Ep. 209 - Jamie Dosher (GTM Lead @ ETO)

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:21):
Hey everybody, welcome to yet another episode
of Your Intention Matters thePodcast.
Thank you very much for beinghere today.
My name, of course, is PaulMadot.
Today we have Jamie Dosher.
He is go-to-market lead at ETOcoming to us from the mile high.
Jamie, how are things, man?

SPEAKER_01 (00:37):
Terrific, Paul.
Terrific.
Thanks for having me on today.

SPEAKER_00 (00:40):
You got it, man.
Listen, how about uh how aboutthose Nuggets in Avalanche?
Are they going to do this year?
They're making a good run.

SPEAKER_01 (00:47):
Uh Paul originally from uh western New York State.
So I am a diehard Bill Sabresguy.
Did Sabres play tonight?
So I'll be cheering for them.

SPEAKER_00 (00:57):
So well, as you know, I'm in Toronto, so I I
really have no love for eitherteam, quite frankly.
But if I have to choose betweenthe Sabres or the Canadians and
the Haves, it's definitely theSabres.
Right.
I don't want Montreal to winanything, so go Sabres all day,
right?

SPEAKER_01 (01:13):
I I've similar to being in Denver where they've
won a lot of championships.
I think the Canadians have wonlike 23 Stanley Cups.
Just one is the Mantra atBuffalo.

SPEAKER_00 (01:24):
Just one is the Leafs fan as well.
Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 (01:26):
That's right.

SPEAKER_00 (01:27):
Well, Jamie, thanks for being here.
Say hi to everybody.
Provide a real quickintroduction.

SPEAKER_01 (01:31):
So I'm Jamie Dosher.
Um, I've spent um over 27 yearsin enablement across multiple
business verticals.
My longest tenure, I was atSTARS, the now app channel for
uh 17-year um tenure.
Um my wife and I actually willcelebrate our 25th wedding

(01:53):
anniversary on May 12th.
So we're pretty excited aboutthat.

SPEAKER_00 (01:56):
Congratulations.

SPEAKER_01 (01:57):
Um, and as you mentioned, um, I'm a monster
member of the Bills Mafia.
And the one thing I highlight isduring that 17 years at STARS,
we worked with our distributionpartners.
And when I use that term, that'sDirecTV, Comcast, Dish Network.
Back then, they actually ownedthe relationship with the
customer.
So I led all of the enablementnegotiations with those

(02:21):
distribution partners to get ourenablement strategy launched.
It was an amazing experience.
I had a lot of fun doing it.

SPEAKER_00 (02:28):
Gotcha.
Well, again, thanks so much forbeing here.
I look forward to talking aboutmindset with you.
Perfect.
Perfect.
Okay, good.
So, you know, Jimmy, as we weretalking before I hit record, you
know, from my perspective, whenit comes to mindset and sales,
it's critical because anorganization can provide their
sales force with every tool andthe toolkit to go dominate

(02:51):
product training and systemstraining and and compare
competitive intel and a CRM.
And they can give them, youknow, product training and skill
set training.
They can give them inbound leadsas well.
But that said, if they're notwired ready to go, in my
opinion, they're not likely toget the results they want.
I'd love your thoughts on thatas well.

SPEAKER_01 (03:12):
Yeah, completely aligned with it.
I I've seen mindset as the mostimportant influence on sustained
success success for anindividual or for a company.
Because it shapes yourbehaviors, your actions, your
approach.
Um, so it's one of those thingsthat's absolutely critical
because applying using the CRMand the skills and all that

(03:34):
doesn't matter if you don't havethat mindset up front.

SPEAKER_00 (03:38):
Well, really well said.
I couldn't agree more.
You know, Jimmy, as you weretalking about when you were
saying hello to everybody, thatyou you're from Buffalo, Western
New York.
I had a chance to take a look.
It looks like you took marketingin college.
And so, you know, depending onwho you talk to, marketing and
sales are kind of like cousinswith each other.
But how did you actually getinto sales?

SPEAKER_01 (04:01):
Um, I would never have told you back in college
that I would have spent 27 yearsin it.
I don't even think the termexisted back then.
Um, but what I love where I findpassion is again that mindset
for the sales team providingthem the tools to be successful.
And often it's bridging adivide, a gap, and most of that

(04:25):
sometimes is based on mindsetbetween a sales marketing and
operations organization.
So being able to get alignmentacross those functional groups
is amazing when you can get thatthat ball in the end zone.
Um, and a lot of fun.
And that that's what's probablydriven me to do it for so long.

