162: Getting Real & Knowing Your Intrinsic Value with Paul DiVincenzo

0:08 Scott Ingram: You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram. This episode is brought to you thanks to the generous support of Vidyard. To get your hands on their free browser plugin and to learn more about their new AI script generator, just click over to top1.fm/vai for Vidyard AI. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest again is Paul DiVincenzo. Paul was the star of episode 40 when he was the top performer at Cintas and has had a super interesting journey since then. So I can't wait to get caught up with Paul. Paul, welcome back to the show.

0:57 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, thanks so much.

0:59 Scott Ingram: So we kind of sort of prepped this a little bit just in terms of some areas that we want to talk about. And you've got this pretty interesting, like, good, bad, and ugly theme going on. So, you know, insert spaghetti western music here. Why don't we start a little bit with one of the things that I did, because I recently had Jacquelyn Nicholson back to return, and I always start these things out kind of asking people for what their top 3 success factors are. And it's interesting to compare and contrast what that was originally. But I think you took a little bit of a different approach that I think we can use, which is kind of the good, the bad, and the ugly from just kind of a personal perspective. You want to… is it easier to run through it that way?

1:41 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, we can. I think it's the good, the bad, and the ugly is per theme and just having better perspective, if I had to shorten it up.

1:50 Scott Ingram: Okay, perfect. Well, why don't we do this? So why don't we start with just kind of getting up to speed on your journey, right? It was interesting. It was, I mean, we've been friends and have talked through this entire period. So it was interesting to kind of watch and witness, and I'm sure there were just a ton of lessons learned along the way. So do you want to maybe start with why did you decide to leave Cintas and kind of take us through the trials and tribulations from there?

2:20 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, sure. So last time we talked was 2018. So this is, I don't know if it's to the exact day, but I think it's 5 years. So that's a pretty good, good amount of time, not counting all of the things that's happened in the world, COVID and otherwise. But in 2018, I was on top of the world, at least in that business, in Cintas, in that industry. And the short version, just like many other sellers and other people in different industries, you know, business priorities shift, comp plans typically shift with those. And at that time, there was essentially going to be a significant pay cut for me to stay at Cintas. I still have great friends, mentors, as you would expect, still over there. I got offered multiple things to stay, but the shift for me was not only pay, but some culture. And so with the combination of the two at that time, I decided to sit down and reprioritize what I wanted to do in the next phase of my career. That was the starting point. I don't know if we want to pause there or keep going.

3:24 Scott Ingram: I think we want to keep going because for me, that's where it gets most interesting, right? Is kind of the path that you decided you wanted to go down. And I know it was a lot harder than it should have been because sales as an industry is still broken in too many ways.

3:40 Paul DiVincenzo: So absolutely. So at that time, essentially what I did was I had been at Cintas almost a total of 14 years in 2 different stints. So I actually had come back to Cintas. So at that moment, I was about 11 years in. I didn't make the decision lightly. I really took almost about a year to evaluate. Was there another path? Did I really need to leave the organization? When I sat down and thought about it, I really, as with most people, just evaluated what am I most interested in? And so this is maybe where we can break it up instead of the top 3 things of being successful. What I've now categorized them as 5 shifts that I needed to make to really become a better person for myself and bet on myself and then be much more resilient going forward. So I had to make 5 shifts and I didn't have those at the time, but that's what I've developed over this 5-year period. But at that time I needed to, you know, I'll lay out the 5 shifts and then we can go into them if it makes most sense. So the first one is I had to get real is what I call it. So getting real with myself, I had to identify what I thought was and then unlock my superpower. I had to tap into what I did not have at that time, which now I call my secret weapon, which is a strategic community. Sales Success is part of that and really having a great network. At that time in my career, I did not have that. Most of it was very insulated within one organization or maybe 2. And so other people may be able to relate. I had to raise my standard for myself. What did I think was possible for myself? And then I think we even talked about it last time. I tripled, doubled, quadrupled down on mentoring. So those are the 5 shifts I needed to make was getting real, unlocking my superpower, getting a secret weapon, which is part of… you're part of that in the community. Raising my standards and investing in mentoring. So that was the journey. The first part of getting real was, especially for people in this community, if you're a top salesperson, you feel like you're at the peak of some sort, is to really reflect on what does it mean to be successful for yourself, whether that's money, family, a combo of those and many other things, but also to just Sometimes in sales I found so far as we get a recruiter call, we might be interested in that, or we get some other ping depending on the economy and there's a lot of reaction. And so what I did at that time was I sat down and thought about what do I like to talk about the most? And, you know, it could be medical device, it could have been health, it could have been all kinds of things. But I definitely am a little bit of a techie. So I, as I sat down and evaluated the market, I decided I want to go into technology. Started the journey 12 months, looked at, looked at where I wanted to go and decided technology is the industry or the vertical, if you will. And then to your comment earlier about it being very difficult, I went to every large technology company you can imagine in the United States, and I interviewed with many of them. Dell, where we even had prior Cintas folks who had made the leap to Dell as an example and had been successful, had gone all the way up to becoming a VP. I had a VP of the East Coast in Dell write a letter to the VP of the West Coast where I was based out in Los Angeles area and say, you've got to at least interview this guy, even though he doesn't have quote unquote tech experience. I got turned down at every door knock. They were like, nope, if you don't have our version of experience, we don't even want to talk to you. And that was… and I'm not calling anybody out on here, but it was Dell, Oracle, Salesforce, blah, blah, blah, you name it. For whatever reason, Could have been just my tenure at Cintas even. I was, felt like I was locked out. And so really when I, after I went on a spree of interviews, just like we all do and got turned down, I kind of reflected and it led me to the second piece, which was to really think about what is my superpower. Now I define it as I'm able to build trust almost instantly. So based on that superpower, What could I do with it? And what I felt like I could do with it was take all of my prior experience and make sure I clearly hone in on that superpower in every single engagement, whether it was an interview or just a networking call, and take that and understand how can I take all the business experience I've had at Cintas at that time more than any other place and leverage that into a better business conversation than anybody else. And that's what I really did was going into every interview. I gave it up for about 3 months during that 12-month period. And then I started to come back to knowing my superpower, how I can have a better business conversation regardless of industry. It does not matter what industry it is. And then going back to the community, So tapping into the secret network of, you know, understanding an industry or even a company before I go talk to them. And so that led me to within technology, which is a very large landscape, obviously, is to hone in on where do people in the technology landscape have business-driven conversations on a regular basis at the executive level? And do it in a very consultative way based on where I came from. And that ended up being Gartner. And so in January of 2019, I was able to land a spot at Gartner. And so moved over into their enterprise organization. That was the beginning of the journey of technology sales for me. I can keep going. Do we want to pause at any moment here? Just want to make sure.

9:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So what's most interesting to me and what was I think mutually frustrating. I mean, you obviously lived it, but, you know, having talked to you through that period, it was mind-blowing to me because, and I would encourage folks, 'cause it's been a long time, and unless you've been a fan of the show or you're one of the maniacs who listens to every single episode, I know there's a handful who've done it. Actually, it's a pretty good handful. I still, you are one of very few people I've interviewed who I look back at that conversation and what you did and still scratch my head and go, That just seems unreal. And so to give that context, Paul, so you sold over $13.5 million at Cintas. And if you know what Cintas sells, like that's a lot of uniforms and such in one year. And, you know, the conversation you and I have had a lot around this, your ability to have a business conversation is so strong and how somehow that is not relevant experience to technology is just so silly to me. So I want to talk about that a little bit more. And then it's also just, again, kind of funny to me that as soon as you checked that tech box, like as soon as you could put that on your resume, all the other doors just opened and it was like it never happened. So the first is just, again, kind of calling out the industry and this is stupid, people. Like there's nothing magic about having worked for a tech company. Like, sales is sales, especially if you've developed like this true business acumen. And so, Paul, talk about that. Like, talk about the experience that you gained at Cintas, because now I know that as a leader, you've probably seen people in tech who don't have some of this basic skill set who struggle.

