Episode 57: Victor Mata – Stay Curious
When Victor Mata spent time working around a forklift, he couldn’t resist the opportunity to learn to operate one himself. It’s the same natural curiosity that allows him to thrive today in the professional sales world.
Victor, now a highly successful Enterprise Business Development Rep for ThreatConnect, unpacks a compelling personal story starting with his deep roots in Venezuela to his winding journey to the United States in the latest edition of Tech Sales is for Hustlers. Through it all, his disparate cultural immersion and experience in a wide range of initial jobs provided a first-rate education in the ever-elusive and frequently temperamental subject matter: human nature.
Tune in to the latest episode to hear Victor explain why he values understanding prospect personas above all else in sales, how early roles as a door-to-door salesman and restaurant server impacted his professional future, and how his quest to never stop asking “Why?” drives him perpetually forward.
Guest-At-A-Glance
Name: Victor Mata
What he does: Victor is the Enterprise Business Development Rep at ThreatConnect
Company: ThreatConnect
Noteworthy: Victor is born in Caracas, Venezuela, and his native language is Spanish. However, he speaks English fluently and knows a bit of Portuguese. These remarkable skills allow him to communicate with companies worldwide, taking his selling abilities to new heights.
Where to find Victor: LinkedIn
Key Insights
⚡ You can be incredibly crafty when you want to make money. Victor believes that we can become incredibly resourceful when we have a clear goal in mind, especially when it involves making money. In that case, we can express the abilities we didn’t even know we had. “Amongst the many things that I’ve learned is how resourceful you can be when you need money. When you want to make money, when you have an objective goal in mind, you can be incredibly crafty. I have always thought that your abilities and skills are a lot sharper when that survival instinct kicks in. Then you’re capable of a lot that you are not perhaps in a more balanced state of mind.”
⚡ I am not patient with reading a novel, but I’m very good at reading information. Victor describes himself as a curious person who loves to learn different things about different stuff. He is not afraid of asking questions and learning from other people, which helps him upgrade his skills. “I just go to Wikipedia, and I learn about things. I know a little bit of everything. Whoever I talk to, I like to have something to talk about. I’ve never been afraid to lead a conversation. I’ve never been afraid to get asked questions, to be on the spot, to be the loudest. I’ve never been shy about my opinions either. Now that I’m in a leadership role, it makes me a lot more approachable because I’m very self-aware.”
⚡ If you’re good at selling something, you’re probably good at selling something obliquely different. Victor’s career in sales has led him down different paths. It helped him learn how to sell a product, whether a water treatment plan or cybersecurity. “It is important to understand different personas and understand that. If you’re good at selling something, you’re probably good at selling something obliquely different. I remember that there was a huge stigma around cybersecurity. People would say that it’s incredibly complicated, and I’m sure it is. But at the same time, if you’re good at talking to people and you know how to navigate those questions and those personas, you’ll be fine.”
Episode Highlights
The Adventures of Victor Mata: Traveling, Selling, and Learning
“I was born in Caracas, Venezuela. […] I started traveling so young because my mom and my dad worked in the pharmaceutical industry, and they would travel a lot. […] To me, it’s been a journey. I actually lived in four different countries. I lived in Venezuela. I lived in Panama. I lived in Mexico, and now I live here. And before that, I spent some time in Europe. I went to London, and I stayed in Westminster for a little bit. I went to Paris. I’ve had the opportunity to travel. Thank God my parents were in a position in which these were not alien things to me. So, when I decided to find my own way, I came to the States, and I was like, ‘I don’t have experience working here. So what can I do?’ And that’s when I started doing a variety of jobs. And I think it’s important to the story too because that’s what exposed me to how much of a conversational individual I am.”
Door-to-Door Selling and the Early Beginnings
“I still keep friendships with a lot of the people that I met back in the day, and that’s what got me interested in selling. […] I had that cousin working for this company that would sell water treatment plans for houses door-to-door. Imagine someone knocks on your door right now and sells you a car because it is $7,500, and that’s what I was doing, and I was not making a base. I was just commissioned. I faced a lot of rejection doing that. A lot of people do their door in my face; a lot of people would ask me to just leave. The craziest thing that happened to me was when I sold one of the plans to a family that was highly dysfunctional. […] If I was crafty enough to do this in an environment like that one, I can sell whatever. I can do anything. I had other jobs back in the day, in the many places where I lived, but that was my first real sales experience. I had to sell something because if not, I wasn’t going to eat.”
Understanding Different Personas Helps You Sell Anything
“I came from doing the hospitals, healthcare networks, and billion-dollar companies, and instantly, I was selling to completely different personas a product that’s incredibly complicated to explain, and I was able to do it. I knew how to navigate the conversation. I knew how to ask questions. I would ask a lot of questions. I would be on the phone, and I felt like I could close it. If you’re good at talking to people and you know how to navigate those questions and those personas, you’ll be fine. If you know how to keep the conversation at your level, you’re always going to get that meeting. I think everything that I’ve done so far in my high-tech sales career translated well into my next step. What I did with hospitals translated well to cybersecurity, and cybersecurity translated well into what I’m doing now. There’s nothing that I learned that I felt was a waste of time. Everything that I learned put me in a better position to understand a little more about the things that I’m capable of doing.”
Talk to People and Be Open to Options
“Talk to people. Talk to your team. I learned a lot about different types of technology and different types of industries and stuff just by talking to them. By talking to them, you realize that they’re very good at doing this. They’re very good at doing that. Maybe I can incorporate some of what I learned from them into my own conversations. Just keep an open mind. Keep your options open. Talk to a lot of people, especially those on their way out. I think that’s something that perhaps they didn’t do enough. I didn’t talk to many people that were in that position, but I think it’s important for you to absorb as much information as possible because that’s what gives you a little bit of an estimate on how your future is going to look like.”
Being an SDR is a Very Thankless Job
“I do believe that not everyone’s cut out to be a BDR or an SDR. I think for a lot of people, it’s a job that doesn’t work out for a variety of reasons. Maybe it’s a personality thing. Maybe you don’t deal with rejection that well. Perhaps you feel like you could be doing something else, but if you decide that that’s what you want, understand that sometimes it is a very thankless job. Sometimes, you are not going to get the recognition that you want to get by sending that appointment that was incredibly tough to get. I think you understand that being an SDR is temporary. I think most companies understand that.”
Transcript:
[00:00:27] Marc Gonyea: Victor Mata in the house, all the way down in Dallas, Texas. Victor, great to see you. Thanks for joining Chris and I.
[00:00:35] Victor Mata: I feel like it’s been a minute. It’s great to see you, guys. It’s great to talk to you. I mean, like I told you, guys that I’ve been excited to do this for a minute now, so.
[00:00:44] Chris Corcoran: Well, we’re, we’re glad that it’s, we’re, we’re making that a reality. So we’re going to have a lot of fun today, Victor.
[00:00:48] Victor Mata: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I think I told you guys that I used to have my own podcast and you know, like, I don’t know if this comes out in video or not, but I actually do have my a little microphone here for you. So I’m guessing the audio, like the audio quality is going to be decent enough.
[00:01:05] Marc Gonyea: You’re a pro. We’re not doing video, nobody wants to see my face, my ugly face and Chris’s ugly face, but I want to see to…
[00:01:11] Victor Mata: I’m happy to see you though. I’m happy to see you regardless.
