00:03 Welcome to another episode of the Revenue Career Ladder podcast episode two, or the second recording. I don't know if it is going to be episode two, but the second recording anyway, uh, where we dive deep into the career journeys of revenue focused professionals like yourselves, uh, to give you real insights, actionable tips, and maybe even a little reassurance that the journey is yours to the fine and there is no right or wrong journey. So hopefully what you'll get is a mixture of actionable tips, um, and

00:31 insights to help you achieve your goals. In this episode, I'm joined by Neil, uh, and we're going to be chatting about his journey from fish and chip shops to founder and managing director at happy selling. Um, now that does sound like a bit of a mad journey, but before we dive into that journey for the next 60 ish minutes, how are you Neil? I'm doing very well, Jamie. And thank you very much for having me on your podcast.

01:00 big fan of yourselves and thank you to your listeners for hearing my voice and hear me waffle on for the next hour. Um, in terms of who I am, my name is Neil Bouyan. I'm the founder and managing director for a company called happy7.io. Super high level. I'm an SDR trainer, SDR coach, and I'm also an SDR podcast host as well. And a pleasure to meet everyone. And I think that's, um, how I first came across you was, uh, your content on.

01:26 LinkedIn. So you're obviously doing something right. That's how I came across. Thank you. Came across your profile and I thought that it was when I looked at your profile, it was a really interesting journey that you had gone on. And then we had a kickoff chat and I think you were very open, transparent about yourself in younger years, which I think self-awareness is a rarity nowadays. So I think I'm very much looking forward to the conversation as we go, as I said, all the way from fish and ship shop to founder and managing director. So.

01:55 I guess, right. The logical place to start. Tell us about, uh, tell us about the fish and chip shop. Yes. Uh, and you know, until before coming on the show, I completely forgot about it. And I loved, you know, getting ready for this session and thinking about my first ever job. So the story goes, Jamie, um, just before I got the job, um, I believe it was my 12th birthday. And if we cast our way back to the nineties, uh, it was the first time we had mobile phones and being able to get pay as you go phones.

02:23 And what I really wanted for my birthday present was a mobile phone. And my mom took me out on my birthday. I remember her buying, it was a Vodafone pay as you go, top up mobile thing. And we're heading back home in the car and my mom starts tearing a little bit. And as a young 12 year old boy, I looked at mom was like, what's wrong? And she just said, I know it's your birthday, but you know, back then buying a pay as you go mobile phone was expensive, right? And we didn't have much back then.

02:50 And she just went on like, you know, it took me a lot of hours to be able to afford that phone. And something just went in me and just felt cold. And I was like, I don't want to put my mum out, you know? So, you know, a couple of months later, as time went on, I said, I want to get my own money. I don't want to have to ask them for something. I want to be able to, like, pay out my own pocket. So when I approached my parents, I said, I want to go get a part time job. Most of our mates back then, you could work in what we called

03:19 Safeways, which is now Morrison's. So again, show my age a little bit. And there was stacking shelves and I said, nah, forget that. I don't want to be stacking shelves. That's not me. But as I went through Morden in Surrey, I did the stupidest thing where I created a CV and the cover letter was, it said free money is what it had a big logo and it just said the word free money. And I printed this on MS print.

03:46 And I was going into opticians, I was going into boots, I was going into all the shops around there. And I remember walking into what was called Superfish, which is a chain, like a really nice fish and chip shop. And I handed over the CV and this, like the guy who owned it was Andy, he was your typical Chelsea type of dude. And he looked at it and he said, what the F is that? And I said, I'm just trying to get a job. And he said, that's cheeky and that's wrong, but we do have something for Saturdays.

04:16 He says, come back tomorrow during Sunday afternoon after we've done our main shift, and we're going to have a sit down and a chat. Went back home and said to my parents, yeah, I've got an interview. And they're like, where? They're like, I said a fish and chip shop in Morden. They're like, all right. So I remember going to meet Andy the next day, feeling a little bit nervous. And we just sat down and he just says, how old are you? And I said, I'm 30. And he said, OK, you can only work a certain amount of hours. You can't work.

04:42 next to the fat fryer do the actual cooking because you're not old enough you have to be 16 and above but what I am looking for is a shop boy that will help us with Friday evenings, Saturday mornings, Saturday afternoons and then Sunday mornings because that's when we're mainly busy and what you're going to be doing is helping prep the food, you're going to be serving customers, you're going to be on the till and luckily one of my school friends actually worked there as well so lo and

05:13 but I was the worst hire that you could have ever met. So my first couple of sessions, Jamie, I kept turning up late. I couldn't wake up on time on a weekend because I wasn't used to having an alarm clock and we didn't have phones, you know, like we do with Apple iPhones today and having alarms going off. So I was always late and Andy was always annoyed with me and always had a go at me and I was just, I'm sorry, I'm gonna try, I'm gonna try. And I can remember always waking up late or being late to my shift because I always left at last minute because I was either watching TV or having some food or something.

05:43 and then running out the door and just saying, I hope I'm going to make it. I'm going to make it. So why learned within that role was obviously being on time because if I wasn't on time and he docked my pay simple as that, um, I also learned, you know, how to run or work against some instructions of how a kitchen operates and who, what everybody's job was and what their role was. I also learned, you know,

06:10 ringing up orders on a till, exchanging cash and then doing the reconciliation at the end of the shift. I also learned that I didn't really fare well in busy environments back then. So if you can imagine it gets a six or seven o'clock on a Friday, people are coming home to get their dinner from work. Then you had the mad shift of everybody who left the local pub now wanted some fish and chips. And what you had to do as the order person was to go back to the main chef, which is Andy,

06:38 and tell him if you want a Moby Dick, which is like a big cod and chips. Then you had scampi, then they wanted it with scrappings and people were so particular and you had regular repeat customers. And I remember many a time getting into a tears and just almost saying, I can't do this. I'm sorry, Andy. And just, you know, being fearful because he led with an iron fist and you just didn't want to get on the wrong side of him, but I learned a lot of great stuff from him. Um, and if I was ever naughty, I was always delegated to pot wash, which was

07:07 dishwashing and it just wasn't the funnest thing. But if you pissed Andy off, that's where you'd end up in. But from there, you know, I had a regular job and I remember getting my first paycheck, it was in a little brown envelope. And I had money. And I was like, wow. So as a young boy, the first thing you want to do is what am I going to buy? What am I going to spend? And then I learned a very harsh lesson because again, in South London, we're a bit ghetto. I remember coming into school and having that 30 quid of my first paycheck.

07:37 And like saying, yeah, I've got some money. And then I got robbed by the schoolboys. They took all my money. So I learned, here's another thing. When you earn cash and you have cash, don't flash it about because you could become a target, especially in South London. But I did that for about a year and a half. And one of my best mates, Phil, he's a godfather of my son, he left Safeway and then he started working at another fast food place that we all know, Pizza Hut. And...

08:07 I'd always catch up with him after work and he was saying like, yeah, he's going to be riding moped soon. The kitchen staff were really cool. And it just sounded like I was in the 1950s and Phil was in the future with what I was hearing about Pizza Hut. So one thing led to another. And he said, you know what? You're now 16. You can come get a job at Pizza Hut and you can be making pizzas. You get free food, you get free pizzas, free chicken wings, free Ben and Jerry's.

08:36 you'd be earning a little bit more per hour. That sounds ideal, doesn't it? Yeah, a complete dream, a complete dream. But to cut a long story short, I handed in my notice with Andy and then I went to go work for Pizza Hut. But I also remember that day where Andy was really upset with me. Cause I remember Andy, when I told him I'm quitting Andy and he was like, where are you going now? And I said, I'm gonna go work with the mates at Pizza Hut. And he said, Neil.

09:05 Like I had so many big plans for you, you know, making you one of the senior members of the team. Like you could be able to take over this and you know, you're going to be help running shifts. And he said, pizza, what, what, what the hell's pizza, mate? That's all it's not traditional like fish and chips. And I just looked at him just like, I get it, but I just want to go there because it's cool, you know? But respectfully, I learned a lot from the man. Still a friend still went in every now and then to go get fish and chips. And to this day.

09:33 Superfish is still open. It's not owned by Andy. But I have a very special place for Superfish. So yeah, that is my fish and chip story, Jamie. I'll tell you what, that's, that's what most people just, they just say, yeah, I used to work in a shop. I used to do a paper round and yeah, that was 20 years ago. And fair play. You, you went in deep on the background of it, what you learn, which is, which is really, really good.

09:57 All jokes aside from the, um, slightly click baity title of from fish and chips to founder, what is the, um, that's gone to the first like highlight role as we call it, which is once you, you've grown up a bit and you're thinking more about your career and, uh, probably a more strategic choice. Um, what was your, what was your first, let's call it, I don't want to say proper role, I don't want to say a real job or whatever like that, but what, what was your first career move? That's a.

