Episode 86: Emie Moore – Hard Work Will Always Lead To Success

Dig until you strike gold. There’s no shame in the process; Emie Moore challenges her team to ask questions, push boundaries, and focus on the work.

Now Boston Managing Director at memoryBlue, Emie shares her journey from SDR to MD, unpacking struggles, lessons learned, and achievements along the way. Founded in her passion for mentoring and helping others meet their full potential, Emie adapts her coaching to serve the needs of her team and lead them to success.

In this episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers, Emie explores the emotional roller-coaster of leadership, ways to accept and overcome stress, and establishing positive client perception.

Guest-At-A-Glance

💡 Name: Emie Moore

💡 What she does: She’s a managing director at memoryBlue.

💡 Company: memoryBlue

💡 Noteworthy: Emie started as an SDR in memoryBlue, went on to be a DM, and is now a thriving MD.

💡 Where to find Emie: LinkedIn

Key Insights

⚡ Hard work will always lead to success. You may not always be the most talented salesperson in the room, but you can always be the one who works the hardest. And things were not that easy for Emie at the beginning of her career. In this episode, she talks about her experience before she became a managing director. “I used to commute an hour and a half to work. I would come in at seven, and I would leave at seven because I wouldn’t leave until I had booked a meeting. I had put every single thing out on the table, all my cards were there, doing all the work that I could. So if I wasn’t necessarily the top performer in the office at the time, I was definitely the hardest working, and that’s how I wanted to leave it.”

⚡You can only do your best. Being an SDR can be overwhelming, especially when you’re new to the position. But sometimes giving your best is good enough. So, don’t overthink it, just get on the phone and see how the conversation goes. Take it one step at a time. Emie says, “It’s not family-friendly, but we called it ‘screw it mode’ essentially, where I told Jeremy, ‘I don’t care how this conversation goes. I don’t care if I book the meeting; I’m just going to talk. I’m going to have a conversation. I’m going to see what happens.’ And every time I did that, I booked a meeting. Every single time.”

⚡Stress is an unavoidable part of life, so build a strong support network to help you manage it. Stress is a common problem for most people. But it’s an avoidable part of life, whether you like it or not. But that doesn’t mean that you should let it take over your life. Quite the opposite; it’s vital to learn how to manage it. Emie shares a few of her tips, “I think that drilling in and going over and over to the same thing — if it’s not working, it’s not going to help, and it’s just going to continue to spiral into a larger problem. So I’ve removed myself from the situation or the task and come back to it. I’d play a game of foosball or whatever to relieve stress, and then come back to it with a clearer mind and be a little bit more present in order to accomplish a goal I needed to.”

Episode Highlights

You Can Beat Analysis Paralysis and Still Thrive

“We sometimes call it analysis paralysis for phone anxiety, and I was literally the poster child for that. [I was] terrified to get on the phone. I was really, really good at emailing, and I was like, ‘Great, I can email in the morning.’ Jeremy came out one day, and he was like, ‘Close your email, we’re dialing, we’re doing it.’ […] Then I was freaking out. I have anxiety about this — ‘I’m not performing; I’m going to get fired.’ And on that third day, I not only booked my first, but I booked a second immediately after. So I was like, not only did I book my second one, but I hit quota first.”

Being a DM Is an Emotional Roller-Coaster

“I’ve taken a lot of those skills into the MD role, and there’ll be tougher conversations that I don’t always feel the most confident about. But again, there’s always someone like Jeremy or another MD that I can fall back on that can help me. The DM role — you truly are running around; you’re closing candidates, then you’re talking to a client that might be happy or unhappy; next, you’re having a tough one-on-one with your SDR where you’re happy and screaming and excited that someone got their first book. So it’s truly an emotional roller-coaster to be a DM.”

A Good SDR Should Be Coachable and Have a Good Work Ethic

“You don’t have to have experience in the role. You don’t have to know everything. I think that your ability to be a sponge and soak that up and be willing to be coached and be able to implement that is the biggest thing. And then work ethic because it is a grind.”

A DM Should Adapt to Their SDRs, Not the Other Way Around

“We’re not creating little soldiers. You need to be someone that adapts to them, so the coaching that you give them needs to be different every single time. So every single SDR that I had, my blinders were on them, and none of the conversations were the same. Not a single one of them learned the same. So that was definitely one of the more difficult things, but what made me successful was, ‘I need to mold you in order to turn you into your unique version of a rock star salesperson.’”

Transcript: 

[00:00:12] Marc Gonyea: I feel like I’m visiting. Emie Moore, Managing Director of the Boston office, Emmy. 

[00:00:18] Emie Moore: Hello. 

[00:00:19] Marc Gonyea: Great seeing you, on your turf. My house guests. Yeah. 

[00:00:24] Let’s get into it. So, this is not really an alum podcast, but we do ones with folks who had some significant accomplishments. They’ve been here, and you in a little under how long you’ve been out of school?

[00:00:37] A four years, three and a half years. 

[00:00:39] Three and a half years. You’re running the office.

[00:00:41] Chris Corcoran: Running the joint.

[00:00:43] Marc Gonyea: After being one of the three colonists, colonists of the office. It’s pretty inspiring. And it is for me. 

[00:00:50] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[00:00:51] Marc Gonyea: I think he called my life. So, but enough about me, let’s talk about you. Right? So, the folks listening, well, I know you. So, let’s get this,

[00:01:00] give them an opportunity to get to know you a little bit. Tell us a little bit about kind of where you’re from, that sort of thing. 

[00:01:06] Emie Moore: So, grew up in Rhode Island, um, born and raised there and then moved to Massachusetts when I was about in high school. Um, but decided that I was going to go somewhere where it was quote unquote sunny and 65, for college.

[00:01:17] So, I decided to go to JMU. 

[00:01:20] Marc Gonyea: Let’s back up.

[00:01:26] No, not at all. What were you like as a child? Now you’re leading an office. How many people work here, in this office? 

[00:01:33] Emie Moore: I think we’re near 70, that’s including, like, sales and recruiting stuff. So, like, in the sixties for SDRs? Yeah. 

[00:01:40] Chris Corcoran: Okay. So, as a young child, what was Emie Moore like? 

[00:01:45] Emie Moore: Rambunctious, I drove my mom insane, like, if she had multiple of me, then God bless her soul because I’m more than enough. But, I’d be running around, talking, you know, actually in third grade, I had a disciplinary journal because I talked too much. So, definitely, a rambunctious little nugget, for sure. Yeah. 

[00:02:03] Marc Gonyea: And teenager, like, did you, we talked about this, some people have jobs, clubs and people do sports. What was kind of just school. What was?

[00:02:14] Emie Moore: Yeah, uh, I was even, like, from before high school, like, definitely overachiever, like, hundred percent, three-season athlete in high school. And I hadn’t really played any sports prior to that except for a very failed experience for soccer. Um, and then, um, did like student council, took on peer ambassadors,

[00:02:34] um, really anything that I could get my hands on to get experience. I did it, I was excited about it. And so, yeah, that was, everything that I could do I, I would. 

[00:02:43] Marc Gonyea: And did anything growing up kind of peek, was a tell for you getting in kind of the sales world, out of college or no? I’m curious. 

[00:02:51] Emie Moore: I don’t know about sales, I know for sure that I wanted to be a leader. Like, I, regardless of what industry I ended up in because obviously, again, like to talk, and I know that I want to know things, for lack of better words. Like, I want to be that person that people go to to ask the questions, and it’s like, the buck stops here kind of thing.

[00:03:08] Sales came up much later in my life that I kind of discovered that. And thankfully, I did, you know, sooner rather than later, but, yeah, I didn’t realize I wanted to do sales until after college. 

[00:03:19] Marc Gonyea: Where did this kind of leadership, of wanting to be the person people come to? Where did that come from? 

[00:03:24] Emie Moore: Um, I don’t know. I, I’m not sure. Like, I even remember back to, like, when I was in preschool, like, I had a friend that did not talk at all. And so, I would, like, talk for her, basically. Like, I knew what she wanted to say, and I would do it for her.

[00:03:36] Chris Corcoran: You’d be a great wife.

[00:03:39] Emie Moore: Perfect. Oh, oh, good luck to that, man. Um, but yes, no, I, I would kind of help her out.

[00:03:45] And what held is, like, throughout that friendship, she started to talk more and feel more comfortable. Probably because she couldn’t look any less crazy than the person next to her, which was me. But, I think that, you know, I really enjoyed the opportunity of, like, helping people. And so, being able to speak up and, like, have my voice be heard in a way that was positive, always stood out to me.

[00:04:08] Marc Gonyea: Nice. And, and so it’s just kind of natural. 

[00:04:13] Emie Moore: I’d probably impart from my mom, too. She’s definitely similar, but. 

[00:04:16] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, let’s talk about that. ‘Cause you’ve never said don’t, you always talked about your mom and talk about people having an influence here. 

[00:04:22] They, I would say both my parents do, but they’re complete polar opposites, right?

[00:04:26] Like, my dad is quiet, soft-spoken, can be goofy, right, where my mom is this loud, like, funny, silly, Portuguese woman, right? And so, she influenced me a lot. Um, she, like, is definitely someone that was, like, a leader, took on more tasks, always wanted to help people, sometimes to a fault, right, where you need to focus on yourself at times.

