Tech Sales is for Hustlers Podcast

Episode 75: Alex Rodriguez – The Million Dollar Sales Club

You can’t control the cards you’re dealt, but you can control how you play the game. Inheriting his mother’s no-excuses attitude, Alex Rodriguez will do whatever it takes to succeed.

After graduating from college, where he worked 60 hour weeks while attending school, Alex knew he would excel in a career where hustle brings success. In two and a half years with memoryBlue, Alex elevated from SDR to AE in our Silicon Valley office by being a life-long learner and being mindful not to overcomplicate things.

In this episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers, Alex talks about the importance of being personable with prospects, muscling through the things you’re unsure of, and embracing different stages of growth.

Guest-At-A-Glance

Name: Alex Rodriguez

What he does: Account Executive

Company: memoryBlue

Noteworthy: Since he was a child, Alex has learned the value of hard work and devotion. In addition, he had to work three jobs while in college; it was hard to manage employment and school, but he made it and it helped him become the extraordinary person he is today. 

Where to find Alex: LinkedIn

Key Insights

⚡ A manager’s job carries various challenges, and not everyone is ready to face them. As a child, Alex was an extrovert; he was always open to talking to people, learning from them, and having discussions. Today, Alex believes that sharing makes every type of relationship meaningful. But he also knows that supporting a family member, a friend, or a colleague is different from being a manager who needs to uplift their team members. ”I’m very good at one-on-one conversations and interacting, but I think that from a management standpoint, I’d get frustrated. If I see someone lacking motivation, and I don’t know how to guide them or help them, it would probably frustrate me more because I don’t have the answers.”

⚡  A healthy company culture is a prerequisite for keeping the top talent. As a result, more and more companies have started to adopt an employee-first approach and build a culture that resonates with their team members’ beliefs. Here’s what company culture means to Alex: ”Culture, to me, is the ability to be yourself and be an active member of the team. […] I’m accepted in my company; my opinion is accepted. And if I have something that I disagree with, even if they disagree, they’re still going to be respectful.”

⚡ The first step towards professional growth: ask questions. No one expects you to know everything, especially at your first job. The lack of knowledge is not a weakness. Still, engaging in conversations and showing interest is an advantage. ”I learned early on that if you don’t know what they’re talking about, ask a question.”

Episode Highlights

College Years: Three Different Jobs Instead of Parties

”I had a lot more time to mess up, to make poor decisions, go to parties, and do things I shouldn’t do. And working really forced me to get away from that and to prioritize what was right in my life. 

I don’t think partying is terrible for everyone, but I think for someone like me, who didn’t have all the time to really dedicate to school at the time […] working forced me to be responsible. So I’m extremely grateful that I had to work.”

The Snowman Approach

”Joe Reeves actually sat me down one time and taught me something that I will never forget. And it was the Snowman approach. You get to this point in your career where you have the proper knowledge, and you’ve had some meetings booked, but then you get to a higher level, and you start to kind of overcomplicate it. 

You don’t necessarily have all of the information about the space and the product, but you’re starting to gather it. So you’re starting to incorporate it in your pitch, but then you’re starting to see this plateau because you are getting better, but you’re incorporating new things.

He described the Snowman approach to me. So, as an SDR, when I started to get a little bit of a dip, and he described that to me, it instantly picked me back up because I knew what I was doing wrong.

And that was it. It’s something I still remember to this day. I love the image of him taking me into the office, drawing the little snowman, and making me understand it. That was such a valuable lesson as an SDR.”

We Must Humanize Sales Conversations

”People pick up the phone, and they’re comfortable sounding like a robot; people are going to hang up on you. It’s so easy to hang up on someone who doesn’t sound like a human being.

And I think having an eccentric personality forced the humanity out of me very purposefully and forced people to see that I am a human. And the reason why I move my hand so much is that I want to talk like I would talk in real life — in a very expressive way. So if I’m talking over the phone, I’m going to talk the same way because I want my message to come across the same.”

The Next Role: an Account Executive

”I think everyone’s nervous about becoming an AE, and they start to doubt their abilities, even when they haven’t doubted them before, because it’s new terrain and something they’ve never done as a part of the deal cycle. 

But I had a really good manager, Joey Cohen. […] Joey was someone who sold for the company for a year, and what he did worked. And so I mimicked it. Sales is great because you can mimic it. And Joey offered such a unique perspective to me and would really have one-on-one time to give when I needed it.

And he would like to say things to me that would make me feel a lot more emotionally secure. At times, he didn’t realize I was feeling emotionally insecure, and he always gave me that reminder. 

I think, at first, he was good at helping me build confidence, which is something you kind of really need as an AE. But, at the same time, he forced me to get uncomfortable, and I forced myself to get uncomfortable. But knowing that he also had the expectation that I was going to get uncomfortable was good for me.”

It All Comes Down to Sharing

”You need to be able to interact with other people, inspire others, be a friend to them, and surely, be somebody who can support people, whether that’s your friends, family, or even the people you interact within the business. 

I’m frequently messaging other AEs; there’s somebody I’ve talked to a lot, Billie Jacobs. And I’ll message her about the little hacks that I’m using. My 10-minute walks? She’s got a lot of benefits out of them. 

I don’t try to go crazy on people, but if you find benefit and you’re open to it, I’ll continue to tell you about it. I really enjoy sharing the kind of knowledge that I generate because I’m so passionate about things. And I love sharing that with other people and teaching them about it and showing them because it’s helpful.” 

Transcript: 

[00:00:42] Marc Gonyea: Alex. Thank you for being here. 

[00:00:43] Alex Rodriguez: And thank you for having me. 

[00:00:44] Chris Corcoran: Alex, this is going to be a lot of fun. I can’t wait to kind of talk about your background and what you’re doing and kind of sharing your best practices and your life story with our listeners. 

[00:00:53] Alex Rodriguez: I’m extremely excited. Was a little nervous that nobody had anything relevant to say, but I think it will be a good one.

[00:00:58] Chris Corcoran: It’s gonna be great. 

[00:00:58] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, I know you have a lot of great things to say. Let’s talk about this. You’ve done a bunch of these podcasts. You’re the first cart. I mean, a little Account Executive we’ve had on the podcast. Right. And the California thing. You’re, so you got here. Well, I guess it’s you and D now, but you were the first. Congrats to D. 

[00:01:16] Yeah.

[00:01:17] So SDRs want to know how to get into closing roles. I’m a firm believer in that, if you’re SDR at memoryBlue, consider your client, but I believe the path set memoryBlue, or just as amazing, if not more. The delivery manager role, putting a bunch of what you want to do. We’ll round you out as a business professional in many, many ways. And the Account Executive role, in my mind, is the fastest job to get the legitimate closing out of 90% of our clients. Does it make it better? Just makes it what it is, what’s important to you. So you’re in that role, we got to it. Before it gets to it, let’s let the folks listen, learn a little bit about you. And you can probably eliminate some things for Chris and me. Right. Because you’re out here, we’re in Virginia. So we know you a little bit, but not as well as we’d like to. So talk to us about kind of growing up, right, where you’re from. Share some of that with us. 

[00:02:08] Alex Rodriguez: I am from a 2000 person mining town in Southern California. It’s called Boron. 

[00:02:13] Marc Gonyea: What’s it called? 

[00:02:14] Alex Rodriguez: Boron. Like the element number five, I believe it is. 

[00:02:17] Marc Gonyea: It sounds like a university.

[00:02:19] Alex Rodriguez: They actually mine boron there. Wonder where you get the name from right? 

[00:02:22] Marc Gonyea: Where is this in Southern California? 

[00:02:24] Alex Rodriguez: It’s about two hours outside of LA. And it’s about an hour and a half from where I went to high school, which is a larger town in the Antelope Valley, they call it. But I actually grew up playing football. This has shown where I’m from against it another mining town that was called Trona. And they literally could not grow grass. So we would play on this dirt field that they would just hose down. It was, a very interesting, I think, childhood. But I grew up in a very football-focused town that was a mining town as well. My mom had my sister at 14 and had me at 16. So I constantly saw her working, and doing whatever it took to really take care of us. I spent a lot of time with my great-grandmother. But really seeing that work ethic, just taught me so much about life, about myself, and about like who I wanted to be and what I wanted to contribute to the world. Really saw that kind of no, no excuses attitude from my mother. 

[00:03:13] Chris Corcoran: I’ve seen that football on dirt fields on ESPN. I don’t know it’s special, but I was like, “This is crazy. It’s rough.” They can’t grow grass. 

[00:03:28] Marc Gonyea: It’s a big state. 

[00:03:29] Alex Rodriguez: Yeah. It’s a very big state. Southern California, Northern California might as well be different states. Yeah. I think that’s something people don’t always know about California is, you can drive 10 hours and still be in the same state. There’s no other state like that in the US. Maybe Texas, but I mean, yeah. And you in Virginia, it’s like you drive an hour and you’re in a different state. 

