Revenue Teams Webinar

Webinar Transcript

Kaleb Jessee: I want to officially kick us off and welcome everyone into panthers first ever webinar and we're excited I couldn't ask for better panelists to join me today.

Kaleb Jessee: I'm going to let them introduce themselves here here, briefly, I don't want to speak for them, but as your host today, my name is Kaleb Jessee i'm the Head of Sales here at panther.

Kaleb Jessee: And really what came to mind for this webinar was at panther we help organizations go global right, no matter their size, and so the idea that.

Kaleb Jessee: Organizations that don't have the resources as publicly traded companies or even enterprise level companies.

Kaleb Jessee: can now start to access a talent pool that is global, to give competitive advantages help them grow and scale faster and.

Kaleb Jessee: I was really shocked when I started to dig into the panther data when I joined as to the changing of demographics, of the actual employees that panther is helping get on boarded across the globe.

Kaleb Jessee: I think there's this massive misconception today that if you're going global the first place, you need to start as on the tech side.

Kaleb Jessee: Typically outsourcing has a negative connotation, and what you think about is well we'll hire a bunch of developers are engineers overseas and we'll place our tech teams there.

Kaleb Jessee: I think we're starting to see a transition of that start to level up on the revenue generating team side.

Kaleb Jessee: And I think there's lots of advantages to it and so thinking back through my career of hiring remote teams or a global teams like.

Kaleb Jessee: There was this line of demarcation of I used to hire a remote based team in the US, because it was cheaper So when I was doing my first sales teams at some startups.

Kaleb Jessee: It was a very in person sales so different than obviously a postcode world or even the world we're living in today.

Kaleb Jessee: But as a bootstrapped startup I thought Okay, where are the major metros were our ICP fits right and what i'm gonna do is i'm going to go and hire sales talent in that metro.

Kaleb Jessee: Because now I don't have to pay for flights I don't have to pay for hotels, theoretically, they could drive in a three hour radius around that city and it's cheaper for me they know the ins and outs and I can grow and scale my sales team that way super successful.

Kaleb Jessee: What I think now is, we could take that to the next level in terms of you could do the same thing in other countries and really anywhere across the globe.

Kaleb Jessee: I think we're starting to see some organizations do that and it's no it's no longer reserved for the larger organizations that have time and resources to do so.

Kaleb Jessee: So that that's really the precipice for for what kicked us off and in the idea for this webinar.

Kaleb Jessee: So with that i'm going to turn it over to Columbia first to just to briefly introduce herself and in some of her background and then we'll kick it over to an eight and kind of get started on the topic him.

Calanthia Mei: sounds great and Kaleb Thank you so much for having me here hey everyone, my name is Calanthia lead partnerships at fast

Calanthia Mei: Is a series B company back by index ventures additional capital stripe what we do is that we bring one click checkout to the entire Internet and that does not limit ourselves in the US.

Calanthia Mei: I run a global partnerships team and we're commercial in nature, I have on the ground troops in the US, Canada UK and Australia very excited to share my perspective on running global remote revenue teams today.

Nate Narsala: it's quite right on well i'm super excited to be here thanks for having me Kaleb and quite the excited for our conversation I i'm a little bit of.

Nate Narsala: Everything when it comes to B2B sales i've built products that we sell I built sales teams to sell.

Nate Narsala: I sold directly, and so my whole career has been B2B sales recently I founded a company called fluent where we help B2B sales teams build and sell with a champion for every deal in their pipeline and.

Nate Narsala: Prior to that, I was chief growth officer at a group called gamma global accelerator network, where we built startup accelerators and build partnerships all around the world, so  cities all around the world, and I have done it in a couple different environments, all in the office hybrid.

Nate Narsala: With a remote team and then some people in the office and then an entirely remote team.

Nate Narsala: So it'll be fun to kind of dig into the I guess kind of my evolving perspective and seeing the benefits of a global and a remote team just kind of based on that set of experiences.

Kaleb Jessee: yeah absolutely.

Kaleb Jessee: And I think there are some things like some of the topics we'll get into it will discuss that.

Kaleb Jessee: Some surprises in terms of like expectations you thought of things that would be very difficult, that weren't or things that were easy that weren't.

Kaleb Jessee: So I guess we're like the first place, I would start is what is the decision making process for you in terms of thinking about growing globally like.

Kaleb Jessee: Are there thresholds are bright lines in terms of, we need to make sure we do X y&z first right in terms of revenue or test the market and see if you could sell it domestically.

Kaleb Jessee: sell abroad domestically first like any experience or guidance in terms of like what your line of demarcation may be in terms of yes, we should do this.

