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Transcript is auto-generated.
[01:00:00:05 – 01:00:50:23]
Speaker 1
Hey everyone, Josh LaPresto here. We’re resharing an episode that I did with Chris White on his show because the role of the technology advisor is changing. For anyone not familiar with Chris, he’s an author, works a lot with sales engineering teams and leaders, lots of different folks who have customer purviews. So he’d asked me to come on this and his show and share my journey where I started as an auto mechanic in the Midwest to sales engineering leader here now. And it just shows that our business isn’t about selling tech, it’s about problem solving, it’s empathy, and it translates that into complex business value. And I think it embraces the mess. That’s the message, right? And that’s what I think your biggest competitive advantage is. So I hope you enjoy it. You get to hear a little bit about my story. Some of you have heard pieces of this throughout the years, but buckle up. Let’s dive in.
[01:00:50:23 – 01:02:11:15]
Speaker 46
Welcome, folks, to this, the first edition of Tech Sales Advice for the New Year. Of course, my name is Chris White. I am your host. And folks, these are live conversations. As I like to say, these conversations are by design, unscripted, unrehearsed, and unpredictable. And these conversations are for technical sales professionals, technical sales leaders. And by the way, I was told earlier today that it’s too late to say Happy New Year. But I’m going to say it anyways, this is the first session of the year. So Happy New Year. I hope you all had a great holiday. I’m joined today by a gentleman who I have not yet met in person. But I feel like I’ve known him for years. His name is Josh Lupresto. He is the senior vice president of sales engineering for a company called Telarus. He is also a podcast host of a wildly successful and popular podcast named Next Level BizTech. And as you’re about to find out here in a few minutes, he’s got a fabulous story. He’s great fun to talk with. And we’re going to have some fun today. Josh, my friend, it is super good to see you. Thank you for being here. How are you doing?
[01:02:11:15 – 01:02:21:16]
Speaker 1
Josh Lapresto I’m good, man. It’s not too late to say Happy New Year. Thanks for having me on. Excited to be here. Fun to do this. What a cool, cool program you put together.
[01:02:23:00 – 01:02:29:12]
Speaker 1
Great, great reputation that you have in this space. And honestly, just, you know, honored to be here, man. So happy to talk about anything and everything.
[01:02:29:12 – 01:02:46:23]
Speaker 46
David Korsunsky Well, and you’re a podcast host. So you’re usually on this side of the table asking questions. So it’s weird. It’s just weird. It’s fun for you to be on the other side of the table. And I gotta say, I mean, you, first of all, I just love your voice. You’ve got a fabulous voice. You’ve got a great setup there.
[01:02:48:05 – 01:03:10:02]
Speaker 46
And this is a great way to kick off this year of these conversations. So Josh, I introduced you as the SVP of sales engineering for a company called Telarus. And you explained to me that people who don’t know how to or don’t know who we are call us Telarus or Telarus, but it’s Telarus.
[01:03:10:02 – 01:03:11:10]
Speaker 1
Josh Lapresto Telarus, the cold callers at the Leads.
[01:03:11:10 – 01:03:12:02]
Speaker 46
David Korsunsky Exactly.
[01:03:13:16 – 01:03:34:06]
Speaker 46
Like Telarus. So, but I when you and I first chatted, I didn’t know too much about Telarus. And I suspect some of our listeners may not either. So could I trouble you to just take a real quick minute and tell us a little bit about the company? Who are you? What do you do? Who do you serve?
[01:03:34:06 – 01:03:44:22]
Speaker 1
Josh Lapresto Absolutely. So we are what’s known as a TSD, or technology services distribution. So what that means is think of kind of the modern distribution channel.
[01:03:45:22 – 01:04:21:08]
Speaker 1
We have a network of 1000s of sellers, independent sellers across the country, and beyond. And our job is to help them broker technology to businesses, very simply put. So you know, that may mean it’s a one person shop who used to work at a vendor of sorts and said, I want to go out, start my own business, ramp this up, grow my, you know, grow my commission stream, grow my all of those things in perpetuity, and anything and everything that a business needs, you know, we put it in a lot of buckets, think cloud services, security, voice, CX, AI,
[01:04:22:12 – 01:05:00:00]
Speaker 1
just infrastructure, IoT, mobility, all those things, I mean, the things that it takes for a business to succeed, we’re a broker in that equation. So often, we’re, we’re behind the scenes in a lot of these big companies, big deals, at the end of the day. So our sellers have access to, you know, 400 plus suppliers and hundreds of OEMs as an underpinning there. So we just come in to help, help these businesses be successful. And with a, I guess, an agnostic approach, versus the direct sales model, right? So through us, it’s an indirect model. And it’s we get in a lot of fun conversations, helping big companies and small companies make technology decisions.
[01:05:00:00 – 01:05:23:03]
Speaker 46
Amazing. Amazing. And your role as the head of Sales Engineering, my guess is it may be a little bit different than some SVPs of Sales Engineering, for say, a large software company or SaaS company. So do you care to just sort of briefly touch on what is your particular role?
[01:05:23:03 – 01:07:30:11]
Speaker 1
Yes, I’m fortunate to have some incredible people on my team. I think we’ve gotten really lucky with hiring. They say there’s a lot of luck in a lot of these. I really do believe in that. I used to think that was crap when people said that. But, but I, you know, our role in that is finding great people that can bridge the gap between a engineering, a technical conversation, and a sales conversation, right? You know, a lot of this, obviously, with your background. And our role is, you know, we’ve got this, this network of advisors that has these relationships with the customers. Our advisors can’t be on top of 400 suppliers, you know, 1000 OEMs, if you kind of add it all up and do all of that. So it’s my team’s job to be a resource for our advisors when they say, hey, I’m going to go talk to ABC customer, a big CIO, a monopod shop, whatever. They have a need around MDR. They have a need around an AWS migration. They have a need around whatever it is. Sometimes it’s all of those things. And our team is the one that sits here behind the scenes and says, hey, we know all of the vendors. We know who’s good at what, where, how it fits, what sizes, minimums, all of that stuff. And so we’ll get engaged, you know, and sometimes a pre-sales conversation with that advisor just to kind of gear them up for the conversation. Or often where we love to have our moment is on the discovery calls with the end customers, the, you know, CIOs, CTOs, directors, whatever it might be, and just listen, learn, and kind of be formulating a plan in the back of our mind. And then, you know, we triangulate with that advisor after the discussion. And then we’re able to figure out a plan of who we want to bring in from a vendor perspective and kind of get off to the races with the actual vendors. But it’s kind of a unique, it’s a unique model that a lot of people don’t know exist. It’s definitely gained in popularity over the last 5-10 years. We call it the Modern Distribution Channel. But I think it’s a great, you know, if you’re someone out there who has relationships with big customers and is trying to figure out, “How do I monetize that? But how do I also bring them value?” There’s a lot of ways that people do that. But now you’ve got resources over here where you can start your business and you’re not on your own. You’ve got a pile of people that want to come help you.
