Battle Scars of a SaaS Leader
Understanding the stories of resilience, strategy, and leadership is essential for success in the competitive sales world.
James will uncover the raw and unfiltered real-life experiences of sales Leaders, exploring the ups and downs and lessons learned in the high-pressure sales world.
Battle Scars of a SaaS Leader
Why Resilience Beats Paper Perfect CVs in Hiring With Adam Frank
Adam shares what relocating to the UK to launch Squiz taught about first‑principles GTM, why partnerships beat cold starts, and how revenue flipped once distribution clicked.
He breaks down his whiteboard interview test, the red flags he screens for, and why resilience, values alignment, and coachability trump paper‑perfect CVs.
Now at SugarCRM, he explains why he hires builders over big‑brand sellers, how GTM can shape product, and the role networks play in attracting top talent and sustaining culture.
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Host & Guest
➡︎ James Bergl (The Gentle Giant)
➡︎ Adam Frank
Videographers/Editors: Romain Pondard/Klippable
➡︎ https://www.linkedin.com/in/romain-pondard
➡︎ https://www.klippable.com/
Lesson number one. Your references from Australia don't count for anything when you move. So I was the BDR, I was the AE, had to pay my own way, you had to learn and do a lot of stuff from the ground up. I realized that if I was to have success here, I need other people to bring us into the room. That's what made all the difference. And suddenly, our revenue, which was heading downwards, started flattening, and then it's directed.
SPEAKER_01:From leading teams across the globe to redefining customer experience in the Asia Pacific, he's the powerhouse behind Sugar CRM's growth.
SPEAKER_00:An AI-driven strategist, a builder of lasting customer success.
SPEAKER_01:And a leader who makes the hard things look easy. This is Adam Frank.
SPEAKER_03:I've openly said to some candidates who are perfect in paper, they said, look, honestly, I think what's driving you is not actually the way this business is going. And at that 12 to 18 month mark, you will probably churn. I've often said to them, you know, if I can find your why and understand that you're on a path going this way, if I can find alignment between what's driving you and what's driving us, then we will make magic together.
SPEAKER_02:How do you balance getting the most out of both sales and technical people?
SPEAKER_03:That is really hard. I'm gonna start with that point. And I would say that today.
SPEAKER_02:Look, Adam, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. We we first met um probably six, eight weeks ago at a pavilion event. Yes. And uh I I didn't know, I hadn't met you before, didn't know where you were working, etc., but I actually just loved your energy straight away. You just had this really positive energy, and then we connected afterwards. So really excited to hear your journey because you've got a really, really interesting one of moving from tech as software development to solution consulting into into go-to-market leadership. And that's that's a an amazing journey, which I'm excited to drill into today. Uh I wanted to kick things off by um uh jumping into that piece of going from solution consulting leadership into go-to-market leadership. Um, that's a that's a a big move. What what was the the biggest um unexpected change that you faced in going from sort of technical leadership to full GTM leadership?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, first of all, thanks so much, James, for having me on the show. Really appreciate it. And um really enjoyed some of the guests that you've had on here before. So, you know, thank you. Fantastic content to kind of learn from and appreciate that. Uh when I think about the transition from you know being an SC leader formerly into a GTM leader more generally, I think one of the things that can be can be hidden in someone's background is that I did have a lot of opportunities to run GTM plays well before I got into that role. So uh I work for a US space SaaS vendor now, but prior to that I did work for an Australian software company. And I had a fantastic opportunity uh where they allowed me to actually relocate to the UK. So I worked out there for three years as being person number one on the ground, trying to build something out of nothing. And you know, lesson number one your references from Australia don't count for anything when you move. So I was the BDR, I was the AE, you know, I had to pay my own way. You had to learn and do a lot of stuff from the ground up. And three years of that teaches you a lot. So while once I joined my current employer as an SC leader, I did feel like I'd kind of had a good sort of, you know, as you call like the battle scars experience of like, what's it like to carry your own bag and to to try and do it all?
SPEAKER_02:And it's a big move, and it's a brave move to try anything new. Um, so you know, even going back to that company, which one was that? That was squiz. That was squiz. So you you went out to the UK. Was there something in your mind that had changed um where you said, I like, I want to take on this kind of, I think, quite a daunting task, go to a new country and do something that is very different in terms of what your experience had demonstrated success in?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, look, I think that's the uh the ambitious, hungry person that lives inside many of us. So I had just gone on a holiday out to Europe for the first time with my wife and kind of just realized that there's so much opportunity out there, you know. Like I think for those of us who've lived and worked in Australia, which had been most of my life, you kind of forget that we're actually quite small just in the Australian market, and there's so much that's out there. And uh it really made me think like, there's so much that you can achieve, so much that you could do. And it just made me want to think, you know what? We have no children. Now's the time to experiment. Now's the time to have have a go and see what works. And if we fail, so be it. We'll come home with a bag full of stories at worst case. And I think there was just that feeling of, I want to see if I can do this, you know. I really want to know, can I actually be successful? Because even the roles I'd had prior to that, a lot of it was being that bridge between technology and the business, you know, like subtly what is pre-sales, right? Like that bridge between those places. So I felt like I understood it, but having not actually been directly responsible, you often questioned, can I actually do it? And this was the chance to find out.
