Episode 36: Huy Nguyen – Yes, and
Huy Nguyen moved to the U.S. from Vietnam when he was seven years old. He had never been on an airplane, didn’t speak English and had never lived in a house (or anything other than a hut made of leaves).
His path to tech sales was atypical. When he graduated with a marketing degree from the University of South Florida in 2018, he took a job as a graphic designer at a financial firm. He wasn’t a fan of the work, however, so he bought a one-way ticket to London to perform improv and make websites on the side.
Unsurprisingly, his couch-surfing lifestyle wasn’t sustainable, so he moved back to the U.S. where he discovered high-tech sales and memoryBlue in Austin, Texas.
But Huy’s early days as a Business Development Representative were just as rocky.
“I didn’t have any money back then,” Huy says. “I had maybe $200 or something in my name. I had probably $3,000 in debt. And I ended up living at different Airbnbs for like $30 a night. My girlfriend came to visit me at the time, as well, and we were just sleeping in my car.”
On this episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers, Huy, now a successful Enterprise Business Development Professional at Couchbase and a Finalist for the 2020 memoryBlue Phenom Award, discusses how he improved at selling despite nearly quitting several times. He found success by asking his coworkers for advice, taking the time to get to know the people he was calling and finding a routine that worked for him.
Guest-at-a-Glance
Name: Huy Nguyen
What he does: As an Enterprise Business Development Professional at Couchbase, Huy uses his background in tech sales at memoryBlue to sell a database that offers the “capabilities required for business-critical applications.”
Company: Couchbase
Noteworthy: Huy has always been self-sufficient, which was particularly evident when he decided he wouldn’t go to college unless he could get a large enough scholarship to pay for classes himself (he didn’t want to take a dime from his parents).
Exit Year from memoryBlue: 2020
Months at memoryBlue: 17
Alumni Path: Hired Out
Where to find Huy: LinkedIn
Key Insights
Know what you’re getting into and don’t expect to be great right away. Sales is hard, and you’re not going to be the perfect salesman right off the bat. Push past the hard parts and tell yourself it’ll get better — it will if you work hard.
Don’t be afraid to ask your coworkers for help. Your colleagues are a wellspring of knowledge, so ask them how they do what they do and what their solutions are to common problems. You’re all in this together.
Understanding your potential client is just as important as selling to them. Huy argues that good salesmen don’t just get on a call and immediately start selling to someone. Instead, they get to know the person they’re talking to and attempt to understand their point of view before talking sales.
Episode Highlights
Your first sales job will be hard, but you must keep going
“I got in there and it was so hard. It’s not so much about the strategy or how hard I was working, it was about the mentality of picking up the phone and talking to someone that was really tough. And that’s one reason I got into sales as well. Because I thought that’s not something I can do and that’s why I did it. I remember the first week I was just shaking before every call. … I was like, ‘How do you get over this fear of picking up the phone and talking to someone?’ And really the universal answer I got was ‘You don’t, you just get used to it.’ And I was like ‘Alright, I’m just going to do it.’ No complaints anymore.”
Find a routine that works for you and stick to it
“One thing that I started doing is I would get in the office super early. I usually got there either first or second … and then as everyone was shuffling in and starting their first (call) blitz, I would be at my 50 dials, going to 80 dials and trying to complete at least 80 dials before lunch every day. I was just a lot more motivated in the morning. … It was really quiet, there were not a lot of people in there. … That helped me tremendously in terms of anxiety, because by the time it was noon and my brain started kicking up, it was like, ‘Oh, I already made most of my calls.’”
Learn from the people around you
“Hard work is something you need, but it’s also about your technique or how you are improving it. … I communicated a lot with the peers around me to gain an understanding of what works and I’d just say, ‘Hey, I suck at this. Can I understand what you’re doing to book your meetings?’ … I was always listening to what everyone else was saying, seeing what works. It didn’t matter if the person had been there for a year before me or had just started at memoryBlue. I always looked to get advice from everyone and improve myself there.”
Don’t go into a meeting or call immediately focused on selling to them
“How I look at sales is I want to first, talk to them and second, sell to them. I want to understand this person first. And growing up an introvert and being able to communicate with people one-on-one and then also having improv experience where I’m making mistakes and it’s OK to make mistakes. … My technique is to just communicate first, build my skill up, understand the person and then pitch it — or at least understand the problem before pitching it.”
A sales job is a great way to eventually transition into other business roles
“If I’m going to ever have my own company, I need to learn the lowest level, which is sales and selling, also the most important level. … When I’m in sales, it just feels like I’m helping myself, whereas when I’m in marketing, I can actually help the whole team. And having that experience with sales already and understanding what the prospects want to hear, what they want to see in the email, I think it’s going to really help a marketing team as well.”
Transcript:
Huy Nguyen: [00:00:00] A lot of people focus on the hard work, which is working hard, getting in the office, making 200 dials. And I think that’s really great, that people are hardworking. Except a lot of those folks don’t focus their techniques more, understanding what other people are doing and then using it for their own.
[00:01:05]Marc Gonyea: [00:01:05] Welcome everyone to Tech Sales Is For Hustlers. Today, in the time of COVID, We have Mr. Huy Nguyen joining us. Huy is currently an Enterprise Business Development SDR at Couchbase. Recently, most recently, of memoryBlue as an SDR departing the firm in July 2020. We, Chris and I, we’re very happy you’re here today.
[00:01:27] Huy Nguyen: Well. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:30]Chris Corcoran: [00:01:30] Huy, great seeing you. Welcome.
[00:01:31] Huy Nguyen: [00:01:31] Yeah, thanks. It’s good to see you guys again, I miss those State of the Elephant meetings.
[00:01:36] Marc Gonyea: [00:01:36] You don’t miss my trips to Austin?
[00:01:38]Huy Nguyen: [00:01:38] No, not at all, actually. No. that was really funny. I’m glad you were there as well. I felt like I had a voice when you were there.
[00:01:45] Marc Gonyea: [00:01:45] Oh, come on and see that. I like it. That’s good. Well, I appreciate it. Well, maybe we’ll come down. We’ll talk about the headphone story then.
[00:01:54] Huy Nguyen: [00:01:54] Yeah.
[00:01:54] Marc Gonyea: [00:01:54]But before we get into it, this is going to be interesting because you, of all people we have had on the podcast thus far, you’re the person who you have the least amount of time from departing memoryBlue to joining us on the podcast. And in that short time, you are a memoryBlue Phenom 2020 Finalist.
[00:02:14] Huy Nguyen: [00:02:14] Yeah, I was pretty surprised too. I didn’t actually think about filling out the application. I’m like, there’s no chance. But you actually messaged me on LinkedIn to just do it and I was like, “All right. for Marc’s sake, let me just fill this out.”
[00:02:25] Marc Gonyea: [00:02:25] Yes. Yes. Well, I’m glad you filled it out and let’s kind of get into it.
[00:02:30] Huy Nguyen: [00:02:30] Yeah, let’s do it.
[00:02:30] Marc Gonyea: [00:02:30] So, for the folks, and even Chris and I, Chris didn’t get to work with you all that much, really. And I get to work with you just a little when I came down to Austin and make sure you were doing your thing on the phones. So let us, and the audience might get to know you a little bit better. So tell us this, go back to where are you from, some of those things.
