🎙️Transcript: Success Principles for Today's SaaS Leader
Tenbound
"Success Principles for Today's SaaS Leader"
Renee LaRose, Ralph Barsi
August 24, 2020
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Summary
In this Tenbound Virtual Summit presentation, Ralph Barsi, VP of Global Inside Sales at Tray.io, shares eight success principles drawn from his 26 years as a sales professional.
Opening with the powerful reminder that everyone is a leader regardless of title, Barsi challenges the audience to stop merely surviving and start taking charge of their careers.
The presentation is structured around two sets of four principles, beginning with foundational concepts like "begin with the end in mind" (featuring self-assessment exercises from John Donahoe and Stephen Covey) and "connect the dots" (understanding systemic impact across organizations).
The first half emphasizes finding clarity through self-assessment, being resourceful by finding solutions before escalating problems, and playing the long game while making your world small - breaking overwhelming tasks into manageable chunks.
The second half focuses on execution and mindset, starting with "communicate like a boss" - mastering writing, speaking, and listening as critical life skills. Barsi emphasizes becoming a contributor of value rather than a consumer, referencing Michael Watkins' breakeven point concept.
He demonstrates how success is sequential through physics (momentum = mass Ă— velocity), Gary Keller's "Domino Effect," and Jim Collins' "20-Mile March."
The presentation concludes with a powerful call for gratitude, referencing everything from the World Wealth Calculator to "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" to Mr. Rogers' Emmy acceptance speech.
Throughout, Barsi weaves in practical resources, book recommendations, and personal anecdotes from his experience scaling teams from 2 to 230 people globally, creating a masterclass in leadership development that applies whether you're an individual contributor or managing hundreds.
BIG Takeaways
• "Who Am I Becoming?" Transforms Daily Work into Purposeful Development – Jim Rohn's question shifts focus from tasks to transformation, making every workday part of your career journey.
John Donahoe's four-question self-assessment provides the framework: What are my career aspirations (near/mid/long-term)? Who do I want to emulate (1-2 people maximum)? What do I need to learn and work on? How can others help? Combined with Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy's skills grid (rating yourself as excellent/standard/below standard on critical competencies), these exercises create the clarity Stephen Covey says people desperately lack.
Without this clarity, people work harder than ever but don't get very far. The principle reminds us that our most important work is always ahead of us, never behind us, and requires intentional planning to achieve.
• The Four Seasons Champagne Principle: Delight From the Outset – When you're second in line at Four Seasons, they offer champagne while you wait, setting expectations for the five-star experience ahead.
This principle of delighting customers from the first interaction applies directly to sales development - SDRs must set the standard in initial conversations, helping prospects engineer a vision of success.
Beth Comstock's insight that all business units are connected means there's systemic impact across the enterprise; if revenue targets aren't met or processes break, everyone feels it.
Companies are simply groups of people, and we must remember that when calling into accounts. By beginning with the end in mind for prospects, we create clear impressions that working together will be a delightful, long-lasting experience.
• Two Solutions to Every Problem Before Escalating – This resourcefulness principle separates leaders from followers: find two potential solutions before bringing any problem to leadership.
Barsi states that nine times out of ten, you'll solve the problem yourself through this process. This is how current leaders earned their positions - by solving problems of all shapes and sizes throughout their careers.
The approach uses both creative thinking (Michael Michalko's Thinkertoys - seeing problems from all angles) and critical thinking (the McKinsey Pyramid Principle - seeing the answer first, then deducing how to arrive there).
This isn't about never asking for help; it's about developing problem-solving muscles that make you invaluable rather than dependent.
• Make Your World Small While Playing the Long Game – Former Navy SEAL Andy Stumpf and entrepreneur Jesse Itzler advocate breaking overwhelming goals into tiny, manageable chunks.
Kevin Dorsey's example: don't see 70 dials as 70 dials, see it as 7 dials done 10 times. The Stoics (Marcus Aurelius, Seneca) remind us to confine ourselves to the present. The website "Wait But Why" offers life charts showing 90 years broken into weeks, months, or decades - putting today's presentation into perspective as a tiny blip.
