Transitioning from sales rep to manager

Jamie, thanks for jumping on the show. How are you?

I'm good, Alex. Thanks for having me.

So for those who don't know Jamie, you are the Chief Commercial Officer at Deputy, an experienced revenue leader. But tell us a little bit about you and your journey in kind of the sales and revenue profession.

Yeah, so I've been selling for just a little while. Probably over 20 years at this point. Started off as a sales engineer and quickly made my way into a seller role and then pretty quickly into sales management from there and have been in revenue positions through both infrastructure, business applications, spent some time in venture as well as an operating partner at Andreessen Horowitz helping startups and their portfolio companies with their go-to-market strategy and whatnot.

So, I've had a pretty— I've been pretty fortunate to have a lot of different experience, including public companies. So worked at Zendesk for 5 years and led the Americas sales team there and built out a lot of enablement. That was my number one advantage, I think, in being able to really boost the productivity of the team was really leaning into various angles of enablement, which we could talk about if interesting.

And then I've been a CRO for the last 3 or so years at 2 different companies. Articulate is in the e-learning space selling predominantly to enterprise, and then Deputy is workforce management for hourly work. It's an Australian-based company, well-known brand in Australia, less so in US and UK. We're working on those, but predominantly focused on folks that have a lot of shift workers or workers that are on their feet.

Healthcare, retail, hospitality, etc. A lot of different experience across a lot of different—.

Yeah.

Areas of technology.

Yeah, you've had an amazing career. And, you know, one of the things we were talking about just before we clicked record is the— which is gonna be our topic for today— is like the classic situation of like when you're first given that leadership role and there's not much support. You kind of like, you know, you're the best rep or you you know, if you're in sales, you're the best rep, now you're the leader.

Here's 10 people who now report to you, make them better. And that's kind of it, right? Has that been your experience throughout your career?

Yeah, unfortunately, I don't know how much that's even changed even now. I mean, I know I need to do a better job of it with my own team now. You need to make a concerted effort to realize that new managers are in a new discipline. When I started off as a manager, I was not a good one.

I feel bad for anyone who worked for me back in the day. I had a lot to learn. You are really put into the job, you're thrown in the deep end.

Mm-hmm.

And if you're not consciously aware that you've just taken on a new job that has new expectations, you just think, well, the way I did this, I was successful. So, I'm going to have everybody do the way that I did it because that's the way that worked for me. Also, I think that there's a tendency to come in and either want to be the buddy or the other end of that spectrum, and you're a jerk.

Yeah.

Because either you're like, no, these are the expectations, you need to meet the expectations, very rigid, not very flexible, or you don't want people not to like you. So you come in either the buddy or the other end of the spectrum. I think it's really hard to come in as a manager and realize, wait, how do I strike the balance between the two?

Because I came in and I feel like I was a jerk. I don't— I didn't care so much if people didn't like me, but I wanted to get the job done. I'm very competitive. I wanted to do well. And I think that I didn't have a clear roadmap. And, you know, the next question is, well, you know, how did I get that self-awareness?

And then what did I do about it? Right. So for me, it was when I made a call on one of my top reps had asked for an exception on something and I said no, because the standard policy was no for that. And, you know, no, I'm moving on. And, you know, she called me out on it.

And she said, you know, I'm like one of your top performers, I do everything right. Kind of feels a little unfair that like, I'm just asking for this one exception, and it's not even being considered. And, you know, I think there's a difference between being fair and being equal. I had an idea that fairness meant equal, meaning everyone was going to be treated exactly the same.

But was that fair for her that she's a top performer and she asked for an exception that wasn't going to cost the business anything? And was that the right call for me to say no to her? And that was the dawning moment, at least the epiphany moment for me of like, I need to learn how to do this job better.

I'm not doing this job well because I want my top reps to feel recognized, to know that I know what their career trajectory is and that I'm supportive of them of that. And so I'm like, well, what are these things that I should be doing? And there's a book that I still recommend to this day.

I know it's an old book, it dates me, but I swear it holds up. And that's First Break All the Rules, which was by Marcus Buckingham, but I think now is published by Gallup because Gallup uses their engagement survey to actually gauge the engagement of your employees. And I read through that and it gave me very, very practical advice of how people engage at work.

And there's 12 basic questions that I actually shared with my team as recently as a couple of weeks ago.

Right.