[00:03:49] That, yeah. 

[00:03:50] Marc Gonyea: So what were you like as a kid then? So obviously you were inspired and you’re around hard work, hard work. Kind of, what were you like growing up, middle school, high school? What’s the personality? 

[00:04:03] Alex Rodriguez: I was kind of the black sheep of the family. I was the kid that was so enthusiastic and outgoing, and I’m sure you guys can get this in my personality. And I would literally talk to everyone in the store. Anyone I saw, I would just start up a conversation with. And the rest of my family are very introverted, aren’t like that. And I was always kind of just a black sheep and I was told my whole entire life, you need to be a politician. You need to be a loner. All I do is like to debate and I like to talk. If I can debate with you, I’m happy. And so w when I knew I wanted to do something, it was, what am I going to be good at? Both of my parents are teachers. I know I didn’t want to be a teacher. There’s no way in hell I was going to do that. But I think I’m very intrinsically motivated. It’s very hard for me to motivate other people. I just, I don’t know how to. I’ve always been motivated. Like even myself, I don’t know how to motivate because I’m just motivated. It’s just internal. So inspiring others, and guiding others is something that is very difficult. I feel like, and I’ve always been, I was telling you a little bit about this before podcasts, but I’ve always been very worried and concerned about myself and my own success. Not really coming on to that. I think as I get older and care about other people’s success and look at the big picture, I think growing up, I was in such an environment that I just wanted to get out of. So it was constantly, how can I be successful? How can we improve? How can we move forward? Really. 

[00:05:23] Marc Gonyea: I’ll tell you, I mean, people will look at you and say, you’re a good teammate. I mean in, let’s help, let’s help people out. So maybe are you talking about more from a good manager standpoint? 

[00:05:32] Chris Corcoran: I think you are more of a management standpoint.

[00:05:35] Marc Gonyea: Okay. 

[00:05:36] Alex Rodriguez: Like I’m very good at one-on-one conversations and interacting, but I think from a management standpoint, I honestly think I’d get frustrated. If I saw someone have a lack of motivation, or, and I wouldn’t know how to guide them or help them, which would probably just frustrate me more because I don’t have answers to something that has a solution. And I think it’s something I’ve realized that I have to work on, and I’ve come, to become cognitive of. But I think it’s important to know your strengths, and support, you know, what you’re not at. 

[00:06:01] Chris Corcoran: So you’re in high school, did the sales thing ever peak its head? So it sounds to be the personality, but people were mistaken and not mistaken saying that could worsen all of the sales game. Right. So hating a little bit about the legal or political profession, but like, did the sales opportunity pop up at some point or not? It’s good if it did it. 

[00:06:20] Alex Rodriguez: So I ended up going to UC Davis. I actually wish I stayed home from junior college. So anyone thinking about doing that, stay on for two years. 

[00:06:27] Chris Corcoran: Why? 

[00:06:27] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, I know you can’t just sneak that past because that’s what I want my kids to do. 

[00:06:33] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[00:06:33] Alex Rodriguez: Okay. I, I have an October birthday, so I was always one of the younger kids. I struggled a lot in elementary school. I actually, at one point, thought I was mentally disabled or something. I thought there was something up with me. And what I realized later in life is they just didn’t know how to guide me or how to make me interested in the context. Had a lot going on at home to where I was distracted as a kid. But I think looking at it, I was always really young and always struggling. And I think if I really would’ve just even in elementary school either got held back a year or stayed home for two years in college, I think it would’ve helped my maturity. I think I definitely went to college at a point where I wasn’t mature enough, even though I thought I was. Everyone at 17, 18 thinks they are, they’re telling their parents, “No, let me go. Like, I’m fine.” 

[00:07:16] Marc Gonyea: They don’t think they know. They know, they know, 

[00:07:18] Chris Corcoran: They know they know. 

[00:07:19] Alex Rodriguez: It’s an important distinction. Yeah. I knew that I knew that I wanted to go and I think looking back at it, and just how I struggled in college. I went to a very low-income high school so they didn’t really prepare us for college that well, and I think that’s another reason why I should’ve stayed home. Because I was really just hitting the face with kind of a culture shock of people that have money, people that have different family situations, and I was just there. And I have to somehow compete and be on the same level as you. And I definitely did it. I was there, but it took me a lot more to get there than it took other people. In my final two years of college, I was working 60-hours a week while everyone else has their parents paying their rent and paying for their food. Right. So it’s just a different world than I was coming from. 

[00:07:59] Marc Gonyea: What does it’s like? So, Chris and I share the same sentiment. I think, like you, and that’s just for people who were ready to work because there are lots of people who come from more fortunate backgrounds or however you want to put it, however, you want to fucking put it, who, don’t realize it. So they’re mature in a different way. Yeah. Right. What about the whole, what happens, what happens if you go to JUCO or community college or whatever, and like you did leave? But you got off the past somehow, 

[00:08:25] Alex Rodriguez: I think, I mean, looking back at it logically, I’m happy where I am. I am very proud of where I am. So it’s one of those things that I don’t, in general, regret the decision, but I think more about giving advice to people in that stage of their life. Is that I think it might be useful if you’re in a similar situation as I was. But at the end of the day, I’m in an incredible position for my age. I’m 25 and I’m an Account Executive. I had the fortune of coming into a company that has been growing extremely rapidly enough. I’ve seen it before my eyes. And I know it sounds a little bit corny on the podcast, but it’s, I’ve become really passionate about it because I’ve seen it all happen. We went from in California office with 20 people to an office of 50 or 60. And the talent is just significantly changed. I remember, I came in two weeks ago and heard someone on a cold call and I was just like, “Wow!: Like, I went up to him and asked him, and he’s been doing it for two, three weeks. Right. There’s no way, like, it was such a strong cold call.

[00:09:15] Marc Gonyea: That’s great. That’s amazing. So, all right. So you went to Davis, right? And, did that satisfy, to answer your question, did you satisfy, your satisfaction about the? 

[00:09:24] Alex Rodriguez: Yeah. 

[00:09:24] Marc Gonyea: I agree. No, it’s good. It’s a good take Alex. Like, there’s a lot to be said for that. And we will see how higher the changing, higher ed changes because it’s way too expensive.

[00:09:35] Chris Corcoran: It’s way too expensive. 

[00:09:36] Marc Gonyea: There’s not enough value. Like, the solution is to just forgive him he wants to get loans and that’s not a debate whether I’m, for yes I’m just saying, that’s not going to solve any problems. Right. Cause it’s still super expensive. 

[00:09:46] Alex Rodriguez: Definitely not going to solve anything by forgiving mine. Yeah. 

[00:09:50] Marc Gonyea: Right. So it has to change and you could argue that people would get more out of going to work and going to school part-time for two years. 

[00:09:57] Alex Rodriguez: I actually will argue that.

[00:09:58] Marc Gonyea: Yes. So I. So, but we’ll see that that it’s just people in that industry are going, “I hear that people in higher ed don’t want to hear that.” 

[00:10:05] Chris Corcoran: People in our industry don’t want to hear that. 

[00:10:07] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. But surely people whose livelihood depends on it. Like people, school system you see whatever. They don’t want, they don’t wanna change that stuff. But anyways. So you went there. What, did you major in? 

[00:10:17] Alex Rodriguez: History. I actually came in as a political science major and realized extremely quickly that political science is flawed. There were these times that I would take these tests, and this is something that would really, really make me angry, and they would have these theories. And I would, in my mind, find exceptions to the theory. And so when I was getting an answer, of course, okay, somewhat accept, maybe not. And I would get the answer incorrect, even though I could think of logical answers from other countries, or from other governments where it literally said the theory was wrong, or the theory didn’t enact in this point. So I started doing that because I was too smart and I knew too much at the time. And that just comes from, I think, my family background in understanding politics. And I started to really fall in love with history. I started to really identify how history taught me way more about politics in the United States and other countries than political science every day. Political science honestly taught me nothing in accordance to the American government. History taught me way more than I understand. 

[00:11:19] Chris Corcoran: Interesting. 

[00:11:20] Marc Gonyea: So you switched to history and what were you going to be a politician with that, or, or a lawyer, or were you still on that path? 

[00:11:26] Alex Rodriguez: I wanted to be a political campaign manager. 

[00:11:28] Marc Gonyea: Okay. 