[00:04:49] Um, and I think that’s something that she’s, you know, also started to teach me, but, um, she’s definitely taken on a major role in my life because of that. And so, like, I kind of became her mini-me.

[00:04:59] There you go. 

[00:05:00] Chris Corcoran: We gotta get her in here.

[00:05:02] Emie Moore: Oh, Bella is a character. You’ll have… 

[00:05:06] Marc Gonyea: How’d you end up at JMU, like a Northern girl, Northern, Northern, right? Corcoran and see the New Jersey folks end up in…?

[00:05:13] Chris Corcoran: Just a fair amount of Massachusetts folks that go to JMU.

[00:05:17] Marc Gonyea: I don’t remember that from my time. I don’t remember the Jersey top corporate 

[00:05:21] Chris Corcoran: values.

[00:05:22] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Yeah, 

[00:05:23] Emie Moore: It was definitely, it was definitely a lot of, like, there were not a lot of Massachusetts people there, but, like, since going there, we’ve taken over, I’d say. I had no intention of going to JMU, at all, when I was looking at schools in college or, excuse me, high school.

[00:05:38] I was like, I’m looking at UVA, UNC, Chapel Hill. Um, you know, I went to look at USC, like Elon, all of those bigger names that I knew about that I felt comfortable with and, you know, thought I could get into. And then, my counselor at school, you know, she’s like, “Well, why don’t you think about JMU?

[00:05:56] Emie Moore: Like, it’s a good school. People seem to really like it.” And I was like, “Absolutely not. There’s absolutely no way.” Um, so, when I went to go tour, uh, like Mason and UVA, my dad was like, “Come on, like, what, we’re right nearby, like, let’s just drive to it. We have nothing better to do.” And it was, like, this disgusting, rainy,

[00:06:13] cloudy day, and I just completely fell in love as soon as I saw the campus. It’s, we call it, the promised land. Like, it truly is, like, it was tough to, like, leave at the time and go south, in general. But, I think that it was the perfect combination of not fully sunny and 65, but, you know, it was, like, a home away from home.

[00:06:31] And I never felt, aside from, you know, that initial freshmen first semester kind of thing, of any homesickness. Like, as soon as I got there, I was like, “I am home. And when I go home, I’m still home.” Does that make sense? 

[00:06:42] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. And so, right away, you knew you were going to go there.

[00:06:45] Emie Moore: Oh, yeah. As soon as I got there like, that became my number one.

[00:06:48] Like, that was where I wanted to go. 

[00:06:50] Marc Gonyea: How and how did you decide what you, what’d you major in? 

[00:06:54] Emie Moore: Bio pre-med. 

[00:06:55] Marc Gonyea: Really? Okay. Tell us why. 

[00:06:57] Emie Moore: So, my family is very much, at least on my side of the family, is very science-driven. Um, my dad’s a physician. My grandfather was a chemist. My mom, uh, was like going to dental school and working labs.

[00:07:11] So, I grew up literally in a chemistry lab, uh, with my mom and watching her do that and then running around the hospital and my dad’s practice, you know, making pictures for all his patients. So, with the intent of, you know, wanting to critical help people, um, at that time, I thought that that was not only the best way to do it, but I kind of thought that would be the only way to, to do it at the time.

[00:07:32] Marc Gonyea: What else, how else you spend your free time?

[00:07:33] Emie Moore: At JMU. So, I actually took part in starting a club called Love Your Melon. Um, and it’s a nonprofit organization for kids who have cancer. So, they donate, like, beanies to them. We go to, uh, hospitals to, you know, walk around and make them feel better, like, cheer them up and, you know, really get them excited about the day. Um, and then, I was one of the first members, a part of, you know, camp Kesem that I’ve talked to you about a lot.

[00:07:59] Um, and that’s for, um, kids whose parents have cancer and it’s a summer camp where, you know, we essentially set up one full week where you’re thinking about anything but what’s at home so that, like, you remembered it’s still okay to be a kid, like, embrace that. And, um, you know, like, it’s okay to still have fun regardless of, you know, the stress at home.

[00:08:19] Like, you don’t have to grow up too fast. 

[00:08:21] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. That’s, this is all the reasons why you’re here, right? I mean. So, you’re in school, you’re doing these things or, you know, you’ve gone through your little, little over four years, what did you think you’re going to do when you get out? 

[00:08:38] Emie Moore: Um, so, I was pre-med up until my sophomore year, and I realized, like, that second semester, I was like, “Oh my God, I hate this.

[00:08:47] Like, there’s no way that I want to be a physician.” So, I kinda started to look at the options as like, maybe I’ll do nursing or, you know, be a PA, like, I don’t know if I want to do four years. ‘Cause I didn’t, like you have to eat, sleep, breathe science. And I love science, but not to the extent that I saw some of my peers beside me

[00:09:05] and I liked being involved in it, but I knew that that wasn’t going to be, like, the end all be, all for me. Um, I certainly did not want to do four more years of that. Organic chemistry, shout out to that because that’s certainly strayed  me away, too. Um, but I kind of started to think about, like, what my other options are, you know, always, you know, love non-profit work after getting involved in those organizations at school.

[00:09:28] Emie Moore: Um, and I thought a little bit about sales. But, in my mind, back then, sales was a sleazy organization to be a part of because I thought it was like, you’re just selling, you’re not necessarily thinking about the other person on the other side. Um, so, I started to go towards, um, non-profit work. But, I knew I wanted to make money, too, which, respect to nonprofits, but you don’t make that much money when you first start out.

[00:09:49] And I knew I wanted to, like, be a big shot at some point.

[00:09:53] Marc Gonyea: And you were a hustler too, right? Working in the restaurant business, talk, talk about that. We skipped over that part, but I think that kind of ties to kind of your uniqueness. 

[00:10:01] Emie Moore: Yeah. So, I never, like, worked really in college except for my last semester when I was there. Strictly because my parents always taught me like, “You’re at school, that’s your, that’s your job.

[00:10:11] That’s, you know, focus on that, get good grades, graduate. And then, you know, you have the rest of your life to work.” Um, but when I went home, like, I started working initially when I was, like, 15 as a busser, um, my mom really encouraged me to get started and, uh, to start making my own money which definitely taught me the value of that because you don’t make much as a busser, but you put a lot of hard work in.

[00:10:33] So, suddenly, I was starting to see the value between how much he was spending on me and, and, you know, how much she was working to do that. I then became a server, um, you know, did that with, with bartending on the side, too. And at one point was working at a hospital to get that exposure, uh, that also played into me not wanting to be a physician anymore.

[00:10:54] Um, but I would work, basically, whether it was a hospital or both bartending and serving jobs, pretty much every single day in the summer, if not for the full day, for half a day, some days going from, like, seven to midnight. So, um, 7:00 AM to midnight, I should say.

[00:11:14] To bring back to the promised land, make sure that I was secure. I could pay for as much as I could, so my parents didn’t have to worry about it. 

[00:11:20] Marc Gonyea: And, uh, so you got to get the work ethic too, obviously. So, you’re coming up on graduation. What, what happened? Like, walk us through that process. You’re not, you know, your, your major,

[00:11:33] your background, the hard worker, those things, it’s not, “Hey, I was part of the sales program. I know I’m being sales worth from the word go.” Or something like that, which is good because a lot of people listening, think about coming to work at memoryBlue. People new, who’ve just started, wanted to know how somebody gets to be a Managing Director of an office.

[00:11:48] But they’re wondering about that time.

[00:11:50] Emie Moore: Yeah. So, um, I was a late bloomer in terms of getting my act together post-grad. Um, I started looking at jobs. I tried to apply to them. I was very intimidated by the aspect of, like, entry-level jobs that I’d 1, 2, 3 years experience. ‘Cause I had zero. Um, I had internships, but they never, they weren’t sales roles.

[00:12:11] They weren’t business-oriented jobs where it would really translate into that next one as significantly as, you know, the employer was looking for. So, um, I really took time post, you know, I focused on graduating, took that first month in January was like, “I’m gonna apply to literally everything.” And I sent them out to pharmaceutical companies, medical devices, biotech,

[00:12:33] you know, like I said, I still loved science, but not enough to be in the medical field. Um, so, I was like, “This makes sense. Like, at least it’s bringing in my major, my parents didn’t necessarily send me to school, you know, didn’t go to waste. Um, I could use that knowledge and, um, you know, use the fact that I could talk all day long.”

[00:12:52] But when it came down to that, it was, like, rejection after rejection, after rejection, essentially. Every day in my email inbox, I get another one. Um, and so, I finally, I was like, you know, like, “I’ve been doing this for two months now. I need to get at least some sort of job so that I can keep paying for my stuff.

[00:13:07] I’m not using all my savings. And then, you know, once I get that job, that full-time, I’ll be super transparent with my employer. Like, this needs to be where I go.” Um, so finally came down to a couple last rounds. It’s interesting. Like, I was in process with some big-name biotech company. Um, they. 

[00:13:27] Marc Gonyea: Maybe not. Keep going.

[00:13:30] That was more for me than it was for you, except for the elephant. 

