Jolie00:01.682
Alright folks, welcome to Revenue Mind, a podcast where revenue leaders talk about all things mental health. I'm Julia, your host, and a big welcome to our very first guest, Chris Walker. Welcome, Chris.
Chris Walker00:13.042
Jolie pumped to be here and I didn't know it was episode one, so looking forward to diving in here. I think the topic is cool. And yeah, looking forward to sharing some of the things that I've learned so far.
Jolie00:23.922
Yeah, surprise, surprise. So I've been listening to your podcast for years and I probably read every single vault document three times over. So this is a huge honor. Thank you again for joining. Awesome. So before we dive in, I'd love to know for those who are new to this podcast and new to Refined Labs and Fasetto a little bit about you.
Chris Walker00:35.282
Thank you. Yeah, hey everyone, my name is Chris Walker. I am an entrepreneur. I've started to be an investor. I advise companies and I host a podcast that I believe is one of the best in the industry that shapes the future of B2B sales and marketing strategies based on actual data and actual insights that I see working with all the companies that I own or am involved in. And my long term... Vision is to build an ecosystem of complimentary, highly specialized companies, services, managed services, and technology that push forward the stale, traditional, outdated approach to B2B go to market with a group of companies that are able to shape things from ops and data, analytics and how that informs your strategy in your reporting, your KPIs, advertising and content creation, content production, and organic strategy. and a variety of other companies that I'll be involved in in the future. I mean, do believe now having been, you know, as an entrepreneur and a business owner for the past five years, that this type of ecosystem is, I think, really what is needed to push the ball forward and B2B go to market.
Jolie01:58.738
Awesome. Thank you so much, Chris. So now onto the questions. I think I'm super excited. All right. So number one, in the high pressure world of revenue leadership, where the demand to excel is relentless, how do you believe innovative leaders can tackle mental health challenges and build a resilient culture?
Chris Walker02:18.584
specific to revenue leaders, I truly think it's about choosing the right company with the right executive counterparts, with the right cap table and financing structure that allows them to plan appropriately and realistically for the future. To me, that's actually the number one choice as a revenue leader these days because the reason that revenue leaders fail in companies and the reason why CMO and CRO tenure is less than two years and the reason why... less than 40 % of sales reps are hitting quota in B2B companies, is not because those people suck, it's because the company and the executives in the company suck at planning because they have handcuffs around how much they need to grow because of how much money they've raised. And so being really clear on why am I choosing this company and am I set up for success, I think is now the number one priority for a experienced executive that should be highly successful if put in the right conditions to be successful. I think that... We just need to be, and this has happened to me at least once in my career, and then as a consultant many times, where companies need to project 400 % year over year growth from 2 million ARR to 10 million ARR, because they just raised it at a 40, $50 million valuation. And the financing structure in the cap table really creates those problems, nothing that's actually related to the performance of the individuals in the company.
Jolie03:41.81
I completely agree and I think growth at all cost has really put a damper on performance as well.
Chris Walker03:45.01
It's over. It's just, it's over. And the companies that, many of the companies that played that game, sad for employees, maybe the founders took some secondary, so the founders got some money off the table and the investors have preferred returns, but majority of the actual employee stock where somebody three or four years ago thought their stock was worth a million dollars and their company was gonna IPO in two years, now that stock is worth literally zero. And that's sad for someone that dedicated seven to 10 years of their life to a company and growing it from. beginnings to a hundred million ARR and gets to participate in none of the returns because the company was irresponsible with their cap table and financing structure. It's just too bad.
Jolie04:22.704
I think it definitely comes from the top down. Thank you so much.
Chris Walker04:25.554
And I think it'll change. I think it's going to change how, like, if you look back five years ago, like, every employee was like, oh, my God, I want equity. Like, I'll take less salary so I can have more equity so that I'll eventually get rich one day. And sure, that happens in one -off scenarios, and some people have been able to benefit that way. But I think there's a sea change happening now where employees are like, no, like,
Jolie04:35.28
I'm
Chris Walker04:49.042
Maybe this company will never exit. Like many startups, this company will probably fail or sell for a one -to -one or pennies on the dollar. And so in that case, I want my money now. And I think we'll see a sea change between the equity and short -term compensation and what people require and desire.
Jolie05:06.13
Definitely. So on that note, how can companies elevate mental health from a mere HR focus to a crucial business metric directly impacting overall performance?
