>> Everybody, welcome back to the Squatify Teams and Tech podcast. They're very excited to introduce our guest here today. Stephanie, would you like to introduce yourself? >> Yeah, absolutely. Hi, everyone. I'm Stephanie Lamb. I am based in Raleigh, Durham in North Carolina, and I currently am a VP of Sales at Mule Soft, which is a Salesforce company. >> Awesome. Everybody, for those who don't know, I'll be my intro's as well. I'm Jeremy from Squatify, team productivity accelerator. Enterprise teams like Salesforce, Anthony and Endo love Squatify, because they achieve 10 percent increase in productivity, 13 percent uplifted in performance year-over-year, and they can work with the Squatify coach to look at specific issues to that team, take actions and track, and improve their team performance, and engagement and happiness at work month over month. Let's dive right into a union role at Mule Soft. Could you tell us a little bit about your org, the team you lead, your roles and responsibilities, and area of expertise there? >> Yeah, certainly. So I work in our healthcare and life sciences space. I work with some of our largest clients across the MedTech Pharma and payer provider areas. I have been in the spaces going on my third year as a VP in that area, and effectively, I'm responsible for helping make sure that our teams are aligned to our quotas, that we're going after opportunities that really makes sense for both our customers and for the business. And yeah, I think that answers your question. You asked me a lot of questions in that question. >> So for those who might be familiar with Salesforce, but last but not always Mule Soft, could you tell us a little bit about how the healthcare and life sciences companies interact, use it, what's the impact? >> Yeah, so I'll back up and I'll just explain a little bit about what Mule Soft actually is. I think a lot of people probably don't know that. A lot of people know Salesforce. The ticker symbol is CRM. But Mule Soft is probably the most technical of the products that Salesforce sells. And what it effectively does, how I explain this to my mom or my grandmother, would be if you're traveling on a trip to Europe and you need to charge your phone, you need to have the universal charger for that. So Mule Soft effectively is like, it's not a charger, but having that tool enables you to get data in and data out of systems. And so the real value of it is that it makes your technology landscape and architecture interoperable. >> Interesting, and this is specifically with healthcare technology. >> Yeah, and so in the healthcare technology space, it's no different than any of the other industries that are out there. Every company is going to have their own tech stack. They're all going to have things that are duplicative. The bigger the organization, the more likely that it's grown partially through mergers and acquisitions, meaning you have especially higher likelihood of having duplicative systems. And so the real value is for organizations today, especially with everything that's going on with AI, is how do you make that data usable? How do you actually tie the data together so that it can tell a story that you can ultimately put on the balance sheet for the organization? And that's really what we train and do. >> Very, very cool. So Stephanie, could you tell us a little bit more about your team, how big is your team, where are they located? Yeah, and how is it structured? >> Yeah, so every year Salesforce does a bit of changing which team you are working with. I've had the opportunity in our healthcare and life sciences space to work with, this is my third team over the last three years. So I started with more of a med tech team, focusing on the top 30 med tech companies in the world. You're J&J, you're Medtronic, you're Strikers, et cetera. Then I moved this past year over to our pharmaceutical space, working with similar customers. So you're thinking like your Merck's, your Moderna's, Pfizer's, et cetera. And then this year I've just started working with the payer space. So I'm getting a little bit more familiar with it myself. There are a lot of, so you're thinking like your UHG's, your etnas, those types of organizations. >> Interesting, and shout out to America, Scott, if I would work with campus as well. >> Oh, that's great. >> I'd love to, I'm curious because how do you blend, I guess a sales culture with healthcare and tech culture? What's the culture on the team like? And what's, I guess, your guiding principles for leading your team? >> Yeah, so I have the team that I have this year is not necessarily totally new, but they're new to me. I've been working with them for just under a month here. And I would say, you know, from a culture perspective, the culture is more based around what Nilsoft brings to the table. Just that, you know, it's kind of nerdy, right? Like we want to be nerdy, we want to be in the data, we want to be in the details. So there's a big piece of it that's that. Then you've got a sales force piece of it, which is really based around operational effectiveness, efficiency, making sure everything kind of lines up in the CRM system as your deal progresses through the process. And then I would say, you know, from more of a culture perspective, for me, like with my teams, I'm the kind of person who I really want to get to know those team, the people on the teams. I'm a big connector, a big fan of coming in and not necessarily dictating at the beginning, I want to understand where people are at. I want to understand what people's goals are. I want to understand, you know, what they want to do within the organization and within their careers so that I can then help them to grow and develop as people and to hopefully achieve some of those things. So that's kind of how I approach