Welcome back, listeners. I'm Troy Monson. And I'm Daniel Burke. And together, we- Oh, am I saying it? [laughs] Welcome back, listeners. I'm Troy Monson. [laughs] Welcome back, listeners. I'm Troy Monson.
And I'm Daniel Burke. And together, we're Two Dads in Tech. Every episode, we talk about things people think about, but don't talk about. I think that's good. I feel like it needs a sign-off.
So why don't we just get into the episode? Yeah, let's get started. Oh, welcome back. Daniel, how are you? Happy birthday. Happy birthday, brother. Good to be here. Yeah, it's good to have you.
Dude, I wanted to start off with something. So did you hear about this whole Luka Doncic trade recently? I did. I did.
So I heard that the Lakers actually wanted to trade for Brian Lamana, but because of Brian Lamana's commissions at Gong, he said it wouldn't be worth joining the Lakers, so they had to settle for Luka Doncic.
You know, that's crazy because I actually heard that for the Lakers training camp, Brian Lamana tried to do a pushup, but he actually ended up shoving the earth down a few inches instead, and so he was cut from the team.
[laughs] Oh man, that's-- I know that happens to him. I also heard that he doesn't even need a GPS. Wherever he looks, the roll- the road recalculates.
That's crazy because I heard Brian Lamana once actually debugged a software issue at Gong just by whispering at the code, "Work." [laughs] Dude, I don't know how-- Where are you hearing these things?
'Cause I also heard that once he made a typo, and Merriam-Webster updated the dictionary for that typo. That's insane because I don't know. The- it's just the grapevine, you know.
People at BI, people on LinkedIn, they're telling me that he once closed a deal just because he stands close to his prospects. I actually don't doubt that for a second, given his quote unstatement.
The last thing that I heard is that he solved a Rubik's Cube once before he even took it out of the box. I don't even know how that's possible, but if anyone- Dude... can do it, Brian Lamana can do it.
You know, I also heard that he walked into a meeting late once, but somehow still started the meeting before everyone else. [laughs] Anyways- That was-... enough about Brian Lamana.
We have a very special guest today at Two Dads in Tech. We talk about Brian Lamana. We love Brian Lamana. He is the one, the only, the myth, the legend. The guest on today's episode is, in fact, drum roll.
[drum rolling] I don't know if that drum roll's gonna come through. Brian Lamana. Oh. [laughs] Can we do some air horns in the post-prod? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I got you. We have Brian Lamana here with us in the studio.
We're super excited. Brian Lamana joins us from Gong. He's also a solopreneur. He does tons of awesome courses. Uh, we're gonna talk a little bit about that in today's episode. But Brian, welcome to Two Dads in Tech.
Thank you. I'm, I'm pumped to be here. We should call it Three Dads in Tech. I, I don't actually- No shit...
how many children that I know of, but I, I did get a puppy, uh, a couple months ago, so I, I've been calling myself a dog dad. That's right. You're a dog dad and that you know of.
That's a good condition there because- [laughs]... maybe... No, no, that'd be bad. [laughs] That would- There's other, uh... Yeah.
[laughs] Wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, and I did-- I will say, I think it was episode one, Daniel, or two, where we said dog parents, dog dads, dog moms don't deserve to call themselves parents because it's so- It's true...
different. Dude. But we'll let Brian Lamana because he's Brian Lamana. We'll let Brian- He is- Brian Lamana can be a dog dad. Hey- Brian Lamana can be a dog dad. Hey, uh, Brian, did you play any sports in high school?
I did. I played football. It was my primary sport, and I played volleyball as well. Well- Were you tall, Brian? Sorry, I'm cutting off Troy. Yeah. I, I'm not, which is the hilarious part.
I'm, I'm a generous maybe 5'7" and three quarters. Okay. Which is funny that I play volleyball and football, but I played corner in football and I played libero in volleyball, so I, I chose to- Ooh...
do the, the two sports that demand the most height and, and make a challenge out of it. Ooh, so you have a good vertical. I, I like to think so. I don't know about still.
This was, uh, high school was a couple years ago now, but- Yeah. Yeah. And you're, you're kinda jacked. What's that workout routine? I definitely fell in love with going to the gym even more so I'd say after college.
I think it replaced, like, some of the competitive juices of playing in high school sports or, uh, college intramurals and all that. But, uh, I, I go six, seven days a week.
I try to always, uh, do something at least for, at a minimum, a half hour, even on, like, an off day. I think it helps just kinda keep me in line, in shape, uh, mentally and physically.
We doing, we doing push-pull legs this, this time around, or what are we doing this time? Uh, this morning was a, was a push day. Uh- Oh, yeah... so I got after it early. Dope.
I'm just getting back from Costa Rica actually, so I did take a couple days off, uh, which is, which is pretty rare. But it was kind of vacation time.
It was also end of year closing, and was trying to stay present with some family as well. So it was couple, couple different things I was juggling. And you, you got married less than a year ago, right?
Yeah, it was actually just this past September. Congrats. Where'd you go for your honeymoon? I remember seeing some pictures- Thank you... on LinkedIn.
I think you didn't have a shirt on if I remember correctly, but- [laughs]... correct me if I'm wrong. Where'd you go? It's probably the Facebook album. I didn't know you were connected with me on there though.
I don't know. I'm connected to a lot of people in a lot of places. [laughs] We went to, uh, to Paris, and then we went to the south of France after and as in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. So it was, uh, it was a blast.
Neither of us had been before. That's, that's awesome. Do, do you have a favorite place that you visited? We loved both. I think both were different. Paris was a little more go, go, go.
We were doing, uh, you know, walking tours, uh, trying every, every wine in the city of Paris and some different foods along with it. And south of France is more hanging out by the pool.
We did a boat day and a couple other fun things, so that was a relaxing... Probably, probably wins out. Yeah. A lot. I'm a, I'm a big water guy. I love being by the water, being spoiled by the water.