[01:07:30:11 – 01:07:49:20]
Speaker 46
Yeah, yeah. And I would imagine to be a sales engineer in your organization, the breadth of your knowledge and insight and experience is almost hard to put your head around. I mean, I can only imagine how many things that they need to stay current on to be effective in that role.
[01:07:49:20 – 01:08:48:07]
Speaker 1
Yeah, we, it’s fun watching new folks come in here and seeing this look once they realize how many vendors and how many things you really have to learn over here. Because it’s not like, you know, you’re working at one carrier and provider and you can just master those technologies. That’s hard on its own, right? Kudos to those guys. Those guys rock. But over here, we don’t know what we’re going to walk into every day. And so watching a new person come on board and this look of just like, “Oh my gosh, how am I going to learn this?” It takes a few months before the deer in the headlight kind of goes away and goes, “Okay, I’m starting to kind of see this. You know, we’ve got data, we’ve got repositories, we’ve got onboarding that helps speed that up.” But yeah, it’s a, that’s the hardest part. This is a very unique role. I don’t have a, you know, we don’t have a pool of people we can fish from that have been doing this their whole life. So it’s very hard to find people.
[01:08:49:09 – 01:08:55:11]
Speaker 1
So when we do, we put them in captivity, we study them, and we just figure out how to find more, man.
[01:08:55:11 – 01:09:26:18]
Speaker 46
The unicorns, if you will. That’s right. So by the way, folks, if you do have any questions for Josh, or of course, myself, please feel free to ask. Or if you just care to say hello, please do so. I see Cliff, Barr Cliff is a friend from local Richmond, Virginia. He said, “You help folks like VARs fulfill orders and then closer to a value add distributor more than just having paper with lots of vendors.” How would you respond? Great question.
[01:09:28:02 – 01:09:53:06]
Speaker 1
So we don’t push paper. So we are the broker in the equation. So an example would be, if you’re a VAR, you know, first of all, if you’re, let’s back up. If you’re a one person shop that doesn’t push anything, then, you know, you got a cheesecake factory of options that you can pick from, and nothing is competitive to your existing business model. Now, if you’re a VAR, if you’re an MSP, you might say, “Okay, I’ve got my customers on retainer. I’ve got their ITO. I’ve got their step, you know,
[01:09:54:14 – 01:11:33:05]
Speaker 1
Tier 1 ITO, maybe Tier 2 ITO. We send people on site. Maybe I’m managing their sonic walls. Maybe I’m doing these things.” What we would then be is we would augment you. And so we want to complement in that instance. And so I think when you have access to a distributor like us, we then round out that portfolio. So it’s a little fundamentally different in, you know, you’re used to managing and supporting and pushing paper and kind of owning that relationship. We would then just be the vendors that you bring in through us, the customer would have that direct relationship with the vendor because of the brokering path. So you don’t go away. It kind of, it kind of, if you’re not familiar, that feels like a middleman, it’s really not. What we explain to the advisors and the end customers is we’re in the middle as you, as much as you want us to be or need us to be, but you still have access to call those providers directly. But what you have with us, if you, we do a lot of volume with a lot of providers. So you have sway, you have escalation points, and you have a lot of pre-sales functions and kind of order management for you, the advisor, to then track your backend of all the orders, all the commissions, all of those things. So then it just becomes, “Hey, I need a quote,” or, “Hey, I need a discovery call. Give me 3 or 4 vendors. Let’s go have conversations with them.” And then we’re off to the races. And then, you know, let’s, let’s fast forward. That deal closes. Then we are, you know, they’re paying us, we are paying you from a commissioning perspective overall. So I just think of us as an augment, we do a lot of this with kind of ours and MSPs as advisors. And it’s just a matter of figuring out what do you do that you want to stay focused on? What do you not want to focus on and where are the gaps in your portfolio? And then let’s, maybe we only get in, brought in, in those equations, if it makes more sense that way.
[01:11:33:05 – 01:12:45:03]
Speaker 46
Yeah, yeah. It’s such an interesting model. And honestly, Josh, I feel like we could probably fill up our entire time together just talking about that model. So I may have to have you back so we can talk more about that deal. Today’s conversation was going to be a little bit more focused, though, on your specific journey. I am frequently asked by people in all walks of life, you know, Chris, I’ve thought about, I’ve heard about this sales engineer role. Obviously, you’ve read a book, or you’ve written a book. Help me understand how can I break into sales engineering? And you know, as well as I do, so many of us take interesting paths to get into this profession. One of the first conversations you and I had, you mentioned that you actually started out your career as an auto mechanic and sort of meandered your way through a series of stops and starts and different roles. And here you are now running, overseeing a large tech sales team. Let’s talk a little bit about your journey. Do you mind sort of walking us back early in your career as that auto mechanic? And how did you find yourself here?
[01:12:45:03 – 01:12:48:01]
Speaker 1
Yeah, buckle up. It’s kind of wild.
[01:12:49:23 – 01:12:56:09]
Speaker 1
So I grew up, you know, you and I share a like for college football. I grew up in the Midwest. I grew up in South Bend, Indiana.
[01:12:57:12 – 01:13:02:10]
Speaker 1
Born and raised, go Irish. Next year’s our year provided the committee is fair to us.
