Ep.160 Business Blueprints: Lessons from Leaders in the Channel with Maren Wanggaard
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Welcome to the podcast designed to fuel your success selling technology solutions. I’m your host, Josh Lupresto, SVP of Sales Engineering at Telarus, and this is Next Level BizTech.
Welcome back, everybody. We’re back in the studio this week. It’s been a little while since we’ve been in the studio, and we are continuing on with business blueprints, lessons from leaders. Still, as you can see here, we’re in the month of March. We’re doing women’s history. We’ve got another amazing friend of the channel, leader in the channel, and so who better than Maren Wanggaard, RapidScale. Maren, welcome on.
Hey, Josh. How are you?
I’m good. Good. I’m excited.
Thought you’d be a perfect fit for this, a big name out in the community. Partners know you. They love you. They respect you, but I thought, you know, you got a cool backstory, right? Fellow Hoosiers here. We were just talking about football and Notre Dame and all of that good stuff and the fun things of Indiana, but let’s get into your backstory, should we?
Yeah, we can do that. First off, thank you for having me. It’s always fun to hang out with you and be in the Telarus studio. If you’ve never been, I highly recommend coming through and checking it out. Before I get into my backstory, though, I have to say, go Hoosiers.
Still reeling a little bit from that loss to Notre Dame. However, when you have a really horrible football program and they’ve done really well, you got to be pretty excited, pretty stoked, you know? I guess horrible is not fair, but not very good. Let’s put it that way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a good year. It was a good year last year.
From a backstory perspective, I actually went to Indiana University. That’s part of the jab back and forth with Josh and I.
After leaving the university, I took a job with Philip Morris and I actually worked with retailers. So I had 135 stores in Northwest Ohio and Northeast Indiana, so pretty hop in place.
My job was to go out into those stores and rep Marlboro, frankly, and make sure that we were adhering to brand guidelines and standards. The reason I bring that up as a pivotal role is it taught me a lot about the overall business strategies, all of those things. When you’re in a situation where market share and share shift has to be your life because the product itself is declining, it kind of gives you a different perspective.
It’s exciting to be in the channel though, working on a product to that. There’s a ton of growth around and a ton of hype around. So I’m excited to be in that position. From there, I went into situations where I had a cold call.
Thankfully with Philip Morris’ job, I got to handle rejection a lot because you tried talking to 60 gas station owners and 20 Walmarts and they don’t want to talk to you.
Going door to door, being able to handle rejection really taught me how to start a conversation with anyone.
The Midwestern roots really help because we tend to be friendly folk who wave at our neighbors,
just to say hi and have a sense of community. I think that’s been lost in certain parts of the country.
That job really helped me hone my skills and figure out how to say what I needed to say in about 20 seconds or less before the door was being shut behind you. I cut my teeth in telecom actually going door to door with Comcast. That was fun because at that point we were displacing T1s and saving people money, which is a salesperson’s dream. From there, I went into some leadership roles, did some different things, but really my career, I think what makes it special is it’s a hodgepodge of things. I have been in roles where I’m the first person, like my job right now at RapidScale. It’s a brand new role.
When I came over to work for Cox Communications, brand new role. Prior to that, I cut my teeth in the TSD industry working for a small regional boutique TSD out of Colorado. That’s actually how I got to know Telarus and got to know Richard Murray. This part of my career really took off. It’s nice to be home, I guess, in the channel.
I love it.
I love a good windy backstory as you listen to other folks on this show. I don’t know. Linear is great, but you learn a lot going through some of these things in first time.
We get wiser as we get older and I think it helps us. We still make mistakes and we’re okay with that, but we make less mistakes, I think. We go, “Ah, we’ve seen that play before.” We know how that ends. We know how to prevent that from blowing up, best we can.
Didn’t you used to be a mechanic?
I did. I love a shout out to all the people that have lost a 10-millimeter wrench or a socket that has just disappeared into the abyss and is gone forever. Yes, fingernails are cleaner now than they used to be, but yeah. I love it. That’s what I thought the destiny was. I loved cars. I thought that’s where I’d be forever. Then lo and behold, some weird path out to Utah and stumbled into this weird technology thing that is pretty fun.
Here we are. It’s way funner than cars.
