Why you don't need a title to be a mentor

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This is a podcast episode titled, Why you don't need a title to be a mentor. The summary for this episode is: <p>Being exceptional in sales isn’t a solo mission — it’s a team effort. To be successful in any revenue-generating function, you need mentorship.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><p>Peter Kim, Chief Sales Officer at Relativity, shares how to budget time, intentionally seek out mentorship opportunities, and why mentors are key to developing the next generation of go-to-market leaders. This episode gives you the playbook you need to build career and life-changing relationships. </p><p><br></p><p>Key Takeaways:</p><p>08:51 - The building blocks to being a great leader</p><p>15:22 - What mentorship actually looks like</p><p>20:37 - How to know when a mentor/mentee relationship is working</p><p>26:24 - Data Breakout: The power behind mentorship programs</p><p>27:33 - How to become a more effective leader</p><p>34:53 - Micro Action: Be intentional about creating a mentor relationship</p><p><br></p><p>Save your seat for Celebrate: <a href="https://gongh.it/celebrate21-reveal" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://gongh.it/celebrate21-reveal</a></p><p>Want to explore Revenue Intelligence for your org? It starts here: <a href="https://www.gong.io/revenue-intelligence/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.gong.io/revenue-intelligence/</a></p><p>Connect with Devin Reed: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinreed/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinreed/</a></p><p>Connect with Sheena Badani: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheenabadani/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheenabadani/</a></p><p>Connect with Peter Kim: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterxkim/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterxkim/</a></p>
The building blocks to being a great leader
02:36 MIN
What mentorship actually looks like
03:19 MIN
How to know when a mentor/mentee relationship is working
02:33 MIN
Data Breakout: The power behind mentorship programs
00:50 MIN
How to become a more effective leader
03:58 MIN
Micro Action: Be intentional about creating a mentor relationship
00:56 MIN

Devin Reed: Welcome to the show. You are now part of 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. It's an unfiltered view of your customer reality. In other words, making data driven decisions based on facts instead of opinions or guesswork.

Devin Reed: And it's made up of three success pillars, people success, deal success and strategy success. The things all revenue teams need and care about. Every week we interview senior revenue professionals and they 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: Sheena, I'm going to put you in the hot seat, true or false, timing is everything?

Sheena Badani: True. As I'm looking at my Apple watch counting down to 5: 00 PM. Timing is everything.

Devin Reed: Oh, you look at your Apple watch for time. I look at mine for steps and the weather because that's who I've become. Senior revenue leaders are no different, it's a never ending stream of when decisions. When to roll out a strategic initiative. When to schedule SKO. When to pivot to a new revenue stream slash markets, slash messaging. You get the idea.

Sheena Badani: However, more often than now, we make those decisions based on our own gut and guesswork. Timing can be considered an art and not a science. Well, until Daniel Pink came along.

Devin Reed: Busting myths with data is our thing, and that's why Daniel Pink is headlining celebrate The Revenue Intelligence Summit. He's taken the stage to educate all of us on the science of timing and its impact on revenue.

Sheena Badani: This will be a data pack session. I read his book a few years ago, To Sell Is Human. And guess what? We're giving you the session free.

Devin Reed: He has an actual masterclass, but you have to pay for that, and this one is completely free. And we can't forget about the rest of the lineup. We have leaders from LinkedIn, Upwork, Hootsuite, Seismic, Gardner, and Sequoia, ready to take the virtual stage.

Sheena Badani: It is the revenue event of the year and it's all happening on December 2nd. You can see the full speaker and session list at celebrate. gong. io.

Devin Reed: And in case you're thinking," What? Wait, I don't have a pen." Don't worry, we'll put the link in the show notes, go ahead and click it. Put a little bit of detail about yourself and you'll be all signed up. And of course we would absolutely love it if you shared with folks in your network, because this is something that all revenue professionals will get value from.

Sheena Badani: We're heading into the holiday season, so who wouldn't like a little gift of Daniel Pink. So Daniel Pink and thousands of other revenue leaders are going to be there. Will you?

Devin Reed: I will be there. I'm actually presenting too. I'm no Daniel Pink, but I'm okay. See you there. All right. Sheena, I am many things. I am not an actor. So what I am about to tell you is completely true and in the most closest to real time as possible, because it's happened seconds ago, maybe a minute ago, okay?