[01:13:04:02 – 01:13:26:23]
Speaker 1
But you know, dad worked in a factory, kind of thought that was my destiny. I always loved cars. Started going to school for that when I was out there. And then it’s kind of on a whim. Took a road trip with a buddy of mine out to Utah, you know, he’d grown up out here. And so I was like, yeah, just you know, we were 20, took a road trip, didn’t think anything of it. And, you know, came out and just went, Oh, my gosh, there’s more to the world.
[01:13:28:02 – 01:13:39:14]
Speaker 1
There just felt like there was a lot of possibility met some great people when we were out here. My buddy was working at a place that he could job transfer. I was doing this car thing. So I thought, okay, while I’m trying to, you know, figure out what I want to be when I grow up,
[01:13:40:15 – 01:14:19:15]
Speaker 1
I can get a car mechanic job anywhere easy, you know, that’ll that’ll pay for the apartment. And so then, kind of out of the blue, two weeks later, we we packed up the U-Haul, drove out a couple days, this, you know, took I 80 out and landed out here in, you know, the south end of the Salt Lake Valley. And so then for me, you know, I did the car thing, first gig was delivering car parts out of the back of a Ford Escort for pet boys doing commercial auto delivery, right? Crazy. Had a hard time envisioning the Lambo at that point. But it was a start. It felt like there was just endless possibilities. Yeah. And so just kind of went through a myriad of odd jobs.
[01:14:21:00 – 01:15:13:00]
Speaker 1
Did tech support in a call center doing dial up for for MSN, got to learn customer service and, you know, Windows 95 terminal connections and all of this kind of crazy TCP IP stuff back in the day. And then did that for a little bit random mechanic shop with a guy while I was kind of going to school and, you know, just tried all kinds of different things. And my buddy convinced me, he said, Hey, you, you’re like good with people, man, you should get into sales. And I was like, sales away, man. That’s not, I can’t do that. That’s not my thing. Like I’m a nerd. Like that’s my, that’s my schtick. I’ve fixed stuff and reboot things. And he goes, no, no, no. So we opened up the paper. We found this job, class two medical equipment, 100% sales, 100% commission. And I thought, why wouldn’t I want all the commission, right? Well, what’s the red flag in that?
[01:15:14:02 – 01:15:33:15]
Speaker 1
So I show up to this place in Sandy, Utah. And I look around and I see about 20 other guys there. And I go, is this a group interview? Huh? Must be a cool place to work. No red flags, right? I still don’t know what we’re selling. I’m just like, you know, long for the ride, right? Anyway, these guys come out schlepping a vacuum and an air cleaner.
[01:15:34:16 – 01:16:56:23]
Speaker 1
And because, you know, you know, I filtered down to point, yeah, whatever, four microns, it was a class two medical equipment. All right, fine. So say this, this, this piece of the story is really important because this changed the game for me of my opinion of what, what sales was. So, so the, the shtick was we got a boiler room full of these, these girls that are smiling and dialing every day, setting appointments with the lovely folks in Utah. So I walk in every day, I get my, my, my, my cardboard boxes, my vacuums, my air cleaners, I go in the back, I’d get these dollar store steak knives. And I’d get four appointments, four boxes of steak knives, grab my appointments, and off I go to, you know, visit the wonderful people of Utah. So I’m, I’m, you know, I’m doing this whole bit, you know, go over this spot, Susie with your Bissell, you know, 200 times. And then here I come in with my, you know, a demo vacuum that’s got the paper pads in it. And I’m, I’m flipping out pads like Frisbees. There’s dirt all over the place. And I look him in the eye and I go, Susie, that’s what your baby’s crawling on. How does that make you feel? Oh my gosh. Yes. Let me write the check for this $2,000 vacuum. Absolutely. So I’m like, okay, I’m getting confident. This like, this is, this is, the people are nice. I’m selling some of these things, whatever, right? Door to door vacuum sales. Why not? So finally, two months into this, it’s, it’s a husband and wife. And this guy’s like, he’s just laughing in the background and it’s just throwing off my shtick. And I, I’m like,
[01:16:58:00 – 01:17:25:08]
Speaker 1
he goes, Hey, I got, I got a question. And I’m like, yeah, yeah, sure. He goes, what did they tell you about, like, what did you expect to happen when you came out here? And I said, well, you know, you guys got a little one rolling around here. You care about cleanliness and health and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, dude, I was told that we won some steak knives in a giveaway and you were just going to be here for like five minutes, but you were super nice. So we just let you go for like 45.
[01:17:27:22 – 01:18:01:03]
Speaker 1
So I’m like, you had, we had no idea this was a vacuum bit at all. And I’ve never would have done it anyway. So what I learned in this was sales is such a mental thing. It’s a conversation. It’s people buying from people. And if you can just be genuine and understand how you can help people and what they want, and you’re delivering something that they need versus maybe a $2,000 vacuum door to door, it changes everything. So anyway, so I was like, all right, can’t do this anymore. Because this is all a lie.
[01:18:02:12 – 01:18:48:05]
Speaker 1
And so then I, and I started doing, I applied at a startup in about 2008, kind of doing customer service, tech support, it was a kind of before, you know, web-based, UC like Zoom and Ring Central and Vonage and all those guys were around, we sold that as kind of backup and ancillary and, you know, insurance for your voice, right. So we did sell to financial and healthcare, learned a lot, had a great mentor there. And, you know, I got this great experience to just, we were a startup, you wear a lot of hats, you know, and they evolved the product and they prototyped it and said, Hey, we’re going to do, you know, web-based phone systems on asterisk boxes and Linux servers, you need to go learn a bunch to and AWS, this thing that was coming out that nobody knew and, you know, all these other things. And if you want to be an engineer,
[01:18:49:14 – 01:19:04:03]
Speaker 1
you know, we’ll make it happen, go learn it. So I thought, all right, cool. So I went and did it. It was a fun experience. And then I thought, all right, I feel like I’ve learned a lot. I got a lot more to bring to the table, did that for about four or five years and thought,
[01:19:05:19 – 01:19:09:11]
Speaker 1
I feel like I could make, I feel like I’ve hit the ceiling financially, I got to do more.
