E50: The Secret to High-Trust, High-Performance GTM Teams - CRO @ Houzz, Tara DiCristo-Schmitt

Hello and welcome to the Revenue Leadership Podcast by Topline. I'm your host, Kyle Norton, CRO at Owner.com. And every Wednesday we dive deep into the strategies and tactics being used to drive success by the best revenue leaders in the world. So join me as I sit down with revenue operators to discuss actionable frameworks that you can implement in your business today with no fluff, no sales pitches, and no platitudes.

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Today's guest is Tara de Cristo Schmidt, who is the CRO at Houzz. And Tara started her sales journey at the juggernaut, the sales juggernaut known as ADP. Uh, where she spent 7 years from rep all the way through to divisional vice president, then a stint at Paychex and 4 years as the VP of North American SMB sales at HubSpot, uh, before moving to Houzz 8 months ago. And today we are gonna talk about building culture, setting vision, why vision beats velocity, and how to operationalize culture. And we're gonna hit on a different take on forecasting, how, uh, you can build culture and vision and buy-in through quota setting. So lots of fun topics to dive into. And so I'm excited about this one and thanks for joining.

Yeah, I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me, Kyle.

Awesome. So, what did I miss in the background? So give people sort of the 60-second fill in the blanks of what I laid out.

Yeah, you covered it pretty well, but I did, I started my career door to door at ADP and then continuing on a leadership career path there, had a lot of opportunity to build and rebuild different segments of ADP, which is where I got my appetite for startup world, not knowing it in big corporate America that I actually loved this pioneering new opportunity. Decided to take a step out of ADP, which is a wild step after, you know, almost 20 years, and went to Paychex. I didn't step too far out. And what I realized is I really, it was time to leave the HCM industry. And that's where I found the opportunity at HubSpot. You know, be known to me that HubSpot was who it was, not only just in the market at that point in time, but where it was going and had the opportunity to run small business as head of sales for 4 years. I mean, it was an incredible journey which led me to the CRO of House. So a lot of gratitude for the time at HubSpot.

Yeah. And for the newer generation sales leaders who don't know ADP at the time, there was only 3 or 4 companies that had you know, it was the Xeroxes, ADPs of the world that had like the really foundational sales training and just churned out leaders. Like so much of the tech world was filled by former ADP, former Xerox, former Oracle sales leaders. What was that like in the early aughts? Like that, that environment?

Yeah, I talk about it all the time. I mean, I'm, I'm still wearing ADP red, right? Um, I, it was, it was a machine. I say it's machine-like. I often get the comment, you could point out an ADPer, still to this day, I could be at an airport and say, there goes an ADPer. There was a certain, I wanna say swagger, but there was, there was a sales swagger about what was built at ADP. Today, as I'm in tech, I hear a lot of autonomy and I wanna do it this way, and why would I use this script? And let me go figure it out. And at ADP, it was, this is how you do it. We know this to be true. If you do it this way and you do it over and over again this way, you will produce X. Results. And, and we did, and we spent a lot of time on development, a lot of time on development. But we had, we knew, like, to, to this day, I believe you could ask anybody, tell me what the 6 steps of the sales are. Every ADPer will answer it the same way.

Hmm.

That's with Challenger Sale and MEDDIC and Sandler and everything coming in. They'll still be able to tell you the 6 steps of the sale. They'll tell you how to handle an objection using Pepsi or Pepsi Light. Like, there's, there were just things that were ingrained in us.

Yeah. It's funny how we've lost this because I grew up in a boiler room too. Like I grew up in a cold call environment reading like word for word from a script and like learning those highly repeatable plays. And I very much take that with me, you know, like even, even in my role today where, you know, like all the buzz is about GTM AI and automation. Like actually my foundation's in a, highly structured, rigorous, like, sales playbook environment is, is given me such an advantage, I find. But people, people poo-poo it now.

They do. Poo-poo is an excellent word. They do. People poo-poo it. I do a lot of work with Mike Weinberg.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, he wrote, uh, Sales Simplified, First-Time Sales Manager, and I brought him into, uh, I met him at Paychex, brought him into HubSpot, and now he, I'm doing some work with him here at Houzz. But why I fell in love with his concepts is for the reason you just said. He, he's that foundational ADP. I remember going into these new companies saying, where's that ADP foundational? Why is this so hard to get people to take flight? And I had found him and he came in and, and, and just with his activity pipeline and results, I, I laughed when we were talking. I'm like, well, you have it like coined as activity pipeline results. And these 15-minute conversations at ADP, it was just how we operated. Training. It wasn't a big thing. At some point it must have been a training, but you just started to learn. It was, it was this type of repetition. It was all about activity pipeline. And what was the result of that?

It's a way of life. Pipeline saves lives. That's, uh, what we always say. Why, why do you think people like don't want to be in a structured environment like this anymore? Like what, how did we move away?

Oh no, I see this is scary, right? Because I'm going to answer some things and, and people will, will hear them. But what Listen, I think that there was a generation at ADP. I was very blessed. I got to spend most, I spent most of my career in outside sales and then I was able to go over to inside sales. And I spent time in channel sales. I was able to see different, different alternate distribution models of driving revenue. This was around like 2016, I guess, when HubSpot started to enter the market. We were already doing it, but inbound became the way. And I think what we have now is, is just generational sales reps where there's this perception of sales is an abundance of demand coming into me and my job is to close that abundance of demand. And I do believe that that still exists out there, but not at the level that it does today. And that we are learning more and more that we've got to get back to the days pre-COVID and where everybody that was outside or doing the outbound or being very, um, You know, I'm cool about the process. Um, saw different types of demand. Um, and we raised a lot of people in that last, I'd call it in that last 10 years. And so what I see them now rotate from company to company.

Mm-hmm. I, I couldn't agree with you more. Like, I, I, I think a lot of it is, is like easy money and ZIRP driven where there was low interest rates, all this money sloshing around. Doing deals became much easier than it ever was. You had all of, all of the tooling, and it's really hard, you know, people— there's— it's hedonic adaptation. People just adapt to that way of doing things. And so now when the world changes, we have a really hard time getting back to something that is much more difficult, or, or the compensation changing. Like, I, I remember the, the years after COVID, I would get these like crazy comp expectations for people. I'm like, I understand it that you've made $300 grand as like a run-of-the-mill mid-market rep the last few years, but like those years are make-believe and you can't attach yourselves to them. It's like, at some point I was at Shopify and my shares had like 7x'd in the course of like 13 months. And, you know, I had a certain net worth on paper that was like make-believe. It was like, it was, it was, uh, it looked really cool when I logged into the, into Shareworks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We all experienced it. And then I lost 80% of it or 75% of it. And, and you can't stay attached to like, no, no. Like I, I'm, I am, this is my net worth. It's like, no, no, no. That was, that was like a weird time. We all sort of lost our minds. But now like this is where we're at and you adjust, you have to adjust yourself, but people struggle to adjust. I'm actually having one of my favorite authors, Brad Stulberg, on the podcast in like 6 weeks and he wrote a book called Master of Change and it's all about how people can deal with these like ups and downs and 'cause the world's gonna change at a more and more rapid pace. But like this seems to be missing. I, and I, I'm lucky, like I hear sales leaders complain about it all the time and I'm lucky, like I hire, I can hire people with that drive and mentality. And so I don't experience it. Like my team operates at like the old, old school effort levels. But I, this is one of the things I hear the most complaints about from my colleagues.

