Growing Pains with Josh Roth

Every company has breakdowns in their revenue process. Sure thing. Deals slip into next quarter, competitors creep in and swipe deals away at the last minute, and deals getting single threaded that don't get to power. These are just a few examples of revenue leak, but there are a ton more and they're preventing your team from reaching their sales targets. That's why I'm such a big fan of Clary's Revenue platform is the only tool that actually helps leaders take control of their revenue and thrive through any market conditions, especially when things get tough. You can't afford to miss a single detail, but you also can't be leading by gut. Clary combines the science and the art of sales and sales leadership. So go to clary.com if you want to answer the most important question in your business. Are you going to meet, beat or miss on revenue? Welcome to the live Better Sell Better podcast with your host Kevin Dorsey of Inside Sales Excellence, the number one Patreon group and YouTube channel for tech sellers and tech sales leaders, where we dive in deep for tactical advice on how to book more meetings, close more deals faster, and lead sales teams to success. But we don't stop there. We also focus on the person in salesperson. We talk about mindset goals, time management, and so much more. So thank you for listening and if you're interested, head on over to patreon.com InsideSalesExCexcellence now with that, grab a notepad, get ready, and let's dive into the good stuff. What up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the live Better Sell Better podcast. This is your host, Kevin Dorsey, AKA kd. And today we're talking about growth. Everybody wants growth, but not everybody's willing to grow. And that is the problem, because growth is earned. But growth is also painful. It's why it's called growing Pains. And that is why I'm so pumped to have Josh Roth on the show today. Someone who knows growth and growing pains all too well. So not only is he a phenomenal sales leader in person, but just a few of his highlights. AISP top 25 sales leaders, Sweetfish Media top 50 B2B salespeople, top 50 LinkedIn, Lou LinkedIn influencers, and a top 10 LinkedIn sales star. Those are the accolades, but the accomplishments. He has led teams, built teams, turned companies around, took companies from debt into profitability. I mean, we're talking about how to grow teams and how to grow people. And so if you want to learn how to grow and how to do it the right way, Josh is your man. Josh, my man. Welcome to the show, man.

I'm pumped to be here, Katie. Thanks for having me.

It took us a few shots, man, with the schedules and the back and forth and everything, but we're finally making it happen. And so I'm pumped because this is a topic that we haven't really covered yet on the show. And so I'm excited to go deep on it. And one of the reasons people love tuning in is we don't do the fluff, we don't do the backstories, we don't go through all that. We're going to get right into it here. And so the first question I'm going to open up with is, why is growth so hard, both as an individual but also as a company?

You know, I think starting out from a personal standpoint, individual standpoint, I think that the challenge with growing is you need to have an awareness and you need to have an acceptance that you can grow, right. And that you don't know everything. And I think that that's the first real just person challenge of accepting that you can get better in a number of different areas and then having the awareness to understand what examples you can pull that show where you can grow, understanding, then how you can do it better, digesting and then operationalizing that.

And so how does one develop that self awareness? Right, because it's one of those things where like, yeah, like they should. But most, let's be honest, you lead teams, I lead teams. Self awareness is not always there. I have been asked for promotion from a rep or a manager that has missed their number for three quarters in a row, right. And that self awareness isn't there. So how, how can a rep or a manager or whoever develop some of that self awareness? And what should they be paying attention to?

Yeah, you know, I think in my experience this is really about accountability. Right? And accountability goes two ways. Like from a leadership perspective, you cannot expect your team and the people on your team to have that awareness. If you don't have that awareness to begin with, right. You need to give actionable advice. Every single one on one. It doesn't matter if someone is crushing their number and they're putting up 160% to their quota, there's always something that they can do better. And if you're leaving that one on one without giving actionable advice, even if it's just one tidbit of, hey, here's one thing I saw this week that we can get better on, right? You as a leader, in my personal opinion, are not doing all that you can do to help the people on your team. So that's from a leadership perspective, from a individual perspective, from an individual contributor perspective, you need to own some of that accountability. You need to come to the one on one prepared to give examples of, here's something that happened, here's what I did, could I have done it better? If so, here's how I think I can do it better. What are your thoughts? Right? And bring those examples because if you're not bringing them, chances are there's a lot of opportunities that are being missed in where you can grow.

