Live from Sales HQ with Devin Williams
We are live from SalesHQ. I'm Vince Beazey, your host and the founder here at SalesHQ. And our guest on this episode is Devin Williams. Devin, welcome to the show, man.
Devin Williams:Thanks for having me, Vince.
Vince Beese:So as always, let's get a little plug for SalesHQ. At this point, point, probably everybody in the world knows what sales HQ is. But for those few of you out there that don't know, it is a co selling community specifically built for remote sellers and sales teams. Our first location is here in the RDU or what we call the Raleigh Durham area. And I think the best thing about SalesHQ since we've opened the doors 4 months ago is really the community aspect of what we're building.
Vince Beese:There's lots of places where you can work, where you can find a desk. There's not a lot of places where you can sit next to people that do something that you do, which is the profession of sales. So meeting other salespeople, sharing, and collaborating with, I think, has been the best thing here. Also, that tied to, like, the events we do right now, which is a live podcast and other networking events. It's just bringing people together.
Vince Beese:Right? You just can't we started talking about that the other day. Right? You just can't. It's not the same experience as a as a Zoom or a a web conference.
Vince Beese:So that's the best thing about sales HQ is being live with your colleagues, friends, and peers. More information, go to saleshqdot c o. Alright. Let's get back to the show.
Devin Williams:Let's do it.
Vince Beese:So what are you up to these days? Tell the audience who you are, what you're doing, and we'll get into your story here.
Devin Williams:Yeah. Yeah. So I'm, I'm, very much, first and foremost, a family man with 2 young kiddos. But when when they are not taken up all the time, and I gotta pay the bills, I am also VP and GM of the Americas for a late stage startup called LaunchDarkly. It does about a 150,000,000 in annual revenue.
Devin Williams:I have about 6,000 customers globally. And I also, spend a lot of time on the labor of love, which is people first professionals, which is a networking and enablement group focused on helping people progress their careers, leveraging specifically soft skills around emotional intelligence, specifically for folks that are working in a customer facing role of some kind or sort, whether internal or external. Yeah.
Vince Beese:Yeah. LaunchDarkly LaunchDarkly sounds like some sort of a sci fi.
Devin Williams:Yeah.
Vince Beese:But what is LaunchDarkly?
Devin Williams:It does. Yeah.
Devin Williams:I mean
Vince Beese:And how did that name come about, by the way?
Devin Williams:Yeah. It comes from this concept in, release management that's, known as a dark launch. Mhmm. Basically, releasing new features or products out into the community without your users actually being aware that there were any changes made to the application. You know, like, if you go and you wanna get the latest version of LinkedIn, you have to download that new version on your mobile app.
Devin Williams:A dark launch would be an example of them releasing a new feature to the mobile app without you needing to download a new version of the app. So LaunchDarkly is a feature management and release management platform. I think the prevalence and the importance of this type of technology has never been more in the forefront of the news with very recently a large global outage that quite candidly could have been prevented with a technology like LaunchDarkly. Good.
Vince Beese:Helped you guys now.
Devin Williams:Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't hurt. It's good timing for marketing, but, our goal and our responsibility is to support the developer, engineering, and product community and help them deliver product faster and do it with much less risk.
Vince Beese:So, real live example just happened to me, about half an hour ago, WhatsApp Mhmm. On my desktop. Says, hey. You got an old version. Get an get an update.
Vince Beese:I had to go to my phone, upload my WhatsApp on my phone to get the latest version then then throw it back to my version on the obviously, that's a Meta product. So I assume you don't work with Meta or WhatsApp. Correct?
Devin Williams:We actually do work with some of their subsidiaries.
Vince Beese:Example, though, of something if you guys
Devin Williams:So there's there's always gonna be situations where a full release, a full update is gonna be necessary, especially with, like, back end architectural changes. But, like, one example that I give that I think even people not in technology can understand is, you know, I'm I'm Bank of America, and I wanna change the color and the location of my checkout button on the mobile app or my withdrawal button. Yep. Yep. Right?
Devin Williams:And I can wrap that in what's known as a feature flag, which is basically segmenting code Yep. And breaking it into individual features. Right? There's thousands and hundreds of thousands of lines of code that make up an application, but I can segment an individual feature in that application and make changes to it without needing my entire community to download a new version
Vince Beese:of the app.
