Finding The Right Go-To-Market Talent & Landing Your Next Gig

Taylor Wells (00:01.397)
Hey everyone, welcome to the GTM News Show. I got Graham here today. Hey, Graham.

Graham Locklear (00:05.803)
What's up, man? How we doing?

Taylor Wells (00:07.637)
doing well, doing well, thanks for coming on the show. Which I should really call a pod, because the pod sounds way cooler if I were to call it that. But, yeah, totally, yeah, totally. So yeah, I wanted to have Graham on, so he is an executive recruiter, specializes in the go-to-market space, and we connected a while ago, and I just, we've been sharing content on LinkedIn, and chatting back and forth there, and notice he has not only

Graham Locklear (00:14.574)
It's like a video pod, like a VOD.

Taylor Wells (00:37.477)
A lot of great ideas around recruiting, hiring, looking for your next gig, et cetera. But also just a good grasp of the fundamentals of go to market. So I thought it'd be a cool to have them on to kind of talk through two parts. Number one, from the company side, what are your strategies, how to find, attract the right talent? And then also from the talent side, as you're looking for your next gig, this has been a crazy year. If you've been following my own personal journey, I got laid off at the beginning of the year.

Lots of folks, especially in the B2B space, go to market space, marketing and sales have been laid off. So maybe we can talk a little bit about your thoughts on how to find your next perfect gig. So, Graham, before we jump right in, I'd love for you to kind of get us up to speed, right? It's November 2nd of 2023. Tell me about what's your grasp and feel on the market as a whole? Just general takeaways of as far as folks hiring.

and just folks getting the next gig, what's kind of your pulse on the market right now?

Graham Locklear (01:39.969)
Yeah, for sure. So I think

You know, the market's kind of been a little bit weird since, um, you know, the post COVID boom, I would say, right? COVID came around, the world shut down. And then early on, kind of tech was leading the pack and had a bit of a tear until I would say around July of 2022. Um, that's when we saw the kind of what I, I call the valuation bubble, right? A lot of companies raised a boatload of money at like a 22 X valuation.

And I think there might have been a bit of a realization that maybe a lot of that stuff was a bit aggressive. So since then, we've kind of seen a pullback which has been unfolding over the past, I guess, year and a half now.

That's the bad news. The good news is, I would say the second half of this year, we've definitely seen a bit of an uptick in demand for our services, which I think might be a good indicator of what's going on in the overall market. The interesting thing about this downturn or this, economic headwinds, whatever you wanna call it, is,

jobs have not gotten easier to fill, right? So most of the time when you have an economic downturn, right, like there's more supply. On the candidate side, jobs become a little bit easier to fill and we're not really seeing that, which is I think unique to this one. But also I think it kind of lines up with macroeconomic stuff, right? Like unemployment's still low. So it's been unique, it's been interesting. There have been days where to be a recruiter, it's like...

Graham Locklear (03:23.83)
Kind of tough, but yeah, the second half of the year has been pretty good to us. So I think there's a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel.

Taylor Wells (03:33.453)
Very interesting. So that's fascinating. I'd love for you to go a little bit deeper into why you think it's harder to fill roles with the supply increasing. Any thoughts there before we jump into other topics?

Graham Locklear (03:44.982)
Yeah, I do have some thoughts. I think it has to do with why companies have been laying off and why companies are trying to, I mean, a lot of this is about optics, a lot of this is about unrealized gains or losses, markdowns on VC portfolios, right? So founders are trying to pull an Eon.

you know, cut some, you know, in a lot of cases, cutting some head count. They're trying to be looked at as like an astute operator, somebody who can control the balance sheet, extend runway. And then when they are going to hire, they're trying to be really selective, right? They're being very selective actually, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it means that, you know, they're gonna pick and choose the candidates that they wanna hire, right? So for somebody who's looking for work,

you know, that can still be frustrating. Maybe there's enough jobs to apply for, enough hiring managers to engage, but maybe you're not having the most luck. So I think that's probably part of the reason. It's also binary to a degree, right? Like there's a lot of companies that are still hiring and a lot of companies that are just really kind of, you know, a little bit in trouble, right? So it's a bit of a mix.

Taylor Wells (05:02.965)
Fascinating that's interesting especially with like an increase in supply when it comes from the company standpoint, it's Yeah, that supply doesn't necessarily mean you have quality candidates or it's the right fit And in fact all things being equal if there was a huge demand a couple years ago I'm sure a lot of people were hired that weren't always the best fit, but that's the only option they had so

The surplus in the market could be folks that are not always qualified but still need a job You know based upon the fact that you know, they got hired into a role in a desperate market versus a market where Yeah, they were they were qualified for overqualified for super interesting Let's kind of switch gears a little bit. I'd love to hear how you Think about building a high-performing go-to-market team and really, you know

finding and attracting, like what do you look for? Just kind of a general topic. I'd love to hear your thoughts there.

