LEARN with Randy Seidl, Founder of Sales Community

Transcript

Ted Blosser: You know, Randy, when I was doing research on you, I saw you've both been a mentor to a lot of people, but also a mentee to some really famous legends. You actually put Bill Campbell on the list, and I had read The Trillion Dollar Coach. What was that like, and how do you get the most out of a mentee mentorship relationship? 

Randy Seidl: Yeah, so I've been fortunate. I have some great ones. Bill Fred Brown, who's currently ceo, Motorola Solutions, Bob Reynolds, CEO Putnam Jack Connors, who's a kinda long, longtime Boston legend. A lot of people say h how do you get them? So, true story within trillion dollar Coach, Phil s Schiller, who's longtime Apple executive, tells a story about going to Maryanne's, which is a dive bar by Boston College. So we're there with Phil, me, John Klavin, Peter Bell. Peter probably introduced me to, to bill, um, J Jay and Mikey Houe, and we're at this dive bar and we kind of met up and kind of one thing leads to another and I, you know, make the ask to say, yeah, it was the, I think it was a HP at the time of just decent exec. You know, would you mind, uh, you know, mentoring me, you're at the bar, obviously somebody's not gonna say no similar situation. Greg Brown. 

Ted Blosser: Wait, I gotta pause you there. So you literally were at the bar and you're like, Hey, I looking for a coach. Do you wanna be my coach or mentor? Yeah, that's amazing. 

Randy Seidl: Well, you gotta, you gotta seize opportunity, right? Know, I'm gonna send an email, you're gonna say no, but just like with me or you, right? Somebody's, you're out at the bar and there's somebody young up and coming and hey, you know, of course I'm gonna say yes, right? If somebody tries to get me in, you know, calls me out of the blue or whatever, I'm gonna probably, you know, probably say no or, or not. Pick up. 

Ted Blosser: Hi, I'm Ted Blosser, CEO and co-founder of WorkRamp, where we're redefining the corporate learning space with the world's first all-in-one Learning cloud for employee and customer learning. Welcome to the Learn podcast, where we learn from the biggest leaders in SaaS and hear what makes them successful. Hope you enjoy the show. 

Ted Blosser: Hey, everyone, super excited to have you back today. We are delighted to have on our guests, Randy Seidll, founder of the Sales Community, Board member to many high-tech companies, and venture investor. Randy, we're so excited to have you here. Let's kick off the show with my first question. All right, 

Randy Seidl: Let's go. 

Ted Blosser: Tell us a little bit about your background, cliff notes on your illustrious career to date. 

Randy Seidl: All right. My proudest moment is probably starting off at EMC. I was actually at the time what was called a telemarketer, which now would be called a SDR or a bdr, where we actually did raw, raw cold-calling, which I think is just a fantastic skill that used not only in 1985 when I was there, or, uh, when I was in the, uh, executive at, uh, HP running a, a big business. So, definitely a great skill. Was fortunate enough to, uh, B Bdmc early on. Was there for, I guess, 85, 96, about 11 years. Uh, did a bunch of different sales and marketing jobs, including started starting and running the uk starting and running, um, Australasia East for sales, for sales, some marketing groups North America, so definitely a great time, great company. Uh, then went to, uh, work Group Solutions, which is Avar, we sold to advises, uh, then did some, uh, earlier stage companies you would not have heard of, uh, PERMA Bit as a, uh, c e o, uh, giant Loop as a, uh, founder kind of during the Y2K days. 

Randy Seidl: Then ended up at, uh, storage tech, uh, running the east coast for sales. Sun bought storage tech, ran a financial services vertical, then ran North America, and at the time Oracle was buying Sunny. You could tell there was probably gonna be a bit of a train wreck. So unfortunately enough, uh, mark heard and Dave Donatelli hired me over at HP and, uh, was able to run the, uh, America's business in the, uh, US business. So kind of the, the, the big job there was, I guess about, uh, 9 billion of revenue and, uh, 4,000 people, but would argue, uh, doing any of the earlier, smaller stage companies is, uh, probably a lot harder than the, the big company gigs, but they're definitely all have their, uh, pluses and their minuses. 

Ted Blosser: I was a huge fan of Mark Herd, the late Mark herd. How is it like working for him? I'm very curious. 

