00:37:34 · Guillaume Moubeche, Reggie Marable
[00:37:34] S1: And how involved are you in in doing, like, the headhunting for, you know, finding the the new talents to join you? [00:37:43] S0: We have a incredibly powerful recruiting team led by Greg Marsh, and we have recruiters that are in country. But I... I'm personally involved. Like, everyone in our company is is is is... Their their responsibilities for interviewing, hiring talent, convincing people to join Sierra. So half of my time is spent interviewing or recruiting because we have to hire so many people. And there was a point, g, when I... Like the first eighteen months, I interviewed every single person that was gonna join our our sales organization. But obviously, now we're just too big and I don't wanna slow up the interview process, but I do personally interview every leader. And then I personally interview sellers that we're hiring, like if we're spinning up, like we're we're creating a business in Asia Pac. I personally interview every seller, every sales engineer, every sales leader that's gonna join the company in those international regions. But everybody at Sierra, interviewing is part of your job. Like, it's in your job description, and and we do it every day. So that's how you build a company. [00:38:40] S1: And how exactly, like, what what question do you ask to make sure the person is a is a good salesperson? Like, how how is it structured in an interview?
00:38:40 · Guillaume Moubeche, Reggie Marable
[00:38:40] S1: And how exactly, like, what what question do you ask to make sure the person is a is a good salesperson? Like, how how is it structured in an interview? [00:38:50] S0: One of my favorite questions, I'm trying to remember who I got this from, it's tell me about your biggest failure. And I think you learn a lot. You can look into someone's soul, into their spirit, by the way they answer that question. I also... I try to find, like, I love this question. It is just open ended, like, hey. Give me a quick summary of your background and share anything you think is relevant. What you'll find is... Are are they a concise, clear communicator? There are sometimes you ask that question and ten minutes later, you don't... You have no idea what we're even talking about. But yeah, that's... My favorite question is the failure part. Like, I I've learned a lot because I I think about that a lot from my own self and I know what what... Because like my failure was really a lesson to help me become better. I love that question because you can learn a lot about somebody. So let me ask you this, g, like what's... Like if you were to answer that question, how would you answer that? What's been your biggest failure?
00:39:46 · Guillaume Moubeche, Reggie Marable
[00:39:46] S1: I think my biggest failure was not being to to find enough customers for my first business to survive. And it was a t shirt business I launched with my dad. I'm a chemical engineer by trade, so I had like no business experience whatsoever apart from working, you know, like, sales jobs in fashion or these kind of things. And I wasn't able, like, to to actually, like, find customers, and and I was very stuck, you know, with with all of it. But from that failure, I realized that if I wanted to be a successful entrepreneur, I had to learn, like, how to do sales, like, properly. And I started working in a lead generation agency. And from there, this is where I decided that I could build a software and then built, like, a... Not a 100,000,000 ARR, but a 50,000,000 ARR business that's growing quite well. [00:40:44] S0: Congratulations, man. That's awesome. But see, like, your your failure is part of your life story, so that's that's why I like asking that question. But but congratulations to you, man. That's awesome. [00:40:54] S1: Yeah. Thank you. No. That's... Yeah. That's that's an interesting question, and and I like it. Is there any other question you like to ask where you where you get like a
00:40:54 · Guillaume Moubeche, Reggie Marable
[00:40:54] S1: Yeah. Thank you. No. That's... Yeah. That's that's an interesting question, and and I like it. Is there any other question you like to ask where you where you get like a [00:41:05] S0: Yeah. It it depends. If I'm if I'm interviewing a leader, I always try to get a sense into their leadership style, how they think about hiring. I'm I'm incredibly big on diversity, like racial diversity, gender diversity, diversity of, like, background. So I I ask how do they think about building teams and how do they think about diversity. If I'm if I'm talking [00:41:25] S1: about this? Like, how do you think about this? Like, what what makes you think that this is a benefit, like, long term?
00:41:25 · Guillaume Moubeche, Reggie Marable
[00:41:25] S1: about this? Like, how do you think about this? Like, what what makes you think that this is a benefit, like, long term? [00:41:34] S0: Diverse organizations outperform diverse... Organizations that aren't diverse. You can go look at... History will tell you. You can look at statistics. The reason why, it's because you have creative friction, you have different thoughts, different ways to think, and it just creates this melting pot of just beautiful ideas when you have people from different backgrounds, people from different career backgrounds, people from different races, people from different creeds, religion, and genders. It just creates so much creativity. That's something that we are really focused on at Sierra is not only building the best sales organization in the world, but the most diverse. Once again, it's diversity of background, career, gender, and race. And if you look at my my my own leadership team is mostly female. And we have a very, very diverse... A racially diverse team, gender diverse team, career background. So it's something we're focused on because I believe it's gonna make us a better company.
00:41:34 · Reggie Marable, Guillaume Moubeche
[00:41:34] S0: Diverse organizations outperform diverse... Organizations that aren't diverse. You can go look at... History will tell you. You can look at statistics. The reason why, it's because you have creative friction, you have different thoughts, different ways to think, and it just creates this melting pot of just beautiful ideas when you have people from different backgrounds, people from different career backgrounds, people from different races, people from different creeds, religion, and genders. It just creates so much creativity. That's something that we are really focused on at Sierra is not only building the best sales organization in the world, but the most diverse. Once again, it's diversity of background, career, gender, and race. And if you look at my my my own leadership team is mostly female. And we have a very, very diverse... A racially diverse team, gender diverse team, career background. So it's something we're focused on because I believe it's gonna make us a better company. [00:42:30] S1: And in your process, is it something that you look for? Because some people, you know, like, would argue that you should always hire kind of like the best. And if eventually, like like, how how how do you built in diversity inside, you know, like your company? For example, you're only attracting, I don't know, like a male who's done like business school, all the same business school. Like, we've seen it. Like, if you look at teams in the Silicon Valley, you know, like, it's it's not always that diverse. So