Sell Like A Leader – Episode 3
In this episode, we dive into:
– Mentorship in sales: why empowering others, including advocating for women in sales with organizations like #GirlsClub, is at the core of Tom’s leadership philosophy.
– The difference between managing and mentoring: why it’s crucial for sales leaders to understand this distinction, how mentorship is critical in sales, and the reciprocal benefits of mentorship for mentors and mentees.
– Remote work and mentorship opportunities: how a flexible-work model can impact the dynamics of mentorship and leadership within an organization, and how tech tools can help.
– Cultivating a culture of mentorship and learning: how to nurture a learning mindset within your sales teams, how to instill resilience in mentees, and the benefits of structured mentorship programs.
– Rapid Fire Q&A
About Thomas Parbs
David Kreiger chats with Thomas Parbs, VP of Sales at HAAS Alert. Thomas has an impressive 21+ year career in Sales and Sales Leadership, is a three-time AA-ISP Top 25 Most Influential Sales Leader award recipient, and the current President of the Chicago Chapter of Emblaze (formerly AA-ISP). He is also a US Marine Veteran and holds over 30 certifications.Podcast Key Takeaways
- Thomas underscores the critical distinction between leading and managing. Effective leaders inspire and guide their team members while managing the associated processes, never overlooking the human aspect of their leadership roles.
- Thomas emphasizes the need for accountability to be mutual within organizations. Both leaders and team members are responsible for holding one another accountable, ensuring a culture of mutual respect and responsibility.
- Thomas advocates for the value of lifelong learning and leading by example. He believes that mentoring others not only benefits the mentee but also allows the mentor to continually grow and stay sharp.
Connects
Connect with Thomas Parbs: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-parbs/
Connect with David Kreiger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidkreiger
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Transcript
David: Hello, and welcome back to the Sell Like a Leader podcast, the podcast for revenue leaders who are on a mission to cultivate a high-performing sales team within their organization. I'm your host, David Kreiger, founder of SalesRoads, America's most trusted sales outsourcing and appointment setting firm.
And today we bring you an awesome guest. Thomas Parbs. Thomas has an impressive 21-year career in sales and sales leadership. His work building go-to-market teams has propelled organizations to tens of millions of dollars in recurring revenue while closing over 100 million in revenue himself.
He currently serves as the VP of Sales at HaasAlert, which builds life-saving mobility solutions to make vehicles and roads safer and smarter.
He is a three-time AAISP Top 25 Most Influential Sales Leader and is currently [00:01:00] president of the Chicago chapter of Emblaze. He's a Marine veteran and holds over 30 certifications in sales management, sales training, leadership, team building, and coaching. It's quite impressive, Thomas. Welcome to the show. It's great to have
Thomas: You, David. I appreciate the intro. Thank you very much for that. And thank you very much for having me here. I'm looking forward to our chat today.
David: Yeah, me too. Me too.
And one thing that I noticed in your background that I think is really interesting to me and to, I think, a lot of listeners, and that's the subject of mentorship and coaching in the sales space. I would love to learn a bit from you on that topic. It's something that's been thought about at SalesRoads.
It's not something that's necessarily easy to create a system around implementing. And it looks like you've been part of the Girls Club, as part of AAISP or Emblaze or whatever they call it these days, which seems like an amazing organization. Can you tell us a little bit about that and why you got involved in it, and why [00:02:00] mentorship's important to you?
Thomas: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, mentorship, coaching — I think this transcends beyond sales, but obviously we live and breathe sales. It's what we've done for a long time.
So, I'll talk specifically to the sales industry. But it's really important to make sure that you are there to help empower others, that you are there to help guide, remove roadblocks, and really be a sounding board, because people ultimately are trying to create a future that they want.
And they don't always know or have the experience of how to get there. And so to have a mentor, somebody that they can bounce ideas off, someone that they can create action plans with, someone that they can really be held accountable to helping them, as well as, so someone like me, right?
So, David, if I was your mentor, as an example, I'm going to hold you accountable to the things and the goals, and the action plans that we have.
And I think by aligning on that, people can actually obtain that future [00:03:00] that they believe that they can create for themselves. And I think that holds especially true with what I do with Girls Club. Right now, Girls Club is separate from Emblaze, which is formerly AAISP. That was started by Lauren Bailey — or LB, as everybody knows her by — and she's the founder of Factor 8 and the Sales Bar.
