How personal development fuels growth

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. You know, 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, what are you learning these days?

Devin Reed: That can be a deep question. That can be a deep question. The first thing that comes to mind is how to be a dad because that's the new thing for me. But that's something you kind of learn on the job, I'm learning. You just go get it done. So that's an ongoing thing. And more the professional skill development realm, I am pretty focused on storytelling.

Sheena Badani: Okay, say more.

Devin Reed: Yeah. So I always used to think like, so I've always kind of been like the funny guy, class clown, which is usually storytelling, you're just making it funny. And I realized at professional events, happy hours, cocktail hours, storytelling is where my sweet spot is. I can hold a conversation, tell stories and entertain people. And it took me a while to realize that that skill is so transferable to sales, to marketing and talking to executives. I always used to think this is like a hobby, social thing. And I've recently, in the last couple years, realized that's totally untrue and that all life is, is stories, whether you're at work, at home or dealing with a kiddo. So that's what I'm focusing on. I've been watching some master classes on it. Sedaris has a good one, David Sedaris. Got an upcoming course with our team on storytelling that I'll be checking out. And I think I've just been keeping a really open mind to the different types of storytelling because some people are really, there's a formula for storytelling. Me, I'm like, if it's entertaining and if it's a story and people like it or learn from it, to me, that's a win. So that's where I'm at.

Sheena Badani: Well, I can agree to that. I agree that one of your superpowers is storytelling because I will always remember when we had a team event and everyone had to bring something personal that they would share. And you went first and you told a story about your grandfather and his Rolex watch.

Devin Reed: Yeah, yeah.

Sheena Badani: And we all had to follow that. I was like, I'm not going next. I will go last in line, please.

Devin Reed: Which is so funny because I went first to get it over with because I was so nervous, because I was like," I got to go first." It's validation, I appreciate it. What about you? What are you working on?

Sheena Badani: What am I working on? Well, in the limited time that I have to learn anything, I really like to learn from entrepreneurs and founders. So I like to listen and learn from their experiences a lot. So I listen to a lot of podcasts, How I Built This or Masters of Scale and others, to hear their stories and perspectives. Because similar to you with parenting, I think a lot of that, sure, you can read about how to do it, like theoretically and academically from a book. But that's not going to stick with you versus a story that you heard from somebody who went through it.

Devin Reed: For sure. For sure.

Sheena Badani: So that's the thing that keeps me interested in what I was trying to do when I have some of those pockets of time.

Devin Reed: Yeah, 100%. And then big on podcasts or just audio learning, because like you said, I do it while I'm getting ready in the morning and sometimes doing the dishes or the wind down activities where kid's asleep, it's kind of me just doing stuff, but I still want to keep the brain going.

Sheena Badani: Exactly.

Devin Reed: If you're wondering, or maybe you've already figured out, why we are talking about learning so in- depth, it's because we had Timea on the show from ‎‎ Nextdoor and she is the Head of Sales Enablement. And if there's ever been a lifelong learner or someone who values this stuff, it's Timea. And I had a really good time talking to her. One, she's fantastic. She's just really fun to talk to. But she's shared a lot of new ideas that I had never heard of in terms of how to deliver learning and education for salespeople.

Sheena Badani: Yeah. It was a great conversation. And you can tell from the way she speaks, she's very articulate, her thoughts are very well put together that she is an academic and a learner at heart. So I thought that was interesting how that comes through.

Devin Reed: 100%. Couldn't agree more. Well hey, let's go hang out with Timea, ‎‎ Nextdoor.

Sheena Badani: All right. Timea, welcome to Reveal. We are super excited to have you on the show today. To kick things off, can you give us a quick overview of what you do at ‎‎ Nextdoor, what are you focused on right now, so we can better understand your role?

Timea Bara: Absolutely. And thank you for having me. I joined ‎‎ Nextdoor as the Head of Sales Enablement only about a couple of months ago, in late November. And I came over from LinkedIn after finishing up about a seven year stint there where I was leading a global team of sales performance consultants for the marketing solutions team. I joined ‎ Nextdoor because I love what they stand for and their mission. We set out with this very ambitious mission to cultivate a kinder world, where everyone has a neighbor to rely on. And we want to help people to plug into the neighborhoods that really matter to them. So that was the reason why I came on board and I'm very excited to be here. I still consider myself fairly new in the role at ‎‎ Nextdoor. But as you can imagine, with most companies, at ‎‎ Nextdoor's size and stage, the onboarding was very rapid and there's just so much that we can and need to do. I think one of the things that is important to mention is that sales enablement is fairly new at ‎‎ Nextdoor. There was one person, who is on my team right now, who has been focusing on go to market training. Right now, together, we really focused on three major areas for Q1, building the sales enablement charter, and really establishing the process of how we learn, how we communicate. Second one is empowering the sales team to drive meaningful revenue growth. And the third one being laying down the foundations for how sales enablement will really help build a scalable and sustainable ad business. So that's my focus for Q1 and I can't wait for Q2 when we can also dive into skill development and manager development and all of those more sexier things of enablement.

