Transcript

Lisa Virtue [00:00:00]:

Hi, Amanda. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today. I'm really excited about this conversation.

Amanda Rice [00:00:04]:

I'm excited as well. Thanks for having me.

Lisa Virtue [00:00:06]:

Lisa, why don't we start with having you tell the audience a little bit about you and what you do now and how you got there.

Amanda Rice [00:00:11]:

Yeah. So I never really thought I would have a career in sales, to be honest. Growing up, my dad was in sales, and I was a political science major, but ended up in sales, heavily driven by the money because I wasn't able to pay my bills otherwise. And I started in software sales, literally entry level, cold calling. And after a few years working my way up to an account executive, I knew I wanted to get into. Into sales management. For me, I had grown up coaching girls softball, and, like, I always knew that I wanted to coach individuals. And so that was kind of like my driver towards management.

Amanda Rice [00:00:40]:

And so I spent the last 15 years leading teams, everything from like an SDR manager to account executive manager, all the way up to a vice president of sales, again, heavily focused on that software space. And then I was impacted, actually, by two layoffs towards the end of my career, which is very common nowadays in the tech landscape. Looking back on it, that was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. It. I always knew that I wanted to go out and, like, launch my own business, but I wasn't 100% positive exactly what that would look like. And when those layoffs happened, that was the first time I met with a career coach. And so I really started to understand what that role could look like and how I could have an impact on someone's career, which is what I ultimately really wanted to do. So that was what got me into sales management.

Amanda Rice [00:01:27]:

And I knew that there was so much more that I could do and offer for individuals. And I think the thing that I love about career coaching and why I went down this path was, like, when I think about coaching in a sales organization, a lot of times it's focused on, like, coaching to help you hit quota. But I really have always cared much more about that individual's career holistically and helping to set them up to drive next steps in their career, depending upon what that looks like for them. And I've always thought of the career as like a jungle gym and not necessarily a ladder. And so I launch this business now split, specifically designed to help software sales professionals navigate their career. And that's everything from landing a new opportunity to setting them up for success and excelling in that role when they have it as well, so that's a little bit about my background and how I got into career coaching.

Lisa Virtue [00:02:13]:

I love it. Oh, there's so much to unpack there. So, first of all, we have this in common, that we're just coaches at our core. Right. You said you coached softball when you were younger. Yeah, I was a swim team and water polo coach and just loved it. But like you said, didn't pay enough of the bills. It was one of those things you do on the side, right? Yeah.

Lisa Virtue [00:02:32]:

Eventually grew my career in administration within athletics, which was fascinating. And then I did coach coaches that had been able to find that career path, but it's so rare. So I totally feel you on that. And not surprised that you ended up full circle being a coach in a different way. On the sales side. I've had some clients, too, within the sales world, and it's really opened my eyes to the personality type and kind of the. The drive that you need to have to succeed within that environment. This is something I don't necessarily relate to, but I can empathize with.

Lisa Virtue [00:03:06]:

So tell me a little bit more about when someone is within sales and their drive is to hit quota, and they're going for that, and then they're looking at, what do I do next? What usually happens where. Where do you see people have that moment of this? This isn't all I want to do in my career. There's something else that I want to add to my portfolio.

Amanda Rice [00:03:25]:

It's interesting working with sales professionals. I think about, like, drive and motivation in general. And a lot of them are driven by themselves. Like, they have this natural kind of drive. And I experienced this myself. Like, if you ask me, like, where did my drive come from? I've just, like, always had it. Like, I literally remember running sprints on my driveway to, like, get faster for basketball. Right.

Amanda Rice [00:03:48]:

Like, I. Like, that's just who I was. And a lot of sales professionals, many of them come from competitive backgrounds, and, like, they're their own kind of worst enemy where, like, they're the ones setting the bar really high and being driven to achieve another big motivator is typically money for a lot of sales professionals. But I think what's becomes interesting is as different chapters of your life happen and take place, there are different drivers that kind of change where you want to go as you think about next steps in your career, new challenges you want to tackle. And so, for instance, like, for some of my clients, Maybe in their 20s and 30s, money was the key kind of driver and motivator, but now they've started to build families. And so while money is still a driver and a motivator, taking calls at 6 or 7 o' clock at night becomes more challenging logistically. Right. And so there is potentially some of that work life balance that starts to creep in.

Amanda Rice [00:04:39]:

Or maybe it's an organization that instead of being at a startup like they were previously, maybe they're looking for an organization that has like a 401k with a match. Right. And so I think if you think about like, what are some of your values and priorities and starting there and aligning as best as possible some of the personal and professional together to figure out, well, what do my drivers look like today and how do I build that picture into my career? That's been some of the key things that I found to be successful, to set them up in that next chapter in their career.

Lisa Virtue [00:05:08]:

That's great. So you're helping people really with that clarity of like, well, what, what's your next best step? It's not necessarily what had served you before, it's what can serve you now.