[00:11:28] Alex Rodriguez: But the more I got involved in politics, and I interned in high school for political campaigns. I did a little bit in college. The more I got into it, the more I just, couldn’t agree with it. And I don’t know if it was my opinions changed, and my opinions changed very significantly when I was in college. As probably happens to many other young individuals. I just, I wasn’t passionate about it. I felt that people weren’t actually trying to do good. It was trying to line their own pockets. And the more I learned about it, the more I just became disenchanted by it. And I actually, have a stepfather, and he had a brother who, I didn’t know this at the time, but offered me a job right out of college, or right outside of high school. And he offered me a job at his company that does engineering recruiting for cell phone engineers. Is very, very cool, very interesting, kind of in line with what we do out of all honesty. And I didn’t know this, and luckily my parents didn’t tell me this, which I think was beneficial for me. But I asked why, and this was close to when I was about to graduate. And both my parents just looked at each other, “What do you mean why?” I was like, “Well, what do you mean?” Everybody knows you’re going to be good at sales. Everybody knows you have a personality. If your uncle can see it, everyone can see it. Like, that is what you’re good at. Of course, he knows you’re good at that. And so I think it was advice I got a long time ago that said, “Look at the things that older people in your life said you were good at when you were really young. That’s what you’re good at. Because they understand.” Grandma’s told me I had a really good memory, really good at talking to people. Or get interacting and just connecting with individuals. And I started to really think about that and understand that. And I was like, “It’s a no-brainer. Sales are for me.” And from there, I knew I was going to go into sales. Outside of college, I didn’t look for any job other than sales. 

[00:13:04] Chris Corcoran: Interesting. 

[00:13:05] Marc Gonyea: So talk about a little about the college experience, and the struggles that you had. 

[00:13:09] Alex Rodriguez: And co, college is I think hard for everyone, no matter what position you’re in, the college will test you. I think being so far away from home was very difficult for me. 

[00:13:17] Marc Gonyea: How far away is it?

[00:13:18] Alex Rodriguez: Uh, six and a half hours. 

[00:13:21] Marc Gonyea: Six and a half hours. Okay. 

[00:13:22] Alex Rodriguez: I didn’t have a car. I didn’t really have any way to get home. So I kind of only went home for the holidays. 

[00:13:27] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:13:27] Alex Rodriguez: And I felt really alone. I didn’t feel like I connected too much with other people just because they’re, their life was very different. 

[00:13:34] Marc Gonyea: Were there people from your high school that were up at Davis or? 

[00:13:37] Alex Rodriguez: There were a few, and we were definitely friends in the beginning, but I think college naturally makes you go your different ways. And I think even then there were some people that were in worse situations than me, and people that were in better situations from high school. So I think at the same time it was, of course, we could use each other, but I think it was also like we’re connecting with different people and kind of like going down different paths in our life. Like we don’t want to stay in the same bubble as we did in high school. 

[00:14:00] Marc Gonyea: Sure. 

[00:14:00] Alex Rodriguez: I think everyone’s kind of concerned about that, especially when you’re going off to college. 

[00:14:03] Marc Gonyea: Right. And then, so you worked? 

[00:14:06] Alex Rodriguez: Yes. 

[00:14:06] Marc Gonyea: So talk to us a little bit about your work, life in college. 

[00:14:10] Alex Rodriguez: I worked many, many different jobs. I worked as what they called the co-host. So I’ve worked in the food industry a lot. Probably for about three or four years. I did that in college. And I was a manager at one point, leading the whole entire team. Was like a local convenience store on campus for one of the dorms. And then I ended up getting another job as a barista. So then I was working two jobs. Ended up not liking those jobs. And I got a job somewhere else as a barista. So at the same time, I’m managing this convenience store as well as a barista on the side, also doing school full-time and studying religious texts. So it was one of those things where it kept me extremely busy. But I think working also when I wasn’t working, I didn’t work my freshman year, I had a lot more time to mess up, a lot more time to make poor decisions, go to parties, do things I shouldn’t do. And, work really forced me to get away from that and prioritize what was right in my life. And I think, I don’t think partying is terrible for everyone, but I think for someone like me, who, who didn’t have all the time to really dedicate to school all the time it just, it couldn’t work. It couldn’t work hand in hand. And I think it took a lot away. Like, people kind of get lost in that, especially when you’re young. But working forced me to be responsible. So I’m extremely grateful that I had to work in.

[00:15:24] Marc Gonyea: And you will help. How many hours a week were you working, where were you going to school full-time? 

[00:15:27] Alex Rodriguez: Uh, I was going to school full-time, yes. And my first couple of years, I was working 40 hours. And my last two years I was working 60 hours. 

[00:15:33] Marc Gonyea: 60 hours a week? 

[00:15:34] Alex Rodriguez: Yeah, I can’t tell you how difficult that period of my life was.

[00:15:37] Marc Gonyea: I can’t even imagine. 

[00:15:38] Alex Rodriguez: I would sleep four or five hours a night. And I used to take pride in that. I’m going to tell you guys, anyone listening to this podcast, don’t take pride in not getting sleep. It will catch up to you and it’s not good. I used to be proud of it. It has to be four or five hours a night. 

[00:15:52] Chris Corcoran: Wow. Okay. So what did that whole experience teach you? So it was funny, like when we talk about this, this is my take on college. Most of the lessons I’m finding or hearing, well personally, and what I hear from other people, it’s the life lessons they’ve learned. It’s not in the classroom. 

[00:16:07] Alex Rodriguez: Yes. A hundred percent. After two years I learned nothing in college.

[00:16:10] Marc Gonyea: The same information I have learned before. 

[00:16:14] Chris Corcoran: But working 60 hours a week at three different jobs, and going to school full time, in studying religious texts, you’re learning a lot about your life and you as an individual. 

[00:16:26] Alex Rodriguez: I think what it, actually think it was good and bad for me. The reason being is I think there were a lot of things I needed to work on about myself. If I had the extra time I would have been able to do it, but at the same time, I think, the amount of pressure that you get on to where they say, “Colt can only turn into a diamond for pressure.” I’m not a diamond yet. And hopefully, I will be there someday. But one thing that I realized is, you don’t choose the life you have, but I firmly believe God gave me my life for a reason. And then, I had to work harder than everyone else. And this is something my mom told me. Something when I went into college. I wasn’t proud of your sister because she naturally was good at school. She said, “I was proud of you because you worked to get there. I saw you struggle and get D’s and F’s. And now I see you going to a top-notch university in the US. And I think what work really cemented in me was everything I saw from my mother. All that hard work I saw from my mother now me doing it and showing that I am capable of giving back the same amount of love and support that she gave me through her work. 

[00:17:28] Chris Corcoran: Wow. So you graduate, and you’re working 60 hours a week, and so I can easily see you just ended up staying in Davis. And just getting kind of sucked into that 60 hours a week working those jobs. How did you get out of Davis? 

[00:17:42] Alex Rodriguez: I don’t want to stay in the same place. I think you’re kind of a loser if you stay in your college town and you’re just hanging out and you’re studying. You go and get a Ph.D. Cool. But I didn’t want to be that guy. I don’t want to be the guy that hangs out at a local high school, where you can come back and visit the high school every single time he gets a chance. To me, it’s weird. But I think at the same time I had bigger plans in my life. I knew who I could become. I’m still working on who I can become. But, there’s no reason for me to stop my own growth and delay that growth because I’m working, and I have a good job. Because where am I going to move up? When you come on the manager of the Starbucks, I’m gonna then become my manager was, were the managers above me, it’s going to take me years to get there. I’m not going to get pay increases. I didn’t see a path there. I wasn’t passionate. I worked those jobs to get through school. I ain’t worked those jobs ’cause I enjoyed them. I did enjoy the coffee job though. I’m a caffeine addict. 

[00:18:39] Marc Gonyea: I will say, the interesting thing about what kind of talk in higher ed rightfully so in some, some ways. The good thing about it is for most people you are designed to leave and go get a job doing something. Right? There’s this whole little sideshow of all these professional programs that have popped up from a score of higher education institutions, which I think are money makers for the school. Like you probably, you’re telling me they’re probably better spent investing some time in yourself, either healthwise or mental wise or who knows what is even your job, but that’s a debate for another day. So it is good that like, though generally speaking, we’re supposed to go do something else. And which you did, because you had bigger plans and you’re not going to stay in Davis the whole life. So let’s talk about what you thought you wanted to do. 

[00:19:24] Alex Rodriguez: Well, I knew I wanted to go in sales, I just didn’t know if I want it to be in AE. I didn’t know any of this, even when I became an SDR. But interviewing was stressful. 

[00:19:33] Marc Gonyea: When you said sales, what did you think you wanted to do in sales? Some people were like, “I didn’t, I totally stumbled into it.” You kind of knew sales was like a gateway for you. 

[00:19:41] Alex Rodriguez: Well, I knew I want to go to sales, and then it’s what kind of sales? I don’t want to be a used car salesman. Nothing against them. I respect the grind and the hustle. I knew I wanted to get into tech. I wanted to get into something that’s going to last.

