Benny Gould - Global Head, Business Influencer Program @Facebook (Formerly @LinkedIn) - Building New and Emerging Markets at Hypergrowth Companies, Great Culture at Facebook and LinkedIn, Global Strategic Deal Orchestration, Selling to Executives and P

Guest:

Benny Gould - Global Head, Business Influencer Program @Facebook

(Formerly @LinkedIn)

Guest Background:

Ben Gould leads the Business Influencer Program at Facebook ($517B Valuation, 2.37B MAU). With over 15 years international experience working across Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America, Ben has been instrumental in the growth of SaaS technology startups and silicon valley companies like LinkedIn ($27B Acquisition by Microsoft, successful IPO in 2011) and Facebook. Currently, he is focused on giving executives the tools, tactics and best practice to share their authentic voice across Facebook's family of apps.

Guest Links:

LinkedIn | Facebook

Episode Summary:

In this episode, we cover:

- Building New and Emerging Markets at Hypergrowth SaaS Companies

- Great Culture Proliferation at Facebook and LinkedIn 

- Global Strategic Deal Orchestration

- Selling to Executives and Power

Full Interview Transcript:

Naber:  Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to the Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest growing companies. Enjoy!

Naber:  Hey, hey. What do ya' say there team? We've got Benny Gold on the show today. Ben Leads the Business Influencer Program at Facebook. Maybe you've heard of them - $517 billion valuation, 2.37 billion monthly active users. I would love to see the rounding error in millions on those monthly active users. With over 15 years of international experience working across Asia Pacific, Europe, and North America, Ben has been instrumental in the growth of SaaS technology startups in Silicon Valley. Companies like LinkedIn, who was acquired by Microsoft for $27 billion after a very successful IPO in 2011, and companies like Facebook, which he works for now. Currently, Ben is focused on giving executives the tools, tactics, and best practices to share their authentic voice across Facebook's family of apps. Here we go.

Naber:  Benny! Awesome to have you on the show man, thanks so much for joining us.

Benny Gould:    Thanks for having me.

Naber:  All the way from London town. I've got so much that I want to talk about and explore with you today. Tons of stuff personally, tons of stuff professionally. We've known each other for a bit of time now, which I feel lucky to say, but I want to help the audience grow and get to know you a little bit more I do. So what I want to do is go through a little bit about you personally. I know you grew up in Melbourne, going through your childhood with interests like mountain biking, and playing football on the weekends, and you got into DJ'ing. And then you were at school, and you left school so you'd go into hospitality, and explore, and also do a bunch more DJ'ing. And you've lived all over the world and explored all over the world. Melbourne, London, a couple times backpacking, world traveling. So why don't we take a step back from all that and give us maybe a five minute synopsis or journey of what it was growing up in the life of Ben Gould?

Benny Gould:    Yeah, thanks very much. And yeah, appreciate having me on the show again. I grew up in Melbourne, only child, Melbourne in the southern part of Australia, for those that don't know, comprises of mainly inland living. So we have a bay, but we also have the mountains. And so I grew up in the mountains as an only child, quite far from school and friends that I went to school with. So hobbies became a part of what I did. So Mountain biking, given the area that I lived in was something that I was really drawn to, and something you can do on your own and makes you buddies as well. So when I wasn't mountain biking, my dad would give me these chores that I absolutely hated. And that would be, packing the woodshed or picking up sticks on the weekend, which I still have nightmares about and fearful of doing any manual labor.

Benny Gould:    Growing up was an awesome childhood, amazing family. Came from a family that ran their own business. My Dad had an entertainment company for 35 years managing initially original artists, and then went on to manage cover bands for the best part of 30 plus years. Wow. What are Australia's best well known, musicians and bands for many of which are probably over the age of 60.

Naber:  Very cool.

Benny Gould:    But yes, I grew up in a family where dad was very much entrepreneur and very much a sales guy, and mom was very much helping out in the business for the first 20 years of my life, and then went on to sort of support the family build houses and all those sorts of things around us. But yeah, amazing childhood. And then left Melbourne, the hills, to go and hit the big city really just prior to turning 18, actually decided that I wasn't going to go to college and finished actually high school a little earlier than, than completion. And then went to do I a apprenticeship in hospitality and was thrown straight into the kitchen for a stint working for a head chef. I learned very quickly not to any smart remarks or adolescent without being thrown something from across the other side of the kitchen. But it was the great start of a 3 year journey in hospitality in different parts of the hotel and hospitality business

Naber:  The stories you have when you work in hospitality are just unbelievable, unmatched almost.

Benny Gould:    Yeah, absolutely. The key learning from that was customer service, I think. Today that's purely embedded in the way I personally approach things and professionally approach things. But yeah, customer service was definitely the last skill that I learned through that journey.

Naber:  Very good. And, since you moved to Sydney, well, even before you moved to Sydney, you've probably had travel in your blood for a long time. You've been all over the shop. I know that you have lived in Melbourne, you lived in London before. I think you went backpacking around Europe for six months. you've told me a little bit of story of stories about those, but tell us a little bit about your travel experiences and when that started for you, and ultimately what it means to you, up to this point.

Benny Gould:    Yeah, so again, going back to family, my mom actually traveled at a very young age in the late seventies to Europe. That was sort of, consider 1977-78 you wouldn't get on a plane and have a short flight to Europe, she would take a number of stops. And so backpacking was a part of her life really when she was only 18-19 years old. So, when I was growing up, she'd always really throwing me into the direction of going to travel. And academia wasn't really front and center of our family growing up either. Neither mum or dad had gone to University. So they said, look, life skills are better learned, and the best way to do that is to get over to the other side of the world outside of your comfort zone. And so when I was 22 and had worked a couple of jobs in order to save enough money to go to London, I got my visa and settled in London working in a pub to begin with. Funny story - first job in London, obviously I was relatively nervous as a 22 year old going to a job interview...But strangely dressed in a suit, to go and work at a pub. And I think that she felt bad for me, to be honest. She gave me the job on the spot and was like, don't wear the suit to work tomorrow. You're living upstairs earning adding five pounds an hour.

Naber:  It reminds me of the scene from Step Brothers.

Benny Gould:    Ha, exactly. So, that was the start of the travel journey. And really, I lasted only one year in London / Europe traveling. It's probably partly the reason I'm back. It's just a proof to myself that I can last more than 12 months...So that was about life experience, and then I spent the best part of four or five months traveling throughout Europe and meeting a whole bunch of interesting people, and then landing a job in real estate - which was my first sales job, which was brutal. The worst and the best part of my life experience for sure, when it comes to work, but learned a bunch from that experience, for sure. And then found myself, after a year, bringing back to Australia a whole bunch of interesting personal life experiences and professional life experiences. And then, having a desire to definitely travel the world for the future was something that was going to be not too far around the horizon.