And so, you know, part of that. Right. Is the ability to like either take tough feedback or also be self critical. Right. Of being able and willing to point at yourself and saying, you know, and you kind of opened with it like that I'm not perfect, that I could get better. And in order to grow, like it takes some of those tough conversations. And so we're going to split this one into two. As a leader, how can you give some of that tough feedback or tough, you know, conversations in a way that enables the rep to, to grow? And then the flip side of this is how should reps handle some of that tough feedback?

Yeah, this is one of my favorite questions. So as a leader, I like to stick to kind of the feedback format is what I call. So the way I try to give tough feedback is here's something that you're doing well, Keep doing it.

Right.

If you lead off with that, generally people will be a little bit more accepting of what's to come. Right? So here's something you're doing that's awesome, keep doing it. Here's something that you should please stop doing.

Right.

And instead try that this other way. So that way you've commended something they're doing well to start the conversation, you've then mentioned something that they should stop doing or start doing in a different way. And then you've ended with how it can be done. Moving forward, what your recommendation is and sticking to those three bullets has been, I think for me, a really good way to have these three more challenging conversations where you're giving some feedback on an area that needs to be improved and people are not always willing to take. And I think for me, like, you know, it's still, you know, I think maybe even for you, Katie, like, it's still sometimes tough to take feedback right. Sometimes, you know, we're all a little bit resistant to it. I think taking a step back and trying to be an active listener, recognizing what that example was, putting yourself back into Your situation and then understanding what the feedback was, how you could have done it differently. It's a really good way to stay in that conversation and present in the moment to understand what that feedback is and how to operationalize it moving forward.

I think, and you mentioned there right towards the end, being present in that conversation. You know, a quick tip I'll give on feedback too, is write it down as it's happening. Because what we tend to do as we're getting that feedback is we just take it in and, you know, you start to wring your hands a little bit, you start to get tense and you're internalizing it versus taking it in and getting it out and writing it down while you're receiving it. It puts the feedback actually away from you a bit. You can read it, but it's no longer stuck in there. So for some of those tough conversations, also as a leader, write it out ahead of time so you know what you're going to say. Because once you get into that moment and emotions start coming up, you start being too worried and it goes down a path. It's just not the way that you want to go.

That's so key. I think really the second bit about as a leader, writing it down is so important when it happens in the moment, a small chair pivot, right? Get into the one on one document, write down specifically what happened, the feedback, and then you cover it in the one on one. That's something I do every day. I love that feedback.

Awesome. And so then let's take this next step, right? Is like trying everyone wants to grow, right? I said in the intro, you know, everyone wants growth, that everyone's willing to grow. In your eyes, what's the difference between wanting growth and being willing to grow?

Yeah, I mean, I think that wanting growth is exactly that, right? You know, I want to sell $2 million worth of my product, right? But actually executing against that deal is significantly harder, right? To me, someone wanting to grow is going to bed and saying, oh, I hope I get a promotion. So someone who's actually willing to go through it is willing A, to have the tough conversations, B, willing to put in the work, right? Someone that day in and day out is coming to is being active, right? Going to their leaders, going to their peers, getting accountability buddies, asking how they could do something better, but also seeking out mentors, right? Hey, here's something that happened. How can I do it better the next time, right? I think that so many times people wait to get feedback instead of actively seeking it. If you actively seek that feedback, you're going to learn faster, you're going to get better faster, and then you're going to be actively growing as opposed to this other person who's more wanting growth.

And we'll break this down even further. What's the difference between growth and a promotion?

