantly, what turns you off. When it comes to the kind of leadership that you thrive under, when it comes to the stage of company where you can really make the biggest impact, when it comes to the kind of work that you really want to do, it's okay to say I am a total inbound person. I have nailed the relationship down with marketing to understand what that looks like. I know how to coach my reps. I know how to set up the flow in salesforce. I'm good with that. I hate outbound. Nobody's going to be mad at you for that. And if somebody is mad at you for that, not the right place to work. Right? So in my opinion, so many people look for validation from everybody else to tell them what they should be doing. And nobody knows you better than you. You just have to listen to yourself. And we all like to dull ourselves out to not listen to ourselves because it's work, because it takes time. But when you show up for yourself and you peel back the layers and you dig into when I am turned over the most on by the work that I'm doing and I feel. And we all know that feeling where it's like, yes, this is the stuff. This is what gets me out of bed in the morning when it's the worst day ahead. But I'm still here for it versus I rather do anything but that. And then you put descriptors around it and you put the feelings to it and you put the work around it. You now have your own blueprint for yourself. So when somebody calls like me and says, what does that look like? You don't look like a fool with your eyes kind of wide open and doe eyed and you have no idea what's going on. If you can't get right for yourself, nobody else can do it for you. And that's why you start churning out.

So you just said something there. 1. This is obviously why you're so good at what you do. But you're the first person to describe it this way. Especially on a podcast, though. Everyone loves to talk about what they like to do and this is what gets them stuck when they pick the wrong job is because you'll probably get to do the things that you like to do. It's paying attention to the things that just suck your soul out, right? And that, I think that's just a phenomenal model because you're telling people, like, look, what are the things you consistently avoid? What are the things that just weigh you down? It's making sure you're not having to do a lot of those. Whether it's outbound, whether it's travel, right? This is like eight months is like my sales cycle limit, like past that. I can't, I just, I get bored. And even at eight months, I need some pops. Like, I just know that about myself, right? Like, that's just not who, who I am. And so I just, I hope everyone took notes, took notes on you talking about taking notes and journaling. Because paying attention to the things that you avoid is just as valuable as saying like, oh, I love to coach people. Well then, yeah, like any VP role, they'll be like, yeah, you'll get to coach all the people. You're like, yes, right? But if like making presentations is not something you love to do, and that's a lot of your role when you're doing a much larger org, like, I just think that's gold. I hope people caught that because that was money. So let's talk about this real quick. So there are a lot of people probably listening that are like, I want to become a vp, right? I'm aspiring to be a vp, whether they're a manager now or a director now. Like, as someone who gets to talk with VPs, place VPs, see VPs work, see VPs not work out. Like, what advice would you give to the aspiring VPs, the people that want to get to that level, how can they start preparing for that now?