We went to Italy, and-Loved it.
I loved it, but thirty, forty thousand steps a day for seven days in a row, it gets exhausting, and at some point you're like, "This is less of a vacation and more of a trip," and they are two different things.
But, um, we are definitely like if we're-- We, we got to leave our, our kid, or now I have two, but we got to leave our kid for ten days, and then it was just busy every single day.
If I want to leave my kid, I want, I want to relax, you know? But regardless- Sit on the beach...beautiful place. I know. Sit on the beach, do nothing. Yes. Yeah. I have a question for you, Brian.
It's, uh, a lot of people listening know who you are, probably follow you on LinkedIn, maybe have bought one of your courses, and I don't know that a lot of people know where you came from when you started out on this content creation journey.
And so you've built a name for yourself primarily with sales, tech sales.
Um, obviously you're currently selling at Gong, but what's the best piece of advice that you have for someone who wants to become a one percent account executive?
Do you find that people have trouble, especially newer sellers, do you find that they have trouble with the reiteration process?
Like, they wanna copy so much that they almost lose themselves and who they are, and so they jump on a call and they try to copy exactly what Brian Lamana says, and it's like, "Dude, that's not you.
Why are you acting like that?" I do, and I think part of the challenge is that everybody in tech sales, like, wants to give you advice.
Like, I could ask anyone at Gong for help on discovery if that's, you know, what I was focused on, and everyone will give their own flavor.
I think it's really important to find the people that match up with, like, your style and that are doing things that are a little bit more repeatable.
Like, some of the top one percenters that you know are probably, like, very off playbook. They've been there for a decade. They just do their own thing. Like, those aren't necessarily the people you wanna learn from.
You wanna learn as a new seller from somebody that recently went through onboarding and is three-quarters in and, you know, is at two point O skills and you're at one point O type of thing. Damn.
You can't learn calculus if you're, uh, you know, don't even know how to do addition yet. So, like, kinda take things in mind first and foremost, and, uh, make sure you find people that are repeatable. Yeah. I love that.
That, that, that's good advice. You might be the most well-known seller at Gong, I would guess, right? W-would you say that humbly?
Um- I'm trying to think of anybody else that might have more of a name- Yeah, I'm just too humble... publicly. Too humble. Publicly. T-tough to say. Maybe on, maybe on LinkedIn for sure.
Um- The, the reason I asked, the reason I asked that is who is the best seller at Gong? Who is, like, always thousand percent?
Maybe it's you, and maybe you d- Like, maybe I'm putting you in a weird situation here, but who is the best seller at Gong? Yeah, and, and that's the beauty of it.
I think people know that there's a lot of vocal people at Gong, and you might know those, you know, five, 10, even 15 different people. But, uh, I am not the best seller at Gong.
I would not put myself in even the top five or top 10. There's a lot of absolute killers and names that you've never heard of. From an IC perspective, um, it's tough. Uh, depends on, like, what segment.
Joey Miller in commercial put up, like, uh, three hundred percent of goal or something this year, and, like, that was on a fully ramped quota and just, you know, dominated, uh, the entire segment.
Um, upmarket, Sabrina Maconie is absolutely tremendous.
There's a couple others as well that deal with our, like, largest, most strategic customers, the Googles, the ADPs of the world, and there's a lot of killers in mid-market as well.
Uh, Emmett Abdean, um, Sam Kozabrodsky are a couple names that, that come to mind. Never heard of them. Look at that. There's people there- Never heard of them... that don't post on LinkedIn that are also good sellers.
That's awesome. Hey, that's, that's signal right there. There's, there's a-- The, the, the ability to actually do two, three X quota without using LinkedIn, or at least not in the same way.
I'm sure they're using LinkedIn and Sales Nav and all that.
I have a question, and it's in a response to something you said about who you're shadowing when you're either pre-ramp or you're new to a role, you really wanna learn from the best.
You just launched Modern Outbound, which is super exciting. I saw- Congrats... a-- Yeah, congratulations.
Like, a few hours after, you had already sold close to a hundred packages, and I don't know, you've probably done far more than that now. I looked last, like, yesterday or two days ago, whenever it launched. So congrats.
That's huge. And my question is with Modern Outbound, in light of shadowing people, trying to learn from the best, what's one outbound sales tactic that worked, let's say, five years ago that's absolutely dead now?
I think the state of outbound in twenty nineteen versus twenty twenty-five, I guess that's six years, is very, very different.
I, I think the new number one challenge in twenty twenty-five, in my opinion, is simply breaking through the noise and getting the open, getting somebody to pick up their phone, getting somebody to see your message.
On the contrary, I also think that presents a, a massive opportunity because all the messaging is such shit and is basically scaled with AI and most of it's garbage.
Like, I think it's easier than ever to be in that top one percent of messaging if you can break through the noise.
So I, I think that's kind of a more, like, macro theme that I'm seeing, and it's really about breaking through and getting in front of them in the first place.
I don't know if that directly answers your question, but I can repeat or- It does. Yeah. Yeah, I think that I, I agree. Lots of noise. Yeah. Lots of noise. And actually, this morning was pool day for me.
Um, I would show you my back right now, but I'm in a toddler's closet recording this, so I, I just don't have enou-enough room.
But all that to say is this morning I was actually thinking of this whole noise, AI, SDR, all the stuff.
Do you think AI SDRs or just AI in general, especially now that it can do deep research, perform tasks, all that fun stuff, do you think that it will replace not all SDRs, but a majority of the ones that aren't breaking through the noise?
We get asked this question a lot at Gong 'cause obviously we sit on top of a massive data set that I think a lot of, uh, AI companies would want to be able to use to train their AI based off the billions of conversations we sit on top of, of both outbound as well as web conferencing.It's, it's hard to definitively say.
