Episode 104: Christian Chanter – What You Put In Is What You Get Out
The idea of being a stiff salesperson and working countless hours in isolation most likely doesn’t appeal to anyone. Luckily, Christian Chanter discovered that a career in sales doesn’t have to be that way at all. Instead, sales can be a relational and fulfilling position where you serve as an ally for prospects and showcase the kind of company that potential clients will want to be a part of.
In this episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers. Christian, now a partnership development representative at Lyra Health, explains how he managed to deeply connect with prospects, the power he found in learning from colleagues, and his main strategies for success.
Guest-At-A-Glance
💡 Name: Christian Chanter
💡 What he does: He is a partnership development representative at Lyra Health.
💡 Company: Lyra Health
💡 Noteworthy: Before coming to memoryBlue and now Lyra Health, Christian worked in real estate, where he realized that he was good cold calling.
💡 Where to find Christian: LinkedIn
Key Insights
⚡Working in B2B sales means showing people you are more than a salesperson; you are their ally. Although B2B and B2C sales follow almost the same principles, salespeople in these fields encounter different challenges. And while it may seem like working in B2B is more complex, getting in touch with companies is often easier than cold-calling a random person and interrupting them in the middle of their day. Of course, company executives expect that, but you must ensure that you don’t waste their time. ”Shift your mindset and be like, ‘I’m helping these people. This product I’m selling is something that can make your day-to-day life easier.’ You will find people stuck in their ways and not wanting to do anything new, but you will also find people willing to innovate, do new things, and try new products and things.”
⚡Don’t hesitate to turn to your co-workers for help. Learn from them. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. No one expects you to know it all, especially if you are a new hire. ”I didn’t want to take help at first. And then I realized that’s not the way to go. You can’t learn if you’re learning from yourself and all you’re doing is making mistakes.”
⚡People want to feel like a part of the company they work at. Sales is a complex field. It requires a lot of dedication and persistence, and sales professionals often chase numbers (calls made per day, deals closed, etc.) instead of building a relationship with clients. However, relationship building is not the sales department’s job per se. Still, it takes meaningful interaction with a prospect to get a deal. ”It gave me an idea of the type of company I want to work with, which is when you’re on the team, you can tell them what’s happening. You can tell them what they need to be changing or not changing. So it felt more like teamwork instead of like, ‘Okay, did you get meetings this week?”’
Episode Highlights
Working at a Cold-Calling Center Showed Christian He’s Good on the Phone
”I had to work a four-hour shift, and they expect you to get two meetings per shift. I could easily get three to four each time. […] And that was when I realized, ‘Okay, the cold-calling side of it is not as difficult as I thought.’
It’s a sense of talking to people, gauging interest. Then, if they have any interest at all, buy or sell a home, and if they don’t, do not waste any time going onto the next one. And so, that was when I realized I liked doing this.”
The Best Way to Learn at memoryBlue Is by Relying on Each Other
”A big thing was: ignore the title. That was almost like a hurdle. These are just people; they have these roles, but they’re still people. They’re not better or worse than you; you were all in the same point field.
And figuring that out was useful — listening to their calls and seeing how they talk to people. I love that. It’s hard to pinpoint what specific things I took; it was lines that I’d hear.”
You Must Meet Your Prospect Where They Are and Be Consistent If You Want to Succeed
”Sometimes it’s just the timing of everything. So I got better at being able to say, ‘Okay. Sounds like this isn’t a great time. How about I reach out at another time?’ Typically, you could get those people back. It was always interesting doing that.
But I, honestly, would say that the biggest thing I did was the volume of calls. I made a lot of calls; I was doing over a hundred calls every day. […] Obviously, a lot of people were not answering the phone that day, but I was making sure to have a high volume of calls because it’s the quantity aspect of it. The more people you get on the line, the higher your chances of someone saying ‘yes.’”
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Christian Chanter: You can be successful, but if everyone else isn’t being successful, that’s really bad for us with the company as a whole, and so it doesn’t matter if you’re successful. If the company is not successful, then that success is gonna run out.
[00:00:10] Marc Gonyea: Christian Chanter in the house. How you doing?
[00:00:36] Christian Chanter: Pretty good. Pretty good. How about you, guys?
[00:00:38] Chris Corcoran: CC.
[00:00:40] Marc Gonyea: We’re doing great.
[00:00:41] Chris Corcoran: From one to another.
[00:00:43] Marc Gonyea: That’s, that’s right. Two CC’s.
[00:00:47] Chris Corcoran: You better watch yourself, Gonyea.
[00:00:49] Marc Gonyea: Yes, there you go. All right, man. We’re gonna talk about a lot of stuff. But let’s talk a little bit, you know, for Chris and I, and for the audience, we get to know you. Tell us about where you’re from. Where’d you grow up? Like background.
[00:01:04] Chris Corcoran: Background.
[00:01:05] Christian Chanter: Yeah, no, I’m, uh, my name’s Christian, obviously, from, I’m from originally Dallas, Texas, specifically Grapevine, you know, like the DFW area.
[00:01:13] Marc Gonyea: I don’t know. Gimme where is it?
[00:01:15] Christian Chanter: Northwest of Dallas. So like kind of right in the middle of Dallas and Fort Worth. So I ended up actually going to high school in Fort Worth, came to Austin ’cause I went to the University of Texas. Book ’em, and, excited for the game this weekend, but, uh, yeah.
[00:01:28] Marc Gonyea: Let’s back up a little bit, though. Like, so growing up, siblings?
[00:01:32] Christian Chanter: No siblings. So, I was actually, originally adopted from Korea.
[00:01:37] Marc Gonyea: Wow. Okay.
[00:01:38] Christian Chanter: So, came over from, was, um, born in Gwangju city, Korea. Three months old, came over to America, then just kind of had my entire childhood in DFW. I went to private Catholic school. My entire childhood. So that was very interesting, upbringing.
[00:01:52] Big school, small school?
[00:01:54] Christian Chanter: Decently big, I mean, small for Texas, but, I’d say, big for anywhere else. About a thousand people in my high school. So, um, Texas, usually, I think most of the classes, like three to 4,000. So mine was like on the smaller end, but yeah, pretty, pretty big class. Yeah.
[00:02:07] Marc Gonyea: What were you like as a, the youth? The, the youth CC.
[00:02:11] Christian Chanter: Yeah, very energetic. I was like, I just have to kind of do a lot of things all at once. So, I like to kind of, you know, branch out and did like different things. I did a lot of with music, so I played piano since I was about five, did a lot of competitions and stuff like that.
[00:02:27] Chris Corcoran: Okay. Tickling the ivory.
[00:02:29] Christian Chanter: Yes, did a lot of that.
[00:02:33] Marc Gonyea: That’s a lot of, that’s a lot of dedication. How many hours did you have to practice like in a week?
[00:02:36] Chris Corcoran: Where was that?
[00:02:37] Christian Chanter: I have to practice about three hours every single day.
[00:02:39] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Three hours. So that’s dedication, Corcoran, right there.
[00:02:43] Chris Corcoran: I don’t know anything about that.
[00:02:44] Marc Gonyea: There was no CC. CC over here up. Was it, was it doing three hours a day of, not here, practicing, get anything?
[00:02:56] Chris Corcoran: Okay, guys.
[00:02:58] Marc Gonyea: So, same with MG. I was practicing being the doofus, master the fine art of accomplishing nothing. Yeah. It’s so good, dude. But, I think that’s an amazing thing because the pieces you were playing, what about things that take months and months, and months to learn?
[00:03:16] Christian Chanter: Yeah. And you have to memorize all of them, too. So it’s like a, it’s a process. It’s definitely a process.
