welcome to another episode of Glide chat my name is Mike Lombardo sitting here with John Griffin AK Griff yep director of New England commercial at service now what's up Griff great to be here so how long have you been at service now three years three years three years it just feels like that your territory is very much more organized you know everything that's going on I think your reps are like do you have a military background no no okay yeah you're very organized well Irish Catholic Family my dad was one of seven yeah that's just the way I was raised I was raised you have to have purpose in everything you do and when you show up you better put up yeah and I'm lucky enough to have a great team that we have built around us and are able to take and build upon the great Foundation that Hanny and Al and austa put in to our great customers it's like generations to this team it's crazy yeah this is I mean like service now obviously was started on the west but there's so much that was like so much leadership and so much like the first accounts were like really built here uh there's so much history in the on we we we're really lucky in just Boston Proper to have just foundational customers that have been with us for a long time and we we we struggle at times like oh we want to go after net new prospects and they're important but it's It's always important to make sure we take care of those key customers of ours exactly that that were first adopter yeah I was one of them I was one of them a Boston Medical Center thank you for your business any time yeah changed my life Chang changed my life I was like what's the service now thing where were you before service now EMC I was at EMC for about 14 years wow yeah what brought you to service now besides hannie uh so I worked with hany and yeah okay I just I didn't know a lot of guys for a long time and people had always said service down service down I remember sitting down with one of the old leaders in Hartford because I was in Hartford for a long time and it's 2013 2014 I'm said take it like I'm good I'm going to keep selling stories we don't get it we're transforming and I just I hadn't had my eyes opened yeah and when Dell bought EMC we had a lot of Transitions and I stayed because I kept on being given great opportunities and I had great leaders to work for and Dell's a terrific place to work yeah but it got to a point where hey I want to go do something new I want to try something uh and I'd stay in touch with hany and over the years as a mentor and I just kept on hearing this Buzz about service now it's more than just ticketing it's workflow and one thing led to another and Al and I met and we've had a we've had a great threeyear run so far and looking forward to the next 10 what I'll say about Al is Al is a phenomenal human being yeah literally day one end uh beginning of Q4 middle of pandemic I get in and I get all these shark camps and all these different zooms knock on the door there's two dozen white roses at my door from Mount Holland my wife so honest to God my wife's Blown Away my wife been uh now Dell at EMC for almost 20 years who is this Al guy Al's a phenomenal person you couldn't you couldn't find someone better to have your back wait so why did he send roses D wife just to make sure that she knew she was part of the service now Family wow so you so you came to service now what is so special about service now like why are our customers obsessed with it why are developers obsessed with it in your opinion you see it all the time like why why are you why what's your opinion yeah I think it's a couple different things he our culture hungry and humble you hear Bill talk about all the time from everybody in leadership we're lucky to have Kevin H and Tom Hanigan Al and Chris Irvin here in the office but no matter what office you walk into whether it's in DC or in Florida or Santa Clara it's just true and and our customers appreciate the fact that we're not afraid to go the extra mile for them and put them first and we always talk like a lot of companies do put your customer first put your company second put your team third and put self last and that truly is what's great about service now because we don't just talk about it we actually do it yeah and the customers just love the the fact that they can have one platform at that customer this morning yeah he said you guys are you keep doing right by me and our competitors we won't talk about yeah they keep trying to get more and more and you see the long-term Vision yeah that's key and my response is you guys see the long-term vision and you see it because you know all the things you can do with our platform it's just about our teams making sure that it's consumable uh and we're going to meet you where you are and make it so that it's a good journey throughout the process I think you hit the nail on the head and because for me the technical side says the platform's so amazing the one platform for all these different processes and how able you're to quickly you know roll out new new process new Solutions new workflows but you know Ser as ambitious as service now the company is to hit their you know 16 billion goal Plus well 15 whatever it is they've done a really good job at not like being too greedy with customers right like not too pushy you know it's like it's it's really is based like solution based sales and not Target base sales you know focus on the outcome first then work backwards exactly and yeah there there are often times where we have difficult conversations with customers our licensing model like and what we have to do to make sure we can continue investing but if we all always go back to putting the customer first in understanding what they're looking to accomplish I saw this great quote I I I can't I wish I remember who put on LinkedIn yeah I should be giving them credit our teams your team my team all of service now needs to know our customers well enough to get hired by them yeah so when you're bringing a proposal you're bringing a solution can you talk directly about how it's helping either drive more Revenue yeah take out cost and complexity or keep them out of jail by reducing risk I know I was talking to this this um person they just they actually um his company's a little smaller they're struggling with like either j a service now and stuff and he he goes somebody just got onboarded and they came from a company that had full service now on boarding you know a package arrived to the door with their computer with the mouse and everything and everything was just so streamlined and they're like you know they said they got this feeling that like wow this company has it together and