How To Thrive In A Tech Sales Career | Nicolas Calvert

Introducing Tech Sales Expert, Nicolas Calvert

Claudia:
Welcome to the Waddyado podcast, where I sit down and speak with professionals, having honest conversations about their careers, how they got into them, and advice for those looking to follow a similar path. But most of all, telling you, the listeners, what it's really like to do that job. In this episode, we speak to Nicolas Calvert, who started his career in hospitality working in Asia for seven years before pivoting into tech sales in London and progressing into a head of sales position at Pepe. Nick talks about the characteristics that are essential for a salesperson, how to get into the field, and how much money you can make in tech sales. I hope you enjoy. Nick, it is an absolute pleasure to have you on the Waddyado podcast today. Thank you so much for joining us.

Nicolas: Not at all. Thank you for having me on this sunny Friday afternoon.

Claudia: Indeed. Awesome. Well, let's get straight into it, shall we? And learn a little bit more about your wonderful career, having gone through, you know, hospitality into the wonderful world of tech sales. So I'm sure a lot of people will be really keen to find out a little bit more about how you transitioned and actually got into tech sales. I get so many messages on LinkedIn. weekly about how to get into tech sales. So let's hear it from someone who's been there and done it. So Nick, without further ado, how would you describe what you do for a living to someone who isn't necessarily in your field or industry, perhaps a grandparent or something like that?

Nicolas: Yeah, so I would tell them that I am, as you said, in tech sales, which means I sell people access to software and my job specifically is in sales leadership. So that means I look after thinking about how we're going to go out sell that product and then getting a team around that mission and making them do it.

How Nick Got Started In His Career

Claudia: Awesome. Well, thanks so much for that insight. Now, as a tech sales recruiter myself, it's really interesting to have these conversations as I love hearing about people's journeys. What were the first things that actually influenced you to, I guess, choose that path? I guess it might be better if we start maybe from you starting out your career in hospitality, then we can weave into how you got there. Talk us through the beginning, very beginning of your career.

Nicolas: Yeah, I'd love to. Um, so I, as you said, my background's in hospitality. Um, actually as a kid, I really wanted to be a chef and I think that stems from, I'm a bit of a people pleaser. I like to cook. So I thought kind of chefing was a good thing for me. I worked in some kitchens and yeah, it was, it was just, it was really, really rough. And I decided, uh, maybe I should take a step back, focus on the service. And that's how I landed in hospitality. So I did hospitality management and then I started my career, um, doing a bit of a gamble really. I took a flight to Laos and I went to work in a hotel in Luang Prabang, which was a tiny, very quaint town. I highly recommend you visit. And yeah, I started there as a assistant general manager fresh out of school, which was a bit ridiculous. I did that for seven months. It was a lot of fun. ended up getting fired from that first job, got my passport confiscated. It'll be a story for another time, but it was, yeah, it was a pretty, pretty rocky start. So yeah, I started my career like that and, and continued from there on into hospitality.

Claudia: And so just on that, so how did you get that job in the first place? Because obviously, A, you obviously, it was a completely different country. So, how did you find that job and how did you, yeah, follow suit?

Nicolas: Yeah, so it's funny. I, like most people probably at the time, couldn't put Laos or Laemperwang on a map. And really it was at the end of my time at school. We had this portal at school that had like a job board, if you want. And I had applied to a couple of jobs, standard jobs, you could say. So I was actually in the middle of interviewing with Colliers International, real estate consulting in London. And I remember taking the flight out from Switzerland all the way to London very early in the morning, being in the tube and just thinking to myself, what on earth am I doing here? This is just sounds really, really miserable. And As part of my job applications, I had randomly applied to this hotel, which actually wasn't even in Luang Prabang, Laos. It was in the absolute jungles of, and I didn't get taken for the job, but my CV got passed on to someone and they basically said, look, I got your CV. We have this small hotel. We need some help running it. Are you up for it? I remember telling my dad about it and he said, look, Just go there and if in three months time you don't like it, you come home, you'll have spent three months holidays in Southeast Asia and what's the worst that can happen?