Chris Walker05:19.324
I mean, first off, I think that HR as a function is starting to be really challenged inside of companies. And there's a variety of different things inside of HR that get thrown into one thing, which comes from like talent acquisition, talent attraction and recruiting, all the way to like the legal bad guy things. And then you have the DE and I and other things like that. And I think a lot of people are starting to pick up that. Oftentimes these functions slow companies down, create tons of unnecessary politics, create a bunch of overhead and things like that that are just not required to run a company. And so while many companies have said, oh, like we need an HR department, I think that you're seeing smart people start to challenge that belief and assumption. And maybe we need parts of what currently belong in an HR function. But many of the other parts of it could be outsourced to a PEO or other types of forms. So. Just a little note on how we see HR changing, and there's HR technology companies. There was one a couple of weeks ago that just shut down off of a popular, well -known brand, just shut down operations overall. No severances, no paying their bills, customers don't have access the next day and just gave up. And so to me, when you think about mental health, I feel like inside of a company, it basically stems, from the top down. Like the state of the leaders actually is then reflected in the state of the people that work for those leaders and then down all the way to the line workers. And you can see that in businesses when there's a lot of momentum and there's a lot of things that everyone feels that momentum and everybody feels that. And then all of a sudden, if there's a slowdown, if the leaders things start to change, then you see that trickle down to other parts of the company, whether that be from unnecessary stress around goals. insecurity around job security or insecurity around performance overall. And to me, like it just the number one priority in a business needs to be the business performing. And when the business performs and when we talk about performance, we have to talk about EBITDA and the valuation of that company based on a discounted cashflow model, which is real like the revenue multiples that we saw in SaaS were just totally out of whack in 2021. And there's people that are making strong arguments around if you're a 10 million ARR SaaS company that burns money and is growing less than 20%, then your company is worthless. And just a couple of years ago, you would have had a $100, $200 million valuation company. And that change in the structure overall needs to change how we prioritize what success means inside of a company. And then once we're able to redefine what success means and be able to deliver on that success, it creates a whole different environment for our people to be able to feel secure, to be able to be proud of the work that they do, to have confidence in the future of the company and the stability of the company. And to me, that is actually the number one priority that drives how employees, the number one factor that drives how employees feel inside of the company from a mental health perspective. There's other elements, right? Like back in the day, like I took pride in working 80 hours a week. And then when like Saturday morning rolled around and I'm ready to put in four hours from 8 a .m. to 12 a .m. or 12 p .m. on Saturday and I'm totally burned out and I can feel that and I start to blame it on the leadership, not on myself for being able to control that. I think that as well from employees, a lot of people love to blame somebody else. And I think as employees, we need to take a lot more accountability over. when we work and when we don't and why, the types of companies that we work for, what we tolerate as a employee or part of a company, and take a lot more accountability around our own mental health rather than relying on our company to create things for us. And so it's two -sided. It's not like one is more important than the other, but we just need to be looking at both sides. There are obligations of the company to be able to create the conditions for people to be successful, and then there are obligations of the people that work inside of the company to... be accountable to the ways that they work and how they work and their mindset and things like that to be able to deliver on that work as well.
Jolie09:39.57
Definitely. And at Sixth Sense we actually had, we actually had ERGs, which were really helpful as well.
Chris Walker09:47.282
Yeah, we have plenty of those at Refine Labs and individuals run them and they're autonomous and self -sufficient. I think that's great to be able to collect people and how they identify in certain groups to be able to discuss things. Like we had one for new mothers and I think that's great to have seven people in there that are working moms that are trying, maybe they had their first child and looking for advice from other moms to be able to share things or be vulnerable. I think those things are amazing and organizing them is smart.
Jolie10:15.794
Definitely. And as a revenue leader yourself, do you have practical strategies you recommend for other revenue leaders to incorporate into their daily routine to alleviate stress and sharpen their decision -making skills? Now, I know you're really into fitness. But beyond that.