This principle prevents overwhelm while maintaining long-term vision. Focus on 10-minute or 30-minute chunks rather than entire days, making progress manageable while keeping the macro perspective that guides your direction.
• The Breakeven Point: From Consumer to Contributor of Value – Michael Watkins' concept from The First 90 Days identifies when new hires shift from consuming value (onboarding, training, orientation) to contributing value (making sales, pleasing customers).
Similarly, Mark Leslie's sales learning curve shows when leaders see ROI on their investment in new hires. Seth Godin takes it further: to attract opportunities rather than pursue them, work harder on yourself than on your job. This means consistently adding value to the marketplace until you don't even need a resume.
The principle challenges the consumption mindset many bring to new roles, pushing for faster transition to value creation and ultimately to becoming someone opportunities seek out rather than someone always seeking opportunities.
• Success Is Sequential: "The Domino Effect" and "The 20-Mile March" – Using physics (momentum = mass × velocity), Barsi shows that progress requires action, not overthinking.
Gary Keller's "Domino Effect" proves this: a 2-inch domino can knock down something 1.5 times its size, which can topple something 1.5 times larger, until by the 57th iteration you've covered the distance to the moon.
This applies to sales: first dial → first conversation → first opportunity → cultivation → closure → customer success handoff → renewal.
Jim Collins' "20-Mile March" reinforces consistency: walking from San Diego to Maine, the person who goes exactly 20 miles daily (rain or shine) arrives three months before someone alternating between 10, 40, and 0 miles. Steady consistency beats sporadic intensity every time.
• Minute-by-Minute Gratitude Changes Everything – Barsi's final principle demands developing gratitude on a minute-by-minute basis throughout your day.
The World Wealth Calculator shows how wealthy you are globally just financially. But wealth extends beyond money: you can hear this presentation, likely on an employer-provided laptop, possibly with coffee or water while villages lack running water.
Jiro Ono's obsession with sushi perfection in a Tokyo subway station (year-long wait, $300 per person, 10-12 seats) shows what happens when you focus on delighting others through attention to detail.
Fred Rogers' 1998 Emmy speech asking the audience to recall those who removed obstacles from their path provides the ultimate perspective: remember those who sacrificed for you, keep in mind how proud they must be knowing they made a difference.
This gratitude mindset transforms how you approach every interaction and challenge.
Transcript
Renee LaRose (00:01):
There we go. Alright, welcome everyone. Thanks for coming. Today's session is "Success Principles for Today's SaaS Leader" with Ralph Barsi. I'll turn it over to Ralph. Thank you so much.
Ralph Barsi (00:14):
Thanks so much, Renee. All right, everybody, let's get started. Thank you so much for joining me today. We've got a lot of ground to cover. I'll do my best to hack away at the inessential and get right to it.
I will hang on this slide for a minute though. My name is Ralph Barsi. I've been a friend of the TenBound team for years. I appreciate what David Dulany does for the sales development profession and I'm grateful for the chance to share a few things with you this morning.
I'll tell you right now, I'm no expert. However, 2020 marks my 26th year as a sales professional and as a practitioner. Speaking of being a practitioner, in fact, I'm at work right now and I'm pretty sure all of you are as well. So really appreciate you investing time to be with us.
Ralph Barsi (01:15):
I've had the privilege to work with and work for incredible leaders at incredible companies. I've also scaled and led teams as small as two people and as large as 230 people working in locations across the globe. These are just a few learnings and takeaways from over the years.
I've put together eight principles that frankly I find myself leaning on all the time, and I think you'll find them useful. You can see I titled the talk "Success Principles for Today's SaaS Leader" intending for it to apply to all of you. And now it doesn't matter to me what role or what title you hold, whether you're an individual contributor or otherwise - you are a leader.
