December 25, 2025 • 48 mins
Sara Chevrette, Head of Global Talent Acquisition at Sonatype, joins James Mackey, to unpack the connection between psychology and recruiting talent. She shares how values drive hiring, pushing for curiosity, and the importance of building a strong culture within the workplace.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:46):
Thanks for tuning in, everyone.
Today I'm speaking with SarahCheverett.
She's the head of global talentacquisition over at Zonatype.
Sarah, I'm really excited aboutthis.
SPEAKER_00 (00:55):
I'm ready to rock.
Let's do it.
SPEAKER_01 (00:58):
I would like to just kind of take a step back, right?
And we'd really excited to learnmore about you.
Maybe a good place to start islike, how did you get into
recruiting?
SPEAKER_00 (01:08):
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
That's a great question.
Because it's not like when I wasin school, you went to school
for it, right?
Like that wasn't a thing.
Um yeah, it was interestingbecause I was working in
financial services time, right?
And in my head, I was like, oh,I want to live in New York City
and I want to, you know, do thefinancial thing.
(01:28):
And um September 11th happened,right?
And they roll on the TVs andthey can't get a hold of people
at New York Life.
And it was a it was one of thosemoments I think everybody can
remember exactly where they wereand what they were doing.
But it completely changed myperspective on what I wanted to
do.
I actually had a couple offriends that were working at a
(01:51):
recruiting agency, and they'relike, you'd be really good.
You're like good with people.
Uh, and that was how I got intorecruiting.
So I started out in agencyrecruiting, did that for so many
years, and got a little tired ofchasing the carrot because you
always had to find theopportunities to place people.
But it turned out I was reallygood at sales too.
(02:12):
So, but you know, you get to aperiod of time, I was like, ugh,
maybe this is the time I reallylook to get into corporate.
And I had a friend working at anagency.
And my friend, as she watchesthis, Hather You Know Who You
Are.
I called her and she's like,You're done doing the agency
thing, huh?
I go, Yeah.
And she was like, Are you readyto take a risk?
(02:32):
And I was like, What do youmean?
She's like, You're gonna have totake a risk, you're gonna have
to take a contract.
And and my I had never left a flike a full-time job to take a
contract.
To me, that was so scary.
But it was the best risk I'veever taken because it completely
propelled my career.
And she even tried convincing meout of the gate to being a
(02:55):
manager in corporate, and I waslike, nope, I want to run a
desk, I'm gonna lead people.
I want my people to know that Ican run a desk and I can run it
well.
So I, you know, walk the walkand talk the talk.
So yeah, here I am 20 some ideaslater.
Still loving closing deals andand seeing people grow and
develop.
Technically, helping people withprobably what sometimes could be
(03:18):
a very tough decision in theirlife, right?
You have somebody's life in yourhands, you're helping them in
their career.
So it's a little feel-good to itas well.
SPEAKER_01 (03:26):
There is.
I like what you said aboutstaying involved to some extent
with the hands-on work, as youput it running a desk while
leading a team.
Is that something you still dosome of today with maybe
executive search?
How do you strike that balancetoday now that you're running a
rather aggressively growingorganization, as far as I
(03:47):
understand?
I mean, you're right in it ingrowth stage tech.
How many employees?
SPEAKER_00 (03:51):
Oh, I don't know what the total hit count is now
because we're literally addingpeople every week.
Uh, because we just opened upthe office in India in June.
Let's just call it somewherearound 500, maybe a little bit
more.
SPEAKER_02 (04:05):
Sure, sure.
SPEAKER_00 (04:06):
Which from a corporate standpoint is the
smallest organization I workedfor in my career.
But it's great because I've beenable to get my hands on a bunch
of stuff.
I would say where I'm notpicking up wrecks and working
them today.
When I first when I first gothere, I had to help and do some
recruiting while I was buildingout the team.
(04:27):
But I am heavy into the profilesand talking about, you know, is
the profile this?
Is it shifting?
Does that make sense?
What's reflective in the market?
Um, and every so often I'll goin and I'll still do some
sourcing, right?
Just to make sure my chops arestill there.
And I will speak to be part ofinterview processes versus like
(04:47):
the recruiter on the rack.
SPEAKER_01 (04:49):
Um do you still stay close to hiring leaders like the
VP of engineering or head ofproduct?
Or are you still involved insome of those conversations
strategically about the type oftalent they need on the team,
the gaps?
SPEAKER_00 (05:07):
Yeah, yeah.
And actually, I'm probably doingit more often now because having
an entity in India is new to mycompany.
And so it's not just profiles,it's understanding the market,
it's understanding the culture,how to be inclusive.
We've done training on what toexpect when you're interviewing
(05:28):
folks from India because we havea lot of folks in the US, we
have folks in the UK, Germany,Singapore, Australia, Colombia.
And so when you work for thispretty globally diverse
organization, there aredifferent techniques, different
processes that are important forpeople to understand.
We do our budgeting every year.
(05:51):
And so you have the executiveleaders and their SLT members
really putting together theirplan for the following year,
what they're going to be hiringfor, in addition to everything
else.
And so I do get an opportunityto review it myself and HR
business partner, and we'relooking at comp, GL, everything.
So that way when it is approved,one, we understand how it fits
(06:13):
and if there's any changes thatneed to be made.
It's better sometimes to get thechanges made out of the gate
versus going down.
Sometimes you have to learn tosee what's really out in the
market too.
And that can shape it, shapesome of the roles in addition to
that.
So it is an exciting time.
Very busy, especially Hyderabadis well, I think with the time
(06:35):
change, now they're 11 and ahalf hours ahead.
So I do love that global stretchbecause I can get up and get
things done early, early in themorning.
I can get a whole bunch of stuffdone and give stakeholders and
my team FaceTime during somereasonable hours.
And then I can get the kid onthe bus, come back, maybe eat
(06:55):
some breakfast, and then hit theEast Coast.
So with some of those leaders,we are really talking about what
it looks like.
So when you think about salesand go to market and the market
shifting, which is great.
You're starting to see techreally pick back up.
And I know there was like kindof some really ups and downs for
some times over the past coupleof years.
(07:15):
And I think almost every techcompany, except probably AI
companies, probably felt it,right?
So we've seen a lot of changehere, and it's technically, I'll
be here four years in two days.
SPEAKER_01 (07:27):
So hey, oh, congratulations.
That's great.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:32):
I mean, the cool thing is so we're part of the
VISA Equity Partners Portfolio.
That's our PE firm.
And there is this network.
We meet every Friday and we'relike, hey, what are some of the
challenges you're going through?
Here's what I'm seeing.
Here's the things that I've donethat's work really well.
Have you tried this?
And just really sharing withinthat leader network, because you
(07:54):
know, the the porco is all techcompanies, different tech
companies, but we stillexperience some of the same
challenges with talent.
And it's nice, even working at asmall company, right?
You still have those resourceswhere, like when I was at CVS,
we were 350,000 in place, so youcan imagine how big the TA team
(08:14):
was.
Like I could just phone a friendthat was at a different
location.
Here it's it's a littledifferent.
Like you have to start to makeyour network and have it work
for you within the pork codebecause we're all following
similar playbooks.
So we share on technology,processes, all that kind of
stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (08:30):
Well, that's huge to have a strong peer group,
whether it's through like the PEcommunity, right?
Or through Vista, right?
Or otherwise.
I think that's also what one ofmy goals is with this show is to
create a platform like foroperators by operators mindset
where people can come to theshow and actually learn from
(08:53):
other folks in a similar or sameposition.
Also, like at this point, you'vehelped a lot of companies scale.
Now you're in a growth stageorganization a little bit
smaller.
I'm curious about whatrealizations you've had during
your time at Sonicite.
What do you think is mostimportant when it comes to
hiring for a scale at for agrowth stage company?
(09:15):
If you had to boil it down tolike a couple key takeaways, one
takeaway, what advice do youhave, or what have you learned,
or what light bulb moments haveyou had?
Think about it however you want.
Um about how to hireeffectively.
SPEAKER_00 (09:29):
When you work for a small company, you do have to
roll up your sleeves.
There's no doubt, you just haveto do it.
I will say what has made thismore successful now in
comparison when I first walkedin the door was one, looking at
all your tools, looking at allyour processes and understanding
where you can clean it up,streamline them, and what you
(09:51):
can do to help the leaders andthe folks interviewing.
I mean, interviewing they haveto do their day job too.
So if you can create anopportunity where you're
streamlining the processes andyou're giving them the steps,
but you make them part of it, itreally does help because you can
take something that could takeweeks to hire for and bring it
(10:13):
down to less than 30 days.
And so you really have to haveyour team saying the same thing
and really believing in whatyou're doing.
And you have to have your teamsback.
When you're going throughchange, there's always bumps
along the way.
There's no doubt.
I it doesn't matter where I'veworked.
I always like to make surewhenever my team needs me, even
if they don't think they needme, I'll join them on a call.
We'll talk about it.
(10:34):
And to me, you can't mistakesare important.
Like there's no thing we coulddo so bad here.
Like, we're not doing surgery.
Someone's not gonna die on thetable.
Every mistake is something youcan learn and make an
improvement.
And I always say, I've made alot of mistakes in my recruiting
career.
And it's actually what makes youlearn.
(10:57):
I will say one of the mostimportant things, and this is
gonna come up even more as AI isreally ingrained in businesses,
is like you cannot remove thehuman out of this.
You're talking to people, youare you're helping them, you're
evaluating them, but they'rereally evaluating us too.
(11:17):
And taking a new job is a bigdecision for someone.
And if you can, it's not aboutfiring questions at people.
It's like get to know the persona little bit and talk to them
and find out what they reallywant.
Because it might turn out thatyou're having a conversation
with them and based off whatthey want and what they're
aligned with, this might not bethe best place for them.
I would rather have a candidateknow, have all the information
(11:41):
that they need to know to makethe best educated decision
whether or not to come to thecompany.
Right?
Once they get here, you're gonnabe working with them, right?
So they're people.
I tell the my team and peopleare interviewing.
Do you remember when you were acandidate?
What it feels like?
What if you're not gettingfeedback or even a touch point
(12:01):
because the process is takinglonger, and then you feel like
they forgot about you, or youapply to a role, but you never
hear.
It's like their resume goes andan application goes in a black
hole.
There are people on the otherend of that submission, and so
that's candidated experience isvital.
Because the other thing, too,think about it.
You have a good experience, youmight tell a couple people.
(12:22):
You have a bad experience,you're gonna tell everyone.
You know what we mean by that,right?
So I think aside from tools andprocesses, remembering that
there is a person on that sideof the resume and creating a
really great candidateexperience.
SPEAKER_01 (12:39):
One thing that I constantly am reminding myself
of is that you can't optimizerelationships.
No, you can't look at it as thisalmost mechanical process of
just efficiency.
That's not like human and itdoesn't help people feel valued,
appreciated, heard, understood,right?
