00:03 Hello and welcome to another episode of the Revenue Career Ladder podcast. So for those of you who aren't aware, the goal of this podcast or goal of this series is to chat with seasoned professionals from marketing or sales revenue focused roles and they're going to feature in depth conversations with the idea of sharing personal career stories, insights and valuable lessons. And we hope that those

00:31 or this inspirational, actionable insights will help you piece together what might seem like a very confusing and very difficult journey in terms of progressing to that ultimate role that you may or may not have. So my guest today, Dan, we met at a trade show in or an event in Amsterdam, I believe. Yeah. Very, very hot. I remember it was

00:58 very, very hot and I wasn't prepared for how hot it would be, but we stumbled across the Moss stands and tried to persuade them to film with us on the spot for the for the podcast, the previous podcast that we were doing and Dan obliged. I got him on another podcast. So we've been in touch since he was one of the first people I wanted to reach out to for this series because I know he's had a pretty interesting background, one that you might be able to take some like I said, some inspirational, actionable insights. So

01:26 I will hand over to Dan to introduce himself briefly before we get talking about your career journey. So over to you, Dan. Yeah. We met at T&W, which is a very nice event here in Amsterdam. So yeah, Dan Mottes, 34, 35 years old in two, no, two days now. Yeah. Two days, I'll turn 35. Been in sales for a very long time. Most recently at Moss, for example.

01:56 live in Amsterdam happily living together with my girlfriend and my cat and in our beautiful apartments and my biggest hobby is basically sales. So quite quite addicted I would say. Now for anyone who's previously owned a cat or likes cats, what breed do you have? It's a ragdoll. So it's the most

02:20 relaxing cat there is. He does nothing else than just sit together like next to you all day and he likes he likes to sit next to me when I'm working so yeah perfect. Now I'm very much a dog person, but I did have a cat for a couple of years recently a British short hair exotic and I did I did quite like that I didn't have to put much effort into. Actually, like socializing with the cat the cat came the cat.

02:49 comes to you and the cat wants attention. And I quite like that. You don't have to fuss them. They just, they kind of ask for it when they want it. And if they don't want it, they don't ask for it. It's quite, I like that exchange, that transactional relationship. Yeah, same. It's very transactional. It's like, sometimes you could go like, hey, do you want some attention? And then if there's no need for it, you're like, okay, cool. You go by your day. You know where you are at all times, which is nice. Whereas with the dog, you kind of feel like, ah.

03:17 haven't spent enough time with you. I haven't played with you enough. I haven't fussed you enough. Because they always want all dogs always want more. Right? Yeah, yeah, cats don't care. So, like I said, the goal of these discussions is to try and build a picture that there is no logical, sensible template, cookie cutter career journey, everything's completely different, or everyone's story is completely different. But what we're hoping is that

03:43 by piecing together the tips, the stories, the tricks, the failures, the successes from people's careers in revenue-focused roles, that the listeners might be able to build a bit of a plan for themselves, or at least have some sort of idea of I can take that away with me and it's gonna help me get to that next point. And I didn't really know how I was gonna get to that next point. So that's what we're hoping for. But we're gonna start every episode in the same way, which is...

04:13 you telling me about your first ever job. And I don't mean your first ever job in sales. I mean your literal first ever job aged, age 14, probably you're roughly the same age as me. And we were able to start working a little bit earlier than kids nowadays. So what was your first ever job? Your first ever full-time job, that was at a call center, being the technical support agent.

04:43 trying to fix people's internet on a hot summer's day. Oh, right, okay. So everyone's probably got a story or two of talking to their internet provider about dodgy signals and not getting the 100 megs that they quoted when they purchased, right? Yeah, yeah, that was me on the other side of the, on the other side of the phone. Definitely not my best job, not the proudest of that job. But I think it taught me a lot.

05:12 Like I actually didn't want to get that job at that moment, but I graduated as a cameraman and I had to start working. My parents, they were like, okay, cool, you graduated, now start working, you still live at home, so you have to chip in, start working. I tried my best to not get that job in the interview, but I still got it and I was like, oh, okay, yeah. Now I have to start working at a job I don't like. Maybe for the better in the end, actually, that I did get it, so.

05:41 Yeah, but that was my first first ever job. So that was that was your first full time job. What was your first ever like literal ever job as in part time or not? McDonald's cleaning the trash bins at McDonald's. That was when I was 15. Yeah. We've had so we've we've for a bit of context, we're recording this series. We're recording this podcast in in batches like seasons, if you will.

06:11 And we've had people fill in a form. So it's really interesting to see where people, people's first ever job. And you know what? McDonald's or fast food is, is quite a common one where people seem to start. So it's no, it is really, really interesting. I applied for a job at KFC and got turned down because I was, I was overqualified. I was, I was, I was, yeah, I was overqualified age 16, applying for a job in KFC, but.

06:38 There we go. But yeah, McDonald's cleaning trash cans and you know, fast forward to today. That's a, that's a hell of a jump. Um, so from, from, from emptying trash cans at McDonald's to head of sales, uh, which was, that was your title at the time that we met, uh, which is the only reason I reference head of sales. But if we, um, okay, there's, there's jump into the actual, the meaty bit, the nitty gritty, right? What was your first ever like considered job of I want this job because of X, Y or Z. What was that role?

07:07 Yeah, that was being the sales coach at the same call center I started. That was when I started realizing like, hey, I want to grow. I want to be better at sales. I want to do more at sales. And this was the moment where I noticed like, okay, I can actually, instead of going back to school and start like studying something else and being a cameraman, I thought like, okay, I can make career while also getting promotions.

07:36 just become better at what I do on a day-to-day basis. So, yeah, the sales coach part was definitely one of the most exciting career jumps. And I would say, like, first highlight of my general career because the chance that I got at that moment, I think that unlocked a lot in me, where I became very hungry to grow.

08:06 didn't have to go back to school to learn or whatnot, but what was it, what was your main reason for taking the job? Like I know, were you offered it? Was it a, this, I need to take this to get to the next step in my career? What was the reason for actually taking it? So I was offered it. So I was doing as a, when I was a technical help desk employee at the call center.

08:33 I didn't like fixing people's internet. When somebody would call me in the summer, it's like 30 degrees outside, everybody is playing, laughing. I have to work in an office without the best air conditioning in that moment. And people are calling me like, hey, can you fix my internet? Or can you fix my TV, for example? I would go like, please go outside and go to a swimming pool. But I loved selling. So I started selling a lot in that position. And then I got offered like, hey,

09:01 by my first supervisor, still owe a lot to him I would say, he asked me if I could help coach other people in doing the exact same thing I was doing because my conversations ran very naturally and I was like yeah cool, of course, awesome, somebody's asking me for my opinion. So I actually started doing that a lot more and then he said would you like to become a sales coach? I was like, well...

09:29 Can I do this all day? I was like, yeah, that's your full-time job then. I was like, all right, let's go. I don't have to talk to people anymore and fix the internet. So I was very excited to take that opportunity. And it gave me the realization that my hard work pays off and puts me into that next level. That's why I really wanted to take that.

09:57 So you kind of, it wasn't something that you necessarily had a plan. It wasn't like a, a target role that you were going for. It's just you, you fell into something or you had the opportunity to try something. You enjoyed it. You liked the way it made you feel. Um, you liked what you were able to learn and then you were offered it as a full time position and you just, you, you just took the opportunity, seized the day. Uh, as they say.

10:23 Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it was all because I was working very hard. So when I maybe downplay a little bit, like I was good at sales, but I was working 60 hours a week to get in extra hours to afford for the holidays. I wanted to go on overachieving all of the targets because it became like a real game to me to start winning and winning and winning. And that was because that's what when I got noticed, like, okay, he's doing so well, let's push him into the.

10:52 into the next position. And then when I had the opportunity, I was like, yeah, I need to take this. This is why I worked very hard. So you were then full-time sales coach at the same company. So you were essentially providing sales training to colleagues and sharing the knowledge that you have built up over the year.