Because there's certain things in a business you can't control— macroeconomics. You can't control if a product release is late. There's just certain things that are going to happen that might make it challenging. But you always have control over being a manager of your team. So, how clear are the expectations of the folks on your team?

And sometimes you have to be more granular than you'd like. Are you giving recognition where recognition is due, right?

Hmm.

If people have done something well, have they gotten feedback on that or has that been recognized? Do they understand how their role plays a part in the bigger picture of what you're trying to accomplish in a company? So, do they feel important? Do they feel that someone at work cares about them as a person?

Do they feel that someone at work understands what their career objectives are and is actively helping them get there? Do they have a friend they feel they could confide in at work? These are various things that I had never considered that maybe I would have an influence over or was directly responsible for that would then inspire people to want to run through walls for you.

Because ultimately, to be the best manager, You need people to want to run through walls. Completely.

What would you say is the, is the, you know, are the one or two most important things that a sales manager should spend their time on? And let me like maybe couch that question a little bit more. It's like I've seen from experience now that like a lot of time is spent on things that maybe aren't the highest value, you know, like there's a lot of spreadsheet jockey managers out there that I've encountered.

And, you know, yes, it's important to understand the numbers, but like, is that the most important thing that you can do to be lifting the performance of your team? So I'm just curious, like, from your perspective, like, what do you think of like the 1, 2, maybe it's 3 key things that a sales manager should be doing?

Yeah, I think it can be easy sometimes to get trapped behind the spreadsheet because what happens top down, they'll be asking you, well, what's going on with this pipeline? What's going on with this close rate, this win rate or average deal size. So, the manager is in a tough position because their goal is to get as much productivity out of their— with their team as possible.

But then they're kind of barraged by all this stuff from above of, you know, reporting the news. And so, I do empathize with the manager and honestly, director position. There's a lot coming at them from both directions.

Yeah.

So, it's easy to kind of get sucked into everything that's being asked top-down. Now, from bottoms-up, I think you never want to get too far away from the customer. So, if you're a customer-facing manager in sales or CS, I think you need to have your relationships with the clients, with your reps as well, whether that's pre-sales and you're trying to sell the deal.

Because I think that it's important for the reps to know that they can multi-thread when you're trying to win a deal and that they can get access to different levels within the company by leveraging you and have you be part of that process. And then likewise, post-sales. Mm-hmm. You want to be able to have multi-thread relationships.

Now, you know, you don't want your sales manager managing the account, but you do want them to protect— maybe they map to the VP, or, you know, you have to kind of be strategic about who you map to what. So I do think being an active participant in the deals is a really important aspect of it.

I will say there's a line there, though. I think the sales managers that over-rotate and take over the deals That's not great. You want to teach to fish, you don't want to fish for them.

Yeah.

I've definitely seen sales managers and I've had other friends in the industry say, oh yeah, when you get so and so involved in the deal, like it's not your deal anymore. Like that's the person who was a great rep who never really evolved to be the real leader because they're still fishing. They still love the thrill of closing the deal themselves.

But that's really hard to do when you're trying to scale a team. You cannot close all the deals. The most effective way is to scale a process that you can then work with the team on and through, which is why I love, you know, Grow, just to put a plug in there. It's really hard for the manager to know what are the customer verifiable outcomes across all my different deals and where are we and what should the next step be.

Right.

You can't, you can't be expected to know all that at any time. And sure, you can do deal reviews, but how many of those can you do in a week?

No, well, exactly. And you're not in your pocket. And I'll never forget a moment where a manager did that to me earlier in my career, came in, took over a deal, but didn't have all the context and completely messed it up. And it's like, it's like, it's a vivid memory I have. And it's one of the most frustrating things in the world as a salesperson.

You know, so you're right, like you have to strike that balance of like you need to be available for the team to help them, but you don't wanna take over 'cause like one, if you are good, okay, yes, maybe you'll get the deal, but you're building dependence.

Yep.

And 2, you actually might do more damage because you don't know all the intricacies of the deal 'cause how could you? You've got, you know, 5, 10 direct reports. Okay, so like being available for the customer, like that makes a lot of sense to me. What else is, you know, crucial for them?

I think as a manager too, and you should, you know, obviously you want to have this as a leadership team on a commercial team overall, is make sure everyone's speaking the same language when you are running a deal, whether it's the first sales cycle or whether it's the renewal, but have a process that's that everyone agrees we know where this deal is because of the customer's actions, not because of the rep's actions.

