--- title: "The AI Hiring Echo Chamber Is Breaking Sales" episode: 150 podcast: "The LeanScale Podcast" publisher: "LeanScale" guest: "Melissa McCann-Tilton" guest_title: "President & Chief Revenue Officer" date_published: 2026-11-04 date_modified: 2026-11-09 duration: 00:54:24 word_count: 8708 topics: ["sales-leadership", "ai-in-gtm", "outbound-sales", "gtm-strategy"] canonical_url: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/melissa-mccann-tilton-criteria-ai-hiring-echo-chamber/ source: "LeanScale Knowledge Hub — https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge" license: "Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast." --- # The AI Hiring Echo Chamber Is Breaking Sales _Melissa McCann-Tilton on why a number is the one credential nobody can argue with, what keeps women out of the CRO seat, AI-written resumes screened by AI, why almost half of hires fail, testing candidates in the room, and why your inbound lead is already an order_ **Episode 150 · The LeanScale Podcast** Melissa McCann-Tilton, President & Chief Revenue Officer (Criteria) · Hosted by Anthony Enrico Published November 4, 2026 · Updated November 9, 2026 · 00:54:24 Canonical: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/melissa-mccann-tilton-criteria-ai-hiring-echo-chamber/ **Topics:** Sales Leadership · AI in GTM · Outbound & Sales Development · GTM Strategy ## Executive summary Melissa McCann-Tilton is President and Chief Revenue Officer at Criteria, the pre-employment assessment platform used by more than 4,000 organizations. Per the show notes, she was previously Chief Revenue Officer at Convoy and Chief Sales Officer at Payscale, and led go-to-market across automotive software at CDK Global, ADP, and Reynolds and Reynolds. She moved from marketing into sales after an early-2000s automotive meeting where a rep kept asking who would give the presentation, even after the CEO said she would. Sales could be measured, and she was certain she could hit a number. That number gave her a common language and a seat nobody could deny, but she calls it a double-edged sword: it is how you get in the room and how you get asked to leave. She puts the average CRO and CMO tenure at 18 months, too short to get anything done. Asked what keeps women out of the CRO seat, she names lonely rooms with few role models, compensation that puts half your paycheck at risk, and companies so over-optimized for efficiency that AI is industrializing old processes rather than prompting anyone to redesign them. The center of the episode is the AI hiring echo chamber. Melissa says 11,000 applications are submitted per minute on LinkedIn, that nearly 60% of candidates get ghosted, and that one in four applicants and resumes will be completely fake by 2028. Candidates use AI to apply everywhere, recruiters point AI and their ATS at the volume, and the AI favors AI-written resumes, so candidates have no choice but to use it. She says almost 50% of hires are then likely to fail between six and 18 months, a system of effort in which both sides lose time and money and people go straight back into the market. Her response is to look at more signals and watch the work. Criteria uses assessments, job simulations and work samples to see demonstrated skill rather than reported skill. She now sits candidates in front of her to solve a scenario, wanting them to use AI while she watches how they use it, how they question and whether they listen. Her SDR leader redesigned the job around human connection and using AI to research rather than write, and one hire who had been on the market for 10 months is now the best SDR on the team at 130% of quota. On the broader SaaS playbook, Melissa says the lead process has turned on its ear. Criteria was 96% inbound when she joined, and she argues that by the time an inbound lead arrives, the buyer has decided and the rep is taking an order. Starting earlier, often through dinners and events, raises ACVs but makes old sales-cycle math look wrong. She and Anthony also cover showing up in LLMs, Reddit, and why broad careers now beat deep specialization. She closes on leadership: how she traded fear and intimidation for strength and softness, and why sitting with a rep teaches what Gong summaries cannot. The episode suits CROs, sales leaders and RevOps teams rethinking hiring, SDR design and funnel metrics, and anyone working on the path for women into go-to-market leadership. ## Key takeaways 1. **A number is the credential nobody can argue with, and it cuts both ways** — Melissa moved from marketing into sales after a meeting in early-2000s automotive where a rep kept asking who would run the pitch even though the CEO had said she would. Sales could be measured, and she was certain she could hit a number. It gave her a common language and a seat nobody could deny, but she says the same metric is how you get asked to leave the room. _Why it matters:_ Structuring your week, month and quarter around the number is a strong way to prioritize, but it gives no grace for market shifts or a delayed product release. Melissa says that edge was sharper for her because she lacked some of the relationships she sees male colleagues have. _For:_ Revenue Executives, Sales Leaders 2. **Eighteen-month tenures are too short to build anything** — Melissa puts the average tenure of a CRO and a CMO at 18 months and says that is not long enough to get anything done. She describes smart people in the market who spend half their time hunting for their next job, and sees an over-focus on the metric within a fixed period. She says men face this as well. _Why it matters:_ A leader judged only on a short window has little room to absorb externalities. Anthony draws the contrast later in the episode: building something to last means winning the hearts and minds of the team, which is a different mission from a quick turnaround. _For:_ Revenue Executives, Founders 3. **Three headwinds keep women out of revenue leadership** — Melissa names three. The rooms can be lonely, and you can only be what you can see. Sales puts half your paycheck at risk, which she says is anxiety-producing for many women who carry more baggage around security and stability. And companies have been over-optimized for efficiency, which she says AI is amplifying. _Why it matters:_ Melissa has structured teams to be friendlier to families rather than only to women, noting that men want to go to soccer games and dance recitals too. Anthony adds that shrinking SDR, BDR and marketing teams are removing the feeder roles into sales. _For:_ Revenue Executives, Sales Leaders, Founders 4. **AI is industrializing old processes instead of redesigning them** — Melissa argues that instead of rethinking the systems, the job descriptions and the way people work, companies are bolting AI onto the old process. She compares it to turning a herd of goats loose on a hillside: eventually they eat all the grass before you can plant more. _Why it matters:_ Anthony makes the same point from his side: using AI only for efficiency is a race to the bottom, while using it to improve quality and outcomes is how you stand out. Melissa says everybody needs to be rewriting job descriptions now. _For:_ Revenue Executives, RevOps Leaders, Founders 5. **AI SDRs fall short, so redesign the human SDR job** — Melissa calls AI SDR tools horrendous and does not think they can replace the role. AI has turned up the volume, which makes standing out very hard for someone with minimal experience and relationship equity. Her SDR leader redesigned the job to teach reps to connect emotionally and look different from the AI buyers encounter, using AI to research the industry and the person rather than to write the message. Tools such as Nooks handle the dialing a human does not need to do. _Why it matters:_ A brand-new rep can study expert points on an industry before outreach and sound like they are already in the space. Melissa says those reps make incredible small business and mid-market reps when promoted because they are trained in relationship arts. It is not efficient, she says, but it produces great results. _For:_ Sales Leaders, Revenue Executives 6. **The AI hiring echo chamber hurts both sides of the market** — Melissa says 11,000 applications are submitted per minute on LinkedIn and that nearly 60% of candidates get ghosted, so applying has become a volume game. Candidates can tell AI to find every job, write tailored resumes and submit them, and some reach a phone screen with no idea what they applied for. Recruiters then point AI and their ATS at the volume, and she says the AI picks AI-written resumes and filters out human-written ones. _Why it matters:_ She does not blame candidates, calling it desperation. Even at a company she describes as small, a posting draws hundreds of applicants. Anthony's worry is the flip side: AI screening drives toward a common-looking applicant and may miss high-potential profiles that are hard to capture on a resume. _For:_ Revenue Executives, Sales Leaders, Founders 7. **Fake candidates are now a real hiring risk** — Melissa cites a stat that one in four applicants and resumes will be completely fake by 2028. Her team is finding more fake people and agents applying for jobs, including operations standing up agents to bank pay until they are found out. Another common scenario is a different person showing up to the job than the one who interviewed. _Why it matters:_ She says remote work allows this to happen, which is one reason she now wants assignments done in front of her. The most common case she sees, though, is a real candidate whose AI applied on their behalf. _For:_ Revenue Executives, Sales Leaders 8. **Bad matches create a system of effort that hits your number** — Melissa says almost 50% of hires are likely to fail somewhere between six and 18 months, which she calls a ramp nightmare. Candidates who badly need a job land in roles that do not fit, the company and the applicant both lose time and money, and the person goes right back into the same system, spending more time job seeking than producing growth. _Why it matters:_ Anthony puts the cost in sales terms: lose a few reps carrying a million-dollar bag midway through the year and you cannot hire and ramp replacements in time, so you eat the loss and hope the rest of the team overperforms, which rarely happens. _For:_ Revenue Executives, Sales Leaders, RevOps Leaders 9. **Hire on demonstrated skill, not reported skill** — Melissa treats a resume as one self-reported signal. Criteria applies a variety of talent signals, including cognitive and personality assessments, job simulations and work samples. One SDR had been on the job market for 10 months because his resume did not look right. Broader signals got him a shot, and he is now the best SDR on the team at 130% of quota every quarter. _Why it matters:_ Melissa credits his grit and his appreciation for the chance. She says teams will need to find people in non-traditional places and go seek them out, rather than waiting for a resume that matches. _For:_ Sales Leaders, Revenue Executives, Founders 10. **Have candidates do the work in front of you and watch how they use AI** — Last year, a polished PowerPoint told Melissa a rep could do the work. Now anyone can produce one from Claude or ChatGPT in minutes. Her best tests give a scenario and sit the candidate in front of her. She wants them to use AI, but she watches where they go to it, what they clarify, whether they run discovery, whether they listen and whether they create urgency. _Why it matters:_ She says you also have to tell candidates what AI use is acceptable. Anthony reports the same break at LeanScale, where assignments for go-to-market architects used to test quality of work, which candidates can now produce with 30 seconds of Claude. Melissa says she can train AI use but is watching adaptive learning skills. _For:_ Sales Leaders, Revenue Executives, RevOps Leaders 11. **Your inbound lead is already an order** — Melissa says Criteria was 96% inbound when she joined and had essentially no outbound motion. By the time someone reaches you through an inbound lead, she argues, they have done their research and decided, so the rep is taking an order. Reaching people earlier means starting the conversation, especially