 From the CUBE Studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is a CUBE Conversation. Hello everyone, Dave Vellante here and welcome to the special CUBE Conversation with a colleague and friend of mine, Randy Seidel, is an accomplished CEO. He's an executive, sales pro, and he's the founder of the sales community, this newly formed social network. Randy, good to see you again. Welcome. Hey, great to see you. It's been a lot of great years, great relationship with you and congratulations with all your success with Silicon Angle and the CUBE. As a remember back, I think it's been probably since 1985, so 35 years ago when we were both Cub Scouts, I was at EMC and you're at IDC. Yeah, I mean, first of all, I love where you are, your man cave there. You held a great little event, networking event that you do periodically with some of our joint colleagues and yeah, wow, we were both in our 20s. I was a young pop and Dick Egan and Jack and Mike and they would have me talk to you guys, sort of brief you on the market, what little I knew now, looking back, but wow, Randy, I mean. You're talking to me now. Right, I mean, and then just the whole thing just took off and but we had a good instinct, right, that storage was going to matter, that everything back then was mainframe and IBM was the king of the world. And then you guys just crushed it. Wow, what a run, amazing. Yeah, absolutely. So tell me about sales community. What are you trying to accomplish with this new social network? Well, it was kind of really my COVID moment. I was talking to Peter Bell, if I know you know well as well and it was right in the beginning of COVID where kind of comparing notes and your long story short, he said, hey, Randy, you do all this work with these technology companies, the channel partners and use your customer, CIO, CTO, CISOs, but you're really not doing much for those that you know the best, which are really the technology sales professionals, CROs, SDRs kind of up and down the food chain. And that really got me thinking, then he introduced me to one of his companies that sells to CROs and I was going through with them and they were kind of calling me on the carpet, saying, okay, do I really know these people? I'm like, oh my gosh, they basically just said, you know, I'm a dope, I haven't really kind of done anything here. So, you know, one thing led to another and end of developing a sales community, a big thing and big help for me was talking to probably 150 or so during the course of the summer, CROs, VPs of sales, RAPs, SDRs, to really kind of help get some feedback from them in terms of, I call it, it's now you call product market fit, but kind of what they think that's missing, what's needed, what do their teams need, what do they want? So it's kind of all a perfect storm, which to be honest without COVID, I probably wouldn't have created sales community. Well, you know, I joined and it was a great onboarding experience and love participating with colleagues. I mean, sales is hard, right? I mean, you got your ups and your downs and you just got to keep pressing on, but who was participating in sales community? We're targeting SDRs on up to CROs and the kind of the tagline is, learn more so you can sell more. We have a lot of different kind of content areas and we're gonna kind of bob and weave based on the feedback that we get, but we've got some great virtual events and interviews. We have an executive coach, Tony Jerry, who's doing nine sessions on designing your life. We did a recording a live session last week on personal goal setting. We did one yesterday that was a live session that'll be posted shortly on strategic health, next one's on branding. So that's not necessary specific to tech sales, but kind of adding value. We also have Dave Noor, another executive coach doing a weekly interview series that we're calling Tech Sales Insights with some of the leading CROs, CEOs, Jim Sullivan, who I know you know well it's gonna be the first one, it's gonna be next Wednesday, he runs NWN and has done a lot of great things and a lot of other great leaders from there. Also still on the interview virtual events side, Mike Catoia from Tech Target's gonna do a Mo Insights series. His Tech Target international editors are also gonna do regional ones. So CIO interviews from EMEA, Asia PAC, Latin America, Australia. Also on the CISO side, we have somebody focused on doing CISO interviews, Paul Salamanca have channel interviews, I think this channel by and large gets missed a lot. CEOs and then Steve DiPlessie who I know you know well as well is gonna do one focus on CIOs, so CIO Insights, but basically creating virtual events and interview series that are really targeted at people that we sell to. So that covers the kind of virtual event and interview side. And I'll maybe more quickly go through some of the other key segments. Another one is a content library. There's a guy, Datsu, SDR at Service Now, went through, sent me note the other day that said, hey, I found out some great feedback on prospecting, cold calling. I shared it with my team, helped me a lot. So a lot of good things in terms of content library. Also opportunity to network. So you could be say selling to Fidelity. You