Tech Sales is for Hustlers Podcast

Episode 50: Carly Prunier – Sunday Afternoons with Carly

If you’re a potential sales prospect casually relaxing on a Sunday afternoon and your phone rings, don’t be surprised if you hear Carly Prunier on the other end. It’s not a traditional time for cold calling, but Carly isn’t afraid to stand out.

She paved her own path to a successful sales career in record time by going above and beyond. Her innovative sales techniques push the envelope and get results. Whether its calling prospects on Sunday afternoons (less busy), to texting those who miss her calls (more direct), Carley separates herself from the pack constantly.

Tune in to this episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers to catch up with one of our pioneering Boston office alums Carly Prunier, now a successful Sales Development Representative at Snyk. Carley highlights the characteristics she believes makes women more successful in sales, how she protects herself from burnout and why she focuses on the little things that add up to make a big difference in sales.

 

Guest-At-A-Glance

Name: Carly Prunier

What she does: DevSecOps | Open Source, IaC, SAST, & Container Security at Snyk

Company: Snyk

Noteworthy: She worked for the Massachusetts Trial Courts for two years before joining memoryBlue. She’s currently working at Snyk and creates “Sunday afternoons with Carly.”

Where to find Carly: LinkedIn

Key Insights

⚡ Make a difference between home and work. Working in sales can be difficult sometimes, especially when a potential client reacts negatively during the call. Reasons for this can be various, but Carly reminds that salespeople need to keep their cool. “The biggest lesson I learned was to stay true to yourself because you can lose your temper when someone is yelling at you. I learned not to take work home with me and have that fresh mindset of, ‘Okay, work is work and home is home,’ and have that different work-life balance. One of the lessons I learned was not to let that rejection get in the way of doing your job and being who you are, and take it with a grain of salt, and keep on pushing.”

⚡ The best salespeople need to thrive. Sales is not another 9 to 5 job you should sit out. It is much more, and people need to be highly motivated to make progress in this area. It can be hard sometimes, but being in love with what you do can ease things up. “It’s not easy, but you have to want it. If you don’t want it, it’s not for you. You got to want to be the best, and you got to want to beat your friends out for the top position. If you’re okay with hitting your numbers or sitting at 80% of your quota, maybe sales isn’t for you. If you want it, it’s super fun, and it’s super awesome, and it’s exciting, and it’s crazy. Even now, I’ve booked a thousand meetings in my career over the last year and a half. I booked myself into that, and I still get all amped up about it. The adrenaline rush never goes away.” 

⚡ Don’t let yourself burn out. While giving your best at your job can help you succeed, you should be aware that you can’t do anything if you’re overwhelmed, tired, or, in the worst case, on the verge of burning out. “It’s going to be a grind, and the grind will be worth it if you are a sponge and you absorb everything that you possibly can. If you’re overwhelmed, take a step back. Take that hour walk at lunch. Don’t feel like you need to overpower yourself with everything right away because that was one of my biggest flaws. I wanted to know it and do it. Take that time back, step back, look at the big picture and be a sponge. Don’t take ‘No’ for an answer; if you want it, it will come.”

Episode Highlights

Training for sales can be terrifying

“I’m not gonna lie. Your first cold call is terrifying. I would say to everyone, ‘Get on a cold call after you learn your product and butcher it.’ Rip the bandaid off. I was terrified of the phones. I even hated call breakdowns because we have to go listen to all of our cold calls, and everyone has to hear me on the phone when talking about how bad I butchered that call and how many ‘likes’ and ‘ums’ I said. That can come off as micromanaging, and it’s scary, and you don’t want to listen to yourself, but it does work.” 

Being confident is more important than knowing the product

“If you go into the call being like, ‘Hey, this is Carly, did I catch you at a bad time?’ They can sense your nerves. You have to go into it with confidence. If you sound confident, you can do great things. On the phone, it’s easy to pick up if someone’s quiet and not confident. Even if you use your mannerisms while talking, they make the conversation more normal, less robotic, and scripted. If you’re confident, you can say anything, even if you don’t know what you’re selling.” 

Building business relationships on Sundays

“It’s just more about building that rapport and creating those human moments with the person. I know that’s your Sunday. I’m not going to sales pitch you, but I want it to be the first thing in your mind on Monday morning if you could get back to me tomorrow morning. I want you to be thinking about it. 

Odds are, they’re probably going to, 80% of the time, at least read that message. If you made your point on adding value in your initial message, they’re going to be thinking about you as they go on with their night. They start their Monday, and then you follow up with them Monday afternoon. They had time to process it and think about it. I’ve seen such success with it. It’s insane.”

Women can be better in sales thanks to their natural abilities

“I’m not biased, but I think women are way better at sales. Again, a lot of it comes down to — the best relationships you have with your prospects are when you can build that rapport, and you’re not trying to just sales pitch them. I think women in themselves are more nurturing and want to learn more, and are more eager. They have that motherly instinct.

I tell every girl in college, ‘Go into sales, don’t be scared.’ If you have a personality and you want it, you can do it. You have that skill of relationship building in your blood.’ They are more genuinely curious to ask you, ‘Oh, Marc, but why? Can I ask why?’ And they want to understand more than sometimes men do. Women in sales are becoming more and more common, but it’s not always easy.”

Once you’re ready, you should take a step forward

“I hope to be an account executive at Snyk. I’m ready to take those next steps in my sales career. The SDR role is a grind. It’s fun. It’s exhilarating, but now I want to learn the negotiation aspect. I want to learn, working with legal, working with all these other counterparts that come in behind the scenes, that the SDR role doesn’t necessarily get to see. 

I love being responsible for my fate. SDR managers have it hard because they’re looking at their team’s numbers and all that, and that’s not something I can see myself doing because I want to be in charge of my success, fate, the money I make. I’m hungry for more because I have the confidence that I’m good at what I do now, and I know that I’m ready to take those next steps into a closing role.”

Transcript:

[00:00:12] Chris Corcoran: [00:00:12] Carly Prunier live and direct from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Welcome. 

[00:00:21] Marc Gonyea: [00:00:21] Hey, Carly, how are you? 

[00:00:22] Carly Prunier: [00:00:22] I’m good. How are you? 

[00:00:24] Marc Gonyea: [00:00:24] Good. Good. Just to, just to give the audience, the listeners, a little bit of insight about you, it’s a little, little quick and dirty. Before working at memoryBlue, you’re a criminal justice major. 

[00:00:33] Carly Prunier: [00:00:33] Yes. 

[00:00:34] Marc Gonyea: [00:00:34] years working for the Massachusetts Trial Courts. 

[00:00:37] Carly Prunier: [00:00:37] Yes. 

[00:00:38] Marc Gonyea: [00:00:38] Then you joined memoryBlue, which we’re going to get into, joined memoryBlue and COI, Sunday afternoons with Carly, one of mine and Chris’s favorite things to talk about.

[00:00:51] Now you’re an SDR at Snyk getting ready to do bigger things for them.

[00:00:55] Carly Prunier: [00:00:55] I hope so, that’s the goal. 

[00:00:58] Marc Gonyea: [00:00:58] Well, welcome,

[00:01:00] Carly Prunier: [00:01:00] Glad to be here. Honored that I was asked. 

[00:01:03] Marc Gonyea: [00:01:03] Please. All right, well, let’s get into a little bit. What we want to do is get the audience a little familiar with you, and the best way to do that just give you a second quick, little brief rundown of kind of who you are, where you’re from, where’d you grow up… A little bit about that and then we’ll, then we’ll kind of take it away from we’ll get the Westfield State and then we’ll go from there.

[00:01:25] Carly Prunier: [00:01:25] Perfect. Yeah, so I grew up in a suburb outside of Boston, like 45 minutes called  Franklin Mass, home of the first public library, actually. You know, I went to Franklin High School, typical, and then didn’t want to leave Mass. So I went to a state school in Mass, because I knew, I always wanted to go to school for criminal justice, was aspiring to be an FBI agent my whole life was just, the goal. So once you, let’s say, had a really good criminal justice program. So I went there to study criminal justice. I graduated with the Bachelor’s of Science and Criminal Justice, then got a job working in family court, Probate and Family Court in Western Mass in a city called Springfield.

[00:02:06] It’s not like the safest city, big city. 

[00:02:09] Marc Gonyea: [00:02:09] Let me get this real quick. So you grew up, while you’re growing up, your mom was in sales.

[00:02:15] Carly Prunier: [00:02:15] Yeah. So, my dad, an FBI agent, so I was going that way. My mom was in sales… Just kind of saw her like always traveling, you know, being the sales woman that she is you know, always talking, always doing this, that. So I kind of was against sales for awhile, just because I didn’t think I realized, you know, I graduated college that I am my mom’s twin.

[00:02:41] So, our personalities are very similar and I never realized that. It was just kind of being that bratty 18 year old, like, “Oh, I don’t want to do what my mom does.” When she was kind of being like, “Carly, you kind of have the knack for it.” And I was like, “Mom, I don’t, I don’t think so, you know, I want to go the other way.”

