Episode 59: James Manning – Climbing The Ladder
A sales call for novices can feel like an open mic on improv night. James Manning prefers to enter the show highly prepared for the opening 30 seconds.
James, now a Business Development Representative at ScienceLogic, started his sales career as a self-described “theatrical” SDR. But he quickly learned focus, discipline, and mastering the opening moments of a sales call create repeatable success. Today James sticks to a specific vision of his future while carving out a career in enterprise software sales that is built to last.
In this episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers, Chris and Marc uncover James Manning’s secrets to sales success. You’ll hear why James relentlessly plays the long game with his sales career, understand why he believes patience in an impatient profession pays off, and how struggling as an SDR helps build sales resilience the right way.
Guest-At-A-Glance
Name: James Manning
What he does: Business Development Representative
Company: ScienceLogic – IT monitoring and service delivery platform
Noteworthy: James played football when he was younger as an outlet for his highly competitive nature and now, as an adult, his career in sales serves a very similar, but far more lucrative purpose.
Where to find James: LinkedIn
Key Insights
⚡ “When the going gets tough, the tough get going” – Joseph Kennedy
When James first started as an SDR at memoryBlue, he thought it would be easy…until his sales meetings didn’t go as planned. He quickly realized that there’s a LOT more to being an SDR than cold calling and emails. It’s tough, and it takes consistent practice. You have to persevere and dig a little deeper to be successful.
⚡There are no “tough clients.”
A unique take on things, James believes that difficult clients simply don’t exist. Rather complex industries can make the clients seem impossible. The cyber marketplace, for example, presents a particularly arduous challenge in first getting a hold of people and then articulating important information effectively once you do.
⚡ Success will come if you can play the long game.
The most common mistake junior salespeople make is, changing roles too quickly without fully understanding and honing the fundamental skills first. James understands that it’s hard to be patient and not think about the next best thing. But without a solid foundation, you’re setting yourself up to fail.
Episode Highlights
Practice: the best way to greatness since, always.
“I think, early on, I was trying to be a little theatrical. Like you guys say, I was putting on a show. It was a little gimmicky. But I think that’s what people do early on in their sales careers. That’s what they refer back to because that’s what they know what sales to be, but with a little bit of practice…and shoot, if you talk to 10, 15 people a day, after a while, you’re going to get the hang of it. You’re going to hear and understand what resonates with people on a call.
I can’t gimmick these people into… or trick them into… That doesn’t add any value. So after a while, it’s just like doing reps in football. You do it enough times. It just becomes muscle memory.”
The first 30 seconds of a cold call are the hardest and most important
“I got better in the first 30 seconds. They didn’t leave the phone, and I think the way you sound in the first 30 seconds sets up the rest of the call. A lot of people say fake it till you make it. I think I sounded like I knew what I was talking about. Unfortunately, as an SDR, you’re kind of at a position where like, ‘Oh, this guy doesn’t know anything, he’s the bottom level of the sales funnel.’ […] I think it’s the first 30 seconds; that’s the hardest. I found it to be the hardest for everybody.”
Ask the right questions in job interviews
“I think it’s just sort of a gut feeling, and I can give that advice to people who are nearing the end of their time here or looking at other opportunities. Ask a lot of questions. You got to know the nitty-gritty of everything and ask the burning questions. What is your sales organization like? Who’s in charge? How are leads generated? What are your expectations of me? How long is the sales cycle? What does quota mean to you? What is an opportunity?
But those are things people don’t ask; those are things I wasn’t asking. But you learn that at memoryBlue, and then you’re like, ‘Hey, these are the questions. These are the things I want to know. Are we mainly cold calling? Is this inbound? Am I mainly a hunter? Am I alpha? Am I managing any renewals? How much visibility am I getting into some of these deals? Am I involved with POCs?'”
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes
“Just try, don’t be afraid to be embarrassed. Don’t take things personally. I think people think, ‘If I’m not good at cold calling, then that’s me personally. Or if somebody knocks me off the phone, I must not be a good guy.’ Just try. And don’t be afraid to have a little humility. Don’t be afraid to do poorly, either. That doesn’t mean anything. It’s not indicative of your overall performance.”
Transcript:
[00:01:54] Marc Gonyea: Mr. James Manning, welcome.
[00:02:08] James Manning: Marc and Chris, thank you. Thanks for having me, for sure.
[00:02:12] Chris Corcoran: The long lost Manning brother.
[00:02:16] Marc Gonyea: You don’t see those three?
[00:02:18] James Manning: No one’s ever seen…
[00:02:19] Marc Gonyea: You get on a broadcast with those two, though?
[00:02:21] James Manning: If you watched the game last night. Peyton and Eli, ESPN 2, at the game broadcast. That was entertaining.
[00:02:27] Marc Gonyea: It was those two?
[00:02:27] James Manning: Yeah. They were just doing it together as brothers. So…yeah.
[00:02:31] Marc Gonyea: What I want to say with his intro was arguably one of the most wanted men in history of memoryBlue.
[00:02:36] Chris Corcoran: Yeah.
[00:02:36] Marc Gonyea: Not because when he was here, every other department wanted to hire him. Right?
[00:02:41] Chris Corcoran: And no one was able to do it.
[00:02:42] Marc Gonyea: No one was able to do it. And most wanted man on the dance floor at tops, right? Maybe one of the best dancers.
[00:02:48] James Manning: That’s what I’m best known for, yeah. But I think after that I didn’t get any more job offers. Everybody saw me dance in Mexico and Tommy Gassman said, “Wow, that’s a man.”
[00:02:58] Marc Gonyea: Not the case at all, you’re too modest. Alright, Manning well, let’s kind of get into it.
[00:03:03] We want, Chris and I know you pretty well. You haven’t been gone all that long. And you know, we’d always chat you up a little bit when you were here and you went on two TOPs trips. So that’s another great opportunity, but walk the audience through kind of Manning change, meaning where you grew up, what you like as a kid through high school, that sort of thing, before we get into college.
[00:03:22] James Manning: Yeah. I’m a Northern Virginia guy born and raised. And so I grew up not too far here from Tysons. And yeah, I went to, I went to JMU and I did the marketing and sales path.
[00:03:32] Marc Gonyea: What were you like as a kid? I haven’t heard about it.
[00:03:34] James Manning: Oh man. Here we go…
[00:03:35] Chris Corcoran: Give me a, give me a little…
[00:03:36] James Manning: I grew up competitive. I grew up in sports. I was thrown in just about everything, football, basketball. My dad was my coach, so I was sort, you know, so sort of forced to be, to be coachable and to be competitive. You know, I was never pushed to do, you know, something I didn’t particularly like, but… You know, when I was younger I feel like sometimes I went to school just so I could go to practice at the end of the day.
I love sports that much, I just loved competing. Definitely football. Yeah. So I, I did that all the way through high school and that sort of like graphs in on, if you will. I played some house league and rec league ball after that with baseball and basketball and stuff like that. So, but you know, football was the ultimate team sport.
[00:04:11] So I think that’s what ultimately kind of drove me to where I am today as far as, you know, wanting to be involved in a team, but also as an individual contributor just, you know, doing your job, especially in that sport.
[00:04:24] Marc Gonyea: Real quick. Football guys never play football. I always say it’s the ultimate team sport.
[00:04:29] I think I know why, but I haven’t played it. So if you could tell us what that means?
[00:04:32] James Manning: Well, it’s, it’s different than basketball, baseball, sports where you play a lot of games in a season. It’s you practice four days a week to play for two and a half, three hours on a, on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, right?
[00:04:42] So, the games are more meaningful and it’s it’s the preparation is, you know, it’s that much more important. So, and, and it’s off seasons are long and it’s, it’s, it’s not, it’s a, it’s a grind.
[00:04:53] Chris Corcoran: Not too many people touch the ball either.
[00:04:55] James Manning: Correct. Yeah. It’s, there’s a lot of supporting players. I’ll, I’ll probably lead to this later, but I, I, at my senior SDR presentation here at memoryBlue, I talked a lot about my time in football and how SDRs are a lot like, you know, the offensive line of a football team, right? They don’t get all the glory that, that I’d say Saquon Barkley and Christian McCaffrey does. So, so, you know, we don’t have the sexiest job, right? But, yeah, so I, you know, I, I think of football a lot in my career. And Chris, once you gave a presentation about, you know, Belichick and Brady, one guy’s a player and one guy’s a coach.