So I've been sharing a lot of that with the house team. Uh, many of them, you're 10, 11 years, amazing. Didn't, fan, just build something incredible. Um, but they, they need to understand the why. Why are we going out outside? So not only going outbound, I'm going outside.

Um, okay.

Yeah, feet to the street, mostly because of our ICP and where they are, and it's community-based. Um, so there's a lot of conversations around this, this type of change and what does it mean and how do you know it will work. Um, and confidence comes in. Well, there's companies that have, that built themselves this way and are still doing it today. And I can get, I can gain their confidence in it when I could point to ADP and what we've been able to do there.

Yeah. Yeah. And the numbers will speak for themselves. Like, you know, it's, it's, uh, you'll do some sort of pilot, I'm sure. And if the economics look great, you scale it. And, uh, if not, back to the drawing board. So what, one more warmup question before we get into trust and culture. What was it about the ADP culture? So is this machine, the repeatability is, is sort of like what it was known for. But like people now won't look at ADP as like a cool, buzzy company.

I don't know why, but yeah.

But, uh, certainly at the time, like that was an incredible place to be. What was the, what, like what magic was created there? Like, well, just, just describe the culture.

Yeah. So we'd always say these 5 things. One is at ADP, you can make money. You could qualify for trips and incentives.

Mm-hmm.

You could career path, you could build future wealth, and you're gonna have a ton of fun doing it. And ADT, although we were very disciplined and we were high performance and it was an intense grind, uh, their ability to recognize and build team culture and just create that repetition. So repetition in Mondays look like this. You were out of, you were in the field by this time. You didn't come back until this time. You would clear vital few throughout the week and, uh, you know, and then Friday you were doing your follow-ups and when you were standing up and you were given your, your stand and deliver, right? We called it roll call at the time, but what they did so well was the recognition piece. You, I, some people, I actually, I don't know if I should say this. Maybe you, we, I actually, I'm not going to say it, but where people would come into ADP and from the outside and they'd be like, hmm. The talent is interesting here because everybody felt like they were an A++ player. Adding. So you can read between the lines there, right? But if you were there and you were succeeding and you were qualifying for their president's club, you were A++ talent, top talent. There was nothing outside that you wanted to look at. Uh, no company could sway you away. And their president's club recognition is off the charts.

Mm.

You go through that grind, probably wanna quit a gazillion times throughout that year because of the grind. And then the sales team would show up at President's Club. They would be treated better than any celebrity function you've ever seen and gone to. It would reinvigorate them. We've spent a lot of time recognizing the, uh, spouses and at home. And then you'd get back into the grind for another year.

Yeah, that's cool. I really like that. What, what was, What were they doing specifically to recognize people? What, what, what really like made them walk away with that sense of— Yeah.

So every week, uh, so at, at ADP back in the day, at least when I was there, you had regions, we had offices all over the country and you had VPs of each of the regions. So let's say you ran New Jersey, you had anywhere from 45 to 80 sales reps and then managers within them. And every Friday morning you'd hold this recognition meeting where they'd walk in, there'd be loud music, you would be sharing what their results were for the last week. So their name is on big screen. This is every week. And if you're sitting in that room, all you want is your name to be on that screen, right? And then, and then after that, then you're talking— everyone stands and delivers. And now, now you're seeing more recognition because not only was that person's name just on screen, but now they're, they're being recognized and celebrated for what they're going to deliver in the next week, uh, for the forecast of the next week. We did trips like Superstars where managers were able to qualify for trips above and beyond what the reps did. A lot of experience experiences. Yeah, a lot of experiences, a lot of trips. So you didn't just make President's Club, then you were Pinnacle, and then you were Board of Directors. So you kept wanting to achieve, right? You didn't— once you made President's Club a few times, you no longer just wanted to make President's Club, you wanted to be Pinnacle. And then after you were Pinnacle, you're like, I gotta shoot for Board of Directors. So they created a constant culture of you could do more. I remember being there very early in my career and A gentleman by the name of Terry Russell, he took a sticky note and he put it on. This is all, you probably have seen this a gazillion times, but he put it on a wall. He goes, put this on the wall as high as you can.

Oh, I love this. Yeah.

And that is the ADP culture.

Explain it. So explain it for them.

I go, take a sticky note and, and you say to someone, hey, who can put this? Someone come put the sticky note on the, on the wall as high as they can. Go put it on the wall as high as you can. So they put it on as high as you can. And then you look at them, you give them another sticky note and you say, Put it up higher. And now this person probably jumped pretty high the first time, and they're like, I can't, I can do it higher. And they take the sticky note, and guess what? They hit it because they've got a whole room of people looking at them, watching them.

Yeah.

And then, and then he took a third sticky note and he goes, now beat that. Mm-hmm. Now when the person looks around the room, they look at themselves, a little bit of doubt, and then they're, and then, you know, you see them like, all right, I got this, and then they hit it even higher, right? And then that becomes the theme and the culture of ADP. We can always do more. We can always be better. It's a mindset.

Yeah. Kevin Dorsey does this as a part of his goal setting workshop, and the first time I saw it, I was like, that's such a, such an incredible like physical analogy. And so that's a cool one. So you talked about the building blocks of culture at ADP. Maybe just zoom out and talk to me about the building, like what are the foundations of a great culture? Like what do you need to have in place across the organization and how are you thinking about building this at Houzz?

