Episode 133: Will Foreman – From Startup to Success

If you don’t know how to listen, you’ll never be able to sell. In fact, Will Foreman argues that a successful sales call should follow the 80/20 rule, with sales reps spending most of their time listening to their prospect’s needs and concerns.  

In this episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers, Will, now an Account Executive at CapabilitySource, talks about the success he’s found since prioritizing active listening on cold calls, highlights the importance of resilience and open-mindedness, and discusses how his experience in startups has shaped his career.  

Guest-At-A-Glance

💡 Name: Will Foreman 

💡What they do: Account Executive

💡Company: CapabilitySource

💡Noteworthy: Will Foreman has a rich background in sales, with experience working at startups. He is a strong advocate for active listening in sales.

💡 Where to find them: LinkedIn

Key Insights

The Power of Active Listening in Sales

Will Foreman emphasizes the importance of active listening in sales, advocating for the 80/20 rule where salespeople should listen 80% of the time and speak 20% of the time. According to Foreman, this approach allows for a more tailored and effective pitch. He believes that understanding what matters to clients and building relationships are key to successful sales. This insight underscores the importance of communication skills in sales, particularly the ability to listen and respond effectively to clients’ needs and concerns.

The Value of Resilience and Open-Mindedness

Foreman shares his journey, highlighting the importance of resilience and open-mindedness. He talks about the twists and turns in his career and how staying the course helped him succeed. He credits his early experiences at memoryBlue for shaping his mindset and preparing him for a successful career in sales. This insight provides a valuable perspective on the importance of resilience and adaptability in navigating a career in sales.

The Impact of Working in Startups

Foreman discusses his experiences working in startups and how it has shaped his career. He mentions that he prefers working in a startup environment because it allows him to measure his impact. He also talks about the importance of being able to contribute and make a difference in the organization. This insight offers a glimpse into the dynamic and rewarding nature of working in startups, particularly in sales roles.

Episode Highlights

The Role of a Value-Added Reseller 

In this segment, Foreman explains his role as a value-added reseller at CapabilitySource. He discusses the dual role of reselling products and implementing them with professional services. This part of the conversation provides a deep dive into the unique challenges and opportunities that come with being a value-added reseller. 

“We’re a value-added reseller, so we resell products and we also implement them with professional services.”

The Importance of Building Relationships 

Foreman discusses the importance of building relationships, particularly with reps at software companies. He emphasizes the need to differentiate oneself and provide value to these reps. “The second part of that grind is trying to get in front of these reps and helping them know that you’re there as a resource. […] What is the value that you bring to them? Why would they tap on you? What is your expertise?”

The Journey from memoryBlue to CapabilitySource 

Foreman reflects on his journey from memoryBlue to CapabilitySource, emphasizing the lessons he learned along the way. He talks about the importance of staying the course and being prepared for life’s twists and turns.

“Stay ready because there will be some twists and turns, but stay the course. As long as you stay the course, you’ll come out of this on the other side with the right mindset and be, most importantly, prepared.”

The Future and Staying Relevant 

In the concluding part of the podcast, Foreman shares his hopes for the future and the importance of staying relevant. He leaves listeners with the advice to stay relevant and provide value, which are the keys to success in the sales industry. 

“Relevance and providing value are going to be keys to your success. […] The more that you tailor your pitch around what they care about, the more successful you’re gonna be.”

Transcript:

Marc Gonyea: Chris, guess who’s here with us? Will Foreman the one and only 

Chris Corcoran: for a very special episode of Tech Sales is for 

Marc Gonyea: hustlers. This has been a long time in the 

Will Foreman: coming, Will. Yeah, man. It’s been, uh, I think you guys started the podcast, four or five years ago.

Yeah. Somewhere around there. And, when I still lived in DC before I moved up here, we talked about me joining and it’s, it’s great to see all of it come to fruition. I’m really excited about the opportunity. Appreciate you guys, appreciate you coming in. 

Chris Corcoran: We’re gonna have some, like, some good times For sure.

Marc Gonyea: So Will, let’s just get to know you a little bit better for us, Chris and I, but also we’ll learn some new things about you, but also for the people listening, 

Will Foreman: right? Yep. Tell us a little bit about you, where 

Marc Gonyea: you grew up. What were you like as a kid? 

Will Foreman: We’ll start with that. I grew up in Chesapeake, Virginia, and for those that are listening that don’t know where that is, it’s, I like to call it the city next to Virginia Beach.

There you go. Um, so grew up down there, went to a powerhouse football school, [00:01:00] but I did not play football. I played baseball. so, you know, which, which high school did you go to? Oscar Smith. Okay. And so 

Marc Gonyea: who, who, who, who played football at Oscar Smith? 

Will Foreman: Greg Boone, who actually went to Virginia Tech.

Mm-hmm. Tim Smith, who went to uva. Uh, there’s a, there’s a lot of guys Fertile. 

Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Fertile 

Will Foreman: football. Football ground. Oh yeah. and was lucky enough to almost see us win the state championship. It happened the year after I graduated. Okay. Um, what were you like as 

Marc Gonyea: a kid, though before the high school?

Like, tell us 

Will Foreman: personality, what was, you know, I was always the way that I am now. It’s, a little bit laid back. get excited when you need to get excited. But I pretty much just played sports. Sports was kind of my life, so I played basketball, baseball au teams, travel teams, you know, so we were always kind of out active in, the house.

and that’s really how I learned to work together with team members, and enjoy working with other people. I think that, at its core, that’s sort of my foundation [00:02:00] for how I interact with people Now. 

Marc Gonyea: your favorite sport is baseball. Oh yeah. 

Will Foreman: Did you hit the opposite field?

I do. I do it now. Even to this day, I’m still a softballer, man. 

Chris Corcoran: But you’re a cleanup hit, 

Marc Gonyea: right? 

Will Foreman: on my team I tend to bat myself a little bit lower. You know, our lineup… in high school? In high school, no, I was batting fifth. Yeah. Okay. That’s still Power Core. Yeah. You know, like the backup to the cleanup.

That’s right. Yeah. So, but I could not hit opposite field in high school. I learned that as I grew up. but it’s an art form man. it’s, that’s what I said. It’s an art form. You gotta, you gotta commit to actually going the other way. Mm-hmm. And, I think you can do anything you put your mind to.

Right. opposite field hitting is hard. It depends on where the pitch is, but I think also that sort of hitting to the opposite field is applicable in my career, I would say. Oh, okay. 

Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Keep rolling with that. Actually, we’ll go back to growing up. Yeah. But like, we can’t stop [00:03:00] going oppo. Yeah. 

Will Foreman: So tell us about that.

I mean, you know, we’ll, we’ll talk about this a little bit more in the podcast later on, but I kind of, I would say have gone off the beaten path a bit towards my career. so I’ve worked with vendors, very large vendors, and now I work for a consulting services company, heading up their sales team.

So I’m selling services, but I’m also selling licenses. So we’re working with our, our partner vendors to actually resell their product, but we’re also doing implementation services. and the reason I say it’s kind of out of left field or going the opposite way is because the typical path with most SDRs, whether it be at memory blue, or whether it be at any other organization as you typically are on the vendor side and the vendor side specifically focuses on that particular product.

for me it gives me an opportunity to have multiple revenue streams, which sure. That’s what you want. Right. Being in sales, we’re gonna come back to that. 

Marc Gonyea: Yeah, we can talk all about. That was artfully 

Chris Corcoran: [00:04:00] Resellers 

Marc Gonyea: services. We’ll talk all about that. I was watching the NBA playoffs last night and they were bricking color commentary.

That was color commentary right there. The space that he’s in. Yeah. To a t. So when you were growing up playing sports, for lots of people, it’s how you learn to interact with people, overcome adversity, right. All those things. Yep. What’d you think you wanted to be 

Will Foreman: when you grew up? I mean, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I want to be a professional baseball player.

Right. I mean, definitely didn’t intend to be here, but, you know, my family. Had me kind of steer in the direction towards like engineering. Okay. so took a lot of STEM courses during the summer when I was growing up. Mm-hmm. I was the smarter of the siblings. Hopefully my sister doesn’t listen to this podcast.

Marc Gonyea: We’ll see. Don’t come for me. 

Will Foreman: Come for your brother. Yeah. Yeah. So my mom, she’s a teacher Right. She teaches first grade. So my sister and I, we were lucky in the sense [00:05:00] that we not only had a great role model, but a role model that put an emphasis on education. Mm-hmm. So during the summers, not only would you and I participate in those STEM programs, but we take trips up to Colonial Williamsburg.

