Hey, listeners. Welcome back to another episode of Two Dads in Tech, where we talk about things that you think about but don't really talk about.
I'm Troy Monson, father of two, founder and CEO over at Demo, a place to evaluate software without jumping into a sales cycle.
And I'm Daniel Burke, husband, dad to two incredible boys, sales leader, LinkedIn lunatic, and Beehive newsletter evangelist. Thanks for tuning in. We hope you enjoy this episode.
Daniel, how about you say we go ahead and get into it? Let's do it. Daniel. Hi. Happy birthday. How are you? Happy birthday, Troy, and whoa, look, look at, look at who's with us. Happy birthday, KD.
You know, every day can feel like a birthday. Why not? I'll take it. Why not? That's exactly right. Every day is our birthday, especially when we record these podcasts. And people know that we have a guest coming up.
They have no idea who it is. That's right. A lot of people speculate that it is Brian Lamana, because we bring him up in every episode, um, but it's not. Even better. Even better. Sorry, Brian. Even better. What the?
But, but Daniel- Yeah, throw him under-- run him over with the bus. You know who it is. Not even throwing him, just completely just rampage his life with the bus.
We have a great guest with us that we're so excited to introduce. We have with us at Two Dads in Tech, in the studio, Kevin "KD" Dorsey, the one and only. He is a CRO at Finally, but he's so many other things.
And so I actually would love for KD to introduce himself and tell the Two Dads in Tech listeners what he's about. Oh, man. I mean, Kevin Dorsey, and everybody calls me KD at this point.
I am a, I am a son, I am a brother, I am a husband, I am a father, um, and I'm blessed to be a leader. I love salespeople.
You know, that's what I've been doing for the last thirteen, fourteen years now, and I've had, had some good runs.
I've built several teams over a hundred reps, couple, couple unicorns, and trying to work on my third one right now. But that, that's who I am, and I'm very, I'm very blessed.
I've been very blessed, you know, over the past, you know, twelve, fourteen years, and it feels good. It feels good to be here. I appreciate y'all inviting me. Of course. It's great to have you.
And, and KD, I'm gonna throw you directly on the hot seat as soon as we start, all right? Get ready for this. So I'm gonna hit you with a question. Actually, I'm gonna hit you with a couple of questions here.
The first question is, what job is harder, an SDR or an AE that was just promoted from an SDR? SDR. What? Whoa. Hot take. Clearly. Yeah, hot take. Tell us why. Explain.
Mm-hmm. Hey, so and I'm gonna emphasize, and anyone that's worked with me knows I'm a, I'm a stickler for words. Right? I'm a stickler for words. So the, the way the question's asked, harder.
I believe the SDR job is harder. The AE job requires a different level of skill than the SDR job. But the SDR job is harder, even at a high level of skill as an SDR.
The amount of rejection you're going to face, the amount of hangups you're going to face, the delayed gratification you are going to face, the pressure of that is significantly harder than the AE side.
The AE side, though, requires a different level of nuanced skill. So zero, zero hesitation. Zero hesitation. Okay. The SDR job is harder. I'm gonna, I'm gonna boil that down a little bit more here.
So let's hypothetically say this AE just got promoted from SDR to AE, and this company is not well-known, so they don't really get a lot of inbound leads, so they're still having to be an SDR 90% of the time.
That's like the organizations I've been in. Would you still say it's harder? Yes, because they almost never get to have the easier conversations.
Meaning, once you are a full cycle AE, at least you still get to run the demo, and you still get to have calls intentionally with people that are willing to talk to you. You don't get that as an SDR regardless, right?
So you become an AE-- I was literally just last night, I got to go to a happy hour for a company here in, in Austin. I have a couple mentees that have joined their company, and one of them was a former SDR.
She's now moved into AE, and we talked about this. She's like, "People are nicer." Like, I like- Yeah... I prospected them, but then on the disco call, they're, they're nicer. They're willing to hear me out.
They give me 30 minutes. So yeah, it's... I still, I'll stand by that, that question, 'cause as an SDR, you don't get the other side of this. You don't get a 30-minute conversation. You don't get a 60-minute demo.
You don't get the close of the deal. Absolutely still harder, for sure. Yeah.
Yeah, and I think one thing you also don't get internally from the company is you also just don't get the appreciation at many organizations as the SDR, because you're not closing the deals.
So it's kind of just like, go book meetings and let the AE get all the credit for it.
Well, um, and what's wild is it's, it's funny 'cause, and, you know, people get super fired up about this on LinkedIn, 'cause people will say this stuff like, "Oh, the SDR is, you know, it's the hardest job," and there's SDR appreciation week and there's all this.
The, the problem with all that is the way appreciation is shown doesn't make material differences in their lives. 'Cause also went from SDR to AE, you're talking about a minimum, minimum of a 30, 40K pay increase.
Like minimum. Yeah. Right? Like, that's lifestyle changes now. That's a different place to live. That's a different type of car. That's a different type of vacation.
