In this episode, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Matt Millen, a seasoned sales leader and former race car driver, who shared invaluable insights into the world of sales, the impact of AI, and personal development. Our conversation ranged from the importance of maintaining a peak mental state to the revolutionary role of AI in sales processes.
Key Takeaways:
1. The Importance of Your Peer Group: Matt Millenemphasized the significant influence of the people you surround yourself with on your personal and professional growth. He advised actively seeking relationships that elevate your standards and aspirations.
2. AI in Sales: We delved deep into how AI is transforming the sales landscape. Matt Millen explained how his team uses AI to handle routine tasks, allowing sales reps to focus on more complex and engaging activities. This not only increases efficiency but also enhances job satisfaction among team members.
3. Maintaining Peak State: Matt Millen shared strategies for staying in a peak mental state, crucial for personal and professional success. He highlighted the importance of managing your focus, body language, and the words you use, as these elements significantly influence your overall state and effectiveness.
4. Personal Development Through Tony Robbins' Principles: Reflecting on his experiences with Tony Robbins, Matt Millen discussed the science of success and how Robbins' teachings have helped him understand and harness the power of mindset and state management.
5. The Evolution of Sales Roles: Drawing an analogy from his racing background, Matt Millen compared the evolution of sales roles to the efficiency improvements in Formula 1 pit stops. He highlighted how role specialization and technology contribute to unprecedented efficiency and effectiveness in sales.
6. The Future of AI and Automation: We touched on the potential future implications of AI beyond sales, discussing its broader impacts on daily life and the workforce.
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Matt Millen:
You become the average of the five people you spend the most time. While it can be uncomfortable, a lot of times, like for you to live a better life, you might need to get a better peer. Getting fit to be a better salesperson. It's proven that if you can get your mind working, like it performs better all day, just like if you work out, you burn calories. There's a great quote that I read, which is success is never final and failure
Andy Mewborn:
Big M, what is up, my man? I'm good. You're good? Let's go. Big M, what's up, my man? What's happening?
Andy Mewborn:
What's happening, man? You got the Reggie AI behind you and everything. I need to get me one of those, man. Yeah, buddy. Step up.
SPEAKER_04:
I know.
Andy Mewborn:
I got to step up my game, man.
Andy Mewborn:
Dude, so I was, so, you know, Hank emailed me, and I sent out a newsletter for another pod today, and so Hank always responds. And he emailed me and I was like, hey dude, what should I ask Nolan today on this podcast? And he goes, so here's the question. Here's our first podcast question from Hank. How much money did you take from outreach employees over the years playing poker? You have a number?
Andy Mewborn:
Do you know? Do you know what that is yet?
Matt Millen:
It's such a good question. I like to think that the table always balances out over time.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah, honestly though, it's like when you buy pizza for your friend group or whatever. You're gonna get me at some point or you're gonna get me at another point.
Matt Millen:
I don't play poker with my friends to make money. I play poker with my friends to have a great time, drink scotch and laugh.
Andy Mewborn:
Oh, hey, and I'll say nice things about Big M. Dude, why I wanted you to come on, I'll start here, is because You sent me, so quick story, what year was this, 2018 or 2017? You sent me and a group of five other people to Tony Province, right?
Andy Mewborn:
Big M, what is up, my man? I'm good. You're good? Let's go. Big M, what's up, my man? What's happening?
Andy Mewborn:
What's happening, man? You got the Reggie AI behind you and everything. I need to get me one of those, man.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah, buddy.
Andy Mewborn:
Step up. Oh, dude, so I was, so, you know, Hank emailed me and, and I sent out a newsletter for another pod today. And so Hank always responds and, and he emailed me and I was like, Hey dude, what should I ask Nolan today on this podcast? And he goes, so here's the question. Here's our first podcast question from Hank. How much money did you take from outreach employees over the years playing poker?
Andy Mewborn:
You have a number, do you know? Do you know what that is yet?
Matt Millen:
It's such a good question. I like to think that the table always balances out over time.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah, honestly though, it's like when you buy pizza for your friend group or whatever. You're gonna get me at some point, or you're gonna get me at another point.
Matt Millen:
I don't play poker with my friends to make money. I play poker with my friends to have a great time, drink scotch, and laugh.