For sure. I stumbled into it as well. I had a friend that was working in a leadership role at Comcast and was like, “You need to go sell something that you have the advantage in because I was selling products that were difficult to build value in and coming into technology.” It’s been an amazing ride because everything’s always evolving. You never know. You’re going to wake up the next day and suddenly there’s a quantum computer conversation or we’ve got all this investment in AI or public cloud. It’s like learning a new language. Every single time you show up, you’re like, “Oh, what happened today?” It’s all relevant on the world stage because everyone is trying to harness technology to make things easier.
Let’s jump in a little bit. Let’s talk about, this is about blueprints, this is about guiding principles. Talk to me about a little of core principles that guide your idea of leadership management style and really how that’s helped influence your brand and your culture throughout the last number of years.
I think for me, from a leadership perspective, I have always really respected and tried to emulate servant leadership. I think a lot of people say that but not a ton of people really put it into practice.
I think where it really started for me was when I was in college,
I worked for Circuit City, now defunct R.I.P. In working that job, I had a gentleman that ran our store that would … Somebody would spill a drink, a customer would spill a drink and Don was down there cleaning it up. He never looked at one of us to do things. Anything and everything that needed to be done, he was willing to do himself. I think that that’s an important guiding principle because it’s hard if you don’t see your leader there doing it, removing roadblocks for you, trying to make your life better and really understanding you. It’s hard, it’s hard to follow that person. Some people try to get people to follow them with fear.
That’s never worked out well for me, I don’t really respond to that. It’s about personal connection, it’s about understanding why someone gets up and goes to work every day and really trying to make sure the story and the why of why we’re doing what we’re doing resonates with them specifically. I think in the channel where that’s helped me a ton is I try to build relationships. I’m not that person, shout out to Nick Holley, who calls people at the end of the month that says what you got for me. Is this deal going to close? What does our funnel look like and all of those things? I’m more of a person that wants to understand, “Hey, why’d you get into this industry? What keeps you up at night? What do you want to be when you grow up?” If you will, and just try to get to the core of what they want to see if we’re a fit for that. I think the same is true with employees. It doesn’t matter, it applies across life. I know that we have the relationship I want to have when you ask me how I’m doing.
I think that’s really important. Again, you’re probably going to hear me say this a lot. I think that connection and that overall perspective has been lost in our culture. I don’t think people have conversations where they seek to understand each other. Quite frankly, they’re willing to say, “Hey, Josh, where we are right now in terms of our growth and our ecosystem of our business doesn’t fit yours.” That’s okay. Happy to impart any knowledge I can on you with what I see going industry-wide based on your goals. But at this point, we’re not a fit to work together, but hey, I still want to keep this connection going, keep this conversation going. I think it’s that selflessness of really just trying to help people. Candidly, that’s why I love my job. It’s those connections. COVID was really hard. It’s like all of a sudden, hundreds of your friends have been pulled away from you and I’m looking at you on a video screen instead of sitting down and actually reading your body language and trying to figure out what’s important to you in this moment. It was tough. It was not the best year of my life, if you will.
You brought up a good point. I was talking to somebody about this weekend, about the way that we communicate and the way that preconceived notions or biases, this conversation about biases.
I don’t think a lot of people understand how many pre-built biases there really are in a conversation. I would encourage everybody, whatever your favorite social media platform is, there’s a lot of great infographics on there of the top 10, the top 20, the top 50 biases. This idea of confirmation bias. These are things that we don’t even know that we have.
I think this is what I want to hear. The second I hear it from one person, I’m like, “Yeah, that’s it. That’s it.” I didn’t sample set that for more than one person or this idea of sunken cost fallacy. We think about this in customer conversations. Well, we’ve invested there, so we’ve got to continue investing there because that’s the right thing to do. That’s what we’ve done in the past. There’s a lot of interesting stuff out there on biases and you think you’ll read these and people will go, “Oh my gosh, I don’t even know that I didn’t think that I did that. I didn’t realize that I did that.” I think that as we get into these conversations and it helps us understand people better, it helps us understand customers better, but there’s some really insightful stuff out there on biases.
Well, I would add to that too.
Not only do we not know that we have biases at times, we don’t know where they come from. Are they actually your bias? Do you feel that way because somebody else imparted it on you? Have you taken a moment to really think about, “Hey, do I really feel this way? Am I coming across this way?” I think self-reflection is important.