[00:05:26] So, you know, I’ve thought a lot about that throughout my career in my, in my player, in my career. So, you know, football is, has been a big driver for me competitively, even in my adult life. It’s kind of like if I’m going to go no career, it’s, I need something to fill the void if I can’t, you know, play in the NFL. There’s an inch or too too short,
[00:05:42] I like to say, so.
[00:05:43] Chris Corcoran: What position did you play?
[00:05:44] James Manning: I was a defensive back. I played a little running back, little quarterback, but I mostly was defense. I started the life that later in high school, I, just the communication that required and kind of allowed me to be a little more of a leader of 10 other guys on the field.
[00:05:59] So, I sorta took a liking to that as opposed to getting all the glory in doing the scoring, right? So, so yeah.
[00:06:05] Marc Gonyea: Cool. Okay. So you’ve been going to JMU and real real quick, actually. So you’re in sales now. Did the sales personality or are you exposed to it, you know, or any early signs of this growing up?
[00:06:16] James Manning: And it did.
[00:06:17] And in high school I did an organization called DECA, which a lot of people would be familiar with here in the Northern Virginia area. It’s a, it’s a business organization, so I was able to, you know, do some stock projects where I put together marketing plans and I had to present them to people at conferences and things like that.
[00:06:30] So I got some exposure there. So I went into college declared as a marketing major knowing I was like, “I think that’s sort of my strong suit is I’m not necessarily a an analytical guy. I’m not, math and science is not my thing. I’m more of like a verbal person.” And, so getting that business experience very early on in high school kind of molded me to like, “Oh, I think I can…” In JMU obviously is a very reputable business school. So I was like, I think that’s something I want to be a part of and knowing it was competitive as well. You didn’t just get in to JMU business school, there was a minimum GPA requirements. So I was like, “Well, if I, you know, I can’t play football,
[00:07:05] I think this is a good way to, you know, scratch my competitive itch and do something in marketing or sales.” Candidly, I didn’t know anything about sales early on. I just knew I wanted to do marketing, which I thought marketing was just like, “I thought of funny slogans for some consumer companies and make funny commercials.” That’s what I thought.
[00:07:21] Marc Gonyea: Right. So that’s what they teach.
[00:07:23] James Manning: Like in high school, I used to, I used to do like a PowerPoint, you know, as a requirement for the class and I’d like flicker the lights or play funny music before, like to entertain. I think that’s kind of a, you know,…
[00:07:33] Marc Gonyea: Hold on. You’re glossing over something. Can we talk about this at TOPs?
[00:07:35] ‘Cause this guy is a great dancer and he likes to perform, right? You didn’t get into like performing in high school or…?
[00:07:46] James Manning: Yeah, that’s my long-lost regret. It actually, it’s funny in quarantine I’ve become quite a movie buff and things like that. And my friends and I, and so I, yeah, I’ve, I’ve regretted not getting into, you know, show or cinema or something like that and acting. People would be like, “You can be like an extra in a movie or something like that.” And I’m like, “Oh, love that. Love that.” I just, I love the idea of a character, you know.
[00:08:11] Chris Corcoran: It’s not late.
[00:08:13] James Manning: No. Well, I don’t know. Maybe my time is passed. I’ll stick to my day job. I make some TikTok’s, but I’m not going to point that out on this podcast.
[00:08:20] Marc Gonyea: We just did.
[00:08:22] All right. Sorry about that. That’s a year ago. All right, so the sales thing in college, I can see you doing these presentations on witty slogans and helping people save on their insurance and all those things, but what, when did sales or how the sales kind of pop up? Because there’s some of that on your, you know, on your resume in college, right?
[00:08:40] James Manning: Well, it was my junior year, I kind of had to figure out, “Am I going to do this marketing thing, or am I going to follow the sales track?” So I had to do a required sales course, which was just an introduction to professional sales. I remember the first day of class our professor had us do a role-play.
[00:08:56] He said, “Don’t worry about how good you are, I don’t care. Just get up there and pick something from a hat and sell it to me.” And I had picked up a book, it was a Bobby Fischer book, the chess player, right? I didn’t know who he was, but I read the front and the back 15 seconds. I stood up there and embarrassed myself and sounded like a cheesy infomercial.
[00:09:13] But you know, that’s, that’s how you get your start, right? I stood there in front of a bunch of people and just tried to sell them on a book. It just, the physical book that was like, I was like, “I think this is kind of fun.” Like I wasn’t embarrassed. I was like, “All right, that’s a start.” Right? Yeah. So, yeah.
[00:09:31] And then you know, along the way in that class we did some more role-plays. Of course I got a chance to be a part of Pi Sigma Epsilon, which is a professional sales fraternity. Had the opportunity to actually like compete in a role-play at like basically… Then when we went to a regional conference, I sold like, like, was it UPS Quantum View or something like that.
[00:09:47] Chris Corcoran: Okay.
[00:09:47] James Manning: I had a night to prepare, I was basically sitting in front of somebody with a panel of judges and, I, I, I won’t say I killed it, but I kinda killed it. I didn’t prepare that. It was part of my business fraternity. Yeah, and so it was a collection of a lot chapters, that came together and got to meet some other people from different chapters, different schools.
[00:10:08] But I, you know, I prepared the night before in a dark car on the way there and just was like,” Oh, I’m just going to just wing this.” And yeah, I did it, I think out of 40 contestants I placed in the top 8. I think I was 5th or something like that. But again, I didn’t expect anything. I just kind of just did it. And I, so I think I rather was there that I would kind of
[00:10:26] I find my passion a little bit. I was like, “Oh.” As I think it would be really good at this sitting face-to-face with somebody and, you know, in a, in a sales conversation, so.
[00:10:35] Marc Gonyea: All right, so you got out and what’d you go into?
[00:10:40] James Manning: So I, I,…
[00:10:41] Marc Gonyea: You had a side stop in Bolivia? Or no, I’m sorry.
[00:10:43] James Manning: That was a study abroad program.
[00:10:44] Marc Gonyea: Study abroad program.
[00:10:45] James Manning: Actually that was a, that was separate from sales. But I mean, aside it, I would encourage anybody to do study abroad just for the sole purpose, you know, just being exposed to different culture. I think that just help, that can help just personal growth but also just business acumen. It was a business trip.
[00:11:01] We visited, you know, Dell headquarters and Under Armour headquarters. So we had some, you know, better business interactions and stuff like that. So it was cool to, you know, it just kind of practiced that professionalism early on. It was just, it was a great trip. I got some, I got some credits. I did some snorkeling, had some fun, but yeah.
[00:11:16] You know, get a little resume…
[00:11:18] Marc Gonyea: It’s a lot of people who are afraid to do that in college and when they get in the sales not afraid to do the stuff, right? So at school what you end up doing?
[00:11:28] Yeah, I graduated. And, well I guess before that I had my, I had my job locked down in October of senior year.
[00:11:34] Chris Corcoran: Good for you.
[00:11:35] James Manning: So that I was excited about.
[00:11:36] Chris Corcoran: Was just through on campus recruiting?
[00:11:38] James Manning: It was, yeah. It was Career Fair. It didn’t work out, so in hindsight, I say, “Maybe I, you know, maybe I should…” And that was me being naive. I was 22, I had no clue what I was looking for. I got bright, I got wide-eyed at the first person that gave me an interview and went quickly with the process and gave me an offer.
[00:11:59] I was just excited to see five figures in front of me and I didn’t know what that meant. I was like, “Well, this is way more…” It was like, “If I was paying bills money, I haven’t graduated yet.” Yeah, so I, so I took a job in Richmond for a couple months. I was doing a staffing and recruiting and it just wasn’t, it wasn’t the type of sales I wanted to be doing.