SPEAKER_02:And when you reflect back on that time in the UK, is there anything that stood out as as a lesson or going like this is harder or different than I expected?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, there were definitely a lot of lessons. Uh, I think the the starting point was certainly that realization of, you know, even though I had relocated within a company, it didn't matter because my brand had no recognition in a new market, you know, and the the customers that I'd worked with previously had no mention or already. You would squeeze in Australia first. Okay, that's right.
SPEAKER_02:So I you you would went out to the UK to set them up and launch them there.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Well, I was launching their uh a CRM and marketing automation practice, in fact. So something which they didn't have a lot of experience with at the time, but certainly was an opportunity for them to explore, and they were willing to take a gamble on me, which I I greatly appreciate as well. But I think in those early sort of periods, a lot of it was just realizing that the playbooks that I'd run in Australia were not going to work. A lot of this was going to come down to hard work, um, but also an understanding where was the opportunity. So, you know, I am a because I'm technical, I like the idea of breaking a big problem down to small pieces. You know, I'm a first principles thinker, so you kind of think, all right, well, where are the people who buy stuff? You know, where do they go? How do they hear about us? And for me, it meant uh aligning myself with some vendors that I knew could give me access to distribution. And I just thought, if I can be that trusted, safe pair of hands for them, they're more likely to send leads my way. So my initial efforts at, you know, how do you actually create demand? It wasn't me trying to, well, I tried waving the flag of my brand. It didn't get too far. You know, tried going to meetings and saying, Nink redo, how do you hear about this? And none of that went down too well. But once I found people who who could give me the connections, and that's what made all the difference. And suddenly our revenue, which was heading downwards, started flattening, and then it skyrocketed. And what was meant to originally be a 10-month relocation became nearly three years.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, brilliant. And yeah, you were the first person out there. Um, what did the team building process look like whilst you were out there? And how did you think about like what resources you needed to pull in according to the requirements you had?
SPEAKER_03:So the number one thing I was thinking about at the time was I need to be able to replace my role. So every person that I met, I looked at through the lens of can you do what I do? Or can you do what I do when you're supported with other people who are there locally? And it creates an incredible pressure because trying to find people that are like yourself isn't actually the best way to build a team. You know, and I'm sure you probably appreciate this as well. You normally look for complementary skills as opposed to replacement skills, but that created a unique challenge for me. Uh, my first hire there, uh absolutely amazing talent. She was a couple of years out of Accenture. And I've always had this view. People who've done a couple of years of hard work in an environment like that, two years at Accenture felt like 10 years out in the real world. And was a fantastic first hire because she was actually someone I looked at and thought, with the right coaching and mentoring, you can actually replace me.
SPEAKER_02:And replacing you was as the regional leader for Squiz in the UK, that was what you were thinking of. So I want to build build this, hand it over, and then be able to migrate back.
SPEAKER_03:So if my goal was to come out and to build this CRM and marketing sort of practice, my mindset was I needed to be able to leave here and know that there was a practice leader who could continue growth of the market, growth of business development, and most importantly, build successful customer outcomes. Because, you know, the role when you're when you're person number one is not obviously just sales, it's not just marketing. You're responsible for delivery as well. So I would sell the thing and then need to be hands-on in the client workshops, trying to deliver it. And you know, when you're a team of one, you quickly realize doing that means that you're not trying to bring in the next customer either.
SPEAKER_02:So was Squiz a you talk about a the delivery practice, consulting practice, was it its own SaaS platform as well? So it was a CRM platform that you would then implement. So yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So Squiz had its own technology that was more in the website side of things to begin with. And you know, like many technology companies, they'd sort of transitioned from being an on-premise product to a SaaS product. So they'd gone through a significant amount of business change and they'd looked at what were the complementary technologies that support it. You know, when you look at go to market, particularly for web, you look at what is the Martech stack that sits around it. And my particular specialization, being in Martech and in CRM, was perceived as, oh, this is a way for us getting access to new customers that we can sell bigger and better websites and portals and intranets to as well. So it was very much a product that sat alongside their core offering with an intention of this will give us access to more markets.
SPEAKER_02:And from a sales go-to-market motion, was it sounds like you went through a more of a partnerships lens to start with? Did you build out a direct sales team as well, or was it very much the just you know partnerships first?