Graham Locklear (06:06.014)
Yeah, so I think when it comes to hiring a high performing go to market team, the first, it depends on the strategy, right? I think, and we'll talk a little bit more about the different life cycles of a startup and a business.

what might be important in those different stages. But the first thing you need to do is understand what your go-to-market strategy is, right? And I think that's like 80% of the battle. For instance, and things are changing. It's a moving target, right? What worked in 2021 and 2020 and 2019 isn't necessarily gonna work today. So an example of like a recent trend that we're seeing is a lot of startups are starting to have

some good success with investing really early in marketing, specifically in product marketing and content, starting that flywheel up early, and then hiring sellers in to support that demand that they're capturing. If you listen to some of the heavyweights in the space, in the sales space, like Sam Jacobs out of Pavilion, he talks about

sort of the old model, it's kind of dead, right? So I think today, and it sort of pains me to say this because I am a recruiter, right? But I think the answer is less head count but the right head count, right? And a good example of that I'll give you is you'd rather have five account execs that are completely swamped with opportunity versus 10 account executives that

maybe are struggling to hit quota, right? So I think that all lines up with, you know, the economic pressures that we've gone through, you know, and these companies are just trying to do more with less. But I think to a degree, it's probably better experience for the candidates that are hired too, right? If you're there, you know that there's enough demand for you to service, it's gonna be a better experience as an employee.

Taylor Wells (08:13.065)
Hmm. Very cool. Thanks for sharing. Yeah. Thanks for starting out with, uh, you know, pivoting to hiring marketing first as a marketer, demand, gen leader and consultant. I've, uh, I'm obviously biased, uh, and, and see the value in that. But even if folks have been listening to the show, we've talked about, you know, the, even a couple episodes ago, we talked about the predictable revenue model and how that, uh, you know, so many SaaS companies, so many BDB companies use that as a model to go to market, right? A very outbound sales led.

way of generating activity and that has become super saturated. So now folks are looking to, like you said, content, they're looking to partnerships, they're looking to customer advocacy, paid media, community-led growth, all these other strategies, product-led growth, right? All these other strategies to how to go to market and get customers still using a sales team and then that even ties into your second point, which is how do you ever really, instead of having your sales team so focused on...

generating the demand, they're more focused on closing the demand and really high performers that can once you've generated it through all these other forms, you have these amazing you know, sales reps and sales folks that NAEs that can they can close it and focus less on you know, them actually you know, doing outbound making cold calls doing whatever another that doesn't have a place but it's supplemented by you know, marketing doing creating the demand a lot more versus it being

Taylor Wells (09:41.217)
done by sales. Super interesting. Thanks for sharing. I love kind of that guy dived into you've you already talked about it a little bit in regards to the different maturities levels of the organization. So I love to hear kind of like what your thoughts are on, you know, obviously like seed stage series one, like zero to one million or just getting started and then one to 10 and then beyond that. What are your thoughts on built, you know, growing your team? What do you see as best practices?

Taylor Wells (10:11.757)
and different things people should avoid.

Graham Locklear (10:14.73)
Yeah, so I mean zero to one million, you don't have product market fit, right? You're probably founder-led sales. I think the first thing you need to get right is lead gen. I think in any business, biz dev is the lifeblood of that business. If you don't have a machine built that will consistently bring engaged prospects to the table, you don't have a business, right? So right off the bat, right, you're talking biz dev,

marketing, building an audience. Then if you get to the stage where you're ready to sort of get away from founder-led sales, I think the founding AE is a critical hire. You definitely want somebody who's entrepreneurial, somebody who's a killer, somebody who can kind of do it all. It's sort of a unicorn. And I think the other thing there that's really important is you need to look at their motivation as well. You need to have somebody who's also motivated by sort of tinkering and helping you sort of figure it out.

which might not directly lead to quota attainment, right? So I think getting creative with like comp structures in that type of role is probably a good idea too. Once you move past a million in sales, right? Let's just say you're one to 10 million in sales. You've probably gotten your first hint of product market fit. Probably time to, I'd say probably around like maybe two million, maybe three million in sales. It's probably time to get ahead of sales in there.

to start to solidify and fine tune your go-to-market motion, sort of be the steward of that GTM playbook. Beyond 10 million into the 20 to 100 million range, I think it's sort of like pour gas on the fire time, right? Like triple down on what's working. You're probably already starting to look at new markets, whether that's going upstream or like vertical adjacent stuff.

So I mean, every company, the other thing to note, like every company is a little bit different too, right? Every company's got a different product, a different value prop, a different variation of how they're going to market. And I think the head count that you need will be largely dictated by what that market and that motion supports.