SPEAKER_00 (04:44):
Gotcha.
And so, what was your firstprofessional sales job?
You remember?

SPEAKER_01 (04:49):
So I ran enablement.
Again, I don't even we didn'tcall it that, um, at a company
based in in then Buffalo calledClient Logic, where we had um
customer service inbound salesuh cues.
Um, so we were to build thecurriculum and training and all
that stuff for the sales andcustomer support teams.

SPEAKER_00 (05:12):
Gotcha.
You know, it's funny when youwhen you talk about enablement,
I'm a little bit biased here,but given what I do for a
living, but uh enablement's kindof under siege right now a
little bit.
Organizations are making somechanges, AI is coming into the
fray, and that's causingcompanies to rethink their
hiring strategy and theirgo-to-market strategy, and so

(05:32):
on.
And so, what are you seeing onthe on the on the enablement
side as it relates to what'shappening today, current state?

SPEAKER_01 (05:41):
I think this ties to mindset because mine is like
this AI thing is just exploded,and pretty quickly, how can
enablement work to embrace itand figure out functionally how
to embed it and simplify thesales process?
And then be able to go tocompany leadership and say, hey,
here's a what here's a tactic, astrategy that we can use to

(06:03):
apply this AI functionalitythat's gonna help enablement
drive more production.
So I think in that case, you'reyou're you're controlling the
narrative and you're not lookingat at as necessarily a threat,
but you're working to embraceit.

SPEAKER_00 (06:18):
Gotcha.
Jimmy, you mentioned that you'reuh from Buffalo, you were with
an organization for 15 plusyears.
What was the name of it again?

SPEAKER_01 (06:27):
Starz.

SPEAKER_00 (06:28):
Starz?

SPEAKER_01 (06:29):
Yeah, it's the premium channel now app on your
phone.

SPEAKER_00 (06:33):
Gotcha.
So here's my question for you.
You know, you spent 15, almost20 years there.
I'm sure different differentroles over those years, of
course, I'm sure.
But uh I would say for somelistening and watching this
podcast, that is a foreignthought for them.
How could somebody stay with acompany for 10, 15, 20 years?

(06:55):
It seems to be today there arecompanies that are so there are
salespeople that will work for acompany for 18 months, leave on
their own, or the company leavesthem, or vice versa, two years,
three years.
There doesn't seem to be um asmuch commitment to both sides as
there was back in the day.
And I'm curious about yourdecision to move on at the time.

(07:17):
Was that an easy one for you?

SPEAKER_01 (07:19):
No, so STARS was well, and and real quick, my dad
uh was a union guy.
He worked for the power companyback home from the day he turned
18 to the day he retired.
So he even sees any of the movesI've made is not staying with
one company's room here.

SPEAKER_00 (07:37):
It's all it's all relative, right?

SPEAKER_01 (07:38):
It's all relative, it's all relative.
So STARS is headquartered inDenver, and um the company got
sold to Lionsgate.
So the sales functions moved outof Denver, and I just my wife
and I didn't want to relocate,so that's why I left STARS.
Um, we wanted our daughter to beable to finish her school
through high school journeyhere.

(08:00):
Um, so that's that's that's whyI left SARS.

SPEAKER_00 (08:04):
Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 (08:05):
But it was an amazing experience.
And the reason I think inreflection, Paul, that I was
there so long, the customer thatwe supported kept changing.
So when you think about when Istarted there, um the
distributors had just launchedhigh-speed internet.
That was new.

SPEAKER_00 (08:24):
I remember that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (08:25):
And when you think about the world today, it's just
shifted and changed.
Where you're on a device, you'reon a phone, you're on a i uh an
iPad, and you're not watching itin the traditional format that
it was always there.
So we constantly had a shift andpivot and change based on that
dynamic with our customers.

(08:47):
And since I'm no longer there,our distribution partners were
pretty entrenched.
So getting them to change andadopt to new ways to do things
was challenging and really fun.
I enjoyed every minute of it.

SPEAKER_00 (09:03):
You know, Jamie, we talk about sales and sales
training in Enablement.
You know, my background, uhreally where I gained my
pedigree my pedigree and mybackground, my foundation for
selling was at Xerox.
And I was in uh sales across theboard, sales rep, product
specialist, sales manager, salestrainer, and so on.