Okay. Or Jamestown or go outta state, you know, and visit just historical sites. and that’s honestly when I think about not only my role, but just me as a person. When I have one experience, that’s when I kind of start to dig in and start to gain knowledge and inform myself. and that foundation came from my mother.

she’s amazing. And Happy Mother’s Day. This won’t be released until after that. But Happy Mother’s Day. 

Marc Gonyea: Shout out to your 

Will Foreman: mom, man. Shout out Mom, man. So from there, you know, that’s sort of the foundation, right? But the sales thing, the sales thing was not, not even close, man. So, right.

Stem and 

Marc Gonyea: sales kind of far, although not really. So, but being a practitioner of 

Will Foreman: Fast forward to college a little bit, right? And, you know, [00:06:00] When it is a civil engineering major. You did two. Where’d you go to school. George Mason. There you go. The best school. There we go. I found out very soon that I did not like math, unless it equates to me selling $4.

Right, right. so the civil engineering path didn’t really work, out for me. I kind of made that decision early. And I, because I had participated in some of these STEM programs leading up to college, I had known the dean of the school, at Mason for my, for the Vila new, IT school. Okay. Okay.

Got it. So we had a previous relationship and, um, I told him that I was gonna change my major. and I think that he believed in me and he saw a lot of, potential. Potential. Yes. He saw a lot of potential in me, just like you guys. Yep. Right. and he convinced me to stick with the IT path.

So I changed my major from civil engineering to information or IT information technology with a concentration of information security. still did not think I would end up in sales until my senior year. [00:07:00] we had a capstone program and you know, folks are kind of saying what they plan on doing after, after they graduate mm-hmm.

After they complete the project. Mm-hmm. So this is a 

Marc Gonyea: project I had the same one. Yep. 4 98. Yep. At George Mason. 4 98. You do it the spring, your senior 

Will Foreman: year or the fall? I did it my spring. Spring or senior year. It was, it’s like a two, it’s twofold. in the fall is more around kind of the planning of the application that you’re building, the offering that you have, and then the spring is when you’re kind of putting it all together and then kind of presenting it.

Yep. And, I ended up stepping into a, a team lead role there, right? Like, there were people that were way better and a lot of the things that we were supposed to be doing, and I felt like the best use of my time was. To sell, like conduct the presentation, make sure everything’s working in the background, sort of like the puppet master, but not in a bad way.

Did you know you were doing that 

Marc Gonyea: though? Cause you just used the word to sell, but did you think that’s what you were doing? 

Will Foreman: That’s when it clicked for 

Marc Gonyea: me. He said stepping in, like he’s stepping into the batter’s box. Right. 

Will Foreman: That’s when it all clicked for me, man. Like, I think at the time, [00:08:00] like as I was about to graduate, I was looking for an opportunity that meshed well with my skillset and what I went to school for.

I started out, I worked all through college, first part-time at Foot Locker. Then, you know, once I moved on campus, money got tight, so you gotta work more hours. Mm-hmm. So I was balancing a full-time workload, managing a foot locker and going to school full-time. Um, and I think during that senior year, during that capstone project specifically,

is when everything kind of clicked for me. So you working full-time Yeah. And going to school full-time? Yes sir. 

Marc Gonyea: Not a lot of people do that. Most people don’t. A lot of people don’t even have a job, let alone logging 40 hour work 

Will Foreman: weeks. I’ll say this, the grind is the grind. It prepared me for memory blue, which is great, but you gotta do what you gotta do, right?

If you want to maintain a certain lifestyle or you want to do certain things, then you have to make sure that you have the means to do it. if that means [00:09:00] missing out on going out with friends, because you gotta focus on your schoolwork and you need to actually make sure that you can pay your bills.

And that’s what you gotta do is sacrifice. you have to sacrifice in order to not necessarily perfect your craft, but at least try to perfect your craft. So I wanted to maintain a certain lifestyle and I was in a fraternity and I had dues to pay. And you know, if I didn’t. Increase, you know, my earnings, at work, then I couldn’t pay dues and pay rent and pay bills and do what I wanted to do.

Right. So I’ll say one thing about 

Marc Gonyea: Mason that Mesa for those aren’t listening. Virginia Beach is like southern coast of Virginia, Chesapeake down there. Yep. A lot of smart kids from Chesapeake go to Mason because it’s a suburban school right outside of DC, and you get some kids from the north too, but there are more kids at Mason that have jobs.

Yeah, right. It, it’s kinda like you got the college experience, but you’ve got a lot of real world experience. You go to school in Blacksburg, like very few [00:10:00] people have jobs, maybe have part-time jobs, like you’re working 40 hour week. I 

Will Foreman: will say that I black working 40 hour week, I chose Mason for a reason.

Mm-hmm. And, my parents know this, so if they ever listen to this, they’ll know it’s coming as long as your sister doesn’t listen to it. I wanted to, I, I got scholarship offers to school every school, like that’s in Southeastern Virginia. You know, my parents graduated from Norfolk State. Mm-hmm. So obviously they wanted me to go there.

I wanted to actually experience college. Mm-hmm. So I went to a school that was affordable. Yeah. But was far enough away when my parents couldn’t sneak up on me. Yeah. 

Marc Gonyea: It’s a winning formula. It’s a power move. Well warned 

Will Foreman: winning formula. Get, get home within a reasonable time when I need to get home. If I need y’all to come up, you can come up, but you can’t sneak up on me and be like, Hey, yeah, I’m at your door.

so that was sort of the basis of, of the selection of the school. But yeah, I mean I think, the path that I took to actually through college, I think it prepared me for where I am today. And it [00:11:00] made me appreciate what it is, the effort that goes into the grind itself. and you’re gonna hear the word grind a lot because it doesn’t matter at what point in your sales career that you’re at, if you’re not grinding, then you’re probably, or most likely not going to be successful because you have to put in, you had to go pedal to the metal.

All the time. Like if you’re not doing one aspect of your job, there’s someone out there that is, That is a potential financial loss for you. Right. So, got it. So 

Marc Gonyea: you’re doing this capstone project and you step in, you step into the box, they what You said sales role. Yep. How did that influence you?

Not going into like more of a classic. With that major you had for Mason. There’s a lot of opportunities outta school to go 

Will Foreman: into that. Yeah, that’s easy. I just was not interested in anything else that anyone was doing. I was like, this is my lane. I enjoy cultivating relationships. I enjoy [00:12:00] talking to people.

I enjoy making sure that we’re all working together as a team. So, You know, as opposed to a baseball analogy, you know, you’ll hear this in sales all the time, quarterbacking. Yep. Right. I enjoyed that aspect in making sure that everyone is working towards a unified solution that’s beneficial for everybody.

and once I kind of hit that trigger, that was also sort of the, oh wait, I can actually utilize my people skills from managing a Footlocker Yeah. And being successful there and my IT skills that I actually went to school for, and it was just kind of a perfect symbiosis. 

Chris Corcoran: So, so that’s great. So you’re, you’re going through Mason, you’re kind of doing your, your capstone, you decide that you like sales, you’ve got the experience at Footlocker.

Well, just because you wanna be in sales doesn’t mean you get that Right. You wanted to be a professional baseball player. You didn’t get that. So how did, how did things materialize 

Will Foreman: for you? now we’re getting into the fun stuff. So it’s all fun. Technically, it didn’t materialize at first. Okay. What [00:13:00] happened?

So my fraternity brothers, there’s a lot of fraternity brothers that I had that have worked for Memory Blue. you got Mike Deversa. Boom. He’s wildly successful. You got Lao McMullen, Brandon Taylor, Rob Suleyan, who else we got here? Uh, we got Soheil. More alumni of the year, by the way.

Almost. You forgot the Godfather. So, we got, did we mention Toby? Tobias? when the list, the list goes on and on and on. Dave Nisley. 

Marc Gonyea: Mr. Nisley. Chris Taquis. Taquis. Man, man, uh oh, you’re you’re winding up Chris. He knows it’s coming. Yeah. 

Will Foreman: So, cord in the bullpen loosening up right now. they’d had a, a long track record of success with memoryBlue.

I was looking for an organization where again, I could kind of mesh. What my expertise was, what I felt like my expertise was and what I went to school for sure. through some research I found memory blue on LinkedIn and then saw [00:14:00] some of the alum and saw some of the people that worked there. And I was like, oh wait, well this should be fun.

So I applied. I think probably the only reason that I got the interview was cause I was a pike, honestly. Like I had that on my application and that’s why 

Chris Corcoran: it was probably we can can backdoor people pretty quickly. No, this is what we, seriously. So what happens is, oh, here’s a pike. We’d go to one of those pikes and say, Hey, you know, we’ll foreman.

