Episode 106: Bruce Horner –  Building Your Network Builds Your Net Worth

Success doesn’t come in an instant. While we all would probably like to benefit from natural talent, Bruce Horner stresses that consistent hard work can be just as important for achieving your goals.

In this episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers, Bruce discusses the strategies that helped him work his way up to the role of Senior Enterprise Sales Manager at Kronologic. From utilizing everyday experiences as sales practice to learning how to effectively manage his time, Bruce has proven the payoff that comes from true dedication and devotion to your role.

Guest-At-A-Glance

💡 Name: Bruce Horner

💡 What he does: Bruce is the senior enterprise sales manager at Kronologic.

💡 Company: Kronologic

💡 Noteworthy: Bruce is the true example of a hard-working, devoted individual who, despite the obstacles in his life, believed in himself and learned how to make the most of the opportunities put in front of him. 

💡 Where to find Bruce: LinkedIn

Key Insights

⚡Learn to control your freedom — one of the most significant pieces of advice we got from Bruce. But what he means is that you should learn to manage your time and energy properly and not waste it on activities that don’t align with your goal. ”I had to be cognizant of my next step and what that’s going to lead to. If I watch TV, what’s that going to lead to? I’m probably going to be unprepared for a test or something that’s happening. If I study or start, I apply a little, just a little. We’re not always feeling it, but if we do a little, I can increase my preparedness for whenever that’s going to happen; I’m still in a better spot than if I didn’t do anything.”

⚡Sales is everything, and everything is sales. Regardless of the industry you are in, the interactions you find yourself in, and in your personal communication, you need to negotiate and make someone accept your offer. ”My senior year, I was a bartender. I was almost like a modern-day therapist. But it was cool because I was able to see more walks of life from different folks. But I treated that job as a sales position. Anytime someone sat down, I always asked for their name. That way, if they ever came in again, I would always remember that. So I treated it like a sales position because I worked off tips.”

⚡Having a coworker you can rely on is priceless. Although sales is a competitive field, building relationships and spreading the network is of the utmost importance for success. ”I always say it’s not a hard job, but it’s a hard job to do well. We’re all in it and can relate to it. And when you have these folks and people you grow relationships with, you can lean on that.”

Episode Highlights

Sales Became Slowly But Surely a No Brainer for Me

”I was doing sales in some capacity in my junior year. I needed to make some money, and I was working for a friend of a friend who owned a roofing company and had me cold calling in Fort Worth, Texas.

And for all those that wanna talk about objections, you don’t know objections or rejection until you call someone down south in the Bible Belt on a Sunday talking about their roof.  

So I started to get a feel for having conversations over the phone. In my senior year, I started to say, ‘All right, I like sales.’ But the big thing about sales that also pushed me that way was that I didn’t like anybody telling me how much money I was going to make in an hour. 

You get a salary and everything, so I guess you get back into that. But I like being able to make as much money as I want to be able to make. You’re not going to tell me I work for this amount an hour; I didn’t like that.”

Coming to memoryBlue Was a Huge Opportunity for Me, and I Wanted to Make the Most of It

”I remember walking in, and there was an ambience; it felt like killers in there. […] I had a wired headset, and a few did have a wireless headset. […] That was the first thing I caught. 

I was able to see the ones who had the wireless headset. So I was like, ‘Okay, what are they doing? How are they moving? What’s their play? What’s their angle?’ 

But then, there’s also that piece where I went on 20-plus interviews. And that does something to your confidence. It’s like, ‘Dude, am I not good enough? Do they not see that I have potential?’ 

A lot of people miss that hunger. So I was like, ‘F*ck this. I don’t care who’s number one. I got an opportunity, and I’m going to make not only the most of it, but I’m going to make sure that once I understand champions full and everything else, I’m taking that. I’m not taking all of it; I’m taking a piece of it.’”

I Created My Own Role Play Routines That Helped Me Improve My Performance

”I started with recordings, and then I started writing them. I wrote out the entire pitch, and then I would go into offices when they were empty; there weren’t any interviews. And I would look in the mirror and practice.

I would put scenarios in my head of what could come up or how they would do this. And I just did that over and over. A mixture of all that in terms of my preparation — it was recordings, practicing, and writing it down. And I didn’t listen to myself nearly as much as I listened to others.”

Transcript: 

[00:00:00] Bruce Horner: Well, like I always say like it’s not a hard job, but it’s a hard job to do well, and we’re all in it, and we can all relate to it, and when you have these certain folks, you know, certain people that you grow relationships and have relationships with, you can lean on that. 

[00:00:15] Marc Gonyea: I’ve been waiting for this Corcoran, Bruce Horner.

[00:00:41] Chris Corcoran: Bruce on the loose.

[00:00:42] Bruce Horner: In the flesh. 

[00:00:44] Marc Gonyea: How you doing? 

[00:00:45] Bruce Horner: Living the dream, living the dreams. Good to see some familiar phases down here. 

[00:00:48] Chris Corcoran: Definitely. 

[00:00:50] Marc Gonyea: Dude, you’re doing a lot of great stuff. Let’s hop right into it. Chris and I know you, we don’t know you as well ’cause I always get confused exactly what part of Virginia you’re from and all that shit whenever we talk.

[00:01:01] Bruce Horner: I think it’s West by God. Yeah. Maryland made me, West Virginia raised me. 

[00:01:07] Marc Gonyea: Can’t make that up. So, let’s start with that, and then we’re just gonna go through some things.

[00:01:13] Bruce Horner: Yeah. 

[00:01:13] Marc Gonyea: So, little bit of time. Where’d you grow up? You like as a kid, some of those things, and we’ll, we’ll go from there. 

[00:01:19] Bruce Horner: Ooh, peeling back the layers. Yeah. So, spent my early years in Prince George’s County, Maryland,

[00:01:28] Marc Gonyea: PG County. 

[00:01:28] Bruce Horner: and, PG County, shout-out. We, and, you know, it was just my mom and my brother. So, very early on, it was, it, it was a, my brother got into some, some trouble. So, it was like always this sort of right from the beginning, you know, had to figure out things on my own, wasn’t a whole lot of attention necessarily being, being given. And so, for that, it transitioned into me just being pretty

[00:01:56] self-sufficient just at a really early age. So, if you talk about, like, when I was a kid, I always grew up faster, I was never really hanging out with, you know, kids younger than me, it was always kids that were always older than me. And from there, it was just, I was always really good at modeling and modeling the right people or the people that really interest me.

[00:02:16] And that was from a very early age, but like many kids, I, you know, played sports, played basketball, I still had a really, really good childhood and, you know, West Virginia, as much as I, God, that I hated when I moved there.

[00:02:31] Marc Gonyea: How old?

[00:02:31] I was six, and just had an early aid because it’s just, like, you go from busy, busy, busy, and you see a bunch of people, and then you go to West Virginia and mind you, like the Eastern Panhandle, a lot of people from DC, Baltimore, they’ll, they live there because it’s half the price, but it’s like, it’s not as fast, you can’t hop on a bus, or you can’t hop on a train. So, just everything, just a slower environment, again, I think my mom for, it was a great place to grew, you know, raise your kids.

[00:03:00] Bruce Horner: But for me at the time, I couldn’t stand it, but it, I guess it did pave a way for me to have a, feel like more of a kid and not have to grow up nearly as fast. 

[00:03:10] Marc Gonyea: Shout-out to mom.

[00:03:11] Bruce Horner: Shout-out to mom. 

[00:03:13] Marc Gonyea: What did you think you were gonna be, uh, when you were, like, high school kid, when you grow up?

[00:03:17] Bruce Horner: So, when I was in high school, what did, yeah, I gotta be honest, this is a tough one because, again, you try to model the people, at least for me, you try to model the people around you, but wasn’t really a ton of, wasn’t a ton of role models around. So, a lot of role models were, you know, whether they’re actors or musicians or something like that.

