Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You leaned over and you said you own your house. I was like, well, I mean, I've got a mortgage on my house. And you were like, if you do what I ask you to do, you'll pay off that mortgage with one paycheck. And I was just like, okay, sure. This new guy that I just met, you didn't even talk about quota. You talked about like, we're going to go out and pay off your mortgage and then some.
And that was just such a different mindset of what the job was.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: I'm Dennis Sorensen and this is the Think Big, Win Bigger podcast. This is the podcast for sales leaders and salespeople who know they're capable of more and are looking for a system that is predictable, repeatable, scalable and forecastable for growth. It's not theories, it's not motivational speeches. It's an ambitious way to operate your business.
Today I'm going to be joined by my good friend and colleague Matt Rubendale for a continuation of the discussion of the discipline of execution and the ghost framework. Matt will be joining me today in the first of a two part series with Matt, episode 16 and episode 17. Matt has worked with me for the past 10 years and has now joined me at Horizons West. And I'm very excited to have Matt joining me today for the podcast. And let's get into it.
Matt, my friend, Matt Rubendale, welcome to the Think Big Win Bigger podcast. Really great to have you here, my friend.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Dennis. I've been looking forward to this.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: It's been a long time coming and, you know, there's very few people that have been on this journey with me as long as you have. And I'd say, you know, have taken a board into your own process as a seller and as a sales leader. The things that I would have hoped that you would have through the association that we had. So I'm really excited to have you here. And you and I, we first got together back in 2016 and I'd love to just sort of start and let you introduce yourself a little bit to the audience and just tell us a little bit about, you know, who was Matt in 2016 when you came aboard the team?
[00:02:16] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I had a little bit less gray hair, but other than that, we all did a little bit. A little bit. I had been an account executive and across different technology companies for about nine years and had been pretty successful, like relative to the other reps I was around.
My career was progressing, companies were getting bigger, deals were getting bigger.
And when you and I met, I had been at Teradata for.
Well, it was like my second year.
I had gotten close to my quota. Right. I had gotten 90%, I think it was. I had closed the biggest deal of my career so far. I had made the most money of my career that previous year. You know, I was feeling pretty good about myself and about where I was going. But when I. When I met you, it was a pretty stark difference between the sales leaders I had worked for before. I had had a lot of sales leaders who were nice people, but they managed activity. Right. And so it was a lot of just. Okay, how many calls did you make? How many deals do you have in the pipeline? And the coaching was usually kind of focused around those things. Well, your pipeline's empty. You should add more pipeline. It's like, great, I'll go get on that. And you and I met. Well, we had a phone call that was kind of an abrupt introduction to who you were. And you were like, you want the job? And I was like, yes.
Okay.
And we had been shuffled down onto a team.
I think we called ourselves the Midwest Misfits.
They had given us all the.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: Well, that was your name.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: That wasn't my name.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: Yeah. So I'll just set the table just a little bit. So the organization had gone through a big transformation. The company had made some really big decisions. And so everybody on the team was brand new to me and I think brand new to each other, and that none of us had ever worked together before. And so everybody just sort of landed together as a team.
And here we are responsible for what was then termed the commercial business.
And we had to try to figure out what we were going to do with it. And so when. When everybody just sort of gone through this big disruption, and. And the calls that. The call that you got was the same call that everybody else got from me at that point. You came in, you got to know me, and so what was your initial reaction to this new manager?
[00:05:03] Speaker A: Yeah, well, like I said, my experience was all. With these managers that it was kind of. They'd look at the dashboard and say, well, you don't have enough pipeline. Go add some pipeline. And they'd have some ideas and that kind of thing. But you were just kind of leading yourself a bit and trying to figure out your own path.
And you were an abrupt change from that. You had a very clear vision of what good looked like.
