Ben:

I guess, two SDR's had gotten into a fistfight over stealing each other's leads. It's just the most STR fight of all time.

‍

Ross:

"What the fuck, Kyle, are you serious?" "Oh my God, Dylan, it was so mine. It's not your territory, man. Get out of my territory, Dylan." "That's a duplicate lead, bro."

‍

Pouyan:

All right, we're back. I'll be honest, I still don't fully believe you, but hey, we'll take your word for it. That's some royalty for your shit people. That's what we do.

‍

Pouyan:

We're back. I'm Pouyan from Scratchpad. We've got Ross. I guess, at some point I need to just start calling you Corp but that feels weird, I'm just going to keep calling you Ross.

‍

Ross:

Yeah. All right. Well, I'm Corp otherwise known as Ross if you're my mom or Pouyan. And we are joined today by someone I know intimately, not certain, but I may have seen him naked. He's usually behind the scenes, but sometimes he's in the scenes. His name is Ben Gould. He is a true sales savage. He sold at Yelp and Zenefits, two of the most gnarly sales floors on earth that have ever existed. So he's seen some shit. He's done some shit, he's closed some shit. And now he works on more shit with me.

‍

Pouyan:

And he's doing a lot of shit right now.

‍

Ross:

A lot of shit. A lot of shit in Ben's life.

‍

Pouyan:

Why don't we start? I don't even know where to start, but why don't we just start with, how did you even get into sales? And there's so much more I want to get to, but let's get that covered first.

‍

Ben:

Graduated from college in 2014, went to Bates College. And one day, a couple of roommates came back and they were like, "We have to go to San Francisco after we graduate." And I was like, "All right." So we drove to San Francisco and...

‍

Ross:

Don't convince me too hard.

‍

Ben:

I was like, "Yeah, I'm going somewhere." I got a job at Yelp because they hire 40 new people every month. So I think it was maybe less me and more just they needed warm bodies in there. And Yelp was really like starting college all over again. You come in with a freshmen class, everyone's really young, everyone's new to the city for the most part. And so you're making friends with people.

‍

Ross:

Everyone's hot.

‍

Ben:

Everyone's hot, you're going out for drinks. It's a little like that. And then you get on the phones. And I remember my third call and you see the call log notes like this guy is angry or whatever, but at this point I really have no idea what sales is. He picks up the phone, he's screaming at his staff and I'm just like, "Hey." He's like, "Is this fucking Yelp? Are you fucking kidding me?" And I was just like, "Yeah." And he was like, "Fuck you. Get a fucking real job."

‍

Ben:

Hang up the phone and, yeah, it was off and running after that call.

‍

Ross:

New sales is for me, right then.

‍

Pouyan:

Yeah, I was going to say. You're just like, "I found it. This is my jam."

‍

Ben:

This is my home.

‍

Pouyan:

I guess, to get real tactical, what do you do after that type of a call?

‍

Ben:

Definitely, I think was I was kind of just in a little state of shock and looked at my manager and they were just like, "Yeah, welcome to Yelp."

‍

Ross:

Welcome to sales.

‍

Ben:

Yeah, welcome to sales and definitely trial by fire. After that, you're looking at the notes, this guy said no three months ago to someone else and I have to come in here and convince them otherwise.

‍

Pouyan:

I don't know, Ross. Do we dig into some of the stories from there? Do we go on to Zenefits?

‍

Ben:

I actually had a little pit stop in between. I got an interview with this startup that was growing super fast.

‍

Pouyan:

We're in a hyper growth mode.

‍

Ben:

Oh yeah. They were the next Google. That's what their CFO told me.

‍

Pouyan:

Spoiler alert, they were not the next Google.

‍

Ben:

Going to this company, being there for a month, walk in one day and a bunch of empty desks all of a sudden. You're like, "Huh, this is weird." And oh, you have a meeting down the street at this other office. And everyone's kind of tense. I'm just like, "Ah, fuck it. I'll just listen to a podcast on the way over."

‍

Ben:

Go in there, and they're like, "Yeah, we're laying off half the company, including you."

‍

Ross:

How long after you started?