Andy Mewborn:
Oh, hey, and I'll say nice things about Big M. Dude, why I wanted you to come on, I'll start here, is because You sent me, so quick story. What year was this? 2018 or 2017? You sent me in a group of five other people to Tony Robbins, right? You sent us to Tony Robbins and you were, you were a CRO at Outreach at the time. And you were like, Hey, we're going to send a group of people to Tony Robbins. I was one of those people being like six others. And, uh, I think it was unleashed the power within, and it was in New York. And I, at first I was like, Oh, I don't know about like, I didn't even really know who Tony Robbins was, to be honest with you. I was like, I think he's like a self-help guru. Like I'm not sure. And then I look at it, I looked them up and I was like, Hmm. I was like, I don't know, maybe this is a little woo woo. We'll see. Right. And so I kind of had this thought and I went to you and I said, all right, what's the one rule like when we go to this event? And you were like, the one rule is you don't sit next to anyone that you know. And I was like, why? Why is that? And so we go to the event and dude, it was one of the most awesome things I've ever done. It was crazy. And you also told me, I remember you telling me this, you said that Tony, even though it's a stadium, it's like a, basically a stadium full of people. This was a hockey arena or whatever. And it was like, I don't know, the team in, in, uh, the New York, it was a it was in what's that- there's an airport there it's like New Jersey. New York it was in New York. Yeah it was a hockey stadium there and you told me that even though it's a stadium full of people it feels like Tony is talking to you directly. That's right you're like that's a superpower. And I was like, no way. I was like, this sounds too crazy to be true. But dude, I went and I'm not going to lie. At one point, I felt like I was on some crazy drug. I was like, dude, I feel invincible.
Andy Mewborn:
Like I feel like I can do anything in the world. Like this is awesome. And then I came back.
Andy Mewborn:
And I was just like, I think doing any type of work or sitting at my computer, I was just riding and my confidence level was just up here. You know, it was just huge. And it just showed me how powerful the mental game really is. You know, like that's the first time I've been experienced that right where I'm like, holy shit, this like most of life is just a mental game. You know, it's like how you, how you handle your mental game, your energy, all that stuff.
Matt Millen:
Yeah, there's two things there like thing number one is you realize there's another level like you realize that and you know You're one of the most fun most energetic people I know to start but then you go to an event like that You realize like holy shit. There's a whole nother level. I wasn't aware. Yeah so that's the first thing like you're aware of just how you can play but number two you come back on this high but how do you keep that going like how do you start incorporating those habits those rituals into your life where it's not this one-time event and then the law of diminishing erosion starts Like how do you make that part of who you are going forward? And then you want that space repetition where you go out and get those pops back in, you know, keep you.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah. Yeah. Stay peaked, stay peaked. And that's how do you do it? How do you do it? And well, first we should give people some context on like you were Tony's like right-hand man for how long? Like, I'm not sure. Right-hand man is the, well, you worked for Tony for what? 15 years or something.
Matt Millen:
I don't know, four years. I ran worldwide sales for Tony for four years. you know, traveled the world with them. And it was an amazing experience.
Andy Mewborn:
Wow. There's so much, like, I don't think we've ever really dug into this, which is what I want to do today. But for you, how, let's talk about this peak mode. Like, what do you do to maintain that peak? Because personally, the problem I have is I've been wanting to get back to that feeling since I've had it. And I'm always like, shoot, do I just, do I have to go to another event? Like, well, like, how do I, how do I recalibrate and get that feeling back?
Matt Millen:
Well, couple things and you probably need to go back for a dip in the water because like Tony shares with you in the event, like how to maintain your peak state. So if you think about there's something called a triad or there's three drivers. that control the state that you're in at any point in time. And you control it. So the first the first is like, are you using your body like people that move around, engage or active, you know, tend to be in a better state than those that are slugging around in front of a TV and not moving for a week at a time. The second thing is what you're focusing on.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah.
Matt Millen:
Like if you're focusing on all the stress and all the problems and all the worry, you're going to be in a diminished state. And if you're focused on your potential, the capability, the opportunity in front of you, like you're going to start getting excited and get into a peak state. Third is the language that you're using, the words that you choose to use. So you want to speak very deliberately. Like a lot of times, even my son says, Oh, do I have to go to karate today? And I say, you don't have to go to Get to go to the right. And just by reframing, like how we talk about the things that we're doing changes our attitude about it. So use your body, focus on what matters, speak intentionally and deliberately. And you start to manage like how you're showing up and who you're being.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah. Yeah. And, and what are some other little tweaks that, that you do to like, you mentioned you don't have to, you get to. Right. And I remember him talking about that as well. And I'm like, shit, that is, it's such a small thing, but just by changing that, you're like, yeah. Like, you know and I use that every morning when I have to go on a run. I say, no, I don't get to, I don't have to train for my Ironman. I get to train for an Ironman. I get to. And I'm like, you know, and if you really believe that you're like, shit, like I'm grateful for that. Yeah. You know?