Sheena Badani: First, I do have to say in regards to ‎‎ Nextdoor, that it has been super valuable for me as a user, especially over COVID. I think because everyone is remote and trying to build some connections, trying to connect more with the folks around them, I live in a high rise building, so it has been very, very helpful to connect with other folks. Just do little things like," Hey, somebody's giving away free Nespresso pods," or whatever the thing is, I have found it to be really, really valuable over this time. And then the second thing I wanted to say was I think it must be so fun to be at that place where you're building the foundation for such a critical function. So it may be a little bit different from what you were doing at LinkedIn, where there may have been, we can get into this later, where there may have been more there when you got there. And here it's like, you get to start it from scratch. It's like this clean slate and you get to really make the outline for what you want to see in the future.

Timea Bara: Yeah, that was definitely one of the main reasons why I came over after seven years of LinkedIn, because I felt like there, we already had the charter, we already knew what we are doing and it's so exciting to build something new.

Devin Reed: Maybe I need a download ‎‎ Nextdoor because I moved to a new neighborhood and I know nobody because of COVID.

Timea Bara: That's why we are here. Devin, you have to.

Devin Reed: Okay, I'm downloading it right after this interview.

Timea Bara: I will have to give this blog. We did a lot of research recently on how knowing only seven neighbors really helps with mental health. So there is a tremendous amount of research right now on this and how a lot of people, by knowing their neighbors, they were able to bounce back and have meaningful connections.

Devin Reed: All right. Well I feel good. I know three and they're all ‎‎ next door. So I lied. I know one person, and there it is, ‎‎ Nextdoor. It makes complete sense. I'm curious to backtrack a second, I totally agree, it's super exciting to create something from scratch. I'm curious just for, maybe it's an opinion versus a fact Timea, is it easier to start from scratch where there's nothing or is it easier to start with something, even if it's kind of broken and going," Hey, at least there's some foundation and we'll course correct from there"?

Timea Bara: I personally think it's easier to start from scratch because if there's already something there, then there are all these expectations as well as potential things that happened before, that people are relying on and it's really hard to unlearn things. And I think if you start from scratch, it's really your tabula rasa where you can build.

Devin Reed: Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. So shifting gears a little bit, I know that you're passionate about being a voice for working parents. I am a very, very, very new parent. So I just want to say thank you for paving that road for me before I really have to cross it. And this past year has been particularly tough for working parents. Are there any ways that you've seen working parents adapt to things like balancing homeschooling and remote work, that has surprised you?

Timea Bara: Yes. First of all, thank you for asking that question because supporting working parents and being an advocate for them is a very big side hustle of mine and I'm very passionate about it. I was leading the parent ERG globally at LinkedIn, and I just recently got involved with the parent ERG at ‎‎ Nextdoor as well. I think there were a couple of trends that I saw in the last year. First of all, community building was one of them. Parent communities, I feel, really came together in a very unprecedented way during 2020. There was a lot of sharing, the good, the bad, the ugly, a lot of commiserating, and it really created a sense of belonging to a lot of parents. The second one was learning from each other. So the pandemic really started this kind of renewed sense of openness to learn from others, from parenting to managing schedules, to mental health, to how to keep sane during all this time. And even things such as how to have a conversation with my manager about my new circumstances. Our motto at LinkedIn was be the resource, not the expert. And I think that's how I look at things when I think about parenting. No kid is the same. I have two of them, they are very different. Therefore, I can never be an expert, but I can definitely be a resource and share what I know. So learning from each other, second one. And then the third one was really feeling empowered to set boundaries. I think if you think back of the interview, I think it was a little over a year ago where I think a BBC correspondent was on an interview and his son rushed into the room and then he was mortified. And then lo and behold, about two months ago, one of the German CEOs was on an interview and the same thing happened. Same scenario, his little son rushed into the room and what did he do? He picked him up and he continued the interview with his son on his lap. And that's just how the environment changed. It's really okay to be yourself because your life and work blended together. So feeling empowered to set boundaries around this is when I can and cannot work, these are the expectations that I'm setting. But also, being okay with having my little child step into the camera every now and then is something new that 2020 brought us, and for the good.