[00:03:40] So, to be honest with you, in high school, the only thing I really thought about was, was like NBA, but then you start realizing, like, alright, you’re 5’11 when you get into, into ninth grade, and then 11th grade, shit, still 5’11, it’s like, and then your wingspans, like, hmm, yeah, that’s, that’s gonna be a problem, um.

[00:04:03] Marc Gonyea: 5’11, then 5, 5’9 wingspan. 

[00:04:05] Bruce Horner: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:04:06] Marc Gonyea: Not gonna get it done. 

[00:04:06] Bruce Horner: Yeah. It’s just, like, you could fight as much as you want, but it is what it is. So, that was my, you know, that was really my dream, but then I had to, in 11th grade, I actually had to, I had to stop playing basketball so I could, you know, I was really, really good, too.

[00:04:22] I mean, it’s all relative, but, you know, in terms of being in the paper, in terms of going to AAU, but I had to stop that, and I had to pick up a job at McDonald’s because I had to help pay, you know, rent, I had to help pay mortgage. So, again, growing up fast, those were just some of the elements that I had to incur.

[00:04:41] So, I think I was also getting to the point, too, where I wanted to start making money because you get tired of having just one pair of shoes for the, you know, the rest of the year, you have, like, one set of outfits for the rest of the year. So, 11th grade, I started working, but to answer your question of, like, where I wanted to be, the only thing I could really think of is just, like, I don’t know what I want to do or where I want to be, but I know I want to get the hell out of this city. Yeah, I wanna get the hell outta West Virginia.

[00:05:10] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Got it, man. It’s a lot of responsibility, right? 

[00:05:16] Chris Corcoran: No doubt. How many hours a week were you working at McDonald’s? 

[00:05:19] Bruce Horner: Mm. I would get in minimum 25, I think the most 30, 35 in a week. 

[00:05:27] Marc Gonyea: Wow. 

[00:05:27] Bruce Horner: Yeah, so.

[00:05:29] Marc Gonyea: And, I mean, there are lots of great accolades about you, you worked here, always hard working, nobody’s gonna work you.

[00:05:41] Bruce Horner: Yeah, you know, and then it was like one of those things where I also had to have conversations too. It’s like, you can work really, really hard, but if you, if you have patience, right? Like, there’s something to be said about patience where I’m gathering that now,

[00:05:58] but before then, it was just like work, work, work, and it’s like, well, maybe there’s a better way, like, maybe that hard work can be positioned in a, a different way, but I know, I really appreciate that ’cause I really, you know, I hang my hat on that. So, to the respect. 

[00:06:11] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, the evolution, too, right? There’s the evolution. That’s amazing. All right. So, what’d you end up doing after high school? 

[00:06:18] Bruce Horner: Yeah. So, after high school, again, having that question with myself of like, yeah, I don’t know what I want to do, where I want to go, if colleges, I thought I was actually going to have to join the military ’cause I didn’t know how I was gonna pay for college, but I knew all my friends and, you know, someone who I was dating at the time,

[00:06:39] she, I remember her asking me, she was like, “Are you, what college are you going to?” I was like, “I don’t know.” She was like, “Well, have you, have you applied?” I was like, “No.” She was like, “Are you taking the ACT or SAT?” I’m like, “No.” She was like, so she actually have to tip my hat off to her at that time because, you know, some people come into your life at different points, where she told me, she was like, “No, you need to start applying, and you need to take the SAT if you wanna go outta state, you need to take the ACT if you wanna stay in state.”

[00:07:11] And so, I was able to start putting this all together in my, my senior year. And, you know, things presented themselves to me where I, you know, after high school, I ended up going to a small junior college because of, didn’t really, you have to be able to visualize it, and I couldn’t visual, visualize myself going to a big D one school,

[00:07:32] and I was like, all right, well, I’m gonna go to Potomac State University. So, I started there, and it’s funny because all it takes is just being in there, and you might think, you might psych yourself out in different scenarios of like, I’m not, you know, college isn’t for me, or this job isn’t for me, this role isn’t for me, like, I don’t fit that mold, but once you’re in there, then it was like, no, this is just high school,

[00:07:57] like, this is just, it’s, you just have to apply yourself differently and you have freedom. So, you have to control your freedom in what you do, you can’t just drink on a Tuesday afternoon just because you don’t have class, you know, till 3:30. So, I went to Pot State, and I just started putting, putting everything together.

[00:08:17] And then, shortly after that, that was a school that then all my credits transferred over to West Virginia. And then, I went to West Virginia University, and yeah, bigger school, but I was able to, what was really helpful for me going to a bigger school was I was able to actually see, your hometown’s a bubble.

[00:08:35] So, you don’t get to see everything, and, you know, your family can also be a bubble too, and that’s the only thing that you’re, you’re used to seeing, but at WVU, I was able to meet people from New York, people from Jersey, hear about their parents would come in, talk to them, talk to their, you know, what are they doing,

[00:08:51] how did they get in there. And so, it was really more than just getting a degree, it was really, it was impactful for me because I was able to, to see how other people were able to live and, you know, know that there’s a different type of life out there. 

[00:09:06] What’d you study? Business administration. So, standard business degree, I always liked numbers, always liked playing with them.

[00:09:12] Marc Gonyea: Okay. I got a question real quick. I circle back as something you hit on it, but I want you to go a little deeper. Learn, you learn to control your freedom.

[00:09:20] Bruce Horner: Yeah. 

[00:09:21] Marc Gonyea: What about that?

[00:09:22] Bruce Horner: Yes. So, you’re going to experience, any, anybody that’s either still in college or about to, who, who may listen to this, but, or can relate to it, that’s outta college, is

[00:09:34] Marc Gonyea: Young professional making money a little bit. 

[00:09:36] Bruce Horner: You have, yeah, you have, just because you have time doesn’t mean you get to do, it’s not always fun or it’s, it’s your perception, right? So, you know, in school, for example, that was, all right, I may have class at 11 o’clock and my next class might not be till 3:30, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not going to be productive for me to just sit around and watch TV or do something, it’s, all right,

[00:10:03] how can you get ahead? What are little things that you can get ahead and how I could relate it to, you know, my, my work, specifically with memoryBlue, it’s like, I had a lot of time on my, my hands when I was, where I was living at, in Ashburn, and I would come in on Saturdays, you know, because it’s just like, all right, I know I have a number to hit,

[00:10:24] like, what are the building blocks, like, how can I plan this out to where I can get ahead? And so, that was my whole thing where I had to control my freedom and I had to be, I had to be cognizant of what is my next step and what is that going to lead? If I watch TV, what’s that going to lead? I’m probably going to be unprepared for a test or, or something that’s happening.

[00:10:43] If I study or if I start, if I even apply a little, just a little, right? Like, we’re not always feeling it, but like, if we just do a little, if I can increase me being prepared for whenever that’s going to happen, I’m still in a better spot than if I didn’t do anything else, so.

[00:11:01] Marc Gonyea: It’s like the SDR memoryBlue after the Anne Blitz.

[00:11:05] Bruce Horner: Right, right. I’ll never forget. There was a couple times you walked past and I saw your face red because people were playing, they were playing the little, um, oh, what, a cornhole, they had like the little cornhole, and it’s like, look, there’s always a time, right? You, this game that we’re in, you know, sales, right, it’s intense, it’s at the highest level.

[00:11:26] And there should be some, some amount of, like, play, but at the same time, for me, at least, it was, all right I know I have an objective to hit, all right, and I have to schedule that, like, play, schedule play, right? It’s kinda like a cheat meal, like, I schedule a cheat meal because if I just say, you know what, this day I’m gonna do, just eat all this, it’s like, that’s going to leak into so many other, it’s gonna leak into another day, it’s gonna leak into another day, it becomes a habit. 