at the enterprise level, long before they think about buying. _Why it matters:_ She says ACVs go up when you do this, but timelines look nutty and new-logo math looks out of whack against old standards. Leaders will need to explain why a metric has to change and how it ultimately helps ARR. _For:_ Revenue Executives, RevOps Leaders, Sales Leaders, Marketing Leaders 12. **Events reach buyers before they are shopping** — Melissa calls events one of the most effective tools she sees for the new motion. Criteria is running a lot of dinners and cocktail parties, catching people before they are in a shopping cycle. You get to know people, they start thinking about the business problem, and then you get a call or one of your calls finally lands. _Why it matters:_ Anthony adds that you have to show up well, be thoughtful about how you curate events, and decide how to allocate budget, including whether to go in with a partner. _For:_ Marketing Leaders, Sales Leaders 13. **Customer teams have to find their point of relevance** — Melissa says the customer side is changing too. Instead of talking to a CSM or account manager, customers spend time researching in whatever GPT they use before ever speaking to the company. She says it is getting harder for CSMs and account managers to figure out where they are relevant in the conversation. _Why it matters:_ She is candid that this will require a big change and that she has not figured out what it is yet. _For:_ Customer Success, Revenue Executives 14. **Showing up in LLMs takes a point of view, and a Reddit strategy** — Anthony says there are no hacks or pay-to-play for appearing in LLMs: you need good, relevant, high-volume content and other people talking about you, through customer reviews, partners or PR. Melissa says those who rise above the noise will be having a thought leadership conversation in the market, and she encourages sales reps and SDRs to do it because it gets fed into the LLMs. _Why it matters:_ Melissa says Reddit is heavily weighted in LLMs and you have to build there organically, because you cannot pay to play or dump garbage on the platform. Anthony says he now sees companies hiring a full-time head of Reddit. _For:_ Marketing Leaders, Revenue Executives, Sales Leaders 15. **Breadth is now a career advantage, and softness is not weak** — Melissa says the industry spent decades pigeonholing people into specialties, while AI has stitched that specialization back together. A broad perspective now makes you better able to apply AI strategically. On leadership, she says she used fear and intimidation early on, which left teams afraid to speak up and left her not knowing what was going on inside her org. _Why it matters:_ She now drops to the rep level and sits with people, which she says teaches you more than Salesforce, HubSpot or Gong summaries. She pairs that with strength: holding people accountable and being clear about expectations, in an environment where they want to make you proud. _For:_ Revenue Executives, Sales Leaders ## Frameworks ### Industrializing the Old Process (10:27) **Definition:** Applying AI to make an existing process faster instead of redesigning the systems, job descriptions and ways of working around it. Melissa says companies have over-optimized for efficiency and that AI is amplifying the problem. She compares it to turning a herd of goats loose on a hillside, where they eat all the grass before you can plant more. In sales, it shows up as faster, louder outreach that irritates everybody. ### The Relationship Arts SDR Job (13:55) **Definition:** Redesign the SDR role so reps are trained to connect emotionally and look different from the AI buyers encounter, rather than doing the same job louder. Melissa's SDR leader rebuilt the job around very human techniques, role-play and coaching, with tools handling work that does not need a person, such as dialing. Melissa says those reps make incredible small business and mid-market reps when promoted. She admits the approach is not efficient but says it produces great results. ### AI to Research, Not to Write (16:19) **Definition:** Point AI at understanding the industry and the person you are reaching, and keep the outreach itself human. Melissa says a brand-new rep with no business acumen can use AI to quickly learn the salient points of an industry, gaining expert bullet points that would otherwise take decades to acquire. Studying them before outreach helps the rep sound like they are already in the space. ### The AI Hiring Echo Chamber (22:36) **Definition:** A loop in which candidates use AI to apply at volume, recruiters use AI and ATS tools to screen that volume, and the AI favors AI-written resumes, forcing every candidate to use AI. Melissa says the AI likes the sound of its own voice and filters out more human-written resumes because it thinks the person is not as smart. Candidates know this and have little choice. The result is that resumes tell a screener less while volume keeps rising. ### The System of Effort (23:23) **Definition:** The cycle that over-applied efficiency creates in hiring: poor-fit candidates get placed, fail, and return to the job market, with both sides losing time and money. Melissa says almost 50% of hires are likely to fail between six and 18 months. People who badly need a job take roles that do not fit, try to make them work, and end up fired and back in the same system, spending more and more time job seeking instead of producing growth. ### Multiple Talent Signals (25:56) **Definition:** Evaluate candidates on a variety of signals that demonstrate skill rather than relying on the self-reported resume. Criteria applies cognitive assessments, personality assessments, job simulations and work samples. Melissa frames it as getting a breadth of demonstration of skill as opposed to the reporting of skill. Broader signals are how her team found an SDR who had spent 10 months on the job market and is now its top performer. ### Show Me Your Work Testing (28:39) **Definition:** Give a candidate a scenario and have them solve it in front of you, with AI allowed, so you can observe how they think rather than grade a finished asset. Melissa watches where candidates go to AI and why, what they clarify, whether they run discovery with her and apply it through the exercise, whether they listen, and whether they connect emotionally and create urgency. She calls these adaptive learning skills, and says homework done elsewhere no longer proves much. ### Your Inbound Lead Is an Order (32:57) **Definition:** By the time a buyer arrives as an inbound lead, they have done their research and decided, so influence has to start well before the funnel. Melissa says reaching people earlier, especially at the enterprise level, creates an entirely new process before they engage in the funnel. ACVs go up, but timelines and new-logo math look out of whack against old standards, and she says leaders have to educate others on why those metrics must change. ### Strength and Softness (50:16) **Definition:** A leadership balance that holds people accountable with clear expectations while creating an environment where they want to make you proud, instead of relying on fear. Melissa says she used fear and intimidation earlier in her career, which produced teams too scared to speak up. She took the balance of strength and softness from motherhood and brought it into business, and says softness can be quite strong when applied the right way, without being a pushover. ## Quotes _Speakers inferred from an undiarized transcript — verify before attributing._ > "If I could produce the result, you couldn't deny me the seat in the room." > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (05:20) > "It's the way you get in the room. It's also the way you get asked to leave the room." > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (06:00) > "The average tenure right now of a CRO and a CMO in the industry is 18 months. It's not long enough to get anything done." > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (06:19) > "You can only be what you can see. You have to believe that that's a possibility for you. And you can't see very many women in these roles." > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (09:13) > "Because instead of redesigning the systems, instead of really rethinking the systems and the job descriptions and the way people do their work, we're just industrializing an old process." > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (10:40) > "Have you tried any of these AI, SDR kind of tools, solutions that are out there? They're horrendous." > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (12:10) > "AI has just completely turned up the volume and raised the stakes of what it takes to stand out." > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (12:27) > "It's just faster, louder screaming, which just irritates everybody, right?" > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (14:16) > "I think if you're using AI only for efficiency, it's a complete race to the bottom." > > — Anthony Enrico, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (15:38) > "I think it looks less like applying AI to write the thing and more like applying AI to research the thing." > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (16:19) > "And because we looked at a broader set of signals, we gave the guy a shot and he is the best SDR on the team." > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (18:11) > "There's 11,000 applications submitted per minute on LinkedIn right now." > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (19:42) > "So you point the ATS at the applicants and the ATS likes, the AI likes the sound of its own voice. It will only pick the AI written resumes." > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (22:36) > "Because I want them to use AI, but I want to watch how they're using it." > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (28:51) > "And by the time somebody's getting to you through an inbound lead, they have done all of their research. They have made a decision. Make no mistake, your rep is taking an order." > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (32:57) > "You have to have a Reddit strategy right now." > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (37:10) > "AI has just stitched all of our specialization back together into a broad perspective." > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (40:32) > "And like, I was designed to intimidate you. It was my whole deal." > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (46:57) > "There's a layer of emotion that you gather in that process that you simply can't gather from condensing Gong calls into AI summaries." > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (48:47) > "And then that was my model to bring it into business because you don't, softness is not weak. It's not weak at all. It can be quite strong if it's applied the right way." > > — Melissa McCann-Tilton, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 150 (50:25) ## Practical advice by role ### Revenue Executives - Structure the week, month and quarter around hitting the number, and expect externalities such as a delayed product release that the metric will not forgive. - Rewrite job descriptions now instead of adding AI to the old process. - When a metric looks out of whack under the new motion, explain why it has to change and how it ultimately helps ARR. - Spend time at the rep level, watching what happens to reps and listening to them, rather than relying on Salesforce, HubSpot or Gong summaries. - Replace fear with clear expectations and accountability, in an environment where people want to make you proud. - Design teams to be friendly to families, not only to women. ### Sales Leaders - Redesign the SDR job around connecting emotionally and looking different from the AI buyers encounter, and coach it through role-play. - Have reps use AI to research the industry and the person before outreach, rather than to write the message. - Automate the parts that do not need a human, such as dialing until someone picks up. - Treat the resume as one self-reported signal, and add cognitive and personality assessments, job simulations and work