Every company that I've joined, I think without exception, every time I've joined, the sales process is always based on rep action. The rep took the first call, the rep sent a quote, the rep did a demo, the rep kicked off a POC, or the company did all these things. But that doesn't actually tell you where you are in the deal.

That just tells you what you've done.

Correct.

But that doesn't tell you where you are. What tells you where you are? Who showed up to that call on the customer side? Do you have a champion? Someone with power, influence, and something to gain? How do you know you have a champion? Have you tested them? What's the test? Do you have to push back on them for— maybe they want a POC that you're not able to do.

Can your champion sell around that internally? Have you tested that? Who's the economic buyer? And that's somebody who can move money. Not just has budget, but can move budget to make something happen. If your solution is not something that's actively budgeted for, who is that person? What's your relationship with them? How involved are they?

Or where have they been involved in your sales cycle? So if everyone reorients themselves around the customer's experience and the customer's action, then everyone can speak the same language and understand where they're actually at in the deal. I think that helps the reps with their win rate, and it also helps the manager forecast more accurately because you know how and when a deal is going to close.

Why do you think so many organizations are, I guess, focused on the actions they're taking, not on where they're at in the deal?

I think that it feels intuitive that your sales process, that you're driving it, and so your actions are what are driving the deal forward.

Right.

I think that's a very intuitive paradigm to believe. And so, I don't blame anybody for it. I just happen to think that flipping that script and really looking at it from the customer action perspective is a lot more accurate. But I think that it is like, if you think about it, I don't blame anybody for doing that.

I think that's an intuitive way to think about it. I'm driving the sales cycle.

Yes.

Yes, and yes, and yeah, you are. And the customer, if they're not showing the signs of where they believe they are in the buying cycle, then you're not there.

Where do you feel the manager's role is from a coaching perspective? You know, we see organizations with enablement teams, sometimes that kind of sits solely with enablement and enablement are running all of that. I don't know if that's always— that doesn't feel right to me. But then you have other organizations where it's all on the manager and they sort of almost don't have time or time to do it.

Like, yeah, like, what's your role and like how much of a sales manager's time should be spent on coaching their people? And then like the follow-up to that is how do we set them up to be better at that?

Yeah. So I think to your earlier point, not enough time is probably spent on the coaching element. It depends on how many direct reports you have, probably how scalable that feels for people.

Sure.

I think enablement's role is really to provide more of the— it's not the day-to-day coaching. Enablement is providing you, okay, here's the sales process we're going to use as a company. Here's how it works. Here's the customer verifiable outcomes. Here's how you do a demo. Like, they're going to teach you the building blocks of definitions like that.

That's the important role that enablement plays. The manager is more in the day-to-day. So once you're trained on what sales process that company is using, then it's up to the managers to be asking the questions that will train the reps on how to automatically start thinking about how to drive their deals forward.

So that is hard to do if you— depending on how many deals your reps are running with. Which is why, you know, I do think that you can benefit from tooling in this regard. Because let's say that each rep is running with, what, 20 or more opportunities? And like, you can't be an expert in all of those.

You can't. They're just reporting the news. If you're going into that level of detail on 20, 40 opportunities, they are literally just reporting the news to you. There's just no way a single person can get into the coaching granular detail and everything. You probably want to do that on whatever your key deal size is.

If that's deals over $50K or $100K or whatever, $250K, whatever your deal size is, you probably have some level that you want that level of fidelity on. But then how do you scale down below that? Because it's just not humanly possible really to have the degree of coaching through all of that longer tail of the pipeline that, you know, that you're just not going to have time to do.

So I think that there's a role for coaching. You're just not gonna be able to coach on every single deal.

Right. So, you know, what I'm hearing is like, as a manager, you need to really prioritize where can I be most impactful? Is it the top 5% of deals? You know, is it above $100K, whatever the arbitrary kind of figure is, but like, where can I actually invest my time to help my team?

What about from like more of like a general skills coaching perspective? Do you think that sits with the manager as well, or do you think that is more on the enablement side?

I think for skills coaching, that would probably— I would put that bucket more into the enablement side or the tooling side.

Right.

For example, I think there's a lot of benefit to doing role-playing. Whether you're a manager and you need to learn how to have a tough conversation, tough meaning you have to separate intent from impact and perception. Or if you're having a tough call with procurement and you're a rep or a really hard call with a CFO, that's skill set that I don't necessarily expect the manager to be role-playing with everybody.

