Episode 103: Matt Gloger –  Focus On What You Can Control

The ever-normalized remote nature of work nowadays may not be the most beneficial environment for SDRs just entering the sales world. Matt Gloger highlights the ways in which he greatly benefited from starting out in person and being fully immersed in the team-centered approach at memoryBlue.

In this episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers, Matt Gloger, SW Enterprise AE at QTS Data Centers, discusses different sales roles, the benefit of the SDR role for a sales career, and the drawbacks of remote work.

Guest-At-A-Glance

💡 Name: Matt Gloger

💡 What he does:  Matt is the SW enterprise account executive at QTS Data Centers. 

💡 Company: QTS Data Centers

💡 Noteworthy: Matt was born and raised in Northern Virginia and went to high school and college there. He majored in International Business and German at Randolph-Macon College. He worked at memoryBlue for three years, and today, he is a regional sales executive for QTS Data Centers in Austin, TX. Matt’s focus is on building hybrid IT infrastructure solutions for clients on their mission-critical IT projects across the US and Europe.

💡 Where to find Matt: LinkedIn | Website

Key Insights

⚡ The SDR role is key to a successful sales career. Before coming to memoryBlue, Matt had never had a sales job and was working in the retail and service industry. As he says, it was stressful when he entered the BDR/SDR role, but he learned different techniques and ways to approach things. “It’s not the most glamorous job in the world, but it’s where you gotta start if you want to build the tower. […] I try not to overthink things. I just get my feet wet and my hands dirty. I was like, ‘Just let me get on the phone; I’ll figure it out.’ And it’s like sports; the more at-bats you get, the higher chance you have to get a hit.”

⚡ You don’t need to be an expert in the SDR job. It’s common knowledge that you can get into sales with no prior experience and that many successful salespeople or CEOs entered the world of sales from a completely different industry. Matt advises that when you step into sales, don’t pay attention to others who may be experts in the business; instead, focus on your job and do it to the best of your ability to get ahead. “You just have to know your role and be good at that portion of it, which is getting somebody on the phone, holding them for about a minute and a half at the longest, asking enough qualifying questions that it’s worth your AE’s time, and then just getting time on their calendar.”

⚡ Remote work is not good for those who are just starting out. Thanks to the pandemic, many companies switched to working from home, and some have kept working remotely. According to Matt, although there are different tools that you can use if you’re just getting started as an SDR, you’ve got to have a team around you. “You gotta be able to sit and work with people near you to learn the ropes, pick up best practices; it helps. […] You get a step in the right direction, especially in that SDR role, being around folks who are going through the trials and tribulations, just like you do at the memoryBlue office or any other office.”

Episode Highlights

Matt as an SDR at memoryBlue

“My job was to usually set up around 20 qualified meetings with prospects and up-and-coming technology companies — usually VC-backed that we had worked with before — with heads of sales, heads of marketing, BD leaders, chief marketing officers, chief sales officers, CROs; try to get them on the line, pitch memoryBlue, put pants in a good light, and set up the AEs for success.”

Account Executive – memoryBlue Direct Hire

“I had no clue what direct hire was, but in short, direct hire is outsourcing recruiting services. And so, essentially, I got promoted into an AE position for memoryBlue direct hire, and I was selling recruiting services to tech companies looking to hire SDRs. […]This was starting from nothing. So I did this for a total of six months, but it was great for me because it put a lot of responsibility and gave me a lot of opportunities at a relatively early stage in my career. And it’s great to have that one on a resume; you’re almost managing your own book of business at that point.”

Matt’s Role as an Account Executive at memoryBlue

“I started that role right after the holidays. It was a struggle at first, but at that point in time, for any of the new AEs that they brought on, they all had paired us with a mentor. Mine was Carley Armentrout. She’s awesome — still one of the best salespeople I’ve ever worked with in my life. And she showed me the ropes and got me going fairly quickly. And at that point in time, I think we had a ramp of like three months or something; we were still doing a draw at that point. So it took me about two months to start getting some wins. I got my first one in February and built up a pretty sizable pipeline that I was stoked for. And then, COVID decided to enter the building, and I decided to go on a cruise right before COVID, and that was the last I ever saw that pipeline.”

Matt’s Job at QTS Data Centers

“They brought me on to almost an inside selling role; they call it retail, which is just smaller opportunities that you’re working. And then, I got promoted in April to a field position, so I’ve been in the field selling role now for about six months. […]

In the past few years, they had doubled in size without taking on additional funding. So they’d done it organically; their stock share price had grown consistently over those few years.

There are folks that had worked at memoryBlue, gone there, and been successful for a while. One thing I’m big on, honestly, is working with people you enjoy being around. Sales is hard. […] You need that support system. So I’d seen what success looked like there. I’d seen how the company had managed the whole COVID situation successfully. And the data center and IT infrastructure world is something that’s never going away.”

Transcript: 

[00:00:00] Getting somebody on the phone, honestly, holding them for about a minute and a half at the longest, asking enough qualifying questions that, you know, it’s worth your AEs time, and then just getting time on their calendar.

[00:00:12] Matt Gloger: And once I realized that, and just realized, I was honestly numbers game and realized what the personas they need to be reaching out to were, like, it’s just a simple formula at that point. 

[00:00:22] Marc Gonyea: Matthew Gloger in the house. 

[00:00:45] Matt Gloger: Marc Gonyea, Chris. 

[00:00:47] Chris Corcoran: Matt Gloger.

[00:00:48] Matt Gloger: Glad to be here.

[00:00:49] Chris Corcoran: It’s great to, uh, come to Austin, and get a chance to sit down with someone who we spent so much time with up in, uh, Northern Virginia. 

[00:00:57] Matt Gloger: Yeah.

[00:00:57] Chris Corcoran: Good seeing you again. 

[00:00:58] Matt Gloger: Great to see some familiar faces. Welcome.

[00:01:00] Chris Corcoran: Looking forward to catching up with you. 

[00:01:02] Marc Gonyea: You did something I wasn’t brave enough to do, you moved here.

[00:01:06] Matt Gloger: Well, COVID and Northern Virginia traffic made it an easiest decision. So. 

[00:01:11] Marc Gonyea: Still a big decision. So, for those listening, Matt, born and raised in Northern Virginia, right?

[00:01:17] Matt Gloger: Yep. Leesburg, Virginia.

[00:01:18] Marc Gonyea: School, college in Virginia. 

[00:01:20] Matt Gloger: Correct. 

[00:01:21] Marc Gonyea: And then, worked for us for a while, which we’ll get to, but moved down to Austin the summer of 2020.

[00:01:26] Matt Gloger: Mm-hmm, right in the early stages of COVID. 

[00:01:30] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:01:30] Matt Gloger: Well, I’d been down here a few times before, so I really liked it. Wasn’t gonna let COVID stop me. 

[00:01:35] Marc Gonyea: So, now, now, after being on this podcast, you need to get it on the, the other two, what is it, most, what’s your, uh, 

[00:01:42] Chris Corcoran: So, I like to tell everyone we’re the third most popular podcast recorded in Austin, behind Joe Rogan,

[00:01:49] Matt Gloger: Okay.

[00:01:50] Chris Corcoran: and Tim Ferriss.

[00:01:52] Marc Gonyea: It’s just, you gotta figure out how to go in those two podcasts. 

[00:01:54] Matt Gloger: I’d love to be on the Joe Rogan podcast, but, uh,I’m not familiar with Tim Ferriss, so we’ll have to listen up.

[00:02:01] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Oh yeah, he’s good. He’d be upset that you said that. That’s okay, he’s not listening, so you’ll be okay. 

[00:02:07] All right, Matt, we know a little bit about you ’cause we had the pleasure of working with you. There’s sometimes we don’t know, definitely people listening don’t know, right? So, the fact that you were in SDR and you did all these great things for us, and you closed and you did this for three years, so we’ve got SDRs who work for us now, people who are thinking about coming to work here, people who recruiting to join the sales team, internal, they wanna know about all those things, but let’s start with, like, I already, I set the table a little bit, but tell us a little about where you’re from, growing up, some of those things, what you liked as a kid, and we’ll kind of go from there. 

[00:02:38] Matt Gloger: Yeah, yeah. Sure thing. Well, Marc, like you said, raised in Northern Virginia, Leesburg, Virginia. Went to high school there, decided to start my career there, but, uh, when I first grew up in Leesburg, it was still horse country, it was really farm town, nothing was really going on there, was seen as really the outskirts of Virginia and also DC area. 

[00:02:58] Marc Gonyea: Total, totally. Leesburg, where’s that? 

[00:03:03] Matt Gloger: Yeah, you don’t hear that too much these days.

[00:03:04] Chris Corcoran: No.

[00:03:05] Marc Gonyea: You can get there from where I live in 28 minutes ’cause I drove there three times a week for a year. It’s close, but when we were in high school, getting there took forever. So, you grew up in Leesburg, tell us a little bit about what you were like growing up. 

[00:03:20] Matt Gloger: Honestly, I was just an outdoorsy kid, whether playing sports, fishing, hunting in the woods, building forts, literally, they’d have to drag me back inside. Family was not from Northern Virginia, but they instilled what they learned a lot in South Texas and Upstate New York, I mean, when I was young, so that was focused on school, sports, and getting a lot of good food.

[00:03:43] Chris Corcoran: School, sports, and food, I can get behind that. 

[00:03:45] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, and out, outdoor, outdoors, great outdoors. So, I mean, you’re a natural transplant down here. 

[00:03:51] Matt Gloger: Yeah. It’s been a nice transition so far. You can eat a lot, really good brisket, and also do whatever you want outside. 

[00:03:59] Marc Gonyea: So, what were you like as a kid, in terms of, like, getting in high school, what you think you wanted to do? Did you play sports? Did you have a job? What kind of?

[00:04:08] I guess rolling into high school, honestly, best way I could describe myself was awkward. I, I was one of the early bloomers who I’ve been the same size, kind of looked the same since I was about 14. However, I’d say my social skills didn’t really catch up to, to where I was physically.