[00:03:21] Marc Gonyea: So huge. What does that teach you?
[00:03:22] I mean, it teaches you a lot of dedication, and like slowly, like kind of just keep going at it. Like, it’s one of those things where, you know, the more you do something, the more you see, you kind of chip away at it. And then, you kind of hit a point where you’re like, “Okay, like I’ve made a huge jump.” And so when it came to piano was naturally pretty good at it, but obviously still required some practice. And so when it came to memorization, stuff like that, I’d be, you know, playing the song. Okay. I’ve got the song down like that’s like step one.
[00:03:47] Christian Chanter: And then step two is kind of memorize the first part, memorize the sec, second page, and then you put it all together and.
[00:03:53] Marc Gonyea: It got dynamics, and the tempo. Right? In the cords, in the left and the right hand. It’s ridiculously complex.
[00:04:01] Christian Chanter: Yes. It’s very hard. And it really, it really teaches you hand-eye coordination. That’s a big one that definitely was pretty thankful for, actually.
[00:04:06] Marc Gonyea: So yeah. So energetic piano comp. What else?
[00:04:10] Yeah, so I did, I also did band in high school. So I played trombone when I was in high school, and a little bit of jazz piano and that. So did a lot with music in my childhood, like played basketball, a few other sports. Mainly was like pretty musically inclined, and that’s kind of, that was kind of the big part of my childhood, was definitely a lot of music, a lot of like, just trying new things with music and stuff like that. But.
[00:04:32] Marc Gonyea: When you were in high school, what’d you think you wanted to be, you know, when you grew up?
[00:04:37] Christian Chanter: I was kind of all over the place. I like wanted to do, like film, act, like direct in movies, stuff like that. I also wanted to do, like, I like different sciences, like neuroscience, psychology, stuff like that. Thought about doing things in that field, really kind of just anything and everything.
[00:04:53] Like any new interest I had was kind of like, “Okay, maybe I could do something with this.” Piano was considered at one point, you know, being able to do something with that. Maybe in like an orchestra or something, but none of it, you know, all of it was kind of just, you know, almost like high dreams, like just like mainly, like, I think that the core of everything was like, I just wanted to like help people out and be like, not the center of attention, but kind of be like, I, I like being at the forefront of things. You know, not like I don’t really like doing the background work as much. I like to be more the face of things.
[00:05:22] Marc Gonyea: So, was anyone in sales?
[00:05:23] Chris Corcoran: Face man.
[00:05:23] Christian Chanter: Sorry. Face. Like to keep it right, right in front for everyone to kind of see.
[00:05:29] Chris Corcoran: So, so, if you were in a band, you’d be the front man?
[00:05:31] Christian Chanter: Oh yeah, definitely. I was actually in a band in high school, so I, I was the lead singer. So.
[00:05:36] Marc Gonyea: Of course. Dude, you were the face. What was the name of the band?
[00:05:41] Christian Chanter: We didn’t actually have a name. We did it for a talent show. So it was a one, one. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:05:49] Marc Gonyea: Anyone in sales, in, in the family, in the?
[00:05:51] Christian Chanter: No sales.
[00:05:53] Marc Gonyea: Like ever.
[00:05:54] My uncle did sales. So he worked for Nike. He did Nike. He works for, I believe, he’s at Columbia now, but he did stuff with, he, he’s done a lot of sales. He essentially did like big business-to-business sales for like retail company, stuff like that. But no, my, I grew up mainly in an airport family, so my dad worked for the FAA.
[00:06:11] Christian Chanter: All my friends’ parents are pilots. It was very, I mean, Dallas is huge airport, so very involved with kind of like the, more of like the aviation side. Yes. Yeah. So new aviation pretty well, but sales was kind of, I had like uncle or two that, you know, one of, another one worked for Honda, and did car sales and stuff. I think he did more on the bigger business side. But yeah, I was never really had anyone that was directly sales connected that I was like, I guess, influenced by when I was younger.
[00:06:42] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. So, you go to UT?
[00:06:44] Christian Chanter: Yes.
[00:06:44] Chris Corcoran: And what did you ultimately decide to study?
[00:06:46] Christian Chanter: So I studied radio, television, film. Uh, RTF, wanted to just kind of see what I could do with film. The film school at UT is like one of the best in the world. It’s, I think, when I was there, we were ranked like 13th for film schools. So very, very good. And like now, Matthew McConaughey teaches there. They’ve had a lot of other, you know, big things happen with that film school.
[00:07:06] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. But, um, did he featured in that, too?
[00:07:07] Christian Chanter: Yes, he did. Yeah. Yeah. So he was a, so I had teachers who actually had taught him, and like, some other people at West Anderson has also come through that film school. Owen Wilson was in at one point, like a lot, Farrah Fawcett, like a lot of big names. Yeah. So it was, it was an interesting experience. Austin actually has a very booming film scene, surprisingly, so it’s actually pretty interesting being able to work on different people’s films, do what they want to do. Richard Linklater, you know, shot a lot of his films out here in Austin. That’s how he met McConaughey. So, it’s definitely like a much more vibrant film scene out here, but it’s a little, it’s a different kind of vibe than like the LA film scene or New York film scene. It’s like it’s own kind of like different sort of genre. Almost.
[00:07:49] Chris Corcoran: Okay. Yeah. And so what were you, where did you want that to take you?
[00:07:52] Christian Chanter: I really wanted to go out to LA, see kind of what I could do out there, but the more I got into film school, the more I kind of learned and did more, just realized like, it’s very difficult. It’s a lot of work, and you’re gonna be doing, you know, editing is, is probably the easiest way to kind of get into film as being a film editor. And you’re gonna be looking at like 60-, 50-, 60-hour weeks consistently, maybe even longer. For pay, that’s really not like compensating you for the amount of time you’ve put in.
[00:08:20] You know, so I, when I was in college, actually, I realized this, and that’s when I first kind of looked into sales. I got my real estate license my junior year ’cause I just wanted to do, you know, I wanted to kind of what you put in is what you get, right? So with sales, like you could actually put in a lot more work, and you’re gonna, if you put in more work, you’re gonna get more out of it.
[00:08:40] And so I saw that in real estate, and that’s where I was a, it was opportunity in college. Didn’t have a car, had to go show everybody by walking them around from apartment to apartment. But kind of just gave me an idea of like, “Okay, this is something I could actually work with.” Instead of film was more hope to go to LA and then hope we make it big, you know, hopefully, we’ll be one of the few people that can make, you know, millions of dollars in this.
[00:09:02] And it’s just. It’s a lot to like, kind of put on the line to have nothing come out of it. Yeah. And so, I made a, sort of a pivot, kept my degree but got my real estate license, you know, doing that.
[00:09:14] Marc Gonyea: So, when you were at a film school within UT, right, do they ever talk about that?
[00:09:20] Christian Chanter: Like how difficult it is in the industry? Yeah. Oh yeah.
[00:09:23] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, they do.
[00:09:23] Christian Chanter: Yeah. I mean, they keep you aware. I mean, I think that’s part of being in a good film school is like knowing like, first off, they wanna hone your skills. But they also want you to be aware, like, this is an industry where, you know, it’s, not everyone’s successful.
[00:09:36] I mean, it’s definitely told like, like if you expect to kind of, you know, always expect that you’re gonna be successful in something, but if you go in and think you’re gonna be successful like that, and not have to do any work, or do very little work and kind of you’ll get there, it’s not attainable, and it’s not realistic.