Yeah, yeah. Good guy. Yeah. And so, boom. Then it’s, 

Will Foreman: yeah. So 

Marc Gonyea: pretty quick also your degree too though and the fact that you worked like, yeah. Foot Locker, we’re looking for people who. Who can grind. Yeah. Right. And the fact that that degree you didn’t. That’s not an 

Chris Corcoran: easy degree to get. Yeah. Am I trying to It’s totally, it’s totally 

Marc Gonyea: applicable.

Yes. Right. So it wasn’t just ’cause you were a pike, 

Will Foreman: although, well, thankfully it wasn’t because my first impression was not great. 

Marc Gonyea: Yours of us are awesome. You 

Will Foreman: you guys and me. so went into my first interview, I was kind of rolling [00:15:00] on a, on a high, just, not thinking like I owned the place, but I knew the history there.

I knew, you know, my brothers were there. I knew they were putting a good word for me. So all those 

Marc Gonyea: pikes that you mentioned, all very successful. Yeah. Yeah. 

Will Foreman: So, you know, little saying, dress for the job that you want now, the job that you have, right. I did not do that. I did the opposite of it. came in in a cardigan and bummed down.

not a suit, not the best first impression probably. and didn’t get the job. You didn’t get the job, you got stopped. 

Marc Gonyea: You didn’t get the job. 

Will Foreman: Yeah. So these guys from the beach used to back man, Tiana Bell. the recruiter that I was working with at the time. And, you know, I reached out to her, you know, I hadn’t heard anything back.

I said, Hey, basically, did I get the job? And she said, no. So, you know, I did what I thought was right and I asked for feedback. And I think that’s really important. Yes. Not only from an interview perspective, but as you think about your sales career. Yes. you know, it’s always important, and [00:16:00] this is kind of getting into the weeds and we’ll go into this later, but it’s important to follow up with every either prospect or customer.

After the call, make sure that you’re taking diligent notes. Give ’em a recap. and see where you, if there’s an opportunity for you, you to improve, we can always grow every, every sales call, every interaction is an opportunity to grow. so just want to make sure we throw that out there. So Tiana gave me the feedback that I was a little bit too laid back and I wasn’t dressed appropriately.

and I get that Strike one, strike two. I get that because she told you strike. So Nimit was interviewing me, did that part. And you know, Nimit, great dude, really intelligent guy, very well put together. And I did not look well put together that day. So, I kind of asked her, you know, I was like, I really want this job.

is there anything that I can do to course correct, essentially, and they gave me another opportunity. And Lee Ryan, and I think Ben Decowski, they interviewed me during the second time I came dressed appropriately [00:17:00] this time. and then I made a good impression and, and got the job. So, you know, gotta persevere through that.

that’s not the greatest story, but I think it’s important for, you know, the SDRs to understand. You’re always, you should always be looking to make a positive impression no matter what scenario you’re in. And also don’t wear a cardigan to an interview. It’s not a good look. Right? Yeah. 

Chris Corcoran: You never know.

You never know who’s paying attention. Right? Yeah. 

Marc Gonyea: Well, this is how you gotta learn. Right? But you asked, we talked about this last night, but you were smart enough to ask for feedback Yeah. And say, Hey, curious enough, well, well, what was it? And when you said what it was, you said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I’m not that laid back about things.

So just, I want, I’m in. I wanna do this. So we said, let’s come on back and, and run it back. Yeah. You, you lose a deal. You, I always ask the people on our sales team, what do we do wrong? Go find out. I understand. I’m not gonna win ’em all. Why do we lose the 

Will Foreman: deal? But I think [00:18:00] people are scared to ask that question, and I don’t know whether it’s because they don’t want the feedback that could potentially come, or they just feel like it’s rude if they don’t give you a reply and they don’t give you a reply.

Right. But if you never ask the question, then you can never get an answer. Yeah. So, you know, whether it be an interview, whether it be a sales call, a sales opportunity that doesn’t move forward, if there’s something that you get, again, there are always opportunities to grow, and you just gotta kind of keep that in mind because every impression, like I said, is an opportunity.

and quite frankly, the way that I believe is you’re always selling yourself in every capacity. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling a product, a good or a service. When you think about friendships, you don’t make a good first impression or you don’t make a good impression on someone, then they’re probably not gonna want to talk to you.

Right. so. You know the saying, you know, you don’t have to get ready. If you stay ready, always stay ready. That’s kind of where I’m at. 

Marc Gonyea: Like it. [00:19:00] All right. So what was it like, so you ended up coming to work at the company. This is your first sales job. Yep. 

Will Foreman: Right. First tech sales 

Marc Gonyea: job. Growing up, you got the playing sports and STEM in the summer, maybe you were working or something.

At Mason, you’re doing, doing, working, doing your fraternity thing, taking your classes and you’re walking into like a kind of hardcore entry 

Will Foreman: level sales gig. I didn’t know what I was walking into. so you know, that’s a better 

Marc Gonyea: way to put it. It’s a better 

Will Foreman: way to put it. I was working on New Hire Row, I don’t even know if that’s still thing.

New hire row. Working on new hire row. I miss that. That was great. Tiffany. Tiffany Dunn. Yes. Oh, wow. Agni Mohan, Mo Hassan was finishing his up. Mo Mo John Stevens was finishing his up. who else we got in there? Chima. Rahma. Chima, Micah ashan. 

Marc Gonyea: Micah. Oh my 

Chris Corcoran: goodness. Um, 

Marc Gonyea: you 

Chris Corcoran: got 

Marc Gonyea: a good squad there. Oh, we had 

Will Foreman: a, we had a squad and the only problem witthat wasg.

They grinded and I did not. 

Marc Gonyea: What 

Chris Corcoran: do you mean you need to learn from the interview? What are you [00:20:00] talking about? 

Marc Gonyea: you didn’t learn. Did not 

Will Foreman: learn from the interview. 

Marc Gonyea: That said, new hire row, those are strong people. Moe, Micah. 

Will Foreman: They, they were crushing 

Marc Gonyea: it and, Hey, did you learn? That’s some stuff’s wearing off. What 

Will Foreman: are you talking about?

Listen, I’m telling you, man, like I would, I would put in my dials, but I wasn’t really focused on the work, I feel like, right? Mm-hmm. I wasn’t focused on the process. I wasn’t focused on the grind. I was happy to be there. I knew what my responsibilities were, but I wasn’t necessarily doing, at least in my eyes, the things.

That I needed to do to ensure that I was gonna be successful in the role that I was in. obviously you guys know, or at least in the back in the day, you know, when you get into a certain client, you get into a groove, there’s an opportunity for you to do your job fairly efficiently. Yeah. And you can take a little bit longer a lunch or you can go outside and do what you wanna do.

So, you know, I’m out there with Eric Paul and Neil Lawbridge, you know, throwing the football around. Like, I’m like, oh, 

Marc Gonyea: Chris, love that one. What are you doing, man? [00:21:00] 

Will Foreman: That’s smart. Smart. 

Marc Gonyea: Kanye, why are those guys out there throwing 

Chris Corcoran: the football? Those two other guys are at quota. What about that foreman 

Marc Gonyea: guy?

Will Foreman: Yeah. No, I was nowhere near quota. 

Marc Gonyea: I think he said a go. 

Chris Corcoran: He just 

Marc Gonyea: started last week 

Will Foreman: again, getting too comfortable, too quick and uh, the success wasn’t there. and while I didn’t really see it as an issue, sales is a result of today’s business. And I found out very quickly, that that was the case because I got put on a pip.

For those of you that don’t know what a PIP is, a performance improvement plan, and it’s almost impossible to come back from, you’re not actually grinding. Right. so who was your manager? Who put you on the plan? Do we gotta do that? It was Lee I think, again, I think a, a large theme of this is I, I feel like a lot of folks that I’ve worked with or interacted with, they’ve said the same thing, but they feel the same way.

I think [00:22:00] that there were times in my career where everyone sees a lot of potential in me. Yeah. And I’m not necessarily living up to it because I don’t necessarily see the same thing in myself. And I think as I grew. Older, wiser into my career. You know, you start to have that self-belief, that self-belief obviously comes with success.

Sure. But you know, I thought it was kind of a quick whip on the PIP, but I think it was a perfect wake up call for me. it allowed me to embrace the grind. It allowed me to embrace the process. Mm-hmm. It allowed me to focus on what I needed to focus on because I think with anything in life, the second that you get it, you can lose it just as quickly.

Right. Right. And this is a fantastic opportunity for me that I don’t believe I understood the gravity of the opportunity. think you’re just kind of too comfortable, right? Mm-hmm. I think ever since when I got put on that PIP, it was when everything kind of turned around for me, my mindset [00:23:00] changed.