Naber:  Awesome. I think that brings us to, does that bring us to Hays? Or were you the Acendre before that?

Benny Gould:    Yeah, 2005 - Hays

Naber:  So let's walk through for maybe three to four minutes a journey of your professional jumps, let's call them. Hays, Ascendre, LinkedIn, Bondi Yoga house - if you don't throw that in there I will, and then Facebook. So walk us through the journey and the steps that you took and why you went to each one, why you jumped companies as well as jumped roles - not jumping as in the negative way of jumping as a positive way, took advantage of the opportunities. And then we'll dive into a few of the things you've learned at each one of those places and talk about some of your super powers you've gained along the way and, and some frameworks that you've learned from both those companies as well as your experiences.

Benny Gould:    Yeah, definitely. And, the saying that always runs through my mind when I talk through these examples - It's the man of many talents, master of none. And it completely applies to me. I'm sure in the dictionary if you had that, I would probably pop-up...

Naber:  Your beard would pop up as a silhouette.

Benny Gould:    There would be two photos - one pre-beard and one post-beard.

Naber:  Haha, I prefer the post-beard, but I do like to pre-beard though - underrated.

Benny Gould:    Yeah, probably another story we'll to when we get to the Yoga portion.

Benny Gould:    So yes, I landed back in Australia, and for the first few months tried to find work as a 23 year old, having spent a year in London. Probably a little bit of the confidence out of London - oh year, it'll be easy to get a job back in Australia with the UK experience. But it wasn't the case. I think it was a very candidate heavy market, and not a job heavy market. So it was very reliant on skills, and particularly university qualifications, and all the things that I didn't necessarily carry. But I did have enough confidence, I guess, in being able to present myself in a way that I thought I could add value. And so I applied to a job, actually Hays were advertising at the time in FMCG. I think from memory, it was a sales rep for an alcohol company. And I thought this would be fun, young 20s working for big company, going and doing all the promotional nights and selling the product, that'd be fun. And some buddies that had been doing that, and I thought, great, you get a car with the job and you get a phone and all these fancy things you want in your late twenties. So I applied for the job, and then pretty much within a day, Hays the recruiting company had actually replied and said, "Hey, look, you're not of interest to the job." And so I ended up getting in touch with that particular manager that messaged me, and I ended up managing to get them on the phone and saying, "Hey, you guys are recruiting I see at the moment - I'd to apply. I have no experience. But it clearly sounds you either have no experience either because you don't understand the candidates that you're...I was probably too cocky to be honest, but called them out on the way that they were recruiting and said, well, I'm gonna apply for the Hays job, and I'll show you that when I'm, hopefully successful, that I can look at candidates in a different way. And so they said, well, fair pitch. And so within three weeks I got the job and I started my first day at Hays. So I probably talked that manager into giving me a job.

Naber:  Ha, that's alright - he probably appreciated the candor. That's good.

Benny Gould:    Yeah, that's right. And it was amazing because I think once I got to do the job, I really did understand the person on the other side of the conversation. And I think, being a candidate in a candidate-heavy market where it's competitive and there wasn't a lot of jobs around, I was able to, I think at that time, position with candidates that your experience on your CV isn't necessarily the most important thing. That culture and values is really important when it comes to who you are and how you represent yourself. So I felt that was sort of something that I started to learn and started to build on that muscle as part of the recruiting business. And in four years working for that company was really lucky and fortunate to have grown from a junior consultant on a very, very low wage to manage a team of seven people towards the end of my tenure. and have incredible life and professional experience meeting some of the most amazing people that I'm still friends with, more than 15 years later, today.

Naber:  Awesome. We'll get back to culture and culture building in a little bit because I want to talk about that. I know that that's something that you're both passionate about and have a lot to say about. So let's go from Hays, through to Acendre, through LinkedIn. There's a few things I'm want to talk about with your experiences, both from Hays through Acendre, through LinkedIn that I think people want to hear about those key continue. So, why the jump from Hays, and so on.

Benny Gould:    Yeah, so a buddy of mine now, that I worked with at Hays, he moved to this company called NGA.net, which now is called Acendre. It was a SaaS company, and the SaaS company was focused on applicant tracking systems. So the same ways in which candidates would apply for job in the recruiting business, this company built software. And they were a Melbourne-based startup. So my buddy that I worked with in the banking team at Hays moved across to this organization and said, "Hey, you should come join". And before you know it, I ended up working at NGA. What was amazing about that business, in a a short summary, was it was a small startup company in tech, in cloud. They were probably turning over a few million dollars a year, for such a small business. Had a list of clients in the government space that would blow your mind, from the Department of Defense, to the Australian Tax Office, to many authors. I suddenly learned that there was a really interesting way to learn from others that were outside of sales. And I mean that in the sense of the startup had everything from development, to engineers, to product, to customer success. A proper SaaS business as we know today. But coming from a service oriented organization, and the experience that I'd had for real estate and through recruiting, had meant that it was really taking lean in quite a different direction. And then also, the last thing about Acendre, was one of the most talented people I've ever worked with in my career, I worked with him, very closely with him at that company, and he taught me so much about presenting to a public audience, and to doing your research, and knowing your product, and a lot of things that are really about preparation and being ready to walk on stage and be your best. And so yeah, forever to this day, thankful to him, for coaching me in that way. But yeah, that was a great experience.

Naber:  Let's pause there for a minute. Because you made the jump from a people services business to a software business. A lot of the sales and marketing leaders that are bringing people in and hiring from people services or non-software backgrounds, or salespeople going into software sales businesses, they're going to have to make that jump. And that is something that is either one scary for the person or too scary for the hiring manager, or the leader that's hiring those groups of individuals. Especially as I need to start diversifying, as I start tapping out some of the talent pools that are in the SaaS or software businesses that they've been recruiting from. So how does one keep the 1.) appropriate mindset and 2.) what are some of the principles or things that people should keep in mind as they're making the move from a people services business into software - as far as how you sell, and what your mindset should be while you're selling to those businesses?

Benny Gould:    Yeah, for sure. So essentially for me, I look at it in a very different way. So I think, largely what we're doing business is all part of a supply chain. So when we think about process and how that works, if I'm in a service business that's a recruiting company, and I moved to a SaaS business that sells recruiting software. As part of the same supply chain, we're delivering to an end user or end customer. So instead of talking about the process to recruit talent, I'd be talking about the technology to recruit talent. So yes, they have upskilling in terms of product. Naturally, that came to me early when I was a teenager, early when I was building websites to make a few bucks here or there. So tech and internet technologies was of interest to me. So naturally learning a product coming from service business was something that I was passionate about. But fundamentally it's actually relatively similar. And ultimately I think it's more about aligning with the persona that you're working with, or managing the conversation. So if you're a people person, you're going back to the customer service experience I talked about, it's about understanding who your audience is and what resonates with that audience, whether you're selling a service or selling a product. I don't think it matters in my opinion. One of my most amazing managers gave me some advice, and he said, people buy from people they like. And that's resonated. Whether you're selling jeans at a retail store, through to know selling software, I think it exactly is the same thing. at the end of the day. And the transition seems a lot for many, but I think when you put your mind to it and you put, some of the basic fundamentals that we know growing up and the kind circles that we were working, I think that it's quite simple to make a transition, that seems quite different.