11:38 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, I mean, that's a great call out, so thanks for bringing it back. So I think what I would say is that there wasn't a doubt in my mind that I could do it, but what I was missing at that time was the connecting of the dots of what we're sharing with the audience now, which is that the business outcome is all that matters. And so by being that strong in it, essentially what was being told to me was it didn't feel right. And I think that a lot of people get this in interviews and just in engagements was just, you know, it's kind of like where if you have some sort of industry speak, it does not matter what industry, you can throw out a bunch of acronyms to somebody and they're going to have deer in the headlights because you're just not going to understand the depth, whether it's, you know, now I've got it. But if somebody said refactoring applications to the cloud or metadata or blah, blah, blah, there's going to be, and then more depth beyond that now. At that moment, I would have had a little bit of a loss. But now coming back to it, it's just, it doesn't matter to your point. And so I think Cintas is one of those examples where that company is so strong in building a sales culture, a work ethic, training so that you're having great business conversations, meaning how can, you know, doing great discovery, even though they don't even call it that. Having a great conversation with whoever you're selling to about what is their problem and just a pure doctor's approach of can we diagnose it and can what I'm selling help you? And if so, great, we're going to move forward. And if not, then we're going to walk away. That core, I didn't realize it at that moment as I got into tech sales, realizing that a lot of technology sales, whether it's a startup, has no training. Or a little bit larger company has barely any training because they just were rapidly growing startup. And so you now have this cohort of salespeople and even sales leaders and beyond where they organically grew, some by natural sales ability, some by the market carrying them there. And within all of that, to your point is there's some of these great organizations that have built sales cultures and processes because they've had to, because what they are selling is so difficult and Cintas is one of those. So what Cintas is selling is so difficult to sell. There is no such thing as an SDR. There is no such thing as presales. The salesperson is it 100% from start to finish, including long-term contracts that you're legal to. And having that wide range of business experience and depth has served me well. But I think to the tech community at large, it would serve them well to get cross-pollination around that level of work ethic, that level of business acumen, that level of urgency carries through to results no matter what industry you're in and definitely in technology. I did not have all of that context. Now, as with any 20… hindsight 20/20, I'm looking back and have looked back. But once I was able to get into the technology industry, That I won't claim as some sort of unique thing to me. So this is where I think by getting real with myself and then unlocking my superpower, it re-upped my confidence and the ability to bet on myself. So that was foundational. But the secret weapon that I talked about earlier, kind of the third shift, was tapping into strategic community and network. So you were part of that, having a conversation about tech sales. What does that really mean? What does it You know, how do you engage? Then going through our own community, meaning Sales Success, and having various conversations for myself selfishly while they were being helpful, and I tried to reciprocate that. And going beyond that and actually tapping into people that had worked in the same style of industry with me but had moved over to tech sales, I essentially went out and interviewed them not for a podcast but for myself so that I could uplevel my knowledge of where I was going to go. And when I was able to, when I got my interview with Gartner, I was prepared. I was more than prepared because I had done the pre-work for myself and then I had captured insight beyond what would be shared with me in an interview process to have an interview that they didn't know was going to happen that day. And then they hired me. Yeah. And then I was going to move on, but I'll pause. But, and then I can launch into your point. That literally unlocked the key for me jumping into a new industry whereby I've been able to accelerate in 6-month increments what I think people take years to do.

16:31 Scott Ingram: Before we get back to my conversation with Paul, I want to share another secret weapon that many in the Sales Success Community have discovered, and that's Vidyard. Vidyard's free browser plugin allows you to easily record videos and screen recordings and build trust with your own humanity. You can learn more and check out their brand new AI script generator at top1.fm/vai. And now back to my conversation with Paul DiVincenzo. Yeah, I wanna take a little bit of a detour 'cause again, the rest of this journey, it continues to be very, very interesting and your intentionality around it is kind of epic. But one thought that I have, and it's been a little bit of an evolving thought process, right? 'Cause there's a lot of people who, come to the community or come to this podcast, they're early in their career or they're even considering sales. We have a lot of people that they're in college and trying to figure out, hey, is this the career for me and how do I navigate this path? And it's so interesting just how the economy shifts and how, you know, our feelings about, you know, tech being the greatest thing ever have maybe shifted a little bit with a lot of layoffs and things going on. But it's given me pause around, you know, what the foundation that you get early in your career is so, so important. And what is the best way to do that? Right. And I've talked a lot on this show with, you know, who've come into technology. They've come in through the SDR role. And we talk about spending a little bit of extra time in that role so that they can prepare themselves to be really great in the field. But part of me feels like even that is a little bit dangerous because you may not get the true breadth and depth that will serve you from that business acumen perspective. I think the other challenge, especially if you're going to work for a startup, you're likely not getting any type of support. I mean, this is trial by fire. We're going to throw you into the deep end of the pool. And hope you figure out how to swim because we don't even have like lifeguards or people who can teach you to swim. Just like you're going to have to figure it out or you might drown. Whereas if you go to a company that is really well established, that has just massive training resources and where you can go in as a full cycle rep, I think, Paul, I'm really interested in your perspective, right? Having seen both of them experience both of these things, like which path you think makes the most sense. But I'm talking about Cintas, the ADPs, the, you know, these well-established organizations with frankly stuff that's a little bit challenging to sell, but you're going to learn business and you're going to build this foundation for yourself and they're going to have resources that are just absolutely amazing to help you be successful if you just follow the process. Gartner is another company like this. Like, they have so much great process about how they sell and their culture that you can build the greatest foundation that's going to serve you well if you want to go into tech later, or you want to go work for a smaller company that's more nimble, that doesn't have kind of the bureaucracy. So Paul, what's your perspective on that piece?

19:50 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, no, I think that's a great detour. So what I would say is I think the point of view of many people, if they're not in sales or they're in some other discipline, product or anything else, is they look at salespeople as either kind of wind-up toys, if you will, and you're really motivated by only 2 things, whether it's recognition or money. Both of those are true. I think I'm still motivated by money. There is no question about it. But what everybody's missing until they slow down, if they're the individual in it, or if they're knowledgeable enough, experienced enough, or wise enough to see it, is that what you just described is super important, which is growth. To me, it came down to one question is not only what am I getting paid here, but what am I becoming here? So that question for me was super impactful when I heard it. It's What, not what are you getting paid here, but what are you becoming here? And so if you ask that question at different points in the career, it's exactly what you said. So it's, there's personality that does play a role here. So there's so many people that cannot and will not stick to a script. And so if that's the case, it's, you're gonna get a square peg in a round hole if you go into a program that is very well defined. But outside of that, if somebody's new to sales, they absolutely should try to find a company that is committed to training and development. And so that could be a company like Cintas. They have an amazing training program. Earlier in my career, AT&T did as well. And as you progress in your career, just most of the time, if you're doing it right, that question of what am I becoming here? You also could outgrow the company, but there's always another level. And so it's a good call out for me because I surpassed the level and I probably plateaued for almost 4 or 5 years at Cintas, meaning there wasn't much more I could learn from them. But what I did learn in the decade I was there was everything from not only sales, But because they're an operationally driven company all the way back down to the P&L. And to have that wide range of a conversation that early in the career is pretty unique. So I would encourage anybody and everybody listening, you're getting into sales, you're early in your career, you're mid-career, doesn't matter. But ask yourself the question is not only what are you getting paid, what are you becoming? And if your answer is I have nothing else to learn here or from these folks, it could be time to move on. But if you find that you have so much more to learn, then that's great. Then go find it and go learn everything you can at the current company you're at and win and be successful consistently. Gartner, to your point, here's what I tell people, and I'm proud I looked it up right before this call on LinkedIn, is since I was the vanguard going there from Cintas specifically, I've helped almost 10 people get a role there. A couple of them have been promoted. And what I would say is Gartner's training program is also amazing. I would equate that to getting an MBA in technology sales, management consulting, and business outcome-driven conversations at the executive level, meaning truly at the C-suite. Talking to a CIO, a CHRO about what they need to deliver back to the CEO, the business, and the board. And they train you on it all. Probably worth half a million, million dollars, just that alone. So I can't emphasize it enough. The detour you just took us on, I don't know what else to say about it. I can go deeper about all the great things, all the challenging things and the sweaty palms in some of that training and some of the curriculum. But it was well worth it, and I would encourage everybody to go through it.

24:03 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that is so good. You know, you did make a comment about, you know, if you're not, you know, one that likes to follow the program, like you like to kind of blaze your own path. The analogy I really like is sort of a musical one, right? And if you think about improv in music, you don't start out with improvisation. You know, like the best improvisation starts with learn the fricking music. Like once you've learned the music the way it was meant to be played, Then you've got a, again, a much better foundation to sort of improvise from. Right. So again, especially if you're early in your career, like don't try and invent some wheel, right? Like learn a program, learn a system, go to work for a company, be willing to sort of bring that on. And then, you know, work on the improvisation. I say this, this is totally voice of experience from the way I approached a lot of things, right? Like, no, it had to be my way and I had to go figure this out. And it's like, you know what? These folks have spent collectively, I don't know, in some of these organizations, tens of thousands of years worth of experience in figuring this stuff out. Like, try that first before you try and reinvent the wheel. So anyway, I think that was a great, great tangent. And you gave us this framework around, because I love the question of what are you becoming in this role? And I think in a lot of ways, I'm interested in where this started, like where in your journey you sort of decided upon this roadmap, because I know your path and it has been very driven by what am I becoming through this role? What am I learning through this role that's going to help me take the next step and the next step and the next step?