[00:01:16] Marc Gonyea: But you do sound amazing and you, and you look as good as always.
[00:01:19] Victor Mata: Okay. No, same to you.
[00:01:20] Marc Gonyea: Nah, I love it. I love it.
[00:01:22] Love it. All right. Well, let’s. So audience, you know, we know you, they don’t really know you and there are things I’m going to learn about you today. Chris and I have learned both about you, today that we’ve never been able to talk about before, for all sorts of reasons.
[00:01:35] Let’s just get into it. Can you share with the folks and Chris and I where you’re from, where were you born, where you grew up, that sort of, that sort of deal? And we’ll go from there.
[00:01:45] Victor Mata: Yeah, absolutely. I think, I think I do have a little bit of a different background, most of my peers at memoryBlue. I actually was born in Caracas, Venezuela. So, very far. Country consumed by communism as of now. I think when I came over, I came over when I was 20 something. I mean, like I was always back and forth with my parents.
So we lived here for a little bit and then we lived down in Venezuela and then we lived there, like here for a little bit. Then my mom moved to Atlanta, Georgia back when I was like, maybe like 16 or something. And that’s when we, like, I started spending a lot more time here in the US. I actually went to high school in Venezuela and, and it’s like college too, even though that I would travel to US like, like fairly often. I like…
[00:02:31] Marc Gonyea: So, I’ve got a question, I’ve got a question for you. So your, your English is really good. Like, you know, I can’t speak Spanish and I’ve tried many times. You grew up in Venezuela, but you were shuttling back and forth, like what, what how’d you pick up the English?
[00:02:43] Victor Mata: I think the main, the main thing was that I started traveling so young that, you know, my, my mom and my dad, I think this is important for the story, they worked in the pharmaceutical industry. So they would travel a lot. Like they would travel, they would work for this like huge, like transnational companies, like, you know, like billion-dollar a year revenue companies from all over the world.
[00:03:04] So we would travel a lot. And my mom would like thought like, “Okay. So, I mean eventually we are going to settle in the States.” So like, like, it makes sense for you to like, “Okay, so you speak Spanish, obviously it’s your native tongue, but at the same time, it makes sense for you to speak English too.” So I actually went to school, like just my local school, but in the afternoon, like, or like the evening, or like, like an afterschool program, I would go to the Venezuelan American Center.
[00:03:33] It’s a, it’s a school, like an American school right next to the embassy. And I started speaking English when I was maybe like, like fluently, I was like 9 or maybe 10. Still like, you know, like it’s always going to be easier for me to speak Spanish, but like at the same time, I think that, you know, like it’s, it’s the language in which I work and sort of language that which I read, it’s the language I speak with my wife.
[00:03:57] You know, like it’s, it’s, it’s like at this point, like it really doesn’t make a difference anymore to me. Like, I, I can just switch between them, like almost like, like seamlessly. Like I could just like, like, thank God that I can do it.
[00:04:10] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, that’s amazing. That’s a gift. Okay, all right. So you grew up, you went at the high school at Venezuela? And college?
[00:04:17] Victor Mata: Yeah, college too.
[00:04:18] I actually, I actually went to law school. I went to law school in Venezuela, which it was, it was not the, it was not the best decision, really. I knew that it was, it wasn’t a good call, but my dad is actually a lawyer. You know that he worked in the pharmaceutical industry too.
[00:04:32] Marc Gonyea: So is Chris’s.
[00:04:35] Victor Mata: Oh, really? Okay. That’s cool. Okay. We have that in common. So my dad, my dad was lawyer, is a lawyer and like, he never really like practiced. Like he never had his, his own practice. And back in like the year 2012, that’s when I went to school in 2011, I started to start like studying economics. I was going to be an economy major and at the same time my dad that’s when he started his own practice. So I wasn’t doing too well on economy. Like, it just didn’t work out for me, like maybe college and that transition from high school to college wasn’t what I was expecting, like things were not going my way. And I didn’t just want to party for four or five years, so I thought like, you know what, like, “I need to, I need to make a switch. I need to, I need to change this.”
And I started actually working and I learned how to, like, write down like mortgage documents. I learned how to do it. Like there’s a science to it, but I’ve learned how to do it. So I was actually working at a law firm as, you know, like a 19-year-old or something like that.
And that’s when my dad said, “You know, like, like you’re not to like sat on the economy, like watching, just like switch majors and just go to law school.” In Minnesota it’s works a little bit different. So like, I, I decided like, “You know what? Like, I’m smart enough, I can just you know, I’m, I’m sure that I can get accepted.”
And I actually got accepted to one of like, I think it’s one of like the 10 best schools in Latin America. And I went to law school for four years and then, you know, like I’d never used it. Like if I wanted to be a lawyer here, like I could just like do like two or three extra years and just do it. And I’ve said that I’m going to do it eventually.
It’s just not something, it’s not something that I feel like, it’s like the size of like, or like a deciding factor for my life.
[00:06:20] Marc Gonyea: Interesting. All right. So esquire, you get out of law school and then what happened next? Because you know, my guess is you were thinking you’re going to be working at memoryBlue at some point, but you did some things before, or you were going to be in Dallas and be married, you know, six, seven years later?
[00:06:39] Victor Mata: No, no. I mean, absolutely. I mean, like to me, it’s been like, it’s been a journey. Like it’s been a journey. Like I I’ve been like the type of person that I’ve lived in four different countries. Like actually lived in four different countries. I lived in Venezuela, I lived in Panama, I lived in Mexico and now I live here.
[00:06:53] And before then, like, you know, like I spent some time in Europe, I went to London and I stayed in Westminster for a little bit. I went to Paris, like a bunch of times as well. Like, I had the opportunity to travel. Like, like, thank God my parents were in a position in which like, this were not like, like alien things to me.
[00:07:13] So like, when I, when I decided to like, you know, like, it’s, it’s, I’m old enough now, like I have to find my own way and I came to the States and I was like, “Okay, like, you know, like I don’t really have experience working here. So what really can I do?” And that’s when I started doing a variety of jobs. And, and I think it’s actually important to the story too, because like that’s what exposed me to how much of a conversational individual I am.
[00:07:37] Like, I, I started working at a restaurant in Washington DC. Maybe you guys have been there. It’s called Lincoln, it’s in Vermont Avenue, like maybe a couple of blocks away from the White House. What’s their were…
[00:07:52] Marc Gonyea: That sounds fancy. I don’t know. Chris probably goes to fancy places. I don’t go to fancy places. Yeah, I’ve just messed with Chris. Keep, wait, so wait. So you moved from Venezuela to DC straight away?
[00:08:05] Victor Mata: No, I actually came to Dallas first.
[00:08:07] I came to Dallas, I stayed here for a little bit, didn’t really work out my way. I thought, like, “You know, maybe I don’t have the experience to like make it here.” There wasn’t like too many jobs that I could apply for. And I thought like, “You know, like, I’m, I’m way smarter to just like be working at.” Like, you know, like something that, that perhaps was not aligned to the type of person that I am.
[00:08:26] So I thought, like I had a, I actually had a cousin that was doing fairly good in DC. I just booked a plane ticket and I left. Stay in DC for like the actual district, like maybe I bought the plane ticket, went to DC, found a job at LinkedIn, ended up being a server there for a number of months, maybe like eight months back when I was like 21 or something like that.