Yeah, you know, I think there's a lot of different answers. To me, personal growth will always happen before a promotion. You have to grow to the role before you actually get promoted into it. So really there should be a lot of different ways that you can kind of measure some of that growth. First of all, as a leader, you should be setting benchmarks, you should be offering resources to people to grow. So for example, if you have an SDR that wants to be an ae, don't just sit there and say read the challenger sale, read spin selling. Like, don't just kind of be high level, go in and actually build a certification. Go align with AE directors, go align with VPs of revenue and understand what it is that is need to know how to do from day one, but also day 30 and 60, right? Your goal is as a SDR BDR leader is, is to get your team ready to be AES, AMs, RMs from day zero, right? So go spend the time, build out some sort of certification process to allow the team, give the team a resource to actually grow. Right? You have to enable the team to grow and then flip side, right? From an individual contributor standpoint, be active in your growth, ask questions, get mentors, build a coalition of people to not only be accountability buddies but but help you grow, be a sounding board for you to understand where you can get better, where the holes in your game are, but also what resources they used to grow themselves.

You know, one of the things I've talked about, even with some of the people on my own team, is growth is a skill. Promotion is a title. One thing they can take from you, another thing they can't. And if you're always seeking out titles, that's not actually growth. I know people that have gotten new titles that are new, no better now than they were three years ago. They're the same person with the same skills with just a new title. And to me, they actually didn't grow, they just got a new title. And how can you, I guess, help and maybe do this with your own team, like help individual contributors? But even managers and directors understand this a little bit more because it seems like everyone's just chasing the titles now, right? Versus actually seeking growth.

You know, I think it comes back to how you're operationalizing your week, right? Like if you're not in a role where you're actively learning, you're probably a flight risk, right? You're probably looking elsewhere. Because if you're not learning, then what? Why are you in the role? Right? Like if you're not getting better, if no one's helping you get better, why are you there? And I think that one, one area that I look at when our team is going into one on ones every single week is what enablement events are we hosting that is helping everyone on the team, no matter if you've been here for a week or a year, get better day in and day out, are you learning something new? And I think that's the biggest area that I'm focused on is what enablement events are we hosting? Whether it's account based selling seminars, whether it's certification seminars, even if it's just like a cold call club, right? Are we getting people better? And I think that that's always been my focus is if we're providing the resources, right, then it's on that, it's on our team to then utilize those resources to grow. And what, you know, what I'll do is I'll look at who's coming to those meetings, right? Is it the same faces that are coming to those meetings? If it is, they're clearly people that are focused on growing. If it's people that are, if the same people are not coming to the meeting, inversely, are they not interested in growing? Do they think they can't grow? Right. Do they think that you as a leader are not capable of helping them grow?

Right.

There's a bunch of stuff that you can drill into where people may not feel like they can grow.

And so actually that's a good segue into one of the questions I want to ask, right? So as a leader, how can you better enable growth? Because you kind of said it to, you have to enable it. You can't just talk about it or anything else. You mentioned seminars, cult certifications. Break those down a little bit further. What are some of these seminars or how do you do certifications and things like that for the roles.

Yeah. So I mean, look, honestly, from a certification standpoint, it takes a lot of work. I mean, if you want to truly, as a leader, enable every single person on your team to be ready for the next role, whether that's ae, am, rm, product marketing, whatever it may be, right. It takes a lot of time, effort and energy to build out these resources. You need to go align With a number of different internal stakeholders. You need to understand really granularly what their process is, what success looks like to them on day one, 30, 60, 90. And then you need to go find all these resources or you need to build them yourself. It's, it's a process. This is not something that you just whip off. We built our certification process at WalkMe. It took us 90 days to even get like a real framework that we could put people through that we actually were confident would get them through and have them really have grown through that process and learned. So it's, it's not easy from a certification end, but once you finish it and you actually have it operationalized, that's when you really see it. That's when you see people going through the certification, learning as they go through each stage, learning as they go through each topic, and then applying that in their day to day role. That's when you start to see people growing out of that SDR type of role. So that's from a cert side, from an enablement, from a coaching standpoint, that's more about understanding how can you uplevel the day to day tactical skills. Where is your team needing to go, right? Is it. Maybe it's better messaging, maybe it's better cold call skills, right? Maybe it's going through an account based selling seminar where you are literally digging in and you are actually doing the work. So Katie, you asked like, how do we do it?

