Mentorship, Motivation, and Moving Up in Sales with Travis Cox

Welcome to the "Dear Future CRO Podcast" powered by GrowthQ. In this episode, we delve into the compelling career journey of Travis Cox, Global Vice President of Sales at HeroDevs, detailing his transition from big corporations to medium-sized companies, and then to the vibrant world of startups, all driven by his goal to become a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). 

Join us as Travis shares invaluable insights from his diverse experiences — from finance to sales leadership, and his strategic role at HeroDevs, where he significantly influences the company's rapid growth. Throughout his illustrious career, Travis has emphasized the critical importance of continuous learning, mentorship, and betting on one's own abilities. He'll enlighten us with his proudest initiatives in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and explain how stepping out of his comfort zone has been pivotal in steering towards success. 

Tune in as we untangle the insights and advice from Travis, providing a roadmap for current and aspiring CROs to bet on themselves and thrive in their careers.

GrowthQ is on a mission to unlock human potential.

GrowthQ is an AI-powered career navigation platform matching ambitious individuals with ideal roles, mentors, and career development resources all while allowing employers to apply to you. GrowthQ's AI-Assistant, Gigi, even uses data and AI to guide you on your dream career path.

Start navigating your career with our AI Assistant, Gigi at https://beta.growthq.co/

Follow us on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/company/growthq

Transcript

0:41

Growth Q Community. You know exactly why we're here. I am so excited about this next guest. Every time I get a chance to meet incredible leaders who are purposeful about their career journeys, I have to hear how they did it, why they did it, what they're doing. And Travis Cox is one of those leaders. Travis, thank you so much for taking this time with us. I wanted you to be on this show because you are on a path to CRO and you are being intentional about every role you take along your career journey from large companies to medium companies to startups and observing different types of CROs to take tutelage from. And that's exactly why we wanted to have you on the show, Dear Future CRO. So Travis, thank you so much for taking this time. Thank you. I'm grateful for the opportunity to be on this show and looking forward to talking to you today. Awesome. So if you wouldn't mind for our listeners, can you give us first off what you're doing, talk about your role today, but give us how you got here. Like, let's start from the beginning. Give us the career journey of how you got to where you are today. Yeah, I'll start with, uh, really, uh, for me, our transformation took place when I was working at a bank. I had a, a leader. I'll never forget her. She, she did a lot for me and really helping me as I started stepping into like corporate America and really navigating through the process. But she was really the first thing she ever did to me that really, you know, it really just kind of was an open experience for me. I typed up something, I sent it to her and she sent it back. And when she sent it back, she, it was almost as if I was in grade school. She had a strikethrough things in red and she, she corrected my email and sent it back and then shortly after she sent it back, she followed up with a conversation and she said, Travis, you, everything you do, you have to do with excellence. Because you never know when something that you're doing is going to end up on the CEO's desk. And what you sent me today, I don't think you want that to go on CEO at the time of the bank was Kelly King. And it opened my eyes to a different world. And it was everything that we did together. And she taught me it was about doing it with excellence. And making sure that it is your best work. So if that meant. Travis, you proofread it three times before you send it out. Then Travis, you proofread it three times before you send it to me and not making me feel as if I'm doing your work for you. And so really that helped me to develop an eye where I'm really like laser focused on detail and really paying attention and making sure that whatever I send out, no matter how urgent it is for that, the receiver, Making sure that I am comfortable and I have put out a finished product. And if someone sent something to me, then that I am the person that touched it last and I'm sending it out to someone else, making sure I look through it because it's no longer the original sender's responsibility. It's now my responsibility to make sure that grammatically everything works well. I'm not in my sentence with prepositions. And so that's where I developed, uh, and then from there, it led me to Cisco and I got to get Greg Bouldin, Melissa, Holder credit, uh, for helping me and even Connie at, Cisco credit, because they were mentors for me there and helped me to navigate my career. And early on, I let them know when I was going through the process, that being in leadership was something that I wanted to do, like I wanted to be a leader. So Greg and I would spend a lot of time together and he would teach me. You know, different things as far as like close, close, right. What in the world is that? What is close rate? What are we talking about here? But that's how, how well you are at getting the opportunity, driving it through your sales process and actually closing it. So all the opportunities you get. What is your close rate? And so he, he opened my