Problem is most of us don't act like one or believe we are one. Instead of taking initiative or toeing the line with our work or representing our businesses, we kind of hope things work out and we simply survive versus take charge. So consider referencing these principles yourself if you want to ensure you're a successful leader in front of your teams and at your organizations.
Ralph Barsi (02:22):
Alright, so let's jump to the first four principles right at the top. I'm reminding you to seek and you'll find. These principles are everywhere and essentially it's just another way of saying the answers are right in front of you. Oftentimes the answers are within you as well. You simply have to look for them.
And the four principles are: begin with the end in mind, connect the dots, be resourceful, and play the long game but make your world small. And we'll start at the top with "begin with the end in mind."
So many of us set out on our days and into our months and quarters and really have no idea of what the end game is. So the late Dr. Stephen Covey, he was the author of "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," wrote the second habit in that book: beginning with the end in mind.
Ralph Barsi (03:23):
I had the opportunity, geez, probably 20 years ago now to see Dr. Covey present live, and he told us your most important work is ahead of you. It's never behind you. He also said that people are working harder than ever, but because they lack clarity and vision, they're not getting very far.
So whenever I've felt this way, I have always leaned on a good quote from the late Jim Rohn who said, "When you're at work, it's not 'what am I doing,' it's 'who am I becoming?'" And it's something I've encouraged direct reports of mine and extended directs of mine to keep in mind when they're at work. It's always about who are you becoming in the process.
And there are two self-assessment exercises that really drive that clarity that you're looking for in order to begin with the end in mind. The first that comes to mind for me was shared by John Donahoe. John is the current CEO of Nike.
Ralph Barsi (04:17):
He was one of the CEOs at ServiceNow when I was there. He's also led PayPal, eBay, Bain Consulting. John shared a great self-assessment exercise with us while I was at ServiceNow that's comprised of four questions.
The first is: What are my career aspirations near-term, mid-term, long-term? And it's up to you to define those terms. Near-term could be two weeks, near-term could be the next two years, so on and so forth.
Second question is: Who do I want to emulate? Who inspires me? Now this isn't about naming 10, 20, 30 people. It's about naming one to two people. Who do you really want to emulate in your career professionally and who is it that inspires you?
The third question of the assessment is: What do I need to learn and work on to get where I want to be? And everybody knows as well as I do that you know what your areas of improvement are, what your weaknesses are, the things that you really need to focus on.
Ralph Barsi (05:24):
And sometimes it's just a matter of writing them down and looking at them so that you can get that clarity into focus and you can share it with others, which segues into the fourth question, which is: How can others help? And others could be mentors, it could be colleagues at your company, teammates, could be family, friends. How can we help you? So by identifying some of the things in the previous questions of that assessment, you help us help you.
And then the second self-assessment exercise comes from Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy's book, which is one of my favorite business books. It's called "Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done." Ram and Larry share a grid and it can be used for calibrations for your direct reports or your extended directs, or it could be for your own self-assessment.
Ralph Barsi (06:31):
And essentially it's just a four-column table and on the far left column, you list all the skills and competencies that are critical for moving forward in your career. And then you've got three columns to the right that you simply tick the box in. You're either excellent, you're either at standard, or you're either below standard.
So just doing exercises like that can really help drive that clarity we were talking about and help you begin with the end in mind.
The second principle is to connect the dots, and this is inspired by Beth Comstock. She's the former CMO of GE who has shared in the past that we have to realize that all the business units or BUs in your organization are connected, which means there is a systemic impact or a ripple effect that's felt across the entire enterprise. For example, if revenue targets aren't met or if critical processes are broken, there is impact.
Ralph Barsi (07:32):
Companies are simply comprised of groups of people and we have to remember that when we are calling into accounts, for example, or working with prospects and customers, we have to delight them from the outset.
So I liken this to if I'm standing at the check-in counter at the Four Seasons Hotel anywhere in the world and I happen to be second or third in line, it's very likely that an associate from Four Seasons is going to come around the desk and offer me a glass of champagne while I'm waiting to check in. And of course I'm going to say yes. Why wouldn't you accept the glass of champagne while you're waiting? Because you are anticipating and can't wait for the delightful five-star experience ahead.