(09:23):
And while I spent the majorityof my life in the Toronto area,
there was a time where Iactually moved to Western Canada
for a couple of years, and thatwas actually a pretty big
decision for me.
You know, at the time, I was inmy mid-30s, uh single, like no
commitments, no kids, no dog, noreal anything.
But that was a long process forme to pick up and just move

(09:47):
myself across the country.
And I'm curious about yourdecision to leave Buffalo for
Denver.
I imagine that was not overnighteither.

SPEAKER_01 (09:56):
It was pretty quick.
Um, so Starz had an office inBuffalo.
Um, we used to have there was aformer cable company called
Adelphia.

SPEAKER_00 (10:07):
Yeah, I remember them, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (10:08):
And the Regases and all that kind of stuff.
So they were headquartered inCowdersport, which is in rural
Pennsylvania.
So Buffalo was the closest metroarea to there, so that's why
there was an office there.
So when the Adelphia thingexploded, um STARS recruited me
to come out to Denver to takethat enablement strategy that we
launched with that distributoracross the company.

(10:30):
So that's why I ended up comingout to Denver.

SPEAKER_00 (10:32):
Gotcha, gotcha.
And you've been with ETO now forhow long?
Since February.
Okay.
And so ETO, we were talking alittle bit about the company,
they're a bit of a startup atthis point, correct?

SPEAKER_01 (10:45):
Correct.

SPEAKER_00 (10:46):
So, what was behind your decision from a mindset
perspective to join a startupafter all these years?

SPEAKER_01 (10:53):
Build from scratch, baby, and be able to influence
something from the ground up.
Um, and I keep saying to theteam I'm working with now, a
year from now, we're gonna havea glass of wine, bottle,
whatever your cocktail is, andwe're gonna look back and say,
we did that.
Um, because there's definitepressures as being a startup,

(11:14):
and you're doing a lot ofdifferent roles.
But unlike what what I had fundoing at STARS was changing the
model, here I'm able to createthe model, and I find that very
intoxicating.

SPEAKER_00 (11:27):
You know, I can appreciate your your thought
process on uh uh from a guy whowho left a major corporation
like Xerxes out of my ownbusiness as well.
I kind of like the idea ofbetting on myself, being a part
of something from the ground upand seeing what I could create.
I always felt, you know, myself,and you might feel the same way
about yourself, and that is Ihad a pretty strong resume.

(11:49):
I always thought, well, if itfailed for whatever reason 15
years ago, I'd get a jobsomewhere else if I if I needed
to, of course.
And it didn't, but sounds likewe're on the same, you know,
glide path in terms mentallyregarding what you wanted to be
a part of.

SPEAKER_01 (12:04):
Yeah, I think uh one of the expressions I use is life
is just too short.
Um, and that's probably not aperspective I had when I was 21,
but I do now.
And if you're not doing what youlove in a way in an environment
that's conducive to who you are,your DNA, what are you doing?
So culture fit and theopportunity is really what

(12:28):
drives my mindset today.

SPEAKER_00 (12:31):
You know, Jimmy, as you think about your your career
and your life to this point, uheither in Buffalo or in Denver,
a combination of both.
So can you if you think about atime, is there one that pops out
when you think about thatrequires you to kind of dig in
mentally to kind of figuresomething out either
professionally or personally?
Anything come to mind?

SPEAKER_01 (12:50):
Yeah, I think the the one, and maybe it's even the
highlight of my career, and thisis when I was at STARS.
So I mentioned our umdistribution partners are pretty
entrenched.
So STARS was sold at thatpremium category level.
Yeah, so there were SARS, HBO,Showtime, Cinemax, and we were

(13:12):
kind of the cherry on top of theSunday.
So the customer had to buythrough a lot of levels of
service just to get to thechance to buy us.
And again, it was an entrenchedmodel.
Um so when we analyzed the data,we did a pretty hard drive
because we did not own the salesdata, the distributors owned it

(13:35):
um and they didn't provide it.
So that was challenging.
I was able to negotiate gettingaccess from I think three or
four of my uh contacts to getthat day-to-day sales data.
It was the first time we hadvisibility to that.
What it showed us as we analyzedit, literally one of my
contacts, Paul, was giving mespreadsheets like you didn't get

(13:56):
this for me.
But what it showed is I think83% of star subscribers also
subscribed to HBO.
So we weren't competitors to thelevel of thought that most
people thought we were, becausemost customers bought us as a

(14:17):
bundle.

SPEAKER_00 (14:19):
Of course.