My actions changed. everything just kind of flipped on side of its head. made it through the PIP and was luckily assigned to a client named Track Mava. Okay. let’s 

Marc Gonyea: talk about that real fast. Yeah. It’s like a, it’s like a crucible or a pivotal moment in someone’s development. When you get outta college, you get your first job and you know, working at Memory Blue is still no joke, but back then it was no joke.

We work with these technology companies that are like living and dying by if they’re making any money or not, they have to report how well they’re doing. They have to report when they’re gonna run out of cash to the board every week. t’s a results-oriented gig. And some people won’t be comfortable talking about these challenges or they don’t ever wanna talk about those things.

But those are the best learning lessons. 

Will Foreman: It made me who I am today. Yeah. Like if you don’t have any adversity, you don’t face any or you don’t persevere through that adversity, then how do you know you can do it? And it’s a lot easier to learn how to do that when you’re early in your career than it is later in your career.

Because [00:24:00] when you’re late in your career, if something like that happens, like you started to build a certain lifestyle, you started to build a certain legacy. Mm-hmm. Yep. You’ve got more to lose. Right? For sure. So I’m thankful, you know, like I said, that’s where everything kind of turned topsy-turvy on me.

I’m thankful for that experience because it, it ingrained within me like, Hey, it’s time to buckle that one and do what you need to do. Yeah. Lead it, like 

Marc Gonyea: rolling that out. On you, but like, we gotta do it for like two reasons. One is we have an obligation to grow, hopefully help people grow professionally.

Right? But also the The client. And the client. Yeah. And we have an obligation to make the people who work here, like that’s part of the job. Remember, we’re gonna teach you what it’s like to be professional, hopefully. Right? All right, so you turned around. So you got on it, you got out of it. Got out of it, which 

Will Foreman: is great.

got assigned to, client called Track Maven. Track Maven with my boy Toby, and my guy Tyler. Pickler. Pickler. It’s my guy, man. Love that dude. and we went out there, and we [00:25:00] crushed it. I think that we were so good that. They thought that they could hire one of us and then they would shuffle some more people in from memory blue and they get the same results.

I don’t think that happened. Yeah. They ended up hiring T pick, and T pick. He kind of took off from there. Man, I’m, I’m, I follow him in his career. It’s it’s pretty amazing what he’s been able to do. and he’s always been a grinder. Right. And I think having people like Toby and Tyler t pick, you know, in an experience like that where we’re all together working towards the same goal, but we’re all grinding similar mindsets, pushing each other.

Yeah. Yep. Exactly. It’s, it’s, it was refreshing. had a commute to DC that was different. Yeah. You know, got that experience. So, you know, overall track name was a great experience for me, even though I didn’t end up getting hired. I think interacting with, and that, I think also that is where I really kind of, Got my feet on the ground and started running.

Sean Cook was super impactful for me. Sean Cook. Yeah. Yeah. He [00:26:00] was super impactful for me in terms of the way that I’m thinking. It’s also somebody, Sean Cook was the sales leader at Track Maven. Yeah. Yep. He was, was a sales leader at Track Maven. I think it was really important for me as well to see another African American leading a sales organization.

Yeah. I wanna talk about that too. you know, it helped shape my view and say I can get there one day, right? Mm-hmm. Seeing somebody that’s in a role like that, that is similar to you. Mm-hmm. and some of the between, you know, Costigan, some of the training stuff that we went over at Memory Blue and some of the training stuff from him.

You know, just being relevant, right? Like, oh yeah, that’s the basis of my success to this day. And I still reference it all the time. Yeah. so, you know, didn’t end up working out there, but I think that that set me up for my career. Heck, I even met, a girl or woman, Ashley, Ashley Butner Butler. Now.

She was an AE there. and when I ended up going to Appian, like she kind of gave me the lowdown. She was working at Appian as a [00:27:00] sales enablement trainer and kind of made that connection that way. It’s cool that you 

Chris Corcoran: getting exposed to all these people that you, you know, you remember to this 

Will Foreman: day.

Yeah. I mean they, the client work, they influenced my career. they were mentors, that helped me guide or help guide me along the path that I’m on now. and I’m forever grateful for ’em. Man. I think, you know, a lot of my success, especially for you guys like. It’s rooted in Track Maven. That experience taught me a lot.

it taught me pretty much my schedule that I follow to this day. I kind of learned there. Right, right. So, then came back, you know, we didn’t get hired, you know, so that’s a bummer, but came back and went to an organization called Threat Track Security. Was doing Biz Dev for them. Crushed it there. didn’t get hired there.

I don’t have too much to say about that. I would tell you though, but 

Marc Gonyea: here’s what I’d say. I, I think people put too much emphasis on this whole idea of getting hired 

Will Foreman: by the client. That was the thing back in the day. That was the goal. It [00:28:00] still is 

Marc Gonyea: a thing, but I like, you know what I like, I like, experiencing these things ’cause they form your perspective.

Yeah. And. That’s probably more valuable than going to work at one of these companies that the first one to move on, you maybe get a 10 K higher base. We’ll get to that. So yes, we’ll get to that. I like it. 

Will Foreman: So whereas Track Maven was a great experience threat, track security, I mean it was fine. but both of them were startups, right?

And it sort of began to influence the direction and the path that I’m on now. I didn’t know it would at the time, but it influenced the way that I thought. So I didn’t get hired by Direct Track security either. you know, did well there and kind of got placed back into the memory Blue Gauntlet, on a PPM client.

Luckily that only lasted for like a week cause I would not have made it through that one. and ended up getting assigned to a client called Abby. you know, upon coming back into the office cause I [00:29:00] was. I was outta the office for six months. Right. Three month assignments at a time going into their office.

Yep. Yep. 

Marc Gonyea: You were going on the track Maven, you go to Threat 

Will Foreman: Connect. Threat track. Yep. Threat tracks usually. Yeah. We in, I think they were in Herndon. Yep, yep. Yeah. upon coming back, I got my delivery manager switched up on me. Yeah. Because we opened the new office across the parking lot. And Lee moved over there and that’s when I started getting, uh, managed by Ben Decowski.

And you know, Ben was just, Ben is just fantastic guy. yeah, yeah. He instills that belief in you. he’s gonna let you do your thing the way that you need to do it. but he’s still gonna guide you if he sees you, if he sees you going down a path that you shouldn’t go down. and upon my return is when I met some of the people that still.

I have a great relationship in my life right now. So we think about Harvey Woodson, who’s a Harvey alumni up here. Yeah. Up here. you got Jevon Smith. Jevon. Yeah. Javon, yeah. Ryan [00:30:00] Boyd, who was on, I think, the list of 10 for Alumni of the Year. I think he was on that. Catherine Fagin yes. that was my mentee.

you’re supposed to go to her wedding in Wichita, but then something came up so we weren’t able to make it. But that’s my girl. I still talk to all of them, you know, very, very deeply to this day. was working with my guy, Rodney Goodson. was one of my mentees. and then the Smart Logic team.

So, you know you got Wes Oh, wow. Giov. Yep. Yeah. Wow. You got Frank Taylor. Wow. That’s got Annette Cole, Jay Holt, who’s actually recording today. wow. Mike. Mike. Dude, you got everybody. I can’t remember his last name. Mike. 

Marc Gonyea: Carey? Oh, hockey player. Mike. 

Will Foreman: Mike Carey. Mike Carey. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So we kinda had Ben.

Okay. Yeah. Nice person. Ben. Ben got lucky man. Like he, Ben had some really good accounts. Yeah. 

Marc Gonyea: Yeah. he, he could draft, man, we 

Will Foreman: just, we were killing it, man. And we won every team competition, [00:31:00] because we were just outta here crushing it. so, and that’s where I formulated sort of the long lasting bonds, which is great.

I think it was great to have the experience outside of the office. It prepared me for the professional world in a sense. Sure. but also, you know, being able to come back into the office, see how some things had changed. I think that was really important as well, because I was able to act as more of a mentor, because I was rooted in the ways of memory blue, if you will.

Sure. Um, ended up running new hire courses, like, which is. From going to PIP to running a new hire course. We would’ve thought that That’s insane. Well, well, no, but, but 

Chris Corcoran: , above this, we were talking before we start recording, so we have this quarterly incentive where if you’re the best sdr, you get this like boxing belt, championship belt.

Yeah. And, Will you won the first one. So, so you went from on PIP to winning the, the first 

Will Foreman: belt ever? Yeah, I [00:32:00] got Brett Siegel to think for that. Brett Siegel. 

Marc Gonyea: Geez. You know, you said you like relationship person, like it’s painfully obvious. It’s true. 

Will Foreman: Yeah. I mean, these people have had an impact on my life.

