In this episode of Ashley & Katrine's Infinite Revenue Playlist, we welcome guest Nikki Ivey, sales veteran and Contributing Writer at Sistas in Sales.
From her personal framework — Mindset, Moxie, and Magic — to the importance of connecting on an authentic level with prospects, Nikki unpacks a host of topics and has plenty of insights to share.
✨ Follow Ashley
✨ Follow Katrine
🎵 Jam to our walk-up song playlist on Spotify
In this episode of Ashley & Katrine's Infinite Revenue Playlist, we welcome guest Nikki Ivey, sales veteran and Contributing Writer at Sistas in Sales.
From her personal framework — Mindset, Moxie, and Magic — to the importance of connecting on an authentic level with prospects, Nikki unpacks a host of topics and has plenty of insights to share.
✨ Follow Ashley
✨ Follow Katrine
🎵 Jam to our walk-up song playlist on Spotify
[00:00:00] Nikki Ivey: We're approaching it from this very technical, how can I diagnose and identify, right, where I lost the pitch, right, where I said the wrong thing? We're gonna need to listen more closely to every single thing, every single data point that those buyers are giving us in those conversations as to what that persona responds to in a buying process.
[00:01:04] Ashley Coghill: Welcome to another episode of Ashley and Katrine's Infinite Revenue Playlist.
[00:01:08] Today, our guest is Nikki Ivey. Nikki, thanks for joining us today. Nikki has a ton of experience in sales.
[00:01:16] She's been everything from an SDR all the way up to a CRO. She has over a decade of sales experience with focus on building community. She loves to talk about culture, career progression.
[00:01:28] And at the end of the day, Nikki is passionate about helping salespeople get better at their jobs.
[00:01:33] Nikki Ivey: It's true, everything you said is true. I'm, is this the part where I say my walkup song? I'm
[00:01:38] not sure. I'm Nicki Ivey and my walkup song is Circus by Britney Spears.
[00:01:44] Katrine Reddin: First of all, that song is a banger, but why is that your walkup song?
[00:01:49] Nikki Ivey: The thing about Britney Spears is a lot of her songs, the very first line, the very first line, like, she's telling you something that is just so confident, right? And so, like, unambiguously, I've got this, and the first lines of that song go, "There's only two types of people in the world. The ones that entertain and the ones that observe, well baby, I'm gonna put on a show,
[00:02:13] kind of girl don't like the backseat. Gotta be first," and I'm like, yeah, so.
[00:02:19] Katrine Reddin: This is why you're in sales.
[00:02:21] Nikki Ivey: Yeah.
[00:02:23] Ashley Coghill: Yep.
[00:02:24] Nikki Ivey: People sleep on Britney. It's pop music, but bars.
[00:02:28] Katrine Reddin: She's iconic, and I will say, I guess salespeople are all kind of show performers to an extent, so makes sense.
[00:02:33] Nikki Ivey: It's true, like, all eyes are on me in the center of the ring. Like, it, that's what the sales floor or an individual sales call can feel like, right? There's a spotlight, there's a microphone, and your choice is to own the room and make people feel the way they like to feel or let dead air ruin the whole thing.
[00:02:56] Don't be scared.
[00:02:57] Ashley Coghill: Yeah. I love that. That's a great choice. Nikki, you have had a very exciting and fun career, and I feel like we could make some more comparisons between this song and what you've done in your career. So, if you don't mind telling us a little bit about how you've done pretty much every role in the revenue space as a woman, that would be pretty awesome.
[00:03:18] Nikki Ivey: Yeah. I mean, I wish that I could say I was special, but I think, you know, that's only part of the story, I think, I think I'm more lucky than anything else, right, and for me, being able to have access to that, those lucky opportunities and lucky encounters required me to be more open to the idea that good things can happen to me than I was able to do for a while.
[00:03:46] You know, but that was sort of the turnaround for me was, like, wait a minute, I deserve good things. So, I guess what I'm saying is, step one was a mindset shift. I have these three themes, right? It is mindset, moxie, and magic. The mindset piece is what I just talked about, right?
[00:04:10] Stop telling yourself that, you know, you don't deserve the opportunities that you want, or you've made too many mistakes for that to still be an option for you. So, that has to happen before anything else can happen. Moxie is, you know, this level of gumption, this level of self-belief, right? That it's not really anybody else's responsibility to have besides you, right?