Right.

I think you need to scale the role-playing, but I do think there's a lot of benefit to being prepared. The more practice you have of how to explain or handle certain objections or how to explain a thing that's harder to talk through, I think there's benefit to that. I do think that that needs to live more with the enablement team, though.

I just think that the sales managers really need to focus more on. If you look at knowledge, qualities, and skills of an employee, a lot of the basic skill training I do think has to come out of tooling or enablement as opposed to the manager. The manager should be helping you be as effective as possible in your profession.

Yes.

If that's CS, what's your account planning strategy, your multithreading strategy? How do you identify expansion opportunities? It's not the basics of how you pitch a price increase. No.

Yeah, that's an interesting delineation. I think that makes a lot of sense intuitively. One thing I'm being struck by as we're having this conversation is we're asking for a lot from our managers. How do we Like, how do we enable them to be effective at what they're doing? Because I think that we ask a lot.

It's a tough job. They're feeling it, like you said, from top and bottom. They're getting it from both sides. Like, how do we enable them to be great at their role?

Yeah, it's a great question. So if you're, you know, when you're a big enough company, one of the things I found to be really helpful was We created a program for people that were aspiring managers but weren't 100% sure they wanted to get into management.

Right.

And we created a 6-month program where they could apply, their managers would sponsor them, they'd get tied with a mentor, and then there's various activities that we would do during that 6-month period. Practice coaching, practice running forecast calls, whatever the basic functions were for that particular discipline. And let them try on the manager role.

And a positive outcome was either, I really enjoyed this, I really want to be on the manager track, or this was not for me, I want to stay in a high-performing IC. And I mean, I want, you know, you want to make sure that neither is shamed. Either outcome is perfectly fine because the worst-case scenario is people just get promoted into managers because they think that's the only way to get promoted.

Right?

Yeah.

Rising stars and rock stars, like 2 different types of people, both very great. You want their assets on your team, but not everyone needs to be a manager. Once you are a manager, I think that a lot of what needs to be taught is how do you keep an engaged employee, which I talked about earlier, and then also how do you navigate feedback conversations?

People are not inherently good at this. Who teaches you how to have a conversation that the way someone showed up in a meeting had a negative impact? They didn't intend it, but have a negative impact in some way with an SLT member or with a customer or whatever it is. That— I don't know where that's taught.

No.

But I know a lot of people who are still not good at that.

And where did you learn that? Did someone teach you or did you find it, find the information through reading?

Excellent question. I combined a bunch of ideas and I also have been fortunate enough, I've engaged an executive coach for years. I still work with her today because I always am a student of the trade. And I did read Crucial Conversations. I cannot remember the author name. I'm terrible at this kind of stuff, but Crucial Conversations was one.

I like some of the concepts in Radical Candor, not necessarily all of them. I took pieces from that. I took pieces from First Break All the Rules. And then the main concept that somehow I pieced together was, let's say I'm giving you feedback, Alex.

Mm-hmm.

And what I would first say is, Alex, listen, first I want to acknowledge that I have no question on your intention. I 100% know that you have the best intentions for Grow. And that we're all trying to accomplish the same thing. What I do want to share with you though is in this particular instance, the perception of how you explained XYZ had this impact on the business or on this individual.

So, I want to make it clear that while I don't question your intention, the perception, the impact to the business does matter. And I want to kind of talk through how maybe we can do that a little bit differently next time. And if you explain it in that way, it kind of— what you want to, at least what I try to effectively do, is separate the personal piece of it from perception, right?

In absence of contrary evidence, perception is reality. So even though you don't intend something, if it's perceived a certain way, it still matters.

Yeah.

And so how are you acting in a way that is being perceived that way? And is there a way that you can maybe modify that so you have— so you're more effective going forward? And that could be It could be in customer meetings, it could be in internal meetings, partner meetings, it doesn't matter.

Its perception does matter because it'll have an impact on the business. And so I try to separate those 2 things so that people are more receptive. The other trick I also will use is I will also start off with, hey Alex, are you open to me giving you a couple points of feedback on that call?

Oh right, like ask for permission before you even start.

Ask for permission, especially if you're managing up. So if you want to tell your boss something, you say, hey, you know what? Do you mind if I just give you a piece of feedback on this? Because what happens is the shame chain, right? When somebody feels embarrassed, they'll turn it into anger or defensiveness.

