Episode 101: Shea Gordon –  Learning to Hustle

“I’ve never been hung up on,” said no sales rep ever. Cold calling can be a discouraging and repetitive cycle, full of missed calls and hang-ups. However, Shea Gordon points out that the SDR role, while challenging, is the best way to break into the world of tech sales.  

In this episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers, Shea Gordon, Global Account Manager at SonarSource, discusses the value in learning tech sales through the SDR role, getting into the hustle mentality, and the importance of self-reflection and accepting feedback.  

Guest-At-A-Glance

💡 Name: Shea Gordon

💡 What she does: She’s the global account manager at SonarSource.

💡 Company: SonarSource

💡 Noteworthy: With an extensive background in cybersecurity, Shea brings her clients to the forefront of the cybersecurity digital transformation. Her goal is to help guide and teach clients best practices and mitigate the risk of a data breach.

💡 Where to find Shea: LinkedIn

Key Insights

⚡ SDR is the best way to break into tech sales. If you’re looking to get into tech sales, the best way to do it is to first become a sales development representative. Shea explains, “She really sold it to me, ‘Look, nobody’s going to give you this break into tech sales. It’s really hard to get in there. And you clearly have the sales background, but you don’t have the SDR experience.’ One thing that’s become super clear to me in my career is that in tech, you have to have that SDR position. It is so necessary for how we run our whole sales cycle.”

⚡ The SDR position is about learning the hustle. Why is the SDR position so crucial for tech sales? Here’s what Shea has to say, “Learning how to be an SDR, learning to go through the grind and getting people on the phone, talking to them, and learning how to be comfortable in a conversation with somebody you’ve never met before. You cold-call them out of the blue. Why the heck do they even want to talk to you? It teaches you the immediate foundation of objection handling. And once you get that, then you get past it and really get deeper into that sales cycle. And it’s about learning how to make those hundred-plus dials every single day.”

⚡ The office environment is vital for SDRs. One of the reasons why the office environment is crucial for SDRs is that they get to learn through interactions with others. They get to listen to more seasoned SDRs as they close their deals or cold-call leads. Shea says, “It’s definitely a maturity level of your career where you need to be — if you could be a hundred percent remote, if you can be hybrid, or if you really do need to be in there every day. With SDR work, just the nature of the work and how you help grow and build off the success of others around you, you’ve got to be at the desk every day.”

Episode Highlights

Being a woman in the oil and gas industry and crushing it

“From that moment, my whole office was taken aback. They expected me to falter. They really criticized my boss for taking a risk on hiring a female. And for me, it was, ‘I’m going to show you guys that, as a woman, I’m not just good at this job; I’m better than you at it.’”

Self-reflection is the key to success in sales

“One, it’s your own trial-and-error — you have to self-reflect. Why did I do poorly on this call? Why didn’t I book the lead when I made this call? Was the script not working? Is my tone not working? Am I not asking the right questions? And then having my colleagues listen to my calls and provide their direct feedback on it kind of gave me that outside view that I, to this day, appreciate.”

Cybersecurity is more challenging than tech

“If you’re not taking time every single day to go and learn about your product, to learn about your competitors, and to learn about the whole field, you’re not going to do well in cybersecurity. You have to be up to date a hundred percent of the time. And so that’s what attracted me to CrowdStrike — this looks like it’s really going to be something. This looks really cool.”

Do your research before every job interview

“When I was starting my career, I was saying ‘yes’ to everything. And I got very lucky with that, but as I got older and more mature, I realized that there is a reason you need to be picky. It’s learning to ask the right questions but also learning how to stand out in an interview process. For me, studying is what makes me feel confident in my job. It makes me successful. And if you’re not going to put the time to learn about the company, at the very least, learn about the competition. How are you going to know it’s the best product to sell? And that is the big piece of advice. The company that you’re going to work for, make sure it’s the best on the market because if you’re not selling the best, it’s really hard to sell, and you’ll lose interest quite fast.”

Transcript: 

[00:00:00] Shea Gordon: The great thing about oil and gas is, you know, it is kind of fun. It’s very challenging. And you know, in some ways it’s in a lot of ways it’s controversial, so you have to be ready to, to talk about it.

[00:00:11] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:00:12] Shea Gordon: But with tech sales really doesn’t matter what field you’re going into. 

[00:00:15] It’s such a dynamic industry. Something’s always changing. Something’s always new. So, you have to keep that knowledge baseline up.

[00:00:21] Marc Gonyea: Shea Gordon, how the heck are you? 

[00:00:44] Shea Gordon: I’m doing good. How are y’all? 

[00:00:46] Chris Corcoran: We’re great. It’s great seeing you again. 

[00:00:48] Shea Gordon: This is good to see you guys. It’s been, you just said six years? 

[00:00:50] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[00:00:51] Shea Gordon: It’s crazy. 

[00:00:51] Chris Corcoran: It’s wild. Looking forward to catching up with you and kind of reliving some of the old days and 

[00:00:55] Shea Gordon: Yeah.

[00:00:55] Chris Corcoran: Getting caught up to what you’ve done since and what you see for the future.

[00:00:59] Shea Gordon: All right. 

[00:01:00] Marc Gonyea: Before we get into that, let’s talk a little bit about you. Talk to us about your unicorn status. 

[00:01:07] Shea Gordon: Yeah, the good old mythical Austin unicorn. You know, it’s, Austin’s really become such a transplant city, whether, you know, you’re from New York, California, Dallas, Houston. That’s not a lot of originals… 

[00:01:18] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:01:18] Shea Gordon: Left. And it’s very rare that, uh, Austin knight leaves Austin and then comes back to it. 

[00:01:23] But maybe that’s more common ’cause people realize Austin’s awesome. 

[00:01:26] So. 

[00:01:27] Marc Gonyea: It is awesome. So were you born and raised here? 

[00:01:30] Shea Gordon: I was. Yeah. Born and raised. There, there’s really nothing fascinating. 

[00:01:34] Marc Gonyea: That’s, that’s right. It’ll be, it’ll be quick. It’ll be quick then. 

[00:01:36] Shea Gordon: Just, yeah, no. 

[00:01:37] Marc Gonyea: Just a little bit. 

[00:01:38] Shea Gordon: Just grew up in North Austin, uhhuh, kind of fun fact, South Boston was the Joey’s North Boston, it was the Bubba’s. 

[00:01:43] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:01:43] Shea Gordon: Uh, and so we were definitely the Bubba kept territory, was basically in with Cedar Park. And, you know, it was great area to, to grow up in, you know, good old suburbia, but got a good education out in the suburbs.

[00:01:56] And that led me to, you know, the… I don’t know if you guys are familiar with how Texas high schools work. When I was in high school, it was 10%. If you’re in the top 10%, got automatic acceptance to any public university in Texas. 

[00:02:07] Marc Gonyea: Interesting. So like that now or? 

[00:02:09] Shea Gordon: No. Now it’s, I think it’s the 5 or 6%.

[00:02:12] Marc Gonyea: Okay. 

[00:02:12] Shea Gordon: So, because what happened is the university’s got overwhelmed. 

[00:02:15] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:02:15] Shea Gordon: So everyone tries to get to UT. Everyone tries to get to A&M. 

[00:02:19] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm.

[00:02:20] Shea Gordon: And so like when you’re, you know, have good GPA, but not like the best in the class, you can scratch out the best universities in Texas. 

[00:02:28] Marc Gonyea: The Red Raider? 

[00:02:29] Shea Gordon: Yeah. So that’s how I ended up at tech, work in tech.

[00:02:31] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. There you go. 

[00:02:32] Shea Gordon: I’m very glad I went there. I… 

[00:02:34] Marc Gonyea: Before we get there, real quick. Love it. What were you like as a kid then? Did this sales ’cause you’re in sales now, like did sales, what did you think you wanted to be when you were in high school? 

[00:02:42] Shea Gordon: Oh God, that’s a great question. I did not have the planning fortitude to really make a career decision at that young. 

[00:02:49] Marc Gonyea: Which is okay.

[00:02:51] Yeah. Which is most nearly everyone. 

[00:02:53] Shea Gordon: Yeah. But no, I, uh, I was a big theater nerd. I knew I didn’t wanna be an actor, 

[00:02:57] but I enjoyed doing it. And I think obviously with that experience, it definitely lent a lot of ability to sales, because you have to learn how to think on your feet. Obviously, you have to learn how to present in public and be confident in that presentation.

[00:03:12] Also, enunciation when you’re on the phone all day, making sure, especially in Texas with our good all accent. You’re very bad about dropping the T’s and the D’s the end. So making sure you’re getting every letter in there. It was really beneficial. So I think that started me on my path to sales, but did not think that this was gonna be my career.

[00:03:29] I’ll be honest. 

[00:03:31] Marc Gonyea: Give me an example of when you dropped the T or the D? 

[00:03:34] Shea Gordon: I mean, this was like, “Oh, I can’t do it.” 

[00:03:35] Marc Gonyea: You can’t do it. Oh, you just. 

[00:03:37] Shea Gordon: Oh yeah. So yeah. So you didn’t hear the C right there? I can’t do it. 

[00:03:40] Marc Gonyea: Oh, interest. Okay.

[00:03:43] Shea Gordon: Or, um, I’m going town. So you, I drop the G. 

[00:03:46] Marc Gonyea: Oh, wow. 

[00:03:47] Shea Gordon: So we drop all the hard consonants at the end. So if I’m not thinking about it, I’ll drop a G or a T or a D. 

[00:03:54] Marc Gonyea: Fascinating. Okay. 

[00:03:55] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:03:56] Chris Corcoran: So you, you were coming out of high school, what’d you think you wanted to major in? 

[00:04:01] Shea Gordon: So I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life still because, you know, I was 18 years old, and I don’t think any 18-year-old should know what they wanna do with their life. So I did what any hopeless case would do. Let’s get a major in something that’s gonna be useful. So I went into business school. 

[00:04:16] Chris Corcoran: There you go. 

[00:04:17] Shea Gordon: I was like, “I’ll do your business school. See if I’d like it, see if something else strikes my fancy.”

[00:04:23] And then I really fell in love with it. I loved all my classes, uh, and it saw, it gave me what I saw was a path to kind of more international business, which is originally what I was majoring in. 

[00:04:33] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:04:34] Shea Gordon: And tech gave me the fantastic opportunity to go study abroad for a pretty long time.

[00:04:39] Uh. 

[00:04:39] Marc Gonyea: Where did you go? This goes back to your linguistic thing. You just… 

[00:04:42] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:04:43] Marc Gonyea: Hit me up with earlier. Where did you study abroad? 

[00:04:45] Shea Gordon: Uh, I studied in South Korea at a, a university called Korea University. If you say Korea University, most people don’t know what you’re saying. So if you say Korea, they’re like, “Oh.” 

[00:04:57] Marc Gonyea: Just like that.

[00:04:59] Shea Gordon: But, uh, yeah, no, I, I went and I studied there. I studied, um, international business in marketing at, uh, Korea University. And it was really cool. It’s a fantastic school. It’s one of the top three in, uh, South Korea. They call it SKY. You have Seoul National, Yonsei and then Korea University. So they’re kind of like, think of it like the Stanford, Harvard, Yales 

[00:05:18] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm… 

[00:05:19] Shea Gordon: of, uh, South Korea. So it was, really cool to just have been able to, to go and do that and would not have been able to do that, if I hadn’t gone to tech. 

[00:05:27] Chris Corcoran: Are you fluent in Korean? 

[00:05:29] Shea Gordon: You know, it, it’s, it depends on my sobriety level, but yeah. 

[00:05:33] Chris Corcoran: And how did you learn? Did you read fluent before you went? 

[00:05:36] Shea Gordon: No, I did not speak a single word. By the time I left, I was fluent, but kind of, I don’t really, um, there’s not a lot of Korean in south that live close to me. 

