Edited Episode 15
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[00:00:00] Richard Ellis: According to research conducted by Francesca Gino and her colleagues at Harvard Business School, reflecting on work experiences can significantly improve job performance. In their study, participants who spent 15 minutes reflecting on their work at the end of each day performed 22. 8 percent better on a final assessment compared to those who did not take the time to reflect.
[00:00:23] Richard Ellis: This statistic demonstrates the tangible benefits of assessing past experiences and performance.
[00:00:38] Richard Ellis: Welcome to Some Goodness, where we engage seasoned business leaders and experts to share practical guidance and tips to help new and future C level leaders maximize their impact. Today, we're going to spend 15 or so minutes reflecting on our past work. This podcast started in 2024, and it's been a great journey, and we've had a lot of great conversations, [00:01:00] so we're going to reflect a little bit on that.
[00:01:02] Richard Ellis: One of my fellow partners in Revenue Innovations and the producer of this podcast, Heather Easterday, is joining me today as part of this look back. Heather, how are you?
[00:01:12] Heather Easterday: This is great. It's fun to be on this side of the podcast. What a good thing to celebrate a year of amazing episodes. If you don't mind, I'd like to turn the tables a bit today and interview you about some of your favorite moments hosting this podcast.
[00:01:28] Heather Easterday: You just had some amazing guests.
[00:01:31] Richard Ellis: Well, I think that's a great idea. And before we dive in, I just want to thank you and your team for the hard work on making this podcast possible. We've gotten just great feedback. So yeah, let's reflect on the good work we've done together.
[00:01:42] Heather Easterday: Yeah, let's start with what surprised you hosting these conversations.
[00:01:47] Heather Easterday: Was there anything about hosting these interviews that was not what you expected?
[00:01:54] Richard Ellis: I don't know if it's truly unexpected, but a couple things come to mind. First, just the great feedback we've gotten [00:02:00] from a variety of listeners. I think the fact that it's not just another sales performance podcast, but it's really meant to be for leaders or aspiring leaders, or even those that support leaders, it's just really resonating.
[00:02:12] Richard Ellis: And so I've been really delighted with the positive feedback we've gotten. And then I was just kind of wondering how our guests would feel joining. And that's been delightful as well. They've been great. I've been really eager to just share their experiences and be involved. And they've even sent me notes after the release of their particular episode saying, Hey, I've had some clients or some colleagues say how much they enjoyed the episode.
[00:02:33] Richard Ellis: So that's been really fun.
[00:02:35] Heather Easterday: That's amazing. You've even had some guests that have gotten work as a result of being on a podcast, which that's an amazing thing. They're such a talented bunch. So it's wonderful to get to highlight them.
[00:02:46] Richard Ellis: Absolutely. That's what it's all about. Right? Sharing some goodness.
[00:02:50] Heather Easterday: Exactly, exactly. So when you think back about these first episodes and look ahead to what's to come, what do you [00:03:00] hope that listeners get out of these conversations?
[00:03:03] Richard Ellis: Yeah, that's a great question. As I think about our work with sales teams, we're always talking about how you have to be insightful, right?
[00:03:10] Richard Ellis: You have to tell your audience something they don't know. And so I think the spirit of that is what we had hoped for this podcast series and each episode is for listeners to take away some type of goodness, right? Whether it's an insight or an idea. Or a practical tip, or even just a reminder of some good disciplines that are helpful to move the needle.
[00:03:28] Heather Easterday: Yeah. And I know it did it for me, so I hope it did exactly that for our listeners. Let's dive in. Let's listen to a few highlights from the past year.
[00:03:37] Richard Ellis: All right, let's do it.
[00:03:38] Heather Easterday: So, let's take a listen to a clip from episode one, Al Monserrat talking about the basics of leadership.
[00:03:45] Richard Ellis: I'll be honest, when I thought about what's Al going to share with us today, I didn't think that just something as basic as showing up on time would be on the list.
[00:03:53] Richard Ellis: Why is that so important and why did it
[00:03:55] Al Monserrat: make the cut? It's extremely important and it's not always easy. We actually both did [00:04:00] it today. I think we were both a couple minutes early and then we got off to a good start. And, and I think number one, it just shows respect. For everybody, whether it's, you're just meeting one person or whether you're meeting multiple people, this goes back a long time with me and just wanting to be on time as a sign of respect for the other person, but also finishing on time because oftentimes, especially in the corporate environment.