[00:08:50] And I actually made some good money. I met a, I met a lot of people. I was serving like congress people and shit like that. Like, I was, I met a lot of people. Like, and every time they have like a banquet or something like that was like, like a little like high end, like I will be like one of the few people that were always invited to like, “Okay, you know what? Like, you know, like, you’re, you’re good at your job. Like, you know, you know how to talk to people. You’re very conversational. Let’s just bring you off.” And I made some group, like great relationships there. Like I still like keep like friendships with a lot of the people that I met back in the day.
[00:09:24] And that’s what actually got me interested in like selling. My dad has always been in sales person. I like, he’s an incredibly social individual. Like very likable, handsome well-spoken dude. And like, you know, I always, like, I would see my dad, like, like, I don’t know like, you know, that every time that we would go out, like we will be at the grocery shop and he would just talk to people.
[00:09:46] He would just talk to people all the time. Everyone knows him, he knows everybody. So it was definitely like an alien concept to me. So like when that happened, I actually had that cousin that was doing great, or that was doing fairly good. She was working for this company that would sell water treatment plants for houses, door to door. And…
[00:10:07] Marc Gonyea: Hold on. So water treatment plants for houses, door to door?
[00:10:11] Victor Mata: Yeah, it’s basically just like, you know, imagine someone knocks on your door right now and basically sells you a car because it was $7,500. And that’s what I was doing. And I was not making a base, like I was not making base. I was just commissioned. I like, I faced a lot, a lot of rejection doing that.
[00:10:32] Like a lot of people just through their door, like in my face, a lot of people would just like, ask me to fuck off, to leave my home. I’m sorry, I don’t know if I can curse, but.
[00:10:40] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. No, you curse of that’s, they’re probably cursing at you, so you can talk about it.
[00:10:44] Victor Mata: I mean, like, like the craziest thing that happened to me, like, and I think it’s like, it’s going to be a funny story for the podcast itself. I remember one time that I actually sold one of the plants to this family that was highly dysfunctional. Like, like I talked to you like mom and dad were like, you know, like they, they, they didn’t like each other very much.
[00:11:03] And I was there to sign the contract. And the guy was just upset that I was there and he was like, “Why are you talking to my wife and not me?” And I was like, “Bro, like, I’m just here waiting for you to sign something.” And then he was about to, like, I thought that he was going to beat up his wife in front of me.
[00:11:22] And I was just there looking for a signature. I was just there looking for a signature just to close my sale and make some money. Doing that, like just like “Leave.”, you know, like, “Yeah, sure. We’ll pay for it. Leave.” And I was like, “Okay, if I was crafty enough to do this in an environment like this one, like chance it’s hard, like I can, I can sell whatever. I can do anything.” And, you know, I had other jobs back in the day, like in the many places where I lived. But that was like my first sales, like real sales experience. Like, like really like, “Okay, I have to sell something because if not, I’m not going to eat.” So, and my mom, my dad were, they were doing well off, like they were never going to let me starve. But I was too, like, you know, I was too stubborn on making it like on my own. So like, I, I was just like, “Okay. So I prefer to go to bed hungry, than ask my dad for money because I’m not going to do that.”
[00:12:18] Marc Gonyea: What’d you learn from that job? What was like the main thing you learned from that gig? ‘Cause door to door is tough. Chris and I will have a lot of respect for people who serve, but also people who do door to door. That’s, that’s difficult.
[00:12:29] Victor Mata: I think, I think about like, like amongst the many things that I’ve learned, it’s like how resourceful you can be when you need money. Like when you want to make money, when you have a, an, a, an objective goal in mind, like you can be an incredibly crafty. I have always thought that you are like your, your, your, you know, like your abilities, your skills are a lot sharper when in need. Like when that survival instinct kicks in, like, you are just capable of a lot that you are not perhaps in a more balanced state of mind.
[00:13:02] So I, I learned that about myself. I learned that I could like deal with the pressure of coming to like a stranger’s house as a friendly, you know, like whatever, I will test their water, I knew it was going to be bad and I knew that I was going to sell them something. But there was a transition between like the person that’s telling you that you have a problem at home and the person that’s telling you that I have the solution and we’re going to sell it for you for $7,500.
[00:13:28] And there’s a, there’s a little bit of a transition in the way that they look at you. Because they look at you like, “Oh my God, I didn’t know this. I didn’t know that there was so much lead in the water. I didn’t know that there was cyanide. I didn’t know that there was like all this like metals that are harmful to me and my family.
[00:13:44] But now you’re telling me that I have a problem and you have the solution.” And that was like, “Okay, like, that’s, that’s a tough concept to grasp.” Like on the, like, like in the heat of the moment and think it’s very tough. So I, I learned how to do it. I learned how to transition that.[00:14:00]
[00:14:01] Marc Gonyea: And you get some good stories out of it, too.
[00:14:03] Victor Mata: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, like I’ve been to so many weird places, man, like so many weird places. Like I’ve, I’ve seen a lot.
[00:14:10] Marc Gonyea: What up, so then you did that for a little while and you had one more stop before you came to memoryBlue?
[00:14:16] Victor Mata: Yeah, actually, I worked at Sprint because I needed to find a job. I was like, you know, like something stable, like, and you know, like I thought, like, “Okay, so I,…
[00:14:27] Can you hear me okay?
[00:14:28] Marc Gonyea: You sound great.
[00:14:28] Victor Mata: I mean, I ended up working at Sprint and I was hired as a retail consultant.
[00:14:39] I had no experience with retail, but, but I knew that, you know, like if I do things correctly, I don’t think it’s going to be long. And like before I knew it, I became the key holder manager for the store. And before I knew it, they actually gave me a corporate job because I found a way to just sell corporate accounts to everyone. [00:15:00] And I will make a higher commission deal with that.
[00:15:01] So I figured out a way to do that and I just started finessing people. Just started finessing people and just like doing super, like, super like corporate things around the Takoma Park Silver Spring area. And they gave me this business to business position called Small Business Expert. I think it’s the coolest title that I’ve had so far.
[00:15:20] Like, like, it sounds cool. Like, it sounds like I know banks. And I really didn’t know much, like really I didn’t, but I was very good at selling what I sold. Like and that’s when actually when, that was right before memoryBlue.
[00:15:34] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Hold on. Real quick. So you said that you, this is a Chris Corcoran classic. You said that you figured out, or you started selling the corporate stuff, but it’s not like him, but he told you that, like, how did you know to do that? Like, who has…
[00:15:46] Victor Mata: A boss.
[00:15:46] Marc Gonyea: How’d you figured that out?
[00:15:48] Victor Mata: I had a boss, Saenz Jose. And Jose told me like, “You know, like you can just like reach out to these people and, you know, try to like, instead of just selling one account, you can sell 15. You know, like if you, if you happen to connect with the right people, you’re going to do that.”
[00:16:04] And I had a couple of success stories, like in which I found like this like small business and I just sold them 25 lines and I made a huge commission on it. Like, and I had a couple of those in which, like, I was just like, I don’t, I mean, I can’t make money just like waiting for people to come into a store,
[00:16:22] I need to go out of my way to just find people to buy from me. And that’s what I did and that’s what I did and it worked out for me. Like, I was very, like, not, not like hungry in a literal sense, but more like, I always felt like I was overqualified for what I was doing. So I thought like, you know, like, “I, it’s not going to be long for me.”