I think, like, especially upmarket sales, like in enterprise, mid-market, from an account executive perspective, like carrying through a six to twenty-four-month cycle and all the complexities and strategy, like, I don't really see a world in which that could ever be fully replaced.
I-I'd never say never to like, um, if you're selling a product that's three hundred dollars and you're trying to target five hundred thousand accounts, like maybe an AI SDR does make more sense, where it's a little bit of an easier pitch, and you're just trying to, like, batch and blast everyone.
But I think in like the more enterprise software and SaaS solutions, I, I can't see it at least over the next five to ten years.
But, um, it's hard to even imagine what's happening today, uh, if you would've asked me ten years ago, so I would know how it rolled out. It's crazy. It's happening fast too.
I have a question for people listening who aren't in tech sales, uh, thinking about maybe transitioning careers or maybe they haven't started their career yet. What companies should you look at right now?
A few maybe that come top of mind. If you're looking to go sell tech for the first time, what companies should you keep in mind? Wh-what I would be looking at, I, I always have like-- try to keep things really simple.
Like what I wanna look at in a company is two things. I wanna look at, um, number one, who you're selling to in terms of the persona. So for example, at Gong, we're selling to sales leaders.
Uh, at CrowdStrike, you'd be selling to cybersecurity professionals.
And I think there is a really big advantage since there's so many SaaS companies out there and so many different options, like choosing one that interests you to some
degree, I think can be really advantageous, where, uh, to me, I love talking all things sales and talking to sales leaders, like doesn't really feel like work quite as much.
So if any of those industries like agnostic of sales excites you, being able to talk to those professionals all day, I think is where I would start industry-wise.
And then within it, I would look for like a product that also excites me in terms of the direction, the scale, the growth. I'd be looking at things like early-stage companies, what was their last funding round?
How quickly are they growing headcount, growing revenue?
I think it's a lot more exciting to be a part of an organization that's, um, scaling fast, uh, versus an org that's, uh, maybe has activist investors and is getting pressure on profit margins and, you know, cutting every penny here and there, I, I think isn't necessarily as fun of a culture as what I've heard from other, other sellers.
Um, in terms of some of those that fit the bill, I think like the, uh, you know, maybe like late-stage private companies that are doing really well, like a Wiz as an example. Oh, yeah. OpenAI,
uh, scaling up their go-to-market teams. Deal is, uh, still feels private and late stage. Um, but you could look even earlier stage as well.
It kinda depends on like what excites you and interests you at the end of the day. I have one more question, then I'm gonna pass it to Troy.
You-- this may be a month ago, shortly after you bought Monty or adopted Monty rather. Adopted, buy? I think adopted is from a humane society. Buy is when it's a breed. I don't know. Who knows? Yeah. You have a dog now.
[laughs] And you, you wrote a post. This might actually have been on Twitter. I can't remember. Uh, but I saw you write a post, you're like, "I had no idea how much work it was gonna be to get a puppy."
And I can't remember, you, you're like, "They poop like eighty times a day." You're like, you know, context switching constantly, just trying to take care of this animal.
And so I wanted to ask you before I pass it back to Troy, how has having a dog changed your life as a salesperson, as a husband, just as Brian Lamana? Yeah. It's, it's, uh, first off, it's been a ton of fun.
Uh, the best decision I ever made, uh, along with my wife in acquiring Monty, you will say, and birthing him into our family. There you go. [laughs] Um, I'd never had a dog before.
My wife has had three different family dogs. I think she was used to kind of the, the puppy scene. But no, it's been, it's been great.
I think I didn't, uh, quite understand like puppies at such a young age, like if you have them out of their crate, which is, you know, more than half of the day, hopefully, if you're able to give them the time and attention, like you have to keep eyes on them 'cause they'll bite things, they'll jump on things.
They could jump off things or choke on things, et cetera. Yeah.
So I think it, it's helped us just like communicate a lot more, um, 'cause we're having to take turns out if we're both working from home that day, like, "Hey, who's gonna sit out there and kind of work but kinda watch Monty?"
A lot of situations where I'm halfway through an email and have to stop or do something else. Just things like that, that I'm not used to, like more of the uninterrupted, like deeper work.
But, uh, it's been amazing, and I think at the end of the day, like when you give somebody that's really busy even more additional work, they just find ways to get it done and like be even more efficient in everything they're doing.
So it's been, it's been awesome. I love that. I love that it, it brought your communication with your wife into a kind of a different layer.
Uh, I think honestly, it-- we, we make fun of dog parents because it's like, you know, humans are, you know, whatever. But there actually is, there's an aspect of, we had a dog before we had kids. Now we have two kids.
There is an aspect of it that in a way prepares you to be parents. It's like you have to communicate with your partner.
If, obviously, if you have a dog and you're alone, you know, it's, it's a different, but you're learning to prioritize your life. You're learning to structure your day.
You gotta eat and feed and water and take the dog out. Like, there's so many things that you just have to completely selflessly restructure your day to, to complete. So I love that. I love that.
I'm gonna pass it to Troy. I know he has a couple thoughts.
I have a couple thoughts, and one of them I'm gonna bring back all the way to the beginning of our conversation, and Daniel, this is actually going to be for you. So my friend over here, Brian, he had a push day today.
I had a pull day, and you told me that this year you were gonna start working out, and I've only heard once of you actually going to the gym. Have you been working out? Yes.
In fact, I meant to text you this morning or yesterday morning, not this morning. I didn't go to the gym this morningBut yesterday I went to the gym. I woke up, went to the gym. Uh, w- I g- I go to Planet Fitness.
People give Planet Fitness such a bad rep. Yeah. Look, it's like $10 a month- Dude... for a state-of-the-art massive facility. There's absolutely no way you can fill it to where there's not a machine open at any...
It's crazy. So people are like, "No, you gotta pay more money so you're more motivated." I was like, "That makes no sense." Anyways, went to Planet Fitness. I did, uh, I did a few different things.
