Episode 41: James Adeyanju – Tackling Tech Sales
While you’re reading this, James Adeyanju has his head down, outworking you. That’s an instinct you learn quickly as a major D1 college athlete – always stay one step ahead of the competition.
After playing on a scholarship at Big Ten football powerhouse Wisconsin and graduating, James left football behind and threw himself into the world of professional sales. With zero experience but 100% enthusiasm, he moved from the Midwest to Silicon Valley and launched his career at memoryBlue. James, now an Account Executive at Zoom, honed his skills and put maximum effort into always going the extra mile. His willingness to be coached, study his own sales game, and outwork the competition quickly created a range of career advancement opportunities.
On this episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers, learn how James applies his college football experience successfully to sales, why he embraces the significance of failure, and how he maintains a mindset oriented around learning and growth.
Guest-At-A-Glance
Name: James Adeyanju
What He Does: James is an Account Executive currently working at Zoom. From a collegiate football career and his love for technology, James has developed an extremely disciplined work ethic and a knack for sales. Now he helps people implement Zoom in their workspace and he is exceedingly good at it.
Company: Zoom
Noteworthy: James worked at various companies, from memoryBlue to Carbon to Zoom, where he is currently employed. His need for learning and growth makes him unstoppable, and he is always looking for new challenges he can face.
Exit Year from memoryBlue: 2016
Months at memoryBlue: 5
Alumni Path: Hired Out
Where to find James: LinkedIn
Key Insights
⚡ How football taught Jameson work ethics and helped him thrive at sales. “‘Cause it’s hard when you’re doing something, you know, you think you’re doing a good job. But when you kind of turn back the clock and you actually watch yourself in real time, you kind of get to see what you did and what you can improve on. It’s the same thing with sales. You know, a lot of times you’re on a call and you’re like, you know, that call didn’t go so bad and then you actually listen to it. You’re like, Oh man, this guy just told me that they use XYZ technology. Why didn’t I say that we can do the same thing for cheaper?” Realizing your mistakes and improving yourself is the key to be successful at anything at all. The first time James learned this was from his football coach and he did a great job implementing that knowledge in his sales career.
⚡ Understanding your customer “You know, talking to the customer, understanding kind of what they’re doing and just kind of digging for pain. That was one thing that I learned at memoryBlue. You’ll just ask one question and say, ‘Okay, sounds good. See you later.’ But there’s just so much more you can uncover.” James believes that if you want to sell something, the first thing you need to do is really understand your customer and scratch beneath the surface.
⚡ Every success story has its lows – how to thrive despite that? James has shared his life story, from football to sales career at different companies and they all have one thing in common – don’t neglect the significance of failure and always get the best out of it, by learning from it.
Episode Highlights
How James skyrocketed his career fresh out of college, with zero experience
“I’m going to get my bachelor’s degree and I’m not really sure what that next step is. I’m literally going to graduate in four months and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“I’m just going to take the same work ethic that I had in college and kind of just to see what happened.”
“So we knew we had to really step up our game to be on the sales team. ‘Cause we’re kind of the first barrier talking to customers. So, again, all things that we kinda learn from sports and kind of took that throughout every company.”
Trusting the process when it’s difficult – how to overcome obstacles?
“And the thing about the tech sales. There are times where it can be tough, not only from, you know, just kind of daily processes, like lead gen and reaching out, but also understanding your product and understanding the industry, learning about different aspects.”
Failure is inevitable at work – how to get the better of it?
“So that was definitely a tough loss just because, you know, when you kind of run everything the right way, and someone says, there’s not really many competitors, we’re just going to talk about it and go a different direction. It definitely hurts. So that was a tough one”
Don’t shut your eyes to learning and growth ever!
“They expect you to know how to combat objections, right? So all those things, memoryBlue pretty much teaches you. And if you really take that seriously and do the trainings and do the call recordings, and do all that stuff, you’re going to be put in a really good position”
“And then also when you get to a different company, make sure you stay there for a good amount of time, learn and build a foundation for yourself.” It’s important to look for new challenges, but don’t leave the company until you get the best out of it.
The importance of a great working relationship with colleagues
“You don’t have to like somebody you work with, but it’s always better when you like people you’re working with and we’re able to have that connection. ‘Cause inevitably, you’re going to want to work harder for somebody you like. That’s kind of just how it is. So you’re going to want to do well and make sure that you make them look good.” The biggest motivation is to do something you love, with people you appreciate – the great team can move mountains!
Transcript:
James Adeyanju: [00:00:00] When you get to a company, I would say don’t leave too early. Don’t just see another company that, ‘Oh, they’re just gonna pay me more money and I’ll just go over there.’ I think a lot of times people, they’ll just jump to different companies without ever having stayed there for a good amount of time.
[00:00:13] I think that can hurt you when you’re trying to go to other places. And they’re like, ‘Oh, this guy was at three other companies and he wasn’t even there for a year. He’s going to leave my company when he gets here’. So I think just having a company that you’ve worked for a good amount of time when you build the foundation. When you’ve gotten promoted, you’ve gotten raises, right? I think kind of doing that makes a lot more sense.
[00:01:00] Marc Gonyea: [00:01:00] Welcome, James Adeyanju to the podcast. James. Welcome here.
[00:01:05] James Adeyanju: [00:01:05] Marc, Chris thanks for having me, really appreciate it. Good to see you guys again. It’s been a while since we saw each other in San Jose, so nice to catch up on the same flight too.
[00:01:16] Chris Corcoran: [00:01:16] Yeah. Wasn’t that flight delayed on the airstrip because of a bomb threat at San Jose airport?
[00:01:21] James Adeyanju: [00:01:21] Yeah. You have a great memory, man. Yeah, it was. We were delayed on the tarmac for a little bit. And I think, I didn’t see you guys until you got to get your bags. And I was like, wait, is that Marc & Chris? And I finally saw you guys and you got that cool picture. I think it was, I was coming back from Chicago.
[00:01:34]Chris Corcoran: [00:01:34] Yeah. It was right after Christmas. Yeah. Right after New Year’s.
[00:01:38]James Adeyanju: [00:01:38] Yeah. Yep. Yep. Two years ago.
[00:01:38]Chris Corcoran: [00:01:38] That was crazy. Yeah. Well, the reason why I remember it is one is obviously, ’cause I saw you, but two I’m not a part of any bomb threats.
[00:01:44]James Adeyanju: [00:01:44] Same here. I was like, this is pretty scary. I hope it’s a hoax.
[00:01:49]Chris Corcoran: [00:01:49] One of the things that I really remember about that is I remember it being grounded on the runway. And we were flying Southwest. And while we were there, I got an email from Southwest giving to me, like 50 or a hundred bucks because of my troubles, They had no control over the bomb threat, but they still took care of us, which is why Southwest is a great company.
[00:02:06]James Adeyanju: [00:02:06] Yeah. Great, great customer service. I love it.
[00:02:08]Chris Corcoran: [00:02:08] For sure. So great seeing you again, James.
[00:02:11]James Adeyanju: [00:02:11] Yeah, definitely, man. Thank you, man. Before we start, just wanted to say thank you both for having me on the podcast and more importantly, thank you for founding memoryBlue. I know when I moved out to San Jose, I kinda got a better chance to kind of understand what founders go through and people above new companies. And I think you guys have done a great job and have given a great opportunity to a lot of people such as myself. So, thanks for that and looking forward to chatting more.