Calanthia Mei: yeah so for us we're in the E commerce space, our main audience our enterprise and mid market E commerce merchants who want to have a better track how and payment process.

Calanthia Mei: And the E commerce, industry there's a tried and true playbook when it comes to international expansion.

Calanthia Mei: Especially the markets that are quite similar to the US when it comes to your language product requirements regulatory compliance requirement.

Calanthia Mei: and others so with fast our product itself is truly global and applicable in any English speaking market, so we were mostly looking for similarities between markets.

Calanthia Mei: When it comes to how do we go to market what kind of feel teams are kind of partnership, we need to have in place, what kind of demand gen two when you to set in place to make sure that we're successful international markets.

Calanthia Mei: that's the reason why, after launching in the US, we have quickly got into the UK and then we have quickly going to Australia, New Zealand, due to the similarities between those markets and the US market.

Kaleb Jessee: It makes sense, and I think it's funny with the name of the company like my linkedin is littered with how fast you guys are growing, and all the.

Kaleb Jessee: new partnerships you guys are launching really, really impressive name, what about you.

Nate Narsala: yeah that's awesome, by the way, the company fastest growing very fast it's great.

Nate Narsala: So for me, I think that the first question that I always ask is what's the right fit for the customer and how do we find sellers who can develop rapport good relationship very quickly.

Nate Narsala: And a lot of the sales that we have done through different teams that i've run it's been very.

Nate Narsala: Culturally dependent, where you, for example, if you have somebody who speaks Spanish and can jump in and conduct a sales call in Spanish, with that within that market.

Nate Narsala: The whole process unfolds far faster and there's just a different level of experience on the customers and.

Nate Narsala: So the first thing for me is look at the customer that you're serving.

Nate Narsala: And the type of sales process that you want to run and is there a cultural language component to it that you could move far faster if you find somebody who is bilingual or knows particular culture.

Nate Narsala: So that was number one for me and the number to kind of the next question is once you've kind of check that box.

Nate Narsala: Do you have access to the talent that you need in your immediate area and for I mean a lot of people, especially now that's like a really hard thing to say.

Nate Narsala: i'm going to limit myself to you know the  miles around me where there's a reasonable commute.

Nate Narsala: I mean it's just a tough thing, especially if you're a sales leader, with the team that's ramping fast and one of the largest threats to making the number is just headcount like can you grow and train and keep a talented team.

Nate Narsala: up and ready for the pace that your company is growing and if you're at a high growth environment, often, the answer is no, you need to start kind of widening.

Nate Narsala: Your your boundaries, a little bit.

Kaleb Jessee: makes sense, so the first ever sales job I had fresh out of Grad school was things like boiler room wolf of Wall Street kind of sales environment everybody had a cubicle we hired in the masses only a couple of people survived every hiring class.

Kaleb Jessee: A keg in the break room basketball goals inside, and so it was just this culture of like everyone had to be in the office, and you, you would grind together.

Kaleb Jessee: cold calling I remember the tech stack we had back then was, I had a little dialer but I actually had to dial and I had salesforce and that was it right like that's all I had and.

Kaleb Jessee: I think the world has changed clearly over the past few years, but I think the technology itself was changing and adapting to.

Kaleb Jessee: Like the webinars right and and all of the zoom meetings and conferencing tools and being able to connect and build relationships online to where you didn't have to be in an office.

Kaleb Jessee: So i'm curious from your guys's perspective, like if you could remove a pandemic, right from the world everybody would love you, but like if you could remove that from your thought process, do you think remote work, not just global but, just like remote work itself.

Kaleb Jessee: is still the future and will be the future right or do you think that people will vie to get back into the office.

Kaleb Jessee: Because what I found is sales leaders, in particular, are the ones that are the most hesitant.

Kaleb Jessee: to want to build a fully remote team, because they think the ringing of the bells getting everyone together in one room in existing in person, still has a massive competitive advantage into culture building.

Kaleb Jessee: Then what a remote team could do.

Nate Narsala: yeah so i'm happy to lead with my view on that, so I do think leading all remote sales teams is effective, full stop.

Nate Narsala: And I do think there are elements of the in office environment that are very beneficial to a sales team, there are certain things of.

Nate Narsala: Energy, the ability to find patterns and listen to what other REPS are doing.

Nate Narsala: But I think that the better question is, how do you take the best of the things that are happening in an in person sales environment.

Nate Narsala: And to your point figure out the tools and the tech that can replicate that and offer your sellers those benefits in a remote scenario so, for example.

Nate Narsala: If it's hey i'm concerned that my seller won't be able to hear what the top REPS are doing, because they're not sitting a desk away, you have things like gone right who can.