Benny Gould:    Very good. Nice one. Keep going. Let's move on to LinkedIn.

Benny Gould:    So one day, at Acendre, I got an email from LinkedIn. And strangely I used, well not strangely, I was in sales. I used LinkedIn a lot for business development. Strangely, I got an email from LinkedIn, and the recruiter was saying that the company at that point was only 800 employees, that they were building their SaaS business in the world of talent, and that he'd seen my background and that there was a nice balance between both service recruiting and understanding what it takes to recruit someone, also through to the technology and how to have a conversation about recruiting software. And so I was almost the perfect mix for them in terms of what they were looking for for what they call LinkedIn Talent Solutions. So, the role was to open up the office in Melbourne, back in 2011. At that point, they about 6 employees in total in Sydney - well there's, there's an argument between me and the second guy that joined, whether we're six or seven, call it...either way around, I say number six, he say number six. So when we have these arguments, when you have in a hypergrowth startup, and it's so early in the the chain, you do have a laugh about the number which means absolutely nother.

Naber:  The conversations you have internally about tenure, I found, at software businesses, especially high growth software businesses, it's amazing. Someone will come in and be amazed by your tenure, if you've been there for a year, two years, three years, and it presents so much personal brand equity internally that someone's been there for x number of years. I've always found it fascinating how fascinated people are by tenure. And then putting that on the pedestal. I think there's gotta be a little a lot of good comedy sketches you can put on SNL about those conversations. Anyways...

Benny Gould:    Exactly. Yeah. So I, got this email from LinkedIn. And I see myself, when I was back at his prior company as a bit of a Meerkat. I would look up around and I was hey, I think it's my time to go. And I was probably such a millennial at that point. So yeah, I'm, I've been here four years. I've done my tenure, which is absolutely no time at a company, for anyone. But, nevertheless I took the opportunity, which was incredible to move to LinkedIn. Brief story about day one, when I walked into this serviced office in Melbourne with my boss, at the time that hired me. And, in fact, another colleague started the same day as I did, and she and I walked in with a new boss, and it was a small two room office in the IBM tower, in Southbank in Melbourne. And this office looked it was from the 60s, like Madmen, but just without the liquor cart, and without all the people walking around. And we're like...is this really LinkedIn? Are we in the right office?

Naber:  So all the bad stuff, and none of the good stuff from that particular scene. Got It.

Benny Gould:    Yeah, exactly. And it was so bizarre, and anyway, so we walked in and we actually had no internet. So our boss had to take us in a cab to Costco, this is no joke, with a trolley, and load-up the trolley with a modem, a printer, a whole bunch of snacks, for our pretty miserable front room, within what would be our office. Although we did buy a mini fridge, we had some soft drinks. It was probably luxurious compared to the things I get offered in prior employment, but the Silicon Valley business that was...

Naber:  Oh, the perks, the perks.

Benny Gould:    Exactly. Though we did have a river view. So to be fair, we had windows. So, started there and the amazing thing was when I was given my laptop and my phone, plugging into the Internet and with that Costco Modem that we purchased, and having LinkedIn go live in Melbourne on day one, that was quite incredible. But starting off building a business for this Talent Solutions SaaS business in Melbourne, had no database of people that we'd worked with prior. It was purely the most fundamental baseline business development you can imagine. Right? In Sydney, same sort of team. There were a couple more, but they were pounding the pavement, getting out there meeting and networking with folks who had we done business with prior and and building a network of conversations in order to start selling this SaaS product that no one knew about. And so the other thing was, I guess back in 2011, the internet was very new to companies in terms of LinkedIn selling a SaaS product. They weren't used to bringing social media into organizations where social was going to be a part of how your employees and how your executives would show up. And so it was quite scary because they knew that social media was for social life. It wasn't for professional life. So we were building a business around a licensing model and building a successful hypergrowth business that, probably with selling one of the best products I've ever seen because no one had a competitive product. It was hugely impactful for an organization and it would save companies a hell of a lot of money.

Naber:  So, this is a common theme. You've done this at multiple businesses, software businesses now. You were earlier stage at LinkedIn, you're a little bit later, proportionally, stage when you joined Facebook. You're coming in and positioning something that is on the, one of the polar ends of the scale of disruption - in that people are trying to think about using the same thing for a completely different purpose and using something that's personal, or in their professional-personal life or their personal life - and then using that in the business. Or said another way, they don't necessarily even know that they have the problem that you're trying to solve, let alone that the solution exists to solve it. How do you go in and sell differently when you were on that end of the polar side of this disruption spectrum? A lot of businesses are selling way before the time of the general adoption. So they're on the really early part of the curve.

Benny Gould:    Yup. For sure. So I think the narrative that I was carrying into the LinkedIn role was just another chapter in the book. If you think about the recruiting chapter and then the SaaS recruiting chapter - when I go to LinkedIn, and I was sitting in front of HR managers, and they were saying, so you want me to buy this particular product off you, why should I buy it? And I would share with them, well I've spent four years working for recruiting company, charging companies yours tens of thousands of dollars to find talent. And then you're using technology in order to determine which talent is most important to you and then to prioritize of thousands of applicants, how you can determine which is important. And then still you haven't got a result on great candidates. So sitting here today and you still can't find a solution to the problem for the jobs you're trying to fill. So it was the narrative that was easily flowing, and I fairly passionate about it because that's what I believed in, right? It was my purpose. And I hate to say I like to help people find jobs, because helping people isn't really the direction...people already have the capability, the experience, the knowledge, and the purpose - it's just about unlocking that. So when I would be talking to HR leaders about purchasing the software, it was more a case of well do you want to personally have access to the best talent out there? Let me show you how you use this thing. If you think it's an interest then let's talk about it. But if not, then there's plenty of recruiting companies that will take your money. There are plenty of applicant tracking system companies that will tell you their software's better to find the right people. So at the end of the day, this is your decision. And not making a decision is a decision.

Naber:  Yeah. So do you stripline like that? So striplining on any being that you say, you can do this if you want to. You don't need to do this one too. Or maybe you're not ready for this. Do you actually do that in your conversations with executives, and with buyers, and budget holders as you're having these discussions? Or are you more generalizing informally about how you had the discussion?