[00:02:47] Huy Nguyen: [00:02:47] Well sure. I was born in small village in South Vietnam, and grew up there for a bit. I was in second, third grade there. My grandfather was actually in the U.S. Army when the Vietnam War happened. And so, a couple of decades after the war, they’re like, “Hey, we’re bringing everyone back to the States.” And so my mom qualified to go as well. And so, I moved to the States when I was around seven to eight, didn’t know a single word of English. And so just got into school there, grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida. Really beachy.
[00:03:20]Marc Gonyea: [00:03:20] So you came here seven years of age, right? And was your grandfather in prison after the Vietnam War?
[00:03:27] Huy Nguyen: [00:03:27] Yeah. Yeah. So he was actually locked in the prison in Vietnam for about 10 years. Basically our whole family were essentially traitors to the country for working with the States.
[00:03:38] I mean, things have changed dramatically now. But back then, it was pretty rough. And my grandfather was in prison for about 10 years. My grandmother had about eight kids And she’s such a strong woman too. I’m hearing stories. She walked like 10 miles to the market every morning, try to get the food, sell some fish.
[00:03:56] When I was growing up, our house was made of leaves. We didn’t have a floor or anything. So every time it rained, it would just flood the whole house. And I remember going to school like that where you had to kind of keep up or else, just get way in the flood. And so, it was really a small village, where I came from.
[00:04:11] Marc Gonyea: [00:04:11] Wow. And that’s seven years of age. You show up on the gold coast?
[00:04:15] Huy Nguyen: [00:04:15] Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty emotional. I’ve never been on a plane. I didn’t know what planes were. And then, I think the first landing was in San Francisco and they had a delay, we got pushed into a hotel.
[00:04:28] I remember to stay there, probably like three in the morning. Just looking out the window. My parents were sleeping and seeing all these cars and people, and I’m just like, “Wow, this is like amazing. I’ve never seen anything like this before. And I really felt like I shouldn’t be here.”
[00:04:40] Marc Gonyea: [00:04:40] You should. And then, right, so you ended up in Florida. What was that like showing up and how much English did you speak?
[00:04:46] Huy Nguyen: [00:04:46] Nada. I didn’t know what buses were. So I just got on this weird car with a bunch of random people, taken to school, didn’t know a single word of English. No one at school knew Vietnamese either.
[00:04:58] So couldn’t communicate anything. Thankfully, I had a really great ESL teacher who kind of understood that situation. She has a lot of students who were in similar situation and, didn’t really push me to, try anything hard. She really just there and just like, “Hey, you’re not alone.”
[00:05:13] And really just worked my way up, and understanding, basic stuff like I like shades. And so I remember her asking if I ever sing Sponge Bob before she was trying to explain what the sponge was. And I was like never seen Sponge Bob before. And so I was going home, watching Sponge Bob over and over, just trying to understand what they were saying.
[00:05:30] So, yeah, it was definitely an experience.
[00:05:33]Marc Gonyea: [00:05:33] You’re bad-ass, man. So is your family. So you grew up in what kind of kids are starting to, you kind of got into middle school and high school?
[00:05:41] Huy Nguyen: [00:05:41] Sure. So I was pretty outgoing when I was in Vietnam, at least in elementary school. And when I got to the States, I was very shy.
[00:05:48] I mean, it’s a culture shock. You can’t communicate with anyone. You don’t know what people are doing. And so I became pretty shy, an introvert. And so, I still met a lot of people and, some friends back then that kind of really helped me get into the culture, trying to communicate more.
[00:06:04] But as I grew up, I think I became a lot more introvert. I like to just do things myself and having experience of traveling from different country, learning a different language and just understanding like what my parents went through as well, kind of gave me a lot of motivation to just do things on my own.
[00:06:20] Marc Gonyea: [00:06:20] And then that lets you, and I mean, in terms of weird, this is good to talk about it because I think it’s super inspiring, especially to be here. So your parents, what did you parents get into when they came here? What type of work?
[00:06:32] Huy Nguyen: [00:06:32] Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, they didn’t know any English, so it was hard for them too, I didn’t know it back then, but like looking back now, like, okay, they had to find a job.
[00:06:39] They had to make sure we have enough money to survive. Cause my grandfather basically took us over here. He’s like, “All right, I’ve done my job. I’m just gonna move back to Vietnam.” So we were kind of just left there and kind of figure out things ourselves. But you know, luckily, I think my dad was working as a mechanic at a boat shop.
[00:06:55] And, I think he’s still working on that as like an assistant manager now. This guy doesn’t know like any English at all. I’m actually surprised how well he did, working with all these Americans that don’t speak Vietnamese. And then my mom also, got really into like the Vietnamese community there.
[00:07:10] And she got a lot of help as well. We moved around a couple of times. I remember when we first moved there, we stayed at someone’s house. They were like, “Hey, we can’t pay rent. Totally fine. I know your situation’s totally cool.” But we eventually moved out to a different apartment on our own.
[00:07:24] And then, during the recession in 2008, my parents had saved up a lot of money. We actually got a house, during that time as well.
[00:07:31] Marc Gonyea: [00:07:31] That’s pretty impressive, man. So middle school, high school, you ended up going to University of South Park.
[00:07:37] Huy Nguyen: [00:07:37] Yeah, throughout high school, I’ve actually never been kind of a school guy. I’ve always just tried to get Cs and pass, kind of deal. I didn’t really care about school.
[00:07:46] I was in high school, at least I really just cared about volunteering. I love just, volunteering with the kids center. I did some, the elderly centers as well. I did some thrift stores volunteering and I wasn’t doing too great in school either, but, I was just mainly focused on trying to find a lot of changes, that I could do at the time.
[00:08:03] And, when I came to college, I didn’t want my parents to pay for anything. So, my deal was, if I didn’t get a scholarship, I wasn’t going to go to a college. I was just going to do something else, or, get a job and then work as I was in college. So, when I was at USF, I was actually thinking we all go UF they didn’t give me much money.
[00:08:22] So I was like, okay, I need other options. And actually, got an interview for a scholarship at USF and, it was funny because I remember going into the interview, there was a guy at the door to introduce himself and he’s like, “Hey man, congrats for being here. it’s a pretty hard scholarship. So, if you don’t make it. That’s totally fine. At least you got here.”
I’m like, “Well, thanks for the motivation.” and I remember just walking into the room, there’s probably a table of about 10 people, the directors and principals and all those big folks at USF. And, the first question was, “Hey, we noticed your scores on the SAT and ACT aren’t that great. Can you explain that?” And I’m like, “Yeah, to be honest, I just suck at exams and I didn’t really focus on school that much because I volunteered a lot and I had like a lot of experience to back that up. I was probably in like 10 different clubs at school. I had tons of volunteering experience.”
[00:09:14] Yeah. and, I didn’t really think much of it when I got home. About a week later, I got the email like, “Hey, congrats, you got it. It’s essentially just a full ride to USF, for, I think first-generation students. And that’s really how I started at USF as well, in the marketing major.”