Yeah. So, the first thing, I don't think it's gonna be news to anybody, but it's trust, right? You build a great culture with the foundation of trust. And so, being at Houzz, we can have some fun analogies, right? Of trust is truly our foundation, and that's what stands us out. And then, you know, Francis Fry talks a lot about high standards and high devotion. That's a big piece I like to bring into culture, into the culture around leaders, right? We've got, we're gonna have, and the sales reps understand, we're gonna have very high standards, but we're also gonna be very devoted to helping you get there. And so when I think about just like the vision and setting the vision, it starts with, for me, being clear, like, what is the vision? Like, why is it the vision, right? So you set it, and then, um, where I've seen visions fall apart is where you don't clearly set expectations, right? You don't communicate the expectations, and the expectations include the messy in the middle, right, of getting there. The expectation is helping people see the journey that they're going to go on. And then the third piece is that consistent recognition of progress. So you're setting the vision, you're communicating expectations, and then you're recognizing progress over and over again. And that keeps people on the journey with you.

Okay. Um, I want to double-click into vision because before we recorded, you, you mentioned that you think vision beats velocity. So maybe like unpack what you meant by that and then I, I wanna get you to talk more about vision.

Okay. So yeah, so what do I mean when I say vision, vision beats velocity? Because I've, I've been on so many different teams over the last 20-some years, uh, what I have found is that there's two ways of, of being a revenue leader. One is, hey, I want more calls, I want more pipeline, I want it done faster, do it now, go get it. Which I have to admit, I might have been that leader in different roles that I would, I would—

we all have. Hopefully, we've all been there.

But then what I learned is once you had a clear vision, what it does is it creates, it eliminates chaos. So, when there's a clear vision and people know what they need to do, it minimizes the chaos. And so, I went from hardcore activity will win, activity will win every time to I've made this flip to clarity over activity. Will create productivity. So, if I know what I'm supposed to do and how I'm supposed to do it, and we're all moving in the same direction, then I will get productivity because you're doing it in a clear way. And when I really think back to the questions you were just asking me, as going through the org, I didn't truly understand that, but that's what ADP did. They made it clear.

Mm-hmm.

Because it was clear, because there was no chaos, we could do more activity. We could increase our performance levels.

Yeah. This, I find I say this like every 4th podcast I'm on, but like slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

Yes.

And being able to give people that repeatable playbook with a clarity on objective and how to manage your time, you can accomplish so much more. I find you see this all the time, especially like younger managers. It's just all about like, go, go, go, go, go, go. But then in, unless a rep knows exactly how to direct that thing, you just end up spinning. You just end up spinning in circles.

So, well, and that's Kyle where it comes, the, the, the conflict with autonomy comes in. There was so much demand in the past, there was room for autonomy. And now that the squeeze is a little bit tighter than it's been in the past and we're changing, now there's this need for the clear vision, the repeatable process for people to work over and over again to get the the same results they got when the demand was so high.

Yeah. I think one of the other, the other ways that I describe this is like intrinsic versus extrinsic. And if you can communicate a compelling vision that, that somebody is intrinsically motivated to go chase and you give them the tools, then they're doing, they can do things for their own reasons. And it's not calls for the sake of calls. It's calls in search of like some, some outcome. And the more we can frame and give clarity to like why you're doing something, it allows the individual to maintain that internal locus of control, which we all like crave as people. Well, within the confines of like a thing that works for the business. Like oftentimes I'll say like freedom through discipline. It's like a Jocko, Jocko Willink saying because it's freedom through constraints. Like now you can have freedom to operate and go and like, and, and execute cuz you're not flailing. So it seems like those are similar.

Very similar.

So I wanna go back to like how to set a good vision. Um, because when you say vision, where it can be like, we're gonna build a huge company and like we're saving the world through, uh, B2B SaaS.

Yeah. Which I hear a lot of revenue leaders say over in Orion, we're going idea, we're doing this. And it's Yeah, so when I think about setting, uh, gosh, like a North Star. So, so first, so I'm a big fan of Kat Cole. I've been following her for, for years. And one of the things she always said was you gotta focus on what's possible. So when you think about setting a vision, can you get in the room as, as the leader and you say, all right, like, what is possible? You start asking everybody, what is possible? What can we do? Where do we want to go? You know, you ask both of us, what scares you about us going there? To really understand, like, what is possible. And then after you've got this really clear vision of what is possible, then you gotta base that in reality.

Hmm.

Well, that is possible for sure, but it's gonna take a lot to get there. So the vision I may not wanna set that far ahead. So it'll be a north star, but it doesn't need to be my immediate vision that I'm gonna share with the team for the next year or, or 3-year vision. And then, and I'm saying that because the next step is to identify the stages. So, in order to get to that North Star or focusing on what is possible, what are the stages that we're gonna go to? And then I said it earlier, but then the next, the, the fourth pillar for me in, in setting vision is communicate the progress.

All right.

And that's where you're either iterating, pivoting completely, or continuing pace, right? Continuing in the direction that you set out to do.

Yeah. That is definitely a place where most of us fall short. We communicate a vision, but it's hard to break, it's hard to pause and go back to it routinely enough. So I like it. What, can you gimme an example of like the vision statement or the north star that you might set for your team?

Yeah, so I'm gonna give you a hypothetical one to not share any, you know, external information. But let's just say that I, we determined a, or I determined a new customer number. Existing customer number, right? A number of customers we want using and loving and excited and telling others about our software.

Mm-hmm.

Very clear number. The power in that number is everybody understanding what's possible. So what's possible up into that number, what's possible after we hit that number, basing it in reality, which is here's, if we're gonna hit that number by this date, Here's where we are.

Mm-hmm.

So here are the things that need to happen in order for us to get there. And then it's taking not just the revenue team, it's taking the entire company, the entire company with us. And so what I do is I solicit either marketing or, or branding depending on how big the company is and what roles are there to build that with me. And so we have a very consistent communication structure. Where it is showing up in, in different places all over, uh, communication places. It's in emails, it's in different, uh, chat rooms that we have. And it goes as far as to break silos. That's the power of a vision. It will break down the silos. Um, a quick story on just this particular vision that we set was I was on with the design team and all I needed them to do in this moment was to create, create an image for me, a logo. For this mission. And I got some stuff and, you know, as, as a, you know, perfectionist revenue leader, I was like, that's not good enough. It's not catchy enough. I need more. I want it to be better. Right? So I'm reverting back to, to what I said I shouldn't be. And, uh, and they said, we don't understand why. And I go, well, listen, this is your part in that mission. It's Mission X, right? K. Within seconds, like, the body language changed. The shoulders went back. I started seeing fingers go, the, The logo I got back was off the charts. And I announced that in that meeting. I said, do you all see the power of us having a vision and a mission that we're all working towards? That it doesn't, it, it, it makes it so the entire company is, is on board. The comp team is sending notes saying, doing my part to get to mission X. That's the power in a mission. You can bring the whole company with you on it. And vision.