[00:13:34] Emie Moore: It was ThermoFisher. And, you know, it’s a company that I was super excited about, had been working with because of the fact that I worked in the lab, like, at school, I was like, “This is super cool.” Um, yeah. And so, I was in last rounds, thought I crushed it, actually felt pretty confident, which, you know, at that point is, like, obviously being rejected so much,

[00:13:53] I didn’t feel much of that lately. But I ended up getting rejected from the job, for that specific position because I lived too far away and, you know, I wanted the opportunity to, I was like, “I’ll move.” Like, “I’ll do whatever. I’m ready to work.” Like, “I’m bored.” Like, “Somebody give me a job.” Um, and when I got rejected, it was more of, like, I, they had asked me to wait and go through a second interview process for a different location in Cambridge.

[00:14:20] Um, and I had just found out about memoryBlue at that time. So, for me, it was like, “Well, my options here are wait for a large organization and be a small fish in a big sea, um, or go to a company that’s willing to take a shot on a bio major that has zero experience, um, and is promising and showing that I’ll work hard.”

[00:14:43] So, I decided, obviously, I’d do the ladder since we’re, you know, here. Um, and the way that I looked at it as like, you know, “If they want me, you know, ish a little bit now, then they’ll want me even more after I have experience and someday I can end up in the biotech industry, regardless.” 

[00:14:58] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. And who, how’d you find out about memoryBlue, originally?

[00:15:02] Emie Moore: Yeah. So, I found out from Abby Curtis, um, she and I, yeah, we lived in the same freshman year dorm at JMU. We are a floor apart. Um, she’s one of those people where I, I’m sure she would agree. I literally don’t know how we met, how we knew each other, but we just, at some point in our career freshman year, we just did.

[00:15:22] And so, when I saw her post on LinkedIn, I was like, “Yeah.” I’m like, “Let me just see what this is. They’re opening a welfare office. I don’t know what that means.” So, I reached out and obviously started having conversations about it, and then it, you know, over time, became more and more interesting to me. And the aspect of getting that experience and, you know, it being a launchpad is what really brought me here.

[00:15:45] Marc Gonyea: And you were, you were the, what happened? So, you ended up, how you’ve ended up working and taking the job? 

[00:15:52] Emie Moore: Yeah. Yep. So, it was between ThermoFisher and memoryBlue, at that point. Obviously, we know, like, what happened with Ramona’s. Like, I either wait or, you know, go work for someone like Jerry, who is, like, literally the biggest reason why I came to memoryBlue. He’s, again, you know, aside from obviously, you know, I love memoryBlue and being here, the biggest reason why I’ve stayed this long.

[00:16:12] ‘Cause it was like, “If that’s my boss, then, like, cool.” Like, “I’m down for that.” I didn’t want to be in a position where I disliked my boss. 

[00:16:19] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:16:19] Emie Moore: So, as we were going through the interview process, it was super quick. It’s funny because, you know, I drove up to the Waltham office, which, at that point, was not completed, and Jeremy was freaking out internally.

[00:16:30] Um, he didn’t tell me until after I signed that he was like, “There’s no way this, this girl is going to take the job.” Like, we had to go to some, like, sketchy kind of half-moved-out office at the other end. And he did show me what it would look like, but we did like our role play in this completely moved-out office with one box and a desk and a chair.

[00:16:50] And, um, I was freaking out that day and, and, you know, left. I was like, “There’s no way I got the job.” And then got the call from Bailey, who told me like, “Hey, like, we’re ready to offer.” And it’s kind of funny the way that she told me too is like, well, she was talking to Jeremy. I think Jeremy might’ve been, like, on with Emily at 3K or something like that.

[00:17:11] Yeah. He was like, “Give her the job.” She was like, “I could hear the beach in the background, took the call, was on vacation. He’s like, ‘Give her the job. I don’t care how hard, like, far she has to drive. She’s willing to do it, like, give her the job.'” And so, like, I got it, signed it, and started literally within maybe a week when we were flown down to DC.

[00:17:28] The first real academy was Boston.

[00:17:37] Chris Corcoran: First real academy, yeah.

[00:17:38] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Wherever we want her to go. Where, who we’re trying to buy time or. 

[00:17:43] Chris Corcoran: Yeah, that was when, uh, working from your house was off the table. We would rather fly you into DC to work from our HQ office than have you work from your house. But, that was, that was cool. That was awesome. It was a test. And now we do it for everybody.

[00:18:01] Emie Moore: Well, I think something like you, you all send out surveys, like, after academy and after training and all that. And so, the common theme between myself, Rob, and Tiffany, at the time was we loved getting CHQ. Like, we went to Lost Dog. We went to see where it all started. And so, like, that was super impactful, even just for the week.

[00:18:20] Also, getting to know people at DC, but most, mostly, like, getting to know Chris and knowing you all. We had Tommy talked to us. So, we got to put a face to a name, and it wasn’t just like, we weren’t that small fish in a big sea. We actually became a part of the company. 

[00:18:37] Marc Gonyea: And how much did you know about the role?

[00:18:39] Let’s talk about the initial. 

[00:18:40] Emie Moore: Oh yeah. I had to ask Abby probably 10 times to re-explain it and explain it. ‘Cause I was like, “Well, I’m selling this. Am I working for the other company?” Like, “What does that look like? What, what exactly do we do in a cold call?” Like, didn’t know any of that. And so, you know, it took a couple of explanations from Abby to kind of give me the idea of that.

[00:19:02] But, I was understanding after talking to Jeremy again. Like, he explained the whole thing, like, “This is how you structure your day. This is what goes into a cold call, and don’t worry, we’re going to train you. We’re not going to just throw you into it. You’re not going to get fired if you mess up, and you know, we’re gonna learn from it.”

[00:19:19] And so, I had no idea, at first, what an SDR was. Never even heard of it. 

[00:19:25] Marc Gonyea: And unlike a lot of people, you come back to the office, and it’s you, one of their SDR. 

[00:19:32] Emie Moore: Or two other SDRs.

[00:19:34] Marc Gonyea: Two other SDRs. Who, who were, who were they?

[00:19:35] Emie Moore: Rob, who’s on our oldest AE team. 

[00:19:37] Marc Gonyea: That’s right. 

[00:19:39] Emie Moore: And Tiffany. 

[00:19:40] Chris Corcoran: Tiffany Dunn. What was that like?

[00:19:44] Marc Gonyea: So, you had a small, very different than most people we got on the podcast.

[00:19:50] Emie Moore: I think the best way to describe it is like being a part of the startup with the backing of a successful company. And I’ve always said that because it was quiet, it was super quiet. There were a ton of cubes, but just three of us in one little corner. And, um, Jeremy would come out of his office periodically to try to, like, build up morale and talk about culture and get us pumped up.

[00:20:09] Um, very quickly. That’s hard to fill up, though. You know, the first, the fourth person to join the office became my mentee. And then, soon, there were three more and then four more, and it grew to insanely faster.

[00:20:21] Marc Gonyea: And did you like that part of the job? We’ll go back to the SDR part, but because you’ve got this track record of, just tell people what it meant to you.

[00:20:29] Emie Moore: Oh yeah. I, as soon as Jeremy said, like, “We have somebody else joining, we’re looking for a mentor, the first person that…” Like, I don’t even know if I’d let him finish his sentence. I was like, “It’s me.” Like, “Please let me do it. I want to do it.” Um, I think I’d been maybe two weeks on the job terrified that maybe I screw up their experience.

[00:20:46] Maybe they won’t know, but, um, I was ready for it. ‘Cause I, again, like, that’s my thing. Like, I like being able to take people on a right-wing, show them the ropes and see them be successful. 

[00:20:56] Marc Gonyea: I’m jumping a little bit ahead, but how did that, how does it impact kind of how you are now as a Managing Director?

[00:21:01] Emie Moore: Same thing. I have no shame. Like, I think it’s okay to be wrong, and I’ve messed up and having them see that and learn from that. Um, but same thing happened when I was a DM. Like, I hit a point where I was like, “I know a lot, and I want to take other people.” We didn’t even have a mentorship program, necessarily for DMs, here.

[00:21:20] Um, it was a little informal, I think, across the board, at one point, we were like, “Hey, this person might need some extra help.” But I noticed that. And I was like, “I would’ve really benefited maybe from a mentor, so why don’t I mentor somebody else?” Um, and I took two on at that time. 

[00:21:34] Marc Gonyea: Uh, as a DM? 

[00:21:35] Emie Moore: Yeah. 

[00:21:35] Marc Gonyea: Okay. Who are those two?

[00:21:37] Emie Moore: Uh, Jake Einwechter, and, uh, David Kylie. Yeah. And David was my oldest. So, it kind of just made sense. 

[00:21:44] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Let’s go back to being an SDR. Right. ‘Cause that’s how you started meeting, not that long, many moons ago. What was that like? So, you, that’s not all too unrealistic, right? People are like, ‘What is an SDR? Wait, I work for memoryBlue, work for, wait. Well, who do I have to call?’ But then, then you got to do it. So, what was the doing part like?

[00:22:05] Emie Moore: Yeah. Well, I will say that was a great impression of my parents ’cause they had no idea. Um, but doing it, I was, we call it sometimes analysis, paralysis, more phone anxiety, and I was literally the poster child for that, at the time.

[00:22:19] Terrified to get on the phones. I was really, really good at emailing, and I was like, great. Like I can, email in the morning, and Jeremy came out one day, he was like, “Close your email, we’re dialing, like, we’re doing it. And I was a little nervous, more show because I was sitting next to Rob, who worked at Horizon, previously, and Tiffany, who been working in retail sales for years.