11:19 So what were the key learnings you took from that part of your career? What were the learnings you had from that particular role? I think the main learnings for me that was super important is there's a shift in how other people start treating you. That's one thing I would never forget about the first promotion I got. The whole shift in how other people would treat me.

11:45 I wasn't their colleague anymore that gave them hints. At that point, I was a member of the leadership team. So my opinion would still be valid and some some would see me as an expert and others would see me as a sellout. For example, they were like, oh, now he's a sales coach. Now he he thinks that he knows everything. That was a very important learning for me. But it's also like, how do you build a relationship and how do you continue that relationship with your your

12:14 former peers basically, because you're in a different role. So you need to be very careful in navigating that. You're not all of a sudden the leadership team. You should be also that friend that was smoking a cigarette outside five minutes before you got the promotion. That was very important. And I think, like lastly, is what I really learned was my own behavior. Like.

12:42 how I put myself away back then, because that was my first promotion. So I was like, let's go. I am now cool. I started dressing very differently all of the sudden from I remember back then, I had like apple green jeans on like every day. I had purple jeans, red jeans, yellow shoes, everything. I was like very colorful. Got the promotion to sales, team leader started wearing blazers and white shirts all of the sudden.

13:11 So everyone's like, what's happening here? And that didn't go that well for the relationship with everybody that really valued my opinion before that because they were like, oh, he's a sellout. Now he thinks he's a leader and he changed his entire behavior. I didn't realize that at that moment. Didn't realize that that fast, sadly enough. But in hindsight, yeah, that's one of my biggest learnings ever. Yeah, so it's interesting that you giving tips to your peers.

13:40 you had a good amount of rapport and then when it was formalized that you were their coach, they no longer saw you or saw your tips in the same light. That's very, very interesting. I wouldn't have thought necessarily that your advice or tips would have less currency just because you had a change in title. But then when you pair that with...

14:06 Like you said in hindsight that you changed the way you dress, the way you carried yourself. Um, yeah, but perhaps it was, like you said, it was less of a peer to peer friend, colleague sharing advice that's helped them grow. And it was more as, um, I am now in a superior position. You must do this because you have to listen to me. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And that's, yeah, till this day, uh,

14:36 very sorry that I did that. But it shaped me for the rest of my career. So which is also good like that making that mistake. Back then I learned from it and and it shaped the rest of my career a lot. But the whole point of us, you know, asking about your previous roles and what you've learned from each of them is that we hope in sharing that little nugget of just because you've got a promotional just because you change roles doesn't mean you have to change yourself in order to

15:05 fit the stereotype of that, that role. Like that's, that is a very, very good piece of advice. I think I've always been very, very conscious in my own career of, I've had managers previously that they were very hierarchical of, I am in this position, so you must treat me in a certain way. And I appreciate there are certain political things, or ways, you know, mannerisms, etiquette in terms of the hierarchy, but fundamentally, you're still the same person.

15:34 you should, um, you know, treat others, expect to be treated yourself and all that sort of, um, that sort of more fluffy stuff. But yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So in terms of how long, how long did you do that for and what, why, what kind of persuaded you to think about moving on from that role? So I did that for about a year, a little bit over a year, I would say. Um, and then, so at that point I started like noticing, okay, I want to grow fast. So when I like

16:02 get to the next stage. So after a year I was like, all right, time for the next one, I wanna do more, I wanna go into this next stage again. And then there was a new project starting within the same company, so still within the same call center, I was like, all right, I want to take that next step. And I saw that they were looking for a sales trainer for new hires.

16:31 So basically just like somebody comes in, does not want to sell, maybe doesn't even have a sales background and they needed to be taught like, how do you do sales on a phone? Like how do you do upselling? How do you do cross-selling? I was like, this is awesome. I can actually build and get people to perform very well from the get-go and make them make great steps. When I saw that I was like, all right, let's have a conversation and very quickly they were like,

17:01 Perfect. It was a good match. So your motivation at that point was perhaps a little bit of impatience of, I'm hungry. I want to grow. I want a new challenge at the same company that you were already doing well at. There was a new opportunity and you thought, why not? It's a step up the ladder of sorts. It's a step in the right direction of where I want to go, which is growth more.

17:31 earn more, you know, bigger title. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I always loved training new hires. So like 10 year colleagues back then, it was, it was, it was, they were rather difficult to train. It wasn't easy to train because in a call center, you've got all sorts of people, right? Like you've got lawyer, people that studied law, people that even had like pilots, because this was straight after 2008. So the job market was not, not good at all.

18:00 Um, so like the new colleagues, they were motivated, they were motivated to learn again. So when I saw like, okay, a new project where I can hire all of the new new hires, this is awesome. I'm like, I want to do this. Like the impact of my training will be massive because if I don't train the people well in their sales skills, they're going to start their job and the project and it's going to be horrible.

18:26 So it was a little bit of a make or break. And I was like, okay, if I want to really showcase what I can do, that's going to be the best position to do it in. And it's interesting because the general consensus or general rule of the unwritten rule is that you shouldn't change jobs as often as every year. So I know roughly speaking, ballpark, they say, you know, do something for two years and then, you know, that's the minimum amount you'd want on your CV

18:56 you'll be accused of jumping role or, you know, job hopping too often. So is, um, is it the, like you said, you, you just had that excitement of something new growth and you thought a bit of, perhaps a bit of impatience, naivety at that age, you were like, nah, it's new challenge. I'm just going to take it rather than taking another year in your current role and settling into that, that role. I was out of the naive.

19:24 I was in it for a year and I was like, I know what I'm doing. I'm good. Let's go for the next one. I can make it back to the next step. I'm better than the other person maybe. It's also very much misplaced arrogance at that point as well. Like very good at self-reflecting now, where I would say, yeah, that was like misplaced arrogance where I thought like, okay, next step.

19:52 But also then again, that made me learn faster and more because to make that next step, I had to really like go into all of the stuff that went from like giving tips on how to sell as a sales coach and just listening to, okay, I need to train people and I need to actually come up with like sales methods and learn into these methods and which work best. So it pushed me to this next level as well.

20:20 So yeah, so like you said, in hindsight, looking back, yeah, probably a bit of naivety, but it worked out and ultimately it was for the right reasons of wanting a new challenge and learning basically. So on the topic of learning then, so new hire sales trainer at the same company. What did you, how long did you do that role for out of interest? Uh, from the top of my head, I would have to check my own name there. I think like a year and a half, two years.

20:49 Close to it. Let's say, let's say, let's round it up. Let's say two years. Let's round it up and say two years. So in that two year period, what did you learn from that chunk then of your career? One of the most important things is that everybody learns in such a different way. And everybody has a unique motivation to do their job. And when it comes to sales in general, that makes such a difference in how somebody does their job, how they perform, why they get up in the morning.

21:19 That's the biggest learning I had. I really noticed that to be able to motivate people and to be able to train people in the right way, you need to understand how they're learning. The first trainings I did, I just said like, hey, this is how we're doing it, and this is how you should do it. And then very quickly, I noticed that I would have two or three people from the 10 that will resonate and they will perform, but the other eight underperform. So is my training effective at that point? Absolutely not. Like, that's a very expensive training.

21:48 at that point. So I started like asking a little bit more questions like what do you need to perform better? Like what do you what do you need to understand the sales better? Do you like sales? Yes or no? Like why why are you even working here? And then the the answers you would get would give you a lot better insights in why somebody would do it. Is it necessary because they needed to get like food? Right? Like you need to be able to do groceries or is it more like hey,

22:16 stay at home mom, I want to like start working part-time to be amongst people again, but you would also have those kind of profiles. And that was one huge learning I did there.

22:29 And in terms of like at that point, did you know, because you moved into this role after a year in your previous role, did you know, where you wanted to end up like, as in, you made the move because of the potential for learning and potential for growth, and it was it was progression. But did you know, in five to 10 years, where you wanted to get get to and was this a step in the right direction?

22:55 So at that point I started to realize I want to grow fast. I want to do this every time because I got the two promotions relatively quick after one another. So I was like, all right, I want to do this maybe every year or maybe even faster if possible. Was it a step in the right direction at that moment? Yeah, definitely. I was like, okay, I'm going for it. And I always remember once that.