SPEAKER_03:Really good question. So I had a go at this. Yeah. And you know, when we think about things that you try that don't work, uh, I did try building a direct sales team as well. Uh, truth be told, it didn't actually work out. You know, I think possibly because, you know, trying to build people who are specialists in particular products in that environment couldn't quite find the right place as far as product market fit was concerned, couldn't quite find the right level of brand recognition. I realized that if I was to have success here, I need other people to bring us into the room. If I was going to rely upon my own company, I needed to look less at people who specialized in our space and more other salespeople, right? So the folks that who are already within the Squiz group and were selling other pieces of technology, how could I enable them to be excited about the same products that I was working on? So it did take a couple goes to sort of find the right balance. And thankfully, by the time I left, one of the most successful reps in the business was someone who was conversant across all technology. And I realized that the investment that you make into enabling these other sellers to sort of understand how does your product, your line of business, fit into what they already know and what they're already familiar with. That was the key to success in that particular environment.
SPEAKER_02:It's interesting talking about partnerships. And this was eight, ten years ago for yourself. And partnerships in channel isn't new at all. But I feel that in today's world, it's it's more important than it it ever has been. I almost feel like that yeah, where you potentially a first mover in go to market, like really focusing on that. But but yeah, the concept of channel partnerships, ecosystem is really important. I think particularly for professional service type firms, people buy based on relationship and referrals. Um, so I guess you figured that out like sooner rather than later, which was yeah, because was was was I guess but you know contributed to to your success as well. Um what were some of the other uh skill sets that you you built and and how did you again you you had your the first person out of Accenture um that you hired, what were some of the other um capabilities that you looked to build?
SPEAKER_03:So for me, a lot of what I think is in success comes back to your your resilience, your ambition, you know, how do you actually feel about the concept of hard work? And oddly enough, this is not technical, this is not even pure sales skills or anything like that. So I was hiring people in their mid-20s who had done maybe one job out of uni and were trying to grow. Because my view was if I find people at that point and they show that they're coachable, I can mold them whichever direction that we kind of need to go. So, particularly when you're when you're that small, everyone is both a mini BDR, they have to be a mini account exec, they're doing a little bit of customer success, they're obviously doing delivery as well. So it's like you're hiring, or at least trying to hire, people who are supporting you in the sales front while also supporting you in delivery. And there's no real one size fits all there. So all I could do was look for people who I felt had the potential or the talent that was inside them. And that was it was honestly the very challenging experience trying to find people like that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I want to double-click on that piece in particular because it sounds like that was your indexing criteria on those characteristics. Uh I think I picked up there, the hard work, the the drive. What are some of the other things that you indexed on then? And and I guess if we brought them fast forward to today, has anything evolved on that that journey over your leadership?
SPEAKER_03:It's an excellent question there. When I when I think about what was it that I was focused on in terms of of skills, if I could give you an uncomfortable situation during that interview process, it showed me so much about what you would be like in front of a customer. So the question that my candidates, later colleagues, grew to hate was the one that I'd asked them. I'd say, is it okay if I put you on the spot? And there is no way you can answer that question, you know, fairly, because by definition, I have put you on the spot just by asking you this. And we ran our interviews in a nice boardroom. There was a whiteboard. I would have found something in their resume which told me something which they understood at a complex level. You know, I had mechanical engineers, I hired people from chemistry backgrounds. So I would say, hey, I saw that you wrote a paper on Blah. Here's a whiteboard marker. I don't know anything about this. Explain it to me. Talk me through it. And the way that someone could visualize the concept, break it down, you know, how they articulated it on a whiteboard tells you so much about how their brain works, how they structure things. The people I really appreciated were the ones who would take the whiteboard marker and they would sit down, sort of give themselves good five, 10 seconds to collect their thoughts, you know, and it was often a very quick qualification test to see the person who runs straight up and starts drawing, it's like, are you just a little bit too excited? You know, is this what you're gonna be like in front of a customer? Because truth be told, we need people who are thoughtful. We need people who are considerate and our good listeners first. So yeah, it was one of the things I actually used to always enjoy doing. Yeah, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_02:And uh, I'm not sure the percentage, but part of what you're evaluating is their approach to it, and then part, potentially even the minority, is actually the delivery.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So there's there's so many different proxies that come out of that experience that it would quickly tell me, are you gonna be a good fit for this environment? Because if I know that I'm trying to assess for things like resilience and staying on your toes, and are you gonna do the work? How you show up in those environments is gonna tell me, will you be able to keep pushing? You know, when when the going gets tough, do you have what's necessary that's inside to get you there?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, what you were looking for is you know, for many I would describe as a unicorn, someone that can be a BDR salesperson and do delivery as well. I mean, that's a that's a 360 business in all in one person. How often did you find candidates that were were strong at both? And and was did you find that one was more important than the other, or did you potentially go for some that were stronger on the biz dev side and then some that were stronger on the delivery side?