Taylor Wells (12:32.069)
Very cool. That's super helpful. Yeah, I love that. And thanks for taking me through what you've seen and definitely resonate, especially with a lot of the companies I work that are under 10 million, focusing on, you know, first getting started, you know, getting that demand growing, lead gen business development, getting the opportunities coming in. And then, and then also I really appreciate you said as far as finding like if it's an AE or a marketer or whatever.

and creating a unique comp structure to motivate them for the, if I'm hearing you correctly, motivate them for the success of the entire business, right, in some ways, right? Maybe that's equity, maybe that's a bonus on hitting the overall revenue targets. Any thoughts on that, especially for early stage companies? So I think that's so important where I see, for example, I'll see an early stage company, maybe they're under, you know, they're a couple million dollars in revenue.

Taylor Wells (13:24.473)
and their enterprise motion, right? And so they go hire somebody that's worked for, you know, a Fortune 500 company, a Fortune 1000 company, and there's this complete misalignment, right, of first experience, the adaptability you need in a startup, in a small business, that can wear multiple hats, that can be a marketer, a salesperson, that can be customer success, be whatever it takes, right, to be successful.

Taylor Wells (13:50.157)
Any thoughts on any best practices you've seen, number one on qualities, maybe dive a little bit deeper into the qualities of those early stage GTM folks, and then any additional thoughts on comp and how to incentivize those people.

Graham Locklear (14:04.414)
Yeah, that's an interesting topic, right? So like if I'm a seller or if I'm anybody in go-to-market, I'm coming to work for a startup that is zero to a million in revenue. I'm clearly risk on in general, like as a professional.

I want to go take risk, I want to be a part of something, I want to be a builder, hopefully. If not, you're probably in the wrong place. So I think just like, it's cliche, but that entrepreneurial spirit, getting excited about that stuff. And one bit of advice I would give to founders and really early leaders at these early stage companies is like be...

bluntly honest about all the warts, right? Like all the good, the bad, and the ugly about the company because people will self-select away from that and that's a good thing, right? You want somebody to be like, oh, that's like, yeah, I don't wanna do that, right? Don't feel like you need to sell everybody to come work for you. Be honest about who you are as a company and what you need done in that particular role and let people kind of self-select into that. So that's the first thing I would say about like,

the type of person that you need, right? In terms of compensation, right? You'd probably guess that a lot of these employees are gonna get some sort of equity grant that they'll be excited about. We all know like the math, right? The likelihood of that paying off is, you know, few and far between. When it does, it can be awesome, but they're gonna want some equity.

But when you talk about sellers or marketers or anyone specifically that's comped on revenue, that's tied to revenue, a large portion of their job is going to be to help you figure out the best way to do their job. So you're institutionalizing that knowledge of, hey, this is how X company does X function. That's more of an operational thing. It's more of an exploratory thing.

Graham Locklear (16:09.534)
So I think if you're in a position as a startup to compensate them based on those soft skills or whatever you wanna call it, maybe the first founding rep you hire isn't on a 50-50 split. Maybe they're on a 70-30 split or a 60-40 split or whatever it is, but I think that you need to bake in the time and the effort it's going to take and the value that they're gonna bring.

by helping to institutionalize that sort of knowledge of, how do we figure out how to do this?

Taylor Wells (16:45.397)
Hmm fascinating. Thanks for sharing and kind of on your first point as far as being super real super transparent when it comes to Just the what the obstacles you're up against right the challenge up against I just got done reading the splendid and the vile It's a war two book the first kind of like couple years kind of following Churchill. Nice I just yeah, I'm kind of a late to the game, but it's a great book and I think the biggest thing

Graham Locklear (17:06.102)
You're talking the language.

Taylor Wells (17:13.673)
The biggest thing I took away from Churchill was just his ability to be really frank about the challenges. I think as humans, we're immediately risk adverse. We're immediately trying to find all of the BS, the filter, the BS of somebody. I think I really appreciate about Churchill, and I see actually a lot of leaders doing this now, maybe replicating what he's done, or even political leaders or even in business.

is you paint a really realistic picture of the negatives, right? You're just like, we're up against hell on Earth, right? Or whatever it is. And then but then you also bring in the positive, right? So you write in and I think what's really cool is and I've actually seen the recruiters or even, you know, hiring leaders that I've worked for. They do that, right? They paint a really clear picture of what's going on. Like, don't hide anything, because first you'll build that rapport with folks. Number one, you'll build that trust with them.

And then, but then when you contrast it with the upside, right, you're like, hey, here's all the cool things we're doing, you have this perfect package where you, providing transparency, providing the realness of what's going on, but then also here's all the cool, here's the mission, right, here's what we're gonna achieve, right, and super cool. That's awesome.

Graham Locklear (18:24.854)
mission. That's it. Like it's the mission, right? It's not about, you know, it's the mission is really the essence of like

you know, that's what you want to be. The main reason why somebody comes and works for you because they believe in the mission, right? It's gonna be hard, it's gonna be tough. We're up against the odds. Great, let's do it. You know, if you can find that, you know, you're golden. So yeah, totally agree.

