Ep. 207 - Sarah Gross (VP Global Revenue Enablement @ RingCentral)

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:19):
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of
Your Intention Matters thePodcast.
Thank you very much for beinghere.
My name is Paul Madott.
Today we have Sarah Gross.
She is VP of Global Enablementat a company called Ring Central
coming to us from SouthCarolina.
Sarah, thanks for being here.
Nice to meet you.

SPEAKER_00 (00:35):
Thanks, Paul.
Happy Friday.
Excited to be together.

SPEAKER_01 (00:38):
Yeah, happy Friday.
How are things?

SPEAKER_00 (00:40):
Things are good.
It's my first week back frommaternity leave.
So it was one of those uheye-opening learning a lot
weeks, uh, and I really enjoyedit.

SPEAKER_01 (00:50):
Well, do me a favor, say hi to everybody, provide a
real quick introduction, if youwould.

SPEAKER_00 (00:54):
Absolutely.
So, hey y'all, I'm Sarah.
As Paul mentioned, I I do residein the Southeast.
Um, and I I love that about mybackground and how I've grown
into a sales career.
Um, I started as a BDRS tierback in the day.
Uh, and what was the worst isthat they tried to beat y'all
out of me uh because theythought it put me in a bucket of

(01:15):
people that would take meetingswith me.
And the reality is that's whatbecame who I am, and being true
to that helped me in becoming agreat salesperson and moving
into sales management andleading with empathy, which is
the thing that I uh especiallyin the world of AI believe is
empathy and being a human is areally big part of making AI

(01:35):
work for us and with us.
Um, I then took uh the salesmanagement job, was given a
quota and a dashboard and waslike, oh my goodness gracious,
this is a lot more than justreading this dashboard every
morning, uh, which is what ledme into enablement to really
break down quantity, quality,balance, velocity.
How are you successful as asales leader?

(01:56):
And how do you make more andmore successful sales teams?
That led then into thepost-sales organization.
And I now lead a globalorganization across the entire
customer journey, getting thechance to really think about how
to make them more productive,especially in the world of AI,
right?
And how to ultimately bring inthe money, uh, bring in more
money, if you will, uh, and bethat amplifier across my team.

(02:18):
So I love, I love the enablementworld and love what I do.

SPEAKER_01 (02:21):
You know, as we were talking before before I hit
record, and uh I'm from Toronto.
You mentioned to me that that'swhere the accent comes out.
Well, as soon as I heard y'allcome out there, I knew you were
from the south, so I love it.

SPEAKER_00 (02:34):
Yeah, but you gotta you gotta own who you are.
Don't hurt.

SPEAKER_01 (02:36):
Totally, totally.
Well, again, thanks so much forbeing here.
I appreciate it, appreciate yourtime, especially coming back
into uh into into the fold, soto speak, after you know, uh
some Mad leave time.
So I appreciate the time,really.
And so, you know, sir, as again,as we were talking before I hit
record, you know, from myperspective, when I think about
sales and sales training andsales results, mindset from my

(03:00):
perspective plays a massive rolein that if you take, for
example, at Ring Central, yourorganization can provide your
salespeople with every tool inthe toolkit to go dominate.
You can give them producttraining and systems training,
and you can give themcompetitive intel, you can you
can give them marketingcollaterals and this marketing
arm to drive inbound leads aswell.

(03:22):
Also, but if they don't have theright mindset going into it,
from my perspective, mosttypically will not get the
results they want.
So it could be, it just can'treally just be about tactics, it
has to be mindset and tacticsfirst.
And I'd love your thoughts onthat.

SPEAKER_00 (03:36):
I I completely agree.
And especially in the worldwe're living in now, right?
Having the right mindset is key.
Like you have to embraceleveraging your Gemini or your
Claude, right, as your startingplace, and that you're not the
101 anymore.
You might be the 301 in whatevertask that you're going to
complete.
Um, and having the right mindsetthat this is good, is this is

(03:59):
good for us, right?
Versus it's gonna steal your jobor whatever, you know,
negativity is is spun around it,um, it's so important.
I think that just thinkingthrough who do I want to be when
I grow up, right?
When we were little, uh evolvedinto having your first job and
how do I do the best versus howdo I get to the next level.
In today's day and age, it's howdo I use all the tools at my

(04:22):
fingertip to ultimately make mewell-rounded in the job that I'm
doing as today's society is isis changing and advancing.
That's a lot an enablement,right?
Because learning how peoplelearn has massively evolved from
the folks that are in their 50sand 60s in the workforce, right,
to the newer 20-somethings thatare coming, right?