So, you know, whether we speak to this day or not, like, No bad blood, you know, we gotta remember ’em. Yeah. Like, you gotta gotta pay my respects. Right. So Brett he had moved from the SDR team to Tommy Gazman’s team, on the AE team, and he closed the account, Abby. Okay. And, I got lucky on that account, like it was, it was a moneymaker for sure and helped me earn that first belt.

so, but you know, I think from there didn’t get hired out by them either, so there’s a recurring theme. but I think, do they hire out their people? They didn’t, yeah. Well see, they didn’t, but what doesn’t mean you didn’t, you 

Marc Gonyea: get hire out, they just chose 

Will Foreman: not to hire anyone out. So, so where I’m going with this is I think for.

For those SDRs that are at memory blue, it’s really important to understand that just because you don’t get hired out by your client doesn’t necessarily mean that [00:33:00] you’ve failed at your job. Yes. Not at all. close. Some clients don’t have the money. Yep. Sometimes it’s not a culture fit. You may look back on it and realize, Hey, this is the best thing that could have ever happened to me.

Yep. there’s a myriad of reasons that it could have gone down that way, but I think it’s important to realize as long as you’re doing your job and you’re in the grind day in and day out, no matter where you end up going, you have the foundation that you need to be successful in this role and move towards a closing role.

Right. which is ultimately, for the most part, what a lot of people, what a lot of these SDRs probably want do. so I went O for three, killed in all, all three and went O for three. But it’s okay. Cause I ended up, like I said, through someone that I met at one of those clients Track Maven.

Yes. Yep. They sort of, Their team was hiring an SD R and SDRs and they were looking for new people. And that connection that I made through a memory blue client ended up launching me into my job over at Appian, which you guys are actually across the street from. [00:34:00] Yeah, yeah. Publicly 

Marc Gonyea: traded software company.

Yeah. 

Will Foreman: Legit business. I was there when they went public. It was, it was awesome, man. Yeah. so was there for about three years, got promoted, two times, had a lot of success, but ended up kind of running into a blockade. I feel like a career cap, if you will. I think a lot of the folks that I worked with, the way that Appian has things structured is just by vertical.

Okay. So typically those that are working in the financial services or the pharmaceuticals or the healthcare vertical, Their path to being an AE is significantly easier. just because they’re specialized. Mm-hmm. Right. Subject matter, I covered broad markets, so I knew a little bit of everything, but I wasn’t necessarily an expert in anything.

but you have to be a certain type of person to cover broad markets ’cause you gotta know everything. Yeah. Yeah. Right. and you know, I think overall at Appian great experience, I learned a lot. I was able to mentor, take some of the things that I learned at memoryBlue, and mentor a lot of the folks to make sure that that SD r you know, force was successful.[00:35:00] 

but it, it comes a time in every person’s life where you gotta look for a new opportunity. Right. and by happenstance, you know, I stumbled upon the company that I’m working for now and I’ve been working for, for five years. Capability Source. so Capability Source is an interesting organization and it’s actually great because you’ll hear a lot.

From software vendors, this ideology of solution selling, solution selling for vendors is typically only around a specific software. 

Marc Gonyea: Like when you worked at Appian. 

Will Foreman: Yeah. Like, so it’s around a specific software, right? So are you really selling a solution or are you selling a solution that’s specific to your actual technology?

Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. That’s my take on it, right? Yeah. Yeah. so I’m in a bit of a unique position now and I’m, blessed that, you know, my boss took a chance on me. Glenn Coward. That’s my guy. Yeah, Glenn. Um, Um, I’m able to actually sell a solution. So [00:36:00] we have different technology vendors as partners.

capability Source is a value added reseller, and we’ll go into this, you know, more I’m sure later. we’re a value-added reseller, so we resell, products and we also implement. With professional services. Right. Let me ask 

Marc Gonyea: you a question real quick about you. We’ll, we’ll come back to that. Yeah. So you’re, you, you left memory blue, you were at memoryBlue a little bit longer than the average person and 20 months the beautiful thing about. That’s a 

Will Foreman: nice run.

Yeah. I’m surprised I was still stuck around for that one. That’s 

Marc Gonyea: a great one. That’s a great one, dude. Its such, such a great right way to do it. I think the beautiful thing about Foreman Chris, is he would kind of, he went through these generational cycles of memoryBlue people in like a memoryBlue, in memoryBlue time, right?

Yeah. Like 20 months of memoryBlue is like three 

Will Foreman: or four. It’s a revolving door man. Like, but, but 

Marc Gonyea: you and you have an open mind and you’re pretty self aware. You would build relationships with these other people versus some memoryBlue people were like, oh, the people that I came in with were like the ultimate ballers and, [00:37:00] and they, and they’re not as open to like developing relationships with people who had started and they’re nine months into memoryBlue or 18 months in.

Right, right. So you’re like, you’re, you’re 18 months into memory blue, whatever it was when you came back in the office after being gone for, on your assignments. 

Will Foreman: I think it was. Coming back. Came back in at month nine. Yeah. All right. Yeah. And you picked 

Marc Gonyea: up relationships with these people. You were just like firing off their names.

Yes. Man. Well, tell me why you’re like that. Because other people 

Will Foreman: aren’t, because, and I think everyone knows this saying too, your network is your net worth. Like your network is your net worth. The more people that you know, the more people you can talk to, the more opportunities that you’ll have.

Those people also know people. Mm-hmm. And if they trust you, they believe in you. In the right situation, they’ll put you in the right position to do what you need to do. Right. and also I think it’s really important to state, you can learn from anyone, whether they’re one or two months in. Yes, that’s right.

Or whether they’re 20 months in just because you’ve been there. For 10, 12 months, [00:38:00] quite frankly, doesn’t mean that you’re good at your job, right. You could just be okay. Like, but you’re not really, I think for me it’s all about value. I think everyone can provide value in, in their lives. Mm-hmm. and I think it’s up to me or said individual to have that open mind and understand that this conversation, this impression can lead to whatever.

Mm-hmm. I think it’s important not to cut that off. How come more people are like that? I get it from my dad. So my dad, my dad’s like a social butterfly, but I also think that,the culture nowadays in the way the upbringings of some folks kind of leads you down that path where it’s like you handle your own thing.

You do what you need to do, kind of punch in, punch out, and that’s kind of that come to do your job. I feel like there’s a nationwide, there is a [00:39:00] false sense of someone’s always trying to take your spot. Yeah. everyone, everything’s a competition. Like I, I value competition, grew up in team sports, right?

Yeah. I want to compete so that I can make myself better. but some people are afraid of that competition because they feel like someone’s going to take something that’s theirs. I think that’s the way that you view things. That’s okay. but for me, that’s not the best way to view things. Mm-hmm. Um, if I fail and also people are afraid to fail.

listen, I fail multiple times at memory blue. Right. I came out on the other side. I’m in a very, very good position. Mm-hmm. From a life standpoint. Mm-hmm. If you don’t fail, you can’t learn to succeed. That’s my viewpoint on it. And I think that failure is what prevents people from engaging in a health a healthy competition.

Yeah. they’re scared of the failure. Yeah. Like, listen, you’re going to fail. Mm-hmm. It is inevitable. If you talk to anyone that says their life [00:40:00] is perfect, they haven’t gone through anything. Yeah. Or, or they’re 

Marc Gonyea: not comfortable talking about. 

Will Foreman: Right. This is more often than not. Yes. Case.

So, I think it’s very important to interact with different people from different cultures, from different aspects of life. because at the end of the day, as you think about selling, like closing deals, you never know who’s gonna be on the other end of that film. And it’s important, again, if you learn it early and you learn how to speak to different people early and.

As opposed to react, actively listen and then respond. Yeah. then you’re well suited to be able to handle really anything in sales, right? Yeah. Because you’re gonna get some, crazy twists and turns during a sales cycle where you just, you’re left there with your head scratching your head and you’re like, what is going on?

Right. But if you have that open mind and you can be prepared to actually take that on, it makes dealing with that [00:41:00] significantly easier, in my opinion. So, 

Marc Gonyea: so you’re doing, you’re doing this thing, I would, I mean, I would argue that the best thing that ever happened to you is the fact that you didn’t get hired by one of these clients right away.

Will Foreman: Oh, absolutely. Right? Absolutely. 

Marc Gonyea: So like that in turned out being a huge benefit, but at the time you’re probably like 

Will Foreman: wtf. Yeah. I had to force my own path, man, and find my way. And I’m glad that I did and I’m glad I had the experiences with the startups because for me personally, I prefer working in a startup environment.

it’s really important for me from a validation perspective, that I can actually contribute and that contribution is measurable. Mm-hmm. you know, we can talk deep about key performance indicators, all that kind of stuff, like the industry stuff, but we won’t do that. But personally, from my perspective, it’s really important for me to be able to have an impact working at Track Maven, working at Threat Track security, working at Abbey, you know, all startup type organizations.

that helped influence the way that I was thinking, and that’s [00:42:00] another part of the reason why when I went to Appian, I don’t think things worked out for me in the long run in my eyes. Although you were there for three years. I was there for three years. Yeah. But I made a lot of money. Yeah.