Taylor Wells (18:56.833)
Thanks for sharing. Let's kind of switch gears a little bit and talk about kind of the search, how to find great candidates. You mentioned there's a large pool of great candidates, or it's a large pool of candidates in general, but a lot of times organizations are still struggling to find the right candidates. So I love to hear your thoughts like best practices if they're to engage somebody like you, a recruiter outside, or if they have recruiters internal, or if they don't have any recruiters. What's your thoughts on how do you find the best candidates these days?

Graham Locklear (19:26.794)
Yeah, for sure. First I'll say everybody is a great candidate for the right job. Right? I think there's an important distinction there. Everyone is just like there's plenty of fish in the sea, there's someone out there for, there's a job out there for everybody. Right? So anyone could be super dangerous in the right role.

but you just have to find the right person, and that person's just gotta find the right job. So I'll start off by saying that. In terms of, I'm a hiring manager, I'm looking to expand on my team, I wanna go out and hire somebody, I think the first thing you need to do is just get crystal clear on exactly what you need. Define exactly what you need. And we have an acronym that helps with that. It's called our FACT.

acronym. So FACT stands for functional, achievement, customer set, and then technical or product set. And if you think about any job, you're going to have certain hard skills that you need this person to do and they can slot into one of those four buckets. And I think, you know,

It's really hard to find the perfect candidate that's gonna check every box, but I think the first thing you need to do as a hirer is decide where is the real complexity lie in this job? Is it the functional stuff? By function, maybe it's like, I need somebody who's been a content marketer for a B2C company that is in the food and dev space. Maybe they need somebody that has that content marketing piece.

because they can't train up on that. The achievement stuff, that's a lot of times about how to gauge. It's usually one to three quantitative stats that prove that person's good at their job. In sales, it's pretty basic. This person crushes quota every year for the past 1,000 years. Customer set, maybe that's something that is...

Graham Locklear (21:38.63)
Maybe that's where the complexity is. I'll give you a good example of that. We have a customer that sells a CRM, a BI and analytics tool into the private equity space. If you know anything about private equity, highly sophisticated buyers, they have their own language, all types of acronyms and their business models are all unique. There's a lot of complexity there. People have MBAs, they're super smart, they use a lot of big words.

you kind of have to know what you're doing to be able to sell to those people, right? To be able to effectively sort of synthesize a value proposition, it's really important to be able to know that customer, right? So maybe that, for that particular client, they really need to leverage and lean in on the customer set piece. And then the technical or product set, that's something that's kind of near and dear to us. We do a lot of work in data, AI, machine learning, those types of companies that,

Graham Locklear (22:35.306)
The product itself is so complex. The buyers, the data scientists, and the machine learning engineers are so complex. In order to get somebody into a customer-facing role and to ramp them up to a point where they're going to be effective, that knowledge gap is excruciating. So they kind of really need somebody who understands the tech. So that fact acronym is just a good way to kind of bucket out what you need and figure out what's most important.

what maybe you'll compromise on and what maybe you can't. So there's that. The other thing I would say is the first thing you should do as a hiring manager is always hit your network. Keep your network alive, that's just like best practices. I always advise people, go to your network, whether that's via LinkedIn, people you used to work with, whatever, that's the first place you wanna go. And then after that, you really need a recruiter's help.

And I know it's a little biased because I am a recruiter, but even if it's somebody in-house, you need to be able to have a really strong working relationship with that person, strong open lines of communication. They need to be on the exact same page of exactly what you need. And you need somebody with at least a little bit of domain expertise so they understand what you're talking about and what you're looking for. So that's, I would say, my best advice in terms of what you should do if you're going to market to hire somebody.

Taylor Wells (24:03.077)
Super cool. I love the fact acronym the framework I'm curious. Can you break out a little bit? So the function and the technical product set The scene there's probably some overlap there. I'm just curious. How do you separate those two or maybe i'm not understanding it correctly Because the function sounds like it's you know, have you done this job before in this space? The technical is maybe a little bit deeper than that or yeah, i'd love to hear your thoughts on that

So, yeah, sure. So functional would be like, okay, we need a VP of sales, somebody who's been a sales leader, right? The achievement is maybe we want somebody who's taken a company from one to 10 million in revenue, would be a good example of that. The customer set, maybe they want somebody who sold into enterprise, or specifically oil and gas. And then the technical or product set, we want somebody who knows, you know,

data science or has sold an MLOps platform before, that would be a good example of a technical or product set. Does that make sense?