[00:09:51] Yeah. Yeah. So, um, it was, itit was very interesting. It’s definitely interesting to hear it from people who also, who were already in the industry. All of the professors I had were very like tenured in the industry, like had actually created a lot of things. I had one professor who taught documentaries, and he had won like numerous awards for his, you know, documentaries and stuff.
[00:10:10] And he just kind of tells you, like, “You’re gonna put a lot of work into this stuff, and sometimes, people just don’t wanna, don’t watch or reciprocate.”
[00:10:16] Marc Gonyea: What percent of the kids like you graduated with are in the business?
[00:10:21] Christian Chanter: I honestly can’t say. I do know, Mm, I’d say probably still like 70, 67% of those people. It might be less. I do have, I have a fraternity, a pledge brother he’s in the, he’s in the film industry that’s, he’s pretty decently involved. He was on Barney for like six years. Okay. And then he was able to kind of move out to LA, and actually, he turned that into some sort of success. So.
[00:10:42] Marc Gonyea: I don’t know. I think of Barney. I don’t know which Barney.
[00:10:46] Christian Chanter: Barney, the kids show with the big.
[00:10:47] Marc Gonyea: Oh, Barney. Okay. Alright cool. Yeah. Yeah. All right, that’s what I know. Yeah. There you go.
[00:10:53] Chris Corcoran: Yeah, Marc was famous for doing what’s called Barney. Yeah. Relationships.
[00:11:02] You wanna, you wanna.
[00:11:02] Christian Chanter: Yeah, maybe.
[00:11:03] Marc Gonyea: I don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s why I didn’t even know who Barney was. Go ahead. Why don’t you, you share it for everyone?
[00:11:09] Chris Corcoran: So, Marc, his previous experience was in the channel, and he used to, he used to be famous for coming up with these Barney relationships, and essentially, it would be you’d sign on a partner, and you’d say to the partner, “I love you,” and the partner would say, “I love you,” and nothing would ever happen. They, they were famously called Barney relationships. Do you remember those now, Marc?
[00:11:38] Marc Gonyea: Why you gotta join the channel? Do it, bro.
[00:11:42] Chris Corcoran: Not bringing the channel on.
[00:11:43] Marc Gonyea: All the fellows who are on the channel are upset.
[00:11:47] Chris Corcoran: This is Marc Gonyea thing.
[00:11:49] Marc Gonyea: You have to bring the channel.
[00:11:50] Chris Corcoran: It’s not the channel. It’s the player.
[00:11:56] All right. Christian, back to you, man. She, she never brought up Barney, Marc.
[00:12:02] Marc Gonyea: My good old friend. All right. Alright. So you had this, the real estate bug, right? And then, are you still looking? Is that still something in your life now?
[00:12:12] Not as much. I, uh, kind of fell out of it. Real estate was, it’s very, it’s fun, but it’s very competitive, and it’s just like, I, I don’t know, I kind of wanted to get them to something.
[00:12:23] Marc Gonyea: But it triggered the sales.
[00:12:24] Christian Chanter: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:12:25] Marc Gonyea: All right. So let’s talk about that.
[00:12:26] Christian Chanter: Yeah. So yeah, like real estate, you know, the best part about it was, I mean, ours was no-base salaries, was a hundred percent commission. So what you get is what you get. Yeah, and so like, it was interesting. I mean, it, it’s a grind for sure. It was a lot of cold calling, specifically just getting lists of like all the incoming freshmen, and just calling as many as I can and, and seeing, you know, obviously, most of them live in the dorms or, you know, stuff like that. So they don’t really know about apartments and you talk with parents and stuff that, they have no idea kind of the whole process. So, it’s kind of when you get those people, you’re able to kind of, you know, walk ’em through, show them places, and then eventually, hopefully, you know, get them to sign, get a commission out of the lease. So, I was mainly doing leases. That, yeah. So not, not actual home sales.
[00:13:10] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Yeah, no worries. So, so, but then, but it, that was a taste of selling.
[00:13:14] Christian Chanter: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:13:16] Marc Gonyea: But whether, you know, positive, negative, whatever, that was something you’re not getting in the film school.
[00:13:19] Christian Chanter: Yes, exactly. Exactly.
[00:13:22] Marc Gonyea: You get out school. What happened?
[00:13:24] Christian Chanter: Yeah. So.
[00:13:25] Marc Gonyea: I wanna figure out how you got into memoryBlue, how you got into sales.
[00:13:28] Christian Chanter: Yeah. So when I got outta school, I was doing, obviously, still doing real estate, decided to do the property management side of it instead. Um, just met myself a consistent, real base salary stuff like that.
[00:13:40] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:41] Christian Chanter: Just needed a job out out of college. And so work property management, and the goal of that was kind of to help me develop more real estate wise and work with other agents and stuff like that. Unfortunately, it was just more so a kind of busy work. And I don’t know, I, I, I enjoyed doing it, but it was, it’s also one of those things where it’s a very stressful job, but when you’re talking property management, no one’s calling their property manager to tell you, “Hey, you’re doing a great job.”
[00:14:07] Like no, no human being has ever told a property manager that they’re doing a great job. Yeah. Like, so most of the calls you’re getting are people just angry about something. They need something fixed. Like something is broken, and they need, you know, Like their car might got broken and be like, it’s usually like something what to do with the property.
[00:14:25] And so it was just very like stressful, and you’re kind of dealing with some people that you like it’s B2C essentially, and when I realized, you know, working with the business to, directly with the customer or the client, it’s just they can kind of say whatever they want, they’re representing themselves, not representing the company.
[00:14:44] And so people tend to be a little bit ruder. They tend to like, not really care kind of what they’re saying and stuff. And so I went from property management, and actually worked at a cold calling center, just for real, other real estate agents doing that, and realized I was pretty good on the phones.
[00:14:59] I was able to get, you know, we had to get in a four, I had to work like a four-hour shift. It was only like, you know, part-time, um, they expect you to get like two meetings per shift. I could easily get like, you know, three to four pretty easily each time. Like it’s it was not it’s, it’s no, it’s more of a quantity thing. We had like a dialer about five people at the same time.
[00:15:16] Marc Gonyea: Oh, wow. Okay.
[00:15:17] Christian Chanter: Whoever picks up that’s what he takes. So, you know, kind of just powering through these lists. And that was like where I realized like, “Okay, like the cold calling side of it is really not like as difficult as I thought.” Like it’s a sense of just talking to people, kind of like what we’re doing now and just gauging interesting if they have any sort of interest at all, buy or selling a home, and if they don’t, not wasting any time, kind of getting onto the next one. And so that was kind of where I realized, like, I, I like kind of doing this. But out of college, you know, I did real estate since my junior year, I was kind of already kind of working these office stuff, and I just kind of needed a break at a certain point.
[00:15:52] And so I actually quit, um, and worked downtown at a bar for, I’d say, better part of a year. And then, actually, while I was there.
[00:16:01] Chris Corcoran: What were you doing there?
[00:16:01] I was bartending, bar backing, just doing everything. It was fun. I mean, I really enjoyed the job. It’s kind of one of those that you can kinda, you know, do whatever you want, and have a good time, especially when you’re 23, 24, you know, working at a large, great.
[00:16:16] Marc Gonyea: There’s a town to do that? Austin, Texas. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, this is the place to do that.
[00:16:22] Christian Chanter: Definitely. Yeah, it was, I mean, it was a lot of fun. It was right downtown. So it’s, you’re like in the middle of everything, you know, Friday, Saturday, Thur, Thursday nights too, always really busy. So, I, I did like doing that, but as always doing that, you know, I got, I did it for about a year, realized I have a degree, like I did to do something with this UT yeah.
[00:16:41] Marc Gonyea: Horns, horns up.