SPEAKER_01 (14:20):
The reason I give that perspective is it was
season two of Game of Thrones,huge window, it was in April.
I went and negotiated with ourdistribution partners to do what
we called an overlay to thatGame of Thrones window, where
stars would get added to thatHBO sale.
Which, as I just mentioned,Paul, was happening in like 83%

(14:41):
of the time anyway.
So as I was pitching this andnegotiating this based on that
analysis, there was a lot ofresistance.
And uh one of my distributionpartners actually said I was
trying to hijack was his word,HBO's window.
But the data and the customersell through did not support

(15:02):
that narrative.
So I'm gonna simplify thenegotiation incredibly.
We're able to lock in thatwindow and get stars um uh
bundled on top of that HBO sale,uh, and then my team had to go
out and train and show everybodyhow to position it.
Yeah, Paula was one of starsbest performing windows ever

(15:27):
because of all of that volumethat was coming into the sales
channels, because Game ofThrones was generating that
interest.
And in fact, one of thequestions I asked my
counterparts in negotiation ishow much is spending to market
Game of Thrones?
How much is HBO spending?
It was millions of dollars.
And the goal of that spend thatwe got to was I called it the

(15:50):
Walmart example.
You're getting the customer tocall in, visit the store.
How do we add more product toit?

SPEAKER_00 (15:58):
Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 (15:59):
So I think that's one where that approach, that
analysis, um really hadmeasurable sus sustained
success.
And I hope it didn't drag on toolong, but I'm really fired up
about that story.

SPEAKER_00 (16:11):
Not at all.
Uh uh, you have me curiousabout, you know, you really
simplified the like the actualnegotiation part of it, but from
start to finish, how long didthat how long did that was that
actually taking?
How long did that take?

SPEAKER_01 (16:26):
It probably took us like, I don't know, two to three
months from start to from myfrom actually probably longer
because we had we took some timeto do that analysis.
But when I first reached out toour distribution partners, it's
probably like two months fromstart to close because there's a
lot of approvals that had to getdone.

SPEAKER_00 (16:46):
So gotcha.
Well, congrats on the result.

SPEAKER_01 (16:49):
Oh, so much fun, Paul.

SPEAKER_00 (16:50):
Yeah, you know, Jamie, I'm having fun talking to
you as uh as I've been talkingabout your journey so far.
And you I talked about myjourney at Xerox and now doing
what I'm doing for a living aswell.
I've been in sales for over 25years now.
I can't believe I'm actuallysaying that because you know
it's such a cliche, but timedoes fly.
And as a result of you know whatI do and who I've worked with,

(17:12):
I've had a chance to work withand get to know some amazing
people, and therefore I've beengiven some really good advice
over the years.
And I'm curious about somethingas we're kind of you know, kind
of think about closing up thepodcast episode right now.
If you think about your yourcareer over the years, is there
a best practice or a thought oran approach that has served you
well over the years?

(17:33):
Anything come to mind?

SPEAKER_01 (17:37):
I think foundationally, Paul, it's
always start with your customer,always and in always.
And that can be a throwaway lineand looks nice in a placard, but
you really got to be able to dothat.
And one of the things,specifically from an enablement
standpoint that I've asked, andthis is legit.

(17:59):
If this was my company, if thisis Dosher Incorporated, would I
do it this way?
And if and and if I say yes,great, let's move forward.
And if I say no, let's explorethat more and see if there's a
way to change or go a differentroute.
I always encourage people topursue feedback from multiple

(18:20):
stakeholders.
I will share with you, Paul,some of the most impactful
feedback I've gotten through outmy career.
It's not been from a supervisoror manager, it's been from a
direct report of mine.
Because their mindset, theirtheir lens is a little bit
different.
So start with the customeralways, and in always.

(18:40):
If this is your company, wouldyou do it that way?
And get feedback from multiplestakeholders and be resilient
about that.

SPEAKER_00 (18:48):
I love it.
Think like the employer, not theemployee.

SPEAKER_01 (18:52):
Exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 (18:54):
Got it.
Jamie Dosher, nice to meet you,man.
Thanks so much for being here.

SPEAKER_01 (18:58):
Thank you, Paul.
This is amazing.
I really appreciate theopportunity.
It's nice to meet with you andchat about uh these successes.
So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 (19:06):
It was my pleasure.
Thanks so much for being here,everybody.
We're gonna wrap it up rightnow.
Remember, as I always say, yourintention matters.
Why?
Because that's the result you'lltend to get.
We're out of here.
We'll do it again next week, andI'll see you in the next
episode.