[00:04:34] It's great if they do believe in you, but it's, it's up to you. So, when you have that belief, that gumption drives you to do things outside your comfort zone and particularly in sales, that's the assignment a lot of the time, right? A lot of us, you remember your very first cold call. That was not
[00:04:53] my comfort zone, right? Pitting out. No, it's really, can I say that on this show?
[00:05:01] Ashley Coghill: You.
[00:05:01] Nikki Ivey: So, yeah, so, like, there's, there's that whole, that whole aspect of it. And then once you find that moxie, right, and start to, like, believe in, yeah, I'm dope, I'm tight, you know what I'm saying? Like, I, I'm the type that entertains and not observes, so to speak.
[00:05:15] That's when you find the third one. That's when you find your magic when you put all these things together, right? I've stopped convincing myself that things have to be hard, right? I take this, this is going to be really difficult and turn it into, this can be a lot of fun, right? So, you just, the, the, can be a lot of fun is not lying, but you're telling yourself these two things are not mutually exclusive.
[00:05:37] And then again, the moxi, I'm just gonna go in there and do it, and I can give examples of what that's looked, like, in a, in a second here and like I said then, then the magic, then people in my case, the mindset and the moxie drove me to start creating content and the magic happened when that started attracting people,
[00:05:56] you know, not people I necessarily wanted to sell to, but, you know, more importantly, people who I wanted to link arms within the sales community and the sales profession, 'cause, yeah, we've been through a lot, we've been through it, we've been through a lot, and, you know, it just didn't feel authentic to keep,
[00:06:17] you know, smiling and talking about subject lines when I knew we all just needed a hug and some time together. So, anyway, mindset, moxie, magic at a high level have been the themes that have sort of willed me through this path from SDR to, to CRO.
[00:06:33] Katrine Reddin: First of all, I love a three-step repeatable process, so we'll have to share that with everyone, but I think you brought up a really interesting point that, like, it doesn't make sense to keep talking about subject lines at this time. The sales industry, in particular, is rapidly changing and cold calling, and those classic outbound strategies are no longer working, right?
[00:06:54] People don't trust salespeople. We have a bad rep sometimes, and no one responds. Open rates are down, close rates are down, and I know that you, in particular, are very interested in talking about being fundamentally human in the sales process, which I think is more critical than ever right now,
[00:07:12] and I'd love to, love for you to speak to that a little bit of what you mean by that and how salespeople can incorporate that human element right now.
[00:07:19] Nikki Ivey: Yeah, I mean, we can't ignore the power and the pace with which generative AI is, you know, finding its, its home in our profession and in our, our workflows and how we do this business, I don't believe, you know, and, like, knock on wood, I don't believe that we are as close to the demise of the profession as people think, right?
[00:07:50] Because of those things, case in point, like, if, if you've ever actually tried to use, like, I don't know, like, a Chat GPT to, like, create, even to create, like, a LinkedIn post, the thing that it lacks is that humanity, the thing that it lacks is if I'm, if you were to, 'cause I've tried it, right? "Hey, write a post,"
[00:08:11] you know, take a look at this person, Nikki Ivey, right? And I give it, like, my LinkedIn profile and I say, "Check out anything you can find that she's written or that's been written about her and try and understand her writing style," right, and then it described to me my writing style. Once I got it to understand my writing style, then I asked, right, "Create a LinkedIn post right in the style of Nikki Ivey about X topic,"
[00:08:38] and it did, but very quickly when you read it, right, it was a great, it was well written, but when you read it, there's no me in there, and I'm not saying that, like, I think there are a lot of really good practical uses, right, for this, and, and I think those exist in sales. I would count things like Lavender, right,
[00:08:59] as a really good example of that, right, example of AI actually being helpful without replacing salespeople, but for me, as a buyer, I feel pretty confident about my ability to tell the difference between the two and I am totally turned off by something that feels generative.