I remember sitting in the Nashville Gaylord Hotel, and you had us all around you in a circle, and you were like, this is who we are. This is how we're going to act. And you were making very clear, like, when we go to these sessions, we're going to sit together and we're going to be on time. And, you know, it was just. It was, this is who we are as a team. Get used to it. And at first that was in a. It was different, but I liked it. And your reputation had preceded you. I knew that you had been the thing that was most important. You had been very successful. You were a well respected seller and had had a lot of success. I remember they had a dashboard of like, how many presidents clubs. And I think you were like 15 for 15 or something. Pretty close to that. And so I was like, well, this is somebody I am excited to work for. But it was very clear what it meant to work for you right out of the gate.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: You know, as you think about sort of the way that I introduce you to this concept that we talk about now at Horizons west of process driven sales, you know, plan, prepare, practice, play.
And then really the three disciplines or the three pillars of it being ambition, strategy, and execution. As you got exposed to that, what felt different for you from, you know, maybe the way that you had operated previously or had been coached to operate previously?
[00:07:07] Speaker A: The biggest difference was out of the gate in Nashville. I remember you sitting next to me in one of the sessions and you. You leaned over and you said, you own your house. I was like, well, I mean, I've. I've got a mortgage on my house. And you were like, if you do what I ask you to do, you'll pay off that mortgage with one paycheck. And I was just like, okay, sure. This new guy that I just met, that was different because again, like, I had hit 90% of quota and been given, you know, high fives for a decent year, but like, okay, let's do better next year.
And I had looked at President's Club and was like, yeah, I want to. It was 120% back then. And I was like, yeah, I can do that. And I was looking at accounts, and if I do a deal here and do a deal there, like, I should be able to piece that together. And you didn't even talk about quota. You talked about, like, we're going to go out and pay off your mortgage and then some. And that was just such a different way to a different mindset of what the job was, that it really kind of knocked me into a different, like, what does he mean? And like, what's he going to ask me to do to make that happen. And even the idea that the job I was in could have that kind of impact on my life wasn't really front of mind.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: And so, as you think about the journey, if you will, so we introduced the concept, we sort of describing the way that we were going to perform as a team, sort of setting the culture of what we wanted for our team. And in the last episode of the podcast, in episode 15, I talked about Ghost and execution as that third discipline. And so the concept of you being able to pay off your mortgage in one shot, in my mind is, okay, well, we're not going to play for quota. We're going to play for potential. We're going to look and understand what the real potential of our accounts are, and we're going to play for that. And then one of the things I thought you brought to the table that I recognize, in addition to your drive and eagerness and willingness to learn, I think the other thing that you brought to the table was really strong strategic chops. Right. Like, I felt like you had good, strong, strategic muscles as a seller, because, you know, once you had that vision of ambition, you were able to sort of envision in your mind the strategy of what would need to be true to be able to go pursue that and develop really, that strategy part, that strategy discipline part.
And then, you know, the, The. Then it was about, okay, how do we. How do we execute that? Yeah, and then what do we do to be able to do that? So I introduced you to my concept of. Of execution, being around ghost or goals, objectives, strategies and tactics. And so what was your impression of that when I first introduced it to you?
[00:10:19] Speaker A: It was rigorous. It was a bit overwhelming.
It seemed simple at first. Right. I mean, it's essentially like a bulleted list or just like a task list with some extra lines on a spreadsheet. And I think I, like many people I've worked with since then, really approach it that way at first. Oh, okay. This is just a task list. And you kind of go and take your task list or your close plan and you try to, like, shoehorn it in. One of the benefits we had early was that a lot of my accounts were new, and so I was starting from scratch. Like, even if I had had some strategies and some ideas about what I was going to do, because I had so many new accounts that year, I had to start over anyways. And when you helped me think about what we could do in those accounts, the real potential of those accounts, I was starting from a different place.
And our coaching Sessions. It was. I would come and show you a list of tactics a mile long and you were like, but what are you actually trying to do? Like, why would they meet with you? And like, it was always driving back up. You know, two things were true really early on. First, it was an over. Like, it felt like a lot of work. It was a lot of work, but like you said, I wanted to learn it.
And so I committed myself to the process.
But it didn't click right away.