Amazing colleague, amazing friend, just really an all-around amazing superwoman. But there is a disparity between…
Thomas: But there's been a disparity, right? Be it in pay, be it in opportunities. And my work with the Girls Club as your stereotypical white, older male in a position of title — if that makes sense.
I don't want to say power. We can talk about this later. I think of myself as in a position of empower. But having a title — it's the Boys Club. And so [00:04:00] how can I help empower some amazing human beings to really earn their seat at the table, which they deserve because they've earned it, and really get back to that level playing field?
That, regardless of race or gender or whatever the case may be, the right skill sets, the right mentality, the right work ethic should really mean that person, regardless of what they look like, what their gender identity is — has the same opportunities to succeed.
Especially in this business. It hits home for me because I'm a father. I have three girls. And ultimately, I want — certainly it's a better time today than when it was when I was growing up — but can we make the world just a little bit better of a place?
And maybe when I leave this world, I've left it a little bit better than when I got here.
David: That's awesome, Thomas. It sounds like you've definitely already made your mark with some of the things that you're doing, which is fantastic. And I do think mentorship is so important — and you're right. [00:05:00] It's in sales and it's otherwise.
Even for me personally, starting my own company, having mentors, having people that I could ask for advice — that I knew had my back, wanted me to succeed — it really helps get you through those challenging times.
It helps you to learn. It helps you to grow.
And so mentorship, in all aspects of life. But also, sales can be cutthroat, right? And it can be very competitive, and you can sometimes not necessarily know who's got your back. And I would think that the dynamics are sometimes very different because some of the things that we were talking about could come from your manager, right? You could get some of that coaching and things like that.
But can you talk a little bit about the important difference between the management role and the mentor role and how that plays a part in people's growth?
Thomas: Distinguish that as: you lead, coach, mentor people. You manage processes. And there's an amazing [00:06:00] dude out there. His name is Kevin Dorsey. Everybody knows him as KD.
Currently, I'm an executive member of the Pavilion group, for any of those folks that know that. He's leading a Sales Leader Accelerator course.
As you mentioned, I'm a constant learner — that's why you see a lot of certifications — just reading and taking courses.
And just, no one has the monopoly on great ideas. And so we always need to be learning. And I think that's what's good about having a mentor, regardless of where you are in your career, because it's someone that you can learn from.
And so I think that's the big thing that I think a lot of people might get wrong — is we're trying to manage people. And that's where a lot of folks can feel micromanaged and “I'm being told what to do.” You get a lot of sentiment of “do as I say, not as I do.”
And as KD would say — I'm not going to steal his thunder, but I just love the way he articulates it — is that you lead, coach, mentor people.
And you manage the process, right? You manage the data. And you can utilize those processes and that data to have a better understanding of [00:07:00] where you can help coach, where you can help empower, where you can offer to build muscles, if you will — as an example — in the things that we can get better at, and really empower and lean into the strengths that somebody has.
So, lead, coach, mentor people. Manage processes.
David: That's a great distinction. I love that. And I think it's a great mindset for managers to have, because I think a lot of times in sales leadership, we do micromanage. We've got to hit the quota at the end of the — at the end of the month, at the end of the quarter, at the end of the year — we'll either micromanage what our team is doing, or even worse, we'll jump in and try to do it for them.
And I think that's a really good distinction to try to help manage our managers and understand the differences.
Thomas: Yeah, that's an important point that you say that, David, because I think it's important to note that in the industry, we're certainly not at a loss for — or there's an abundance of — sales training. As an [00:08:00] individual contributor, as an SDR, as an IC, as a customer success, customer support — there's all that kind of individual training.
There's a giant disparity, right? There's a huge gap when somebody is transitioning on their career path from that individual contributor into sort of that management role or leadership role. I think that's often a big challenge for our industry, because just because somebody was able to do their process right and have success as a salesperson doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be a great coach, great mentor.
And so often, as we promote people through their career path into those leadership roles — and even into the higher C-level leadership roles — many of those folks have not been trained to be able to coach or mentor or really lead.
And so you end up with a lot of people managing people instead of leaders serving and leading [00:09:00] others. That's a big gap in our industry as a whole. So the thought process can't be, “Hey, they know how to do it, so they ultimately can coach, mentor, teach somebody how to do it. Let's just make them a manager.”