[00:04:23] Matt Gloger: So, I definitely was an awkward kid, but, um, really decided to, to put my time into sports, and that’s where all my friends really came out of, so, had a very close-knit group of friends in high school that I still keep up with today, actually I lived with two of them while I was working at memoryBlue throughout my duration there.

[00:04:40] So, I’ve kept up with a lot of them, and then, uh, you know, really just opened to anything and everything. That’s what I’ve, I’ve been trying to say, don’t like to say no to, too much. What was your, did you play multiple sports? Did you have a favorite?

[00:04:51] So, I played in high school football, baseball, and downhill ski racing.

[00:04:56] Marc Gonyea: Oh, wow. Okay. Hope that’s one thing you can’t do in Austin. 

[00:04:59] Matt Gloger: Definitely not. Short flight up to Denver, though. 

[00:05:02] Marc Gonyea: Okay, yeah.

[00:05:03] Chris Corcoran: Wow. So, in high school in Leesburg, where were you doing this downhill ski racing? 

[00:05:08] Matt Gloger: So, my home mountain was Whitetail. 

[00:05:10] Chris Corcoran: Oh, okay. 

[00:05:11] Matt Gloger: It’s about an hour fifteen from my door in Leesburg, and I would go up there on the weekends, and then we would race throughout different mountains in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and sometimes Upstate New York.

[00:05:23] Chris Corcoran: Okay. 

[00:05:23] Matt Gloger: Yeah. 

[00:05:24] Chris Corcoran: Sounds like fun. 

[00:05:25] Matt Gloger: Yeah. It was really fun. 

[00:05:26] Marc Gonyea: All right. And then, when you were in high school, what did you think you were gonna do? 

[00:05:30] Matt Gloger: I honestly had no clue, like every other Northern Virginian DMV kid, you know, had parents that worked for the government. So, going to college, parents sat me down, like, “What do you wanna do?” I was like, “Well, I guess, you know, follow everybody I know, either go in the military or go work for the government.” My dad was actually retiring at that point in time, and, uh, most people don’t know that if you worked for the DOD or the government, it’s pretty much signed in your life away at that point, you know, you’re kind of stuck in that area. Had aspirations of doing different things, moving to different cities. So, decided to, to go down the, the business route and study that in college, along with foreign language, so. 

[00:06:08] Marc Gonyea: What’d you major in?

[00:06:10] Matt Gloger: International business, and then German.

[00:06:13] Marc Gonyea: Deutsch. 

[00:06:14] Matt Gloger: Yeah. 

[00:06:14] Marc Gonyea: Okay. And where’d you go to school?

[00:06:16] Matt Gloger: Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, center of the universe.

[00:06:19] Chris Corcoran: Randy Mac. And, and so, did German piece, how did that materialize? 

[00:06:25] Matt Gloger: Great question. So, I grew up in a family where everybody speaks the second language, my mom worked for the government then became a French teacher. And then, my dad, lifelong government worker, speaks German, couple other different languages, but really focused on Europe. 

[00:06:41] Chris Corcoran: Okay.

[00:06:41] Matt Gloger: So, funny story. My sister and I growing up, you know, we knew that we were gonna have to speak a second language. My sister decided to choose French. 

[00:06:48] Chris Corcoran: There you go. 

[00:06:49] Matt Gloger: And then, I don’t wanna leave my dad behind, so, I decided to go to the German route, even though French probably would’ve been the easier pick up with a, a French teacher in the household.

[00:06:57] Chris Corcoran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. 

[00:06:59] Marc Gonyea: Did you study abroad? 

[00:07:00] Matt Gloger: I did. 

[00:07:01] Marc Gonyea: In Germany, right?

[00:07:02] Matt Gloger: No, actually 

[00:07:02] Marc Gonyea: No? Where?

[00:07:03] Matt Gloger: In the UK.

[00:07:04] Marc Gonyea: In UK.

[00:07:04] Matt Gloger: So, my international business program had a, like a sister school in Oxfordshire, called Wroxton College, which is, you know, if I can describe, it’s like the UT Arlington of UT, but for Oxford.

[00:07:17] Marc Gonyea: Okay. 

[00:07:17] Matt Gloger: So, it was not Oxford whatsoever, but it’s in relation to it. So, I’m like, “Yeah, I studied Oxford, Oxfordshire.” And, uh, usually, people don’t question it. 

[00:07:28] Marc Gonyea: And what you think you wanted to do when you were coming outta school? 

[00:07:31] Matt Gloger: So, coming outta school, I knew that, I actually had two ideas of what I wanted to do. I wanted to do something where I could speak German and, you know, use what I studied in college, you know, otherwise it was kind of waste, or go into a sales route, and, uh, actually my first job outta college, which a lot of people, memoryBlue never, never knew of, was with a German-speaking company called Lidl whose U.S. headquarters was in Arlington before I transitioned into memoryBlue. So, I guess I started doing what I wanted to do and then, uh, transitioned over into the, the plan B, which oftentimes, in terms of 

[00:08:08] Marc Gonyea: What was it like working at Lidl, like there, there are, like, a discount growing in the U.S. kind of a Trader Joe’s of Germany type of thing.

[00:08:16] Matt Gloger: Yeah. So, they’re very similar to Aldi. They’re, they’re Aldi’s top competitor in Europe. 

[00:08:21] Marc Gonyea: It’s not as gourmet, it’s just, like, low cost, right? 

[00:08:25] Matt Gloger: Yeah. That’s, that’s pretty 

[00:08:26] Marc Gonyea: And my wife’s favourite place to shop. 

[00:08:29] Matt Gloger: They’ve got great pastries, too. 

[00:08:30] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, what was it like working there? 

[00:08:35] So, it was an experience, that’s 

[00:08:37] Marc Gonyea: What were you doing with them?

[00:08:38] Matt Gloger: So, my role was kind of like a, a back of office translator, and also, like, data record keeper, honestly, I was focused on doing translations and keeping our SP tool up to date for the international shipments because everything that we produced besides for the food was produced overseas in Germany or in China.

[00:09:01] And that kept us to a backup. My team was focused on the non-food portion. So, we were held to very strict deadlines of when things had to be inputted and shipped, and at that point in time, you know, detail orientation wasn’t something that was, I was as strongest at. 

[00:09:19] Chris Corcoran: And Germans love that. 

[00:09:20] Matt Gloger: Yeah. The German portion I was great at, that was no problem.

[00:09:24] Chris Corcoran: Yeah, Germans love precision.

[00:09:26] Making sure that my data points are accurate, and SP, would not recommend that. I go that whole, that job. No, no, and as you mentioned, Germans are very to the point about it, they’ll let you know. But it was good though, it was pretty much a start environment, I mean, they, when I started there, they had not even opened up a first US store yet.

[00:09:45] Chris Corcoran: Oh, okay. 

[00:09:46] Matt Gloger: So, long hours, pretty intense, you know, we worked in a beautiful building, and then moving over to the first memoryBlue office was a little bit of a transition, but, um, you know, it was great, but after about six months, I kind of realized that it was not what I wanted to do, and they had very stringent growth pass.

[00:10:07] I kind of wanted to move into the more purchasing side where I could go abroad, use German, be more out in the marketplace, working with people hand in hand, but it would’ve taken me, like, at least five to eight years to get in any sort of position like that, so.

[00:10:21] Chris Corcoran: In that job, were you speaking German in the office?

[00:10:23] Matt Gloger: So, I was speaking German just to practice with my counterparts who were from Germany that moved over here, but my role, I was just doing translations,

[00:10:31] Chris Corcoran: Okay. 

[00:10:31] Matt Gloger: honestly, which was fine, but they called it Lidl German, which is not real German, it’s kind of like shorthand. 

[00:10:37] Chris Corcoran: Like Spanglish.

[00:10:38] Matt Gloger: Exactly. It’s like Spanglish. 

[00:10:40] Marc Gonyea: Hysterical. 

[00:10:41] Chris Corcoran: Interesting. And so, how’d you find that job? 

[00:10:44] Matt Gloger: I was recruited by a third-party recruiting agency for it. 

[00:10:50] Chris Corcoran: Because they saw your German. 

[00:10:51] Matt Gloger: Yep, and I was coming outta college, they knew they could pay me low, and I had studied national business in German and it seemed like it would be a good fit, but, you know, I think, uh, some recruiters don’t necessarily look into soft skills and really the overall personality sometimes when they try to fit people into a box, and it was a good first job ’cause I realized what was, you know, what I wanted to focus on and really what wasn’t for me.

[00:11:17] Chris Corcoran: Very good. So, so what happened for, kind of after Lidl? Where’d you take yours? 

[00:11:23] Matt Gloger: So, after Lidl I had about a month off and I really didn’t know what I was trying to do, to be honest with you, I didn’t know if I wanna stay in Northern Virginia, I didn’t know if I wanted to move back to Richmond, I didn’t know what I wanted to do,

[00:11:36] memoryBlue had I reached out to me, looked it up, Matt Stevens was the recruiter I worked with, and then there are two other people, I forget who, I think it was one of the Mavericks folks, and then, um, another lady who was in the recruiting position that didn’t last much longer after that, but I can’t remember their names. 

[00:11:58] Chris Corcoran: I see. Okay. And so, Matt Stevens reached out to you towards a little bit about the opportunity, and you were like, “Sounds good to me,” or what? What, what were your thoughts? 

[00:12:07] Matt Gloger: Yeah. So, I had, uh, I knew that I wanted to try my hand in a sales role, and I had been talking with a family friend who was executive recruiter, but also had worked in technology sales throughout her career.

[00:12:22] She was kind of a, uh, a mentor to me at that point in time, and she had kind of filled me in about, you know, different roles and stuff that you need to be looking out for when you evaluate, I went to some, like, horrific interviews for sales roles that kind of gave me idea of what to look out for at that point in time.

[00:12:37] And then,

[00:12:38] Marc Gonyea: What kind of roles? 