Benny Gould:    So, I do now and I'll tell you when that changed. At that point in time, and I was probably, in that LinkedIn role, I probably wasn't as open and honest and as thoughtful. I probably was focused more on sales targets. You've got x dollars to meet before the end of the month, and you need to sell these licenses, so you would sell the licenses, right? Otherwise you wouldn't hit your target, and you wouldn't be successful, and you wouldn't have a job. So there was that pressure of the hypergrowth company, which, going into four years, I've been super fortunate it was an amazing business, going through that growth. But when I was the 6th employee through to the 356th employee, where it didn't matter what number you were, or what your tenure was, or essentially how loyal you had been to the company, to some it was really about what your number was. And I think that's fundamentally when I started to think differently and my behavior started to change. But yeah, we can you talk a bit more about sort of today my thinking. Towards the end of the LinkedIn stint, I was burning out and I was starting to see my purpose change, and that sort of shift in understanding between why you show up to work and the narrative that you're writing the book for, and the book starting to take a different direction, and when you start to lose control of the narrative. And so that happened more towards the end of 2014, and the opportunity that presented itself, at that point, was to take some time off, and to enjoy some of the time that I'd had at LinkedIn - putting some savings aside to go and travel.

Benny Gould:    Awesome, so we're going to get into traveling in Yogi Ben for a minute here, in about three minutes. And I'm very excited about that because it's a really good jump in you taking advantage of an amazing enlightenment opportunity that you saw for yourself, both and your your partner, which is awesome - who's also amazing, Amanda...Quick step back, when you're thinking about...One of thene of the superpowers that I see you having, many, but one of them I see is that multiple times over you have built satellite markets and satellite offices from the ground up for businesses that have a relatively established either brand or entity, in let's call it America or their hub. So how do you think about the framework of building out that satellite market and building out those satellite offices for a hub that does have a brand in their local market at home, but doesn't necessarily - maybe especially as American businesses - doesn't necessarily understand that you don't have the same brand equity, you don't have the same product equity in the marketplace. What's the framework you think about or the principles that you think about as you want to build out those satellite markets and satellite offices?

Benny Gould:    So, I'll talk about mainly the approach on mindset. Let's call it the mindset first, and then I'll talk about the practicality of that framework. Going into the job or any role - I think of taking a job - you need to align with your purpose. And I'll come back to this a bit later on when we talk about the other journey, but your purpose is how you show up, why you jump out of bed every day. You need to also understand the company that you're going to be working for and the role you're going to do and how you believe in that purpose - if you truly want to have impact. If you just want to take a job, and work nine to five, and rock up, and go home feeling accomplished, then there's plenty of jobs to do that, don't get me wrong. But if you want to have a super impactful career with a company that is there to support you and help you grow and push yourself into a direction that I focus on, is really life changing. So that alignment on purpose and values really then matters to how you build out your approach to build the market because you're the face of the brand at that point. So when I started at LinkedIn and I plugged my computer in and there's no, there's access to a CRM with no people in it. It's going back in the 70s where you would pull out a yellow pages and you would go through almost one by one and start calling people. But of course we had the network LinkedIn, and I'd been in the industry, and so you generally start hitting the phones. So the people that you use to have relationships with and networks with, you would call them and say, "Hey, I'm now on LinkedIn, and this is what we do and I need to talk to you about this amazing platform that we have. I think it'd be very much an interest. Let's grab a coffee." Now what's amazing, and super fortunate with the companies I've worked for, is that people know the brand. So you can easily get a meeting. So that's a huge advantage if you work for a smaller business that you don't have any brand equity, it's very challenging to get a meeting. The good side to that is that everyone wants to meet with you, and those that actually want to buy from you, can be very limited. So you end up spending lots of money, drinking lots of coffee, and having really nice lunches, but actually not getting much cut-through. So if you're focused on the framework, you've got the value proposition on where your product fits to market, you're focused on the purpose, and you're passionately aligned with the purpose. Then it's a case of, okay, how do you then go to market? And then how do you start to build a network and start to sell the product? And then you start to think about, okay, well who's the customer? Who's the actual buyer of the product that I'm going to be talking to? Who signs the check? Who's the key decision makers? How long does it take to sell the products? How can we speed up the sale of the products? All these things...deal velocity, and sales cycle, and conversion, how many meetings do I need to have in order to sell the product? How many proposals do I need out? These are all fundamental sales things, which you want to, as a sales person, you want to have the basics - for forecasting and all those things that are important. But once you fundamentally understand the basics, then it's a case level, and how do I influence the sale. And that comes down to you, and that comes down to your understanding, your research that you do with the customer, how you show up, how you present yourself, how you articulate yourself, all those sorts of things. Because at the end of the day, people buy from people they like. So you can read all the sales books in the world and, and believe me, I've got buddies that just don't put sells books down, and they're successful salespeople. and that's fantastic. So there's two ways, but I think fundamentally for me, at the end of the day, what I found successful in helping these satellite businesses grow from the ground up, is just getting the basics right, getting some wins on the board. The other thing is testimonials. So, very early when you win your first two or three deals in any market, whether you have zero customers or a thousand customers, get really close to those testimonials and have them tell 10 people they know in their industry to buy your product, or the reasons why, or the impact that it's had to date on their business. Because those testimonials will fundamentally help you scale your business. And the other we can talk about is channel partners, which I've more recently come to know.

Naber:  On testimonials, do you feel it's more important to have them written down and documented, or do you think that just that they're out there with happy voices in the market - that's enough?

Benny Gould:    Definitely note them, for sure. Anecdotal - I heard a comment, or a line here, or they said this particular thing. So anecdotal feedback we can provide in a verbal way, nothing that you couldn't put on the front of the newspaper. Of course, it doesn't have their approval. But generally speaking, people are comfortable, if they've said at a conference or over a dinner table, "What you've done for our company has been 10x valuable", then you can share that story. So those are the stories about the things that really matter. And storytelling is another incredible skill in people that I've come to learn do very well in terms of being able to sell a product or a service.

Naber:  All right, let's make the jump. You're at the end of your tenure at LinkedIn.

Benny Gould:    I'm on a beach, yeah. So burned out and wondering what's next, Amanda and I decided to go and take a journey overseas, starting with a yoga retreat in Nicaragua, in a tree house with no power, no Internet, and no running hot water for a month. And also becoming yoga teachers which I had no intention of whatsoever. Amanda says, "I thought it would be really cool. I thought you'd really enjoy it." Whereas I had no choice once we go to Nicaragua.

Benny Gould:    What was the best part about living in a tree house in Nicaragua? And what was the worst part about living in a tree house in Nicaragua?

Benny Gould:    The best part is living three feet from the ocean, jumping out of the tree house and being in the water. Worst part was not showering properly for a month, without bees and a whole bunch of other creatures.