[00:16:42] Christian Chanter: Yeah. Yeah. Hook them. Yeah. Yeah. So, I realized, you know, I have a degree, I should probably do something with that. And, uh, I got a call from, I can’t remember who it was, but I, I put on my LinkedIn.
[00:16:55] I was looking and just updated it, called me, and was like, “Hey, you know, would you like to come in for an interview for memoryBlue?” Had no idea who memoryBlue was, had never heard of memoryBlue, right? She described it and was like, you know, that’s great. I think I.
[00:17:07] Marc Gonyea: Do you remember who it was?
[00:17:08] I can’t remember. It was like in 20, I think, it was 2018/2019. Um, it started in the fall of 2018 with this.
[00:17:17] Christian Chanter: Yeah. So what, yeah, so it was 2018, but what happened was I was going on a trip to Thailand. And so when I told her, “I was like, I’m gonna be gone for like, at least a week, probably two weeks, I’m going on this trip.”
[00:17:28] And she’s like, “Well, that’s not gonna work.” I was kind of like, “Oh, okay. Like, I mean, I’m still interested in the role. Like, you know, is there anyway, you know, maybe I can still interview and see what’s going on?” She’s like, “Honestly, like let’s have your trip happen. We’ll kind of see what goes on with that, and then reach back out, you know, afterwards.” And so, I went on this trip to Thailand, had a really good time and, you know, a month or two pass, and I figured I’d already lost the opportunity, you know, you don’t really get like multiple chances of things.
[00:17:55] Marc Gonyea: Sure.
[00:17:55] Christian Chanter: And so, looked on the website, you know, I remember her reaching me out, looked on the website kind of on a whim and was like, “You know what, I’ll reach back out, see if they’re still hiring.” And it worked. So I was able to get the interview and, um, yeah, that, that was that.
[00:18:09] Marc Gonyea: So that. And then, who’d you interview with?
[00:18:11] Christian Chanter: I interviewed with Christina.
[00:18:15] Marc Gonyea: Okay. Christina Lerullo.
[00:18:16] Christian Chanter: Yes. Yes. And. I don’t think Nimit did my interviews. I, I know he was, he was there. It was, it was mainly Christina. Okay.
[00:18:26] Um, Tina?
[00:18:28] Christian Chanter: Yes. Yes.
[00:18:28] Marc Gonyea: Okay, great. And what, what do you remember from that?
[00:18:32] Wow. That was, don’t really remember. The interview was, it was interesting. I do remember the biggest part I remember is the role-play. I’d never done anything like that. Like I knew what I was doing. Obviously, I’ve been on the phones before, but you know, B2B is a completely different.
[00:18:46] Christian Chanter: Not really that different, but it feels like a completely different animal when you get in there. And so I’d written this an entire script. I’ve been working with a bunch of other buddies that I, you know, that, that worked in, did cold calling a lot. Uh, so I got like a whole script together, ready to go.
[00:19:00] And I remember getting in there, and I was prepped for it to be like very difficult, a lot of objections, a lot of things I needed to handle. And it was really like much easier than I expected. And it kind of was like, “Is this how all these calls are gonna be?” And it kind of was like, there, it’s, it really translated pretty well into like actual call.
[00:19:16] Like there’s a few more objections here and there. Obviously, you gotta know more about the business that you calling for. Yeah. But. Yeah, no, it, it was.
[00:19:24] Marc Gonyea: Sounds like you were well prepared for it.
[00:19:25] Christian Chanter: I, yeah, I like to be more prepared for things than under-prepared. I have an Eagle Scout, so, always be prepared.
[00:19:31] Marc Gonyea: You left that out.
[00:19:32] Chris Corcoran: You try to sneak that back?
[00:19:36] Christian Chanter: Figured I’d just drop it.
[00:19:37] Marc Gonyea: That’s that’s, that’s another, another that Chris did not summit there, or me. You Eagle Scout, too?
[00:19:48] Christian Chanter: Yes.
[00:19:48] Chris Corcoran: Okay. What was your Eagle Scout project?
[00:19:51] Christian Chanter: So I went to, in Grapevine, there’s lake Grapevine, and there’s like a little camping, campsite area.
[00:19:56] So, I went and there’s a bunch of like concrete tables they already had out there, the numbers on them, where the paint was coming off, it was about a mile and a half of, of land in between all those. So I went and repainted the numbers on, put some new tables out, and also put some numbers on those, and then I was able to map them on a GPS and give that to the city so they could start actually you could like reserve an individual table on their website.
[00:20:19] Marc Gonyea: Oh, nice. So that’s cool.
[00:20:21] Christian Chanter: Yeah, it was.
[00:20:22] Chris Corcoran: Have you been back?
[00:20:23] Christian Chanter: I have been back actually a few times, the numbers are still like there. It’s obviously fading a bit. Sure. But we make sure to try to use some paint that stayed. Yeah. But yeah, that area’s been, it, it, like right after I did that, it was, they were already expecting it to kind of like get much more populated. It’s pretty hot area just for families, picnic, stuff like that.
[00:20:40] Chris Corcoran: So, great.
[00:20:41] Marc Gonyea: Why are you holding out on us? Right? Yeah. That’s a big deal, man. Yeah. That’s, let’s talk about your life. Just talk about that.
[00:20:48] Chris Corcoran: That’s a, that’s a, quite an accomplishment.
[00:20:50] Christian Chanter: Yeah. Yeah. It, it’s one of those things. I don’t know. I, I did it. I got my Eagle Scout when I was about 15, and kind of just, I don’t know, it, it was like much more of like a part of who I was already. And so I tried to distance for a little bit, but now it’s kind of like one of those things. Obviously, yeah, great accomplishment. But yeah.
[00:21:07] Chris Corcoran: Extremely impressive.
[00:21:08] Christian Chanter: Yeah. You kind of realize, you know, as a kid, you know, have to go camping once a month and do stuff like that. You don’t want to do it. You wanna stay in, you wanna play video games, you know, I just wanted to kind of relax on the weekends.
[00:21:19] And, but now that I’ve done all that, it’s like, I actually know how to go camping, and I can start fire, can tie these knots, and do all this other stuff. Gives you, once you get a little older, kind of a new view on, uh, how important it is.
[00:21:29] Chris Corcoran: That’s great.
[00:21:30] Marc Gonyea: More stuff I can’t do. And plus, when you a camping, they can’t bring the piano with you.
[00:21:34] Christian Chanter: Yeah. Well, sometimes you can. Yeah.
[00:21:36] Marc Gonyea: You can. Yeah, I’ve been there, too, for that, actually. Not on. All right. So did the role-play, you like, “I’m in.” What do you remember about it?
[00:21:44] Christian Chanter: I honestly wasn’t sure. I felt like I did good on the role play. But you know, it’s always, I’d done an interview for SHI also, and I thought I did well on that one as well, and never got a callback. And so, was cautiously optimistic is how I’d say it, that’s kind of about how I’d go about all my job interviews at this point. It’s very cautiously optimistic. So I, I had a good feeling about it, but, you know, didn’t wanna like say it, it went one way or the other in case, you know, I thought one thing.
[00:22:10] And you guys thought another. And so, kind of just waited it out. I think I got a call, not that long after, like a day or two after, letting me know, like, yeah, I got the role. So that was a great day, you know, good time. It kind of just like took a lot off of, of my chest ’cause I was still working at the bar and, you know, eventually, you’re kind of like, I need to be doing something that’s making a little bit more money. So, that was kind of a big reason for me getting out of that was just it wasn’t, it’s a lot of like, you’re on your feet for a long time, and you can feel the wear kind of happening on your body. Like I’d already had a, a moment where my back had kind of tense up at, while I was doing some stuff.