[00:12:39] Matt Gloger: honestly, I can’t think, probably some, like, MLM advertising roles, stuff like that ’cause I didn’t have any experience at that point, you know, if you don’t have a lot of experience, there’s not gonna be many opportunities out there for that, and I even really know how to get into technology sales at that point and go to SDR was. 

[00:12:54] So, memoryBlue had reached out to me, told me about, you know, this program that they had about getting folks who are earlier in their career, give them access and opportunity to work with multiple different technology providers, and really kind of learn the ropes and the motions of what professional sales looks like.

[00:13:11] And at that point in time, that was exactly what I needed, and, you know, apparently you thought I would be a good fit and you brought me in.

[00:13:18] Marc Gonyea: That, that’s exactly what we’re looking for,

[00:13:20] Matt Gloger: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:13:22] Marc Gonyea: right? 

[00:13:22] Chris Corcoran: Thank you, Matt Stevens. 

[00:13:23] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. But, you know, hard-working background, former athlete, don’t need to be an athlete, could be someone who’s dedicated to the job, right? Kind of add a taste to something that wasn’t up your alley, right? And then, you didn’t know anything about sales really, ’cause both your parents, teacher, government worker, right, you, he, our parents were not in sales either, Chris and I got into it, we kind of had an idea, but not from the family. But you were willing to work hard.

[00:13:53] Matt Gloger: Yeah. And that’s, honestly, I figured I was like, “Well, I don’t know what I’m gonna do, but I’m not gonna let anybody question my work ethic.” And I figured if I work hard, it will come around, so. 

[00:14:03] Marc Gonyea: So, you went through the interview process. Do you remember who you interviewed with besides, uh, hiring managers, or who, who

[00:14:09] Matt Gloger: Conal Jaeger. Spoke with him, I remember that. 

[00:14:12] Marc Gonyea: All right.

[00:14:13] Nick Perry.

[00:14:15] Chris Corcoran: Swaggy P.

[00:14:17] Matt Gloger: Yep. Swaggy P, and

[00:14:18] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, Conal?

[00:14:20] Matt Gloger: There was another gentleman that I thought he was gonna be my manager, I think his name was Matt, too. He was a DM. He had red hair, big guy, he was out of the,

[00:14:31] No.

[00:14:32] Marc Gonyea: Brian Hingham. 

[00:14:33] Matt Gloger: No, I’ll have to look it up. 

[00:14:35] Marc Gonyea: Okay. That’s alright.

[00:14:36] Matt Gloger: Shout-out him, he was cool too, but he didn’t last too long after I joined, but then I got Nick Perry’s team, and stayed there for a while. 

[00:14:43] Chris Corcoran: Excellent. Excellent. Conal Jaeger 

[00:14:46] Matt Gloger: So, keep up with Conal. He’s a,

[00:14:48] Chris Corcoran: He’s a great guy. 

[00:14:48] Matt Gloger: he’s a funny guy, a memoryBlue guy.

[00:14:50] Chris Corcoran: Podcast guest.

[00:14:52] Matt Gloger: Self-proclaimed.

[00:14:52] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. So, 32. Okay. Alright. Yeah. So, we gonna glue that, okay, and then, so what was it like when you started, what do you remember? 

[00:15:02] Matt Gloger: So, what I remember is y’all brought me in for Thanksgiving potluck, and this was in the old office, and my, I remember I said that the building that I worked in for Lidl was, like, all glass, like, beautiful building,

[00:15:18] Marc Gonyea: It was a courthouse road. 

[00:15:19] Matt Gloger: That was courthouse road,

[00:15:20] Marc Gonyea: oh no.

[00:15:20] Matt Gloger: but courthouse road, I ended up living on courthouse road, like a year later. And it was, there was nothing wrong with it, it was quaint is what I’ll say, but it was a little bit different, but

[00:15:30] Marc Gonyea: A little banged up.

[00:15:31] Matt Gloger: a little banged up, but you could tell that it had been, had been worked in, that’s for sure.

[00:15:39] Marc Gonyea: So, so this is part of interview process?

[00:15:40] Matt Gloger: Yeah, this was like the final interview.

[00:15:42] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

[00:15:42] Matt Gloger: And, um, 

[00:15:43] Marc Gonyea: So, we’re good, like look at this, great, you know. 

[00:15:46] Matt Gloger: but I didn’t remember that. It was, I thought it was really cool that everybody helped each other out and kind of had like a, like a team first mentality, you know, they enjoyed, honestly, they enjoyed working around each other, which was the place I’d worked, that wasn’t the case. So, it was kind of refreshing to see, you know, and that y’all had the Thanksgiving dinner, which you were both a part of, which was cool to see, I remember, and eating my food, I was about to walk out and then Marc pointed at me, and said, “You can’t leave yet.”

[00:16:15] And he, he, he called me over, and gave me the spiel, and I think that, uh, that might have closed the deal, and I think I called you all back the next day, and said, “Let’s do it.” Started December 3, I still remember that date. 

[00:16:29] Marc Gonyea: That’s awesome, you know, it’s awesome that you’re able to look past the well-worn office space, and that was not, I drive by that building all the time, and I’m like, man, you know.

[00:16:39] Chris Corcoran: Let’s just all be thankful that that was not in Boone Boulevard. 

[00:16:41] Marc Gonyea: Right. 

[00:16:43] Matt Gloger: Oh, I went to Boone a few times. 

[00:16:46] Marc Gonyea: food fight, right? Oh, man. 

[00:16:49] Okay. All right. So, you ended up taking the gig? 

[00:16:52] Matt Gloger: I did. Yes.

[00:16:52] Marc Gonyea: Did you know what you were getting yourself into?

[00:16:55] Matt Gloger: Yes and no. I mean, I had seen it when y’all brought me in, so I appreciated that y’all had, you know, kind of pulled back the curtain a little bit, and, you know, it’s not most glamorous job in the world, but it’s where you gotta start, if you want to build the bricks, bricks, the tower, you know?

[00:17:10] So, I had an idea, we came in, then I got my clients, had no clue about them, and I remember, I was just sitting there trying to get my pitch down and my opening lines and everything like that. And then, everybody around me was just booking meeting, I was like, “I don’t know how the hell I’m gonna be able to do this.” But it took a few days, but we got past it. 

[00:17:33] Marc Gonyea: Who, who was around you, booking meetings? 

[00:17:35] Matt Gloger: Andrew Palmer. 

[00:17:37] Marc Gonyea: Palmer.

[00:17:38] Matt Gloger: Yes, he was on my team before he was a DMs. 

[00:17:42] Marc Gonyea: Awesome.

[00:17:42] Wayne Pampaloni was there, uh, who else was on my team? We were right next to Kellen’s team. Alex Shadow Bower. 

[00:17:50] Marc Gonyea: Okay. Kellen and Wayne, those are the guys you work with now? 

[00:17:54] Matt Gloger: I do. Yeah. 

[00:17:55] Marc Gonyea: Alec, okay. 

[00:17:57] Matt Gloger: I’m trying to think who else. 

[00:17:58] Marc Gonyea: And your, what team? Who’s team? This is team Swaggy P?

[00:18:01] Matt Gloger: Yeah, this is Swaggy P 

[00:18:02] Marc Gonyea: Swaggy P, man, miss that guy. 

[00:18:04] Matt Gloger: Yeah, he’s a, he’s a character. He’s a good guy. 

[00:18:07] Marc Gonyea: So, you, Palmer, Alec, Wayne. 

[00:18:14] Win-win was there too, he was on my team. 

[00:18:16] Marc Gonyea: Win-win. Got it. Yeah, so you got some strong people? 

[00:18:20] Matt Gloger: Yeah, it murderers rose, as we like to call it. 

[00:18:23] Marc Gonyea: That’s right. And, and who, what was your client? Do you remember clients?

[00:18:27] Matt Gloger: I had Logicose and Paladion. Logicose was a construction equipment tracking software program, and then Paladion was a MDR, manage detection response.

[00:18:42] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. It was a cyber company. Was it Israeli company? 

[00:18:44] Matt Gloger: Indian. 

[00:18:45] Marc Gonyea: Indian company. Yeah. Okay. Got it. MDR, man, a lot of cyber work. 

[00:18:49] Matt Gloger: Oh, yeah. That was hard client too. 

[00:18:51] Marc Gonyea: So, you, you split? 

[00:18:53] Matt Gloger: Yeah. Split. 

[00:18:53] Chris Corcoran: Oh, man. So, talk about that ’cause we say split, talk about what that means.

[00:18:59] Matt Gloger: So, split to those who are listening is you have two clients, you’re half time employer on each client, but you’ve got similar or greater quota numbers for, depending on the client, and I believe that my quota for Logicose was 

[00:19:15] Marc Gonyea: Because in theory, in theory, it’s harder, right? 

[00:19:17] Matt Gloger: Yeah. Yeah. My, I think my quota, ’cause I remember this, the Logicose was seven and Paladion was six.

[00:19:25] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Those were the days. And then, what was it like, so you had never had a sales job before? 

[00:19:30] Matt Gloger: Besides, like, working in retail and waiting and stuff like that. 

[00:19:33] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, service industry? Some of that will prepare you for it. It wasn’t retail, which was more kind of inbound, kind of gotta sell, but maybe more customer service. What was that tradition, like, learning how to do that. We didn’t have academy then, how did you get trained? 

[00:19:47] No, we didn’t have academy. I would role play with, you know, folks on my team, Perry, but, honestly, like, I try not to overthink things, I just like to get my, my feet wet, get my hands dirty.

[00:20:00] Matt Gloger: I was, like, just let me get on the phones, I’ll figure it out, and it’s like, it’s like sports, you know, the more at-bat you get, you know, the higher chance that you have to get a hit. So, it’s like, just let me get my feet wet. 

[00:20:11] I’ll get on the phones, I’ll take some lumps, which I definitely, definitely did. And then, Logicose, honestly, was fairly easy to climb.. Like, especially ’cause I was calling into smaller mom-and-pop construction restoration companies, and also into Canada, Canadians are very friendly, I would say that if you looked at the, you know, the, the dynamic of who I booked, I would say probably about 70% of them were in Canada. And then,

[00:20:38] Chris Corcoran: Gloger likes to take his game north of the border.