10:26 Yeah, so the job title was housing benefit officer or housing benefit and revenue officer at a local authority called Wandsworth Borough Council. But the kind of background it was, like you said, you know, we grow up, we start thinking about career choices. Neil didn't really grow up after high school. So I was a little bit of a tear away. I had a little bit of a problem with authority when I was younger, mixing with the wrong crowds and not paying any attention to my

10:56 Simply put, Jamie, if somebody told me to do something, I had an attitude problem. Like I had to see you on the same level as me to respect you. But if you spoke down to me in any sort of way, I would have a problem with you. And unfortunately, that's kind of what happened at college twice. Um, I went to go study IT, got a little bit of a GMVQ qualification, then went to go study multimedia, um, but had a big problem with, um,

11:23 know, the lecturers and people at college. So my dad turned around to me said, well, if you're not studying, you need to go get a job. But at that point, without any formal qualifications, I was like, well, what can I do? I don't want to be doing some boring job. I want to have something which has longevity. You know, even at that age, about 17, 18, I'm thinking about pension, you know, one day buying a house and all of this sort of stuff. So I was really lucky where some

11:52 friends or family friends already worked at ones with borough council. And there was a history of most of their mum and dads worked for the local authority and they were able to get their kids into it, family, cousins. And it was like a really community-based workforce, if you could say. Um, but kind of what was put to me was, right, we've got this job for you and it's called scanning and indexing. Sounds sexy, right? But in essence, you were a photocopy boy. And what I was doing was

12:20 all claim forms for housing benefit and council tax benefit were sent through to our department. We would have to go through the claim forms, shred them all up and then put them into a imaging document system, so like a big photocopier. And all of these claim forms then would be sent up to the actual housing benefit offices. And I remember getting my first paycheck and it was bigger than I'd ever expected. Working for local authorities is a really good space.

12:47 And at that young age, I'd kind of like tripled my salary of what I used to have at Pizza Hut and my fish and chip days. So much so that I didn't know what to spend it on, so it just accumulated in my bank. But doing this job, I was with quite a close knit team where we had two senior leaders and we had some younger people. And I just remember every day coming in. And what was really horrible was we were located next door to the Ram Brewery in Wandsworth.

13:16 So if you'd ever gone out on the weekend having a drink and you had a hangover, the next morning you would smell hops and Weetabix and it wasn't great for hangovers. But over time, we were charged with handling sensitive documents such as passports, birth certificates, death certificates, notifications of people coming into the borough, out of the borough, asylum seekers, refugees, etc. And you really had to take care with handling these documents, making copies of them.

13:44 and adding them into their claimant forms and then passing them up to the assessors. But over time, doing the same job day in, day out became monotonous. So I started taking an interest into the actual forms, what they meant, the different types of revenue and benefits that were collected and given out to people out in the local authority. And I made, I was kind of like one of the youngest people.

14:10 within that team. So, you know, for an 18, 19 year old, majority of the people were in their 30s, 40s and 50s. And most of their lives were lived out working within that council, because of the pension and all the benefits and everything that you get. So I kind of sold it to myself that this is probably where I'm going to end up for the rest of my life. And if I'm here, then I need to start climbing up because Neil ain't got any qualifications, he's got no formal degrees. Here is where somewhere I can make something of myself.

14:40 So there were opportunities for, there was like a restructure of the council where anybody would be able to apply for a housing benefit officer position. And I'm not going to mention her name, but my boss at the time when I said, Oh, maybe I could go for that. And she said, Neil, you're a young whippersnapper. They would never have you come on, mate. You've only been here two years and you need to study and you need to have all of these like qualifications to be something like that.

15:09 And I looked at her and I said, well, I'm going to give it a go because you never know. So out of 50 applicants, 11 were ring fenced and I was one of those guys that got it. And I remember like sitting there thinking like, yeah, there we go. So I then stepped up into a proper department with, you know, 50 to 60 different colleagues where we was working with the fraud team, the council tax team, the housing benefit team.

15:35 And I remember my boss was a guy called Martin West. So Martin was an astute gentleman, very well dressed, very articulate. And he was very well versed in, you know, housing, benefit, law and compliancy, and his son used to work with him as well, and he kind of took me under his wing and he just said to me, Neil, here is a place that you can make your career, here is a place where you can really learn a lot of things and you can upskill yourself. He said, I, I was the same. I never went to college.

16:02 didn't do the uni thing, but this is kind of where I made my life. And he says like, what, what is it that you want to do? And I said, I want to earn money and I want to have some sort of qualification so that my parents are finally happy because I was seeing a bit of a black sheep in the family. And Martin said that, you know, there are formal qualifications that you can do. There's a lot of studying, but he says, before we get to that point, let's get you versed up on how to be a housing benefit officer. So

16:29 There was a hell of a lot of training that I had to go through, such as safeguarding, how to identify forms, you know, different levels of housing benefit, how it's calculated, using something called a Northgate or Civica computer system that was connected to the DWP. And here I learned how to write formal communication, so letters.

16:54 So imagine Jamie, if you applied for your housing benefit, I would have to look through your form and then write out a letter to state the type of evidence that I need for you to help assess your claim. I also had to learn how to write like, you know, really articulate letters to say why you're not entitled to, but have it backed up by case law, evidence, et cetera. Tell you what Chuck GPT would have worked wonders about that. Yeah, a hundred percent, a hundred percent, but it was, you know,

17:22 like if I look back at it, it was quite a traditional archaic system, which will then lead me into like how did tech sales come about in a moment. But I was very fortunate to... The way that I looked at Ejame was again, most of the people that I were around were much more senior in terms of experience as well as age. And I just kept feeling like a young pup.

17:45 But I was the one that was able to work through my caseload quicker than anybody else. I was the one that was able to identify fraudulent things going on and raising the flag to the fraud team. I was very proactive and very proud in what I was doing. And I think I just had like a cringe memory. I remember once I was out after work on a Friday and at a pub and you meet somebody and I'm like, what are you doing? I'm a housing benefit and council tax officer, as if it meant like I had some sort of police badge on me or something like that.

18:14 But coming into the world of tech sales, like what kind of came to the conclusion of me working at Wandsworth was 2009. One of the coolest inventions in the world, in my opinion, was something called the iPhone. And it was the first iPhone brought out by Steve Jobs. Now before then I was a hardcore Nokia man and I loved my Nokias. But here we found this thing. Right. Before, before we move on, what was the, which Nokia did you have at that time?

18:43 I was a Samsung E800 before I got the iPhone 3G. Okay. But what Nokia did you have? So the Nokia's that I had, I loved my 8310 because it was just like a mini little burner phone. What else did we have? I had the Nokia N-Gage. So it was the first Sega game that you can actually play on a phone, which is freaking cool. And then I had my last phone was a Nokia N95, which was one of the coolest. It was one of the first Carl Zeiss.

19:12 lens photo cameras that you could have in your pocket. So again, I really geeked out on my phones. But then, you know, this iPhone came out and what I was blown away by was if you look at the old Nokia phones, in order to get into your messages, you'd have to go menu, SMS, inbox, see the message from that particular person. But I was, my mind was blown where you just literally had like an app. So back then apps were a new fangled thing.

19:40 where you could just click into the app and then you're straight into the message. I was like, rawr, that's cool. And then I remember, uh, I think England were playing, um, again, I'm not really a football man, but it was like the world cup or something. And I remember going to my boss saying, I can watch the England game on my phone. He was like, you can watch TV. Isn't that illegal? And I said, no, it's like a minute behind. So it's free and it's streaming, but you can watch it. And then there was maps and then there was.

20:07 weird stupid apps like a beer app when you drank it, it looked like the beer was just... Oh, I remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the thing was, I was always told off at work for being on my phone consistently and always, and I'd get slapped behind the ears and they'll get off your phone. And I'd always turn back and say, it's not just a phone, it's so much more than that. And this is kind of where the pitch came about where at that point, I started saying, asking quite where people would say, Neil, I don't need a phone to do all those cool things.

20:37 I just need to call somebody, send a text and then to call. That's all I need a phone for. I said, you're right, but there are other things that you can do. So I remember I had this other manager called Sarah, she had two kids and I said, Sarah, your kids, your little girls, you love them, but you always say they're really noisy and they're always like, bro, like just shouting and everything when you're going out and about. And I said, you told me that you went to.

21:01 the doctors the other day and when you're sitting in the waiting room they were kicking off, they were screaming and you just wish you could put a plug in them. And then I turned around and I had a baby niece at that time and said here's like a play school app and here's things that they could be doing. So two weeks later, Sarah said, no I know I'm really going to hate saying this but I think I'm going to buy an iPhone. What would you recommend? So I'd go get the iPhone 3GS in white with 16 gigabytes of memory.

21:33 And then as the weeks went on, more and more people kept coming to my desk to ask me questions about the iPhone, because there was a war between BlackBerry and iPhone as the business phone. And I kept having arguments with BlackBerry users and saying, why the iPhone so cool and it's team Apple all the way. But around 30 to 40 people purchase an iPhone because I wouldn't shut up about it, Jamie. And I remember one day sitting at my desk and one of my colleagues, Michael, who's actually a friend and a famous DJ.

22:03 walked past my desk and he said, Neil, you and your iPhones, like are you on the payroll for Apple? And I said to him, nah, and then something tweaked.

22:16 And what I kind of understood from him was that's how salespeople make commission based off the sales of what they're doing with devices. And I remember looking around at Wandsworth and thinking to myself, is this where I'm going to be forever? Is this it? Or is there more? And my, you know, thinking back then was uneducated. But my point of view of salespeople, Jamie, was they're very money driven, they're narcissistic, they're cutthroat, they're up their own butts.

22:45 And I'm not that type of person. I'm not a sales person. So it then, you know, got me thinking about, could I have a career in sales? Um, but that's the next step, but that's kind of concluding as to, you know, what I learned working at local government teams, I learned discovery, I learned how to run meetings, how to collect evidence, how to write correspondence, how to work within a team. And then, yeah, I kind of geeked out on phones and it kind of.

