Too many companies get a big round of funding, and then they do what I call sprinkle the infield. So they put a sales rep in all the major cities or N F L cities in the United States, right? And then they're hoping that those people could sell. But what they haven't done is taken the time to understand their I C P.
Welcome to the Logan Bartlett Show. I am your host Logan Bartlett, and what you're gonna hear in this conversation is a discussion I have with John McMahon. Now, John is both a board member at MongoDB as well as Snowflake, but he is. Best known as a five time c r o that has built the sales processes and trained the salespeople that power enterprise selling in Silicon Valley.
John and I talked through a bunch of different things related to selling and sales process, including the biggest mistakes that early stage startups make, as well as how to hire a team to supercharge your company to the next level. They don't understand the importance of planning early. They'd say, Hey, we're gonna do 50 million this year and next year we're gonna do a hundred million.
I have 50 sales reps today each doing a million dollars in business. How am I gonna do a hundred million next year? You just can't hire [00:01:00] that many people that quickly and expect that you're gonna come out with the productivity that you need. Now, before we get into that, a brief request to please subscribe to this on whatever podcast channel you're listening to us on.
Now, without further ado, here's John.
JOHN: So with your name, it sounds like, you know, I'm getting on the Johnny Carson show.
LOGAN: That's what we're going for here. You know, it had a different name once upon a time, and I realized the reason I was doing it was to have accumulating value to myself. And so why have a distinct brand that was separate? Like why try to create a third brand around all this stuff? And so I rebranded it in January and it's been, it's been good.
LOGAN: It's been, so our audience, so you have it is, uh, it's mostly founders, investors and executives of tech companies or tech [00:02:00] curious people. And I think people that write books are really good at this. And so I've, uh, I've got you right here, but the structured frameworks for how to think about things, but some of the questions I pulled together, some of the things I want to ask you about, I think people just, uh, wanna be educated, and I'm sure you found this with your own podcasts.
LOGAN: people wanna walk out of this and be able to tell their colleagues, uh, that they heard, here's how to hire a VP of sales, or Here's how to internalize that our reps, uh, what our reps need to do better for next quarter or whatever. Like all that little actionable stuff. I'm gonna try to tease out a bunch of that stuff from you, but your book did such a good job outlining it, that I think, uh, I think it kind of gives me the playbook to, uh, to go about it
JOHN: Yeah The hard part of writing it wasn't actually structuring everything 'cause I could put that together very quickly you know But then I didn't wanna write a boring what I call like college textbook where it's just a chapter You close the first chapter you feel like I wanna [00:03:00] close this book My head hurts I don't wanna see it again So that's why I made it into a story and make it into a story when you're really not an English major I was an electrical engineering major that was really difficult So I had to learn about the hero's journey and custom and you know and uh character arcs and stuff like that That was boy that was hard
LOGAN: I came into it, uh, not realizing what style of book it was going to be, and so I expected the textbook, uh, that was what I was expecting to get. And the first, uh, few pages of it, I was like, hang on, are we gonna, is this just gonna be, uh, like fictionalized characters? And so the first couple pages of digesting it, I was like, wait a second.
LOGAN: What's going on here? And then it puts all the stuff in practice in an actionable terms that was easier to internalize Right. Than like trying to remember. The five forces of [00:04:00] hiring a VP of sales or like going through the characters and all that stuff. It's just, it, it was an easier read and maybe I expected from a sales book.
JOHN: I've heard that from so many people They felt like they could put the book down Go do something right now And so many people say now that they just have it on their desk It's like their Bible with all the yellow stick it notes in it and they reference it all the time And then some companies you know it's mandatory reading when you come to the company Okta Zscaler a number of other ones
LOGAN: That's great. I, I, uh, my one, my one, uh, quip with you is that I need an audio book version of that beautiful New York jersey combined accent of you just reading to me, uh, through, you know, all the salient points. I, this is the first hardcover book I've probably read in, I don't know, a year or something. So I, uh, that's what I want.
LOGAN: I want the audio book.
JOHN: Okay So I thought 'cause I just literally hired a guy and I said I can't be every [00:05:00] character so what I'm gonna do is get somebody that can help me I'll read all my parts Then I'll get somebody that can go out and outsource other people to read the other Characterist characters I don't know what you think about that because I
JOHN: think would get
JOHN: pretty boring of me just reading it
LOGAN: I mean, I don't know. You, you and like, uh, falsetto, uh, you like you and a tenor voice, you up and down.
JOHN: I don't know I don't have that brother You're thinking of
LOGAN: I don't know. I think it would be, I think it would be good. I think you could play all the characters, uh, a one man like Broadway show out there, just you acting out the, the forego, uh, journey of the company, but, well, good. Well, I appreciate you doing this. So I, I do wanna talk about the book in a bunch of different stuff here.
LOGAN: Uh, but I think first and foremost, I'd be curious your perspective. I mean, you've been doing this for so long and the, the, uh, the industry has, has evolved but also stayed the same. Is there, is there a single thing that you, as [00:06:00] you look back on your career of working with startups or, uh, even now being a board member, like the single thing that's hardest for executives or investors or founders to internalize about sales?
JOHN: Uh yeah There's a number of things I think that they um especially with the venture capitalists that I've you know been with that haven't been operators of the business Um I think they first of all they don't understand the importance of planning early um in the year this year for next year And why I say that is You know if you think about enterprise salespeople they have a six month ramp before they're considered that they should be productive Productive Meaning that every quarter after they've been there six months they're gonna be on quota right So what I've what I saw was it would be like November almost December and they'd say [00:07:00] Hey we're gonna do 50 million this year and let's say they have 50 sales reps to make the numbers easy Let's do a hundred next year So they don't really understand and sometimes the tech CEOs hasn't been through this process either And they say great let's do a hundred million They go to the poor C R O and say Hey next year we're gonna do a hundred million Well how's that possible I have 50 sales reps today each doing a a a million dollars in business How am I gonna do a hundred million next year We'll just go higher 50 more sales reps Well you can't hire 50 a players in a month You know it's the old you know well I won't I won't actually say it but you you just can't hire that many people that quickly and expect that you're gonna come out with you know the productivity that you need So you can't onboard 50 if you only have 50 people You can't onboard 50 people You can't train them develop them and then you can't squeeze [00:08:00] that ramp If the ramp was six months previously there's no reason to believe that that ramp is now gonna be a month So even if you hired 50 salespeople on January 1st they're not fully ramped until July 1st You lost six months of the year So there's no chance of you doing a hundred million yet I've still seen many organizations still try to make that work and it just doesn't work And the second part of that is the discipline of recruiting because if you're gonna hire 50 salespeople All at once Chances are you're not gonna get all A players you're gonna get some b's you're gonna get a lot of C's The second piece of the discipline of recruiting is that you have to lead with management because all these reps are gonna need a manager to train them develop them and help them sell and actually try to squeeze that ramp time down from six months So what a lot of companies do when they have a [00:09:00] race to have the right amount of head count those 50 reps to make next year's number they hire a lot of reps But it's almost like building a bridge over a Let's say the Bay Bridge in San Francisco it's almost like you know they put the pillars down in the water first Those would be the leaders Then they build the road over the pillars What a lot of companies want to do is just build a road out there with no pillars and the thing collapses on itself and I've seen that happen time and time again And then if they're if the company's scaling what I think a lot of people don't appreciate is that every before you're gonna scale you have to nail everything down as a process The recruiting process the pipeline generation process the candidate interviewing process you know all of those things need to be processes that are nailed down with measurable steps and KPIs for each and every one of those steps so that you can really understand what's going right and what's going wrong
LOGAN: In the book that, uh, you, you go through [00:10:00] and you outline a bunch of sales basics and, uh, I would love to talk through each of of those. And it might be, it might require you circling back to some of the points you just made, but why they're, they're important in, in building out a highly efficient and scalable sales organization.
LOGAN: So the first one you talk about is common vocabulary. Can you say a little bit about like why having a common vocabulary is important to a sales team?
JOHN: You know I've gone into many I've been invited into many like Q Bs and then they ask me to sit there and listen to them go over the forecast So then I hear people say champion economic buyer coach technical buyer And they're throwing out all this terminology and then I just make like I'm innocent and I stand up and say Hey can I just ask a question You know what is since I'm new here what's your definition of what a champion is And I might ask three different people in the room live I'll get three different answers So that means that in [00:11:00] this conversation that they're having about the forecast they're talking past each other And I think you know any sports playbook you know every position every player has a name to it It has a definition to it what they do Every play has a name Every player has defining actions and what every player does and that has to be the same in sales So that when we talk about the customers that are in this sales situation the economic buyer the champion the coach the fox the enemy those types of things we all conjure up the same definition on our heads when we're talking about it And the same has to happen in the sales process For every step of and every stage in every in the sales process we have to have a definition of what has to occur there Who has to do that What skills do you need And what knowledge do you need to be able to execute that play flawlessly
LOGAN: The next two points you had, were listening and be here, uh, were the, were the [00:12:00] phrases you use, what, what do those mean? Uh, in, in the sales context, I.