Whereas if I sit down with an SDR, I'm like, "Yo, you are the backbone of this company. I appreciate you so much. I'm gonna put your face up on the board."
But they're still making 65Gs working at a home with five roommates. Again, the appreciation is different. The SDR role is harder, and it's for sure harder. Yeah. Daniel, what do you think? I love that.
You know, I'm actually gonna refer back to a post of yours recently, KD. You said, "I gotta shout out my outbound SDR team real quick.
This squad was hired before we had great onboarding, solid messaging systems, but they're booking 12 to 15 ops per month through the phoneOnly.
And there's a lot more to the post, but that, what a great opening to a great post. I was like, okay, I gotta ask KD about this. How are you training your reps to get that much output on just the phone?
I mean, so there's, there's a few elements to this, right? One is the removal of options early. So I'll open with that. They don't have another way to book meetings right now.
They are not set up on a sales engagement tool. They are not set up on social to be doing things there. They're not even set up to, like, source leads. We do all the lead source for them.
So one, there's the removal of options where it's like, this is what we do.
Funny enough, bringing it way back when to Ag Nation and at PatientPop, when people are going through onboarding, they didn't get, like, their outreach or sales lofty until month two.
We-- it wasn't even an option, right? Because I'm trying to not distract from what needs to be done. So that's the first, is there isn't another option. So once something is a standard, it's amazing what happens.
So like, this is just what we do. Like, this is just what we do. There's not a- Yeah... another way around it. So that's the first, is there's removal of options. But then two, you know, I talk about this a lot.
We are, we are maniacal with practice. My, my reps practice every single day. Every single day. We leverage tools for it. We leverage each other for it. We do self-practice. We review calls regularly. Like, we are fine.
There, there have been days I'll jump in, I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. This was the objection we saw today like fifty times." And I look at how people are handling it, like, what happened here? This isn't what we taught.
This isn't what we know. So within a matter of days, we're back to like, "Nope, remember, this is what it is. Let's train on and coach to it."
So it's just, it's focus, it's practice, it's repetition, and then, you know, I'm, I've done this long enough that I think I have a very good framework for how cold calls should go.
And we really hold people to that, and we hold the line to it. All right. I'm gonna hit you real quick. Sorry, again, I'm gonna interrupt you. We know how cold calls should go.
Do you care about the permission-based opener, or do you think it's all tone to get them to book a meeting and to get people to stay on the phone? So tone, tone trumps everything. I will say that. Tone trumps everything.
Permission-based, not permission-based, if your tone is off, nothing matters. And funny enough, that's what we practice. We practice the tone. Everybody can read- I like that. Hmm... everybody can read.
We're not practicing the word, we're practicing the tone. That's actually what- Yeah... practice is supposed to be about, right? We practice the tone, so I will caveat that.
But yes, we use a permission-based opener, but we use a normal permission-based opener. None of this like, "Hey, I know you weren't expecting my call, and this is a cold call."
We wanna roll the dice for twenty-two seconds and see if we land on seven and see if it like... No one talks that way. So our permission-based is very, very simple. We identify ourselves.
"Hey Daniel, it's KD over at Final. I'm actually just on your website, and truthfully, I was just hoping to ask a couple quick questions to see if it's, you know, worth having a larger convo. Would that be okay?
Do you got a sec?" I love it. Yeah. I mean, I have a sec. Now, now I'm, I'm, I'm clearing my calendar for that conversation. It's like, because again, everyone jumps to the end. The first goal is to get the conversation.
We're saying, "Hey, this is what I want." And what's hilarious about it is it's completely honest. What do I wanna do? Yeah. I wanna ask some questions. Why? To see if it's even worth having another convo.
I don't even know if it's worth it. We won't go into it today, but there's a lot of psychology built into that framework, and two, around minimizers, around justifiers, around amplification, around positive.
Like, there's a lot built into that as a curiosity builder of like to see if it's even worth it. You know, what does that even mean? So that, that, that's our opener. So it's permission-based.
I'm asking permission to ask my questions, but it's not this random nonsense that I see get taught all the time. Well, so I have to ask, it leads me right into my next question. You went to UW Madison for kinesiology.
At what point in your career did you realize that kinesiology was stupid? No, just kidding. That you wanted to shift to tech sales? Because that's, I mean, two sides of the same spectrum, I think, right?
I mean, what, what made you realize you wanted to do tech sales? It... Well, so nothing made me realize I wanted to be in tech sales. Nothing. That was not the journey. That was not my vision. I had nothing to do...
This was not a-- Tech sales was not a choice. Sales was the choice, which I'll touch on in a second. Tech sales was, was not.
I decided to go this route my senior year of college, where I was sitting in analytical physics. It was so, it was like first, and I was like, I'm working two jobs to pay my way through school. I'm miserable.
I am working to pay my way. No scholarships, no nothing. I was just miserable.