(13:00):
As leaders in such apeople-oriented function.
It's like we're constantlywalking this tightrope between
efficiency and systems thatscale and putting people in
relationships first.
SPEAKER_00 (13:14):
Yeah.
My former VP at CVS Health, hisname is Jeff Lack.
I remember it was like my firstweek.
He came into my office and hegave me a book.
I think the name of the book isthe first 90 days.
And he's like, Read this.
But in your first 90 days, youronly job is to make as many
relationships as you possiblycan here.
(13:35):
Now there's gonna be things thatcome up that you have to make a
decision, and I get that becauseit's a day-to-day thing.
But anything major you want tochange, you write it down.
And then day 91, take a lookback and look at everything you
wrote down, and then you seewhich ones you're actually gonna
tackle.
What are some small wins?
What is it gonna take a littlebit longer, and then what's the
(13:56):
bucket of you're gonna put thataside for right now because the
timing's not right.
Um and that that buildingrelationship piece was so vital
for me there.
It was yeah, it was just theFortune 4 company.
I know I've said this before,it's just a different beast.
The bar's really high, thingsmove super quick.
It's always good to have thoserelationships because when
(14:18):
you're showing up to the table,you both have the same goal,
right?
You want to fill theirheadcount, whether it's
initiative headcount orbackfill, because when someone's
not in the role, who else isdoing the work?
It took some really, I mean, wedid some really peak niche
hiring of like we need to hire300 people for clinical trial
services, right?
Kind of an important thingduring the COVID time frame.
(14:41):
So the more you get to knowthose people, it makes it that
much easier to knock out somereally tough tasks.
Hiring niche roles like that canbe tough in its own, especially
when yeah, everybody knew thecompany, but we weren't in that
space.
So there was a lot of learningsthere, and you had to be really
direct with some of the leaders.
(15:01):
You want this, but this is whatwe're finding for this, right?
If I didn't have thoserelationships, they would have
just been like, just find itanyway.
But instead, they would listen.
SPEAKER_01 (15:10):
What's interesting is like what you say, what
you're talking about beingimportant, everything is very
tightly correlated, right?
The very first thing you said isrolling up your sleeves.
Then we talked about buildingsystems that work, and then you
talked about relationships andthe importance of putting people
first.
Um what's interesting is I thinkrolling up your sleeves and the
(15:33):
relationships piece, they'realmost like one and the same
because if a leader's tooheavily focused on systems, they
might not be necessarily one ofthe sleeves with the team on the
trenches, talking to people,talking to the leaders, talking
to the recruiters, investing inthose relationships.
So there's in a sense like oneand the same.
So it's interesting because youbrought up your first internal
(15:56):
corporate recruiting job, reallyrolling up your sleeves and
managing a recload, and you alsotalk about now as an established
leader, and it may be adifferent point of impact, but
still rolling up your sleeves,right?
I I think they go hand in hand,like the relationship piece,
you're in there with your teamfiguring things out.
SPEAKER_00 (16:13):
Yeah, I'm all about the data.
Data driven decisions are soimportant, but showing up with
the data and the insights is soimportant.
I mean, it's in in order to makestrong business decisions, you
need to have the data to backit.
And sometimes you just have totake a leap on certain things.
But in our space, there's a lotof data.
There's market data.
(16:33):
I used to leverage a tool calledTalent Neuron, which, gosh, I
used that tool all the way whenback in the day when it was
wanted analytics, andeverybody's like, What's this
thing?
It was awesome because we wouldshow up to hiring strategy
discussions very differently,right?
Because you're you're mappingthe role in the labor market and
where you can find and diversifyyour funnel and for what geos
(16:57):
should we be searching in,what's the degree of difficulty?
You show up like that, peoplethey listen.
SPEAKER_02 (17:03):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (17:05):
You can't argue with the data, right?
At that point.
Now it's all it's not thattalent neuron isn't important.
I mean, we have the data, soit's really listening and having
those relationships with thefolks in India, but really
listening to them because theyknow, regardless of sometimes
what the data is saying, what'sreally going on in the market,
because it's live.
(17:25):
We were talking last week, and27 GCCs this quarter have been
opened in Hyderabad.
Brand new ones.
That's not even the existingones.
So that will tell you howcompetitive the market is right
now.
So you have to listen.
You have to listen to whatyou're hearing on comps.
I we have salary bands, weleverage most of the data, which
(17:46):
is great, but you have to listento what's going on in the market
because a salary band is asalary band, right?
Sometimes you have to be alittle bit more creative on what
quartile you're going to hiresomebody on.
Yeah.
You have to be agile, especiallywith the way the market's been
changing.
SPEAKER_01 (18:00):
Yeah, I agree.
So I'd love to focus on like theunderlying kind of behavioral
aspects of what you'rediscussing.
So we're talking aboutessentially being agile,
adaptable, scrappy, essentiallylike hands-on,
relationship-driven.
I'd love to learn more about youand just where do you think this
comes from, the mindset thatyou've developed around
(18:23):
prioritizing these behavioralaspects?
Like, where did you learn thisfrom?
SPEAKER_00 (18:28):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's kind of funny because
I feel like, yes, I've grown asa person, but I've always been
that kid.
I was that kid that wanted toplay all the sports, be in all
the activities.
I wanted to learn everything.
I loved going to school.
Because to me, I felt likeknowledge was power.
And the more you learn and themore you do, and the more you
get out there, the moresuccessful you're gonna be.
(18:48):
I'm thinking back, like when Iwas growing up, my mom worked
two jobs.
And my dad was a union pipefitter.
They did a little bit ofcollege.
Um, I knew I definitely wantedto go to college and I needed to
figure out how I was gonna getthere.
My dad was very big on I wantyou to be able to sit on your
own two feet and not have todepend on anybody.
Get good grades in school, workreally hard, and it's all gonna
(19:09):
pay off.
My father's um former Navy, sohe's a Vietnam vet and came home
from Vietnam and became a unionpipe fitter.
My mom worked in banking for 17years, and then she's like, I
want to work in healthcare, workat the school too, and and you
know, be a special ed teacherand have like school hours for
us and stuff like that.
(19:30):
So I think seeing both of themgrind, it was very interesting
to watch.
I just kept watching and beinglike, okay, I don't want to work
two jobs.
That's one thing.
And two, uh I knew I wanted togo to college and I knew I
wanted to do something.
And then I went to school forbiology, I graduated with
psychology, and I went rightinto business.
(19:52):
Not your traditional.
If CSI was cool when I went tocollege, I probably would have
stayed with biology.
But I was like, I don't want tobe a doctor, I don't want to be
a nurse, I don't think I shouldhave anybody's life in my hands
responsible.
I feel like getting intobusiness a little bit safer.
My mom wanted me to be a statetrooper.
I was like, I absolutely shouldnot be driving around with a
(20:13):
gun.
SPEAKER_01 (20:14):
Not for you.
SPEAKER_00 (20:15):
Not for me.
Nope, no, no, no, no, no, no.
It was a good choice.
She's like, Yeah, you know, youcould just be no, mom.
I don't want to pull people overon the highway, I don't want to
arrest people.
I don't want to shoot a gun.
SPEAKER_02 (20:27):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (20:28):
Right.
Like it's just not my thing.
But I will say my psychologydegree really helped me
understand business in a verydifferent way.
Cause you you had to payattention to people.
People come from all walks oflife, and there is a psychology
behind business.
And I I do think that is a goodpiece of it.
(20:49):
So I guess if I had to say frommy childhood to college, my
education did help with itbecause it made me see people
differently.
SPEAKER_01 (20:56):
Well, so I mean, when we we go to school and we
pick find something we'repassionate about, like for
instance, for you, psychology.
And then you're in your prime inyour career, right?
I'm curious looking back, whathas stuck with you, right?
I'm sure there's things that youlearned and then forgot about
that don't really stick withyou.
They're just more so stuffyou're studying for the exam.
What takeaways did you get fromyour degree that you feel like
(21:19):
impact how you lead today?
SPEAKER_00 (21:22):
Yeah, I feel like my bachelor's degree opened my mind
to leadership development in avery different way.
It wasn't, and sometimes peopleare like, oh, leadership
development, that's like thesoft stuff of business, right?
But it's it's so vital.
I wanted going through uhSendelane training at CVS.
(21:45):
And that was the most importantleadership training I've ever
been through.
For about a year, my boss wouldsay things to me, and I didn't
realize, and this isn't a realword, but I I made it up.
She was Sendelaneying me.
Like she was an instructor, andshe always because I'd be like,
ah, I know what's going on, andshe goes, No, Sarah, Sarah.
(22:05):
Come from curious, take a stepback, assume positive.
And it was all the psychologytraining that was coming from
Cendelane training.
It was phenomenal.
And I still use it because Italk about the mood elevator,
right?
And where are you on the moodelevator?
And sometimes, depending onwhere you're in the mood
elevator, one, you may not be ina position where you should be
giving feedback, or you may bein a position where you're not
(22:29):
ready to receive feedback.
That allowed me to really say, Iknow we need to move really
fast, but sometimes you need toslow down to speed up because
there's something going on.
And sometimes how someone'sinteracting with you actually
has nothing to do with you.
And it it did help me equip,like with some really good
phrases.
I use some terms like I feellike you're putting a lot of
pressure on me and I'm not rightnow and I'm not sure why.
(22:52):
And that actually backs peopleup a little bit and they're
like, Oh no, no, sorry, I justgot this and this and then the
mass comes down.
Or like, this is one of mybiggest pet peeves, is like when
you're in a meeting with peopleand they're like right.
And so I used to say, Hey, Iknow we set 30 minutes today.
Is now still a good time?
(23:13):
If not, we can look at calendarsand we could totally reschedule.
I know your time, you're reallybusy and your time's important.
And then sometimes people wouldsay, No, you're absolutely
right.
I do need to reschedule itbecause something was going on
with them and they just didn'tfeel comfortable at that time
canceling a meeting so quickly,right?
Like five minutes before.
Or it would actually wakesomebody up to be present now,
(23:35):
right?
And then like they're like, No,I'm so sorry, just had to finish
that last email.
I'm all yours now, right?
SPEAKER_01 (23:42):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (23:42):
Um and so it's like the degree got built upon with
some specific leadershipdevelopment.
And it all ties back to theright relationship piece.
The other thing too, and wetalked about grit and resilience
and stuff.
And I think one thing that'sreally important to have is a
(24:03):
growth mindset.
If you have a fixed mindset,you're gonna be stuck.
And that's okay.
Some people it's okay, becausethere's some roles that are a
little bit more fixed mindset.
But if you want to be atransformative leader, you want
to be a value-based leader, youhave to have a growth mindset.
It's just it's the only way itand it's how businesses grow and
become successful.
(24:24):
Because otherwise, I don't know.
I couldn't imagine being in atech company not being having a
growth mindset because thatwould be a real problem for the
company.
But that piece of it too, Imean, I think I don't know if
that's talked about enough abouta growth mindset and how
important it is.