[00:19:51] Marc Gonyea: How did you know about tech? 

[00:19:53] Alex Rodriguez: I’m in the bay area, Marc. 

[00:19:55] Chris Corcoran: Davis is not in the Bay area. 

[00:19:57] Alex Rodriguez: Yeah. It’s close enough to where a lot of people go and work in San Francisco or kind of take that, or even a lot of people’s families are from there. So I kind of naturally go back, and I think a lot of my peers that weren’t becoming electrical engineers or whatever, we’re going to work in tech, whether it’s a software engineer, whether it’s going to recruit sales, even HR. I think it’s just such a well-built industry for as young folks that we know we want to go into it. And it’s, what do I go do go back home? I don’t want to go back home and be in the same position and be that weirdo and nest in a local high school. 

[00:20:26] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, that’s fair. 

[00:20:29] Chris Corcoran: It’s tough, tell me what are you gonna do, be minor? Like, it’s tough. There’s not been a lot of jobs there. Right? 

[00:20:33] Alex Rodriguez: Well, so we moved that to a different town when I went to high school, about 45 minutes away. Basically same, just a little bit larger. Okay. Okay. 

[00:20:40] Marc Gonyea: The reason why we say that is, we’ve got folks who’ve been on this podcast or who were in this office who had sales estate and needed the tech, Salesforce a thing. So is that always kind of where you live? It’s kind of, I don’t know, pay attention to, or maybe the people haven’t been exposed to certain things? What are you exposed to? So I’m in San Jose state, right down the street, and see the buildings from this office at some point.

[00:21:07] so your new tech? Yes. And probably because you were exposed to it and you’re.

[00:21:14] Alex Rodriguez: Phone, have a gaming laptop. I know about the Blue Yeti microphone. 

[00:21:18] Marc Gonyea: He goes, “There was that Yeti.” And I said, “I was looking at this, there are no Yeti’s on this table.” He’s like, “No, the mic Marc.” 

[00:21:25] Alex Rodriguez: He likes the technology 

[00:21:26] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, he’s got to set up, that is our home office. 

[00:21:28] Alex Rodriguez: I’ll send you a picture.

[00:21:29] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. So you’re a nerd. So you ok, you knew about it. 

[00:21:32] Alex Rodriguez: I’ve always described myself as a nerd with social skills. 

[00:21:35] Marc Gonyea: Okay. 

[00:21:35] Alex Rodriguez: As I said, I will talk to everyone in the store, but then I’ll go back home and read the Spiderman comics. So I’ve always liked everything. And I was into sports too. So I kind of was into everything I feel like.

[00:21:45] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Okay. So, where did you interview? What were you getting into? 

[00:21:49] Alex Rodriguez: So I interviewed a CrowdStrike, Cisco Meraki, actually. I knew immediately, I didn’t want to work at Cisco Meraki.

[00:21:58] Chris Corcoran: Tell, tell the listeners why. 

[00:21:59] Marc Gonyea: Yeah.

[00:22:00] Alex Rodriguez: They’re there, when working in the bay area, I think there’s a lot you have to deal with in terms of companies and, and their perspective to where you’re not able to always have your own opinion. One thing that I’ve always liked is, I’ve never been afraid to pray in this office or practice my religion or do what I need to do. You know, I told you the first day I met you, I was Muslim actually. Like, when we shook hands for the very first time, I don’t remember how it came up, but I know I told you. 

[00:22:23] Marc Gonyea: ‘Cause I don’t, I like people with faith. I like people who don’t have faith too. I don’t have alike, you know, either they have them for me like you, but there’s an appeal in me personally with that. So I like to bring it up with you because it was important to you. And then talk about it a little bit later on this, if you want to. 

[00:22:37] Alex Rodriguez: Oh, definitely. Yeah, yeah. For any business professionals out there. But I, I think

[00:22:42] Chris Corcoran: You didn’t feel comfortable there. 

[00:22:44] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. So you felt comfortable here. 

[00:22:48] Alex Rodriguez: I immediately came in for my interview. And I actually remember walking away from this interview, just having the best feeling of my life. And I actually met one of my best friends in that interview, Trevor Shan. Uh, he’s going to do a podcast in a little bit. He was my direct manager and we instantly connected. I instantly felt like I had someone I’d known for years. And I remember going home and I was just like, “This is a company, if they’ll take me I will work there no matter what. Over anything else.” And it was just his perspective and how he was able to connect with me in such a unique way. I instantly had a lifelong friend. I still talk to him like every week. We interact frequently. He’s one of my best friends even though he’s left memoryBlue. And I think, just that interview alone, I was sold, I had to do it. It wasn’t all the young people out here that sold me. I was at a different point in my life. It was really Trevor Shan and just my interaction with him.

[00:23:38] Chris Corcoran: So talk a little bit more about that. Like, what was it that he did you guys bond about? Or what was he saying that really resonated with you? 

[00:23:44] Alex Rodriguez: Very into physiology. 

[00:23:46] Chris Corcoran: Okay. 

[00:23:46] Alex Rodriguez: And him coming from a neuroscience background. Everyone’s going to ask him, “Why did your sales?” People ask me the same with history. I think the history is a little bit more relevant and he gives a good answer of why neuroscience is relevant to sales. And I think that alone was like, okay. And then I started to realize how he was driven, why he was driven. And we were getting in this conversation like, “Hey, what motivates you? What makes you want to be successful?” And it was like, every answer I was giving him, I could tell he genuinely had the same answer based on his reaction. And so it was like, we were interviewing each other. It was like, we were just becoming friends, and it felt like such a casual conversation. I mean, I literally felt like I knew him for years.

[00:24:24] Chris Corcoran: Philosophy. 

[00:24:25] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. I remember looking at Trevor’s resume before he even worked here. I was this guy, his background what? But let’s go back to culture because you kind of hit on it. You had the connection with Trevor, but when you were interviewing at the other place, you said, this seems similar about the culture there that didn’t fit with you. I mean, feel uncomfortable. And you felt comfortable here about praying and doing those things. Like, what’s culture mean to you in a company?

[00:24:53] Alex Rodriguez: Culture to me is the ability to be yourself and be an active member of the team. That there was a little while ago and I talked to my inside sales manager Brandon Eyring, about this. Yeah, as I was talking to my inside sales manager about this, and then there was a CEO, he posted something and, it was about Christmas and being religious. And he basically was saying like, “Hey, don’t put, Mary Xmas or whatever in your marketing message. Like it’s disrespectful to us Christians.” I’m Muslim, but I understood what he was saying. It was like, there’s sort of the secularization of religion to where it’s like, you could offend religious people out of the wazoo, not an issue, but if you offend anyone else it’s a terrible thing and there are all these repercussions. I don’t think you should offend anyone, but seeing that definitely bothered me. And so I commented on it kind of trying to bring color to the situation and like supporting the CEO, and somebody just started commenting so rudeling back to me, “Why do you even say this? Like why?” And, and he was a CEO of his own company. And I started reflecting and I was like, “Well, I know my co-founders, even if they disagreed with me, would never speak to me in this way and put my opinion down like this.” And it was something actually, and I talked to Brandon about this, and it just, it made me feel so much more valuable for you all, actually. Where I was like, I’m accepted in my company, my opinion is accepted. And if I have something that I disagree with, even if they disagree, they’re still going to be respectful. And I felt like that wasn’t necessarily the case in other places. Yeah. 

[00:26:18] Chris Corcoran: How can you tell that, just do an interview. Like, you, you just gotta be perceiving of all these different things. It’s amazingly you pick up on. Yeah. It’s amazing what you pick up on. 

[00:26:27] Alex Rodriguez: I think it’s also how they, how they push their culture. It’s a certain cush of their culture and I can’t put a certain finger on her tone on it, but it’s a certain form where I know that I as a person will not be accepted. And for me, I’m somebody who works hard. I’m nice. I don’t judge anyone. And I want to be supportive of other people. Right. Like, even disagree with my opinion, all you want, and I will love you the same. But I think I knew I would be in a place to where there’s one mindshare. You either agree or don’t, and you’re not going to fit in. And I’m not somebody who’s big into needing to fit in. But at the same time, I want to enjoy my time at the company. I don’t want to dread going in every day and it’s like, I have to pray and I’m looking over my shoulder. Like, I feel uncomfortable. Then you should really they call it khushoo, like a concentration in your prayer. No, I just didn’t feel comfortable. 

[00:27:13] Marc Gonyea: What’s the word? 

[00:27:14] Alex Rodriguez: Khushoo. 

[00:27:15] Marc Gonyea: That means concentration? 

[00:27:16] Alex Rodriguez: Concentration and like focus. 

[00:27:17] Marc Gonyea: I like that word. 

