Live from Sales HQ with Grant Kitching
We are live from sales HQ. I'm Vince Speezy, your host and the founder here at sales HQ. And my guest for this episode is Grant Kitchen. That's it? Not kitchen?
Grant Kitching:Not kitchen.
Vince Beese:So I've done that mistake.
Grant Kitching:Kitchen It's okay. It happens.
Vince Beese:Let's start off with what what is sales HQ? What is this phenomenon that's striking the Raleigh area and Mhmm. Bringing everybody to their knees? SalesHQ is the first of its kind co selling community specifically for high performing sellers and sales teams. Basically, we're curing for remote sales isolation demotivation.
Vince Beese:We're bringing everybody together on a traditional type of sales floor and giving them opportunity to collaborate and build that energy of a high energy floor. It's great concept. Doing it here first in Raleigh. If you want more information about that, go to saleshq dotco. So it's not com.
Vince Beese:I couldn't get the coms. It's saleshq.com. That's what sales HQ is. Check it out when you get a chance. But more importantly, Grant, known each other for a while.
Vince Beese:Mhmm. I've known a lot about you. Mhmm. But tell our audience, what are you up to these days?
Grant Kitching:Well, the last 6 years,
Vince Beese:I have been with them. 6 years,
Grant Kitching:is it? 6 years. It's just how time flies.
Vince Beese:I remember when you were talking about this.
Grant Kitching:I know how time flies, but 6 years ago, I joined, Jess Lipson over at Real Magic and we basically launched our first product, Levitate. And Levitate is a product that helps we are small, medium, business focused. So to the many out there who do enterprise, we look a bit like an exotic plant in that, you know, we do SMB. But we help
Vince Beese:Exotic plant.
Grant Kitching:Yeah. It's very exotic. It's it's, but a need. And so we help small, medium businesses more effectively stay top of mind and keep in touch with their networks, with all their referral partners, you know, with the goal of helping them drive more business. You know?
Grant Kitching:And so it's been 6 years. You know, we just hit north of, 6,000 customers. Oh, wow. And, yeah, it's it's very exciting, and it's been, quite the wild ride. You're the CRO?
Grant Kitching:I'm the CRO. Yes. Original. Founding CRO. Founding CRO, pre revenue, pre beta, all that fun stuff.
Grant Kitching:Yes. Head up, no. And Jess and I always talk, like, you know, how, how rare, you know, these companies are that get to our stage. We were like Very rare. Yeah.
Grant Kitching:Yeah. We have done this, but, yes, it's been a it's been a fun journey.
Vince Beese:And congratulations on the this current run. I know it's not over and it's gonna still go strong, but congratulations. You're you're part of this local group here that's part of ShareFile Citrix, the the Raleigh Durham Sales Mafia Group. So
Grant Kitching:That's right.
Vince Beese:Another feather in your cap.
Grant Kitching:Yeah.
Vince Beese:I wanna get to this one question I asked my guest early on, which is I often find people don't start a career in sales or sales leadership on purpose. No. They typically kind of fall into it, find a natural, entryway, and go for it. Curious. What's your story?
Vince Beese:How did
Grant Kitching:you get involved in sales? It's quite hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. It's I'll go back.
Grant Kitching:You know, I'll go back to the beginning, but I won't make it too, drawn out, but, I tell everyone I'm from Texas. That's my joke. But originally, from South Africa, and, I grew up, like, I was a I was a geek. You know? It's, like, my first computer I got by the time I was 13, I think.
Grant Kitching:You know? And, if you're in the US and, like, you know, Vince, you may remember the Commodore 64. Of course. You know? There was the ZX Spectrum 48 k, and 48 k means 48 k of memory.
Grant Kitching:That was it. You know, I'm getting to but I'm gonna fast forward beyond that. So anyway, so
Vince Beese:You're trying to prove your point.
Grant Kitching:Yeah. Went to university. I'm just a computer guy. I did computer science, physics, and, you know, I started my career at IBM in Johannesburg, and, I was doing coding and consulting. And, I came here in, it was January of 96, you know, and and never seen snow and came into a few year in January 96 in Research Triangle Park, one of the worst snowstorms in history.
Grant Kitching:History.
Vince Beese:Oh, that's right.