Devin Williams:I can go a layer further. I can actually say, you know, hey. Let's roll that new checkout button to 10% of my folks in San Francisco.
Vince Beese:So you're testing it at the same time.
Devin Williams:Yeah. Testing in production. Oh, wow. And if let's say San Francisco is responding really well. Let's go ahead and push to 50 to 70 to 80.
Devin Williams:Oh, New York's not liking it. Roll it back immediately to the previous now. Cool.
Vince Beese:Yeah. It's That's really cool.
Devin Williams:A very cool and very relevant technology
Vince Beese:live from SalesHQ since we gave him such a great plug
Devin Williams:here. You know what
Vince Beese:I mean?
Devin Williams:I love it. I love it. Because I'll see what I can do.
Vince Beese:I'll see what I can do. Well, a 150,000,000 revenues. Come on, man. Help a small founder. Everyone's story of how they got in sales to me is so intriguing and interesting, and everyone's story is different.
Vince Beese:Tell tell us a little bit about how you got started in sales.
Devin Williams:Yeah. It's, it actually started very early, raised by a single mother who I tortured and infuriated on a regular basis, and she would always joke, you know, you can talk your way out of a cold. And she just said I was destined to be a lawyer. And so I was fortunate that my aunt was a very successful lawyer, and so I shadowed her one day. And we were talking, and she's like, Devin, the whole debate aspect of being a lawyer is 0.01% of the job.
Devin Williams:It's highly academic, and that was, an immediate turn off for me. So, you know, I I started dabbling in entrepreneurship in college, personal training organization, then we did a small search engine optimization firm specifically for brick and mortar folks that wanted to take themselves on the Internet with their storefronts. Sold that for a very, very modest amount, and eventually when that money ran out and said, oh, shoot. I gotta go find a job. And I started researching, and I stumbled across this thing called inside sales.
Devin Williams:Didn't know what it was. Just knew that people right out of college, you know, this is early 2000s, were making upwards of 80, $90,000 a year. I said, okay. That sounds good. And there's a lot of career trajectory for those earnings to grow, frankly, exponentially.
Devin Williams:And I stumbled my way into a company called BMC Software, which had a local inside sales office in Cary, North Carolina. And what's most important about this story is that was right at the time BMC Software bought BladeLogic.
Vince Beese:Mhmm.
Devin Williams:And with BladeLogic came David Echuria, who's now the CEO of MongoDB, one of the most successful technology companies in the world, as well as John McMahon, who is known by many as, like, the godfather of medic and what has now become the playbook
Vince Beese:Yeah.
Devin Williams:Effectively known in the community. And so I never had a chance to learn bad habits. And from day 1, I got to learn from literally some of the best in the planet. That's awesome. And it set me off for a great trajectory.
Vince Beese:So was it ad initially you responded to?
Devin Williams:This was, like, monster or jobs.
Vince Beese:One of the job boards.
Devin Williams:Need one of those job boards. Right? I was just out there, and I actually, went to the office and dropped off my resume and just handed it to the hiring manager. And she said, man, nobody's ever done this before. I have a feeling you're gonna get a callback, and I did later that afternoon.
Vince Beese:Yeah. Yeah.
Devin Williams:Get in person.
Vince Beese:It matters. Can you imagine that?
Devin Williams:Yeah.
Devin Williams:What a thought.
Vince Beese:You mean just throwing in an online application is not gonna get That's not gonna gonna work? Didn't then,
Devin Williams:and it definitely isn't going to now.
Vince Beese:That's for sure. I'm gonna get introduced to my to my daughter after we done that. She I put 50 application. I I guess you'd 50 didn't respond to you. Right?
Vince Beese:Right. How'd you know? I'm like, at BMC, great company, great run, really good sales culture. I hadn't worked there, but I heard lots of good things. What's the first role?
Vince Beese:And what would you what did you take away from that first role?
Devin Williams:1st role was a BDR. I started on the ground floor, business development rep, also many times seen in the community SDR, LDR. But, effectively, my job was to research accounts, work with my account team, and book sales meetings for the AEs who were in the field. And so I was mapped up to the east team. Mhmm.
Devin Williams:Also split some time with the central, so, eventually, it led me to an opportunity to make some decisions of maybe moving to Texas, maybe moving back up northeast where I'm from, and ultimately decided to move up northeast, and these things took off from there. But, yeah, started did about a year and a half run as business development representative. And I think that it's so common to see executives in sales that started their careers at BDR. Yep. And I don't think that's a coincidence.
