In this episode of the Revenue Leadership Podcast, host Kyle Norton is joined by Sahil Mansuri, CEO of Bravado, to navigate the evolving sales landscape. They highlight the resurgence in quota attainment, with 41% of sales reps and 47% of companies hitting their targets, and emphasize the need for leaders to transition from a survival mindset to one focused on growth. The discussion also covers the dynamics of remote versus in-person sales teams, with Sahil presenting Bravado's data showing no direct link between a team's location and their quota success.
Additionally, they explore the changing skill sets required for modern sales roles, the pivotal role of enablement and RevOps in enhancing productivity, and innovative strategies for fostering memorable experiences that sustain team motivation and culture.
Time-coded show notes
00:00 — Introduction
02:30 — The “Michelin Star” Sales Philosophy
10:00 — Scaling a Sales Team: QSR vs. Michelin-Star Strategy
15:50 — State of the market and sales trends
25:30 — The role of venture capital in growth
34:00 — The state of the Sales Rep
45:00 — The importance of enablement and leadership
52:00 — Hiring trends and the definition of a “Good Rep”
59:30 — Final thoughts and key takeaways

Full transcript:
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;26;23
Sahil Mansuri: Kyle and I were talking about how Kyle is the CMO over at a cafeteria, and he and his and his perspective as as we were discussing was that he's getting on a lot more sales calls and he ever had. And as a CMO, he was finding that he was talking a lot in the middle of sales calls and like his sales, his gong stats were off and his sales team was like, Hey, dude, you're like talking way too much on all these deals.
00;00;26;25 - 00;00;50;10
Sahil Mansuri: And the thing that I said to Kyle was that there is two ways. There's like two main playbooks that exist and how you close the deal. The traditional path is basically to QSR. Quick serve that you know, your Panera Bread, your McDonald's, your assembly line where you're getting a consistent experience no matter which branch you go into, which franchise you walk into.
00;00;50;13 - 00;01;15;09
Sahil Mansuri: If you order your tomato soup and green salad from Panera in Brooklyn, or if you order it from the one in San Francisco or the one in Kansas City, it's going to be the exact same meal every single time. And they are you're focused on repeatability, scalability, quality control, and ultimately delivering kind of the minimum viable experience of what, a tomato soup or what a quarter pounder with cheese can look like.
00;01;15;12 - 00;01;48;21
Sahil Mansuri: And you compare that to the Michelin star experience where you can walk into the same restaurant two days apart, see the exact same menu item, tomato soup at the French Laundry, and one day it might be a gazpacho, and the other day it might be like some French onion combination thing because the chef walks into the market and basically looks at what's the best, produce the best ingredients that day, and is curating and creating a custom experience for you?
00;01;48;23 - 00;02;01;21
Sahil Mansuri: And the best salespeople I know are Michelin star chefs, not QSR chefs.
00;02;01;24 - 00;02;30;23
Kyle Norton: Hello and welcome to the Revenue Leadership Podcasts by Top Line. 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.
00;03;01;11 - 00;03;29;01
Kyle Norton: Today's guest is Sir Hillman Surrey, who is the founder and CEO of Bravado, which he's been running and operating for the last seven years. He was a long time high performing rep, high performing sales leader before that. So has a lot of credibility in the community. And bravado is the single largest community of sales reps out there. It is the marquee or number one resource across tech sellers with over 500,000 members.
00;03;29;03 - 00;03;46;21
Kyle Norton: And so we are going to dive into a little bit of the state of the market today. We're going to talk about what revenue leaders need to understand about the sales reps with. So Hill is one of the most credible people to speak on behalf of reps everywhere. So appreciate you joining me and thanks for thanks for coming on.
00;03;46;24 - 00;03;51;21
Sahil Mansuri: And then thank you so much for having me and great topic. Excited to dive in.
00;03;51;24 - 00;03;59;24
Kyle Norton: Nice. So give people a little bit of your background, the short version so they know where you're coming from.
00;03;59;27 - 00;04;18;23
Sahil Mansuri: Yeah, I mean, I spent my whole career in sales kind of ways. You need to know. You know, I started out on the Obama campaign in 2007 doing phone banking, fundraising, advance, knocking on doors, getting lawn signs up, and we didn't call it sales. You know, we called it getting the vote out. Sure to got it looked a lot like sales.
00;04;18;26 - 00;04;40;07
Sahil Mansuri: And I've been doing it now for 17 years. You know, across being rep, being a VP of sales, being CEO and then founding promoter seven years ago. And, you know, my perspective is that I love sales. I think it's the greatest job in the world. I love to sell. My sales team has to kick me out of sales calls all the time because they're better than me at it.
00;04;40;07 - 00;05;02;16
Sahil Mansuri: But I really love to do it and I just have a deep passion for the profession. I love the people that do the job. I enjoy the craftsmanship of sales. A lot of the tactics, the strategy, the people management and the relationships. And so I'm always excited to talk shop because it's my favorite part of my job.
00;05;02;19 - 00;05;25;05
Kyle Norton: Yeah, and you can tell that I've listened to a bunch of your pods and read a whole bunch of your content the last week and the enthusiasm and real excitement for the craft definitely jumps out of the out of the headphones. So. And you still sell a bunch. We were talking at that golf event. You still are in deals like pitching, which which I absolutely love.
00;05;25;05 - 00;05;28;13
Kyle Norton: And it's something that, you know, is missing in a lot of leaders these days.
00;05;28;16 - 00;05;49;03
Sahil Mansuri: Well, I think ultimately a business is measured by a small number of variables. Brian Halligan, the founder of HubSpot, was recently quoted in this article he wrote for Sequoia. He shared like his 20, you read it. And one of the things he talks about is that there's only two things he ever worked on, which were product and sales.
00;05;49;03 - 00;06;12;23
Sahil Mansuri: Product and sales. And I'm exactly the same type of CEO. Like I spend roughly 50% of my brainpower in time working on product and thinking about what we need to build to help sales leaders and sales professionals be more successful in their career. And then 50% of my time selling those products to the market. I love doing it.
00;06;12;26 - 00;06;43;14
Kyle Norton: Yeah, yeah. So I want to start with a warm up question that is not relevant to the topic, but I really wanted to ask you, so I listened to your pod with Kyle Coleman, which was great, and you gave one of the most interesting analogies I've heard in a while for like the craft of sales. You talked about the difference between the Michelin star experience and the quick serve experience and maybe just explain to people what you meant by that and the advice you are trying to give to professional sellers.
00;06;43;15 - 00;06;48;03
Kyle Norton: Then I have a I have a couple questions about unpacking that.
00;06;48;06 - 00;07;15;06
Sahil Mansuri: Sure. So Kyle and I were talking about how Kyle is the CMO over at a cafeteria and he and his and his perspective as you as we were discussing, was that he's getting on a lot more sales calls and he ever had. And as a CMO, he was finding that he was talking a lot in the middle of sales calls and like his sales, his gong stats were off and his sales team was like, Hey, dude, you're like talking way too much.
00;07;15;09 - 00;07;40;13
Sahil Mansuri: And all these deals. And the thing that I said to Kyle was that there is two ways. There's like two main playbooks that exist in how you close the deal. The traditional path is basically to QSR quick serve, you know, your Panera Bread, your McDonald's, your assembly line where you're getting a consistent experience no matter which branch you go into, which franchise you walk into.
00;07;40;16 - 00;08;05;12
Sahil Mansuri: If you order your tomato soup and green salad from Panera in Brooklyn, or if you order it from the one in San Francisco or the one in Kansas City, it's going to be the exact same meal every single time. And they are. You're focused on repeatability, scalability, quality, control, and ultimately delivering kind of the minimum viable experience of what, a tomato soup or what a quarter pounder with cheese can look like.
00;08;05;15 - 00;08;38;25
Sahil Mansuri: And you compare that to the Michelin star experience where you can walk into the same restaurant two days apart, see the exact same menu item, tomato soup at the French Laundry, and one day it might be a gazpacho, and the other day it might be like some French onion combination thing because the chef walks into the market and basically looks at what's the best, produce the best ingredients that day and is curating and creating a custom experience for you.
00;08;38;27 - 00;09;03;08
Sahil Mansuri: And the best salespeople I know are Michelin star chefs, not QSR chefs. You know, they're they are not following a playbook with every deal because they've elevated beyond that. That's not to say they don't know the playbook. That's not you know, you can't be a chef at the French Laundry if you can't deliver a consistent burger every single day like you got it.
00;09;03;08 - 00;09;22;15
Sahil Mansuri: That's a fundamental I'm not talking about ignoring the rules because you can't follow that. I'm talking about someone who knows what the rules are, but then is able to add something extra, something special, something unique, which is their own flavor, their own touch. And I think that it's lost in the art of sell, in the art of sales.
00;09;22;17 - 00;09;47;14
Sahil Mansuri: This enterprise wrap, this creative wrap, who finds extremely unique ways to engage customers who who does things in a nontraditional way because they have such a deep passion understanding skill set in the sales that they're able to do things that no other rep could do and get away with, instill confidence. So that's what I love.
00;09;47;16 - 00;10;12;05
Kyle Norton: And they have some super power, like Kyle being the customer and being so deeply entrenched in the product that the typical guidance around talk listen ratio is not relevant for him because his talking is so much more valuable than an average, you know, three or four year tenure. And so my my question was, so how do you scale it?
00;10;12;07 - 00;10;37;16
Kyle Norton: Like, how do you you know, as revenue leaders, I didn't disagree with with the point at all. And I thought it was a good distinction that I'm going to borrow. But how as leaders should we think about scaling? We need to be able to hire certain amounts of reps and ramp them to productivity. And you can't hire there's not enough Michelin star reps out there at all of the different price points that people need to hire at.
00;10;37;19 - 00;10;53;06
Kyle Norton: So how do you think about giving advice to revenue leaders like this is how you train to a QSR playbook. This is where you allow the Michelin star experience to certain sellers, like how do you think about scalability? Like, that's the thing I didn't understand.