Very cool. I wanna get to recognition. So like, Can you talk me through your like recognition structure? Like what you wanna, you want to recognize the pro progress, you wanna recognize individuals as, as you talked about in the ADP days. Like what do you, what are the, what are the components and milestones, meetings, rit rituals that somebody should have in place?

Yeah. So in that vision, we, we started with a build it, sell it, start it, keep it. So everyone in the company, right, has almost their, their lane. But what we, what we learned by sharing this vision is that actually everybody is accountable to every piece of that, right? To build it, right? Because you gotta create those feedback loops to sell it, to start it, to keep it. So recognition has become company-wide. So we'll do a company-wide recognition around employees that have built it, sold it, or sell it, start it, keep it. So it's pulling them every quarter back into our vision of why we're here and what we're doing.

And that's quarterly.

That's the quarterly meeting.

Okay.

The revenue teams have monthly meetings and we have a daily tracker, so daily shoutouts in our chats and our Slacks. And then we have a weekly communication that goes out to say how much closer we are. And then we have. The CEO and myself have milestone communications that we send out. So we set milestones to let people know what the milestones were to get there. We just hit one milestone 2 weeks ago. So that was big. Thank you. Reinvigorates everyone, keeps them moving in the same direction. And then from sales specific, we have President's Club, monthly recognition, quarterly recognition dinners.

Yeah. Um, that makes a ton of sense. And so what do you, what are you specifically recognizing? Is it always the outcome metrics? Are you just, just give more detail on how you're specifically recognizing people across those timelines?

Yeah. So for example, the designer I just shared with you would be recognized for his contribution to the mission in doing great work in design.

Yeah.

Right. Which ultimately, so you'll have a sales rep say how they use the, the logo to do X or X, Y, or Z, or a manager used it and it attributes back to the designer where normally, right? So I heard, I can't remember where I heard this, but it was this concept of, of a movie. And, and this is what inspired me to, to go down this route. The concept of a movie that you sit in a movie theater and you watch the big stars on screen. And usually the salespeople are the stars on the screen. Yeah. But if you sit and you wait, you see the credits. And what you learn is that that movie doesn't happen without everybody in the credits. And so, we are, we are really focused on recognizing the work that goes into getting sales, the stars of the show, recognized. This, we are, we have, uh, really taken the company in a customer-first, um, mindset. We were, we were very, there was a time where we were company-first. There was a time when we were employee first. Now we are, we are very much customer first. And, uh, so we've got a lot of recognition around customer-first success stories.

And is that mostly peer-to-peer? Is that, is that like bottoms up? Like who, how, what's the mechanism for you to identify the moments to recognize? Like how should people build that?

It's all of the above. So in the, in the, uh, quarterly meetings, we'll go to the teams and ask for it to come up. In the daily, it's peer-to-peer and it's kind of a, if you see it, say it.

Yeah.

And you'll go ahead and post it in the moment.

Okay, cool. One of the things that I think is so important here is like, you know, the, the neuroscience of it is the, like, it's the anticipation loop. It's like, you know, we confuse the effect of dopamine like, oh, we get dopamine when we achieve some outcome or reward, but actually dopamine is released when we anticipate the like achievement. And so, like building in many more of these milestones where you can be recognized and there are these things, you know, you have more of this dopamine loop where people are consistently like anticipating the, the like cue, like cue action reward loop and just having more of it makes a ton of sense.

Yeah. Right. That's the ADP model. So if I was in that motion, we were in office every time you come in every week, there'd be, there'd be an XK recognition loop.

Yeah.

Now I'm coming in, I'm moving that the number.

Yeah. This is why, you know, like game design and, and to a lesser extent, like gamification makes so much sense. Like people love to see progress and they love to, to feel like they are moving towards something. And it's like, it's called cognitive closure or the closure effect. It's where like we, if, if we can see our progress and we feel close to it, we're like much more excited to, to push to that. That finish line versus this, you know, what so often happens, and I'm guilty of this too as well at times, is like you announce a big thing and then we don't like beat the drum of being on that path. So I think that's a great lesson.

Have to beat the drum.

What are the components of a good vision? So you talked about sort of the structure, what's possible, what's, what you could actually think is potential. What was the language you used there?

What's—

I focus on what's, huh? Yeah. And like what's pragmatic basically. But then like what are the comp— and then that I love that build it, sell it, start it, keep it. It's like, it's short, it's pithy. It's like, how do you think about like what needs to be in like a great vision that you can rally folks around?

I think it's the clarity of This is the big, big vision. This is it. Here are the milestones. So this is what happens when we get to, this is what it means when we hit this number to the market. This is who we are in the market. This is what it means when we hit this number. And this is what it means when we hit this number. Helping people understand what it means to the company, to the customer, and to them is a critical part of setting vision. I've been part of enough teams now where either the head of sales did not set the vision or set the vision, but didn't connect it all, didn't thread it all the way through the organization to the, to the sales team or the CS team as to how it would impact them.

Awesome. Okay, cool. What changes when things aren't going well? So like there's a lot of businesses that are going through various degrees of challenge because we're in such a disruptive time where great companies are being disrupted by AI. Fundraising has never been better if you are one of the haves, and it's never been more difficult if you're a nice-to-have tool that's the third or fourth in the category. So how does this change, or how do you advise people to get a team rallied when things like aren't going well and you're not on the right trajectory?

Yeah. So the first thing is like, I feel like you gotta, you have to communicate because if you don't communicate what's happening, your entire team, your entire organization is creating their own stories. And those stories are never the right stories. And they're very rarely productive stories that are gonna drive the business forward. So when things are challenging, communicate them. I have to tell you, HubSpot did that so well, almost, almost too well, uh, in just communicating. So you were always in the know of what was happening. but communicate and then ideate. So here's, we are here, what's happening, and we gotta ideate and we're gonna ideate all the way up and all the way down and all the way around. So it's not just the senior leaders or right, or the middle management, the, the AEs get involved too. And you do that by design, right? Bring everybody with you. And then there's, there's something that I love. So when things are getting a little, uh, crazy and we're unclear where to go, there's an execution model that, um, I have found has worked over and over and over and over again. Because as you communicate, after you communicate and then you ideate, what that means is you gotta quickly implement process, right? A new process or a new program, right? Or a new direction to get people to go. And so I call it, this is called the execution model. And so the first thing you do is plan and prepare. So, okay, right? Whether it's oh shit or no shit, like here we are, we gotta plan and prepare for this right now. So let's plan and prepare cuz we're going this way. We gotta get out, get out of this. Two is create hype around it. So you're communicating, right? So let people understand like, hey, this is the hype. This is where we gotta go. This is, you know, this is the messy in the middle that's going to happen, right? That's even when it's messy, you can make it fun and create hype around it.

