Get in the Trenches to Grow as an Emphatic Leader with Matthew Roberts

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 InsideSalesExcellence 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 we are going to talk about two of my favorite subjects today, growth and building. Growth and building, which sometimes go hand in hand. But so often when we are building our companies and building our teams, we are not also building in growth for our people at the same time. And if you really think about motivation us as human beings, one of our greatest motivators is progress. Are we growing? Are we moving? Are we improving? But so often we think it's a spiff, it's a gift card, it's whatever else to motivate. And that's not it. And that's why I'm so pumped to have Matthew Roberts with me today from Mosaic Tech because he's in it right now, y'.

All.

He is building. He is in the trenches, he is coaching, but he is also calling and he is also building in growth paths for his people. And so we're going to talk about one how to build and how to build from the Ground up. I love the end of the trenches, but also how to build growth plans for your teams so they feel motivated and know where they're going. Matthew, my man, welcome to the show.

Hey, D. Thanks for having me. Long time listener, first time, you know, quote unquote caller on Zoom. So I appreciate being here. Really excited to talk to this topic. Like I mentioned, having a unique experience right now over here, starting from scratch and I got to learn from someone you know really well, Michael Tucson over at Chili Piper. So trying to emulate a little bit of that success over there and see if I can do it again at Mosaic. So really excited to dive into this topic.

I love it. My man. And shout out, Tuso. Shout out to Tucson, right? It's always fun. This is always like, truthfully, like my dream. We can start off on a slight tangent. We'll get into the good stuff is like, I want the mafia to spread where it's like, okay, so I worked with and mentored Tuso. Tusso works with and mentors you. We get to talk today. You're going to build out this org. Someone you worked with is going to go on and like, you get to start to watch those dominoes fall. It's a really fun experience. I love it. I was texting with Tuso just last week, so proud of the kid. Love what he's done. So.

All right.

But we're going to dive into this, right? No backstories, no fluff. We get into the good stuff here. Let's talk about the in the trenches work that you're doing right now. Because so often, and we can go back and forth on the reasons sales leaders don't do the job of their rep. And oftentimes there's a disconnect there. Right. So what are some of the things that you are learning right now in the trenches that you think are making you a better leader for your people?

Great question. And it's funny that you say that because I remember a long time ago, my first role ever was an SDR at a company called My Case, which is through Appfolio, which is a larger company now. But we had a manager who came over, came from a completely different space, but, you know, did a good job. And I remember always thinking, like, how do you coach and train when you don't do what we do all day? Like, you know, the tactics in the high level. But how do you, you know, you're not making cold calls, you're not sending emails, you're not prospecting, not doing this. So how I'VE always loved to learn from people who are, you know, not to say great or, like, phenomenal, but, like, just good, at least at what they're teaching you how to do. And you can dive into coaching for sports, too, and use that analogy. Like, there's great coaches who never played a game of football, but you know they're going to win Super Bowl. So it's definitely a tricky topic to dive into. But myself, personally, I've always loved to teach, like, what I know I want to, you know, show best practices. And I'm also a big, like, leader by example. And I think that's a part that I've taken in. But through, you know, using Chili Piper as an example, I started as SDR number three there, like we mentioned. Got to learn a lot from Michael, too. So grew pretty quickly because I had had past experience, and so I just wanted more. And I just kept asking, like, what can I help with? What can I do? And through there, you know, I knew my number one role was to book meetings. That's my job. So I'm going to do that as well as possible. But then I'm going to continue to learn and grow. And then what I realized is I love sharing this information more than I like hitting my own numbers. Seeing someone else succeed, like, that's what pumps me up. I love people, so I want to make sure that they're successful and I want to see them grow. And so I kind of like, you know, people asked, did the sdr, you know, Leadership Development Manager find you, or did you find it? Like, it definitely found me for sure. And so to tie that over, when, you know, I joined mosaic last July 2021, when we first spoke, they. I wouldn't say they were hesitant, but they said, you know, this is going to be like a ground. Ground floor, like, getting your hands dirty. You're going to do some of that. And I was excited because I knew I would feel kind of like a fraud if I came in and just started building things and coaching and training, but wasn't on the phone making calls, wasn't building the sequences from scratch and sending out cold emails every single day, adding in good, fit accounts. And to your point, it just allows you to relate more. And we talk about empathy all the time in sales. Right? Like, that's a big thing. I don't think you'd have that empathy if you don't feel the pain or the struggle of not booking a meeting after busting your butt for a whole week, or, you know, you dial 40 times and you get hung up on a few and you have bad cold calls. It's harder to feel that when you're talking and trying to coach through a rep and to make quick decisions and pivot and change. You know, maybe a little bit of copy, maybe a little bit of an opener here if I'm not the one doing it myself as well. And then again, it all ties back to the, like, lead by example. I always, you know, look up to the people who are leading in the front. They show that it can be successful because they're proving it themselves, too. I'm not asking you to do something that I'm not doing myself. So feel like I rammed a little bit there, but that's my mindset.