Well, I'm going to answer the question a different way than I think you expected. And I will answer it probably the way you want me to answer it. But first and foremost, anybody that's asking themselves that question, I don't know if you should be a VP yet. And so the very first question is, why? Why do you want to be a vp? What about it do you think is compelling for you? And if it's just the shiny stuff, if it's the ego stuff, get out. Get out right now. Like, nope, stay doing what you're doing. Because you will be the wrong kind of leader. The best VPs of sales. I don't care how big the company is. I don't care how small it is. I don't care the work. Well, I do care about the work, but the universal thread. You better care about the people that are along for the ride with you on your team, because without them, you can't do what you need to do. And if your ego is that big, to think that you're the second coming of Jesus Christ. I'm sorry, I hate to break the news to you. You are not. You are replaceable, and you will be replaced. Because if you have a sales team that churns more than it doesn't, because you're too busy talking about sucking the life out of the room because you took all the credit, or you're not helping your team get better, you're too busy everywhere else talking about how great of a leader you are when you really suck. That's a problem. So you have to ask yourself, why do I want to be a leader? Why? Going to always go back to the Journal. Always. Why is that? There's that quote. When you take care of your people, your people take care of you and your business, don't lose sight of that. So let's say you say, okay, cool, I'm totally. I'm here for that. I want to do that. I think it's important to look at the reality of the situation. Are you in a place where that is realistic or not? And maybe you know if it is and maybe you don't know if it is, but I like. And you and I talked about this. The people that we choose to surround ourselves with either lift us up or they drag us down. It's either a buoy or an anchor pick. I like to be respectful and honor the fact that I made a decision to work here. I Have these goals, have a conversation with your leadership. These are the things that I'm really interested in doing. What does the path look like? If people can't articulate that with you or work on it with you, then maybe you know that this is just a temporary thing and you have to find that mentorship and that program somewhere else. You have all sorts of resources. As you know, this question comes up all the time on Thursday night sales. Come to Thursday night sales. You have an open AMA where we always provide actionable insights. You have your Patreon, you have Scott Leese's Patreon, you have groups like Modern Sales Pros. You have all sorts of different places where you can come and figure out what is the work, what does it look like, what is the path. I'm also a big believer that nothing is. I don't like the word entitlement and I don't like to see it in practice. I really don't. If you want to be a leader, start doing more. Start figuring out what needs to be done and raise your hand and get it done. Maybe not even raise your hand. Maybe just start doing cross functionally, collaborate. Understand what CS does, understand what product does, understand what marketing does. Be the change you want to see. Start displaying those leadership skills. That's how you stand out. How you don't stand out is when you're crying in the corner. And I was bypassed for a promotion and, and I deserve it and I'm entitled to it and I've done the work. You're not doing the work now. And in fact, you're being a pain in my neck and you're being a crybaby. Get over it. Figure it out. Surround yourself with the right people. Start doing some of the work. People take action. Whether it's buying something, hiring someone, promoting someone for three reasons. Well, four, three top ones. You helped me get better. You help me reach goals, you help me solve problems. And when it comes to hiring, you're not going to be a jackhole to work with. You're going to be a good, kind of like, round out to the team. If you can't answer those things, I don't care how good you think you are, you're not going to get the job. So it's kind of that thing of like, help me help you. You want to be a leader, do the work, dig deep, take on more. And don't, when you take on more a week later, be like, I got that project on. Where's my raise and my promotion?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, it's so funny because people will talk about like, well how, you know, how do I improve my social circle or how do I get mentors? And it's like, well, have you actually put in the work to do it? Right. When I was getting ready to be a VP, this is actually before I was a VP, I reached out to you five VPs of sales a week for a year asking for mentorship for a year. Say I'm going to be a first time vp. I'd like to learn and study and understand what you're nhp. And it's where I got my first early mentors. Now also friends. Scott Lease was one of those. Colin Coggins, Kevin Gaither, Dave Brock, right. Like these are people that now have like guided me on this journey just by asking for help and understanding. Right now there's more access than ever, right? People do have groups and patreons. There was no Thursday night sales. Right When I was trying to figure out what the hell I was trying to do. You know, like, like we didn't have these resources when we were coming up in the game. And so people I think take for granted how much more access they have right now. And so, and the other part, I hope people caught there, as you talked about it started with you and I'm so glad that's how you answered the question. I see. I know I'm going to get the deep stuff from you, right? I said like how do I become a VP of sales? And your first answer is like, I don't fucking know. Should you be? You have to find out if you are even that type of person, which I think is really, really good. So let's build on that just a little bit before we start to wrap here. What are the characteristics of a great VP of Sales outside of just caring for your people? Because I know a lot of caring people out there that are not good as a VP of sales. What are some of those other characteristics? This helps both sides. This will help the candidates develop these traits. You're like, okay, I need that. There's also for the founders listening, the companies listening going, oh, these are the characteristics I should probably look for. So what are those? Some of the things that you've seen, the most successful VPs that you've placed seem to have in common.

