What The Funk?

0:00 What's up, funkers? We're back. This is episode number four of What the Funk and one that I've been really excited about for a long time. First off, we have Chase Knoll with us, who's going to

0:13 be one of my rotating co-hosts. Chase absolutely knocked it out of the park with tripping over the barrel when he came on with me and Tim, has a lot of insight, recommended a great book that I've

0:26 been reading over the past few months. And Chris Dinkler, one of my kind of early career mentors, somebody who I consider one of the best salespeople that I've ever come across. And he also worked

0:38 with Chase back when Invaris was drilling info and mentored him, I think, a little bit as well. So there's a lot of synergies to this discussion. And Chris, truly, you are a sterling guest. Oh,

0:52 well, it's good to be here. Thanks for asking me to come on, Jeremy Yeah, man, you're gonna crush it. So we'll just jump right into this. Chris, today from a business perspective, you're the

1:02 chief revenue officer at Invaris, which is a pretty massive company, maybe the biggest energy tech company in the world at this point. So I know I appreciate you taking time out of your busy day to

1:15 meet with us. You're trying to meet all your revenue goals for year end and all that bullshit that I don't have to think about anymore. Thank God as a consultant. But nonetheless, I want to get to

1:25 know who you are. You've got kind of a fascinating past You have a lot of very different interests. So talk about kind of your roots. I think you grew up a Kansas kid. You might have played

1:34 basketball on college and then I've built a pretty strong career as a sales guy and then as an executive and oil and gas. So talk to us a little bit about who is Chris Dinkler. Well, yeah, boy,

1:46 that's a, I don't know how interesting that really is, but I appreciate the question. I actually was at Nebraska kids. So I grew up in South Central Nebraska on a farm and really small tangloans.

1:60 And I, my graduating class was like 26 people, I think, or so. So it was pretty small. And then I went to college in Sterling, Kansas, which is, I think, what you had referenced and had the

2:13 opportunity to play basketball there. And that's where I met my wife and

2:19 we've now been married for 28 years. And so that's where I got introduced into oil and gas. I also got introduced into sales during that time I actually sold cut-code knives to help pay my way

2:32 through. Could you? I did. And so very few people know that. And so you had to cut my teeth on selling knives door to door when I was in college. But went, graduated with an accounting and

2:45 finance degree, and then worked for a small operator in Kansas called Carmen Schmidt. He was a small operator, strip or well production in Northwest Kansas, and learned a lot about oil and gas

2:58 about energy. And actually it's where I got started in technology. We developed some using Microsoft access and was pretty naive when we started, but developed a daily drilling and daily production

3:12 and allocation system and even some ERP accounting,

3:18 joint interest billing, revenue distribution. That's what actually brought me down to Houston. And so it was pretty naive and we did it. And that was in the late '90s and learned a lot And I don't

3:29 think we ever, I ever really appreciated how close we were to like not being able to pay our bills and

3:36 that's where I got my start.

3:40 And again, it was great and actually started in support and operations in that. And then we were struggling and I took a trip to back to Kansas and met with some of our partners that we had dealt

3:51 with in the operated world and came back with several contracts and they said, you're our new director of sales And so that's what. at a launch of my sales career. So kind of school of hard knocks,

4:02 if you will. Well, Gee whiz, Chris, I didn't know all that. That's

4:08 your reference and boy, your reference is some old days later.

4:12 I had to. So, Chase, before you jump in, I do want to preface this a little bit.

4:18 I met Chris in very early

4:22 2008. I knew nothing about oil and gas at the time, but I did have about five years of sales experience in selling technology, but oil and gas was brand new to me. And Chris, I think my first day

4:35 on the job, oil was like 138 bucks a barrel, like literally all-time highs. And you were closing deals right and left, Mac was closing deals. I'd make 10 phone calls in a day and get three demos

4:47 set up. Things were really, really good. And then they really, really changed fast. But you were like the legend. People were like, look, You get the deal to Chris Dinkler. and he's gonna

4:58 close it. Oh, come on, I don't know about that. But you were crushing it. Yeah, those are the days and you know, it was kind of funny to think about oil and gas. When I first got in the

5:08 industry and I worked for that small operator, you know, we were, I remember oil was like 18, 19 in barrel and that was late 90s. And you don't really, at the time, I remember when it, you

5:22 know, I think it got up into the 20s and I thought, man, we are crushing it right now 'Cause I didn't have any perspective. I didn't have any context of what that meant. And I was so, you know,

5:34 new into that space. And now, I mean, and it was obviously very conventional, vertical wells, stripper wells. So, I mean, there wasn't a lot of the costs and the break-evens were certainly

5:45 different than a lot of our unconventional wells that we see. But yeah, you come into those times where it's over 100 or things change and I certainly have much more appreciation now. or some of

5:58 those, the heyday that we were in in that time.

6:03 Chris, one question on that, so little context as well. I met Chris and probably, when did you join at the time drilling info? What year was that? No, it was 2015. Okay, so I met you in 2015

6:13 and we worked together, I guess for three or four years until I left, but when you joined drilling info now and various, but what was your role at the time? I was SVP in North American sales Okay.