[00:05:45] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[00:05:46] Shea Gordon: Um, so I haven’t really gotten to practice it as much as I would like, but it is always fun to, to turn on a Korean movie and my husband hates it ’cause he has to read subtitles. I’m like, “Why do you got to read subtitles?” 

[00:05:58] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. So, so how, how did, how, how long did it take you to become fluent? How long were you over there? 

[00:06:03] Shea Gordon: It so, I was there for about two and a half years. 

[00:06:05] Chris Corcoran: Wow. 

[00:06:06] Shea Gordon: Yeah. And it’s like, I would probably say the last starting after the last year and a half really started to, to click.

[00:06:13] Chris Corcoran: Okay. 

[00:06:14] Shea Gordon: And I, I started to like understand and, and think in Korean and could actually like hold a conversation, you know? Yeah, uh, versus kind of like the cute I’m speaking like a five-year-old. 

[00:06:23] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[00:06:24] Shea Gordon: Kind of Korean. 

[00:06:25] Chris Corcoran: So you, you were at Texas Tech for how long before you went to Korea? 

[00:06:28] Shea Gordon: I was there for a year. 

[00:06:30] Chris Corcoran: A year? And then, then two and a half years there?

[00:06:32] Shea Gordon: Mm-hmm. 

[00:06:32] Chris Corcoran: And then you, did you come back to? 

[00:06:34] Shea Gordon: I did. I came back to Tech to actually graduate. 

[00:06:36] Chris Corcoran: Okay. Wow. I mean, I would think, were you in Seoul? 

[00:06:40] Shea Gordon: Yeah, I was in Seoul. Yeah. 

[00:06:41] Chris Corcoran: Could there be a bigger difference between Lubbock and Seoul? 

[00:06:45] Shea Gordon: Yeah, Lubbock or leave it. So yeah, no. It’s it definitely was a massive culture shock coming back from Seoul, which is, you know, massive international city.

[00:06:53] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:06:54] Shea Gordon: Kind of boring in architecture. Same kind of architectures in Lubbock, you know, just straight flat buildings, but it’s so international. You’ve got everyone from everywhere. You can find anything in Seoul. It is really just an amazing city and, and I love it, but I still, I still tell people if you’re going into Korea, spend two days in Seoul tops. Go to the rest of Korea ’cause it’s just the city. 

[00:07:13] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[00:07:14] Shea Gordon: So. 

[00:07:15] Chris Corcoran: Interesting. 

[00:07:15] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:07:16] Chris Corcoran: Fascinating. 

[00:07:17] Marc Gonyea: So you came back. What’d you think you were gonna do when you graduated? 

[00:07:21] Shea Gordon: Well, at that point, I was still trying to figure out like what I could do with my degree, “Here I am, this girl, I speak Korean. I’m getting my degree in marketing. Trying to find opportunities.” And during this whole time I had been working part-time for a bunch of different companies. And either doing soft sales for them or just kind of working with them either on accounting or secretarial work. And my bright mind was thinking, “Oh, I don’t need an internship because I’m doing, you know, real work.”

[00:07:55] And then I found out when I started going to job fairs trying to find natural job, they’re like, “Where’d you interned?” 

[00:08:00] “Well, here’s, here’s my resume.” 

[00:08:02] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[00:08:03] Shea Gordon: “I wasn’t just a waitress.” And… 

[00:08:05] Marc Gonyea: Interesting. 

[00:08:05] Shea Gordon: So kind of a lot of the opportunities I thought would be available to me being fluent in Korean, having studied there, really just weren’t afforded to me because I, I made the mistake of not thinking an internship was important.

[00:08:18] Chris Corcoran: Did you wanna move back to Korea? 

[00:08:20] Shea Gordon: For a period of time, I did. Yeah. I was briefly flirting with the idea of doing my masters there. But that’s kind of where about that was, about that stage was where I realized a lot of foreigners get there. When you live in Korea for a long time, and you finally start speaking the language, it kind of hits you that you will always be a foreigner and you will no, be nothing ever more than a way good.

[00:08:45] And you can be as fluent as you want, but you’re always gonna be that, you’ll be the last in line for everything. You’ll be kicked out of a bunch of places or you just won’t be allowed in… 

[00:08:54] Chris Corcoran: Really? 

[00:08:55] Shea Gordon: Oh yeah. It’s kind of one the darker sides of South Korea. It’s a wonderful country.

[00:08:59] Like I’ve nothing but like really wonderful things about to say about the people, but there is extreme racism… 

[00:09:04] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:09:05] Shea Gordon: that is there as well. Like, I remember I was in this small town called Ulsan, and I was ordering a kind of like Korean sushi rolls, uh, called Kimbap. And it was a big group of us. So I, it was a relatively large order, but they were processing a lot. And it kept putting my ticket to the back. I was, “What is going on? Why does she keep moving my ticket?” and I see she wrote on the top with big letters “waiting.” And I was like, “Oh my God. She’s like pushing me to the back and putting all the Koreans in front of me.” so I went, and I started yelling at her. I was like, “You know, you need to make Kimbap. I’ve been here for like, you know, 45 minutes.” Keep pushing it and like came this whole thing.

[00:09:40] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:09:40] Shea Gordon: And she didn’t like expect me to come at her with in Korean, but that stuff, once you kind of reach that fluency level, 

[00:09:46] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:09:47] Shea Gordon: the rose-colored glasses come off. 

[00:09:50] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:09:52] Shea Gordon: Uh, and you, you kind of see a little bit of the darker sides that I thought of doing it, and then I realized, “You know, no. I’m with this great guy who was dating, I just, I can’t, I can’t stay here. I can’t live here. I can’t make my life here.” I, so I decided, “No, it’s come back. Stay aside, hopefully, to work for Korean company or Asian company that allows me to come visit. 

[00:10:14] Marc Gonyea: Right. 

[00:10:14] Shea Gordon: But not actually live there.” 

[00:10:17] Marc Gonyea: And that was tough to land so, right? 

[00:10:19] Shea Gordon: I’m sorry? 

[00:10:19] Marc Gonyea: That’s a tough, that’s a tough job to land.

[00:10:22] Shea Gordon: Yeah, it is. And I, thought I would have the ability to go do that. I know being the great optimistic young 20-something we are.

[00:10:29] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:10:30] Shea Gordon: You think anything is possible.

[00:10:32] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:10:32] Shea Gordon: Yeah, so just that’s that path wasn’t available to me when I left school, but it was kind of just something it was always in the back of my mind of, of how can I get back there.

[00:10:41] I do have this experience. So I feel like it’s just kind of be at a slow 

[00:10:46] build up to finally 

[00:10:47] getting to the national level where I’m at now. 

[00:10:50] Marc Gonyea: Wow. 

[00:10:50] Which we’re gonna get to. 

[00:10:51] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:10:52] Marc Gonyea: I wanna hear about that. 

[00:10:53] So, but what was your first gig out of school? 

[00:10:56] Was it Warren CAT? 

[00:10:57] Shea Gordon: Yeah. So I did not start in tech sales.

[00:11:00] I started in oil and gas. And Warren CAT is a franchise at Caterpillar. And I wanted to get a job out of college. 

[00:11:09] Marc Gonyea: So how’d you end up in sales? 

[00:11:10] Shea Gordon: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was that, that’s how I ended up in 

[00:11:13] sales. I was like, “I have a degree in marketing. What the frick do I do with that?” 

[00:11:15] Marc Gonyea: Right. Yeah. 

[00:11:18] Shea Gordon: And so I was just like, “Well, you know, I, I’ve always been told I’m good, you know, talking to people and like listening to them and getting them to buy things.

[00:11:24] I guess I’ll just go into sales.” 

[00:11:26] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:11:27] Shea Gordon: And so I got really lucky. I graduated college, didn’t have a job, moved back in with my mom. And just like every single day, like we were sending out 20 plus applications. Couldn’t get anything here in Austin, ’cause I wanted to get into tech. And they just weren’t having it. So that’s how I ended up at Warren CAT, way out in Midland, Texas. 

[00:11:51] Marc Gonyea: That’s why I thought you were from West Texas, and really,… 

[00:11:53] initial job. 

[00:11:53] Shea Gordon: Yeah. ‘Cause I worked in Midland, which is literally the armpit of Texas. 

[00:11:57] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:57] Shea Gordon: It smells like it too. Yeah, I, I 

[00:11:59] got a really great break. My boss, Zach Abson, he really

[00:12:03] took a chance on me fresh out of college. Very limited, basically no tech official sales experience. Put me in the inside sales role for engines and generator sales and repairs and parts and all that fun stuff. 

[00:12:16] Marc Gonyea: CAT, an authorized Caterpillar dealership. 

[00:12:19] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:12:19] Marc Gonyea: So reselling or selling? 

[00:12:20] Shea Gordon: Selling. Yeah. 

[00:12:21] Marc Gonyea: So that in, in the oils, in the oil fields? 

[00:12:24] Shea Gordon: Mm-hmm. Yeah, ’cause Caterpillar, the only way you can buy CAT equipment is through a franchiser.

[00:12:28] That’s just how their business model works. 

[00:12:30] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:12:30] Shea Gordon: So Caterpillar manufactures everything. I don’t think they have their Iowa plants, and they just moved out of Peoria. So I’m not sure where they’re manufacturing now. 

[00:12:37] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

[00:12:38] Shea Gordon: But everything is sold through a franchise. And there’s three franchises here in Texas.

[00:12:44] I was at the West Texas one. 

[00:12:45] Marc Gonyea: Okay. What was that like? 

[00:12:47] Shea Gordon: I lived in Lubbock. So there wasn’t, I wouldn’t say like a culture shock of moving from Lubbock to Midland. It’s all very flat. There’s nothing to do. 

[00:12:57] Chris Corcoran: How far are those two towns apart? 

[00:12:59] Shea Gordon: About two, two and a half hours. 

[00:13:01] Chris Corcoran: But you lived in Lubbock?

[00:13:03] Shea Gordon: So I had moved back to Austin ’cause I had graduated.

[00:13:05] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[00:13:05] Shea Gordon: But if, I mean, when I was working at CAT, I would go up to Lubbock for games and stuff. So, it’s not a bad drive. It’s like two, two, and a half hours. And you just take a little, um, oil road. 

[00:13:15] Chris Corcoran: Okay. 

[00:13:16] Shea Gordon: Up there. You fly like 85 miles an hour. 

[00:13:18] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[00:13:18] Shea Gordon: It’s great. 

[00:13:19] Chris Corcoran: So you were living in Midland? 

[00:13:20] Shea Gordon: Technically was living in Odessa.

[00:13:22] Chris Corcoran: Okay. 

[00:13:22] Shea Gordon: So Midland Odessa, and man, don’t say you, uh, lived in Odessa. If you were living in Odessa, don’t say you lived in Midland. 

[00:13:28] Midland people get very mad. 

[00:13:29] Chris Corcoran: Okay. 

[00:13:30] Shea Gordon: There is very much a disdain… 

[00:13:32] Chris Corcoran: Okay. 

[00:13:32] Shea Gordon: between the two towns. But I was, I was 

[00:13:35] living in the middle of Odessa region, uh, working in oil and gas. And it was great. It was really challenging, because kind of like what I do now, I’m in cyber, it’s very misproportioned in terms of women in oil and gas. And in oil and gas women really are treated like crap. 

[00:13:55] Pretty much like they’re seen as for lack of better word, floozies. 

[00:14:01] So they’re really, you were just there to either be in ornament on the wall, or you were there for extracurricular activities.

[00:14:11] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:14:11] Shea Gordon: And so it definitely, and then as a woman in sales, like there was a gas delivery company and they, they did female reps, quote-unquote, selling the gasoline and all their job was 

[00:14:22] to, was to wear high heels, little hot skirts and a 

[00:14:25] tank top. And they’d put on a hard hat and they’d come out and they’d have the site form and go and sign the slip.

[00:14:32] Like that was, they were in sales and they were very proud of it. 