‍

Ben:

A month. And everyone's crying. I was like, "I don't give a shit."

‍

Pouyan:

I don't even know you. What are you crying about?

‍

Ben:

And that's kind of when I started focusing more on writing again. Writing comedy, writing stuff about these experiences, had some friends at Zenefits and got a sales job there once I needed to start getting paid again.

‍

Pouyan:

Once things calmed down.

‍

Ben:

Yeah.

‍

Ross:

Once the market calmed down, the forces were in your favor. It's like, "I want to go to another rocket ship. Let me go to Zenefits."

‍

Ben:

Yes.

‍

Pouyan:

Nah, you're going to be like, "Let me go do another one of these. That was so much fun."

‍

Ben:

Yes.

‍

Ross:

Yeah.

‍

Ben:

Too much material.

‍

Pouyan:

I talked to somebody else recently that went through something very similar. And they joined this startup, there was all this promise. They were like, "Oh, we're growing, we're getting all these customers." Get there and like, whoa, completely different story. Right? So I don't think this is a surprise to a lot of folks listening. Maybe they had it happen to them, unfortunately, or know others. What would Ben today tell Ben going into that interview? How do you call bullshit on this? What do you look for?

‍

Ben:

Totally.

‍

Pouyan:

It's pretty jarring.

‍

Ben:

If I had advice for the former Ben, I mean, I'd say take the job.

‍

Ross:

Don't change at thing, Ben. You're doing great.

‍

Ben:

Yeah. I kind of just walked myself through that. I was like, "No regrets." I guess. You're going to get laid off. Yeah, whatever. You're going to get some severance and then you're going to land on your feet again.

‍

Ross:

Is Zenefits landing on your feet?

‍

Pouyan:

Yeah. So you didn't have enough, right? You went through... I don't even know how to describe it.

‍

Ross:

You were ready to get hurt again.

‍

Ben:

Going to Zenefits, I knew there was some red flags going in.

‍

Pouyan:

Like what?

‍

Ben:

They had been coming off of the mass firing like eight months earlier, basically.

‍

Pouyan:

So you went in after that?

‍

Ben:

Oh, yeah.

‍

Pouyan:

That seems like a great place to go next.

‍

Ross:

You were stepping over the bodies on your way in.

‍

Ben:

That first mass firing, it really just kind of sucked the oxygen out of the room, obviously.

‍

Ross:

Why?

‍

Ben:

I started in, probably, November at Zenefits and we're starting to build back up. And then three months after starting there, there is another mass firing of 500 people and a new CEO. And so I survived that and I ended up working at Zenefits for two and a half years.

‍

Ross:

Just so rewarding.

‍

Pouyan:

You found your place.

‍

Ross:

Do you have any outrageous stories to tell from Zenefits? The remnants, any remnants?

‍

Ben:

I mean, yeah. David Sacks had his last hurrah as CEO was throwing this massive holiday party at city hall in San Francisco.

‍

Pouyan:

We're going to get him on the podcast by the way.

‍

Ben:

Good. So you can ask him about this.

‍

Pouyan:

He's this bad guy. So get ready. You're just laying the road here for Scratchpads future culture.

‍

Ben:

Yeah.

‍

Pouyan:

And I can't wait.

‍

Ross:

He's on our boards.

‍

Ben:

Excellent. Excellent.

‍

Pouyan:

Come on. Tell us everything.

‍

Ben:

I never talked to him, but...

‍

Pouyan:

Don't caveat. He threw a party.

‍

Ben:

We walk in, its city hall, it's like Cirque de Solei. People just hanging from the ceiling, doing acrobatics on this shit. There's a casino room, there's this room, there's that room. Two drink tickets per person.

‍

Ross:

But you're friends with the person who has all the drink tickets. So they're just handing them out.

‍

Ben:

Yeah, exactly.

‍

Ross:

Drink tickets.

‍

Ben:

Too many drink tickets to count.

‍

Pouyan:

I'll be honest, Ben, I'm a little disappointed by that story. I think you're playing it safe. I don't think you're unleashing the Corp.

‍

Ross:

Yeah. What do you have to lose? You're never going back.

