106: Sprinklr's Top SDR, Millie Gulley - Show Up For Yourself

0:00 Scott Ingram: This episode is brought to you thanks to the generous support of Terryberry, Vidyard, and Alyce. To learn more about them and all of our sponsors who are supporting this show and this community, click over to top1.fm/sponsors and help me support them in return. You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Millie Gulley. Until this month, Millie was the top SDR at Sprinklr, but she's just been promoted into an AE role. Congratulations and welcome to the show, Millie.

0:52 Millie Gulley: Thank you, Scott. Happy to be here.

0:54 Scott Ingram: Glad you're here. And for those who are new to the show, it's worth noting that I only interview active of quota-carrying individual contributors like Millie, who are either the outright number one top performers in their companies, or they're at least in the top 1% inside a very large organization. So with that, Millie, let's start like we always do with some immediate value and talk through the top 3 things that you believe have contributed the most to your success. And I know these are big and meaty, so maybe we'll take them one at a time.

1:24 Millie Gulley: For sure. For sure. Yeah. I think the first thing I want to go over is genuine curiosity, right? And To me, that why I say genuine before that is the people and the roles that we speak to at Sprinklr, they cover everything from customer care agents, directors, marketing CMOs, to your content manager, all the way through to communities and social media managers. And for me, it's really having a deep, genuine curiosity for what they do, a love for what they do, a real appreciation for what they do. And then, you know, an understanding of the pain that exists and the headaches of their roles that exist, and how we really solve for that. And I think that really stems back to me, where I found this kind of curiosity was during my undergrad, I was a sport business undergrad. And it wasn't really until, I think, my junior year where I took a strategic marketing for the sports world class. And that's when I suddenly realized, you know, my eyes lit up. I was like, wow, like marketing is so cool. And it wasn't until I did my MBA and then came to Sprinklr that I realized like, gosh, a lot of pain in marketing. So that would be my first thing, just this clear pain that exists and this love for trying to help people solve it and just make their lives a little bit easier. And then moving into the second one, for me, it's grit, right? So, and I combine this, I kind of put grit times something else, but times the want to be really good at things I put my mind to. Like for me, I've never really been someone who kind of does something, you know, 50%. I always have been someone that does, you know, does put my whole kind of heart and soul into things. And I think this stems back to, I'm English, like I'm born and raised in England, and I grew up playing soccer, football in England it would be. But so playing a sport that actually in England wasn't really accepted for women. So it was a very male sport and having this kind of grit from a young age to not really care that I was the only girl there and the only girl on a team, the only girl on my school team, the only girl on my kind of local team. And having this grit from a young age to just show up and keep going and not worry that like no one really looked like me on these teams has really, you know, definitely taught me how to go through really hard times, which I do think the SDR role is a beast of a role. So that has certainly helped. Secondly, to that grit point, I also had a really bad college injury called osteoarthritis, where it's not very common at my age. And it was about stage 3 my sophomore year of college. And learning to deal with injury and a kind of threatening injury where you can't participate in the sport for the rest of your life certainly kind of knocks you back and makes you realize, you know, how to work through adversity. And the last point I'll touch on is time management skills. And I wanted to say this even though it's a really boring and obvious one, but I think it's so easy to say like, oh, I'm super organized, you know, I have my day planned out, but it's much harder to actually execute on that. So I think mastering the art of kind of understanding what's top of mind today, you know, what gets you paid as an SDR has really helped me be successful. And then, you know, teaching that to my team and how they can actually implement time management skills.

4:34 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Awesome. I mean, there's so many things that I want to dig into, but we'll, we'll, we'll get there. Why don't we start though with just some context and I, maybe you need to explain 2 roles to us, right? To kind of talk about the SDR role that you were in and the territory and where you are today and give us a little context around Sprinklr for those who aren't familiar as well.

4:53 Millie Gulley: Yeah, for sure. I'll start with Sprinklr. So what Sprinklr is, is it's a customer experience management platform and it allows your entire front office. So it's quite a beast of a platform. It allows your marketing team, your advertising team, your research team, your customer care team, and your engagement team to work from one unified platform. And where we kind of differ is instead of kind of different tools leveraged in all of those different customer-facing teams, the goal is to get like a a big organization using Sprinklr across their front office to just increase workflows, allow for collaboration, decrease risk. And in terms of my story at Sprinklr is I started in a team called the XDR team, the Experience Development Representative team, and really we were a small team that actually supported our inside sales team. And what we did is we lived and breathed in our research aspect of our platform, and we would create these really cool engaging dashboards with insights about these customers and prospects we're reaching out to, like their company. And our SDR team would then leverage them in their emails, or they would send them over LinkedIn, or they would print them out and mail them. And so it was a really cool, like, very gentle ease into understanding Sprinklr and what we do, and then also understanding sales. And then I did that for a couple months, really, really enjoyed it. It was the perfect first job for me just coming right out of college. But fortunately, I was able to jump right into the SDR team. I was in the SDR team up until this week, literally, but I was in the traditional SDR role for about 8 months. And then in the last 3 months, I was actually in our global strategic account SDR team. So working with our largest customer accounts only, so only kind of talking to customers about where else they could be leveraging Sprinklr. So that was just a really amazing experience and taught me a lot more about kind of territory strategy, whitespacing accounts, like listening to some of our best account execs and how they talk to customers. So, you know, the last 3 months, I really feel I've learned so, so much about Sprinklr. So I was super fortunate to do that role.

6:56 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that's quite the adventure. So maybe help us understand just from a numbers results perspective, what, what you did to have your peers reach out to me and say, hey, you've got to talk to Millie, she is the queen of SDRs.

7:09 Millie Gulley: Yeah, so yeah, I'll jump into this. So my first SDR role, first quarter rookie of the quarter. Second quarter, I was, I was second globally. And I'll give a shout out to my former manager Dean, who was an SDR, then got promoted into management because I was one behind him for 2 quarters globally. And I think we have a team of about 50, 60. I'm butchering that, something around there. So second globally for the following 2 quarters, and then the 3rd quarter I was one globally. So last quarter I was one globally. And how we're compensated and in our role is 18 opportunities a quarter have to lead to a clear next step. So sales qualified opportunity. And then second up, you need 7 of those to go into like a technical deep dive of our product. So yeah, it's been a fun, fun rise at Sprinklr so far.

7:58 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. So I always like to dig into the origin story, and your origin wasn't too long ago, but I'm super curious to know how you went from an MBA in marketing to a sales role.