That's another, to me, likeanother psychology thing.
It's how you think about thingsand are you able to shift your
(24:45):
paradigm to be in that growthmindset that even though things
are hard right now, you just gothrough and you keep working
through and it's gonna getbetter and it's gonna happen.
So when you're surrounded bysmart growth mindset people, the
relationships and the psychologybehind business tend to be a
little bit easier when you'rearound folks that are really
stuck in the way we used to dothings or we do it like this,
(25:07):
that becomes a challenge becausethen there's not growth there.
SPEAKER_01 (25:09):
I also know you were a college athlete, right?
SPEAKER_00 (25:12):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I played field hockey.
It's great, great workout.
Bad for the back, but greatworkout.
SPEAKER_01 (25:18):
But you know, my daughter is six, and I think
team sports are reallyimportant.
She has a tendency to gravitatetoward, I guess it's not
individual sports, like she doesdance, which I guess is a
different type of team sport,actually.
It is team oriented, she doeslike ice skating.
I guess ice skating would beindividual.
Dance is like they're on stagetogether, so I guess it is
(25:39):
there's a team dynamic.
Um but I it was really importantfor me for her to play uh a team
sport, so I let her pick, butshe ended up picking soccer.
At first, she actually didn'tlike it.
Um, but she got there.
I think she had like a littlecrush actually on a little boy
on the team, which reallyhelped.
Um, so I was like, oh, I havemixed feelings about that.
SPEAKER_00 (26:01):
Books not boys, books not boys.
SPEAKER_01 (26:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anyways, but she ended up reallyenjoying it.
I think there's from a workethic perspective, some of the
grit determination, rolling upyour sleeves, communication, all
those things are reallyimportant.
And I think too, it's like at acollege level, those are
formative years.
So it's like you're doingpsychology, you're also
competing like in a competitiveenvironment and team
(26:25):
environment.
I'm sure that has had a bigimpact too on how you operate as
a leader in a highly competitiveindustry.
SPEAKER_00 (26:34):
Yeah, the discipline aspect of it, it's the showing
up.
And I definitely got that fromsports too.
That discipline of I made acommitment, I'm gonna do it.
That's why I always wanted mydaughter to play sports, but I
wanted her to come to theconclusion that she wanted to
play sports.
SPEAKER_01 (26:49):
Right.
It's the hard part as a parent,right?
Like there's something importantand you don't want to force it,
but you're trying to guide yourchild a thousand percent.
And also let like let them leaninto their strengths and
interests.
It's another tightrope we keeptalking about with balancing
acts.
I'm constantly striving to bebetter at.
SPEAKER_00 (27:04):
I was laughing because Joe, uh, my daughter
Josephine, she started out withsoccer and she didn't want to
score, she only wanted to playdefense.
And when you're that little,they don't have goalies, and she
would always just go in thegoal.
And then one day she's like,Yeah, I don't really want to do
this anymore.
And I was like, You think youwant to try field hockey?
(27:24):
And she's like, Yeah.
And I was like, Yes.
Because I really was like, Howcan we not having her play field
hockey?
Why don't you coach?
And I'm like, No, no, no, no,no.
My kid knows me as her mother.
She does not know me as theathlete, and those are two very
different people.
SPEAKER_01 (27:41):
It's like knowing your roles in life, your roles
and responsibilities todifferent people, and it's like
you have different aspects ofyour identity.
There's you as a leader, there'syou as like a competitor, right?
As a mother, and yeah, that thatis very true too.
So I'm very competitive.
My background, I used to box anddo Muay Thai, like for a living,
actually, it was my job forabout four years.
(28:02):
There's time spans where Iactually lived in a boxing gym
that was competing.
Um, and that was my life.
And so there's that part of me,like as a I started coaching
boxing when I was in high schooltoo.
So I was already competing andleading by the time I graduated
high school.
So there's that part of me thatwants to instill those values
with her, but I've noticed thatwhen I try too hard, she pulls
(28:23):
back.
SPEAKER_00 (28:24):
Uh-huh.
Yeah, yeah.
When she gets older, that'sgonna shift for you a little
bit.
So I'm like the LSU basketballcoach on the sideline.
I'm like flaring my arms, I knowall the girls' names on the
team.
I'm telling, and and it's funnybecause her town coach is like,
I love that you're on the otherside because they can hear both
of it.
But it's funny because I startedto notice my kiddos picking up
(28:48):
some of the things because,like, sometimes her team is
really good.
They've been playing togethersince like second, third grade
together, and they all playclub.
So sometimes being a goalie,which is a really tough position
for anybody to play, it's a bigmental thing.
I can see her every so oftenbeing like, you know, looking at
the sky or whatever, and I couldsee the ball coming, and I start
(29:09):
yelling at him like, Joe, lookalive, look alive.
And I didn't realize how muchthat was gonna stick because
there was one game and it wasfreezing.
It was our Friday Night Lightsgame, and I was like, I'm
definitely not running up anddown the sidelines today.
I got the hand warmers, I'mgonna sit here, drink a coffee,
whatever.
And then all of a sudden, Icould hear her yelling to the
(29:30):
defensemen in the midfielders tostart looking alive because the
ball was starting to transitionand people were flat footed.
So now, mind you, she's 12 andit took some time.
She would not always listen tome, she would cry at games.
So I had to work with the coachto get her to shift.
And then once it started toshift from the mental strength
(29:52):
standpoint, then it got a littlebit easier.
But a lot of times kids don'twant to listen to their parents.
I mean, think about we when youwere growing up.
I mean, I my father was astrict, I listened to everything
he said.
My mom, I got away with bloodymurder.
She won't be watching thispodcast, so I'm okay.
But I used to be able to getaway with everything.
Yeah.
(30:13):
Just I think for your daughter,I think that the both types of
sports are important becauseindividual sports, it's all
about you and you being bettereach day.
Team sports is you could be thebest person on the on the field,
but that's not gonna matteryou're if you can't work with
your team.
SPEAKER_02 (30:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:34):
I have a subscription through a
masterclass.
I highly recommend it toanybody.
I just watched the Coach K oneon value-based leadership.
Uh Coach K, the former headcoach for Duke.
I love him, just in general,like as a person, as a leader.
And he brings a really uniqueperspective to sports.
(30:55):
But what he does to sports couldactually be used in any
organization.
Because if you have a teamthat's value-based and you're a
value-based leader, you areworking together to move things
forward and you stick with yourvalues.
He had like some of his oldplayers come on and some that
went to the NBA, some that wentto the NBA and started their own
(31:17):
business, businesses, and theytalk about, you know, living in
the core values, in your values.
And I think sometimes backing itlike lost in a lot of different
things.
But every organization or everysport that I ever played that
lived within those values wassuccessful.
I think sometimes those thingscould be like uh words on a
(31:39):
poster.
SPEAKER_01 (31:40):
It's the same with companies, though, right?
It's like some companiesactually live and breathe values
and others don't.
Sometimes the values are statedthat they live and breathe.
Other times it's like that'sjust how the culture operates
and they don't necessarily talkabout it.
But I recently reread uhStephen, is it Covey or Covey's
uh Seven Habits Highly AffectedPeople?
I don't know if you ever readthat one.
SPEAKER_00 (32:00):
Oh yeah, yeah.
It was it's been a long timesince uh read it, but I the four
agreements.
It's funny because every sooften, like I'll have to go and
read them based off of ascenario.
And if you stick with them, andI'll send them to you afterwards
because I have a whole littlepicture.
That's another good one, too.
But the seven habits, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (32:19):
Seven habits of highly effective people, I think
is what it's called.
It talks about like being avalue-centered person, yep,
right?
Like in and really understandingyour values and principles.
I guess he segments the twoconcepts.
Principles are like factual,they're just truths of life.
So he has different principlesabout communication to yourself,
(32:39):
communication to other people,principles in terms of what you
prioritize in life.
And then he said values are whatprinciples you place value on,
or maybe you place value onthings that aren't sound
principles.
It was interesting because it itstarted to get me thinking again
about like, okay, what are myvalues?
And sometimes, too, it's likewhen life is moving really fast,
(33:01):
you think you know your values,but then you think about where
your headspace is and is itactually aligned?
How have they evolved?
Do I have weeds growing?
Well, maybe it's time torecenter uh as well, right?
So I think like that principlevalue-based living is really key
to the organizational success.
So I'm building a go-to-marketteam at my company Secure Vision
(33:25):
to essentially achieve the nextlevel of scale.
I've been thinking a lot aboutprinciples and values, and for
instance, like one value or oneprinciple that I'm trying to
focus on is like just down thepipe collaboration and a
principle of now.
I don't know for certain if thisis 100% true, but I think it's
true based on my experience as aleader.
(33:48):
Internal competition is bad forsalespeople.
Um, I didn't want an environmentwhere my reps are competing
against each other to be numberone.
Not that it's unhealthy to wantto be the best at your job.
Like, frankly, I'm competitive,I want to be the best rep.
You know what I mean?
But like not to the detriment ofnot collaborating, I guess is
(34:11):
what I'm saying.
It's okay to want to be thebest, but understanding being
the best in a team sport isleading your team and empowering
your team, and that is part ofwhat makes you a leader and the
best player.
Like, it's okay to want to bethe best version of yourself,
and I suppose the best player,right?
But what how do we define whatthe best player means?
And what so when I was thinkingabout our compensation plan and
(34:36):
building out the team, a lot ofit is a lot more centric on
achieving team goals, even formy sales reps and trying to
build a culture where I havecompetitive, like you know,
people, right?
So it's like, okay, how do webuild a culture where it's
collaborative first?
Because my thought process islook, we have several reps on
(34:56):
the team, and as we scale,hopefully we'll have more,
right?
It's somebody figures out how tobook two more meetings a month,
but they are hyper focused onbeing the top performing rep,
then maybe they don't share withthe other several reps how to
book two more meetings.
So as a result, we're bookingtwo more meetings versus eight
more meetings.
(35:17):
Wow.
You know what I mean?
And so it's been really cool andgetting back to like principles
and values.
What's really interesting isthat we're actually I'm so proud
of my team, uh, my two SDRs,because they actually came to me
last week and they were like,hey, look, opposed to working
independently on our own leads,we found a way to work together
(35:39):
and it's gonna help us be moreefficient because we don't have
to spend double the amount oftime researching.
Would it be all right if we justsplit our commissions in half
and worked on the same leadflow?
And the way we're set up likethat, I was like, Well, is it
gonna work?
And they're like, Yeah, likehere's why.
And they showed me the logic andthe data around how it could be
effective by them doing slightlydifferent things versus all both
(36:02):
doing the same thing.
And I was like, Yes, it was socool because it was like they're
basically decided to look, we'regonna hit our goal and our quota
and our commissions together.
But again, I think it's justgetting back to the values and
the principles that you'respeaking about in terms of
understanding human psychologyand competitive sports, right?