‍

Ben:

Yeah.

‍

Ross:

We need ideas for the party that we're going to throw.

‍

Ben:

Yeah, exactly.

‍

Pouyan:

A big part of the theme here is folks who've been in sales, have walked through that fire, which you clearly have, and walked back into it and into an even hotter fire. And then again. You found your way out and you're doing something so interesting now. And one trend I'm seeing is a lot of folks that were in sales, but have this creative energy and now coming out. And I don't know if it's a function of, it's just easier to publish stuff, or there is more attention being drawn to it, but I think you're doing what I consider to be super interesting, fascinating work. How? Did you know you wanted to do that? Was being in sales helpful to doing that?

‍

Ben:

I think that the first time I really realized what I knew what I wanted to do was when I was a little kid and I saw Michael Jordan playing basketball and I prayed every day that I would be six foot six, bald and black and at the NBA. And then those dreams did not pan out. So then I really realized what I wanted to do when I was in college. There was this, I guess like a paper blog. And it was called the Cat's Meow or the Bobcat's at Bates.

‍

Ben:

My senior year, I was like, "I'm going to do this." And people thought it was funny. And I was like, "Oh." I've realized I could write funny. But I didn't really view it as a career until I got into sales and I was at Yelp and I was just like, "I need to do that again to be fulfilled."

‍

Pouyan:

You didn't see sales as your career?

‍

Ben:

I didn't. Yeah. I definitely did not. Going into sales, I think that was an extra motivator for me to be like, "If I'm not doing what I want to do, then I need to spend every waking second outside of work, working on this stuff." Eventually, Matt Ross' cousin was saying how Ross was looking for someone to help him with ideas and come up with new skits. I think Ross had been doing it for about a year or so at that point.

‍

Ben:

We met at Final Final for some brews, some lattes.

‍

Ross:

A classic interview process.

‍

Ben:

Yeah. Classic interview. And then I showed up to filming on Saturday, which a lot of people don't.

‍

Ross:

That was the barrier.

‍

Ben:

That's it. Yeah. That's the real test. The interview process is usually a yes, and then no one shows up.

‍

Ross:

It's like, can he chug a beer? And then it's like, will he show up on a Saturday morning?

‍

Ben:

After chugging beers.

‍

Ross:

After chugging a lot of beers.

‍

Pouyan:

Did you learn anything from your time in sales that actually helped you take that leap? Or once you took the leap, you're like, "Okay, cool. That five years, it's actually helped me in what I'm doing now in some way."

‍

Ben:

Totally. I think being in sales kind of changes the way you think a little bit.

‍

Pouyan:

Like when you're being yelled at for calling people?

‍

Ben:

Getting thick skin, that's something, but also, just how to communicate with people. A lot of the stuff I'm doing right now with podcasts are branded podcasts with companies and so it's a lot of moving pieces and people who you might not be their first priority. They might not be your first priority either, but trying to get people on the same page, setting expectations, getting ahead of problems, that you could see in this sales cycle that is scheduling a guest for a podcast and recording it and getting these edits out and social and so on and so forth.

‍

Ben:

I mean, everything's a sales cycle. And everything is selling people on a process and getting on the train with you. As crazy as my sales experience has been, I'm so happy that I went into sales after college. And I mean, if I ever have a kid, I'm going to make him make cold calls at Yelp after he graduates. I think it should be mandatory.

‍

Ross:

Like his father before him.

‍

Pouyan:

I wonder if he'll call that same restaurant, the angry restaurant owner.

‍

Ben:

Yeah. God-willing. Yeah. I mean, there'll be someone out there.

‍

Ross:

Someone out there eagerly awaiting a cold call from a Yelp rep.

‍

Ben:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Oh, finally you called.

‍

Ross:

I've been waiting for you. Yeah. I'd love to give you a bunch of money to hold me hostage with my reviews.

‍

Ben:

Nah, that's not true. That's not true.

‍

Pouyan:

One thing we do ask everyone. I don't know if you've seen the other episodes though. What was, or maybe what still is, your hype song? When you were going in to get fired up to make some more cold calls.