[00:22:42] So, and me who had zero experience and I’ve been a server and a bartender and didn’t have any traditional experience. So, um, we were, I think, first day on the job, and Rob was the first one to book a meeting, and we were on a similar client. Um, so, I was like, “Oh God, he’d beat me to the punch.” Like, pissed. Um, and then Tiffany booked, and I was like, “Oh my God.

[00:23:02] Well, now I’m the last one to do it, and Rob booked again. So then, I was freaking out. I’m like, “I have anxiety about this. I’m not performing. I’m going to get fired.” And on that third day, I did not only booked my first meeting, but I brought the second one immediately after. So, I was like, “Not only did I book my second one, but, you know, I hit quota first.

[00:23:20] I got them to occur for.” So, I was like, “You know what? I may not have been the first to book, but I’m the first to hit quota. So, that definitely went to my head a little bit at first.

[00:23:30] Marc Gonyea: So, you’re the first, this is correct if no one second like it is. You’re the first SDR to hit quote in the Boston office and in the history of the office.

[00:23:36] That’s a nice claim to fame.

[00:23:37] Emie Moore: Oh yeah. 

[00:23:38] It wasn’t a high quota. It was the first one to do it. Yeah. 

[00:23:43] Marc Gonyea: That was his house would walk on the moon, but I was only there for 10 minutes or whatever. It’s like a minnow. 

[00:23:48] Emie Moore: Yup.

[00:23:48] Marc Gonyea: Okay. 

[00:23:49] Emie Moore: I still have the video. Jeremy sent that out to the office on my third, three-year anniversary.

[00:23:54] Oh yeah. 

[00:23:55] Marc Gonyea: Can you send it to me? 

[00:23:56] Emie Moore: Oh yeah. I was like squealing, squeaking legs, like, literally arms flailing. I was just super excited. Oh, perfect. 

[00:24:04] Yes. 

[00:24:06] Marc Gonyea: Chris, you got Emie and I in the room, we’re going to be out talk, talking to one another. You gotta, you gotta get in this thing. 

[00:24:12] Chris Corcoran: So, I guess let’s talk about your, you know, you’re talkative, and you’re analytical and get on this crazy little startup kind of with the backing of a bigger company, you have your expectations and rarely in life are things exactly how you think they are. Talk to me a little bit about, um, the SDR job and how it was, how, how was it different than what you thought it was going to be?

[00:24:36] Emie Moore: Oh, it was completely different. I, I don’t, I don’t want to say I expected to come in and crush it right away, but I don’t think I expected to, like, feel as nervous or struggle as much as I did to start. Um, and, like, being a perfectionist, I took that super hard, ’cause I don’t like to be bad at anything. And, usually, the things I am bad at, I don’t like because I don’t want to be bad at them.

[00:24:59] Um, so, I think that it did not go without a ton of training and a lot of extra one-on-ones with Jeremy and a lot of reflection on myself to figure that out. I used to commute an hour and a half for work. I would come in at seven, and I would leave at seven because I wouldn’t leave until I felt like at least if I hadn’t booked a meeting, like I had put everything, single thing out on the table. Like, all my cards were there, you know, doing all the work that I could.

[00:25:26] Um, so, if I wasn’t necessarily the top performer in the office at the time, I was definitely the hardest working, and that’s how I wanted to leave it. 

[00:25:33] Chris Corcoran: So, it was harder than you thought?

[00:25:35] Emie Moore: Oh yeah. 

[00:25:37] Chris Corcoran: Okay.

[00:25:38] Emie Moore: I think I figured it out over time, right? Like, you learn to work smarter, not necessarily harder.

[00:25:43] Right. Um, and as I got more comfortable on the phone, um, Jeremy and I hit this point, and I won’t say what it’s called because it’s not exactly, it has a swear. Yeah, but.

[00:25:55] It’s not. 

[00:25:55] Yeah. It’s not family-friendly, but we called it like, I’ll say, “screw it mode” essentially, where I told Jeremy, I was like, “I don’t care how this conversation goes.

[00:26:03] I don’t care if I book the meeting. I’m just going to talk. I’m going to have a conversation. I’m gonna see what happens.” And every time I did that, I booked a meeting every single time. And so, he’d come over and, like, be excited, and then I’d go in, I was like, “Oh, I’m going to do it again.” Like, “Let’s do this, like, game on.

[00:26:18] I’m going to keep booking.” The best time to do that obviously is after you already did one, a little bit confident. And, um, so, that’s where I started to see the success. But first, to start, I was not the best SDR, hardest working, but not the best. 

[00:26:32] Chris Corcoran: So, talk a little bit, you mentioned a little bit about anxiety and so talk a little bit about how you dealt with that, how you managed it and find never goes away, but what were some of your strategies to help manage through that?

[00:26:44] Emie Moore: Yeah, so, I think, like, I mean, at my core, I can, can be a very anxious person in general, but I think as, within the role, itself, um, you know, it took a little bit of time with, like, self-reflection and if I needed to step away, like, I’ll step away, right. Like, I would go outside, or I would call my mom and be like, “I suck at this, like, talk to me.”

[00:27:06] Or I would pivot to something that at least I knew I was really good at while I gave my time, or myself time to calm down, to go back to it. Um, because I think that, you know, like drilling in and going over and over and over again to the same exact thing, if it’s not working, it’s not going to help.

[00:27:23] Emie Moore: And it’s just going to continue to spiral into a larger problem. So, I’ve removed myself from the situation or the task and come back to it, play a game of foosball or whatever to, you know, relieve stress and then come back to it with, you know, a clearer mind and a little bit more present in order to kind of accomplish a goal I needed to. 

[00:27:42] Marc Gonyea: Um, see it’s good for people to hear this because the job is difficult for everyone.

[00:27:48] Right? And, particularly, you got a big personality, and people sometimes think that’s gonna, that means this job’s gonna, “I’m talking to people, this is going to come natural.” Versus, like, “That’s not nice to actually what makes people do the job.” It was the same way. 

[00:28:01] Emie Moore: Yeah. Well, I think I, like, used to be afraid of public speaking, too.

[00:28:05] So, like, I don’t know why I thought I would, wouldn’t struggle at first because I’ve purposely put myself in positions that make me feel uncomfortable in order to get better at it. So, I think that’s Dr. Will’s example of that, where I was super uncomfortable, and I only got good at it after forcing myself to do something that was out of my comfort zone.

[00:28:24] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:28:24] It’s not supposed to be easy, easy journey. 

[00:28:26] Emie Moore: No, not at all.

[00:28:27] Marc Gonyea: And it’s, there’s no one better to have been in a leadership position than someone who’s been through the journey with themselves and then struggled with it. ‘Cause, cause you have to.

[00:28:38] Or you’re not going to learn from it. So, it probably made you a really good DM, too, in a sec. So, as you were coming up, what were you good at? What did you get good at as an SDR? You mentioned the email. Was it something about the phone, too? Was it, like, what was it? 

[00:28:56] Emie Moore: I think that, and it was one of the things that kind of made me struggle.

[00:29:00] I just like to talk to them, and I’d try to get really curious. What I was good at is digging and digging and getting to that discovery to the point where like, “Well, why wouldn’t you take a call?” Right? Like, “I just proved A, B, and C, and you’re telling me X, Y, and Z is not what you want.” Like, “Of course, take the call.”

[00:29:18] Right? So, the pers, the discovery there was always really good, I think that my quality is what I did really well at. ‘Cause I wanted them to be meetings that either closed or at least went into the pipeline and went somewhere. So, when I did that, you know, it’s more of the, maybe the persistence or the, uh, like that assertiveness to start.

[00:29:41] I wasn’t really good at, but as soon as I got into that conversation, I was like, “Well, this is my time to shine.” Like, “It’s, this is my conversation. I’m running it. Whether or not the prospect knew.” 

[00:29:49] Marc Gonyea: And what, what, what, what did you learn from, like, those little small possy there? It’s a pretty good sort of people. What, what, what were they good at?

[00:29:57] Emie Moore: Yeah, Rob, super good. Like, he never nervous, and if he was, you didn’t know it. Like, he was really good at just getting into the conversation, and he did decent discovery. He always did really well with that. I think he did, was better and did decent discovery. And he was really good at closing.

[00:30:16] Like, he was always, always closing. And so, for me, I was closing less but did really good discovery. And I think the two of us kind of took that from each other. And that’s where his quality started to get really, really good. And he started to push more, and I started to push back on the prospect was like, “Well, why wouldn’t you?”

[00:30:31] So, he’d taught me that, for sure. We sat right next to each other. So, being on the same client definitely led to some, a day healthy competition between the two of us. Because every time I heard him book and I was like, “Well, it’s my turn, I got to.” And he booked more meetings, and I’d book in better quality.

[00:30:46] And either way, I wanted to either, even the playing field or find a way where, you know, we were both successful. 

[00:30:53] Marc Gonyea: What clients were you guys on?? 

[00:30:54] Emie Moore: PGi, it’s PGi and TalkPoint. Yeah. So, we took over, like, that was one of us. Yeah. Oh yeah. 

[00:30:59] Marc Gonyea: Jeremy took that from Virginia up here. 