Four Seasons knows how to set the standard, and so it's critical for especially the salespeople on the line to set that standard in those initial conversations with our prospects. Make sure that we're very clear with them and that we are beginning with the end in mind so that they can start to engineer a vision of success and workflow and streamlined business processes with us, and have a very clear impression that working with us and doing business with us will be a delightful experience and it'll last for years and years.
Ralph Barsi (08:36):
Third principle is about being resourceful. So many times, as we all know, we are running into problems great and small. It doesn't matter how complex or how complicated the problems are. What we have to do is find two solutions to those problems before we start escalating them to others, to other leaders within the organization.
And I'll tell you right now, by employing that approach, finding those two solutions to every problem before escalating them, nine times out of 10, you're going to end up solving the problem on your own and that is how you become a leader. That's why the leaders who sit in the leadership offices today have earned those roles. It's because they have solved great problems of all different shapes and sizes throughout their career.
Two great ways to solve problems include creative thinking and critical thinking. So when it comes to creative thinking, think of trying to fit the square peg into the round hole and consider a book called "Thinkertoys," which was written by Michael Michalko.
Ralph Barsi (09:44):
It's essentially a list of creative thinking exercises just to help get your wheels turning on how to approach this problem, how to see that problem as it is and not worse, and how to see that problem from all angles so you know the best path or paths forward.
And then there's critical thinking. Critical thinking essentially is just seeing the answer first in your head and then deducing through questions and analyses how you're going to arrive at that answer. And there's a great exercise that helps you do that called the Pyramid Principle, and you'll find it in a book called "The McKinsey Way" by a gentleman named Ethan Rasiel. And it's a great exercise for deducing through questions and analyses and arriving at the answer.
And then finally, there's the fourth - again of eight principles - and that's playing the long game but making your world small.
Ralph Barsi (10:45):
So playing the long game as we know is a timeless lesson. We hear this from so many different people and it's not going away. What I think of are two gentlemen in particular. The first is Andy Stumpf. He is a former US Navy SEAL. He's also the host of the Cleared Hot podcast. And then there's Jesse Itzler. He's the creator of the Build Your Life Resume Program. He's also married to billionaire entrepreneur Sara Blakely, the founder and creator of Spanx.
And the two of these gentlemen always talk about making your world small even though you're playing the long game. So when you zoom in and you're approaching your workday, for example, maybe you have to focus in 10-minute chunks or 30-minute chunks versus looking at all you've got to do that day.
My friend Kevin Dorsey, also known as KD, who's very popular in the SaaS sales world, he talks about if you have 70 dials to make today, don't look at it as 70 dials. Look at it instead as seven dials 10 different times throughout the day. Just break things up into chunks.
Ralph Barsi (11:49):
And we've got our Stoics - Marcus Aurelius, we have Seneca - who are always reminding us to confine ourselves to the present. And then there's this awesome website called "Wait But Why" - you can look it up right now if I'm boring you. They've got these life charts that are available that you can order in poster size if you want.
And the life charts look at an average human life of about 90 years, which is kind of daunting if you look at it in that perspective, but it presents a 90-year life and it breaks it down in terms of weeks, in terms of months, or in terms of decades. And it's really helpful as a visual to keep the macro in perspective, to know that just getting through my presentation today is just a little blip on the radar of life. And hopefully I'll impart a little nugget of value for you to take away today and actually apply just to make that long game a little bit brighter and clearer.
Ralph Barsi (12:59):
Alright, let's move to the last four principles. And while I'm going through these, you could say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that. I've heard this before." But instead ask yourself, "Well, how good am I at all these?"
The last four principles are: communicate like a boss, be a contributor of value, success is sequential, and have an attitude of gratitude.
Communicating like a boss means mastering the art of writing, speaking, and listening. When you do those three things well, you are persuasive, you're influential, you're inspirational, you're motivational. These are critical life skills that you need to master.