And I was sitting there and I realized when we started doing like, like job sampling, what I wanted to get into originally was sports medicine. 'Cause I had had some really bad knee surgeries in my, my athletic career.
I wanted to do sports medicine. And I realized, well, that's six more years of school. I don't wanna do that. Like, school, I am one of those people that loved to learn, but school was hard for me.
Like, I mean, a lot of people are like, school is just a breeze. They could just do it. Like, school's hard shit for me. I had to work to get the grades that, that I did.
And so I wanted to do sports medicine, so I figured out I'll do physical therapy. Well, physical therapy was gonna be another two years, and I realized in my head, physical therapists work with athletes.
Ninety percent of physical therapists don't work with athletes. They work with the seniors, they work with accidents, they work with... So I was like, I don't wanna do that.
I'm like sitting here, so I'm going into debt in a career that I know I'm never gonna use in an analytical physics class. I'm like, where the hell? So they actually, this, they played this for three years.
I was with my guidance counselor.
I went on some like rant about applying physics to physical therapyYou know, I was like, oh yeah, 'cause I can just imagine sitting across from Troy and saying, "Well, you rolled your ankle. Let's talk about how.
So your forward moment was at roughly 11 miles per hour, and your center of gravity being at five foot nine is gonna put you here, so the torque..."
Like, and so I went on this long rant, and I actually recorded it and played it, um, for some onboarding cer- for new students for a while. But like, I don't wanna do this anymore.
And so one thing that has been a strength of mine for a long time is pattern recognition. Pick on patterns of like, okay, ooh, this happens, this happens, this happens.
And so when I was trying to figure out what the hell I wanted to do, a pattern that I noticed was that there were always sales jobs. Always. There were always sales jobs. Mm.
Could be commission only, could be whatever, but there were always sales jobs. So I was like, all right, if I can learn how to sell, I'll always have a job. It had nothing to do with making a lot of money.
Uh, it wasn't even that. Ne- I promise you, like, you take me back to, you know, 22-year-old KD and say like, "Oh, you should get into sales 'cause you can make multiple six figures," wasn't even a thought to me.
It was like, I have a job, and I'm a really hard worker, so no matter what, I'll be able to do this. So I started, I sh- sold insurance. That didn't go great. I sold like MLL, MLL supplements. That didn't go great.
Um, my personal favorite is I sold knives door to door. They were knockoff- Oh, yeah... Cutco knives. They weren't even the real Cutcos. Cutcos. Oh, they weren't even Cutcos.
They were a company called-- They weren't even real because this company had a better commission plan. They were called Blades with a Z. Mm. Oh, yeah.
And if you had them in your kitchen- Do you have, do you have some Blades in your kitchen, though, KD? Do you have some Blades in your kitchen? Oh, goodness gracious, no. I'm sure those are rusted out.
Like, y'all, like I, I know now it's funny to look back at- Oh... but it's kind of shocking that a young Black male in Madison, Wisconsin, going door to door selling Blades didn't go very well. Sure. Sure.
Uh, dropped that. Yeah. No one would even think of that. And then- That is funny... then I did personal training. I started selling personal training. Then I moved back to LA.
I ran, you know, personal training studios in LA, built a team there. Then I got into fitness equipment sales, built an enterprise team there. Then I got into franchise sales, built a team there.
That's what led to SnagNation. SnagNation led to, um, ServiceTitan. ServiceTitan to PatientPop. PatientPop from there. Like tech sales, technically speaking, y'all, ServiceTitan was my first tech company. Wow.
I built three $30, $40 million per year teams, right? Like at SnagNation- Wow... we joked about it. We called it Smash. The smash of the service. It was the same model- Oh... it was just software.
So that was the journey. Yeah. Interesting. I'm gonna remove us real quick from like work and career and things like that. And this-- I want you to think about this.
What is the best experience that you have ever had in your entire life that you can remember? It can be outside your career. If it's within your job, great. But let's think about it. Maybe it's something family related.
Maybe you did something really cool. You, you got some award. Who knows? But what is the absolute best thing that's ever happened to you that you can remember? So it's, it's tricky on that, that last phrasing.
There's an experience that's a highlight of my life, and there's things that happened to me.
An experience isn't necessarily like it happened to me, but I got to be around it, whereas like things that have happened to me would be a little bit different.
So I'll, I'll-- the experience that comes to mind is still is that highlight. We were, we were in Costa Rica, and we had to drive like three, four hours, like m- in mainland to like go, you know, to, to this lodge.
So if anyone here is listening, driving Costa Rican roads is not a lot of fun, especially for three, four hours. You know, it just, it's long, it's stressful.
We get to the hotel, and they're trying to BS me over like, "Oh, well you didn't say there was gonna be like two kids. There's only one kid."
So they wanted to charge, you know, 500 bucks more for the same room, even though we were all just gonna sleep in the same room. So like, so I had to deal with all that, so I'm angry about that.
