Jason Sockel’s Post

My team is pressing pause on cadences. This week is for reevaluating the Top 50 target accounts for the year, bumping some out and doubling down on others. Also identifying a Top 3 for the quarter, anchor accounts where we are getting close. It feels uncomfortable sometimes to stop adding new prospects for a week and just focus on strategy. But sometimes you need to zoom out to see the whole picture before zooming back in. The discomfort doesn’t make the work any less meaningful. In fact, it might indicate the opposite. Territory planning is critical. Empower your team to take the time and do it effectively. It’ll save significant time later.

Today I am 6 months alcohol free (personal choice), and I’m at a trade show. It really puts into perspective how prevalent drinking culture is at these events. Thinking back, my old schedule would have been: Show floor 9 - 5 Happy hour 5:30 - 7 Dinner and drinks 7 - 9 More drinks 9 - ? Rinse and repeat, only each subsequent day started off feeling worse than the last. This is my 3rd alcohol free trade show this year. I don’t miss the drinking or that schedule at all. I do also completely understand the benefits of lowering your guard with your teammates and potential customers. Bonding over silliness, learning more that our inhibited selves are unwilling to share. Closing deals over some suds, I’ve done it more times than I can count (and probably forgotten several of the events as well). But now I’m able to bond with folks over this new phase of life. My “why” for not imbibing. And I wake up early to run, no hangover, feeling refreshed. Which, in turn, starts my day off on the right foot (literally). That feeling and energy and productivity is well worth skipping the drinks for me. So here’s to those of you in professional settings raising your glass of Coke. I see you, I’m with you. 🥂✌️

My Clifton Strengths👇 Last time I was here in San Diego, Michael Sharp led an exercise that included identifying, evaluating and understanding our Clifton Strengths. And leveraging them in our leadership to be better with our teams and our colleagues. I really connect with my top 5, and I’ve anchored back to them ever since. I think about that exercise often, and appreciate the opportunity I had to learn more about myself and my colleagues. And it’s top of mind this weekend as I spend time interacting with hundreds of customers and prospects. Thanks for the exercise, Mike! Highly recommend you take this assessment if you haven’t. BELIEF RELATOR DEVELOPER POSITIVITY IDEATION

Anyone else scrambling for last minute paperwork on large deals today? Added stress of doing it from 35,000 feet. No excuses, play like a champion. Let’s get it done.

Worst advice on here: just do the work Some folks don’t know HOW or WHAT the work is. That doesn’t make them (us?) lazy or less deserving of opportunities. It means if you espouse the virtue of “just do the work” then you have a choice. Either help them (us?) understand “the work” and by doing so, lift others up. OR… Leave it an abstract cliche, help no one, and by doing so, gate keep your success. Most of what we do here is not a zero sum game. Or cancelation scoring, if hustle culture prefers that term. You helping others “do the work” won’t change your results. But it might give a tangible opportunity to change someone else’s. So you have a choice to just do THAT work. I hope you will.

In all honesty, I don’t mind when someone hopes they find me well. It’s almost always better than them hoping the alternative.

Here are some recently posted ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE roles: 1. Matthew Whitney at Artisan Studios is hiring a remote Account Executive. 2. Amazon Business is hiring a Mid-Market AE, reach out to Steve Kornreich. 3. Caroline Johnson-Wade is hiring a SLED AE for Gordian Cloud. 4. Mark Bimonte is hiring a remote EAE in Cybersecurity for NCC Group. 5. vibeiq is hiring AE's in Boston. Contact Tessa (Husain) Doman 6. Jason Landro at Nectar is hiring SEVERAL fully remote roles, including sales. 7. George Gilbert at Stripe is hiring an Enterprise Sales Manager and an EAE. 8. UserGems 💎is hiring a Sales Manager, AE's and more, per Trinity Nguyen💎 I hope one of these roles is the one for YOU. Yes you. 🧡

Another Pluralsight RIF... my heart goes out to all my former colleagues. I AM HERE TO HELP with connections, search tactics, recommendations, references, or just a supportive ear to listen. You are valued, you are worthy and you will do great things. And you don't have to go through this alone. 🧡

Tinkering with a new Opportunity Field: “Aspirational Close Date” Sales VP’s have a bad habit of asking “what can we pull forward this (month, quarter, half, year)?” Aspirational close date will answer that question. Mark the date (when applicable), with notes detailing how the buyer makes that happen. What specific pieces need to fall into place? We’ll then track how often we hit that aspirational close with a secondary field (triggered at Closed Won). I want reps to track close dates as accurately as possible, but sometimes your MAP uncovers a path to a potential early close. This will allow us keep our “closest to the pin” mentality, but give me more insight into potential pull forwards. It’ll also help my reps learn to better command their deal cycles through understanding of the buyer journey. Win-win-win.

Top WFH Perks (back from vaca edition): 1. My own coffee pot/beans ☕️ 2. In-house laundry (entire fam’s clothes washed already. 🧺 3. Free, healthy food 🥬🥒🍅🍎🍌 4. Monitoring the kids chores 🧹🫧 5. Soft 🧻😳