Chris Walker10:33.956
Yeah, so let's break this into two different categories. So you have sort of like the tactical, like what should I be doing on a day -to -day basis to try to bring, you know, my best energy and self and things like that to the things that I'm doing. And then you have the strategic things about how do I put myself in a position to succeed long -term so that the things that I do on a daily basis actually do that. If you don't have the strategic long -term things in place, then even... journaling and going to the gym and things like that, you're just not going to feel the passion and energy. And so making sure that the long term path is right, and I'll give you a decent example. Like I've been a revenue leader inside of a company where the company had ridiculously unrealistic goals, did not invest appropriately, did not look at it in the right timelines. And if they didn't hit the goals, then the company was going to go out of business. And so in that case, you're waking up. stressed every day because the things that you need to do are effectively impossible. And so in that case, like going to the gym and doing things might be able to regulate some of the stress that you feel, but the overall circumstances that you've created for yourself do not set you up to be successful or to have strong mental health. So making sure that we're prioritizing the right things. So in the longer term view, making sure that... You're working with people that you enjoy working with on a daily basis, making sure that you're executing on a mission or something that you are passionate about, matched with that you have strong skills to contribute to and you feel a purpose around that. Being in a position where success is realistic and attainable and achievable both in a short term and a long term view that allows you to... Feel the fruits of your effort and investment and things like that and feel like you're moving forward. Those types of things really matter to set a foundation. And then at the tactical level, things like, things that have worked for me, I'm not recommending this to everybody, everybody can do whatever they want, but this is what's worked for me. Waking up every morning and going to the first thing I do is I eat something small as a snack and then I go to the gym seven days a week, zone four type of cardio at minimum 50 minutes every day. And it just starts my day on the right foot where I wake up, I eat, I'm not looking at my phone, I'm not being distracted with the fires that are sitting in my inbox, and I do put wins on the board for myself in terms of doing the things and the commitments that I said that I was going to do and making those things happen and immediately having wins on the board before most people even wake up. I have a journaling routine that I've gone in and out of, but recently has been really effective for me and like... basically set like it's almost like a form of meditation for me like centering myself on what's important and what I want to do for a five or 10 minutes each morning has really worked for me. Recently I've been a lot more strict in the amount of zoom meetings that I take every day and being a lot more being a lot more true to myself around what things are actually necessary and what things are like distractions are not urgent. and being able to slim down my calendar where before I might have 14 Zoom meetings in a day and now pretty much the max that I'll have is like four or five within a short time window. I keep my mornings open. I do not allow meetings either in person or in Zoom before 10 .30 a .m. any day of the week. And that allows me to focus on the most important things, whether that's personally or professionally. inside of my day while I have the most energy. And so I just don't like waking up, going to the gym, being rushed to take a shower and get into meetings. It just hasn't worked for me. I don't allow meetings on Fridays and I have certain blocks in other days where I don't allow meetings where those are dedicated to certain things that are accomplishing the most important things and remaining focused on those things. And so there's just some examples tactically and then sleep. I actually, I've been... collecting a lot of data myself for the past five years through this band called The Whoop, which is super interesting. And like sleep quality and sleep performance is by far the number one factor into your ability to handle and regulate stress, both physically and emotionally. And so having that sleep pattern that allows you to take on things without being. emotional and distracted and things like that. Just being able to take on stress, I think, is a really interesting new indicator of human performance that most people aren't tracking right now that's been really useful for me.
Jolie15:13.298
Awesome. Yeah. The thing I think I resonate most with is boundaries. I think that's something, especially since COVID, since a lot of us are remote, you wake up, you're at your computer, you go to sleep, you wake up again, you're at your computer. And I think it's, I love that you block off time. I that's really important.
Chris Walker15:30.802
and being committed to it because a lot of people can block off time and then all of a sudden an important thing comes up and it's got to get done before the end of the week and all of a sudden you're no meeting Friday, have five meetings on a Friday. And so it's not only blocking it off but also remaining committed that I blocked this off for a reason. This is important for both my performance. It's almost like switching your mindset. I've had a couple of things where I've switched my mindset that have been really helpful for me. Professionally before I would like... not want to take a vacation because I thought that if I took a vacation, then I'd be away from work and then I wouldn't be productive. And therefore I created a story in my mind that vacations are not productive. And equally you could, and I've been able to do this, just switch it where I view vacations as part of my job. That taking a vacation and resetting and resetting my mind frame and having space to think and allowing connections to happen outside of like the workday. are all part of my job and a duty that I have to the people that work at my companies. And so just a perspective change can change everything about how you feel about something.
Jolie16:33.17
I love that. And that sounds like definitely something that you'd implement at your company. So empathy is very powerful in driving urban growth, especially in a nurturing workplace supportive of mental health. How do you perceive its role and impact?
Chris Walker16:50.38
empathy.
Jolie16:52.178
Mm -hmm.
