Jacob Warwick: belief

Transcript context

…I like this framing you're referencing here for product people of this idea. You're basically trying to position yourself the way you position a product, kind of the value prop of the... Basically as a product team, you're trying to sell people on, here's why this product is worth paying money for. And you do that by understanding you do use research, you understand their pain points, you understand how to position it so that you make it clear this will solve your pain point. Essentially, that's what you're describing from when you're interviewing, is think about it that same way. The part I don't want to gloss over is making it frictionless. So interviewing is a skill on both sides. Most people don't know how to interview very well. It's tell me about yourself. Tell me about this product you built. Tell me about that, how that looked. You don't get anywhere talking about the past. You might build credibility and all that great. You don't start solving problems in that process. So they're like, "Okay. Well, I saw that." Now you're going to go onto the next person. They're going to do the same crap. Same thing, same thing, same thing. So you repeat your story, ad nauseum, and you never learn anything and you never grow. So how do we make this frictionless? Well, I want to make it cognitively easier for you to have a conversation with me by leading. That's why I had that framework I was talking about earlier like, "Why am I here? What are the problems you have? I suspect it's this. What have you done about it? What would it look like if we solved it?" Now, I'm taking so much of the pressure off of you. I'm controlling the narrative and I'm collecting more information while revealing none about my comp expectations. And what I'm focused on is creating as much value as possible. Now there are situations where companies don't have the budget. This isn't a miracle drug kind of thing, but I'm making it frictionless to at least get to the part where they want you. That's the first step. They have to want you for you to have any leverage. Then even in the interview processes, I might say, "Hey, Lenny. I suspect the next person I talk to from your ecosystem is Marc Andreessen. Can you give me some advice on how I should work with Marc? I want you to coach me on how to deal with Marc." That's going to make it more frictionless. Now, I also want to put you in a position to be a coach because coaches want their players to succeed. So if I'm having you coach me psychologically, you're going to go talk to Marc and you're going to say, "Hey, Marc, you're going to have to talk to Jacob for all these reasons." Then when I talk to Marc, I get to say, "Lenny shared that I should talk about X, Y, and Z thing. Is that really what you care about? " I'm making it frictionless across the process and I'm closing the next part of the conversation regardless of whether you wanted me to introduce me to those other people or not. So you might say... Let's say you're interviewing for product role. I suspect you want me to talk to the head of engineering. I suspect you want me to talk to Clay, the VP of marketing, and I suspect you want me to talk to Catherine, the VP of sales. What would you like me to say to them? What's the message you want me to share?" And they may not have had them in the interview process in the cycle, but I'm putting them in the cycle. I'm making it easier for you to know who to introduce me to next. And then I'll even go as far as saying, "I'm not available again until Thursday. What's the chance that time works?" hem in the cycle. I'm making it easier for you to know who to introduce me to next. And then I'll even go as far as saying, "I'm not available again until Thursday. What's the chance that time works?" So I'm building scarcity about my time. I can meet with this VP then, but I'm making myself stickier in the organization. I'm getting more knowledge about what people need. So this is similar to selling an enterprise deal. You're building champions in the organization that love you and they're all coaching you on how to coach you to work with each other. So you're getting the inside scoop on how to navigate that. That's how you become hyper valuable. You need to create that leverage if you want to take that standard 20% we talked about and make it 40 or more. That's why it starts much sooner because if you're not doing that, if you come to me and you're like, "Jacob, I have an offer," I can get you maybe 40. If you come to me sooner, I might've elevated that initial offer 40 without you knowing it and then we moved it even further. So it's a big process that we need to be mindful of.…

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