the team. I also think that bringing in humor is something that's really important because work is hard. And when you work for a tech company, especially, right, there's a lot of pressure we're working today in what we've called a high performance culture or do whatever it takes, you know, get the deal done. And that can be really stressful for people. So, you know, part of my job is how can I be an umbrella for them and let them function and do what they need to do while we're all working towards the same goals and we're having fun doing it. So yeah, so I like to do things that involve humor or things that motivate and inspire people. - I really appreciate that approach. And I relate to that from the other side, having a manager, back when I first started, I had a manager at Microsoft who had a similar approach, really got to understand, you know, what my career goals are and, you know, just how are you feeling today or are you overwhelmed? - Yeah. - And that empathy for your team and trying to align goals and get to the same place together. I'm curious, do you have a story where you always like this? Did you learn it from someone? Did you do the opposite and then 180? Is there a story related to how you learned this, this career learning? - Do you know, so I've learned this really at the beginning of my career and I wouldn't really call it my career. I just, when I was 15, I started working in a hotel and I was the hostess for a restaurant, right? It was one of my first jobs. And I learned very quickly how to get efficient at the process, got promoted, got promoted, ended up managing the restaurant and ultimately ended up managing all of the restaurants within that hotel so there were five. And at this point, I was 18. I had 60 people that were my direct reports and pretty much all of them were older than me. And so what I learned from that experience was that I had to be humble. I had to meet them where they were. I had to show them that I wasn't afraid to do or incapable of doing what I was asking them to do and that I would work alongside them so that they could meet their goals. And do a great job with our customers. And that experience just left such a strong impression on me from a people leadership perspective. I mean, managing 60 people, you would think that you don't have time to get to know everybody and I actually did. There are still people that I talk to from that experience that I wanna know, like how's your family? How are you doing? What's going on in your life? So it's that, it's how do you truly connect with people, help lift them up and create, I think, more lifelong friendships than just something that is a function of work. - For our audience of leaders there who, you know, for example, I aspire, I hold these principles to heart and there's a lot of these approaches that I try to take or wanna take. But when we talk about execution, I'd love to hear how you connect these approaches to, you know, then generating, you know, consistent execution and success for the team. What processes or strategies do you use in the middle to sort of translate that over? - Yeah. So there's this thing that I've read that stuck with me that is, it's just saying it says an athlete doesn't get better by focusing on the scoreboard, right? So we all have to start with understanding what's the score? What, you know, what are we going after? And then we go through the process of understanding where each person is in their skill set and whatnot. So from a process perspective, I'd say, you know, Salesforce again is this machine where, you know, everything is about process, everything is about, okay, once a week, we're gonna be having one-on-ones. Once a week, we're gonna be having team meetings. Once a month, we're gonna be talking about, you know, bigger account plan issues that we might be having in our big bets. Once a quarter, we're doing our QBRs. So there are a lot of little wheels that are kind of moving all of the time. And we are focused on, you know, how do we get from point A to point B? But I think the thing that is really important along the way is to just be a human about it, right? It doesn't just have to be about all of these, you know, checking the box for all of these optics and so on and so forth. It's how can you make the process of going through an opportunity, a little bit more human? - Again, I really appreciate that I come from an engineering background and from the outside looking in, the sales world has always felt like you said, like this machine, right, like this process and like a scoreboard. And hearing you, you know, make that analogy to sports that actually makes way more sense. Okay, you don't get better by focusing on the scoreboard. No, you get better at doing your work by perfecting each little part of it and knowing kind of how to prioritize where your gaps are. - That's actually where my question was going to go next is then if not that, then how do we? And I'm curious, you know, I'm just throwing some things out there from some of the others that I've talked to, right? Whether it's, you mentioned a lot of the career development pieces and understanding where the team member is earlier, but maybe like, you know, making the workplace a safe place to share feedback, making sure that team members have a clarity in terms of what they're working on now and how to work with each other as well, how everybody's interdependent and really smooth out the communication, vibrations. But I'm curious how you go about that, yeah. - Well, I think being able to create a safe space for the team is paramount, right? If you want people to be having an experience that's a little bit different than maybe your average job and they're invested in it, they're passionate about it, they really, you know, truly are driven to hit their