[00:22:47] Chris Corcoran: So listen to these 24-year-olds talk about their body breakdown.
[00:22:52] Christian Chanter: Yeah, that was the other thing. Like, I was like 24, 25, and I was, my body is like, like already kind of coming, coming apart.
[00:22:59] Chris Corcoran: So, Christian, you got a long road ahead, my man.
[00:23:02] Christian Chanter: Yeah. Yeah, definitely not a great indicator when that is already in pain, so.
[00:23:09] Marc Gonyea: All right. So you took the gig. What was it like when you started?
[00:23:13] Christian Chanter: It was interesting. I, I definitely feel like here, they kind of, they help you out, but they kind of just like put you in like kind of throw you into the fire, which I personally really like, I like that.
[00:23:24] I like kind of being able to kind of it’s, it’s not handholdy. It’s not really like going through and kind of like just kind of doing everything for you and like, and stuff like that. It’s more so like, I remember that first week was just kind of, “Here’s Salesforce. Here’s how you use it. Here’s your email stuff like that.”
[00:23:41] And we want to get you started on the phone, you know, as soon as possible. And so it was a little intimidating, obviously, getting on the phone first, especially calling, you know, the, I worked with DSG was the first client. It was very difficult. I was on the vPlaybook, and it’s just one, it was one of those products where it was company training, and every company is gonna try and keep their training in-house.
[00:24:00] Like no one wants to have like an external sales company coming in for their training unless they really, really need it. You know, like they’re gonna try and keep it in-house for as long as possible. And so it was interesting trying to figure out how to script that in and talk to these people to get them to kind of see the other way.
[00:24:16] And then I, you were talking with titles, you know, I was talking, the first meeting I got was a, I think a CFO. So talking with C-level people immediately off the bat was very like pretty intimidating at first ’cause you just see these titles.
[00:24:28] Marc Gonyea: Of course.
[00:24:28] Christian Chanter: And you don’t.
[00:24:29] Marc Gonyea: Yeah.
[00:24:29] Christian Chanter: You don’t know how important this person is to the company. You don’t know kind of, like their experiences and stuff like that, and so you kind of expect them to be, you know, just like not better than you, but like a new kind of experience.
[00:24:42] Marc Gonyea: It’s the equal business stature thing. Yes. Yeah. Right. That a huge problem with that coming into sales. And I had done business to consumers still like door-to-door sales. But that, to me, was it as, I don’t know, was it as scary as calling somebody like your parents’ age? Who, who’s been doing the same thing for 20 years, 25 years? And you’re interrupting their day. And you want to be respectful ’cause that’s kind of how you were raised. You need to be respectful, but you’re interrupting this person’s day. Yes. It’s a little intimidating.
[00:25:14] Christian Chanter: Yeah. And they’re at work, too. And you kind of are just like, you know, I don’t wanna stop on any toes or anything, but you, I, you know, the further you get in, you realize like, yeah, I’m not disturbing their day. That’s what, you know, this is something that, you know, they, they need, like, you gotta kind of switch, shift your mindset, and be like, you know, like I’m helping these people. Like this product I’m selling is something that can make your day-to-day life easier.
[00:25:35] It’s not gonna make your life harder, you know? Right? So like, if you actually like, you know, you kind of find the people that are stuck in their ways and don’t want to do anything new, and you find the people that are willing to innovate, do some new things, and to try like new products and new things like that to really ease up time in their day.
[00:25:53] And so kind of judging, being able to figure that out on the phone was really interesting. It’s, it’s an interesting process.
[00:25:59] Marc Gonyea: New skill you learn. Yes, yes. Develop.
[00:26:01] Christian Chanter: Yeah. And so like at first, obviously, don’t really know what you’re you’re doing or saying, or I hope that you don’t say anything to kind of insult these people, but, um, it was, uh, definitely interesting kind of going from B2C, talking to like people at home, you’ll talk to people who are like, “Oh, I’m in the middle of dinner.” Or, “Oh, like, yeah, I’m, I’m retired,” or stuff like that, and now speaking with people, who’s like, this is their role is to like, look at new things, take calls like this, and kind of branch out for the company. And so, I feel like when I, when I called people, especially going from B2C, the people from B2B were actually much easier to speak with because this is their job. Like they, they expect these kinds of things. And so, I actually enjoyed it a lot more. Unless was not as difficult as talking to people where you have literally interrupted like the dinner or something, and they’re much more likely to kind of cut you out or, or tell you how they really feel kind of stuff.
[00:26:53] Marc Gonyea: So, yeah.
[00:26:54] Who are you with? You’re on a team? You’re on team Tina? Who, who was, who else was on, on the floor with you?
[00:27:56] Christian Chanter: So, I started on team Tina. I was with Sam, Julia Byrne was my.
[00:28:01] Marc Gonyea: Julia. Podcast. Let’s go.
[00:28:03] Christian Chanter: Yeah, she was my, like I guess, mentor. She helped me kind of get everything started. I got hired with Nick Foley. Um, Chelsea. I can’t remember her last name and, and Hailey. Okay. So, um,worked with, worked. It was the four of us that got hired. And so, and. I sat next to Wills as well.
[00:28:22] Marc Gonyea: Okay.
[00:28:22] Chris Corcoran: Wills Coleman.
[00:28:23] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, he was here yesterday evening. Yes. Yeah. How, what was that like?
[00:28:28] Christian Chanter: It was interesting. I think I was the only one thrown on a different client. So like those, you know, those three, they were able to kind of work together, and, you know, work on their client and kind of talk with each other.
[00:28:38] And it was me and Julia, but Julia had a different section of, of DSG. So was really. Like not on my, well kind of on my own and kind of had to figure out how to get this messaging out. Obviously, we, was still working with Tina and everyone else, but it was kind of like figuring out, you know, how do I get the message out that these people need like a, this vPlaybook, this like training, like essentially, there’s like a like a platform that you can pull your training resources on. And so like trying to figure out how to get these people to like drum up interest for that was kind of what I was.
[00:29:14] Chris Corcoran: Kinda like a learning management system?
[00:29:16] Christian Chanter: Yeah. A little bit, yes. Like it pretty similar to a learning management system.
[00:29:20] Marc Gonyea: Wow. Who’d you learn from? Like, who would, you know, you’re doing your thing, who on that team or, or anyone else at the office? Like, “Man, this person’s pretty good. Like I need to like, make sure I listen to what they’re doing.”
[00:29:30] Christian Chanter: I learned from pretty much everyone, really. So, I like to kind of listen in on everyone. I feel like when I first started, it was one of those things where it’s like, I don’t wanna talk to anyone, like not talk to anyone, but I can do this on my own. You know, I think I got it. Like, I’ve always been able to kind of figure it out.
[00:29:45] Marc Gonyea: You had experience calling people.
[00:29:47] Chris Corcoran: He was flashing his Eagle Scout badge.
[00:29:49] Christian Chanter: Yeah. Let number one know.
[00:29:52] Chris Corcoran: But do you know who I am?
[00:29:53] Marc Gonyea: You see this? You put it up on his.
[00:29:55] Christian Chanter: Yeah. Yeah. Let know there’s a new sheriff in town. I like didn’t really wanna take any help at first. And then, realize that’s not the way to go really quickly. Can’t learn if you’re learning from yourself, and all you’re doing is making mistakes. So, um.
[00:30:11] Marc Gonyea: That sounds like working from your house. Yeah. Yeah. And not for experienced people, but for people who would knew into this role.