[00:27:19] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. Definitely. 

[00:27:20] Marc Gonyea: I’m not able to pronounce it, but yeah. You can teach me after this podcast is over, so embarrassed myself. All right. So you ended up coming to work at the company. 

[00:27:27] Alex Rodriguez: Yeah. 

[00:27:27] Marc Gonyea: Right. What was that like? ‘ Cause you hadn’t done this yet. 

[00:27:30] Alex Rodriguez: So in all transparency, my first like four weeks, like three or four people were fired. Legitimately fired for legit reasons. 

[00:27:41] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. You don’t know that though when you’re new. 

[00:27:42] Alex Rodriguez: Oh, you don’t. And then the longer I was here, the more I actually heard about why they got fired and I started to realize, but I was coming in and I was like, “Oh, this company’s fire happy. I, I introduced you, I’m gone.” 

[00:27:52] Marc Gonyea: Which is not how we are.

[00:27:54] Alex Rodriguez: It’s not how we are, but actually think it was good for me. I it’s me and Trevor Shan actually talked about how the best SDRs feel like they’re going to get fired 

[00:28:01] Chris Corcoran: Tom Gassman 

[00:28:04] Marc Gonyea: Right, right. Just hit it, hit the bell for Tommy. 

[00:28:11] Alex Rodriguez: But, yeah. So with Trevor, it was really like, I kind of right, not with Trevor, but I felt like this bullet on my back like I need to produce, I need to succeed. I booked my first meeting and felt ecstatic. Go, sit in here for two weeks. I set two weeks to get him back on that meeting. And I’m sitting here like, I’m going to get fired. I’m doing everything in my power to succeed and be successful. And like, it was clear when I went to academy as well that I was going to be successful. Right. Like, it was clear I was kind of standing out in the academy cohort. And I knew like comparatively in the class that like, I would be good at sales if I continue down my path. 

[00:28:45] Chris Corcoran: What is academy? What’s academy? 

[00:28:46] Alex Rodriguez: Perfect. And I meant to talk about this a little bit earlier. Academy is a great training program we have internally where I was one of the first groups that actually, no, not one of, I was the first group to get flown out to Virginia. And as a new business professional, fresh out of college, the level of business professional has made me feel like it kind of gives you this stroke of your ego of, “I’m doing something serious in the world. Like I’m going to contribute to the business world”. And you start to realize, “Hey, my life is changing for the better. I’m coming out of college.” And it was a very unique experience. And then being able to go and check the co-founder’s hands. I remember going back on and like, I will never have that experience at another company. And if I do have that experience at another company, it’s probably not a good reason. The reason why we were actually meeting the co-founders was good. And we’ve talked about this in the past. Think of the founders are in every sale it’s probably not a good sign. But it was a very, I think it just made me feel at home in the company. Like actually meeting the faces of people who founded it, the people who are driven in, you’re not going to get that somewhere else. You just. 

[00:29:50] Marc Gonyea: So you came back from academy, which is a great program. Plug, Academy plug. And then you got, you’re doing your thing but you were a little nervous, people are getting canned. Who, who’s your client? 

[00:30:02] Alex Rodriguez: My client was IGEL Technologies. 

[00:30:04] Marc Gonyea: Okay. All right. Tell us about it. 

[00:30:09] Chris Corcoran: It helps if you have some appreciation of the technology. So like you’re saying your ease with social skills, that’s perfect. Because a lot of people, may be good at sales, but they may be like, I like to say allergic to the technology. But if you’d like, really appreciate it, that’s where you can thrive.

[00:30:28] Alex Rodriguez: I’ll talk to him about it and understand it. Like, I have a certain level of coding that I’ve come to understand. Like I just started doing coding when I was in college. Like through boot camps online, figuring it out, go with IGEL. It was a really cool pro, like software. It’s a virtual desktop management, super enthused. We had a good point of contact Jack Tang. And I think IGEL was such a fresh company, and they’re based in Germany. So it’s like, they move pretty slow, but not in a bad way. And they were really put together. And I think we were the first SDRs that were brought on. They had one SDR before, but he was kind of like a hybrid, not a traditional SDR. And one of the really unique things about interacting with them is like, how can we actually benefit their service as someone who hasn’t truly had this function? And what I learned early on is, if you don’t know what they’re talking about, ask a question. They ask what SCCM was, and I was too scared. Instead of just foregoing this one cold call asking, “Hey, can you describe to me what SCCM is in-depth? Like, I’m not that technical.” Have the IT person walk it through you and actually understand it so the next time you’re on call you actually can understand it. And it’s advice I get every single SDR. In the beginning, fall flat on your face, ask a lot of questions. And sometimes you forego the protocol just to learn more about the space. And IGEL was so dependent on having knowledge of the space because their solution worked best when you had these certain technologies alongside it. You need to do certain compliance. So it really forced me to understand the space and understand sales in a different way, which, you know, as academy teaches you and understanding space and how to reach out to people and reach out to relevant, similar customers as they have, it really forced me, I think, to wrap my mind around tech sales in a way that I wouldn’t have on a different client, but it was a way exactly what I needed because you have to know about your space. And IGEL was something that was so contingent on knowing about your space and you couldn’t sell it if we didn’t know about all of these other technologies. 

[00:32:27] Chris Corcoran: And you got, you are curious guy, so I’m sure that you just ate that up. 

[00:32:32] Alex Rodriguez: I Googled everything too.

[00:32:36] Chris Corcoran: Your self-taught through Google, through talking to prospects. That’s how you’re going to educate yourself. And obviously, your clients are gonna help you, but if you just are curious on the internet and curious about the people you’re speaking with, you’ll learn a lot. 

[00:32:48] Alex Rodriguez: I will also say Kian Anderson had a similar client. And Kian is, Kian is natural business acumen. And his ability to speak is incredibly well articulated. He’s very good at it. And I used to sit next to him and just plagiarize all day. 

[00:34:04] Marc Gonyea: Well, you said once, like sales are great because plagiarism is bad. 

[00:34:08] Alex Rodriguez: I love that. Sales a great ’cause you can plagiarize. Nobody’s going to report me because I plagiarize. You know, I’m not gonna set to the deed, but if it works for someone else and you can fit it, why not? Why do I need to reinvent every wheel if I know something works for someone else and I have a similar personality? 

[00:34:25] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. That’s the value of working here early as an SDR, which is why clients hire us. Right. Because you get folks in the office and they could sit next to each other and we’ll get back in the office. Soon, fully all the time, because you can learn from Kian, who’s now delivery manager, of one of our most successful clients of all time. Right. Like, and we can learn from other folks. Who also you learned from, speaking of folks? 

[00:34:47] Alex Rodriguez: So do I include my AE stuff or just an SDR stuff? 

[00:34:51] Marc Gonyea: So we’ll start with SDRs. We’ll get to the AE thing.

[00:34:54] Alex Rodriguez: Joe Reeves actually sat me down one time and taught me something that I will never forget. And it was the snowman. You get to this point in your career to where you, you have the proper knowledge and you’ve had some meetings booked from the proper success, but then you get to the higher, you start to kind of overcomplicate it, but you don’t necessarily have all of the information about the space and the product, but you’re starting to gather it. So you’re starting to incorporate in your pitch, but then you’re starting to kind of see this plateau because you are getting better, but you’re incorporating new things. And he, he described to me the snowman. And he’s like, “Hey, you’re in the middle of it now. This is where you need to get to.” So when I started to get a little bit of a dip when I was in SDR and he described that to me, it instantly picked me back up because I knew exactly what I was doing wrong. And that was it, it’s something I still remember to this day. Love the visualization of him taking me to the office and drawing the little snowman and understanding it. That was such a valuable lesson as an SDR. And then my manager, obviously, Trevor Shan taught me everything I know.

[00:35:51] Marc Gonyea: Ah, what was your signature move? Like? What did you get good at? Like, I always remember coming here and seeing who’s this guy standing up? This guy’s always standing up, he’s using his arms like he’s doing his thing and then you do your attraction to yourself. So what’s that guy up to all the time? But like, you got good at stuff, more than things, you kind of learn that you’re like, “Aw, this is kind of like my jam.”

[00:36:15] Alex Rodriguez: It goes back to what did people who are older than you say you were good at as a child. What are your strongest characteristics? And I knew if I was going to be good at scales, obviously I had to work on what I was bad at. Everyone does, and everyone will always have shortcomings that we’re always improving on, but it was how can I take what I’m good at and drive it? How can I make that like the pinnacle of who I am and how people are coming across me? And my biggest approach is I want to sound like your friend. I want to sound like somebody who, so if you’re a VMware engineer, I want to sound like you’re going to a VMware constant car conference and we’re just talking like buddies, and we just met. I want to sound like somebody in your space who you know, I want to be human. Too many people pick up the phone and they’re comfortable sounding like a robot. And the biggest thing, people are going to hang up on you. It’s so easy to hang up on someone who doesn’t sound like a human being. But the minute I force you to acknowledge my humanity, you start to let down that card. And I think me just kind of having a very eccentric personality forced the humanity out of me very purposefully, and force people to see that I am a human. And the reason why I moved my hand so much is, I want to talk like I would talk in real life. I’m very expressive. So if I’m talking over the phone, I’m going to talk the same exact way, because I want my message to come across the same.