[00:04:22] Al Monserrat: Meetings run late, and then when a meeting runs late, it just messes up your schedule for the rest of the day.
[00:04:28] Heather Easterday: Wow, that's so simple, but so powerful. I'm curious how, from your perspective, how do these seemingly small actions that Al talked about, like punctuality, play a significant role in defining a leader's credibility, especially in the early stages of building a team?
[00:04:46] Richard Ellis: I really liked that particular episode of getting back to the basics. And of course, Al is so fun. He has a lot of great stories. Some of them you're like, how did that really happen? But for this one in particular, I think it's just a good reminder that the basic [00:05:00] disciplines and activity and behavior really do matter.
[00:05:03] Richard Ellis: And we in leadership and sales and marketing have always heard, you know, measure what matters or document the metrics that matter, or even from a sales manager perspective, inspect what you expect, right? But a lot of that is focused on the team or those under you or those around you. And I think this is just a great reminder for us as leaders to really consider our own actions, behaviors, and disciplines, right?
[00:05:25] Richard Ellis: How do those Impact those around us. And are we consistently executing even those basics? Well, right. In the spirit of looking back and reflecting, which I just think we should all do that personally, right? What are those activities, those behaviors, those basics that I should be demonstrating and leading by example, as a leader, as a colleague, just as a person, right in the business and in our teams.
[00:05:50] Heather Easterday: Yeah, that's great. That's so good. Okay, let's listen to another clip. This is another one of our favorites, episode three, Tracy Mustachio [00:06:00] talking about navigating your first board meeting.
[00:06:03] Tracey Mustachio: So I have always gone in with sort of a change agenda. And I think it's really important to start with clearly articulating your starting point.
[00:06:12] Tracey Mustachio: So I try to do, I call it the from to slide. So here's where we are today. This is what we're moving from in multiple areas. Here's how we're building pipeline. Here's the status of the team, all of the different pieces of marketing and set the starting point. So everybody understands, you know, clearly this is the starting point.
[00:06:31] Tracey Mustachio: And then the two part is what we're moving to. What's our North star in each of these areas? What are we trying to get to? And so if you structure the presentation that way, and each time kind of remind them of here's where we started, here's our goal, and here's where we are along the path. And then also adding in since last time, since we met last time, here's what we've accomplished.
[00:06:55] Tracey Mustachio: And here's some trouble, you know, that we've had, maybe do a highlights and low [00:07:00] lights slide, and then have a plan for how you're addressing each. Right? For the highlights, we're going to double down in this area. Uh, for the low lights, we're going to try something different and this is what it is. But again, high level, succinct, unless they want the detail.
[00:07:17] Richard Ellis: Oh, that was good. It's so great to just kind of hear some of these snippets from the old episodes.
[00:07:22] Heather Easterday: Yeah, she talks about that from two framework that's so familiar to us that we've used so many times. It's simple, but it's a powerful tool. What do you think? How can leaders use this concept beyond board meetings to communicate progress, inspire where the team is headed?
[00:07:41] Richard Ellis: Yeah, that's a great question. And just the from to construct, I'll often think of or refer to it as a change vision, right? What are we trying to change? And whether it's thinking about that at a strategic business level, or a team level, or even a project level, it's just a great practical way to get [00:08:00] really clear on what change you are trying to achieve.
[00:08:03] Richard Ellis: You know, oftentimes we'll see top level objectives, and then the expected performance metrics defined, which is all great. And there's often good clarity around why we're asking the team to do something or why we're prioritizing this, but I think just that from to. And having four or five or six bullet points really takes it to that next level of execution ready level of detail, right?
[00:08:25] Richard Ellis: Of what do you expect the team to do differently than they're doing today?
[00:08:29] Heather Easterday: Yeah. That's really good clarity that that brings.
[00:08:32] Richard Ellis: Okay. Well, this is fun. What episode should we listen to next?
[00:08:36] Let's hop to episode seven, Justin Barney talking about building a CRO career path.
[00:08:45] Justin Barney: First off, I think CROs should understand the product and the technology that they're selling.
