Episode 135: Deng Phua – Discipline and Dedication

Cold calling has not gone cold. While many industries are becoming dominated by AI and automation, Deng Phua notes the continued vitality of cold calling in the sales field.

In this episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers, Deng, an accomplished Sales Development Executive at Ramp, discusses the personalization that cold calling can bring into a technology-centered field, the way that discipline serves as the foundation for creativity and improvisation in sales strategies, and the growth and satisfaction that can come from remote work.

Guest-At-A-Glance

💡 Name: Deng Phua

💡What he does: SDE

💡Company: Ramp

💡Noteworthy: Deng is a rising star in tech sales, having transitioned into the field with no prior experience. His journey and insights offer a fresh perspective on the industry.

💡 Where to find Deng: LinkedIn

Key Insights

The Power of Discipline in Sales

Deng emphasizes the importance of discipline in the field of sales. He argues that discipline is the foundation of creativity and improvisation, two key elements in successful sales strategies. According to Deng, discipline is not just about consistency but also about dedication to the craft of sales. This dedication allows salespeople to interact with some of the smartest people and learn everything on the job, making it a rewarding career path.

The Future of Work – Remote and Flexible

Deng shares his thoughts on the shift toward remote work. He believes that while initial in-office experience is beneficial for building relationships and getting hands-on help, the ability to work from anywhere becomes more important as personal needs and aspirations evolve. He suggests that the flexibility to live and work from different locations can enhance personal growth and job satisfaction.

The Relevance of Cold Calling in the Digital Age

Despite the rise of AI and automation, Deng maintains that cold calling remains a vital skill in sales. He explains that the human element of sociability, charisma, and persuasion cannot be replaced by technology. He also highlights that the skills learned as a Sales Development Representative (SDR) are valuable and transferable, contributing to Account Executives (AEs) success.

Episode Highlights

Deng’s Unexpected Journey into Tech Sales

Deng shares his unconventional journey into tech sales. Initially pursuing a degree in communications, he felt pressured to switch to a STEM field due to societal expectations. However, he soon realized that this wasn’t his path. He stumbled upon memoryBlue while job hunting and decided to give it a shot. This marked the beginning of his career in tech sales.

“I saw memoryBlue, sent out the application, and got a call. […] memoryBlue was the second company that offered me a position. And, I realized it was close to home, about an hour’s commute now if you take the train. So I decided why not move home, save a little bit of money, and give sales a shot. Going back to my original observation of myself that I was rather extroverted, I thought maybe I could do well in this business.”

The Importance of Discipline in Sales

Deng emphasizes the importance of discipline in sales. He believes that discipline is not just about consistency but also about dedication to the craft of sales. This dedication allows salespeople to interact with some of the smartest people and learn everything on the job.

“You gotta discipline yourself in other ways outside of sales too. You hit the gym, just don’t eat that donut. You have to be able to restrict yourself and be disciplined, and it bleeds into everything you do.”

The Relevance of Cold Calling

Deng discusses the relevance of cold calling in the digital age. He argues that the human element of sociability, charisma, and persuasion cannot be replaced by technology. He also highlights that the skills learned as a Sales Development Representative (SDR) are valuable and transferable.

“The point is the cold calling aspect bleeds into it because you still have to be sociable, you still have to be charismatic, of course, and persuasive. So it’s all the same in that sense.”

The Future of Work – Remote and Flexible

“So my thoughts on that is this. It was a good idea to go in the office, in the beginning, to really meet the folks, get hands-on because it’s tough to Slack somebody in and have them help you right away versus just tapping them on the shoulder.”

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Marc Gonyea: if you’re a new sdr, it really depends on your ability to divide.

[00:00:05] Deng Phua: Time and energy and what you’re comfortable with, and, whether you want to dedicate more effort now for, a substantial income or if you want to just, you know, enjoy, you know, getting off at five and, you know, spending plenty of time to, you know, bask in the sun. Right? So it’s, it’s, I’m not saying that’s necessarily the exact perfect trade off either, but, I realized this is my time to really, really grind and to prove something.

[00:00:48] Marc Gonyea: Oh, Chris, the number one SDR of all time is with us today. Right. And his career has just, just started. So. Deng Phua in the house.

[00:00:59] Deng Phua: It’s a pleasure to be here, gentlemen. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:03] Marc Gonyea: So

[00:01:04] Chris Corcoran: Deng,

[00:01:04] Cy Young 749 complete games. Wilt Chamberlain, 50.4 points per game. Boston Celtics, eight Street, n B a, titles Calkin Jr. 206 2,632. Consecutive games played. 47 paper meeting leads occurred September, 2021. All those things have one thing in common records that will never be broken.

[00:01:35] Marc Gonyea: Wow.

[00:01:35] Deng Phua: That’s pretty

[00:01:35] Marc Gonyea: incredible.

[00:01:36] Thank you. It, it

[00:01:37] Chris Corcoran: was incredible to watch. Seven. Yes. Leads on a goal of seven. Yep. 47.

[00:01:46] Marc Gonyea: No one’s

[00:01:46] Deng Phua: ever gonna do that. You know, I, yeah, it was, uh, we’ve been doing

[00:01:50] Marc Gonyea: this for 2002. Yeah. And no one ever did that. Yep. No one’s come coming close and, and, and hold and hold on. Like you, when did you

[00:02:01] Deng Phua: start? September, 2019.

[00:02:03] So

[00:02:04] Marc Gonyea: almost 20 years in Jesus. You set the records. We’re not going to. We’ll wait, in the 20 years it’s not gonna happen again. Mm,

[00:02:13] Chris Corcoran: right. Yeah. Unbelievable.

[00:02:15] Marc Gonyea: Will, thank you. Is Will, Will Chamber in there or no? Yeah, I said Wilber.

[00:02:18] Chris Corcoran: We’ll, we’ll distill. Okay. Yeah. Wil Chamberlain, 50.4 points. You averaged 50.4 points a game.

[00:02:24] Yeah.

[00:02:25] Marc Gonyea: Wow. So we’re just gonna let that sit for a second and

[00:02:28] Chris Corcoran: then we gotta talk all about.

[00:02:30] Marc Gonyea: Your background. Sure.

[00:02:33] Chris Corcoran: Your levels of success, your risk appetite, your crazy worth, ethic, ethic, and work intensity. Sure. And then what you’re doing now.

[00:02:42] Marc Gonyea: Sure. And and where you want to go. Yeah. Yep. All right. All right.

[00:02:45] So let’s get into, it should be for Chris and Mark, but also for the people listening. Absolutely. People wanna listen cause they’re gonna wanna know. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about you. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Growing up, what you like as a kid, that

[00:02:58] Deng Phua: sort of thing. Sure, sure. Yeah. So, I think I wanna start a little bit on.

[00:03:02] my grandfather, I think, he’s one of my biggest influences. He’s on my mother’s side. So my mother’s father, he taught me everything I know about, about art. And, he instilled the deep passion for, you know, creativity and observing details and, organizing things in a conceptual manner. so from there I kind of realized I was, you know, I was, I was a little bit of an artist.

[00:03:25] I had, you know, creative tendencies. moving forward.

[00:03:28] Marc Gonyea: You say from there, like how young, so was your grandfather around when you were growing up? Yeah. He was the same house or living in the same town or what?

[00:03:35] Deng Phua: So, so my family, my family and I, we would go back to China every other summer. So this was, uh, ever since I was a little kid.

[00:03:43] Since. Okay. Where were you born? I was born in DC, Washington, DC That’s right. Washington

[00:03:47] Marc Gonyea: DC property. Yep. Okay. And then, so growing up, you go see, you see your grandfather. Every

[00:03:52] Deng Phua: other summer in Shin Jen yes, that’s right. So he would give me all these artistic lessons. But my point being, he, you know, he instilled, you know, Various very imperative principles in me, and respect for the craft.

[00:04:04] And, uh, you know, moving forward, my, my mother, she inspired me to pick up the violin. She would take me to violin lessons, and I picked that up as well. So, uh, I was able to develop an appreciation for the fine arts. in this process, I also discovered that I was very extroverted. Because I would take these tendencies and I would try to communicate them with everybody around me.

