The Unfortunate Reality of Layoffs

[00:01] Michael McNary: Welcome to Mimeo's Talk of the trade. I'm Mike McNary. In addition to leading the sales organization here at Mimeo, I'm also interested in unlocking the secrets of sales and marketing. In each episode, I talk with creative leaders to find out how they approach problems like motivating sales teams, structuring the revenue cycle, and fitting product to market. At the end of the conversation, you and I have new takeaways to apply to our everyday life. Let's jump into today's episode.

[00:28] Michael McNary: Hey, everyone, Mike McNary here with another episode of Mimeo's Talk of the Trade podcast. Today's episode is titled the Unfortunate Reality of Layoffs. Our guest for the discussion is Barb Huelskamp. Barb is an award-winning global strategy and partner sales leader. Barb, it's great to have you on the pod. Welcome.

[00:50] Barb Huelskamp: Thank you. Appreciate you inviting me to the conversation.

[00:53] Michael McNary: Been looking forward to it since we first chatted, and I think it's going to be a good one. Why don't we start off by learning a little bit more about you? How did you first get involved with channel sales?

[01:03] Barb Huelskamp: Sure. I actually started in direct sales. I had a very successful career in direct sales and really found that I could compound my success and just build a much bigger pipeline using that virtual sales team with channels and alliances. Customers really do want solutions, and the company I worked for didn't provide that end-to-end solution. So we had to partner up. And every opportunity that partnering drove better outcomes, drove more service, attached opportunities for my organization, obviously bigger deals, and then there was some great long-term stickiness. So I jumped into channel sales pretty quickly when I saw what it could do.

[01:46] Michael McNary: Yeah, I mean, it really is a multiplier. In preparation for our call, I was looking into it, and I think the number of companies that are considered to be wildly successful that leverage channel sales versus those that don't, it's a pretty one to one direct line there. Those leveraging channel sales are doing better and getting their product and offerings out to wider audiences.

[02:12] Barb Huelskamp: That's right. You can't just keep throwing more sales headcount at revenue growth. Right. That has some limitations, but building that virtual sales team with partners really can extend your reach.

[02:24] Michael McNary: Well said. What would you say is your favorite thing about the work that you do, Barb?

[02:29] Barb Huelskamp: I love building great relationships and driving real value and scale for both organizations.

[02:36] Michael McNary: Right.

[02:36] Barb Huelskamp: As a channel person, you don't own the end user. Customer salesperson has that. With a technology company, you're not a principal at the partner. So to be able to bring those relationships together, really build trust amongst those organizations and real value for your customer, like I said, it's a proven lever of scale.

[02:56] Michael McNary: Really is. Well, today we've got an interesting topic, right. One that can mean negative things for many folks when it happens, but also can be a time of opportunity. We're going to talk about layoffs and layoffs are an unfortunate reality these days, especially in the tech industry. Obviously, no one ever wants to do layoffs and when they happen valued talented professionals, they're impacted. So as sales and marketing leaders, we're sometimes forced to make some hard decisions. I think today's discussion is going to look ideally at how to approach the problem creatively so we can protect your remaining team and still hit the goals that every one of us have. Why don't we start off with the beginning of the conversation? So when you're first approached about planning layoffs, barb what are some of your first priorities? What are some of the first things you should be thinking of?

[03:50] Barb Huelskamp: Sure and I love this question, but let me start off with some stats just to give some context.

[03:56] Michael McNary: Sure.

[03:57] Barb Huelskamp: To the enormity of the impact. A recent Korn Ferry white paper indicated that there were over 450,000 people in technology laid off this year alone. I was speaking to an industry analyst last April and he indicated that already 500,000 people had been laid off since last Q three. So it is hundreds of thousands of people impacted. And to your point, that impact extends from the person impacted to the person having to make the decisions and deliver the message to the remaining team, right. So when you're that leader and you're first approached about planning layoffs, I'm a creature of a dozen questions or so, right. So first, what's the reason for the layoff and what's being measured? Right? Is it productivity? If it's around sales, is it cost savings? How is the percentage of people required to be impacted decided?

[04:59] Michael McNary: Right.

[05:00] Barb Huelskamp: So as an example, if it is about improving productivity, you're going to start looking at that revenue per head, right, for sales channels or the KPIs that any organization or department is measured against. If it's about cost savings, what's the total budget that needs to be reduced? And does it all have to come out of headcount or are there other areas or creative ways to accommodate that reduction?