Grant Kitching:That was my entrance into the US. So sitting in a corporate apartment, you know, for the first 4 days on my own, kind of figuring out what am I doing here. You know? Know? One of those things where you just that comfort zone moment where you're like, man.
Grant Kitching:But I started off, you know, doing consulting and training and, like, you know, just traveling around the US, you know, training on some mainframe products. And then I found my way into product management. Mhmm. You know, so I've been half my career has been as a product manager. You know, it kinda makes me a bit of a different, maybe, CRO in the way that I think about stuff and approach stuff.
Grant Kitching:But, yeah. It was about I will tell you now it gets real funny, you know, because it was about, probably about, like, when the the mortgage crisis was really hitting, which you may remember too, Vince, was about 2,008, 2009. And, I've taken a bit of a deviation. I was working for a company. I was really intrigued by the business model where they did this fiber to the home approach, where they got an easement and they had service providers ride on the fiber.
Grant Kitching:So I was deeply intrigued by it. But, you know, we're going through one of those stages. It's a it's a capital heavy business, and, we're trying to get funding and, you know, you know the deal. Like, you know, funding's here and there, and it's not going so well, and we're trying to figure it out. And my CEO walked over to me one day.
Grant Kitching:He was this crazy guy, and he said, Grant, I don't need a product manager. I need a sales guy. He said, Grant, you know what I'm gonna do is is I'm gonna take your salary. I'm gonna have it. You know?
Grant Kitching:So, like, half salary, and the rest is gonna be commissioned. Yeah. If you don't wanna do it, it's okay. You can go today. And, you know, at that stage, it was it was the the more
Vince Beese:Sicker swag. Much going on out there.
Grant Kitching:That was my foray into sales. You know? It was was like I'm like, okay. I'm gonna try this out. And I've always been a competitive guy.
Grant Kitching:You know, I grew up a twin, still am a twin, I should say. He's back in South Africa. He's the shorter one. That's not as good looking as me, but that kind of got that competitive streak in me where, like, you know, you get some twins, you know, it's it's they they they bond. We are more competitive.
Grant Kitching:No boy twins are competitive. And, you know, that's where the competitive streak came out where I said, I can do this. I'm gonna sell. Sure. And, the rest is history.
Vince Beese:You know? So how did you do in that first sales opportunity? Was it individual contributor role, I assume?
Grant Kitching:Yeah. It was an IC role. And, very interesting, you know, I think in the one of the podcasts I saw, you were speaking about door to door. There was an element of door to door, you know, which was deeply intriguing. And this door to door, some of it involved, mobile home parks.
Grant Kitching:And if you ever done door to door, it's it's interesting. If you've done door to door and mobile home parks, it gets it more interesting.
Vince Beese:But it does.
Grant Kitching:It it can get fun. But there was an element of that and, this, you know, this guy and I named Jack. You know? You can
Vince Beese:knock on the door. You just yell, hey. Yes.
Grant Kitching:Like, hey. And you're barking you back Exactly. Based on the the depth of the barcode. But this guy, Jack and I figured out this model of, approaching REITs, real estate investment trusts. You know, we own a lot of, communities, apartment communities, mobile home communities.
Grant Kitching:And, we figured out how to kind of, like, you know, just get these, like, broad umbrella enterprise sales, and and it took off. And, in those first years, I made more money than I ever ever did as a well, you know, than I ever did in a few years as a product manager. Then I knew that this is gonna be fun, you know, that I can do this. There was there was hatreds.
Vince Beese:Well, it's good you took the risk. Mhmm. I guess you didn't have a choice, though, with you that out of being unemployed. So it's kinda, like, forced into sales. Exactly.
Vince Beese:Be your title. Forced into sales.
Grant Kitching:Exactly.
Vince Beese:And still conquering. Exactly. Exactly. So you got the taste for an uncapped amount of being able to have an uncapped salary or compensation, that probably was something
Grant Kitching:that was attractive as well? That was super attractive. You know, I think, you know, I always talk to my team about, you know, just having finances and having means and, like, you know, the fact that, you know, money is not gonna make you happy. Mhmm. But money can make you happier, you know, in that it it just it it allows you to do things that you weren't able to do before and just have comforts, that you didn't.
