Getting Out of Survival Mode, Through Scalable Revenue with Monica Stewart

Welcome to the podcast. Monica, thank you so much for joining me.

Hey Lauren, great to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

I’m so happy to have you on this podcast. Um, I know a lot about you. I, I’ve been following you for a while, so I think we’re gonna have some really good discussion today. But one thing I spotted before we met formally is. You also call New York Home. Um, and New York is my new home. I only relocated about six months ago, so I wanted to selfishly ask to start, what’s your favorite thing about the city, Monica, and any tips for me as I navigate my new home?

Whew. Uh, so I mean, there’s two things that I will say. Um, so the thing that I have lived in New York for the last 20 years, and when I moved there, I had actually never been there before. Um, I had been like for one week, like long weekend with like a family friend on vacation type of thing. We only went to Broadway shows.

That’s what they were really into. I didn’t know anything about New York City. But I had a feeling I was looking for like my forever place and I had a feeling that if I moved there I would never get bored and I was completely right. Um, so what I would say that I love about it the most, and I think really the point of living there is you have to be willing to like be part of the city.

And I think some of my favorite. Feelings and times in New York is when you’re kind of looking into other people’s lives and other people’s industries and you just see how everyone has these moments of excellence where they are enjoying being at the top of whatever their field is. Whether that’s like.

Being a cocktail mixologist or being in fashion, or being a Broadway singer, or being in modern dance or like, you know, there are so many different little lives and so many different storylines and little dreams that people have there, and it sounds so cliche, but there really is a high percentage of like top talent in the world, in literally every field in New York City.

And so when you start to see the city like that and, and like think about the fact that almost everyone that you’re seeing around you is probably one of the best people in the world at something, it really makes the city pop and like really makes it come alive.

Oh, I love that. And it’s so true. That’s exactly how I felt about it. I think the way I described it to a friend is I was saying it’s, it is kind of like, um, it’s a place where if you get to New York, you’ve kind of made it to some degree, right? And whatever you are doing. And so I always say like the hustle culture here is real.

But not in a negative way. I, I, I, I think I had this preconception that New York would be fast paced and exhausting and everyone just wanted to trample over each other to be successful. In my opinion, it’s quite the opposite.

Yeah,

actually come to this city to make something of themselves, and they will open doors for you.

They will introduce you to someone. They will absolutely champion you to stay in this city for as long as you’re lucky enough to stay.

that’s so.

yeah.

it’s an, it is. I, I think that New Yorkers are some of the nicest people that I have ever encountered unless you walk out of the subway stairs and then you stop immediately in that case. And I, and I will fully stand behind that. But yeah, I mean, I think it’s very, it’s very mutually supportive and like, I think the only way to not be happy in New York is to not really be doing anything.

Like if you just wanna go to your job, go to Trader Joe’s, go home and watch tv, you should not live there because it’s way too much work. I. Like, if that’s your, you know, your version of life. But for the rest of us crazy people that wanna like, hustle, um, and, and constantly try to push the envelope. Like that’s the, that’s like the, the type, I think.

it’s definitely the place for us then.

Yeah. Welcome. That’s so great.

Thank you so much. Yeah, I absolutely love it here. I really do. Um, and it’s an interesting one when you kind of. You know, you, you find yourself in a new country and you start networking with different people. And when I decided to launch this podcast, Monica, I, I reached out to a well-respected sales influencer.

His name is Harris Howick.

Hello.

and I reached out and I said, do you know some amazing women in sales in this, in this profession that could be a guest for me? And you came up. So that’s what has connected us and I. I guess for the listeners, and if you don’t know Harris, definitely look him up, but I’d love to know how you came to know him and you know, what’s contributed to Harris recommending you?

You know, you’ve clearly got a very impressive following and reputation in our field.

Thank you. Yeah, so Harris is, is an interesting one. I have never met him. He found me. Um, he started, he started including my content in the roundups that he does on LinkedIn for the people that don’t know Harris, I think he also has a newsletter now. And he does these fantastic roundup posts on LinkedIn like weekly, where he’ll go really deep into a topic and he’ll be like, here’s the 20 best posts on Multithreading to teach you everything about Multithreading.