[00:37:34] Marc Gonyea: I think there’s a lot to be said for people who are genuine when they sell, who are sincere, and it’s, there’s something compelling about that. And that’s like one of your really struck strengths. Because Alex is so you’re so genuine and sincere and you believe it’s a powerful tool, but you’re not like bullshitting, like. 

[00:37:53] Alex Rodriguez: I can’t bullshit. I just can’t. If I don’t like something, you’re going to know it. 

[00:37:59] Marc Gonyea: That’s good. 

[00:38:00] Alex Rodriguez: It’s good and bad. 

[00:38:02] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. It’s good and bad, but it’s more of, there’s more power to that than there’s, no. So what about standing up? 

[00:38:10] Alex Rodriguez: You got to stand. So many people are sitting. So, I like to go on daily walks and just get the blood flowing. If you’re going to understand your brain, your hands down, how your brain operates, sitting in a chair all day, getting into this very rhythmic kind of lethargic type of sale, no one’s going to respond to you. You’re going to sound like Eeyore. Who do you want to sound like? You want to sound like somebody who is somebody who wants to speak to. And if I’m on the phone, do you guys ever just sit down when you’re on the phone? No. When you’re on the phone with your family, you walk around. I can’t sit when I’m on the phone. I will literally walk around my house, walk around the neighborhood because I can’t, I have to be moving have that some small way to occupy my brain. So why is it when I’m selling out of the sitting? It makes no sense whatsoever. It’s only impeding you and you end up sounding like Eeyore, and whether you think you do or not, you are. 

[00:39:04] Chris Corcoran: Well, I like it when people listen. Because Marc and I are always like, “You gotta stand. You gotta stand .” And it’s, I love it when people do. 

[00:39:13] Alex Rodriguez: Actually I want to take home a standing desk so I can have it at home.

[00:39:17] Marc Gonyea: You probably can. I’m sure. Yeah. So yeah. You got the green light. There you go. Yeah. So you’re doing this. You’re figuring out what you’re getting good at, right? I know your client likes you ’cause Steve bell and his posse, Steve Bell, great client. They were wanting to kind of bring you on board at some point they couldn’t make it have one every time it happens. But the point is that wasn’t a discussion because you were doing such a good job. If you want it full time, but you want, those campaigns full time

[00:39:47] Chris Corcoran: Yeah, you run a full-time. 

[00:39:48] Alex Rodriguez: I was full-time when you might’ve thought I was going half-time as I worked on Exostar.

[00:39:52] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[00:39:53] Alex Rodriguez: IT, I did super billing. 

[00:39:54] Marc Gonyea: That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. Those are those little short, short, short, short-run things. Yeah. You were super built when you were in college. So yeah, 

[00:40:05] You are super built-in general because that’s how you roll. So, all right. So what’d you think you wanted to do as you kinda kind of manifested, you got good at them, you would get better at the role, you become closer to Trevor, he’s a DM naturally speaking, like, so what’d you think? 

[00:40:21] Alex Rodriguez: It’s something actually I want to talk about, I want to bring up. And I know you remember this experience. There was a point I almost left memoryBlue. And the reason why I’m mentioning this is that I am so, so thankful I didn’t. But I think it’s important for SDRs to realize that, like, I wasn’t somebody who was like base chasing, I’m not gonna said I was that. I wanted to make more money and I had probably the most reasonable reasons, having a family, having a son to make more money. But at the same time, it wasn’t necessarily just the dollar sign. It was like, I wanted to go forward in my career. And I knew I could do that, but it was like, I’m at this point where I need to succeed. And, and I need to support, I’ve seen hospital bills come in, I’m like freaking out. And I remember having a conversation with you. And I was like, “All right, I’m going to leave memoryBlue.” Like, I knew it was best for me to stay logical and I’m so happy I did it. I ended up staying. And then I looked back down the road. And when the AE role came up, like you sent an email that Friday. I didn’t even realize it was sent out. I think I had to go to the doctor, some things for whatever reason. I know that email you, or that Sunday, you emailed me saying, “I want to talk to you about this role.” And at that moment I realized he’s seen everything I’d done. And I realized at that moment, any feeling I had of like, “They don’t necessarily know how successful I can be.” Yeah, I really am a high performer. Like I’m the highest performing in California. At the time I felt like you guys didn’t realize that. And that was, and then coming back, I was totally wrong. And looking back at that experience, this is something I tell SDRs, “Don’t base chase, understand the organization you’re going to as well. They have fired their whole SDR team. And I was going to be one of the first SDRs they were bringing on.” That would have been such a logical point to go to that company during COVID. And I ended up knowing what was logical for me. Staying, but it’s, “Does your client have the right training program to facilitate your growth? Do they have a path to actually go somewhere in the company and are they going to treat you well?” And I think those were the things I wasn’t asking about the clients. I just, I was like looking at hospital bills and was freaking out. But looking back at the experience, I really realized, no, they were seeing everything I was doing. I was the one who was blind. So I always remind SDRs, “Don’t base chase, and truly understand if you’re going to go somewhere. If they have the right facilities to support it.”

[00:42:31] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Well, I mean, I’m glad you stayed. 

[00:42:33] Chris Corcoran: Yeah, definitely. 

[00:42:34] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. And I remember, I remember that “Alex Rodriguez hasn’t responded to my email.” Right. And I would, we’d find out ’cause we want people to go where they want to go. We don’t want to force people to stay, but as you said yourself, you’re 25. You’ve been closing for a year in six months, year and a half, four or five months. LinkedIn always adds months onto it. And you’re getting this rich experience. Right. Because you’d like tech. So you can research these tech companies, you get the inbound leads. You get the sell to them. It’s to sell this VPs of sales here, the piece of marketing, the same shit I told you when we talked on the phone. Because it’s really important and it’s going to help give you some experience that most people can’t get this early. Right. You and I had to like crushing people to get into closing roles, do all sorts of crazy stuff. Right. You have to do crazy stuff, you got to perform. So I was, happy. And originally thought you wanted to be a dam before you realize how in chicken, right? 

[00:43:29] Alex Rodriguez: Yeah. 

[00:43:30] Marc Gonyea: But yeah. But why do you think you want to be a dam? And want to change your mind. 

[00:43:34] Alex Rodriguez: The A path traditionally didn’t exist the way it exists today. And although there were people like, Carly, I believe it was promoted. And there, there was a couple of people, right? Well, yea. So there was a couple of people, but it was very rare. So I didn’t think they coming in a year was actually something I could have done. It actually wasn’t until you reached out to me that I was like, “Wait, this is an option. This is on the table. Hell yeah.” And I knew I didn’t want to be an STE either. ‘Cause when I broke it down, I was like, I’m going to do twice the amount of work you get the same pay. So yeah. So it was like, do I want to, and once the AE job came up, I knew I had to do it. Know this is what I needed to do. And I realized my own flaws in terms of being a manager like, not being able to guide people or intrinsically motivate them or feeling like I was truly the best person to be a manager. And knowing that I’m somebody who just wants to worry about my own success because I can control that. I don’t want to worry about things I can’t control. To me, that’s just illogical. And it’s very difficult for me to be a manager because there’s so much you can’t control, and you just have to be okay with it. 

[00:44:42] Marc Gonyea: What were your, what else kind of brought you to sales? I remember we talked about this but seeing other AEs in action, as the client, some people out there in the industry, they’re not as good as you think they’re going to be. 

[00:44:56] Alex Rodriguez: So sometimes you see your AE and you see kind of the, you think, “Hey, I can sell better.” And not necessarily. I actually think it’s such a flawed that we think that. We naturally hear their pitch so many times they were like, “Oh, I could pitch that light.” And then you hear them, and you’re like, “I could have pitched this meeting better. I brought it to them. This was valuable. And they’re the ones who really ruined it.” So you start to kind of get that feeling. And so you want to own your pipeline. You want to own the deal. You want to control everything. But it won’t really be made me kind of like to submit my position on A team was Tommy Gassman. To Gassman. I spoke with Tommy Gassman, and he was able to pick out things about my personality that I have never told and like anyone, and it was spot on. As he immediately pointed out to me. He was like, “You’re somebody who’s worked for everything you’ve had, haven’t you?” And I need to say anything even related to that. And I was like, “Yes.” And it was like, he made me realize that about myself. And that level of understanding of a person, I was like, I want to be like this. Because I’m somebody who has people skills, but it’s nowhere near where it could be. And I looked at Tommy Gassman is, that’s where I want to be. He looked in one, look at me, and talked to me for 30 seconds, it could dissect who I was. Yeah. Beautiful. 