I think it’s a guiding principle, thankfully, in my life. I’m built that way.
I think that you listen to even the Tony Robbins of the world. He goes into why people act the way that they do and listening to that changed my life. It really did not sound hokey, but it made a huge impact on how I see the world and how I interact with people.
Let’s go, I think you mentioned one, but let’s talk about some mentors here.
This idea of female leadership and key influences in your life. Anybody that’s been a leader, a mentor, has influenced you over your career throughout the years?
I could fill the entire podcast with the people that have helped me. I’ll highlight a couple of examples. My very first boss out of college at Philip Morris, her name is Jessica.
What she really imparted on me was really two lessons. Number one, preparation and how you show up really matters. Never forget, she was spending a day with me and I didn’t do my normal prep. I didn’t put as much into it as I normally would. I was embarrassed at the end of the day because she looked at me and was like, “What’s going on?” Basically, this was a waste of her time. It was. She didn’t say it that way, but I got the point. I felt bad disappointing her because she put so much into me in my career.
The most valuable lesson I learned from that experience was not to just bring up problems.
It’s a lost art in the sense that if I come to you and just go problem, problem, problem,
problem, what good am I to you if I don’t come to you with a solution? That was culturally how Philip Morris did it. They didn’t give you the answers. They made you think through it, whether it was a strategy question, whether it was a pricing question, whether it was a schedule question. I’ll never forget one time it took three days, three days of me going into the office every day and sitting in her office and going, “All right, so here’s the solution that I think will work.” Nope, try again. Nope, try again. “Well, I can kind of see where you’re going, but have you thought about this, this, and this?” Finally, after three days, I was like, “All right, here’s everything I’ve thought about. Here’s every solution I’ve come up with. I need your help. Can you help a sister out?”
I think that that has come with me through my entire career, and it shows up for me when I’m in a leadership role too of, “Hey, I’m going to challenge you. What’s your solution?” You can come to me with any problem, but I need to see that you’ve thought it through and you’ve tried to solve that yourself. Another person that I can say has had a huge impact on my career is Shawn Adamson with Comcast.
Shawn and I worked together at a kind of a pivotal moment in my career where I was growing into leadership, and she was very quick to point out if I made comments that lessened myself. What I mean by that is I got promoted,
and I was like, “Yeah, really lucky of me to have been there,” or something like that. She paused and she was like, “Hey, don’t you ever do that again.” She’s like, “Statistics show that women do that more than men. They don’t step into their achievements. They don’t allow themselves to reflect on why they were the choice, if you will.” You can apply that across a bunch of lessons. The other thing, and if you’ve experienced this with me in the channel before, that she would hold me accountable, that I’m really trying to get better at is people that say my name wrong. A lot of people say my name, Maren, and thanks a lot, Maren Morris, but my life changed when she got to popularity, but really stopping and saying, “Hey, by the way, it’s pronounced Maren.”
It’s not easy to do. I’m used to being a salesperson, sign here, press hard, three copies. I don’t care what you call me. Let me just crush my quota and get out of here. That was a very important lesson. Another person that comes to mind is Lorraine Perez, who is a senior VP of operations, something to that nature, but she’s a powerhouse. She’s a partner out of Southern California. She works for a company and owns a company called Alliance.
What I learned from Lorraine, there’s too many lessons, can’t delete a note, but a lot of it was also stepping into my personality and who I am and not be afraid to call it. If something’s going on, not being able to have those conversations. I think for her, she’s why I mentioned Tony Robbins. She’s why I listened to Tony Robbins. In 2019, she ridiculously hounded me to go to one of his seminars and I went. I’m forever grateful for it because it changed my life. I know that sounds like woo woo or whatever, but it really did. It changed the way that I looked at people. It changed the way I became more about psychology. Why is this person trying to … What are we trying to get to here based on a need or a fear that they’re trying to mitigate? Believe it or not, that comes up in the channel constantly. It comes up in conversations and it helps you connect. There are so many others. Talaris in general, I could walk you down the hallway. There’s probably 10 people sitting in this building. Adam Edwards just ran into him in the hallway.