I mean, that was a heavy question to open with. You know, my style, man. I'm not going to pull punches. We're going to go there because it is a slippery slope, I think, for a lot of people. Because at the same time, well, one that doesn't scale very well, right? Like, if your VP or your CRO is in there trying to make cold calls, right, that doesn't work very well. It doesn't get you where you want to be, you know, but it's learning, right? And I think that's where I think a lot of leaders go wrong with the position that you're in right now is like, this is idea that I need to do it so I can prove it, right? Like, I need to prove it. I need to show that I'm good. I need to show that versus doing it to learn, right? When I would hop into the trenches, it wasn't to prove it was to learn. I wanted to hear, right, like, what's happening. I want to hear what that is, right? And I think that's where a lot of the review happens in terms of, like, how you scale that out is you don't always have to do to experience it, but you need to experience it. You need to listen and see, right? So as you're building, what are the things that you're looking for? Right? Like, I guess a better way to ask this question is how are you documenting your product process? Because it doesn't matter if you can do it. To be completely blunt, it doesn't matter if you can do it, only matters if you can get other people to do it, right? So what are the things that you're kind of documenting along the way to set up your people for success?

Yeah, really, really good question. I like that a lot because that's a great point. Like, this is Also a completely new space for me. Right. So I think there's a ton to learn there. Like you mentioned that I've never sold the finance. I never really took a lot of finance classes. So this is completely new for me. So I needed to just dive in and get as much as I can. And so what's better than, you know, talking on the phone with people and sending emails and putting myself out there. And so as far as, you know, documenting things going forward, making sure that like, you know, again, I was fortunate. I say it's fortunate because it was. What excited me about coming to this opportunity is there's all this green space. There wasn't anything there, there wasn't sequences, there wasn't a call script, there wasn't objection handles. It was founder led sales. So a lot of it was through, you know, VCs and referrals and connections and stuff. And so here it is like, hey, can you stand out in some random person finance related inbox or what's going to happen here? So process like everything from start to finish, diving into like our marketing materials and making sure that I could, you know, demarket it as far as like use all the best practices and again like create some sort of curiosity. And so a lot of testing on the sequences right off the bat, like, how are the open rates, how are the reply rates, are they bad, are they good? Granted, you know, outreach can do a lot of that sentiment tracking, which is great. So diving in really well there like is what we're saying, actually landing with people. Um, is it relatable? Is it, are we talking to the right people? Can we open this up a little bit? And so I was testing everything from yeah, obviously like the data driven stuff, but also like, is our ICP too narrow or is it too wide? Like what? And again, how much better is it when I'm actually the one putting these tests together while I have someone else maybe AB testing with me or giving, you know, different feedback. Hey, like this objection didn't work for me. And then on the other end, like, hey, this one actually worked really well on my side. So let's dive in and see, you know, is this something that maybe I did a little bit differently? Or if we're doing the exact same things and seeing different results, what are we doing differently? Because that's my favorite about having, you know, multiple people is everyone's running maybe the same sequence. One person books at 10%, one person books at 3% and one's at 5. It's like, okay, what is the third 3% not doing. What is the 10% doing and what is the 5%? Is that the average? Is that kind of like where a normal rep is going to live? Uh, so, like, I'm now in that because I'm doing it myself. So I am one of those reps. So I can see, like, am I missing stuff or, you know, am I doing things that are better or worse than other people? Um, so just really honestly, from a process, I'm documenting everything, and then we're creating a lot of looms. And, like, I'm making sure, you know, there's documents on documents on what's going on. And every time I do something or think of it, I'm like, oh, I should loom this so I can share it. And to your point, I think the most. To be honest, the most fulfilling part of this role so far was our first hire when they came on and we gave them expectations of, like, all right, like, let's get you. I think it was five meetings, and he went and booked 10 and picked it up real quick and just dove into it. And I felt like, okay, again, to your point, this, I'm not just doing something we can bring on a green person, bring them in, teach them a little bit, and let them go off and running like they're seeing success as well. So this is something that we can scale and it's something that we can recreate and do over and over. So now it's obviously way more tweaking and making sure things are tighter. Cause it's still so loose, and I'm still, you know, learning every single day. But, yeah, I think the documentation part is honestly the biggest key to building out the team. Because so much is tribal knowledge base. But you gotta make sure that someone can come in and pick it up as quickly as possible.