Amanda Rice [00:05:17]:

Exactly. And if you can build a little bit further down the road. Right. But for many of us, like understanding what things look like three to five, even 10 years down the road can be tougher. And, and so it's like if we have that picture and vision, great. But what also makes the most sense short term as well.

Lisa Virtue [00:05:33]:

Yeah, I'm seeing that shift. Aren't you with clients where it's like, okay, we are dealing with layoffs and organizations that are unsteady, that used to be the more tried and true. I can say I can stay here for 10 years, I'll be good as long as I'm producing. And now that all has been shaken up in the last couple years, so figuring out what's good for you at this moment, I see that. A lot of power in that too.

Amanda Rice [00:05:55]:

Yeah, it's interesting. I was just connecting with a recruiter we were talking about when individuals come to her, a lot of times they ask for help, but they're very vague. So like, can you, can you review my resume? Do you have any roles that are open and available and being specific is helpful for them as well. Right. And so it's interesting because the clarity is not only helpful for you as an individual going to find the right organization, but it's helpful when you connect to your network and say, these are the types of roles that I'm looking for. Or you're talking to recruiters and they may know of different types of opportunities, but they need to Know again what you're targeting. And so you need to come to the table with that.

Lisa Virtue [00:06:32]:

Right. So true. That magnetism effect, I call it like put it out, the magnet will come back to you. And when you just blur down the magnet, I don't know what that's called technically but you know there's magnets that are stickier than others. Right. There's some like you go to use a magnet and you're like, why wouldn't you stay on the board? Like it's not watered down, but you know what I mean? Like it's just not as strong of that impact. So it's hard to see people. It's hard, hard to see them connect the dots.

Lisa Virtue [00:06:57]:

You need to do it for them. Tell them very explicitly what you need.

Amanda Rice [00:07:00]:

Great analogy. I literally have this visual. My daughter has these people magnets and that like certain hands and feet have to connect together when she goes to push them together. If it's repelling, it's like a really strong repel and she can't figure it out. Right. And it's frustrating. And so she has to like realize that it connects with the other one. But that is such a great analogy to talk through and help individuals understand that as well.

Lisa Virtue [00:07:23]:

Now I just have to figure out the scientific phrasing. It's not water.

Amanda Rice [00:07:27]:

I'm not going to be your help.

Lisa Virtue [00:07:29]:

We're not talking sciences today. So another thing that I've noticed which I love to pick your brain on for a second and we can get into a little bit more about when sales professionals are looking for promotional opportunity or where to go next. Maybe it's not that commission based role anymore. There's maybe more to it that they're looking for. And as we lead into that, one thing I've noticed is that every organization is looking for a great salesperson. Right. There have been a lot of layoffs. There is that people are dealing with.

Lisa Virtue [00:07:58]:

But I do find that if someone's willing to go into like a true sales account management role, they're pretty prolific in the world. People are always looking for a good salesperson to represent their product. Do you see this as well?

Amanda Rice [00:08:11]:

100%. There's tons of amazing opportunities out there. And even some of those organizations that did layoffs like a month or two ago, they're hiring again. That's part of the world that we live in. And. And so there's a lot of great opportunities. It's about identifying your traits and skills and applying to those right roles so you can stand out and land the right Opportunity for you as well.

Lisa Virtue [00:08:33]:

Let's say you start kind of base level, you're a salesperson for product is cold calling. Doing things that the layperson thinks of when it comes to sales. Right. Like this is why so many people I think have a strange connotation with sales. Oh, I don't wanna go into sales. There's this thing about it, but there's so many brilliant personalities out there I've seen that do really well with the relationship build and all of that. On the sales side, there's so much more to it than just the numbers.

Amanda Rice [00:08:58]:

Yep.

Lisa Virtue [00:08:59]:

But when someone feels like, okay, I've been there, done that, I've done a great job at it and I'm looking for a promotion or I'm looking for something next, what are some of the avenues that you see that are possibilities and then we can get into how to land those opportunities.

Amanda Rice [00:09:13]:

Yeah. So I think of it as like there's two types of career tracks too. So there's an individual contributor role which is like you're owning your own number and your quota. And then there's a management opportunity. Right. Where you're owning a teams number. And so I think of those as very separate promotion tracks. Because the second in which you step off an individual contributor track over to management, it's really not a promotion, it's a career change.

Amanda Rice [00:09:35]:

And so on the individual contributor side, because this is where most individuals are starting their career in the software space, the most entry level roles that exist out there is either this SDR or BDR which is sales development representative or business development representative. It's basically the same thing. And ultimately you're typically cold calling or maybe following up on some leads to schedule meetings. And at that point point you stop working with a client. And then an account executive is typically the title picks up with that client to manage them from demonstration of the product to signing them up. And then a lot of times that point it's handed off. And so that's the other thing to keep in mind. So there's, there's different components of sales they're selling to like a brand new customer, which is a lot of times considered a net new customer.