‍

Ben:

Yeah. I have listened to a couple episodes, so I was prepared for this question.

‍

Pouyan:

Okay.

‍

Ben:

I did set a new PR in the Peloton earlier this week. First time in months. I don't know if anyone out there...

‍

Ross:

That's a big deal.

‍

Ben:

You start off hot, you're setting PR's every day. Then you pull something in your back, you take a couple months off and you're like, "Ah, I don't know if I can go that hard again." But I was listening to I Follow Rivers by Swedish artists Lykke Li, the magician remix. Highly recommend.

‍

Ross:

What? Did you even just say words?

‍

Pouyan:

Yeah. I don't know what you just said, but I'm going to have to go back and listen to the recording.

‍

Ross:

The Legolas?

‍

Ben:

Lykke Li, I think is the correct pronunciation in Swedish. And the...

‍

Ross:

The Swedish Legolas.

‍

Ben:

I Follow Rivers, the magician remix. Play that while you're on the Peloton and you will set a new PR.

‍

Ross:

I'm ready to do drugs.

‍

Ben:

Yeah. Yeah. That's that vibe.

‍

Ross:

My thighs would absolutely love that song. So I get that.

‍

Ben:

You will set a PR, I guarantee it.

‍

Pouyan:

I feel left out. I'm not listening to this. I got to get this up here. On the flip side then, what's your recovery song?

‍

Ben:

I have a cousin, Will Fox, who's coming out with an album pretty soon. His first album is great. It is pretty sad though. So it's great sad music. And I think, probably, my favorite song that his first album is called Against the Tide. You can find it on Spotify, Will Fox on Spotify. And it's very sad.

‍

Pouyan:

Ben, I think people want to know, what is it like working with me? How much of a treat is it? Do you just feel like you're growing every single day?

‍

Ross:

I was going to ask that, I don't know if I want to open that door on this session, but fuck, let's do it.

‍

Pouyan:

What's it like?

‍

Ross:

Let's go in, from the other side.

‍

Ben:

Yeah. Working with Ross is great because, I mean, it's just great to have the opportunity to write comedy and get stuff out there that people actually see. And I think Ross and I definitely have different personalities. Ross never turns off, it's like, go, go, go. A hundred percent. I don't think he sleeps. I think in his sleep he's...

‍

Ross:

Look at my face. Do I look like I sleep? Not much.

‍

Ben:

It's why he's so fatigued all the time.

‍

Ross:

I sleep with my eyes wide open.

‍

Ben:

Yeah.

‍

Ross:

That's his resting face. I'm not going to live very long, but I will burn bright.

‍

Ben:

Yes. Exactly. He's a bright star shooting to the top. And it's very fun. Sometimes we'll just be up til midnight cracking up, writing a speech for some random company. That stuff's just great. The fact that that's part of my job is pretty fucking awesome.

‍

Pouyan:

Is that for SKO's?

‍

Ben:

Yeah, SKO's.

‍

Ross:

Conferences.

‍

Ben:

Conferences.

‍

Ross:

All hands, whatever.

‍

Ben:

That's basically it. Yeah, all hands.

‍

Pouyan:

I want to dig into that for a second. Do you get your material from that? Do you get some SVP, VP, CEO type? Of course, I wouldn't do that, but let's just say, come meet me. I would like to talk to you. I'd like you to share with the team of how we have synergy at the company.

‍

Ben:

Totally.

‍

Ross:

No, they'll be like, we always send a questionnaire out, and it'll be like, "What's the vibe?" But people would be like, "Well, it was a tough last year, but everybody's working really hard. And we just want to let them know that we appreciate them. And this year's theme is grit."

‍

Ben:

Yeah.

‍

Ross:

And it's like, "Of course it is." Yeah.

‍

Ben:

Especially, us not being in sales anymore, technically. Not being on the sales floor and not making calls and getting yelled at by prospects. Where a lot of the content originally came from. A lot of that pain and just like, "Wow, this is so ridiculous." A lot of it now, we'll get from bravado, like in the war room, you're seeing a lot of salespeople posting on there and stuff that they're going through. And in these questionnaires, the stuff that people fill out, there's a lot of the Silicon Valley tech lingo that you're just like, "Oh, we have to make fun of this." So it's a nice insight. And you can see the similar threads between all the different companies. And so if everyone's saying that, if we make a joke about it, it'll land.