[00:09:17] And so, if we know that a), it's all is not lost, right? Like, we don't need to compete with these things, we just need to differentiate from them. And so, what that does look like is just sort of taking some of the principles that we've already been practicing in sales to break through and be human
[00:09:36] and taking it a step further. So, for instance, the permission-based call opener, right? What we learned over time was that saying things like, "Hey, you know, is this a good time or hope you're doing well?" Or "How are you," at the beginning of conversations, that was being rejected by people that we were calling because it felt robotic,
[00:09:58] right, nobody does wanna hear you reading a script. So, we came up with this, you know, "Hey, you know, yes, it's a cold call, but do you have such and such seconds? Or do you wanna roll the dice?" And I think those are the precursors, right, to what it looks like to really be human, but the problem is all of us have been reading that, right?
[00:10:16] All, all the salespeople are using those now, and while they're so, while they're effective, we're gonna have to start now to think about different, even more human ways to say that. So, taking this, "Yes, this is a cold call. Do you wanna roll the dice?" Calling it out even further, right? And saying, "Yes, this is a sales call, but if we do it right, it doesn't have to feel like one.
[00:10:39] Are you up for it?" Right? So, there, it's a subtle difference. We still are asking for permission, and we still are doing this as a pattern interrupt, but we're doing it in a way that, so if something that was generative said that phrase, right, so it doesn't have to feel like one, chances are it would still feel like one, even if that phrase got someone into a conversation, but it's incumbent upon the us then as human beings, once we get that permission and we've
[00:11:08] sort of signaled in the least ambiguous way we possibly can that we're, like, real people. Then it's up to us to just actually have conversations, just actually drop whatever the veneer is, right, break the character, which is hard, it's hard because a lot of the way we learn in, in sales, is more rooted in science than it is in art and what I'm talking about is art.
[00:11:34] Katrine Reddin: I think sales, in general, is a combination of science and art, and if you lean too far one way or the other, you kind of lose that magic you were talking about earlier, and with, obviously, you know, the old school sales folks, they have, they're, they're set in their ways as we always hear with their openers and how they follow up and how they book meetings and whatnot,
[00:11:54] so what advice do you have for people that do want to incorporate that more human element in their outreach and really have authentic conversations versus those stiff traditional, you know, outbound cold call conversations?
[00:12:08] Nikki Ivey: I think first you have to, like, give yourself a break, right? I mean, it's this, it follows the same pattern, right? The same mindset, max, magic pattern, right, like, in the micro, give yourself a break and know that this is something that's gonna take practice. This is something like all other things in sales, right, that we're likely to fail at more than we went at, at first, at least.
[00:12:30] So, it's okay. It's okay if, if you've been doing these other things and all of us are, all of are, are sort of this forced evolution that's happening, but once you've sort of worked through that, don't be afraid to have role plays with your peers inside and outside of your organization because that's gonna be the lowest-stakes way to practice
[00:12:59] and it's absolutely necessary. You're just gonna have to do it. The reason why I say don't be afraid, like, I'm projecting it's me. I used to absolutely dread, dread role-play. "Why are we doing this? This is embarrassing." Like, with a leader, it was totally fine, totally fine, cool with a call review, but if I was sitting with my peers, right, because sales is competitive, I was like, if I do this wrong, I'll look weak, I'll look dumb, and even if everybody's super nice to me, like, I'll be, like, mm, there's Nikki. She tries, so I just.
[00:13:32] Katrine Reddin: There's really nothing harder than trying to role play with your, your peers at your company.
[00:13:37] Nikki Ivey: Oh my God.
[00:13:39] Katrine Reddin: You mess up, they know what the product should look like or what you should say about every little feature.
[00:13:44] Nikki Ivey: They know all of it. And then you always have that one character that just wants to, like, give you a much harder time than any prospect would on the cold call and it's, like, okay fam, that's not even in our objections to practice, but anyway. So, so there's, there's all of that, and I, I, so yes, step one, the mindset shift, step two,
[00:14:02] absolutely, like, develop within yourself and as much as you can among your peers, a culture of that kind of active practicing. And then, of course, right, as I mentioned a moment ago, reviewing your calls. One other piece that I think, and I'm, I'm working on something that I, I hope will help salespeople with this, but I think that, you know, in this journey that I took from SDR to CRO, I had very limited experience as a buyer,
[00:14:36] right, with buyers coming from an IC role into a direct-level role, right? Meaning I didn't under, get to really understand what that process was, like, outside of what I could, like, read or chat about with, you know, my leader, and then once I was on the other sort of side of the table and I'm, you know, the one who's receiving the cold calls, I'm the one who's sitting through the,
[00:15:04] the demos, well then a lot of stuff just became very clear, very clear. Oh, I see why, now I understand why it's not effective when I say that, now I understand why it makes people hang up when we enter the conversation this way. Why? Beyond the science, right? Why? Just in this sort of human emotional way, that empathy is now built-in.