They realize that how they did their job. Being a successful rep isn't a universal play for everybody else. Right? People are not a one size fits all thing. And I've seen, and I was this leader by the way. I made this mistake of I'm really successful, I've been a top person this whole time. Everybody is saying how do we get more Amy's so that must mean that when I start leading, everybody has to be like me. And that was a surefire way for me to lose a lot of good people. So step one, you realize that you're dealing with people and it's not just about caring for them, but understanding that it's not just one way of doing things, that you're not going to put people through a car car wash because you're lazy and you just send them through and there you go. That's one thing I think people care about training, like really good leaders know that when I bring you in, that's just when the party is getting started. How do I enable you through training, through onboarding, through continuing support and education and not just having one on ones to go through the pipeline, but what's missing? What are we dealing with here? Where do you need help? Where do you want to help? Have help? Where do you want to grow? It's that piece. The best leaders are enterprising individuals, meaning they don't just think about the sales org, they think about the business. They act like executives. They think about business problems and challenges not just for themselves and their team, but the overall business and their customers business. Right? So if I can do all of those things really well and think about those things and have action plans and strategies and process and tech and solutions and additional features because I'm working with product to figure out what the roadmap looks like, that's going to serve you really, really well as a leader. What doesn't serve people really well is when it's like sales against the world. You don't get a lot done that way. I think in this day and age it wasn't always the same when I was coming up because tech was just being born. That's how far back I go. But now if you aren't data driven and you can't get your nails dirty and analytics and the details and the data beyond making your reps do admin work that you should be doing, not them, you're in trouble. Like you're in big trouble. You need to understand the CRM. I'm not saying that you have to be the salesforce admin, but you need to be able to get into dashboards. You need to be able to understand if data is missing, what you need to be able to see so that you can manage up. I also think that leaders can't be scared, right? You have to have. If you're a true blue sales leader, your best job is to manage up, across and down at all times, especially managing up when it comes time to right now. Skos. Leading up to skos, what do we want to see for the year ahead? And you have no idea what that looks like. How are you going to be able to lead your team? And when a number just gets handed to you and you let it get handed to you because you're afraid, because you don't really command a seat at the table and then you wonder why it's all falling apart. These are all sort of things, traits, part of the work that needs to be done to be a good leader.

It's so, man, there's just so much there. We can go for another hour through all of that because it's so true. And I think what I love about your communication style is also the willingness to be vulnerable and say, I've made these mistakes, right? Same, same. I have made these mistakes, right? Whether that's either just taking a number and going okay or committing to a number with no insight of the how. That's something that still shocks me is like how often leaders don't know how they're just going to go hit the number or they don't understand math and so they can't do a capacity planning or they can't even set a quota because they didn't run the numbers to go through it, which is such a, such a shame. And so I want to come all the way back to just one thing you mentioned earlier about scorecards, right? Because I think those are so important. I don't think a lot of people do it, especially at the VP level. Like they'll have, they'll have, they may have like manager hiring scorecards but all of a sudden it gets to the VP and it's kind of like, so talk to me about your 90 day plan, right? It's very loose. Like what are some of the, like you, you know, it's true, like people can't see this right now. She's shaking her head, she's like, oh my God, like the worst. What are some of the things that should be on that VP scorecard? This might be a good way to pull in some of the pieces you've said throughout. Whether that's characteristics or a playbook or what should a company have there to make sure they can make sure they're, I guess, making the right decision. Because I think a lot of companies hire on if they like the Person. Oh, yeah, we like them and we can afford them. That's my girl. Okay, let's go do this. Right. So, like, how do you make. What are some of the things that should be on that scorecard so you can actually review it and make sure it was the right decision?

So I think for the record, a scorecard should be on both sides of the equation. VP should have them for themselves and employers should have them for them. So some of this criteria is going to be universal across those scorecards. The number one thing I put. So I do scorecards for every single one of my clients. I create a custom scorecard. The number one thing that I write down is specificity. Can you get specific with me? If I am hiring, right, and I ask a VP a question, are they making general statements or are they getting specific? Can they tell me the what, the how, the why, the where, the with whom, the outcomes, the lessons learned? And by the way, what in the hell does this have to do with me? I always tell people, the final question you need to ask is, so what? Why should I care? Because lots of people go on long diatribes about, well, I came from the womb, and then when I was out of the Womb, I played D1 sports, and then when I played D1 sports, I went to get my MBA, and then when I got my MBA, nobody cares. Right? You can weave that in a little bit. That's great. And I know that everyone wants to think that athletes are the best hires in the world. Cut it out with that nonsense. It's the specificity for the work that I need to get done. Can you get specific with how you did the work that you're doing? And does that correlate the same thing for VPs? If you're asking somebody, right, like, and to go back a little bit to what you just were talking about in terms of the churn and why it happens and the shiny objects and having a seat at the table and managing up right. Those are all things that go together. It starts in the hiring process on both sides, always. And I can't tell you, Katie, there are SVP's, CROs that I talk to that are afraid to ask the tough questions because the job is going to get yanked from them. If you're afraid of that now, what do you think is going to happen later? And so it's the same thing. Thing, of course, it has to do with the how you ask the question, the timing of the question. Just like in the buyer journey, you're not just going to come in Like a wrecking ball, and be like, you got a million dollars to buy my contract, yes or no? No, that's not how it works. But if you.

