Driving results by leading from the front

Devin Reed: Welcome to Reveal: The Revenue Intelligence Podcast, powered by Gong. We're your hosts, Devin Reed.

Sheena Badani: And I'm Sheena Badani. Revenue intelligence is a new way of operating based on customer reality instead of opinions, making data- driven decisions based on facts instead of opinions or guesswork.

Devin Reed: And it's made up of three success pillars; people intelligence, deal intelligence, and market intelligence. The things all revenue teams need and care about. Every week, we interview senior revenue professionals and share their stories and insights on how they leverage revenue intelligence to drive success and win their market.

Sheena Badani: You'll hear how modern go- to- market teams win as a team, close revenue with critical deal insight and execute their strategic initiatives. Plus all the challenges that come along with it.

Devin Reed: Now, Sheena, I know the answer to this question, but most listeners don't. So if you were not a marketing leader at Gong, you were never in B2B, you never got into marketing, what would be your ideal job?

Sheena Badani: Okay. I know what you're thinking about, but that was my answer from when I was like 13 years old.

Devin Reed: Has it has changed?

Sheena Badani: It has changed. So I will give you two answers. So the answer that you were looking for from when I was 13 was a news anchor. That was my dream job. I even did a school project where I interviewed a news anchor from our local station in Sacramento.

Devin Reed: Shout out to Sacramento.

Sheena Badani: And I was like... Exactly Central Valley and that probably fizzled out in high school or something. Now my dream, and one day this will happen is to be an entrepreneur. I would love to start my own company and start my own business. So that is what I would be doing if I was not in marketing and hosting this podcast with you. So that's not going anywhere soon. So don't worry.

Devin Reed: I'm glad you're not going anywhere soon, but I have no doubt you will, you'll achieve that. And you said it fizzled out in high school, but I mean, a few years later here you are somewhat of an anchor in the new modern day, news or radio programming. Reason I brought it up is we got to hang out with Dusty Bailey today. And he's a sales leader over at Paychex, director of sales, over a hundred direct reports. And he shared at the very end, he's like, " My next career move will probably be a motivational speaker." And by the end of the episode, me and you were like, " Obviously, what are you waiting for? That's exactly what you should be."

Sheena Badani: inaudible.

Devin Reed: He was fantastic. And we brought him on the show. Initially, he came highly recommended from someone in our network and fantastic person in terms of talking about how to coach, how to elevate your team. And he comes from a genuine place of caring about his team and each individual member. And I was inspired and motivated by the end of this interview. So Dusty, if you're listening, go follow your dream my man, you're meant for this.

Sheena Badani: He invests so much time and energy in different processes and programs. And the time that he will put into, interact and engage with every single person on his team it's really inspirational. And there's so many ideas in this conversation of what sales managers and leaders can and should be doing with their teams, especially in this virtual environment.

Devin Reed: Not to get too meta, but he inspired me with new ways to inspire others. So I took some notes down and I'm looking forward to it. So let's go hang out with Dusty. Dusty, welcome to Reveal. Thanks for hanging out with us and thank you for going the extra yard and wearing a blazer and a pocket square today. You are by far the best dressed person in the room right now.

Dusty Bailey: Hey, listen, I was so excited to do this and I've been looking forward to it all week and hey, I got to give away my secret like I did earlier. Don't let it fool you. I'm in my short. You can't even see. I'm in my shorts and my tennis shoes, right. So the true classic work from home environment, right.

Sheena Badani: You ready for a run right after this. So you're all set.

Dusty Bailey: You got it.

Devin Reed: Well, Dusty your title is director new business virtual sales West at Paychex. I've never seen anyone with the title virtual in their title. So is that something new or has that always been the case even before the pandemic?

Dusty Bailey: Yeah, it was a new transition through the pandemic. Paychex had been planning to start to build a more virtual presence based on just the demand from business owners, speed to lead, being more knowledgeable and having to reach people virtually, right. We still have a very dominant and market force, face- to- face meeting structure as well. But with the pandemic, it just sped up the plan as everybody did, right. And so went from a field based leader to overnight managing a hundred people virtually, right. From East to West Coast with the title of virtual sales director, helping drive this team to focus on prospecting and the one to 19 employee space of getting out to business owners on the front end of the funnel.

