Episode 34: Kellen Robideau – The Robi-do’s and Robi-don’ts of Sales
One of memoryBlue 2020 Phenom Award Winner Kellen Robideau’s favorite memories is when three coworkers dressed up as him for Halloween.
“I always want to introduce myself and make new friends … so I wanted to be that fun guy that people enjoyed being around,” Kellen says. Doing so earned him his nickname “Fun Guy Kellen” — which three coworkers dressed up as. “I was like, ‘Are you guys me?’ I was so shook.”
After graduating college with a degree in advertising and public relations in 2017, Kellen started his career as an Account Sales Manager at AroundCampus Group, a media company that sells planners, guides and books for college students. At first, Kellen had no idea how to sell planners — but then he realized it wasn’t that different from his old retail job at Scheels.
Later on, he became a Sales Development Representative here at memoryBlue, where he had to adapt from the door-to-door sales format to cold calls.
“I never stopped cold calling,” Kellen says. “[It’s] how I sharpen my skills, because if I ever lose that, I know that my next role won’t be as good.”
On this episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers, Kellen discusses how he got comfortable calling rather than relying on emails to contact prospects, how he got over his initial desire to give up when sales got hard, and why it’s vital to set short-term, realistic goals.
Guest-at-a-Glance:
Name: Kellen Robideau
What he does: As an Account Executive at QTS Data Centers, Kellen uses his background in tech sales at memoryBlue to further his knowledge about the tech sector and connect with as many potential clients as possible.
Company: QTS Data Centers
Noteworthy: Kellen originally studied architecture at North Dakota State University, but switched to advertising and marketing when his teachers told him he couldn’t freehand all his assignments. His business dream then became designing ads, but he ended up in sales.
Exit Year from memoryBlue: 2020
Months at memoryBlue: 29
Alumni Path: Internal Promotion
Where to find Kellen: LinkedIn
Key Insights:
When you’re getting started in sales, set realistic goals. You’re new, and it will only hurt you to think too far into the future. Rather than looking at the whole picture, Kellen said the best advice he got was to focus on the smaller wins.
Sales is a grind that requires you to keep pushing. Kellen said that early on, sales was so hard for him that he almost gave up, but working hard to get past all his obstacles worked. One way he turned the corner was by being a “sponge” and learning as much as possible.
Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone. Cold calls are the best ways to make a connection with a potential or pre-existing client, so don’t rely on less personal forms of communication, like email, when you can call.
Episode Highlights:
Working a door-to-door sales job is a great but challenging intro to the field
“It was definitely a grind because they’re seeing you face-to-face every day, but it gave me those presentation skills that I needed to present in front of decision makers. … It was a lot harder than being on the phone. They don’t know who you are, they’re probably having a bad day. When they hang up on you, OK, laugh it off. They can’t see you. They don’t know you. So being on the phone is obviously easier because you don’t have to actually see their face.”
Set short-term sales goals in the beginning; don’t worry about the future
“Most people don’t [do well in the beginning, so] they think that they’re not cut out for sales. And so I just needed someone to like talk it out, like why I’m not doing great. And he [Dad] was like ‘You’re thinking of the big picture here. You gotta break it down into smaller goals, smaller objectives, and then once you kind of celebrate the small wins, you can start focusing on the next month.’ … I’ll always take that with me wherever I go. Always break it down into smaller goals. And man, the next month, I crushed it.”
Learn the tech you’re selling and you’ll sell more of it
“Once you learn that technology, you can learn any type of technology out there. It’s just good to get a feel of ‘OK, what are they selling? OK. Who are they selling to?’ Well, all the scripts are the same, right? So you just got to understand what you’re selling and then it’ll just be easy to transition.”
Absorb all the information you can, and then persevere
“I would say just be willing to learn. Be an open sponge. Take in as much information as possible and just never give up because especially in sales, it’s easy to give up. It’s easy to say, ‘I’m not good at this.’ … I was close to giving up. It was a struggle at first, but I pulled through. And working in or being in sports, you know you never give up.”
It’s all about the calls — emails will only take you so far
“You’re never going to close a deal off an email, and if you do, congrats — but you need to be able to talk to somebody live. They’re going to ask you a bunch of questions that you might not know, and it’s OK. … Everyone’s sending out email blasts, everyone is already doing that, but how many email responses do you really get? I could send out so many emails and get two to respond, which isn’t great, or I can make 80 to 100 calls and get five, seven people on the phone. … And then you can start building your network that way.”
Transcript:
Kellen Robideau: [00:00:00] Never stop cold calling because if I get a new objection, like, “Wow, like that’s awesome.” If I handle objection, like that’s great. Being able to, just to talk to people about the industry and gain that industry knowledge that I still need to work on, that helps too, just pick different people’s brains of what they’re doing, what kind of environment they’re using.
[00:00:25] Marc Gonyea: [00:00:25] All right, everyone. Thanks for joining us today at Tech Sales Is For Hustlers Podcast. We have Kellen Robideau on the podcast with us. Kellen is a distinguished memoryBlue alum. Not only is he a memoryBlue 2020 feet on finalists. He spends his days and nights at QTS data centers as an account executive closing and generating new pipeline for himself in the range from 30K to 300K. But we’re gonna get into that.
[00:00:49] Hi, I’m Marc Gonyea.
[00:00:50] Chris Corcoran: [00:00:50] And I’m Chris Corcoran and you’re listening to Tech Sales Is For Hustlers.
[00:00:55] Tech Sales Is For Hustlers is a podcast where we catch up with memoryBlue alums and reminisce about their starting high-tech sales with us.
[00:01:02] Marc Gonyea: [00:01:02] Let’s go get some, Corcoran.
[00:01:04] Chris Corcoran: [00:01:04] Gonyea, you know, I’m ready.
[00:01:08] Marc Gonyea: [00:01:08] Kellen, thanks for joining us. I’m glad to be here. I’m excited to have this opportunity to speak with you guys and come into the office again. It’s been awhile.
[00:01:16] Chris Corcoran: [00:01:16] Great seeing you again.
[00:01:17] Kellen Robideau: [00:01:17] I’m loving this new studio. You guys have fucked out here.
[00:01:20] Marc Gonyea: [00:01:20] I would come in here and make mix tapes on the weekends with Corcoran in here.
[00:01:22] Kellen Robideau: [00:01:22] I have to come and be the hype man for you guys.
[00:01:24] Chris Corcoran: [00:01:24] Dropping beats.
[00:01:25] Marc Gonyea: [00:01:25] Special K and the percussion.
[00:01:27] Kellen Robideau: [00:01:27] Is there going to be a beat at the beginning? And then at the end, do you have to drop some, Chris?
[00:01:32] Marc Gonyea: [00:01:32] Probably not. We’re probably going to get into your sales career.
[00:01:34] Kellen Robideau: [00:01:34] Uh, okay.
[00:01:35] Marc Gonyea: [00:01:35] Oh, well. Let’s get into it. Thanks for joining us, man.
[00:01:37] Kellen Robideau: [00:01:37] Absolutely. I’m glad to be here.. Let’s rock.
[00:01:39] Marc Gonyea: [00:01:39] It’s been about a year.
[00:01:40] Kellen Robideau: [00:01:40] It’s been about a year already. With 2020 hit, it’s actually gone by pretty fast. Can’t believe it’s already Halloween here in this coming weekend.
[00:01:48] Marc Gonyea: [00:01:48] Chris and Sarah have their orange on today. The people are listening.
[00:01:50]Kellen Robideau: [00:01:50] I missed out on that opportunity to match it to you guys.
[00:01:53] Marc Gonyea: [00:01:53] Well, let’s get into it. So for the folks who don’t know, you let’s talk about Kellen, where you’re from, where you grew up. We’ll spend a little time go in there and we’ll just move the ball forward.
[00:02:02] Kellen Robideau: [00:02:02] Okay. Yeah. I kind of have an interesting background. So I’m from Northfield, Minnesota, small town there in the Midwest.
[00:02:09] Marc Gonyea: [00:02:09] You said small. What does that mean?