could send a note to the community members and say anybody else trying to sell to Fidelity. You know, let's network, let's compare notes. Also great opportunities for channel partners. So channel partner could raise our hand and say, hey, I know Fidelity, let me help with you. A lot of sharing your best practices and also just in terms of communication Slack channels and then opportunities to create round tables. You might have CROs from startups that wanna have maybe six to 10 of them get together so they can kind of commiserate, ask questions. You could have CROs at companies that are maybe transforming going from on-prem to kind of SaaS models. So a lot of different great things ultimately really to serve the folks in the tech sales community. Yeah, it sounds like, I mean, first of all, tons of content. The other thing I like about it is we all read books on sales, you know, some of them are so gimmicky. Some of them are inspirational. Some of them have, you know, really great suggestions. Some of them can be life-changing. But what's always been missing in my opinion is this notion of a network, a social network, if you will, where people can help each other. And you just gave a ton of good examples. So you're really trying to differentiate from a lot of the things that have worked over the years but have really sort of one-way communication. Some guru, sales guru, either training or you're reading his or her book. Yes, and we're also fortunate on the content side, we have some of the best kind of sales consulting, sales methodology companies that love what we're doing. So they're likewise providing a lot of content. And as you said, it's crazy. Think of any other industry, you know, restaurant, hotel, lawyers, landscape, you know, they have these, you know, big, you know, kind of user groups, even, you know, technology companies have user groups or within the large field of technology, sales, enterprise, B2B sales, there's really nothing that like this that exists. So, you know, so far the feedback's been great. Well, so just what you're describing, and I've known you for a long, long time, you're one of the principles of great salespeople is, you know, you help others, right? You make as many friends as you can and you're the master of that. But essentially you're bringing a lot of the things that have worked, a lot of the principles that have worked in your career to this community. Maybe talk about that a little bit. Yeah, I mean, you know, especially I think some of the, you know, younger sales folks, you know, it's not kind of off the cuff as we know, but it's really kind of, you know, training, being disciplined, being prepared, you know, what are you going to do? How are you going to do it in this COVID moment? You know, I'm seeing lots of friends who are the companies that have great relationships. They can do really well and kind of lean in a lot. You know, if you're kind of, you know, co-calling in this environment, it's tough. So kind of, you know, how can you be best prepared? How can you do the best homework? How can you have the kind of right agenda for when you're going to do the sales calls? And then it's not really as much follow up, but it really follow through in terms of what you do afterwards. So kind of what is the training? What can you do? How can you do it? And you know, it's crazy. A lot of companies spend lots of money on training, but if you think about it, you know, really tight in specifically to tech sales. Hopefully this will be great. Plus being able to just kind of throw questions here and there, works out well as well. Well, that's what I'm looking forward to is, hey, I got some challenges. You know, how do others, you know, deal with this? You know, one of the things that is, I think, you know, paramount to being a great sales person is the attitude. You hear it all the time. How do you stay pumped up? Like I said before, we've all been through ups and downs. And you know, what do you tell people there? In terms of staying pumped up, interestingly enough, the session we did yesterday on strategic health, you know, probably plays a key role. So yeah, there's the work aspects and how you're going to focus and wake up and get fired up. But you know, ultimately, I think you really got to take several steps back and saying, you know, are you taking care of yourself? You know, are you sleeping? Are you eating and drinking correctly? Are you drinking enough water? Are you exercising? So, you know, in this moment, I think that's probably something that gets missed a lot in terms of, you know, getting fired up. And then ultimately just being excited about kind of what you're doing, how you're doing it, taking care of the customers and you know, serving those around you. And you'd mentioned in terms of, you know, giving it back, but you know, a lot of us that have been around are, you know, loved idea of kind of, you know, paying it forward, you know, helping out others and you know, seeing a lot of the great younger folks really rise up and become stars. I think that's one of the most exciting things as somebody's been around for a while. Like you, we all get cold calls and say, hey, how you doing today? You know, then you have that dead air, right? And you actually want to reach out and help these individuals. A lot of times they'll call you, they have no idea what you do. Well, I've read your website and I think we'd be a great fit for, you know, something that would not be a great fit. So, you know, there's a level of preparation. We always talk about on sales, you know, you got to be prepared. But there's also sometimes, I was talking to a sales pro the other day, he said, you know, sometimes you can over prepare. He said, I've been on sales calls, I've been prepared for hours and hours and hours and then I get there and it was just a lot of wasted hours. I probably could have done it in 15 minutes. I mean, so there's a really a balance there and it comes with experience, I guess. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how anybody could prepare hours and hours. So that's a different subject to think. Well, he said, my technique now is just 15 minutes before the call, I'll jump on and just, you know, cram as much as I can and it actually worked for him. So, you know, different approaches, right? Yeah, absolutely. Another thing I'd like to mention is the advisory board. I'm fortunate to have worked with and be friends with several of the best in industry like you. So if anybody goes to the website and click on advisory board and there's, you know, 200 plus, I'm not counting them exactly, but you know, some of the best in technology, we've got them sort on the sales side and the channel side, the consulting side, the coaching side, you know, analyst side, but you know, really just such a, you know, tremendous each head of talent that can really help us continue to go and grow and pivot and making sure that we are serving our sales community and making sure everybody's learning more so they can sell more. And then I guess I should add onto that also, you know, earning more and making more money. So I got to ask you where you land on this. I mean, you're a sports fan, I am too. And for a while there, you know, once Moneyball came out, you saw Billy Bean and it was this sort of formulaic approach. The guy, you know, we would joke the team with the best nerds would win, but it seems like there's an equilibrium, right? It used to be all gut feel and experience and then it became, you know, the data nerds. And it seems like in our industry, it's following a similar pattern, you know, the marketing, the marketing ops, more tech becoming very, very data-driven. But it feels to me, Randy, especially in these COVID times, that there really is this equilibrium, this balance between experience and tribal knowledge, gut feel, network, which is something you're building and the data, how do you see that role, that CRO role, that sales role evolving, especially in the context of what I just talked about with the data nerds? Yeah, absolutely. I think two points there. Since you're part of the Billy Bean, I've got to, I forgot the guy's name, but in the movie is kind of nerd. I've got Jesse and Tucker, who have been tremendously helpful for us putting together sales community. But to answer the question on the CMO side, and the CMOs out there probably gonna like this answer, but I think more and more you see CMOs and CROs kind of separated and it's kind of different agendas. And my belief is that eventually the CMO function or marketing is really gonna come under sales and sales are really gonna take a much more active role in driving and leveraging that marketing function in terms of what's the best bang for the buck? What are they doing? How are they doing it? And I've got a lot of friends who don't name names, but they're on the sales side and they're doing what they can, but they just see what I'd call kind of wasted money or inefficiencies on the marketing side. So if I maybe spin that a different way, I think given kind of analytics and those companies that do have best practices and all right things on the marketing side, they're gonna continue to go and grow, answer with the right sales teams. So I think that you bring up a great point and that area is gonna I think continue to evolve a lot. Does that principle apply to product marketing? In other words, do you feel like product marketing should be more aligned with engineering or sales and maybe sales and finance? Where do you land on that? Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of old school, so I go back to Dick and Jack and Roger and Mike Rutgers and all of them in terms of, hey, you have the silos, but you get everybody at the table kind of working well together. It is interesting though, in today's world, the whole PLG, product-led growth models where a lot of companies now are trying to get in, maybe almost like a VMware, maybe a BMC did in the early days where we kind of get into the low-level developers and then kind of things bubble up. So that product-led growth model having a lower cost inside sales model works when, I'll say the product sells itself, but I would argue that I think some of those PLG-led companies really miss out on leveraging the high-end enterprise relationships to kind of turbocharge and supersize and expedite larger sales deals, larger ELAs. Well, and you mentioned earlier, channel, you said a lot of times that's overlooked and I couldn't agree more. Channel increasingly important, that's where a lot of the relationships live. It gives you scale, it just gives you a lot of leverage. Maybe talk about the importance of channel and how it relates to sales community. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, they're really into themselves, there's some things that are channel-channel, but if you think about go-to-market tech sales, pick the company on average, just probably half of the business goes through the channel and it used to be way back when, just kind of fulfillment, but now the best companies really are those that have the right relationships that are adding value, that can help on the pre-sales, that can help on the post-sales, that can help kind of cross-sell. If I'm a customer, I don't want to deal with whatever, five or 10 different vendors if I can have a one-stop shop with, one bar solution provider, partner, SI, whatever you want to call them, that certainly makes life a lot easier. And I think a lot of companies almost been kind of a second-class citizen, but I think those companies that really bring them into the fold as really partners at the table, whether you're doing account planning sessions, whether you're doing sales calls, but kind of leveraging that as a, kind of I call it a variable cost, kind of off balance sheet, Salesforce really is where the future is going to continue to go. So you've been a successful individual sales contributor, you've been a CEO, you've run large sales organizations, I mean, you basically ran sales at HP for Donatelli, and so you've seen it all and you've been helping startups. When you look at hiring sales people, what are the attributes that you look for? Is it intelligence? Is it hard work? Is it coachability? What are some of the things that are most important to you? And do you apply different attributes in different situations? What are your thoughts on that? Great question and a little plug maybe for our recruiting business, top talent recruiting, but one of the key things that we do, which I think is different from others in the recruiting side is the relationship. So a lot of people don't dig in or when we're talking to candidates, they say, well, nobody really asked me this before. And I would argue a key differentiator, and this is way before COVID, but especially now with COVID is, okay, who do you have relationships with? So I could be talking to a candidate that maybe somebody's hiring for wants to cover financial services in New York. And then I'll say, okay, well, who do you know at CityJPB of A? And I'll know more people than they know. And I'll probably say, hey, just so you know, that's weird, me up in Boston, I know more than the council, you probably know the best. So really trying to unearth really kind of who has the right relationships. And then separate from that in terms of a reference check, being able to reference check sooner in the process with somebody that you know, well firsthand as opposed to secondhand. And a lot of times I've seen even some of the larger, more expensive recruiting firms, you kind of wait till somebody's the final, say when you're offered, then they do a reference check and they do the reference check with somebody that they don't know. And to me, I mean, that's totally useless. What's great with LinkedIn today, I could be saved for, we're looking at you for a candidate, maybe got example, but I don't know, we probably have a thousand in common. And from those, we probably have 200 that we both know well that I could check. And when you do reference checking, it's really not, it's not a maybe, it's either, hey, the person's yes or the person's a no. So trying to do that early in the process, I think is a big differentiator. And then a last and probably third piece I'd highlight is, if it's a startup company, you can't get somebody that's just from a big company, if it's a big company role, you can't get somebody that just from a small company, you got to really make sure you kind of peel back the onions and see where they're from. And you could have somebody from a big company, but they were kind of wearing a smaller division. So again, you have to kind of, you can't judge a book by the cover, you got to kind of peel back the onion. So Randy, how do people learn more about sales community? Where do they go to engage, sign up, et cetera? Absolutely, it's salescommunity.com. So it should be pretty straightforward, a lot of great information there. You can go subscribe and if you like it, spread the word and a lot of great content. And you can ping me there and if not I'm randy at salescommunity.com. So love to get any feedback, help out in any way we can. Well, I think it's critical that you're putting this network together and you are probably the best networker that I know. I've seen you in action at gatherings and you've really been a great inspiration and a friend. So Randy, thanks so much for doing the sales community, you're coming on theCUBE and sharing your experience with us. Great, thanks Dave, appreciate it. All right, you're very welcome and thank you for watching everybody. This is Dave Vellante for theCUBE and we'll see you next time.