[00:12:15] I think the, the appeal for me was like the, the idea of doing it face to face, which that’s what I thought sales was. I didn’t know what sales development was. I didn’t know what cold calling was. I had no idea. I just, somebody just said sales and you’re going to sit in from front of somebody and try to convince them that you’re good to work with
[00:12:32] and that you, you know that you have a solution to their problem. Right? So, yeah. But it was a good experience. I still look back and I, you know, for a couple of months that I did it, I figured out, you know, what I, what I didn’t want, right, in my career and what type of management worked for me. And made some connections there.
[00:12:47] And, yeah. So just, it wasn’t the type of sales that I wanted to be doing. It was, I wanted to get into tech sales. So that brought me here. I texted a couple people at memoryBlue and…
[00:12:56] Marc Gonyea: Did you know people from school?
[00:12:57] James Manning: I did, I knew a couple. Yeah. [00:13:00] ‘Cause you guys have such a JMU base, right? Yeah, I think I shot a couple of texts on LinkedIn.
[00:13:07] Marc Gonyea: Who was to blame for this? Well, Jeremy Wood?
[00:13:12] Chris Corcoran: Jeremy.
[00:13:13] James Manning: So I didn’t know Jeremy, I didn’t know him personally. I knew him through a mutual friend. I texted my mutual friend and he knew him well. He’s not here at memoryBlue. Got me in touch with Jeremy, threw my resume in the, in the… I got an interview.
[00:13:25] I came down here, up here rather from Richmond on a Monday. I think, and then that was it. I texted with Jeremy. I was like, “Thanks for the, you know, this and that.” And I didn’t know I would be on his team. I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t know he was a manager. He looked two years older than me. I was like, “So nice guy. He’s going to consult with the Director, right?” Like, so it turned out. I use my, he was a team leader. So, yeah, so that with, you know, that brought me here today and rather a January of 2019’s year when I started, I think, right?
[00:14:00] Marc Gonyea: Commemorate.
[00:14:00] Chris Corcoran: Right before COVID.
[00:14:01] James Manning: I had to move up here. So there was, you know, about two months for before I started, moved up here and then…
[00:14:06] Marc Gonyea: Yeah.
[00:14:06] James Manning: And then started in memoryBlue.
[00:14:07] Marc Gonyea: We had a whole year before COVID, right?
[00:14:09] James Manning: Yeah, yeah.
Marc Gonyea: Well, that was when you started up with ScienceLogic, right?
[00:14:16] James Manning: Yeah.
[00:14:17] Marc Gonyea: That’s an odd experience. So we’ll get to that. So you’re at memoryBlue, did you kind of know what we’re doing, what we did or did that, is that when you learn, what was that like, this role?
[00:14:29] What was it like starting here?
[00:14:30] James Manning: It was, it was,…
[00:14:31] Marc Gonyea: You had some experience already?
[00:14:33] James Manning: It was easy to understand once you got in, once I got into my first day. Basically, that we don’t make technology here internally memoryBlue doesn’t, people come to us when they need help with lead generation pipeline point appointment setting.
[00:14:47] And I, it, that was unique to me and I think it was a big reason I came here is because I had no idea. I mean, that’s, it’s just such a big pond out there. It’s just like, “Who’s VMware? What is Red Hat?” One of the world is like, “I don’t know what any of that means”, I was like, “Do I want to be working in cyber or do I want to be in SaaS and HR tech?” You know, I didn’t know. So I came here knowing that like, “Well, it’s just going to be kind of like luck of the draw, which is like, I’ll get whatever I get. It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be good exposure to different types of technology.” Yeah, so I started on Jeremy Wood’s team and, I don’t even remember my first day, you know, but we got going on the cold calling pretty quickly.
[00:15:25] I just, just, I just clicked the button and just did it. You know, I was just like, “Well, if I’m here, I’m here. Like I got to do this. Like, I’m not going to be scared”. It’s like, yeah. So…
[00:15:36] Marc Gonyea: I’m… Sorry to cut you off, my bad. Like what, he and I talked about this in the prep was he’s only been away from the company for not even 18 months. Right? About, two years in April of 2020.
[00:15:47] But you’ve got a lot of perspective just in general to talk about things, but that’s why we wanted to have you on too, because we’ll get you on now.
[00:15:55] We’ll be checking out like two years and have you out again. But, that’s part of what we want to talk about too. So you’re here, you’re doing your thing and then do you like doing where you’re what client you’re on and who you worked with?
[00:16:05] James Manning: Yeah, so I’ve worked with, Joey Trapasso, Absorb’s LMS.
[00:16:09] Marc Gonyea: Okay.
[00:16:11] James Manning: Which was, which was good. It was, it was literally, it was a good segue into the job. I wasn’t working on cyber and talking to guys, you know, it’s insecurity, it’s like that.
So, it’s talking to some friendly HR people, Directors of Learning and things like that. So, ease into it well. And, it was funny, I think my first or second day I listened to Joey do like a cold call and, you know, he booked a meeting, you know. I was like, “That’s it, that’s…” He’s like, “Yeah, just send a calendar invite and make sure they show up and you’re good.” And I was like, “All right, that’s that’s not bad.” So, yeah, so I, you know, and Jeremy was it just, the whole onboarding process was, was very seamless. It wasn’t, he didn’t throw me to the wolves, right? And Jeremy was great. Jeremy knew what he was doing, you know? And, I, I enjoyed it, really enjoyed working for him
[00:16:56] ’cause I think he set a level of expectations where it’s like, “Hey this is my team and we perform well.” He’s kind of said that without saying. So I came in early,…
[00:17:04] Chris Corcoran: How did he say it without saying?
[00:17:06] James Manning: I got that vibe from him in our early one-on-ones. He asked me how I expected to be managed and I asked him what he expected of me and I knew the other people on his team and how they, how well they’ve performed.
[00:17:19] And I had heard from other people, “Oh, Jeremy’s great. A good guy, man. He was killing as the SDR.” And I was like, “Well, I can only imagine he expects that in his team.” Right? He wasn’t like a hardo, he wasn’t, you know, a micromanager or anything like that. He kind of sat back and when you needed support, he gave it. He listened to you, he turned around, I love when he would turn around and just hear me on a call and has just given me a feedback. I mean, that was awesome. So yeah, I think it was just like, he set that level of expectation. And I was like, “Well, you know, I’m going to work hard for this guy. And I, you know, I want to, I want to be up there performing with some of the other guys and y’all on the team.” So,…
[00:17:49] Marc Gonyea: Did you ease into it or, I mean, you’re making it sound not, I want to say too easy, but what was the learning curve like? ‘Cause there’s still a new learning curve, right? You still had to jump into it.
[00:18:00] James Manning: No, it wasn’t easy. I remember, I, I think my quote in the first month was two. Or one and I got two. I was, “Get calm.” But. I’m like, “Oh, this is easy.”
[00:18:09] Nope. February came around. I had about, you know, 12-15 meetings that I booked and about 6 of them showed up. And I was like, “Wow. Okay.” I was like that’s the, you know, that’s the wake up call that I needed. I was like, “This isn’t easy. There’s more work that goes into this than just shooting out some emails and, and making the cold calls.”
[00:18:26] Right? So, no, it was not easy coming out of the gate. I think I felt like I had the hang of it, but I didn’t really have it all. I wasn’t doing everything in between the lines to, you know, ensure that people were showing up to these, to these meetings and things like that. So, I, I think I got better on the initial conversation that allowed for me to add more value and ultimately a lot for these people to, to show up. So yeah, it was a, I was wondering,…
[00:18:51] Marc Gonyea: What do you mean you got better? What’d you get better at?
[00:18:55] James Manning: I think early on I was trying to be a little theatrical and a little, like, I was like, you guys say, like, I was kind of put on a show.
[00:19:03] Marc Gonyea: There it is again.
[00:19:04] James Manning: It was a little, it was a little gimmicky.
[00:19:07] I, but I think that’s what people do early on in their sales careers, that the that’s what they refer to because that’s what they know someone sales is. But a little bit of practice and shoot if you talk to 10, 15 people a day and after a while, you’re going to get the hang of it. You’re going to see, you’re going to hear and understand what resonates with people on a call
[00:19:23] realize like, “I can’t, you know, I can’t gimmick these people into, you know, or trick them into.” That just doesn’t that doesn’t add any value, it doesn’t do any. So yeah, after, after awhile, I, I mean, it’s just like it’s reps and football, right? I mean, do you do it enough times, it just becomes muscle memory.