Taylor Wells (25:03.873)
Got it. Yep, totally. So kind of going a little bit deeper, it sounds like, or specific to the product versus it being the role or maybe the industry kind of falls into the function side. Interesting, out of those four buckets, I know you said it's hard to find always your perfect candidate and you might not be able to check all four of those boxes. How much, yeah, first of all, how do you analyze how to prioritize? And then, you know,

How important is it that person has done the job at the previous company or done the specific? I mean, I know these are really probably really hard or really broad questions there's probably so much uniqueness for each industry and You know, I'm just curious your thoughts on like how do you even evaluate because those things sound amazing But how do I prioritize which one comes first or like a deal breaker number one and then number two? Where do you set kind of boundaries with that of like, you know?

Taylor Wells (25:59.549)
You know, is it something that they do internally or is it something recruiter can kind of help you analyze of like, you know, it's really important you should have somebody that's done that from one to 10 or yeah. Any thoughts there?

Graham Locklear (26:09.874)
Yeah, so for sure. So each company is different, like you said, but I think as a hiring manager, you need to figure out where the most complexity lies within those four buckets. So a good way to think about that is, what do I just really not have time to train on? Well, it's going to take too long to train. So

Like I said, like the data AI ML folks, they might really need somebody with that technical piece covered.

so they don't have to worry about training them up. The company that sells into private equity, they might really need to focus on finding somebody who has experience selling into that same customer cohort. It really depends on where the most complexity is, what is gonna take the longest to train up, and that's how I think you tell, hey, this is really important and non-negotiable, maybe we can give on some of these other things. So I think that was your question.

I think.

Taylor Wells (27:09.393)
Yeah, that's super helpful. Yeah, no, I love that. Where does the complexity lie? And I think that is a great question to ask and to analyze where is gonna be that sticking point where, I mean, there's like general skill sets, there's general requirements, but when it comes down to it, where, yeah, what part, and that could be the size of company, right? Or it could be like a very generic role in some ways or not have a generic product, but be a very specific.

You know size company that you need like I need somebody that's gone from a hundred million to a billion, right? Like I need that could be the complexity Or it could be the actual product like you mentioned right like if it's an ML or an AI product We're like or you know the private equity like you said earlier If you have never marketed or sold into that vertical or industry You probably you know You know would be a very high risk to take some that's never done that and put them in there super interesting

Graham Locklear (27:43.318)
right?

Graham Locklear (28:04.526)
potentially.

Taylor Wells (28:07.077)
Yeah, potentially. Yeah. And I also like he said the very beginning to where, you know, there's a role for everyone And what I maybe in that question, where have you been most surprised? like when folks that you're like, oh my gosh, like this person, you know, maybe Didn't necessarily fit the standard but they end up being a great hire like where should you where is that room for like? You know being surprised maybe culture fit or maybe it's They're super hungry. They're super eager they're just

Taylor Wells (28:36.593)
Yeah. Any thoughts there?

Graham Locklear (28:38.762)
Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know if I can point my finger to any particular one of those segments where it's like, oh, hey, this maybe doesn't count as much. The one thing I would say is I think it's important for candidates to understand the seat that employers are in, in the sense that, you know,

They're making really important decisions with relatively small.

data sets, right? Maybe throughout an interview process, you spend, I don't know, three, four hours with a company, and then they need to go and make a decision on how much output they're gonna get out of like, 40 hours a week for the next x-am any year, you know. It's a big decision, right? It costs money, right? So I think what they try to do is de-risk that decision as much as possible.

And the way they do that is by trying to find somebody who's done as close to that exact job as humanly possible and had success. That being said...

We all know there's a ton of other factors at play that make somebody successful in a role or not. The problem is you can't really test for a lot of that stuff, right? Does a person have gumption? Is a person, right, friendly in the office, right? A lot of that stuff is really hard to tell through an interview process. What I would say is, if you can figure out if somebody has like,

Graham Locklear (30:14.678)
get up and go as cliche as it sounds. If they have gumption, if they're really good about following up, if they're magnetized to your mission.

That's where it comes back to the motivators, and they're just a generally competent person. People will figure stuff out. We've made placements that we're completely out of left field with some of our best clients, but because of who that person is, as a person, not on their resume, they just went in and crushed. But again, going back to the seat that employers are in.

Graham Locklear (30:51.562)
it's really hard to test for a lot of that stuff. So they need to do what they can to say, hey, I'm making a good decision. They need to be able to go to their board and be like, hey, this was a really good decision on paper, even though it didn't work out, right? I sort of did the right thing, right? So I think it's just important for candidates to understand the seat that employers are in, why they do what they do, why they make certain decisions. And if you look at it from that point of view, it kind of makes sense.

Taylor Wells (31:21.253)
Yeah, well said, grandma, super helpful. And it's like almost like you're obviously you're de-risking the hiring process and the intangibles, they're hard to quantify, like you mentioned. Right. And the tangible things, what's on your resume or what your experiences may not be a, uh, a complete indicator of success. It will give you some rational, right. Boundaries to be like, and I like your fact, I think that's a perfect, like, here's your rational, like, okay.