Amanda Rice [00:10:21]:

And then there's also selling to your existing customers. And so on the back half of things now you have that customer, there's someone that's renewing that customer. And that's an extremely important part of the business's revenue. That's typically the majority of the revenue too from a business perspective. A lot of times that's more of like an account management title. And then there's also typically individuals that are selling either additional products or increasing kind of that product to the customer as well. And so there could be expansion, different types of cross sell. So like again there's different types of sales motions, even just there alone thinking about the customer lifecycle cycle.

Amanda Rice [00:10:56]:

And then the other piece that I think is fascinating from a sales perspective is you could sell to small businesses, which is a faster sale, more transactional, it's typically like very high volume and it's anywhere from like a day or two, like you speak to the person and they sign up on that like initial call to like a week or two close. And then a mid market sales cycle becomes a bit more complex. So the organization is larger that you're targeting and so there's more buyers involved in that decision. And then you can go all the way up to like enterprise or strategic accounts. Thinking of like the Amazons of the world, the Walmarts, like Disney selling into these really big logos like the Fortune 1000. Right. And so even just that alone, thinking about your sales career, you could continue to grow your skill skillset by selling to like more complex organizations. So that's one way to grow.

Amanda Rice [00:11:45]:

Another way could potentially be instead of selling to net new customers, you're selling to your existing customer base. And so again, there's a lot of different ways to think about growing your skillset there. But you could even look at different verticals. So maybe you're now selling a new product line, maybe you started selling in the healthcare space and now maybe you're selling to school districts. Right. So there's a lot of interesting ways to think about growth from an individual contributor's perspective. And to be honest, your W2 can increase drastically from that like entry level SDR, SMB, AE type of role all the way up to those enterprise types of roles. And a lot of times enterprise sellers are earning more than frontline sales managers.

Lisa Virtue [00:12:28]:

Similar to food and beverage with tips, Right. So a lot of times people that are wait staff are like, I don't want to be a manager, I want to get all my tips. This is different. Like I want my commission at the

Amanda Rice [00:12:38]:

end of the day. Great analogy.

Lisa Virtue [00:12:40]:

So when it comes to, I love your phrase by the way, moving into a leadership role is not a promotion, it's a career change. Because there's different skill sets. We know in leadership, there's different motivators, there's different components to how you show up for others. It's very different than when you're going out and you need to worry about your own work primarily and what you're doing. Let's talk more about that on the leadership side. And I can imagine that there must be so much complexity with leading those competitive edge people that are looking at the dollars and they're looking at their personal gain a lot of times. And there's so much relationship going on between everyone in the team. But then externally, like you are the external faces and you're going out and so there's just all this interpersonal communication and dynamics and group dynamics.

Lisa Virtue [00:13:30]:

Tell me more about what you've seen when someone's ready for leadership, what maybe what's going on for them, motivation wise, what's changing for them. And then. Yeah, let's keep talking about that part. I'm so curious. On the leadership side, I think the

Amanda Rice [00:13:44]:

first thing you have to think about, so one, I actually think of it as like management, not necessarily leadership too, because you could still be a leader and be an individual contributor. I still believe the best, best managers are also really strong leaders as well. But if I think about like being a manager, your entire world has changed. You went from like owning your own calendar and schedule to all of a sudden lots of new meetings are dropped on your calendar. You have all of these individuals that you're responsible for. And so your success is dependent on, upon the success of this team, not on just your individual success. And that's impacting your commission. And so that shift is massive for a lot of individuals.

Amanda Rice [00:14:24]:

I mean, your calendar is typically like slammed like 9 to 5. I remember I used to have to put like two whole blocks on my calendar for like fire drills to basically put out across the day and have time to be able to like answer the team's questions. Because it's this like constant flux of things coming in. And so time management and like thinking through how do you delegate stuff and how do you respond back to your team is like really critical. So skill sets, which is so different from being an individual contributor. Yeah, like maybe an SVR booked a meeting on your calendar, something's popping up last minute with a client, but the volume of it is nowhere near the same as what you're dealing with when you become a leader for the first time. And so you have to be really smart about how you're structuring your day and building time with your team to set them up for success. Because the best way you win is by supporting the individuals on your team to be successful when you're not in the room.

Amanda Rice [00:15:18]:

If you're just selling and closing deals for them, that's not helpful because ultimately the team's not going to achieve that number. And as you mentioned, each of these individuals is highly competitive and they're trying to achieve their numbers. So sometimes they'll play well in the sandbox, and other times they won't either. And so you're trying to unpack their individual motivations, because the team ultimately succeeds when the team hits their number. But sometimes the individuals may not necessarily want everyone else to be hitting their number. So some individuals are going to keep their knowledge and hold it really tight. And you're trying to get your team to share that knowledge to help everyone get elevated and bring them up to the next level, which can be like a really big challenge to set new leaders and managers up for success as well. It's a fascinating dynamic that sales managers are responsible for.