00;10;53;08 - 00;11;15;06
Sahil Mansuri: I think it's a great question. And the truth is you don't scale a michelin star restaurant. There's not 50 French laundries all over the country. You know, there's one there's one French laundry, and you got to wait six months in order to get a reservation there and still fight tooth and nail in order to do so. The Michelin star experience doesn't scale, but the Michelin star experience isn't for the same customer that's going to Panera Bread.
00;11;15;08 - 00;11;39;07
Sahil Mansuri: And so that's that's ultimately the point of distinction. I think if you're running an SMB mid-market motion, if your ASP is 50 K or below, you have to build a QSR experience. You can't build a team that is able to deliver a michelin star experience because of the velocity of deal number of deals. You need to close price point at which you're hiring skill set that you're going to be able to bring people into.
00;11;39;09 - 00;12;19;05
Sahil Mansuri: All of which is not to say by the way, that you can't be a genius at sales and not have a ton of experience. I know plenty of people who literally, like, walk in and within six months, 12 months, you realize that they're so special that they they deserve this accelerated opportunity that others don't. I certainly don't mean to be a gatekeeper ing, but what I mean to say is that if you are selling a enterprise product, if you are if you have, let's say there's 20,000 potential customers that you can sell to, and then there's like the top 50 of those clients, the top 100 of those clients for those people, I think it's worth it to try to create the Michelin star experience.
00;12;19;05 - 00;12;37;26
Sahil Mansuri: I think ABM was kind of a nod to doing that in some ways. Like it was kind of that it was this idea of like, okay, if there were only 20 deals, we could close this quarter, typically, again, for a more enterprise or strat type motion, what would they be?
00;12;37;26 - 00;13;17;04
Sahil Mansuri: And then how do we just go way above and beyond for these 20 logos, these 20 accounts, because they're worth so much to us as a business? And I think like when that opportunity comes to pitch that client, it's worth it to think outside of your QSR assembly line of what the standard sales process that owner or another company looks like and instead say, okay, well what do we do that is going to is going to change the perspective of this customer internally and through their business, and that's going to allow them to such a way that they view us is like a partner and a consultant that they have to work with, not as a software vendor that they need to buy.
00;13;19;12 - 00;13;40;02
Kyle Norton: Yeah, okay, I like that. And in or it's graduating people through your QSR experience, teaching them how to julienned an onion and then giving them more latitude to to maybe color outside the lines. Katie says like imitate, then innovate, which which I like is.
00;13;40;04 - 00;13;50;03
Sahil Mansuri: This really again, Katie Katie is pithy like that very I'm you know again talk about calories per word He's pretty good at that I like.
00;13;50;07 - 00;14;10;26
Kyle Norton: Way we caught up this morning on some stuff and every time I'm like yeah I got a lot smarter the last 30 minutes. So. All right, let's jump into our big topic. So there's two things we want to touch on. One is like a state of the market because I think things are so different today. You are running a business, you're investing and advising.
00;14;10;26 - 00;14;31;12
Kyle Norton: You see all of this amazing sales rep data, quota attainment. So I want to I want to first talk about like the macro picture and you can give your your opinion from your unique perspective. Then I want to dig into the state of the rep. Like, what do what do leaders need to know about the rep today in order to hire and retain awesome talent?
00;14;31;14 - 00;14;51;00
Kyle Norton: So topic one Are we so back? And I would love. I personally see I'm seeing so many more exciting deals today and companies that are that are growing really, really fast that the narrative that like we're in some tech recession doesn't seem as relevant but like what what are you seeing on your side?
00;14;51;02 - 00;15;16;12
Sahil Mansuri: Yeah, so let's start with some data and then I'll give you my perspective because I think it's, you know, rather than just come out and say what I think, I think it's helpful to give you some information or give the audience some information that I'm privy to, which makes making calls like this pretty easy. So on bravado, there's a product that we have called the portfolio, which is similar to Strava or Mint.com.
00;15;16;14 - 00;15;45;23
Sahil Mansuri: But instead of being for fitness and finance, it's for your sales stats. So every month or every quarter you go in and update what percent of quarter you just had or deals you caused. What was your ranking on the sales team? What percentage of your team that quarter? And the purpose of this is building kind of a digital brag book and digital repository of your work over time allows you to look back and see, hey, you know, last year or two years ago, this was my average deal size, but it's actually gone up or maybe my deal velocities increase, maybe the logos I closed have gotten bigger.
00;15;46;00 - 00;16;09;10
Sahil Mansuri: It also gives you benchmarks so that when you look at like a very helpful perspective, you know, last year in 23 was that if you hit 71% of quota last year in 2023, you actually were in the top 15% of sales reps in the United States. And so because the average sales rep is the only the average sales rep hit 41% or 40 to 42% of quota last year.
00;16;09;11 - 00;16;32;24
Sahil Mansuri: So 71% was actually a standard deviation or two above what the average salesperson hit last year. And obviously we saw the ramifications of that take place in terms of layoffs. And your house is shutting down and a lot of, you know, kind of recessionary activities. And so again, from an individual rep perspective, it's a tool that does that now from a from a global perspective.
00;16;32;24 - 00;16;54;25
Sahil Mansuri: And that means that we on bravado get a real time pulse on what's happening with product attainment. But from an individual perspective as well as from a team perspective on a monthly and quarterly basis. So I want to share some stats with you to explain the answer to the question of are we so back? So the we've been tracking quota attainment now at bravado for 20 two quarters.
00;16;54;25 - 00;17;27;05
Sahil Mansuri: So five and a half years and the highest quota attainment that we have ever logged in the history of bravado was. Q One of 2022. So in Q1 of 2022, it was nearly 60%. So it was like 56% of sales reps hit quota and 61% of sales teams headquarter. Typically, there's a greater percentage of sales teams that headquarter than sales reps every single number does, right?
00;17;27;05 - 00;17;56;17
Sahil Mansuri: But the variance is not massive. You know, it's usually within a few percentage points. So 56% of sales reps said quarter 61% of sales teams that quota. And then from then it started going down and the trough the bottom was Q3 of 23. So it was exactly a year ago today in Q3 of 23, we saw that only 17% of sales reps a quota and only 21% of sales teams.
00;17;56;19 - 00;18;01;18
Sahil Mansuri: So again, 17% of reps, 21% of of our raw.
00;18;01;21 - 00;18;02;18
Kyle Norton: Well.
00;18;02;20 - 00;18;14;08
Sahil Mansuri: Yeah, it was I mean, again, I'm sure I'm sure there's a lot of people who are listening who lived that experience and I certainly lived that experience as we at Bravado.
00;18;14;11 - 00;18;15;25
Kyle Norton: And percent good.
00;18;15;28 - 00;18;44;00
Sahil Mansuri: Yeah they share I mean we have provided make our money by helping companies hire sales reps. And so you could imagine that we also were in the we were not in the 17% or 21%. It was a brutal time to run a business, but that was the trough and it's been going up since. And, you know, we are not yet done with the interim with the the latest results that for for Q3 because there are some companies like ourselves that run on the Salesforce quarter.
00;18;44;00 - 00;19;08;12
Sahil Mansuri: But I can give you I pulled it just today 41% of sales reps are hitting quota in Q3. So again, it was 17% a year ago. It's 41% today and 47% of companies are hitting quota. Again, it was 21%. It's now 47%. So we are not at the high was like.
00;19;08;15 - 00;19;19;15
Kyle Norton: What was the steady state? So like 22 is like silly zero times make believe what's like a normal 2018 quota attainment.
00;19;19;18 - 00;19;55;17
Sahil Mansuri: In the Yeah so the average quota attainment is exactly where we are today. So this is actually this is the answer to your question. The average quota attainment that you would expect to see is somewhere in the vicinity of 40 to 45% of sales reps hitting quota and somewhere between 45 to 50% of companies hitting. So we are actually smack dab in the middle of what a good environment, not zero era craziness, but what a really solid like 20, 19, 20, early 2021 when things were the market was good, not crazy, but just really good.
00;19;55;19 - 00;20;05;14
Sahil Mansuri: We are back to that same environment and and we are already back in this period. So now to answer your question, that was very long winded way to getting this simple answer.
00;20;05;17 - 00;20;17;12
Kyle Norton: Just before we get there. So where can people go to subscribe to get this information? Because I'm sure a bunch of people are like, I should be looking at this every quarter. This is like such good intel.
00;20;17;15 - 00;20;32;04
Sahil Mansuri: Thank you. Yeah. So we we produce something called the revenue recap. It's a it's a report that comes out to Provato members. We send it out, it's free. And you can just go to promote ICO, create an account, and you will get you'll get all the revenue recaps as they're published.
00;20;32;06 - 00;20;37;19
Kyle Norton: Okay. There you go. All right. So now we've got the data, we've plugged to the revenue recap.
00;20;37;22 - 00;21;08;16
Sahil Mansuri: And so then and so then let me answer your question directly, which is we are so back and and and I think that comes with a really important mindset shift that most sales reps and most sales leaders haven't fully made yet. You know, when we entered the really tough times of late 22 to like most of 23, there was this overarching piece of advice, Don't die.
00;21;08;20 - 00;21;35;19
Sahil Mansuri: You know, that was the piece of advice like at all costs, do not die. And that was advice that was given because you could not count on a future round of funding in the investment markets are just dry and no one was putting capital into anything. And so therefore, like if you were not profitable or if you did not manage to be extremely efficient with your spend, you as a business were going to die.
00;21;35;21 - 00;22;04;10
Sahil Mansuri: And I think people have it recognized and caught up to the fact that that is not the mindset that you need to be in today. It is not to say that we should be in the reckless mindset of the Cerb era, which is to say that we should just turn around and throw money behind every initiative and every idea with no consequence of like, you know, no careful measure of focus and resource because you don't have unlimited resources as we used to back in the day.