23:23 One of my colleagues was actually wearing a tie in the office and our CEO at that moment came into the office and he said, you don't wear a tie in this company unless you make over 100K in a year. That always stuck with me. I never bought a tie before I made 100K, but that stuck with me where I was like, I want to get to that point. I want to be able to buy a tie and I need to put a goal for myself. The only way to get there is promotion, promotion, promotion.

23:52 So that was the moment where I was like, okay, you need to work very hard to get that next promotion and then to make sure that you're on top of your game, basically. So because of that tie, whatever this little thing inside of your head, that target of having the tie, earning that sort of money, you realized that your goal in that period, at least for the next few years, was to get a promotion as quickly as you could.

24:22 and just progress. Yeah, like anything that would be able to progress me at that point. So for me, it didn't matter that much what product I would sell or what company I would sell for it. As long as it was a step in the right direction or maybe a step back to make a step into the right direction, I would seize it.

24:47 Now, do you think that that hunger for progression, like quick progression? Because the sense I'm getting is that you, whatever you needed to do in order to get that, that quick promotion to move up the ladder as quickly as possible, you would have done it. Well, not everything, but definitely a lot.

25:13 I would do it next time. Yeah, professionally speaking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but like... Yeah, I don't mean assassinations of the person who rolled above you to... No, no. I would also never throw somebody professionally under the bus or like I would always like keep it very clean, but I would work 60 hours a week if it was needed. Like I would, if somebody said like, hey, can you do extra hours? Can you come on Sunday? Even if I didn't like it, I would do it.

25:43 I had a relationship back at that time as well and I remember my ex telling me at a point as well like, oh work is a lot for you, it seems like work is everything for you. Which it was at that time because I knew like, okay if I put in the work right now, I have to get a promotion within a year or maybe within two years, I just have to work a lot harder.

26:09 My lack of having an official degree also definitely played into that because I don't have a bachelor or master's degree or it's like a vocational education which is a good education if you want to work in a more creative industry. But it puts a nice basic in. But it's more difficult to get a job. So I was like, if you want that promotion you have to earn it by showing it and then show that you're the better person and that you are the right fit.

26:38 So yeah, I was getting very motivated to do anything, to learn how to make my next step.

26:46 Yeah, that's, you know, it's actually quite, it's interesting hearing about your background in that you didn't have a degree. So you felt that you had to put in the extra work, which is quite a, you know, I listened to a lot of podcasts, diary of the CEO, Stephen Barlow and things. And they do have people on who have spoken about that. I guess that inner, inner motivation to not prove yourself, I guess it is proving yourself. But that was like, was your sort of reason for

27:15 Well, not reason, but that was your fuel to put in the 60 hours a week and do anything it took within your own capacity, like we've said, in order to succeed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's interesting. Yeah. And it's also if anybody would ever ask me, like, what is the exact moment you knew? I would never say I have no clue. There's like these pivotal moments where.

27:42 I remember the CEO saying, you don't wear a tie until you get a year's salary of 100k. Which at that moment was very, it was a thing where I was like, oh right. But it stuck with me at one point. I was like, yeah, that's a goal though. I want to get to that point. I never wanted a tie actually. I've never worn one. But I was like, I want to get to that point. I want to reach for that moment. And as soon as I noticed that by working that much.

28:10 You get the validation as well. Like you feel validated. There's another promotion coming. It gives you a rush. You ride that wave for like some time and then you wanna have another one of those rushes. So you wanna get another promotion.

28:25 It's addictive, right? It's the same as it's the same as getting an extra extra rep at the gym or putting an extra plate on. It's the it's the same addictive progression and I can only reason I said I can speak to the same, the same feeling the same motivation of that hunger and being willing to put in any number of hours in order to get to the next step. So

28:53 All right, so you spent two years in that role, putting in ungodly amount of hours, working as hard as you possibly could, learning tons. Why did you leave? Because it was a promotion or did you leave for other reasons? Like, what was the next step? So like the call centers in general, they don't pay well, like everybody knows this. They pay like bare minimum, I would say.

29:23 I had the opportunity, so I did the sales new IR training for an insurance company project. And then I was like, insurance pays a lot of money. Let me try and get like an insurance broker job somewhere. Because that project was also stopping at that point. So I was like, you know what? I'll just get an insurance broker job. Worst decision ever, yes, it paid better, but worst decision ever. I did not like it at all.

29:52 I thought it was like actual sales. I was like, yeah, seen a lot of movies, right? Insurance brokers, they make a lot of money. Then first thing I learned is like, they don't actually get a commission. So they're not even like allowed to actually sell something. They're not allowed to advise. You need to be very like strictly good. Like, is this what you need? Yes, okay, is this what you have in your house? I did it for 10 months, horrible. And I was like, okay, I need to go back into leadership. I need to go back into sales leadership.

30:22 The insurance broker thing is not my thing. I didn't learn exactly what I needed to learn at that moment, and that was like, I am not the best individual contributor. Like, I was good, definitely, but I am not the best individual contributor. Do I enjoy that a lot? Maybe not, I'm quite stubborn. So I was like.

30:50 I'm going to go back into sales leading again. And then I ended up at a wholesale company where I was the inside sales lead again. So that's interesting. Let's just double back on that. So you were in the previous role for a couple of years, putting in, like I said, all the hours wanting to progress and you got to the point where...

31:16 you realized there was a certain cap in terms of salary and what you were going to learn in the core centers. So you, in your own mind, you thought that insurance brokers or that sort of industry, that sort of field role would pay a lot better. Um, uh, an age old, I'd say an age old like story. People tell you like, Oh, I left because for the money. Um, and that we can all sit here in hindsight in retrospect in our, in our

31:43 early to mid thirties as you and I are. And we can safely say that money isn't everything. It certainly it certainly helps and it can be very, very enjoyable, but money isn't necessarily everything. So you have to make sure that the reasons, the the the true sort of values that you live by and the reasons for making a change have to be right. But at that age, you don't know that. So it's really interesting to hear that you left because you thought it was going to.

32:12 get you the payday, the salary, and you realized, this is not for me. Yeah. And it wasn't even that much of a change in money. It was like, I'm talking pennies on the dollar when it came to the end to the end of the month statement. But I was like, I also wanted to get out of the call center world because I wanted to get better opportunities. And the, the, the call center world.

32:42 And even knowing what I'm worth when it comes to salary, for example, because I was used to like, hey, these are the general wages you make in a call center, even like in high positions, I was aware of what they were making. I was like, if I get to that point, I'm doing very well. And then I learned later on, I learned like, okay, that's completely off, totally wrong. But making a jump for the money. Yeah. I think in hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have done that.

33:12 I should have maybe stuck to it and taken another job at the call center. But then again, it also forced me into moving into very different directions at that moment and made me reflect like, okay, what do I want? Like what's my five to 10 year goal now? Like, instead of just saying I want the X amount of money because somebody wants that you can buy a tie at that moment, like where does the rest of my career go? Like, do I want like a different position somewhere?

33:40 Okay, so

34:09 a top tier individual contributor. You didn't really enjoy it as much. You much preferred the leadership, the training, the coaching, you know, managing a team to do the individual contributing. So the, yes, the reason for you changing role perhaps wasn't the most sensible, let's say, at that point. But what you got out from it was far more valuable than the pennies on the dollar as you described it.

34:39 couple of grand a year or so. I mean, it was far more valuable. Even way less than that. Oh, wow. We didn't even reach that. No, no, it's like I'm really bad at something. So are we talking a McDonald's a month at least? I think it was like 50 or 75 euros extra. So I was like- Okay, that's a weekly shop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, could get like some extra groceries. I could buy some A brands.

35:07 Yeah, but we joke about it. But the valuable thing is you walk away from that 10 months thinking, right. I know I want to do for the next five or 10 years, or I know where I want to specialize because that's what I'm good at and that's what I enjoy. So let's jump into the next sort of role. Then you went, as you said, into a, you were inside sales lead for a wholesale company. Yeah. So what you.