JOHN: Be here I think that these days I say that everybody's in a constant state of partial attention What I mean by that is they're checking social media they're hearing their alerts they're getting texts they're getting emails they're getting phone calls and no one really seems to be in the moment and be here right now present And if you're gonna make sales calls and you're gonna talk to customers you've gotta be here And you have to be in the moment And if you're not here and you're not in the moment there's no chance that you can be a very effective listener And in fact in most situations in daily life when you're speaking to people You almost get the feeling that before I'm almost done speaking they already have something that they wanna say so they're not listening to Really what I'm saying and listening is maybe most one of the most underrated skills or characteristics that a [00:13:00] salesperson can have And the reason I think it's it's a skill and it's not a characteristic is it's something you have to pay attention to all the time Am I really here in this moment Am I truly listening to what Logan says Am I listening with the intent to understand or am I listening with the intent so that I can say something So I think that those two things go hand in hand
LOGAN: In terms of self-awareness and transformation or self-awareness, intuition and transformational mindset, uh, those seem to be characteristics of, of people that you bring on. Are those, are those skills or are those innate things, and how do those translate to a sales process?
JOHN: Well intuition goes basically with being here and listening right I mean for me I've always thought that my intuition gave me like a second processing unit so I have my head that can process data and what I see but my intuition can really process data also So for me actually Logan I always felt that I was [00:14:00] best you know in a sales situation when there's let's say 10 customers in the room So I walk in the room and I'm use I'm I'm really trying to be here and I'm using my intuition as I go around the room shaking hands and looking in people's eyes and saying I This person could be a potential champion This person looks like they don't care Somebody just told them to show up to the meeting This person could be the economic buyer And I try to use my intuition just with that those handshakes and looking in people's eyes and saying hi I'm John What's your name And then when I sit down and through the medium checking how my intuition is doing you know am I right am I wrong But you know so many people 'cause they're not here they're not in the moment they're not listening they don't really use their intuition anymore And I feel like the best decisions that I've made is when you know the data that I logically get from presented to me and process through my mind that when that rings true with my intuition then I know I'm making the [00:15:00] right decision Right Self-awareness is a little something different Like as a salesperson or a leader you have to know how you come across to other people So I can't tell you how many times I've had You know some issues with people that worked for me and I would pull 'em aside and sit 'em down in a room and I'd say Hey Logan when you're not around what do you think the book is on you Well what do you mean Well if we were gonna describe Logan's characteristics and his effect on other people what do you think the book would say And you it's amazing how many times these are supposed to be salespeople that are supposed to be perceptive that they just don't understand what the the real book is on them So they don't they lack self-awareness And if you lack self-awareness and you don't understand your effect on other people that can become very problematic in trying to be successful as a salesperson
LOGAN: Can you tease these things out in a, in a hiring process? Like are [00:16:00] there specific questions that you, you're able to ask for? Self-awareness and seeing if, if a person actually has that.
JOHN: You definitely can with intuition Um you know like I might be halfway through the interview process and say Hey Logan how do you think you're doing Well what do you mean Yeah that's exactly what I asked you How how are you doing in this interview Is it going positive Is it going negative Now there may not be any real right answer but I wanna hear how they answer What factors did they put into that answer to see whether or to tell me whether or not they think it's going positive or it's going negative So I can kind of test out their intuition and also go back on for listening go back on some things that I've said before and ask them and go back and check on it again and see if they were truly listening to what I said
LOGAN: On the urgent curiosity side, that was the last one of the basics that you spoke about. And there there was a very [00:17:00] colorful, uh, gentleman that you referenced in here, uh, by the name of.
JOHN: Carlo Carelli greatest salesperson in the world
LOGAN: So I wanna read you the excerpt from the book describing Carlo, uh, and it's, it's such a visible, uh, person in my mind, uh, that you were talking about. But, uh, you, you described him as, uh, when you first met him, he walked in with a three day old beard, a closely cropped d i y haircut, and a black turtleneck sweater covered with a purple sports jacket.
LOGAN: In addition, his tan corduroy pants with large tufted cords and brown shoes were atypical of any Italian candidate I had previously met. It was hard to understand his broken English, and I couldn't help but noticing his two, uh, chipped front teeth when he smiled. So, not exactly, I think people hear Italian salesperson and, uh, Carlo, uh, Carelli.
LOGAN: Is that right? I, I'll it right eventually. Yeah. Uh, it doesn't sound like the, uh, the typical, uh, salesperson. What made him so [00:18:00] talented, and why do you describe him as, uh, the the best salesperson you ever met?
JOHN: Well let's put that into perspective the way you showed up because these days you might be able to show up like that and that was okay But back then like 20 years ago you know in the Milano office in Italy everybo every candidate that walked in looked like they were gonna be a uh Italian model right They had the hair perfect they had they were clean shaven they had a suit on a Bri or a ketone you know suit on with beautiful you know you know Ferragamo shoes And um and they and they they played the part and then he in came Carlo And this is where I had to use you know some listening questioning skills and also my intuition on whether or not I was gonna take a chance to hire this guy But what made Carlo so Amazing as a salesperson is he One he never took anything personally Two he was so [00:19:00] curious that he would genuinely ask why How come I don't understand So if a customer basically attacked him and saying that was something really wrong with his product he'd look 'em in the eyes and say yeah but but why Like and it might be true but Carlo wanted to understand why does the customer think that way And it was so genuine that it would disarm these customers and it would allow him to overcome those objections And he sold some of the biggest deals in the in the company you know year after year And he was actually able to get to the highest levels of organizations So I'm talking about like the c e O of Ferrari who at that time was Luca Diante mlo And he would get to the c e O of GB and all the major corporations In in uh in Italy So that's what made him great was he wanted to understand why and it was genuine
LOGAN: Is that [00:20:00] something that you can, that you knew and sensed when you were first hiring him, this urgent curiosity as you described it, or was that, uh, you just had a spidey sense and an intuition or feel that this was a special individual?
JOHN: No I couldn't really understand him so well with his broken English So what I did to him is I said to him towards the end of the interview I said I I paused so I could create a little urgency And I said Carlo I'm not so sure you can do the job And he looked at me with those eyes and said and twisted his head a little bit and said but why Like how how could you possibly think that way And I at that moment is when I knew okay I'm gonna hire this guy You know So yeah you could say I took a leap of faith which I usually don't do I'm hiring people but in Carlos' situation I did
LOGAN: You talk a lot about the whys of selling, and Jody Bonsal referenced this [00:21:00] as well, but can we talk about like how each of those are important and how you think about it from a product market fit standpoint? So the first one is why do they have to buy? And I think why do they have to buy from from you?
LOGAN: How do you think about, uh, that, that question.