And this person, all things considered, they are most likely to be successful in the role. And I kind of compliment that. I have Patrick Lincione, I forget what his book is called. He has a bunch of books, but one of his books is on hiring and he talks about, or building an ideal, I think building your ideal team. And he has a kind of a framework.

where he talks about humble, hungry, and smart. And he talks about being humble, right? That's obvious, being willing to adapt, being hungry, you're willing to grow and take on the challenge and willing, ambitious and whatnot. And then the smart part is people smart. And mostly it's about, you know, having emotional intelligence and not so much intelligent, and not so much intellectual side, but more emotional intelligence and...

Taylor Wells (32:48.393)
Those are the non-tangibles, which I think can compliment, um, and things you want to look for, for sure. And that can, you know, quote unquote culture fit, but also, uh, to de-risk, you know, to your point, I think, uh, to have that baseline of like, you know, that, that fact framework, which is super cool. Um, yeah. Any thoughts there?

Graham Locklear (33:05.518)
Yeah, I'll just add to that, right? So like I think we can all agree as human beings that those intangible things are really the most important things. The problem is again, they're hard to test for and if you're going to design a search to go find the right marketer, you can't say, okay, let's look at all the people in North America that have really high EQ, right? You're lost.

You know, you need some sort of compass. The other thing I would say is as you progress in your career as a leader, as a hire and a manager of people, you will start to fine tune your gut instincts. And those gut instincts on all that intangible stuff, that will really make or break you when it comes to hiring. You need to learn.

what to look for in those hires. And I think that just comes with reps over time.

Taylor Wells (34:04.701)
Mm. Well said. I love that. Super helpful. Yeah. And having that, uh, that gut feeling and making sure you don't discount that. Cause I think that kind of ties into the intangibles and that connection, the, the cultural fit, whatever, whatever that means, uh, all the things we're talking about, right? The things that are hard to quantify. Um, super cool. I love to hear this. If you have any thoughts on like best, you know, good questions to ask, you know, as a hiring manager, um, you know, what are your, especially, I mean, obviously there's the

There's the fact, which is the tangible things, but fact or in non-tangible. What are your thoughts on like good questions that kind of dig deeper, get to know somebody in the short time you have.

Graham Locklear (34:44.534)
That's a good question. I think it's really dependent on the role. So I don't know if I have a perfect answer for you. However, what I would say is the interviews that we've seen.

be really effective in highlighting the right people for the job, they kind of go like this, right? They start with a meet and greet type thing. High level, get to know you, ask a couple of high level questions about the background, share a little information about what we're trying to accomplish here at this company. From there, you know, the midsection of the interview becomes sort of a dual way discovery process, if you will. The company's learning more about that professional, that professional's learning more about the company.

And then towards the end of the process, once both parties have collected information, there is an aspect of collaboration, right? Whether that is, I hate to say, and I know candidates are gonna hate to hear this, but like some sort of like project or presentation, or even it doesn't have to be that, it could just be a conversation, but starting to diagnose some of the pains that company is experiencing specific to that role, that function, and then making some recommendations.

So kind of like you start jamming a little bit towards the end of the process and you get a little sneak preview What it will be like to work with that person, you know So I think those types of interview processes whether it's at the executive level or at the frontline level Tend to be really good indicators and like, you know, they're able to kind of show you Hey, this is what it's gonna be like coming to work with this person every day. So we've seen that we've seen that work pretty well

Taylor Wells (36:29.189)
I love that. That's super cool. And I think there's, yeah, it is definitely more work for the interviewee and whatnot, but there's also, yeah, you get to get a feel and you get, it's probably a good litmus test for them too, to see how the person responds to their project. And it's, yeah, on both ends, it's a really good way to kind of a working session in a way to get your feel and super cool. Before we kind of transition from to the, the employee side.

I'd love to hear any other takeaways, any other high-level best practices that come to mind, things we haven't talked today about hiring managers and folks finding go-to-market folks for their team.

Graham Locklear (37:11.222)
The only other thing I would say, right, and again, this is a little bit bias, right, because I am a recruiter, but I think you need to know, you know, what makes a good recruiter, right, and how do you find one? I think these agency partnerships are really, really pivotal and important, especially if you find good ones. They can really change the trajectory of your career, both on the candidate side, but also, you know, as a hiring manager.

And I think there's a couple things that you need to look for. The first is you want somebody who has domain experience in your space. They need to be able to talk the talk. They need to know the different players in the market. They need to know where the bodies are buried. They need to know the lingo. So domain experience, I think, is really, really critical. And then the second thing is you've got to find trust. And again, this goes back to those intangible things that can be tough to test.

over a short period of time, but are proven over the long run. But if you can find somebody that will give you good advice, even if it means that they might lose money because of the advice, then I think you hit the jackpot, right? Stay close to that individual, stay close to that agency. They will serve you very well for the long run. So that's the only advice I can give you there.