Lisa Virtue [00:16:03]:

Yeah. So fascinating back to when I was managing coaches that were all competitive. It was vying for resources within the environment that we were in. And so very similar. It's not similar in the nature of, like, bringing in dollars, but they were competing for the same members to, you know, I want them on swim team, I want them on climbing. Like, there's only so much time in the day that these kids or adults that were competing could do sports. So they had the same finite amount of people to pull from. So it was very competitive in that way.

Lisa Virtue [00:16:33]:

And then you add on the layer of they are competitive people.

Amanda Rice [00:16:36]:

Yes.

Lisa Virtue [00:16:36]:

Fascinating dialogue and conversation. And trying to manage that can get really tricky. So I'm sure you have tons of stories. I don't know if you have a story around that competitive. That internal competitive dynamics when someone's maybe emerging into leadership in this way, what they should be thinking of, how to skill up. Any stories or advice you have for emerging leaders within this space.

Amanda Rice [00:17:03]:

Yeah, I think the first piece that is critical to your success. So I always think of it as like, people and kind of process and so on the people front, you need to get to know your team. What are their strengths, what are their motivators? And a lot of times we focus in, from a coaching perspective on, like, their areas of opportunity. But if you also uncover what their strengths are and help them perform even better in some of those areas, then that can set you and the team up to be successful. And so, like, if you understand what's driving their motivation, for some, they may want to get into leadership roles in the future. A lot of individuals actually like helping others too. Right. And so they may be competitive, but if you know that That's a driver for them, then there could be opportunities where they may be open to sharing information and knowledge with other team members.

Amanda Rice [00:17:49]:

Right. And so, but it all starts by getting to know what makes that individual tick. And so I would highly recommend for new managers, like starting to build those relationships and building that team culture and fun dynamic as well, too. So it's like, how do you get the team to come together and collaborate and create those types of environments to set the overall team for success and have team goals that you're driving towards? Because if you can get them to work as a collective unit too, then, man, it. It's like, it's better than anything you'd ever experienced. Because, like, I. I remember probably one of my highest performing teams. It's when the team is teaching each other stuff.

Amanda Rice [00:18:26]:

And maybe I said it to that individual like two weeks ago, but it didn't click coming from me. It clicks a lot of times when it comes from a peer. And so the more you can get them to interact together and learn from each other, the more you can also lighten your load from a management perspective and they become stronger as individuals as well. And it sets them up for success in their careers too. So it's just, it's this really powerful dynamic when you get to know your people and help create that team culture.

Lisa Virtue [00:18:52]:

So do you have any favorite, like, team building activities or things that tend to appeal to sales teams in a fun way?

Amanda Rice [00:19:00]:

Good question. It depends upon if you're remote or in person for different types of events. If you have budget and you have the opportunity to bring your team together, even if you're in a remote environment, it is worth doing that. I mean, I've done things as silly as, like playing songs when deals are closed. And like, everyone kind of knew their song when we were in an office and like a deal would close and your song would go off. So you could do like cheap, fun things like that. There's, I think, fun rewards and recognition. So like, you could put teams together and like their games that we used to play.

Amanda Rice [00:19:30]:

So like, every demo they scheduled would be like a single in baseball. And then if they closed the deal, it was a home run. And so like your team was like making its way, like around the diamond, right? And then you would earn stuff. In my last organization, my managers used to do this Mario Kart game where their teams loved it, it drove a ton of activity, and like, again, there was like a prize at the end. So there's ways to build competition and fun into some of it. And then like I think giving different types of rewards and recognition and sometimes outside of just giving like money for that, there's other ways to reward the team that I think can be very fulfilling. So for instance, like sunglasses is one that could be a fun giveaway, but you all want to drive it back towards the individuals on your team and what they care most about.

Lisa Virtue [00:20:15]:

So when a new leader is coming in, I love this. Really good ideas about games and making it kind of light hearted celebrations. Right. We're celebrating even the milestones and the small wins before the big win. Like your baseball diamond analogy. Love that. So when a new leader's coming in, you're also recommending, before you even do any of that, really get to know your people and understand that relationship building and how you relate to them and how they relate to each other. You're saying that's where the work should begin before you try to tackle any, any fun nuance because you.

Lisa Virtue [00:20:48]:

It might not hit right?

Amanda Rice [00:20:49]:

Exactly. Yep. And my favorite is I used to have the team drive a lot of these activities. So like sometimes I would nominate an individual on the team and they would organize like a virtual team event. One time, like we made dumplings together. But again, it's driven by individuals on the team. Right. And so like if you try to set something up and everyone goes to the event and they're like this isn't fun, then it's not going to take off.

Amanda Rice [00:21:14]:

So that's where it is really critical to understand what your team wants as well and then give some people on the team opportunities to step up and run those events for you. Yeah.