Sheena Badani: Okay. Tell me more.

Devin Reed: So we just got off of an interview with Peter Kim, all about mentorship. And just now we are chatting," Hey, how do we want to do the intro here? Do you want to talk about your mentors, how you mentee?" Or that sort of thing. And you said, Sheena," Do you want to talk about your mentors or how you mentor others?" And I said," I don't really want to talk about me mentoring people. I don't want it to come across as like too self- serving here." I picked up my phone rudely while you were talking to check my text and a woman I have been mentoring for about a year, just texted me and said, just got a call from person's name, I'm not going to say who. I got the job. I think I cried. Thank you for being our excellent mentor. Now, here's what happened. Here's an amazing story. I had an open marketing role this time last year, this girl interviewed for it and she wasn't right for the job, but I could tell she had crazy potential. And we ended up referring her to an SDR role. She got the SDR role. She's been hustling, hitting quota, leading by example. And for the last two sessions, we've been prepping her for the AE interview. So this was on Wednesday, a couple days ago. She had the interview. I texted her today and I was like," Hey, how do you think it went?" And she's like,"I don't think I did that good. I bummed out, it didn't go well." And I was like," Okay, I'm going to call you later, we'll talk about it." Just now she texted me and say that she got the job.

Sheena Badani: Oh, wow. That is so amazing. What an amazing story.

Devin Reed: Oh man. So cool.

Sheena Badani: crosstalk like crazy.

Devin Reed: The timing was unreal. And I was like, we have to just record this right now, because I definitely won't be able to reiterate it or recite it back, but...

Sheena Badani: I know, congrats to her.

Devin Reed: Huge congrats. So proud of her. I'm going to give her a call right after this, but that's a long, but hopefully interesting way to introduce today's interview, which is all about mentorship. So wow. How serendipitous was that?

Sheena Badani: That really was, and maybe it must be true for you too. But I think part of what I really took away from our conversation with Peter was, mentorship does not have to have a title. You do not have to think about it like," I'm the mentor, you're the mentee. We have these regular meetings or whatnot." It's something that's almost more natural than that, where you have something special and you want to give it back out into the world in some way. And I think that's what I really enjoyed from our conversation that he's just really, really passionate about helping other people, giving back to people. They're not even his directive course, and he will seek it out proactively.

Devin Reed: Absolutely. Tons of takeaways. I had my notepad out. I liked some of the main themes, which was lead by example but in other words, become the standard to hear what that means, that was really interesting. My personal favorite was when he was talking about how to go from a frontline manager to a senior leader and what that difference is and how you communicate differently. So we're all excited. It's 4: 55 PM. So we're going to send you off into this interview. We're going to send off into the weekend and I hope you enjoy. Let's go hang out with Peter. Peter, it is 4: 00 o'clock on a Friday, which is arguably the best time to record an interview on Reveal. So I want to say thanks for spending some time with us before you jump to the weekend.

Peter Kim: Yeah, my pleasure. Honored to be here.

Devin Reed: You are the chief sales officer at Relativity. Would you mind just taking a quick minute to just explain what you're responsible for, what you're doing over there and if you want, what problem that Relativity solves?

Peter Kim: I've been with Relativity for about three years now, it's a Chicago based software company. The broad category is in legal tech and we are... Our origin story is in the very specific area of e- discovery. And so as a chief sales officer, I lead global sales and so I help lead the sales process, drive revenue for the company. And I also, in my role as chief sales officer oversee revenue operations, as well as sales development and sales engineering.

Devin Reed: Now we brought you on and asked you what you want to talk about. And you said you were passionate about developing go to market leaders through mentorship, but before we get into that and some of the advice you're going to give. What was your first management job and what did it teach you about leadership?

Peter Kim: Technically, my first management job was a subway sandwich manager when I was 15, where I was entrusted with the keys to the kingdom and opened up the store, managed the staffing, managed the register and counted all the cash down if you will. And so that was actually my first management job and it was... let's just say a formative experience for me. But my first corporate professional experience was probably in 2002, where I think in typical fashion, I was a young and ambitious individual contributor, desperate to take a next step and manage a team of peers that I probably took on too early. So I spent a year as a manager of a sales team. It was like an add- on product to the software company that I was a working for. I had a core piece of technology and some add- on products. I managed the add- on team, spent a year managing my peers. Left, went back to individual contributor for another seven years until I felt more ready to lead again.

