Tech Sales is for Hustlers Podcast

Episode 48: Tommy Gassman – The “Figure it Out” Factor

He may have been born to drive fast cars, but Tommy Gassman certainly found sales to be the next best option.

Tommy, a dedicated muscle car enthusiast, sports a decade-long track record of sales success at memoryBlue that makes him one of the most compelling figures in company history. He over-achieved as an SDR, helped create the firm’s first internal sales team, built it into a high-performance machine, and has been instrumental in creating massive company growth ever since.

Embedded in Tommy’s beliefs is the notion that the “figure it out” factor can take you places. While it does take perseverance and hard work to thrive in sales, he relishes research, preparation, being unafraid to break things and then rebuild them the right way.

On this special episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers, we return to the roots of the firm with Tommy Gassman, memoryBlue’s Head of Growth. Tommy lets listeners sit shotgun on a wild ride down memory lane as he discusses his first successful (and not-so-successful) sales deals, the pre-cell phone era, and that time he almost quit. (Yes, you read that right!) If you want to learn how Tommy harnessed grit, determination, and an exceptional work ethic to earn his way into the thoughtful and inspiring sales leader that he is today, don’t miss this episode.

Guest-At-A-Glance

Name: Tommy Gassman

What he does: He is currently the Head of Growth at memoryBlue.

Company: memoryBlue

Noteworthy: Tommy is the longest-tenured employee of memoryBlue with 10+ years of experience in several sales and leadership roles. 

Where to find Tommy: LinkedIn

Key Insights

⚡ Find the top performers and copy what they do.

Tommy admits that he had no idea what the job consisted of when he first got hired to work for memoryBlue. Tommy, Marc, and Chris reminisce about the early days of memoryBlue and how Tommy’s “figure it out” factor led him to become a niche expert. “My strategy was to find the top performers and then try to do what they did. Just copy them. No reason to reinvent the wheel, but it was rough for those first three months. I remember coming home and regretting everything. It’s tough, man, when you’re not expecting it. I’ll never forget my first CWP.”

⚡ What is negative reverse selling?

When he was an SDR, Tommy became known for his signature move that he would deploy to close hard deals. Negative reverse selling is a sales tactic that is the opposite of typical selling strategies. If you want to make someone positive about an idea or a product, you go super negative, and vice versa. “The way I would use it when I was selling, it’s like, ‘Hey, look, it seems like you got everything in control, odds are you’re probably not going to be interested in anything like this.’ And I would go negative, and then they would go positive.”

⚡ If you’re managing people, don’t tell them to do something that you haven’t done.

Tommy talks about the importance of having that hands-on experience as a manager or leader in sales. Always lead by example. Show your SDRs why you can’t close a deal over email and why it’s crucial to get on the phone. To this day, Tommy runs a few deals himself. He says it keeps his skills sharp and helps him excel as a leader. “You gotta get in the game occasionally and see if you can do it. I’m running a couple of deals myself right now to make sure I can keep doing it.”

Episode Highlights

Great managers learn from their mistakes too

“I learned a lot by making a lot of mistakes as a manager. The very first mistake I made was overselling people on the job. Now I’m like, ‘Are you sure? It is going to be tough.’ So that was a big one. Not everyone thinks the way that you think. I just thought everyone thought the way I thought, and not everyone is motivated by the same stuff. So, I learned through that. I also learned that sometimes you got to let people fall, and that was hard for me. I had to force myself not to be on sales calls ‘cause I would take them over. That’s always been my problem. So I have to physically not be there and let people make some mistakes. Lord knows, I made a lot, and you learn from them.”

The golden rules of sales leadership

“The first step is you do need to care about your team, truly need to care about your team and fight for them when you feel they’re not being treated right. And all of those things. So I truly care about them. I have a mantra that I’ve revised recently, but my dad always used to say, ‘If you’re managing people, never tell them to do something that you haven’t done yourself personally.’ So I would never ask someone to go to a trade show if I hadn’t done it before. Now it’s the same thing, but something you haven’t done yourself lately. […]  I thought I was helping them by coming in and saving the deal, but I was hurting them because one, they weren’t getting better, but two, they felt like they could have done it. Like, ‘Why did you have to come in and help me? I thought I was going to do it myself.’ So learning and listening and having a very open-door policy.”

It takes time and dedication to become an expert in a niche

“You cannot prescribe someone accurately if you don’t know the space, and that takes time. And when you’re new in the job, you have to muscle through it and fake it till you make it, but always learn because everything changes.”

Transcript:

[00:01:34] Marc Gonyea: [00:01:34] Welcome back everyone. After a nice little layoff, Corcoran and I are back with Tech Sales is for Hustlers podcast. And today we have the HOG: Head of Growth at memoryBlue, the one and only, the longest tenured employee, Tommy Gassman.  

[00:01:51] Tommy Gassman: [00:01:51] What’s up guys? How are you all? 

[00:01:54] Chris Corcoran: [00:01:54] This’ll be fun. 

[00:01:56] Tommy Gassman: [00:01:56] It should be. 

[00:01:56] Chris Corcoran: [00:01:56] We can reflect on a decade of decadence.

[00:02:00] Marc Gonyea: [00:02:00] It’s been over a decade, 10 years and I guess almost three months. 

[00:02:04] Tommy Gassman: [00:02:04] 10 years in a month.  

[00:02:05] Marc Gonyea: [00:02:05] Okay. All right. Shit. That’s a long time.  

[00:02:08] Tommy Gassman: [00:02:08] It’s crazy to say out loud. Let’s get into it because Chris and I  know you, but a lot of the people listening know you, but don’t know you, and people always ask me,

[00:02:18] Chris Corcoran: [00:02:18] you’re probably the number one requested guest,, “When’s Tommy going to do it?” Is it the platinum hair or the mysterious mystique? 

[00:02:28] Marc Gonyea: [00:02:28] So, Tommy, let’s get into it.  Talk a little bit about yourself, like growing up, where you’re from, that sort of thing, we are going to go from there because it’d be good for people to hear the story.

[00:02:36] Tommy Gassman: [00:02:36] All right. Yeah, sure thing. So, I was born and raised in Stafford, Virginia. It’s a small little town in Southwest Virginia, about two hours from here. Not a whole lot to do, it is a sleepy little town, hiked a lot, fished a lot, hung out with my friends, rode dirt bikes and go-karts , always around  motors.

[00:02:52] Yeah. My dad’s an entrepreneur and build sports cars for a living. So, I was the kid that got dropped off in a Porsche 911 when I was eight at school. So, it was fun. After that, I went to Radford University. 

[00:03:03] Marc Gonyea: [00:03:03] Let’s talk about real quick. Yeah, because you didn’t talk about this before.

[00:03:06] Is your pops and the cars, like that business is pretty fascinating. Did you learn anything from that?  You didn’t realize it maybe growing up, or now that you reflect, that you are running sales for the whole company? 

[00:03:17] Tommy Gassman: [00:03:17] I learned a lot from that. I learned that I could not work for my father.

[00:03:20] But he’s a great guy. I learned a lot from watching him selling cars. People were always drawn to him as a thought leader, which was always cool. And that’s how I figured I might be good at sales ’cause he was a really good salesman. 

[00:03:31] Marc Gonyea: [00:03:31] Let’s talk about the cars real quick. Wait, we’re not talking about  a Hyundai Sonata,  right?

[00:03:34] Tommy Gassman: [00:03:34] We’re talking like Ferrari’s and Lamborghini’s, there’s pictures of me next to a Lamborghini Countach, when I was  six. Yeah. So, it was fun. It was very exciting. I used to go drag racing with them. He built my first car, which I loved. It was fun times. It was an  ’84 RX 7.

[00:03:50] Marc Gonyea: [00:03:50] And  you’re big in the cars now, that’s part of who Tommy Gassman is. 

[00:03:54] Tommy Gassman: [00:03:54] I like driving them. I cannot work on them at all. Yeah. My dad is a craftsman and whatever he had, I did not get. And I learned that quick. I mean, he told me not to go to college, to go into the family business and I just could not do it. I was like, “I’m going to try the college route.”

[00:04:08] I literally applied to one school, Radford University,  solely because my friends were there. I was typical average kid, nothing spectacular. But I’m glad I went, best thing I took away from Radford was my wife. Yeah. 

[00:04:19] Marc Gonyea: [00:04:19] So, talk about her.  So, you went to Radford, what’d you major in, marketing? And you, I cut you off, so  you work with  most mechanical car lovers, but 

[00:04:27] did that sales thing, or your dad being an entrepreneur kind of translate into what you wanted to major  in college?  Tell me how did that go? So, we used to go to these car shows a lot, and my dad was  the head guy, people were always coming up asking him questions, and he’s a really good storyteller, borderline kind of crazy at some of the stories he goes into.

[00:04:45] Tommy Gassman: [00:04:45] And I picked that up.  I speak almost solely in analogies, so it was my father and people started saying I sounded like him, I acted like him. And I knew I could not do the artistry stuff that he could do, but I figured if I got the voice and the storytelling ability, then maybe I can turn that into something.

[00:05:02] Marc Gonyea: [00:05:02] Okay. All right. So, you’re at Radford.

[00:05:05]Tommy Gassman: [00:05:05] I am at Radford, studying marketing, just trying to get by, making sure I don’t fail out. Both my roommates failed out first year. I met my, she was my girlfriend then, my wife now in October, right out of the gate. 

[00:05:18] Marc Gonyea: [00:05:18] Like a lightning bolt. 

[00:05:19] Tommy Gassman: [00:05:19] Saw her in an elevator,

[00:05:20] and by chance she was friends with my roommate, so I saw her later that day.  One of the ones that didn’t make it, great guy, but just didn’t cut it. So, she and I dated all through college, it was fun times hanging out, partying, doing all the college stuff. This is Kate Gassman. Shout-out to my wife.

[00:05:35]Marc Gonyea: [00:05:35] Woohoo. We don’t have the ring but  we’ll just do some woohoos.  Okay. All right. Wait, what was Kate before she was the artist noticed Kate Gassman, what was Kate’s last name? 