Grant Kitching:And, like, so, you know, that was my first, as I said, the first kind of taste of it. I'm, like, this is kinda cool. I think I can do this, and the rest is history.
Vince Beese:So you go through an individual contributor role.
Grant Kitching:How did you then get into sales leadership? Yeah. So, that's interesting because that company, you know, went through its gyrations. We got acquired, in capital heavy companies with low gross margin. When you get acquired, it's, you know, make a ton of money, you know?
Grant Kitching:And so, like, that happened and there was probably around when was it like, early 2012, and I was trying to figure out the next thing. And I had a friend, a real good friend, Brian, and he said to me, they are these these guys, and I'm surprised I never heard about him. But they're these guys. There's this guy, Jesse Lipsler. You know?
Grant Kitching:And he's doing the ShareFile thing along with Ed Shealy. He was the VP of sales. You may have heard Ed's name. And he said, like, you know, they just got acquired by Citrix. And, he said you should talk to them.
Grant Kitching:And I'm like, well, I'm kind of more a pre acquisition guy. I wanna you know, it's like and I met up with them. And, you know, they were looking for, like, you know, some leadership roles. And, meeting up with Ed, I didn't get to meet with Chase initially, but, like, meeting up with Eda is like and seeing what Chase and Ed were doing, you know, with SMB outbound, which is SMB outbound is normally 2 words that don't go together. Yeah.
Grant Kitching:You know, it's it's not easy. You normally got PLG, product led growth, motions driving SMB. But seeing what they did was just spectacular. And I said, like, you know, if I go into a simple leadership role here, I actually took a step back. I can learn a ton more from these guys in just taking a step back than I think I could ever anywhere else.
Grant Kitching:And, like, that was the big change for me was getting, connected there. Yeah. And, the rest is history. That's smart.
Vince Beese:You followed the leadership. You you believed in them. You trusted them. You saw their vision, and you felt you could learn something from them. So you took the chance.
Vince Beese:Right?
Grant Kitching:Absolutely. And just, I think also the culture. Yeah. And just, the calm that I saw in, like, you know, it wasn't calm. It was, it was, it was, it was, it was fun.
Grant Kitching:But just just the calm, kind of like, you know, just the data driven approach. Yeah. You know, the highly structured approach. Yeah. Not cutting corners, always doing the right thing, you know, was just what I wanted to be a part of because that's important.
Vince Beese:Well, let's follow-up on something you said, which I think is extremely important, sometimes overlooked, which is culture. And then specifically, not just company culture, but there's such thing as sales culture. Right? I'm sure you're a firm believer or not. You've done certain things.
Vince Beese:What is it that you do when you come in as a leadership role to set the right sales culture? Do you have a certain methodology or process that you kind of adhere to?
Grant Kitching:Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's I think it's the very first thing that defines, I think, a culture is is it's not a matter of, like, you know, there could be many things out there. Like, you know, you look at the ping pong tables, you look at all the, you know, the the the keg rates and all that. That is not culture.
Grant Kitching:I think what what defines the very first thing about a culture is, is you've got to establish a team that is well trained and is put in a position to be successful. Okay? Because if they're not trained, if they're not in a position to be successful, nothing else matters. You know? And there's there's a table stakes of culture for me, which is always do the right thing when no one's looking.
Grant Kitching:That's kind of table stakes. You know? If you don't have that, it's not a culture. It's not even there's no foundational Maslov's concept. But I think for me, the very big start is is, you know, a solid culture starts, like, you know, when you have a team that is being put in a position to be successful.
Grant Kitching:You know? And the precursor to that is is what training are you delivering? Of course, things like product product market fit, but but as a sales org, it's having a first class training program where there are managers who care about the development of their team, and when we do stuff like that and get people to be successful and feel like they can do things, the sky's the limit.
Vince Beese:So training for you, I'm sure it's evolved over time, but do your current managers also do the training, or do you have a separate organization's response for onboarding and training?
Grant Kitching:No. We have the managers do the training. You know? And I think it's
Vince Beese:because that's a question that people will say. Right? So Yeah. Because you can't be good at everything as a lead.
Grant Kitching:Right? Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. No.
Grant Kitching:No. I think it's a matter of, like, you know, as you scale, do you have a separate team that takes on onboarding and training? I I really think it's an important function for the managers to keep, to do themselves because they are the ones who will be managing, they are the ones who will be coaching, and, having them right in there at the ground floor. And, you know, when they do their training, it's not just about them training the rigs. It's also about them building rapport.