25:44 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, I mean, I think that, well, what you said, I think too, just to come back to it for a moment, which is You know, not reinventing the wheel. It also could be, and people don't think about this, especially depending on where they're at, and the older you get, the more you think about this, but I know I didn't, is a career misstep, or if you go running really fast in the wrong direction, can be a detour of years in some cases, and it can be this massively painful journey. So people do take that time to evaluate what they're becoming. It's going to help there at least. For me, that question, where it started, I think I would say it really started in 2017 when I decided I was going to have to leave Cintas. And then the year following that, going through the ups and downs of the job cycle that I was talking about earlier, that's where I really had to start thinking about it's not just about the next role as, you know, whatever industry hyped up or otherwise, whether it's tech or medical device and You know, the economy cycles will take people through that. But thinking through, okay, if I get the next role and it's great, both from culture and pay, etc., what do I need to take away from that? And so where it took me a decade plus to capture a lot of lessons, I didn't do it as intentionally as we're talking about here. So this is where a shortcut can come out for somebody listening is It took me a decade to learn all the different elements of the business and P&L and other business conversations. It took me a decade. But the reality is, in my hindsight journey, I probably learned most of that in my first 3 to 4 years. Did I get better? Did I get more refined? Did I continue my expertise beyond that? Absolutely. But the core of what I learned I really knew it within 3 or 4 years. So an example is at Cintas. So when I finally, you know, the holdup of me actually making the jump was a great thing because of my reflection. So when I went into the new roles or to the new role at that time, it was with intentionality of how quickly can I get to a certain level of mastery? So get to the 80/20 rule. How fast can I get there? And that's what my journey has been so far since then is can I compact and learn a business start to finish? What are the metrics? What are the value propositions? What are the top priorities? How do I message that in a very clean and clear and succinct way? And ultimately, because we're in sales, win revenue or retain revenue and exceed our numbers. How quickly can I do it? The first one took me, I've gotten it down to where I believe I can learn an industry in about 6 months. And from that launchpad, do I wanna stay for a long period of time or do I just wanna stay for a next period of time where I can go learn the next piece of my journey? That's what I'm doing now and I'm doing it very intentionally starting in 2017 to answer your question. Now with the intentionality and the flywheel that I have of the 5 shifts, I don't know if we want to pause there or if I left it hanging.

29:06 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I want to explore kind of 2 things there, right? One is just the how of how you've distilled this process. Like, what are the steps? What are the things that you're working to figure out to learn in industry in those 6 months? One, and just so I don't forget the second one, I want to understand, or maybe you can share a couple of examples of what are examples of the things that you're trying to intentionally learn? Because it's not just the industry.

29:36 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, well, I think the things I'm trying to intentionally learn are not… they're not groundbreaking, to be clear. So most people, we're going to roll our eyes when we talk about this. But the first thing I'm trying to learn is what makes up success at that organization. And that may sound oversimplified because There could be assumptions, but I think part of what we're talking about now is gaining perspective through your career, but also through the selling environment. So very similar to asking a great question of yourself, it's the same thing internally. It's don't just assume they want more top line revenue or this is the KPI that matters. Dig very quickly, as deep as possible on every industry about what is it that needs to be accomplished. And what timeframe. And again, it sounds very common, but a lot of times people pass over it of just saying, okay, this is what I've got to go hit. And they miss a bunch of different things and they wonder why they're checking all the boxes and still not being successful. So I left that kind of broad-based, but, you know, an example I would say at Gartner, and I'm just thinking through what to share in the open forum, but It would be what metrics or what impact needs to happen at a current client based on what they're currently spending. So that would be kind of this retention and growth and what really needs to happen on the new business front depending on the role and being very clear on what that mix looks like. Because again, it sounds elementary and of course they just hand this to you, but depending on the company and depending on the industry and the size of company, like we just talked about, whether they're startup or very well defined, the clarity there could be very, very far apart. And so maybe the simple summary is to get extremely clear. So gain extreme clarity on what is important for that role. What timeframe do you need to perform under and making sure that you really hone in on that immediately. And I say that there's going to be people listening, I would assume, especially in 2023 where we're at now, that have experienced, you know, friends or hopefully not themselves, but layoffs and other things. And a lot of things I've seen people turn over in, in organizations as an example where they thought they had the whole year to hit their numbers because they were given an annual number, but they didn't really know because they didn't hone in on that they needed to sell $100,000 in the first 90 days. That was the first metric because it wasn't clear. They were not told that if they didn't clear this hurdle, then all the others weren't going to be there. So it's unfortunate, but that's what I mean, getting extreme clarity on the front end that will allow for it. And that's what I've done. So Gartner, what do we need to accomplish under what timeframe? What are the numbers, the KPIs, the mix, whatever it is? And then also tying into your leadership, if you're an individual contributor or if you're a leader to the leader of your leaders, is what do I need to help you accomplish so that we are successful? And they hired you for a reason. Make sure you are delivering on that reason. That is the very near-term focus. And then everything else will come. Does that resonate or is there anything else I need to add there?

33:01 Scott Ingram: Yeah, no, I think that's good. And I really like the managing up metric there. Right. And really just getting clear on Because sometimes, and it's funny, you and I were just talking about this a couple of weeks ago, like sometimes there's a disconnect between what the business really needs and what really matters and the KPIs that get handed out, right? And I think the more clear, to your point, that you can get in terms of what matters most to your boss and the success of your team and what matters most to their boss and the success of that broader team. And managing to those and delivering on those things, because that's what really makes an impact. That's what makes the difference. Not like, oh, I checked all of the generic boxes that you asked me to check and somehow I'm not performing in your eyes.

33:51 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah. And sometimes I think I can also, I think that depending on the company and industry, but I think a lot of people are just being too nice. Meaning, let's say they're new to the company and even their boss, unless they're, you know, very old school, they're going to tell you a little, almost give you some room to breathe. They're going to say, yeah, like bring your new ideas. Let's talk about this. And people can get caught up in that is, you know, that's great. And bringing new ideas are amazing. And that also brings great energy. And I love doing it personally. And I think a lot of people do. But the task at hand, sometimes it's very urgent. Sometimes you do have room to bring those strategic items to bear. But a lot of times, it, you know, there's a very specific thing or things that need to get accomplished in an order. And if you miss those, then you'll be playing catch up. So yeah.

34:48 Scott Ingram: So let's talk about some more of the steps in your journey in the context of becoming like, what were you becoming? Or what were you working to become at each step along the way.

34:58 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah. I mean, so for me, if somebody looks at my LinkedIn, they're going to see that I went from at this point in time, so we can maybe, I can lay it out and then we can backtrack where we need to backtrack. But I spent most of my career in Fortune 500 company, went to the next Fortune 500 company, which was Gartner for a few years, went to a couple startups after that. And now at a midsize company as a managing director for national IT and technology for indeed.com. So That's where I'm at 5 years post-Cintas. So I've had, you know, pretty quick journey and each one of those is a step up, title notwithstanding, but each one is more earnings, more experience, all of the things that are becoming for me and my journey. I anticipate my journey moving through the process of becoming CRO and then ultimately sometime down the road here, CEO. So that is my goal. And so When I think about what needs to happen in that time, I spent a lot of time at one company. So there's also just physical age that I need to take into account. And so as I looked at that shortening of timeframe of how do I get to a certain level of mastery and performance quickly, that's what I'm becoming, to answer your question. So I had to enter a new industry, technology, business-related content. Executive level conversations on a regular basis. That was Gartner. Then it became the opportunity to go help build from the ground up. So with a Cintas or a Gartner, to your point earlier, it's a very well-defined process system. They know how to execute their business. Innovation doesn't typically happen in the sales department at the tip of the spear. There's some improvements to be clear, and those are welcome and those are adopted in many cases. But there is a massive machine that's already there. A couple of years after joining Gartner through my network, I got an opportunity to go help build out the enterprise sales organization at a startup called Humu, which was started by the prior CHRO of Google. That was my opportunity, which I did not think I was going to get. In my career actually to go and help create an organization from the ground up, meaning there was no sales process, comp plans were in flux at best. What size of client, what industry, what were the, you know, what were all of the elements that needed to go into the target bullseye of focusing and getting to the right product market fit and customer profile. That was growth for me because in my other organizations that was already defined. And so going into that industry and going into a startup where there wasn't really anything defined, it was, we have a product that is evolving. We have a value proposition that is not extremely clear. We have clientele that's a mishmash of different things, but we know that we need to go and sell bigger deals to bigger clients. And find the right industry or industries. Spent a couple of years doing that. So those are the types of things when I looked at if I'm gonna become a CRO, as an example, whether it's a startup or a larger organization, it's having that clarity about knowing how to do the detail work of understanding a market, defining a market, building a market, building a team and process from start to finish. Taking the best of different things and deciding what's going to make sense. Going through all the buying cycles of literally setting up a CRM from scratch, setting up sales automation from scratch, sales technology now that we all have it from scratch. All of those, not just being handed it from an L&D group or a sales ops group or something like that. That was my journey going into the startup world of building that out for a couple of years. It was fun, challenging to be clear, and it was all about growth. Yeah.

39:03 Scott Ingram: So from running the machine very well to then building the machine basically from scratch.