Right?

So I like to host account based selling seminars where everyone will come in and I don't prepare. I literally just say, all right everyone, someone give me an account, right? Someone you know will say, all right, I'm selling to, you know, Tesla right now. I'll literally go in and I will show people granularly how I would unpack that account, how I would come up with my messaging, my scripts, and also how I would prospect. Like, I will build a list. I will literally go through every single step so that everyone watching can understand. Okay, here's how Josh does it. Here's some of the things I liked, here's some of the things I didn't like, here's some of the things I think I can do better. And then they can take away from that, hopefully a number of new skills that they didn't have when they came in.

And so I love all of that and I hope the leaders listening understand the amount of effort that goes into this. You have to be very intentional about it and make sure that you're driving these things forward. Now let's Reverse it though, for a second. What if I'm an IC and I don't work for someone like you? My company isn't doing these types of things. How do I grow towards that next role? How do I take a little bit more ownership of that?

You know, it's really hard, right, if you're kind of more on your own, right? And you don't have a leader that's enabling, that's coaching, that's mentoring, right? Or maybe the leaders just stretch too thin, right? Maybe they just have too many direct reports and they don't have the bandwidth to go do that, right? Volunteer, right? Go to someone and say, hey, here's what I want to do, right? I want to go from an SDR to an ae. I want to go from an AE to a sales leader, right? I don't know how to do that. But here's a lot of things that I think I need to learn in order to do that, right? What would you add to this list and can I operationalize this by building either a certification, can I build a course, what can I do and what resources can you point me to internally or people and stakeholders can you point me to that can help me understand how to build this out so that not only I can reach a growth goal of mine, but everyone that comes behind me has that same opportunity. And I think that's, for me, that's the biggest key is, are you doing this for a selfish reason or are you doing this to drive one of your goals that then benefits the organization as a whole? Okay.

And so let's start to put this together now.

Right?

So, okay, I've been very self aware. I have started to own my development. What are some of like the tactical steps that you believe lead to a promotion? Right. So if you've got two reps that you know, maybe on paper look the same or there's not much of a difference, what are the things that actually make someone stand out to you for a promotion to that next role?

You know, the first is just polish, right? It's just how detail oriented are you? Are you doing the things that are asked of you? Right? If I ask, hey, do X, Y, Z, is that getting done in a week? Is that slipping through the cracks? How many projects are you willing to take on? And can I as a leader really lean on you and know that if I give you something that's going to get done no matter what? And that, to me, I think it's a lot easier said than done. And I've worked with Reps who they have all the talent in the world and frankly, they could go be an AE or sales leader the next day from a talent perspective. But they're not buttoned up and they're not polished. And I will literally, in their one on one documents, I will note this project did not get done. Why didn't it get done? What were the roadblocks that prevented this from getting done? Right? I will actually dig in with that person to understand that's where that separation can happen is if one person is reliable and detail oriented and the other person is not. That to me is a big, big differentiator in a promotion process.

When should a rep ask for a promotion or a manager ask for a promotion? Right? So like, because this, I think people go back and forth on this sometimes too, right? Is like, do I wait and just let the numbers speak for themselves or do I ask for a promotion? When do you think asking is the right thing to do?