8:10 Millie Gulley: Yeah, no, it's funny. And I've listened to some other people on your podcast, and I love hearing how people get into it because I was hearing people say that dad was an entrepreneur and they just knew sales for them. And I'll be totally honest, I did not know sales was for me. I never even considered a career in sales in college. And just to give some context, as I said earlier, the first class, I guess more context. Growing up, all I did was play soccer. I was on the number 1 team in England. I won the FA Cup, which is pretty much like the best cup you can win in England. All I thought about really was coming to America on a soccer scholarship and then going back to England and playing professionally. So I came to America, of course, you know, to get an education and I did value that, but I definitely didn't, you know, my heart and soul was in soccer. That was where I spent all of my time and all of my energy. And it really wasn't until that class in marketing, in sports marketing, where I was like, damn, like this is a really, really cool thing that exists. Like the way we can connect with our customers and we can use these modern channels to engage with our customers and make these amazing relationships. And through a couple injuries, which landed me an extra year in scholarship, I was able to then get my MBA. And for me, it made sense to focus in strategic marketing, given this kind of class that I finally felt, oh my gosh, this is something I really aligned to. So doing my MBA, it was great. I learned absolutely so much about, more so about like managing a team and having really good communication skills, which was an amazing experience. But You know, it's the semester of my senior year and my head coach, my assistant coach at the time, his name's Andy. He's a mentor of mine. He's just such a good, contagious, positive person. We were speaking a lot about, you know, should I go back to England? Should I stay? At this point, I had a very bad injury and I really couldn't play soccer again. So there was no option but to like face the fact that I need to get a job and be an adult. So at this point, Andy would, he would phone me like once or twice every few weeks and he's English as well, but he'd moved back to Texas where he'd lived in his 20s to coach at a D3 school here in Texas. And he reached out constantly every week and was like, Millie, like, if you're gonna stay in America, like, you need to explore more of America. Like, come down to Texas, come and be my assistant coach, like, gain some amazing experience coaching. And if you like it here, then you can go and find a job and you can, you know, find something that's gonna pay the bills here in Austin, which obviously is a super expensive place to live. So moved down here, had an amazing summer of 2019 coaching at a school and also academy and learned a lot about myself, fell in love with Austin. Much to my mother's distress, because I'm sure she'd love if I was home, but quickly realized, oh gosh, I really do need a job here in Austin that's going to pay the bills. And that's really what led me to Sprinklr in this XDR role. And it wasn't because I was envisioning myself in sales. It was much more because this role was about data and leveraging this data to empower the inside sales team. So I was really drawn to it from a data and leveraging a marketing tool perspective. But then I quickly realized as I did that role and spoke to our SDR team and thought about where I could see myself, I slowly was like, wait, I think I actually could align to this. Like I opened my eyes to what an SDR role was because before that, I truly had never heard of it.

11:27 Scott Ingram: That's fascinating. So I want to go on a quick tangent because this actually came up today in another conversation I was having. And, you know, there's, there are oftentimes a lot of parallels that we talk about between sports and athletics and sales. And you just, do you describe the SDR roles beast of a role. So the thing that came up, here's what I want to ask you about, is where, where the parallels are often different is in sports there are typically seasons, right? Or if you're training for a race, right, you… there's periodization, right? You, you, you build and then you taper and, and there's recovery. Sales is like all out all the time. Have you given that any, any thought? I know this is totally out of the blue, but I'm, I'm totally curious about… I mean, given you've played sports at an elite level. How do you think about that? How do you see the parallels and the similarities?

12:20 Millie Gulley: Yeah, no, you're right. That's a really good comparison and how they do differ in a slight way. I think for me, I think what's consistent is like the habit aspect. Like to be really good at sports, you have to have this habit, this ability to create habits that make you successful, that aren't just going to make you successful today, but, you know, long-term. So offseason, for example, you're training, you're doing these small wins, which, you know, are not gonna… you're not gonna win a game that day or that week because of it, but in 6 months, you are gonna thank yourself for putting in that time to get to that point. So I think the idea of habit creation, and I think being an athlete where it is installed in me to kind of make these habits and care for, like, my body, care for the way I show up for myself. I think that's what's made me successful as an SDR, like building all of these habits, having this ability to kind of having this ability to care about what's going to make me successful, you know, spend the time on what's going to make me successful today, but also what's going to make me successful long term and strategically thinking about like where to spend my time. I think that's the hardest thing as you're just overwhelmed with so much as an SDR. You really have to think about like, What is getting me paid? Like, where should I spend my time? Is this meeting I'm in getting me paid? While also knowing that you have to do those things to make yourself better to get to the next step. Does that make sense?

13:48 Scott Ingram: It totally does. And I'm curious, I mean, as you thought about building that, like, almost sales training plan for yourself, right? What were those foundational fundamental habits that you were trying to set up for yourself so that you had kind of that long-term success?

14:04 Millie Gulley: Yeah, and I like to think of this more personally in my life. I'm really, and this stems from having pretty bad injuries from soccer, I'm really passionate about how I can show up for myself in a physical, mental, spiritual, and that's not religious, that's not only religious for people who are thinking about that. So in all of those ways and how doing that makes me successful in my job as well as just as a human, right? So to me, that looks like in my mornings before I show up and be and put on my SDR hat or my AE hat, I'm going to spend about 2 hours just thinking about how I can be better. And that's, you know, spending an hour in the gym, spending, you know, 30 minutes journaling and really taking the time for me before I come to my desk and I show up as an SDR. And I think that's truly what makes me successful. I'm always telling people like, make a morning routine that doesn't involve work, that doesn't involve anything about your SDR role because you need to show up for yourself before you put on your SDR hat and you're good in that role. And then thinking about how to do that in the SDR role, I think again, it goes back to time management and making sure that you're making your calendar and your weeks as efficient as possible, knowing what you need to achieve that week, that quarter, and then spending also you know, 2, 3 hours a week thinking about where you can spend your time that's going to help you become, you know, a good account exec, a good customer success manager, wherever you want to be next after this role, you know, spending time there as well. So it's really just a balancing, an act of balance, I think.

15:42 Scott Ingram: I love that. And this is obviously for people who listen to the show, they know that I geek out on this stuff. And this is some of my favorite things to talk about. So let's, let's get super granular, walk us through What, what is that morning routine? When do you get up? When does it start? What are the components? Like, give us the nitty-gritty.

15:57 Millie Gulley: Yeah.

15:58 Scott Ingram: Before we get into Millie's morning routine, I just wanted to suggest you take a look at Terryberry, especially if you're a believer in what Millie just talked about around the habits of success. Terryberry provides a recognition platform that's all about recognizing these types of successful habits and the results they produce. If you believe like I do that recognition can have a material impact in driving performance, then take a look at Terryberry. You can learn more at top1.fm/Terryberry. That's T-E-R-R-Y-B-E-R-R-Y. Now back to Millie and her morning routine.