I've been doing it all wrong. I've been doing it all wrong. Maybe that's why I wasn't so good at enterprise. Dang it.

Later. We'll talk about that later. But, you know, like, it's funny in my mind that people, when it comes time for your opportunity to ask questions, employer or candidate, you have none. How do you have none? This is your career. This is your business. And so I'm a big fan of what does the specificity of the answer look like. So if I say to you, my understanding is you've churned through three VPs of sales, what's the number one lesson you learned through that exercise that you don't want to repeat with somebody like me? And they say, I just want to get hiring. Right. See how that's not specific. That doesn't tell me anything besides, you don't want to get it wrong. Well, duh. Why are like, hello, now? Same question. And they say the common theme. We've thought about this. It's been major angst. And the common theme that we recognized was we didn't realize what the actual work looked like at our stage. And we're still at the same stage. And the stage is, you have to build. And the number one thing that we did wrong, we took people out of Oracle, we took referrals from our VC because we got excited about that, because we figured that those playbooks, they were already established. They work. Look at those companies. We. We want to be like those companies. And what we realized, we're not that company. We have a lot to do before we got to that company. And that's where you come into play. And that's why you're exciting to me. See the difference there? Such a big difference. I took ownership. I got a little vulnerable. I'm being honest. I'm not playing the blame game as a sales leader. I'm going to get endeared to that. Like, this is the kind of founder or executive leader I want to work for. Because it's not just the blame game. There's accountability here. There's transparency here. And you could get specific with me if you can do that. Now, imagine when it's getting really tough and maybe we had a bad quarter and we have to completely revamp our entire strategy, and I've got to have tough conversations with you. I feel better about taking that leap because of this.

And I hope people caught one of the things you mentioned there around specificity and the doing, right? There's a big difference between running a playbook and building a playbook. Just because you are at a company or at a Salesforce or at a Lithium where a playbook was in place, doesn't mean they know how to actually build one in a new place. And so for the people we were talking earlier about aspiring, this is part of what she's talking about. Do more, right? Like don't just run that playbook. Build on top of the playbook that's there. Optimize that playbook. Test that playbook so that you get into the pattern of building. So when you get into some of these interviews, you can say, here's what I've done, right? I did this. And you can be specific there. So I think that's really, really important to call out. So let's wrap, wrap on this. We got two questions left that I want to touch on. They're my 2 favorite, right? We've been talking about hiring and firing and VPs for the past 40 minutes or so now. If people forgot everything we've talked about, except for three things when it comes to either hiring a VP or being a world class vp, what would be the three things you'd want them to remember from this conversation?

One, get specific on both sides of the coin. Specificity. That's where the magic is. Two, journal. If you don't know what you want, you don't know what you want to be, you know you want to do it, but you're not sure how to get there. You know that that might be something that you want to start thinking about. Get it done. On paper, the journal is your friend. And the four quadrants that we talked about and the third is a scorecard. Those are the three biggest things that I could, if I could give anybody a gift, it would be those three things.

And see, I love how specific those answers are. You can't help but be specific. It's in your blood, it's in your core. At this point. It's, that's what I love about you. And so, and this is the last question, right? The name of this podcast is Live Better Sell Better.

Right?