You know, I think at the end of the day it all depends on the demands of the business, right? Like if there's not a role for you, right? I think it's important to state it as a goal, right? And I think that we need, we as leaders need to separate it, right? Asking for a promotion and identifying a promotion as a goal to me are two separate things, right? Because if someone is saying, hey, Josh, this is my goal, help me get there, I will support, I will coach, I will enable you to get there. But someone coming in and saying, Josh, I want a promotion now to me, I look at that and say, okay, what's the demands of the business, right? Are we hiring for a role? Because if we're not, there's not much I can do about it, right? And number two, have you, when you ask for that promotion, are you completely buttoned up? Right? Are your metrics good? Is your attainment good? Are you completing projects? Are you helping? Additionally, are you volunteering yourself to do more to help your business unit? Right? Those are some key questions that before I'm going and saying, I'm ready for a promotion, are you completely buttoned up in every other part of your game? That makes you feel very confident that in asking for the promotion someone will say, yeah, you know what, you're ready for the next role, right? And it's just a matter of a role coming open.

That's a really good segue to the. One of the questions I wanted to ask. Like as a leader, how do you, I guess, encourage growth or maintain a growth environment if there's Not a lot of the next roles available, right? So you have SDRs that want to get to AES or AES that want to get to manager, but there's not open spots, so there's not open headcount. Like how do you still enable that growth and kind of keep people motivated if maybe the role isn't there for them Right now?

Yeah. The first is really on the project side, right. So if someone wants to be a manager, right. I will pull them in, do a ride along, right? Hey, hey. You know, Mr. And Mrs. You know, XYZ. Here's what I'm working on right now. Here's the project. I'm pulling you into the meeting and we're going to do it together. You're going to watch how I do it. I'm going to, I'd love your feedback on it, right? Help me finalize this and then let's measure, let's iterate, let's do it better the next time. And I think that ride alongs, no matter whether you want to go be a manager in ae, are really important. Because if you're an sdr, you want to be an ae, go do a deal, ride along, right? Go pick someone that's crushing it at the next level. You like their style, right? Maybe they're a friend, maybe they're a mentor, right? And say, hey, you know what? What deals do you have right now? Do you mind if I just come to the meeting as a fly on the wall, right? Hey, do you mind in your strategy sessions on these deals, Can I come in and just listen? I just want to take notes. I just want to get better. Right? And I think that even, even as a leader, bringing someone along and helping them learn in those situations is on top of potentially tapping them in on other projects. Right? So I mentioned the account based selling seminars we do. I'll go have someone run it. Hey, you want to go be an ae? You want to go, you know, sell bigger and better? Go run the account based selling seminar. Next time I'm going to come in, I'm going to take notes on how you run it and then I'll give you feedback on it. Right. You know, it's, it's. There are so many opportunities to learn. I think people just take a step back, listen, and kind of identify what those opportunities are in your day to day in how your businesses are operationalized. There should always be opportunities for people to step up and learn.

And let's go from like, you know, IC to manager. What are things that an IC should Start doing to grow into that management role before they have it.

Yeah. You know, we actually literally just promoted one of our ICs into a management role. And one of the things that I think he did really well was he established himself as kind of the go to, right. You know, we would tap him in to do trainings with new reps. We would tap him in when maybe there was an alignment challenge between an SDR and an ae. We tap him in to help fix it. Right. We would tap him in to help us build resources for onboarding, for training. And every single time over a six month, I'm sure for him, a very painstaking process. Every single time he did it well, he accomplished the goal and he accomplished it at a high level. And it got to the point where when a business need opened up and I was fighting the good fight trying to get that spot opened up, it was a shoo in. It was, we know he's ready. He's proven it over the last six months. Here's his scorecard. Right. And that's the other key piece of this. Whether you're an IC and SDR and ae, keep a scorecard. Keep a scorecard of your wins, your attainment, the projects that you've completed, right. It's so important to make sure that you're tracking all of this that when the time comes, when a spot opens up, when a business need opens up, it's an easy one, right. It's just, yeah, this person's ready.