39:08 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, absolutely. So really, so building, I mean, that was the growth. I mean, I think, I think that, and I was one of these, so I guess I'll share it with our audience because I think we've all been there in different ways, Scott, is if you're a salesperson or even the top salesperson in an organization, And sometimes you bring ideas or you are looking, you know, you don't know why a decision was made right, wrong, or indifferent. Most of us are very opinionated and very authoritative in our own right. And a lot of times we don't really know because we don't have perspective. And even though we are very, in many cases, especially if you've been an experienced salesperson, you really are a pretty well-rounded business person, but there's still a level of being myopic in the role that you're playing and you just don't get visibility into all the other facets. So that was when I, after a couple of years at Gartner successfully doing well and I felt I had technology conversation, technology speak under my belt, my biggest miss at that moment was I've never built anything from scratch. And so I had a choice there too, was do I spend a few more years just being successful at Gartner and getting promoted and doing that journey, or do I have to go push myself? And that's what I decided to do and got the opportunity, which is great. Yeah. So there's a lot that goes into that too. I mean, it's building it. It's a lot different style of work than running the machine. That's what I would say.

40:43 Scott Ingram: Yeah, we could probably spend 2 hours just on that adventure, right? Like the building the machine, kind of that first experience in leadership. I think the other thing that you shared, kind of working inside smaller organizations, and I think, you know, I've done all of the above, right? Like having that perspective of it's one thing to like, my job is to turn this lever way on the outside of the machine. I don't even quite understand how the center of this machine or the other side of it works to being in an organization where you can see all of the connective tissue, right? You're like, oh, I get it. That cog connects to that thing. And so here is the connection between our legal process and finance and our customer service process and product and development and all of these other things. And it's so hard. You can't get that perspective when you work inside a very large organization, right? You can't understand How they connect, how those decisions are made, why the weird reason we do this weird thing actually has some rationale behind it, you know, kind of stuff, right? So let me take one quick detour and then we'll kind of continue on the journey because this was also your first, if I'm not mistaken, your first real leadership position, correct?

41:59 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah. So I did some regional leadership at Cintas, but it was very brief. So I would consider this my first real leadership. Yes.

42:05 Scott Ingram: So just quickly, what were the biggest lessons learned there and what do you wish you knew or what do you wish you had worked on before you found yourself in that position?

42:16 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, I think so. I would say that, so I think I shared this at the event a few years ago. Number one, I think it came for me at the perfect time. I think people think they're ready for leadership or they might want it because That's the next step at their company or whatever. But I am happy I didn't take a real deep leadership role earlier in my career because I was very self-focused and just wanted to perform for myself. Whereas because my leadership experience came later in my career, I lucked out a little bit in being naturally ready. To not be the center of attention. And I hope that's the right leadership for most people is to be as selfless as possible and to really be focused on the team and their wins. And earlier in my career, I'm sure I would have been fine, but I don't think I would have been as ready. So I think I lucked out there a little bit, but it may be something for the audience to think about depending on where they're in their career. And I've seen great leaders take it earlier in their career. And do amazing things. But I think it's a maturity game. And so people should really think about that before they take the role. And even if that's what they want to do at that moment. And so that's for the audience. What I would have liked, what I think I maybe would have liked to do in the run-up to it. I think what I didn't do just because I was moving so quickly would have been to reach out to some of the great leaders that I've had in my career. And I didn't take the time to do that before I started my first leadership role. I did as I went into the next ones, but that probably would've helped just a little bit because as I've done it post my first leadership role, it comes back to that perspective that I talked about. So I'm pushing myself for growth, and by nature of that, I'm literally walking into the unknown. I'm stepping off a cliff that I've never been on before. And it sounds common sense in hindsight, like most things, but if somebody is taking a leadership role and that's what I should have done is just reached out to people and said, hey, I'm going to take this role. So it's not really a question. Here's what I'm walking into. Here's the challenge. Here's what I know. Here's what I don't know. And just simply said, what else do you think I should consider? And it does not matter what industry they're from. I have found like a very basic comment from that type of experienced person. Is mind-blowing for me. It'll be something that is so basic for them because they've been in leadership or they've been in roles all the way up through the CRO role. And they'll just say, yeah, you know, maybe consider this or think about that. Or, you know, think about in this case, taking on a leadership role at a startup, you're building a machine. And one of those experienced folks said to me, and I had already started building the machine, said, hey, tell me about what you're doing. I laid it out and he said, okay, he goes, you should just think about the machine you're building for the outcome that you now know. And if you need more clarity on the outcome, similar to what I advised the group here earlier, get that from your leadership or CEO or whatever, and then just make sure the machine you're building is delivering on that because it may not be. It may be just this machine you've been dreaming up, you've wanted to build for so long, and then now you're… but you don't know it's going to deliver that particular outcome. So it's really getting to what is the minimum effective dose to deliver it and then building on that. I'll kind of pause there. But the answer, long answer to the question is mentorship network. Reach out, have conversations, 5 to 15 minutes. It'll save you you know, 5 months to a year.

46:10 Scott Ingram: You know, I feel like there's a little bit of a theme developing in this idea of hindsight, right? So, you know, we progress, we had to learn all of these things. You get there and you look back and go, oh my God, it's so obvious. But it's impossible to see from where you were. And I think it ties into when you have that mentor network. And frankly, it's what I'm trying to do right now for people who are listening is It doesn't have to be your hindsight. If you talk to somebody that's already further down the road and they can look back and go, yeah, just look out, like in about 2 quarters from now, there's this giant pothole and here's how you need to be thinking about, about that and preparing for that because you're not going to be able to see it until you're about to hit it.

46:52 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, 1,000%. I mean, I know on most of the podcasts, including mine, we talked about great books and yeah, great books are great mentors. There is no question if you read them. You know, one book can save you 5 years if you read it, but will it be relevant to you in that moment? That's where the conversations are exponentially more valuable because it's curated to you in that moment on the journey you're on. And it only needs to be one sentence or question I've found, which is the other element, is it only needs to be one sentence or one question from somebody that's just a little further down the road than me. And it saves me time, headache, money, heartburn, all of it.

47:38 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. We're going to come back to that. I want to spend some more time talking about kind of the secret weapon and the mentors and all of that, but let's continue on the journey and the growth and kind of what you're learning. What's the next step or 2?

47:49 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah. So on the journey was spending a little time at 2 startups for about 3 years or so, which was Humu, an even smaller startup called Journeyfront most recently. And as I've progressed, it was learning and growing. But also too, I think we've been mostly talking about learning and growing around business outcomes, what to deliver, systems, machine, etc., numbers, all those things. And that is all very important. The other element, depending on where people are at or have been at in their careers, I came from mostly Fortune 500, highly professional organizations. And when I say professional, I mean the good, the bad, and ugly of what corporate America is in professional. So there's a warm blanket is the way I describe it to people of professionalism, and it's good and bad. I couldn't imagine being yelled at as an example in my career, although I've heard stories of that. And so I came from this hyper-professional background where everything was wrapped in that warm blanket of professionalism. I've been lucky enough to be part of great cultures overall. And so coming from that, going into startups or small business, depending on where people are at, the professionalism can go down to zero depending on where you're at. So the next phase of my journey was part of that, which was really looking at how people interact. And so whether that's a founder that's under massive pressure from a fundraise or, you know, other groups in the business, in a startup as an example, that are under pressure for, you know, numbers or KPIs or whatever, how people react, but less about how they react and how more how I react had become paramount because If I let something knock me off of my focus, then it could ruin, you know, a day or a week. And so I think depending on where people are at in their career or what they've been at and the level of professionalism in their organization, that part of it is what does your people interaction look like? What does your mental state look like? I don't want to use mindset because it's overused now, but that's basically what it is. And making sure you have extreme control over that on a regular basis. In, if you're in a very dynamic environment, whether it's a small business that maybe doesn't have as much professionalism, or if it's a startup that is just under massive pressure to do certain things, either one, getting your equanimity so that you are hyper-focused and professional. That's the way I like to keep it. It allows for you to stand out and it allows for you to run your world in a different way. It also allows you to step into massive uncertainty and still feel very certain about what it is you're going to go do because you've got that. So that's the… that was the next phase of my journey based on where I was at, which was building the machine for Humu and starting the machine for Journeyfront and then really managing through the people portion of the business and doing it in a very elegant way.

51:05 Scott Ingram: Say more about that because I think Some people might jump to the conclusion that when you say professional, you're talking about, I don't know, being unemotional or not personal. And knowing multiple people who have worked for you, I know that your approach is like ultra human. So talk about like maybe that dichotomy, because I think I'm glad I know you well, because I wouldn't have caught that. And I might have made some very, very wrong assumptions about what you mean and how you think about that. Oh yeah.