[00:05:45] Tommy Gassman: [00:05:45] Kate Macintosh.  

[00:05:45] Marc Gonyea: [00:05:45] The freshman year you guys hit it off. 

[00:05:47] Tommy Gassman: [00:05:47] We hit it off. She’s probably the sole reason I graduated.

[00:05:50] She had me in line. 

[00:05:51] Marc Gonyea: [00:05:51] So, it’s the reason you work here. 

[00:05:52] Tommy Gassman: [00:05:52] She is the sole reason. Ironically, that’s exactly how I got the job. 

[00:05:58] Marc Gonyea: [00:05:58] Yeah. So, you got out of Radford. 

[00:06:00] Tommy Gassman: [00:06:00] Yeah.  Four years. 

[00:06:01] Marc Gonyea: [00:06:01] That’s pretty good. 

[00:06:02] Tommy Gassman: [00:06:02] Yeah.  I made it.  So,  I got through it. And then it got strange because Kate had to go another semester,

[00:06:08] she was graduating in the spring. And we could not find off-campus housing.  We were scrambling, I came very close to living in a trailer park, that should’ve been an experience for sure. Luck would have it, my in-laws came down to visit us, and the Best Western they stayed at had turned one of their old buildings into a extended stay type of thing.

[00:06:27] Yeah. I literally lived in a Best Western swipe card, like Best Western with a little kitchen burner, for what was going to be six months, I ended up going nine months. Wow. TV was bolted to the dresser. You learn a lot about someone when you live in a cube nine months. 

[00:06:46] Marc Gonyea: [00:06:46] Wait, so you were living with Kate?  

[00:06:47] Tommy Gassman: [00:06:47] I was living with Kate.

[00:06:48] Marc Gonyea: [00:06:48] Okay. All right. 

[00:06:49] Tommy Gassman: [00:06:49] Yep. The first three weeks were cool because they had an indoor pool and we got fresh towels and sneak into complimentary breakfast, sausage gravy. I ate too much of that. Yeah. So, it was good, but I didn’t have a job at the time. 

[00:07:07] Marc Gonyea: [00:07:07] But you have graduated. 

[00:07:09] Tommy Gassman: [00:07:09] I’ve graduated. 

[00:07:10] Marc Gonyea: [00:07:10] At  Radford, marketing degree. 

[00:07:11] Tommy Gassman: [00:07:11] Yeah, somewhere,

[00:07:12] I think my mom’s got it. Okay. And then you were like, “What am I going to do down here?”

[00:07:15] I was like, “What am I going to do? I’ve got to make money.” It turns out with a marketing degree, I was pretty much unemployable. And I thought I was going to make advertisements and be a creative and all that stuff.

[00:07:24] Yeah. That doesn’t happen. So, I just started applying, people. I applied for a job at Target because it was like a 50k base. I got turned down. It was rough. We were scratching by, I think about that complimentary breakfast. But then, we were walking through the mall and I saw a hiring sign at a jewelry store,

[00:07:40] Zales Jewelry.  

[00:07:41] Marc Gonyea: [00:07:41] Zales, hell yeah. 

[00:07:41] Tommy Gassman: [00:07:41] I knew nothing about jewelry at all, but I like to wear suits, so it was like, “Yeah, I’ll wear a suit. It’s not Taco Bell.”  

[00:07:48] Marc Gonyea: [00:07:48] You wore suits for how long here? 

[00:07:50] Tommy Gassman: [00:07:50] A while. Yeah. A long time, “fake it until you make it, dress for the job you want.” So, I did that for a little while.

[00:07:57] And then, I’ll never forget, I got a call from Eddie. I never can pronounce his last name, and  randomly while I was at work,  he just started grilling me with all these questions. I was at Zales. I was working when he called. 

[00:08:09] Marc Gonyea: [00:08:09] Eddie McGuire called you at Zales, at the mall. In Radford. I got a break,

[00:08:13] Tommy Gassman: [00:08:13] I called him back and it was weird. He just kept asking me all these questions. I had no idea who this kid was. Finally, I was like, “Dude, I don’t know who you are. I don’t know why you’re calling me. I don’t even know how you found my number.” He found my number because my wife, Kate had wrote a resume for me and put it online. 

[00:08:28] Marc Gonyea: [00:08:28] Of course she did.

[00:08:29] Tommy Gassman: [00:08:29] And didn’t tell me. Wow. I thought about it.  At the time, I was hating working at Zales, just because you work the weekends, they don’t pay much. And pretty much you’re working every time that other people aren’t. Kate didn’t like that either. She was just sitting in a hotel alone all the time.

[00:08:42] I called him back. And he told me it was a sales gig in Northern Virginia. That’s where Kate’s from, originally. It was a 37/5 base. And I did not have to work on the weekends. So I was like, “All right, I’m in.” 

[00:08:55] Marc Gonyea: [00:08:55] A low bar, clear. Diamond in the rough, literally. Yeah. So, then Kate and I drove up here.

[00:09:00]Tommy Gassman: [00:09:00] At this time, I’m out of the hotel, living in Kate’s family’s basement, which was fun. And my mother-in-law drove me to the interview. Nice. In a white van. I had a car, but  she’s a nice woman, she wanted to do that.  Talk about pressure. I was really nervous.

[00:09:16] I had no idea what to expect. I got here and this was at the old office, and it was on their first floor on the left. Little courthouse. I walked in, Bill Pease was there. I sat down on one of those little chairs. And I’m pretty sure  an hour went by. 

[00:09:33] Marc Gonyea: [00:09:33] Oh, no way. 

[00:09:36] Tommy Gassman: [00:09:36] I was listening to some of the other folks.

[00:09:38] You were late. 

[00:09:39] Chris Corcoran: [00:09:39] Dude, I’m never late for interviews. I’m late for meetings. 

[00:09:41] Tommy Gassman: [00:09:41] You were late for this one.  

[00:09:44] Chris Corcoran: [00:09:44] I don’t keep interviews waiting, I don’t.  Keep going.

[00:09:47]Tommy Gassman: [00:09:47]  It built up the suspense a lot. Kept seeing all these people walking by,  and then Chris came out, and walked me back and I remember walking. 

[00:09:55] Marc Gonyea: [00:09:55] It  was the first interview,

[00:09:56] it wasn’t even me. 

[00:09:57] Tommy Gassman: [00:09:57] It was the first interview. I walked through 10 rows of cubes. It felt like, I’m going to be honest, it felt like a abandoned dentist’s office. I was like, “What is this place?” I guess you’d take him back to this conference room there, I’m pretty sure it was all white. I don’t even know if it was painted.

[00:10:15] And Chris sits down and was super professional, asking me a lot of questions. I felt I was answering all of them wrong, but he sold me on the vision. He actually asked me, I’ll never forget this. I remember telling people at Zales that I was going to make six figures by the time I was 30, it was a low bar at the time.

[00:10:31] Didn’t realize it. And Chris asked me what I wanted for my career. And I said, “I just want to make six figures by the time I’m 30.” And he said, “Variable or on target?” And I had no idea. And I was like, “I don’t know. I just want to make a 100k.” And he was like, “You can do it here, if you work hard.” So, I was really impressed with Chris.

[00:10:50] Then you came in. 

[00:10:52] Marc Gonyea: [00:10:52] I was the light, though. 

[00:10:53] Tommy Gassman: [00:10:53] You are late at this point. And you were bouncing around the walls, man, like a bouncy ball just thrown in a box. You were sitting on the table, but I was  drawn to your energy. I still am today. And I think it went well. And then you all threw a phone at me, and I had to do a role-play, which I’m 99% sure I botched. I guess I did well enough to get the job.

[00:11:14] Eddie called me later that day, offered it. I accepted. We had a nice dinner with my in-laws, and that was that.  

[00:11:21] Chris Corcoran: [00:11:21] Do you remember anything from this interview? 

[00:11:23] Marc Gonyea: [00:11:23] No. I remember being like, “Okay, this guy’s working at Zales.” The only thing I remember about his interview was that I was on time.

[00:11:32] He remembers it. Or maybe you were just, you might’ve been really early. 

[00:11:35] Chris Corcoran: [00:11:35] I probably was.

[00:11:36]Marc Gonyea: [00:11:36] I doubt he kept you waiting.  

[00:11:38] Chris Corcoran: [00:11:38] I’m never late. 

[00:11:38] Marc Gonyea: [00:11:38] You are never late. So,  that’s what it was. He didn’t keep you waiting. But I definitely remember, “This guy’s working at Zales.”  We hadn’t interviewed, 

[00:11:45] I don’t remember recalling someone who worked at Zales. Done a Radford, at the mall, waiting for his girl to get out of school. See, is that a good thing, or is it a bad thing?  

[00:11:54] Tommy Gassman: [00:11:54] Red flags? 

[00:11:55] Marc Gonyea: [00:11:55] No, it’s not. No. I thought it was a good thing because I was like “He’s committed to this girl. He stayed in Redford,

[00:12:00] it’s not a fun place to stay, especially when you’re getting out of college, nobody wants to hang around.” And then,  the fact that you were scrapping by, and  I remember I asked you, “What was your biggest sale,” or some of those things. Yeah, it’s was, “This guy is probably a really good guy, and he’s gotta be a nice guy,

[00:12:14] his in-laws will let him stay  in the basement of his house, with their daughter. So, he’s probably the high character guy, likes to work hard.” And I liked the fact 

[00:12:22] Chris Corcoran: [00:12:22] your…

[00:12:23]  I remember I talked to, I forget the guy’s name, but I was asking about  when I was checking your references, this guy was bummed that you didn’t go and take over his business. 

[00:12:32] Tommy Gassman: [00:12:32] Yeah.  it was a little outdoor hiking  shop, right? 

[00:12:37] Marc Gonyea: [00:12:37] Yeah. He was bumped out. So, you remember? 

[00:12:39] Yeah. I do remember that I was telling him, I was like, “Biggest regret is that he didn’t take over my business.” I was like, “We’re hiring him.” 

[00:12:47] Chris Corcoran: [00:12:47] It’s right. And I liked the story. I remember you telling me about what your dad did, I was like, “This guy’s got non-traditional background, Chris.”