Benny Gould:    Nice. Okay. So that was the start of your journey. Keep going.

Benny Gould:    Yeah. The four weeks, 200 hour teacher training, for me was not to become a yoga teacher. It was to really clear the mindset of a previous 10 years, 15 years in personal life, professional life, just to wipe the slate clean of all the different things that are blowing up in my mind and also bringing me back to the person that I probably was when I was back in working in a hotel, and and learning is an adolescent I guess. And being playful and all those sorts of things. So, yeah, kicked off the journey and then it basically became a 9-10 month journey of just knocking around the world backpacking, and just meeting amazing people, and cultures, and really being out of your comfort zone, a lot, practicing yoga along the way, which was a great opportunity to stay fit, but also to get yourself in a good mindset. We did amazing things climb Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail, as well as a whole bunch of other adventures, crazy stuff diving with the sharks in South Africa, and hiking through jungles, and all these sorts of amazing things that many of us do through a midlife crisis.

Benny Gould:    Midlife excitement, midlife crisis. So let's break down some of the personal side of that. What has yoga brought for you to your business world? You're building sales and marketing engines, your sales mentality. What has it brought to work for you that has given back to you the most?

Benny Gould:    Yeah. The Yoga Journey teaches you a lot about your internal voice, what I refer to as the way that you internally interpret yourself. And it unlocks that within you to then have an impact on your external self. So, we did philosophy for yoga. I didn't pay that much attention to it. So those that are listening are probably like that's the worst explanation Ben could probably give after 200 hours of teaching. That's how I would articulate that. The practice, the physical practice itself, gives you no other choice than to focus on present moment. And that present moment is incredibly important in personal life and professional life. But, when you then sit around a table for the next four weeks with people where there's no internet, you have genuine conversations and you get to meet people in ways that you get to understand who they are and the relationships that they've been through. And everyone at the table had been through some sort of traumatic experience. Whether it was a personal or professional thing or they were about to go through a big life changing moment. So it was quite interesting that everyone took this amazing journey to go and get out of their comfort zone to learn something completely new, in which, definitely changed the personal direction for me in the way that I thought about business afterwards. So what I shifted from in the last four prior years was this real business mindset around sort of numbers, And performance, and success. Opposed to what's important to you? What are your goals? How are you achieving them in your life? I think that that's the shit that that particular 12 months taught me.

Benny Gould:    Awesome. So, one more thing on taking this journey. Because I think there's a lot of nose to the grindstone, hardworking, extremely savvy, elite sales and marketing leaders or future sales and marketing leaders that are on the grind right now trying to get to that next step, next two steps, next three steps in their career. Always telling themselves - it's a deferred happiness or a deferred mindset mentality - I'll be happy later when I can be. What would you say to them about what it's to take that break, have that mindset reset, and how that's helped you become even better than when you were before you took that mindset break? Because there's so many talented people that want to do that, but they do not. You have done that. What would you say that gives you when you come back, what's the reset like?

Benny Gould:    So the reset - one thing that I learned out of the year off was vulnerability. So vulnerability is something in which people see in business as a weakness. The truth is, I see it completely the opposite, as a strength. When in business your told to sell a certain way, to be in business in a certain way, to show up in a way that in many ways is actually an authentic, and to present a mask of who you are isn't necessarily showing your true self. And so what the year out with the Yoga really started to teach me is to unlock that vulnerability. And the vulnerability when you come out of that, looking back into business, is then focused on actually authenticity, connection, mindset, love, compassion. So those sorts of things then play into - "Well, okay, this is an interesting direction. Now I've opened myself up to be more transparent. What actually do I want?" And so the second thing that we learned from our trip is Amanda and I were sitting somewhere on a beach, around seven or eight months into the trip - so towards the back third. And we were sitting on a beach somewhere, and I said to Amanda randomly, "Hey, what are the five things, three to five things that you're passionate about in life? That you could jump out of bed for and, and go and do a yoga class? Or you could go to work and do this job? What are the five things? She told me her five things and I shared my five things. And so we argued about you copied my five things, and you wouldn't have had those unless I said them. But we had our own five things. So specifically out of that, they all resonated from when I was a kid all the way through to where I was today. We both said to ourselves that we'd make this commitment that of these five things, professionally where we'd go and take the next job that would encompass one of those five things. Because we've just made this commitment to ourselves that you would jump out of bed and do this job without any problem. And yes, you have your good days and your bad days, and all that sort of stuff. But fundamentally, if you agree on this purpose, and this passion around what's most important to me, the individual, then that's going to be a commitment, and that's going to be something that is going to be easy for me to do, and something that I'll have no problem doing. So, the next step, and I'm not sure if you're ready to get into the Bondi Yoga House. But, what the next step for us was getting back to Sydney, and after we'd done this yoga journey, we wanted to take a punt into a startup. And so that was on one of my five things was, in my life I want to launch a startup. Going into all the odds that you hear about - nine out of 10 aren't successful, etc - we thought, well, let's give it a chance. We've been out of our comfort zone. Well, let's continue to go on that journey. So we launched a business called Bondi Yoga House, and we had no business plan. We had no financial plan, but it was bootstraped and it was mad, Crazy now that I look back on it. There were plenty of lessons, which is another way to say what stupid decision. But no, it wasn't, it was one of the best life decisions we've had. But we launched a business, which was essentially a boutique hotel in Bondi Beach. And what we wanted to do is recreate what we call an urban retreat, which is instead of going to Ubud in Bali, or in Mexico, or Costa Rica for a yoga retreat, you could go to what feels a yoga retreat in a city, but close enough to the great things that the city could offer. So you could still feel you're in Bali, but you could go and visit the Opera House, and you can visit Bondi Beach, and all those sorts of things. So we recreated this interesting concept of Urban Retreat, and it was a five bedroom house. And, we went and bought a whole bunch of really awesome furniture and really yogi stuff to fill out what was a studio of about 12 mats, which we didn't teach any local Yoga. It was mainly for particular events or for people that are staying. And we built a program over 12 months of people coming for these packages, and people coming to meet one another from around the world.

Naber:  You must have met some really interesting people.