(04:43):
If we don't as think of oursalespeople as AI first, um,
they're very quickly gettingbored in the job.
You can't no longer just givethem a sales methodology, right?
They want a bot that will guidethem through the conversation.
They want a um bot that willtake that information from the
call and give them the nextsteps and the fields to fill

(05:04):
out.
And Salesforce are automaticallyfilled out for them.
So um we're just in, we'reliving in a very different world
where um that role uh that we'veall played before is evolving.
Um and I think it's evolving ina really cool and fun way, but
you've got to have the mindsetto embrace it.

SPEAKER_01 (05:20):
You know, so I think that was so well said,
especially around those of usthat are Gen Xers, so to speak,
versus the newer generation.
You know, my kids are notworking yet, they're 10 and 12,
but they're on this like all thetime.
And I didn't I didn't grow upwith this at all.
I I grew up with like Nintendo,like maybe for an hour a day.

(05:40):
I was not, I didn't have acomputer attached to my my hip
every day, right?

SPEAKER_00 (05:44):
And so but if you actually tried to get my
three-year-old to to have aTamagotchi the other day.
I was trying to teach her allthat the you know responsibility
of a human before we had a baby.

SPEAKER_01 (05:55):
How'd that go?

SPEAKER_00 (05:56):
Uh, she was very quickly bored with it.
It was clear that it was justtoo much.
Like, well, too much, probablyfor a three-year-old, but also
just too much work.
They're used to things beingmuch easier.
It's a push a button to get itdone versus having to feed the
baby, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 (06:12):
You know, sir, I'm curious about something.
If I uh when I took a look atyour LinkedIn profile, I saw
that you went to the Universityof South Carolina, and you also
studied in Barcelona for a whileas well, correct?

unknown (06:23):
Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 (06:23):
Okay, and so I'm curious about that decision to
go to Barcelona.
Was that an easy one?
Was that made for you?
Did it take some time?
What prompted that decision togo across the pond into Spain?

SPEAKER_00 (06:35):
Yeah, so um, first I was in the international
business school.
So it was a natural part of theoverall education.
Um, but I also, like Imentioned, I grew up in the
Southeast, which is an awesomeplace to live and to grow up.
Um, but it also comes withhaving a limited mindset, right?
If you haven't seen differentcultures, different parts of the

(06:56):
world.
And so Barcelona, why I lovedit, is it was Catalonia, right?
Uh a little bit different thanyour traditional Spain and gave
me an opportunity to actually bea part of a um program with
Cornell.
And so I got to meet folks ofdifferent backgrounds and
different religions anddifferent knowledge points.
Um, and it gave me the chance tobroaden my uh perspective in

(07:20):
life.
I actually went for a semester,I stayed for like a year and a
half to the point where my dadwas like, I need you to come
home and graduate.
Um but that's how much I lovedit.

SPEAKER_01 (07:32):
Gotcha.
You know, and so you know,Sarah, I took economics in in
college and university, and Idid not have sales on my radar
at all.
As a matter of fact, I'll go sofar as to say that for a while
there before I really understoodwhat it was to be a sales
professional, sales to me was abit of a dirty word.
It almost like you know uh youhad to lie to cheat, and you

(07:55):
have to kind of force someone todo something that they didn't
want to buy and just kind of dothat.
I don't know why, well, I don'tknow where that really came
from, but I did not have that inmy scope at all.
And I'm curious about whatprompted you to get into sales.

SPEAKER_00 (08:07):
Uh super interesting because I definitely grew up
with that.
My my mom's in the medicalprofession, my dad's lawyer.
Um, they they kind of alwaysguided me towards having a you
know a degree in something, ifyou will, um, that is uh or
license in something.
That's probably the word Ishould use there.
Um, I ultimately in Barcelona, Iactually ended up working for a

(08:30):
local Starbucks.
And during it, I realized it wasright near the American campus.
And so people were coming in andthey had more traditional
Spanish products where I thinkfolks were looking for like a
taste of home.
And so I helped them, hey, likelet's have a chocolate
croissant, let's have this inthat we would have had in the
States, and their salesskyrocketed.

(08:51):
So they actually put me incharge of, hey, how do we market
the store?
Because I was having I was goingfor a marketing degree at the
time.
And so I put a sign outside thatwas like, Miss Vanilla Lattes,
right?
Come on in and use that andplayed off of that, right?
Because they're there's studentsthat are there for at least a
semester.
There's a point where you misssomething that looks like home,

(09:13):
right?
But then we started educatingthem on a frittata as an
example, right?
Um, and we could we got back tothat more Spanish culture in the
store, but you had to startwhere people were and then bring
them over into that world.
And so I think naturally I gotin, I realized that I was just
really good at this.
Um it was super funny when Icame back.

(09:34):
My dad played a video of mewhere I apparently put a
PowerPoint presentation togetherwhen I was about like six of why
I needed to go to Hawaii.
Um, and my parents actuallyended up taking me, but I walked
through and he was like, I knewthat this is what you should do
from day one.
I just needed to let you figureit out.