Sheena Badani: Maybe tell us a little bit about your team. What does it look like? Some of the key responsibilities of beyond the segment that you're going after, which you talked about.

Dusty Bailey: Yeah. So our team is comprised of, the entire division is 300 plus sales reps clearly focused on outbound prospecting where we're driving the strategy in markets where there might be a new law change or a regulatory mandate that has to happen for small business owners or areas where during COVID state specifics regulations are different. So we were able to call States that were opening while others were closing, right. We also were able to directly go after those in need of PPP loans. So we were built to be the speed to the need of the small business owner and the different industry verticals, right? With target marketing, being fed to us so that we had talk tracks, lead generation and continued focus on the prospecting piece of the business, freeing of other areas of our division to be that relationship builder, driving a demand from channel such as CPA banks, clients, things like that. So we're the primary prospector in our area.

Sheena Badani: What a unique time to be focused on the SMB market over the last year plus, right? These are some of the businesses that were either hardest hit or were in so much uncertainty. And you were the front lines with those folks.

Dusty Bailey: Yeah. And it was, we were also focused on trying to get up market, right. Nine plus employee counts as well. But when you see about it, even during the pandemic, new business starts were on the rise, right. More and more people, my wife to be, an example, COVID happened, merger. She didn't know what she was going to do as a highly paid executive, started her own company. So now she's a consultant doing what she did prior, but for herself. So that was a huge headwind for us to be ahead of that. But yeah, I think what was super impactful though, Sheena was the fact that we could get out on the front lines and talk about what we're doing for that small business community, with the COVID resources, the PPP, lending and those kinds of things, where they needed it the most, coupled with all the new business start, it was a good time. But what we also did see is we saw a lot of opportunity in that 20 plus space. Because they started to shrink down into the 19 space and we were able to get ahead of them or get ahold of them and get in front of them before they were trying to make any other changes. So as they start to grow, then as a higher market, we have them as a client.

Devin Reed: Dusty, I knew I liked you from when we very first met. No bromance, I just liked you. And I liked you even more when I stocked your LinkedIn profile. And I saw that you did an Ice Bucket Challenge to drive sales a couple of weeks ago. Now that ended up itself could have won me over. But what really put me over the top was you were in a two piece money suit. And for those who can't see it which because it's not up on the screen or anything is, Sheena, imagine dollar signs, like a hundred dollars bills printed all over this green two piece suit. And he just has ice water dumped on top of him. There he goes. It's a beautiful thing.

Sheena Badani: Oh my gosh, he's showing it to us now.

Devin Reed: Tell us a little bit about that.

Dusty Bailey: Yeah. So it goes to a couple of things. When I first got the job, right, it was new to me. And I was a road warrior, three days a week, every week traveling to my markets, right. And I'm a very impersonable guy, like high fives, fist pumps, like in the field, leading from the front with my people, running competitions, shooting baskets in the office, whatever, just having fun and being energetic and passionate with my team. And I told my wife, I said, " Man, how am I going to do this virtually?" And it was a simple answer. When you look to your spouse for guidance, they always hit you with the most simple answer and the truth. And she's like, " Just continue to be yourself." Right. And then it really sparked with, I used to do a Christmas card where I dress up. So I was like, " All right, well, we're going to dress up." And it started as a joke and I became Dollar Dusty on national calls. And so I got a green suit too. And I put dollar bills in my pocket and we just have fun with it. And so it's just been, that's part of it, the culture, having it fun, making it normal, right. That this work from home environment isn't our normal and people are so worried like, " Oh, Dusty's executive, I got tO be the best." No, that's why I made the joke about wearing shorts and tennis shoes, dogs barking. Before this call, I was sweating because my wife was doing vacuuming. And I was on some other calls and I couldn't tell her to stop. And I'm like, " You can't be vacuuming when I'm on calls." But my point in saying all that to you, Devin was the suit, was fun and inner energy at first and it's just become a inaudible. And so it was a joke with my family that they would take pictures of me wearing a suit and share it with all my friends, like, " Look at this guy, this is how he dresses for work." Right. And then we ran an Ice Bucket Challenge to really create synergy around using the Gong, going after sales and driving a different award versus maybe a cash reward or something else. Because we do those too. And the team loves to get around, putting the leader through pain, right. And that bucket was super cold. And if you watch the video on my LinkedIn, my daughter with her mischievous laugh, I don't know what makes me more nervous, the fact that she's so excited to do it or the fact that my team loved every minute of it, right. Because that means they love to see me in pain. I would just say it was a fun thing to do. It's about the culture, about being human and allowing people to know that we're in this together with our family and that you can blend this personal work from home, your personality, with business and have fun with it, right. So I appreciate the positive comments and feedback and yeah, it was a good time.