Dan Foster, Richard Murray, Jen Demas, good friend and just a very good sounding board. I need a lot of people. I’m a passionate person. I need a lot of people that’ll check me on things from time to time. Coby Phillips, the amount of therapy sessions I’ve had with him just on, “Is this the right approach? Is this the right strategy?”
It’s been huge.
To those that I didn’t mention, thank you so much. It’s just been so much gratitude. It’s a blessing.
Awesome.
Love it.
Love it. Love it.
All right. Let’s think about … We go through a lot of innovation.
We’ve seen this channel change a lot. We’ve seen the technology change a lot from the products that we sold. As we have to help advisors through that and, “Okay, what are the talk tracks? What do the customers need? How do we sell this? What’s the OEMs?” All of that good stuff. How do you look at innovation and transformation?
What is that? How do you blend that into your long-term success with all the other things that you’re already having to do?
Wow. That’s an interesting question.
The biggest point of innovation that we’re involved in as an organization right now is AI. Everybody’s asking about artificial intelligence. Everybody is asking about, “How can this apply to my business? Is this really going to help my business?” I think layering that in, and I want to make sure I’m answering your question, but layering that into the overall, “Still got to get up every day. People still need other products, backup,
cloud, private cloud,” all of those services,
it’s tempering the excitement with what the need is, if you will.
We talked about it’s transforming every day. Something’s changing. VMware is going to a subscription model.
ABD is a better product for virtual desktop. All of these things are changing, and it’s staying on top of that and really trying to communicate that to partners and get them excited while not getting away from core products. You can’t put AI in if you don’t have the right infrastructure in place. You can’t put AI in if you don’t have good data. You can’t put AI in if you don’t have a business problem to solve. I think that that transformation that we’re seeing overall in the industry is one that it’s difficult to stay on top of. But if you look at our portfolio, in particular, we can do so many things. So it becomes how do we hone in on it, but do the customer justice and the TA justice with what we’re trying to accomplish overall? I don’t know if that answers your question.
No, it does. It’s a good point. We were just talking about this at the last event of, okay, AI is the shift and it’s the paradigm right now, but really, does the playbook need to change that dramatically?
We’ve started with product A years ago, and we only had product A, and then this CX thing comes along and we had to all learn that. And this SD-WAN thing comes along and cloud and security. And the reality is, comes back to your point. If I don’t have a business problem, if I don’t have a need, we’ve got to identify all of those things, then yeah, then innovation is a component of that. But we’re all beholden to what the customers need at the end of the day and how do we help them? How do we make the overburdened IT folks or customer experience folks make their lives easier?
And I think it comes back to AI is a new component of that, but I don’t think the playbook changes. I think it is go through the right processes and the right motions that we went through before. But to your point, again, what are we doing? We’re just helping everybody draw out what those perceived needs or those problems are. Have they thought about it this way? It’s really no different than anything else that we’ve done before, right?
It is no different, but I think in the channel,
the fascinating thing, and I’ve lived this, I’m still living this. I spent 10 years in cable, more than that actually, and just made the shift to cloud, 12, 14 months ago, something like that. And shifting the mindset, and I identify with partners that are kind of in this where they’ve sold circuits, they’ve sold MPLS and these products and making that pivot from that type of sale into a consultative sale where it is really about solving business problems. I mean, think about a circuit. When does a business problem come up? A business problem comes up when the connection keeps going down and then it’s a conversation of who else should we put in here? Who do you trust? Right? This is a whole different ballgame, and that’s part of what makes it so fun. And being on the innovative side of this kind of paradigm shift, like you said, where now we get to dig into their business and we get to say, you know, hey, what’s going on? What’s your five year plan? Where are you seeing pressure from? All of those qualifying questions to really try to get into what can we solve? I think it’s a hard shift mentally for some folks that have been in the channel for a long time because they’re so used to that transactional mindset. And these sales are totally different.
It’s not can I get a quote or what’s your budgetary pricing? It’s about really speaking with the customer and trying to understand what are you truly trying to solve? Because, yes, your boss could think it’s a good idea to diversify between Google Cloud and AWS. But in reality, why are we doing this? Why are we here? And I think that some partners have struggled with that mindset shift.
And the thing that befuddles me a little bit about it is you don’t have to sell it. You’re not here to sell it. I mean, you’ve got to Laris with how many certifications? I mean, I think Jason Coffin is going to break a thousand at some point, which, by the way, Chad, you better catch up, bro.