[01:19:09:11 – 01:19:15:02]
Speaker 46
And at this point, you’re an engineer, you’re not really, you’re not selling at this point.
[01:19:15:02 – 01:19:22:00]
Speaker 1
My title was systems engineer back at the back. And then yeah, I thought, all right, let me call on,
[01:19:23:02 – 01:19:52:15]
Speaker 1
let me call on the vacuum days for a minute. I went to the boss man and I said, Hey, I love working here. I love this place. But like, you know, I want to start a family, I want to buy a house and I can’t do it on this salary. I’m not doing great. And I said, I just, I want to go upsell all of our customers. If I do that, can we split the commissions? You know, we had all these other ancillary things. And he was like, absolutely. So I just went, had all these relationships, went and sold as much as I could, went through the customers that we had and went, all right, that worked. What now? Wow.
[01:19:54:18 – 01:20:22:00]
Speaker 1
And so then I said, Okay, I think it’s time for me to go. So I went, this is funny, last part of the story. So I went and, you know, found this awesome biotech company down in Salt Lake. You know, it was all the things that checked all the boxes that I needed, that I felt like I needed next in my own career. You know, job security, more money, start of a retirement plan, all these things. And so I went there for a couple weeks. And I was kind of bored.
[01:20:23:10 – 01:20:27:05]
Speaker 1
I just, I think I thrive in chaos. I think that’s what I learned about myself.
[01:20:28:14 – 01:20:30:03]
Speaker 1
The ADD doesn’t do well with boredom.
[01:20:31:05 – 01:20:49:14]
Speaker 1
And so I got a call from Richard Murray, who was, at the time, he was kind of running the other company that that founder had started that was, they didn’t used to be called TSDs, but it was a smaller TSD.
[01:20:50:18 – 01:20:51:12]
Speaker 1
And he said, Hey,
[01:20:52:17 – 01:21:00:15]
Speaker 1
you know, we, maybe we should, should have talked more when you left, but it was kind of complicated because you were at the other company. But listen, I got big plans.
[01:21:01:16 – 01:21:51:10]
Speaker 1
I want to buy the old guy out. I want to, I really believe in where technical procurement is going. I think we could, you know, we could just, I want to reinvest back into the company. I want to grow this thing. Call me when you have a bad day. And I said, that was a Thursday. We did lunch on a Friday. I started on a Monday. Wow. That was the best decision that I had ever made. And I thought about, you know, you and I were talking about this before, I thought about at that moment, that was a personally defining moment for me. Because I kind of realized there were these people that were betting on me. Maybe when I, I don’t know that I would have bet on myself, right? You know, kids all over the place, he was a car guy, he sold vacuums, like, he doesn’t, he doesn’t have experience in a lot of these places. And there are some other stories where I’ve gone up against some people. And I think,
[01:21:52:19 – 01:22:40:20]
Speaker 1
I’ll just say, I think hard work can, can beat talent any day. I’m a firm believer in that. And so this was one of those moments where I was believed in. And so that made me want to go, okay, I got to prove everybody right now. And so then, yeah, he held true to his word. He bought the old founder out. And then that, we did that for about 5 years. And then that was a company that Telaris had acquired back in 2018. And so there’s been a sequence of things, you know, that I’ve been asked to do along the way of, “Hey, help us do this. Hey, let’s go build this. Hey, you want to build a sales engineering team?” You know, so it was a, “Whoa, you guys believe in me. That’s humbling. And that’s powerful. So I got to figure out how to prove them right.
[01:22:42:00 – 01:22:58:01]
Speaker 1
And not let them down.” You know, so that’s, it’s kind of been a common theme throughout. And yeah, now here we are. You know, when I started, I was the individual contributor engineer. And now here we are, you know, 15, 20 people later, never would have thought. Size and scale and growth happened real quick.
[01:22:58:01 – 01:23:56:11]
Speaker 46
Amazing. Amazing. It’s such a good story. And I appreciate you sharing it so much, Josh, the fact that you grew up and really sort of went out into the world thinking, “Well, I’m a technician or I’m an auto mechanic.” And that’s sort of, you know, and then your eyes started to open up. You started exploring a little bit more. You had an inspiration to try something different. And that led to the next and the next and the next. And as I reflect on your story, there’s a couple of things that come to mind for me. The first is what I would call an open-mindedness and an opportunistic mindset, if I can use that term. You come across like someone who really didn’t have fears. But my suspicion is there probably were some fears or uncertainties, but somehow you dealt with that.
[01:23:57:11 – 01:24:00:11]
Speaker 46
Am I reading that right? Or was fear just,
[01:24:01:13 – 01:24:04:10]
Speaker 46
that’s just not part of your MO?
[01:24:04:10 – 01:25:10:00]
Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, it’s a great question. It’s kind of a couple things. I mean, there’s always fear. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t fear. But I think when you’re growing up and whatever you are, I flash back to this, I talk about this a lot when I was maybe 12, you have this envisionment of what one day if I had a cool job and a big company or was really valuable to somebody, what that would look like. And you think, man, there’s going to be a lot of people that are going to be doing that. And it’s going to be really hard. And I’m not saying it’s not hard. But I think the reality is a lot of people just aren’t that hungry. And so when you can get up there and you can help people and you can do these things that make you uncomfortable, whether that’s getting on a stage, whether that’s doing a discovery call, whether that’s having a difficult conversation, whatever it might be, the reality is you just get better with practice. And if you put yourself out there, and if you keep trying and you keep pushing,
[01:25:11:01 – 01:25:22:18]
Speaker 1
to your point, I could have sat down and just bend this whatever in a box and stayed there forever and been completely complacent. But that’s just not me.
[01:25:24:03 – 01:25:26:19]
Speaker 1
I grew up dirt poor.