goals, then you have to be able to create a safe space for them to continuously improve. And I can give an example from today. So we're in our first quarter and our first quarter is all about how to, you know, we've just had this huge close in our fourth quarter. How do we make that up in the first quarter? Our goals are still pretty high, right? But we've maybe outsold, oversold, whatever. And with the first quarter comes a lot of new trainings and whatnot. We're redoing our meal soft narrative this month. We are all giving our sales force corporate pitch. There are a lot of different pitches that are happening. And so today we did a March Madness pitch and this was actually my first opportunity to hear my whole team speak, you know, and deliver a presentation. And we opened it up, but, you know, we were all on the call together and we opened it up by saying we were all going to score each other, we were all going to give a little bit of feedback of how that person could get better. And it was a great experience, right? It was like everybody had to do it. Everybody got a little bit of feedback, you know, nobody's was perfect, but everybody learned something from it. Like everybody got this much better just because we went through that process. And I think, you know, you can send people a lot of different material of, oh, here's our first call deck, here's our sales play for this, here's that. But if you don't actually have the opportunity to run that past somebody verbally and kind of role play it, then it's a lot harder because you're having that first time with your customer. So you can make, you know, you can, you can sound sloppy, right? But in front of your team, if that happens, it's okay, right? They're going to give you feedback. They're going to say, you know what, I, actually your example was good, but I have another example that I've used that might be even better for you, right? And so there's this exchange of ideas that's happening, it becomes much more motivational and inspiring and just more effective, I think, for the team. - Actually, speaking of feedback, I'm curious, is there something that you are working on now? Like, oh, yourself, personally. Is there either a piece of feedback that you're taking or sort of the next goal for yourself? What's the next first step? - Oh gosh, so I'm the kind of person who I'm just always continuously trying to improve and get better, whether it's, you know, I have two kids at home, they're pretty little. And so I feel a lot of pressure as a mother to be a strong role model for them. You know, I feel, I feel a lot of pressure to be a great partner for my husband. We both have pretty intense jobs. And so, you know, we can very often be like two ships in the night. So I think the thing that I've really been working on lately has been around focus, the concept of focusing. And I've done a fair amount of research on this. You know, I work for a tech company. We have 15 different ways to communicate. And it's intense, right? And every time that something pings or something dings or somebody's trying to get your attention, you're having a chemical release to that. It's the same thing with, you know, Instagram and TikTok and all of the different social media platforms, right? They're kind of built and designed around understanding those chemical reactions. And so one of the things that I would say I noticed over this last six months or so is, you know, like, I get disrupted by these notifications versus being the one who's in control of when I respond. And so what I've really, yeah, what I've really been trying to practice is how do I look at that when I'm ready to look at it? You know, because I'm sure you've had it. This is kind of funny, but you know. - It's like so hard right now, I guess, absolutely. - Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that cracks me up is like if you're in a public space, right? And you go to the bathroom and somebody's on the phone in the bathroom. Like people have no sense of that space anymore. And so I'm personally trying to reclaim it, reclaim the focus and being very deliberate in how I'm reacting to things. And also bringing that to my friends, you know, and people that I work with. I wanna share that awareness with them because I think we could all be a little bit less reactive and more proactive in how we participate with the things that come our way. - Absolutely, especially a leader at your level. I'm sure there's always a fire. There's always with your help, needs your attention. I read somewhere, I experienced something similar last year that I was trying to overcome. I found myself working, you know, crazy 12, 14 hour days. And I was like, why? Why does it feel like I'm working so long? So I mean, honestly, getting no work done. It feels like that. - Yes, yes, yes. - I read something on Flow and I used to make, you know, working games and game designers, this concept of Flow. When you enter this Flow, you're very productive. You're in the zone, you're no distractions and the best things come out of that. And with work, this Flow at work, and you get the most done if you, you know, give yourself like an hour or two hours or whatever chunk of time to stay in the Flow, stay in the Flow and ignore all the distractions. At least that's what I had been looking at. But once there's a distraction, you break out a Flow and it takes like 15 to 20 minutes to get back. - Yes. - The results of that productivity again. And it's crazy. - Yes. - I absolutely relate. Before I let you go though, I did want to ask you a few more questions because I found your experience and your passions and things like that were very, very interesting to me. At Salesforce, you are also part of the Women's Network Global Strategic Events Community. I'm curious, could you tell us