I did mostly push, but I, I also just did a quick full body thing. They have like a 30-minute circuit.
I'm trying to run marathons, so I don't necessarily wanna go get like these out of my mind, but I definitely need to like build some muscle, get a little cut. Yeah. Trying to figure that out.
So I'm actually meeting with BodyTutor tomorrow. Uh, Sam Parr, who you might know, founded The Hustle. He's My First Millionaire or My First Million podcast. He gave me a free 30 days to BodyTutor.
I don't actually know anything about it yet. [laughs] Uh, this is not a sponsored ad placement, but BodyTutor is gonna teach me apparently how to have a tutor of my body. That is the, the- [laughs]...
the full facet of my understanding, so I'm excited to figure that out. Okay. All right. Good to know. Good to know. I was a little worried about you there for a sec. And then this next one's gonna be [laughs]
this next one's gonna be for Brian, and it's a question that I asked Daniel on our last podcast. What is your dream? You're at Gong. Do you wanna continue to grow through the ranks?
Do you wanna go start your own company? Like realistically, what do you want to do? Yeah, it's a, it's a great question. I, I get asked it often of like, w- like, "What's your goal here?
You're doing all this stuff on the side. You're working at Gong. When are you gonna launch your own business?"
I, I think I'd almost flip it around and be like I- I've already done it in terms of like launched and closed one. I did that to start out 2024. That was my first year, and, uh, far, far exceeded all my expectations.
And I think what I've found with Gong in particular, and then Closed1 as a side business, is there's a lot of overlap between the two in which like what I'm doing at Gong is further enhancing what I can do with Closed1 in terms of like being in the trenches every day and working deal cycles and customers and renewals and things like that, and the types of learnings I can share.
But also conversely, like what I'm doing on the side and like distilling down what I'm doing, building frameworks, helps me at Gong just as much in terms of, hey, when I reach out to a sales leader, there's a chance they might have followed me already or there's a chance I've communicated with them in the past and they're gonna be more apt to respond.
Uh, so it's been a lot of fun. I, I think both are really helping each other for now. I don't have like a five-year or 10-year like exit plan or here's what's next.
Like I'm, I'm truly enjoying both to the max and, uh, I have no plans to leave either, uh, anytime soon. But do you have like a dream? You know what I'm saying?
Like, if I-- let's just hypothetically say Closed1, Gong never entered your life. Is there something that 10 years ago, 20 year- years ago, you're like, "I really want to do this, like before my time's up"?
I've always been entrepreneurial like in nature, dating back to high school and college days, et cetera, and just trying to start things up and, uh, liking all of it.
But I, I truly enjoy what I do with those, like so much right now and, um, I'm constantly getting challenged by both.
I, I might have a, an announcement soon at Gong too in terms of the, a little role I'm taking in terms of a next step for me, so- Ooh... living in the- Get a spicy first take. Ooh. In terms of that. But
I think my goal is like, you know, if I can do, say the average person would work for the next 30 years, if I can do two jobs instead for the next 10 to 15 years and then be able to trade that time back for more family time, more travel, like I think that would be the dream.
But like, honestly, like giving up both of those right now don't sound that advantageous. Like I don't know what the heck I would do all day.
Like I'm not, uh, I'm not like a lazy person that just wants to sit on the couch. Like I, I like to be productive and getting after it. Yeah. Yeah, we both like building over here.
Daniel has like 16 different newsletter side gigs that all generate revenue. I've always loved building. I, I love building things. I think it's so fun.
And Daniel asked me, I can't remember, episode three or four, if I sold Demo, what I would do.
And like, I don't know, I would literally go and create something else because I, just like you, I can't sit here and have my brain not challenged. I'd be so bored.
Like yeah, I'd love to go golfing and stuff like, but outside of that, like I would be extremely bored just sitting there.
Maybe I'd help other people start their own company, things like that, but I'd still would need that, I don't know, that fulfillment that I'm building something right now and I wanna go try to solve a, solve a problem.
All right, we're gonna stop and take a moment to recognize our sponsor of today's episode, which is Superhuman. If you have not used Superhuman, you have not lived. It is an email client that sits on top of Gmail.
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So if somebody wants to book a meeting with you, all you have to do is press one button and it'll automatically create that meeting, assuming that you already talked about the time.
What I use it for is the fact that I use HubSpot over here at Demo, is the fact that I can go in and update my deals, the stage of the pipeline, how much it's worth, add a new contact to HubSpot, and I never actually need to log into HubSpot itself.
I can do it directly through the email client. That's what I use it for mostly. Their snippets are incredible. That's what I use for prospecting, getting people on Demo, converting customers.
Tons of different use cases, but what I like the most is the fact that it has a lot of hotkeys, so you can get through your emails and be at inbox zero within the snap of a finger.
It literally takes me like 10 seconds every morning to log on, get through my emails.
If I wanna get to something later in the day, I just hit H and then I type in like 8:00 PM, and then I'll automatically get a reminder at 8:00 PM to respond to that email. But it's amazing. Go try out Superhuman.
This was riffed off the top. Don't know how that was. Boys, how was it? That was great, and you know, one, one thing we forgot to add was if you go to superhuman.com/twodadsintech, you get your first month free.
So please do visit superhuman.com/twodadsintech. You'll get your first month free. We both use it. Troy uses it. I use it. No idea if Brian uses it, but he should. But he should.
If you go to superhuman.com/twodadsintech, Brian, you can get a f- you can get a free month as well. I love it. Amazing.Yeah. Yeah. It is amazing. It is amazing. Yeah. But all right.
So I don't know how this is going to sound with this disconnection that I had, so I'm gonna let Daniel take over. Okay. Daniel, I know you had a few more questions on top of mine. Yes, I do. Brian, I have a question.