Taylor Wells (38:30.157)
Oh, super cool. I love that. And maybe we can tie that into the employee side of finding a good agency. So what I heard was somebody that's domain experience, right, in your space. And I think even with globalization, I've talked about this a couple of times on my show, like, there's so many different ways to solve a problem. And so we're going down to this, like, nitrification or vertical everything, right, where you're like, hey, you have so many options. It's like, why not?

choose the SaaS platform, why not choose the agency, why not choose the employee that's done exactly, worked in this exact same field, because there's options for that now. And it's, I think from a business standpoint, that's a way for folks to differentiate themselves as like be experts in that one area. But then on the flip side, hiring, whether it's your employee or partnering with a search team, an agency, recruiting agency to...

Taylor Wells (39:25.821)
make sure they're experts in that field, because you can't, because they're out there, right? And why not find somebody that's an expert in that space and knows all the nuances? Because it's like, yeah, it's all those little details, right, in anything, like whether it's a specific industry you've worked in, like as a marketer, it's like, you know, if I'm marketing to different folks, it's like, oh my gosh, the nitty gritty, it makes or breaks your entire campaign, it makes or breaks your entire go-to-market if you don't really understand your buyer and your market. So, super cool.

Taylor Wells (39:55.497)
I love to tie that into on the search side from an employee standpoint, kind of diving, spending a couple of minutes in there before we wrap up here. Love to hear your thoughts on best practices for folks looking for their next role. Is it, maybe you mentioned one already, which is finding an agency that is in your vertical or in your space. Any other thoughts you have on best practices for folks finding their next role?

Graham Locklear (40:21.87)
Absolutely, so you remember that fact acronym I gave you right for employers trying to find the right types of employees That same acronym works for employees trying to find new gigs, right? So you just reverse engineer that right so I think about Finding a new job and this is great because your whole audience is all go-to-market people so they're gonna love this Right finding a new job is just like going to market with a product right because it is in this case

you're the product, right? So the first thing you need to do if you're going to market with a new product is find your ICP, right? Your ideal customer profile. I like to call it the IEP, ideal employer profile, right? So how do you do that, right? You use that fact acronym, right, to figure out who you are as a professional and then you reverse engineer that into, okay, what are the companies, who are the people at those companies that are gonna be most likely excited to hear from me?

Right? So you need to define exactly who your target audience is. Right? Maybe that is a certain sector, maybe it's a certain company size, maybe it's a certain hiring manager of a certain type of department, maybe it's a certain geographic location. And once you have that, the second thing I would say, and people probably aren't gonna love this, but you kinda gotta go outbound. Right? It's work, it takes some time.

But if you look at what's going on in today, 2023, if any company posts a job, right? Like if you go on LinkedIn right now and look at job postings, the job posting has been up for a week. There's 260 people who have applied. There's so much noise. It's such a crowded channel. So it's really hard to break through and actually get a real shot at having a connection with that hiring manager and being considered. So what we've seen work is people actually

going outbound with their product, which is them. So, you know, building a list of target companies, building a list of target hiring managers at those companies and engaging with them, you know, through LinkedIn is phenomenal for this, right, obviously. So, you know, doing something as simple as hitting them with a super soft CTA, you know, you know, low friction. You don't wanna be like, hey, can you hire me? Hey, can I have an interview? That...

Graham Locklear (42:48.966)
you know, no one loves that. You wanna give them the chance to say no without feeling awkward because you still wanna, you know, engage in a dialogue. But something as simple as, hey, you know, been following your company for a while, seems like you guys are doing some awesome stuff. I'm sort of quietly looking for my next gig. If and when time is right, would love to chat. We've seen that work a lot. The other thing, and, you know, the other thing I would say is like, you wanna try and add value where you can.

Right? Let's just say you have some specialized niche knowledge. Um, and based on your research, you can probably make a good guess that company is going through a challenge that you've already been through. If you can lead with, you know, we, you know, I've been following your company. I see you guys are probably doing XYZ, which means you're probably in this situation. We've been through that before. We'd love to hop on and tell you a little bit about how we've

you know, sort of like seen around that corner or whatever. We found that to work out as well. So yeah, find out who you want to target, go reach out to them. You can apply for the job, always apply for the job, but actually go and reach out to that person, whether it's an email, a cold call, you know, a LinkedIn DM. And then of course you want a few people like me in your corner that you can trust, recruiters that you know play in your space. That can be an extra set of eyes and ears.

on the market for you.

Taylor Wells (44:14.557)
Ah, super cool, that's awesome. I love those, I mean I love how you kinda flip the ICP and the ideal employer profile. As a marketer, go-to-market leader, I've definitely obviously resonate with that and reverse engineering it. And I think go-to-market folks have like no excuse to have a really solid outreach and building relationships, networking, marketing themselves. Obviously, you know, it's.