[00:20:41] Matt Gloger: Hey, work smarter, not harder. And then, Paladion, Paladion was, honestly, a different beast. I had no idea when it came to manage text and response, any of the terminology, any of the technologies, who the ideal client personas looked like. I’ll put it this way, Logicose I had, I hit my quota the first month that was on it, play it in, it took me three months,

[00:21:04] actually it took me a month and a half to book a meeting, then three months to hit my quota. Every day I thought I was gonna go on PIP or something for play it in, it was a stressful time, but you learn different techniques and different ways to approach things, kind of going through some of those tough times, so.

[00:21:21] Marc Gonyea: That’s a key part of the gig. What did you get good at as you were kind of learning this? Like, what were, what, as you were doing, seeing the reps, seeing the pitches, getting the at-bats, what kind of, what did you say? “Oh, this is the part I’m good at.”

[00:21:34] Matt Gloger: So, and I still, so one thing that I learned is you don’t have to be an expert in it, which is, you know, probably what I was doing at first, and then you’re overthinking it when you get on the phones, like you just have to know your role, and be good at that portion of it, which is getting something, somebody on the phone, honestly, holding them for about a minute and a half at the longest, asking enough qualifying questions that you know it’s worth your AEs time. And then, just getting time on their calendar. 

[00:22:04] And once I realized that, which I’ll give another big shout here to Win-win, it’s like kind of perfecting your approach. He talked, he said, “You gotta have like your move, which is, you know, you talk to a certain point, and then you know where you are in the conversation, and you just immediately pivot to getting time on their calendar.”

[00:22:23] And once I realized that, and just realized, I was honestly numbers game and realized what the personas they need to be reaching out to were like, it’s just a simple formula at that point. 

[00:22:33] Marc Gonyea: So, yeah. So, you were in 

[00:22:34] Matt Gloger: That took me 90 days to figure out, apparently. 

[00:22:37] Marc Gonyea: That, dude, it’s a hard job.

[00:22:39] Matt Gloger: Very hard job. 

[00:22:40] Marc Gonyea: A lot of people, a lot longer. Who else besides Win-win, are there other people there that you sat with or sat around that were good at the job that you learned some stuff?

[00:22:49] Matt Gloger: Kellen was very good at the job, still is very good at the job. Kellen Robideau. 

[00:22:53] Marc Gonyea: for memoryBlue phenom

[00:22:55] Matt Gloger: MemoryBlue phenom, yes. I look at the leaderboards, and I just try to go, like, honestly, like talk to people about what they were doing.

[00:23:01] Marc Gonyea: That’s good advice.

[00:23:02] Conal was, Conal was really strong, too. Jeremy Wood, even though he was a DM at that point in time, he was recently promoted, I think Jay would. So he had a lot of good stuff to offer, as well. And honestly, it’s like, I would just go sit with people and talk with people and just, honestly, just try to take away what they’re doing and incorporate that anyway I can.

[00:23:23] Matt Gloger: I mean, you learn from people who are doing good at the job, and again, you know, it’s, don’t have to overthink it. You just pull what works for you from other people, and then incorporate that and you can, test it, play with it, and if it works out, great, if not, back to the drawing board.

[00:23:36] Marc Gonyea: So, you look at the leader board, and we just go talk to people, just reach out to ’em?

[00:23:41] Matt Gloger: Reach out to ’em, figure out what their numbers look like, you know, and try to replicate that. 

[00:23:48] Marc Gonyea: That’s good advice. Great advice. So, as you’re doing this, kind of getting your feet wet, working with all the, all these folks, I mean, you’re forming some good relationships with these folks. So, you work remote now, but at that time, you’re getting your teeth kicked in, you’re hearing people, book meetings, you’re booking a meeting, they’re getting their teeth kicked in. How important was that to your development?

[00:24:10] Matt Gloger: So, I had a, my now boss put the best way I can think about it, you know, you win together, but you lose together more, and being around people that are going through the same trials and tribulations as you, allows you not to get down in yourself, but then when you do get a win, man, that feels freaking awesome, and people are there to cheer you all in, you get your name thrown up on leader board.

[00:24:35] You get shout-outs from your clients, you get extra chances to win money through spiffs and everything that memoryBlue offers. So, you know, it’s great to win around a group of people, but also when you do run to an now, you know, it’s not, you don’t dwell on it that long because you got other people right there with you who are going through it daily, as well. So, 

[00:24:56] Marc Gonyea: And your experience, you can, 

[00:24:57] Matt Gloger: laugh it off. 

[00:24:57] Marc Gonyea: you can laugh it off, your experience, work from your house. 

[00:25:00] Matt Gloger: We have SDRs who are, you know, you when you first started, who have other SDRs they know, who work from the house maybe a day a week, or maybe full-time, they’re trying to learn the game, work from their house, good luck and right, right.

[00:25:12] Chris Corcoran: Well, why do you say that? 

[00:25:13] Marc Gonyea: Why do you say that? 

[00:25:14] Matt Gloger: I mean, some companies can pull it off and there’s different tools that you can do it, but, I mean, if you’re, especially, if you’re just getting started in the role, you gotta have camaraderie around you. You gotta be able to sit and work with people near you to just learn the ropes, pick up best practices.

[00:25:30] It helps, you know, I’m sure there’s people who, who work remote and do it just fine. But I think you get a step in the right direction being around, especially in that CR role, being around folks who are going through the trials and tribulations, again, just that we do in the memoryBlue office, or any other office, especially in that CR role.

[00:25:47] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. You sit next to Kellen Rubideau, you’re learning some stuff too, right? I mean, some of it’s work-related, right? But you’re learning, like, how people are spitting games differently than you, and so on and so forth. So, okay. So, you’re doing the job, making it happen. What did you think you wanted to do next?

[00:26:11] Cause all these things are happening, right? People are getting hired up by their clients, people are exiting the firm, people are getting promoted, the delivery manager, right? People are getting promoted to the sales team. 

[00:26:22] Matt Gloger: Good question. 

[00:26:23] Marc Gonyea: So, cause you’re still a newbie. 

[00:26:25] Matt Gloger: Yeah. I was still, you know, once I started thinking about it was probably like seven months in, I think I’d switched clients off Logicose, but by that point in time, I honestly got pretty strong on Paladion and had a pretty good relationship with them, and I thought I wanted to go work there.

[00:26:39] Marc Gonyea: That funny to the one you were struggling the most on, right, ’cause, ’cause it’s hard. You get going, it’s for the SCRs and for the clients who might be listening, takes a little time sometimes to get it going. 

[00:26:50] Matt Gloger: But, I mean, when you, when you get it right, feels good. 

[00:26:53] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. So, you and Paladion had a good relationship?

[00:26:55] Matt Gloger: Yeah, we did, but I didn’t really see too much of an opportunity to go and work for them, to be honest with you, the VP of sales there was an 18 monther. So,

[00:27:02] Marc Gonyea: What does that mean? 

[00:27:03] for those that, that aren’t familiar with that, a lot of VPs of sales that come in, they’ll be hired, you know, they’re, they’ve been through the ringer a few times, they’ve got a, a Rolodex of past clients that they can call up upon and get some quick wins, but then once they blow through that Rolodex, you know, if they don’t have an internal or external SCR function, sometimes the pipeline looks dry and they cut bait and then just move on to the next one, yeah, maybe I’m sharing too much, but 

[00:27:29] Marc Gonyea: No, this is great, no, that’s a thing.

[00:27:31] Matt Gloger: It is a thing. It’s a thing that you have to look out for in evaluating different opportunities. 

[00:27:35] Marc Gonyea: That’s, we’ll get to that part too. 

[00:27:37] Matt Gloger: Yeah. And I realized that that was kind of what was going on here, and again, Paladion just moved from India and the United States.

[00:27:46] So, they were figuring out a lot. I, I knew that there just wasn’t gonna be a job for me there, nor did I think it would probably be the right next step. So, you know, I was looking for whatever next may be at that point in time, and then opening on Tommy Gaston’s team started to come up for the now former SD position. And I talked to Marco,

[00:28:08] Marc Gonyea: Marco Johnson. 

[00:28:09] Matt Gloger: Marco Johnson, about that, and I still talk to Marco Johnson, Johnson. Great guy.

[00:28:13] Chris Corcoran: Great guy.

[00:28:14] Matt Gloger: Everybody who doesn’t follow him on LinkedIn, definitely should, he’s been spitting

[00:28:18] Marc Gonyea: He’s been spitting his Instagram game. 

[00:28:19] Matt Gloger: great facts. 

[00:28:20] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, take it to another level. That’s great, I’d love to see it.

[00:28:23] Matt Gloger: I’ve done business with Marco at different company since then, too. So, he’s, he’s always super helpful, but I saw there was opening, and then Win-win and I were, were gunning for it, and then I talked to Marco about it, and Marco’s a very much a straight shooter, he’s like, “I’m gonna tell you exactly what this job is, why it sucks, why it’s great, if, if you want it, still, go for it.” And I was like, “I’m game. Let’s do it.” 

[00:28:46] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:28:46] Matt Gloger: And then, he gave me advice that, it was honestly really good, he was like, “Wear suit, it’ll impress Tommy” because nobody else did, and, um, I did, and I got through, but 

[00:28:58] Marc Gonyea: That’s, that’s it, it’s like going to the interview, don’t even say anything, this is worth the suit.

[00:29:03] Matt Gloger: Yeah, no.

[00:29:04] Marc Gonyea: That, dude, that’s legit advice, man. 

[00:29:06] Matt Gloger: Yeah. I mean, I,

[00:29:07] Marc Gonyea: Trust for the part you want. 

[00:29:09] Matt Gloger: Marco knows what he is talking about, so. 

[00:29:11] Marc Gonyea: Yes, he knows. I actually, the first go around for the SD role, I actually didn’t get it, which is kind of sad topic, but Helena Shawn ended up getting it. She was amazing.