samples. - Have candidates solve a scenario in front of you, tell them what AI use is acceptable, and watch their questioning, discovery and listening. - Look for candidates in non-traditional places instead of waiting for a resume that matches. - Encourage reps and SDRs to have a point of view in the market. ### Marketing Leaders - Use events such as dinners and cocktail parties to meet people before they are in a shopping cycle, and be thoughtful about how you curate them and allocate budget. - Invest in good, relevant, high-volume content and in other people talking about you, through customer reviews, partners and PR, to show up in LLMs. - Build a Reddit presence organically, because you cannot pay to play there and have to earn trust. ### RevOps Leaders - Measure the timeline from first outbound connection to close, including the process that happens before a buyer enters the funnel. - Expect standard new-logo metrics to look off when conversations start earlier, and prepare the explanation for leadership. - Factor early attrition into capacity plans, since a rep lost midway through the year usually cannot be replaced and ramped in time. ## AI takeaways **Thesis:** Melissa argues that AI is amplifying an over-focus on efficiency, industrializing old sales and hiring processes when it should be prompting companies to redesign them. Her alternative keeps AI in research and in observed work, and puts the human relationship back at the center. - **** — - **** — - **** — - **** — - **** — - **** — **Agent & automation ideas** - A pre-outreach research agent that briefs a new SDR on the salient points of an industry and the person being contacted, leaving the message to the rep. - An interview-exercise companion that logs where a candidate turned to AI and what they clarified, so hiring managers can review questioning and discovery. - An LLM-visibility monitor that tracks how often a company appears in AI answers and which third-party sources, including Reddit, drive those mentions. ## Operations takeaways ### Revenue operations - **.** - **.** - **.** - **.** ### Pipeline & marketing ops - **.** - **.** - **.** - **.** - **.** - **.** ## Metrics mentioned | Value | Metric | Context | | --- | --- | --- | | More than 4,000 organizations | Criteria customer base | Organizations using the pre-employment assessment platform, per the episode introduction and show notes. | | 18 months | Average CRO and CMO tenure | Melissa's figure for the industry, which she says is not long enough to get anything done. | | 11,000 per minute | Applications submitted on LinkedIn | Melissa's figure for current application volume on LinkedIn alone. | | One in four by 2028 | Fake applicants and resumes | A forward-looking stat Melissa cites for applicants and resumes that will be completely fake. | | Nearly 60% | Candidates ghosted | Melissa's figure for candidates who get no response in their process, which she says has made applying a volume game. | | Almost 50%, between 6 and 18 months | Hires likely to fail | Melissa's figure for hires who fail after entering the organization, which she calls a ramp nightmare. | | Hundreds | Applicants per job posting at Criteria | What Melissa says she gets when she posts a job, at a company she describes as small. | | 96% | Inbound share at Criteria when Melissa joined | The company had essentially no outbound motion at the time. | | 10 months | Time one SDR spent on the job market | Nobody would hire him because his resume did not look right for the job. He was hired after Criteria looked at a broader set of signals. | | 130% every quarter | That SDR's quota attainment | He is the best SDR on the team, according to Melissa. | | Half of the paycheck | Pay at risk in sales | Melissa's description of sales compensation, which she says produces anxiety for many women. | | $1M | Quota carried by a lost rep | Anthony's example of a rep lost midway through the year who cannot be replaced and ramped in time. | ## Entities mentioned - **Criteria** (company) — Melissa's employer, where she is President and Chief Revenue Officer. A pre-employment assessment and talent signal platform used by more than 4,000 organizations. It was 96% inbound when she joined, had essentially no outbound motion, and applies assessments, job simulations and work samples in its own hiring. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/company/criteria/ - **LeanScale** (company) — Anthony's company. He describes its hiring test for go-to-market architects and engineers, which used to look for quality of work, and says he is building it to last with people he has worked with across his career. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/company/leanscale/ - **Convoy** (company) — Listed in the show notes as a company where Melissa was Chief Revenue Officer. Not discussed by name in the conversation. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/company/convoy/ - **Payscale** (company) — Listed in the show notes as a company where Melissa was Chief Sales Officer. Not discussed by name in the conversation. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/company/payscale/ - **CDK Global** (company) — Listed in the show notes among the automotive software companies where Melissa led go-to-market. Not discussed by name in the conversation. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/company/cdk-global/ - **ADP** (company) — Listed in the show notes among the companies where Melissa led go-to-market in automotive software. Not discussed by name in the conversation. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/company/adp/ - **Reynolds and Reynolds** (company) — Listed in the show notes among the automotive software companies where Melissa led go-to-market. Not discussed by name in the conversation. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/company/reynolds-and-reynolds/ - **Melissa McCann-Tilton** (person, guest) — President and CRO at Criteria, previously CRO at Convoy and Chief Sales Officer at Payscale. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/guest/melissa-mccann-tilton/ - **Anthony Enrico** (person, host) — Co-founder of LeanScale and host of The LeanScale Podcast. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/guest/anthony-enrico/ - **LinkedIn** (tool, Social Platform) — Melissa says 11,000 applications are submitted per minute on LinkedIn, and names it among the platforms candidates point AI at to apply for every job. - **Nooks** (tool, Sales Dialer) — A solution Melissa says her SDR team loves and uses, as part of automating what a human does not need to do, such as dialing all day until somebody picks up. - **Reddit** (tool, Community / Social) — Melissa says you need a Reddit strategy because it is heavily weighted in LLMs and has to be built organically. Anthony says he sees companies hiring a full-time head of Reddit. - **Claude** (tool, AI Assistant) — Named by Melissa and Anthony as a tool candidates can use to produce a polished presentation or client-ready asset in minutes, which is why finished homework no longer proves skill. - **ChatGPT** (tool, AI Assistant) — Named with Claude as a way to produce a really nice presentation in five minutes, making that kind of homework assignment meaningless. - **Gong** (tool, Revenue Intelligence) — Melissa says you can listen to Gong calls all day, but sitting with a rep gives you a layer of emotion you cannot gather from condensing Gong calls into AI summaries. - **Salesforce** (tool, CRM) — Named with HubSpot and Gong as a system that will not show a leader what they learn from sitting with a rep. - **HubSpot** (tool, CRM) — Named with Salesforce and Gong as a system that will not show a leader what they learn from sitting with a rep. ## FAQ **Q: What is the AI hiring echo chamber?** A: The AI hiring echo chamber is the loop Criteria President and CRO Melissa McCann-Tilton describes in which candidates use AI to apply to huge numbers of jobs, recruiters use AI and applicant tracking systems to screen that volume, and the AI favors resumes written by AI. Because candidates know this, they feel they have to use AI to get through the filter. She says human-written resumes can actually be filtered out because the system judges the person as less smart. **Q: Why do so many new hires fail, and what does it cost a sales team?** A: Melissa McCann-Tilton estimates that almost 50% of hires are likely to fail between six and 18 months. In her view, candidates who badly need a job get placed in roles that do not fit, both sides lose time and money, and the person returns to the same job market. LeanScale's Anthony Enrico adds that losing a few reps expected to carry a million-dollar bag midway through the year is very hard to recover from, because replacements cannot be hired and ramped in time. **Q: How should you test sales candidates when AI can produce polished work in minutes?** A: Melissa McCann-Tilton recommends giving candidates a scenario and having them solve it in front of you, with clear rules on acceptable AI use. She wants candidates to use AI, but she watches where and why they turn to it, what they clarify, whether they run discovery and apply it, whether they listen, and whether they connect emotionally and create urgency. She also uses cognitive and personality assessments, job simulations and work samples, because a resume is only one self-reported signal. **Q: Can AI SDR tools replace human SDRs?** A: Melissa McCann-Tilton calls current AI SDR tools horrendous and does not think they can replace the role. She allows that agents might someday talk to each other and produce leads, but thinks that is a ways off and that people will always want to buy from a person at some point. She does say AI has made the SDR job much harder by raising the volume and the bar for standing out. **Q: What does a redesigned SDR job look like?** A: At Criteria, the SDR leader redesigned the job so reps are trained to connect emotionally and to look different from the AI buyers encounter. Reps use AI to research the industry and the person rather than to write the message, automation handles repetitive work such as dialing, and role-play and coaching build relationship skills. President and CRO Melissa McCann-Tilton says those reps go on to become strong small business and mid-market reps. **Q: Why is an inbound lead already an order?** A: Melissa McCann-Tilton argues that by the time someone reaches a company through an inbound lead, they have done all of their research and made a decision, so the rep is effectively taking an order. To influence the decision, companies have to start conversations much earlier, especially at the enterprise level. She says that raises ACVs but makes timelines and new-logo metrics look out of whack against old standards. **Q: How do companies show up in LLM answers?** A: In this LeanScale Podcast conversation, Anthony Enrico says there are no hacks or pay-to-play options: you need good, relevant, high-volume content and other people talking about you through customer reviews, partners or PR. Criteria's Melissa McCann-Tilton adds that people with a point of view in the market will rise above the noise, and that companies need a Reddit strategy because Reddit is heavily weighted in LLMs and has to be built organically. **Q: What keeps women out of CRO roles?