51:36 Paul DiVincenzo: No, no. Yeah. Thanks for calling that out too. I think, you know, people that don't know, I would say that at least for me, when I say being professional, I mean being the most human. I would say describe it as being human first. That's what I would describe it as, is it would be taking care of the people first and then everything else comes after that. So because if I care about you and I care about my people deeply, then it doesn't matter if we lost the deal and we're behind our number and we're under pressure. It doesn't matter because that's being a professional in my opinion. So it's a great call out because the definition could be something else. Being professional, in my opinion, is being very human and being very helpful at all times under any circumstances. And by doing that, for me, allows a lot of empathy and sympathy depending on what it is, but empathy mostly in a business setting. And it doesn't matter if that person is above me, meaning the CEO who's under the pressure from the board and they are very, you know, hot about something, it allows me to be very stable in having the conversation about, you know, what doesn't matter if they report to me or if I report to them. I'm looking at them as a human being first and not even worried about how they might be articulating their challenge to me, but I'm there to help. And that's professionalism to me. I don't know any other way to describe it. I guess the reason… I don't know if I told the story on the podcast, but I know I've told it to the group individually… is my oldest son now, who's 19, was born premature. I lived at… this is when I was with Cintas. He was born premature, lived in Loma Linda Children's Hospital in Southern California, and we had to live at the hospital for about 6 months. There was only room for one person and it was me. So I slept in the room with him and changed into my suit, which was required at Cintas. And I would go out into the field and sell every day because I was a field seller. I had a territory and then I would come back at the end of the day. But I would meet the doctors for their rounds in the morning at 6 in the morning. It's a learning hospital, so they would send students in and I had to kick most of them out because they were not being human and they were not being helpful. They wanted to push the next drug. And through my conversations with some great doctors there who ultimately saved my son's life, thank goodness, those were the ones that I've modeled since then. So that's 20, you know, 19 years obviously since then. I've modeled how I approach things based on that. I don't know why I did that. I just, you know, I look at selling as that, as solving a problem. And that also goes for the daily interactions with the people I work with. It's, You know, we're running into massive challenges all the time in any industry, in any business, startup or otherwise. But if I'm looking at that person as a human being at all times, I never have to worry about being professional because they will always be there. So that's the way I look at professionalism. And I know that other people don't look at it that way, so they can allow the pressure to get the best of them, but I never do. And so it's definitely not cold. I hope it's the most human way of approaching things as possible. And I've had people be very emotional about something above me and below me. And I had one person call me their fire extinguisher. So they would come to me very hot and then they would, they would be put out by the conversation. And it's because I'm just approaching as a human being and we can then go from there. So hopefully that was helpful.

55:33 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it was. I still am having a disconnect because I don't think most people would associate that word, professional, with what you described. I think what connects with me, I think of your approach and what you described as servant leadership, which has been another just massive ongoing theme within the community that in so many ways got started by DeJuan Brown in the approach that he brings and that he takes. And I think if, to me, these are the great leaders, it starts with, it's, this isn't about me. I'm here for the team. And if you're an individual contributor, you're there for your customer, right? And those are all of the most successful people that I talk to on this podcast. Like, that is the approach, right? So whatever you want to call it, like, for me, what resonates is this concept of servant leadership. And the dynamic that you brought that I love is in order to do that, in order to bring that, you need to be very grounded. Like, you have to have your own stuff together and not get triggered and spun up by other people's stuff, because if you do, you're not going to be able to serve them.

56:42 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, it's a great summary.

56:44 Scott Ingram: Good, I'm glad you like it. So let's wrap up the journey, and then I want to talk about… yeah, we'll connect the dots between the rest of some of these items, right? We're going to talk about culture a little bit. We're definitely going to talk about The community and the network, and then I really want to just kind of connect it back to your the five pillars that you started with. So let's finish the journey and kind of the steps, right? So I think that brings us to kind of the most recent step that you made in present day, right?

57:13 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So absolutely. So present day, I now 2023 recently took over Indeed's national IT and technology staffing group, which is a new vertical for them essentially. And so. Very recent, only a few months into that journey now, and taking all of the lessons I've learned and just shared in different ways around, you know, is the machine I'm building the right machine? What are the KPIs? What are the right numbers? Where do we need to hit the ground running? Where do we need to slow down?

57:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I love it.

57:46 Paul DiVincenzo: I think your summary was great, which is making sure I have my servant leader hat on all the time and approaching it from that very human way. So that's where I'm at now. Very early. I've been in the business a quarter, exceeded my numbers. Thank goodness for learning quickly, but we'll see where the next year or so takes us.

58:04 Scott Ingram: And in this role, Paul, I mean, where are you working to grow? Who or what are you becoming in the process?

58:11 Paul DiVincenzo: What I'm becoming here is this will be as a leader, this will be the largest revenue stream that I'm running. And so I just got the numbers yesterday, so I'm pausing because I don't know them off the top of my head just yet. But we should be running around a $90 million business this year with a lot of room to grow. And we just restructured a bunch of different KPIs internally. So what I'm becoming here, in my opinion, is going to lead me to the next step of getting to the CRO role. And so there's the size of the organization, more people than I've ever had to lead before. There's the complexity of the organization. And Indeed is in the middle of the 2 groups or the 2 sizes of companies I've worked for before. So they're not a Fortune 500 company and they are by no means a startup anymore. They're right in the middle. And so there's a mix of bringing everything I've learned from this journey I've been on so far to bear here, which is taking all the metrics that need to happen, the process, the playbook that needs to get built, and really developing that into a systematic way to win at a high level.

59:32 Scott Ingram: Brilliant, brilliant. So let's talk about culture. And you asked me an interesting question. I'm going to turn back on you. As folks who've been listening to know, I've, I've become like super obsessed with just this concept of sales cultures and what it means to be in and create and be part of a great sales culture. But you asked kind of the difference between, or I'm not doing this right, but kind of the connection between sales culture and company culture. How do you think about that? And how do you think about kind of these different cultures and the way they connect?

1:00:07 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah. So the question is, is how does sales culture connect to the company culture?

1:00:12 Scott Ingram: I think so.

1:00:13 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, I think so. This is completely my opinion, my perception, and love to get yours is I think that sales culture, depending on the organization, sales culture is obviously just part of the larger culture, but there's organizations that our sales culture is I think it's part of the larger culture, but it's independent in a bigger way than maybe other groups in the organization. Then within that, I think depending on the company, so I've been part of a couple different industries. Cintas is a sales-driven culture to a point, but they're also a very operationally driven culture. And so ops can overrun sales in many ways. And so there's a big tug of war in some, in a lot of ways between the two groups. And so depending on the organization, if they're a sales-led culture, I think it's a different culture than it is if it's an ops-led culture or a product-led culture. So I think with sales being independent, it's part of but independent. It really depends on the org on how it interplays. That would be the first kind of foundational comment. I don't know if you have a different point of view.

1:01:25 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I guess I'm curious about, can they… I'm not sure if mutually exclusive is the right term here, but the idea that can you have a great sales culture inside of a company that doesn't have a great culture and vice versa? Like, can you not have a good sales culture inside a company that has a really strong culture?

1:01:47 Paul DiVincenzo: Let's see. So I would say I think it's very challenging. I would say it would be very challenging to have a great sales culture inside a company with a bad culture. And the only thing that could potentially change that would be that the sales leader, the ultimate sales leader, whoever that is, let's say they report to the CEO. If that sales leader is so strong that they essentially run their organization independent of the rest of the organization, it might work. But even then it would be very challenging. That would be the first one. What was the second one?

1:02:22 Scott Ingram: So the second one is basically if you have a great company culture, I'm answering my own question. I mean, certainly you can screw that up and have a negative sales culture. I mean, my perspective really connects, I think, a lot to what you just said. And my thinking is without the most senior level buy-in, So if the… basically the CEO… if the CEO doesn't believe in, respect, value sales, you basically can't have a strong sales culture unless… I mean, to your point, and it's a huge maybe… unless that sales leader, that most senior sales leader, is so strong that they can almost override the CEO in that perspective. But even there, to me, the best sales cultures have to exist inside a great company culture because it's all connected. I can't do a great job serving my customers if there isn't great connectivity between all the other parts of the organization that I have to bring to bear to serve that customer.

1:03:31 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, I agree 100%. Like, just the version I gave was a big maybe. Right? Could the sales leader be so strong that they are able to insulate it? But I mean, that I think I agree. I think it would be such a long shot. I won't give examples in the public forum, but I've seen it where a CEO maybe didn't come from sales in any way, shape, or form and looked at salespeople as sleazy. And that was his personal thought about it. Hired a sales leader to think that that was going to solve the problem. But that's part of the culture now at that point. And so if the sale, if the ultimate leader in the organization looks at sales in some way as a dirty word, then yes, it's probably doomed to fail at some point sooner rather than later. I think part of, I think one thing that I would keep in mind, whether I'm an individual contributor or a sales leader or a business leader, doesn't really matter. Is back to the original part of the conversation in this interview, which is business outcomes are all that matter. And when you get to a rocky road in the economy, revenue solves a lot of problems. And so I still am surprised that there are people that don't believe that. But having that level of clarity in any level of the conversation cuts through a lot of red tape and other BS. So Something to think about.

1:04:57 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:04:57 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah.