It wasn't super clear, like, how this is different than a to do list, a close plan until I really, you, you drove me back to like, let's just do the goal. Like, just start out with what are you trying to achieve in your territory and the account. Like, let's just focus on that.
And then now let's just talk about what needs to be true for you to achieve that goal. And, and when I got out of like, what the next meeting was, what the, you know, what email I had to send all of those pieces and went up those levels and really was able to focus on these are the things I want to do, I can do. That's when it really started to click for me.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: When you think about the system that we talk about, what was the system requiring of you that you weren't doing before?
[00:12:55] Speaker A: Two things. The first was I wasn't playing big, right? So I was doing a lot of features. I was doing, you know, a lot of case study copy. So like, oh, this company did this over here, so you should do that over here. And strategically, like, I could figure out those connections enough to get deals done. But I was selling to it. I was selling to like, at a lower level of these businesses than I could have. I was selling against what they said their needs were. Kind of the challenger sale approach.
But I wasn't really driving new discussions or anything like that. And by applying ambition and especially ghost to those, it kind of raised that up and helped me first see, like, really decide what is it I'm trying to do here? And then second, oh, it's actually doable because as we would go through that process, it's like, well, it's not impossible. It might be hard and take time, but it's not impossible to get this done.
[00:14:03] Speaker B: Well, I think in those sessions that we had together, like, one of the things that I could see was, okay, he's understood now the real potential, he's got a strategy, but he's having a difficult time of actually relating these tactics or these back to.
And I think my saying to you let's just look at the goal.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: Was my way of saying, matt, let's connect everything that's downstream from the goal together.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: You know, when I say, what did the system require of you? When you think about execution and Ghost in particular, what did you have to do differently?
[00:14:46] Speaker A: The big change was really the plan Prepare Practice Paradigm, which underlies everything.
Learning Ghost and using it was really about am I taking the time beforehand to really think about what I'm trying to achieve at this account?
This month, this week, this day, this meeting, this email, how does it connect back up to what I'm actually trying to do with the account? And then going through the preparation of am I doing, Do I have the right content, the right talk tracks, all of those pieces to achieve that, and then have I actually practiced those? And so that paradigm, through all of the things you were teaching us, it was a mindset shift. Because that wasn't.
When you're being kind of assessed on activity and managed against activity, it's just like, did you send the email?
It's not. Was it connected to your. To the outcome that you're. You're pursuing? For the entire year, there have been
[00:15:55] Speaker B: many meetings that I've been in in various teams. I remember specific meetings when I was over in EMEA where I'd be reviewing essentially a plan and the team saying to me, well, we have this meeting scheduled with this person.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: And then my question was, well, show me where that meeting is in your Ghost plan.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: Because what I wanted to be able to see is which of the, you know, here's this meeting. Which strategy is that meeting supporting? And then, and then, and then the strategy that's supporting is supporting what objective? And the objective is supporting what goal. Because the thing that I struggled with was activity for the sake of activity in that we've got this meeting. Yes, that's great.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: But.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: But if we can't tell what it's actually going to do for us in our execution plan, how do we actually make the most of that meeting?
One, how do we make the most of it? Two, how do we know what the next shot is going to be if we accomplish what we want to in this meeting? Because we're steering now towards that North Star, which is our objective or our goal? And so to me, it was always really important to be able to see any of the activity that you were performing as a seller and how it related to you achieving the goals you defined that you wanted to achieve totally well.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: And that's really when I bought into it was when I started having those meetings that I had planned and prepared for and done so within the context of a goal and objective.
So it wasn't just like, oh, I got a meeting with the VP of it. Great. Let's go in and see what happens. But instead, it was, this is what my current play is. This is the shot I'm taking in this meeting, and this is what I'm hoping happens in the future.
That I was like. Even the way that the people I was selling to reacted to me was new because it wasn't me, like, fishing and kind of trying to get them to tell me what they wanted to buy. It was me going in and saying, here's what you need to do to achieve this other thing that I know you want to do, but you don't actually know how to buy it, and I'm here to help you do that. And, like, all of a sudden, I would get. They would ask me for the next meeting, right? They'd ask me for, like, okay, when can you come back in and tell us about that? Like, are you available, you know, on Friday? And I was like, yes.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: Is there a specific, you know, example that you can think of that where, you know, applying ghost and execution to a particular sales motion or a particular set of motions that you were running to achieve a particular goal, you know, made a difference for you?
