Episode 94: Corey Root -Sales Is About Self-Reflection

Know yourself, and success will follow. Corey Root claims that no industry will teach you more about yourself than Sales. 

Now Strategic Planning Associate Manager at Tinuiti, Corey asserts that the core skills you develop in sales will put you a step ahead on any career path.  

In this episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers, Corey discusses the differences between sales and marketing, how to tell whether a job challenges you to meet your full potential or just isn’t the right fit, and how he landed a closing role.  

Guest-At-A-Glance

💡 Name: Corey Root

💡 What he does: He’s the Strategic Planning Associate Manager at Tinuiti.

💡 Company: Tinuiti

💡 Noteworthy: Corey is a former memoryBlue employee. He went from being a superstar SDR to now working in marketing. 

💡 Where to find Corey: LinkedIn

Key Insights

⚡ Working in sales can skyrocket your career. Sales can be a great place to start your career. It can teach you how to communicate better, sell more confidently, and be more resilient. Corey says, “One thing — it’s just like anyone coming out of sales, they’ve done the hardest part of the business. So, I think they probably see that aspect, but number two, there’s just such a communication aspect that you get from sales; being able to talk to people is critical, especially in client-facing roles. So I think it was probably part of that aspect.”

⚡ If you’re coming from sales, the switch to marketing is a little less daunting. Making a career switch sounds scary, but it’s a different story if you’re coming from a sales position. Working in sales can set you up for success and prepare you for any other job in business. Corey explains, “If you switch from sales to marketing — I don’t want to say I didn’t have any challenges doing it — but just how easy the job feels because anyone who’s done sales knows it’s the hardest aspect of business. And so it almost feels incredibly easy to be doing the job. Not to say that there are no challenges in any job, but you certainly don’t have that continuous pressure that drives sales.”

⚡Sales is about self-reflection. There’s no limit to what you can learn while working in sales, from communication and resilience to people skills and negotiation. But the most vital lessons in sales come from self-reflection. You get to learn a lot about yourself, understand your weaknesses, and play to your strengths. Corey explains, “You should stick with sales. If you come in the first two weeks and you really know it’s not for you, but you should take some time to reflect and ask yourself some questions about what it is you don’t like. […]  I think it just takes a lot of reflection and truly understanding what you want to do in life. And then, once you’ve come to that decision, it’s about understanding what you want to do next.”

Episode Highlights

You Never Know What to Expect in Door to Door Sales

“First of all, you’ll never do anything harder. You’re looking at almost 12-hour days by the time you get home between the office and out there. There’s nothing harder than walking for seven, eight hours banging on people’s doors, never knowing what to expect or the objections. The objections you’re going to get from a residential place are so different from a business place. You never know how people are going to act. And in a business, you cold call someone, 99% of the time they’ve got to, at least, be professional — maybe angry, but professional. You don’t know what you’re going to get out there.”

Sales and Marketing Are Very Intertwined

“I never wanted to go into sales. I never really thought about doing it. Given the experience that I have with door to door, I thought, ‘Let’s just try it.’ Sales and marketing are very intertwined. So even if I get there and say, ‘All right, I don’t want to be in this,’ I can learn something from it, and I can use that experience to go somewhere else, or I figure that it surprises me, and I don’t want to go, and stay in it. “

The Difference Between Being an SDR and an AE

“Another thing to take away from the differentiation between SDR and AE is that you’re only talking to one person as an SDR […] for the most part. I talk to you, set up a meeting, and I hand you off to my AE. In the sales process, maybe you’re talking to one main point of contact or two main points of contact, but you have to be thinking about 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 points of contact for just one sale, and if you have a pipeline of 10–15 deals, that’s how many people.”

If You Don’t Enjoy Your Job, Don’t Be Afraid to Change It

“I just didn’t enjoy most of the aspects of the job. I wasn’t feeling passionate about it. I knew it wasn’t what I was meant to do. You know that kind of ‘you wake up, and you’re enjoying what you’re doing.’ And I wanted that to be what I felt every day.”

Transcript: 

[00:00:00] Corey Root: I think it just takes a lot of reflection and truly understanding what you want to do in life. And then, you know, once you’ve come to that decision, right? And then, it’s about understanding what do you want to do next. 

[00:00:28] Marc Gonyea: This is going to be good. Corey Root in the house, Corcoran. 

[00:00:33] Chris Corcoran: VA up in MA. 

[00:00:35] Marc Gonyea: Corey, let’s dig into, how you doing, man?

[00:00:37] Corey Root: Good. It’s great to be back with you guys.

[00:00:39] Chris Corcoran: Swole. 

[00:00:40] Corey Root: Yeah. 

[00:00:43] Marc Gonyea: The first thing I said is our Corey, he’s got a T-shirt on, do you guys put up some muscle? 

[00:00:47] Corey Root: Yeah. I’m trying, I’m trying.

[00:00:49] Marc Gonyea: You look great, dude.

[00:00:52] Chris Corcoran: He left us a boy, he’s come back a man. 

[00:00:55] Marc Gonyea: He worked with us 2017 to December 2018, and he was probably 20, 20 pounds lighter.

[00:01:03] That’s great, dude. You got a good corporate night, whatever program you’re on.

[00:01:07] Corey Root: Hey, come lift with me. 

[00:01:11] Marc Gonyea: All right, let’s, Corey, let’s do this, man. So, you were down in Virginia, but you moved up to the Boston area.

[00:01:17] So, we’re fortunate to track you down. Great for staying in touch with us, responding when I ask you to do stuff like come on podcast. So but, this would be for Chris and I, but also for the audience. Just tell us a little bit about yourself. Like, you know, where are you from, growing up, we’ll talk a little bit about that modulating. 

[00:01:35] Corey Root: Yeah. So, I’m from a very small town in Pennsylvania, called Clearfield, probably like 4,000, 5,000 people, very small, 40 minutes outside of State College, to our name is that we have the world’s largest hamburger. 

[00:01:46] Marc Gonyea: All right. 

[00:01:47] Corey Root: So, go to Denny’s bureau pub, they’ll make you 145-pound burger, like, requires, like, 72 hours a notice.

[00:01:53] Marc Gonyea: Really?

[00:01:54] Corey Root: Yeah. That’s like, that’s the only thing I could tell people about my hometown.

[00:01:56] Chris Corcoran: It looks like you’ve been eating some of that. 

[00:01:59] Corey Root: Yeah. So, uh, lived there, played a lot of baseball. Yeah, brother, older brother’s six years older. He went to Pitt, same as me. He went for pharmacy. I went for a, for marketing and human resources.

[00:02:14] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. We’ll give that to you. You were an athlete. We played some good work; some kids play sports. What was your thing? 

[00:02:20] Corey Root: Yeah, I played baseball for all the way up from T-ball three or four to when I was 16, and my league ended. 

[00:02:27] Marc Gonyea: Okay. 

[00:02:28] Marc Gonyea: Got it. And what were you kinda like as a kid, personality-wise? 

[00:02:33] Corey Root: Probably like eccentric and

[00:02:34] Marc Gonyea: Okay.

[00:02:35] Corey Root: carefree, I suppose. Yeah. It’s not a lot to do in the hometown. So, pretty much just rode my bike every day, playing pickup baseball and…

[00:02:44] Marc Gonyea: Okay. 

[00:02:44] …other things. So, just having fun. 

[00:02:45] Marc Gonyea: Was it one of those things that you grew up with, “I can’t wait to leave and never coming back?”

[00:02:49] Corey Root: Oh, absolutely. 

[00:02:49] Yeah. There is a, there’s nothing to do in my hometown.

[00:02:54] It grows smaller every year and…

[00:02:56] Chris Corcoran: What do your folks do? Like why, why, why do they live where they live, where they do?

[00:02:59] Corey Root: They, uh, they grow up there. So, my, uh, my dad grew up in Clearfield, and my mom grew up in a town, you know, 20 minutes away. My dad’s worked, both my parents have actually worked in the same place since 18.

[00:03:12] Chris Corcoran: Wow. 

[00:03:12] Corey Root: My dad. Yeah, it’s crazy. My dad got a job at the Clearfield Area Hospital, when he was 18, in the kitchen, and, you know, now he works in, like, the warehouse supply chain aspect of it. And my mom got a job at the Department of Public Welfare when she was 18, and she’s worked there ever since. Wow. It’s crazy.

[00:03:29] It’s like the…

[00:03:30] Chris Corcoran: Unbelievable.

[00:03:30] Corey Root: …classic, like 1980s, like, “Get a job and stay there.” 

[00:03:35] Marc Gonyea: So, you’re in high school. You’re like, “Wow, I’m definitely going to move away.”

[00:03:38] Corey Root: Yeah, well, grow up.

[00:03:39] Marc Gonyea: What did you think you were going to do? We all have these kind of Harper, these notions where. 

[00:03:44] Corey Root: Yeah, so, I mean, I was back and forth for a long time, and I wasn’t, I wasn’t sure. When I went to college, I went undecided, but I was going to put, I was actually going to put creative writing as my major because I was always good at English.

[00:03:57] I always loved, I crushed books in the summer. I loved writing. I wanted to be a fiction writer, and then the sky, and college, this professor for projects this guy, in college, sat me down, and he did, like, one of those scare tactics. 

[00:04:08] Corey Root: It actually worked, though. He was like, “You’re going to be living in New York City, sharing on a small apartment with eight people, living off a waiter salary, barely making it

[00:04:18] and, like, you may never, you know, get anywhere.” And then, I was like, “All right.” Well, I really liked my, I’ve always wanted to be financially independent and do whatever I want.

[00:04:27] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[00:04:27] Corey Root: So, I was like, “All right, maybe this isn’t for me.”

[00:04:31] Corey Root: But 2013, I think. 

[00:04:34] Chris Corcoran: Your freshman year?

[00:04:35] Corey Root: Freshman year. Yeah. 

[00:04:36] Marc Gonyea: Freshman year. Okay. 

[00:04:36] Corey Root: Yeah. Yeah. So… 

[00:04:39] Marc Gonyea: It’s kind of a big school, isn’t it?

[00:04:40] Corey Root: Yeah. So, yeah, so, that was actually, so, I went to a branch campus for one year. 

[00:04:44] Marc Gonyea: Okay.

[00:04:44] Corey Root: To this day, I don’t understand how I didn’t get in. I, I, I don’t, uh, I graduated top 10 of my high school. I thought I had, you know, average SAT scores, not anything out of this world, but, you know, my brother got him with, you know, similar things, right?

[00:04:58] Corey Root: But I didn’t, I really didn’t apply to any other school. I applied to two other schools, and that was like three months after I applied to Pitt because I knew in my heart I wanted to go to Pitt. And I was just like, “I feel like I need some kind of backup plan.” So, I’ve gone to those other schools. I toured Robert Morris, which is outside of Pitt, and like it, right,

[00:05:13] it’s like, it’s basically like, it all, like the, the campus looks like, it looks like the countryside. Yeah. So, I got accepted at their branch campus, funny story. Right, my, my envelope comes, and it’s a small envelope, right? So, they always say, “If you have a small envelope, like get ready for rejection.”