[00:02:11] Kellen Robideau: [00:02:11] It’s not as small as you think, but a population of 15,000 people there. My dad lives there population of like 600 people. So you could really see the difference between the populations there. Went to school at North Dakota state, go bison. And with the background, I was a marketing and advertising major. And then my dad’s been in sales his whole life, and I got an email from a company called Around Campus.
[00:02:36] Marc Gonyea: [00:02:36] And so you went to college. Let’s talk about the record. Tell me what about growing up. Yeah. And then now, because you play sports?
[00:02:41] Kellen Robideau: [00:02:41] Okay. Okay. So we want to go that route. All right. So..
[00:02:45] Marc Gonyea: [00:02:45] Come on, people get to know you that we have people who think about coming to work here, who, you know, maybe not from a small town in Minnesota would probably have an athletic background.
[00:02:50] Kellen Robideau: [00:02:50] Yeah. Yeah. So I grew up playing sports. I played basketball football and my brother was a big baseball guy. He was a great pitcher, but my sport was definitely basketball, pretty tall. So the height came in handy.
[00:03:02] Chris Corcoran: [00:03:02] How tall are you?
[00:03:02] Kellen Robideau: [00:03:02] 6’5″.
[00:03:03] Chris Corcoran: [00:03:03] 6’5″. Can’t coach height.
[00:03:05] Kellen Robideau: [00:03:05] I think I was the tallest memoryBlue employee for awhile.
[00:03:10] Marc Gonyea: [00:03:10] It’s like tall guys do that. Right. They look around like, “Oh, man”.
[00:03:13] Kellen Robideau: [00:03:13] You always want to see how tall everyone else is.and see if you’re the tallest one in the room. I was the center.
[00:03:18] Chris Corcoran: [00:03:18] Center. Okay. Back to the basket. Okay. Most big Ben like to shoot the three.
[00:03:22] Kellen Robideau: [00:03:22] I do like to shoot the three. Now I’m pretty lethal. I’m pretty lethal now at that. But back then, coaches told me not to shoot the three, but once I graduated, I started shooting outside shot and now I’m pretty dangerous. So
[00:03:36] Chris Corcoran: [00:03:36] It’s irresistible to the big man.
[00:03:38] Kellen Robideau: [00:03:38] Oh, you always want to get that three pointer in that. Always. I always say that you could score as many waves as you want, and you want that three pointer to go in.
[00:03:45] Marc Gonyea: [00:03:45] I would not know about any of that. Unfortunately.
[00:03:47] Kellen Robideau: [00:03:47] You don’t ball at all, Marc?
[00:03:49] Marc Gonyea: [00:03:49] Yeah, I used to ball up and now I’m not three points. I’m a D. I’m a D, D and no three guy. Do you know, three? Catch me the fast break, Kellen.
[00:03:55] Kellen Robideau: [00:03:55] You’re the grinder. You want someone on your team to play that? I want to actually like, we’ll take the charge in a pickup game. I can guard the six, three to four inches taller than me guys, butit’s about there.
[00:04:04] Marc Gonyea: [00:04:04] So, all right, so sports and then went to school and what’d you major in school?
[00:04:08] Kellen Robideau: [00:04:08] Advertising and marketing. So actually, backtrack. I actually went for architecture.
[00:04:13] Chris Corcoran: [00:04:13] The truth comes out.
[00:04:15] Kellen Robideau: [00:04:15] The truth comes out. I did that for a year. It didn’t go so well. I love to draw my free time and they were all about the tools and I was not about the tools. So I was doing everything freehand while everyone’s like using rulers and straight lines. And teachers were like, yeah, this is great, but you’re not using your tools. And I was like, just not cut out for this.
[00:04:36] And everyone was like at a higher standard than I was. I was like, Oh man, you guys are getting denied at a three eight. I don’t have that. So I’m, I’m back. I’m like, I got to think of something else to, to work on. And then I thought to myself, well, what could I do in art? And then I wanted to design ads, dream job. Do advertising for Nike, which would be cool to work with professional athletes. I actually applied for an internship there, but I got denied. They responded. But, that’s all that matters, the response.
[00:05:04] Marc Gonyea: [00:05:04] To the sales guy right away, they respond to that.
[00:05:07] Kellen Robideau: [00:05:07] Celebrate the small wins, Marc. Celebrate the small wins. This, I come back with five years of experience.
[00:05:13] I was like for an internship, but I want to design ads for companies. And then I got an email saying “work with local businesses to generate marketing campaigns”, I was like, this is right up my alley. And then it turned out to be Around Campus. And so I had no idea what I was going in for. So not to be selling advertising and the student planners.
[00:05:32] I know you guys. Recruit heavily from Around Campus.
[00:05:35] Chris Corcoran: [00:05:35] Did when they were an ongoing entity.
[00:05:37] Kellen Robideau: [00:05:37] And so then I ended up doing that internship. I was like, I could do sales. I was already working retail at this place called Shields. If you’re ever in the Midwest, it’s a great store. It’s got sporting goods. It’s like an express sporting goods. Cabela’s all in one store for you.
[00:05:53] Chris Corcoran: [00:05:53] Sounds like Amazon.
[00:05:54] Kellen Robideau: [00:05:54] Yeah, but there’s a Ferris wheel in the shop. It’s such a Midwest store, everyone that’s living on Midwest was definitely know what I’m talking about. So then I did the internship.
[00:06:05] Chris Corcoran: [00:06:05] Where were you selling? Reselling in the campus town?
[00:06:08] Kellen Robideau: [00:06:08] Yeah, so I was selling in the Fargo, Nike and people think that sales can be a tough job.
[00:06:13] You’d won’t know what a tough job is, unless you do like a door to door sales. Cause if you’re cold calling the business, but they’re actually seeing your face and you got to keep going into that business. And I remember I was going to say it’s business every week, looking for the guy. I can’t remember his name, but I would go in there every day or every week.
[00:06:31]Marc Gonyea: [00:06:31] What type of business was it?
[00:06:32] Kellen Robideau: [00:06:32] It was a restaurant.
[00:06:33]Marc Gonyea: [00:06:33] It was a restaurant business.
[00:06:34]Kellen Robideau: [00:06:34] Because we had this UConnection. I was like our first release of UConnection. It was like an app that you could have deals and yeah. So it’s like a college deals on the app. And I just went in there and he would always tell me, come back next week, come back next week.
[00:06:49] So I went there every single week and then he’d be like, “Oh, you again”, I’d be like, “Yep, it’s me again.” And then on the last day of the internship, he ended up buying a coupon and I was like, okay, well I’ll take a coupon. It was definitely a grind because they’re seeing you face to face every day, but it gave me that presentation skills that I learned to present in front of decision makers, who the decision maker is, asking them questions about their business, how you can help.
[00:07:13] And so it really opened my eyes of, I could do this. Like I was top five in my region. I actually came back the next summer to be the area sales manager, so I could help reps close the deals. And that was a great summer. Got to travel, got to go to different college markets, got to be in hotels, eat on the company’s dime and just drive for the whole summer. So that was beautiful.
[00:07:36] Marc Gonyea: [00:07:36] This is the summer before your senior year or after your senior year?
[00:07:39]Kellen Robideau: [00:07:39] So junior was the first internship and then the, my summer when I graduated. So it kinda just like transitioned nicely. And I knew I wanted to come here because I got that poker chip from Kristen when she was on the recruiting team.
[00:07:52] And so that was my, I thought if I stayed, I could get, definitely get an opportunity to work for you guys. Cause you guys are definitely, I thought one of the best career partners that they had, and I want to get out of the Midwest, to be honest,
[00:08:03] Chris Corcoran: [00:08:03] Did we meet you in Chapel Hill?
[00:08:05] Kellen Robideau: [00:08:05] Yep.
[00:08:06] Chris Corcoran: [00:08:06] That’s where you got the poker chip. Was it the first summer? The second summer?
[00:08:09] Kellen Robideau: [00:08:09] First summer. I wanted to come do an internship for you guys, but you guys weren’t doing it that summer because I was talking to Olivia and she’s like, well, I’ll contact you next summer or when you graduate. And then, so I was like, okay, well, I’m just going to do another internship with, um, make sure I come work for you guys and I did it.