6:27 And then you went through multiple sales leadership roles and then the oil decks acquisition, you were GM of that business unit for a while. And then I left when you were doing that. And then, you

6:39 know, I think you had a couple more positions, but I'd love to just unpack a little bit as you've grown your career at now and various from, you know, really in the trenches with, you know, a

6:51 team trying to land some of these deals all the way through kind of GM and now into CRO. How have you seen your perspective change or the things you focus on change? Because it's so interesting. I

7:05 have this window of time where we were really close and working together almost 10 years ago. And then kind of fast forward to today, you and I have professionally been out of touch for a while. So

7:17 I'd love to hear kind of your perspective on that trajectory. That's an interesting question. It kind of, somebody asked me that before, as far as advice for sales leaders and people really trying

7:29 to continue on in their career progression. And I think my perspective has changed from early on as a sales leader, you're sitting in the corner and you're trying to make your numbers and you're

7:41 looking this far in front of you. And I think I spent a lot of time working on acquisition and acquisition integration at Invares. And so it changed from really sales leader, more to looking as

7:54 from a GM, looking at all of it, looking at. not just sales, but looking at product product and development and marketing. And really, you know, you act as almost a mini CEO in our model here

8:05 at Inverus when you GM. And it really changed to more strategy and long-term outlook. And most importantly, I would say the people. And so that's probably the biggest takeaway was that, I would

8:15 even say that over the last five to six years that perspective changed 'Cause if it's, it all is about the coaching and it really is your number one asset is the people. And so you

8:32 can create more tech, you can constantly innovate, you're gonna lose customers, you're gonna gain customers. But if you don't have an engaged group of team members around you, it really doesn't

8:41 matter. None of the rest of it matters. And so I think that's always the balance that you have to keep and how it's shifted really. Quarters, you're gonna make a few quarters, You're gonna

8:53 hopefully make more quarters than you miss, but without a solid team around you. None of that's gonna happen. And if one additional follow-up there, this is gonna be a little bit of a nuanced

9:04 question, but as you've shifted from more of the kind of tactical to your point focused on the quarter in front of you, shifting to focusing on the people, but really focusing more strategy, more

9:16 long-term, are there any, I don't know the right word here, any systems or processes or best practices you use to think on a longer time horizon, like how have you made that shift and how do you

9:29 make sure that you're keeping your eye on the right time horizon? That's a great question. It is all about the strategy and it's about making sure that the team understands the why behind the

9:39 strategy and why are we doing this and how is it actually gonna get us to our goals. But most importantly, actually what I found and what drives that are the conversations with the customers,

9:50 ultimately having a very pragmatic

9:55 Process where we are engaged with our customers first and foremost and really understanding What are they telling us? How is the market moving trying to get in front of that to be able to? Ask our

10:08 customers really leading questions What if you were able to do it this way this way or that way really challenging their thinking that begins to form up our straggle Inveris is I believe strongly is

10:19 one of the most innovative companies in energy high tech today No doubt in large part because of our product team and our account managers and directors and our intelligence team staying out in front

10:31 of the market being able to see what's changing and how it's changing that Actually then starts to create and inform our strategy Which drives our financial goals and outcomes and it's we're then able

10:43 to cascade that down to our team So they understand you know our developers want to know that they're building something that's going to be used and used from a customer perspective that's valuable.

10:54 helps them, that's what motivates them and gets them out of bed. When they're developing some, it's really making a difference in the industry. We had a great acquisition, recently rated power,

11:05 they're out of Madrid, and it's all around solar project design. That team and just seeing really that strategy is all around our energy transition and power renewable strategy with embarrassed.

11:19 But I'm telling it is so dovetailed into the broader global strategy around energy transition. And so those things really tie nicely in and seeing how all that cascades is super invigorating and

11:35 really creates a lot of excitement when you get out of bed. Why do we do what we do? So speaking of bed, right, how do you sleep? Like I wonder this of anybody who's the chief revenue officer,

11:49 chief executive officer of a company that has substantial revenue goals. And it sort of must feel like, at least I'm projecting a little bit, like when you're an individual contributor, you've got

11:60 your number, but when you hit your number, you're kind of like, well, I did my job, right? For you, if you hit your number, then you know that things are just going to be like, well, you

12:09 still have some people that are below goal and you have to get those people up. It's never really enough. So how are you able to balance like taking a break from work and still being a dad? I know

12:20 that you're a family man and you have other interests, but how do you do it? Because it's something I've struggled with personally. I think that's a great question, Jeremy, and I think we could

12:31 talk an hour just about that. It's a, my wife tells me I sleep well and I must be dreaming of motorcycles

12:39 that I do. But I do. I wake up and I think about my mind is constantly racing, but I would say that you got to enjoy what you do Otherwise, to run at the pace that we all run at, it's not just me,

12:52 I'd say everybody now today than we've ever worked. And I think in this society, even from a COVID standpoint, we're now to work from home where we go from meeting to meeting to meeting, and

13:04 there's very little downtime. And so I think you've got to be able to balance those things in life. And it's a challenge for me, just like it's a challenge for everybody else. But for me, I

13:16 actually really love what I do. And so I love thinking about - right now, I'm thinking about 2024, not 2023. And are we doing the right things today from a

13:31 prioritization from what we're developing, what we're innovating in various segments? Because we have very - I mean, in various - I mean, we cover not just oil and gas. We cover financial

13:40 services and Mediterranean oil field services, minerals. And we deal with hedge funds and investment banks. And so making sure that we're doing the types of things that we need to do for each of

13:51 those segments is what invigorates me. That that is fun. I think trying to find that balance though Is really important because if you don't you'll find yourself burned out and I do you know time to

14:03 time I kind of like wow We've been going pretty hard and so sometimes you got to check out but having a You know chase. I don't know if you know, I'm a I'm a grandpa now. So what whoa Yeah,

14:18 nine months old his name's Holden and so You know Jeremy to your question having your your first grandson is a really good way to check you out You don't think about work. You're actually just you

14:30 know, I'm pop pops. So to him. So anyway That's that's an interesting way to to be able to do that It helps ground you pretty quickly on on your why I'm why we do what we do and and family is so

14:43 important Absolutely So you mentioned motor cycling But I want to talk about flying planes. Did you ever go fully through with that and actually fly aircraft? I did. So when I, you know, I got my,

14:56 gosh, this was I think when we can't remember when you left P2, but I remember getting my private, my private pilot's license back. And I think it was

15:07 2010. And, and I got that. And then when I left to go to oil decks, I took a couple months off and to just kind of recharge. And I went and got my instrument rating in like two or three months,

