Merchants of Change

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Speaker 1
This week on Merchants of Change, we talked with Victor Karp. Paco Victor was a football and track athlete in high school before he went on to Sprint and play rugby at Cal State Chico. Today, Victor is a channel sales manager at 5959 is a leading provider of cloud contact center software. Here he is, Victor Car Panko. And I'm J.R. Butler, co-founder of the Chef Group.

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Speaker 1
And you're listening to Merchants of Change. Oh, this is a podcast about transferring the skills and behaviors we acquire as athletes into being a professional technology salesperson. Each week, we'll introduce you to a top performer who will help us understand how they became professional merchants of change.

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Speaker 1
What's up, kid? How are we doing, Victor?

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Speaker 2
Doing good. Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1
Thank you very much for joining us, man.

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Speaker 2
Absolutely.

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Speaker 1
I think I think you had originally reached out on LinkedIn when I had launched the company. So I'm really excited to speak with you. As you know, most of the guests on our show and who we work with have been high level athletes who have made the transition and this into sales. Right. And I think we all believe that, you know, athletes are uniquely positioned to be really successful.

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Speaker 1
And your story is. Guys like you and your story are exactly why I started the company. So I'd love to kind of start with we like to start with your athletic career. Obviously, you played football and track in high school and then you went on to spread and play rugby at Cal State. Chico and you've competed at the highest levels in powerlifting?

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Speaker 2
Yeah, I actually forgot about that. But yeah.

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Speaker 1
Animal. So. So do you remember the first time that you, like, really realized that you were faster and stronger than all your, all your buddies, but.

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Speaker 2
Well, so it's very it's a it's a very objective thing. You know, that's it's not it's not something I was aware of. I was told I was. So I didn't really think that I was faster or anything like that. You know, like my parents would say something like that, had my friend say something, but there was, you know, there were certain things in high school where people would compete to either, like, be like lift £75 more than your body weight.

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Speaker 2
And I was the first to do that like in my grade and I'm not the biggest know. Like when I did, I think I was like £110 lifting like almost £200 bench press or something. So things like that were like, Oh, okay, now I'm strong. But then when I was fast is, you know, when you're in high school, freshman, sophomore, there's going to be seniors and stuff like that.

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Speaker 2
They're going to be just because they're more mature. It was probably when I was in Junior and, you know, I'm going up like, you know, I was doing varsity track as a sophomore, but then, you know, you get on the relay teams and then even with football, you know, there was certain things that stood out and it was, you know, the coach who was kind of a rough guy finally acknowledged that, you know, the only person that could run past anybody was me.

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Speaker 2
Like there wasn't anyone else there. I don't know if you're something about like running better roots or moves or something, but I remember he started screaming at the team and he's the only he can do that. And I was like, Oh, okay. So, you know, that's when it really stood out. But, but I, you know, I kind of knew, but I didn't really grasp that concept, you know, quickly.

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Speaker 2
And and then, you know, then it starts like after that. Then it's like pretty black and white, like you're fast, faster, strong. Like there's really no, you know, kind of between that is competing.

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Speaker 1
That's a good feeling when when a kind of quiet and strong coach calls you out in front of the whole team. That's amazing.

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Speaker 2
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if it was a good thing or bad thing, but I just remember that sentence and I remember kind of where I was like, where on the like where we were, where we were on the field. I don't remember what happened prior, but yeah, no, he was a successful coach, but he was, you know, kind of rough and, you know, hard on really hard on everybody.

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Speaker 2
So yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1
My, my dad was a high school hockey coach, so that's, I think how everybody remembers him. Yeah.

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Speaker 2
And it's you can't lead nowadays like this stuff that we would be pursued and you can't do that anymore, you know, like you can, like the stuff like that, you know, it's just, it's just a different world nowadays, which is kind of sad.

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Speaker 1
My, my dad had to retire because, like, I, me and my brothers told him, like, dude, you're going to get fired.

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Speaker 2
Oh, yeah, yeah. Like Pre-Social media, you know, you you got away with a lot. You know, I remember we would practice, like, literally at the heat of the day and, you know, it's 100 something degrees three times a day, like, you know, just still swearing. Like none of that stuff would fly. There'd be some kid with a phone recording it.

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Speaker 2
And then they, you know, you can't do that anymore. You got to be careful.

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Speaker 1
100%. Yeah. So this is a tough one because like if somebody asked me this, I had so many. What do you think? What do you think of is like your favorite memory, memory from playing sports? Me Yeah.

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Speaker 2
Oh, I so I would say my favorite, you know, that's, that's a hard question. I would say the thing that I felt was most accomplished and probably favorite was, you know, going like as a senior in high school, you know, I'm in the Bay Area, heavily populated area, you know, and there's, you know, like five star athletes everywhere is being able to make the state mean track and then even just conference finals in the short sprints just because like there was a, you know, there's there is a lot to go through and a lot to try to get to that point.

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Speaker 2
And I was kind of like a big watermark just in in the state in general. So I'd say that that's like, you know, I look back as far as, you know, if you look at start to finish like what I wanted to do, you know, at the beginning of the year and see it play out, you know, it might not be like, you know, the the best, like, you know, scoring a bunch in a rugby game or, you know, lifting all this way.

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Speaker 2
But that was, I would say probably, you know, you know, when you set a goal and go in to say, I want to do this and I accomplish that goal.

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Speaker 1
You know, and that's an unbelievable talent pool to be up against and accomplish that.

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Speaker 2
Yeah, there's yeah, quite, quite a lot of athletes. You know, I remember it was I look back, I mean, I don't know when, but I look back like the people that were, you know, the top sprinters, you know, maybe top ten, like I think seven of them, you know, either play like Nflx or something like that. And then I'm sitting here, you know, me and like a couple other guys that just we we were like, you know, D1 going to Miami, you know, in their heyday.