Matt Millen:
Um, and Tony, um, so I learned a lot from Tony, but to answer your question specifically, most people sabotage their day. And here's what I mean by that. I said,
Andy Mewborn:
I said, Ooh, this is good. I want to hear this.
Matt Millen:
So if I said, Hey Andrew, what would it take for you to have an amazing day today? I would say like, what would you say would have to happen to have an amazing day?
Andy Mewborn:
I'd get my workout in. I get to spend time with my wife and my son and I would be disciplined enough to eat healthy all day. Like that's a good day. Yeah.
Matt Millen:
So you're a champion. Like most people, like they list off all these things that have to happen to be a great day. You want to just get, do your work, spend time with your loved ones, eat well, that's fantastic. Like you're likely. But if I said, hey, what could be a lousy day? People have a list a mile long. So what happens is like what it takes to be lousy is so available and what it takes to be great is so limited. So like you're, Like to have a great day is set up through sabotage, like won't happen for most people. So you want to say, hey, a great day is all these things could happen. And a bad day is just this little sliver, like you just inverse what makes a great day. And then you can set yourself up. to have a great day because you just shift what you're focusing on back to state and what would enable you to feel like you had a great day.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah, yeah and I like that the inversion law or let's call it the inversion rule right which is like keeping it simple and I think a lot of people today too it's on this it made me think of this is like you'll hear a lot of people like oh I feel like shit lately or whatever and then you you know you ask your buddy well what have you been doing And then you figure out they've been eating like shit. They haven't been like working towards anything. They've been just watching Netflix. Don't get me wrong, I love Netflix. I'll sit and watch it with my wife, nothing bad with it. And then they sit and scroll on their phone all day of people's best moments. And then when you dig into that, you're like, well, no wonder you feel like poop, right? Like, look at what you're doing all day. And it goes back to like, auditing almost auditing yourself for like for what that might be i don't know maybe there's some tony move there but like i don't think enough people audit themselves and then say hmm how does what i'm doing all day translate to my mood you know which which sounds easy but i feel like it's a out of time.
Matt Millen:
Think of it this way, Big A, you become the average of the five people you spend the most time. And while it can be uncomfortable, a lot of times, like for you to live a better life, you might need to get a better peer.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah.
Matt Millen:
Like the people that you've historically spent a lot of time with, you know, you can outgrow some relationships. It doesn't mean you ignore them completely, but like aspire to the folks that you aspire to. Like spend time with people that you consider mentors. Spend time with people that can help you get to where you want to go. Spend time with people that are doing the things that you want to be doing, living the way you want to be living. Like spend time there and move your average up. But what you don't want to do is stay where you are, wish, hope and dream.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah. Yeah. And it's so that we hear that all the time, right? You're the average of the five people. The the hard part there is like letting go. You know, like, how do you how do you like like we've all got those friends, you know, you still hang out with and you're like, I love this guy, though. But like, he's probably not the best for where I want to go.
Matt Millen:
Yeah, I mean, you can hang out, but don't live there. Like, that's not your only friend, and you may not spend as much time. But I would say, like, find people you admire and like, how do I get to spend time there too?
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah. And what are some other like, big Tony kind of ideals or methodologies or whatever we want to call them, principles that you still stick with every day. And I know this guy has like hundreds, right? But like, what are the big ones that I think you stick with every day and that you think a lot of sellers or sales reps be good for them to kind of like be aware of, right? I think that would be kind of an interesting overlap there.
Matt Millen:
I think it's incorporating rituals into your day and getting better habits. Most people have bad habits. The only way to get rid of a habit is to replace it with a better habit. Read the book, The Power of Habit. It's fantastic. But people typically have bad habits. Get better habits, better rituals in your life. That's number one. You've talked about this about yourself. You incorporate exercise into your day. You're pretty disciplined. You go out of your way to eat right. I know you cheated on that weight loss thing we did together when you put off the scale.
None:
I remember that.
Andy Mewborn:
You remember that?
Matt Millen:
People need better habits. When we hire a new rep and we give them a script, we give you a script because if you're not trained what to say, you fall back to habit and people have bad habits. So you got to insert better conversation, better activity, better mindset. and a
Andy Mewborn:
One interesting thing I remember from this Tony Robbins thing was he was like, he was like, every time you step into a room, or like right when you're under the door, you basically say like, honey, I'm home, or something like that, right? Like that's the attitude you want going into every room, like yelling, honey, I'm home, or something like that. I might be butchering it, but I thought it was like, holy crap, that's amazing, right? Because then you go in and you, you exude that energy into whatever business meeting you're going into or whatever.