[00:08:50] Justin Barney: One, it gives validation to the team that they're building. And as we know, jobs are still very fluid. Although Maybe we're in a bit of a downturn right now, [00:09:00] but people can make choice in terms of where they work. And I think a leader who understands the actual product and the technology and how that translates into business value is essential.
[00:09:09] Justin Barney: It also gives them validation with the customers as well too. So I've always taken the time to really actually understand the technology. Underneath it and be able to speak it. And I think that has helped me win the hearts and minds of my team, my partners, and my customers. Ah, that was another good one.
[00:09:26] Justin Barney: Yes.
[00:09:26] Heather Easterday: Yeah, that, that was an inspiring episode. Think with me a little bit on how can aspiring CROs, I know we've got a lot of folks that listen to this, that really are trying to follow that CRO career path. So how can someone that's aspiring to that cultivate these traits early in their career? What have you seen work?
[00:09:46] Richard Ellis: Yeah. In terms of really understanding the technology that they're selling, you know, it's funny, we'll work with smaller companies that are founder led companies. And certainly the founders tend to be those engineers, those technologists that are bringing a product to market. And [00:10:00] oftentimes they need to, when they get to an inflection point in their growth, hire in an outside seasoned sales executive, and they'll bring them in.
[00:10:08] Richard Ellis: I've seen those successful leaders really dive in and work quickly to understand the product inside and out, what it does well, what it doesn't do well, and then how to tell the best, most compelling, insightful story. You know, they're just so good that you wish they could be on every call. And that's what I think sales leaders really need to kind of use as a litmus test.
[00:10:31] Richard Ellis: Right. Is do I know everything I need to know? To really nail those sales conversations, be insightful, et cetera, because then it just equips them with how to better lead the team, right? How to better guide the team on what good looks like, et cetera. The interesting thing is, I don't see all sales leaders doing that well.
[00:10:51] Richard Ellis: And when I kind of reflect on that, I think a lot of times they tend to over rotate on fixing a sales process or a sales motion or [00:11:00] putting in place some new disciplines, which is all good. But you need to do those things. But they should be careful to have a balanced time strategy to drive good sales performance, but also really understand the product that they're selling.
[00:11:13] Heather Easterday: Yeah. And not an easy balance, not an easy balance for sure. And it's why the role of CRO isn't for everyone.
[00:11:19] Richard Ellis: Absolutely.
[00:11:20] Okay. Let's move on to another amazing conversation in episode eight, when you talked with Mike Fouts about leading a growth company inside a legacy organization.
[00:11:33] Mike Fouts: Generally, in a legacy company, you're thinking about, there's a lot of history, there's a lot of process, it's been done a certain way, and those processes exist because it works at scale, and then you move into a growth company, which is a little bit smaller in scale, and your velocity is much higher, so those rules around the box are very different, they're much more fluid, and so, [00:12:00] here's an example, we looked at people, at just pure head count, We tried to maximize the productivity of the existing head count in a growth company.
[00:12:10] Mike Fouts: I was looking at, I can add a head and that directly correlates to X in bookings. So the conversation then pivoted quickly in that business review to, do you have enough people to drive 20 percent growth? You're right. Right. So that's an example of some of the muscle memory things that you really have to switch in a big hurry.
[00:12:30] Mike Fouts: All right. That was another good one.
[00:12:32] Heather Easterday: So you've worked with a lot of growth companies and also legacy businesses. What have you noticed is the difference in the mindset of the leaders of each?
[00:12:41] Richard Ellis: One thing that comes to mind is with the smaller high growth companies, there tends to be a scrappiness about the leaders, right?
[00:12:49] Richard Ellis: Where maybe they've come from that background, they're used to small and fast growing kind of technology firms. And that kind of scrappiness and agility and probably wearing multiple hats, you know, is [00:13:00] required for that type of business or at that time in their journey. But then when you think about the growing, more mature enterprise companies, if you're in that world, I think sometimes that scrappiness can work against you if you're not careful and maybe you can come across thinking, well, some of these processes are just burdensome or they're over engineered.
[00:13:20] Richard Ellis: And so I don't want that. I don't want to slow down what we're trying to do, but you're not going to get to that next level of scale and efficiency unless you do document some of those processes or systematize some of your key motions. And so. I think there's the episode with Mike just kind of pointed out that there's goodness in both and you need to look for those opportunities to leverage both.