Lisa Virtue [00:21:26]:

Where are you seeing some of the big challenges for sales leaders at the moment?

Amanda Rice [00:21:32]:

I think it depends on your organization and where you're at too from a leadership perspective. So if you're hiring and building your team out, that's like a different challenge. Right. Than like you've got people in seat and you're setting them up for success. Because hiring great talent is the number one most important thing that you can do to be successful. From a leadership perspective, you could be an awful manager and leader. And if you have great people, they're probably still going to find a way to be successful. And so I think of those as like two different challenges and skill sets.

Amanda Rice [00:22:06]:

So let's assume that like you've got kind of an established team then. I think one of the biggest areas that I see new leaders struggle with comes back to the time management component. But a lot of times they don't understand that there's like A process and a science that they can put behind things to make it be repeatable and successful. I know I struggled with this early in my career. I felt like I didn't fully understand and value some of the pipeline management skills that I learned over time and how to break down data and use it to analyze and think about where I was spending my time. So, for instance, like, if I think about my team, I'd want to spend most of my time coaching my B players, and then back behind that, it's my A players, and then behind that is my C players, where I feel like a lot of new managers spend most of their time investing in their C players. But you actually are going to have the biggest gain if you focus your time on those middle performers. And then what's fascinating too, from a data perspective is you can use data along with, like, understanding those people and call listening to diagnose really quickly where is their area of opportunity and where are their strengths.

Amanda Rice [00:23:09]:

And so then you can focus your coaching there. But that's where, like having that data and that repeatable process that you're using with your team and structuring kind of your calendar, you can be so much more effective to set you up to achieve, like, the big goals that you need to get to. But I think a lot of new leaders struggle to build kind of that, like, repetitive motion and muscle, and they don't understand the value of data and how to use it to their advantage.

Lisa Virtue [00:23:36]:

Hmm. It's really good advice because data can tell so many stories, can't it?

Amanda Rice [00:23:40]:

Well, that is the tricky piece. It can definitely tell different stories depending upon how you look at the data and how you want to use it. So it's about, I think, knowing the right types of data points to look at and how to dig in and have easy access to it. But it's also easy to become overwhelmed and dig too deep in data in the wrong ways.

Lisa Virtue [00:23:57]:

Yeah. You know, on this podcast, we talk a lot about the AI world and how humans leading humans in the age of AI can be really tricky. And so I'm very curious. With all the now sales, sales bots and the AI tool this and AI tool that, and then there's sales teams trying to sell the AI when maybe they don't really know how well it's gonna go for the client, it must be so complicated. But backing up to, there are certain metrics that are pretty tried and true. Like, I also love the fact that in sales, your performance is tied so neatly to KPI. Right.

Amanda Rice [00:24:29]:

It's very Black and white.

Lisa Virtue [00:24:31]:

Yeah. Compared to a lot of business operations professionals that are like, I don't really know what my expectations are because it's not spelled out very clearly. Like in sales at least there's that dynamic which is why some people don't do well in it because it's too much pressure and it causes anxiety. Other people love the black and white nature of it and they try to crush those goals. I mean I always say crush your goals without crushing souls. And so on the sales side I'm sure there's just a complexity. I'm curious what's coming up for you? As I'm saying all time, the this, there's this complexity of like the humans are still the ones behind the accounts landing and I feel like even more so I don't know if B2B B2C is different in your mind right now, but especially if you're trying to grow your business and you're looking for a product to help you do that. So on the B2B side you want to know the person that's going to help you implement that software or bring the product into your fold and you're going to want a human to help you do that.

Lisa Virtue [00:25:29]:

You're not going to want an AI tool to be telling you what to do. Like there's a compassion, there's an understanding. Yeah. What's coming up for you? As I'm saying all of this.

Amanda Rice [00:25:38]:

Yeah. So today, so far in the software sales lens on how I've seen AI be used, it's typically more like behind the scenes to support the seller and I don't know like the exact stats and numbers. I was reading a newsletter the other day about it, but basically like let's call it roughly 30% of a sales professional's time is spent in front of the customer client facing and so 70% of their time is much more focused on this admin work in these other areas. And I think that is the power of AI. And so it's like for instance fathom note takers. It takes amazing notes from the call in conversation. Then from a rep perspective, if you're an enterprise rep, you need to put together an action plan. You need to send follow up to the client, you need to update your CRM with these notes.

Amanda Rice [00:26:25]:

You need to make sure you're up to date for your pipeline and forecast calls and meetings. Right. And so, so these notetakers can take all of that information and now generate the follow up email, the action plans, it can help you update your CRM so you're not spending time doing that. So now you're prepared for your forecast meetings. It can give you reminders of like, hey, these are the clients I need to follow up with. Like, so there's just, there's a ton of power, power in the administrative tasks that were tied into sales historically. And so that today has been probably the number one gain that we're seeing. It'll be interesting because over time, I think that some of the role of like an SDR ADR may potentially shift and go away.