1:04:58 Scott Ingram: I mean, the way it's really been boiling down for me is you can just look at that. I think if you look at the background of the CEO or the founder or, you know, whoever that most senior leader is, like, where did they come from? Right. Do they come from a product background? Do they come from an ops or finance background? Do they come from a sales, marketing, customer service, customer success? I just looked up because, and I don't know, I'm not very well connected to this organization. Other than, well, anyway, the person that just came to mind for me is Bill McDermott. And Bill, he was in sales, ran sales at like Pitney Bowes or somewhere. I've got to look up the rest of his background. He's the CEO of ServiceNow today. And my point is, and the purpose of my example is, here's a guy, I mean, he wrote a book about some of his sales leadership exploits that is a freaking fantastic book.

1:05:49 Paul DiVincenzo: Winner's Dream. I love it.

1:05:50 Scott Ingram: Yeah. That I read years ago. Like, here's a guy where, you know, if this guy is the CEO, I promise you ServiceNow has an amazing sales culture because Bill is at the head. Like, I know everything I need to know because I know Bill and his background. That's just kind of the point of my example there in terms of how consequential that sales leader is. And Paul, I know you've experienced this because you just alluded to it. If you have somebody that just doesn't have that background, they don't have that just direct experience with sales and know what it takes and that there's humans in this role and we actually care. We're not just sleaze. You can't have a great sales culture in that organization, like basically full stop.

1:06:35 Paul DiVincenzo: Absolutely. I think that there's a potential to have a great sales culture if somebody's not been in sales, but it will be based on their personality and their leadership style. If you've got somebody like a Bill McDermott, I mean, his book Winner's Dream, for those that haven't read it, I think the subtitle is From the Corner Store to the Corner Office. Amazing book. Definitely a must read. But to your point, yes. I mean, I don't know what their rankings are on all the sites of, you know, quality and scores, but I think they're in the high 90s and he's probably a big reason of that. There's no doubt.

1:07:09 Scott Ingram: So I had to look, I just pulled him up on LinkedIn. So it was Xerox back in the day, right? When Xerox had like just this absolutely amazing reputation from a sales and sales training perspective. And then he was at Gartner for a while and, you know, interesting adventure, but fantastic book, highly recommend it. My point kind of stands. And Paul, let's come back to, I guess we diverged from our good, bad, and ugly intent, but I mean, you at this point have seen a good range and a good variety of different sales organizations and different cultures. I mean, what is the good, bad, and the ugly from your experience around sales culture specifically?

1:07:46 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, for me, for sales culture, I think good or great sales culture is defined about some of the elements we've already talked about on this conversation, which is, do they invest in their people? Are they clear about the outcomes that they're trying to drive? Are they clear about their position in the organization? If the sales group and culture surrounding that have a lot of those elements… clarity, focus, people-first investments… that could be training, that could be mentorship. There's, you know, anything and everything within that. That to me is a great sales culture as a starting point. And, you know, I think it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyways, is they need to pay… they need to be able to compensate people what they're worth. So those things are kind of the big ones and there's many others, but those are some great starting points in my opinion. I think the bad sales culture is one maybe we just talked about where it's not led either the company or even maybe even this, I've even seen the sales organization led by somebody who was never great in sales. And I think that poses a very big challenge because it's similar to the CEO not having any sales experience or being sales focused. If your sales leader comes from a different background, I don't even know how that happens sometimes, but it's more prevalent than people think. And so I think that proposed a huge bad challenge around, you know, just not understanding the basics of why something in sales needs to be that way, whether it's a process, a procedure, a comp plan. All that creates a huge problem and typically it represents underinvestment. So the opposite of the good. So you don't get all the resources you need. You're always lacking. You just never, you never can get there and you're always wanting and you just, you want to take care of the customer. If you're, you know, on the sales team or the leadership team of sales, you're always fighting this losing battle of why don't I have what I need to take care of them? That's what we're here to do. So I think that is a really bad component. I think the ugly side, and it could be startup-centric, but I think it flows throughout, which is just broken promises. And it could be from the start where somebody's promised an OTE and nobody in that company has ever hit it, or they did hit it one time 10 years ago, and that it really becomes this ugly place of broken promises, whether it be go-to-market, total addressable market, the product not performing, delivering the value to the customer, salespeople out representing something that's, you know, vaporware if it's tech or something else that just doesn't really deliver. And it becomes very ugly very quickly. And that's sad because that person took a bet on that company just as much as the company took a bet on that person. And so I think there's that part is becomes very ugly from what I've seen in my journey. Yeah, I think those are the big ones for me in culture. I'm sure there's so many I missed, but those are kind of the big themes.

1:11:01 Scott Ingram: So Paul, you've given me another kind of epiphany here in terms of, I think if you kind of dig into what the organization views as the most important thing and what that lens is. And again, I think there's 2 primary paths here. It's either the numbers, like we care about the metrics, we care about the revenue, we care about a growth percentage, we care about, you know, something that is math versus we care about the people, we care about the customers, we care about the other stuff. Like, yes, don't get me wrong, the numbers are important. And I think this applies in a couple of different ways. And it's where you get the broken promises and the disconnects, right? Where there's a disconnect with reality and expectations are set and managed incorrectly. And we see that as a problem. I think that's also, it's kind of what you were describing in that leader disconnect, because I've seen sales leaders somehow like come from finance and they look at sales as like a math problem and they miss the humanity. Like, no, no, you don't understand. This is a very, very, very human business, even though we deal with numbers all day long. And my primary measurement is a number. It's actually the outcome of like great humanity. And to me, that's a huge differentiator in, is this a positive, progressive, like great sales culture, or is it numbers above all else? And all else is basically going to suck in that scenario.

1:12:34 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, no, no, completely agree. I mean, we have to acknowledge where we're at right this moment, which is, I mean, sales, I don't think is going away anytime soon, but until, you know, ChatGPT or AI takes over 100%, we are selling to other human beings and we're building relationships and we're providing value. And yes, to your point, I think it's those 2 you just described. And I think there's a middle ground where Numbers rule almost everything. That is, I think that is the harsh reality. And if you have a great sales culture or business culture, they add in, at least for sales, they add in the human components. So they want to take care of their people. They provide all kinds of different things. But when we see any of the best, so it's kind of Now going to the top right, if you will, of the very, very best where they have great sales culture, great numbers, meaning realistic expectations. They take care of their people. I mean, those are phenomenal companies to go to and cultures to be in. And they sometimes can be at the mercy of the leadership. You can have a leader change out and it all changes, but those are the best. I think what I mean by the middle is there's a lot of companies that are in the middle, which is Just similar to what I described somewhere earlier in the conversation, whereby not having clarity and companies and people may not even intentionally do this, but they say that they are people first. And, you know, we're seeing it right now in layoffs and other things where that's not the case. The case is numbers are first. People were added on. And in times that are tough, there is no room for any dispute. So I think that's just something for everybody to be aware of is Not in a bad way. I think it's part of the reality of any business and sales included is if it is a number-driven company and they have no people skills, I'd run as fast as possible. And if they're in the middle, it's still a maybe. It just depends on how you fit. And then those top right companies, and I just looked up ServiceNow, I mean, they are ranked in the 90th percentile on some of the different ranking systems out there. Amazing. Like, can you get in the door? And more importantly, can you excel and be part of that? Journey, that would be… that's a fun thing to do.

1:14:54 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I've heard very similar things again from like an expectation management perspective from Gartner, right? In terms of, look, we're going to give you very reasonable, very achievable numbers. If you do your job, you're going to make your number, as opposed to this, you know, faux TE scenario where, you know, shoot, if more than 70% of the sales team is making their number, then we think we set the number too low.

1:15:15 Paul DiVincenzo: Oh yeah, yeah. I think there's an element here. I don't want to take us off tangent too much, but There's now obviously in the year that we live in, you can go look it up on different systems to see are people actually hitting their numbers or not? And another way is to just be a salesperson, but for yourself and ping people on LinkedIn or otherwise and ask them for 5 or 10 minutes and just literally ask them, even though you know that they're going to be biased because they're in their own world and they could be doing great or not doing great, is to ask them like, what are they seeing before you join that company is Are people hitting their numbers? Are they happy? What's great? Similar to the good, bad, and ugly conversation we're having now, to take very small snippets of this and just say, what is it? What's good, bad, and ugly? Tell me, if you will. I'm entertaining this, your company. I'm entertaining a role. Would you share? And I think a lot of people will share and it will give perspective. So it's just something to be on the systems. It gives a good perspective.

1:16:15 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that is a perfect tangent because as I'm looking at your list, I mean, you shared it beforehand. We'll put it in the show notes, top1.fm/whatever this episode number is. Really, of your 5 elements, 2 of them to me, I would almost put in the same bucket, right? The fact that you talk about your secret weapon being a strategic community and network and investing in mentoring. And to me, those are, you know, 2 sides of the same coin. Talk about that because you also talked about it wasn't something that you really initially had. It was kind of a gap that you identified and that you filled not only well, but has become a differentiator for you.