** A: Melissa McCann-Tilton, President and CRO at Criteria, offers three theories. The rooms can be lonely and there are few women in these roles to look to. Sales compensation puts half of a paycheck at risk, which she says produces anxiety for many women around security and stability. And companies have become over-optimized for efficiency, which she says AI is amplifying. She adds that men experience some of this too, and that teams can be structured to be friendlier to families. ## Timeline - **00:00** — Cold open + intro - **00:56** — "Melissa's going to do it": the meeting that pushed her into sales - **05:57** — The double-edged sword and the 18-month CRO - **07:47** — What's keeping women out of the CRO seat - **12:05** — AI SDR tools and redesigning the SDR job - **18:51** — The AI hiring echo chamber - **23:10** — The system of effort: why half of hires fail - **25:56** — More talent signals — and homework done in the room - **30:21** — The SaaS playbook isn't working anymore - **32:19** — Your inbound lead is an order - **35:27** — Showing up in the LLMs — and the Reddit strategy - **41:27** — Has it gotten better for women in GTM? - **45:37** — Fear and intimidation vs. strength and softness - **53:13** — Wrap ## Related episodes - **Ep. 142: How to Sell Against Claude: Differentiation Is a System** (Simon Kirk (Orbital)) — Also covers how to interview AEs and sales leaders now that every candidate has Claude, the same problem as Melissa's in-room tests. - **Ep. 135: Where Enablement Goes to Die: The First-Line Manager** (Ally Combs (Bretton AI)) — Interview tests that manufacture situations revealing coachability and character, close to Melissa's focus on demonstrated rather than claimed skill. - **Ep. 143: A Decade in One CRO Seat: Make More Money Than You Spend** (David Cady (Virtuous)) — A CRO who has lasted far past the 18-month tenure Melissa describes, and who has also struggled to interview for grit and agency. - **Ep. 120: AI Made Outreach Worthless. Events Are What's Left** (Alex Reynolds (Vendelux)) — A deeper look at the in-person motion Melissa calls one of the most effective tools for reaching buyers before they are shopping. - **Ep. 110: Why You Can't Automate Reddit** (Shawn Tenam (Clearbox)) — The practical version of Melissa's point that Reddit has to be built organically and cannot be bought or spammed. - **Ep. 72: AI Search Is Changing Everything—Here’s the New Go-To-Market Playbook** (Mike Head (PartnerStack)) — Why LLMs trust third-party content, which supports the discussion here of needing other people talking about you to show up in AI answers. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/mike-head-ai-search-playbook/ - **Ep. 114: Outbound Isn't Dying. Yours Is.** (Joey Gilkey (TitanX)) — Conversations as the core of outbound and AI kept in the back of the house, in line with Melissa's redesigned SDR job. - **Ep. 31: Has AI Killed Servant Leadership?** (Michael Preuss (VRIFY)) — Another view of leadership and the evaporating junior on-ramp in the AI era, set against Melissa's strength and softness and her concern for entry-level feeder roles. · https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/michael-preuss-active-leadership-ai/ ## Full transcript _Machine-transcribed and not diarized; speaker attribution is inferred._ _Transcript only, as a separate file: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/melissa-mccann-tilton-criteria-ai-hiring-echo-chamber/transcript.md_ ### 00:00 — Cold open + intro **[0:00]** My guest today is Melissa McCann-Tilton, President and Chief Revenue Officer at Criteria, **[0:05]** the pre-employment assessment platform used by more than 4,000 organizations. **[0:10]** The average tenure right now of a CRO and a CMO in the industry is 18 months. **[0:16]** It's absurd. **[0:17]** It's not long enough to get anything done. **[0:20]** AI has just completely turned up the volume and raised the stakes of what it takes to stand out **[0:30]** literally crazy. **[0:31]** There's 11,000 applications submitted per minute on LinkedIn right now. **[0:38]** Just on LinkedIn. **[0:40]** Just on LinkedIn. **[0:41]** Building something to last and you have to win the hearts and minds of your team. **[0:46]** It's a very, very challenging thing to do. **[0:48]** You know, it's important to note like it doesn't mean you're a pushover. ### 00:56 — "Melissa's going to do it": the meeting that pushed her into sales **[0:56]** Melissa, you told me you got into sales because you needed a metric that a number was the one **[1:01]** thing nobody could kick you out of the room for. **[1:04]** Take me back to the moment where you figured that out. **[1:07]** Anthony, it was a long time ago. **[1:11]** I don't believe it. **[1:12]** Long time ago. **[1:14]** I was in a meeting. **[1:16]** We were selling an automotive and I was in marketing at the time. **[1:22]** I had sort of come up through lots of different types of roles. **[1:27]** Almost intentionally. **[1:28]** I had product roles. **[1:29]** I had services roles and I landed in marketing. **[1:32]** There was something about the go to market motion that just I liked and it made sense to me. **[1:37]** But marketing was kind of tough back then because, you know, it was a little bit on the edge of leads **[1:43]** being a metric and clicks being a metric early days. **[1:46]** Like I said, it was a while ago. **[1:49]** We were selling early iterations of websites to automotive CMOs, car companies. **[1:59]** We were trying to convince car companies that they would sell cars online. **[2:04]** Can you believe it? **[2:08]** In this room, I'm sitting with a bunch of people who've been in the industry a long time. **[2:13]** They were all men. **[2:15]** One of the sales reps was trying we were trying to prep to go into the CMO meeting. **[2:20]** One of the sales reps kept asking who was going to do the presentation. **[2:23]** The CEO of the company I was with kept saying, "Well, Melissa is going to do it." **[2:28]** The sales rep kept going, "But who's going to do it?" **[2:32]** The CEO kept going, "Well, Melissa is going to do it." **[2:35]** It was like he couldn't see me. **[2:38]** He couldn't fathom that I was going to walk in the room and do the sales pitch. **[2:43]** It just didn't compute to him. **[2:46]** That was the moment that I was clear I have to shift from marketing into sales **[2:53]** because you can measure sales. **[2:55]** I was certain in my ability that if you gave me the number, I'd be able to get it done. **[3:02]** The rest is history. **[3:07]** Was your blood just boiling in that moment when that happened? **[3:12]** What were you feeling during that time? **[3:14]** Not really, honestly. **[3:16]** I know we're going to talk a little bit about why women do or don't get into go-to-market today, **[3:22]** but I think you expect it. **[3:25]** Especially at that time, it was early 2000s, **[3:30]** I was used to being in a position where I just had to prove myself. **[3:34]** I had to be better than anyone else around me to be seen. **[3:38]** I had to produce something tangible. **[3:41]** So, certainly it's frustrating, but also it's just the way the system was set up. **[3:49]** Well, I think for a lot of people, whatever you feel like is your thing that's giving **[3:55]** you imposter syndrome or holding you back or you have to break through this perception, **[4:00]** I do think it's a beautiful thing to boil down your performance to one number. **[4:05]** I don't think there is another profession or role within a company where it can be so **[4:12]** clear-cut. **[4:13]** What has getting your focus on maximizing that number done for you in your career? **[4:21]** I think it gives a common language. **[4:24]** In a lot of ways, in a system where you're trying to sort out what the value creation is **[4:30]** over the course of time, you always have to make money, period, end of story. **[4:36]** Now, I caveat that I have been in some or in and around some venture capital type situations where **[4:44]** we're still stuck in like we're creating vision. **[4:48]** We don't care about money, but at some point they have to care about money. **[4:53]** You have to make money to survive as a business. **[4:57]** And I've been a part of businesses that actually went bankrupt because they lost sight of that. **[5:02]** They got too much in that sort of vision camp, going to change the world kind of thing. **[5:07]** And they forgot that they actually had to turn a profit. **[5:11]** So I think what that gave me was that common language. **[5:16]** And it gave me an undeniably. **[5:20]** If I could produce the result, you couldn't deny me the seat in the room. **[5:26]** And it was an interesting posture to reflect on. **[5:29]** And I think that's evolved for me over the course of time, **[5:32]** but that's certainly how I got into those rooms. **[5:36]** Has it changed your focus of how you set up your activities, your priorities, your day as well? **[5:41]** Because I think a lot of people are sitting in roles where **[5:45]** they'll be investing a little bit into the politics. **[5:47]** They'll be investing a little bit into the visible projects or initiatives. **[5:53]** Did it help you stay focused to the results too? ### 05:57 — The double-edged sword and the 18-month CRO **[5:57]** You have to be, because it's a double edged sword. **[6:00]** It's the way you get in the room. **[6:01]** It's also the way you get asked to leave the room. **[6:06]** And I think that that's perhaps unique in a way to being a woman in that kind of role. **[6:12]** I've been thinking about this a lot, actually. **[6:16]** I think men face this as well. **[6:19]** The average tenure right now of a CRO and a CMO in the industry is 18 months. **[6:26]** It's not long enough to get anything done. **[6:31]** So you think about all of these people out in the market right now **[6:36]** that literally spend half their time just hunting for their next job. **[6:43]** And they're smart people. **[6:45]** They're smart people. **[6:47]** So while the metric works, there's perhaps an over focus on the metric within a period of time. **[6:56]** So I do think that the forcing function of you have to structure your week, your month, **[7:04]** your quarter, so you're sure you're going to hit the metric. **[7:08]** That's a really good way to prioritize. **[7:11]** But what it doesn't, I think, give grace around is something happens in the market. **[7:16]** A product release gets delayed. **[7:18]** There's all sorts of externalities that happen to revenue leaders. **[7:22]** And it's sort of unforgiving in a lot of ways. **[7:26]** I think for both men and women, but I think if you sort of carry through my narrative around, **[7:32]** you know, like the metric was the only way I stayed in the room. **[7:35]** I didn't maybe have some of the relationship that I see some of the guys that I work with have. **[7:41]** And that makes that other edge of the sword a little sharper. ### 07:47 — What's keeping women out of the CRO seat **[7:47]** Let's get into that topic a little bit because I would love your perspective. **[7:51]** I'm seeing the same thing too, what is keeping women out of the CRO position, **[7:58]** out of sales in general, and also out of tech companies? **[8:05]** And it's sort of trending right now, isn't it? **[8:10]** It is. **[8:11]** I have theories. **[8:15]** And again, I think this is a thing men also experience. **[8:18]** And based on some of the ways that I've structured teams in the past, **[8:22]** where they were more friendly to, I would say, families, not just women, but families. **[8:29]** Because men are part of families too. **[8:32]** And turns out, men also want to go to soccer games, or dance recitals, **[8:37]** or whatever your kid happens to be doing, or your dog happens to be doing, **[8:42]** or your cat happens to be doing. **[8:43]** So I think it sort of, it crosses the lines. **[8:47]** I think that the rooms can be lonely for women. **[8:52]** You sort of have to decide you want to be the only person in the room that's like you. **[9:00]** And that can be discouraging. **[9:03]** It's sort of, you know, you hear the narrative about you can only be what you can see. **[9:08]** That's a thing that I, I don't know if somebody quoted it. **[9:12]** It's a great quote. **[9:13]** You can only be what you can see. **[9:14]** You have to believe that that's a possibility for you. **[9:17]** And you can't see very many women in these roles. **[9:20]** So I think there's a little bit of headwinds with that. **[9:23]** I think that the second thing around this has to do with money. **[9:28]** And I think that women more frequently have underpinnings of baggage with money. **[9:35]** Around security, safety, stability. **[9:41]** And I don't think that's purely a woman thing, but I think it's louder. **[9:46]** I think it's louder. **[9:47]** You know, we have sort of these, I know about, I know for myself, **[9:50]** I have a lot of like motherly tendencies. **[9:52]** I have four children. **[9:54]** I'm the breadwinner in the house. **[9:56]** I need to make sure things stay on