So he’s sort of like a one man LinkedIn digest in a way. And what I really respect about him is he doesn’t just go to like. The top influencers pages and be like, alright, so what does you know John Barrows have to say about this topic? He digs deep and he finds like actually really small creators. I think when he started, um, including me in his posts, I had less than 10,000 followers on LinkedIn.

And, um, not only that, he goes really deep into the archives. Like he’ll pull out stuff that you posted like nine months ago, like he digs. He probably has some tool that he uses to do it or something like that. But, um, I, I feel like he is a, he’s really like a student of the game and has, um, been amazing at like, amplifying my voice and amplifying voices of a lot of other people in my community.

And he’s also really good at amplifying the voices of women. So, um, I would say that like, one of the things that contributed to he and I connecting was a commitment that I made a couple of years ago to write on LinkedIn every day. Which was really, really, really hard even though, you know, I’ve been doing this for years.

I do workshops, I speak to, uh, I speak at conferences, I speak at accelerators, and I do like sessions for VCs. Um, it’s not like I, I am not used to putting myself out there, but something about having the discipline of sitting down and writing something about my life’s work every single day on LinkedIn.

Has, um, of course helped me gain more visibility, uh, in my career, but has also really helped me refine my own work and my own thought process, and has brought me so many relationships that I never would’ve anticipated.

Oh, absolutely. It takes discipline though, doesn’t it, to

It is, yeah.

I mean, I’ve had a few guests on where we’ve talked about my first guest, um, Hannah. She talked about social selling, but repositioning it as social giving.

Like that.

guest, she is the CEO and founder of a personal brand company and just reinforcing for sellers, like, why is that so important?

And I think. Your story just proves that, you know, if you want to build a strong reputation in the industry, you have to be confident enough to be visible,

Mm-hmm.

have these big sales influencers using your own content. That’s phenomenal. That’s an, that’s an amazing place to be.

Yeah, it definitely is. And it’s, um, it, it makes me sad when I see people on LinkedIn shame other people on LinkedIn for playing the LinkedIn game because it is a social network at the end of the day. And it’s like if you’re on there and you’re spending the time, even if you’re going on and you’re logging in every day and you’re spending the time to comment and interact with people, but especially if you’re creating content.

You should be constantly trying to learn about what’s working and like pushing the boundaries of your format. And like, of course you want as many people to see it as possible. So like, um, I love that you had that person as a guest on your podcast because I think that more people need to start taking their personal brand really seriously and.

I would just say if you’re listening to this and you’re on LinkedIn and you’re worried about the haters, like post that selfie, post, that video, um, write the thing and, uh, don’t worry about what anybody else says because the benefit is, is so great.

Oh, agreed. I mean, people are, I always laugh when they say to me, oh. You know, all your, all your content on LinkedIn, and I’m like, oh, trust me. I make myself cringe sometimes. And sometimes it’s embarrassing because I am testing content and I’m trying different things. But when you find something that you are really passionate about, and for me, I’ve definitely found that now it’s advocating women in this field.

It’s advocating for ethical selling and, and building a community of sellers that are really doing things properly. And once you’ve found what it is that you are passionate about. Then the content comes easy. So I’d say for anyone who’s like, I don’t know where to start, just put pen to paper about what’s important to you.

Where do you wanna take your life personally, professionally, what do you want to be known for? And it will just flow. It will come naturally and forcing yourself to do it daily. Monica, I’m sure you know the inspiration has to be there, so it has to be something you care about, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And that, that’s so true. Like if you start, you will figure out what it is that lights you up because you’ll start to like iterate and refine over time.

Amazing. Well, well let’s talk about lighting you up and you are a CEO and founder of, of your own business and back to LinkedIn. I, I was looking at your profile and I love your tagline. So your tagline is Getting founders outta. Out of survival mode through scalable revenue. Um, so I’d love the audience to hear a little bit about this, you know, what was it for you about supporting founders and startups that inspired you to establish your business?