[00:14:35] And so it was really difficult kind of coming into that role, being a woman. And kind of, there was this expectation since I was a woman that first of all, I didn’t know what the heck I was talking about, and that I would either be this wall piece for them.

[00:14:49] And it kind of shocked a lot of people ’cause my family… I’m the only person in my family doesn’t work in oil and gas. From my mom, my sister to all of my dad’s family, everyone works in oil and gas. So “bled black” is kind of like what we like to say. 

[00:15:04] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:15:05] Shea Gordon: So I came actually really knowing the industry, 

[00:15:08] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:15:08] Shea Gordon: really understanding what it was. And, you know, short learning curve learning how an engine works, you know, it’s pretty basic.

[00:15:14] I kind of went in there and I put… 

[00:15:15] Marc Gonyea: Pretty basic. 

[00:15:16] Shea Gordon: Yes. 

[00:15:18] You got your gaskets and your pistons and, and then it’s just all about of extra stuff. There’s really nothing complicated about it. 

[00:15:25] But, uh, from I came in and everyone’s thinking I was gonna be just this person. 

[00:15:30] Kind of be this, your next floozy.

[00:15:32] And then I came in and just instantly started crushing it. ‘Cause, for me, and it’s kind of carried on my whole career is sales doesn’t, it’s not, it’s never nine to five. Never. And so, as soon as clock would end at work at five, I would go to Midland and go to The Bar. 

[00:15:47] It’s literally called The Bar. 

[00:15:49] And I would have little packets, like, you know, either attached to 

[00:15:53] key chain, or I’d have like a little notebook, have my business card on it, and I’d hand it to every single person that worked at.

[00:16:00] Oh, that was, uh, sitting at The Bar ’cause that’s where all the decision-makers. And the site foreman and the VPs and the directors and managers, so that’s where they all went. And then bam, “Here’s my card. Here’s my name. I do engine engineering in sales. Let’s talk, let’s buy a drink.” And it just literally from that moment kind of my whole office, I was kind of taking aback.

[00:16:20] They expected me to falter. 

[00:16:21] Marc Gonyea: Yeah.

[00:16:22] Shea Gordon: They really criticized my boss for taking a risk on hiring a female. 

[00:16:26] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:16:27] Shea Gordon: And no. It, kind of just for me was, I’m gonna show you guys that as woman, i, I’m not just good at this job. I’m better than you at it. So. 

[00:16:35] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. I mean, your boss probably realized at the time too, he probably saw, you know, you had this sense of adventure about you going to Korea for two years.

[00:16:41] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:16:42] Marc Gonyea: Not just like a semester. 

[00:16:43] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:16:44] Marc Gonyea: Or the summer. 

[00:16:45] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:16:45] Marc Gonyea: Right? And then he probably saw something in you, which we see, which we saw, but also then you grew up in that business when your family is growing up in that… 

[00:16:55] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:16:56] Marc Gonyea: type of economy, that type of business there ups and downs of it all. You probably talk about it a lot growing up.

[00:18:00] Shea Gordon: Yeah. You don’t even know. Yeah. Yeah. The ebbs and the flows as oil and 

[00:18:04] gas is very cyclical. You know? The whole reason I left Warren CAT was the cycle. 

[00:18:08] Marc Gonyea: Okay. 

[00:18:08] Shea Gordon: So, you know, you’ll have, you know, five, six years where oil is really high. Right now, it’s close to a hundred dollars a barrel, if not more. But when I, that was where I was at when I started at CAT.

[00:18:20] And so money was great. And people spent money like water. But the smart companies, they 

[00:18:27] hoarded that money because the crash always comes in oil and gas. And so when I left, it was 32 a barrel. 

[00:18:34] Marc Gonyea: Wow. 

[00:18:34] Shea Gordon: And for fracking, 

[00:18:36] Marc Gonyea: Wow 

[00:18:36] Shea Gordon: to be profitable, you have to, oil has 

[00:18:38] to be selling at 60 a barrel. So nobody was drilling.

[00:18:41] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:18:41] Shea Gordon: There was a company out there, I can’t remember where the name was, started with an N. And they had 80 fracking rigs that were on their site. And you would see that that bottom, it was empty all the time. 

[00:18:53] One rig might come in for repairs, and it was immediately 

[00:18:56] back out in the field. By the time I left Midland, all 80 rigs were back on site. And it was terrifying.

[00:19:02] I remember driving around there with my uncle who worked in oil and gas, and he was just like, “This is the scariest thing I think I’ve ever seen in my,” and he worked oil and gas his whole life. And it was… 

[00:19:11] Marc Gonyea: ‘Cause it was like a ghost town. 

[00:19:12] Shea Gordon: Yeah. Ghost town. Yeah. It was crazy. It was really crazy. 

[00:19:16] But it bounced back. 

[00:19:18] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:19:19] Chris Corcoran: So I wanna get my arms around exactly what you were selling. So you were selling equipment in motors to whom? 

[00:19:26] Shea Gordon: So, when, to basically everyone that works in oil and gas. 

[00:19:29] So it worked in so many different ways. So what I was doing was it was engines and generators for, you know, frack sites for wastewater pit management, what anything that needed heavy equipment to run, 

[00:19:44] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:19:44] Shea Gordon: It was run on a genset.

[00:19:46] Chris Corcoran: Okay. 

[00:19:46] Shea Gordon: Because you don’t really have huge electricity poles going and running out there, so you need to have a genset to go and get it done. And then, because that genset’s constantly running, it’s running that heavy machinery, it needs repair and maintenance quite frequently. So you get them the generator, you get them, and then you get them into the repair plans to go and sell them on it.

[00:20:04] And you had, of course, a bunch of different people out there saying, “Hey, I have the same service and I can do it $700 cheaper than Warren CAT can.” And then it was kind of trying to go and explain the value. It’s very different, kind of in industrial sales, it gets to the nitty gritty. Whereas when you’re selling SaaS, you can kind of sell the idea.

[00:20:24] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:20:24] Shea Gordon: And you sell the value of the solution. There,

[00:20:28] “This is a bottle of water.” 

[00:20:30] Chris Corcoran: Right. 

[00:20:31] Shea Gordon: Why should I buy this 

[00:20:32] “bottle of water without bottle of water?” 

[00:20:35] ‘Cause it’s the same thing. 

[00:20:36] Chris Corcoran: Commodity. 

[00:20:36] Shea Gordon: Yeah. And so it’s kind of having to talk down to customers, not talk down, talk to customers of, you know, while it’s $700 because you know, you’re overing.

[00:20:45] That’s what blew. And the reason why it blew is nobody 

[00:20:49] lubricated it. And so what we do is we stick petroleum jelly on every single covering and that 

[00:20:53] keeps it stuck in place. 

[00:20:55] And it makes sure your overrings less likely to go and blow. 

[00:20:58] It makes sure your gaskets don’t blow as frequently. So it’s little tiny little things like that.

[00:21:03] You go pepper into the conversation and remove from it that they’re like, “Okay, you really don’t need these parts. And this piece doesn’t need to be repaired that frequently. So we’re gonna put you in this different pricing plan.” 

[00:21:13] So it’s really very different from kinda what I was doing, what I very, very different from what I do now. But it was a lot more, I think, cut-throat. ‘Cause there was more competition.

[00:21:25] But what I’ve always saw after in sales is what’s the best product. 

[00:21:30] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:21:31] Shea Gordon: And so I knew I was working at Caterpillar. Of course, I have the best product. 

[00:21:34] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:21:34] Shea Gordon: It’s CAT. 

[00:21:35] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So you decided to leave at? 

[00:21:39] Shea Gordon: I did. 

[00:21:40] Marc Gonyea: Obviously, you learned quite a bit, and you were successful. 

[00:21:42] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:21:42] So I left because oil crashed. 

[00:21:45] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:21:45] Shea Gordon: And, you know, seeing those 80 rigs in the lot.

[00:21:49] No. 

[00:21:50] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:21:50] Shea Gordon: Get me out. 

[00:21:51] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:21:52] Shea Gordon: I knew there was gonna be layoffs, even though Warren CAT was saying, “No, no, we’re not gonna lay off anyone. We’re family-run business. We’re not doing this to our family.” And I think three months after I started with y’all at, um, they did a massive layoff. 

[00:22:03] Marc Gonyea: Wow. 

[00:22:03] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:22:04] Marc Gonyea: They had to. 

[00:22:05] Shea Gordon: Yeah, they, they did.

[00:22:06] And it’s it was an unfortunate necessity. And they did to their credit, try to hire as many people back once, uh, oil came back up. So to their credit, they tried to avoid it as long as they could and then tried to make right after. But, yeah, I, I realized I need to be in a job that’s not five years cyclical nature.

[00:22:26] Marc Gonyea: Yep. 

[00:22:27] Shea Gordon: And, so I started to start looking back at tech jobs back in Austin ’cause I also realized 

[00:22:32] Midland sucks. And I don’t wanna live in West Texas anymore. So I lived in Dallas, I lived in Austin. I lived in San Antonio. 

[00:22:40] And then one of y’all’s recruiters reached out to me, and I was like, “I really wanna make my break into tech sales.”

[00:22:46] And she’s like, “I’ve got the job for you.” 

[00:22:49] Chris Corcoran: How long were you doing oil and gas? 

[00:22:51] Shea Gordon: Uh, I was doing it for a year. 

[00:22:52] Chris Corcoran: A year. 

[00:22:53] Okay. 

[00:22:53] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:22:53] So. 

[00:22:54] Marc Gonyea: Do you remember who owner, who your recruiter was? 

[00:22:57] Shea Gordon: It was Tiffany. 

[00:22:57] Marc Gonyea: Tiffany. 

[00:22:58] Shea Gordon: Tiffany. 

[00:22:59] Marc Gonyea: Oh, heck yeah. 

[00:23:00] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:23:01] Marc Gonyea: She’s still with us. So she’s a boomerang. She’s back at the company. 

[00:23:05] Shea Gordon: Yeah, I know Caroline was saying, 

[00:23:06] But yeah, she was, she’s my recruiter.

[00:23:08] She was, and she really sold it to me of coming 

[00:23:11] here and being like, “Look, nobody’s gonna give you 

[00:23:14] this break into tech sales. It’s really hard to get in there. And like your, your experience, you clearly have the sales background, but you don’t have the SDR experience.” And one thing that’s becomes super, super clear to me,

[00:23:27] my whole career is that in tech, you have to have that SDR position. It is so ne, necessary kind of just for how we run our whole sales cycle. And she’s like, “This is how we do it. This is the memoryBlue model. You’re gonna 

[00:23:39] have some clients. And you’re gonna have the option of, you know, if they wanna hire you out, you 

[00:23:43] can go with them or you can stay.”

[00:23:45] And, you know, average 

[00:23:47] tenureship here at the time, I think, was like six months. 

[00:23:49] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:23:49] Shea Gordon: And they were saying earlier now, “It’s like 1215,” but I was like, “All right, let’s go. Let’s do it. I wanna make my break.” 

[00:23:55] Marc Gonyea: Are you ready to go? 

[00:23:56] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:23:56] Marc Gonyea: Well, go back to what you just said why, why is the sales development part?

[00:24:00] Shea Gordon: So, so it’s learning the hustle. 

[00:24:02] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:24:03] Shea Gordon: Like, and I think, I don’t know if you guys still have the shirt, but I still have it. It’s my night shirt. Tech sales for hustlers, and it still and it’s really very true. 

[00:24:14] And learning how to be an SDR, learning to go through the grind, and just getting people 

[00:24:22] on the phone, talking to them, learning how to be comfortable in a conversation with somebody you’ve never met before.

[00:24:29] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:24:29] Shea Gordon: You cold call them out of the blue, why the heck do they even want to talk to? It teaches you the immediate foundation of objection handling. And once you get that, then you get past it. And really get deeper into that sales cycle. And it’s learning how to make those hundred plus dials every single day.