[00:08:25] Chris Corcoran: [00:08:25] So you wrapped up the second summer internship in like August, September?
[00:08:29] Kellen Robideau: [00:08:29] August.
[00:08:30] Chris Corcoran: [00:08:30] And then when did you start with us?
[00:08:31] Kellen Robideau: [00:08:31] September.
[00:08:32] Chris Corcoran: [00:08:32] Good. And then when did you accept your full-time opportunity with us?
[00:08:35] Kellen Robideau: [00:08:35] On my birthday, August 10th.
[00:08:38] Chris Corcoran: [00:08:38] We say we gave you an offer on August 10th and then you started a month later.
[00:08:41] Kellen Robideau: [00:08:41] Yeah.
[00:08:41] Chris Corcoran: [00:08:41] Wow. And you just uprooted from fargo, North Dakota.
[00:08:45] Kellen Robideau: [00:08:45] Yeah. So I had to move back home to Minnea or South Minneapolis. I wanna say Minneapolis for everyone that doesn’t know. And then, yeah, so I had to move out quickly there. And then I packed up my things, which was already pretty much packed up and then moved down here.
[00:09:00] I had to move in September 1st, my apartment. So I had to drive by myself, which was like a 19-hour drive. I’ll never do it again. I had to play the most fire pot playlist to get through that drive.
[00:09:13] Marc Gonyea: [00:09:13] What were you jamming to?
[00:09:15] Kellen Robideau: [00:09:15] Everything. I was listening to like 90s rock, and then I was listening to like 80s rock and then I was listening to country and then I was listening to rap and then cause a podcast I wasn’t listening to podcasts before then. I mean, that was three years ago. So I kind of like that would have, that would have helped out three years ago, three years ago. That’s crazy.
[00:09:35] Marc Gonyea: [00:09:35] Let’s talk about that for a second, because a lot of people are going to be in your shoes. Now that’s a big deal moving to a new place where you didn’t know anyone here, right? No one, not a single soul.
[00:09:42] Kellen Robideau: [00:09:42] I never even flew out here to do an interview. I didn’t fly out here. I didn’t know anything about the area. How is this
[00:09:48] Chris Corcoran: [00:09:48] We did Zoom at that point with the interview, you had no idea what you were walking into.
[00:09:52] Kellen Robideau: [00:09:52] I didn’t know what the building looked like.I was just look like, I was just like, Hey D.C.? That’s gotta be so much fun.
[00:10:00] Chris Corcoran: [00:10:00] Well, you could choose, right? At that time we had multiple offices.
[00:10:02] Kellen Robideau: [00:10:02] It was between San Jose and DC. My brother wanted me to go to California, but my dad was pushing me to DC with a job market, job opportunities there being so close to the East Coast. I ended up listening to my dad and not my brother
[00:10:17] Marc Gonyea: [00:10:17] Shout out dad, shout out to brother.
[00:10:19] Kellen Robideau: [00:10:19] I listen to my dad all the time, all the time. At first, like, you know, when I first moved here, it was tough. But he was, him being in sales, his whole life. He gave me a lot of good advice of, you know, at first working at memoryBlue was a struggle.Like I wasn’t doing great, “wasn’t”. Most people don’t and then I feel like they think that they’re not cut out for sales.
[00:10:37] And so I just needed someone to like talk it out, like why I’m not doing great. And he was like, well, you’re thinking of the big picture here. You got to break it down into smaller goals, smaller objectives. And then once you kind of celebrate the small wins and you can start focusing on like the next month, like that.
[00:10:55] What he told me in that, like car ride home, I’ll always remember. And I’ll always take with me wherever I go is always break it down into smaller goals and man, the next month I crushed it.
[00:11:06] Chris Corcoran: [00:11:06] So give us an example of that. Of, well, breaking it down into a smaller goal.
[00:11:09] Kellen Robideau: [00:11:09] Yeah. So I was always looking at the quote or like, I’m never going to hit this 12. I’m never going to hit those 10 meetings, you know, like 50% of the way through the month. And I just, I’m only two meetings, you know, he’s like, well, start focusing on the next month, break it down. Okay. So you have 10 meetings, so you have to get to, you need to get roughly occur two and a half meetings per week.
[00:11:30] Three meetings, say three meetings per week. Okay. So if you occur two meetings over the next month, next week, you got to do four and then sometimes you got to cut your losses on when you’re able to move on to the next month. You’re like, all right, I didn’t hit it. But I’m going to use this last week to focus on booking for the next month. Set myself ahead. And then once you do that, you can start focusing on the next month.
[00:11:53] Chris Corcoran: [00:11:53] So your dad taught you the fine art of sandbagging
[00:11:56] Kellen Robideau: [00:11:56] Sandbagging. Yeah, he did it. He’s like stop focusing on the large number. And then after that I hit quota nine straight months.
[00:12:03] Chris Corcoran: [00:12:03] So let’s talk about when you tried to move here. So you just, “Hey, I’m going to DC.” What’d you do? Like, where were you going to live? How did you navigate all of those logistics?
[00:12:11] Kellen Robideau: [00:12:11] So I was just trying to find the best possible price. Libby was a great help. She lived in Alexandria, so she knew I was looking at Alexandria. I thought our office was in DC and I was looking at a place in DC, that was like a closet. And I was like, “Man, I’m glad I didn’t like actually live in DC” because it was ridiculous on the price. So I was like, “Well, I can’t afford that.” So I was looking at Arlington, Alexandria and I found this place. It was a great first place. It wasn’t near old town now, but it was kind of like an area and I applied and they’re like, yeah, you want a tour of it?
[00:12:48] I was like, “No, it’ll do.” Say I wasn’t going to go fly out just to go tour a place which most people do. Yeah. It was one bedroom. It was a great price. And then I found out that our office wasn’t in DC, it was in Tyson’s corner. So when I first got there, I want to make the drive to see how far it was. And this was when you guys were at the old office, that old office. It was great.
[00:13:09] Marc Gonyea: [00:13:09] Why was it great?
[00:13:10] Kellen Robideau: [00:13:10] It was just like the environment there was great. Definitely felt moving from that office to this office was a huge upgrade.
[00:13:21] Marc Gonyea: [00:13:21] Yeah, we agree!
[00:13:21]Kellen Robideau: [00:13:21] Like seeing the progression of where the company went is just mind blowing for how nice this office is and how you guys are keep growing as amazing.
[00:13:30] Marc Gonyea: [00:13:30] You didn’t see the office before that office. Keep that in mind. One day, we’ll go over there. We’ll go over there.
[00:13:40] Kellen Robideau: [00:13:40] But actually my first experience, it was a Friday when I was meeting my manager, Stacy, is the Atlantic City trip and so people were crazy.
[00:13:49] Marc Gonyea: [00:13:49] Tell everybody with the Atlantic City trip is, cause you’re, as former president of culture club. Right? And you have in Europe–
[00:13:54] Chris Corcoran: [00:13:54] Talk about culture, the club first off, and then talk about Atlantic City.
[00:13:58] Kellen Robideau: [00:13:58] Uh, culture club is amazing. To have a company that actually listen to your ideas and what culture club is, it’s employees ran organization that they have a certain budget that you can spend on throughout the whole year. You have other scenarios where you have to make budget for first Fridays and all that good stuff, but you have a budget. You could plan anything you want that you think that your employees would like to do.
[00:14:21] And I was the president there, so I planned a concert, sublime concert. That was a huge hit. It was hot, hot that day. Oh man, it was, that was brutal, but it was, it was a great time. So we ended up having a nice pregame at one of the employee’s houses and his roommate is a DJ. So he was playing the DJ there. He was doing some turntables and then we had a nice cake and everyone brought, and then we supplied some beverages for the concert. Cause you can bring in beverages into the, into the concert. So that was a great hit. That was a great memory that I was able to plan for the company, but Atlantic city. Oh, that’s a great trip. So it’s basically a party bus from here to Lang City. It’s a day trip. Yes. It’s a day trip. It’s a very long day, but you get to leave work early. You do have to work in the morning, but everyone’s super excited and you can go to Lang City. You go to the beach, you can gamble. That’s basically at the time, what is it?