MSP Consulting? ’cause it’s very different, isn’t it, from working with larger sales orgs and teams. So what drew you in that direction?

It is. And that’s, that’s a great question. So an important thing to note, I know even though in my bio, um, it calls out a couple of like really large companies that have had the opportunity to work with, almost all of my experience has actually been with smaller companies of like under a hundred people.

And a couple of those were acquired by s and p by Berkshire Hathaway. Um, one of them was actually acquired twice. And, um, as a consultant, I’ve also been able to work with some pretty large organizations like Figma and LinkedIn. But in terms of, you know, the core of my experience, it’s all series A, series B under a hundred people.

I’ve been the first VP of sales at a company. I’ve been ae hire number four. And I, I think kind of what led me to this point is that. When I started out in SaaS sales, I had really like no idea what I was doing. That wasn’t even the first sales job that I had. I worked in sold conferences before that and I worked in financial services.

So I, it was really just sort of like, I know that I can do this and let’s see how it goes, and it went really well. I was really good at it. And then I had this one 12 month period in my life where the two previous companies that I had worked at, plus my current company, all got acquired. And for all of those, I could draw a pretty direct line towards the work that I had done and the impact that I had.

Um, in one case, extremely direct. And the reason that that company ended up getting acquired. And it was a real light bulb moment for me where I was just sort of like, I should never work for anyone else ever again. And it took me a couple of years to fully, you know, have that come to fruition. But I think something just sort of clicked where.

I had such indisputable proof that what I was doing was very different from what a typical enterprise AE at a series a SaaS work was doing. Um, and that it was something that was really valuable. And so I decided like, I only just want to do that. Like, I just want to help people recreate that experience over and over.

And so, you know, now I’ve been doing this for about 15 years. And I think that like I’m very fortunate in that I have just very, very, very specific expertise and like a very specific thing that I’m good at. Like if you are a startup that has under 10 million in a RR and you’re selling to the biggest companies in the world and you wanna figure out how to make that business work from a revenue perspective and really grow, then I can help you do that.

And it’s like extremely, extremely freaking specific. Um, but like I do know how to do that really well. And like, when I think about the founders that I work with, they’re all very talented. Most of them have been successful in their careers before and, you know, they’re really taking a risk to go out and found this company.

They’re not the 23-year-old that just came out of Y Combinator, um, that’s doing like some sort of like AI SDR platform. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, that’s just not my market. These are people who, you know, they’ve spotted a problem that exists in enterprises that they’re solving for. That means they’ve had some exposure to that world.

Maybe they’ve worked at a big company before. Um, whatever it is, they’ve really chosen the hard path by going out and deciding to become a founder. And most of them at this point, like I said, they’re not 23. Like maybe they have a family, like they have goals, they’ve already been working hard and they’ve already been really successful doing something else.

And they literally have chosen like the hardest path because they have a vision that they believe in that much and they wanna do something even greater. And so by the time they get to me, they’ve already. Surpassed, like they’ve already passed the test that 90% of founders fail, which is getting to your first million or 2 million in revenue, right?

And even that is hard. But then to get from there to the peak of the next mountain is even harder. And so if they meet me at that place. I know that I can help them get to that next spot. And like just on a personal level, it’s really, really, really rewarding to see people’s dreams work out for them and like see all the bets that they’ve been making start to pay off.

I love that. I, God, I have so many questions for you off the back of that, but I think the one that comes to mind for me is like. You know, these, these founders, as you rightly say, you know, they’ve invested time, money, resources, passion into building a company that they think they can get to the next level.

But often with revenue growth comes pressure and stress. And certainly what I’ve seen is maybe these smaller companies running before they can actually walk.

So.

and I, I imagine you are brought in to slow that process down, build a little bit of structure and process because. If you, I don’t know if you build an ICP and you just try and do everything all at once, it’s not gonna work, is it?