Benny Gould:    Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, really interesting people. Different people around the world - one weekend to a girl getting married and hosting her fellow bridesmaids and her mom, and all these amazing different types of life experiences, to then hosting the community. One of the things that wasn't out on our radar but ended up becoming fundamentally the DNA of what Bondi Yoga House was all about, was the community that we bought into the space. So we found that there were a lot of people, entrepreneurs in the local Bondi Beach area, that wanted a space to be able to showcase their talent. And so for some it was a Reiki Master, for others it was Lunar Nights, where one lady would come in and talk about the particular moon - Lunar Nights. And it would be part meditation, part storytelling, in a really amazing inclusive experience. And so, we were just amazed by the fact that people wanting to come into our particular property and run these events. And so we were running them at no cost. We would literally lose on these events. But that wasn't the point of the business. And by this point we realized this was a more of a short term pop up, than it was really a long term real estate investment or, or a brand that we were looking at building. Just after buying multiple domains, London Yoga House, and LA Yoga House, and I probably need to get a refund on those at some point. Ambition and ideas had always outweighed my ability to probably execute completely, when it came to this concept of a startup. But the key learning out of this was, we didn't have the experience in running financial plans, in PR, or marketing. But, we did manage to be featured on CNBC Global Documentary, that featured 180 countries, alongside a seven star resort. The Virgin Australia magazine on in flight entertainment. All of these amazing publications ended up picking up this unique brand, so we knew we were onto something. But we realized that we were probably popping the idea too early. And I think that sometimes some of the best startup ideas, you're either really, really early or really, really late and, those that are right in the middle of are those that are probably relatively successful. But since then, it's actually become quite an interesting phenomenon. And there's many, many businesses that I've seen globally since we've launched that business, that have gone on to do much bigger and better things in that way. But, for whatever it's worth, we were that that small piece of the puzzle that, curated, hopefully an idea that we think is something that's valuable and worth sharing, and also had an impact to people in the community, which is the biggest takeaway for that business.

Naber:  Love it. Very, very cool. All right. So, let's hop into that jump to Facebook. How did that decision work? And let's go through what you're up to.

Benny Gould:    Yeah, so going out there looking for jobs - I talked about the five things that were important - those five things also focused on a few different aspects. So for me it was tech, that there was music, community was one of those, and a couple of others I've shared. So for me it had to be a tech company. My dad had been involved in music industry, so that was something of interest, and I DJ'd , through the late parts of my teens, early twenties - failed DJ by the way, in many ways. DJ Swift is somewhat retired. But we can get to that story another time...

Naber:  What was the DJ name again?

Benny Gould:    DJ Swift. I had a Suzuki Swift as my first car, for lack of a better DJ name, and then there was DJ Suzuki from Japan that was incredibly successful, and I couldn't steal his name. So I went with DJ Swift.

Naber:  I don't know if there's a better or worse story out there about picking a DJ name then your first car's name.

Benny Gould:    And it's not a great car, let's be honest. The range of Swift's, they haven't changed much in 20 something years. But yes, the short lived DJ career. So music was important. But then looking for a job, specifically having been a recruiter, I think backwards a little bit. So I would then focus on, okay, what are the companies that represent these five things that I focused on, and let's target 20 companies. And then I would reach out to the 20 companies, if they didn't have live jobs, and then I would reach out, introduce myself, and then start to hustle to get a conversation. Now I thought I would be relatively comfortable in doing that with the approach, but then I looked back on the last three years, I left LinkedIn pretty much three years to the day. So I've been doing the startup for three years and travel with the yoga journey. And then I'd realize, well no recruiter really wants to speak to me because I basically been schlepping it for three days with a backpack. Living with no shoes on. So they were probably wondering why in my professional experience?

Naber:  Well, luckily Facebook and several of the businesses were smart enough to have that conversation.

Benny Gould:    Yeah, so Facebook advertised a job, this job based in Sydney, called a Growth Manager for Workplace by Facebook, which is a product that they've built from within their company about companies better connecting internally with employees. And so it was a way to build a more connected company bottom up, and top down. And so I had applied for this job a couple of times, and the reason I applied for it was because I truly believed in the purpose and believe in the purpose. And the purpose was that they fundamentally want to change the way that employees can share their voice. Because companies, many companies have today still have traditional means of communication, and it's still very controlled in the way that employees can share their thoughts. And I think from the journey that I've been on, I've seen it so many other people have great stories to tell. And so if there was potentially a way that culturally we can shift the mindset to allow people bottom up to share their voice, and create ideation, and to be doing that at scale, and for executives in their companies to hear the amazing ideas and their contribution and their recognition, that would be something magical. And so that was what I'd read pretty much in the job description. I was like this is amazing. This is something I need to be a part of. The fact of building it is something else. So I applied three times. The first two times I didn't get an application response other than thanks, but you're not of interest, after four weeks. The third time, through my network, a guy that I used to work with at LinkedIn, was close buddies with someone that worked at Facebook, and so he referred me as, "Hey, I think you should chat to this guy. He's got this amazing journey, I think is be quite a fit. And then within 10 days, I had a few interviews and managed to land a role. And so yes, hugely thankful, for landing the opportunity at that point. And so for the past 18 months I've been focused on, on exactly the Workplace business. And so helping companies realize and, educate actually in many ways, that the importance of sharing your voice as an employee is important. And going back to the examples and anecdotes that other companies that adopted the platform, would share, it would blow your mind in the fact that - a particular supermarket in New Zealand uses the platform, and they've been using it for some time, but they've got stories about a lady in her sixties, actually saved somebody's life by running across from the supermarket to the gym across the street and this guy and having having a heart attack. And she was able to, based on first aid experience, able to put him in a good enough state until the ambulance arrived. Then shared that particular story on the platform, which then other people in the company we're sharing similar stories about how it's impacted their life, how it's been such a supportive network for people that have lost in their family, and it just opened up this can of worms, in a positive way, for people within the business to create commonality and connection amongst one another. That was something that I thought was, wow, this is fundamentally, phenomenally changing the way people work, and actually show up to work in a positive way. So, that's been sort of an incredible journey. And then, as you know, I've recently moved from Sydney to London in a different role.

Naber:  Yeah. Very, very solid, abrupt quick summary that I'm going to have you expand on a second there, to end that. So this is a good pause point. When you're, when you're talking to businesses in your first role at Facebook and your last role as a Global Account Manager at LinkedIn, these businesses you're talking to are global, massive businesses. One of your other super powers that I think a lot of people - first of all, so many people love Ben Gould. There a seven degrees, you know seven degrees of Kevin Bacon, seven degrees of people who love Ben Gold. You can find someone, that can find someone, that can find someone, like tons of people just love you. But one of those groups of people that just love you is your customers, and not just people that have managed you, and not just people that have worked with - your customers love you, adore you. I'm going to guess that's part of this answer, but one of the super powers you have is doing global deal orchestration and decentralize deal orchestration, and working with companies that are very, very big on either local budgets or global budgets and orchestrating the entire thing. Do you have a mindset or a method that you use, or go about, in order to orchestrate and put together these amazingly successful, global deals? And is customers absolutely loving you, part of the ground up of you doing them?