Getting Fired from Your First Job

Claudia: Exactly. Love that. Brilliant. So, let's move on from where you obviously got fired. So, can you disclose what happened there? That sounds like a good story.

Nicolas: Yeah, it was a really good story.

Claudia: Can you tell us the PG version?

Nicolas: The PG, well, the PG version I think stems from a couple things. One, it stems from the fact that I think I was potentially a little bit of an arrogant cock at the time and I, for entertainment value, I was keeping a diary of my time in Laos and I held my diary that I sent back to some friends back home and I was painting it in quite a fun way of, you know, me landing there and so on and so forth. And the man I was working for, was quite a special kind of guy. He was an ex-alcoholic. He had also done quite a few stints in like really remote parts of the world. And yeah, he was just not an easy guy to work for. And in my journal, I suppose that transpired. And at times I might have taken a bit of a, you know, the best tone to describe what he was doing, but it was, it was pretty innocent because I was sending it just to the friends and family. It wasn't something you could search online. It was just like a PDF attached to an email sent to 20 people. But what I discovered is that, well, it's a small world and I don't know how or why, but it happened that at some point a loop closed somewhere and it landed on his lap. So he took umbrage, I think is the word, and he disappeared for two days from work. My laptop disappeared at the same time. The office printer disappeared. And yeah, he confronted me with a stack of papers and he said, What is this? And yeah, basically fired me. It was pretty horrendous. I mean, I was in shock at the time. He had brought a friend along to be witness to this. At the time, my passport was in the middle of getting the visa redone, so it was lost in immigration and the only person who could find it was, you know, that person. And I got fired like that immediately, like with no thank you, goodbye or anything. I just had to leave.

Claudia: Okay. Well, if there's any consolation, I actually got fired from my first job too. So I got fired for, I worked at Argos as a sales assistant and ultimately was getting discount on a sat-nav for my mum. I was actually technically on the shop floor, but I got fired for being late to my shift. So there you go. I'm not sure it's quite as dramatic as your story, but.

Nicolas: I think the big thing though there is that. You're going to get fired from your job at some point. It happens to everybody. And you know what, you get fired of your first job, at least that's out of the way.

Claudia: Exactly. And you learn from those mistakes, hopefully.

Nicolas: You should.

Starting Out In Hospitality

Claudia: Exactly. Okay, perfect. So moving on from there, tell us about the next role that you moved into.

Nicolas: Yeah so at the time my CV got sent out to every single hotel and tourist operator in Laos saying this man is just do not operate and do not talk to the guy. So I, it was not great. So I actually bumped into a friend who said, Hey, I know this guy who is actually looking to open the first luxury cocktail bar in Lagrang in Laos. You know, are you down for meeting him? And so I met this guy called Andrew, used to work at JP Morgan, decided that when he was 40, he had enough of it, retired, cashed in his chips and went to traveled the world, landed in Laos and decided to open a luxury cocktail bar there. I was due to go back on holidays back home to Switzerland, which without my passport was a lot of fun, but again, another story. And I had about a month left in Laos before taking my flight. So I approached the guy and I said, look, why don't we do like a trial? I come, I work for you. This was pre-opening. So we were still doing a lot of like building work and menu design and so on. Why don't I do a month with you? And at the end of this month, we both look, if we like it, and if we like working with each other, we can move forward. And it turned out, it was awesome. I really liked working with him and he was a great mentor for me. So yeah, I did that for another about year and a half and ended up running my own cocktail bar, which was quite fun.

Claudia: Great. Love that. So from the cocktail bar, then what was the next step?