[00:16:41] Like, and, and like before I knew it, like they moved me on, like very quickly. And that’s when memoryBlue came my way. Like, like at that moment at life.
[00:16:51] Marc Gonyea: How did that happen?
[00:16:53] Victor Mata: It was actually Kellen Robideau. Yeah.
[00:16:58] Yeah. Yeah. It was Kellen. Kellen reached out to me, but I believe that Kellen back then, he was just an SDR. Like he also like doing the talent stuff, more AE stuff that he was doing afterwards, like it was just doing SDR stuff. And he reached out to me with a with the strip on LinkedIn. And like, it was like, “Out of like the sea of mediocrity that like fills up my screen every week or every day, and like your profile stood out to me…” Or some shit like that, it was incredible cheesy. It was super cheesy. I mean, like he knows what I’m talking about, but… Yeah, I’d be like, he reached out to me and at that moment in time, I thought like, “I’m not going to be selling for Sprint forever.
Like, like there’s only so long that I could do this for. Like, I, like, I don’t want to do this forever. Like, I, I, I feel like I there’s a lot that I want to do. Like, I, I’m a very ambitious individual, like I am very money-driven.” Like I thought like, “There’s gotta be better things out there.” At that moment in time and it’s our interviewer here and there. Kellen reached out to me and I started doing my [00:18:00] own research at memoryBlue. Like I, I started doing my own research, class store and that was feel like negative reviews, but at the same time that was feel a lot of positives. And I thought like the positives were a lot more valid than the negative ones.
[00:18:13] I thought, like the positives were more general and the negatives were a little more like, like personalized. Like I had these experience with like, you know, like, like ex manager and they didn’t give me this or that. Like, and I thought like, “Okay, so that, that sounds very, that sounds very bitter. So like maybe, maybe it’s, it doesn’t work out for everyone.”
[00:18:35] Like I know that. I know that that’s a possibility.
[00:18:38] Marc Gonyea: Yeah.
[00:18:39] Victor Mata: But I was a little more captivated by the good ones. That’s what happened to me.
[00:18:45] Marc Gonyea: So who’d you come in and interview with? So Chris, was Kellen doing like a, a Mavericks program or?
[00:18:51] Chris Corcoran: Probably.
[00:18:52] Marc Gonyea: Okay.
[00:18:54] Victor Mata: What’s a Mavericks program?
[00:18:57] Chris Corcoran: It’s essentially an SDR, and in their spare time. It’s almost like super billing, but they, they go out and they, they…
[00:19:04] Victor Mata: Okay. Yeah, I was, I always thought that it was something like that. That, like once I came on board, I understood that, “Okay. He’s not a recruiter.” But he was the one that reached out to me and called me the first time.
[00:19:16] So, it made sense to me. But I had, my first interview was with Bailey Esparza. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:19:25] It was Bailey. I talked to her, I like what she said. And the first time that I came in and I remember that I had my, my suit and tie and I was looking for… I actually bought that suit like the night before, like the night before my interview, I bought like the nicest suit that I could afford. And that’s one that I wore to my interview.
[00:19:46] I think I only wore that suit, like once. I think, I think it was H&M. Yeah, it was from H&M. That’s a few hundred bucks.
[00:19:56] Yeah. I was looking for it.
[00:19:59] Marc Gonyea: You buy it and looking fresh and you rolled into the interview and you’re interviewed with Bailey?
[00:20:02] Victor Mata: Yeah, no. And then my first interview, like at the office, headquarters, it was Nick Perry.
[00:20:08] Marc Gonyea: Swaggy P.
[00:20:10] Victor Mata: Swaggy P like, yeah, I talked to him this morning. I talked to him because he told me that they called him because he’s my reference for everything. So I, like, he told me like, “Dude, I mean, like, they called me, I hope you get the job and whatever.”
[00:20:21] And, and yeah, like my first interview was with Nick. I liked him a lot and like, I liked the interview and like the vibe. At that time, I didn’t quite understand the dynamic of memoryBlue of what you guys did. Like I didn’t really, I didn’t know anything about business development. Like I knew that, “Okay, there’s probably someone that does this, but like, I don’t really understand where do I fit into all of this.”
[00:20:45] Like, I would like, “Why would I be concerned to do this?” And after I talked to Nick, like very, very like down to earth, like very straightforward individual. I liked him a lot. I liked him a lot, and then my second interview was with Nick [00:21:00] and Simone which I was, you know, great. And they had a great dynamic too.
[00:21:06] I didn’t know they were together. They never told me. So they were making, they were making jokes about like, “You know, my boyfriend was like, “Hey, like we give you a trip, like every 12 months, whatever.” And you know, I want to go to like, like Hawaii, but my boyfriend doesn’t want to.” And I was like, “Damn, your boyfriend sucks.”
[00:21:21] And I didn’t know who her boyfriend was.
[00:21:23] Marc Gonyea: They’re engaged now. Right?
[00:21:26] Victor Mata: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Very happy for them and yeah, I liked it a lot. I liked it a lot. I felt like, like, yeah, like, like there’s, like, it seems like there’s a lot of growth here. Like, like more than anything, I would see like a lot of growth and I would see a lot of young people, a lot of young people that look like me and talk like me.
[00:21:45] And I thought like, “Wait, maybe this will be a good fit.” So by the time that I did my, my mock-up, you know, call like on the last interview, I was very confident that I was going to get the job. I was confident that like, I was, I was good enough to do this. And when I read the, like the reviews and like what people would do, I started like looking up on LinkedIn, like, you know, like people that were like memoryBlue alumni. And then they will be like, I don’t know, like a Director of something, Account Executive and wherever.
[00:22:16] And like, I would see a lot of. And then I would see like the average salary for those roles. And I was like, hope you like, “Bro, like, like the, I think I found something here.”
[00:22:28] Marc Gonyea: Victor, I have a question for you. You seem to be very curious along the way, like you’re kind of learning about things, putting yourself in these positions, looking things up. Talk to us about that, because Chris and I are big fans of people who are, who are curious as fuck.
[00:22:45] Victor Mata: I, I mean, like to me, like, I’ve never been like a, like an avid reader. Like I’ve never been like, I don’t think I’m patient enough to do it, like to sit down and read a novel, but I’m very good at reading information. Like, like, like, like I just go to Wikipedia and I just learn about things. I, I know a little bit of everything. Like, like, you know, I’m a massive soccer fan.
[00:23:05] I like MMA, I like skateboarding, I actually do skateboarding too. And, you know, but like I know like something out of like every sport, because I like to know like where, like wherever I talked to, I like to have something to talk about. Like, I, I don’t, I’ve never been afraid to like lead a conversation.
[00:23:23] I’ve never been afraid to like get asked questions to be like on spot, to be the loudest. Like I’ve never really had, I’ve never been like, you know, like shy about my opinions either. Again…
[00:23:33] Marc Gonyea: How does that help you in your role and your gig?
[00:23:36] Victor Mata: I think, I think to me, like now that I’m in a, in a leadership role, like, it makes me a lot more approachable, because I’m very self-aware. Like, I’ve always thought that I’m a self-aware individual.