Chris Walker16:53.234
Yeah, I think empathy is huge. I think that being able to try to put yourself in somebody else's shoes and understand their perspective around whether it's a business issue or a personal situation, I think is really important. I haven't experienced almost a lot of things that other people have experienced and vice versa. So sometimes being empathetic to someone's situation can be hard or actually sometimes feel disingenuous, right? Like I've never been addicted to drugs. but some people have. And it's hard for me to truly empathize around their situation without bringing in stereotypes and other assumptions. And so I think that empathy is really important to practice, but also to have a perspective that we don't know most about what's going on in anybody's life that we work with. and being able to be comfortable in that level of ambiguity and approach things with kindness and care and integrity, I think are really important.
Jolie17:58.566
Definitely something that I always go by is everybody is fighting a battle you know nothing about.
Chris Walker18:06.738
Yeah, and everybody's worried about the zit they have because they think everybody's looking at their zit, but the reality is everybody's got their own zit that they're looking at, so no one's looking at yours.
Jolie18:14.914
That's a great analogy. Speaking of mental health challenges, would it be possible if you're comfortable to open up about a personal mental health challenge you've encountered in your leadership path as a revenue leader and how it reshaped your approach to guiding teams and companies?
Chris Walker18:36.05
Yeah, so historically I have tied up a lot of my self -worth and pride and ego around how successful my company is, successful being very subjective. And so the moment that there's an issue and my company no longer is performing to my expectations, then it starts to take an impact on my self -worth. and my confidence and how I approach my day to day and things like that. And basically every company went through it from some period of 2022 to some period of 2023 where their business growth declined significantly and potentially went negative. And so if you have a lot of your self -worth tied up and how fast your revenue's growing and then all of a sudden from 2019, to 2021, your company's growing at 400 % a year, sometimes growing 50, 100 % every month. And then eventually, now all of a sudden, we're going backwards. Actually, revenue is declining by 2 % every month. But that can take a massive hit, and it did for me, on how I feel about myself and what version of myself I bring to work and things like that. And... I didn't know we were going to get on this, but I have like an interesting story and I promise that there's a point. And so several months ago, I was planning to move. I live in East Austin. I wanted to move downtown. I committed to moving downtown like last October. They're like, okay, your move -in is going to be now. And I was planning on doing that. And about three weeks before I was going to move into my apartment, they called me and said, hey, actually like the new construction is delayed. We're going to have to delay this for a month. Like, well, you know, hope you can figure it out. We'll be back in touch with you in a month. And then so I'm like, oh my God, now all these things are going wrong. I had all these plans about moving in and now it's delayed. All these things are going wrong. And then a couple of weeks later, my assistant let me know that she's, you know, found another job and moving on. And now all of a sudden, oh my gosh, like I now I have to move by myself. My assistant's not going to help me. All these things are going wrong. And then I'm supposed to move into the apartment. on like a month later and they call me again and say actually it's delayed for another week and we have to move you into this place and I'm like, oh my god again things are going wrong and Then I actually like move into the place the day before I was supposed to take a trip to Arizona And I'm so stressed out and my stuffs everywhere and I'm like I can't go to Arizona from Thursday to Sunday night and come back on Sunday night and have this place be all disheveled before my you know before my week starts, so I'm gonna cancel my trip. And so all up to this point, it's just like, oh my God, look at all these things are going wrong. And then I walk out my door the next day and meet the woman of my dreams, like this girl that I absolutely adore. And if I didn't have all that stuff that quote unquote went wrong, then I would have been in Arizona and never walked out the door and never met her. And so the moral of the story is that when we try to judge whether things are good or bad on a short time window, it's very easy to have these fluctuations of, oh my God, it's raining, this sucks, and oh my God, this happened, this is so good, and have all these ups and downs. And instead having the mindset that the downs actually create the ups, that you need both of them in flux to actually happen. So when you feel like things are going wrong, It's actually setting things up for things to go right that you don't see yet. And I get that that's philosophical. I get that some people might be listening to this and think that's total bullshit. And it's your call about how you want to perceive the world. But I'll tell you, like, that type of mindset allows you to regulate stress and down times that are inevitably going to happen. Bad things, quote unquote, bad things will happen and be able to allow you to move through and pursue those things with confidence and faith that other things are going to happen. And so that's like a little personal anecdote related to me around things that I've learned about trying to judge like, oh, my business went from 20 million to 15 million, everything's going wrong. But to zoom out and say, wow, I have a $15 million business, almost any entrepreneur would like 0 .001 % of entrepreneurs even get to where I'm at right now, things aren't going wrong. Four years ago, I had $3 ,000 in the bank. Four years ago, I had no business, no one wanted to work with me, I had no followers. When I bring it out over a longer time window, I see how much I've progressed and how grateful I should be for all the things that I have and how grateful I am. So yeah.