[00:04:23] I was very excited about this, so I also discovered I was quite extroverted. Mm-hmm. and then, you know, I didn’t do the best in high school. I was getting, you know, um, a’s b’s, but I was in straight A’s. But, uh, you know, I, I went to high, I went to college. I wasn’t exactly sure. So in high

[00:04:38] Marc Gonyea: school, let’s just, I wanna for sure like the slow down part of the stuff.

[00:04:42] Yeah. So what in high school were you? The arts and the music. Did you have a job? Did you play sports? Was it a little bit of both? Like what and what did you think you were gonna be when you grew up? Absolutely. What were you doing with your time outta school? Remember? Or, or were you an academic? Like,

[00:04:58] Deng Phua: so, so I was definitely more on the arts side.

[00:05:00] Okay. I I took the AP Arts class. I was in the, uh, the school orchestra. Yep. shot on Mr. Riley, Mr. Brown. Those gentlemen inspired me deeply. What, what, what school is this? Uh, this is, uh, Woodrow Wilson. Okay. Int town in DC Okay. Yeah. So Mr. Raleigh was my conductor, Mr. Leonard Brown. Uh, would come to our class and give us guidance and teach us, um, how to play our instruments even better.

[00:05:20] tremendous, very, very intelligent gentlemen. but, so yeah, I was very deeply entrenched in, in the musical and artistic, uh, field there, the public

[00:05:27] Marc Gonyea: school system of Washington DC That’s right. Nice. Wilson.

[00:05:30] Deng Phua: Yeah. So, so my first year they had just put a hundred million dollars into the renovation of Wilson, so, mm-hmm.

[00:05:35] Uh, it was a fresh building. You know, they, they hire a bunch of new staff. and, yeah, so high school was,

[00:05:40] Marc Gonyea: and what do you think you were gonna be when you were in high school? What do you think you were gonna

[00:05:42] Deng Phua: do when you grew up? Uh, you know, I grew up in a household where there was a bit of emphasis on, you know, pursuing, you know, traditionally, you know, financially equipped careers, right?

[00:05:53] Being in medicine, being in law, being in business. But art was obviously the backbone of our, our okay. Our innate, innate dna. so a bit of everything was considered. but, so yeah, going into college I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do, whether to pursue art or, you know, pursue something a little bit financially, you know, uh, tangible.

[00:06:10] Yep. Started with communications. I was in the honors dorm and around me, everybody, everybody was honors. They were in stem. This is in college? Yes, in college. Where, what college did you go to? Uh, university of Delaware. Okay. Yeah, so, I will admit that I was actually quite a bit, uh, pure pressured because everybody, they, they would ask me, what are you gonna do with a communications degree?

[00:06:29] And everybody was saying either engineering or chemistry or biology, et cetera. And, because I didn’t understand, you know, what you could do with a, with a liberal arts degree at the time, right? I bought the narrative that the only way to make a living was to pursue something in stem, um, or even politics for that matter.

[00:06:45] So I picked up a minor in political science and then, Quit communications and started biology. Mm-hmm. so I would volunteer Because you

[00:06:53] Marc Gonyea: didn’t think, yeah. You could, with a liberal arts degree, you could make money. That’s exactly it. Okay. That’s right. Okay.

[00:06:58] Deng Phua: Okay. So, uh, yeah, I mean that’s, I know, uh, family members or family friends who were thriving in business who I could really communicate or, you know, understand from, And, I consulted, I consulted a few people, but I decided to pursue biology.

[00:07:13] Near the end of that, my four years, I realized it was not something that I wanted to continue to do. I, I would go to, you know, hospitals and volunteer every week, and you know, do little science experiments and stuff. But it was, Something that you have to, it’s a field where you have to face mortality consistently.

[00:07:30] Right? Yeah. So, and that, that was a little tough for me to reconcile with. it’s a lot. Yeah. It’s quite a lot. so, but you know, near the spring semester of senior year, my roommates, everybody was applying for jobs and, I thought, okay, I gotta get on top of this. So I went to Handshake, which is one of those, sure.

[00:07:50] Uh, yeah, those websites on, you know, the college, uh, system where you apply for jobs and I was quickly applying to. All the jobs, that I could see. And, I saw memory blue and I sent out the application and I got a call. And, it wasn’t Libby, it was another, it was another girl from California.

[00:08:08] I don’t think she’s with us anymore. I. at the, at, at the company at least, uh, I can’t remember her name, but she put me in connection with Libby. Libby? Yes, that’s right. but it was, uh, memory Blue was the second company that offered me a position. Okay. And, I realized it was close to home, uh, about an hour commute now if you take the train.

[00:08:27] So I decided why not move home, you know, save a little bit of money and give sales a shot. Right. Going back to my original observation of myself that I was rather extroverted. I thought maybe I could do, do well in this business. Yep. It was a leap of faith. Right. Obviously to, you know, Diverting from the path of stem.

[00:08:42] but, I took it and, Nick Perry at the time, Nick Perry. That’s right. Nick and I, you know, we had a great conversation. He recognized my biology background and he had the perfect campaign for me at the time, which was M H K. I’m not sure if they’re still with us as well. but they’re within the medical compliance space, you know, care management.

[00:09:01] so he put me on that. It was a, it was a great start. And, Yeah, I, I guess I want to pause there and kind of, you know, you know, does that kind of give you a sort of better understanding of where I came from, my background? Well, tell me, yeah.

[00:09:17] Marc Gonyea: Wouldn’t the sales thing come up, wouldn’t it like, How did sales,

[00:09:22] Deng Phua: yeah, so, so sales, you know, it really wasn’t something I ever planned for.

[00:09:26] Yeah. so I would say that I kind of went into it, a little empty handed in terms of my, my exposure. I had, I had worked a couple restaurant jobs, I should mention that. So that gave me plenty of experience, you know, interacting with people. Yeah. In the flesh. And I did a really good job of that. I was able to, uh, you know, make, make some good tips, right.

[00:09:45] You know, being good with people, et cetera. so I figured with that amount of experience, and I also knew about the, the amazing training at Memory Blue, obviously. So that was assured. I knew I was gonna be taken care of in that I. but with that background, I was pretty confident that I would be able to talk to people.

[00:10:00] Mm-hmm. Right. so yeah, to answer your question, it was never something I planned for. It kind of just happened. I was applying for jobs, memoryBlue, gave me an offer. Yeah. Yep, yep. I decided to give it a shot.

[00:10:10] Marc Gonyea: And did you know anyone in tech sales? Not a single soul. Not a single soul, Nope. And you were, you interviewed with pet with Swaggy P That’s right.

[00:10:19] And got it into the business. That’s right. And what is your, but what did you think you were signing up for?

[00:10:25] Deng Phua: You know, I, I understood that. Well, Libby made a really good case for this, right? She, she sold me on the vision of being in tech now. Mm-hmm. Basically, what she told me was that there’s this whole industry that I never really gave thought of because, I mean, I thought of software as, as individual organizations.

[00:10:44] Yeah. Right. Not as, as a field that you could go into or more or less break into, uh, with the avenue of sales. Yep. Right. I thought that you have to be specialized in, you know, coding or software development. You can only think of technology

[00:10:55] Marc Gonyea: typically. Yep. Even to this day and a lot of places. That’s right.

[00:10:58] Engineering. Yep. You gotta be in software. We gotta be in a software engineer. Get into the

[00:11:03] Deng Phua: technology. You need a computer science degree or something. Science tech.

[00:11:06] Marc Gonyea: Yep. So, so you, so she opened up your eyes and she’s very good at that. Opening up horizon to the, the promise of the industry. A hundred percent.

[00:11:14] That’s right. And, and then it kind of, it kind of awakens like, okay, there’s like a sit. So then you got, but what did you think the job was? Most people don’t know. You didn’t know what you were doing.

[00:11:21] Deng Phua: Exactly. Yeah. No. So I, I, I honestly didn’t even know what the full job entailed until I had a, a, a meeting with Colin Cunningham who was okay.

[00:11:30] Who was my, mentor. Never lost a client.

[00:11:33] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. At dm. He was great.

[00:11:34] Deng Phua: Cunningham. Yeah. Cunningham was great. He taught me a lot about, the day-to-day right, what I was actually gonna be doing, you know, sourcing specific accounts, relevant to the campaign, et cetera. And I thought I was just gonna be dialing from a, from a list that they were gonna send us over, and that was it, right?