Devin Williams:Like, the ability to do account research, to write compelling messages, to be able to map your product to value, But more than anything, the grit, like Yeah.
Devin Williams:Yeah.
Devin Williams:Being a BDR is the equivalent of bang your head against the wall 8 hours a day. Right? And you you just have to get really good at learning to hear no and to move on, to get a short that goldfish memory. And so some of that grit and that work ethic and understanding not only the importance of pipeline generation or PG as we call it Yep. But also the level of effort that is required to be successful with PG.
Devin Williams:That gave me an opportunity to step into an enterprise role at about 25 years old in New York City being thrown in the deep end. And I said, hey. If nothing else, I know how to book meetings.
Devin Williams:And that's
Devin Williams:where I started, and the rest came after.
Vince Beese:Yeah. If you don't have meetings, you don't have opportunities. Exactly. So were you good as a BDR?
Devin Williams:I was good. Yeah. I was the cold call guy.
Vince Beese:Yeah.
Devin Williams:I was to pick up the phone, audible ready, just do the dance. I had a very close friend, John Gainey, who actually, leads, the business development organization at a couple of companies, and he and I would always get in these fun little debates on the leaderboard because the dude wouldn't pick up the freaking phone, and it drove me crazy, but he was always right there with me.
Vince Beese:And was it what did he what channel did
Devin Williams:he say? Incredible at these highly, highly sophisticated targeted emails.
Devin Williams:Yeah.
Devin Williams:And he you know, this is before companies like Outreach and all these automations, and so he was really a wizard at doing email blast from, like, Word and targeting. LinkedIn was just starting to butt up a little bit, and he was kind of an early adopter. And it drove me crazy.
Vince Beese:And you're a very old guy. He's a 0.
Devin Williams:Yeah.
Devin Williams:And yet he was up on the leaderboard.
Vince Beese:Yeah. So If you marry both of those things, then you'd be good. Exactly. I asked the question, were you good at? Not that question you were good at.
Vince Beese:Just because, you know, do you have to be a BDR to be an account executive? Do you have to be a kind you know what I mean? Do you have to be a account executive to be a a senior sales leader? Right? And I don't know the right answer to that.
Vince Beese:I don't think there is any right specific answer. Like, I I'd be honest with you. I never did a BDR role. I grew up. It was full cycle sale.
Vince Beese:You didn't have you didn't have anybody giving you leads. You had to go get it. Right. And to me, the combination of having to go get it and actually work it and close it was the best experience you could have around in sales. Right?
Vince Beese:I see some of this trending back, especially in enterprise sales where you got a short list of accounts to go after.
Devin Williams:Yeah. Yeah. I don't think there's ever any one cookie cutter answer, but I I too BMC was a full cycle AE role. You were expected and you were measured on your own outbound pipeline generation, and kind of the concept was, you know, you need to find your way to your pipeline generation numbers on your own. Marketing inbound BDR, it's icing on the cake.
Devin Williams:Just helps you continue to pad the numbers. But, you know, again, I don't think there's any right answer. I I think you, again, were probably thrown in the deep end and you figured it out the same way I was thrown in and just needed to figure it out, and I was given the opportunity to layer Yeah. So that there was always that consistent muscle around pipeline generation, and then I needed to learn how to actually become a closer and prosecute the pipeline that I was generating. Yeah.
Devin Williams:Whereas you were thrown in the deep end and just needed to juggle all those balls at once. And, again, I don't think there's any one right answer, but I I do think there is a not coincidental commonality of really successful sales executives that have started their careers at EDR. I think it gives a certain level of credibility. You know, there's a lot of times where we'll joke or you'll get on Glass Store or you're you'll hear some feedback and it's like, yeah. When was the last time that guy picked up and did a cold call?
Devin Williams:You know? And that's one of the things I love to do in many of my mentors even as CROs.
Vince Beese:Yeah.
Devin Williams:Like, they'll go on their PG days, and they'll power dial with the rest of them. And there's something special about that, I think.
Vince Beese:I always thought, Mark, I've always been at startups and at the senior level, sales position leadership position. Like, I don't know about you, but I the the best thing in your job was speaking to customers. Yes. Like, I enjoyed that part of it now. And there's you're competitive in sales.