the rails. **[10:00]** Can't be messing around. **[10:01]** And sales is sort of a high risk, high risk, high reward kind of profession. **[10:07]** Half your paycheck is always at risk. **[10:10]** Like that is anxiety producing for a lot of women. **[10:14]** To think about literally half your paycheck is always at risk. **[10:17]** You must perform if you're going to get to that second half your paycheck. **[10:21]** And I think the last thing is just a phenomenon I'm seeing. **[10:25]** And I think this is why this is increasing right now. **[10:27]** A phenomenon that I'm seeing in the market where we've over efficiencyed our companies. **[10:34]** And I think the bringing in of AI is amplifying this issue. **[10:40]** Because instead of redesigning the systems, instead of really rethinking the systems **[10:45]** and the job descriptions and the way people do their work, **[10:49]** we're just industrializing an old process. **[10:53]** And in the lack of thought, it's kind of like turning a herd of goats loose on a hillside. **[11:01]** Eventually, they're going to eat all the grass before you can plant any more grass. **[11:05]** And I don't know where that leaves you with a bunch of goats and no grass. **[11:14]** Well, and I do think if this is where you're going with this, **[11:20]** a lot of the companies have trimmed the opportunities that are there in general. **[11:25]** One area in particular, I think, is getting really, really hit hard by AI **[11:30]** or any entry level positions. **[11:32]** And where are the feeder systems into sales? **[11:39]** A lot of SDR teams are getting a lot smaller. **[11:42]** BDR teams are getting smaller. **[11:45]** Fewer marketing roles, which I feel like we're good entry points **[11:48]** into the go-to-market organization where you can move into that AE position **[11:51]** or get into a sales role. **[11:54]** Where do you think we're going to be finding new talent? **[11:58]** How do you think we're going to be placing them in the company? **[12:01]** And what does this do for women in that dynamic as well? ### 12:05 — AI SDR tools and redesigning the SDR job **[12:05]** I have strong opinions about this BDR thing that's going on. **[12:10]** Have you tried any of these AI, SDR kind of tools, solutions that are out there? **[12:16]** They're horrendous. **[12:17]** So I don't think that you can replace it with AI. **[12:24]** But what I do think has happened, I'd love your opinion on this, **[12:27]** AI has just completely turned up the volume and raised the stakes **[12:34]** of what it takes to stand out. **[12:38]** And I think it's very, very difficult for somebody with minimal experience, **[12:42]** minimal relationship equity, minimal personal brand equity to do that. **[12:48]** I've seen a few extraordinarily creative things work, **[12:52]** but I think the job has become so much harder. **[12:56]** And you're putting your most junior person on it to do it. **[12:59]** Yeah, I think you're right. **[13:02]** I'm glad you said you thought they were terrible. **[13:04]** I mean, they're definitely not there yet. **[13:06]** I don't think that's the role that you should be. **[13:08]** I don't think they will get there. **[13:09]** Do you think they will? **[13:11]** I mean, maybe there's a world in our future where an AI, SDR is talking to an AI research agent **[13:18]** on behalf of a company and we're skipping Google paid search entirely. **[13:22]** And the agents have a discussion that then turns into a lead. **[13:27]** I think that's entirely possible, but I think it's a ways off. **[13:33]** I think there will always be a point where people want to buy from a person. **[13:38]** So my SDR team is led by a woman. **[13:42]** She is a firecracker. **[13:44]** She's phenomenal. **[13:44]** She'll be a CRO one day. **[13:47]** She runs circles around most of my leaders in terms of coaching **[13:52]** and being able to ramp people fast. **[13:55]** But I think she does that because she redesigned the job. **[14:01]** She didn't just keep doing the same SDR thing that we were doing 10 years ago. **[14:07]** Louder. **[14:08]** That's exactly what happens when you try to industrialize the old process. **[14:13]** You scream louder, faster. **[14:16]** It's just faster, louder screaming, which just irritates everybody, right? **[14:20]** It's just it just sort of turns into a big noisy mess. **[14:24]** So she redesigned the job so that she's teaching people how to connect emotionally, **[14:33]** how to literally have techniques to look different **[14:36]** than the AI people are encountering while they're researching solution. **[14:40]** And it's very human. **[14:42]** And I think that's what's interesting about her approach. **[14:47]** And then those reps make incredible small business reps when they get promoted. **[14:53]** They make incredible mid market reps when they get promoted **[14:56]** because they they're being trained in relationship arts. **[15:02]** Not how quickly can I send out eight zillion emails that don't mean anything. **[15:08]** And I think that's going to be where we return to and go to market **[15:12]** is this this relationship art, because I think customers want it. **[15:18]** It's not efficient. **[15:22]** But it produces great results. **[15:24]** And I think that's the edge that we're going to have to find **[15:28]** as go to market organizations over the next several years. **[15:35]** Well, and I've been touting this for a little bit. **[15:38]** I think if you're using AI only for efficiency, it's a complete race to the bottom. **[15:42]** And it's a recipe to just lose. **[15:46]** If you're leveraging AI to improve quality and improve outcomes, **[15:50]** even for the same amount of prospects or customers **[15:53]** or whatever you're pointing your efforts towards. **[15:55]** That's where I think you can start to stand out and do really well. **[15:58]** I'm curious, her team, because I think lots of teams **[16:01]** would love to take a note on this. **[16:04]** What does that look like in practice? **[16:07]** Is she training them to go out to certain events, **[16:10]** training them to find unique ways to connect with people? **[16:14]** What does that look like in practice to where the future of an SDR is going? **[16:19]** I think it looks less like applying AI to write the thing **[16:24]** and more like applying AI to research the thing. **[16:28]** So she's still using a lot of efficiency in the process, **[16:33]** but we're using AI to really understand the industry we're walking into, **[16:37]** to understand the person we're reaching out to, **[16:41]** to get information that helps educate. **[16:44]** So you think about like a person **[16:45]** who doesn't have any business acumen yet because they're brand new, right? **[16:48]** They're brand new, so you can use AI to educate yourself **[16:52]** really rapidly on the salient points in a particular industry. **[16:56]** So you have expert bullet points all of a sudden **[16:59]** that would have taken you decades to acquire, **[17:02]** and you can study up on them before you do that outreach, **[17:05]** and that helps you sound like you're in the space already. **[17:10]** Is it still the same mediums though? **[17:12]** Are we talking email, LinkedIn, more or less the same ways to get connected out the gate? **[17:17]** Yeah, we love Nooks as a solution that we use. **[17:22]** So we're trying to be really conscious about automating the correct elements. **[17:28]** Like you don't need to like sit and dial all day until somebody picks up. **[17:33]** So you can find tools that do the things that you really don't need a human to do, **[17:37]** but getting the relationship elements and really role-playing and coaching that through **[17:42]** and getting that into people I think is really important. **[17:46]** I think the other interesting thing she's doing, **[17:48]** and this is this story I was just telling at a SHRM conference last week. **[17:55]** One of the reps we hired on that team had been on the job market for 10 months. **[18:02]** It like nobody would touch him. **[18:04]** Nobody would touch him because his resume didn't look like it should for the job. **[18:11]** And because we looked at a broader set of signals, **[18:15]** we gave the guy a shot and he is the best SDR on the team. **[18:19]** He's at 130% of his quota every single quarter. **[18:22]** Like he's really, really good. **[18:24]** And part of it is his grit. **[18:26]** I mean, he was on the job market for 10 months. **[18:28]** He's got a lot of grit, but also his appreciation. **[18:32]** Like he's so happy that we gave him a shot and he works really hard because of it. **[18:38]** And I think there's just non-traditional places. **[18:41]** We're going to need to start to find people to build our teams. **[18:45]** And we have to find ways to like go seek these folks out. ### 18:51 — The AI hiring echo chamber **[18:51]** I think one of the things that's getting really difficult too, **[18:54]** and you and I touched on this briefly in our prep session, **[18:57]** but the AI hiring echo chamber. **[19:02]** I think that's also making it really, really difficult for people to stand out. **[19:08]** You also have people leveraging AI to write their resumes **[19:12]** and kind of getting their foot in the door when maybe they shouldn't be getting in. **[19:16]** And then you have the AI driving towards a common looking applicant **[19:20]** that may miss some of those intangibles, **[19:23]** some of those high potential profiles that are really, really tough to put a resume to. **[19:29]** What has happened in the last couple of years in the hiring space? **[19:34]** And what do you think we should be doing next? **[19:38]** It's gone crazy. **[19:41]** Like literally crazy. **[19:42]** There's 11,000 applications submitted per minute on LinkedIn right now. **[19:49]** Just on LinkedIn. **[19:51]** Just on LinkedIn. **[19:54]** It's insane. **[19:55]** It's really insane. **[19:58]** Another stat, one in four by 2028 of resumes will be completely fake, **[20:03]** of applicants and resumes will be completely fake. **[20:06]** Literally agents going and applying for jobs. **[20:10]** Is it a fake person or just an agent that created a resume for a person **[20:14]** that might not actually reflect their real experience? **[20:16]** We're finding more and more fake people. **[20:19]** Or agents that go rogue and try to get employed. **[20:23]** Really? **[20:24]** Is there a motive? **[20:26]** Is there a certain motive to doing that? **[20:29]** Or is it a bug in some of the agents and workflows? **[20:32]** You can make money at these jobs. **[20:37]** So I think there's definitely fraud happening in some ways. **[20:45]** We've run across operations that are standing up agents, **[20:48]** trying to get the agent to get a job so that they can bank money **[20:52]** until they get found out. **[20:53]** Remote work allows this to happen. **[20:57]** The other scenario that we see a lot is the person who shows up to the job **[21:05]** is different than the person who did the interview. **[21:09]** Oh my. **[21:10]** Yeah. **[21:10]** So they send their smarter cousin in to do the interview, **[21:15]** different person shows up for the job. **[21:18]** And you can kind of fake it till you make it. **[21:20]** I think the most common scenario and really what I see happening in the market **[21:25]** most frequently right now is you can easily, really easily, **[21:29]** you can just do like talking to your phone kind of thing. **[21:32]** You don't even have to be expert at prompting or anything. **[21:37]** Tell the AI to go find all the jobs on whatever platform, **[21:40]** indeed LinkedIn, whatever, write applications for each of them **[21:45]** and resumes that fit for each of them and submit them. **[21:50]** So you get to the phone screen. **[21:51]** The Canada has no idea they've even applied for the job. **[21:54]** They don't know what the job is. **[21:58]** And it's desperation. **[22:00]** We can't really blame the candidate, right? **[22:03]** Nearly 60% of candidates just get ghosted in their process right now. **[22:08]** Nobody