[00:24:48] I barely cold call anymore. I still do it. 

[00:24:50] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:24:51] Shea Gordon: Uh, but there are still days like, you know, like, “Okay, here’s a list, I’ve got 30 numbers I’m gonna call. Let’s go, you know? And jam it out.” 

[00:24:59] And if you don’t have the SDR foundation kind of getting yourself into the good habits of, “These are the amount of emails that I need to send today.

[00:25:06] And these are the number calls I need to make. And these are the number of meetings I need to have,” you’re gonna get completely lost. 

[00:25:12] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:12] Shea Gordon: Um, yep, in your whole sales process. 

[00:25:14] Marc Gonyea: Yep. 

[00:25:14] Shea Gordon: So it’s the foundation. 

[00:25:16] Marc Gonyea: It is. It is. So you came into the role, who did you interview with? 

[00:25:21] Shea Gordon: Nimit Bhatt. 

[00:25:21] Marc Gonyea: Mr. Bhatt? 

[00:25:22] Shea Gordon: Yeah. Mr. Bhatt. He had just been promoted into that position. 

[00:25:26] Marc Gonyea: Uhhuh. 

[00:25:26] Shea Gordon: It was the, not this new big, shiny office, I think. Actually, the whole sales floor is about the size of this conference room. 

[00:25:34] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. Yeah. It was really small. 

[00:25:36] Shea Gordon: But it was really fun. He, uh, I remember the interview actually pretty well with Nimit.

[00:25:41] And he was going like, you know, “What’s, what’s the biggest failure you’ve had?” 

[00:25:44] And I had just lost like a hundred grand sale at Caterpillar. And I was still really devastated about it. Obviously, it was a hundred grand. 

[00:25:52] Marc Gonyea: Of course. 

[00:25:53] Shea Gordon: Even now, a hundred grand’s today ticket item. 

[00:25:55] Chris Corcoran: Yeah.

[00:25:56] Shea Gordon: And, I was like, you know, “I, I had it, everything was done. You know, the eyes were crossed. I mean, the seas were crossed, the eyes are dotted. And it, it was, 

[00:26:05] gonna come in, and they were gonna put the engine in the bay and I was done.” And then literally like the day that they were supposed to drop it, they said, “You know 

[00:26:13] what? No, we’re gonna go back on our contract.”

[00:26:16] And that was really my first huge loss in my sales career. And it kind of, even today, I’ll, I’ll still look at as, “What went wrong?” 

[00:26:24] There that I could have done differently to have made sure that engine, you know, got into the bay, and like, you know, they went and actually did the work on it, you know?

[00:26:32] Did I… yeah. And so it’s it was, I remember him asking that question. I went through it with him, and he was just like, “Oh, people just talked to me about failing their tests.”

[00:26:44] I, I think that, uh, worked well in my favor of getting a job here at memoryBlue. 

[00:26:48] Marc Gonyea: Absolutely, it did. And then what was it like when you started? 

[00:26:52] Shea Gordon: It was a grind. 

[00:26:53] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:26:53] Shea Gordon: Like I knew that coming in, like I was, you know, it was very clear. It made a very clear, kinda like, “These are your expectations of the role. And you’re gonna be calling all day, and here’s your call blocks.”

[00:27:04] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:27:04] Shea Gordon: “And you’re gonna do that. And then when you’re not doing that, you’re gonna be emailing.” 

[00:27:07] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:27:07] Shea Gordon: “And we need to get this many leads a day, and you’re gonna have to grind. 

[00:27:10] And if you grind and if you hustle, you’re gonna do great.” 

[00:27:15] And he was right. And so it was. 

[00:27:18] It was, I think when I started, like the first two weeks, you guys were having us just like, listen to sales tape. 

[00:27:24] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:27:25] Shea Gordon: And it was like John Costigan, and this guru guy.

[00:27:30] Marc Gonyea: Ganesh.

[00:27:32] Shea Gordon: Gu Ganesh, yeah. Just listen to them for a couple weeks, and then they just threw me on the phone. And because I had the sales experience, I was given… 

[00:27:38] You probably had a leg-up. 

[00:27:39] Yeah, I did. 

[00:27:40] I had more confidence and so Nimit kind of IBM came in and he’s like, “All right, I’m gonna put my more tenured SDR and I’m gonna put someone who has the actual sales experience 

[00:27:51] onto this account.”

[00:27:52] Marc Gonyea: Was it IBM? Was it the company Dr…? 

[00:27:53] Was it DrFirst? 

[00:27:55] Shea Gordon: It was Phytel and Explorys. 

[00:27:56] Marc Gonyea: Phytel, that’s right. Phytel, that’s right. That’s right. 

[00:28:00] Shea Gordon: So they had been acquired by IBM, but hadn’t 

[00:28:02] been merged. 

[00:28:03] Marc Gonyea: Okay. 

[00:28:04] Shea Gordon: So they still were operating kind of like their own outside 

[00:28:07] of the, uh, IBM scope. 

[00:28:09] Marc Gonyea: Okay. 

[00:28:09] Shea Gordon: And so that was crazy. 

[00:28:13] So, I mean, they 

[00:28:14] were my main client, the whole time I was there.

[00:28:16] But I worked with, this actually got me my first taste into cybersecurity. Because outside of IBM, I had two cybersecurity accounts. So I started actually kind of learning the basics 

[00:28:28] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm 

[00:28:29] Shea Gordon: of cybersecurity and kind of got a background in it. And part of the reason why I was able to actually break into cybersecurity, which is pretty hard,

[00:28:36] was because I worked with two cybersecurity clients here. 

[00:28:39] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:28:40] Shea Gordon: So I already kind of knew the lingo. 

[00:28:41] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:28:41] Shea Gordon: I knew kind of already how to talk and who are going to be the decision maker based on the type of product. So it was, really cool, especially kind of getting to work with, you know, IBM. Huge.

[00:28:53] Uh, and then getting to work with these two very different companies of, you know, I worked oil 

[00:28:57] gas. I had no idea what this was, but what is? It’s a pin test. 

[00:29:02] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Very, very interesting. How did you learn it? So you said it was a grind. 

[00:29:06] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:29:07] Marc Gonyea: But so, you know, you’re coming from, I mean, marketing nature, all this great experience. Family’s oil and gas, you kind of knew what you, you know? 

[00:29:15] Shea Gordon: Mm-hmm. 

[00:29:16] Marc Gonyea: You knew what you were doing, sort of.

[00:29:17] I’m sure you learned stuff, catch up. But there was no leg-up, you had sales experience, but how did you learn calling for IBM and calling for these cyber firms? 

[00:29:27] Shea Gordon: Um, 

[00:29:27] so I, I think it was just really kind of a team 

[00:29:30] collaborative effort. 

[00:29:31] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:29:31] Shea Gordon: One, it’s your own trial-and-error of you have to self-reflect on yourself,

[00:29:35] “Why did I do poorly on this call? Why didn’t I book the lead, uh, when I made this call? Was, is the script not working?” 

[00:29:41] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:29:41] Shea Gordon: “Is my tone not working? Am I not asking the right questions?” And then having your colleagues 

[00:29:48] go and listen to your calls 

[00:29:49] and them providing their direct feedback on it kind of gives, gave me that outside-view that I always, and to this day, appreciated. Like I love when people hear my calls, and they give me feedback.

[00:29:59] They’re like, “Hey, this was great, 

[00:30:01] but you missed this.” 

[00:30:03] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:30:04] Shea Gordon: Like, and I’m like, “Oh my God, I didn’t even see that I missed that. Now I got to follow up with that.” So it’s that feedback is really kind of what helps 

[00:30:10] you improve. You have to one, be open to that 

[00:30:13] feedback. If you’re not willing to accept it,

[00:30:16] you’re not gonna get better. But then you also have to kind of be, you do have to be tough on yourself of, “How can I make myself better?” If I see something that’s not going right in my career, and I’m not kind of getting that outside feedback, I really go through and I’ll look through every single email I sent. And I’ll look through all my opportunities.

[00:30:32] I’m like, “What’s working, what’s not? What do I think needs to change?” And I’ll do a course correction to try to change it. It’s, that’s kind of how I improved on top of that. It’s reading 

[00:30:42] articles, Google Alerts. If you don’t have 20,000 Google Alerts 

[00:30:45] coming to your inbox. 

[00:30:46] Marc Gonyea: Oh, I remember you were big on that.

[00:30:47] Shea Gordon: Oh yeah, I still am. 

[00:30:49] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. And I remember that. 

[00:30:50] Chris Corcoran: So talk a little bit about your strategy for Google Alerts. ‘Cause a lot of SDRs don’t do that, and we have a lot of SDRs listening. 

[00:30:57] Shea Gordon: So yeah. 

[00:30:58] Chris Corcoran: Talk a little bit about that. 

[00:30:59] Shea Gordon: You need to have Google Alerts. I, I’m big on education and I like to speak knowledgeably to all of my clients.

[00:31:06] So it can be something as com as simple as like, you know, for me, right now, well we’ll say when I worked at CrowdStrike, the Google Alerts I had when I worked at CrowdStrike. So obviously, big things, data breach in point detection. Um, a small to antivirus, NGAV, all those small things. I would set up a Google Alert just for that to get basically the news of the day.

[00:31:29] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:31:29] Shea Gordon: And then I would set aside, you know, anywhere for 15 to 30 minutes of just studying either the base product of my company or 

[00:31:37] just the industry as a whole, specifically related to, you know, where CrowdStrike was in the space, you know? What is NGAV? What are all these cool little titles? And then, when you have those Google Alerts, you get that instant news of the day. 

[00:31:50] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:51] Shea Gordon: And so all of a sudden, you seem so much smarter than you actually are to your clients. It’s like, “Oh no, I did you hear about, you know, like, so and so got breached?” 

[00:31:59] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:32:00] Shea Gordon: “When did that happen?” And they’re like, “Yeah, they got breached. There’s this time, this many people. This is how they got in.” And like, everyone thinks you’re genius.

[00:32:07] No, I read that in my Google Alert this morning. 

[00:32:10] Marc Gonyea: Right. 

[00:32:11] Chris Corcoran: Just better organized. 

[00:32:11] Shea Gordon: Yeah. And it, it just, it keeps you on top of what you need to be learning, what you need to be focusing on. 

[00:32:19] So, you know, if your clients, you know, if your client’s marketing and they’re doing, you know, data aggregation, make sure you have Google Alerts set up around that.

[00:32:29] How does the save the aggregation happen? What’s the name of your company that you’re, best for your client? Make sure you’re following them. Make sure you’re one at least following them on LinkedIn. 

[00:32:38] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:32:38] Shea Gordon: But you have that Google Alert tuned in, so you can go and see, and you can even impress your client and be like, “Oh, hey, like I saw this happen.”

[00:32:45] Companies, maybe you’re trying to really break into one account, so you set a Google Alerts on that particular account. So then you go on, you give them a personalized email and be like, “Oh, hey, I saw, 

[00:32:54] you know, you guys just released a business wire on this. Congrats.” Or, “Oh, Hey Jim, I saw, you know, you worked at this place before you came here.”

[00:33:02] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:33:03] Shea Gordon: “Uh it’s ’cause you saw it in your Google alert. ‘Cause you just got hired.” You need to have Google Alert. I live and die by them. 

[00:33:10] Marc Gonyea: Who else, when you were working at memoryBlue when you’re learning these things or doing some of these things, you thought you learn on your own, who were you doing this with?

[00:33:17] Your colleagues? Who else was good in the office when you were here? 

[00:33:20] Shea Gordon: Gosh, um, 

[00:33:20] We had such a strong team. And some of them still work here. It’s crazy. 

[00:33:24] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, 

[00:33:24] Shea Gordon: But I mostly worked with, uh, Mathew Thomas 

[00:33:28] was a big, uh, big one that I worked with. Katie, I can’t remember what her last name was.

[00:33:33] Marc Gonyea: Yep. 