[00:15:28] It's incredibly difficult to do that if your experience with buyers is always, right, just, "I'm an SDR, I book meetings with them, and that's what I know about my ICP." So, anyway, the, the, what I'm talking about, this instructive thing that I think we're gonna have to do, is, you know, when we listen to calls, yes, we're, most of the time, we're looking to hear what we said, right?
[00:15:52] We're looking, we're approaching it from this very technical, how can I diagnose and identify, right, where I lost the pitch, right, where I said the wrong thing? We're gonna need to listen more closely to every single thing, every single data point that those buyers are giving us in those conversations as to what that persona responds to, right,
[00:16:15] in a buying process. So, for me, that'll be the third one. So there's the mind shift. There is this practicing and not being afraid to role play, and then there is just digging in as much as you possibly can to what your buyer's, you know, processes are, what their habits are relative to how they interact with salespeople.
[00:16:36] There's really no other way to get there and, you know, look, I do it sequentially, right? I say mine's moxie, magic. But the thing is, if what you specifically right now need to focus in on, it's just, hey, I wanna know them better. Just start showing up at their web webinars, right? If there's a webinar for marketers and you sell to marketers, go and see what kind of questions these marketers are asking around this specific problem
[00:16:58] that is the topic of the, of the webinar. You don't even have to, like, talk to anybody if you don't want to, although, it can be fun in the chat, right, and instructive, but, like, that's what it's going to have to take. I'm, I implore us, salespeople, to lean into that radical humanity.
[00:17:15] Katrine Reddin: Me too, and I think it goes hand in hand with social selling, which I know Ashley is really good at. Like, I see Ashley all the time attending events where other salespeople that could be potential buyers are, I see her interacting on their posts and commenting back or creating content that's relevant to them
[00:17:34] and I have no doubt that they trust you more as a buyer because you're putting your authentic self out there, like, this is a real person that understands me and people buy from people. We hear that term all the time, and I think, if you can show your humanity that you're not an AI bot, right, that's just generating what they think they wanna hear, I think you're gonna do so much better as a salesperson.
[00:17:56] You're gonna outperform everyone else on your team who's not doing that.
[00:17:59] Nikki Ivey: Yeah, Katrine, that's such a good point. I love that you draw this connection between that and social selling, it's actually part of, you know, the other part of the answer, right, as to, okay, well, how does one go from SDR to CRO? It's taking a holistic view of every piece of the go-to-market function and understanding that, that interconnectivity is actually, like, where it's at,
[00:18:22] it's, it's not as simple as this buzzy conversation, like, you gotta have sales and marketing alignment. No, no, no, no, no, no. You gotta have go-to-market alignment. You gotta be able to look at this, like, these are our revenue operations, they do not actually happen in silos, and that's why we can't perform those jobs inside,
[00:18:41] not just because of, like, the company culture impact, which, yes, is real, but we ignore, right, the way that all of this stuff plays out if we do it separately. So, for me, for instance, right, I was on an SDR team and then had sort of outgrown that role, but there weren't any AE roles at this company and, you know, I had,
[00:19:07] the marketing team had taken notice of the content that I was putting out and I was very vocal about wanting to help, right, about encouraging them, hey, I saw that we, you know, we shared this one, whatever, that new PDF download I think is gonna go crazy in these streets, right? Like, so I was making these internal relationships with these departments that traditionally, right, we're not supposed to get along with,
[00:19:30] right, it's supposed to be, like, a whole choreographed knife fight, like in the Michael Jackson video Beat it. Like, but you know what? When we go against when, when we get against that grain, right? So, then I found myself on these marketing teams and it led me to these really interesting positions, right? At Sixth Sense, I was doing social, but actually also doing some kind of like recon for the BDR team, right?