Nicolas: Then I decided, so I had spent a lot of time learning how to speak Lao and I didn't want to get that effort to waste, so I wanted to see something a little bit more modern and mature. So I decided to move to Thailand. Um, and I found a job at Marriott International in Chiang Mai, very big property, hotel, about 400 rooms. And I worked as a restaurant and bars manager. And for the sake of this podcast, how I got the job was again, tapping back into that old job board from my school. And I found that one of the school alumni's was the director of F&B at that hotel. I applied through the regular channels, didn't get anything. And so I decided to call like the stand of the hotel and the reception and say, Hey, can I be connected to Michael? They pulled me through and I said, look, I think I met you on campus someday, which I probably didn't. But I said, look, I've applied, you're looking for someone, you know, and it kind of went from there.

Transitioning From Hospitality To Tech Sales

Claudia: Okay, awesome. So tell us a little bit more about, I guess, your transition from working within Thailand to then obviously getting yourself into tech sales. What was that journey?

Nicolas: Yeah, the journey has one more stop. So from hospitality, I got just fed up of the hours, I suppose. And I guess some of your listeners can probably relate to that. It was just really ungrateful. And so I went to work for- What kind of hours were you working? Well, in Thailand, well, in Laos, I was working six days a week. So that was two years of just a single day off per week. In Thailand, it was a clock in and clock out. And that was a minimum of 10 hours a day. But because I was a manager, there was no overtime. Most of my days was 12, maybe 14 hours. And a lot of that work was like banqueting and like stuff on your leg. It wasn't particularly fun. So, so yeah, I went to work for one of my suppliers and essentially I went from buying wines to selling wines, but there was a nice transition there because the people I was selling to essentially were just like me. I had been in their shoes and I really understood what they needed, how the purchasing mechanisms worked. And again, found a job through a friend of a friend of like a supplier who said, Hey, they're looking for someone in Bangkok. And I applied and I became a key account manager there. And then the second part of your question, how did I get into tech sales? Well, after I did that for a year and a bit, my wife and I decided to move to the UK. And as I was thinking about my move, one of the people I was working with said, hey, look, I've got this friend, actually his best man at his wedding. And he's, yeah, he's got this small company, but you should just go and have a beer with him in the UK because he's a really nice guy. So when I hit him up, he had this small startup in tech and he said, look, we're looking for people to give us a hand. Fourteen people were selling benefits around menopause. You interested? And I said, sure, why not? And I really landed accidentally, I think is really the word, into tech sales.

What Your First Role In Tech Sales Should Look Like

Claudia: Awesome. So I guess for those who don't necessarily know the difference between like tech sales and any other sales role, could you just talk through what that role as a first sort of account exec or were you an SDR or an account exec?

Nicolas: No, BDM, kind of end-to-end salesperson.

Claudia: Okay, great. So could you talk through what a standard day-to-day would have looked like for you back then?

Nicolas: Well, I think there's a few things. First, if you work in a startup, kind of the operating word is chaos and multiple hands. So on a day to day, you're going to be doing many different things that all have the end goal of booking revenue. But you've got to be ready to really be doing quite a lot of things. To your question, you know, was I an SDR? Was I an AE? In fact, I was a bit of both. So my day would usually be spent on the one hand, following up on any leads that came up from our inbound and marketing engine. So that's somebody who decided, Hey, I've downloaded this piece of content. and we think that they might be a good fit so we essentially badger them until they accept to take a meeting and for us to present our solution and then really sell the whole solution end to end all the way. And then a fair amount of prospecting as well, which is just reaching out and really trying to penetrate the ecosystem of your buyers and to establish yourself as a sort of credible source to share content, repost content, create content, and really get people interested in what you're doing and understanding the implications, the ramifications of the problems you're trying to solve. So there's a lot of, I think, learning and all of that, like teaching yourself how to become an expert. and then using that expertise to get people interested and then ultimately to buy a solution.

Claudia: Brilliant, okay. And what would you say would make a really good account exec? So obviously you've been a, you've now been a head of sales so you've been on the other side of things actually hiring. What would you, what do you look out for and what would you say are good attributes in a really solid account executive?