Nate Narsala: help solve for that thing I think you've seen a rise of really thoughtful intentional sales kickoffs that are done in a remote environment to bring some of that energy and, like the team building.

Nate Narsala: That is just baked into the rhythms of office life, and you can bring those into the remote setting.

Nate Narsala: So that would be the question is if you're feeling hesitant, what are the things that you feel like you will miss chances are there can be a design or a solution for that to bring those things to a remote team structure.

Calanthia Mei: I am absolutely on the same page i'm a huge advocate for remote work at fast

Calanthia Mei: Interesting enough before going into the pandemic, we had around  people at the company now we're above  people so  people only know remote for.

Calanthia Mei: Fast because that's the only experience they've had so far and we've made it work.

Calanthia Mei: And how do we make it work we make sure that we have the muscle train for remote work because we had no optionality at the time.

Calanthia Mei: When to make sure that we can build a remote first culture by leveraging team happy hours by making sure that we have effective team meetings and our hands.

Calanthia Mei: We make want to make sure that everyone feels empowered and enabled through proper documentation.

Calanthia Mei: How do we make sure that we have a place for people to go look for all the sales materials park tracks, we have the technology in place, so I don't think remote work is impossible it's a matter of whether you have the muscle to do that to nate's plane.

Nate Narsala: And I would have build on that for a second, let me I like what you said around documentation to empower people.

Nate Narsala: I think oftentimes in an in person, environment, we can make up for a lack of process systems documentation with conversations.

Nate Narsala: We end up having the same conversation to spread information multiple times because people just walk down.

Nate Narsala: tap you on the shoulder be like hey I have this question.

Nate Narsala: When when you go to remote work you have to think in terms of scale and structures and documentation that can work for everybody at once.

Nate Narsala: And so I think in in a way it almost forces it really smart design for how you build something that can really scale just key for for a hydro sales thing.

Calanthia Mei: yeah and i'm probably not a very stereotypical commercial leader in the sense that I actually do not enjoy small talks very much I really cared about efficiency, I think, remote work is pushing us.

Calanthia Mei: into thinking how efficiently, am I using my time if I am to be glued to my computer for like  hours every day does every single minute matter it absolutely does.

Calanthia Mei: So that takes up a lot of inefficiency stay I encounter on a daily basis and force me to focus on things that will return well for myself and my team.

Kaleb Jessee: i'm the same way, I agree with everything you guys just said.

Kaleb Jessee: If it's a question that's going to be asked more than once documented and then nobody ever has to ask that question again and I think with efficiency.

Kaleb Jessee: I think one of like the biggest fears people have and i'll just go out and say it is.

Kaleb Jessee: I think sales leaders are worried, like the people who oppose globalization or real at work in general are worried that not having everyone in the office in one environment that people aren't going to do the job.

Kaleb Jessee: Right, and I think it's like a control issue like i've rarely met people who run sales organizations or in charge of revenue and anything right where they weren't.

Kaleb Jessee: Control focused and wanted to have a say and like oversight on everything.

Kaleb Jessee: And so I think this switch to remote work while it's still moving forward, I think there's a hesitancy from the sales side or the revenue side.

Kaleb Jessee: Because it's like losing that last bit of control in terms of being able to not necessarily micromanage right, but like.

Kaleb Jessee: helicopter in if necessary and guaranteed people are doing it like.

Kaleb Jessee: me if we lived in if we work in the office together like I could see you making your calls right, I can see if you're on your computer playing solitaire back in the day right like I know what you're doing with the time.

Kaleb Jessee: it's, not to say you you aren't doing the right things when you're remote, but I think it's just this mindset that we have to get over in terms of trusting the talent, we hire.

Kaleb Jessee: Right and making sure that.

Kaleb Jessee: we're doing the right vetting process that we're hiring the right culture fits that we're hiring the right people who are motivated to do the job.

Kaleb Jessee: thoughts on that y'all agree, like, I think I think it's a control issue like I really do because i've had that issue myself that i've just had to like get over.

Calanthia Mei: yeah, so I am more of like a results speak for yourself kind of revenue LEADER I would monitor my salesforce reports very frequently and I will be able to see who's hitting quota who's not.

Calanthia Mei: who's doing what what kind of activities are there, I trust the people I trust the process, one thing that would really help is to celebrate wins and is to create competitive.

Calanthia Mei: pressure in the team right when team Member as being bad memory bees achievement is being celebrated in the team slack channel they started to feel a sense of pressure, saying that I need to step up I need to perform I need to hit those activities.

Nate Narsala: So I go at the i'm with you i'm very results oriented like I manage.

Nate Narsala: teams from the bottom.