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Speaker 2
Like there was a quite a few guys like that. So it was, you know, looking back, it was okay, that was that was pretty good. That kind of, you know, keep up with people like that.

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Speaker 1
I so I play golf now, which I consider like kind of an individual pursuit and when I think of when I think of track, I think of it being, you know, it's especially with like relay. It's obviously there's there's team aspects to it, but it is kind of more of an individual pursuit. And then obviously rugby and football, clearly team sports like how does a guy like you who does both, how do you approach those two things differently?

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Speaker 2
So I would I think of it this way is is those are high risk sports, whether it's physical or mental. There's a very fine line of, you know, like if you're golfing, it's an individual sport. But there's, you know, the risk of injury is low. You know, you can kind of make up for lost ground. If you had a bad hole with short sprints, it's like it's very it's very objective.

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Speaker 2
Like, if I have a bad start or, you know, I don't transition well, I didn't do something like the hole. Everything is dead. It's like the complete race is done for you. It's very hard, you know, when you have that little time to do that. And when you look at football and rugby, it's, you know, mistakes are can be very dangerous to you.

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Speaker 2
You know, you can get hurt. I've seen horrific injuries happen, like very close, like right in front of my face, like, you know, very bad injuries. And it's just, you know, it's like I it's more of, you know, am I putting myself in the right position to succeed, not get hurt, avoid risk and things like that? So, you know, it's probably more of that.

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Speaker 2
But, you know, I do like the individual aspect of of track and lifting because, you know, with team sports, there's there's always favoritism, you know, and in high school, like, I was not a favorite. Like even though if you look like on paper, you know, height, weight, speed, strength, like they you should have just gravitated and said, okay, we got to do something there.

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Speaker 2
But that's that's not the case. There's there's favoritism. And with those with lifting in track, it's, you know, they can't they couldn't say like you're not fast or you didn't do this. Like it was very just cut and dry.

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Speaker 1
Did you find that that track was more fulfilling because of that?

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Speaker 2
Yeah. No, no, definitely. I mean, I would say that just preparing in before you race, like I you know, I never got that feeling with rugby or track or football. Like I never got like I was, you know, I guess you get anxious but not like nervous. Like it's a different level of, you know, I guess thoughts that go through your head is, you know, it's very just because it's a you.

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Speaker 2
So that's the only thing that I would say that that got like, you know, your mind kind of enough like shifted to okay like I really need to focus, I have to be on my game because like I said, you can't just there's so much, you know, with the short sprint like, you know, point 1 seconds is like ten feet and you're done, like, so you can't have, you know, mistakes.

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Speaker 1
Yeah, it's very you very few. Yeah. In those individual sports. Yeah. On the, on the rugby side. So I would love to hear like if we got all your teammates together from oh four, from your rugby team, how would they describe you, you think.

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Speaker 2
Oh, probably fast. Strong, you know, I don't know. Dramatic, who knows? But there's a you know, it was like when I came on to rugby, it was, you know, I got hurt in track. Like, you know, I felt the coach kind of was short sighting me and I was like, okay, like I'm not going to make the Olympics.

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Speaker 2
But I went out, just got pulled out, and I immediately started playing with like the first team, but it wasn't in a position I wanted, but I just didn't like being I didn't want my, my, I should never be on B side because I, you know, I'm some strong, you know, a big like there's no way. So I was like, just put me anywhere where I can play.

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Speaker 2
Like, now. And I was playing like basically a position that somebody with speed probably never, ever played. I might be the only person, but, you know, so that's kind of is like, you know, like, you know, that strong, you know, I like to party in college a lot. Like we would go out all the time.

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Speaker 1
So yeah, rugby has a, has a very similar culture to hockey. It's like let's, let's get this practice and game over so we can.

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Speaker 2
Start drinking, right. Well yeah it's, yeah it came like so and that was like with track that was a job like an immediate, like high school was fine college, it was not fun. It was like, it was very regimented. I was there a lot like I was overtrained, which was another problem, like, you know, and I had really good coaching like away from college.

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Speaker 2
And so it was, it was such a big difference. It, it was just like, not fun. Like, I couldn't go, like, take a break and hang out on the pole vault mats or, you know, take my shirt off and tan like I couldn't do all that stuff that I was doing before. Whereas rugby it was, you know, you can't beat yourself up every day.

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Speaker 2
So there is a conditioning in days, practice days. And it was like, well, let's go out. Like let's go out to the bars, let's go to this person's house is get a keg. And so they okay, this is much more of my style because I could go out like, you know, it's like immediately after is like that's where when it's like where's the party, you know?

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Speaker 2
And if you didn't have like it was always prepared. So it was good.

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Speaker 1
That is awesome and.

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Speaker 2
Much more fun. Yeah.

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Speaker 1
And I know like you kind of transitioned on the rugby side into coaching and I've done the same in hockey. Yeah. What made you want to coach? Was it your own experiences?

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Speaker 2
I actually got in the rugby community, you know, now it's grown quite a bit like when I, when I was younger there was an offer, there was maybe one youth team that I know of looking back, but now it's much more prevalent across schools. And there's just some guy that knew I didn't know him, but he either saw me play, knew my name, read about it or something, and he would just pursue me.

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Speaker 2
Like on LinkedIn, he's like, you know, this is your hometown. It's a team. It wasn't there. Like you did this and that. Like, like I know you played here. I know you did this. And he was just on me to come out. And so I showed up and I said, okay, like, fine, you know, my area, I'll show up.

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Speaker 2
And they wanted me to work with like the high school boys and they like the first day they enlisted any day. I said, like not a single thing. And I'm like, forget it. And so then they're like, Well, what about the girls? And then there's one guy coaching the girls. And I was like, Okay, and they listen much more.