Grant Kitching:Yeah. You know? And so we invest in, you know, decent amount in them, like, you know, to become, are you a good can you train? Can you coach? And that is kind of the table stakes stuff that I think we need to keep the managers at that level.
Grant Kitching:I think it's important.
Vince Beese:Yeah. I see so many startups. They don't even have an onboarding, let alone training.
Grant Kitching:Mhmm.
Vince Beese:It's a sink or swim for the salesperson and Mhmm. Takes a certain breed to be able to come at early stage startup in that sort of environment, but I like your approach a lot better where you're setting the stage of setting them up for success as opposed to setting them up for failure. Right? You have to. You have to.
Vince Beese:And so I assume that that that's that philosophy, that strategy probably pertains to ongoing as well. Like, I assume you have your top tier reps, you have your middle tier reps, you have your tier. I'm sure you're trying to constantly increase their skill levels and their success as well. Right?
Grant Kitching:Yeah. It's it's it's all about it's all about like, you know, just growing your, building out your craft, you know, and like I was looking the other day, I'm, I was looking at, the same thing. I think that's the only thing that I can do is I can do the same thing. I think that's the only thing that I can do is I can do the same thing. I think that's the only thing that I can do is I can do the same thing.
Grant Kitching:I think that's the only thing that I can do is I can do the same thing. I think that's the only thing that I can do was, you know, just 15.5 attitude. Just be the very best that you can be, you know, so there's that personal side that I look for in how we can help our employees just be the very best that they can be when it comes to certain principles of mine that I spoke about with you earlier. But, you know, throughout, you know, the training never stops. It the the learning never stops.
Grant Kitching:Like, you know, when you come in with us as an SDR, it is constant. It is daily, weekly. When you become an AE, it is pretty extensive. It is deep. We do a ton of mock demos, you know, all that kind of fun stuff, but it is, I'd rather go just totally overboard on the training, over train.
Grant Kitching:Now we don't overthink, you know, we're putting you in like reps, You know? So you come in, and you're onboarding for 5 days, and then I'm like, okay. It's time to get on the phones. That that's kind of the bias to action we have is because
Vince Beese:And you're gonna learn a lot.
Grant Kitching:Yeah. Yeah. It's it's you learn more. So because you gotta have the blend is there's only so much theory you can consume before it gets overwhelming. Yep.
Grant Kitching:You know? So you're on the phone, and then it's a blend of you're on the phone train on the phone phone train on the but this constant injection of the right training at the right time in, like, a golf swing type mode where it's the worst thing you can do is is to tell a rep to fix 6 things. Yep. So what's the top thing? One thing.
Grant Kitching:Yep. Fix that. Next thing. Fix that. Next thing.
Grant Kitching:Thing. Yep. It's kind of the methodology.
Vince Beese:Salespeople having success
Grant Kitching:Mhmm.
Vince Beese:For a long period of time, not just in in different sprints, but long period of time. I believe, and I think we talked started talking about this, like, there's some ownership as a salesperson you have to take to invest into your career, invest into your skill set. And that's this commitment to lifelong learning. Yes. I know you're a big proponent of that for yourself.
Vince Beese:Yes. You take down new challenges, you had to learn, you had to continue to push yourself. What advice can you give to specifically maybe younger sales, or less experienced sale sellers out there of this commitment to lifelong learning and why it's so important.
Grant Kitching:I I think it's, I think it's it's kind of, again, it's part of the fabric of what I think makes just someone who is, you know, deeply successful in that. You know, it's it's I've been around a while and, like, you know, the minute I stop learning will be that that's the moment my heart stops beating. Like, you have to keep learning and growing. And the minute you stop doing that, you know, you stop developing. Would it be on your sales craft?
Grant Kitching:But I think, you know, more specifically, like, you know, it's it's also on, like, you know, just just understanding, like, you know, your intrinsic motivators as a person. And managers, like, you know, as part of their job, like, you know, to to pull that out, you know, to figure out what are your intrinsic motivators? But I think without that kind of foundation, like, you know, it's, it's, and it, for many, it's, it's when you're young, you think you know a lot you know like I was like that I was like I know everything like you know but over time you get to discover that you don't know everything And, if you are able to get into that model of, like, you know, just I am gonna keep learning, I'm gonna keep understanding, not just my not just my sales methodologies. Am I a pro at Challenger Sale? Am I a pro at SPIN Selling?