Nate Narsala: Of the funnel up.

Nate Narsala: Like I look at revenue, then I look at pipeline that I look at conversations and I look at contacts and so i'm only really getting to how many emails dials and so on.

Nate Narsala: At the very top of the funnel if something is going very wrong about funnel but let's say that I am the type of person, where I need to see activity happening like i'm a very activity driven sales leader.

Nate Narsala: I think it's just a kind of a red herring, to start with, that you could walk around your entire sales floor and have a.

Nate Narsala: very accurate understanding of what's actually happening across all sellers in the funnel.

Nate Narsala: Because that's not really a great system to lead a sales operations with data fits anecdotes and kind of perception.

Nate Narsala: So I would still say like even if you are in that office environment, you probably need to change the structure for the team to look at a salesforce a hubspot report anyway.

Nate Narsala: And if you do in fact need to manage by data in the system in the numbers.

Nate Narsala: You don't need to be listening and hearing that activity buzzing around you, you can you can see what is or isn't happening, but that's that's if I am an activity driven later clappy i'm with you results speak for themselves it's great point.

Kaleb Jessee: yep yeah and that's I think i'm in the same boat is, I say to the every rabbit managed for like the past decade of.

Kaleb Jessee: I don't care what you do in your day to day, as long as you get the job done right if you can do  hours of work and three hours of work, and you know play nine holes afterwards I go for it.

Kaleb Jessee: Right, especially in sales, because if you could do it in three hours, and you have uncapped commissions like.

Kaleb Jessee: What could you do in six hours like is that motivating to you and I think, as long as the jobs getting done there's there's no question right, other than well how are you doing it and how do I scale that right like.

Kaleb Jessee: How do I take your success and replicated for everyone else.

Kaleb Jessee: I think that's a good segue of building the reports building the things you need to monitor right the things you care about as a sales leader to this transition we've had in the idea of enabling remote and global work.

Kaleb Jessee: In your guys's experience right what was something you thought was going to be extremely difficult or like.

Kaleb Jessee: i'm not sure this is going to work that actually turned out to be a lot easier than you imagined or the polar opposite of something you thought would be super easy and you're like ah, I didn't think this was going to be a problem.

Kaleb Jessee: Now.

Calanthia Mei: um I this example, probably doesn't fit into either category it's just something that is hard, and it is indeed hard is to manage timezone.

Calanthia Mei: Especially we have TEAM members again across North America, as the and EMEA it's impossible to get the entire team together the UK or some will have to stay till 10 pm.

Calanthia Mei: Australia personal would have to wake up at 6am for everyone to getting to the same meeting, so what i'm i've been trying to do is really to make the entire.

Calanthia Mei: Shared facetime very efficient right we.

Calanthia Mei: reduce it to only 30 minutes for the entire week just to make sure that we're still.

Calanthia Mei: Okay, everyone still doing building the team culture without creating unnecessary meetings on the calendar, because I know people have to sacrifice their personal time to be on those team meeting.

Calanthia Mei: And when we do have a meeting let's make sure that we have a very clear agenda there's a purpose for that meeting.

Calanthia Mei: they're clear full of actions coming out of the meeting, so I will feel like this is not just a social call it is something that they are excited about they're interested in participated in so that's something that I thought it was hard but it indeed it is very hard.

Nate Narsala: So I would build on that in and say the thing that I thought was going to be hard that turned out to be a little easier than expected was building cohesive relationships trust across the team.

Nate Narsala: And what I found is it came down to two things one it was when people get their job done on time and they show up for other people, as you plan.

Nate Narsala: yeah that's one how trust starts to develop and then two more like the softer more social relational side of team culture we just started opening up.

Nate Narsala: kind of a open our without an agenda because so much of remote work comes into this like how do I make sure the next 30 seconds or uber productive and you can take this mindset throughout the entire day.

Nate Narsala: Eventually, when you just give people in an open space where they just get to show up and be themselves and talk with the team without an agenda.

Nate Narsala: I found that that like dichotomy of if it's if you have a team meeting going to get to your point, make sure that the agenda is known and time isn't wasted

Nate Narsala: And then, if you swing it all the way to the other extreme, and every other week so for us it's there's a like kind of mid day to adjust, for the time zone.

Nate Narsala: And people just get to show up and share what's on their mind something that they learned and there's the expectation that this is going to be not it doesn't have to be productive.

Nate Narsala: People loved it and both of those things turned out to be simpler than I thought it would be.

Kaleb Jessee: Nice yeah the time zone thing is definitely a challenge it always will be a challenge.

Kaleb Jessee: But I think if you use screen properly in the interview process and you hire the right people hey it's amazing what gets done while you're sleeping.