Amanda Rice [00:27:05]:

But even today, like, we're still hiring individuals to go and make those calls and have those conversations. But a lot of that, even their almost like admin work of like prospecting and building those emails is now being taken off their plates by this new AI that's been brought to light.

Lisa Virtue [00:27:23]:

I love what you're saying because it's this benefit of AI when it helps the human that's doing the work, it allows them to do the most impactful work more. More. Right. So on the sales side, imagine that it can just open up some time for the sales pros to go and find those clients and have that human connection so that they're not having to sit at the computer for endless hours, like you said, doing all the administrative work. It's like, I'm relieved of that and I can do what I'm good at, which is building relationships, going to coffee with people, making those calls. Yeah, that's great. I love that. So when you're managing people, I know there's also sales enablement functions, right.

Lisa Virtue [00:28:02]:

People move over and like, they help enable the sales team. So I'm sure a lot of the AI's tools are in that world as well. If the organization has enough bandwidth to have a sales enablement team, does this fall a lot on leaders and managers to say, okay, now I've got to, I've got to figure out how to get my sales team to adopt this tool and learn how to use it effectively so it will free up time. Is that falling on managers?

Amanda Rice [00:28:28]:

Yeah, so it depends upon the organization. You're right. Some organizations have enablement teams that would help support that. If you don't, then it's probably falling on managers. The other place too is sometimes on the rev ops side of the house or sales ops, but they're typically more focused on like the tech stack that exists in the organization as well. They may not necessarily be the ones doing the training, but maybe they're the ones setting up those tools. I think that's the other thing that's fascinating about AI is like you almost have a number of instances where reps are going and figuring some of this stuff out on their own and doing it if and sometimes the organization hasn't been as prescriptive yet on how to do it. And that also becomes tricky because this is like client information and where are you storing it.

Amanda Rice [00:29:10]:

And so there's a lot of pieces that also need to be figured out to set the team up for success here as well. And so yeah, I think a lot of it is driven by the C suite and like what's the stance on AI and how do they expect the organization organization to use it? And that's driving some of the speed of adoption that you would see. Is this happening more like team wide or is this like pockets of individuals going and figuring it out on their own?

Lisa Virtue [00:29:33]:

Yeah, I'm sure that so much of that happening and so as a manager that those relationships with your team members and having them be authentic with you, again so important so that you know what's already being used, who's comfortable with it, how you can maybe take it organization wide, the ethics behind it. So many things to think about that

Amanda Rice [00:29:52]:

it's a lot to unpack. But again, ideally you also have some reps that are maybe on the ground figuring it out. Right. And they're the ones pioneering things. And then as a manager, if you've got strong relationships there, you could say, well, this has been really effective. Now I'm going to roll it out team wide or more organization wide as well. I also think this is a huge opportunity for individuals to separate themselves from other people out in the market. It's like, how are you going and learning about these tools and setting up your team to be more effective at the management level or how are you doing it as well at the individual contributor level? And so something really powerful that you can take with you from like a resume and promotion perspective to set yourself up.

Lisa Virtue [00:30:31]:

Yeah, such a good point. Everyone's looking for, first of all, are you scared of AI? Are you willing to adopt? Even if we as an organization and we're hiring someone like you, if we're not ready for it, we want people that are have an appetite or that will adopt it eventually. Right. That's really what people are looking for and they're hiring right now. So having some kind of comfort level with the technology, I always look for

Amanda Rice [00:30:53]:

like the growth mindset and individuals because like, if you're open and willing to grow and continue to learn new things, you're going to find ways to Be effective in an organization versus being resistant.

Lisa Virtue [00:31:04]:

Yeah, that's a great point. So as far as that goes, when you go into these interviews, and I'm, I'm thinking now because we're talking about leadership and management within sales, and do you also help people find jobs, find the clarity of what, what, what's their next step? And then they're going into these interviews. Any steps, tips, things you work with clients on. As far as, how do you illustrate that you have a growth mindset when you're sitting in an interview?

Amanda Rice [00:31:28]:

Let's say so in particular on the growth mindset. To me, this is like, give me specific. Regardless, it's always like, what, What's a specific example of something that you've done to demonstrate that you've actually done it versus just telling me things, right? So, so for instance, even if you told me that you, like, read a book, I'd be curious, like, well, what did you learn and what did you take and how did you apply it to actually validate that you did read the book and do that type of work? And so I think it depends upon, let's say you weren't employed during that time in which you're not employed. I would be looking for, like, is there a course that you're taking? What, what are those things that you're going to do to upskill yourself between roles and opportunities? If you're currently employed, then I would be thinking about what are you doing to help improve at a stronger rate in your current role? And so maybe that's like, maybe you're shadowing a top performer across the organization. Maybe you've gone out and you've taken an AI course. Maybe you're just YouTubing and finding videos on how to use it and you figured it out yourself, right? And now it's like, where have you applied it in different aspects of your sales process? And so I think it kind of depends on, on what state you're in as you're looking for that new role and opportunity. But it's demonstrating that you're going above and beyond to continue to learn and grow, I think is an important skill. And I'm not saying, hey, you need to go tackle five new things in a quarter, but it's like, pick one or two at least and be continuing to demonstrate that you're growing and improving.