Grant Kitching:You know, that's more outbound, you know, but but do I understand the psychology of sales? Mhmm. You know, Cialdini's influence principles, you know, and like, that's the type of stuff where it's like, you know, if you keep investing there, I think you keep learning, you keep being relentlessly. I think it's kind of a buzzword, but it's an important word, curious Yep. About yourself, about your prospects.
Grant Kitching:You will win. The minute you think you know too much, you start talking, prospects stop listening, and Yeah. You're given close rate or your win rate dies. Yeah.
Vince Beese:I think curiosity to me Mhmm. Is a characteristic that you must must have in sales.
Grant Kitching:Mhmm.
Vince Beese:And I find that salespeople that aren't curious don't ask the right questions or the timeline questions or dig deeper. And I I I'm sorry, but I don't know if we can teach to that. So to me, it's you know what I mean? Like, if there are certain things that you can uplevel, you can teach people, but it's hard instinctively to help someone become more curious.
Grant Kitching:It is. It is. You are
Vince Beese:or you aren't. And it leads to what you're talking about, which is continuous learning. You believe in it because you do it. Mhmm. But I don't think most people I shouldn't say most.
Vince Beese:Some people don't think that way. I know this thing I'm selling this thing. I'm having success. I'm good. Right?
Grant Kitching:Yeah.
Vince Beese:So that's a hard thing to kind of up level someone on. Right?
Grant Kitching:It is. It is. And I think, you know, it goes down to this, you know, what I try and pull out of people a lot, just understanding them is there is, there is aptitude and there's attitude And there's certain things that, you know, you can learn and influence your attitude and, like, grow, and then there's aptitude. Aptitude for curiosity, positivity, and grit, Can you develop that over time? Yes.
Grant Kitching:But sometimes, it's not there.
Vince Beese:Oh. You know? So the question is, are you self aware? Yeah. Do you realize that?
Vince Beese:Do you recognize it? Are you willing to do something about it? Yeah. That's the question. Right?
Vince Beese:Yeah. If you're constantly getting feedback from your coach or your or your leader that, hey, man, you know, you missed opportunities to ask this question or that question or do this thing, and they're not picking up on it because they just don't see those signs, then we've got a we've got a problem. Check. But, you know, I'd say, what, 95% of the people that you coach will will see that and recognize that. I think in general, salespeople tend to be harder on themselves quite frankly than anyone else.
Vince Beese:They're they're they're the better ones of their worlds. The they're the worst critics of themselves. Right? Yes. They want to get better.
Vince Beese:They want that little push to get better. Right? That goes to being gritty, being a hustler. Right? Which is another critical thing.
Grant Kitching:Yes. Yes. And that that's kinda one of the, you know, and and, you know, in the in the interview process, we're trying to, like, you know, we try to always pull these things out is is, you know, are there these tendencies? And I think lifelong learning is one thing. I think just in building out the startup from pre revenue to where we are now is is I think and it's it's very similar in sales is is the element of grit.
Grant Kitching:Mhmm. And I I like the word grit. You know? This is close to gravel. It's a joke.
Grant Kitching:It's I like the word grit, you know, just because it unpacks a lot of things is is like, if you have grit, you cannot, I cannot say of someone they have grit if they're very negative all the time. Mhmm. Because the 2 don't go together. If you are negative all the time, your grit falls away. You know?
Grant Kitching:So when I see people who have grit, it sublevels into a variety of important things that they have is is number 1, it's tenacity. Kind of like sublevel grit. It's like, you just gotta be tenacious and like, you know, that comes down to intrinsic motivators. It's a sublevel of tenacity, and you work up tenacity into grit. The other one that's more of that aptitude than like, you know, I think, flavor is aptitude then, like, you know, I think, flavor is optimism.
Grant Kitching:Is you gotta be optimistic, you know, and, like, you get down in yourself. But if you're negative and and and, you know, it's it's it's we all struggle with negative. It's, it's such a beast when it gets hold of you and I've been there. And it takes a while. It's, it's one step to get into it, 4 steps to get out.