he's like then they came our company we don't have service now on boarding it was a mess it goes you know a for you have this Microsoft form filled out goes to somebody's inbox and it could sit there and you know it's just a slow process and there's a lot of manual follow up and it and the you know the playy that got hired was just like is everything okay here like am I safe you know that morale and that even if it's chaos behind the scenes right just just that appearance of a smooth onboarding and we hear all the time with our employees like you know everything's not in service now they pick their what kind of laptop they want right in service now and they know it's service now so that gets them even more excited and it's just a such a streamlined process it's just like why wouldn't you want your employees that you're spending all this money on that are driving Revenue that are driving efficiency that are driving operations don't you want them feeling like you're the greatest company in the whole world like it it's about the experience man it's about the thought leadership that these companies who have truly adopted service now and like where they're going and the conversations we're having with customers about what they're going to do with AI how a whole different game and it's just about the the art of the possible but it's not that far away and so they're going to be able to incorporate it and get that benefit really quickly but like the onboarding experience I have a bunch of friends and it always comes back to to work right where you know you're out to dinner or whatnot and I'm a service now customer we're not a service now customer oh actually we are a service now customer we didn't know we were a service yeah we're not using it the right way or it's so good I didn't know that was service now and I'm like I told you and I was having dinner with two weeks ago with one of my good friends and he works at one of the big asset managers in Boston and he said I didn't know that was service now I'm like see y That's the testimonial that we need yeah exactly that's like just smooth yeah just smooth um man a a is going to be like you guys are just going to be like kid in a candy store just just just F like this I think I saw in Bill mcdermit earnings call there's going to be three trillion not on just on service now but on AI Solutions in the next three years like company organizations are going to spend over3 trillion dollars on bringing in AI solutions to to various products I mean I I think customers are trying to figure out which one's right and it's probably that there's multiple different Sol sols whether service now or Microsoft or just both both together right and I I the things we're hearing from customers and we actually I had um lunch with one of our joint customers and he said the best part about what you showed me with Gen and what service I was doing is it was tailored to my industry you knew exactly how to talk to my business if we get that part right we have First moover Advantage exactly I mean we we already we rolled out our first AI product and yeah thanks and and we everyone is thinking like you know for partners especially like oh writing code and you know we had we're having to help with clerical stuff like for workshops taking the raw notes putting that in story form getting acceptance criteria you know how much customers struggle with like the acceptance criteria setting up uat sessions you know the benefits are going to far out concerns oh my God it's yeah it's gonna be fun it's gonna be fun to watch it's gonna be fun it's gonna be like a fun that's what I'm saying like your team and service now as a whole is just going to be like okay we want it we want it we want it if you're an organization it's it's like everything else like do you really want to get left behind if your employees and customers can just come to a service now service portal and just immediately type in I need to order a new laptop or anything how do I do this how do I do that and it's just better than a human immediately responding immediately getting what you want and you getting go back onto your day I mean how do you not Embrace that no matter how much it costs outside of service now I mean just think of the changes it's going to have in general life I know how do I fix my slice how do I stop hooking the ball right yeah so when I see you when I see Al I see great leaders and people always ask me who's been your mentor and who's this I really haven't I feel like I really haven't had like direct mentors but I watch people like you people like Al Hanny other like some of my other bosses that I've had and I see how they interact with their team you know good and bad like you know some things that I'm like H that's not how I would do it and you know take note of that what is good leadership to you in in your eyes there's no crystal ball yeah I think it's silver bullet either it's it's a Nate and I think it starts with a willingness to want to help yeah and I I often talk about to either individual contributors or in my world reps who want to go lead and I said what why want to lead I said well I want to be the guy in charge I said okay don't come to this CH yeah I know that's not I think the leaders are the ones who are willing to roll up their sleeves to put their ego aside and then genuinely listen yeah like and that is key to it two years one mouth were they able to listen yeah and I I map out to my team and do I I hope I do a great job of it but my goals are when somebody comes to work with me that I can help them improve their skill set and become better what they do put them in a position to become more successful than they've been and in sales that's monetarily but that's also there are a lot of achievements that we that we have in sales that are outside of just money right yeah and then put them in a position to get promoted in the right time and I think that comes you got to be selfless and then you need to have like a good foundation of what you do I talk a lot about the 6as when I interview people and when I bring people on and it's characteristics I look forward to build teams it's all about having self-awareness I know it's not that yeah self-awareness yeah activity attitude Acumen adaptability accountability right so accountability like do you do the right things when no one's watching all the time and can we when we count on Mike to make sure he gets the job done yeah of course attitude like I think of James Perot right happy love him humble always there somebody always positive do you want to have a cup of coffee with somebody after work or meet them for a beer because if if I want to meet