[00:29:22] Helena, not Elena? 

[00:29:24] Matt Gloger: And another one came up for about two months and Tommy had kind of been stringing me along at that point, you know, Tommy Gass, and I’ll gas you up, no pun intended, but, uh, he was like, “Next time one opens up, you’re my guy.” 

[00:29:37] Marc Gonyea: He’s a pro. 

[00:29:38] Matt Gloger: Yeah, and I was like, “Sure, Tommy, go away.” I just, you know, at that point in time, it was the summer, I had Fridays off every week, so it was… 

[00:29:45] Marc Gonyea: You remember doing her thing?

[00:29:46] Matt Gloger: I was

[00:29:47] Marc Gonyea: and Helena’s, she’s really good at her job. She was really good at her job.

[00:29:50] Matt Gloger: No, she was very good. 

[00:29:51] Marc Gonyea: Right, so, like, if you’re gonna lose someone, like, that’s the person who you like, you know what?

[00:29:55] Matt Gloger: So, came, I think it was August or something, Tommy came back to me, and said, “Hey, we have an opening.” I was like, “Tommy, I’m not gonna wear a suit again.” He was like, “Don’t worry about it, you got it, let me just talk to Perry.” Perry was sad about it, but we did the transition.

[00:30:09] Marc Gonyea: Perry is your delivery manager?

[00:30:10] Matt Gloger: Yes. 

[00:30:11] Marc Gonyea: Right. So, delivery managers, they lose their top performing Paladion in your previous account SDRs to the sales team, and they’re mix with, mixed motion for them, right? Because they’re not sure, you know, they’ve gotta go find another Matt, get another Matt through the month and a half of no meetings, 90 days to get their quota and start over again.

[00:30:33] But it’s like, for lots of ’em, we had one on the podcast yesterday, it’s pure joy to see the development, right, of people who come in not knowing anything, and now they’re, they’re moving on to the sales team, internal. So, you know, Swaggy P, shout-out to him for helping you get to that stage,

[00:30:50] and your colleagues that you work with, some of you work with now, right? That get you there, but you got there yourself, so kudos to you. So, you joined Tommy’s team. What were you doing? 

[00:31:00] Matt Gloger: So, at that point in time, there was a role called sales development executive, and essentially, you are just setting meetings for the AEs for memoryBlue, Tommy, you know, painted this picture, “You know, it’s, like, it’s the stepping stone, you’re gonna learn so much.” Which you will, and I did, but the SD role is no longer existing, so. 

[00:31:20] Marc Gonyea: I know. You know what? We’ve got people, you, other people who would jump through those hoops, now that role doesn’t exist. So, that’s probably the classic. 

[00:31:28] Chris Corcoran: It, it may make a comeback. 

[00:31:31] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, yeah. But better for a scale. 

[00:31:34] Chris Corcoran: A sequel, a sequel. So, essentially it was just an SDR job. 

[00:31:38] Matt Gloger: Yeah. It was an SDR job. I liked it because I got to work with Tommy. I got to work with Joey Cohen, Carley Armentrout, Bruce Horner. Jesse.

[00:31:48] Marc Gonyea: Jesse, Jesse. 

[00:31:49] Matt Gloger: No, it’s Jeanne, excuse me. Jeanne Ball.

[00:31:51] Marc Gonyea: Jeanne Ball. 

[00:31:51] Matt Gloger: Who else was on the team, Jessie Gabris came along eventually. 

[00:31:54] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Yep. Most people 

[00:31:57] Matt Gloger: Yeah, strong squad. Yeah, that was a great squad. 

[00:32:00] Chris Corcoran: Just, just for the listeners. I just wanna make sure that everyone’s clear. So, when, when you say you were, you were being an SDR for memoryBlue, talk about what that actually means. What were you doing for memoryBlue?

[00:32:10] Matt Gloger: Yeah. Great question. So, it was a great learning experience because you got to, I mean, you know, you’re on the five-yard line becoming an AE. So, really my job was to usually set up around 20 qualified meetings with prospects and up-and-coming technology companies, usually, VC back that we had worked with before, with heads of sales, heads of marketing, BD leaders, chief marketing, chief sales officers, CROs, try to get them on the line, pitch memoryBlue, put pants in a good light and set up the AEs for success.

[00:32:43] Chris Corcoran: So, it wasn’t selling cyber or anything like that. It was actually calling the cyber companies and trying to convince them to outsource their sales development function to memoryBlue.

[00:32:52] Matt Gloger: Correct. 

[00:32:52] Chris Corcoran: Okay, good. 

[00:32:53] Matt Gloger: Which, uh, I would argue is, is argue with you, harder, because you have to be on your A game. 

[00:32:59] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:32:59] Matt Gloger: And if you don’t, you will get blown up by these people. 

[00:33:04] Marc Gonyea: Right. Because you’re, you’re, so, was it harder than, it was harder than being, being an SDR for Paladion, or for the client worse? 

[00:33:09] Matt Gloger: You had 75% higher quota, and, um, you actually worked with the AEs that you supported, and the head of sales that you supported, and the founders or co-founders. So, if, if you were dropping the ball, it was much closer to home that you’d hear it from. 

[00:33:24] Marc Gonyea: Oh, man, that is funny but true. The bright lights, huh? 

[00:33:28] Matt Gloger: Yeah. I, I, again, when I first started that role, it did not do well. I, for probably like, three to four months, I came in every day thinking that I might get fired, but, you know, you, you learn how to approach it again, you learn the numbers, you learn the pitch, you learn how to approach different situations. And then, you know, you just get your at-bats, it ends up working out. 

[00:33:52] Chris Corcoran: So, how long were you an SDR before you became an SDE? 

[00:34:57] Matt Gloger: Seven months. 

[00:34:58] Chris Corcoran: Seven months as an SDR? That’s pretty good, to get moved up that quickly in this role. And then, how long were you an SDE?

[00:35:05] Matt Gloger: About a year, I think.

[00:35:06] Chris Corcoran: A year. Wow. 

[00:35:08] Matt Gloger: Maybe, maybe a little bit shorter, but yeah, about that, about that length of time. 

[00:35:11] Chris Corcoran: So, so, and then you’ve got moved into the AE role, so you had a year and a half of experience as an SDE, that, that’s, dude, I love that, a year and a half SDR experience, that’s time well-served.

[00:35:26] Matt Gloger: Yeah. It was a long time, I will say that, but, you know, similar to what I said about having Fridays off and summer, after a while you get your, get your legs under you. And I was chomping out the bit to become an AE for memoryBlue, and just an AE in general, but after a while, once you start hitting your number, you’re making money, you’re like, okay, you know, having come with cushy, easy job going to tops is not that bad. 

[00:35:50] Marc Gonyea: Costa Rica.

[00:35:51] Matt Gloger: I did go to Costa Rica. 

[00:35:54] Chris Corcoran: How many, how many tops trips did you make? 

[00:35:56] Matt Gloger: Three. 

[00:35:57] Chris Corcoran: Three? 

[00:35:58] Matt Gloger: Yeah. 

[00:35:58] Marc Gonyea: So, to Cabo? 

[00:35:59] Chris Corcoran: That’s pretty good. 

[00:36:00] Matt Gloger: I went to Cabo, and then I went to Cancun. Yeah. 

[00:36:02] Chris Corcoran: Great trips. The three best ones.

[00:36:03] Matt Gloger: Just went to, back to Costa Rica, too, so, clearly, I liked it. 

[00:36:07] Chris Corcoran: Taylor. That’s great.

[00:36:10] Marc Gonyea: I know. Go ahead, Chris. I’m sorry.

[00:36:12] Chris Corcoran: Well, I was gonna say so. So, how did you, how did you become, moved from an SDE to an AE? Do you remember how that all happened? And you could tell, tell us a little bit about that. 

[00:36:20] Started by just harassing Tommy. 

[00:36:22] Marc Gonyea: Been in fight for it.

[00:36:23] Chris Corcoran: So, you were ready, you were like, Tommy, let me, gimme my chance, gimme a chance. 

[00:36:26] Matt Gloger: Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, I worked with, I really align myself, Carley, and Joey Cohen, as well too, just try to pick up, oh yeah, some true professionals right there. And I just picked up a lot of what they’re doing, I was sourcing opportunities that were closing, really staying with them throughout the whole sales cycle, so I could figure out what they were doing.

[00:36:46] Chris Corcoran: And then, I honestly just kept harassing Tommy. I’d pull, I’d pull Tommy into your office, or I’d chase him downstairs while he was going smoke a cigarette, like, when is this gonna happen? Like, I’m ready, like, let’s do this. And being coach. 

[00:36:58] Matt Gloger: yeah, exactly. And then, he was like, “All right, it’s yours.” But it was for a different AE position. 

[00:37:04] Marc Gonyea: You did the right way weld, and I’m telling you, I mean, I mean, I think so, all that experience is so helpful in the long run. So, you got into that gig, but we had you doing something a little bit different, at first,

[00:37:18] Matt Gloger: Very different. 

[00:37:19] but just talk about that. You’re you were proving some stuff out for us. So, Tommy and Chris approached me about this crazy idea called memoryBlue direct hire. I had no clue what direct hire was, but in short, direct hire is outsource recruiting services. And so, essentially, I got promoted into an AE position for memoryBlue direct hire, and I was selling recruiting services to tech companies looking to hire SDRs, and I think a little bit of AEs too. So, at this point in time, memoryBlue direct hire was literally starting from nothing, but Chris was all about it, we had this thing called NPC. 

[00:38:05] Chris Corcoran: I hope Tommy’s listening to this. 

[00:38:06] Matt Gloger: I hope so too, and essentially it was like either a memoryBlue candidate or somebody that we had IDed because we had a, I was a sales side of memoryBlue direct hire, Bailey as far as was my co, was,

[00:38:19] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, Bailey. 

[00:38:19] Matt Gloger: Yeah. Oh yeah, Bailey. She still works for memoryBlue?