23:15 peak the journey for sales. Well, yeah, it's interesting because when I was looking at your career history, you went from housing benefit officer into SAS, which is a hell of a, like getting into SAS, I think, I don't know. I think it's one of those things that on the whole you seem to fall into rather than making a conscious decision that I want to work in SAS until you get further on in your career and you, uh, you've got, you know, someone who works in SAS or you've worked in SAS before and you've gone out of it and you want to go back.

23:45 But other than that, you seem to sort of fall into it. So you went from housing benefit officer to enterprise STR. Zuora. And now I've, um, spoken to another, um, guy from Zuora on a previous episode. So I know the company, but tell me a little bit about how on earth you came across that job, like what attracted you to the job? Why did you take that particular job? Yeah, it's a really cool story. Um,

24:13 So for context, just before that job, I was working at another B2B publisher corporate job and I was doing what we call telesales. And outside of sales, I work in music and I'm an MC and I'm a UK garage MC. And I was working and touring with the famous duo DJ Luck and MC Neat. And I remember one day doing DJ Luck's daughter's 18th birthday. And we was up in the country doing the set.

24:44 The night it ended, he thanked me and he introduced me to his now ex-partner, but a lovely lady called Gabriella. We're sitting in their mansion in Bedford and she turns around to me and says, you did a really good job tonight and thanks what you did for Sasha, our daughter. What is it that you do outside of, what do you do for work? What's your nine to five? I was like, I'm a B2B professional and I work in sales, in other words, I work in tele-sales. She said, okay, that's cool.

25:13 And then I turned around to her and I said, what do you do and where do you work? And she said, well, I'm the global head of talent acquisition for a US company. It's a startup. You've probably never heard of it. And I said, what's it called? And she said, it was a company called Zora.

25:28 And I had to double take for a minute and I said, sorry, did you say Zora is that Z U O R A? And she was like, yeah. And I said, isn't that the billing software that like plugs into Salesforce CRM? And she was like, how the hell do you know? I said, well, before I started my tele sales job, I worked in finance and I actually used to use Zora on a day-to-day basis. And she grabbed my hand and says, do you want to be rich? And I was just like, what?

25:53 And again, you're working for a famous DJ and you meet his partner who's working in a global role. And she says, do you want to be rich? You think to yourself, this is one of those moments where you just got to say yes, and you have to move forward with it, right? So I said, yeah, of course I'd love, but what do you mean? And she said, we're looking for our first enterprise EBR. Now that acronym made no sense whatsoever to me. And I didn't, it sounded like gobbledygook. So what's an EBR? She said an enterprise business rep or an SDR.

26:22 I said, okay, let's take a step back. What is an SDR? What's a startup? What the hell are you talking about? Cause for me, I thought, is this a scam? Are you taking me into some sort of pyramid scheme that you've heard about online and said, have you ever heard of things like, you know, eBay or PayPal or Apple, Neil? And I was like, yeah, no, but Apple. And so, well, all of these companies or what we call them tech companies are what they are startups. So it was a couple of people, few employees, maybe starting out in somebody's garage in America. And one day they become this massive giant and they're a big tech.

26:52 company. I was like, okay. She said, we're basically that type of company and you've used the software and we sell to finance professionals. And she said, Neil, these types of opportunities can literally change your life. And I kind of said to myself, right, music's going really good and doing really work. Well, maybe this is just the natural evolution of where Neil should be going. So with Zora, what

27:21 We're established in the US. We've got 20 EBRs or SDRs in there. We've just launched our London office. We've got a really swank office in Covent Garden. And we've got these account executives. And I'm like, what's an account executive? She said, the people that close the deals. I was like, okay, we call them field sales in my last company. And she said, we're looking for somebody to come in and build a shed ton of pipeline for Europe. And I said, all right, cool. Who are like the decision makers? And she said, well, who do you call today? I said.

27:50 HR directors and HR managers and she said, well, we're going way above that, bro. You need to be speaking to the C suite. And I was just like, Gabby, I haven't got any qualifications. I don't have any business acumen. How that she said, I will coach you. I will get you through and you'll have the best onboarding and training the world has ever seen. So, uh, with Zora, I remember going up for the interview and Jamie, I was pooping my pants.

28:18 Like I remember speaking to my parents, like getting dressed up very, very, uh, put politically put or very, very sensitively put. Yeah. Pooping my pants. And I remember being suited and booted had a tiny and I looked back at it and I was like, why the hell were you wearing a suit, bro? But anyway, no, no, no, no, no, no. I am a big believer, right? You, you over dress for an interview. Okay. I draw the line at.

28:42 you know, penguin tails, like I draw the line at a tux. Yeah. I hats off. I respect you for the suit. It's got to be done. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Um, and I remember my mom gave me a blessing before I left the house and I set off onto the Northern line and then, you know, I got to Covent Garden and Gabrielle was in, she said, Neil, here's the thing. We're not friends. And you know, whatever with music that has no way in with today, I am the head of global acquisition. You are a candidate.

29:12 And this is what you need to bear in mind for your interview. I'm going to give you a bit of coaching, but it's really down to you. And you really need to sell yourself. No. And there she advised me they're going to grill you. And I was like, all right, cool. Let's do it. So I got taken into like some next box room and for two hours, Jamie, I was interviewed by two, four, six, eight people, the eight, the members of the team. So we had the account executive, we had professional services, we had the head of Amir and they're just coming in.

29:40 And I just looked at them as if they live in a different life. They are, you know, up the food chain and I have, they're going to figure me out that I'm just, um, common dude from South London with nothing behind me, you know, but I'm going to give it a punt. And I remember that I specifically remember there was a glass of water on the table. And I said to myself, don't touch the glass because if you touch the glass, you're going to show that you're nervous.

30:09 and that you're scared about this. And I also feared that if I picked up and just spilt it all over the table, I completely ruined the interview. I was so scared. And then the last interview was done by one of the greats, a guy called Brendan Walsh, who was, you know, my main AE. But the guy didn't like me then. And he was just giving me every reason as to why I wouldn't be successful as their EBR. And he was saying things such as, Neil, you know, some of the candidates that we've been speaking to are from Oracle.

30:37 from SAP, they've gone through world-class sales training and onboarding, why the hell should we pick you? And every reason or objection that he raised with me, I couldn't really respond to it saying, well, I've got this experience working in tech and SaaS because I didn't. So what I drew on was parallels of working in that chip shop, of working at Wandsworth, working within tele sales and things that I've achieved, handling difficult customers,

31:07 people being rude on the phone, you know, how to write communications and all of these things. And I remember him just looking at me just like, no, you're chatting a load of wallet and it's not going to happen, but I respect what you're saying, mate. And then just as the interview was coming to an end, like I'm tired, my throat's coarse. And Brent says, look, Neil, I really enjoyed chatting to you today. And, you know, I kind of know where we're sitting with you, but I've just got one last question for you. And I was like, what's that? He said, I'm looking at your CV.

31:36 And your email address says snibeats at yahoo.co.uk. He said, what's that? And I said, oh, that's my personal email address because I didn't want to put my work email address otherwise work are going to know something's up if I get an invite for an interview. He said, no, no, no, no, no, I get it. He said, but what the hell is snibeats? I said, okay, well, Brendan, I kind of have like a Clark Kent Superman alter ego. I said, Monday to Friday, I am Neil Boo-Yan business professional for Expert HR.

32:05 However, on the weekends, I'm MC Snidey and I'm a UK Garage MC." And he said, that's interesting. And he told me a little bit more about that. And then the conversation just became very dynamic and he took a very big interest in me. And I think what he saw at that point was, here we have somebody that has a creative spark, but they have more to them than what we thought. And maybe this is what we're looking for. I didn't know that back then.

32:30 So interview's done, I'm finished, I meet Gabby, she gives me the nod, says, cool, I'll have a chat with you later. And I was like, all right, cool. And I walk out and I remember going down to Common Garden to the station. I rang my mom and I said, mom, I gave it my best shot, but I think I'm well out of my league and this isn't going to happen. And she said, well, look, well done for doing it, Neil. Come home and it'll be fine. So just as I'm about to step into the station, I get a phone call from Gabriela. And I went, hello? She's like, Neil? I was like, hi. She said, how do you think the interview went?

32:59 And I said, horrible. I think they hate me. And they gave me every reason under the sun why I would not be your EBR. And she said, that was what was supposed to happen in the interview. And they said, they tried to find every reason, but you just had an answer for everything, even if it wasn't the right answer, you had an answer and a rebuttal. And she said, that's what happens to SDRs. They get pummeled back as to why it's not going to happen and why they're not going to be a fit, but you were able to hold your own.

33:28 And Brendan has taken a shine to you and he wants to know more about this MC thing. But Neil, just to let you know, you've got the job. And I was like, what? And I remember jumping for joy on Longacre Lane thinking like, ah, and getting on the tube, going back home, hyped. And I just remember calling my besties and saying, your boy is going to work for a tech startup and truth be told, with the tally sales role that I was working at when I delivered the news to my former team, they were really annoyed with me again, that Andy.

33:58 Why are you leaving? We had plans for you and all of this sort of stuff. I remember so many of the sales reps were annoyed because I was there. I was their top BDR and I was their coach. I used to help the new reps come in with cold calling and all that, like, Neil, you're going, who's going to help me? And I remember the account manager saying, who's going to get me my Pepsi meetings and who's going to get my enterprise leads. And I was like, well, that's them. I ain't got nothing to do with this anymore. Um, but a lot of them said that working for a startup is highly volatile.