Marc Gonyea: Like, 

Will Foreman: that’s good. You don’t run for the money, right? Right. no, but you know, for me it’s like you’re just kind of a number and I felt like I got into a position where I was kind of coming in, I was doing my job and I was leaving. And personally, I need to be challenged. Okay. Um, if I don’t have a role that challenges me on a daily basis, then I get complacent.

Yep. And to me, complacency is the start in the root of failure. Chris, I’ve been talking 

Marc Gonyea: about that a lot lately. Yeah. Complacency and comfort. They’re 

Will Foreman: drugs. They’re drugs. Exactly. They’re drugs. So as soon, and it happened at Appian and I, you know, I was still crushing it. Yeah. But you know, you kind of go in and you’re like, okay, well usually I’m in an eight and now I’m kind of moseying in on at nine.

Yeah. You know, usually you stay a little bit after. And now I’m [00:43:00] like, all right, I’m gonna try and cut outta here at like 4, 4 30 to beat traffic. Yeah. Like, and once all of that stuff started happening, you know, for me it was like, all right. I need to go, like I need to, I need to find something else because this isn’t challenging for me anymore.

and I also most importantly wanted to go before I got kicked out. On On your terms? Yeah. On my terms. Right. So, you know, ended up leaving there, course and, uh, finding this opportunity. Let me ask you a question about that. 

Marc Gonyea: Yeah. So a couple things. and when are we talking about complacency and comfort being a drug?

That doesn’t mean you can’t take time off to enjoy it. Yeah. Right. To enjoy the success or the hard work or the money, all the money you made. But it also means like that complacency thing is 

Will Foreman: sneaky. You sneak right up on you, man, lower 

Marc Gonyea: your standards, and you start stuff you would’ve never stood for.

You start to stand for. Yeah. Which is 

Will Foreman: problem. I think the, the trigger point for me was to kind of come moseying in late and then leaving early. Yeah. That’s why I was like, all right, if I can do this job in this set amount of time with this set amount of [00:44:00] activities, it’s rudimentary to me at this point.

I’m not challenging myself. I’m not gonna be here for much longer. On their terms if I don’t get my act together. So, 

Marc Gonyea: so when you decided you wanted do something else, what did you think you wanted to do? Let’s talk about that transition from Appian to where you are now. I 

Will Foreman: wanted to close. I was doing a little bit of closing, but it wasn’t anything like a great magnitude.

Right. when I made that transition, I was looking for an opportunity, to close. And at the time I started dating my girlfriend and she lived in New York and I was looking for a remote job ’cause I was trying to move up here. I ended up stumbling upon Capability Source and it was full-time remote work and honestly that transition was tough too.

But in terms of what I was looking for, I was looking for an opportunity to actually be impactful. impact the bottom line, not just be a number, be able to validate that my contributions. Are actually affecting things in a positive way. Right. and that’s what I found. [00:45:00] so I think, we’ll delve into this.

I don’t know if we wanna go right now, if you guys have another question, but working from home is interesting or it was interesting initially. 

Marc Gonyea: Talk about that. Yeah. So you’re at Appian working from an office. Yep. And then you get a new job 

Will Foreman: working by myself. Doing a new role. Doing a new role.

Yeah. Working by yourself. Full cycle sales. and when you work from home, I think when you’re a little bit immature, if you will, from a professional sense, ’cause you haven’t experienced that, there are a lot of temptations around the house, right. Like, you know, got your Xbox, got espn, you know, you got, oh, I got a gym down here.

Let me go work out like for a couple hours, like, And you just, you’re wading in interesting water. So my first couple months, it was a, it was a struggle for adjustment for me. I bet, for everybody because everything was just kind of at my fingertips. There was no more commute. It’s like you wake up when you wanna wake up and then I kind of [00:46:00] lost what made me successful.

And not only that Appian, but when we think about the foundation that is memory blue. Mm-hmm. Right. Kind of having that set schedule where you’re up, you’re in seat, you’re doing X, y, and z. Mm-hmm. Kind of planning out your day, sort of that foundation and that structure. Kinda lost that for the first couple months where, you know, I was working from home and then, ran into some trouble.

He wasn’t producing. Right. Yeah. Yeah. again, another wake up call, you know, but my boss believes in me and he believes that I have potential. And when you have somebody that’s behind you like that, that you think has your best interests at heart, It’s somebody you want to go to bat for. Right. and I think that’s important in looking for a boss in general.

And I say this not only about the interview process. I think the interview process is important. And I feel like a lot of people, especially from an SDR standpoint, they don’t understand that they don’t think about this. When you go in and you interview for a company, they’re interviewing you for a [00:47:00] job.

Yeah. Right. But you’re also interviewing them. And you should come prepared with questions like, what’s the day to day, what’s the culture like? What are the expectations? It’s not just an interview for you because you can walk yourself into a situation where, You have the job, but then you get there and you’re like, I hate the job.

Right? And then what are you gonna do? You’re gonna go and look for another job. And if you’re looking for another job, you’re taking away from the efforts that you should be putting into your current job, right? Yeah. And then something bad might happen, right? So for all the SDRs out there that are looking to, you know, go to another company, or even going to a closing role, I think it’s really important for you guys to understand when you go into these interviews, you’re not just getting interviewed by the company, you should be interviewing the company to make sure that it’s the right fit for you.

And most importantly, asking about growth opportunities and how you can grow into wherever it is that you want to go. that’s a sidebar right there. But, yeah, so ran into some trouble, but kind of turned things around. And the way that I did that is [00:48:00] in, you can ask my, my girlfriend when I work, what’s her name?

Merlin. shout out. There is complete silence in my home. there is no ESPN in the background. There is no music running, there’s no distractions. It’s like, I’m here. It’s back to the old memory blue days, right? Yeah. But without people, I’m here to grind. I’m here to put in work, and I’m here to accomplish X, Y, and Z for this day.

And if I don’t accomplish that, it’s not necessarily a failure, but you gotta ask yourself the question, did you give it your all? Yeah. Right. Like, and if you didn’t give it your all, then you gotta take that. You gotta be honest with yourself, take that feedback, and then come back the next day and then try and be better.

How do you get better every single day? so the work from home experience was interesting the first couple months and then, you know, I also didn’t really know how to close some of these larger enterprise clients. Right. I went from, you know, working with smaller deals with smaller companies, to now I’m working with like Fortune 100 companies, right?

And it’s a little bit [00:49:00] of a different scenario because I’m no longer just selling a specific technology. I’m trying to sell. Services and a solution around why you should trust us to implement those services. and it was an adjustment. but once I kind of buckled down and understood sort of what the difference in a solution cell and a solution cell were, it’s helped me understand how to approach these client calls and most importantly, make sure that everybody wins.

Right. And I think being, like going back to the interview process of memory blue, right? You can say that I was too laid back, but Mark, you and I were talking about this last night, being laid back isn’t necessarily a bad thing as long as it’s in the right setting. And how I’m talking to you guys right now is the same exact way that I talk to, you know, my clients.

I wanna make sure that they feel comfortable. Mm-hmm. I wanna make sure that, you know, I’m not that prototypical sales guy that is trying to, you know, we’ve all seen the internship, right? Shove product on your throat, right? Yeah. That whole, that whole bit.[00:50:00] and that’s how you. Build the relationship. That’s how you understand who they are as a person.

What are their personal goals, and how do you as a vendor help them reach those goals? Because for me and my boss, our ultimate goal is to make sure that our primary contact is successful so that they can get set up for a promotion. There you go. That is what we define as success. That, and actually selling to a business outcome, like a 70% reduction in rework or something like that.

Right. A business outcome. Something that is tangible, not just, Hey, we sold this deal, not what. Right. Because ultimately you want to be the trusted advisor. You want to get in there and develop that long-term relationship, and you want to, most importantly, you develop that long-term relationship. You sell more that for sure.

And that’s what we’re here for, right? Yes. You wanna sell? Yep. Make money. 

Marc Gonyea: Yeah. It sounds 

Chris Corcoran: like you, you’re, you’re much more consultative in this role. 

Will Foreman: Yeah, [00:51:00] a hundred percent. you’ve got different solutions 

Marc Gonyea: you can 

Chris Corcoran: provide. Yeah. You’ve got services you can provide. It’s really identifying what’s important and what sort of outcomes they’re looking for.

Yep. And then you can kind of tailor a specific solution. Yep. 