[00:02:31]Chris Corcoran: [00:02:31] Yeah. definitely. Let’s get into some of your background. Let’s talk about you growing up, you as an individual. Tell the listeners a little bit about your story from very early on, from an early age.
[00:02:40]James Adeyanju: [00:02:40 ] My story is probably not super unique, but I grew up on the south side of Chicago. I’m the youngest of four brothers and one sister. My parents came here in the seventies from Nigeria. So, you know, really really tight-knit family, tight knit community. We didn’t have a lot of cousins and things like that.
[00:02:53] So, everything we did was within our family. And really, education was a big part of everything we did, our parents really pushed that on us. So at a young age, school was always important to me. And I played basketball in high school.
[00:03:05] Marc Gonyea: [00:03:05] So, James, real quick. Are all of your siblings born here and your parents?
[00:03:16]James Adeyanju: [00:03:16] Yeah. So we were all born in Chicago. Parents came here in the seventies from Nigeria and kinda settled in Chicago. They knew some people here.
[00:03:18] Marc Gonyea: [00:03:18] Your parents are bad-asses, man.
[00:03:19]James Adeyanju: [00:03:19] Oh, thank you, man. I appreciate it.
[00:03:20]Marc Gonyea: [00:03:20] I mean, what I know about you, they did a great job with you. So my guess is they did an amazing job with your siblings. If they listen to this, tell them not to get too upset about me, not saying the last name as well as I should have, but like you did an amazing job for us. And I’m happy you’re here. So, go back to telling us about growing up in sports and the whole life, but I wanted to like, acknowledge that.
[00:03:36]James Adeyanju: [00:03:36] Thanks Mark. Yeah, so education was important. So I always took that seriously. In grade school I played soccer. It was kind of the first sport that I played, it was really easy and really accessible. Realized I wasn’t that good at it. So kind of stopped and then started to play basketball.
[00:03:48] It was more of a sport that can use, more athleticism. And it was again, wildly available in Chicago. And then actually in the eighth grade I started to play football. So the first time I played football. I’ve quit before the season at the end. It was tough.
[00:04:01] I’m not gonna lie. I wasn’t so good at hitting. But I’m glad I did it because it prepared me for high school. So when I went to high school, I was like, all right, I’m going to play football. I’m going to stick to it. I’m going to do my best this time. And things were pretty welcoming.
[00:04:12] My freshman year at Curie, ended up playing on all teams. So, we had a freshman team, a sophomore team, the varsity team. Actually, played on all three teams my freshman year. I ended up playing a little bit of RT as well. Then my sophomore year I played on varsity started and then kind of my junior and senior year started.
[00:04:25] And football was really a great kind of escape for me. You know, my brother played football. He played in the NFL and I got a chance get a couple of scholarship offers. My junior year, I actually made a highlight tape. Told my coach give me all the tapes. Cut it up in our video production studio, that was actually my major back in high school and then I sent it out on our rivals.com and some coaches saw it, started getting some visits. And then my first offer actually came from University of Toledo. So I was almost crying. I’m not going to lie. It was like, man, this is my first offer and I’m actually gonna get a chance to go to college. I don’t have to worry about paying for school. It was a crazy experience. And I was thinking about committing, until the following week I got my second offer from Illinois. Some coach big 10 offers for, I was like, sorry, coach. He’s like, ‘Hey man, don’t forget about us’, and I was like, ‘Nah, I got you, coach.’ Then I got little more offers where I was like, ‘Oh boy’. And then the following week I got an offer from Wisconsin and then they just kept piling in. After that, Stanford, Tennessee Vanderbilt VU Michigan state, Michigan kept kind of coming in. And it was the tough decision my brother had played at Indiana so that was definitely on the radar too. But I’m kind of looking for a school that had a combination of athletics, good academics coaching staff that would help me and prepare me not only for football, but you know, life after football and Wisconsin checked all the boxes, even though we had a lot of coaching changes, it checked all the boxes and really glad I got a chance to go to Wisconsin, be a Badger. Play out there, get my degree. So it was a really awesome experience for me.
[00:05:40]Chris Corcoran: [00:05:40] So, what did you learn most about playing football?
[00:05:42]James Adeyanju: [00:05:42] Oh man, definitely the work ethic. When I first started working in my professional career. I’m like, this is to be honest, like this is easy. I’m used to getting out of bed 5:30 in the morning, running while I’m about the puke and then, go to class, go to training table, eat, then have five more classes, then go watch two hours of film.
[00:05:59] They really just jampack your schedule in college. I mean, they make sure. Every single second you have, you’re either with a learning specialist or you’re with a tutor or you have practice or you’re at lifts. So just work ethic, honestly. And, that’s the truth. It made everything seem a little bit easier when you compare it in retrospect to what you currently did or what you previously did.
[00:06:16] He said, Oh man, if I can do that, I can pretty much do anything.
[00:06:19] Chris Corcoran: [00:06:19] So when you were going through college, what did you want to do post-college?
[00:06:22] James Adeyanju: [00:06:22] That’s a great question cause obviously anybody that plays D1 football kind of NFL is your, that’s what I’m gonna do that, that’s the plan. And so, when that didn’t happen really for me, I said, I know two things. I know that I like technology and I know that we’ll live in California.
[00:06:34] So for me, that kind of brought me to Silicon Valley. And as far as the career, I actually Googled what are some good careers for people? And Google was my best friend in college and saw this article, I think it was on sales or this or HubSpot. It was kinda talking about sales and what that career in sales and how it’s read about.
[00:06:49] And I was like, all right, you work with customers. You’re an expert in the product. All right. That seemed like something that I could do, or I actually like to do. I’m pretty personable. I like to talk. So, I gravitated towards sales. So, I thought that could be a pretty good career for me. And also, I was doing more research and found out that a lot of CEOs. Actually, their background is sales. Whether it would be a sales director of sales, they kind of send it to that level. And also, people that are in sales, marketing or product management, they also had a background in sales.
[00:07:13] So it seemed like a career that you could really jump around different areas. So I gravitated towards that.
[00:07:17] Chris Corcoran: [00:07:17] Okay. So, you’re at Wisconsin. You’re finishing up your degree. You have an interest in moving to California and working in technology and wanting to get into sales. How did you end up finding us or did we find you? What was the story there?
[00:07:30] James Adeyanju: [00:07:30] I found you guys. It was a crazy story. My last semester of Wisconsin, I literally had one class, finished my degree. So, I had so much free time. And for me, this was probably one of the hardest times in my life because I was really nervous. I was nervous about find that next step.
[00:07:42] So, from high school to college, I had, hey, you all these scholarships pick where you want to go in the country. Have at it. Now, this is the second part of my life where, okay. I’m going to get my bachelor’s degree and I’m not really sure what that next step is. I’m literally going to graduate in four months and I don’t know what I’m going to do.
[00:08:33] So the first kind of two months I was just procrastinating because I was so nervous. And one day in March, me and my roommate, we were talking, he’s like ‘Hey man, you gotta figure out what you’re gonna do, man.’ We would actually have arguments about that kind of going back and forth though.