[00:19:40] So I think by March or April, I got pretty good at articulating, particularly Absorbs, you know, Value Prop with the training that you guys provide. I, I learned about, you know, managing expectations as well as sort of what I’m looking for.
[00:19:55] Marc Gonyea: We’ll let you go to work. Just keep it, keep, pull it or run.
[00:19:57] Anyway, just keep going. Yeah, so eventually it [00:20:00] just kinda, it just got a better understanding of how to talk to this people, right? So…
[00:20:04] Who else was good with you when you were here? Who, you know, besides yourself, who else was strong in the office?
[00:20:09] James Manning: Well early on, you know, I had Expel was around. So I had Ian and Olivia, Olivia.
[00:20:18] Which they, Andrew Larkin, they took from us, you know, early on. So, yeah and Rafael. You know, he’s a quirky guy, but he like, he, he knew what he was doing, you know. What he did on the phone, I was like, “Wow that guy, he’s good. He’s good.” So, you sit there and you just listen enough, you know. The word I was looking for was objections.
[00:20:41] Marc Gonyea: Objections, objection handling.
[00:20:42] James Manning: Good Lord can’t find words.
[00:20:43] Marc Gonyea: That’s all right.
[00:20:44] James Manning: Yeah.
[00:20:44] Marc Gonyea: What were you good at? What was your like signature move after you got it got past the gimmicky part, right, with the ‘fake it till you make it’? Then what did you start to hone that became like a James Manning?
[00:20:55] Chris Corcoran: Your press coverage.
[00:20:56] James Manning: I got better at the first 30 seconds.
[00:20:59] Marc Gonyea: Yeah.
[00:20:59] James Manning: I didn’t, they didn’t leave the phone.
[00:21:01] And I think the way I, the way you sound on the first 30 seconds sets up the rest of the call.
[00:21:06] Marc Gonyea: Tell us more.
[00:21:08] James Manning: You know, a lot of people say ‘fake it till you make’ I think I sounded like I knew what I was talking about. Unfortunately, as an SDR, you know, you’re, you’re kind of at a position where like, “Oh, this guy doesn’t know anything.
[00:21:18] He’s, he’s the bottom level of the, the sales funnel. He can’t know that much.”
[00:21:22] Marc Gonyea: You see people on LinkedIn sometimes hate on that. So, but,…
[00:21:27] James Manning: But, and I didn’t know that much. I knew enough about Absorb to be able to talk about it for the first 30 seconds. And sort of diagnose how’s this conversation going to go. Is this guy pissed off or is this lady friendly, she just being nice? You know, that kind of thing. I got better at diagnosing in the first 30 seconds. You know, I I’d made that come with the call, coming to call a little high, “Hey, James Manning here with absor… I got you in a bad mood.” Okay. Let’s let’s let’s put it down a level. I’m busy, “Hey, listen, I’ll take 30 seconds here.
[00:21:56] Let me just tell you about…” that kind of thing. You get an idea for, you know, I, I just think it’s, it’s just a level of awareness. You get an idea of how this guy or girl is, you know, the first thing they say, it’s like, “Okay, here’s how the conversation’s going to go and you can adjust, so.” Yeah, I think it’s the first 30 seconds, that’s the hardest for, I found it to be the hardest for everybody. Everybody new coming in, they just can’t get that first 30 seconds and they get knocked off the phone. It’s like, “I’d rather talk to somebody for five minutes, nothing happened. You know, but 30, 30 seconds and you get crushed?”
[00:22:26] That’s just so demoralized.
[00:22:30] Chris Corcoran: Extending the call, extending the play. Same sort of thing.
[00:22:32] James Manning: Yeah.
[00:22:34] Marc Gonyea: And that’s a skill you only develop by getting into conversations with people. There’s no, there is no trick.
[00:22:38] Chris Corcoran: You can’t do that on LinkedIn.
[00:22:39] Marc Gonyea: Can’t do it on LinkedIn, you can’t do it over email.
[00:22:42] James Manning: Right.
[00:22:42] Marc Gonyea: You kind of got to get it and then you recognize it, “I don’t remember this.” You take me back because I haven’t traveled as much recently, but I’ll do cold call emails with new SDRs and you can tell a lot by their tone when they pick up the phone. Right? And how they respond to your opener and are they like high, are they low, are they feeling it or they not feeling it.
[00:23:00] Like if some, some of it was generalizations but a lot of it’s not. Like you can, you can feel it. And then when you recognize the pitch, you can hit it out of the park or, you know, to lay off like, right?
[00:23:10] James Manning: I’ll say this a lot of people make fun of me for it. My team, my old team here in memoryBlue made fun of me before. Brian Reese.
[00:23:18] He said he goes, he goes, “I learned everything from you.” ‘Cause he had like, “The way you talk on the phone.” I go into a little bit of a character, like I said, and this is why I and there’s not, there’s not a theatrical, there’s something gimmicky behind it, but I go into a little bit of character. There’s a different, there’s me-James and there’s sales-James.
[00:23:33] So when I’m talking to those guys now, if I go on a cold call, but “Hey, good morning. James Manning here with, with memoryBlue. Like got you at a bad time, you have sec?” You know, it’s just like, it sounds different, right? So yeah, it’s a little bit of acting almost for me. And I’ve, I’ve, I’ve seen people advocate for that.
[00:23:49] It’s like, don’t be, don’t be you-James, be sales-James. Put your sales pants on. That’s where you and Chris said just to stand up.
[00:23:56] Chris Corcoran: Yeah.
[00:23:56] James Manning: I love to stand up. You feel powerful. You don’t lose your hands. You’re on your feet. [00:24:00] You’re walking around. You look like you’re important. That’s the coolest thing. It’s just looks like, “Ah, look at me, I’m on my call.” Like, “That guy’s cool.” You know, it’s way cooler when you’re like, you know, prancing around. Tommy Gassman’s walking, he’s like tossing a ball in the air like, it looks like, “Man,” I’m like, “That guy could be, could be closing Apple. Now he’s just talking to his love.”
[00:24:20] Marc Gonyea: It’s true, right? Some of this is the older-school identity in the role, right? From Sandler and transactional analysis, or I think it is. Like you and it’s good to kind of go that that way because you don’t want this rejection on the phone, the impact who you think you are, who you are as a person, right? It’s kind of a character, right?
[00:24:38] It’s your role. Your role as a sales professional does it dictate your identity as a person outside of the office. Like, are you a good son, are you a good friend, you’re a good husband, whatever it may be. And you have to separate and get away from the beat downs, which you still get. We’re all joking about it now, sort of veterans of the game.
[00:24:53] Right? But like it’s tough.
[00:24:56] James Manning: Yeah.
[00:24:57] Marc Gonyea: It is brutally difficult job, but if you go into this character and you don’t, think he was making fun of you, but they obviously respect you for it, it’s easier to shake it off.
[00:25:05] James Manning: It’s like, “Well, that wasn’t me.”
[00:25:06] Marc Gonyea: Well, he was a quarter. He was a quarter. On the time, probably. Aggressive, very short memory.
[00:25:19] It’s humbling, right? So that’s very interesting. All very, very true. So when you’re rocking at memoryBlue, I mean, you obviously, you were doing well. You were here for 15 months, you went to two TOPs trips, which is great. When did you kind of figure out, “Okay. The sales thing,…” Like, did you get exposed to kind of what you thought sales was by working with these clients or tracking people who left the company?
[00:25:43] Right? Because that starts to come in your mind, you get the job and you start to get good at it. Messed around while you start to find your style, your groove, you take the training we provide and you make it your own. What, when did your kind of game plan start to formalize for what you think you wanted to do based upon what you were seeing?
[00:26:00] James Manning: Then six months in I figured I felt like I’d figured it out. I think by May I was, I was in a groove, making money, it was fun. I think it’s, it’s easier to I’ve.. I’ve said this before, easier to stay on top and then it’s harder to get out of a slump. When you’re rolling, you’re rolling. And you’re not even thinking about it and you set a level of expectation for yourself.