Randy Seidl: Yeah, great. So you, notwithstanding the personal issues that, uh, people may be familiar with, but, uh, it was kind of talking about getting ready for the big game or the Super Bowl we'd be doing, uh, you know, get ready for QBR staying up, and I'd have, uh, uh, my team, uh, Linda Williams, and then Dave Donatelli would be doing his, uh, you know, mark impersonation with the, okay, Randy, you know, <laugh> asking me about, you know, market share and growth and numbers and all that. So, you know, that was Zoe's and he just a great experience. And, uh, I was amazed by, uh, peers that I had who would, would try and fake an answer. So if I didn't know, I'd say, hey or no. And, you know, for fortunately enough, the, uh, nu numbers were good, uh, uh, most of the time had great people and great team, and, uh, he was always, uh, always willing to help. 

Randy Seidl: Funny sight story was, uh, a member, I came back over, uh, Thanksgiving, called Dave Donatelli, who I was working for at the time. And I said, Hey, you know, HP has this thing where we gotta take off for, uh, you know, a week during Christmas, he, what do you think we should do? I'm like, no way. We should do it. People want to take vacation time, fine, but I'm gonna kick him out of the office. So <laugh>, uh, uh, we end up doing that and I, uh, was, uh, privileged enough to have weekly call, I'm sorry, daily calls with Mark, where we go through kinda what happened and what was the business, but it was basically him getting his fixed. Cause I was basically the only exec in the company. It was, it was actually working. But, uh, anyway, great person all around. Very engaging, very customer-centric, and, uh, certainly learned a lot from him. 

Ted Blosser: Well, let, let's go back to some business topics here on your career at E M C and hp, which you were just talking about. And I, you know, I started my career in Cisco and they used to tell me stories about how they would literally be standing next to the fax machine. And this is kind of during the Y2K era, just like literally collecting orders and, and just the market was, was just booming. And you built your, built your sales career during the nineties, two thousands and just really climbed the career ladder. What advice would you give to the audience regarding the sales team members who want to build an outstanding career in sales leadership? What did you learn during those decades of, of leader, uh, climbing the ranks, carrying a bag, and becoming the great leader you became? 

Randy Seidl (06:23):

Great question. I, I don't, I dunno how many days you have, but, um, uh, anyway, I guess in summary, a few points. I think, um, just kind of being a, a good person and authentic, which may may sound kind of corny, but that means, you know, for customers, I've been, you know, privileged with sales community, have, you know, got, you know, huge, uh, you know, very large advisory board, strong customer relationships, partner relationships. But it's basically because you're always there for people. So whether it's a customer, it's a partner, somebody that's a peer, just kind of, you know, in general kind of helping out, uh, is, is always a good thing. Um, you know, if it's a Friday night or weekend and the shit's hitting the fan, you know, are you gonna be somebody at their call that they're gonna call? Are you gonna take their call? 

Randy SeidlL Are you gonna make sure that you can, uh, you know, help? You know, fortunately, these days things don't break and you don't have pissed off customers like, like we, uh, used to, uh, grow up with. Uh, I think also being a, uh, kind of sponge for learning, which, uh, I think these days the younger generation kind of just doesn't have, they think they're, you know, you know, what doesn't, uh, doesn't stink and just don't have that appetite to, to learn and grow, uh, do everything like that. Uh, another point would be, I think just raw. Just, you know, work, work ethic, you know, and this kind of goofy culture and, you know, not gonna be in the office. I work from home or, you know, whatever, you know, resort location. I mean, you gotta be out there. You have to be grinding. You gotta be putting, you know, putting up the numbers around kind of hours and proposals and yeah, you have to have the right sales methodologies and everything else, but it's just amazing how, um, you know, sloppy, for lack of better words. 

Randy Seidl: I think a lot of, uh, you know, sales teams and sales leadership, uh, have, have really become over the years. Uh, I had a coffee this morning with a John McMahon who may be, uh, familiar with, uh, kind of the father godfather of Medic Me Med Pick and has gone on to do some kind of amazing boards and, you know, amazing with the industry. And, uh, actually <laugh>, I have it just handy. I I give him a plug, you know, fantastic book that really goes through the journey of kind of, uh, you know, a train wreck of a QBR r and then kind of coaching and development, what happens on the backend in terms of the, the reps doing well. But a lot of these things, I would say it's really kind of just sales leadership saying, what are you doing to help? What are you doing to give advice and to coach, you know, go, go on frigging sales calls, don't do just zooms. Have those relationships, kind of make it happen. So those are a few things, and I, I could go on, uh, for, for a lot longer. 