Devin Reed: I like that. Now I'm going to ask a question. You can pass because it's your right to do so as our guest. But when you mentioned," Hey, maybe I got into it a little early." Was there an event or something happened or maybe a realization where you noticed," Hey, maybe I need to take a step back to take a step forward again."

Peter Kim: I reference it with actually great gratitude that it happened to me. I have a story of... Listen, career and advancement not all up into the right and it's quite episodic, it's quite peaks and valleys. And that was absolutely a valley in the moment, but maybe a peak from my learning in my career. And so I think what it came down to, as I mentioned, I was an individual contributor ready for advancement and for me advancement was actually entitle. And so as a person that looks at the optics of advancement, you look at what's the next thing? And the next thing is all the focuses. And what I've learned as a professional that is really focused on developing to be a great leader, to be a great professional. It's not about the title, it's about the skills and it's about the process. It's about really building the foundation. And I didn't have anyone in my life at the time that let me know that. And so left my own devices as a 27 year old kid for that matter. I was so focused on the title and the stature and not necessarily the under opinions of what it meant to be a good manager and effective manager, and ultimately a great leader. And so I got to the end point without going through the journey. And that was the realization in practice. So, Devin, when I was going through it, I remember this moment where I was really struggling and I looked at my wife eight months in the job I'm like,"I don't think I'm good at my job. I don't think I like it." And it was a real low point, because it was failure but it wasn't really failure, it was just lack of preparedness and lack of understanding what my role was. And I was really inexperience in other words. And so for me, I think it was a great lesson in reaffirming or reevaluating what was important, and I was missing building blocks, core essential skill sets that I felt like I need to have first as an individual before I led people. And so my choice to go back to individual contribution was just that, go back to school, learn some of the trade, understand what it means to be a great seller before I start leading people that I don't actually know what they do. And so it was a really wonderful lesson and it absolutely prepared me better for round two, for managing and leading people. And interestingly in the same company. I became a player coach again in the same company, different role. And I was so much better as a player coach because of it. The real life lesson, there was patience but not patience for patience sake. Patience because it was such an amazing opportunity for me to really build the base and foundation of skill sets that made me a more effective manager in the future.

Sheena Badani: But it seemed like in that scenario, you were... It was a bit of your own self realization and self- awareness that you realized you had to take a step back. I'm curious if there was a time either before or later in your life where it was a mentor that came in and helped guide you to a decision in your life.

Peter Kim: Absolutely. And I think in many ways, career journeys, professional journeys, there are those moments where there's that person that really was an inflection or an influence that's above the fray, right? That individual that changed, I think of them as little inflection points. It steered you in a direction and it hopefully put you in a direction that was positive and that benefit to you, and that happened actually in that company. So I spent 11 years at one software company. It was frankly my first corporate job and I ended up spending 11 years there. It was really just great fortune, wonderful company. I started off as a tech support rep. It was the only job that I could get. I had... as I think about it, negative skills. I was a philosophy and religion major in college. I'd spent a year and a half after college being somewhat nomadic and traveling, and working in a mountain bike shop in Chicago. I literally had no skills require me for the corporate life, other than a little bit of interest and ambition to come out west and I landed in San Francisco and a tech company hired me into their support team. Not that I ever dreamed of being in support, but I have a propensity for problem solving. And I was mildly technically adept. And so they hired me to answer, I remember 30 calls a day. This is all client server based software. This is pre- cloud. And I was in a financial service software company talking to traders and portfolio managers about stuff that I'd never known before. And I remember my manager, Toby Yoder, someone I'm still acquainted with today. He was a sales guy that wanted to be a manager and for some reason the company said," You want to be a first time manager? Go be a support manager." And so he became my manager. Now, Yoder, we got to know each he's like," You know what? You should go into sales." And I was like," Nah, sales. Slinging stuff, use car salesman sales." I'm like," That's not for me. I like client relationships. I like solving problems." And he did something that I'll never forget, which was he listened. He introduced me to then the head of sales and the head of pre- sale consulting. And he showed me what great sales was by having me demystify for my own self, through the leaders of the time. What it meant to be a real effective sales and it was really great sales. It's not about doing something or persuading someone to do something they don't want to do. It's about creating mutual value by helping customers solve really deep and hard problems. And so once I learned that I was like," Yeah, I'm a problem solver. Okay. I'm actually more a salesperson than I thought." And so Toby was actually the person that brought me to sales. He actually introduced me to Rick Deeds who at the time was pre- sales engineering manager. And I transitioned from support into pre- sales. And from pre- sales after two years in that stint, I found myself in client sales and forever since then I've been in sales. And so that moment of real reluctance, I was full on Toby, I'm never going to be a salesperson to an understanding on his part, great compassion of understanding my misunderstanding and what he did to educate me, I'll never forget it and it changed the course of my career.