35:32 I don't think we need to cover off the why you made that decision. It was because you hated the 10 months you really, you were like, right. Now I know what I want to do. So I need to get back into sales leadership. Yeah. So I'm assuming that was the main motivation behind the move, but what, was there any particular reason why you chose this, this role in this company? So they, they, they wanted to change their inside sales strategy a little bit more. So they wanted to the.

36:01 It's an old school sales company basically. So they got big by having account managers out on the road selling screws, bolts, and adhesives to construction companies, for example. And they said like, okay, we need to digitize more. So we need to make sure that like people can call us and email us and put in the same orders. And it's cheaper if you have somebody sitting inside than actually outside. And my job was to lead the inside sales team.

36:31 but also to ensure that there's more revenue coming from the inside sales team as well. And I was like, that's exciting. That's like a project where you can get like more going. The impact is going to be awesome if I'm able to do that. Because you save the company so much money, the other people can start working on acquiring new customers a lot more. So I was like, yeah, this is exciting.

36:57 set up like a new structure within teams. So that's definitely why I wanted to. Yeah, I can see it. Cause I think being able to make something your own and build something new is quite an exciting prospect. Like taking the learnings that you've built up over the last few years and trying to put it into practice or into play from like building from the ground up is quite exciting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

37:27 Like I really felt like, okay, cool, I'm gonna be owner of that little part and I'm gonna build that together with the team. Yeah, also one of my mistakes I made there by thinking that way. But that was, it was such an exciting challenge for me and I was like, I can now, also measure for myself, is my sales knowledge actually that good? Like, am I that good as I think I am? And that like, what I said earlier, that like somewhat,

37:56 at that moment misplaced arrogance or I'm like, I'm so good. Like I wanted to test that because this was a very different organization than what I worked for before. People that have, I came in and the person that worked there the shortest before me I think was there for, must be like eight or 10 years from the top of my head. Maybe, maybe a bit shorter, but like a long time. So I came in and they're like, I'm going to change some stuff here.

38:27 So yeah. And there's quite a nice segue into the, what did you learn question? You touched on it there that you perhaps, what you thought you would do going into the role and maybe didn't quite materialize. So what did you learn in your time there? And one of the most important things that I learned there was that, so like having a very good vision and working very hard might not be what

38:57 changes a team or makes a well-working team. I came in, I was like, yeah, I have this amazing vision. It's so easy to change this. It's so easy to make this more effective. I forgot to build report with the rest of the team because of that. I just had this vision, let's go. And if you say it in a nice way, people will walk with you because within the call center period, I had that. Because I worked there for five years and people were like...

39:26 So many new people coming in, so they're like, yeah, let's go, he's a cool guy, fun guy, let's follow him. But coming into a company where everybody's already settled and having that similar way of thinking, it doesn't work that way. If you start doing that, there's no report yet, so everybody's gonna go, who are you? Why are you coming in here thinking that you're gonna change everything here all of a sudden? We've worked for, like the...

39:54 for this for the past 10 years. So why do you think it's gonna be different? And that was my biggest learning at that moment. And also like very direct feedback that I got as well that I needed to work on that. And I learned there that to be able to get like change done, you need to build rapport with everybody, you need to be a good stakeholder manager and decisions are made like.

40:21 from the bottom to the top, everything is in between. Everybody needs to be on board when you're starting to change how a company works. And I was 100% bad at that time. I just said, like, this is the idea, we need to do this. And why doesn't anybody wanna do it the way that I say we have to do it? It's a very big mirror in my career. Those things that you're- Yeah, that's a-

40:51 That's a very, very good piece of advice, I think, like for anyone moving role for anyone, you know, whatever your motivation is for that new role, whether it's you've chosen it because it's progression, whether it's a sidestep, no matter the role, building rapport and building relationships with the people that you work with is imperative. I think we, we talk about in sales, personal branding and social selling and all this.

41:20 all this sort of stuff. I was speaking to a guy called Jack Nico on a previous podcast episode. And he said, you've got to work on your internal brand. And I sort of said to him, I was like, what do you mean by internal brand? Is that like, is that your values? And he said, No, no, like internal in terms of the company that you work for, like what, what is your brand internally? How are you perceived? How do you treat people? And he said, the bigger, the easiest way to think about it, like from a metaphor point of view, or from a

41:49 an example point of view is it's five o'clock on a Friday and you can close a million pound deal or a hundred K deal. All you need is a signature. You've got the client signature. You just need someone to sign it in finance or a leader to sign it. And he said, your internal brand is whether or not someone is willing to stay late on a Friday to help you out and get something across the line without.

42:19 questioning it, just they'll just, yeah, whatever it takes, I'll stay and I'll help you out. That's your internal brand. If people are willing to do that for you, you've got a good internal brand. If people are not willing to do that for you, then you need to work on your internal brand. So that's a, yeah, that's a very, very good learning. I think that's a, that's a golden nugget piece of advice for any point in your career. Yeah. You've got to build rapport and do that as quickly as possible in a new role. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And like,

42:47 I think it's also one of the things that a lot of people like, including me, I made this mistake as well. I undervalued that building report is so important. And maybe because I always had these new hires, which they came in and then it's very easy to build a report because they're like, oh, you're the leader, so let's follow you, which is relatively, let's say, simple. But coming into a new company, like I completely forgot it.

43:15 Like I completely forgot to do that. So like my stakeholder management wasn't perfect there. And I think in a year and eight months that I worked there, like the amount of people I had a good bond with, I can count that on one hand. And that is on me 100% because I didn't build report. And everything you do after that, after those let's say first three months, every decision you make,

43:43 It's going to feel like a decision that you made because you're saying you're the boss at that moment, even if it's a very good decision. It might feel, for others, feel like a very bad decision because the report is not there. So nobody sees your vision, nobody feels what you feel, they don't know where it's coming from and this made such a huge difference in that moment there.

44:10 Yeah, no, that's it. I think it's a very, very, very, very good piece of advice. I think when I started in my current role, one of the first things I did in the first couple of weeks when realistically, let's be honest, you're not going to be delivering very much in the first couple of weeks, if not couple of months. So one of the first things I did was book. I think I ended up doing about 40 to 50 intro chats with people and it was nothing to do with work. Really, it was, you know, who, who are you? What's your, what's your role? How long have you been at the company? And

44:39 just a general chat about them as individuals. It was nothing to do about if they were going to help me in my role and how they could help me and, um, or anything to do with projects. It literally was just, let's, let's connect, let's talk about one another and let's, you know, start building those, um, building those relationships. And that, that worked very, very well. So I would highly recommend people do that. Um, but that's, so that's interesting. So you went back into, um, as more sales leadership focus role because you knew.

45:07 five to 10 year thing, you're like, right, I need to get back into sales. So how long were you in that role? And what was the motivation then for leaving that particular role? I was in that role for a year and eight months. And that was a double motivation to go into the next one. I wanted to grow faster. I wanted to work in startups. I have been reading about that, like at that point for like a year. I was like, oh, man, startups are awesome.

45:33 My friends lived in Berlin and they were like, yeah, it's so cool here, and they're getting promotions left and right. So I was like, awesome, I wanna work in startups as well. At that point, I broke up with my ex, and then I was like, okay, this is the moment I can change everything now. I can move to Berlin if I want to, so I wanna grow faster. What's the best way to grow? Work in a startup. Like, be thrown right in the middle. Make your knowledge work for you, work hard, and...

46:03 That was like my my Hail Mary to make quick moves and grow really fast because I also wanted to change to happen a lot quicker in that company in the wholesale company and it just didn't happen that quick. Decisions were taking a very long time even like very simple decisions were taking a long time. So I was like startups they change from Monday to Tuesday. Like a Monday sell let's say like travel

46:33 related to paraphernalia. And the next day you end up selling bags, for example. And I love that, like I want a quick change because of my career growing that quick, it was like, right, quick, quick, quick. Everything has to be very quick. Yeah, and that's when I made my next step. I was like, okay, let's go. Like, at first, focus on career and start building more.