Jolie23:23.186
Yeah, thank you so much for sharing and congratulations on the new relationship. That's so cool. Yeah, in my own journey, I faced a lot of challenges, which is part of the reason I started this podcast. And it's interesting. I completely agree. You have to embrace the bad to get to the good. And it's a journey.
Chris Walker23:27.122
So awesome. Mm -hmm. and to recognize that bad is subjective, that bad is just a misalignment between your expectations and your perception of reality.
Jolie23:52.326
Mm -hmm. Exactly. And you can't, you can never gauge what cards you're going to get dealt.
Chris Walker24:08.306
Mm -hmm.
Jolie24:09.266
and to just keep button. So speaking of, there's a lot of pressure in sales and revenue and just across the board customer success marketing in environments with sky high stakes. What's your advice to revenue leaders striving to meet ambitious growth targets while safeguarding their teens mental health?
Chris Walker24:12.304
Yeah. to not put yourself in that position in the first place.
Jolie24:36.242
Love it. And it, yep. Now in a, yep.
Chris Walker24:37.746
It's the truth. It's the truth. Whenever when there's value in thinking about how do I accelerate something, what would need to be true for me to do something that would normally take five years and do in six months? It creates innovation. It creates new thinking. But practically, when you try to get something fast, you do the wrong things. Point blank. You do the things that do not align to what your customer wants, to what's best for your team, to what's best for you personally, what's best for even your investors. And to recognize that that is not a situation that's going to give me the outcomes that I want, both personally and professionally, and not put yourself in that position, I think is, like I mentioned at the beginning, I think the number one thing that revenue leaders actually need to be thinking about today. When you look at... the people that are acclaimed, like athletes or musicians or things like that, their progress happens over two decades, three decades of time. And it's an evolution, it's a growth, and that's how a company works, and that's how a career works as well. And so I think that being... being committed to a longer term picture and realistic milestones against that picture, create the conditions for you to feel like you're winning when things are going well, for things to not feel like the sky is falling when things aren't going exactly according to plan because you've planned appropriately and you have runway and you have the things that you need to feel stable and secure, to recognize that when that... When you have that pressure as a leader, as a CMO or a CRO from a financial perspective, that the first thing that happens, whether you consciously or subconsciously recognize it, is you pass that pressure on to the people below you. And to take accountability that as a leader, I don't want to have a team that I have to put in that situation, I think is also a key learning. But it's really about not getting into the situation in the first place now. It's not about trying to mitigate a bad situation, it's about getting out of a bad situation or not putting yourself in one in the first place.
Jolie27:00.562
I completely agree. And speaking of performers, Taylor Swift comes to mind. She didn't become a superstar overnight, but now she fills up hundreds of hundred thousand worth of stadiums.
Chris Walker27:16.882
Yeah, I love the story about musicians that were homeless playing guitar in the Boston Common for four years, and then all of a sudden somebody got them a record deal and now they play Fenway Park and popular places in Boston. I think those stories are amazing. It doesn't happen overnight for most people, and most people that get it overnight don't keep it. Because going through the process actually builds the character for you to be able to sustain it long term.
Jolie27:42.36
Agreed. So pivoting a little bit to technology. So technology is ever -present in our work lives. How do you propose we harness technology to bolster mental health initiatives?