34:28 And, you know, a lot of startups fail. And what happens if you do this role and then the company goes bust? And I said, this is all true. It could all happen. But I said, 90% of startups fail. And if you look at the likes of the CTO of PayPal, he went through nine different companies till he got to PayPal. You know, there was a huge risk, but there's a big reward to it. And truth be told, a lot of those people years later subsequently then went on to startups and I'm still friends with them and we've connected with them.

34:57 But yeah, if, if I never picked up a microphone, I don't know if I'd ever be working in a tech cell, so mics are my thing. Interesting. I think it's very, it's really, really interesting when you hear stories like that, but I, I am, I had an interview, uh, back in my day that, uh, I walked away exactly for feeling the exact same thing of, oh, that went unbelievably bad. And then within an hour I had a call saying, you know, uh, from the person who did the interview, like, you know,

35:24 How did you think it went? And I said, Oh, not great. It seems to focus a lot on my negatives, what I didn't have rather than what I could bring to the table. And the response was, no, we just wanted to understand where you're at so that, you know, we could identify if we were able to upskill you. Like there's the, there's what we're able to provide you is stuff that you need, you know, and if it would be a good fit culturally in terms of development, but it's really, really interesting that it's often the times that we think, uh,

35:54 the perception of it is negative when naturally it's, uh, it's positive, but, uh, okay. Then, so for those, for those listening who are, are in, uh, SAS sales, I'm sure they're, they'll be able to guess what you learn as a enterprise SDR. Um, but what, what, what were the key sort of learnings in that role? Yeah. So I think the, one of the scariest tasks to put upon me was building out their outbound efforts from scratch.

36:23 Right? So they had seasoned SDRs in California, but EMEA was brand new territory for them. Like for context, the American SDRs used to ring into EMEA and into the UK. But obviously with the time difference, that's why they needed boots on the ground and that was me. So what I really had to do was learn, you know, how to message the sea level and how to write emails and how to do cold calls.

36:51 And I was on my own for about nine to 10 months initially before we hired the next SDR guy called Charlie. So I was really fortunate to be taken over to America. And this might be known within marketing or tech sales, but there's this methodological command of the message. So it talks about, you know, the shift happening within the world, how it impacts the world, how it impacts businesses, and then how it impacts leaders of companies.

37:20 and then it trickles down into day-to-day employees, and then it comes to a solution. So what we were taught was not so much selling a billing platform, because that's not sexy, but what we were looking to inspire them was this term called the subscription economy. It was like the gospel of the world transitioning from transactional sales and selling to subscription-based models, and companies such as Spotify, Netflix, LinkedIn, everybody was going subscription economy.

37:51 So we, I've still got copies of my old emails and they're really long. They're really big. They wouldn't work today, but you really had to learn to research annual reports of companies. You had to look at insights that you found on the internet when companies were going public or if they were pivoting their business. You know, back then we didn't have as many competitors, but what we were up against was the likes of Oracle and Salesforce.

38:19 because most people would use those systems for their billing. And now everything was going on subscription. It wasn't fit for that. So we had these new age companies coming to us. So, you know, prospecting, building, you know, um, the plays. And before it was called sales loft, we were using tout app and yes, where and cadences and messaging, cold call scripts, a lot of failing, you know, all of this stuff. And then when we made our first hire, a guy called Charlie.

38:48 we brought him on, so I had to learn onboarding. So I was that first rep on the ground and what I was really smart in doing was documenting everything that I was doing. So I had Google documents filled to the brim of scripts, email cadences, rebuttals, replies, LinkedIn messaging, you know, how we talk about Zora, how we did the discovery call, how we did the qualification. All stuff are built from bits and pieces from all over the world.

39:17 And then teaching this guy who historically worked in media sales in a corporate environment, and this was his first startup. So I was there on his first calls. I was helping him with cold calls. I was reviewing his emails. I was helping him figure out what Salesforce CRM, how we use it, how we run reports, all of this good stuff. And then, you know, cut along sort of short, we went from a team of me to then having a team of nine SDRs three years later.

39:46 We moved into a bigger, more established office in Mayfair. We'd gone to Series F in funding by that point. And, you know, I was an SDR manager and in hindsight, I was a horrible manager in the early days because I was a bad micromanager, but we can dive into that in a minute. But yeah, I learned helping build a startup from the ground up in a new territory, in a new region, helping new hires coming on board.

40:15 working with some veteran account executives that had experience of working at SAP and Oracle and learning world-class sales from them. And I kind of put it to Jamie, like my first time at Zora, I kind of was, I was that kid with the silver spoon in my mouth. Because within this org, you had like the co-founders of PayPal, eBay, Salesforce, the original angels. You had all these great account executives, you had these great leaders. And I was kind of like doing my MBA.

40:44 in sales, working like three and a half years within Zora. And I was very proud for them to go IPO one day. And that was a dream that was always sold to us because I know with a lot of startups, people would love to be that next unicorn and they would love to go into an IPO. I was really lucky to be in a company that did that and did the sprint to a hundred million ARR. So that when I went into other startups, it was kind of like going from uni, but then going to college when you join your new...

41:11 younger startup because there's a lot of stuff and Gabriella did tell me by having Zora on my CV that could definitely open up a lot of doors and in years you know it has helped that I was you know one of their first SDRs.

41:26 I was going to say like in terms of that three, three and a half years working your way up, um, from entry to sort of management, that's textbook, like perfect for CB building perfect for moving on, uh, to the next role. So like why, if things were going so well in terms of three and a half years, good progression, you were learning loads. You were one of the first people in the region. It all sounds good. It all sounds rosy. What, what?

41:56 was the reason for leaving? What was the logic behind the next move? Yeah, really good question. So, and it's something that I've seen a lot with SDRs that I've trained or coached, but there is this getting to the holy grail of becoming an account executive. That is all that I wanted to do when I first joined as the SDR. And when the SDR manager title came to me, I didn't want it at first. I was scared to high heaven of

42:24 earning money and commission based on other people's performance. I was like, nah, I can't control them. I can't, you know, what happens between them. I can do my prospects and I can book my meetings. I can do that. But I was convinced to go and take the SGR manager because my manager, my VP of operations, Ben Kwan said, he said, what is it ultimately that you want to do in your career now? I said, I want to be a CEO of my own company one day. He said, of what? And I said, I don't know, but I know I'm in the right environment to learn that sort of DNA.

42:53 And he said to me, he said, well, look, what's the path? And I said to him, it's SDR, account executive, VP of sales, potentially a CRO, and then becoming a CEO. And he said, OK, that's quite a linear path, and that has worked for some. But not everybody, it's not a linear path, is what he was saying. But he said, here's the thing, dude. If you want to be running your own business one day, one thing that you have to be really good at is managing people and motivating and leading people.

43:22 And if you're not a people person, then you're not going to be a great CEO. So, so think of it this way where as a manager, you learn leadership and you're going to be managing different personalities, different strengths, skills, weaknesses, and making this a success. You are like the mini CEO of your territory or your branch. And is it equally, um, if you, you're going to have to learn how to close, but you're going to have to learn stakeholder management with your prospects and your customers.

43:51 because you're going to have very difficult people that have their own needs and wants. So here is the foundation and opportunity. And it took a lot of convincing, I'm not going to lie, but I just kind of said, okay, let's just do this. I can get the title and just move on. I just really want to become a closer. I want to close the deals. I want to travel. I want to bring in the million dollar deals at Zora. And there was many points, like there's a guy called John Phillips, who's the GM of Zora, a really great guy, used to work for Open Text and had a lot of experience behind him.

44:20 And I kept going to John and said, John, I know the Zora deck. I know the sales pitch, you know, I know how to book enterprise meetings. You know, I could technically bring Simon on from professional services to a use case demo. I know everything. Let me run a deal. And he just said, no, you're not ready. And I said, I know I'm ready. Just let me do it. So he allowed me to take one of the opportunities I generated for an Irish media company.

44:47 had the CTO, CEO of a very well known Irish newspaper that were looking to move from a paywall solution to a subscription-based digital model, ran the first call, ran the second call, got ghosted. And I had to report to John the update on my deal. And I remember sitting down with him, he said, so, so how is such and such going? And I'm like, yeah, they've gone quiet. And I said, I don't know what I've done wrong. He said, look, you've done everything by textbook. But he said, no, it takes.

45:15 a while to build up this experience become a really good closer.

45:20 So, you know, humbly put my head down to the right call. Let's just keep focusing on this SDR manager team thing. And, you know, we led a very successful team. We brought in 3.5 million of close business from outbound prospecting, and we outperformed our North American counterparts. Very proud of that. Yeah. Hell yeah. And I remember the U S used to say, like, what is Amir doing? We used to have people come and visit us and some of the SDRs and some of the leadership just to see what we did with our SDR team, we were very unique within that business.

45:49 And we kind of like built a blueprint for the rest of the year when the other regional offices opened up such as DACH, Japan and Southern Europe, France as well, which is really cool and great leaders and loved them. But this account executive thing was still on the back of my mind. And I remember speaking to my leader in the US and just having an honest chat with him and just saying, I really want to go for an AU role. And I've seen a bunch come up. Now we've got a really high performing team. We've built it. You know.

46:18 We've had a successful year, fiscal year. What's thoughts of me moving on past management?" And he said, Neil, to be totally honest with you, you're a great manager. The team love you, the way that you can motivate them, the pipeline you're producing, you know, the close opportunities that we've gotten in. Like we had our first million dollar ARR contract from your team, from Outbound. He said, you know, you're building history. And he said, but if we lose you, we lose revenue and we lose leadership.