[00:31:01] Emie Moore: Oh yeah. And, I mean, there was a point where they were trying to poach me, like. So, there, the POCs were awesome. Like, it was a client that was in an industry that’s incredibly saturated, right? Like, from Zoom, selling against Teams, selling against a WebEx. And so, every time, I can literally still hear those songs calling every single one of the people. You can hear the Zoom call, you can hear the Cisco phone. But it was an industry

[00:31:30] and I think that’s where I started to try to get a little bit better. ‘Cause I would find the titles, that I could find the best success with that also would lead to the best production for them. Or, you know, aside from the discovery, my mom would agree with this, my favorite thing to do is ask, “Why?” Five-year-old’s favorite question.

[00:31:46] I’ll ask you until I get the answer I want or I did at that time. Right? I know, I know how to stop myself now, but I think that I continue to ask why and why and why until I basically proved you wrong. And so, yeah, at that point, my mom told me I should be a lawyer, but now I can use that in sales to say, “Well, I’ve proved, I found the gap. So, here’s the gap. Build the bridge. We’re cool.”

[00:32:08] Marc Gonyea: And tell us about the client, one to poach you. Some people use poach, some people say convert. 

[00:32:16] Emie Moore: Yeah. So, I was actually super symbolized by it because I didn’t necessarily have the highest falling, but, again, that quality was there. And I would just talk to my reps and build a ton of rapport with them.

[00:32:27] Like, I genuinely liked having them on the call. I’d ask them, before the prospect got on, I asked them every question I possibly could about sales to figure out, like, how they got there, why they got there, what they were doing. Um, and I think that really stuck out because, you know, that’s the biggest reason why they wanted me. Like, I brought in quality meetings, but it was me that they wanted, not necessarily just the SDR.

[00:32:48] So, they’d start to build out their team internally. Um, had fully acquired TalkPoint at that point. They went through the rebranding. Um, and so, my client came in like, “Hey, would, would you be interested in this?” Now, I’m not insanely passionate right about webcasting or, you know, phones. But, um, I think that what I did is, you know, even when they told me to start selling phone systems, like, I made it work, and I had that relationship with them where, I like to tell my SDRs now, “I mean, if you’re irreplaceable

[00:33:20] they’re not going to want an SDR or any other SDR, but you.” Right? And so, for them, at that point, I was irreplaceable. They’d start to build out their team. They asked me to train their SDRs, um, and show them my, you know, secrets, essentially. If we had academy at that time, I would have put them through academy.

[00:33:36] But, um, I, you know, would have been joining the team had that been a good fit. Moving to Georgia was not my cup of tea or what I wanted to do.

[00:33:46] Chris Corcoran: Sunny and 65. 

[00:33:46] Emie Moore: There’s definitely sunny and 65. Yeah, that’s true. Um, but even when we parted ways, like, I always had the relationship with my client, like, “Well, if you’re in Georgia, let us know.”

[00:33:55] Marc Gonyea: It’s interesting. We don’t focus on that as much, but that is so…

[00:34:57] Chris Corcoran: Bedside manner..

[00:34:58] Marc Gonyea: So key, so key. That’s why that’s so key. Like, you ask yourself and you bring an SDR on board, “Is this an SDR I could leave with the client?”

[00:35:07] Emie Moore: Yeah. 

[00:35:09] Marc Gonyea: You know?

[00:35:09] Emie Moore: I was going to say I’ve been going off of that. That’s part of why I didn’t like medicine either.

[00:35:14] ‘Cause I saw a lot of physicians or medical professionals go in that are brilliant, quite frankly, most brilliant people I’ve met, but they don’t have that bedside manner. They don’t make the patient feel comfortable. And so, that’s something that I did really well, and I knew that I could do that and help other sales organizations or tech organizations do that.

[00:35:32] Marc Gonyea: We’ve got some legends, Taylor Pierce, bedside manner expert in. For you, it’s critical, too, because it’s, it’s about the leads and the meetings. There’s also the perception that the client has for you, you know, your, your level of professionalism in URL, curious you are, all these intangibles that you bring to the table. It’s hard to get that from other people.

[00:35:55] Emie Moore: Yep. 

[00:35:56] Marc Gonyea: Very hard. And it’s the highest compliment, and some of the most extend you an offer some of the people on your team.

[00:36:02] Emie Moore: Yep, absolutely.

[00:36:04] Marc Gonyea: So, when you, when you turned that down, did that help you kind of decide maybe what you wanted to do or not? ‘Cause your kind of journey, it wasn’t, it’s not, it’s, uh, and I’m saying this for people who are listening, right, you may not know what you want to do when you start the job, you know you’re not gonna be an SDR forever, but you may not know where you want to take things.

[00:36:24] Emie Moore: Oh, yeah. Well, my journey overall is probably the most untraditional, what I would say. I mean, I came in and potentially wanted to be a DM or be a memoryBlue AE, and after leading Culture Club for awhile, um, I did not see myself being able to manage some of the people. Um. 

[00:36:44] Marc Gonyea: So, for the listeners, what’s culture, what’s culture club?

[00:36:47] Emie Moore: Um, okay. So, culture club is, you know, a time during the week where we all gather as an office, talk through some things that we want to do, where we get, like, a budget from, from HQ to just hang out, enjoy each other’s company together, plan events. Like, we’ve done Red Sox games.

[00:37:02] We’ve done, um, the New Hampshire House, went on hike. Um, and it doesn’t always have to be things that cost money, but it’s just for us to actually like who we’re around ’cause people like who you’re around, then it translates into your work, as well. And people actually like to like really work, right? So, I was leading Culture Club, and, um, he knows it, I’ll say his name, Brian Carey, drove me insane.

[00:37:25] He knows it. I was like that is the one person, there was one other alumni, as well, his name is Jake Mead. And they know it. And they, and I would say to them right now, like, they knew how to push my buttons. And I was like, “There’s absolutely no way I can be a DM.” And so, that’s when I closed the door, I told Jeremy, “There’s no way, I’m not going to be a DM.”

[00:37:43] Like, “I can’t do this if I have to deal with SDRs like that. Absolutely not.”

[00:37:46] Marc Gonyea: Professional button pusher. 

[00:37:48] Emie Moore: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yep. He’s great at his job, very outgoing guy, knows exactly how to get what he wants and push the buttons. But I told Jeremy, I was like, “I’m going to be in to eat.” Like, that’s, “I mean, I’m a lone wolf.”

[00:38:01] Like, “I can’t deal with people like that.” And so, that’s actually when I started talking to Tommy, Nick Perry, and you about sales. 

[00:38:09] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Let me say this, too. I remember coming up here before COVID, I was a little more active on the, on the travel training. I was like, “This girl, young woman, respectfully, right, she was 90 minutes away, and I come next to her. I mean, she works really hard, and she’s good, but I don’t know how long she’s going to last.” You remember? I was asking she’s traveling, and everybody got to see like, have you moved yet? 

[00:38:31] Emie Moore: Nope. 

[00:38:31] Marc Gonyea: Have you moved yet? Yeah. Yeah. But you know, shout out to the folks that, like, they don’t care, you know. 

[00:38:42] Chris Corcoran: I got to ask, what’d you do with all that windshield time?

[00:38:45] Emie Moore: Oh, I listened to a lot of podcasts. I listened to so much music. I got some audio books. Um, it was super long. They’re, like, the reason sometimes I come in so early, it’s like, at least I’ll get work done, and I’ll beat some of the traffic. Um, but from the area that I’m in, we grew up in, in, from Massachusetts and Rhode Island, everyone commutes to the city.

[00:39:05] So, it’s super normal to almost do at least an hour, to get an hour and a half, when it snows sometimes more, is a little bit out there, but I, tons of podcasts, anything. I’d listened to something called Crime Junkie, which was a little bit terrifying to listen to on the way home. When I got home, it was dark and did not want to get out of the car. 

[00:39:25] Chris Corcoran: It gets dark at four o’clock in the winter.

[00:39:27] Emie Moore: I wouldn’t get out of my car. I was like, I called one of my friends, like, “I have, um, like, a four-foot walk to the front door, but I’m going to need to call you because I listened to too much Crime Junkie, and I’m terrified now.” Um, but yeah, it was like anything that I could get my hands on to listen to, like, listen to the dip, when we did that session.

[00:39:45] That’s how I did the audiobook and listen to it on my way up. I would pause sometimes, like, and do, like, a Siri note if I wanted to take a note on it. But, yeah, it made it doable because I was goofing off and laughing, paying attention while driving, but got to the office, and I mean, it’s fun. 

[00:40:01] Marc Gonyea: There’s a lot of time for self-reflection, too.

[00:40:04] Right. You kind of figuring things out. So, I, I always, I was always nervous for you, but I always admired you for that. Not even knowing you open that, you know, really all that. Well, all right. A whole world war. Oh, so, you were like, you were like, “Ah, no these Ryan Carey misfits, I don’t want to interview, I don’t want, I don’t have to manage these folks.”

[00:40:23] So, you started talking to folks about sales, but what, what, keep going with that. 

[00:40:27] Emie Moore: So, I started talking about it. I started shadowing, like, Joey Cohen, I started shadowing Carly Arman Trout, everyone. Like, if I could get my hands on the ability to shadow, Caroline Sullivan, too, all of them, like, I would shadow the SDRs.

[00:40:43] I would shadow the AEs. I would ask them a million questions. They went hard on me, to ask, like, if that’s something I actually wanted to do, and I respected it because if I am going to my next role, I want to know the good, the bad, the ugly, let me know, I’ll know exactly what I’m signing up for. Um, so, truthfully, like, I was ready to go down that path and quarantine, COVID was something awful that did happen.