Devin Reed: Well, if either of your two kids make a cameo on this, they're welcome to. So don't be embarrassed, not that you would. And Sheena's kids do from time to time and I enjoy it all the time.

Sheena Badani: All the time.

Devin Reed: I love it.

Sheena Badani: People make fun of me that I have a revolving door, the door that's behind me in my room that you don't know, somebody's going to come in within the next hour, we don't know who. So speaking of learning, that has been such a core part of your career. And when we were talking earlier, you had this great motto of always be learning. So just wanted to get some of your thoughts on how do you really make learning a priority, especially in some high growth organizations where there's so much to do now, forget about what I should learn so that I could do something better in the future?

Timea Bara: Yeah, absolutely. I always joke that learning was always a priority for me, because if you look back at my career track, I actually didn't even graduate until I was 26 because I did two bachelor degrees back to back and then a master's degree. I'm not saying that I'm an example to follow, but I was definitely very passionate about it. Now, joke aside, more importantly, I started my career in sales and you can never be stale in sales. There's always something new that you need to explore, you need to learn and you need to get better in order to understand and solve customers' problems and really help them to realize value with you. So if you just take the last year as an example, if you look at industry reports, the pandemic really shifted how B2B sales works. One of the main trends was leveraging data and bringing valuable insights to clients became so much more important. The data now needs to be really meaningful. Your time with the client is limited, their attention is even more limited. Therefore, doing a thorough research by the buying committee and your client, and then bringing them data that will be meaningful for them and will help them in some way, got really heightened, I would say the last year. The second trend was that sellers really need to adapt and upgrade their virtual selling skills. Whether that's presentation or networking, or how do you even organize your time. According to actually, one data and report that I just read, I think LinkedIn learning came up with a couple of, maybe a month ago, the second most important skill to have, according through learning and development experts is digital fluency. So really making sure that you know how to present yourself and also how to be authentic on digital platforms, such as for example, LinkedIn, what are the topics that you are commenting on, what are the interactions that you are having and how are you building your presence virtually is more important in today's selling environment. So these are all new things that we have to learn. Now, I want to bring this back to learning in general, so not just sales learning, but learning in general. I think I consider myself very lucky because I, as I mentioned, grew up in a sales environment where I had to learn day by day. But then I went onto LinkedIn where Satya Nadella's growth mindset really runs deep, and we all very much value the importance of learning. And there was a mentality of a learn it all rather than know it all. And that's what Satya always says.

Sheena Badani: All right everyone, in every episode we have a data breakout, a quick sidebar to look at the data. Of all the business skills companies are focused on, as we finally start to put 2020 behind us, which ones seemed to be the highest on the learning priority list? The LinkedIn 2021 Workplace Learning report found that one of the two most important skills to have is digital fluency, knowing how to authentically present yourself on the digital platforms. This is according to 5, 154 professionals spanning 27 countries. As remote selling and collaboration become the norm, continuing to refine our digital fluency skills makes a ton of sense. The report also found that 59% of L& D pros globally identified up- skilling and re- skilling as their top priority this year. That means that even if you and your teams aren't making learning a priority, there's a good chance that your competitors are. Stay tuned to the micro action at the end of the episode for tips to help you adopt some healthy learning habits.

Devin Reed: I wanted to dive into that mention you said about the importance of data, and this could be a bit of a rabbit hole, and I'm sure there's a different answer for every sales enablement leader. But for you, what data do you look at and would you consider core as part of your philosophy?

Timea Bara: What data do I look at for my sales enablement field?

Devin Reed: Yeah. And I'm sure that might change as you have different initiatives, like you mentioned, a few minutes ago.