Benny Gould:    Thanks very much for the compliment. I also send that $50 later. I appreciate it, very kind of you. So I think that, in terms of the complexity in the way of selling, I think that you can't do it alone, first of all. So it's not down to me, it's down to the team. Down to the people that you work with, and also really just navigating the relationship and navigating the complexity in which people buy, the way people purchase. So in terms of these global companies, for others that are working in similar complex environments, there's so many stakeholders that get involved in deals. You never really have one central buyer, at least my experience, I've not had one central by that's has the wallet and they're able to just pay you for that product there and then. There is other influences when goes into any deal. So whether it's a huge, large multinational - it's procurement, it's the actual CIO, it's the CEO in many instances depending on your product. So from my experience, maybe the lack of a super power, but maybe the skill that I've tried to refine is, is just networking. Just the ability to build a relationship with people in your business and externally in the client business to better understand how to navigate your path through this sort of crazy, maze in many ways. So those relationships really matter because then you can start to, and naturally and authentically those relationships matter, because then once you start building that relationship, then you can help each other grow. Whether that's empowering somebody to be a champion to help them be promoted, or to help them gain a skillset. So one of the most important things that I've really focused on is how is this going to impact their career? Because that's important to them in many ways. Or how is it going to impact them personally? Maybe they've learned something out of it. That sometimes is more than enough. So provided that you can empower others to be their best selves and to show up as best they can, then I think we're all in it to win together. And then if there's not a commonality in that, then going back to the vulnerability example, there's a problem in the connection. There's the mask that someone's wearing, all this stress, or the pressure, or the anxiety that is overwhelming who they really are. So I think the better conversation to have sometimes, is just getting to know them better. The best leaders that I've ever had, have been those that talk less about the day to day more often, and more about the non work day to day. Because the closer relationship you can have with that leader, and they really understand you as a person, you are more than happy to show up and jump out of bed every single day to fight for their team. So I think that's one of the main key things. And I think going back to your point around navigating these complex businesses and multinational companies, the same applies. When I today meet with executive of some huge global companies, they are humans too. And quite frankly, they don't get treated humans, they get traded as big egotistical CEOs. Some of them are, don't get me wrong. but arguably at the end of the day they are humans too. And so it's just finding a commonality and a connection with them that you can appreciate where they're coming from.

Benny Gould:    Nice one. Okay. That's a good segue into what you're doing now. And the global program, it's fascinating, that you're running right now and getting into. Why don't you give a bit of a summary of the program that you're running right now, and then I'll get into a couple things that I think people would want to ask you about this.

Benny Gould:    Yeah, for sure. So really fortunate to be offered an opportunity to lead at Facebook globally, what we call Facebook for Business Influencers. So it's a program that was launched about four years ago, from an idea that Sheryl Sandberg, presented in terms of the same way that we would represent and manage partners - like athletes, celebrities, musicians - we also have a desire to support business leaders that want to be able to share their voice and share their story at scale. So for the last four years we've been running this program and launched over 400+ business leaders - like Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington Bill Gates, Sara Blakely, others as well

Naber:  Small names, small names.

Benny Gould:    Ha, yeah, some relatively small names, right?...with some of the amazing talent that the program support. So fundamentally, what the program's about is, is coaching these executives on really what social is. Because many of them use social media in their personal life, probably to connect with children, or grandchildren, or friends, but they're not so familiar with how they solve this in business. And so it goes back to the LinkedIn example, years ago, when I was talking about LinkedIn, when I brought it to companies, they weren't used to how social media would impact their business. It's kind of similar, but this is more from a Facebook and an Instagram perspective. So, today I look after a range of Global CEOs and coach them on why they should have a social profile, and the meaning behind and then the purpose behind connected leaders. And so when you look at some of the research, recently, Brunswick Group over here in Europe, brought out some research that two in one employees want to see their CEO on social media. And more than half of them actually use social media to research whether they want to work for a company. When you think about the demographic of the types of people that are joining their company, they're millennials mainly. The first time in history that we have five generations of people in the workforce. And so there's a different mindset to the way that we perceive information and the way that we see relevance in information. So there's different channels in which we are able to articulate that. So there's traditional media, there's of course professional media, and then there's social media. And so the benefit that we have with social media is, particularly with Facebook and Instagram, we have billions of people who are using our products every day. And so executive leaders either have two types of personalities - they have a very shy personality and not used to being a voice of their company, they're used to the PR engine or the communications engine and the teams that would support them in getting that message out; And then we have executives or startup founders that are the voice of their brand and that are passionate about leading change for their business, societal change, and having a real dent in the world. And so many of those leaders today, if you look at Jeff Weiner from LinkedIn, he does a fantastic job with that. Mark Zuckerberg does a fantastic job, of course, at Facebook. And then you've got other startup executives, Sara Blakely for example, from Spanx. Amazing founders that are so devil in the detail in of the importance of growing a business and want to go out there and have a huge impact on the world. And so that is more than just running a company, that is more about being able to empower other business leaders or, or women in tech is another example. And so the role that I'm doing is expanding on that, not only just to support their external presence, but also to coach them on their internal presence. And so when we're showing up with Workplace in some of the greatest companies in the world like Walmart, and Starbucks, and Virgin Atlantic, and National Australia Bank, and many others to name a few, use the internal platform to communicate and have a better connected company, but the executives also don't know what best practice looks in order to have an internal brand. So coaching them on what an internal brand looks at scale and giving them the framework around how to do that effectively.

Naber:  Really interesting. Really interesting. It's just sounds like...I'm going to guess that it was a relatively smooth transition for you talking about this particular product and coaching and supporting executives to solve one of the internal challenges, as it was when you were selling to them in general, other products, or not even similar products, but just selling to power and selling to executives. Do you feel like...What is similarity between having those conversations you're having right now with executives at some of the best and biggest companies in the world, and the way that you should sell the power and sell to executives in the way that you structure those conversations?

Benny Gould:    Yeah, definitely. So again, putting yourself in their shoes, that they're running a big company, they are busy, that they have no time for anything else. All those things are completely understandable given the roles that they do. So firstly you've got to understand in a very short amount of time what the business priorities are. Now you would have done your research and understand how to tackle that question, but from a framework perspective, understanding the business priorities and what's important. Then what's going to maximize their business value, but then also understand their personal impact. What is the contribution or the legacy that you wish to have on the company. And so we can understand that.

Naber:  Are you asking that question explicitly or you navigating through and ask a couple of questions to get there?