But the reality of the situation is you have these people that you can leverage. So all you have to do now is identify the need, stop the conversation and say, hey, I’ve got some folks for you to talk to. And it’s the same thing with rapid scale. We have so many certifications. We have so many smart people. Why are you trying to sell something that you don’t understand? Or frankly, maybe you don’t want to understand when they can just come in and come in and sell it and assist you. And you’re right there riding shotgun and you’re taking taking the credit for it.
Yeah, I think I mean, that’s a good point. If if if someone is out there seeking to understand, we’ve got a million paths that we can help them understand between the LMS or the events or the teams or whatever it might be, or if they just want to identify what do I have to do to identify and figure out where something might be a right fit. Right. So I think we want to cater to whatever it is that somebody wants to do and grow as a partner. Right. Because they’ve got all of these things coming at them, right? They’re entrepreneurs. They’ve got a million things going on. And how do we help enable that? I think that’s where, you know, your team, my team, the broader teams come in to just help enable. And I guess it’s about meeting everybody wherever they’re at. Right.
You just took the thought from my head because it really is. I mean, you have such a kind of a spectrum of folks that it depends on their goals, their needs, their wants, where do they want to go? What do they want to do?
And do they want to self fulfill? Like, are you somebody that just came out of a cloud role, for example, and you really do have an idea how to scope the product and you can give us information before we chat with the client. If you are just a guy that or a gal that ran into somebody that said, hey, here’s my AWS bill. Can you help me?
No, I can’t look at this and tell you, but I can get you to people that can. Or yes, I used to work for AWS and here’s what I see. And I think it’s really about leveraging the resources that you have. From wherever. And, you know, I got to give a shout out to Telarus in this particular situation, because the way that you guys have built out your engineering team and your resources, it’s special in the channel. You know, Kobe Phillips is special in the channel with how he approaches and how he does stuff. And for those of you listening, no, I was not paid to say that. That’s my my real life experience and watching them grow and evolve. And I just think it’s silly not to use those resources. Why not?
Fair. Good stuff. Let’s think. Let’s think high stakes decision making. So we’ve we’ve come into a lot of high stakes conversations, a lot of tense conversations. So how do you what’s your approach when you get into that? How do you how do you make this decision at the end of the day, whatever it might be?
Now, real time interaction or somebody poses me like poses like you know there’s a decision coming. Either one, whichever one. So in the moment, I try to breathe because for me, I’m an emotional person. I’m a passionate person. And getting to my second reaction is always always what’s best. So I try to breathe and think through it and really think from a strategic standpoint,
you know, what are we trying to do here and what does it look like? I mean, my boss from from the Cox business side of the channel always used to say to me, hey, Marjorie, just think, does it help the ball club? What are we trying to do here? So if this is high stakes, what’s the win-win that we can create and what matters to the stakeholders? Now, thinking about that in the moment can be difficult.
There’s nothing wrong with taking a breath and pausing. And it’s something that I try to work on every day and candidly sometimes I do really well with it. And sometimes I fail. If I’m stepping away and trying to make a high stakes decision, whether it’s in my personal life or whether it’s in my work life, I’m a big fan of pros and cons. I’m a big fan of sleeping on it and waking up the next day and seeing if I feel the same. I’m also a big fan of gut feelings. You know, like if my gut tells me it’s right, there’s a high likelihood I’m going to do it. And for me, it’s really accepting, like looking back, I’m 45 years old. I have, you know, 45 years of experience of it working out for me. So instead of spinning out and going into worst case scenarios, I try to think through, hey, it’s it’s always worked out. It’s not that crucial. Like we’re not we’re
not we’re not. I love the adage. We’re not surgeons here. Exactly. Make a mistake. Nobody’s dying on the operating table.
You’re not going to bankrupt the company. And if you can, then that’s that’s a whole nother story. But yeah, I mean, I think it’s just really pausing and trying to create win wins. You know, one side loses, so to speak.
I think you miss something. I mean, depending on the scenario, obviously.
Good. So let’s think about growth, right? As the as the divisors are out there, they’re they’re trying to figure out how do they grow personally, professionally? There’s there’s a lot of things for that. But just, you know, from your perspective, how do you grow? How do you develop, you know, supporting, empowering?