[00:33:33] Shea Gordon: But she sat next to me. 

[00:33:35] Yeah, yeah. And 

[00:33:37] then, uh, Andrew Sturkie. 

[00:33:39] Marc Gonyea: Okay. 

[00:33:39] Shea Gordon: And, and then 

[00:33:40] Noel Ryan. Good old Noel. 

[00:33:43] Marc Gonyea: Okay. 

[00:33:44] Shea Gordon: Uh, and you got Joey Sorenson. You got 

[00:33:46] Dotun. Gosh, Noel really was foolish oh, got 

[00:33:50] Luke. You had Will Vining. 

[00:33:52] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:33:53] Shea Gordon: Uhhuh and, uh, Nick. Nick, what was his last name? Z Saha.

[00:33:58] It’s, start with a Z. 

[00:34:00] Marc Gonyea: I don’t know. 

[00:34:00] Shea Gordon: Nick Delfin. 

[00:34:01] Marc Gonyea: Oh, Delfin. 

[00:34:03] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:34:03] I know I’m missing. Oh, and Devin Cushing. 

[00:34:06] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. Devin. 

[00:34:08] Shea Gordon: I’m missing two, but ’cause there’s another 

[00:34:10] girl. There’s two other girls at the office. I 

[00:34:11] don’t remember. 

[00:34:12] Marc Gonyea: You have a good memory. 

[00:34:13] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[00:34:13] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:34:13] Marc Gonyea: That was a while ago. 

[00:34:14] And then what was it like working with those folks in the office?

[00:34:17] Did you learn from one another? 

[00:34:18] Shea Gordon: It was crazy. 

[00:34:19] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:34:19] Shea Gordon: That, that office was awesome. 

[00:34:21] Marc Gonyea: Why? 

[00:34:22] Shea Gordon: We were, well, I mean, it was very small. Like, you know, when I started there was like, I think 

[00:34:27] it was six or seven of us in the office. So we just instantly bonded. And we’re like, “We are here to kickstart our career.” 

[00:34:35] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:34:36] Shea Gordon: And all of us 

[00:34:37] are extremely de dedicated and 

[00:34:38] motivated of how can, this is where we wanna be in five years.

[00:34:42] What does it take to get there? 

[00:34:43] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:34:43] Shea Gordon: And I mean, 

[00:34:44] the reason I remember all these names is ’cause we’re still in contact with each other. 

[00:34:48] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:34:48] Shea Gordon: and we still try to prop each other up and. Andrew, he transferred over to cybersecurity, and so we still have conversations about that from time. 

[00:34:57] Marc Gonyea: Yep. 

[00:34:57] Shea Gordon: Uh, he’s over at a Red Canary now.

[00:34:59] Marc Gonyea: Yep. 

[00:35:00] Shea Gordon: And, uh, so it’s, it’s really crazy just how 

[00:35:03] we all meshed. 

[00:35:04] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:35:05] Shea Gordon: And having that, 

[00:35:07] everyone having that idea of, “I want to get to the outside.” 

[00:35:10] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:35:11] Shea Gordon: “I wanna be like the best in sales. How can I work and get there?” And so we all try to our best work together and help each other really improve. 

[00:35:20] Chris Corcoran: Yep.

[00:35:20] Shea Gordon: And, uh, you know, try to reference each other. Try to build up our skills. 

[00:35:26] And I think that really even carries on to today because like I said, we still message each other 

[00:35:31] on LinkedIn quite frequently. Like go, “Hey, thinking of this role, or do you know anything about this job?” And like, “Do you know what, who works here?”

[00:35:38] We still all kind of network together. So that bond was very much formed and very lucky, ’cause we were in a 

[00:35:44] small office. 

[00:35:45] Marc Gonyea: We swim up hill or I guess the tide a little bit, you swim up hill with, uh, the movement to work from the house, which we believe exists for people when they get to your level of experience. 

[00:35:55] Shea Gordon: Yeah.

[00:35:55] Marc Gonyea: But we think when you learn, you learn the grind, we learn these things as invaluable to your career development to be in the same… 

[00:36:02] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:36:03] Marc Gonyea: room. 

[00:36:03] Shea Gordon: Yeah. I think it is, it’s definitely a maturity level of your career where you need to be like, 

[00:36:08] if you could be a hundred percent remote. If you can be hybrid, or if you really do need to be in there every day. SDR work just the 

[00:36:15] nature of the work and kind of how you kind of help 

[00:36:19] grow and build off of the success of others around

[00:36:23] you, you got to be at the, the desk every day. Like… 

[00:36:26] Marc Gonyea: Got desk, and I’m not, I’m not, I’m not asking her to say that before the podcast starts. You know, ’cause I want this hear all the listeners. ‘Cause a lot of the SDRs have friends who work at home a hundred percent. Entry level SDR roles. 

[00:36:39] Shea Gordon: I don’t think they’re gonna be very successful.

[00:36:41] Marc Gonyea: Well, not in the long term, ’cause you talked about it earlier. You gotta learn that part of 

[00:36:44] Shea Gordon: Mm-hmm 

[00:36:45] Marc Gonyea: it, right? 

[00:36:46] Shea Gordon: Yeah. No, it’s, it’s a huge part. 

[00:36:47] And like it’s kind of one of those things, it’s like the 

[00:36:50] benefit of being in sales is like the first part’s really hard. But once you get past that SDR work, once you get past that first SMB role, 

[00:37:00] it gets so much easier and so much better.

[00:37:03] And you’re so much more in control of your 

[00:37:05] calendar, of your time. And then you do have a little bit more flexibility to, you know, work remote a few days. 

[00:37:12] I still think even, or… 

[00:37:14] Marc Gonyea: As, as you should. 

[00:37:15] Shea Gordon: Yeah. And 

[00:37:16] like I still come into the office two days a week. 

[00:37:18] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:37:18] Shea Gordon: ‘Cause I enjoy coming to the office. I enjoy the networking, 

[00:37:21] meaning like all my coworkers and being there for them and with them, there is something very unique about being in the office.

[00:37:29] And there are sometimes though when certain jobs you got to be there every day, 

[00:37:34] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:37:34] Shea Gordon: Whether you like it or not. 

[00:37:35] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:37:36] Shea Gordon: But it’s kind of, it’s just that learning experience you just have to learn and then it’s there. 

[00:37:41] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. You said SMB role. Is that, what is 

[00:37:44] that? 

[00:37:45] Shea Gordon: Oh, small business. So, you know, a lot 

[00:37:46] time. 

[00:37:47] Marc Gonyea: It’s next job after being SDR.

[00:37:48] Shea Gordon: Yeah, a lot of times, like I didn’t, thankfully, I miss got to skip over the SMB part. Thank gosh. 

[00:37:52] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:37:55] Shea Gordon: But a lot of times you go transition from an SDR role to an SMB sales rep, small, small to medium business sales rep. And then usually you go into commercial, national enterprise, so on and so forth.

[00:38:06] So. 

[00:38:07] Marc Gonyea: Got it. 

[00:38:07] Shea Gordon: It’s generally not SDR, and now I’m gonna go sell to, you know, Fortune 1000 companies. 

[00:38:11] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. So you work at memoryBlue doing your thing. 

[00:38:15] Shea Gordon: Mm-hmm. 

[00:38:15] Marc Gonyea: And then you, you sound like you decided, “This is, this is confirmed. I wanna be in tech sales.” 

[00:38:20] Shea Gordon: Yeah, it absolutely did. I, it, I got hungry really 

[00:38:24] fast. 

[00:38:25] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:38:25] Shea Gordon: I was like, “This is so much better.

[00:38:27] It’s so much more secure. And I’m not dealing with the cycles.” 

[00:38:32] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:38:32] Shea Gordon: And on top of that, what’s like the great thing about oil and gas is, you know, it is kind of fun. It’s very challenging. And you know, in some ways, it’s, in 

[00:38:41] a lot of ways it’s controversial. So you have to be ready to, to talk about it.

[00:38:46] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:38:47] Shea Gordon: But with tech sales really doesn’t matter what field 

[00:38:49] you’re going into. 

[00:38:50] It’s such a dynamic industry. Something’s always changing. Something’s always new. So 

[00:38:55] you have to keep that knowledge baseline up. Google works. 

[00:38:58] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:39:00] So, so the opportunity arose. All right. Arose, 

[00:39:04] Shea Gordon: Arose. Yeah. 

[00:39:05] Marc Gonyea: to, uh, join IBM.

[00:39:07] IBM. How did that happen? And why’d you wanna do it? 

[00:39:10] Shea Gordon: Yeah, so, uh, both my colleague and I, Matt Thomas, we, uh, 

[00:39:14] slate it, uh, in terms of, 

[00:39:17] of leads. I mean, we were 

[00:39:19] very, very consistent of getting them high-quality leads every single week.

[00:39:24] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:39:25] Shea Gordon: Um, and they’re like, “All right, we need 

[00:39:27] both of y’all on the team.”

[00:39:29] So they hired us both up at the same time. And it was just absolutely crazy, kind of being thrown 

[00:39:36] from this SDR role to more of like a hybrid inside sales slash SDR role. And you have your own little, “Here’s your office.” Walls were paper thin, but I had an office that had my name on it. 

[00:39:49] And just working with literally some of the most intelligent people I’ve ever had the privilege of, of getting to go and work with.

[00:39:56] And 

[00:39:56] just not a lot of people say they loved working at an 

[00:39:59] IBM. I loved it. 

[00:40:00] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:40:01] Shea Gordon: It was the hardest decision I ever had in my life having to leave there. But, uh, it was awesome. And everybody wanna know about IBM, I guess. 

[00:40:11] Chris Corcoran: Big blue. What was it like working for such a big company? 

[00:40:15] Shea Gordon: It was a lot. 

[00:40:16] You were, I was shielded from a lot 

[00:40:19] of it.

[00:40:19] I think is a good way to put it. Because I worked in Watson Health and this was before Watson 

[00:40:25] Health became nothing. It was their big, new, shiny 

[00:40:30] child. 

[00:40:31] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:40:32] Shea Gordon: They had just acquired the two companies, which was who I was working with at memoryBlue, Phytel and Explorys. Uh, and so we kind of operated almost as a startup within 

[00:40:44] IBM. So everyone else, you’ve got 

[00:40:46] thousands of coworkers, and I had a couple hundred.

[00:40:50] Chris Corcoran: Okay. 

[00:40:50] Shea Gordon: Um, and so a lot of ways I did get insulated from a big cog that is IBM. That kind of just like turned through people. But, you know, does turn, but it only, 

[00:41:01] IBM, I did notice, they only 

[00:41:04] wanna hire the best and they make sure they pay. But they’re hiring the best ’cause they don’t wanna hire anything less.

[00:41:08] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:41:09] Shea Gordon: Uh, so kind of even getting to interact outside of my little 

[00:41:13] bubble. It was really cool getting to go to all the events and there’s just thousands of us, you know, crammed into this tiny little auditorium and a building that looks like it’s 

[00:41:23] from 

[00:41:23] 1984. 

[00:41:24] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:41:26] Shea Gordon: It was interesting trying to see IBM 

[00:41:29] transition to modern 

[00:41:32] technology company, but still being stuck of, “This is the eighties and everyone’s here in their 

[00:41:37] suit and their tie.”

[00:41:37] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:38] Shea Gordon: I remember one video, they were like, 

[00:41:40] “Our CIO wears blue jeans.” And I’m like, “Wow.” It was, it was a little tone 

[00:41:49] deaf. 

[00:41:49] Chris Corcoran: And so 

[00:41:50] what were you selling and who were you selling to? 

[00:41:52] Shea Gordon: So I worked in population health, so I was working either with 

[00:41:57] doctors. I was working with chief medical officers, chief nursing officers, population health specialists at hospitals because what we were doing is we were selling a platform that aggregated patient data to show your most at risk populations and then essentially 

[00:42:15] kind of help you build a contact 

[00:42:18] plan around that patient to get them 

[00:42:20] back and more frequently to reduce their health 

[00:42:23] risk.