I'm just like, I'm just like, "Now I'm just gonna..." right? Even in Costa Rica, bad. And so we went to, went to lunch, you know, and lunch is like looking out.
I can still picture us looking out over like the forest and see the volcano in the background, and I pretty much, you know, I told my wife, my daughters like, "Look, I need some, I just need some space right now.
Like just, just kind of let me be." And I'm sure I said just that gently, you know?
And so I'm like having, having a beer, and I look over at my daughters, and I, I hear them have a patience, and they're like whispering to each other, right? Like, so at the time, Lily and Luisa are my daughters.
Um, Lily would've been probably 10. Luisa five, maybe nine and, and four. And they're just, they're like, they're whispering back and forth. They're like giggling and like writing stuff down, right?
They're whispering back and forth. And so eventually I'm just like, "Oh, like, you know, what are y'all talking about?" Like, "We, we wanna start a smoothie shop together." And I was like, "What?"
And then they just walked me through their business plan of like starting- Yo... a smoothie, a sandwich and smoothie shop together, and just how excited they were.
The Bug and Bear Smoothie Shop 'cause like L- Lily, Lily Bug used to wear, right? And then they're like, and they're like, "Oh, and we'll have beer for the grown-ups and football for the dads."
And they're just- Oh, yeah. So I'm sitting here and I'm listening to my daughter just... They could easily ask if we describe something like this together. And like we don't talk work at home. We don't talk businesses.
They know what I do, but, and so that is still to me really... And they wanted to do it together, and they were laughing and giggling. Mm.
And just go like it's still just one of the, I don't know, proudest moments, experiences, but I just, that is something that will forever-- I will al-always remember it, always remember it as just an amazing experience.
And so it's one, it's one of my favorite things ever that, that I've gotten to, to see, so. What's your favorite smoothie? What's the first one you're getting from your, from your daughter's, uh, smoothie shop?
Oh, it's cute. You know, it has a pineapple in there, some coconut. Maybe, you know, throw some whatever the green stuff is in there. I don't know, spinach or some something.
But like- Hey, did you run this'Cause, you know- If you want- Yeah... buy, buy- Well, let's keep it... have that experience from us. You know. I love it.
All right, and then, you know, top it off with a little, like, mezcal or something. Like, whatever. Like, we'll figure it out. Like, we'll figure out what you like. Definitely. Mezcal. You're still on vacation mode.
[laughs] I know. I know. [laughs] Like, that is a tropical smoothie. What is... You gotta throw in something in there, but I love that. Mm-hmm.
You should, you should encourage, well, if you wanna do them to build Bug and Bear's smoothie at some point in their life, that would be extremely great. We, we still talk, we still talk about it.
And that was four or five years ago. We still talk about it. It's still something that, like, has been- That's so cool... brought up. And, you know, it was- No... it was just a moment of like, you know,
just on so many levels of, like, one, like, you know how, uh, there's, like, the quote, like, you know, people don't follow orders, they follow examples. Mm. And, you know, it was like something just, like, to watch them
talk that way and be excited about and have the ideas and just, oh. Yeah. Forever, just forever will just have a place in my heart. So you mentioned- I loved it...
you mentioned you don't talk about work much at home, which, uh, I'm sure you do here and there, and I- I'm kind of in the same boat, you know.
Uh, my kids are young, so I have a three-year-old, and I have an eight-month-old, so even if I did talk about work, they wouldn't understand what I'm talking about. Mm.
But what do you tell your friends that you do in real life? How do you explain your job- Well, I tell them... to your friends?
The ones that aren't in the same industry, the ones that are just, you know, buddies you hang out with in real life. They don't work in sales. They don't work- They're still doing kinesiology. Those ones.
[laughs] I mean... Yeah, well, no, I mean, that was, that was a long time ago. We don't need to admit how long ago that was. Um, so what... It's actually, you know, funny. It's, like, people...
My kids don't know what, what I do. Like, literally. Like, Luisa asked me just the other day, like, "What do you do?" And my response is always the same. I always just say I, I pop bottles with models. I say it...
That's what I give them because... They're like, "What does that even mean?" I'm like, "Whatever you want, wherever you want it to."
You know, like, but, like, for people that, you know, outside of, you know, like, like my industry, wrestling, like, what I do, uh, you know, I lead a sales org, and I do consulting and training.
And then I always flip it back to, like, "What do you, what do you do?" Like, that's it. I don't talk about myself. I'm far more of an introvert than I am an extrovert. I don't enjoy a lot of social, like, situations.
Like, funny enough, like, to your question, I don't have a lot of friends outside of wrestling. I'm not a social butterfly. I- I'm not the kid with all the, the dads that, like, going to the bars and clubs and stuff.
Like, my, my time is, is family, it's work. Mm-hmm. And then if I have downtime, which is rare, like, good bourbon and a book. Like, I'm, I'm happy. Wow. Simple man.
Do you wear your, do you wear your Top Voice badge in real life when you walk around- [laughs]... and go to the store? Do you have your LinkedIn Top Voice badge on your shirt? It's...