[05:26] Michael McNary: And sometimes there are, but a lot of times, unfortunately, it boils down to people. And those numbers are astounding that you mentioned, if you think about those in pure percentage of the population, we're talking about a significant coverage of the entire country, professionals affected in a short period of time.

[05:47] Barb Huelskamp: And another important question when considering the layoffs and I'm sure we're all just starting to feel some of that impact is the impact to your customers, your partners and your vendors.

[05:56] Michael McNary: Right.

[05:57] Barb Huelskamp: So make sure you're having the discussion about how they're going to be impacted as well in areas like customer support, partner activation, or recruit other events already planned that need that, that cross functional collaboration is really important in some of that decision making too.

[06:16] Michael McNary: Yeah.

[06:16] Michael McNary: And also the question, I think, Barb and you tell me your thoughts of what sort of day to day is this going to leave for those that remain?

[06:26] Michael McNary: Right.

[06:26] Michael McNary: Is this a situation where folks are going to have to do 1.5 jobs or now handle the roles and responsibilities of someone who's left? And it just got me thinking, when you're thinking about impact to customer right, what's the impact of the folks that are left? Right?

[06:42] Barb Huelskamp: Big time. Right. The impact for those left behind. One, they're still feeling the shock, they still have the emotion. But I think some of the first questions they're asking themselves is am I safe? Am I next?

[06:58] Michael McNary: Right.

[06:58] Barb Huelskamp: And I think as a leader, you have to go out of your way first to give them some time and space to process that and reassure them and maybe even inspire them to understand why the decisions were made.

[07:10] Michael McNary: Right.

[07:11] Barb Huelskamp: They're business reasons. They're absolutely tough decisions. It's not personal. But if you can get your team on board to understanding what you're driving to, that should help. And then next is that realization of who's going to pick up this abandoned workload, right?

[07:26] Michael McNary: Right.

[07:26] Barb Huelskamp: I would hope a lot of the leaders forced to make these decisions have thought through some of that. But certainly talking to your team, you're probably going to uncover perhaps some tasks or skill sets or unique projects that may not have been thought through.

[07:42] Michael McNary: Right.

[07:42] Barb Huelskamp: So I think it's important for the leaders to really focus on what the top priorities are. I often say to my team, I want to get you comfortable getting uncomfortable because if you peanut butter spread yourself across too much instead of the needle moving priorities, then you are going to spread yourself too thin. So my number one piece of advice would be focusing on those top priorities and leaving the balance for reactive time.

[08:10] Michael McNary: Yeah, I think that's really the way to think about it. And you mentioned inspired, right. It's such a difficult time to try to strike that chord with your teams. As you mentioned, there's a shock that occurs when a portion of the team has been let go for those that have maybe made the cut but are still there. They've got a lot of questions, as you said, and if you don't strike that chord or if you don't find a way to communicate in a way that it resonates the whys, the what's ahead, the optimism you run. The risk of losing the really, say, the top tier folks that are left losing them due to the uncertainty or that they're not maybe buying into the vision ahead.

[08:56] Michael McNary: Right.

[08:56] Michael McNary: So there's a lot of risk there.

[08:58] Barb Huelskamp: That's right. And I'd suggest continuing to regroup with that team on how they're doing.

[09:03] Michael McNary: Right.

[09:03] Barb Huelskamp: Making sure you give them the time and the space to talk about all of that, but then also recognition. Make sure as folks pick up other tasks or maybe there was an opportunity to promote or expand someone's responsibility with some of these decisions, but make sure that they're getting that support and the reporting make sure that as a leader, you're reporting up, you're reporting down sideways.

[09:29] Michael McNary: Right?

[09:29] Barb Huelskamp: Cross functionally, what's working, what's not, and have the productivity levels picked up right. What areas aren't being addressed? What didn't we think about what is working and providing recognition to those who have picked up the ball or have expanded responsibilities so that you can continue to rebuild that morale?

[09:50] Michael McNary: Yeah, I think you're right on there. And I think as bad of a situation as it can be in many respects, it's also a time of opportunity. You mentioned some people that may show some skills that weren't otherwise known and you might have the opportunity to shine in a way that some folks wouldn't have had that opportunity otherwise. And it can really be an opening for some people to step up that's right.

[10:15] Barb Huelskamp: Give them the opportunity to stretch. And one of my favorite balances is you want to coach, but you want to empower. As a leader, you can't do everything.