Ted Blosser: I love that attitude. I'm actually curious. So when, when I was at Cisco, I, I looked up the career ladder, I was like, how the hell would I ever get there? I was a little peon account executive at the time, and you really admired these executives. They're like, man, that will take me two or three decades. Do you think it's more around for, for sales rep right now, or sales manager, is it all about performance? Would you say, Hey, your number one thing is performance? Or would you say, Hey, take a balanced approach to this, it's effort, performance, attitude, what, what's the best way to climb that ladder as quickly as possible? And I think you're also getting at it as like, there's no shortcuts, right? It's like, yeah, you can't fake your way there. Um, what, what's your advice on like, uh, tangible things we can do to climb that ladder? 

Randy Seidl: Yeah, so I would say, it may sound goofy, but to me, if you're to kind of stack rank all the different criteria, performance would be the last one. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, I would argue it's, uh, kind of what are the behaviors that you're doing? You, you know, talked about the attitude. What are you doing to give, give back? What are best practices that you have that you're helping out others with? And by example, if you do all that, yeah, you're gonna sell a lot, but you could have somebody who maybe just got one or two bluebird deals in, has a great number and think, Hey, I'm fantastic. I would argue that person could deserve to go on a performance plan. God forbid anybody does a performance plan these days. They'd rather just do layoffs and hide behind the fact that somebody sucks. But, um, you know, go ahead and actually, you know, kind of give, give the real feedback and make it happen in terms of, you know, what are those things that people can do and should do, uh, different, better. 

Ted Blosser: Love that. Let's, let's switch to a slightly different topic, which is around mentorship. And so, um, you know, Randy, when I was doing research on you, I saw you've both been a mentor to a lot of people, but also a mentee to some really famous legends. You actually put Bill Campbell on the list, and I had read the Trillion Dollar Coach and I, I didn't even know about him until he passed away. And, um, I'm very curious as, no, maybe I'll ask this on both ends Yeah. As a mentee. So when he was coaching you, or when you had your, uh, I'd love to hear about what the actual experience was like, what, what was that like, and what is it like being a mentee? How do you get the most out of a mentee, mentorship relationship? Maybe maybe use Bill or another, maybe another one of your great coaches as an example. 

Randy Seidl: Yeah. So I've been fortunate, I have some great ones. Bill, Greg Brown, who's currently ceo Motorola Solutions, bill. Um, bill Campbell obviously mentioned, uh, Bob Reynolds, c e o of Putnam, Jack Connors, who's a kind of long longtime, uh, Boston legend. And, uh, a lot of people say h how do you get them? So, true story within trillion Dollar Coach, uh, Phil s Schiller, who's longtime, uh, apple Executive tells a story about going to Maryanne's, which is a dive bar by Boston College. So we're there with Phil, me, uh, John Klavin, Peter Bell, uh, Peter probably introduced me to, to bill, um, J Jay and Mikey Hogue, and we're at this dive bar, and we kind of met up and kind of one thing leads to another, and I, you know, make the ask to say, yeah, I was the, I think I was at HP at the time, obviously decent exec, you know, would you mind, uh, you know, mentoring me, you know, at the bar, obviously somebody's not gonna say no similar situation, Greg Brown, uh, his son. 

Ted Blosser: So you, wait, I got PGE there. So you literally were at the bar and you're like, Hey, I'm looking for a coach. Do you wanna be my coach or mentor? Yeah, that's a amazing, 

Randy Seidl: Well, you gotta, you gotta seize the opportunity, right? Yeah. You know, I'm gonna send an email, you're gonna say, no, but just like with me or you, right? If somebody's, you're out at the bar and there's somebody young up and coming and hey, you know, of course I'm gonna say yes, right? If somebody tries to get me in, you know, calls me out of the blue or whatever, I'm gonna, you know, probably say no or, or not pick up. Uh, then same thing happened. Greg Brown, his son, uh, actually had been in, uh, uh, Peter Bell in, uh, John Clay's class. He said, Hey, can I choose my dad, Greg, you know, Paul, one thing led to another. And I said, Hey, same thing. You know, can I, uh, yeah, me mentor under you? So that's kind of the how, how you can get some really good ones. 