Is it resources? What’s your where do you focus? Where do you spend time on?
So I think, you know, for me, my number one superpower, in my opinion, is my curiosity. So for me, asking questions and, you know, seeking these one on one conversations with dialogue is kind of what kicks it off in the sense of from an interpersonal and a business perspective. I learn through experience and I know that like I want to pick your brain and see what you’re seeing. I want to understand, you know, how are you getting your leads or what are your business goals and all of those all those things. And in those conversations, not only do I look to help, but I look to learn. So I think from a business perspective, that’s one part of it. I think another part of it is is podcasts,
listening and understanding, you know, what what’s happening from a micro and macro economic level? Like what is what’s going on high level in the world that could be impacting everything? And it all it all fits together in its own way. You know, and I think from a personal perspective, it’s really a couple of different things. It’s it’s also taking from those conversations and learning as well. It’s but it’s really like reflecting back on maybe the day, maybe where I am in the year. You know, I’m a goal writer. I write my goals down. I know where I want to go from a health perspective, from a wealth perspective and from a business perspective, as well as I typically write out goals and relationships as well.
You can’t achieve it if you don’t know what it is. There’s a motivational speaker. His name is Eric Thomas. If you’ve never listened to him, he has a lot of podcasts and a lot of YouTube videos. One of the biggest things he says is stop waking up on accident. Start waking up on purpose. Figure out what you want and spend your life trying to achieve that. And the older I get, the more my growth focuses on personal relationships, getting time to think, trying to be a better human. I frustrate myself constantly with that endeavor. I’m my own worst critic. I always have been. But it’s it’s really, you know, trying to trying to read the room better and adapt to that better. So but, you know, sources of inspiration come from anywhere. You could have what is it that they said in the movie Fight Club, single serving friends, spent a lot of time on planes and used to put my headphones on and zone out and still do sometimes. But some of the conversations with people sitting next to me are fascinating.
I find myself just, you know, asking questions and understanding and and it’s not about business necessarily, mostly about personal experiences. And, you know, I think when you open that dialogue up, it allows for some growth and it allows for some perspective. And I think, again, this is something that we’ve lost in our culture. We used to be able to sit across from each other and have a conversation and say, hey, Josh, you feel this way like, hey, Notre Dame football, total lame answer, you know, lame example. But, you know, Notre Dame football, why are you a fan of that? And you’re going to tell me because we’ve had this conversation. You grew up in South Bend. If you’re not from South Bend and never have been, it’s a cult. I mean, Notre Dame is a cult. It just is kind of wild. You know, why am I an Indiana fan? I went there. So I have that experience. I have that degree. And it was a great part of my life. Right. But having those conversations, the fact that you’ve been a mechanic,
we’ve talked about that at times and we’ve talked about some of the weird stuff that I’ve done. It just kind of kind of gives you a perspective of who the person is and what the person is trying to be. And if I can learn something from that person, it’s amazing. I mean, if you’re the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room. I don’t want to be the smartest person in the room. I’d rather be the dumbest because that gives me this audience that I can learn from.
Yeah, I love that. I mean, you do become you do become like the people that you surround yourself most with. You do. And so I think we’ve been fortunate to have been surrounded by some great people throughout the years that we can learn a lot from.
And it is what you make of it. You have a choice. You have a choice to your point to wake up every day with a purpose and go, OK, I’m going to I’m going to make the most of this or woe is me. Right. And the what was me part just isn’t really that fun.
No, you know, there are plenty of days where a lot of things come at you. Right. We all go through a lot of different things in life and in business. But I think if you make that to your point, that conscious effort to figure out a figure out a way to help the other help others be successful, it helps you be successful. And things the universe not to get too cosmic here, but the universe has a way of rewarding those that are going through that effort. Right. There are plenty of moments. Don’t get me wrong. But I really firmly believe in that. Right. If you put that conscious effort towards positivity and figuring out a way and helping others, it just comes back to you.
I agree. And I think a lot of it and I and again, I feel it that there are days that there’s a rut I can’t get out of. And I just want to cry back into bed and pull the covers over my head and try again. And it’s OK to have those days because if you don’t have those days, you can’t recognize the the progress that you’ve made as a person. I think getting up and every morning and living with a sense of intention is important. You know, cosmically, I believe in karma.