Like, I have this really weird idea that if we took better care of ourselves, if we took care of the person in salesperson, that the sales also improve. So you talked about journaling a little bit, but what would be your live, better advice to the salespeople, sales leaders that are listening to this in terms of getting more joy or energy or fulfillment or happiness out of their lives. Because I don't believe there's a work life balance. You have a life. Everything touches everything. It's really hard to be great at work if shit's bad at home and vice versa. So what would be your live, better advice to the people listening?

I read a book this summer that I've recommended time and time again. And it's not like it was anything revolutionary, but the way that it was presented and the actionable items that came out of it struck a chord with me. And everybody that I suggest read it, that has read it has said the same thing. It goes with the notion of when we show up for ourselves and we know what fuels our fire. And I don't care if it's work. I don't care if it's like, for somebody like me, my work and my life, they don't like. It's. It's all the same. This is my business. It's my baby. I feel like I was put on the planet to do this. And I don't have kids. So I birthed a child from five and a half years ago called Avenue Talent Partners. And it requires more time than anything else that I do. And I'm okay with that. Right? That's not for everybody. But one of the things that I think is really important is I wouldn't be able to say or feel the same thing had I not tied it back with my why. I know why I'm here. I know why I'm doing this. I love what I do because of that. And it makes a difference if you don't know what that is. And as a result, I show up for myself. So when we show up for ourselves to take care of ourselves, that's when we can be good at work. We can be good as leaders, we can be good as parents, we can be good as spouses, as partners, as friends, as family members, as all the things, colleagues, all of it. The book is called the Art of Showing up by Rachel Wilkerson. First half of the book is showing up for yourself, because, again, you're not showing up for yourself. How can you do that with anybody else? And the second part is showing up for others. There's a big part about work in there. There's a big part of, like, when we go through things so, like, we're in different seasons of life. I'm in the same book as a lot of people. I might be a few chapters ahead or behind. And what I do know is the Older I get, the more things change. Right? So now I've got to deal with aging parents. That's a very different thing that I never thought about when I was in my 20s. How do you integrate that with your life? And it's being able to, in that book, ask for what you need without the guilt or the shame or the worthiness nonsense, and doing it in a way that sets really good boundaries. Because I think when we think about life and we think about work, the best credo that I live by is you set the stage early and often for how people are with you. And the only way to do that well is to have boundaries. And the only way that you can establish boundaries is when you're clear and right with self, to ask for what you need and to do it in action so that it reinforces the ask.

I love it. I love it. Art of showing up. For anybody that didn't catch it, I'm gonna go scoop that up because I love the concept and I love the idea of it. Amy, I am blessed to be able to reach out to you when basically whenever I want and say, hey, what's up? I need some help. How can other people get more of you? Where can they find you? Where are you putting things out there? Like, how can they get more Amy in their life?

Well, and I'm blessed to have you feel that way. And I know that the feeling is mutual. Right? Like, I know I can send you a little love note and my boy will be there for me if anybody wants more of me. I live out loud on LinkedIn. As you know. I think I'm the only Amy Bolas there. I join forces every week with our mutual friend Scott Lees for an Ask Us Anything. And literally, it's a place where I don't have a lot of time. In other parts of the week, we spend hours there answering questions, and the questions drive the conversation. Every week is different and it's super special. And it's a great way to have conversation out loud where it's one to many, many people can benefit. Avenuetalentpartners.com, those are some of the main easy ways to find me.

Oh, yeah. And if you guys haven't been on a Thursday night sales, you have to. There are some people that haven't missed in six months. Like, it's that tight of a community. The questions that get answered there, the openness, the vulnerability. It's not just about how do I improve my CAC over the next nine months. Like, it's also like, Yo, I'm burnt out. I don't know if I can keep doing this. People have gotten jobs through Thursday night sales. There's probably a Thursday night sales baby out there at this point that we just don't know about yet, so. Amy Volis, this was amazing. You were amazing. You are amazing. Thank you so much for this. I can't wait for people to hear this and just know that I love and appreciate you so much. So thank you.

Katie, right back at you. Thank you for having me. I hope this is helpful for anybody listening. And you're one of the special ones. I'm honored. Thank you for the invite to do this. You mean a lot to me, so thank you.

Hell yeah, Amy, thank you so much.

You're welcome.