Yeah.

Hence the vision of what we're doing to get to a certain logo number. And, and then you train. So you start to bring in, if we're gonna go this direction, what is it gonna take? Because we haven't been there before, which means we probably need new skills. Or we need to evolve our skills. And so, there's going to be a piece of like, we're going to train through this. It's, I used to call it the Miyagi move, meaning like, I'm going to train you to, you know, paint the fence, but I'm actually training you how to block, right? Having them turn away from the chaos and into development. And the development is going to pay off tenfold because they're going to have the skills they need to keep going through the change and the evolution. And then, the fourth piece is like, you got to set Set goals and expectations. I said that earlier, but be really clear on here are our goals and here are the expectations through it. And it doesn't need to be 10x, right? As you're getting through it, it can be based in reality. And then you got to have a culture of constant practice, right? And that's the— it could either be— you could think about it in a way of training, of role plays. But you can also think in a way of practice in such that I'm going to go try this. I'm going to take a couple swings. And then I come back and I'm going to let the org know if these swings are working or not, or if it's getting us through. And then 7 is results. Share results and recognition always, no matter what, even in the hard times. Often we forget about sharing results and recognition in the hard times. And then what— the last thing that you got to do once you've done all 7 steps of that execution model is now you've made something new cultural, and that should progress your business forward in times of challenge.

I love this. Where's this execution model from?

You're gonna laugh, but like, I don't, I don't know. I learned it A gazillion years ago at a retreat, and I can't find anything anywhere where it originated from. I've Googled it. I've asked AI. I can't find it.

That is so funny.

Well, I just coined it as mine. It's mine as of today.

Claiming it now. Yeah. This is the Tara de Cristo Schmidt Execution Model. You know, we'll, we'll, uh, we'll put this out there as your, your thing now. I think that's great. The train piece is often, is, is so often missing. Or it's like a very superficial training where it's like, okay, great. We're retraining this thing. You do like a 1-day or a half-a-day blitz and you're like, go forth and execute in a completely new direction. And yet it doesn't have that reinforcement or the repetition that we often need. I also like very, I talk about, talk to my leaders around about this a lot, like creating hype around something. Even spiffs, like people will launch a spiff and then like not really talk about it for the rest of the week or the month as opposed to like, do you have a scoreboard? Are you beating the drum? Are you— here's a fun, here's like a fun spiff thing for folks. It's like a running joke that there's always a, what I call a wrinkle. There's always a wrinkle in the spiff. So like two-thirds or three-quarters of the way through the spiff, there'll be some weird wrinkle that brings like everybody from sort of two-thirds up back into contention. Yeah. You know, like there's a new thing you can earn way more points or do way, way, like way more whatever. But you like need to be super intentional about these things to bring the right, like you're gonna do all the hard work to plan and prepare and you're gonna do the training, but without the like enthusiasm and, and mindshare, like you just need to capture mindshare and it's oftentimes not there. How else do you think people can create hype around something?

Well, so I've planned—

just repetition.

There's repetition, but there's a lot— it is 100% repetition. There's also the planting the seed. So getting there before you announce that you're there. So it's coming, these things are coming, creates hype. Oh, what's coming? What is it? What should I be doing? And make sure you're hitting the number because get your pipeline big because something big is coming, right? You start to plan things, you start to send little articles. Things like that. Um, you, you use the whole org to, uh, plant the seeds to hype things out. You get, uh, AE advisory groups and you get them talking about it and you have them play a role in how do we hype this. And then, I mean, I think you're spot on there with you got to have the scorecards and you can't roll out 20 SPFs at one time. Yeah, one SPF, change behavior, go after, you know, help generate a result that you're looking for, um, and constantly talk about on a weekly basis of where they are.

Yeah. Awesome. I want to go back to trust. There was one other question I wanted to ask about trust. What do you think especially newer leaders get wrong? Like I find first-time VP, first-time VPs of sales come in and just like blow themselves up because they lose the room. So what advice do you give to new leaders about trust building?

So what I have seen uh, from other leaders and also myself coming into different roles, even stepping out of, um, the industry, you know, and into, into industries that you don't. One of the things that I would caution new leaders from doing is making decisions to gain credibility. Make decisions to progress the business forward. And if you don't have all the answers or there's more that you need to understand before you can make a decision, even if you're being asked to make a decision, explain what else you need. And the timeframe in which you need to make that decision. I've seen and been part of my own decision-making where I've made decisions that I did it for credibility and it was too quick, too fast. And I know certainly had I known more information or slowed down, I would've made a different decision that would've been better for the org.

You're the second guest to mention this exact thing.

Oh, really?

Yeah. Yeah. Katie, who's—

What's your outlier today, Kyle?

What's that?

There's a lot of pressure out there today to make decisions.

I know. Yeah. Yeah. This, this was like a year ago, the CRO from Walnut. I was like, what's the hardest lesson you had to learn? And like, this is, this is what you shared is, you know, like you get, you get into somewhere new and, and there's so much pressure to like make the call and go versus, you know, being deliberate enough upfront. 'Cause there's, there's so much, I think like content and consensus that like you gotta earn all of this credibility in the first 60 days or first 90 days and you gotta make make things happen or else you, you don't, you don't, uh, build the right credibility things. That's good. That's, that's good advice. And so what, what are the other things to build that trust foundation? So you're new into a company, say you've like changed industry, what's your like trust building playbook?

Yeah, so mine is to spend time, um, in roundtables. So took a page out of the First 90 Days. Um, and I stick to the blueprint, right? Like, uh, spending the time asking consistent questions. So if you ask everybody different questions, it's not going to help you really understand what's going on. And so, spend the time, get to know them, where they want to go. Spend time in the product, building trust, and really understanding, at least from a point of understanding the ICP that's out there, so you can have good conversation. Building trust is really, you know, Yamini Rangan said this so well over and over again, but she would say, you know, she'd go on listening tours. And she came always from a place of curiosity. And, you know, as I moved on, I've come in with a sense of curiosity, right? I've made mistakes where I've walked into new teams or new orgs where it was like, oh, I see this is wrong and that's wrong. I remember someone saying to me once, you know, we're not really broken. And they were right. They weren't really broken. But I came, I had done so many rebuilds that I was under the, the, of this, as if this is broken and I need to go fix it and I have, and I have a blueprint on how I fix it. Um, but really coming in with that sense of curiosity and understanding the different parts of the business, um, and what they're focused on helps build credibility and not making immediate decisions without complete confidence, which we've already talked about, is, is gonna—

What are some of your favorite listening tour questions?