[00:05:29] Right? I open it, and it says, “You were accepted.” And so, I rode it down. I started, like, celebrating with my parents, like, five minutes later, I pick it back up, and it goes, “To the University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown.” Like, “I didn’t apply to that. Why would he do that?” 

[00:05:44] It started off with, “You’ve been rejected to the main campus. You got to go here.” So, I was really disappointed I had to go there for a year. I didn’t really enjoy it. I just made sure I got the best grades possible, so I could transfer in a year. ‘Cause they always say it’s hard to do the transfer in one year. So, I did that. But, yeah, that, that conversation happened at the Johnstown campus.

[00:06:04] Chris Corcoran: And where’s Johnstown? 

[00:06:06] Corey Root: That’s also in central Pennsylvania. It’s probably about an hour and a half away from where I grew up. 

[00:06:11] Chris Corcoran: Okay. 

[00:06:11] Corey Root: Yeah. 

[00:06:13] Marc Gonyea: Why, why did you want to go to Pitt? 

[00:06:16] Corey Root: I don’t know. I mean, my brother went there and so, I think just Pitt, I always knew even from being a little kid, uh, that I wanted to live in the city.

[00:06:25] And it was the only city I ever really, like, went to many, many times, for pirates games and such. And then, you know, see my brother when he went there. And so, it was just kind of calling to me. A lot of people in my high school went to Penn State because it’s 40 minutes away. But, yeah, my dad hated Joe Paterno growing up.

[00:06:40] Corey Root: He hated that state football. And so, I think that, like, latched on to me that I also hated just Penn State as a whole.

[00:06:46] Chris Corcoran: Did your dad, like, pick, or did he like…? 

[00:06:48] Corey Root: No, he likes the bread, he likes the most random sports. For Nebraska, I have no idea why. 

[00:06:54] Chris Corcoran: These are tough times for your dad. 

[00:06:56] Corey Root: Unfortunately.

[00:06:57] Marc Gonyea: Wow. Alright. So, I love it. All right. So, you did your year, was it the professor at Johnstown that told you, “Hey dude, you don’t want to be a writer.” Yeah? And then, you took that to heart. Yeah? 

[00:07:10] Corey Root: Right. Yeah, no, it did actually skip, you know, I don’t like the scare tactic that professors put on. Like, my brother, he got a scare tactic from a professor, when he was in pharmacy school.

[00:07:21] I think he had trouble when he initially got there, and the professor was like, “You’re not going to make it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” Right? Um, like, he did it, you know, like, you know, like, I feel like they’re there to, like, you know, like, give people a little encouragement. Right? But, I mean, I’m kind of glad he did it, right. ‘Cause I might be living in a New York City apartment with eight different people. 

[00:07:40] Marc Gonyea: That would not be that bad.

[00:07:41] Corey Root: Yeah.

[00:07:41] Marc Gonyea: So, all right, so, you have changed your major. 

[00:07:46] Corey Root: Yeah. Yeah. So, I thought, I thought, you know, where else can I use, like, create, where can I use creativity that I would put into, into writing, right? Um, and so, I thought the marketing, you know, might be a good aspect of it.

[00:08:00] It’s, I think, I think part of it was that I saw this random show on CBS back in the day. It was, like, a one-season show with Robin Williams. I cannot remember the name of it, but, uh, he was an advertising agency executive, and he just made it, made it seem fun. Right? So, I thought, so, I looked into marketing, and I thought like, “Maybe, like, this is, maybe, where I could use creativity skills.” Right?

[00:08:21] Corey Root: And a business degree is very practical. Right? So, um, you know, I, I, I changed it to that. 

[00:08:27] Marc Gonyea: In, in what, when you were in college, it looks like you were working, right? You stayed at, right, Professional Business Fraternity. Did you, like, I’m going to, just tell some of those other experiences, you’ve  had an interesting sales job?

[00:08:41] Corey Root: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so, this is fraternity, it was probably the best thing I ever did. Right? I met a lot of great people, a lot of networking opportunities there, a lot of good times. Um, the abroad, well, I should say that’s the best thing I ever did, right, because those were probably the best three months, four months of my life.

[00:08:56] Yeah. So, I went abroad in Sydney, Australia, second semester of junior year, just an incredible time. I mean, if anyone has the chance to go abroad, they should absolutely go abroad. You learn so much seeing other cultures and talking to people and all that. 

[00:09:10] Corey Root: And, you know, the, the great thing was is that the program I did with Pitt, they guarantee, if you walked into it they’d guarantee you an internship, over there.

[00:09:19] So, I got to work for this awesome company it’s called TEG. Yeah, it’s called TEG. And so, they basically, the live nation of Australia, right, they’re the biggest one over there, and they compete with live nation over there, right. So, I got free tickets to, and their suite, too, like, Kevin Hart, to Kendrick Lamar.

[00:09:36] I got free tickets to a rugby game. It was an awesome, awesome experience. It was an HR internship, which I really didn’t want, necessarily. But, um, you know, I was a major, I think they probably gave me an HR internship because there’s not, the and the HR program wasn’t very big at Pitt. So, there were probably a lot of marketing majors that went there, and they gave all those ones marketing internships. But,

[00:09:55] I’m extremely happy with where they put me because of all those experiences I had, and my boss was awesome. 

[00:10:01] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. And then, did that change your perspective, at all? What you wanted to do?

[00:10:05] Corey Root: No.

[00:10:06] Marc Gonyea: Probably not. 

[00:10:07] Corey Root: No. Yeah, no. 

[00:10:07] I, I think, yeah, yeah. I, I, the only reason I added HR on is concentration was for the recruiting, recruiting aspect, I thought maybe there’d be a day I’d want to go into recruiting.

[00:10:18] So, that’s why I initially added on. But, yeah, seeing that side of HR, I, you know, I think I, probably steered me more towards marketing. 

[00:10:27] Marc Gonyea: What classes did you enjoy at Pitt? Like, do they have, you studied marketing? They’re like the sales so the students, you know, you wanted sales. Did, did any of those classes push you towards, what kind of pushed you towards a sales, sales, door-to-door job?

[00:10:45] Corey Root: No. So, so, I mean, I, if I look back, my favorite class was consumer behavior and marketing, right. It really went into, like, the psychology and marketing. So, that was probably my favorite class. I did have an intro to sales class, but it was so easy. It was a guy that was running for a House of Bread, and he owned it.

[00:11:02] Corey Root: So, he only had, like, one class a week, and he was, he was a notably, like, an easy professor, uh, very real with you, which I appreciate, but a very easy professor, nonetheless. So, that was my only experience in sales at that point. I never wanted to go into sales. I didn’t think my personality was right for it, I’m pretty introverted.

[00:11:20] The only reason I got into the sales internship I did, after junior year, was, probably didn’t apply for as many as I should have in Australia because I was having the time of my life, and I came back, and that one was, you know, when I interviewed for this place, and I didn’t know what, at the time I was probably some naive, naivety there that, that there are, like, still some multi-level marketing, like ish, companies out there.

[00:11:45] And so, that’s kind of what this is, yeah, this big company called, I didn’t know this at the time, there was a big company called Cydcor, and they tracked out all of these companies, right, with, with bigger companies. So, I’ve, I sell Verizon Fios, right? But we weren’t Verizon Fios, right? Mine was called Opus Business Consulting.

[00:12:02] Corey Root: Right. Cydcor also does, like, things like energy and stuff. Right. So, that’s where I worked, but they wouldn’t tell me, like, what the job was. I was very confused leaving there, like, “What is this job?” But I needed an internship, and I didn’t really know these things existed out there. And I just thought, like,

[00:12:17] “All right. Like, let’s, let’s go for it.” Right. So, I kind of showed up not really even knowing what I was going to do, with this job. So, but, yeah, it was a door-to-door sales internship, selling Verizon Fios, internet home, internet, TV, and phone. And so,… 

[00:12:32] Chris Corcoran: You’re knocking on doors?

[00:12:33] Corey Root: Yeah, knocking on doors and businesses or 

[00:12:37] Chris Corcoran: Wow. This is the real deal. 

[00:12:38] Corey Root: Yeah. So, yeah, so, I think, I think my first day was just going, so, it was a Tuft summer.

[00:12:45] Chris Corcoran: Pittsburgh? 

[00:12:46] Corey Root: Yeah, the Tuft’s summer it’s, so, it’s six days a week, right, Monday through Saturday, get in the office about 10, 10:30 AM. So, it starts a little late, but you don’t get home until about 10, right?

[00:12:56] ‘Cause you’re on the field till 8, 8:30, whenever it’s getting dark in the summer. And then, you come back to the office, right? Circle around, like, a gong and, like, chant and scream and then go home. So… 

[00:13:08] Chris Corcoran: Shit. Yes. 

[00:13:09] Corey Root: So, my first day, that’s when I learned, like, oh man, like, there were a lot of chance. Right. And then, you learn, like, how kind of weird that the culture is because my buddy took a job with the, with another company,  you know, consulting, in Seattle college, which we talked about, later in life.

[00:13:25] Right. And his was, like, in gap or some kind of energy company. Right. And so, even though it was completely different, they did the same chants and everything. It’s almost like,…

[00:13:33] Marc Gonyea: Oh, really? It’s like a weird.

[00:13:34] Corey Root: Yeah. So, I, you know,… 

[00:13:36] Marc Gonyea: not really the chants. 

[00:13:37] Corey Root: Yeah. Oh, yeah. We’d get around a circle, we do, like, chants before we came out, before we went out for the day.

[00:13:43] Yeah. So, that was my, that was my first day I met, I think I got a half-day that day. I just came in paperwork, chant, and then leave. So, second day, the second day it was my first day going out, went out with my mentor, who was awesome in the field. And I’m not making this story up. Knocked on a couple of houses,

[00:14:01] didn’t answer. First house we knock on, right. Lady answers. She’s dealing with a couple of kids, right. They’re screaming, they’re yelling, whatever. And he’s pitching her, “Blah, blah, blah.” And, like, two, three minutes into it, this kid comes out into the hallway behind her, just pukes everywhere. And I’m like, “What did I get myself into?”

[00:14:19] And he goes on the pitcher. Like, he’s just hit, like, 

[00:14:23] that’s the thing, he’s, he’s so good. He’s like, you know, I would have just left, right, after that. He is so, he was so aggressive, you know, so those jobs, so aggressive, like he just let it happen, you know, like this lady was cleaning it up, right? She shut the door, came back out, and he’s just still going at it.

[00:14:41] And I was just like, if you’d have seen what I saw, you know, especially being the first door that someone answered, I was just thinking like, “What did I get myself into?” 

[00:14:50] Marc Gonyea: You learn a lot doing that.