16:33 Millie Gulley: Yeah, so I, I'm a morning person true and true, and I really believe in like physical activity and how that can dictate the rest of your day. So if I can control, you know, the first hour of my day, and to me that's 5:30 AM, my alarm goes off, I have really tried to make the habit of not going on my phone until like 11 AM or 12 lunch. So first things first, 5:30 alarm goes off. I spend about 15, 20 minutes before I go downstairs and work out in my backyard, as we're not in our gyms right now, and spend about 45 minutes working out, just listening to music, or I listen to a podcast. And then I spend, you know, I clean up, and then I spend about 15, 20 minutes while my coffee… while I'm having my coffee either listening to a podcast or something that's gonna like give me like a mantra for my day. So like there's loads on Spotify of like positive podcasts that can really dictate your energy for the rest of the day. Or I'll journal. That's a good thing. I'm really trying to turn that into more of a daily habit as opposed to just when I'm super stressed. And then I'll get to my desk around like 7, 7:30, and that's when I begin my like… that's when I put my SDR hat and now my AE hat on. And I truly feel like if, if people can have that time for theirself in the morning, it just makes you a happier person because you're showing up for yourself before you put on your work hat. Does that make sense?

17:57 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it totally does. So what do you do in the backyard? What is this backyard workout?

18:01 Millie Gulley: So just, it's either HIIT workouts. I have been running. I was training for a marathon this year and then I had to stop because my knee PT was like, why are you doing this? Like, you have no cartilage in your knees. Like, stop doing this. So now I'm back to just like HIIT workouts. I'm very quick, super efficient, or I'm like on a static bike, basically.

18:21 Scott Ingram: Nice, nice, nice. And you know what, I haven't shared this beyond kind of the core group of folks that were part of the Sales Success Summit this year. But there is a… if you are a Strava user, we've set up a Sales Success Community Strava thing. And I'm pretty sure if it doesn't exist, I'll make sure that if you go to top1.fm/strava, It will take you there. And for us, that was just, it was another dynamic for us to all connect that's not like pure sales, right? And build some relationships within the community because we're going for a run in the morning or we're going for a ride in the morning. We're beating ourselves up on our Pelotons or whatever, whatever your poison, your poison is.

18:58 Millie Gulley: So, pick your poison.

19:00 Scott Ingram: Check that out. Let's go through a little bit more of, so once you put on the SDR hat, let's stay focused there. I know the AE thing is a whole week old, so we won't, we won't get too detailed into that.

19:10 Millie Gulley: Yeah, let's not do that.

19:12 Scott Ingram: As you were putting on that SDR hat, how are you thinking about the way that you're structuring your day, your week? What was the idea there?

19:21 Millie Gulley: Yeah, no, of course. So I am, I think firstly you have to know like where your strengths are as an SDR, right? For me, as a morning person, I know I'm gonna write my best emails like as soon as I get to my desks, as soon as I get to my desk. So for me, My… and I leverage my calendar and I'll block off time in the morning. So between 7:30 and 8:30, I am prospecting my 10 new people for that day. So spending my time on LinkedIn Sales Navigator, pulling them into SalesLoft, adding them to sequences. And then from about 8:30 till 11:30, 12, that's when I'm spending my like head time, like head down. I'm in the zone. I'm writing my best emails. To those 10 or so people. And then I ensure that like my afternoon, there's a break in there obviously for lunch. And then the rest of the day is either internal meetings, external meetings, or it's going to be my follow-ups, which are a little bit later on in the day. But I think as an SDR, you have to know like where are you strongest. And for me, I like writing emails and no, I don't love writing emails, but I know that I am going to do my best emails in the morning. So I'm going to spend my time there because that's where I'm going to be successful. So, and I would really encourage people to leverage like blocking your calendar off, turning off the notifications, turn off Slack, and just get your head down for a couple hours. I also leverage tools where like, it's like an Apple tool and it buzzes every 25 minutes. So I get like a 4-minute break, another 25 minutes on. I love, I like geek out on all things that can just like make me a better person, a better SDR. So that's pretty much how my days look.

21:01 Scott Ingram: And I assume that Apple app is like a Pomodoro app?

21:04 Millie Gulley: Yes. I just have it as like a Google extension and it's got like a 25-minute tick-tock and then it will go off and I'll have like a 5-minute break and then it'll go back on. I know there's loads of different kinds, but that has really helped me. I think there's a new one called Flow, which a lot of us are leveraging at Sprinklr.

21:19 Scott Ingram: Oh, cool. I'll have to check that out. As always, we will have links to everything we talk about from a resource perspective if you go to top1.fm/106, I think. So whatever the episode number is, or top1.fm/ slash Millie dash Gulley will will get you there as as well, and we'll have all those resources for you. So let's go back a little bit. I'm going to come back to some of the habit routine stuff, and and we'll get into tools and everything else. But I want to talk about the prospecting side and just some of the SDR motion that that you were doing. So you said very kind of email-centric in in your approach. Maybe tell us a story. This would be a good spot to sort of insert. I mean, we do call the show Sales Success Stories. So what's your favorite? Thing that you did that broke through and allowed you to book a meeting?

22:06 Millie Gulley: Yeah, I think before… so I wouldn't say I'm super email-centric. I would say, just to clarify, like, definitely omnichannel, leveraging email, leveraging calls, leveraging LinkedIn, even a bit of Twitter. And it's a tough one to say my favorite because I, I really enjoy LinkedIn video and just sent like connecting with people, creating relationship, kind of fostering, going back and forth for a little bit and then sending over a video in an email one format. So just, you know, hey Scott, reaching out because I saw you do this, you know, speaking to those that look and feel like you. I know that they're suffering with this. Would you be open to learning more? That's kind of like my go-to video format on LinkedIn, which I found huge success in. But I think my favorite story, and this is an email one and it's actually my first email win, and it was with the CMO and Vice President of Hearst Newspapers, and he was located in Houston. And essentially, I noticed on his LinkedIn, he had a kind of link to this blog, and at Sprinklr, we're very much taught to like write super personalized emails. That's always our go-to, very kind of personalized introductions or PSs. And I noticed this guy had a blog about grief, right? He'd lost his daughter. Due to like a really sad disease. So immediately that connected with me. I've lost my father due to terminal pancreatic cancer a few years ago. And it just immediately struck a chord, like just how I could connect with this guy, like from a really genuine place. But I also was really torn, right? Like it's a hard thing to talk about over email and it's a hard thing to ensure that it's genuine over email. So I was going back and forth, you know, should I bring up this blog? Should I not? And I just threw in the PS and I was like, hey, just want to say, like, I love that you open up about your story of grief on this blog. Really appreciate what you're doing. Like, it's really inspired me to one day open up about my story. Like, thank you. And the next day I noticed, and we were using Outreach at the time as a tool, and I noticed it had like 35 opens. And I was like, oh gosh, like this email went really well. And he like appreciated my genuine kind of PS, or it went awful and he was like, you know, how dare you talk about grief. So I went over to his LinkedIn and he'd had this little post and he did spell my name wrong. He put Minnie instead of Millie, like Minnie Mouse, which now everyone calls me that in the SDR team. But he spoke about how he was like, shout out to Minnie. I just appreciate how like genuine she was. And he wrote this like little essay and I came across it and I was like, wow, like that was so nice. But he hadn't replied to my email. So I saw his… yeah, I saw his cell was on, and this was like week 3 of me in the SDR role. This was very early, so I was like still scared to make phone calls at that time. But I just had this like… I just genuinely wanted to speak to him and thank him. So I was like, I'm just gonna give him a ring. I saw his phone number in Zoom info and I phoned him and we ended up having like a 30-minute conversation and it was just awesome. We didn't really speak about Sprinklr or his role. We spoke for about 25 minutes about grief and how he's dealt with it and how I dealt with it. And I just thanked him. And then eventually I was like, hey, like, you know, we do this, I see you do this, like, would you be interested in learning more? And about 3 weeks later, he ended up coming to the Austin office. We had a great meeting. Sadly, it didn't close or anything. But I think that one screams as my favorite just because, you know, it's in your early SDR careers, like those wins just really dictate your future because when you see success, like, it just makes everything… like, all that effort you're doing to personalize your outreach and your emails and your LinkedIn, it just shows like why it's important and why it works. So that for me is, is for sure my favorite one.