[01:25:28:00 – 01:26:32:05]
Speaker 1
And I was always kind of afraid that how do we make that not happen again? How do I make sure that we have security, my family has security? How do we? And so it kind of turned into this combination of that, but also a little bit of just, you just got to want it more. You hear all these interviews of other people. And the reality is, they just wanted it more. This person to this person, they both put their pants on one leg at a time every day. It’s just who wants to work a little harder, who wants to grind a little more, who understands what it means to sell something and how important that is, right? You could look at this as, hey, we’re just selling stuff. But the reality is, we’re helping people pay their mortgages. We’re helping people put their kids through college. We’re helping people, you know, create dreams that they’ve always wanted. And so to be a part of that, like, yeah, push through the hard stuff. It’s scary, and it’s hard. And you got to be comfortable, being uncomfortable. I’ve always loved that phrase. And I’ve understood it more as life goes on.
[01:26:32:05 – 01:26:57:04]
Speaker 46
Well, and I love your answer about hungry. And the other word that comes to mind for me is desire. And what I hear you saying is that when the hunger, when the desire, when the drive outweighs the fear, that’s what pushes you forward. It’s when the fear outweighs the desire or the drive that we’re held back.
[01:26:58:07 – 01:27:17:23]
Speaker 46
Another thing that comes to mind is, you mentioned that when you’re, it sounds like your friend recognized that you might be good in sales, that you had a certain way with people. And your first response was, sales, I’m not a sales guy. Like, don’t put me in that category.
[01:27:19:08 – 01:27:49:11]
Speaker 46
What was the break, particularly, I mean, for crying out loud, selling vacuums door to door. I mean, that’s about as distasteful and difficult a sales job as you can sign up for, frankly. So how did you cross that sort of chasm to go from, no way I’m gonna sell it to being literally a door to door vacuum salesman?
[01:27:49:11 – 01:27:52:03]
Speaker 1
Well, man,
[01:27:53:11 – 01:28:22:10]
Speaker 1
I think when you’re, for me, I was just kind of oblivious to some of that, like, to some of that noise. You know how, like, if you see sports people, you know, they talk about like, oh, you were ripped apart on X, and these guys said this, and these guys said this, and this newsfeed said this. And they go, just kind of block that noise out. You don’t, I don’t care. That doesn’t really help me. That doesn’t change me. If anything, it’s gonna put me in this like weird spiral, right? So they teach a lot of these guys, just don’t pay attention to that.
[01:28:23:11 – 01:29:06:02]
Speaker 1
And I think at the time, I just didn’t, there wasn’t that noise. I didn’t really have any of that. And so all I knew was, I got bills to pay. And I don’t feel like I’ve done a great job figuring out how those are going to get paid for the foreseeable future. So what, what thing am I going to do that is going to show me a path to where I can get better at that, I can do more of that. And I can be valuable to somebody. To me, it’s always been, how do I get into something that is very valuable to helping other people, and that, you know, helps other people and as a career and as something that I like doing. And so I think, you know, a little bit of like, just early on, you know, I had the blockers up because I just didn’t know otherwise.
[01:29:07:07 – 01:29:42:13]
Speaker 1
You know, I didn’t know 100% commission sales was a volatile thing. I didn’t know a group interview, you know, so it’s just, you’re like, how, how, how did you not know, you think about those things. And I think it helped me hone the craft over time. You know, I think everybody, that’s, it’s one of the things I love hearing other people’s stories when we do the podcast and things like that, of everybody has such a windy story, everybody has a path. I mean, there’s probably five people or less that I’ve ever talked to that have been like, yes, this has been my linear path. This is what I set out to do. This was my destiny. And kudos to them.
[01:29:43:19 – 01:30:15:00]
Speaker 1
I’m a, I’m a nine, nine years of college to get a four year degree kind of guy. Just because I didn’t know what I wanted to be, man. Like, and I think that’s the thing that, you know, I’m trying to, trying to tell the kids too, we’re trying to tell our kids of just, you don’t, there’s enough pressure on you. You don’t have to figure it out. Just see what makes you happy. See what’s going to make you money and figure out how those things come together. And you don’t have to have all the answers right now. I sure didn’t. I can’t expect them to do it. Like the world is crazy and it changes.
[01:30:15:00 – 01:30:57:12]
Speaker 46
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s so many lessons to be learned there. I mean, first is, you know, and I, and I have five kids. So, so I’m frequently having this discussion that, you know, the first is go as far as you can see, because once you get there, you’re going to see, you’re going to have a totally new perspective and you’ll see new things. Right. And you, you, you mentioned sort of the zigzag path. Lord knows I, I had a career full of stops and starts and left turns and right turns and, you know, U-turns and, and, and, and, and, and at the moment, each one of those stops and some of those challenges didn’t feel like they were moving in a, in a progressive
[01:30:59:04 – 01:31:10:14]
Speaker 46
direction, if I can use that term. But in hindsight, every one of those stops and every one of those turns was an important step along the journey. And in hindsight, I wouldn’t change, I wouldn’t change any of it.
[01:31:10:14 – 01:31:50:17]
Speaker 1
Right. So to, to the point, two really good pieces of advice that I would, I would love to share with anybody that is, that it took me 15 plus to learn. One, when you’re going through all those starts and stops, you don’t really realize, we’re all geniuses in hindsight, but you don’t really realize how valuable those learnings are in the moment. That year of this sales job or that year of this technical experience, grinding, you know, pulling cable in the rafters or figuring out why this punchdown doesn’t work and toning these cables, whatever it might be, we’ve all done kind of all of those things. One,
[01:31:52:07 – 01:32:21:00]
Speaker 1
like, you know, have, have a, have a rough idea or a range of what you want to be. Just get out there and get the experience. It’s just like, it’s just like a good product, right? You’ve got to get an MVP out there, you’ve got to build something and you’ve got to get feedback on it. You know, this build feedback loop, I think you can apply it to life as well. You know, the lean startup guy talks about that. I think there’s a lot of great examples about that. That’s thing one. Thing two, like we just got to put a big, giant underscore on wanting it more.
[01:32:22:02 – 01:32:31:00]
Speaker 1
And I’ll tell you something that is, that if we’ve got time, I’ll tell you another story and why this is so important to me. I love a thank you letter.