[00:14:52] Corey Root: Oh, yeah.

[00:14:52] Marc Gonyea: That’s right. Yeah. It’s like that for the whole summer. 

[00:14:57] Corey Root: Yeah. Yeah. I stuck with it. I, I did it for 13 weeks.

[00:15:00] Marc Gonyea: And why did you stick with it, besides if I, you probably had to? 

[00:15:03] Chris Corcoran: Probably, people probably quit it. Right? 

[00:15:05] Corey Root: So, yeah. It’s like a, it’s a very rotating world there. I, for me, it’s just, usually, like, when I say I’m going to do something, I’ll do it. Right. I want to stick to it, even if it’s really hard. I mean, what was my, my, there was really no other option.

[00:15:17] Right. If I left that internship, I wasn’t gonna get another internship, so it all feel. And so, I’d just be working, you know, I’d have to stay, I was going to stay in Pittsburgh. Like, they saw, I was either, I was just going to have to get like a normal job, like, at Starbucks or whatever. 

[00:15:30] Right. So, you know, I knew that this would give me better experience, learned something from it.

[00:15:35] And I like to just stick to something I say I’m going to do, especially because it’s not like I went there full-time, right. I knew there was an end to it. Yeah. So. Yeah, no, it went well. I mean, to a degree, right? I got promoted very quickly. I think, like, my first two or three weeks, right, to, like, I think it’s keenly that they call it. Then, you know, they, they train, like, the entry-level people, team lead and team lead can take people out and mentor them and et cetera. So…

[00:16:04] Chris Corcoran: Different chance.

[00:16:06] Corey Root: Oh yeah, there are, there are many different chants. Sometimes they’ll have, they will bring people in, people will fly in, like the top people on the multilevel marketing that have, like, been there awhile. And the way it works, right, is so, if you, you know, open, you know, what you want to do is open an office and then you want other people to go open up other offices in other cities, and then you get money from those offices

[00:16:27] and if those people, you know, get people to open offices, you also get money from those offices. Right. So, you’d have some of these people that were, like, really wealthy through this company come in and just, like, give you a chance. 

[00:16:38] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Yeah.  

[00:16:39] Corey Root: And, uh, you know, another, uh, we got chased by the cops, you know, a couple of times summer because the, the guy that owned the business refused to get solicitation permits.

[00:16:49] And so, if you went to a really wealthy area, sometimes you get the cops going on you. And I remember there was this one time,  an area got really angry with him, we, me and myself had just gotten stopped by the cops that day. And I think some other ones, as well. And I think, now some official had called them

[00:17:04] and so, he said, you know, “We’re going to stay away from that place. ‘Cause they were really angry.” But, I go back out into the field the next day, and I was mentoring a new guy that just started, and someone else was driving me out there, and he refused not to go somewhere else. He was like, “No, I got so many follow-ups to do out here.”

[00:17:19] So, he’s driving me there. I don’t have any control. So, I was like, “All right, fine.” So, I’d taken this new guy out to mentor them, and I’m scared, I’m scared that we’re going to get stopped by the cops and I’m gonna have to pay a fine, I don’t not want to pay a fine, right. It was not a salary position, position.

[00:17:34] It was all commission-based. And so, taking this neighborhood, it was like a little, like, off the road. And you could tell this community, we knocked on this door, and we didn’t get the sale. And this lady gave me a look, and I don’t know if I was being paranoid, but I, like, ran away. And I called, I called the guy that owned the business, and I told him, like, what was happening

[00:17:51] and he was like, “Well, I told you not to go there. So, if you get stopped, you’re paying a fine.” So, I made this kid sprint. Like, we sprinted down the road, and I just thought like, “Oh man, this poor guy, he just started, but I’m not paying this fine.” So, we, like, hid behind some, like, trees. Well, my guy came and picked us up, but it was a….

[00:18:11] Marc Gonyea: Corey, I know we’re joking about it. One from the wall. 

[00:18:14] You’re learning a lot. Yeah. No, absolutely, that job, you learn a ton going door to door. 

[00:18:20] Corey Root: Absolutely. I know these houses. I mean, when, when people would answer, I can’t even, it’s weird to think about nowadays how, you know, I, most of the time I was out there alone, when someone would answer, I would do a joke.

[00:18:31] That was my, always my, my opener. I had an arsenal of jokes, just can’t even, I can’t envision myself doing that. Like, it was such an odd, out of place summer that I can’t imagine knocking on the door, someone answers and I just go into, like, these jokes. 

[00:18:45] Marc Gonyea: You just say, “Hi, my name is Corey, I got a joke for you.”

[00:18:47] Corey Root: Oh yeah. 

[00:18:47] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:18:48] Yeah. Get them laughing and then, like, go into. 

[00:18:53] Marc Gonyea: I knew you had that job. I didn’t know those stories. That’s crazy. All right, kidding aside, though. What did you learn doing that? 

[00:19:01] Corey Root: Oh, yeah. I think, first of all, you’ll never do anything harder, you know. You’re looking at almost 12 hour days, by the time you get home,

[00:19:09] between the office and out there, you know, there’s nothing harder than walking for seven, eight hours banging on people’s doors, never knowing what to expect or, like, the objections, I mean, the objections you’re going to get from a residential place are so much different than a business place.

[00:19:22] Corey Root: Right. You never know how people are going to act and a business, right, you cold call someone, like, 99% of the time they got to be at least professional. Right. Maybe I agree, but professional, you don’t know what you’re going to get out there. Right. So, I think, number two, right, it’s just like expect the unexpected, right?

[00:19:36] Kind of keeps you on your toes. So, I think, you know, starting here, at memoryBlue, having that experience, you know, it felt, I guess a little easier maybe to call people on the phone, like it wasn’t right there. And, you know, you having that experience and knowing that like, they’ll at least not be, you know, they’ll at least be professional.

[00:19:55] Right. Uh, you know, so, I think that really helped, right. It was just, like, one, the grit, right, the hard work, like, knowing that I’d never do anything harder than that. And two, just kind of expecting the unexpected, staying on your toes, that kind of thing, and always being able to pivot. It’s a lot easier to pivot on film, maybe have, like, some notes there or whatever, then, like, someone right there in your face and go like, “Figure it out on the spot.” 

[00:20:18] Marc Gonyea: You got to sprint down the street and get behind trees. Like. 

[00:20:24] Chris Corcoran: The wall from the law. 

[00:20:28] Marc Gonyea: I love the guy, the kid throwing up. I’ve been there with my kids thrown up in the foyer or whatever.

[00:20:35] All right. So, that was the summer before your senior year? 

[00:20:38] Chris Corcoran: Did you make any money? 

[00:20:39] Corey Root: Yeah, I did. I want to say I made 4,500 or something. 

[00:20:43] Marc Gonyea: That’s, that’s pretty good. 

[00:20:47] Chris Corcoran: Going to Starbucks. 

[00:20:48] Corey Root: Yeah, no, absolutely. The only depressing thing was is if you added up the hours that I worked and, like, divided by the wage, it was incredibly low just because it was a, you know, I mean, half, half of the day, you’re not even, I guess, three, four hours.

[00:21:02] Corey Root: Yeah. You’re chanting. Exactly. Can’t get paid while you’re chanting, but. 

[00:21:06] Marc Gonyea: Dude, that says a great experience because you said during, you’re more introverted. 

[00:21:12] Corey Root: Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, no, it absolutely pushed me out of my comfort zone. I, to this day, I just don’t know how I did it, you know, especially out there alone, by myself.

[00:21:21] I mean, it’s certainly easier to, to, to be out there with a buddy and doing it that way, but, to do it out and alone, but yeah, I guess I just.

[00:21:29] Marc Gonyea: Wasn’t that a long ago?

[00:21:30] Corey Root: No. Yeah. It just pushed me to be, you know, more social than I am. I mean, I can remember I got into conversations with people, you know, I, you know, it wasn’t necessarily bad all the time.

[00:21:42] I mean, I just became someone else that became a little bit more social and figured out ways to kind of get people to open up. 

[00:21:50] Chris Corcoran: Unbelievable. 

[00:21:51] So, you’re knocking on doors for five, seven fires. What did, what did your older brother and your parents think about this whole thing? Where they like, ” This is a money pyramid.”

[00:22:02] Corey Root: No, I don’t think so. Yeah, I don’t, I, I don’t think so. I was, I don’t really remember talking about it with my parents, to be honest. I mean, I know I came home when I initially interviewed and told them I don’t even know what I’m going to do. And they couldn’t understand that I didn’t know what I was doing.

[00:22:17] And I don’t think I understood it either, you know, but I was like, “Whatever, I’m going to go do this thing.” And I’m sure I, you know, I’m sure I complained to my mom and dad a few times throughout the summer, talking to them. But, I don’t think that they had, like, any objections to me doing what I was doing.

[00:22:32] Marc Gonyea: That’s cool. 

[00:22:32] Chris Corcoran: That’s great. 

[00:22:33] Marc Gonyea: That was a great experience. They might’ve talked them out of it and some stupid, right. So, it’s good they didn’t know, you know.

[00:22:39] All right. So, you come back to school, do your senior year you’re in this business fraternity. I was in business fraternity. They’re all accountants and MIT or VIT guys, like, business, business

[00:22:51] and I don’t know, but yeah, IT, technology, 

[00:22:54] information technology, embrace technology. 

[00:22:55] I don’t know what the internet meant. Obviously, no one, no one would have the sales. This turnout was in like, what was it people doing who were coming out of Pitt who, when your business attorney? 

[00:23:08] Corey Root: There were a lot of finance and accounting guys, but I think we had plenty of marketing people, as well.

[00:23:12] And then, I guess there were some few, few supply chain people too. 

[00:23:14] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:23:15] Marc Gonyea: What’d you think you were going to do when you graduated? 

[00:23:19] Corey Root: I, I mean, to be honest, I didn’t have a good idea. I mean, it’s not that I didn’t think about it. I thought about it all the time. Right. I mean, I still think about it to this day, right?

[00:23:27] Like, what are you truly passionate about, like, what do you really want to do? So, it’s not that I didn’t, I mean, I went to every networking event that you could think of. Right. But a lot of the companies that Pitt brings in, or, you know, any University in the, you know, the bigger partners, right.

[00:23:41] They’re all large companies. And I knew I didn’t want to work for a large company, like for Pitt, I think like the gold partners for like UPMC, which medical program there, Bodie, Heinz, Dick’s Sporting Goods was a big one target. I didn’t want to work for any of those, like, large companies. So, I was very confused on what I wanted to do.

[00:23:59] You know, I, for whatever reason, technology did call to me and I had never been in technology, but I thought like, just kinda like thinking about the future and all that kind of stuff was very fascinating to me. And the only technology company I knew was HubSpot. Because, you know, I’ve read some of their blogs, they’re out marketing, right,

[00:24:14] Corey Root: obviously, pop up when you research some things. And so, I did an interview there. I didn’t ultimately get the job. And that was the only one I thought of. And then, doing research from HubSpot kind of led me to, like, more technology companies, but the problem was, right, you can’t really go straight out of college to a tech, tech company for marketing.