25:54 Scott Ingram: You can never underestimate the power of sending truly personalized video messages, and my favorite way to do that is with Vidyard. With Vidyard's free Chrome plugin, you can easily record yourself your screen, or a combination of the two and drop that into an email complete with an animated GIF to get someone's attention. Then you'll get notified when they watch it. Check out Vidyard today and let me know what you think. Just click over to top1.fm/v to get started. Did I mention it's free? So you talked about in the beginning, you were, you were still kind of afraid to pick up the phone. Talk about just getting through I mean, there's a ton of things to be scared of when you're starting that SDR role, right? How did you get through all of those periods?

26:38 Millie Gulley: Yeah, no, for sure. And that's like, that is the reality. Of course it's hard to pick up the phone and dial people. Of course, when you know, like they probably don't want to hear from you, especially over the phone, but I think getting over that, I think firstly product knowledge, right? Like understanding what Sprinklr, like, or wherever you work, understanding truly what your platform does. And how it solves the pain across all the different layers and verticals, which of course takes a lot of time. You know, it's not easy to suddenly just know everything about a product, especially one like Sprinklr, which is a pretty, as I said, robust platform. So definitely the more I was in my SDR role, the more I thought about writing emails without like using blanket templates. It just forced me to understand the product more and more. And lastly, I remember like peak COVID. So it was probably like March, April, May time. And obviously, you know, those are the, those are like the hardest times to make those calls because, you know, you didn't want to interrupt people at such a kind of unique and scary time. But I read this article on LinkedIn and I always am so annoyed because I cannot find it. And it was about just like showing like an infectious energy on the phone, like standing up when you're making dials and just being like really joyful in your voice and your tone. And I just like started implementing it and assured that that hour of dials every day, I was standing up and I was just like resilient. Like if someone said no, you know, obviously I would, you know, throw objections out there, but not letting that bad call roll into the next. And I really think that like it just created this contagiousness about my outreach, which did land like a lot of phone call meetings that quarter, which I didn't traditionally ever land phone call meetings. So I really think the biggest thing is just like this joyful kind of energy tone over the phone just makes such a difference.

28:28 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. I wonder, was that peak COVID time and the phone, was that the hardest, most challenging thing, or was there something else?

28:36 Millie Gulley: I think, like, in terms of, like, calling at that time, or genuine, like, across my career?

28:42 Scott Ingram: Just anything, right? As you think about the whole of your SDR experience, like, what was the toughest part?

28:48 Millie Gulley: I feel like as an SDR, Like the toughest part is staying really positive when things don't go your way, right? So like when you're not getting replies, those weeks when you don't get a meeting, those days when you get no phone call connects, it's like maintaining motivation, I think is like probably the hardest challenge as an SDR. But I feel like what's super important is to have like an end goal as an SDR. You know, where do you see yourself moving on to once you're in this role for a year, for 2 years, for however long? That you may need to be in it. For me, that was, you know, about 3 months in the role, I realized like, I think I could be an account exec. Like, I feel like I could talk about Sprinklr to people more. And having that end goal in sight and knowing and being open with your managers and having like a community where people support your goals and where they want to promote you into the next role at your career, like having that clear goal, I think is what keeps like SDRs ticking when it's really hard, right? So I feel like for me, it was, it was at that point, probably like after my first ramped quarter. So May, May of this year, at the end of it, I was like, I want to be an account executive here. And having that clear goal for me just kept me motivated, like day in and day out through, you know, the no, the no cool connects, the no meetings that week, like the mean people on the phone. So I think that's just what's most important. Like, do you have a clear goal? And is your company kind of supporting you getting there.

30:16 Scott Ingram: Love it. So what about the flip side? I mean, we've talked about all the dark, hard stuff. What are you most proud of?

30:22 Millie Gulley: So when I think about what I'm most proud of, and obviously there's meetings, there's, you know, wins, there's closed revenue that I'm super proud of, but for me it's coming in as like this team that supported our inside sales team. So, and then jumping into the SDR role. Embracing all the challenges and the fast-paced of how fast-paced it was. Jumping next into this like in-store, working only with our customers, again, very fast-paced, huge learning curve. And then now getting promoted into the AE role, I think just this like very fast kind of paced environment and how I've managed to thrive, that is for me like my proudest moment. Like obviously I loved all the meetings and and closed wins and things like that. But for me, it's like having this ability to dictate my journey and putting the effort in to get to the next step has, has been my favorite part of my career so far at Sprinklr.

31:17 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. So I'm curious, like, how did you find that balance between using the next step as a draw, but staying focused and really performing in the role that you were currently in?

31:30 Millie Gulley: That's a really, really good question. That is definitely a challenge because, you know, as an SDR, you're always thinking about like, where can I go next? Like, what can I do next at this company? And I think what's critical is to spend the time. You have to be critical with your time as an SDR, and you have to think about what is gonna get me paid that is gonna get me to my quota. So as an SDR, I knew I need to get to 18 sales qualified opportunities. I need to get to 7 technical deep dives a quarter to even have that next step as a valid next step. So staying really focused and being kind of caring about your calendar in a way that like you need to know what's gonna get you paid. Also having things like senior responsibilities, like coaching the rest of the team and learning how to balance all of that was definitely a huge challenge. But I think, you know, in the SDR role, like you learn so much about your product that it really does set you up nicely for a lot of different things at your company. For me, that was obviously AE path, but just doing the SDR role, you know, writing the emails and genuinely matching like what is this prospect, what is the pain that this prospect has, how do we solve this pain in this industry, and doing that like repeating that like you're only going to learn more and more about your product. Having to call people and sell Sprinklr like over the phone and try and convince them to learn a little bit more about Sprinklr, it's only going to teach you more and more if you're genuinely putting the work in and trying to reach out to the right people. So I think there is like, being an SDR does set you up for the next, like you can have a balance because everything you're doing is only going to make you better when you move into your next role. Does that make sense?