[00:09:31] Marc Gonyea: [00:09:31] Wow. Okay. Two things. Talk about, because you didn’t really let your parents pick your college. After this podcast, we’ll have you call my house and talk to my four kids about that. Their situation’s not very similar to yours, but why didn’t you want your parents to pay for college?
[00:09:47] Huy Nguyen: [00:09:47] I thought they were already dealing with their own stuff. I didn’t want to take a single penny from my parents. They’re always like, “Hey, do you need money?” I’m like, I don’t want any money. I was driving my mom’s old car and it’s breaking down. It was kinda mid-college. It was kind of breaking down, would die every red light.
[00:10:01] My mom and my dad were like, “Hey, we’re going to put in some money, get you a car.” I’m like, no. I’m just going to get a bike and move to New York. I will just bike around and get a job there or something. But now they actually forced me to get a car and not have to bike around. And, that’s actually one reason why I’m not in New York now and actually in Austin.
[00:10:19] Marc Gonyea: [00:10:19] Okay. All right. All right. So you’re a USF major in marketing. Tell us what that was like.
[00:10:28]Huy Nguyen: [00:10:28] I was in school, at least I’ve noticed I was really good at math, but I did not want to do anything with math, and I suck at English still. So I didn’t want to do anything with English. And, marketing was kind of the in-between where it was something I wanted to do. Something I knew I was really bad at was public speaking.
[00:10:45] Just being out there, talking to people. And so I just thought, okay, I’m just going to do that since it’s hard, I want to do it. It’s something I want to improve on. So I picked, I got into marketing and, at first, it’s pretty hard, because marketing wasn’t really about testing.
[00:11:00] It was about your final exams were always presentation speeches. It was really hard when I got into it. And I remember freshman year, USF is a really big international school. So one of the things I did was I would always eat alone and I would walk around the cafeteria and I would look for an international student that was sitting alone and I would force myself to just walk up to their table and to sit with them.
[00:11:23] And that was just the hardest thing ever to do. I have to literally shut off my brain, walk up to that table and stand there and freeze, and then I’m like, “Okay, well I’m here. I might as well talk to them.” And, that really got me, kind of out of my comfort zone. Got me practice for public speaking, made a lot of friends throughout college.
[00:11:40] Essentially a lot of those internationals, they don’t know anyone, they just came here and they don’t really know a lot of English either. So I kind of had that experience so I can kind of talk to them about it, ask them about their life. And then around the second year, I wanted to kind of do more.
[00:11:54] So I actually worked as a tour guide at USF, one of their tour guides. And man, that was so hard, going from just talking to one person a day to talk to like 50 people, a hundred people, 200 people a single day, was intense. I remember just standing at my first day, there was a hundred people just staring at me.
[00:12:12] And I’m like, “Okay, don’t fuck up. Don’t fuck up.” And that was really fun because after a while I got really used to it. I really enjoyed it. And then, one night, I’m always trying to look for things to learn, to improve myself. One night, all my coworkers are like, “Hey, we’re going to this improv show. You want to come?” Came to the improv show, saw amazing people doing comedy on the spot on stage. I just thought that was the hardest thing I could ever do. Like I could never do that. Just being on stage, making people laugh, wasn’t going to happen. And, later I’m like, “Okay, I love the comedy show. Let me go to see the club, see more comedy shows that they had.” And I remember going to my first improv comedy show on the campus and, someone on stage was like, “Hey we’re sure you want to try this.” And so I’m like, “Oh, I’m always down for a challenge.”
[00:12:55] I need to get out of my comfort zone. If I can do this, I can do anything. Raised my hand, first day ever, they made me rap on stage. I think it was about some lemons and, oh man, I failed so bad. I just failed really hard. But I think looking back now, that’s really what improv was about.
[00:13:14] It’s about failing and doing it on purpose, if you’re going to fail, just fail it real hard. Like own it, essentially. And, I came back afterwards, a couple of times, eventually, one of the teams, they were like, “Hey, one of our guys is sick, we’re doing a comedy show at this other college. Can you just come with us?” I’m like, sure. and so that’s kind of how my improv experience kind of started there and I’ve been doing improv since then.
[00:13:38] Marc Gonyea: [00:13:38] You said, “If I could do this, I could do anything.” And why did you say that?
[00:13:45]Huy Nguyen: [00:13:45] Because I think anyone can overcome like something physical obviously, but it’s always the mental, that’s the hardest. And when you look at something and you’re like, I can never do that. In a million years, I would never be able to like stand up in front of 50 people and make a speech or get up on stage without any script and make people laugh.” When I see that and I get scared, that’s when I really want to do it. Because I know once I get up there and start doing it, and then, even if I fail which is what I learned in improv, it’s okay, you did it and you can do it again.
[00:14:16] And once you do it continuously, similar to sales too, you’re gonna fail a lot. And once you do it continuously, you’re going to get better at it. And then, it’s all about just finding the next hardest thing to do and keep doing that.
[00:14:26] Marc Gonyea: [00:14:26] Yeah. A lot of people would be too scared and I don’t know, I wrote that down. “If I can do this, I can do anything.” and that’s probably true. Like, I think it’s a lot of police in public settings. If people can convince themselves to go up and do the improv and have their rap about lemons, but a group of strangers, there’s a lot of shit that they’re probably lacking this year to try and tackle.
[00:14:45] Huy Nguyen: [00:14:45] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’m still scared thinking about it, to this day, but if I didn’t do that back then I probably wouldn’t be where I am now.
[00:14:52] Marc Gonyea: [00:14:52] It’s tempting and then you were touring back at USF for two and a half years.
[00:14:56] Huy Nguyen: [00:14:56] Yeah, I pretty much was a tour guide the whole way through, they actually start paying, when I first started it was all volunteering.
[00:15:02] And then they started paying about a year afterwards for anyone that wanted to be paid. And I was like, “No, I’m just doing it for fun. I don’t want to be restricted to my hours. I just want to do it because I enjoy doing it.” So I volunteered as the tour guide there, till I left.
[00:15:16] Marc Gonyea: [00:15:16] How’d you treat academics in college versus how you treated them, like in high school? The same? Was it different?
[00:15:21] Huy Nguyen: [00:15:21] It was probably worse. Well, the thing was, I thought college was pretty easy and it was slightly boring for me. I didn’t really care about the basic stuff, I don’t really care about why do you like history? But I don’t, I didn’t really care about the general marketing classes.
[00:15:33] And I always thought if I didn’t, I really didn’t have the scholarship. I would’ve dropped out already. Cause I do not want to spend money on this. But at the same time I was spending a lot of time in college taking classes I want to take. I was enrolling to a lot of different classes that weren’t marketing, like writing, history, sales, digital design, some videography. So I was still taking a lot of other classes and I was still acing those, but I was getting Cs in my marketing classes. I just didn’t really care that much, I guess.
[00:16:01] Marc Gonyea: [00:16:01] What’d you end up doing, “Hey, this is what I want to be when I get out of school”, like, would you focus on, I guess?
[00:16:06] Huy Nguyen: [00:16:06] Sure. So, I didn’t really know what I was going to do in college or even after college. And I was just taking a bunch of random classes and I’m like, I don’t know how useful these would be. And I remember I told both of you, that I had a sales class my last semester.