[00:26:19] And for me, you know, being competitive and, and setting expectations for myself meant that you guys give me a quota. To me, that’s a minimum expectation to me. I was like, “Well, to me, that’s just doing my job. That’s getting, that’s going to keep me here.” Right? So that’s sort of the bar that I set for myself.
[00:26:34] That’s what I thought of it as, yeah. So, you know, six months in, I was, I was rolling. I was, I was and I figured it out. I was going to Mexico. I was, I was making some money and man, that’s, that’s easy to, to stay in, to stay in that groove. But even then I still had some slumps. You know, September, November, December, you know, those holiday months, I, you know, I got into a little bit of a slump. I wasn’t always, I wasn’t always rolling. So, and it’s hard. It’s hard to give advice to somebody when they’re, when they’re down and they’re in a slump, but, this is age old thing it’s sales, “A lot of hard work brings good luck.”
[00:27:05] Just keep at it, you will get lucky. You would just get you will. The, I don’t know what it is, the sales gods or something. You can just, you’ll get a lot more. Yeah.
[00:27:15] Marc Gonyea: The harder you work, you put yourself in more positions to be lucky when you’re putting yourself in those positions. The people who get upset are the ones who don’t put themselves in a position.
[00:27:22] They say that for got lucky. It was not really and you put yourself in the positions in our business by just putting yourself out there and working.
[00:27:29] James Manning: Right. Whereas you could just put your head down and, and just, you know, empowered about it. But, yeah, so, and, and I switched clients, switching clients wasn’t certainly, wasn’t easy. That’s like getting a whole new job, right? Talk more about that.
[00:27:40] Yeah. So I went from Absorb that and, you know, when I was, when I was rolling and it was July, or I think in mid summer, went to Wire. So that was a, that was a lot different. I don’t know if I can talk about that, but…
[00:27:51] Marc Gonyea: You can talk about it.
[00:27:54] James Manning: It was a different experience. It was good to get that exposure to different types of,… I went from HR technology to talking to basically, you know, data security guys.
[00:28:03] Marc Gonyea: That’s a great, that was a great experience.
[00:28:05] James Manning: Yeah.
[00:28:05] Marc Gonyea: Early stage.
[00:28:06] James Manning: Yeah.
[00:28:07] Marc Gonyea: Lots, lots going on.
[00:28:17] James Manning: Yeah. It was very unorganized, but I learned from that, “Man, an unorganized sales organization. Holy cow.” Right? It’s like, “Well no wonder they’re at our door. That they needed us.” They just had all this, like all these leads, this data that just needed outreach, needed clean up. So that that experience was, was an eye opener. It was, it was fun. I mean, obviously to talk about the technology and to, you know, do something different was challenging.
[00:28:35] So, that only lasted, you know, a couple months. I’m gonna say what I think hit quota a month or two. And it was, it was, it was a struggle, I, you know, I won’t lie. But that I, you know, I think that’s, you know, that’s what puts hair on your chest and sales, right? Especially here, it’s good to struggle and to be on a tough client.
[00:28:52] Chris Corcoran: For sure.
[00:28:53] Marc Gonyea: We need to snip that.
[00:28:54] Chris Corcoran: Yeah.
[00:28:54] Marc Gonyea: Right. People will think that when they’re here.
[00:28:57] James Manning: Yeah.
[00:28:57] Marc Gonyea: Right? Some people do, not everybody.
[00:29:00] James Manning: Right.
[00:29:00] Marc Gonyea: But why is it, why is it good to be on a quote unquote tough client and struggle when you’re here?
[00:29:06] James Manning: There is no definition of a tough client. A tough client is, “Oh man, my POC is mean. How was, I was supposed to get inbound leads.” And it’s just like, it’s all excuses, you know? You call the guy on the list and you do what you can, right? Maybe you’re at a deficit because there’s a lot of competition in that industry and what have you. So there, there isn’t anything such thing as a tough client, unless you think they’re, unless you think they’re tough. There are tough spaces to sell it.
[00:29:31] I mean, cyber obviously it’s just, it’s, it’s hard. It’s hard, it’s, it’s hard to get a the whole people. It’s hard to, you know, articulate certain things. And but the biggest thing that you’re, chat and faced with in sales at all is, is the status quo. That’s that’s consistent across the board is in any industry, is that you’re fighting the status quo.
[00:29:50] Nobody wants to, nobody wants to change things. So, so that’s, you know, something consistent, but, yeah. And then, gosh, where did I go to last, was that HR tech…AlleyO.
[00:30:01] Marc Gonyea: AllyO.
[00:30:02] James Manning: Yeah.
[00:30:03] Marc Gonyea: That grew to our largest client in the history of the company.
[00:30:05] James Manning: They did.
[00:30:05] Marc Gonyea: 30 SDRs.
[00:30:07] James Manning: And when I say little as a joke, yeah.
[00:30:11] Marc Gonyea: Started off as a little mini bake-off and then a familiar name you, some other folks, your boy Bones started and a bunch of people started doing really well.
[00:30:22] James Manning: Yeah.
[00:30:22] Marc Gonyea: Over the world.
[00:30:23] James Manning: We were all on it.
[00:30:24] Yeah. I, I think there was a lot of, you know, fighting about territories and this and that, lot overlap. But that’s, you know, that was tough ’cause that’s not necessarily what we do.
[00:30:35] We don’t, or, you know, we don’t delete any territories. We say, “Hey, we’ll put we got two FTE SDRs on it. That’s what we’re going to do. And then we figured it out.” So it got, it got a little crowded, but nobody was, but it was fun. It was really fun technology to sell. So I, I learned a lot on that and it was, it was, but it was also fun to be with 30 different SDRs
[00:30:55] because we’re all collaborating on the same thing, “What are you saying? What am I saying?” And that honestly, that’s a little [00:31:00] more realistic as to, you know, when you do join a sales organization you have 10 to 15 other SDRs on the team. “What are you saying? Where am I,..” You know, we bounce ideas off each other.
[00:31:08] So, so yeah, it was a good experience in that respect.
[00:31:11] Marc Gonyea: So we’re coming back from TOPs in December of, I guess, 2020. No way, 2019 or 2020. We, we had the second tops trip and we came back from that and it was that Corcoran guy.
[00:31:22] James Manning: December, yeah.
[00:31:23] Marc Gonyea: December, to come work for us and he’s like he kind of push everybody off and kind of decided he wanted to do. Walk us through how you decided what you wanted to do and where you wanted to go.
[00:31:30] James Manning: Yeah, I think I just, yeah, December, January, I kind of had to figure, I was like, “What do I want to do?
[00:31:35] Marc Gonyea: Going into the 20?
[00:31:38] James Manning: Right. I just think I just enjoyed so much like owning my own business and in producing opportunities, producing meetings that I was like, “I want to be an individual contributor.”
[00:31:46] I was like, “I want to be in the weeds of these conversations.” Things like that. So I found myself enjoying a lot working with the AEs of our different clients. When they did get on these calls, you know, I tried to add some value. I wouldn’t just do like, you know, sort of a warm handoff. I, you know, I like to do somewhat of an introduction and I was like, ” I want to be that guy.”
[00:32:04] Right? So, I think that’s another great thing about memoryBlue is the mental, the amount of mental reps you get with account executives. I mean, it’s just like that, “I mean, that experience isn’t value.” I don’t think people realize. You, you set how many X amount of meeting, you know, what, 150-200 meetings.
I mean, that’s 200 sales conversations you’re listening to and get an idea of how to sell, how different people sell, things like that. So that was such an invaluable experience to me to just listen to these different account executives and how they, you know, just articulated a Value Prop and, you know, do a demo or things like that.
[00:32:36] So, so next steps and things like that. So I think that experience are molded me and I was like, you know, “I think I want to try my hand at different sales organization and do something in, you know, with a high price tag.” That’s what I was, it’s always kinda been my motivator is, you know, sell something big.
[00:32:55] Right? So, you know.
[00:32:56] Chris Corcoran: Smart.