And you often see a lot of frontline managers — and even second line, right? Directors. And you many times can see even VPs and C-level folks, that are — I don't like to say “failing” at the ability to coach and lead people — because they never really had formal training.
And you hear a lot of the sentiment, “Here's what I used to do,” or “what I would recommend,” or “here's what I would do if I was in that position.” And that's not the right way of doing it. That's managing people versus leading, empowering, and coaching.
That's a gap I think we need to fill as an industry — of how do we empower more of our coaches to coach the coach, and our coaches to coach, mentor, and lead our people the way that they should, and empower them the right way.
David: Yeah, so let's dive into that a little bit. For myself at SalesRoads, we have our SDR [00:10:00] managers, we call them talent development managers, and they're the managers.
And we also we try to tell them to empower our SDRs and coach them and not micromanage. But it can be difficult. How do you try to create that culture of mentorship at the organizations that you're in? And from a tactical standpoint, do you sometimes have mentees and mentors that aren't reporting to each other?
Or is it usually working with the managers and making sure that they're managing in such a way that is empowering? And is mentoring while at the same time they are managing and holding their team accountable.
Thomas: Yeah, I think accountability comes at every level. I think if you are a C-level, VP, you're accountable and should be held accountable by those that are directly reporting to you, and so on and so forth. But I even think even if you're just thinking of the normal hierarchy, SDR, BDR, AE, Frontline Manager, right?
Director, VP, all the way [00:11:00] up. A VP is, should still be held accountable by even the SDRs that she or he or they are holding team accountable to empowering those folks that they're responsible for leading. So it goes up and down, right? It's not just a one-way road where accountability rolls downhill.
I think accountability goes both ways, right? And it's fostering that. So what we've done in the teams that I've had the pleasure and the honor to be able to serve, but talk about specifically what we've done here is we've really tried to create not necessarily just culture, cause I think culture is one ingredient.
So we look at it as environment, right? Culture, comp plan, career path, communication, and again there's other ingredients in there, but like those major C's that we look at. And what I look at when I'm focusing on when a brain wraps in is understanding what they want to accomplish, [00:12:00] understanding the future that they want to create.
Like, my job isn't to tell somebody, here's what your life is going to be. It's to understand what it is that they want to accomplish in their business life. Because ultimately, that's feeding a goal of what they want to accomplish. Like their why, what they're trying to accomplish in their personal life, and then empowering them to that.
And then teaching those kind of frontline and coaching those frontline managers to do the same thing. And then what I look at is, okay, let's understand, right? Let's manage the process, understand the data, understand what's working, what's not working, what does good look like, and how do we replicate that.
And then let's create a system of accountability up and down the ranks, if you will, that, Hey, I'm doing what I said I'm going to do. You're doing what you're saying that you're going to do. And we're all holding each other accountable.
And it's that kind of one band, one sound. We're all in this together. And if we lean into each other, create that kind [00:13:00] of, yes, it's that air of, Hey, the team can compete with each other, but we're still in the trench together.
We're still shoulder to shoulder. We're still trying to accomplish the same goals, the same vision. And then really teaching them what they're doing, how they're doing, or why they're doing it, and the how, and then making sure that everybody understands that, regardless of where they are within the team.
And then again, making sure that you are coaching, you are mentoring the people, and then managing that process.
David: That's awesome. What are your thoughts on mentorship with somebody who's a colleague? Like with the Girls Club, it's somebody who's not necessarily working directly with that individual. What's the value in that type of relationship?
I think in the sales environment today, the Girls Club has created amazing, robust infrastructure for it, but it's hard to create that within organizations and elsewhere. What are your thoughts, just generally, on that type of mentorship in [00:14:00] the sales landscape?
Are you seeing it outside the Girls Club, or is it really those types of organizations are pretty special and you've gotta have that type of infrastructure to create these types of mentorship relationships?
Thomas: No, I think the best answer is I don't think it's difficult per se. Yeah. I think organizations, I think we sometimes overthink it and make it more difficult than it has to be. Look, my philosophy, regardless if it's Girls Club or anybody that I'm mentoring—I touched on this about being in a position of empower, right?
And I don't think to be a great leader, I've said this many times before, it really is a philosophy of mine. You don't need to be in a position of power, like have a title, to be a great leader.