My first, my, one of my favorites is, which I shared earlier, but What do you believe is possible? And then after they tell me what is possible, I'll ask, well, what do you, what do you think I need to know for us to get there? Let's sit together and talk about, and you're not telling anybody, but now you got fresh ears and you want someone to hear.

Yeah.

Get us there. Um, I ask for our greatest area of opportunity.

Mm-hmm.

And then I asked what inspired— so now I've asked a lot of business questions and I, and I tend to close out that these are just a couple examples. There's more. Um, but I close out with like, what inspired you along your journey to be where you are? What will keep inspiring you?

I like that. Uh, do you think this is much different remote versus in office, trust building at scale?

I think it's a lot harder.

Yeah.

I do. Remote. You miss the, let's go grab a coffee walk.

Yeah.

Let's go walk to the cafeteria. Let's just, let me just sit here with you and talk. You miss the, let me see the picture. What's this picture? What are you doing type stuff? I think, you know, you have to work at it in a remote environment because you're on calls back to back to back to back. They're typically in 30-minute increments. And, we have turned into machines that think you gotta get off that call and not talk about personal things and, and move on. But I also think trust building comes from a place of understanding what the business goals are, what people's role within them, and then staying in that lane of conversation. And that builds trust. When people— if you can build a connection where you're helping people win remotely, that's trust. I trust that the conversation I have with you is going to be worth my time. So I spend a lot of time trying to make sure those conversations are worth someone's time. That they can get a better, because I know when they hang up that phone, I can't see, or that Zoom, I can't see their reaction. Where in the office I could see the reaction. I could be like, I missed, I missed there. I better go grab them again.

Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. And you guys are mostly remote right now, right?

We are 100% remote.

Okay. How frequently do you bring people in person?

Uh, we do, we, um, we don't. Okay. We are looking to add a sales, annual sales kickoff. This year. And, uh, we brought, we brought the leaders in once this year.

Okay.

Part of the strategy next year to build culture, to build world-class remote culture, uh, best-in-class culture, is to put more touch points.

Yeah.

Sales team to get together, for the sales leaders to get together. And then the LT team meets on a quarterly basis.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Despite all of our best efforts, it's so hard to build culture and trust at scale. Like unless, unless you just have people around a table, like I find personally my, my, one of my big challenges is I learn so much when I'm sitting down with like 4 or 5 reps at a dinner, at like an event of any sort. And we can just like jam out on, on, on some things. 'Cause you know, you get a bunch of opinions doing the, doing the office hours or listening tour where you're having individual conversations, it, it helps 100%. It's just so, it's so hard to find the time and it's so inefficient. But if you can sit down with like 4 or 5 people and in like a casual environment, it's, it is underrated. It's expensive if you, if we're like, a lot of sales is now back in, in the office in Toronto, so it's easier. But you know, like you just do the math and you're like, okay, let's— to bring my whole team together, it's like $150 grand easy. And everybody's off the phones for that time. And, and it's just, it's really, it, you, you find yourself in a rock and a hard place where you don't wanna spend the money, you don't wanna take the business disruption, but you, you like, you don't have any other great options. Which is why we found in-person to be like quite quite helpful recently and, and why it's like happening more, I find.

Yeah, I think you're better there. I think there's gonna be companies following.

Yeah, for sure. And, and, you know, it's like not for everybody and I realize like, you know, we're SMB, so we're hiring earlier career folks who 5 days a week in office is not just like workable, but actually they're excited about it and it's, and it's like they want to be there and make friends and 'cause they're all coming from universities all over and whatever. And, you know, much more difficult if you're mid-market and people have way more life stuff or kids or what have you. Like, it's, you know, like I'm at home today, I'm in the office most of the time, but certainly I understand those pressures. So it's tricky to find, it's tricky to find that balance point. I want to change topics slightly. And, and talk about finding leaders. So I have, I have a very strong agreement with you in sort of trust as the foundation, but how do you screen for that in the interview process? Because somebody can look so great on paper and then they lack this foundational, like people don't like and trust them and so nothing else totally matters. So how do you, how do you screen for it?

Yeah, it's not easy. So I do the, I'll say everybody else does, right? I'll ask the behavioral-based questions to, understand, which I was just listening to one of your, uh, podcasts the other day, which, um, you know, behavioral-based may not give us all the data that we really need, but I, I do, I, I ask the behavioral-based questions. I ask, I, I look, I do look at their LinkedIn. I look to see what people are saying. I look to see when they just post something random, what type of reaction they're getting to see if they have followers, which would be people that work for them. I look for, do they recognize their people? But here's a question I ask. And you're gonna be like, how does that tell you if they build a trusting culture or not? So now I'm giving my secret away here. So I ask this on every interview and every time someone says, wow, that's, that's a really great, great question. And so what I ask is I say, so listen, we're at the end of the interview and hypothetically we've made you an offer. And about 9 to 10 months from now, I'm sitting in the room with the leadership team and we do a roster review. And I look around the room and I say, hmm, I wish we knew that about Kyle in the interview process. What would that be? And that is really my moment of trust because in that moment, they're going to either make up some crazy answer that I know they're interviewing, or they're going to sit there thoughtfully and think about it. And I'm going to watch them think about it. And then they're going to come up with with something compelling and they're either, they're going to either tell me exactly what I need to know.

Yeah.

Which is usually they'll tell me their gap. Here's what you'll find. Or they'll ask the question, good or bad? And I say, whatever you think. Both is fine. And so they'll really tell me who they are. And that to me is a turning point of, I, I can trust this person, which allows me to believe that their team will be able to trust them and their peers will be able to trust them because they just showed their authentic self in that moment?

Hmm, that is a great question.

Knock on wood.

And, and I'm gonna borrow it for sure. And you'll be able to tell, like, if you get real stuff or not. Yeah, I get asked this question and, uh, in like some different variant. I, I go to like hyper transparency when I interview people. Like, I've got this email that I send to senior level candidates when I'm going to make them an offer. I was like, here's Every single person who's worked for me directly over the last, like, I think it goes back 7 or no, almost 9 years now. And like all of my key stakeholder partners, all the marketing leaders I worked with, all the CS leaders I worked with. And not just the ones that I know are going to be like super great, but like everybody. And I tell them, it's like, look, I'm polarizing to work with. I'm either like, people really love working with me or I'm sort of a nightmare. Because I have very high expectations and I'm not afraid to push. And if you are my like marketing counterpart or my CS leader and you're dogging it, like I'm going to be on your case and I'm not going to like, I'm not going to be, I'm not going to allow for, I'm not going to allow for poor effort or like lack of competence. And people like will either react to that. They're like, this guy's insane. Or, or, you know, like it's, it, because that's, it's real. Like I think, uh, people fall into one or two camps with me and it's very, like very infrequently are people like, yeah, he was fine because I'm, I'm opinionated and, and, and what have you.