47:01 Yeah, you know that a couple of things I want to highlight their startups completely agree the most I ever learned in like a year or two year period of time was the first job in startup. I was thrown in at the deep end. It was like, oh, you're now head of marketing. I was like, oh my God. And I learned so much in that two years. And yet look, guys, we're going to be honest. It's stressful. It's a lot of pressure.

47:25 It's high octane. It is, you know, 110 miles an hour, seven days a week. But because of that, you're in this environment that is just geared towards rapid growth. And that's super, super exciting. So I can really understand the draw. Now I've worked in startups, I can understand the draw of thinking, oh, I need to get into the startup world. And then the second point I wanted to highlight, very, very interesting was that you.

47:52 Part of ways with your ex. Obviously this is a podcast talking about career growth and professional development, but often it's not necessarily the professional side of things that forces change. So you came out of that relationship and you thought, right, this is the perfect opportunity. This was me last year, right? This is the perfect opportunity for me to change role, start growing my hair, get a new car, move to a new city. So it's, I think that's quite an interesting thing to highlight is that.

48:22 you know, over the next 10 years of your career for anyone listening, it might not be that you, you don't enjoy the role. It might not be that you've got a new opportunity. It might just be that in your, no, your personal life, things aren't quite right. And you want the change and that's absolutely fine. You just can't, you can't plan for these things. No, exactly. And that was the moment I was like, okay, I, like, I never got a hold back by Max. Definitely not. But that was the moment. I was like, okay, I can now.

48:50 Like I have to make this decision. So what is it going to be? I was like, all right, let's go to the moon. These things, you can't necessarily plan the motivation or the course or wanting a new role, but I can, the being drawn to a startup thing. Um, very, very exciting. I can definitely, um, well, I, I can definitely like, uh, I've lost, I'm lost my words now. I can, I can definitely like align with you on that. Um, so.

49:19 Next job then. So what was the next job after having been back into sales leadership? What was the next job? I went to start up in Berlin called Tourlane, which I had the opportunity there to be the first lead within the Dutch, for the Dutch market. And it was basically setting up the Dutch market. Like, hey, here's a roughly translated product. Here's, I think we already had like two or three new

49:49 And they were like, let's go, let's start building and growing as fast as possible, which was an awesome opportunity to do. And I had the ability to like shape an entire team and a way of working for the team to become very successful. And like throughout my career, impact has been something that's like driven me. So the more impact I can make, the better. And this was being responsible for an entire market. So I was like.

50:15 not that much more impact you can make than setting up an entire market and like start growing from zero dollar revenue to whatever we had as a target back then. I can't remember what the targets were but that was an amazing opportunity for me.

50:36 So you were drawn to it for a startup. I'm assuming this is the company that you knew people at. Is that right? As in the people who said, oh, it's amazing, you should. Actually not. No. So they actually gave me the hint to apply for it, but they were working at a different startup in Berlin and one of their investors invested, one of their founders invested in the company that I ended up working in. Right.

51:03 Yeah, and I think they internally shared like, hey, do you know Dutch people that could lead our sales team? And then shared it with me and then I applied to it.

51:13 Okay, so your friend says you've got to come to Berlin, go to get into startups, things aligned as they sometimes do. So sometimes in your career, you will get a weird alignment of the stars and it just kind of just presents itself in front of you. And that doesn't happen all the time. So definitely relish take the opportunity when it does. That's a good piece of advice. But you went into the startup and it was right. We want a Dutch lead to come in and basically...

51:43 break into a new market. You had a team day one, you all started on the same day, if I'm right, and there was a team of, you had a team of three, is that a four of you total? Yeah, at that point we started with three. Like later it grew to I think 15 people in total, that was including marketing, which was like a dotted line more. So they didn't directly report it to me, but like sales team, I believe, was like 10, 11 at one point, yeah.

52:12 So like very, very quick. So, and how long were you in this particular role? That's always, I think a year and a half. So that role that like fell in the middle of the pandemic. So we started off very well, like great growth, like exactly what I wanted, like, like higher, higher fast, break things on the way, reiterate, make it very, like very structured, very well. We did very, very well with this, with the team.

52:42 Um, but then COVID happened and, and, and it was a travel company. So nothing travel related happened anymore. So that very quickly when, when, when down, so it was, it was a very short, short tenure there because COVID happened before even the year. Like I had a full year, but I think it was one of the most important pivots in my, in my career, like going for startups, going for that quick growth, because what I learned that that one year.

53:13 before COVID happened was insane. There was like, I felt like a dried up sponge being thrown in the ocean.

53:21 So let's give it give us a bit of a whistle stop tour in terms of those learnings. Thanks. Yeah. Year and a half. And let's just estimate that six ish months of that was covid. So in the in that like year, let's say, how much did you learn? What did you learn in that year? That so like rapid growth, it's awesome, but it comes with so many challenges. It's the better you do, the more challenges you will you will face.

53:46 It's like, I always thought it was the other way around. The better you do, the less challenges. Like, your job's gonna become easier. It's not, because you see a lot more challenges coming up. And like, I noticed that a lot of the processes we made, they broke very quickly. So we were like, oh, we can do this and that, and like, put a lot of effort into everything, but then because we were scaling so fast, the putting a lot of time and effort in everything meant that...

54:14 by scaling, we just needed more hours, which that doesn't work. Like at one point you don't have any hours and a week left anymore to work. So you had to like make processes that are able to scale if you do it very quickly. And then one of the other things that was extremely important as well, and also something like a thread throughout my career, stakeholder management. Like the faster you move, the better your stakeholder management needs to be.

54:44 So like building report, I got that at that point. Like I knew it, like okay, I need to really build report, but still, stakeholder management also means that you need to not just have report, but also when you do something new, make sure everybody's involved in what you're doing and not just do it and then do it like, oh, PS, I just changed this and that's now gonna make your team work harder for me, for example.

55:13 And that was one of the things that was very important, like a very important learning for me.

55:24 Now, in terms of those, like you said, the stakeholder management being incredibly important because the speed at which you move and at a start up and I can definitely agree with you there, like communication, you know, stakeholder management is imperative because because you're growing and building so quickly. What was true yesterday might not be true today. So communication is is is huge. So in terms of what.

55:52 Are there any like tactics or are there any particular processes or anything that you learned in that year that worked well that you took forward? One of the most important things, and I think this is like the learning over the past, I would say even like two or three years, is that stakeholder management is not just like informing people, but it's also explaining why you do certain things.

56:19 What I always notice and especially notice at that time is I thought, okay, if I do X, Y, and Z, I'll come to a result. And it even goes back all the way to high school, just having the right result is not what is asked of you, and especially not the management often. It's not like if they say, like, get 10 million, if you get 10 million, they go, like, okay, nice, thank you very much. But the way to get there needs to be clear for everybody. So every step that you need to make...

56:48 and if it involves others, inform others why you're taking that step, what the impact is for them, and how to do that better. And I'm still not perfect at it, like I wouldn't say I'm very good at it right now, but I have the realization now that, like hey, I didn't do that that well. Like I could have done that way better, explaining why I wanted to make a certain step and what the impact would be.

57:14 You touched on the obviously it was a travel company. So COVID hit, which potentially cut things a bit short. Is that the main reason why you left? Was it that the company scaled back? What was the case there? I could say if I wanted to, but I knew that it was going to take a little bit longer and I had the opportunity to set up the Dutch market for another travel company.

57:43 but more in the medical travel company, definitely not a highlight in my career. And I thought like, ah, this medical travel is still happening. I was like, this is a very good opportunity for me to go into medical travel. It was a rush decision at that point. Also had to do with money. That was like, I want to make another step.

58:12 Yeah, there's,

58:41 That is fundamentally, that's going to weave throughout this series, I would say, for those tuning in. I know it was, that is true for me as well, that ultimately you get to a point that even if you're enjoying it and you feel challenged, that you feel as if you're ready for the next step in terms of, right, I want this in my life. And the only way for me to have that in my life is for me to start earning a bit more money. Yeah. And I thought at that point, that was a very good, good opportunity to, to, to, to change through a different company because.