00;22;04;12 - 00;22;29;23
Sahil Mansuri: But it is to say that this idea of like profitable assisted growth that I see thrown around a lot I think is extremely misleading and dangerous for those who are in the especially in the early stage venture capital game too, to embrace because those are not the roles by which VCs will advance your business and investors will business, and you will end up being this like really weird thing that is profitable.
00;22;29;25 - 00;22;52;21
Sahil Mansuri: But your profit is very little because you're a small company, so it's not value. There's not enough free cash flow coming off the business that it's worth investing in. You're not Facebook, right? Good at spinning out $1,000,000,000 a month or whatever they're spitting out. And so it's not enough cash flow that it's investable. But growth isn't high enough that you can see a path to making $1,000,000,000 business.
00;22;52;23 - 00;22;57;09
Sahil Mansuri: And so you're stuck in the middle. And when you're stuck in the middle, let's get refundable.
00;22;57;14 - 00;22;59;02
Kyle Norton: There's no more money ever.
00;22;59;02 - 00;23;24;06
Sahil Mansuri: That's right. That's right. That's exactly right. Unless and by the way, venture funding and I think VC funding gets a gets a gets a weird rap here because there's a lot of people that especially in sales in the sales community, I see this a lot. Yeah, there's a there's a lot of kind of like, fuck the B.S. like they screwed us sort of like by and I understand where it comes from because you're like, you know, they pushed us to grow.
00;23;24;06 - 00;23;43;24
Sahil Mansuri: And then when we couldn't grow, they were like, Well, why did you spend so much money? And it's this feeling of like, you're talking out of both sides, your mouth. And I think the reality is, is that as a business, this you're an early stage company. You have signed up for a specific deal, that you've made a specific path you signed up for.
00;23;43;24 - 00;24;01;23
Sahil Mansuri: Yeah. Which is to say that you were going to take what would normally take 20 to 30 years for a company to do, and you're going to try to do in 5 to 7. That is what you have signed up to do. That's what venture capital is. It's taking a business that is making $10 million a year and giving it $50 million, which makes no sense.
00;24;01;23 - 00;24;22;15
Sahil Mansuri: Like why would you give something that makes 10,000,050 million? But you do that because you want 10 million to become 100 million, not in 20 years, but in four. And and so you're basically paying for growth. You're putting, you know, fuel on the fire, etc., etc.. And there are many other parts to entrepreneurship. There's many other types of companies out there.
00;24;22;17 - 00;24;44;25
Sahil Mansuri: But if you choose to work for a VC backed company, which many of us do because it's high paying, it's prestigious, it's the most fun growth, there's a lot of career advantages. No, that you have not signed up to grow profitably and efficiently. You signed up to grow beyond the wildest imagination of what a startup could do and what a company can do.
00;24;44;25 - 00;24;47;04
Sahil Mansuri: And that's the only game that you're playing.
00;24;47;06 - 00;25;10;23
Kyle Norton: Which is the only reason that people would put money into something so risky. Like, you know, capital allocation is all about risk return, the risk return tradeoff. And so you need the super high end return profile to give a 24 year old founder and a bunch of people who've never done this before, 50 million bucks.
00;25;10;26 - 00;25;33;01
Sahil Mansuri: In a trade or do something else right. Or, you know, if you want again, if what you want is to grow profitably, efficiently, slowly and meticulously, that's a perfectly valid way to build a business. But ain't nobody giving venture capital. You're not you're not going to raise money from Sequoia or Driessen or Redpoint or whatnot. And from with that pitch.
00;25;33;05 - 00;25;40;22
Sahil Mansuri: Right. And so if you're going to go give that pitch to take the easy dollars, then know that that's what you signed up for. You're just got to live.
00;25;40;24 - 00;26;10;21
Kyle Norton: Like you're you're signing up to bootstrapping and you have to if you want to grow slow, you have you have to bootstrap. You can't want to go slow and take venture dollars like those things are mutually exclusive. And I think that Miss, it's funny, throughout the whole market downturn, I've been trying to share this message. I shared it on a few pods like, Yeah, you know, you, you want to be more conservative financially in this market, but like, don't forget what these businesses are about.
00;26;10;21 - 00;26;35;12
Kyle Norton: Like, we are about power law returns. We are about returning an entire fund on one investment. And if you're in the venture game and that's no longer possible, you sort of got to do something else. Now, like you you you know, as a founder, you're not going to get the the same employee type as a as an early employee.
00;26;35;12 - 00;26;57;13
Kyle Norton: Like your return profile is completely different. So you have to be asking for a completely different cash versus a versus equity. But like, that message didn't materialize and the answer was really, hey, a bunch of these companies aren't actually venture venture bankable companies. They need to go away like they are. They are like, no matter what, not viable.
00;26;57;13 - 00;27;20;14
Kyle Norton: Maybe they can do a one and done raise and basically bootstrap after one venture round. And two, they're much to the chagrin of the venture investors. But like that's no longer we're no longer playing that game. And I think like one other comment just on what you said, it's like people grumbling, Oh, Venture told us to grow and then Venture said, Why did we do that?
00;27;20;14 - 00;27;47;05
Kyle Norton: And I don't actually think that's what it was. I think like because I see this a lot with the rep community and the VP sales community, it's like, Oh, like you did this, you did this thing to us, you changed your mind. Well, no, I actually think founders in venture capital investors were just rational actors. We saw the greatest change in interest rates in the history of interest rates, basically, like they changed overnight.
00;27;47;05 - 00;28;12;23
Kyle Norton: And so when the cost of capital changes not drastically over a short amount of time, you simply have to rethink your decision making. And I don't think Venture said why did you do that? I think really the message was we need to do something different now, but people misinterpreted that as like the venture capital. And the venture capital guys and the founder are the bad dudes.
00;28;12;25 - 00;28;24;19
Kyle Norton: But like, no, we're just making rational decisions based on the macro economic environment and it's hard. But like this, we are all sort of in the same boat together, which people struggle with.
00;28;24;21 - 00;29;07;07
Sahil Mansuri: Yeah, I mean, let me let me bring I think that's could not be more well stated. And let me bring it down to the VP of sales rep level to explain how we all did the same thing. I remember because we run a jobs business. So I get to see this in real time. I remember when we launched our jobs business in the middle of 2021, we were talking to VP of Sales who were making 250 to 300 K years at their current companies, getting offers for 400, 500 codes.
00;29;07;09 - 00;29;25;19
Sahil Mansuri: And I remember reps who were mid-market reps that were making 80 K based, 160 k t getting offers for 150 to 180 days, three 350 to 380 o t and I don't remember anyone complaining then.
00;29;25;21 - 00;29;28;29
Kyle Norton: Yeah, nobody turn them around.
00;29;29;02 - 00;29;57;25
Sahil Mansuri: I don't remember any one being like, well this is unreasonable. Like I'm, I'm, I'm an 80 to 160 k rep like I am. My ability to carry a quota is $700,000. The biggest deal I've ever closed was 35 k, but now all of a sudden I've got this offer in front of me to go sell, you know, a $2 million quota at this company with all these ridiculous expectations that I've never even come close to achieving in the course of my career.
00;29;57;28 - 00;30;17;16
Sahil Mansuri: But of course. So I don't want to take this offer. I want a lower base, I want a lower OTP and I want a lower quota. I don't remember once being told that. What I remember instead was people saying, Dude, my my current company is a fucking idiot. They, they don't value me like this was my debut in the market.
00;30;17;23 - 00;30;27;16
Sahil Mansuri: Like, finally I'm getting paid what I deserve. And I remember people having this, like every six months, 12 months, 18 months. I want to change jobs. I want to.
00;30;27;17 - 00;30;27;26
Kyle Norton: Roll.
00;30;28;02 - 00;30;46;07
Sahil Mansuri: In more, get paid more, get paid more. And then as soon as the market cooled and there were layoffs and everyone stopped changing jobs all of a sudden and try to hold on to the one they had. And suddenly loyalty came back overnight. And and by the way, that is the rational thing to do in a capital market.
00;30;46;07 - 00;31;15;24
Sahil Mansuri: You know, if if you know, like if you got them, smoke them, you know, like end of the day, like it's just the way it is. Like, you know, if the market will bear something, then, then that's what you're, you're going to get paid. And so ultimately we all make the same decision is my point is that it's not as if I did something irrational or you did something irrational, or the SDR who got recruited and got 100 K based did something irrational.
00;31;15;24 - 00;31;29;09
Sahil Mansuri: It's just where the market was. And today the markets were different. And we just have to accept the reality that ultimately the market will bear what it will bear. Yes.
00;31;29;12 - 00;31;54;19
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00;31;54;21 - 00;32;27;08
Kyle Norton: Yeah yeah hard agree. Yeah the we we were all complicit in it and there was no like good people and bad people. It was just sort of a thing that happened and like I'm a big believer in extreme ownership. We all just have to accept those things happened. I am actually not worth $400,000 as a four year tenured A I'm actually worth this and like, but but hedonic adaption is, is like very difficult to like deal with.
00;32;27;08 - 00;32;32;22
Kyle Norton: Like we get so stuck on these things that that are difficult to to lose and.
00;32;32;24 - 00;32;55;17
Sahil Mansuri: Valuations of companies you know is another thing that I think was in the same realm I remember Gong raised it 7 billion outreach raised it for billion and you know, there was this like, oh, like all these like super small, like, like you got to 5 million RR and you were raising at a $500 million valuation. And and they're like, No, I'm serious.
00;32;55;17 - 00;33;21;21
Sahil Mansuri: I know multiple founders who yeah yeah at a 5 million valuation they got a 100 X multiple on their revenue and then you know, today you could be 100 million in revenue and still not get a $500 million valuation. You know and and people people were really easy were really quick to embrace when it was five on 500 but today if it's 100 on 500 people are like well that's unfair.