Grant Kitching:It's tough for salespeople. And we have salespeople who are like they they're just they're they're up based, and they fall into it. And it's like, you know, the faster we can get them out of it and get them, get our people into optimistic, positive mindset where it's like, not everything is gonna go my way. Not everything about my life is going to be linear. You know, even though it appears you look at all these startups like slack, everything appears like an overnight success, but it's hard.
Grant Kitching:And it's the same for them. I tell them in their career, it's like, you're going to have the good days. You're going to have the bad days. But if you're curious and you're optimistic, and you're just committed to improving your art and your science, you're gonna be okay.
Vince Beese:You know, it it's interesting. If sales is hard, and there's a lot more nos than there are yeses, but when those yeses happen, it's magic. Exactly. You don't remember the nos. You remember the yeses.
Vince Beese:Yeah. So you and I have been doing this long enough to know that, yeah, today was a shitty day or that call was a shitty call or whatever it is. It doesn't matter because the next one or the next one or the next one's gonna be that fabulous one. It's kinda like my golf game. Like, for every 10 swings, I might have one good one, and that's the one that holds me, and gives me promise to potentially play again.
Grant Kitching:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Vince Beese:You know what I mean? It's just that one smooth swing, but hit perfectly. That's what it feels like. It's the same thing in sales.
Grant Kitching:Yeah.
Vince Beese:It's that one call, that one response, whatever it is that brings you back in. Right?
Grant Kitching:And and it it does. And it it it's it's part of our, you know, it's it's it's part of our training and, like, you know, just what we instill, you know, into our our our team from a psychology perspective. If you're making a 100 prospecting dials a day and you have with the decision maker a 16% connect rate, that means you're gonna be having 16 conversations a day with the decision maker, let alone gatekeepers, who are gonna tell you, no. You may talk to 50 PKs. Yep.
Grant Kitching:And it's no. No. No. No. No.
Grant Kitching:But you're gonna get through maybe with the 16% connect rate to 16 DMs decision makers, and you may only book 2 demos. Yep. So what that means is 2 out of 16 are either call me back with a nose. And, you know, that's, as you said, that's the type of stuff where it's like, just that it's it's always the why. Yep.
Grant Kitching:Big fan of Simon Sinek wise.
Vince Beese:It's just like,
Grant Kitching:here is why we're doing this and here's what's gonna happen. And you're gonna have days where you could have no appointments. 16 connects nothing. 16 connects nothing. But you could come back the next day of 16 connect, and you book 5 appointments.
Grant Kitching:You know, it's not linear. Just keep being committed. Keep learning. And number 1, ask for help from your manager. Ask for help
Vince Beese:from your manager. And, you know, like, I didn't get into sales by choice. Either just happened. But what I liked about
Grant Kitching:sales you get into sales?
Vince Beese:Oh, shit.
Grant Kitching:When I interviewed the interview.
Vince Beese:How did I get into sales? I actually responded to one of those ads back in the day Yeah. That said, like, something like, are you sports minded? Do you like it it was playing to people that are competitive and athletic. I'd say, I'd like to play sports.
Vince Beese:I know of athletic. And I went to this thing. It was an open casting thing. When you walk I walked in, there's, like, 50 people in this room. Like, what the heck?
Vince Beese:And it ended up being, like, one of those vitamin scams.
Grant Kitching:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Vince Beese:And I was like, well, I don't buy into this, but what they're trying to do and what they're trying to sell is this vision of independence Mhmm. And being your own boss Mhmm. And making your own way and having untapped income, it caught my attention. And so then I actually then respond to a second one, which was for advertising sales for a startup magazine in Washington, DC. Mhmm.
Vince Beese:Just getting off the ground. Mhmm. And this was door to door.
Grant Kitching:Mhmm.
Vince Beese:So you did come in. We were selling advertising to local businesses, and you had to go find the owner walk in and do it.
Grant Kitching:Mhmm. I didn't
Vince Beese:know if I wanted to do it. It was just something at the time I was trying to bide my time to get my next broadcast gig. That's all. I just saw it as a means to make money now. Who cares?