[00:30:17] Christian Chanter: Yes. Yeah. And so I went to the people who, I went to, Wills helped me out a lot. Julia really helped me out a lot. They obviously, they more tenured people. Uh, Tina would help me when she can.
[00:30:26] She’s obviously very busy. Yeah. So it was kind of one of those ones where, you know, I would get her help when I could get her help. But the other people on the team were obviously much more readily available. They’re not like going into meetings and stuff all the time.
[00:30:36] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. She’s a professional.
[00:30:37] Christian Chanter: Yes.
[00:30:37] Marc Gonyea: She was really good delivery manager.
[00:30:39] Christian Chanter: She was very good. Yeah. Great.
[00:30:41] Marc Gonyea: They got a bunch of stuff going on in their day. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So you learn from your teammates, and what do, what do you remember learning from them?
[00:30:46] I just remember kind of, I mean, a big thing was like, “Ignore the title.” That was definitely something that was a, kind of almost like a hurdle, was kind of like ignore the title.
[00:30:55] Christian Chanter: Like at the end of the day, these are just people, you know, they have these roles and stuff, but they’re, they’re still people like, they’re not better or worse than you. They’re just, you were all in the same point field. Yeah. And so figuring that out was, was useful, and then just listening to their calls and seeing how they talk to people.
[00:31:10] I mean, it’s really.
[00:31:12] Marc Gonyea: Love that.
[00:31:12] Christian Chanter: Yeah. It’s hard to pinpoint kind of what exactly like specific things I took. It was just like lines that I’d hear. I know like tip of the spear was a big one that I know people use how to.
[00:31:22] Marc Gonyea: Hate that one. Yeah.
[00:31:23] Christian Chanter: Yeah.
[00:31:24] Marc Gonyea: I don’t like that one.
[00:31:25] Christian Chanter: I wanna change it all.
[00:31:26] Marc Gonyea: I kinda like it in the right context. I like where they’re going with it, but I don’t like how some people deliver it. Yeah. I’m not talking about Wills and Julia, but.
[00:31:34] Christian Chanter: Yeah, no, it’s, it’s one of those, and they didn’t really, it was mainly Foley that would use that a lot. Okay. Foley. Yeah. ‘Cause I know he, he, he knew. Yeah. Well, he knew some people coming in. I think he, he knew like, Labay. And Ruben and some of them already been at memoryBlue. So, he already had an idea of what to say on the phone. I was kind of just figuring it out, seeing what works, what doesn’t. So yeah, tip of the spear. I remember saying that a lot and I was like, I, I kind of wanna change this up to like more like, you know, top of the glacier, things like that, you know, you know, I’m outta this, the entry point, like this, let ’cause I did feel too, like being honest with these people, letting ’em know, like they know that there’s people that people are gonna be calling them to essentially set a meeting so that they can meet with an AE and actually, you know, get the information they need, and set up sometimes and get the contract and everything going, and figuring that out, like was kind of key to just like, letting, like, making sure that they know like that they’re ex, kind of almost expecting these calls in a way, so.
[00:32:31] Marc Gonyea: And what did you get good at? What was like Christian’s, like, you know, move or superpower?
[00:32:38] Christian Chanter: Yeah. Honestly, I think, I kind of just like, I just like to kind of talk. And so talking to these people, just like letting them know off the bat, like, you know, I’m not, I don’t know everything. I’m just, I, I can tell you certain things, but the whole reason for me to calling you is how to drum up some interest for you, and get you to kind of really go and see more and, and get some interest going and kind of just letting people know that like, I’m, I’m kind of just at that starting point, you know. But like, if you do have some interest in really digging into those like problems that people have getting into that pain, yeah, I never really had a go-to, I think I kind of just I’d play by ear whichever way the call was going.
[00:33:15] You know, there’s sometimes you get someone on the call, you can. Immediately, they don’t wanna talk to you. So sometimes, it’s just the timing of everything, you know? So, I got better at being able to, “Okay, sounds like this isn’t a great time. How about we, I reach back out at another time?” And typically, you could get those people right back.
[00:33:31] So, um, it was always interesting doing that, but I, I, I honestly would say the biggest thing I did was just volume of calls. I did a lot of calls. Like I was prob, I was doing over a hundred calls every day. I think the most dials I made today was like 200 in like 40 or something like that. So, and that was, obviously, a lot of people were not answering the phone at that day, but yeah, I was just making sure to have a high volume of calls ’cause like the more you, it’s the quantity, you know, aspect of it like you get, and the more people you get on the line, the higher chance you have of someone saying yes. That’s probably my biggest thing was just making sure I made as many dials as possible.
[00:34:09] Chris Corcoran: Okay. Yeah.
[00:34:11] Marc Gonyea: So, you’re in the role working with the team, learning what works, what doesn’t, what your, what your kind of superpower is. It sounds like you was experienced in perspective and getting over, you know, really adopting an equal business status or mindset.
[00:34:24] What’d you think you wanted to do? Like there some clients that jumped out at you more than others or, you like, okay, this sales thing now you’re starting to see you’re passing these leads to the client’s AEs. Yeah. Right. And you’re getting a feel for what they do every day, you know, how they handle the calls since you’re set up.
[00:34:40] Christian Chanter: Yeah. I had to really, I was so open to anyone, honestly, that there were a few that kind of stood out. I worked with AM transport, which was more of a logistics company, and that one I liked. Just kind of, it, it wasn’t like a super difficult kind of call to make a lot of these people are willing to kind of try out some new lines and see some new companies and have ’em try out, and it was interesting, too.
[00:35:03] The guy, the guy I worked with was also like he was in charge of like marketing and sales and he did like, he kind of, he did everything, and he was really willing to like, get out some new marketing material, like, work with us, like constantly, like, it actually felt like I was a part of his like SDR team instead of sometimes people treat it like a client, like you’re just a client.
[00:35:21] Yeah. And it’s difficult to kind of get them to change the strategy because you don’t work for them. And so you can be telling them kind of what you’re hearing on the ground, stuff like that, and they just don’t wanna, they don’t wanna listen. They think that their strategy is the way to go. And so working with them, it gave me an idea of kind of the type of company I wanna work with, which what was, when you know, you’re on the team, you can tell them what’s happening.
[00:35:42] You can tell them what they need to be changing or need to be not changing.
[00:35:45] Marc Gonyea: So, you like working with clients that were interactive with you?
[00:35:48] Christian Chanter: Yes. Right.
[00:35:49] Marc Gonyea: And kind of mixed with what we did as more strategic versus just like showing fluent calls and asking for results.
[00:35:55] Christian Chanter: Exactly. Yeah. Instead of it, it was more of like a, it felt more like a teamwork thing instead of like, “Okay, did you get meetings week? Okay. Why not? Okay. Well, then, let’s change that.” And like, it, it felt like ’cause David was the guy’s name on AM transport. He was willing to work and change things up. Like change, “Okay. Well, how about we do this kind of line or this kind of line for it?” So, they had like, you know, they called, um, their like refrigerator lines, the reefer line.
[00:36:24] So that was like their, they’re like, sometimes that’d be more popular in certain areas. And so, like, he’d be willing to kind of push messaging for certain things. He’d actually get us marking materials based off of things we’re telling him about what we’re hearing. That, that’s good.
[00:36:38] Yeah. It was always, it was very, it was a very like hands-on. Like, it felt like I was actually part of the company, and so it gave me an idea of, okay, like, this feels like, you know, where I wanna kind of be. Unfortunately, AM transport had to, they, I think something financially kind of came up, and they were, had to drop us. But it was like a really good experience for me. I really liked working with that one.
[00:36:56] Marc Gonyea: And how did that translate into where you wanted to move? Start thinking about what you wanna do ’cause you were with us for 15 months.