[00:38:22] Yeah, she does. She came back. Yeah. She was on the recruiting side, so she IDed these candidates. I tried to go out and pitch the services and get somebody to sign a contract that was non-binding to anything, unless we actually placed the person. And then, that person that Bailey IDed would go on to work for them. And, again, this was starting from nothing. 

[00:38:42] So, I did this for in total six months, but it was great for me because, you know, it put a lot of responsibility and gave me a lot of opportunity at a relatively early stage in my career, and, you know, it’s great to have that one on a resume, but kind of, you’re only, you’re almost managing your own book of business at that point. 

[00:39:02] So, you know, working with you and, and Tommy, obviously, putting together the sales process, marketing materials, the go-to-market strategy. And I think in like six months we did like close to like 400K in enclosed business.

[00:39:17] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. You did a really good job doing that. Yeah. It was, honestly, I was a little bit hesitant about it at first, I didn’t really understand at first, but after six months, it was great to look back and see what we were able to accomplish, so. 

[00:39:27] Sure. Do you remember any of the wins and the companies? I feel like we’ve talked about this before, but you got some big wins, it’s not on your LinkedIn, but you brought

[00:39:35] Matt Gloger: I have to go back and look, but we had some big, I remember it was this big EdTech firm in Northern Virginia that we closed a pretty big one with, can’t think of the

[00:39:47] Marc Gonyea: What’s, Ivan worked there?

[00:39:49] Matt Gloger: Yes. He did work that.

[00:39:50] Chris Corcoran: Ellucian? 

[00:39:51] Matt Gloger: Ellucian. Yes, Ellucian. That was like the biggest one that we were able to bring in, which is awesome, and, you know, like I said, you get to work with your head of sales and your co-founder, you get a lot of responsibility, you get a big win like that, you get a lot of eyes on you, too.

[00:40:04] Marc Gonyea: So, you and Tommy crushed that thing, man. 

[00:40:06] Matt Gloger: Yeah. Tommy and I worked well, really well together.

[00:40:08] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. That was great ’cause you guys had, it was, was a concept and we had kind of done it before, but we just proven this thing out.

[00:40:15] Matt Gloger: Yeah. It was literally a proof, proof of concept, literally, so if we failed, it was all on me, if we won, I, if we, if we, 

[00:40:23] Marc Gonyea: What about team losing together?

[00:40:24] Matt Gloger: Yeah. Well, you know, it’s a team of three. Yeah, like I said, more eyes, more eyes. 

[00:40:30] Marc Gonyea: Yeah man. So, you did that for about six months, and then, and then what happened?

[00:40:33] Matt Gloger: And then, Tommy was like, all right, what do you wanna do? Do you want to continue to do direct hire, or do you want to start selling other suite of services to that point, that point in time, we’re getting memoryBlue academy off, off the ground, too? And I just looked at, I was like, “Okay, I can make more money selling all three different services if it works out, right?” And, you know, the sales development as a service, my opinion’s a little bit more strategic. So, it was like, okay, you can get the flex a little bit different muscle or brain muscle, and, you know, it, I decided to go down that route.

[00:41:06] Marc Gonyea: You know what, man, you, Carley, Cohen, and others on that team, you guys did everything we asked you to do, right?

[00:41:15] Matt Gloger: Yeah. 

[00:41:16] Marc Gonyea: Which is why I remember when you won move Austin, I was like, “Dude, he gets into Austin,” right, because you had done all these things that we had asked and jumped through these hoops, but, but helped us, you know, we’re not happening jump through the hoops because the circus. So, we need to prove these things out, and you proved out the significant revenue driver for the business, and had someone else done it and not worked, might have never continued with it.

[00:41:39] So, talk about that. So, you kicked that in that role, in the gear, right before COVID, right? January, 2020. 

[00:41:47] Matt Gloger: Yep. So, I started that role right after the holidays, which was, it was struggle at first, but at that point in time for any of the new AEs that they brought on, they all had paired us with a mentor.

[00:41:59] Mine was Carly, Carley Armentrout. She’s awesome, honestly, still one of the best salespeople I’ve ever worked with in my life. Shout-out. 

[00:42:07] Chris Corcoran: She’s great. 

[00:42:08] Matt Gloger: Yeah. She’s awesome to work with, and she really showed me the robs and got me, got me going fairly quickly. And at that point in time, I think we had a ramp of like three months or something,

[00:42:21] we were still doing a draw at that point. So, it took me about two months, started getting some wins. I got my first one in February and built up a pretty sizeable pipeline that was stoked for, and then COVID decided to, to enter the building, and I decided to go on a cruise right before COVID and, uh, that was the last I ever saw that pipeline.

[00:42:45] Marc Gonyea: We were like, Matt, we don’t know Tommy, well, I don’t think I want you to go either, like, you might, you might get stuck on the ship in the ocean or like they might not let you in, back in, like, was it, when did you go? Do you remember? What was it, March? 

[00:42:59] Matt Gloger: So, I had, I always, I’m a big traveler. I was like, I think the year before for, like the year trip, the 3K year trip, I went to Europe with my buddies, and then one of my friends, close friends still this day, Cole Brier.

[00:43:15] He, uh, he started at memoryBlue, him, myself, and another friend decided to go on this week-long cruise throughout the Caribbean to Mexico, Honduras, Belize, and this started March 6, 2020.

[00:43:32] Chris Corcoran: March 6. Wow.

[00:43:33] Matt Gloger: Yeah. So, I, COVID had started to, you know, rumble its head around the world right before then, I didn’t really take it too seriously, to be honest with you.

[00:43:44] I didn’t really think too much of it, and I was like, I’m going on this trip, so I paid for it, like I’m not, not gonna go. I remember Marc had said something to me, Tommy definitely had some, said something to me, Tommy’s kind of a hypochondriac. My parents and my grandparents, but I was like, “What are you talking about? It’s a trip to Mexico, week-long, you know, I, I’m not gonna not do it.”

[00:44:04] Marc Gonyea: You’re trying to close a deal like the night before. 

[00:44:05] Matt Gloger: Oh yes. So, I was working until the night before, and I flew to, before I flew to Florida, and I remember it was, it was, Cole and I were working in the office till like 8:00 PM that night.

[00:44:17] And it devolved, the client was being stubborn, and about something, it was probably of the placement fear or whatever, which everybody comes back about, and, uh, he was in California, and he called me, and he basically was trying to say the same thing to me for the fifth time. And we ended up getting in a shout match at each other at, like, eight o’clock at night, but he signed the next week.

[00:44:42] Marc Gonyea: When you were on the cruise.. 

[00:44:43] Matt Gloger: Yeah, while I was on the cruise and signed. So, you know, sometimes folks will like to try to, you know, play the, I’ve been in this role for 15 plus years, you’re just like a new guy on the block, like, I think I can just talk my way over you.

[00:44:57] And if you stand up to them and hold your ground, they’ll respect that and realize that they can’t just bully you, and, you know, did that, and ended up getting the deal done. And I remember Grant was the director of, of recruiting at that point in time, too. Yep. And Grant, too, he was in the office too, he was a late worker, and he, him and Cole just heard me and this guy like just go back and forth and we got off and I turned to Cole, was like, “All right, we gotta leave now ’cause I can’t be in this office any longer.”

[00:45:27] Marc Gonyea: Those are such good lessons to learn, right? Especially that one about holding your grounds, and I’m, I’m sure you, you’re a very respectful person, but you see respectful, but at certain point, the dynamics of the conversation have to change. 

[00:45:40] Matt Gloger: Yeah, probably you can’t be bullied. 

[00:45:42] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. You can’t be bullied. You can’t be bullied. As Ryan Cury likes to say, mock, if someone stabs you once, you don’t do anything, by the way, keep stabbing you, you know, so, you have to hold your ground, and you’re probably most first doctors are going on this cruise the next day.

[00:45:55] Matt Gloger: I mean, you can elevate a conversation, and still re, respect for that, in my opinion, so.

[00:45:59] Chris Corcoran: Definitely. 

[00:46:00] Marc Gonyea: So, alright, so what was that like, working through COVID when you got back? 

[00:46:06] Matt Gloger: So, when we got back the, like, I didn’t have wifi on this trip, so I would only hear things that were going on, like once we got to port, and I’d go to like a, a bar or a coffee shop, or something, hop on the wifi.

[00:46:19] So, I didn’t really know what was going on, and then I got back and I was still in Florida, and Florida, you know, wasn’t real life at that point, still.

[00:46:25] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, but in Virginia, the schools were shut down. 

[00:46:27] Matt Gloger: Yeah, everything was shut down in Virginia. Everything was shut down in Virginia. And I got, I got back, and we had moved to remote work and they had reallocated some of the newer AEs back to an SDR role, which I was included in.

[00:46:40] And I believe Joey and Carley were the only two, are still rocking and rolling, which at that point in time, I didn’t, I’ll be honest, I was kind of bummed out about it.

[00:46:48] Marc Gonyea: Of course, of course.

[00:46:48] I was more pissed because that big pipeline, I was like, I was gonna make a lot of money here. Like, what are we, what are we doing? Like, that’s a different conversation. 

[00:46:59] Marc Gonyea: We’ll take that off the podcast over some drinks 

[00:47:03] But, you know, being the SD role, wasn’t bad. I, funny enough, one of the clients that I closed when I was in the AE role, ended up being the client that I worked for, and it was

[00:47:13] Marc Gonyea: Shouting match, hopefully.

[00:47:14] Matt Gloger: No, no, no, not, not that company, actually I talked to this company once. I didn’t think anything of it, and they’re, and they just like, outta the blue, sat back and signed contract, that was still probably one of the easiest deals I’ve ever worked in my entire life, I really didn’t have to do too much. 

[00:47:27] Marc Gonyea: What company was that?

[00:47:29] Matt Gloger: One build. 

[00:47:30] Marc Gonyea: Okay. Okay. 

[00:47:30] Matt Gloger: I think, I think a VC that we had worked with brought, brought it to us and he just did most of the selling, honestly.