[00:02:59] Marc Gonyea: [00:02:59] So, so when you were growing up and you kinda, your mom thought you had this knack for it and we’ll get to when you got to Springfield. What were those things that you now you look back on you’re like, “Okay?”

[00:03:08] Okay. 

[00:03:09] Carly Prunier: [00:03:09] Yeah. So I’ve always just been like, you know, could have a conversation with the wall. I can talk to anyone and I also, she was either like, “You’re going to be in sales or you’re going to be a lawyer.” ‘Cause I don’t like to back down or get told No or, you know… I always have a point and my point is somehow accurate, like to my beliefs and I truly believe that, you know, say we were, you know, arguing about something, my points were valid and I could have that good rebuttal and, you know… I just kind of had that people skills, you know, talking to people, chatting with people, being personable, you know, getting to know them and she just kinda saw already right away and I guess she saw things that I did not see, but… 

[00:03:53] Marc Gonyea: [00:03:53] So you went to school criminal justice and then what did you think you’re going to do, like when you’re in your senior college?

[00:03:59]Carly Prunier: [00:03:59] So I was, my goal was to apply for the FBI, but you had to be 24. So when I graduated, I was 22. So I was like, “You know what? Like, I’m just going to apply to work in the courts, kind of get some familiarity with the law and this and that.” And you know, I always liked kids and people, so I was in family court and I kind of like, I w, I liked it ’cause in the sense I was talking to people all day, but again, talking to people who didn’t want to talk to me, dealing with child support, custody battles, divorces, restraining order. So it was tough. And I think the moment I realized that it wasn’t for me was when people were, you know, I was, you know, a great employee and doing this and that and taking over other people’s jobs and people were getting promoted over me that, you know, were sitting on their butt all day had been there for 30 years and didn’t even know how to turn on the computer. Because it was all about your seniority level rather than your ability, your skills and ability. And, you know, after watching that happened time and time again, I got very frustrated with it. And it was kind of like, “You know what? Like working for the state, working for the government, it’s not for me.” And that’s kind of what I talked to my mom about for a while. And I was like, “I am just miserable. Like I’m working my butt off, but I’m not getting compensated. I’m making, you know, crap money, not loving going…” Like, and I want to love going to work everyday and that’s always been my biggest thing. So I just wasn’t happy anymore and I know I needed to make a change. And she was like, “Try sales you’ll be good at it.” And I was like, “I don’t know.” And here we are.

[00:05:31] Chris Corcoran: [00:05:31] So did you ever talk to your dad about it and he, because he was on that path and that was the path you were ultimately? Did you ever have those conversations where could say, “Hey, Carly, listen, I know it is what it is, but just stick with it for another year or two and then you can be in the FBI.” 

[00:05:45] Carly Prunier: [00:05:45] Yeah. So he definitely was like kind of being like, “I mean, do what you want to do.”  My parents are divorced, so they totally see separate ways. So if I was going to be with my, you know, do what my mom wanted to do, and he was kind of like, “Nah…” Then my mom was like, “Don’t go into the FBI, like your dad.” And then, you know, it kind of came to the point where he kind of saw that I was struggling,

[00:06:04] I wasn’t happy. I was, you know, frustrated going to work every day and I just didn’t like… I like to be this happily, bubbly person like naturally.  And he kind of saw that I was like drained and exhausted and then he kind of was like, “You know what? Like you really do resemble your mom. Like, I really do think that sales could be a fit for you.” 

[00:06:24] Marc Gonyea: [00:06:24] All right. So what happened then? Like how, when did, when did, was it a moment in time when you were working for the courts in Massachusetts? You’re like, “I need to go with the sales.” Or how did, how did it evolve?

[00:06:35] Carly Prunier: [00:06:35] So actually I like kind of took it, I was like, “I need to get out of here.” My mom was living in New York city at the time. I took a Friday off, took the train from Western Mass to New York. One of the my first weekends visiting her there and she started her new job had never been to the city, she kind of wanted to make me feel welcome.

[00:06:52] So she invited one of her SDRs that she thought I was so similar to. We were talking about it and she ended up she’s from 

[00:07:00] memoryBlue alumni. 

[00:07:01] So she was like, “Hey,” like, “I know this great place where you can get your foot to sales.” Because I was like, “Mom, like I’m 23. I have no sales experience. It’s like, I graduated in criminal justice.

[00:07:11] I don’t know anything about sales.” I didn’t even know what Salesforce was. I remember like going into interview, my mom’s like just say, “You know Salesforce.” And I’m like, “I had no clue anything to do with sales or even what the job was like.” And this Kaitlyn Garish, a memoryBlue alumni.

[00:07:27] Marc Gonyea: [00:07:27] Garish.

[00:07:29] Right. Mobileiron days. Yeah.

[00:07:32] Carly Prunier: [00:07:32] So she was, you know, my mom, she was working for an SDR for my mom and my mom brought her out for drinks with us, just not even like talking, you know, about sales, like to have someone my age there, and was like, “Oh, you’ll love her.” And she was like, “Hey, like, this is a great place to get your foot in the door.”

[00:07:49] My mom’s like, “Whoa, really? Like, I’ve never heard of that. Like that sounds awesome.” And so that kind of was a turning point. I was like, “You know what? Like I’ll apply”. And she was like, “I know, like Jeremy Wood. He’s awesome, he’s, you know, just started the Boston office.” Like it was perfect timing.

[00:08:04] So, that it just randomly happened like that ’cause I like, my biggest thing was I didn’t have the confidence and I knew nothing about sales, coming from that background. And I was like, terrified… I was like, “I’m not any good at it. I don’t know anything about sales.” 

[00:08:18] Okay. 

[00:08:18] Chris Corcoran: [00:08:18] So, Carly, how did Jeremy Wood react when he heard you knew Salesforce? 

[00:08:27] Marc Gonyea: [00:08:27] Yeah. 

[00:08:27] Chris Corcoran: [00:08:27] Great. 

[00:08:29] Carly Prunier: [00:08:29] Jeremy and Rob joke with me. Jeremy didn’t want to hire me, I will say that. And I was Rob’s first ever hire. I never liked… 

[00:08:36] Marc Gonyea: [00:08:36] Rob? 

[00:08:37] Carly Prunier: [00:08:37] Rob Gonsalves. Yes. He’s a DM in the Boston office. He had just got promoted. I was his first ever hire on the scorecard that you do. They told me that I scored perfect and that it was too good to be true and that I rigged it and that they shouldn’t hire me because my scorecard at the time was so perfect.

[00:08:59] And Jeremy and Rob later told me they were talking like, “It seems like her mom did this for her, like, blah, blah, blah.” You know, like I went in there, like sat and I knew nothing about sales and then the mock call, like my mom like set me up for such success that Jeremy was just like, “This is too, this is too good, like it’s too perfect.” And Rob was like, “I want her.” And so it was still a joke every time I see Jeremy at a first Friday, I’m like, “Remember you didn’t want to hire me?”

[00:09:25] Marc Gonyea: [00:09:25] I love it. That is excellent. All right. So you ended up working for memoryBlue somehow. Someway you’re in New York, you found out about it for the first time and you knew there’s an office in Waltham.

[00:09:37] Carly Prunier: [00:09:37] Yup. And the, yeah, the Waltham office had just opened. I sent and I was like, “You know what? I’m doing it.” I sent Kaitlyn Garish my resume that Monday and I think I had, it was my first ever sales interview and first ever sales job. 

[00:09:51] Marc Gonyea: [00:09:51] Wow. Okay. And this was back in? 

[00:09:54] Carly Prunier: [00:09:54] It was in.. 

[00:09:56] Marc Gonyea: [00:09:56] Go ahead. 

[00:09:56] Carly Prunier: [00:09:56] 2019. October, 2019. 

[00:09:58] Marc Gonyea: [00:09:58] October 2019, that would be a quick. It was a quick turnaround.

[00:10:03] Carly Prunier: [00:10:03] Yeah. I graduated in 2017. So yeah, two and a half years after I graduated I started in sales.

[00:10:09] Marc Gonyea: [00:10:09] Yeah. Yeah. All right. And then what was the, what were those early days like?

[00:10:14] Carly Prunier: [00:10:14] I just remember flying to DC and I was so excited, I’m like, “Wow, like a company is paying for me to fly to DC and stay in this beautiful apartment.” Like, I was used to working for the state where they won’t even give you like a diet Coke for free. Like, 

[00:10:26] I’m like, “Wow. I’m like being flown out to DC. Like this is super cool.”

[00:10:29] And I was like, “Okay, like, I could get used to this lifestyle. Like, all right.” And, So, you know, went through all the training and it was scary, like being in… I, I was like, I think the last training class before the actual like academy days, I remember Kristen Wisdorf led my training and I was like, “Wow. Like, I want to be like her. Like that is the queen right there.” So I just remember, like, she reminded me, she reminded me so much of my mom and I was like, “Okay, like, this is like, kind of like a sign, like I am where I’m supposed to be.” And like, she was super hard on me and the you know, like the mocks and all that. And I was like, “Hmm. Okay.” And I was like, “All right, you know what? I kind of like this challenge.” So yeah, those, those days at the academy… Then we got Chipotle for lunch and I was like, “Wow, like this is really too good to be true.” 