And so what you're trying to do is, is prepare someone emotionally to be accepting some information that might elicit a share of shame or embarrassment response that'll then spiral into defensiveness or anger. So you're trying to defuse that psychological response before it happens.

Yeah, I think that's really smart because I guess the other, the other side of it is like if you want to give someone feedback but maybe they're just not in a place right then and there, they're even open to receiving it too, right? You know, like maybe they've just had some bad news and it's just like not a good time.

So like asking for permission actually can help ensure that they're at a place where they're receptive and also that they're opting into it too.

Exactly. You are in a psychological place where you're more open to hearing it than if it just comes out of the blue with nothing. And then you, you can feel it in your body. You can feel the embarrassment or shame or the response. You can physically feel it happen. You can actually watch this happen in families.

You can watch this happen at work where someone gets embarrassed and then it turns into anger and it goes downhill.

Yeah. That's what you want to avoid. Yes. That's not productive.

It's not productive. It is coming from a place of assuming good intent and curiosity is almost always gonna be more productive than coming at it from a place of blame or putting a person in a position of being defensive. You just, if you can avoid that, you'll probably have a more productive conversation.

I think just that feedback comment alone for the listeners of this is gonna be gold because you're right. No one teaches you this stuff. No one teaches you.

Like, write it out. If you have to give feedback from someone, think about how can I separate, acknowledge their positive intention, but then can I explain how it was perceived and what the impact is on the business? If you just write that down and then you script out how you might explain the situation, it's— I find it to be very helpful.

You've sort of partially answered the next question I was going to ask you, which was, you know, as you progress through through seniority in businesses and, you know, now at the C-level, like, where do you go for coaching and development? You've mentioned books, you've mentioned you have an exec coach, which is awesome.

But like, yeah, maybe take us on a little bit like a quick journey. Like, how did you get to that point of like knowing you needed to get an exec coach? And are there any other areas you, you know, go to for your own development?

Yeah, that's an excellent question. So, I was fortunate that when I was a VP at Zendesk that they had a program that high performers that were in the +1 reporting structure, meaning I reported to a C-level person.

Yeah.

And they had a program where high potential VPs could be put in given coaching. I just happened to like the coach so much that once that ended, I took it upon myself to pay out of pocket. And continue that relationship with the coach. So she's been with me for years.

Awesome.

Where I find it to be exceptionally helpful is navigating the peer level and above you, whether it's board, whether it's SLT. Once you kind of get to that, you do a lot of internal selling, and there's a lot of different egos, a lot of different personality types, and I found that to be where the executive coaching came in most helpful.

Was to really understand the reactions that I might be having and making sure that I'm showing up as an executive. And that I'm not falling into the trap of having these responses and feeling defensive or whatnot. Because the more you get up to that level that you just can't do that anymore. And so, understanding how to understand people better and how to sell messages better internally.

I found that's when the exec coaching really, I think, came into play and why I've kept an exec coach for so long. I also maintain a good community of peer group. So, if I run into a situation, I'll also ping them and say, hey, have you been in this situation before? Like, what do you recommend?

Or, you know, have you— so that I do find that to be helpful as well, just kind of bouncing ideas off of my peer group. And then I try to look for ways like where I can stay more sharp. I think there's classes I'm looking into now where leveraging new technology in ways that I haven't considered before and just stay sharp on that side.

But in terms of managing the people, I would say it is helpful if you find the right coach who you really connect with. I find to be super helpful. Companies are big enough and can sponsor that, I highly recommend it. I do think that you can get a lot out of having that program because the biggest area where teams can fall down is they don't work well together.

And it's obviously a big testament when you continue paying for it out of pocket that it's that, it was that useful to you. I think, you know, in the absence of when it, when you, in the absence of it being offered to you in a company, I think like often going and seeking out this stuff can really make a big difference, even if it's more of like an informal mentorship.

Like, I think there's always opportunities out there. And like, certainly from experience, like the biggest leaps I've made in my career were often because I had people who were, you know, like 2, 3 steps ahead of me who were generous and invested their time to help me level up. So yeah.

And I would say that's true earlier in my career as well. Definitely before I got to like the plus one level down from C-level. I think I definitely had some strong mentors back from even my Ink2Me days, from my VMware days. I was really fortunate to have like an awesome network from that and to often leaned on them for like career advice or, you know, what type of roles to go for or what kind of companies or whatnot.

Like it was like that building your brand early and establishing those relationships early will pay dividends over the years. So definitely, like, advice that was given to me very early in my career is, what is your brand? And how do you— and how does it show up? Because when people think of Jamie Buss, what do you want them to think about?

And then you need to make sure that's consistent. So when you're showing up at work, are you demonstrating that? So that's something I think to think about too, because you want your network— when your network thinks about you and they have a great role in their company and they're growing like a rocket ship, What are they going to think about Alex, or what are they going to think about Jamie?

And are you going to come as top to mind and for what?

And I presume that evolved over time, right? Like that you iterated and evolved that as you progressed.

Yes, yes, because your roles change.

Yeah, yeah.

Right? What's excellent as an IC might be different than excellent as a manager, different than excellent as an executive too.

Do you think that it's ever too early to start thinking about that? Like your first, you know, like, your brand new SDR role? Like, should they be thinking about that too?

I would.

Yeah. Okay.

Listen, you're an SDR. You wanna grow your career. What, what do you want your brand to be so that when there's an AE opening, you're the first person that comes to mind?

Yeah, that's a great point. Be deliberate. It's better to be deliberate about it.

I think brand matters. I think personal brand matters a lot, which is why whenever I'm at a company, like, how you leave a company is important. People remember that. It's very memorable. Leave on— everyone's going to make changes at some point, 100%. Like, you should. You grow your career, go to different companies, you should explore different things.

Yeah.

I think it's good to explore different environments, not just be stuck in one forever. But always leave on the best terms. Leave with your brand intact so that someday when that team is working somewhere else, like, you know what, I loved working with Alex. We really got to get him over here.

Yeah. Yeah.

So you wanna, that last impression is lasting. So you wanna leave as well as you came in.

I think that's excellent advice as well. And you, maybe you've already answered this last question as well that I have for you, which is something I ask every guest on the show, which is knowing everything you know today, go back to your very first day on the job in sales. Sales role. What's the one piece of advice that you would give your younger self?

In sales, not as a sales manager?

Yeah, yeah, like early career, like first, first.

Yeah, I mean, early career, I think I did not appreciate at all that there— I think I kind of accidentally did it. But there was a lot of like science, um, behind running a sales process.

Right.

And I did not know any of that because I was dropped into sales at VMware where it was like, your phone's ringing, you sit down at a desk. It's like, okay, go sell stuff. Like they didn't teach you anything. I didn't know how to receive, didn't know how to sell the product. I knew nothing.

I just sat down and I'm like, oh my God, I have to pick up this phone and answer questions. I don't even know. I don't know anything about this product yet. So I think that, you know, what I learned later is the, the appreciation for having some bit of structure and being able to speak the same, the same language with your manager, with the sales team.

I think I didn't appreciate any of that. I was just like Wild West, no structure.

Right, just kind of winging it, just winging it, going off vibes.

Yeah, exactly. It was just like, I, yeah, you objection handled by mistake.

Like, right. So I think what I'm hearing is like, you probably had the art bit, you were doing the art of selling, but you weren't doing the science and that you wish you'd paid attention earlier in your career on the science.

I think it's both. Yeah, exactly. I think paying a little more attention to the science would have probably been beneficial to me. And then as a manager, I wish right out of the gate, I'd realized that, wait a second, you're not automatically good at this job. What does it take to be good at this job?

And have you given that any thought? And do you have a playbook for that? I did not. I wish I had thought about that earlier. So anyone who's going into management, I always, I always like, it's a different job. Read first Break All the Rules. At least you have some bit of idea of how to manage people.

I haven't read that book. That's one I need to add to my list.

I think it's very pragmatic. I don't do high-level Like theory. I'm not a theory person. I'm more of like a pragmatic brass tacks, how do I manage my day type of person when it comes to that stuff. And I really, I do recommend that as an easy read that I really firmly believe would help people be better managers.

Jamie, this has been a great conversation. We've covered a few areas. I think there's some absolute gold in there for anyone who's going to listen. What's the best place if any of this resonated? Like, what's the best place to like connect with you or consume content you put out?

I would say LinkedIn. I'm not the best at putting content out. I should be better because I run marketing. But LinkedIn is probably the best place. I'm not on— I don't spend a lot of time on the other socials. So it's just Jamie Buss. So my full name, J-A-I-M-I-E B-U-S-S, would be LinkedIn and then my full name.

Amazing. Thank you so much, Jamie.

Yeah, thank you, Alex.