And I love that. I think that's so key. Like, you know, if done right, a promotion should be actually pretty anti climactic because it's so obvious to everybody that it is for you or that it's going to be you or that you've already been doing it. That is not even exciting, right? It's like, hey, everyone, we want to announce, you know, you know, Kevin is now an AE and it goes well. Yeah, about time. Like he's. Yeah, he's been ready for that forever, right? And being very like almost anti climactic, you know, because one of the tips that's given to a lot of people around growth is, you know, start doing the job you want before you have it. Which, you know, it sounds great on a Hallmark card, but if I'm not a manager yet, how do I actually start managing? If I'm not a closer yet, how do I start closing? So how do you think the rep can actually start to prepare for that next role?

Well, yeah, I think first of all, be proactive, right? Reach out to the people currently in that role and ask, hey, this is my goal, right? This is where I want to be, kd. I want to go be a VP of Inside sales, right? Can you bring me in to a couple of projects that you're doing? Even if I'm just a fly on the wall and don't do anything, I just want to listen, I want to learn from you. I want to understand what are some of the strategic challenges and priorities that you're dealing with every single day, right? I just want to understand that and then to follow that up, make a commitment, right? Commit. Hey, hey, Katie, if you let me do this, I'm going to commit to you that my attainment is not going anywhere. If you're a 120% per quarter closer, you got to stay at that level while you try to go bkd or when you're trying to go be a manager, right? It's just like sales, right? Give and take, right? Any good ask should have a get as well.

I think that's really important for leaders to remember too. Where I think leaders sometimes look at some of their top performers and go, well, I don't want to lose them. Oh, you're my top performing closer. I can't move you into a management role. Like, you're my top performing closer. I'd lose all that revenue. Or you're my top performing sdr. I can't make you a closer yet. Like, I'll lose, lose that, you know, SDR production, which I think is just a very backwards way to think about it now. Something like, I don't hear asked enough when it comes to growth that I really want to get your perspective on is, you know, how do you know if you should grow into that next role, right? Like, not every role is right for everybody, buddy. You know, STRs just assume they should be closers. A closer just assumes either should get into management or get into enterprise. You know, like every manager wants to be a director, every director wants to be a vp. Like, what are some tips you can maybe give people like, or questions to ask themselves on whether or not the next role is even right for them.

So first things first, right? If you're not asking these questions of yourself before you bring this to a leader, you are already putting the cart before the horse. You are already out ahead of your skis, right? If you're an SDR, you want to be an AE and you're not going and talking to 10 different AES over the course of a 3, 4 month span about what they're doing? Do they like it? Where are they spending the majority of their time? You're already doing it wrong. I don't want to be that black and white about it. But you're all already out of sorts, right? Make sure before you just assume, well, I'm an sdr. My next step is ae. Understand what that AE job is. Understand? Why is that interesting to you? I had a former SDR of mine say, josh, I want to be an ae. And I said, awesome. What do you like about an ae? And he kind of pauses and he goes, well, I just don't want to be an SDR anymore. I was like, well, then why do you want to be an ae? An AE is very similar to an sdr. Like, it sounds like an AE is not right for you, right? And that's where you need to answer your question. Like, is closing deals going to be fun for you?

Right?

Is negotiations going to be tough with you? Is prospects ghosting you after you send a docusign fun for you? Like, this is what sales is, right? You know, being an sdr, BDR is an introduction into that realm. And if you're not going and talking with everyone that you possibly can, internal and external, by the way, in a role that you want to go to, you got to start there. That's step one. That's the basics.

What's step two?

My step two would really be, okay. I now understand that I want to do this right. All of these people have told me the role. It's exciting to me. I could see myself in that role. My next step would be build a coalition, get myself a mentor, two mentors, three mentors, people that can actually help me understand what they're doing, what their challenges are.

Right?