[00:13:41] Richard Ellis: So yes, you want to be agile and flexible and fast, but yes, there's also some goodness in terms of. Repeatability and disciplines and structure. And so taking the best of both worlds is important. And I see that some leaders are really good at that, but then I frankly seen some [00:14:00] leaders that are used to the smaller tech high growth companies that not work well in really taking things to the next level of that discipline and structure that you need to when you're growing up a company.
[00:14:10] Richard Ellis: Does that make sense?
[00:14:11] Heather Easterday: It does make sense. It does make sense. And I think there's no one better than Mike to do that and to teach us all what that means. Well, we had a little different kind of guest in episode 12. You interviewed Steve Graves, who's an author of 12 books and a coach, and has coached CEOs for decades.
[00:14:31] Heather Easterday: And so he brought a really interesting perspective, his five tasks of leadership. Let's take a listen.
[00:14:37] Steve Graves: Yeah, I don't necessarily think that a leader has to set direction every single day. Most organizations don't require a leader to have to do that. However, your direction will be tested. Every day, in my opinion, one way or the other, your direction is going to be tested, but over time, you got to be able to set the direction of the direction simply means I'm going there, not there.[00:15:00]
[00:15:00] Steve Graves: Now that could be physical. It could be literal. It could be geographical. I remember having a CEO of a private company and they were, let's just call them. They were 2 to 300 million. They were in a bunch of states and I remember they were going so fast. And this is a little bit about speed and a little bit about direction, but they were going so fast and they were just in this always this massive aspirational growth trajectory for all kinds of reasons.
[00:15:25] Steve Graves: And I remember him saying to me one time, you know, we were talking and he said, look, I think I just need to slow my company down for about 18 months. And they did. And today they're over a 500 million company and they're still private. Incredible. Credible company with a great culture, but people do fail.
[00:15:40] Steve Graves: But at the same time, the point is, is that leaders often just have to step out and do something that the group minor might not necessarily always agree with.
[00:15:51] Richard Ellis: All right, good one. Well, you know, there was a lot of goodness in that episode, but I like the clip that you pulled out there in terms of [00:16:00] that direction, right?
[00:16:01] Richard Ellis: Um, that was a great example in terms of, Hey. We need to slow down if we're going to grow. And I just really enjoyed that particular example, right? Sometimes you do need to slow down in order to go faster. I'm sure you are thinking about our recent planning meeting that we had as a leadership team. We were saying the same thing.
[00:16:19] Richard Ellis: It's like, where do we need to slow down a little bit for some of these decisions that we're making for the firm though, that, you know, we can go faster later. And we can scale.
[00:16:28] Heather Easterday: Yeah, it's kind of counterintuitive, but as Steve said, it's about making those tough decisions, those tough calls, and as a leader, you've got to know your organization, know your team, know your market well enough to know what those right calls are.
[00:16:42] Richard Ellis: The other thing that comes to mind is that, you know, a lot of times in the clients that we work with, they're placing some big bets, right? And sometimes we're part of helping them prioritize those big bets. Sometimes they've already landed on those big bets, and then they're trying to figure out how to execute on them, you know, exceptionally well.
[00:16:59] Richard Ellis: [00:17:00] And the other phrase that comes to mind is crawl, walk, run. We were just talking with a client of ours last week in terms of. Hey, this is a big change effort, right? And it's going to be very instrumental and impactful for the end of 2025. But if you just go out all guns a blazing, right, you're going to step on toes or you're going to get tangled up or what have you.
[00:17:22] Richard Ellis: And so what is that crawl, walk, run? Approach, uh, which is a little bit of kind of slow down to go fast, right? Let's build a solid foundation first. And then on top of that solid foundation, we can get to the next level. And I think that idea of prioritization and focus and intentionality just comes to mind.
[00:17:40] Richard Ellis: And it reminds me of, you know, one of the many famous stories about Steve jobs, right? I think it was 97 when he rejoined apple and he got his team together And he said put up on the board all the projects you're working on and I don't remember how many but there's like 11 or 15 Or whatever and he Struck it all down to three.
[00:17:57] Richard Ellis: He was like, we can only do three really [00:18:00] well. And they were just like shocked and flabbergasted. But I think it's the spirit of what we're talking about here.