15:21 just I was, I was flying in the morning, flying in the afternoon. I was doing some classes during the day. And, and that was fun. And so I tell people, and you talk about checking out, you

15:32 know, when you're going down the runway, you know, and you're full throttle, you're not thinking about your quarter, you're not doing it. Landings. And so, but it is invigorating. It's, it's

15:41 such a thrill. I'm not flying as much as I, as I used to. I don't think I've flown in two or three years. So if I ask you If you go flying with me, the answer should probably be

15:54 Chris, and I think we've talked about this in the past. My dad was a Marine pilot and owns a little experimental plane. Ironically, I just, I bought a snowmobile and my dad asked me, Hey, what

16:07 kind of engine is in that snowmobile? Why would you ask me that? Well, my plane runs on a snowmobile engine, which I had no idea. Wow. And so my dad's out in the middle of Briggs, Texas,

16:17 flying this little experimental prop plane with a snowmobile engine, a ROTEX 503 is the engine. But anyway, when you go flying, obviously, it's been a few years. What kind of aircraft are you

16:29 taking up? It's usually a Cessna 172. I had a Piper 2 that I bought, and actually - and that's a Cessna 172 is a high wing. Piper is a low wing. But I sold that probably four years ago. And I

16:46 haven't flown much since Motorcycling is - it's definitely - do a lot more of that. You're a Harley guy, right? I am, I am. I love, Julie and I will take off and we'll go on some road trips and

17:01 we've been all over the country and I'm one to trailer it there. I'm not one to punish myself on hours and hours on the highway but once we get there, we'll definitely ride in the mountains or

17:12 wherever we're at. All right, so, sorry, Funk. Follow up question, I'd love to know this. So I'm asking for selfish regions. My father-in-law is also a big Harley guy and he's also that guy

17:24 that if he's driving down the highway and he sees a bike in a garage, he'll stop and knock on the door and ask if they want to sell and how much they want to sell it for. And he has this amazing

17:35 knack of taking old bikes, fixing them and flipping them. He's been trying for years to give me a bike and I'm terrified of motorcycles. They scare me, I scared the daylights out of me. So what

17:46 would be your advice to somebody who is in my position? It's like, you could get your hands on a bike if you wanted, but you know, it's a little intimidating. Like what would be your guidance to

17:58 me? First of all, if he's giving it to you, say yes. And

18:02 secondly, go take a motorcycle safety course. And I did, and I actually rode growing up. But I think you have to do that now even, but it's actually, I mean, incredibly helpful. And so a lot

18:17 of the things that they teach you and that is just, you don't, you think it's common sense, it's not, you know, just like your eyes, you know, you will go where your eyes are looking. And

18:28 that's normally where people get in trouble around curves is they're looking right in front of them, not where they're going. And all of a sudden they find themselves drifting, little things like

18:37 that. So go take your motorcycle safety course. It's on a small bike and it's, you're gonna be really hard pressed to, it's usually in a parking lot, like a ground or something. You can't really

18:47 screw that up. And, uh, and then you'll leave knowing whether or not you want to do it or not. So my wife did that actually. She went and did the motorcycle safety course just to do it. And then

18:58 she left and then she wanted a bike. So we actually bought her a little Kawasaki Vulcan, but we sold it. Um, cause she just wasn't riding it enough. But yeah, that would be my advice word. Cool.

19:08 Thank you. Do you, do you take your bike out on those crazy highways in Houston? Now, no, I was going to say that. That's the other advice is, you know, stay away from. Doing stupid stuff.

19:20 And so it doesn't mean that anything, I mean, listen, anything can happen at any time. And so I think you just have to be grateful for every day and every day. It really is a gift. And, um,

19:30 especially as we went through COVID, right? I mean, so many people lost loved ones and, and, um, you know, you just went through a health scare, right? Jeremy. And so, uh, every day is a

19:40 gift. And so I think you just, but you can, you can choose to minimize your risk. So. Yeah, absolutely. Well, a couple of things here. One, because we were talking about flying pilots and

19:50 fighter pilots. There's Ted Williams, the greatest American of all time. Hall of Fame baseball player, Hall of Fame fisherman, and also potentially consider the greatest fighter pilot of all time.

20:02 I'm not sure. I just realized that, yeah, he missed four years playing baseball because he was fighting in the Korean War and was notoriously one of the best fighter pilots that the member was. I

20:14 didn't know that my grandfather was in the Korean War. Yeah, that's great No, yeah, 42 to 46, or something like that, 42 to 46. And then he came back and hit 400 'cause he's Ted Williams and

20:25 that's what he does. But Chris, to bring it back to me 'cause this is my podcast, it's all. It's all about you, Jeremy. That's right. One of the things that I credit you with, and I've tried

20:37 to pass this on to salespeople who I've mentored, is you were the first sales manager I had who really taught me how to be creative

20:48 as a salesperson. I think when a lot of people think of sales manager, they think of hands-on, micro management, I felt like you were actually the opposite of that and really empowered me to do

20:59 creative business deals within reason, but to be able to make somebody feel good about the deal that they did in a creative way, whether that be pricing or payment terms or features or something

21:14 that would cultivate a longer-term relationship with the customer, you did a lot for me to help think creatively. And that's something I've carried throughout my career. How do you balance the

21:27 ability to allow your team to be creative while still being a part of a massive corporate engine now that does half a billion dollars a year in revenue? You know, that's a great question because

21:41 that's actually some of the biggest advice I give to some folks is,

21:46 You know, you got to think, don't lose your entrepreneurial spirit, you know, regardless of, you know, the size of the organization that you're in. And it's a challenge. You're right. It's

21:55 exactly right, Jeremy. The larger the organization that becomes a bigger challenge, we've had to incorporate things. And we're just incorporating some, you know, a, a, we call it a deal desk,

22:08 but it's not a deal prevention desk. It's really more to help our reps get creative around that Because I think some of the challenge is, you know, we'll bring a new rep and they don't necessarily