And then I would probably, in parallel, go to my leader and say, hey, here's what I want to do. I've spoken to XYZ people, give the data. I've spoken to this many people. And honestly, this AE role sounds really exciting to me. By the way, I've actually asked three of them to mentor me. So we're going to meet once to twice a month. What are some resources that I can go through, both internal and external, that can help me get ready for that role and by the way, perform better in my current one.

I love that. That coalition idea of like getting people around you and really building up the skill set. And really not even like a moat so much as it is just a support. Support system, right? To going through it, you know, like, I def. I try to connect my managers with mentors outside the company too. And I've, I've heard people say, like, I don't want, like, you know, my managers or directors getting mentors because then they may want to leave. And it's like, okay, so one, that's a massive problem. That's the way that you view it. But two, if they're willing to leave for something that you're not able to offer them, then that's okay if you got them ready for. Right? And I don't think enough leaders look at that. My team, they're not going to work for me forever. I know that I'm pretty actually open about that to them. I was like, I know you're not going to work for me forever. In fact, eventually I hope you outgrow me. You get to some, to a level, to a skill set where I don't have what's next for you. But you're ready for it, right? Whereas what's interesting is a lot of times when people are asking for promotions, they try to prove all the reasons or all the good things, but so rarely do they talk about where they know they need to develop to get into that role. Right? They don't talk about, I know I need to improve in this horror. Right? It's like, I was a top sdr, I should be a closer. I was a top manager, I should be a director. Well, no, that's not how this works. You have to develop the other skill sets because they are very, very different. And so before we get into kind of the final two questions here, if you think about growth as an ic, when might it be time to look for something else? So you feel like at what point do maybe you do draw that line and say, okay, now might be the time to look external versus still trying to grow internal.

It's a really, really good question. Answer it with kind of a story. So when I was at the New York Mets, I started as an isr. Book of business was. Was zero. Right? You know, my book of business was everything that I was cold calling and all the people I was meeting and all the relationships I was building. And it took me about three years to go from a book of business of just zero to the top performing B2B seller in the entire organization. And you know, I woke up, quota was 975,000. I had hit 1.25 million. And I looked around, I was like, I am the best salesperson on the floor. And for me, the second that I realized that I was the best on the floor was the minute I realized I was in the wrong room, and I do not want to be the best in the room. I want to learn. I want to learn from everybody. And it was on that day, and, you know, whatever, early November of 2015, that I realized I need. I need a new job. Like, I'm not growing here anymore. I've outgrown the organization, and I want to take a next step in my sales career that is. That is challenging to me. So I think that the long and short of it here is it's going to always change, and the answer will always change for each person. But for me, my answer was when I felt like I was the best in the room. That's when I was. I was going to look for something.

No, I think that's a really good thing to pay attention to. And what I've encouraged people as well is if you've done all the things that Josh has talked about, if you have done all of these things, all of these things. Now, some of these things, not parts of these things, all of these things, and there is not a growth opportunity for you, then it can make sense. But if you have not taken personal ownership, if you have not taken your steps to do your things, if you're just asking for growth to be given to you, that's not it, and that's not how it needs to be approached. I really hope people get that from this conversation where it's like, you outgrow the role that you're in. You are not given growth. You outgrow what you're in. And the analogy I give to my team is, how do you know when someone's outgrown something? How do you know when someone's outgrown a pair of pants or a pair of shoes or a shirt or of a pair? You can see it. You can see it. You can see when someone has outgrown it. And it should be that obvious. So. So, man, this. This flew by, man. We've been riffing on growth right now for almost 40. I was like. I looked up. I'm like, geez. Like, this is. Keep going. So I got two final questions for you here. So the first one, you know, we've talked about a lot here around growth, both from a leadership perspective and from a IC perspective. If they only remembered three things from our conversation today around growth, what would those three things be?