[00:16:20] And, we had a big presentation at the end. And, as everyone’s leaving, the professor is telling each students how well they did and what their grade is. And he got to me and he’s like, “Hey, you ever consider getting into sales? I think you’d make some big bucks there.” And I remember just telling him, no, that’s not me.
[00:16:35] I can never even get to sales. and so I left college and, I was working as a graphic designer at a big financial firm down in Florida. Worked there for maybe eight months, was making really good money. And, the only thing I could think of back then was how boring the job was. That’s not really something you expect when you do your whole college thing, you expect to be a graphic designer and then you’re in an actual company and you’re like, this is so boring.
[00:17:01] I want to do something else. and so I didn’t know what I wanted to do back then. I just knew I wanted to get out and do something else. And so one of the things I noticed that the company did was they sold websites for around $10,000 a website. And I figured, well, I can probably just make the whole website myself, find my own people to sell it to, and then do that for a bit.
[00:17:23] So ended up adding my job there. And then, I was making just websites on the side, with local small businesses in Tampa. I mean, of course they’re not going to be able to afford $10,000 website. So charging, I was charging people like 500 bucks, a thousand dollars per website. I’d make them in like a day or so.
[00:17:40] So I was doing that for awhile and I was making enough money to kind of survive, here and there. And I was still not sure about my future. I didn’t know what to do. I did a couple interviews at large companies, and just didn’t get them, and didn’t know what to do by the end of that year.
[00:17:57] And so I had a friend, a family friend that was in Europe at the time, and he said, he messaged me. He’s like, “Hey, why don’t you just move to Europe and experience what people are experiencing here, and then just figure it out from there.” And at the time I didn’t really have a lot of money.
[00:18:10] I probably had about $600. And so I bought a one-way ticket. I decided, “Screw it. I’m just going to do it,” bought a one way ticket to London because I couldn’t afford the rest. Flew to London, got a warning stamp on my passport. Yeah, I didn’t have any money. Didn’t have a job. Didn’t have any other flight plans.
[00:18:30] I probably had $600-$700, $500 of that went to the plane ticket. And so I was couch surfing for a bit. I was living with a rock band for about a month, just going up to different bars, doing shows. And then I was also doing improv in London as well and met a lot of people that way.
[00:18:48] Eventually I was doing websites on the side, just selling websites to local businesses. I was making a couple hundred dollars here and there. And then I bought a plane ticket and flew to Berlin where I shadowed my friend, who’s a sales manager at the time, and kind of understand his thinking process.
[00:19:02] He was actually really successful at the time. He started a company before he sold it for a couple of million dollars. And he was working as a sales manager to just understand sales, because he thought it was kind of the most important part of the company. And so I thought that was really interesting.
[00:19:16] I learned a lot of entrepreneurship from him. I learned a lot of coding when I was there as well and I found that sales was really interesting from what I saw. After that, I traveled around Europe for a bit. I was in Switzerland and then I finally flew to Spain, where I did kind of a pilgrimage.
[00:19:33] I walked, there was a big trail I watched from Northern Spain down to Portugal. Took a couple of days, but it really cleared my mind. I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to get out of Tampa. And that was one big thing I wanted to, because I think in Tampa, the mentality that I felt there was just work at some normal corporate job, go to the beach and just enjoy your life. Just keep doing that every single day. And I didn’t want that. I want change. I want people that are surrounding me or people that want to be successful, start their own company. The idea of startups was really exciting as well.
[00:20:05] So after the whole pilgrimage, I essentially was in Spain for a bit, and I decided to just fly back. I get back in St. Petersburg, packed up all my clothes, took my car and just drove to, I was actually in Houston, but, I was looking to live in Austin.
[00:20:21] Chris Corcoran: [00:20:21] Amazing. What a story. And so what happened when you got to Houston?
[00:20:24] Huy Nguyen: [00:20:24] Well, I had a few job interviews that I had set up before I go, just to kinda prep myself. I ended up not getting any of it. And so I was just stuck in Houston, living on someone’s couch for a good month and everyday I would just apply for jobs. That’s all I did.
[00:20:39] Chris Corcoran: [00:20:39] Wait, hold on a second. So how do you find all these people that let you sleep on their couch?
[00:20:44] Huy Nguyen: [00:20:44] I think I’m just, I guess friendly. I just had really great friends, obviously, that really sheltered me. They’re like, “Hey, you don’t have to pay for rent or anything. Don’t worry about it. Just get a job and figure it out.” So luckily I had really great friends that supported my career choice while I was doing it, really trusted me to get a job and to get the hell out of their place obviously.
[00:21:04]Chris Corcoran: [00:21:04] Amazing, amazing. So you’re in Houston, you’re staying on a friend’s couch. You’re looking for jobs, you’re getting turned down for jobs. Take us from there.
[00:21:11] Huy Nguyen: [00:21:11] Sure. Sure. So, I was in Houston for a month and I was really sweating cause I was like, I need to get out of this place at this place. I need to get a job, get out of here. And I knew I didn’t want to be in Houston. I wanted to be in Austin.
[00:21:23] So I was driving back and forth, every single day from Houston to Austin and back, I remember doing a couple of interviews, driving back, didn’t get it. Eventually I saw memoryBlue. Saw it was this big sales company that really taught you the whole sales cycle, the whole process and everything.
[00:21:40] It’s really great for people that never had sales experience before. So I thought, “Okay, let me apply for this one.” And I actually remember calling my friend in Europe was like, “Hey, I found this really cool company now, what do you think about it?”
“Yeah. That looks really awesome. Like what do you want to do? And, just kind of learn sales a bit. Especially you and your experience where you don’t really have a lot of sales experience.” So I applied, drove to Austin, did an interview with my previous manager, Taylor Richie.
[00:22:09] T-Rich. yeah, did an interview with her. It went pretty good. Drove back to Houston. Got called up the next day. Drove back to Houston, did another interview with Nimit. And then I got the job as I was leaving the office. Think it was, Abby that called me
[00:22:23] Marc Gonyea: [00:22:23] Abby Bull Wyndham, Billy dubs.
[00:22:26] Chris Corcoran: [00:22:26] So then did you move from, you obviously had to move from Houston to Austin.
[00:22:29] Huy Nguyen: [00:22:29] Yeah. Yeah. And that was another big part of my life as well, because I didn’t have any money back then when I got the job at memoryBlue. So I ended up, I had maybe $200 or something in my name. I had probably $3,000 in debt.
[00:22:44] And I ended up living at different Airbnbs for $30 a night. My girlfriend was there and came to visit me at the time as well. And we were just sleeping in my car some days at the park, some construction sites. And, I remember driving her to the airport to fly back and it was about five in the morning.
[00:23:04] I had to work the next day at memoryBlue, and I was just driving to the memoryBlue office and sleep in the parking lot, because I didn’t really have a place to go. And so it was really tough at the time. Luckily, I eventually got paid and found my apartment.
[00:23:17] Chris Corcoran: [00:23:17] Wow. So you spent some time living at Casa de Honda.
[00:23:23] Huy Nguyen: [00:23:23] Yeah. Yeah. It was definitely an experience.
[00:23:25] Chris Corcoran: [00:23:25] Unbelievable. So how long were you living out of your car?
[00:23:28] Huy Nguyen: [00:23:28] I mean, not long, I was the only in Austin for a week before, working that, memoryBlue that was sleeping in different Airbnbs, really cheap ones. And then just sleeping in my car occasionally when I didn’t have money to stay somewhere.
[00:23:41] I remember the first week at memoryBlue was so stressful for me because as I’m dialing, I’m stressing out on the back of my mind because I’m like, I don’t have a place to stay tonight. I don’t really have a place to sleep. I remember telling Taylor I’m like, “Taylor, I really need to like go and figure out my living situation. Because I don’t have a place to sleep tonight.” So it was definitely a rough situation.
[00:23:59] Chris Corcoran: [00:23:59] Well, obviously, you got through it. So what did you end up finding?
[00:24:02] Huy Nguyen: [00:24:02] Well eventually got paid by memoryBlue, obviously. And, I got a really nice apartment, the place I’m living in right now, actually.
[00:24:09] At the time I didn’t really care about saving money. I just wanted to know sales, understand sales. I didn’t need to save money for anything. I wasn’t looking for like long-term plans. That’s a time like, okay. I mean, Austin, I got a job, I got a place. It’s got like the most expensive place they had. Something like, I don’t really save any of this money. Probably bad mistake looking back now. But yeah. Then everything kind of turned out really well. Once I had a place to stay, I was working with memoryBlue then for two weeks now in the job. And, everything was going pretty good.
[00:24:38] Chris Corcoran: [00:24:38] Talk to us a little bit about what it was like this first couple of weeks in, if you could go back and give yourself advice before you started, what advice would you give yourself?
[00:24:46] Huy Nguyen: [00:24:46] Sure. I mean, the first few weeks was so hard. It was I thought one of the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.
[00:24:53] And I did not expect that at all. If I was to go back and tell myself, I would probably just tell myself it’s going to be hard. That’s not something I expect. I was reading a lot of sales books. I was listening to podcasts before working at memoryBlue and I’m like, “Okay, I got this, I’m going to be the best salesman that they’ll ever hire and it’s going to be awesome.”
[00:25:10] That’s not the case at all. I got in there and it was so hard. It’s not so much about like, the strategy or how hard I was working. It was about like the mentality of picking up the phone and talking to someone. That was really tough. And I mean, that’s one reason I got into sales as well.
[00:25:24] I thought that’s not something I can do and that’s why I did it. And I remember the first week I was just shaking every call. Before I would call, I would ask Jackson Hawkins, it was all the Ceilidh that was there, I was just like, “Hey, how do you get over this fear of picking up the phone and talk to someone?” They’re like really, the universal answer I got was “You don’t, you just get used to it. The more you do it.” And like, all right, I’m just going to do it. No complaints anymore.
So one thing I started doing early, I would skate in the office super early. I usually get there either first or second before Jackson. And, I had a key, open the office, get in there and I would make about 30 dials to about 7:00 AM central. So about 8:00 AM in the eastern (time zone), which is my territory, I’d make about 30 in the morning. Before I could use any services, can’t pee or anything until I make that 30 dials. Make 30 dials and then, as everyone’s shuffling in and starting their first blitz, I would be at my 50 dials going into 80 dials and I always try to complete at least 80 dials before lunch every day.
[00:26:27] Chris Corcoran: [00:26:27] And so why did you do that? Yesterday you were talking about, “Hey, I had to get in there, I had to dial early.” Why did you do that?
[00:26:32] Huy Nguyen: [00:26:32] Yeah. I was just a lot more motivated in the morning, I kind of shake myself up, I knew that if I’m scared at something, I should just do it.
[00:26:40] And so, getting up early in the morning, going into the office early when it was all quiet. Not a lot of people in there, not a lot of people chatting with me. I can really get my work going. I can start dialing, feeling really refreshed. And so I was trying to get as many dials as possible in the morning.
[00:26:55] So then I can kind of evaluate that later as well throughout the day.
[00:28:03]Marc Gonyea: [00:28:03] When it comes to prospecting, I always like to say that inertia is either your best friend or your worst enemy. So if you go and start early and you get built up to a momentum and you’ve got yours in the rhythm and you’re off, but if you don’t do that, then it could be 10? 11? Lunchtime? And you haven’t called anybody. And that phone weighs a hundred pounds, right? Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, if I don’t call in the morning, then I would not be able to call in the afternoon. That was just my case. I could not call anybody in the afternoon if I didn’t do it in the morning,
[00:28:32] We can all learn something from that. When you would come in and you wouldn’t do anything else until you made those dials.
[00:28:39] Huy Nguyen: [00:28:39] Yeah and that helped me tremendously in terms of anxiety because, by the time it’s noon and my brain started kicking up, it’s like, “Oh, I already made most of my calls.”
[00:28:49] I talked to like 10 people already. And so that made me feel a lot better. Like, okay, I can’t do this. And, that’s kinda how I rolled that
[00:28:58] Chris Corcoran: [00:28:58] So Huy, other than yourself, who is the strongest SDR that you worked with in your opinion?
[00:29:03] Huy Nguyen: [00:29:03] It was definitely Jackson Hawkins. When I was there, we were on the same campaign and I kinda jumped in, it was ACME ticketing. And so when I got there, I jumped on the campaign and he’s been on it for six months or so, he’s just killing it, there are probably six of us on that campaign. I didn’t have any sales experience. And so, I was mainly looking at Jackson and we had lunch. I was talking about like how he got into a sales career, asking him any advice and stuff. But really kind of taking a lot of advice from him, listen to his calls, what he’s saying on the phone, that really helped me as well.
[00:29:37] Another person was Kemi, who’s your recruiter now. And, she was there a month before me and I’m like, “Kemi, you’re amazing on the phone.” Like whenever I listened to her calls, the prospects are laughing. They’re like her best friends. She’s having a good time on the phone. She’s like, “Yeah, I just started here like a month ago. Don’t really know what I’m doing yet.” And I’m like, “Kemi, you’re amazing at this.” So yeah, those are kind of the two people I look to I guess the most out there.
[00:30:05] Chris Corcoran: [00:30:05] Huy, and so, what did you do that kind of other folks didn’t do to really help you kind of separate yourself as a top performer?
[00:30:13] Huy Nguyen: [00:30:13] Sure. One of the things I noticed was that a lot of people get into sales thinking that if they just work hard, it’ll pay out. And that’s not really always the case.
[00:30:24] I mean, hard work is something you need but it’s also about like your technique, or how are you improving it? If you’re making a hundred, two hundred calls a day and you’re just the worst person, talking to a prospect, you’re not going to book anything. I think what I did was I communicated a lot with the peers around me, and understanding what works and just, being able to say, “Hey, I suck at this. Can I like understand what you’re doing to book your meetings?”
And even now at Couchbase, we get an email every time someone books a meeting. I always read those emails, kind of understanding what they just did, how they talk to that person, what techniques they use and just listening to their calls as well to kind of improve mine and so, one thing I did at memory blue was always improving my script, my calls, I’m always listening to what everyone’s else is saying, seeing what works. It doesn’t matter if the person has been there for a year before me, or just start at a memoryBlue. I always look to get advice from everyone and, improve myself there.