[00:37:03] Christian Chanter: 15 months, right? Yeah. Yeah.
[00:37:05] Marc Gonyea: So, you saw all sorts of things. You saw people getting hired by clients, you saw people getting promoted internally. Right? The DM roles, the sales roles. So, what were you kind of thinking, and then, you know, great, you were, you, I think that’s a lot of people don’t have the fortitude, right, to kind of get to that milestone that you got to. As you were approaching that, where did you think you wanted to go?
[00:37:25] Definitely wanted do the AE side. So definitely, was like really wanted to work closing, doing the actual, like full cycle process, really gave me an idea of kind of like, okay. Like, I, I like, like this is like, SDR works like that, foot in the door.
[00:37:38] Christian Chanter: And then, I want to do more of like quiet relationship. Actually, now that I’ve got the foot in the door, actually talking to them, actually form a relationship with these people, actually like, doing like the full cycle, and getting people to actually get interested in, and really kind of, you know, interacting with people.
[00:37:53] And it was more I, I got like the initial, okay. This is the initial side. Now I kind of wanna actually like contribute and help out these like companies I’m working for and actually bring clients in and like, be like, “Hey, I draft that client for this company. You know, I was able to bring in this much business.”
[00:38:08] And so that kind of was like, I got an idea of what the first part is. Now, I want to kind of get into the, into the more of like everything, you know. So, yeah, definitely might wanna do more of the closing side, so.
[00:38:21] Marc Gonyea: Nice.
[00:38:22] Chris Corcoran: And so how’d you get there?
[00:38:23] So I’m still working with the, um, SDR side, as of right now. My company is, they’re still growing, and so I’m obviously still actively looking for new AE roles and stuff like that. With what we’re selling right now, it’s, pretty intense. It’s very, um, you need a lot more industry knowledge than, you know, I, I worked, so when I left memoryBlue, I went to an education software company. And that one is a little bit more straightforward. The deal cycle, I think was more like three months.
[00:38:54] Chris Corcoran: Okay, were you selling?
[00:38:55] Christian Chanter: I was selling, I specifically sold the course evaluation software. So, they had six different products, since we helped in all varieties of universities.
[00:39:04] Chris Corcoran: I see.
[00:39:04] And so I mainly saw the, it was called valuation kit. And that was where it was just selling like, essentially, just calling people and seeing like, how are your course evaluations going. So at the end of every like semester, all of the students take that little Scantron and then turn in, and we got it to be digital.
[00:39:20] Christian Chanter: And so it was, was the most successful product they had. And so we were able to do that. Unfortunately, pandemic strikes, was unfortunately, laid off with the entire SDR team. Half the sales team was laid off. Head of sales, I think, was also let go. It was like a big, education software was not very hot when the pandemic started, especially since everyone was working, going home, and you weren’t sure if school was gonna be in session. And so that kind of you know, it wasn’t great, but you know, you kind of learned like, it’s, it was not my fault, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, can’t really control a global pandemic. Right.
[00:39:51] Chris Corcoran: So you, you leave there for the pandemic and then, and then how what’d you find next?
[00:39:56] Christian Chanter: Yeah, so that one’s in a little bit of a limbo for a bit, and then was able to find my current company, Lyra Health. And so we’re a mental healthcare benefits company. So you need to be really involved with.
[00:40:07] Chris Corcoran: That’s hot right now.
[00:40:08] Christian Chanter: Yes. Very hot. And it’s involved with the, um, benefit side of companies like insurance side.
[00:40:14] So, and healthcare side, which is a completely new animal. I know some memoryBlue clients have been in the healthcare industry. And just like talking with some of those people in the past, like I knew kind of how big the industry is, and how like there’s things changing constantly. There’s a lot of moving parts in it.
[00:40:32] Chris Corcoran: So, what are you selling and who are you selling to?
[00:40:33] I work enterprise right now. We sell a, it’s essentially just a healthcare benefit. We have our own network of providers. And so we, essentially, we can be an EAP replacement, employee assistance program replacement, or we can be just an add on to current services and stuff that you have. So, very long process. It takes, like, I’d say, the sales cycles are sitting at six months is, is looking as quick. And we’ll have ones that go for years, you know, stuff like that, but it’s a, it’s interesting kind of seeing that whole process ’cause you need to be able to kind of, you, we’ll have to speak with benefits consultants.
[00:41:07] Christian Chanter: You’ll have to speak with people on benefits teams. Well, sometimes, you call companies that are, I’m, I’m calling companies that are about 3000 to 10,000 employees typically, and for some reason, that’s kind of a weird spot where companies haven’t really fully fleshed out a benefits team yet, so they might have an idea of a benefits team, but no real true benefits team yet.
[00:41:27] And some companies have it like completely ready and done and good to go. And so, when the company doesn’t have that fully fleshed out, it’s hard to kind of get in contact with the correct person who can, who can essentially be like, “Yeah, we can implement that.”
[00:41:39] Or, “No, we, we can’t implement that.” And the titles change and stuff like that.
[00:41:45] Chris Corcoran: Navigating that.
[00:41:46] Christian Chanter: Yes. Yeah. It’s, it’s a lot of like trying to figure out, “Okay, this person might say, you know, benefits, but they’re not actually involved with it.” And sometimes, you’ll talk with someone who has a title that says benefits analyst, which typically is, you know, the lowest level, but they’re actually in charge of the entire program. That’s just their title, you know?
[00:42:03] Chris Corcoran: Well, CC, what’s the first rule of being an SDR?
[00:42:08] Christian Chanter: Man.
[00:42:09] Chris Corcoran: Ignore the title.
[00:42:10] Christian Chanter: Ignore the title, right?
[00:42:11] Chris Corcoran: Ignore the title. Ignore the title.
[00:42:13] Christian Chanter: Yeah. Yeah. So had to ignore the, yeah. It’s an interesting kind of, um, reach out. It’s definitely, in order to become an AE there, all of our AEs are extremely tenured and very, very, you know, good at what they do.
[00:42:26] So getting a new opportunity in the field is, it’s a lot more learning than, um, you know, some other roles to get in, like for evaluation kit, you know, getting into that AE role is, it’s obvious, it’s not easy, but it’s much more kind of straightforward than with the benefit space. It’s a lot of moving parts.
[00:42:44] Yeah. So it’s interesting. And I, I definitely wanna do more of this company. I feel like we’re really doing a lot, especially mental healthcare and that really being like a big thing during this pandemic. You know, there’s just been a lot of incidents that have happened.
[00:42:57] People being at home by themselves, you know, all day. It’s it’s, you know, people need human interaction and stuff like that. So being able to provide mental healthcare services, it actually, you know, improves companies like they actually are going to have like, you know, better workforce, less burnout, less just like people, just like not performing after peak because they’re not feeling after peak. And so, just helping those people out, and really like making a difference in that space, I feel like is something that, you know, I like doing, and I like kind of helping people out in that. So kind of probably wanna stay here as far as long as possible.
[00:43:34] Marc Gonyea: Speaking of helping people out. Right? You obviously, I think you got a really good handle on the role, right? On, on how to execute the role. Yes. Yes. Right? Undoubtedly. So, ’cause you’ve been doing it for a while. Not for that long, but like, remember your careers, some long-term career. People get all, get it, all twisted that they get.
[00:43:51] They’re still going out on an SDR that this is a good route to go. My guess is you’re work on people who have so much experience as you. So, how do you like that part of the game, like to helping people develop their game and mentor and people?
[00:44:06] Christian Chanter: It’s interesting. Yeah, actually at my company, I was, um, ’cause we’re, we’re still very much startupy, much bigger now, but when I started, I think I was like the 240th employee.