00;33;21;21 - 00;33;38;04
Sahil Mansuri: That's unrealistic. Like people aren't paying me what I want. And so, you know, it's almost like it's in the same way that I find some people treat religion, which I wish I'm always I always laugh about, which is like if something good happens, they say praise to God. If something bad happens, it's like, Oh, well, God is testing me, you know?
00;33;38;04 - 00;34;06;06
Sahil Mansuri: And either way, in a way, it's like in either way, you can find a way to defend the thing that you're trying to believe in. And I think that we have to have intellectual honesty and I think extreme ownership and intellectual honesty are really critical components for someone who wants to be a serious business, professional and executive, which is to say, yeah, as a VP of sales, as a CRO, I weigh overspent on these reps that my company did not need, that we're not able to do this job.
00;34;06;14 - 00;34;23;28
Sahil Mansuri: I way overestimated what our team was able to do because everyone was just buying and nobody was around. And yeah, maybe my own compensation wasn't quite in line with what it should have been. That's okay. Today we're in a different world and we just that and we just keep moving on, you know, one foot in front of the other.
00;34;24;01 - 00;34;48;19
Kyle Norton: Yeah. Yeah. If you want to participate in this game in the venture capital backed game, you have to accept the rules. You can't want to play this game and then not like the rules that there's volatility and cyclicality like that is just inherent. I, I often jokingly say about these types of things or with the way people act like you can't blame the lion for eating a gazelle.
00;34;48;26 - 00;35;06;02
Kyle Norton: Like that's it's just like silly. Like, well, how are you mad at this? Like, like this is just this is what capitalism is. This is what venture capital is. And if you don't like it, that's totally cool. Lots of other things to do in the world. But like you, you have to know what you're signing up for.
00;35;06;04 - 00;35;29;19
Sahil Mansuri: And we are so into and your point out we are so back you know you have open I want to open your eyes. Co-founders Ilia left and founded this company called Super Safe Intelligence or SC AI and they raised you can make this up a 1 billion with a B billion dollars seed round no product you know just him and handful of people.
00;35;29;22 - 00;35;57;05
Sahil Mansuri: And they raised a $1 billion seed round. And it just goes to show something that I think most people don't. Where's the profitable attrition growth on that. You know there's there's not it's just that venture capitalists are in the business of doing one thing and just one thing, which is returning capital to their LPs. And they're going to make the bet that they think the most amount of return I can generate for this dollar compared to any other startup in the world.
00;35;57;05 - 00;36;16;02
Sahil Mansuri: I can put this dollar in. Why should I give it to owner? Why should I give it to privado? Why should I give it to whomever? And if you can't make a compelling case that $1 to owner $1 to privado is going to be worth more than putting that dollar into anything else in the world that you're not going to win.
00;36;16;02 - 00;36;36;09
Sahil Mansuri: It's not that you're trying to convince them that putting a dollar into their motto or owner or whatever is valuable. That's actually a fairly straightforward case you can make. It's the case of don't give it to open. I don't give it to anthropic, don't give it to this y c startup. That's crazy. Don't give it to what? Give it to me instead.
00;36;36;11 - 00;37;02;09
Sahil Mansuri: And to convince someone of that, you better have something that's really compelling and growing astronomically fast with a massive vision and a huge and and like I think most people want the benefits of working in a venture backed startup, the pay, the status, the coworkers, the the prestige, all those things come with it, but not pay the price.
00;37;02;11 - 00;37;19;12
Sahil Mansuri: And I think it's it's it's an unrealistic expectation from the market. And then, of course, if it's not for you, which is not for many people, you know, I'm just a junkie for it. Like I'll only ever do this game because this is the game I love to do. I think you might just be in the same boat, given your career, history and background and interest.
00;37;19;12 - 00;37;21;20
Sahil Mansuri: Kyle But like for many people in this.
00;37;21;23 - 00;37;24;06
Kyle Norton: Market.
00;37;24;08 - 00;37;46;23
Sahil Mansuri: But for many people, it's not the game and that's fine. That's completely fine. Bootstrap a business, go rest dead, grow efficiently, like build a different type of business in a different way and have realistic, modest ambitions and make them probably make more money than you and I will make and probably have a much healthier work life balance than you and I have and and much better mental health than you and I have.
00;37;46;23 - 00;38;01;13
Sahil Mansuri: But then then that's just the gain. But if you want to play this game of being part of a legacy, defining a world changing piece of technology and people and product, then you know, you got to you got to pay the tax.
00;38;01;15 - 00;38;13;16
Kyle Norton: Mm hmm. Yeah. Well said. Just think of all the cortisol you're missing out on. By the way, did you just quote Spaceballs? Smoke them if you got them?
00;38;13;18 - 00;38;15;20
Sahil Mansuri: I do appreciate that you cut the reference.
00;38;15;22 - 00;38;21;10
Kyle Norton: And that is a deep cut that Spaceballs is in my top three favorite movies of all time. So.
00;38;21;10 - 00;38;28;06
Sahil Mansuri: Well, and I. Another thing that you and I share a sickness for. Yeah, me too many. Now, let's keep going.
00;38;28;08 - 00;38;54;09
Kyle Norton: All right, so let's transition. So this is like state of the market. I think this is really valuable data. So let's transition into the state of the rep because you have a such a unique view into the psyche of the sales rep. And I was in bravado earlier today when we were doing prep. And it's interesting, like one of the one of the things I screenshotted was like the second post was it's bleak out there.
00;38;54;09 - 00;39;13;03
Kyle Norton: How do you keep going? Like, it's been really tough to try to improve my outlook with so many employers putting a hold on promotions and pay increases, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. And so the the I think there's a there's a disconnect hearing your opinion of like, we are indeed so back or we're back to normal we're still maybe where the rep is.
00;39;13;03 - 00;39;29;01
Kyle Norton: And so let's just maybe give them macro what's the state of the rep today? And then I've got some specific things state of the of remote versus in-person and engagements, and we'll get into some specifics. But like, what's what's the high level from your your perspective?
00;39;29;03 - 00;39;47;13
Sahil Mansuri: Yeah, you and I talked about this the first time we met and the perspective I'll share is unfortunately not super nuanced. It's just kind of the facts, which is it just all depends on where you're working. You know, that post that you just talked about, it's bleak out there. People are putting a hold on promotions and pay increases and stuff.
00;39;47;16 - 00;40;09;18
Sahil Mansuri: I didn't see that specific post, but I would put every dollar in my pocket against every dollar in your pocket that that post wasn't written by a rep who works at property or open or in video, you know. And so ultimately, one of the most important things that you do as a salesperson is you choose which company to work at.
00;40;09;20 - 00;40;31;18
Sahil Mansuri: And I think many sales reps chose companies that used to have a pathway to greatness that don't anymore. I think I've heard something someone call this like they used to be a unicorn, but now they're just a donkey with a with a dunce hat on or something like that, which ultimately, you know, if you work for one of these darlings like Hoppin, you remember that company that.
00;40;31;18 - 00;40;49;14
Sahil Mansuri: Oh, yeah, yeah. Like that company was like the hottest of the hot and raised it like billions of dollars. And that ended up getting sold for like $7 million to RingCentral for, like, parts or whatever. Like if you were part of a journey like that. But. But you haven't hit the end of that journey. You're just like on the treadmill of that journey.
00;40;49;17 - 00;41;15;25
Sahil Mansuri: Then then that's where that darkness comes from. So I think right now you have a bifurcation in the market. You have both early and late stage startups that are either in a position to capitalize on the boom or are kind of second order effect beneficiaries of said boom. And if you work at a company like that, then you are again, your sales team is insane, right?
00;41;15;25 - 00;41;43;09
Sahil Mansuri: Kind of like your sales team isn't saying we're not doing promotions, we're not doing pay increases, we're not growing like your sales team is like, Holy shit, I am so excited about next month, next quarter, next year at Odor, because it's bigger, better, it's faster, it's growing. And and like, you know, ultimately there's a lot of companies that are not winning today, and there's a ton of great salespeople who just need it.
00;41;43;13 - 00;41;59;29
Sahil Mansuri: And sales leaders for that matter, you know, obviously provide us our sales leaders as well. And I talked to sales leaders about this. I kind of wish I could just I wish I could just say the thing that that's in their heart and maybe this someone listening to this, I hope this helps you, which is it's not your fault.
00;42;00;04 - 00;42;19;27
Sahil Mansuri: Your company is just fucked. I just I just want to say no. But like, I genuinely want I want to say that with a tremendous amount of empathy, because that too could have been bravado just a year ago. Right? So I don't want to say that in a in a way in which it comes off as harsh, it's like, it's not your fault.
00;42;20;00 - 00;42;28;14
Sahil Mansuri: It just didn't work. It's not working out. It's not going to work out. There is no hope. There's no amount of selling. There's no amount of.
00;42;28;17 - 00;42;29;10
Kyle Norton: Product, new.
00;42;29;10 - 00;42;30;05
Sahil Mansuri: Product.
00;42;30;07 - 00;42;31;10
Kyle Norton: You're done. Yeah, there's.
00;42;31;15 - 00;43;06;11
Sahil Mansuri: Done. This company has done. And the reason why you're done is because your founders don't believe anymore. Your investors don't believe anymore. Maybe you've gone through sales leadership changes and maybe like, you know, they're trying to make some desperate spin off to some PE shop or something. But like the days that you remember or the days you were pitched when you were recruited into this company and now you've shown up and now you see your day to day vibe of this company like it's, not your fault, your company's just fucked and you just need to get out and find a new job.
00;43;06;13 - 00;43;16;29
Sahil Mansuri: And I think there's so many founders, CEOs, sales leaders, sales reps, stars that just need that. Like.
00;43;17;01 - 00;43;45;18
Kyle Norton: Yeah, and I think a lot of it there's so many parts of human psychology that play in here but sunk cost fallacy and like hedonic adaption like oh I am a VP of sales, I'm a VP of sales. Well, you're only a VP sales at like a crappy company. And it's like, you know, this is equally harsh, but like, you know, you're not good enough yet.