And I'm so happy to hear that you are doing that, because that was one of the biggest mistakes I look back in my career is how long it took me to finally understand how important documentation was. After I've had the same conversation a thousand times. I've given the same training a hundred times. I'm like, why? Why am I giving the same training for the hundredth time? That should maybe be recorded.

Like, maybe.

Maybe we should just have that as a recording. And you said a really key phrase there. Especially now in this remote world, just tribal knowledge. And a lot of that is getting lost now when you're not next to people where you can just share. They hear something, they go, oh, no, tweak it. This way or oh, what are you using? So sharing that tribal knowledge through video and creating folders of best practices and folders of advice, I think is such a valuable way to approach it. And I'm glad to hear you're already doing it because it's important to do it now, not when you're already at 10, 15, and then a hundred reps. No, exactly.

And I. I honestly give a lot of this credit to our CEO, Bijan. He is a big loomer. And so like, he would just loom. He just, you know, in the morning, send over loom. He wakes up super early. He works, he'll send a loom, I'll wake up. It's like, you know, 5:30 his time, and he's talking through something. And so I just started hopping on and using loom pretty often then. To your point, why someone asked me this question five or six times now, when someone asked me even just one time, especially like during that onboarding phase, like within the first three months, they ask, oh, how do I do this? Or is this the right way to do something? I'm like, cool, let me knock out a loom on exactly what to do, Talk through the entire thing, send it to them, and then I throw it right back in the onboarding thing. I'm like, this is something that. So that thing is just growing 20 looms a day, like, boom, boom, boom. So it's just building itself. And to your point, I mean, yeah, I was, you know, shout out the. The OG Chili Piper remote world pre pandemic. Like, I love the remote environment. I was like, I'm never going back. But there was so much that I lost from, like, not listening to people cold call next to me and not bouncing questions. And I remember thinking, wow, this is. I enjoy it and I think it's a good thing. But there's a lot missing here. And so obviously, like the gongs and that's why they play such a big part, is you do lose a lot. So documentation is key. And again, it's not the shoot. Someone's asked five times or, you know, five people have asked. I should probably document this. It's like someone asked one time. I'm probably going to document it so that that question doesn't need to be asked anymore.

Now it's interesting. And, you know, we could actually probably do a whole nother episode on remote leadership, remote onboarding, all of that, because truthfully, the number one metric that got impacted for, for me once we went fully remote that I never got, call it back to where it used to be was ramp time.

Interesting.

Ramp time. Ramp time went up by over two months. And that's for, that's for me, right? With like, we do a lot of coaching, we do a lot of training. I've got those programs in place. I know how to leverage it. That was the only metric I was not able to get back to where it was prior to fully remote. Everything else we got back. Some metrics even went further. That tribal knowledge, that onboarding, that was the biggest challenge was figuring out how to do that for people. And we were hiring 40 people a quarter, right? Like not a year, like a quarter. And so having to go through all that was tough. And so before we move off of like this, you know, leadership in the trenches, like, what would be your advice for a leader? You know, that is a bigger team or they haven't done it Right. Like, how would you approach getting into the trenches with your team? So that one, it's actually beneficial and two, that you actually get something out of it. Because I think a lot of leaders do. They're afraid if I go into that pit and I don't book a meeting, well, then it's all over, right? Like, it's all over. Like I got to put my hat on the wall and walk away. So, like, what would be your advice for a leader? It's like I probably should get in there, but they're not quite sure how to approach it.