[00:11:56] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. I love to have that quote above every ping pong table at a company, which is like, “Learn to control your freedom,” you know? I don’t have a problem with the ping pong tables, generally speaking, but sometimes I’m, like, between the blitzes, that’s, like, as important as the blitz time, you know, within your SDR with the company, and you also hit on something that, we were doing a podcast with somebody recently who thought they were getting a jump on, on everybody by coming in on a Saturday, and they came in on Saturday and Bruce was already there on a Saturday, working. I don’t know if it was Marco, or I can’t remember.

[00:12:30] Bruce Horner: Boustead, the thing is Boustead 

[00:12:32] Marc Gonyea: The Bous, that was Boustead, yes, yes, it was Bous, Nicky B, it was Boustead, and Boustead thought he was like doing it, and he was like, “Bruce was in the office.” I was like, “What?” 

[00:12:44] Bruce Horner: Yeah, boy, that’s, he’s an interesting subject. I mean, I, there was a lot, Boustead played a, a lot. There was, there’s a lot of other, there was a lot of other people too, that, again, we go back to modeling, picked up there, there was a point where, you know, speaking on Boustead, not to jump around, but with Boustead, he was always at the top, and it was probably my first month, and I would walk in the hallway, and I would see him because he used to come from Boone, and I’d see him, I was just like, “Dude, I’m coming for you.” I didn’t even know Boustead like that, I was just like, “Dude, I’m coming for you.” He was like, “Okay.” Like, it was just this playful banter. 

[00:13:21] I, I, he probably thought I was serious the first couple weeks, now him and I are, you know, the best of friends, but it was like, yeah, dude, like, I see what you’re doing, like, I, I see you. 

[00:13:31] Marc Gonyea: That’s a great hand. Let’s go back. 

[00:13:33] Chris Corcoran: We gotta get both ready.

[00:13:35] Marc Gonyea: Props. 

[00:13:36] Bruce Horner: Oh yeah. 

[00:13:36] Marc Gonyea: So, run a collection. If you’re ever in Miami looking for a high-priced foreign vehicle, give that guy a call.

[00:13:43] Chris Corcoran: Picked your guy.

[00:13:45] Marc Gonyea: I’m still sorry. You were jumping into his major. 

[00:13:47] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. So, what, why’d you pick business? 

[00:13:49] Bruce Horner: I always had, well, I had, so, my aunt was the only one in my family that went to college, graduated and, you know, she had a, she had a big part in, in helping raise me, but there was also a distance, but her husband,

[00:14:06] he’s an interesting guy, he, like, his business mind, it was like, you know, the really good business mind, but he, you know, in social interactions just sometimes he would, just not the most social, but I would listen, and I would love, some people in my family just could not stand to listen to them, but I would sit there, and I’m like, I’m picking up on everything.

[00:14:28] And he would always say, it was just, like, get a business degree, he was like, first of all, you know, get a degree, just get a degree, you might not like exactly what you’re studying, but that’s where, if you get a business degree, that’s always going to be a really good foundation. And it also worked out really good because I, I like numbers.

[00:14:46] Like, I, numbers make sense to me, like if I back into, I mean, it works if I’m counting, if I’m counting calories, right? It works if I’m looking at a mortgage or looking at an ROI on an investment property, numbers are, they’re, they’re important, but they’re almost imperative. And so, for me it was like, yeah, it was a no-brainer, like, accounting in college.

[00:15:07] It was very methodical. I really enjoyed it. I love an answer, right? There’s some things that like, come in gray areas, it’s like, no, numbers, no, that’s, that’s the answer.

[00:15:16] Chris Corcoran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I wanna jump back here. So, what did you learn working at McDonald’s? 

[00:15:23] Bruce Horner: That I didn’t wanna work there forever. Hey, nothing, nothing wrong with that, it’s that

[00:15:29] Marc Gonyea: No, no, everybody’s gotta earn a living, or like make money, right?

[00:15:32] Bruce Horner: That’s right. 

[00:15:33] Marc Gonyea: No, you’re not saying that?

[00:15:33] Bruce Horner: No. Yeah. It’s that, you know, for me, it’s, you know, there was a, there were a lot of people that were, that, that struggle. There were also a lot of people that had so much potential and, you know, you, you think back, and as I’m thinking about it now, it’s like, you know, you were just,

[00:15:54] you know, if you had different circumstances or if, if you, in some cases, if you applied yourself in just a different area, if you believe that you could do something, do something different, I think at a very young age, I was able to have that, be introspective to know that hey, this person’s got something. 

[00:16:13] And then, for me, I was always, ’cause I was always an underdog, or at least I felt like it, and it was like, all right, you know, Bruce, look, you have something, you have something, like, but you have to practice what you preach, you have to put this into practice, and you have to move forward,

[00:16:26] and this is a building block, sure, you’d love to be playing basketball right now, but you’re able to, you’re able, there’s something to be said about being able to help your mom, there’s something to be said about being able to contribute. And then, there’s also something to be said about buying your shoes.

[00:16:43] I never had a haircut, my mom cut my hair until I was in 11th grade. I bought my first haircut, and there’s something about making sure when you show up that you, you know, you have a, a fresh cut when you go to a party or you go to an event. So, yeah. 

[00:16:58] Chris Corcoran: Very good. Very good. So, you, you go to WVU, study business, you like numbers. Where did you think that was gonna lead?

[00:17:08] Bruce Horner: I didn’t know, uh, yeah, that was a, I always thought that somebody was going, it was like, you know, we would say, like, who’s going, I, I would have in my head, like, who can I leverage to put me on, put me onto a situation. And I had a buddy whose father, actually, his father was, he was like a scout for the Chicago Bears,

[00:17:29] but he, anyway, he had connections to NFL and, you know, I was really, his father was really appreciative because this was, he was my buddy, but he had fallen on some hard times and I had helped him out, you know, I would always work while I was in college. So, I would be able to loan him, you know, money at times.

[00:17:44] Bruce Horner: And he was really grateful that I helped his son out, and I was like, “Ooh, that’s, I’m gonna get into the NFL, I’m gonna be able to this, like, this is my shot in.” And, you know, I, I gave him a text a few times, call a few times, nothing, and that’s no knock on him, but what it taught me was, no, no one’s gonna put you on, no one puts you on, like, you put yourself on, you know, opportunity is going to mo, it’s like luck, luck is opportunity that meets preparation, or however it goes.

[00:18:15] Marc Gonyea: That’s how it goes.

[00:18:16] Bruce Horner: Yeah. And so, to answer your question, though, I had no idea, but what was helpful is that I was already doing sales in some capacity, my junior year because, one, I needed to make some money, but what I was doing is I was working for a, you know, a friend of a friend who owned a roofing company, and had me cold calling in Fort Worth, Texas.

[00:18:43] Marc Gonyea: Door knocking or cold calling? 

[00:18:44] Bruce Horner: Cold calling cause I was,

[00:18:45] Marc Gonyea: Cold calling, yeah, all right.

[00:18:47] Bruce Horner: I was in West Virginia. And, you know, for all those that wanna talk about objections, like, you don’t know objections or rejections until you call someone down south in the Bible Belt on a Sunday talking about their roof. You want to talk about the, the words that they had, they weren’t Christian when they were off the phone.

[00:19:10] That was, so, I, I had started to get a feel for having conversations over the phone. I had a feel for objection. And so, I think I know in my senior year I started to say, all right, I like sales, but the big thing about sales for me, too, that also pushed me towards that way was I didn’t like anybody telling me how much money I was gonna make an hour.

[00:19:33] Bruce Horner: Like, I tell, you know, you get a salary and everything. So, I guess you get back into that, but commissions, like, I like being able to make as much money as I want to be able to make, like, you’re not gonna tell me I work for this amount this hour, like, I didn’t like that. So, sales became slowly but surely a no-brainer for me.

[00:19:53] Chris Corcoran: Okay. So, the experience in selling the, the roofing in the South from the phone, you thought, “Hey, you know what, if I’m good at this, I can make more money and I want to kind of explore sales.” And so, then what happened? Like, how’d you, how’d you go about that? 