And so when you're talking about empowering others, when you're talking about—and that's really what mentoring and coaching is—empowering that person to, and helping them remove, whether it's mental or internal roadblocks, or even [00:15:00] external roadblocks.
Now. I feel more of a duty to the folks that are on my team in my organization to remove their roadblocks so that they can achieve the successes and create the future that they want. But really, that shouldn't just be specific to our company. I think that should be specific to just—we're all human beings having a human experience.
Like, why can't we help each other?
And so I think, oftentimes I believe that a lot of people look at being in a leadership position or being in a management position as a position of power, which is a very selfish viewpoint, even if they're a very nice person.
I'm the boss. I'm in this position of power. Even subconsciously, it's a position of power. Whereas in my opinion—and this is really the servant leader approach—I'm here to serve others, right? I work for my people. My people don't work for me, right?
And so my job explicitly is to ensure that I am [00:16:00] serving their needs to remove any and all roadblocks.
Hold them accountable and make sure that I can offer guidance and expertise where needed, that challenges their thought process so they can grow. Instead of telling them what to do, get those brain juices flowing and encourage them to be able to—and help them out. It's not just, Hey, figure it out on your own, but guide them along that path.
And so that's the position of empower. They don't have to work for you. You don't have to be in the same organization. I love giving back, helping others without the expectation of return fills me with gratitude. That's an internal thing for me. It's what I do in my personal life.
It's why I volunteer a lot of my time. Just in my opinion, it makes me a better me. It makes me feel better. And hey, I think it makes the world a little bit of a better place. But like, why not help others? Why not empower others? And so to have that opportunity, like with Girls Club or anybody, there's a lot of folks that know me.
I may not post a lot on LinkedIn, right? There's business at hand during productivity [00:17:00] hours. But there's a lot of people that know me through the associations, that know me through LinkedIn, that know me through the conferences, panels, and things that I've done, podcasts that I've done.
And I want to help everybody that I can. And certainly, if I can offer a little bit of advice, if I can be a sounding board, I generally offer my time when I have it available and do it that way. And I think we should see more of that. I'd love to see more of that.
And even again, not that it has to be broadcast out there, but even behind the scenes. It's not difficult to do. I think we struggle as an industry and as leaders to be intentional about doing it. And really putting the focus on, am I empowering this person, am I coaching and leading that person, or am I managing that person?
And just, here's what I did.
Here's what you should do. And generating that path for them versus guiding them on that path, like a good mentor.
David: That's awesome. When I have mentored [00:18:00] folks, whether it's in sales or in entrepreneurship—it's tough because you got to take the time out, right? And we're all busy.
But when I go through concepts with people that I'm mentoring and I think through some of the issues that they're having or ask them questions about it and help them to sort through some of the things that they're doing, it's like I'm sometimes relearning whatever they're going through and crystallizing it in my mind and thinking through it again for me.
And the growth that I get from that and that exercise—it a lot of times reminds me of things I need to be doing in my day that I've been doing for months or years.
But when I'm looking at it through the prism, I'm coaching somebody else on the same concept, I have some aha moments about things that I'm doing, and the amount of growth I get from the mentorship relationship, I would argue sometimes is better than what I'm giving out.
And so can you talk a little bit about some of the things that you or [00:19:00] ways that you've benefited, and as you encourage other individuals within organizations to mentor, when they're busy and they are like, I got to focus on my stuff. Can you talk a little bit about what you've gotten out of the whole mentorship relationship?
Thomas: Yeah, I'm a constant student of life. I'm always a learner. I don't ever want to stop learning. I agree with you wholeheartedly. There's been a lot of things where I've been in that position where we're talking about something, and hey, this is a best practice.
Let's talk through it. Where do you think, right? You're struggling with that. Let's be at, listen to calls, or let's run through those scenarios. Really challenging them to talk through it together and how I can guide. I'm giving advice and I'm mentoring somebody on something that maybe I've gotten away from.
And how do I make sure that I'm holding myself accountable, that I'm doing the things that I'm advising other people to do? Now, everybody's different. I find what has made me [00:20:00] personally very successful in working with a lot of folks, even today, right? With the sales folks that I, again, have the honor and privilege to serve here at HaasAlert, I do exactly the same things that I ask them to do.