[00:12:52]Marc Gonyea: [00:12:52] We’re common two average white guys, but it’s not traditional business. So, you ask people to do non-traditional things. So,  “Get this guy in here.” Plus, we love people who aren’t from Northern Virginia. We love them. Yes. I joke about staying on time, but we love that stuff. We didn’t really grow up here.

[00:13:06] We moved here.  And you moved away. So, sometimes North Virginia bubble can hurt people. And you weren’t part of that.  All that stuff we joke about, we love. The Redfords, Stafford, and I love all that. 

[00:13:17] Tommy Gassman: [00:13:17] Definitely. 

[00:13:17] Marc Gonyea: [00:13:17] I was like, “This guy is good. Bring him in.” Tell a story real quick, about your father-in-law’s  on top of the family, and be efficient with them.

[00:13:23] Historic game. 

[00:13:24] Chris Corcoran: [00:13:24] Man, so, did he press charges for attempted murder? 

[00:13:28] Marc Gonyea: [00:13:28] Tommy’s trying to take his house. This is a great story. 

[00:13:31] Tommy Gassman: [00:13:31] So, I was fishing with them. We won a lot, and he’s a hardcore outdoors guy and I’m not, and this was still  me trying to impress him. I am winded,  struggling, and I’m also terrified of lightning and storms.

[00:13:46] And we got to the confluence where the two rivers, the Rappahannock and Rapidan meet, and I knew it was going to storm. It was bad. And I also knew I was not a good swimmer, and he’s 6-foot tall, and I’m 5’5, and I’m like, “Man, this is gonna be like going through, there’s no way I’m going to be able to make it,” but I wasn’t gonna tell him no.

[00:14:04] So, we started walking and about a third of the way in, it started lightening and storming like crazy. And I just hightailed it out there. In my defense, I thought he was behind me. 

[00:14:19] Marc Gonyea: [00:14:19] You left him? 

[00:14:20] Tommy Gassman: [00:14:20] Yeah,  I was  swimming,  and there was these kayakers to the other end, encouraged me. And I finally got there, and they pulled me up and I  went to turn and grab Mr.

[00:14:27] Mack, and he had made it  maybe 10 feet. Okay. I wasn’t gonna go back in, man.  It was dangerous, so I was yelling support phrases at him.  It’s all good. I thought there was like copperheads everywhere.

[00:14:39] Dude, it was scary, man. I thought I was gonna die.  All right. So, you started,  do you remember starting or any of those things? I don’t know if this was a trend or not, but I started on first Friday. 

[00:14:50] Marc Gonyea: [00:14:50] Oh, okay. There you go. I remember meeting someone, I think his name was Lyle. He was wearing a tight lime green shirt. He was a big guy, so, I don’t know.

[00:15:00] Short, but big. 

[00:15:01] Tommy Gassman: [00:15:01] Yeah, was like a Jack. He was a Jack. Mighty mouse, Lala crocodile. 

[00:15:06] And  a lot of people don’t know this about me, but I’m an introvert. 

[00:15:09] Marc Gonyea: [00:15:09] Yeah. I was just awkwardly trying to make small talk with them, and I was like, “So, who’s your client?” And he was like, “I’m a field rep.” And I was like, “I don’t even know what that means.”

[00:15:17] Field mouse. 

[00:15:19] Tommy Gassman: [00:15:19] I don’t know. But that was day one. I met Thadius that day.

[00:15:23]Marc Gonyea: [00:15:23] Yeah.  

[00:15:23] Tommy Gassman: [00:15:23] He took me under his wing really early. He’s awesome. But actually that wasn’t even the office. I meant  at five o’clock, like right before you all went to happy hour, was the very first day. All right.

[00:15:34] Chris Corcoran: [00:15:34] I’d probably say,  “Come to happy hour.” Yeah. Okay, good. So, we can trick you, to lure you in. 

[00:15:40] Tommy Gassman: [00:15:40] Oh, sorry. It’s a pretty cool company. 

[00:15:41] Marc Gonyea: [00:15:41] Yeah. I still don’t know what I’m doing. So, what did you know about the job?

[00:15:46]Tommy Gassman: [00:15:46] I knew absolutely nothing. I knew it was 37/5 and I did not have to work on the weekend. Yeah.

[00:15:52] I’m not joking. 

[00:15:55] Marc Gonyea: [00:15:55] Yeah, because we’ve probably talked about it, but it’s tough. You don’t know what it is. So, you get in on your first day. First of all, back up. So, after that interview, I don’t know if I ever told you this, I called my father to tell him about the company and your website was not the greatest at the time.

[00:16:11] Tommy Gassman: [00:16:11] And I didn’t really know how to explain it. 

[00:16:13] Chris Corcoran: [00:16:13] Those were the days. 

[00:16:14] Tommy Gassman: [00:16:14] He said, “Tommy, that’s a Ponzi scheme. Get out, do not take that job.” I’m defiant, so I took it anyways. But yeah, I knew nothing about the job at all.  Nothing about it. 

[00:16:23] Marc Gonyea: [00:16:23] So you started, I think I’m glad  it wasn’t a Ponzi scheme.

[00:16:26] Chris Corcoran: [00:16:26] So, in the history of recruiting people into the company at first, it was, “we can’t let people see the office,” and  then it became a  city office, it looks like an old dentist’s office, but they can’t see the website. Yeah. Fortunately, now we want people to see the office.

[00:16:42] It’s beautiful now, but man,  that was tough. That was a tough sledding, particularly because  a lot of times we can get the candidates interested, but then they go and talk to their parents, or NFW.  But then we get the rebels who are like NFW, which is good,  those are our kind of guys and girls. Yeah. Yes. 

[00:17:00] Marc Gonyea: [00:17:00] Thank God. All right. So, then you started,  you came back after the happy hour, then what was the early days? 

[00:17:06] Tommy Gassman: [00:17:06] So, then, someone emailed me the sheet music, and I was trying to research my first client.

[00:17:11]Marc Gonyea: [00:17:11] It was Our mantra.

[00:17:12] Tommy Gassman: [00:17:12] I was sitting  in the kitchen with my father-in-law  because he’s in tech, and I was like, “What’s a DBA?” So, he was trying to help me and I had no idea what I was getting into. So, I’d read all that stuff two or three times. None of it sank in. I came in on Monday and I met Erica Higginson, 

[00:17:29] and Ryan Battle. 

[00:17:31] Marc Gonyea: [00:17:31] Battle. Nice. 

[00:17:32] Tommy Gassman: [00:17:32] And you all didn’t have a desk for me at the time. So, I actually was in the front office, which I think later became the first one. And it was Battle and Erica, and they were really cool. They were helping me along the way. You came and grabbed me mid day and said, “Hey, it’s time to meet your client,” that day.

[00:17:52] And we talked, and then I had a phone in my hand later that day, with a list of people to call and I started calling people.  

[00:18:00] Marc Gonyea: [00:18:00] I can’t remember, but we should have looked it up what they did, but it was some sort of, I thought it was like a services firm, and  it was definitely hard.

[00:18:07] Tommy Gassman: [00:18:07] It was like outsource DBs.  Right. And it was definitely hard. I remember  the client not being the most sales friendly. So,  they didn’t really know. I was like, “I knew this guy’s gonna, maybe he’s gonna make it, or he can always go back to sales.”  That wasn’t for too long, and it was perfect because I know you tried your best and I was working hard on it and they ended up moving on, and then that’s when things started to pick up a little bit.  

[00:18:26] Chris Corcoran: [00:18:26] How big was the company?

[00:18:27] Tommy Gassman: [00:18:27] We all could fit in a circle in the front lobby for the daily huddles. So it was probably like 10 or 12 people.  Wow. Small group. Yeah. Okay. It was even before we had those boards. 

[00:18:39] Marc Gonyea: [00:18:39] Before we had the white boards? 

[00:18:40] Tommy Gassman: [00:18:40] Before we had the white boards. 

[00:18:41] Marc Gonyea: [00:18:41] Wow. No white boards. So yeah. So, it was Erica Higginson,

[00:18:45] and now Erica Collins. She married Dave.  Former guests on the podcast, Dave. All right. So, you got off Our mantra?  Any other stories from back then? Did you have a mentor? Did we even do mentors then?  

[00:18:57] Tommy Gassman: [00:18:57] Erica was my mentor. But we were so small that everyone was helping everyone out, which was really cool.

[00:19:02] Yeah. I remember that. And then I got with Eddie, and who else was I close with? There was a lot of people that I was close with, but Eddie helped me.  My strategy was to find the top performers and then try to do exactly what they did. Just copy them. No reason to reinvent the wheel, but it was rough for those first three months.

[00:19:21] I remember coming home and  regretting everything. Yeah. It’s tough, man. When you’re not expecting it, I’ll never forget my first CWP, Tommy Faden. I remember this guy, he was actually from Harrisonburg and I talked to him for five minutes, and then he eventually just hung up on me. Really?

[00:19:37] Like I’m doomed.  

[00:19:39] Marc Gonyea: [00:19:39] At least you were brave enough to not hang up on the guy. That’s what I did. 

[00:19:41] Tommy Gassman: [00:19:41] But it got better. It definitely got better. And then I started, I got on a different client that I was really passionate about the Zoom Safe, Matt Howard. Shot-out to that guy. 

[00:19:51] Yeah.

[00:19:51] That’s when everything changed for me. I was less afraid. Once you get some confidence, that’s a big game changer and I’ve made it more of a game. I used to try to find cool companies to target, just to say that I got the lead with him. They actually had installed the technology on my Jeep,

[00:20:06] so I couldn’t  text people when I was driving around. I was super passionate about it. Yeah, I remember that.  

[00:20:11] Marc Gonyea: [00:20:11] They had a technology that stopped people from using their cell phones while they’re in their car. They were trying to sell it to  UPS.  

[00:20:18] Tommy Gassman: [00:20:18] I used to drive around and take notes of  companies to call, that had a bunch of trucks.

[00:20:21] Marc Gonyea: [00:20:21] Those guys love you because you’re really good in front of people, too. So I remember you going out, didn’t you go out there a bunch?