responds to them at all. **[22:10]** So it's become a volume game for candidates. **[22:12]** All they can do is sort of spray and pray. **[22:15]** They have to just send out a ton until somebody pays attention to them. **[22:19]** So the way that these recruiters are dealing with this **[22:22]** is they're pointing the AI and their ATS at this volume issue, right? **[22:26]** So I've got all these resumes. **[22:28]** And I mean, like when I post a job, I get hundreds of applicants **[22:31]** and we're a small company, right? **[22:33]** We're not some giant company. **[22:36]** So you point the ATS at the applicants and the ATS likes, **[22:41]** the AI likes the sound of its own voice. **[22:44]** It will only pick the AI written resumes. **[22:47]** Well, the candidates now know this. **[22:50]** So what choice do you have? **[22:51]** You have to use AI to write your resume **[22:54]** or you're never going to get through the filter. **[22:56]** The AI will actually filter out more human written resumes **[23:00]** because they think that the person is not as smart. **[23:06]** So it becomes this echo chamber kind of situation. ### 23:10 — The system of effort: why half of hires fail **[23:10]** And then once you get into the organization, **[23:14]** you're almost 50% of the hires are likely to fail **[23:18]** somewhere between six and 18 months, which is a ramp nightmare. **[23:23]** So you're sort of creating this system of effort. **[23:27]** So if you think about the over-application of efficiency in this situation, **[23:30]** you're creating this system of effort where you're placing candidates **[23:35]** who aren't good fits for jobs because they just need a job so badly. **[23:39]** They get into the job and they try to make it work. **[23:41]** They can't. **[23:43]** Your company's lost all this time and money. **[23:46]** The applicant's lost all this time and money. **[23:48]** They end up getting fired. **[23:49]** They go right back into the same system. **[23:52]** And people are spending more and more time just job seeking **[23:55]** as opposed to actually producing any growth in the market. **[24:01]** Is this whole process, does it need to be completely revamped? **[24:06]** I mean, is there any coming out of this? **[24:08]** Because it feels like it's going to be pretty difficult **[24:12]** to stop the AI production of resumes. **[24:15]** And then without using AI to filter it out as well, **[24:19]** you can try to maybe prompt to look for more human things. **[24:22]** But then I'm assuming the AI's going to catch up and start making, **[24:25]** I don't know, throwing in misspellings to make it look like it's more human. **[24:30]** Where do we go from here? **[24:31]** What do we do to get the right people and see? **[24:36]** It's a big problem. **[24:36]** When you think about leading go-to-market organizations too, **[24:39]** just tying back to hitting that number, **[24:41]** a lot of the way that we hit our number is hire really good people **[24:45]** and ramp them really fast. **[24:47]** And if you can't find good people and you can't get them to ramp, **[24:52]** you're constantly missing your quota. **[24:54]** Constantly. **[24:55]** It's a hole you never get out of. **[24:57]** Oh, it is a tragedy when you lose a few reps **[25:01]** and you were expecting them to carry a million dollar bag midway through the year. **[25:06]** You're not going to be able to hire and ramp someone for the remainder of the year. **[25:09]** So you're just going to eat that loss and hope the rest of the team overperforms, **[25:13]** which rarely happens unless your product is just too good **[25:18]** where you probably don't even need a sales team anyway. **[25:20]** But it's a very, very difficult problem. **[25:26]** Before AI even, hiring people in sales has been one of the most difficult roles to hire for. **[25:33]** We're such good BS artists. **[25:38]** You've already had the AI filters on your resumes the entire time **[25:41]** and fully prepared to know exactly what the other side wants to hear **[25:45]** and how they want to hear it. **[25:46]** And you don't have a lot of time, you know, they're probably in a rush. **[25:49]** So you have some leverage there too. **[25:51]** I mean, it's a very, very difficult situation to hire good salespeople. **[25:55]** Yeah, it really is. ### 25:56 — More talent signals — and homework done in the room **[25:56]** So we try to apply a variety of talent signals, not just one. **[26:02]** Resume is one signal, right? **[26:04]** It's a self-reported signal. **[26:05]** So we apply a variety of talent signals, assessments, **[26:09]** cognitive assessments, personality assessments. **[26:12]** We give job simulations. **[26:15]** We give work samples. **[26:17]** So really trying to get a breadth of demonstration of skill **[26:22]** as opposed to the reporting of skill. **[26:25]** And I would also just, I would caution, **[26:29]** one of the things I'm noticing more and more, **[26:31]** is if you're doing remote work or remote hiring, **[26:35]** or if you give somebody a homework assignment **[26:37]** that you then want to bring them in to report out on, **[26:41]** you almost have to have them do the homework in front of you now. **[26:44]** Physically in front of you. **[26:46]** Because it's, and you have to tell them what's acceptable **[26:50]** from an AI use perspective and what's not. **[26:53]** Because, you know, back like last year, just last year, so long ago. **[27:00]** Feels like ages ago. **[27:01]** Literally everything about my day is operated differently. **[27:04]** How would you ever, anyway. **[27:06]** It's just so much strange in here. **[27:08]** It's really different. **[27:09]** But you think just last year, **[27:11]** if I gave a sales rep homework assignment **[27:14]** and they produced a really good looking PowerPoint, **[27:17]** they're probably a pretty good sales rep. **[27:21]** Because they knew how to do that. **[27:22]** They could put in the effort. **[27:24]** I knew that they had to have done it themselves. **[27:27]** I don't mean anything anymore. **[27:30]** Because it all, you can like, **[27:32]** in five minutes produce a really nice presentation **[27:34]** out of cloud or chat GPT. **[27:36]** And it's utterly meaningless now. **[27:39]** So you really have to find other methods to test their skill. **[27:44]** It's funny you mentioned that. **[27:45]** Because we always had a test in our process too. **[27:48]** So we're looking for go-to-market architects, **[27:50]** go-to-market engineers. **[27:52]** We're managing RevOps for anywhere from Series A to C, **[27:56]** or pre-IPO companies. **[27:58]** And we would have the assignment. **[28:01]** The main thing we were looking for, if I rewind a year ago, **[28:04]** the main thing we were looking for was simply quality of work. **[28:08]** It wasn't even necessarily what the idea was. **[28:11]** Or even how the approach was. **[28:13]** I mean, as long as it wasn't completely off track. **[28:16]** But the main thing was, can they show up and be polished? **[28:21]** And put together assets that we would feel comfortable **[28:24]** having them put in front of a client. **[28:26]** But to your point, now they can do that 30 seconds of cloud. **[28:29]** Yeah. **[28:30]** Which is fine. **[28:31]** But what are we testing for now? **[28:35]** Now that they have access to that? **[28:37]** Yeah, I think what your test... **[28:39]** So the kinds of tests that we've been running recently **[28:42]** that I think work the best, **[28:44]** are ones where you give them a scenario **[28:46]** and you literally sit them in front of you to solve it. **[28:49]** Like, show me your work kind of thing. **[28:51]** Because I want them to use AI, **[28:53]** but I want to watch how they're using it. **[28:55]** I want to see where they go to it. **[28:57]** For what reason? **[28:58]** And do they actually know what to do when they get in there? **[29:01]** Which, in some cases, it's fine. **[29:03]** You can train a person. **[29:05]** But I'm watching for their questioning skills. **[29:09]** I'm watching to see what they clarify as they do the exercise. **[29:13]** Are they doing a discovery with me? **[29:16]** Are they applying the discovery throughout the exercise? **[29:19]** Did they listen? **[29:21]** Were they able to emotionally connect back to me **[29:24]** as they got the answer and create urgency in my process? **[29:29]** And those things are adaptive learning skills **[29:33]** that sort of sit around what we used to think of **[29:36]** as sort of like that quality of work thing. **[29:39]** You get to a quality of work now differently. **[29:42]** And I think it requires all of those really human skills. **[29:46]** And that's why I think everybody needs **[29:47]** to be rewriting their job descriptions right now. **[29:49]** Because I have... **[29:51]** I mean, I'm sure everyone's experienced this. **[29:53]** The reps that were like solid for years in this environment, **[30:00]** they don't really like it. **[30:03]** They don't really like it. **[30:04]** It's a different method. **[30:06]** And some of them are able to learn. **[30:08]** And some of them are dug in. **[30:09]** They're like, "I don't like it. **[30:13]** Not gonna do it." **[30:15]** So it's just a... **[30:18]** It's a real learning moment, I think, for the industry. ### 30:21 — The SaaS playbook isn't working anymore **[30:21]** You know, I was with our private equity firm **[30:23]** in New York last week. **[30:25]** And we were talking about this idea **[30:26]** that SaaS for a long time has had a playbook. **[30:33]** It's like a pretty standard go-to-market playbook, right? **[30:39]** Like it suddenly turned into rocket science. **[30:41]** Like the playbook isn't quite working right now. **[30:44]** And I think that's visible in how few companies **[30:49]** have exchanged hands in the private equity market this year. **[30:52]** And it's visible in growth rates **[30:56]** and the retooling that everybody's having to do. **[30:58]** So if you're still trying to run your SaaS playbook, **[31:04]** you're probably failing right now. **[31:06]** And you can't figure out why. **[31:08]** And I think this is just a retooling moment **[31:10]** we're all gonna have to go through. **[31:13]** I wholeheartedly agree with you. **[31:15]** Part of me is a little excited that it's getting harder **[31:18]** because I think it sifts out the real good companies **[31:23]** from the ones that maybe just raised a boatload of money **[31:25]** and can send more emails than somebody else **[31:27]** or go to a bunch of events or whatever it is. **[31:30]** But I actually think it's, okay, **[31:33]** who's built to last in this market? **[31:36]** And who is just gonna be a one-hit wonder **[31:38]** and maybe just trying to pump up **[31:40]** as much as they can before an exit? **[31:43]** I'm curious, from your perspective, **[31:46]** what are some of the old SaaS playbooks **[31:50]** that were tried and true, they worked, **[31:52]** it was best practice, everybody followed it. **[31:55]** That's now completely dead. **[31:57]** And what do you do instead? **[31:59]** Yeah, that's a great question. **[32:00]** I'm not sure I have a great answer for you yet. **[32:03]** Or if there's just a few that come to mind. **[32:05]** If there's a few that's like, **[32:06]** "Hey, this used to be part of the utility belt **[32:10]** of the go-to-market leader." **[32:11]** Now you can't do that anymore. **[32:14]** And now here's some new things you have to do. **[32:16]** This is the new baseline that is the expectation. ### 32:19 — Your inbound lead is an order **[32:19]** Yeah, I'll give you a couple of examples. **[32:22]** I think the lead process **[32:24]** is just totally turned on its ear right now. **[32:29]** If you were a business **[32:30]** that was dependent on inbound leads, **[32:32]** which almost all SaaS businesses **[32:34]** had a high dependency on inbound leads. **[32:36]** You know, when I joined criteria, **[32:38]** we were 96% inbound lead. **[32:41]** Like, that's a lot. **[32:43]** We really didn't have an outbound