eyes to like a different world. And, uh, Melissa Holder was, it was instrumented as well, working with me and see, uh, through connected black professionals that at Cisco and giving me an opportunity to really understand how to meet people on different parts of the business, because regardless of what I want to do, you become more valuable as a leader if I understand how different things, different parts of the business work. So I. I went into renewals first, a transition from renewals and went into service providers. So I was a renewals account manager. Then I wanted to understand how to be in the driver's seat. How do you go out and create these opportunities, new land opportunities? And so I did that. And from there, I transitioned into where I was reading the tea leaves and I understood that Cisco was becoming a software company. So it was like, I want to be on the side of software. And I got under a guy named Devin Williams, who really Just took everything that I learned and you know, he just stretched it that much farther, like really helping me to understand more than I, I've ever known about sales. And that really helped me how to prospect how to go out and create these opportunities because As a seller, if you can go out and you can get someone's attention, which is hard, and that is a really good skillset, but how can you complete stranger, get someone's attention by sending them an email and making a phone call or connecting with them through social media. And so I learned how to do those things, talking about the value. So really understanding value selling. And I had opportunity in my career to work with all these people, and I'm grateful that they saw something in me. That allow them to say, Hey, I want to help this person elevate his career. And so I would be a idiot to say it was all me by myself, but it was, it was the network of people who saw something in me and saw that I wanted something different and I never hesitated to let people know what I wanted. So when they get you going through the interview process, where do you see yourself in three to five years leadership? That's where I see myself, but making it be known versus I used to try to take this organic approach and I'm gonna wait until the right moment to meet someone. It's going to happen, but deciding to take my career and saying, no, I am going to tell you what I want to do. And then I'm going to do it. And so everything I did was by design. Like I wanted to. Learn the, I learned a commercial side. I learned the public sector side, I learned the application side, and then that helped me to step out. And I got, uh, Connie Dimitrov is another person that was my mentor who was teaching me about the partners and working on that side. And so I had a lot of people who would spend, you know, any amount of time that I would ask them, you know, Hey, I want to, I want to learn, I want to learn. And so. That, that helped me to, to have the confidence in myself, but then at the same time, I'm always, uh, I'm just a student. So I took notes and I still have notes from when I first started that I go back to and I referenced because it helps me. And then it helps me to see how much growth I've had. Like I'm measuring myself against my, against myself. Like, uh, one verse that I always like is let me run with endurance, the race that was designed for me. And so focusing on Travis, as opposed to what, Hey, my peers, he's up there. What's, what's taking me so long? Well, that race wasn't designed for me, but this race is. And so how can I, in my race, get to where I'm trying to get. And that destination of being a CRO is one thing that I want. And so when I was at, uh, went to the startup world, I jumped in the data robot, I got a chance to, to learn from Parm Bhoopal, who is, who's Just a brilliant mind. He knows so much about tech sales and he, and it was incredible because he would spend time with me, you know, all the time, 30 minutes, an hour, just walking me through like the sales process, what to look for, how to know if a deal is fake, just by looking at it before you even dig into it. This is how you can tell if this is a real deal or not. And it was, you know, working left to right from there. Like here's, here's where you want to start, work your way back across or right to left, work your way back across. And so those are a lot of things I did in my career was making sure no matter where I went, let people know what I want. And not being unapologetic about it. Like, this is where I want to be. And if someone thought that, hey, well, you're not going to get that here, then maybe that's not the right place for me. But at the same time, while I'm here, I'm going to learn as much from you as I possibly can, because I understand that as I transition and go to the next thing, that skill. And the style and the things you showed me are only going to make me much better. And so those were the things I did to try to do that. And I did the same thing when I went to the next startup, which was, I went from being a, a commercial inside sales leader to enterprise sales leader, because I had understood how to work with those larger accounts and I could demonstrate that. And so I led a team and my team there. Was very successful through all the stuff that I learned from my career. And so my thing is always everything you're learning, you, you, I talked to someone today, you've always got to be curious. You've always got to be asking questions because the better I understand why you're telling me why this is important, the better I can start applying it to the things that I'm doing. And then as I start having