Sheena Badani: That's such an amazing story and really put you on that different trajectory you were talking about. And fast forward, now you're super passionate about developing leaders and utilizing mentorship as part of that process. Tell us a little bit more, if break down what does mentorship actually look like in practice, what does it mean from your standpoint?

Peter Kim: For me, this is something that in many ways, it's a bit intrinsic for those folks that know me personally, I really love investing relationships. I have lots of close friends and we... My wife and I share a passion for creating community. We're really great party hosts, throw lots of parties at our house. And so, I think a little bit innate but at some point as a professional, especially people in leadership, when you graduate from a manager to a leader, it's your job. And mentorship's not an option, it's actually how you manifest and create value. At some point in your career, you're going to have a mass most of the knowledge you need to propel yourself successfully as a professional. And your job as a leader is to reinvest that knowledge in teaching to others, that's how you create institutional value as you progress through your career, in my opinion. So partly it's a bit innate, part my feeling as my job. Now in practice, I feel like mentorship for me is... I guess in practice feels like the following. One, you got to create the time. So if you're going to mentor people you need to create the time, literally budget the time. I'm not saying that hour on that random day create a routine of time allocation and space because the context and the acknowledgement of commitment to that time to mentorship and improvement and betterment is important. It allows people to prepare. It allows people to change the context of their busy day, come to that time to engage in mentorship so that deliberateness important, create the time. I think secondly, clarify the intention. So for me, when I think about mentoring people, it's like sometimes they want mentorship and I am not equipped to provide them the type of guidance they need. And so being explicit and clear about what type of mentorship is being sought is really important for me between mentor and mentee. I would love to believe I can wing it in a lot of stuff, but if I'm going to invest in someone it's because I believe I can intrinsically help them be better at whatever they're seeking to be better at. And so just clarifying the intention of that time together upfront is really important for both parties, just to make sure it's time well spent. And then lastly, I think for me the active mentoring is never about giving answers. I'm oftentimes a sounding board where I give an answer," Hey, I think I'm thinking about doing this. Do you think I'm right or wrong?" And in that moment I'm a sounding board," Yes, you're right," or," No, I think you should do it this way." But in mentorship, I feel like the way I think about the way I show up, I'm not coming to the meeting to be their manager. I'm there be their mentor. And for me, mentorship is about teaching a process, how do I teach them to answer the question they have at the surface that they're struggling with and they're challenged by? How do I teach them the process of how I, or they could effectively unpack the problem and resolve it themselves? So I rarely tell answers. I teach process. That's how I think about mentorship. So, and I really focus on the constructs, the frameworks, the things that I'd like to know if I were in their shoes before I go seek a decision around X, and we talk about the process of whatever it is they're... try to resolve. And I think that to me is the moment of mentorship, teach the process not the answer.

Devin Reed: That's fantastic, Peter. Going back to creating time. So I'm curious if you do this as part of some of maybe your standing one- on- ones, or if this is additional time.