JOHN: well There's a couple ways in which I use it If I'm gonna go actually like like I I did work with Jody at AppDynamics and if I'm gonna go talk to Jody and I don't know him and I don't know his product and he's asking me to maybe be an advisor to his company I'm gonna hide the fact that I'm gonna ask him those three why's So the first and then the same thing if a sales rep gets it in front of me and they're gonna tell me about their forecast about a certain customer I don't really need to go into Med Pick or medic to qualify I can just simply ask them first Tell me why they have to buy So the reason that they have to buy is they have to solve a pain And if you can't identify the pain then you don't know why they have to buy [00:22:00] The second one is you know why do they have to buy from us And the reason that they would have to buy from us is because we have differentiators in our product that perfectly align to the customer's pain points which means we can solve their problem uniquely uh more than any other company that's that's on the earth So there's perfect alignment there And then why do they have to buy now is the urgency Why you know why do they have to buy now Why not later Why not a workaround Why do they have to buy it all now Why can't they just buy some of it now You know why is it so urgent And I think when you can truly answer those three questions okay it's time to think about where that deal is in the sales process and whether or not we can force it Forecast it right now And if I'm sitting in front of a c E O that asks me whether or not you know I want to you know advise this company consult or be on the board they have to be able to answer those three questions [00:23:00] Otherwise I'm really not interested
LOGAN: One of the important things is, is that being true for a subset of customers? Right? It doesn't need to be true for the totality of, uh, businesses out there, but there needs to be, I guess, uh, the snowflake example, it was initially ad tech and a little bit of tech businesses as well. Is this, do you prefer to have a very narrow landing point within an industry for answering those questions initially, or would you prefer it be a, a broad set of customers that it applies
JOHN: mean when when we're starting the company as
LOGAN: Yeah. In the early days of selling, how important
JOHN: Yeah Well in the early days of selling it's super important because you too many too many companies hire you know they start their company they get a big round of funding and then they do what I call sprinkle the infield So they put a sales rep in all the major cities or N F L cities in the United States right And then they're hoping that those people could sell But what they haven't done is taken the time to understand their I C P What's that That's the ideal [00:24:00] customer profile So going back to the three why's understanding the differentiators that we do have in our product right now Okay now we work backwards What pains do they really solve Okay If we know that they solve these pains what use cases are those pains in Okay Now what use cases where are those use cases typically located Like what companies are they in Okay Inside those companies which persona owns those use cases Okay And then what industries are they typical Now based upon that I'm not gonna sprinkle the infield with sales reps I'm only gonna put them in the cities that have those great the greatest amount of those companies with those use cases So the therefore I can sell there Then what I do is train my sales reps you know and choreograph my messaging choreograph my demonstration particularly to those use cases And so will resonate with those personas And I know everything about [00:25:00] that persona too I know how they're measured how their what their budget is you know and I speak to them in their language Uh and and when you do that then you can go down like to tech and ad tech like Snowflake did originally build up enough revenues that you can feed development and development can continue to add enhancements and take you into other bowling lanes that you can go down
LOGAN: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. The, uh, being able to target customers and then there's the referential element of, uh, you know, people in ad tech know other people in ad tech and having that validation within these industries, I'm sure leads to even more efficient sales processes and the ability to go from the early adopters to the, uh, whatever the crossing the chasm stages are or
LOGAN: something
JOHN: But it's really the number one reason why so many startups burn so much money and and don't really come out um you know efficient They're [00:26:00] not making efficient use of their of the money that they pour into the Salesforce 'cause they really don't understand their I C P
LOGAN: So we dove into a bunch of the, the specific stuff that you cover in detail in the book, but one of the things that I think you touch on a little bit, but that you're, uh, perhaps best known for or the, the father of is the, the medic qualification process, not sales methodology. I know, I know that's not the right term, but it's a qualification methodology, right.
LOGAN: Medic and med pick.
JOHN: Yeah so let's think about it Let me give you an analogy if I'm gonna explain it is you have a sales process Your sales process is like a Google map If I'm gonna drive from Boston to New York I type it into Google Maps It tells me the ideal route to get to to New York the quickest If I same thing with a sales process You're talking about all the different stages maybe five stages and different steps inside those stages that tell you if [00:27:00] you follow these and don't skip any steps you're gonna get It's the fastest way to a purchase order Now when I am driving from Boston and I get an hour outside of Boston I gotta stop for gas I might get off the road Now I gotta get back on the road So I made a wrong turn essentially Okay I need a G P Ss to tell me tell Google Maps how to get me back onto the right highway And it's the same thing with with Med Pick It's something that has to layer onto your sales process so that you can understand when you're asking people questions you know at what stage are we at and what step in that stage is the deal And it's used for a lot of purposes one to forecast deals Two to train your sales reps If I know that Logan always gets to step three in stage two and his deal starts to stall Just like that playbook we were talking about earlier I now know that he's either lacking a certain [00:28:00] knowledge or he is lacking a certain skill to overcome that that step in the sales stage so he can execute it flawlessly right So I can use it for for multiple you know multiple ways but mainly a choose to figure out you know where are we in this deal Who do we need to talk to What information do we need so that we understand what the next steps are
LOGAN: What was the history of, of this? Because, and I wanna talk about the background, uh, and coming up with M P T C and then Blade Logic and all of that, but was this a process that you had refined at one of the stops along the way, and then the terminology was only later codified, or, or how did it actually come to be?
JOHN: Necessity's the mother of invention Logan So so for the first three and a half years of P T C when we started the product didn't work And we at that time we came out with a major release every six months which at that time seemed like really fast Whereas [00:29:00] today you could do you know a release you know every every uh every hour You could do a major release every week so
LOGAN: It was till V seven, right? You didn't actually, you were shipping a product that didn't totally function. So went back a year later or two years later with a new version of it, like were they saying, Hey, this didn't work, and you were saying yes, but now this one will, or.
JOHN: No we would say they would say it didn't work So we would sell 'em a copy of the software because we only had a two stage step sales process We would demo and close We were no different than pot and pan sales guys or vacuum cleaner sales guys We got our way in the door And we were gonna give you an amazing demo So well choreographed and I knew what I was gonna say The application engineer knew what they were gonna say We knew what objections were coming We've handled them before and we're going to demonstrate this thing flawlessly Like the curtains open the white hotspot comes on and and we're going to town we're dancing And people would say this is really amazing Hey can I get a [00:30:00] loaner No Can I do a benchmark No How about A P O C Nope Can I lease it Nope What can we do You could buy it You could buy it Yeah Okay So they'd buy you know we'd talk 'em into buying a copy They'd call back like a week or two later and say Hey I'm trying it on this geometry 'cause it was mechanical computer-aided design And they say like I can't get it to work I need an enhancement Okay well if you need an enhancement you're gonna have to order a couple more copies Well John I just told you the one I got doesn't work I know But if you wanna step up and get priority in the enhancement process you have to buy a couple more copies So we talk 'em into buying one or two more copies And so what happened is in Rev seven we we could you know demo the product and the sales process could change where we'd actually could do it like a P O V What happened was we were competing against two companies that were a billion dollars in revenue that had a broad breadth of [00:31:00] product And we knew that if we tried to just say okay we'll compete against those people we're gonna lose So this is where the decision criteria came into play where we had to lock down a criteria that we knew if we can frame it in this box we can win anything outside that box we're gonna lose And we actually got a bad reputation because we would go into an account saying we would play and then once the Criteria got too big for us We'd say we're we're out We're not gonna we're not even gonna play We're not even gonna let you touch the software So then what happened is we we would lock down the criteria and then we would find out you know again this is all the scars of experience We would find out that sometimes there was a strong champion in the account for the competition And they would change the process on us They'd make us do the p o c and then they'd say and then we'd win and they'd say oh well we want to add some more stuff And they'd change the process So we said okay now we gotta nail the process [00:32:00] Who's involved in the process You know how many steps are in the process and when does it end So that's the second D So we started to do that but then we also realized like Hey you know we got these guys that really don't have a lot of power in the accounts They're buying one seat here two seats there but they don't really have a lot of power And this decision criteria and and process still changes on us when we walk into an account It can be unpredictable You know as a sales rep you wanna walk in and know that things haven't really changed So then that's when we figured out we have to get somebody that's called a champion where they can you know help us control the criteria and control the process Not a coach a champion they got power inside the account They have influence with the top executives in the account so that that became the C Okay So now we really started to win Now instead of one or two seats we're winning 10 and 20 seats But then we started looking around and saying Hey this company has 500 seats 500 engineers [00:33:00] We want 'em all Why don't we go up high So we go up to this guy that we called the economic buyer because they basically had all the money and that might be the VP of engineering maybe a division leader a general manager or a C E O of a company And then we started talking our features and functions and they'd say Hey time out I got a CAD manager Four levels down go talk to them So we realized at that point in order to get to the economic buyer and talk to them about what we could do we had to change our language and we had to talk about time to market engineering productivity engineering costs those types of things And never mention cad never mention anything technology wise But we also found out hey what they're looking for is they're looking for other customers that did the same thing and we're gonna need an R o I to do that So we're gonna need the before scenario and the after scenario So here it came the eye like I identify the pain identify the problem [00:34:00] identify the initiative and then tie the metrics around The pain in the before scenario and then what can we do in the after scenario to enhance engineering productivity reduce costs and increase revenues by getting the product out the door quicker So that was the genesis of Med Pick It took you know years to really get there and and again through through a lot of scars of experience
LOGAN: So it's, it's, it's a process or it's a qualification methodology where you're shaping the decision criteria, one of the DSS and the process around the decisioning, that's the other, the d as well. But then setting yourself up for success so that you can qualify down the right number of opportunities and then make sure that you have the highest probability of landing a, a large deal within, within the account.
LOGAN: And what, what's, what's amazing to me about this and, and internalizing [00:35:00] all of this stuff, is that it's very scientific in a lot of ways of like how you go about architecting the sales process. I think most founders think of sales as a, or technical founders can think of it as black magic, and very much an art.