[00:42:24] And this kind of went around, uh, Obama’s affordable care act. 

[00:42:28] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:42:28] Shea Gordon: Uh, was really what this was designed around slower healthcare costs by giving the population healthier? 

[00:42:34] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:42:34] Shea Gordon: Was the idea behind it? And so Phytel had the platform, Explorys had 

[00:42:38] the data, the goal was to merge those two together 

[00:42:41] to get this giant platform put together of, “We’re gonna get people healthier by giving them direct insights.

[00:42:49] And you can narrow it down to patients, to doctors, to clinics, 

[00:42:53] to, or holistic hospitals, and then even larger than that the health system, how was it doing?” 

[00:42:59] And so it was at the time, it was definitely the flavor of the month because healthcare has really moved 

[00:43:06] a lot, a lot beyond that, but it was pretty hot to get paid.

[00:43:10] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:43:10] Shea Gordon: Like every chief medical officer, chief nursing officer, they all wanted to talk to us. It was, it was not hard getting meetings with them because they’re like, “I see what,” yeah. They’re like,” We see 

[00:43:20] what Watson’s doing. We believe in the power 

[00:43:22] of Watson and the power of Watson can put behind healthcare.”

[00:43:26] And so it was just this crazy frenzy, and everyone was trying to, I was really trying to keep up and I think that’s, what’s saddest part of all of it was IBM kept saying, 

[00:43:37] “We’re gonna do this. We’re gonna get this done. We’re gonna integrate this, and we’re gonna build that.” 

[00:43:42] And it never happened. And so the products, because it didn’t innovate, it failed.

[00:43:47] Marc Gonyea: Um, it’s crazy. These companies just die. 

[00:43:49] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:43:50] Chris Corcoran: It’s such a big company. It’s hard to, it’s hard. It sounds like a great idea at the time.

[00:43:54] Marc Gonyea: Yeah.

[00:43:55] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:43:55] It’s, it’s the IBM way. It’s, they do that to a lot of companies that they acquire. They’re like, “We’re gonna buy this. This is what we’re gonna do.” 

[00:44:02] They just bought… 

[00:44:02] Chris Corcoran: The weather channel.

[00:44:03] Shea Gordon: Uh, when I started, it was the big thing they bought the weather channel and they had bought 

[00:44:08] Phytel and Explorys, ’cause we were in the, uh, training sessions together when we first started. And the goal behind having the weather company was also relating to Watson Health. And so collecting that data from the weather channel 

[00:44:21] and pumping it in, and then they had a whole bunch of other various areas where they’re gonna try to aggregate the data from the weather channel. And, and it never went anywhere ’cause they all floated it. And that’s, that’s kind of, it’s, it’s very sad.

[00:44:32] That’s kind of what IBM has become. Like, “We have this grand idea.” And they spent billions of dollars on it and then nothing happens.

[00:44:39] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:44:40] So good for the yeah. 

[00:44:43] Moonshot. So, you ended up leaving, right? That had, but you transitioned into cyber. How did that happen? You went to a very interesting 

[00:44:52] company.

[00:44:53] Shea Gordon: Yeah, yeah. And the big one. Yeah, so I, when I was at IBM, I kind of, as things 

[00:45:02] started to turn sour, uh, because there was just no more interest in, the product wasn’t new and shiny anymore. No one was really interested in it. Uh, I had been moved to different management. 

[00:45:13] I had been moved to different teams.

[00:45:14] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:45:15] Shea Gordon: Just wasn’t jolly. 

[00:45:16] Marc Gonyea: Yeah.

[00:45:16] Shea Gordon: And 

[00:45:17] I was like, “All right. Like, you know, let’s, let’s get 

[00:45:19] out of here.”

[00:45:20] Chris Corcoran: How long were you there? 

[00:45:21] Shea Gordon: IBM? 

[00:45:22] Was there for just shy of two years. 

[00:45:25] Chris Corcoran: Okay. 

[00:45:25] Shea Gordon: Yeah, I was just shy, I think, of like month shy of two years.

[00:45:28] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:45:29] Shea Gordon: But yeah, I, uh, had a, I had interviewed a bunch of companies and cybersecurity did still interest me because one of my clients that I worked with, I don’t know if I can say their 

[00:45:39] name publicly.

[00:45:40] Marc Gonyea: Sure.

[00:45:40] Shea Gordon: So yeah, 

[00:45:41] let’s, in case this needs to be done.

[00:45:42] Marc Gonyea: Go ahead. Yeah. 

[00:45:43] Shea Gordon: Have a ManagedMethods was one of my clients. 

[00:45:46] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:45:46] Shea Gordon: And I really kind of loved, like they were my first introduction to endpoint detection and response. 

[00:45:54] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:45:54] They’re still a client until very 

[00:45:55] recently. 

[00:45:55] Shea Gordon: Yeah. Oh 

[00:45:55] really? 

[00:45:56] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:45:56] Shea Gordon: Yeah. David Waugh

[00:45:57] and I still talk on 

[00:45:58] LinkedIn. But uh, 

[00:46:01] yeah, they, they were one of my clients. I really fell in love for like working with that product. I thought it was really. 

[00:46:06] I thought was fascinating. 

[00:46:07] So when I was trying to look for other jobs while I was at IBM, I did take more of a cybersecurity focus of like, what 

[00:46:14] are other cybersecurity companies hiring.

[00:46:16] Forescout was one of them. They 

[00:46:18] were big in the scene until, not too long ago. They finally with the way they’re gone. CyberArk, I interviewed 

[00:46:25] with them. 

[00:46:26] Marc Gonyea: Okay.

[00:46:26] Shea Gordon: And then I got reached out to by journal of CrowdStrike. And, uh, I had never heard of CrowdStrike, and I was like, “What the, the 

[00:46:37] heck is this?”

[00:46:38] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:46:39] Yeah. 

[00:46:40] Shea Gordon: Um, and they had, they were really trying to build out their sales team. They had their main sales office in Austin, so it was very small. Um, and Austin was going to be their second sales office. And it was tiny, tiny, tiny little space, the TechCrunch, um, smelled like BO. 

[00:47:01] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:47:02] Shea Gordon: Um, it was all dudes, literally. I was the only woman that was there.

[00:47:08] But I, I remember kind of coming into the interview, and they were just really grilling me. Like every, like 

[00:47:13] every cybersecurity company that I had worked for, just, it reminded me a lot of oil and gas. Like all of a sudden I was like, for the first, I hadn’t experienced it at memoryBlue. I hadn’t experienced it at IBM.

[00:47:26] I was kind of just used to, 

[00:47:29] “Okay, it’s fine. You’re a woman. Who cares?” 

[00:47:31] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

[00:47:32] Shea Gordon: And it was very weird. All of a sudden, like very condescending tones and, you know, I was literally told in one 

[00:47:40] interview, “Uh, I don’t think you can do your job because you’re a woman.” 

[00:47:44] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:47:45] Shea Gordon: And I’m like…

[00:47:45] Marc Gonyea: It’s crazy. This 

[00:47:46] is in Austin.

[00:47:47] Shea Gordon: Yeah. This is in Austin. 

[00:47:48] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Or this 

[00:47:49] is with an emerging. Yeah. 

[00:47:50] Shea Gordon: Yeah. This was, this was totally to, to my face. And I’m like, “Whoa. Okay.”

[00:47:56] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:47:57] Shea Gordon: And I mean, this was, this is crazy. This was in 2017. This, so we’re only, you know, five years removed from this?

[00:48:05] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:48:06] Shea Gordon: At this 

[00:48:06] point. And it’s it’s, so I got, I got on board, to CrowdStrike and it was like being thrown into the dog pit.

[00:48:17] And I’m not saying that like in a bad way to, to CrowdStrike. It was nobody knew who CrowdStrike was. 

[00:48:24] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:48:25] Shea Gordon: And that’s what’s so crazy to say, nobody knew. We 

[00:48:29] were…

[00:48:29] Marc Gonyea: So big now. 

[00:48:29] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:48:30] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[00:48:30] Marc Gonyea: They’re so successful.

[00:48:31] Shea Gordon: Yeah. I was, I was part of the first sales hiring 

[00:48:35] for the Austin office. And I, back to the memoryBlue roots. It was hand jam.

[00:48:41] I had, I think my account list was, like was like a thousand strong? ‘Cause it was all businesses that were 2,500 employees and less. 

[00:48:50] Marc Gonyea: Okay. 

[00:48:50] Shea Gordon: And so I just had to call and call and call. 

[00:48:54] And I would get the phone 

[00:48:56] and somebody was like, “Well, hey, this is Shea calling from CrowdStrike. How are you today?”

[00:49:00] Cloud Strife?

[00:49:01] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[00:49:02] Shea Gordon: What? 

[00:49:02] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[00:49:03] Marc Gonyea: They didn’t know. 

[00:49:04] Shea Gordon: And, and it was really crazy, and I took, I took it because cybersecurity, it’s, I was talking to Caroline before, when she was kind of prepping me for the podcast. She’s like, “People are nervous of getting into cybersecurity.” My first question 

[00:49:18] was “why.” I don’t know why people would be nervous 

[00:49:22] about it. For me,

[00:49:23] I think it is definitely harder 

[00:49:25] than other areas of tech sales because you do have to have, you not necessarily have to have the technical background, but you have to have the willpower to learn and you have…

[00:49:35] Chris Corcoran: Google Alerts. 

[00:49:36] Shea Gordon: Yeah. Google Alerts. 

[00:49:37] Marc Gonyea: Google alerts. 

[00:49:38] Shea Gordon: If you’re not, if you’re not taking time every single day to go and, and learn about your product, to learn about your competitors, to learn about the whole field,

[00:49:47] you’re not gonna do well in cybersecurity if you’re not up to date a hundred percent of the time.

[00:49:52] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:49:52] Shea Gordon: And so it’s was, that’s what attracted me to CrowdStrike was. This looks like it’s really gonna be something.

[00:50:00] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:50:01] Shea Gordon: This looks really cool. Uh, you know, I’ve, I’ve kind of seen like the baby version of this, you know, before this, “This is way better.

[00:50:09] Uh, let’s, let’s give it a try.” ‘Cause 

[00:50:11] CrowdStrike is one of the best. Like, “We’re really low in the Gartner Magic Quadrant.” Like, you know, they were behind a silence and their mind so full as they were this small, tiny quarter right here and they’re like, “We’re gonna, next year we’re gonna be in the, the right quadrant.”

[00:50:26] And I was like, “Oh, alright.” 

[00:50:28] Chris Corcoran: If you say so? 

[00:50:30] Shea Gordon: Yeah. And, and I, I ate my words ’cause they were. 

[00:50:35] Chris Corcoran: That’s true. 

[00:50:36] Shea Gordon: It was. It was really crazy, like, just 

[00:50:38] the whole journey there. And like it’s changed a lot since I was at CrowdStrike. And the whole industry has changed because when I started, 

[00:50:47] I was the only one in our 

[00:50:50] sales team. And it was, I was that way for about six months fi before they finally hired another, another woman in the role. And then cybersecurity as a whole was just very vastly different. I was at a conference one time with one of my colleagues and I turned to him and I said, you know, “There’s about 400 people here.

[00:51:09] I’m betting you that there’s only seven women including me, at this conference.” He’s like, “Oh, come on, Shea. There’s at least eight.” And I was like, “All right, well, let’s make a bet. Let’s put 20 on it.” I was like,” If there’s seven or less, you know, I will, I’ll pay you $20. If there’s eight or more, you know, I’ll give your 20.”

[00:51:30] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[00:51:31] Shea Gordon: And I, I lost because there were nine women at the conference.

[00:51:34] Chris Corcoran: Wow. 

[00:51:36] That’s amazing. 