Peter Kim: I create separate time for mentorship. And I think context matters, especially with reports. So when I'm managing my team, I would to say my management style is a bit mentorship, bit leadership, bit management. Management's like when you're telling people be more directive. Leadership is more about inspiration and mentorship is more about general coaching as I mentioned. But I'd say that, I think for me mentorship is something that I do separate from my directs. And I would look at that, because again, the context is really important and so I try not to conflate those. And in general I do it all the time, honestly. And I think I do it bespokely, I think about it and for people that have been a part of my leadership team I jokingly say,"You got a lifetime membership to my accessibility, like part of the family forever." I do enjoy it all the time. And I do create separate discreet space because I think it's most effective for the individual when it's mentorship space and time.

Devin Reed: Who owns to ensure that that time happens and that preparation occurs?

Peter Kim: That's all the mentee. The way I think about it is a mentor offers their time and the way I think about it is like," Listen, I'm going to make my time available." That's the first thing I can do to help support an individual, make myself accessible. How we use that time constructively, it's all the mentee. I think the intentionality when I go through a mentee, mentor relationship. When I offer my time to someone, I make sure it's clear, this is their time. I have no agenda other than to serve their ultimate needs and to be however I can be supportive for them. And so I think the use of that time is on the mentee and they should take advantage of it.

Sheena Badani: And how do you know when this relationship between the mentor, mentee is working?

Peter Kim: I'd probably answer it in a couple different ways. So one, just ask them," How's it going? Is this working? Is this even useful? What are you getting out of it? Basically, is my advice impacting you in the way in which you hoped it to be?" Right? So, sometimes people just need affirmation. Sometimes people just need to... They're going through real transformation as an individual, and so however it is they're hoping to absorb this time with me or other mentors. I literally asked the question like," Is this impacting you in the way that you hoped it would?" I think more indirectly as more of a casual observer, how do I believe that I can witness the impact of my mentorship? I think a lot of it comes into the way in which they reflect on circumstances," Oh, that thing happened, what I told you about and I remembered what you said, and I did this thing. And I had this experience that was different than what I would've done had I not spoken to you." Right? So it's like," Oh my God, I was going to fall into that pattern. I remember what we talked about and I did this differently and it totally changed the outcome of this really difficult conversation." And so when you start hearing examples of the application of the thing you talked about and feeling the ownership of it being part of the native response, or thought process of the person you're working with, that's a really wonderful sign of achievement in terms of impact. And I really do... In fact, just before this call, I had a mentorship session with a former direct and she was... we had talked real quickly. She's got promoted to the big job and she's now the SVP of sales and running a global team, and we had this little 20 minute call. I sent a little congratulations call where we had a chat, we talked about scope of role in which she's daunted by, so we had a little mentorship session. And honestly, in that 10 minute congratulations slash here's some tips to this call she's already quoted and said," Yes, when you said that thing, here's what I immediately did at work the next day." And so she's one of my favorite all- time people that I think I know that she's applying what we talk about and then building on it to making it her authentic DNA, it's part of her thing. And so it's really cool to see, it's really rewarding for me just to watch people absorb and actually apply what you talk about.

Devin Reed: That's the best. So Peter, we love stories. We love data, but we also love stories. So I'm curious if you have a mentorship success story that you can share, maybe one that came right to the top of your mind when I asked that question.

Peter Kim: There's a couple stories. And I don't want to start by patting myself in the back, but I've had honestly the honor of working with a lot of great people. And certainly my belief is that a leader's legacy is essentially the legacy of leaders they leave. And so I think that's how I want to be judged as an individual. And so in many ways, I think your CRO Ryan Longfield is one of those individuals. I met Ryan at LinkedIn. I was hired as one of the first few sales managers, sales directors there, Ryan was a rep that was in our SMB sales team and just absolutely crushing in. And he had done the things I think... that I would hope every rep to do. He came in, learned the job, he set the standard, the... What Ryan was doing became the way that much of the sales team sold. And I just think... Led by example in a way that was really notable and distinguished and really admirable. And I remember, I was hiring my first manager, which is my first manager and my first real big job. And I'll never forget that the interview process. And I remember the whiteboard moment and we were talking about what he would do, a real time interview in terms of his 90d plan or drawn box and a whiteboard. And he just ends it with of like," Hey, I just wanted to let you know, if you give me this job, I assure you, you're going to get 110% from me. You won't regret it." It's one of those moments. It was super sincere. It was not disingenuous. And there was this intangible yet tangible difference in Ryan. So he had already distinguished himself as a leader by example in the team. And he had the drive and the integrity and the people centricity that I personally look for in leaders. And so therefore I knew he had great potential. And so he had raw skill, great potential. And I think, Ryan's a great story where I saw that early, it's evident. When you see someone of certain balance of both skill and potential, and you can see that untapped or uncapped potential in someone which I think Ryan in and to see his actual trajectory, it's been cool to see. And Ryan was part of a leadership team that I've had... The time it was some of our fondest memories, probably one of the best teams I'd managed in terms of cohesiveness, because I think it much like Ryan, there is tremendous skill and potential in ebb and flow in my leadership team, and it was a really exciting time to be together. But Ryan, I think has done incredible work in his legacy at LinkedIn, and then of course at Gong, super proud of him and I'm proud to had a chance to work with him for four years, but he's one of the big time success stories and I really smile upon.