Vince Beese:Right?
Devin Williams:That's right.
Devin Williams:You don't
Vince Beese:want your reps thinking they can do a better cold call than you or Exactly. Or a pitch than you. It's a
Devin Williams:quick way to lose the lock. Yeah.
Vince Beese:Yeah. When did you know or or did somebody tap you on the shoulder that, hey. You wanted to be in sales leadership? Was it something you wanted to do, or was it something that someone had pointed out to and maybe a mentor and said, hey. You might have a career in leadership.
Devin Williams:Yeah. For one reason or another, it you know, before my professional career, I found myself in varying leadership capacities. I was captain of a lot of the athletic teams that I was on.
Devin Williams:I took an officer position in my fraternity. You
Devin Williams:know, I actually position in my fraternity. You know, I actually coached a JV lacrosse team. Like, I've just always found myself in those positions. And over time, a, the ego starts to come in. I wanna be a VP of sales.
Devin Williams:I wanna make the big, big, big bucks. But more than anything, what actually happened was I had taken a new hire under my wing. I've been elevated into a global account manager, which is kinda like the most senior individual contributor. At BMC. Mhmm.
Devin Williams:And we had a new hire come in. He was ramping, and I spent a lot of time with him. And I remember I closed, the largest deal of my career, which also was, the first seven figure commission earnings of my career. And I was more excited by him closing his first $1,000,000 deal at BMC than I was receiving that pay paycheck. And I knew, like, in terms of fulfillment, that was, like, that was the moment for me that it was undeniable from a fulfillment standpoint.
Devin Williams:I've proven I can earn the money. I've proven I can compete with the best in the toughest region in the world being New York City. The next step for me in terms of fulfillment in my career path is very clearly leadership. Like, that was the clearly defined moment. I'd had some folks kinda put me in some, like, pre leader type trainings.
Devin Williams:People start to tap me on the shoulder, like, hey. There's something here. But that was the moment for me that I knew this is what I was meant to.
Vince Beese:That's when you know you're you're doing it for the right reasons. Right. Yeah. I had that similar feeling years ago. 1 of those big company get togethers or we got bought by a bigger company.
Vince Beese:We did the annual sales kickoff thing, and after they were there, they announced the president's club. Not only that, they'd announced the salesperson of the year at a, you know, couple of 1,000 person company where there was probably about a 1,000 salespeople. And if all those people won, one of my reps won.
Devin Williams:Feels good.
Vince Beese:Yeah. It's like Feels good. I felt like I won the award at the same time she won the award. So That's right. It's the reason to get into coaching.
Vince Beese:It's the reason to go into literacy. It's the same qualities. Right?
Devin Williams:I also think it's an important point to draw out, and I know I'm hijacking the flow a little bit, but I just I wanna hover on it for a second because it's so important because so many people get into sales leadership for the wrong reasons. Right? They think It's
Vince Beese:the glory.
Devin Williams:I don't I don't gotta do the hard work anymore, which could not be more true. I think a first line manager is probably the the hardest position in sales. It's gonna be a while, several more layers before you have an opportunity to make life changing equity. So that's a misnomer. Knower.
Devin Williams:And if you're not in it to see people learn, earn, grow, and develop their careers, you're in it for the wrong reasons. Just flat out don't do it. You're better off as an IC. You have control. You don't have to deal with all the nonsense and the politics, and you just control your own business.
Vince Beese:Are high maintenance too.
Vince Beese:No offense.
Vince Beese:It's it's a fact. Maintenance.
Devin Williams:It's a fact. My one on ones become a psychiatry session. It's very often. Very often.
Vince Beese:Exactly. You could charge 3:50 an hour just coming out on the side alone. But, yeah, it's be careful what you wish for. Right? You gotta go into it with the right intentions, because it ain't all glory.
Vince Beese:By the way, as you know, individual contributors can make way more money than you can. Absolutely true. And you you don't work less. That's for sure. No.
Vince Beese:What are some of the things you've learned over time in your different sales leadership roles that, really is kind of like your North Star for you?
Devin Williams:Yeah. I think, first and foremost, you don't have to be an asshole to get the best out of your people. I you know, as BMC, incredible, but it was militant. Yeah. It was brutal.