I, I often say I'm either loved or hated and never ignored.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah.

Yeah.

What's, what's yours? Like when, when people ask you that question?

How I— what's the question? How I build trust?

No, like, what, what if somebody asks you the question, what, what do you— we're in this room and I want you to learn about me.

My question, if they ask me? Yeah. Um, yeah, my, my answer isn't too, too far from yours. Like, I would probably joke because I'm— I like to have fun. So I want you to know that I like to have fun. So I would say, loved or hated, I'm never ignored.

Yeah.

And then I would say I become very passionate about things that I see need to be done. And I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the, the, um, I keep wanting to say fuel, but it's, it's like more fire. I'm gonna be the fire that ignites change. Like that is what I'm gonna be. And so it's important that if you're considering me for the team, you want that on your team.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because that's like a similar to what you were saying, like I'm gonna push and it's gonna be uncomfortable. Because I think we can get further.

We share, we certainly share this. There was a podcast with, um, the CEO of Shopify, Toby Lutke. And, uh, what he was talking about is like, he's looking for people that are exothermic. He wants people that, that bring heat and energy to the place that they are. And so I've been borrowing that language. I like it a lot.

I got to go listen to that. Yeah.

Yeah. All of his podcasts are great. I'm, I'm like such a big Toby fan. Okay. I want to get into this, this idea of like operationalizing culture through things that you would not normally think about in a cultural lens, which is like quota setting and forecasting. And so in our pre-call prep, you mentioned that forecasting is more about trust than numbers. And I have a lot of RevOps listeners and they may listen to that and have like a gasp. Audibly, but, uh, I really want to hear your take on this.

Okay. So it's, it's interesting, right? Because who's, who's all the listeners that you have and my perspective on this, but it stems from which I think we shared before, uh, we were, we were, uh, talking today in a different conversation of I've been part of a lot of rebuilds and builds and we, you start to run fast and numbers take off and then we start to believe that we can, we can continue to grow at that clip at all costs. And so we go for it, right? At all costs, we go for it and we set targets. And, and those typically boards are setting like pretty aggressive targets, which clearly understand as a revenue leader. Um, and then, you know, board sets, then it goes to the leaders, it waterfalls through the org, and then quotas are set. So what I have learned in the last couple years is that what I'm seeing that start create is sandbagging and this word that drives me crazy because I can't, I don't fully understand it, but I recognize that it's there, but burnout.

Mm-hmm.

Right? So we've got sandbagging, we've got burnout, and then we've got misalignment. And so remember earlier I said we gotta be rowing, everyone's gotta be going in the same direction. Like that clarity is what gets us there. The reps feel zero ownership of it.

Mm-hmm.

So I remember very early in my career, I remember sitting in front of my sales leader. I was the first time I was selling and they said, here's your opportunity. What do you think your quota should be?

Huh.

They said, before you can answer that, here is how many X you're gonna work. How many of them do you think you can sell? Here's X channels you're gonna work. How many of them you think you could sell? How many? Right. So on and so forth. Then said, what do you think your quota should be? Now, when I see that I'm so good and I think I can close all this business, I think my quota should be $400,000. Yeah. When they tell me my quote is $120,000, I'm aligned, excited, and I'm walking out of that room ready to go beat the quote. Right? So there's a mindset shift. So what I mean by that is I'm like, it's like, like flip it. Let's go bottoms up. What are, what are the inputs that we need? How many reps do we have? And what can they deliver? Base level. And then build it from there because you're gonna laugh at me when I say this. I believe in HPDPs, happy people drive productivity.

HPVPs?

HPDP, happy people. HPDP, happy people drive productivity.

Okay.

So what I refer to as a Miyagi move that I taught, learned very early on with ADP before I knew what was happening, even though it may have been set from the top. It was bottoms up and you're bringing it to the org and now your reps are running after numbers and you're overproducing what you told the board you would do.

How do you avoid, like, if you ask most reps, they would give you the lowest number they thought was reasonable because everybody wants a low quota so they can, they can over-attain.

Yeah, because you've just built it in their conversions. So you looked at their opportunity and then you built their conversions. You built the conversions in. And so then you say, okay, now do the math. And so they do the math. And so the math turns out to be something much bigger than we would expect them to do because, you know, the conversions that they're putting in are probably on the, um, or on the, on the accurate side. And you don't need that out of them. That's what they're growing at. You need, the company needs a certain number.

Yeah. Okay.

And so there's, yeah. And so you're adding, like, it's a headcount play, which is an expensive play. But if you're not at pricing increase or new product, all you have then is tenure to increase your ASP. And so it's flatline math to stabilize and then push.

Yeah, it's just drag, right? More reps, add rows to the call, add rows to the spreadsheet and, uh, ramp them. Yeah. And so then the forecasting is about more, is about trust more than numbers. Is that Like, is that, is that a related concept or is that slightly different than what you're talking about here?

No, it's, it's, it's similar, right? So what is like, uh, there was a, a, like a, a phrase that I used to, uh, say, um, it was, it was like, quota is not, um, is not an exercise in math. It's an exercise in trust. And so here's like, I remember being in rooms where they, I would have this whole, this, a leader would be standing there and they'd be training us on forecasts. And you do this and you do that and you need to take this down, you move this over here. And so everybody got it, you know how to forecast? And everyone would sit in the room and be like, no. And the leader would laugh and he's like, yeah, of course not, because we don't know. Like the forecast is coming from the activity and the pipeline that we're creating and us understanding our buyer and where they are in the decision-making process. And then we can properly forecast what we're gonna close. And today we've moved into more data, more models, more AI will tell us where we're going to, uh, finish, which it does and it works.

Yeah.

Where the, the culture of trust works with forecast is when your reps and your managers, you're creating an environment of trust. The rep is not afraid to tell you a forecast because it's less than. They're giving you the real numbers, and then you're working with them to get them closer to the number that they need to deliver. And so that's why I say it's an exercise in trust because when I'm forecasting what's, what the reality is, I, we can then work together to get the forecast to be where it needs to be. If I tell you I'm forecasting 110 and I'm coming in at 80, there's distrust in the org all the way up.

Yeah. The math is easy. Getting people to give you the, the real number is the hard part, which is why the trust piece is so important. Hmm. Okay, cool. Um, all right. We will move into, oh wait, quota setting. So when you mentioned quota setting should be flipped on its head, that's when you talk about, that's your like bottom-upping.

Yeah.

Okay.