00;43;45;25 - 00;44;12;14
Kyle Norton: Yet you don't have the profile and experience and craft yet to be a VP of sales at like a good company. And so but like the market at one point supported bad companies surviving in the days lots of bad companies raised money that had nice to have products but like we're back to normal now. And I think a lot of it, a lot of the challenges like or I'm a mid-market rep, it's like, well, you've only got a tier two quota for 18 months.
00;44;12;14 - 00;44;48;06
Kyle Norton: Like you're probably not a mid-market rep, you're still in SMB rep and but like you're a mid-market rep at a bad company, but you can't be at bad companies. Now, the market does not the market is not going to support bad companies existing. And you have to move your feet in that advice. I find myself giving so much is like just optimize for the company quality, optimize for product market fit the leader and like I know it sucks in every part of our human psychology tells us not to take a step back.
00;44;48;09 - 00;45;10;03
Kyle Norton: But if you're an enterprise rep today, go be a mid-market rep and I'll be an mid-market rep at one of these companies that is that has good product market fit and incredible leadership. And you will be so much better off than clinging on to, Well, I'm an enterprise rep. No, you're an enterprise rep at a crap company like that.
00;45;10;05 - 00;45;11;20
Kyle Norton: That's where you'll get that job.
00;45;11;27 - 00;45;44;01
Sahil Mansuri: And now let's think about the downstream effect of what you just said. First of all, I mean, that was absolute gospel. Like, every word of that was so true. And so exactly where we are in the cycle. But with now let's add a caveat to that, which is, okay, so if the enterprise rep, who shouldn't really be an enterprise rep but would be in a rock star mid-market rep and dental wants that job.
00;45;44;03 - 00;46;12;05
Sahil Mansuri: If you're a mid-market rep somewhere, you probably need to take a step down to SMB. And if you're an SMB rep somewhere and a mid-market rep applies for your job, now you're going out competing with the rest of your SMB market. You're also competing with a mid-market rep from outside. And I talked to sales leaders all the time that are like, yo, the quality of talent I could bring onto my team today is much higher than the quality of talent I could have brought on two years ago.
00;46;12;11 - 00;46;39;19
Sahil Mansuri: So I'm thinking of just making wholesale changes on my team and basically, you know, I withhold with, you know, and so and so that does create a really tough psychology for someone to work in where they know that they are imminently replaceable. You know, one of our latest clients that we're working with, I won't say the name of the company because I don't have permission to show the story, but one of the latest clients we're working with is Pay US in order to help them recruit for mid-market and enterprise reps.
00;46;39;21 - 00;47;05;22
Sahil Mansuri: And but they have a job posting open and the VP of sales there told me they get between 200 to 300 inbound applicants per day for this job and yet they're paying us to help them recruit and you know, my first question, like a path. And he was like, yeah, but the people who are applying are not the talent that we're looking for.
00;47;05;25 - 00;47;28;08
Sahil Mansuri: And that leads to the next question, which I think is really interesting, which is, okay, well, what do you mean? What do you mean? This isn't the talent you're looking for. And he was like, Well, once upon a time I was willing to take a chance on a hire. Once upon a time, I was willing to say, okay, you maybe don't have exactly the right qualifications, or maybe you didn't do so well at your last job.
00;47;28;08 - 00;47;58;28
Sahil Mansuri: But you know, it could have been the company or whatever. Now I can't afford to miss on a hire, so I'm really at risk anymore. Exactly. So I'm going to pay bravado in order to ensure that the person I bring on is the absolute best hire. Because if I'd bring in bad sales hires by a CEO is going to fire me like my ass is on the line because I previously brought in some people that weren't very good and our CEO's like, You can't fuck it up this time and I'm not going to fuck it up.
00;47;59;00 - 00;48;20;19
Sahil Mansuri: And I think that like that pressure and that dynamic again trickles down to the rep who now is facing like if their boss is job security is on the line. Based on your performance as a brand new hire, then that person, that person is going to put a tremendous amount of pressure on you. You're going to walk in and feel pressure and be in a stressful environment.
00;48;20;25 - 00;48;23;01
Sahil Mansuri: And so it is it is a tough legacy.
00;48;23;03 - 00;48;30;10
Kyle Norton: Counterproductive, that that bringing that anxiety to your team will make them perform worse, not better.
00;48;30;13 - 00;48;31;08
Sahil Mansuri: Which. Absolutely.
00;48;31;08 - 00;48;32;25
Kyle Norton: Which is the doom loop.
00;48;32;28 - 00;49;04;02
Sahil Mansuri: Yeah. Well, that's why I loved your cramps thing. I really love that. I think you're you're and you bring such a healthy perspective around what it takes in order to actually build a high performance sales team and and and I think get starting with community and recognition as the first two elements I think is so right so right like you can't get the best out of a sales team that isn't winning you can't just do it just the same way that you can't cut your way to product market fit.
00;49;04;07 - 00;49;23;17
Sahil Mansuri: You can't you can't do enough cuts that will ever get you product market fit. You can only grow into product market fit in the same way. You can never pressure a sales team into being high performing. You need to create a winning culture first and then you'll get the best out of your people. And I think you really hit the nail on them.
00;49;23;19 - 00;49;51;04
Kyle Norton: Yeah, I think one of the big challenges people have just in general, very broad strokes, is the inability to think long term like so often the mistakes you see in especially early V.P. sales, but like many types of VP of sales, they just can't have a long enough time horizon. And this is a this is actually a quote from a friend of mine who I worked with at Shopify, Lynnette Pistorius, who's like super smart operator.
00;49;51;06 - 00;50;24;26
Kyle Norton: And she's like, kindness is just about having a short time horizon. Like, why would you be like in the macro? Why would you be unkind to somebody? There's no long term benefit to that. It's only long term negativity. You develop that reputation, that person won't help you. And I think the the the sales leader mistreating or managing poorly is just about like if you zoomed out and you ask somebody, hey, is it better to have like a high stress, high anxiety, high pressure environment to get performance out of people?
00;50;24;26 - 00;51;06;14
Kyle Norton: Or is it better to have people highly engaged and bought into the work and feeling like they're developing? Like most sane people will say, Definitely second, but the second is a much longer payoff time horizon and you can get action today off of stress and anxiety and micromanagement. But and this is the same for people sales leaders failing to plan that well and failing to spend enough time on six and spend our time with the product team and focus on customer quality, like a lot of these things are just choosing short term versus long term planning we don't need well, I mean, we can maybe touch on comp plan, but you and I have the
00;51;06;14 - 00;51;31;14
Kyle Norton: same beliefs on competence. Why are you putting a VP of sales on a 5050 plan? They need to think 6 to 18 months in the future. If it's a real VP sales, somebody who needs to own revenue generation for the company for multiple years, they can't. It's really difficult to do that. If living your same lifestyle that you enjoy today means you have to deliver the quarter totally.
00;51;31;17 - 00;51;34;01
Kyle Norton: You just you're you can't yeah.
00;51;34;03 - 00;52;05;27
Sahil Mansuri: It's hard. You just don't want people to make the wrong sacrifice right And it and comp plans are an incredibly powerful tool in order to create incentive alignment. But when your incentive as the CEO of the company is to create $1,000,000,000 business in the next five years and your VP of sales is or Sierra's comp plan, an incentive is to hit this number this quarter no matter what.
00;52;05;29 - 00;52;35;20
Sahil Mansuri: Then you are unnaturally creating a friction point between them and you. And ultimately, if you have misaligned incentives, it's impossible for a team to win. And so I just think it's it's a simple it's a simple fix, which is just to say every person in your team, every every member of your leadership team should have an aligned incentive and not aligned incentive should be making the best possible decisions today that lead to the most profitable business.
00;52;35;21 - 00;52;36;13
Sahil Mansuri: Well.
00;52;36;15 - 00;52;50;22
Kyle Norton: Yeah, yeah. So going back to the state of the rep. Yeah. Macro question. Do you think there's enough good reps out there for the number of software companies that exist today?
00;52;50;24 - 00;53;23;02
Sahil Mansuri: I think that's a really, really interesting question because the definition of a good rep has changed substantially over the course of the last 12 to 24 months, and it used to be that to be a good rep 24 months ago effectively was a job of charm, personality, charisma and detail. Orientation and process modeling. And I think the new unsend thing that needs to be added as technical capability and I think there's a lot of sales professionals that are not technical enough to sell in today's environment.
00;53;23;04 - 00;53;57;26
Sahil Mansuri: And technical here, by the way, doesn't mean that you write code. That's not what I mean. I mean fluency with the latest trends as far as A.I. is concerned, as far as the industry is concerned, as far as their their ICP is concerned, I would I would be willing to put a lot of money. Says that if you hired someone who used to run a kitchen at Owner Dot, they would probably have a an outsized likelihood of being successful because if they've been in the shoes of the customer, they have a deep sense of empathy of what the customer's going through.
00;53;57;26 - 00;54;19;23
Sahil Mansuri: When I hired our VP of sales at Bravado, I didn't hire someone who had sold a talent product before I hired someone who had been under the pressure of hiring a ton of salespeople before because I was like, This woman knows exactly what it's like on the face of our customer when when they're like, Hey, you got to hire these ten reps by next quarter.
00;54;19;27 - 00;54;45;22
Sahil Mansuri: And if you're behind, it's not your fault it goes down. It's just that you got to get more productivity per rep so your ass is on the line. And if you felt that pressure, you know exactly how to sell this product to someone else as well. And so I think it's a lot of it's a lot of trying to find sales professionals who can bring that level of empathy and stewardship and consultation to the market.
00;54;45;24 - 00;55;09;15
Sahil Mansuri: You know, I think I think there is a shortage of that, in part because of how most companies recruit. I think you are a very notable exception to this. And I'm not just saying this because I'm on your part. I think I've said this to you before we ever scheduled this, which is the way you write job descriptions and post them on LinkedIn as something that I think everyone should take a page out of.