1:16:53 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, no, I would agree with the comment, 2 sides of the same coin, no doubt. So community and network is exactly that. Most of the time you may pay to be part of it, or you may get some of it for free, or you may build it organically by doing certain things and What I try to do, similar to the servant leadership piece, is I try to help as many people out as I can. I mean, there is not a day that goes by, Scott, partially because of the podcast initially, but then beyond that, it's just I get a call, a text, an email every day from somebody about making a transition, doing this, getting perspective, anything. I can't make all those calls, but I do as best I can to answer a text, a call. And say, here's what I think. Here's if it's worth my point of view. Here's what I think based on your situation. And most of those, some of them are longer than others, but the majority of them are, I would consider relatively brief or a one-time call. And then you don't hear from that person for a year or so and you hope they did great. And sometimes they'll reach back out and go, I'm doing great. And that's amazing. So that's to me strategic community. It's strategic. Because it's thoughtful, it's intentional. Everybody knows they're trying to help each other out in different ways. So that's strategic. And then, but it's intermittent mentoring on the other hand. And I know I mentioned in my first podcast I had hired a Tony Robbins mentor at that time or a few years before that had been great, took me up a lot of levels. And I've continued to do that. I now, at the moment we speak, I have 4 different mentors. I pay 3 of them. And those are… there are a couple things that I'm gaining out of it. Just like I have a choice if I buy a book, which is typically a very small investment, I could save myself 5 years by reading that book by somebody that was ahead of me. If I have a great strategic networking conversation or community conversation, I could also save myself 5 years, or I could save myself hassle or headache depending on the time. Mentoring for me is a pure investment in myself. And so the ones I pay, I'm obviously getting much more time. I'm getting extremely curated advice for the things that I need to have, and I'm able to present my challenge to them in a way that is deep and detailed. And then they kind of are obligated since I'm paying them, but they are obligated to take the time to read it if I send it to them, which I do, think about it. And then we talk about in depth, what should I be thinking about? What is the blind spot that I might be missing or blind spots usually? What should I consider? And then where should I go from there? I get to synthesize all that and make my own decision ultimately. But that has been so valuable for me by, I would say a lot of what we're talking about is you can only see what's in front of you or you can only see so far in front of you. And if I look at it as taking a ride in a helicopter up to see much further than I could have ever seen through these conversations and then come back down into the weeds and go, okay, I've got a better sense of direction and now I'm not running really fast in the wrong direction. I'm running very clearly in a thoughtful direction that I've got from great guidance, i.e., GPS mentors. And now I know where I'm going and I'm moving forward with certainty.

1:20:31 Scott Ingram: Nice. I love the term GPS mentors. Paul, what are kind of the 4 areas? I mean, I'm not expecting you to name names, but how are these folks helping you in different ways? Why the kind of the setup that you've come up with?

1:20:41 Paul DiVincenzo: You know what, the setup that I have is a little bit less intentional. I'll probably pare it back. So I just gave a But I went overboard. So I've got a mentor for… I've been married 23 years, have no problems, thank goodness. But everybody goes through their rocky items. So I have somebody that I've talked to about that because I am an A-type personality. I'm a very driven personality. And so making sure that I want to be married for another 23 years and beyond. So to make sure that I do that, and that's just something I do on my own. It's not marriage counseling or anything like that. I just decided I needed to be more well-rounded in that space. Got married very young. And so it's been great. I mean, she helps me with so many things that I just would have never thought of. And it's probably something I've been told before, but I didn't listen. And so it's my time to take that time out. So there's that element. And also in that arena, I would say family related. So beyond marriage, but, you know, I had… I think I told this story at the summit a few years ago, and if people didn't hear it, it was I was on It's a Small World at Disneyland with my younger son, and we got off and my wife said, hey, can I show you something really quick on the cell phone? And she had taken a picture and it was my younger son, like, hugging me, beaming up at me like I was the most important person in the world. And I had my phone to the right reading some email or something stupid. And it was like, really? And so that type of awareness and, you know, that might make me a bad person, but at that time in my career, which was a long time ago now, but It's like I'm just too driven. I'm just too focused. And so that awareness there. So there's that. I recently spent a fair amount of money on somebody who was a prior chief just under the CEO. So call it COO/CRO. And that person is giving me extreme clarity around interactions. And I mean very fine inter- personal reactions related to investors, VCs, boards, CEOs, chief financial officers. And I don't think I would get that refinement unless I invested in that. I could do it through organic and just getting a mentor, but I'm accelerating it through that. So it's kind of relationship and then at the very top end and then in the middle, I've got a couple different mentors around You know, one is an example is he helps people with a portfolio career. So what is that? That means some people, depending on where they end up in their career, is it purely just climbing the ladder and getting to that executive level? But typically when you see those executive levels, just like we talked about Bill McDermott here, he's sitting on boards, he's writing books, he's investing now. So that is a portfolio career that I think that I'm on the journey for. And so what does that really look like and what are the steps and the connections and the relationships that I need to build? And then in the middle, it's just more kind of 2 mentors around industry-related items. So one is the industry I'm getting in now with Indeed. I have never been part of staffing as an industry, and then IT staffing is a sub-vertical and technology staffing is a sub-vertical within that. So I have a mentor who's deep in that world and I need to be able to close the gap on my knowledge in 6 months, not 6 years. And so that's that. And then the final one is really just a mentor just around general entrepreneurialism. So I have ambitions there as well. So just getting a sense of what that looks like if I was ever to go pure entrepreneurial route. Yeah, that's it for now. It's probably overdoing it, but I'm enjoying every minute of it.

1:24:22 Scott Ingram: There are so many like pieces of brilliance in that that I love. And one thing you gave me an opportunity to come back to because I meant to call it out earlier, which is this, the fact that you have a mentor to help you manage kind of the interpersonal, the communication, the board level kind of thing? Because I know that one of the roles that you took on, because we talked about this at length, one of the areas you were looking to grow in was, I need to understand how to interact with a board of directors and what they think about and what they care about. And, you know, again, looking 2 or 3 steps ahead to, hey, if I'm going to be a CEO one day, I need to get inside the heads of what my bosses would look like from that perspective. Can you say more about just that whole piece, like taking on that role to gain that perspective and then how that connects to actually having a mentor to help you get through, which is like a whole, it's next level, Paul.

1:25:16 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, so, well, I think ultimately, I mean, I wanna sit on boards. So what does that look like? I know for myself, I had no view into that at all. And when you get to a senior level of a company, even if it was to be a CEO, you know, everybody has a boss, so you're reporting to that board. So the journey could have been that way, which is just work your way up to CEO, you'll engage with boards at that point and deal with it then. My view was, as especially as I stepped into the startup world a little over 3 years ago, was those are all run by investors and they're all a board of directors. And so instead of reporting your results to your… if you're an individual contributor, you're reporting to your manager, director, leader, whatever, and it kind of then goes away at some point and you don't know where it goes, it ultimately ends up at the board. And even though you may know that, what does it actually look like? So for me, what that really means, just to get a sense, was I think being much more succinct in what you talk about, how you present it. So, you know, I think we've all been there where we don't want them to, but our decks can get out of control and they could be 20, 30, 100 pages. What does it mean to have a one-page board deck and what needs to be in that? Because that's actually very impactful. What is it when they're asking you questions about people, process, technology, culture, results? What is the right interaction response to that? And to be very transparent, not salesy in any way, that's super important, but to be extremely businesslike. And what you report back and how you articulate your next step and what is your strategy. For me, that was just, that was complete blind spot for me. I didn't know how I was going to approach it. So to hire the mentor to say, just like we talked about a moment ago, just, okay, great. Let me take you a ride in my helicopter and my GPS helicopter. Here's typically how this works. And there was everything from just giving me the high level of what that looks like. Typically how those interactions go all the way down to role plays of, okay, here's what we're going to say. Here's what you might want to present. Here's an example deck and template that you might want to follow. I mean, for me, it's invaluable. And then I'm not leaving that relationship anytime soon because I know I will come back to be in front of boards on a regular basis.

1:27:45 Scott Ingram: So love it. Love it. Love it. Why don't we wrap up on the community piece? Because I mean, you have I mean, in many ways I don't have very many paid mentors, but I see almost everybody I interact with as a mentor in some way, right? There's always an opportunity for me to learn something, to glean something, to be inspired by what they're doing or ask a specific question. And in a lot of ways you have helped evolve my thinking around this community and what we're trying to do. And there's some things that are very real time right now, so I'm going to speak in some generalities, but I would say sort of in general, a direction that I'm really starting to lean into is I think a theme for me. Oh, that reminds me, we're going to talk about the superpower thing one more time first though.

1:28:32 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah, sure.