SPEAKER_03:So if I think about the success cases, I did end up finding three people who became the nucleus of our team. Yeah. And then from there forward, we started then building a little bit more specialization. Because I think that that initial starting point, you needed to kind of hold out for the unicorns. And again, because I was hiring at the younger age brackets, I could afford to kind of meet a lot of people to try and find who are the few that kind of step up above and beyond, you know, and when they stand out, they really leave a mark on you. And like you made the comment, you asked a question earlier, you know, what have I learned from there that affects me to today? That first hire that I mentioned from Accenture, I still use one of her presentations as uh almost like a yardstick for people that I interview today. Because I think to myself, if you could prepare like this for a presentation 10 years ago before we had ChatGPT to sort of do a lot of heavy lifting, what more can I expect out of talent today? Because just the same as you know, technology enables us to move further and faster, as a hiring manager, my expectations have gone up on every single person I meet as a result.
SPEAKER_02:When you're interviewing someone today, and I love that example of getting them to use the whiteboard, but is there anything that will is an immediate red flag when you're interviewing someone? They just they lose it straight away by doing something or saying something?
SPEAKER_03:There's probably a few things that kind of stand out in the first couple minutes. Unfortunately, for better or worse, I do care about punctuality. So if someone shows up late, I am instantly asking myself the question, will you show up late to a customer meeting? You know, I keep thinking an interview is like a pitch. You are pitching the best product ever yourself. So you'd never show up late to a customer pitch. Why would you show up late to an interview? I think that in that first couple minutes, particularly today, in the modern era, sellers should be viewing themselves and their prospective customers on an even basis. So there's a certain kind of integrity they need to have, a certain degree of respect they need to have for both the prospect and themselves, which sets up the whole power dynamic. When a seller comes in as a supplicant, you know, it it shifts the power dynamic. And you can see this in the interview. If someone's applying to hit an account executive role, I don't want them to come in and then just sort of meekly wait for questions. I want them to engage me as they would if I am the buyer, which means that they need to have some authority in the room. They need to recognize that this is a conversation of peers. Both parties are evaluating each other. Now we do this in a sales cycle, right? Like we recognize that the seller is qualifying the buyer just as the buyer is qualifying the seller. Same is true in an interview process. You know, I think when you're trying to find good GTM operators today, you have to recognize that if they're not willing to actually do that with you in the hiring process, it sets a tone for what are they going to be like in the sales process. And I can usually pick up on that really early in the conversation just by are they actually asking questions? And if the first 10 minutes has been all one way, I already know, all right, this is going to be an interesting dynamic when I'm expecting you to lead a customer because you're not showing me that you can lead me.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, but I like that a lot. And it's again, it's a bit like the whiteboard scenario. What you say is is not necessarily you could say what you say could be wrong, but it's how do you approach it, how do you handle the particular situation? Um yeah, no, that's true. And I think I think people do uh do get confused in that. Well, one of the things that I've um I've noticed in our journey here with Bluebird, um, and I've like yourself in done a lot of sales hiring over the years. We we work with some smaller startups, scale up, yeah, yeah, maybe seed or series A companies, yeah. The side say startup on the way to scale up. Um, and a lot of people are looking for someone that's been in a similar sort of scrappy environment. They've done something similar, they've got those kind of entrepreneurial traits, they've got that drive, they're a bit bit of a risk taker in places, um, self-starter, you know, all of those sort of acronyms. But the so something that I've I've I've come back to is the importance of cultural fit for the type of business that you are. And the the next click on cultural fit, what I'm beginning to to really believe is important, and I'd love to get your your perspective on this, but is an alignment in the value system of like how does the organise, what's the the DNA of the organization and like what is important from a values perspective, and making sure that you get someone in that is aligned with your core values. Um and and I think a lot of companies, from my experience in in today's world, they index too heavily on like paper perfect candidates. So it's it paper perfect doesn't talk to values necessarily, or or it's it's it's on paper, it's not in in real life. Well what what's your your thoughts on that topic and and how do you look at um you know what you were looking to bring into your sales team at say sugar CRM?