[00:20:08] Bruce Horner: Well, you know, I’m also in the restaurant industry at this time, so, I’m working through college. So, my senior year and I’m a bartender and I, I like being a, being a bartender, I was almost like a modern-day therapist, some things that I, I wish they didn’t share with me, 

[00:20:25] but, you know, for the most part it was, it was cool because I was able to see, again, just more walks of life from different folks, but I treated that job also as a sales position where anytime someone sat down, I always, I always shook their hand,

[00:20:39] I always asked for their name that way if they ever came in again, some people were coming in just to watch their kids’ soccer game at WVU, and then they would leave. If they ever came in again, I would always remember that. So, I treated it very much like a, like a sales position because I worked off of tips, but when I graduated, what the hell do I do?

[00:20:57] Like, it’s, it’s like, yeah, I want to go into sales, but it’s, I’m in Morgantown, it’s not, you know, huge, there’s like two or three big companies that I could work for, but it was also, I just didn’t, again, from a kid, I didn’t really, I wanted to be around in the city, I was always a city kid, so I always wanted to be in the city.

[00:21:18] And I was, so, I hung around in Morgantown for a year before I was like, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do this anymore, and again, you know, who I was dating at the time, it was long distance for a little bit, but it was like, I have to do this for me. So, I moved, I moved to Ashburn with my aunt and uncle, and I helped my, my grandfather, at the time, he was sort of on a downslope. So, I was helping my grandmother with him.

[00:21:44] Marc Gonyea: Ashburn, for people listening, it’s suburb of Washington, DC.

[00:21:47] Bruce Horner: That’s right. So, you know, I, I’m there, and my, my aunt and uncle, they gave me a buffer of time before had to, having to pay rent because I’m just running off of my savings. And, you know, I don’t know if I shared this with a lot of people, but I probably went on, I went on probably at least 20 interviews since, you know when I moved down.

[00:22:10] I mean, it was, it was constantly, I was, I was out there, I was applying, I was getting everything out there, and then I, you know, there was a couple, like, multi-level marketing jobs and again, nothing, nothing wrong with that, it’ll show you the dream. It just, but it was again like, “Hey, this isn’t fit with me. This isn’t me.” And so, you know, before Tiana Bell

[00:22:36] Marc Gonyea: TKO.

[00:22:36] Bruce Horner: There it is, she, um, you know, had a, had a good conversation with her, was able to have the interview, but then there was like, there was some time and I don’t know, I don’t remember what the time was in terms of starting with memoryBlue, but there was

[00:22:52] a space and time where, again, I’m running off of my savings and I’m like, more than the fact that I need money, I need to be doing something, like, there, idle hands tools for the devil. 

[00:23:03] And I, I was, I don’t know if I have like a roofing by some, but there was this, like, multi-level marketing roofing company, it was like, all right, yeah, well, do this, do that, and I was like, you know what? Just to get outta the house,I’ll do that, but it was right at that point, then Tiana gave me a call and was like, “Hey, when can you start?” And it was like.

[00:23:28] Marc Gonyea: Dude, how these companies, thank God, did it hire you? It was beyond 

[00:23:36] Bruce Horner: Appreciate that. Yeah, it was 

[00:23:38] Chris Corcoran: Mind-blowing, Chris. I mean, I’m not surprised. I guess a lot of times, people don’t hire on potential. 

[00:23:48] Bruce Horner: Right, right. Yeah. 

[00:23:49] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. They’re lost, man. So, rolling the memoryBlue. What do you remember?

[00:23:56] Bruce Horner: Hmm. I remember just, by walking in and there was like a, I don’t know, there was like a, it was an ambiance of just, it just felt like just, it felt like killers in there, like, it just, like, everybody was, every, you know, then you had the, you had the people that back then for, you all are blessed now because everything’s wireless.

[00:24:20] I had a wired headset and there were, there were the few that did have the wireless headset because you had to hit quota twice to get that, it was earned. And so, then I started, so the first day I was just, I caught that, that was the first thing that I caught. So, then I was able to see the ones that had the wireless headset.

[00:24:36] I was like, okay, going back to modeling. Right. Right. What are they doing? How are they moving? Like, what’s their play? What’s their angle? But then there’s also that piece too, right? Again, like I went on, like, 20-plus interviews, and, you know, that does something a little bit to your confidence in, in one way

[00:24:53] ’cause it’s like, like, am I not good enough if I, like, do they not see that I have potential? Where was it that I, where was I missing? But that also does, and what a lot of people miss is like, is that hunger. And so.

[00:25:08] Marc Gonyea: What the cuffs on here? Yeah. Yes. 

[00:25:10] Yeah. I light it up with a dashboard. 

[00:25:12] Bruce Horner: Yeah. I was just,I was like, all right, f*ck this, like, I don’t care who’s number one, who’s this, it’s, I got an opportunity and that’s it, I’m going make, not only the most of it, but I’m going to make sure once I understood champions full and everything else, it’s like, like, I’m taking that, I’m not taking all of it, I’m taking a piece of it.

[00:25:35] And, you know, that’s where Boustead in our interactions came in because it was like, alright, like, I, I see you, I see you, but I’m coming for you, I’m coming for you. 

[00:25:45] Marc Gonyea: Where’s Nicky B? Where’s Nick from?

[00:25:46] Chris Corcoran: He’s from Chicago. 

[00:25:47] Bruce Horner: From Chicago.

[00:25:48] Marc Gonyea: He got the kid from Chicago at the University Chapel Hill. You got the kid from PG County, West Virginia, right?

[00:25:55] Bruce Horner: Yeah. 

[00:25:56] Marc Gonyea: The WVU meeting chemistry major, and business major meeting at memoryBlue. 

[00:26:01] Bruce Horner: The most uncommon do, like, the fact that, like, him and I are, like, we’re the best of friends now, but that goes a shitty, 

[00:26:09] Marc Gonyea: You guys have a lot in common though. 

[00:26:10] Chris Corcoran: Yeah, you do. 

[00:26:10] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Well, that’s the thing. 

[00:26:12] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. Yeah. You guys are both competitive.

[00:26:13] Marc Gonyea: You have a lot of shit. A lot of shared values, really good people. It’s just like, that’s what we, he and I take great pride in like bringing people like you together and watching it go.

[00:26:24] Chris Corcoran: Watching it unfold.

[00:26:25] Marc Gonyea: Oh, ’cause Nick was running his freaking formulas. 

[00:26:30] Bruce Horner: Yeah, the macros, he was a, the guy was, the guy was a, he was a wizard, but you know who else was a wizard?

[00:26:37] Marc Gonyea: Who else? 

[00:26:38] Bruce Horner: Carley, the queen, Armentrout. Armentrout was a, she was a dog. She would, because like, she would, I, I don’t, I still can’t wrap my head around her, but she is somebody where she is a diligent planner. She,

[00:26:54] Marc Gonyea: Oh, my gosh. I remember her. 

[00:26:55] Bruce Horner: she will back into, she will back into everything, and she will base it on a car pan. She was like, I wanna pay off my car, I’m gonna do this. And sure enough, she pays off a car, and it’s like, like, 

[00:27:09] how, you know, she was a real work of art in terms, and masterful in terms of just how she planned.

[00:27:15] Marc Gonyea: Who was your DM?

[00:27:17] Bruce Horner: Shout-out Plesce.

[00:27:18] Marc Gonyea: Joey Plesce.

[00:27:19] Bruce Horner: Shout-out Plesce. God, Joey Plesce.

[00:27:22] Marc Gonyea: Hell yeah. 

[00:27:22] Bruce Horner: Could not have asked for a better delivery manager. He was so patient with me. And so, you take somebody like my, myself, there’s A and there’s B, and it’s just like, I need to get the B. And that’s where the whole thing, hey, if you have a little bit of patience, you can navigate certain things and it might not be as hard for you, you might not have to work as hard, or the hard work that you had me gets you farther.

[00:27:47] He was so patient with me because I couldn’t grasp the fact of, it’s like my first three days, and it’s like, why am I not at quota?