emotion at all. **[32:46]** I think most SaaS businesses **[32:47]** incorporated an outbounding motion **[32:49]** alongside of their inbound motion. **[32:51]** But that inbound motion has, **[32:54]** the change in it has really accelerated. **[32:57]** And by the time somebody's getting to you **[32:59]** through an inbound lead, **[33:01]** they have done all of their research. **[33:02]** They have made a decision. **[33:04]** Make no mistake, your rep is taking an order. **[33:07]** They may not feel like they're taking an order, **[33:08]** but they're taking an order. **[33:10]** They've decided. **[33:12]** So to get to people earlier in their process, **[33:17]** I think makes it look like the old playbook **[33:19]** around standard deal turn times goes out. **[33:23]** Like, it looks insane. **[33:25]** Because you have to start the conversation, **[33:27]** especially at the enterprise level, **[33:29]** way, way, way, way before they even **[33:31]** start thinking about buying product. **[33:34]** And when you do that, your ACVs go up, **[33:37]** but your timeline is going to look nutty. **[33:38]** Like, if you literally measured the timeline **[33:41]** that I'm seeing now from where we're outbounding **[33:43]** and making connection with people **[33:45]** to the time we're closing them, **[33:47]** there's like this entirely new process **[33:51]** that's happening before they actually engage in the funnel. **[33:56]** And one of the most effective tools **[33:58]** that I see for this right now is events. **[34:00]** People want to be with people. **[34:02]** Like, I don't know, like we're having a lot of dinners, **[34:05]** a lot of cocktail parties. **[34:06]** I've been on the road a lot. **[34:10]** - Yes. - But it works, right? **[34:13]** And you're catching people **[34:15]** before they're really even in a shopping cycle. **[34:18]** You're just getting to know people. **[34:21]** And then they start to think **[34:22]** about the business problem that they have. **[34:24]** And then you get a call, **[34:26]** or one of your calls lands finally. **[34:29]** So it's, I think if you measure things **[34:32]** by the old set of standard metrics, **[34:35]** especially on the new logo side, **[34:37]** it's just the math is going to look out of whack right now. **[34:41]** Because I think the motion starts to be different. **[34:43]** Think if you look at the customer side, **[34:45]** that's also changing. **[34:47]** Because I think that instead of talking to their CSM **[34:51]** or their account manager, **[34:54]** I'm going to go spend a bunch of time **[34:55]** in whatever GPT I'm using to do research **[34:59]** before I ever speak to you. **[35:01]** I'm just not talking to you anymore. **[35:05]** This is all available to me. **[35:06]** Why do I need to speak to you? **[35:08]** So I just think it's getting harder and harder **[35:10]** for the CSMs and the account managers **[35:12]** to figure out where their point of relevance is **[35:15]** in the conversation. **[35:16]** And I think that's going to require a big change. **[35:19]** And I don't exactly know what that is yet. **[35:23]** That to me is one that I have not figured out. ### 35:27 — Showing up in the LLMs — and the Reddit strategy **[35:27]** Yeah, and I think, so going to events, **[35:32]** there's a couple things. **[35:32]** You have to show up well to those. **[35:34]** So, and figure out, be thoughtful of how you curate them. **[35:38]** If you're going in with a partner **[35:39]** or how you're allocating your budget towards events. **[35:43]** And then also showing up in the LMS, **[35:50]** there's no hacks. **[35:51]** There's no pay to play on showing up in the LMS. **[35:56]** You have to have content. **[35:58]** It has to be good. **[35:59]** It has to be relevant. **[36:00]** It has to also have a high volume. **[36:02]** You have to have other people talking about you. **[36:05]** So you can't even control it. **[36:07]** You have to invest in that part of the equation as well, **[36:10]** whether that's customer reviews, **[36:11]** or partners writing about you, **[36:13]** or having a proper PR strategy. **[36:16]** You have to do so much to maybe show up. **[36:20]** And the thing that's probably going to decide **[36:24]** most of our go-to-market's fate. **[36:26]** Yeah. **[36:28]** Yeah. **[36:29]** In some ways, though, it, you know, **[36:31]** that business problem you talked about **[36:33]** where you've gone and raised a whole bunch of money. **[36:36]** And so you can just splatter-gram the market, **[36:38]** and therefore kind of win, **[36:39]** even if your product's kind of crappy. **[36:42]** I think that people who will start to rise above the noise **[36:48]** are people who are having a thought leadership conversation **[36:51]** in the market in general. **[36:54]** If you're talking to the market in general, **[36:57]** and this is a thing we encourage all sales reps, **[37:00]** SDRs to do. **[37:01]** If you're talking and you have a point of view, **[37:04]** all that's getting fed into those LLMs, **[37:07]** and that creates that discussion, right? **[37:10]** You have to have a Reddit strategy right now. **[37:12]** Like Reddit is like heavily weighted in LLMs. **[37:20]** Because you can't pay to play there. **[37:21]** You have to build organically. **[37:23]** You have to build trust. **[37:24]** You can't just show up and start bumping a bunch of garbage **[37:28]** into the platform, so. **[37:30]** But who knew? **[37:31]** We were going to have to write so much in Reddit. **[37:33]** Last year I didn't-- come on. **[37:37]** No, I know. **[37:38]** Before I don't think it was on anybody's radar. **[37:39]** And then within the last year, **[37:41]** it's become like the number one thing. **[37:43]** I see people hiring full-time head of Reddit. **[37:48]** Like not head of demand gen, not head of something, **[37:50]** like not events. **[37:52]** Their sole purpose is just to run the Reddit playbook. **[37:56]** That'll work. **[37:56]** Write a bunch of stuff on Reddit. **[37:59]** Yeah, it's true. **[38:01]** But I think that that kind of evolution just will continue **[38:04]** to happen. **[38:05]** And we're just going to have to adapt. **[38:06]** But I think the key is to adapt. **[38:10]** We have to observe and then be able to go. **[38:12]** I know that metric that you're looking at looks weird **[38:17]** or out of whack. **[38:19]** But let me educate you on why that metric fundamentally **[38:22]** has to change right now. **[38:23]** And it ultimately will impact ARR in the right way **[38:27]** or your revenue stream in the right way. **[38:29]** But I just think that's a big shift right now. **[38:34]** I think so too. **[38:35]** I think so too. **[38:36]** And I'd love to hear your perspective **[38:40]** of maybe how we got here. **[38:41]** Because I think sometimes knowing where we're going, **[38:45]** it's important to think about where things have come from. **[38:49]** Over the course of your go-to-market career, **[38:53]** and maybe you could frame it this way, **[38:55]** if you were to mentor somebody who's just starting out **[38:58]** right now, maybe they're just coming out of school. **[39:00]** They're looking for their way in. **[39:01]** They aspire to be a CRO one day. **[39:06]** What have you learned in your career? **[39:07]** And what do you think is going to apply **[39:08]** to that person moving forward? **[39:10]** It's fascinating. **[39:13]** I have not just been in SaaS. **[39:15]** I've been in marketplace businesses. **[39:17]** I've been in SaaS businesses. **[39:19]** Lots of different industries too. **[39:22]** And I think that the place we're coming from, **[39:25]** like honestly, a person like me was probably harder to hire back then. **[39:30]** Because I think that we as an industry **[39:33]** got really enamored with specialization. **[39:37]** And you sort of became, you're this kind of person. **[39:39]** You're a vertical SaaS person, **[39:43]** or you're a marketplace Airbnb kind of person, **[39:46]** or you sort of like fall into these very specialized categories. **[39:52]** And I think part of the play in your career up to this point **[39:56]** has been to specialize deeply. **[39:59]** Because when you went back out to market **[40:01]** and you started to interact with a search firm, **[40:03]** if they looked at your resume and they were like, **[40:06]** I don't understand what you are. **[40:07]** You're all over the place. **[40:09]** That was a really negative thing. **[40:13]** I think that's completely changed now. **[40:18]** Fundamentally changed now. **[40:21]** I think one of the things that AI has done, **[40:24]** we have spent decades trying to pigeonhole ourselves **[40:28]** into specialization. **[40:29]** And if you look at it from a different perspective, **[40:32]** AI has just stitched all of our specialization **[40:35]** back together into a broad perspective. **[40:37]** That's why it's so effective. **[40:41]** It has all the context at the same time, **[40:43]** which we have trained out of ourselves in the industry. **[40:47]** We've trained it out of ourselves. **[40:50]** So if you think about a career now, **[40:52]** having that general broad business perspective **[40:56]** across a variety of disciplines, **[40:59]** a variety of approaches, **[41:00]** actually makes you better able to interact with AI, **[41:04]** better able to apply it, **[41:06]** and better able to apply it in a strategic way **[41:09]** where you're amplifying the right thing **[41:11]** instead of just efficiency, **[41:13]** ising everything of yesteryear to your own detriment. **[41:19]** So I just think it's a different career strategy **[41:21]** than we would have told somebody 20 years ago. ### 41:27 — Has it gotten better for women in GTM? **[41:27]** Do you think the environment has changed **[41:32]** for women in the industry since when you started? **[41:36]** I've seen the cycles. **[41:39]** I mean, I entered business in the late '90s, my friend. **[41:43]** In automotive, it was not for the faint of heart. **[41:49]** (laughing) **[41:51]** I think, yes, I think women in those days **[41:56]** coming up, especially in the kinds of businesses **[41:59]** that I came up in, you had to be quite tough. **[42:03]** I mean, you had to take a lot. **[42:04]** You had to tolerate a lot. **[42:07]** You had to sort of be willing to be in environments **[42:10]** where it was really pretty, abusive and uncomfortable, **[42:15]** and be okay not leaving. **[42:18]** And I look at the younger me **[42:21]** with a great deal of empathy and tenderness **[42:24]** because I recall experiences I had **[42:29]** while I was coming up in business **[42:30]** where I just kept going. **[42:32]** I was super persistent. **[42:34]** You weren't gonna stop me, but my God, **[42:37]** did I have to just deal with all forms **[42:40]** of you can't even believe it. **[42:42]** Like, you can't even believe it. **[42:44]** It would make your head spin around. **[42:48]** But that was the system. **[42:49]** That was the way it was. **[42:52]** And I think we got better. **[42:54]** Also, I got out of automotive. **[42:55]** I hope automotive's better now. **[42:58]** I'm not gonna go find out. **[42:59]** (laughing) **[43:02]** If there's an industry that hasn't gotten better, **[43:04]** that might be one of them. **[43:05]** I don't know, maybe. **[43:06]** I'd like to think we all got better. **[43:08]** I do think it got better. **[43:09]** I think as more women entered the business **[43:14]** environment in general, **[43:15]** there was a greater openness. **[43:18]** There was a greater set of opportunities **[43:21]** for all of us. **[43:23]** But I recall sort of going through the cycle **[43:25]** where the women themselves, **[43:27]** we sort of were trying to believe **[43:28]** there was only room for one of us in any room. **[43:30]** So we weren't all that helpful to each other **[43:33]** because we thought I gotta be the one. **[43:35]** You gotta get out of here. **[43:37]** And I think coming through that **[43:39]** was another cycle for me in my