Right.

how do you, you, you don’t have to give away your secret source of course, but like what does that process look like? Like how do you even start that journey with a founder and a scaling business?

Yeah. Well, I I love that you said that, you know, I’m brought in to kind of help them slow that process down because I think almost everybody would say, Monica, we need you to help speed things up, but you’re a hundred percent right Lauren. Like that is really what it is. So what I find a lot with, um, with the companies that I work with is they’ve.

They’ve done some work on their own right, and like they have, they have revenue already, so they have some idea of what their sales process should look like. And you know, they’ve kind of created a system that works for them. They’ve probably read a bunch of books. They’ve probably talked to some other coaches.

They’re getting advice from their investors, so they kind of like know what the pieces are, but what they don’t know is how all of those pieces fit together. And then how to like string them together into something that can become sustainable. So they’re doing usually too many things at once. And they’re doing a lot of the right things, but in the wrong order.

And so, you know, if there’s one thing that I do differently with the companies that I work with, it is forcing them to have a maniacal focus on the thing that will give them the most leverage. That’s the first conversation that we have, is kind of taking a, taking inventory of everything that’s going on in the business and then understanding like what is the one.

Point of leverage that we can push on right now that will give us the most impact. Because if you don’t solve that thing first, trying to address anything else isn’t gonna make a difference, um, then

My dog being

he agrees.

to the conversation here,

He is like, amen,

Yeah, he is like, I agree.

I love it. Um, uh, and then the other thing, which they often don’t like, uh, but is what they signed up for is that I really force them to stick to that.

So, you know, if they’re like, Hey, like we’re, you know, we we’re thinking of like starting five new channel partnerships. No. Hey, I think we should like hire three more salespeople now. Not yet. Um, and that’s really the, I think the hardest part for them is they’re so used to like, go, go, go. And it’s like, no, we need to, we need to do this first, then we can do the next thing, then we can do the next thing.

And when you build intentionally like that, the things that you have worked on don’t fall apart when you move on to the next thing. And that’s really what makes the difference.

Absolutely. And I think that for me, that strikes such a chord because I think that is the fundamental problem with what I call sort of bad selling in our industry is a seller is hired, they are given a quota and a target, and they are told to go

Right.

go as hard and fast and as quickly as they can without being given the tools or the training to get them there.

And I’m talking from an enterprise. Perspective here, but I feel like what you are doing, and it’s, it is certainly what I’m trying to do even in my business, is like, take a pause, take a look around. One of the, the, the areas we’ve been successful is like really deeply understanding our buyers. I think that so many companies that are selling immediately build an ICP and they push product first, but actually they’re forgetting like.

Who are these buyers? Where are they? What are they doing? What’s important to them? What are their challenges? And then how can you shape any of your sales strategy around that?

Yeah.

that you do with the companies that you work with as well? Is kind of buyer deep, buyer persona profiling as well?

Yeah, absolutely. It’s, you know, it’s kind of the first thing that we need to get a handle on in order to start working together. And then what I find is that during the time that I work with a company, which is usually six to 12 months, it will. That profile will change and we will also get a lot more information about it.

So the profile that we sort of leave with is never the same thing that they told me when they came in. And you know, sometimes this comes from like just acquiring more customers in a certain profile and then getting more information on that. But usually it comes from a deeper understanding of who those people are and why they’re working with you specifically.

So what I see a lot is like. We sell to, um, we sell to chief Information security officers at Fortune 500 companies. And it’s like, well, sure, of course you do, but so does everybody else in your industry, right? Um, so what is your unique value proposition for them? And then by the end of the time that we’re working together, it’s kind of more like.

We sell to chief Information security officers at Fortune 500 companies that are undergoing meaningful digital transformation, um, have a pretty significant m and a activity and are less than five years in their role.

Right.

You know, um, reason being that they’re trying to, they’ve been brought on board to have the business take a more proactive approach to cybersecurity management, and that’s what we help with.

I love that and I feel like a massive takeaway from this conversation for anyone listening is that kind of reflection. Pause, deep analysis before you’re even ready to hire salespeople to then push into your target audience segment with the, with the, with the right messaging. So

Totally.