[00:32:57] James Manning: Yeah.
[00:32:58] Chris Corcoran: Smart. And so what, walk us through that whole process, right? So obviously you did really well while you were here. You, you got, you’ve raised a lot of eyebrows of people wanting to try to recruit you to their team. You were disciplined and you didn’t pursue those opportunities at memoryBlue and said you wanted to go into the industry and sell software and sell something that was expensive.
Walk us through that process because you were, you were disciplined in a lot of times particularly people, when they’re early in their career, they will kind of just… whoever’s interested in them, they’re going to be interested in that. Right? But you were focused. So walk us through kind of how that all…
[00:33:36] Marc Gonyea: And discipline and saying like, for some people it’s good, you know, I don’t want to pump the guys who were working here, still.
[00:33:42] Chris Corcoran: It’s what you want.
[00:33:44] Marc Gonyea: I know you’re doing that discipline in your approach to what you knew what you want. Right? And you maybe… don’t answer the question. I know that, sorry.
[00:33:50] James Manning: Yeah, I know you’ll want me to talk about that because, yeah.
[00:33:53] Yeah, I was disciplined in what I wanted because I didn’t want to get burned. And, and not that I thought that I was going to going through y’all’s process with whoever, you know, whoever they brought me, but it’s just what you do. You, you get an interview, you listen and you do your due diligence. I had a, I had a number of interviews where I just, I right away.
[00:34:10] I was just like, I was just, “No, thanks.” You know, I, I knew what I wanted. And, and I said, I said, “Thanks, but no thanks.” And, I, you know, I’ll be candid, I, I interviewed at Salesforce. And I went for the big guy. They, they gave me some feedback that was disappointing to me, but I was like, “Okay, that’s, that’s, that’s good. That’s, you know, it’s a little a punch in the gut, right, that, that, that everybody needs.” And, so, so ScienceLogic came knocking and Robbie Connors.
[00:34:34] Marc Gonyea: Mr. Connors.
[00:34:36] James Manning: Power of memoryBlue, right? I mean, he was awesome. And he, and he, he just reached out to me on LinkedIn and he was, “Hey, let’s have a conversation.” I talked to him…
[00:34:43] Marc Gonyea: Marc Benioff took a swing and missed.
[00:34:45] James Manning: Yeah, that’s…I emailed Marc Benioff. I said, “Listen, Marc, you messed up. And I was good.” No, but you know, one door, one door closes, another door opens. And that was ScienceLogic and they, they, they came around and I was like, “Alright, I’ll give this a shot.” Just trying to understand what in the world they did was, that was, that was something.
[00:35:04] Chris Corcoran: For the listeners, what did they do?
[00:35:05] James Manning: So they’re a, they’re an enterprise grade IT monitoring software. I think of a SolarWinds or a Datadog and stuff like that. Firstly, SolarWinds has been in the news quite a bit, but, yeah. So essentially we provide visibility into IT leaders infrastructure on, on the network side cloud.
[00:35:22] We give them an understanding of when something goes down, who should care about it, what should they do. And we can counter reduce that time to time to repair sort of thing. So, yeah, so that understanding that was tough. I, you know, I went to that interview process and I was like,” I don’t know what you guys do.”
[00:35:35] I was like, “I read and read.” I was like, “I don’t get it.” They’re like, “That’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” So I talked to Robbie and then he immediately got me in touch with the, the business development manager there. David T, who hired, awesome experience. I mean, they, they were just like, they were quick, they were honest they were, they answered my questions. They were thorough, they were excited and it felt mutual. It’s what it was. I remember like calling my parents I was like, I was like, “That experience felt me.” And I don’t want to, I don’t wanna bash Salesforce and you guys at stop-go. I don’t bash Salesforce, but that, that, that experience just didn’t feel mutual between the two of us.
[00:36:07] That’s all, there’s nothing wrong with that.
[00:36:08] Marc Gonyea: It is what it is.
[00:36:09] James Manning: It just didn’t, me and their group. I just like, we didn’t gel. I don’t know what it was, but I kind of knew I was like, “Right. I didn’t, I didn’t like that. I don’t think they liked me.” That’s okay. So, that, that experience was, was really mutual. And I think, I think it’s just sort of a gut feeling and I can give that advice to people who,
[00:36:26] you know, near and near they end of their time here or looking at other opportunities that ask a lot of questions. You, you got to know the nitty gritty of everything and ask the burning questions. “What is your sales organization like? Who, who’s in charge? How are leads generated? What are your expectations of me?
[00:36:44] How long is the sales cycle? What, what does, what does quota mean? What do you mean, what does an opportunity?” You know what I mean?
[00:36:50] Marc Gonyea: I know what you mean, but the people are listening don’t. So this is good.
[00:36:52] James Manning: Yeah. But those are things people don’t ask, those are things I wasn’t asking.
[00:36:55] Marc Gonyea: No.
[00:36:56] James Manning: I didn’t. I didn’t. But you, you, you learn that at memoryBlue and then you’re like, “Oh, hey, these are the questions.
[00:37:01] These are the things I want to know.” But is is, are we made the cold calling? Is this inbound? Am I mainly a hunter? Am I alpha and my managing has any renewals? What’s how much visibility am I getting into some of these deals? Am I involved with POCs? Am I just done enough after I do a hand up? You know, so that kind of thing.
[00:37:18] So those are the things you need to know and those are the things I asked ScienceLogic. And I mean, they were just, they were transparent and candid and again, it was, it was just a mutual experience. And, yeah, it was, it was I was like, “This is, this is perfect. It was perfect fit.” I mean, certainly middle of COVID, but…
[00:37:31] Marc Gonyea: So let’s talk about that.
[00:37:32] Everything was perfect and then you got to start in the middle of COVID.
[00:37:35] James Manning: Yeah. Yeah. I had to buy an Amazon desk. I was like, “Well, I didn’t think in the earth to do that.”
[00:37:39] Marc Gonyea: So literally you started there in April 2020?
[00:37:41] James Manning: Right in the, right in the heart of it all in COVID. I didn’t, I didn’t see the office in July or August.
[00:37:47] Yeah, I didn’t really meet anyone. It was hard. It was really hard. I didn’t like it at first. We, you know, memoryBlue we went remote, what like mid-March.
[00:37:54] Chris Corcoran: March 13th.
[00:37:55] James Manning: So I was working remote while I was still working for about a month in a, month or so. I said, “I don’t like this.” And now I’m starting a new job, fully remote, all my training was virtual. Microsoft Teams, had a camera on and just, you know, I started with three or four other people. It was, it was fine though. It was, it was really fine. I, at first, what I, what I missed was the collaboration of just being in person or just being able to nudge the person next to me.
[00:38:21] Someone of a mentor, who is a corporate accounting sec, basically one level above me and, so I, you know, I was just constantly pinging her. I felt so bad bugging her all the time, but I was like, “Man, if we were in the office together, I could just,…” You know, so. I didn’t know their process. Right?
[00:38:34] That, that was the hardest thing was like, “Okay. I’ve booked a meeting for you guys, set a meeting. What do I do?” It’s like, “Where do I update Salesforce? Who do I send the calendar invite?” That kind of thing. So I knew the memoryBlue process, right? But, yeah, I didn’t know theirs. And it was, it was an adjustment for sure, from memoryBlue to ScienceLogic from what we were doing to enterprise sales.
[00:38:55] Right? My approach had to change a little bit, so. Yeah. [00:39:00] What we were doing, so essentially my job I’m, I’m, I’m rewarded on opportunities created. So, you know, I can book a meeting, but if this guy doesn’t show up or if he does, and he’s not qualified, that doesn’t help me.
[00:39:13] Chris Corcoran: Right. Whereas that memoryBlue, you could, you know, you just have to get the guy to show up as long as they were, you know, a good quality meeting, whether or not it was going to be an opportunity.
[00:39:20] James Manning: So I’m paid on opportunities. I had to do, I’ve had to do really a little bit more digging a little bit more pre-call research. I’m a little more strategic in my, in my outreach. Unfortunately we haven’t had, you know, a lot of events and things like that in COVID, so I wasn’t getting really anything inbound.