LOGAN: But when you lay it out in these terms, it's such a. Architecture of building the, the process that I think has a lot of parallels to being, building a technical architecture as well. Was that going through your mind or did that just happen to be that both of these things sort of had mathematic, uh, structures to them in a way that also would resonate with technical founders?
JOHN: No it definitely went through my mind You know I have an electrical engineering degree and and if there's only one thing you're taught in engineering school it's that everything has to be defined as a process right So you had to think in terms of you know a sales process and then think in terms of how am I gonna measure exactly where I am at each and every [00:36:00] point of that process so I can change things I can you know understand why I am doing things right or why I'm things are going wrong But the biggest thing in that whole med pick thing it all hinges on having a really strong champion That's where most salespeople make a mistake They get a coach they get somebody that likes them wants them to win gives them inside information um kind of masquerades and tells 'em yeah I got the power I can I can buy this stuff And they really don't have any true influence in the account with the economic buyer They can't get a meeting with the economic buyer
LOGAN: And the difference between a champion and a coach is the, uh, is the authority and the the influence. What, can you draw the distinctions there?
JOHN: Yeah I usually think of an organization chart as that's something that just shows you who has authority in the account who's in the leadership positions That's authority right But authority doesn't always go hand in hand with influence So if I'm the c e o of the company or c r o of the company and [00:37:00] seven o'clock at night and I got a problem depending upon where the pro what the problem is I may go down three four levels to people that I know are subject matter experts Or have made good decisions on these things in the in the past And those are a lot of times in organizations especially big organizations people that are in charge of initiatives you know so the C E O says in the annual report we're gonna do these six things They put initiatives in place Guess who's in charge of those initiatives All could be potential champions right So they have influence with the economic buyer They have respect in the organization That usually comes from technical respect or political power Everybody knows that Logan is an up and comer You ask enough questions they know oh that guy right there he's gone places in this company Right Or if it's on a certain domain then there might be a technical champion that everybody turns to and says when it's this subject that's the person in the organization everybody's gonna turn [00:38:00] to for the decision And you have to smoke those people out You have to find out where they are
LOGAN: Has your thought process on sales changed with the rise of companies like Atlassian or HubSpot or Datadog or so some of these more bottoms up P L G businesses? Has that informed any of these, these things, or is that just kind of a distinct motion?
JOHN: I think it's a distinct motion Again if you think like I do that everything's a process Then in P L G it's a process too It's just not as an extensive process as enterprise sales where you sell a multimillion dollar deals All you're doing with P L G is you're taking like a free tier and trying to convert people to a paid tier So there is a process and you have to understand well what are you trying to qualify for in that process Is it usage Is it activity Is it the usage of specific functions Is it is it the person the title the organization the persona So everybody's looking for indicators and they start analyzing every which way [00:39:00] in P L G to analyze what indicators Do we need to see that Can say that this is a qualified opportunity and this thing should convert from a free from the free tier to the paid tier
LOGAN: One of the things that you, you highlight, uh, in such a meaningful way in your book is the importance of, of hiring. And one of the quotes that resonated with me was if sales managers hire C grade players and do everything else perfectly, onboarding, training, developing and maintaining a great sales process, that team will still have a difficult time becoming the number one sales force.
LOGAN: However, if you only hire grade A players and do everything else, average, the A players will find a way to win. And then the other, uh, adage or, or phrasing you've used in the book is, A players hire A players, but B players hire C players. Can you talk a little bit about the, the importance of recruiting and, and hiring and why these.
LOGAN: Things are the case between A players and B and C players.
JOHN: Well first of all [00:40:00] that's the that statement is a little bit of an exaggeration I'm not saying that we should do anything average but it was just
LOGAN: should probably try to be good at all of 'em. Uh,
JOHN: Show the difference between hiring a's and hiring c's Um well I think recruiting's everything especially if you're a startup and you have big aspirations to be in a multi-billion dollar company then recruiting becomes everything because the people you recruit today are your future leaders tomorrow So you have for me I know didn't really care so much about let's say P T C as an example and we can use other companies A lot of people wanna know that they have domain experience Okay I don't really care about that I and they wanna know that they have a skill in in certain things I don't really care about that so much What I really care about is the characteristics of the person So if I really think about recruiting somebody and interviewing somebody they have knowledge they have skills They have execution experience or a track re [00:41:00] record which tells you a little something about their background but their resume doesn't really tell you much It tells you whether or not they're job hoppers It tells you some domains that they've been in but that's about it The big bucket is the characteristics Why is that so big Well if I hire somebody that's super intelligent then I'm going to be able they're gonna be able to learn and gain the knowledge that I train them on very quickly If they're super competitive and they have what I call a PhD persistence hard and desire then they're going to pick up the skills because skills are things that are learned over time through many different repetitions Then I'm looking for people that are coachable and adaptable 'cause sometimes people are very coachable and Logan will say yeah John I understand exactly what you're saying Then I have to come back to Logan two weeks later and tell him again He goes yeah I understand what you're saying I'm gonna do it But Logan never adapts And when the startups I've been in sometimes you're in a startup and for two years you [00:42:00] look at certain people and go oh my gosh their skillset and the things they know are just I wish I could do some of those things Two years later when the products change the competition's changed the customers have changed the market's changed the messaging has changed They haven't changed they haven't adapted and now they look like a dinosaur And that's when those people typically you know have to leave on their own fruition or are asked to leave So coachability adaptability And then you know you and I talked about curiosity I think that's huge 'cause that just is another sign of a willingness to learn and a potential willingness to adapt And then finally for me the last one is integrity You know if you have real integrity And this is a fast growing company I don't have to worry about looking looking back over my shoulder into the past
LOGAN: What are your best interview questions for these, these different traits? I, I read in the book the, the most competitive thing you've ever done is one of 'em and the most [00:43:00] difficult situation you've had to overcome. Uh, speak a little bit about those, those questions, but then also any others that you can try to assess.
JOHN: Well I think you have to be careful when you ask some of those questions too because again like we talked about earlier you have to be able to listen be in the moment and really be inside their situation So I if you ask that question talk tell me about the toughest situation you've ever been in your entire life I mean I've had many many people crying in my office Right And what I'm looking to hear in any of those situations is walk me through how you overcame that situation What did you do You know what help did you get You know and how did you overcome it To be the person that you are today And all I'm trying to do in in questions in an interview is I'm not asking these superficial questions off the resume I'm asking I wanna be inside Logan's head I wanna be in his [00:44:00] thinking how he thinks what he thinks about Those are the types of questions that I'm trying to get deep on So that those questions that you just posed are just opening salvos But I'm gonna ask 6 7 8 9 10 more questions to get deeper and deeper inside Logan and understand how he thinks and what motivates him and what issues does he have and fears and desires and goals those types of things That's what I wanna know and I can't tell you how many times I've interviewed people and they've told their manager geez I feel like John was inside my head
LOGAN: I can imagine getting into the most difficult thing someone's done in their life, and if the person starts, uh, you know, potentially breaking down, I can imagine that, uh, is a Yeah. That you're, you're really inside of, of how they're, how they're thinking about things.
JOHN: You also think about how are they handling me How are they handling this whole situation Have they shown up prepared Are they asking curious questions Are they listening carefully to what I say You [00:45:00] know And then I sometimes might stress them out a little bit Like I said to Carla like I pause and I say well they say how do you think I'm doing I said well I I don't I don't actually think you you could do the job You know so I'm gonna salespeople are always getting objections and if you can't handle an objection about yourself it's gonna be really difficult for you to handle objections about the product that you sell So I've always felt like I had to at the right point throw out one or two objections
LOGAN: One of the things that you, you highlight, uh, or that I've heard you talk about is like, it's. There's a right rep, uh, or person for a moment in time with the business and what someone that's super successful, uh, at, at a huge enterprise where they never have to go figure out where their laptops come from or how to be scrappy in that regard is not necessarily going to be the person that you wanna hire in the early stages of a, of a business.[00:46:00]
LOGAN: Is that something you can actually figure out from the resume or does this go back to those questions like, how do you figure out if someone's scrappy or the right moment in time for your company?