[00:51:37] Shea Gordon: Yeah. So it was at the time, I think the statistic was, there 

[00:51:42] was about only 

[00:51:44] 15% of the workforce was women in cybersecurity. Now that’s up to 25%. So five years, 10% increase. That’s, that’s pretty huge. But it was definitely difficult kind of as a woman working 

[00:51:56] in what I would kind of call a tech grow environment.

[00:52:00] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:52:00] Shea Gordon: I didn’t thrive. 

[00:52:02] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:52:03] Shea Gordon: Like, and it was definitely kind of one of those things where I always felt I had to prove myself harder, “Okay. I get the worst territory. All right. Not saying 

[00:52:12] anything, but let’s, 

[00:52:13] all right. I’m gonna, I’m gonna make this territory bleed,” and I did. 

[00:52:16] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:52:16] Shea Gordon: And kind of just, kept going.

[00:52:19] And I, I always hate the saying of like salespeople that blame their territory saying, “Well, I was assigned the worst territory. That’s why I’m not successful.” Bullshit. You’re just not doing your job. 

[00:52:30] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[00:52:31] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:52:31] Shea Gordon: And it’s, it, you just have to be, yeah, maybe you did good crap territory. Crap territories absolutely exist.

[00:52:36] It does mean you have to work harder. 

[00:52:38] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:52:38] Shea Gordon: But it doesn’t mean you’re not gonna produce anything. 

[00:52:40] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:52:41] Shea Gordon: And so, by, I mean, I was handed really, really bad territory, but I still really made it work. I did great in my territory. And then…

[00:52:49] Marc Gonyea: Were you selling the subscription service? 

[00:52:51] Shea Gordon: I was. I was selling subscription service.

[00:52:53] It was an auto-renewal service because 

[00:52:56] CrowdStrike is a cloud-based service. So

[00:52:57] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, 

[00:52:58] Shea Gordon: Super easy. Great part of the pitch was, “Oh, you can just tour up, if you get, I had a few new users, you know, just let us know. Boom. You know, here you go. We’ve just seen your licenses, 

[00:53:08] for your subscription.” So it was, 

[00:53:10] I would say the first year it was really hard to sell just because nobody knew who CrowdStrike was,

[00:53:18] why do I need EDR. This looks like big brother. 

[00:53:22] I don’t need…

[00:53:22] Marc Gonyea: EDR 

[00:53:22] stand for?

[00:53:23] Shea Gordon: Uh, Endpoint Detection and Response. 

[00:53:24] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Yep. 

[00:53:25] Shea Gordon: This 

[00:53:25] looks like big brother. We don’t need this. 

[00:53:27] What, what, what is an 

[00:53:28] Overwatch? 

[00:53:29] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[00:53:30] Shea Gordon: Overwatch is their threat hunting team to alert you when 

[00:53:33] something’s happening. 

[00:53:34] Marc Gonyea: Yeah.

[00:53:34] Shea Gordon: Uh, you know, “Why do I need this? I’m fine. I have Microsoft antivirus. Yeah, this does what I need.” 

[00:53:41] Marc Gonyea: Yeah.

[00:53:41] Shea Gordon: You know? 

[00:53:43] And the, the concept of NGAV next-gen antivirus was 

[00:53:47] really starting to become a buzzword at the time, but it was just that. It was a buzzword. 

[00:53:51] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:53:51] Shea Gordon: Nobody was really taking it seriously.

[00:53:53] So you still had, you sat, and you still had Malwarebytes and you, you still had, um, Trend Micro, just being really those big old. 

[00:54:00] Marc Gonyea: Selling their stuff. 

[00:54:01] Shea Gordon: Yeah, just very, very basic antivirus. Um, and then, you know, you have CrowdStrike, this new kid on the block. Very expensive, ” Why do I 

[00:54:09] need to spend $10,000 minimum,

[00:54:12] for, you know, 300 

[00:54:15] subscriptions, for 300 seats? Like this 

[00:54:16] is ridiculous. You know, I can go over to ESET and I can get it for 

[00:54:19] $500.” 

[00:54:20] You know? And then kind of over the course of that 

[00:54:23] year, you had a bunch of different things happen. Um, you had first, the Gartner Magic Quadrant that first year I was, I think it was 2018 

[00:54:35] Magic Quadrant, or it was 2019 where 

[00:54:36] they finally made it into that right

[00:54:39] one. And they, they didn’t just like shoot up. I mean, they skyrocketed over to that. Uh, and once 

[00:54:48] they got into that new Magic Quadrant, 

[00:54:50] my job became so much easier. Um, because then 

[00:54:54] people were like, literally going like, “CrowdStrike, yes. Let’s have a call.” 

[00:54:58] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Yeah. Those analyst ratings, this magic quadrant, were magic for

[00:55:02] everybody. 

[00:55:03] Shea Gordon: Yeah. Uh, I mean people, they, they really, I think a lot of 

[00:55:07] smaller companies underestimate the power of Gartner, Forrester, IDC. Once you get into there, people know your name. And they know what you’re doing, and all of a sudden you have this analyst credibility behind you. And, 

[00:55:21] you know, we believe analysts. 

[00:55:24] Chris Corcoran: Right.

[00:55:26] Shea Gordon: So it was, it was really crazy, kind of, nobody knows to literally almost 

[00:55:32] couldn’t keep up with the business.

[00:55:33] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm.

[00:55:34] Shea Gordon: Because they just exploded. 

[00:55:37] And there was a little bit of a hurdle, uh, with the whole Trump scandal saying, “Oh, CrowdStrike has the servers hidden in Ukraine.” We’re like, “That’s not how cleanup works.

[00:55:48] That’s not how remediation works. Like after a ransomware attack, we don’t like take the servers.” 

[00:55:54] Marc Gonyea: Yeah.

[00:55:54] Shea Gordon: And it’s like, oh gosh, it was the misinformation behind. Like what remediation looks like after 

[00:55:59] a data breach is just so funny and having to like talk to people even still, like, somebody will talk to me about like remediation and I’m just like, “Well, that’s, first of all, you’re wrong about al. Let’s go and break it down.”

[00:56:13] So it is definitely one of those fields and just also really fun to get to say to people like, “Oh yeah, I work in cybersecurity.” And they go…

[00:56:20] It’s like big shock. 

[00:56:22] Marc Gonyea: So it sounds like it was like challenging, yet very fulfilling. 

[00:56:29] Shea Gordon: Yeah. In a lot of ways. Yeah. 

[00:56:30] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. And you just, because you decided to stick with it, right?

[00:56:33] Shea Gordon: Yeah. I…

[00:56:33] Marc Gonyea: You didn’t, you didn’t leave cyber. So like, why did you stick to it? 

[00:56:38] Shea Gordon: Why did I stick to cyber? And it’s the same. 

[00:56:40] I’m still in it now. 

[00:56:41] Marc Gonyea: Yeah.

[00:56:41] Shea Gordon: It’s, it’s changing every day. 

[00:56:43] Marc Gonyea: Okay.

[00:56:43] Shea Gordon: Literally changing every day. There’s a new tool. There’s a new competitor. There’s a new attack type, you know? And it’s cybersecurity is never going to go away.

[00:56:56] It will always evolve some products that are successful today. If they refuse to keep up with the market, they’re not gonna be here next year. And it’s definitely one of those things that, if you want something that’s stable in the cybersecurity, just be prepared to work. 

[00:57:13] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:57:14] How, um, you know, have you gone into, you have all this knowledge, how have you decided to the lineup, like companies that would be good to work for?

[00:57:23] ‘Cause you, so you left, you obviously had success at CrowdStrike, right?

[00:57:26] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:57:26] Marc Gonyea: You were bona fide, closing outbound sales professional there. 

[00:57:30] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:57:31] Marc Gonyea: Emerging technology company, you know, not SMB, bigger, but not big, big. 

[00:57:36] Shea Gordon: Yeah, yeah. Not enterprise you. 

[00:57:37] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. So you, so you know, you, I think you’ve been, you’ve done some different things with different companies.

[00:57:42] So how, how do you know that this knowledge you, you have, what do you look for in companies now? 

[00:57:46] Shea Gordon: So yeah. It’s, I think kind of like, for me, 

[00:57:51] after leaving CrowdStrike, I had a better perspective of really what I wanted in a company and what I wanted that type of product to be. The great thing about cybersecurity is it’s really easy to find different areas and find great things.

[00:58:07] Um, there’s fantastic image on Google, uh, that shows like just cybersecurity has like thousand different images, and just the different types of areas to join still. 

[00:58:16] Marc Gonyea: Oh my gosh. So many, I think there’s 7,000 cyber companies. 

[00:58:19] Shea Gordon: Oh, doesn’t surprise me at all. And uh, you know, whether you’re wanting just to do network security or 

[00:58:25] you want to do endpoint security or you want to do credentials or anything like that, 

[00:58:31] there’s somewhere to go.

[00:58:33] And it’s important before even you take the interview is to go research the company, who are their competitors out there? What does the product really do? And then kind of based on, you 

[00:58:46] know, what you’re doing in your role, is this something that you hear about? Is this something that you actually do feel is a need that’s lacking?

[00:58:51] Um, is there a way that you can pitch it to your clients of where they see the value of them adding this to their solution staff? Because that is the other problem. 

[00:58:59] With cybersecurity is there’s so many tools out there, 

[00:59:02] you get this clutter. And, uh, my husband, he works in, uh, cybersecurity as well. And he goes, “Oh, I’ll talk to my clients.”

[00:59:11] And you know, they’ll be a small company, but they won’t know all the products that they have because there’s just so many that do so many different things. 

[00:59:18] Marc Gonyea: That’s so funny. In oil and gas family, you grew up and now you’re gonna carry on with cybersecurity. 

[00:59:23] Shea Gordon: Oh yeah. Everyone always ask me if I can fix their computer.

[00:59:25] So I’m like, “Yeah. I’m not that kind of smart.” 

[00:59:27] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:59:29] Shea Gordon: It’s like, well, one of my neighbors the other day, like handed me his computer, he’s like, “We got a 

[00:59:33] virus.” I’m like, I was like, “All right. Like, thankfully my husband works for an endpoint security company, so we can go and wipe this for you, but you know, please don’t do this to us again.”

[00:59:45] Marc Gonyea: So what have you, uh, if you’re talking to an SDR who is like figuring out, ’cause we have this program rising stars now, right? Like your company. We have somebody coming out of memoryBlue since you’re an alum and great standing, you can hire them for free if you want to, but they always ask like, “Well, what should I be looking for?

[01:00:03] Oh, I want to progress in my career. What type of role, what type of company? I don’t know if the company’s good. Get me where I want to go. “

[01:00:10] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[01:00:10] Marc Gonyea: Assuming this person, you know, this is a good SDR. 

[01:00:12] Shea Gordon: Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s always like, there’s, there’s advice you can give, but there’s also a large part of it, that’s luck.

[01:00:21] Like, I feel like 

[01:00:22] in some ways, CrowdStrike rise was inevitable, but I also feel very lucky that I found it. And very few people get to say they work at a unicorn.

[01:00:35] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[01:00:35] Or they’re an Austin unicorn. 

[01:00:36] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[01:00:37] Or they’re not, double unicorn. 

[01:00:39] Marc Gonyea: Yeah.

[01:00:39] Shea Gordon: But I, I think what’s important to look for is look at the stability of industry.

[01:00:45] How 

[01:00:46] old is the company? Ask, you know, why is this particular position open? Is it new? If it’s new, why is it new? If it’s vacant, why did it get vacant? 

[01:00:55] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[01:00:55] Shea Gordon: Who are you reporting to? Half of an interview is not just them learning about you seeing if you’re a fit for the company. It’s, are, do you agree with the company?

[01:01:04] Do you like what they have to say? I have absolutely gone through interview processes, hated my interviewers, and said, “Nope. If you’re gonna be my direct report, sorry. You know, thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for your time, but, you know? No, thank you.” And so I think that’s, when I was first started my career, I was like saying “yes” to everything.