[00:19:53] Meaning I'm a BDR and I've been trying to crack into this account and I'm like, oh, I just liked her tweet the other day. You know what I'm saying? Like, here's what she's talking about, let's try this to get in there, right? And I, this is a top-of-funnel social marketer position that I'm coming from there, right?
[00:20:09] And it led me to this place where, at the role just previous to, to where I am now, inclusive, whereas hired as a head of sales, and again, I got really interested in the value prop and how it's positioned on the website. I got really interested in, you know, what our, our walkthrough videos look like.
[00:20:28] Do we have a wow demo? Do we have these things? I'm getting excited about them and they're like, you know what? Since you seem to be interested in all of the things that impact revenue, right, just be the chief of it. So, so again, like it's, I'm not even, I can't make this stuff up, that's really what happened.
[00:20:44] I was just interested in all of these different functions. I learned as much as I could about, not just that they're interconnected, but why they're interconnected and what other parts of the business that, that touches, and then I just got excited about, well, you know, with this approach, who can I help?
[00:21:03] What impact can I make? You know, on the community of sellers, on how this job is done on elevating the, the profession, and here we are. I, I'm comfortable talking about myself, but I have to pause and say, like, I really do feel like, I'm like, and then I did this and that. I don't want, I don't want it to be like that.
[00:21:21] Ashley Coghill: But that's good. As women, we need to speak up a little bit more about that because it's hard for us. I mean, I'm generalizing quite a bit here, but I think what I've seen, and I know that from my own experience, it's harder for us to say, like, and I did this thing, and I'm really proud of it whereas our counterparts that are maybe not identifying as women do not, they don't even hesitate.
[00:21:44] They're like, check out this dope thing I did, I'm amazing, and I think you should own it, and during
[00:21:49] Katrine Reddin: our, and Ashley mentioned earlier that we host a monthly meetup with Gong called the Women in Revenue Meetup, and there was one session in particular that really sticks my mind in, in regards to this conversation where we were waiting for everyone to join. There's probably 15 women in there
[00:22:06] and instead of coming up with a, you know, fun icebreaker of, like, what's everyone doing this weekend? We were like, "Hey, why doesn't everyone go around and share something they accomplished this week?" And it was radio silent for, like, a solid minute, which seems like an eternity when you're on a call until finally someone's, like, "I'll go, I closed the biggest deal of my life yesterday," and we're like, "Why didn't you say that earlier?
[00:22:30] Like, that's insane. That's incredible." And then, finally, everyone started being like, "Oh, I finally got into this account that I've been trying to go after for two years." Like, these amazing accomplishments that these women were so scared to bring up. They were so nervous to brag about themselves, quote-unquote, and we were like, we gotta talk about this more.
[00:22:48] We gotta lift each other up and say, "Hey, you crushed it. You should be proud of yourself for becoming CROs simply because you were interested in all the different revenue functions, like, it's amazing."
[00:22:59] Nikki Ivey: Thank you. Thank you so much. I think, like, in a
[00:23:02] practical way, what's been difficult for me when it comes to that is not knowing how, like, just the words to say, how to answer or respond when someone is, there is a way to be able to take compliments and you kind of, for me, anyway, something I've had to learn
[00:23:19] and by learn, I mean I saw this TikTok the other day, or maybe it was an Instagram reel, and it was Lady Gaga, and she was saying that, she was saying like, when someone gives you a compliment, it is, it, a lot of the time it is what you just described, Katrine, that's, like, hmm, I did a thing, but Lady Gaga was like, hey, you know, when someone says that to you, say, you know, I worked really hard on it.
[00:23:43] It means a lot to me that you recognize that thank you, and I worked really hard on it, and I think it came out great. Thank you. So, I was like, oh, this is something that I can say beyond, "Thank you," right, or beyond, "That's nice of you to say," right? Because both of those, kind of, like you're saying, they reinforce this downplaying of it.