33:15 Scott Ingram: Yeah, totally, totally, totally. So yeah, I mean, you talked about the focus and I want to come back to some of the habits and routine things, right? So beyond the, your morning routine, beyond the calendar blocking, What other kind of habits and routines and things that you have throughout your day keep you focused and keep you on that track?

33:36 Millie Gulley: Yeah, I think focus, obviously with moving kind of, because we were all in the office obviously before COVID hit, so we were never remote. And I think moving into the remote world has been like, obviously the biggest challenge has been focus. And we spent a lot of time as a team trying to work together and kind of leverage different tools and tips for staying focused. But for me, like, as well as doing the calendar thing, I always write down like, what do you need? Like, what needs to be done today? Like, what are the 3 most, you know, you have to get this done? And for me, that's like writing 10 new emails, that's getting, you know, 5 cool connects. Those different every day, but it's always that first one. Like, you need to get 10 new emails out. That is critical. And then thinking about, okay, what could be done if I have the time? And then like what can wait? And I also leverage another thing where I just have this notes and when anything comes to my mind in terms like it could be work related, it could be non-work related. And I was noticing I would just go and do that quickly because I was at home. So I would quickly go and like call my mum back or I would text someone or, you know, anything that just comes to your mind or order something online. But putting like a sticky note on my desk and having like, it's like a distractions note and I would just write it down because I didn't want to forget it, you know, at the end of the day. That has really helped me a lot. That's one tip I recommend to the team a lot. Obviously I said the flow tip, but also like having breaks. Like I think there's this like kind of obsession with like overworking and like being at your desk all the time and, you know, working till like it gets dark. But for me, like I really am trying my hardest to have a really good work-life balance. I'm really passionate about it. It's probably like inner European in me that wants to take a holiday. But so for me, that looks like having a clear break, making sure I come away from my desk and don't eat my lunch at my desk, making sure I have a hard stop at the end of the day so I'm having me time again in the evening. And when you know that, for example, between 9 and 11, I have to write my email ones, well, now I know at 11:30, I'm going to have a half an hour break. I'm going to eat my lunch. I'm going to get away from my desk. I think having like an end goal in sight is super important.

35:45 Scott Ingram: I think that ties back perfectly to what we were talking about earlier in terms of thinking of sales and treating your performance and the way you're going about it like you were an elite athlete. And a huge part of training like an elite athlete, like the emphasis on recovery.

36:01 Millie Gulley: Yeah, it's critical, right?

36:02 Scott Ingram: Huge big deal, right? And you can't be all the way on all the time and not risk burnout. And so I think it's interesting. How much more and more often this topic is coming up. And I'll tell you, like, this week in particular for me, we're recording this, we're going to turn this around pretty quick. We're recording this the week after the elections and we'll be releasing it the following week. The week of the elections was like the worst, most unproductive, most useless week of maybe my life because I just got consumed by the news. Like, I just, I kept kept… I don't know, I got obsessed by it and it served no purpose. Apparently I wasn't alone because we got on our team call on Friday and apparently we had all been completely just off the rails. I now… so I picked up a whole bunch of stuff because I'd been kind of off my game for a few weeks before that too, and I was like, okay, enough of this, like I need to straighten myself out. And so I've really adopted a journaling practice, I've adopted a meditation practice, but I think… and I'm having a lot of fun experimenting with some of the Matt Du Pont time tracking stuff But probably the most impactful thing, I have just banned myself from looking at any news source until after 4:30 PM because it's like addictive and it doesn't serve any purpose. It's totally destructive. And so I'm like, nope, I'm out, like cold turkey, gone. It doesn't matter if it's really, really important. Somebody will tell me. And now I finally get to 4:30 and I'm like, now I don't even care. So whatever. It's all good, right? But I really, you have to protect your mindset and your focus and, you know, all of these things. And I, again, I think it kind of ties back to this recovery idea. If you're subjecting yourself to stresses, let's call it that, all day, every day, whether it's work or the news or anything else, you got to build in time to recover from that. Or it's just a, it's a bad downward spiral. And then, and then you have to learn, you have to dig into some of our resources on mental health.

38:05 Millie Gulley: Yeah, no, totally. And that actually kind of draws me to a book I got. I don't know if you've heard of Jay Shetty.

38:12 Scott Ingram: I haven't.

38:12 Millie Gulley: Have you heard of him? Oh, he's amazing. He has a book called Think Like a Monk. I don't know if he's still a monk, but he was a monk for some time. But like, you don't have to kind of be a monk to read it. And it's just so much advice about things just like that. And that was actually what kind of set me up to have this morning routine. Jay Shetty was definitely the person who set me up for that because he says the same thing, right? If you are feeding your mind with negative thoughts as soon as you wake up, if the first thing you do is read the news, which I think we all were doing this year because of coronavirus. So we'd get up, we'd wake up right away, we'd read the news, it wouldn't be positive. And that really dictates the rest of your day. So for me, just like you said, same. I don't want to read the news in the morning. I don't want to go on Instagram. I want to dictate like what the rest of my day is going to look like. So I couldn't agree more, like turn off the news, stay away.

39:07 Scott Ingram: Yeah, far. And yeah, there's no way you're turning on the news first thing and that's going to be a positive thing. That's just not how the news… that's not how the news works. Well, let's keep going here. I, I would love to hear more about kind of the specifics of your information diet. Before we dig into Millie's information diet, let's dig into Alyce together. Just like Millie's focused on the bigger picture beyond her 9 to 5, Alyce is a personalized gifting platform that's all about connecting with people outside of their 9 to 5, and their AI-powered solution can make recommendations based on someone's 5 to 9, those things they love personally outside of work. It's a game changer. Check them out at top1.fm/alyce. That's A-L-Y-C-E, but even if you spell it wrong, I think I've got you covered. top1.fm/alyce. I know you said you kind of listened to podcasts as part of your morning routine, but what else are you listening, reading, listening to, reading, watching? When does that happen? What are some of those things that are impacting you the most? And feel free to be very specific.

40:10 Millie Gulley: Yeah, of course. So I got really… and fortunately through Sprinklr, we have an Audible, like, for work membership, which has been really nice. So I, I love to listen. I love to consume information as quick as possible. And to me, that's listening to it. I have read a few books though, which I was gonna bring up. But first of all, yeah, Audible, amazing. And I really leaned on that when I was training for a marathon this year. So for example, my mornings would look like an hour run and instead of listening to music, I would listen to a book. And a few books that I loved, the first is Atomic Habits by James Clear. Have you read that one?

40:46 Scott Ingram: I have, that's a great one.