The first one is easy. The first one is you have to take growth into your own hands, right? No one is going to hand anything to you, all right? And I think that that's so key because your leader can provide you resources. You can build a, you know, they can provide recommendations for people to, to mentor and be a support system. But at the end of the day, if you're not willing to ultimately take accountability and ownership of your own personal growth, everything else is for naught. So that would be number one. Number two is learn how important listening and being coachable is, right? Growing requires someone to be there to be a coach, whether they're your direct manager, whether they're a mentor, internal or external. You need to be willing to take coaching and you need to be willing to listen and understand where you can get better. And I think third is, boy, it's tough to give three total because there's so much that's important. But I think if I had to only pick one more, it would be to be proactive, ask questions, understand where you can get better. Don't wait for someone to give you that feedback. Seek it out, Seek to understand where you can get better.

I think that's so important. I think the theme of a lot of that is ownership, right? That self awareness and ownership, which I think is just so important when it comes to growth. We have to own it. We got to do it, right? And so the last question here. So the name of the podcast is Live Better Sell Better, right? Like, I've got this weird idea that if we took better care of ourselves, if we got more joy out of life, that we, if we had more energy, more fulfillment, that our sales would also improve from that. What would your Live better advice be for people listening?

You got to be happy to sell, right? I mean, we live in a world of rejection, right? You know, coming from baseball, you know, you see literally the best players in baseball history failing 70% of the time and going to the hall of Fame, right? That's what sales is, right? It is a world of rejection. If you are not happy in your personal life, whatever that means to you, you will naturally not sell better, right? If you are not coming to work with a smile on your face to go close some deals, to go help some people close some deal some deals, to go help people grow, to give, to find qualified pipeline, why are you doing it?

Right? No, I think that's key. Can we go a layer deeper there? What are some ways to increase our happiness and joy in life, right? Like, what are some things we can actually do there?

You know, I think there's easy answers, right? For me, I know that if I don't work out every single day, then I'm Just naturally not as happy a person. It's just something I've noticed that if I don't work out, I'm just not happy. So that's, that would be my answer if I could only give one. But I think that for a lot of people the answers will differ. Right. I remember friend of mine had said, we've been doing the same thing every single day for what, 13 months now. We get up, we wake up, we go to our desk, whether it's in our room or in an office, we do work and then we watch our reward screen, whether that's a TV or a phone. And he had said, I just need to get away. I'm going camping for a week. I'm not going to look at a screen. I'm just going into nature. And if that means travel, if that means spending time with loved ones, if that means getting a dog, go do what makes you happy, but bring that into your daily life. Don't wait for a vacation to go do stuff. Don't wait to better your diet. I think that that's so critical is that we're bringing in happiness into our daily lives and not just, oh, yeah, I get three weeks of PTO time, so now I'll have fun.

No, I think that's a perfect way to kind of wrap on it because something I've talked about a lot is this idea of work life balance, when in reality it's work life integration. Balance makes them sound like they're on two different sides of the fulcrum. Right. Like it's not how it works. Right. It's really hard to have a great personal life if you have a horrible work life. And it's really, really hard to have a great work life if you have a horrible personal life. And so I think the way that you weave that in there at the end is perfect. Is like weave happiness into your day to day, into your weeks, into your months, and that starts to add up and carry over. So, my man, dude, we covered a lot here like it was rapid fire. Thank you for, for dealing with me here. Where, where can people find more of you? Where can they follow you? Where can they get more of your content? Like, how do they get more Josh in their life?

Boy, if you want more Josh in your life, hit me up on LinkedIn. I'm pretty easy to find. I got a Little collared shirt. LinkedIn. Josh G. Raw. Pretty easy to find me. I got my big walkme background there. Come say hi. I love engaging with folks on LinkedIn. KD, man, thank you for having me. This was a blast. We really did. We covered a whole lot. But I really think we got tactical, which was fun. And I loved a lot of your advice. I love that we really talked about that growth is not just on the IC or the manager. Right. That the leader has to take ownership in that.

Nah, man. I think it's why we vibe so well. So I appreciate you coming. I appreciate your energy and your insights, my man. We will be in touch. Appreciate you.