[00:27:58] So, you know, for, there’s, there’s something to be said for, you know, young talent where, you know, there’s just something to be said where you have to, you have to go through, like, you have to have the time, the time behind it because you can’t expect, that’s the same thing for real estate investing, right?

[00:28:16] It’s like, I’m trying to understand these markets. I can’t understand these markets the same way that other investors, you know, the markets, because they’ve been in the market for 10 years, like they know what businesses are coming in, they know all this stuff. Well, Joey was so, he was so patient with me and he just, he was able to calm my mind on certain elements to just like, hey, focus on this and focus on this really, really well.

[00:28:43] And that was, you know, the, the first, the opening piece, it’s like focus on this, focus on this, and then sure enough, I focused on that, I got better at that. Now, the next part, the second part of the conversation became very fluid, became very easy, it became really fun, more importantly. And yeah, I can’t thank him enough.

[00:29:02] I think he was the perfect manager, and he also understood really quickly too, that he didn’t need to micromanage me. He’s like, “All right, no, Bruce has this, he’s going to do the necessary things, he just, you know, I know he’s going to do that, he just needs, you know, coaching here and there, and I need to rely on him to tell me what he needs from me.” So, really grateful for Joey, shout-out Plesce.

[00:29:24] Marc Gonyea: Shout-out Plesce. What did you do to get good at the role, too? Like, so you come in, you got the phone experience, which is good, you’ve got the service industry, which you know’s great, we love it at memoryBlue, but you gotta do some things to get good, this B2B tech thing. How did you figure that your business major, you know, not a tech background?

[00:29:44] Bruce Horner: Yeah. So, I talked to everybody with a headset, and like, Hey, you call recordings. So, I, I told them to do that, and 

[00:29:52] Marc Gonyea: Why was that important for people listening?

[00:29:54] Bruce Horner: ‘Cause I wanted to hear their style. I wanted to see how they did. And I also wanted to hear, like, you know, what, you know, what type of accounts, right, you know, somebody sends me an account, and they’re on cyber security. That’s not easy, like that’s not easy. So, whatever you’re doing, in your, it’s also the other person on the, like, CTOs, like, that’s a different type of conversation.

[00:30:17] And there’s something masterful about that if you’re able to book meetings with them, and then I could also really tell, you know, some people were, you know, they were like, “Oh yeah, I’ll send something,” and they never sent anything. So, it was like, okay, alright, like, I, like, I know where I stand, but the people that did. So, I started with recordings and then I started writing out.

[00:30:36] I wrote out the entire pitch, like I rode out everything. I know it was on the paper, but for me, I had to just, I wrote everything out, and then I would go into the offices when it was completely empty, they weren’t any interviews, and I would just, I would look in the mirror and I would just practice it, but I would practice, you know, I would put scenarios in my head of, you know, what could come up or how they would do this.

[00:30:59] And I just did that over and over, and I would also make Tara to, like, just get some rest and just like walk, like walk around and just, like, get myself out of the environment, but a mixture of all that in terms of my preparation, yeah, it was recordings, it was practicing it, it was me writing it down and I didn’t listen to myself nearly as much as I listened to others.

[00:31:19] Like, my recordings, I just never, not because I wanted Joey, that’s where Joey came in, where Joey would listen to my recording and he would put out sound bites, and from there I would make adjustments there, but I never really listened to my recordings full line. 

[00:31:34] Marc Gonyea: All right. So, you’re here, you’re doing your thing. You always hit your quota, didn’t you always hit your quota?

[00:32:40] Bruce Horner: That’s right.

[00:32:41] Marc Gonyea: Yep. You always, you’re always hitting your quota. You’re trying to take down Nick B and some of those other, other guys on the board. Who else did you work with? Other SDRs? Do you remember that were on Plesce’s team, or you were kind of competing with

[00:32:52] Bruce Horner: Dude, Chris Griffin and

[00:32:54] Chris Corcoran: CG 

[00:32:54] Bruce Horner: Chris Griffin. He was, he was so welcoming and he, another, another, I, 

[00:33:01] Marc Gonyea: He was.

[00:33:02] Bruce Horner: he, he was just 

[00:33:03] Marc Gonyea: Good guy. 

[00:33:03] Bruce Horner: Yeah. He would, he would get fed up at some, at some time, at some points, but he was always really welcoming to me and would always give really, really good advice. And then, of course, you know, we had,you know, we, we, we called him Billy, but Dylan, Dylan was, uh, Dylan,

[00:33:21] when he came on, he came on, he came in hot, he started just booking meetings right out of the gate, and he had a really, you know, Western New York just had a really smooth, smooth movement to him, uh, on the phone. So, I picked up on him, and then Brendan Shields.

[00:33:37] Marc Gonyea: Oh, wow. 

[00:33:37] Bruce Horner: He, uh, he was a good, he was a good buddy. He was a good buddy, too. So, they, we all kind of just made a, you know, the cove, we were cove, so.

[00:33:47] Marc Gonyea: The cove, that’s right, Plesce’s cove. 

[00:33:49] Bruce Horner: Yeah.

[00:33:51] Marc Gonyea: I’m gonna skip over the work from the home thing, you know, I don’t, I don’t want live with that. I mean, it’s clear that you learned a lot from others by being in the office with people at that stage of your career. 

[00:34:01] Bruce Horner: Yeah. 

[00:34:02] Marc Gonyea: Right. I don’t know how people can do this, working from their house at the beginning.

[00:34:07] Bruce Horner: No. Yeah. I, that would’ve been really, really challenging ’cause there’s something about, well, like I always say, like, it’s not a hard job, but it’s a hard job to do well, and we’re all in it and we can all relate to it, and when you have these certain folks, you know, certain people that you grow relationships and have relationships with, you can lean on that.

[00:34:30] Like, there were times, I remember this one time I went two weeks not booking a meeting, and I’m like, what the hell is going on? Like, I’m talking to my, I’m talking to my dad about this, I’m talking to, I’m talking to, like, some of the other, other people on my team, but, you know, you also, you have an ego, so it’s like, you know, Bruce is quoted, you know, three months. Like, you also don’t wanna have blood in the water, but it’s like, which is stupid, right? Like, you should leave your ego at the door.

[00:34:59] Marc Gonyea: People coming after it.

[00:35:01] Bruce Horner: And so, it’s, yeah, it, it was, you know, you go through that and that’s why, when now being in a closing role, it’s, you have, if you have a bad quarter, you have something bad, it’s like, I’m like, that’s, it’s probably another door that’s about to open up or some insight, and sure enough, I always have those, yeah, I always have those. 

[00:35:22] Marc Gonyea: So, you’re doing this role, taking on and work with these clients. What did you think you wanted to do next? Like, what did you see going on around you that, okay, I’m doing this and I figure out this is your thing, I remember who’s got this model. Where, where can I go with this? 

[00:35:36] Bruce Horner: Shout-out TG. Shout-out the Gassman. 

[00:35:39] Marc Gonyea: The Gassman.

[00:35:40] Bruce Horner: Man, 

[00:35:41] Marc Gonyea: Gassman.

[00:35:42] Bruce Horner: I watched that, I watched that man, you know, you, I’m very fortunate to have the leaders that I’ve, I’ve had in my career, but I’m really, really fortunate to have Tommy a part of my, my history because he, he walked in and just talking, he was always the first in there, and what did it for me is that I, again, modeling, I was like, I’m gonna be in there before Tommy, and, and sure enough, I was.

[00:36:14] And then, there was fi, finally this point where he walked up, he’d come in, just cold, had his peacoat on, just brisk walk, and you just like, he won’t really look at you, but it just, like, you could just see from his side, just brisk walk goes in, then comes back, doesn’t say anything to me, he was just like, just, then walked away, it was like, okay, like that, that was it, that was it. So, I was like, all right. 

[00:36:42] Chris Corcoran: The mystique.