Matt Millen:
You're placing yourself in a state that you're where you're comfortable, where you are meant to be. Like, so if you use that, like I'm home, like you're comfortable at home, you're meant to be at home. So when you walk into a foreign environment and you can declare I'm home, like you're declaring I'm meant to be here and I'm comfortable in this environment, you're declaring it to yourself and to the world. even if they don't hear you doing that, like you're declaring it to your presence.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah. And I, you know, it's fun. I've used that trick a couple of times. Obviously I don't yell it out loud, but when I'm like, you know, I've gotten into some meetings where I'm like, shit, I'm nervous. And you know, you kind of like, you're like, I'm nervous. And then you're, you're like, I keep telling myself, I want to walk into the, to the meeting room, just in your head, say, honey, I'm home. And for me, instantly, I do that in my head. I'm just like, I get an instant smile, you know? Cause I'm instantly like, oh man, like this is all.
Matt Millen:
Well, you got a little girl, right? You have a little girl? Little boy, yeah. Okay, great. You have a little boy. So one of the things that I do before I go on stage is I look at a picture of my daughter. The last thing I do before I jump up on stage is I look at a picture of my daughter and it makes me smile both inside and outside. And fear cannot coexist with feeling grateful or gratitude. Like the two emotions can't coexist. So if you can fill yourself up with a grateful or gratitude emotion before you jump up on stage feeling great and grateful, as opposed to stressed out and nervous, like it changes your entire energy as you take the stage and then establish yourself. That's another way to do it. Another thing is, there's a song I listened to the first 30 seconds. Before I look at the picture, I listen to 30 seconds of a song that brings me right back into state. You get the chills. It brings you right back into the day. Walk, look at the picture, and then you're unstoppable. Like nothing's stopping you. What song is that? Life Will Never Be The Same. Okay, nice. And if you know, it's the primary song from the event that you were referencing. But I'll never forget, I was at the Excel Center in London. I was on the back production riser, 15,000 screaming Europeans between me and the front stage. And I just envisioned like that song and the people, the energy. And immediately, like it just brings me back to this point of unstoppable.
Andy Mewborn:
And it kind of like, that's interesting. And it goes back to man kind of like tricking your brain. Right? Like just tricking your brain to be like, dude, everything's cool. Like you're fine. And everything's good. You know, which I guess the formal way of saying that is your state, you know, and, uh, Yeah.
Matt Millen:
And you're not tricking your brain. What you're doing is you're bringing yourself to where you want to be. Like, so even the language there, you're not tricking your brain. You've conditioned yourself to learn how to manage your state and how to move yourself into the state that yeah. No trickery. In fact, if we were to boil all of this down, it's that success is a science. There is a science to success and there's an art to fulfill. Yeah. And a lot of what I learned from Tony personally, while spending time with him, as well as being with him in front of lots of people, is that Tony shares the science and the art.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah and that's what I noticed with him too is like he would explain and you have to believe him too because he's like I mean he's the mentors of ex-presidents to all these people and you're just like okay well this guy must know something he must know that it's proven right like. He's proven this stuff over and over and over again and like people want to continue to ask him to pay I think what it's like a million dollars a year. You have to pay him to get manslaughter some crazy some crazy number Like and he he gets attacked with him three times a year or something. It's just insane. Um, but it's worth it shit if I have the money, you know in So I was watching something interesting about this mind game again, right is or being in the state you want to be and I was watching um watching something recently full swing on Netflix. It's like this show of the elite golfers, right? The PGA slash live golfers. Now just PGA, I guess. But, um, and there was this episode where they were talking about sports psychologists and how a couple of people started to get these sports psychologists. A few of the golfers were like, that's dumb. Like I don't need a sports psychologist and playing golf, whatever. But then you see this transformation in them after they get the sports psychologist and their game is totally changed, right? Like now, did they actually get better at golf? Not really, but they changed the state that they were in, right? They've been swinging that thing. So how have they been playing this game for 20 years? and practicing for 20 years and then in six months, you know, change their game enormously. And it goes back to this like sports psychologist thing where I'm like, holy crap, like, that's the power of this like, mental state. And it made me think like, I kind of want to get like a business psychologist, right? That's like someone that's like always looking at you and your game just mentally, not the number, not the crazy stuff, but like mentally where you're at all the time and getting you to that level of potential. It's almost getting that like Tony Robbins, unleash the power within feeling, but like having someone help you get there every day and hold you accountable, you know? And I don't know if those exist or if there's a different term for them, but have you ever thought about that? Like, am I saying something completely stupid right now?