22:20 know me as well as maybe you two know me. And they think that they have to operate within a very strict guidelines. But I think, you know, it goes back to really what we want to do and what I

22:31 would tell anybody in this profession is know your customer and know what your customer is trying to solve, not what you're trying to solve. And then if you're, if you know that, why very rarely,

22:42 you've probably remember hearing me say some of this. depending on how good your memory is, there's very few deals or very few problems that we can't solve to get creative around to make sure it

22:55 works for the customer. 'Cause ultimately this is about the customer. And it's actually one of our core values we used to call it customers for life. And now it's really we change our partners for

23:03 life 'cause our customers are our partners and making sure that they feel like we're truly partnering with them. But that's gotta extend down to how our sales professionals are engaging with our

23:12 customers as well And if we do that well, that works very, very well. And so, but it's, you're right, it is harder. And I think that comes down to building leaders, which is one of the main

23:25 tenants and one of my main passions is really building leaders on top of leaders on top of leaders. And it's all around how good our sales leaders are at coaching our team to be able to think that

23:36 way, to engage that way, always with a customer centric mindset 'cause really it's, and this sounds idealistic, but it's true. we're here to serve our sales team and our sales team is their

23:48 primary role is to serve our customers. It's not the other way around. So if they're serving our customers, they should have that mindset. And we do that naturally when we start a company, right?

24:00 I mean, if you think about when we start a company and you're getting it off the ground, everybody is highly focused on engaging and getting really creative for the customer. You have to create

24:13 more boundaries as you scale, otherwise you can't scale. You've got one-off code or one-off, you know, code sets, you can't necessarily do that for the customers. But you can get creative in how

24:25 you structure commercial terms and things like that to make sure it's fit for purpose for the customer. It's a really good question and one that we're, I think every organization is always

24:34 challenged with. And it changes, right? Depending on organizational size, it can depend on market factors, right COVID referenced You? and I can't imagine the pressures that you were under.

24:46 when you're selling to companies who are dealing with negative oil prices, right? Like that was something where I'm like, well, I'm not gonna hit my number. Like, because if I'm here to serve

24:54 the client, how can I tell them that they need to buy new accounting software when they're just trying to keep the lights on? Like, if you can enter the data somewhere, keep doing that and we'll

25:04 start talking when things come back. Well, I think what we had to do too during that time is really, you know, you rethink, you reimagine, you have to get really creative with contract terms,

25:15 we partnered with our customers in three areas, like whether it's price increases, now our customers are giving us more price increase now, because several of them even said, yeah, you're right,

25:25 for the last two years, you've really partnered in some cases reduced, in some cases, depending on the situations, they were all different, right? And so we didn't take a one-size-fits-all

25:35 approach, but we also had to change how we were engaging our customers with the solution sets. And I would say that that's held true now. 2019 versus today, customers are, it's all about

25:49 efficiency, especially in energy. The public markets have shifted, it's all about free cashflow, strength the balance sheet, return to shareholders. 2019 is drill, drill, drill, replacing

26:02 production. How we're actually engaging our customers with the solution sets and what we're innovating, that changed. So how we're actually innovating to make sure that we're able to allow

26:13 customers to continue to gain efficiencies is primarily how we're engaging with our customers. That necessarily, that was pretty much true for even a lot of our competitors. That was not true in

26:23 2018 and 2019. And so you've got to be willing to adapt and you've got to be willing to not just change your sales process, but change your product roadmap to change what you're building and how

26:34 you're innovating. One thing that you haven't mentioned, we're almost 27 minutes in. And I love pointing this out when we have great sales leaders you haven't once mentioned competition. you've

26:46 mentioned customers like 50 times. And this is like a core tenant of Jeff Bezos and Amazon that you'd never focus on competition because if you focus on just being slightly better than your

26:59 competition, that's all you're ever going to be. If you focus on delivering value to your customers and listening to your customers, then you will always be best of breed and a customer centric

27:11 organization. Everything Amazon has done over the years has been that focus. So I think it's really important, especially for the younger salespeople that are listening to this podcast, to hear

27:20 how people like Chris talk, to hear how people like Chase and Matt Wilcox and when he came on talk about their customer centric approach because it's not just lip service. If you focus on your

27:31 competition, you'll lose in the long run because somebody will eventually come along and focus on what the customers actually want. So I just wanted to kind of point that out to everyone because to

27:42 me it's a it's a very vital part of how the better sales leaders and better companies operate?

27:49 Go ahead, Chris. Sorry. I couldn't agree more. It's a, I think internally we don't talk hardly at all. I got a question I think from a, I was on a call with a financial institution and they

28:02 asked me what I thought about the competition

28:05 and I actually had to stop and think. And I said, well, I go, we're aware of the competition and there's always gonna be newer, yeah, there's gonna be new startups that are always starting and

28:17 there's gonna be, and I actually like it 'cause it actually drives innovation. It holds us accountable and but essentially, we're getting that from our customers. Our customers are actually having

28:27 that conversation with us about what they're trying to solve, their strategic initiatives, how they're aligning with the board of directors. What are the most important things that are important to

28:39 that customer in the market how the market's shifting. And if you're focused on that,

28:44 So I'm just, I guess reaffirming what you're saying.

28:48 So Chris, one thing I, as I was taking notes this morning, thinking about stuff I wanted to bring up, one of the things that I was thinking about is, if you're a, I've been in professional sales

28:59 for almost 20 years, I'm in a sales leadership position at this point. But if I look back at all the people I've been in the trenches with, people I've learned from, people that have mentored me,

29:09 a couple names, obviously pop up, right? There's Carl Shible, Matt Wilcox and Brandon Taylor, Chris Dinkler, Jeff Hughes, Colin Westmoreland, right? Like, and I bring up all those names just

29:22 to say that Chris, for many years, you and I were kind of being taught by the same school. Where you are today in your career, where you are with the size of your team, if you were talking to

29:35 someone who's brand new to sales, someone who a couple of years in, they're learning, What would be the. books, articles, resources, lessons, like what would be the artifacts you would say,

29:46 hey, if you want to really hone your craft to go study these things, what would those things be?