[00:07:56] You got, what am I, who am I really good friends? But all that look one day I was all right. I’m just going to sit down, spend three days, look for jobs and see what I find. So, I’m on indeed.com and so I’m looking at jobs and I see this company called memoryBlue. It’s a big blue elephant. So it caught my attention and so kudos to the marketing team.
[00:08:21] So I see it. And I read the description. That’s all right. Tech sales is pretty cool. It seems like something I could do. But the thing that really gravitated me the most towards memoryBlue was the fact that I’d already started applying to a lot of jobs, whether it was Epic or Oracle. And the issue that I saw was, I’m a guy coming fresh out of college.
[00:08:35] I don’t really have much work experience, which is naturally speaking. And these companies want one to three years experience for entry level role as an SDR or BDR. And I’m like, I don’t have that. So, it was tough. But the thing I love about memoryBlue was the fact that it was more of a training ground for someone to come in and be an SDR and learn about the tools of trade kind of get better.
[00:08:53] They have the opportunity to work with established companies that are in or companies that have really cool products. And I said, this is awesome. I’ve been getting a front row seat. I’m bypassing, all the other stuff that comes when trying to work with a company.
[00:09:06] And I’m getting a front row seat with memoryBlue. So it seemed like a really good fit for me.
[00:09:10] Chris Corcoran: [00:09:10] So you saw the posting on indeed. And then did you apply and how’d that all worked?
[00:09:14] James Adeyanju: [00:09:14] Yeah. I saw it, I said, this is a good fit. I applied to it. I got an email back from one of the recruiters. We had a quick chat and then he connected me with Tiana Bell who was awesome. We had a lot of different discussions., we had a lot of different discussions., she kinda just prepared me for the role they’d give me it’s actually pretty funny.
[00:09:29] I actually didn’t know what the product was at memoryBlue. So she set me up for my first call with Mike Mishler and I had no idea what the product was. But not realizing in a sense that I was the product. So it was awesome. So yeah, I hooked that with Tiana, and she set me up with Mike and we chatted, did a couple of mock interviews and I liked what I saw and he liked what they saw from me and ended up getting an offer via email, via DocuSign, my first DocuSign ever signing.
[00:09:38] So was pretty cool. So I got it. And I was, I could see how happy I was. Cause it was just overweight lifted off my shoulders and it was great. I’m like, yep.
[00:09:58] Marc Gonyea: [00:09:58] Is this like a University of Wisconsin offer type feeling or not quite?
[00:10:03] James Adeyanju: [00:10:03] I have to say it’s probably a little bit better. I saw the money. And go from, getting a thousand bucks a month for my scholarship sense to, yeah. I’m making some real money now. So it had to be a little bit better.
[00:10:16] Chris Corcoran: [00:10:16] So James what, when was that? How close were you to graduation you signed on?
[00:10:20] James Adeyanju: [00:10:20] I was literally two months away from graduation and that’s why I was so nervous it was kind of just kind of, bang kind of thing so I was really just searching for things and again, memoryBlue does seem like the perfect fit.
[00:10:30] Chris Corcoran: [00:10:30] Great. So, you accepted, you finished up your degree and then you had to move to from Madison, Wisconsin to San Jose, California. How did you do that? Did you just find a random roommate or tell a little about your journey?
[00:10:41] James Adeyanju: [00:10:41] Yeah. The journey is pretty interesting. So, I knew I was going to have to make that switch over. Actually, what I did was Wisconsin would give a scholarship money to pay for our rent and everything. So, what I would do, I’ll actually save 90% of that money. And cause I was like, okay, I’m going to use it for my moves.
[00:10:54] So I saved up all that money. and pretty much I went home for a month. I said, all right, I’m gonna use this month to get myself situated. So I went on Craigslist. I was looking for roommates. Couldn’t find anybody. It just seemed like no one wants to live with me. I’m like, what’s wrong with me?
[00:11:05] But I’ll take initiatives so I went out to Craigslist, I caught a post I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m a young guy, fresh out of college, working. I’m meeting roommates. It’s expensive out here in Silicon Valley. That’s where I ended up getting two guys reached out to me via email.
[00:11:17] So we chatted as we did the whole Skype thing. Is before Zoom was a big thing, but the whole Skype thing, chatted and all that, all right, these guys seem pretty cool. So what we all decide to live together. So we had one guy designated as the guy who was going to set up the apartments.
[00:11:32] And so I actually wired him to see a security deposit and I’m like, I just met this guy. Was that a good idea? So I’m like, come on, blow this fella. Hey man, where are you at? But. Luckily, we got everything else situated. We got the lease time and I ended up living with Brad and James they’re.
[00:11:44] They’re pretty cool guys Brad was the engineer. James worked at he worked in marketing, so we lived together right. Downtown San Jose. and yeah, so when I left Chicago, my dad basically dropped me off at the airport, good luck son hopped on myself as flight and man flew to California.
[00:11:56] It was a weird feeling indeed. It was kinda just like, man, I’m setting up on this new journey. I’m not sure what I’m going to find. I’m not sure how it’s going to work at memoryBlue, but. I’m just going to take the same work ethic that I had in college and kind of just to see what happened. Worst case scenario, I get fired, I’ll just go back home. That was kinda my thought process. Just kind of went out there and that was it,
[00:12:15] Chris Corcoran: [00:12:15] So you went out there with essentially like the clothes on your back and a suitcase, no car?
[00:12:19] James Adeyanju: [00:12:19] Man, no car, nothing just a suitcase. And then actually I didn’t have a car. So my brother actually gave me the 2001 Dodge ram.
[00:12:27] He fixed it up. In fact, he put a bunch of bunch of stuff in the trunk I paid him to have them shipped for me weeks later. So the first two weeks I had no car. So I was kind of walking around downtown San Jose , going to Target. Getting groceries and stuff like that. It was a super looking back. It was such a fun experience. It’s just new when you just kind of grind in and, it was great.
[00:12:46] Marc Gonyea: [00:12:46] You said that you knew you wanted to go into sales, so that’s something clicked. And then you mentioned, you didn’t say why you said you knew you want to move to California. You’re from Chicago, right? You didn’t know anybody, obviously at first in your story, you didn’t know anybody in the Bay. W hat attracted you to California?
[00:13:00] James Adeyanju: [00:13:00] The funny story is, so my freshman and sophomore year, I was constant we actually won two Rose Bowls. We played Oregon and Stanford, my second year. And just getting a chance to be in California. I said, man, this is a great state. The weather is awesome. It’s not like Chicago where you only have three months of sunshine.
[00:13:15] And I actually wasn’t even thinking about Silicon Valley. I love technology. I love everything about technology. I wasn’t even thinking about Silicon Valley is the perfect place for me. It was the fact that I found memoryBlue, which kind of had the perfect job description for me. And it just so happened that the company was in San Jose.
[00:13:28] Marc Gonyea: [00:13:28] Yeah, Chris and I tell people all the time, if gonna play in the big leagues, in high-tech, you need to move to the Bay. With COVID, people are leaving and most of this, it’s not like we’re not, that’s kinda like the Johnny-come-lately is I think in some ways.