[00:24:30] Right? A lot of, if you look at marketing, right, one of the best ways to start is to go to an agency because most of the brand side requires X amount of experience here. She was like three to five experiences, at least. Right. So, I think I started looking at some agencies, but I don’t think I was getting as many calls as I’d like.

[00:24:47] And then, you know, I knew that the sales thing would be great to sell. So, I started looking at SDR roles and in a lot of tech, right, obviously, a lot of tech companies, right. As Darnell’s entry level, no experience needed. So, I got a lot of callbacks from those. So, I just figured, you know, I never wanted to go into sales.

[00:25:04] I never really thought about doing it. But, you know, and even given the experience that I have with door to door, I thought, “Well, you know, just like that, let’s just try it.” Right. We’re going to learn on the promise, sales and marketing are very intertwined. Right. So, even if I get there and say, “All right, I don’t want to be in this.”

[00:25:19] Corey Root: Right. I can learn something from it, and I can use that experience to go somewhere else or, you know, I figure, you know, it surprises me. I don’t want to go and stay in it. 

[00:25:27] Marc Gonyea: And then, alright, so, you gave it a shot. How did you find out about us? 

[00:25:31] Corey Root: I think it was just, I think it was, just an indeed ad, and I don’t think on the, if I can remember correctly, I think I thought you guys were similar to my multi-level marketing because in the indeed ad.

[00:25:44] Right. I think because you guys work with multiple clients, right. You didn’t really say what you did, was just like, you know, you know, it’s not like a brand that would be like, you know, “Our company helps with IT, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” Right. And I was like, “Okay, that’s a solid thing.” Right. It was, you know, “We work with a bunch of clients.”

[00:25:59] Right. My other place would’ve, would’ve said the same. We work with great enterprise clients. But I applied and, you know, I, through the interview process, I learned, like, “All right, this isn’t, like, you know, theme.” But, yeah, I think it was just an ad, I think it was just an indeed, listening. 

[00:26:16] Marc Gonyea: Did you know what you’re going to do in the role?

[00:26:18] Because most people take a job. They still kind of don’t completely understand the SDR role. Did you have an idea about it? 

[00:26:24] Corey Root: Yeah, I think, yeah. No, I, I’m pretty sure I did. Yeah. ‘Cause I can remember asking some, like, detailed questions in the interview, just about the role. I think, you know, that that door-to-door sales position gave me, like, some knowledge of what I would be doing, at least.

[00:26:39] Chris Corcoran: So, when you applied, were you still in school or have you graduated from Pitt? 

[00:26:43] Corey Root: I graduated already. So, I think it was like June. So, it’d been like a month or two after I graduated. 

[00:26:48] Chris Corcoran: We paid, or you moved back to your hometown? 

[00:26:51] Corey Root: No, I was still at Pitt my least and then until. So, I just needed something before August.

[00:26:56] Marc Gonyea: And you moved down to DC. 

[00:26:59] Corey Root: Yeah, I was pretty much just opened to, to move and wherever, wherever the job would land. 

[00:27:04] So I was applying, no. 

[00:27:06] Corey Root: No, no. I’m very casual about moving. Right. I’ll move anywhere. I’m open to seeing different parts of the world. So, I just, I was applying, like, everywhere you could imagine.

[00:27:16] Marc Gonyea: And then, what was it like when you started? Like, what do you remember from 

[00:27:19] that? 

[00:27:21] Corey Root: Yeah. Well, I was, so, I was in Boone for, like, my first two weeks. Totally different aspects. It is, you know, anywhere else.

[00:27:29] Marc Gonyea: You were in Boone? 

[00:27:30] Corey Root: Yeah, just for, like, the first, I was like two weeks. I started on Jessie Matthew’s team.

[00:27:35] Marc Gonyea: Okay.

[00:27:37] Corey Root: And, yeah, so, that was my, so, it’s, it was a different, I think different experience over there than it would have been HQ, right now.  I didn’t call, I think from my, I think I know some people, right, get on the phone right away, just depending on the client. I didn’t call until six, I think it was six days into it just because the client needed to ramp up and such and such and such.

[00:27:57] But, Sam was my mentor, Sam Cardman, right. 

[00:28:00] Marc Gonyea: Oh, wow. 

[00:28:00] Corey Root: So, that was a fantastic experience. Getting to listen to him. I never would sit on the, I can’t remember what he called it, but the headsets, like, kind of, like, inter, interconnected so that we could both hear. 

[00:28:12] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:28:13] Corey Root: He had a weird name for it, but it was really funny.

[00:28:15] He was a great guy to learn from. 

[00:28:20] Corey Root: You know, I mean his personality on the phone is great. So, it was great to see that kind of aspect. He’s, he’s very, that, that rapport tape-based guy because he’s just got such a great kind of social activity. 

[00:28:34] Marc Gonyea: Do you remember your first client? 

[00:28:37] Corey Root: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:28:41] Chris Corcoran: What was it like learning the job?

[00:28:44] Corey Root: Oh, no, it’s that crazy.

[00:28:46] Marc Gonyea: What was, so, what was like learning the job? So, you had really good experience. 

[00:28:50] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. We, we, we love to support people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you not? Yeah. I mean, that job is so hard and hard. Yeah. Yeah. Anybody can do that, they can do this.

[00:29:05] Marc Gonyea:  For the whole summer. 

[00:29:06] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. We’ll fit it outside towards the, or in the heat, taking the beatings. 

[00:29:13] Chris Corcoran: Yeah.

[00:29:15] Marc Gonyea: So, tell us about what is it like learning the SDR job? 

[00:29:19] Corey Root: Yeah, I mean, you know, I, I, I struggled for quite a bit, out of the gate, you know. So, I remember being, you know, naive in that, you know, you get in, and like the, I remember getting on a call with them, and they were like, “Oh, we have no competitors.” Right.

[00:29:33] “Oh, first in the space doing this and that, whatever.” Right. And then, you get on and, you know, there’s, it’s, it’s crazy. Right. I mean, you guys know how crazy the MarTech space is. I mean, that is packed as, as any space. Right. So, you know, it was, it was, it was a change from the door to door, certainly difficult.

[00:29:50] Right. Definitely got more people to answer doors than I ever did getting people to pick up the phone. And so, I think that was a change for me. Right. Like, I’m sure if you compare my door numbers to my phone calling numbers, right, I mean the connection rate and just how many doors I had to, to hit, to make a sell versus how many dials I had to make to get a meeting book where we’re crazy.

[00:30:13] Chris Corcoran: Did you dig into your bag of jokes?

[00:30:17] Corey Root: No, I didn’t. 

[00:30:21] Chris Corcoran: Did that thought ever cross your mind? 

[00:30:24] Corey Root: Not that I remember. I think I was like very eager to learn this industry and what you guys were pitching, right, versus whatever I had learned there. And I knew, right, that’s obvious. I, you know, I knew it was a different environment, right,

[00:30:37] commercial or residential versus, versus business. I, I don’t think I wanted to attempt that. No, I wanted them to remain professional and, and do what you guys said. I mean, in the script. I should’ve, I, maybe I should’ve, I don’t know, but I feel like that would have resulted in a lot of hang-ups. 

[00:30:53] Chris Corcoran: And did you ever suggest to Jesse, your manager, or Sam, your mentor, “Guys, we should do some chants.”

[00:31:03] Corey Root: No, I, I, no, I, uh, I didn’t bring any of the chants, and  I should’ve, I absolutely should’ve. Some of those chants, at the time, still haunted me. But, nowadays, that’d be fun to reminisce and get them back, and I’m going, yeah, it was a little too soon. 

[00:31:20] Marc Gonyea: Alright. So, what did you get good? You, you, you qualify presidents club, you have some good months at the company, for sure, dude. Like, what did you get good at, in the role? 

[00:31:33] Corey Root: Yeah. Well, I think, you know, I think one thing that’s not totally aligned with the sales aspect of it is that even though I struggled for a long time on separate, hello, just grueling time hitting quota on that company.

[00:31:46] Right. And I know that simple reach, you know, after I kind of, no, after, you know, 6, 7, 8 months, nine months, whatever, the, the, the point of contact there, Matt and me became, you know, much more strategic partners. And so, it kinda, he gave me, you know, he let me sit in some insights that they were struggling, as well.

[00:32:01] Corey Root: They only had one SDR internally, he only emailed. Right. So, I knew it was taught out there for them. I knew it was tough in there for me. I didn’t know that for the first, you know, eight, nine months, I just figured out that they’re crushing it and, you know, I’m, I’m struggling. Not, 

[00:32:14] Corey Root: but, you know, I think something that, that people don’t think about coming here, right, is that if you are struggling, it’s not just about quota.

[00:32:22] I mean, you absolutely keep that in top of your mind, but you can be valuable to the, the, the points of contact in other ways. Right. You’re a strategic partner, right. And you’re, you’re frontline, right? You hear all kinds of incredible insights, right? Why people don’t want it or do want it or what they’re thinking about, what’s in the industry.

[00:32:40] Right. Um, and I think that’s just incredibly valuable for a series A startup. Right. They don’t get to hear those things. You know, they’re guessing the market research, whatever. Right. So, I think that there’s just so much more that you can deliver them, even if you are struggling on a quota aspect, to help them out. 

[00:32:56] Marc Gonyea: Ton more.

[00:32:56] Corey Root: Yeah. 

[00:32:56] Marc Gonyea: There’s a ton more. 

[00:32:58] Marc Gonyea: And what, who else, do you remember any of the crew you were working with on Jesse’s team? ‘Cause Jesse wasn’t an SDR, in that role for too long. And we moved offices. Yeah. W, w, whose team did you move to? Paul? Andrew Connors. Okay. Who, who, who was, who were the memorable SDRs?

[00:33:17] Corey Root: Oh yeah. So, the, yeah, Ross, uh. Oh, yeah, Ross Barden, sat next to the Ross. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s, I think he started the month before I did.

[00:33:28] Chris Corcoran: The big dog. How was his game?

[00:33:31] Corey Root: He was much more aggressive than I was at all, a buyer that, you know, I, I, always wanted to have that aggression of, I was self-aware about anything, I knew that one thing I was lacking in sales, but that I was not aggressive enough. So, him overturning it, like, he would just, he would go after people with objections, over and over and over again, you know, like, 

[00:33:51] you know, a lot of times you wouldn’t follow, you know, like the three-year-old, right. Like if he can’t get it over in three times, he would just keep going.

[00:33:57] And so, I always remembered, I had always wanted to have, you know, some of that in my arsenal. You know, other SDRs, you know, Matt Bernfeld, absolutely fantastic, right on the phone, crushed it says. You know, Dom, sat next to me, I already met, I already mentioned Sam Warren, you know, after, you know, eight, nine months being there, he sat right next to me.