[01:32:32:00 – 01:33:15:21]
Speaker 1
Thank you letters mean the world to me. And let me explain why. So that job that I told you about, you know, 2000, 2008. So I apply for this. It’s, you know, I found it on the Utah jobs website, customer service, tech startup, you know, five people. So here I am fresh out of the, it’s either call center or auto mechanic shop, one of those, right? So I’m coming out of that. I have zero experience in the space, absolutely zero, which is where we all kind of start. And so I applied at this place, felt like I interviewed really well. You know, but I didn’t have the experience. I didn’t have the certs. And so I get this call from from the CEO. And this, and he calls me up. And he’s like, Hey, man, he’s kind of down to you and this one other guy.
[01:33:16:21 – 01:33:21:16]
Speaker 1
But he’s got a lot of experience. He kind of comes from the space, he understands telco and all those things.
[01:33:23:01 – 01:34:07:08]
Speaker 1
And so we think we’re going to have you come back in for a second interview. I thought, all right, cool. So pick something that you’re passionate about. This is kind of like a training and teaching job, training our customers, how to use the software, teaching them, you know, how to set up their backup comms and all of this stuff. And so I said, well, you know, he’s like, whatever you want. And so I went to the, you know, my toolbox, pull out an old automotive computer. I don’t know why I had a spare automotive computer as an extra part, a lot of parts left over in the car days, but I had a spare computer, right? And so I brought this into the board room. And I said, I’m going to teach you guys how to diagnose the five steps to a no start condition on your car. And you know, I’m asking questions, I’m getting interactions, I’ve got people smiling, I’m like, Oh my gosh, I felt like I just felt like I was crushing it, right?
[01:34:08:14 – 01:34:11:18]
Speaker 1
And so anyway, I get this call, this guy calls me again, and he’s like, Hey,
[01:34:13:00 – 01:34:49:00]
Speaker 1
you know, we, we, the other guy, we found out he’s got a little more search and telco, he’s got some Avaya, he’s got some experience, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, we’re gonna, we’re gonna think about it, right? So anyway, I, I get this, I get this thought, I come home. And I’m like, honey, I feel like finally feel like this is a step towards a career. I don’t, I don’t know everything about this company, I don’t know everything about this industry. But I feel like this is finally the first chance at a career. How do I set myself apart from this guy? Awesome guy, he’s a stud, I still know him.
[01:34:50:02 – 01:35:07:14]
Speaker 1
And he had more experience than me, right? And I think this is akin to what people were going through right now applying to thousands of people, maybe for the same role in some instances. And so my wife without Batten and I said, I don’t know, write a thank you letter. And I thought, oh my gosh, it’s brilliant. Why didn’t I think of that?
[01:35:08:20 – 01:35:19:02]
Speaker 1
So I had zero grammatical skills, had a great English teacher in sixth grade, but I had zero grammatical skills. So I went to Google, and I printed out this thank you letter.
[01:35:20:04 – 01:35:32:18]
Speaker 1
First, literally the first one I found, I don’t even know that I read it, printed out this thank you letter, found this thank you letter, and, you know, signed my name to it, hand delivered it to the guy, to the secretary. Guy calls me back, and he says, hey,
[01:35:34:03 – 01:35:44:17]
Speaker 1
did you write that thank you letter yourself? And I said, no, man, I just Googled it. And he goes, well, we just want to make sure you were going to tell the truth. Congratulations, you got the job.
[01:35:47:09 – 01:36:15:12]
Speaker 1
So, so thank you letters mean a lot to me. And I would encourage anybody that when you’re out there and you’re applying and you’re, you know, you’re trying to differentiate, people don’t know you. You’re amazing. The people around you know you’re amazing. But this new company doesn’t know you. So if you can differentiate yourself by one being persistent and following up, but write a thank you letter, hand deliver it, print it out, send it in certified, whatever.
[01:36:16:13 – 01:36:24:07]
Speaker 1
I promise you nobody does that. Like hardly anybody does that. So yeah, I just wanted to share that. Pro tip, that will differentiate you.
[01:36:24:07 – 01:36:31:23]
Speaker 46
Great, great story. And particularly nowadays, a handwritten thank you letter is
[01:36:32:23 – 01:38:10:20]
Speaker 46
literally mailed or hand delivered if you can do that. Unbelievably powerful. And that’s not just interviewing for a job. I mean, that’s even even with customers. In fact, true story. I was in Madrid just last week and I ran a workshop for one of my clients. And they gave me this thank you letter. Right? Just a simple little card. It was just a simple thing. They all wrote during the workshop and handed to me to the end of the day. And the smallest little thing that will, this will stick with me for as long as I’m running this business. That’s the first time I’ve ever had a client do that for me. And that means more to me than them paying me double. I mean, it’s just such a big thing. And you mentioned this earlier, people buy from people. People want to work with people. And I think, and even as you were sharing that story, I think one of the things that makes you unique, one of the things that makes you stand out, your personality comes through. You have a certain, you have a certain comfort in your own skin, you have a certain confidence and peace with who you are. And that just comes through. And I think the more at peace we are with with ourselves, and we and we can present our authentic selves, the more people will respond accordingly. So that makes a huge, huge difference.
[01:38:10:20 – 01:38:20:14]
Speaker 1
I appreciate that. I mean, you know, I think I’m just excited to be here, man. You know, I didn’t grow up with much.
[01:38:21:20 – 01:38:58:12]
Speaker 1
You know, so not, you know, having a roof and having food is kind of a big deal. And so then to me, you know, everything else is just gravy. And then when you learn that, like, not everybody has that same drive, it just makes you want to double down. Because this is how I differentiate, this is what people see value in. This seems like the absolute fundamental basics to me. Of course you should do these things. Of course you should be nice. Of course you should go beyond beyond. Of course you should help people. And that’s just not how the world operates, man. So no, I mean, it’s, yeah, it’s, I appreciate that. Because it’s just what you should do.