What's the weirdest DM you've ever received from someone on LinkedIn? Can I pull up my DMs with you or... [laughs] Oh-ho. You can. I'm sure I've sent some weird ones. [laughs] Hey, can you please respond?
[laughs] Just like a weird, a weird meme. I had someone, like, kind of threaten me once, uh- Oh my... which was weird. Go on. Yeah, go on. Tell us the story. Use their name. Tell us their address.
[laughs] Wait, wait, wait. Can I make a guess? Was it somebody that tried to f- let's just say threaten you in, in air quotes because you weren't accepting their connection request or something like that? No. Or no?
It was- Okay...
in relation to like the most boring, like, harmless post, and, uh, they made a joke at the end, like, forgot what it was, but it was like, "And as my dad said," like, "They don't deserve to live," or something like that in relation to how we disagreed with my post.
And I was like, "Is that a threat to kill me?" [laughs] Does your dad- That's interesting... have my email framework? [laughs] Dude, that-- Yeah, that is weird. I've had one guy just like...
A- and I'm not near as big as you, but it's, [laughs] it was... I n- I wish I could pull it up, but it was like, "I beg of you, please accept my request." And I'm like, this is w- w- weird. I...
Don't beg me to accept it. And I, I don't know, I just can't sit there all day and accept connection requests. Yeah. Somebody yesterday on my post said, "Why haven't you accepted my request?"
And then I sent them a screenshot, and it was like 3,800 requests. Wow. It's like we can't get to all of them. I'm sorry. That's just life. I love you. Thanks for following, but sorry. Yeah.
No, that's the problem I have. I have, you know, I have like 12 or 1,300 right now, and I, every few months I'll just kind of delete all of them and, you know, I'll accept some when I come across it.
But one, there should be a delete all function on LinkedIn. Like, LinkedIn, if you're listening, please- Oh, yeah... create that function. I have about 40 other product ideas for you as well.
But the weirdest DM, I wouldn't even say the weirdest, the most uncomfortable DM. I've gotten some weird ones, so this is the most uncomfortable.
We, when we, when we open roles at Beehive, we get, not, not exaggerating, thousands of applications for every role. Everyone wants to work at Beehive. It's a great company. I love it.
Some, you know, we, we decline 99.9% of them because there's one role and thousands of applicants. You can't accept all of them.
Someone got extremely offended vocally and publicly that we declined their, their application. Hmm. And it's like, you know, I feel for it. I'm sorry. Like, wish I could hire everyone that applies to a job, but we can't.
But then he started mentioning all these people that I work with and saying, "Daniel didn't look at my application long enough. I should g- be given another chance."
And, like, mentioned Beehive, mentioned people on my team, mentioned people a- at the company, then jumped into my DMs and like, "Yo, you need to give my resume another look." I was like, "Dude,
you could be the absolute most qualified person on the planet, and you just completely ruined all your chances because of your behavior right now. This is super uncomfortable. This is not good."
Anyways, I ended up having to block him- Yeah... because he kept like harassing me in my DMs. It was not great. Yeah. I had-- When we hired our first head of content at Demo, I had a very similar scenario.
I hope it's not the same person, but- There's no way it's the same person... very similar. Publicly, publicly
I really appreciated like the amount of effort and work that he put in to try to get the job, um, publicly posted and helped drive traffic to our site and customers and things like that, but was a, a very similar thing.
Like why? We had hundreds. Within a day, 'cause I posted it, we had hundreds of people apply.
I was literally going through each person and like manually typing an email to each person saying like, "Hey, you're a good fit," or, "Hey, let's schedule a call."
Like, that is a lot to do on top of like going to do sales, dealing with bugs, dealing with customers. Like, it's a lot of work to do, but same thing. And then
unfortunately, like he didn't get the role and, yeah, we got publicly... I, I think I almost got like semi canceled there for a second. I was like, "No, like I just started this company. Not yet. Come on." Um, but yeah.
It's tough. Yeah. It's tough. I, uh- Yeah. Go ahead, Brian. I, I altogether, uh, stopped posting about any opening for Gong-related roles 'cause it- Oh, yeah...
it's just like an automatic, uh, DM and email destroyer to the, to the point that like I probably get asked like once a month from a hiring manager in commercial or mid-market like, "Hey, we've got this position open, like would you mind posting?"
I'm like, "Your network," I was like, "I don't think you want that." Like I, I seriously don't think...
Like when there is one open role and you're about to get 1,000 applicants for it and, you know, 20, 30% of them are gonna DM or email on top of it, like it's- It's... No... too much noise.
I, I don't know if there is a great answer for it, but other than don't do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it just comes with the territory. Um, Brian, we know that you're good at football.
We know you're good at volleyball. We know you're good at sales. We know you're good at being a dog dad. We know you're good at pretty much everything. So what do you suck at? What are you just completely horrendous at?
I'm atrocious at basketball. Um, I wasn't good at school, uh, like any- Same... science class. I find there's a commonality.
Entrepreneurs and like one percenters, in my opinion, typically have a history of they're like, "I hate like traditional school learning." I feel like we- Yeah... 'cause I'm the same way. I feel like we succeed
well beyond what your typical like SAT high school rubric would ever say, and like, I'm like, "Dude, what's the deal?" Like our, [laughs] we're so upside down. Education's crazy. Anyways, I digress. Go ahead.
What else do you suck at, Brian? [laughs] Like I couldn't wrap my head around like in high school every class was an argument with my parents.
I feel bad for them now looking back, but I was like, "Why do I need to learn like this pre-calculus? Like give me one example of when I'm gonna use it.
Why do I need to learn chemistry when one example of I'm gonna use this?" 'Cause I was already decided on doing like something business related at, at Indiana- Gotcha...
University at the time, and I think when I'm like all in on something, I go absolutely all in on it, but I-Uh, maybe a downside is, like, I, I lose my focus on, you know, the, uh, stuff on the side a little bit, so.
Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah, I sucked at school. I was bad, and I was actually-- I had a job throughout high school, and for some reason, my vice principal, we had a really great relationship.
He gave me a full credit, or whatever you wanna call it, in high school because I had a job, 'cause I wasn't supposed to graduate on time, 'cause I skipped a lot of classes. I hated school.
Same thing, I was like, "Uh," like, "You're never gonna use this," but I took it probably a step too literal, and I was like, "I don't-- I'm not even gonna go to class because I'm not ever gonna use it."
So I did that, had to take a year and a half off, went to community college 'cause I was bored. I sat at home, did nothing. All my friends were in college having fun.
Then I finally did community college, did well there, went to University of Houston, got a two two my first semester, and then a one six my second.
Just too much, I guess, fun or whatever, rushed to fraternity, all that fun stuff. And then my mom called, and she was paying for it.
My mom called, and I'm grateful for that, but she's like, "If you don't turn this shit around right now, I will pull you out of school, and you'll have to figure it out yourself."
And then ever since then, I graduated with a three six, and I was like, "Oh, crap, school is actually kind of important." And I actually- Nice... I did well. Uh, but yeah, I'm--
School was, was really hard for me, um, until I had no other choice but to make it easier. But it was fun. I have- It was fun. I have-- This is objectively my school history.
We should have an entire episode on this because it is- [chuckles]... insane. I've dropped out of most grades, so skipped all of middle school, with the exception of the first part of sixth grade,
started a dual enrollment program in high school before dropping out of high school, got my GED, but then had so many credits from dual enrolling that applied directly for university, started at USC and Columbia, and then transferred to Clemson, graduated at Clemson.
But the number of things that I just, like, ignored in your traditional process, I, I should not have ever been able to go to college.
But I actually graduated with decent grades from Clemson and, you know, obviously doing fairly well for myself now, uh, years later. But I, I've been asked before to speak at, like, high schools.
Like y- the high school students need to see that it's possible to, to make it. I was like, "You definitely don't want me to speak at your high school-" [laughs] "...
because I will try to convince all of them to drop out right now." I think it's useless. [laughs] I think traditional high school programs are useless.
I'm like, look, I learned almost nothing traditionally and then went to college and did just fine. Like- Yeah. Yeah... there should be some study about that. Like, what else? Why did I need all this other stuff?
I did fine. Anyways. Yeah. Brian, we had this question not too long ago, and I'm gonna ask you 'cause we're on the topic.
What do you think your typical or your standard four-year degree colleges would look like in 10 years? Do you think it's...
You think it's still gonna be a really big th- well, obviously, it'll-- I feel like it'll always be a big thing, but companies won't really need it as much.
Do you think it's more about experience, building applications, leveraging AI? What, what do you think college will look like in 10 years? I don't know if I know what they'll look like.
I'll give you my, like, more dream scenario or what I think they should evolve to is, like, a little bit more specialized.
Like, I, I feel very grateful I went to Indiana University, and they had, like, very specific curriculums, uh, maybe a little less like liberal arts-esque and more like they had a sales-related major.
They had one for, um, finance and, like, investment banking and, like, all four years was really driven around that for folks that, like,
did have a sense of what they wanted to get into, could learn, like, very specific tactical skills through those with internship programs built around it to get, like, the real-world experience.
And then I also think, like, financial literacy in general just, like, needs to be included a lot more at the high school and college level outside of all the great, you know, history classes and English classes, et cetera.
I think all that has a place for sure, but I think, uh, as college gets more and more expensive and, uh, need to prove the ROI per se of, like, what it's gonna equate to on the other end, like it, it needs to lead to a direct job path.
And I, I understand a lot of people that enter college might not know what they wanna do. I, I, I wasn't sure.
I started as a sports marketing major and ended up pivoting, but I, you can have a sense of direction at least in terms of, like, the category, um, that interests you at the time. Yeah. Yeah.
I definitely think it needs to be more specialized. Like those first two years where you're taking like the basics, it's like, "I'm really wasting two years here." But again, it was a good time.
I think you learn a lot more than just the classes out of college too. Mm-hmm.
You learn a lot about living alone, a lot about handling your finances, scheduling, prioritizing, stuff that you also learn about when you have a dog. That's true. That's true. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, the, the cop-out answer to my next question is I don't regret anything because it all brought me to where I am now.
So what I'm gonna say is that's not allowed to this question, and this is a question for both of you. If you could go back in time,
and this could be anything, it could be school, jobs, life, and change something about what you did, the way your life turned out, you can change something, what would that be?
A shout-out to my last company, but I think I would have left earlier- Mm... and pursued another role. I think I stayed a little bit too long 'cause I felt comfortable.
I was-- I started there as an SDR in twenty eighteen. Um, I got promoted to AE.
Was there for two and a half years as an AE, but I think the last year or so I wasn't like truly happy or being challenged or out of my comfort zone.
And I think it was easy for me at the time to be like, "Whoa, I've won President's Club here twice already. I'm a top performer.
I'm making way more than I imagined when I started as a sports marketing major six years ago at Indiana." Like, "This is too good to, to try to screw up or pass up on."
But, um, I needed to kind of-Go out of my comfort zone, join a more like high-growth scaling company where I could like take my own skills to the next level as well, that I probably just beat it a little bit too long on that.
One more regret. Yeah. Yeah, no regrets. Yeah, no regrets at all, but I will say I'm gonna talk about less of a specific moment and more of maybe actions that compounded. Mm-hmm.
Um, and it's a little deep I guess, but I would say, so I grew up in a, in a single mother household, so I would say
now that I have kids, it's like what I put my mom through and how I made life so difficult for her, I guess.
Like, through school she was always having to come to school 'cause I was in detention and all this stuff, and I was never into drugs or anything like that ever.
Still have never done any, but I was always just in trouble, like just skipping classes. I didn't care about school. So now that I'm a, now that I'm a dad of two and I'm like, damn, I...