40:47 Millie Gulley: Yeah, just like, I feel like everybody who is an SDR should listen to that just because it teaches you like how to make a habit and it really teaches you how to break it down into like the most simplistic way to then build from that and turn it into like a daily, like a daily habit that isn't kind of overwhelming and terrifying to do. And that was really probably like a huge thing that I started to incorporate into my role in terms of building habits in the SDR role. Secondly, there's a book, and I won't say that it does have a swear word. It's about your brain. And it's, I know it's Dr. Faith Harper, and she talks about all the science behind like our brains and anxiety and how to deal with stress. And so you can see my consumption, like my, my diet is all about, like my audible diet is all, all about consuming things that are gonna make me better in like myself, right? So physically, mentally, mentally, spiritually. And I do think that's the backbone of what has made me successful as an SDR. That said, I do listen, I listen to your podcast. I also love to I'll do this like in the evenings. I'll just search on LinkedIn and just search like a hashtag like #SDRWins, #SDRLife, and I'll just try to engage with content and see any wins and see what's worked. I also like Josh Braun. I like reading his sales tactics. And that's now in this AE role. I really want to spend more time probably listening to sales books. But I think in that SDR role, I feel like genuinely what has made me successful is consuming things that are gonna make me show up like my most like joyful, positive, kind of ready to take on the day self because you need that as an SDR. Like it's a, it's a grueling job.

42:29 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like it's a, it's a pretty good balance and mix of kind of mindset habit, but also kind of sales specific and sales inspiration type of things.

42:40 Millie Gulley: Yeah. And I also love like Headspace. That's a big one. That's also one we get through the company, which has been amazing. And I think a lot of people have leaned on that one this year. Again, journaling. That's one thing that I am trying to do every day and not only when I'm stressed. So that's great advice is to like really make it a habit where you also write down all the positive things, not just like, I didn't get any meetings this week, didn't get any cold connects. So that's one thing I'm trying to make a daily habit. And lastly, like sticky notes. I love like mantras. Like you are gonna, like I'll put one on my mirror, I'll put one on my like computer screen and it's just like a really short like you are great. Like, you are an awesome, like, sales leader, you are this. And it's like having installing that faith in yourself and like reading it every time you brush your teeth or when you're on a call. I think that's also a big part of me that I feel like people should consider kind of looking into.

43:29 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Now, are there any other tools and apps besides your stickies that are key to your success?

43:35 Millie Gulley: Yeah, in terms of the SDR role, I leverage ZoomInfo big time. You know, reading 401s, reading anything in the news is huge for the role. LinkedIn Sales Navigator and SalesLoft, a combination of that and a good old Google search will kind of let you find anything you need about a prospect or a company. And I've loved that aspect. I really love doing like the research behind why I'm going to reach out to a company, like really finding like what pains exist, you know, what is their goal for 2021? What do they need to solve it? You know, what are they looking for? And how can we come in and be like, hey, like we do this, like let's have a conversation about this. Yeah.

44:14 Scott Ingram: Perfect. So, I happen to know the question that's going to prompt a continuation of that very topic. So, let me, let me go there because I'm inclined to explore it. So, the question I would ordinarily ask is if there's something you believe that the average sales rep would think is crazy.

44:29 Millie Gulley: Oh yeah, I like this one. So, I think the average sales rep probably as an SDR probably found my white space and my territory planning in terms of like accounts pretty crazy. So as an SDR, I loved to break down, you know, my customer and my net new accounts by like very granular to the product, the features we sell and like visually map it out on Excel. And I did this like very, very specific and I truly think it helped make me really successful. Especially in our customer accounts. And that just looks like using like all the different tools, colors on Excel by showing like where the white space is. So where do they not have a technology or where do they have a competitive technology that we can go out and find that like buyer, find that owner and, you know, do a PG kind of strategy towards that person. But for sure, I think they were like totally overwhelmed and I think they loved it 'cause I basically did their job for them. But it ultimately made us both successful in it. And I think it's going to make me… it was a habit. It was something I did that certainly made me a better… that will make me a better account exec because I'm going to have to go and do that now, like all the time. So I'm glad I got that like under my belt and it's something that I enjoy doing from a strategy standpoint.

45:46 Scott Ingram: So what was the most like, why did that make such a big difference and what were the kind of the components of that? Right. Because there's a big research component, I'm sure, and there's an identification component. In terms of what are the different areas in the organization? Talk us through that in just a little bit more detail.

46:00 Millie Gulley: Yeah, so when you think of like a huge company, and I'll throw one out there, like when you think of Comcast, right? They have so many subsidiaries, they have so many different customer-facing teams. And we, as a customer experience platform like Sprinklr, we don't just like sell to the marketing team, we don't just sell to the customer care team, we can sell to the entire front office at a company. So as I said earlier, like your marketing team, your advertising team, your customer engagement, your community, your social team, your product research team, like we have a very wide kind of target market. So to me, like what makes most sense as an SDR is to think about like all the ways that we can get into an account. And this is what I did a lot in my global strategic like SDR role. So all of the ways that we can get into an account by whitespacing it. Leveraging anything about them online. So all of the recent news, leveraging their website to see how they break themselves down as a company, their most recent kind of cute like earnings calls, you know, listening to where their vision for the company is, what their goals are, and what their strategies are to get there. And then aligning our products and mapping our products to where we could come in and like solve what they're clearly trying to achieve. That's pretty much what it looks like. So it's a lot of research and it's something I had to do outside of my SDR role. Like there wasn't time for this on top of like writing emails and on top of phoning people, but it was something I knew would make me successful. And it really did get us into a lot of different areas in one of our largest customer accounts. So that was something I was super proud of in the, in the last role of mine. It's something I really enjoyed doing.

47:39 Scott Ingram: Well, and it's, it's gotta be exciting to, to learn how to do that kind of work and realize, oh my gosh, there are so many people. In this organization that we can reach out to from a whole variety of different angles, right?

47:52 Millie Gulley: Yeah, it's super exciting. And like, there's so much like publicly available data that you can go and find to leverage in your PG. You know, you can go to, when we're selling into these types of teams, you can go and act like a customer on their website and see, oh, like, do they have a chatbot? Are they posting advertisements on Twitter? Are they putting paid behind all of their social efforts? So my favorite thing is to act… I always tell my SDR team, like, act like a customer, like go and see what it's like to interact with this brand. And if you're having a bad experience, like so are their customers, and they're having that every day. So like, just because you're SDR doesn't mean you can't go and be a customer of theirs and see like what pain exists, and then take that into your PG.

48:31 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. So Millie, what else when you think about the decisions you've had to make, the lessons you've learned, what's made the biggest impact in terms of getting you to where you are today?