I'm gonna s- actually, no, I have it transient. Okay. [laughs] So that way it follows with me. Yo, it's a rite of passage. Show it to us. Show it to us, man. Uh, put, put it up.
I, I would, but I'm, you know, I'm wearing a leotard right now, so it's hard. I'd have to mount them all over the, you know, so, like, it's, it'd be a little bit rough. But, you know, we'll, we'll put it in the B roll.
We'll switch it out. Yeah. Uh, yeah, yeah. We'll, we'll, we'll get it out sometime. Um, I have a random question. Mm-hmm. I, I lived in Austin for five years.
I actually lived in Easton Park there for a bit, and before that I lived downtown. What's your favorite restaurant over there? Whoa, Austin. Favorite restaurant. Man, yeah, it's tough. Depends on the category, right?
Right. Like, I think there's a new one recently that we've gone to, we love, called Amber Kitchen. It's relatively new. Very, very good. Um, funny enough, Dean's Italian. I'm actually going there tonight.
I texted my wife like two hours ago. I was like, "You know what? We should go to Dean's tonight." Mm. So they have a really, I mean, amazing steak, amazing pasta.
So Dean's, Dean's is probably one of, one of our favorites, you know. But yeah, we, we keep it simple, man. Like, I love, I love Hill Country. Going out to the breweries where they got some barbecue or whatever else.
Like, I'm not much of, like, a, a foodie. I'm more of, like, call it the experience. Being outside, being with family, you know, ha- enjoy a drink, just chill there. Like, I'm not, not much in there of a foodie. Yeah.
Yeah. Next month. Cool. So- Oh, yeah. I'm taking Penny- Hit me up... taking Noah next month. Hit, hit him up. Go to the Hill Country. Um, yeah, yeah. Let's go. It's beautiful. That's where my m- my wife and I- Mm...
we have two kids as well. That's where my wife and I had our babies on, so gorgeous. Gorgeous. Daniel, question for you, because I know this seems more like an interview. I wanna make this a little bit conversational.
What is... Kind of going back to this best experience, what is your, what is your best experience? Oh, man. It's a tough one. It's a tough one. I think- Meeting me? I'm still... That's right.
Meeting, meeting Troy Monson actually by an order of magnitude was the best- You did... moment in my entire life. Uh, starting this podcast is the second closest. No, uh, my...
I would, I would have to say the birth of one of my two kids. I don't know if I can even pick. I pro- actually, I would, I would say, I would say my first kid, because coming, becoming a dad I think was- Right...
I was already a dad for the second kid, so obviously special birth, and I'm not playing favorites.
But becoming a dad, that moment where in, in, in a split second you go from not dad to dad, I mean, it happens in an instant. I don't think anyone can prepare you for the emotions you feel in that moment. Absolutely.
At least what I felt. And that's, that's a moment in my life I wouldn't trade for the world, I will remember for the rest of my life. Uh, yeah. Yeah. That would- Same... that would be, I would think, my favorite moment.
I love it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask a... This could be, I don't know if this is controversial at all, but KD, maybe you're not allowed to curl this. What is the most exciting thing or
the biggest thing that you have received or gotten away with because of your LinkedIn following? Dude. Yeah. I'm nowhere near.
And it doesn't need to be gotten away with, but I, I o- I've got, like, 35K, and at this point people, you know, they treat you a little different. They give you some things. Well, I don't really know.
I think, you know, it's, it's funny. Like, I, I give-You know, noticed places or I get like recognized places.
So like that, that's always like a funny thing for like my daughters or my wife like to, to see, you know, like that, that happens. Like, you know, like I've, I've been invited to speak at a lot of conferences, you know.
So like over the past year, you know, I was in Copenhagen and like, and so now more often than not now I don't negotiate for cash, I negotiate for tickets.
They're like, "Hey," like they're like, "How much would it cost?" I'm like, "Just give me, give me four biz class tickets. Put it on the card." You know, I'm like, and I'll bring my wife and my daughters, right?
So over the past, you know, over the past two and a half years, I, my daughters have been to Dublin, they've been to Canada, they've been to Spain. They've been, well, I took my wife to, um, Amsterdam, to Mexico.
So it's like that, that, that for sure. Now it's like, it's not like a gift. I got to like pretend I have to like do something around it.
That, that's probably the, the best is I get a lot of opportunities to go places I wouldn't normally. And if I'm being honest, I would probably never take a vacation to.
It's like I don't wake up and like, "You know what? I wanna go to Copenhagen this year." [chuckles] "I got to go to Copenhagen." You know? And so it's things like that. Like that's probably the best out of it.
Like, you know, like consulting and stuff like that's, that's money. But, you know, it's like working is the invitation to like be at these places that I would never go normally. That's probably the biggest part.
And then my wife, my wife and daughters get to experience it, and that's, that's what's really fun. Like, like, like the amount of places my daughters have been. My oldest daughter's 13.