[00:20:27]Tommy Gassman: [00:20:27] I went out there a bunch, Paul Blamer had a Porsche that I liked. That’s right. That’s when I knew I was staying in sales for a long time. Yeah, it was good. I was gonna work for them.

[00:20:36] They were going to hire me. They took me out to a Thai restaurant, right here in Vienna, and said they were going to hire me, then just to wait a month. And then they got acquired  two weeks later. 

[00:20:47] Marc Gonyea: [00:20:47] Hell yes. 

[00:20:48] Tommy Gassman: [00:20:48] I was telling everyone I worked for Zoom Safe. 

[00:20:52] Chris Corcoran: [00:20:52] Yeah. And then you wanted somebody else? I wish we had another.

[00:20:54] Tommy Gassman: [00:20:54] I was on SRA for a little bit. Oh. That’s when I met the Honeybadger. 

[00:20:59] Marc Gonyea: [00:20:59] Oh s***. I remember this like it was yesterday. ‘Cause you were doing your thing. I was like, “Yeah, Tommy has got this under control. This guy, Matt Howard is high demanding, but he really likes Tommy. Matt Howard was talking  like, “He likes how we operate,” and then SRA came up, and it was you and Andrew.

[00:21:14] And I remember driving out, we were out to meet with him, and I remember,  “Man, I understand Tommy, but this guy, Andrew Bass, I’m not really sure.”  Hey, Bass is a baller. Bass does what Bass does, he does his thing. 

[00:21:33] Tommy Gassman: [00:21:33] So, my favorite movie is a “Ford VS Ferrari” the new movie.

[00:21:36]Marc Gonyea: [00:21:36] It’s great movie.

[00:21:37]Tommy Gassman: [00:21:37] And I’m much more Niki Lauda.

[00:21:39] Like, I’m more calculated, I keep to myself. Bass was James Hunt,  “Just give me a phone.” Day one, he made 300 dials, and he was telling Jeff Failing  all these different strategies. Oh man. I was on pins and needles. Every time with him. We were on site, too.  And headquarters. And that’s where my father-in-law worked.

[00:22:00] Marc Gonyea: [00:22:00] I see on bedroom market marches, the CFO’s office. And this is how we should sell, that sort of thing. But he was just exceptional. All right. So you two are working on an SRA. 

[00:22:07] Tommy Gassman: [00:22:07] Yeah, we did that for a little while, and then I got Zoom Safer. And this is probably nine months since I’m at this role,

[00:22:14] and then Zoom Safer left. And that’s when I had my  quarter-life crisis. ‘Cause everyone was leaving.  All my friends,  the cohort I started with was gone. I didn’t want to roll the dice on trying to get a new client because I know most people only stayed for 12 months, and I was not ready to leave.

[00:22:29] It’s pretty obvious that I tend to stick with things. I met my wife freshman year of college, and I still work here. But I remember going to Chris, you all had the office at this point, and I was like, “It’s strange that you don’t have an SDR, like for you guys, let me do it.” And to your credit, you took a shot on me.

[00:22:47] Marc Gonyea: [00:22:47] Yeah.  You were good. What did you get good at, as an SDR? By the way, what was your little signature move?  What were you like? This is what Tommy Gassman does. 

[00:22:55] Tommy Gassman: [00:22:55] So, this is pre-Spell book and all that stuff. So this was just pure fun game. I read “You can’t teach a kid how to ride a bike at a seminar.”

[00:23:04] Marc Gonyea: [00:23:04] Yeah.  Classic. 

[00:23:05] Tommy Gassman: [00:23:05] One of your suggestions. I was at the beach reading it, and I really got into the psychology of it, and was obsessed with negative reverse.  Yes, you still are. Really good at it. ‘Cause I’m a pessimist by nature and it just really played to me. I got really good at using those tactics, and I’m a big tone guy making sure that you have a good tone and tempo.

[00:23:28] So, I was just good at talking to people.  That was way back in the early days. You were working on it. 

[00:23:32] Marc Gonyea: [00:23:32] Do you work on it, too? Okay. All right. 

[00:23:34] Chris Corcoran: [00:23:34] Talk to the listeners a bit about negative reverse selling. What is it? How do you deploy it? 

[00:23:39] Tommy Gassman: [00:23:39] So, if you think about, like a gauge,  if you want to make someone go negative about something, you go super positive.

[00:23:47] So, I always joke, if I come in and I’m wearing a watch, or someone’s wearing a watch and they’re like, “Yeah, it’s a really nice watch.” And I want them to say, “It’s not a nice watch,” I tell them, “It’s the greatest watch I’ve ever seen,  where in the world would you possibly get such a watch?” And the same goes for, if you want someone to hype you up, someone comes in and says, “Hey, look, I like that watch.”

[00:24:06] And you’re like, “It’s not that nice of a watch, come on, there’s plenty of watches out there.” They tend to say, “No, it’s really good watch.” So the way I would use it when I was selling, it’s like, “Hey, look, it seems like you got everything under  control, odds are you’re probably not going to be interested in anything like this,” and I would just go negative and then they would go positive.

[00:24:23] And especially after the phrase that pays, you can do it a lot. Yeah. So, that’s just one of the tactics. Reward reverse, all those things, strip line. 

[00:24:31] Chris Corcoran: [00:24:31] All the classic. Sandlers. 

[00:24:33] Marc Gonyea: [00:24:33] What’s so good because it gets on the table to  the real issue. It’s the truth. Right. It sound like you’ve got everything in control, or you can do this in house.

[00:24:42] Chris Corcoran: [00:24:42] You’ve worked for somebody before. We might not be a good fit. It’s give it or take it away. 

[00:24:48] Tommy Gassman: [00:24:48] Yeah,  you throw it down right out of the gate on some of those sales meetings we were  in the early days. I remember you saying “you’re not going to work with us. Are you crazy? There’s no way you’re working with us.” Out of the gate. It worked. 

[00:24:58] Chris Corcoran: [00:24:58] Because it’s true.

[00:24:58] And so, why would they? Okay. All right. So, you became our first SDR and with that, you earned your first nickname. I did? I don’t know. The one being “economy.” Oh yeah. That’s a great. That’s when I was a SDR. After the SDR, that’s when I started closing deals.  

[00:25:15] Marc Gonyea: [00:25:15] And that’s when you became the one. That was Chris Corcoran, quote, unquote. What was the nickname, the one-man-economy?

[00:25:23] Tommy Gassman: [00:25:23] Yeah. I learned a lot as the first SDRhere because you all were busy running the business, and I had to figure out Salesforce. I googled  everything. 

[00:25:33] Chris Corcoran: [00:25:33] You got a good mind. Yeah. That’s important. I still use a lot of those things. 

[00:25:37] Marc Gonyea: [00:25:37] That’s that “figure it out” factor. Yeah. That’s important. 

[00:25:40] Tommy Gassman: [00:25:40] I liked that

[00:25:41] it wasn’t given to me. Sure. Yeah. 

[00:25:44] Marc Gonyea: [00:25:44] And so, how long did you serve as an SDR? I think it was like four or five months. 

[00:25:48] Do you remember opportunities that you surfaced that became clients? 

[00:25:52] Tommy Gassman: [00:25:52] Oh, man. As an SDR? Did you? Yeah, I did. 

[00:25:56] Chris Corcoran: [00:25:56] There wasn’t even an info at memoryBlue  emailed address? I don’t think there was a hotline.  It was all out-bounds.  That was a big deal back then. It’s a big deal. 

[00:26:06] That was a huge deal for us. Every client is a big deal, but definitely there’s a Fortnite, any others? 

[00:26:10] Tommy Gassman: [00:26:10] Oh, as an SDR,

[00:26:12] I can’t remember.  

[00:26:13] Marc Gonyea: [00:26:13] How long were you in SDR, do you remember? 

[00:26:15] Tommy Gassman: [00:26:15] It’s until you all got too busy to take the meetings. 

[00:26:17] Marc Gonyea: [00:26:17] Okay. All right. And we just trained you to do the meetings. 

[00:26:20] Tommy Gassman: [00:26:20] Yeah. One of my first ones.  I think you were supposed to be there and then something came up, it was Denise Hummel.

[00:26:25] You don’t know her, but I remember taking the sales call and completely botching it, and then breaking it down and listening to it again and  again. But yeah, it was like probably five, six months. 

[00:26:35] Marc Gonyea: [00:26:35] And what did we use to record it? Those little boxes. Do you remember that? Oh, man. I remember we had something that we used to record the calls with. USBBLAST?

[00:26:43] There was some, it was USBBLAST.  Yeah. All right. Interesting. And then,  what was your first deal?

[00:26:50]Tommy Gassman: [00:26:50] The first deal I ever closed? Yeah. So, at this time I’m with Matt, so, we were like, what do y’all call us? The Splash Brothers?  Was he carrying a bag? Was he closing deals?

[00:27:00] No, I don’t think so at this time. 

[00:27:02] Chris Corcoran: [00:27:02] Okay. I was going to say, because  that means that he was an SDR, for us, for less time than you were. So he got promoted faster than you did. He did. Interesting.

[00:27:09]Tommy Gassman: [00:27:09] That’s because I taught him everything. He didn’t have to learn everything by himself. But no, we were at Tech Quarter. I think Matt was around at this time.

[00:27:19] Maybe it was Tim Fabian. It might’ve been Tim Fabian. Oh, it was Tim Fabian and Nicole. Definitely, Nicky D. So, we had gotten kicked out into Tech Corner. It’s just three of us in the room, and I would door knock people that I saw on the address. And I got a meeting with Mike Pratt at Spider Safe Security.

[00:27:38] I came in way overly dressed because of my first in person meeting I had ever done in my life. You all had coached me up. And later that day, he brought me the signed contract and  he actually called the company yesterday. True story. A decade later. Almost to the day, because I pulled the contract.

[00:27:57] Wow. It was like June 15th, 2012. So, two days from now would have been 10 years on the day he called me up.  Hopefully we get to work with him again, but I told him, “I don’t know if you know this, but you were the first deal I ever closed in my entire professional career.” He said, “You could’ve fooled me.” This was yesterday. I remembered how bad it was, that was 10 years ago.