00:14:39:09 - 00:15:01:04
Speaker 2
So now I'm like, Okay, well, you know, maybe I can translate some of the things I learned. You know, I was around a lot of good players. I met a lot of friends and people and got to travel around for a couple of years after college and be able to kind of translate that knowledge, you know, where I can I can more look down on the game rather than have to play it.

00:15:01:04 - 00:15:22:14
Speaker 2
Because I felt like, you know, when I played, you know, I would just try to swing. I'm fast. That's the position. Like I would just go and I just would get very focused on that. Where in coaching, you know, I felt like I understood the game, but I could talk to the players much more about strategy, you know, experience, like what to look for.

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Speaker 2
So that's what I liked about it.

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Speaker 1
Yeah, it is. It is an interesting experience going from being in the game to like almost all in the game and like seeing that different perspective. And I think it's really good when guys like you and me get the get back involved in the youth game because I think it's so important to give back, right? Yeah. So that's awesome.

00:15:43:20 - 00:16:09:23
Speaker 1
I, you know, our big thing, we always we're lucky we get to we get to work with athletes as they're going through a really hard time, which is the transition period. Right. Like, yeah, you kind of have your identity your whole life and then one day it's just gone and it really doesn't matter when it happens. I'm curious to know, like from your perspective, what do you remember about the transition from being an athlete to going into like being a working professional?

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Speaker 2
You know, it was it was hard. I you know, I had a lot of people that were, you know, were help would help me to get a job. So I had like some level of support, but it was, what do I want to do? You know, what? Where should I spend my time? And like the one thing that I don't think prepares anybody, especially athletes, is, you know, you're going straight from, you know, socializing, you know, school free time workouts, etc., like all these things that you've habitually done for a period of years to, you know, and this is like 25, like straight like a 9 to 5 job.

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Speaker 2
You know, I was handling insurance claims and I'm just listening to like miserable people lie on the phone and say, I got hurt when they did it. And I'm just like, this is just not good. And then I wanted to go out like, I was like, I want to go out still like my friends, like we all still wanted to go and socialize.

00:17:11:00 - 00:17:29:14
Speaker 2
So it's like finding that balance. And then, you know, I didn't last very long at that job, but, you know, and then I started to use like your network in someone I played rugby with was working at a gym as like, hey, like, you know how to do all this stuff. He was actually someone I was powerlifting with even before then.

00:17:30:01 - 00:17:49:04
Speaker 2
And so I went to go work with him and it allowed me because I was still, you know, playing rugby and, you know, you're, you're hitting like a high level just with like club like the highest level in rugby here. And so it's like, okay, like, can I do anything here? Can I, can I take it a step further?

00:17:49:04 - 00:18:07:09
Speaker 2
Is there anything there? So I was able to still kind of work out and have a job. So I was like, that was a good transition. But it wasn't like the, the typical transition I took. I took kind of a long way to get into the industry. I'm in now like five or six years and then grad school before I started to get in.

00:18:07:09 - 00:18:37:09
Speaker 2
And just because, you know, it's it's not easy. It's not easy to find a job. It's not easy to find people that want to hire you, especially nowadays. Everything is is who you know. And, you know, if you don't have like a good stepping stone on what you want to do prior to even graduating, where that someone sits down and maybe talks with you and helps mentor or kind of shift, you know, right after graduation rather than jump right into a job immediately, which is what I did.

00:18:37:20 - 00:18:42:19
Speaker 1
Yeah. So good use of the word shifts there. Appreciate it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:18:42:19 - 00:18:45:15
Speaker 2
No, that's it. Well thought out there.

00:18:46:06 - 00:18:53:10
Speaker 1
When did you when did you first become aware of and like kind of interested in a, in a sales career back there.

00:18:53:23 - 00:19:17:18
Speaker 2
So I when I started working at the gym, it was sales like I was having to sell personal training, you know, fitness supplements type stuff. And, you know, when the, you know, I did well excuse me got promoted things like that and it became more of, you know, you're selling like memberships, fitness, like anything going on in the facility.

00:19:17:18 - 00:19:44:18
Speaker 2
And so I, I was around a lot like probably some of the sales that I learned is from people there because this is like it was very high pressure, same day sales like very certain ways of having to go about like extract, you know, couple of thousand dollars on someone that just walks in the door like like that's a very I thought it was much harder than what I'm doing now.

00:19:44:18 - 00:20:04:14
Speaker 2
And so from there, I was like, okay, you know? And I remember I was thinking it's, you know, I'm like 25 or something and you don't see anybody that's old in the gym, like running a gym as they are. They're kind of just, you know, I don't know, they they don't match driver. That's kind of all that they want to do.

00:20:05:00 - 00:20:23:06
Speaker 2
So I was like, I don't know if I can be 40 or 45 and like working in the gym and I was trying to get it out of the industry to try to go into like do tack or something like more formal. And nobody would hire me like nobody. It was just like I was labeled as just a retail guy.

00:20:23:18 - 00:20:46:22
Speaker 2
So, you know, it was like it was very hard to have like the skills and be able to close and sell that I knew other people wouldn't be able to do because it's very like, you know, it was very hard to do that and then no one wanted to take a chance with you just because, like, you know, I ran a facility like I was a general manager at a gym.

00:20:46:22 - 00:20:50:09
Speaker 2
There's like, oh, you're retail. You would just get brushed off.

00:20:51:00 - 00:21:12:05
Speaker 1
So which is which is wild, right? Like I think that, I think that perspective is has changed a lot and is changing a lot more. But we have a long way to go before these old school sales leaders really understand that, you know, experiences and, you know, necessarily just people that have used Salesforce.com and like.

00:21:12:06 - 00:21:12:14
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:21:12:16 - 00:21:27:07
Speaker 1
You know, cold call it directors, right? There's other experience that matters significantly and and a couple thousand dollar transactional sale and 15 minutes is pretty meaningful when you need to go get meetings with people.