SPEAKER_03:It's a really good question. And in thinking about alignment of values, it actually brings me back to like what drives me personally. For my whole life, I've always wanted to help other people realize the best in themselves. And that drove me through school, it drove me through all of my working environments. Uh I was a people manager at the age of like 21, far too early, but it's because I wanted to make a difference in the people around me. And what I realized quite early is that as a people manager, you need to understand what drives the people you're working with. So early in an interview process, I am seeking to understand what is someone's inner drive based on. What is their actual core motivator? And coaching that conversation out and trying to get to, you know, what's the reason behind the reason on that, just as we do in discovery and sales, is one of the most critical things from my perspective. And I've often said to them, you know, if I can find your why and understand that you're on a path going this way, if I can find alignment between what's driving you and what's driving us, then we will make magic together. And it's I've openly said to some candidates who are perfect on paper, just said, look, honestly, I think what's driving you is not actually the way this business is going. And you will probably make money here over the next six to 12 months because I can see you're a self-starter, you've worked in environments like ours before. But I actually think genuinely you're more suited for a role like this. And at that 12 to 18 month mark, you will probably churn. And I'll help you churn because we will both mutually recognize that. But let's call it out now and acknowledge that we can already see that you know, our paths are diverging. And it's it's far too expensive to replace a rep in that kind of time frame, right? So I would rather acknowledge that and have a mature conversation about it earlier on. And in fact, there's there's good people in my network who I've met who I've told them I'd make an offer to you if we had stronger alignment on these areas. You know, like to me, that just becomes such a critical point there uh to try and flush out early.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. This is really, really interesting because so many people fail at this. And you've articulated that better than I've ever heard anyone. Um and I've heard many um hiring managers get to the end and go, I just couldn't understand their why. It's a no. We're not gonna move forward. So I want to come back. Uh if you could share um again, if if you if you're able to to articulate it, what is your why or say sugar CRM's why, and and what are some of the the things that that you're looking for from a uh I guess I'll call it a partnership in terms of a salesperson, and and what is it that you believe would be compatible in terms of what someone else would be looking or what they would be looking for?
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely. So when thinking about the the union of all those different whys, um, and I've I've touched a few of my my own personal ones between um wanting to see the best in the people around me and obviously that sense of can I do it? You know, that sense of I want to stretch out and reach out and challenge myself to learn new things, even if I'm not ready for it. I'd rather give it a go and potentially fail. That's drawn me to a series of small businesses early in my career. You know, so I got to do the scrappy pull up your sleeves kind of things for a lot of my career. Today, when I'm out there hiring, I have that same mindset. So I work for a company called Sugar CRM. We have the largest SaaS companies in the world in our product category. You know, people who come out of those environments are typically not suited for us. You know, it's like if you've got a big name brand, if you've come out of an Oracle, an IBM, uh, you're not, you're probably not going to be successful at Sugar CRM because you may not realize how much support you get from the brands that you've sold with. And I've seen those types of sellers burn out and fail in my business. So when I'm looking for people, I'm looking for that same sense of someone who's choosing not to be in an absolute category leader. Someone who's actually looking for that challenge, asking themselves, can I do it? Can I do something different? Because sugar's made a choice to try and do something different, right? And it's it operates quite differently to many American SaaS businesses. One of the reasons I chose to join them was because at the time their CEO was a boy from Melbourne, right? It was a guy living in Australia who was an absolutely decent bloke to go and have a beer with. And you'd sort of ask yourself, how do you have PE backed to US SaaS firms having an Aussie bloke running them, right? Like just such a total rarity. So I joined them for the opportunity to actually build a relationship with people at that level and to give me exposure to PE backed businesses, to boards that function and think a little bit differently. And what I've realized is that everyone who is successful in our business has got that sense of I know that I'm gonna have to pull up my sleeves. I know that I can't rely upon the big well-known brand that everyone's got out there. I've got to be willing to do it myself, you know? And you can work it out quite quickly. I one of the questions I often ask people, if they've come out of a big company and they're trying to sell me on this, that they're actually up for this, I tell them talk to me about what your first two months of enablement was like in that company. Because that tells me what your expectations are. And if it sounds like an all-singing, all dancing, glossy enablement program, it's not to say that ours is bad, but I'll be able to see the difference very quickly. You know, it's like we're not a billion-dollar company, we don't have a billion-dollar enablement program, we're okay with that. We're looking for the people who can thrive despite those challenges. You know, people who recognize that when you've got a CEO that you can go for a beer with, that gives you access, that gives you control, influence. You know, there was a time where GTM teams recognize that they've got a huge opportunity to influence the direction of the product. Our teams have actually got that. Now, it takes a certain type of seller to say, you know what, I'm motivated by more than my pocket. I actually want to know that I can make a difference, not just in my day-to-day, not just in my family, but also in the direction and future of this business, because I've got that access.
SPEAKER_02:How do you uh uncover that with a candidate and sift through being told what you want to hear versus it being raw and honest?