So when we're talking through it, hey, like I pick up the phone and I cold call. I'm on demos with reps. If there's overflow I'm going to run that as well and help with the pipeline. And I think we tend to get away from that. So I find that being able to talk with experience and, hey, let's do this together.
Let's figure this out together. I'll hop on the phone, and if this is where the roadblock is... So I think being a constant learner, learning from others—not to be cliché—but it's like practice what you preach.
And by coaching others, it's ah, maybe I have personally gotten away from the things that I'm coaching somebody on or mentoring somebody on, giving advice on, but I'm not also doing it myself. Like I'm a [00:21:00] firm believer in being able to walk the walk if you're going to talk the talk.
And I think that helps me stay crisp. It helps me stay young at heart, young mentally. And still be able to learn. And there's quite a lot of things that the student has taught the teacher, if you will. So it's such a great back and forth to be able to do that. And that's, I think that's the gift that keeps on giving.
So as you're teaching others, you're learning from them. I know this is the best practice. It gives you that level of self-accountability that if I'm teaching others this and I'm coaching and mentoring others on this, I should also be doing that as well.
David: Yeah, I think that's awesome. A lot of times when I'm mentoring, I try where I can to not tell exactly what they should do, but almost if they're going through an issue or a career issue or issue with a prospect, I try to give an experience.
Yeah. I talk about something that happened to me that was similar.
And I think sometimes we don't necessarily [00:22:00] learn specifically when we go through something. We learn when we reflect on it.
And there's lots of ways to reflect, right? We can try to write things down and journal around—and I do it. But when I'm doing mentorship or when I'm talking to people and coaching them and do it through that, I even better learn from the experiences I went through, because I'm trying to think through the things that I went through, reflect on it and see how that can maybe be pertinent to them.
And so that whole process—it creates a self-reflection as well—and that's where some of the most amazing growth, I think, can happen.
Thomas: 100%. And that's—I like that. We have to challenge them to think, and I love saying get those creative juices flowing, get those brain juices flowing, and get them to think regarding those scenarios. And I like to—like with our team—alright, let's reflect on what we know are the best practices. Let's walk through that.
And sometimes, as they reflect on that, aha, maybe I didn't follow this [00:23:00] particular thing or action or whatever it is. Could be a talk track. Just whatever, right? As an example that put me in the best position of success, right? Winning more than not having that particular success.
And that's where we have those learning opportunities, right? And that's the big thing I work on with a lot, like even with Girls Club. It's not about being perfect. I don't like that word. It's about learning the things that we can do to put us back onto that track to have more success.
So win more than we lose, if you will. It's wonderful when you get that aha moment from them, right? You can almost see it, even if they don't say it. That's where you get all those learning opportunities to keep being better and better.
David: As we talk about this and I reflect on it, it definitely inspires me to try to create more moments at SalesRoads, both between the SDRs and their talent development managers. But also trying to find ways to create mentorship opportunities throughout the organization, [00:24:00] because we do think about it through the prism of helping those less experienced folks, but it really is a two-way street.
And it really can create amazing relationships, amazing learnings throughout the organizations, if you can structure a mentorship program within your organization in the right way. And the gateway is through mentorship, and it's all about just trying to structure that, create that culture, create that awareness, allow people to really understand the benefits on both sides that can harness that.
And then all of a sudden, you've got an organization that is continually learning from one another, propagating great ideas, motivating people, creating relationships.
And I think that can be hugely powerful and almost a competitive advantage because I don't think that many sales organizations, or— as many as they should—are taking advantage of the power of mentorship.
Thomas: Yeah, I agree. And I think we [00:25:00] underestimate and probably don't take action. People generally do want to learn, right? And I know it's been very difficult. Going into COVID, we became very remote.
We still are remote. Often, many people there are like, we're hybrid. We spend two days in the office, three days from home. There's some people that are full back to the office. But—and that's where the different tools from call coaching and recording software came into big play with a lot of those remote folks. So even though they're not together in person...
I think it's really good advice for us to rethink about: you don't always necessarily have to be constantly teaching that person every single day.
But what you have to realize is that, Dave, if you and I were on the sales floor together, or I'm listening to your calls, there's some things that you do really well that I'd love to learn. Not I want to do it like you do it, but what can I learn from how you do it that I might be able to utilize for my advantage?