59:11 The whole COVID period made the company very different. There was not, like we didn't see each other anymore in the office, so you miss all of that like very awesome startup time. You saw that COVID was gonna take longer than the three months they said in the beginning. So we were like, I was like, okay. Now I have the opportunity to pay a lot better, so why not make that step?

59:38 No, I know the I mean, I can see it on my screen, but the next step in your career is the job at MOS, which is where we we've first connected at TNW in Amsterdam. So in the that particular job role, like we said, you were kind of like you wanted to progress. You wanted the next step. Covid to come in. So that kind of covers off.

01:00:03 your motivation for leaving, but what was it that attracted you to Moss and that particular role in terms of, I know I need, I know I'm looking for the next step. This is the next step. What was the motivation behind that? Yeah. So I had one in between like for a short period of time as a country manager at a medical travel company, as you can see, uh, didn't make use of that. Um, but like when

01:00:31 I started looking for jobs again and I got approached by Moss and I started looking into okay like money is not everything. Like it's nice to have money but it's not everything. What does this company look like? What do they want to do? What do they want to build and what is their vision? Started looking into Moss and I was like yes, I was sold. I was like this is such a big problem because I ran into the problem myself a lot. So I was like okay.

01:00:59 Like I know this will solve something, so I know it's gonna be not easy to sell, but nice to sell because you're gonna have like actual conversations. Then I also started looking into the founders, like have they already set up a company before? Did they already succeed or fail in a company before? And I was like, yes, there's so much experience within this whole company that mistakes will be made, but those will be

01:01:29 mistakes that you can actually learn from and it won't be critical mistakes anymore. And I was like, yes, I am ready for that next step in becoming more professional. So I was like, it was nice to be a country manager before that, but I was like, I want to be more professional now. I want to learn a lot more on the job and I want the smartest people to be able to learn it from.

01:01:56 Let's talk about your next highlight role, which is actually where we, or the, during that role is where we met at TNW in Amsterdam, which was your head of sales at Moss. So what was it that attracted you to that role then? Yeah. Yeah. So, so at the company between Moss and, and, and tour lane, I had the opportunity to set up the Dutch market again, which was very interesting, very cool to do.

01:02:24 didn't turn out to be the best opportunity there was. And along the way I saw, I saw a mosque basically they reached out to me and I really started looking into like, what kind of company is this? Like, what did he actually solve? Because the company that I worked at before wasn't a match for me. So I was like, I need strong co-founders that I believe in.

01:02:53 I need a very strong team that I believe in for it to be the best opportunity for me as well. I wanted to set up the Dutch market again, definitely. It was like the third time is a charm, but it needed to be the best option I had. And I definitely found this within malls. It had a very strong founding team that already founded a few other companies, so they know what they're doing. They've already made the mistakes that most first-time founders make.

01:03:22 they had a very strong team as well, very strong management team. And maybe even the most important is that I myself, I could also still focus on building a successful sales team again. So I liked the general management part that I did before that, but in general, like what I wanna do is build a very strong sales team. And I wanted to make sure that I had that opportunity at my next step. And Moz gave me the perfect step, still be the first employee.

01:03:52 still build everything from scratch, but really focus on sales. So yeah, it sounds like the important thing for you there, like you said, is that because they had that experienced management group, you knew that things above your position were taken care of and you could really focus on building the team rather than having to be a jack of all trades. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I had to help from all sides, from the management team.

01:04:20 from the founders as well, because they knew exactly what they needed to do, but they also knew that having that strong focus on sales in the first days is one of the more important things because when setting up a new market and trying to break into the market as a first sales team, it's not easy. It's a very difficult road to success, but if you have the right management team around you, it is very much possible.

01:04:50 then you can focus on what you need to. And how long were you at Moss? In total three years. All right, so good, yeah, a good amount of time to, like that first year is always a bit of getting to know the process is the business. Year two is when things start to settle and the processes that you've brought in and the team that you've brought in should hopefully start to click and things start to sort of show their value. So...

01:05:19 In terms of what you learned during that three years then, what were the big bits for you in that role? Well, so definitely the always coming back stakeholder management, I think I've already mentioned it a few times. But stakeholder management, it has so many different layers and each company I went through, I saw these different layers coming back constantly. I thought I was doing a lot better at stakeholder management, but I saw like, hey, I need to do even better than this. I need to make sure that I,

01:05:48 I approach the right people at the right time, in the right way to be able to get things done because Moss for example is an extremely fast growing company. I think I started as employee number 100 and within eight or nine months we were 500 FTE at one point. So we grew very fast and there is time to build a report with everybody and to build this very good bond.

01:06:17 more challenging when everything grows that fast because you need to change things relatively quickly as well. And then the other very important thing is that my first hires are very important. So when building a team and you can do your own first hires, you need to make sure that you hire the right profiles to have a strong like founding team to build on because

01:06:46 Those are the people that have to explain all of the new hires, like hey, this is how we work, this is how we get successful, these are the successes that we're booking and how we are booking them. And I think that is one of the more important learnings that I've had that the hiring, sometimes you need to take two or three more conversations to make sure you hire the right people.

01:07:10 And we definitely saw that I had some very, very strong first hires that set up the processes with me together. So I wasn't there alone. I've I had a very strong elite that that really set up the process almost perfectly in the beginning. I had an SDR lead or well, he started off as SDR, but quickly grew into becoming an SDR lead.

01:07:35 that really helped up with setting up the whole outbound structure together. Like, okay, we want to get better at our processes. We want to be better in how we do outreach and, and working together is I think one of the more important things because even though I'm, I tend to be very hands on in working and still doing outreach myself. I'm not the person that, that does everything. I'm not the person who challenges.

01:08:04 or faces challenges every day when it comes to the processes. So I want to use that knowledge that the people are building in my team. It's interesting to hear you talk about that because I'm sort of six, seven months into role now at director level, and that's a new role for me. So it's something that I've been through in recent months. So my first hire was

01:08:31 My copyrighted Becky, who I'd worked with previously for two and a half years, uh, I knew that she could deliver content or copy at scale, at pace, at quality. Um, so yeah, that need for someone, people that you can depend on, um, is, is very, very important. And I'm actually hiring for another role at the minute, a website manager. So I'll definitely take your piece of advice of doing perhaps an extra one, two or three. Um,

01:08:59 that you may feel are a bit sort of like overkill or not necessary, but just to make sure that they are that a role that you can depend on. Cause like first that website manager role is huge. So it's a very, very important hire for us. So that's, that's yeah, very, very interesting. Yeah. And it's also, I, I, I've made my share, fair, a fair share of mistakes and hiring of course, over all of the years, but I think.

01:09:26 The most important thing is that you learn from that. And I really learned like, hey, if I don't have people that I can build on within my team, I can ask a lot of them, but they will never deliver in the way that I would like them to deliver. And that has more to do with me than with them, because I need to make sure that I have that person that can actually do all of those things and can work together. And I think this is often a

01:09:57 underestimated part in whole leadership. Your job is 80% is hiring a lot of the times because you have to have these conversations and make sure you're building the right team. So good managers also very good hiring managers. They tend to search for those people that compliment them. And most of the times are smarter than you are, for example. I definitely hire people that are smarter than me because...

01:10:26 because that's how I am also able to grow within my positions and how I am able to learn from people that can challenge the ideas I have. At Masa, I really had that in my first, let's say, five, seven to seven hires. Yeah, there's two points you made there which I'd like to touch on. So I think your first was that good sort of leaders have a very good skill for hiring.

01:10:54 That's definitely so I've heard that on Stephen Barlow's diary of a CEO. He speaks about that a lot. How your one of your main jobs, main skills needs to be hiring shit, hot people to, to do the daily work for you. People that you can rely on. Um, that's definitely something that is I've noticed coming into role is that there's a much larger, um, chunk of my time is thinking about.

01:11:20 building the team and team structures and processes, which is still something I'm getting used to. I've been used to being more of an individual contributor that spends most of the time delivering things and less time actually sort of managing, being the puppeteer of the team, managing those that do the delivering. And then one of my previous CEOs actually said the same thing about hiring people that are more intelligent than you or...