Kaleb Jessee: Right and and like empowering the team that you don't have to be there 24/7 right to support them, I remember in one of my last roles, I took over the global markets for our organization and there were a handful of REPS in the UK.

Kaleb Jessee: That we're still relatively new, and so I knew like I had to build trust with him as the sales leader and I wanted to like show my sacrifice right, and then I would be willing to be flexible, to assist right instead of asking them to stay on late.

Kaleb Jessee: In their day they had families right they had a personal life and I don't want to be that that type of sales LEADER I actually put an mattress in my office here.

Kaleb Jessee: And I woke up early in the mornings three o'clock four o'clock in the morning to join sales calls with them right, and to do training.

Kaleb Jessee: during their working hours, when they had time to do it, to make sure that, like they knew I was invested in them right and that I would take the same sacrifice as a leader.

Kaleb Jessee: So that way if there was a day, where I said hey I i'm sorry I need you on a team meeting that's really important at eight o'clock at night right or nine o'clock at night, your time right it's not a one way street of they're always the ones they have to sacrifice.

Kaleb Jessee: It was super successful.

Kaleb Jessee: But yeah it's definitely a challenge.

Kaleb Jessee: I think the bigger challenge is the next level of not just as like a.

Kaleb Jessee: Individual contributor manager running multiple time zones right, but if you go to the top of like a VP of sales head of sales CRM.

Kaleb Jessee: And then you hire leadership in other time zones right that same challenge, I think, is then probably even higher of like a stakes game that you play, because there are decisions being made coaching happening right like still management it's just adding another tier to it.

Kaleb Jessee: which I think is definitely still a challenge moving forward.

Calanthia Mei: I actually like that kind of structure and that's what i'm doing right now, so I have regional kind of partnership for the three regions, I just mentioned.

Calanthia Mei: And they'll coach individual contributors on their team, because I frankly don't really have the time to do so Nora my time so appropriate to to die.

Calanthia Mei: I think them being able to have senior presence in the region coach them take them to partner meetings for client meetings is really helpful and takes a lot of day to day off my shoulder all matters is really.

Calanthia Mei: hire the best people that you think is best for your team and for your culture, which is always the most difficult part of course.

Nate Narsala: yeah no i'll address for the customers to like it's it's incredibly helpful when the time zones line up between sales team and customer.

Nate Narsala: Because if if you're working with somebody let's say they're in Germany, and you also have somebody who's on Central European time and they're meeting at 10am.

Nate Narsala: You know, for the German prospect that's huge instead of saying hey can you stay up into your dinner hour I mean it is a much larger asked to ask somebody in the pipeline to adjust their schedule to yours.

Nate Narsala: Instead of kind of vice versa, and typically that's the way it ends up working is that the sales REP is asking the prospects to adjust their schedule way way bigger deal than asking a colleague who you're working with.

Nate Narsala: So that's kind of the bent on time zones for me is like what's what's right for that the customer.

Calanthia Mei: yeah and a lot of prospects would feel a sense of cultural affinity towards people who are in their time zone where even in the same country or region right.

Calanthia Mei: They want to hear the accents from every region they want to hear the cultural affiliations, they want to know the same small community that they have on the ground there, so all of that critical to customers.

Kaleb Jessee: Agreed agreed, and I think that was a great segue into the next question is skill sets equal right assuming that this person was the exact same right in terms of what they could deliver.

Kaleb Jessee: Is there a difference in performance of having someone in this example let's say someone based in the US selling into a media right versus someone in a media selling into a MIA like Where are you going to place your bet in terms of all things being equal, who's going to be more successful.

Calanthia Mei: % closer closer to the customer journey from my experience, I think, although i'm like a lot of work and business has been done remotely nowadays, if you can still take the client out to lunch that will make a huge difference, really.

Kaleb Jessee: hey.

Nate Narsala: I agree, I mean I would answer the same way if the question where who's going to be most successful selling to law firms or selling to healthcare companies.

Nate Narsala: Somebody who's worked in a law firm or somebody who's worked in a healthcare company there's just this element of oh you're like me and it shortcuts the relationship building process, so a MIA MIA is my answer for sure.

Kaleb Jessee: So the next level to, that is, as you think about doing that right, and then build a competitive advantages as to how you go to market.

Kaleb Jessee: Right assuming like this is a B2B SAS play or in Colombia, your example, like the selling into E commerce for companies are global and massive and people are everywhere right.

Kaleb Jessee: When you're looking at hiring globally, is it easier to recruit talent, when you only need to hire a handful of people in a geography or when.