[00:18:54] Speaker A: Oh, I mean, in that. In that first year, there were some smaller examples where, like, we had.
I don't know if you remember this. I was actually on spring break with my family.
It was like the first vacation I had taken, and the grocery company's system went down hard. And I was sitting in an office in Florida on the CEO, joined a couple of those calls because they had pinged him. And so it was this horrible thing where they were really ticked. But because we had already been working a ghost plan and talking about, hey, these are some risks in your business and the way you're using technology. And, like, we had had a. We had context around what we were trying to do with them and what we wanted them to know about. We were able to point to this outage, which was a horrible thing. And, like, it was a bummer that it happened, but we were able to point to that and say, this actually wouldn't have happened if we had already done what we're asking you to do. And that outage, because it escalated up to the CIO because it was such a big deal, the answer for what should we do to make sure this doesn't happen again? Wasn't like get away from Teradata. It was, we should make these investments with Teradata. And we were able to pretty quickly pivot to that. Like, obviously we had to get out of the muck of. We had to fix it and get the system back up.
But we were in a position where we had already prepared for what we wanted to do.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: You were already executing a really disciplined plan.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: And then this unfortunate event occurred. And that unfortunate event, because you were executing became, while it was unfortunate, became a bit fortunate in that it. It. I mean, I'm putting words in your mouth, but yeah, you know, you sort of accelerated what you were trying to accomplish in your plan.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. Exactly.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: Other thoughts or examples on customer stories or particular sales motions that you've gone through in your. In your executing your ghost plan.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: Yeah. The big one was when I followed you out to California. Right. And. And we were working with one of the largest customers that. That Teradata had.
That was part of the reason you wanted me there was because of working the ghost plan and being able to bring that paradigm to that account.
When we started there, we were in just an IT vendor relationship and it was a lucrative deal. It wasn't a good deal necessarily, but the numbers were very large. But the customer saw us as a giant hard drive. They weren't seeing us as differentiated. We were just a really expensive hard drive. When at that time, open source and cloud solutions were starting to offer much cheaper hard drives.
And we knew that Teradata was not just a really good hard drive, that it was actually an analytic platform that could do a lot of amazing work, but the customer didn't know it. And so being able to use the ghost paradigm to reset how we worked with them, how we talked to them, what we were actually trying to sell, that it wasn't just the next deal, it wasn't just the next system, but that it was a. We were trying to change the paradigm of how they even viewed us as a partner in their ecosystem.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: So from the Ambition workshops, maybe you were trying to make big changes to big things instead of small changes to small things.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: That's right. I mean, I remember distinctly being in a conference room in my first month on that account team, and you had just presented on Ambition and we all went into a conference room to work on kind of our first draft, and a lot of the solution architects and the other folks on that team were, well, they don't mean us. He doesn't mean us. We're already big. Like, we know what we're doing. This year, like, we're going to sell this system and sell that system and refresh this. And like, he doesn't mean us. And I was like, well, you guys can go out there with the answer that you didn't do it, but I don't think I will.
And so we spent time and what we did was the white space analysis, and we worked through that, and we ended up coming up with, like, over $100 million. Like, I mean, it was a huge amount of money that they just hadn't even ever thought about. Right. And it was, here's all the things we sell, here's all the things they buy.
This could be a much bigger account. It probably won't all happen this year or over the next three years, but, like, it could.
And so let's just put it down on paper and look at it and recognize that what we have today, while it's a big number for us as a company today, it's actually not even remotely close to how much we could have.
[00:24:16] Speaker B: The thing that was so key in my mind about it too, was that what I think you recognized, and you did a really good job of, was you recognized that, yes, this is a really big potential for our company. But in order for us to realize that big potential, what had to be true for the customer was transformational.