01:11:49 at least hiring people that have a skill that you don't possess. Um, because you know, it's a weak area or a gap in the team. Um, which is a, another very, very good tip, um, that I've, I've been putting into practice, like I'm, I'm an okay writer, but I can't write really high quality stuff at pace. So I'll get someone who can, um, I'm, I can build websites, but it'll probably take me six months versus one or two months for someone else to implement sort of new changes. So.

01:12:18 that again, that's something that a skill that we need in the team. So yeah, two, two very, very good tips there. Yeah. And I saw it myself as well. I did like very nice emails, like very nice first emails to send out to our prospects and I was like, yeah, these are good emails and then you send them out and then the feedback comes back and then the team says like, well, I think we should change these wordings and, and, and change it a bit more into this. And then you look at it and you go like, yeah, you're right.

01:12:47 You're more into touch with the actual prospects than I am at the moment. Yes, these might be the psychological, better structured emails, for example, but if that's not what our prospects want, then who am I to judge it, right? The team knows best and all of that very valuable input is in the end what helped Moss also become very successful in the Netherlands. It was the team input that they were able to...

01:13:17 to work together with me on like, hey, how do we actually build this into something very successful? Yeah. Now it sounds like those three years were very, very fruitful in terms of your development team success. Like you said, the sort of Netherlands just built that out to be a successful team grew inside. So question is, why did you leave? And this is actually quite recent, isn't it? We're talking in the last sort of few months. So this is a very hot off the press.

01:13:47 conversation that we've actually not had in detail. So I'm very interested to hear about this. So why did you leave? Why did you hang up the Moss hat? Yeah, so I was extremely proud of what I've built at Moss. And I think from the beginning of the year, I was already like playing in my mind with the thoughts of building something myself. I really loved setting up the Dutch market for like, for different companies three times in a row.

01:14:14 and had my successes, had my failures, some things went very well, others didn't go very well. Sometimes there was a match with the company, sometimes there wasn't. And I always thought, I want to do this myself. So I started playing around with those thoughts. Didn't really have the opportunity that came by where I was like, hey, this is very exciting. But in the past month, one of those opportunities did come by.

01:14:42 me and Moss were not matching 100% anymore, which is all good. Sometimes the love is over and if that is, then you start looking for other opportunities. And I found a perfect match with two co-founders. So we decided to set up our own company, which we are building right now. It's still very much in the area of sales, which I'm actually very excited about.

01:15:12 And I wanted to solve problems that I know myself very well. And that's what I'm going to do right now. So all of the problems that I saw in the past 12 years in sales, I'm hoping to be able to solve them for other sales managers or at least make their day to day jobs a lot easier by being able to automate a lot of those tasks.

01:15:36 Now, obviously you don't have to go into any more detail than you can, like you said, you're building things. So what sort of category are we talking? Are we talking sales intelligence? Are we talking something that is more people management related in sales, CRM related? What are we talking about? So I would like to call it sales enablement, but it's sales enablement in a very different way. What we want to achieve,

01:16:06 is we want to automate day to day very repetitive tasks. So in a lot of sales teams, you often see emails coming back that are two sentences and you know exactly what to answer to it. It's like, hey, I wanna order a thousand more of these, or hey, can you place me the same order as last week? So these emails are simple and they're easy to handle for sales teams.

01:16:33 But when you come to look at the amount of those emails that are coming in, it's almost like 60% of the time that somebody in sales is working on these very simple emails. And one of those emails seems like, okay, that's five minutes of work. You put in the order, you send it out, and that's it. But that is 60% of the time less spent on reaching out to new customers. It's 60% less spent on making your customers very happy.

01:17:03 And that time, I want to free up that time for sales managers, but also for sales employees to be able to really build on their existing network and build on to their new sales funnel to be able to do more outreach. So we want to automate all of those day-to-day and very mundane tasks by using AI and by enabling companies when one of those emails comes in.

01:17:31 that that is completely done by AI. So they place the order, they respond back to the email, and they actually do the job of the inside sales agent, let's say the boring part of the job of the inside sales agent, because it's not the most exciting part, and thus freeing up more time to actually start doing outreach again, and to actually start working on that big client, and proactively doing outreach, and saying,

01:18:00 I've sent you a list of items that we have that I think are very good for your company and starting to do that upsell again. We see a very big chunk of that problem basically because it is considered as a very big problem especially in the B2B wholesale companies. So wholesale companies get these questions a lot and that's where we really want to focus our strength.

01:18:30 As I said, you can't reveal too much. Uh, you're still building it, but I will be keeping a very, very watchful eye. Um, I'm excited. I love, uh, new ventures. Uh, I love, um, people going out on their own and trying to solve problems. It's, it's very, very exciting. So I'm sure at some point we'll, we'll have to get you back on to talk about it in some capacity, um, or we'll just have a, a, a general, um, chit chat in the background, but

01:18:55 Okay. So we've kind of spoken through 12 ish years, the highlights of 12 ish years, why you moved, what you learn, um, why you decided to leave companies. So if we will do a bit of a roundup then in terms of like, I don't know, actionable tips, um, from those 12 years. So I think the, a good place to start, uh, taking into account, obviously, the whole point of the podcast is helping people progress. So what would be.

01:19:20 your top three pieces of advice or top three tips for people who are looking to progress in revenue focus roles? Yeah. The first one is learn from your peers, learn from everybody who is around you. That is where all of the, like the, the, the information is. I love, I love that there are so many books to learn from, but I think your neighbor who's sitting next to you in your office might have so much knowledge that.

01:19:51 Most people don't even ask, they don't ask like, hey, how do you do your day to day job? Like, how do you motivate yourself? How do you like your job? All of those like very simple questions basically. Your peers will give you so much information. And it also, you can also ask for example, for a network. Currently I'm in a very big network in Amsterdam that.

01:20:17 is filled with revenue leaders, it's called sales sessions. That is, it's a gold mine. It's just heads of sales and revenue leaders sitting together and talking about the things they didn't do right. So instead of saying like, oh, I do this in that way, they talk about how they did things wrong so that we can learn from that. And that is, it's pure gold mine when you're talking to people who are in the same job as you. There is no competition when it comes to that because you can learn.

01:20:47 so much. I think I was gonna say that's just on that one is you will have spoken with Nick, the head of sales we had at Selligence, you would have spoken with him in the past and I ended up sitting next to him for a good year and I think as a marketing leader sitting next to a sales leader, the amount that we learn off one another or the amount that we were able to align on and actually implement in real time in terms of like optimization stuff was just invaluable, like

01:21:16 It was a ridiculous learning period during that timeframe. So I can even as a, it might seem strange as a marketer to sit next to a sales leader, but do it sit next to people that scare you sit next to people that you don't know, you know, sit next to people who haven't, you know, no relation to the job you're doing because you will learn and it will make you a more rounded professional, like you said. Um, but yeah, sorry to jump in there, but it was, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it spoke to a.

01:21:46 an experience that I've had that aligns perfectly with it. Yeah, and it can even be outside of revenue. So you can even talk to a head of finance. They have so much learning as well. They have such different teams and they run into different problems, but some are also the same. It's just the behavior might be very different of the employees that are in the team. But in general, I think that the biggest learning is, that's from...

01:22:13 from your peers that are sitting next to you or people that have a similar job and just ask them for like 15 minute coffee chat. Do a short interview with them so you can learn a lot about them. I think the other one that's like super important is for everybody who wants to grow in a career, it doesn't come for free. I mean, it's like kicking up, kicking open an open door. But yeah, it doesn't come for free. Like it is very hard.

01:22:43 to grow within your career, it's not easy. There's a lot of unpleasant times that happen, unpleasant feedback that comes in where you thought you were doing an amazing job, but it wasn't. You think you're doing a very good job with your team, but then the team says, like, hey, no, it's horrible. I don't like the way that we're working right now, or I don't like you as a manager. All of these feedbacks say, you will find it. When you start growing, you will find it. People...