Devin Reed: I love that. I'm sure he's going to listen to the full interview, but I will make sure that he catches that part, for sure. The impact of mentorship has a ripple effect that goes beyond a one to one relationship. When we take a step back, reflecting on the experiences we are facing, the power of connection anchors us and the data backs that up. 87% of mentors and mentees feel empowered by their mentor relationships and have developed greater confidence. This comes from research conducted by Wharton, pointing to the strong need for these types of relationships and also sites that both mentees and mentors are promoted five to six times more than employees without mentors. According to the same research, 71 of Fortune 500 companies offer mentorship programs, wondering why? Because it provides an effective way to share knowledge with new hires, promotes diversity and inclusion and increases employee retention. I imagine folks who are listening might be thinking, okay, how can I level up my mentorship skills? Right? What can I do to get better and to put some of these things in practice. So do you have any advice on what folks can do? What can they do to become a more effective mentor?

Peter Kim: I'm sure your audience of listeners is quite varied in terms of who they are and what sort of role they have, et cetera. Well, one, I would say irrespective of your position, right? You can be an SDR, you can be an AE, you can be first time professional. There's always opportunities to mentor and so I don't think it's a process that is dependent on your position or authority. So one, just want to call that out. Two, I think of it... I'll give two answers. One's more of the icy perspective because I get the question a lot like," Hey, I'm not a manager, I'm an individual contributor. I want to be a manager though one day. How do I develop the skills to get to a place of positional authority to do so?" And you the advice I'll share here is the saying, which is, there's no better position to be in than one of the rep because you can lead by example. And when you lead by example, what that really means is you've set a standard that is admirable, that's applicable. That is, if your playbook, if your process be becomes the process, if it becomes the standard, you're leading by example. And if you basically do your job well and are exceptional at what you do, and it becomes the standard, you're leading by example and therefore passive influence. And to then build on that as active influence, meaning you can teach the thing that you've unlocked, that pitch, that you got from marketing and it's right there, but you tweak this one slide to reframe the constructive tension between you and prospect. And that's been the difference maker between you making your quarter and not, and you believe that can be something that could be replicable to more. That to me is your platform as a leader by example, as a rep to mentor others. So when your way becomes the way, that's a form of mentorship that you're aspiring as an IC and you have all the power in your control to do so. And so be great at your craft, do something that can be replicated and be very open to sharing, be that collaborative partner to take your little tips and tricks that you've nurtured and share it broadly. That to me is a no brainer. So that's for all of you ICS out there, if you're not doing that, that's first step. As a manager and as a positional leader, someone who's theoretically in a position of authority, I guess, to manage and mentor people. I think it is about deciding you're going to create the time, block your time and then go seek out ways to do so. So for example, one of the things that I've decided to do just in general is anytime there's opportunities to mentor young and emerging professionals, I choose to do so. So in my past life, in my current life, we have different recruiting programs. We're taking people from different backgrounds and frankly have no technical skill or sales skills, and we're recruiting them in a way that arms them with the technology, they're coming from underprivileged backgrounds, et cetera, just don't have the resources that many of us had to be in our jobs. I've taken the time to mentor some of these individual because I find it rewarding, that's how I chosen to spend my time. And so just creating the time and then go seeking out. And I think that for me has been rewarding. I don't do it all the time, but when I do have time, I'm always up for it. And then honestly, reactively, I did a podcast a couple months ago, it's the first one I ever did. And some guy from Singapore reached out to me over LinkedIn saying," I listen to your podcast. Can I talk to you?" I said, sure. And I had a really wonderful 40 minute conversation with this individual on Singapore. And so for me, there's allocation of time in my head that I like to just freely to give to people who are interested. And so basically I say yes to the inbound and I seek outbound time from time to time when I have a little bit more space, and I take deliberate individuals like young and emerging professionals as an example.