JOHN: Well if you're a raw startup I mean you have to be able to you have people that can do what I call scrounge They have to scrounge for resources Um everything that they do there's there's no no one else is doing it for them right They have to do it for themselves So if they've If you look at their resume and they've only been at big companies like salesforce.com and Oracle and some of those big companies there's a high probability very very high probability they're just not gonna make it in your organization In a raw startup like that if most people in a and they'd agree with me that have been in this situation they see a resume from salesforce.com I IBM m hp Oracle they just take it and throw it in the trash can 'cause they just know those people aren't gonna make it Now [00:47:00] if they if they've only been there three or four years and they went through the salesforce.com training program yeah there's a chance that they might make it if they've been there 15 years and 10 years at at Oracle chances of them being able to scrounge for resources Yeah low probability of success
LOGAN: Now, if you were a founder or c e o listening to this and you're trying to assess the caliber of your, your sales leader and, and thinking about is this an a person? Are there, are there questions that you would, you would ask? Or is there a way of assessing if this is truly the, the person that's gonna help take you to the next level?
JOHN: You're talking about trying to hire your C R o and it's a star it's a
LOGAN: Yeah, or maybe you already have the person and you, you can't tell how much is, is the product's fault versus you sales person's fault.
JOHN: Yeah Well first I'd wanna see if they've ever had a history of [00:48:00] doing it doing something like this before Right So because the greatest indicator of future performance is past performance So if they've never gone out on their own built in Id you know ideal customer profile and figured all those things out that you and I just discussed Then train the sales force however small it might be on the messaging choreographing the demo getting to those personas and and starting to you know drag in some business Um yeah you might have the wrong person
LOGAN: What about the position y y the Tom Brady, uh, example of, of him understanding the field, but also we, we touched on a little bit, like the point in time at which someone makes sense for the, for the company. Can, can you talk about the Tom Brady example and, and how that might feed in the, the startups?
JOHN: That's really just more um the difference between knowledge and skills right Like I'm a gigantic hockey fan right [00:49:00] Yeah The Bruins and now they're gonna they'll be in a five to 10 year rebuild right after Bergeron and and Retchy just left But I could tell you so many things about about hockey when I'm watching the game especially even with people that you know have played at Division one You know college teams and even you know you know into the pro levels they'll say wow you know so much about this game but you know I can't take a slap shot from the blue line probably fall down So and it's the same thing like with Tom Brady Tom Brady no one will doubt that Tom Brady Michael Down is one of the greatest quarterbacks ever and he has tremendous knowledge of the game But if we take Tom Brady out of the position of quarterback and put him in any other position on the first play you don't even need to know much about football to say what is he doing in that position He's failing So it just emphasizes how important skills are you know in the in the game of sales you really have to have the skills for the [00:50:00] position And what I mean by that is you can't just take a number of you know territory sales reps and then all of a sudden decide oh we're gonna take these 20 Territory sales guys and just throw them all into calling on one you know major account like Goldman Sachs Citibank or Morgan Stanley They're gonna chances are they're gonna fail Why They they've never seen that movie before They haven't seen the politics they haven't seen the divisions they haven't seen where decisions might get made at the top and across other types of functions So it might be a multi-department decision And how do I corral all these people into a common decision criteria a common process for a common P o V and come out of there with a win I've never seen that movie before And that's a you know it's a skillset that a lot of you know people that don't know Sales just take for granted
LOGAN: It's fascinating because you, we talked about the hiring process and how important it is to hire for a lot [00:51:00] of the, uh, a lot of the, the traits, intelligence, PhD, coachability, adaptability, integrity, curiosity. But then there's also this element of, or some element of requisite experience and domain, like throwing out the example of Salesforce or Oracle if they're trying to come in as well.
LOGAN: And also making sure you, you have people that know how to go through a process like Goldman Sachs or a healthcare company and, and all of that. It's an interesting balance between the traits a person has and the, the domain that they, they've, they've built over time.
JOHN: It usually comes with the natural growth of the company right When you're a When you're Snowflake and with Chris Deon and you're first doing just tech and ad tech you're not throwing sales guys into the biggest organizations in the world yet right You're starting to develop your product You're making sure that it can fit into many different use cases The company's growing Instead of 50 reps you have a hundred 200 reps 300 reps and now you can take a chance on [00:52:00] hiring some of those people that might have more domain experience and and more skill sets in hiring You know going into major corporations like Morgan Stanley and being successful
LOGAN: We've talked a lot about hiring and how important it is, uh, to, to, to bring in a people, but, uh, one of the things that, that, uh, I think you believe is that it needs to be the job of the sales organization and not hr, not recruiting or any other, to, to bring in the, the sales talent one, I guess, do you, do you agree with that?
LOGAN: And two, why is that the case? If so,
JOHN: I never understood why I would want I'm the coach I'm the head let's say the head head coach I don't understand why I would want anyone else doing my recruiting for me that's gonna define my team And whether that team is only five people or 50 people why do I want somebody else doing that And the next thing I know I show up to the room Let's say it's 50 and I show up to a room where somebody else helped doing most of the hiring [00:53:00] for me And I look at the room and I think oh my God I'm gonna lose my job These people are horrible Like there's no chance that I'm gonna take a These misfits and turn 'em into a players overnight and make these big numbers that are sitting in front of me So I think that sales leaders have to take ownership over who goes onto their team and who doesn't go on their team They have to take ownership And the reason you have to take ownership is not only to be highly successful but you need to understand everything about that person that you are bringing onto your team And you can understand as we talked before so much through that interview process And I'd wanna know when the person shows up here's where I think they're strong and here's where I think they're weak and I can start to help develop them so they can be successful a lot faster
LOGAN: One of the things that. Often happens within organizations is the individual contributors end up growing into sales management roles in, in [00:54:00] some way, shape, or form. What, what do you see as the hardest part of that transition? Like you've been a really successful rep, now you need to go manage the East Northeast territory for the organization.
JOHN: hardest part for most reps when they make the transition to management is that they think they have to prove themselves as salespeople So they they want to be super salesperson and they wanna sell all the deals And then the second biggest mistake they make is thinking that everybody's like them so that they think that everybody's the same right So anybody that has had kids understands that these kids grow up in the same house same parents but they're completely different and that's no different When you pick up people on a sales team you have to understand that each person on that team Has different strengths weaknesses goals insecurities doubts fears all those types of things that you have to help them overcome to develop them and make them successful And so the number those two [00:55:00] mistakes are the ones that you know most first line managers make the most And you know if we really think about it the the way to hold everybody accountable to develop their people and recruit the right people costs you nothing So I used to stand in front of everyone and say you know today we're 50 million Next year we're gonna be a hundred million Here's all the open leadership positions that are coming about Now if you wanna get one of those positions especially if you're a first line manager and you want to go to second line or second go to third you have to prove to me that you're able to recruit someone develop them and lead them to take your spot And if it's not apparent that somebody can take your spot on your team Why would I promote you Why Why are you gonna make it my problem I'm gonna promote you And now I got a problem down below Because you can't recruit you can't train you can't develop And this and the flip side is true too to [00:56:00] hold people accountable If they get rid of people There's too many organizations that just say oh Joe the sales rep or Sally the sales rep Oh they just no good And we got rid of them Well wait whoa hold on a second Whose fault is that Sure Sally and Joe play some part in it But what about you Didn't you hire them Yes Weren't you responsible for training and development Yes Weren't you responsible for leading them Yes Okay I want you to go down to the bathroom I want you to look in the mirror and think hard Come on back and tell me which one you failed at Because we have we can't keep failing when we're hiring people Right So we have to understand you know what are we doing wrong So we can't Keep making the same mistakes when we're hiring people We either couldn't recruit we can't train and develop or we can't lead It's gonna only be one of those three things
LOGAN: I wanna talk about the process of actually letting someone, uh, go and, you know, how, how that ultimately ends up occurring. [00:57:00] But there's a, there's a distinction between, um, KPIs and inputs and, and then also, uh, quantifying the actual output of it. And so, uh, one of the examples in the book you talk about is like a hockey team gets assessed on goals and not on shots, but you also need to have the measurement in place so you can manage to some of the up funnel activities as well.
LOGAN: So how do you think through like, Upstream KPIs. And does the does, is it the Bill Walsh, the score takes care of itself? Or is it, Hey, we, we gotta keep track of what the score actually is, otherwise we're just putting shots against the net that are getting saved.