Lisa Virtue [00:32:53]:

I had a really great candidate once that did interviews for a role with the people that would be reporting to her. And one of the pieces of feedback I got from that team was, well, I asked her what Books or things she had been studying recently and she couldn't really come up with anything. And it really bothered the team that would be reporting to her because they were looking for a growth mindset in their leader. Right. It was fascinating. And I had such a different experience. This person ultimately got the job and was brilliant and had one of the best growth mindsets there is. But it's that game of the interview, right? You could leave people doubting or kind of hesitating with a question mark of like, like, does this person have a growth mindset if you don't bring up those specific examples? Yeah.

Lisa Virtue [00:33:37]:

So I did follow up with her and she actually did have examples, but she had time to think about it. She was not prepared for that kind of question. So I think to your point, this is that that power of preparation really can help.

Amanda Rice [00:33:50]:

It's a complete game changer preparing for an interview or not. I, I relate all of this back to sales. The entire interview and job search process has so much overlap with sales. Like, you wouldn't go run a demo of your product for the first time ever in front of a client. Typically, sales organizations have a training program. You role play, you practice, right? And then you go and you do it in front of a client. You're not just going and doing it for the first time. And so, yes, you may not necessarily know all the questions that they're going to ask, but even with the rise of AI nowadays, put the job description in ChatGPT and be like, what 10 questions should I expect in this interview? And it's going to give you a framework to at least start with.

Amanda Rice [00:34:28]:

And you can use that to then say like, okay, I now have two examples that I can think of with specifics that relate back to these questions I would be expecting to get. And so it's like, take that step of preparation, write out some of those examples and then practice them too. Set yourself up for success. So it's not the first time ever that you're trying to tell that story. And that example is live in the interview.

Lisa Virtue [00:34:50]:

I have been seeing a lot of and hearing a lot of people, including clients, of course, of mine too. But just in general, even colleagues are like, oh, I really should start preparing for interview. Like, it's changed, right? The, the game is come becoming more prolific. It's more competition out there. Like having a coach doing mock interviews, doing peer mock interviews, even just saying it out loud so that you can work through the bugs. So powerful. And people are seeing like, oh, I bombed that interview. I need to Actually prepare for this like practice.

Lisa Virtue [00:35:23]:

I didn't have to do that earlier in my career, but now things are different or they're going for an up level, upskilling job. And like you said, it's a, it's a career change when you're going for a promotion or leadership if you're trying to move up. And so interviewing for those roles, so different than interviewing for independent individual contributor as well.

Amanda Rice [00:35:43]:

The other thing too is we don't interview frequently. Right. So it's not a skill set that we're using all the time. And I don't know about you, but I can barely remember what I did last weekend, let alone like two years ago in a role. And if, let's say you're applying to a role and, and this happened to me personally, like I was in the ed tech space for seven years leading sales teams and then I stepped out of it for two years. And then when I was looking for a new role and opportunity, I was applying in ed tech. Well, guess what? They wanted to hear about my EdTech experience, which was two years ago. Some of those scenarios were four or five years ago that I was recalling information from.

Amanda Rice [00:36:19]:

And so it's also important, I highly recommend keeping like a brag book that indicates like what was your role like your responsibility, some of that scope of work, have your specific numbers, like a couple of examples that you'll be able to pull out because you can use that from everything from your resume through your interviews to tell your story. And that's where a lot of people really struggle in interviews is they struggle to tell that story because they haven't prepared for it and they can't remember the information that they did a few years ago.

Lisa Virtue [00:36:45]:

Yep, a hundred percent metrics. Anyone listening? If you have a new job, start, write it down, don't forget. Yeah, go get that information. Cause once you leave a job or there's a layoff, unfortunately you don't have access to the data anymore. And it's really hard to recall that and remember it to your point.

Amanda Rice [00:37:01]:

And then also like even at review times, like a lot of individuals can't remember what happened six months ago. Right. And so we have recency bias. And so it becomes critical to keep track of the information that we've done across the year. Cause that could set you up for a raise internally or a promotion internally as well. So it's not even just about like leaving the organization. Right. You can use it both internally as well.

Lisa Virtue [00:37:24]:

A hundred percent. And moving into that leadership position management role. How you're going to answer the questions, the metrics are going to look different. Like, what does success mean? Well, how many people did you mentor? Who are you helping along the way? It's not so much about, oh, you're great at sales, we're going to promote you. It's you're great at sales and what else do you have to offer in the leadership component?