Yeah, I like that point a lot because I think that is a fear. Right. Everyone has a fear of whatever may be a cold call or failing, you know, it's there. So I've heard of SDR managers who do, you know maybe once a week, once a month, where they'll hop on for a call blitz. Right. And they're dialing through. And to your point, yeah, of course you hope and you expect or you want that leader to be killing it. But at the same time, if they're failing too, it also shows that how they handle that failure is so much more important than booking that meeting or what they're getting out of the call. And we were just actually talking through calls yesterday. Not every call is going to turn into a book meeting. Doesn't mean that every call is going to be a failure. Like if you get any context that you can use then in a follow up call or an email or you get a referral, like there's a million ways that you can win on the phone. And so if you're a leader out there and you feel like maybe I should Hop on. I'm worried I'm not gonna book a meeting. Like, no, like, hop on there. Be a human, right? You talk about being human all the time and being a person. Like, that's what's important. You can teach and you can coach so many things and you don't need to be like the number one leader on the board for the, you know, the most successful dials that maybe you also set up a point of saying, like, I'll call the most and like, I'll be the, you know, number one activity leader and set that tone on top of it. Like, from an email perspective, you know, prospecting. I didn't dive into this, but it's still, you know, is part of the growing the team, like, understanding the fastest and the best way to be, like an efficient, you know, SDR in your day to day. Like, how. What does that workflow look like? And if I'm not doing it myself, I don't really know how it's going to look. And so I want to be like, all right, I take them from here, I move them from here, I check this LinkedIn page, I go over here, I source that and I put them in here. I craft this email, make that, you know, vidyard, and I send it out. I want to do it myself so I can see, like, what, where the gaps at, what's going on. At the same point, documenting that, like, that's my favorite thing is, you know, looming a video. Hey, this is the workflow from step one to be sent out and you're good and you move on and repeat it because everyone's going to bring a different experience there and a different mindset and they're going to look and be like, okay, that could be trimmed down there that someone else might not see. And then, you know, five people later, they'll pick another spot out and be like, oh, I actually skipped this and do that instead. And I've seen way more success. So don't be afraid to, quote, unquote, not be the best at what it is. Like, you're there to be a leader. You're there to teach and to coach and to help. Doesn't mean that you're always going to be, quote, unquote, successful and book more meetings than them. But if you're the one who's bringing up conversation and bringing up collaboration and teamwork, you're doing your job.

Yeah, it makes me think of a couple things, right? So one of my favorite quotes from Ray Dalio was like, the business or the company that best Understands reality wins. Who understands reality best wins. And so often leaders don't understand the reality of the role. They don't understand how long something takes or how many clicks it is or how people are doing it. And that observation is so, so important. I read a stat recently in a book that I'm really enjoying. It's called the Connector Manager. And it said less than 19% of employees believe that their manager understands their day to day. Less than 19%, like, that's insane. But it's also pretty true. I would be willing to bet. And so, like, I was always with my managers, anytime they heard a complaint or anytime something got brought up, I was like, you need to go do it, go do it and time it. Okay? Then once you've done it and timed it, I want you to observe them doing it. Just watch them work for an hour. And you will be shocked at what you learn, right? You will learn more from that, even more so than doing it sometimes, because again, it doesn't matter how you do it. You need to observe how it's being done. And so I think leaders, if you're listening, like, you need to observe more, watch more, learn, have your rep send you a loom in a zoom video of like, hey, here's how I'm sourcing leads, here's how I'm using my outreach. And you might be shocked at what you find out there and find opportunities to make their lives a little bit better.

100%. And actually you brought up that point, which reminded me that's my also favorite thing about doing this documentation process of building it is as you, like, flex that muscle and continue doing that, it's contagious. And everyone else kind of sees that's how you operate. And so then they do the same thing. And just like we're talking about, you get different perspectives and it's super helpful. So for now, instead of me saying like, oh, hey, this is new, you know, process, or hey, like, let's try this thing out, whatever. I have like reps sending me a loom and being like, hey, look at what I tried out and I did this. I'm like, thank you so much for documenting this. Like, I don't have to be the person asking or trying to go do something new. It's like you're already taking the proactive measures of documenting this yourself, which is helpful for me, but it's also helpful for every single onboarding rep that's ever going to come or every rep right now that's working today. And you just showed a Faster, more efficient way to do something, and I love that. So I think it also just creates that, you know, environment where everyone. Again, I brought up collaboration already, but the team is truly working together and they're sharing best practices constantly. And, like, that's when you know you're.