I don't think I've been to last country until I was like 20. You know, and that was to like Tijuana. I don't even know if that counts. You know, like she, they've been to Spain, France,
Ireland, Canada, Mexico, Australia. Like, you know, and that's a, that's a blessing of, you know, kind of the reputation that I have. That's, that's for sure. For sure. Mm.
I have a question for both of you, and you can answer. Whoever, whoever answers first. What is the biggest regret you have in your career so far? Mine's pretty easy, I think. Um, I-I'm gonna...
It's gonna be like kinda two answers. One is probably not running off on my own pre-kids to start a company. I did it after a kid, and now it's like there's some distractions here and there.
Um, biggest regret was leaving MongoDB as a, as a rep. I was hitting my number. I left for a 60K job in OTE for a company that just was not doing its thing. And, uh, yeah, that was my biggest regret.
I made like 60K less that year and I was pissed. Ugh, I was livid. So that, that's mine. Leaving MongoDB, amazing organization, great training, great development there, so I think that's mine.
I would say mine's a bit more general. I don't live with, with many regrets at this point in my life, but I wish I'd learned how to code. Mm, yeah. That's my biggest car-career regret is I wish I'd learned how to code.
And I've, I've, I've looked into it for years. I mean, this was, this was top of mind eight, nine years ago. I wish I had invested the time to learn how to code, how to program.
Because there's not many companies actually founded by, okay, like say, I'll say like sales and revenue leaders. A lot of companies get built to serve that industry, but not many of them are actually built by.
And you can tell that by a lot of the rooms probably just get built or they get bought.
I mean, if I had learned how to program, if I learned how to code nine, 10 years ago, I would, might have built my own probably five or six things.
There's three things, three or four things I've tried to build over the last, you know, decade, and I had to work through other people to try to get done, and they couldn't do it. They couldn't pull it off. Yeah.
I, I wish I did too. I, I really wish I knew how to code, something like that.
Now I guess I'm seeing it all over LinkedIn, Cursor, v0, all these tools that even a sales rep can go in there and start building applications. Crazy. Mm-hmm. Crazy, but yeah, incredible stuff.
It's, it's wild where things are now. But even to like work with a technical founder, if you don't know anything about it- Scalability, architecture, like all that, yeah. So that, that's it.
It's like now we're in a place where now it is, you know, there's many build shit without needing to do it, but you still don't understand what will mean things on the back end. You don't know, 'cause AI isn't there yet.
AI can get you 80% of the way to that 20%. Then AI will get you to 90%, you're still gonna be that 10.
When AI gets to that 95, that 5% is the most important, 'cause that's the, you know, I'm sure y'all have heard the analogy of like, you know, this big UPS factory. It was like somewhere like in Kansas, I forget.
You know, like all the shipping and all the things like run out of it. And one night the whole system shut down, right? And like this thing's like costing them like hundreds of thousands of dollars per minute.
It's not right. Like none of the conveyor belts, whatever else, so they can't figure out how to turn it off, so they call like their, their local contractor to come out to fix it.
So he comes on site, he walks like into three different rooms, comes out, turn like one knob and hits two buttons. It all turns back on, right? And it was like 35 minutes or whatever.
So he writes the invoice like for the deal. It was like 175K. And they're like, "What the hell? You were only in here for like 45 minutes. Like how is this $175,000? Like we need this itemized."
So he took it back and he writes down, "Okay, pushing the buttons, turning the screw, $5. Knowing what buttons to push, $169,595." Yeah. Mm-hmm. I think it is.
And so that's where I think AI is going to get to, is like you're gonna need to know that last 5% of like what matters to make these things work. So that, that is far and away my, my biggest regret.
So like right now that's why I went all in on AI. All in on AI. That's awesome. I don't want that to happen again. I wanna make sure I know this is a new tool, a new technology. I wanna learn everything I can about it.
Yeah. Yeah. You, you made a post about Jordan teaching about AI agents. I think that's his name, Jordan. Um-And I almost bought his AI agent class because of your post. So, hey, Jordan, what's up?
If you're listening, I almost bought it. I didn't yet 'cause I'm like, "I can't get distracted. I'm, I'm focused right now." But yeah, I need to learn more about AI agents. I feel like I'm, I'm so behind. Yeah.
What are you- It's, it's wild. With, with AI agents, 'cause I'm, I'm, I'm in the middle of learning all about them as well. I think probably a few steps behind you just due to bandwidth, uh, right now.
Uh, not that you have more bandwidth than me. I'm sure we're both strapped. Uh, what is your, what is your advice for two dads, founders, uh, on the demo side and builders on the beehive side, you know, younger kids?
Uh, AI being obviously something that's now really taking grip of our society and of the way people build companies, and then your affinity for AI. Give us some advice. Talk to us.