JOHN: A couple analogies So first of all if I'm a baseball coach and you know Logan's hitting 300 I don't really have any problems but now all of a sudden Logan starts hitting two 20 I got a problem Right So now I'm going [00:58:00] um down to the coaches the the pitching coach and saying Hey is Logan watching film of opposing pitchers Yeah Well he used to spend a couple hours a day in here and now he's only spending like 10 minutes I go to the batting coach and ask the same thing Yeah He used to spend a couple hours before and after every game hitting balls you know Now he comes in for 10 minutes and he starts hitting some balls Okay So those activities of watching film and and hitting balls that's starting to play a big part into the accomplishment of hitting 300 Right And that's the same in same in sales Like too many leaders are keeping track of activity but they're not measuring true accomplishment So what I mean is they're saying How many emails Did you send calls Did you do how many how many meetings did you did you did you did were you in okay that's those Those are great activities but that doesn't mean that they're gonna accomplish it and get a sale So somewhere in the sales process there has to be an anchor that says when I do this thing when I get to [00:59:00] this point then I know I'm gonna get a sale So one of the things that I did like at Blade Logic is I said I I want you to get two POVs a quarter because the quota was $500,000 a quarter the average deal was two 50 And if they got the P O V and I trained them around the P O V it meant and they could only get to a P O V if they met the economic buyer in person And the only way to do that is you had to have a champion right So I basically all those things were gonna happen by definition So get me to I don't care about how many emails you send and how many meetings you have and how many calls you make I don't care I only care that you're getting two POVs that are successful every quarter 'cause then that means by definition everything else has happened Kind of like if you're hitting 300 you're probably doing all the other activities Right So I think too many leaders especially first line second line leaders that haven't done it before they're measuring on these people going [01:00:00] in and getting meetings So they run in and they get a meeting so that they can say I got a meeting with Logan and X Y Z corporation Okay great But what does that mean Logan's just one guy and 50,000 people That doesn't mean this is gonna lead to an order It's not an accomplishment
LOGAN: It makes a lot of sense. I I, I think one of the things that is, For the most part, a lot of the founders ask, uh, when the business is going well, where are the examples? And I would love to talk about Chris Degnan, where he's been able to scale from the very early days of Snowflake. He's almost been there 10 years, uh, as the C R O.
LOGAN: And I think that's the exception. And I, I have a lot of founders asking themselves, Hey, is this the person this person got me from one to 10? Is this the person that's gonna get me from 10 to a hundred? And if you're a founder in that seat, thinking through the C r o or the VP of sales, or maybe the VP of sales, and you're thinking through a first or second line manager [01:01:00] that's been with you for the ear from the early days, how do you answer that question?
LOGAN: Or what are some, some of the inputs that you can ask yourself of like, yes, this has been the person, they've done a great job through this point, but it might not be the person for the future. I.
JOHN: Yeah it's really hard but it's a well again all about coachability and adaptability So many times in the early days of board meetings you know when Chris would you know step out of the board meeting the c e O might look at me and go you know do you think he's gonna make it next year And I'd have to say yes or no And when I would say yes It's only because I saw like a material or and tangible increase in his abilities and which gave me confidence that he's gonna continue to grow And so if you're not seeing tangible evidence of progression in leadership in the ability to manage people the ability to handle deals and higher [01:02:00] complexity deals and higher complexity problems then the chances are that they're not gonna make it But I don't don't think think that you can just go off of one or two indicators That's really tough I mean certainly people are keeping track of sales Productivities the average deal size going up and is the turn going down Are they you know what's the turn on the salespeople There's a lot of things to pay attention to but that doesn't necessarily say that the leader is actually making incremental measurable jumps towards towards progression
LOGAN: So of all the traits, it sounds like the coachability and the adaptability are the ones that are gonna, that you need to ask yourself, is this person demonstrably better or growing at the speed at which I need them to, to be this next role?
JOHN: And they take they take coaching very well So if you you can see that too that's evidence Like if you say Hey Chris in order for you to make it next year here's some things you're gonna have to start to pay attention to And then you see evidence of him actually putting [01:03:00] that in place And he's never done that before but he's doing it now You know I'm starting to have a lot of confidence
LOGAN: Firing is something that I think all companies deal with and figuring out how to, how to let people go. In your experience, I'm sure you've had to, uh, let go of more people than you care to remember. Did you, did, did you know it early on in the, in the cycle that this was maybe a mis hire and you waited too long to let them prove themselves?
LOGAN: Is it just hard to have a heuristic around that? Um, what, what, what did you typically find when you, when you made the wrong hire?
JOHN: What's interesting is always typically goes back to characteristics right It doesn't go back to their domain knowledge or any of that stuff It goes back to their characteristics that you missed in the in the interview process Um certainly you know I've made mistakes in early on you have to decide like this person's just not gonna make it But I've also been guilty of holding on [01:04:00] a little too long In fact there's a person that's been the c r o like three times and when I was at Bel Blade Logic they hadn't sold anything in nine months So I had the c E O telling me Hey you know you have to get rid of this person So then it was a year The C E O and the chairman of the board told me you gotta get rid of this person I said no I'm not getting rid of him He said why are you not getting rid of him I said because I personally am making sales calls with them and I can see the again that tangible jump in their capabilities and it was in the fifth quarter that they landed two deals one point for 1.1 and one for 1.3 million That person's a C R O today I could have really hurt their career if I didn't take a real intimate interest in understanding them and where they were I could have ruined their career but if I don't see that incremental evidence and I don't see the hard work that they're putting into learn the skills and gain the knowledge then certainly if they don't want to put the work in why am I putting the work into them [01:05:00] It has to be a shared responsibility the leader and the person
LOGAN: It sounds like in that example, you uniquely believed the entire time, uh, and maybe the board or the outside people didn't have there been examples where maybe you lost faith, uh, and, and that person actually ended up co course correcting and it, and it worked out Like, are there the counterfactual of maybe you thought you should fire them and they, they proved you wrong over some period of time, or maybe you did fire them and in retrospect, that was actually the wrong, the wrong call.
JOHN: No I I think most cases when you do let somebody go it might be that they reach a certain level Like you know enterprise sales has many different levels It's almost like double a ball triple a ball single a ball and then going into the pros as an example So there's different levels of it different complexities of product different complexities of selling Especially when a startup when they don't know [01:06:00] your name and they don't know your product and you know if I call up and say I'm from I'm John McMahon from Cisco Okay they got the budget They know the you know the person to call on They know your products Hey I'm John McMahon with Blade Logic They don't know who you are and they don't know what your product is They think you sell blade servers and you're selling software Right So um there's you know there's different complexities to it So sometimes you see a person where you say Hey this person's just not gonna make it over here with us You let them go and they find their way to a place where they really find a home based upon their knowledge and their skillset and they're successful And a in a funny way you did you did them a favor 'cause they were miserable You know where they are And and the and the funny thing about letting people go is I'd say that 95% of the time they know it's gonna happen and they're sending you signals subconsciously They're sending you signals or little things that they do They're [01:07:00] saying we need a watershed event I need you to let me go 'cause I'm not just gonna quit
LOGAN: Hmm.
JOHN: because I've never I've never terminated a person too early
LOGAN: That was kind of my assumption on, uh, that, that you never. Once you've made that decision, it's such an emotional thing to get to the point of letting someone go, they have a family, they depended on you. You, it's also a reflection of yourself, right? That says, Hey, I made a mistake. And so you have to admit, getting through all those psychological hurdles to get to the point of letting someone go for you to be wrong about it is just so unlikely.
LOGAN: And so once, one of the things I'll, I'll tell my founders and try not to be too Machiavellian about it, but if that's the way you're feeling, it's probably that snowball's just gonna keep building And you're gonna regret not doing it earlier.
JOHN: Oh no you're right It's very emotional I've had people where I've been to their house You know met their kids you know had dinner with their families and [01:08:00] wow They just get to a point where you just gotta let 'em go and it's it's painful But you know what again they land on their feet and then they they're doing much better They just weren't making it It's like like we said you know you just went from single a ball to triple a ball and now that ball's not you know 85 miles an hour anymore It's 93 miles an hour and it's moving and you can't hit it Time to develop that skill or back go go down level
LOGAN: Yeah. Well, and it's also could be fall, like it could be selfish to you of holding off. You're delaying this person, finding their next. Career that they're gonna be able to be at for years. Right? And if you're just waiting, holding out hope for another quarter, but you've mostly made up your mind already, it's actually not fair to, uh, to the individual right, to keep hanging around if, if, if it's already predetermined, what you're gonna
JOHN: Yeah What's funny is sometimes I look at these board decks and then you'll see the the people who put down you know that they churned let's say 25% of the sales [01:09:00] force and they'll say right next to it non-g regrettable And I'm thinking okay so that means you have to become a better recruiter If every single one of those people you churned you don't regret you're a horrible hire You're horrible you gotta get better
LOGAN: Normally, I think a lot of our enterprise companies see roughly 20%, uh, attrition modeled into their business, and that includes promotions, right? As well as, uh, managing out. Are there, is there a percentage that you think about on an annualized basis of what's a normal versus excessive amount?