A great way to start is to study the craft of writing. How many times are you sending emails or texts throughout a given day or posting something on LinkedIn or writing an article? You've got to make sure that your grammar is on point. You've got to make sure that your messaging hits home and resonates with your audience.
Ralph Barsi (14:05):
You've got to make sure that every word earns its right onto the page. A great book to help you learn how to write better is called "On Writing Well," and it's by William Zinsser.
And I say that because there's just so many great books on the actual craft of writing that I would implore you to check out. And always keep in mind that how you do anything is how you do everything. As leaders, we are always setting an example whether we like it or not. So all details matter. The little things really make the big things happen. So pay attention to how your brand, your image, how your messaging is coming across to your teams, to your prospects, to your customers, and to the ecosystem within which you work.
The second principle is be a contributor of value. This really hit home for me when I read it in Michael D. Watkins' book "The First 90 Days" where he introduces the concept of the breakeven point.
Ralph Barsi (15:10):
So many new hires when they get into a new company are consumers of value. They're in onboarding classes, they're in new hire camps, they're in orientation sessions, and all they're doing is consuming - learning about the history of the company, the iterations and versions of the product rollouts - rather than making that first sale or pleasing that first prospect or customer. Once they hit that point, it's called the breakeven point and they're now contributors of value.
And a similar concept is shared by Mark Leslie, who in the Harvard Business Review probably 15, 20 years ago now, wrote a great article about the sales learning curve. How sales leaders, when they invest in a brand new account executive or sales leader, for example, for their organization, they need a return on that investment. And so Mark's sales learning curve talks about once you become that contributor of value, everybody can see that return in you.
Ralph Barsi (16:14):
And then if you want to just Google "Seth Godin why bother having a resume," you'll learn a little bit from that article in that you have to start attracting opportunities to you versus pursuing them. If you want your phone to ring from potential employers or potential customers, you've got to work harder on yourself than you do on your job. And Seth Godin does a beautiful layout of what that takes to add value to the marketplace on a regular basis. So you don't even need a resume at the end of the day.
The third principle is success is sequential, and that little formula there, M = P Ă— V, is the physical law for momentum. Momentum equals mass times velocity. So if you want to move forward and go from A to B, sometimes that means detaching all emotion. Sometimes that means to stop overthinking and over-engineering things and simply just start taking action. And that's how you're going to create momentum in your day and ultimately in your career.
Ralph Barsi (17:23):
Gary Keller of Keller Williams Realty has written a couple killer books. You've got "The Millionaire Real Estate Agent" as one of them, and then you've got "The ONE Thing" as another one - that's a great book where he introduces what's called the domino effect.
And to prove that success is sequential, he just uses the analogy of a domino which stands at about two inches tall. It's the size of a matchbox, for example, but it carries the force due to the law of physics enough to knock down an object that's one and a half times its size. And the object it knocks down can topple over an object one and a half times its size. And by the time you get to say the 57th iteration of this toppling effect or this domino effect, you're talking about the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
The same applies to when you're prospecting - that first dial, that first conversation, that first opportunity you book for the pipeline, how you cultivate that opportunity through the funnel all the way to closure, how you hand off the baton to the customer success team to successfully onboard that customer, how you hand it then to the account management team to handle renewals. All of that is an illustration of success being sequential.
Ralph Barsi (18:34):
And then there's the 20 Mile March presented to us from Jim Collins. He wrote "Good to Great," and then in his book "Great by Choice," he talks about the 20 Mile March.
Where let's say you and I are standing barefoot in the water in the beaches of San Diego, California, and the two of us decide, "You know what? Let's set out for the northeast corner of Maine." And I decide to go 10 miles the first day, 40 miles the second, none the third. And then I develop kind of a roller coaster of a cadence to get to the northeast corner of Maine. Whereas you decide every single day, no matter what - rain, sleet, or snow - you're going to go 20 miles. You have a maximum threshold and you have a minimum threshold, but you'll be steady Eddie throughout the entire journey.