One, it's hard to raise a kid and two kids with two parents.
She did it with one and had three kids, and it's just like it blows my mind how much she probably went through and how I did not add any, any good stuff to the-- Well, I'm sure there's good stuff, but, you know, any easy stuff to the mix.
So I think there's, there's that, but I don't know if there's like a specific moment where I'm like, "Wow, that changed the trajectory of my life and I hate that I did that."
Um, I, I talked about it with the episode on, with KD where leaving MongoDB was probably career-wise the biggest regret I have 'cause financially I'd probably be...
Like, their stock was like 80 bucks when I was there, and it's through the roof now. So, um, yeah, I think career-wise that was it, and then what about you, Daniel?
I'm not gonna let you just settle with your cop-out answer. No, no, no. I have, I have a few answers already prepared.
I am curious, though, do you have any stock at MongoDB still, or did they give you any shares before you left? Just the first year, and then I left for a 60K OTE more. Mm. And then I didn't...
I sold one deal in the 12 months I was there. It sucked. You had a post about that recently. I read it. I can't... It was like yesterday. Yeah. Very recently.
It was probably a, it was probably a Repview sponsor, shout out Repview, but at the end of the day it's, it's a true story. Like, I, I hated it. I'd get so many deals to a proof of concept. I was in mid-market.
They sold to large enterprise like Walmart, Google, like that was their key customer.
It was like you'd get to a proof of concept and the teams would essentially be like, "Hey, I don't have the bandwidth to do this," and maybe there was more discovery and stuff I could have done.
But, um, yeah, it was tough. You'd get them to the finish line and you just couldn't, you couldn't close the deal, so.
And before I answer the question, uh, it comes back to something Brian said earlier about companies to look at when you're looking at breaking into tech sales is a question you should ask or at least something you should gather from the current salespeople or sales, you know, leadership is like, "Hey, when you say 300K OTE, tell me exactly what that looks like and the breakdown and how possible it is to even get there."
'Cause 300K OTE might be 140K when you're just, one, terrible, or two, ramp is nine months and the 300K applies to this three-month period.
And all the stuff that if you're new to the industry you just, you don't know to ask. You're like, "Oh, I thought I was gonna make 300K this year, not 135."
Which granted, we should all be grateful, 135 is still a lot of money, especially if you're breaking into sales. But like it's not 300K.
I'd add in a clarifier too of like I think a lot of people now hopefully are trained to ask the question, like, "Okay, what percent of reps hit 300K OT?" And you get some number.
You need to clarify that question though, because there's reps at MongoDB that have been there for a decade that are all hitting their numbers. You're going to be a first-year rep.
That's the question you need to ask is, "Hey, what percentage of first-year reps hit 100% of OTE?" Because it's just- Yeah...
I don't care about the rep that's been there seven to 10 years that knows all their customers' first names and last names. Like, I care about what I would be walking into in my first couple years. Yeah.
And that is powerful. I'm gonna, I'm gonna play devil's advocate. Do you think that some people could take that as a red flag of like, do you just wanna be here for a year to hit this OTE?
Do you almost think that that could come off negative? I don't know. I'm, I'm just asking. I think the way to frame it, I think the way to frame it as a, as a candidate is by asking about employee retention and churn.
Say, how many of your first-year reps are still there at year two, at year three?
Because it comes off more insensitive than, you know, "Oh, I'm just trying to get into tech sales and I'm gonna dip as soon as I get that experience." 'Cause that's good. That's a very good signal.
If you're, you know, 75% salespeople are there at 24 months, that's a really good signal. But if 75% leave after nine months, that's a terrible signal.
And there's a lot of, you know, databases out there that show some of this, but asking the hiring manager or the sales leader at the time that question, it'll also give you kind of that, that first instinct of like how they react, their face, their tone.
You're gonna learn a lot about the team by asking that question. A- and just seek out the risk. Like, I think that's the goal throughout the interview process.
Like, do the framing of course of like, "Hey, I don't envision this being me," but among the 25% that do leave in the first 18 months, what are the three most common reasons why?
And like you have to ask those like negative questions. You can frame it so you're like, "Hey, you know, I don't envision this me or whatever," but like seek out the rep- Yeah...
and, and pull it out of not just the recruiter, but hopefully you can have a, a conversation with a rep or somebody else that might not have skin in the game. Yeah. Yeah. And the grass is not always greener.
I think it's very easy for sellers to fall into the slump at their job.
Let's say they're hitting 70, 80% of quota, whatever it is, and they know that their friend at another company has 60K more on their OTE, but that they might not be hitting quota.
I feel like a lot of sellers, especially the ones that I talk to, they always, always think the grass is greener.
If I go join this company, I'm gonna do better and I'm gonna make more money, and that's what I thought at MongoDB. I was like, "Oh yeah, 180K OTE for sure. I'm making 120 now. Like, I'm absolutely gonna go over there."
Not the case. Almost rarely is the grass greener if you're at a pretty damn good company, so.Daniel, what's your biggest regret? [laughs] Biggest regret.
So it's funny because I just had a whole soapbox about how school is terrible, and I would tell every high schooler to quit. So I dropped out of high school in October of the year I would have graduated in December.
The dumbest decision a 17-year-old could possibly make.
Now, to this day, it doesn't affect my life at all, but I lost out in college on $5,000 to $10,000 of just here's money to go to college every year just by [laughs] graduating in the state that I went to Clemson.
So early days when you're trying to pay off your student loans and you haven't started your career yet and, like, debt, here's my regret.
So all, all that boiled down to my regret is absolutely would never have gone into as much student debt as I did if I knew 25 to 35-year-old Daniel would have to be picking up the pieces with his wife and kids.