SPEAKER_01 (09:53):
You sold them on Hawaii at six.
I love it.

SPEAKER_00 (09:56):
Uh I really liked dolphins, so there you go.
Uh and now my three-year-old isvery similar to me.
So I'm I am uh um getting theother end of that sword.

SPEAKER_01 (10:08):
As long as grandpa doesn't show her the the
PowerPoint presentation, she'llbe all right, right?

SPEAKER_00 (10:13):
Hopefully grandpa funds it.
So we'll see.

SPEAKER_01 (10:17):
You know, when you think about your your selling
career uh post-Starbucks andpost-Barcelona and post-Sout
Carolina, post you know,college, so to speak.
What was your first real salesjob?
Because you mentioned at thestart, you kind of run through
the gamut, inside sales, BDR,account manager, and so on.
What was your first professionalsales job here in the States?

SPEAKER_00 (10:38):
Yeah, I actually worked for an outsourced
appointment setting firm.
Uh, so I got the opportunity tosupport about five different
reps.
And uh, they were at Marketo atthe time, they were at corporate
executive board.
Um, I had folks kind of acrossthe board, I had Salesforce at
one point.
Um, so I got to see these bigtech firms and how they were

(10:59):
working by being on the outside,if you will.
Um, I'll never forget I hadOracle at one point, and that
was just a totally very tenuredsales team in comparison to the
Marketos at that point.
So I started to see the types ofsalespeople that get hired
different places and how theywork differently.
Um, some of my salespeople likewouldn't show up to meetings,
and I was like, that's insane.

(11:20):
Like, why wouldn't you wantsomething in your pipeline?
Others of mine would be likebarking down my doors.
Others of my sales um reps wouldsay, Hey Sarah, I'm gonna be in
X City.
Can you get me other meetings inthe city?
So I started to really realize,you know, how good salespeople
will do things.
Um, I loved that job.
I ended up actually sellingappointment setting uh and

(11:42):
because I was so passionateabout it, and then I moved into
fully carrying a bag um atcorporate executive board.

SPEAKER_01 (11:48):
Gotcha.
You know, I I gained myintroduction to sales uh at
Xerox, and I told you at thestart here that sales was not on
my radar at all.
I I had a kind of a negativethought to it.
No real no real reason why Ijust did.
And I certainly didn't have mebeing a salesperson, I was a
finance guy, I was like anumbers guy.

(12:10):
And so I was out of work, Ijoined Xerox on a flyer, so to
speak, and said, let's give it ashot.
I really went in with a verymuch, I'll give it six months,
see how it goes.
Turned into almost 10 years whenit was all said and done.
But that first year, I mighthave meant I must I must have
mentally quit half a dozentimes.
I just couldn't figure it out.
I was in early, I was out late,I was all in to this new career

(12:34):
of mine, but I was workingreally hard, clearly doing it
the wrong way, because I justcould not figure it out.
And so I'm thinking I'm curiousabout if you think about your
various roles over your sellingcareer, yeah, any situation
comes to mind that you that yourecall where you really had to
dig in mentally and figure itout.

SPEAKER_00 (12:53):
Um, I mean, I'd say when I started as a BDR, like I
said, people were trying to putme into a bucket.
I was in DC at the time, whichis like not northern, not
southern, not, you know, WestCoast, not East Coast, really.
DC is just a mismatch.
And so they wanted everyone onthe floor to kind of look and
feel the same way.
There was a cadence in which youwere supposed to reach out.

(13:15):
And it wasn't working for me.
I was doing exactly what theytold me to in the playbook, but
it wasn't working because Ididn't feel myself.
Um, and so I remember having tohave the mindset to say to my
boss at the time, can't give mea week.
Just let me try it my way.
Um, and let's see what happens.
And I had this thing called thecallback approach.

(13:37):
I don't know what it was aboutbeing a southern woman, but I
was mostly calling men.
It was CIOs at the time, andthey would call me back, right?
And then they'd call me backwhen they clearly had a minute,
um, and it would give me atleast 30 seconds to get them to
open up to having aconversation.
So I would always leave avoicemail.
My callback rate was like 50%.

(13:58):
Um, and so it worked for me.
Where callback, you know,leaving a voicemail was like
step six in their sequencebefore.
Um, and so what had to shiftthough is I had to say, let me
stand on my two feet.
I respect your training, right?
But it's where I learnedenablement because not everybody
can be trained the same way.
Not everybody's got the samepipeline, not everybody's got

(14:20):
the same human that they'reactually doing the reach out on
behalf of.
And I think it's so important toremember that we want someone to
bring their full self to work,and then we want that to work
for the role that we're havingthem play versus trying to put
them in a box.