Randy Seidl: And then in terms of the process, uh, you know, a lot of different things you can do. And, uh, obviously Google search, what I always found valuable was, uh, to meet with 'em and then kind of have a bunch of questions kind of already, uh, kind of written out what, you know, what do you want to ask about. And then a lot of times for people that iMentor or I know when they would mentor me, um, you know, they would, a lot of times the mentor gets as much out as much out of it, uh, as the mentee does, if that makes sense. And then I would always send them a follow up to say, Hey, enjoy, uh, meeting with you. Here are my takeaways, blah, blah, blah. And then when we do the following one, and you maybe once a quarter, then you say, Hey, just as a recap, here's what we talked about last time. Here's what I wanna talk about this time. So for them, they're like, wow, you're thoughtful. You take the time to recap, you're telling me, so you're putting energy into this. I'm gonna reciprocate with giving you some good, good energy as well. And obviously lots of good, uh, side benefits as well. 

Ted Blosser: I love that. So maybe your main point is you, you kind of get out of it what you put in, and you are literally sending it, it's almost like a sales call where you're Yeah. Literally sending them the agenda, confirming, this is why I wanna talk about, you talk about take notes, send a follow up, and then do it all over again in your next meeting to make it worthwhile for you. Is that correct? 

Randy Seidl:: Oh, yeah. And then just, you know, and analogous today, it doesn't happen as often as it should, but, you know, prompt recap notes is also something of a hot button to mind, which I'd say is in the laundry list of things that are in the, you know, lost art of, uh, of sales 

Ted Blosser: Actually really like that. I just took on, uh, the, the board here at Work Ramp, uh, recommended getting coaching. Um, it was about, uh, nine months ago just to really improve business performance. And, and you're right, the sessions I've had with my coaches, great. Uh, shout out to Amy Buler. Uh, but when I Amy her, yeah, when I meet with her, the meetings that are most productive are the ones I prep for. Oh, I have the questions. I send them ahead of times. I've had plenty where as a C E O I'm just like, you know, I'm moving meeting to meeting and I just show up. And she's kinda like, what are you, what are you doing here, <laugh>? What do you got? What, what's on your mind? And those have been probably the least productive, most awkward conversations. But when you have a structured, structured agenda, um, it's key. Um, I'm gonna fast forward, uh, from your career into, uh, sorry, your your tech career into building, building the community you've built. Tell us a little about the community you've built. Um, I'd love to do a deeper dive into, um, um, how you actually built this community as well, too. So tell us a little about it. 

Randy Seidl: Yeah, so, uh, uh, Peter Bell, uh, very good friend, uh, successful tech exec and investor has, uh, Amity Venture. So, and everybody, anybody interested investing, definitely recommend, uh, Amity. But, um, it was a beginning of covid, everybody take a step back and said, what I like, what, what am I good at? And he said, Hey, Randy, you've been doing all this consulting advising board work for the tech companies, really leveraging CIOs, CTOs, other joint go-to market, uh, you know, relationships, you know, the, the CROs are really the ones that you know the best. Why don't you figure out something to do around that? I'm like, wow, that's pretty cool idea. Then I talked to, uh, you know, probably two, 300 of them during the course of, uh, what whatever year that was of, uh, summer Covid and decided to say, okay, let me come up with a, uh, community. 

Randy Seidl: And originally thought it was gonna be more of, um, kind of individual contributor. And then I, I found out there's, you know, a lot of different kind of chat rooms and sites and things like that, but kind of as, as things have, uh, progressed here, um, you know, really being more, you know, CRO centric. There's probably some other ones that are out there, but at least kinda my c circle of folks and friends, uh, really are not part of any, you know, cro, r o you know, higher level, higher end type community. So, fortunate enough right now, uh, anybody can go to sales community.com. If I give a shameless plug, you can go, uh, click on winter free, you get a free year membership. I've got an advisory board of, uh, now I think it's just over 550, which may be a bit excessive. Uh, you know, 97 or 98% of them I'd say, you know, I know well friends with worked with. 