Sheena Badani: We'll have to add that video link to the show notes Devin, so that everyone can see the suit and see the giggle and see at all.

Devin Reed: Yeah. I noticed that too. And there's something to be said for kids and direct reports who just love seeing you and we'll call it safe amount of pain, you were safe and therefore it's funny. But yeah, I did notice that. She had a big grin on her face. She likes seeing the dad in some pain there.

Dusty Bailey: Yeah. And they keep asking me when's the next one. They want to do it again.

Devin Reed: Of course. Yeah.

Sheena Badani: So you talk about being human, being your true self. I would guess that part of that is how you describe leading from the front and being your true self with bringing all of that to your people, into your teams. So would love to understand little bit more from your perspective, like how do you lead from the front? What does that mean to you? And then separately, how do you be accountable to your people? What are they looking to you for?

Dusty Bailey: Yeah. So a couple of things I learned a long time ago Sheena, when I became a leader, right. I look back of all the leaders I've ever had. And there was two types of leaders I've had. I had leaders that I was worth following, that I would follow again tomorrow. They can call me up today and I would go do it again. And that's only five out of the many that I had. And then the other group of leaders that I had, they were leaders I wanted to follow again. Not that they were bad or I want to say anything negative about it, but they just weren't someone that really got me jazzed. But what I learned is I took one or two things away from things that they didn't do. And I was like, " I got to change that one." I become a leader so that I can do that for people. Because I know what it feels like as an employee, not getting that. And then returned one or two... In return, I asked myself, " What did I get from them? What's one or two things I got from them." A couple of leaders, let me take as much training as possible. A couple of leaders allowed me to be resourceful and do what I needed to do to find the answers. Couple of leaders allowed me to make mistakes and be human. And so then I was like, " Okay, how do I translate that to be my true, authentic self as a leader and incorporate all these things." Then along the way what I've done is I do skip level conversations or I talk to people and not just asking how they're doing and what I could do for them. I turn it around and say, " What more do I need to do different? Or what's one or two things that I should stop doing that might be getting in your way or slowing you down." And then you couple that altogether as a leader and you start to think about, " Okay, this is how I'm going to lead from the front. This is what I felt like when I was employee, this is what my people are telling me. This is what I'm hearing through the grapevine I've seen from other peers of mine that might not be doing something. How do I incorporate that to lead from the front?" And then what I mean about being accountable to my people, right? At the end of the day, I'm overhead, I don't have a job unless my people deliver on the results and are happy at work and driving to some kind of goal. So when I say be accountable to my people, I'm accountable to their goals. So they tell me, "I want to buy a house." I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure they see that goal, right? Remind them, put things in front of them, coach them and show them the way. I promise everybody when I hire them, I'm always going to be honest, direct, and get them straight to the point versus sugarcoating stuff and hold them accountable. And so that's the other piece is I'm going to be honest with them and hold them accountable when they're not doing their job. I'm going to be available, right. Too many times leaders aren't available. And that's when you lose good people because they need something in the moment, right. And so I make myself available. And Sheena the last thing is when I go to bed at night, I lose sleep, if I can't say before I go to bed, that I did everything in my power to help this person succeed, I lose sleep. So when I go to bed at night, if I'm, okay, I didn't help Devin with this. So first thing I do in the mornings, let me give him all the resources I can. So I know I'm doing everything in my power to make them successful. Because at the end of the day, we recruit them. We paint this picture about how great it is to come work for you. And then all of a sudden you're either there or not. I promised I would never be the Phantom leader. No one ever wants to be on this high. Then all of a sudden, the bottom drops out because everything they were told before they signed on the line, once they sign on the line, it's not there. Does that make sense?

Sheena Badani: Yeah, it totally does. I mean, I love the aspirations and these goals that you have for yourself, and I'm sure you're human with everybody that sometimes is not always in play and something falls apart a bit. You're not always on your A game. You did mention that you've talked to the folks on your team and asked for their feedback, how can you be doing better? What can you be doing different? But it's often like really, really hard for the ICs and reps to be open and give that feedback to their manager, to their manager's manager. So how do you get them to really open up and be honest with you?

