Ben Kettle, head of growth for Gun.io, a technology company dedicated to helping tech talent love who they work with, talks about what sales and product management have in common, how he finds great talent, and why listening and being good to others gives you power. Ben ran a sales consultancy for tech businesses before joining Gun.io. Ben writes about hiring at his Substack lyingtoourselves.com . Along with being a sales and product leader, Ben is an avid cyclist, ex-senior consultant with Deloitte and BearingPoint, and former product manager for Asurion and ski bum at the Four Seasons Jackson Hole.
Ben tells the story of how he started his sales consultancy. Ben talks about getting laid off and how he helped his team, many of whom were also laid off, through the process. Ben says if you're not getting pulled into working for yourself then maybe you shouldn't do it. Tom talks about how anyone who is in the arts like an actor or a writer is in business for themself. Ben and Tom talk about how getting your first customer is what marks the start of any business. Tom and Ben discuss how we take what we're good at for granted and often give it away. Tom tells how effort is not correlated with value. Tom and Ben talk about how paying for a big outside name helps win internal arguments you can't win on your own. Ben and Tom discuss private equity minders and dumb questions from smart people. Ben talks about the managing by spreadsheet crowd and why they are often over valued. Ben admits revenue levers are critical to understand but not sufficient for success. Ben quotes Marty Cagan about how quantitative data tells what's happening and qualitative data tells why. Ben and Tom discuss how to impress someone by doing them a favor. Tom tells how his mother-in-law Betty has a super power for listening and putting people at ease and how that power translates to business success. Ben tells how he interviews people and what he looks for in sales people and why he loves YouTube. Ben asks people, “How do you know you work hard?” to discover if someone is outcome motivated and competitive and what kind of feeling to they have for their own effort. Tom ends the interview with discussing resistance, a concept Steven Pressfield writes about in his book “Do the Work.”