29:54 That's a great question. It's one that's happening right now. I'm so fortunate that I got an incredible family. Like I would just, man, I've got four amazing kids. The two of those are in kind

30:08 of following in a little bit of our same footsteps One's in marketing and a

30:12 great role at Meetra Tech, working for an amazing leader and Ashley Estelev. And then another one, Braden, my youngest son, was actually working for a ERP provider that they used to compete

30:26 against. And so I got it, that's where it's for Quorum. And they're a

30:31 great company and they're - Oh, yeah. Thanks. And so I got to have these same conversations actually chase with him And you know, I would tell one of the things. A piece of advice I would give

30:43 and I don't lose yourself in it, like I

30:48 was focused on winning,

30:50 that's all, you know, we're so competitive and you want salespeople that are competitive. But I would say sometimes you can lose yourself and you lose that balance that we were talking about early.

31:05 And we've all done it too. And especially if you have a young family and I would say there's times I look back and I'm just almost saddened because I remember more about my work life than I did some

31:16 of my personal life. And it's actually like, man, that's a miss. And I've had the, you brought up Jeff Hughes, you know, when I came to Inverus, which was drilling info at the time in 2015,

31:30 Jeff had came on a year later, I didn't realize how much I had yet to learn

31:38 And I, Jeff is really probably the best leader I've ever had. far that had a chance to work for. And a lot of what I know and my core tenants and my belief structures and, you know, we've become

31:49 kind of private equity athletes really, you know, in our careers, really has come from Jeff. And he's just such a remarkable leader. Young sales reps often figure, you know, think they have

32:01 everything figured out. And I would say, have a, have a, have a mindset of learning constantly. And I see it all the time that the reps that are the most coachable and chase, you probably

32:16 remember this, you remember that book we all had, you know, back in the day, it was humble, hardworking, smart, the idea team, right? And that was a Carl Shival, you know, Carl, you know,

32:25 man, you know, God rest his soul. I mean, what a tragic accident that we lost Carl. But I think it is true. I mean, I do believe it's true. And I was having this same conversation with a

32:36 couple new reps. I'm like, man, you be humble. be the hardest working person and really focus on your smarts and if you really feel like you're struggling from that, like you don't get it, ask

32:48 for help. I would say I'm going to end with like this one thing, don't be afraid to raise your hand and say, I don't know. Some of them new sales reps thinks they've got to come in and I've got to

33:01 prove that I've got this QPP nailed, I've got this account plan nailed, I've got my pipeline is perfect It's never the reps that I've seen that do the best are the ones that early on are raising

33:13 their hand and they say, I don't know where to start, but I want to know.

33:23 And if they have that mindset of being coachable, man, typically we see their productivity just take off really up and to the right because they're inquisitive and that

33:32 curiousness actually extends over to their engagement with their customer So shock me for asking questions. even they're asking questions internally, and that actually bleeds over to how they engage

33:44 with their customers, and their customers want somebody that's curious. Man. Oh, about that. So those two things, I think just be curious, be humble, be hardworking, be smart, and it's okay

33:56 to say, I don't know. Do you remember, Dinkler, do you remember Brandon Willin? Oh, I do. Boy, that's the name for the pet. Yeah. Oh, man, I was talking to Willin the other day. So just

34:07 for a little context for all the listeners, Brandon Willin was a gentleman who worked with us at Drilling Info before it was in various. And prior to joining, you know, doing kind of oil and gas

34:18 tech sales, he was a chicken farmer. He owned a chicken farm and he raised chickens for eggs and meat. I didn't know. And he was the hardest working dude. The chicken farm didn't go the way he'd

34:30 planned. I think he and his partner had a disagreement in terms of kind of what the future of the farm looked like. He called me up and said, Hey, I'm thinking about getting into tech. I'd love

34:39 to buy you lunch and just pick your brain. And I said, No, you're not gonna buy me lunch. I'm gonna interview you, like you need to come in.

34:45 And that dude was the hardest working, most humble, asked the most questions. He's running his own business today. But I use that example all the time to people. I said, Well, how do you be

34:57 successful? And I said, Man, if you can take a chicken farmer and turn them into a really successful sales leader. You know, he ran a global SDR team and just absolutely crushed it. Then, you

35:08 know, those are the core tenets. And I think you're dead on there because those are really the three things. And if you have those, if you keep those tenets forefront in your mind, you're gonna

35:18 have a growth mindset in a growth career. So I couldn't agree more with that. Shout out to Brandon Willem. Yeah, you can coach the rest of it, but you can't coach some of those things that we

35:27 talked about either. They have that or they don't. Until Brandon, hi, when you see him. I will, I still talk to him. Very fond memories. He's actually one of the best I've seen coming out of

35:35 that You're right, super humble, super hardworking, crazy, smart, you know, just, yeah. Yeah, I mean, simply put, you can teach skill, but you can't teach will, right? And that's a, you

35:49 know, a very succinct way to put it. I wanna talk about a memory I have also in 2012, I was working for Energy Navigator. And Chris, I think at the time you were oil decks? Yeah, it would have

36:01 been early, 'cause I think I was at oil decks for two and a half years, I think, and helping them kind of recapitalize and yeah,

36:10 I think that, yeah, that's right. Revitalize. I was at NAIP, and I just lost a deal. I'll never forget this one. It was an AFE Navigator deal, AFE workflow, that ultra petroleum, and I lost

36:23 a quorum. And it was the wrong decision for them, still eats away at me a little bit, but there's nothing I can really do about it now. And I was so bummed, and this happened literally, I found

36:34 out like this is when you couldn't get. Wi-Fi on planes or at least the plane I was on didn't have Wi-Fi yet. So I land to this news in an email and it caught me off guard because we've been talking