[00:15:18] Three, four hours bus ride? Three hours, four hours of just posing and then you get there and you can do whatever you want. But when I came into that office, everyone was going crazy. Bottles are flying. I was like, where am I? Can I come with? And then, so then I ended up meeting Stay and I was just like, wow, this is like the environment.
[00:15:36] Like this was very cool. Everyone was super excited. And I was like, where are we going? But I got left behind, but, uh, for that one, I went for the next two trips. I had to plan the one trip, but yeah, it’s just a nice, a lot of fun stuff that you guys do.
[00:15:50] Marc Gonyea: [00:15:50] That was the fun stuff. When you did your blog posts, you did focused on the work, hard play hard culture. So let’s talk about the work hard part. So you showed up that everyone goes on the Lang City trip, which is on a Friday and then Monday you come in on the work. So what was that like?
[00:16:04] Kellen Robideau: [00:16:04] Well, you had the full weekend to recover. So that was helpful that it was on a Friday and not during the week, but you guys kind of do that for everything. You know, even when you guys do your top strips, you’re expected everyone to come back and there’s no PTO the next day. Like you got to come in and work hard and you focus on your next goals and your quota. You also have your clients that you have to satisfy as well. You know,
[00:16:27] Marc Gonyea: [00:16:27] So tell us about some of your clients when you started.
[00:16:28] Kellen Robideau: [00:16:28] Yeah. So I was with my first client was SecurityScorecard with Trakel. Trakel, an alumni, shout out to him. He was great. He was very strong at advice and me and him would go to war. Each month was a battle. No, I would say each day was a battle and each like month was like a significant war. Boots in the trenches.
[00:16:54] It was hard. Like being on a cyber client was hard, not gonna lie. And we strategized, we game planned, we talked, we did call evals together. We handle objections together. Oh, how many objections do you have to handle on a cyber client? Or just keep them on the phone? As long as possible. They ended up actually leaving my third month in of November.
[00:17:16] So I was starting to get good at it. I was actually enjoying what they were doing. It was a, like a third party risk vendor management. So it was like basically a SecurityScorecard, a scorecard or a report card of your, like how vulnerable your third-parties are getting would get hacked. And then I moved into MicroPact and that was a management software for the government.
[00:17:37] So we were working in the public sector, SLED, FED. We did a lot of different campaigns. They’re still going strong right now three years later. They were very awesome client to work with. And then what I learned from that cyber client to transition to a government platform is government people want to talk, they want to talk to me.
[00:17:55] So I was striking out conversations, like getting into 10 minute conversations with them, especially in Friday afternoons when they’re not doing much, that they’re kind of like feets up. Like, what do you got kind of thing. And at first I was, wanna make sure it was okay to like talk to them cause, uh, like not trying to hack you or anything, you know?
[00:18:12] And so we kept them on the phone, we handled all their objections. So from that cyber client, we learned that we can handle all their objections and we could handle a good conversation and have a conversation with them. And I think that’s what made us successful in the role, was that initial cyber client.
[00:18:30] And now it’s headquarter for them nine straight months and January, some pipeline opportunities for them. And it was great, Bob Ragsdale is a great POC.
[00:18:40] Marc Gonyea: [00:18:40] Yeah. He’s a good partner for the company.
[00:18:42]Kellen Robideau: [00:18:42] Technologies now.
[00:18:43] Marc Gonyea: [00:18:43] Yeah, they got acquired.
[00:18:44] Kellen Robideau: [00:18:44] Yeah, they got acquired so good for them.
[00:18:46] Marc Gonyea: [00:18:46] What was it like going from door-to-door, face-to-face when you were working on Around Campus to be on the phones, like what skills, what muscles did you develop?
[00:18:53] Kellen Robideau: [00:18:53] Well, going in door-to-door is they’re seeing your face. And you got to remember their name too, shifting so many business cards, trying to remember who’s who, because that’s where I struggle with is remembering names.
[00:19:06] So I think just going in face to face was a lot harder. On the phone, they don’t know who you are. They’re probably having a bad day. They hang up on you. Okay. Laugh it off. Like they can’t see you. They don’t know you. So I think that transition being on the phone is obviously easier because you don’t have to actually see their face.
[00:19:26] Marc Gonyea: [00:19:26] So, phone work was easier for you. Okay. What else did you have to get acclimated to in the role starting off?
[00:19:33]Kellen Robideau: [00:19:33] Learning the technology, but once you learn one technology, you kind of can learn all the technologies, especially with Champions’ Pool, my friend Champions’ Pool.
[00:19:43] Marc Gonyea: [00:19:43] Tell me what Champions’ Pool is.
[00:19:44] Kellen Robideau: [00:19:44] Yeah. Champions Pool. That’s how you can make real money here, what it is it’s you hit your number and if you want to go above and beyond, you can call on one of the PBMs, paper meetings, and you can book a meeting with an additional client that no one’s working on. And then if you occur that meeting, you get to be in this pool and they have a certain amount of money per SDR and it can be up to $7,000. Sometimes, I don’t know if I can say that online.
[00:20:14] Marc Gonyea: [00:20:14] So yeah, this is all stuff we tell people about. I love that you talk.
[00:20:17] Kellen Robideau: [00:20:17] There was one time that there was a $7,000 one, and I was the only one in the Champion’s Pool one month. So if you want to go and be above and beyond the more you occur, the more cut of the pie you get. And so there’s one that I heard, like three PPM, so I just ate all the pie. And so I, I was definitely, once I got in to, into at one time I was hungry. I wanted more, so…
[00:20:39] Chris Corcoran: [00:20:39] Pie tastes good.
[00:20:40]Kellen Robideau: [00:20:40] That pie. Yeah. I love me some pie. I’m really excited for Thanksgiving, but I ended up being in a five straight months and started, uh, starting to eat. I was getting full.
[00:20:52] Chris Corcoran: [00:20:52] Champion’s Pool five straight months?
[00:20:54] Kellen Robideau: [00:20:54] Yeah, or five out of six months.
[00:20:56] Chris Corcoran: [00:20:56] That’s just straight up raking
[00:20:58] Kellen Robideau: [00:20:58] Yeah, you could definitely get a lot of money here if you work hard and want to go above and beyond. So, and once you learn that technology, you can learn any type of technology out there.
[00:21:07] It’s just got to get a feel of like, okay, what are they selling? Okay. Who are they selling to? Okay, cool. All right. Well, all the scripts are the same, right? You’re understanding what you’re selling. Like you just got to understand like, What you’re selling, and then it’ll just easy to transition.
[00:21:23]Marc Gonyea: [00:21:23] Chris we’re bill Walton. It’d be like killing the road, we’re breaking down the memoryBlue car plan, unlocking the keys.
[00:21:31] Kellen Robideau: [00:21:31] I mean, I was a math. I had to break it down when I was on the math team. Oh, that was another way to, you can make extra money to recruit.
[00:21:37] Chris Corcoran: [00:21:37] We certainly did a great job of finding. Let’s just say attacking the compensation plan. You know, when we interview people, most people say that they’re money motivated. In reality, most people aren’t. I don’t think, I mean, they want to hit their goals, but they don’t want to do put in that extra work versus someone like you. Who’s like, okay, good. I hit my goal, accomplish my goals. Now it’s time to really get paid. And this is going to be hard and just require a lot of extra work.
[00:21:59] Most people don’t want to go that extra mile, but the ones that do can really bring home some good money.
[00:22:05] Kellen Robideau: [00:22:05] Oh, yeah, it’s definitely the perk of since, you know, you’re only here for a short time. You’re not on like a commission plan so that your bonuses is where you can really hone in and rack in a lot of money. It’s amazing.
[00:22:18] Marc Gonyea: [00:22:18] So who else were you running with when you were here, you mentioned Terkel. Who else was part of the, the group of folks. So you’re not even from the, this part of the country and you show up and then who else did you meet and work with? Who else you learned from?