Will Foreman: A hundred percent. and it’s quite honestly, and we alluded to this a little bit earlier, it’s nice because being able to be a value added reseller and then sell services, I get comped on both. So like, if I sell both, then I mean, that’s double dipping a little bit.

Right? Yeah. But you know, obviously that’s the personal aspect, but I think ultimately just being able to recommend the best solution for the client to make sure that they’re successful, 

Marc Gonyea: That’s the key. Of course, I have a lot of admiration for bars that operate that way. 

Will Foreman: Yeah. I mean, you wanna reduce churn.

Mm-hmm. If you have clients that churn, that’s a steady revenue stream that you just lose. Mm-hmm. Right? So treat the people that you work with. Right. Develop the relationships with ’em. Listen, To them. Don’t get on the phone and just start [00:52:00] pitching. Ask them what they care about. Right? That’s again, relationship building what matters to you and then tailor your pitch to what matters to them.

Tailor your pitch to what you hear. my ultimate goal is to, and I, you know, we taught, we used to do this at Memory Blue. It was hard ’cause we were cold calling, but you know, the 80 20 rule, right? Yeah. Like, you want to, if you can, you want to have that client or that prospect talk 80% of the time, and you talk that 20% of time because you want to be able to listen to what they’re saying and then influence your pitch and tailor it to what you’re hearing from them, right?

Again, foundation memory, blue, like all of this, all of these things were learned here, sort of in that incubator, if you will. Like the grind, the list build is important. Being able to identify prospects is important. Looking at LinkedIn and, and picking mm-hmm. Messaging. People love to talk about themselves.

Mm-hmm. So being able to go on that LinkedIn and literally pick something and [00:53:00] reference it when you get ’em on the phone, it’s like extra, that extra effort that sometimes can make the largest impact. Yep. When you’re thinking about cold calling or closing a deal because it shows that you’re not just caring about you and your bottom line, you care about actually what’s going on with them.

I got a question for you. 

Marc Gonyea: we’ll circle back to this. You mentioned earlier about Sean Cook, an African American Yep. Male, that you kind of saw you can. Reflect and connect. Connect with. Mm-hmm. We had talked about this last night. One of our, we love all of our alums. One of our, another beloved alum. Kendrick Trotter.

Will Foreman: You didn’t work with Trot Did not. So let’s talk about that a little bit. I did not work with Trot, our connection in literally LinkedIn network man. he reached out to me one day on LinkedIn just to cultivate an introduction. I’d seen some of the things that he was doing. I’d heard I still him tapped [00:54:00] in to a certain extent.

So, you know, the rock stars if you will, you know what’s going on, right. so I’d heard about him, some of the things he was doing. and then, you know, he left Memory Blue. I think he got hired out by service site. Right. He got hired out 

Marc Gonyea: by, starts with an A, by his client. Yeah. He got hired out by his client.

He was an Uber driver and one of our clients was. Yeah, he was, one of his rides was an Uber, was a memoryBlue client. Andro is very curious. He started asking questions and the guy said, you need to go interview at memoryBlue. And long story short. And he got hired by Agari. Yeah. And then 

Will Foreman: you guys had even worked together.

But he didn’t, did not overlap at all. He was in completely different office. We’re working with him now actually. Yeah. Yeah. He, um, completely different office across the country. wasn’t even there at the same time. I think I was probably gone for about a year or so. Uh, when we had initially connected, he reached out on LinkedIn.

We chatted a little bit. I saw some of the things that he was doing, you know, with the, African American comedian and other minorities. Why is that important? It’s important because it’s, for [00:55:00] me, it’s important to be able to identify as someone else that’s doing it, to know that you can.

Mm-hmm. I think in the industry that we work in, you don’t see a lot of us. Mm-hmm. and sometimes you don’t feel like you can get to the mountaintop, if you will. Because you don’t see other people doing it. I was even blessed at Appian my first, you know, manager when I was over there. He was an African American guy.

Right. And he pushed me, but he also pushed me the right way. Mm-hmm. Because of that potential, right? Mm-hmm. and Kendrick now fast forward, you know, he’s got us in technology and it’s a, it’s a great community. I mentor within that community, all based off of him just being curious. Mm-hmm. And seeing that there was someone that looked like him, that had worked at memoryBlue and making that initial connection.

And I started following what he was doing. Yep. And I was looking for a way to give back. Right. And, um, he did all the work. Like, I’m just, I’m there to lend advice for people that are, that have a similar background to myself and to let them know like, [00:56:00] Hey, as long as you do what you need to do and you embrace the grind, then.

You can get there, right? I want to be, you know, I didn’t really have that, I think when I was early on in my career until I interacted with Sean. Right? I didn’t have that initially. but I think it’s important and it’s vital to, you know, this specific community, to have resources that they’re able to kind of tap into to make sure that they can gain that knowledge.

And even, you know, the mentees that I have or have had in the past, I keep it, you know, straight with ’em. Like, listen, I fail a lot. It’s a grind. It’s not easy. You should not expect to come in here and just like experience all the glitz and glamor. If you don’t dedicate yourself to the process, you don’t dedicate yourself to the work, then you’re not gonna be successful.

and I let them know about my, you know, my failures, my pitfalls. and Mark, I know you mentioned a lot of people don’t like to share that, but I think it’s [00:57:00] important. Regardless of whether it’s within this specific community or just as a whole, you have to share what hasn’t gone right in order to make you appreciate what is going right.

and you know, no fault to anybody that doesn’t want to share that information, but I’m proud of it. Proud of it. I wasn’t proud of it as a time at the time, but yeah, of course not. I’m proud of it because it built me into who I am today and it built that foundation. I know in my head what worst looks like and it gives you sort of that barometer where you’re like, okay, well this is what really bad looks like.

Let’s make sure that we’re doing what we need to do to not get here. Right? Like, so I think you gotta embrace the failure, you gotta embrace the mistakes, because it builds you into, you know, who you’ll eventually become within your career. So I think that’s really important. 

Marc Gonyea: So foreman as you. Progress, with your career?

Where do you see 

Will Foreman: this going? I don’t know, man. [00:58:00] I, right now am building up our partnerships with our vendors. Um, and that involves, so there’s, there’s two in my specific role, there’s two types of grind. There’s the grind with a client, which is like typical, cold calling, emailing, you know, the stuff we do at memory Blue.

And then the interesting part about the role that I have, I love how 

Marc Gonyea: performances, the stuff we do at memoryBlue, like it still works at memoryBlue. Love that. And one more thing and one more thing we need to shout out Eddie Mcguire. My guy Eddie. Yeah. Yeah. We would, he would’ve been upset if we had not thought of him

sorry, back, back to the lecture at hand. 

Will Foreman: Yeah, no. So, the second part of my role is working with reps, right? You want to get brought into deals, obviously that helps. Yeah. These are the reps at the software companies. At the software companies. 

Marc Gonyea: You’re a recommender of multiple technologies. Yeah. Not like an app worked at the software company.

This is for the people listening. You know this. Yeah. But you gotta go and, and work with the reps that each of these individual [00:59:00] ISVs that you 

Will Foreman: partner with. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, the nice thing about that is none of them compete, which is great. Best. so my boss is a very smart man for sure.

but you know, I think the second part of that grind is trying to get in front of these reps and helping them know that you’re there as a resource. And that requires the same amount of effort because there are hundreds of reps mm-hmm. Hundred at these companies. Hundreds, and they don’t know who you are.

And there’s hundreds of partners within that partner network. So how do you differentiate yourself? What makes you different? What is the value that you bring to them? Why would they tap on you? What is your expertise? so for us, we primarily focus within project management and marketing operations, right?

we have our own development team, that performs wildly insane integrations. messaging is generally speaking around collaborative work management and how do you help your, how do you enable your teams to work better together? [01:00:00] And that goes across multiple business lines. It’s not just marketing.

It’s not just OMO. It’s not IT PMO, it’s tech, it’s finance, it’s legal. How do you work together within a platform? And that takes integration. you have to know about not only the software, you have to know about integrations, how that works. You have to know it’s a lot. but it’s fun, man, because like, I, like I alluded to you earlier, it’s important for me to feel like I’m challenged and there’s something new with this job.

Every single day there’s a different path, there’s a different solution. There’s a different recommendation for every client. No one client is the same. and to have the ability to fit the technology around the client and their process. I know we, I know you guys don’t like business process management, but I didn’t, that 

Marc Gonyea: was me last night, not Chris.

I know. I told him separately. Yeah. And I don’t like it much. It’s really hard. It’s really hard. It’s 

Will Foreman: really hard. But I think, you know, there’s business process management and there’s actual, the actual business process. Yeah. you have to cater to the business process and being able to have, you know, tools in your tool belt that makes you, helps you recommend [01:01:00] the best solution for the client, I think is really impactful.