36:45 pricing and I really thought I had this deal. Then you could tell that the guy who passed the message on wasn't particularly happy about it either, but this was the group consensus. They wanted to

36:55 go with a different AFE system. And I was just bumming. I didn't want to leave my hotel room, even though this is my biggest event of the year for generating new leads and opportunities. And I was

37:05 like, man, I'm going to need to go find Chris And I found you and sought you out. And you said a few words that still stuck with me. And I was bumming and I was kind of regurgitating the deal and

37:14 you were listening and smiling and you said, and I was just saying, I can't believe I lost. Like I don't lose deals. And you said, listen, everyone loses deals, man. If you didn't lose deals,

37:25 you'd be walking on water. And it's the same thing that I have to tell to a lot of the young CEOs or young sales executives that I work with that are used to winning and don't lose Competitive deals

37:36 very often is like

37:39 you are going to lose deals, even deals that you shouldn't lose. And you're going to get blindsided and things are going to happen and it's not going to make sense. And eventually you're just going

37:47 to realize like, I'm just not going to win every single deal. That's just not the reality of it. But that really stuck with me, not to say it's okay to lose, but you're going to lose. Like Tom

37:59 Brady loses games. Tom Brady lost an undefeated season. Even the greatest winners lose. And that's how you learn Well, I agree. What you just said, I think, is the most important part of that.

38:10 Is, and 'cause I, those that know me, I am very competitive. I mean, our family is competitive. We had a, it's a, you'll find this amusing. Our, we all played ping pong, and we had a

38:24 Thanksgiving ping pong tournament, and there was other people over, and everybody was involved in it. And we realized it's not the smartest thing to do to invite friends over, because when it's

38:34 just the Dinklers, go and add it because we all hate to lose and everybody's kind of watching. They thought, this is nice. We're just watching the Dinklers play ping pong as he called it. They're

38:43 like, we hate losing. So we're a very competitive family. That said, what you just said, I think it's what happens in the loss. Like, and it's what separates, and I think this is true not just

38:56 for sales reps, but also for anybody in business and really in life, it's what happens in the loss, learn The great ones will actually learn from it. Look at, you mentioned Brady, and I've used

39:09 this, you might even remember me saying this, Jeremy, but it's about how fast we play, recover, and play. You're gonna have a play that doesn't go your way, how fast you recover, mentally

39:18 learn from that loss, and then set it aside, and then re-engage with a positive mindset. That actually, what I've seen, my observation separates the really high performers, and it's not just in

39:29 sales, I think in product, and development, and marketing, from the ones that are average and it's. that learning, nobody ever learns. You might learn a little bit in the success, but it's

39:42 really in those losses that have it. We have a great opportunity to learn. And that might be not just in a sales engagement. That might be a promotion you're looking for. It might be like I got

39:50 some really tough feedback internally because my how was really not what it should be. I showed up not on my A game, maybe said something I shouldn't have said, maybe had a bit of a sharper tone

40:03 than I should have had And then all of a sudden I get some feedback, am I gonna learn right there? Am I gonna apply to do better? 'Cause none of us comes at it, like you said perfectly. And so I

40:14 like to ask, sometimes I'll ask folks, I'd like, tell me about your failures and they say, well, I didn't have any in the world, but then we're not trying hard enough. 'Cause if we're really

40:23 using the envelope and we're trying, you're gonna fail and you just will. And it's how we learn from that failure. And I think celebrating, I like kind of saying, celebrate your failures, learn

40:34 from them, and share it.

40:36 I'm share it with people. Jeremy, you probably remember, I kind of, I forgot about this until you brought this up, but we talked, there was a great book that I read before is a long time ago

40:45 called Flawless Execution. Oh, I remember that. And you remember that? And it was all about sharing our wins and sharing our losses and actually better and better and better and letting other

40:55 people learn from that. But I think until we're vulnerable enough to be able to do that, it starts with a leader doing it. And then the rest will follow And then the people under him or her,

41:07 whomever will start to be more confident sharing that. So I think you have to create that culture. It's not easy to do and I don't think we're there, even if I look at our own organization, but I

41:17 think that's the desire and that's the ideal state. Yeah, a yes and a mentor of mine used to call that the accumulation of points. And I never really understood what he meant. And he said, you

41:29 know, over a career or even over like one role, You know, your chances of winning are X. And hopefully, your chances of winning are higher than losing. But over time, as you pick up these

41:42 little nuggets of wisdom and you have those losses where you go, OK, what could I have done differently? And you incorporate that learning. You're accumulating points, right? And those points

41:51 increase your chance of winning. And it may be over a career, you increase it by 10, whatever, just throwing out numbers here. But imagine a 10 greater chance of winning a football game. Over

42:02 time, it makes a meaningful difference And so this mentor would always tell me like, hey, just make sure you're gathering points, you're accumulating points. And I think going back to that growth

42:12 mindset, you take those losses, you say, hey, what could I have done differently? And then if you're astute, you don't make that exact same mistake again. Maybe you make a different variation

42:22 of that mistake, but you don't make the same mistake. And then over time, it's like, oh, well, I've lost a deal myriad ways, but I didn't lose a deal the same way twice And over time, that

42:33 really does increase your chance

42:36 Yeah, and well said Chase, you bet. That's really good. We got a couple more minutes here, and Chase, I wanna bring you back to the fold. When you came on tripping over the barrel, you had

42:46 kind of what I considered like a dream job. You were working for an investment group, you were advising various different startups. And then, to my surprise, you took a job heading up kind of a

42:57 startup group. What, talk about your transition a little bit and what you're working on right now? I will, I'm actually going to pull Dinkler into this,

43:08 just because Dinkler and I had a really - there have been a couple points in my life where Dinkler has been really - by the way, I don't call him Chris. I call him Dinkler. Yeah,

43:19 he's Dinkler, like Chris is always someone else. Anyway, there have been a few key moments in Dinkler and his relationship that I still think back to. The first one, I won't tell the whole story,

43:29 but the first real engagement Dinkler and I had

43:34 We were heated in my office in Austin over I was running an SDR team at the time and think we thought I gave a Lead that turned into a significant deal to the wrong team and I was on the other wrong

43:45 side of the corporate that one But anyway, I left again at the time it was drilling it though. I love drilling it though in 2018

43:55 end

43:58 of 2018 in large part because I wanted to go somewhere smaller And so I joined a tech company out of Austin and was there for a couple years left in February of 21 And moved to the Pacific Northwest.