Amanda Rice [00:37:47]:

Any like, it's interesting I, I wrote about this the other day, but if you think about a promotion in an organization, there's like five kind of key steps, steps that you like want to be thinking about to set yourself up. The first piece is like performing in your current role, right? So like you need to be hitting your numbers and exceeding them to set yourself up. The second piece that's critical is to communicate with your manager. They don't know what your career goals and aspirations are. And so you need to be starting to build those advocates for you internally. And then the third piece is identify who the hiring manager would be. So for instance, if, let's say you're, you're trying to move from being an individual contributor into a manager, if that sales manager reports into the VP of sales, get time with the VP of sales and sit down and ask them questions about like, what would you be looking for in a great manager candidate? What are some things that I could do to separate myself and set me up in the future when there is a role or an opportunity available. Right.

Amanda Rice [00:38:41]:

And then it's also like, shadow someone in the role. So this is the fourth piece is like, a lot of times we think we know what the role is, but we don't. So it's like, meet with a current sales manager across the team and be like, can you really help me understand what day in the world life looks like? And then the last piece is you need to perform, demonstrating you already have those skills to take on the next role. So it's identifying stretch projects while you're still performing and doing your current role. But you need to have those stretch projects to demonstrate, hey, you're ready to get to the next level. One of the most recent organizations I was a part of, it wouldn't, it wasn't even possible to get promoted up through levels unless you had demonstrated examples of those stretch projects, like a minimum of six months. They were probably the most black and white organization I've been a part of. But again, if you think about that five step framework that could set you up for success when it comes time for the promotion.

Amanda Rice [00:39:31]:

So instead of it being like a really formal Interview process. It's almost like we know that Amanda is interested in this role. We think she's a great fit because she already has these specific examples. Yeah, we're going to put her through the interview process, but she probably has a leg up over other candidates. This is critical to driving internal promotions. And, and it's fascinating too. Cause if I look back at my career, all of the moves that I made going into like the next type of role, they were all internal promotions. And so it's so much easier to move into a new role internally than it is to try to make that jump outside of your organization.

Amanda Rice [00:40:04]:

Those are some of the steps that I've seen to be really effective as you're trying to navigate going for those next roles within an organization.

Lisa Virtue [00:40:12]:

Great advice. Can you repeat the five steps? Just.

Amanda Rice [00:40:15]:

Just the titles of each One, perform. Two, communicate with your manager. Three, let the hiring manager know. Four, shadow someone in the role and then five, take on those stretch projects.

Lisa Virtue [00:40:26]:

Love it. I do get a lot of pushback, especially from really junior employees. They're like, stretch project. I have to do more than what I'm paid for. And I'm always say it just depends on what your goals are. Right. If your goal is to be a multiplier and eventually get paid more than what you're getting paid now, that time spent ahead will pay off in the long run. Right? Have you seen this? People have a hard time with stretching or doing extra work, especially with work life balance.

Lisa Virtue [00:40:55]:

And I want to be a healthy employee and I don't have time for that.

Amanda Rice [00:40:59]:

If you're great at your current role, hopefully you could perform that in like 80% of a work week. Right. And so then it's like use another 20% to set yourself up for success. I think the other thing too is when you do earn that promotion, how do you go and equip to perform at a very high level? Those stretch projects are going to help set you up so you're not floundering on day one. Because trust me, like, when you do get promoted, you typically need to work harder those first six months to get yourself up to speed and set yourself up for success. So in some ways, if you put in the work now while you're already performing really well in your current role, it's actually going to make your transition easier year and decrease the amount of time you maybe have to spend in your ramp to set yourself up.

Lisa Virtue [00:41:42]:

I love that you should only be doing 80% of the work if you're good at it anyway.

Amanda Rice [00:41:46]:

I mean, I think about a lot of my top sales reps. I'm like, how do you have time to go to the gym in the middle of the day? I'm like, man, what I would give to have that time back.

Lisa Virtue [00:41:55]:

Yeah, they figured that rhythm. I love it.

Amanda Rice [00:41:57]:

Good for them.

Lisa Virtue [00:41:58]:

Awesome. Anything that we haven't covered that you wanted to share today?

Amanda Rice [00:42:01]:

I feel like we've had a really great conversation, and so hopefully it's helpful for those individuals. Whether you're seeking kind of a new promotion or working to land a new opportunity, I feel like we've highlighted a lot. Lisa. I've enjoyed it.

Lisa Virtue [00:42:12]:

Yeah, same. So, Amanda, you are the guru for sales career coaching, so anyone in this field should contact you, in my opinion. So how can they get ahold of you?

Amanda Rice [00:42:23]:

Yeah, of course. Two ways. My email address is Amanda mandadash rice.com where you could check out my website, which is Amanda-Rice.com and you can easily schedule time there, too. Just love to hear from you.

Lisa Virtue [00:42:36]:

Thank you so much for your insights and your time today. It was a pleasure talking to you.

Amanda Rice [00:42:40]:

Thanks, Lisa. I appreciate it.