What Makes A Good Account Executive

Nicolas: Yeah, I think it's a good question. First of all, I'm a believer in recruiting for attitude and not recruiting for skills. I think, you know, there are some skills in sales that can be taught and learned and I think a lot of that is relatively easy to acquire. I think some of the attitude is more important things like having grit, not being, you know, I suppose too easily kicked down by rejection. I think what I look for as well is a certain ownership. So as a salesperson, you are given actually quite a lot of freedom in your day to day. You're essentially given a target and kind of crack on and figure out how to get there. So that means you need to be quite structured, you need to be quite accountable for what you do, and you need to be able to understand the goal and create your own plan in order to get there. So it requires a fair amount of independence.

The Best Parts Of Tech Sales

Claudia: Great, awesome. What would you say are the best parts of the job? What do you enjoy the most? Why do people love tech sales and stay in tech sales?

Nicolas: I mean, the obvious answer there is the cash. I mean, tech sales and no, but it's true. It's a, it's a lucrative, it is a lucrative business. Um, and I think the, the, what goes with that is also the fact that there's a direct correlation between your effort and your success and your remuneration. So for me, that was really important, which is to say the better I am, the more I get paid. And I think that's a very meritocratic, fair way to remunerate people. And that really worked out quite well for me. But aside from that, there's also, if you're working in a great sales team, there can be a very strong sense of camaraderie in the team. I think something that echoes some of my days in hospitality, like you are against sometimes really difficult targets. It can be quite stressful. It is actually quite stressful. And there's this feeling of being in it together, overcoming it together. And particularly when you have a team target that you're working towards, that final push and being able to reach it and exceed it can, yeah, it's a lot of dopamine. I think it's a very rewarding kind of environment to work in.

Claudia: I can second that haven't been in tech sales myself and also, you know, on big sort of any sales roles, I think that camaraderie working with a team when you hit certain milestones together and then you can celebrate together, I think are definitely the part which sweetens the downsides. So on that note, what would you say are the most difficult or worst parts of the job?

The Worst Part Of Tech Sales

Nicolas: I mean, the number one, I think is just the constant rejection. I mean, you've got to develop thick skin. You've got to be able to turn yourself around really quickly. Now that doesn't mean being callous, but you are going to fail a lot. It's, it's just part of the job and you need to be able to not let that get you down, but you also need to, um, reflect and get the learnings from that. So it requires a fair amount of self-awareness. The stress is another big one. It can really have an effect on your personal work-life balance. Because again, the more you work, the more you get rewarded. You can get stuck into a loop that can become quite unhealthy. And I think it's a job that also, as much as we talked about the camaraderie, I think today it's a job that can be very lonely. You know, I'm in this office that's a couple of square feet and I'm making calls on my own on a daily basis. It's just me against the world, particularly in a remote environment that can sometimes be isolating with the stress on top of it. And it can be a difficult one for your mental health, I think, simply put.

Claudia: Yeah, I would second that as well, actually. So just on your points there, so firstly on resilience, how have you actively built resilience? Because it's obviously such a critical thing. And what would you suggest to people in order to build resilience?

Nicolas: I mean the obvious stuff is start by being healthy, you know, that means have a good discipline, go to bed at the right time, leave your phone out of your room, read a book, you know, all of the relatively simple vanilla stuff that your mum probably told you to do but you decided to ignore in the recent years, that's one big thing. Have I mean, I'm lucky I have a wife who's phenomenal. She's my partner and she supports me through thick and thin. She helps me self interrogate. She helps me pick myself up. So that's really good. And I think having that support network, be it through your wife, your friend, your partner, your parents, those are really important. And then I look, I, I grew up as a Brit. I have a stoic part in me. There is a like mind over body kind of thing. So part of the resilience is also just really convincing yourself and, and picking yourself up. And that's just, it's just mental.

How To Stay Motivated When Cold Calling

Claudia: Okay, great. And so you obviously touched on loneliness, especially in the more of a remote world that we can live in and or hybrid, you know, even if you're going into the office a couple of times a week, you're seeing your team, but then you're actually having to come home, work from home or wherever, and then do cold calling by yourself in silo. How would you recommend that people can motivate themselves because I think this is such a critical part of the world that we live in now. Yeah, how would you recommend people motivate themselves when they're co-recording by themselves?