[00:11:15] Marc Gonyea: [00:11:15] Oh man. Again, not everybody had worked for Massachusetts state courts before they come work for us, Chris.

[00:11:21] Chris Corcoran: [00:11:21] Yeah. Well, let’s talk about that for a minute because sometimes we’re hiring people right out of college, and while you were more of a career changer, right? And you had two years in a different environment and I think that that helped set your perspective, as well as you, you learned some things along the way that you were able to bring with you into this job.

[00:11:42] So talk to us a little bit about, about those things.

[00:11:45] Carly Prunier: [00:11:45] Yeah. So I definitely think one thing different is like, for me, I knew how bad it was on the other side. A lot of people, I think, coming into this role are just, you know, the biggest change for them is working 40 hours a week. And that is a tough change, but I was working those 40 hours a week and I was miserable.

[00:12:01] So I think… And I was talking to people, getting yelled at by people, fighting them to pay their child support, like dealing with the worst of the worst. So, for me, like, I could see how much greener the grass was on the other side and like how much better it was in like, even just like a mental mindset to be out of there and in sales that like, I just appreciated working 

[00:12:25] at memoryBlue for, like… 

[00:12:27] Because, you know, I’m the top performer and I didn’t have to do the dishes in the Boston office, you know, at the end of the day. And like, it’s like those little things that you don’t even realize or like even appreciate, like if you didn’t have that career change and you didn’t see, you know, another 40-hour-a-week job, that I was able to appreciate and like loved all the, you know, the little things of, you know, just doing different things. Like even like, “Oh, you know, you have an hour lunch break,” when I had a 30-minute lunch and had the clock in and out for my lunch break, and you literally at the court punched in on a time card. Like I was like, 20, 2018, like, why am I punching in and out on a time card, it was just kinda like that being like, people could think that SDRs are micromanaged, but like working for the court I saw how different it was to be actually micromanage.

[00:13:15] And there, everything you do is watched and when you go to the SDR role, it could come off as that you’re being micromanaged, but you’re just actually being trained to be good at your job. And it’s actually beneficial for you rather than just for the best of the state or the court. If that makes sense. 

[00:13:34] Chris Corcoran: [00:13:34] Yeah. So you, you definitely got perspective for sure, but there had to have been some lessons or some things that you learned along the way, or in a time that you served, that you were able to bring into the SDR role? 

[00:13:47] Carly Prunier: [00:13:47] Yeah. I’ll talk about the  like the biggest lesson I learned was just kind of like stay true to yourself because you can lose your temper when someone is yelling at you because they lost custody of their child and you can take that personal and you can take that home with you, But I think I was able to learn, like, to not take work home with me and to kind of have that fresh mindset of, “Okay, like work is work and home is home,” and to have that different work-life balance.

Because it can be hard and especially even now, it’s still hard, harder for me, some days working from home, but you, you learn to not take work home with you. And like, you know, obviously, there’s days, Sundays when it’s beneficial to work, you know, outside of your working hours, but I think, you know, one of the lessons I learned was like to not let that rejection get in the way of you doing your job and being who you are, and just kind of take it with a grain of salt and just keep on like pushing and just know that you are capable of these things if you just push through it.

[00:14:50] Chris Corcoran: [00:14:50] And describe a little bit about your coworkers in the court and compared to your coworkers as an SDR because I think that’s an important thing that people may underestimate how critical that is. 

[00:15:01] Carly Prunier: [00:15:01] Yeah. So my coworkers at the court, I mean, they were people who have been working there for 45 years who are 65, 70 years old that, you know, it’s… I mean, I can have a relationship and talk to anyone, but it’s just such a different culture. It’s almost a culture shock going to the court, like I can’t imagine ever starting as an SDR and going to the court because when you’re at the court, it’s age ranges from, you know, 75 to, I was the youngest, I was 23.

[00:15:32] The next oldest person was 32. So it’s just like, you don’t have anyone your age, so you don’t get that fun environment and like, you, you’re dealing with people who are grandfathered in. So it’s tricky because they are so grandfathered in and they’re so set in their ways that you kind of have to, you know, cope to their ways. Like you can’t kind of go off and do what you want and your own, your ideas aren’t… You can’t have a different idea or a different opinion because it’s been that way for 45 years, that’s all they know. You know, they’re just counting down the everyday there, they have like, you know, sticky pads of their days till retirement, instead of like being happy, being at work, having that work bond, you know, and then you have like the people who like, and they’re not happy people ’cause it’s a draining environment, and you know, the things you see are draining. But like, a lot of people let that get to them, and a lot of people are, you know, even like working with like 45-year-olds, like not that that’s old. But you know, they’re dealing with different things, right? 

[00:16:33]

[00:16:33] So dealing with different things in your life and not to have to relate. It’s like the closest person to your age, you know, a mom with two kids, that’s complaining about, you know, going home and, you know, make what’s for dinner and stuff like that.

[00:16:43] And then coming to memoryBlue, it was just like a complete 360. I was going to say 180. It’s not even a.. It’s a complete like turnaround, you know, that you actually have people that you can relate to and talk to and bond and share ideas. And, you know, everyone is so young and motivated and excited that it’s almost like motivating in itself as opposed to everyone just counting down the days until they can retire and, you know, being miserable and just waiting until 4:30 heads to go punch out. 

[00:17:14] Marc Gonyea: [00:17:14] I think what you said earlier is so fascinating too. Not fascinating, I mean, we get accused of micromanagement sometimes. I mean, you said it really well. It’s not micromanagement, you’re actually being trained to be good at the job. Right? And that’s hard for people to digest sometimes if they’ve never had another work experience, were they truly being micromanaged or if they don’t really see the forest for the trees, which is, it’s hard to get good at this, your job.

[00:17:41] Right? You’ll be good at it by being trained and by doing it. So let’s talk about that. So you, you know, we, we tricked you, we got you to DC, put you up in a nice Airbnb and gave you like a decent kid lunch, and then you’re like the best ever. And then you had to go back and start doing the job. 

[00:17:56] Carly Prunier: [00:17:56] Yeah, 

[00:17:57] Marc Gonyea: [00:17:57] Like? 

[00:17:58] Carly Prunier: [00:17:58] Scary. I’m not gonna lie, you’re your first cold call is terrifying. It’s terrifying. I’m not gonna lie anyone. But it’s like repping the, I would say everyone just get on a cold call, you know, after you learn your product, get cold call and completely butcher it and who cares? Like, I think just ripping the bandaid off once, once they answer and you start talking and like you’re shaking and you’re like super nervous and you just rip it off.

[00:18:25] It’s like, the bandaids off. You just kind of got to go for awhile. I was like really terrified of the phones. I even hated call breakdowns because I was like, “Oh Rob my DM guns off us.” ‘Cause we have to go listen back to all of our cold calls and everyone has to hear me on the phone when talking about how bad I butchered that call and how many “likes” and “ums” I said.

[00:18:47] You know, 500 times and you know, that can come off as micromanaging and it’s scary and you don’t want to listen to yourself and it really does work. And now I’ve brought that to Snyk in my team does call breakdowns and you know, I, I don’t, I still don’t like it, but I still think it is so, it is so good.

[00:19:07] And like, I think if you didn’t see the other side of it, it can come off as like, “Oh, why does he have to like, listen to my call? I know I completely murdered that call.” And it was bad. You know, there’s so I know what I could have done, but truly, like, you don’t realize how much it does help. And it, again, it goes back to your peers the same age. They’re, you know, they’re telling you the same things and you’re like, “Okay, you know, it’s not a 65-year-old lady telling you what to do.”

[00:19:30] It’s someone who’s my age being like, “You know what, like? This is what you should have done.” 

[00:19:35] Marc Gonyea: [00:19:35] Yeah, no one, no one likes how they sound on the phone. Maybe Morgan Freeman or someone, but like nobody likes what they sound like and those they’re kind of dreading, but that’s how you improve. And to just tell for the folks who are, most people know, but some of the people don’t know who maybe think about coming to work here, just tell real quick what a call breakdown, what those are.

[00:19:54] Carly Prunier: [00:19:54] Yeah. So call breakdowns, we did them twice a week. So, well, I think once a week you could bring a call that you thought went really well. And then one week would be like, “All right, you’re going to bring this call where you had the objection of, I don’t have the budget, and you know, over two minutes. It’s not going to be a 30-second call.” You know, and I don’t have the budget and, you know, you didn’t book it and it didn’t go well, and it was not in your favor. And obviously, it’s like no one likes to like look at their losses, but maybe it was someone who should have booked.

So everyone in the team brings a call. We sat in the Boston conference room and Rob played the calls out loud and then I remember one thing I really liked that Rob did was we went around in a circle. So first, like, he’d be like, we listened to my call and, “Carly what did you think You did wrong?” And I would be like,” You know, this, that.” And then he’s like, he goes around to all the peers first before giving his input of what you did wrong.