[00:39:36] I was, that was purely, which was, but that was easy for me. That’s all I did at memoryBlue.
[00:39:40] Chris Corcoran: Yeah.
[00:39:41] James Manning: So they were like, “Oh, are you okay? Like we’re not getting any…” I’m like, “I don’t care.” “I’m not seeing any leads or anything.” I was like, “Dude, you gotta make your own business, man. Like, that’s just how it is.”
[00:39:54] So yeah, that’s what I had to do. And but I struggled in the first six months.
[00:39:58] Marc Gonyea: Transition.
[00:39:59] James Manning: [00:40:00] Yeah, big time. I wouldn’t, I wasn’t hitting any numbers. I was putting up zeros, you know? I think in the first Crashlytics months, three or four opportunities, wasn’t really until October that I’ve found my stride.
[00:40:11] So, but I, you know, I w I didn’t panic. I wasn’t worried. I was like, “This has happened before.” And then in a slump or at it’s hard transition. But I kind of stopped blaming myself and blaming COVID. Every you know everybody was, “Hey, I know you’re working hard, you know, COVID talk.” I’m like, “Well, so what?” Like, I don’t make that excuse for myself anymore.
[00:40:31] So of course that’s not advice I can give anybody because we’re not gonna be selling in a global pandemic for the rest of our lives. So yeah.
[00:40:42] Chris Corcoran: So, for the listeners tell, tell them a little bit about what you’re doing in terms of number of AEs that you support and the geographic territories that you have and talk… paint that picture for us.
[00:40:52] James Manning: Yeah. So I, currently support three different account executives. I have a patch in the toll area, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas.
[00:41:00] Very fruitful in Texas, Texas, I’ve learned as a man, that’s a, that’s a hub for some, some really good enterprise, at least for, at least on our end for our vertical. I support the SLED Market as well, which is, we had a new guy come in to support the State/Local and Higher Ed. So that’s a little different. It’s a lot different than enterprise commercial.
[00:41:18] The conversation is a lot different talking to universities and things like that, which is a challenge. And then I support a small patch up in the Midwest, which is a little different as well. It’s, you know, a lot of, sort of industrial electrical kind of things, things like that. So, yeah, I mean, I’ve got quite a bit of territory.
[00:41:32] I’ve got a lot of ground to cover. I’m not necessarily used to supporting multiple territories at multiple times, so you know, my time to the three different workloads is, is definitely a challenge. But it’s fun. It’s, it’s a lot of fun because I, what I liked is being more involved in the whole sales process.
[00:41:46] Right? I’ve actually been able to run discovery calls on my own. You know, I sort of, I don’t wanna say I’ve been self-trained, but, you know, that’s, I haven’t been able to listen to anybody else except for, you know, my account exact. So again, those, I mean, those mental reps that you get just listening to salespeople is it’s just invaluable.
[00:42:03] So, that’s sort of where I’ve just gotten it and I just kind of basically paired, you know, paired with they do. And so, you know, we have basically an initial discovery call. It’s a, it’s a lot of solution selling. It’s like, w what’s the problem and how can we help. And it’s interesting, I’ve been in a lot of, a lot of conversations where we’ve qualified or we’ll be out. Just like, you know, “We can’t help you. That this just doesn’t make sense for us.
[00:42:25] Does make sense for you?” So, so it’s really interesting, I have a lot of visibility into, into the opportunities. You know, I’m engaged in demos and involved in POCs and things like that. You know, pricing conversations and stuff like that. Of course, I’m a fly on the wall for some of the, for most of these things, but it’s, it’s just good to get those, to get those reps.
[00:42:42] And I think that’s not something we get at memoryBlue. It’s, you know, it’s just, that’s just the nature of memoryBlue. We don’t get that visibility, but,..
[00:42:50] Chris Corcoran: And, so the, just for the listeners, just so that they have a better understanding of it. So how many opportunities are you, should you be generating in a month, per month?
[00:42:58] James Manning: We’re we’re quarterly. [00:43:00] So, but to stay on track, right, it’s five per month.
[00:43:03] Chris Corcoran: Five per month. Okay.
[00:43:04] James Manning: Five qualified opportunities.
[00:43:06] Chris Corcoran: And how, what’s like the average sales cycle and the average size deal? Just so that the listeners can understand.
[00:43:12] James Manning: It’s, it can be, it can be a pretty long. I mean, there, it can be sometimes six to nine months.
[00:43:17] We, yeah, I mean, depending on we we’re, we’re designed for enterprise. We’re designed for really fortune 500 organizations, whereas you used to have very complex IT environments. Smaller environments just don’t suit us, they just, we were just like too much. We don’t, we’re not cheap. We’re not, you know, I can’t say that we’re just worth nothing.
[00:43:38] We’re like kind of the, I don’t know, I guess the Maserati of IT, infrastructure monitoring. So, so yeah, so they can be long sales cycles. Fortunately we have a partner, an avenue where we can work with MSPs and resellers that can expedite the process. Essentially they’ll purchase the license from us, get their, their, their end client, up and running. So that can expedite the sales process. But I’d say generally about, you know, on the, on the long end is nine months. On the short end for a big enterprise is four to five months. You do POCs and just all this stuff with legal and things like that.
[00:44:10] There’s a lot of hoops to jump through, especially with security the way it is today. It just, with all these breaches, we have just a lot of people that you have to get the approval of if you put a sign off. So it’s very complex. I don’t know if that’s a industry average or if that’s, you know, just us, but I feel like that’s pretty common, right?
[00:44:28] When some of these like enterprise grade solutions where it takes a long time, so yeah.
[00:44:33] Chris Corcoran: And it will, and how much does it cost typically? Probably six figures, seven figures?
[00:44:39] James Manning: This is six figures.
[00:44:40] Chris Corcoran: Six figures.
[00:44:41] James Manning: I mean, you’re looking at five to six as usually, I would say average is about $50,000 on the low end, but to like, you know, 1.25M. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that, but I’ll say it anyway.
[00:44:50] Chris Corcoran: I don’t think you’re in trouble, but…
[00:44:51] Marc Gonyea: Let’s talk about being patient. Okay.
[00:44:55] Right? So you’ve got, it’s curve from talking to you, playing the long game, but let, let’s talk about that, right? Because, you’re, you’re, you’re doing SDR work. In preparation for something bigger.
[00:45:06] James Manning: Yeah.
[00:45:07] Marc Gonyea: What, why, why are you being so patient, most people don’t have that patience?
[00:45:10] James Manning: No, they don’t. I don’t, I barely have a patience, you know.
[00:45:13] Marc Gonyea: And you struggle with it.
[00:45:14] James Manning: Yeah.
[00:45:15] Marc Gonyea: Because that’s what makes you good. But like, let’s talk about that because I think people need to hear that.
[00:45:19] James Manning: Yeah, no. I’m a, what, 15 months out of memoryBlue now? And I’m still doing, you know, business development work.
[00:45:25] It’s so I’m getting paid a little nicer and things like that, whatever, it’s, it it’s an upgrade for sure. But, no, it’s, it’s, you know, I’m not closing deals. I’m not, I’m not a closer by any means. So no, not yet. But I think a lot of people in my position and those who come out of memoryBlue, they’re just like, “Well, I just had this experience with memoryBlue. Like, you know, quick, quick, quick, let’s expedite the process.”
[00:45:43] But it’s like, the experience you get at memoryBlue is just like, it sets you up for the next thing so well. So for me, I came into ScienceLogic, as like, “You don’t have to teach me how to be an SDR to be a BDR.” Obviously there was a learning curve and I still have, you know, more, more things to learn, right? But, it, it, it sets you up to be able to, you know, know the process and do the job. But yeah, the, I mean, the biggest thing is if you’re, if you’re like me, it’s just like, it’s what it is, it’s hard to be patient enough think about the next thing. But it’s, it’s so important to just hang in there rather than going, “Well, I’m going to leave and go start somewhere new.” Which I’ve seen some people do in their career.