Kaleb Jessee: You need to hire everyone in one country like have you experienced a better talent pool an easier time finding talent, not that it's easy don't get me wrong it's probably never going to be easy to find the people you want right like.

Kaleb Jessee: On the surface, is it easier when there aren't borders right to where you can or cannot hire.

Nate Narsala: So I think it can be the reason why it's not an outright yeah so.

Nate Narsala: kind of mentioned, I mean at the most basic level, if you think about just the pool I mean it lightens the more global you go.

Nate Narsala: Right so it's just basic math there are more talented people available, however, I think when you're looking at kind of a regional or even like a hyper local.

Nate Narsala: Stage you begin to like have knowledge of where there are pockets of people hanging out.

Nate Narsala: Where you begin to develop relationships, who are referring candidates to you because it's not always a totally unknown cold sourcing process process that you're going through.

Nate Narsala: And that's where you got to kind of balance and maybe be strategic about a select set of different regions that you want to begin to develop some depth then.

Nate Narsala: Because that's when recruiting works, a little easier and faster, so you know numbers, it is a bit of a numbers a bigger pool but be strategic about where you focus.

Calanthia Mei: yeah most of my team really came from referral on the secret to building a really high quality team is really have talent bring on talent will would want to see people that their respect in the industry joining this new company so first of all.

Calanthia Mei: Putting a few bands really hiring a few well respected experienced talented people in the Community and have them be a recruiter, so to speak, in the market, I felt like that has been the most effective way for me personally.

Kaleb Jessee: I would agree.

Kaleb Jessee: I think narrowing the focus is important, I think one of the things i've experienced.

Kaleb Jessee: Specifically here at panther is when you literally have the superpower to hire anywhere anytime and it isn't any different than hiring in your home country with like subsidiaries bank account so on and so forth.

Kaleb Jessee: Is the wider the talent pool the more applicants, you get right, and with that it's making sure that you have the proper screens right, you have the proper things to where you're not wasting time like.

Kaleb Jessee: muddling through a ton of people who want to work with you, but can really focus in on the areas you need the skill sets you need and essentially give you the the right list of candidates right faster.

Kaleb Jessee: Because it could slow the process down like there's definitely an argument that could be made that recruiting could be harder, because I have more to sort through now, which is a double edged sword for sure.

Kaleb Jessee: curious in.

Kaleb Jessee: Your remote environment in the the way in which you're building and thinking about moving forward, I want to pivot to tech stack.

Kaleb Jessee: Right, specifically, I want to talk about the tools that you're using today or need to be using are like tips of the trade that.

Kaleb Jessee: Really enable you as a leader right to make sure that your teams have what they need, and you can help them go to market fast and efficiently in a remote world.

Kaleb Jessee: I i'll happily kick this off for this i'll give my first example so for my team, the tech stack is massive in comparison to I think other organizations at our size.

Kaleb Jessee: So we use Apollo today as our outreach and database tool for sales so it's like a great combination of like what you get from the zoom info in and outreach all in one it's fantastic and allows us to do a lot of hyper personalization from a sales REP to prospect right.

Kaleb Jessee: On top of that we're using linkedin sales navigator which I think is very important as.

Kaleb Jessee: linkedin seems to be specifically like when you're looking at personas the best data source of live data that everyone's going to be scraping from so social selling connecting adding value on there, I think is very important.

Kaleb Jessee: And then we have salesforce running in the background, it is the system of truth, no sales REP will ever tell you my favorite tool is salesforce.

Kaleb Jessee: So my tech stack is being built with the idea of keeping my REPS out of salesforce as much as possible, so we layer Dooley on top of salesforce today and, soon to be fluid neat in terms of documentation in sinking data back into salesforce from note taking.

Kaleb Jessee: I think, between those tools in terms of like the day to day it's very easy for me to monitor what the team is doing, how they're doing and give pulse checks.

Kaleb Jessee: And then for coaching and development we have gone, which I think is like he you can Gong is fantastic.

Kaleb Jessee: Anything but allows you to record and document in coach calls, as you think about managing time zones and remote work I would highly encourage so that's our tech stack Am I missing anything in my tech stack what are your what are yours looks like.

Nate Narsala: So pretty similar.

Nate Narsala: We use Apollo linkedin sales now so on a couple of other tools that we find i'm pretty helpful so bloom is a helpful one to go back and forth and kind of quick videos if you need to kind of show something visually we use that across the team.

Nate Narsala: We use notion for team documentation so getting that process down in place and so playbooks and onboarding we run that at a notion, and then we we run one on ones, and like team activities out of miro it's a kind of a collaborative whiteboarding.

Nate Narsala: So that's where like I have a board setup for every report in we run our one on ones that way, so those are the other ones that we throw in there.