[00:46:10] Marc Gonyea: So what’s it like being AE? How did that transition go, from being an SDR to all of a sudden, you know, now you’re close to it? Or you’re in a role where you’re expected to close.

[00:46:21] Alex Rodriguez: Everyone’s going to be nervous. Right. Even when I was in SDR and I was on IGEL, I got nervous. The minute I went to another campaign ’cause I was like, “Maybe I was just good at selling IGEL.”

[00:46:32] Marc Gonyea: That’s very, very, that’s a great take. Yeah. Most people will never admit that, but it’s a fair thing to say. 

[00:46:39] Alex Rodriguez: And I was so nervous. I mean, everyone’s looking at me. I was like the top performer on a new client, like yeah. So I think as everyone’s nervous about becoming an AE and you kind of start to doubt your own abilities, even when you haven’t doubted your own abilities before because it’s just new terrain. Something you’ve never done. Parts of the deal cycle you’ve never done. But I had a really good manager, Joey Cohen. 

[00:47:03] Marc Gonyea: JC.

[00:47:04] Alex Rodriguez: Well, I have to shout out. Tell me if you’re listening. You have no idea how much I love you. Just watching you was pleasant enough. But Joey was someone who sold for the company for years, and what he did worked. And so I mimicked it. Sales are great, ’cause you can mimic them. And Joey offered such a unique perspective to me and would really have one-on-one time really when I needed it. And he would like to say things to me that would make me just feel a lot more emotionally secure. At times he didn’t realize I was feeling emotionally insecure, and he always just kind of gave me that reminder. And I think he was a good confidence builder at first, which is something you kind of really need as an AE. But at the same time, he forced me to get uncomfortable. And I forced myself to get uncomfortable. But knowing that he also had the expectation that I was going to get uncomfortable is good for me. And I think that made me grow as an AE, but then it’s also, when are you going to close your first one? Right? Like my first one, I didn’t close. Joey closed. Right. So when am I going to actually close my first deal? And when you start to understand the deal cycle and you start to get ownership of it, you start to understand all of these little nuances that you’ve never realized about sales and how follow-up and how to interact with people, what works, what doesn’t work. And I’ve made a lot of mistakes and I’ve made a lot of successes, but you also need to learn from those mistakes very early on. And I think that’s one of the good things about being in memoryBlue is, I knew I was in a position where, “Hey, they were betting on me and that made me feel good”. They understand that. But at the same time, I knew I had the facilitation to grow as a person to where I wasn’t worried to the degree about underperforming. Like if I was going to be an AE somewhere else, I would have so much anxiety or worry, whatever you want to call it, just about succeeding. There’s a whole new place, whole new technology, whole new people that don’t know me or what I could produce. And now I have to learn all these new things. And I think just being an environment where I was comfortable and Joey Cohen, I don’t know what it is about him. He just made me feel at ease. I’ve had the fortune of having such great management at memoryBlue. I don’t know how it’s just worked out for me. Because like, it just has. All my managers have become great friends of mine, people I genuinely love. And it’s always just kind of fell in my life. I didn’t choose that joey. I didn’t choose that Trevor. It was quite the opposite. 

[00:49:17] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. So what part of the sales cycle did you like have to, what muscle did you have to develop that you didn’t have before, with the support of these folks? What was it? 

[00:49:29] Alex Rodriguez: That’s a very good question. Something I’m still learning. Going negative. You sometimes always want to be a people pleaser. It’s like a natural thing you have in your life. If you liked me enough and if I gave you enough, you’ll like to buy. Right. Like I remember when I first started, I’d been over backward to make clients comfortable and I still think you should make clients comfortable. But it was to the extent where they would kind of take advantage of me, of like, “Oh, now that we’re getting close to the agreement, now I need you to help me get all this stuff over when I know I can’t do it.” And it’s like, “I’ve been your friend trying to help you this whole entire time.” And, I realized, I don’t want to be your friend anymore. Because they’re going to ask for things I can’t give you. So I started to realize that barrier you need to have. What made me stronger as an SDR was being people’s friends. That wasn’t going to work the same way as being in AE because then people wanted more from me. So it was really coming out of that, learning how to say no and learning how to kind of just drop it all on the table.

[00:50:23] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Why can’t you give it to them? What is it? What would impact? People ask the first things that you know, you can’t provide, but you don’t want to say yes because you know, you want to get to deal, but also, that’s how you kind of sell. Like your strength is your weakness, right? 

[00:50:35] Alex Rodriguez: Well, if I say yes, you’re going to have improper expectations. So if we actually do start working together, you’re going to be unhappy with the campaign, and that’s going to reflect on me. And as you mentioned earlier, I want to be a very genuine person. So if you go and you say, “Alex Rodriguez sold me this crappy thing”, I’m going to feel bad. And yeah, there are times we don’t hit the mark, but if I genuinely did everything I can, I’m not going to lose sleep over you. But if I didn’t do everything I can, it’s like, if I was the one that gave you those improper expectations, it’s on me. That’s on my name. That’s on, on my soul. 

[00:51:06] Marc Gonyea: So going negative. What else?

[00:51:09] Alex Rodriguez: Contract negotiations. 

[00:51:10] Marc Gonyea: Okay. 

[00:51:10] Alex Rodriguez: Those are a different breed. Joey Cohen was our unofficial legal guy for a while. Right? 

[00:51:20] Marc Gonyea: He loved it. He loved it. This is called sometimes I think. 

[00:51:24] Alex Rodriguez: Oh, and so, watching his new content, and he’s passionate about it. 

[00:51:28] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, he was, yes. Joey likes to get into the mud, and mud wrestles, right.

[00:51:35] Alex Rodriguez: Oh yeah. 

[00:51:36] Marc Gonyea: But you learn a lot from that. 

[00:51:38] Alex Rodriguez: Those are his favorite calls. Yeah. Yeah. I’ll sit here, scratching my head. Like, oh, we really got to do this. Like just sign the daughter. 

[00:51:47] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:51:47] Alex Rodriguez: Yeah. Well, his business acumen in terms of the contract and just, I think some people have a culture in their family where they talk about business a lot at the table. My mother’s a teacher and she worked a lot, I grew up a lot in my grandmother’s house, it wasn’t early childhood. So I never had that. This is an acumen is something I’ve really had to just learn, teach myself as well as just watching people, and I’ve made mistakes. And I think watching Joey just, I think he just naturally speaks in such a professional manner, how do I become like that? How do I have that level of business acumen, where it’s like, I can present myself at any point in the day and I’m a business professional. And I think just his natural talk track was so unique to me. I was like studying it. I would write down keywords he would say when we were on, like, one-on-ones just so I could use it. Just how he was talking, inspired me. 

[00:52:39] Marc Gonyea: That’s great. And what w and what else did you work on? Anything else? 

[00:52:42] So go negative contract negotiations. 

[00:52:46] Alex Rodriguez: No taking.

[00:52:47] Marc Gonyea: No taking? 

[00:52:48] Alex Rodriguez: This is something that will never tell you about being an AE, taking notes and talking to people at the same time is a skill you must learn. It’s one thing to take notes, a lot of professors lecture. It’s another thing to be taking down legitimate notes, while all talking and looking into the camera and having all your focus and concentration on it. It’s something it took me a while to learn. I was like, struggle. Like, trying to type as fast as I can. 

[00:53:11] Marc Gonyea: ‘Cause you don’t want to write everything down. Right. But you want to write down a lot. 

[00:53:15] Alex Rodriguez: But you want, inside your head, it’s like, what’s relevant, what’s not? 

[00:53:17] Marc Gonyea: Good at that though. ‘Cause you’re not, your fault notes are good. Yeah. So maybe you feel like you wrote down too much. 

[00:53:24] Alex Rodriguez: I definitely was writing down so much at the beginning. My notes are way different now, but I think it was just developing your own second hand and developing your own way to look at your notes and understand what was said and what’s important and what’s not. You develop these own little tricks. You have like a tab, or like put a dot, or put a dash to signal certain things in my own head. And I’ll remember why I put that there. And I think, yeah, just the more you do it, the more you’ll learn. But it’s something right, takes you away from the call when you don’t have that experience. What they’re trying so hard. 

[00:53:53] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. What have you, what’s the strength of yours you’ve developed as an AE? Or some of your, just like being an SDR you’ve got some superpowers, but it’s like the Alex Rodriguez strength go-to move when you feel like you’re doing it. 