[00:34:19] Corey Root: He was great on the phone. I don’t know, it sounded so, like, professional. Like, they’re, like, calm and, like, woke up, you know, ex, like an expert in his industry when you call people. Yeah. Richard Gray. 

[00:34:32] Chris Corcoran: Hey Richard, if you’re listening, what’s your favorite beer? Cold.

[00:34:39] Marc Gonyea: That’s what he would say.

[00:34:43] Chris Corcoran: Oh, what’s a character.

[00:34:49] Corey Root: Yeah. So, I had a lot of, I had a lot of great people to sit around and learn a lot of things, so. 

[00:34:54] Marc Gonyea: You stick with things, right?

[00:34:58] Corey Root: Yeah. 

[00:34:58] Marc Gonyea: People get into that funk. It’s a hard job. Yeah. You ever think about baling? 

[00:35:06] Corey Root: Not that I can remember. I mean, it’s not that I wasn’t, I was certainly frustrated for a long point of time.

[00:35:11] You know, when I say it couldn’t hit, I did not, I don’t think, I think it took me nine months to hit quota on storage.  And this not for lack of back, I mean, I, you know, one of the things I knew coming in as I would have to put in the effort, right. I stayed late so many nights, you know, 6:30, 7:30, whatever it took.

[00:35:29] Corey Root: Right. I mean, back in the day, Chris would walk and then the old office he would walk around. So, I remember seeing that a lot. Right. So, that’s not how I knew I was late. You know, I came in Saturday, you know, a few times throughout it, depending on how bad I was struggling, at the time, I think it’s just sticking with it,

[00:35:46] you know, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s tough. Right. And I think the only thing you can control at that time is your effort. Right? I mean, I jumped up to 125 dials at one point just to, right, get twenty-five extra dials. And then right. And maybe that’s one more connect, maybe that connect is a meeting. I think that, like seven or eight months I did ask Jesse,

[00:36:07] Corey Root: you know, I’ve gotten to a point where I was like, “I, I want to know, you know, not, not in any aspect to, you know, put blame on, on the industry. I was calling it, but I just want to know, like, if I went on another client and call, would I, would I face this, you know, the similar struggles or would it be different?

[00:36:24] And can I learn from that and bring it back to another client?” Right. But I did ask the, I think I had asked to call on Tiger Analytics, like eight months into it. I don’t think it actually happened. I think they, they came back to me with something else and then I still got it on, on. Okay. But I was just kind of looking like, you know, “Am I going to face a similar challenges over there?

[00:36:43] And if I do well, you know, what am I doing wrong or is it going to be different in this industry? And what can I learn from that to bring back to the, this industry?” I think that’s what I was looking for. And maybe just to gain like a little confidence, right, book a few more meetings and gain some confidence.

[00:36:57] I think eight, nine months into it, we really got into role, you know, I became a very strategic partner with, with them, right. They, you know, they brought me in, they almost, I mean, they brought me more into their team, right. So, I sat on team meetings with the VP of Ops and their, their account executives.

[00:37:13] Right. He got me onto their Salesforce, right. I was uploading, you know, email campaigns and their Salesforce, Salesforce. They put me on their Slack. So, me and Matt. Very strategically together, just to, like, find out how we solve the challenge of calling in to this space because, you know, looking back I’ve called on, you know, that was MarTech.

[00:37:33] And I called on three other clients at memoryBlue. And then, I went on to two other sales jobs. That was the hardest I’ve ever called into. I had never got any more hang-ups than calling into, into marketing, like immediate hangups. And I, I don’t think I ever had a lower connection rate than what I call it in the marketing.

[00:37:47] You know, in Fortune 1000 companies, anyone bigger than a billion in revenue. I think it was partly just the connection aspect, right? Just the connection, right. So, you just really had to pump up those dials and help you got one or two more connections. 

[00:38:03] Marc Gonyea: I remember watching the RD and Scott was working really open.

[00:38:06] He’s going to be successful because you put all that effort in, and these companies they’re trying to figure it out too. Yes. It’s obvious for you. You were right in the thick of it with them, right? It’s like day to day or, are they going to survive or not, right, as a business. They could have gotten so many more committed to their cause of you.

[00:38:24] Corey Root: Yeah.

[00:38:25] Chris Corcoran: Right. 

[00:38:27] Marc Gonyea: You’re right in it. So, as you’re doing this, what do you go to Costa 

[00:38:32] Chris Corcoran: Rica? 

[00:38:33] Corey Root: No. Because I don’t know if you remember. I thought I’d be out. I thought it’d be a way oh, never blew by that time. 

[00:39:41] Corey Root: So, it took me, what, it took me, I think, three or four months to get a job because I was really analyzing everyone.

[00:39:47] I was, I was interviewing with maybe even more. I can’t remember. 

[00:39:50] Marc Gonyea: Let’s talk about that search because you were, you were, I remember being involved in that. Yes. Let’s talk about it. So, you said, “Okay, I’m going to keep doing this.” Yeah. And you were very deliberate probably because your experience on simple reach, right?

[00:40:04] How difficult it was, you were very scientific about it you’re deliberate about your approach? Where do you want to go next? 

[00:40:12] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, this is, start about that. 

[00:40:13] Corey Root: Yeah. So, well, I think one thing, right, is that because I had spent 15 months in memoryBlue, right, I didn’t want an entry level salary. Right. My one, an entry-level salary.

[00:40:24] I would have went somewhere else after college, but I felt like I had really great experience in comparison to someone just coming out of college. So, for a better, better LTE, LTE, better base. Right. And everyone in Boston was pitching me, you know, 40, 45K for a base. And, like, 65 LTE. And I wanted something a little bit higher than that.

[00:40:43] So, I think that was, that was number one, but also, right, I was just, you know, I wanted that’s cultural fit and along with it. So, you know, I, I interviewed, I, I don’t, I don’t remember how many companies I interviewed with, you know, maybe 10, maybe more, you know, if we’re counting first round interviews and such, but quite a number.

[00:41:06] And then, I got, I went to Appcues at Boston. That was the one I initially chosen. Or that was the one I, I, I picked to go to, and they had reached out to me on LinkedIn. 

[00:41:14] Marc Gonyea: Okay. Real quick. We might have, how much did you look at the tech? You do see those obviously comp was important. Yeah. I mean, certainly, in June, was curious about what type of technology after kind of your experience working in a company that was struggling to fix?

[00:41:29] Corey Root: Yeah, I think I was, initially, I wouldn’t have wanted to go somewhere where I was completely turned off by the tech. But I think after I started struggling a little bit with the salary, finding a place, I was a little bit more open to it. I remember one of the first places I interviewed at, was building them and they’re like a property technology.

[00:41:47] And I, I, I found that technology really interesting. So, I think I started there. And then, after struggling a little bit, I was a little bit more open to it, to where I would go. But, uh, you know, Appcues reached out to me on LinkedIn and then another company, I think it was just the job posting.

[00:42:04] So, I was doing two at the time, these were my, like, two final ones. And the other one was called Acrolinx, and they were out in Burlington. And I can remember, so, I went out there, I flew out there, the, the Acrolinx one, paid for me to fly out there. So, I went out there and interviewed with them both, in the same day.

[00:42:24] Corey Root: And came back pretty sure knowing what one I’d want. And then, the Acrolinx one got back to me with 10K higher offer, right. Like all, you know, I didn’t discuss it with them. Right. Just all of a sudden the base was not 60, but 70 K and I had been getting pitched, you know, 40, 43 all the time. So, that was a huge dump and 90 KOT, which is like the extreme I had heard thus far.

[00:42:46] Right. That it’s were big numbers to me. And it was out of nowhere. They didn’t mention it in the interview. And Appcues had gone, I don’t think they were going to give me any more than 50K, I think. Right. And so, I, I remember talking to Chris about it and see what I should do. And I can still remember this day, calling the hiring manager at Appcues.

[00:43:06] And Chris had told, I think he had told me, like, how, how to deliberate. And I gave like this Oscar award-winning side. I can remember the side of this day. Like, I, I, I think that was, like, the best call I’ve ever met. Yeah. Oh yeah. I said, “John.” And I gave like the sign and I said, “I’m in a really tough spot right now.”

[00:43:24] And I wasn’t lying I was at a tough spot. Because I liked the culture that, you know, when I went to Acura, is it, like the energy was there. And there were a series A startup, just post series A startup. I really wanted to go to a, a small startup and take the risk on, like, you know, hopefully taking a ride to, you know, series E, D, uh, et cetera.

[00:43:47] Right. And I just felt, like, there was an energy. I liked the people I met with more, when I went to the other office, there was no, I mean, Brenda was like 8:30 in the morning, there was no energy. The marketing, VP of Marketing interviewed what, was like so laid back and I was telling him about this job.

[00:44:01] And I remember, like, him just being, like, shocked that I call like a hundred people. Like, it was shocking to him. And I was like, “Maybe I don’t want that. You know, like, why aren’t you calling a hundred people?” 

[00:44:15] ‘Cause they were, they were a startup,but they were pivoting. And so, they were struggling.

[00:44:19] So, they were pivoting. It was like, it was kind of like a grand relief for, for enterprise businesses. And so, I don’t know, I just did, I felt like there wasn’t a good energy there. I felt like they didn’t have a good path. But the money was obviously there. So, so, you know, I was calling John, and I delivered that, and he was able to get me, you know, close to 54.

[00:44:39] Like, so, it was actually like three and a half and some, you know, I think there was like some guaranteed commission in there for, like, moving expenses. And he said, you know, “I guarantee I’m going to put you with my two best sales reps to mentor you.” And I felt like that was enough for me to get me to move up there.

[00:44:54] Marc Gonyea: Do you remember how Liberty was with the search?

[00:45:00] Chris Corcoran:  I will, I, for some reason I remember it very specific, at least initially it was, if I remember correctly, it was gotta be in Boston. Gotta be MarTech. Yeah. Right. Like, very specific.

[00:45:16] Corey Root: I think I was more, I think it was, I was thinking was MarTech, and I think property tech were my two things, but there’s not like a lot of property tech companies that building in one was just really interesting to me.

[00:45:27] Yeah. HubSpot is great. They don’t, they, they paid a very low salary, I think maybe because of, like, you know, the whole inbound approach and what have you. Because, yeah, I was still interested in checking that out again after I didn’t get the job initially, you know, post-college, but, yeah, yeah, the salary was incredibly low then.

[00:45:45] Marc Gonyea: And then, and then, so, you made the move up to Boston, right? Did a great, man. I mean, appreciate your hard work. Right. And for sure, it’s just his clients. And I always remember you finally try and find, find your day. So, I was impressed by that. And then, so, what was it like working at? 

[00:46:06] Corey Root: Yeah, it was, it was great.