SPEAKER_03:Well, the honest truth is I don't give this speech to anyone. So most people don't know it, but now that they're going to hear it in this podcast, maybe they'll know what the answers I'm looking for are. Uh but I'll ask them open-ended questions first just to hear where their position is without revealing what it is that I'm looking for. You know, and when you're not asking a leading question, you know, tell me, tell me what you would feel proud about when you leave this company. You know, it's like if we sort of acknowledge that good sellers, like there'll be some who stick around for tenure, but realistically, I'd rather tell them, like, hey, you're probably looking to do two and a half to three years and make a bunch of money. When you look for your next role, what's going to make you feel proud about your last few years? You know, aside from knowing that you looked after the mortgage, tell me about what else. And the quality of answers I get back from that tells me so much about what they measure success by. And if I can find an alignment between the things that bring them joy and the things that I know that we bring to the table, then I start to scratch a little bit further, you know? And it's hard to make up an answer to that, truthfully, because you're asking them about how they see life. And that ultimately is going to determine are they going to be successful in our place or not?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Awesome. Thank you for sharing. Uh I want to touch a little bit on the difference of managing and leading salespeople versus technical people. Because they're often two different breeds. Not always, and it sounds like you've created and know how to foster unicorns, but um how do you balance getting the most out of both sales and technical people?
SPEAKER_03:That is really hard. I want to start with that point. And I would say that today, when I've got both salespeople and technical people, like I sit next to most of the delivery team in our Sydney office. I think that there is a healthy level of respect that must be fostered. So coming from my angle now, where everyone knows that I've got a revenue number over my head, the the reputation of sales leaders is that they sell things that can't always be delivered or renewed. So let's just say that there's there's perceptions that are around like that. I see my role as giving confidence to the delivery team that I have their back. You know, that I will review a statement of work that's about to go out to make sure that it protects their interests. And I'll I'll signal to them clearly that I don't want them taking on projects which are unsustainable or can't reliably be delivered and things like that. And I think that, and this probably goes beyond just delivery, to be honest, but I think when you show people that you've got their interests in mind and that you consider what's important to them to be important to you, they're gonna feel led. They're gonna feel heard, you know, they're gonna feel like, okay, Adam's in my corner, I'm I'm willing to go into bat, you know. So understanding where those risk points are, I think is probably the the most important thing. If I think about what I was like before I entered GTM, like there was a point where I was a dev team leader or running a practice of consultants and far more focused on the delivery side, it was the same thing. I used to just focus on, well, what are the things that are going to keep you guys up at night? Is it the fact that we signed off on a go live date that was completely unrealistic? And back then you'd think, ah, who is that sales guy who signed off on that, right? Now I am that sales guy. Or I managed a team of people who are those salespeople, and we have an opportunity to affect it. And you realize that, okay, if these are the people who are going to help you win business, why wouldn't we want to help look after them, right?
SPEAKER_02:And just to continue on this particular topic, what is the one thing that you think technical leaders underestimate in sales leaders and that sales leaders underestimate in technical teams?
SPEAKER_03:I actually feel like the answer is empathy in both ways. I think both parties have an opportunity to be very myopic about their world and to just focus on the one KPI which their executive leader has charged them with and said, you will care about this number, whether it's billable utilization or bookings or retention rate, whatever it is. And to care about that without realizing that for businesses to be successful, you know, if I look at my APAC business, the reason it is successful is because we recognize the symbiotic nature of how all of these levers affect each other. And I think that until you've got a cross-functional respect for how no one is a winner on their own. You know, you don't, even if you're not in enterprise sales, even in SMB sales, in mid-market where we play, wins are team wins. And that team is not just the sales rep who ran something. You know, it's a function of the delivery teams who help make the reference customers successful. It's the support team who made sure that your NPS stayed ridiculously high and that customers don't leave you because they're upset about things like that. And leaders who think that they're winning just because they're they're making their number without recognizing that a whole host of other people are the ones contributing to their success, that's the massive blind spot. And I think that honestly can go both ways. I think when you're on the other side of the fence and you're thinking about, you know, how many first-touch resolutions am I getting in a support team, or you know, how utilized is my team, you'd need to respect that, okay, my team is fully utilized because the sales team are also helping to sell enough project work. You know, or my time to close a ticket is looking really good because ops put in the right systems to help us automate away a bunch of things. And yeah, it's probably just more the mindset of recognizing that we don't act in isolation anymore. Like none of us are an island.
SPEAKER_02:Great answer. And that's I I really believe having worked at a number of software vendors, that that's where there's a breakdown, particularly for regional offices. There is often a them and us sort of feeling. So how do you foster that culture where there is that symbiotic relationship? And do you have any frameworks or tools like OKRs that you use internally to bring everyone and unite everyone on a on a shared vision?