Vince Beese:They're paying me a little bit of money, and I can make Mhmm. Commission on top of that. So I started doing it. It's like, I didn't take it serious. And I think because I didn't take it so serious, I wasn't hard on myself.
Vince Beese:And eventually, I started closing deals. I started closing deals. I'm like, this isn't that hard. Just fuck up to these people, have a conversation, either they buy into it or they don't. Yeah.
Vince Beese:And I move on. Yeah. I never took it personal. So I was like, I just fell into it. It just became Yeah.
Vince Beese:I just always saw Grant as, like, a conversation with somebody. Yeah. And it's either you need this thing or you don't need this thing.
Grant Kitching:It's interesting. There's something to be said for that balance of you gotta take it seriously. But if you take it too seriously, you come off as scripted inauthentic because you're just so nervous. Like, there's only
Vince Beese:so much you can
Grant Kitching:do. Right? Yeah. Exactly.
Vince Beese:At the end of the, like That's cool. At the end of the day, if if if in discovery or whatever you do on your first call, if if you're not gonna solve a problem for them, if they don't have a problem that you can solve, then make a friend, but walk away. It's not gonna happen. I don't care how good you think you are. It may happen, but then it will churn anyway because it should have never happened.
Vince Beese:That's my point. Like, I do assist I think my my instinct, my best trait about being into sales by the way, how did we switch back to me? Are you the is the fact that I'm honest, super, super honest about my opportunities. And that's why I always try to emphasize to the sales team. You don't need to have 20 opportunities.
Vince Beese:You just need to have good opportunities, and a good opportunity starts with a mutual fit. Mhmm. Do they have a problem? Mhmm. Can we solve that problem?
Vince Beese:Mhmm. If you can't answer that and if that's not clear to them, it's not clear to us, then what what so go go back to the advertising thing. Do you need more of an audience to walk in of these types of people? Mhmm. If you do, let's do a test and see if this works for you and bring in traffic to your store or shop or whatever it is.
Vince Beese:Yep. And that's what I learned just early on. It was I just broke down sales to be very simplistic. Yeah. Yeah.
Vince Beese:And I didn't to your point, I didn't take it serious because I didn't think this was a career for me. So I didn't really Yeah. Care that much.
Grant Kitching:Yeah. It's a great
Vince Beese:it's a great Here we are 20 something years later. I know. I know. And it's like golf in that you can make it a career, meaning you're you're never too old to do sales.
Grant Kitching:No. Never. No. It keeps it keeps me young. Right.
Vince Beese:Well, you joining startups is keeping you young too.
Grant Kitching:Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't know about that, jeez. Yes. Of course.
Grant Kitching:6 years is, I'm a good dad. I'm not 12.
Vince Beese:Used to have hair down your shoulders, and it's dark black. Right? No gray. That's right. We're getting, close to wrapping up things here.
Vince Beese:I wanted to ask you one last question because I I love the fact that in the last two opportunities, you had very vertical approach. Yes. I've always loved the vertical attack. I think it's a great way to go to market. So talk to us a little bit about your expertise and why you're such a big proponent of verticalization when it comes to go to market.
Grant Kitching:Yeah. Yeah. And and I think it's, you know, I think Yeah. And I think especially in SMB, it's super relevant because SMB in itself is just so verticalized. You know, you look at enterprise, you know, the TAM is is obviously not as huge because, you know, there's bigger deal sizes and just less TAM.
Grant Kitching:But SMB is it's a massive TAMI. It's just sorry. I shouldn't total addressable market. Yes. And there are millions of SMBs, you know, out there.
Grant Kitching:And I love them because, you know, they they they it's it's the fuel of the economy. Yep. It's it's it's every person out there, that insurance agency owner, that HVAC operator, where, you know, it's like they gotta make payroll every month. They've got families, and it's like, you know, they're just the fuel of the economy, but it's verticalized. Yes.
Grant Kitching:You know, because think about it. It's a massive addressable market, but, you know, you've got attorneys, You've got insurance agency owners. You've got financial advisers. You've got HVAC operators. You've got plumbers.
Grant Kitching:And I think, you know, it's it's it's just like there are these big vertical TAMs where I think if, like, you know, if you're able to just build a model where, you know, number 1, it's all about, like, you know, your sales people showing domain expertise to the nth degree. Mhmm. Where, you know, it's like, you call that insurance agency owner up, and carriers are leaving Florida. You know? And, like, if you're not verticalized, you can't have that convo, but you can call that guy up or gal who's worked at that agency and say, in Florida, yeah.