00;55;09;15 - 00;55;29;05
Sahil Mansuri: You should link to it in whatever it is. Podcasting is like a few of your guides that you posted on the internet that you've made because because they're so explicitly exclusionary to a lot of people who don't want that job, you you self-select. You're like, Hey, we do a shitload of cold calling these are super fast transactional deals.
00;55;29;05 - 00;55;48;28
Sahil Mansuri: You're talking to people like, like there's a lot of people that don't want to do that. You know, they want to sit behind an email. They want to have log sales processes. They want to they don't want to sell to kitchen to small restaurant business owners. Like there's a lot of people that don't want those requirements. They don't want to sit there and cold call all day in order to generate their pipeline.
00;55;48;28 - 00;56;07;25
Sahil Mansuri: And if they don't want to do those things, then they're not going to apply for your job. But there's too many job descriptions that are out there that don't do a good job of actually self-selecting out the reps. That wouldn't be a good fit for the role as well. And so I think that the requirements of sales have changed.
00;56;07;25 - 00;56;29;01
Sahil Mansuri: I think it's harder to sell than it's ever been because outbound systems are fraying and are reducing in efficacy unless you either take the old fashioned like get on the phone and call people approach or you do that like I'm going to fire on the country, meet people in person. I have a personal brand and a network approach or maybe there's something else that you can do that's outside of that.
00;56;29;08 - 00;56;30;17
Sahil Mansuri: But the idea that you're going to.
00;56;30;20 - 00;56;31;20
Kyle Norton: Yeah.
00;56;31;22 - 00;56;51;14
Sahil Mansuri: Sure. Yeah. But what you cannot do is spin up a few licenses of sales off their outrage. Sit there with an army of 20 to 23 year old spamming people. You just can't do that anymore. And in in in a world in which that doesn't work, there are many sales reps that don't have the skill set to prospect and generate a pipeline anymore.
00;56;51;20 - 00;57;02;23
Sahil Mansuri: And if you can't do that, then I think you're really in trouble. And so I do think there is more of a shortage than than people realize of people who can actually headquarter in 2024 or 25.
00;57;02;26 - 00;57;24;07
Kyle Norton: Yeah, I'm also I think that so much of the onus is on sales leaders as well. Like you're not going to have reps just ready to sit in the seat and do the job like you need. So much more enablement than I think people invest in. Like when I tell people about the size of my enablement rep ops teams like me, but you've only got 1980.
00;57;24;07 - 00;57;45;20
Kyle Norton: So I'm like, Yeah, like, how are you going to run a high, high productivity team without these tools if you're just sort of sitting people behind their phone and like asking them to figure it out, the, the, the rev ups and enablement investment, I think Rev ops gets much more of the credit that it that it has always deserved.
00;57;45;20 - 00;58;08;09
Kyle Norton: Today enablement is the next one that I think people are going to really understand has been underinvested in. Like I talked to a company two or three weeks ago. They are in our space and they've got 40 and change reps, one enablement person, one person and they do the training they do, they don't really do like everything and like, yeah, of course your reps don't like.
00;58;08;09 - 00;58;15;10
Kyle Norton: There's no consistency in execution. Nobody's learning. Nobody's advancing. Like who, who's, who's building any of this?
00;58;15;12 - 00;58;18;22
Sahil Mansuri: What are, what are your ratios if you don't mind sharing.
00;58;18;24 - 00;58;22;05
Kyle Norton: So I have.
00;58;22;07 - 00;58;24;00
Sahil Mansuri: The 19 reps.
00;58;24;02 - 00;58;54;01
Kyle Norton: Yeah. So 19 eight. So Will we'll start Jan one with 23 ease in for people in enablement full time. And we have two today to supporting like call it 16 reps and then in Rev ops same numbers on the east side and we've got a director two full time internal folks and then a team of contractors doing contractors who are two of them are almost full time.
00;58;54;03 - 00;59;21;05
Kyle Norton: But my productivity per rep is roughly three X my competitors. I've interviewed a bunch of leaders from people in my space or direct competitors and learned a little bit about their motions and like we're just on a per person basis in a completely different performance category because you can, you know how to do your job like we built.
00;59;21;05 - 00;59;43;06
Kyle Norton: We spent a lot of time building content for the reps and building rules of engagement, and people can go watch my sausage or talk. LAMB can put it on his Twitter. It'll be on the YouTube or YouTube soon. But I talk about sort of the systems we have to communicate change. It's like when we when we make a change to business process or playbooks, there's a green, yellow, red light process.
00;59;43;06 - 01;00;06;11
Kyle Norton: And if it's red a red light change to comp, then we need a notion dark plus an in-person like sit down training, and then the managers have to go over it in their one on ones. And then you do Q&A and you're in your like individual one on ones. And so without that rigor, I don't think you can keep up with the chaos and the pace that these businesses run.
01;00;06;14 - 01;00;21;04
Kyle Norton: And so it seems heavy handed. You're like, Wow, that's a lot of overhead. Well, yeah, but I'm also getting 16 reps that are doing the work of 45 reps other places because our system is good.
01;00;21;06 - 01;00;46;02
Sahil Mansuri: So let's take everything you just said and bring it back to the question you asked me, which is what is the state of the sales rep and what's in the mind of the rep? And and the answer is the number of companies that are thinking about sales rep, productivity, capacity, skill set up, leveling training in the lens that you are.
01;00;46;03 - 01;01;12;22
Sahil Mansuri: If you were to imagine a thousand crows sitting in a room, what percentage do you think are holding the type of ratios and the type of investment that you're making for a team of 6019 people, you know, a68 person team that's that's fueling that in order to drive productivity of 50, like what percentage of the market do you think looks like that roughly just just take a guess.
01;01;12;25 - 01;01;15;13
Kyle Norton: I don't know I don't want to be overly arrogant, but like now.
01;01;15;13 - 01;01;17;20
Sahil Mansuri: No, just what do you think? What do you think?
01;01;17;22 - 01;01;18;16
Kyle Norton: 10%?
01;01;18;23 - 01;01;42;01
Sahil Mansuri: I'd say I think 1% would be a stretch. Honestly, I really do. I mean, again, we have somewhere in the vicinity of 90,000 views of sales and crows on bravado. And the reason why I your friendship so much is because I mean it. Nobody is doing this. Nobody is doing this. Like maybe there's a very tiny handful of people somewhere scattered around that are doing this.
01;01;42;03 - 01;01;43;03
Sahil Mansuri: There's a lot of people is.
01;01;43;04 - 01;01;45;11
Kyle Norton: He makes me feel like I need to do more.
01;01;45;14 - 01;02;00;16
Sahil Mansuri: Yeah, that's right. But, you know, off the top of your head, the people that are doing it, you know, that I also know some people that are doing it. But that's not the point. The point is that that the average rep is stuck in a company that has never even thought about doing what you just said. Do forget about doing it.
01;02;00;19 - 01;02;26;03
Sahil Mansuri: It's never even occurred to them. All they think about are more reps, more deals, more pressure, higher quota, more schools, more more and more value. More and more and more and more. Nobody's stopping to think about the sports science approach of, you know, basically small team of sellers, heavily supported with everything they need around them and making them high performing.
01;02;26;03 - 01;02;44;06
Sahil Mansuri: Because I'll tell you what who I'll tell you who's really happy when you have three x the productivity of the average rep, it's the rep that's who's really happy because at the end of the day, winning, closing deals, seeing success and having things and tools around you for you to level up your career like that's what it's all about.
01;02;44;06 - 01;03;06;08
Sahil Mansuri: You know, I saw it in your in your pep talk. You asked the question, what is the difference between a good and a grade S.R.O.? And I've been thinking about it since I read that question a couple of days ago. And one of the things that stuck in my head is we are so eager to build air stars, air prospectors basically automating away entry level sales jobs.
01;03;06;10 - 01;03;42;13
Sahil Mansuri: And and I think the the people who are really excited about that are the people, perversely, who are the worst at actually training and developing sales teams. Because when I think about air steamers, it makes me really nervous because I'm like, Well, how am I supposed to build the future rock Star cellars if I can't handle them? These types of jobs that they could learn on the job, like, am I going to have to hire them as like super junior SoulCycle reps or like where my mind turns when I when I hear automating away like entry level sales jobs is what the future pipeline for sales talent looks like.
01;03;42;13 - 01;04;07;03
Sahil Mansuri: And I think it's something that people aren't spending a lot of time thinking or talking about because they don't spend a lot of time thinking about developing. They just want to hire someone else's rock star. And I'll tell you what, I think your best talent is, the talent that you develop internally. It's not hiring from external and just finding the perfect round because they worked at strike last or Shopify last or whatever, It's finding the person who's in need some training and some coaching.
01;04;07;03 - 01;04;14;05
Sahil Mansuri: But as those raw intangibles and then getting the best out of them and then they become the super outlier performer at your company.
01;04;14;07 - 01;04;54;04
Kyle Norton: Yeah, Yeah. I couldn't agree. Yeah, we've like we did this like awards trip a couple of weeks, couple months ago. So I was trying to count how many promotions we made. I think around 50 in the last 18 months between people going like SDR senior 80 inbound to outbound, outbound to multi, multi all the way through in because it's just it makes it makes sense like why you know my system you should be better than somebody on the outside and we've definitely found that it's yeah I think I think the the other big thing with this is the other thing again it's short term.
01;04;54;07 - 01;05;22;03
Kyle Norton: There's no way you can spam your entire market sustainably through $50 Million. RR Because Google outlook, like all of these all of these email providers are going to have to close the door at some point if every company is just playing the spam cannon game. And so yeah, in the next 6 to 12 months, there's a tremendous opportunity to expand your market and the messaging will be like better than it was.
01;05;22;03 - 01;05;42;13
Kyle Norton: But, but still like very low open in reply rates. But you can now do enough of it a little bit better that it will be effective. But then as soon as more companies are doing it, that game is done. And so it's Stevie. Stevie Case from who's the CEO of Fanta, gave me this language. She was like, It's a party trick.