[00:36:43] Bruce Horner: Yeah. I was like, no, I mean, like, this guy, it’s, he never, I didn’t understand how his team was, but for me, what I could see is that, look, he doesn’t just barky bites, and yeah, he, he showed up, he, he led by example and I respected the hell out of that.

[00:37:01] Marc Gonyea: And you joined his team? 

[00:37:03] Bruce Horner: Yeah. That guy gave me, that guy, he was a master manipulator, too, I’ll, I’ll give him that. I remember the, I remember the time, like, he was like, all right, new, uh, SDE position opened up, and in my head, I’m like, obviously you should have, what, I’m like three months in, like, obviously you should have both set in there.

[00:37:21] It was like, they just wanna let you know that look, you know, you’re in the running, but, you know, I don’t know if you, I don’t know if you’re cut out for it, you know, just shit like that. I’m like, all right, man, all right, well, I’ll get here 30 minutes earlier than what I’m like, it’s like, what do you want me to?

[00:37:39] So, but it’s, it was one of those things where he was prepping me for the next phase, always felt like I would be on his team, it was, no, Boustead’s, definitely aren’t his stripes right now, and he needs that, that shot, but I was just like, yeah, he played those mind games with me, it was like, who the f*ck are you?

[00:38:01] Chris Corcoran: But you ended up on his team. What was that like? 

[00:38:03] Bruce Horner: Yeah, it was. 

[00:38:05] Chris Corcoran: This is when you were an SDE, right?

[00:38:07] Marc Gonyea: That position doesn’t exist anymore. But what made you guys do it then? Actually it kind of exists.

[00:38:14] Bruce Horner: It, it was, uh, well, your quota goes up. So, that, it went up by when I was at 12 and, and jumped to 18, but then the switch happened, right? We’re not, it’s a different ball game. I’m not, you know, selling a technology or booking a meeting for a technology. We have a service that is going to generate and help you build pipeline, now you have to, you had to change your approach. And so, I was lucky enough to have Boustead in there three months ahead of time, and it was like being, it was like, you’re underwater with just your nose out, like, just your nose is, is out there, and every now and then you sniff up a little bit of water, you, kind of like you’re still breath, like, you’re still okay, but, um, yeah, it was, it was a, it was definitely a switch moving from technology to a service.

[00:39:10] And then, there was also the, you know, quota enhancement. And then, it’s also, like, Hey, I’m working directly, like, I, I’m looking at Marco, I’m looking at, well, Joey was more on the inbound, but it’s like, I’m looking at Marco. And so, like, Marco’s one, like, “Right, what did you do for me lately? Like, what have you done for me lately?” So, it’s, it’s, there’s just added other pressures, right? You wanted 

[00:39:34] Marc Gonyea: Marco Johnson.

[00:39:34] Bruce Horner: Marco Johnson. 

[00:39:36] Marc Gonyea: Joey Cohen.

[00:39:37] Bruce Horner: Joey Cohen, um.

[00:39:39] Marc Gonyea: Legends.

[00:39:39] Bruce Horner: That’s it. They, so, it’s in two, like, I don’t think Tommy really looked me in the eyes and for the first, like, three months I was on his team, in meetings and it was like, all right. So, I have to prove myself to Tommy, I have to make sure Marco’s fed, I have both sat right next to me. So, I gotta make sure that I’m, like, equal.

[00:39:59] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

[00:40:00] Bruce Horner: So, it was like all these added pressures that I put on myself that weren’t really there, really important for younger folks to understand what pressures are there, like, what’s fact, what’s not, but.

[00:40:12] Marc Gonyea: We’ll pause on that for a second. So, I would argue, too. So, you putting that pressure on yourself, right? I mean, we, but you’re on a team of high-performing individuals think who we’re talking about. 

[00:40:23] Joey Cohen, Marco Johnson, Nick Boustead, Carley Armentrout, you, you, the junior person on the team, at the time you got Boustead on head of you, and Gassman, dude, I’ll go into battle at any, any company with that crew. 

[00:40:39] Bruce Horner: Yeah. It was the Navy SEALs of inside sales.

[00:40:42] Marc Gonyea: Right? 

[00:40:42] Bruce Horner: Right. It was, yeah, there was a lot. So, yeah, it was 

[00:40:46] Marc Gonyea: Talk about that pressure thing though, for the, for other folks, and we’re doing all can on time, but we got, we gotta speed up, you just talk a lot of knowledge, so.

[00:40:54] Bruce Horner: I do what I can.

[00:40:55] Yes. No, I mean, look, the pressure was, was there because I knew come first, Friday, I did not like not being talked about, like, I did not like my name on there, and now, it’s not like an SDR where you slip under the rug, it’s, no, you’re on a small team, you’re getting, you’re going to be on there, you better fucking make sure you have your shit right, you better make sure you have the logos on there. And, uh, yeah, man.

[00:41:25] Marc Gonyea: And just for the listeners who aren’t familiar, first Friday, once a quarter, we get together and we talk about the highlights of the previous quarter and we recognize the performance of the sales team, the SDEs, the AEs, et cetera.

[00:41:37] And we only highlight the top performers. So, and it’s for the entire company. So, it’s important for some to see that recognition. We also want the stuff we’re not doing well in this company, but in terms of, like, acknowledging that people are crushing it, you know, it matters to people.

[00:41:55] Bruce Horner: It, yeah, and look, there’s that, like, maybe it should matter, but, you know, for me, I like to know, it’s important to know, I’m really good at being able to see the things that I’m not doing well. Like, when it comes to a leader, a coach, and Tommy was really good at that, that too, like, he, he could tell me, like, “Hey, like, you’re, you’re doing really good things here.”

[00:42:17] But that recognition means a lot, and in some cases it was, it was more than actually the, the commission at the, at the end of it. It was, no, alright, Bruce, like, you’re changing something, right? This is bigger than just a check, this is bigger than, you know, moving up in a company.

[00:42:32] Bruce Horner: This is, no, you’re changing a cycle that is, you know, in your family, right? You’re moving up in the world and you’re putting your stamp on it. So, it was just bigger, bigger for me.

[00:42:41] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm, yeah. When did you realize that? 

[00:42:45] Bruce Horner: That I was doing it, that, that was my why?

[00:42:47] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Was it, was it, I mean, it could have been when you were in college. I don’t know. Was it an outta college, did you realize? 

[00:42:52] Bruce Horner: No, it was a really good question. 

[00:42:53] Marc Gonyea: I’m kinda, I make it. 

[00:42:55] Bruce Horner: Yeah. I think when I graduated that was a big milestone for me, and I think with other people, it was like, yeah, it’s just what you do, for me it was like, no, you gotta realize, like, come, you know, by the second half, the second half of my senior year, it was like, oh yeah, I’ll go to college where, yeah, like, I didn’t know, but that me graduating college, it was like, you know what, now, whenever I do have kids or something that’s just like, well now you have to, at the bare minimum, you have to graduate college.

[00:43:27] You know, like, that’s the bare, like, that’s now the standard. And so, now it’s, now I’m realizing too is just like, well, what’s your standard. So, I asked my, I asked that question to myself of just like, what are your standards? And so, now, yeah, so, to answer your question, I think it was graduating.

[00:43:43] Marc Gonyea: No, excellent, love it, but it sounds like it was important to you too, as you kept going, this was great even now, obviously. All right. So, you’re, you’re making a movement to the closing role. What did you realize, you know, you got to that level, you got bumps up? What, what kind of things did you have to realize in your game as you go from an opening the door to slamming it shut?

[00:44:05] Bruce Horner: Well, I learned really quickly that a half hour was a long time. There was, it was like, I would practice, I remember my first call practice, like, all these points and then, but I would shoot them all out so fast and it’s like, 15 minutes in and it’s like, you know, I got Tommy on the other end, just listening, and it’s like, I don’t know what, that’s all I got, that’s all I got, so.

[00:44:35] Marc Gonyea: In that transition, right? 