SPEAKER_00 (36:21):
Yeah, that's actually that's an awesome
story, and you should share thatmore because sales is
competitive.
When we were looking at redoingour core, I don't want to say
redoing, enhancing our corevalues, because our core values
here definitely resonated fouryears ago.
I mean, we've evolved.
And one of the ones that weadded was uh a strong
(36:42):
recommendation from our CEO, ournew CEO, was uh being customer
obsessed.
And actually, every company thatI worked at that that has
customers, that was always abaseline.
And it's funny because peopleare like, Oh, I'm not in sales,
I don't know what that means.
And I'm like, You're inrecruiting, right?
Our customers are candidates andour stakeholders and our hiring
(37:05):
leaders, and how can we becustomer obsessed?
Like, how can we make a whiteglove process or whatever?
That's something that like I'msuper excited that we now have
and we just rolled out becausefor us, it's not only our
salespeople, but they have towork with customer success,
right?
And so, you know, because onceyou have a customer, how do you
do expansions?
(37:25):
How do you do renewals?
It ultimately is a team sport,even though individuals are
responsible, quote unquote, fortheir numbers.
There's always opportunity to tomake those things more
efficient.
But I loved how in your storywhere they, I mean, they're the
ones that came up with it,right?
SPEAKER_01 (37:39):
I know I was so I was so I want to say like
surprised because I don't wantto like you know, I I believe in
both of them, right?
And it's but it wasn't expectedto still like exceeded my
expectations, right?
It was still like, oh wow, okay,this is working, and it was
great.
It was like the first moment, sowe're really focused on building
a cohesive revenue unit.
So we have two new businesssales reps, one like customer
(38:04):
sales rep, and then twomarketers, right?
And we're standing up thisgo-to-market team.
We started two and a half monthsago, and it's like trying to
figure out how to make everybodywork together in this cohesive
unit where we're gettingexponential or additional gains
by working together, and we'refiguring it out, right?
(38:25):
Um, but yeah, this was like thefirst, it felt like the first
breakthrough in terms of theteam taking the lead versus me
as a leader.
This was something that wasbrought to me as a solution, not
only that, but with the reasonswhy it would work and be more
effective.
SPEAKER_00 (38:46):
Sometimes will bring great rewards.
I think sometimes people arelike, Oh, this is my job and
this is what I need to do.
I'm big in try it.
As long as you're not breakingthe law.
SPEAKER_01 (38:55):
I mean that one.
SPEAKER_00 (38:58):
Try it.
Like if you don't do anythingillegal and it works, then come
back and share the story.
I mean, it is about storytellingtoo, right?
I have a woman on my team,Heidi, who I go to her for any
AI question.
I mean, she's like probably oneof the best go-to-market
recruiters.
Don't try to steal her.
I know where you live.
Um she's like one of the bestgo-to-market recruiters, and
(39:18):
she's always forward thinking.
Like, oh, how do I make my jobrun my desk and the people
around me easier?
And she, I mean, she built us aan AI machine.
I can't even begin to evenreally explain what she did, but
we were all like, this isamazing.
And I mean, it takes us fiveminutes to redo a job
description, create behavioralinterview, pull out the the
(39:40):
core, um, skills of the role,what KPIs you should be
measuring.
It's phenomenal.
And so she's now she's helpingdifferent parts within our HR
group create, you know, inGemini create gems to make it
easier.
Like, why are you trying to digthrough a policy to find out
something when you literally canjust ask the bot, right?
SPEAKER_02 (39:59):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (40:00):
She'd be built the TA machine all on her own.
She's gonna be helping the legalteam, you know, with some of the
stuff and the AI stuff.
So as you're building out yourteam and as you build out teams,
you have to think about somecompetency behavioral questions
that would be good to evaluatesomebody on things like your
core values and principles.
I think that's the importantpiece, especially when it comes
(40:20):
to growth mindset.
Because you are gonna want moreof your SDRs and other folks to
come to you and say, Hey, I knowwe're doing it this way, but we
were looking at it in this, andwe think if we do X, Y, and Z,
it could yield this, and theymay ask you to try it, or they
may just do it and say, Hey,here's the result.
So I truly believe in hiringpeople around you that are
smarter than you.
(40:41):
Surround yourself with smart,talented people.
Never be afraid of it, becauseI've learned from From my team
through the years.
It doesn't matter what company.
I will never claim to be thesmartest guy or girl in the
room.
But when you surround yourselfwith people, you surround
yourself around high performers,your productivity and your
ability to learn skyrockets.
(41:01):
You put yourself aroundfixed-minded folks and low
performers, your productivity,it's just gonna take a step
back.
It's true.
And you've probably seen thiseven with sports.
SPEAKER_01 (41:11):
And I suppose this is probably the truth for any
athlete that's at like in thezone or peak state, yeah, where
all you can think about iswhat's directly in front of you.
And it's uh it is sort ofcounterintuitive.
And the older I get, the more ina way it's becomes more
counterintuitive to me.
Almost like this peace that youget from being in a fight, it's
(41:32):
like everything else fades away.
And so there's like, of course,the nerves leading up to the
fight, and sometimes it'd beworse than others.
A lot of times I learned how toflip it into just intensity
where I was just in the zoneready to go in and just go.
But when I was in the ring, andthe first time you start trading
punches, it's like any kind offear that things like
(41:53):
dissipates, and you're just init, right?
Uh, and then it's like musclememory, and you got the
adrenaline going.
It was this incredibleexperience.
It was almost like weird how itbecame this kind of therapeutic,
peaceful, in a sense, experiencedespite being in the ring,
right?
SPEAKER_00 (42:13):
Oh, yeah.
Now that I'm saying this outloud, I'm actually starting to
realize how much this helped mein business.
Before games, I would visualizethe plays, I'd have the game in
my head before we stepped on thefield.
I do that with difficultconversations, presentations,
things like that.
It's actually, I think aboutthis even more.
So I took my daughter to aclinic northeast, and they were
(42:35):
teaching them how to dive.
And she was like, When am I evergonna do this?
I was like, listen, you keeppracticing it when the time's
right, it will happen.
And it was a Friday night lightsgame, and we're playing a team
that every year wins statechampionship, and we were
losing, which is totally finebecause they're a great team.
And then this girl went to goshoot a ball, and then she dove.
(42:59):
Oh, I just got goosebumps sayingit.
She dove and saved it, and theentire place erupted.
Like the referees, the other andshe knows some of the girls on
the other team because they goto camp and play club together
and stuff like that.
And that one was a turning pointfor her.
It clicked in for her that,like, all right, you're right.
If I practice, when it comes toactually stepping on the field,
(43:22):
it's gonna come, right?
It's gonna be like musclemainly.
Two, I think that was the firsttime I had ever seen her lose
and be happy.
Because I was like, it's notalways about winning, although
the competitor in me alwayswants to win.
It's actually about applyingwhat you've been practicing and
moving the needle forward witheach time you play.
(43:42):
Those things that you learn inindividual sports and team
sports, those are legit lifelessons, whether it's work or
just life that will help youpush through.
I mean, having the discipline,showing up, applying yourself,
getting the muscle memory, whenthe big stuff happens, you get
through it, right?
(44:02):
It's one of those things.
And earlier on when I wastalking about like you just go
through it, I feel that mytraining has taught me you only
take it practice to practice.
Practice to practice leads tothe games, games lead to the
season, and even in tough thingsin business, too.
I think of through the years, Imean, I've we've lost
(44:23):
colleagues, and you get throughit if you're you know together.
SPEAKER_01 (44:27):
The psychology of the person really, it's I think
hiring too.
It's about since you canunderstand the congruency or the
consistency of a person, we'lltell you a lot about how
effective they can be in termsof like if they're
principle-centered,value-centered, because that's
how they approach everything.
SPEAKER_00 (44:44):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I'm definitely afamily-based person.
I treat for those who allow meto, I treat my team like my
family.
I care for them.
I think that's important too,because sometimes people go into
a company and they it's a team.
And I have Heidi who lives inLondon.
Every time she comes, she bringsme little trinkets, you know,
for Josie from London.
(45:04):
She's got a teddy bear and akeychain.
I think it that's importantbecause again, they're people,
they're gonna go through toughstuff.
I'm gonna go through toughstuff.
I was working out of hospitalrooms almost twice a week during
the summer, and they're like,shut down, I got you.
You always get me, I got you.
And knowing that I had thatsupport made a really tough
(45:25):
time.
Plus, my boss is phenomenal.
He was like, What are you doing?
Get offline.
Bye.
I know you work all differenthours, just go.
I trust you.
Having that relationship andhaving that trust is that's not
always easy to find.
So you have to createpsychological safety.
It's important.
Everybody, you know, you'regonna spend 40 plus hours with
people.
Yeah, you might as well get toknow them and have a little fun
(45:46):
in the meantime.
I never have to worry aboutfolks on my team, ever.
I know they're gonna do whatthey do.
I'm not gonna micromanage them.
They know if they need help, I'mthere.
I'm always there to supportthem.
And the recruiting side of myhouse is they're great.
I mean, they're seasoned, theywork well together.
Anytime there's a new employee,they buddy up.
They want that person to be, youknow, be just as successful.
(46:08):
And it's really cool to seethat.
So it's like a our own littlesonotype family, which is great.
SPEAKER_01 (46:15):
I love it.
And it makes work a lot morefulfilling when you actually
feel like you can give andcontribute to folks, and you
feel like that you can also goto a place where people care
about you.
It's like it's bigger than theproduct, it's bigger than what
you're building.
I think it's really important.
SPEAKER_00 (46:29):
Yeah, in the relationships that I have here,
similar to like when I worked atCVS, and so I there is some
relationships that I will haveprobably for the rest of my
life.
SPEAKER_02 (46:39):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (46:39):
I have some folks that I worked with at Kronos.
One of the guys on my teamdressed up as Elmo for my kids'
birthday.
So yeah, I think that's theother thing too.
And my concern sometimes with AIis it's gonna start to remove
the human out of things.
There's just so much human inthis.
I mean, don't get me wrong, AIis fantastic, but it shouldn't
completely wipe people out.
(47:02):
Where applied appropriately canbe very efficient, but in
recruiting, you need to have Idon't know how you wouldn't want
to have that personal touch, youknow.
SPEAKER_01 (47:12):
I agree.
So we have one more time for onemore question, I think, for
today's episode.
I would love to ask you what isthe best piece of career or
leadership advice you've everreceived.
SPEAKER_00 (47:25):
Come from curious in every every situation.
Don't assume, or if you're gonnaassume it's assume positive
intent, but come from curious,ask questions, right?
Because I think it's importantand it also allows you to
connect with the person and whydid they just say what they did
or why did they do what theydid?
There's reasons, and sometimesit's not what you think.
(47:46):
So come from curious.
I like that one.
SPEAKER_01 (47:48):
Yeah, I like that one too.
Well, Sarah, thank you.