00:21:27:14 - 00:21:53:09
Speaker 2
Oh yeah. It drove me, it drove me, it drove me nuts. And so when I became a manager, I hired people that either they would either have like an athletic background or they had a background like that. Like they, like I had a couple of guys that I hired that ran enterprise running cards on facilities and those it's like in not just the sales part, it's, you know, responsibility.

00:21:53:23 - 00:22:22:19
Speaker 2
And it's like athletes had responsibilities. And then you had these guys that were running other facilities that had those responsibilities. So it's like where, you know, if you're just someone that just kind of meanders through school and you just get a job, it's like, I don't I couldn't relate to that. Like I it was it was very like I didn't like like there's people that stood out, obviously, but for the most part, like I was looking for people that had like real experience, real responsibility.

00:22:23:06 - 00:22:25:22
Speaker 2
And those are kind of like the only places that I could find it.

00:22:26:13 - 00:22:52:09
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. Well, like we as I said, we we work with a lot of transitioning athletes. Funny enough, a lot of folks coming out of the gym industry. We do work with a personal trainer. She's like had a lifetime than selling kind of her services. We got she's got an awesome job for like, you know our listeners what what type of guidance would you give them when they are making that transition from sports to sales?

00:22:52:09 - 00:22:56:21
Speaker 1
Like what would be your biggest piece of advice for them?

00:22:56:21 - 00:23:16:12
Speaker 2
I think the biggest piece of advice is they have to you know, I think athletes are always taught to be humble and, you know, not brag or things like that. So, you know, and I remember I was interviewing people and there's a guy that played in the NFL and he didn't want to talk about it. And it's like, I get it, you know?

00:23:16:12 - 00:23:42:15
Speaker 2
But, you know, you need this. Like, that's that's a that's a big accomplishment. You know, what what all went behind there and that's something that they should focus on. Like if they're in the gym trying to sell personal training, it's how did they get there? What experience do they have? They have to go in and talk about when I was doing this, I had to be here at this time I to do this at this time.

00:23:42:15 - 00:24:19:17
Speaker 2
I had school. I decided that I had to do this. And then when I went into this industry, I had to go through all these different metrics. I had to do all these different things organizationally to show that, one, you're driven, you're organized, and you can meet goals. And that's the biggest thing. And I think that people, they get into interviews and they just kind of they they hold back and I would say is like if anyone asks, like if I was talking to someone that was whatever sport and they say, hey, I want to do it, I would actually say, you need to sell them on you and sell them on the way and

00:24:19:17 - 00:24:48:01
Speaker 2
then ask for it like close them on the job. Like ask them what you know, did I do everything I need? Is there any reservation, like all those closing questions to be able to move it to the next step? And you have to close on those interviews. And I think that if they take their experience and then the confidence that they have just going through, you know, athletic programs or jobs like that is to be able to kind of say, hey, like, I can do this job, what's next and push.

00:24:49:05 - 00:25:08:08
Speaker 1
I love that. I think it's really good interview advice, right? It's like, listen, you got to learn how to tell your story in the context of a sales role, right? You came back from an injury. Who gives a you know, and and you played you're not going to care if somebody says no to you a thousand times, like that's going to be fine.

00:25:08:08 - 00:25:27:01
Speaker 1
Like, you know, the resiliency factor, the competitive factor, you know, all that stuff. You got to get comfortable talking about yourself. And it's not just those stories, it's then tying those stories back to the role I think it is, is really what makes an A-plus interview from a former athlete.

00:25:27:13 - 00:25:53:22
Speaker 2
Yeah. And when it comes to sales, I think that that's the easiest move that they would have is, you know, if you take all the things that you've done with sports, regardless of what level it's you know, you've had coaching probably more so than other people. You've had goals that you've had to accomplish, you've had to put work in outside of maybe just practice like you've had to do a diet or you had to go in the gym on your own.

00:25:54:02 - 00:26:15:05
Speaker 2
So there's lots of things that you can tie into or you've had responsibility. Like if you you were a captain or you had a certain expertize on the team, like maybe like you were having to help others on the team that on something and be able to kind of take that experience and say, you know, I did this and this is the goal, this is this is the outcome.

00:26:15:18 - 00:26:33:07
Speaker 2
And just be able to translate that like one interview question that when I was a hiring manager, I would ask is just tell me something you've done start to finish like set a goal, get it. And I probably nine out of ten people couldn't tell me a single thing and it was like all these things that they would start and they never finish.

00:26:33:07 - 00:26:57:19
Speaker 2
They start, they never finish. And I would just, you know, I would start off with that question of, yeah, okay. Well, let's not waste each other's time. You know, this isn't the right fit 100%. It's taking is taking, you know, those experiences and not you know, don't minimize that stuff. And that's you know, I've seen too many people minimize, you know, things like that as well.

00:26:57:19 - 00:27:15:02
Speaker 2
It's not like I was playing baseball. It's not there. It's not the same. It's like, well, make it like make it similar, you know, talk about, you know, take the word baseball out. But all the prep, all of this, you know, all these other tangible things, they talk about that stuff.

00:27:15:22 - 00:27:31:20
Speaker 1
Absolutely 100%. And then remember that, too, when you're in there. All right. Like it's like, yeah, you know, it's going to be hard. It's going to be complex. You're going to learn new stuff. But you've been there before. It was just athletically. Now it's now it's more, you know, industry specific.

00:27:32:13 - 00:27:32:21
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:27:33:09 - 00:27:49:02
Speaker 1
So, so early early in your career, you know, I look back, I have some regrets of like how I handled things at the beginning. What are some some of the things you do differently if you had the chance from the early days of your your sales career?