[00:13:40] The fact that you went out there and you perfectly positioned yourself. there’s no better place to be. And fortunately it worked for us, but good for people to hear cause other people like you who are graduating school, who maybe want to get in sales I said, move to the Bay, do James.
[00:13:52]James Adeyanju: [00:13:52] Honestly, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do it. I’ve had friends that they graduated and they went back home and there’s nothing wrong with that. But, for me, I just thought there was so much opportunity here. And again, being a guy that loves tech, I just looked at all the companies I’m like, all right.
[00:14:06] Let’s see Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram. These are all softwares that I use every day in my, in my own life? All these companies were founded in Silicon Valley. that’s pretty interesting, I wonder what’s going on over there. So that’s my thought process and, like I said I had moved to Wisconsin, so it wasn’t a big deal for me to move across the country to Silicon Valley.
[00:14:22] And again, for the great thing, my memoryBlue is that it was almost like college, right. Everyone was sort of in that same situation where. They don’t really, they may not live in San Jose. Maybe you come from the East coast or from somewhere in California. And it just trying their hand at tech sales and seeing what they can learn from the company and how they can get better.
[00:14:39] Chris Corcoran: [00:14:39] Talk to us a little bit about. Getting started your day, first day and your initial impressions and what you thought it was going to be, and then what it ended up turning it up to out to be
[00:14:46] James Adeyanju: [00:14:46] Yeah. again, every time you have a new opportunity, you are all asked to make a great first impression. I had all my nice little college shirt, my tie sort of briefcase. So I go up to the office and luckily my apartment wasonly like a block from the office, so it’s perfect. So I go up there and I see everybody and didn’t know what to expect.
[00:15:01] Everyone was super nice. met Mike and everybody hanging out and on their computers, cold-calling as if you were playing pool, on a ping pong table. So it was a super cool experience. And had actually, before I actually went out there, I actually messaged Timmy. you guys know Timmy Niweigha. Yep. one of my really good friends. And before I moved out there, actually, after I got the offer, I remember I probably should have mentioned this, after I got the offer, I reached out to Tim. I was like, ‘Hey man, how’s the job. How’s California?’, and he just gave me the rundown and he’s ‘Look, man, if you work hard, man, you’ll be good.
[00:15:29] It’s just like football.’ And me and him connected because he’s also Nigerian and he played football. So we got to build a really cool bond together. But yeah, he was definitely one of my mentors when I went out there, I was in the opposite with the shades on and stuff, but yeah everybody was super cool.
[00:15:41] Everyone was super cool. And my first impression was, this is, I couldn’t have asked for, for perfect first job. I just feel like everyone’s on my same level. I wasn’t intimidated. Everyone was super helpful in trying to get me up to speed. and I just feel like I was at home. It felt like we had this kind of if we were a team, all the happy hours All that stuff, I’ve missed so much once I actually left memoryBlue I didn’t realize that wasn’t a norm. Like people don’t do this many happy hours, I didn’t realize that until I left memoryBlue, but you guys are, it was a good first couple of days.
[00:16:05] Chris Corcoran: [00:16:05] So, during your first couple of days, I remember approaching you and asked you to show me your swim move.
[00:16:14] James Adeyanju: [00:16:14] I remember that. I remember that you asked me to do that while I had a super tight dress shirt, but from an express, I slept first I gotta do a good job here.
[00:16:25] Chris Corcoran: [00:16:25] I know I was just joking with you when I asked you to do that. But one of my memories involves you and Timi. You were first getting started and it was lunchtime and the whole office gets up and they’re getting ready to go to lunch. And then as soon as that happens, Timi walks over to your desk and was like, James, now’s the time that you and I go to work. And I was like, oh man, I love it. Timi is teaching James the right way.
[00:16:46] James Adeyanju: [00:16:46] Yeah, exactly. And again, that kind of goes back to that kind of football mentality. Even if they didn’t give us a leg up, it’s just like mentally, that you’re putting in work while other people are taking a lunch break and none of them were taking a lunch break, but that some people they do know that they put in more work. And that was kinda my mentality. And you, I mean to me, had the same thought process, you work while everyone else kind of just hanging out and, doing whatever they want to do during lunch. We’re going to have to reach out to more people and we’re going to just better ourselves. And that’s the thought process I had going into memoryBlue. And I took that in every company that I’ve been at.
[00:17:19] Chris Corcoran: [00:17:19] l I got to think, if you’re a division one athlete at a Big 10 school, there’s a lot of people that want your position. A lot of people coming for you. So you gotta fight, claw and scrap for everything.
[00:17:30] James Adeyanju: [00:17:30] Yeah. And the problem is it’s not just one day, right? You can just work hard one day and think, all right, I’m good. It’s constantly, you got to work out every day. Someone’s always coming for you. Someone’s always trying to try to take your spot if there’s new people coming and trying to take your spot. So it was a never ending cycle. And so you just embedded in your head to say, this is just who I am. I’m just gonna work hard and that’s it, so that’s the thought process that we had.
[00:17:51] Chris Corcoran: [00:17:51] Yeah. I know for sure. And you did a great job of taking that mentality that you developed over years in football and you just applied it into high-tech sales.
[00:18:01] James Adeyanju: [00:18:01] Yeah, definitely. And the thing about tech sales, there are times where it can be tough, not only from, just daily processes and reaching out, but also understanding your product and understanding the industry, learning about different aspects.
[00:18:14] And those are all things that take time. Actually me, me and Connor Spiegelman were actually assigned at Carbon when we first started at memoryBlue and got ourselves my buddy. And actually what we did is one day he drove down from Burlingame and we actually spent two hours just learning about 3 pDrinting, learning about mechanical engineering, learning about, material science, just two hours on a Saturday, just learning about it so that we came back to work and we were on the phones.
[00:18:35] We actually knew what we were talking about. We could actually have another conversations. ‘Cause it was really intimidating going to Carbon as my first client of memoryBlue. I went there and I was going to work with people who had PhDs in computer science, mechanical engineering. It was really intimidating.
[00:18:50] So we knew we had to really step up our game to be on the sales team. Cause we’re the first barrier talking to customers. again, all things that, we kinda learn from sports and took that throughout every company.
[00:18:59] Marc Gonyea: [00:18:59] Corcoran asked you about your swim move? Wait I’m interested in that, but I’m more interested in what was your move, when you developed the game, you didn’t have any sales experience before, right? What did you develop, you started to develop at memoryBlue what you couldn’t develop on the phone? Like your style your technique, what were you good at?
[00:19:13] James Adeyanju: [00:19:13] I think I was good at just being nice. Talking to the customer, understanding kind of what they’re doing and just digging for pain. That was one thing that I learned at memoryBlue. You’ll just ask one question and say, ‘Okay, sounds good. See you later.’, There’s just so much more you can uncover and you think about prospects there, they’re like a, like an orange, but you gotta kinda have to keep peeling back, peeling back, learning more. And that’s one thing that I learned at memoryBlue, just sitting down. And it was always torture on Fridays, listening to our calls, but it helps so much because you realize that you can ask and it’s so much more that you can uncover.
[00:19:42] And we think of the process. They’re not just going to tell you that, not going to put out everything like, Oh yeah, this is what we’re doing with it. You’re going to be reserved for the most part. So you really have to understand how to speak on their level and how to get them comfortable.