[00:41:05] But that time when it did, we paused hiring, rightfully so, right, to make sure that we were strong as an organization. And, for me, it was kind of a blessing in disguise because I would not be sitting here as the MD had do I continued as an AE. Um, so we paused hiring and then started talking about rising stars because they came up in my one year.

[00:41:25] That’s when the potential client offer happened. And the first rising stars intro we had, this is back when Kristen was still doing all of them, um, her first question to me was like, “What’s your favorite part of the job?” And stupidly, the first thing I said was mentoring and coaching. 

[00:41:44] Chris Corcoran: Stupid. 

[00:41:45] Emie Moore: Yeah. Like, “Well, why would I want to be a rising star or be an AE?

[00:41:49] Like, I want to be mentoring people.” So, she was like, “Okay, well, why don’t you, my one ask for you is go do your research, look into the DM role. And if you come back saying like, ‘This is not for me.’ Then, we’ll re-engage, we’ll continue the conversations for rising stars.'” But, obviously, haven’t looked back, and that was the first, and only rising stars call I had.

[00:42:12] Marc Gonyea: Nice.

[00:42:13] Chris Corcoran: So, how’d you, okay, so, you like coaching, developing, mentoring. But then, as a leader, you got exposed to Ryan Carey. So, how did you overcome the hurdle of, “You know what? I’m going to have to coach lead, develop and mentor a team and now an office of Ryan Carey’s.” 

[00:42:32] Emie Moore: I think Jeremy gave me a great opportunity to become a team lead, somewhere in between that.

[00:42:38] I, I should’ve mentioned that, and I still was set on at that time, but, you know, it was really Kristen bringing that up to me that put it into perspective. Um, but, over my tenure, regardless if I was like, I re, was, as an SDR the entire time, and the reason why I was the first person to take men because I got way more excited about somebody else’s success

[00:42:57] than I did my own. So, when I booked a meeting and be like, “Yeah, cool, whatever.” But, when someone like Faith Emery or Curtis Giles, um, both, both my mentees, when they booked a meeting I got way more pumps. Like, you see me running around the office, screaming, yelling, excited. Um, and if I did, I was like, “Yeah, cool. That’s fine.” So, their success and seeing somebody that I taught them work was way more fulfilling than just booking and doing my own thing.

[00:43:26] And granted, you know, I liked helping my client, but I think that the ability to impact someone and watch it happen before my eyes was better. 

[00:43:35] Marc Gonyea: So, how long were you an SDR before you became a DM? 

[00:43:38] Emie Moore: Um, I want to say about a year and five months. A year and six months. Yeah. ‘Cause I was, yeah, I was at 15 months when I started it.

[00:43:46] Marc Gonyea: And then you rock, was it COVID time when you were…? 

[00:43:50] Yeah, it was, we, COVID had just started. So, COVID happened the spring before. So, it was like, what is it, April or March that hit in 2020, and my one-year was May 2020. So, we are mid-COVID. Um, and I think at that point we had started to go remote. Um, I left my plants in the office thinking it was two weeks, they all died and, you know, we were going to COVID um, time and being remote.

[00:44:14] So, it was definitely weird. Um, and I think that thinking about, um, being a DM at that time was certainly weird, ’cause it was a transition, Jeremy and I weren’t in the office to talk about it. And, there’s, just weird time then. 

[00:44:28] Marc Gonyea: And so, what was it like being a DM? Like, how big was your team when you started, half virtual, half in the office?

[00:44:35] Emie Moore: Yeah, so we did a hybrid mode. We were in the office half the time, and we’d do, like, one team, basically, in. We, I actually inherited my team, so my peers as my SDRs, and I think luckily for me, like, one of the hardest things to do as DM is to go from being someone’s peer to their now boss. So, whether you’re like with whatever role it is, the same thing in MD.

[00:44:58] And I think the fact that I kind of established myself as a leader, early on, like, I wasn’t here to just goof off, I wasn’t here to, like, not do my work. Like, when I’m working, my blenders are on, but I’m, you know, got to have fun when we have the time to have fun. Um, but then, I started to see them coming to me more and more with questions.

[00:45:16] And so, once I was thinking about DM it kind of, to them, was a no-brainer, I’m like, “Yeah, of course, I’m used to DM.” I’m like, “We’re not surprised at all. We’re happy, but we’re not surprised.” 

[00:45:26] Marc Gonyea: That’s a hard, some people have a big challenge with that one, your colleague, for some in particular, when you’ve got a bunch of people not to push buttons, and the next day you’re their boss, particularly in an office with a good culture.

[00:45:40] Emie Moore: Oh yeah. Well, the hardest one, too, is my mentee. And he worked on PGR, too. He was someone that took over from me. He booked one of my meetings that I had my pipeline, and he knew I wasn’t happy about it, but we had a goofy relationship. And the first thing I did when I found out that I might be a DM is I set up time with him, pulled him into the conference room.

[00:45:57] I was like, “Listen to me.” I’m like, “Position’s open. I am thinking about going for it. What are your thoughts?” And he was happy. Like, he was positive about it and didn’t have any pushback. I’m like, “Well, you know, to be transparent with you, there is, our relationship as a mentor and mentee or friends is going to change to some degree.

[00:46:16] And it’s not because I necessarily want it to change, but it’s going to because I’m now going to be your boss. Are you okay with that?” And he was, he was understanding, he always knew where the line had to be drawn. And I think that just being super upfront, like that upfront contract with him, especially and some of the other people that were more tenured that I was, would have been taking on.

[00:46:34] You know, they like to think they appreciated that transparency because, you know, if they were truly uncomfortable with it, then I don’t know that that wouldn’t necessarily change my decision, but it would have definitely changed the way that we approached that new role. 

[00:46:47] Marc Gonyea: What did you learn in those early days as a DM? 

[00:46:50] Emie Moore: Oh, my God, so much. The people think that they know the DM role within your first six months, you don’t know anything, like, there’s so much more to learn. So, my first.

[00:46:59] Marc Gonyea: You were an SDR for 15 months.

[00:47:00] Emie Moore: Yeah. And I had that point, one year. I was like, “I know it, like, I’m good.” 15, more, three more months come along. Like, “Wow. I know even more.”

[00:47:08] So, um, when I became a DM, I was nervous ’cause I thought I didn’t know anything. I was like, I knew that I did, but I thought I didn’t, at the time. Right? Um, I had just taken on a team, I think of, like, five that I inherited, four or five, and then had a new hire my very first day of being a DM. Who’s now a DM, too, Kaylee Dardy.

[00:47:27] Um, yeah. It’s Kaylee Dardy. Oh, yeah. Um, and I think that I kind of had to embrace the suck, as some people say, because the job is easily one of the hardest I’ve ever had. But, yeah, and then when I did my research, I asked everybody for the good, the bad, the ugly, and I knew exactly what I was signing up for so, I was anticipating it and kind of proactively trying to figure out ways to get better.

[00:47:50] And similar to those conversations that I’d had as an SDR, I was like, “I’m hitting this motor.” I’m like, “I’m just going to have the conversation. I don’t care how it ends. Um, if I mess up, then I’m gonna learn from it.” The same approach was taken as a DM because if I messed up, like, unless it’s a royal mess up, right,

[00:48:07] Emie Moore: like an HR nightmare where you know, that wouldn’t end up well for anyone, like, “No, I’m not going to get fired because I mess up.” Like, “I’m gonna learn from it. Somebody’s going to coach me on how to better do it the next time.” And you get through it. 

[00:48:17] Marc Gonyea: So, what were the things that sucked? 

[00:48:19] Emie Moore: Oh, I really hated accounting at first. Did not understand the DPT or anything of that. Obviously, now I like, that’s easy. But I think that was hard.

[00:48:29] Chris Corcoran: For the listeners, what’s the DPT?

[00:48:30] Emie Moore: Yes, so, if I’m being transparent, I don’t know if I know what DPT stands for itself.

[00:48:34] Chris Corcoran: Daily profitability tracker.

[00:48:35] Emie Moore: Correct. Yeah. So, it basically is where you put in, like, the track both, the monthly and daily pay of clients.

[00:48:43] Right? As well as your SDR, so we can see what that profit is going to end up being. Um, so, you know, you can see how much every single SDR is profiting. 

[00:48:52] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. So, I think it’s important distinction that when you’re a, what we call a Delivery Manager or an SDR leader, you don’t just have a team of SDRs for one employer.

[00:49:04] You have a team of SDRs over 4, 6, 8 different tech companies, all with really high expectations. So, you have to manage all those relationships with your clients, with your SDRs, with your leaders within memoryBlue. So, it’s a very challenging role, much more so than just being an SDR leader for one company.

[00:49:29] Emie Moore: Yeah, exactly. Like, you are wearing multiple hats, which is also something that I think was more of a difficult part, right? Because you’re not good at every single aspect of it. Um, you’re an Account Manager, right, for memoryBlue to your clients and, you know, bedside manner being something I was good at, like, I liked that. You’re an SDR manager, right?

[00:49:45] So, you’re coaching, you’re training, you’re developing the way that I think of that as, as a DM you’re training, um, and teaching to start, but then you’re coaching and challenging and equipping, um, for any tenured SDRs, you’re not necessarily recruiter, but to some degree, you’re like, we’re hiring manager.