[00:24:04] So, with that, and then the other question that I have a hard time, like, specific to being, like, a woman in this industry, someone's trying to help me, like, trying to mentor me or trying to sponsor me. And they ask, they just broadly ask, like, "What can I, what are you, what can I help you with?" Right? And I'm like, "I know I need help,
[00:24:23] but, but I don't know what I need help with." So, like, the feedback was for both of us, right? The feedback is for the person who's a mentor to ask more specific questions and for me to have, like, a prepared pivot, not into necessarily what I'm gonna, like, I'm gonna tell everybody the same thing, but how do I get from,
[00:24:42] you know, I'm so glad this person is helping me, yay, yay, yay. Oh, shoot. They asked me a question about what they can help me with and it's so much stuff, you know? So, so it did, it's about, like, letting yourself get excited and confident about what you are working on. If what you are working on is some fabulous side hustle that's gonna become a unicorn someday,
[00:25:03] sure, right, talk about that, but a lot of the time, what you're working on could very well just be, doesn't make, doesn't even have to have anything to do with like, family. I'm, I'm working on time management. Do you know any, you know, what's worked for you, things like that. So, anyway, I digress a bit, but that's, that
[00:25:21] it's been a combination of all those things, like you've said, right? Understanding how to take compliments and then how to leverage, right? Really take and run with when someone's trying to help you.
[00:25:30] Katrine Reddin: So, what general advice do you have for a woman that's currently in an SDR or AE position and they want to become a manager, a director, and eventually a CRO? What can they do? Where can they start?
[00:25:43] Nikki Ivey: Start your Wow file today. One of the things that happens when you leave an organization as an individual seller is you don't have access to documentation of any of the things you did well. They're gonna ask you for it in an interview. Although, you know what I'm saying, right? So, what you should do ahead of time is decide what do I want, right?
[00:26:08] To be known for impacting at this organization, right? Step one, do that thing, and then step two, again, like, what does that look like? So, for me, as an SDR, I wanna be known for, you know, dollars in the pipeline. I want to be known for, you know, being a galvanizing force on a sales floor, right? How did I show up for folks?
[00:26:34] And I wanna be known for being, you know, coachable, being a person who is easy to work with on a team, beyond being able to motivate and inspire, right? Is there that give and take and so, if those were the goals and I knew that those were the things I wanted to demonstrate, now when I'm doing this work, I'm driven by something else.
[00:26:54] I don't just wanna hit quota. I want to be able to say, when I leave this organization, I put, I contributed a million dollars to pipeline at this last company, right, quarter over quarter I was, you know, consistently be counted on for this, and I delivered and then again, document those things, document any time your leader sends you a Slack, that's a kudos
[00:27:19] and a buyer has said something to you that was great, list the names of the companies, doesn't have to be the individuals, companies who you've closed deals with. The file doesn't have to be, like, a hard copy paper file, of course, but store these things someplace. And when you do that, the position you're in at that point, when you go to talk about a promotion is it is not conjecture.
[00:27:44] It is not just my opinion that I should be promoted, and I don't want you to do it just because you like me, right, I want you to take a look at this, right? I see you 'cause it's Taylor's oldest time. I've been in SDR for, like, two years, say, at this organization, and then I see, like, they have a job add up for an AE role,
[00:28:03] and I'm like, "But why are y'all hiring externally for this AE role? And I know I can do it." So, you're challenging those folks. You all are looking far and wide and spending money trying to find someone to fill this role. Right? "Here, gaze upon my accomplishments in this Wow file. Here's what I've been giving you consistently, right, in the pipeline, here is what people who are working with me are saying
[00:28:28] and when I look at this job description that you put out for this AE, right, I'm seeing this alignment. Are you seeing that alignment? And if you are, what do you think about it?" You know, there's that moxie, but you know what I'm saying, right? Like, it really is gonna have to be this responsibility for you to do those things.
[00:28:46] I do this now, still, a lot of the time it's, it's shifted for me from being simply, you know, documenting metrics and things like that as far as why I hold onto those things and I do, I hold on to, you know, interviews like this, right? If I'm having a particularly down day, I'm not feeling confident,
[00:29:08] I'm not feeling moxie and my mindset is taking a beating, I go back and I listen to these conversations. I do go back and revisit things that, you know, customers, leaders, teammates have said to me that make me feel good about myself and I remember that I'm that person still, right? So, again, start with the Wow file,
[00:29:30] if you really are trying to make progress, be as detailed as you can, right? Draw as many parallels between the next role that you want and what you're doing now, so that, you know, they're gonna really have to, like, give you reasons, right? When they, if they tell you no because you've got an airtight case for yourself.