Timea Bara: Yes. I think there are a lot of different things that you can do. So first of all, when I came on board to ‎‎ Nextdoor, I was very excited to hear that along with me, the other person that got hired was the head of sales operations. So the head of sales ops and I started at the same time, which was really important to me because I said," This is great. Finally, I can make sure that we are very aligned on all of our KPIs, on what data he is tracking from a sales ops perspective." And then how do I align to that? So this is a little bit bringing it further up the question, not really the data itself, but the partnership between sales ops and sales enablement is super important in order to really build a meaningful sales enablement organization. So together, we are right now building out the KPIs that we look at. We are agreeing on things that are more black and white data, like actual sales data, ramp time and win, loss reports and so on. But then on the other hand, we are also thinking about data in the future. How can we look at specific skills that our team is developing? We do not use Gong just yet, but I think that will be one of the next steps where we will be able to gather more insights into how our sellers are really acting on the training that we are providing them. How are they using the different narratives and pitches that we are teaching them? So those will be parts of some of the data that we will use in the future.

Devin Reed: That's really interesting and I like how you started with a partnership. I also have to partner with our ops because I don't know how to do it. I have questions, not so good at finding the answers. But it's great that you have someone internally, especially like you said, you're building something. I'm sure this sales operations person has their own fresh slate. And so to build that together, I have to imagine is really going to set you up for the longterm.

Timea Bara: Absolutely.

Devin Reed: So as head of sales enablement, you're working with many different roles, leading global sales learning and development for ‎‎ Nextdoor as growing team, a lot of growth there. Are there any unique challenges to building a learning culture in a fast growing company and how have you been able to overcome some of those challenges?

Timea Bara: Yes, there are always challenges in building a learning organization. I think in terms of being a fast growing organization that is still establishing itself, one of the main ones is having the space and the time for sellers to really devote time to learn. I think in high growth companies, a lot of sellers feel like they need to be on the phone, they need to be with clients all the time in order to really bring value to the company and bring value to the clients. And they might not allow themselves the mental space to sit back and to grow. So the first thing is making a business case for learning. And I will do a plug here for one of the books that I'm reading right now, which is The Upskilling Imperative by Shelley Osborne, who is with Udemy, and she's the VP of learning and development there. And she wrote this book and one of the chapters is about really making the business case for why learning is important and why it matters. So she also talks about the fact that having leadership support and buying and leadership actually making a strong recommendation on the need to learn is very important in order to allow for that learning to happen. The other thing is I'm a big supporter of democratizing learning through on- demand videos and micro learnings and different mediums. So one of the first things that I did when I came to ‎‎ Nextdoor is I established a clear cadence and structure around what's going to be a live experience, I'm using air quotes, but basically this is what is an in-person, so to say, video training and what is an on demand training because not everything should be a live experience. Meeting learners where they are at, making sure that they have the time to consume the information when it's the best for them, is really important in the environment. And then the other thing, the last one that I would mention, is screen fatigue. We are on screen all the time and it is getting really old after about a year now. So making sure that we somehow structure learning around no screen time and not being in front of a live experience or a learning video is also vital. So as of next quarter, I actually got buy- in from my leadership to start a series where we will schedule once a month, a learning that is a podcast format. So you guys are trailblazers in this. We will do something very similar. So as opposed to having the team come together, we will actually schedule out time where we will ask them to go out on a walk and consume the learning content while walking. Why not? We all need to move, we all need to be away from our computer. So I'm really looking forward to this and I'm really hoping that it will resonate with the team and they will be also happy to learn in this new way.

Devin Reed: I like that a lot. I've not heard that once, but it's brilliant because it's exactly how people consume content. If you're out on a walk listening to this, you just proved me right. I want to go back a little bit, because I have a bunch of questions. And I know you mentioned someone wrote a whole book on it, so I'm sure we could spend more than a couple of moments on the answer. But you said you have to make a business case for learning. For the people listening who are either going to try to make that business case, or perhaps will be hearing one as a result of what you're about to answer, what are some of those key points, right? Maybe the executive brief, like here's why we need it. And then maybe, what are those objections that you've heard or that are pretty common?

Timea Bara: Yeah. There are so many different arguments that I could bring. And definitely, if you are interested in the real scientific story, read Shelley Osborne's book. But from my own perspective, I think there are a couple of things. One, the business case should be very clear to everyone because if you read any of the recent learning reports, gen Zers learned and watched more learning content, according to LinkedIn, than ever before. And I think that data that they quoted is that the gen Zers consumed 50% more hours of learning, per user, in 2020, as opposed to 2019. So again, that's 50% more learning hours per user in 2020 while on lockdown.

Devin Reed: Wow.