01;05;42;15 - 01;06;02;18
Kyle Norton: It's not durable and I don't want reps. She when she's interviewing reps, she's like, is does this person have a durable advantage or did they have one good year hitting and exceeding quota because of some party trick? She they found some little niche in the market and that I think this SDR thing is a party trick.
01;06;02;20 - 01;06;36;29
Sahil Mansuri: I love what I love most about everything you just said. I love Stevie as well. She's she's brilliant. The thing, the thing that I that I love about what you just said is this idea of durability. And I think like systems level thinking around what would create a durable, scalable sales process. Sales team motion is is again just underinvested in I love I love your I should really I'm going to take away from this conversation this idea of a context window or time horizon.
01;06;36;29 - 01;06;59;11
Sahil Mansuri: You know it's it really it really is clarifying to say that like, hey, this is going to work for a little while. And so like, you know, we're going to do it. But is it actually the right thing to invest in? And I think it's a great example of something that, like you're you take something that wasn't working that well, which is spending people with outreach and sales, often whatever.
01;06;59;16 - 01;07;24;19
Sahil Mansuri: And now you're just going to like add another layer of of and call it trickery on top of it. But ultimately you're not really solving the problem, which is there are real customers out there that need your product and that don't know about it. And what is a sustainable way for you to introduce it to them in a way in which they are receptive to the message, like it's actually an art.
01;07;24;23 - 01;07;56;05
Sahil Mansuri: And if you think about the problem more concrete, really, like it's just like, Hey, there's restaurant owners who would benefit if they were to be on owner e-com and they just haven't heard of it for some reason. How do I introduce it to them? And if you and if you just kind of like start from first principles, it's a lot simpler than saying like, let me buy some of the next artisan this that been up these things, your domain masking this whatever and ultimately it's just it's just another form of trickery you know some you know.
01;07;56;10 - 01;08;15;20
Kyle Norton: So let's tie off this Steve the sales rep topic like what else do revenue leaders need to know about the rep today? And I wonder you have any data on it, you know, like in-person versus remote. What are they optimizing for? Like what do leaders need to know from your insight of the psyche?
01;08;15;24 - 01;08;59;14
Sahil Mansuri: The Rep I think that it is undeniable that it's undeniable that is a bifurcation in terms of some sales professionals and sales leaders really prefer to be in person. They really miss the energy and they really miss that, that that the camaraderie and the vibes. But you you are significantly limiting the talent pool that you're going to recruit from if you use any person strategy because it's inconceivable that the best reps are just all within a 20 mile radius of where your office happens to be for your market.
01;08;59;16 - 01;09;34;26
Sahil Mansuri: I think that remote work is something that is desirable, especially for people who are in later stages of their career when they have children and and things they need to balance. And ultimately, you know, the data. What it shows is that company so on provided one of the things we track is in-person versus remote code attainment. And one of the things we've seen and one of the things that we've seen is that there is absolutely no correlation whatsoever between whether it's sales team is in-person or about whether they headquarter isolating, no correlation whatsoever.
01;09;34;26 - 01;09;55;29
Sahil Mansuri: We have tracked the statistics since 2020 when with COVID, because I was curious to see what the changes were. And we we've been we've been splitting teams. As soon as people started coming back, we would start to pocket them. There's absolutely no correlation. Our sales teams that are fully remote, that are blowing out quotas, they're sales teams that are in-person, that are breaking out borders.
01;09;55;29 - 01;10;13;00
Sahil Mansuri: And the inverse is true on both sides. However, however, there is certainly a correlation that if you are selling SMB product in person does work better and if you selling an enterprise product remote does work better.
01;10;13;01 - 01;10;14;20
Kyle Norton: I was just going to ask that question.
01;10;14;20 - 01;10;43;05
Sahil Mansuri: Yeah, okay. Well, there you go. So that does correlate. So I think it's more contextual based on your motion and the experience level of your reps and such. But overall in the market, there's no correlation. But if you are selling a sub 2030 K ACD product where the average rep that you're bringing as a sub ten year of us in three or four years and they therefore require a little bit more training and probably enjoy the perks of an office a bit more to do.
01;10;43;05 - 01;11;03;10
Sahil Mansuri: They do benefit from that oversight and that camaraderie. And then if you're if you're, you know, you're selling 10 million to $50 million enterprise software, cyber deals, whatever, then trying to create an in-person culture for that sales team that is highly correlates to lower performance.
01;11;03;12 - 01;11;25;14
Kyle Norton: And you'll introduce such a selection bias because if you're if you're a 35 year old, 40 year old enterprise rep and you're really good and you have a bunch of different offers, you've probably got kids or you like to travel or you've got other stuff going on and like you're just going to cross companies off the list that are like, Hey, you got to be in an office.
01;11;25;17 - 01;11;43;07
Kyle Norton: Yeah, yeah. It's like, I would like to be in an office a little bit here and but I got a two and a half and a four and a half year old. It's it would be hard to be like, Hey, you got to be in an office every single day, be be in traffic 45 minutes both ways. Like tough sell.
01;11;43;09 - 01;12;07;26
Sahil Mansuri: It's a tough sell. And, you know, the other thing that I find is that this this by the way, I, I, you know what? Fine. I'll say I wasn't I wasn't planning on sharing this publicly, but I think it's worth it just just for you, since you I love there is a definite correlation between one of the fun things that we did is like a little internal project at bravado.
01;12;07;28 - 01;12;22;29
Sahil Mansuri: There's a strong correlation between rep performance and whether they have kids under the age of five, which is to say, Yeah, because it turns out that as soon as you have a kid, you're like, Oh shit, I really got to make my what I've really got.
01;12;23;05 - 01;12;25;27
Kyle Norton: So they make they achieve better.
01;12;26;00 - 01;12;47;18
Sahil Mansuri: Rep performance increases of people who have kids under the age of five. And I and our thesis on bravado is that the reason for that is because is because kids are expensive, bright. But also it's like you have like a deeper purpose with every second and you know, you're like, I'm not going to waste my time with shitty leads.
01;12;47;18 - 01;13;17;08
Sahil Mansuri: I'm going to like, really make every deal count. Like, you know, there's like a forced function of focus and not wasting your time chasing bad opportunities and really in on the deals up close and stuff, it's it's actually quite interesting and remarkable. But yeah, we've seen very strongly that that especially in the first three or four years rep performance increases right after it's like when someone buys a house, gets married or has a kid, it's like their performance since the uptake over time and super interesting trend.
01;13;17;10 - 01;13;20;25
Sahil Mansuri: Oh, I was just science behind and.
01;13;20;28 - 01;13;42;12
Kyle Norton: I would have thought it was the opposite. As a dad of two kids under five, there's so much going on and like in your home life that I would think it would get in the way. But here, hearing that explanation does make a lot of sense because you just cut everything like I cut when I had kids, just cut everything that wasn't my kids or working like in all of the shenanigans.
01;13;42;12 - 01;13;50;03
Kyle Norton: Like, I don't really drink anymore. I barely go out like I do, right? I get to golf, unfortunately. Yeah, But like your vacation.
01;13;50;05 - 01;13;54;04
Sahil Mansuri: Your vacations have stopped. Your boys trips that stop or whatever and you.
01;13;54;07 - 01;14;07;12
Kyle Norton: Calve down to. Yeah, you calve down to like and family that that is really interesting. We're glad you shared that. Yeah. Okay. Anything else on the rep side, the things that a sales leader needs to know about the state of the rep.
01;14;07;14 - 01;14;27;13
Sahil Mansuri: I think there's one. There's one thing that we didn't touch on. It's not a big point I'll just, I'll just leave it here, which is I think we have gotten I think we have under-invested as a as a community over the last couple of years of giving people a vision of where their careers are going and instead really focus on the day to day productivity.
01;14;27;16 - 01;14;49;14
Sahil Mansuri: And this idea that, like, you can just be like, Hey, like, you know, you're you're, you can make a little bit more money or you can do whatever and like, that's good enough, you know, I don't think so. I think it is something that would love to see more leaders do is be like, hey, you know, there's all these tools that are being created to help with like productivity of sales teams and stuff like that.
01;14;49;21 - 01;15;04;13
Sahil Mansuri: What if I give your budget and you can buy a couple of them and check them out and then report back to the team as to which ones are good or bad. And you can help us improve the productivity of the team through your own efforts. Hey, like, you know, we we sell to restaurant owners. I'd love to.
01;15;04;16 - 01;15;19;05
Sahil Mansuri: I'd love to send you, you know, for, for a month to go work in a restaurant and get to get a sense of what that is like so that you can really get some empathy and try something different for a bit. Like the creative fun stuff that used to happen that we we used to do things like this.
01;15;19;10 - 01;15;29;00
Sahil Mansuri: I think we've forgotten. We've forgotten that. I think we forgot to have fun a little bit as a company. But we've gotten really good at like the QSR in the experience of those sort of.
01;15;29;00 - 01;15;31;13
Kyle Norton: Curious the last couple of years.
01;15;31;16 - 01;15;55;20
Sahil Mansuri: Yeah, and, and actually it's robbed us a little bit of the joy. And I think part of what makes sales so fun is these experiential outlier sort of moments. And I like to think of them as just like magic moments for the team. And continuing to create those I think is in whichever way that as leader you can is, is extremely accretive to the performance of the team.
01;15;55;22 - 01;16;17;24
Kyle Norton: Yeah, I'm almost done reading the power of moments by the Heath brothers and it's like fantastic on this topic about the importance of moments, how to create them. We're trying to do a lot of this on my team right now with like we, we got these and you can insert your awards into the plaque just sort of like in a video game you earn badges or attainment.
01;16;17;24 - 01;16;39;12
Kyle Norton: You were the top ref. The values award a goal it fits into this like glass piece of the plaque is like a tangible, tangible reminder of your accomplishments, like coming back to the importance of these moments when we're remote. It's like, Awesome, I had my best month ever. I'm still just like sitting in my little office typing on my little keyboard, like, know what?