[00:11:50] But it was obviously a lot more than that, right? So, but yeah, he illuminated me on, on, on the day-to-day how to prospect how to use ZoomInfo. How to use LinkedIn and that’s how I got started. Everything. Okay. Yeah.

[00:12:03] Marc Gonyea: So in what, and then, you never had a sales job before? Mm-hmm. Nope. Which are like most people at MB and.

[00:12:10] Talk to us about getting on the

[00:12:11] Deng Phua: phones. Mm-hmm. So, as you can imagine, I, I think the majority of people who haven’t cold called before usually enter the, uh, the field with a little bit of, anxiety. Right. So that was me. I definitely, everyone,

[00:12:23] Marc Gonyea: yeah. I think everyone that’s a natural. Yeah.

[00:12:26] Deng Phua: That’s right. So, you know, me, me and Nick, Nick Perry, we, we did a couple role plays and I completely botched it up many, many times.

[00:12:32] And, from there I, I was, I was a little bit nervous. I wasn’t exactly sure if I was gonna be able to do the job well. cuz he came at me with different objections and would challenged me and, and wouldn’t gimme the meeting. Right. Asked the prospect, so, I had to learn specifically how to deal and navigate and conceptualize through my wording, how to go around certain objections.

[00:12:52] And he was able to really help me with that in detail. but he was able to basically break it down in, into the basic bant, you know, categorization. and, once you kind of have those four pillars, You know, understood and fully memorized. You can definitely spin those off and address each of those concerns, on the fly as much as you can.

[00:13:12] so, but, yeah. So you got,

[00:13:14] Marc Gonyea: so alright, right? Yeah. So what was it like getting on the phone for the first time? So, we’re past, you start with month role plays with Nick. Yep. And I, so then, then here we are, we’re unleashing you on the phones. Yep. What was that like? So at this point you’re no different than any SDR before an all time great status arises.

[00:13:33] Yeah. Like, right. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s not an easy thing to do. No. There is anxiety, right? Mm-hmm. And cognitive dissonance that comes with the role. Right. And you gotta, you kind of gotta do it and we give you a framework mm-hmm, to kinda learn how to do it. And then we say go. Mm-hmm. And then so you win.

[00:13:49] What was that like? Yeah. So what do you remember from the

[00:13:51] Deng Phua: very early days? Absolutely. So, me, me and Nick, we sat down and we prepared, the sheet music, right? Specifically for M H K. you know, the first week I think I would only read from the script and I found that there were. You know, certain hiccups in the flow of the conversation, Uhhuh.

[00:14:06] Right. So I had to kind of, sort of make adjustments on how to respond accordingly cuz it was never gonna be directly, you know, from the paper. Right. Based on how people respond. Right. that was very interesting. and so then it hit me that this isn’t, As technical as, for example, coding. Right? It’s not binary.

[00:14:24] Yep. It’s not, it’s certainly not. Right. So it forces you to improvise and to think on your feet like nothing else really. and just to go off a tangent, I mean, these days I think that to enhance your, your ability on the phone, one should practice, you know, what they can when it comes to improvisation.

[00:14:43] And they should read as much as they can to better understand how to articulate themselves. Right. But to go back to it, yeah. So I realized the sheet music wasn’t exactly the most effective, and I had to basically, Be able to talk about the product efficiently in a digestible manner without sounding too monotonous or boring.

[00:15:01] Mm-hmm. But it had to be to the point and persuasive. Mm-hmm. So these common themes kept on appearing, and I would dial in on the, the most frequent objections I would hear. And I think that by the end of the month, I, I, I had a pity, a pretty good grasp on, on how to deal with at least M H K. So, But yeah, moving forward, I think that was, uh, the next eight months, nine months, where I was working purely on M HK before, you know, Chris, uh, had had the brilliant idea of, doubling down a little bit more on the PPM aspect.

[00:15:28] And by the way, yeah, so I was. Christian Maorian, by the way, shout out to Christian. Christian. He was also, he was like a big brother to me. We were on the same team. he and, Dan Guidon as well. They, they were super, super, super helpful. And, they also told me about the PPM situation, right, where you can make a little extra money, you know, uh, working on these other campaigns after you hit your number for your, your primary campaign.

[00:15:54] So obviously I was, you know, Very, very money motivated. So I, I try to Why is that, why you, somebody motivated? Well, I, uh, for, for all the obvious reasons, but the, because of the, well, no obvious to everyone. Sure, sure, sure. I would argue primarily because of the financial freedom. Yes. I have a lot to prove, not only to myself, but to my family.

[00:16:15] I, I, I, I should say that my family, we hold ourselves to a very high standard. we’re very honorable people and, uh, we come from a culture where, you know, it’s important to, you know, discipline yourself as much as you can and to, you know, work your hardest. Right? but, You know, this Ashley reminds me of one of the interview questions I had, moving forward.

[00:16:34] When I, when I talked to Tommy at one point, this was when I was, uh, Tommy Gasman. Tommy Gasman, that’s right. Shout out to Tommy. Very, very smart guy. he asked me, do I hate to lose more or do I love to win more? And I think that I said, I actually hate to lose more. But, I’ve actually given that question a little bit more thought these days, but it, it’s a really, really good question because it’s sort of, it’s the same end goal, right?

[00:16:55] but it really frames, the way that you look at things. And so when I answered the question, my mindset, at the time was I, I refused to lose. Right. So that’s not an option. Right. So that, to me, stood out more than winning because winning was a given. Yeah. Right. So, but losing is still, you know, it’s, it’s something that you have to work hard not to, not to fail yourself.

[00:17:16] Right. So, but yeah, going back to the PPM aspect, I, I was definitely hungry, right? So I, I had a lot to prove to myself because, this was a field that nobody, that I knew, none of my friends. Mm-hmm. Anyone, was dabbling in, right? Mm-hmm. So I, you know, people had their doubts about me entering this rule as well, and so I had to prove them wrong, right?

[00:17:36] So, I was able to secure a couple ppms. So why’d you have to prove them wrong? Why did I have to prove them wrong? That’s a good question. Who does that come from? Well, you know, I, I really believe that, it’s, it’s important to, justify yourself in, in anything that you do. Mm-hmm. Right? It’s your word, right?

[00:17:52] I mean, a man has his word. And, I, I came into it. I refused to fail, and I wanted to show them also the possibilities of this exciting new field that was entering because Yep. I was beginning to see the potential. Right. Nobody else in, in my circle understood that. Yeah. Everybody was committed to a traditional, you know, pathway, right?

[00:18:10] Yeah. So, so there was that, I had a chip on my shoulder about that for

[00:18:14] Marc Gonyea: sure. Okay. Okay. I see. I can see that. Absolutely. I know that too, actually. But not that’s your extent, but like getting into sales people are like, there be things. Little Chris Corco, Junior’s gonna grow up and go into sales. Right?

[00:18:24] That’s not what, and then, you know, from traditional Of course, of course. What do you mean you’re in sales?

[00:18:29]

[00:19:24] Deng Phua: Yeah, gang. Exactly right. there’s that, negative connotation sometimes, right? People think of sales, they think of a sleazy car salesman, right? Right there. There’s that association, but it is so much more than that and it’s not even funny.

[00:19:36] It’s really ridiculous. I mean, when I came into it, obviously I had some reservations on my own, but. You know, to fast forward, I think, I should say that it, it is such an intellectually stimulating, field to be a part of. And I think that some people think that it’s, it’s anybody can do the job and that is so far from the case.

[00:19:55] and, But anyways, yeah. So going back to the story, so Chris, you know, you, Chris came up with the, with the idea of doubling down on the PPM side of business. He, he reached out to a couple of the top performers at the time, uh, myself, Nate, and Buddy. Nathan Calum, buddy. Yes, buddy Calum. And, you know, and then Chris gave a, a fantastic presentation on the vision of the PPM team and, uh, really, really sold the idea of the possibility of making quite a lot of money.

[00:20:22] Right. I think you referenced another firm that you had, uh, you know, spoken with and their top SDR was making well over a hundred k, I believe. Yeah, I think you used that as, as an example of what we could do. And, at the time, obviously there was a little bit of risk associated. This was also near the beginning or I, I think a couple months into Covid.