Part of something that's going to rocket ship 100% man. And, like, you build that in, it just goes so far. We were heavy on Vidyard as well. Hey, Vidyard that for me. Send it out to the team. And again, last tip here, for leaders, you know, like, scale, greatness, you don't have to be the best, but you need to know what the best is. You don't have to be the best, but you need to know what the best is because then you can teach it, then you can coach it, right? And so paying attention to what's working well, if someone does beat you, you go in the trenches and they beat you. Find out why. Don't tuck your tail. Don't. Don't freak out. Like, find out why and then teach other people how to do it. All right, so now we're going to make a hard pivot. Like, we could actually keep going on that, but I'm gonna make a hard pivot here because I want to talk. The other part that often gets missed and skipped when building out orgs is growth path. Growth plans for reps, right? Because, like, they want to grow, they want to move, they want to show, like, you know, progress. So what are the things that you do to build out a successful growth plan for your team?

Yeah, great question. And to your point, this is very, very relevant. There's what the great resignation that's kind of recently gone on and SDR world, you look at that. People bounce around. All I talk to SDRs every single day from an interview perspective, just chatting. And a lot of times it's like, what are they leaving for? Because they didn't see a path of, you know, growth. They didn't see what was next for them. So talk about a tough job already, where you need to be motivated every single day to do well. There's nothing that. There's nothing that you're chasing after going forward. Like, man, that sounds awful. And so, yeah, a growth plan is crucial to making sure that your team is motivated. Inspired has something to look forward to. You're building that, you know, promote from within helps, you know, retain your top talent, but also bring in new talent. Like, if I look at a company and see people being promoted and stepping, climbing through the ladder, hell, Yeah, I want to work there versus the company where I see everybody leaves after four or five months. Like so as far as, you know, steps to take there, I think one, the biggest thing is like being very open and honest and transparent with your team, which is, you know, again to documentation, have stuff to share with them like have hard numbers, have timelines, have qualitative and quantitative information that you can share so that they know what they should expect and they know what they need to do in order to get there. At the same time, like micro promotions, I'm a big fan of those. So whether it's you know, SDR 1, 2, 3, 4 or SDR senior SDR to team lead, like things that aren't going to be 12 to two years out. 12 months, two years. But hey, if you do this certain, you know, you hit this many meetings booked in this timeframe and you do this and we have an interview motivate them. So every four to five months they have something that they're trying to achieve and they're going after. I think you actually posted about this. If you don't have that, you also can throw in things like records, right? Like put out a monthly record according. We're salespeople, we should, we want to compete and we want to get some sort of recognition. We want to reach like a milestone and, and so you have to implement those. They have to make sense. And then again the transparency and conversation. Everyone's different. Not everybody wants to be an ae, so you should understand that as soon as possible. I know plenty of SDRs who crushed it and they were so good at their job, they didn't go down to be AES if all they thought was I have to go be an ae. Maybe they weren't that great. But they said I want to do something different, I'm good at this and I can do it well. So if I check these boxes then I have the opportunity to move over into, you know, whatever it is that they're interested in. CS marketing, HR recruiting, like who knows? And so I guess to sum it up, transparency, making something that's actually, you know, qualitative and quantitative. Having these one on one conversations because not everyone's one size fits all and keeping them motivated enough to continue on, you know, not so far in the distance, but these micro promotions. So every like four or five months they're looking forward to something that's going to increase their, you know, career growth.

Now it's so important, let's go a little bit deeper there and then choose like. But how do you still keep them focused on the task at hand? And I think this starts to get a little bit more into the sales dev world than maybe the AE world as much. But sometimes there's so much looking for growth, right. That they ignore, like staying in the present moment to actually get good at what they're doing. Right. It's almost like they're not trying to grow towards something, they're trying to run away from what they're doing right now. So how do you try to balance that?