Randy Seidl: And, um, you're kind of working on some different programming that we can do kind of going forward. Now, post Covid, realistically full expectations are, there's really no expectations, but they're able to network, get invited to some cool exec, uh, only invite events. Uh, we did a great c uh, uh, uh, zoom, zoom invite-only event with, uh, Alexander Group last week, who's one of the sponsors of, uh, sales community. We did a, um, a face-to-face in uh, January with a couple of dozen really strong CROs, uh, in, uh, beaver Creek. So it was like a Monday to, uh, Thursday. So a lot of times, people try to get a half hour with them is impossible, let alone getting, you know, four days. And, uh, you know, that was just a, a wonderful experience. So probably for the first time in my life, um, I don't really have a full disclosure, I don't have a good vision, don't really know where, uh, where, where the puck is going, but we kind of figure out product market fit. 

Randy Seidl: Uh, but I've really learned that the whole kind of sales tech stack is fascinating. Uh, one of the takeaways from the off, uh, CR offsite we did in, in Beaver Creek was really, you know, just this kind of tech stack and just, you know, how massive and what a leverage point it is. There's companies not to name names who have, you know, way too many tools spending way too much not getting value out of it. And there's ones on the other side who really don't have much of anything definitely, you know, are not getting any value out of it. So working with different companies to say, okay, you know, how can we provide services and add value to those CROs? So you're looking out, you know, through the front windshield as opposed to just through the rear view mirror, if that makes sense. 

Ted Blosser: Well, we won't do a QBR r on your strategy for, for, uh, your community, but, but it's impressive. You have sponsors like Gong Outreach and I loved your, your, your stat line of over 500 billion in annual quota. That's like, uh, assets under management 

Randy Seidl: Higher, that's all. Yeah, I was actually just 

Ted Blosser: Much higher now. 

Randy Seidl: Yeah, yeah. It's probably, 

Ted Blosser: You really have the U US GDP under there soon, uh, which will, which will be great on the community front. If you had to give one piece of advice to running a great community, what would that be? And it could be content, it could be anything. What would that be? 

Randy Seidl: Uh, great members. 

Ted Blosser: Great members. I love that. So the quality of the members build the, the back of the community. 

Randy Seidl: Yeah. They have to add value, think they've gotta be substantial, they have to be good. And, uh, you know, we've got, you know, fortunate enough with our, uh, advisory board to have a, you know, a lot, lot of strong, uh, a lot of strong folks there. And then also we've done our own podcast. I think we've done 115 or so, uh, we have coming up, uh, depending on this air. Sorry. Uh, you know, mark, Mark Stevenson is a great, c o is, uh, doing a topic tomorrow on ours. It's called Tech Sales Insights around, uh, your, your ICP. We have Lisa Pope talking about how, uh, e r p has evolved next Tuesday. Uh, John McMahon, who had mentioned before, he's gonna be on, I think in two weeks, so, you know, that'll be great. And we're actually booked out the next, uh, I think close to two, two and a half years or so every week, except for holiday weeks. 

Ted Blosser: That's, that's crazy. You're, you're, you're, uh, you're leading the chart here. Well, we'll have to copy how well you're doing and, uh, follow, follow your lead here. Let me go back to, um, let me go back to the career journey really quick cuz it's a really good segue in terms of you've built this, um, uh, community up, but you also have this lu sales career and a lot of stuff in between. And maybe it's a, a function of the market today, but I think a lot of people are questioning, Hey, do I keep climbing the career ladder literally into retirement, right? Yeah. Via c r o, be the top of the mountain. Or do I kind of jump ship early and go down, let's call a windier path, be it building a community, being a consultant, being a fractional c r o. Do you have any advice? Do people come to you on like, Hey, what should I do with my career? Let's say if they're in the middle innings of their career and they hit this crossroads, what's your advice these days to people who are, are making those decisions? 

Randy Seidl: So, my generic advice, if somebody say, Hey, I want to talk to you about my career, without even them knowing where they're at, I just say, first thing is grass is not always greener. So people will, you know, you know, they, they'll lot of different perspectives, right? Well, you say, okay, well, you know, why are you looking? What's wrong where you're at? And then 90% of the time you gotta kind of give 'em a slap across the head to say, okay, well, so it's really not that bad. What do you think about it? You have to prove yourself. You have to go somewhere else. You're kind of life balance me, be outta whack. You know, who knows if you're gonna be the, uh, last one in and the first one out. So my first thing is the grass is not always greener. And then, uh, a few different perspectives if you're in leadership, um, they're certainly great. 