[00:20:41] and, Everything was in the air, right. We weren’t sure what was happening at all. But, there’s never a, a perfect time to take an take a risk, right? So, um, I thought I was young, you know, let’s, let’s give it a shot. Let’s take the low salary, but with the high variable and, and go from there. And, max Har was also in the picture.

[00:20:59] Yeah. And listen about the

[00:21:01] Marc Gonyea: risk real quick. Yes, of course. So the risk is the, the downside. Yes. Like not making a lot of money. Of course. Right. But the upside is you can make a lot more money than Absolutely. Than you couldn’t if you weren’t willing to accept the downside risk. Exactly. Exactly. So, so some people are comfortable with that.

[00:21:18] Yes. Well, why, why are, why are you so comfortable with the downside

[00:21:20] Deng Phua: risk? You know, it’s cuz I, I’m, I, I’m just very, very sure of myself. I think that from the, from the evidence of Howwell I did on, uh, M H K and. When I realized that, you know, a lot of these campaigns, you know, a lot of people I talk to who work various campaigns, they want to say, okay, well, cyber is particularly hard for this reason.

[00:21:39] Or, you know, FinTech is hard for this reason, et cetera, et cetera. I think they focus too much on the complexity of the actual product versus what you’re actually doing. On the day-to-day, right? Which is simply securing enough interest and enough of a vision where the prospect wants to, you know, spend a couple minutes of their time to learn more.

[00:21:59] and obviously we wanna provide the best for our clients in terms of a sales qualified meeting, right? So, we, the work that we do to, to, to secure that comes from the back end on researching the right person, right? But at the end of the day, The verbiage is more or less within the same confines of structure.

[00:22:17] Right. So I mean, you’re, you’re, the ask is always the same. Mm-hmm. You’re asking for a couple minutes to prove to them that what we think we have is gonna be useful for their environment, and that’s it. Right. It doesn’t matter what you’re selling. Yeah. So when I realized that I, I was confident in Chris’s, proposition, okay.

[00:22:33] And I said, hell yeah. I mean, there’s, there’s so much, so much variety that we have already. And when I knew that I was gonna have access, To sell such a different plethora of technology. I mean, two things excited me, right? The fact that I could learn tremendously in, in being conversational about different products and also the, uh, lucrative potential right of, uh, betting on myself.

[00:22:53] Nice. So, yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:55] Marc Gonyea: So

[00:22:55] Chris Corcoran: just, just some of the listeners may, may already know this, but many may not. So what, what was going on here was Deng was an sdr and a traditional SDR is assigned either full-time, On one client or halftime on one client, halftime on another client. So we asked him to leave that setup to go and work where it’s just a hundred percent, eat what you kill.

[00:23:22] You just have baskets of clients that want to have leads and the original environment was he had kind of a, a salary or a salary equivalent and an opportunity to make some money above that. And the salary at that time was probably like 60 grand. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So we’ve, we’ve said, Hey, Deng, turn in that salary for 60 grand, exchange it for a salary of 24 grand, but you can make an unlimited amount of money if you do well.

[00:23:52] And to your point, I said, you know, you can make a hundred grand or even more. It’s totally uncapped. Yeah. And most people and, and by the way, that that second set set up that we were asking Deng to go to the clients, provide very little resources other than go get us leads and that’s it. So he would be leaving a well-resourced, confined, structured environment with a higher salary to a unstructured, undefined.

[00:24:20] Low resources. Eat what you kill unlimited environment and most people don’t wanna do that, but for whatever reason Deng was attracted to that.

[00:24:28] Marc Gonyea: And the key is in that other environment, you’re constrained by the time. Yeah. Right. You’re, you were constrained by, we’re getting paid a fixed amount over this amount of time.

[00:24:38] We can only therefore afford to pay you up to Y. Yeah, right, right. In this other model, we couldn’t afford to pay you. Whatever you think you can make. Exactly. Like literally. Exactly right. Yep. That’s kind of up to you. It’s the epitome of unlimited refills. Yep, yep. With some risk. So you found that attractive?

[00:24:57] I

[00:24:57] Deng Phua: found that very attractive. and, me and buddy, we had several conversations on, on the validity of this proposition and we both agreed that, you know, this now is the time to shoot our shot and to give it a run. Right. And, it was, we both jumped in together. Me, me and Nathan. We were the first.

[00:25:13] People on the PPM team, max Hart being our manager. and I believe, I think my first client was Rapid seven and I was excited to be on cyber. but I, that, that just opened my eyes to so much possibility. And I knew the creative freedom, the way to sell individually, all of these clients were, uh, in my hands.

[00:25:32] And, that set forth, you know, I think what, like the next two years, pursuing PPM from there on out.

[00:25:39] Marc Gonyea: So tell us the process behind these months, I mean, mm-hmm. What were some of your months, some of your production months? Mm-hmm. What, what, what

[00:25:48] Chris Corcoran: were that? I mean, sometime, I mean he, it was always in the thirties.

[00:25:51] Yep. And, and just, just for purposes of comparison, the average is like eight Yeah. Per SDr and Deng was

[00:25:58] Marc Gonyea: always in the thirties and, and everyone’s coming after Deng. Every month. I mean, there are people you’re friendly with. Yeah. Strong people who are like, oh, I wanna do this month. It is this take down

[00:26:08] Chris Corcoran: name.

[00:26:08] Mm.

[00:26:10] Marc Gonyea: Sarah, right? Mm-hmm. Sarah. Cause Giardo. How Gerard? Yeah, Gerard. She was like, I just wanna, I just wanna beat Deng this month. That’s all That was. Like, how’s that going? You know, like, so, so, but what so just I’m a new SDR listen to this podcast. Sure. And you know, I’m, listen this podcast cause Chris and Marc interviewing this gentleman who’s the number one SDR of all time.

[00:26:31] Chris Corcoran: SD

[00:26:33] just, just

[00:26:33] Marc Gonyea: fundamentally what, what goes into

[00:26:35] Deng Phua: that? Right. Well, so, uh, You know, the number 30? Where did that come from? I think 30. I was able, I think it started from a goal of hitting 20. I think that, uh, me and Nate’s goal together was to be able to earn a 10 k collective paycheck. Right? That’s how we started out.

[00:26:53] For the month. For the month, yes. Uhhuh. That was the goal. And so we, we hit that goal. We were able to hit that goal, both, I think Nate BB to it. And, we, we hit it together and, uh, then we set our goals even higher. then it became more so, you know, let’s, let’s get 20, let’s get 25. And then 30 became viable.

[00:27:14] And, then I realized, okay, so 30 is my personal quota. I have to keep 30 consistently, or it’s over, right? So that, that I held myself accountable on 30 as as, as the number to shoot for. Um, but to answer your question mark, I think that, especially if you’re a new sdr, it really depends on your ability to divide.

[00:27:35] Time and energy and what you’re comfortable with, and, whether you want to dedicate more effort now for, a substantial income or if you want to just, you know, enjoy, you know, getting off at five and, you know, spending plenty of time to, you know, bask in the sun. Right? So it’s, it’s, I’m not saying that’s necessarily the exact perfect trade off either, but, I realized this is my time to really, really grind and to prove something.

[00:27:58] Mm-hmm. Right. So, yep. I also knew that my, my reputation was on the line. I knew that once I started getting attention as, as a top performer, that, it’s kinda like King of the Hill, right? So every month is a new month, and you have to instantiate that. And to keep that title is almost more difficult than trying to beat it.

[00:28:13] Because if you don’t beat it, that’s, it’s fine. Right? Yeah. You get a pat on the back, you try again. But to consistently hold that title, that was my, my

[00:28:21] Marc Gonyea: goal, right? King of the Hill. Yeah. I played that

[00:28:23] Chris Corcoran: game. So, so the thing, you obviously worked long, but I, I wanna just talk about how hard you worked Yeah. In that time.

[00:28:32] So for the audience and, and normal SDR will make a hundred dials a day and maybe get into five, five conversations. Right? Right. And that, and, and a lot of people think that’s crazy high. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Most of our clients, most of our clients, did you say hundred? Wow. Yep. So, Deng. Share with the listeners kind of a day in the life in terms of your activity.