[00:22:30] Kellen Robideau: [00:22:30] The biggest, when I thought of all was, I’ve been very successful here, but it was my team.
[00:22:36] Kal Gross, who is, uh, who’s actually going to be opening an office for you guys, I hear, in Seattle, he’s doing great things here. He’s a great guy. So like, he’s my homie. So we still hang out all the time. And then Alec Shatabower. He’s another alumni,we play ball together. We drank together.
[00:22:56] Marc Gonyea: [00:22:56] Does he shoot threes? Does he L at you?
[00:22:57] Kellen Robideau: [00:22:57] No, he lets me. He feeds me the ball.
[00:23:00] Chris Corcoran: [00:23:00] Fill it up, big fella.
[00:23:03] Marc Gonyea: [00:23:03] There you go, that’s what I’m looking for.
[00:23:04] Kellen Robideau: [00:23:04] And the best thing too is like with the ball is we have a lot of memoryBlue alumni that get together and rent out a gym.
[00:23:11] Marc Gonyea: [00:23:11] Who else?
[00:23:12] Kellen Robideau: [00:23:12] Steven Duffy.
[00:23:13] Chris Corcoran: [00:23:13] Duffy!
[00:23:15] Kellen Robideau: [00:23:15] Ben Yannick.
[00:23:16] Marc Gonyea: [00:23:16] Ben Yannick.
[00:23:16] Chris Corcoran: [00:23:16] Trust the process, Yannick.
[00:23:18] Kellen Robideau: [00:23:18] So yeah, there’s a lot of great people that we get together to play.
[00:23:21] Marc Gonyea: [00:23:21] Yeah, I can ball. Okay. So a little size too. Oh, wow.
[00:23:25] Kellen Robideau: [00:23:25] My boy, Devin.
[00:23:25] Marc Gonyea: [00:23:25] Devin Barnes. Yeah.
[00:23:27] Kellen Robideau: [00:23:27] We have a lot of fun. Who else? So that’d be Curtis, who is your Star Recruit, I’d say. She’s doing some great things here in memoryBlue, great things. She’s actually my roommate. Yeah, she’s a great recruiter. And then Katie Cover.
[00:23:40] Marc Gonyea: [00:23:40] Another memoryBlue Phenom 2020 finalist.
[00:23:43] Kellen Robideau: [00:23:43] She’s going down. I love her. We’re great friends. So we’re pretty happy for each other that we both were a finalist, so we’re rooting for each other.
[00:23:53] Chris Corcoran: [00:23:53] But we had her on the podcast and like you, she picked up and moved from Denver and North Carolina. And then just to DC, kind of on a whim and knew no one here. So you kind of had a similar path
[00:24:04] Kellen Robideau: [00:24:04] And it’s crazy how a lot of people that I meet from here, like aren’t really from here, they kind of all have different backgrounds. So it’s really cool that this environment, it’s an easy transition from moving into a new city. Cause everyone’s your same age and that’s, what’s huge about memoryBlue. It’s easy to make friends here.
[00:24:21] Marc Gonyea: [00:24:21] You’re on pretty deep with people who you met when you started, you know, over two and a half years ago, right?
[00:24:25] Kellen Robideau: [00:24:25] Ben Campa.
[00:24:26] Marc Gonyea: [00:24:26] Ben Campa, new baby daddy.
[00:24:29] Kellen Robideau: [00:24:29] New baby daddy. Shout out to him. Lucy. I was hoping that Lucy was going to come out on my birthday, but it didn’t happen. But yeah, he’s one of my great friends and he actually hooked me up with the gig I have now..
[00:24:42] Marc Gonyea: [00:24:42] Yeah, you guys work together at QTS, right?
[00:24:43] Kellen Robideau: [00:24:43] Yup. So I think we’re running the team there. A lot of people respect us and on our work ethic and our wanting to be better into cold calling. Our company loves us for it. So it’s great to work with them. And I told him when he left that we would work together again because we were on the same team on MicroPact. So it was Terkel, Ben and I, and we were always, how could we be better? And on call evals, like what we could do better and not just like all the good stuff, like, I don’t want to hear all the good shit that I’ve been doing. I want to hear like what I can work on. So sorry for swearing.
[00:25:19] Marc Gonyea: [00:25:19] No, you’re allowed to swear. Cause it’s appropriate swearing too.
[00:25:21] Kellen Robideau: [00:25:21] Okay.
[00:25:21] Chris Corcoran: [00:25:21] Hey, Campa, we have some unfinished business. Woulda team up again in the future.
[00:25:26] Kellen Robideau: [00:25:26] Exactly. That’s exactly how it was. He told me there was an opening and that this is a good opportunity and he loved the company and he’s like, you can close your own deals. I was like, you know what? You know, I’ve done great things here.
[00:25:40] This is when I was transferred on the sales team, unfortunately. But, I thought it was, I think it was a great time to move out of my career. And this is a great opportunity too and company’s great. I’d love QTS. They’re doing some amazing things over there. Keep opening up new facilities. My managers are great.
[00:26:00] Sales directors are great. So it’s just my team. The biggest thing is like your team. And if you can have a great team, you can have a great career because those are the people that push you to make you better. So it’s just been a grateful for the opportunity that I have now. So, and I wouldn’t be able to do that without moving here, taking the risk, you guys taking a risk on me.
[00:26:51] Yeah.
[00:26:55] Chris Corcoran: [00:26:55] I was going to say, looking back, if you could say, you know, advise yourself the night before you started at memoryBlue, what advice would you give Kellen Jr.?
[00:27:30] Kellen Robideau: [00:27:30] Hmm, I would say just be willing to learn, be an open sponge, take as much information as possible and just never give up. Especially in sales, it’s easy to give up.
[00:27:42] It’s easy to say, “I’m not good at this”, but if you keep working at it, I was close to giving up and you know, it was a struggle at first, but I pulled through and I said like, especially competitive working or being in sports, you know, you’d never give up. So once you push through that, the dip, so I’ve had a lot of dips
[00:28:02] Marc Gonyea: [00:28:02] We all do.
[00:28:02] Kellen Robideau: [00:28:02] Yeah. And your career could be great. So I would say never give up and just listen to everything. Listen to everyone. Give feedback and just be willing to learn right away.
[00:28:13] Marc Gonyea: [00:28:13] We talked about that in the dip presentation where people may mistake. This is not working with this is not going to work out. Meaning when you’re an SDR and this brief moment in time, you might be having a rough month or a rough campaign or rough week or a rough series of months. That doesn’t mean you’re not going to be good at the end of the day, because if we’re all going to be working for 20 or 30 years, two to three year run as an SDR, is it indicative as what’s going to happen in the rest of the time?
[00:28:37] So it’s good. You remember that. I want to unpack two things real quick. You said the work ethic, you and Ben, you kind of roll with the, so they’re happy about talk to us about that. What does that mean to you?
[00:28:45] Kellen Robideau: [00:28:45] Yeah, so coming from starting here, you’re in the hustler mode where you’re cranking out a lot of dials. And I think that’s what made me strong is my phone game. That’s how I keep sharpening my skill is that I just want to get in front of people and talk to people.
[00:29:03]Chris Corcoran: [00:29:03] Preach.
[00:29:03] Marc Gonyea: [00:29:03] It’s not an email company, Kellen.
[00:29:05] Kellen Robideau: [00:29:05] Ah, funny story. So, and I was on the sales team. It was a grind and I was, you know, sending out emails that are personalized.
[00:29:15] We had a nice little trick that made them personalized, but it’s a good tool. And it was Chris comes around the corner and he was like “Kellen, are we an email company?” And I was like, you know what? No, we’re not. And so I ended up being on the phone for like two to five 30, uh, just on the phones. I was like, no, we’re not an email company.
[00:29:33] And so from that, I actually took that on where a lot of people, when they leave memory blue, I feel like they want to think that they can just coast or they don’t need to make as many dials as they used to. But if they were to have that mentality into the next gig, they would just be that much better than the other reps.
[00:29:52] I think me keeping the same work ethic of what I’ve been doing since day one. And I’m still going, it’s just a natural habit for me. Like, I feel like I need to do it and I want to do it because that’s how I get into these conversations. Because working in a data center business, it’s a long-term game and you got to build relationships and it’s not just booking meetings.