‍

Pouyan:

I was going to ask if you're seeing patterns? You're starting bucket companies, you're like, "Our reps really care about providing Roy for our clients."

‍

Ben:

Yeah.

‍

Ross:

Yeah. Well, you can tell too, the companies that are huge, but should have so much budget, but then they don't. And they're like, "Yeah, we allocate $20 a quarter for each rep." And I'm like, "Ew." So I got to call them out for that. You can tell in our questionnaires, whether a marketer wrote it, sales ops, enablement, or a salesperson filled it out.

‍

Ben:

Yeah.

‍

Ross:

One of the questions we ask is, "What's the number to hit? What are you trying to hit this quarter?" Some companies are weird about it. And then this most recent company was like, "A hundred percent." And we're like, "Oh, you're trying to hit a hundred percent this quarter?" Yeah. No fucking shit. I'm out here trying to say your number is 21 mil. I hope you all get to 21 mil. So go out there and grind instead of like, "You guys need a hundred percent." We know. Just put a bullet in my brain. I know that. Who spent time to write this and tell me what I already knew?

‍

Ben:

It's fun in these things that we'll write up. Definitely have a goofy sense of humor, but also, I'm not the one speaking at them. So I'll maybe go a little harder and Ross might be like, "I don't know if I could say that."

‍

Ross:

Yeah. We can't call someone a bitch, basically.

‍

Pouyan:

Really?

‍

Ross:

It's true, but we can't. We probably can't say that. And now we're doubling down on me being naked again. We made one joke. We can't keep going back to the well.

‍

Ben:

Yeah.

‍

Pouyan:

Ben, I guess I'll ask you this since Ross opened the door. Have you ever seen, or have you ever come back from one of those and been like, "Oh, shit. Ross went too far on that."

‍

Ben:

I think Ross is usually the one that would freak out about it, because it's his face too.

‍

Pouyan:

Yeah.

‍

Ross:

He's not the one waking up at 5:00 AM to deliver the speech.

‍

Ben:

I'm not the one sleeping with my eyes open. I'm like, "No, let's go as hard as possible."

‍

Pouyan:

How much flexibility did you all have though? Do you have to present this to them to approve before you go up there?

‍

Ben:

It depends on the company.

‍

Pouyan:

Yeah.

‍

Ross:

The big ones. Yeah. We'll have to... I give them the option, even though I hate doing that. And it's also, I know they can't read tone or how it's said, so they can just read it flat and it's like, "You're not going to understand why this is funny. It's how I say it that's funny. Or the pause that I leave in the middle that makes it funny." And so you'll get people trying to suggest jokes, like, "Oh, you should say this here."

‍

Ross:

And it completely ruins the flow. Let me do the funny parts, you just tell me if this is offensive. All I want to know is, am I going to get you in trouble? And if not, then just let us handle that part, the creative. And it's the same thing whenever companies want to work with us.

‍

Ben:

Yeah.

‍

Ross:

They're like, "Oh, we want you to do you and be yourself because you're so authentic." But we've got a bunch of notes here where you can't say this, this and this and honestly need you to be a robot.

‍

Ben:

Yeah.

‍

Pouyan:

We want you to be you, but here's a script.

‍

Ross:

Basically.

‍

Ben:

Yeah, exactly.

‍

Ross:

Basically. We did that to Google recently. We literally were just like, "Nah, we're not working with you guys. Sorry. Thanks for the Google phone, the Pixel, but we're not working. We're not doing this for you guys."

‍

Ben:

They're just not really big enough for us, I feel like.

‍

Ross:

Yeah. We need something with a little more money, a little more brand recognition.

‍

Ben:

Yeah.

‍

Pouyan:

You want the up and coming rules, right? The next ones.

‍

Ben:

Exactly. Like my former startup.