[00:19:51] So I think that was one thing that I learned that a memoryBlue that kind of took throughout my career.
[00:19:55] Chris Corcoran: [00:19:55] Hey, James. So how similar or how different was it watching game film for football versus listening to calls?
[00:20:03] James Adeyanju: [00:20:03] Oh, man. To be honest, it’s really similar and it, and I’ll tell you why, when you’re sitting in and watching film and you have a rep coming up, if the rep was bad, you’re like really embarrassed cause you’ve got a coach who’s going to call you out and you’re like, ‘Oh, please skip it or please have another meeting coming up.
[00:20:16] And it was the same thing, listening to calls and practicing. It was like, if you had a terrible call where you got hung up on or where the guy was like, ‘That’s not. I’m not the right guy.” Is there anything crazy like that? You’re like, Oh my God, she was sitting your heart to beat me, please, then you go through it trained and it’s not the end of the world and you take that knowledge and you get better and use it for the next call. Right. That’s those kinds of just like you climb, there’s climbing a mountain, you’re getting better and better over time when you do that.
[00:20:41] So that’s a great analogy. Chris is just really similar. Actually. I didn’t think about that.
[00:20:44] Chris Corcoran: [00:20:44] So in watching the game film for football, how did that make you better? I mean, it seems like everyone does it, so it obviously works, but what would you learn by dissecting game film?
[00:20:53] James Adeyanju: [00:20:53] So if you’re watching another team, you will learn their tendencies. So you can know, ‘Hey, I know what this guy’s like on his hand, he’s probably gonna be, as rushing or pass blocking, if he’s heavy, probably going to be run blocking.’ You get to see, you also get to watch yourself and you get to see that was a terrible step I took.
[00:21:05] I should probably take a better step or I didn’t come out of my stance really good, it looked lazy. I should put some more power under, in my legs. So it just little things like that. Cause it’s hard when you’re doing something, you think you’re doing a good job, but when you turn back the clock and you actually watch yourself in real time, you get to see what you did and what you can improve on. It’s the same thing with sales, a lot of times you’re on a call and you’re like, ‘No, that call didn’t go so bad.’ And you actually listened to it, you’re like, ‘Oh man, this guy just told me that they use XYZ technology. Why didn’t I say that we can do the same thing for cheaper?’ You know what I mean? Just kind of things like that.
[00:21:35] Marc Gonyea: [00:21:35] Hey, James, besides yourself and Timmy, who else has some mad game when you were in memoryBlue?
[00:21:41] James Adeyanju: [00:21:41]Let’s see. You know what, man, Joe Reeves was good, man. Joseph Reeves, I could sit right next to him. I sat right next to Joe man. Joe was like, he came in like, Wolf of Wall Street, man. It’s just he’s a hunter man. I used to listen to his calls. And I was like okay. I take little tidbits, the things that he did, but yeah, Joe really surprised me.
[00:21:56] I’m not sure how much sales experience he had before he came there, but he seemed like he had been an SDR four or five years. So, he was a really good guy to listen to. Connor’s really good. I know I talked about Connor. He’s really, Connor’s more on the analytical side, but he’s really good sales guy. Really good at what he does. Who else? I’m trying to think. Jeff was good, Jeffrey Sean.
[00:22:17] Yeah, Timi man, Timi had his own style, but Timi was very effective. I don’t know how he did it, but he did it for some reason. I don’t know how he did it, but he got there, man.
[00:22:25] Chris Corcoran: [00:22:25] So James, talk to us a little bit about, so you’re on this client, Carbon, how long were you with them? and so they tapped you on the shoulder and said, come in and be part of our team.
[00:22:33] James Adeyanju: [00:22:33] Yeah, it was actually amazing. So, I got the order from a Mike Mishler. ‘Hey, this is your client Carbon, so research them, see what they do.’ And I went on a website. I was like,’ Oh man, this is amazing. This company is super cool.’ And the reason why I thought it was so cool was because most clients at Carbon we’re software based and Carbon was the only like, engineering hardware software. It was a super cool company. So, I was very excited to work with them. And I’m really excited that memoryBlue has had the chance to have win them as a client. And so, I got there and literally I was with Carbon for three months. And I remember it was October 3rd, was my first day at Carbon.
[00:23:03] So I got hired out and it was a great feeling. Paul Dolores, who was the VP of sales at Carbon. He brought me to a conference room. He said, ‘Did a great job, James, we want to bring you on full time.’ I thought I was getting fired, I was nervous, I thought I was getting let go from the contract.
[00:23:17] I was like, ‘Man, what did I do?’ I was like, ‘Oh, well.’ And so, he had brought me to the room and he’s like ‘Done a great job and now we have offer for you, Carbon wants to be part of the team’ And again, man, it was just a man, it was just a feeling of just this joy. I was like, man, I come to client California. I’m not really sure what I was going to find.
[00:23:31] I come to memoryBlue, I get all this training, go to Carbon. And three months later I have a full-time role and I’m making good money, that health insurance everything’s good. And my parents were worried about me. I’m like I’m doing good. I’m doing really good. And I’m grateful for the opportunity.
[00:23:44] Chris Corcoran: [00:23:44] So after three months you get picked up by your client.
[00:23:46] James Adeyanju: [00:22:46] Three months. And I just put in the work man. The one thing I remember was, I was always the first guy in the office and you guys might think I’m lying, but I woke up at 5:00 AM every day, took the 101 down to Carbon they’re based in Redwood City, it’s about a 20-mile drive.
[00:23:59] And I was literally the first one in the office. Me and Connor were usually one and two. When we come in there and we just start cold calling. They were, they had just got out of self-mode. So, they had a bunch of leads that were calling on. We started building on out our strategy for doing more outbound, outbound stuff.
[00:24:12] So yeah, it was the grind, man. Who’s getting up at 5:00 AM, driving down before, still dark outside? And, yeah, I think they saw that from me and Connor. I think that’s also one thing that, that they liked from us, that work ethic and, first guy’s in if we were the last ones out, that will be crazy, but we were the first guys there.
[00:24:27] We were the first guys. Yeah. That’s pretty good.
[00:25:34]Chris Corcoran: [00:25:34] And so talk to us about what your time at Carbon, the roles that you had, the progression that you made.
[00:25:38] James Adeyanju: [00:25:38] Yeah, definitely. So again, they hired me as a first sales development rep at Carbon, so great to be that. At Carbon, it was awesome. Again, I held a couple of different roles. I started out at SDR. I did that for about two years. So basically, typical cold calling, reaching out to inbound leads, building out contact lists, target accounts, doing all those things, working with marketing and a great thing about a startup is that, the Carbon was a startup, they were only about 180 employees when I got there, but they really allow you to make the role what you wanted. It wasn’t like, you’re going to an Oracle where ‘Hey, do this and that’s it, we’ve got, we’ve got other people for everything else.’
At Carbon, I was doing so many different things for I was doing sales ops stuff and I was doing a little bit of marketing and making my own campaign. And it was just awesome to learn all that stuff. And know that you have the capability to do it if you’re asked of it.