[00:54:06] Alex Rodriguez: But I’ve gotten so, as I mentioned, in my SDR bread and butter was really being a friend. I’ve gotten a lot better at becoming someone you can be personable with, with somebody you still understand is at that organization. And it’s not going to do everything you can. I think that’s a skill that I am still developing and a muscle I want to continue to develop. That’s something I’ve really worked on here. And I think it’s something you don’t really understand the distinction between the two until you start getting the weeds of it. And something Trevor Shan and I actually spoke to about how good actually Marc is with interacting with people and networking. And it’s something that I knew, how do I network in a way that’s going to make the people come across as a business professional, they’re going to respect me and they’re not going to take advantage of me. And that’s something I’ve really worked on, and how to emulate. Just, I can’t give you a cookie too. I can’t give you everything.

[00:54:54] Marc Gonyea: Where do you hope to go? Like what, so I know you’re doing it now. You’re doing your thing and we want you to stay here for as long as you want, but like, how do you see yourself going? Like being an individual contributor, do you like, once you doing that for a while, do you think ever, ever figured out a way to not be so upset by people who are intrinsically motivated?

[00:55:16] Alex Rodriguez: You know it was funny. I have no plans of leaving memoryBlue. 

[00:55:20] Marc Gonyea: That’s nice. 

[00:55:24] Alex Rodriguez: Which is funny ’cause we, we had a very different conversation about like a year and a half ago. But I love being an individual contributor. Mimic by our head of sales is an amazing person to interact with and learn from. I genuinely just love the guy. Had the fortune to go to Utah with him and really have some nice one-on-one time and understand where his mind is. I probably asked him way too many questions. He probably got annoyed with me, but it was a good experience. But I actually see myself, I want to be an AE until I perfect my job as an AE. But I eventually wanted to go into inside sales management. And it’s something that I didn’t see myself wanting to do, especially, but I, looking at that extreme ownership by Jacob Williams. I’ve really understood my weaknesses in terms of understanding my place on the team and understanding other people’s places on the team, and how I can benefit from that. And I think as I develop as a skill I need to, did develop that skill. And I think about balancing myself out. And if I continue going down just the individual contributor, actually think I’ll never develop that skill. I’m forcing myself to develop that skill because it’s exactly what you need in life. You need to be able to interact with other people and inspire others and be a friend and be a pal to them. And surely be somebody to support whether that’s your friends, family, or even the people you interact with within the business. Like I’m frequently messaging other AEs, like, there’s somebody I’ve talked to a lot, Billie Jacobs.

[00:56:45] Marc Gonyea: Oh yeah. 

[00:56:47] Alex Rodriguez: And I’ll message her about like little hacks I’m doing, my 10-minute walks are so back. Because I’m, she’s found a lot of benefit out of it. Like I don’t try to go crazy on people, but like if you find benefit and you’re open to it, I’ll continue to like tell you about it. So I think like seeing those kinds of relationships that have is, I really enjoy actually sharing the kind of knowledge that I generated because I’m so passionate about things. And I love sharing that with other people, and teaching them about it and showing them, ’cause if it’s helpful and I can help you, I’m ecstatic, I’m happy. 

[00:57:16] Chris Corcoran: So, what podcasts do you listen to?

[00:57:20] Alex Rodriguez: The question. Leo and Longevity are one of them. 

[00:57:23] Chris Corcoran: So talk to us, tell the listeners what that’s all about. 

[00:57:26] Alex Rodriguez: Very in-depth about physio, a lot of the podcasts I’m going to list there are about physiology, how different things interact with the brain chemistry, how to reset your dopamine and energetic system. AKA make yourself bored and be comfortable with being bored. Ride the bus, go for walks, stop being on your phone so much, whatever. But stop the super stimuli, whatever it is, and reset that system. And so, it’s more plates, more dates. My third is going to be Leo and Longevity. Those are probably the two primary podcasts I listen to right now. 

[00:57:56] Chris Corcoran: Just to mark notes, more plates, more dates. The dates aren’t the fruit, the dates are romantic dates. 

[00:58:04] Marc Gonyea: I got those with just one person. 

[00:58:06] Alex Rodriguez: There’s actually one more I want to mention. There’s this man Wim Hof. He does a breathing exercise and it’s clinically proven to boost your immune system. They did a trial of like 12,000 people, injecting them all E. coli. All hundred percent got sick. They injected Wim Hof. He’s a man from the Netherlands, with E. coli. He does a certain breathing exercise and he does cold therapy. So it goes on like ice cool water. Didn’t get sick. Then they said, “Oh, you’re a freak of nature.” And he said, “No, I’m not. I can teach this to other people.” And he taught it to 14 people. They got injected with E. coli, were completely fine, and beat the disease. No sickness whatsoever. So this man, who has his own podcast, explains his breathing exercise. I told Ryan Carry, one of my AEs. That I would talk about Wim Hof. Yeah. 

[00:58:54] Chris Corcoran: Let’s talk about something else that is important to you. And I think it would be remiss of me not to bring it up as you’re a person of faith. 

[00:59:00] Alex Rodriguez: Yes. 

[00:59:00] Marc Gonyea: Right? Yes. A big part of who you are.

[00:59:02] Alex Rodriguez: A hundred percent. 

[00:59:05] Marc Gonyea: And we talk about lots of things on this podcast. Not just all sales staff. Diversity, where people come from. How, why is faith so important to you and how do you think does it help you in, uh, in your, in your job? Just personally and professionally, but I’m curious about the professional part too. 

[00:59:21] Alex Rodriguez: I need structure. Like, as I mentioned, my mom was in and out a lot. And it wasn’t her fault. I love her. And I was with my grandma a lot, so I didn’t have a lot of structure. But one thing that I always look back to in my childhood is, my mom worked very early in the morning. She’d go and open up her preschool. So we’d go to my grandma’s house at like 5, 5:30 AM. I frequently woke up early as a kid and was just sitting there until I got ready to go to school. And that kind of structure, whether I knew it or not was so good for me. And, I went to college and woke up late, thought staying up late all night was the best thing for me. I thought I was a night owl and lie to myself. But my religion forces me into that structure. It forces me to segment my day, understand my prayer times and go by the sun. So they literally change every day slightly, but understanding where that is, and even just having to pray in accordance to the sun means I need to be awake when the sun’s up. And we have our first prayer before the sun’s up. I actually wake up at 4:00 AM every day. And this natural structure is something that I think anyone could benefit from. And it was one of the most beautiful things I found out about my religion is the invention of the modern light bulb from a historical perspective is disastrous where people sleep. It has changed the way we look at the world. And things really going back to the kind of, I think our nature, which is going along with the Sun and going to sleep at night, and these sort of things. My religion forces me to be in tune with that. And then that kind of structure forces me to also be structured at work. And I think I’m somebody who, if I don’t have structure, it’s like my mental health, everything just goes away. When I have that extreme structure, and the man I mean extreme, I wake up at 4:00 AM, I’m fasting 20 hours. I’m only eating in a four-hour window. If I don’t have that, I won’t be successful. I need it. And I think that roughness on yourself is good. You need that grit. You need to force yourself to get out of bed. ‘Cause it w what else am I going to do? Sleep till 8 o’clock? If I sleep until 8 o’clock the whole AE team has already beat me. Now I wake up before the people on the east coast. 

[01:01:17] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, there you go. That’s a great answer. I appreciate your sharing that with me. That’s very personal for us. So Alex, knowing what you know now, right, this in your young career, what advice would you have for yourself the night before you started at memoryBlue?

[01:01:35] Alex Rodriguez: I love that question. Be open to every opportunity, and be driven. I was going to be driven regardless, but I think my openness is what made me become an AE. If I would have been closed-minded like I’m only going to work for IGEL, I’m only going to do this, I would’ve never advanced to where I am today. I’m a firm believer that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. I have to put myself in the right situations. But I also need to grind and be successful in the time beam. That’s what I would tell myself, is put yourself in good positions by being good at what you do and being open to whatever’s going to come your way. I was open then AE rolling and I’m happy. 

[01:02:08] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. That’s good advice, man. 

[01:02:10] Marc Gonyea: That’s great, great advice. 

[01:02:12] Alex Rodriguez: That’s all I got. 

[01:02:12] Marc Gonyea: Great advice. Well, this was great Alex. We appreciate you being the first former SDR, who turned AE on the podcast. 

[01:02:21] Alex Rodriguez: I can’t tell you how much of a pleasure it is. 

[01:02:23] Chris Corcoran: Yeah, lots of wisdom. 

[01:02:25] Marc Gonyea: We’ll do another one with you. So we’ll track you down. Yeah, right?

[01:02:29] Chris Corcoran: Oh yeah, definitely. Very good. Thanks, Alex. Thank you.