a little bit more about that and yeah, I guess, you know, you're passionate for that or where that came from? - Yeah, absolutely. So yes, I'm a part of the Salesforce Women's Network. It is, I think it's the oldest of the equality groups within Salesforce and we've got over 12,000 members globally. The role that I have there today is I'm on the Global Events Committee. So I'm out there looking for potential speakers to come in and hear something that's really gonna resonate with what's going on in our sales culture, right? At that time. For instance, we just had a colleague of mine, her name's Kirsten Musich and she did an event that was all about the importance of your brand and how to basically reframe the way that you think about brand and the importance of it in the space. It was fantastic. And I think a lot of people are interested in that, right? Because the only thing that people really know about you is what you tell them and what they experience as they're interacting with you. And you control that dialogue, but people don't often realize that. People think that other people understand what's going on in their minds and they can read their minds and you know, predict all of these things. So yeah, so part of the reason that I ended up joining the Salesforce Women's Network was I had just started with Salesforce back in 2014 and I came in as a leader and I had moved from New York City to Chicago for the opportunity. And when I got there, the first all-manager meeting, I noticed that there were 40 managers and only four of them were women. And it kind of struck me, you know, moving from New York to Chicago and I thought, oh, maybe it's 'cause the Midwest, it was 2014. And what I quickly realized was that there really weren't any strong spokeswomen in that hub at that time. And so that's when I found out about the Salesforce Women's Network. It was called something else. It was actually called Femforce, which is now apparently offensive in some way. So they're like non-inclusive, I don't know. But anyways, so I started working as the person who was leading that. And it was just to help other women who maybe weren't asked to go to the golf games or the basketball games or whatever to be included or to have a safe space where they could talk about what their experiences were. So it's been really powerful for me. - That's amazing. I also wanted to ask you about, I believe you started off your career in music. Was it, you were part of Universal. And also founded your own music production company a while back. How did, I'm curious, how did you get into music and how did you go from music to now tech and health tech? - Yeah. Yeah, so I started off as a singer and I spent a lot of time in, I started singing in choirs and stuff, I would say, in middle school. I think that was the first time that it was open to anybody as an option. And I ended up pursuing it all the way into college and in college in order to sing, where I went to school, there was not a, there was not a program for popular music or anything that was modern. It was all very classical. So I ended up enrolling in a classical music program partially because I didn't really know what to do. My father had passed away when I was 18, right before I graduated and my mother had left the state that I was living in. And so I was in New Mexico by myself. My father never went to college. Like I just didn't have a lot of guidance. And so I got a scholarship to go to the program and then I found out that I could get credit to sing. And so I sort of like almost accidentally fell into music from that perspective. And alongside that time I had, I knew that I really wanted to do something more creative. And so I was singing in bands alongside that. And funny enough, like I was actually singing in a heavy metal band. (laughing) There were lots of different kinds of bands, but that was the one that really sort of skyrocketed. And long story short, I ended up moving out to New York and I decided to pursue my masters in music business management and marketing. And at that point that's when I had, I thought, all right, I'm here, I've arrived. I knew at that point that I didn't wanna be a performer myself. I had a lot of stage fright. And, but I wanted to be in it. And so I knew a lot of artists through just being a musician myself. And I found somebody pretty easily who was extremely talented and needed management. And I thought, you know what? Let's just see how this works. Because maybe I can apply music management to my own, to my own operatic career, right? At a later time, if I decide to overcome the stage fright piece or, you know, or maybe I'll just learn a lot about business. And so that's kind of how I ended up in that space. I ended up moving into technology because I went to NYU and, you know, everybody knows that's expensive and there was no way that I was going to be able to afford my student loans in the music industry. So that's, that's what created the pivot. - Stephanie, thank you so much for sharing your story with us, your career learnings and your experiences with us as well. I certainly learned a lot and I, both from the strategies and the tactical and processes, but, you know, approaches and, but also just, you know, watching your career and your journey to here. Absolutely incredible. The last last question here is, who should reach out to and what's the best way to reach you? - Oh, goodness. So I'm hiring on my team right now. So people who are working in the technology space, particularly in infrastructure and integration would be great candidates. People who understand the payer space specifically would be great additions. And you can just reach out to me on LinkedIn. - Awesome. Everybody, thank you so much for watching another episode. We'll see y'all next time. Thank you.