[00:20:46] So instead of just being like, “Hey Carly, you should have done this.” It’s what do you think and then, “Okay. everyone, like Carly thought this, so how could she have changed it?” Rather just being like, “You did this and this and this and this and this wrong.” So I think again, like that team aspect of your peers being your age and kind of being like, and they’re doing the same thing you’re doing. No one’s superior. No one’s better. Doesn’t matter, you know, where you are in the leaderboard. Some people are really good at talking and like, you don’t see those things so. 

[00:21:16] Marc Gonyea: [00:21:16] What what to get to some things you did well, but what was something about your, yourself on the phone, particularly as you’re kind of moving to a newer, as you sort of, you know, embark on moving your career forward or what are some of the things you learned about you being on the phone? Like, what did you get good at from those call reviews or from the experience?

[00:21:34] Carly Prunier: [00:21:34] Yeah. So even now, like I picture it, like I’m going to go call my best friend and like, you know, don’t, tone, I think is a low and like your tone fluctuates. And if you go into it being like, “Hey, this is Carly, did I catch you at a bad time?” Like, it’s, they can sense your nerves. Like kind of, you have to go into it with confidence.

[00:21:51] And just, even if you don’t have the confidence kind of like my mom always taught me this time, like “Walk like you mean it.” Like, “Talk like you mean it.” Like, “You might not know what the heck you’re selling, just, if you sound confident, like you can do great things.” And I think on the phone, like it’s easy to pick up if someone’s quiet and not confident.

[00:22:08] So I think, you know, I always go into it, even every dial I do now because I’m just like, all right, “Oh, hey Marc, how’s it going? Did I ca…” Like those little things, like, even if you use your mannerisms while talking, they make the conversation more normal and they make it less robotic, less scripted and if you’re confident, you can tell anything even if you don’t know what you’re selling. 

[00:22:30] Marc Gonyea: [00:22:30] Yeah, I would agree with that. And who are some of the colleagues you were rolling with when you first started back in those days?

[00:22:37] Carly Prunier: [00:22:37] So I sat next to Katie Lowry. 

[00:22:41] Chris Corcoran: [00:22:41] Killer. 

[00:22:43] Marc Gonyea: [00:22:43] Killer.

[00:22:43] Carly Prunier: [00:22:43] Katie. Yes. And she was actually a huge help to me because every, she was the only other person on like a cyber campaign. And she was the only other girl on my team. So it was just, we sat next to each other and I was really able to… And she is so good on the phones and she is so articulate and she knows her stuff. And so it was just super nice to be sitting next to someone who was so calm, but knew what she was doing. And then I was also next to Ryan Carey, who is, you know, famous at memoryBlue. 

[00:23:11] And I think his confidence like helped me go a long way. I remember like, I was super nervous to like pick up the phone when I was calling on my client, picks them at the time.

[00:23:19] And he was like, “Give me the phone.” Like, “I’ll do it.” Like, “Watch. I’m just going to do it.” And he was, he was selling electric vehicle chargers. Like he had no clue what he was doing. And he was just like, “I’ll do it.” And then I was kind of like, “What the heck, like, if he’s just going to do it, I’m going to do it.”

[00:23:31] Like, “I actually know what I’m selling.” So, you know, and then like me, him, Katie and a few other people were like, became like a really tight group. So every time someone gets a pick-up everyone behind you is like, “Let’s go.” Like behind you. And like, it was just like a wicked fun environment in the corner of the Boston office.

[00:23:49] Rob was there. It was just, it was very exciting. And you know, you do learn a lot from the people. So like Katie, I learned the cybersecurity side. Ryan, Ivan, the pure confidence and then it became like a competition between the two of us fighting for the top of the board for Manzanar. And so it was like, it was a friendly competition. 

[00:24:08] Marc Gonyea: [00:24:08] Of  of course. Yeah, it’s what we want to encourage is environment where you’ve got people supporting you, even though you’re in different clients. But you’re at that stage of your professional development when you need that support because that’s how you get better ’cause it’s a very hard job. It’s not easy.

[00:24:23] Carly Prunier: [00:24:23] Right. It’s not easy, but you have to want it. If you don’t want it, it’s not for you. 

[00:24:28] Marc Gonyea: [00:24:28] Correct.

[00:24:29] Carly Prunier: [00:24:29] You got to want to be the best and you got to want to like beat your friends out for the top position. If you’re okay with just, you know, hitting your numbers, like, or, you know, sitting at 80% of your quota, like maybe sales isn’t for you. And if you want it, it’s super fun, and it’s super awesome, and it’s exciting, and it’s crazy. And even now, like I’ve booked a thousand meetings in my career over the last year and a half. I booked me into that, and I still get all amped up about it. And it never, the adrenaline rush never goes away. 

[00:25:01] Marc Gonyea: [00:25:01] That’s great. You’re so your employer wants to hear. It’s amazing, but it’s true.

[00:25:05] Carly Prunier: [00:25:05] No, it really is true. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it, but they, the adrenaline rush, it’s addicting… 

[00:25:11] Marc Gonyea: [00:25:11] Okay. I agree. I agree. I’m not going to lie. I’ve been doing it for awhile.

[00:25:17] Chris Corcoran: [00:25:17] So, talk to us a little bit about, I think you, you were on a initial campaign and then, and then you got switched. Talk a little bit about that. 

[00:25:24] Carly Prunier: [00:25:24] So when I first started, I was on a client called Pixm. You know, there was one sales guy, me and Jonathan Duffy were both on Pixm. Yep, Duffy. We both run Pixm, we called Pixm pals. We both were killing it.  You know, I was the top of the leaderboard every single month. Loved it, loved it, loved it.

[00:25:42] You know, finally got the hang of it, finally was confident. and Rob comes to me and he’s like, “Pixm is, you know, not renewing their contract. Yada yada, yada.” I thought I took it personally that was because of me, but they just, you know, we’re rebuilding kind of going under didn’t happen. So, I finished out like two more months on Pixm while Duffy got put on to Snyk with a few other people in the Boston office.

[00:26:06] And I just remember everyone was complaining about Snyk that it was there’s three guys on it, and they’re all around cyber security like clients before. And they were all like, “Oh no, we, this is so hard. Like, I can’t sell this, I can’t sell this. I can’t sell this.” They weren’t booking meetings. They weren’t hitting their numbers.

[00:26:21] And I was like, “What the heck?” So then I’m like, “All right, fine.” Like I knew there was a position open for Analects, the car chargers, and I was like, “You know what? I’m going to go over there and beat Ryan Carey.” And I thought I was going to do it. He calls me into his office with Rob and he’s like, “Carly, you’re going on Snyk.” And I like, my stomach dropped. 

[00:26:38] And I was like, “Jeremy!” Like, I was like really upset and I was like, “You’re setting me up for failure.” He was like, “Carly like, no, I’m not…” Like, “You’re setting me up for failure. Like, “I’m going from, you know, making all this money, being at the top. You know, hitting 200% of my quota every single month to now I’m going to go on the client where these guys can’t even sell it.

[00:26:57] These guys are so smart, they know what they’re talking about. They’re so articulate and they can’t sell it. Like you’re literally setting me up for failure. I can’t do it.” And he was like, “Carly, just like. Go home, like take the night and like, we can talk tomorrow.” So I was like, “Okay, fine.” And he was like, the next day I went to his office, I’m like, dreading it.

[00:27:11] I’m like, “Oh, I don’t want to go in and talk to him. I don’t want to do it.” I sat down, he was like, “Do you want Rob in here?” And we just talk or whatever and he was like, “Yeah, of course.” So we talked and he was like, “You know, I wouldn’t setting you up for failure. Like, I will be there every step of the way, like to help you, like, what do you need? Like, you can do this.” And I was like all mad, but I was like, “Okay, fine. Like, I’m just going to do it. And not going to get it, I’m gonna fail and w like was just like, okay.” And then kind of like 20 minutes later, I was like, “You know what? Like, I’m going to prove them wrong, like I just started watching like demos online and like listening to calls and reached out to the team in Virginia.”

[00:27:44] That was selling Snyk already at memoryBlue. And was  like, “You know what? Like, I’m just going to do what I need to do.” And we, you know, Jeremy was awesome. We had plenty of calls with Simone’s team about what we were going to, how we were going to do better. Like, ’cause nobody was hitting our numbers, like what are we going to do, our messaging. And so it just, it, it worked and it took off and I got put on Snyk in February and they offered to hire me out in April. 

[00:28:09] Chris Corcoran: [00:28:09] Wow. 

[00:28:10] Marc Gonyea: [00:28:10] Where did that fear come from though, not being able to do it? I mean, you kind of described it, but well now, you know, ’cause you’re describing in the moment fear, but now looking back on it, when you’re just afraid of…? 

[00:28:20] Carly Prunier: [00:28:20] I, yeah, I was afraid of failure and I guess I didn’t have that confidence in myself ’cause I was still so new in my sales journey that, you know, to go from killing it, I’m like, “I’m not, I don’t even know sales. Like I’m killing it at this client, like, I’m not going to kill it at this next one. Like, there’s no way, like I can be, you know, I was just good at selling this one product. I’m not going to be good at selling this other product.” But, you know, once I learned Snyk and learn what value it really did have to people and how once I got someone on to that discovery call and that demo, like, they loved it. And so I think that’s what helped my confidence and finally, I was like, You” know what?