Dusty Bailey: Yeah, so I do a couple of things. Number one, I do a daily cadence email every single day. And what that email consists of is a one or two lines about where we stand, how we're tracking, what we look like. Then the next line is shout outs to whoever's getting it done, top performers. And then the next two things are, is a development piece or I steal content from things that you guys put out or other people put out and how this will help them become better, either mentally, emotionally, physically, whatever. And then I would do a nice motivational piece. And I tied into either personal experience with my family, things that I've had to overcome. And I put things out there because it might only touch 20% of my team, but I do it every single day, create it from scratch. And then somebody being touche. Then on top of that Sheena, what I've made it very clear to my leaders are, if you have an outlier or somebody is sailing away from the Harbor or away from the Island that we're going to, tip me off and let me know. And then out of nowhere, I'll just jump into their WebEx teams, like their social media, direct message, they don't even know I'm coming. I just pop up, they answer the phone, I can be in a tank top, t- shirt catch him off guard, but we have a real raw conversation. Like, " Oh my God, I'm so sorry." I say, " That's not why I'm calling, tell me what's going on. I'm hearing through the grapevine this, or I've seen by your activity level is down. Let's talk about you. How are you feeling? What's happening at home? Dogs barking or whatever." We have like a personal fireside chat. I would call it moment, but they put their guard down Sheena and then they start telling me what's really going on. Then I can understand, okay, is there something I need to do different? And you can tell that you need to do something different based on actions, based on maybe body language, based on how they answer a question, right. So being self- aware when you're having this one- to- one conversation, you know there's something more to dig, right. And that's how I do it. And then last, I make myself available when I sent... So every other month I send individual notes down to my sales reps. And I'm saying, " Hey, just checking in, want to see how things are going." And they'll either respond one of three ways. I'm so fired up. I got this going on, this going on, this going on. And I'll go in a direction with my email or they'll respond very like off kilter or something that you can tell that was wrong, I'll instantly schedule a one- on- one or they won't respond at all. So then that means they're ghosting, something's up. So I pick up the phone and call them directly and just check on, right. Just to be in tuned with your people. That's how I do it.

Devin Reed: I respect that a hundred percent. I have to imagine sometimes the impromptu call, right? When Dusty calls, once that initial surprise or shock is over, I imagine when you say, " Hey, I noticed some things and I'm calling because, not only use the word concerned. I doubt you use that word, but you know what I mean? I'm interested, I'm invested. My gut tells me that sometimes they might not have even picked up that they're off. You know what I mean? Sometimes you're cruising downward or not spiraling it, but you're just decreasing. And you're like, " Man, I'm kind of off. It's been three days in a row. Maybe it's been two weeks in a row." To have you as their leader call and just say, " Hey, I noticed, and I care." I have to imagine that creates a good culture across the team. And a lot of trust with you as well.

Dusty Bailey: It does and Devin what it also does is it gets them to really self identify what really might be going on, right. Because a lot of times, especially in this virtual environment, we're by ourselves and we can't... One example, one girl was putting so much pressure. I'll use her as an example. If you ask me the question about a time someone turned around, but she was putting so much pressure on herself because her husband is so successful in his industry and she's not. And she hasn't been winning and she'd been here for six months and she was a top graduate in her class. She's always been here, always peaked and everything she's done. And she come here and like my Tyson says, everyone has a plan to, you're punched in the mouth. That's sales man. You come into sales, it's like, Oh, and then you just like... In what it comes down to, she was just allowing the pressure of comparing herself to past achievements and her husband's successful career. Totally throw her off her game. So when you listened to her on Gong, you listen to her on a meeting, you could just tell she was already in her head like, " Oh, how am I going to win? How am I going to..." Telling herself stories before she got there? And then we slowly unwound that, it took a couple of calls, reassurance that, let her know that I'm here for her. Her manager did a lot of good job too, with her. And now she went out and got six sales, right? This last month she got six sales. Because we stopped thinking about all the negative things and comparing ourselves. And we started focusing on what works, making the dial, having a good opening, using your bubbly personality, with the right type of prospects. Now she's off and running, right. And that's the difference that it makes, but she didn't have anyone to talk to. And I just was that guy that she could talk to.