more questions, I can come back to you and say, well, look, I tried it. I don't really understand why this is important. And so that allowed me at that point, because I was leading a big team for multiple millions of dollars to then approach this VP of sales role, because I understood at that point, I was ready to take the next step in my career. And now not only just lead a team, because when I was at big Panda, I tend to take on more responsibilities. What else can I be doing to help out and making sure they understood that it's not going to take away from my day job. Like I'm still going to do my work and I'm still going to do it with excellence, but I want to learn more. And so when I was at big Panda, I started leaving the entire East from an enablement standpoint, which led to other opportunities, talking to people about deal reviews and, you know, sellers reaching out to me for advice on how they can start running some of their opportunities, how they can start, you know, getting better, uh, Getting better, like deal progression because they would get stuck. And I, all this stuff was just a combination of things I learned through all the people who didn't mind spending time with me to get me to this point. And so then I just started, you know, pass that knowledge on to like the different teams to help to elevate those individuals. So that's a little bit about my career journey and the things I did to try to help them. You know, put myself in a different, in a different space than some of my peers. Talk about running your own race. Can I just, for a second, because I need people to understand this background because you're, you're incredibly modest. You started out in finance, in the financial industry, granted, you did a little stint in HR, but you started out in the financial industry. You talked about, you talk about the banks. You worked at some. You know, very credible financial institutions before pivoting into sales. Then when you don't go into your sales stint, you get right in with like. Virtual sales. Like I'm gonna understand the brass tacks and that's where you find incredible mentors who are open to pouring into you and helping you understand. The basics, right? Understanding the language, understanding the metrics. Then you take a leap into owning your own accounts. Then you take the leap into, all right, I think I've got it here. Let me see if I could do it at a software company. And here, like you mentioned, um, around the relationships you've had with certain mentors and really great sales leaders who taught you things like medic and talk to you how to understand and read. A sales process. You then were like, all right, I take my experience at a software company at data robot, let me go and implement that in another one at big Panda, and now you're looking at not just, you know, smaller, um, no, it's a transactional business with smaller business, call it commercial, smaller size companies to let's get an enterprise, larger accounts, globals, different types of sales cycles. Putting a lot of that to the test and at the same time taking on a ton of extra responsibility, right? And like asking for, uh, stretch assignments and getting, uh, like you mentioned, I'll take on sales enablement for the East. No big deal. Let's see how that looks. But that further gets you the ability to learn new things, take on and cover things for your leader where they need help. Um, and you get to really stretch your leadership. And now you're at, you're at Herodev and I would love to understand what your day to day is now as like global VP of sales at, at Herodev. Like talk for those who don't know what Herodev is first, what is Herodev? And then. Walk us through what your day to day is like. Absolutely. Great question. So, yeah, Hero Devs was definitely a different, a different company than anything else I've ever done. And so what we're doing here is we're, we're basically extending the life of software that's going into life. So, It's life after end of life. All software is just like everything. At some point, it comes to an end. And so, uh, for companies that open source software, it's amazing. You can get it. It's free. It can help you do your day to day, your job. But at some point, they're going to decide, the maintainers of that software are going to decide, Hey, we're moving on to do another version. We've got some new things we want to do. We're on to the next version. Or they just, hey, they get tired of doing this and there's no one left to maintain that software. That's where we step in. We offer never ending support. So whatever that, that software version you're using today that's going into life, AngularJS, Drupal, To name a couple, like Drupal 7 is going to life. We say, Hey, look with us, we give you extended support for as long as you want to use it. So you can continue using that because that migration debt that companies are stuck with when it's time to move on, that's a big cost. And some companies, one is it's the time, the resources, and then you got to have the budget to do it. And so it may not be feasible. And so that's what we do at Hero Devs is we say, Hey, you know, We can extend the life of that for as long as you want to use it. If you say 10 years, whether we have a thousand people on a one person, as long as somebody needs it, we'll have it supported. And we give you basically the same thing you're using today. You're forking it, you're using ours and you still can use it. So that that's, uh, it's, it's a really cool company. And like what we're doing, you would be surprised the number of people. Like, it's like one of those