[00:24:37] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: And that the outcome for the customer.
I talked in the episode 15 about using the GHOST paradigm in our discovery so that when we look at the customer's goals, we then can really try to understand their objectives that are going to achieve those goals and then the strategies they're pursuing, and then our ability to tie ourselves to either the strategy level or the objective level or both in being able to deliver that big outcome and really get the customer to see us as somebody who can be a larger, more strategic, more valuable partner to them versus some vendor who gets spreadsheet exercise. And so what I thought was really key was that you recognize the connection between the value you had to create in order to drive that outcome. And so as you thought about this particular motion that you were going to set about pursuing, why did the outcome matter?
[00:25:39] Speaker A: One of the big shifts, and I saw this probably six months in when my GHOST plans started getting good and were a little bit less. Like, they were less about me.
Right. Like my goals and more about bringing in the customer. And like I want to just say really quickly, even those bad plans that I created early on made me so much more effective.
But as I. Because my meetings were just better. They were directional. They were doing this, that. But as I got better at crafting goals that were, you know, wins for me, wins for Teradata or whatever company, and wins for the customer. When I. When I got better at crafting goals like that and doing the discovery necessary to make those meaningful, one of the amazing things that really started to happen was people and resources would just flock to us because we had a clear vision of what we were trying to do. It was interesting, it was exciting. It was the kind of thing people wanted to work on. And so we would, whether it was an executive from our company and somebody within the customer who, or even just my immediate team. When we were able to say, this is the thing we're trying to do and why it's important to them and why it's important to us, it wasn't just a big number. It was, we are doing something really cool and exciting.
People really wanted to be part of that, and it made their actions that much more meaningful. And most importantly to me, they actually were able to act independently within the strategy and not wait for me to tell them what to do.
[00:27:28] Speaker B: And that's kind of where I was just going to go with you is so you were able to really develop this really strong vision for what was possible and what could be transformational for the customer. But not only that, but I think the other thing that I thought you did really well was you continuously were able to introduce this idea of, well, what would have to be true for that to happen. And so not only did you create the vision and resources flock to you because you had the vision, but you didn't just have a vision, you had a vision. And really then the strategies laid out underneath those objectives that said, not only can we see it, we have a plan to do it.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:12] Speaker B: And at the tactical level, we're doing it.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:28:16] Speaker B: Meaning we're getting things done today, tomorrow, this week, next week.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: That's right. Yeah. I mean, one of my favorite ones that I think everybody liked was the elephant off the toothpick. I don't know if you remember that, but it was the customer. The IT department specifically talked about Teradata being an elephant on a toothpick. Like, don't breathe on it. Don't do anything weird with it. Which was directly antithetical to what we were trying to say. We were saying you should do more on it, you should use it and do more intense workloads on it. And so what we were able to do was like kind of that framing of we got to get the elephant off the toothpick. We were able to then engage other teams like Customer Success, which weren't necessarily part of our direct sales team, and ask them, what do you think needs to be true for us to get the elephant off the toothpick? And at first they're like, well, I don't know. Like, we've got these. That. And these are.
[00:29:17] Speaker B: So this isn't a plan. A Ghost plan is not something you build in a vacuum.
[00:29:20] Speaker A: No, no, exactly. And so we gave it to them and they came back with, well, we're actually outperforming other systems and they're comparing us to perfect. So they created their own reports that they were giving, comparing them instead of to perfect, to the alternatives, which started to dispel over time that sense that this is a fragile system. So. And that was all them. And we didn't, you know, I didn't. Other than asking them, how can you help us? Here's what we're trying to do.
You know, I wasn't. I wasn't doing all that work myself.
[00:29:58] Speaker B: So, you know, this, this is something we'll expand more on when we get to the next episode that we're going to do together. But I'd ask you to just. Here, just tell me a little bit of. So as you think about execution now and you think about Ghost and the work that we do with our clients today, give me sort of the mat pitch about execution and Ghost.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: It always starts with ambition. Because if you're only just trying to do small things, then a checklist might be fine, right? A close plan where it's like, call this person, do this, that and the other. And so, you know, there are certainly.