48:42 Millie Gulley: You know, I think the biggest impact, and I briefly kind of spoke over this, but when I think about like the biggest obstacles in my life, right? And I think losing my father very quickly, it was about 3 weeks before I was graduating with my undergrad that my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And then 3 weeks later, he passed away very quickly from it. And having like an obstacle like that at the age of 21, like learning how to grieve and dealing with all of the pain that exists when you're grieving someone. Having that obstacle, I think what it teaches you is to be very present, you know, to do something you genuinely care about, to live just more joyful, to not like sweat over the small stuff so much. I mean, to anyone that's grieved or experienced grief, like, it really has… I always say this, like, it's made me a much better person, that experience. And of course I take my dad back at any moment, but I truly feel like my life, and I would not be where I was if I didn't lose my dad. And I also know my dad was like, he worked so hard. He was, he definitely instilled this kind of grit attitude in me. He didn't retire, like, because he was working. And I think having that experience and getting that kind of instilled from him, I think that's just shaped who I am, right? And it's made me this person who's like, I've just got to, like, take every obstacle head on and just find my way to get through it. Because there is darker times, there's people that are going through worse than me. And in a role like an SDR role where it is challenging and there are obstacles, like you really just have to have this end goal that you are going to get out of it and you're going to do bigger and better things kind of at your foresight, like knowing that it's coming, you know?

50:27 Scott Ingram: Yeah. That's incredible. I mean, just what you've taken from that whole process says a lot about you.

50:33 Millie Gulley: Yeah. I love supporting people that have gone through grief because, like, you know, it's an awful experience, but it, it certainly teaches you so much about how to live your life. So it's definitely matured me. And I think a part of… I think a big part of going through that is why I really care about, like, showing up to be my best self. I think that's the backstory there, right? Like, I know that I've only got, like, one shot at this life, so I want to be, like, my best self, you know, from professional life to personal life. And I think that's what installed this, like, caring about me and how I am as a person and how I show up for myself and other people around me has made me, like, successful.

51:10 Scott Ingram: Yeah, such good stuff. So you have done what I think so many who come into the SDR role sort of aspire to do, right? You quickly moved through and advanced through your career and got into this AE role. What advice would you give to somebody that's in that journey or just starting that journey to get to where you've gotten?

51:31 Millie Gulley: Yeah, I think firstly, my advice would be to try and find a company, like if you're really interested in being an SDR and getting into sales, like try and find a company that really aligns with what you care about. For me, that was like, I love marketing. I really have this empathy for the pain that exists in it. So I was aligned to Sprinklr in that way. So I think Firstly, the most important thing is to find a company that you care about the product they're going to sell. That's critical because you're going to have to be selling it to people over the phone, over email, over LinkedIn. So find something you were like, oh, this is really cool. I could get behind this. And secondly, I think for me, a big thing that helped me is I ask a lot of questions and I love to lean on people that are way smarter than me. I'm always pinching myself because I'm like, there are people that are so smart surrounded by me that are going to get to this role or will do some really good things at Sprinklr. But I think great advice is just surround yourself with what good looks like, like, and then ask those people like, how are you doing this? What's making you successful? Like lean on them big time. And for me, that was Dean, who was a friend and then, and then my manager at Sprinklr. And he let me just like watch him do his thing. Like I watched him on LinkedIn, I watched him write emails, I watched him on the, on the phone. And I think leaning on someone that is is like, and emulating what good looks like helps you get to that kind of place. And then also like having an SDR team where everyone is sharing their wins, right? I think here at Sprinklr, we're always sharing like any way we got a win, whether that's, you know, through email, through LinkedIn, through the phone, like there's a way to share in a chat. So we're always kind of cheering each other on, we're asking questions, and I just like soak that up. Like I took anything that looked good, I either ran with it and didn't change it or I modified it slightly. But like, there's no harm in leaning on the people around you and, you know, seeing what they do and just being like, great, like, I just gotta do this. And I think the more you surround yourself with people that are really smart and that are doing really well, the more you'll learn, right? That's how you get better. So for me, it was totally leaning on the team and just putting time on people's calendar who were doing things really well and asking them a ton of questions.

53:44 Scott Ingram: Well, and I have to imagine that you're now starting to do that with this brand new AE lens on, right? So what does that look like? What are the questions that you're looking to get answered today?

53:54 Millie Gulley: Yeah, it's funny because obviously I've come into this role from the SDR role, so I feel like I have this confidence about our product, but now I need to know how to talk to people about it, how to build trust, how to build champions. So now I lean on my former AE relationships. You know, my director, anyone else in the AE environment to understand like how to build champions, you know, how to identify a coach from a champion, you know, building a business case, aligning us to value pyramids. Like, there's going to be so much to learn. And I think the number one thing is just having confidence on all of these like customer-facing calls or net new, you know, discovery calls and having the confidence to guide people and kind of give them enough trust to spill the pain, right? That's what we want to know. We want to know like what is struggling and how can we help. So I'm totally going to lean on all of these relationships I've built at Sprinklr and I'm fortunate I have those, but there is so much to learn in the AE role. And I think I'm excited to kind of just again embrace myself and just see, okay, what's next? What do I need to learn? Who should I surround myself with? And let's get it done.

54:59 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Well, you know, one of these days we'll get an opportunity to meet when it's safe to do so. We are not too far apart geographically. And I am kind of driving hard from a timing standpoint, which is something I usually don't do, but I cut it really close this time and I'm asking a lot of my team in a very short period of time. So we're going to keep this one maybe a little bit shorter than I normally do. But Millie, I mean, we covered a lot of ground. I wonder if there's anything that you were hoping to talk about that I just didn't ask the right question or we didn't quite get to.

55:31 Millie Gulley: I think my favorite thing to do is to leverage LinkedIn because LinkedIn is such a great way to build relationships with people that are in like these awesome industries and different verticals. But for me, I feel I've really mastered the art of building relationship and knowing the right time to turn it into like a soft call to action. So, you know, as I prospect, I'll always No matter if I'm just going to email, say, 10 people today from that company, I will go ahead and add as many people from that company across our product line that I could potentially talk to, right? Maybe they're not the number one or today's priority, but I'm going to add them so I can eventually get to them on LinkedIn because it's, it's such an easy way to get wins. And for me, I'll always look at their profile. I'll leverage the research I've done for the emails. And once they've accepted my connection request, I'll always look for a way to personalize that. There was a girl once from Kentucky. I forget which company she was at, but she was from Kentucky. And I told her this story about how me and my mom were traveling across the country and we went to Cracker Barrel and we thought it was the only restaurant that we thought it was the only Cracker Barrel in America. And then we got to the next state and realized it was a chain. And so I told her that funny story and she found it hilarious. And we went back and forth for a week. And eventually I was like, hey, I see you do this. Like, you know, we work with XYZ. I would love to just, you know, see, are you open to learning a bit more about this? And LinkedIn, I think, is just such a great way to build rapport and build a relationship before you just, you know, ask very softly, you know, can I just spend a bit of time like learning more about your role? And secondly, on LinkedIn, I love sending videos. So if someone accepts my request, and it feels right, like I'll just pull out my phone and I will send them a really personalized video. For example, like, hey Scott, I saw your recent post. I love that you said this and this, adding a bit of personalization in there. And then just throwing out a similar kind of email on format, like we work with XYZ. I see you do this. I imagine like this and this is a headache. You know, would you be interested in learning a bit more about how we work in your space? And I'll send the video and then And I found it super effective, right? Because it's a way to stand out. And that's, that's really what makes you successful in SDR. Like you need to stand out from the sea of people that are trying to get to them. So I would definitely recommend like lean on those videos. Yeah.