[00:31:24] Chris Corcoran: [00:31:24] And so what would be your signature move? What did you do better than others that people would say, “Huy, man, you gotta break it down for me. Teach me that move.”
[00:31:32] Huy Nguyen: [00:31:32] Sure. I mean, I’ve had a lot of, I guess, life experience that enabled me to kind of speak to people in a different way that aren’t sales.
[00:31:40] How I looked at sales is, I want to first talk to them and then second sell to them. And so when I’m talking to the phone, my goal has never been to like “Alright, let’s get a meeting.” It’s always been, I want to understand this person first, and growing up an introvert, and being able to communicate people on that kind of one-on-one side and then also having improv experience where, I’m making mistakes and it’s okay to make mistakes. And so when I first go on to ACME ticketing, I’m talking to a lot of elderly (people), typically at museums. And it’s always gonna start with, just being really nice asking about their day, the weather, their coworkers.
[00:32:16] They love to talk and yeah, that’s how I kind of began my techniques to just communicate first, build my skill up, understand all the person and then, and pitch it or at least understand that problem before pitching it.
[00:32:32] Chris Corcoran: [00:32:32] Very good. And so, what ended up happening with ACME? How long were you at memoryBlue and kind of, you ultimately got scooped up by your client. So talk to me what happened there?
[00:32:42] Huy Nguyen: [00:32:42] Sure. So, my experience in memoryBlue, I actually started with Dial-a-Note where it was a software I was selling until sales managers. And that was really hard when, just starting at memoryBlue to started selling to sales managers. I did that for about a month or two, and then I switched over to ACME and I was on ACME for about I think seven months, quite a while.
[00:33:01] And, Jackson was actually, I think he became my manager, and he suggested to Taylor and he was like, “Hey Taylor, get this guy off ACME, put him on something else.”
[00:33:11] Marc Gonyea: [00:33:11] Well, why did he say that? Because, I want to talk about a little story you told yesterday, but I remember this. I came down on the Austin office and I’d be like, “What’s up with these numbers from ACME? Like you got the smarty-smart people on there. Why don’t we book more meetings?” And, people would say, “Well, listen, Huy only has like 40 accounts. And he only has like two people, three people tops needs to account for. He has a list of a hundred more names than I do, what are you talking about? But you guys were a little snipers.
[00:33:45] Tell us about how prepared you were when you would call these museums and talk to these stakeholders there.
[00:33:49] Huy Nguyen: [00:33:49] Yeah. I mean, I thought that was probably one of the hardest campaigns I’ve done at memoryBlue because it wasn’t about the calling or talking to the prospects.
[00:33:58] It was about how many prospects we had. I think I had Pennsylvania and there are only so many museums in Pennsylvania, after he worked six months, in Pennsylvania, you’re going to start running out. You’re talking to trade shows now, some mom and pop museums and, I remember just having a list of a hundred people I would go my conversion rate at the time was just insane. If they pick up the phone, I had about 80-90% chance of booking that meeting. Because I did so much research in these people and understanding what time they even open, what their ticketing price was, when they have the most volume of people coming in.
[00:34:35] If they had student tickets, if they don’t, if they sell tickets online, who their competing museums are, just understanding all that. And when I pick up the phone, I’m talking to someone, I really know exactly what problems they are experiencing. I know how their museum operates.
[00:34:51] And so, once they pick up, it was really easy for me to book a meeting with them.
[00:34:55] Marc Gonyea: [00:34:55] I gotta to tell you, I owe you and all the ACME people an apology, because I didn’t really fully realize this until we had our prep call. And I was like, man, I probably should have bought it in a little bit more what they’re going on actively based upon what I’m hearing. I don’t know. That was like last summer, probably it was over a year ago. So my bad, but, I just gotta make sure we’re doing our job.
[00:35:17] Huy Nguyen: [00:35:17] Yeah, no worries. I mean, everyone, I think that everyone that came out of acne became like killers. Not literally, but you know, like Jackson, Kemi, they came out and they’re amazing at what they’re doing.
[00:35:27] Marc Gonyea: [00:35:27] Yeah and you had an interesting experience working on Squelch too. What’s that like?
[00:35:29] Huy Nguyen: [00:35:29] Sure. So Jackson got me off of ACME cause he’s like, “Yeah, I don’t want anyone drowning in that campaign. You need to get these.” So I got on Squelch and at the time Squelch, wasn’t doing too hot.
[00:35:40] I got on as part of a new team. It was me and three other folks and we started booking meetings right away. I mean, we were booking a lot more meetings than they had before and things were going pretty good, or I thought. It was pretty good. I was actually hitting quota or at least close to it and I felt a lot better, than when I was on ACME. Unfortunately, they liquidated. Wasn’t really any of our faults, they just, the investors pulled out and, the company basically vanished.
[00:36:09]Chris Corcoran: [00:36:09] Tell us about how you found out about that and what you said.
[00:36:13] Huy Nguyen: [00:36:13] Yeah. So no one knew, my sales rep texted me on a Friday night, I was just hanging out with some friends and he says, “Hey, we liquidated.” and I told him, “Hey, that’s great, congrats.” Because I always thought they wanted to sell the company.
[00:36:28] I’m like, “Hey, congrats. that’s great. We did it.”
[00:36:36] Chris Corcoran: [00:36:36] We did it. Oh man.
[00:36:40] Huy Nguyen: [00:36:40] And he replies “No. The bad kind of liquidation, we’re all fired.” And I’m like, “Oh, I’m sorry. That sucks.” And so I call up Taylor Richie. I’m like “Taylor, like Squelch liquidated, we’re gone, they’re gone.” And she’s like, “What? Like, they didn’t tell me anything.” And I’m like, “Yeah, they just texted me and said we liquidated.”
[00:37:04] So I came in the office Monday thinking I’m fired. Like I’m gone, my client’s gone I’m outta here. But you know, luckily we were all moved to FarSight afterwards and that was a cybersecurity client.
[00:37:15] Marc Gonyea: [00:37:15] Eventually you mosey your way over into Couchbase, but let me take that back. You don’t mosey your way over there. We had finally figured out how to properly incentivize folks who earned the right, working on certain, I guess that campaign in particular, because that campaign is very unique to the history of the company.
[00:37:30] So tell us about how that went down. How you got involved and what you thought about it initially?
[00:37:36] Huy Nguyen: [00:37:36] Sure. So when I’m at FarSight, it was still pretty good. I was with Sam Burkhalter, one of my really close friends now and I’m really close to him now.
[00:37:45] And when we worked on it together, we were both doing really good on FarSight. They weren’t doing too hot before, similar to Squelch. And once we got on and we started booking meetings for them, and, I’ve ever talked to Sam and I’m like, “Dude, you’re like always killing it here. Like, how are you doing it?” And he’s like, “To be honest, the first week working here, I literally cried every day before going to work because it was so hard.” And I’m like, “Thank you. Like, that’s exactly how I experienced it.” And so having him working with me on FarSight was really kind of relieving having someone with similar experience.