Yeah, I think that's a great, great point. And I love the, the running away thing because maybe that's we're too. So. Got it. He used to say that stuff all the time and I felt like I was chatting with him right there when you brought it up. I think the biggest thing for me that I found success with is we do okrs. I've always done okrs at most companies. I think I'm a big believer in them. You're doing it from like a monthly perspective. And so you're putting that into context of, hey, this is still your day to day job, right? Like you need to complete whatever this quota number is, which if they're having activity issues, you could throw an activity, you know, a goal in there. But making sure that they realize like that top of the okr, that number one goal is always going to be like, hit your number because that's what you need to do every single month. That's your job. That's what we hired you for. You earn kind of the opportunity to do these other things after that. So once you've done, you know, like I said, four months of hitting your 100%, then you earn the right to do these other projects which are given to you because you've earned them through your, you know, your hard effort, your work. So I think that again, it kind of goes into the transparency, but making sure that they know this is step one is learning the role. Step two is being good at the role. Step three is, you know, then looking towards how can I continue to grow. But you're still dedicated to knocking out that number month in and month out. And that's something that should never dip. As a leader yourself too, right? Like, you hop on webinars, you hop on a podcast, you read these articles, you attend things, but you still have a number on your head. Like that's the most important thing. No one cares if you're learning a bunch and doing all this, but your numbers are tanking. Like, that's awful. So knowing your priority is always still that. Again, we're in sales, so that number is that priority. But everything else is going to come, but you still need to put in the work to knock that out. Dan.

Yeah, and so you know, how do you, when you do these growth plans, like how specific are they? Are they time based, are they metric based? Like what are the things that you include in them so people understand. Cause they may know where they're growing to. Okay, I'm growing from SDR to senior SDR to AE to senior ae. But like how do you structure kind of like the, I guess the benchmarks or I'm not finding the word I'm looking for right now. I think you get what I mean. Like how do you structure what they need to hit?

And I think the balance is key there. So I think, you know, I love removing roadblocks and making sure that you're letting someone who can just go off and run run. Like I don't want to block them. So it can't be just time based or it can't be just metric based. I think that blend is there for that reason. If someone's going to hit a number that you're hoping people hit in six months and they hit it in four, I'm going to wait there and tell them to sit around for two more months because they went too fast and you know, they have to wait till the six month mark. Like hell no. At the same time, consistency is everything in sales and especially in SDR role. So you can have the greatest month ever and maybe book, you know, 40 meetings, which is what you would need to move. But at the next two months you get 20% of your quota. Like that's an awful sign. I don't want that to be moving up in the direction either. So it's that balance of, you know, these are the numbers that you need to hit to be 100% through whatever, four, five months. But if you go faster than that, like, cool, yeah, we're happy to, you know, talk through what possibly is next, but it still needs to be a good chunk of time. So I'd say you make it like, like I said three, four or five months, whatever. There's also a larger conversation at the end. Is that spot available? Like that's another big thing. You can't do all these promotion paths and then they get there and they're sitting there and there's no seat there. That's awful experience. So without that said four to six months time data and then on top of that there's a Little thing. So we always talked about doing the job before you had it. I think that's a massive thing. And so I love ownership. I love when people take, you know, charge of their own career growth. So they're asking, hey, what can I do? Hey, I'm. I'm thinking, I could do this. Like that so inspires me. But to make it a little bit easier, I always suggest, you know, helping a new rep on board. That's always something. I love talking to somebody who's trying to grow. We do, like, Friday trainings. Rather than just sitting there and, you know, being a fly on the wall and listening. You want to. You want to set up a training. You want to train on something like, that's great. Offering up a new sequence idea, like a new cold call script. Like, there's so many things that they can look at and be like, all right, who's, you know, my manager, my team lead, what are they doing and how can I help them? What is something that I can offer and bring to the table? And all of that should also be, like, weaved into, you know, the progress of what they're looking to do. Maybe it's hopping on discovery calls with the ae. Maybe it's, you know, writing some notes on some demos of meetings that they've booked. So there's a million different little tactical things that I believe they can knock out that aren't specifically tied to time and not specifically tied to data that just prove that they're moving in the direction of growth and wanting more and wanting to put more responsibility on their plate.