It's a lot of work, right? It's a done right, especially it's a lot of work. But my pitch is that if you are going after bigger things, if you really believe that you can achieve more and that. That your real potential, either as a seller or, or as a company or as a territory, is bigger than expectations.
Using the execution discipline in Ghost is the best way to coordinate your team, to clearly articulate what are you trying to do, get people to help you and including the customers to actually achieve really meaningful outcomes.
Like I said, before you and I met and started working together, I'd done good deals, I'd been a successful salesperson, but I wasn't like a real partner, right? I was.
[00:31:39] Speaker B: But you hadn't paid off your mortgage,
[00:31:41] Speaker A: and I certainly hadn't paid off my mortgage.
And so bringing ambition and execution, especially into my work, you just, you can't unsee it once you see it and once it's working, it's like, how did I do this while I just didn't do it before? Right. This work just didn't happen. So how does it change?
[00:32:03] Speaker B: If I had taught you ambition and you knew how to do good strategy, but if execution and GHOST didn't exist, does it matter?
[00:32:13] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I mean it matters a lot. I haven't seen anything else that works. Maybe there's something else that like somebody else is doing some different version of ghost. But, but if you aren't holding yourself and your team accountable to a process, if there isn't accountability like you said, you would do this by this date. And you don't build that kind of culture on a team within a go to market organization.
These things don't happen. They're too hard. It's way too difficult.
You just have to be lucky.
And that's, that's not a way to live.
[00:32:52] Speaker B: Right.
[00:32:52] Speaker A: Like you're just rolling dice and hope
[00:32:55] Speaker B: is not a strategy.
[00:32:56] Speaker A: No, it's not.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you think about it, you know, it's kind of like a three legged stool and cutting one of the legs off.
In my mind, it's really hard. And I mean, I've seen it. It's why execution came to be part of the process was, yeah, we got good at ambition and we got good, we were really good at strategy even before ambition.
But it was oftentimes because of the nature of sales and the nature of the jobs we do. You know, the job expands to fill the day and so many things come at you and there's more coming at you today than there ever was when I was starting out in sales and there was a lot then. The difference is we don't have pagers today and I don't have to stop at a pay phone and use my calling card. But to me, the primary purpose of execution is to really be able to have a written plan that helps you, points you towards your ambition, aligns to and executes the strategy that you've defined and then keeps you focused day to day, week to week, as the job expands and tries to fill your day well.
[00:34:07] Speaker A: And that was one of the immediate gifts of learning this from you was you gave us permission to not answer our emails. Like that was kind of the culture when I started working for you was like, how fast can you answer all the emails? And you get invited to all these marketing calls that may not even be for your industry or this, that. And it was like, well, are you attending all The. And it's just all that.
[00:34:35] Speaker B: What does Mr. Weinberg tell us? And you must take control of your calendar.
[00:34:39] Speaker A: That's right. Yeah.
The other thing that you and I both see a lot, and I feel for people when you ask them that you start working with an account executive for the first time and you say, tell me about your business.
And it's like just this cacophony of activity and names and roles and deals and this that.
I mean, it's overwhelming to keep that all in your brain. And to me, when I would feel stressed or uncertain about, like, okay, am I going in the right direction? I would go back to my ghost plan, update it, look at it, and say, is this still what I'm trying to do? Yes. Are these still the things I need to do? Yes. Yes, maybe. And digging into those things like, it just was. So it's such a clarifying discipline of what do I really need to do to make progress towards my goals. That was just such a really great gift that I continue to benefit from every day.
[00:35:46] Speaker B: So if I sort of summarize by saying that disciplined execution is not about doing more, it's about knowing what matters and then committing to actions that are going to move it forward and get those things done.
[00:36:03] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:36:04] Speaker B: Well, Matt, thank you very much. Look forward to having you back on the next podcast, and we'll continue the conversation. And so thank you all from the audience for joining us. And until next time, just win.
Sam.