JOHN: think it's typically in the super fast growing uh companies that I've been associated with it's closer to 25% right Because even Jack Welch at one time said if you can hire eight A players outta 10 you're a really great recruiter right So that's 20% right there And then you have 5% for promotions right Um so yeah I've seen mainly 25 and I call it like [01:10:00] you know churn you know attritions plus promotions equals churn in the Salesforce
LOGAN: You've probably had to have a lot of these hard conversations with, uh, with people going through this. Are, is there anything that you would say to someone listening, uh, having been through a lot of those emotional cycles, uh, about how to actually go about the process of letting someone go?
JOHN: Well usually it's not a surprise It can't be a surprise right I mean you had to have as a leader if you're intimate with your people and you know their skill level their knowledge their all those things we talked about their fears and certainties doubts 'cause you're intimate with them Um then it's not this should never come as a surprise Even if they quit on their own that should not be a surprise to a leader So anytime I've seen a leader where they say you know Logan just quit What do you mean Logan just quit You never told me like he was thinking of quitting So they're surprised You should never be surprised as a leader One it shouldn't be a surprise And two they should understand A lot of [01:11:00] times you're putting people on a plan You're hoping that they're gonna get there and a lot of times they might choose out So you say you know we have two choices Logan here's some things that we've discussed you know 10 different times and now I'm gonna have to put you on a plan because your performance just hasn't been there for the last couple quarters Here's the things you're gonna have to get correct in the next 90 days And the other option is that you'd be we package you out What what do you what do you think you want to do And a lot of times Logan will say I'll take the package I don't think I can get there
LOGAN: I wanna take a step back just 'cause it's, um, I, I think your, your background and path into all of this, uh, you referenced earlier electrical engineering, uh, by, by trade. And it, I get the feeling in, in hearing you, you speak and talk about all this stuff, that in some ways you might've been an accidental, uh, sales leader.
LOGAN: That this wasn't some predestined thing that you were gonna go into this field. And I, I, I don't know if [01:12:00] you, if you consider yourself introverted, I've heard you describe yourself introverted. You seem, you, you can fake a good extrovert on a, on a podcast here. But if we go all the way back to N J I T or growing up in, in, uh, in New York and then moving to New Jersey, what sets you down this.
LOGAN: This path of being a, you know, an iconic now sales leader.
JOHN: Well what happened is I went to engineering school and then um I was one of the even though I was you know Um an extroverted introvert is the way I describe myself I could speak and people elected me to the be the president of the student body of the Institute of Electrical and Electric Electronic Engineers And to make a long story short one night I had um a panel I brought in a panel to talk to the students you know people from production and QA and design And um I had these round table set up so the students could sit down with one of those authorities and [01:13:00] ask them questions at dinner And when I got done running the logistics the only table that was left was sales And no one was sitting there except the sales guy So I sat down and talked to him and and the sales guy I could speak with the sales guy So I went home and I told my dad 'cause I lived on campus but I went home and told my dad And my dad never went to high school So I told him the situation He said well you know I don't know a lot about this world but I do know that really good sales guys can make a lot of money And being a poor kid I was like okay it's over I'm going into sales
LOGAN: Was that HP or did you find your way to HP after that?
JOHN: Yeah HP selling electronic test instruments Two electrical engineers Yeah
LOGAN: So you were selling hardware, physical products at that point, and then you found your way to software sales. When and and how?
JOHN: Well I was one of the top you know salespeople at HP selling instrumentation HP was worried that software was gonna come and eat their instrumentation business Some of these boxes back then were like microwave analyzers and spectrum [01:14:00] analyzers were a hundred thousand dollars That's 30 years 30 something years ago So um they got they uh acquired a a software company and the VP of sales came over near my desk I didn't know who he was He said Hey you know my name's Mike Reed I wanna introduce myself Say Hey Mike how are you Good So he goes I hear you One of the best sales guy He goes I guess so And he said well I want you to join my team I said well why would I do that And he goes 'cause all my guys make over a hundred thousand dollars And remember this is over 30 years guys Okay done We're selling software So it didn't take too many this you know a lot of thought for me to change career projections you know and that's how I got into it But anytime I ever did did anything thinking back on my dad though he had a big effect on me Because anytime that I would brag about anything that I did I'd say Hey dad you know I just did that I did this He'd say yeah that's really good that and a token will get you on the subway Now get the fuck outta here So it always [01:15:00] kind of like you know put me back in my place about what's important versus what's not important So titles and all that type of stuff really don't matter It only matters what you really do
LOGAN: That's great. And so, so, so then you were selling CAD and you ended up at P T C. What was the connection to, uh, going over to P T C?
JOHN: I got promoted to manager as one of the youngest managers at at at hp And I remember being in a meeting in at that time I was in Southern California My territory was from San Diego to Santa Barbara And I was in a meeting with all these first line managers second line managers all the way up to the VP for like the whole western area you know more than you know like probably from Colorado West And I remember they never talked about how we can help salespeople sell more It was never about selling issues This is a sales organization It was all about the politics and bureaucratic bss And I [01:16:00] remember sitting there saying I don't want to grow up and be like any of these guys I wanna I want to do something else So I just started looking around and there was this back then you you know I didn't have the internet and I this thing fell on my plate about some company called P T C that was just starting out in Boston So I called the C R O at the time and I said Hey you know I want to join the company He said you got a resume And I said no 'cause I'm not really looking for a job right now but if you want me to make one up I'll make one up And I everybody told me I was nuts 'cause they had zero revenues Products you know didn't work But I felt like I had nothing to lose Like I wanted to try to prove to myself that even in a small small company I could really I could I could excel at this sales game Let me take a chance now I wasn't married didn't have kids let me go
LOGAN: And did you go in there as an IC initially or did you go as a [01:17:00] sales manager?
JOHN: They had just um Put a guy in a in the in the Western US and he had a team of like five people And so I became one of them and two months later we went to A Q B R back in Boston And when it was over the c e O came over to me and said well we're flipping you with the guy that runs the west So now now you're running the west So that was only doing it for a couple months
LOGAN: What was John McMahon as a sales rep? Uh, way back, way back when were you, uh, I assume leadership and management has been your calling, but, but you must have been a pretty good sales rep as well.
JOHN: I don't know if I was great I was never the greatest presenter I was a good listener and maybe that's from what we talked about before So I was a good listener and I didn't wanna present anything 'cause I maybe that's part of that introversion I didn't wanna present anything till I thought I was really right And I heard everything that let's say Logan told me that he really wanted but the one thing that I was was persistent So when [01:18:00] I wanted to sell something if I wanted to get to the VP of engineering at General Dynamics I'd go at six o'clock in the morning with a couple cups of coffee And at that time like they they would put on those cement bumpers you know VP of engineering So I'd just stand there and wait till he came Now this one you gotta get your elevator pitched down pat right Because you got 30 seconds to a minute where he'll hopefully let you in the door and you can have a cup of coffee with him But that's the type of salesperson was I was it was just more persistent than than really excellent at the at the craft And maybe that what more more people need is they need a little more persistence
LOGAN: Yes, I, well, I, you hear these stories and now, you know, people, uh, are unwilling at times to cold call and I, uh, I'm like, you know, some of the old days you get restraining orders today for, for the stuff you needed to do to be effective salespeople. Um, I'm curious. P T C and Blade [01:19:00] Logic both have such a unique sales tree of people that have, you know, studied under your tutelage and Steve Wolski as well.
LOGAN: And, uh, dating back to, I mean, Mongo obviously, and, and Datadog had it. Snowflake had it Okta as well. Zscaler, like, there's so many. People that came out of those organizations, how much, uh, was the unique talent of, of density of the people you were able to recruit versus the process and all these people Just, I look around to my friends that I came into the venture industry with, and we were all likable people, but, uh, the, the fact that we've risen was we were investing in software in 20 13, 20 14, and so there's some like survivorship element of it as well.
LOGAN: What do you, did you know it was special from a talent standpoint then, or how do you sort of think about the inputs of the, the process around it and the, [01:20:00] the actual people that were there?