And I find a lot of value in that personally, because I don’t have to be the prototypical sales guy that you see on TV or see in movies where they’re just going in or seeing on sales calls. Yeah. On a, on a singular product. Right. I think, yeah. You know, it’s important to be able to have, and also it’s important to not, if the deal doesn’t fit right, we thought, we talk about churn.

 If a deal isn’t right from the jump and it doesn’t make sense and you’re trying to fit a square into a round hole, a square peg into a round hole, I know you want the success, but like, I don’t, I think it’s important not to sell that, because you can get that money and that’s an instant gratification.

But as I think about the larger organization, which is what I’m kind of wired to do now, that client ultimately is probably gonna leave 

Marc Gonyea: Foreman 

Chris Corcoran: playing long ball. Yes. Taking it back to his high school baseball 

Marc Gonyea: days. He’s like the Tampa, who’s the, the Marlins or the [01:02:00] Tampa Bay? Who the, the guys in Tampa who like have all the young bucks.

They’re gonna win the series in five years. Right. Like you’re playing, you’re not thinking about this season, you’re thinking about you gotta, 

Will Foreman: this season. But also it’s about annual recurring revenue. Yeah. And being able to do this is gonna sound bad, but not having to do anything to make money.

It’s a beautiful thing. Right. So if you’re trying to fit a square peg into a round hole just to sell the deal, you might get that, but then the next year gone, that client is gone. Yes. And then you’re gonna have to find another source of revenue and it makes your job that much harder. Mm-hmm. Right. So plus 

Marc Gonyea: that relationship’s probably torched.

Will Foreman: Yeah. Yeah. They’re not gonna trust you torched. And I’ve had clients where, you know, I’ve told them, Hey, this probably isn’t a fit. They move to a different company, they come back to me and they’re like, I appreciate the way that you approach our conversation or our interaction. Yep. you are honest with me.

Like, but now I feel like this is probably a better use case. And then they bought, that’s great. Yeah. That’s great. Relationship. People buy from people they like. Yep. People buy from people that listen to them. People buy from people that have their best interest at heart. Mm-hmm.[01:03:00] and you know, if you’re being kind of sleazy, yeah, you might get the deal that one time, but when you think about longer game and making things easier, working smarter, not harder, if you will.

Sure. Like. You’re gonna lose that nine times outta 10. and for me, I think that’s the important thing is the more arr I can get annual recurring revenue guys, the more ARR can get, that’s the less work I have to do on the backend. That’s predictable income for my company. Yeah. That’s more money that we can do different things with.

Yep. Like thinking of it at a top level perspective. I’m an individual contributor, but I also have people that contribute as well. Right. So thinking about the organization as a whole and how that fits into the construct, I think is really important as, as you progress through your career building the health of the business.

Yeah. A healthy business, especially in times like these where the tech industry is kind of teetering, building a healthy business is gonna be key to driving growth for sure. It’s possible to drive growth for sure. Especially during times like these. 

Marc Gonyea: So will, you’re, you’re coming up with [01:04:00] 10 years outta Mason.

Yeah. As we kind. It’s been that long. Yeah. As we cut a decade, as we kind of wrap, wrap things up. you 

Chris Corcoran: know I’m not gonna let you go. Oh, 

Marc Gonyea: go for it, man. Wow. 

Chris Corcoran: With, I mean, if you’re gonna bring Mason 

Marc Gonyea: back up. Well, Chris, we won’t end on Chris’s notebook. We had to bring this up. So, foreman 

Chris Corcoran: Mason, we had the most furl of recruiting pipelines within the Pi Kappa.

All those people, you guys, the Pi Kappa Alpha, all the bells that were going, they all came before you. Yeah. And then you were the one that 

Marc Gonyea: ended that 

Will Foreman: whole process. I wouldn’t classify it as that, but that’s a fair assessment. I guess from your perspective. 

Marc Gonyea: Listen, turned out the 

Chris Corcoran: lights on our, our most, our 

Will Foreman: greatest recruiting pipeline.

Listen man, they’re either finance bros or they just weren’t built for it like you gotta be. 

Marc Gonyea: There hasn’t 

Chris Corcoran: been one that’s 

Marc Gonyea: come since. You gotta 

Will Foreman: be a certain type of person to embrace the grind and. Some of the guys that we were creative, you know, [01:05:00] they weren’t, they weren’t the same, they weren’t cut from the same cloth.

Fair enough. Fair. Like, I think if you, if you asked any of the guys that I mentioned earlier, they’ll probably say the same exact thing. 

Chris Corcoran: I always just blame you. Yeah. Good for you, man. 

Marc Gonyea: I’ll take that blame. I’ll own it. I’m good with that. Nah. Yeah. I’m just getting 

Will Foreman: a hard time. You can think of it this way.

You got the last great one. There you go. There you go. 

Chris Corcoran: We, we ended that relationship with an exclamation on a, on a high note. Yeah. Make it in that place. We gonna make another run. Well, we need to make another run at 

Marc Gonyea: gmu, man. They’re there. We just gotta find them there. We’re gonna be a counter in IT.

We get, we get in sales. so knowing what you know now, a decade later. Yeah. What would, after the interview, cardigan mishap. The night before, you know, your first day at Memory Blue, what would you tell yourself now knowing what’s transpired the past 10 years? 

Will Foreman: just stay ready. Stay ready, be don’t get [01:06:00] discouraged.

in, regardless of whether this is before memory blue or right now at the drop of a hat, things can change and that could be a good thing. Yep. Could be a bad thing. but at the end of the day, control the controllables. And the one thing that you can control is your effort, your output, and your mindset.

And if those three aren’t aligned together, then whatever endeavor it is that you take on, you’re not going to be prepared for. so, you know, I’ve gone through a lot of adversity. I’ve came out on the other side of it in a, in a positive way. and I think for me, you know, if I’m going back 10 years and I’m saying, Hey, what do you need to know, what’s imperative?

stay ready because there will be some twists and turns, but stay the course. As long as you stay the course, you’ll come out of this on the other side with the right mindset and be most importantly prepared. I think a lot of what happens, [01:07:00] not only with with me, but others that are at memory blue, people say that it, it prepares you for your sales career, which it does, right?

But I think there’s a lot of lessons that you can take away and prepare for life in general, whether it’s professional or whether it’s personal. There are going to be situations where you fail or you get knocked down and you gotta get back up. And you gotta fight through that. You gotta push through it.

and I was lucky enough where I joined Memory Blue at a point in time where I didn’t really have anything to lose. I was still a little bit younger, was early on in my career. so I learned those lessons early and that helped shape the way that I think and the way that I move in my life, and help me help prepare me for that.

but I think it goes back to having that open mind, like you guys were talking about earlier, not being afraid to fail, having that open mind and understanding like, hey, things could go sideways, but as long as you say the course and you do what you need to do, and the effort in the consistency is there, [01:08:00] then when you come outta this on the other side, you’ll be in a good spot.

Marc Gonyea: Well said. Very good. 

Chris Corcoran: Very good. Well Will, man, I, I really appreciate you taking time outta your day and coming to see us. 

Will Foreman: Appreciate the opportunity guys. It’s been a lot of fun. It’s been great. 

Marc Gonyea: You got real last night catching up with you. You got real deep today. Yeah, man, that’s what we appreciate. We, we continue to, 

Chris Corcoran: look forward to kind of watch you do what you 

Marc Gonyea: do.

Will Foreman: Yeah, I will. next time I’m in, the DC area, I’ll make sure to hit you guys up. I’m down there all the time, actually. Not on weekdays though. Usually on weekends. Okay. But let us know, we’ll make sure, we’ll make sure we stop by the office. I’m gonna enjoy 

Marc Gonyea: watching you progress. Continue to progress, man.

 For sure. You’ve come a long way in 10 years from like, you know, getting down to Mason and crushing it up here in the big apple. Sky’s the limit, man. 

Will Foreman: Sky’s the limit to me. I’m hoping, you know, to continue to grow these partnerships that we have now and, just being a really, really, really good spot. But, like we said earlier, everything is a grind, including like working with partners, being able to, and I’ll leave, I’ll leave these guys with this.

relevance and [01:09:00] providing value are going to be keys to your success. the more that you can be relatable to someone, again, that goes back to thinking about what they care about. and the more that you tailor your pitch around what they care about, the more successful you’re gonna be. and you can only do that by actively listening, which memory Blue teaches you.

So 80 20 rule guys, keep it rolling. 

Marc Gonyea: Performance 

Chris Corcoran: is full of him. I know. He is. All right. Very good. Alright, will, well thank 

Marc Gonyea: you very much. 

Will Foreman: Thanks guys. It was great chatting. Yep.