Sales Transformation

All right. Welcome back to another episode of Sales Transformation brought to

you by Ledium. I'm your host, Collin Mitchell. And today we've got Kate O'Neil

on the show. She's the CEO over at Teeming. Kate, welcome to

the show. Welcome back to the show. What are some of the things

that you saw that were challenging in

Yeah, they'll edit and fix it. So kind

of shifting gears here a little bit. I'm just curious to

know in your experience as a leader, what

were some of the challenges that you had that gave

Sorry, all I heard was for teaming. Oh,

It seems like your internet is maybe struggling a

bit because it's giving me like a little note. It

looks normal to me. Okay. Now you can hear me?

Okay. Of course it's working now. As soon as I ask the question, it's going to start struggling.

Okay. Minute 13. All right. I'll make a note.

They'll fix it. Don't worry about it. So kind of shifting gears here

a little bit. It felt like an appropriate time to

talk about what a lot of people have seen on the internet. It

was very much in line with the topics that we're talking about today. But

what I'm really curious to find out is, what were some of the

challenges you had as a leader that gave you the idea for

Okay, yes. So you know, fast forward 15 years, and

I got to I was promoted from director to

VP. And it was a really unique situation. So

I had was recruited to this company by the

head of marketing to run demand generation. And

so I would be reporting to her. And then I you

know, for lots of reasons that I won't get into here.

She was asked to go run partnerships, basically to leave her role in

marketing. And so I

was promoted, and I, you know, it's

it was it was it was 200 people at its height. So

you know, a decent amount of folks and the CEO would

occasionally, you know, pop in and ask me a question or

he's preparing for a board meeting and wants to know this thing

or whatever, right? There's like little reasons for us to connect

sometimes. And I

didn't realize that was my little job interview of whether

or not this person can be the next head of marketing. And

so when they sat me down to say, hey, here's

what we're thinking, I tried to convince them that I wasn't ready

for the job, which is a learning. Would

not recommend doing that. Thankfully,

they, you know, the CEO and the co founders of the company were like, I think

you're ready. I think you're selling yourself short here. And not every leader is

going to do that. So that would be learning number one. Learning

number two, I just didn't realize all the amount

of change that was going to happen. So I was taking over someone

else's role that was still going to be in the company. I

was going to be managing my former peers. So

that's a weird situation. I would be managing managers for

the first time. And lucky me, they

decided to roll rev ops into marketing at the same time. So

So yeah, I got it was a team of 22 people. And,

and I it was like a weird structure, right? Because it wasn't just marketers, like

the, the sales ops person still needs to

serve sales. But now they're kind of reporting to

me, right. So it was my first situation with a dotted line structure,

if you will. So so much change. And

you really need to take stock of that, I would say, like, if I just sat down

and thought about that for a minute, you know, you

wouldn't necessarily feel so much like you're drinking from the fire hose, like, Oh, this is

new, you know, try to try to anticipate the know

those changes, and then anticipate what what they might feel like, or ask people

like, Hey, this is the first time I'm doing this thing. You know, what's that

like? Um, So those are probably the

changes and mistakes that led me to realizing that this is

a massive job and there really aren't very

many resources to help. So I

was instructed to read management books, which Um,

there are some great ones out there. But the problem with management books

is you read them. And then on Monday morning, you're like, Okay, how

should I apply this to my team? Yeah, right. And

that's really hard. And then, thankfully, it this

job, I was given the opportunity to have actual management

training. It cost, and I think this

is relatively inexpensive, it cost $5,000 for the company to

train me to be a manager. And when you think

about it, I've been managing for 10 years before I got any

training in it. Like, that's absurd. And,

but it is so common. And it's ridiculous, really,

when you think about it, that we don't do this $5,000 is

a lot of money. But to the amount of mistakes you

can make that would cost the company way more

than $5,000. There are many mistakes

you can make as an untrained manager that would cost $5,000. For

instance, if just one of your direct reports quits because

they don't like you, or they can't get along with you, right, that

costs more than $5,000. To me, it is a absolute no

brainer to invest in that. But companies just

can't stomach it because it's not just $5,000, right? It's $5,000 times

all of the managers in the company. And

Still a pretty small price tag to people that

you are entrusting to lead and

manage your people, which are

your most valuable asset as a company.

Yeah. Supposed to be anyway. Um, and, uh,

and so I really wanted to make that coaching more accessible, right.

To, to make the, the cost of entry way

Wow. And what are some like big wins or things

that you can share that teaming has been able to help leaders

Some big wins of teaming. Yeah. Is

that right? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, big wins

of teaming. One is,

you know, you can take a disk assessment, which is kind of like, it measures

your work style or your communication style at work. And

one thing we learned about our co-founding team is we struggled to

celebrate wins together. We learned that through teaming. So

that's, Right like that it's a

win getting that in there and learning about yourself right sort

of eating our own dog food if you will so

that that's exciting it sounds ridiculous but. Staying

alive through a global pandemic feels. uh,

great. Um, you know, we didn't, we didn't, we

didn't run out of money. We didn't, you know, go out of business. I

do think that's an accomplishment. Um, I think,

uh, you know, from a, from a customer perspective, I,

um, the most meaningful wins to me is when

we get a message or a post or

something that says like, this was invaluable

to me. I learned something about

how to lead better. And I got feedback from my

team about how it's helpful to

them. And it made me a better leader. And

that is like, not only are you impacting the

life of the manager, right in the career of the manager, but

also of their team. So that is like, man,

I just, that makes my day. So like, you

know, over the moon, it's, it's pretty awesome. Um, so

Awesome. Well, it's been awesome having you on

the show again. Really appreciate it. Any final thoughts as we kind of wrap

Um, good question. Uh, final thoughts. Um,

being a manager is really freaking hard. Um, don't,

you know, the stress we have is

a lot, and the value we get is very

little, right, we don't get a lot back. And so and,

by the way, burnout rates of managers are higher than

they have ever been right now. So if

you are feeling that way, one, ask for help.

And two, You know

not everyone needs to be a manager if you if this isn't

for you. you know, it's okay to say, I'd

rather be an expert in something else. And that's, that's

a really positive, awesome realization

to come to. So that would be my final thought. Connect, please

connect with me on LinkedIn. If you're, if you want to check

out teaming, it's at teaming.com, the typical normal

spelling of the word teaming. And, and

Awesome, we'll drop all the links there in the show notes as well as the

link to the last episode that we had Kate on as well. If

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