I think that’s an amazing tip.

Um, selfish question for me, um, how many of the founders that you work with, what do you think the balance is between female and male leadership of the companies that you support?

It is 90% male, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And I love working with women founders. Um, if there are any that are listening to this, hit me up. I want to know you. Um, I, I mean for, for a number of different reasons, but you know, they’re in, in VC backed SaaS, which most of my companies are to some extent, VC backed.

The funding gap for female founders is very, very, very real. And so, you know, unfortunately just that’s kind of what the demographic looks like. And if you look at, like, even the demographics of my followers on LinkedIn are, are the same. Um, but I would say that like every female founder that I’ve ever worked with has been exceptional.

Absolutely. Yeah. Amen to that. And, and what about Monica, your experience from sales as a profession? Um, how have you seen that? Divide between male and female representation. ’cause certainly from, from my perspective, I still, I still feel it is so heavily male dominated, especially when we think about the senior sales leadership positions.

And I wonder your thoughts on that and what we need to do to change it.

Yeah, it’s, um, it’s really, it, it is extremely male dominated still. I mean, I’ve worked in all male companies, like 20 person companies where I’m the only woman in any department. And it is funny, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this too, but it was almost like easier that way. Like if there’s like one woman in the room, then they’re like, oh, we just, we just listened to what she says.

But then if there’s like multiple women in different positions, then they get like confused and they’re like, well, this one has more authority, but that one doesn’t. And it’s like, I, I, that was actually a, a really fun experience, um, that, that one all male company. But I mean, the rest, it’s like. Like there’s me and there’s a handful of other women, but let’s say it’s still like 80 to 85% male.

And um, I think that this is a little bit different when you talk about really larger sales organizations where they’ve just had more at bats and hopefully they have more women in leadership positions that are really advocating for this. But you know, in my part of the world where I’m working with companies again, that are under a hundred employees, it’s still highly, highly male.

And I think. At the point of growth that they’re in, they’re still in such a reactionary hiring mode. They’re like, we just need to get like one enterprise ae. They’re not even really thinking about equity at that point, although they, they certainly should be because all of the evidence shows that organizations that have female leadership or even just have more balanced teams, outperform the ones that don’t.

So it’s, it is really in their best interest to do so. But of course there are a bunch of, uh, institutional biases and like structural discrimination in our society that prevents that from happening in the way that it should.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think from my side, I just see less women applying for

Yeah.

roles that I have. Have within my team. For example, when I was hiring, I really struggled to find females coming forward and I, I mean, this is part of a much bigger conversation that I’m trying to solve here, but I wonder whether that is because there’s a bit of a reputation problem that I.

Sales is this high pressure cooker competitive environment where if you don’t hit your number, you’re out.

Mm-hmm.

many businesses do not operate that way. We have an insane collaborative culture at my business. Uh, we even operate a four day work week for global employees. Yeah, today is my day off and I do things like my passion project like this, which is

That’s great.

Um, and that’s enticing more women. To join us in, in, in the long run. So, um, it’s very interesting you say that. I mean, in my last, in my last guest as well, I asked who her favorite female sales leader was, and she said, I’m sorry, I don’t have one. I’ve only ever worked with male salespeople. And she was actually a marketer, so it was on the other side of the fence and she’s being sold to, and she said, genuinely her whole career, she’s been sold to by men.

Um, so it’s, I mean, this is the whole point of wise. I really want to. Speak to more female leaders. I want us to become more visible in that space. ’cause I think when there are role models out there that are loving their job, because I love sales, I’m a very proud sales professional. Um, even if people still roll their eyes at me that I work in sales, I don’t care because I think it’s an amazing job.

It’s very sales of you. You’re like, whatever. I don’t care.

I don’t care, honestly, whatever. But, um, spin it too. It is psychology, guys. It’s psychology.

Yeah. It’s new psychology and energy Word.