[00:28:19] Marc Gonyea: [00:28:19] So, I think that illustrates an interesting point,  one of the cool things about selling to who we sell to, and who we service our clients is that it can happen 10 years later, you get a call. It does happen. Yeah. It should, if you do it the right way.  And so, we did a good enough job selling and then delivering, that he actually called Tommy. 

[00:28:39] This is literally history coming out, we’re talking. And he’s, “You know who just called?” I said, “Who?”  -“My first deal.”  

[00:28:44] Tommy Gassman: [00:28:44] I’ll never forget that first deal. 

[00:28:45] Marc Gonyea: [00:28:45] No way. No. And I’m happy the guy’s still alive. It was 10 years ago. All right, so, how you and Bright started this, Splash Brothers was just a whole another level, just to talk about that.

[00:28:57] ‘Cause you guys were cadences before cadences existed, right? Outreach and SalesLoft, before there was an Outreach or a FrontSpin.

[00:29:04]Tommy Gassman: [00:29:04] Yeah, you all just let us do our thing, which was cool. But I found an old drip email that you all had from  2003 in Salesforce, took that thing, shook off the dust and started emailing.

[00:29:18] And that was  my first email drips. And I used to print them out and have them on the wall. And we got some traction and then, and I had read the book about circle leverage, and yet to his credit, he had the idea of  certain  circle leverage into the subject line.

[00:29:32] This is  way before anybody was really doing this. Yeah.  Way before. 

[00:29:36] Marc Gonyea: [00:29:36] People would do it. Chris and I did it. It’s still in Salesforce, it’s a Sohale email. We use it for lever point, and people would do it. And we used to do it with letters. 

[00:29:44] Tommy Gassman: [00:29:44] Oh yeah.  US mail, baby. 

[00:29:45] Marc Gonyea: [00:29:45] US mail. You’d find the five people,

[00:29:47] and then we send them emails. No, excuse me. We send them letters, in reference to people in the letters, but you and Bright are doing it. And then I had gone rogue and learned about Pardot. Yeah. So, we were like,  at the time we were doing a manual. 

[00:30:01] This is early as you guys are, do Kate multi-step kids is all manual.

[00:30:05] No voicemails. There were no voicemails. No voicemails? There were no calls. 

[00:30:11] Tommy Gassman: [00:30:11] I didn’t call anybody.  

[00:30:12] Chris Corcoran: [00:30:12] But it was working.  That was a big debate we used to always have. Tommy, I used to get upset because there was no calls, no voicemails. And Tommy used to always respond with,

[00:30:20] “Yeah, but it’s working.”  

[00:30:21] Marc Gonyea: [00:30:21] They’re not making any calls. Yeah.  

[00:30:22] Chris Corcoran: [00:30:22] I used to always respond, “Working compared to  what?” You got to do an AB test, at least  call and leave voicemails and then don’t call. And you’re like, “We can cover more ground sending out all these emails.” 

[00:30:32] Marc Gonyea: [00:30:32] The problem is there’s only two guys, and they had the whole market and  they’re like two guys at an apple picking farm.

[00:30:37] And it was like, the apples were everywhere. 

[00:30:41] Tommy Gassman: [00:30:41] A generous compensation plan. We were living the life. 

[00:30:44] Marc Gonyea: [00:30:44] I don’t remember that. 

[00:30:45] Tommy Gassman: [00:30:45] The worst part about it was I used to rip my shirts from copying and pasting so much,  but it was working. But Chris, your credit, it took me a couple of years and it wasn’t until I was a manager that I realized this.

[00:30:57] It’s not just about getting the meetings. You got to get on the phone and talk to people because you cannot sell a deal over an email. So, you were right.  You were right. One more time. 

[00:31:09] Chris Corcoran: [00:31:09] So, the Splash Brothers were doing their thing. And  they were splashing. 

[00:31:13] Marc Gonyea: [00:31:13] They were bringing in deals. There’s no doubt about it. Because  I looked it up, Bright started like a year and a half after you did.  Actually, a little less. So, he was here a long time ago, too. 

[00:31:20] Tommy Gassman: [00:31:20] Oh yeah. No, that’s a great guy. He’s doing very well for himself. I will say this though.

[00:31:24] He stole that exactly deal from me. And I’ll call Steve DeMarco right now. And he will admit that I closed that deal.

[00:31:32]Chris Corcoran: [00:31:32] S***. All right. So,  ask the Splash Brothers, so you guys took this stuff and then you actually tried to copyright your technique? 

[00:31:42] Tommy Gassman: [00:31:42] Did we? 

[00:31:42] Chris Corcoran: [00:31:42] And name it? 

[00:31:45] Tommy Gassman: [00:31:45] Oh, that was before “The Spell Book.”

[00:31:48] Chris Corcoran: [00:31:48] Yeah,  I know, after he left, then you decided to copyright it as “The Spell Book.” 

[00:31:53] Tommy Gassman: [00:31:53] Yeah. So, this is a shout-out to Austin Shifflett. He played a big part of it. So, you want to talk about The Spell Book? 

[00:32:00] Chris Corcoran: [00:32:00] Yeah. Hell yeah. Talk all about The Spell book. As I started getting more tenured and had more experience, I realized that outbound prospecting, it really comes down to three things.

[00:32:08] Tommy Gassman: [00:32:08] Specificity, relevance, and timing. That’s really the three ingredients.  

[00:32:15] Marc Gonyea: [00:32:15] Go, walk us through those three things. This is great. 

[00:32:18] Tommy Gassman: [00:32:18] So, the evolution of our drip program,  first thing that we added was the circle of leverage, the subject line, which is specific because very few people will know a more gynae outside of this company.

[00:32:31] So, that changed the game. Can you talk a little bit about what that means in terms of referencing more than one individual at the same time, our listeners  have no idea what you’re talking about. 

[00:32:38] So, let’s say I’m trying to sell you a marketing solution, MarTech solution.

[00:32:43] So, I would reach out to you, and I would copy our Director of Marketing, Kevin. So, essentially you will be talking, you would target, really, the ultimate decision maker, which would be Kevin who oversees that, and then you’d also be targeting who that person reports to.  

[00:32:56] Yeah, exactly.

[00:32:57] Okay. So, you have this at the same time, so that you can stimulate some internal chatter about what it is that you offer. 

[00:33:03] It plays on a number of different things, one being FOMO, right? If someone was trying to sell memoryBlue a sales solution, and reached out to you and me, I would be concerned that it would have been a really cool technology that I probably should’ve known about.

[00:33:19] And now you know about it before I know about it, or the same goes for, if someone wants to hit up one of my account executives about it, I was like, “Dude, why are you bugging my account executive?” And it just, it builds some curiosity. 

[00:33:32] Marc Gonyea: [00:33:32] It’s also simultaneously knocking on multiple doors at the same time.

[00:33:36] Tommy Gassman: [00:33:36] So, surround the castle. 

[00:33:37] Marc Gonyea: [00:33:37] Not to mention the person, the salesperson, the prospect says “the salesperson” for once. Finally, I’m dealing with a sales person who’s actually done five minutes of homework. 

[00:33:50] Tommy Gassman: [00:33:50] That’s really all it took, it was just a couple of minutes of talk time, or some research. So, we did that, and I started really changing the game.

[00:33:58] Then I realized, “I’m big on refinement.  I’m not going to invent something from scratch.”  I tend to try to make things a little better. So, we started game planning and  we’re list-building all these cyber security companies. Why are we doing that?

[00:34:09] Because we just sold a cyber security company. So, I thought, “Hey, what if we could figure out specifically what type of cybersecurity they do, like advanced, persistent threat. I know I’m working with this company that does that. They’re likely like that, again, playing on the FOMO. So, we started inserting companies that were in their space, that we had worked with, which definitely helped a lot.

[00:34:33] So, that’s all specificity. The timing component was just, we were blasting out a lot of these at the same time.  

[00:34:39] Chris Corcoran: [00:34:39] Oh, I don’t want to say you were blasting,  it wasn’t like a spam shot.

[00:34:46] You were very specific in terms of multiple decision makers, and the companies that you referenced, it wasn’t just high-tech companies or even cybersecurity companies. It was very micro niche.  It required a lot of research. 

[00:34:58] Tommy Gassman: [00:34:58] It did. The problem was we were doing it one at a time. Yeah.

[00:35:03] We would research this one, 15 minutes later, we would send it out and we’d do it again. So, I thought, “There has to be a better way.” So, what I did was I got with Austin Shifflett because he’s a little Excel genius, and we use some “Vlookups,” and started building out a database of all the companies that we had worked with in a variety of different categories.

[00:35:25] So, that would automatically populate. We were still doing all the research, but we could do that research early in the day, as opposed to  after every single one, and with the technology at the time, and now it’s even crazier, we could insert all these different variable tags.

[00:35:39] So, we were  doing rifle shots at scale, but we were doing it like a factory. And once you crack that nut, you can take it as far as you want. So, going into the relevance component, I figured a lot of these VCs care about how their money’s being spent. So we started inserting what companies have backed them, and companies that we had worked with in their portfolio.

[00:35:58] So, there’s like a crazy game of mad libs, but really it was a highly targeted email that will go out, and we do the same thing with voicemail. And the OS, we would just do it in our list building. 

[00:36:10] Chris Corcoran: [00:36:10] So, when did you ultimately decide, “You know what, we should probably call somebody.” 

[00:36:14] Tommy Gassman: [00:36:14] When you finally said I had to. No, look,  you gotta get on the phone, you gotta talk to people.

[00:36:20] I think it was when I started closing deals that I realized it. And at that point, I also had some more confidence. So, when you have confidence and you know what you’re talking about, it’s much easier to cold call someone. And we were doing something,  as a company, where the whole leadership team would do a blitz.

[00:36:35] Mine was Friday. I had an AM blitz, so, I would call 60 people from 8:30 to 10. Okay. And we used to have our own little hustle score. 

[00:36:44] Chris Corcoran: [00:36:44] Oh, nice. 