Matt Millen:
No, in fact, Tony has an event called Business Mastery, which is basically the event you did for personal growth and development for business growth. OK, so he actually has a it's either a three or four day event now. around the world he does them, but it's basically where entrepreneurs come in and get their mind right around the business. It's pretty powerful. And then from the coaches or psychologists, like Tony has coaches that work with individuals, and then he has a team of coaches that work with business professionals, unlocking and getting people to be the best.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah, okay, so he's already thought of this. Of course, of course, he's already figured this out, man. He's already figured this out, but I'm like, shoot, I kind of want to get something like that. Or, you know, like at some point where it's like the executive coach, but not just the executive coach, but like the executive coach psychologist, right. That just kind of helped me maintain that peak state, not just worried about the numbers and all the, you know, all the stuff we worry about in software. Um, so yeah, have you heard of this? Have you seen this, um, guy, his name's like Andrew, I forget he's on Instagram right now. It's like Andrew something where his whole shtick is about like work, getting fit to be a better salesperson. Have you seen this guy? Okay. And he literally has this rule. He had this, this Instagram post that I recently saw. And he goes, if you don't have a six pack at my company, I don't want you working here. And I'm like, that sounds a little intense. And he's like very intense, right? And he's like, if you don't have a six pack, I don't want you working here. He goes, because trust me, you're never going to find a fit person that's not doing well at their job. He's like, that is unheard of. If you're getting up to go to the gym every day and doing all this, you know, it's a little bro-y for sure. But like, I, you know, he kind of makes it good.
Matt Millen:
Yeah, there's a message underneath it. And I would take the six pack as a metaphor. meaning if you've got the discipline to keep yourself in shape, then you've got the discipline to do your job at a high level. And what I would say or translate it is how you do anything is how you do everything. So if you keep yourself in shape, you keep your professional life in shape. You keep your relationship. Now, not everybody keeps everything in shape, but I will say like what you'll see are patterns in people. For instance, if you came over to my house to buy a used bike for your son, and I open my garage door, and everything's put away, immaculate, the floor's epoxy, everything's spotless, what would you assume the condition of the used bike to be?
Andy Mewborn:
Oh, immaculate, yeah.
Matt Millen:
And you didn't even see it yet. But if I open up my garage door, and balls fall out, and stuff's lying all over the place, and I have to Like just, so it's like this metaphor for how you do anything is how you do everything. And if you can keep yourself tight, you can keep your business.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah. Yeah. This reminds me, I read a, uh, I forget, it was like, I'll teach you how to be rich book by Ramit Sethi or Sethi or whatever. And he has something similar to that. And he goes, he goes, if you ever buy a new car, keep all the receipts of the oil changes of all the work you've done on the car, anything you've done, because guess what? When you go to sell it, people are going to know, guess what? This guy took freaking good care of this car, right? And I'm like, shit, it's very similar. And it makes a good point, right? Where it's like, man, It is so true. You know, it is so true. And that's not, and I will say like, it's kind of interesting if I miss my workout going back to this in the morning. Yeah. It's probably, it's probably me playing mental games with myself or not, but my state is screwed up. Like I don't feel right. You know, I feel like I kind of feel like a piece of crap if I'm being honest. I feel like a piece of shit. I'm like, I didn't get my workout in. I didn't do the one thing that I'm supposed to do every day in the morning. And I kind of feel like a dummy. But don't do that.
Matt Millen:
So I work out two different ways. My mornings, I actually work out my mind, not my body.
Andy Mewborn:
How do you do that? How do you do that?
Matt Millen:
And it's proven that if you can get your mind working, it performs better all day, just like if you work out, you burn calories all day. I work out at night, but I work out my mind in the morning. So I wake up at quarter five every day and I take an hour like I'm going to learn something new. Like I'm going to learn like some renewable energy or some green energy. I'm going to learn a new way to make my pizza dough. But I am going to challenge myself every day to learn something I didn't know in an area. And then I'm going to watch one of the late-night monologues, because I don't stay up for those, and just get a laugh. But I do. I work my brain out in the morning before I get going. I just don't jump into work. I want to get thinking the way I want to be thinking, and then I'm going to jump into work. And then at night, when my energy is falling off, Yeah, I'm 61 now. So I get it.
Andy Mewborn:
You got that good skincare routine going.