Exactly. But I wonder, you know, that’s a lot of the stuff that I’m trying to do in a community I’m trying to build called the Sales Revolution community, which is trying to sort of reimagine sales for the modern era.

So in, in your bio, I covered, um, your growth focused mindset.

Mm-hmm.

a little bit about what does this entail for you, your business, and also for your client?

Yeah. So, um, I mean, I think that especially like also being a sales professional. Having a growth focused mindset is the only way that you will be able to survive in this profession. Like sales is not, uh, apologies to all the people out there who are writing sales books, but sales is not a science. Like sales is the, is the art, um, and quasi science of moving people to action with a huge barrier in between you and those people that you have to break down.

So, um. I would say that as a profession, especially, you know, in, in SaaS sales changes as fast as the technology does. And so, you know, there are definitely people that are still out there that are teaching spin selling and gap selling and you know, the same things that have been around for 20 or 30 years and like, yeah, there are some elements of that that are helpful.

I still love Zig Ziglar. The classics are great. But you cannot be running the same playbook that you ran even 3 years ago and expect it to work today. And so like, it’s such a tough thing on your ego, right? Because like we start from zero at the beginning of every quarter and then we fight to like win, um, in that quarter or in that year.

And then at the end, you need to start all over and you need to be willing to tear down your entire strategy and like do whatever it takes to make that thing continue to work. And I, you know, I see a lot of teams that are just not willing to do this, and they’re like, I don’t know, outbound is dead. It’s just not working anymore.

And I’m like, well, I can promise you that it’s not because people are still booking meetings, they’re still closing deals, but you are not, so what are, what is it that you’re doing, uh, or that you’re, that you’re not doing, that other people are doing? Um, so I, I think that, you know, from, just from an industry perspective, it’s something that we all need to be very, very, very aware of.

Um, and this is something that I take to my work with all of my clients. It’s one of the reasons that I love what I do, because I also learn on every project, um, because it’s like getting inside a different company, their sales process, the conversations they’re having with their customers, the way that they do things, the tools that they use.

And each time that I do that, I get better and I learn more and I’m able to pattern match better and then I can take that to the next company. So I would say that it’s. It for me, it’s not possible to do this kind of work without having an extreme growth mindset, but I do know that there are some consultants that don’t think about it that way, and they see their work as like taking a blueprint and giving it to people, um, which is a completely opposite approach.

I absolutely agree with that. I think sales methodology have has its time and place, but you need to adapt and you need to evolve and you need to, yeah, especially with the influx of AI and like what does that mean for the modern sales person? So I think that is some brilliant advice there. Um, let’s go into the quickfire because there’s a couple of questions that I think will naturally lead on there.

Um, the first one is growth mindset we’ve covered, but what do you think is the one trait that you believe is most critical for a sales leader today?

I would actually say self-awareness. And I think that this is connected with, with growth, growth mindset. To your point, um, the sales leaders that I see that do not succeed are the ones that don’t understand the way that they’re. Uh, behavior affects their customers, affects their team, affects their, their peers on the executive team and like, not in a negative way, but they’re putting things out into the world and they are not clocking in real time.

The effect that that’s having and whether that’s what they wanted or not, they make excuses for themselves for far too long. And, you know, on the other end of the spectrum, unfortunately, I think a lot of female leaders suffer from an excess of self-awareness. Um, that can also hold you back, but I believe that you like somewhere in the middle, like the ability to, um, be self-aware and sort of self-regulate and, um, self-coach is like an absolute superpower that all of the best people that I’ve worked with definitely have.

And, and all of the people that I’ve worked with that have struggled, have less,

There’s an amazing book, if you haven’t read it. It by Martin Newman called the Emotional Capital Report.

Ooh.

it’s all about, um, traits that make a successful leader, not specific to sales, just leadership and

Love that.

is front and center of that.

Wow.

we’ve been actually going through it in some of the coaching that we invest in within the business.

We do a lot of coaching, um, you know, constantly looking to get better and reflect on. How we’re, how we’re acting as a leader, both as you rightly say, not just with our customers, but internally as well. So, yeah, that’s a, that’s a plug. If you haven’t read it, Monica, you might

I just moved down. Awesome.