[00:44:36] Bruce Horner: Yeah. So, having that one-on-one, and then you’re, you’re speaking with a VP of marketing, a director of marketing, a CRO, it’s like, you know, these are people that are, you know, where you aspire to be.

[00:44:50] And so, you want to do a good job, you want, you put pressure on yourself, but yeah, half hour was so long, now it’s like, now half hour is just not enough, it’s not enough time.

[00:45:00] Marc Gonyea: Correct.

[00:45:01] Bruce Horner: But that was the first, first thing that I recognize. And then, two, there was also something of like, it’s not about you, right? It’s, what are their goals? Like, what are the pains? Like, what are they dealing with? And, but like also, how do you align to their goals? Like, understanding that and it took a little bit to really be able to ask the question confidently of the pain and really get them to talk about that. So, that was a, that was a hurdle when I first jumped on there.

[00:45:31] And what did you get good at? I got good at it. So, uh, there was another thing that forced, I, it forced me to have to learn really quickly is because, you know, I moved down to Austin. So, I was only in, I was only in a closing role next to Tommy for two, three months tops. And so, that was, you know, looking back, if I could go back, if I had a crystal ball, I was like, I think I still would’ve ended up in Austin, but I probably would’ve pushed it out.

[00:45:57] Marc Gonyea: We should have told you to wait, but we were more than happy to, someone like you, Bruce, who works so hard, does this so well, and you say you move to Austin, like, let him move to Austin, you know? Like, we don’t wanna get in the way of that at all, but it’s obviously speaking to, I wish we had you a little longer, whatever, you figured it out. Keep going, keep going. 

[00:46:12] Bruce Horner: Yeah. So, but I started figuring it out as probably, it was probably my fourth month and shout-out Nimit Bhatt because Nimit,

[00:46:21] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Nimit.

[00:46:21] Bruce Horner: he was so masterful in face-to-face meetings. 

[00:46:25] Marc Gonyea: Yep.

[00:46:26] Bruce Horner: You were also.

[00:46:27] Marc Gonyea: Oh, that’s nice. 

[00:46:27] Bruce Horner: Like, so, your style is like, be a VP in there and just like, so, let, tell me.

[00:46:37] Marc Gonyea: Oh, no, I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but good.

[00:46:39] Bruce Horner: No, I, it was the confidence, right? And so, Nimit, Nimit had this just confidence in these face-to-face interactions, meetings that I just didn’t have. 

[00:46:48] Marc Gonyea: Oh yeah. When you were down here? So, you moved down here in the old office?

[00:46:52] Bruce Horner: Yeah. And so, that was a part of it where, when we sat down and just being able to, it’s one thing to be able to talk about it, but then there’s another thing when you’re able to do that face to face, just talking to, you know, talking to the economic buyer. Think it was roughly, it was about a, about a four to six months where I just really felt confident, like I really knew my shit. 

[00:47:12] Marc Gonyea: That’s excellent. What happened next, right? So, then you’re like, okay, I’m down here in Austin, in this tech city, I’m learning how to close, I, I can close now. 

[00:47:22] Bruce Horner: Yeah. Just so I’m clear too, like the next phase, like after memoryBlue?

[00:47:27] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:47:27] Bruce Horner: So, well, there was a, I realized that ’cause I was so nervous in these face-to-face interactions, I was like, I need to have, I need to stretch that, I need to exercise that muscle. And, um, you know, I, I went with, I didn’t really necessarily liked the solution, but I liked the idea of I’m gonna be in front of people, and I’m going to have to sell.

[00:47:53] And that’s something that I’m really not good, and I’m really scared to do it, but I’m, I’m going to take this, I’m going to take this jump because I know that I need to add that to my, my arsenal.

[00:48:04] Marc Gonyea: To your repertoire. 

[00:48:04] Bruce Horner: Yeah. 

[00:48:05] Marc Gonyea: Okay. 

[00:48:06] Bruce Horner: And so, I did that and I, you know, I did that for about a year and, you know, rose to the top on your 30% above my, my quota.

[00:48:14] Marc Gonyea: Nice.

[00:48:15] But I, one thing that it, taught me in being with memoryBlue, and all the companies and technologies was that I really like, I like technology, like, that’s what interests me, like, what is going to be the next solution out there. And I always had that while I was selling this, this product slash service.

[00:48:34] Yeah, I kept my eye open, but I was like, you know, I, let me just stay focused, let me stay the course, I did this for a reason, but then after that, that’s where, you know, a former, uh, well not, I would say, you know, it wasn’t a colleague, but a contact had reached out to me. 

[00:48:49] Marc Gonyea: That’s the great thing about the memoryBlue sales role, I think.

[00:48:52] Bruce Horner: Yes.

[00:48:53] Marc Gonyea: Right? You’re selling the technology companies to CROs, you said earlier, director of marketing, VPs of marketing, VPs of salespeople, and you’re interacting with those folks with these events, send you to AISP and, you know, other events and you get to meet folks in the industry. And you get to meet revenue leaders in industry which is great because when you’re good at what you do, like you are, they notice.

[00:49:17] Bruce Horner: Yeah. memoryBlue, uh, I, I’m always internally grateful for the experiences that I was able to have in the context as a result, right? You’re not thinking of when you’re shaking this person’s hand, or if you’re talking to these people on the phone, selling them, you’re not thinking that th, they’re going to do something for you later on, or that this is going to be there, but you all were able to, memoryBlue was able to put me in positions to, to have these interactions.

[00:49:47] And because of those interactions, then career progresses, these relationships get built and, um, you know, it takes on the life of its own. 

[00:49:55] Marc Gonyea: So, you missed someone, right?

[00:49:58] Bruce Horner: That’s right. That’s right. 

[00:49:59] Marc Gonyea: Stayed in touch over the years, this guy kept track of you, you kept track of him. 

[00:50:02] Bruce Horner: Yeah, ’cause, I mean, he also do, like, hey, it’s a startup, and, like memoryBlue is your college for, not hard work, but it’s your college for how can you pull money out of nowhere, how can you find money? Like, that’s when you talk about, like, what entrepreneurship is, what being good at sales, it’s just like, how can you take nothing and make it something.

[00:50:26] And so, he recognized that very, very quickly that I’m able to fit in this part of the business and get you things that otherwise would take you hell of a lot longer than it would take me.

[00:50:38] Marc Gonyea: If ever.

[00:50:39] Bruce Horner: Yeah. That’s it. And so, yeah, I’ve reached out, numbers looked good, you know, we talked, that was another thing, I also understood my work. And there was at a point in time where, you know, numbers didn’t work or not even numbers, but position-wise, right? And I had busted my ass as an SDR, as an SDE, right?

[00:50:56] I, I moved into a closing role, like that doesn’t go unnoticed, and there’s that part of understanding my worth, understanding my value, and what I’ve done to get to this point, like, I have a degree in pipeline though, like 

[00:51:10] Marc Gonyea: Correct. 

[00:51:10] Chris Corcoran: A master’s.

[00:51:11] Bruce Horner: Yeah. 

[00:51:11] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, and doing services. Can you talk about that? Like, you selling services?

[00:51:17] Chris Corcoran: Let Bruce talk about that, difference 

[00:51:19] Chris Corcoran: between selling a service and versus selling a product.

[00:51:22] Bruce Horner: Yeah, right. Like, I mean, technology, you have something tangible, right? You have something that in theory is going to do this where, you know, selling services it’s, you can’t mess up, right, you’re selling a service. They have to trust you.

[00:51:34] They have to trust you. They have to believe in you. They have to believe in the caliber person that you are because then that chances are that the caliber company and who’s going to be working on it, like, there’s more of an emotional play I think that comes into it, where a technology is like, all right, yeah, does this, does this, go. Services, no, it’s like, we have to have something, we have to have something, we’re in this together, right, and, and agree upon that. 

[00:51:59] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, and the, the prospect has to believe that.

[00:52:01] Bruce Horner: That’s right. 