Benny Gould:    Sometimes. It would depend on who the person is. If they're a leader of a Fortune 500 company, some may be offended with the approach of the legacy you wish to live in the company. Some people you need to frame your questions with in the right way, for them the business priorities may be so important to them that their personal viewpoint is less important. Or their personal path is less important. So it depends on who you're talking to. But yeah, once you understand the what's in it for them or why should they be interested, is more the question, then we need to align on, well, if these are the true business priorities and important aspects that you're looking to elevate and to scale, then here's how I can help you. This is why you should be interested. And you've gotta be really clear on exactly what that value proposition is, so you're not wasting that time. And then for those that you're having to I guess, educate and influence. That's the approach I take. Others that are probably over enthusiastic with, more interested in learning the how, it's the opposite in me understanding why do they want to show up on social, what I refer to as their social purpose statement. So what is your social purpose statement or your purpose that you wish to articulate as to why this is important? Because having x amount of followers isn't necessarily, as an executive of running a business, the most important goal that you should have. It's aligning on the most important goals that you should align to and the objectives to reach them. And the objectives to reach them are focused on some of the key themes. So objectives could be, I generally break it into three, three themes. So company, self and world. So how would you articulate your storytelling when it comes to your company and what are the key things that are important? With self, how do you want to articulate what's important to you? Is it family time? Is it the books you're reading, or the podcast you're listening to? And then impact on the world - so is it sustainability or social impact? One in five millennials, won't stay at a company for more than two years, unless I have a social purpose. So unless you're a business executive leading with social purpose, you will not retain talent. It's fundamental. So you better be focused on aligning to something that's important to change in the world, or you'll be disrupted.

Naber:  Makes a lot of sense. That's also a really good segue. So I know that the companies you've been a part of, Facebook, LinkedIn, both of them, and others, but Facebook and LinkedIn namely are extremely good at building great cultures. And you just talked about, values-driven thought processes and statements as well as purpose-driven thought processes and statements. You've mentioned that a couple of times in our conversation. For you, how do you think about building culture, and how do you think about purpose and values driving that? What's your thought process behind that, and how should these companies that are listening think about building great cultures themselves? What type of advice could you give to them?

Speaker 5:        Yeah, definitely. So, I think firstly always bring a startup mindset to the company you work for regardless of the size. Because what I've learned in all these different types of roles and, and what have you, is the hustle or rolling the sleeves up gives you approach, even working for such a big brand LinkedIn or Facebook, if you come with the startup mindset, then you can build the culture from scratch and you're accountable and you own part of this company. You are a shareholder in the company. So when you walk through the door, you own a piece of the success that it has, and the lack of success that it has. So it's not all only upside.

Naber:  Right, accountability. That's good.

Benny Gould:    Yeah, exactly. So, bring the startup mindset to any company. The second aspect I would say is build a diverse team. Now, Facebook's the first company I've worked for that actually brings a diverse team, and hires a diverse team, that is so different from the next person you sit with. Now, I've worked for so many other companies, particularly in sales that the recruiting manageable site, we just want 10 more of that person. We need 10 more Mike's because Mike is great, and then we need 15 more Sally's because she's the best sales person we've ever had. Now that's great that you're going to have so many of the same extroverted sales people. No one's going to think differently. Now if you're running a machine and you just having a sales cog engine, you're going to be running well, don't get me wrong. You're going to get a successful sales business. But when it comes to thinking differently, and being disruptive, and doing things out of the norm, and breaking into new business ventures, you need a different mindset to be able to grow those muscles. So hire different people from different cultures, different ethnicities, and different backgrounds. Challenge yourself in the way that you think to hire different types of talent. That would be my second tip. And then the third tip is around the thing that I've touched on probably the most - and that's around purpose. Really get to understand your team. Really get to understand your leadership, in what is their purpose in life. And not in a deep Yogi-ful way or the meditation crazy way, or too fluffy. But I really mean that in a sense of why do people jump out of bed today and come to work and then understand who connects to that purpose. Now if there's people in your business or you're building a business and they don't connect into your purpose or your mission of your company, then it's probably a short-filled career. Particularly if you're in the startup business. If you're in a bigger, larger business, then it craves the way for less purpose driven culture for some. But I fundamentally think that's been a huge factor for me. And then aligning to that passion and that drive and, the ongoing, I guess, opportunity to create a greater path for me in many different directions beyond my skillset and the abilities. You asked the question earlier, how do you jump from the service business to a product business? I think that leap can continue to happen tenfold into so many different realms because if you're focused on the purpose and you're focused on the key fundamentals that you believe in, it doesn't matter where you are, what you actually do in business. Unless you're a doctor or a lawyer, where we made fundamental qualifications. Let's preface it with that. I'm not going your surgery anytime soon. Put it that way.

Naber:  Ben, I will gladly go under the scalpel with you. What have you noticed, what are the common themes at Facebook, at LinkedIn, those companies do a lot of things really well - what are the common themes you've learned from building cultures that leaders are doing? Not necessarily just the framework you mentioned, cause that was gold, what you just mentioned, and people need to think about that. But how do leaders plug into that and what is their role? What do they need to make sure that they do really well, that you've seen leaders at Facebook and LinkedIn do really, well commonly across those two companies?

Benny Gould:    Yeah, every company has a mission, right? A public statement mission. I think everyone that aligns to that joins the company, right? I think that's general hiring principal. Leaders, what I've seen them do very well is, as a team define your values or your behaviors. Now values and behaviors of the company will be up on the wall and what have you, and that's what you show up to every day. But it's really actually more the behaviors. So as a team, how do we, how we are going to contribute as a business to achieve the values and the mission of the company. Now once there's alignment on that, and everyone's on the same page...it's like a football team going to win the Superbowl, right? You need to train the same way an athlete does in order to hit high performance. And so, I've been reading a book recently actually from one of the coaches from the All Blacks in New Zealand. Amazing, amazing book called Legacy, in fact. And so, what they talk about a lot, and this has really resonated with me, is the training that I would do before showing up to the game, was so intense and so out of their comfort zone and so hard, that when they got to the game, the game would just be the transaction. There was no losing. So think about it in the same way as business, right? If you focus on nailing a meeting, or nailing a presentation, or what have you, doing the prep work and do the hard work prior so that when you walk on the stage or when you walk into that meeting, it's just the transaction that you're already expecting and you're prepared. So I think that's key. And then going back to the actual way in which I think is important that people I've worked with do business, I think vulnerability is really important, and open & transparency. No surprises is key in a business. Any surprises that you give your team or your managers is probably a negative thing, unless it's a birthday surprise. But I think it's super important to align on open transparency, vulnerability and really showing that you care and you have empathy with other colleagues. And there's certainly not enough empathy in business. and I think the danger of, of leadership without empathy, is a negative culture. And I think that's sort of a key thing. I've been fortunate to work with companies and teams that carry empathy and compassionate leadership. So, I think that's, that's truly important in leading with that, and I think will set them up for success.

Naber:  Hey everybody, thanks so much for listening. If you appreciate it and enjoyed the episode, go ahead and make a comment on the post for the episode on LinkedIn. If you love the Naberhood Podcast, would love for you to subscribe, rate, and give us a five star review on iTunes. Until next time, go get it.