Chris Walker27:55.634
I'm not really sure I'm qualified to weigh in on something like this, so I'll just talk through my own experience. I think that as a consumer or as a person that you can have a particular view on certain types of technology, often pushed through propaganda of politics or other means. So the idea that like, Social media is bad. It's brainwashing our kids and things like that. Well, what happened when I was growing up in the 90s? Like you were getting brainwashed the same way by MTV and magazines and things like that. It just wasn't on social media. And so people will take whatever is current and try and find ways to like tear it down. When in reality, like I would have no opportunity. I'd probably have no business anywhere close to what I have without the power of social media today. And so it's not about the technology, it's about how you use the technology and then how you approach it from a mindset standpoint to make it a positive thing in your life, not a detriment. And so I approach most of my social media efforts with like one core objective. I'm trying to be able to deliver business outcomes through content marketing and things like that. And so I don't have like I had a post yesterday that got like 250 likes it was probably my worst performing posts in more than a year and like I don't have my ego and pride tied up and whether I got a thousand likes or not Well other some other people do and it becomes it becomes a negative for them not a positive they get trapped in that How do I get more likes? Let me try and post something that people like and then all of a sudden you start talking about all the things that you don't actually believe in you Just know that they're gonna get you likes And so social media is a big example and I have some direct experience there and that's one that is demonized a lot by politics and people subjectively. And the same thing could apply with AI. Same thing can apply with the internet overall, right? Like back in the day in 2000, like people said the internet was a fad, that like people would never buy something online because they were so scared about putting their credit card in that they would never do that for fraud reasons. and people just have an opinion about something that's happening and they don't really see how human behavior is going to change and how it could actually be a big benefit. And the major thing is like, if you are not leaning into technology advancements as a professional and how it changes, how your customers operate and things like that, then you're just playing a massive disadvantage. And so instead of trying to use your subjective opinion around what technology is good and what technology is bad, I think it's a much better way to say, what are my customers doing? And then how do I use that Intel, the truth, and then be able to use that Intel to make better decisions as a leader and take my opinion about whether I think that TikTok is cool or not, or whether it's for only 15 year old dancers or not. I just think that... listening to customers leads to a lot better decisions when it comes to technology.
Jolie31:14.982
Agreed. And I remember from when your podcast the out of the hundred that I listened to 200 probably at this point, but you mentioned that even your worst performing posts actually got you the most inbound inbound leads. Yeah, because because you actually spoke to pain points versus like a top of funnel just kind of blanket post you actually spoke to what people really needed to hear.
Chris Walker31:30.674
It's nice you remember that, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you want the most likes. Like I had some of my best performing posts are things like marketing is not magic. Marketing takes time. You know, like things that can relate to a lot of people, but have no teeth, like have nothing differentiated, real, things like that. And those ones will get 2000 likes and everyone will clap in the comments and say, Chris, you're so smart and it'll boost your ego a little bit. And a lot of people that post on social get caught in that trap and then say, okay, well, now I have to make all my content this way because I get my self -worth from how many comments and positive affirmation I get in the comments rather than my business results. And then when you take something where you post where it's really specific, this exact thing happened, here's was the data that supported it, here's how you should look at it as a leader that gets 150 likes, almost no video views, not a bunch of comments, but the people that see it and read it feel it, and then they share it with somebody in their company, and then all of a sudden, you're getting a flow of impound that you would never get from a post that marketing is not magic, because you posted something real, and you weren't so tied up in the vanity metrics around likes and comments. There's another big thing as a thought leader that you can almost get boxed in and known for a certain thing, right? So initially I was very known for this transformation that I called lead gen to demand gen. There's other people out there that have their entire brand tied up in product led growth. And that over time you post those things and you get a lot of likes around it that you get so trapped in posting about that thing. that even when your interests change as a professional or even when you have new data that says, hey, we should be talking about something new that's going to help people, that you're so trapped that you stay in this thing because you've built your brand on it and you have your likes tied up on it that you never evolve. And so I went through an evolution now where before, like before I was mostly talking about demand creation and lead gen to demand gen that a ton of people liked and a bunch of people rallied around. And now as a professional and also what I think is best for my audience, I'm starting to change my tune around the fact that like, hey, if you don't actually fix your data and understand how to analyze it, then it doesn't really matter what you do in these other areas because the data is what actually is the problem, the root cause. And when I shifted that message, what happens is that a lot of people that used to clap it up about my demand gen posts don't actually see the same problem that I see right now, which creates a decrease in reach and engagement. And just like, you know, a girl on Instagram that posts a booty pic every single day and all of a sudden she wants to talk about mental health. But if she talked about mental health, she's going to get 10 likes and she gets a thousand likes on her booty pics, so she's just going to keep posting a booty pic. Or, you know, an ab guy or anyone. You get boxed into this thing and then you just try to overcome, appease the algorithm while it almost like eats you up inside because you want to be posting other things. And I think that there's not that many that people that published content enough to actually feel those effects, but for those that do, that is a real thing. And so there are people that are really tied up in the PLG movement, have built their whole brand on it. There's starting to be data that's showing that running a hybrid PLG and enterprise sales motion is actually incredibly inefficient, but those people are so tied up in their brand that they fight against that friction instead of reevaluating their position. So I think there's interesting parallels when it comes to content creation and personal branding as well.