Matt Millen:
You're looking good, man. But then at night, like, and I don't want to go to the gym at night. I go to the gym and then like, I'm five minutes in my workout, I feel great. I kind of bookend my day with two different kinds of workouts. But if you miss a workout, like it's not the end of the day. And that shouldn't That shouldn't take it out because you've chosen to do something else and then you'll figure out how to get that. Yeah.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah. I like that. And, uh, it's, I don't know how people get straight to work. I mean, I could do it. I could do it definitely. But then when I do do it, I feel like I'm more anxious throughout the day. And like, I'm just not as productive. Right. Um, because I didn't take time to like, warm up per se, as you mentioned, right? I didn't get time to warm up. And for me, my brain, I'm not as creative. I'm not as productive unless I like work out in the morning. I've learned that about myself. Like after I work out, I have my energy. I feel good.
Andy Mewborn:
I'm gonna be honest with you.
Andy Mewborn:
Like I worked out this morning. I still haven't showered. I just put a nice shirt on. Luckily, you can't smell me from there. Right, but hopefully I don't look too terrible.
Matt Millen:
Yeah, luckily, you know, the recording software doesn't give you... All I can say is you must have a great relationship with your listeners because you just put it all up there.
Andy Mewborn:
I mean, I'm human, you know, I just try to be human, Big M. That's it, man. Just trying to be human.
Matt Millen:
Um, so I gotta tell listeners like, you know, back in the day, I bet Andrew, Andrew was trying to lose like 10 pounds or 15 pounds. We did the official, we did the official weigh in and he only put, and he only put one of his legs on the scale.
Andy Mewborn:
It was beautiful. And you were like, what the hell just happened? What, how'd you do that? Uh,
Matt Millen:
I looked down, and it was like, dude, you have to put both feet on the scale for this to work.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah, you know, that's, always trying to hack the system, you know, always trying to be efficient, you know, I'll put one leg on, you know, only half my weight.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah, I love it, you're a winner, you're a winner. Found the shortcut, man, found the shortcut. All right, next thing I wanna talk to you about. Okay, let's get into this, which is, And this is from Hank actually. So Hank Wells, because he gave me a list of questions and I told him, you know what, I'm going to ask them. These are some good ones. So he said, a guy worked for you. This is Hank. Hank is saying this. He said, you had a ton of patience when reps made mistakes. Other BPs would have reacted negatively and you kept your cool. How do you do this so damn well?
Matt Millen:
So I got mad love for Hank. Hank's one of my favorite new hire stories of all time. You know, I think a couple of things like we all make mistakes and I have patience when you make a mistake. I lose patience when you keep making the same mistake. So let's be clear around mistakes. But there's a great quote that I read, which is success And failure is never fatal. And what that tells me is like, don't get too cocky at the top and have a little grace at the bottom, right? Like stay human through the process. And, you know, you got a new rep, you know, joining a fast growing company, a lot of pressure to make numbers, the team's doing well around you. You know, the last thing they need is the fear of God from their leadership. you know, around mistakes when what I want my team to think is, hey, leadership is engaged. Leadership is supportive. Leadership works for me and helps me win. And if I'm coming down on every little mistake they're making, it kind of blows up, you know, the culture and the environment that I want to create. So as long as you don't keep making the same mistake over and over, it's all good. Like we all make mistakes when we're learning and growing.
Andy Mewborn:
Mm hmm. Yeah. And it reminds me of that thing like, you know, having seen lots of managers through the days and just talking about this leadership is, I think the best leaders, managers, kind of, if I were to wrap it all up is, well, let's talk about the worst so we can make, the worst I've seen, and then we'll go back to that. The worst make almost everything a problem that doesn't need to be a problem. And for me, what I, how I boil that down is like, when everything's a problem, then nothing's really a problem. It's just annoying, you know? And so it goes back to like picking your battles. And this is the same thing in like relationships, not just like managers, but like personal relationships, you know? And like, it's picking your battles, right? If everything's an issue, then nothing's, you don't really understand what is an issue if everything's an issue, right? And so, you know, I would say the best going back to this, know how to pick those battles and right now the people that are reporting to you know, oh shoot, Mellon's going to get mad or he's going to be very upset if we do this wrong. And they know the boundaries, right? And that's good. And I think it's great for culture because when you know the boundaries, you know when not to overstep the boundaries, whereas on the opposite spectrum, You're like, shoot tiptoeing because you're like, well, maybe everything's going to be a problem. And then like you don't have wiggle room to be like, hey, am I doing everything OK?