[00:30:10] It’s about just getting an information of what they’re doing. And like what their plan is, and you can’t find that over email. And so I think I’m known as like the cold calling guy there,
[00:30:21] Marc Gonyea: [00:30:21] But let’s talk about the skills because unless people get them misinterpreted that “God, those guys just dial for dollars”, like I hate that term dial for dollars. That’s not what it’s about. Like what have you reaped from those conversations? Really? What skills have you acquired?
[00:30:32] Kellen Robideau: [00:30:32] You gotta handle multiple different objections and what you can do is it transitions into the closing role? So much better because you’re asking them discovery questions about their business. Well, beginning of a sales call. You got to uncover their needs, what challenges they might be having, what they like about their provider, kind of all that stuff to like try to get some pain out of them for them though, even want to change. So what that has led me is having these conversations is kind of just like natural for me to ask them at the beginning of the call, like.
[00:31:02] To get an understanding of what they’re using, what they are looking for. And cold calling has helped for me closing, and that’s been huge because I’m not afraid to like pick up the phone and talk to somebody. I’m not afraid to someone to hang up on me, if you hang up on me, I laugh it off. And honestly, it’s fun to like, make it into a game.
[00:31:21] How many people, you can hang up on ya, how many objections you can handle and just make it into like a fun little game. But if you keep cold calling and you can find new opportunities that spike up. Oh yeah. We’re actually looking into this next year. Oh great. It’s an opportunity you didn’t have yesterday.
[00:31:37] So it could pay off in the long run.
[00:31:39] Chris Corcoran: [00:31:39] You know, there’s a lot of talk about AI and, you know, computers, replacing people and this, that, and the other. And so I think some of that’s going to happen. I always tell SDRs, like, If a computer’s going to replace any part of your game, what do you think it’s going to be?
[00:31:51] I think it’s gonna be your, the email. Cause you can get a copywriter who can write better than an SDR who can come up with a good customizable message and then deploy it. Right? What can’t be replicated by a computer is getting on the phone and having those connections, asking those questions, learning about the situation.
[00:32:07] And then articulating value that can’t be done by a computer as of yet. So if you value your skillset, you want to be a linchpin, then you gotta be good on the phone.
[00:32:16] Kellen Robideau: [00:32:16] Yeah. Like, you’re never going to close a deal off an email. And if you do congrats, but you need to be able to be able to talk to somebody live.
[00:32:24] They’re going to ask you a bunch of questions that you might not know and it’s okay. And I completely agree. Like, you know, I was already kind of taking over that everyone’s sending out email blasts, like, everyone is already doing that. But how many email responses do you really get? I could send out so many emails and get two responses a day, which isn’t great. Or I can make 80 to a hundred calls and get five, seven people on the phone, realistically.
[00:32:50] Marc Gonyea: [00:32:50] Yeah. We’re not saying don’t use email.
[00:32:53] Kellen Robideau: [00:32:53] I mean, you’re supposed to use that while you can absolutely.
[00:32:56] Marc Gonyea: [00:32:56] That’s what the hitters will say, but what we’re saying is don’t let the email distract you from the conversations. Like that. And that’s what people do cause they don’t want to go through the pain, which none of us want to. The psychological abuse that comes with being on the phones. Nobody likes that shit.
[00:33:10] Kellen Robideau: [00:33:10] I do.
[00:33:12] Marc Gonyea: [00:33:12] Well, very few who likes it and another people who don’t like it. Well, I was thinking, do you have to, like, you just got to get used to it and get good at it and recognize why you do it. So it’ll makes you strong.
[00:33:20] Kellen Robideau: [00:33:20] And when you do that, you can build that connection. And then say, Hey, like, do you mind, you know, I understand you’re not looking into this, but do you mind if I just send you a LinkedIn connection so we can stay connected, anything changes down the road, let me know. And then you can start building your network that way.
[00:33:34] And they’re going to switch jobs later down the road. So when they go to a new company, you can hit them up, but it’s all about just starting a journey. And I think the phone is the best way. And then when you call them back, you have all the right information, right? If you take detailed notes while you’re calling them, And then you say, “Hey, you’re using this, this and this. I know you said you were looking into this maybe possible six months.” Okay. They say, “No, I didn’t say that.” I was like, well, I take pretty good detail notes. So are you lying to me and then, but most time they weren’t lying and they were like, Oh yeah, I do remember that. Even though if they don’t, they’ll probably say that.
[00:34:07] And then your official initial, what I’ve kind of learned is like your first initial call isn’t supposed to be, “I need to book this guy.” I think get as much information as I can. So when I call him back, I have all the information to like to build credibility. And then we did talk, you did tell me this, and this is why we should speak again.
[00:34:25] And I think, especially going into a closing role, I think that’s where people need to realize is like, that’s the main goal. It’s like, if you just focus. Like, “I need to book this guy. I need to book this guy.” You’re not going to book him. You’re going to overthink it. Everyone wants to book a meeting essentially, but it’s about strategy of what could be a good meeting. You want to have a good quality meeting down the road. So
[00:34:45] Marc Gonyea: [00:34:45] Kellan’s dropping it. Like it’s hot.
[00:34:47]Chris Corcoran: [00:34:47] Speaking the truth.
[00:34:48] Marc Gonyea: [00:34:48] It’s true!
[00:34:49] Chris Corcoran: [00:34:49] Talk a little bit about the team you were on here. Cause I think that’s important. I mean, you had an opportunity to work with a delivery manager, an SDR manager who is essentially a superstar whisperer. I mean, the expectations that she has and that she sets and she just produces superstars. So talk about, you know, your teammates and working under her leadership.
[00:35:09] Kellen Robideau: [00:35:09] Yeah. So my delivery manager was Stacy Suggs now, but she was great. She held us to a high standard and when she wasn’t here, she expected us to be on time and we were always on time. Like always. Even when she wasn’t here, at 8:25, everyone was here. So I think her setting us like at a higher standard is why she made us into superstars because she wasn’t going to settle for mediocrity. Like she wasn’t going to settle for anything. And so she pushed us, she pushed us to our limits, but I think that is what has made us all successful in our roles is we didn’t have a manager to just say, “Oh, you’re doing a great job.” You know when you’re really not, and she’ll get after you, if you’re not. And that’s what you kind of want in the manager is to push you, challenge you. I challenged her and I think that’s why she respected me. It was because when I didn’t agree with something, I spoke up, I’m like, “Ah, I don’t think, I think it should have been like this.”
[00:36:02] And then kind of she’ll listen to like my 2 cents. And that’s how the relationship we had. And she would go to bat for us. She would defend us any way possible. She was really good at that. And the team environment. We all just got along and that’s what is hard to find when you start a new job? Is that if I didn’t have a good team, when I first started here, I would’ve had no friends.
[00:36:24] I don’t think I would’ve liked it. Cause I wouldn’t have had like an easy transition than what I did. And so anyone that was new to the team, it just kind of fit our style. And we ended up having a, just a great team environment and we always want to have fun. And what was it that team incentives. You guys don’t do that anymore. Actually, you guys do the tops trips, but which I love.
[00:36:45] Marc Gonyea: [00:36:45] Yeah. I’m so glad you were able to go.
[00:36:46] Kellen Robideau: [00:36:46] Uh, three of them.
[00:36:48] Marc Gonyea: [00:36:48] I know, but we have some people in this podcast who we do the top strips and I’m like, man, I wish I would love that we’ve gotten tops trips with you.
[00:36:52] Kellen Robideau: [00:36:52] Yeah, but the team incentives we’re fun too. Like we went to Ocean City for our team incentive, which was awesome. We ended up going to top golf and ordering a ton of food and a ton of beer. And we still had pie and we had just a lot of fun together, which was ultimately why I loved memoryBlue and I’ve worked with one of my old teammates now. Yep.