Calanthia Mei: yeah so we have gone through a journey when it comes to text I when we first started it was pre a slim text I flag zoom notion G drive your usual.

Calanthia Mei: And now we have gone explosive we added so many things now we're in the process of actually trimming them down because a lot of them have no utilization to be on us.

Calanthia Mei: We are paying.

Calanthia Mei: Not small amount of fees for them so currently we're in the process of actually figuring out which tools are most used by the team, what are actually helpful to the team.

Kaleb Jessee: yeah and I everything you mentioned nate we use as well.

Kaleb Jessee: I should say that loom is fantastic and that's our internal tool for communication and quick snippets of like building culture and making certain like an asynchronous environment that.

Kaleb Jessee: You don't have to meet with people to have a meeting for meeting sake we're slowly exploring using loom in prospecting today right and giving some personalization in videos and things like that so.

Kaleb Jessee: For sure helpful.

Kaleb Jessee: So here's the the million dollar question right, maybe, maybe I give context to it first.

Kaleb Jessee: In the grand scheme of things when you're running an organization there's a very different shelf life.

Kaleb Jessee: For people outside of revenue right like it is not a widely kept secret that sales leaders and managers and people in sales have the shortest shelf life

Kaleb Jessee: Whether it's them leaving on their own duty culture or better opportunities right but that's not what i'm referencing.

Kaleb Jessee: it's they live on their own accord, because of lack of results right, I think the snake, the average tenure of a VP of sales today is less than 18 months right absolutely astonishing right then it's that low so.

Kaleb Jessee: In terms of all of the VP of sales or heads of sales or aspiring sales leaders of the future that are listening in live now or listen to this recording later right.

Kaleb Jessee: I guess my question for you guys is at what point do you fight to go global when no one else wants to listen to you.

Kaleb Jessee: Right like I think we've made it clear today that competitive advantage exists right when you can have local presence in the market that you want to service and the product can support.

Kaleb Jessee: Right so as a sales leader like I can't I couldn't imagine a world where I said hey we're trying to sell into the UK, today we have a handful of clients they're extremely successful there's a massive market for us there, I want to hire sales REPS abroad and get told no.

Kaleb Jessee: Right so like what level of fight should individuals put forth of why we should go global if no one else is supporting you in the organization, because the underlying issue is like if we don't grow fast right, and if we don't grow faster than the expectation like.

Kaleb Jessee: we're not going to survive.

Nate Narsala: So i'll kick off on this one and i'll go back to.

Nate Narsala: A point my career, where the startup that I co founded was acquired by a company that was based in Washington DC and we are in the process of moving our team out there.

Nate Narsala: And my role within the company after the first six seven months I was going to be building the company's first ever enterprise sales team.

Nate Narsala: And, along with an enterprise operation, there are a lot of different needs that affect other areas of the business and enterprise customer needs to be serviced differently, the product needs to be developed in a new way.

Nate Narsala: it's a whole different persona with a different kind of marketing do you can't just take the same SMB product and then slap it on to an enterprise account with an enterprise price tag.

Nate Narsala: And I, I firmly believe that if we could be hiring more strategically based on region where our customers were we were going to be more effective, we would develop more revenue.

Nate Narsala: But, at the time, everybody else was in the office 100% of the staff was in the office in Washington DC so I had to undertake that that battle.

Nate Narsala: And the way I would describe it is, it was a five month long effort that was very slow going with our CEO if you try to come out the gate saying i'm making our next higher in London next week it's not going to go super well.

Nate Narsala: And so what I had to do is over time by letting the sales cycle for those first enterprise customers play out using the customer feedback.

Nate Narsala: asking them and showing them data on the sales cycle and then going back to our CEO and saying hey remember that idea that like we just talked about in passing.

Nate Narsala: here's what i'm finding, I think we could actually compress some of the sales cycle if we have local people who know the culture.

Nate Narsala: You know what do you think and then over time, is that was layered on with more messaging around a.

Nate Narsala: me and our VP of success or VP of product like we're working super well together, we have a track record there's trust, here we don't need to be in the office with each other.

Nate Narsala: Over time, I begin to kind of chip away and get the guard down, and so we did we the entire team was remote everybody else was in the office.

Nate Narsala: The enterprise team was all remote and it worked so that was that was kind of the two things well three things for me.

Nate Narsala: it's going to be a slow battle just be ready for it number to focus on the differences with data and how operations are actually working today and then three show that there's already structures and trust and systems in place with other people outside of just that direct sales team.

Calanthia Mei: yeah so I my part I think it's all about cost benefit analysis re nate was mostly sharing the benefits part and i'll probably touch on the cost part.