Devin Williams:And we got we got the best out of people, but I can't help but asking myself in retrospect at what cost. Right? At what cost to their sanity, to their mental health, to their families, etcetera. And I think there was substantial cost that came along with the success that we all had professionally. That that belief actually gave birth to people first professionals because one of the things that I came to understand over the years is my superpower was emotional intelligence.
Devin Williams:And I didn't know it was a thing, let alone a skill set that could be developed. And the reason for that is I'm an empath. Like, I whether I like it or not, I tend to feel what other people around me are feeling. And I struggled with that as a child, but it became a superpower in the sales world as I'm building champions, as I'm trying to move from opposite sides to the same side of the table with my customers and prospects. And so I just very quickly you know, my first foray when I was still at BMC and was promoted into an east leader role, I'll be honest, I was a jerk, and I just kind of followed the playbook.
Vince Beese:Hold that thought. We have one of your ex sales people on the line right now. Yeah.
Devin Williams:Yeah. Well, fortunately, he got me a couple rounds later where I learned some tough lessons. But, you know, I, we we performed very, very well. I actually got global sales manager of the year that year, but I looked around and people were miserable. And that that hurt me, Like, hurt my heart.
Devin Williams:And so that was a tough lesson.
Vince Beese:Yeah. I think the in the early part of the 2000, that was kind of the MO of the sales leader at high performing sales organizations, high similar situation. You know? It was like the Bill Parcells way of coaching. That's what you did if you wanted to be a hardcore sales leader.
Vince Beese:And I agree with you. I think I think most sales leaders have become a lot softer in their approach. So let's go down that. I know you're a big believer in EQ, and let's talk about that a little bit. When you run an organization, you actually believe it, you live it.
Vince Beese:Talk to us how you incorporate that into your own sales organization.
Devin Williams:Yeah. I'm a big fan of Simon Sinek, you know, the concept to start with why. You know, so the the kind of playbook that that I grew up in in sales leadership is called the 3 r's, recruit, retain, revenue. The concept is if you recruit the right people with the right DNA, you give them a playbook that that DNA can really grasp onto and follow. You retain them through thoughtful development, coaching, accountability.
Devin Williams:The revenue starts to take care of itself. It becomes a flywheel. And so specifically in that second r, the retain, that is where the EQ really, really comes out. I sitting down, spending time, doing personalized development plans, looking at personal and professional goals, backing them all the way down to 1 or 2 specific things we wanna do each quarter to help that person progress against those goals. Actually spending time and getting to know the person.
Devin Williams:Right? Their birthday, their hobbies, their partner's name, their kids' ages and names, what they enjoy doing, and sometimes, frankly, just creating a safe space to pause. And, like, hey. You're clearly going through something. Like, let's we can always reschedule the 1 on 1.
Devin Williams:How are you doing? And there's a great Simon Sinek quote that I share whenever I go to a new organization to kinda level set on expectations of my culture. And, it's from, like, his first big, start with why where he really blew up on a TED talk. And he says, hey. Somebody walks into your office.
Devin Williams:They've missed their number 2 quarters in a row. I'm not sure how things are gonna go. Like, how motivated do you think that person is to come into work the next day? Same conversation with EQ. Hey.
Devin Williams:You've missed your number 2 quarters in a row. Are you okay? Like, doesn't mean we can't still get to the accountability and the coaching, but start with the human first.
Devin Williams:Yeah.
Vince Beese:Right?
Vince Beese:Yeah.
Devin Williams:And it makes a world of difference.
Vince Beese:Yeah. There's enough pressure in sales as is. Right?
Devin Williams:So you
Vince Beese:don't need to put more pressure on them. They they know they failed. You know? Need to point that obvious example out, but what are you gonna do with what's interesting about, that scenario is, okay, you do have an underperforming sales rep. They have missed their numbers.
Vince Beese:You as a sales leader do have to make decisions. Of course, you're trying to retain and coach and, you know, rise everybody up to the next level if you can. Sometimes it doesn't happen. Yeah. Do you find that if you are more EQ oriented that it makes firing even harder?
Devin Williams:Yes. You feel it. You feel it more. But that's not a bad thing. I think it forces you to really think about It's kind of like
Vince Beese:a last resort at that point.
Devin Williams:Right? Yes. And I will say I've been fairly fortunate where I haven't had a lot of swing and misses of hires that I've brought in.