[00:23:45] Like I know the place that… I know my place. And I know where I am, I know like, like who to talk to you in a certain way or or not. I know how to do that. And a thing like doing that and understanding that about myself and understanding like, you know, like the more people, you know, like the more you know about what they do, like, you know, like your perspective on things just like, you know, like it’s amplified.
[00:24:10] And I’ve always thought that, you know, like I can say like, “Okay, so I want to be a millionaire, but how am I going to get there?” And say like, “Oh yeah. No, I mean, like, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that.” Like, I never thought that that’s how life worked. I always thought like, it was more like you have to goal and then you figure out how to get there.
[00:24:27] And to me, like, it was more like, I got to learn how to do things. So I mean, like, I know how to drive a forklift, for example, and like that this is actually like an actual fact. I do have a license like that I got when I was like 22, because I learned how to drive a forklift. And I was, it was basically because I was curious about it.
[00:24:44] Like I had a friend that worked at a warehouse and then it ended up working at that warehouse for a little bit. And I asked him to like teach me. And then they gave me a license. Like I that’s, that’s how it’s been for me. Like for most of my life, I just go out and do something and then something good happens.
[00:25:03] Marc Gonyea: So Victor,…
[00:25:04] Chris Corcoran: It’d be, it’d be, it’d be great for the listeners, if you could just walk, walk, walk us through your high-tech sales career. Starting off as an SDR at memoryBlue, what clients did you work on? What technologies and industries? Who were you selling to? And then after you left the firm, talk about how you left and what you’ve been doing since?
[00:25:26] Victor Mata: I think, I have very few clients. I actually had a very long campaign. And that was my first one, it was Kit Check, that I did back with like, Daniel Guyton too. And, it was, it was, it was a good campaign, like.
[00:25:40] Actually, yeah, my best in the….
[00:25:43] Chris Corcoran: And so for the listeners, can you, can you explain what exactly does Kit Check do?
[00:25:48] Victor Mata: Yeah. So they’re a pharmacy automation company. So…
[00:25:51] Chris Corcoran: What does that mean?
[00:25:52] Victor Mata: They do, just to summarize everything that they do, they do like manage inventory for inpatient pharmacies across the US and Canada. So it was…
[00:26:02] Chris Corcoran: What does that mean?
[00:26:03] Victor Mata: It was basic, it was basically a company that accounts for with the technology. Like it’s like a big oven. And it was this big oven in which you put a tray full of like controlled substances, like Stanex or morphine or anesthesia.
[00:26:18] And it scans everything in a 3, 360 angle and basically tells you everything that you have, everything that you need to restock and everything that’s expired, in just one scan. And that’s the main thing that they do. And then back when I started, they started with this new product called Bluesight. I think it was Bluesight.
[00:26:41] And this product was other version prevention software. So for every controlled substance like anesthesia, Stanex, you know, val, like whatever, like that could be like sold in the black market or something like that. Like, you know, like drug trafficking or whatever that could be like missed from a hospital’s inventory.
[00:27:02] It will basically assist them that will tell you where the drugs were. It was like, “Okay, so like, like nursing touched us and then it went to like the pharmacy ops manager that went to the analyst that went to like, you know, the pharmacy technician or whatever.” But everything was accounted for. So it had machine learning to learn like sort of patterns about how the inventory was being managed and how to prevent those substances to be diverted.
[00:27:30] Chris Corcoran: Okay. And was that the only client you worked on?
[00:27:32] Victor Mata: I, that was the first one and it was like a 12 block campaign in which I exceeded quota, like 11 times in a row or something like that.
[00:27:42] Marc Gonyea: Yes.
[00:27:43] Victor Mata: And it was good. I mean like, and people, like, I remember that it would be a little frustrated because we didn’t actually have to list build like, they will give us like lists. But we will call these people and me and Daniel, we were
[00:27:58] booking 14, 16, [00:28:00] 18 minutes month and we had an incredibly high quota. Our quota was like 14 because we would like basically hit it every month, but we would call the same people 27 times. Like we didn’t have that opportunity to like just like, “Okay, let me just reset.” And just like, no, we like, for the first like, or maybe like the last, like maybe six months or something, we call, “Nothing but blueprints.”
[00:28:22] Like, we didn’t really have anyone else to call. Like we were just like abusing the system. Like we were just like calling the same people
[00:28:29] over and over, just finessing them and to taking meetings. And we, like, we were very good at it. Like we, like, we would think like, “You know, like we are going to call this people like, “Okay, so we got a new list.”
[00:28:40] I think we got a new list like once a year. And we got like the first one when we’d started with, and then we got another one, like, like eight months in or something like that. And that was basically it, like we were just like finessing, just like our way around the follow-up. And we didn’t have like, you know, like directors of pharmacy, we were talking mainly to directors of pharmacy.
[00:28:59] And the [00:29:00] profile, you know, like the background so these usually little old, they’re a little older, like they’re not too active on LinkedIn. They’re not too active with their emails. We didn’t book a lot of meetings to like, like something other than the phone. So we just got really good at it. That’s kind of like how it went.
[00:29:18] Chris Corcoran: Okay. And then, and then how did you leave the company?
[00:29:21] Victor Mata: So that was like the first 12 months, then ThreatConnect, well, you told me that this is not going to be out just yet, but my current employer, they, they came over as a returning client and they have four people attached to the campaign. So it was Daniel Guyton, Travis Basso, and
[00:29:39] Marc Gonyea: TB.
[00:29:41] Victor Mata: Chloe French.
[00:29:42] Marc Gonyea: Chloe.
[00:29:43] Victor Mata: Uh, yeah, a great, great people.
[00:29:46] I love them, they’re my friends. Like we have a personal relationship at this point. And we ran this very good campaign with ThreatConnect for like about three months. That was like right before COVID started. And at that time they were thinking about expanding their inside sales team and adding a BDR team to it.
[00:30:05] So they decided to offer us jobs, like, it was just going to be strictly as a BDR. And after like, they like conducted like the interviews, Daniel actually didn’t take the job. He ended up working somewhere else and Travis with Chloe did accept the offer and they told me, “Look, Victor, we know that, you know, like you’ve been at this SDR role for a minute now,
[00:30:29] and I see, we see a lot of potential. We see a lot of this, we see a lot of that, so we are going to give you a special role.” So they brought me along as a BDR Team Lead. So it was basically like a, like a fancy way of saying, you know, like, “You are going to be an SDR, but you’re also going to be the manager.” So the team wasn’t big enough to, I dunno, just for me to just like manage it because there was just few people at the time.
[00:30:55] And they just decided to, you know, like, “Everything was going to be reporting, everything that’s going to be like, you know, activity tracking, KPIs going to be you, you are going to have a quota, but at the same time you are going to make some money and some commission at what they do. So, if it works for you, it works for us.”
[00:31:11] I actually had another offer at the time from Salesforce. It was a little more money, but they told me, “You are going to be an SDR, just an SDR, for at least two more years.” And that was a deciding factor for me. I was already like 16 months into the role at that point. Like, you know, like, I, I actually stayed longer than the 15-month contract, for 16 or 17.
[00:31:36] I think it was 16. And at that moment, I was like, “I can’t do this forever. I can’t, I can’t be an SDR forever.” I think there’s a, there’s, there’s a, I don’t know, like a lifecycle to SDRs and I think the very good ones just move up and the very bad ones you leave. So like, you know, like the turnaround is just incredibly high.