[00:28:53] Because you would just go

[00:28:54] Marc Gonyea: ham.

[00:28:55] Deng Phua: Absolutely. I, I, frankly, I mean, I think a hundred dials right now is, is on the low end, right? Yeah. I mean, it’s, I know that was the, the desired, uh, number of dials, uh, for, for every SDR entering the business. Right. Everybody was a little daunted by that number at first, but truly, if you sit down and you dial for a couple hours, that it goes by really quickly.

[00:29:12] Yeah. I, I don’t think it’s actually not much of a commitment. You just have to sit down and, and not be distracted and focus. Yeah. I really don’t believe It’s not much to ask for, frankly, and I think it beats, I mean, this is, this is where I think I get my, my personal strategy starts, you know, becoming a little bit more subjective, right?

[00:29:29] So I, I’m not the biggest fan of writing long-winded, you know, emails. I know they’re effective. Right? We talked a lot about the trainings and, you know, what a rifle shot looks like, how, how you can get super, super specific and, you know, address all the, you know, the details and et cetera of a particular prospects.

[00:29:44] I think that’s great, but I think if we’re gonna talk about pure efficiency, I know that on the phones, when you get somebody on the line, that is infinitely for me. More effective. I know that I get into more conversations. I also know I have more impact because this is where the whole art of, of cold calling becomes a real thing of sales.

[00:30:04] Of sales, yeah. Yeah. Of sales in general. And the people is how you get

[00:30:07] Marc Gonyea: better at selling.

[00:30:08] Deng Phua: Absolutely. And, uh, emails and in, in an environment where we live in today, where things are getting quickly automated. Right. Uh, both of you are familiar with ChatGPT, ChatGPT4, all of these AI technologies that are, you know, literally automating LinkedIn sequences and email sequences.

[00:30:24] This is happening now. Yeah. Right. And people were doing that on, on mass as it was while I was there, but now we’re entering a new revolution. Right. So, but so my understanding is that AI’s hardest time to, uh, to, to represent as a live human figure. Is that sort of reaction time and that. You know, improvisation and the creativity of what a human actually embodies.

[00:30:48] Right. That’s gonna be the hardest thing to code. Yep. Because AI is binary, fundamentally. So if we want to challenge that, the, the medium to do so would be to really double down on the cold calling aspect of life. Correct? Right. And, and, you know, to, to sing memoryBlue praises is that, you know, we, we really appreciate.

[00:31:05] Cold calling and we put so much emphasis on the call breakdowns on how to, you know, uh, read the prospects, how to deal with specific objections fluidly, right? You cannot do that. On an email chain, unless you wanna spend weeks at it, right back and forth playing email tag. That’s, and, and that works. But again, the production is, the volume is gonna be lower.

[00:31:26] Right. It’s lower. And if you wanna do that, if you’re not an extroverted person and it works for you, by all means, but I really, really believe it’s, it’s a skill that if you wanna pursue in sales, if you wanna get good at sales, you need to perfect. Because if the goal is to ultimately become an account executive or a VP of sales, you’re not gonna get away with just typing words on the screen.

[00:31:45] Chris Corcoran: No, you’re not. You’re not. So, so Deng. Just, just to put a cap on it. So yeah, the average, doing a hundred on a daily basis, how many dials were you doing?

[00:31:54] Deng Phua: Ooh, I think anywhere from 200 to 400. 200 to 400. Yeah. 200 on the low end. Right? I mean, I I used to always see you. The threes. Yeah. Yeah. So that would probably be very Three

[00:32:05] Marc Gonyea: hundreds.

[00:32:06] Three hundreds. Yeah. So everybody just clear

[00:32:07] Deng Phua: to everyone. Yes. So that was definitely very consistent. And, and here’s the thing. We also have great technology now, right? So we have front spin. I mean, that’s pretty damn fast, right? You can, you can automate it. You can build a perfect sequence. And then just let it run.

[00:32:19] I mean, there’s no reason why you can’t hit that. I mean, if you just sit in front of your screen for an hour, like you should be able to do that

[00:32:24] and Deng.

[00:32:25] Marc Gonyea: So, uh, but why don’t more people do it? Sorry, real quick, Deng, why don’t more people do it? I think people

[00:32:31] Deng Phua: will, are, are really afraid of rejection. I think you gotta get over that asap.

[00:32:35] It’s the rejection thing. I think rejection people hate, you know, it’s, uh, it stings, but it’s just, dude, you gotta get over it.

[00:32:41] Marc Gonyea: They’ll do crazy things. Yeah. They’ll dummy dial. Oh my gosh. They’ll, they’ll build zombie list. Yeah. They’ll just do all anything to avoid the rejection. Yeah. But when did you just take the same energy and you just put in it focusing on doing it?

[00:32:56] Yeah.

[00:32:56] Deng Phua: Yeah. That shouldn’t even matter. You’re talking, it’s, it’s, it’s a voice that’s popping up from the screen. Why are you getting offended? It’s a, it’s okay. I don’t know why people, it’s hard. Yeah. It talks this hard, right? Sorry,

[00:33:07] Marc Gonyea: Chris.

[00:33:07] Chris Corcoran: What we gonna say? Yeah. Well, so, okay, so, so, you know, minimum of 30 September 21st, 47.

[00:33:14] Of those leads, how many of them were via call? All of them.

[00:33:18] Marc Gonyea: All a hundred percent.

[00:33:20] Deng Phua: A

[00:33:20] Chris Corcoran: hundred percent. Every single lead. A hundred percent. Yeah. That’s amazing.

[00:33:25] Deng Phua: Yeah. Yeah. So, I definitely tried, I’ve tried LinkedIn, I’ve tried emailing. Don’t get, you know, don’t get to twist that. I, I, I, Do give him my fair shot, but it just didn’t work for me.

[00:33:35] Yeah. You know? and I know that I can definitely articulate myself more, more fluidly and more efficiently over the phone, you know, using my voice. it’s just faster too. Right? It’s faster. So, so

[00:33:46] Marc Gonyea: let’s talk about, so that’s, that’s the work ethic is one piece. Like, well, actually the first piece is just this coming to agreement, to a realization.

[00:33:56] Mm-hmm. There’s some rejection on the phone. Nothing more, nothing less. It is what it is, right? Right. It’s like opening up a window or closing the window. It’s just part of, part of the job. And then you’ve just determined for me to get to this, I need to make this many dials. But you had, you would have to get skilled on the phone, right?

[00:34:15] You probably got better on the phone talking to people, engaging in this manner. Mm-hmm. Talk about that, like what did you improve, what, what are some things that you learned that you had to do that you improved on when you’re in that interaction on the phone? From a phone technique standpoint? Yeah. From a

[00:34:29] Deng Phua: technique perspective.

[00:34:30] Great, great point. So, I think the academy training that we have is, is really good, at least in setting the framework of a beginning and an end. Mm-hmm. Although when I started getting more and more, uh, calling as a whole, I realized that the way that prospects would react to, you know, the many open-ended questions we would throw at them in the beginning, they weren’t too fond of that.

[00:34:50] So I would reveal myself and my intentions in the very beginning of the call. I would tell ’em exactly why I was reaching out. I wanted to call you. To actually schedule a better time for us to, uh, demonstrate our capabilities, to hear your thoughts on if there’s any relevance. I would say that, yeah.

[00:35:05] Right. So. Mm-hmm. Cutting streets at the point, and these, these people, right, they’re getting cold called nonstop barrage. Bombarded left and right and some fuel more than others. Right. But, the point is, you don’t wanna waste their time, right. You’re not gonna do the full demonstration there. Right. So you reveal yourself and that already gives you some degree of authenticity because they’re like, oh, this guy isn’t trying to scam me.

[00:35:26] Right? Yeah. He’s he’s revealing everything. He’s showing his cards. Yep. Right. So that, that really, that sort of psych, that piece of psychology there. For the listeners out there who are cold calling, I really highly recommend it. I say be honest. Yep. And, Ask o obviously you still have to qualify the prospect.