[00:50:03] You’re closing those people. You’re upselling your clients. You’re like, the reason I like to the DM role is because I get to dip my toe in literally every aspect of business that I had no idea about. So, it was definitely the most challenging part, but, um, the one that was the most beneficial for me. 

[00:50:20] Chris Corcoran: What jobs were challenging, the MD or the DM?

[00:50:24] Emie Moore: Ooh, DM. And this is early grant. I think the DM because I think it’s your focus kind of like on the short term, right, where, like, if one thing goes wrong, like, there’s a ton of leverage you need to pull in order to figure out that one thing. As the MD, I think now that I’ve been a DM for as long as I had it, like, I think a year and five months there as well, actually.

[00:50:51] I’ve taken a lot of those skills into the MD role. And there’ll be tougher conversations that I don’t necessarily always feel the most confident about. But, again, there’s always someone like Jeremy or another MD that I can fall back on that can help me. The DM role, like, you truly are running around, you’re closing candidates.

[00:51:09] Emie Moore: Then you’re talking to a client that might be happy or unhappy. Next, you’re having a tough one-on-one with your where you’re, you know, happy and screaming, excited someone got their first book. So, it’s emotional rollercoaster, truly to be a DM. 

[00:51:23] Yeah. 

[00:51:25] Marc Gonyea: Very challenging, but it’s a very rewarding job. You learn so much.

[00:51:28] Chris Corcoran: So, you’ve had a lot of experience in both roles. So, first, in your opinion, what makes a good SDR? 

[00:51:35] Emie Moore: Um, honestly, I think someone that, the work ethic and coachability are the two biggest things. Um, you don’t have to have had experience in the role. You don’t have to have, you know, to know everything. I think that your ability to kind of be a sponge and soak that up and be willing, I should say, to be coached and be able to implement that is the biggest thing.

[00:52:02] Um, and then, work ethic because it is a grind. Like, I know we had Carly and Katie last week from our Boston team talking about that, like, “Just put your blinders on and work. Nobody wants to be an SDR for life.” If anyone says that to you, then they’re lying. Like, they’re truly lying to you. Exactly. Exactly.

[00:52:21] So, you have to hustle, but it’s temporary. So, just kind of focus on that, the way that I looked at that when I was necessary, I was like, “It’s 15 months, like, who cares?” Every, so much can change in a year, and just put your blinders on, work really hard and take everything that you can get, like, out of the experience.

[00:52:40] Otherwise, you know, you’re, you’re going to be left with the opportunities left on the table. 

[00:52:46] Chris Corcoran: Well said. So, then, in your opinion, what makes a good SDR manager? 

[00:52:51] Emie Moore: Ooh, there are several lessons that I learned as a DM. And the biggest one is your SDRs are not you. 

[00:52:58] Chris Corcoran: That’s the first lesson. 

[00:52:59] Emie Moore: Always, always because my SDRs do things that or did do things that sometimes it’s stressed me out, but would work out for them.

[00:53:07] Or, I am very OCD about how my computer and tabs and everything is organized, and some of them don’t pay attention to that level of detail. There’s others that have the, the ability on the phone or did things that I would never have tried. So, I think once you kind of come to terms, and sometimes it’s a tough pill to swallow of like, “Well, they’re not me.” Right?

[00:53:28] We’re not creating little mini-mes. We’re not creating little soldiers. You need to be someone that adapts to them, right? So, the coaching that you give them needs to be different every single time. So, every single SDR that I had, like my blinders, were on them, and none of the conversations were the same, but a single one of them learned the same.

[00:53:44] Um, and so, that was definitely one of the more difficult things, but what made me successful it was like, “I need to mold to you in order to create you into your unique version of a rock star salesperson.” 

[00:53:57] Chris Corcoran: So, what makes it good SDR manager? 

[00:54:01] Adaptability, for sure. I think someone that also is like, “It’s okay to say no, sometimes.” Right?

[00:54:09] Emie Moore: Uh, that’s a big one, whether it’s to the client and lingos batteries because you’re educating them just as much in this role, as, as, you know, they’re helping you in learning the product. But same thing to the SDRs is then holding them accountable. Like, that’s the biggest thing when it comes to managing SDRs, aside from adapting to them is holding them accountable to the goals and the expectations that you all set together, not you for them.

[00:54:35] And then, the last one just as a team is it should be we over I, right? The bottom line is that you’re not a DM for yourself, you’re a DM for somebody else. And you’re not necessarily working for them. Right? But on some level, you are because you’re, as long as they’re successful and they’re developing, and they’re enjoying themselves, then you’re doing everything right.

[00:54:58] Emie Moore: You know, um, having that level of culture and environment on your team of like, “It’s open-door policy, I’m here for you if you need anything. But, also, I’m gonna challenge the heck out of you and make sure that you’re doing your stuff because if you’re not, then, you know, we may have to have more tough conversations.” And making sure that, you know, they’re embracing more than just themselves, right?

[00:55:23] Like, my team, we’re like all best, really, really good friends. They still hang out. They, you know, um, were sad when we moved rows. Um, but it’s because, you know, they were all really close, and they knew that the bottom line is “As long as I focus on myself, in terms of my production, the team is successful.” And that’s kind of the goal there, is like, “It’s us over just me. And, you know, I have to do my part in order to make this a well-oiled machine.” 

[00:55:53] Chris Corcoran: And I think that you’re being very modest. I mean, one of your, um, signature accomplishments and how you really punctuated the Delivery Manager role was at 50 teams. We had this incentive, this competition where we’d go head to head, youth came out

[00:56:13] number one, you and your team came out. Number one out of 50, won 10 grand. And you took the whole team to Miami. So, what was that like?

[00:56:23] Marc Gonyea: Team like that. 

[00:56:24] Chris Corcoran: What was that like? 

[00:56:25] Emie Moore: It was awesome. I, you know, when we, when you all first announced the incentive, like, when I was talking to team about it, I’m like, “Okay, where you want to go?

[00:56:34] I guess there’s an incentive shore for me, but it’s not for me. It’s for you.” Right? Like, “So, your hard work is what’s going to end up getting us there.” Um, and the biggest thing is, I think it’s funny ’cause it was in the newsletters, like my no-nonsense, right? Like, “We can have fun, but two it’s a month and a half, two months that you’re working really hard, have fun summer, tropical or somewhere fun.”

[00:56:57] Like, “Don’t just goof off and do that now and then regret it. ‘Cause the person that’s going to be hurt, and it’s not going to be me.” Right? Like, “Sure, we’d love to go on a trip, but it’s going to be you because of all the dials that you’ve put into it and all the, you know, effort that you put in.” So, when it came down to winning that competition, every single week was a new one.

[00:57:16] We never looked back. We never looked at what’s ahead. Always looked. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Only looked at that week at hand and what I let them know, I was like, “It, you just gotta leave everything on the table.” And, quite frankly, also for leaving it on the table, and we were doing it the right way. There’s no sketchy things going on.

[00:57:35] Like, “Make sure you’re booking the way that you should be booking or doing the job the way you should be doing your job.” We had SDRs staying in here all hours of the night, all coming in all hours in the morning. And, um, it was their effort that got us there. Um, and me encouraging them because I know that every single one of them could do it.

[00:57:52] They tell me that they can’t do it. They’re full of it. If they hear this, I know that they could all do it. A hundred percent could do it. And it was just the constant reminder and tracking of, “Hey, these, this is where we’re at. This is your goal.” So, I’d ask them what is our weekly goal for the day, or what is our daily vocal, and what is our daily occur goal.

[00:58:09] And they would set that for themselves, and we have ripped down numbers, and they would accomplish that themselves. 

[00:58:15] Chris Corcoran: Man, I’ll tell you what I would have loved to work from this office for that month and a half.

[00:58:20] Marc Gonyea: Including me.

[00:58:20] Chris Corcoran: Because out of the 50 teams, three of the final four were from Boston. So, this is what, this place must have been electric.

[00:58:28] Emie Moore: Insane. Like, people were running around, like, we had ripped down numbers everywhere. Even the people that weren’t in March Madness anymore were excited. And, um, we, of course, all the DMs were tripping each other. I thought it was funny because I not only would have, I was either growing up head to head with my mentee, Jake, or I was going head to head with Kaylee and my first SDR, and lo and behold, me, and Kaylee went head to head and

[00:58:53] granted, I, “Wouldn’t it be great if she won? Cool.” Like, “I’m excited. I’m the one that, you know, trained you, but also I want to crush them.” Um, and I want to win so bad. Um, so the way that we took the approach of like, they were chirping each other, but also I was like, “Don’t go bother them.” Like, if some of them they’d want to go over there and, you know, chirping and goof off, I was like, “You sit down at your desk, and you focus on the job at hand, and then once you win, then you can chirp.”

[00:59:21] Chris Corcoran: There you go. 

[00:59:21] Emie Moore: Right.

[00:59:21] Chris Corcoran: I love it.

[00:59:22] Emie Moore: Yeah. So.

[00:59:23] Chris Corcoran: I’m just imagining the scene of these DMs and Jeremy Wood just sipping a cup of coffee. This is my. 

[00:59:34] Emie Moore: Just like the smile. He got a smile. 

[00:59:37] Marc Gonyea: I definitely would’ve come up here and worked here for the week.

[00:59:40] Chris Corcoran: Wow.

[00:59:41] Marc Gonyea: Week. I wish I had.

[00:59:42] Chris Corcoran: It was a month and a half.