[00:31:55] I thought like, “Yeah, I know that ThreatConnect’s not going to match that money. I know that I’m going to be making considerably less money here, but this is going to put me in a better position for better roles in the near future. Besides at that moment in time, this was like before we really understood the impact of COVID. They talked, like they talked to me about the possibility of expanding into the South American market.
[00:32:22] And I wanted to be the rep like the, the, the regional sales manager, regional sales director, whatever they name it to Latin America, because If happened I’ll be the only rep that spoke Spanish. So I thought like, “I’m the natural choice.” I can speak a little Portuguese too, so I can speak to companies in Brazil.
[00:32:38] So I thought like, “If anything, like, you know, like I’m the natural choice for it, like to sell to everything that’s down south.” That’s what, like made me go with ThreatConnect. I interviewed with a lot of people, I went to rising stars. I like a lot of like alumni, they, they reached out to me. I [00:33:00] talked to them a lot,
[00:33:00] they like gave me a lot, a lot of guidance, a lot of like, “Victor, like, you know, like it’s treat meeting you, we will offer you a job, but at the same time we do want to like, make sure that we are a good fit for you. And this is what this company does and whatever.” And I met a lot of people through rising stars.
[00:33:17] Like people that will reach out to me. I forget her name, but she was alumni of the year. Like she’s, she’s always around. What’s her name?
[00:33:24] Chris Corcoran: Julianne Sweat.
[00:33:26] Victor Mata: Yes. Julianne.
[00:33:27] Yes. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. So she was down in Florida, right?
[00:33:32] Chris Corcoran: Yes
[00:33:33] Victor Mata: Yeah. So I interviewed with both of their companies. I interviewed with Outreach and I interviewed with Drift.
[00:33:38] She was like switching jobs and she was going to be the head of business development at Drift. So she interviewed me at both and I had to move to Tampa. And I thought about it for a little bit. That was before I moved to Dallas, I was still in DC back in the day. When I met her. I met, I don’t know, like, Marco. I met…
[00:33:55] Chris Corcoran: Marco Johnson.
[00:33:57] Victor Mata: Yeah.
[00:33:58] Yeah. I met a lot of, a [00:34:00] lot of people.
[00:34:00] Chris Corcoran: Victor, so what was it like, you, you know, one day you spent a full year selling the pharm to pharmacists with this Kit Check technology and then the next day you’re selling a cybersecurity solution where you have to build your own list. So talk a little bit about what you learned making that transition.
[00:34:18] Victor Mata: I learned to navigate a different persona. So like directors of pharmacy we’re always going to pick up the phone. They’re like, like mostly like a little older and I thought like, you know, like they’re more maybe used to like the call calling type, but I thought that cybersecurity like people are not friendly. Like, they’re not people people. They’re really not friendly.
[00:34:40] It’s a highly competitive space. Like there’s a lot of companies that kind of do the same thing and you’re getting called over and over to like, you know, like, “Fix this.” Or “Fix that.” And like, you know, like it’s like, “Okay, so we have a company that does that already, why are you calling me?” And then they’re so lot of that.
[00:34:56] So I got, I feel like I faced a fair amount of rejection. And I was maybe not used to getting so much rejection over the fall. So I became a lot more crafty at the email game. I became craftier. Like, I’m not going to say that I would personalize every email because I will be lying, like, that’s it, that is not the truth.
[00:35:18] But, at the same time I did like rely more on my LinkedIn connections and stuff like that. So like maybe send a few cyber security people, like, you know, like a nice, little message or a light, nice, little note on LinkedIn. And then I would try to do the, the InMail thing, but I was very new to it. Like I like, you know, I, I knew how to make a hundred calls a day.
[00:35:39] Like I have that, I have the the grid and the work ethic to do that. But then like I started list building and I thought like, “Okay, like, there’s gotta be a way on like a more effectively to do this.” And I built a decent size list. That stopped being a problem when I switched over, because I could just like pull, like, you know, like, like a bulk, like export [00:36:00] from some info.
[00:36:00] And it was like, you know,” Call it a day. That was it.” But back in the day at memoryBlue, I, I I’ve been in think of it as a negative thing because I really actually learned how to like list build like the rest of like my peers. Like I would list build, I know I became very good at it. Like I actually booked a few meetings with them that I feel very proud about with huge companies,
[00:36:21] like, I don’t know, Visa, Oracle, which is actually a deal that closed with the Oracle. Like Oracle’s now reconnect customer. And that was the deal that I sourced. Like there’s another one with the government of Vietnam. Like, you know, like there’s been a few in which I was a BDR that reached out to him and I got a lot of opportunities such as came from me, just like, you know, like finding people left and right.
[00:36:44] And United Airlines is another one that I feel very proud about.
[00:36:48] Marc Gonyea: Excellent.
[00:36:48] Victor Mata: Yeah. Again, I, I did that. And I, I mean, like I came from like doing in hospitals and like, you know, like healthcare networks to just to, you know, billion dollar companies [00:37:00] and like, you know, an instant. And I was selling to a completely different personas for a product that’s incredibly complicated to explain.
[00:37:08] So I was able to do it. Like, I, I was skewed at it. I knew how to navigate the conversation. I knew how to ask questions. I would ask a lot of questions. I would be on the phone and I felt like I could close it and then it would be like, “Do you feel like your current approach is a little more act like proactive or reactive?
[00:37:26] Like, why, why do you guys have going on?” Like, I will be very, like, I dunno in personal with the questions because they thought like, I’ve always felt like, “If you ask too many, like you really haven’t earned the right to ask those questions, but if you ask enough and just keep the conversation at your level, there’s no excuse for you not to like use that time productively and just get the meetings.”
[00:37:46] So I was, I think I was good at doing that.
[00:37:51] Chris Corcoran: So Victor, you spent the better part of a year, so, on the Kit Check campaign and then about three months on the cybersecurity and you did such a good job, you ended up getting hired by your client and you moved into an SDR Team Lead role. Is that what you’ve been doing since, or, or…? Share with the listeners what you’re currently doing.
[00:38:15] Victor Mata: Okay. So, so it’s been a little bit of a rocky year for the company, like for like everything that’s been COVID related. I started working actually with like a bunch of insights salespeople that none of them work here anymore. Like I’m the only person that still works here. Like, like there’s a lot of people that, that switched over.
[00:38:34] Like, there’s a lot of people in that, there’s a lot of people that got let go. It’s it’s been, it’s been rough in terms of the growth that you can experience in a company like this one. I think for the startup environment, it’s been, it’s been a rough year. I think, for a company like this one and like I said before, I’m trying not to be that specific, but, but it hasn’t been easy.
[00:38:54] So I thought like, like the boss that I had back in the day, his name was Steve Beckmeier. He doesn’t work here anymore and he hasn’t worked here for a couple months. And then the VP of revenue ops that was like the person that I would report to he, he’s not here anymore. And then the director of marketing is not here anymore.
[00:39:12] And it’s been a lot of things that happened in the last like couple months. Like there there’s been a lot of that. And the other suit that as, yeah, we need to change the direction based on the fact that perhaps the company is being it’s its a lot more hurt that, that we would like to admit it. And you know, like at the, at the same time that hinder the possibilities for upward mobility.