Awesome. So in the spirit of wise, I’d love to know who is a female sales leader or mentor that’s perhaps most inspired your journey.

Oh man. Um, you know, unfortunately, um, I, as I guess a lot of people that you talk to, I’ve worked with way more men than women in sales. Um, but one person who’s really inspiring me a lot right now is Ursula Burns. Um, who was, she’s still the only black female, CEO of a Fortune 500 company that has ever existed.

She was the CEO of Xerox. She was the first one, and then when she retired, no one has taken her crown yet. Uh, I just read her autobiography a couple of weeks ago, and it is, it’s so amazing because she is, first of all, super smart, super driven, super talented. And then incredibly self-aware and just extremely frank and straightforward about like, here are the things that really helped me in my career.

Um, she grew up in the projects in New York City, actually on the Lower East Side, like over on Avenue D, which was cool. I was like, I know those students. Exactly. And so she talks about like, you know, what were the things that helped her both from an in, like from a family perspective, from a. From an institutional perspective, the government programs, the school programs, that she was able to take advantage of people early on in her career that helped her, um, the support that she got from her family and her husband emotionally.

But then also, you know, just like the things that held her back. And I was, uh, I bought her book because I read an interview with her a very long time ago where they were talking about how do we achieve more equity in the workplace and how do we see more women in leadership positions. And she was just like, look, women are 50% of the population, and so logically we should be represented half everywhere.

Everywhere you look, firemen, doctors, garbage men, CEOs, presidents, everything should be half women all over the world. Why is it not like that? If you want to change that, you need to change everything because the reason that it’s not like that is literally the way that the entire world is designed. And so she just really got down to the brass tacks of it and she’s like, you know, if you wanna see more women in corporate leadership, you have to change the office furniture.

You have to change the work hours. You have to, the office is too cold for us. Like everything about this environment is not designed for women. And so if you really want to see equal representation in the workplace, you have to be willing to change and reimagine everything. And she said that in a way that was just like super matter of fact, and it’s.

It’s a revolutionary statement. That shouldn’t be a revolutionary statement, and it just has stuck with me for years. And so I, I finally, she, her book just came out and I finally bought it and would highly recommend that to, you know, to anyone who, uh, is a woman or, or is interested in, in the path of how do we get more women into leadership positions.

Wow. I was gonna ask my final question, what book, but I feel like you’ve just answered that. Is there a particular name for her book or is it just her? Is it an autobiography for her name?

Uh, it is called Where you are is not Who you are.

Nice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She’s badass. I mean, I was just blown away. I’ll probably read it again. Um, in terms of, uh, other, other books, um, I mean there’s the classics. I Love Challenger Sale. I love Chris Boss. I also recently finished a book called Super Communicators.

That I think is especially a really good book for anyone who’s in leadership. Um, it’s a, like an anthropology book, and it, it breaks down the characteristics of people who are like the top communicators in the world. Like people who are like FBI negotiators or people who are executive coaches at like the highest level that, you know, advise like.

Bill Gates and things like that. Um, and it talks a lot about emotional intelligence and it talks a lot about just like super advanced communication and listening skills, which I feel really are the foundations of leadership.

Amazing. God, my list is getting way too long. I’m never gonna have enough time to read these books.

another book.

One of my goals as well, maybe we’ll do it together. Monica, is a lot of sales books, so to speak, I find are very heavily male dominated and they are that kind of sales methodology. So maybe there’s a co-collaboration there for us both to come out with a book written by female sales leaders that has a, a different spin to it, a modern sales spin.

I am into it. Yeah, exactly. Not, we’re not, we’re not going out and crushing and conquering anything. We’re just. We’re just aligning and helping people make the right decision for them.

Exactly that.

Yeah.

you’ve been an amazing guest. There is so many good nuggets there for the listeners. I can’t thank you enough, Monica,

It’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.

thank you so much. See you soon.