44:10 I'm in Seattle, Washington for for those of you can see my background

44:16 And I joined a venture capital firm and I was basically a fractional CRO for all of their 50 portfolio companies and it was a dream job. It was You know, you've learned a ton you got to see a ton of

44:29 companies But Dinkwood, you know, pulled me inside. and said like, Hey, man, you walked away from a really promising career here at Inbaris, you were well positioned to go do some crazy things.

44:45 Like, Why'd you do that? And I bring that up because it was a really good question and it really caused me to think about what I wanted.

44:54 And I still think about that conversation because maybe I did make a mistake by leaving Inbaris, drilling in both the time, maybe not, but what it ultimately did is it made me think about what do

45:05 you want to do when you grow up? What are you really passionate about and what do you want to do?

45:10 And while the venture capital firm was one of the best groups of people I've ever worked for and I full disclosure worked for a portfolio company of that venture capital firm today because I feel so

45:21 strongly about that group of people. But what I really wanted to do was lead a sales organization. It's fun to be able to jump into these different companies and consult and advise. You get to

45:32 experience really fantastic context switching, but you don't get to get in the trenches with a group of people on a day in day out basis. And that's what I really wanna do. I love to see people

45:43 grow in their career. I love to mentor people. I love to help them be successful. And so yeah, I shifted over. I'm in the logistics industry now. I lead a team and we help small independent

45:55 trucking companies get paid quicker on their invoices and literally help them fuel their growth. And it's a really rewarding, fantastic organization in a really exciting market. I never thought I'd

46:08 be an oil and gas. I never thought I'd be talking to truckers every day. But I love it and I love my team.

46:15 But it was that question from Dinkler of like, hey, man, why did you make that decision that really made me think, huh, where do I want to spend my time? Where do I want to invest my time? And

46:26 you got to love what you do to paraphrase Dinkler earlier in this conversation. So. I hope that answers the question. Ah, man, that was great. How fricking good is this guy, Chris? He's good,

46:37 I tell you that was, I remember when Chase left, I was like, ah, man, I mean, it was a punch in the gut. However, and I say this to a lot of our leaders. Ultimately, our job is to actually

46:51 make sure that they land where they want to land in their career. And that may not be embarrassed. It might be our job is to actually prepare them for that And then they land taking their run and

47:01 sail somewhere else. I mean, look at Chase. And if that actually brings me a lot of joy, knowing that Chase is doing what he's doing right now, and that we were able to be a small part of it.

47:10 And it's a small part because Chase is a rock star. I mean, like he's one of the best I've worked with. And so it's fun to see Chase. It's fun to see you doing what you're doing, man. I mean -

47:22 Thanks for the YouTube. Congrats

47:25 Chris, back in your dinkler - sorry, back in your oil dink. My boys are going to watch this and then they're going to start and they don't want to be with dad and be, hey, think what.

47:37 When you were at oil decks, you were trying to recruit me over there. And I remember wanting to do it because I really enjoyed working for you in the time that we had to gather at was Bolo well

47:49 point systems just before the whole P2 thing. And ironically, what kept me from joining you was what I saw you do at Bolo like I wanted to be that Chris Dinkler, but of a different And you're like,

48:03 no, come over here. I'm like, no, but they're too, they're too far down the path. I want to do what you did to try. Yeah, I know. You put the, you put the old college try out there, but it

48:13 was sort of like I saw what you did. And ironically, that kept me from then working for you because I wanted to make that impact myself. Right. So kudos to you and also sorry because you were so

48:25 good at what you did in those early days of Bolo. Well, listen, I saw you go out and crush it. I mean, what you did at Seven Lakes and what you did, I mean, watching your engagements, I would

48:35 hear about you when we would talk to customers. And it was fun actually watching you achieve what, I mean, in large part, I think that company's success was, you know, Jeremy, you had

48:49 no shortage of your impact on that company's success. And I think it's now at Seven Letter of

48:56 Energy now. And that's a huge part of their growth strategy from what I hear. No question. You ought to feel incredibly proud about that, but it was fun watching that. And it was fun watching

49:06 kind of seeing some of these press releases come out. I remember seeing something that you engaged with Devin or something, you know, all going back. And

49:14 that was super fun to see you just go crushing your career. Thank you, Chris. And, you know, I owe a lot of that to the mentors I had like you early out of my career and unfortunately people who

49:25 were not like you that were. the other side of the coin. You got to learn from, you got to learn from all of it, right? Sometimes you learn what to do and sometimes you learn what not to do. And

49:35 so, yeah, often the what not to do is more impactful than the what to do, right? It's like, oh man, I'm never doing that again. Yeah. Good luck selling that in the job interview though. So,

49:45 so why should we give you this job? Well, I know what not to do.

49:51 I got one last one last question for Chris and then we'll let you get back to crunching your 2024 numbers, but you did something that I struggled to do in my career, which was successfully make the

50:03 transition from top dog individual contributor to VP of sales chief revenue officer business executive. How were you able to do that? Because it was always hard for me where it's like, well, if I

50:17 move you from your sales job that you're crushing to a management job, then I lose my best sales guy. Hmm. How were you able to make that transition? And now, I mean, most people that meet you

50:28 think of you as like a corporate executive. I think of you still as a sales guy who made that transition. That's an interesting question. And that's one that we struggle with from time to time.