[00:37:15] Chris Corcoran: [00:37:15] I think it’s important that we talk about culture and I like to talk about each company has its own culture. And then each one of our offices has its own culture. And then each team has its own culture. I like to call it like a micro culture and the culture that Stacy has been able to foster. I mean, if you think about that people that were on your team at that time. It’s you Ben Campa. Who’s like your, your kind of right hand, man. You guys are going conquering the world of QTS. You’ve got Abby Curtis, who’s killing it for us as a recruiter. You’ve got the Kyle Gross, the big ticket. Who’s opening up our office in Seattle, who else was on the team, but I mean, these are killers.
[00:37:46] Kellen Robideau: [00:37:46] Yeah. Alex Autobon who’s now at closing.
[00:37:48] Chris Corcoran: [00:37:48] Clinton moved into a closing rep. It’s the team culture is almost like–
[00:37:51] Marc Gonyea: [00:37:51] Kellen likes to do some interesting things.
[00:37:53] Kellen Robideau: [00:37:53] Terkel’s doing great things. He was closing deals at his last gig, and then he moved into another day closing role in DC so…
[00:38:01] Chris Corcoran: [00:38:01] And Key Coover, another phenom finalist. I mean, it’s essentially the culture was
[00:38:05] Marc Gonyea: [00:38:05] Sam in your team.
[00:38:06] Kellen Robideau: [00:38:06] Sam Gardner. Yeah. Yeah. She was the one that gave me the font. Here’s the one that gave Abby Curtis told me this yesterday. I couldn’t think of it, but yeah, it was same Gardner who gave me the title of the “Fun Guy Kellen”.
[00:38:17] Chris Corcoran: [00:38:17] Yeah. Oh, you know what? I bet you he’s got more height on you. I mean, we may need to do a little back-to-back showdown, tail the tape.
[00:38:23] Kellen Robideau: [00:38:23] I would love that. He was the second person I met and man was I guy awesome. His energy. He was always here early, always on the phone, just like wanting, he just loved it. And he brought the energy that you need, especially like if you not having it one day, if you, even, if you have a bad day, this guy could turn it around and turn like you just laughing within five minutes being in the office.
[00:38:49] Marc Gonyea: [00:38:49] I love that. Man, I wish I was on that team.
[00:38:50] Kellen Robideau: [00:38:50] But one thing I always did whenever, once someone laughed is I kinda was like a hoarder, but I always had someone give me something from their desk before they left. And then I ended up having a ton of shit on my desk.
[00:39:03] Chris Corcoran: [00:39:03] What is this storage wars?
[00:39:05] Kellen Robideau: [00:39:05] Yeah, when I moved across the office, I had to get a U-haul trailer. Just to get it over to the other end of the office, because it was so much.
[00:39:13] Marc Gonyea: [00:39:13] Let me go back to something else because I want to get the fuck out Kellen and talk about the Halloween story. Let’s talk about call evaluations real quick.
[00:39:20] Chris Corcoran: [00:39:20] Part of the team culture, your culture was, we are top performers and that’s what we do on this team.
[00:39:24] Kellen Robideau: [00:39:24] Yes. Team.call evals is the most important thing, perspective here at memoryBlue.
[00:39:29] Marc Gonyea: [00:39:29] And tell people what team call evals are, cause that’s kind of an internal word.
[00:39:32] Kellen Robideau: [00:39:32] Yeah. So team calling evaluations is you sending a call, pic two people that, to send them their calls from last week. That could be a good call, bad call. Usually want like a bad call cause you actually want to get some good feedback. Like everyone wants to be told that they’re great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you send it in and then. You meet in a conference room and you listen to it and then each, you go around the circle and you give feedback of what the person did well, what the person didn’t do well. And I think that was, I would put us the strongest team for call evals. Absolutely.
[00:40:03] Marc Gonyea: [00:40:03] Why? Because you guys did it, you guys took it serious?
[00:40:06] Kellen Robideau: [00:40:06] Took it serious. And that’s how we all learned. And I think that’s how we all grew. And we weren’t afraid to tell someone like, “Yo, you need to like, actually work on this better. You need to, why didn’t you handle this objection?” Like, like it was a good positive environment. Like we weren’t just harping on the negatives, but it wasn’t just focused on the positives. Like we were definitely saying like, this is what you could have done better. Yeah. You booked the meeting, but you could have dug deeper
[00:40:29] Marc Gonyea: [00:40:29] And you’re doing that now, right? At QTS now?
[00:40:31] Kellen Robideau: [00:40:31] Starting to. I want to implement it a little bit more because I know that me and Ben, that’s not the most liked thing here, but it’s definitely how you’ve learned.
[00:40:40] Marc Gonyea: [00:40:40] Everybody doesn’t like it when, when they’re here and then everyone loves it when they leave. Right, Corcoran?
[00:40:45] Chris Corcoran: [00:40:45] Yeah. You’re talking to a guy who used to do this with a cassette tape. So…
[00:40:49] Kellen Robideau: [00:40:49] I can’t imagine that.
[00:40:50] Chris Corcoran: [00:40:50] Yeah, exactly. Now it’s ridiculously easy and we still get resistance.
[00:40:55] Kellen Robideau: [00:40:55] You guys still use that software?
[00:40:56] Chris Corcoran: [00:40:56] Exact vision. Yeah. It’s awesome.
[00:40:58] Kellen Robideau: [00:40:58] That was probably one of the best softwares you guys invested in. I know that helped me a lot because you can edit it. You can send like real time feedback and that was good stuff.
[00:41:08] Marc Gonyea: [00:41:08] Yes, so good. Okay. Well let’s bounce back to Fun Guy Kellen. We’ll just talk about that real quick. Can we get break? Give us your philosophy on who were kind of coming up on a time a little bit. Give us a philosophy on fuck. Yeah, man. This is, we can go all sorts of places with you, Chris, but Chris has got some other good stuff that we want to highlight.
[00:41:22] Kellen Robideau: [00:41:22] I think how that came about was so I like to throw out some random ideas, especially in huddles of just let’s do this. Let’s do that. Let’s try to do like a team session. Sometimes it’d be trying to get out of blitz early to go do something fun. But I was always the type of guy that I would always be positive.
[00:41:42] And I’ll always no matter what have fun, create a game out of who could out book me or who could, I keep going back to this, but how many times you’d get hung up on or something like that? Just some fun. And then it transitioned into being, I want to take more responsibilities and then president of culture club, and want to create a more fun environment, which don’t get me wrong.
[00:42:03] It was already a great environment, but I’ve always gone to people’s desks, always go into other people’s teams. Like I always want to introduce myself and like make new friends. Cause again, I didn’t know anyone. So I wanted to be the fun guy that people enjoyed being around. And so. So shout out to Sam Gardner for giving me that title.
[00:42:21] Chris Corcoran: [00:42:21] And as we kind of approach Halloween, let’s talk about one of the Halloweens you had here as Mr. Fun Guy.
[00:42:27] Kellen Robideau: [00:42:27] This was great. This is one of my favorite memories. So I came in and I was wearing my magnet with chicks on us. So it was a chick magnet, and I was like sitting down and Abby, she texted me. It was like, “Yo,, are you being a chick magnet today?” I was like, “Yeah.” And she goes, okay, cool. So she comes around the corner and she’s wearing a beard and a chain. I didn’t see the beard at first, but I saw that she was wearing the same chick magnet costume. I was like, “Abby, what the hell? Why are you wearing that? Like you knew. I was like, how did you even buy that?”
[00:42:56] And then Katie texted me as like, “Hey, can you bring me some gym clothes?” And I was like, yeah, sure. So I bought her like a cutoff and some shorts and..
[00:43:03] Marc Gonyea: [00:43:03] Kellen gym clothes?
[00:43:04] Kellen Robideau: [00:43:04] Yeah, so it was the Kellen gym clothes. And then she come and then Katie Cover comes around the corner, wearing my clothes and I see Meredith Poe, shout out to her.
[00:43:16] She was great. And she was also on our team and she was wearing like a fun guy, like a mushroom, but like, it was like a nice, like crazy shirt. So it was Fun Guy,Kellen. They had, they had name tags. And then I saw the chain and the beard, and I was like, “Are you guys me?” I was so shook and I was like, “This is so awesome.” That three people could be like three different personalities of Kellen. And I was just following. It was amazing. I was just in awe, like, I didn’t know how to say it. The beers were great. The chains, uh, so it was an amazing, amazing memory.