‍

Ross:

Maybe Zenefits would have us over there. Weird I haven't talked to Zenefits yet. They would love that.

‍

Ben:

I don't know. Do they...

‍

Ross:

Do they exist?

‍

Ben:

I don't know. I'll have to ask AK.

‍

Pouyan:

I learned a lot out of this. I'm going to talk to David about our next party.

‍

Ross:

Yeah. Get David on this pod. And I'm going to ask him about that party.

‍

Ben:

If I'm on the pod with David and he tells a crazy story, then I'll tell a crazy story.

‍

Ross:

Here's the thing about David that I really do respect and appreciate though, is as an investor, having real operational experience and I think really understanding sales. At least that's been our experience. So I think just from that perspective alone, it'd be awesome to have him on here.

‍

Ben:

Yeah.

‍

Ross:

And his perspective of sales, but, yeah, we'll work on it.

‍

Ben:

Yeah. I mean, he definitely was a big part of Zenefits and they had a huge... Just so much excitement. I mean, the people that got there before I showed up, those are the real stories, was before I showed up. And it was just...

‍

Ross:

What's the craziest one you heard? Come on.

‍

Ben:

These people in the stairwells.

‍

Ross:

I will not fire you, I promise.

‍

Ben:

I mean, there's the stairwell story. I don't know if that was one incident or multiple.

‍

Ross:

What was that? Just people banging on the staircase?

‍

Ben:

I think it was a way to just kind of describe the overall atmosphere. I can't really think of a specific one. It was just Friday at noon, if you close the deal, which everyone did, because they were a frigging rocket ship to the moon. You'd come over to your SDR's desk, you'd pour shots, you were done for the day. Then the next one did, then the next one did, then the next one did. Pretty soon, it's 8:00 PM. The entire company's plastered. They spill outside because facilities is just like, "Get out of the building."

‍

Ben:

It's Friday at 8:00 PM. They'd fallen to Red Dog or maybe Gold Club across the street.

‍

Ross:

Gold Club, great brunch.

‍

Ben:

And then just the party kind of continued. And it just had that atmosphere of just everyone's crushing it, everyone's killing it, everyone's making money and everyone's having a super fun time doing it.

‍

Ross:

Too much fun doing it with each other in the staircase.

‍

Ben:

Exactly.

‍

Ross:

At 8:00 PM with facilities watching.

‍

Pouyan:

I've noticed a little side glance from Ben as he said that.

‍

Ross:

It was Ben.

‍

Ben:

That was an unnamed... That was before I showed up, for sure.

‍

Ross:

Yeah. If we had a source at Buzzfeed, we would have had corporate bro on Buzzfeed already if Ben had any sources over there.

‍

Ben:

Yeah, exactly. Oh, there was actually...

‍

Pouyan:

There we go. Okay. Now we're just firing it up again.

‍

Ben:

Yeah. Firing it up. All right. So there was a holiday party. This was the last holiday party.

‍

Ross:

Last holiday they ever had.

‍

Ben:

Yeah. It was the last one ever. This was the year after Sacks' dope holiday party at city hall. But this one was at a really classy restaurant in Soma. I forget what it's called. I remember eating there later and then bringing the menus and being like, "Nope." And just walking out before I ordered because it was so expensive.

‍

Ross:

Dude, I'm an SDR.

‍

Ben:

Yeah. I just remember, I was talking with my buddy, Joey, in facilities and we're hanging out and he just books it past me. I'm like, "Whoa, what the hell is going on?" I guess two SDR's had gotten into a fist fight over stealing each other's leads. It's just the most SDR fight of all time.

‍

Ross:

"What the fuck, Kyle, are you serious?" "Oh my God, Dylan, it was so mine." "It's not your territory, man." "Get off my territory, Dylan." "That's a duplicate lead bro. It's not my fault the Salesforce team sucks." "I had log call notes in there." "Just as long as Dylan stays out of my territory." "I have Tuesday to hit quota and he's stealing leads. That's inbound."

‍

Pouyan:

Well, Ben, thanks for joining us on Beyond Quota.

‍

Ben:

It was a pleasure.

‍

Pouyan:

Talk to you later.