1:28:33 Scott Ingram: A theme for me is I am almost always about quality over quantity. And I realize, I mean, that's just kind of personally where I thrive. I enjoy a smaller number of more intimate relationships, even though I love this podcast and being able to impact tens of thousands of people is wild to me. But the real impact is at the depth inside the community. Then there's some things that I'm sort of tweaking where I'm leaning harder into that. And the core community will sort of know that because they got an email from me minutes ago. We'll be continuing to talk about that. But part of what you have pushed is this idea of And what I absolutely believe is being part of a community is, and having a network is the same thing. It's a two-way street. It's a give and take, right? It's not like, oh, I'm going to be part of this to get something. It's, I'm also going to be a part of this because I have a lot to contribute. And so, you know, a lot of what you are pushing and where I'm trying to evolve is how do we deepen those connections and that impact? In ways, I mean, just like you talked about bringing a whole bunch of people into Gartner, right? Serving as that conduit when you have the opportunity to help people take that next step in their career because you can make an introduction, because you can help them prepare, because we can do these different things for each other. So I'm really thinking about that in the context of how do we think about and process our careers and our next steps and, you know, where we're at and how we maximize that and how we think about How we're growing and who we're becoming kinds of things. And also, you know, how do we help each other just at a deal level, right? Have you… gosh, I don't remember if that was part of this conversation. It wasn't. I was talking with David Weiss yesterday, and he was running me through some fascinating playbook stuff that he's working on. You'll hear about it soon, guys.

1:30:25 Paul DiVincenzo: Nice.

1:30:26 Scott Ingram: And, you know, one of the things he was showing me was this idea of like, I can shortcut the process in my deal if I can talk to to somebody else who has done a deal in that organization, because now they can guide me through, well, this is the process, this is what they do, they're going to ask for this, they're going to need this, they think about their budgets in this way, and this is the timing of their budgeting process and their decision process and their legal process and all of these different things. Like, fascinating stuff where, again, I think that we can really, really help each other. So with that, like, giant preamble and absolutely leading witness. How are you thinking about, I mean, maybe your participation in, in the way that you leverage and contribute to these communities and this community?

1:31:08 Paul DiVincenzo: Yeah. So how I'm thinking about it, I think that, well, first and foremost, I mean, now I'm going to pick up the phone and call David because I think there's no doubt, I guess, I guess I think about it in a few buckets. The first one is giving first. So to what you said before, when I enter into any relationship, the first thing I think about is, is what am I giving? What am I, what value am I bringing? So with the community, that's it. It's, if I can help, I'm there to help. And what I've found is most people are like that. That's great. I mean, that is, there's, it's similar to culture, which is just because there's a community, whether it's paid or otherwise, does not mean everyone's willing to help. And so I think that's one of the amazing things about Sales Success Community. Then I think within that, people need help in their career. And I find that that's, or job or that type of conversation. For me, that's what I've seen mostly be happening in the community. And so, or at least for myself, that's what I've engaged mostly versus deal-related help. Listen, I think there's a whole platform to be built around what you just described, meaning or what David potentially could be working on, which is another layer of unlocking who knows how much value, which is, hey, if you sold to JPMorgan in the past and you sold a non-competing something and I'm trying to sell whatever it is, or my team is trying to sell whatever it is, can we jump on a call or jump on some sort of strategy session where you can help me? And if you have something that you're selling into an organization we've done, I can help you. I mean, that big matrix, huge, huge. How that all comes together in an efficient and effective way, not on my radar, but I mean, I don't know how to build that type of platform. It's not on my, you know, my goals list, but I think it's, it would be amazing. And in the near term, I think it's as simple as asking somebody in that industry. So I don't want to go too far down the road, but I think everybody's open to doing it. How you connect the dots so that you can do it effectively and efficiently. I think that's a whole nother layer.

1:33:23 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So fun conversation. And you know, what you hear in listening to this is especially with, you know, these couple of round 2 type conversations, right? You, my last conversation with Jacquelyn Nicholson. I mean, these folks, the names that come up, the DeJuan Browns, the David Weisses, the Paul DiVincenzos, the Jacquelyn Nicholsons, the, you know, the list goes on and on. Camille Clemons, Jack Wilson. They're the ones that have given the most to the community. And I bet if you ask them, they're also the ones that get the most out of it, right? So I'm not going to do some big commercial here because honestly, things are changing enough that that's a little bit difficult. What I would say is, if this resonates, right, if you want to be part of a very intimate, very well-connected, very smart group of GPS mentors who ride around in helicopters, then just drop me a note. I'm happy to bring you up to speed. So send me a note on LinkedIn. Send me a note to scott@top1.fm and we can kind of plug in from that perspective. Paul, why don't we then finish? I said that was gonna be the last thing, but it's totally not because when you talked about unlocking the superpower, you mentioned to me the way that you sort of incorporate that into your interview process and how powerful that is. Talk about that and we'll call it a day.

1:34:39 Paul DiVincenzo: Okay. I think that, so with unlocking superpower, and I think we may have We blended a bullet point into this, but I think it's worth calling out, which is raising your standards. Unlocking superpower to me is knowing what makes you valuable. And we actually, through your, actually through one of the sessions you ran a while back, Scott, there's the Sales Game. And essentially the point of the Sales Game, I didn't learn it there, but the point of the Sales Game is to understand what your intrinsic value is. Not what you're selling, not your product, not some other construct. What is your intrinsic value? And people don't… we live in a world that just doesn't allow for that sometimes. But once you go in and understand what your intrinsic value is, it becomes a deep anchor that you can launch from. For me, it's I'm able to build trust almost instantly. I don't know how. I joke because my wife hates me. The person bagging our groceries tells me their whole life story and what's happening in their family, and I didn't do anything but ask them hi and how are you. My wife doesn't like it, but that's my superpower. And based on that, I can tap into that to then take my business acumen and my sales acumen and all the other things But if I'm anchored there, then it allows me to have a real human conversation, not putting on what I call the sales face or the stereotype. And that's why a lot of people don't like sales is because of that. So when people tap into their superpower and they really know what it is, typically they become much more human quickly, and that allows them to have better conversations, business and otherwise. So there's that. And it also allows kind of my last bullet point, which has been blended in, but it allows you to raise your standards of what you think is possible for yourself and where you might want to bet on yourself in the future, not some company or product.

1:36:42 Scott Ingram: So good. I want to come back to just the one more piece on the superpower and your interview question, because that was fascinating to me and we'll wrap it up from there.

1:36:50 Paul DiVincenzo: Or how I use it in the interview?

1:36:52 Scott Ingram: Yeah. When you're interviewing.

1:36:54 Paul DiVincenzo: Oh, when I'm interviewing. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So that, so as I've taken over a couple of leadership roles, Obviously have to interview salespeople for my open positions on my team, or you know to uplevel where we need to, or get to the next. So that's my ending question in all of my interviews now. After all the either the required questions or the required things or the situational items, so all the standards. When we get to the end of it, and hopefully throughout that it's all human, but at the end of it I end on that as I ask them, you know I have one last question. What is your personal or business superpower? And now hundreds and hundreds of interviews in, to me, it's actually almost the last and most qualifying question. If they hesitate in a big way, stumble, go, hmm, I don't really know. If they get excited and go, you know, this is what I've been thinking about, but they can articulate it in a relatively clear way. I find that those people are much more grounded and are typically going to be the right people for my team. And yeah, that's how I've… it's become a very… at first I started asking and I didn't know where I was going with it. Now I think it's literally a qualifying question because a lot of times you'll get the fake answer. And if they're fake on that answer, it's probably going to be fake in the selling process, which isn't going to be at the level I need them to be.

1:38:18 Scott Ingram: That is so good. And it ties back so well to… I mean, your first thing was get real and just this The need to understand yourself. And, you know, to me, again, if you've been listening to this show, if you've been consuming kind of the stuff from the last summit, I mean, that became the overarching theme that came out of this last summit was you have to figure out your superpower. Like that is the differentiator for the top 1%. Like you understand what it is. And you figure out how to wield it, right? It's like, not only do I understand my superpower, I know how to control it and use it and use it for good, right? Because a lot of people, I mean, for, I think probably most, I mean, I'm interested in like where you think the percentages are, but I would guess maybe a majority, it's a blind spot for them. Everybody has a superpower. Do you actually know what it is, let alone know how to wield it?

1:39:20 Paul DiVincenzo: Absolutely. No, no, that's spot on. And within that self-reflection journey, it's not about thinking about what other… you may be able to identify it in other people and go, oh, I know what Scott's is. I know what Paul's is. I know what, you know, David's is. That's their superpower. And you go and somebody… I've had people give the answer of something else and you just know that's not it. And so, yeah, they need to really know. And it may not be something that they want it to be. But it is. I think it's not as easy as it sounds. That's what I will tell you. But if somebody takes the time, like I said, it could end up being something you don't want it to be, but it is your superpower and it is the most important thing for you to identify. And then to your point, leverage the heck out of it.

1:40:08 Scott Ingram: There is not a better ending point. Paul, appreciate your time.

1:40:11 Paul DiVincenzo: Of course. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast.

1:40:18 Scott Ingram: 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.