[00:38:16] He was in Med school, before going into sales too. So it was really uplifting. But, at the same time, this is my fourth client so far at, or third client so far in memoryBlue. I’ve been here for almost a year and a half. Everything’s kinda starting to seem kind of similar at this point, all the calls, all the dialogues.
[00:38:34] And so, I remember getting pulled into an aisle first by Jackson and he’s like, “I never talk about your future. What do you think of doing? Where do you think you’re going?” I remember just telling him, “Yeah, I think sales is not for me. I think I’m good. I think I’m done for now.”
[00:38:47] Might go do marketing or something and he’s like, “Wait. Okay. Hold on. I’m thinking of putting you on Couchbase, what do you think about that? It’s going to be awesome.” and I told them, “No, I think I’m good. I don’t want to disappoint them. I don’t want to get into Couchbase on the line for them and quit or something.”
[00:39:01] And, yeah, I’m pretty sure they’re a great client. I just don’t want to disappoint them and he’s like, “All right, just give it two weeks. If you don’t like it, you can quit if you want. All right. Let’s give it two weeks for my sake” and I’m like, “Alright. Fine, Jackson. I’ll give it two weeks and then if I don’t like it, I’m outta here.”
[00:39:18] Gave it about three days, I went to Jackson’s like, “Jeez, I’m staying here. This is amazing.” They’re a really great product, really great company. They have an amazing SDR team. They have a really good SDR team manager as well. And I just really enjoyed learning about the product, the people that worked behind it and been there since then.
[00:39:35] Marc Gonyea: [00:39:35] You got a bunch of memoryBlue alums who work there, right?
[00:39:38] Huy Nguyen: [00:39:38] Yeah. Yeah. Majority I’d say of the sales team there were memoryBlue.
[00:39:45] Marc Gonyea: [00:39:45] How much better do you think you were the first day you started on Couchbase versus the first day you started at memoryBlue?
[00:39:51] Huy Nguyen: [00:39:51] Oh, much better. I remember the first day on Couchbase was just so easy. And were talking to the Sales Director at Couchbase and just telling him, “Hey, this is the easiest thing I’ve ever sold.” First time at memoryBlue, I had no idea of anything, I was scared. First day of Couchbase, I was so confident that this was going to be awesome. And it was just going to be really easy and really that’s still the case.
[00:40:14] Marc Gonyea: [00:40:14] Yeah. Good. You still work there, but definitely. Tell us a little about what you’re doing for them.
[00:40:20] Huy Nguyen: [00:40:20] Sure. So I’m still in the SDR role. I just left, memoryBlue three or four months ago. And, when I first started, I had a really small territory, kind at the Southwest area.
[00:40:33] And, my first quarter, I was still at memoryBlue, back then, went really well. I was, tied for the most opportunities tied with one of their best SDR has been there for two years, for the most opportunities, which are means that sales rep determined how potential to sell. I helped them closed their first deal of the year for about a quarter of a million dollars.
[00:40:55] And just working this guy at like 7:00 PM, calling him, calling my sales reps, making sure everything works and upselling. And so, since then I’ve been moved around a couple of territories to kind of uplift that territory and I’ve been doing pretty good so far.
[00:41:11] Chris Corcoran: [00:41:11] So Huy, what made Couchbase that much easier or that much better compared to the other campaigns that you were on before you moved over to Couchbase?
[00:41:19] Huy Nguyen: [00:41:19] Sure. Well, one thing is Couchbase I think it has a really good product that is really where the future is. And a lot of companies recognize that too. Like a lot of the companies now, like Apple uses Couchbase, the airlines, American Express, a lot of these giants are using Couchbase already because they see the potential in it.
[00:41:36] And that’s why I saw when I first started there as well. And then secondly, I’ve had so much experience from working different, client at memory blue, working from talking to sales managers, talking to elderly at museums, tons of cybersecurity folks, understanding these different personas, understanding what they want really helped me when I go on Couchbase. Because in Couchbase we’re talking to all kinds of people, your level, VP level, all the way down to just regular software engineers that just got on the call. So just being able to understand all those personas, being able to communicate, what they want to hear has really helped me, just using that experience from memoryBlue.
[00:42:14] Chris Corcoran: [00:42:14] So it sounds like it’s a combination, one of having a great solution that’s being adopted in the marketplace. And then number two, just the experience that you had of talking to all these different personas so that you feel comfortable talking to really anybody and that’s kind of helped you crush it for Couchbase.
[00:42:34] Huy Nguyen: [00:42:34] Yeah, definitely. And I think another side thing is also the people. I had a really great SDR manager, Steven Lebay. I think he was definitely at memoryBlue, too. Mr. Lebay, amazing manager. I go to him for anything. And that was kind of a similar situation at memoryBlue, too, where one thing that kept me going the most at memoryBlue was the people around me.
[00:42:54] And that’s one thing I did not expect when I was planning to gain sales was how much the people around you really affects you. You’re going in the office and everyone’s just talking, hanging out. You’re not going to have the motivation to call, but when I’m in the office, I see people it’s on the phone, hitting the dials.
[00:43:09] It gives me a lot more motivation. And also listening to people with similar issues or how they felt when they first got in the sales really helped me kind of stay in the game and being motivated.
[00:43:20] Chris Corcoran: [00:43:20] I think most people underestimate that.
[00:43:22] Huy Nguyen: [00:43:22] Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of people get into sales thinking they’re just going to do it themselves and make some money and be the best. But it’s really a lot about the people around you as well.
[00:43:31] Marc Gonyea: [00:43:31] So you’re the firestarter at the office, man, back when I was working, if I’d come in and you were already on the phones, crushing the phones up and I’m like, “This is great. I got to do what this guy’s doing.”
[00:43:40] Huy Nguyen: [00:43:40] In reality I’m super nervous. I’m just trying to get as much calls in as possible. So that nervousness goes away.
[00:43:46] Marc Gonyea: [00:43:46] Huy, every podcast we have and, same with Chris and I, when we started, when I started, I used to pray, dear God, that the prospect wouldn’t pick up. The prospect probably would pick up and I’d hang the phone up on that prospect before even a word was said, it’s scary as shit. People who say they’re not scared or I don’t know. You’re a little off the rocker a little bit like a little crazy, or they haven’t done it before truly.
[00:44:05] Chris Corcoran: [00:44:05] So Marc, would you count that as a CWP?
[00:44:11] Marc Gonyea: [00:44:11] I would not. It needs to be something coming out of your mouth. You don’t say anything. There’s no CWP.
[00:44:18] All right. It’s good to hear because Austin was our first office outside of memoryBlue corporate. And we were always a little nervous about what the culture was going to be like when we opened it. Because you’re not there, Nimit did a good job of opening it and then finding folks like Jackson and T-Rich, Jackson’s running the office now.
[00:44:37] And I don’t think it’s any coincidence that you told me, that somebody who we all have these crisis of confidence in the SDR role, you told me Jackson was a guy who saved you a few times.
[00:44:46] Huy Nguyen: [00:44:46] Yeah. Yeah. When I was at memoryBlue, I wanted to quit a lot of times. And one person I leaned on a lot was Jackson, just like looking at him, looking at him work.