[01:38:58:12 – 01:39:44:12]
Speaker 46
It’s all, it’s all, and just, by the way, I do want to just pause for a moment, folks. I’m speaking to Josh Lepresto. He’s the SVP of Sales Engineering for a company called Telarus. And we’re, in essence, we’re talking about his amazing journey through twists and turns of being an auto mechanic, being a vacuum, door-to-door vacuum salesman. He got into technology and was a systems engineer, realized that he had hit a ceiling in terms of the financial benefits of being a systems engineer, and literally placed a bet on himself saying, “If I go out and upsell our customers, will you split the commissions with me?” And here he is now running a technical sales team.
[01:39:45:13 – 01:39:58:12]
Speaker 46
Clifford has made a few more comments. “I always try to show that I can solve the problem without the manager having to micromanage.” Well said. If you, if anybody else out there has any other questions for Josh and myself, please feel free to ask.
[01:39:58:12 – 01:40:01:07]
Speaker 1
I think the other point, like, Clifford’s up a good point of,
[01:40:02:09 – 01:40:07:02]
Speaker 1
you know, I think this is in Bezos’s, you know, 10 rules, 12 rules. I don’t know how many rules it is now.
[01:40:08:13 – 01:41:22:14]
Speaker 1
And if you’re at a company that, you know, has opportunity for growth, I think that this idea of, you know, it’s not a, promotions and growth is not a binary thing. You, you have to be willing to show the business that you will commit to do other things. And so it’s hard for people to envision you in that role if you don’t start doing some of those responsibilities. Now, I’m not saying, like, take on a 100-hour workweek, but I’m saying, you know, Cliff brings up a great point of go do the things that are hard and prove that you can do those things. Prove that you’re willing to go above and beyond, because that’s just not a trait that exists in a lot of places. And so when you do those things, you’re naturally going to be in consideration, “Hey, you know what? Cliff’s doing those things. We just created this role, or we’re going to build a team, or we got this investment thesis, or whatever it might be. What if Cliff could do that?” Like, maybe Cliff’s our guy. And so just this, this idea of, you know, going above and beyond and solving a problem. And, you know, and sometimes it’s as simple as, just because you weren’t addressed on the email doesn’t mean you shouldn’t jump in and do something about it. Don’t sit there and wait for people to tell you to do stuff. Just take the lead and go, “Hey, I got an idea. You need my help on this? Or, you know, what do you, what do you want to do?” Yeah.
[01:41:23:18 – 01:41:36:09]
Speaker 46
When I started these jobs quite a few times early, early in my career, my first 10 or 15 years, I bounced around quite a bit. And whenever I took a new job, I had one single mantra.
[01:41:37:15 – 01:42:30:13]
Speaker 46
I want to tackle the biggest problems and the biggest challenges, particularly the ones that nobody else wants to deal with. Like, that’s, like, I wanted to run into the burning fires, the, you know, the burning houses. And that just became my reputation. And what I discovered was that in doing so, my value always increased, you know, almost instantly. And I demonstrated that I wasn’t afraid to take on the big, like, I wanted to go where nobody else wanted to go. And that’s what, that’s what differentiated me. And, you know, there’s another tangential thought related to that. In fact, actually, before I, before I get there, I do want to just say a little asaf. He loves the thank you card. And Mohammed asked, “Is this being recorded?” It is being recorded, Mohammed. It will live right here on LinkedIn. And it’s also on my YouTube channel.
[01:42:32:00 – 01:43:15:07]
Speaker 46
The other related thought to that is you mentioned desire, which clearly is a big part of who you are. You also mentioned the fact that you didn’t grow up with much financially and that you’ve made it very clear that you were financially motivated and driven, which we all are. And, you know, I love it when people say, “Well, you know, I’m not all that, you know, financially motivated.” And my response is, “Oh, really? So are you a volunteer employee with your company?” Because if you’re not a volunteer employee, then yes, you are motivated. You’re financially motivated in some way. We all are. But I believe there’s a bigger motivation. And I’ve heard you say this a couple times.
[01:43:16:10 – 01:43:21:18]
Speaker 46
And that motivation is to serve and to feel like we’re making a contribution.
[01:43:22:20 – 01:43:38:07]
Speaker 46
I believe that we are all most fulfilled when serving other people. And to me, that’s something that I feel underpins much of what you’ve been talking about, which is a desire to make a contribution.
[01:44:07:03 – 01:44:11:15]
Speaker 1
Is that an accurate representation of what I’m hearing, Josh? Josh But I wasn’t thinking like that back then.
[01:44:12:15 – 01:44:24:08]
Speaker 1
Where this really started to resonate for me personally would be just demystifying technology for people. So if I flash back to when I was an individual contributor for a long time before we had the team,
[01:44:25:20 – 01:45:48:13]
Speaker 1
just being able to talk to a… You know, we talked to all different types and titles of people at bigs and small organizations. But being able to talk to a customer and knowing and understanding what they’re going through, and then being able to relate it to these menu of items that we know we have will solve their problem. And reading a few books along the way that changed my lives. There’s a great book out there, Power Questions by Andrew Sobel. Very, very easy read, very great read. Teaches you the value of asking questions versus just going into doing a shtick and throwing up on people. It’s those moments when you just feel like, “Okay, you know you’re going to make a sale here. You know this customer’s life is going to be changed.” And for us, when we step back at it, you’d think, “Okay, this guy’s an IT director. He’s a CIO. He’s a C whatever.” Of course, he knows how to do these things. But really, that may be the first time that that person is making that technology decision in their career. We’ve had the luxury of helping 100 people right before them, probably with that same decision. So we do come at it with this inherent confidence because we saw how this story ends for the last 99 people. And we just know if we help this one person, if we can get them to kind of move this piece or do this process or do this migration to step towards this thing,
[01:45:49:18 – 01:46:15:02]
Speaker 1
their lives are going to be so much easier. And they’re not going to be staying up all night managing this AS 400 or worrying about this piece of technology to not turn back on. And those were kind of some of the aha moments for me. You see enough, and obviously you’ve got a great batch of expertise in this, but you see a lot of those engineering folks that come in and make you feel dumb for not knowing or not understanding this thing or that thing.