[00:39:39] So I ended up being the team lead, but my job has changed a lot. Like, because they told me from the beginning, like, “You are going to have a special role in which you’re going to do this, but this might change in time.” And at this point in time, I’m still doing SDR work, I’m still leading a team, but at the same time for [00:40:00] opportunities that come from Latin America, more in a support role in which I’m talking to this people, like to this companies left and right for the entire sales cycle.
[00:40:09] So I’m in not actually a closer capacity, but like a, like a closer support capacity when it comes to, to South America. So that’s something that was added to my role, just based on the fact that I happened to be the only sales rep that speaks Spanish. So at the moment I’m wearing a lot hats. I have a personal quota, there’s the team quota.
[00:40:29] And now, like I handle opportunities that they don’t call them too often because they don’t have dedicated resources for it. But when they do like, I’m the one that’s basically doing everything. I handle qualifying calls, I move up to next steps and then I schedule the demo. I translate the demo, which is incredibly complicated to deal.
[00:40:49] And then I just go left and right. Like right now I’m working with an opportunity with like a huge company and they’re headquartered in Peru. The name of the company is Claro and it’s like the AT&T of South America. It’s a $9 billion a year revenue company. It’s a incredibly big telecommunications company and that’s one of the opportunities that I’m handling, I’m handling and I work with the government of the Dominican Republic.
[00:41:13] And I’m doing that alongside Travis and then because I’m always there to support. And actually Travis is one of the, one of the salespeople, one of the AEs now. And that’s kinda how it’s been. So like, it’s, it’s changed a lot in time, but at the same time it’s been more due to circumstances that we face that as a society for the last year.
[00:41:35] Marc Gonyea: Hey, I got a question for you, Victor. Real quick, Chris. What are some of the, so you’ve obviously you’re doing more sophisticated, more complex things as you’ve transitioned your career. What are some of the skills that you had to learn to develop that maybe the, you didn’t have those muscles before, but now you’re working on?
[00:41:54] Victor Mata: I think, I think understanding different personas. Like, you know, like I think, I think understanding that you, you know, if you’re good at selling something, you’re probably good at selling something totally different. Like I’ve always thought like, you know, there there’s a lot of people and I remember that there was a huge stigma around cybersecurity.
[00:42:11] There was always a huge stigma around it. Like, like people would say that it’s incredibly complicated and like, you know, like I’m doing cyber, so like this is awful or whatever. And I’ll be like, “Yeah, I’m sure it is. I’m sure it’s gotten like a level of difficulty, but at the same time, like if you’re good at talking to people and you know how to navigate that, those questions and those personas, like, you’ll be fine.
[00:42:32] I’m sure that you are, if you know how to keep the conversation at your level, like you’re always going to get that meeting.” So I think everything that I’ve done so far in my high-tech sales career, I think everything translated well into my next step. So like what I did with hospitals translated well into cybersecurity and cybersecurity translated well into like, you know, actually selling cybersecurity, which is what I’m doing now. Alongside, still do an SDR work. Everything translated very well. Like I like, there’s nothing that I learned that I felt like it was a waste of time. Like everything that I learned, put me in a better position to, you know, just understand a little more about the things that I’m capable of doing. So I think, I think those skills always translated well, besides the work ethic, of course.
[00:43:26] Marc Gonyea: Chris, it’s interesting, right? People who are on cyber, some people complain, some people will just do it, but Victor was on a campaign that was a little bit different obviously than cyber. And then some, and some people might be like, “Well, Victor’s on our cyber campaign. That’s why his number 11 months out of whatever it was, 12 when he was on it.” Versus that’s not the case at all, right?
[00:43:49] Chris Corcoran: Not, not the case at all. Absolutely not. I mean, cyber, back into the nineties, cyber was hot. It’s been hot ever since.
[00:44:02] Marc Gonyea: So that’s a compliment.
[00:44:05] Chris Corcoran: That’s, that’s a, that’s an industry that I would want to be in if I was starting my sales career. While it might be extremely competitive and extremely challenging, the people who can succeed in those environments are the ones that have fantastic careers.
[00:44:21] Victor Mata: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s, that’s very important. That’s a great point there. I very much appreciate the prompts. I think it’s, it’s, it’s true. Like when you see like the average salary for an AE like in the software as a service world, it’s high, of course. But when, once you see that in the cyber security space, there’s a significant jump.
[00:44:45] And like, you know, like your OTE. If you happen to be successful, I like, like a respectable cyber company, like the possibilities are endless. I think I’m not that set on say on cyber forever. In fact, like the opportunity that I have in front of me, it’s not cyber related at all, but it’s, it’s high. Like it’s a very complicated type of tech, it’s more like data management and stuff. But it’s, I think, I think it translates well, regardless.
I mean, like, I think with cyber I understood that you can have a very technical conversation with someone that knows a lot more than you do and still keep the conversation at your level. I learned how to, how to like manage that. Because if not like, you know, like you’re talking to people and this is something that I tell every new SDR who comes to like, like ThreatConnect or my way or whatever.
[00:45:37] I tell them, “Look. Two weeks of training are not going to give you twenty-five years of knowledge.” You’re talking to people that this is their life. This is not like a temporary job that’s going to be like the next step in their careers. You’re talking to people that actually know what you’re talking about.
[00:45:53] So you need to be self-aware about how much you know, how much you can handle, how much you can ask and how much you can answer. And after you do that, and you keep the conversation on your level, don’t be afraid to say that you don’t know the answer. Like sometimes you just don’t. Like, don’t, don’t make it up,
[00:46:10] just say that you don’t know. It just like give them a graceful answer. Just tell them, “Look, I don’t have the answer, but I’ll get it for you. I’ll follow up with you by email and I’ll just send you a calendar invite along with my answer.” How’s that sound, how’s once they morning looking for you? And they’re going to be like, “Oh yeah, sure.
[00:46:26] I would like to have the answer before and yeah, sure. I mean, like I’m open that day, so I’ll just accept the calendar invite, “Okay. Of course we’ll talk, we’ll talk when we talk.” That’s basically one of the things that I saw when so you show your connected set, my whole grade was is a lot higher than kitchen. Like a lot higher. If it’s not, obviously it’s never going to be a hundred percent, but I rarely get people, close me. Rarely, it rarely happens. And when I say rarely it’s had it almost never happens. I just get a solid commitment.[00:47:00]
[00:47:01] Chris Corcoran: So, Victor, look, think back to your first day when you started as an SDR, what, what do you know now and what advice would you give yourself?
[00:47:09] Victor Mata: I think it’s, “Talk to a lot of people.” The thing I think, talk to people. Like, like, you know, like talk to your teammates. You know, like the people are around you. Like there’s a lot of camaraderie and just being an SDR in a company like memoryBlue I learned a lot about like, you know, different types of technology and like different types of like industries and stuff just by talking to them. And, you know, talking to them, you realize that they’re very good at doing this,
[00:47:32] they’re very good at doing that. Maybe I can incorporate some of what I learned from them into my own conversations. And I think, just keep an open mind. Like don’t be dead set on like, “Yeah. I mean, like I do cyber, so that’s all I can do or I do this and this is all I can do.” Like, yeah, no, it’s not, it’s not rocket science.