[00:43:52] Marc Gonyea: [00:43:52] This is great. This is such a compliment, I think.
[00:43:54]Chris Corcoran: [00:43:54] Definitely. So let’s talk about what you’re doing at QTS for a minute. So yesterday, you know, we were preparing for this, you were telling me that the company is placing a premium on outbound. Talk to me a little bit about, or talk to the listeners a little bit about why organizations do that and kind of where you fall in to that whole strategy.
[00:44:09] Kellen Robideau: [00:44:09] Yeah. So they’re definitely pushing more the cold outreach because they want to find more new logos. Especially within the business that they could definitely help because they’re expensive, especially for what we sell. So a lot of outside reps, they haven’t been cold calling in years and they rely heavily on their network or through the channel. So having someone that comes in from the cold calling background, who loves to do it. Who’s good at it. Yeah. You know, I work with a lot of the new reps to set up call blitzes with them, to hear what they’re doing, how they’re pitching, try to get them to focus, get to the point quicker, but especially a lot of the other reps technology, like they’re not familiar with SalesLoft or they’re not familiar with how they could send out emails so quickly or just to even pick up the phone. I think a lot of people don’t know and they just don’t know how the fall, like a cold calling script kind of thing. So I’ve been tasked to help reps break in and give some trainings on how to set up some cadences, how to basically cold call.
[00:45:15] Marc Gonyea: [00:45:15] Yeah. It’s great. Remember when cadences, when people have been around for awhile.
[00:45:18] Kellen Robideau: [00:45:18] Yeah. Like a cadence. It’s just, you know, you set up, you get your templates, you put in your names, like anyone can send out all of these emails. Again, Chris was saying AI, everyone can send out emails, but it’s how you could be different from your competitors. And I think with our cold outreach strategy, I think we’re being different from our competitors because we’re not relying heavily on an inbound leads or trying to find those new opportunities because they’re out there. It’s just, you got to find them.
[00:45:45] Chris Corcoran: [00:45:45] So you talk about differentiation and that’s super important in life. And especially in sales, in one of the. Best ways, in my opinion, to differentiate you versus the competition is how you sell, right? Because your technology is similar to other companies, very similar. And so you have to use how you sell as a great differentiator.
[00:46:04] And I’ll also want to take this. I got, Mark and I got this letter from a sales legend, Clint Haydn. He’s a chief revenue officer over at QTS. And in it, he says, if we had a fastest start award at QTS, Kellen would be the recipient. He is the top performer in the group and has continuously set meetings with large fortune 1000 companies while generating pipeline opportunities and closing his own deals.
[00:46:27] In addition, Kellen has led sales wide training on effective cold outreach strategies. He’s known as a cold calling machine with a knack for getting to the next level of relationship with prospects. Pretty high praise.
[00:46:40] Kellen Robideau: [00:46:40] Yeah. I can say good things about Clint. He’s amazing. So smart. He’s doing some great things on the internet ecosystem that he created. And just for him to say that, for him to even write a letter of recommendation for me, was super grateful for that. And someone had that high level. It meant a lot. So..
[00:47:01] Marc Gonyea: [00:47:01] We have an impact though. He got like that he’s not going to write that just because you asked him to.
[00:47:05] Chris Corcoran: [00:47:05] Right, you’re impressing some impressive people, which is great to see.
[00:47:08] Kellen Robideau: [00:47:08] Yeah. And he knows how hard work cold calling can be. But for me to only be there for this to be my eighth month now, for him to notice me.
[00:47:17] Marc Gonyea: [00:47:17] So, where do we go next Kellen? So now you’re closing work or are you sourcing and closing your own opportunities? And if they’re under a certain amount, you close, if they’re over a certain amount, you pass them on to that grateful, very grateful, hopefully sales professionals you work with.
[00:47:29] Kellen Robideau: [00:47:29] So it’s a very awesome role, right? You still got a cold call, but I don’t mind it cause I love finding new opportunities and how I think about it for myself is if I’m cold calling now and I, if I do like book a meeting that they are looking into a space for data centers in a year or so like, wow, I just did that for myself.
[00:47:49] Like I booked a meeting for myself and that’s like, how I think of it. Like if I find an opportunity. I think of it. Okay. Well that could be my opportunity down the road. So why do I not just keep doing this? And then if I get inbound leads and all that, that’s just an added next cherry on top, right? So it’s a very cool, like hybrid role where you cold call to find those new, large opportunities that they’re up there.
[00:48:10] And then I might get to close the smaller deals and then hopefully in about a year, I could be the outside sales role where I can close like the million dollar deals and do some great things there too. Hopefully it’d be the alumni of the year. I want to get my last name on a conference room.
[00:48:26] Chris Corcoran: [00:48:26] So how do you keep your skills sharp?
[00:48:27] Kellen Robideau: [00:48:27] And that’s… keep calling. That’s how I’m able to keep working on it is never stop cold calling because if I get a new objection, like, wow, like that’s awesome. If I handle objection, like that’s great. Being able to, just to talk to people about the industry and gain that industry knowledge that I still need to work on.
[00:48:47] That helps to just to pick different. People’s brains of what they’re doing, what kind of environment they’re using. And then also just kind of setting meetings internally to talk about the internet and all the different types of things that go into it. But for me, it’s just continuing to cold call is how I sharpen my skills, because if I ever lose that, I know of that, then my next role, like, I won’t be as good, but if I keep doing this, like the pace I am, I’ll be finding large opportunities for myself down the road. So that’s how I would say.
[00:49:20] Chris Corcoran: [00:49:20] All right. And one other question. So what’s the biggest mistake that you’ve seen former memoryBlue contemporaries make?
[00:49:25] Kellen Robideau: [00:49:25] They leave too soon memoryBlue. Sometimes like they want to get hired out right away or they go to the next company and they don’t continue to out-shine. They’re like employees like the new employees. They probably, they might get to like their level where they only make $30 a day kind of thing. And that’s how, like the environment they’ve want to be in then that’s great. But if you go in with the mentality of hustler, mentality of go in there and then continue your work ethic, continue to do what you do, you’re going to outshine your colleagues and then you’re going to stand out. And I think that’s where a lot of people lose is they don’t continue that.
[00:50:05]Chris Corcoran: [00:50:05] Very good.
[00:50:06] Marc Gonyea: [00:50:06] Discipline. “Don’t stop” has made you successful.
[00:50:09]Kellen Robideau: [00:50:09] Because you want to out shine like your new colleagues, like you want to outwork them. And I feel like people can be brought down to. Their new level if they don’t continue to no, but also, yeah, I think leaving memoryBlue too early, or giving up on memoryBlue, like within the first like two, three months, I think as I didn’t do well, my first three months.
[00:50:29]Marc Gonyea: [00:50:29] It’s supposed to be hard.
[00:50:30] Kellen Robideau: [00:50:30] Yeah. And I think if you stick it out, you can learn a lot and it’ll do wonders for your career in sales.
[00:50:37] Marc Gonyea: [00:50:37] Awesome. Dude, Kellen, thanks for doing this with us.
[00:50:40] Kellen Robideau: [00:50:40] Absolutely. This is a great time. Like I enjoy coming back to the office and see you guys.
[00:50:45] Marc Gonyea: [00:50:45] It’s Curtis here? Is Abby here today? You should say “hi”. Tommy’s here. You can say hi to some people.
[00:50:49] Kellen Robideau: [00:50:49] I got to say hi to Tommy. It’s been a while.
[00:50:51] Marc Gonyea: [00:50:51] All right, well, dude, Kellen, thank you again. Great knowledge, Chris and I and Sarah, thankful that you came by.
[00:50:56] Chris Corcoran: [00:50:56] Keep crushing it.
[00:50:57] Kellen Robideau: [00:50:57] Thank you guys. I appreciate you having me.
[00:50:58] Chris Corcoran: [00:50:58] Thank you.