Devin Williams:Mhmm.
Devin Williams:But I have, through my career, inherited a lot of organizations. And, again, the empathy piece comes back where, you know, a lot of cases, what I represent, the change I represent with me coming on board, it's not necessarily what this individual signed up for when they took the job. Right. It doesn't make them a bad person. It's just inevitably, this isn't going to work out.
Devin Williams:And instead of you waffling in, you know, mediocrity or worse, like, let's call things what they are, Make a mutual decision if this is gonna make sense. And if not, let me give you the space Yeah. To go get yourself together, find that next job, and we can I term I use is exit with grace? Yeah. Right?
Devin Williams:We can have an amicable exit, and it doesn't need to be bloody and gory and all of this. The one area that that falls down and when someone lacks any sense of self awareness, that can be quite challenging, and then you just kinda have to cut it. But, in most cases, I think we've been I've been pretty successful in being able to navigate that that conversation with empathy and with grace as best.
Vince Beese:So so be inheriting. That's that is potentially a problem. They're gonna be people that you're right. It's not a good fit for the culture you're trying to build. What do you do when you're hiring new sales reps that cut down on the mistakes?
Devin Williams:Yeah. Do you
Vince Beese:have a specific process playbook you follow?
Devin Williams:Yeah. I use, I use a framework called ICE, intelligence, character, coachability, and
Vince Beese:Do you have an acronym for everything
Devin Williams:too? Pretty much. I'm not that smart, so if I don't have acronyms, I'll just forget everything. I like that. Right?
Devin Williams:But, yeah, we love our acronyms in sales, don't we? It's kinda funny. I've been to a couple of companies where we actually have acronym glossary, like, just to make sure everybody can keep Well,
Vince Beese:I like when a person comes to an organization, everybody throws them out, and the person's always afraid to ask. Yeah. What does that mean?
Devin Williams:You know what I mean? A 100%. A 100%. I've had it I've had it happen even on simple stuff like PG. That Yeah.
Devin Williams:What's, what's what's PG? Okay. Alright.
Devin Williams:Let
Devin Williams:me take a step back. Kinda movie writing either. Yeah. So, you know, ICE, the way I the way we think about it, the way I think about it is you have intelligence, both IQ and EQ. Mhmm.
Devin Williams:Right? Character, their work ethic, their integrity, their grit, the things that they do to fulfill themselves outside of the profession, coachability. Have they been challenged and been able to be self aware and take coaching and pivots? Because that's you know, if you're gonna come into an organization like mine and my culture, you're gonna be coached and you're gonna be developed, and it's not a performance management thing. It's I want the best for you.
Devin Williams:I I go to this quote all the time, life begins when your comfort zone ends.
Devin Williams:Mhmm.
Devin Williams:I want people people that want to be pushed outside of their comfort zone in a thoughtful way that layers, that helps them grow. If you're not coachable, that's not gonna go
Vince Beese:well. Right? So how do you how do you discover all these things in an interview process if you didn't know the person? I assume, quite frankly, with your career, you know salespeople that you rehire or brought in because you have a relationship. But if you don't know them, how do you ensure that they fit the ICE framework?
Devin Williams:Yeah. I spend a lot of time, first being trained and now training others on how to read a resume Mhmm. So that, organization Mhmm. To that candidate. 20% should be you validating if this is worth additional time.
Devin Williams:The only way that works, and this is the same as like a sales cycle doing a discovery call, the only way that works is if you've done your upfront research Mhmm. And you have 2 or 3 very pointed things. And so it starts by really knowing how to read and review a resume to figure out, like, hey. As I think about the things that I'm prioritizing, this one thing appears to be maybe a yellow flag, and I just need to address it before we make a mutual decision to spend more time. Right?
Devin Williams:From there, the second call, is where it's my turn to really dig in. And the the challenge with hiring salespeople is they're salespeople.
Vince Beese:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Devin Williams:So they tend to be pretty good at selling themselves. Yep. That doesn't always translate to being pretty good at selling a product or a service. And so that is where I really focus on real tangible evidence versus allowing somebody to to talk me around in circles. Yep.
Devin Williams:Like, hey. You said you're really great at PG and you plan. Pull up your PG plan. Yeah. Show me a show me one of your best emails that you recently wrote.