This has been a lot of fun, uh,great conversation, great
episode.
I do really appreciate youspending the time to be here
with us today and contributingto our community and sharing
your experiences.
Thanks for tuning in, everyone.
Today I'm speaking with SarahCheverett.
She's the head of global talentacquisition over at Zonatype.
Sarah, I'm really excited aboutthis.
SPEAKER_00 (00:55):
I'm ready to rock.
Let's do it.
SPEAKER_01 (00:58):
I would like to just kind of take a step back, right?
And we'd really excited to learnmore about you.
Maybe a good place to start islike, how did you get into
recruiting?
SPEAKER_00 (01:08):
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
That's a great question.
Because it's not like when I wasin school, you went to school
for it, right?
Like that wasn't a thing.
Um yeah, it was interestingbecause I was working in
financial services time, right?
And in my head, I was like, oh,I want to live in New York City
and I want to, you know, do thefinancial thing.
(01:28):
And um September 11th happened,right?
And they roll on the TVs andthey can't get a hold of people
at New York Life.
And it was a it was one of thosemoments I think everybody can
remember exactly where they wereand what they were doing.
But it completely changed myperspective on what I wanted to
do.
I actually had a couple offriends that were working at a
(01:51):
recruiting agency, and they'relike, you'd be really good.
You're like good with people.
Uh, and that was how I got intorecruiting.
So I started out in agencyrecruiting, did that for so many
years, and got a little tired ofchasing the carrot because you
always had to find theopportunities to place people.
But it turned out I was reallygood at sales too.
(02:12):
So, but you know, you get to aperiod of time, I was like, ugh,
maybe this is the time I reallylook to get into corporate.
And I had a friend working at anagency.
And my friend, as she watchesthis, Hather You Know Who You
Are.
I called her and she's like,You're done doing the agency
thing, huh?
I go, Yeah.
And she was like, Are you readyto take a risk?
(02:32):
And I was like, What do youmean?
She's like, You're gonna have totake a risk, you're gonna have
to take a contract.
And and my I had never left a flike a full-time job to take a
contract.
To me, that was so scary.
But it was the best risk I'veever taken because it completely
propelled my career.
And she even tried convincing meout of the gate to being a
(02:55):
manager in corporate, and I waslike, nope, I want to run a
desk, I'm gonna lead people.
I want my people to know that Ican run a desk and I can run it
well.
So I, you know, walk the walkand talk the talk.
So yeah, here I am 20 some ideaslater.
Still loving closing deals andand seeing people grow and
develop.
Technically, helping people withprobably what sometimes could be
(03:18):
a very tough decision in theirlife, right?
You have somebody's life in yourhands, you're helping them in
their career.
So it's a little feel-good to itas well.
SPEAKER_01 (03:26):
There is.
I like what you said aboutstaying involved to some extent
with the hands-on work, as youput it running a desk while
leading a team.
Is that something you still dosome of today with maybe
executive search?
How do you strike that balancetoday now that you're running a
rather aggressively growingorganization, as far as I
(03:47):
understand?
I mean, you're right in it ingrowth stage tech.
How many employees?
SPEAKER_00 (03:51):
Oh, I don't know what the total hit count is now
because we're literally addingpeople every week.
Uh, because we just opened upthe office in India in June.
Let's just call it somewherearound 500, maybe a little bit
more.
SPEAKER_02 (04:05):
Sure, sure.
SPEAKER_00 (04:06):
Which from a corporate standpoint is the
smallest organization I workedfor in my career.
But it's great because I've beenable to get my hands on a bunch
of stuff.
I would say where I'm notpicking up wrecks and working
them today.
When I first when I first gothere, I had to help and do some
recruiting while I was buildingout the team.
(04:27):
But I am heavy into the profilesand talking about, you know, is
the profile this?
Is it shifting?
Does that make sense?
What's reflective in the market?
Um, and every so often I'll goin and I'll still do some
sourcing, right?
Just to make sure my chops arestill there.
And I will speak to be part ofinterview processes versus like
(04:47):
the recruiter on the rack.
SPEAKER_01 (04:49):
Um do you still stay close to hiring leaders like the
VP of engineering or head ofproduct?
Or are you still involved insome of those conversations
strategically about the type oftalent they need on the team,
the gaps?
SPEAKER_00 (05:07):
Yeah, yeah.
And actually, I'm probably doingit more often now because having
an entity in India is new to mycompany.
And so it's not just profiles,it's understanding the market,
it's understanding the culture,how to be inclusive.
We've done training on what toexpect when you're interviewing
(05:28):
folks from India because we havea lot of folks in the US, we
have folks in the UK, Germany,Singapore, Australia, Colombia.
And so when you work for thispretty globally diverse
organization, there aredifferent techniques, different
processes that are important forpeople to understand.
We do our budgeting every year.
(05:51):
And so you have the executiveleaders and their SLT members
really putting together theirplan for the following year,
what they're going to be hiringfor, in addition to everything
else.
And so I do get an opportunityto review it myself and HR
business partner, and we'relooking at comp, GL, everything.
So that way when it is approved,one, we understand how it fits
(06:13):
and if there's any changes thatneed to be made.
It's better sometimes to get thechanges made out of the gate
versus going down.
Sometimes you have to learn tosee what's really out in the
market too.
And that can shape it, shapesome of the roles in addition to
that.
So it is an exciting time.
Very busy, especially Hyderabadis well, I think with the time
(06:35):
change, now they're 11 and ahalf hours ahead.
So I do love that global stretchbecause I can get up and get
things done early, early in themorning.
I can get a whole bunch of stuffdone and give stakeholders and
my team FaceTime during somereasonable hours.
And then I can get the kid onthe bus, come back, maybe eat
(06:55):
some breakfast, and then hit theEast Coast.
So with some of those leaders,we are really talking about what
it looks like.
So when you think about salesand go to market and the market
shifting, which is great.
You're starting to see techreally pick back up.
And I know there was like kindof some really ups and downs for
some times over the past coupleof years.
(07:15):
And I think almost every techcompany, except probably AI
companies, probably felt it,right?
So we've seen a lot of changehere, and it's technically, I'll
be here four years in two days.
SPEAKER_01 (07:27):
So hey, oh, congratulations.
That's great.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:32):
I mean, the cool thing is so we're part of the
VISA Equity Partners Portfolio.
That's our PE firm.
And there is this network.
We meet every Friday and we'relike, hey, what are some of the
challenges you're going through?
Here's what I'm seeing.
Here's the things that I've donethat's work really well.
Have you tried this?
And just really sharing withinthat leader network, because you
(07:54):
know, the the porco is all techcompanies, different tech
companies, but we stillexperience some of the same
challenges with talent.
And it's nice, even working at asmall company, right?
You still have those resourceswhere, like when I was at CVS,
we were 350,000 in place, so youcan imagine how big the TA team
(08:14):
was.
Like I could just phone a friendthat was at a different
location.
Here it's it's a littledifferent.
Like you have to start to makeyour network and have it work
for you within the pork codebecause we're all following
similar playbooks.
So we share on technology,processes, all that kind of
stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (08:30):
Well, that's huge to have a strong peer group,
whether it's through like the PEcommunity, right?
Or through Vista, right?
Or otherwise.
I think that's also what one ofmy goals is with this show is to
create a platform like foroperators by operators mindset
where people can come to theshow and actually learn from
(08:53):
other folks in a similar or sameposition.
Also, like at this point, you'vehelped a lot of companies scale.
Now you're in a growth stageorganization a little bit
smaller.
I'm curious about whatrealizations you've had during
your time at Sonicite.
What do you think is mostimportant when it comes to
hiring for a scale at for agrowth stage company?
(09:15):
If you had to boil it down tolike a couple key takeaways, one
takeaway, what advice do youhave, or what have you learned,
or what light bulb moments haveyou had?
Think about it however you want.
Um about how to hireeffectively.
SPEAKER_00 (09:29):
When you work for a small company, you do have to
roll up your sleeves.
There's no doubt, you just haveto do it.
I will say what has made thismore successful now in
comparison when I first walkedin the door was one, looking at
all your tools, looking at allyour processes and understanding
where you can clean it up,streamline them, and what you
(09:51):
can do to help the leaders andthe folks interviewing.
I mean, interviewing they haveto do their day job too.
So if you can create anopportunity where you're
streamlining the processes andyou're giving them the steps,
but you make them part of it, itreally does help because you can
take something that could takeweeks to hire for and bring it
(10:13):
down to less than 30 days.
And so you really have to haveyour team saying the same thing
and really believing in whatyou're doing.
And you have to have your teamsback.
When you're going throughchange, there's always bumps
along the way.
There's no doubt.
I it doesn't matter where I'veworked.
I always like to make surewhenever my team needs me, even
if they don't think they needme, I'll join them on a call.
We'll talk about it.
(10:34):
And to me, you can't mistakesare important.
Like there's no thing we coulddo so bad here.
Like, we're not doing surgery.
Someone's not gonna die on thetable.
Every mistake is something youcan learn and make an
improvement.
And I always say, I've made alot of mistakes in my recruiting
career.
And it's actually what makes youlearn.
(10:57):
I will say one of the mostimportant things, and this is
gonna come up even more as AI isreally ingrained in businesses,
is like you cannot remove thehuman out of this.
You're talking to people, youare you're helping them, you're
evaluating them, but they'rereally evaluating us too.
(11:17):
And taking a new job is a bigdecision for someone.
And if you can, it's not aboutfiring questions at people.
It's like get to know the persona little bit and talk to them
and find out what they reallywant.
Because it might turn out thatyou're having a conversation
with them and based off whatthey want and what they're
aligned with, this might not bethe best place for them.
I would rather have a candidateknow, have all the information
(11:41):
that they need to know to makethe best educated decision
whether or not to come to thecompany.
Right?
Once they get here, you're gonnabe working with them, right?
So they're people.
I tell the my team and peopleare interviewing.
Do you remember when you were acandidate?
What it feels like?
What if you're not gettingfeedback or even a touch point
(12:01):
because the process is takinglonger, and then you feel like
they forgot about you, or youapply to a role, but you never
hear.
It's like their resume goes andan application goes in a black
hole.
There are people on the otherend of that submission, and so
that's candidated experience isvital.
Because the other thing, too,think about it.
You have a good experience, youmight tell a couple people.
(12:22):
You have a bad experience,you're gonna tell everyone.
You know what we mean by that,right?
So I think aside from tools andprocesses, remembering that
there is a person on that sideof the resume and creating a
really great candidateexperience.
SPEAKER_01 (12:39):
One thing that I constantly am reminding myself
of is that you can't optimizerelationships.
No, you can't look at it as thisalmost mechanical process of
just efficiency.
That's not like human and itdoesn't help people feel valued,
appreciated, heard, understood,right?
(13:00):
As leaders in such apeople-oriented function.
It's like we're constantlywalking this tightrope between
efficiency and systems thatscale and putting people in
relationships first.