You know, I think it’s real. And I think the way that you you know, you treat people and you connect with people matters. And that’s not to say that everybody’s your people. I mean, I’m an acquired taste. Not everybody’s going to be my people. They’re just not. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Perspective is a gift. You know, being around people and learning is a gift every day that we get up as a gift. It just is. And, you know, we talked about Covid earlier and that’s something that really changed, you know, my perspective. I actually spend a lot more time in thought now, too, reflecting on the day, think about whatever, where I want to go, you know, think about what vacation I want to go on like any of those types of things. Just reflecting and and kiddily being being grateful. I think that there’s a lot to be said about gratitude. Gratitude really changes perspective. And you want to talk about opening up the door to positive things happening. Take a minute and think about how lucky you are. It comes back to you and it gives you perspective. And it motivates me to try to mentor people as well as being mentored. I love to see people succeed. I think it’s one of the greatest compliments in life.
Yeah.
Final couple of thoughts here.
So any talk about like a perceived, you know, failure then gone success, something that maybe started out rough and ultimately turned into a version of success for you?
There’s been plenty, frankly, and a lot of it is because I take chances. I don’t want to like the thought of doing the same job for the next 20 years of my life is terrifying. I don’t want, you know, I want new experiences. And I would say the biggest professional failure for me was definitely the first six months that I was a leader.
You know, I got this in my head and I think a lot of top performers do of like, what if I could make 10 mini marens? Like, it’s great. We’ll crush it. Yeah, that doesn’t work. And it was a very humbling experience. It was a very emotional experience where it was just like the only constant in this entire situation is me. So when you have to look in the mirror and you have to go, I’m the problem. It’s it hits, it hits, it gets you in the feels. And for me, I was fortunate that I had some really good folks on my team that I was able to pull three of them out of 10 and just sit down with them and be like, hey, so I’ve identified I’m the problem. What do I need to do differently? What does this look like? I also did a start stop continue with my team so that they could anonymously give me feedback. And it really helped turn it around. And it kind of taught me that results to others isn’t about control. It’s about laying the groundwork of the foundation and saying, hey, as long as you’re ethical, as long as you’re acting with integrity, I will have your back. And in my brain, I’m like, well, maybe this idea won’t work. But hey, they’ve earned the right to try it. And the amount of times that I was wrong and it worked fascinating. The amount of times that I assumed that I knew what was going on and I was wrong, probably 99 percent. But going through that process and that failure actually led my team to being one of the top and promoting people out. You know, I’m a big, big fan of basketball as well. And like I look at like Bobby Knight or Mike Krzyzewski and I watch that coaching tree and people ascend to other roles or maybe get their own team or whatnot. And that’s how I feel about my folks that have been promoted. And had I not gone through and struggled through that whole situation? I mean, serious struggle. I would be so frustrated. It would take everything in me to not just drive home crying because I was so mad at myself that I could do this better. Right. I don’t fail. Why am I failing now? Yeah, because of me. So that was very humbling. And I learned a lot from that entire experience and it opened the door to a greater experience where people trusted me. I was able to learn from them, but also develop them and and demonstrate things. And once you have that level of trust, those conversations become way different. But you can’t do it by making many use. It doesn’t work.
Not a factory.
No, no, no. It would probably be easier if it was.
But no, I love it. OK,
final thoughts. So if we think about.
Take the time stamp right now. I want you to fast forward 10 years, 15 years, whatever. And you’re looking back.
If you could change anything or doubling down on what you’re doing, what’s the role? What’s the impact? What’s the legacy that you want to go? I did that. I played a huge part in that.
Well, first of all, I wouldn’t change anything about the way my life has unfolded. You know, I think going.
Not looking at regrets and what I should have done differently versus looking at the lessons that were learned along the path. That’s the flip in perspective for me, because I wouldn’t be who I am without those mistakes. And there’s been some doozies for sure. But 10 years from now, I hope to be retired on a beach somewhere, you know, maybe doing some consulting, something like that. But in looking back, I mean, this is really a legacy question in my mind. And.