[00:28:58] Like just ’cause the guys can’t do it, doesn’t mean I can’t do it.” You know, it shouldn’t, I shouldn’t have looked at it that way because obviously someone’s going to have to do it, so why can’t it be me. And it was, you know, I had a lack of confidence in myself in those like three days, but now I wouldn’t change it.

[00:29:14] Okay. 

[00:29:16] Marc Gonyea: [00:29:16] Excellent.

[00:29:17] Chris Corcoran: [00:29:17] And so what was the solution that you were selling previously before you moved into the cybersecurity? 

[00:29:21] Carly Prunier: [00:29:21] Yeah. So I was selling Pixm. It was a fishing prevention platform. So like when employees click on emailings and it comes from netflix.com, but it’s not really Netflix is a phishing attempt. I was calling on hospitals to, so their employees like ’cause that’s where the valuable data was to, so their employees didn’t click on these, you know, scam emails that they were getting to have their company’s information leaked. So it made, that made sense in my head like that. I get that, like, I lived that, and then Snyk sells this open source security platform to developers that has container security infrastructure as code security and static application testing.

And I was like, “Huh,” like, like, “I don’t, what are you like software developers, like they’re coding?” I was just like, “What is going on?” So I think that was very ’cause it didn’t make sense in my head at the time of what I was selling. So I was like, “I need to know what I’m selling and I didn’t understand it.” So that was like the big struggle and I think that’s where the confidence went that I didn’t, it wasn’t like grasping in my head what I was actually trying to sell was the issue. 

[00:30:30] Chris Corcoran: [00:30:30] So both solutions were in the broad cybersecurity industry? 

[00:30:36] Carly Prunier: [00:30:36] Yeah. So I thought like, “Oh, cybersecurity. I can go from one cybersecurity company to another.” Not knowing, you know, how big the cybersecurity space is and how many different tools in the scope of it. So once I learned that I was like, “Okay, like cybersecurity is tough, but I kind of liked being in cybersecurity.”

[00:30:54] ‘Cause I was like, “Okay. I went to school for criminal justice, like security. There’s a little overlap there.” And like, I, I, I love being in cybersecurity and I don’t think I’ll ever leave cybersecurity now. 

[00:31:05] Marc Gonyea: [00:31:05] No. 

[00:31:05] Chris Corcoran: [00:31:05] Now you talk, you talk about something that’s critical from people who are first entering sales and that’s like business to consumer. Not that, not that that wasn’t your original solution was business consumer, but you, yourself could, could relate in that, “Hey, I have email. And I’ve received, I’ve received these phony emails.”

And so you can relate to it immediately, which is… coming out of college a lot of students are like, “I know about iPhones. I know about this technology.” Because they’re consumers. But then when you moved on to Snyk, that’s a total business to business application where you’re talking about developers and, and in all the things that they do, that you would have never experienced.

[00:31:45] And so you had to cross that chasm if you will, but you were able to do that. And talk a little bit about how you were able to, to fight through that.

[00:31:54] Carly Prunier: [00:31:54] Yeah. So at first it was a lot of just like, “Okay, like what is Snyk and who needs Snyk?” Because ultimately you need to find out who needs it. Right? And the tough thing about Snyk is security teams need it but developers are the ones who use it. So a big objection that still get is you know, you call a director of software engineering ’cause his team’s the one who would be using Snyk. He’s like, “I’m not in charge of any security tools.” You call the CISO of a company and he’s like, “Oh, I don’t care what developers are doing. I don’t want developers even be in charge of security at all.”

So it was a big, once I figured out the value add of bridging that gap between developers and security teams, because, you know, saving companies money by bridging that gap, it started to make more sense.

[00:32:45] So I just kind of, I was trying to understand the whole product and how the developer used it when I needed to just take a big step back and look at the general overview of what are we actually solving, not who’s using it, how they’re using it, why they’re using it. It’s, you know, what am I solving, like, what gap are we bridging.

[00:33:03] So that was like, the biggest thing for me. It’s kind of like, “Okay, don’t get lost in that how the product integrates and where it sits in the software development life cycle. You know, at first, take that general step back and where is it needed, why and who.” And then once you can have that confidence of like, “Okay, I know what gap I’m bridging.”

[00:33:25] So again, it goes to that confidence piece that I’m talking about, “I know what gap I’m bridging. So now I can value prop that to this, to the developer side and the security side.” Then you know, get technical, you know, as every day goes on, but at first you don’t need to know exactly what your product does, but you need to know what it solves. 

[00:33:47] Chris Corcoran: [00:33:47] Yeah, right. Like it’s almost like the old the drill salesperson. They’re not selling the torque or the cords or the bits or any of that stuff, what they’re really selling is holes. Right? If you could figure out what the hole is in, in, in your solution, focused on that and then, and then you’re better off. Talk a little bit about with the listeners here.

[00:34:07] I remember you mentioned, mentioning this to us earlier about kind of the importance of leaving, making a great impression because you never know who’s going to change jobs and how that’s going to impact your future and the meter is always running. 

[00:34:23] Carly Prunier: [00:34:23] Yeah. So I think in sales, like relationships are always important. You never want to burn bridges. So after, you know, Pixm was no longer a client and didn’t really exist anymore, their founder went on to be a CISO, Chief Information Security Officer at a big hospital tech company in San Fran.

[00:34:43] And, you know, obviously I’m connected with him on LinkedIn. You know, we touch base over texts every now and then, just kind of popping in, you know, you have that rapport and I get to Snyk and I’m at Snyk full-time. I think this was in like, maybe September of last year. I get a LinkedIn thing saying that he became the CISO of this hospital in San Fran and San Fran is my territory.

[00:35:05] So I was like, “No way.” Like Snyk had been, you know, Snyk had been trying to break into this account for a while now. You know, no one can get in touch, CISOs aren’t easily able to get in touch with. And so I sent him a text message and my rep at the time was like, “Are you sure you can text them?” I’m like, “Yeah, we literally have that relationship where we can be on texting basis.”

[00:35:26] And he was like, “Yeah, of course, Carly. Like, actually we are looking into this. This is something that we need.” Like, he didn’t just take the meeting out of, you know, sympathy or to get the meeting, you know, done ’cause he understands that point of the SDR role is, you know, step one is getting the meeting. You know, I really was like, “Are you actively looking for this?”

[00:35:43] And he was. And now they’re about to buy Snyk, they’re in a POC with us. Yeah. so,… 

[00:35:48] Chris Corcoran: [00:35:48] So what, what did, what did Ryan Carey say after you, you showed him that one? 

[00:35:54] Carly Prunier: [00:35:54] Ryan and I are still really, really good friends. We talk all the time. He’s rooting for my success, but he’s like, “Well, yeah, I could go sell it to him, too. Like, I could do that, too.” And that’s just, that’s just Ryan Carey.  He’s a sales guy. So he, he has that confidence. So he, yeah. 

[00:36:12] Marc Gonyea: [00:36:12] Carly, so tell us about the evolution of Sundays with Carly because I can’t remember when I first heard about this, maybe it was at that happy hour and I was visiting the office, but I think you told me, I was like, “Wait, what, what are you, you’re doing what?” 

[00:36:27] Carly Prunier: [00:36:27] Yeah, so. I was having a lot of success and everyone’s kind of like, “What’s your secret?” And you know, I went to my mom when I got put on Snyk and I was like, “How the heck do I do this?” And she was like, “You know, Carly, you need to not work the typical nine to five. Think of one people that are on their phones. Think of what people are doing.”

[00:36:48] And, you know, nine to five people are in meetings. But you know, if as you know, sales law person reached out to me on a Sunday at four o’clock on LinkedIn, I’m way more, I’m sitting on the couch watching the Patriots. You know, I’m more likely to engage with them and kind of, you know, hear what they have to say as opposed to at 10:00 AM on a Monday morning, I don’t want to hear a sales pitch.

[00:37:10] So I kind of took the approach of, “You know what? Like I’m going to put a lot of my effort in on Sundays.” You know, four to seven, what’s anyone doing during the winter or whatever time. Four to seven on Sunday, you’re relaxing, you’re hanging out. And I would go through my LinkedIn, you know, send people a message.

[00:37:27] If their mobile number was there, give them a, a call being like, “Hey, I totally didn’t expect you to answer. Just shot you a message on LinkedIn. Like when you get a chance, take a look at it. I’ll call you back later in the week. But you know, just wanted to kind of stick out and, you know, think that I can add value to you.” And, you know, leave in 30 seconds.

[00:37:46] It doesn’t have, you don’t have to sales pitch them over voicemail. But they’re kind of like, “Hmm, okay.” And then at the end, I’m always like, again, like, “My name is Carly Prunier. If you look me up on LinkedIn, you’ll see my message.” And it really does work and even if you don’t call them, like, my response is on Sunday afternoons if just sending, going through your LinkedIn and you know, someone that you haven’t had traction with and you’re trying to get that person, you know, you can add value to them.

[00:38:08] You’ve already done your value-adds to them, you’ve done your job during the week. Now it’s just a matter of hooking them and a lot of that comes on Sundays when people aren’t working and are more susceptible to talk. I wouldn’t just blatantly cold call, you know, a hundred dials a day on a Sunday ’cause I, you know, that could take people the wrong way.