[00:47:38] Marc Gonyea: You’ll get some of those,

[00:47:39] Matt Gloger: Some of those will just fall on your lap, you know, if you do the right work, good things tend to happen here, so.

[00:47:44] Marc Gonyea: That’s right. So, how long was it? So, so it’s professional memory. So, we had a, we had, we took, recently promoted DMS, made them SDRs, like, we had some clients, hired some people, we managed our way through, through the ‘Rona. 

[00:47:59] And then, when did you move down here? Was that before, did you come back as an AE? Did we turn it back on, or did you come down here as an SDR? What?

[00:48:06] Matt Gloger: So, I believe I did like three months in the SDR role, which was, honestly, super chill for me. I went, I, I went back and lived with my buddy in Florida and in, uh, St. Petersburg for about a month. 

[00:48:21] So, I was just, you know, I was working down there from the beach, basically, and I moved back or I got back to Virginia around June, and I think you had called me off and you’re like, it’s, like, “Are you ready to get back in the saddle,” or something, and I was like, “Yeah, let’s do it.”

[00:48:37] And then, I think June was when I went back in the AE roll. And then, like July, no, August was when I moved down to Austin, so. 

[00:48:45] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. And why’d you move to Austin? Let’s talk about that because it’s always people, everyone and their mom talks about moving. And, you know, for whatever reasons I remember, I thought, I didn’t move, you know, it, it, and you did it.

[00:48:59] Matt Gloger: Yeah. 

[00:49:00] Marc Gonyea: So, you know, ’cause, so, people, like, in your position, you, two, three years ago who remember now, they may think like tell us about it. 

[00:49:07] Matt Gloger: So, it was like half a career decision, and half me wanting to move area that I was comfortable with and to kind of get off the East Coast. Most of my family is from this area of Texas and South texas. So, I’ve been to Austin many times, very familiar with Texas and South Texas and Central Texas, in general. And then also, I wanted move one of the tech hubs, didn’t wanna move to San Francisco, didn’t wanna move to Boston, and was familiar and comfortable with Austin, and it’s just an amazing city, and, uh, just made the decision out, COVID wasn’t gonna hold me back and moved down here. 

[00:49:43] Marc Gonyea: Done. You took care of it. And so, you moved down here, and then, you know, I don’t know when, but at some point, you started thinking about, okay, what am I gonna do next? You, if we get everybody to stick around them for three years, you know, they’d be happy.

[00:49:55] Chris Corcoran: Really happy. 

[00:49:56] Marc Gonyea: We’d be thrilled. 

[00:49:57] Matt Gloger: Yeah. At that point in time, you, y’all had started to, to scale the AE team a little bit more, did a way with the SDE function, and brought on some folks for tradition, a little bit more junior in the AE role, I made Joey Cohen the manager, and that was kind of the defunct two, like team lead at that point. 

[00:50:15] So, I was helping Joey out kind of get this team scaled, and, uh, like coach him up a little bit ’cause we implemented this playbook that was just brand new, ended up working out. I had been in AE until December, so pretty much a year, plus at that point at memoryBlue, and I, you know, I started just looking around and it started, people started to hit me up and I was like, you know, I’m ready for a different challenge, honestly.

[00:50:37] And I’d been at memoryBlue for three years at that point. Great opportunity. 

[00:50:42] Chris Corcoran: Very few people make it three years. 

[00:50:44] Marc Gonyea: So, and what skills had you developed as an AE? Be like, okay, you know what, I’m ready to test the water, you know? Well, what were the biggest skills you gotta learn, move from the SDR role, SD roll into a closer?

[00:50:59] Matt Gloger: Contract negotiation.

[00:51:00] Marc Gonyea: Okay. 

[00:51:01] Matt Gloger: Which, memoryBlue, you are leading the contract negotiation with Marc and Tommy, obviously, but if you become an AE here, you’ve gotta get comfortable with legal terminology and standing up to either lawyers or, you know, C-level executives at some of these companies because that’s something that you’re gonna use in any role, to be honest with you.

[00:51:25] So, got experience with that right off the bat, which I still use this day, and I kind of like looking at legal contracts now, to be honest with you, prospecting, I prospected in a  role I’ve ever been in, and a lot of folks, if they don’t instill that early on, they’re just never gonna get into the swing of it. I’ve gotten hired into my current role because I was good at prospecting, among other things, and also cross-team collaboration, too, I would say the big three, so.

[00:51:51] Marc Gonyea: And so, you, you like, okay, they got these things down, plus your son’s a sophisticated audience. We’re not cheap. 

[00:51:59] Matt Gloger: No. 

[00:52:00] Marc Gonyea: So, we were never the lowest price, never, right? Not even close. And you’re telling people with high expectations. So, you learn all these things, which is great, you said, okay, I’m gonna go test the water. How, you know, and knowing you’ve seen people at memoryBlue, who you worked with, who had left, right, you’ve seen people leave and then leave again,

[00:52:17] go to another firm, which happens, especially in tech, just the way that, way of the world. How did you evaluate what you wanted to do? 

[00:52:25] Matt Gloger: So, at that point in time, COVID was still a thing. And, well, I mean, it was still thing for a long time after that, but the COVID, like, layoff and impact on tech industry was still very prevalent.

[00:52:37] So, I started to notice as I was going through interview processes that a lot of the companies, they try to cover up a lot of the cracks and the foundation with like, “Hey, you know, we, we got a hundred million dollars in funding at, you know, six months ago and you can get, you know, X amount of shares, if you sign on now, or you can get a signing bonus, or something like that.”

[00:53:04] But honestly, when companies approach you and they’re starting with that, you gotta dive into that a little bit and try to understand, you know, one, and how saturated are those shares, two, what’s the profitability of the company look alike as far as debt to, if you’re even profitable at that point in time, and then overall attrition, not only in the sales role that you’re hiring for, but overall attrition in sales leadership as well. 

[00:53:29] Marc Gonyea: Those are…

[00:53:30] Matt Gloger: Yep. Those are big indications of health of the business, and also, you know, if you are gonna be around that, in that role a long time, because when there’s sales leadership and overall executive leadership changes, usually the layoffs follow that. 

[00:53:44] So, I just saw a lot of people that had worked for memoryBlue, to be honest with you, kind of go to some of these companies and it didn’t work out and that’s okay, you know, you get experience and you can move on to the next one, but I was trying to look for a company that was stable and would offer, you know, enough training and support for me and my role,

[00:54:02] that I didn’t have to worry about when the company going belly under, or me losing my job the next day, which, you know, it’s, I think it’s a big thing to learn, and also it’s huge in this next step that you take because company I worked for after memoryBlue, kind of learned that after I joined memoryBlue, stayed around there for about nine months.

[00:54:19] And before I took my new role, but, you know, it’s something that’s an ever going process that you have to keep an eye on, so.

[00:54:24] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Gotta learn. And so, what are you doing now?

[00:54:29] Matt Gloger: So, now I work

[00:54:30] Marc Gonyea: And, and why’d you go work there? 

[00:54:32] Matt Gloger: Yeah, sure thing, I’ll back up. So, I worked for a data center collocation company called QTS Data Centers.

[00:54:38] For those that don’t know, Northern Virginia, specifically Ashburn area is the data center capital of the world, a lot of the world, the, literally 80% of the world’s internet traffic flows through, between 28 and route 7. So, very familiar with it from Northern Virginia. Couple former QTS folks had gone to work at, or a couple former memoryBlue folks had gone to work at QTS and other collocation data center companies in the industry.

[00:55:03] Matt Gloger: So, I saw that, my friend, still close friend of this day, Rob, who came down to visit me here in Austin, and I was kind of complaining about my job at that point in time, to be honest with you, and he had told me that a position on the team outta Dallas had just opened up, they’re looking for folks with my skill set, and I just bought a house at this point in time, and I was like,

[00:55:24] Marc Gonyea: Congratulations.

[00:55:25] Matt Gloger: Thank you, yeah, I was like, as long as I don’t have to move to Dallas, you know, I’m open to it. And so, they brought me on into almost like inside sales, selling role, they call it retail, which is just smaller opportunities that you’re working, and then got promoted in April to field position. So, I’ve been in the field selling role now for about six months.

[00:55:45] Marc Gonyea: Excellent, and why, why’d you decide to go there? 

[00:55:48] Matt Gloger: They had, one, the growth director of the past few years, they had like doubled in size without taking on additional funding. So, they’d done it organically. Their stock share price had grown consistently over those few years.

[00:56:02] There are folks that had worked at memoryBlue, gone there and been successful,

[00:56:07] Marc Gonyea: Been there for a while.

[00:56:08] Matt Gloger: which one thing I’m big on, honestly, is working with people you enjoy being around, to be honest with you. Sales is hard, you might as well work with people that you like being around, and you like working with, and you can go get a beer crack, a joke with, or just kind of vent to. Honestly, you need that support system. 

[00:56:25] Of course. So, I’d seen what success looked like there. I’d seen how the company had managed the whole COVID situation, done it successfully, and the data center, and IT infrastructure world is something that’s never going away. And if anything, it’s only growing. So, it was a great opportunity, great time to join the company. And, uh, I’ve enjoyed it since, and been relatively successful, I guess. 

[00:56:48] Marc Gonyea: And who are you target, targeting now? 

[00:56:50] Matt Gloger: So, we specifically go after Fortune 1000 companies, and fast, fast-growing tech companies. So, usually, that looks like large retail organizations, large healthcare providers, a lot of banks and financial institutions, and utility providers, usually, that’s kind of our, our sector. 

[00:57:10] Marc Gonyea: And what is, what, how do what’s your, do you have a territory? 

[00:57:12] Matt Gloger: Yes.

[00:57:13] Marc Gonyea: What’s yours?

[00:57:14] Matt Gloger: So, my territory is Southwest in the United States, so.

[00:57:16] Marc Gonyea: Okay.

[00:57:17] Matt Gloger: Typically Texas, Arizona, Colorado, California. Those are like our defined regions. So, my Fortune 1000 crop, I would say, is in those states, but technically I can work with any company if I find an opportunity in west of Mississippi. So, somebody who can prospect a lot, that opens up, a lot of, lot of chances to go out there and find some, some deals.