01:23:11 will go from liking you to not liking you anymore. But every time something like that happens, yes it might hurt, but use it as a lesson. Like if you want to use it as a lesson, you will learn from it and you will become better. As soon as you let it get to you too much, it will become difficult to still learn from it. Like I'm letting it get to you, I mean like when you stop liking it, where you're like okay.

01:23:41 Now I really don't like this anymore. I dislike that. Yeah, you know, part of me does worry that, and this is not an insult to anyone, 21 coming out of university, I think it's just the way the world is going, unfortunately, is that I do worry that people early on in their careers think it's easier than it is to progress up the ladder. It's hard work. We've spoken in this episode how

01:24:09 you prioritized work over relationships, I've done the same. I think that it requires a certain level of sacrifice. I say certain level, quite a lot of sacrifice to progress quickly, to get to that position that you want want to get to. It is hard. It is tough. I always give the analogy of spinning plates. There are only so many plates you can spin. And if you're putting a lot of focus into spinning your career plate, naturally, other things that you're going to drop other plates. But yeah, it's.

01:24:39 It's not going to be easy. It's not going to be enjoyable all the time. But if you want to get to that, that top tier position, you're going to have to put the work in and I, I, I do worry that, um, the younger generation have been conditioned to expect more to be delivered to the monoplata. Now I could be wrong. Uh, that's a very, you know, that's the generalization from me there. I know there's going to be, um, people that are willing to put in the work, roll their sleeves up and get dirty.

01:25:09 But it's unavoidable. It's a tough old world out there. Yeah, and you're right, you see it more often. And this is also, I always say as a joke, I'm partially to blame for this myself as well. I don't have a formal decent education. I worked my way up. I did it almost every year at one point. So you get a new position every time.

01:25:35 So it seems easy and sometimes it seems like, oh, you can get one every year, but it's not that easy. And a lot of the startups started these career ladders, for example. And often we look at it as people, as people in general, you look at it and you're like, I want the same thing. But what a lot of people do not speak about, and this is why I love speaking about it now, is that...

01:26:05 To be able to get there, you have to drop a lot of things. You have to make certain decisions. When it's 6 o'clock and it's 25 degrees outside and it's sunny and everybody goes for a beer, but you know that if you stay an hour longer, you can get better results and that puts you in the spotlight a little bit more. I would say, and this is maybe...

01:26:29 a generational difference could also be of course, but I would say stay that hour longer and get that extra result. Because it will give you a lot more experience and it's not about showing FaceTime that you're there for longer, but it's extra experience. It's on a daily basis. Every time when you do that, you get that extra hour in and that extra hour. Yeah, it's the theory of compounding interest and dividends over time.

01:26:59 the more, even in small amounts, the more you put in early on in your career, the more you'll be able to take your foot off the gas, so to speak, later in your career and enjoy the fruits of your labor, like without being all cheesy. Okay, so that was the first two. What was the third and final top tip? The last one is especially for revenue, don't stop selling. It's, it's, I think one of the

01:27:26 It's easy to say, but it's the most important. Do not stop selling. It is very nice when you go into your first management role and you're like, okay, I don't have to be an IC anymore. It does not stop. I would even say whether you're a founder or a CRO, pick up the phone sometimes and continue to sell because you need to be close to the challenges that your team is facing. And as soon as you stop selling, even if it's for three months, you do not know what the market is doing. And...

01:27:55 for everybody who's listening to the podcast that's in a revenue role, we all know that in the past two years, the whole outbound game changed so much. Emails are unanswered, LinkedIn requests are unanswered. When you pick up the phone and start calling somebody, the responses are very different. And that happened in a blink of an eye. It happened so incredibly fast.

01:28:25 And I think we all underestimate that as a manager or as a head of or a FIP, whatever level you are, we think, no, it's all going to be the same. It's the same psychology, but it's not like it might be a difference of one or two sentences set in a different intonation, but often it's not. It's about what the actual economy is like. Okay. People can spend less money. The company might still have like a hundred million to burn, but if you're a finance manager that you're talking to.

01:28:54 feels, let's say, financial stress at home, maybe, for example, because of the economy, that might change his way of thinking how he's going to buy a new product. And the same goes for sales managers or procurement managers. And you need to be very aware of how people respond to your sales tactics. And the easiest way to train and coach your team is to...

01:29:23 Fill yourself, make the mistakes yourself, so you can tell your team, I've tried it out, and this is what works really well. And then try it together with your team, and work on their feedback, and try their feedback in your conversations. And that is the best way to gain the team's trust, and gain the market's trust in the end, because you work with feedback as a tool, instead of as a, as a measurement.

01:29:53 I love this one. So I've always had a strong belief that you it's like you should never ask people in your team to do something that you're not willing to do yourself. And I think even as a marketer, you can become detached from the latest algorithm updates with social media or the latest tactics, the latest technology. That's why I love continuing to do podcasts because I feel like I'm staying kind of up to date with creating content like

01:30:22 I'm a director of content. I need to be very, very up to speed in the effort and the work that's taken to create content and how it all works and the problems and the frustrations that the team are having. So yeah, very much agree with that one. That's a very, very good one to wrap up the top three tips. Um, we, we've kind of touched on this question, uh, with each of your highlight roles, but do you have any career regrets today, like just a single big career regret that you have if at all?

01:30:51 So for me, there are no regrets. Even if it wasn't the best match, it's never a regret because every step I made was a step forward. I've seen everything as a very good learning opportunity of what do I want as a person, how do I want to progress my career, and what do I not want? Because that's maybe even more important because often we see an end goal. We wanna be, let's say, director of sales or director of marketing. But...

01:31:21 What do you not want? Because there's so much things that can be affiliated to being a director of sales. It can be in so many different topics, but what do you not want? So for me, there are no regrets in my career. No, I think you do seem to hear that quite a lot, that even if things at the time seemed awful, seemed frustrating, that ultimately they all pushed you in the right direction in the end.

01:31:49 Um, which I think is people should value their failures as much as they value the successes. Um, what's the, I, again, I kind of think we've already answered this question. It was the, what's next, the next step on your ladder, but we've already discussed it. The next step is you building something for yourself, which we will find out more, um, about in the coming weeks and months, but perhaps before this episode's actually gone live. So if you are listening, watching, um, go and check out Dan's profile and see if he's launched said new venture.

01:32:18 And if not, go and check out his LinkedIn, because he's probably spoken about it in some capacity. But what is your end goal? Well, you know what your next step is, but what's your career end goal? My career end goal is sharing my passion and my knowledge in sales. So I'm still on that learning path towards doing that. And I still want to gain more knowledge and gain even more failures that I can learn from, and then be able to share all of it.

01:32:47 And that can be in a coaching capacity, it can be in a speaking capacity, but I want to be able to really harness all of that what I've experienced and give that to early starters in their career and be able to guide them through those moments where they feel like they want to drop everything and just go back to being an IC or where they feel like, hey, I don't know how I can make my stack.

01:33:16 from a team lead to a head off for example, or from a head off to a VP. Because I wish back in my time that it was easier to find coaches. Now thankfully it is, like it's way better to find people that can help you in that career. When I started it wasn't, it was very like an abstract thing to be a coach for example. But yeah, that's still my end goal, being able to share all of my knowledge.

01:33:45 And I think setting up your own thing is a very, very good way of sharing your knowledge and your passion, because hopefully the tool you're building is built on the framework of those things that you've learned. But also you'll be able to share your knowledge through like people actually using the tool and in promoting the tool and talking about the tool, which is, which is very, very exciting. So I, for one, am looking forward to seeing what comes next in terms of that, that new venture, but.

01:34:15 To those that are listening or watching, of course, thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Revenue Career Ladder podcast. If you're watching on stream, please subscribe so you get an email or get an update on the latest episode releases and of course, a new series. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple, please hit the follow button so you get updates on when the next episode is released. And we hope to have you back very, very soon. But thank you very much, Dan.

01:34:44 joining us. Hopefully it wasn't too much like walking through Treacle. Thank you very much for having me, Jamie. It was a pleasure to talk about it. Likewise.