SPEAKER_00 (13:14):
Yeah.
My former VP at CVS Health, hisname is Jeff Lack.
I remember it was like my firstweek.
He came into my office and hegave me a book.
I think the name of the book isthe first 90 days.
And he's like, Read this.
But in your first 90 days, youronly job is to make as many
relationships as you possiblycan here.
(13:35):
Now there's gonna be things thatcome up that you have to make a
decision, and I get that becauseit's a day-to-day thing.
But anything major you want tochange, you write it down.
And then day 91, take a lookback and look at everything you
wrote down, and then you seewhich ones you're actually gonna
tackle.
What are some small wins?
What is it gonna take a littlebit longer, and then what's the
(13:56):
bucket of you're gonna put thataside for right now because the
timing's not right.
Um and that that buildingrelationship piece was so vital
for me there.
It was yeah, it was just theFortune 4 company.
I know I've said this before,it's just a different beast.
The bar's really high, thingsmove super quick.
It's always good to have thoserelationships because when
(14:18):
you're showing up to the table,you both have the same goal,
right?
You want to fill theirheadcount, whether it's
initiative headcount orbackfill, because when someone's
not in the role, who else isdoing the work?
It took some really, I mean, wedid some really peak niche
hiring of like we need to hire300 people for clinical trial
services, right?
Kind of an important thingduring the COVID time frame.
(14:41):
So the more you get to knowthose people, it makes it that
much easier to knock out somereally tough tasks.
Hiring niche roles like that canbe tough in its own, especially
when yeah, everybody knew thecompany, but we weren't in that
space.
So there was a lot of learningsthere, and you had to be really
direct with some of the leaders.
(15:01):
You want this, but this is whatwe're finding for this, right?
If I didn't have thoserelationships, they would have
just been like, just find itanyway.
But instead, they would listen.
SPEAKER_01 (15:10):
What's interesting is like what you say, what
you're talking about beingimportant, everything is very
tightly correlated, right?
The very first thing you said isrolling up your sleeves.
Then we talked about buildingsystems that work, and then you
talked about relationships andthe importance of putting people
first.
Um what's interesting is I thinkrolling up your sleeves and the
(15:33):
relationships piece, they'realmost like one and the same
because if a leader's tooheavily focused on systems, they
might not be necessarily one ofthe sleeves with the team on the
trenches, talking to people,talking to the leaders, talking
to the recruiters, investing inthose relationships.
So there's in a sense like oneand the same.
So it's interesting because youbrought up your first internal
(15:56):
corporate recruiting job, reallyrolling up your sleeves and
managing a recload, and you alsotalk about now as an established
leader, and it may be adifferent point of impact, but
still rolling up your sleeves,right?
I I think they go hand in hand,like the relationship piece,
you're in there with your teamfiguring things out.
SPEAKER_00 (16:13):
Yeah, I'm all about the data.
Data driven decisions are soimportant, but showing up with
the data and the insights is soimportant.
I mean, it's in in order to makestrong business decisions, you
need to have the data to backit.
And sometimes you just have totake a leap on certain things.
But in our space, there's a lotof data.
There's market data.
(16:33):
I used to leverage a tool calledTalent Neuron, which, gosh, I
used that tool all the way whenback in the day when it was
wanted analytics, andeverybody's like, What's this
thing?
It was awesome because we wouldshow up to hiring strategy
discussions very differently,right?
Because you're you're mappingthe role in the labor market and
where you can find and diversifyyour funnel and for what geos
(16:57):
should we be searching in,what's the degree of difficulty?
You show up like that, peoplethey listen.
SPEAKER_02 (17:03):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (17:05):
You can't argue with the data, right?
At that point.
Now it's all it's not thattalent neuron isn't important.
I mean, we have the data, soit's really listening and having
those relationships with thefolks in India, but really
listening to them because theyknow, regardless of sometimes
what the data is saying, what'sreally going on in the market,
because it's live.
(17:25):
We were talking last week, and27 GCCs this quarter have been
opened in Hyderabad.
Brand new ones.
That's not even the existingones.
So that will tell you howcompetitive the market is right
now.
So you have to listen.
You have to listen to whatyou're hearing on comps.
I we have salary bands, weleverage most of the data, which
(17:46):
is great, but you have to listento what's going on in the market
because a salary band is asalary band, right?
Sometimes you have to be alittle bit more creative on what
quartile you're going to hiresomebody on.
Yeah.
You have to be agile, especiallywith the way the market's been
changing.
SPEAKER_01 (18:00):
Yeah, I agree.
So I'd love to focus on like theunderlying kind of behavioral
aspects of what you'rediscussing.
So we're talking aboutessentially being agile,
adaptable, scrappy, essentiallylike hands-on,
relationship-driven.
I'd love to learn more about youand just where do you think this
comes from, the mindset thatyou've developed around
(18:23):
prioritizing these behavioralaspects?
Like, where did you learn thisfrom?
SPEAKER_00 (18:28):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's kind of funny because
I feel like, yes, I've grown asa person, but I've always been
that kid.
I was that kid that wanted toplay all the sports, be in all
the activities.
I wanted to learn everything.
I loved going to school.
Because to me, I felt likeknowledge was power.
And the more you learn and themore you do, and the more you
get out there, the moresuccessful you're gonna be.
(18:48):
I'm thinking back, like when Iwas growing up, my mom worked
two jobs.
And my dad was a union pipefitter.
They did a little bit ofcollege.
Um, I knew I definitely wantedto go to college and I needed to
figure out how I was gonna getthere.
My dad was very big on I wantyou to be able to sit on your
own two feet and not have todepend on anybody.
Get good grades in school, workreally hard, and it's all gonna
(19:09):
pay off.
My father's um former Navy, sohe's a Vietnam vet and came home
from Vietnam and became a unionpipe fitter.
My mom worked in banking for 17years, and then she's like, I
want to work in healthcare, workat the school too, and and you
know, be a special ed teacherand have like school hours for
us and stuff like that.
(19:30):
So I think seeing both of themgrind, it was very interesting
to watch.
I just kept watching and beinglike, okay, I don't want to work
two jobs.
That's one thing.
And two, uh I knew I wanted togo to college and I knew I
wanted to do something.
And then I went to school forbiology, I graduated with
psychology, and I went rightinto business.
(19:52):
Not your traditional.
If CSI was cool when I went tocollege, I probably would have
stayed with biology.
But I was like, I don't want tobe a doctor, I don't want to be
a nurse, I don't think I shouldhave anybody's life in my hands
responsible.
I feel like getting intobusiness a little bit safer.
My mom wanted me to be a statetrooper.
I was like, I absolutely shouldnot be driving around with a
(20:13):
gun.
SPEAKER_01 (20:14):
Not for you.
SPEAKER_00 (20:15):
Not for me.
Nope, no, no, no, no, no, no.
It was a good choice.
She's like, Yeah, you know, youcould just be no, mom.
I don't want to pull people overon the highway, I don't want to
arrest people.
I don't want to shoot a gun.
SPEAKER_02 (20:27):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (20:28):
Right.
Like it's just not my thing.
But I will say my psychologydegree really helped me
understand business in a verydifferent way.
Cause you you had to payattention to people.
People come from all walks oflife, and there is a psychology
behind business.
And I I do think that is a goodpiece of it.
(20:49):
So I guess if I had to say frommy childhood to college, my
education did help with itbecause it made me see people
differently.
SPEAKER_01 (20:56):
Well, so I mean, when we we go to school and we
pick find something we'repassionate about, like for
instance, for you, psychology.
And then you're in your prime inyour career, right?
I'm curious looking back, whathas stuck with you, right?
I'm sure there's things that youlearned and then forgot about
that don't really stick withyou.
They're just more so stuffyou're studying for the exam.
What takeaways did you get fromyour degree that you feel like
(21:19):
impact how you lead today?
SPEAKER_00 (21:22):
Yeah, I feel like my bachelor's degree opened my mind
to leadership development in avery different way.
It wasn't, and sometimes peopleare like, oh, leadership
development, that's like thesoft stuff of business, right?
But it's it's so vital.
I wanted going through uhSendelane training at CVS.
(21:45):
And that was the most importantleadership training I've ever
been through.
For about a year, my boss wouldsay things to me, and I didn't
realize, and this isn't a realword, but I I made it up.
She was Sendelaneying me.
Like she was an instructor, andshe always because I'd be like,
ah, I know what's going on, andshe goes, No, Sarah, Sarah.
(22:05):
Come from curious, take a stepback, assume positive.
And it was all the psychologytraining that was coming from
Cendelane training.
It was phenomenal.
And I still use it because Italk about the mood elevator,
right?
And where are you on the moodelevator?
And sometimes, depending onwhere you're in the mood
elevator, one, you may not be ina position where you should be
giving feedback, or you may bein a position where you're not
(22:29):
ready to receive feedback.
That allowed me to really say, Iknow we need to move really
fast, but sometimes you need toslow down to speed up because
there's something going on.
And sometimes how someone'sinteracting with you actually
has nothing to do with you.
And it it did help me equip,like with some really good
phrases.
I use some terms like I feellike you're putting a lot of
pressure on me and I'm not rightnow and I'm not sure why.
(22:52):
And that actually backs peopleup a little bit and they're
like, Oh no, no, sorry, I justgot this and this and then the
mass comes down.
Or like, this is one of mybiggest pet peeves, is like when
you're in a meeting with peopleand they're like right.
And so I used to say, Hey, Iknow we set 30 minutes today.
Is now still a good time?
(23:13):
If not, we can look at calendarsand we could totally reschedule.
I know your time, you're reallybusy and your time's important.
And then sometimes people wouldsay, No, you're absolutely
right.
I do need to reschedule itbecause something was going on
with them and they just didn'tfeel comfortable at that time
canceling a meeting so quickly,right?
Like five minutes before.
Or it would actually wakesomebody up to be present now,
(23:35):
right?
And then like they're like, No,I'm so sorry, just had to finish
that last email.
I'm all yours now, right?
SPEAKER_01 (23:42):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (23:42):
Um and so it's like the degree got built upon with
some specific leadershipdevelopment.
And it all ties back to theright relationship piece.
The other thing too, and wetalked about grit and resilience
and stuff.
And I think one thing that'sreally important to have is a
(24:03):
growth mindset.
If you have a fixed mindset,you're gonna be stuck.
And that's okay.
Some people it's okay, becausethere's some roles that are a
little bit more fixed mindset.
But if you want to be atransformative leader, you want
to be a value-based leader, youhave to have a growth mindset.
It's just it's the only way itand it's how businesses grow and
become successful.
(24:24):
Because otherwise, I don't know.
I couldn't imagine being in atech company not being having a
growth mindset because thatwould be a real problem for the
company.
But that piece of it too, Imean, I think I don't know if
that's talked about enough abouta growth mindset and how
important it is.
That's another, to me, likeanother psychology thing.