Ralph Barsi (19:32):
I'll tell you right now, you'll arrive in the northeast corner of Maine probably three months before me because you just remain steady, you remain consistent, you didn't get too excited about things and you didn't get too bummed out about things. Therein lies the principle behind the 20 Mile March and the fact that success is sequential.
And last but not least, have an attitude of gratitude. If you are not grateful on a minute-by-minute basis throughout your day, you need to start developing that. Go to the World Wealth Calculator. You can Google that as well, type in your OTE or how much you're making in your salary every year, and you'll be amazed and shocked how wealthy you really are in the world. And that's just financially. There are other ways we're wealthy.
The fact that you can hear me right now is something you should be grateful for. You're probably watching me from a pretty sweet laptop that you likely didn't even pay for - maybe your employer did. You could be having a hot cup of coffee right now or a glass of fresh ice water when there are villages throughout our planet that don't even have running water. So please keep perspective.
Ralph Barsi (20:25):
Also, check out a great documentary called "Jiro Dreams of Sushi." It follows the career of Jiro Ono, who is a Michelin star sushi chef. He has a sushi restaurant that is in a subway station in Tokyo underground. I think it seats 10 to 12 patrons. It takes about a year to get a seat at Jiro's table for a 10 to 12 plate dining experience, which is probably going to cost you about $300 a head.
But Jiro, being a three-star Michelin chef, his only care in the world is delighting you, making sure that he makes the very best sushi on the planet. He focuses on details like we talked about earlier, meaning the consistency of the rice that the fresh fish is served on has to be served to perfection. He pays attention to that stuff, and so should you.
Ralph Barsi (21:27):
Lastly, there's Mr. Rogers - Fred Rogers. You can YouTube this, I think it's 1998. Fred Rogers received the Lifetime Emmy Award for his achievement in television, and he grabs the trophy from Tim Robbins. He accepts the trophy and the award, and he says to the audience:
"I'd like you to take 10 seconds right now, and I'll even count the time, to just keep in mind or recall someone or a number of people that were special to you or were special to you that made sacrifices in their lives to remove obstacles out of your way and to help you get to where you're right now sitting here on this webinar with me, and to be grateful to them and to keep in mind how pleased and how proud they must be in this moment to know that they made a difference in your life."
Ralph Barsi (22:37):
So keep perspective everybody, and please develop that attitude of gratitude on a regular basis.
A little about me today - I'm the Vice President of Global Inside Sales at Tray.io in San Francisco. I am the former leader of the sales development organizations at ServiceNow, at Achievers, at InsideView. Prior to that, most of my career was invested as an individual contributor. I was an AE for several different companies.
I'm currently an advisor at Loopio, which is a great software company in Toronto, and I'm a mentor at the Women in Sales Awards here in North America and at the GrowthX Academy. Please connect with me and engage. When you do connect, I actually will respond and write back. For example, if we don't get to any questions today, it's okay. Write them down anyway. I still will respond.
This is how you can reach me via email. You can check out a lot of my work at ralphbarsi.com/show-your-work. You can look at my presentations on SlideShare, connect with me on LinkedIn, or follow me on Twitter.
Ralph Barsi (23:40):
It's a true honor to be able to represent today and to be part of the TenBound Virtual Summit. I wish you all the best. I encourage you to enjoy the rest of the conference, and if we do have some time to answer some questions, why don't we do that. I think we've got about four minutes to go.
Right on. I think we're just getting some thank yous and there will be a recording for the call. Renee, will we share this recording, do you think, on YouTube?
Renee LaRose (24:16):
I think it goes out on YouTube. We'll definitely send an email to all the registered participants of the links to find all the recordings. Everything's recorded, except the virtual booths that happen throughout the day. Those are not uploaded, but all the presentations are uploaded.
Ralph Barsi (24:31):
Outstanding. Well, you've all been generous with your time. Thanks for being with us today, and enjoy the rest of your day.
Renee LaRose (24:38):
Thanks everyone. Thanks, Ralph.
Ralph Barsi (24:40):
Thank you.