Devin Reed: We have talked about that voice in your head with Maria Tribble. She called it the itty bitty shitty committee that can deter you from your best work and your best thoughts. Just an open invite, you have my email Dusty, Sheena, I can give him yours too. I'd love that quarterly check- in and if I don't respond, you call me and just make sure I'm in the right head space. Because I'm subscribed to the school of Dollar Dusty.

Sheena Badani: Seriously. I love it.

Dusty Bailey: You got it.

Sheena Badani: So you manage like a pretty large team and I'm sure your hiring pace is pretty high. You have new folks coming in all the time. When you have a new rep that joins your team, what are you focused on first from a developmental perspective?

Dusty Bailey: Yeah. So what I learned a long time ago and just doing the job myself and then having others that I had to coach, the number one thing that I got to get people comfortable with is activity level as you need to be successful, right? Because you're not talking to people, you're not having the conversation. I can't help you close sales. I can't coach you on what to say different. I can't help you overcome objections. I can't do that. So the number one thing is we got to hone in people on how to get really good at the activity. If you drive the activity, the results will come. It's just a pure math game. Then as you start to get better at activity, we can ratchet up your sales talk, tracks, your objection, handling all of that and other thing. The other thing is too many times new reps come in and is firehouse. And they're so worried about knowing everything. So their feet gets stuck in cement blocks and it can't go anywhere. Because I can't do it until I know everything. And it's like throwing a toddler in the deep end, time to swim. Here we go. I don't let them sit on the sideline all summer and miss out the chance to swim. I throw them in. We're going to teach you how to swim in the first day of summer so that you can swim. And I have them focused on what they do know Sheena, not what they don't know. Because we hired them for all the things they were good at or potential they've had or successes, use that to then become culturized in Paychex's way versus trying to force your force Paychex on yourself, right. And that's the thing. And there's so many products. People are so scared to say, " I don't know." That's the number one thing you had to say to a business owner. I don't know, but I will find out for you. And then circle back and get them the answer. And then you retain that. And then the last thing I would say from it is just the velocity and speed that we need these people to have agility and be ready to move on any given time, especially with COVID. As you guys know, I mean, guys are just like rapidly changing. And so making sure these guys know that it's okay, the change curve that we always talk to you about, right, it's here. And then it just drops the bot. But how do we get these guys through the change curve quickly? And patience is a virtue. My friend, I mean, I'm a millennial and I sometimes run out of it. But when you got Uber Eats and internet and cell phone and everything you want, you need to answer it's there. Sales is not that way. It's going to take six, nine, sometimes 12 months. So sometimes I have to pull out old commission statements from past reps or you see them go like this. And then by the ninth month they take off, right. And they don't stop. But patients, people want to win tomorrow, want to be CEO tomorrow, buy their million dollar home to tomorrow, it doesn't work that way. You still have to be patient. And I find a lot of times in new reps, you have to teach them that because patience is hard these days. And sales is not instant gratification, never has been, never will be, right. That's just the industry that's never going to catch up to that.

Sheena Badani: So. Sure. You talked about this learning curve and how it can dip, how do you ensure now with your more tenured reps, so these folks they'd been there six months, one year or two years, how do you keep them learning and developing and how is that different than what you were doing with your newer reps?

Dusty Bailey: Yeah. So I'm a big fan of Situational Leadership for those that haven't read that and meeting them where they're at, right. So D- one stage, these guys need high direction, right. That's the newer rep. But then you get a seasoned rep, right. They're on cruise control, they're feeling good. It's how do you teach them new tricks? Or how do you help leverage some areas their business are missing out, right. So they're so in their lane, they're doing so well. They feel like they know it all, but those guys are always about how do I get more money? Or maybe they want to get promoted or maybe there's a new shiny toy they want to buy. How do you navigate them to try new things that won't get them there in result, right. That's where it's at. The other thing is they're driven, some of them top performers just love to help others. So then you get some things off of your plate. Hey, I want you to train this class. Hey, I want to do a podcast with you that goes out to your entire company. You start elevating the other exposure where then they start stretching themselves to learn newer things because they're bought in for their own career, right. So it's finding that sweet spot Sheena, what's going to help elevate them and make them feel good about the change or feel good about doing more, right. But in any business, right, any business owner will tell you this, any sales team, it's every year you got to have incremental growth. And top performers are no different. A lot of times they want to keep squeezing the same thing, but you got to teach them how to broaden and find that incremental growth from somewhere else.