46:47 And that's not something I really want to get into right now. And I took that personally and I just said, screw this. I'm going to start looking for jobs out there. And I did something cheeky, but smart. So I went into our Salesforce CRM and I looked at all of our Amir opportunities and I looked for hot startups that we were working with. So with Zora, we were tasked at looking at the, you know, the

47:13 new age up and coming disruptors in the market, like the ones to bet on. So our CRM and our opportunities were a gold mine for investors, you could say, with the information and level of detail that we had in terms of qualification notes. So here I started analyzing the type of companies that I might want to work for. I remember one company was called Pat Snap. We were looking at New Voice Media, big logos. And then this little one from Belgium came up

47:43 And it was a sales enablement solution. And I remember at that point that had around 3 million euro in funding. They were looking to expand their business model and I had the CO's details and all of this, and then I did something very cheeky. I went onto LinkedIn and I found their VP of sales, a guy called David Dupree, who I love to high heaven. And he's kind of like one of my sales mentors and dads. And I reached out to him and I said, oh,

48:08 David, I've seen that you guys are hiring for account executives and you've just launched a London office. Congratulations. And I said, what are you looking for in terms of the account execs? And he said, we're looking for closers to help build out a London office. And then I remember the message he said, if you know anybody looking for an A role, let me know. Winky face. And I replied to Dave and I said, Winky face, I may know somebody that somebody might be me. What do you think?

48:37 And he said, let's have a chat on the phone. And I remember going into one of the private rooms in our Zora Mayfair office. And I said, okay, I'm just letting you know, I'm currently an STL manager at Zora. I'm in a job and I'm in my office, but I'm thinking about leaving. And I liked the look of show pad. And he just said, okay, how about we just arrange a call outside of office hours? Maybe we can do one evening this weekend or if you're free in the weekend, we can have a chat.

49:03 And I kind of laid in the story as to what was going on at Zora, but there was an element of arrogance from my side, which was I want to become an AE, they won't let me, but I didn't include in was I didn't have any training. I didn't have any closing experience. I didn't really have, you know, the mentality for that role yet. Cause I didn't see it back then. Um, and what David said to me was like, look, we're launching, um,

49:27 new London office. We've currently got a couple of account executives that are working in the UK market and they're traveling between Belgium and here. But what I'd like to do, Neil, is arrange an interview with yourself and our co-founders and co-CEOs in the coming weeks. Would you be open? I was like, yeah, bro, let's do this. Let's roll. Let's roll. Let's roll. And I remember the day of the interview, it was in Eagle House in Shoreditch, near the little Silicon Roundabout.

49:56 And I went down and what I had done, Jamie, was I printed off the CRM notes of all the qualification of the opportunity that Zora had with Showpad and I had it in my breast pocket. And I'm walking into the room and we had PJ and Louis, the co-founder of Showpad in this little box room in Shoreditch. And as I sat down, my notes fell onto the table and I was like, ah man, that's my Intel, they can't see that. And PJ picked up the paper and he looked at it and he saw all the information of

50:26 You know, their company, their financials, their leadership, their corporate objective, their strategic, all of that. And he said, I love it when candidates come very prepared to these interviews and Neil, that's some really great homework. And I was like, yeah, bro, you know, I always come prepared. And, um, we had like an hour discussion. I remember David sitting in the corner behind the co-seers and he's sitting like this. And for context, David was once a famous rock and roll star and a

50:55 bassist for a famous Belgian rock band. And he always had this cool look going on about him, but he was just staring me out. And it kind of the vibe that I got Jamie was, he doesn't believe what I'm saying to these two CEOs about my sales experience. And he just, it was like, it was like, you're BSing is the look that he gave me. And I knew he kind of cottoned on a little bit because, you know, I was exaggerating some of my skill sets. But

51:22 Meeting was done, PJ and Louis loved me, and then David took me to the side and he said, can I have an honest conversation with you? And I was like, yes. I really like you, and I think what you have done at Zora is amazing. And if anything, I would love for you to bring those best practices to help us launch our London office. But my gut feeling is, Neil, that you're not ready to be an account executive. And obviously that hit my heartstrings when I heard that, but I accepted it.

51:51 And he said, here's the deal that I'd love to make with you. We, it'd be really great for you to come on board as an SDR. And I don't want you to think, okay, you've been an SDR managing now you're being demoted. This will give you an opportunity to really learn the value proposition of show pad. We are not selling to finance professionals. We're selling to VPs of sales and VPs of marketing, which is a completely different world, and I feel it's going to take you a couple of months to understand that talk track. However, you have a knack for the enterprise space and generating

52:20 great quality meetings. If you can help us establish our presence in Showpad UK and things go well and you perform against your targets, which I have no doubt that you can do, we can then look towards a promotion nine months into your role. Right? But the story was I did it for about a year and a bit. I've got to admit something real on LinkedIn.

52:45 I was an SDR, but I took the title of account executive because I just wanted to officially say on paper, Neil's got a new job and I'm an AE, but I was an SDR for the first year. And yeah, again, I can go into like more insights with what I did at Showpad, but that's why I left because of my ego, because I wanted to be an AE when I wasn't really ready to. And I just felt the organization that I was within...

53:16 that I'd outgrown them. Kind of similar to like that Teddy sales job I did like when I joined Zora. It's this ego that was following me because it was just my heart was so intent on it. That's what I wanted to do. But just- Yeah, no, do you know what? It's interesting because from my point of view, if I was in a role for three, three and a half years, I worked my way up and everything was going well, like-

53:42 I would also feel the same like, right. I'm deserving of a promotion. Why aren't I get a promotion or getting paid more or whatever? But having worked, uh, in SAS for a few years now, I, the question I would ask is what more would you have had to do to get the AE role? Like I, I'm sitting here going, why wouldn't they give you the AE role? Um, and I, and I get what the business is saying, or we want to keep you in this role because we trust you, you're delivering.

54:11 We don't want to ruin that. But then that's a very, that's very, very selfish of the business to stunt potentially stunt career growth and development of an individual, just because they're very, very good at what they want to do, fundamentally what they're doing, sorry, fundamentally, if it's not what they want to do, then over time that poison is going to fester and it's going to be a downward spiral. So I think there's, you know, as much as you're being very, very self-aware and saying that your ego got the better of you.

54:42 Confidence is stacking repeated success, right? So confidence is built off the back of doing something well repeatedly and building up that data to suggest you can now be confident in said field. You had done that for three and a half years. So arrogance is, I think arrogance is more it's unfounded confidence, right? But you had confidence that was.

55:08 as a result of doing very, very well in your three and a half year tenure. So it kind of made sense, right? I said, I appreciate you being self aware, but I'd feel the same way. I'd, I would want, if I was a SDR, SDR manager, I'd be like, right. Well, I've hit all my targets and you say I'm a great manager. I'm doing everything right. Why aren't you giving me the promotion? So I get it, right? I get it. Yeah. And I think, you know, now being a manager more than since Zora.

55:36 and going through the rings and working in other companies. If I was to look at it objectively, that Neil had no commercial acumen or no commercial mindset. So I was very good at, you know, prospecting the art of the conversation. I was very good at motivating people. I was great at leading a team. I was great at creating playbooks and everything, but that was all about building the interest for the prospect. What I didn't really have the experience of was once stage one

56:06 discovery and stage two discoveries done, Neil had no experience there. So the actual delivering the demo, talking to prospects about commercials, especially like million dollar deals and contracts and ACV, I had no insight into the world of procurement. I had no insight into different stakeholders and having to sell the solution to multiple departments and subsidiaries into a big, that I had none of that, but that young Neil was like, I know the pitch.

56:33 I know the verse and I had the solution works and I had to chat and I had to book the meeting. Um, yeah, it's just like, I, I, I wasn't ready and you know, kind of what happened at Showpad was evident of that. That was the proof that I needed. Right. So with, with Showpad, um, did my SDR thing, delivered the results, and then I finally got the promotion and I was happy as Larry, you know, finally got that official title of account executive.

57:01 And another admission that I need to make is like my first two deals that I closed within the first month of being promoted to AE. So the first deal Jamie was a company called Huthway International, who are the orchestrators of spin selling. So they look after Neil Rackham's methodology. And I remember going into my AE role and David Ping me said, Neil, one of our other AEs has since let been go and we need you to get into his pipeline. And there are a few deals that you need to get your attention.

57:30 and I picked the the hoodthwaite one and I looked at the email thread in Salesforce and it was literally he sent a quote and the prospect had replied saying we're ready to buy.

57:43 And I'm looking at it and I'm just like, I went today was like, it looks like that guy just pretty much had this done. Yeah. It looks like an easy deal. Doesn't it, Neil? I was like, this is too easy. So what had happened is quote, they got, he got the acceptance, but he left before he read the acceptance note. So I said, what do I do? He said, my advice, you know, is to give that contact a call and ask where to send the sales order for signature. And I was like, all right.

58:11 Said, hi, this is Neil, calling from Shopead. It's, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, we're ready to move forward. Can you just please send it to my email and I'll get it done today. And dude, day one of being an AE, within half an hour of stepping into Salesforce, signed my first deal. And all these notifications went off in Slack, email, Neil's closed his first deal, da, da, da, da, hoof way, and I just felt so a fraudster. I was like, this isn't, nah, this isn't mine. And Dave was like, Neil, you take the win. You closed your first deal.