Nicolas: Yeah, so two things. I think one, if you can bypass it entirely and organize like blitzes or just like call hours and that doesn't need to be in the same place. I mean ideally you want to be in the same building but you can also just do it all from the same zoom room and even if everybody's on mute it's actually quite cool to just see other people and just see that you're not the only person dialing and seeing your other people and you can kind of get into something fun as well or you can pull faces while you're on the phone with someone else and it can be quite like you can really you can really do that. If you're stuck on your own I think one of the things we get with remote working and working from home is you get a huge amount of flexibility and so you can also I think leverage that to your advantage by being super intentional and saying okay in the next 25, 30, 40 minutes I really knuckle down, I cut all sort of ties to the outside world, remove slightly, remove your phone, and just do the cold calling that you need to be done and then reward yourself. Give yourself five minutes, ten minutes to make yourself a really nice cup of tea where you don't think about work and just take advantage of the fact that you have got that flexibility to do both. I think the Pomodoro technique works for a lot of people so like actually using a timer 25 minutes and that sort of stuff I think is powerful because it's better to have I think intense sprints rather than just kind of doddling about and then you don't really feel like you're doing much and I think that can that can lead to it as well.

Claudia: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it also comes down to the preparation. So you're not just wasting the time, like make sure that you have a list to obviously call through and you're ready and prepared for that dial. But one thing that really helps me and I don't know if this will be relevant for everybody, but hopefully it might do is like, honestly, pump yourself up. I have a standing desk. If you have a standing desk, I recommend standing up.

Nicolas: I'm standing right now, actually. Yeah, there you go.

Claudia: And then also, I put on a bit some tunes before I get into stuff like that and have a little bit of a dance and be like, yeah, get my mood going and be like, whoo. So that I mean, those are my tips for anyone who works by themselves and needs a little bit of a lift when they go.

Nicolas: Amazing. Thank you. Tony Robbins kind of vibe to it. I like it.

Claudia: Oh, wow, that cringes me out actually, but I honestly just need to pump myself up. It also gets me in a better energy state, you know, a bit more enthused so that's my job.

Nicolas: It's an interesting one. There's actually a really good book by Daniel Pink called To Sell is Human and he talks about this and actually studies show that rather than pumping yourself up, Taking a lesson from Bob the Builder and asking yourself, can I do it is more powerful than actually pumping yourself up. So I would recommend people reading that book. And what it says is when you ask yourself, can I do all these calls, calls, you're going to answer, yes, I can because this and because that, and it actually really helps you. So another way to think about it is, you know, be Bob the Builder and read the book.

Best Piece Of Sales Advice

Claudia: Love that. Okay. Brilliant. So, um, what is the best piece of advice that you have received from a mentor?

Nicolas: Yeah, best piece of advice. I think one of the things that made a bigger difference for me was go out there and learn by yourself. I've always thought that a lot of my sales career would be learned by doing the job, watching other people do it better than me and so on, but the truth is you can and you should become a subject matter expert on your own and that means going out there and reading books. We're in a world now where you can listen to podcasts, you can read books, There are so many ways for you to find the solutions and they're out there and you shouldn't wait for somebody to tell you to do it. You should just do it yourself until it becomes almost muscle memory. And I think that for me was quite a powerful piece of advice.

Hardest Lesson To Learn In Tech Sales

Claudia: Can you talk through the hardest lesson that you've maybe learned building your career?

Nicolas: Don't publish a journal criticizing your boss. I think it's probably one of them.

Claudia: That's probably quite a good one, yep.

Nicolas: It's not a bad one. No, I think the lesson behind that actually is a lesson of humility. And I think the biggest lesson is, yeah, just be humble when somebody asks you to do something. Say yes, get busy trying to find out how to do it. And yeah, just don't assume that anything is free. Just be humble and be ready to work for it.