[00:35:41] Make sure that you get the desired pieces of, uh, you know, que uh, questions and, and answers, for your prospect or for your client. Uh, everything they want to know at the end of the call, right? So make sure you address that. You don’t wanna just QuickBook people either. but the more and more skilled you become, Especially with each individual campaign, you better understand, okay, this person especially, okay, I’m talking to the CISO, my, my client’s gonna be happy to talk to the ciso.

[00:36:06] Right? So some conversations don’t have to be as long. Yeah. Versus a security engineer who has less of a decision making process, you might want to ask ’em a little bit more, how involved are you really in identity access management? Ask ’em a little bit more about your environment, but this is up to you.

[00:36:19] You have to be able to understand not only the. The hierarchy of, of the type of people you’re talking about, the decision making capabilities, but also, you know, if it’s a very specific campaign and they only address a particular niche, you have to be able to address that as well. So this is, this is up to you.

[00:36:33] You have to do your own research on your client. but, there’s so much, there’s so many factors in here, right? But, Yeah. To put a cap on it, you have to be able to negotiate and, and navigate accordingly on your own time and, and realize

[00:36:45] Chris Corcoran: this so Deng. Yeah. You know, when, you know you’re at, in the forties, that’s roughly two a day.

[00:36:51] Two a day roughly. Yeah. So, and how many conversations, like when you, when you get on someone on the phone mm-hmm. You’re, you’re, what percentage are you like, yeah, this is gonna be a, this is gonna

[00:37:00] Marc Gonyea: be a

[00:37:00] lead?

[00:37:02] Deng Phua: I would say that, if they hang on the phone for longer than two minutes and, you know, they’re asking questions, that’s usually a book.

[00:37:09] I would say percentage wise, out of every 10 conversations, probably three or four would convert into meetings. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve heard you on the phone.

[00:37:16] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. You don’t. Back down

[00:37:19] Marc Gonyea: from objections.

[00:37:20] Deng Phua: No, no, no, no. I don’t, I don’t. and here’s the thing. It’s, it’s a little bit different from, from like a closing role, right?

[00:37:27] Yeah. So say you’re, you’re the face of this particular account, you don’t necessarily want to, you know, completely piss off the prospect or that account entirely, right? You don’t wanna be blacklisted, right? So there’s a fine line you have to be able to realize, when you’re stepping over. Right. Right.

[00:37:41] But it does not hurt to be, challenging. Challenging, exactly. That’s the word. Right? I think you kind of like it. I love it. I think this is a sport. I mean, this is modern hunting. I mean, it really allows you. To, to really feel that thrill and, and that dopamine and that satisfaction when you, when you’ve earned the trust.

[00:37:59] I mean, that’s, that’s the goal. It’s earning the trust of this person who’s who you’re cold calling. All they hear is a voice. And it, and, and you can even break the fourth wall and say, listen, I know this is a cold call, man, you get lots of these every day. I get it. Let me be a little bit more interesting than the guy before me.

[00:38:12] Yeah, right. So when you enter that sort of state of mind and you’re having a real conversation, use that next week. Yeah. It’s like, it’s when you break the fourth wall there, it’s great. They realize, okay, this is a human being. This is not somebody who’s just reading off a sheet of paper. Right. So it’s not chat edp.

[00:38:26] It’s not exactly, you can set yourself apart. This is, again, going back to the point, everything’s getting automated, people are getting tired of this sort of stuff. You have to be able to sound like a human and

[00:38:35] Marc Gonyea: that’s the key. Yeah. Cause you’re real competition at that point. Are the other people that are calling them to get their time.

[00:38:40] Exactly. If you can sound different, but also bring some value. Yep. And I think why some people, this is what we have to try and get people to do. They. The reason why they will make the dials is the same reason why they, they don’t know how to handle the objections. Even if they’ve been trained, they’re, they’re scared of the rejection.

[00:38:59] Like, you know, even the way you said it, like, you’re like, Deng, you don’t have any problem with the rejections. Mm. Like a lot of people, or the objections, excuse me. Mm-hmm. Like, a lot of people, like, they don’t like the objectives. Like, oh, they’re telling me no. Mm-hmm. You know, and they, it just like, there’s, they’s gotta get the psyche and shape in their brain.

[00:39:14] Mm-hmm. You’re like, no, no, no, let’s go. This is fine. All right. Now the party has started. Right? The

[00:39:18] Chris Corcoran: dance has just begun. Yeah. Right. I think, Deng, you, you, you, you really like the challenging piece of it. It’s the mindset, the challenging, the challenge of the prospect.

[00:39:27] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. And

[00:39:27] Deng Phua: here’s the thing. I don’t want to, I don’t want to reduce the, you know, the angst and suffering of, you know, other people who find it hard to cold call.

[00:39:35] Right. I understand. But. Really think about how lucky we are. I mean, we’re in such a field where we’re, we’re interacting with super intelligent people. You get a chance to practice and hone this particular skill. Right? I mean, there’s worse things in life than getting rejected over the phone. I mean, come on.

[00:39:49] Right. And it’s, it’s up to you. I mean, this is more of a lifestyle thing, but you gotta discipline yourself in other ways outside of sales too. I mean, you hit the gym. Yeah. Right. Just don’t, don’t, you know, eat that donut. Right. It’s just, you have to be able to kind of, you know, restrict yourself and be disciplined, and it bleeds into everything you do.

[00:40:03] So, completely so,

[00:40:05] Chris Corcoran: Completely. Yeah. So, Deng, do you, do you remember anyone who’s rejected you?

[00:40:09] Deng Phua: Oh my God, countless times. Um, there, there are people who have rejected me. I’ve called them multiple times. Right. And I was able to finally book them after like seven calls, right? They told me to, to fuck off and call ’em back in a year.

[00:40:21] And I did. And I got a meeting with that person. So,

[00:40:24] Chris Corcoran: of course, of course. Thanks. Uh, sir. You told me to fuck off last. Yeah. What’s a call back? Yeah. I’m making the phone call

[00:40:32] Marc Gonyea: now. Yeah,

[00:40:33] Deng Phua: exactly. And they remembered me. Right. So it’s just, it, it’s so,

[00:40:38] Marc Gonyea: it’s funny, you talk about art and you talk about discipline.

[00:40:41] Yeah. And a lot of times people don’t associate those two together. Mm-hmm. Right. But, but they, but it’s funny. If you’re disciplined, you can be, this is, I’ve heard this and read this, you can be more creative with your discipline.

[00:40:51] Deng Phua: Oh my god. Yeah, totally.

[00:40:52] Marc Gonyea: The discipline gives you the ability. To be more creative, because if you’re making mistakes, you’re not getting stuff done.

[00:41:00] The discipline is like you, you come back at it. Yep. I think all these, these great musicians or artists, they’re incredibly disciplined people. Right. And they’re disciplined as a big can to their dedication, to their craft or their art. Mm-hmm. And in sales, It’s a skill, but there’s a lot of art to it too.

[00:41:16] But you have to be disciplined to it. You have to be dedicated to it. You have to be, you’re dedicated to the role in, in figuring out the, the art of it through discipline.

[00:41:27] Deng Phua: Yep. Yep. I mean, the discipline, I mean, the discipline is everything, right? I mean, it’s just, if you give up, it’s over. Then, here’s another really cool thing about what we do, is that you get to literally interact with some of the smartest people ever, and you don’t need necessarily a, a fully fledged STEM degree to do this.

[00:41:43] You can learn everything in this job. Yep. Mm-hmm. Everything, I mean, you’ve got all the resources, right? And you’re hearing these occurred meetings. You hear how the sales engineers talk about the product. You’re, that’s the, the education you need. It’s right there talking about prospects.

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

[00:41:57] Chris Corcoran: Well, we were talking to, uh, an SDR this morning and he was talking about how he four months into the job as an SDR mm-hmm.

[00:42:03] His client, who has, uh, a law degree from Harvard mm-hmm. Was fascinated with what he was doing and what he was saying. Mm-hmm. And that’s pretty cool.

[00:42:11] Marc Gonyea: It’s very cool. Yeah. He’s an AE now. Yeah. But when he was SDR, the, the head of sales was more interested in what he was doing, I mean mm-hmm. You talked with this person about that mm-hmm.

[00:42:21] And what did they say? Right, right. And tell me more. And it was just eye-opening to the mm-hmm. The former attorney, the Harvard law, educated right. About what was going on in those sales conversations. Right. So it, it’s, it’s very interesting.