career. **[43:42]** And then I think where we're netting out now, **[43:46]** it's interesting to think about it. **[43:48]** In a lot of ways, I ran my career **[43:52]** kind of a guyish approach. **[43:54]** I was pretty masculine in my approaches **[43:57]** because it worked. **[43:59]** And I think as I've grown in my career, **[44:02]** what I've realized is there's this whole other access point **[44:06]** that I was just missing this other side of myself **[44:11]** that actually made me a way more powerful leader, **[44:14]** that made me way more well-rounded. **[44:17]** And having that access point now **[44:18]** and watching what's going on in the market, **[44:21]** I think that part of that feminine access point though **[44:25]** is why you're seeing so many women **[44:27]** leave the system right now. **[44:30]** Because there's sort of a, I don't know, **[44:34]** I'm pretty smart and I'm pretty sure of it now. **[44:36]** So I don't think I need this. **[44:39]** And it's a disservice in a lot of ways **[44:42]** because I don't think the men in the system, **[44:44]** or I don't think they're conscious of it for the most part. **[44:47]** I think it's just a system that has happened. **[44:51]** It's just happened. **[44:53]** And I sit in the room with all dudes most of the time **[44:57]** and do I think that they're aware **[45:00]** that it can be weird sometimes? **[45:02]** I don't think they're aware at all. **[45:04]** Like kind of not at all. **[45:08]** So I don't think you get really mad at them. **[45:11]** I mean, certainly there are a few guys **[45:13]** that like they're aware and they're jerks. **[45:15]** But I think most men are not aware at all. **[45:19]** And I think bringing that point of education **[45:22]** of how you can be supportive, how you can design systems, **[45:25]** how we together can alter the system **[45:28]** in a moment where the system needs to be altered anyway. **[45:32]** So it's sort of a perfect opportunity in a lot of ways. ### 45:37 — Fear and intimidation vs. strength and softness **[45:37]** Can you go back to what you were mentioning? **[45:38]** Because I'd love to dive a little bit deeper. **[45:40]** You said you approached your career in a masculine way **[45:45]** and now you have a new vantage point with a feminine approach. **[45:49]** What are some examples where, **[45:53]** okay, this is a more masculine approach **[45:56]** to this particular thing or problem **[45:57]** or higher setting of your career. **[45:59]** And this could be another feminine approach **[46:00]** that opens up new opportunities. **[46:03]** What are some examples of the juxtaposition **[46:06]** of those two things? **[46:08]** Yeah, I think I used fear and intimidation a lot **[46:14]** earlier in my career. **[46:16]** And I think that I can articulate it **[46:21]** as fear and intimidation now. **[46:23]** What it probably felt or looked like more at the time **[46:27]** was certainty of decision and authority. **[46:32]** But I think that the way that it was expressed, **[46:36]** the certainty of decision and authority **[46:38]** was expressed in a way where I need you **[46:40]** to be a little bit afraid of me. **[46:41]** So you move it, right? **[46:45]** And I think that it's almost subconscious in a way. **[46:49]** But I mean, even the way I used to dress Anthony, **[46:51]** like I, good God, I would like, **[46:54]** wear these big high heels and leather jackets. **[46:57]** And like, I was designed to intimidate you. **[47:00]** It was my whole deal. **[47:02]** I was like, I had just made this persona that was like, **[47:06]** let's go. **[47:10]** Right. **[47:10]** And that sort of willingness to fight **[47:17]** that scrappiness, I mean, is something **[47:21]** that I drew from my history. **[47:23]** I understood it really well. **[47:24]** And when I got into business and I got around **[47:26]** how the men around me operated, I was like, **[47:29]** oh, I know how to do this. **[47:30]** Check. **[47:31]** I have this cold. **[47:33]** I can do this. **[47:35]** But I think the result it produces **[47:37]** is teams who are a little afraid of you, **[47:40]** teams who are a little scared to speak up. **[47:44]** So you don't really get collaboration. **[47:49]** You don't really know what's going on inside your org **[47:53]** because you're something other than them. **[47:54]** You're above them. **[47:55]** You're up here. **[47:57]** And I think as I've shifted that position, **[48:00]** one of the things I like to do is really like drop **[48:03]** into the rep level because I like to talk to customers a lot. **[48:08]** Like I like to talk to customers and prospects. **[48:10]** I actually like really like to be out in the field. **[48:14]** All the like board level stuff and the capacity planning **[48:18]** and all the boring stuff. **[48:19]** I know. **[48:19]** No, being in the field is a blast. **[48:21]** It's a blast. **[48:22]** So but if you can get down with a rep **[48:25]** and watch what's happening to them and really listen to them **[48:29]** and be with them, you learn so much more **[48:32]** about how your organization is operating **[48:34]** that you're not going to get out of Salesforce or HubSpot or Gong. **[48:38]** And I'm sorry, you can listen to Gong calls all day long. **[48:41]** It is different when you're sitting with somebody **[48:44]** listening and watching their process. **[48:47]** There's a layer of emotion that you gather in that process **[48:52]** that you simply can't gather from condensing Gong calls **[48:55]** into AI summaries. **[48:56]** You just can't do it. **[48:58]** So I think that's the contrast for me. **[49:01]** I think it makes a lot of sense. **[49:04]** For me, the best management leadership training **[49:07]** I've had is being a father because you learn that. **[49:13]** You're like, okay, especially as they're getting older. **[49:17]** You know, okay, I have to have boundaries, **[49:20]** but if I overdo it, then they won't tell me the truth **[49:23]** or they'll hide things from me. **[49:25]** And like you have to be loving, but have a level of respect. **[49:29]** And I think towing that line as a dad **[49:34]** has been a really interesting experience **[49:36]** that I always take back to work. **[49:39]** And I think if you can get the team, **[49:43]** I don't like calling companies like families necessarily, **[49:47]** but I do think there's a level of trust, cooperation. **[49:51]** And I think that has been the best training I've had. **[49:53]** Better than any, you know, I went to business school. **[49:56]** I had plenty of leadership trainings and all that stuff. **[49:58]** I don't think there's anything better **[49:59]** than trying to raise new humans. **[50:03]** I totally agree with you. **[50:04]** And it's funny, you know, I have four kids. **[50:07]** Some of them are in their 20s now. **[50:09]** My youngest one's eight. **[50:10]** And I was never like that masculine way with my children, right? **[50:16]** I was always like, I understood the balance in motherhood **[50:20]** of strength and softness together. **[50:25]** And then that was my model to bring it into business **[50:29]** because you don't, softness is not weak. **[50:33]** It's not weak at all. **[50:35]** It can be quite strong if it's applied the right way. **[50:39]** And I think that was, it's an interesting thing **[50:41]** that you brought that up about parenting. **[50:44]** I think that's an access point for people **[50:47]** to really like lead with heart **[50:49]** as opposed to like just being up here grinding **[50:51]** in your head all the time, trying to figure it out, **[50:52]** trying to work through it. **[50:54]** Certainly you need to work through things, **[50:55]** but really understanding what's going on, **[51:00]** I think, I don't know, it like sits lower in your body. **[51:03]** That makes a ton of sense. **[51:05]** It makes a ton of sense, **[51:06]** especially depends on what mission you're on. **[51:09]** You know, I'm the founder of LeanScale. **[51:12]** I'm here to build something to last. **[51:13]** So I'm not coming in for a quick turnaround mission **[51:17]** and jetting out. **[51:18]** And maybe there's time and place for those, **[51:21]** that type of leadership. **[51:22]** But I think if you're building something to last **[51:26]** and you have to win the hearts and minds of your team, **[51:28]** make sure you have the right type of people on the team, **[51:31]** it's a very, very challenging thing to do. **[51:33]** Yeah. **[51:34]** And I think, you know, it's important to note, **[51:36]** like it doesn't mean you're a pushover, right? **[51:38]** I'm not a- **[51:39]** Agreed. **[51:41]** Yeah. **[51:41]** I think part of, you know, you said that healthy boundary, **[51:44]** like part of the strength of it is holding people accountable **[51:49]** and being clear about your expectations. **[51:51]** And instead of sort of that fear of enforcement, **[51:54]** that like creating an environment **[51:56]** where they want to make you proud. **[51:59]** And that's reciprocal. **[52:01]** So I think that's exciting. **[52:03]** I think it is too. **[52:04]** And I think if you're going to build something special, **[52:07]** especially as teams move around, **[52:09]** we talked about how hard it is to hire and find the right people. **[52:13]** But as you go through your career, **[52:15]** and if you approach things that way, **[52:17]** I mean, I have people here at LeanScale. **[52:21]** I have a couple of family members. **[52:23]** So I had to have a good childhood. **[52:25]** I mean, it went all the way back to the beginning. **[52:28]** I have people that I've worked with at various companies **[52:32]** throughout my career. **[52:33]** And you never know. **[52:34]** You have no idea that this relationship **[52:37]** or the respect they have for you or what you've built **[52:40]** will actually turn into something later too. **[52:43]** You just have no clue how those dots are going to get connected. **[52:46]** So I do think you have to approach it every day where, **[52:48]** yeah, you can't be a cupcake. **[52:49]** I love the way you put it. **[52:51]** Can't be a pushover. **[52:53]** You have to stay strong in what you believe in. **[52:56]** But also, you have to have grace for certain things. **[52:58]** And then also have empathy for the people in the field **[53:02]** and what they're doing. **[53:02]** And be honest with if you've done a good job as a leader **[53:06]** to set them up to be successful. **[53:10]** I think that's right. ### 53:13 — Wrap **[53:13]** Well, Melissa, thank you so much for just taking us **[53:16]** through all of those aspects. **[53:17]** There's so much changing right now. **[53:19]** Some things that are holding true and I think **[53:22]** are just timeless wisdom that'll go throughout any team, **[53:26]** leadership, go to market in general. **[53:28]** But really, it's a very interesting place we're in with AI. **[53:31]** I think everything you talked about with hiring **[53:34]** and how to find the right candidates, **[53:36]** the AI echo chamber that is really going on right now **[53:39]** is making it difficult for people to find jobs **[53:41]** and for companies to find the right people. **[53:43]** So I know there's new approaches we're **[53:45]** going to have to take to solve that. **[53:47]** Also thinking about what job descriptions you're looking for, **[53:52]** what you're actually looking for now that people have access **[53:54]** to some of these tools that may change what you really need **[53:58]** people to be focused on and doing. **[54:00]** And thank you for everything you're doing for women in GTM **[54:04]** and being a role model, letting them see someone in the role **[54:09]** so they can believe in it for themselves. **[54:12]** And I know things are getting better **[54:15]** and you've played a major part in that. **[54:16]** So thank you. **[54:18]** Well, thanks for having me on, Anthony. It was great. --- _LeanScale Knowledge Hub. Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast (https://www.leanscale.team)._