Sheena Badani: I think sometimes folks are sitting and waiting like," Oh, somebody's going to come to me and ask me to be their mentor one day." And it doesn't have to be like that. You just said you're really proactively will find those opportunities where you can help somebody.

Peter Kim: Here's how I think about it, which is even the objectification of mentor, mentee, those are words I never even used in my head. I'm just looking to hook people up and invest in them because I find joy in it. And so I think there is for me, and I think for other seeking to be mentors, there has to be some intrinsic joy there. I think that there's all shades of gray in terms of how mentorship happens. And so I think finding your authentic way by which you want to mentor people in the... not the big M formal way, programmatic way, but the little M where you can just invest the time in others, because you have something special to offer someone. And I think just choosing to find that time and to tap into that thing that you believe can be valuable to others. If that's something that you enjoy then yeah. I think be proactive in doing it. And I think that... For me, I just love doing it. I'll always offer my time, it's one of my joys of sales management and leadership. At the end of the day, while sales is a technical craft, don't get me wrong, there's real skills here. A lot of the skill of the role is about investing in people. Productivity it's a function of course, skillset, but it's also... I call that... There's the head part of sales, the technicality sales and there's the heart. And you can get tons of productivity and joy and outcome from a sales team by how you manage the balance of head and heart in a sales organization. And so for me, the heart part is investing in the people, that's the fun stuff. And so I guess what I would encourage you all to do for those listeners is tap into the things that you find uniquely enjoyable and go seek out a way to share that with someone else. That's that's mentorship there, frankly.

Devin Reed: In one line, you got it right there, right there.

Sheena Badani: So Peter, we ask every single guest that joins us on Reveal the same question. And how would you describe sales in one word?

Peter Kim: One word that's really hard. Sales in one word, wow. Compassion.

Speaker 5: That's a good one. That's a good one, yeah. Based on today's topic that's very fitting. I would definitely say.

Peter Kim: Well, and I use that word deliberately because I really do think great sales is about solving problems and understanding the problem from the perspective of the customer, and to really be effective at what you do. You really need to understand the nature of the problem from their perspective. And I think that's what I certainly try to practice as a practitioner within the profession of sales, it's really never about me, it's about them and understanding them from their vantage point. And I think if you can really unlock that as the way by which you engage customers and prospects, I think it you makes the sales process invaluable to your customer. I think taking a disposition of compassion is really for me a great starting place. And it is at the core what I'd like it to feel like.

Devin Reed: Every week we bring you a micro action, something to think about, or an action you can put into play today. Peter did an amazing job breaking down mentorship and sharing the right way to think about it from both perspectives. If you'd like to become more intentional about creating a mentor relationship, here are three steps to take for proactively seeking out opportunities to mentor. One, what is that one thing you're uniquely good at? Hint, it's what you get compliments on. It's what comes easy for you. It's usually what you've mastered. Two, out of the list you made either in your head or on paper, which of these things do you enjoy doing the most? And third, who in your circle of influence would benefit from spending some time with you? And if you don't know, think about who asks you questions the most, or who you can tell is a high performer and hungry to learn. I guarantee there's a person you can impact with your time, and they're right in front of you. 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 like 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.

DESCRIPTION

Being exceptional in sales isn’t a solo mission — it’s a team effort. To be successful in any revenue-generating function, you need mentorship. 

Peter Kim, Chief Sales Officer at Relativity, shares how to budget time, intentionally seek out mentorship opportunities, and why mentors are key to developing the next generation of go-to-market leaders. This episode gives you the playbook you need to build career and life-changing relationships.

Save your seat for Celebrate: https://gongh.it/celebrate21-reveal

Today's Host

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Danny Wasserman

|GTM Enablement

Today's Guests

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Peter Kim

|Chief Sales Officer, Relativity