SPEAKER_03:So a good question there. So it's as a good opportunity to think about APAC being its its own little world, right? It's like it's it is like a little planet in and of itself. I think the hard part of that is that you can feel isolated from a global company. But the strong point is that you can lean into the fact that it's it's kind of you guys are the only ones in this time zone or this set of time zones. So for me, there are a series of things that I do and that we do as a group of leaders on this side of the world to keep everyone on the same page. Uh the starting point is we do win-wire across the company and we make a standard practice that whether you're doing a win-wire because of a customer that you've just signed or a project that's gone live, each win-wire is going to heavily acknowledge all the parties that played a role. You know? So I've read WinWires where it's kind of like a sales rep just gets really excited about what they've achieved and they don't acknowledge all the people around them. We make an especially important effort to make sure that individuals are named from the delivery team, like you know, Fiona really supported this customer very well. She got the customer to a place where they were trusting us such that the CSM could go in and facilitate the right conversation. The truth is, if she hadn't paved the way, there was no space for a CSM to walk. So we got to acknowledge that kind of stuff. And and likewise the other way. So winwire acknowledgement to me is one of the best ways of doing that because it's a public praise. And there is no excuse for, I think, skimping on public praise in my view. Like everyone should be looking for opportunities to be effusive about that. So we have Slack channels set up specifically to do that. That's probably the first one. The second one is having a monthly call where we do the entirety of APAC on a single Zoom call. And we've got structured time for every part of the business. And we intentionally do that. In fact, I remember seeing the first draft of an agenda for it. And I actually said, look, I want to cut 20 minutes of sales time out of this. Because I felt like, you know what? Sales dominates so much of the noise in our business to begin with. I want to make sure there's more voice for some of these other teams that don't get heard often enough. And by giving them a platform, a chance to share, here's what's going on in our side of the world, this is what's affecting us, or what we would need more of. Suddenly, you've given them a chance to feel part of the broader mission and bought into it. And from my point of view as the regional leader, I absolutely want all of us to be bought into that shared vision. And if you if you don't give people a voice, they don't feel like they've got any ownership of it and they they fall behind.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I love your leadership style. I want to come and work for you. It sounds like a real like a really amazing um culture that you've that you've fostered. And yeah, I can imagine that that you are the reason that you you people join the company um because they buy into you and the vision and particularly on the on the um the services side of the business. But as you mentioned, there's a lot of big brands in the the CRM category, and and certain people are are um have an affinity to to work for them, and there's that's absolutely fine. But how do you um how do you attract top talent and make sure that you're continually bringing top talent in? And um uh coupled with that, what percentage of your time is spent on cultivating culture and on making sure that you're hiring the right sort of people for the business?
SPEAKER_03:So a good question there is how do you actually find the right people? Um, networks is the the primary opportunity, to be honest. Like I've I've long given up on you know public job boards and things like that. I feel that the best talent are people that are known to either yourself or someone in your network. And I do invest a lot of time in just trying to build and expand my network. I'm always on the lookout for good people. And my hope is that you know, if people get to know me a little bit and they get to see a little bit about how I see the world, if we click and there's an opportunity, I will try and make something work. And honestly, even for the people where the role hasn't quite worked out, for the right talent, I will go a fair bit of distance to try and find them. Like where else could I could I home them? You know, could I recommend them to another friend or a colleague somewhere else where there's a spot for it? So I do spend uh probably about 10% of my week just into investing into my network, whether it's by attending events, uh coming meeting in situations like this where you do get to know people a little bit better and they hopefully get to know you a little bit better as well. And it is such an essential thing to have a talent pipeline because you actually obviously never know when some things will happen. Um I try and do my best to stay ahead of that in a way, to sort of be aware of what everyone's why is, right? If you know that someone's journey is taking them in a certain direction, I would much rather facilitate their move from my team. I'm gonna share just one small story. I still remember someone that I hired, she was an MBA grad who was recasting her skill set from being a technical developer role, and she was gonna enter consulting. So this is in in Squid's days over 10 years ago. And I remember interviewing her, and I remember saying to her, You're really good. You're actually gonna outgrow my team in about six months. And I said, there's a strategy consultant leader, six doors down, in this office. You're gonna be working for her in about that time frame. She got there in seven months. So I still hired her with the view of I know that you're gonna outgrow my team. And I obviously I helped facilitate her move to another part of the company. And she went in to actually become like the first product leader at Canva. So she's gone and done amazing things after the period we got to work together. But to me, it's it's good fortune when you get to meet fantastic people like that. And I would much rather be a part of their journey, support them coming in, support them coming out, and know that you've built and invested in the quality of that network. It's it would have been so easy for me to just have qualified that person out and just said, you're not right because I'm gonna have to replace you. You know, and seeing that person and thinking you'll add incredible value, not just in the short term, but in the long term was a key part of that journey.
SPEAKER_02:This has been I just want I want to keep going. There's a there's so many um so many great nuggets and so much wisdom, um, but but cognizant of of time and uh and us needing to go and get a bite to eat soon. Um just in in beginning to to close, um you've been you've had an incredible journey. You you've you've had um international experience, technical sales, go to market. Um if you reflected back on your 16-year-old self and knowing what you know now and said like this is this is the journey. Here's three tips that you give yourself to optimize or or get to where you want to go faster or more effectively, what what would you say to yourself?