[00:36:45] Tommy Gassman: [00:36:45] You don’t remember that? 

[00:36:46] Chris Corcoran: [00:36:46] I remember going mano-a-mano with Justin Brown. 

[00:36:49] Tommy Gassman: [00:36:49] Yeah, because you were recruiting. 

[00:36:51] Chris Corcoran: [00:36:51] We were recruiting. 

[00:36:52] Tommy Gassman: [00:36:52] Yeah.

[00:36:53] Chris Corcoran: [00:36:53] That was fun. 

[00:36:54] Tommy Gassman: [00:36:54] It was good times.

[00:36:55] Marc Gonyea: [00:36:55] Posterizing Justin Brown.

[00:37:06] We got to get him on this  suit. Oh, we will. All right. So when did you migrate into management? Right after Matt left. Okay. Matt left, I realized that I had just trained my competition ’cause it was nice when I was the only sales guy. I no idea if I was doing a good job or  a bad job, but after he left, I was like, “I really would prefer not to have to train my competition again.”

[00:37:25] Tommy Gassman: [00:37:25] I went same as what I did with the SDR position. I said, “Let me go hire three people. And let me teach them what I would teach Matt, and I’ll manage them.” So, it was right after Matt left. 

[00:37:35] Marc Gonyea: [00:37:35] At that point, you were going to hire three  SDRs? No, they were full cycle. Okay.  So, instead of just hiring one, you wanted to hire three.

[00:37:44] Tommy Gassman: [00:37:44] So, we brought on Abigail Lacey, I think it was Mo, and Brett Siegal. 

[00:37:49] Chris Corcoran: [00:37:49] Yeah. It was great. Those are all great people. All rock stars. It’s like 2014ish, based upon my guess. Okay. Yep. So, you’ve got those guys going. Yep.  And what was that like? So, when you were looking for people to work for you in the role, what do you look for?

[00:38:02] Tommy Gassman: [00:38:02] Man, that’s evolved a lot over the years, but at the time I just went to the leaderboard and picked the top performers.  

[00:38:10] Marc Gonyea: [00:38:10] Those were back in the days when you didn’t know any SDRs. 

[00:38:13] Tommy Gassman: [00:38:13] No, I still knew some at this point. 

[00:38:14] Chris Corcoran: [00:38:14] Because I thought you used to be in your little “Spell Book” cave, you’d either be in there, or you’d be down smoking a cigarette, and you did not talk to anyone, but you liked the mystique.

[00:38:25] You’re like, “Who’s that guy?” 

[00:38:27] Tommy Gassman: [00:38:27] Yeah. So yeah, I guess you’re right. I didn’t know very many people, but luckily you all did and you all helped me. And we made some really good hires in the first-go round. So, that was then, now I have a whole different methodology on trying to find people.

[00:38:41] Marc Gonyea: [00:38:41] Yeah. But  let’s talk about what you thought, what you looked for then, and maybe how that’s evolved because people listen to like, “How do I get to go work for Tommy Gasman?” And you’ve had a lot of successful  people work for you here, who have moved on. So, what are some of the traits you look for?

[00:38:53] Tommy Gassman: [00:38:53] To be frank, I remember saying this to everyone and I was like, “Guys, I’m 5’5. If you’re not at my eye level, ’cause that’s about where the board was, I was like, I don’t look much lower than you.”

[00:39:03] Yeah, and that was the truth, I mean, if you can cut it. But now, I try to find people that were on  Our mantras and did well, and consistently did well. As a big thing, consistency is key. 

[00:39:17] Consistency on difficult clients or had difficult jobs?  Degree of difficulty versus inbound, Marquis logo versus bootstrap, startup, all those things.

[00:39:27] And I know that not everyone’s going to get a crazy startup and some people get big companies, but it’s still all about consistency and not plateauing, and you should be able to get better and better. And how has the job, so, you had Mo and Segal and Abigail, how did that team go?

[00:39:46] Marc Gonyea: [00:39:46] How’d you work on, what did you do? How’d you build that thing up? Not well, at first. I learned a lot by making a lot of mistakes as a manager, like, very first mistake I made was overselling people on the job. Now I’m like, “Are you sure? This is going to be tough.” So, that was a big one. Not everyone thinks the way that you think.

[00:40:06] Tommy Gassman: [00:40:06] I just thought everyone thought exactly the way I thought, and not everyone’s motivated by the same stuff.  I learned through that. I also learned that sometimes you got to let people fall. And that was really hard for me. I had to force myself not to be on sales calls.

Marc Gonyea: I remember, I would take them over.

Tommy Gassman: [00:40:21] That’s always been my problem. Yeah. So, I have to  physically not be there and let people make some mistakes. Lord knows I made a lot, and you learn from them. 

Marc Gonyea: Yeah. That’s like the big thing I’ve noticed with all the DMs  over the years, with just anyone. You get promoted to management, then you think the people you’re going to hire will be just like you. And that’s not the case. Like the Michael Jordans of the world or Magic Johnson, they’re always the best coaches, because people will do the things that they do, or they can always not do it. So, you got to transmit to do the things that they can do within their own capabilities. 

Tommy Gassman: Yeah. And people are better at certain things that I’m not good at.

[00:40:54] And Abigail was probably the most likable person, people person, I am not that. Brett Siegal’s fearless. I just had to pick up the phone. Everyone’s got their own superpower. And once you learn that, you can play to that. 

Marc Gonyea: Yeah. And what did you see? What makes someone good in the role of these folks have worked well for you?

[00:41:13] The early days, and then  as you’ve been growing up the team? 

Tommy Gassman: So,  when they first start just not being afraid in intellectual curiosity, asking a lot of questions, not being afraid to track me down and ask for help. That all helps a lot. Grit has always been a big one.  I want someone, I can’t remember who it was, but he was a SVP at the ADP, but he said that he would have all the salespeople buy a brand new sports car when they came on because he wanted them to have to make money.

[00:41:40] So, people that are driven, not spoon-fed, all those people do really well. 

Marc Gonyea: Excellent. Nice. There’s a bunch of places we can go with this. So, you’ve got the team, you’ve got Siegel, Abigail, and then  how did you scout for, what are some of the lessons learned? I guess there’s a bunch of places to go.

[00:41:58] Is it you as a manager? Is it building out the team? What were the keys to success in terms of winning these deals? 

Tommy Gassman: So, a big thing for me is empathy. I feel like it’s a loss trait in sales. Most salespeople are like borderline narcissist. And  Chris always used to say “Prescription before diagnosis is malpractice.” and it wasn’t until probably four or five years in actually managing salespeople that clicked. Because I remember I would go to Joey and some of these people, and I was like, “Hey, how are we going to help them?”

[00:42:32] He’s talking about redlining contracts, and I was like, “How are we going to help them? If you had to do this yourself, what would you do?” And if they didn’t have an answer for it, I was like “How is anybody else going to have that answer?” So, like being empathetic, being a thought leader, consultative approach, all those things.

[00:42:49] And you get that from some professional services, too. I would argue quicker in some instances without product.  There is no demo. 

Marc Gonyea: There’s no SE, it’s all trust. Yeah. All discovery.

Tommy Gassman: Yep. Discovery. And you got to get creative to fix some of these people’s problems. And you need to know when to walk away.

[00:43:08] Sometimes you can’t, despite what people might say, not everyone’s a good fit. You can’t sell them.

Marc Gonyea: Although Christian was offered, said that “you shouldn’t beg to differ,”  but that’s your old job. Another thing about the old job,  when you sell them memoryBlue services, what was the key thing about selling memoryBlue, that you thought, “Hey, this is why we’re the best fit for you.” 

Tommy Gassman: First, I fundamentally believed that we were the best option. And if you’re selling something that you can’t truly say is the best solution, you need to sell something else. So, once you have trust that it’s the right fit, that was step one. And then we would ask a lot of questions, and I would push back on people that said they wanted a slideshow, which was like, “I’m not giving you a PowerPoint.”

[00:43:57] I think it was that, and delivery to their credit has always done their job. So, the proof’s in the pudding, references go a  long way. 

Marc Gonyea: That’s how you get a call a decade later. 

Tommy Gassman: Can I say, get a call a decade later? 

Marc Gonyea: When did you get to the the 100k mark? So, you wanted to do that by the time you were 30. 

Tommy Gassman: I was like 24, 25.

Marc Gonyea: [00:44:15] So, it was much quicker. 

Tommy Gassman: Way quicker. 

Marc Gonyea: Okay. Excellent. And  when did you get married? 

Tommy Gassman: 2014. 

Marc Gonyea: So, you worked on this for three years and you got married? 

Tommy Gassman: Yeah. Okay. All right. Awesome.  So, let’s talk a little bit about some of the deals. Oh yeah. Okay. So, talk to me first about your biggest or your favorite win in the history.

Tommy Gassman: [00:44:37] Favorite win, so, I’ve been following this company “Box,”  I’ve had heard about them because of Dropbox. And there was like this whole cloud storage more going on at the time. And their CEO was like Forbes under 400 or under 40. He was like a rock star. So, I became obsessed with this company.

[00:44:57] And I had hit up the SVP of SNB sales, called her, left her a voicemail, sent her an email. I’ve been chasing her for months.  I think the leadership team was upstairs in the conference room that we used to do the  red chip, green chip Callie bell sessions. And they were showing us part on.

[00:45:14] And literally the part out instant was already in. And I saw at the top of the PowerPoint or the projector that Leslie from Box was on our website. 

Chris Corcoran: What’s her last name, do you remember?  

Tommy Gassman: Young, I think. Okay. I’m looking over it now. Okay. And I saw it and I was like, “I’m emailing her right now.” I literally said, “Hey, you won’t believe this, I’ve reached out to a long time ago.

[00:45:36] It looks like you’re on our website. Things change over time. Let’s talk.” And she said, “All right, Tim, you got your shot.”  I don’t know if I ever corrected her, that’s fine. Call me whatever you want. And I chased that deal for, we went back and forth for what felt like months, and at the time it was the biggest deal in company history.