[00:26:23] So that was awesome. So first two years SDR. The last part of me being an SDR, they actually gave Connor and I closing roles. So we were closing universities. So any universities or higher education institutions that want to get a 3D printer, we’ve worked with them. And so that was another kind of bonus they gave us because we had been doing well.
[00:26:39] And so after my two years there, I was trying to figure out what’s next. I spend a lot of time there as the SDR and was successful. So I talked to Phil DeSimone, who was our VP of Biz Dev at the time. Chat away and must have said ‘Hey, I’m looking for the next role. I’m really excited about what’s next for me.’
[00:26:52] And he said, ‘All right, give me some time. We’ll find something for you.’ And it was that we had one conversation and the next day I got converted to an Account Manager on our team, so directly working with customers. So now actually working with our current customers, helping them use our technology to the fullest extent, making sure that they’re successful, going out there, visiting them, things like that.
[00:27:09] So it was an awesome role for me to have more of that customer facing experience and managing the renewals and things like that. So that was really great opportunity for me. and I did account management for about a year at Carbon. And after that got promoted again to a Sales Director for the West Coast.
[00:27:25] So basically, I’ve had a territory. It was California, Oregon and working with net new customers there to bring in Carbon technology and find basically find good companies that could really leverage our technology. And so did that for a couple months. And to be honest with you guys at that point, it was coming to four years at Carbon and I really love the company.
[00:27:42] I met some great people there, awesome friends, my manager Viren who was a great guy. Danny was my other manager. So again, met a lot of great people there. But I’ll try to think about all right what’s my next role?’, most of those people, they don’t stay at companies for five, ten years, you’ll be kinda like what’s the next role for them? And I didn’t want to leave, but I had torn feelings out there. And the great thing about memoryBlue is that again, you build a lot of connections. And so Justin Henry, who I worked with me and him will chat every quarter, Justin Henry.
[00:28:11] We would chat like every quarter and I’d be like, ‘Hey man, you’re at Zoom. How’s it going?’ He’s like, ‘It’s great, man. I love it.’ Okay, cool. Next quarter comes. ‘Hey man. How’s Zoom?’, ‘Great man. I love it.’,’All right. That’s working on payment?’, ‘How’s Zoom?, ‘Great, man. It’s awesome.’ I was like, ‘Wow, all right. It seems like a pretty cool place to be, man. So, we just chat and it was around January. He was like, ‘Hey man, they’re actually looking for new Account Executives. So, if you want, I can throw in your resume.’ And I’m like, ‘All right, I’m not really actively looking, but what the heck, lets throw it in there.’
[00:28:37] So I emailed it to him back in January. And I didn’t hear back from him until let’s see here, didn’t hear back from him until May. So May, I get an email from Zoom when the hiring managers reach out to me? So have a conversation. Everything was good. And I had a conversation with my current manager at Zoom, Marty and his manager, Mike Hakes.
[00:28:51] And so we’re chatting to tell me about the company. They’re telling me the differences in the hardware world where I’m coming from to the software world, kind of enterprise communications and video collaboration and all the different things that Zoom does that said, this is pretty cool.
[00:29:02] I said, I think this is something that I would love to do. And I think this is the next step for me, because one thing I actually wanted to do was look at a software world see how that differ from what I was doing at Carbon, in the hardware world. So manufacturing, less companies not everyone needs 3d printer.
[00:29:15] Everyone needs a software in the most part. Every company uses it. So, I thought it was just interesting how the markets were different. And so, I ended up getting an offer from Zoom and was super excited and accepted that. And it was tough leaving Carbon.
[00:29:27] They were a great company. They’re a unicorn company right now. I think they’re worth like 2 billion. So they’re going to do really well. Yeah. But that’s what I’m saying is like just the opportunity to work at Carbon, outta college. I wouldn’t have got that experience if I didn’t go to memoryBlue.
[00:29:40] I couldn’t just graduate from Wisconsin. Hey, I want to go to Carbon. They would have wanted somebody who had some sort of training and that’s the training that I got at memoryBlue. So, it was awesome to see everything come full circle, how one place led to another thing led to another opportunity, so on.
[00:29:54] Chris Corcoran: [00:29:54] So tell the listeners what you’re doing for Zoom.
[00:29:56] James Adeyanju: [00:29:56] Yeah, definitely. I’m an Account Executive at Zoom. So focus I work with our customers in Canada who are interested in leveraging other video collaboration software that we’re using right now, or looking at how they can have a better phone service or webinars or things like that. So, anything that’s communications related. I work with them to develop a plan and figure out what technologies worked for them.
[00:30:15]Chris Corcoran: [00:30:15] And what’s your patch and your focus?
[00:30:16] James Adeyanju: [00:30:16] So I’m focused on Canada, so I have the whole country of Canada and I’m working in our small and medium business unit. So basically any companies that are 11 to 250 employees, and there are other companies that I work with. The cool thing about that as you know, SMB, it’s usually pretty fast, really fast deal cycles. Usually, CEO or somebody, or usually somebody on the magnet board they usually sign really quickly. So, it’s a really fast sales cycle. So, it’s just one after the other.
[00:30:42] Marc Gonyea: [00:30:42] What muscle are you developing in this role that you hadn’t developed before in your previous opportunities, positions, I guess you have in Carbon?
[00:30:51] James Adeyanju: [00:30:51] Great question, Mark. I would say negotiating and sort of price discussions. At Carbon, there was no kind of negotiating on price. It was this is what we have, and this is it, which makes sense ’cause it’s hardware. If there’s cost to make that thing and you gotta make sure that kind of the revenue was structured in a certain way.
[00:31:07] The cool thing about Zoom is you have the opportunity to come in and work with customers and figure out what, what works for them. So negotiating and figuring out or you can do this package. ‘I think this fits within your fiscal year budget. Let’s make it work for you.’ So there’s more flexibility in an aspect within that. I think that’s probably generally speaking for the software world.
[00:31:23] Marc Gonyea: [00:31:23] Especially in kind of your day in that, we know what the day in life is like in a memoryBlue. You talked a little bit about at Carbon, what’s a day in the life like now for you?
[00:31:29] James Adeyanju: [00:31:29] Yeah. A day in life at Zoom, so well during COVID it’s a little bit different. So I get up in the shower, brush my teeth, do all that stuff. Then I hop on my computer. The first thing I do is I look at any customer that I’ve purchased new Zoom software, whether that’s online or things like that and I reach out to them to see if they need any help or, ‘Hey, you guys bought one license. You gotta be at a bigger deployment.’ ‘Cause a lot of times people will buy one license, but in actuality they probably need 10 to 15, but they kinda just bought one for themselves so even though there are companies. So I do that, reach out to any inbound leads and then do some outbound prospecting to look at any of the accounts that are in my name that are, pretty big companies, like 250 employees that could potentially utilize Zoom services, but they aren’t utilizing it to their full capability and reaching out to them and figuring out, ‘Hey, what do you do for your phone system?
[00:32:14] That’s pretty outdated. We can probably help you out save some money.’ So things like that. Cool thing about Zoom. We don’t really have a lot of meetings, which is awesome. I think they know that we’re doing things on a consistent basis, helping our customers and doing things like that.
[00:32:25] So they just let you do your thing and we don’t have a lot of team meetings or things like that, which is pretty cool.