[00:38:29] But if you have that warm lead, they’ve connected with you on LinkedIn. I know they somehow know your name, so you can use that as a little bit of a warm intro and yeah, don’t underestimate the power of a sales Sunday Funday. 

[00:38:42] Marc Gonyea: [00:38:42] So you would actually make the call to some people in certain situations. Right? And sometimes they’d pick up, some they wouldn’t, but that doesn’t really matter. Right? Then that’d be… 

[00:38:54] Carly Prunier: [00:38:54] It’s just more about building that rapport and, you know, creating those human moments with the person. Like, “Listen, I know that’s your Sunday, I’m not going to sales pitch you, but just want it to be the first thing in your mind on Monday morning. Like if you could get back to me tomorrow morning, like totally.”

You know, I kind of want you to be like, “Thinking about it”, and you know, they’ll,  you know, if you hear a voicemail being like, “Oh, I sent you a message on LinkedIn.” Like odds are, you’re probably going to, you know, 80% of the time go read that, at least read that message. And if you did your point on adding value in your initial message, they’re kind of going to be thinking about you as you, as they like, you know, go on with their night and they start their Monday and then you follow up with them Monday afternoon and it’s more like, “Oh, okay.” like I, they had time to process it and think about it. And you know, I’ve seen such success with it. It’s insane. 

[00:39:41] Chris Corcoran: [00:39:41] So I want to, I’ll have to talk about this for a second because I think it’s important. So I’m a target for a lot of people who want to sell things, and I get a ton of emails. I get some LinkedIn messages. I get very little phone calls, almost zero voicemail messages. If I got what you do, Carly, an email message in a call and voicemail on a Sunday, it’d be a such a breath of fresh air because I’m dealing with someone who’s hungry and who’s a professional. So the likelihood of me returning that call, you would be up, up at the top of my list because you’re hungry and you’re a professional. 

[00:40:27] Carly Prunier: [00:40:27] I think even if you don’t return my call because you know, people like you are super busy. If I did my job and adding that value and I give you a call on Monday being like, “Hey, Chris, just following up on, you know, the voicemail and message I sent you last night. Did you happen to get a chance to look at it?”

[00:40:42] Like you’re going to be way more susceptible to talk to me and be like, okay, like, “Yeah.” And it’s, you know, you are, if I did my job, looking for the correct persona, my target audience, I, you know, bridge that gap of your pain, I think that no person is going to be like, I mean, you’ll get the every feel that are, “Don’t contact me.” But they’re going to be like, “Okay, like you did your job and you did add the value and I see why you’re calling me and thank you.” 

[00:41:06] Chris Corcoran: [00:41:06] Right. And I’m also, I’ll tell you, I’ll also be much more likely to take your call and give you it, if it’s not a fake, give you a “No”, which is everyone’s second favorite answer. So you could go and move on. 

[00:41:16] Marc Gonyea: [00:41:16] I mean, I think your mom, I got back from Boston, and sent your mom a LinkedIn message in November of 2019. And she’s like serving me up some lessons, too. She says, “Hi Marc. I told her they are a game changer. It is all about differentiation and you are, and what you are willing to do, are you willing to do the things that others are not? Who really wants to cold call on Sunday? Yet, all it takes is one call back and you were willing to do it.” I was like, “Man, all right. I’m learning from her daughter, I’m learning from mom. Where’s grandma? Can I… teach me some lessons too?” You know, what, what was it, so what’s it like now you’re in sales and you’re, this is a little more personal and you’re saying your mom’s a VP of sales. What’s that, what’s that, you know, Thanksgiving conversation or, you know, call your mom during the week, whenever you talk to your mom, but what’s that like now?

[00:42:07] Carly Prunier: [00:42:07] She’s been like the best mentor to me and like, I can call her and be like, “Mom, I’m having the worst week. Like I can’t book a meeting to save my life.” And like she comes from, she can, you get the mom perspective, but you also get the business woman perspective and the VP of sales perspective. And it honestly, like has been like super nice also Ryan Carrie is trying to sell my Mom memoryBlue. So let’s see if he let’s see if he can call, let’s see if he can, let’s see if she can close that one. They’re working it.

But she’s been like the best mentor for me, but also I’ve helped her. I’ve done LinkedIn trainings for her team. So it’s, it’s been like a good back and forth. And like, she, I think she respects like the hustle and she sees the work I put in day in and day out. It might make her SDR look like a little bag, she like fired them all like four times. You know, she’ll be on the team like forest yard, she isn’t a fan of them, but she’s on to around like three of a whole new group.

So memoryBlue is sounding a little good to her.  But she, you know, it’s, it’s a really good balance because if I’m having a hard day and like, I think it can go even to like the woman in sales perspective. Like it’s so good to have another woman in sales that like gets it and gets like the trying times and you know, not that sales is like a man’s culture, but like, it was for awhile when you think like even 20 years ago, like what the stereotypical, you know, man’s role, like sales was a man’s job.

[00:43:31] And like, my mom has just kind of owned that to being like a boss, like add it, like… You know, 20 years ago she was, you know, a VP of sales at CareerBuilder and all the guys were golfing and she was kind of missing out on the office politics and, you know, the rates and stuff, she’s now a really, really good golfer and can go out on those… You know, she’s kind of just taking it in her hand and been like, “You know what, Carly, like, if we’re going to get shit done, like, let’s just do this.” Like there’s no like, “Poor me.” Or you know, “You’re having a tough week.” All right, well, you know, “Send out 20 more personalized emails, like. Is that really going to ruin your whole night by spending, you know, 40 minutes on 20 personalized emails?” Like you’re not like it she’s kind of that pushing factor, but also she knows when to be like, “You know what? Just shut your laptop for the day. You know, it’s four, o’clock, like work those boomer hours, like if you’re frustrated and you’re in this bad mindset, you’re not going to be like the best salesperson you can be. So, you know, try again tomorrow.” And she really has helped me have that like balance.

[00:44:29] Marc Gonyea: [00:44:29] Let’s talk about the woman in sales. So we get asked by clients quite a bit, they, know, they want to work with women. And we looked for women to get more into the game, kind of curious as to what your take is on that, and how we can make that happen, or, you know, that your overall perspective on it.

[00:44:46] Carly Prunier: [00:44:46] I’m not biased, but I think women are way better at sales. But I think a lot of it comes down to, again, best relationships you have with your prospects are when you can build that rapport, and you’re not trying to just sales pitch them. And I think women in themselves are more nurturing and want to learn more, and are more eager.

[00:45:04] Like, you know, more we’ll listen back to you and they have that nurturing nature built into them. And, you know, they have that most like they have that motherly instinct. So I think that comes with building that relationship and, you know, I tell every like, girl in college like, “Go into sales, like, don’t be scared.”

[00:45:21] Like, if you can, if you have a personality and you want it, you can do it, but it’s, you have that skill of like relationship building, just kind of like in your blood and I think that that’s just a really strong quality that women have, that they can build these relationships. They are more genuinely curious to ask you, “Oh, but Marc, but why?” Like, “Can I just ask why?” Like, and they want to understand more than sometimes men do. So I think that plays like a big, big part of it.

[00:45:49] And I think that like, women in sales is definitely becoming more and more like common, but it’s, it’s not always easy. And like, even now, like being in the cybersecurity field, like I’m talking to these engineers all day. Like it’s not always easy.

[00:46:05] Like sometimes, you know, you just have to know that there’s going to be that one masculine guy that’s going to look down on you and be like, “Oh, you’re a 20-something-year-old girl, like trying to sell me a software. Like you have no, you’re not an engineer. You don’t know anything.”  And just take that with a grain of salt and be like, “Okay, you’re right.”

[00:46:19] Like not you’re right. But like, “You know what? Like I do know my stuff and you know, not going to let you prevent me from having the confidence to be good at my job.” 

[00:46:29] Marc Gonyea: [00:46:29] That’s a good take for sure. And, and why would you recommend the profession?

[00:46:35] Carly Prunier: [00:46:35] Okay. Because it’s such a good profession to be in. And women are so good at like, even now, like I see so many top women, top performers and so many women killing it. And I just… sales, I think it’s meant for women, and you shouldn’t be scared of, you know, the genuine, like masculine culture because it’s 2021, like times are changing and like companies are getting better at it.

[00:46:59] And, you know, like Snyk’s doing a great job of hiring so many more like girl engineers. And there you know, women’s roles are changing and like don’t fall into the, “I can’t do it ’cause I’m a girl.” Like that’s not a thing anymore and like, don’t let it be a thing if you don’t want it to be a thing because it’s so powerful to just be like, yeah, “I’m a boss,” but it’s like, “I want to be the queen. Like I want to do that.” And like, I definitely owe a lot of that to my mom because that is definitely my mom.

[00:47:25] Marc Gonyea: [00:47:25] That’s not a thing anymore, Corcoran.  Loved that. That’s not a thing anymore. 

[00:47:31] Chris Corcoran: [00:47:31] Yeah. 