[00:44:15] The SDR team had three people before I got on. We expanded to 10. Now we’re sitting on about 30, 30, and 35 people, that’s within like two years. So, but when I started, a big thing for me was I got together a lot of people ’cause it’s all virtual, it’s all work from home. So, they’re located from Berlin to San Francisco.
[00:44:33] So everyone I, I worked with was all over the nation. And so I made a point to kind of make a program that got everyone together and we called it a best practices meeting. You get everyone to kind of talk about what it’s working. Got that one set up.
[00:44:46] Marc Gonyea: And why, why’d you do that?
[00:44:47] Just wanted first off, kind of get everyone to kind of talk with each other, you know, as we interact, and then second off, I mean, like we were a brand new SDR team. We really did not know. Like there had been three people doing this for a, like a little bit of, kind of a year. And so, but they even were still developing processes and stuff like that. And so, just bringing everyone in, hearing, like what are common objections we’re hearing? What are some things that are giving us some resistance?
[00:45:12] Christian Chanter: Like, what, what have you done in this situation to kind of turn this person and get them in? It really helped out, especially since like, we didn’t know what, you know what to say, certain objections. I mean, certain objections we’d get. Go to marketing, and they hadn’t even heard that one. They’re like, “Oh wow, that’s a new one. Like we should get some materials going for that ASAP.” And so, it was just, it’s one of those things where I was like, wanted to help get the team building and, and going and, and doing more. And so, yeah, it was just something I felt like just needed to happen. And, you know, when I first got on, I was struggling a little bit, you know, it’s just, it’s a weird space.
[00:45:45] Marc Gonyea: It was your experience, too. Yeah, right?
[00:45:46] Christian Chanter: Yeah. So it was like, it was hard to kind of get into the role, especially with where I’d like certain people I’d worked with. I’d never worked, worked with healthcare, and then I finally had a month where I just like blew up. I had like, I think I had 10 meetings booked that month, which was like, typically they expect us to get like three to four meetings a month. So, I was able to get about 10 blew up, and then kept going, kept hitting quota after that. And so, but the whole reason that even happened is I went to literally every single person that was performing well.
[00:46:14] I went to the people who were killing it at the SDR role, met with them at least once a week to figure out what they were doing, what they were seeing, how they’re messaging. And then, I met with the top AEs in the role. We call ’em partnerships directors. I met with a lot of those people to see like, “Okay, first off, did you do SDR work at all? And then second off, like what is making you successful at the partnerships director level?” ‘Cause there’s, you know, they’re hearing certain things, they go through the whole process. So, they’ll hear things later on that it’s like that would’ve been great if we’d heard that earlier, we could have definitely addressed that, you know, in the initial call.
[00:46:46] And so peering some of those later stage things, and being able to bring them in was like a huge thing. I mean, even at memoryBlue, I’d worked with some of the AEs here. I worked with Bruce Horner. Yeah, so I’d work with him, and he really helped me out. Like, he’d take, like, I’d actually go over, listen to my calls and gimme some advice.
[00:47:03] And so I wanted to kind of pass that on to where I was currently at and kind of get draw on their, you know, experience of these people. So.
[00:47:10] Marc Gonyea: That’s another thing. Yeah. Right. That’s another like key items, go find the people who are doing the job well, and find out what they’re doing.
[00:47:17] Christian Chanter: Yeah. Yeah. And I was, and that was actually a big thing I did learn here was, you know, if someone’s successful, there’s a reason they’re successful. Go talk to them, see what’s happening. And so, that’s what I go. And do you know, if someone else is killing it, I want to know what you’re doing? Like, how do I get to where you’re at or exceed that?
[00:47:34] Marc Gonyea: And then you brought it to the public forum. Right. You didn’t keep it to yourself. Some people will try and do, right? But you said, “Okay, let’s all get on the call and let’s share this with everyone.”
[00:47:44] Christian Chanter: Yes. Yeah. And it’s like, “Hey, get the actual team to be successful.”
[00:47:47] You know, I, I feel pretty strongly about, you know, like. You know, you can be successful, but if everyone else isn’t being successful, that’s really bad for us with the company as a whole, and so it doesn’t matter if you’re successful. If the company is not successful, then that success is gonna run out.
[00:48:02] And so I just really wanted to make sure that we kind of, had a process for doing, we still actually do the best practices meeting to this day. Yeah.
[00:48:10] Marc Gonyea: So anybody tells you to do those?
[00:48:11] Christian Chanter: No. Just felt like, kind of getting some people together. Like to be ready, you know, like to be prepared as they say.
[00:48:20] Chris Corcoran: You’re prepared. So, hey, looking back, before you started as an SDR if you could talk to you the night before you started as an SDR, what advice would you give yourself?
[00:48:29] Christian Chanter: Honestly, just kind of, I think like, relax, be yourself. It can seem intimidating, I think, at first, especially coming from nothing, you know, you’ve never worked within Corporate America, ever seen like the corporate side of stuff.
[00:48:41] It can be very intimidating to kind of get into the office life and think like, “Okay, I’m gonna be talking with some like pretty big names, powerful people,” stuff like that. And just kind of like go with the flow, you know, it’s not as big of a deal as kind of like, at least in my head, that I made it out to be, you know, I thought, you know, it’s kind of make or break.
[00:49:01] You know, you hear things about sales where it’s like, if you’re not successful for X amount of time, they’ll just let you go, which, you know, can happen at certain companies, but it’s like your success, you know, you’re, you’re gonna have up months and down months. And on the down months, especially like not to get to in your head and think like, “Okay, like this might not be for me,” just kind of put your nose back to the grindstone and keep going.
[00:49:23] You know, and eventually, you will see success is kind of how I see it. So, just keep going. It’s a big thing. So.
[00:49:30] Marc Gonyea: And, and your goal is to get into one of those closing roles. Yes, right?
[00:49:35] Christian Chanter: Yes. Yeah. Right.
[00:49:36] Marc Gonyea: And like, be patient sounds like.
[00:49:39] Christian Chanter: Yeah. Yeah. And there’s a, I mean, like always kind of be learning what’s going on. There’s a lot you can be learning while doing the SDR role. I mean, it does prepare you for the AE closing role. It’s not like, you know, it’s not like they’re two completely separate roles. They go pretty hand in hand. So that’s another thing, too, is just like realizing the AE is just kind of like the advanced part of what we’re doing.
[00:49:59] It’s like the full role instead of kind of, this is more of like the intro and then was kind of like doing, like, you do it all, doing the actual sale instead of kind of just like getting the conversation going and stuff like that, which, you know, I like getting the conversation going. It’s pretty easy for me, but, um, you know, while continuing to maintain that relationship and do stuff like that definitely on what I wanna be doing the, in the near future hopefully.
[00:50:24] Marc Gonyea: All right. You’ll I, I, you’ll definitely get there. I’ll tell you what, if we can get people to come here and execute for 15 months, they’re gonna be much better prepared for the next step, I think.
[00:50:37] Christian Chanter: Yes. Yeah. I, I agree.
[00:50:39] Chris Corcoran: The data suggests.
[00:50:42] Marc Gonyea: The data, data don’t lie. So. Thanks for joining us.
[00:50:47] Christian Chanter: Yeah. Thanks for having me. This was good.
[00:50:49] Chris Corcoran: Lots of wisdom.
[00:50:50] Christian Chanter: I like to think so. Yeah.
[00:50:53] Chris Corcoran: Very good. Well, thanks, CC, really enjoyed our time together.
[00:50:56] Christian Chanter: Yeah. Thank you, CC, right back at you.