[00:32:31] Marc Gonyea: [00:32:31] Knowing kinda what you know now, what would you have told yourself, like, back in your memoryBlue days about the Zoom job what would you have told yourself to maybe focus more on that or be aware? What advice would you have for the current day SDR being you back in memoryBlue?
[00:32:44] James Adeyanju: [00:32:44] If they’re already a memoryBlue, that’s the first step there. They’re in a great position. I would say, coding my memoryBlue is that you get a chance to work with a lot of different companies. And I think one of the hindrances I had was I had never really worked for a software company so that kind of worked against me. So, I would encourage people, if you get a chance to work with memoryBlue, work with a lot of different companies, like you have a client, but you also have the opportunity to work with other clients do PBMs And things like that. So work with those, take those seriously. Learn their technology. And make sure you’re multifaceted. So that’s probably the biggest thing that I would say.
[00:33:14] Chris Corcoran: [00:33:14] So James, you’ve been a closer now and you’ve closed some deals. What’s your most memorable deal? Win or lose.
[00:33:20] James Adeyanju: [00:33:20] It’s gotta be the first one. The first one’s always the most memorable. So my first deal I closed was actually at Carbon. It was well the university. So I have been working with them for a couple months. It was close to the end of the quarter. So, I worked with my contact over there and they were interested in getting a printer side.
[00:33:35] I worked with them, got the whole contract signed, went through legal, had some red lines, went back and forth and mind you, this is the first time I’m doing this so it’s kind of like this is like amazing to me. And the most memorable part was that we got the PO right before the quarter close.
[00:33:49] So it was actually New Year’s Eve, when I got the PO I was actually in downtown Chicago hanging out. So I got the email. I looked at it, I was like, “Oh my gosh” I thought a PO it was just so excited. I had never seen him with money before either. I was like, man, this is crazy.
[00:34:03] So yeah, I see the PO and I just email it to our head of sales ops. I’m like, boom, here you go, man. Here you go. And it was a great feeling. It was an awesome feeling. And that was definitely my most memorable deal.
[00:34:13] Chris Corcoran: [00:34:13] Roughly, how big a deal was it? Number one.
[00:34:15] James Adeyanju: [00:34:15] The deal was about $160,000.
[00:34:18] Chris Corcoran: [00:34:18] 160k, that’s huge. And then number two, did you break out the sack dance?
[00:34:25] James Adeyanju: [00:34:25] No, I didn’t break out the sack dance there. I did some kind of dance. I don’t know what it was though, but I did. I didn’t break out the sack dance.
[00:34:33] Marc Gonyea: [00:34:33] Swing the other way. Tell us about, like a painful loss, your most memorable loss, the one that maybe got away.
[00:34:39] James Adeyanju: [00:34:39] You know what? That was actually pretty recent. I was working as a team, actually of working with a company. They were interested in leveraging some of our technologies. Unfortunately, we lost to a competitor. They didn’t say who that competitor was. Not really sure why we lost the deal either because during the proof of concept, they said, yeah, it was pretty much, you guys are the one.
[00:34:57] I don’t see anybody else coming in. And it kinda out of nowhere, he said, ‘Hey, thanks for the demo and everything, but we’re going to go a different direction.’ So that was definitely a tough loss just because, when you run everything the right way, and someone says, there’s not really many competitors, we’re just going to talk about it and go a different direction. It definitely hurts. So, that was a tough one.
[00:35:14] James Adeyanju: [00:35:14] I think on that particular customer, I think I learned to put more emphasis in the PLC, so really understanding I know you may not want to tell me who else you’re looking at as a competitor, but what are you looking for in a technology, right? What are you looking for in video collaboration?
[00:35:30] What are you looking for in a phone system? And I’m also getting a better sense of, what their budget looks like. I mean, the pricing is always up there on the website, but I think sometimes when people see the actual quote, they say, Oh, well, that’s not in the budget. Right? So kind of understanding having those pricing discussions really early on. It’s very helpful, cause you can save a lot of time. It’s kind of by asking those questions. And so, at that point, they’re really, everyone’s kind of aligned on the same direction. Right?
[00:35:53] Chris Corcoran: [00:35:53] Hey James. So looking back, what do you think is the biggest mistake your former memoryBlue coworkers make either while they’re at memoryBlue or after they leave?
[00:36:03] James Adeyanju: [00:36:03] I would say while people were at memoryBlue, I would say the biggest mistake that I may have noticed just not taking the training seriously. I think we’re all there for review and the training there is super valuable. Because you can then take that. Cause what people understand when you get hired out to a separate company, they’re not really going to want to train you. Not because they don’t want to, it’s because they may not have the infrastructure to do that. A lot of companies, they expect you to kind of already know certain things. They expect you to know how to use the CRM, they expect you to know how to speak to customers, they expect you to know how to structure deals, they expect you to kind of know these things. They expect you to know how to combat objections, right? So all those things, memoryBlue pretty much teaches you.
And, if you really take that seriously and do the trainings and do the call recordings and do all that stuff, you’re going to be put in a really good position. So I think that’s kind of the biggest thing that I would say, just taking everything that we do seriously and not just not skipping any steps. I say after memoryBlue, that’s a tough one.
When you get to a company, I would say don’t leave too early. Don’t just see another company that, ‘Oh, they’re just gonna pay me more money and they’ll just go over there’. I think a lot of times people they’ll just jump to different companies without ever having stayed there for a good amount of time. I think that can hurt you when you’re trying to go to other places. And they’re like, ‘Oh, this guy was at three other companies and he wasn’t even there for a year. He’s going to leave my company when he gets here’.
So I think just having a company that you’ve worked for a good amount of time when you build the foundation we’ve got, you’ve gotten promoted, you’ve gotten raises right? I think doing that makes a lot more sense. Cause I’ve had opportunities to leave Carbon when I was there to go to other companies. So, I was like, no, Carbon is a good company. We have a lot of good things going for them. Why not just stay here, see how I can see where that leads me instead of kind of jumping somewhere else, having to start all over again, you may get paid an extra 10 K, but was it really worth it? Was it really worth all the hassle? So that’s kinda my biggest, take the training seriously when you’re at memoryBlue.
And then also when you get to a different company, make sure you stay there for a good amount of time, learn and build a foundation for yourself.
[00:37:57] Chris Corcoran: [00:37:57] Hey, James. That’s some wisdom right there. And who do you go to for advice and mentorship?
[00:38:02] James Adeyanju: [00:38:02] Great question. Advice and mentorship. I talk to my brother a lot. He actually works at Microsoft. He’s a database engineer there, so he seems a super smart guy helping him a lot. I could talk to my old manager at Carbon, Veron, he was a head of our sales ops team. So, I talked to him a lot. He was a great manager there and gave me a lot of advice, not only on just life in general, but just like in your career, how to make sure you’re always advancing yourself. I actually talked to Ian a lot. My former roommate at memoryBlue. He’s actually a recruiter. So he gives me a lot of insights on stuff and he’s actually were people that told me it looks really good when you stay somewhere for a long time. And so I just jumping in different places. So, he’s actually one of people that kinda say, ‘Hey man, you probably just stay at one place for a good amount of time. And not kind of jump around to other companies.’