Calanthia Mei: What does it take to hire that person overseas, perhaps in London, perhaps in a different market with tools like panther and I promise Kaleb do not force me to say this.

Calanthia Mei: The cost party reducing significantly and if the rest of the company is already using tools like notion slide.

Calanthia Mei: Google drive what nine the additional the marginal costs to adding this headcount may not be as significant as one might think.

Calanthia Mei: Then we balance that out with an outsize amount of benefit brought on by this headcount I think that's how I justify every single international fire I wouldn't make.

Kaleb Jessee: yep I would agree with you and i'm in the same position of when I would think about that it's building the business case for it right.

Kaleb Jessee: You can have people in the US work UK hours i've done that, before right as just a sales REP it's fun for a few months you burn out real quick.

Kaleb Jessee: So, like thinking about turnover of asking people to always go above and beyond.

Kaleb Jessee: write something you included it's much cheaper just been maybe a little bit more upfront to hire someone globally than it is to have to replace someone month over month it's churning because they're just burnt out.

Kaleb Jessee: And then I think like for everyone else out there listening and listening into the recording.

Kaleb Jessee: Speed delete right there's a ton of data out there in terms of the person that responds First is the person that controls that conversation.

Kaleb Jessee: Right, especially in a world where your competitors are global right or they have a presence in a faster time zone, then you.

Kaleb Jessee: Like you get a DEMO request that comes in at four o'clock in the morning Eastern time.

Kaleb Jessee: If you're all West Coast based you're not going to get to that until a conversation is probably already happened with at least one other vendor at that prospects now.

Kaleb Jessee: Right, so I think having the speed to lead having someone in the local economy, having someone that will build a faster relationship and like clint the you said earlier, could take them out to lunch eventually.

Kaleb Jessee: right will make the difference, and I think all you have to do is put the data together right, and I would be unavailable and saying if they still rejected at that point, like.

Kaleb Jessee: I probably looked for a place that once the higher globally right because your shelf life is so short in terms like even meet your your experience of building it for five months like that could be 33% of your tenure.

Kaleb Jessee: Right to where if it's not successful, right after that, five months, like the time trade off of what you did to build that business case, what if you to use that domestically at that point instead right like you may be behind the eight ball, if they do say no.

Kaleb Jessee: i'm also here for guidance about you anybody ever listening in need some help or wants to build a business case like i'm happy to vet ideas with you and assist in any way I can.

Kaleb Jessee: So I know we're getting close to time here and I want to be respectful of your guys's time I have one simple very last question for you.

Kaleb Jessee: Which is if your current organization in eight this isn't fair if you're a CEO but, if your current organization said hey.

Kaleb Jessee: Just kidding on everything we've done over the past few years we're going to be all domestic and all back in the office or at least all back in the office as a baseline what's your response to that.

Calanthia Mei: I don't think it's I don't think it's possible in the first place again because we have already hired % of our employees distributed unless you want to replacing hard.

Calanthia Mei: roster of the company, I don't think is possible at all and, frankly, when you're building a startup it's already very hard to hire experienced talent, you need to find tell them where they are right.

Calanthia Mei: For instance, if someone wants to live in Denver, instead of San Francisco you should not say now, if that person lives in Denver.

Nate Narsala: I would not be a very good sales practitioner if I didn't answer that with oh that's interesting tell me more about that, why do you feel that way.

Nate Narsala: And then try to understand it for different people, it may be rooted in a really horrible experience trying to make one global remote higher and it didn't work very well, but it's the sample size of one.

Nate Narsala: So I think my first response would be to try to figure out like where's that coming from, especially now, when you when you hear that, in a post coven world.

Nate Narsala: There is typically going to be a specific reason for right, and then I would try to look for like any level of open.

Nate Narsala: Like maybe that one higher didn't work out, but I have seen it be very successful under these conditions, and I would set up the structure.

Nate Narsala: At our organization is that something that you would be willing to give me the freedom to explore and to your point, I think that the earlier, you can have that conversation and the process, the better to figure out if there's going to be a good fit.

Kaleb Jessee: awesome well, I really appreciate your time today and joining us historic moment for panther having our first ever webinar.

Kaleb Jessee: Definitely won't be our last for everyone attending thanks for attending today, we will make the recording available for all those who couldn't attend and registered me clan thea really, really appreciate it wish all the best and feel ever need anything you know where to find me.

Calanthia Mei: Thank you so much for being here great to be as part of this historic moment, and many more to come in the future.

Nate Narsala: Likewise, thanks.

Kaleb Jessee: Thanks, thanks to the team.

Calanthia Mei: Thanks everyone take care.