Devin Reed: I agree completely. And I think there's a misnomer that all top performers are coin operated. And sometimes people just make a whole lot of money and then they don't want more money. I mean, they want to keep it going, don't get me wrong. But you know what I mean? There's only so many inaudible you can chase. I'd like to pivot a little bit Dusty and here a little bit about the data, right? So, you know Gong and Reveal, we were all about data and just adding that to business decisions and all that good stuff. What metrics do you use to track your reps growth?

Dusty Bailey: Yeah. So we're using a couple of different things. So number one, like I said, if we know that we got to get to 60 dials based on the type of leads we're calling and people not knowing we are, a new business starts and we have to present seven times, right. With a certain closing ratio to get the number we need for our sales, right. So we really drive down to that level of this many dials, this many appointments, gives you this many sales, right? Based on your closing ratio. Then we're using the data. Okay, when we call this type of lead, who's successful, correct. Let's feed those reps, this type of lead all the time, right. So that they can be really good there, right. Then we're looking at the data specifically Gong, where we can't stay on the phone longer than a minute. Perfect. Let's just hone in on your opening statement. What are you saying that's turning people off not to want to talk longer, right? So then we start talking there. Then using data of, okay, you got a 20 minute conversation, but you didn't close, why not? Honing into where we went wrong there? And then the last piece would just be the average revenue size per client, right? When you see top performers getting great revenue, great closing wins, but someone else has the same type of units or number of sales. But the revenue is way down, you know they're discounting or, you know they're leaving something out of the buying process, such as introducing a partner. What does that look like, right. And then I use it for my managers. How effective are you coaching? How effective are you leading? Because you'll see incremental growth and you'll see changes. If the same rep is making X amount of dollars, X amount of inaudible, but doesn't have the sales three months in there, they got all the Gong recordings. They're just checking the box. And that means you're not field riding with them. You're not dissecting what's really going on with their situation to make them better. Because what you will see if you're truly coaching and guiding them, you'll see incremental growth every single week, every single month from doing these metrics and using the tools.

Sheena Badani: Dusty uses data to break down his sales teams target metrics in to closed one deals. For his team, he knows exactly how many dials a day will lead to the number of demos necessary to hit revenue targets based off of Paychex's closing ratio. While his specific metrics may be different from your team, it's crucial to have the data, to know how to move accounts from the top to the bottom of the sales funnel. This reminds me of a recent study from McKinsey and Company, where they analyzed 2, 500 B2B companies and found out why some were outperforming the rest. According to the study, 72% of the fastest growing B2B companies said leveraging data is the most important component of their sales planning. This tells me that top companies know how their sales engine works through data and are able to make informed decisions without guesses or assumptions. They find out what is actually working and execute it at scale to drive more revenue. I think about how Dusty works with reps to find answers to questions like why couldn't you book next steps after 20 minutes? He uses data to answer these questions and drive the solution at scale.

Devin Reed: That's really interesting. It sounds like the way that you monitor it is to make sure reps and maybe even some of the coaches on your team, aren't just going through the motions, right.

Dusty Bailey: Correct.

Devin Reed: And checking the box because, hey, this is the playbook and I know, but actually getting qualitative with it and understanding, well, Hey, just because you're checking the box doesn't mean the result is right around the corner. So let's figure out why that is.

Dusty Bailey: Yeah. And also I use the data for myself, right? So it goes back to just lead from the front, whatever the goal is to listen or coach, I double it because I want to show my people, I can do it too, right. No matter what I got going on, I'm going to do it too. But then as I listened, it gives me content to do on my Gong podcast three times a week and sales podcast and training podcasts on what to train these guys on, what conversations to have. And then I role play Devin so that they see that I'm going through it too, right. I'm going to do it too. You got this objection, here's what I would say or how I would do it, right. Or we have this recent change in an industry standard. I then can role play and speak to and train and then tie in the different things I'm seeing with the matrix that we're recording, right. So it gives me real time data too to help lead the team where we need to go. I would also say to you, the last thing that I use it for is, I like to think six months, nine months, 12 months down the road. So I get to see, okay, the progression of where our pipeline might be, what things we got to fix, what industries we really need to focus on like seasonal, right. So I was able to know, inaudible, don't starting to come to inaudible two months ago by just some of the dials people were making. So this, let's heavily go into seasonal. So when May and June hit, we already are on top of our game with the word track, all of that ahead of other people who might just now be getting to it, right. So you start to see future things that you need to do to get better.