What, what would you, what would you do if you were in our shoes? No, no. First, the first thing I would do is to start to get the, the wiggle out of your... Right? So the acronym I use a lot is WIGGL, W-G-G-L.
Stands for what good looks like. Hey, you need to get what good looks like out of your head, right?
So like, whatever those things may be, whether it's around leadership, how you run your company, how you build tools, how you, how you parent, how-- like, what does good look like?
You have to get out of your head and down on, on paper, because that gives AI the context to work with. So one of the reasons why I'm so bullish on AI personally for myself is I'm a very systems-based leader.
I've been running my teams through a system and through checklists and through if-- I literally have a 14-page doc called the Issue Diagnosis Checklist. It is a massive if this, then that document.
If close rate is low, then look at this. If that is okay, then look at this, right? It's the systems that are down. Now I can use AI. What's happening right now
is people don't know what good looks like, so now they're trying to use AI to tell us what good looks like. It doesn't work that way. We have to tell it what good looks like.
So my biggest piece of advice going into AI is, one, like start getting stuff out of your... No detail is too small, right?
If I think about like how whatever you're gonna use a, an AI agent to like score calls to the most granular detail, what do you look for and discover? What are those questions like? What are things to avoid?
Where can these people go wrong? What are some different ways to do it, like to the most granular detail? Now that you have that context, you can use AI to run it, right?
So that would be my biggest piece of a- of advice. Start to get the WIGGL out of your head and down on paper, 'cause now you can leverage AI better. Rather than you go to AI and say, "Write me a good email."
It doesn't even know how to do that. That's interesting. Yeah. I, I love that outlook on it. I'm gonna ask one last question before we make our closing remarks here. Is that okay with you, Daniel and KD? Okay.
I don't know, I don't know if you'll answer this. I have this theory that everybody has a price for specific things. You have a large LinkedIn following.
How much would somebody have to pay you to essentially sell your account/get rid of your LinkedIn completely? 'Cause you made a, probably a pretty penny on LinkedIn. How much would somebody...
Briefcase open right in front of you, shut down, "Give me your LinkedIn account." Whatever they say, this is yours. Yeah. How much would need to be in that briefcase? Do I get to keep my contacts?
You get to keep your contacts. You'll, yeah, you'll never get to post again on LinkedIn, anything like that. No, and yeah, you get to keep your contacts. I was gonna make a caveat that nobody would remember you. Yeah.
Like, but you get to keep your contacts. Also- Yeah. So, okay. Th- this is why, you know, discovery, right? I need to know what I'm, what I'm signing this up for, right?
'Cause if I still have the contacts, means I still have my following, which means I can still reach out to them.
If I don't, if the caveat here is basically like, "Yo, bro, like you're, you're, you're done with it," seven million. Seven million? Just thought about it. Just thought about it. Surprise, because we have seven mill...
No, no, we don't. No. Well- We have $7, though, if you want it... seven, seven million is my logout number. It's gonna happen regardless. It's gonna happen regardless. Seven million is my logout number.
The moment I am seven-plus million LinkedIn invested as an individual, logout. Peace out. I'm gone. Yeah. I'm gone. Dang. That's good. That's not mine. Mine's like 100K. If anybody wants to pay me 100K, let me know.
Yeah. I think, I think mine would be, uh, substantially less than seven million at this point. Well, y'all, y'all are thinking too small, though. You're thinking way too small. I'm gonna challenge you.
There's no way that's the number. There's no way that's the number. I know. Right? Because y'all are both building businesses right now.
You're gonna make way more than that through your LinkedIn presence than 100K, right? Yeah. The math on this is actually straightforward. If, if you were selling for 100K, no way. Yeah.
No, realistically, I couldn't- You're such an idiot, Troy. I know I am, but that's okay. That's why I'm having these conversations. Um, realistically, I couldn't.
Demo Success is all built on, on my LinkedIn following and my co-founder's LinkedIn following. Right. So it would definitely be a lot more. Um, maybe a few milli, but who knows?
We'll get there when, when somebody offers me money for my LinkedIn account. No. I have a l- I have one more question. Oh, go ahead, KD. Well, 'cause you, you mentioned about like thinking about it, right?
It's like I have run these numbers, right? If you take a five-year stretch of what you think you can build, you know, demo two in five years, what's your equity worth on that? What other income? Like the math is real.
Yeah. Of like, you know, I make a lot of money off of, off of LinkedIn and my reaching connections. Like a lot of money. Yeah.
So if I were just to run that for five years, it's like, okay, that's already what it is, and it costs me the next five years. It's, it's relatively easy math there.
But like knowing, knowing what those things can be worth, most people don't leverage it really. Don't leverage the view enough, they could.Yeah, yeah.
And for those listening, KD has around 150,000 followers on LinkedIn, to, not considering all the other places on the internet that he has a footprint, so, uh, substantial.
I mean, that's, that's, that's built over years. That's great. Um, I have a question. This is a, this is a question that you can go whatever direction you want with. What does a chief revenue officer actually do?