50:43 I think it's also one of the biggest risks organizations have.

50:48 The natural thing is to look at your top performers and say, you know, they should lead. That's not always the case And not everybody wants to lead. And I think what we've seen is there are sales

50:58 - I think you've got to ask people, why do you want to be in leadership? What

51:03 I've typically seen - and I see this across industries. I've talked to other CROs and sales leaders. There's a lot of reps that want it because of a title. Or they want to - sales professionals

51:15 have to have a little bit of a stronger ego. They just do. And I think we all do. And because it's that will to win, that competitive nature to go out and commit. right? So you got to have a

51:25 little bit of, you know, nacity and swagger. Sometimes, oftentimes, that leads reps to want to take on a role for the wrong reasons. And they take on that role because they want the title or

51:39 they want the authority or they want the compensation. And I think really what we try to coach to is you really need to be, you really should want to take it on because your job is to serve them.

51:53 And there's actually a great book and I love it and I like all of our leaders to read it and it's called The Servant by James Hunter. And it's really all, it's all about servant leadership. I don't

52:04 do this great all the time, but it's an ideal that I aspire to is you should want to get into leadership because you're wanting to serve others, not because of, you know, what you're trying to do.

52:15 I think people have asked me like how have you, you know, how did you get to become the CRO? Sometimes I have to look back and they're like, map it out. And I just did what the organization

52:27 needed, because I actually took a step back, Chase remembers this, you know, I went from SVP in North American sales to, I actually ran a much smaller piece of the organization. And I have to

52:37 look back and at a time we actually had a CRO leave. And I had to be okay that I wasn't tapped for that role. And it wasn't the right role for me at that time. Like that, it wasn't. And I think

52:48 looking back, I wanted it, maybe wanted it for the wrong reasons. I actually took a smaller role and then started working on, I had a great conversation with Jeff Hughes and it really resonates

52:59 with me and I tried to do that with our leaders and he said, What do you want to do? Like what do you want to do in your career, not just right now? And we were able to really unpack that. And

53:08 really what I wanted to do was lead cross-functional teams, which led me to more acquisition integration, and which ultimately led me to the general manager role of business automation. And to date,

53:22 I love that role. like I, it was one of the best, and Jeff told me, I remember, he said it was gonna be one of the best roles you ever had. He was a GM at NCR, and he was right.

53:33 It's actually to this, to today, it may be probably right up there with the current role that I'm in. And then was asked to basically go take on the CRO role, which in large part is doing a lot of

53:46 what I did as a GM 'cause I'm working across departments of, you know, collaborating with product, collaborating with marketing and collaborating with development really so we can achieve our goals

53:58 and our strategy. But if I bring it all the way back Jeremy, you've got to be able to, I think sometimes take a step back, take lesser roles and be focused on how am I providing more value to the

54:09 organization that I'm with and then trusting your leadership over the long haul? But if I would have just left and said, oh, you didn't select me for that role, Who knows where I'd be right now,

54:21 you know? I think sometimes you gotta get back to that humbleness and say, hey, you gotta take some ups and you take some downs and the downs aren't actually downs when you look at it in the long

54:32 term, it's actually just, it's taking you to the path that I think ultimately you're, you know, really designed to be in and you're learning along the way. So I don't know if I answered that

54:43 question. Oh yeah, no, that's,

54:46 that's awesome. Chase, any final thoughts before we sign off? No, well, yes, I really liked that last piece. I think if there is, if you're young in your career, you're aspiring to leadership,

54:59 I think there was a lot of wisdom on what Chris just said. The first, a couple of points, the first being, you know, good sales people don't always make good sales leaders. And if you want to

55:07 get into sales leaders, ask yourself why, or sales leadership, ask yourselves why, because it's a different game. And you got to find joy from a kind of a different piece of it, you're not the

55:18 superstar winning the deals anymore. You got to be okay with that, you got to enjoy watching other people do that, but I think the other piece,

55:28 I'm thinking of my own career as Chris tells this story about, I left drilling info and I went to another organization, it turned out to be a huge mess for me.

55:38 Learned a ton, grew the organization, there was

55:55 a lot going on and ultimately it wasn't as successful as I would have hoped when I joined, but I look back on that now I live in a part of the world that I love, doing what I love, none of that

55:55 would have ever happened had I not taken that miss and I think it's important to take a step back and look at the whole thing and go, Hey, that two years or that, however long it is for your career,

56:05 didn't pan out the way I wanted, but I wouldn't be where I am today and I had to take valuable lessons from that and so I think there's a ton of wisdom in those comments, Dinkler, and it's one of

56:19 those things, unfortunately, that you really don't. You don't see it until later on in your career when you're early on. It's hard to have that perspective. You just haven't seen enough cycles.

56:30 But yeah, I mean, you gotta look at the long game. It's so important. So I appreciate Chris, you sharing that. Sure thing. Well, I appreciate both you guys coming on. This is one of my

56:39 favorite podcasts ever, not just saying that it's true. I love when we can pass on fundamental lessons to salespeople, but the truth is, you just have to experience it yourself, right? I think

56:50 all of us have and all of us continue to in our journey of our lives and our careers. So happy holidays to everyone. Hanukkah for me, Christmas for you guys, but spend time with your family.

57:01 That's what it's all about. Well, hey, Jeremy, thanks for having me on. It's great to be with you and Chase. And congratulations on your success, man. It's been fun watching you. And so I've

57:10 kind of secretly watched some of these podcasts. I'm like, man, maybe one day I'll get on there with Jeremy. But yet, like I told you before, I guess aren't necessarily my thing, but if I was

57:20 ever gonna do something, I'm so glad it was with you and congratulations, man. And Chase, to you as well. Tell Carly, we said hi, Julie said hi, and happy holidays to everybody. Yeah, man,

57:31 y'all take care.