And happy people drive productivity, right? So that's where the burnout and semi, let's get them to do X. Well, they're only doing Y today. What are we putting in the system that's going to create this? Is it tenure? Is it different pricing? Is it a new product? No. Okay. So then what makes us think that they're gonna get there?

It's hard to think. Where does sandbagging come from?

Sandbagging is just a, a, a natural. So if my quota is X next month and I sold X this month and I hit my quota, then I'm gonna sandbag that and put it into next month.

Oh, you're just gonna like keep the deals. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Which is crazy. That like max out every month. Let's give them an opportunity to max out every month.

Yeah. Yeah. This, this is generally my quota setting philosophy. I think I come, come towards a similar answer from a different place, but we generally just try to, we generally try to set a number that we feel like people can really hit and the top reps can go smoke. And so we pulled our, we pulled this data recently and our OTE attainment. So not like the quota attainment, but actually like the, the take home in people's pockets for our account executive team was 148% last quarter. Quarter, which, you know, it gets pulled up by your best reps cuz they're really like, uh, uh, maxing it out. And so we have a slightly, sometimes especially at the top of the, um, candidate funnel, people aren't that compelled by our OTE. They're like, oh yeah, it's like, you know, it's actually a little less than what I'm doing now. So, you know, like maybe they'll have a conversation, but they're not excited about it. And then, so we have to make sure it's like, hey, by the way, like like, I don't know who made this term, but like the faux TE, the like fake OTE. It's like, oh yeah, it's like 180K, but you know, like only one person hit it and 17 people are at like 75%.

Yes, I'm familiar with the faux.

Yeah. And so we have to explain it much more than, the explaining is a little bit of a pain in the butt, but I, you know, I just really feel like it creates a winning culture. People feel like they're successful. I could, I could raise the OTEs and raise the quota and people will sort of net out to the same dollar income. Like you could play that game, but then instead of, you know, 80% of your team being at 100%, now you have 50% of your team at 100%. And if the dollar value is the same, who cares? I would rather have a team that feels happy, people driving productivity. Yeah. And, and like the, this, and, and I've been really fortunate to work with a bunch of great finance leaders who get it and like get, they've, they've been understanding of the human psychology and I've walked through the math. I'm like, yeah, we can, we can, you can do whatever you want with this OTE number and this quota and we'll net it out to roughly the same place of like what we really want to pay X rep, but one of these things people feel like they are hellbent on hitting their quota and like not hitting quota is a failure. If you have an environment where 40 or 50% of your reps aren't hitting quota, then people don't care about quota. It stops meaning anything.

Great.

Yeah. All right, let's, let's hop into rapid fire and then we can wrap on time. Well, um, what do you think separates a good CRO from a great one?

Decision-making.

Say more.

Yeah, I think a, a, a great, uh, CRO will, will have conviction in the decisions and lead all the way through them.

Yeah, I am more and more, and, and I think as my teams get bigger, I'm more and more coming to this place where you really just need to make like 2 to 5 high leverage bets a year and they have to work. And that is like worth so many more, so many other parts of the job combined. What's the most common advice you give to your newer leaders or like, you know, first time VP of sales that you're mentoring? What's, that's the most common advice you get for those folks?

Okay. So it comes in, it comes in this with a phrase that starts like this. I look at them and I say, the best advice I can give you as you step into this role— now I'll tell this at all levels— is the good ones always find a way. So let's start, right? And they'll look at me and I'll smile and they'll smile. But it really is that I'm stepping into this role and I am tasked with— I'm the person chosen, right? It's my assignment to go figure this out. And if they are a good one, they will always figure it out. And so in that, what I'm giving them, uh, encouragement, I'm giving them empowerment, and I'm giving them license, like, great creative license to, to go figure it out. Um, and then, you know, underneath that, right, I'll, I'll talk to them about, you know, uh, clarity and spending time and breaking silos and, you know, coaching, coaching to the hearts and minds. But it always starts with the good ones will always find a way, and takes us into where they need to go.

I have a couple phrases that I'm, I'm like banking from this conversation. Like that one is definitely gonna be one of the, I know. Yeah. That's like, you know, we, we, uh, one of the things internally we talk about is like, we are a can't miss team. Like we, we bring a never miss mentality to it. And like the, it's interesting cuz that's like that messaging just trickled up to the board. And being something that they've commented on, it's like, it's like no matter what happens, like my job is to bail everybody out. If marketing, if marketing struggles, if CS is off track, like my job is to cover over any of that deficiency and find a frigging way. And then, you know, like you have months like now where marketing is absolutely ripping and maybe you don't have to do the heroics as much. To exceed the number, but the good ones find a way is incredible.

The good ones always find a way.

What's the hardest lesson you've had to learn in your career?

The hardest lesson I've had to learn is patience.

Yeah.

Yeah. It has, yeah, it's patience. It's, you have to have patience for people, for the process. And when you can exercise that patience, good things can happen. Happen.

Yeah. Last question: what's the best thing you've read in the last 12 months?

Okay, so I'm often asked that question, and I have an answer. But I would say the last couple books I read were like Sales Management Simplified, because I was doing the work with Mike Weinberg, and so I wanted to go back and do it. And that's important and was a good read because it reconnected me to what my frontline leaders are thinking and feeling right now. So I never want to be too far removed from that. And then Move Fast and Fix Things. But But Kyle, the most, or the best thing I've read or read ever is the Bible. Always.

Hmm. Okay.

And there's a verse that like, I look at every day. Um, it's Psalms 3:6. It's sitting, it's right here next to me. So I'm looking at it and it's everything you do, put God first and he will direct you and crown your efforts with success. So it will always be the answer, like no matter what book I'm reading, what, what article I'm reading. Just read one the other day on retention from Brian. The Bible is always the answer of the best thing I've, I've read in 12 months, a year, 3 years, a day. It's always the answer.

I like that. That's a first-time answer.

I'm sure.

Very cool. Well, this was great. I'm really glad we finally got to do this. This, these topics are always tougher to do because I want to get really like tactical and actionable for people. That's always the feedback that I get from the podcasters. Like, finally somebody is like diving in and actually like unpacking how things work. And it's hard to unpack culture and trust and, and vision, but, uh, I got a ton out of this and, and I, I have a bunch of stuff that I'm taking away. I think people are going to take some really great, um, uh, actionable steps. So appreciate you joining, and, uh, this was a blast.

Thank you, Kyle. I appreciate it. I appreciate being here.

Thank you for listening to The Revenue Leadership Podcast. If you enjoyed it, don't forget to subscribe, and you can find a link in the show notes. And be sure to leave a 5-star review, share it with your network, and please join me next Wednesday for another great conversation.