The Reality Of Tech Layoffs

Claudia: Absolutely. So, I want to take us back to last year in the world of tech sales. Now, for context, I think post-COVID, well, during COVID actually, there was obviously a surge in hiring in 2022. Probably 2021 started to pick up and then 2022 was really where things started to kick off and then things started to peter off in the end of, at the end of the year. So we saw hundreds of thousands of layoffs within the tech sector and, um, it became a very hard environment in order to sell in because budgets were getting slashed left, right, and center. So do you want to just talk us through your experience of that time? Um, obviously you actually got promoted as Interhead of Sales throughout that period. Um, and I guess the impact that that had on your team and talk us through that journey.

Nicolas: Yeah, I think there's a couple of points in there. I think we can tackle the layoffs bit because I think that's important. It will happen to your team. I think if you're in tech sales in a VC backed company, there will be reshuffles or reorganizations or whatever you want to call it. I think you've got to understand that oftentimes they go through periods of massive overhiring and it's important to understand why founders do that, right? Why founders do it is because at the end of the day, When they will look back and they'll have been given all of this cash, the investor will say, well, what have you done with it? Have you thrown everything at it? And they want to be able to say, yes, we have. And that's why a lot of these 2021, 2022 hires were really powerful. But what happens when you have layoffs is keeping the people who remain motivated is very difficult. Like keeping a team cohesion. You know, a lot of people have survivor guilt for lack of a better word. A lot of people can be quite shell-shocked by it. You know, again, remote first company, you get a slack and it's like, Hey, everybody has a mandatory 10 AM all hands and everybody knows what's going to happen. It can be like really difficult to do. So, so that was one thing that for us was quite, um, front of mind, I think, whereas the senior leadership team in sales, we really tried to be as close to each other as possible and to create an environment in which, in which the remaining team felt safe. but also being careful to strike a balance where it doesn't become molly coddling. And then people just feel like they can do anything and anything will go because we're kind of giving them a free pass.

Claudia: I think that's the key thing here is being adaptable and flexible to change, but also identifying it quickly and then pivoting quickly enough to capitalize on it. Otherwise there are going to be more casualties. with business and ultimately it'll just have a bit of a negative impact.

Nicolas: In anything, there are always winners and losers. So even if we are going through a difficult economic time, it is your job as a salesperson to identify who are the winners in all of that. They will keep buying. They'll buy even more than before. And who are the losers? And so I'll make sure I don't focus on my efforts on that. But there's always hay to be made at some point.

How Much Can You Earn In Tech Sales?

Claudia: Absolutely. So let's go into some, I guess, more quick fire questions. So obviously you've worked your way up through tech sales recently. So when you joined Pepe, or you don't have to necessarily talk about your own salary, to be honest, but like, could you just talk through salary brandings for an account executive all the way up to like a head of sales?

Nicolas: Yeah, definitely. So I can even start at like an SDR. Usually SDRs were anywhere between 28 to 40 grand a year with usually about 40 or 50% on top. So if you were a good performing SDR, you could expect to make maybe 50k. We then had account executives and they're tiered, right? You have entry level account executives that are often SDRs that are being promoted. That would take maybe 45 and maybe a 70% like bonus on top. And then just an average account executive Today, probably 65, 70,000 a year. Again, commission structure is usually like a double, so another 70 on top. And then if you go into top management now, head of sales, I mean, that'll usually be like a frontline leader of a team of maybe four to six people. You'd be looking at a base of a hundred to 120. and then you might have a variable that isn't exactly one-to-one, usually as a manager your base is a little bit more than your variable commission, but on target you should be able to start reaching the 180 to 200,000 by the end of everything. And then the last thing is, you know, if you're a strategic AE, and this is a lesson I had to learn as a head of sales, some of the people working for you will earn more money than you. And you've got to be okay with that. Strategic account executives who come with a lot of experience, you know, we had people who were, yeah, in the 125, 130 mark and earned another 130 and, you know, made a quarter of a million in a year and well done them. But that, that is, that is at the very top of the scale, very much what it can be and above.