57:55 Scott Ingram: So a couple of questions there. So as, as you're sending out those initial connection requests and you're kind of going broadly across the account, are you personalizing the connection request or are you coming back with personalization once they accept?

58:08 Millie Gulley: I always play around with it, and I think it depends. If they seem like a real change agent and they are very social, then I'll throw out like a little message when I do send the request. But for the most part, I have found like a pretty successful connection rate, which I'm really fortunate about because I know that not everyone has found that. And then I'll go in with a very personalized note because to me, if someone's accepting that initial request, like they're open to a conversation, whether it be about Sprinklr is another story, but they're at least least open for me to say like, hey, thank you for accepting, and a personalized note. So I'll lean on it for like the change agents and like the number one person I want. But for the most part, like what helps me kind of spread wide and thin is sending as many of those and then leaning on the ones that accept.

58:55 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it's interesting because my theory that pretty well aligns with my more recent theories and philosophies on this topic, which I used to believe that you always like needed to personalize the connection request or it showed you, you didn't care and you didn't put any effort in. But now, because people are just getting so spammy in their LinkedIn, I have personally found that if somebody not… if somebody does legit personalization, like I can tell that they wrote it only for me, that's one thing. Yeah, but most of it, like the vast majority of BS connection requests that I get are generically personalized, right? It's like you personalize this, but I could be anybody. And whenever I accept those, I'm then gonna get a cold crappy pitch right after.

59:46 Millie Gulley: Yes, exactly.

59:48 Scott Ingram: And people don't understand, like, so, so now I believe I actually get better response if I don't personalize that, that first connect. And then to your point, like if they accept, Then pay attention, people. Start a conversation. Don't pitch, just begin a conversation. And the person who does this brilliantly, and it sounds like you're doing a lot of the same stuff, is Sarah Brazier. I mean, she is absolutely awesome, the queen of this. Yeah, so go back and listen to her episode, watch her presentation at the summit. She does a great, great job of this. But that's the game, right? While everybody else is playing this like spray and pray spammy You're irritating everybody on LinkedIn. It's like the really thoughtful, let's have an actual conversation. And then, and what you're doing, and I'll have you talk about it just a little bit more, is just that nuance of, okay, when is it time to transit? Because we can't just be friends forever.

1:00:42 Millie Gulley: Exactly right.

1:00:44 Scott Ingram: Like we've got to find that balance between, yeah, like I'm starting a conversation, we're building a relationship, but I also want to transition and make an ask. And you said that you're making it sort of a soft So is there anything more to that? I mean, I think the video is one perfect example of that because to me, that's one of those things that I actually like things that don't scale because that makes it hard for other people to do.

1:01:10 Millie Gulley: For sure. Yeah, no, you hit the nail on the head there. Like what you can't scale, like that's how you're being personalized. But I think a good… I'll put it into like a true example because there was a guy at DraftKings who He was the head of technology or product, and we had been connecting for… we'd been connected since July. And I think my initial message, I noticed he played hockey in England, so immediately I was drawn in. He was Canadian himself, lived in America. So naturally, my first thing, and I always tell our SDR team, like, I am not talking about work. I don't want to talk about Sprinklr. I want to find anything about them that I can latch onto. And I feel like I'm weirdly good at doing this in some way. I can find a way to put myself closer to the prospect. But yeah, so I reached out and I was like, hey, I noticed you played hockey in England. Growing up there, never even seen ice hockey played. How was your experience? It's got to be an open-ended question to get them talking. And he replied, spoke about his experience playing hockey there. And then I replied and then he ghosted, right? As they do. 3 weeks later, I sent an article. I think it was a recent partnership they had, and I was like, hey, this is awesome. Like, I keep seeing DraftKings in the news every single day. Like, you guys are partnering with someone new every single day. Like, absolutely love this. Curious, like, was this a part of your strategy? Got him kind of talking again. Again, like, an open-ended question that kind of lets him talk. Again, I was ghosted. And then I think, like, 2, 3 weeks. Again, like reading the room, right? He's ghosting me. Like he's not interested. He's busy. So I'm gonna… it's like this act of not being desperate. And I think Sarah talks about this well, like being on a date and knowing, like knowing how to read the room and have cues. So I would definitely recommend going back and listening to that to all the viewers. But yeah, knowing, okay, he's ghosted me. So left it a few more weeks and I found another amazing article. Finally, that was the one that got him coming back. And I was like, Hey, like, you know, curious, like all of these, you know, I see, I think he had a team of like 10 or 12. I was like, you know, curious of a team of 10 or 12, are you guys leveraging like loads of, like how many different tools are you guys leveraging for XYZ? And that's when he came back and spilled a bit of like pain and was like, you know what, we're using this for this, we're using this for this and this for this. And eventually after 1 or 2 back, I was like, hey, like, you know, it sounds like that you guys are leveraging different tools. You know, this is kind of where we stand out by working with 3 examples in his space. You know, would you be interested in just learning a bit more? Like, and I think the biggest thing here is just a really soft call to action, right? You're not trying to sell over LinkedIn or an email. You're trying to just get them in the room to show them the art of possible and then go from there.

1:03:54 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. So I said we were going to wrap it up and then we went down a 10-minute LinkedIn rabbit hole, but I'm really, really glad we did. Now that was, that was absolutely Absolutely fantastic. So the way we wrap up every one of these episodes is we always cover a lot of ground and talk about a lot, even though I'm, I'm like rushing things with, with Millie. Millie, if you were to boil this all down and challenge our listener to do something to improve themselves and improve their results over the course of the next, say, 1 to 2 weeks, what would you challenge them to do?

1:04:24 Millie Gulley: I would challenge the listeners to spend time on themselves in the morning and to develop a really good morning routine that they do daily, Monday to Friday. And that would be my challenge, you know, whether that's mentally, physically, spiritually, professionally, just spend a bit of time on you before you go on and put your SDR hat or your AE hat on.

1:04:47 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. Love it. I want to hear about those too. So if you can either add a comment to Millie's page. So top1.fm/whatever this episode number is, because now I'm second-guessing myself and I think I got the number wrong. Or send me an email. I always love hearing these stories and what resonated. You can always reach me, scott@top1.fm. Millie, this has been so fantastic. It's been a pleasure getting to know you and getting to talk with you. And one of these days, hopefully in the not too distant future, I look forward to meeting you.

1:05:16 Millie Gulley: Me too. Thank you so much, Scott. It's been a pleasure.

1:05:19 Scott Ingram: Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast. To be sure you never miss an episode and for an invitation to our Sales Success Community powered by Influitive, subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm.