The Transaction

TT - 044 - Nick Toman - Full Episode
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[00:00:00]

Coming Up in this Episode...
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Nick Toman: There's too many CSMs right now and think their job is too big.

Commercial efficiency, the yield on dollars spent in sales and marketing has gone down, 50 plus percent.

Craig Rosenberg: when you guys came out with Challenger, I remember all the old dudes, were flipping out.

Nick Toman: We wrote it and we had to put on flak jackets immediately after.

And when things get tough, people go to what they're comfortable with, which is the product, the product, the product, and they hold tight to the product.

you got to help the customer make headway and you don't want to make headwinds.

getting people to work in that way.

holy shit, the unlock that we could possibly have It still blows my mind how much decision making occurs based on just gut feel in these commercial functions.

Even if your data is an absolute disarray, it can tell you things.

Will the Real Nick Toman Please Stand Up
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Craig Rosenberg: By the way, fun fact, Matt, with you wearing your hat, when I first met Nick Toman, so I was doing my pre call research, but it turns out there's another Nick Toman.

Matt Amundson: Mm,

Craig Rosenberg: he's a huge Milwaukee

Nick Toman: Milwaukee

Craig Rosenberg: that's all the shit you see on Google. [00:01:00] So I get on and I'm like, Nick, man, I mean, you're a huge Brewers fan. I mean, it, it, that was pre call research gone wrong.

Matt Amundson: Yeah. Gone awry.

Craig Rosenberg: that was, that was not Nick.

I was, you know, but honestly, Nick, that dude does look like you.

Nick Toman: He totally looks like me. That's the problem. And people are like, so you have another career in the finance? You're like a wealth advisor. Like, what's going on?

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, I mean, it's the weirdest thing because the other Craig Rosenberg definitely does not look like me. Um, the other Nick Toman, for sure, and he's a huge Brewers fan. ​

Introducing Nick Toman, Co-Author of The Challenger Sale
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Craig Rosenberg: Alright, so, uh, here, here's the, uh, here's the deal. One, um, [00:02:00] the, um, this will be the third of the, uh, Three musketeers of the challenger sale, Nick, it wasn't in order. It just happened that way. Cause remember when we, you and I were talking, I'm like, bro, if you were going to do it, I got to get Brent and he could only do it yesterday.

So we got, we, we did talk to Brent. Uh, we

had Dixon on

Nick Toman: he, did he Did he, talk really fast?

Craig Rosenberg: Dude, he was on point. He's pretty locked in. I know you talked to him, probably more than me, but I, I was like, wow, man. I mean, me and Matt were like, dude, he is so locked in. And yes, he was fast. He had, he told us the maggots on the plane story as well.

Matt Amundson: Mm-hmm

So,

We

Nick Toman: I haven't

Matt Amundson: we

cried.

Nick Toman: on the plane.

Matt Amundson: Oh,

Craig Rosenberg: the

Nick Toman: I don't know have to wait for the episode.

Matt Amundson: yeah. You'll have to tune in.

Nick Toman: I could just text him right now and find out.

Matt Amundson: No.

Nick Toman: Not a good idea? Are there pictures? there

Sam Guertin: There

will be an audio visual component to the show.

Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: [00:03:00] it's amazing, dude. Um, so, uh, so look, everyone, the, the, um, so that is, this is correct.

The Impact of The Challenger Sale in B2B Sales
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Craig Rosenberg: Nick is the third of the three musketeers of the Challenger world. Challenger sale, Challenger customer. Um, and, uh, it's Nick Toman who actually, um, um, Had to do not just write the book, but do a ton of actual execution of how we're out into the market.

So like, uh, he, he was a little different than the other fellas. Um, and, um, so, you know, I met Nick when he was at CEB and then worked with him when we were at Gartner. And now, uh, Nick spent the last three or four years building the SBI growth Group at Sales Benchmark Index. And, uh, so he's a glutton for punishment, but he does amazing things.

He's, you know, one thing, Matt, [00:04:00] you, you know, I don't know if we'll get into this, but one of Nick's things is he always tries to get articles in Harvard Business Review.

You do, dude. Like, it's amazing, and it's, it, like, that was the, wasn't that the killer turning point on the Challenger? You

Nick Toman: Oh yeah. It was, uh, the end of Solution Selling. And, uh, we wrote it and we had to put on flak jackets immediately after. It was hilarious.

Craig Rosenberg: Oh, man. I remember that, dude. So, by the way, everyone, I don't know if it's in the name because we're so conversational. Nick Toman. from SBI Growth is the guest on the show. Now, let's go back to this. Dude, when you guys came out with Challenger, I remember all the old dudes, they were flipping out. And that article, so that was the impetus was the article?

Yeah. And your buddy, Dave Brock, who's our buddy too, we love him, but I remember him and he was like gonna give you guys the business. And the cool thing is you guys talked and became good friends. But like, I remember, because we had a [00:05:00] site called Focus at the time, and I had this sort of cadre of like, sales experts, and like, they were just like, oh my god, you know, like, they, I mean, they wanted to get you guys, and it was amazing.

Nick Toman: funny. Cause like Mike Boswell who wrote Solution Selling was like, you know, what the hell? And we ended up taking him through everything and he's like, this is actually really good. And I don't know if, if, if Dixon or Brent told you the story, but we went out to, um, so Neil Rackham has a writing, literally a writing cottage in Leesburg, Virginia, which is not far from here.

And. It's as you would imagine. It looks like, it's like, it looks like a gnome or a, a, like a gnome would live there. I guess just this quaint little writing cottage, you go in there and it smells like, like rich mahogany and, and, you know, there's like a fire crackling

Craig Rosenberg: is happening right

Nick Toman: you know. And, and it's, it's, it was like 85 degrees, but he's got a fire crackling, you know, and it's just, it's just as you would imagine [00:06:00] it.

And so we, we basically went like, uh, you know, just, just sort of like later offerings to him before we launched all this stuff. Right. It was before we brought the HBR piece and we were in the throes of writing the book and we took him through everything. And he's like, I'll write the foreword to the book.

And it was like, holy cow, like he's, you know, like the, you know, the godfather of solution selling is going to write the, and he was kind of like, it was viewed as like a handing of the torch, you know? So it was this very sort of like symbolic moment. And, uh, we spent all day with him. He took us out to his favorite little like Vietnamese restaurant and he's got a little mini Cooper.

So there's four of us like smashed in his mini Cooper, you know, driving through the streets of Leesburg, Virginia, and he's really fast driver. And it was a wild day. I like it. Like there's so many stories from that day, but he blesses like the work. He's like, this is great. And then we come up with the HBR piece, you know, the end of solution selling.

And it was just like, he just threw an atom bomb

back

at us. Like it was

unbelievable. It was like, Oh

man.

Craig Rosenberg: That [00:07:00] is unbelievable. Well, Rackham, the, the environment that Nick just described is like, perfect for how I've always viewed Neil Rackham. So that's like, great.

Nick Toman: No, he's great.

Craig Rosenberg: That's funny. Yeah. So, uh, the, um, but the HBR article, I'm trying to remember you gave me the numbers at one point. It was extraordinary, right? Like

Nick Toman: Oh, that one piece. Yeah, that one piece is, it's funny at, at one point, and I didn't realize this, but our editor, um, he ended up leaving HBR before he left. He was like, Hey, by the way, I got to let you guys know three of your pieces are in the top 10 downloads of all time on HBR. Now this was a few years ago.

I'm sure something's knocked some of them off, but, um, we had three, three pieces from those CEB days. that it's in like, there's like a green HBR book on sales and they're in there and all this stuff. So it was a really good avenue to get exposure to the work. And, um, I'm [00:08:00] forever grateful. They just awesome people who work at HBR.

And, uh, I spent the day up there in the offices and seeing them build, like literally build the episode. Like they're, they've got a wall, they're putting together, you know, each issue of the magazine. It's, it's an awesome process. It's an awesome publication and, you know, help put us on the map for sure.

Craig Rosenberg: So Matt's a CMO. Should he work to get an article on HBR?

Nick Toman: Absolutely, man. Why would you not?

Matt Amundson: I think I maybe something on a, on on AI that seems to be a tasty

Nick Toman: to be if you put AI in a topic, you know, anybody's going to publish it. It seems like right now.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, I know. We throw it around. We wear it on t shirts. Um, all right. So we got the big question, which will start the conversation. But before we do, we're Um, Matt, I'm still using the Matt 2. 1 feature enhancement of the transaction as the lead in to this. Which is, Nick, you gotta tell us a story. You just did.

The Neil Rackham story was epic. But tell us, like, um, [00:09:00] you know, what's a, like, funny or even a heroic go to market story? Could be something you guys are doing as you build SBI Growth or something you've seen from others. Thanks, guys. Uh, we just, we, we're now, uh, leading with a story. It's worked great. And yes, Brent led with maggots on a plane.

That's not a requirement, but, uh, yeah. Any, can you tell us our audience like a, a great go to market story?

Matt Amundson: Yeah. Insects in some kind of mode of transportation would be excellent.

Nick Toman: Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: one kind of one, but

Nick Toman: The Neil Rackham one is a good

Matt Amundson: Riding

Nick Toman: man. And, uh. by the way, the funny part in, for those who don't track the career of Neil Rackham is he ended up writing children's stories. Uh, so he, he's like, he, he, so he, he has a pen name, uh, which I won't divulge. But he, he doesn't write them as Neil Rackham.

So he, he has written a ton of children's stories is sort of like he handed the baton to us and was like, I'm going to go write children's stories now. Um,

which is a really cool ending [00:10:00] to the story. Um, God, Oh man, where do I start with that? Craig? Like you could have warned me. Are you going to give me a

Craig Rosenberg: No, we don't. Yeah. I definitely realized that. Well, I'll just. As you think about it, I do want to mention, you mentioned gnomes, and Sam is a big fan of gnomes.

Matt Amundson: Big gnome guy. Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: Huge gnomes. He's in a club where they just talk about different gnome types. Yeah, it's pretty

Sam Guertin: Yeah, I actually, I traveled to Sweden last year for a convention. It was pretty cool.

Craig Rosenberg: The gnomes convention. Uh, tell us that story, Sam. All right. Yeah.

Nick Toman: know what, maybe, maybe going back, uh, Craig to the point of, um, that first HBR piece. And, and it's funny because we, we wrote a bunch of them over the years that were just by design. They were like poke people in the eye. Like we wrote a piece, um, back in, I don't remember, 2008, maybe.

And it was, it was Matt, myself, Karen Freeman. Um, who's working with that right now. She's, she's super talented researcher [00:11:00] and just, just a great person. But we wrote a piece, uh, called like, um, uh, stop trying to delight your customers, you know, that was the first

one. And,

uh, yeah, that was funny. So, uh, everybody's like, you know, you guys have no clue what you're talking about and blah, blah, blah.

So, um, but the, the beauty of it is like the research was the research. It was like, well, I, I don't know. Um, you know, d do you wanna argue with this based on your own personal point of view? And so there's a lot of counterintuitive things we found over the years and, you know, the end of insight selling and, uh, uh, the death of the sales machine.

So we tried to be really aggressive. So to the point of like putting on like the flak jackets, it was funny because we'd go through and the way we'd, the way we sort of wrote the research was in. in sort of the challenger methodology, right? It's, it's like, you know, kind of lull them into the warmer, you know, hit them hard with a reframe, explain to reframe all this good stuff.

And I'll never forget. So there's like this, this choreography to how we always teach the work. And it was like, take them on a journey. And it's like a rollercoaster. And, you know, I don't know [00:12:00] what, what order, uh, people will listen to the podcast. And if, if the Brent episode will go before this, but like, you know, you'll hear it, how Brent describes things for sure.

And it's sort of like, you know, Do the, do this big bold reframe and I'll never forget there was one time it's sort of a mutual friend of ours AJ Gandhi who's at Marlin now as a chief growth officer

Matt Amundson: Oh yeah.

Nick Toman: And I had worked with AJ for a couple years. He was actually at CEB. So I got to know AJ pretty well And then he was a client when he was at Ring Central and I think mutual client of ours Craig I think he was working with Topo at the time too, but I will never forget this.

We're in this Um this huge, uh, room in California introducing this to a ton of executives, right? It's like this point where like the high point hits and you're sort of like, and you've got it all wrong and we're going to show you why. And AJ puts his hand up. And it's like the only hand at that moment.

And for whatever reason, Brent Adamson stops. He's like, AJ, you know, do you have a, do you have a thought or comment thinking he's going to like pile on and like [00:13:00] really, you know, reassert the point? AJ is like, I don't know, Brent, have you guys got anything on segmentation? And the whole room was just like, Oh, man.

And I just remember, I was like, dude, like segmentation. Like at this moment, it was like, you know, here's all that's, here's all that's wrong with like, you know, frontline sales behavior. And it's just like segmentation. It's like,

Craig Rosenberg: I love it.

Nick Toman: it's a fix to everything. Segmentation, which, uh, I, I actually do agree with him on that.

It is a fix to so many things, but, um, man, what a, it was just a buzzkill moment. So, uh, maybe as AJ listens to this, he'll remember that, but it was

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, I love it. He'll enjoy it. He'll send us a note for sure. Alright, cool. So that was great. Those were actually two, uh, those were excellent, uh,

stories, believe it or

Matt Amundson: We got a bonus story. Look at that. That's

Nick Toman: I'll think, I'll, yeah, yeah, maybe we'll get a third one. I'll think of a third one somewhere. We'll slide it in.

Matt Amundson: Mm-hmm know

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. and it just happens.

Commercial Efficiency is Crippling B2B SaaS Growth
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Craig Rosenberg: So, uh, the, the big one as this is, I did warn you about, [00:14:00] which is the, the question that we launched the show on is this idea of trying to understand what you think the market is, uh, doing wrong or, or approaching wrong today. That could be anything from, You know, their strategy, uh, tactics, uh, approach, you know, whatever that looks like to you.

And it could be more than one.

Um, and what, what, what are, is it, or what are those things, and what should they do differently? So I'm going to hand the mic to you, and let's see what you got to say about

Nick Toman: Yeah. So, so the theme of commercial efficiency has been everywhere lately and rightfully so. Um, and I'll just, I'll just, you know, give a couple of data points because that's, that's what I do, Craig. Um, But, uh, if you look at, if you look at the growth yield per dollar of sales and marketing spend, right, we go back to 21, 2021, companies were making these companies in kind of the markets [00:15:00] that, that I specialize in, which is, you know, tech business services, healthcare, um, some of those verticals, uh, you know, for every dollar of sales and marketing investment, they were making about 66 cents in terms of growth yield.

on those dollars invested, right? Go to 22, it's about 50 cents. Go to 23, it's about 37 cents. And then you go to 24, at least last we had pulled this data, it was about 31 cents. So commercial efficiency, kind of the yield on dollars spent in sales and marketing has gone down, you know, 50, 50 plus percent.

And I think in many cases, you know, you start to say, okay, well, why, right? What are the reasons and what's going on here? And I think some, some, in some cases, uh, you're seeing things like actually to our friend, AJ, um, you know, segmentation is wrong, right? The coverage is wrong. The ICP is wrong. But, you know, to say that across sort of wholesale industries, uh, it's a harder sell.

And so you start probing as to [00:16:00] why, like what's going on here. Um, and I think a lot of it comes down to. Uh, differences in customer buying behavior and, you know, Craig, this is something that I think you and I initially bonded on probably 10 years ago with some of the research we were doing back in a day on customer buying behavior, and it just continues to kind of proliferate, and I'm going to get to my sort of punch line here as to what you know what I think people have gotten wrong around this, but, um, on the path, I think it's sort of important to establish some of this right where we've got five go to market representatives.

in the average deal, right? People that are working with a customer on the average deal. There's five of them. Um, 70

percent of

Craig Rosenberg: amazing data. By the way, I just want to stop. I'm glad you brought that one up because that, that was in there, Matt. I didn't want to, uh, I didn't send any of the stuff you sent to Matt because I, I knew that was like, that's a data point we've never talked about. By the way, all the data points are on the other side about the stakeholders.

What you're describing, the five [00:17:00] go to

market folks on it. I mean, that's incredible.

That, that is a

Nick Toman: but but it's,

Craig Rosenberg: took in.

Nick Toman: it's easy to understand. You're like, okay, well, we've got, you know, whoever the primary quota carrier is, right. Whether it's an account manager, AE, whatever, you know, it's kind of the primary, you've got some form of a specialist or overlay who's involved typically, particularly in technical sales.

Um, you've got some form of, of customer success person who's either going to inherit the account or currently has it, depending on kind of what stays there at stage air in the, in the life cycle, you got a sales manager who's involved and then like throw in one more potpourri person. Right. And it's like, Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. SDR, right? It's like, yeah. Okay. And it's so interesting because we ask customers like, do you know who does what? Which is wild. We did the big survey and 70 percent of customers were like, I don't, I don't know who does what, which totally makes sense at another level. Right? So just how we go to market, not only is it more people, um, but you just, you just look at the effect of what this is happening in terms of, of buying, where like, they're not even sure who to talk to.

And [00:18:00] now, you know, Craig, as we know, right, the average number of vendors that a given company is looking at when they're making a purchase is about three. So if I got five people from one vendor times three, like, holy cow, you know, it's just, it's just amazing as to what what's happening there. But then you've got inside the company who's buying 12 decision makers on average, right?

And what's really interesting is six of them are sort of like in the group, they're static, they're always there. But what our research showed us is another six come and go. They're transient, which is really interesting. So not just the number that's is 12 on average, right? This is just on average. This includes small deals, big deals, like all of it, right?

Um, but that half of them come and go. Which is totally disruptive to decision making when you think about it, right? Imagine when you're trying to run big projects and people come and go. Um, and, uh, in terms of the organizations that they're part of, there's like seven change events happening on average inside the, just the average B2B customer organization, right?

And this could be like [00:19:00] new executives coming in, significant new products are launching, you know, significant market headwinds are trying to tame. So, um, It's just like this layer of like change and internal complexity and then our go to market complexity and just mires everything down. So when we go back to this point on commercial efficiency and like, well, what's happening there?

A lot of it is just in terms of like how things get bought nowadays. It is really difficult to navigate this entire web. So here's where the thing that people are getting wrong comes into play, Craig. is we still see so many companies going to market holding up their offering, the product. Because their teams know their product super well.

And guess what? When you look at it in the context of what I just told you about, right? Customers trying to get things done inside their business. They're running significant initiatives. Your product is but a fraction. of the initiative, right? They might buy your product to just help a little bit in terms of this broader initiative.

And [00:20:00] if you're not supporting that broader initiative, which we find very few go to market teams are doing, only about 25 percent of them. Deals aren't going to happen. And so that's, that's kind of the big unlock for us is, is saying, okay, how can we take our whole go to market experience, right? SDRs, BDRs, CSMs, AEs, sales managers, whoever's involved in that pursuit and get them aligned.

to supporting the customer initiative and not peddling the product. And that right now is just pervasive. And when things get tough, people go to what they're comfortable with, which is the product, the product, the product, and they hold tight to the product. And we're seeing it at levels. I haven't seen it in my career.

I

Craig Rosenberg: Oh. Matt? Your thoughts? Oh, you're

giving him a kinda

Matt Amundson: what?

Craig Rosenberg: No, you were agreeing with him.

Matt Amundson: Yeah. Are you rating my,

Craig Rosenberg: You were also typing furiously.

Matt Amundson: well, I'm typing. I like to type notes actually during these, so that I can respond [00:21:00] appropriately.

Nick Toman: think you should move, move the microphone closer to the, uh, to the keyboard. That'll help.

Matt Amundson: oh,

Craig Rosenberg: Oh, man.

No, it's alright, we're

Sam Guertin: now that we've called it out, I'm not going to edit it out.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, that helps you Sam. We're just trying to help you buddy.

Matt Amundson: Yeah, it's Friday. So I've been seeing this a lot, right? And, you know, it's something that

Is Sales Commision Getting out of hand for B2B Companies?
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Matt Amundson: as an operator, we spend a lot of time talking about because when we're trying to work commissions and actually figure out, like, what are we really making on these deals? There's so many people who are involved now in the commissioning process.

You know, whether it's, you know, what we've seen traditionally, like, you know, You know, BDR, obviously account executive, solutions consultant, or sales architect. But now there's just more and more people involved in this. And one of the things that is, is a real challenge is one, you have to do it in order to get the deals across the line, but two, it's eating into the margins of every deal that you sell and forcing you to, to, to include bigger and bigger commissions.

And then that starts to get into the [00:22:00] question of with the, with the, with the the additional support that's going to our account executives, should we be reducing their commission size because there's more people involved in every deal than there ever has been before. So I don't know if there's been research that, that you've done around that, but like, to me, that stuff is, um, you know, that's creating a lot of challenges.

One, to keep people happy closing deals, but then happy when they close deals and actually get paid commission on it.

Nick Toman: Yeah, no, I, uh, I'm laughing because, uh, the story I told a minute ago about A. J. Gandhi, who was like, segmentation, like, I feel like Matt just went like, here's this big thing, and he's like, can we talk about sales comp?

Matt Amundson: Yeah

Nick Toman: crediting, but you're right, like, and, and here's, what's interesting is, you know, and this is, there's, there's work I've wanted to do for a really long time.

Uh, and I just, honestly, here's, here's the situation is hard to research, um, [00:23:00] compensation because to find models that are so far ahead of their time. out there that are addressing some of this is really hard. And to say, I want to study that, you just can't find outliers because the market is so normed on these classic sales, uh, compensation structures.

But you're right. You just get into this sort of advanced crediting, right. And overlay, overlay channel on top of that. Right. And it's just like, Oh my God. And it's like, you know, whether a service delivery partner or whatever, and it's like, you run into all sorts of like crediting issues and, and, um, and so, uh, you know, I.

There are, there are certainly ways to parse that out and find the appropriate crediting structures, find the appropriate compensation structures. But, you know, in my mind, some of the businesses that have just kind of thrown their hands up and said, you know, screw it. And we're just going to move towards team based selling structures and

pod based compensation structures.

I think are figuring something out and everybody is sharing in [00:24:00] the upside and working together, but particularly where you get into business situations where you've got, you know, different sort of technical solutions that can be layered into a given product. Um, it's an expensive go to market model.

I'll say that much where you've got, you know, a lot of people weighing in on it. Um, and so you'd go back to some of the data we just, we just kind of outlined. Um, that's, that's certainly part of it, but I, I think in some cases it's really warranted it. And, and you need it. Other cases, you would, you look at this from a job design standpoint, Matt, where you're like, do we really need all these people involved?

Right? Have we created too much specialization? And I see that a lot right now with particularly CSMs, um, where, uh, you know, I'll just say it. I think there's too many CSMs right now and think their job is too big. And, um, You know, do I have a ton of research to support this one? No, but my hypothesis, I feel pretty strong in these.

Like I think, you know, increasingly we've got to get to a job design where [00:25:00] CSMs really are handling, um, uh, very clear signals from a customer that they are struggling to either adopt the product or a retention problem and, you know, get out of this sort of ongoing servicing and, you know, you've got account managers and CSMs now vying for expansion opportunities and renewal opportunities and you're double comping them and it's just like, what have we created here?

And the job design is wrong inherently. So, it's not actually the comp model. Just got people doing things they shouldn't be doing and sticking their toes into tasks that should be in other departments or other functions. So there's lots of ways to skin that cat for sure. But, um, but I love, I love that you were like sales compensation.

Let's go there.

Matt Amundson: Well, I, I mean, I think like when it comes down to it, like that ends up becoming the thing that motivates, you know, people to do certain and various types of work. The other thing that, you know, this, this team based selling approach, uh, uh, sort of, um, clouds is then if things aren't going well, where, where is the [00:26:00] breakdown,

right?

Is the breakdown, uh, On the account executive. Is it on the solutions consultant? Is it on the sales architect? Is it on the BDR who generated the lead in the first place, right? Um, I think it just makes it really, really hard to diagnose where, where do the problems lie? You know, it's great when it's working, but when it's not working, it's really hard to then say, like, you know, sort of in places and figure out where does it hurt?

Mm

Nick Toman: know, that's just from kind of the operating side of it, right? And just from a process standpoint, where's the breakdowns in that kind of a go to market model? And to your point, it could be a game of incentives. Typically, it's not incentives. I'll tell you that. Like, typically, when you start to, you start to run through the analysis and you sort of determine where the breakpoints are, you know, it's, it's more commonly in the process elements.

But a lot of times, I'll tell you what we find is that you just got And so you kind of zooming back a little bit from from that example of team based selling and sort of like, how do you disentangle all that? Man, it's hard. You just think about growth [00:27:00] at a company like zooming way out for a moment and growth is really hard and To get the right balance of like the operating model and the go to market model, to your point, right, so like detailed operations and how people are being organized to do work.

Um, the growth strategy itself, like what are the markets we're going to pursue, why are we pursuing those markets, um, truly understanding kind of ICP and, um, Product market fit at the highest levels, right? Talent at, at the other kind of end of the spectrum is like, you know, do we have the right talent profile and the right roles?

And then, you know, the, the bottom part of this whole like pyramid here, not pyramid, sort of diamond is how I think about it is, you know, data and insights. And do we even have the right understanding to your point to go in and figure out where's the break? And if you don't have an understanding across all four of those, those spectrum points, right?

The whole thing won't work. Growth is a really complicated system. So I take your example and it's like, sure. But do you have the right people in the right roles?

Are we measuring the right things to determine where the breakpoints are? Do we have the right [00:28:00] process in place? Are we even going after the right market?

Are these people focused on the wrong customer segments and we're going at them with a giant hammer? And we really need a little chisel, right? So, a lot of ways to go after that.

Matt Amundson: yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: By the way, as you guys were talking, this is a little different, but I did want to share. I had two things I want to lead the witness on Nick, but like as you were talking, there was a, I'm just,

Why Don't Buyers Want to Talk to Sellers Anymore?
---

Craig Rosenberg: there was a really great tweet, which by the way was, was attributed to one of my portfolio companies, Vantage. Uh, Ben Schachter, but, uh, he was talking about, um, [bleep] and that people aren't taking advantage of the commitments, right?

You know, the, you know, the pre buys, so to speak.

And it's, it's, I'll just read the quote. It says, by the way, not definitive, but it's interesting. One possible reason users are avoiding commitments could be the need to engage with account managers and negotiate non public rates. for minimum commitments.

Using commitments could save you an estimated 20 to 50 percent [00:29:00] on cost, right? But they are choosing not to, and what the theory here on this tweet is that it's because you have to talk to someone, an account manager on that.

And to me, that's not exactly what you were talking about, but it is this idea that like, not only do we have multiple people touching the customer, but we're not adding any value.

Craig Rosenberg: And, uh, not building that relationship where someone can't wait to call so and so and go, you know, figure this out together collectively. By the way, I don't know that to be true. I don't, you know what I mean? And it says a possible reason. So everyone, I'm sure, will get a response on this. More importantly, it is an interesting, uh, that it's even brought up as an opinion.

Is really interesting and part of like this idea of like, not only are we creating this situation where we have like this confusing, created this really [00:30:00] friction full buying process. We're only talking about product or that our first reaction, which is what you brought up as well. We're just not becoming.

real partners in the process. If

that, you know, in that use case. So,

Nick Toman: well, you know, look, I'll, I'll turn to kind of the research side of this and then we just let's step back and sort of think about the application of this for a minute. And it's like, you know, why don't people want to talk to account executives or account managers? Like, you know, We know what the agenda typically is, and to your point, it's often product.

From a research standpoint, Craig, we went through and we were trying to understand, um, from the customer vantage point, right, what do sort of the most helpful and lucrative commercial relationships look like? Right. The ones that really, they hold up as like, you know, this is a great company. And not only do I say it's a great company, but, um, I have spent a significant amount and, uh, much more than even was typically [00:31:00] budgeted or planned or scoped, um, with these types of, of, of vendors or suppliers.

Key Behaviors for Successful Commercial Relationships
---

Nick Toman: And when we step back from all the data, there was, there was three behaviors that, um, clearly stood out. So I'll just, I'll just kind of read them here. Cause I got a little tick sheet. Um, one. Is advancing the customer's evolution in their business. So let's

just unpack that for a minute.

Going back to this point we made earlier, customers are running series of initiatives. They run projects, right? Think about what we all do within our own businesses, right? We are tasked to evolve businesses, right? That is why we exist. As leaders inside companies. And so our customers are doing the same thing, right?

They're not buying products. Buying products is not their job. Um, we often think of it as, as, as, well, that's, that's their job. And the center of the universe is them buying my products. Like, no, it couldn't be further from the truth. They're getting things done and initiatives done. And it turns out the commercial people who, um, support that initiative and help the customer's evolution.

are going to get welcomed in. So I look at a situation like that and it's like, okay, [00:32:00] interesting. Second one is those who anticipate roadblocks for the customer. And this isn't like roadblocks to implement your product. This is roadblocks to navigate that 12 decision makers, right? Navigate all the internal coordination.

Navigate, um, how am I going to get consensus and buy in from other departments who may not be on board with doing this this way, but God, we've got to do it this way, right? So, that's the second one. Um, in both those behaviors, they, they created over 130 percent more higher likelihood of the customer buying, um, what we call kind of a bold purchase, right?

A bigger, higher budget purchase. The last one I found, um, in the research, this is really interesting, is, um, the customer said the commercial team, back to those five commercial stakeholders, right? The commercial team is entirely aligned to my direction. Right? And you think about what that means. That means the CSM gets it.

They get what we're trying to do as a business. The AE gets it. They [00:33:00] understand what we're trying to do as a business. The sales manager who pops in and out of the deal gets it. I feel, I feel that effect when I work with this vendor. They understand what I'm trying. They're not trying to sell me a product and the CSM isn't just pushing for a renewal.

They're trying to make sure we're get, we're getting to this, this target. This initiative is going to get completed successfully. And you just think about what that means from a go to market standpoint, like getting a diverse set of go to market people orchestrated in that manner. And like, holy shit, the unlock that we could possibly have just, just getting people to work in that way.

But I think it's at the core of that, that text or that, that tweet, Craig, which I love your ADD was taking you off to, uh, to Twitter while we were talking, but. It's a, it's a great point.

Craig Rosenberg: uh, I'm going to lead the witness again. I got it, Matt. You'll love this one. I don't know if you saw this when you're preparing for the call, uh, with the real Nick Toman, not the Milwaukee Brewers fan.

Why Starting Fast is so Critical for Sales Success All Year Long
---

Craig Rosenberg: So I think you released today. I thought this was great for, if this will be released in Q1. [00:34:00] Um, That basically, and I'd love for you to talk about this. You guys did the research looking at financial performance of 600 companies. And that what we know, but now you've proven is that the fast start has a, is, is absolutely critical to your end of year fiscal performance and that we typically wait everything for the end.

And one of the things you bring up here is like, no, you got to win up front. And so I'd love, I know you've got other things we want to leave with the question, but then you launched this great research today, so I got to bring it up. But

Nick Toman: Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: really interesting.

Nick Toman: Well, you know, and, and here's, here's the, the, the fun part of this research is, you know, every sales leader will tell you that's true, but it's like, show me, um, and you know, this research isn't, isn't one that's meant to blow people's minds in that regard. Like you got it all wrong. Um, I think this is, this is fun research in that it's like, look how important this really [00:35:00] is.

And it is hard. to dig out of a slow start. It is really hard. And what was most interesting to us out of all the research, Craig, um, is the difference between those who've started fast and sort of sustained it. And those who kind of fell off or started slow and weren't able to, to find their way towards, um, you know, their, their numbers for the year.

Uh, the difference was purely one of execution. A lot of companies will tell you like, well, they're just, they've got more investment in, in, you know, in the commercial functions or more willing to plow more in our, you know, into sales and marketing. And, and it wasn't the case at all. You know, this was purely a, a function of better execution and it starts, you know, I mean, God, I wish we could have had this message out three months ago, even, because it starts with the planning process and applying those precious commercial resources to the right, uh, to the right accounts.

You know, we're back to AJ with segmentation here, but that it does matter tremendously. But then from a, a sort of [00:36:00] effectiveness standpoint, launching the year with, you know, Absolute focus on the basics of getting out in the market quickly. Don't wait on getting territories built. Don't wait on getting comp plans built.

Like any amount of delay matters. And then getting the teams out there and quickly building pipe matters so, so much, particularly if you had some, you know, some amount of, of territory, um, shifting, which, which most companies will through the, through the year end process. So it is, it's super important, Craig.

Strategies for Effective Sales Execution to Start the Fiscal Year Strong
---

Craig Rosenberg: So it's a matter of preparing for Q1. Or is there anything else that you would recommend to get off to that jump start?

Nick Toman: No, I mean from, from an execution standpoint, in fact, um, uh, I would love to put in a little plug here, which is, you know, we've got a nice research piece that, that outlines, um, ten, actually, no, we moved it down to five. It was ten steps. Now it's five steps to make sure you get out of the gates with a really A really great start.

But the first is, is talent. Um, not enough energy goes into talent. We sort of kick the year off and say, okay, sales [00:37:00] kickoff is the thing we do for talent. Like everybody, yay. We had the rah rah moment. Let's go get out in the field now. Um, but like this, this just relentless focus on do we have the right people in the right roles?

Do we have the right people? Do we have the right people in the right roles? And continually asking yourselves that, um, you know, it is remarkable to me, Craig, that so many leaders don't have a good mechanism or good gauge around do I have the right people in the right roles aside from asking sales managers and, you know, depending on what they see, they may or may not have that right or wrong.

Matt Amundson: Mm

hmm.

Nick Toman: So, you know, part of, we, we spent a lot of time at SBI is, is answering that question. And are there, are there moves you can quickly make, um, to, to get that right start, uh, to a year? So we think talent's one of the biggest things to focus on right now. Um, I would say data. Data is, is so important. And as we know, so incomplete, uh, you know, I'm living in company CRM data.

Every single day and it astounds me the state of the data, but just [00:38:00] getting the data in order so that you can make sharper decisions through the year and quicker decisions with a proper fact base. It still blows my mind how much decision making occurs. You know, based on just gut feel in these commercial functions.

And we have tremendous amounts of data. Even if your data is an absolute disarray, it, it can tell you things. And there are ways to, uh, de dupe it quickly, right? Get the data enriched, get, get data sets more complete. And that's a lot of what we're spending time with companies right now on is. You know, getting that fact base together and getting the right reporting in place to make decisions quickly going into the first part of the year.

Um, and the last piece of it, I would say, is around some of the technology, uh, particularly some of, you know, AI capabilities, but some of the technology that can just quickly, um, change, uh, the amount of sales efficiency and effectiveness for the frontline teams. Um, I think certain use cases are. [00:39:00] taking hold and we're seeing a lot of gains.

We can talk more about AI, Craig, if you want. But, uh, I think there's certain use cases that are awesome. There's other use cases that are really tough, um, uh, to make happen, particularly ones where you're asking sales reps to like, Hey, go use the GPT. You know, people are like, man, I mean, that's for those guys.

Like, I don't need that. Um, that's harder because you're, you're not going to get a huge benefit from AI, but where it's occurring behind the scenes and driving focus without humans touching it. Um, I think there's a lot of places we can gain a lot very quickly, even if territories are launched, the comp plan is built and you're like, geez, is there anything we can influence right now?

I think there is a tremendous amount. So

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. That's great. Couple observations on, Matt, on your typing

tactics.

One is, you're a very fast typer.

I'm impressed. I can hear it. Two is, you do this thing which is actually, you know, It's really great back. It's actually really interesting. So you go to do [00:40:00] everything you're when you do the space bar, it's incredible.

It is a totally different tone. It's really cool. So you got to sort of pay us off with the space bar. It's, it's amazing. Actually. Uh, I, Sam, we got to pull out the typing and just do that. Cause that, did you notice that? Like

Nick Toman: we should,

Craig Rosenberg: and then it'll go boom.

Right. It was, it was,

Nick Toman: should all We should all,

pause. And Matt, you just type a sentence

and

Craig Rosenberg: type some

Matt Amundson: Oh my god.

Nick Toman: the thumb punch at the end of it.

Craig Rosenberg: Matt's like, I'm on vacation and these guys tell me I gotta get on here and we're teasing him the whole time. Yeah. No, hey Matt, that wasn't a tease. That, well, it was, yeah. certainly typings. It really was. You can confirm that. He confirms it. All right. So, uh, sorry. I, I had to bring those two things up.

But like, are there other things you feel like the market is thinking about wrong and they should, uh, Think about differently?

Nick Toman: Oh man. There's like, there's a number of [00:41:00] places I could go with this. Um, One of the things we did, we did a bunch of work lately on going back to the talent theme, right?

Understanding The Four Commercial Role Archetypes & Their Impact on Deal Velocity
---

Nick Toman: we did a huge study last year to understand the state of play around kind of commercial behaviors and how do How do different commercial roles sort of do what they do?

And I say different commercial roles by design, Craig, because, you know, to the point we made earlier, five roles that are facing off with a customer, it's not just sales. And you hear so much about like, you know, studying sales roles. Well, we wanted to study. All the commercial roles and try to understand, like, what do they do commercially speaking, like what behaviors do they have that either lead to success or not?

And so, um, interestingly enough, like this was, you know, we did a few pieces of research historically like this with the challenger stuff. I haven't seen a really good. Good study in a long time in this regard. And so we thought, why not do this and do it with a [00:42:00] little broader, um, aperture on different roles.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah.

Nick Toman: The findings coming out of this were pretty interesting. So I don't know that this is like, you know, people have got it wrong necessarily. But what I will tell you is we found four sort of archetypes of behavior. Um, I'll just rifle through these real quick, right? We found one we called narrowing. And the narrowing behavior is what you think it would be, right?

It's like, I am always sort of, I'm closing early, I'm closing often. I'm trying to get the customer not to think about other options or alternatives. I'm not, if they ask questions, I try to just combat it, get them some tight information and we just move on. I don't want any distraction happening in this pursuit.

And the degree to which I can nudge a customer along, it will equate to commercial success. Right? Um, the second one, it, we called it provoking and interestingly enough, Craig, uh, you know, this was one that involved, um, leading with like provocative, edgy insights and trying to redirect how the customer's [00:43:00] thinking.

And it showed up in that data. So if you, if you don't think the challenger is like a real thing, like it showed up again in the data. Um, The third profile, uh, was one we called, um, Translating. And Translating was really interesting. It was like, um, very sort of data oriented, but the, the, these, these commercial professionals, right, and I don't say sales by design here, these commercial professionals, um, they use data to help the customer understand impact.

And the data is very sort of like denominated in the customer's business. That's why we call them translating. So it was weird to see the data thing show up. But more importantly, they're really good about like data in the customers, like in the customer's organization. So they can translate what the product means, right, to, to the customer's business really well.

And then the last one we call it anticipating. Um, and anticipating was really interesting going back to some of these buying themes we talked about at the beginning of the podcast. Um, but they were all about, uh, like I'm going to help the [00:44:00] customer think through this situation and think about what's around the corner.

And they were very sort of like future oriented, which was, which was pretty interesting and pretty cool. Um, so the question becomes like, which of those four, uh, tend to outperform? Uh, and so what I'll tell you is the first two, um, have dramatically longer deal, uh, Deal cycle times dramatically longer, right?

Narrowing, which ironically you'd think like, well, their cycle times are probably short, but they're probably winning smaller deals. Um, no, they, they actually, they actually, they do win smaller deals, but their cycle times are much longer. Um, the provoking one had very similar, uh, Uh, performance. And it's interesting because I, I think, I, I believe there is a role for provoking.

I believe it is oftentimes early in the commercial process. I think if you take today's buying dynamics of 12 people and you're constantly trying to reset, it slows things down. And, you know, you start to see that in the data. Um, and then the latter two pro, I want to say profiles here, more [00:45:00] like archetypes.

The latter two are, um, they were the ones you had. Much shorter cycle time. So you're like, wow, the people who took all the time to like translate it into the customer's business or, you know, like walk the customer through what they have to do and how they should think about their business situation.

That seems like it'd take forever and man, it's hard. Turns out their cycle times on, uh, were like 20 some odd percent shorter and their deal sizes were like 15, 20 percent larger. Um, so you kind of take what we were talking about earlier from the customer's vantage point around like, help me figure this initiative out.

I don't care about your product. And then you look at those kind of archetypes, two totally separate studies, but like the findings were really clear. Those who really do situate themselves in a, in a path of helping the customer. evolve their business and get things right, do much better than those who are like, you know, Buy this thing.

Don't worry about that perspective. Let's downsize it. Let's discount it. Drive, drive, drive. And you know, when you're faced with the commercial efficiency challenge we've got right now and [00:46:00] everybody's kind of struggling to get to those numbers, guess what, guess what the sales leadership is promoting?

Guess what the sales managers are pushing? It's that narrowing profile. And so that was super pervasive, super pervasive in the data. Um, and I want to be careful too, Craig. So like there's some times where it's needed and we see in some businesses, like PLG motions or more transaction motions do the narrowing thing.

Totally. Like, it works. Um, but there's most, for most of the listeners on this, I would think are going to be in a position where it just is totally counterproductive. Totally counterproductive.

Craig Rosenberg: was the name of that archetype again? The winning one, the The winning two were the translating and the anticipating, um, which is what we

Nick Toman: call them. So both of them.

Craig Rosenberg: or translating? Were they roughly the same?

Nick Toman: It's roughly the same. On balance, the anticipating is a little bit stronger. But, you know, the way I kind of think about this is really you should almost, you know, teach those or promote those in tandem.

[00:47:00] Where it's like, listen, if I'm going to help you think through this, I better do it with like a really sort of customer empathetic sort of point of view. Uh, and, and, and put this in language and terms you're really going to understand. So I tend to think about those almost as, as sort of a synonymous, um, like, like thing they should, they should go together.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. They would go together.

Matt Amundson: uh, the translating and the anticipating has a higher deal size. But I am surprised to hear that it had a shorter sales cycle.

Nick Toman: Yeah. Yeah. I honestly, I was too. That's one where you kind of, you know, if you're placing bets, you're going to go, well, you know what? They get home on fewer big deals.

Matt Amundson: Mm hmm.

Nick Toman: And it wasn't necessarily true that it was really interesting. Um, and, uh, I think the most surprising thing is that narrowing. is it was by far the longest cycle times by far and it's, it's persistent.

So we've looked at this on, we've got, we've run, um, 20, 000, uh, various [00:48:00] commercial roles through that analysis now. So a bunch of our clients use this and those findings tend to hold true. Like there's a few exceptions here and there, but those findings tend to hold true. And it's just, it is remarkable to look at those cycle times, deal sizes.

And then you look at the quota attainment ultimately, and you're like, Okay. I get it. I get it.

Matt Amundson: it possible that that's possible? Because it's such a pervasive and prevalent selling motion that like the buyers are just like, I'm just so turned off by this. Versus

like the, the more, uh, customer centric or empathetic selling motion where people like, Oh my god, like this guy's actually, or this, this gal's actually taken the time to learn about my business and, you know, build a real use case, a business case here.

Not just, you know, hey, we're going to solve this and we solve this for everybody, but really like going through the process of, of learning and understanding my business. Yeah,

Customer-Centric Selling and Trust Building
---

Nick Toman: And I think here, here's where I take it to more extreme level because this idea of being customer centric, right? [00:49:00] This isn't anything new or novel. Um, but you look at it in practice and it's like, God, it's just so broken. Like, why is it so broken? And this is where I go to that entire, you know, the go to market approach, broadly speaking, it's not just sales.

Like everybody's like looking out for number one And if you really want to get into it, Matt, like going back to your point on sales comp, that's probably what's driving a lot of this behavior. But, um, here we are. So, uh, but I, I, I think, um, I think, you know, taking it to its extreme, like here's the way I almost challenged people to think about it is, um, would you walk away from business if you knew you weren't the right partner for a given customer?

Right? Like that's the kind of mindset you have to have. And that's what's you're like, well, how are you going to close any deals then? And it's like, how are you going to earn trust? Right? Like that is the thing where you're like, listen, we're not the right partner, but here's, here's what you really need to be thinking about.

And actually I think there's a better company in this particular situation. And I'm happy to make an [00:50:00] introduction, you know,

but like, are you willing to go there? And like that is, that is a really high bar and that is a thought that scares the hell out of a lot of people. But if you're doing the right thing at the right level, and what's interesting, by the way, we've done some of that research historically.

What's interesting is, do you think the customer comes back around? Hell yeah. Or what more, more commonly happens is they're like, look, I know those other guys. You guys, even though you're not perfect, I think we can work with you guys and I think we can make this. I want to work with you because you get what, what we're doing here and you understand it.

And I trust you more. So I'm willing to, to, to give up on a few requirements

Matt Amundson: mm hmm.

There

Nick Toman: this through.

Matt Amundson: was a time when I worked at Marketo in like 2012 ish, where we would, you know, we would talk to a prospect and they would realistically be too early for Marketo.

Nick Toman: Yeah.

Matt Amundson: And we would say, Hey, look, we don't think this makes [00:51:00] financial sense for your business today. You know, your database is of this size. You know, your marketing process looks like X.

Like we recommend MailChimp or we recommend Silverpop or something, whatever we were recommending at the time. And I would say probably nine times out of 10, the marketer saw that almost, not like as an insult, but as like, uh, no, no, no, I can make the team. I can be good enough to be on your team. And it inspired them to want to sort of elevate what they were doing from a

marketing perspective so that, yeah, exactly, exactly.

Like, I can ride this ride. I know I'm a little short, but I can get on the ride. I'll be fine.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, that's cool. That's a great example. it's, powerful.

Yeah, so that was perfect. Um, uh, you know, the, uh, with, with the, the buzzer coming soon, we're at the three minute warning. Uh, that was an amazing drop right there,

Nick, on that data there on the archetypes. [00:52:00] I did not, like, I'm, well, actually, I'm, I, I agree with Matt, you know, your first instincts are.

To gravitate towards number one or number two right in turn like the numbers don't but like Basically, it's this idea that you are gonna do things That would seemingly prolong the sales cycle in order to shorten them

and you will behave in a way That's like, you know really customer empathetic Regardless if you get the deal or not, it's funny because all you challenger guys are saying the same things

It's pretty cool

because

Nick Toman: here's, yeah,

Craig Rosenberg: on and they said the same thing.

And it's just

Nick Toman: it's irrefutable, man. You, you, this is what, you know, I go back to like, we're not making, we're not making shit up here with research. Like people are doing this and we're finding it in data. Like people are doing this. And so you, you find it in how they describe their approach, how they describe their work or asking customers, right.

They describe the commercial [00:53:00] relationships that. They reward with great business. And, uh, it, you know, we're just channeling what, what is happening out there and the degree to which, you know, the degree to which you are just pounding on the sales process and just, you know, violently moving business through it.

Like, I wish you luck. I do. Um, but you know, these buying conditions aren't going to, they're not going to face off well with that.

Craig Rosenberg: Boom. There we go. That is the information you need to effectuate transactions on the transaction. Yes, thank you.

yes, yes. yes. I had an old sales leader, he loved the word effectuate transactions. It was just like, and we used to just, I mean, that's one of those where you, when you say you got us, like your face has to clench, you can't say it like, yeah, say effectuate transactions. Anyway.

Headway Selling & Delivering Real Customer Success
---

Nick Toman: hey, Craig, listen, I'm gonna put a period on everything I just [00:54:00] said, which is We've been playing with like, okay, how can we describe all this in like one little tight phrase? Cause that's, you know, that's another thing is just, you got to have the bumper sticker, right? And so we've been talking about this as like as headway selling, right?

You got to help the customer make headway and you don't want to make headwinds. Um, and so this headway selling is, it's like this little kernel of an idea, but, uh, a lot of our clients are liking where we're going with this. And we've been doing a lot of interesting kind of pilot work, rolling this out with some of our clients.

So, uh, more to come, but, um,

Craig Rosenberg: let us know. We're, I mean, uh, I would say, speaking for Matt, you can jump in, I mean, we're We're in generally been really excited about those conversations we've had with your buddies, by the way. Um, it feels right. And, um, I think it, if we had to sum it all up, it is something the market needs to reconsider and how they engage.

And so that's perfect. Headway selling, put it on the [00:55:00] list. And then let's, when you continue to, um, you know, optimize that, then we'll get you back on and go have that conversation. Okay. All

Nick Toman: Love to come

Craig Rosenberg: right, All right, that was great. By the way, not a Brewers fan.

Just a

heads up. Detroit Tigers, baby. Tigers,

Matt Amundson: enough, I am a Dodgers fan. Not sure if you realize that. And I am in Southern California right now, so I feel very comfortable wearing this.

Nick Toman: Well played, Matt.

Craig Rosenberg: Yes, actually the way things are in San Francisco these, you know, when I was a kid, like you couldn't wear a Dodge. I was a Dodgers fan. Growing up and then after just vicious beatdowns from like adults and kids alike, I just gave them up. If you wore a Dodger hat in the Bay Area, it was ugly. But now nobody's from here.

So like you go to a Giants game, it's what, 60 percent Dodger fans?

Matt Amundson: you. It might be. It might be. I mean, when I first moved to the Bay Area, like, the, the Giants were winning a World Series basically every second year, [00:56:00] right? And I'd be in a Dodgers hat at like, uh, Santana Row. You know what I mean? Like, nice, nice area, right? I'd be in a Dodgers hat and people would be like, What the fuck are you doing here, man? And I'm like, I don't know. Effectuating my wife's purse collection? I don't

know.

Craig Rosenberg: That's right. Effectuating transactions at stores at Santana Row. Alright, cool. Alright, fellas. Have a great, hey, have a great holidays, Nick. Great to see you, buddy. We'll

Matt Amundson: awesome to meet you.

Nick Toman: guys. Alright.

Matt Amundson: Thanks. [00:57:00]