SPEAKER_03:This is kind of freaky because I wrote a LinkedIn post about this about maybe four days ago. Oh, no way. Yeah. No, it was really uncanny because there was a there was a gentleman at the lounge actually talking to the waiter about it. And he actually, if this this waiter was just finished their MBA, they're trying to figure out do they go consulting or finance. And the old guy kind of just said, Look, you know, if I was young like you, I'd be looking at every service around me and figuring out how do I redo it in AI. And because he's only a meter away from me, I was trying not to overhear the conversation, but it it sent me into a bit of like a sort of mental sort of thought process of, okay, I'm gonna step onto a plane for 15 hours with that being my last thought. Let me review life's choices going back to being a kid. And I think the truth is that I'm incredibly happy with my life choices. And if I tried to think like what would I tell myself at 16, in some ways, actually, I'm not sure I'd actually tell myself anything. I actually love the idea that 16-year-old Adam, you know, was doing contract work at that point for a software company in London, but doing it remotely. And still remember getting paid over PayPal. And I probably shouldn't let the ATO hear this.
SPEAKER_02:They're not listening. Not our audience. Yeah, not our audience.
SPEAKER_03:Fantastic. But um, yeah, honestly, 16-year-old Adam, he made some unusual choices as a teenager, but he landed himself into some tech roles really early. And I was fortunate enough to be in a family that actually had a personal computer, like in the family house. Like I had a chance to write code when I was five years old, and that was what got me hooked on technology. And I think for me, a attention point for most of my adolescence going into young adulthood was I like talking to people, but I like doing technical stuff. And where do you find the union? No one had described that there's actual jobs out there doing that at that point. But Adam took young Adam took a journey through all that and had to go through that discovery and yeah, made a lot of friends, you know, met the woman who'd become the love of my life and my my wife. Uh I wouldn't want to sort of give away any of the secrets that would have changed that path, I think. So yeah, I'm ultimately actually pretty happy of the choices that he made there. Um, if I was speaking to like my own son now as a five-year-old, I'm trying to make sure that he has opportunities to explore that kind of stuff and to figure out like, is he into technical stuff? Is he into music? And just making sure that he's exploiting every opportunity for what it's worth, you know. Like my approach towards life was always if you can smell like even the barest whiff of an opportunity, to just wholeheartedly throw yourself into it, to give it a go and to see whether it will work out or not. And that's the attitude or mindset I'm trying to cultivate in my own son. And it's what I would advise to anyone who's who's younger and trying to figure out do they get into tech or do they get into something else? Is give things a go and throw yourself headlong. You know, don't don't just dip your toe into it. Really give it a go with the recognition that you can fail and that's okay. You can try something else after that, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And just touching on your son and being very thoughtful of helping him. Um, how do you as a high-performing executive balance work-life balance and family balance as well to make sure that your everything is is compartmentalized in the right proportions?
SPEAKER_03:Compartmentalizing is a huge challenge. It requires conscious, intentional choices. So uh a commitment I made to my team actually at the start of this year was I'm gonna block my calendar at 5 p.m. You know, from 5 p.m. to 7.30, I am absolutely gonna be present for my son, for my wife, look after, bed, bath, dinner, all that kind of stuff. And unless there's something really crazy going on, I'm gonna not look at my phone. And I think creating a discipline like that of just choosing to be present and in the moment and not get distracted by your phone, it's what's necessary. And it's like it's painful to begin with. You know, I I support Asia and the Indian Business Day continues till 10 p.m. our time. So making a choice to say, you know, I'm just gonna be unavailable, it costs you something. But I think it costs a lot more to not make a choice like that. So everyone's got to obviously find what's the thing that they can make work, and depending on their day and their lifestyle. Uh I think making some choices where you you look at what are the compromises you need to make to make this work. So, in a practical sense, there are people I see in my morning commute on the train who I know are doing the same thing as me, where they've done drop-off and they're on the train straight after that. And I think there's a few of them I've made friends with on the train where it's kind of like, oh, you know, like how's your morning and things like that. And you realize each of these people are senior leaders in their own business and they've had to go through the same process of going, you know what, I'm gonna prioritize that hour in the morning to help my child get ready for school, pack their lunch, and be part of their morning, as opposed to just being locked up on calls with the US, which to be fair, as an APAC leader, it is so easy to be on calls from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and to not actually see your kids before you get out the door.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm uh I'm actively listening. And it's something I I personally struggle with is I feel like I'm addicted to my phone and um I don't have the excuse of international markets. Um, but I think it's incredibly important because the thing that everyone says is that those young years disappear so quickly. So I'm gonna take that nugget and um and do my best to implement that in my own life. So, Adam, thank you so much. I've really, really enjoyed this chat, taken away lots myself, and I'm sure all of the listeners will as well. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you. Really appreciate being here. Appreciate it, James.
unknown:Thanks.
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