things that is so obvious out in front of us, but nobody Decided to address this until our founder, Aaron Frost decided to address it. And now we we've got almost 600 customers that are currently using our software. And we really, we just came to market in 2021 with the product. Within the last two and two years and some change, uh, two and a half years. Yeah, we've got close to 600 customers. It's been a bit amazing. And then since I, uh, the reason I joined was because originally it was engineers running it because we worked with a lot of front end developers, full stack developers, architects. And so the company was founded by engineers and they did really, they did an amazing job selling like the first year it just went, went crazy. They sold over 11 million the first year. And. Uh, it's just been going up from there. And then, uh, but the thing is we never had a formal sales process. And so I came in to bring that formal sales process. So my day to day is crazy. Like I, I love big companies. I love the medium size and I found that I really like this as well because, uh, versus just being a part of what is already happening. I get to be a part of shaping the future for what is going to happen. And so what we're doing now, what I'm doing now is, uh, I've got sellers on my team. I'm adding more sellers to our team. So I get to oversee all sales channels and we're working on a channel program. We've already, I signed a partner up for our channel program back in August of last year was the first partner that we signed up to be a part of our channel program. But my day to day, as it goes now is, um, really working with the team to help them understand. How to sell in this space and how to, you know, find the right people and the right type of messaging that we need to get to those people so that they see the value in what we do. Because a lot of the sales that we were doing before was inbound. So everything was coming via the partnerships we were forming with those open source authors. And what I'm doing now is we still have those partnerships that we form. That's, that's important, but I'm also working on outbound sales. So we didn't have any outbound sales until I joined. And, you know, when I joined in June, we closed our first outbound sale in August. And then we finished a year, we closed 620 something thousand outbound sales. So this is a company we never had outbound sales. We closed that much. And since August, we closed almost a million dollars in outbound sales, which I know for some people, Oh, that doesn't seem like a lot, but for the product we're selling, we only had two products. So it's only have like these two products and it's, you know, two products that are going into life that is, it's, it's, it's, it's incredible to get to that amount and we've got more coming and we only had two people doing it and really you couldn't dedicate full time to that. Now I've got an SDR on my team. We've got more sellers. We've got I've come in and I put more structure in place because before they weren't we weren't doing a really good job of following up with people. So now I have things in place where if you have an opportunity, I need us to go with something close immediately after we finish those conversations, we get a recap email to them. Within, you know, by the end of the day, because we have, we just depend on how many meetings you have, you may not be able to get it right after you finish that call, but by the end of the day, make sure you get that follow up out to them and make sure you're going with us something close, go ahead and get them our order form, go ahead and get them our one page on our product and talk to them about next steps. So no more waiting around to see, let me get that. And then follow up with them within the next five to seven days. I need you to follow up and see what things are. We already know, Oh, we've got to have internal conversations, but you can't wait for someone to get back to you. So get back to them. So we're working on strategy. I joined our, our, uh, CFO of CFO calls to talk about like how much it costs us to do sales and just going through all our financial numbers I'm working on our channel program, trying to grow that, adding partners to that. I had a conversation this week with another partner that we think we can bring on board. And we're going to have another conversation with someone else we can bring on board. And, uh, it's making sure my team has the right tools, making sure they have the right. So we do a weekly, uh, weekly, uh, uh, prospect check ins like, uh, uh, pipeline generating check ins so that we just make sure not me trying to micromanage, but just making sure that we are doing what we said we were going to do from an outbound perspective and that our messaging makes sense. Making sure my team has. Set up a PG plans, which is a pipeline generating plan. So how are you going to go out? Who are you targeting this week? Who are the like companies, who are the people within the organization you're going to target and why? And I'm asking my team to really not just focus on VP level above, because sometimes those people are busy and I see that now how busy you could be. That sometimes you have to start at a lower entry point, but that person can help you get higher up in the organization because. Sometimes I get so many emails, I just don't have time and it's not as important as something else that we're doing internally. So, yeah, that's some of my day to day and, you know, having meetings because we have a processional professional services team. So, just making sure my team's doing their part to help with