[00:46:07] They have a spot, they have a spot right down, at the time, they had a spot rate down by teeny garden. And it was like, it just felt like, it felt like a startup. I always wanted to go to startup. ‘Cause I wanted to, like, feel that energy of, like, we’re doing something here and, like, maybe one day we, you know, go public, you know, like, that whole kind of like, right, right?

[00:46:27] And it just felt like that. You know, it was like in this, like, old building, floors were, you know, like up, you know, floors were unstable. Right. It was just, you know, it had that, that, yeah, that feeling about it. So, it was great from that aspect. Me and another guy were the first enterprise sales reps they brought on.

[00:46:43] Corey Root: So, I think it was really fun to, like, take my experience from memoryBlue and, and be, like, the first person and no one cold called there either they had two other SDRs that were on the like, SMB side of things. Right. And they only email, I think, like, they sent out, like, 8,000 emails or something, the previous month.

[00:47:01] It was crazy. So, yeah, so we came in, I think it was just fun to, like, to, to, to lay the groundwork for what the enterprise SDR role was going to be and kind of, like, put my mark on it. 

[00:47:15] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, absolutely. And was the goal to get into a closing role?

[00:47:19] Corey Root: Yeah.

[00:47:20] Marc Gonyea: I remember I was talking about that. And did you talk about that? ‘Cause you know, all the associates who are listening, they’re like, “How did you get into a closing role that you did?”

[00:47:28] Corey Root: No, I didn’t want.

[00:47:29] Marc Gonyea: Like, how did you try and position yourself during this process, and how am I going to get my hands on it? 

[00:47:34] clothes. Yeah. 

[00:47:35] Corey Root: One of the things, one thing is if you go to a startup like this.

[00:47:39] It’s just such a tight-knit community. I don’t want to say family, tight-knit community. Right. That, you know, I, you know, the CEO’s right there, right, I can talk to the CEO anytime I want to. Right. And, like, the whole sales team was, was right behind me. Right. When I did move there, like two weeks after they moved up, there was a bunch of people that moved up to the second floor ’cause they were growing.

[00:47:59] But, I mean, everyone’s right there. You know, you can network with, with, with everyone, you know, become friends with everyone. Right. Pick every once a year because the right, right there. And so, I think part of that is just, you know, like, going out of your way to make sure you’re talking to everyone and picking everyone’s brain.

[00:48:15] And, you know, my mentor was, was great at the, at the time he was one of the top salespeople there. And so, I think it’s just that kind of, like, learning aspect of it and just, you know, chatting with people every day. 

[00:48:26] Marc Gonyea: Will you let people know that you want to get into a closing role? 

[00:48:29] Corey Root: Yeah, no, I, yeah.

[00:48:30] Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think probably, like, six months after I was there, six, seven months I was, I was there, you know, we really, like, we seriously started talking about it, and they were starting to train us on it. The only problem was, and, you know, obviously, the risk of going to a startup like this is that they were struggling after their post-series A, and the sales team didn’t even have enough work to be doing on, like, they had too big of a sales team, at that time.

[00:48:56] So, there was just constraint there. Right. And so, I mean, that’s the risk of going into one of these startups, right. You never know if they’re going to fail or if they’re going to succeed. And so, you know, me and another guy, probably the best SDR I’ve ever worked with, no offense to any memoryBlue people.

[00:49:10] Marc Gonyea: What made this person so good?

[00:49:12] Corey Root: Yeah. This guy came in, probably like four or five months after I started working there. I’ve never seen someone be able to immediately get the person on the phone, their friend, like this, I mean immediately, I don’t even know how he did it. I think part of it was probably an innate personality trait, but not to say that he wasn’t that, 

[00:49:33] uh, that, yeah.

[00:49:35] Um, I think part of it, you know, was, was an innate personality trait, but not to say that he didn’t work on it because I’m sure it did, but it was just like instantaneously anyone in the film it was this guy’s print, you know, and he’s sparing with them. I remember this one time he caught a guy who was, I think, in Europe or something, on vacation.

[00:49:51] He kept this guy on the phone forever. And he was just, like, it was like his old-time buddy. You know, it’s just, like, such a, I wish I, you know, I had, had that power that he had. It was just, like, so crazy how, you know, they would just, they would just talk, you know, it’s like they were old-time friends. 

[00:50:08] Marc Gonyea: Some people have that gift, the cult of personality.

[00:50:14] Marc Gonyea: So, you closing, was it, you knew you wanted to do that, you certainly deliberate enough to learn how to do it. At Appcues, we get enclosed rolls, going to happens trajectory of the company, you know, the state of life, the companies. 

[00:50:26] Corey Root: Yeah. 

[00:50:27] Marc Gonyea: So, did you start looking again or, like, well, how did, ’cause you got into a closing role?

[00:50:31] Corey Root: Yeah, yeah, no. So, I got laid off. I got laid off with a bunch of other people. We were supposed to get our series B, that summer, they were looking for the series B that summer, and they didn’t get it. And they were looking to pivot, I think from my understanding, they were looking to bring on, like, more engineering people and twist, you know, completely pivot the product.

[00:50:49] Right? So, a bunch of salespeople, SDRs, SDR manager, marketing people, and a bunch of us got laid off as they pivoted. And so, when that hit, you know, I was, you know, like I had said, right, I was in training, but there were no roles open at the time. So, I was already in the training site. I really didn’t want to go back to an SDR role.

[00:51:08] And to be honest, at the time I was thinking, I was still, I was thinking the sales for me. Right. I was reflecting on it, but I knew I did not want to go through two and a half years of work and not see what the a, position held because during, you know, during my time at memoryBlue and during my time at Appcues, listening in to all these calls, I thought that might be something that I’d really enjoy, talking about the technology.

[00:51:28] So, I knew how hard it was. A lot of people say how hard it is to just go from SDR to AE and a new company that I, I was determined to try it. And I did, I mean, I found a position actually pretty quickly. Within four weeks of me leaving there, I was able to, to get a position at a company called SmartBear for an 80 position.

[00:51:47] Corey Root: So, I did make the, I did make the switch and I went up there and I did the closing, the closing role. 

[00:51:54] Marc Gonyea: What do they sell? 

[00:51:55] Corey Root: So, they have, they have a large portfolio of products that help software engineers with, I mean, pretty much everything you can think of. Right. Uh, my, my two products that I sold were API and UI test automation.

[00:52:09] Right. So, backend and frontend, basically testing your, your APIs and UIs to make sure the software is functioning efficiently. 

[00:52:16] Marc Gonyea: And what, what did you learn in that role? Like, there are some things you liked about it, right? 

[00:52:21] Corey Root: Yeah. 

[00:52:22] You know, for me, right, I mean, you know, all the way from it, from memoryBlue on, you know, and we talked about, right,

[00:52:28] Corey Root: the research aspect of everything, you know, I loved, I loved research and outreach And hopping onto, like, earnings calls and investor calls and reading annual reports and, like, finding those, like, little nuggets that you didn’t send through to people, to get them interested. So, that was always one part I enjoyed, right.

[00:52:46] And obviously, like, you know, like damn building, right, just because of that research aspect of it. So, I think those were, like, those, those were, like, fundamental pieces of what I enjoyed throughout the process. And, like, consistently doing that throughout the process. Right. Just because you do it at the start doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep doing it.

[00:53:00] Right. You never know when, you know, you’re, you’re talking to someone, and you’re selling them. Right. And they’re in the sales cycle. Right. And even if it’s two or three months down the line, whatever, right. And maybe news breaks and you see, you know, that person you’re talking to, right, a new product is being released and the department something that you can say, well, like, you know, “What’s going on with this? How can I help with that?” Right. So, I think it’s a continual process they should be doing. 

[00:53:23] Marc Gonyea: And did you enjoy doing that? Was that helpful in this? Or did you develop other skills that are closing role, this is one of those shows like, “Well, how do I, in a closing role?” You were able to do it. So, you had enough street cred.

[00:53:35] And then, when you got into the closer role, what did you have to develop that you didn’t have? 

[00:53:41] Corey Root: Yeah. I mean so much. I just, I think just the general understanding of the entire sales cycle and how much it differentiates from the SDR role, right? Being that, you know, SDR, you call it, you set up a meeting and you’re good, leave,

[00:53:56] you know. In this role set up the meeting, do the meeting and then you got, you know, an entire sales cycle bringing in, you know, I, we always worked with, uh, you know, solutions engineers, our sales engineers there. So, there’s data, there’s that very technical, I think that’s one, very hard part of it was when I bring these people on for demos, like, “What is my kind of role?

[00:54:21] Corey Root: What is my response? How do I work with these people?” Right. Because I don’t really know anything from that aspect, but engineers, right, they want to know the technical, you know, details of these products. So, “Where do I fit in?” I think that’s one crucial thing you need to understand. And part of that, just comes from

[00:54:36] being on a number of these calls, right, “Where do I fit in?” And like, “Where do I interject in?” Because I don’t want to, you know, a lot of these people, you know, they’ll come on, they have so many analytical questions, so many questions about the software, right. And engineers are very analytical people. So, you don’t wanna, you know, you don’t want to take that time away necessarily.

[00:54:53] Right? You want that person to have a solid understanding of the software, but you also, right, you need to continue your, your, your sales process. So, I think that’s one crucial aspect. And then, you know, I think legal and procurement are just, like, two beasts that you just never learn as an SDR. And you really have to figure out, um, you know, I, you know, one of the bigger deals that I sold was, you know, to a company that, uh, you know, they worked for, like, a defense contractor, right.

[00:55:20] There was a construction company, but they had, like, a defense contracting side of their business. Right. And so, you know, that’s just a whole another mine field to, to go through. 

[00:55:28] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[00:55:29] Marc Gonyea: So, like, learn how to do, what’s your role in the demo, you know, closing deals, non-city close some deals. Yeah. You got a memorable deal?

[00:55:39] Corey Root: Yeah. 

[00:55:39] So, that would have been that one. So, that was, that was technically the biggest deal I closed when I was there. Although there’s, there’s one other that will, that will haunt me, but it was more of a sales territory fight that, that I’ll take to my grave. 

[00:55:53] Chris Corcoran Well, I want to hear that, about that one.

[00:55:56] But this was my most memorable, on the official close and it was 56,000, uh, and SmartBear is roughly 10,000 average selling price. So, it was a big deal, you know, but they expect people to close those deals, you know, month in and month out. Right. And, you know, there were people there, right, some of the strategic people that, you know, I think when I was there, the biggest deal close company history, I think it was, like, a million, over a million.

[00:56:20] But, yeah, that was that, that company that, it was construction company, but they had defense side of the business and probably took, like, three or four months to close it down. It was an intense valuation. They were invaluable, we were on the Gartner report, they were valuing everyone on the Gartner report.