Jolie35:34.674
Definitely, I've heard PLG and sales led is the bread and butter of marketing now. I didn't realize that there's data against that. That's really interesting.
Chris Walker35:45.202
The data is clear. If you analyze all the public companies, and then we have not published data, have analyzed a lot of private companies and see the same result, but let's just go off the public companies right now. You have PLG dominated companies, companies that get 70 % or more of their revenue through a self -service or PLG motion. You have sales dominated companies that get more than 70 % through sales, and then you have everybody else in the middle that gets some mix of PLG and sales. The companies that are in the middle that have this more pronounced mix between the two see significantly higher CAC payback periods, lower marketing ROI, other inefficiencies in the go -to market by mixing those two motions together. And frankly, for companies that are earlier on, let's talk 30 to $100 million companies that are sales dominated and then want to introduce a PLG motion. You can fucking kill your company that way. And I've watched companies create significant hardships in their business over a long period of time because they thought we need a PLG motion to stay competitive. And it actually became their largest vulnerability.
Jolie36:56.018
Got it. Yeah, thanks. Awesome. Yeah, thanks so much for sharing. So back to mental health. So could you share an experience of failure that deeply affected you and the lessons that taught you about being more effectively as a revenue leader?
Chris Walker36:56.338
So it's nuanced for sure. Yeah, so first off, my position on failure as an entrepreneur is that the only real failure as an entrepreneur is putting your company out of business. And that every other thing that you do, you try to take a big swing and it doesn't work out, you make a change in your positioning, you try and launch a new feature and it didn't hit as hard, you hire an executive that didn't work out for whatever reason, all of those things are part of the game. And... to recognize that the best athletes are also the people that have lost the most championship games, have missed the most shots and things like that. All the people that are in the Hall of Fame have the most quote unquote failures. And to bring that mindset into entrepreneurship I think is incredibly powerful. And so, yeah, I've had a couple of what I would consider like larger failures overall. One more recently that I've started to talk about a little bit more as I've started to come out of it and share the learnings. I see a lot of people trying to do the same thing that I did that I learned didn't work. So I now share this to help people because I went through a significant amount of pain and financial, you know, financial, quote unquote, decline, decline in my net worth for a better way to say it. That I tried to transform. an agency into a software company in hopes of getting a software multiple valuation, which is many people that run a services business are trying to do something like this because they don't want to get 5X on EBITDA, they want to get 10X on revenue. And in the meantime, risk completely destroying the company that they have in the process of doing it. And so I tried to build a software company within an agency. I spent about two, you know, maybe less than that, maybe like, 18 months that we were really trying to do that. It caused friction in our culture. It created friction with my business partner. It created friction with our customers. It created market confusion. It created detriment on financials, where the actual solution that we're implementing now that we've been able to correct and already feeling incredible benefits to everyone involved is that you should keep the company that you have. And then if you want to start a new company, go out and start a different company and resource it appropriately, finance it appropriately. have separate people and things like that. And if you read any business book, any business, like traditional business book, HBR or something like that would tell you to do the same thing. But meanwhile, I see all of these founders and in services businesses trying to do exactly what I did that didn't work, that all the books would tell you not to do. And it was a major mistake. My net worth declined by at least 25 % on paper, but it could have been a lot more than that. That... you know, a lot of great people departed my company and did something else. Great customers moved on. I wasted a ton of professional time in my best years to be an innovator and things like that. I created a lot of personal hardship for myself and some places where I doubted myself and didn't feel confident. And like I brought up the story before, though, I truly believe that those experiences are necessary to get you to where you actually are. And now where I am and have learned that lesson, I feel like I'm in the best position I've ever been in my life. That I actually had to go through those things to get to where I am right now where it's that I have separate entities. I'm now thinking about it a lot more like a private equity firm than running one company. That I recognize that having incredible leaders and management teams that can run each of those individual businesses were in a way that it can run without me and incentivizing them properly is a great strategy for both. them and our customers and my own skills and happiness. And the fact that, you know, 0 .00001 % of people even have the opportunity to learn that lesson that I've learned, I feel grateful for. And that I know that for the next 30 or plus years of my career, as I continue to pursue more endeavors, that those learnings that I had will create massive ROI, I think nine figure ROI. moving forward by having learned some of those lessons and gone through that pain.