00:27:49:02 - 00:28:20:18
Speaker 2
And, you know, I you know, I was I don't want to say weak with certain things, but I was almost, you know, I wasn't firm in what I wanted to do or what I wanted done, like with sales. Like if I wanted to be like too much of a team player, like where somebody would want an account for me or I knew somebody at some, at some organization that I thought I could get a sale, but someone else was working.

00:28:20:18 - 00:28:53:05
Speaker 2
And I was very kind of, you know, hey, I'll just be a team player like, you know, this will work out. And being able to, you know, go back and just be firm with what you want, why you wanted and not have it be like outrageous stuff. It's like, but I think what sales is, the people that have been around a long time like they will find, you know, they they sniff stuff out they can find like they're just like you get very cunning with what you know, where, you know, be able to kind of jump over people.

00:28:53:05 - 00:29:15:05
Speaker 2
And especially when it comes to commission based, you know, everyone's fighting for the dollar. So I would think it's like, you know, be firm with, you know, if you know something, if you want to do something, if there's anything like that to be, go back and say, hey, you know, I need to be more firm. I need to be real regimented and demand certain things like professionally.

00:29:15:14 - 00:29:34:23
Speaker 2
I want to work that account. Here's why. You know, not just if someone says, Hey, I want to do take this from you. If there's no good reason, say no and just be firm. Draw that line in the sand because it's very like any or every organization, there's always somebody is trying to get an edge, like someone's trying to sneak around.

00:29:34:23 - 00:29:54:07
Speaker 2
Like it's just, you know, sales and, you know, there's always going to be people like that. And I was just very, you know, I didn't want to rock the boat. And I think if you stand up for yourself, you know, early on, that's going to set the stage. People just leave you alone after that, because then it's a, hey, what about this one over here?

00:29:54:07 - 00:30:24:07
Speaker 2
Like, I like, hey, I know someone here and, you know, it's like maybe I know someone there. It's like, you know, that's my account. So there's a lot of that. So that's what I would say might not be the, you know, whatever anyone else has talked about. But, you know, when you get into sales and it has to be you're heavily commission based and there's a lot of effort that goes into finding leads, finding opportunities, closing deals like you have to you have to draw your lines.

00:30:24:07 - 00:30:34:00
Speaker 2
You have to say this is okay, this is not okay. I want this and here's why. And be able to kind of outline those things and stick to it. Yeah.

00:30:34:11 - 00:30:51:18
Speaker 1
What I find a lot is, is it's really about advocating for yourself. And what happens a lot is that doesn't people don't get comfortable doing that till later in their career. But if you can start to do that early and build that muscle, it's going to pay off in the long run, especially when you want to climb the climb the corporate ladder.

00:30:52:09 - 00:31:11:10
Speaker 2
Then they don't want to they don't want to make you know, it's much easier just to kind of be passive about it and just draw like be be firm, you know, be confident and those things. Well, especially early, early in your career. It's a good reputation to have.

00:31:11:19 - 00:31:33:08
Speaker 1
It is. It is. So you made the switch over more kind of to the tech space. What what were some of the things you focused on early on to kind of make sure you had a solid foundation, you had had success in the gym industry. Now you want to do the same thing in this new industry. What were some of those things you focused on early on?

00:31:34:07 - 00:32:17:14
Speaker 2
So it was the sales is sales. I don't think that there's you know, obviously you have to know what like what your product is, what your company does. Like, you know, you have to know that you like, you have to know your industry and things like that. But in the end it's I still relate everything back to when I was, you know, selling personal training, you know, because I was like my foundation in sales is if I couldn't get people to picture themselves either getting in shape, going through a program or even now like, you know, using the technology, solving their problems, fixing whatever issues they have.

00:32:17:14 - 00:32:37:01
Speaker 2
If that picture's not painted, they will never buy. Like, it's just, you know, you're just going through the motions. It has to be personal, like, not personal. Like I'm you know, there's obviously the relationship involved. Like, you know, they people buy from people. They they, you know, that they don't like you. They're not going to buy even if you have the best product.

00:32:37:12 - 00:33:14:01
Speaker 2
But it's can you structure, you know, your discovery calls or your initial conversation, extract the information and then be able to kind of take it from there and say, based on what you said, this is the desired outcome. This is how you'll get there. This is how it works with me or with us, and be able to kind of paint that picture, you know, talk about customers that are similar, talking about people that are similar and be able to kind of get that mindset where they can say, hey, like I can see myself doing that or Hey, like, yeah, I see you fixing that problem or I see us being better in this area.

00:33:14:01 - 00:33:31:19
Speaker 2
And so it just, it's the same like to me it's the same, it's the same talk track. It's just, you know, instead of selling, you know, weight loss or muscle gain or performance, it's, you know, I'm selling technology for various reasons and you're here for a reason. What's the reason? And try to get that.

00:33:32:08 - 00:33:52:13
Speaker 1
So I like how you put that it. It really is about painting a picture of like what life is like after, right. And honestly what the negative consequences of not changing are, right? Like, yeah, this is what life is going to be like if you decide not to do this. Right. So it is there is a ton of parallels there.

00:33:53:04 - 00:34:01:22
Speaker 1
Super curious to get your take on this because we deal with it a lot. You know, I don't I'm your age. I don't want to be like the old guy yelling at clouds.

00:34:01:22 - 00:34:02:22
Speaker 2
But, you know.

00:34:02:22 - 00:34:20:21
Speaker 1
We get we get a lot of candidates that get you know, they usually get multiple offers because we're not doing any exclusive agreements. We don't do retainer. You know, when we get a candidate, we're usually putting them in front of multiple opportunities. And, you know, a lot of the candidates we work with nowadays are looking at, you know, the usual stuff.

00:34:20:21 - 00:34:45:14
Speaker 1
Right. What's base salary, what's the variable comp, what's the benefits? A big a big thing now is, you know, office versus remote. So these are the kind things that they're considering when they pick that first company. What do you think is missing on that list and how would you advise a person that's brand new to the technology space to evaluate the potential employers that are putting them in front of?