Sheena Badani: You hold up, you have to clarify something that you mentioned in that, which was a Gong podcast that you host. What is that?

Devin Reed: I'm glad you delve into it. Because if I skipped by this I'm the awful, awful host.

Dusty Bailey: So when we first generated this partnership with you guys to get a lot of buzz and get people committed to it, we were doing a daily 15, 20 minute Gong podcast. So anytime I was tagged in a call or leaders were tagged in some calls either calls that needed more support or things that we were hearing consistently across the division, we would just do an interview and we'd role play. And we talk about it and we share it with everybody. So everybody could watch myself and some of my senior leaders talk through it, right. And so we've gotten so entrenched with Gong. We do it three days a week. We bring in reps on to talk about why they use Gong and how they love it. We bring in partners, we bring in training, we do a different thing, but it's a way for me to just another medium to talk to my people and live the brand and the experience some all about us, showing them that I'm going to do it too, right. And then it helps us stay up to date too. Sometimes we're having same problem over and over. And then we can say, " Oh, well this is a training issue. We didn't train appropriately on this." So then I can get on the Gong podcast and wind it back and then be able to share it. But like I said earlier to others, my daily cadence email, the skip levels or the Gong podcast, I do all these different mediums because I'm only touching 20% of the people each time it goes out. But I'm touching a different 20% of the people, right. So that way I'm at least getting to everybody. And the hardest part, I know you talked about this earlier is the itty bitty committee thing that you said. For the longest time, I started this daily cadence email five years ago and I haven't stopped. Whatever team I lead, I do it all all the time, every single day, one of my vacation. Except when my team tells me I need to take a vacation and they volunteer to do it for me. And for the longest time, when I first did it first 12, 18 months, I'm like, " Man, does anybody read this? Am I wasting my time?" Because it was crickets, no one said anything, right. And then slowly people started reaching out or when they would leave the company, would do an exit interview and they would tell me all about an email I sent that touched them and I'm like, " Dang, it really works." Right. And so inaudible okay. And then when I got changed over to this job and I sent a goodbye email to my previous team, man, it just the flood gates of emails and calls and text messages that I got about just the skip levels, the emails and all the different stuff I did. So what I'm saying to you is, as a leader, you have to have confidence in what you're doing and believe it's working because it is. You're not always going to see it on the surface, right. And it's no different as a rep. Sheena and Devin, it takes 90 days, nine months, whatever for them to get success, a leader has that same thing. You just have to, repetition consistently committed to the process and the results will come.

Sheena Badani: There are three things that I love about your approach, not just the podcast, but all these different styles that you have integrated into chair processes. One is that you're customizing and offering different options depending on how people learn, right? Whether it's audio or written or live on the phone. That's super interesting, especially for a large team that you have. The second one is scaling. So you're able to reach so many people through recording something once or writing the same ones. And then third is you mean, you lead virtual sales, but you've crack kind of like the virtual development nut of how do you continuously develop and stay in touch with your folks in this virtual environment? So there's so many amazing nuggets in everything that you've talked about today.

Dusty Bailey: I love that because the hardest part for me is I got to keep developing myself too, right. So one of the things that this has done for me and deep down I'm thinking, hey, I should be a motivational speaker one day. I want to do that, right. And how do I do that? I love Paychex so much that it's hard to go out and try to start this new thing. And someone's like, " Hey, you just got to start somewhere." And so this year new year's resolution was once a week, I'm going to write some kind of content on LinkedIn and I haven't skipped a beat and now I do it. So I'm publishing some of what I'm doing on LinkedIn to broaden from any other audiences that don't get me. But also to develop myself. Because that's the number one thing as leaders, we also have to do outside of love on our people and develop our people is you can't go stale in your leadership, especially with all the ever- changing environment that we're in with the virtual stuff, you've got to stay up to speed because how you led three years ago is about to expire, right. And how you're leading today is going to expire even quicker, 24 months from now. So how are you staying up to date, developing yourself to continue to get better as a leader. And that's what has helped me too Sheena is it's driving me. All these different media I had to learn. Don't get it wrong. I made some mistakes stumbling along the way, trying to learn all these things. But it's made me that much better of a leader, prepare me for whatever my future is.