[00:45:55] And I was still on that super lucrative plan, so I was going to make some coin on it. Yeah. Went back, learned a lot about negotiations and procurement throughout that process. And I was at my friend, Cody Harris’  wedding. Literally right after the ceremony is when the deal we actually signed. I don’t know if we had DocuSign at that time, but I remember getting a notification, might’ve been a fax and that feeling is one of the reasons why I still miss being an individual contributor.

[00:46:21] Yeah. That  rush of adrenaline, knowing that the deal came out. It’s five FTE. It was like $250,000. 

Chris Corcoran: Yeah. I remember it was the best deal in company history at the time. 

Marc Gonyea: I was in Austin, I think.  Yes. We always broke that on your face. Outbound. I remember, I think it was in Austin,

[00:46:35] and that’s where some of the people, I can’t remember, but I was talking to you wherever you were. And  you told me you closed, and I thought, “This is amazing.”  And we staffed it at Austin. Yeah. I think we did. Yeah, we did great. That was okay. 

Chris Corcoran: But that was an elephant. Huge. It was huge. I sent her a LinkedIn connection.

[00:46:47] She never accepted my LinkedIn connect, all those years ago. Listen to the podcast. 

Chris Corcoran: Yes. What about, on the other hand, your worst or most painful loss? 

Tommy Gassman: Not too long ago. 

Chris Corcoran: Is it recency bias or?  

Tommy Gassman: This one hurt. I’ve had a lot of losses, in sales you lose way more than you win.

Chris Corcoran: If you’re doing it right.

Tommy Gassman: [00:47:08] Yeah. This one stung, because I had not been selling deals for a while. I was managing, but this particular one I had inherited for some reason. So I was working it. I was rusty. It was InsightSquared. 

Marc Gonyea: Okay. Oh, man. 

Tommy Gassman: Yeah. And  I had what I thought was the greatest intro call in history.

[00:47:28] This guy was  thanking me, he was like, “You did a great job.” And I got wicked happy ears. And he told me he was going to go a different direction, and I was like, “No way that’s happening.” So I went back and forth. We were on a texting basis. It was a fun deal, we were talking about two or three times a day.

[00:47:47] Yeah. He’s the CEO of the company. It’s pretty big company. And he was like, “Everything about your company is better. You’re just a thousand dollars more expensive.” And I was like, “That’s how it works, man. There’s always a correlation between the best and price.” And I pretty much begged and pleaded.

[00:48:03] I was like, “Give us a shot.” And he ended up saying “no,” so it got away. And it was a bummer because I really thought we were the best fit. And I’m not perfect. I got rusty.

Marc Gonyea: What did you learn? 

Tommy Gassman: The things that made me a good salesperson, for whatever reason I had let those down. I got happy years and I never used to get happy years.

[00:48:24] I was always looking for the problem. I’m like, “Who’s going to let me down?” I wake up every day thinking it’s raining outside. I’d rather be excited to see the sun than let down. And all those instincts were gone. I think I was overconfident. 

Marc Gonyea: Very interesting. Okay. 

Tommy Gassman: We’ll be back though. That’s good. 

Marc Gonyea: Tommy, when did you try and quit on us?

Tommy Gassman: [00:48:48] Oh yeah, I remember that. Which time was that? No, this is like I did quit. 

Marc Gonyea: Yeah, you did quit. 

Tommy Gassman: Actually. I accepted another job. 

Marc Gonyea: You did accept. 

Tommy Gassman: I  took a counter offer. Yeah. I individually took the counter offer.  

Marc Gonyea: The one that got away. What happened to those guys? 

Tommy Gassman: My plane off the island. 

Chris Corcoran: Let’s talk about that.

Tommy Gassman: [00:49:07] They went into a huge deal with Dell six months later, and everyone got rich. No, I’ll tell you why I quit. 

Marc Gonyea: Yes, we make mistakes too, but this is about Tommy, all his mistakes. You’ve seen Chris and I.  

Tommy Gassman: Honestly, I had not closed the deal at that point. And I was in that position for five months, and my wife and I used to walk our dog around our apartment in Centerville, early in the morning.

[00:49:32] And she probably got sick of hearing it, but I was like, “They’re gonna fire me today.” I think you even remember saying to me, “Hey, don’t worry. We’re not going to fire you.” But I knew it was coming around. 

Marc Gonyea: The kiss of death. Once they say, “Don’t worry,” that’s when you need to start worrying.

[00:49:46] Okay. 

Tommy Gassman: I was a $50,000 under, on my plan.  It was bad. So, I’m like, “You know what? I want to control my own destiny and fire myself.” And I did, I interviewed at the company, felt terrible about doing it, too. But I accepted it, and I was nervous about telling you on. I came in and I ripped it off like a bandaid.

[00:50:07] I was like, “Hey guys, look, I’m out. I’m going to this company. It’s been fun. I appreciate everything.” And I think Chris said, “Yeah. Sorry to hear that. Don’t tell anybody, and we’ll talk later in the day.” And I was like, “All right, it’s done.”  I started researching the company I was going to go to work for, and then you came in later and said that you didn’t  want me to leave.

[00:50:25] And that I was just, “Oh, you’re not going to fire me,” and all that stuff. And you cut me a check because I said, “I need some money, man.”  I was not making very much money. And once you did that, I was all in. I really haven’t considered leaving ever since. 

Marc Gonyea: Oh, people come after Tommy all the time. He’s saying it’s so happy.

Tommy Gassman: [00:50:44] It wasn’t a bad $5,000 investment. 

Marc Gonyea: I don’t think so.

Marc Gonyea: That’s great. I don’t even remember it. I remember pieces of it.  I remember you quitting. I don’t remember breaking out the checkbook.  So, I guess I don’t want the listeners to get the wrong idea, like the best way to get a check from your manager isn’t to quit.

[00:51:07] It was probably a situation where, listen, you were in the role, a brand new role. And typically when we’re doing something for the first time, we’re not going to do it. So the comp plan may not be aligned correctly earlier.  In this talk, you were talking about how we had a crazy lucrative comp plan, which means we probably didn’t get it right.

[00:51:25] But kind of in the wrong way, in your all’s favor or in your favor. And then on this time we didn’t get it right. But it was not in your favor. And so, we needed to figure out like, “Hey, is this person doing what we want that person for them to be doing? 

[00:51:38] Absolutely. However, he’s got groceries and he’s got market opportunities. And we got to try to make sure that if they’re doing the right thing, that we can align that with the compensation plan. And we knew that it was out of balance, and that imbalance would have ultimately caused you to go pursue other roles.

Tommy Gassman: [00:51:53] Money was definitely a factor because I’ve always said I had a rent to pay, but money isn’t everything. And I viewed it, check aside, the fact that you all had faith that I was going to be able to make it happen. Yeah. And keep in mind,  I don’t think I had closed the deal at this point.

[00:52:11] So, this might’ve even been before Matt Bright.

Marc Gonyea: Okay. It was early. Yeah. This is early. Definitely. That’s why I should have brought it up earlier, but it was necessary all the way. 

Tommy Gassman: Ironically, 30 days later I closed my first deal, and it changed the game because I knew it could be done.

[00:52:23] I wasn’t sure I could do it. Yep. Up to that point. 

Marc Gonyea: Yup. Interesting. Very interesting. So,  I want to talk a little bit about your role as a leader. We talked a lot about your role as an individual contributor, but more from a leadership perspective. One of the things that you’ve been able to do very well is you’ve been able to install a great culture on your team.

[00:52:45] Talk a little bit about what you do, how you do it and how that culture keeps people on the team, as well as it serves as a magnet to get top performers wanting to join the team. 

Tommy Gassman: Yeah. Okay. Could segue into that. People ask me all the time why I’m still here. The reason why I’m still here is, you all took a chance on me at Radford and fundamentally changed my life.

[00:53:04] I got married. Went on my honeymoon, bought a house, bought cars. I’m passionate about helping others to achieve that. And I want to ride that wave. So, the first step is you really do need to care about your team. Like, truly need to care about your team and fight for them when you feel like they’re not being treated right.

[00:53:24] And all of those things. So, I really truly care about them. I have a mantra that I’ve revised recently, but always my dad used to say,  “If you’re managing people, never tell them to do something that you haven’t done personally yourself.” So, I would never ask someone to go to a trade show, if I hadn’t done it before, and one of those things. Now it’s same thing, but

[00:53:43] something you haven’t done yourself lately. Yeah.  Just because you did it 10 years ago, it doesn’t mean. So, lead by example, step off the field because a lot of this is lessons learned, but I thought I was helping them by coming in and saving the deal,

[00:54:00] but I was actually hurting them because one, they weren’t getting better, but two, they felt like, “I could have done it.  Why did you have to come in and help me? I thought I was going to do it myself.” So, just learning and listening and having a very much an open door policy. I don’t have an office.

[00:54:16] I don’t think I’ll ever have an office. 

Marc Gonyea: You like to sit on the floor. 

Tommy Gassman: I like to sit on the floor. I like to hear them. I want to rally them up.  

Marc Gonyea: Yeah. And then, also talk about outside of work. It sounds like that you like to do some things with the team, and build that kind of esprit-de-corps.

Tommy Gassman: [00:54:31] Truthfully, I’m not the greatest at that. But I become friends with a lot of these people and you’ve got to be careful. You’re not their friend, you’re their manager. But I had been working with Joey Cohen for four years.  He’s like family. And if you treat people right, you truly care about them,

[00:54:45] they’ll stick around longer. And I think that’s how you build a good culture. Sure. 

Chris Corcoran: I remember the first TOPS trip or two, like, “Tommy has gone RV.”  

Tommy Gassman: Yeah, we did the boat trip. We went to Costa Rica. 

Chris Corcoran: Yeah. And people notice that too, “I want to get on that guy’s team. Maybe I don’t want to go for the client.”

[00:55:02] Yeah. Like, “Maybe I can join up with him.” 

Marc Gonyea: And the culture of winning too, I think is important. Yeah. I’ve never been part of a team that was a losing team. That was fine. No, maybe others have, but I haven’t. 

Tommy Gassman: Yeah. And keeping them winners and not necessarily dragging people that just aren’t a good fit. They’ll be winners somewhere else, but not here.