[00:42:36] Chris Corcoran: So Deng. In addition to, to just being a monster on the phone and just putting up huge numbers, you also introduced some folks in and brought some people into the business.

[00:42:45] So talk a little bit about the folks that you Yeah. Persuaded to follow you into memory Blue.

[00:42:49] Deng Phua: Right. So, so going back to the conversation about how I had a lot to prove, right? Yeah. So once I started seeing success, once I started making some real money, you know, my friends were seeing this and they were like, you know what?

[00:42:59] Oh, tech sales isn’t so bad after all right? So, I definitely, uh, taught. A lot about the business. to, to some of my closest friends, Louis Huber, Zach Moser, Rio Osborne, who I went to high school with. Okay. these gentleman, all came to memory blue also, Jacob Goldblatt, who I visited, in New Orleans, a couple weeks ago.

[00:43:20] and, yeah, so these gentlemen, I, they’re all very, very smart. they know how to talk to people and they were all in unique positions where, you know, I don’t wanna say they weren’t exactly pleased with where they were, but, I knew that if they were, you know, If they gave a shot, in the field that we’re in, they would really enjoy it.

[00:43:36] And lo and behold, all of them now are pursuing tech sales and they’re all in fully fledged careers now because of that. That’s great. So it’s amazing. Yes, it’s really amazing. so I was, I’m, I’m very happy I was able to spread the gospel to, to good effect here. So, also, yeah, corporate

[00:43:50] Marc Gonyea: internally, I mean, I would talk to people internal who would join the PPM team who were

[00:43:59] just motivated and inspired by what was going on in that group. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Like the true hustlers, Bianca. Yeah.

[00:44:09] Deng Phua: Bianca Bears. Shout up, Bianca. Yep.

[00:44:10] Marc Gonyea: Bianca was talking about it in her session with us. Yeah. Yeah. How the true hustlers and Deng, and I were talking about it last night. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You, I would roll with that crew.

[00:44:20] Yeah. I would, I’ll roll with most of, you know, lots of memory blue. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But I, I would roll with that in the history of the business, that crew of folks. Mm-hmm. In the, in, in

[00:44:29] Chris Corcoran: tech sales. It’s like the, the seals versus, yeah. In the

[00:44:33] Marc Gonyea: entire country.

[00:44:34] Chris Corcoran: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.

[00:44:37] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Oh my gosh. What’s our guy’s name down in, in, uh, Dickey?

[00:44:42] Dickey. Dickey Dick. Right.

[00:44:43] Deng Phua: Dickey Capros. Brilliant guy. These guys are, they’re really smart. They’re

[00:44:48] Marc Gonyea: really,

[00:44:48] Chris Corcoran: really smart. Like, well, just

[00:44:50] Marc Gonyea: that moment in time. Yep. No one. Mm-hmm. We’ll wipe you out, man. What do you wanna do? Let’s go. Mm-hmm. As I get on phone with clients and they talk to me about what they think are the best SD R teams they’ve ever seen, I’m like, you, you don’t have any clue, brother.

[00:45:05] Mm-hmm. So, anyways,

[00:45:07] Chris Corcoran: so Deng. All told you were an SDR. Mm-hmm. SDE with us. With us. Mm. Three and a half years. That’s right. Right. We, we see the, a lot of these SDRs, they think they’ve had enough. Mm-hmm. After eight, nine months. Mm-hmm. I know it all. What would be your

[00:45:23] Marc Gonyea: response to

[00:45:24] Deng Phua: that? I think that, uh, I would say that they’re wrong.

[00:45:27] I think there’s, uh, so wrong. I mean, they’re, I’m still learning today. Yeah. and it, it, it also depends on how deeply ingratiated you want to get in your particular campaign or field, whatever you’re selling. But the art itself, I mean, you’re, it’s, it’s, it’s psychology, it’s philosophy, it’s all of these things combined.

[00:45:43] it’s theater, you know, thrown into it, acting it, sound like Bill Walton. It’s true, it’s true. It’s all of those things combined, right? And then you have the end goal of persuasion, right? Yeah. So it’s, constant. There’s so much, so much knowledge to be had about this, this craft. I mean, I would say they’re wrong.

[00:45:58] There’s so much more to

[00:45:59] Chris Corcoran: learn. Yeah. Well, I would, I would say have they gotten 47 leads?

[00:46:02] Marc Gonyea: A

[00:46:02] Deng Phua: month. Yeah. So,

[00:46:04] Marc Gonyea: or even a 30 or even 20.

[00:46:07] Chris Corcoran: Or even 20. Or even 20.

[00:46:09] Deng Phua: Look, I mean, it, it still depends on what you want to do, right? Not, not everybody enjoys it to the same degree that, uh, you know, the hustlers of the PPM team, do.

[00:46:17] but, again, I think it’s just valuable if you wanna do well in sales. You have to at least be confident that your cold calling skills are top notch. Of course, uh, we

[00:46:26] Marc Gonyea: just ended up a podcast session with a gentleman who left the company 8, 7, 8 years ago. We introduce him to. Mm-hmm. You you’re gonna go to coffee with him?

[00:46:33] Yeah. He ended the podcast and we did even set this up. Mm-hmm. With. It’s a quota hitting enterprise selling. Mm-hmm. Land and expanding classic emergent technology. Yeah. Software rep who said, don’t think for a second that those SDR skills are valuable. Mm-hmm. They’re put to good use. Oh my god. I’ve never been in a qbr.

[00:46:57] Where. The, the AE has said, I don’t have this many meetings this quarter because my SDR did it get me any? He says, those don’t end well. Right, right, right. Because the, the, the strong AEs are still doing that for themselves mm-hmm. While they’re working deals. Right. And the good ones view, anything they get from their SDRs is icing on the cake.

[00:47:15] Mm-hmm. So it does, it never stops. It never stops. So being really good at that role is the difference between you being a quota hitting. Tops going. Mm-hmm. Club tripping, AE or me looking at your LinkedIn and you being on your fourth job in five years. That’s right. Right? Yep. What do you want in your career, in your life?

[00:47:35] Yeah. Learn how to discover or do you wanna discover or do you wanna like just wait it out and think at eight months, you know what the heck you’re doing. Mm-hmm.

[00:47:44] So Deng.

[00:47:45] Chris Corcoran: talk to us a little bit about, What you’re

[00:47:47] Marc Gonyea: doing

[00:47:47] Deng Phua: now. Yeah. Yeah. So I work at a company called ramp, corporate Cards Expensive Management. here’s the 32nd, right? Yeah. So, you know, basically think of us as basically a, uh, modern corporate credit card that’s taken. Everything from accounts payable, bill pay, receipt, capture, reconciliation, reimbursement, consolidated, all of those things, right?

[00:48:06] All of those disjointed, you know, vendors, and, and. Put it all in association with the card itself, also with 1.5% cash back. now the beauty is, you know, your controllers, your administrators, uh, you know, your accountants, they’re not wasting their time, you know, on, on month end trying to consolidate all these reports.

[00:48:24] It’s fully automated and the best part is it’s entirely free. The whole platform is free if you use the card. Okay. So we just closed Twitter, Shopify this year. Wow. so we’re, we’re LinkedIn top five, fastest growing startups in the us. so. Definitely a rocket ship. Very proud to say. and I will say myself and Dan Green.

[00:48:43] Dan Green was, on the PPM team with me. he, he and I, we actually gave the entire outbound department, a cold calling training because before Dan joined, everybody was only emailing. Only using LinkedIn to try to secure meetings. And, it was great, it was working, but then Dan, right from, from all the cold calling from Memory Blue came in and was able to, crush it.

[00:49:07] Absolutely. And, I wanted to apply to the business and then I also was able to, take my cold calling skills as well. So we both partnered together, gave a great training, and now the entire department is cold calling. This all happened. This month, last month. Right. Together when I joined in April.

[00:49:23] So I

[00:49:24] Marc Gonyea: mean, these come in and they normally have a ramp and you said, I don’t really need the ramp. Thank

[00:49:28] Deng Phua: you very much. Yeah, no. So there was actually a two month ramp period where they would put you on the full ote I said, no, put me on quoted this month. I wanna, I wanna start making money. And I crushed it.