Randy Seidl: I, um, spoke at a, uh, sales class yesterday, university of Alabama, along with uh, uh, Tom Fryer, who's VMware JS Fank, who's, uh, hds and Ken Doherty, who's a Dell. And, uh, you know, one of the things that came up, you know, being leadership or just being a rep, and this is MBAs and you know, they think they're big deals and, you know, one of them told me, well, yeah, I, I don't want to do cold calls. You know, I, you know, you know, I told them, but I said, Hey, you know, being a, uh, you know, kind of rep, full-time rep can be a great job. You can make great money, you got great life balance. You don't have to deal with all the, all the different headaches. And you know, it's kind of like, you know, when you're, you know, single by yourself versus you have, uh, four kids or 10 kids or, you know, whatever it is, you know, l life's a little bit more complicated. 

Randy Seidl: So, uh, there's certainly a balance between leadership and being an individual contributor. And then a lot of times pe I've been, uh, very fortunate that the kind of consulting advising has worked out well, but a lot of times people will leave companies, and they think, oh, I had a relationship with this company, that company. But more times than not, it's really, they have the relationship because of the business card, the company that they work for, not really because of them. So I say, take a look in the mirror and say, are those relationships really because of you? Or is it really because of the company? If it's cause the company, you know, it's gonna be, you know, a lot harder. And if you do want to try and do something on your own or advising or community, whatever, you know, just think about, you know, what's the value prop? Assume you want to make some money, why is somebody gonna pay you? How much do you think you can, you can make doing it? And instead of just kind of quitting and going all in, maybe you can try and do a little partial thing to see how do you like it. And, to people like you 

Ted Blosser: The majority of the time, do you see people go back to, let's say, carrying a bag, typical job? Or do you see, more often than not, they actually do take the leap of the people that come to you getting that advice? 

Randy Seidl: Yes. It's really a mix. And also to do another thing, I'd say generationally, I mean, when I grew up, you had to stay at a company for five years at a, at a w if not more. And if you didn't, something was wrong with you, you know, these days, if it's okay to say with your generation, I mean, you can do a different company every year. So these people are trying to overthink it. I'm like, who cares? Give it a, if you wanna try it, go try it, it doesn't matter. Cuz you can still get hired nephew year, which is crazy. So <laugh>, you know, go, go try it and, and see what happens. 

Ted Blosser: That's right. Don't worry, I, I make fun of the ne the next generations all the time too, so we just pass it, pass it downhill. So, uh, that's awesome. Well, let's do this, let's, we're, we're coming towards the end here. I want to jump into the learn rapid fire round. This is a rapid fire round who, I'll give you a question, give us a one to two line answer for each of them. It's really fun to see, uh, what's top of mind for each of you. So, um, first one, who have you learned the most from in life? 

Randy Seidl: Oh, jeez. You three. Yeah. You had to throw in the life thing. Um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna break your rules, but, uh, early on at e emc, uh, uh, Dick Ian and Roger Marino were just amazing leaders in kinda all, all kinds of ways. And, uh, later on, as I, as I mentioned, uh, you know, bill Campbell and Greg Brown have been, uh, you know, amazing, not just professionally, but personally as well. Also Bob Reynolds, and I could keep going. I'm gonna stop 

Ted Blosser: Okay. Those are, those are good. I love those names. Uh, I wish I could meet some of those people in the futures. Those are such big names. That's awesome. All right, next one. What is one, and it can't be yours, one podcast, book, blog, et cetera, that you've learned the most from? 

Randy Seidl: Ooh, well, since, since I just read, I'm, I'm gonna plug John, so Oh, nice. I knows a podcast, but I mean, it, it's, I'm just playing it again. I mean, just the whole process around the QBR and the people and some idiotic things. He goes through this kind of great, great storyline. It just really, really such a great piece that is represents reality so much. 

Ted Blosser: Well, we just rolled out medic here at Warcraft, so ex excited that you, you up. 

Randy Seidl: Don't, don't forget, don't forget the paper. Med pick. 

Ted Blosser: Oh, med pick. That's right. Gotta do med pick. Ok. 