Devin Williams:Like, just cutting through the noise and getting the evidence is incredibly important. Incredibly important. Yeah. Then we do some other things to test out technical acumen, like have them look at a demo and
Vince Beese:Do you do personality tests?
Devin Williams:At some organizations, we have, and I've really enjoyed them to give us just a baseline of, like, what's our top performer look like versus this individual. I've also been in organizations where we haven't done that. I think that's normally a very worthwhile investment, and it just helps cut through the noise. Agreed. Yeah.
Vince Beese:We've got a lively audience here. Yeah. I'm gonna pause and see if anyone might have a question. I I know there might be one person out there at least chomping at the bit. Oh, we do.
Vince Beese:Alright, Devin. You better be good. Alright. I got it. I bet you'd something about a resume too.
Linda Gutin:1st, what's the yellow flag? I've only heard about red flags. Yeah. And secondly, when you're teaching somebody how to read a resume, is that specifically related to sales hires? Does that extend to outside of sales?
Devin Williams:Yeah. So for your first question, yellow flag, I wouldn't even have the interview at all if I found red flags in the resume. The yellow flag is this could be potentially a showstopper, but the evidence isn't clear enough just on the resume alone. But everything else warrants a conversation, so I'm gonna make sure back to my point about the 80 20, I'm selling the company 80 percent of the time in that first call. I gotta have 2 or 3 if there's some yellow flags.
Devin Williams:I gotta make sure I get those answered because if not, then I'm just potentially delaying the inevitable and wasting both parties' time. So, yeah, in terms of my focus is on helping people understand how to read a sales resume, but I do think there's a lot of overlap and, like, broad applicability. But there are specific things that we look for in sales, like, decision making. What types of companies have they gone to and when? It's one thing to be really successful at Outreach in the 1st 3 or 4 years as they exploded in growth versus now, as an example.
Devin Williams:And also what leaders were they working with in that time? And are those leaders that I know, respect, and believe that they probably layered on a bunch of great skills and traits and methodologies on that person. So those are some of the things that you learn to start to read as you go through the resume.
Linda Gutin:I will ask more questions Yeah. Offline. But are you saying then that people should put the names of what people what they served under?
Devin Williams:No. I mean, I think in some cases, when it's a really renowned and highly respected leader, it's not a bad idea. It's never gonna be looked down upon. But it's more of I've been in the game long enough and you build that network that you kinda quickly know or can quickly figure out who did this person likely work for and report to during their stead at the company. And that's not normally gonna be something that is a write off, but it could be a a bonus.
Devin Williams:Right? Like, hey. This person worked with a broadly and widely respected sales leader. They probably got some really good coaching and training. If I don't know who they work for, I'm not gonna count that against them.
Devin Williams:So it's rarely ever a negative, but it can many times be a green light, a green flag.
Linda Gutin:I was wrong on that time. So when you're looking at somebody, they may have come to you or you became aware of them on LinkedIn. Do you finish the LinkedIn and then go read the resume, or do you cut over to the resume and then leave the LinkedIn?
Devin Williams:No. A lot of times, I found them to be fairly interchangeable. And if if it's a detailed LinkedIn, which I think says a signal, I don't often even need the resume, because I can get enough. You know, smart reps will actually put performance statistics right on LinkedIn instead of waiting for that to show up on a resume, and so it just helps cut through the noise. That's just one example where when it is a, you know, well developed and and cared for kinda resume that lives on LinkedIn, it cuts through the noise and skips a step because I can just live in that.
Vince Beese:Question about that. Like, how much detail should someone provide in regards to their performance? Like, saw a resume yesterday,
Devin Williams:Right. Right.
Vince Beese:What are you trying to prove? Like
Devin Williams:Exactly. Like, are we trying to hide something with all that data? Yeah. I would I would say less is more. Yeah.
Devin Williams:Like, pick the right things, you know, like, president's club. Yeah. That is
Vince Beese:Yeah. That's a big
Devin Williams:one. There's no there's no fudging that. It it's very binary. You did or you didn't, and it indicates that you were in the top 10 ish percentile of the company globally. You know, even when somebody says, you know, a 150% of my number.
Devin Williams:Again, I'll look at at what company at what time and how many other people were doing a 150 percent? Like, where does that actually stack rank you? So I'd rather actually
Vince Beese:assume during the pandemic. Exactly.