[00:52:02] Marc Gonyea: That’s kind of out of, that’s that out of thin air part you were talking about, right?

[00:52:05] That is 100% right.

[00:52:07] Chris Corcoran: Can’t demo a service.

[00:52:08] Marc Gonyea: Can’t demo a service. It’s a highly skilled level of expertise you develop. 

[00:52:13] Bruce Horner: Right? And you have to have stories too, let’s talk about that, right? Like, there’s element of storytelling, and it’s, “Hey, I’ve seen this before and this is where I’ve seen it, and this is what we were able to do.”

[00:52:24] They were dealing with this specific challenge, the same one that you’re talking about, right, Chris? 

[00:52:27] Chris Corcoran: Yep. 

[00:52:27] Bruce Horner: Great. This is, and, you know, you walk them on that, that journey and, you know, and, and that’s, it’s not, at that point when you’re able to do that, that’s not bullshit,

[00:52:40] Marc Gonyea: No. 

[00:52:41] Bruce Horner: that’s confidence.

[00:52:42] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, absolutely. Oh man, you sent us the note I want to talk about. Alright. So, you met this gentleman, you can say his name if you want to, who kind of brought you along, and did you end up going to, you stood your ground, right, because you’ve got this degree, advanced degree in pipeline building, and a lot of times people won’t take events, just that, right?

[00:53:02] Bruce Horner: Right. Yeah.

[00:53:03] Marc Gonyea: Because they kind of want that expertise, be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, right? Know your level of expertise ’cause I feel like the people who come outta memoryBlue, not just people who stayed, the people who are really good at the SDR role, they’re, we’re top of the game. You forget that sometimes at memoryBlue ’cause we’re hard on people who work here. But if you learn how to do this shit working here, it’s so much easier. 

[00:53:22] Bruce Horner: That’s the thing, memoryBlue makes it to where, wherever you go next, it’s, you make the game easier, the game gets easier, but you have to, like, start at black, this is black belt level karate in SDR world. Like, you get that, you’re gonna be facing blue belts when you, wherever you go next. 

[00:53:41] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. So, you got into the next roll and you, you held the grass in, you know, I’m a closer, right? And what, talk, tell us about what you’re doing now, we got, like, seven, eight minutes left.

[00:53:51] Bruce Horner: Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, we were able to work this, we were able to work things out, we were able to get to a point where, all right, I wanna be at this role, he can now afford me at this role. And so, and today’s credit too, you know, he was also at the point of the business where, like, you know, they needed that frontline piece, but where I started and where he brought me in at individual contributor and, you know, again, you know, being at a, at a startup, right,

[00:54:19] we’re not big, I compare it to, you know, your garage band, and you’re trying to sell out the staple center, like, no one knows who the hell you are. So, you can’t fuck up, you can’t fuck up. So, you know, bringing me in with what I’ve been able to attain, the knowledge from memoryBlue, I was able to quickly, like, in a matter, like, my quota, the quota that was set for me, wasn’t really to, like, I, I don’t know, it probably didn’t seem attainable in some aspects, but I blew past that in just my first quarter.

[00:54:53] And it’s led me to now being number one in, you know, all of sales for this startup, working with some of the world’s largest, biggest brands, and expanding those, those.

[00:55:03] Marc Gonyea: How have you generated those opportunities?

[00:55:05] You know, fortunate enough having Kronologics in, Kronologics tool. But from also me opening up LinkedIn, being able to open up those doors, and then also being able to pick up the phone and, and have these conversations and, and talk about what they’re dealing with, aligning to their goals. Yeah, that’s great, man. So, Bruce, kind of knowing what you know now, what advice would you have given yourself the night before you started a memoryBlue? You know, July 2017 is when you started, four, five years ago, over five years ago. 

[00:55:39] Bruce Horner: Yeah. Yeah. I would’ve, I would’ve said, you know, use your energy, don’t spend your energy on what, so much on the next person, like, spend your energy on what you’re trying to do, what you’re trying to accomplish. Not so much focusing on what other people are, are thinking, or maybe what they’re saying.

[00:56:02] Marc Gonyea: It’s, hey, you have a real opportunity, this is going to pay, you get to this point, it pays out this, or you get this type of reward, you focus on that, everything else falls where it’s supposed to fall. And don’t waste energy, you know, thinking about what somebody else might be saying or what somebody else might be doing, and if you are worried about that, you know, sit down have, have conversations with those folks. And, and being an, an a, a closer, enterprise closer at an emerging company. How did the role, the roles at memoryBlue help you prepare you for that? 

[00:56:37] Bruce Horner: No one knew who we were and memoryBlue allowed me to be comfortable, comfortable and knowing, alright, this is what we have to do, what do we need? We need more customers and we need logos. What can you do? Well, I built up a network because I was at memoryBlue because I’ve went to these events, I went to AISP, I’ve had these sales conversations. So, I’m able to then jump into my Rolodex. But on top of that, I’m able to prospect, right?

[00:57:06] I’m able to systematically put together a prospecting plan, put together a cadence to where I can get in front of these decision makers and these stakeholders. And I’m able to do that again from scratch. 

[00:57:17] Chris Corcoran: Nothing from nothing.

[00:57:18] Bruce Horner: Out of thin air.

[00:57:19] Marc Gonyea: Out of thin air. I got a big question for you, too. 

[00:57:21] Bruce Horner: What’s that?

[00:57:22] Marc Gonyea: How did it feel at memoryBlue knowing you were doing so amazingly well that you still had the second best hair in the company?

[00:57:28] Bruce Horner: That’s debatable, but, uh, it hurt, it hurt on, it hurts on days like this, where it’s short.

[00:57:37] Marc Gonyea: I, they come here rocking the locks. 

[00:57:40] Bruce Horner: You know what happened? 

[00:57:41] Marc Gonyea: The full?

[00:57:42] Bruce Horner: No. So, I looked at, again, goes back to just loving numbers and I guess it fell on three haircuts that fell on one month, and I looked at, I was like, like $160, I, like, yeah, I was like, now I’m shaving this, then I just started, yeah, I just started cutting my own hair, I wasn’t no shape up or, but, yeah, now, now I’m getting it back.

[00:58:05] Marc Gonyea: All right. 

[00:58:05] Bruce Horner: Getting it back. I miss it. 

[00:58:06] Marc Gonyea: Good. Well, I mean, Corcoran, you got anything for Bruce? 

[00:58:10] Chris Corcoran: No, that was great.

[00:58:12] Marc Gonyea: Bruce, I mean, Chris and I will say it to have blue in the face. The fact that you worked for us, as long as you did, did as much for us, we’re eternally grateful.

[00:58:19] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. We really appreciated it, Bruce.

[00:58:20] Marc Gonyea: You know, nearly three years. 

[00:58:22] Bruce Horner: Yeah. I mean, I’m, I’m grateful for, you know, if I, if I think back at, back for far enough, like I could probably tear up, but, you know, you all gave me an opportunity that who, who knows, like, I don’t know, but you gave me an opportunity to where I’m able to sit here confidently, really happy in the position I’m at, but also really confident about what the future holds where, so, don’t know if I would’ve got that elsewhere.

[00:58:45] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. Bruce, I appreciate you saying that. The reality of the situation is in the 20 years in the existence of the company, it’s provided literally thousands of people that same opportunity, very few have seized that opportunity, and you’re one of the people that did seize it. So, it says more about you and it does the opportunity.

[00:59:06] Bruce Horner: It’s like, uh, fight it, what is it? Styles make fights, you know, styles make great caliber talent, and, uh, same thing with great caliber company, so. 

[00:59:16] Chris Corcoran: Very good.

[00:59:17] Marc Gonyea: Good to see you. 

[00:59:17] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. Thanks, Bruce. 

[00:59:19] Bruce Horner: I appreciate it. 

[00:59:20] Marc Gonyea: We’ll do a part two down the road. 

[00:59:22] Bruce Horner: Yeah, definitely, man.