[00:47:34] Marc Gonyea: [00:47:34] Extinguish. So, Carly, where, where do you want to go?

[00:47:39] Carly Prunier: [00:47:39] I’m hoping to be at eighty at Snyk. I love… 

[00:47:45] Marc Gonyea: [00:47:45] Oh, I was waiting for that to happen. There we go. She’ll be back. 

[00:47:52] There you go. That was fast. Yeah. So no good. I was asking you, so where do you, where do you want to go?

[00:47:58] Carly Prunier: [00:47:58] Yeah. Yeah. So I hope to be an account executive at Snyk. You, know, I’m kinda ready to take those next steps in my sales career. I want to, I, you know, the SDR role is a grind. It’s fun. It’s exhilarating, but now I want to learn like the negotiation aspect. I want to learn, you know, working with legal, working with all these other counterparts that come in behind the scenes at that SDR role doesn’t necessarily get to see. You know, kind of, I love being responsible for like my own fate, like,…

[00:48:27] SDR managers have it hard ’cause they’re, you, know, looking at their team’s numbers and all that, and like that’s just not something I can see myself doing because I want to be in charge of my own success, my own fate, like what money I make, what I don’t. And so I just want to, you, know, I’m now hungry for more because I’m, I know I had the confidence that I’m good at what I do now and I know that I’m ready to take those next steps into a closing role.

[00:48:50] So hoping that that comes sooner rather than later, and like, I’m just ready for the next step in my journey, in my career and to just take off and hopefully become, you know, a VP of sales, like my mom one day. 

[00:49:06] Chris Corcoran: [00:49:06] So, Carly, yesterday yesterday I led a company-wide training for the SDRs. And I talked about what I feel is the most important thing to do as an SDR and that is to develop your skill and become skilled. Talk to the listeners a little bit about how you were able to develop such skill in LinkedIn, that it was so obvious that your client, now employer, Snyk said, “Whoa, I know we’ve always seen you in action for a very short period of time, is there any way you can train us?” 

[00:49:35] Carly Prunier: [00:49:35] Yeah. So before I even got hired out by Snyk I did a LinkedIn training for them, for their SDRs internally. So I was still a memoryBlue employee and they asked me and I was obviously like, “Yeah, of course.”  I think a lot of it, it was a mix of common sense and having the ability to understand LinkedIn.

[00:49:55] So I actually took it upon myself to watch like a few LinkedIn training videos, you know, sales, nav videos. I  bought sales nav for myself when I was at memoryBlue and at first I was like, 80 bucks a month. Like, “What the heck? Like I’m not gonna pay this.” But then I was like, “Killer Katie had it.” So I was like, “Well, I want to be as successful as her.”

[00:50:13] So I guess I’m going to pay the 80 bucks a month for link sales nav.” And like, it was just kind of like, “Okay, like taking things into my own hand. Like, what do I need to be successful? Like what Is stopping me?” And sales nav was one thing that I didn’t have that I thought was stopping me from being successful because, you know, we were doing like prospecting on like Jeremy and Rob sales nav account. So I was like, “You know what? I’m just gonna, I, you know, what’s 80 bucks if I can, you know, be the top of the leaderboard and be the number one SDR memoryBlue for a month?” Like, you know, you get more money there, so what’s the 80 bucks. So it was kind of taking the matter into my own hands and not being like, “Oh, I don’t have the resources.” Or, “I can’t do it.”

[00:50:49] It’s what do you need to do it and just figure it out. Like, just take things into your own hands and kind of be like, “Okay,” like, “Yeah, I need this sales nav because prospecting on sales nav is so much better. And, you know, you can see more and you can see the decision-makers and, you know, second and first-degree connections.”

[00:51:06] And, you know, from watching those YouTube videos, I really did learn. You know, that like does matter if you have those second-degree connections and most, even third-degree connections. It really goes a long way with connection requests getting accepted. And I knew to effectively do my job, I needed to get more connection requests. So you know, kind of start at the bottom. “All right, what do I need? I need to talk to more people. So I need more connection requests. I need more people to accept me. How am I going to go find more people to accept me? I’m going to, you know, go on sales nav and see who my second and third-degree connections are and leverage it that way.”

[00:51:41] Chris Corcoran: [00:51:41] So what did, what did Snyk, when they, when they were your client, what did they see from you that said, “Hey, listen, can you train our team?” Like what, what did you do that showed them? 

[00:51:51] Carly Prunier: [00:51:51] Well, it went back to the Monday mornings when I was coming into a Monday morning meeting or like a Monday morning. You know, we were sent, you know, Rob was sending over the rapport, and I had like five meetings on a Monday with, you know, director of InfoSec or whatnot. They’re kind of, and then their internal team was struggling, and I’m like, “What is she doing that?”

[00:52:08] You know, is working that we’re not doing because they didn’t really have an internal training program at the time. So they kinda came to us and be like, “What are you doing? I’m like, “I’m just leveraging LinkedIn. And like, I’m more adding value rather than just sales pitching.” You know, I start every conversation on LinkedIn with, “Hey Chris, thanks for connecting. Just curious, you know, you have open source in your bio, have you ever heard of Snyk?” And I just kind of started a conversation that way, instead of being like, “Hey, Chris. This is what Snyk does.”

And, you know, instead of throwing it in your face and then you don’t even know why I’m actually reaching out. You know, half the time, they’re like, “No, I haven’t heard of it. What is it?” And you’re like, “Oh, well what is, you know, kind of play like the assumptions that. Oh, I assumed you would have heard of it, ’cause I saw you work within Kubernetes.” And it then they’re kind of like, “Oh, okay.” Like scratching their head. And if they don’t answer, then you know, I go in sales pitch them.

But it was more the diligence that I put on LinkedIn and a big trick for LinkedIn, I think is if someone connects with you and it’s 8:00 PM on a Monday, don’t wait till Tuesday morning to message them and reach out, you know, connect with them and if you’re on, you’re sitting on your phone, scrolling through Instagram, Twitter, whatever, you know, send them a message, it doesn’t take long to just even be like, “Thanks for connecting.” Because again, back to building that rapport. 

[00:53:24] Chris Corcoran: [00:53:24] Yeah. Earlier you were telling to all of us, “Speed is critical. Speed to respond is absolutely critical and you’re on that road. If you’re on your phone on a weekend or at night and on Instagram and you see someone, you immediately respond to them.” 

[00:53:38] Carly Prunier: [00:53:38] Yeah. Do you have to get them all they’re responsive and like, you know, your sales pitch, you’re like, “Oh, have you ever heard of Snyk?” “No, what does Snyk do?” And they’re like, “Oh, that sounds interesting. Can you tell me more?” And you don’t answer them for 12 hours, that might not be interesting to them anymore. You know, it’s kind of like a conversation, like we’re having a conversation right now. Tomorrow morning, you know, this said conversations probably not relevant to me anymore, that it was right now and I’m engaged and active in it.

[00:54:00] So it’s. It’s a lot about speed. I mean, obviously there’s times when you’re not on your phone and you’re not going to answer and that’s not the end of the world, but if you’re sitting there and you’re like, “Oh, Chris Corcoran just connected with me on LinkedIn.” I’m going to go say, “Hey Chris, thanks for connecting.” It, what does that take, 10 seconds out of my day? So again, just go ahead. 

[00:54:21] Chris Corcoran: [00:54:21] I was going to say, talk, talk to the listeners a little bit about your kind of approach in, I guess, the casual Carly. 

[00:54:30] Carly Prunier: [00:54:30] Yeah. So I think it goes back to just having that conversation you know. I, every meeting I’ve gotten started with, “Have you ever heard of Snyk?” And like, if they don’t answer me, but every single prospect that I have, like 6,000 LinkedIn connections right now, every single one that you know is relevant title to me, I’ve messaged, “Have you ever heard of Snyk?” No- Yes. Again, we said like, “No” was the second-best answer. You know, you’re still in a conversation with them, so, you know they’re seeing your messages. You know their names warm, so it’s more just being like, “You know, have you like..?” Ha I’m, I’m reaching out because I know my product is good.

[00:55:03] I know Snyk sells and Snyk can sell itself once I add that value. So it’s having a conversation, “Oh, well, how are you?” Like, it’s kind of like, LinkedIn a lot of times people take it as like, “Oh, I need to send them a paragraph a sales pitch it.” One instead, they’re not taking it as a conversation like if you’re on the phone, you know, If you’re on the phone, you’re going to be like, “Oh, how are you finding vulnerabilities?”

[00:55:24] You’re not gonna just sales pitch them right away. So again, like to what I learned 

[00:55:29] at memoryBlue, like, 

[00:55:30] you need to ask those questions. So if you start getting on a conversation with someone on LinkedIn and be like, “Oh, well, how you know, are you using any open source code?” They’re like, “Yeah.” And I’m like, “Oh, like, how are you finding your own vulnerabilities?”