Devin Williams:Exactly. Like, or, many examples like that. So I'd actually rather see, like, stack ranking versus raw attainment numbers. Right?
Vince Beese:When you're interviewing an account executive or someone that's been in sales to that exact point, it's a little easier to figure out quickly whether or not they are are not good sales.
Vince Beese:Sir, Mike.
Vince Beese:Tell them if it works.
Vince Beese:It works. Flip the switch up.
Vince Beese:It's the box. Okay. So that makes sense for an account executive. But when you're interviewing someone that is right out of college for an STR or a BDR role or maybe someone that's not been in sales, you've only got 30 minutes to talk to them and to figure out whether or not they're a fit for sales or a fit for you. What's the quickest and easiest way for you to kind of have a binary yes, no?
Vince Beese:Whether or not someone just from a behavioral perspective, from an answer perspective, how do you find out with someone who has no historical background whether or not they're a good fit for sales or not? What's the quickest way to do that?
Devin Williams:Yeah. So first off, I would I would not interview someone that was getting started early in career that hadn't taken the time time to put together a resume, even if it's not highly professional resume. It's more academic, hobbies, interests, things like that. Because, again, I need to have some baseline where where ice, that same kind of methodology comes into play is experience is not really relevant anymore. So it's more about the raw materials because those are the things that I can't coach.
Devin Williams:Right? I had a mentor that used to say, I can't put in you what the good lord never did himself. Right? Like, if you're not curious, no amount of coaching is gonna make you curious. Right?
Devin Williams:Sure. If you're not articulate, maybe, but it's gonna take a lot of time and effort, and I would argue that's not maybe necessarily something that we should be prioritizing as a sales leader on a development journey. Right? So, I would say, especially for a BDR, evidence of grit. Right?
Devin Williams:Have they played sports? Have they played chess? Have they stretched themselves in some way other than just doing the basics? How did they come into the process? Yeah.
Devin Williams:Did they come in off of just click the easy apply link, or did they do some networking and maybe make some cold calls? Did they show up to the front door like I did and drop off a resume? Like, are they going above and beyond? And then to your point, live in the conversation, I need to see curiosity. Right?
Devin Williams:I will purposely ask certain things. Like, I hesitate to say because I'm giving away my secret sauce, but,
Vince Beese:so competitors are out there listening.
Devin Williams:Well, I you know, maybe a prospect takes a listen or a candidate, and I say good for you for doing your research. But, exactly. It they've gone above and beyond. But I'll ask, like, what makes you special?
Vince Beese:Yeah. Yeah.
Devin Williams:And 99 out of a 100 people will just answer. One out of 100 will say, define special. Do you mean to be a BDR? Do you mean in life? Do you mean like, and it's a silly question, but just the fact that they paused and asked is like, okay.
Devin Williams:This is someone that just doesn't take things for what they are. They ask the second and third layer questions. And so Yeah. Just some elements like that that I really look for specifically for out of college BDR type roles. Yeah.
Vince Beese:So we're gonna close-up with that type of question. My closing question, are you ready for this one?
Devin Williams:I'm ready.
Vince Beese:Don't think you know? What is the one thing about you that's interesting that most people
Devin Williams:don't know?
Devin Williams:Well, I'm starting to show them off more, but I have, well over 30 tattoos. And so for a long time, when you're got the sleeves rolled down and you're wearing a full suit, nobody would have an idea, and then I'd show up at president's club in a bathing suit and everybody's like, woah, Zepin. Like, you're so buttoned up. I didn't know you were all tatted. Yeah.
Devin Williams:And it's because I was trying to fight what was a bit of a negative stigma, at the time when I was coming up. But that that would be one, that I think has over the years surprised a lot of folks is that I've I've got an affinity for tattoos.
Vince Beese:But when do you get that face one, though? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Is that coming soon? Closer.
Devin Williams:I'll write it backwards.
Vince Beese:I'll read it in the mail.
Devin Williams:I like it.
Vince Beese:I'd like to see that. Oh. Maybe the next we'll have you on another time if we get that on your forklift.
Devin Williams:Yeah. I'll I'll need some kind of job, so at that point.
Vince Beese:Oh, man. I appreciate you coming on. Great conversation. I'm sure everyone's gonna enjoy it out there. Thank you, SalesHQ.
Vince Beese:Until next time. Thank you, Denver.
Devin Williams:Appreciate