SPEAKER_01 (14:35):
I would say I think that's probably why I was a very
ineffective sales managerbecause uh I went into the role,
good intentions.
It was kind of the nextprogression of my career.
Pardon me, but the way that Imanaged was this is how I did
it, so this is how you should doit.
And that was like the worstthing I could have done.
It was just a recipe fordisaster overall, quite frankly.

SPEAKER_00 (14:57):
And that's what most first-time managers do.
Uh, and why, again, I thinkenablement is so critical
because what you should do issay, here's seven examples that
have worked, right?
You're gonna have to screw up,you're gonna have to have
coaching conversations thatdon't go well.
Let's record those, let's talkthrough them, right?
Let's have a feedback loop sothat we can involve you.

(15:20):
But every member of your team isgonna need a different
development plan.
And let's start there as thebasis of things.

SPEAKER_01 (15:26):
You know, Sarah, you mentioned at the start that uh
you're a mom for the second timejust recently.
Two kids, three and a newborn.
And so I'm a father myself.
I have two kids, they're 12 and10.
And when it came to starting afamily uh as a guy, uh all I had
to think about was you know, howdo I afford this?

(15:46):
Uh I had no real concerns aboutthe impact on my career as a man
because I didn't carry the baby.
There was no, there was no madleave for me other than being
working from home at the time.
But I'm curious about you beingyou becoming a mom.
Did you have to factor into aconversation with yourself
regarding the impact on yourcareer as a woman?

SPEAKER_00 (16:09):
Absolutely.
And I think it's the hardestpart about being a working mom
is you want to set the rightperspective for your kids,
especially the fact that I havetwo girls.
Um, but it's hard.
It's a lot of push and pull andit's resetting of your mindset
of what's important and theexpectation from your team

(16:29):
members.
I mean, I block my calendarevery day from five to six.
And I always tell my boss,you're welcome to call me in
that period.
If I have a minute, it might bea little loud.
Um, but of course I'll answer,right?
However, I I will have I'm happyto sign back in once I've gotten
everyone to bed and sit down andreally think through your your

(16:50):
answer, but I want to bethoughtful in how I do work.
And so how thoughtful looks tome is a little bit different
than it used to be.
I used to when I first startedmy career.
I was on, as you mentioned, fromseven to seven.
I got everything done, I got allmy post-its cleared.
But the reality is I'm way moreeffective now that I'm I set

(17:12):
time to be thoughtful.
Like I set time after daycaredrop-off to think about the
things that people asked me theday before so that I can respond
in a way that isn't a check itoff my post-it note, but is a
really um engrossed answer intohow we can think about it
holistically.
And so candidly, I think I'm amuch better leader as a mom.

(17:33):
And it's funny because teammembers of mine have actually
verbalized it and said it.
They were like, Sarah, you'renot a like just get it done.
You're a, hey, let if we'regonna do this, let's do it right
and let's kill it.
Um, and I I think a lot of thatcame of uh, you know, how do I
set the mindset of for my girlsthat I'm gonna do if I'm gonna
work, I'm gonna do it reallywell.

(17:53):
Um, I'm not just gonna go in fora paycheck and I'm not just
gonna give them 24 hours of myday because number one, they
don't need that.
Like I can do what I do reallywell in my thoughtful time, but
I have to have my children outof the house and I have to have
that time block so that I canreally think through things.
And I had to be confident inmyself to say that, especially

(18:14):
to my male bosses, to say,here's here's my new way of
working.
I promise you're gonna get thesame output from me.

SPEAKER_01 (18:21):
Well, I'm certainly not surprised at all to hear
that it's actually transferringand echoing into those that are
on your team and those that yousupport, because if it's coming
through that way, they're gonnareceive it that way, of course.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Well, Sarah, thanks so much forbeing here.
I appreciate your time.
Uh congrats on all your successto this point, of course.
And I always like to close kindof the episode with if you have

(18:43):
a if you think about yourcareer, your careers over the
past X amount of years or so,any best practice or a thought
or an approach or advice that'sbeen given to you that served
you well?

SPEAKER_00 (18:55):
I I mean, I got a lot of advice before becoming a
mom for the first time.
Um uh, and that was be morevocal.
Tell people what your plan is toaccomplish the same things that
you did before, and everythingwill be okay.
So, especially in this world ofAI, be more vocal.

(19:16):
Be vocal with what you used AIto do.
Like people want to know.
I don't think it's taboo, and uhbe if you have a voice, you're
human, and if you're human, youare needed.

SPEAKER_01 (19:29):
And on that note, thanks so much for being here.
Appreciate your time.
Thanks, Paul.
Wonderful.
Okay, everybody, thanks so muchfor joining us on this episode.
We're gonna wrap it up rightnow.
Remember that your intentionmatters.
Why?
Because that's the result you'lltend to get.
We're out of here.
We'll see you on the nextepisode next week.