Matt Millen:
You know, I also think like if we're honest with ourself. Like, let's just say anyone makes a mistake, but in this case, a rep makes a mistake. That rep may have done what they were told to do, but they're the ones executing it. The problem could have been in what they were told to do, how they were trained, the information they were given, and they're the execution layer. So it's where the misinformation or misdirection shows up. So it could be that like the rep was actually doing what they were told and it's a mistake. So I don't assume when there's a mistake that just because Big A did something wrong that it was you. Like, what if we gave you bad advice, bad direction, bad information? And you, as a new rep, you were just doing what you were told. So you also have to have a little patience to understand why did the mistake happen? Like, are we not training correctly? Are we not onboarding correctly? Are we not giving some of the right enablement to be great? Or was it a failure in execution? If I just jumped to failure in execution, I could be wrong. So you got to figure out why, why the mistake.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah. Yeah. And now, I mean, this is good, not just for sales, but like, that's good for, for every type of leadership. Right. Like instead of going straight to like, this person had an issue is like looking, finding the root cause versus going directly, like pointing the fingers.
Matt Millen:
Yeah, we had a deal like that happen where like a rep, we did a roadmap presentation, the rep did exactly what was on the roadmap. And then then it comes in and like people like, Oh, we don't do this. And we had made a switch in the roadmap on two features that we didn't tell sales. So the rep didn't do anything wrong. Like we didn't provide updated information. It was our mistake, not the reps.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah.
Matt Millen:
So that's why you'll see patients because not everything is the way it looks.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah, so true. What's the fastest you've driven your race car? That's one of Hank's questions. What's the fastest you've driven your race car for context? Well, you could get some context, Matt. You also used to race cars. I don't know how long ago that is or if you're still doing it, but earlier in your career, you were like a race car driver.
Matt Millen:
Yeah, I stopped in the early 2000s. But I think the fastest I've gone on a racetrack, like 172, 173 miles an hour, I think is my fastest on track.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah, man. And going back to this, you had an analogy one time. And you actually wore your track suit on stage in, what was it, 2018 or something? Unleash, yeah, it was 2018 Unleash. You wore the track suit and you talked about the F1, how fast they come in for a pit stop and change tires, which is like around 2.3 seconds on average or something. And you tied that back to sales. And what was that? Remind me of that, because that was such a good one there.
Matt Millen:
So I actually use tire changing as a metaphor for the amount of technology and role specialization that's worked its way into sales. So here's the metaphor, the analogy. Like, if you think about it, I started selling in 1987. I did everything. There was no email, no internet. I set meetings in the morning. I ran meetings in the afternoon. I tried to handle my accounts when I wasn't running around. And, uh, and then, so like everybody, you did everything, like you did everything. And that's like, if you get a flat tire, driving down the road, you get a flat tire. You weren't expecting it. You pull over, you change your tire and you jack it up. Like you're doing everything. Then comes sales engagement. So a little bit of technology comes in, little role specialization, the SDRs break out on top of funnel, success breaks out post-sale, AEs are closers, right? So you got some role specialization, you got some technology. Well, that's like a NASCAR pit stop. You got six guys that jump over the wall. You know, they're changing tires on half the car at a time. There's still five lug nuts that recently just changed to one. But there's a jack, there's a bunch of people running around, they're fueling it up. And that takes like 12 to 14 seconds. Now, changing your own tire takes like 20 minutes. So with some role specialization, with some technology, some training that went in, like the team is trained, they've trained all week to do it. You do it in 12, 14 seconds. But then F1 car pulls in, and it's completely different. Like F1 is like AI for sales. where you can do the fastest F1 pit stop is 1.83 seconds, average is like low twos. And basically the F1 car pulls in to a half circle of 21 people and it stops and the car goes up in the air and everybody does one thing fast, like one thing, not running around. Like everyone stands there and does their one thing and they change all four tires in literally under two seconds. So a couple of things here, though. So how do we get from 20 minutes to two seconds? Well, we did it through increased role specialization. Instead of six people versus one people, now it's 20 people versus six people. There's more technology in the car. There's more technology that the people are using around it. But there's also something that gets overlooked, which is what's not getting done in an F1 pit stop? What's not getting done is they're not refueling the car. And they're not refueling the car because that takes so much longer than they can change the tires, and carrying the extra fuel for the whole race is less punitive than refueling during a pit stop. So you start learning, it's a great metaphor, like what shouldn't I be doing? And that's the AI today. Let the AI offload all the stuff you shouldn't be doing. And there's more role specialization, there's more technology to help you be great faster. So that's what I use.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah, well, now you can recycle that for AI too, because you're running red AI. That is that I love that analogy man, which is like in in going into this We everyone's saying SDRs are dying or you know all the outbounds dead Let's pause there let's pause there like Outbound is not dead
Matt Millen:
bad outbound is dead. SDRs aren't dying. SDRs that don't do tests are in a tough spot. So I think what's happening is just like we started this whole conversation, like there's a new bar of excellence in sales today versus 12 years ago. And the new bar is the quality of your engagement, the quality of your messaging, the quality of your precision. Like you there are tools and technology that allow you to operate at a better level faster and to drive impact and engagement that weren't available just a year ago.