Grant Kitching:Yeah. It's it's I I heard about travelers. Yep. You know, they're like, how do you you you know, that master, what I'm going through, and I'm like, you probably just slammed trying to write business now and, like, you know, feeling underwater, but I I get you. I get you.
Grant Kitching:You really should look at this. And I think that's that's the beauty. You've got these big vertical markets that if you specialize in them, and just not just sales reps only, but you also build out, like, and here's the product guy in me, very, very strong vertigo ecosystems where you integrate with their CRMs. You start to get involved in their associations, and that's the long game aspect. You know?
Vince Beese:Trade shows that they go to just be where they are, speak their language,
Grant Kitching:all that stuff.
Vince Beese:It becomes relevant.
Grant Kitching:Yeah. You use VERTIFOR as your AMS. Well, like, you know, whatever this agency management system is, an insurance guy or you know, it's like and and that, like, you know, over time, you just build this very deep and defensible mode of knowledge and investment in that vertical. So your go to market in itself becomes a a defense strategy, you know, where it's just very hard to build up.
Vince Beese:Do you separate your teams today by vertical? Absolutely. I mean I mean, physically separate your teams by vertical?
Grant Kitching:Yes. Yes. So they
Vince Beese:can hear each other and feed off each other? Absolutely.
Grant Kitching:Absolutely. You know? So, like, we've got kinda 2 master verticals, but the sub verticals under there, you know, are very related, like, we have insurance agencies, financial advisers, accountants. And, you know, we put everyone together so that we can always be learning from each other. But that's a key part of the learning is you don't just come in and learn sales skills.
Grant Kitching:You gotta come in and you gotta learn the verticals. Yes. You know? And how to speak. When you get that person on the phone, you know the deal.
Grant Kitching:You know? It's like, as I said, a 16% connect rate, and you may just, you got 16 convos on their day. You know? Best case maybe. That's a good connect rate sometimes.
Grant Kitching:You got their DM's attention. You gotta get them in, like, 20 seconds Yep. Or not. You know? Like, or or you're toast.
Grant Kitching:Yep. You know? And you've gotta have that hook, you know, right out of the gate, especially with an outbound cold calling model. So that's why we verticalize, but I think it's a great defensible go to market way.
Vince Beese:Yeah. I just think people are are crazy. They have the ability to verticalize. It's the best way to go to mark. I'm biased.
Vince Beese:Even in enterprise, you get we're talking about SMB, but enterprise just as much so because, again, it Look
Grant Kitching:at you. Yes.
Vince Beese:It it comes back to speaking their language. Right? Whether your your first conversation, your first email sent, the trade shows you go to, the events you go to, it's gotta speak to better business. And I I don't know. It's just, front of your bullet.
Vince Beese:Let's I think we'll leave it there. I mean, gosh. I think we've given this audience enough for free. You know? Yeah.
Vince Beese:We're not charging anything.
Grant Kitching:No. We should. You should. Yeah. Yeah.
Grant Kitching:You should. Yes. Hey,
Vince Beese:man. Thanks for coming on. It's great seeing you again. Please don't be a stranger around here.
Grant Kitching:No. It's it's it's really great what you're doing with SalesHQ. I'm I'm I'm a big fan of this and, and just the risk that you're taking. I think it's, it's great for Raleigh in the community. Yes.
Grant Kitching:And just to plug for Levitate, we're always hiring. You know? So, like, I'm I'm looking for SDRs. Come find me. Come get me.
Vince Beese:Oh, you you shouldn't have said that because I think you're gonna get hit. Grant Kitchen on LinkedIn. I guarantee you there's not is there a lot of Grant Kitchens on?
Grant Kitching:Not too many. There's there's there's a Grant Kitchen over on
Vince Beese:the West Coast.
Grant Kitching:He's not this and I compete with him for, you know, Google potential.
Vince Beese:Yeah. Yeah. Google, email address and such a good Thanks for coming on, man.
Grant Kitching:Absolutely, Vince. Thank you for having me. This has been great.
Vince Beese:Sales HQ. Till next time. Thank you.