[00:56:35] And so, I think, you know, it, it takes, you know, I think another thing to take away from the differentiation of SDR to AE is that you’re only talking to one person as an SDR, right. I talked to you, I set up a meeting, for the most part, right? Talk to you, set up a meeting. I hand you off to my AE. You know, in the sales process, maybe you’re talking to one main point of contact, two main point of contacts, but you have to be thinking about 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 points of contacts for just one sell.

[00:57:03] Corey Root: Right. And if you have a pipeline of 10, 15 deals, right, that’s how many people, right? So, you know, for that deal, right, I mean, it was just, it was very expansive. They had large goals and, you know, so I had to be consistently reaching out to multiple people, especially, you know, the lower people, lower-level people were trialing the software.

[00:57:24] Right. I always think, you know, if I’m like, if I’m someone that’s trialing software, what do I want? I want the best customer experience. Right. I want the best experience I can possibly get. I want to know that if the software breaks where I can’t figure out something, right, I can go to someone and get them to figure it out.

[00:57:38] I got a job to do. So, I think it’s, you know, it’s reaching out to those people and not necessarily being salesy with them, not saying you can’t get information, but saying, you know, “How’s it going? Are you having trouble? Can I connect you with the technical, uh, assistant here?” Right? And then, you know, maybe gathering some if it, “How you like it?” Right?

[00:57:55] “What are your colleagues and, and blah, blah, blah.” So, I think, you know, there’s, there’s that detailed aspect of it that you really need to, to, to hammer on when, when you have a bigger deal like that. 

[00:58:06] Marc Gonyea: So, you were a successful rep. Uh, yeah. I mean, you got there. 

[00:58:11] Corey Root: Yeah. 

[00:58:12] Marc Gonyea: A lot of people don’t even get. I want to hear about this territory, or you tell the territory spot, well, then we’ll talk about why you, why you, you, why you, it, 

[00:58:20] Chris Corcoran: This is the, this is the juicy side of sales and it goes on every single. 

[00:58:26] Corey Root: Yeah.

[00:58:27] It’s too much to explain, probably, for the time that we have, and I don’t want to, you know yeah, you know, excuse me, too crazy. But, but really what it was is that, you know, and this was cold outreach too, right. So, already I feel, you know, so, so there’s a company called, uh, there was a company, I had already sold a couple of deals to, in my time there, smaller deals, right,

[00:58:49] Corey Root: I think 8,000, 16,000, something like that. And essentially, the way that this company was built is that they had, they, there was an Umbrella, right. And there was, essentially what they call it, four separate entities, all with the same name. But I had already, I had sold deals to this one company. I was talking to

[00:59:09] kind of another entity that no one owned in Salesforce, and then someone owned another entity. Right? So, this one, no one owned in Salesforce, I had selected one, and someone else owned another. And, uh, you know, went through that process. It was, it was a crazy deal. I’ve reached out cold, she told me, “No. We already have something in place.”

[00:59:30] I never used to do this, but I think it, I think it either in Appcues or SmartBear, I started to switch, and I would s, I would just send back a little note if someone told me no, nothing super salesy, I think it was just, like, one line and she got back to me because they were looking, they were looking for another product in our arsenal.

[00:59:46] And the good thing was, is that it was our most expensive product. It wasn’t sold a lot, uh, it was called Load UI Pro, and it was for basically testing the speed of your APIs, and if they would break, if so many people clicked on a website or whatever, that’s given time, vastly our most expensive license.

[01:00:04] And so, I did a demo with this large team. I can remember the lady, she was incredibly personal. She wanted, you know, how, like, very, very, 20 customer experience to the stream. She said, “We always work with small companies, so they give us the best customer experience.” So I kind of had to bridge that because we weren’t really small.

[01:00:20] Corey Root: We didn’t have a customer success team, eight years the customer success and sales. So, I had to really sell that in there for, and then, one or two with just a few days that we had this demo, and it didn’t seem like it was that speedy. She got back to me. She was like, “In 30 minutes, I have a call with, like, our executive team, and I need to, like, sell this in, in it.”

[01:00:42] I could tell how serious it was. And, you know, I had not sold something that large before, so I was, you know, slag, my manager on site I’d be like, “Please tell me, you can hop on a call in five minutes.” We hopped on this call, you know, the entire executive, you know, we’ve got VPs in the room and everything, and they’re suddenly talking about this deal

[01:00:59] that could be, like, anywhere from, like, 250,000 to, like, 400,000, like, if, the numbers were crazy to me. Right. And I remember my ma, I did not catch this, my manager, manager caught it, and the guy was bluffing, and he said, he had said that, you know, they were, they, they might go with some other software, but his scream was on slacked, his like friend.

[01:01:20] And he was like, “We’re not going to go with them.” We kind of knew that they wanted to go with us. They were just trying to get us to lower the pricing. So, I, you know, we got off the call, we entered it into Salesforce. Now, here’s, here was the, kind of the, the issue, right. I couldn’t enter it into the company I had already sold in because that company was not paying their bills.

[01:01:40] Right. And so, they were restricted in Salesforce. Right. I had to work on getting them to pay for the software licenses they already own. So, I had to enter it into another, I had to enter into another entity in s, in Salesforce. And apparently, I entered, you know, you, on our best case, worst case, et cetera, I think best case like 500,000.

[01:02:01] Right. And some alarm bells went off on me and people that I had never even talked to a parent. I, you know, I was working at home at the time, but my manager told me that this guy had come up, and he said, “You know that’s not fair, do it, right?” And it wasn’t his deal either. I was like a top gun at the company.

[01:02:17] And, you know, he would’ve never talked to us. Suddenly, like, in, in my deal here, you know, he had nothing to, I don’t know why or how he knew about it, but so, it suddenly became this big thing, but I was still responsible for, like, taking this deal along. And, you know, I did, I took it along all the way, you know, in my heart, I closed it because I took it all away until about 18 hours before the final PO to work the deal.

[01:02:42] And so, it was the, what they had said, it was, it was, it, it was a location, it’s based on PO location. Right. And they were either going to sign a North Carolina where the other entity was owned by some guy, that’s where it was, the other entity that we already worked with they signed the deals in North Carolina or they said New Jersey.

[01:03:02] Now, here’s the thing I had signed deals for, I’d signed deals already in the company for New Jersey. But my company was technically in, some Latin American company, I can’t remember, I think maybe Panama or something. And, and that’s what it was in the Salesforce, but I had already done deals in New Jersey through that other entity this year, no one had called me out on it because they were 8K, whatever, and this was very large.

[01:03:25] And so, it just ultimately ended that I had to give the deal over to the other guy because they, they were, I think they were saying it was going to be North Carolina, and the guy on the phone that I was talking to one of their, like, procurement people was going to underwrite this deal onto that entity or something like under that entity and connect it to that entity, for some reason.

[01:03:46] And here’s even the kicker, so I get it off and the, it closes, like, within 18 hours, and it ended up being a 100K. They give him a bunch of discounts ’cause it was the end of the quarter, but still it be a 10 K commission. It was the biggest commission that I ever, check I ever had. And the PO closed in New Jersey.

[01:04:03] Corey Root: I didn’t even close in North Carolina. I looked in Salesforce, it was New Jersey. And I had closed deals in New Jersey. So, I’ll hold that one.

[01:04:10] Chris Corcoran: You showed me on another rep got, got that credit comission? 

[01:04:14] Corey Root: Oh yeah. Yeah. 

[01:04:15] Chris Corcoran: What, what about a split? Was that ever up for discussion?

[01:04:18] Corey Root: It was at one point, there were, there were, my manager was fighting for, you know, and part of it, I think part of it, too, was some pride that I didn’t want to split it.

[01:04:28] Not to say that I, they offered and I just said no, but, I think, throughout it, I kinda, like, kept telling him, like, “I either want it all or I don’t want it any.” And maybe that was just like a point of pride. But. 

[01:04:40] Chris Corcoran: What about this other guy who got the deal? That, what about have any, any thanks or? 

[01:04:47] Corey Root: Oh, it was very awkward.

[01:04:48] No, it was very, very awkward. I remember them, he, he, I think he slacked about it and in a larger group and then he deleted the message or something. It was a very awkward situation. 

[01:05:01] Chris Corcoran: That’s lame. 

[01:05:02] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[01:05:03] You gotta work something out. 

[01:05:04] Chris Corcoran: You gotta work something out. 

[01:05:05] Marc Gonyea: You gotta work something out. You’ll get the guy who went out, battle found the deal.

[01:05:09] Nothing. 

[01:05:10] Yeah. 

[01:05:11] Corey Root: You know, I mean, if it counts for anything, my manager did help me out, like, a month later, some guy in our team left, and when someone leaves on our team, we’d kick the deals, they kind of disperse the deals. He did disperse a deal to me that was like 3500  that was, like, ready to close. I think I closed it, like, two days after that.

[01:05:28] So, I did kick a little lower. 

[01:05:30] Chris Corcoran: That’s good. 

[01:05:32] Marc Gonyea: All right. So, through all this, dude, you would, my mind, you’re a successful rep, and you got there, right? Yeah. Closing work. You said, “Not for me.” Yeah. Right. Walk us through that. 

[01:05:45] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. What was the straw that broke the camel’s back? Was it that deal? 

[01:05:49] Corey Root: No, I was already looking at, at that time, man, the deal would’ve been great to have coming out of it, of works. Especially, you know, especially ’cause, you know, those discounts didn’t really even come in until the very end, from management.

[01:06:02] But, at one point, I thought I was going to get $30,000, I thought it was gonna be $300,000 deal. So, I remember because I left, it kind of happened really quickly, and I left on a Friday, and I think I went to the beach that weekend and I just, like, sat there, like, picturing, like, $30,000 in my bank account.

[01:06:16] But, anyway, no, it was really more, I just didn’t enjoy most of the aspects of the job. I wasn’t feeling passionate about it. I knew it wasn’t what I was meant to do, you know, I, I just didn’t, you know, that kind of, you know, you don’t wake up, and you’re enjoying what you’re doing. Right. And I wanted that.

[01:06:34] I wanted to, I wanted that to be what I felt every day. So, you know, I wanted to look into marketing and made the switch there. 

[01:06:41] Marc Gonyea: So, awesome, man. The best thing about that is you gave it a run though, you know? 

[01:06:46] Corey Root: Yeah. 

[01:06:46] Marc Gonyea: You did everything right. You worked hard and then you said, “Yeah, it’s not.” 

[01:06:50] Chris Corcoran: How long were you an AE? 

[01:06:52] Corey Root: Year, four years. Yeah. So. 

[01:06:55] Chris Corcoran: How long as an SDR? 

[01:06:57] Corey Root: About two and a half years. 

[01:06:58] Chris Corcoran: So, two and a half years as an SDR, maintenance the AE land, did it for a year. That, that’s, yeah, that’s a good, great run. 

[01:07:08] Corey Root: It was a weird time to be an AE, too ’cause I think I got there in November of 2019. I didn’t get my official territory until mid-January. and then COVID hit, six months later.