And that kind of works both [00:26:00] ways. Now that's not necessarily binary, right? You learning from me, me learning from you. It just could be like the way that like the sales team that we have when we're in the office, we're all sitting together. We can all hear each other. And so people are feeding off of that.
They're listening to each other. Hey, I'll have one of my reps reach out and say, Hey, I just had this. It sounded like you had it before, but it was easy for you to overcome it. Tell me a little bit about that. Believe it or not, you just foster that sort of learning environment.
And they start learning from each other. They start feeding off of each other. And then you can foster that in more of those one-on-one coaching and mentoring sessions. And I think because—look, I don't like to use excuses, right? COVID, whatever the case may happen. A lot of people they think, hey, it's harder to do.
Sure. It might've been harder to do because you're not in person, but there's a lot of things out there, and we just have to be intentional. We have to execute. We have to do the do and make it happen.
And you'll find that [00:27:00] if you are in a leadership position, coaching and mentoring folks, because they're learning from each other, it makes your life a little bit easier because they're learning from each other. And then you're fostering that.
And then you start to get higher spirits, you get that friendly competitiveness, you really get that togetherness that everybody wants, and happens organically because of just making sure that they have an opportunity to learn from each other.
David: That is a perfect way of putting it. And so many organizations are remote right now, and they might use that as an excuse not to do mentorship or not to create that kind of togetherness.
And I think it's about being intentional and thinking about opportunities for you and your organization to be able to create that. Whether it's a formal mentorship program, whether it's just pairing people on a weekly or a monthly basis, and have each person bring three different calls and talk about it, and have each other listen to it.
And so finding ways to create those opportunities for people to come together, share [00:28:00] ideas, talk to one another. And it doesn't have to be overthought, I don't think.
And it's just trying to create a platform for people to do that. I know that's a challenge I'm going to take away here and think about at SalesRoads—some other opportunities we can bring people together from different aspects or different parts of the organization on different programs, so that they can share ideas with each other
and help to make each other better.
Thomas: Yeah, absolutely. I agree. And that's be intentional and just execute. Don't overthink it. I love that.
David: If it's okay, we'd like to pop a few rapid-fire questions at our guests just to get your take on some things, sales or otherwise, if that sounds good, Tom. So, what is one thing people don't give enough value or attention to in leadership?
Thomas: Execution. I really think there's a lack of execution across a lot of industries. I work, I know a lot of folks, I know a lot of leaders, people in leadership positions, right?
People with title. And we hear the word strategy. I get it. I like to play [00:29:00] chess, not checkers. Maybe that's the military person in me, right? What's the objective? What's the plan B? What's the plan C? But I think we get stuck there, right?
We get stuck in our spreadsheets. We get stuck in our vision of what it could be. But we really can do a better job as an industry on the how, right? The execution. I know there's a lot of companies that are out there that may have the best product, the best ideas, some of the best people, and they get stuck.
In their heads, in their leadership meetings, just ideating on a million different what could be, and we didn't go back to the basics. You can have all the most brilliant plans in the world to run the Chicago Marathon.
It's one foot in front of the other to cross that finish line, right? And we forget about that. And I think that's something that needs to change within leadership. You can have the best plan in the world. If you don't know how to execute it and [00:30:00] you do not execute it, you don't do the do, that vision will never become a reality.
David: That's beautiful. I have a mantra from Teddy Roosevelt, and it's just two words: get action. And so I say that to myself all the time. What is one skill you advise everyone in sales to master, leaders or non-leaders?
Thomas: One skill. I'm afraid if I say here's one skill, there's like a bunch of others.
Thomas: So I'm going to give you two skills because I think they're equally important. In an individual contributor role, I think resilience is extremely important.
And I don't want to say thick skin because I think that sounds too masculine, but I think resilience is really important. It's just understanding that in the face of adversity, you have to keep going. For those folks that are struggling to build that resilience, here's the best way to do it.
What's your why? Why do you wake up in the morning? Think about that. Is it your kids? Is it your family? Is it your husband, your wife? Is it your partner, right? Is it your furry family members? I don't care what it is, right? Is it helping starving children? Is it [00:31:00] whatever it is? What's that?
Why? That will create like a force field around you to be resilient and pick up the phone, talk to people, and just keep pushing forward even in the face of adversity. And I think a skill set that we can learn in leadership is more of a servant leadership approach.
Serve those folks. You work for them.