JOHN: Well you know I put such emphasis on recruiting so that's probably at least 70 80% of it So the people had all the inherent characteristics to be successful And then I would just like spend a lot of time training and developing them So every every week we'd have forecast calls and and use the forecast calls as you know understanding what the forecast is But as development sessions every quarter I got everybody together everybody It was very costly And I remember the first time I presented it to David I played logic and he was like oh my God this is gonna cost so much money And I said Dave if we just start getting more you know just think about how many extra deals we have to get that's gonna pay for the whole thing And then to Dave's credit after we did it a couple quarters and he saw the increase in productivity and the deal sizes growing He bought in So it was really a lot of training and development and investing in those in the people And a lot of things that we talked about today [01:21:00] where you had to invest in your people you had to train your people you had to understand them and be intimate with them and help them grow and develop And if you didn't do it I wasn't gonna promote you And I think a lot of the really good guys you know the Dolly Rodricks the Adam Aarons all those guys they they took it to heart and they did it And now they're preaching the same thing You know where they are
LOGAN: You referenced Dave, who is now the, uh, the c e o of Mongo, and I want to ask about, uh, him in a second, but I, people probably, this is long, I think since forgotten to most of the people listening, but the Blade Logic, Opsware, uh, wars were, uh, pretty iconic, right? You had Dave on one side, uh, and then Ben Horowitz, who people might be familiar with from Andreessen Horowitz on the, the Opsware side, and you were leading Blade Logic, and they also.
LOGAN: Had a P T C crew as well. Right. can [01:22:00] you talk about just like the culture of, of those wars and, uh, and the battles that you guys had between Blade Logic and Opsware?
JOHN: Well we were definitely in a lot of lot of battles but I tried to focus my people not on them but focus on you know make making sure that what we did we did with excellence Right And then the second part is truly understanding I Um your competitor and understanding where their weaknesses are and where our strengths are and making sure that we had our messaging just really down pat and really exposing their weaknesses and highlighting our our strengths And you know cranny was trying to do the same thing on the other side
LOGAN: Mark Cranny, who is the opsware, R O or
JOHN: opposite c r o Yeah So yeah it was fun because sometimes I could even talk to the VP of purchasing at a company and it might be down to us in Opsware on who's gonna win the deal And then I could basically tell the you know VP of purchasing let me let me oh did you meet Mark Cranny Yeah Okay Let me tell you [01:23:00] exactly what the program is and you know they're laughing on the other side so
LOGAN: you and cranny were at P T C for how long
JOHN: Yeah I hired him twice Like and I I almost never did that 'cause I hired him and then he left and it's he's might be the only person that I was willing to hire back
LOGAN: it's wild that, that a war that waged from whatever, 2001 through 2005 six has produced such iconic sales leaders as well as, uh, relevant CEOs as well. So you're, you're still on the Mongo DB board today? Is that
JOHN: Yes Yeah
LOGAN: David Ria, uh, is in my mind you get exposure to two of the For My Money, the best CEOs in software, uh, between Frank Sluman and and Dave Ria.
LOGAN: What makes Dave so special? You worked with him through Blade Logic, you're on the board now at Mongo. Uh, what, what do you feel like [01:24:00] his, uh, his secret sauce is?
JOHN: Well I'd say that both of those guys you know if we can put 'em in the same bucket they're both fighters There's fight and flight and there's there's not an ounce of flight in Frank Luman There's not an ounce of flight in David Etch area They're coming every day and they're coming every day to play And like you were saying that sometimes this is war and they're ready to go to war They got they got the war paint done and they're ready to go And they both have really strong opinions on the way in which things can be should be done but at the same time they're they're open to listening And if they have to adjust their thinking a little bit because maybe times have changed competition's changed the product's changed You know I give them credit for adapting again I mean those guys are not the same guys that they were even five years ago They've all changed and adapted Um so but when I think of both of them I think of them [01:25:00] as like pure fighters And I like to believe that that's what I have in me too Like I'm just a pure I'm just gonna keep coming at you I'm gonna wear you down If it's a wear down contest I'll wear you down
LOGAN: The, the commonalities of the adaptability, it sounds like, and sort of the iterative learning, even at this stage. Both of them have proved quite a bit, uh, but it sounds like they're still learning. And then also the, the competitiveness, uh, seems to be the two commonalities or characteristics between, between both of them.
JOHN: Well yeah if you think about their products think about the product that Frank only had when he took over versus the product that he has today and how many more doors and disciplines they go into inside an organization and how he changed it from a data warehouse to the data cloud I mean then think about what Dave has to go through where he had a free tier and he just was converting people from the free tier to the paid tier And now he's got free [01:26:00] tier paid tier channels you know inside sales outside sales you know um
LOGAN: Cloud, he's, is built Atlas
JOHN: yeah And he's and he's in China and he's with Alibaba and Tencent and he's I mean it's the complexity just keeps changing every day And what makes those guys so good is not only are they fighters but they're adapting to the to the challenges that are presented to them every day And I don't think enough people understand the challenges and how CEOs have to adapt in order to stay ahead of the game This world with technology changing so fast
LOGAN: What's the most common misconception about sales that, that you think people have?
JOHN: I think it's what you brought up earlier that they think it's an art form when really it's it's it's a lot of science Um and certainly you're dealing with people people that are selling for you and people that you know are your potential customers So there's a lot of [01:27:00] art there but there's so much science to the game too And you need the science so that you can figure out Like we talked about before what's going right what's going wrong and how do I quickly adapt and make changes Because in a you know we're measured in quarters but when you subtract out weekends and a couple holidays every quarter you know you're left with 60 62 days to execute a much bigger number And if you don't have every everything down to a process you know like a scientific process and something goes wrong and you don't have that well where are you gonna point your finger to figure out what's going wrong and make a quick change so you can post a bigger number within those 60 working days it's gonna be pretty tough And the companies that nail those types of things those are the companies that consistently tick up and to the right They've even gone and spoken to the deans of a couple of business schools and um said Hey you know I don't understand why you don't have a sales program You have an [01:28:00] you came in here as the new dean You you put an entrepreneur program in place but why don't you have a sales program Well I even had one of them say to me well John you know if I really wanted to get a sales in here the rest of my you know people that helped me run this place they would think there's something wrong with me And I go well let me ask you a question How do you think a company buys three or $4 million worth of software Do they just pick up the phone and say I wanna order $4 million of software How does that happen And he said I really don't know So then I started walking him through like you know all the discovery questions and and account you know items account plans and territory plans and r o i models and you know operational value versus business impact and and quantifying you know value before and after and those types of things And and the the deans are blown blown away and started [01:29:00] implementing sales programs It's again it goes back to answer your question that they mostly think it's an art
LOGAN: Can sales leadership be be learned, or is it only sales management that can be learned and sales leadership needs to be innate?
JOHN: I think you have to be to be a good sales leader you have to be selfless You can't be selfish And if you're willing to be selfless and you're willing to understand that the only way I get promoted and the and the fastest route to my success is through my people and making them successful you know then you can be a really good sales leader If you think it's all about you and you're selfish and you think you're gonna get your your way there by you know horse whipping people it's just not gonna happen and not truly understanding you know where those people are coming from
LOGAN: Besides buying, uh, your book, the Qualified Sales Leader, uh, here as a, as a plug, what, what would you recommend to people that [01:30:00] are trying to learn more about sales process and enterprise selling? Uh, is there, is there anything that you would guide them to.
JOHN: there's the Challenger Sales Pretty good book The Spin Selling's a pretty good book and Andy White wrote one specifically on On Medic That's a pretty good book if you want to dive even deeper than my book does on on Medic
LOGAN: You happen to have a great podcast yourself. Uh, so if people want to hear you, uh, flip the tables and, and talk to some of the, uh, of the best sales leaders. I guess that's another one,
JOHN: Yeah We go really deep on different issues like how do you handle an R F P How do you what is the d you know an hour just on how do you prepare for an economic buyer meeting Or what's what is the difference between a coach and a champion So we go deep on those specific you know different issues like that And to your point if you're educating people they're gonna come you know So I think right now we're up over like 230,000 listeners and we never advertised or anything
LOGAN: That's incredible. Wow. I, [01:31:00] uh, yeah. Well it's, uh, you and you and John Kaplan. Right. Uh, together. So John who runs, uh, force management, uh, the, the consulting firm that teaches a lot of the stuff we talked about here as well, I can, I can imagine. It's a good group to hear from.
JOHN: yeah It is
LOGAN: John. Thanks for, uh, thanks for coming on.
LOGAN: This was, this was great. Uh, I'm sure we will wanna run back this at some point and go through a bunch of the lessons, but I really appreciate you coming on.
JOHN: Yeah Thanks Logan It's been fun I mean you asked a lot of really good questions You bounced me around from people to process to to personalities So it was fun It was fun Kept me on my toes Kept me on my toes.
LOGAN: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, thanks for coming
JOHN: All right, thanks Logan. See ya.