[00:55:40] You’re like, “Oh, well actually we’re doing this.” I don’t come off as a sales person, they just think that I’m talking to them. Also, a tip for SDRs, I would say, is every single person on their LinkedIn header should not have sales development representative. Like have what you’re selling, so like mine says like DevSecOps application security because people, when you send a connection request to someone and they see the Sales Development Rep that has such a bad connotation to it unfortunately. Your connection request is not likely to get accepted, but if it’s, you know, you know, DevSecOps and a CISO sees that on his connect, he’s more likely to connect with me then just seeing Sales Development Rep as that like initial header on your LinkedIn. So that’s my little tip.

[00:56:25] Chris Corcoran: [00:56:25] That’s a great one. That’s a great one. So talk a little bit about you, you use every approach, right? You use the phone, you use LinkedIn. You’ve also talked about voicemails and leaving voicemails, as well as texting. Talk a little bit about how you incorporate voicemail messages in text, texting into your prospecting.

[00:56:44] Carly Prunier: [00:56:44] Yeah. And I think another one that I might have not even mentioned before, a huge one is a video message on LinkedIn.

[00:56:51] Just to show like, just being like, “Hey, like just putting a face to the name because in LinkedIn, on, on your phone app, you can do a video recording of yourself.” A lot of times people love that because one you’re standing out, two it’s not as, they’re going to get to play no matter what and they’re kind of going to listen to it, and you can see if they listened to it or it tells you like how long they listened to it.  So that’s a big one voicemails. And then like texting once you’ve built the rapport. Like a lot of times, like I’m calling mobile numbers that I’m getting from Zoom info.

[00:57:21] If you know, the conversation goes bad, I just send them a text being like, “Hey, sorry, I caught you at a bad time.” Like, “Thanks for your time today.” And then don’t pitch them then, and then, you know, usually they’re not going to answer that. But I’ve booked a message, you know, by texting them being like, “Hey, like,…” I mean, everyone nowadays, their favorite form of communication is texting. So you have to know when to not overstep your boundaries.

If you haven’t had any warm communication with them, I wouldn’t really try texting as your option. But catch them on the phone and they say, “Hey, it’s a bad time.” You know, just send a little, “Thank you” note. Thank you notes go like a long way just for even answering your call.  Yeah, don’t just stick to one form. If LinkedIn’s not working, ’cause everyone has their ups and downs, like you can’t just look at it like, “Oh, well, no one’s answering my LinkedIn messages, that’s that.” Yeah, like if you want to be good at this job, you can’t just stick to one form of, you know, messaging.

[00:58:11] You can’t just stick to cold calls. You can just stick to voicemails. But if you’re doing enough without becoming pushy and adding value, you know, over LinkedIn, over voicemail and kind of making them more familiar that they feel like they know you, it goes a long way. 

[00:58:27] Chris Corcoran: [00:58:27] Yeah, this, this that reminds me of you know, the old question of “What does Carly Prunier do to be successful?” Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. So it’s amazing to hear. I don’t want to speak, but I will, on behalf of all the memoryBlue SDRs. They’re probably pretty happy that they don’t have to compete with you anymore. 

[00:58:47] Carly Prunier: [00:58:47] Thank you. That’s a compliment. 

[00:58:49] Chris Corcoran: [00:58:49] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you, you do… It’s you, you have that burning desire to succeed, right? You’re the one who’s going to go out there and do the things on the Sunday. You’re the one who’s going to go and buy yourself LinkedIn sales navigator. And you’re going to go and figure out a way to make it happen and that, that can’t be taught. 

[00:59:08] Totally. 

[00:59:08] Carly Prunier: [00:59:08] It’s a one. 

[00:59:09] Marc Gonyea: [00:59:09] I think what’s so interesting too, Carly, for someone who’s left the company, I mean, you didn’t leave us that long ago. It was May, I think maybe a year ago, give or take… And you have, and maybe it was the fact that you were fortunate enough to work, you know, in the court system for two years. So you have a different perspective than some of the people who started at memoryBlue right out of school, but that’s certainly helped.

[00:59:33] But I think the key thing with you is a lot of people see the initial rejection as like the ultimate answer and then it’s over versus even when you, when the person says, “No, I haven’t heard on Snyk.” Or they get a “No,” you’re like, that doesn’t even really matter. That’s irrelevant to this because I’m already in a dialogue with you. 

[00:59:49] Carly Prunier: [00:59:49] I don’t care. 

[00:59:50] Marc Gonyea: [00:59:50] Or you don’t care and you shouldn’t, and you shouldn’t.

[00:59:54] But I think for people who are newer to the game or maybe are just working as hard to understand it as quickly as you did with Carey was with Katie and like Carey sitting next to you and everyone else in that office, you’re like, “Well, no, no, I’m looking past that.” And then I’m looking to, well, we’re in a dialogue now and how can I, how can I bring value to you in this dialogue versus some people may get the “No”, and they’re like, ah, they were head for the hills.

[01:00:18] Carly Prunier: [01:00:18] And yeah. And it, it goes to being organized too, because if someone tells you “No” that’s an answer. And you know, maybe it’s a “No” right now, but in two months it might not be a “No.”So like, I keep a list of everyone who has told me “No” like, go screw, like… There, there could be  needed at some point and you, it’s so hard in this job when you’re making a hundred cold calls and you’re getting seven pickups a day. At least, you know, in two months, like you’re more confident while you’re selling. You got to know, you know, that person’s going to, you know, their likelihood of them connecting with you, at least on the phone is great.

[01:00:49] And they probably don’t even remember if they just, you know, cold flat said “No” so just go back for it. Like don’t ever give up and don’t want that rejection being like, “Oh, now this person was a jerk the first time I talked to them.” Like call them again in two weeks. Call them again in two months, like it, it doesn’t matter. 

[01:01:04] Marc Gonyea: [01:01:04] Yeah, and in cyber things change so quickly, so quickly like this with the gas oil pipeline shut down. I mean, those guys were probably taking calls now. Right? So it that’s a very good perspective on it. And I think that’s one, you only get by working hard and kind of seeing through the good, the bad and the ugly.

[01:01:23] Carly Prunier: [01:01:23] Exactly. 

[01:01:25] Chris Corcoran: [01:01:25] Carly, before we run, what what advice would you give to an SDR who’s, who’s going to start their career on Monday? Like what, what, advice would you give that person? 

[01:01:34] Carly Prunier: [01:01:34] That it’s going to be a grind and the grind will be worth it if you are just a sponge and you absorb everything that you possibly can, but if you’re overwhelmed to also take a step back.

Take that hour walk at lunch. You know, don’t feel like you need to overpower yourself with everything right away because that was one of my biggest flaws. It’s like, you know, I wanted to just know it and do it. You know, take that time back and step back and look at the big picture and just be a sponge and don’t take “No” for an answer, and just go get it. Like you just, if you want it, it will come and just absorb all the training that you get because like memoryBlue is so good at that. And like, I, like, I owe my whole life to like memoryBlue now because like. I really do, because like I wouldn’t be in this field and like, you know, if I had like interviewed at a sales job with, you know, said company didn’t, you know, just got kinda thrown into their BDR program without going through memoryBlue, it wouldn’t,… 

[01:02:33] I wouldn’t have been nearly as successful as I am today and, you know, go into every cold call with the confidence that you’re going to book that person, you know. Don’t just dial to dial and ghost them to get your a hundred metrics. Like that’s not going to help you as a sales person. So be a sponge, you know, no one to take a step back and just face that rejection and take it with a grain of salt. 

[01:02:57] Marc Gonyea: [01:02:57] I will say that there’s a lot of truth to what you said and I’m with, Chris and I are fortunate to have ballers, like Jeremy Wood and Rob worked for us. And like Jeremy had the experience ’cause he was an SDR once of being on a campaign or going on a new campaign, you’re in, you’re scared shitless and you don’t know what to do. And you know, you’re, you, you don’t want to go on it, but Jeremy did a good job working with you through that and so did Rob, but then you also did a good job with like, not taking it and I’ll say it again, heading for the hills. So you came back to the next day, it’s that into his office and then you kind of just re refocused. 

[01:03:30] Carly Prunier: [01:03:30] Right. 

[01:03:31] Marc Gonyea: [01:03:31] Chris and I are fortunate to have you work for us and I’m thankful that you were able to work for Jeremy and Rob because it’s a team effort.

[01:03:38] Carly Prunier: [01:03:38] Definitely. It’s a family now. 

[01:03:42] Marc Gonyea: [01:03:42] There you go. Well, thank you, Carly. 

[01:03:43] We’ll have to do this again. Maybe we’ll get your mom on next time. We can do that, you guys can both break it down for Chris and I, all at once. 

[01:03:50] Carly Prunier: [01:03:50] She would love that. Don’t even, don’t even tease her that. She would do it in five seconds. 

[01:03:55] Marc Gonyea: [01:03:55] All right. Well, we’ll we’ll we’ll, we’ll get you back in, in a little while, a couple of years after you or sooner, after you’ve kind of moved up the food chain, you start closing, negotiating, closing, down and bringing that deals yourself. 

[01:04:04] Carly Prunier: [01:04:04] Yes, hopefully sooner rather than later then.

[01:04:07] Chris Corcoran: [01:04:07] Absolutely. Absolutely. Carly, Thank you so much. It’s been great. 

[01:04:10] Carly Prunier: [01:04:10] Thank you guys. I appreciate it. All right.