[00:59:43] Emie Moore: Oh yeah.

[00:59:43] Chris Corcoran: I know. But it came down to the wire.

[00:59:46] Emie Moore: But, I was there, I was in DC. 

[00:59:47] Chris Corcoran: That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. 

[00:59:49] Emie Moore: I was sweating sitting at that desk. 

[00:59:51] Oh my God. Well, I have to give it to Kaylee’s team. ‘Cause we had a really good lead, and they booked 32 meetings, 32 meetings in one day. And I told her, I was, I told the team, I was like, honestly all, like “If we lose, they deserve it.”

[01:00:04] ‘Cause that wasn’t like in absolutely insane. 

[01:00:07] Chris Corcoran: So, you guys won, and the team decided to go to Miami. So, you guys, what, did take a long weekend down there?

[01:00:13] Emie Moore: Yeah, so we had an initial goal. We made a list of three places that they were curious about before this thing even started. And it was Nashville ’cause they, for the longest time, had been telling me to buy them all a trip to Nashville.

[01:00:24] I would have to hit the lottery to do that. I don’t know where they think that’s coming from. But, Miami or we settled also maybe if it’s closer, we’ll do the Hamptons. Right. Because who can say they went to the Hamptons and got this bougie house? Um, so they chose Miami, um, more, you know, we’re looking at pricing, “How can we get the most bang for our buck?”

[01:00:44] And we were able to cover all of the flights, the entire stay, and literally for a long week, and all they have to do is pay for some food. We had people that had been promoted to PPM during that time but helped us out in beginning. So, you know for sure that they were going to get their chance to go. We had people that had been hired out or gone through rising stars and, “You know what? He helped us get there, too

[01:01:06] Emie Moore: so he was gonna go.” And it didn’t matter how big that group got. But, every single one of us were there. 

[01:01:10] Chris Corcoran: That is awesome.

[01:01:12] Emie Moore: Yeah. 

[01:01:14] Oh, my Gosh. It was insane. It was insane. They have a lot of energy, is how I’ll put it. Um, and, I mean, like it did a fam dinner for them one day too, and it was just funny. It’s still, they call me mom.

[01:01:26] Um, and they’ve done that as, like, ’cause people call me the office mom, but they call me mom. ‘Cause I’m their work mom, and I’m not your mom, but you know what I mean. So, they, like, treated me like I was the mom on the trip, but it was really fun. And they kind of took ownership of like, “These are the places we’re going to go. This is what we’re curious about.” And so, the trip was for them, really. 

[01:01:48] Marc Gonyea: That’s how Instagram I was mind. 

[01:01:50] Chris Corcoran: Amazing. Amazing. And basically, so, and now you’ve, you’ve moved up from Delivery Manager to a Managing Director, running the Boston office. How long have you been doing it? Well, how long have you been doing it for?

[01:02:02] Emie Moore: Yeah, almost two months. So, my official start date was April 1st.

[01:02:08] What’s the biggest difference?  

[01:02:08] Emie Moore: I’ll say in the DM role, there’s a lot of fires that you’re putting out. Right. I like to call it the DM role firefighting. Um, at this role it’s, it’s bigger level ones, right? So, there’s less of them, typically, as Jeremy kind of explained when I first did it.

[01:02:23] But they’re larger, and these are clients necessarily sometimes that maybe aren’t happy. You need to talk to the DM, and we diffuse and come to, you know, a conclusion that works for both parties. Um, I’m now, instead of mentoring and training SDRs, I’m doing that for DMs, and the way that I like to think of it is like I’m teaching them, not just how I did it, but giving them an experience of like, “How I did it, how I messed up.” Because, you know, we’ve had a couple of experiences where sometimes, as a DM, you have to learn the hard way, the same way you do in most things in life.

[01:02:54] And, you know, even just earlier this or last week, last Monday, we were talking about something, and it’s like, “Well, you need to be still proactive, still doing this.” And within 48 hours, 72 hours, two changes happened. And, you know, I was like, “Well, you know, this is your first time with it. You’re going to learn the hard way, but I need to know what you learned.

[01:03:13] ‘Cause you’re not the only one, I learned it too. I was naive, too, at the time.” And now I look back and, you know, we’re going to continue to grow. So, that level of mentorship to the DMS is more of, instead of teaching them, right, like I’m teaching new DMs how to be a DM, but I’m equipping them with all the tools in the toolbox that they need or all the knowledge that they need and developing them in order to be an MD one day or be a higher-level executive one day.

[01:03:38] Chris Corcoran: What’s the biggest mistake you see from an, a DM or an SDR manager? 

[01:03:43] Emie Moore: I think, like, playing it safe, I’ll say. Because, like I said, like, it’s okay to mess up as long as you’re learning from it. And that was a weird lesson to learn, at first, because you don’t want to mess up, of course. But, I think the moment that I started to get really good as a DM and I’ve seen other people get really good as DMs is when you push the boundaries.

[01:04:03] And you do something out of your comfort zone. You should never be doing just like cookie-cutter things that are within your comfort zone. ‘Cause that doesn’t get you to the top, and it doesn’t get you to be successful or get your team to where they want to go. And I think to some level, you know, Jeremy also taught us, this is focusing on culture, success, and development.

[01:04:21] If at any point, any of those three things is, you know, out of balance, then, you know, something needs to change. You need to insert yourself in some way, and you need to, you know, either get your team more pumped up about the culture. ‘Cause they’re going to want to like where they work or you’re going to need to show them ways to, you know, develop in a stronger way, whether it’s focusing on discovery, something about emailing or whatever because at the end then they’ll be successful.

[01:04:48] So, I think that, you know, not pushing the boundaries and doing the cookie-cutter things, just to make sure that people are successful, is not the way to do it. Like, I’d put my blinders on quite frankly, I didn’t really, it’s not that I don’t care about what other DMs are doing at the time when I was a DM, but it’s not my business what they’re doing, right?

[01:05:04] Emie Moore: They’re running their own business, their own portfolio. And if they’re doing it well, then more power to them. But, this is mine that I need to focus on. And so, um, there was nobody else that, you know, I wanted to be present for, aside from them and push those boundaries. And sometimes it bit me in the butt, but it was worth it because at least I learned from it.

[01:05:25] Chris Corcoran: What, what, what, what’s mom and dad think? 

[01:05:29] Emie Moore: They still, I think to some level, are confused, three and a half years later or a little over three years later of what memoryBlue does. 

[01:05:38] Chris Corcoran: You just got to tell them that, “I’m an MD.”

[01:05:41] Emie Moore: Yeah. Yeah. I told that to my mom. She’s like, ’cause she had, obviously associates MD with doctor, and I was like, “No.”

[01:05:47] So, technically, it was not pre-med, did not go to medical school, but I am an MD. Um, but they think it’s exciting. My mom is pumped. Like, I was like, I started the office as an SDR, and now I’m the one overseeing it, and she thinks that’s exciting. And to some level, same with my dad, they, they still don’t quite understand the work that goes into it until they see my calendar and are like, “Oh, that’s, okay.”

[01:06:16] But, you know, they’re excited and, um, probably a little surprised that I did it that quickly. And.

[01:06:23] Chris Corcoran: Sure. 

[01:06:23] Emie Moore: It’s little surprised that I, or not surprised that I didn’t. ‘Cause it’s definitely always been a little over-ambitious, I’ll say. Um, I like to start a million projects, and only sometimes some of them get finished.

[01:06:35] So, at least this is one that I finished. Um, and we’ve done, but they’re excited. 

[01:06:43] Marc Gonyea: So, where are you going to go with this? Like, what’s your kind of, how many open cubes do we have here? 

[01:06:48] Emie Moore: Not many, not many. Also, we have an open office over there. If we’re thinking about knocking down some walls, but. I have always been interested in biotech.

[01:06:58] I think that there is some opportunity there. I know that I wanted to be an AE. I wanted to break into biotech. We’ve since done that. As a DM, I was like, I’m going to oversee and open some sort of biotech or be a director of biotech. So, that’s definitely on my radar. I think that that’s historically been all of my most successful campaigns.

[01:07:17] Um, I’ve had others that are successful, right, that gave me that experience. But being the science nerd that I am, I think it kind of fits where, we’re in Boston. There’s a market for it. And I think one day I’d be curious to bring out all up here. 

[01:07:31] Marc Gonyea: Write it down.

[01:07:32] Emie Moore: Make a note. 

[01:07:33] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. You’re not talking about it before we got up.

[01:07:37] There’s a lot of promise here. I mean, I’m going to wrap the wrap this thing up, like, um, Chris and I are personally very proud of you.

[01:07:46] Chris Corcoran: It’s fun to watch. It’s fun to watch. 

[01:07:49] Marc Gonyea: I have a feeling that there are a couple of things I could learn from Emie based upon what she’s been doing with the Wood and the crew up here.

[01:07:56] Chris Corcoran: Definitely.

[01:07:56] Marc Gonyea: The office is very fortunate to have you in charge, and, um, I’m very happy you live closer to the office. 

[01:08:05] Chris Corcoran: For sure. And I think you’re just getting started. I think you’re just getting started. So, sky’s the limit. 

[01:08:10] Emie Moore: Oh yeah. 

[01:08:11] Chris Corcoran: Thanks for all the wisdom. We appreciate it. 

[01:08:13] Emie Moore: Thank you.