Claudia: Great. I was also going to add that on in because obviously dependent on some sectors that you're selling into. So for example, financial services, then salaries do tend to go up a little bit, even if you're working at strategic and enterprise levels. So you're selling as a huge corporate businesses and multinational organizations, then typically salaries do get pumped up a little bit, which is. Great, but you do need to obviously earn your stripes, working your way through SMB, so small, mid market, and then all the way up to enterprise and then strategic. So thank you for those insights, Nick. Awesome. So for anyone who is looking to get into tech sales, what would you recommend in terms of actionable steps in order to get into the industry?

How To Get In To Tech Sales

Nicolas: I think go out and connect to a lot of communities, like you and I Claudia, we met on this RevGenius community. There are a lot of communities out there that are free for you to join where you'll just get a bit of a pulse and an understanding of how this world works and how people and players in that industry work. It's also a great place to network. I think that would be a key step to do and that then extends to I was on there and then I learned about a blog that I enjoy and then I learned about a newsletter that I enjoy and then again that pursuit of knowledge opens these new doors that I didn't necessarily know existed but now they're open kind of allow me to do that. Then You've heard my story, like network, network, network, and that means not tapping into your network when you need it, but it means always being proactively networking and connecting to people, hitting up some people. I don't know, there are some really corny ways to do it, but take your WhatsApp and go at the bottom last message you've sent and send them a message. And again, it's not because that old mate of yours is not in tech sales that they don't know, you know, someone who might be in tech sales. I had, I met up with some old school friends and they brought a friend over to barbecue and he works at Hopper, hospitality tech kind of company. And he said, Hey, I'm recruiting for a role you're interested. Wasn't quite the right role for me, but again, I would never have had that if I hadn't invited my old mates for a barbecue, you know? So yeah, I think networking and tapping into communities is a really great way to think about it.

Sales Resources To Help You Get Started

Claudia: Absolutely, so you mentioned some blogs there, what resources would you recommend to people getting into the industry? Are there any specific ones that you found particularly insightful?

Nicolas: Well, I think the ones I'm reading are specific more to sales leadership. I actually like Winning by Design, which is a lot about the actual gritty, nitty, techy bit of sales, especially like the operational side of it. They have a lot of really interesting blueprints and so on. So probably not the best recommendations to start into sales, but if you want to know more about sales leadership, then yeah, hit me up.

The Most Unusual Interview Question Ever Asked

Claudia: That still counts. Fabulous. Awesome. And so I have one last question for you because I feel like this could be interesting. But what is the most unusual interview question you've ever had or you've ever asked?

Nicolas: One question I like to ask someone is, what is the best compliment you can receive with regards to your work? And I think that oftentimes opens a lot of interesting kind of breaks down a few barriers and it gives you an insight in the end of the day we are all I think people pleasers particularly if we're working into sales and so it's really interesting to understand what and how that person feels rewarded because at the end of the day particularly if you're managing sales people it is very much a carrot game and it is all about incentives So understanding what compliments really make that people tick and fire them up is a great way to understand how they like to be motivated at work.

Claudia: That is a great one. Thank you so much for that insight.

Nicolas: What's your favorite question, Claudia?

Claudia: My favorite question is tell me a time when you failed. It gives really interesting insights into what they identify as a failure and also what they hopefully have learned from that entire experience because it shows their ability to be reflective. And then also how to then pivot or change or amend the way that they approach something in order to learn from the whole experience. So that's mine. Awesome. Well, Nick, it has been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today. Thank you so much for your wonderful insights and nuggets of wisdom throughout the entire podcast. And it's been a pleasure. Thank you.

Nicolas: No, I don't. Thank you for having me. This has been great. It's been a lot of fun. Take care. Have a great weekend. Thank you.

Claudia: Thank you so much for listening to the Waddyado podcast. Whether you're looking for a job or ready to find your latest inspired hire, head over to whatdoyoudo.com forward slash jobs or click the link in the description. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button and share with anyone you think would love this episode.