You know, I'm planning for their futures now, and I'm fine. I'm grateful for the life I have and, you know, I'm fine now. But early 20s, I was stressed out of my mind. I was like, "Yo, how am I gonna- Right...
how am I gonna pay off 100..." It was like 125 to $150,000 of debt when you, like, itemize all of it, and, you know, some private loans, some student loans, some federal loans, all that stuff. Unreal. Yeah.
It should be- Oh yeah... illegal. I'll die on this hill. Please. It should be illegal for a 17 to 20-year-old to sign their life away like that. You shouldn't be allowed to do it. Yeah.
100 grand in student loans for a piece of paper that means nothing? Crazy. So that's my regret is taking out that much debt.
Do you think that fueled some of your, like, early work ethic in your early 20s at the same time, though, just, like, and not having another choice than to be successful?
Not that I recommend going into [laughs] that much debt. I think that's the silver lining.
I think if I had $0 in debt and I graduated without, like, a chip on my shoulder of like, "Yo, I need to go make as much money as fast as possible so I'm not strapped and handcuffed to this debt for the rest of my life," I think I, I probably would've taken the point of least resistance.
I mean, uh, that's not who I am nowadays. I like to be building. I like to be growing something. I like to have ownership in, in what I'm doing.
But [laughs] post-college Daniel, I was probably so exhausted, I probably would've just, like, laid around and chilled if I didn't need to go make as much money as possible. So I think that's- Yeah...
that's the silver lining for sure. Yeah. Yeah. There's a, there's a old, there's a old story about, like, whoever knows what's good or bad. Have y'all heard this?
I don't even know how to say it, so I'm gonna butcher it, but have you heard, like, the Chinese farmer who knows what's good or bad? I have but- If not-... like-... look at... Just d- just look it up.
It's essentially somebody comes onto their farm to steal their horses and then the pers- It's like this whole story. No, they let their, he let his son on the horse, and they're like, "No, don't do that."
Then he broke his leg, but then the horse got ran.
There's, like, this whole thing about it, but essentially it's like one bad thing happens after another, and every single time something bad would happen, the farmer would say, "Who really knows what's good or bad?"
Because something worse would happen after that, and then something worse would happen after that.
So it's kind of one of those things where all, everything that you do in life, and that's why people say, like, "I don't have any regrets," everything that you do does lead up to the moment that you're in now.
And I know that we're almost out of time here. I wanna get one more question that's not work-related to, to Brian here.
Outside of Closed1, outside of everything that you're doing on the side as well as Gong, what really makes you happy outside of work? What do you do? What's, what's Brian do when he clocks out besides play with Monty?
Definitely playing with Monty. Outside of that- [laughs]... uh, getting together with friends. Like, I'm a, I'm a huge, uh, sports everything person, so, uh, my friends and I will, uh, go to different football games.
We're big IU football fans for one. Yeah. Uh, trying to go to another UFC fight. We did our, our first one as a group- Ooh... out in Las Vegas, which was a blast a year ago. The, the Conor McGregor one that got pushed?
Uh, no. We did, uh, it was, uh, Paddy The Baddy was fighting. Um- Mm. There were a couple of good ones on that card, but- Oh, yeah. Um- Yeah. Keep going.
Yeah, just getting together with friends, like getting together with family.
I'm, I'm super fortunate that all my close family lives, uh, pretty nearby in Chicago, so I play, like, pickleball every Wednesday with my dad as an example, just getting to, to spend time with, with friends and family.
I'm, I'm a pretty simple person. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of- That's sick. Me too. Do you think you could beat up Daniel? How tall are you? Six foot five.
[laughs] Yeah, Daniel runs marathons, but he, he might not go to the gym and- No, he's weak... maybe. I think, I think you have... This is funny. So I, I'll, I'll...
This is my last thought, and we can do closing remarks. I played tackle football, like, like, Peewee tackle football, like, when I was, like, a kid, but I was massive.
I, like, when I was 10 years old, I was almost 200 pounds. I was humongous. Wow. So I was a 10-year-old- [laughs]...
and I was a lineman, and there was this kid that was, like, the size of a 10-year-old, and I lined up on him, and I remember distinctly with witnesses this happened.
The kid started bawling and ran off the field to his mommy because he was so scared- [laughs]... of just being next to me on the opposing line. So back in the day, I was a freak of nature.
Now, I'm just, like, a really tall, skinny guy. I think you could take me. But the story is there was another guy lined up on me, so that was a hilarious story.
The other, other guy, way shorter than me, used his shortness to his advantage and, like, flipped me over his back. I was not expecting it. [laughs] I was on the ground.
I think that's, that's what the Brian-Daniel fight would look like. I think you'd, uh, you'd have it easy. Yeah. The gym and kneecaps. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he would, he would...
Yeah, you'd, you'd be dust, buddy. You're done. So- You'd be done... quick, quick for Brian. Thank you for joining Two Dads in Pod- or Two, Two Dads in Podcast. [laughs] Two Dads in Tech podcast. Three dads for today.
Where can people listening find you, Brian? Can always find me on LinkedIn. Uh, can just search my name, Brian Lamana, and Gong should come up underneath that, and then, uh, also my website closed1.xyz.
I've got some different resources on there, like my newsletter and some other freebies as well. But, um, yeah, would love to- Sweet... connect with everyone. Love it. And what about us, Troy? Yeah.
Where can people find Two Dads in Tech? Twodadsintech.com. It's pretty easy. Or just search up Two Dads in Tech on any platform that you listen to when it comes to podcasts or on YouTube as well. Two Dads in Tech.
Subscribe. Like, that's huge. The subscribers are big there. Um, yeah, we appreciate you making it this far. Brian, again, thank you so much for your time. Thanks, guys. Daniel, I don't care about your time.
I freaking hate you, Troy, but Brian, I love you. [laughs] And happy birthday. I totally forgot. Hey. Thank you. Full circle. Happy birthday, Brian. Oh. I love that. All right. Awesome. All right, y'all. Take it easy.
See you next time. Thanks, Brian.