with you your customer is going to want your right so are you glass half full or glass half empty activity like do you have that pit in your stomach every single day do you want to go it's not just about the money it's you have a desire to get better yeah self awareness is like it's not what I think of myself it's it's one of my peers and my customers my people around surroundings perceptions reality right y uh aptitude like we this is a complex platform although it's one it's one code base right it's can you handle complex situations and can you go from talking to the CEO to the head of fpna to the person who doing the dishes and have a consistent conversation then adaptability has been bigger than the last couple years can you change yeah and so I think like when I think of how do you go higher and how do you go build teams that all starts with leadership right if if a leader can not only demonstrate and live those traits but they're innate and then they listen and then they put the team their teams first and roll up their sleeves in there somewhere is a secret sauce 100% it's all based around posit positivity right and grit yeah oh grit I know that one yeah you do for me I was fortunate where I've done a lot of the rules of you know people I'm leading here and stuff so I always just try to like be the leader that I wanted you know what I mean like like what would I want my boss to do in this situation and I always just put myself back in their shoes and and just know like you know like I I always just wanted to make people to appreciate like if I worked if I was up all night sometimes just a thank you you know and it's like you know 600 people now it's hard to it's hard to keep you guys are growing so fast it's crazy 600 people it's hard to keep track of every and think every single person WR write it down though I know I'm a big believer like and I tell people who have different leaders today yeah write down the things you like and write down things you don't like because the ones you don't like make sure you don't do those when you become when you get privileged to B people yeah the ones you like make them your own and double down on them and then always write like a big believer always have a pen and a piece of paper or your phone and thank the people who who you know need to be thanked exactly that don't get thanked that's one of my main things of I tell my other leaders please if you see somebody doing something above and beyond and you see them working hard you see a customer really had please tell me so I can tell I can thank them because I can't see everything and that's why you kind of have some of those layers is so you can rely on other people to tell you like what what needs to change or what you know we need to double down on you never know when you're you're changing somebody's day or changing someone's week or changing someone's life just a little just a little thank you I'm telling you it goes a long way even for me even for me I tell Jack my son jack 5 years old please and thank you will get you everywhere in life yeah it really does I know you're big into golf what what what else like kind of hobbies or anything like that I've got a 5-year-old and a two and a half-year-old Jack Caroline so for me can I find more time to have the right balance yeah yeah and um it's all about perspective like I I I've become very big I lost my dad 11 years ago yesterday at cancer don't be sorry thank you he had I lost mine too Dana Farber got him three more years than he was supposed to so I I try to put things in perspective and we all get busy our jobs are all important but at the end of the day we're selling software and implementing software so I I for me it's how do you Balan and I I'm trying to get better about making sure that I'm a more present husband and a more present father work on that too right but I'm also trying to do that with my brothers too so I'm a twin which most people don't know I did not know that oh my God what's his name his name's Matt he lives in Black in his office identical or identical dude I got to you should have him just show up to the office so here's the part so his office he works at simpress yeah is on the third floor of our building shut up so we work in the same building stop it right any have you done any pranks I I don't think since the second grade come on dude you got to do that we'll do it on a prospecting day or something that would be hilarious wow so you have a twin brother twin brother and then a brother Steve who's just like 13 months younger than us so like an Irish triplet that's insane wow I always wondered what it was like to grow up as a twin because that's just like it's just weird there are often times we're on the same wavelength so my son jack was born in December December 20th at bregman Women's okay my nephew Charlie met son was born December 21st oh my go Raymond Williams women's in the same operating room the same year too same oh one day one day apart we were in the we were in the hospital the same oh my God the same delivery nurse oh my God and so we were walking around we walking around the next day and by bumped in the delivery Nur and say it took me a good hour to figure out you weren't in here with two separate wom oh my God yeah so the world works in mysterious ways that is that is so crazy that gives you perspective too that is that is perspective yeah all right well I always like to leave um I mean you gave a ton of advice on the leadership but what's some advice maybe you could leave uh some people trying to maybe maybe break into leadership from a sales role or you know further their career or even be a better sales rep like what's some advice you could leave I think the first thing is don't be afraid to ask for help right go find a true Mentor I've had a bunch of them in my career who were willing to tell me when I was doing things well but more importantly tell me when I was doing things poorly yeah that that what those mentors are there to make sure you have guard rails they can pull you aside and say hey like I'm a very direct person like you got to tone it down a little bit Yeah so so find people who will help you and then don't be afraid to lead from the front go find go find something that needs fixing yeah and go be part of that go be part of the solution and then opportunity will come your way I love that that's that's so true you know I'm a head first jump in there and fix it kind of guy people will notice you don't have to tell people what you're doing exactly that's the best part yeah just surround yourself with great people you'd be okay yeah all right thanks for joining me on episode of Glide love [Music] it