Yeah, and what you're diving into there a little bit at the end is something that we've always built into our promo pass, which was virtues, Right? So, like, what are our sales virtues? How do we behave? Because there's performance and then there's behaviors, right? I'm not going to promote you if you've been an asshole. I'm not going to promote you if you're not living our virtues, right? And because we had our virtues and they were defined, I could look at someone say, look like, yeah, you've hit your numbers, but you have not been living up to seek perpetual growth. You don't participate in trainings, you don't make your one on ones. You're not doing the things that you need to with your coaching sessions. Like, until you live this virtue, I'm sorry, like you. And it's very clear, black and white, which I think is really important. Y', all, if you're listening to this has to be Very clear. There can be no ambiguity here. Which is also why I actually never did time in mine. Mine were always pure metric based, with time built in a little bit.

Makes sense. Yeah.

Like if quota was 10, let's call it a month, that first promo was like 70, right? You could get there in seven months. You also could get there in four months. Like, you blow your number out. Like, I'm also not going to hold someone back from promotion right now. Question I'm going to throw, which you will see if you're ready for this here is like, there's some people listening, like, well, like, to your point, I don't have another seat, right. Or I can't afford to give everybody raises. What are some other things maybe you can do to recognize somebody's growth?

Really good question. I mean, I can kind of tie into what I touched upon, I think again was you, like, you can offer up these little exciting things that maybe are records. There are things that they can share and be a part of the sales development team still. And you can recognize it for being such a big important part of it. Even though maybe they should be somewhere else, they should be on a different team. Ask, you know, additionally, like, what, what it is that they want and how long. I don't know. It goes back to being transparent and talking to like a person. Like, there's people, again, using examples in the past that were like, you know, I would love to be an ae. I realize there's not a spot here, but I'm happy to keep doing this until that time is ready. And that's a different conversation than the person who's like, hey, you told me that I was going to be an AE if I did all this and I'm here and I'm not an AE anymore. And that's when you can kind of go into like, you know, you're right, and that's true. And if there is a spot open up, it's yours. I don't know the timeframe on that. It could be a month, it could be six months. And I don't want to lie to you and tell you something that's not true. And so if that's the case, I'm. I've always been transparent and open with my people and I'd always expect them to do the same. And if they're like, well, all I really want is to be an ae, and so like, I might go look elsewhere, then it's like, I can help you with that. You know, if that's really what you want, then that's not. I don't want you here for six months if that's your mindset, because it's probably going to rub off terribly with everybody else. It'll probably dip your performance. So, you know, there's little things I think you can do, but it all just comes down to just chatting with them and knowing what they're actually looking for. You know, having them take on more responsibility in the meantime might not always be the answer, but for some people, they're like, hell yeah, I get to lead some trainings and coach some people and maybe do some one on ones like, happy to do that. And those are honestly the people that I'd want on my team. If they're just looking for a title change, I want to know that too, because I'm like, cool. I can reach out to some other people and say that you're badass and you're looking to be an AE somewhere and we can set that up. I would love to have you here, obviously, but if that's your goal and life's too short, don't waste it. You know, go do what's important to you and make that happen.

And I love that y', all, and I want y' all to really think about this. It doesn't always have to be money, right? Because also you can look at things like flexibility. Maybe it's a four day workweek.

Exactly. Right, right.

Maybe that's, you know, get out of jail free card. Maybe that's a month of quota coverage. Like, there's all sorts of things you can do that don't cost any sort of money. Where it's like, hey, you've hit this mark and now you get two months, a year of quota coverage. That'd be pretty sweet. You know, like, and that ain't. That didn't cost anything. But I got two months a year that I could actually, I don't know, take a vacation. I could actually relax a little bit and build up for the next month. So, like, get creative here. And just a quick in the trenches tip for those of you that have SDRs that you're not sure if you can promote to AES. Two things here. Create an AE Bootcamp. So teach them how to be an AE. Creating AE Bootcamp. Sure, there's still an SDR, but at least now you're preparing them to be an ae. That buys you some time. And then the second, if your market allows for it, create a full cycle role. Create a full cycle role. Identify some part of the market that they can prospect into and Close themselves, right? Like that keeps people around for a long time is you're teaching them actually how to be a closer. Because truthfully, y', all, I don't. You know, their bridge group actually released a study on this a few years ago. The SDR to AE failure rate at new companies is incredibly high. Like, scary high. SDR at one company becoming an AE at another company has a scary high failure rate. I'll have to go find the number, but I think it was in like the 60 to 70% failure range.