[00:18:05] Heather Easterday: Yeah, that's exactly it. It's exactly it. Cause being a leader is as much knowing what not to do as what to do. That goes back to that from two vision we talked about as well, is really knowing what you're moving from and what you're moving to well, let's end our recap with a really fun one.
[00:18:22] Heather Easterday: Episode 13, Eva Daniel taught us how to be instantly likable, how to have instant rapport. Let's take a listen.
[00:18:31] Richard Ellis: Why should they care about or think about rapport intentionally or likability?
[00:18:36] Eva Daniel: Well, because they are now going to be moving a team of people in a direction to accomplish those mission, those goals, those big things that you're setting out to do as a company.
[00:18:45] Eva Daniel: Wow. If people like you, they're going to want to do more for you. If they trust you, if they think you're a great person, they are going to want to move in the direction that you're taking them and you're going to spend a lot less time if you set a really good foundation at the beginning than if you have to do a lot of PR [00:19:00] work or repair relationships down the line.
[00:19:02] Richard Ellis: Love that. As you think about your experience serving and coaching people across industries, right? Are there any kind of industry uniquenesses or differences we need to care about, or maybe in contrast to that, just some universal principles that apply all the time that we can keep in mind in terms of that, I like what you called it, instant likability.
[00:19:23] Eva Daniel: Yeah. Well, one of the big ones is just body language. And so you and I talked last time a lot about public speaking and even, you know, body language applies to whether that's a one on one, those small meetings on the stage, and that is thrown around a lot like body language. Okay. We know we need to have good body language, but we don't always know what that means on like the really tactical actions.
[00:19:43] Eva Daniel: So there's a lot of really small things you can do to have better body language. One of those, for example, is that we're more trusting of people. When we can see their palms.
[00:19:53] Richard Ellis: Oh, really? And
[00:19:54] Eva Daniel: so in your first 30 seconds, minute, show people your palms when it's your turn to talk, whether that's in a [00:20:00] meeting or on a stage, another body language tip, make better eye contact.
[00:20:06] Eva Daniel: Research was done that shows it's called a leadership gaze. So research was done of how much normal people make eye contact versus CEOs and high level leaders. And most of us make eye contact. 30 to 40 percent of the time, but a lot of studies have been done on CEOs and C suite execs, and it shows they tend to make eye contact 60 to 70 percent of the time.
[00:20:32] Richard Ellis: Very good.
[00:20:33] Heather Easterday: I'm curious, can you think of a leader that mastered that? That their leadership was really enhanced? By their ability to build amazing rapport.
[00:20:44] Richard Ellis: I'm hesitant to name names. I don't want to put anybody on the spot, but I do have a couple of leaders that come to mind over my career that did that specifically well, and in terms of rapport building and likability, we've talked about in that episode and using humor appropriately, [00:21:00] I think this particular leader just did that so well because even though he had all of the experience and the success, he was He didn't have an ego, right?
[00:21:10] Richard Ellis: And so he just came across just like another guy and he's just one of us. And it was just the very first time that I met him. He was down to earth and practical, you know, asked me about my family. And it was just, you could tell they were a good person. And I think that's helpful. I've seen the contrast of people coming in and it's all like, I've got to make an impact and here's our vision and this is what I've done in the past.
[00:21:34] Richard Ellis: So you can trust me. And it just kind of comes across as a little bit too much. Or trying too hard or artificial, maybe. And I think rapport goes with authenticity, right? And those that are transparent, that are authentic, really happen to correlate to those best leaders that I've worked with over my career.
[00:21:53] Heather Easterday: One final question. When you look back at all the episodes, is there a thread that runs through all of [00:22:00] them? Something that you could see connecting all of these leadership insights?
[00:22:04] Richard Ellis: One comes to mind, and I think I actually have the book mindset, just having the growth mindset. If we think about all of those episodes and the tips and the goodness that were shared, you have to have that growth mindset and looking for opportunities for improving, right?
[00:22:19] Richard Ellis: For bettering yourself, for bettering your team. And so that's what comes to mind.
[00:22:24] Heather Easterday: That's great. Well, here is to another year of some goodness.
[00:22:29] Richard Ellis: Absolutely. Let's do it.
[00:22:34] Heather Easterday: Some goodness is a creation of Revenue Innovations. Visit us at revenueinnovations. com and subscribe to our newsletter.