professional services, making sure my, you know, we, as a team are adhering to our sales process and any junk that we have out there. I don't like pipeline congestion because that's just going to slow us down. So how can we move? Things through the pipeline faster so that we can get to the deals that are actually going to be people who want to, you know, get our support. So that's mainly what my day to day looks like. It's a lot of just overseeing and making sure that we are moving things through. And I've got every dashboard you can imagine. So I can check my team close rate, not just as a team, but down to the individual. And for each stage, we've got, you know, stage two through five. I want to see. How are you moving people through that pipeline? And if we're getting stuck, why are we getting stuck? And then seeing if I need to step in. So I'll try everything for that. What do you use to track all of that? So we, we weren't able to do it through like we use HubSpot and we couldn't do it through there. So we use a report called Domo and I built all these reports out through all the stuff that I mentioned earlier that I learned so that I can track everything from how long it take us to close a deal, uh, for each product to, like I said, the close rate to, you know, you throw a stat out and, and we're, and I'm looking at that stat, you know, for my team, because. Anything that can, that I can go back to that's a piece of data that I can say, uh, here's a, here's a, a, a coaching point based on the data that comes over better than I'm using conjecture like, oh, I feel like this, but no, we're using facts and data to lead this team because that's all I can go by and that's going to tell the story. And then if we need to change anything, we can change those things. And the facts and data reflect that. I love that you shared the importance of focusing on the data and the facts, because there is a science to this profession. Ladies and gentlemen, it's not just the really cool person who can make all the relationships. There is a science to this profession and having the visibility into that data to know how to make certain decisions. Updating your team, getting finance involved, product leadership, professional services, feedback. I mean, there's, there is a lot of data science behind doing this profession, um, right and in the right ways. And I love, love, love that you gave the breakdown and how you do that. I'm going to jump to this next question because if you leave it to me, I'm going to, I could dig, dig more into, um, exactly the science. So can you talk about, if you look across your career, what is one thing? Pivotal career stretching moments that you've had that you said, because of this happening, it helped my career grow in this way, or I learned X. Yeah, I would say, uh, that that move was stepping out of my network because you, you're so comfortable in your network. You know, everybody, they know you, they know how you work. And you feel this sense of comfort, kind of like a baby with their favorite blanket. But stepping out of that network where people don't know you and being able to still achieve success. To me, when I left the group, because when I was at AppDynamics within Cisco, I was a part of this group. I went to DataRobot with that same group. And then I stepped away from that group of, you know, people and went into BigPanda where I didn't know anyone. And so, of course, naturally, people are like, you don't want to do it. You know, you're going to go out and fail. And so, if you look at my latest LinkedIn post, it's basically saying, don't be afraid to be One thing was, don't be afraid to be the only one, only person of color, only woman, only man, or whatever the case may be. And so for me, not being afraid to, to step out there and saying, like I said, my, my definition of failure is a lot different than some people's like, you know, for me, uh, failure is, you know, it's just, Hey, I successfully figured out how not to do something. That's the way I look at it. And so I took that because I felt like I needed to get that enterprise. Experience as far as, as a sales leader on my resume, because I knew if I did that, there were, there were no jobs within the, on within the sales community that I could not do. I could do any job from a sales perspective because now I've done it at the highest level. So you can no longer, Hold that over my head. Well, you haven't done it at this level. Well, I have now. And so that to me was the biggest, uh, most pivotal moment in my career, because it's easy, like I said, to get comfortable and to stay. And what I've found is if people know you're good, They don't want you to leave because they know you're good and they want you to stay there So you can keep doing those good things for them versus betting on yourself and saying hey I don't care what the outcome is I don't care what what people say or what they think if it doesn't work out I'm in this to prove myself right more so than trying to prove somebody else wrong Because I know what I can do and I tell all my friends that I talk to now I've been in this body, you know, 40 something years. And as far as like making like decisions and feel like I know how to make my own decisions, you can say, you know, since I was probably 18 or so. And so I believe that I can make, you make the right decision, you know, based on my abilities and no one knows me better than me. So why would I take Someone else trying to tell me, Oh, you, you can't do that. You're going to, you only know me for two years. How are you going to tell me what I can and can't do it? I've told