I want to be known for helping people. That’s really it. I mean, that’s what drives me. That’s what fulfills me. You know, answering the phone when somebody needs some advice, vice versa to somebody else answering the phone for me. This is not just about me, but, you know, I hope my legacy or, you know, the way people look at me was, wow, Martin really helped me here. She encouraged me here. Or ask me if I’d lost my mind there because I won’t give disingenuous feedback. That’s just not who I am. It’s not how I’m wired. But it’s about the greater impact on people in their lives. And it’s not about the business will take care of itself. You know, the old adage, you take care of the people. Business takes care of itself. Thousand percent true.
Love it. Love it. What about you, though? What’s me? What’s the legacy? I’m with you. This is all about me, buddy. What do you want to do? No, no, no, no, no. I mean, look, I I’m fortunate to be able to be surrounded by some amazing people, right? Present company included. But that’s that’s been a big help for me later in life of just understanding what is possible when you’re surrounded with the right people, right? And the right people that believe in you that are willing to take risks and bias towards action and take chances.
And I’m the same way, right? I I get joy out of helping people, whether that’s helping people grow, whether that’s helping people solve technology problems. It doesn’t really matter. I’m happy to take a call if it means we can help somebody get a job. And we know how hard and scary that process is and what that’s like when you don’t have, you know, so just love to be able to help because I know that comes back and it manifests. And it just feels like the right thing to do. Right. Sure, we all get busy and we could say no time, but life just has a way of working out and figuring out. I think if you come in with the right attitude, I’m with you, right? We want to make sure that we set the right examples for personal, professional, for kids and all of those things and just look back and go that, hey, we helped. We made a difference. And that’s that’s all that really matters at the end of the day. You remember, you forget a lot of the things that you learn, but you remember the emotions that you created or were created for you. During those things.
Yeah, it’s all experiential, right? And it’s all about trying to lift other people up and hoping that they pay that forward at a time or hoping that they’re there, you know, if you’re in need. So I have a last question for you. Who who who are your most influential mentors?
There’s a handful of them here at this company, quite honestly.
You know, I tell the story of there are moments for me in my life that I probably wouldn’t have been able to do. Bet on me. Right. Me too. But, you know, there was there was a series of of people early on, honestly, you know, when I was in some of these early phases in life where I didn’t quite realize what the right things to focus on were. And there were a handful of people that believed in me. And, you know, I’m I’m forever grateful for those people. One of my original bosses was one of those. My wife was one of those really important people. You know, Richard and Adam and Dan and all these brother people. Kobe, you I mean, there’s it’s a long list. We’re going to do it disjustice. We’re just going to name off all of these people. But I think surrounding with those people that are willing to give you an opportunity, then you go, OK, it’s not that I’m going to prove them wrong. It’s because I really got to prove them right. Right. And so you’re you know, it’s just it’s about it’s about the right circle. It’s about the right people.
And and it’s just it’s fun. It’s fun to wake up and do what we get to do every day.
Yeah, we are really blessed. I mean, I try to explain to people what I do and they look at me like I’m crazy. And I’m like, hey, I had some pretty tough jobs before this one. And this one is tough in its own right. But it’s a different kind of tough, right? It’s trying to figure out whatever’s we pull, what what needles do we move? Who can we go out and help make technology decisions and business decisions? And I think, you know, when you talk about your circle, one thing that always stands out to me is we only have so much time. We only have so much space. And I check myself on occasion. And I’m like, these folks that are around me, are they the right people to take up my space and my time? And and if you’re if you’re not elevating or, you know, growing in the way that you want to grow, because everybody’s growth is is personal.
It’s likely because maybe I’m not surrounding myself by the right people or the right thoughts. And unfortunately, sometimes you’ve got to clear that space.
Yeah, fair.
Well, Maren, it’s been awesome having you on. We appreciate all that you’re doing out there in the partner community, in the channel and just all the support. And does you be in you?
I appreciate your time. It’s always always fun to come into this office and hang out. So thank you.
Awesome. OK, everybody wraps us up for this week. As always, wherever you’re tuning in, Spotify, Apple Music, don’t forget, follow, subscribe, all that good stuff. And you get these notifications as they drop every single Wednesday. So that wraps us up for today. I’m your host, Josh Lupresto, SVP of Sales Engineering at Telarus. Maren Wanggaard, National Partner Manager at RapidScale. Until next time, this is Blueprints, Lessons from Channel Leaders.
Next Level BizTech has been a production of Telarus Studio 19. Please visit Telarus.com for more information.