58:41 do that. And I was like, and I said, and I felt sorry for the other, right? I was like, he was so close. Um, but I was really, uh, what was really good is a month later, um, I actually, a self-sourced opportunity with a company called clothes brothers, uh, international, they did insurance and it was a bank. And I remember, uh, doing, uh, the discover, I did the outbound book, the discovery ended up doing an end user training for all of their

59:08 sales reps like 15 salespeople within Close Brothers. And I remember Nick Moody was the head of sales. And he just said to me like when I delivered the demo, he said, Neil, I like the way that you cold called me because I don't normally take cold calls. But you just had this gift of the gab. And you're coming into a banking institution where we don't use iPads and call tech. He said, this is all new age and futuristic. And I saw the light pop up in my BDM when you came in and gave that talk.

59:38 I would like them to emulate you. And I remember running up this deal and got back to the office, got the proposal in quote, and I remember sent off the proposal as the next step. A week went by, no signal back from Nick, another week went by, and then I had to have my VP of sales chat and Dave said, what's going on with this op? I said, I've called him, I've emailed him, I'm not getting a response and you know, again, pooping my pants as we do in sales, it's very stressful.

01:00:08 And David asked me a really cool question which was, what's your relationship like with Nick? And I said, what do you mean? He said, is he somebody that you could go for a pint with, Neil? I said, yeah, he's cool. I know he lives, his family are from Hull. I know he likes to play golf on the weekends. He's a proper sound bloke. He said, would you be all comfortable sending him a WhatsApp message? And back then, this is like 2015, I didn't think about sending WhatsApps to my process. That's a bit personal.

01:00:37 And he said, if you could have a pint with this guy, and you need to get this deal closed, give it a try. Just don't make it too formal. And literally the message just read, Hi Nick, I sent you your show pad quote two weeks back. I haven't heard from you. And I just wanted to know, are we still in for this or do you need any help? And within 10 minutes he replied, said, I know, sorry, I'm up in Hull. I left my laptop back in London. I don't have any access to emails, but I'll go down to an internet cafe. I'll sign in and we're gonna do that. And that was my deal two closed, right?

01:01:08 So that felt like I worked for it and then I got it. And I closed a few other deals thereafter, but not really big ones. But there came a point after a year and a half of doing this, I came to a realization that I hated being an account executive. I really didn't enjoy it. I did not like it one bit. And for me, it just felt very transactional. And again, not putting it against.

01:01:34 people that do the A-Roll or want to aspire to it. It's just personally what I felt was, I just found it too transactional. You do a discovery, you provide a demo, you send a docu-sign, you close, and then you move on to the next op. I was really interested in what the customers were doing if they loved Showpad. Did they see the value? Were they raving about it? Were they using it? What was the adoption like? That's what I really wanted to know, because I put my heart and soul into trying to get that op and that deal.

01:02:04 Um, but what happened was again, I didn't, I was really new to pipeline management and I really had a bad case of happy years with every prospect that I spoke to. So again, things I hadn't learned. Um, and as a result, my pipeline did not look good and it was not healthy because deal after deal was being slipped or being pushed out further and further and further and further. And, um, I then approached.

01:02:32 my VP David and I said, David, can we have a chat? And they said, yeah, go for it. So we go for a coffee and we at that point had moved into the first WeWork in London in Moorgate, like one of their flagships and we went downstairs for a free coffee. And I said, David, I'm really nervous, but I don't think I'm going to hit my number and I don't know if I'm cut out to be an account executive. And he did his cool rock star thing of just looking at me like that. And he says,

01:03:00 I'm really glad and proud of you for bringing that up yourself. Cause there are a lot of account executive Nils that are completely delusional and they think it's the world's fault. But taking ownership of that, I really respect that. And he said, what does this mean to you? And I said, to be honest with you, dude, I left Zora cause I wanted this AE job. I told all my friends and family that one day I'm going to become an account executive, I've now got here and I realize I'm not really enjoying it.

01:03:30 and I'm not as good as I thought I would be, and if anything there's a lot that I haven't learned. And he said, again, I'm happy you've come to that realization rather than having to be told that. And he said to me, the next question which was a pinnacle in my career, which he said, have you ever thought about working in customer success? And I laughed at him and I said, nah mate, like, I'm a hunter, those are farmers, I'm not a CS person.

01:04:00 And what he said next was so true and poignant, which was, in sales, it's your job for them to make a decision to spend money with us. However, in customer success, you have to convince them to stay with us and spend more money. And he said, no, as we're scaling ShowBed, we have a little bit of a challenge. We've got a great CS team, but majority of them are not commercially minded.

01:04:28 And we need somebody with commercial acumen to not just make customers happy, but to generate revenue because every business unit is working towards a revenue goal. So it says, what I want you to do is go meet our former SDR manager, now head of CS, a guy called Stein, shouts out to Stein. And he said, I just want you to chat to him because he went through exactly what you went through. And you know, he's one of the greatest CS leaders that we have in the biz right now.

01:04:54 So I sat down with Stine and I just told him my story and said, dude, we've all been there, man. You don't have to be a stinky AE like CSM life is so much better. And he was a really cool and, you know, humble guy. And he just said to me, he's just like, yeah, we, we have a problem. Our CS team are not commercially focused. And he says, if you were to come into this role, what I'd love you to do. It's take off your sales hat just for a minute. I want you to unlearn everything you've learned as an account executive. And I would then like you to learn.

01:05:23 how we as a CS team service our customers, how we make them advocates of our solution, how we deliver end user trainings that give the wow factor, how we deliver a QBR, how we do renewals and overcome customers that are about to churn. And then once you've learned that, I want you to slowly start applying your sales AE skills into this CSM role. So cut a long story short,

01:05:53 I loved it because I was no longer focused on convincing you to buy our solution. You already bought in. So when I used to have the CSM call, my introduction was, Hi Jamie, I'm your customer success manager at Showpad. My job is not to sell. I'm not the sales person here, but what I want you to see me as your PT in a sales gym, and I'm here to deliver the ROI and what you paid for your subscription. That's how I want you to use me. And I was able to build this report with

01:06:22 I was predominantly speaking to heads of marketing and marketeers. That was my crowd. And here I was able to go into sessions and say, don't you just hate sales reps? They take your presentations, they bastardize it, they use off-brand content. And I really got into the world of marketing. And for me, this was really interesting because I got to make some really creative like VPs, CMOs, and again, I had a lot of respect for marketing. And I saw their world.

01:06:52 And then I kind of used to plan it because I was either talking like our end user or sorry, our decision makers or customers or what we call them, our main account key holders were marketing. But I also, on the other side, we had to had heads of sales that were the key decision maker or, you know, the high end user for show pad. So I could always go to say, Oh, don't you hate those marketing people? They've got it stuck in SharePoint somewhere. They never deliver the PowerPoint that you want.

01:07:18 And I used to play off of it, like both between them. But then when I was able to bring them together in an end user training, I used to have the messaging, which is sales and marketing typically are stuck in two different silos where sales are generating revenue and marketing are creating content and creating interest. But there's a them and us mentality. But the reality is both of our departments are actually working towards revenue generation just in different ways. So what we should be doing is collaborating together where marketing get insight as to what sales actually need in terms of content.

01:07:47 but know what content is performing to then double down and provide sales reps that type of content to then deliver to their customers in the field. So I got really like drawn up into the whole world of sales and marketing and content and sales excellence. I was loving it. But with that, I was able to also learn and successfully cross-sell and upsell, you know, solutions of Showpad to those customers. I've a book of 40.

01:08:14 business, I had 108% retention rate and I generated 166K ARR, more ARR than I'd ever done as an account executive. And sitting back with Stein and like David, I was just like, yeah, I found my call in. I love helping salespeople and marketing people to win customers, to win revenue and get to see some of the most coolest innovative companies and tech companies out there using this thing called Showpad.

01:08:42 You know, that kind of brought in the introduction to another company winning by design, which I can talk about in a bit, but, um, I think the key learnings there was, um, I'd, I'd been in every commercial role up until that point. I'd been an SDR, an SDR manager. I lived the life of an account executive and I finally got to customer success. And what I was able to do when I even got into that role, Jamie, I was able to help out the AEs to close their deals. I was able to give feedback to the SDRs on their outreach.

01:09:13 I was able to hear about campaigns that we're doing for marketing and events and attending them in Belgium and all this cool stuff. It was sales. This was tech. This is, you know, the love, um, that I was looking for. And even like as a CSM, my job was to go out to meet sales teams, to teach them how to use this sales name and platform show pad. Um, a lot of the time the sales reps were like, yeah, we love the software, but how would you handle this objection? Or how would you do cold call in? Or.

01:09:41 How do you start posting stuff on LinkedIn? And I just loved being needed, not just for a solution, but given a little bit of free consultancy to help these CD sales people. And I'd always get emails from marketers or sales reps, like giving feedback on the results that they got using the solution, but other of the cool things that we're doing in sales and marketing. And at the bottom of my email signature, and I've still got copies of it, I used to end my emails with, I hope you enjoy Chopin, happy selling, Neil.

01:10:10 because I wanted people to really enjoy sales. And when I had marketeers replying to emails saying, thanks a lot Neil, happy selling to you as well. I was like, oh, I've got a little bit of branding going on there. That's pretty cool. Which, you know, then kind of like the catalyst was an opportunity where we had a really great company called Winning by Design, famous sales trainers, the whole bow tie model, you know, customer centric selling.

01:10:39 They came into our business to deliver a sales training and I begged David, even though I was a CSM to let me in on the sales training and Yaka Wunderkow, like when he delivered it with Dan Smith, um, I was just like, this is so cool and futuristic because the other sales methodologies that I learned such as spin, Sandler sales training, the challenger, hoodway, all of those methodologies were great.