It's how you think about thingsand are you able to shift your
(24:45):
paradigm to be in that growthmindset that even though things
are hard right now, you just gothrough and you keep working
through and it's gonna getbetter and it's gonna happen.
So when you're surrounded bysmart growth mindset people, the
relationships and the psychologybehind business tend to be a
little bit easier when you'rearound folks that are really
stuck in the way we used to dothings or we do it like this,
(25:07):
that becomes a challenge becausethen there's not growth there.
SPEAKER_01 (25:09):
I also know you were a college athlete, right?
SPEAKER_00 (25:12):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I played field hockey.
It's great, great workout.
Bad for the back, but greatworkout.
SPEAKER_01 (25:18):
But you know, my daughter is six, and I think
team sports are reallyimportant.
She has a tendency to gravitatetoward, I guess it's not
individual sports, like she doesdance, which I guess is a
different type of team sport,actually.
It is team oriented, she doeslike ice skating.
I guess ice skating would beindividual.
Dance is like they're on stagetogether, so I guess it is
(25:39):
there's a team dynamic.
Um but I it was really importantfor me for her to play uh a team
sport, so I let her pick, butshe ended up picking soccer.
At first, she actually didn'tlike it.
Um, but she got there.
I think she had like a littlecrush actually on a little boy
on the team, which reallyhelped.
Um, so I was like, oh, I havemixed feelings about that.
SPEAKER_00 (26:01):
Books not boys, books not boys.
SPEAKER_01 (26:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anyways, but she ended up reallyenjoying it.
I think there's from a workethic perspective, some of the
grit determination, rolling upyour sleeves, communication, all
those things are reallyimportant.
And I think too, it's like at acollege level, those are
formative years.
So it's like you're doingpsychology, you're also
competing like in a competitiveenvironment and team
(26:25):
environment.
I'm sure that has had a bigimpact too on how you operate as
a leader in a highly competitiveindustry.
SPEAKER_00 (26:34):
Yeah, the discipline aspect of it, it's the showing
up.
And I definitely got that fromsports too.
That discipline of I made acommitment, I'm gonna do it.
That's why I always wanted mydaughter to play sports, but I
wanted her to come to theconclusion that she wanted to
play sports.
SPEAKER_01 (26:49):
Right.
It's the hard part as a parent,right?
Like there's something importantand you don't want to force it,
but you're trying to guide yourchild a thousand percent.
And also let like let them leaninto their strengths and
interests.
It's another tightrope we keeptalking about with balancing
acts.
I'm constantly striving to bebetter at.
SPEAKER_00 (27:04):
I was laughing because Joe, uh, my daughter
Josephine, she started out withsoccer and she didn't want to
score, she only wanted to playdefense.
And when you're that little,they don't have goalies, and she
would always just go in thegoal.
And then one day she's like,Yeah, I don't really want to do
this anymore.
And I was like, You think youwant to try field hockey?
(27:24):
And she's like, Yeah.
And I was like, Yes.
Because I really was like, Howcan we not having her play field
hockey?
Why don't you coach?
And I'm like, No, no, no, no,no.
My kid knows me as her mother.
She does not know me as theathlete, and those are two very
different people.
SPEAKER_01 (27:41):
It's like knowing your roles in life, your roles
and responsibilities todifferent people, and it's like
you have different aspects ofyour identity.
There's you as a leader, there'syou as like a competitor, right?
As a mother, and yeah, that thatis very true too.
So I'm very competitive.
My background, I used to box anddo Muay Thai, like for a living,
actually, it was my job forabout four years.
(28:02):
There's time spans where Iactually lived in a boxing gym
that was competing.
Um, and that was my life.
And so there's that part of me,like as a I started coaching
boxing when I was in high schooltoo.
So I was already competing andleading by the time I graduated
high school.
So there's that part of me thatwants to instill those values
with her, but I've noticed thatwhen I try too hard, she pulls
(28:23):
back.
SPEAKER_00 (28:24):
Uh-huh.
Yeah, yeah.
When she gets older, that'sgonna shift for you a little
bit.
So I'm like the LSU basketballcoach on the sideline.
I'm like flaring my arms, I knowall the girls' names on the
team.
I'm telling, and and it's funnybecause her town coach is like,
I love that you're on the otherside because they can hear both
of it.
But it's funny because I startedto notice my kiddos picking up
(28:48):
some of the things because,like, sometimes her team is
really good.
They've been playing togethersince like second, third grade
together, and they all playclub.
So sometimes being a goalie,which is a really tough position
for anybody to play, it's a bigmental thing.
I can see her every so oftenbeing like, you know, looking at
the sky or whatever, and I couldsee the ball coming, and I start
(29:09):
yelling at him like, Joe, lookalive, look alive.
And I didn't realize how muchthat was gonna stick because
there was one game and it wasfreezing.
It was our Friday Night Lightsgame, and I was like, I'm
definitely not running up anddown the sidelines today.
I got the hand warmers, I'mgonna sit here, drink a coffee,
whatever.
And then all of a sudden, Icould hear her yelling to the
(29:30):
defensemen in the midfielders tostart looking alive because the
ball was starting to transitionand people were flat footed.
So now, mind you, she's 12 andit took some time.
She would not always listen tome, she would cry at games.
So I had to work with the coachto get her to shift.
And then once it started toshift from the mental strength
(29:52):
standpoint, then it got a littlebit easier.
But a lot of times kids don'twant to listen to their parents.
I mean, think about we when youwere growing up.
I mean, I my father was astrict, I listened to everything
he said.
My mom, I got away with bloodymurder.
She won't be watching thispodcast, so I'm okay.
But I used to be able to getaway with everything.
Yeah.
(30:13):
Just I think for your daughter,I think that the both types of
sports are important becauseindividual sports, it's all
about you and you being bettereach day.
Team sports is you could be thebest person on the on the field,
but that's not gonna matteryou're if you can't work with
your team.
SPEAKER_02 (30:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:34):
I have a subscription through a
masterclass.
I highly recommend it toanybody.
I just watched the Coach K oneon value-based leadership.
Uh Coach K, the former headcoach for Duke.
I love him, just in general,like as a person, as a leader.
And he brings a really uniqueperspective to sports.
(30:55):
But what he does to sports couldactually be used in any
organization.
Because if you have a teamthat's value-based and you're a
value-based leader, you areworking together to move things
forward and you stick with yourvalues.
He had like some of his oldplayers come on and some that
went to the NBA, some that wentto the NBA and started their own
(31:17):
business, businesses, and theytalk about, you know, living in
the core values, in your values.
And I think sometimes backing itlike lost in a lot of different
things.
But every organization or everysport that I ever played that
lived within those values wassuccessful.
I think sometimes those thingscould be like uh words on a
(31:39):
poster.
SPEAKER_01 (31:40):
It's the same with companies, though, right?
It's like some companiesactually live and breathe values
and others don't.
Sometimes the values are statedthat they live and breathe.
Other times it's like that'sjust how the culture operates
and they don't necessarily talkabout it.
But I recently reread uhStephen, is it Covey or Covey's
uh Seven Habits Highly AffectedPeople?
I don't know if you ever readthat one.
SPEAKER_00 (32:00):
Oh yeah, yeah.
It was it's been a long timesince uh read it, but I the four
agreements.
It's funny because every sooften, like I'll have to go and
read them based off of ascenario.
And if you stick with them, andI'll send them to you afterwards
because I have a whole littlepicture.
That's another good one, too.
But the seven habits, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (32:19):
Seven habits of highly effective people, I think
is what it's called.
It talks about like being avalue-centered person, yep,
right?
Like in and really understandingyour values and principles.
I guess he segments the twoconcepts.
Principles are like factual,they're just truths of life.
So he has different principlesabout communication to yourself,
(32:39):
communication to other people,principles in terms of what you
prioritize in life.
And then he said values are whatprinciples you place value on,
or maybe you place value onthings that aren't sound
principles.
It was interesting because it itstarted to get me thinking again
about like, okay, what are myvalues?
And sometimes, too, it's likewhen life is moving really fast,
(33:01):
you think you know your values,but then you think about where
your headspace is and is itactually aligned?
How have they evolved?
Do I have weeds growing?
Well, maybe it's time torecenter uh as well, right?
So I think like that principlevalue-based living is really key
to the organizational success.
So I'm building a go-to-marketteam at my company Secure Vision
(33:25):
to essentially achieve the nextlevel of scale.
I've been thinking a lot aboutprinciples and values, and for
instance, like one value or oneprinciple that I'm trying to
focus on is like just down thepipe collaboration and a
principle of now.
I don't know for certain if thisis 100% true, but I think it's
true based on my experience as aleader.
(33:48):
Internal competition is bad forsalespeople.
Um, I didn't want an environmentwhere my reps are competing
against each other to be numberone.
Not that it's unhealthy to wantto be the best at your job.
Like, frankly, I'm competitive,I want to be the best rep.
You know what I mean?
But like not to the detriment ofnot collaborating, I guess is
(34:11):
what I'm saying.
It's okay to want to be thebest, but understanding being
the best in a team sport isleading your team and empowering
your team, and that is part ofwhat makes you a leader and the
best player.
Like, it's okay to want to bethe best version of yourself,
and I suppose the best player,right?
But what how do we define whatthe best player means?
And what so when I was thinkingabout our compensation plan and
(34:36):
building out the team, a lot ofit is a lot more centric on
achieving team goals, even formy sales reps and trying to
build a culture where I havecompetitive, like you know,
people, right?
So it's like, okay, how do webuild a culture where it's
collaborative first?
Because my thought process islook, we have several reps on
(34:56):
the team, and as we scale,hopefully we'll have more,
right?
It's somebody figures out how tobook two more meetings a month,
but they are hyper focused onbeing the top performing rep,
then maybe they don't share withthe other several reps how to
book two more meetings.
So as a result, we're bookingtwo more meetings versus eight
more meetings.
(35:17):
Wow.
You know what I mean?
And so it's been really cool andgetting back to like principles
and values.
What's really interesting isthat we're actually I'm so proud
of my team, uh, my two SDRs,because they actually came to me
last week and they were like,hey, look, opposed to working
independently on our own leads,we found a way to work together
(35:39):
and it's gonna help us be moreefficient because we don't have
to spend double the amount oftime researching.
Would it be all right if we justsplit our commissions in half
and worked on the same leadflow?
And the way we're set up likethat, I was like, Well, is it
gonna work?
And they're like, Yeah, likehere's why.
And they showed me the logic andthe data around how it could be
effective by them doing slightlydifferent things versus all both
(36:02):
doing the same thing.
And I was like, Yes, it was socool because it was like they're
basically decided to look, we'regonna hit our goal and our quota
and our commissions together.
But again, I think it's justgetting back to the values and
the principles that you'respeaking about in terms of
understanding human psychologyand competitive sports, right?
SPEAKER_00 (36:21):
Yeah, that's actually that's an awesome
story, and you should share thatmore because sales is
competitive.