[01:07:18] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[01:07:18] Chris Corcoran: We took the advanced course. 

[01:07:20] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, absolutely. All right. So, you said you wanted to go into marketing. What are you doing now? 

[01:07:25] So, yeah, so, I went to an agency. I initially started on the client strategy team. Client strategy team was like the bridge between all the channels, and an agency writes your paid search, your social, your TV, et cetera, et cetera.

[01:07:38] Corey Root: In the client names where everyone’s aligned. I felt like that just be a good entry point in the marketing because I already had, like, that kind of client-facing aspect role. And then, did it, you know, learned, that was a great start to learn a lot because I worked with all the teams, right. So, it was a good, like, learn a little bit from each channel and about the client.

[01:07:57] And then, just a few months ago, I made the switch to a new team. They rolled out a new team. It’s just four of us. It’s called the Strategic Planning Team. They work with both new business pitches and then existing clients, right, or projects involving, you know, maybe a new, a new business comes in and in the, you know, new biz pitch they want to kind of, you know, show our competitive skills off.

[01:08:22] Right. So, we might put together a pitch that says like, “Here’s some of the, here’s, here’s your audience details, right. Here’s what your competitor is doing. Here’s what they’re spending. Here’s what we think, we think you should do.” So, we have, like, six, seven research tolls that we pay for that we go into the research to combine it.

[01:08:37] Yeah, exactly. Combine a bunch of research, make a story out of it, put it on deck. And then, you know, sometimes we’re a part of those presentations.

[01:08:45] Marc Gonyea: And you didn’t have any break, like you left, you were selling, then you went into to the marketing world, pretty seamlessly. 

[01:08:53] Corey Root: Yeah. Yeah. I just, it was just a, I think I just had a week off from sales. And then… 

[01:08:57] Marc Gonyea: Did you talk about your experience, like what you had been doing that was attractive to them? 

[01:09:02] Corey Root: Oh, yeah. I mean, I think a lot of things, right. I think one thing, right, it’s just like anyone coming out of sales, like they’ve done the hardest part of business. Right? So, I, you know, I think they, they, they probably see that aspect but, you know, number two, I mean, there’s just such a, such a communication aspect that you get from sales, right?

[01:09:21] Being able to talk to people is, is critical, especially client-facing roles. So, I think that was, it was probably part of that aspect. 

[01:09:28] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. How do you see yourself going from here? 

[01:09:33] Corey Root:  Yeah. Yeah, probably a tough question. You know, I like, you know, a lot of parts of what I do right now. But, I think I’m still probably searching a little bit for, like, what I’m most passionate about, you know?

[01:09:45] And so, I think there’s probably some, some reflection to do there, but, you know, I certainly enjoy a lot of the aspects of what I’m doing now, but if you’re going to ask me, you know, “Where are you going to be in five, ten years?” I don’t know. Yeah. 

[01:09:57] Marc Gonyea: That’s fair.

[01:09:58] Chris Corcoran: So, it’s agency work. 

[01:10:00] Corey Root: Yeah. Yep. 

[01:10:01] Chris Corcoran: So, how many clients are you working with?

[01:10:03] Corey Root: Well, in this role, it’s, it’s infinite just because we’re project-based. And so, and it’s new, so we will have, and we do have, you know, clients that kind of pay a retaining fee for, for, for ongoing projects. But we’re ramping that up right now, the department just started, like, five months ago. So, but outside of that it’s, it’s a lot of, it’s a lot, it’s project-based, so. 

[01:10:26] Chris Corcoran: Is it all virtual, or are you in an office with your team? 

[01:10:30] Corey Root: Fully remote, that fully remote, all the way since I, since March, March 2020. Because we never went back to the office, I only went back to the office, I think, four times when I worked in sales and then I moved into this role. And at the time, they had a, we work in Boston about ten people, ten, fifteen people, I think they only had it ’cause they had acquired company back in 2018, but after COVID, they shut that down because I don’t think anyone was using it. So, I’m fully, fully remote. 

[01:10:55] Marc Gonyea: I think it’s cool.

[01:10:57] Corey Root: For sure. 

[01:10:57] Marc Gonyea: I think it’s cool, whoever you’re working with is going to love working with you because you’re so committed and you’re smart and you’re hardworking.

[01:11:05] And I think it’s, point said, you got to the closing because I didn’t want to do it and pivoted into a really cool space. I, this stuff is performance marketing across all these channels ridiculously growing. Right? A lot of opportunity for it. And the people, I would say people in that world coming back into the sales world.

[01:11:26] I mean, I’m saying you can’t go back to, what I’m saying, like, I think it’s such a good switch that you’re doing it the better way, I think. 

[01:11:33] Corey Root: Yeah. Uh, I mean, you know, like I said, I, the job, it, it is crazy if you switch from sales to marketing. And I don’t, I don’t want to say I didn’t have any challenges doing it, but just how easy the job feels because I mean, you know, anyone that’s done sales knows it’s the hardest aspect of business.

[01:11:52] Right. And so, it almost feels, you know, like it’s, I don’t know, it just feels incredibly easy to be doing the job, not to say that there are challenges in any job, but, you know, you certainly don’t have kind of that, that, that, you know, continuous pressure that, that, that drive sales.

[01:12:09] Marc Gonyea: What advice would you have for someone who’s thinking about doing the same thing you did or considering it?

[01:12:14] Corey Root: Yeah, I, I, you know, I think, one is just, I mean, you should stick with sales. I mean, if you come in, you know, first two weeks and you really know it’s not for you, but you should, you should take some time to reflect, right, and really, you know, ask yourself some questions about what it is you don’t like.

[01:12:29] Right? And if it’s just that you don’t want to work hard, right, like, that’s, that’s very easily changed, right, you know, but if it, but if there are certain aspects of the selling role that you don’t like, right, you’re just not, you know, you’re not passionate about it, right. Maybe, you know, it’s, it’s the conversations.

[01:12:44] Maybe you want to roll away from people, and you go back to school for software engineering. I don’t know, but you really need to take some time and understand what you don’t like about it. And you need to take some time in the role to understand, you know, “Is it just a, is it just an area I’m going through?”

[01:12:58] Right? So, I think it just takes a lot of reflection and truly understanding what you want to do in life. And then, you know, once you’ve come to that decision, right, and then, then it’s about understanding what do you want to do next. 

[01:13:09] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. 

[01:13:10] Corey Root:  Yeah. Be deliberate about it. Right. And then, when you looked into what type of marketing, how did you decide this is the type of market you want to go in?

[01:13:19] Well, I knew I would probably like to make my way back to tech at some point, right? Still incredibly passionate about tech. Actually, I have a TikTok channel, I talk about it. I try to grow a TikTok channel, you know, past few months that I talked because I wanted us to this. We will put it in the show notes.

[01:13:36] Corey Root: It’s @seriously, seriously spelled like serious funding. So, S E R I E S O U S L Y. Yeah. So, I’ve been doing that for a few months. So, I’ve always, so, I think starting an app is maybe even a little bit here, I I’ve tried to do, like, side projects that determine what I really want to do in life. And I’ve always, I’ve always wanted to make something for myself, but I don’t know what exactly, right.

[01:14:00] So, I tried writing a couple of times, and there were one time about a URL and didn’t really like it. I tried it again. I think there’s some articles that are put on medium, tried to, like, put a humor aspect into, you know, a lot of serious funding, news. But I didn’t really like the talking point aspect of it.

[01:14:18] And so, I just started a channel a few months ago because it helps me to stick with the industry. If there’s one thing I know, I’m passionate about, it’s the technology industry. I don’t know specifically why, but I love learning about it. I love reading about it. I love talking about it. So, I want something on the side that I can at least, like, stick with that industry.

[01:14:37] Corey Root: And, you know, if it turns into something, right, and I gained a lot of following, obviously their brand partnership deals, I can have secondary income or if, you know, if it would ever, you know, get really big, who knows what I can do with that. 

[01:14:50] Marc Gonyea: That’s cool. That’s kind of working. Yeah. Right. 

[01:14:53] Corey Root: Yeah. And then, yeah, exactly,

[01:14:55] interjects me into that world. Right. Because TikTok’s becoming huge in marketing, right. The pandemic, you know, exponentially grew the platform, right. Everyone’s still think, a lot of people out there still think of TikTok as you’re high school age, like dances, jokes, right. The demographic has huge

[01:15:12] greatly, right. I, over 50% of people on TikTok now are 18+. Right. And there’s a huge, I mean, there’s a, I think some, just look the statistics the other day. I think there’s a, I, like, 33% are, are, like, in the 20 range. Right. And then, like, there’s a huge block that’s in the 30 to 40, even. And so, it’s skewed vastly since the pandemic consensus grown, which is not, you know, different than other social media platforms.

[01:15:35] Right? Facebook, right, and how it’s skewed nowadays. So, I think it’s just a great time to like, get on that platform. The algorithm is still helping a lot of people before they get a lot of ads on there. Right. So, it was just something, like, I got to, I got to take my passion of learning and reading about technology and talking about it, but I feel like also, hopefully, setting it up for growth on it. 

[01:15:56] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, that’s awesome.

[01:15:58] Marc Gonyea: The lesson here, as we wrap up with Corey is, this guy does things he doesn’t have. 

[01:16:04] Corey Root: Thorough, thorough.

[01:16:05] Marc Gonyea: Was it it’s going into the 13 weeks? I said core, right? 

[01:16:09] Chris Corcoran: Yep. 

[01:16:10] Marc Gonyea: Doing that. Coming to work for us, thorough. You did it well. Do you. Did this path either closed enrollment, did all those things extremely well-closed closing deals with coworkers goes closing, getting commission checks for quota, coworkers, to visit having to read it in Salesforce and, and whoever you’re working with now on the client-side.

[01:16:30] So mosquitoes and net new business stuff, too, they’re going to benefit from your sales experience, and you teach a lot of people who are thing. So a sales and selling. And I’m looking forward to kind of tracking you, see what you ended up doing. 

[01:16:43] Corey Root: Yeah, for sure. 

[01:16:44] Marc Gonyea: I appreciate this passion. 

[01:16:45] Corey Root: Yeah. 

[01:16:46] Marc Gonyea: And I think for people listening to say, “Sales? Give it a shot, get to the closing spot.”

[01:16:52] Right. ‘Cause you’re going to learn a lot along the way and reflection the other, other stuff is just not as it’s in some ways easier, 

[01:16:59] Chris Corcoran: If we’ve learned anything, 

[01:17:02] Chris Corcoran: if you have the discipline. 

[01:17:04] Corey Root: Yeah. 

[01:17:05] Chris Corcoran: And the consistency, the muscle will follow.

[01:17:14] Marc Gonyea: Corey, thanks, man. 

[01:17:15] Corey Root: Yeah. Thank you, guys. I appreciate it.

[01:17:17] Chris Corcoran: Very good. Thanks, Corey.