I remember that. It was bad, right? It was bad.

And it's like. Because you still didn't learn how to be an ae, right? Yes. You were a prospector. That's a different skill set. Right. And so building an AE boot camp internally not only prepares them to be a better AE for you, but but also shows you're investing in their long term growth.

Right.

I had people on my team where, you know, we slowed down growth, but they had gone through our AE bootcamp. Well, now they're super attractive to another company because they were actually taught how to close. So as we wrap up here, my man, you know the name of this podcast, right, Is Live Better Sell Better, right? Because I also have this weird idea, you know, that if we lived a little bit better, if we had more energy and joy and happiness and fulfillment, that the sales also would get better. Right. So what would your live better advice be for people listening?

Yeah, that's great. And I love ending here. I've been beating this drum forever and I'd always say, you know, like, the more excited you are, the more happy you are. Like, it rubs off on everyone around you, which makes them better, rubs off on your prospects that you're selling to and they can feel it. And so to me, we're talking about always be prospecting and, you know, always building pipeline. So we have like our ABP sort of word today and someone's like, well, also it's always be positive. And I was like, hell yeah. Like, I love that too. We should definitely be adding that because that mindset is everything in sales is a draining career. And you have this number on your head and it resets every month or every quarter. So if you're not enjoying what you're doing, then you're probably going to be miserable. And if you're miserable in this role, you're probably not going to be successful because it takes everything out of you. So my live better advice would be, you know, one, have fun with the people that you're working with. If you're not doing that, I don't see how it's successful as well. Like, I'm a big believer again, sales to me, even though it's such an individual number driven thing for every ic, it's such a team sport and you could have the best game of all time, but your team still loses. Well, you lost. Like, no one cares about your individual statistics anymore. And so one is just like, you know, make these friendships and these relationships with people on your team. It's going to make you a happier person. You can, you know, again, hold another topic with the remote world now, it's different than going out to lunch with your friends and stuff, but I still think that's very, very valuable. And then outside of it is like, make sure that you're just taking care of yourself, right? Whether it's physical, mental, all of the above. Like, go on walks. Like I have a dog, he forces me to walk five times a day and I need that. Like sometimes I don't get away from the computer. And to your point, like it drains me for sure. So I need to always get out, walk around, take care of yourself, drink water, get good sleep, right? All these things that are just silly, but they're very, very, very important. And then to kind of tie it all together again is just we're all people. Like, talk to people like they're people no matter what. You know, a lot going on in the world, a lot going on, people's personal lives, a lot going on at work. It's exhausting. And so making sure that you understand that everyone's a human first and you interact with them like that from external and internal. I think that's your live better, right? You'll be a better person, you'll be more successful, you'll be happier. It rubs off on everybody and then just keep on keeping on and be that bright light for everybody each and every day when they come into work, that stuff works.

Energy is contagious, right? And if you can give that energy to somebody else, right? But you have to have energy to give, right? Like you can't give what you don't have, right? And that's a whole nother topic. You can't give love if you don't love yourself. You can't give energy if you don't have energy yourself. And doing those things to take care of yourself is so important. My man. This was so good. Long time coming. We should have done this a long time ago. Where can people find more of what you're putting out? Are you hiring. Like what? This is your promotion time. Like where, where can people get more of what you're doing?

Definitely appreciate it. Yes, a very long time coming. And you can follow me, Matthew Roberts at mosaic on LinkedIn. We are hiring and building out both inbound and outbound teams. So please hit me up. I would love to hear more. We just rolled out a new website. Mosaic Tech looks pretty nice. If you have checked it out, go for it. And then that careers page, you can, you can find a button. But yes, I love chatting with people, so feel free. Hit me up an email as well. Matt, Mosaic Tech. Hopefully that gets some random cold emails, which I love to get and I appreciate the time. Kevin, Katie, it was, it was great and like I said, wish we had done this sooner, but happy that the day.

Hey, we made it happen, my man. We made it happen. So I appreciate you, man. Hey, stay good out there. Stay well. Get out of the trenches from time to time. Make sure you pull yourself out enough to clear the road for the rest of your team. But thank you so much for your time today, man.

Absolutely. Thank you. Oh, yeah, Them.