[01:01:21] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[01:01:22] Shea Gordon: And I got very lucky with my saying “yes,” but as I got older, more mature, I realized, “Okay, no, like you do, 

[01:01:32] there is a reason you 

[01:01:32] need to be picky.” It’s learning to ask the right questions, but also learning how to stand out in an interview process. I think is, but just really study. I’m, I don’t know.

[01:01:45] I, for me studying is how it makes me feel confident in my job. It makes me, I think, successful. 

[01:01:50] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[01:01:51] Shea Gordon: And if you’re not gonna put the time to learn about the company, at the very least learn about the competition, how are you gonna know it’s the best product to sell?

[01:01:58] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm.

[01:01:58] Shea Gordon: And that is, I think that is the big piece of advice.

[01:02:01] The company that you’re going to go work for, make sure it’s the best on the market. Because if you’re not selling the best, it’s really hard to sell and you really lose your interest quite fast. 

[01:02:10] Marc Gonyea: Interesting. 

[01:02:11] And what are you doing now? 

[01:02:12] Shea Gordon: So I’m still in cybersecurity. I kind of evolved a bit. I went back to, I stayed in the startup route.

[01:02:19] I don’t really have an interest of going back to an IBM-type company. So I’m a startup chaser for sure. 

[01:02:25] Marc Gonyea: Uhhuh. Yeah, that’s good. 

[01:02:26] Chris Corcoran: But you 

[01:02:26] are storm chaser and startup chaser? 

[01:02:28] Shea Gordon: I love it. Yeah, no, no, CrowdStrike put the bug in me for sure. So now I work at a, a really awesome, also a unicorn, so much triple unicorn now, uh, a wonderful company called SonarSource. And, they do Code Quality and Security for your source code.

[01:02:43] So you need build an application and you’re gonna have to write code to build an application. Our job is to go and scan that code, make sure it’s secure, make sure there’s no bugs. One of the biggest attack vectors today is exploiting, uh, essentially code vulnerabilities. 

[01:02:58] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[01:02:58] Shea Gordon: Um, that’s how they go, and they get a back door into your network and then boom, drop ransomware, shut you out, all that fun stuff.

[01:03:04] And so the goal of our company is kind of, you have a CrowdStrike, it takes it at the endpoint. And then for us, it takes it all the way very back to the basics of when that software is being developed. So it’s kind of looking more to the shift left of cybersecurity and finding a solution before it becomes a problem.

[01:03:24] So it’s it’s um, and I work, um…

[01:03:26] Marc Gonyea: What’s your day-to-day? Like what do yeah, what are you working on?

[01:03:28] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[01:03:28] So I work with Fortune 1000 companies exclusively. I manage my accounts globally, so I, I’m very fortunate of getting to have clients. You know, I can run a meeting at, you know, eight o’clock in the morning with somebody in New York, but you know, I’m gonna have to run a call at two o’clock in India 

[01:03:45] and two o’clock in the morning with my clients in India.

[01:03:48] You know. So it’s, 

[01:03:50] it’s definitely kind of one of those jobs where again, it really does define that you’re not eight to five, uh, and trying to find that work-life balance, but it’s been a very circuitous route for me to get from, I studied in Korea. I wanted to get to an international business and have the ability to 

[01:04:09] go and to visit other places 

[01:04:11] in the world.

[01:04:11] And then 10 years later, finally did it. 

[01:04:15] Marc Gonyea: Takes a while. 

[01:04:16] Shea Gordon: Yeah, it does. It does. It does. And it’s definitely the value is in the journey. And I think if I had gone from straight from college to a job that does allow me to work internationally, I wouldn’t be successful. I wouldn’t have this extreme experience that I do now.

[01:04:32] And like, I get to go to Geneva for work and 

[01:04:35] meet all my wonderful colleagues in Geneva. I can go over to Europe whenever I want to go 

[01:04:39] and spend time with them. ‘Cause that’s where we’re headquartered, and just kind of getting to go and 

[01:04:43] speak with people, literally all over the world, 

[01:04:46] every single day for my job. It’s just really spectacular.

[01:04:50] And I love my clients. I get to work with developers. I get to work with 

[01:04:54] directors of infrastructure and they’re so much easier to work with than most people. 

[01:04:58] Marc Gonyea: Yeah.

[01:04:58] Shea Gordon: They’re much nicer than 

[01:04:59] your standard IT director. 

[01:05:01] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[01:05:02] Shea Gordon: So it is, it’s really fun to have fun and interesting clients. My company’s very focused on culture.

[01:05:07] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[01:05:08] Shea Gordon: Uh, so there’s no tech bro mentality, which is something I kind of put my foot in the sand. I was like,” I’m gonna stay in cybersecurity and stay away from the tech bros.” 

[01:05:15] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[01:05:15] Shea Gordon: And it’s, it’s great to, to be at a unicorn that’s not, doesn’t have that tech bro mentality and just unlike most cybersecurity companies, takes equality very, very, very seriously.”

[01:05:26] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[01:05:27] Shea Gordon: So, you know, you’ll see it when you go to other cybersecurity companies. You know, there will be 10 men and two women. 

[01:05:32] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[01:05:32] Shea Gordon: And you come to our floor, and it’s, you know, 50, 60, or you know, or 40, 60 or 60, 40, depending on the day you come in. 

[01:05:39] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[01:05:39] Shea Gordon: Yeah. So it’s, it’s really crazy. 

[01:05:41] Marc Gonyea: That’s great. 

[01:05:42] It’s, are you selling, are you, uh, forming?

[01:05:45] Are you selling net new or you?

[01:05:47] Shea Gordon: I, I did both. 

[01:05:48] Marc Gonyea: Okay. 

[01:05:48] Shea Gordon: Yeah. I, uh, so I work as the global account manager, for about 70 companies worldwide. 

[01:05:56] Uh, and so, uh, you know, obviously there’s dealing with the renewals of whether are their ongoing products. And then on top of that, you know, it’s a global company, so maybe one division’s using the tool, but another division isn’t.

[01:06:08] So it’s my job to go and hunt those companies out and get the referrals, get those, those d divisions. Yeah. 

[01:06:15] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[01:06:15] Shea Gordon: So it’s, it’s a really fun role ’cause it’s a combination of account management and new logo, which for me 

[01:06:21] is really fun ’cause I’ve only done new logo. So kind of learning the account management aspect of it, uh, is fun.

[01:06:27] I love it. ‘Cause I, I’m very into relationship selling. 

[01:06:30] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. 

[01:06:30] Shea Gordon: So it’s, it’s for me, it’s like the perfect mesh of my world of what I like to do in sales. 

[01:06:37] Chris Corcoran: Very good. So just, if you rewind the hands of time, if you could move it, take us back to the night before you started as an SDR, what advice would you give it to yourself?

[01:06:47] Shea Gordon: Gotta keep pushing forward. You gotta gotta grind. You’ve gotta hustle. You cannot 

[01:06:52] be afraid to get on the phone and you cannot be afraid to get rejected on the phone. I think the biggest obstacle a lot of SDRs face is they get rejected. And then, because they got rejected on the phone, they then feel dejected in their job.

[01:07:07] And that’s just a part of sales. 

[01:07:08] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm, 

[01:07:09] Shea Gordon: You’re always gonna have failures. You’re gonna have way more failures than you’re gonna have wins. And I think that’s really what I would’ve told myself when I first started is be okay with the failures. They’re gonna happen a lot. And, uh, don’t take them as hard.

[01:07:22] Take them as learning experiences, but don’t, don’t let that ruin your day. 

[01:07:26] Marc Gonyea: I’ll add to that, even I’m not you. ‘Cause, you know, if you work in places that aren’t, as all of the industry’s changing that are as the female-friendly, male-dominated, don’t let that, kind of gets you down. 

[01:07:41] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[01:07:42] Marc Gonyea: Or excuse me, if it can get you down,

[01:07:43] don’t let it get in your way. 

[01:07:44] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[01:07:45] Marc Gonyea: Right?

[01:07:45] Shea Gordon: Yeah. You gotta gotta take the bull by the horns. 

[01:07:47] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[01:07:48] ‘Cause you’ve had some, some run-ins with some of that. And it’s common, and you’re very candid about it, which is amazing. And you have it, let that, you know?

[01:07:56] Shea Gordon: No, I don’t, I don’t have time for that. 

[01:07:59] Marc Gonyea: Right. 

[01:07:59] Shea Gordon: If, if you wanna be an a-hole, you know, go be an a-hole in your time. Don’t do it on my time.

[01:08:03] I’m here to do my job. 

[01:08:04] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[01:08:05] And you fought through it, though. 

[01:08:06] Shea Gordon: Yeah. I, I’m just, I’m, I’m very aggressive on the phone and with my clients. 

[01:08:12] Marc Gonyea: Texas, Texas. 

[01:08:13] Shea Gordon: And you, yeah. It’s, it’s the fiery redhead in me. 

[01:08:15] Marc Gonyea: Yeah.

[01:08:16] Shea Gordon: Uh, I, you know, I may not have a soul, but man, I can be mean. 

[01:08:19] Marc Gonyea: Oh, it’s so…

[01:08:23] Shea Gordon: But no, I mean, you know, if you’re a woman, if you’re a person of color, if you identify as a different sexuality or gender, you’re definitely gonna run into some form of discrimination, either on a daily basis or hopefully not ever, but it’s gonna happen at some point.

[01:08:37] And the goal is just, you know, depending on how severe it is, just kind of keep going. You can’t, you cannot let it take you down because I have been told on a first day of the job of, “You’re the first female hire for this role, don’t F it up.” And that was one of the most terrifying things ever been told to me in my entire life.

[01:08:56] But you know what I did? I didn’t F it up.

[01:08:58] Marc Gonyea: Yeah.

[01:08:59] Shea Gordon: I just kept going and I worked my butt off and I was super successful in that job. And if you let sexism or racism, gender discrimination get in your way, you’re not gonna be successful at sales. There’s a lot of stuff that you have to put up with. And it’s on you to rise above people that are lower than you.

[01:09:20] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Very good.

[01:09:20] Shea Gordon: Not, not like stomp on them, but like, no, but you know, just, they, they think poor, you know, that you’re better than that. You cannot let them take you down. 

[01:09:30] Chris Corcoran: We can end on that. Well, it sounds like you’re having a lot of fun. 

[01:09:33] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[01:09:33] Shea Gordon: Yeah.

[01:09:34] Chris Corcoran: I mean, that’s… 

[01:09:35] Shea Gordon: Sales is fun. 

[01:09:36] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[01:09:36] Shea Gordon: It’s, it’s best job in the world.

[01:09:38] And it changes every day. It changes every day, but here’s the thing. If sales was easy, everyone would do it. 

[01:09:44] Chris Corcoran: Right. 

[01:09:44] Shea Gordon: So if you’re here, means you’re on the right path. 

[01:09:47] Marc Gonyea: Right. 

[01:09:47] Chris Corcoran: Very good.

[01:09:49] Marc Gonyea: Thanks for visiting us today. 

[01:09:50] Shea Gordon: No, thank y’all. 

[01:09:50] Marc Gonyea: I know you’re busy. I know back to that question. 

[01:09:52] Shea Gordon: Oh yeah. 

[01:09:53] Marc Gonyea: This afternoon, too, so we’ll let you go.

[01:09:55] Shea Gordon: Yeah. 

[01:09:56] Marc Gonyea: Get after it, but thank, thank you for joining us.

[01:09:58] Shea Gordon: No, thank y’all. 

[01:09:59] Marc Gonyea: Another one great person to have working at the company.

[01:10:01] Chris Corcoran: Lots of wisdom. Thanks for working with us. We really appreciate it. 

[01:10:04] Shea Gordon: No. 

[01:10:04] Thank y’all for getting my head start on my career. 

[01:10:06] Chris Corcoran: Absolutely. 

[01:10:07] Thanks for taking it.