01:11:06 but they were a little bit outdated and they weren't really designed with SAS and tech in mind. But this cool company called Winning by Design was like the blueprint for tech and SAS companies. And I remember seeing Yako and thinking, that thing he's doing, this cell, I want to do that. I want that job. That's cool. Cause you get to help. Because I was doing that as a CSM, helping salespeople, giving them the advice. But here we had a methodology and a framework, which was, you know,

01:11:34 very scientific, but it also had the art of sales to it as well. And it was, I think the point that I'm trying to get here, Jamie, is a lot of salespeople come to me and say, no, what sales books should I be reading now that I'm an STL? What podcast should I be listening to? And I say, none. I said, because you can read these books, but unless you've lived it, it's really hard to put context into what it actually means. You know? And at that point I'd been at

01:12:01 a great tech company, Zora had been at Showpad and other kind of cool companies. And now I could understand what this sales trainer was talking about in terms of the hockey stick effect, you know, predictable revenue. All of these things made sense because I'd lived that life and I was able to put context to it. So when I kept getting asked by, you know, customers, Neil, you know, we love Showpad, but could you tell us how to do prospecting? How to like...

01:12:31 advancing my career and all this stuff and I say, Jamie, I don't get paid for this. I'm a CSM for show pad. My job is to provide end user training and ensure that your adoption is there. But I help you out on this one off. But it kept and kept happening. And then that's when I had my aha moment, which was I want to launch my own company. I now know what I want to do is I want to help

01:13:02 that I felt was missing with Winning by Design and sales trainers in general was this love for SDRs because a lot of sales training courses were focused on 360 and closing sales, so the art of negotiation, actually closing the deal, closing the customer and all of this. But when it came to prospecting, it was super light. And as a former SDR and SDR manager, my passion for helping young people get into sales,

01:13:29 I was like, I used to look at a lot of orgs and I remember doing it on this white board behind me but again this isn't like me peeing on the parade of other sales trainers but the way that I looked at it was

01:13:42 These sales training companies have a message that speaks to the CEO talking about the shift that needs to happen within sales. Their secondary message is then to the VP of sales around performance and metrics and what they're able to deliver to those sales reps with their training. And then the overarching messaging is we will enable your salespeople to become the best sellers. So they work that way. But my experience taught me that with these SDRs, without any sort of...

01:14:10 pipeline, your company has no lifeline. And these SDRs are the people on the front line of sales. They are the first voice, they are the first conversation, they're the first LinkedIn connect, they are the first cold call, they are the voice and first thing that your prospects hear from an outbound perspective. If these SDRs are given really good love and attention to become proficient SDRs and really fall in love with what they're doing, they will produce great pipe that their AEs will be happy to accept.

01:14:37 If they have highly qualified pipeline, they're able to then have better close rates. If they have better close rates, VP of sales are able to scale teams and, you know, build a great organization. And if VPs are performing on point, guess who's going to be happy? The C-suite. So I went the other way and I focused my ICP there. But again, when I made the decision to, you know, hand in my notice with Showpad, I had to have this understanding that I have no website. I have no methodology. I've only got experience.

01:15:06 I need a little bit of structure with it. Um, and I was really happy to say for the first seven months, um, I was a freelance sales trainer with winning by design. Uh, and then when that came to an end, it was because I really wanted to focus on the happy selling thing and having that as my baby and yeah, seven years. I'm still here, mate. I'm still standing. Don't know how, but it's been a hell of a ride. And I was going to say just before we, we go on to the sort of roundup.

01:15:35 wrap up questions. Just give us a rough overview of what happy selling is and does outside of what you've already just told us about sales trading. Like what is your ethos? What is happy selling? What's my ethos? So my mission statement is to create a world of happy sellers one smile at a time. So I'm really when I was

01:15:59 When I provide sales training, I really hone in on those individuals and I tailor it to them and I give them the love and attention that perhaps their managers and leadership can't. And I really understand how tough of a job it is to be an SDR. So it's taking a heartfelt approach and not coming at a generic sort of sales training. This is what we do and just follow Neil. It's how do you guys work? What's working for you? Here's some best practices. This is what's happened to me. If you don't like what I'm saying, you don't have to agree with everything.

01:16:30 What worked for me may not work for you for still the best bits, but let me know what is working. So it's really focusing on those individuals within the team when providing sales training. And what happy selling does at a high level is the mistake that I've seen with a lot of companies being a former manager is they provide a two-week onboarding program, which is first week is, here's a couple of sales demos, here's our pitch, here's our tech stack, this is how we do it, here's the team. Week two, here's how we use SalesLoft, this is how we use...

01:16:58 Dealfront to enrich those leads, et cetera. A little bit of plug. And then they're just given a book of accounts and they just say, go for it. That doesn't work. That doesn't help. So I provided a seven week course, which takes into consideration of helping them understand why they're so special as an SDR. I then teach them the art of meaningful conversations before they even pick up a phone to feel confident when they're speaking to their prospects. I teach them account-based prospecting from top down.

01:17:26 different multi-channel approaches. I also teach them how to run an independent discovery call on a world class level. That they're happy to speak to whatever level of the organization. And I'm happy to help them share best practices as to their, you know, time management, you know, mindset and all of this. So it's the seven week course delivered at two hours per week. So they're able to do it alongside their actual job. And it doesn't get in the way, but they're able to take away actionable things.

01:17:55 they can actually implement in the walk as soon as they walk out of the sales training session. So initially started off as a sales training company. It's a little bit of a media company because I now do the podcast with it for the past four years. But, um, my genuine belief, Jamie is these SDRs are going to be the future VPs of sales, VPs of marketing, heads of customer success, or their own CEOs of their own company. And I just want to be a little bit of a cog in their history.

01:18:26 And, you know, as years have gone on, I've seen people move up into leadership or launching their own companies, even like one of my first ever students. Um, when I was at Winning by Design was a guy called Will Koning, who's now launched two startups, one called Merit. And he also did like a SaaS, um, leads as well. And I'm just so proud to see them come into their own. And again, here's the cool thing. If I was really cool and nice to those SDRs when they're now leading teams and they're launching companies, guess who they holler when they need a bit of sales training and coaching.

01:18:56 Yeah, boy. It's interesting listening to listening to like the last god hour and a quarter of like that journey that you've gone through very nonlinear, let's say in places and then and I think some of your decisions have been very logical and some some have been like you've said are fueled by arrogance, which I would disagree with, I think fueled by

01:19:24 Performance right fuel by performance success in a role But it's yeah, it's really interesting to have this like full circle coming back to actually training SDRs and I think it's it's I'll tell you what it's a very very unique value proposition the whole Happy-selling thing but like because it's it let's be honest It's not an industry or a profession or a role that you associate with happiness or smiles So that's a that's an interesting one altogether. And I think that we'll put we'll put

01:19:53 the relevant details in the description things, but just to round up that, then we do some quick fire questions at the end. Yep. Bit of a recap, but also, um, these are some typically provide some very good actionable takeaways, tips, whatever you want to call them, uh, uh, tip bits, tip bits, whatever. Um, okay. So top three tips, your top three tips for someone looking to climb the ladder. Yep. Happy to. So number one is beginners mindset.

01:20:22 everything that you do. Again there's a saying which is practice what you know and then you will find out what you don't know. So you'll realize where you've made mistakes, things that you've missed, things that you literally do day to day. So anytime I've gone into a project or you know training, coaching, management or doing an actual role I say to myself like Stein said to me take off your sales hat, unlearn everything that you've just learned and look at this with a fresh pair of eyes and a fresh perspective and be really curious.

01:20:52 Why is that process that way? Why do we speak to people that way? Why does, uh, you know, like how do, why do we handle that objection that way? Be very curious and really understand the context as to why you're doing something rather than just blindly following it. So, you know, like even me coming into this session today, like I do podcasts for four years, but I'm like, Oh, cool. So what's going to happen and how we're going to talk and what's going to be the structure. And it's more exciting that way.

01:21:20 Because I think if you just, yeah, I know how to do it and I can do it with my eyes closed, you're going to get bored very quickly, right? Um, step two is around top performers and following top performers with a caveat. So I was somebody that was a global top performer within Zora, but I never aimed to be. It happened on a result of my actions and my work.

01:21:45 And when I've gone into other companies, it's very similar with other top performers that I've come across. Some have the goal of becoming the top performer, or that 1%. But some are just really great at their craft and, you know, their salesmanship that they've achieved that status. And sometimes when you approach them, they say, hey, you're the top performer. They're like, yeah, I just really love what I do. I don't see myself as a top performer. And the thing is...

01:22:12 Rather than just saying like, what's your strategy? What's your blueprint? What's your game plan? I think what you really want to do is observe them. Like sit in their discovery calls, their closing calls, the negotiation calls, their intro calls, their internal discussions with leadership, et cetera. Like be a sponge and watch them. And like another tip for like any other salespeople out there, we all have like notebooks in the back of my notebook. Every time Jamie, I heard a word,

01:22:40 that I'd never heard of before or fully understood what it meant, I wrote that down. So that when I had some time with that person I would ask them, what does that word mean, and why do you ask that, and why do you ask it in that way? And the caveat that I'm getting here is, do not try to replicate what top performers are doing, but take elements from their skills and then make up your own sort of style. Because I've made the mistake of trying to imitate people that I used to respect.