[00:38:42] Marc Gonyea: [00:36:42] That’s so important. Especially where you are. The fractions are plentiful. That’s that might be the downside of it. I know it was all excited in the beginning. The talk about upside of California with a downside, be like shiny objects all over the place.
[00:38:56] James Adeyanju: [00:38:56] Yeah. If it’s hard to get loyalty.
[00:38:59] Marc Gonyea: [00:38:59] What’s important for you in a sales manager, what’s important? What do you think someone should look for? If someone’s interviewing for a job and the complex grade to technology, that’s pretty good, a lot of times it comes down to who you’re working for. What are some of the things you look for in a manager?
[00:39:11] James Adeyanju: [00:39:11] Oh man. That’s a really good question. Some things I look for is as this person done my role before, so do they know where I’m coming from, at Zoom, my current managers, Marty. He’s awesome. I can bring him anytime I have a question, anytime I need help with a customer that has a question that I may not be able to answer. I literally just called him to the meeting and he can answer everything for me cause he’s done it before. He’s been in that same position. So, someone that has done it before, someone that you can kind of connect with on a friend level.
I think it’s, obviously you’re working. Yeah. You don’t have to like somebody you work with, but it’s always better when you like people you’re working with and we’re able to have that connection. ‘Cause inevitably, you’re going to want to work harder for somebody you like. That’s just how it is, so you’re going to want to do well and make sure that you make them look good. And just somebody who you can learn from, obviously when you go to a company, you obviously want to give your services, but on the back end you want to learn too, right. And there’s a lot of ways that you can learn. And that’s how you become a better employee. You become better at your job by learning from other people. So I think, those are important aspects in a manager.
[00:40:09] Marc Gonyea: [00:40:09] And now that you’re in this role, so you’re closing deals, you’re hunting for deals. You kind of transferred into the software side of the house. What else do you do to keep your skills sharp?
[00:40:18] James Adeyanju: [00:40:18] One thing I do to keep my skills sharp. We have this tool called Chorus at Zoom, and basically it records kind of everyone’s conversations that they have. So, I can literally type in any rep at Zoom. I can look at their calls. So, I do that just to kind of understand what they’re seeing. Maybe there’s a question that I may get. As I kind of listen to that and kind of listen to everyone’s style, everyone has a different style. So kind of seeing how they do things. And that’s probably one of the main things I do also just reading up on our product. Zoom has a lot of different solutions and the website’s kind of your best friends. It’s going to the support page, reading up on new releases, reading up on previous releases that we’ve made in the past. So that’s one of the things I do as well.
[00:40:55] Chris Corcoran: [00:40:55] You’re curious, where does all this curiosity come from?
[00:40:58] James Adeyanju: [00:40:58] Man just, kinda from football, man. When you’re coming in as a freshman, there’s a lot of new things and you gotta have questions. Closed mouth never gets fed.
So, if you’re sitting there and you’re acting like, ‘Oh, I know everything. I’m good.’ That’s, those are the people that get hurt. I’ll tell you what, Chris, to be honest, my freshman year, I was one of those guys, like we’d be in meetings and, I wouldn’t ask questions cause I was just like, ‘Oh, I want them to think that I know what the heck I’m doing.’
I kind of sit there and just yeah, I know how to do it. But then, I get on the field and we’re doing team drills and I’m like, ‘Oh shoot. I forgot that. I forgot that place. I didn’t step correctly. And coach went over that.’ So, I learned from that mistake my freshman year. And I just want to ask questions to just learn and be a sponge. Cause the more questions you ask, the more you’ll learn.
[00:41:37] Chris Corcoran: [00:41:37] And you’ve certainly applied that to your professional sales career.
[00:41:39] James Adeyanju: [00:41:39] Definitely. Yep.
[00:41:41] Marc Gonyea: [00:41:41] James, as we come close to wrapping this thing up, what’s in the future for you? We’re on the record in this thing in the heart of COVID coming up on 2021, what’s on the roadmap for you for next year, even beyond?
[00:41:52] James Adeyanju: [00:41:52] Yeah. What’s on the roadmap for me. I literally just started at Zoom in June, so I think it’s been about six months since I’ve been there. So I couldn’t be more happier to be with a company like Zoom. So, I definitely want to continue to hone my craft, learn more, learn the ins and outs of Zoom.
When I left Carbon, I felt like I knew everything about the technology. I felt really comfortable. When I was speaking to customers or things like that, so I want to get to that same point at Zoom. And I think that’ll take me a little bit of time, but I think that I can get there as far as like career wise, that’s honestly a great question. And the cool thing about what sales is, you don’t have to be a sales manager, you don’t have to be a VP of Sales if you don’t want to. So for me I definitely like coaching. So being like a sales manager would be cool, but to be honest, right now I’m actually really enjoying being an account executive. Focusing on myself, I’m focusing on what I have to do and worried about James right now.
But I’m sure as the years get by and I, I’m continuing to do that, I’m sure I’ll probably have aspirations of, how can I help somebody else, how can I help someone else, like how I was helped when I was in memoryBlue or Carbon or currently at Zoom. So I think that could potentially be a car for me, but I could probably see myself doing this for a bit longer, a while longer.
[00:42:56] Marc Gonyea: [00:42:56] We talk about that in training in our memoryBlue SDR training about how you, the sales, the nature of the sales game is always changing and evolving. And there’s so many things to master and learn. And it’s unlike other positions and other lines of the company, because you can be an individual contributor from now until, they in the time.
And there’s no shame in that game, certainly actually continue to move up, I guess, the chain in terms of like your earning potential and your responsibility and the size of deals you have. And I think that’s a great thing for you to learn and focus on. You can never stop learning as an IC.
[00:43:32] James Adeyanju: [00:43:32] A hundred percent.
[00:43:33] Chris Corcoran: [00:43:33} Well, James, once California opens its borders again, Marc and I are going to come to San Jose. We’re going to come to San Jose. And when we do, we’re going to track you down. And we’ll have to get together and get together with a bunch of the folks, the memoryBlue crew for a happy hour or a dinner or something.
[00:43:49] James Adeyanju: [00:43:49] I love it. I’m not sure what it’s going to look like, what it will be like six feet away from each other while eating, but whatever it looks like, I’m excited to see you guys again and chat more with the whole group.
[00:43:57] Chris Corcoran: [00:43:57] Definitely. We appreciate you coming on today and I love seeing you shine. We were so fortunate to win the sweepstakes for your services coming out of Wisconsin.
[00:44:06] James Adeyanju: [00:44:06] Thanks, Chris. Thanks Marc. Appreciate it, man. And always a pleasure seeing you guys, and again, thank you guys for founding the company. I think you’ve given a lot of people, a lot of great opportunities and that you got to feel really happy about that. And I see you guys are expanding to different places, so that’s also really, really good to see. And hopefully you guys can find another James out there wherever you guys land next. And I’m looking forward to it.
[00:44:28] Marc Gonyea: [00:44:28] When we find another James, if we find a James, I’m going to have them talk to you about coming to work here to make sure we close them out.
[00:44:32] James Adeyanju: [00:44:32] All right. I got you guys. No problem. I’ll put the clamps on him.
[00:44:37] Chris Corcoran: [00:44:37] There you go. There you go. All right, James. Thanks a bunch, man.