00:34:46:19 - 00:35:12:04
Speaker 2
So one thing I started doing excuse me probably, you know, not that long ago was if if I didn't think I could so think of you know, comp all that stuff that you mentioned, but who are you going to work for? I always wanted to know, like who the manager is, who the VP of Sales was like, why?

00:35:12:05 - 00:35:34:09
Speaker 2
Like and I would ask questions about that to either the hiring manager recruiter because I wanted to get a sense for, for that person. And the reason why is like, are they jumping around a lot or you know, and so, I mean, I had one person say, I he's not that great, you know, but the package is so and I was like, well, you know, I like that.

00:35:34:15 - 00:35:54:02
Speaker 2
And I think people will just run to the money. But the other side is like, Can I learn anything from this person? Like, are they going to benefit me in any way? Like, is there something that I'm going to learn from this guy or this girl that's good that I can use in my career? Like, are they going to be all over me because they're a new manager and they don't know what they're doing?

00:35:54:03 - 00:36:15:02
Speaker 2
Have they had success in multiple areas? So just like how you know, when I mean, maybe it's like as you get later stage, like most of like especially in mine, see everybody knows each other and so they do, you know, they're going go, hey, we got this guy and they're going to go circle around the wagon and find out who knows me.

00:36:15:02 - 00:36:34:13
Speaker 2
Who knows you find out stuff about them. And then the other side is you need to do that on them. You need to find out who you're going to work for because if they're a nightmare but they have a great comp like you're going to be in and out or you're going to hate your life. So it's, you know, tell me about the manager, Tony or VP.

00:36:34:13 - 00:36:57:18
Speaker 2
Like, what's their background like? Why do people like them? Like maybe talk to trade, talk to a rep on the team and just get a sense for what that environment's going to look like because if it's in the office but they're, you know, really like they're, they're cool. Like they're there to help. Like they're, you know, you enjoy working with them is much different than if you're remote and someone's asking you, what did you do?

00:36:57:18 - 00:37:05:01
Speaker 2
What did you do? You know, send me a report. And when they're going through emotion like that, it's, you know, even if you're not there, it's going to be a nightmare for you.

00:37:05:21 - 00:37:26:18
Speaker 1
I absolutely love that answer. We're going to cut that thing up, make it a requirement, because literally, that's exactly what I tell our our candidates. I'm like the number one most important thing, especially for your first job, is who you work for, because that is that's going to be the person that sets your foundation and the way you view this industry from the get go.

00:37:27:05 - 00:37:41:21
Speaker 1
Yeah, I love that answer I saw. Victor, you've spent most of your career in like the conference conferencing collaboration space. I, you know, I grew up initially selling, you know, this is way back like Cisco. Like WebEx.

00:37:42:12 - 00:37:44:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's what I did, too.

00:37:45:02 - 00:37:59:05
Speaker 1
How did you how did you end up in that in that space? It's it's it's a little different than like the straight ahead, like, enterprise i.t software that's like solving some infrastructure problem. Yeah Like, tell me a little bit about that.

00:37:59:18 - 00:38:41:00
Speaker 2
Well, so I knew people there. So I got in through, you know, relationships and being referred in. That's how I got in there. But you know, at the time, if you look back, you know, 2010 or whatever or when this was is that was kind of cutting edge technology was like web conferencing and things like that, where it was always there was always like, I could sell it to most any companies because either it was too expensive with someone else that they're using and I can help them reduce costs, or I could either reduce it, you know, widespread and there could be more collaboration.

00:38:41:06 - 00:39:06:05
Speaker 2
But it wasn't just it was, you know, the company was got their name on pretty much like audio conferencing operator assisted calls like earning calls, things like that. But we also had a lot of other buckets that we sold. You know, we had network, we had telephony, we had webcasting. So there's a lot of different solutions there. So, you know, when I got in, it's like, okay, like I can learn a lot of things.

00:39:06:05 - 00:39:34:19
Speaker 2
And one of the people I knew prior to taking that said that, you know, and she ended up kind of like she told me she was she was there for like four or five years. She was she's like, hey, I'm going to get I'm getting a better job. But working here, I had to learn like five different products and five different solutions and all these different things where in typical tech it's like you have one thing, like they're selling start ups, like we do one thing and we focus on one thing.

00:39:34:19 - 00:39:42:20
Speaker 2
But I had, you know, kind of this and I like that idea of being able to kind of be well-versed across multiple technologies.

00:39:44:00 - 00:40:23:21
Speaker 1
Yeah, 100, 100%. I'm curious. Like, so, so I think you're our first guest that's been a channel sales manager. I grew up in the channel and I know that conferencing software is very heavily sold through channel partners. So yeah, for and we're starting to get a little bit more into that space now. But for people who don't know what any of that means, can, can you just like quickly explain like what a channel really is and what like your role is compared to a normal kind of like direct to business sales, sales job.

00:40:24:12 - 00:40:51:20
Speaker 2
So I was direct up until about a month ago. So I, I was a direct seller for, you know, ten, 12, 13 years. Yep. And what I learned just across the way is like there's different routes to market. You know, there's marketing and speaking from like a sales perspective, like sales in general, you'll get marketing leads, you'll have outbound leads and maybe a B or someone sources.

00:40:52:00 - 00:41:39:17
Speaker 2
So there's different ways that you're going to get your opportunities in with conferencing, collaboration, network data center as the wind contact center, which is what I'm in now, there's a lot of referral reseller type arrangements that these companies have where there's value added resellers, there's consultants, and that's who I work with now, is being able to make sure that, you know, when they're going to companies and they're talking about their services and how they can sell what they do, where they have expertize, that when push comes to shove, when there is an evaluation is going to take place, that we get included and how strong we are with that partner, how much they know about

00:41:39:17 - 00:42:16:11
Speaker 2
us, how much how well they like us, they know why we're different. So that's there's a big route to market is being able to use referrals relationships and you know subsequently they they get comped for referring their business to us so it can be very lucrative for people in the industry like independent contractors. So, you know, and if you look back at old school telephony, 20 years ago, all that stuff was sold through a third party supported by a through a lot of that stuff was it was very new, just tons of that.