myself plenty of much longer than that. So again, that's what it was just betting on myself and not being afraid to step out there and. Who cares if it doesn't work out, then that's just, I figured out, I figured out what didn't work. And the next time I'll, I'll do what works. Amen. What, what in your career, like, hold on, as a leader, you, you got a lot on your plate. How do you stay up to date? What do you listen to? Where do you go for learnings? What, what, what are you reading? What are you listening to? What's what's, what's your learning playbook? Yeah. So, uh, one, I, I wanted to form my own network of people. So, uh, Have people and they occupy every position from SDR at the bottom all the way up to CRO. And I make sure I spend time talking to all these people and in the car. You know, when I, sometimes I just need some tunes going just so I can just kind of space out. Cause it's been a long day, usually in the mornings to get me started for the day. I jump on, I downloaded this app called Blinkist. I like Blinkist because it basically is cliff notes on audio. So I can get the main parts of the book. And I, I listened to Blinkist and I get a lot of information from there I like to read. So I go to those books and I make sure I, you know, I educate myself and learn because I was just knowing that knowledge, knowledge is power. And it's been proven in my career. Like the more I've been able to. And then at the same time, make it so that it's applicable and easy for someone else to understand and digest. And so I always use like palatable, making sure it's palatable for someone else, then the better it's going to be for me. So, yeah, I, you know, like I said, sometimes I got to rock out in the car just because it's been a long day. But for the most part, just trying to listen to different information on what different people did, helps me out from a selling perspective and reading has helped me out a lot. And then forming my own network, you know, cause sometimes when you step out of certain networks, some people. They kind of kick you out the group. So, you know, you form your own group of people who, who like you for who you are and not for what you can do for them. And that's what I found is a good network of people who like me for who I am. And that's helped me out. So Greg and I, we still kick it. I still occasionally talk with Melissa and Connie as well, and just different leaders. To pick their brains. And because we all pick up different things. And so I know what I know, trying to figure out what, you know, Amen to that. What are you most proud of across your career? Uh, from a career standpoint, the one thing I'm really proud of is, uh, the people I've been able to help. You know, in, in all my roles and, and then help with no strings attached. And so my definition of success is not only what I can make happen for myself, but what I can make happen for other people. So that's what I'm proud of is the fact that I've been able to do that. And, uh, one thing that I'm really proud of is that data robot. I worked with, uh, Amy Hansen. And, a couple of other people to start a group called Beacon, which do it for black employees and allies changing outlooks. Now it was a employee resource group and I, and we got so many people within the company who got behind us outside of my culture. Now that, that was, that is something I am very proud of. And I still have all the stuff from a beacon and data robot. Because we put a lot of time into it and it came to fruition. And we had so many people reaching out and you just don't realize how many people who want to see you do well. Until you do something like that. And so everywhere I've gone now, I've joined a DEI and I've allied with pride and the different groups, women in tech, because I understand like everybody is, we want the same thing at the end of the day, and that's not to be painted by a broad brush. So how can I help someone else elevate? And not worry about how it's going to impact me. And so that's what I'm proud of. Oh my gosh. So many nuggets here. We have to close this episode I could stay on this for ages. Finish this sentence for me, dear future CRO. And what advice would you give to the listener? My advice would be bet on yourself and don't let anyone else tell you what you can be or what you will be believing in yourself and the things that you're doing. That people can't see and knowing that that's going to get you to where you want to be. But at the same time, don't feel like you have to do it by yourself. Find the people who you can hit your wagon to, or who are willing to help you out, because that's going to help you get to where you want to go. Amen. I am so, so grateful. You shared your story with us, Travis. Oh my God. So many learnings in this session. Thank you so very much. We're so glad you're on the show. No, thank you. I'm honored and I really appreciate the opportunity as to like, this is, this is, this has made my year, you know, so, uh, I don't think there's gonna be much that could talk this, this has been amazing. Like, to be a part of it.'cause I, like I said to you, I've been following you for a long time and I mean, you just super impressive. Everybody talks high of you. So to have this opportunity with you today. That means the world to me. So thank you so much for this opportunity. Just like you said earlier, we are all standing on the shoulders who have carried us before. So we got to continue to elevate other voices who are trying to do the same for the next generation, the next generation, the next generation. So huge. Thank you, Travis. Thank you. Yes, absolutely.