Good Lord. Stress out, um, you know. So- Cry? At the end of... Right. Little, little of the single tears, you know, that I blame on allergies. Um, at the end of the day,
at the end of the day, as a chief revenue officer, my number one goal is to drive revenue for the company. And the difference on this, and I emphasize this even with my team, it's revenue, not just sales.
Most CROs are glorified sales leaders. They don't own CS, they don't own onboarding, they don't own expansion. It's mostly on the, the new business side. I own all of that.
And so from churn, new business, expansion, all of it, so I optimize for what will generate the most amount of revenue for the company most efficiently.
And then right now I'm having to do a lot of the, um, the Ds, but there's different levels of what leaders do, right? So managers do. Managers do the thing, right?
That's what a manager, manager do, and they think about the day-to-day. Directors direct. They may not do all the things. You're directing, right? You're directing who needs to do the things.
Directors tend to think in months. The Ps design. You're now designing the systems and processes that need to be done, that need to be directed. Once you're in the C-suite, you're supposed to decide and delegate.
You gotta decide where we're going, and then delegate accordingly of like how we are going to, to get there. Right now I'm doing a lot of those Ds.
Right now I'm doing quite a bit of designing, being quite a bit of directing. I'm doing a decent amount of doing and deciding, right? I'm doing pretty much the whole gamut.
As the team gets more established and the leadership level gets more established, most of the doing gets done by someone else, more of the directing gets done by someone else,
more of the designing gets done by someone else. But I'm, I'm a design, I'm a designer. That's what I do. So I'm always, always gonna keep a piece of that.
But that, that's what the CRO is supposed to do, is to decide where we're going, how we're gonna get there, design it, direct it, and make sure people can do it. Hmm. I love that. There you go.
There's at least five or six TikTok clips in that response that we're making. Put them together. I'm not, I'm not on TikTok, but you can throw me out there. It'd be cool. LinkedIn's my only- That'd be great...
my only social. It's actually hilarious. If you were to talk to anybody- Is it for real?... that's worked with me. What? Oh, absolutely. I don't, I don't have Instagram. I don't have Twitter. I don't have Snap.
I don't have Tickety Tok. I don't have- TikTok... whatever else is out there. Like, like- Yeah... it's actually hilarious. I'm, I, I am who I am. I'm all good. It is hilarious. But that's great.
I mean, why, why- Absolutely hilarious... why diversify outside of the social platform you have so much success? I will say- Yeah... that is one, one, one, one play is to start a newsletter if you haven't already.
I won't, I won't sell you. Newsletters are owned audience. That's what I do every day, all day. But- Yeah... you should look into it if you haven't already. I've, I've, I've got one. I, I've got one. Oh.
You know, but, you know, to the point of like diversifying and like focus, like I'm a full-time CRO, so I don't have- Yeah... a lot of time to do. I have to pick what I'm gonna- You should... do. And- Yes...
I pick my channels and then, and then go. There's so, there's so much more- Yeah... opportunity. And we were talking about before we hit record. Yeah.
I can easily triple, easily triple if not quadruple what I make right now if I went full bore on my own brand, consulting, training, whatever. It's easy. Not what I wanna do yet. I did it. I did it for a year.
I did it for a year. Yeah. It was amazing. I wasn't, I wasn't done. I wasn't done building. I missed having a team. I missed like growing something that wasn't me, right? So that- Yeah...
that moment will come, that number will come, but, you know, there's so much I could be doing to monetize it further. Like, I mean, I can't, don't have the time. Yeah.
Hey, that's, that's why I, I struggle writing a newsletter. I always say I'm gonna come out with a weekly episode, and it's like once a month. That's on me, whoever's following that newsletter. My bad. My bad. Yeah.
Well, awesome. Cool. Every time I get it, it's like, it's like my birthday. Every day I get that email- Mm-hmm... that you, I'm not gonna... It's happy birthday to me. Hey, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Awesome.
Well, hey, Daniel, where can they find us? You can find us at twodadsintech.com, and you can find us on YouTube, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts. Anywhere you listen to podcasts, you can find us.
Please do smash the subscribe button, review us, leave a comment, ask your questions. You might show up in another episode. Uh, we do listener questions on normal episodes, but today our listener was also a guest.
Thank you so much to Kevin "KD" Dorsey. If you don't already, go follow him on LinkedIn, @kevinkddorsey. Uh, that is his name on LinkedIn.
He writes incredible content about sales, about sales leadership, about, uh, sometimes family, just real life. He's a great follow. You should go hit him up. Uh, Troy, that's all from me. This was a great episode.
Awesome. KD, any last remarks? Yeah, appreciate y'all, y'all having me. That was fun. I love it when it's not just on like how to get a cold call answered. So no, good stuff, y'all. Appreciate it.
Uh, yeah, appreciate it, man. Absolutely. Thanks, Kevin. Have a good one. Thanks so much. Y'all have a good day. Take care, everyone.