They don't work for you. I think both of those skills would help. So I know you asked for one, but I don't think just using one would be great. So, for those folks that are listening again, I think depending on where you are on the path of the future that you're creating, I think any one of those skills can be very helpful to you.
David: That's awesome. What's your favorite quote, mantra, or saying, or something that inspires you as a sales leader?
Thomas: So my favorite quote just in life is from Gandhi, right? Be the change you want to see in the world. And I think that falls into sort of the business [00:32:00] philosophy and the leadership philosophy.
Now I know that's easier said than done. And it's, to me, it's not a cliché statement because you have to be intentional. Regardless of where you are in your career path, right? Regardless of what you're doing in the industry, you have to be intentional. Am I being better today? What does that mean? That's understanding your action plan.
Are you on the right path? Have you fallen behind on that path that you're on? Our mantra here at the team is, can we hold each other and ourselves accountable to be better today than we were the day before?
And life is big, it's great, it's grand. Short-term goals, long-term goals, they're not difficult to achieve, albeit not always easy, but anything difficult is always easy if broken down into its most simplest form. So we take it literally one day at a time, and we know that if we're executing and intentional on what we're doing every day, you know it, I've put one foot in front of the other and I've run a mile, two miles, three miles, four miles.
David: [00:33:00] Love it. And last question here before we wrap up, but what's the most important goal you're personally working on right now?
Thomas: When I came to this company back in 2020, we had 138 customers. I had two salespeople plus myself—shout out to Alex and Nick, superstars. They're still with us today.
And we put a go-to-market strategy, we put intention, we put execution, we put our heads down, our blinders on. We created synergies around that, and we, in less than three years—or I think almost at the three-year mark—we were at like 3,200 customers.
I think today, now at three and a half years, we're at above 3,500 customers.
So tremendous growth, doubling, tripling ARR every single year. Series A that was completed towards the end of last year. And for what we do, there's a broader market. There's other industries we can serve, but we've been smaller as a sales team and we have been stretched too thin.
So we had to make the decision to be intentional on where our focus was, so we can go deeper [00:34:00] and generate that core. And so we've decided to start creating our—essentially what we call—our enterprise markets, but going after these industries that really could use our help, that we are a solution for that will save lives.
We have set some goals of where we can be at for this team that I've built, and I'm continuing to build, where we're going to be at the end of the year. I actually think I can double that particular number because I've got some right people.
We've got the right mindset. We've got the right coaching. We've got the right accountability. We have the right processes in place. We have the right execution in place. We're learning from our learning opportunities. And so my personal goal is, I believe, I can double that number by the end of 2025. And have fun while we're doing it, even in the face of adversity. And that I think is the winning recipe for us.
David: That's amazing, Tom. Thank you so much for being our guest here on the Sell Like a Leader podcast. I've learned a lot from you. I'm inspired [00:35:00] to try to increase the mentorship here at SalesRoads. I hope others are as well, or even externally—it doesn't have to be an internal mentorship program.
Can you tell folks, listeners, where they can connect with you online, how they can learn more about Haas?
Thomas: Absolutely. So if you want to connect with me, feel free to send me a connection link on LinkedIn. Just look up Thomas Parbs—T H O M A S, last name is Parbs, P A R B S. And if you want to reach me via email, it's Tom, T O M, at Haas, H A A S, alert.com.
If you want to learn a little bit more about Haas Alert, you can find us on LinkedIn, you can find us on Facebook, you can go to our website, HaasAlert.com.
And David, I want to thank you and your team for also having me on. As I reflect on our conversation, I'm always happy to help if and when I can. You made a comment a little bit earlier, David, about people being too busy—I don't think I'm ever too busy to make sure that I'm helping another human [00:36:00] being accomplish something in their life.
If I have the time, happy to make it for you. Let me know how I can help. We are in this together. We will make the world a better place.
David: That's a wonderful note to end on. So thanks again, Tom. Thanks to all of you out there who are listening. I hope you got as much value out of this conversation as I did. Make sure not to miss our next episode. So subscribe to Sell Like a Leader podcast on the platform of your choice. And also, I'd love to hear what you think about the episode.
Always reach out to me on LinkedIn or by email. We'll have it all in the show notes. And if you want to learn more about SalesRoads, just go to salesroads.com.
Thanks so much for listening, and hope everyone has a great day.