[01:46:16:12 – 01:46:49:07]
Speaker 1
Nobody wants to feel dumb. Nobody wants to be told they’re stupid. People are already nervous to bring up their concerns with you anyway. And they don’t trust you because they don’t know you. So if you can get through these two hurdles, have a little bit of expertise that helps them through what might be one of the career defining moments for them, you’ve made them the hero. And you talk about this, to come full circle. If you can focus on making the other people the hero, things will work for you. And I think that’s just the truth. Yeah.
[01:46:49:07 – 01:47:54:17]
Speaker 46
Well, and I may or may not have shared this on when Josh was nice enough to invite me on his podcast. And I may have mentioned that the way we think about it is self-centered objectives versus other centered objectives. And the other centered objectives, obviously being everyone else, and in particular the individuals that I’m working with that I’m selling to, et cetera, we know what’s in it for us. We know what our self-centered objectives are. We want to close deals and earn the commission and drive growth for the company. The question is, is what’s in it for them? And where is our priority? Is our priority focused on us just getting the commission or is our priority on, we want our first objective is to help you achieve what you’re trying to achieve. That’s really where our priority is. Now, as a result, do we get something out of the transaction? Of course we do. Or the relationship or the agreement or what have, of course we do. That’s where it becomes win-win. But what do we prioritize?
[01:47:55:18 – 01:48:58:18]
Speaker 46
And how does that person feel? Do they actually believe that we care about them? That we care about them achieving what they’re trying. And do we communicate in such a way? And do we really believe it? Like you can’t fake this stuff. Right? Motive is transparent. Either I really want to help you achieve what you’re trying to achieve. And I think I have a solution that’ll help you get there. If that’s really my mindset, people will feel that. And this comes back to the authenticity we were talking about. People feel that. They won’t feel like they’re being sold to. And they’re far more likely to want to engage. And this, you know, it’s interesting to me. This seems like something that just comes naturally to you. And I don’t know if you agree with it, something that just comes naturally to you. Or if there’s maybe some sort of conscious decision that you go through or conscious decision-making process that you go through to help make that a reality.
[01:48:58:18 – 01:49:06:08]
Speaker 1
I just, I guess I just, I kind of believe that everybody can be great.
[01:49:07:12 – 01:49:11:14]
Speaker 1
And I had a great, I had a great mentor, got a lot of great mentors.
[01:49:12:18 – 01:49:56:10]
Speaker 1
But one of them said, “Hey, it’s your job to help get the best out of people. And it’s your job to put them in the right seat.” Sometimes they haven’t been believed in, sometimes they haven’t been invested in, sometimes they haven’t been, you know, maybe they came across strong or they were a little whatever. So, I mean, I feel like the secret sauce here is always believe in people, always assume. And I mean this, depending on like, this could be people at your own company. This could be customers and prospects, people that you think, “Ah, this person’s wasting my time.” They’re not. They’re just, I mean, some of them could be, I suppose that’s realistic. But I think you can sniff that out. I think the reality is, you got to believe and assume positive intent that everybody can be great.
[01:49:57:10 – 01:50:59:15]
Speaker 1
And it’s your job, no matter what your role is, to figure out how to help them do that. And sometimes, I’ll never forget, one time I was working with somebody that was on the team in years past. And what I noticed, I was like, “Man, this guy, this guy is electric in an audience.” And he’d been doing this a while. But I kept noticing that he would say, “A” and I mean, there was more filler words than there was words. And I was like, “Ah, he’s been doing this a while. I don’t know how he’s going to take this feedback, but I got to talk to him about it.” And I said, “Hey, can we talk about something? I’m excited about this presentation that you got coming up. I’m really, I think you’re going to do great. But I want to call something out. Did you know that you’re saying, “You’re doing all these things.” And he goes, “Oh my gosh, nobody’s ever told me that. I had absolutely no idea.” And the dude fixed it overnight.
[01:51:00:17 – 01:51:42:07]
Speaker 1
It was so cool to see. And so I think there’s also just, there’s no preconceived notions of, “Oh, this person’s been doing it a long time. Like, you know, therefore they have to be X or therefore they should be this.” You just don’t know. I think finding great people is hard. And you’ve got to invest in everybody. And everybody, if you have the right process to get the right people, you’ve got to invest in those people. You owe it. I’m not going to say it’s your fiduciary duty, but kind of. It’s this parallel. It is your duty to get the best out of people and give them all the opportunity possible to be successful. And so I just think if you carry that in your DNA, that’s my belief.
[01:51:44:12 – 01:51:46:21]
Speaker 1
Show me something bad that’s going to happen from that.
[01:51:48:11 – 01:51:54:02]
Speaker 46
So well said. And it’s a great way to wrap things up. By the way, Cliff mentioned empathy.
[01:51:55:04 – 01:51:59:15]
Speaker 46
Empathy is a big part of what we’re talking about today.
[01:52:00:17 – 01:52:26:21]
Speaker 46
Josh, I can’t believe it. We are almost 60 minutes into this conversation. The time always flies by. I love your energy. I love your vibe. I so enjoy chatting with you. Any closing thoughts as we wrap things up and as you reflect on your journey? Any one thing in particular you would leave the listeners with?
[01:52:28:00 – 01:52:34:19]
Speaker 1
Yeah, I got one or two. I got to do another shameless plug for the podcast. Go to Spotify. Go to Apple Music.
[01:52:35:20 – 01:53:08:16]
Speaker 1
Go look up Next Level BizTech. I think it’s great for advisors or people that want to be advisors that don’t understand this space. We look at things through many different lenses. And that’s a lens of somebody here. That’s a lens of a supplier. And that’s a lens of an advisor. So you can just see how this technology is talked about, procured, and supported, and kind of break it down. I would go like and subscribe. All that good stuff. But what I would leave you with, I guess, is just want it more. Get really good at the basics.
[01:53:09:18 – 01:53:20:02]
Speaker 1
Repeat those. Do those. Put yourself on video. Record yourself. See how this thing that you think is coming across. See how it really comes across. And I think it will be eye-opening.
[01:53:21:03 – 01:53:35:09]
Speaker 1
And assume positive intent. And just want it more than the next guy or gal. And to me, that’s what sets you apart. That’s it. And do it with an intent. You help somebody, and that will turn around and it will help you.