Taylor Wells (44:42.553)
It's like a lot of marketing agencies, they actually aren't really great at marketing themselves because they're spending so much time doing marketing. I can see that being the case for a lot of go-to-market leaders. Like, hey, we're so much time working in my job, I have a hard time. You know, totally. And I love that. And I love a couple of different things I took notes here. First, adding value when you can, right? You notice something. And that's as good like go-to-market in general, like how do you provide value, whether it's sharing interesting podcasts, whether it's you notice something on their website.

Graham Locklear (44:50.638)
is shift the paradigm.

Taylor Wells (45:11.945)
a strategy they may want to think about implementing, you know, whatever it may be, know somebody on their LinkedIn and pointing that out and providing value versus just asking and going in with a very selfish, you know, self promoting angle. And I like that soft CTA is when the time is right. Super cool, like just kind of open-ended, not pushy, especially if you're trying to build relationships in advance, right? They're not hiring. It's a great way to be like,

You know, just kind of getting your feelers out there and yeah, it just seems really empathetic and putting that, you know, putting yourselves in other people's shoes. And then lastly, having recruiters in your space that you can leverage, build relationships, even, you know, network, but then also get introductions and also best practices to I'm sure every recruiter, like even this conversation I've learned so much. I've always like every recruiter I've ever talked to, I'm always like, oh, that's fascinating. I didn't learn that. Or, you know, they always have a different.

angle perspective so you can learn so much from recruiters or even folks in HR that do this internal recruiters too. You can learn so much from leveraging their expertise. Super cool. Any other best practices or thoughts that come to mind from the employee side?

Graham Locklear (46:22.711)
from the employee side. So, well just going back to that same, let's just say you do a touch point with a hiring manager on LinkedIn, and you hit them with that soft CTA, and let's just say, what's the first thing that they're gonna do, right? They're gonna look at your LinkedIn profile.

That's exactly what you wanted to begin with. What's the point of applying to a job with your resumes to just have somebody look at your profile, right? But it's not happening because there's so many applications that those companies just have bots sifting through the resumes. So the hiring manager is not looking at your resume to begin with, right? But if you directly reach out to them, even if they don't respond, they're gonna glance at your profile, and that is a look, right? So that's a win there. The only other thing I would say, right,

a new job. Sometimes you already have a job but maybe it sucks or it's not that great or it could be better. Other times you don't have a job and you're looking for a job. The one thing I would leave, you know...

people with that are looking for a new job is you need to make sure that you're protecting your emotional state. Right? I think that's super, super important. You know, in 2023, our society, it's really easy to like tie your identity to what you do, but what you do is not who you are. Right? And if you're unemployed right now, or if you're like struggling to find a new gig and your current job sucks, and you're not getting calls back, you know,

Graham Locklear (47:57.744)
Like I said, there is a perfect job out there for everybody. And if you let that kind of attack your identity and your self-worth, that's gonna come off the next time that you go and interview, right? So you need to make sure that you're protecting your emotional state and just know that sometimes you gotta put in the work, you gotta put in the numbers, you gotta get a certain amount of shots on goal, eventually one's gonna drop in the net.

and it's gonna happen, you just gotta put in the work, put in the time, stay positive, and you're gonna win. And that's, that would be the last sort of like leaving, you know, if you take anything from this type thing, take that.

Taylor Wells (48:40.993)
Oh, that's awesome, Graham. Thanks for sharing. That's encouraging for me in general. I think it's good life advice and to be hopeful. You know, the world is abundant. There's lots of opportunities out there. And even what you said earlier at the beginning of our conversation that there is a role for everyone, right? And just because the one you're going after, um, you know, isn't the right one. Doesn't mean you should be discouraged and keep, keep pressing forward, keep looking, um, and you, you it's a numbers game in a lot of ways too, right? You, there's only, there's so much competition. There's.

Taylor Wells (49:11.397)
You have to get a certain amount of, you know, swings, you know, to be able to actually get that home run. So super cool. Great advice, Graham. Thanks so much for coming on. How can folks connect with you online?

Graham Locklear (49:24.33)
Well, being a recruiter, of course I'm a LinkedIn junkie, so you know, I post some cool stuff I'd like to think from time to time so you can check me out there. It's just Graham Locklear, you can look me up. Our website is msearchco.com. If you're hiring in GTM and need some help, hit me up. We'd love to chat and yeah, that's the best way to find me.

Taylor Wells (49:47.385)
Thanks again for coming on. I'll definitely put all those links in the show notes. Really great conversation. I learned a lot. I'm sure the audience will as well. And yeah, thanks everyone for listening and we'll see everyone next week. Thanks, Graham.

Graham Locklear (49:59.199)
Thanks, Taylor. All right.