[00:57:36] Marc Gonyea: Well, walk us through like a day in the life you, in the, in this role you’re in.

[00:57:40] Matt Gloger: Yeah. So, I work remote here out of Austin, we’re, our closest office is in San Antonio, but technically my home office is in Dallas. So, 80% of the time I’m remote, but for those who are, you know, kind of contemplating working remote, I like to say that working a remote gig is not, you know, it’s not a reason not to get in the office.

[00:58:01] So, most of the time I’m, I’m working remote. I cross-collaborate with my SE, my team outta Dallas, and then I’m involved in implementation calls. A lot of prospecting working deals, and really just trying to manage my pipeline, and my, and my book of business, because if you’ve got defined accounts, especially in the F1000, you know, your account territory, isn’t that big, so it’s a lot about relationship management, working with third-party consultants, brokers, to, to try to find opportunities to work 

[00:58:34] with companies, it’s really a long-term sell. So, really just managing relationships and trying to position yourself. So, when an opportunity does come about, which happens usually once every five years, they already know you, they already like you, and they’ll give you a shot at RFPA.

[00:58:49] Chris Corcoran: Interesting. You know, you left out your, your office, your coworker, your virtual office, I mean, at your house. 

[00:58:57] Matt Gloger: Yeah. So, I live with my girlfriend, another former memoryBlue. 

[00:59:00] Marc Gonyea: Abby Bull-Windham.

[00:59:01] Matt Gloger: Abby Bull-Windham.

[00:59:02] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, give her a shout-out too. This whole podcast, not to mention… 

[00:59:05] Matt Gloger: Yeah, I was working, I was waiting for the perfect time.

[00:59:07] Marc Gonyea: All right. Good. 

[00:59:08] Matt Gloger: And, uh, yeah, Abby works from home too. We have our two home office set up with the two dogs. So, it’s almost like a mini sales floor, honestly, because if you know Abby, you know that she

[00:59:18] Marc Gonyea: What did, Tyler, Texas

[00:59:20] Matt Gloger: Kyle, Texas.

[00:59:21] Marc Gonyea: Kyle, yes, memoryBlue Kyle office. 

[00:59:23] Matt Gloger: Yes, memoryBlue Kyle office, office. Yes, 20 minutes outside the city. She’s really good at her job too, she’s, she’s a hustler. She’s really good at her job. She’s making a lot of, lot of opportunities, a lot of chances to excel at her current company, so she’s killing it. 

[00:59:37] But our house is honestly turned in kinda like a mini sales floor, that feels like that between the dogs 

[00:59:41] Marc Gonyea: you noisemakers 

[00:59:42] Matt Gloger: No, we don’t. I wish we did because our offices now are literally that we share a wall. So, sometimes, you know, we’re almost like talking over each other, honestly. It’s hysterical. Yeah. 

[00:59:54] Marc Gonyea: How, so, tell us maybe outside the shouting match, most memorable deal.

[00:59:59] Matt Gloger: Most memorable deal. Okay, well, the shouting match a lot of times, I say, is the most memorable deal, but we already talked about that. I would say probably the most memorable deal, and the first one with memoryBlue, was with a company called Carbon. They were a returning client at that point in time, and they had hired memoryBlue folks before, so they had high expectations coming into this, and they wanted to do like a two or three FTE deal. So sizable deal. 

[01:00:27] Literally, my first deal that I had worked, it was an inbound, it was with somebody that has worked with memoryBlue before, may have been an alumni, honestly.

[01:00:33] Matt Gloger: So, they had a lot of high expectations, and their goal was to hire out the memoryBlue employees onto their internal team. But it got tricky because this was a deal that was pointed towards the bay, and really the ultimate negotiation came down to having the memoryBlue SDRs come work out of their office,

[01:00:53] and they wanted to include that in the contract, and we were going back and forth for like, felt like two months about this in the contract, because where the memoryBlue offices in San Jose, or the Carbon offices, which I, do you remember? It’s somewhere, it’s like, it’s somewhere, yeah like somewhere in the East Bay, not close to each other, we were just going back and forth with them that that wasn’t feasible because if anybody knows the Bay area, traffic there is horrible, and they would end up spending, like, three or four hours each day, their office, and nobody, let alone SDR wants to do that, but we ended up getting the deal done,

[01:01:27] it was, it was one that happened right before COVID hit too, which is cool, and, um, looking back, I would say it was probably more memorable one because people from memoryBlue got hired out there, 

[01:01:39] Chris Corcoran: A big impact. 

[01:01:40] Matt Gloger: Yeah. So, it made a big impact. I helped a couple people get jobs here. So, I really like to see newer people land in great roles and excel in it. So, it was probably one of the more memorable ones for me, at least here.

[01:01:53] Marc Gonyea: The memorable sales team. What did you call it? I mean, you, calls me the one-man economy, but the member sales team creates jobs. 

[01:02:00] Matt Gloger: Yeah, no, it does.

[01:02:01] Marc Gonyea: The job core. Yeah, help, you were getting, selling deals for people who could come into the company, for jobs that didn’t exist. 

[01:02:09] Matt Gloger: Andrew, a fraternity brother of mine, one of the deals I closed, he ended up working on, and now he’s like a manager of sales over there, got hired out by them, he’s being crushing it. 

[01:02:17] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, I think that’s where, that’s great of side work there, but anyways. Wow. What about you got a loss? I don’t wanna end on the loss. We gotta end soon. You got stuff to do, the dogs to take care of 

[01:02:28] Matt Gloger: A loss 

[01:02:29] Marc Gonyea: Most memorable loss or loss that haunts you.

[01:02:32] Matt Gloger: I had one recently that, that haunts me, I’d say the most memorable one is the most recent one. Yeah, yeah, you, you put your best foot forward, but, you know, especially in some of these like more strategic deals, it’s really important to identify companies that, you know, are the right type of company that you wanna do business with, as well.

[01:02:52] It’s not just that they wanna do business with you, but it’s like the right company that would fit the mold of being a good client for you, because if you get, you know, if you, you get into a sales cycle with a wrong type of, uh, account, you know, you’re gonna end up spending your wheels a long time. And then, it’ll also make the loss that much more harder if you did just idea it before, like, “Hey, this isn’t gonna happen, you know, you’re just here for price.” Like, make that known, and we can shoot over a quote for you, if you’re gonna use this to negotiate different rates for somebody else that’s, you know, a cheaper provider.

[01:03:23] But, you know, if you don’t ID that immediately, like I said, you’re gonna start spending your wheels a lot, it’s gonna make it that much harder, you’re gonna end up spending a lot more energy and time on something that you should probably just kick the can on. 

[01:03:33] Chris Corcoran: So, what happened? What was, what, what happened with this loss? You spent too much time. 

[01:03:37] Matt Gloger: We just, probably like a weeks’ worth of, like, sole attention on and, uh, working with external parties on, and just a lot of coordination, which was a lot of my job, and then, you know, we got one chance in front of the the key stakeholders over there and shot over a quote, and then didn’t hear back from them for a month.

[01:03:55] So, at that point in time, you know, we kind of knew where, where things were. We ended up hearing that they went for, with a provider that I got a, an advertisement on my laptop the next day, it said 50% off their services. So, I was like, well, you know, if I IDed that account as, that earlier, you know, that was important, maybe wouldn’t spend much time, and go and find, find the next opportunity.

[01:04:18] Chris Corcoran: It’s like losing the deal of science. 

[01:04:20] Matt Gloger: Yeah. There you go. 

[01:04:26] Chris Corcoran: Very good. Well, well, one last thing. So, looking, looking back about just the, not just as being an SDR, but about being a, a tech sales professional, what advice would you give to the listeners?

[01:04:39] Matt Gloger: I would say, think about in the long term, you know, obviously folks who are in an SDR role, you know, most of their goals, or most of the folks is, you know, they want to get to a management role, or they want to get to AE role or maybe a sales op role, or something. Use it really as a stepping stone.

[01:04:54] Anything but being an SDR. 

[01:04:56] Matt Gloger: Yeah, which is, some people wanna do that. But, you know, honestly, just try to focus on the things that you control, especially in an SDR role because it’s like, there’s a lot of things you can’t, and if you master, you know, your daily activities or what you can focus on, you know, that can contribute to a lot of different roles later on in your career, and it’ll just help you stay present in the role to know how to identify companies that are just out there, kind of blowing smoke at you to try to get you in a seat, or if they actually look at you as an asset and a resource in the organization long term.

[01:05:25] So, and then, you know, just try to build your network, it’s a small community, you’re gonna work with the people that you’ve worked with in one company probably can later down the line, and if you don’t, at least you have a good relationship with ’em, you can lean on them when you need ’em. 

[01:05:38] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. I mean, you didn’t know Kellen before memoryBlue, didn’t you? 

[01:05:40] Matt Gloger: No, I did not.

[01:05:41] Marc Gonyea: All right, or any of those other guys you mentioned earlier when you first, that first murderers row, and now everybody’s slaying it at QTS. 

[01:05:49] Matt Gloger: Yeah, we got a good group of, good group of guys and gals over there.

[01:05:52] Marc Gonyea: But I mean, I, you did a lot of great stuff with us and we were eternally appreciative about it.

[01:05:57] Matt Gloger: Appreciative of y’all too. 

[01:05:59] Chris Corcoran: Yeah, for sure. All right, Mr. Gloger. 

[01:06:01] Marc Gonyea: I know Tommy is too. I want, Tommy’s not, it would’ve been good to have Tommy be a virtual like podcast host, but Tommy shout-out to you ’cause I know you and Tommy worked closely together. 

[01:06:08] Matt Gloger: Yeah. Tommy’s good boy. He’s doing well.

[01:06:10] Marc Gonyea: A lot of success. 

[01:06:12] Chris Corcoran: Very good. All right, Mr. Blogger. Thanks for joining us. 

[01:06:14] Matt Gloger: Yeah. Thank you, guys, for having me.