01;16;39;14 - 01;16;46;17
Kyle Norton: Nothing, nothing changes. And so trying to try to, like, attach a moment or a physical object to that is something I've been trying to do.
01;16;46;19 - 01;16;57;12
Sahil Mansuri: I love it. I love that. I love heard of some companies that are they have like a like a Letterman jacket sort of thing. And then you get like a patch that you can add on and stuff like that.
01;16;57;14 - 01;17;23;24
Kyle Norton: I thought about doing like Cub Scouts, like Sash, like a Girls Girl Guides. Slash Yeah, but I thought people might not love that that Martin Roth has a bunch of cool stuff that he's done on that he had like he gave everybody a baseball bat the first time they hit quotas, hit their full quota, and there was like a bats ceremony and like, all this stuff, it's yeah, these things are special and then it's hard to replicate what you're about.
01;17;23;27 - 01;17;50;07
Sahil Mansuri: And that's and that's part of creating. And it's just it's just, you know, ultimately work is, is business. And we started this conversation talking about the criticality of not ignoring our kind of fiduciary responsibility in the game that we signed up for. But, you know, it's not it was never about the ping pong balls or the or the or the free sodas or the cool offices.
01;17;50;14 - 01;18;06;28
Sahil Mansuri: It was about the feeling of of like having a really cool space to work with cool people. And in a remote world. You have to replicate that or you're just going to lose people. You're going to lose their motivation for their fun. And so I, I think I haven't read that book, these mentioned the power moments, but it seems like a really good one.
01;18;06;28 - 01;18;08;20
Sahil Mansuri: And I will check that out. Yeah.
01;18;08;22 - 01;18;26;10
Kyle Norton: Yeah. Lemkin had a had a great post today. Work life balance is critical. It really is. But when your work is also your hobby, I mean, you can really ship a lot of stuff. And I was like, Oh, you like when when you can make it feel like, you know, like I actually like I do. I do like coming in to work every day.
01;18;26;10 - 01;18;43;25
Kyle Norton: Like I love sales. I love being able to like, grow and invest people. And so, yeah, like it, it, it doesn't people are like, man, like, do you ever get burned out or how do you like, do all this, all these things? I'm like, I don't know, man. I like it. Like, I generally enjoy the puzzle and the the people development.
01;18;43;28 - 01;18;55;27
Kyle Norton: So. All right. Let's go to a quick fire because we're running out of time. Okay. What do you wish you knew as a leader, like at the beginning of your your people management career, something you know today that you wish you knew back then?
01;18;56;00 - 01;19;12;05
Sahil Mansuri: Yeah. I mean, I think we just touched on what I think is the most unorthodox part of it, of being a leader, which is that you have to remember that the ramp wants to do the best job and when to like it can feel as if, like, why didn't you just say this or why didn't you just do that?
01;19;12;05 - 01;19;33;04
Sahil Mansuri: Or Why are you why are you why are you why are you and and getting to the how and the motivation of the person and tying that to their work. And I think Katie does an incredible job on this, you know, where, you know, when people start and this company has them right down like, you know, if you were to hit your annual number, what would you do with that money?
01;19;33;04 - 01;20;03;25
Sahil Mansuri: And and then like remind and knowing what matters to that person and then being able to speak to that, you know, knowing the names of their partners and their kids and and being able to like, refer to that involved, it's that shit gets tough because it sells. Shit always gets tough. It's a hard job and and creating a leading leading with a culture of empathy I think is easier said than done, but not is skewing tough.
01;20;03;27 - 01;20;22;17
Sahil Mansuri: Congress nation's I think is the other half of it so like it's a two part thing. So like once you want to lead from a perspective of love and compassion at the other end, like a lot of sales leaders I know hold back the real feedback. And I think sometimes like they're thinking it too. And you just got to someone's got to say it.
01;20;22;19 - 01;20;35;29
Sahil Mansuri: Yeah. And it can be hard for someone to just say it. And so I really love a sales leader who is capable of of saying the hard thing and saying it with love, but saying the hard and then having the right conversation.
01;20;36;01 - 01;20;42;26
Kyle Norton: Yeah. What's the hardest lesson you've had to learn in your career?
01;20;42;28 - 01;21;06;28
Sahil Mansuri: I mean, I think the hardest lesson I ever learned was my arms are too short to box of God. I think that was it I think it was just the fact that, like, I it doesn't matter a lot of what you do doesn't really matter compared to what the market will do. Like that's like, you know, I worked hard.
01;21;07;00 - 01;21;35;22
Sahil Mansuri: I got in the first real early stage startup. I joined with Glassdoor and I worked. I was always like crazy, crazy, hard working because I had strict Indian parents that refused to let me be any other way. And so I worked, you know, 95% of my capacity or whatever when I was when I was at Glassdoor. And obviously we had tremendous success as a company and and changed my life forever, whatever.
01;21;35;24 - 01;21;53;14
Sahil Mansuri: And then I went to go join this other startup. And that sort of was just just not good, right? The product was not good. The marketing was not good. This company was never going to be successful. It didn't matter what I did, but I worked like 195% at that company, you know, like I wouldn't sleep. I would like, stay in the office all night.
01;21;53;14 - 01;22;14;22
Sahil Mansuri: Like, I would, I would do I did just an outsized amount of work in inhumanely amounts of work because I had such pride and ego issues and self-esteem issues that I could never fail as my first sales job. Like, I just I could not live with that failure. And I did fail and and it scarred me for a while.
01;22;14;22 - 01;22;32;08
Sahil Mansuri: And like, it was like really hard. And but now, with the benefit of hindsight, I can tell. I know that, like, ultimately, I could have worked like half as hard at Glassdoor and we still are still would have been super successful as it turns out. And I could have worked even five harder at that other one. And so like ultimately the market will do what the market will do.
01;22;32;08 - 01;22;51;01
Sahil Mansuri: And so, you know, when the market turns and times are shitty, like you just got up, you have to be dispassionate and unemotional about things like your career and your work, and you have to be cogent of reality, which I think is really hard to do because then you have to accept that it's not all in your control.
01;22;51;03 - 01;23;06;11
Sahil Mansuri: And that's a hard thing as a salesperson to accept because you want to feel in control. That's part of the reason we do this job is because we like having control of our pay and our destiny and our futures and stuff. And and to accept that like, nope, it's just sometimes it just is what it is and you just got to accept it, I think is really hard for people.
01;23;06;11 - 01;23;07;29
Sahil Mansuri: And it was certainly hard for me.
01;23;08;01 - 01;23;15;23
Kyle Norton: That's a good one. Last question. What's the best thing you read in the last 12 months?
01;23;15;26 - 01;23;35;26
Sahil Mansuri: Um, I do read a lot. I enjoy it. It's my it's my I used to watch TV before before going to bed and then get really poor sleep and then, you know, woke up to blue like issues and stuff like that. And so now I read a lot. There's a book called Stumbling Upon Happiness.
01;23;35;28 - 01;23;39;21
Kyle Norton: Yeah, Yeah. Dan Harris. Yeah. Good plug.
01;23;39;23 - 01;24;16;13
Sahil Mansuri: So stumbling Upon Happiness is predicated on this really interesting concept, which is that if you, if you, you know, people say like, what does it mean to be human? It's like, oh, we have opposable thumbs, like whatever. But the thing that, that the author posits is that the reason why is it to be human is to sacrifice your happiness today in exchange for a happier future, which is to say, if you're super hungry and there's a giant piece of chocolate cake in front of you, you will abstain from eating it because you're like, Well, next week I'm going to the beach and I don't want to look like a fat ass on the beach.
01;24;16;13 - 01;24;34;17
Sahil Mansuri: So I'm going to sacrifice my hunger and my happiness of eating this cake, even though I'm super hungry now and instead eat like, you know, some cucumbers or whatever so that I can look good in this picture next week. And so that's what he says. It's like the thing to be human. But if you look back at your decisions, you're always filled with regret.
01;24;34;17 - 01;25;00;19
Sahil Mansuri: You know, you're just like, Well, why did I do that? That was so dumb. I should have made this other decision. And how counter counter intuitive it is that we always seem to make the wrong decision and why it is that we are not good at predicting what our future self wants. And he doesn't. Are some sort of experiments that I just find it really funny to explore the frailty of the human condition.
01;25;00;21 - 01;25;05;28
Kyle Norton: Yeah, that's great. I, I haven't read it. I have that on my list now.
01;25;06;00 - 01;25;10;11
Sahil Mansuri: It's so good. You'll love. Yes. You given your giving your person.
01;25;10;11 - 01;25;11;28
Kyle Norton: I've read some of his other books.
01;25;12;00 - 01;25;15;01
Sahil Mansuri: Yeah. This one's so good. Yeah. Anyway.
01;25;15;03 - 01;25;35;14
Kyle Norton: Well, this was great. All I. I think people are going to take a lot away from this and hopefully hear some, like, important and powerful messages about state of the market and how to think about it and grapple with it. I think that that's all really great stuff and some super cool research. So hopefully everybody goes and signs up on bravado.
01;25;35;14 - 01;25;43;11
Kyle Norton: They get the revenue. What's it called? The revenue recap, Revenue recap, bravado, echo anywhere else? Want a plug?
01;25;43;13 - 01;25;53;08
Sahil Mansuri: No, no, no plugs, man. Just happy to share advice into the world of sales and and try to do the best that we can. You know top level is profession that and I share and love.
01;25;53;10 - 01;25;58;17
Kyle Norton: And go follow you on LinkedIn because you're all here you've always got something to say there which is which is too much.
01;25;58;17 - 01;25;59;20
Sahil Mansuri: To say there.
01;25;59;23 - 01;26;24;15
Kyle Norton: This tech well, cool. All right. Appreciate it, man. This was great. Thank you for listening to the Revenue Leadership podcasts. 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 five star review. Share it with your network and please join me next Wednesday for another great conversation.