Timea Bara: So there's a pretty clear case of people want this, people want information, they want to learn and grow. The second business case is that if you read any of the surveys, if people really want to feel investment from a company, investment in their career, investment in their growth, there was this very old thinking that if you teach a lot of things to your employees, then they will be so desirable and they will just go to another company. That is absolutely not how it is. That is a huge misconception from the old days. People want to feel like the company cares about their career path and not just their product knowledge, but really their development overall. So that should be the other really important point for the business case. And then last but not least, there's also this idea about giving the opportunity for learners to bring in new ideas. And when you learn, you expand your mind and you are more likely to actually come up with new ideas that would overall benefit the company and their growth. That's my quick summary.

Devin Reed: I loved that. I love it. Listeners can't see, but when you dropped that stat, me and Sheena made the exact same face. The," Oh, it's interesting. It's a lot."

Timea Bara: You did.

Devin Reed: Maybe you can place the author of this quote, but there was something around that discussion of, should we train or not? And it was," What if we train our employees and they leave?" And the response is," What if we don't train them and they stay?"

Timea Bara: Exactly. Exactly. And I can't unfortunately trace it, but yes, I heard that many times and I absolutely agree.

Devin Reed: By now it might just be a proverb, like no one actually ever said this, it was just someone's like," I've heard this quote," but they made it up to make themselves sound smart.

Timea Bara: One of those things where you say anonymous.

Devin Reed: Yeah, exactly, exactly. Last question on this because like I said, I'm interested. Having been in a sales role for a long time, I know exactly what you mean, which is eight to five is prime time, business is open. That's the only time I can talk to buyers, which is the most important part of my job. How do you balance the learning during work hours or during business hours, you what I mean, when I could be talking to prospects versus making the ask of doing it outside of those hours, or maybe you have a hybrid approach?

Timea Bara: I wouldn't say it should be outside of those hours. If you look at, we did a study a while back where we looked at how sellers are spending their time. And it was a very rigorous study and literally noted everything that they do. So how much time do they spend in the Salesforce or CRM that they use? How much time are they on the phone? How much time do they spend to take notes? How much time do they spend researching and so on? And if you add it up together, there is plenty of time left in the day. You just have to organize yourself differently. So definitely wouldn't make a case for learning outside, necessarily outside of those hours, but making it in shorter stints, in different ways and really mixing a lot of elements together. So as opposed to spending an hour in an actual training, maybe having an environment in which you have a 10 minute prerequisite that they have to watch on their own and the next day there is a 30 minute discussion, and then there is our learning pod following. So having this mixed media and different blended learning elements would help, I think, with learning.

Sheena Badani: How do you think about the different types of things that you can learn? There are some things that are more immediate and necessary that are company specific, right? Like," Hey, we need all of our field team to learn this new message or how to demo this new product." It's very specific to the company versus skill development or learning something that is just kind of inherently going to change you as a revenue professional. How do you think about balancing those two different types of learning in your own programming?

Timea Bara: It depends on the company's majority a little bit, to be honest. And it depends also on the selling motion and kind of the current needs for where we are at. So I would say that having foundational work done first, meaning having your product process systems training down and a repeatable and scalable process for that is really important. And that's where I usually start. And then the second step, usually from there, is translating that format into an onboarding and making sure that you nail that, you have a very repeatable, again, and scalable onboarding process in which you teach all of those product process systems related things is again, second step. And then this is not a priority in terms of time will be spent a year after on skill development, but you have to have those foundations down before you can really touch what are the skills that then connect into those products, processes, and systems, and then what are the skills that in general, you need in your career. So this is how I think about sequencing the events. I feel like if you don't have the foundations down that actually make your company do business, then you cannot really fully concentrate on skill development just yet.

Sheena Badani: Yeah. That's a great perspective. It's what is necessary today. You have to nail that first, otherwise who has the bandwidth or the ability to invest in something that's going to have longer term results?

Devin Reed: Yeah.

Sheena Badani: So Timea, what are some healthy learning habits that most people aren't doing today that they should start? And maybe take the perspective of a sales rep.

Timea Bara: I think one of the most important things to figure out is what works for you. So everyone, obviously learns very differently. Just to mention how I learn, I know now that I need to buy both the audio book, as well as the regular written version of a book, because I alternate in between. So usually I start with the written version and then every now and then I go to the audio, depending on how exhausted my eyes are, how much time do I have, do I go on a walk or am I playing with my kids, and in the meantime, I can listen to the book. So having a good mix of different mediums is what's working for me personally. There might be others who prefer other ways of learning, but really figuring out what works for you is the first step. The second one, and unfortunately this won't be revolutionary at all but it's something that most people don't do, is really creating a discipline and accountability to yourself to learn. So what I mean by that is I actually have time scheduled in my calendar and I asked my team usually to do that as well and I ask our sellers to do that. Maybe every two weeks, you put a do not schedule over this time, that will not be moved and nothing can happen there, where you really commit to making learning a priority. And this is the only way. Creating this discipline is really the only way to start yourself on the learning track. And again, while I mentioned in the beginning, it's not revolutionary, everyone knows it, everyone is like," Yeah, duh." But how many of us are actually doing it? And how many of us are really accountable to ourselves to create and commit this time?