[00:55:24] I made all those mistakes before, but we also have our own culture too, which I think is important when you have teams under a bigger team, it’s the heavier microculture.

Marc Gonyea: Yeah, definitely. Okay. Good.  Very good. And then let’s talk a little bit about, you were crushing it,

[00:55:38] growing sales, making things happen, and then all of a sudden things changed. The world changed. 

Tommy Gassman: It did. 

Marc Gonyea: So, talk a little bit about that. 

Tommy Gassman: So, I was enjoying my cushy life, running the sales. 

Marc Gonyea: You were high performance  

Tommy Gassman: The machine was built, and it took a while to build it. Yeah, my job was to just make sure it didn’t shut down.

[00:56:00] To the refinement thing, I always liked to build stuff. Yup. Not mechanically, but just  I’ve been process-oriented. So, you guys asked me to come in and build a process for the direct placement team, which I did. First thing I did was go out and call someone I knew and try to get them a job, and call someone that was hiring and try to get them to hire them, and we got the systems running.

[00:56:19] I was planning on going back, and then I called you up for our kickoff earlier in 2021. And you said, “No, you are not, you are staying in there.” Because I think you saw the potential. And I had a little bit of an identity crisis because I was nervous about taking on something brand new, but now I absolutely love it.

[00:56:35] I’m having a blast. 

Marc Gonyea: What do you like about it?

Tommy Gassman: I like that it’s new. That it’s scary. I like breaking things. Yeah. Like, we were breaking stuff and learning again. It’s not a well-refined engine yet, and  it’s, frankly, I think in some ways more difficult than what I used to do. 

Marc Gonyea: Definitely.

Tommy Gassman: [00:56:53] Because, could you imagine if your product could deny being a product for the company, if you sold it, “No, I’m not going to be the CRM system for that company.” So,  I used to think recruiting was not sales. I was wrong. First, I admit it, it’s way more than sales, even in corporate recruiting, it’s still sales, but agencies selling, it’s double the sales.

Marc Gonyea: [00:57:14] So, for our listeners, talk to them a little bit about what you’re doing and what your team does and how they do it.  You guys have been crushing it out of the gates, and what you’ve been able to do to is to get us on the right track. 

Tommy Gassman: So, it was pretty simple.  It’s similar to what I was selling before, but not everyone wants to outsource and I get that, and there’s a lot of good, talented people that are doing okay,

[00:57:37] but could be doing a lot better. My job and my team’s job is to inform them about what’s going on in the market, and the opportunities that they could potentially explore. And I’m getting to know a lot of salespeople and already knew a lot. And I’m helping these companies build back up, especially ones that have lost a lot of people during the pandemic.

[00:57:57] So,  I feel like it’s truly making a difference in people’s lives 

Marc Gonyea: Without question.

Tommy Gassman: I’ve never sold a product that sent me a “thank you” note. So, we’re doing that. And I see this being a huge part of the company. I don’t know if you all play in this from the beginning, but if you did, it was genius.

[00:58:13] If you didn’t, it still was genius, but also a little lucky. Think about how many people have worked at memoryBlue? 

Marc Gonyea: Thousands. 

Tommy Gassman: And we have them as a captive audience. We have this really great alumni network, a lot of people, there’s alumni babies out there, memoryBlue babies.

[00:58:28] So, we’ve developed this great network of talented, very talented people, and leveraging our relationship with the tech community. If you think about it, we’ve almost designed a staffing company from the beginning. So, I think that’s really gonna give us a differentiator in the market. 

Marc Gonyea: Yeah.  The importance of the network.

[00:58:47] Yeah.  It’s part of the experience, but for a lot of folks who work with us or worked for us, work here, they remember it finally, even though those really hard work and clients that we work with, the low numbers of the traditional business is very difficult and it can be dirty tactical work,

[00:59:03] and it doesn’t always go exactly as everyone planned. As long as people feel like you’re doing the right things, they associate it with memoryBlue, “These guys work hard, and may not work as  I wanted to every time, but I know they’re doing all the right things, where they at least try really hard.” And I hire good people. And Tommy,  you’re perfect for what you’re doing now because I think  nearly everyone who works with you respects you and know that you’re a straight shooter, and that’s really important,

[00:59:25] And a leader, but also,  you’re talking about somebody in their career, but you’re talking about staff in someone’s team, and they want bad asses on their team.  

Tommy Gassman: And hopefully, one of these people  that my team places will call us in five years when their director hires more people.  

Marc Gonyea: They will. 

Tommy Gassman: The rising-stars thing is fantastic now, too, because there’s never been a better time to be working in memoryBlue,

[00:59:46] in my opinion, when you’ve done your tour, there are so many options, both internally and externally. Yeah. And I’ve got 60 companies lined up, just waiting to hire someone when they hit their tenure. 

Marc Gonyea: Talk a little bit to the listeners about what a rising star is. 

Tommy Gassman: So, a rising star is someone that’s been here for 12 to 15 months. 

Marc Gonyea: [01:00:04] Yeah, 12 to 15 months, depending on market. 

Tommy Gassman: And that’s typically about the shelf life of someone in the SDR capacity, although a lot of them will run another six months to get into a really great company. So, they go through the program, they’ve done their tour. They’ve learned a lot, they’re academy certified, they’re rock stars.

[01:00:23] They get assigned a kind of a dedicated liaison, like a little PR assistant. And  we learn about what they want to do, and we go out and we find them a job, and there’s no shortage of people that want to hire. 

Marc Gonyea: So, what do you hear from the clients in terms of their interest level and rising stars?

Tommy Gassman: [01:00:41] I have to put some of them on mute when we don’t have them. I’m getting yelled at. I’m like, “I can’t just create them from nothing. Wait for your turn.” And they get mad when they can’t win them, but that’s because it’s highly competitive for these folks. They’re incredibly skilled. And then eventually, some of them have to find people other ways, and we can help them, too.

[01:00:59] But the rising stars, they’re incredible. People love them.  

Chris Corcoran: We’ve been talking about it for years, rising stars, but we finally have the mechanism into your team to catapult people into that. So, when we’re out on the recruiting trail, now we can pull up that into the bargain, too. Because people would get jobs anyways.

[01:01:19] But sometimes it’s good to have some guidance and some insights. 

Tommy Gassman: We are like career counselors in a way, because I know that, at the time I quit, I didn’t do any research. I just took the first call that I got from a recruiter. It’s like the biggest mistake you can make, or base chasing, all these different things.

[01:01:38] And I think Matt talks about this in his podcast. Like, you learn a lot selling memoryBlue, you learn a lot about handicapping, a startup. You don’t know what’s going to be good and what’s going to be bad. And there’s no way that someone a-year-out-of-college is going to be able to know that. Some will, for sure.

[01:01:53] But, I think that’s an added value that these rising stars get, right? Yeah. 

Chris Corcoran: You guys definitely give them multiple opportunities where they get insight and they can see different opportunities and they can decide which one would be best for them. 

Marc Gonyea: So, what’s the deal with the team now, and where do you want to go with it?

[01:02:09] So, now you’re running, remember the direct placement, tell us a little bit about that. 

Tommy Gassman: Yeah, shout-out to George Pasa for rushing it. Bones and I are loving it, I think the team loves it. I hope more people will join it. Because the reality is there’s so much demand. I just need more supply.

[01:02:26] Hopefully we can scale this to as big as I can get it and then open it up in Austin, Seattle. There’s no shortage of need.

Marc Gonyea: None. 

Tommy Gassman: And there’s a lot of competitors that do it, but a lot of them do it really badly.

Marc Gonyea: Yeah.  What are you looking for in those sorts of folks?

[01:02:40] Come join the DP team. 

Tommy Gassman: All the same traits that I would look for from an account executive, but with the dash, more entrepreneurial mindset because they’re running their own business now.  There’s no delivery that’s going to help. There’s no recruiting that’s going to help. Like, you gotta be  entrepreneurial in order to really do it.

[01:03:01] And I think the team that we’ve got are definitely those folks. 

Marc Gonyea: Okay. All right. So,  for our listeners, how do you keep your skills sharp?  

Tommy Gassman: You gotta get in the game occasionally and see if you can do it. I’m running a couple of deals myself, right now, just to make sure I can keep doing it.

[01:03:15] Yeah, don’t get complacent. 

Marc Gonyea: Okay. And then also, I think one thing that you’re not sharing that you definitely do is, you’re literally an expert on our niche and who we sell to, and  you keep current on all of those things. Talk a little bit about how you do that. 

Tommy Gassman: Yeah. So, I wasn’t a big reader when I was at Radford, but I am now, so, I try to read, I constantly try to learn stuff.

[01:03:39] I set aside time once a week, just to research stuff, just to google things. And that helps. I’ve learned a lot from Google, just Google and stuff. 

Marc Gonyea: Yeah. I remember, that’s why you were so successful back on Zoom Safer, because you learned a s*** ton about their space and what they do and who they sold to.

[01:04:02] And you’ll learn that by just sitting there and listen to people. You got to go out and find that information and research it and to talk about the law around them. The law’s going to change. We would talk about it because  it’s gotta be more important to you than just like a way to put meetings.

Tommy Gassman: [01:04:14] So, going back to the empathy thing, there’s a reason why doctors have to go to school for so long. And I really do believe the prescription before diagnosis is malpractice. So,  you cannot prescribe someone accurately if you don’t know the space and look, that takes time. And when you’re new in the job, you’re just going to have to muscle through it and fake it ’till you make it, but always learn because everything changes.

[01:04:37] Yeah. There’s technology out there. When I was an SDR, I had a spreadsheet. I couldn’t even use my computer. And now there’s automated gifts-sending services. You got to constantly be on your game. 

Marc Gonyea: All right.  Very good. This was great, Tommy. That’s fine. We appreciate  the stroll down memory lane.

Tommy Gassman: [01:04:54] Yeah. I’m sure I forgot a lot of people, but it’s been a long time. 

Marc Gonyea: Yeah, definitely. Well, we’re looking forward to the next decade. Yeah. Very good. Good stuff. It was a lot of fun. Shout out.