01:23:09 And it just comes across as disingenuous, fake, and it just doesn't, it just feels scripted and it doesn't feel like me. So take the bits that you like. Um, and the last one is get your leader to sell you your career plan. So for a lot of people that are coming into sales, they may not know how the career ladder is going to look or the steps that are required to get them to where they want to be, but a tip to the people that I give in coaching. So.

01:23:38 Jamie, let's just say, for example, you're an SDR and you're looking to go into a closing role. Rather than be arrogant like Neil and think based on my tenure and how long I've been loyal to the company, I should expect that promotion. Nah, that's not the angle that I would advise. The angle that I would advise is go to your lead and say, right, leader, in 12 to 14 months, I would like to be in a closing role and I'd like to be earning X amount in my salary and within my commission.

01:24:08 because these are goals that I have in my life. Can you tell me the steps I need to complete between now and then in order for that to happen? And here within, you will hear from your leader, you know, the required steps and what they think you need to do to succeed and become successful in that role. And what you're able to do is then create milestones such as, you know, running independent discovery calls,

01:24:36 you know, doing handovers with your CSM team, supporting your account executive in the follow-ups and all that cool stuff and learning from procurement calls and recording and documenting these. So that every time you have your one-to-one with your boss, you say, right, I did this, what's next? You go and do that, document it, provide proof. Okay, I've done this, what next? And it will get to a point, Jamie, where you're gonna go to your boss and just say, I've done this, what's next? And they're gonna have to say, looks like you've done everything.

01:25:05 I think we now need to start thinking about that next move. So don't expect it. Ask for help. Create that blueprint for your career progression. And do a little bit of homework. Go speak to other people that are already in that role. Go take them out for lunch. Spend 30 minutes. Why did you get into this role? What were your biggest learning and mistakes? And if anything needs to be changed in a company today the way that we're doing it, what would you change today? And here within, I think you're going to be able to more successfully step in.

01:25:35 So that role versus how Neil completely poached it up and it just, it didn't work out. So yeah, those are my three tips. And yeah, the last one, I like the last one. So something we've actually funnily enough been working on for the last few months, internally at Dealfront is career framework, something that we've not actually had as a business. So it's a seven step or seven tiered role framework of like, here's where you are in order to get to role five, six or seven or tier five, six or seven.

01:26:04 These are the skills you need. These are the behavioral factors you need. And these are the responsibilities and deliverables and things that we would expect of someone in that role. Okay, look, these are the areas where you're not completing that. Cool. We'll just focus on those in the next six months. Yeah. Six months later. Great. Okay. Tick, tick, tick, tick. It might be time to talk about promotion or a compensation increase or something like that. So yeah, that's a very, very good one. And I think every manager or business should be thinking about that with respect to their team, because.

01:26:33 At the end of the day, the more successful and the more growth you get out of your team, the more successful growth you're going to get as a manager, as a leader, right? Everyone's happy. Um, okay. I, I think I know the answer to this one because you're a very, very self-aware person, um, any career regrets today? No, I have no regrets. Um, so this is going back to that first startup Zora, um, and a lesson I learned from my CEO. So.

01:27:02 we'd got to series F, teens, our CEO came to a London office and he was kind of like Jesus to us. He's like, it's the CEO, he's in the office. Like, wow. And everybody wanted to get time, but he sat down with us and I'm looking at him as like, he was one of the Salesforce angels, employee number 11 at Salesforce. So this guy is like, holy grail of tech and sass. Like it was Mark Benioff's right-hand man. And he was asking like, here's an ask me anything to the EMEA team.

01:27:31 And young Neil was sitting there and I said to a teen, I said, you've told us a story that one day he was working at Salesforce and Mark Benioff gave you 50 million and said, go build Zora. And then he's going to buy you back. And you laughed in his face and I'm never going to sell it back to you. Um, I'm just curious to know what do you think would have happened if you didn't take that step or you didn't go for his or what would you be doing now? And he said to me, I don't even dream that. I don't even think that.

01:28:00 I knew what I wanted to do and I can't imagine a life not doing what I've just done. And that hit me and made me feel a bit intimidated, but I respected it. So on reflection, I get asked a lot, what would you change in your career? What would you do different? And I think, you know, based on the laws of life, if I had changed any element of my career, I would not be where I am today. Every mistake or every arrogant Neil Thorpe or anything like that, it all had to happen.

01:28:28 And I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. So I would dread to think echoing teen, if I change, you know, that I would be a completely different person and I'd be in a different career or, you know, I just wouldn't be talking to you today. So yeah, I would never change anything. It reminds me, I was trying to think of some sort of metaphor, analogy, cliche saying, but I think the one that came to mind was the, if a plane changes its course by one degree, either left or right.

01:28:56 By the time it reaches its destination, it's, it's thousands of miles off. Yeah. Um, and I think it's, it's very, very true. It's like, I, the only regret I have is that I didn't start putting in effort until too late in my career or what I deemed to be too late. I could have done what I've done a lot quicker. And then I think back and I was like, okay, you, you didn't put effort in. But if I had changed the way in which I had tackled my career, then who knows where I would have ended up, what would I be doing? Like it.

01:29:24 There's no point thinking about it, is there? Um, so there is very, very admirable way of looking at it. I think. I think just as we said that there was one thing that I do kick myself for not doing. And, uh, so the story goes at Zora, we're working with tech companies and there was a startup that reached out to us and we kind of qualified them out because they just weren't big enough, but this guy was then saying to me, would I like to buy something of their solution? Um, and again, brand new SDR, new to order tech.

01:29:52 know if this is a scam, but he said, would I like to purchase a digital wallet? And the investment would be like 500 bucks and it would allow me to buy this tokenization type of currency that was up and coming. And I said, no, bro, this feels like a scam. I'm not going to do it. And what I was saying no to was the early days of Bitcoin. And I kicked myself for it. But, but, but, but, but Bitcoin is...

01:30:21 Inherently volatile, isn't it? So again, you could have said yes to that. And then it went absolute, it went down the pan and you, you know, in that moment, that 500 quid the week after that, your car could have blown up or the washing machine could have needed replacing whatever. Right. And who knows what that would have led to. And okay. What's, what's next on your career ladder? Like you, okay. You've, you founded the company, you're doing what you love. Um, what, what's, what's next then? Is there a future company, a future state?

01:30:52 Where'd you go? It's a really good question. And I've got comfortable in saying, I don't know. And I'd rather not know, but my overarching goal, I think there should always be a goal which feels unachievable, you know, which has an astronomical metric against it. Well, you don't even know. A hairy audacious goal. A B-hack. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I say, and I've said recently, I want to help a billion people. I want to help.

01:31:21 billion, you know, this could be sales people, this could be just people that I meet as we're talking right now, or perhaps I'm impacting on this podcast or people are watching this and it's changed their mindset or helped them see a different perspective. And what I've learned with happy selling, like I'm a big fan of Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary V. And a lesson that I learned from Gary, like watching his reels and everything, he said, the biggest mistake you can do is treating your company like a business or a service. And he said, the way that you should treat your company is like a media company.

01:31:51 you're creating content, yes, you provide a service, but you're educating people, you're giving them value. So when I look at happy selling, my podcast is an extension of that. And I've helped lots of other people in different countries. I've never even met before and I've had emails and calls from people. And that's really cool. Um, and I've learned the best way to help yourself is by helping others. And I think the mantra with happy selling that I said to a lot of salespeople is that if you just focus on the money,

01:32:20 that is your biggest motivation. I will guarantee you that you will not be happy for long and it's not sustainable. But if you're brought joy by seeing other people win and succeed the money will come. So yeah I want to help inspire and this is going to sound a little bit weird but it kind of comes into like career and end goal Jamie. I have my son Blake who I love to pieces he's 10 years

01:32:51 And one thing that I'm saddened about in the personal aspect of my own family is I don't really have family tree documents, pictures, or any insight into my grandfather. And I found out he was an entrepreneurial businessman with no degree and he was very successful in Bangladesh, but I don't know too much about him. And one of my biggest motivations in life is death or mortality. The fact that we are going to die. I'm a bit stoic, right? Malenta Mori. Exactly. And working in the world of tech.

01:33:20 IT, SaaS, being introduced to the cloud and social media, I'm very cognizant of metadata out there in the world. And what I'm looking to do to build for my son is a digital legacy so that when I'm gone and Blake is in his 20s or whatever it is, God willing, and he's lost in life and he can just type in Neil Booian Dad on Google, he can find a podcast, he can find a clip.

01:33:50 he can find something to either learn from. And I'm looking to build a digital legacy so that I'm there for him in the future. Might sound weird, but that's my plan. Yeah, no, it's like those, it's like a time capsule that used to be physical objects. And I think they still do them because it's fashionable because they're physical objects, but it's a digital time capsule. It's a digital diary of your professional life or personal life. No, I can respect that. I think that's a really, really nice message to finish up on.

01:34:20 So I will go, I will say thank you to everyone that's tuned in for the last hour and 35 minutes. It was a slightly long one and I'm glad we extended this because it was originally going to be 60 minutes and I'm glad that we took the extra time because I think there's tons and tons and tons of sort of heartfelt, honest, uh, actionable advice. Um, and you went into a serious amount of detail, which

01:34:42 Uh, you tend not to find on podcasts, it's quite hard to get it out of people. So I appreciate you going, uh, as deep and as honest as you have done. So thank you for everyone tuning in. I hope you found some of it useful. I'm sure you have make sure you follow or subscribe on whatever network platform, um, you're watching or listening. And we will catch you in the next episode.