00:42:16:15 - 00:42:42:17
Speaker 2
And those people are still around. They still have relationships because in this industry, like the bigger deals, they've all they all know somebody they work with a consultant, they work with, like a carousel, a CD, WWE to some of these really big agencies and kind of outsourcing providers. And we need to have relationship with them. Otherwise we're not going to get invited to the table.

00:42:42:17 - 00:43:04:23
Speaker 2
When I was at the RingCentral, it was like above a certain threshold. In sales days there was 100% channel driven, like channel driven, meaning it was referred to us, we sold it with a partner or we got a lead from a partner. So there's, there's always an involvement. So it's a big growing route to market even today. Like, it's still growing.

00:43:04:23 - 00:43:07:09
Speaker 2
There's still a lot of lot of work to be done.

00:43:08:01 - 00:43:42:21
Speaker 1
If if companies get the channel right, it is a complete game changer. Oh, yeah. I mean, like you're you're accelerating you're you're accelerating sales cycles. You're getting to power faster. You're skipping the paperwork process like there's so many there's so much goodness there. And I think, you know, the coming from, you know, growing up in more of the venture backed world, sometimes VCs can struggle with that because it's hard to it's hard to measure what an impact of like a partner that's been working with a customer for 20 years actually means to your deals.

00:43:42:21 - 00:43:54:15
Speaker 1
You can't see that on a spreadsheet, but you can see conversion rates for BTR calls, right? So yeah, it is. It is. I think it's unbelievable. But it is hard for organizations to really wrap their arms around it.

00:43:55:03 - 00:44:15:18
Speaker 2
So it is. And if it's not tracked, if you can't track, like if you do an event or if there's a meet, if there's some there's always events like there's golf thing, there's so there's always some sort of networking event in being able to tie what took place there back to an opportunity. I mean there's if that's if we're able to do that, there's a lot of our way.

00:44:16:03 - 00:44:46:17
Speaker 2
And then if you look at how the economy if the economy goes bad channel is even more important because, you know, we're not like we're not paying them until something is sold. We don't pay for the lead or for like we don't compensated any of our partners until that's a close done deal. So it's very important to us to make sure that that they're that is right, that they're supported, that they they know who we are, why we're different, and that we're easy to work with.

00:44:47:21 - 00:45:06:17
Speaker 1
100%. So a big a big part of like why we started the company and like just in our overall mission is like we, we believe mentorship is really important, right? Yeah. Can you just talk about like any, any colleagues, peers, leaders that have been valuable mentors to you and what you learned from them?

00:45:07:17 - 00:45:34:12
Speaker 2
Yeah. So it's, you know, there was there was a guy, you know, I'm speaking just in just in tech. So there's a guy that met, you know, just on a like a trip. Like it was a work trip was like an incentive trip. But, you know, being able to have a mentor, just while I was kind of getting on board with the company and being able to talk to somebody candidly.

00:45:34:12 - 00:46:00:11
Speaker 2
And I think that's important. It's candidly, you need somebody that has done something that you've done similar that you can speak to like a normal person where you don't have to worry about, Hey, can I say this or that? Like you have to talk to him like a normal person and being able to kind of hear their experience, get advice, like things that you maybe you don't want to bring your manager, maybe you don't want to talk about on the team call like that.

00:46:00:11 - 00:46:30:07
Speaker 2
So it's very importantly, I kept in touch with that guy for many years. I saw him ran like we didn't talk for a while. I some randomly show up in like our office wanted you know things like that are very important you know. And then as I've grown, there has been, you know, a couple of managers that have helped me out, people that I keep in touch with now where, you know, they might be a competitor's, they might be doing something different, but, you know, when push comes to shove, if you're coming across an issue, you need advice.

00:46:30:17 - 00:46:50:22
Speaker 2
There's always like they will be there to help. They will give you know, you can talk to them. You can get good insight. And so you don't want to have too many of them. I mean, one thing I've always said is I've learned more from like really bad managers more than anybody else. But it's, you know, how do I navigate this?

00:46:50:22 - 00:47:06:05
Speaker 2
What do you think about this? Like, hey, I'm interviewing here. What do you think? You know, anybody, like all that stuff is important or hey, like what? Like, what did you do? Like what? What worked and what didn't work? Like, what's like what are you guys struggling with? You know, and being able to kind of have those conversations helped.

00:47:06:06 - 00:47:31:19
Speaker 2
So, you know, there's peers, there's there's leaders. So it's not like to me there hasn't been like one person where that's the guy throughout my entire career, like I've tried to make sure that there's, you know, and even one of the guys that, you know, is probably a mentor that helps me. Like he used to work for me, you know, so it doesn't have to be, you know, someone that's above me, someone that's a peer.

00:47:31:22 - 00:47:42:18
Speaker 2
You know, he's obviously doing well somewhere else. But, you know, one point is career like he was my employee. But there's a lot of inside there's a lot of value that he has. And, you know, we still talk.

00:47:43:17 - 00:48:12:14
Speaker 1
I think your point of getting someone to to run stuff by outside of your org is really important, right? Like I found, you know, looking back early in my career, I was a high achieving individual contributor and my my only mentor really was like my my boss. And when you're a high achieving individual contributor, he's not going to tell you like, hey, you should get into management because he's going to lose like 40% of his revenue then for him, you know.