Devin Reed: All those emails that you were writing or that you've written, you need to go collect all those, put them together. And you've got a book, my friend, you have your first book and then now a launch you into your motivational speaking career. I mean, if you need an agent, let me know. I don't have a lot of time but for you I'll carve out time for Dollar Dusty.

Dusty Bailey: I love it. I love it.

Devin Reed: Final question. I didn't put on the prep doc, Because I wanted you to be unprepared. We asked the same question to all of our guests before we wrap up, which is, how would you describe sales in one word?

Dusty Bailey: Oh man, there's so many.

Devin Reed: I really teed it up for you too. It was going to be a hard ball question.

Dusty Bailey: inaudible man. My mind was going somewhere else.

Devin Reed: It's a great interview, ending with inaudible journalism. Thanks Devin.

Dusty Bailey: You got it. So can I cheat and say two words?

Devin Reed: Sure, it's your world?

Dusty Bailey: Life- Changing

Devin Reed: I like that. And we'll put a hyphen so it's one word.

Sheena Badani: Great.

Devin Reed: Now that I've asked you for one word, you want to elaborate?

Dusty Bailey: Yeah. Listen, life changing for many reasons, right. Because I look at too many people think that you have to keep your personal life and your professional life separate. But I don't believe that, if you follow me on my LinkedIn, you'll see I watched my kids as toddlers, see how they develop and do things. And I compare that to sales reps and what we go through, right. And how they change. I watched my older kids excel in sports or academia. And I tie that into what I do every day as a leader in sales coaching. But also personally it's changed my life, right. I was a banker for 20 something years before I came over to Paychex, right. And I remember coming over people like you're a banker, you're not going to succeed. And bankers are lazy. And inaudible. All these naysayers why I couldn't win in sales. But I sold in banking too, right? It was a different kind of a banker there, but it's changed. I mean, it's helped my wife and I do so many things that we didn't do before. It's changed the life for my kids. But more importantly, it's changed many people's lives that I've hired, that have instilled... They're trusting me to lead them. And that's why I do the job Devin and Sheena is that when I can watch people buy their first car, buy their first house, get married, have kids, kids go to college, retire, go on great trips. I look back and I'm like, " It's life- changing." Right. You're changing people's lives. Not only for your people, but also for business owners, man. How many times can you say that, because I sold this product that I kept this business in business. I helped them retire at dignity. I was able to protect them from HR concerns. They were able to grow by another location. It's life- changing man. Anyway, you look at it, right. It is life changing experience and the hard knocks of sales. So I would be remiss if I didn't say it's life- changing there too, because it teaches you patience, diversity, how to get up when you're knocked down, how to overcome anything and more importantly, how to tailor your conversation no matter what is happening, right. Because at the end of the day, everybody you talk to is a different animal and different thinker. And so you're going to have to get better every day when you make the phone call.

Sheena Badani: Dusty you already are a motivational speaker. This is not something that's far in your future. It is like right now.

Devin Reed: Fantastic. Well Dusty, thank you again for hanging out with us. I'm glad we got to connect and I know our listeners enjoy this as well.

Dusty Bailey: That's great. It's a pleasure. I appreciate you guys very much. Have a great weekend.

Sheena Badani: Every week we bring you a micro action, something to think about or an action you can put into play today. Like Dusty said, he leads from the front as many sales leaders do. This can take the form of checking in on your reps, learning their personal goals and figuring out where they have room to grow. Even if they're quota crushers. In your next, one- on- ones try Dusty's favorite question for his reps, instead of asking how they're doing, turn it around and ask what's something that I could be doing differently. Getting the information about how to improve as a sales leader from your reps will help the entire sales engine run smoother and keep your sales culture strong.

Devin Reed: Did you like today's episode? Subscribe now so next week's episode will be waiting for you on Monday.

Sheena Badani: And if you really liked the podcast, please leave a review. Five star reviews, go a long way to help get the word out there.

Devin Reed: And if you're not ready to give a five, check out another episode and see if we've won you over by then.

Sheena Badani: And if you have any feedback or you want us to interview one of your favorite revenue leaders, just email us at reveal @ gong. io.