Andy Mewborn:
And that that's what I've been trying to boil it down to where what kind of I thought about this on a run the other day and I was like, It's never dead. It's just the rules of the game have changed. The game has changed. It's like the rules have been updated, right? And the analogy that I was thinking of and trying to compare this to is when Instagram came out, people were like, oh, photographers are dead. Photographers are going to lose their jobs. And now everyone can be a photographer with these filters and their phones and their cameras. And like, oh, this is the end of like photography. Well, guess what? It actually made more photographers. And then the ones that were really good at actual photography had a better chance to stand out. Right. And I see the same thing happening here. Is that like, guess what? I think this is going to make more, honestly, give us more ways of doing this outbound, but the ones that are really good at it are going to be the ones that shine, right? Very similar thing. It's not going to kill them. It's going to, it's going to make more of anything, in my opinion. So that's kind of where I'm, my synopsis.
Matt Millen:
The AIs, so my SDR team here, we love our team, they're still here. And the AI sets 42% of all the meetings.
Andy Mewborn:
42% of all the meetings is done by AI. Holy moly. What's the AI doing? Is it sending the emails? What's it doing to book the meeting?
Matt Millen:
So we pushed AI from content generation to task execution. The AI goes into Salesforce, looks what you're winning, then goes out to your lead provider and is constantly building lists. We call audience expansion. It then understands who those prospects are, generates personalized contextual messaging, and we do dynamic messaging, no predetermined sequencing. So we're looking for intense signals, engagement signals. If there's nothing there, we'll just nurture your prospect instead of burning them out. We're not going to screw it up. And then we do all the cold outbound. And then when they're ready for follow up, we shoot up a task inside of outreach or sales loft and tell the rep to call this person or whatever the follow up is. Or half the time, Uh, they just respond back. We'll take the meeting. No follow-up needed. So we either get the direct meeting or it takes one.
Andy Mewborn:
That is crazy. And that is, and you're taking all the boring stuff that people dread.
Matt Millen:
We're taking the part of the work that people don't like to do because like the old way, if you had a hundred prospects, you know, there were three phone calls in the sequence and a manual email or two, like you're doing that a hundred times, all that effort when only three or five of them even want to talk to you, but all of them are getting the same effort. The AI can take all of that effort off and then only serve up the effort required around the three or five. So your reps are happier, your prospects are happier because they're getting better messaging when they want it. Um, and it's more impactful, more engaging and quite frankly, better results.
Andy Mewborn:
I mean, this AI stuff is getting crazy, man. It's getting crazy. You've seen the, um, I don't know if you saw that video of a figure, like the robot company and open AI had a partnership and y'all send you this video that just came out yesterday. We kind of went viral, but this robot, this guy's like, Hey, fold these clothes or, or, or not full of clothes, but put the pig, put this, um, it had like dishes in front of it, grabbed one of the dishes and put it in the drying rack. And it was like, okay, I'll do that. Boom, boom, put it right in hands. It looked like a human, like hands moving. fingers, thumbs, like, and you're like, holy crap, this is crazy. Like, are we going to have like AI, like actual things in our homes in like 10 years that are like, you know, doing our chores? Like, it's insane, man. It's insane. It's, it blows my mind every time. And you know, you're building an AI product. I'm building one and I'm like, okay, this stuff's amazing. Just kind of in our world software, but like, imagine it with these robots. And I'm honestly scared these robots are going to take over one day. I'm actually, I joke about it, but I'm actually pretty serious and I'm kind of scared about it. Like it keeps me up at night, like thinking about that sometimes, like.
Matt Millen:
Well, I'm glad you're worrying about it now.
Andy Mewborn:
Yeah, yeah. Because I am and I think, I know Elon's worried about it and he's like, this could get serious. And I'm like, I can see that too, you know? So who knows, man. But big M, this has been amazing, dude.
Matt Millen:
Spending time with you is always fun. You're one of my favorite people.
Andy Mewborn:
Thank you, man. You are too, man. We'll do that, my man. All right, my friend. Hey, good catching up with you, dude. Thank you for everything. I'm here if you need anything. Text away. All right, man. I'll talk to you soon. Likewise. Cheers, brother. Talk to you soon. Later.