Jolie41:37.17
That's amazing. It reminds me of Michael Jordan. How Mike, the quote, I'm forgetting it's how he's taken thousands of shots. But if you don't, I'm paraphrasing, but that he's taken thousands of shots, but he, I need to look it up again.
Chris Walker41:40.53
How so? I've missed more than 10 ,000 shots in my career. I succeed, why? Because I fail is why I succeed, yeah.
Jolie41:59.41
Yeah, thank you, that one. I was like, Michael Jordan, but I, yeah.
Chris Walker42:01.586
It's true and it's like we don't bring that type of mindset into business. We think that in business that if we make one wrong decision that it's the worst thing ever, that everything needs to be perfect. And when you do that, what happens is you don't take big swings. A lot of times you don't change anything or do anything different and you don't do anything exciting. And so being able to be comfortable in missing shots, even if it's game seven last second, you practiced your entire life for that moment and one shot doesn't go in, that you still have next season and the season after that. And the best athletes in the world play for 20 years and win five to seven championships, which means that 75 to 80 % of the seasons that they play, they are quote unquote not successful or they fail. And I feel like we need to be bringing some of that realism from other places into entrepreneurship and business.
Jolie43:01.426
Definitely. I actually play basketball myself. I'm in two leagues and I was so afraid to shoot and drive, but I finally did it and it was the best feeling. I mean, not only because I made the shot, but because I gave it a shot, literally. So that's awesome. Thank you. I know we're running short on time, so want to keep this moving. All right, let's see. So last question before our bonus question and how people can find you and everything. So how do you foresee the integration in mental health evolving within revenue leadership and the broader business operations landscape?
Chris Walker43:40.298
Short answer is I don't know and it's something that I don't study all that often, if I'm being honest. I think that for the people that are going to be real successful in the future and people that have been successful historically, just take far more accountability than others in terms of their own happiness and their own situation and recognize that they have control over their situation and the things that they do on a day -to -day basis.
Jolie43:45.904
Mm -hmm.
Chris Walker44:09.522
And so I would say that I think that as a revenue leader, just recognizing that you don't need this job just because you have 0 .2 % equity doesn't mean that you have to stay at this job. Just because like your ego is tied up and being the CMO of a hundred million dollar company, even though deep down you hate it, that you don't have to be in that position. I think to that people that have the accountability over their own happiness will be the, or end up being the people that are most happy.
Jolie44:39.954
Definitely. Now time for a bonus question. So where in the world is your favorite place to travel to and why?
Chris Walker44:47.442
Ooh, gosh, there's so many. I would say right now I really like going to Cabo. I love the weather, I love the landscape. It's very Americanized there. It feels very safe in comparison to other parts of Mexico like Playa del Carmen and the Yucatan Peninsula. So, love that, but basically anywhere that's safe. has great restaurants and a beach are like the places that I really like to travel to. I don't really love long flights. So everybody's like, oh, you need to go to Australia and like Bali and places like that. And I just like, don't want to be on a plane for 26 hours to do that. So I haven't made it that far across the world. And then I do have, I do have like sort of like a bucket. I don't really have a bucket list, but something that I would definitely want to do is like for a month sail around the Mediterranean in the summer. is something that I really want to do. Maybe I'll commit to making it happen this year because I'm starting to feel it, but those are some of the things that I like from a travel standpoint.
Jolie45:53.298
Awesome, that's a great goal. So if people want to find you, talk with you, have questions about this podcast, where can we find you?
Chris Walker46:00.594
Yeah, everyone, thanks for listening. This one was a really great topic, something that I don't get to cover that much. So thanks for the opportunity to share some of the things I've learned in this area. If you want, if you enjoyed the perspective, you want to follow along, you can follow me on LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, or wherever is best for you, chriswalker171. And then I also publish, on this episode, it'll be published as well on the B2B Revenue Vitals podcast. It's available on Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast. Some people love, you know, walking the dog on Saturday and listening to some of the things that I have to say about marketing and business. So if that's you, feel free to at least give it a shot. And thank, if you made it so far on this episode, thank you for listening. I hope it was valuable.
Jolie46:40.082
Thank you so much, Chris. Really appreciate your time.
Chris Walker46:42.866
Thanks, Julie. That was fun.