[00:47:50] Like, you know, like you can, you can definitely learn how to navigate that. And by talking to them, keep an [00:48:00] open mind, keep your options open. I think learn a lot, like talk to a lot of people, especially those are like on their way out. Like I think that’s something that perhaps I didn’t do enough.
[00:48:11] Talking to people that were like about to take that and make that next step. Like, I then talked to many people that perhaps were getting ready for that AE role or getting ready for like whatever, being an SDR for a company. Like, I, I didn’t really talk to like much people, like, or maybe people that were like in that position.
[00:48:31] So I think especially coming, coming over from something completely unrelated or, you know, like being new to this world, which I believe most of the memoryBlue people are. I think it’s important for you to like, you know, absorb as much information as possible, because that’s what really like, like, you know, gives you a little bit of an estimate on how your future is going to look like.
[00:48:57] And that happened to me with a lot of people that I would see first Friday and stuff like that, then I would see them and then I would ask them like, “Dude, how’s it been for you? Like, like what you doing now?” And it would be like, “Yeah, I’m the SDR here and it’s been tough, man, because it’s different. It’s not memoryBlue what I was doing.”
[00:49:13] Okay. And then I would talk to another one and they will tell me, “Yeah, dude, it’s been great. Like, you know, like I’m selling this, I’m selling that and I’m making money.” And that will be like… So like, like there are opportunities like. And, you know, as long as there are companies that are willing to take a chance because that’s, that’s another big one.
[00:49:31] Like some companies are maybe not too willing to take a chance on someone that doesn’t have closing experience before the AE roles. And perhaps that’s something that I would have liked to know like, or really understand before. But the other hand, I understand that you understand, like, “Okay, so it’s, it’s, it’s basically you’re in the business of selling yourself.
[00:49:49] You know, if you really, if you want that AE role, you know, like you can bring along all the work ethic that you bring over from a company like this one.” And I think for industry standards, like memoryBlue has really high metrics, like no company requires a hundred calls. And I think understanding that that’s the world where you come from, it’s very easy to transition into a company in which the KPIs are lower.
[00:50:15] So I feel like if you don’t have enough experience, you can have it by like, you know, like, I dunno, like giving yourself value by being like, like a harder or the hardest worker in the room.
[00:50:30] I think it translates.
[00:50:33] Marc Gonyea: Victor. So, you know, you’ve been, I would say you’ve been, you’ve got your eye on the prize. Like your curiosity thing, that acquired knowledge. I think it helps you kind of figure out where you want to go and what direction you’re headed in. What and before we kind of get to get the what’s next for Victor, what, what, what, what are some of the mistakes you’ve seen kind of your peers, your colleagues make along the way when it comes to making career decisions? [00:51:00] Like what do you want and what do you think people should avoid or not avoid? Just to keep in mind.
[00:51:04] Victor Mata: I think, I think for a lot of people, it’s like, you know, like you got to understand it’s process. I don’t think everyone comes from the same hospital mentality, I think. I really do believe that not everyone’s cut out to be a BDR or an SDR. I think for a lot of people it’s a job that just does work out for a variety of reasons.
[00:51:23] Maybe it’s a personality thing, maybe, you know, like you don’t deal with rejection that well. Perhaps, you know, you feel like you could be doing something else, but if you decided that that’s what you wanted, you got to understand that sometimes it is a very thankless job. It’s a very thankless job sometimes. You know, like you are not going to get the recognition that you want to get by sending that appointment that perhaps had that meaning was just, you know, like, you know, incredibly tough to get, but at the same time, like you’re not going to really read the rewards of it.
[00:51:51] You know, like you, you can have your bragging rights about it, but that doesn’t define who you are as a professional, I think. You know, just being an SDR I think you understand that it’s temporary. I think most companies understand that, I think that most companies use like, one of the things that I faced when I left memoryBlue, was that everyone that interviewed me like would tell me, “You’re going to be an SDR for 2 more years.”
[00:52:15] And that will be like, “But you know that I can do a job already. Right? Like, like, like there’s no need to like, like, you know, like for bureaucracy to like, just again in the way and tell me how to have the experience. Maybe I don’t, but you, you know that I know how to call people and I’m not going to have that experience in three years.”
[00:52:31] So you’re like, you know, like I think, I think to me, like, what’s been the most, like the scariest thing to me as a person, as a human it’s just staying put. Like what, I’m not moving. I don’t like something, I change it. I that’s how I am. Like, it’s, it’s, it’s very ingrained in my personality and the way that I approached the world and life.
[00:52:53] So to me, it was always like, “Yeah, Salesforce, a little more money or X company it’s a little more money, but at the same time, it’s the same job. Like, like, like what, what am I going to learn? What am I going to do? Like what, what am I going to like, you know, like, how am I providing value to my resume or my I don’t know my, my professional like aura by just like doing the same thing over and over without really having the opportunity to break that cycle.”
[00:53:17] And a lot of people just fall into that. I think, I think it’s important to understand that regardless of what happens, this is a transition role. Like you are going to do us for however long you do it. And then you are going to move to something different. It’s either a sales management or I don’t know, AE role or customer account specialist, and you’re going to just like renew like, whatever clients that your company has got, but that’s basically how it goes.
[00:53:45] Like you just gotta know that there’s gotta be the next step. Because if not, we’re going to be in this endless, you know, SDR forever.
[00:53:54] Marc Gonyea: It’s, it’s a big the next step. What’s in store for you? Like what do you hope to take your career as we kind close this out?
[00:54:00] Victor Mata: I think, I think my main thing would be to say in leadership. Like leadership, it’s like, what I feel like is the best fit for me at the moment. I’m not, I’m not against being in a, like an individual contributor role, like an AE or regional sales manager or whatever like, I think it’s fine. Maybe it’s something that I would consider, but like, like in the meantime, right now,
[00:54:22] I just want to continue to polish my, my leadership skills. I see myself as, you know, carrying on a team that is actually one of , you know, like what I’m looking forward towards like, at the moment with like, the opportunity to talk to you guys about, it’s leadership. I think to me at the moment, just by being in like an individual contributor role for so long, I see myself as, you know what? I think, I think it’s time for me not to just be a player coach.
[00:54:52] I think it’s more time for me to just be the coach. I didn’t think of me as doing this before, but once I started in a [00:55:00] leadership position, I understood like, “You know what? I do have a dual set of talents. Like I do, I can sell and I can manage a team.” But at the same time, I sold for a long time, and I haven’t managed a team for long, so maybe this is something that I want to explore a little more.
[00:55:15] And see where it takes me. I think to me that was, that was what I wanted to do. Like to me, it was more like, “Okay, I do want to grow this. I do want to make it my own.” And I do want to like lift my ink, like my imprint into like the people that are under my, I don’t want to say command, but like, you know what I mean?
[00:55:36] Like that, that’s what what’s most important to me at the moment.
[00:55:40] Marc Gonyea: That’s great. Right.
[00:55:43] Victor Mata: Well, is it good?
[00:55:45] Chris Corcoran: Victor, thank you very much. This was, this was very insightful. We appreciate you sharing your knowledge with our listeners.
[00:55:51] Victor Mata: Absolutely. Thanks for having me. It was great. I had a lot of fun.
[00:55:54] Chris Corcoran: Likewise.
[00:55:56] Marc Gonyea: All right, Victor.