[00:29:51] Katrine Reddin: Here's a little bit of a, a loaded question for you to follow up from that. What if you have all of the proof, you have the numbers, the stats, the statistics, the experience and you still don't get it to someone who, let's say, is not a woman in revenue or sales and it goes to someone else?
[00:30:11] Nikki Ivey: Does that happen? Are they doing that?
[00:30:13] Katrine Reddin: Oh, I don't know.
[00:30:15] The time is old as hell, apparently. Do you have any advice for women that are experiencing that, or they feel like they're like beating their head against the wall? Like, what more can I do to prove that I am I, I'm the perfect fit for this role?
[00:30:29] Nikki Ivey: Yeah, I mean, there's a part of that answer that is unfortunate, but that the numbers bear out, right? The numbers bear out, that, you know, women are opting for entrepreneurial endeavors because that is the wall that they hit and the, the reason why that wall stands is because it is incredibly difficult to prove that it's happened to you.
[00:30:56] So, when it does, and you're sure that it has, that person or that party that's, that is doing this to you, like, it's a whole thing, a whole process to hold them accountable for that, right, like, a whole, like, investigation type piece and respectfully, it could be exhausting for some people, right? So, if you don't feel like you can take that kind of recourse, right, which you were totally justified and, and do and I would if I were able,
[00:31:26] but if you don't feel like you could take that recourse because maybe again, you don't have proof or you don't have the, the resources, like, my girl Gabrielle Blackwell said, you gotta vote with your feet because, and do not be afraid to tell that story, you can tell that story without dragging that particular organization,
[00:31:43] but tell that story, right? Like, and it will be really obvious that the recruiter that you go to work with, right, which is what I would do in that case, I would go find an executive recruiter or a recruiter that fills the kinds of roles that I want, I would show them this Wow file, and I would say, yeah, I know they passed their loss, and that person is going to be really excited about helping you find a place that will respect you and believe in you enough to go outside of the status quo,
[00:32:17] right? If I could guess, if I could suppose at the sort of foundation on which these types of things happen, right, people being passed over in ways that look very much like it has to do with their status as a member of a protected group, right, women, LGBTTTQQIAA, a black, whatever it is, right?
[00:32:36] So, like, if I, the reason why that happens, especially in the down economy, I think, is because folks are trying to mitigate risk and in a way that they're often not conscious of hiring a person who is different from the types of people that have made you successful so far, feels like a risk. Now what we know is all of the data says that it's in fact not,
[00:33:09] right? In fact, you stand to gain a lot more, but again, we're talking about a, an unconscious emotional reaction to the very idea of it. That is one that when I can, when I am in a position of influence, I challenge it head on 'cause I've been asked, I get, more than I care to really get into,
[00:33:32] right, or more than I wish was true. I have been asked the question, hey, you know, I'll say something like, "Oh, there need to be more women, right? I took a look, looks like there's not a lot of women on your team," right, and then you get "Mm, gonna hire the best people who are in the job," right, okay. But that's what I said,
[00:33:49] so, but, you know what I mean? Like, what? Think about that, think about the psychology of that, right? I've asked you why you didn't hire women and your answer is, "Because I want it the best," that's what you said, you see what I'm saying? Built into that is you believe there is a greater risk that a woman will not be the best.
[00:34:09] Then there is risk involved in the people like you've been hiring, that's the problem, but the way I challenge, just ask them, when is the last time you asked, right, do you want me to talk about the ROI of hiring a diverse group of people? When was the last time you asked for the ROI of hiring the archetype that's overrepresented there at your organization?
[00:34:35] I don't ask this aggressively because of what I really want. I feel this aggressively, but I don't, what I really am trying to do, right, is invite people, encourage them to think, because again, like, I'm willing to grant that these are unconscious things that people are just doing, not knowing that they're doing them.
[00:34:51] Like, personally, I know these folks, if they thought about it that way, It wouldn't even be, take them long to be like, "Oh, okay, yeah, I am, I am treating this like it's more, more risky," not that there's not gonna be ones that, you know, don't ever get it, but, you know, what's for them is for them. You know what I mean?
[00:35:10] And what's and what's for you is for you, yeah, so, that's, so that's what it is, right? When you see it, if it's happening to you and outside of taking, you know, any kind of, like, legal or, or official recourse, get out of there. You've got your Wow file, you've got now, have a plan to get out of there, 'cause I'm, I've been in a position, I'm a mother of four, right?