Randy Seidl: Yeah, you go. It's all about, you can do that other stuff, but if you dunno how you can get the paper, you know, you dunno what paper is these days probably, but that's, that's actually order 

Ted Blosser: Other Ds for DocuSign, you know that. Right? So, all right. Uh, what is one topic or area you're trying to learn more about in the, or you like to learn more about in the future? You haven't had time for, but it's on that back burner. 

Randy Seidl: Ooh, I guess I'm kind of real time just with the whole kind of sales tech stack is, uh, is, is is probably one. 

Ted Blosser: Okay, I like that. Any tools in particular that, that you wanted to call out that you're interested in, you haven't been able to get your hands on? 

Randy Seidl: Uh, yeah, now you're gonna, yeah, now you gotta be careful when, uh, you, you, you'd mentioned Gong. So that, that, that's, uh, one I'll mention in uh, j just fascinating. If you think, if I think back to, you know, the old days probably before you were born, but you had a p had Informix, he had Cybase, he had s a p, he had Oracle, he had PeopleSoft, all these kind of e r p vendors, which at one time were probably almost all similar sizes. And then he had kind of Oracle, kind of s a p kind of emerges, kind of then the go-to leaders. But to me, I think that's probably the evolution that, that's really gonna happen. Cuz Sierra, you can't afford to have all these kind of nuts and bolts tools and everything else. You gotta have kind of one platform. And it's amazing that, you know, on one perspective, Salesforce basically had it and they ba basically, you know, have given it up. So between, uh, you know, gong and others, it'll be interesting to see how the, how the space evolves. 

Ted Blosser: Yeah, we're super excited to, to watch that. We're a big believer of, uh, bundling as well. That's, that's a big part of our strategy. All right. I'm gonna ask you two more questions. This one is gonna be, if you could meet from and learn from one person, either alive or uh, to see someone even in the, in the past, who would you want to learn from if you could choose some person? 

Randy Seidl: Uh, I think Wi Winston Churchill would be awesome. Just his, uh, love it. Le leadership and yeah, a lot of that old school and yeah, I, I probably need to be more, uh, more new school maybe. But, um, yeah, I think lots of great attributes there. 

Ted Blosser: No, that's a great one. One of our previous guests I think had, uh, uh, Aristotle, so, um, so, so you're not going that far back, but, and I just listened on podcasts about Winston Churchill. He sounds like ama He, he was an amazing man. So, alright, last one. In terms of your career, so just looking at it holistically, and you're still in the, in the, in the middle of it doing such great things, what is one piece of advice you would give the audience? 

Randy Seidl: I'm, I'm gonna maybe go a different way. I'm gonna say, you know, focus on, you know, what are the mistakes and what are the biggest lessons learned? So one of the biggest lessons learned I was, uh, Frankini is a longtime amazing, uh, L lead, r d emc, uh, along with, uh, Jackon. But, um, it's kind of, it's really all about your team. So you gotta make sure that you overcommunicate your coach, uh, you let them know, especially in environments, EMC environments, a lot of us were friends, so you kinda learn the hard way. You know, when you're kind of friends with people, you gotta really, you know, lean in and give them that feedback. And if they're not making it, you know, it's, it may be a bu bumbler for them to cut them, but it's kind of all about everybody else. It's all about the team. It's all about the company. So, you know, make those, you know, hard calls early, but make sure you know when and if you're letting 'em go that they say, Hey, I had a fair shot. I know I had to do A, B, and C, and I failed. And, uh, in, in summary, I think you learned so much more from your mistakes than you do your successes. 

Ted Blosser: That's great feedback, Randy. And just like, uh, any gross says, you're the, you're as a manager, you're the some of your team's output. And so that's exactly what you're saying, but you need to coach them and give them the opportunity to do well, just like you mentioned. Well, Randy, thanks so much for joining us on this episode. Uh, it's been amazing learning from your career, uh, appreciate you coming on. 

Randy Seidl: Absolutely. And uh, I have to plug my book, your go-to sales advisor. I've got, uh, 90 zero friends, I have great tips and tricks. I've got a bunch of great content and, uh, a bunch of other good, good things in there as well. 

Ted Blosser: Love it. Thanks. Thanks for sharing that, Randy. Appreciate it.