00:48:12:17 - 00:48:12:23
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:48:13:16 - 00:48:31:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, no, that, that, that's, that's a whole nother topic, you know, but but yeah, no, it's true. It's like that, you know, if you have a manager, you can that's great. But most of the time if you want career advice or what to do, maybe you got a job that sucks. And you're like, I just started here two months ago.

00:48:31:07 - 00:48:53:22
Speaker 2
I don't know what to do. There's lots of you just you have to, you know, and I think, you know, athletes have a better they're around a lot of I'll say diverse people, diverse backgrounds like with sports, like like these people come from every walk of life. They're just like, you're good at something, they're good at something. And then you're on the same team.

00:48:53:22 - 00:49:12:14
Speaker 2
And so, like having perspective, that's not somebody that's just like you get to like you got to, you got to branch out. And I think athletes are pretty good at that because, you know, if you're on a team, you got to break the ice somehow with somebody, you're going to be around them a bunch. So, you know, that's the thing for them.

00:49:12:14 - 00:49:31:22
Speaker 1
The highlight that that's such a good point. Like the only thing you typically have in common with someone is that you both excel at this one sport. Yeah, but you grew up differently. Your parents are different, like everything else is different. It's such a good point. Very similar to being on a sales team. Yeah. So so two closing questions for you, Victor.

00:49:31:22 - 00:49:43:19
Speaker 1
We ask every every guest answers these we always want to know like one skill that you've developed that has made you elite in your career. What's your like? What's your number one skill you think.

00:49:48:01 - 00:50:28:13
Speaker 2
That makes me a is I would say at this point in my career, I'm very good at networking and being able to kind of flush opportunities just through, you know, people that I know or things that I read and be able to tie that back. Like I got very good at being organized in that fashion. Like that's probably my elite skill is, you know, I can look at something, I can dissect it fast, I can find who knows who, where is something going on in there?

00:50:28:23 - 00:50:58:18
Speaker 2
And just kind of like tying all that stuff together I think is very hard for sellers and just in general, it's, you know, how can you connect the dots where you go into a meeting and I'm sorry, this isn't channel, this is just sales is where, you know, when you go through like a quarterly review and you talk about your deals and there's lots of different factors that go into it and good sales leadership will ask those questions and be able to kind of have that ready.

00:50:59:01 - 00:51:16:17
Speaker 2
Now, a lot of people do it. It's like, who knows who? What do they do? Why, you know, why are they, you know, why are they talking to you? Why do you think it's going to close like all these different things and be able to tie that together? And a lot of that you have to do through, you know, I'll say like just network.

00:51:16:17 - 00:51:40:05
Speaker 2
You got to talk to people, you got to ask the right questions, you got to make things personal. So that kind of structure within the sales organization is, is, is very important. So that's probably the skill that I had that I would think that is better than others is be able to organize a sale, start to finish. I like that.

00:51:41:11 - 00:51:51:04
Speaker 2
But you know it's there's a number to it would I think I'm actually there's not a number two that's better and that's it.

00:51:54:09 - 00:52:18:04
Speaker 1
I mentioned you know growing up playing hockey, we, me and my brothers used to get hammered, you know, like with the same kind of idea where like there's a lot of people that play hockey, but there's only a certain group of people that are hockey players. So like this idea of like professionalism and being a pro, right? And we and I think the highest praise you can give a salesperson is calling them a pro.

00:52:18:14 - 00:52:22:20
Speaker 1
What does what does being a pro mean to you as a sales person?

00:52:23:22 - 00:52:49:15
Speaker 2
Well, you know, going back to two skills, it's you know, being a pro is also you have to be coachable. You know, that that's a big aspect that sellers and athletes need to have is because it's not like if you're doing a very siloed job, like if you're in accounting, you know, that's that's not like there's probably not as many moving parts that you have.

00:52:49:15 - 00:53:10:22
Speaker 2
Like when you're dealing with an actual human trying to sell them something. So being coachable, you know, if you like, the pros are all you know, there's obviously the exceptions, but I'd say most professional athletes have to be coach like they're they're they have to have a good coach they have to listen to that coach. They have to be receptive to that coach.

00:53:10:22 - 00:53:28:07
Speaker 2
And that's one thing is to be able to take that feedback, use it and grow and apply it. And I think that when you're a pro and someone gives you you got to do this or do that like they can, you know, talk about it and think about it and they can go apply it. And I think that that's like real pro, like, professionalism.

00:53:29:04 - 00:53:44:08
Speaker 1
I love it. It's it is all about coach ability. It's like, look at Steph Curry's out there, you know, shooting, shooting all day, every day. Right. And he's the best in the world that continuous coach ability is definitely a key attribute for a pro.

00:53:44:10 - 00:54:12:13
Speaker 2
Well say he is he is a yeah he has a shooting coach like you know it's like there's always something, you know and a lot of these coaches, you know, they might not have been the best player, but they can apply and they can teach them. And I think with sales, it's, you know, I think always promoting that the top ranked salesperson is a bad idea because can they teach someone else how to do that?

00:54:12:13 - 00:54:33:02
Speaker 2
Can they do that? And usually it says, you know, like the Michael Jordan analogy, it's like he's like, that's just I don't know why you can't do what I can do. Right. And I think that, you know, being successful and being able to either take coaching and coach others is a big that'll really make people differentiate in this industry.

00:54:33:18 - 00:54:41:21
Speaker 1
I love it. Like, this was an awesome conversation. I know our candidates are going to learn a ton. Thank you so much for your time, buddy. I really.

00:54:41:21 - 00:54:46:08
Speaker 2
Appreciate. Ali, thanks for the time. Appreciate it.

00:54:46:23 - 00:55:09:18
Speaker 1
This wraps up this episode of Making Some Change. If you enjoyed this episode, the most meaningful way to say thanks is to submit a review wherever you listen to podcasts. If you're interested in working with us, please come find us at WW Dot Chef Group Dot I.