[00:35:28] Get out of, there is al not always that simple, but, you know, make yourself a plan to be able to get out and land on your feet and leverage people in your network, specifically folks that fill the kinds of roles that you want and, you know, be candid with them about what's happening to you and share with them why it is this other organizations loss.
[00:35:48] Ashley Coghill: That's.
[00:35:49] Nikki Ivey: Yay. I aim to be helpful.
[00:35:52] Katrine Reddin: Full of wisdom, Nikki.
[00:35:54] Ashley Coghill: I love it, so much wisdom and so much truth. Should we do our rapid-fire now?
[00:36:01] Katrine Reddin: We typically will wrap up the episode by shooting off rapid fire. Would-you-rather revenue edition questions? You don't have to think about them. You can just respond. If you would like to explain your answer, you're more than welcome to, but it's just a fun way of, of getting to know you a little bit better.
[00:36:18] Nikki Ivey: Okay, I'm just gonna have to answer 'em ‘cause if y'all see this, if I get to talking and explain it, we'll only get through one, so.
[00:36:26] Katrine Reddin: Nikki, would you rather close a ton of really small deals or one really large deal?
[00:36:33] Nikki Ivey: Send the small deals.
[00:36:35] Katrine Reddin: Would you rather build a full-blown outbound strategy or full-blown inbound strategy?
[00:36:40] Nikki Ivey: Outbound.
[00:36:41] Katrine Reddin: Would you rather spend a full day of cold calling or a full day of doing data entry?
[00:36:49] Nikki Ivey: Oh, cold calling.
[00:36:50] Katrine Reddin: Would you rather sell a product that you are super passionate about, but it's not built well, or would you rather sell a product that doesn't interest you, but it's built really well?
[00:37:01] Nikki Ivey: Oof. I have been in both situations. Hold on one more time. Gimme the options one more time.
[00:37:06] Katrine Reddin: Yeah. Yeah. Would you rather sell a product that you're really passionate about but it's not built well? Or would you rather sell a product that doesn't interest you, but it's made very well?
[00:37:18] Nikki Ivey: I think it'll have to be the not-built-well one, and I know, I know, I know, right?
[00:37:22] Katrine Reddin: I agree.
[00:37:23] I agree.
[00:37:25] Katrine Reddin: You can’t sell something you're not passionate about. You know?
[00:37:27] Nikki Ivey: That's the part in, if I'm supposed to be human, I need to be able to empathize with the people that I, that I work, you know, that I sell to specifically with their problems and if I don't know or particularly care about their problems, I'm going to not be as successful.
[00:37:42] We can always fix the what's broken with the product, right?
[00:37:46] Katrine Reddin: Yeah. We'll just hound that engineering team, right? Come on, guys.
[00:37:50] Nikki Ivey: “It's on the roadmap.
[00:37:51] Katrine Reddin: In a year, I swear.” No. All right. Final would-you-rather a question. Would you rather have to give a pep talk to your team only using Peppa Pig quotes, or would you rather have to run a lap outside every time a deal on your team falls through?
[00:38:10] Nikki Ivey: Yeah, we're gonna go with Peppa Pig.
[00:38:13] Katrine Reddin: You're a mom of four. I was expecting that answer.
[00:38:15] Nikki Ivey: Yeah, like, there's that, there's the mama-four aspect of it. You gotta respect Peppa Pig, but also, like, I was born in 1981. I'm at the point in my life where I get winded, okay, all right. So, so she's not running laps. We're not doing that.
[00:38:30] Katrine Reddin: You gotta work on that British accent then next time.
[00:38:34] Katrine Reddin: Well, Nikki, thank you so much for joining us today. You are seriously such a source of information and wisdom and advice. I know everyone that's listening today is really gonna appreciate your thoughts and all your tips on having mindset, moxie, and magic and how they too can progress in their careers and we really appreciate you being here.
[00:38:55] Nikki Ivey: Yeah, this was so fun. You two are delightful, and I'm, I'm excited to watch the progression and success of what you all are doing with this show. It's great.
[00:39:04] Katrine Reddin: Awesome. Thank you so much.