[00:46:17] They go, “Well, I’m getting impatient in this BDR role at this great organization. I’m going to go somewhere and try my hand at an Account Exec job.” And I mean, at least in my experience, mostly hire you as no experience to closer. They’ll take a chance on you depending on the, depending on the organization. But I, you know, I don’t really want to go somewhere and start somewhere new, when I could, you know, do my time here, continue to have success and set myself up for the next thing. Right? So, yeah, it’s just like, I’ve seen it happen to people where they go and they’re like, “Well, this isn’t really what I wanted this isn’t…” I was like, “Well, you should have just, you know, stick with what stick with where you are and be patient in your sales career. ‘Cause it’s such a ladder and it’s a really slow ladder.” So you get to… yeah, it is. But then you get to the top and it’s, it’s freaking awesome. So it’s like it’s worth waiting for. Yeah. So.
[00:47:04] Marc Gonyea: It’s a lot, it’s very difficult, right? Because you’re selling what you’re said, you just said it yourself, this is a very sophisticated tool. It’s on the very sophisticated people, typically larger organizations. It requires more experience, more insight and more ability to value add. It’s not a transactional sale.
[00:47:24] Chris Corcoran: No.
[00:47:24] Marc Gonyea: At all. And it can be treated as such. But, you know, you’re early in and you want to get to the closing role like a lot, a lot of your colleagues who worked here, but you’re playing the long game.
[00:47:35] So like Chris and I tip our cap to that. ‘Cause Robbie Connors had the same thing, right?
[00:47:39] James Manning: He did the long game, big time, more than I have. He was in the BDR role. This is what doing the count exact stuff here, right? He was using account executive members.
[00:47:49] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. So…
[00:47:50] James Manning: Was he on Tom’s team?
[00:47:51] Marc Gonyea: I think so.
[00:47:53] James Manning: Anyway, I mean, but he…
[00:47:53] Marc Gonyea: I can’t remember.
[00:47:54] James Manning: He but he then he came to ScienceLogic as BDR and that wasn’t, you know, I think he was like, “Well, it’s kind of, you know,…” I was like, “I could be doing a little more, but I’ll wait.”
[00:48:02] So then he waited and he played the long game and it looked like kind of I was killing him.
[00:48:07] Chris Corcoran: Paid off for him. How important is it for you to see someone who’s kind of come before you?
[00:48:11] James Manning: Oh, it’s huge. If…
[00:48:12] Chris Corcoran: It’s the same,…?
[00:48:13] James Manning: Especially at ScienceLogic, they’re huge. They’re big on hiring from within and moving people off. So honestly, you know, at this point for me, it’s a waiting game.
[00:48:21] People are, people are moving constantly. And it kind of execs those in the field, I’ve learned that they do a lot of, you know, of moving around. It’s just, it’s just the nature of the industry. So guys, we’ll move, guys make more money and that’s going to move people up. It’s just a, it’s just a continuous progression.
[00:48:36] So honestly, at this point, it’s just kind of waiting for that open opportunity. And if you’re just patient, somebody is going to move, somebody is going to get promoted. That’s going to bump you up, you know, you’re the next guy. It’s already…
[00:48:47] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. That’s, that’s things we’re not talking about either, like the what you don’t want to do is go get one of these roles and you’re not ready for the role.
[00:48:54] Right? And that that’s a fucking problem. That’s when you get ‘can’t’.
[00:48:58] James Manning: Yeah.
[00:48:58] Marc Gonyea: And then you really get demoralized. That’s when you’re looking at yourself on LinkedIn and you’ve had like three jobs in two and a half years, and people are like, “Ah, this guy’s a little, might be a little bit radioactive. I might not hire him.”
[00:49:10] James Manning: You get a little jumpy.
[00:49:12] Marc Gonyea: Send yourself.
[00:49:13] James Manning: Yeah. Or you getting an account exec role and it’s, it’s transactional. It’s just, I’m just like, “I’m making the same amount of money.” It could have been as, I guess, as a BDR right? No one’s going to throw you into an enterprise account exec role right away.
[00:49:25] I mean, that’s the dream but… No, I it’s just like, yeah, it’s just really you gotta be patient about it and and you get the reps. Get the reps now and, yeah, I think, you know, I’ll be better prepared for the next, for the next thing. So.
[00:49:39] Chris Corcoran: So looking back before your very first day at memoryBlue, if you could go give advice to yourself, what would you, what would you say?
[00:49:46] James Manning: Before my first day?
[00:49:47] Chris Corcoran: Before your first day.
[00:49:48] James Manning: Just, just try. Don’t be afraid to be embarrassed to… don’t take, take things personally. Like, like you said earlier, I never thought about that. I think people think if, if I’m not good at cold calling, then that’s me personally or if somebody knocks me off the phone, I must not be a good guy or whatever. Just try.
[00:50:08] And yeah, don’t be afraid to have a little humility. Don’t be afraid to do poorly either. It’s at that doesn’t mean anything it’s not indicative of your, your overall performance. I think a lot of people just come in here and they’re like, tentative. They’re like, “Oh, I like it here. I want to do well.” But I, you know, but they, but they don’t want to try and they don’t want to try that hard.
[00:50:26] They’re looking to, you know, just kind of try to make, make the easiest book. But, yeah, that would be my best advice for, for me, which is what I tried to do was just like, just try it, like embrace it. Lean, lean on people and I think what I’ve actually learned a lot times at ScienceLogic. Ask for help and like the lean on resources, like ask for like ask you guys.
[00:50:44] I didn’t do a lot of that. I didn’t really necessarily, it wasn’t asking you guys for help or Kristen or, you know, I wasn’t using the more experienced people to, to just, you know, to lean on and things like that. So, yeah.
[00:50:56] Marc Gonyea: What else, Manning? What other wise words do you have for the up and coming folks?
[00:51:02] James Manning: You know, I don’t know. How’s,…
[00:51:03] Marc Gonyea: You’re giving lots of good advice whether you know it or not. So they’ll kind of put you on the spot, but I think the patients is huge, kind of developing into some sort of superpower views, like the initial 30 seconds. Like that thing leaning on. When you get into these companies, go find the folks who know what they’re doing and lean on them for help.
[00:51:22] There’s nothing wrong with that, particularly if you’re stuck working from your house. Because, that is a heavy cross to bear, man. I would not want to be doing this from my house at this stage of my career. So you got to collaborate.
[00:51:35] James Manning: Yeah. Yeah, no, I think, well, my advice to people who are, you know, maybe thinking about the next thing or are on their way out, or, you know, do your, do your research and ask the, ask the real nitty gritty questions of, you know, just try to try to learn everything you can. Not, no sales organization is going to be perfect.
[00:51:52] There’s never gonna be any perfect model. I think a lot of people kind of seek that or they, they, you know, they get burned because they didn’t ask all the right questions or whatever, what have you. There’s, there’s going to be gripes and challenges that, you know, in any sales organization.
And, I think if you just, if you just buying and just make an effort to, you know, to not sort of sit back and kind of sit in the shadows, not trying to be noticed. You know, I think that’s when you put yourself at a deficit, so. Yeah, but eh, to the people here, you know, hike up your standing desk, walk around, you know, get on the phones and just like put your sales pants on. You know, be that, be that put your, like a sales voice if you will.
[00:52:31] And that’s what that’s sort of, that’s sort of what I found in my time here is like, just kind of turn on that second gear of, “That’s not me, this is a sales James.” And then turn it off when you’re playing ping pong and, you know, messing around in the kitchen. Right?
[00:52:45] Chris Corcoran: Very good. Very good.
[00:52:46] Marc Gonyea: That was great.
[00:52:47] Chris Corcoran: Mr. Manning, well, it was great catching up with you. And we look forward to having you back.
[00:52:52] James Manning: Yeah. Appreciate it.
[00:52:53] Marc Gonyea: Don’t do anything. We’re telling you to get you back. ‘Cause that will be part two.
[00:52:58] Chris Corcoran: AE Manning.
[00:52:59] James Manning: That’s right. Yeah. Well, yeah, it’s yours now, it’d be different conversation.
[00:53:02] Marc Gonyea: I want to hear how you took out that Robbie Connors.
[00:53:04] James Manning: That’s the plan. Can you hear that, Robbie?
[00:53:08] Chris Corcoran: All right. Thank you.