[00:44:55] And him telling me not to give up a couple of times was really helpful. And, even when T-Rich was there, I would always go to Jackson for help as well. and when he was a manager, I was like, yeah, that’s for sure. We didn’t have to guess.
[00:45:07] Marc Gonyea: [00:45:07] So let’s talk about this. So what does the future hold for you? Like what do you think you want to go with this?
[00:45:12] Huy Nguyen: [00:45:12] Yeah. Yeah. So one of my plan is I don’t actually plan to be in sales for that long. I actually planned to be in marketing and that was really one of my goals before even sales, before memoryBlue was always to be in marketing.
[00:45:23] I got into sales because that’s one of the skills I wanted to learn. If I’m going to ever have my own company, I need to learn like the lowest level, which is sales and selling. Or also the most important level. And so, I feel like now I kind of have some of that experience.
[00:45:37] I wanted to get back to what I was mainly focused on, which is marketing. And especially at Couchbase I feel like I could do the most good. because when I’m in sales, it really just feels like I’m helping myself. Whereas when I’m in marketing, I can actually help the whole team. And, having that experience with sales already, understanding what the prospect’s wants to hear, what they want to see in the email. I think it’s going to really help the marketing team as well.
[00:46:03] Chris Corcoran: [00:46:03] So, Huy. What’s more intimidating prospecting or improv?
[00:46:10] Huy Nguyen: [00:46:10] If you ever try improv and for anyone that listens to this. Yeah, there are a lot of comedy shows where a lot of nights I would just bring out a hat and if you want to do it, just put your name in there and get up on stage, and then you’ll realize how really easy it is.
[00:46:24] I think because improv is not about booking meetings, not about getting sales or anything. It’s about just making mistakes and owning it. And that’s so much easier than when I’m on a call. because on the call, I try to be as sharp, as possible, as precise as possible, knowing every single thing about the person.
[00:46:42] But in improv, it’s really freeing. And that’s one of the things I did. Why I stuck with improv is when I’m on stage, I really felt like I was myself. I didn’t have to pretend to be someone else. I didn’t have to be perfect. and that really translate to my life now where I’m a little less nervous about failing.
[00:46:58] Chris Corcoran: [00:46:58] That’s great. And so how do you keep your sales skills sharp?
[00:47:01] Huy Nguyen: [00:47:01] Sure. I mentioned this earlier too, I never stopped learning. And one of the easiest way to learn is from the people around you, always ask how do they book that meeting every time someone books, a meeting at memoryBlue.
[00:47:13] I remember I always just always ask, “Hey, what did you say? What the person say, how did you book that meeting?” Even now at Couchbase I always read all the meeting notes. Everyone’s meeting notes. Understanding exactly how they got it. What techniques did they used, and then also, since we’re in COVID now and everyone’s working from home, I spend my morning just chatting with my coworkers, asking them, what techniques they use, what’s working, understanding how they book meetings.
[00:47:40] And that has really helped improve my skills and doing what works, constantly without, just focusing on myself and making dials. You mentioned mistakes, what mistakes around improv and being on the phone. But since you’ve been working in memoryBlue and now at Couchbase, what are some mistakes you think you’ve seen people make? Maybe some of your contemporaries. That you’re like, ah, “I don’t know about that.” Or maybe something, cause this is a good advice for people who are listening.
[00:48:06] Sure. and I think, again, a lot of people focus on the hard work, which is working hard, getting in the office, making 200 dials. And I think that’s really great, that people are hardworking. except a lot of those folks don’t focus their techniques more, understanding what other people is doing and then using it for their own.
[00:48:24] I worked on days where I’m making 30 dials, I’m booking two meetings. And then someone next to me is making 150 dials and can’t book a single meeting and I’m like, “Okay, let’s stop the hard work for a bit. And let’s focus on, what you’re doing, how you can best translate your leads, your process, how you’re building your list to using your calls more effectively.”
[00:48:47] And so I think that’s one tip I would give to a lot of people that, getting into sales now,
[00:48:51] Marc Gonyea: [00:48:51] It was good. You’ve got an inspiring and an amazing personal journey, and I think it’s totally wild that you ended up working for us and I’m thankful that you are.
[00:48:59] Huy Nguyen: [00:48:59] Yeah, I really appreciate it and the opportunity I would not be anywhere near where I am if probably quit sales, a month after working at a different company. So I’m glad I stuck it through, I think memoryBlue gave me so much memories, so many friends I’m still hanging out with now and really motivated me to be the best I can and just doing things out of hard or scares me.
[00:49:21] Marc Gonyea: [00:49:21] I mean, I’ll tell you I think the company and the people you work with, but you probably were the same person for them. Like you talked about how Sam and Jackson will report to you. I’m sure there are people you may or may not be mentioning love other people on this podcast. We’re going to talk about how you are great, solid coworker friend confidant for them. So thanks for doing that.
[00:49:40] Huy Nguyen: [00:49:40] Yeah. Yeah, of course.
[00:49:41]Marc Gonyea: [00:49:41] And also, I think the fact that you kind of have these at your eyes on this marketing side of the house and you think you can help the organization from your experience as an SDR is a great way to help the company.
[00:49:51] And that’s a great path for people who come to memory blue, that everybody needs to go into sales. A lot of people will, a lot of people do, and that’s how we kind of orient things, but there’s so much great experience you’re going to take and pass on.
[00:50:03] Huy Nguyen: [00:50:03] Yeah. Yeah. I think ultimately I want us to do what’s fun for me. What I think I need, the experience of, I do feel like I’ve been in sales for, almost two years now. And I’ve kind of got the gist of it, like I’ve been on several clients talk to multiple kinds of prospects. My journey it’s always about more so learning than gaining.
[00:50:22] So I don’t know much about marketing even though I’m a marketing major. So that’s one thing I wanted to focus on.
[00:50:28]Chris Corcoran: [00:50:28] Well, it’s going to be fun to watch that journey continue. Marc and I are going to have a ringside seat.
[00:50:32] Huy Nguyen: [00:50:32] Yeah, definitely
[00:50:33] Marc Gonyea: [00:50:33] Thanks for joining us, Huy. We appreciate it, man.
[00:50:35] Huy Nguyen: [00:50:35] Yeah, I appreciate it. Marc and Chris.
[00:50:37] Chris Corcoran: [00:50:37] Yeah. Thanks, Huy. Great catching up with ya.
[00:50:39] Huy Nguyen: [00:50:39] Appreciate it. Yeah. Hopefully I’ll see you guys soon as well.
[00:50:42] Marc Gonyea: [00:50:42] We’ll track you down and we’re down there next.
[00:50:44] Huy Nguyen: [00:50:44] Definitely. Yeah. I’ll have my own company by then.
[00:50:47] Marc Gonyea: [00:50:47] Hey, you can hire us to do some more SDR work for you.
[00:50:53]
[00:50:53] Huy Nguyen: [00:50:53] Well, I might not be able to afford you guys, but…
[00:50:55] Marc Gonyea: [00:50:55] Aw, come on, man. All right. Take it easy.
[00:50:59] Chris Corcoran: [00:50:59] Thanks, Huy!
[00:51:00] Huy Nguyen: [00:51:00] Appreciate it.