Devin Reed: I've done that where I'm like,"I'm going to put an hour on the calendar and I'm going to do this thing to learn." And I mistakenly did it at four to five on Thursday, which is what I later quickly learned, the absolute worst time. I'm never more tired or less interested in going above and beyond than a four o'clock on a Thursday. So I love it and I would also say I've since moved it to earlier in the week and earlier in the day. And what I've actually found is that it sparks some ideas for things that are going to happen later that day, some brainstorming meetings, writing I'm doing, whatever. So it is tough, I think, to say," Hey, I'm going to prioritize this thing that's not really on a dashboard anywhere." But I can say firsthand, it has helped with, like I said, those other activities that follow.

Timea Bara: Yeah. The discipline, there's this gentleman called Craig Wortmann, who we worked with previously together a couple of years ago and he always talks about knowledge, skills and discipline. And everyone is usually touching the knowledge and the skill part in learning, but not as many the discipline part of it. And it's actually one of the most important ones. If I can go back for one more second, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure if this is a healthy learning habit or something to establish. But one thing that I learned this year also, this 2020, or past year, is that a lot of sellers have been talking about the absence of real- time knowledge transfer. So as a seller, usually you are on the sales floor and you are overhearing all of your peers and manager and colleagues on their calls. And you pick up a lot of tips and tricks from that. And that is missing today, and a lot of people are missing it in their work from home environment. So I'm really trying to solve for that a lot and I'm continuously thinking about how to facilitate that tribal knowledge that is not happening in our life today. Yes, I know the answer is Gong.

Sheena Badani: I was just going to say, I think I might know a solution for that.

Timea Bara: But even just making it stick and making it well- organized and making it again, as almost like a habit and a second nature, just as it was when you were in person.

Sheena Badani: Well, of course that resonates a lot with both of us. I can speak for Devin too.

Devin Reed: Please do.

Sheena Badani: We are at the end of our conversation and we have one question that we like to ask all of our great guests that come on the show and we can't wait to hear your perspective and your take on this, which is, how would you describe sales in one word?

Timea Bara: Okay. I need to think about this for a second. There are so many words.

Devin Reed: It's funny because when you tell people one word, you take a lot longer because I only get one shot. I have to pick the exact right one because it's going to go down in the history books. And if I ever change my answer, I'm a liar. So if I said name a few words, you'd been like, boom, boom, boom.

Timea Bara: Exactly, like three is easy. One is hard. Okay. My word will be value, and it's vague. Might sound vague, but I think sales is all about creating value.

Devin Reed: I agree. I agree with that. And I think what we talked about today reflects that because everything you're doing is, learning and development is so the team can provide more value to people that are talking to. How'd I do? Did I close the loop?

Timea Bara: I think so.

Devin Reed: I started laughing immediately because you're like value and then you're like, it's vague. I'm already kind of bought into it. This has been great. Timea, thank you so much for hanging out with us, for sharing your wisdom, your expertise. And I can say ‎‎ Nextdoor is lucky to have you. So I'm going to go download the app right before we edit this show and yeah, thank you again.

Sheena Badani: And I'm blocking some time on my calendar for learning. So thanks for that.

Timea Bara: I love that. Thank you so much, both.

Sheena Badani: Every week, we like to bring you a micro action, something you can think about or put into play. Learning something new every day doesn't have to be difficult or overwhelming. Here are some healthy learning habits to help make it easier to fit into your busy schedule. First, block out learning time in your calendar to help build discipline and accountability over the long run. This could be even 30 minutes or an hour each week. Second, identify great learning courses like Udemy, Khan Academy and Masterclass, which is a favorite of your Reveal hosts. Many companies offer learning stipends that you can utilize towards some of these services. Last, think of alternative tools you can use, Slack channels, quick Zoom chats, and yes, we have to include Gong here, to replicate the real- time knowledge transfer you used to get from being on the sales floor.

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.