When we were looking at redoingour core, I don't want to say
redoing, enhancing our corevalues, because our core values
here definitely resonated fouryears ago.
I mean, we've evolved.
And one of the ones that weadded was uh a strong
(36:42):
recommendation from our CEO, ournew CEO, was uh being customer
obsessed.
And actually, every company thatI worked at that that has
customers, that was always abaseline.
And it's funny because peopleare like, Oh, I'm not in sales,
I don't know what that means.
And I'm like, You're inrecruiting, right?
Our customers are candidates andour stakeholders and our hiring
(37:05):
leaders, and how can we becustomer obsessed?
Like, how can we make a whiteglove process or whatever?
That's something that like I'msuper excited that we now have
and we just rolled out becausefor us, it's not only our
salespeople, but they have towork with customer success,
right?
And so, you know, because onceyou have a customer, how do you
do expansions?
(37:25):
How do you do renewals?
It ultimately is a team sport,even though individuals are
responsible, quote unquote, fortheir numbers.
There's always opportunity to tomake those things more
efficient.
But I loved how in your storywhere they, I mean, they're the
ones that came up with it,right?
SPEAKER_01 (37:39):
I know I was so I was so I want to say like
surprised because I don't wantto like you know, I I believe in
both of them, right?
And it's but it wasn't expectedto still like exceeded my
expectations, right?
It was still like, oh wow, okay,this is working, and it was
great.
It was like the first moment, sowe're really focused on building
a cohesive revenue unit.
So we have two new businesssales reps, one like customer
(38:04):
sales rep, and then twomarketers, right?
And we're standing up thisgo-to-market team.
We started two and a half monthsago, and it's like trying to
figure out how to make everybodywork together in this cohesive
unit where we're gettingexponential or additional gains
by working together, and we'refiguring it out, right?
(38:25):
Um, but yeah, this was like thefirst, it felt like the first
breakthrough in terms of theteam taking the lead versus me
as a leader.
This was something that wasbrought to me as a solution, not
only that, but with the reasonswhy it would work and be more
effective.
SPEAKER_00 (38:46):
Sometimes will bring great rewards.
I think sometimes people arelike, Oh, this is my job and
this is what I need to do.
I'm big in try it.
As long as you're not breakingthe law.
SPEAKER_01 (38:55):
I mean that one.
SPEAKER_00 (38:58):
Try it.
Like if you don't do anythingillegal and it works, then come
back and share the story.
I mean, it is about storytellingtoo, right?
I have a woman on my team,Heidi, who I go to her for any
AI question.
I mean, she's like probably oneof the best go-to-market
recruiters.
Don't try to steal her.
I know where you live.
Um she's like one of the bestgo-to-market recruiters, and
(39:18):
she's always forward thinking.
Like, oh, how do I make my jobrun my desk and the people
around me easier?
And she, I mean, she built us aan AI machine.
I can't even begin to evenreally explain what she did, but
we were all like, this isamazing.
And I mean, it takes us fiveminutes to redo a job
description, create behavioralinterview, pull out the the
(39:40):
core, um, skills of the role,what KPIs you should be
measuring.
It's phenomenal.
And so she's now she's helpingdifferent parts within our HR
group create, you know, inGemini create gems to make it
easier.
Like, why are you trying to digthrough a policy to find out
something when you literally canjust ask the bot, right?
SPEAKER_02 (39:59):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (40:00):
She'd be built the TA machine all on her own.
She's gonna be helping the legalteam, you know, with some of the
stuff and the AI stuff.
So as you're building out yourteam and as you build out teams,
you have to think about somecompetency behavioral questions
that would be good to evaluatesomebody on things like your
core values and principles.
I think that's the importantpiece, especially when it comes
(40:20):
to growth mindset.
Because you are gonna want moreof your SDRs and other folks to
come to you and say, Hey, I knowwe're doing it this way, but we
were looking at it in this, andwe think if we do X, Y, and Z,
it could yield this, and theymay ask you to try it, or they
may just do it and say, Hey,here's the result.
So I truly believe in hiringpeople around you that are
smarter than you.
(40:41):
Surround yourself with smart,talented people.
Never be afraid of it, becauseI've learned from From my team
through the years.
It doesn't matter what company.
I will never claim to be thesmartest guy or girl in the
room.
But when you surround yourselfwith people, you surround
yourself around high performers,your productivity and your
ability to learn skyrockets.
(41:01):
You put yourself aroundfixed-minded folks and low
performers, your productivity,it's just gonna take a step
back.
It's true.
And you've probably seen thiseven with sports.
SPEAKER_01 (41:11):
And I suppose this is probably the truth for any
athlete that's at like in thezone or peak state, yeah, where
all you can think about iswhat's directly in front of you.
And it's uh it is sort ofcounterintuitive.
And the older I get, the more ina way it's becomes more
counterintuitive to me.
Almost like this peace that youget from being in a fight, it's
(41:32):
like everything else fades away.
And so there's like, of course,the nerves leading up to the
fight, and sometimes it'd beworse than others.
A lot of times I learned how toflip it into just intensity
where I was just in the zoneready to go in and just go.
But when I was in the ring, andthe first time you start trading
punches, it's like any kind offear that things like
(41:53):
dissipates, and you're just init, right?
Uh, and then it's like musclememory, and you got the
adrenaline going.
It was this incredibleexperience.
It was almost like weird how itbecame this kind of therapeutic,
peaceful, in a sense, experiencedespite being in the ring,
right?
SPEAKER_00 (42:13):
Oh, yeah.
Now that I'm saying this outloud, I'm actually starting to
realize how much this helped mein business.
Before games, I would visualizethe plays, I'd have the game in
my head before we stepped on thefield.
I do that with difficultconversations, presentations,
things like that.
It's actually, I think aboutthis even more.
So I took my daughter to aclinic northeast, and they were
(42:35):
teaching them how to dive.
And she was like, When am I evergonna do this?
I was like, listen, you keeppracticing it when the time's
right, it will happen.
And it was a Friday night lightsgame, and we're playing a team
that every year wins statechampionship, and we were
losing, which is totally finebecause they're a great team.
And then this girl went to goshoot a ball, and then she dove.
(42:59):
Oh, I just got goosebumps sayingit.
She dove and saved it, and theentire place erupted.
Like the referees, the other andshe knows some of the girls on
the other team because they goto camp and play club together
and stuff like that.
And that one was a turning pointfor her.
It clicked in for her that,like, all right, you're right.
If I practice, when it comes toactually stepping on the field,
(43:22):
it's gonna come, right?
It's gonna be like musclemainly.
Two, I think that was the firsttime I had ever seen her lose
and be happy.
Because I was like, it's notalways about winning, although
the competitor in me alwayswants to win.
It's actually about applyingwhat you've been practicing and
moving the needle forward witheach time you play.
(43:42):
Those things that you learn inindividual sports and team
sports, those are legit lifelessons, whether it's work or
just life that will help youpush through.
I mean, having the discipline,showing up, applying yourself,
getting the muscle memory, whenthe big stuff happens, you get
through it, right?
(44:02):
It's one of those things.
And earlier on when I wastalking about like you just go
through it, I feel that mytraining has taught me you only
take it practice to practice.
Practice to practice leads tothe games, games lead to the
season, and even in tough thingsin business, too.
I think of through the years, Imean, I've we've lost
(44:23):
colleagues, and you get throughit if you're you know together.
SPEAKER_01 (44:27):
The psychology of the person really, it's I think
hiring too.
It's about since you canunderstand the congruency or the
consistency of a person, we'lltell you a lot about how
effective they can be in termsof like if they're
principle-centered,value-centered, because that's
how they approach everything.
SPEAKER_00 (44:44):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I'm definitely afamily-based person.
I treat for those who allow meto, I treat my team like my
family.
I care for them.
I think that's important too,because sometimes people go into
a company and they it's a team.
And I have Heidi who lives inLondon.
Every time she comes, she bringsme little trinkets, you know,
for Josie from London.
(45:04):
She's got a teddy bear and akeychain.
I think it that's importantbecause again, they're people,
they're gonna go through toughstuff.
I'm gonna go through toughstuff.
I was working out of hospitalrooms almost twice a week during
the summer, and they're like,shut down, I got you.
You always get me, I got you.
And knowing that I had thatsupport made a really tough
(45:25):
time.
Plus, my boss is phenomenal.
He was like, What are you doing?
Get offline.
Bye.
I know you work all differenthours, just go.
I trust you.
Having that relationship andhaving that trust is that's not
always easy to find.
So you have to createpsychological safety.
It's important.
Everybody, you know, you'regonna spend 40 plus hours with
people.
Yeah, you might as well get toknow them and have a little fun
(45:46):
in the meantime.
I never have to worry aboutfolks on my team, ever.
I know they're gonna do whatthey do.
I'm not gonna micromanage them.
They know if they need help, I'mthere.
I'm always there to supportthem.
And the recruiting side of myhouse is they're great.
I mean, they're seasoned, theywork well together.
Anytime there's a new employee,they buddy up.
They want that person to be, youknow, be just as successful.
(46:08):
And it's really cool to seethat.
So it's like a our own littlesonotype family, which is great.
SPEAKER_01 (46:15):
I love it.
And it makes work a lot morefulfilling when you actually
feel like you can give andcontribute to folks, and you
feel like that you can also goto a place where people care
about you.
It's like it's bigger than theproduct, it's bigger than what
you're building.
I think it's really important.
SPEAKER_00 (46:29):
Yeah, in the relationships that I have here,
similar to like when I worked atCVS, and so I there is some
relationships that I will haveprobably for the rest of my
life.
SPEAKER_02 (46:39):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (46:39):
I have some folks that I worked with at Kronos.
One of the guys on my teamdressed up as Elmo for my kids'
birthday.
So yeah, I think that's theother thing too.
And my concern sometimes with AIis it's gonna start to remove
the human out of things.
There's just so much human inthis.
I mean, don't get me wrong, AIis fantastic, but it shouldn't
completely wipe people out.
(47:02):
Where applied appropriately canbe very efficient, but in
recruiting, you need to have Idon't know how you wouldn't want
to have that personal touch, youknow.
SPEAKER_01 (47:12):
I agree.
So we have one more time for onemore question, I think, for
today's episode.
I would love to ask you what isthe best piece of career or
leadership advice you've everreceived.
SPEAKER_00 (47:25):
Come from curious in every every situation.
Don't assume, or if you're gonnaassume it's assume positive
intent, but come from curious,ask questions, right?
Because I think it's importantand it also allows you to
connect with the person and whydid they just say what they did
or why did they do what theydid?
There's reasons, and sometimesit's not what you think.
(47:46):
So come from curious.
I like that one.
SPEAKER_01 (47:48):
Yeah, I like that one too.
Well, Sarah, thank you.
This has been a lot of fun, uh,great conversation, great
episode.
I do really appreciate youspending the time to be here
with us today and contributingto our community and sharing
your experiences.
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