[00:49:38] So I came in number two at, volume of meetings, number two in pipelines forest in my first month. Outta how many? out of I think 70 SDRs. so yeah. it’s, so my point being that you would be surprised at how, how many companies that are really in the top tier right now that aren’t leveraging cold calling Yeah.

[00:49:56] And who don’t take it seriously enough. Yeah. And who don’t realize the potential. Yeah. so it’s, it’s kind of scary, really. I don’t want this art to die. , but, there’s also a lot of potential, right? Yeah. So we, we have to perpetuate this, it’s our duty in this sense. So, so Deng. Yeah. Where do you

[00:50:11] Marc Gonyea: see yourself going?

[00:50:13] Deng Phua: Yeah, I this career, so I definitely wanna become an account executive. I want to, you know, learn a lot about how to close properly. I mean, it’s a different, uh, you know, appreciation of sales in the sense that it’s a longer process generally. Mm-hmm. Right. You, you’re honing it’s not get in, get out.

[00:50:27] Right. So it’s, you have to build a long relationship and it’s a lot more organization than simply putting a lead into Salesforce. As well. Right, right. So a lot of tlc, and, it’s a different art entirely itself. Mm-hmm. But not to say, again, the point being the cold calling aspect bleeds into it because you still have to be sociable, you still have to be charismatic, of course.

[00:50:46] And persuasive. So it’s all the same in that sense. but. Definitely wanna do that. probably eventually found my own business, you know, uh, partnered with, uh, some smart coders developers. Yep. and, we’ll see what happens in the next decade.

[00:50:59] Marc Gonyea: I can’t wait though. Yeah. Stay in touch. Absolutely.

[00:51:02] Right? Cause yeah. Chris and I are big fans of yours, likewise. And your brethren. Yes. From that, from that team, but certainly of yours personally. That’s why we said, oh, we gotta get Deng on this thing. Right. I mean, you haven’t been. You left the company very recently. Yes. Yep. I’m incredibly honored to be here.

[00:51:18] So, yeah. And

[00:51:19] Chris Corcoran: then another part is, uh, let’s talk about, uh, work, work from home versus work from wherever. Mm-hmm. Because you were a work from wherever person. Yeah. Right? Yes. And it didn’t matter at all. No. Because

[00:51:32] Marc Gonyea: you produced

[00:51:33] Deng Phua: Yes. So, so my thoughts on that is this, I think that it was, It was a good idea to go in the office in the beginning to really, you know, meet the folks, you know, get the hands on because it’s, it’s tough to slack somebody in and have them, you know, help you right away versus just tapping them on the shoulder.

[00:51:48] Right. Yeah. So I can definitely appreciate the beauty of, getting assistance, at least in the beginning. Yep. Obviously, I love the camaraderie as well in a good office environment. Of course that goes without saying, but at a certain point where your existential needs come into play. Right? Say you want to, you wanna live in New York, right?

[00:52:03] So I’ve always wanted, yeah, for example, right? so say you want to, you wanna move somewhere cool and really, you know, taste the culture, but you still wanna do a great job at your job. you have to be able to not only prove to yourself, but also prove to your boss that, you know, you can do your job wherever.

[00:52:20] So there should be a proving ground, and I think that once, that’s, you know, fully garnered, you should be able to, you know, do your job wherever, where there’s a good wifi connection, really. but, uh, and so where did you work? Where have you worked? Oh my God. So many places. I mean, yeah. So when the whole COVID thing happened, worked in DC for a while.

[00:52:36] I’ve been working at my buddy’s lake house in Maryland. I went to, uh, South Carolina, Polly’s Beach, new Orleans, obviously in New York. you know, Mexico, I even did some dials there. California, Colorado, all over, all over the

[00:52:50] Marc Gonyea: country. You wonder I had so much freedom. What’s that? The results?

[00:52:54] Cause you’re so disciplined. Yeah,

[00:52:55] Chris Corcoran: exactly. Yeah. He’s put in the $300. Where are you working today from today, Mexico. How dials

[00:53:01] Marc Gonyea: 3, 304. Yeah. That’s where you get the freedom from, from the discipline.

[00:53:05] Deng Phua: Yep. Right. So I mean, that, that boils into the trust, right? I mean, there, there’s a lot of, I mean, this, this kind of, we’re entering a phase where a lot of companies are trying to pull their employees back in.

[00:53:14] Yeah, I know, I know. My buddy Max, uh, he’s, I think Capital One is, is doing a mandatory, uh, onsite for everybody now. so some people are not fans of that. I think it’s a process of waiting certain people out of the business as well. separate conversation. But yeah, I think it depends. It depends on your relationship with your job.

[00:53:31] It depends on your relationship with your manager, but primarily depends on your motivation for, for your work. And if that, if that waiver is contingent on where you are, that’s a separate conversation. But if it doesn’t, you should be able to do it wherever I think. but yeah, you have to be able to prove that.

[00:53:45] but you

[00:53:46] Marc Gonyea: certainly did. Yeah.

[00:53:47] Chris Corcoran: So you

[00:53:48] Marc Gonyea: certainly did. Well, I think people like you as you progress in your career, you’ll probably always be afforded at that freedom once you prove to precisely yeah. Where you are. So for some people it’s not gonna change. Mm-hmm. But for others, blue gonna be back in the office.

[00:54:01] Mm-hmm And I’m not talking about me hating on memoryBlue people cause I’m digging into that. Right. People are earlier in their career, of course you an SDR for three and a half years, which was like even early. I was like, yeah, he, they wants to go to New York. Sure. Yeah. That wasn’t even a, took a millisecond.

[00:54:18] Deng Phua: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember writing that email, cuz I pitched it to Max Harn and he was just like, yeah, if Mark and Chris sign off on it, be my guest. And so I drafted it and I sent it over. Oh yeah. Cuz we, uh, we, we took a three, three K vacation. Me, uh, Jamacy, Andrew Jamacy and, and Buddy, uh, we went to Florida.

[00:54:36] Right. All of us pooled our $3,000. That’s right. That’s right. I’ve seen pictures. Yeah. Yeah. It was a great, that was a great grant time. and we, we were still working. Right. Um, but uh, that’s when we realized, hey, we can, we can do this. Like, it’s, uh, it’s doable. So. Awesome. Yeah.

[00:54:52] Marc Gonyea: All right. So,

[00:54:53] Chris Corcoran: I guess what pearls of wisdom would you give to the SDR who is in their first month?

[00:55:00] What would you tell that

[00:55:01] Marc Gonyea: person?

[00:55:01] Deng Phua: okay. I would say that, Learn to be able to talk about your product conversationally without a script. I mean, I’m getting a little specific. Yeah, double down on the cold calling. You have to be able to just be able to talk about it. read a lot because this helps you instantiate, you know, good vernacular, how to structure a sentence without losing your thought.

[00:55:18] and practice. Practice something outside of work. That you can really channel your creative outlet into it, right? Anything that requires a degree of improvisation will bleed into your improvisation, improvisational skills on the phone as well. but, I would say watch, watch Madman. I think madman was a great, uh, inspiration for me on, on theatrical writing.

[00:55:38] I think that they do a fantastic job. It kind of feels like a play right in, in, in the wine liners and et cetera. And you can have fun with it. You should have fun with it. This is not, it’s not a chore. This is not a chore, right. I mean, people view this as a, it’s such a it’s like pulling teeth, right?

[00:55:53] It’s, it’s not, you should be able to appreciate it. Um, it’s an art at the end of it, so modern day hunting. That’s

[00:55:59] Marc Gonyea: right. I love it. Yeah. Very good. Deng. Yeah. Deng. We’ll do this again. We will do this again.

[00:56:05] Deng Phua: Appreciate it, gentlemen. Yeah. Thank you so much for the time today. I

[00:56:06] Marc Gonyea: appreciate you, man. Yeah, thank you.

[00:56:08] I,

[00:56:08] Chris Corcoran: I can’t wait to see where you go. Appreciate it. It’s gonna be a lot of fun to watch. Yes, likewise,

[00:56:12] Deng Phua: likewise.

[00:56:13]

[00:57:07]

Tech Sales is for Hustlers Podcast