[10:26] Michael McNary: Right.

[10:26] Barb Huelskamp: So give them an opportunity. They might trip, they might fail a little bit, but teach them how to fail fast.

[10:33] Michael McNary: Yeah, I like that. And we say a lot of times here, empowerment with accountability.

[10:38] Michael McNary: Right.

[10:39] Michael McNary: And I think that's what you're pointing towards there. So let's talk a little bit about the really tough part of it, which is making the decisions about what's going to get cut, where it's going to get cut. I really like where you started when you said let's figure out what our goal is. Right. What is it that we're trying to accomplish specifically? Is it cost cutting? Is it productivity seeking? Once you've done that and kind of determine what your end game is, so to speak, how do you go about making selections amongst the team that you have and determining who it is that's going to maybe have to be valid?

[11:21] Barb Huelskamp: And I think that this is critical because you want to make sure that you have removed the bias and you're using objective criteria.

[11:29] Michael McNary: Right.

[11:30] Barb Huelskamp: So my first suggestion, I'm a metrics geek, is go back to the numbers, whether it's quota, achievement, productivity levels, KPIs, and not just at an individual level, but for the department.

[11:41] Michael McNary: Right.

[11:41] Barb Huelskamp: That might help drive decisions on hey, we said we were going to hire ten people with a goal of a million dollars. We're at 700. You can start connecting the dots on data so that you are using objective criteria, performance ratings in the system, not just an opinion in the moment, but do they have consistent performance against the goals? It's not always a popular answer, but tenure, because in some cases you can't replace that organizational wisdom.

[12:13] Michael McNary: Right.

[12:14] Barb Huelskamp: And with that departing, would it impact your priorities as well as the skill sets? If they're unique, if they own relationships with certain customers or vendors or partners.

[12:27] Michael McNary: Right.

[12:27] Barb Huelskamp: I think all of that can be pretty objective. And once you've done that then playing around with that subjective criteria. But I'm a fan of having that cross functional conversation to make sure that you reveal, inspect, and discard any bias.

[12:46] Michael McNary: Right.

[12:46] Barb Huelskamp: So as an example, I've seen leaders use the layoff as an opportunity to weed out poor performers. It's not ideal, and I think a leader needs to inspect what should have happened earlier.

[13:00] Michael McNary: Right.

[13:01] Barb Huelskamp: I recently had a leader tell me they didn't move someone out because they were afraid it wasn't going to get backfilled. I've had someone include someone on the list because the leader really didn't feel they fit in. That's really subjective.

[13:15] Michael McNary: Right.

[13:15] Barb Huelskamp: And this isn't a popularity contest.

[13:17] Michael McNary: Right.

[13:17] Barb Huelskamp: But you want to welcome diverse views. So what does fitting in mean?

[13:21] Michael McNary: Right.

[13:22] Barb Huelskamp: You've got to look at the demographics, making sure that you're not impacting underrepresented minorities or gender and how are they performing broadly? Again, that cross functional conversation across all departments, because you might have data that shows this might be the right person, but then you've got another department that is 100% dependent on them and they've got that corporate knowledge, they've got those relationships.

[13:48] Michael McNary: Right.

[13:48] Barb Huelskamp: So you kind of need that 360 degree view.

[13:51] Michael McNary: Yeah, I really like that. I really like that. You started with the objective, trying to get as black and white of a view as possible, right. And then leaning on the subjective and the we'll call it multiple contributor viewpoint, right. So that there's no one being viewed in a vacuum. A vacuum being one person's opinion or experience with somebody, because everybody might have a different interpretation of not only the subjective skill and contribution or how someone contributes to diversity or culture, but even on the number side of things, that can be true as well. Right, correct. That maybe one data point is more important than another, or this person may be somewhere on a data point scale today, but if you run it back 36 months, the story changes and it's really good. I love that you're talking about getting diverse and multiple opinions when it comes to these sort of decisions because frankly, perspective matters not only on the objective, but also the subjective.

[15:00] Barb Huelskamp: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if there are five leaders evaluating and all five leaders are saying we cannot do without this person because of X, Y, and Z, it's a pretty powerful statement after you've got your objective criteria outlined.

[15:14] Michael McNary: Yes, I agree completely. And I also really like what you said about addressing performance that maybe wasn't previously addressed. I think I'm not a big fan of that either. I think if there's a conversation happening at some point and an employee is very surprised by the feedback and it's the end of the road, then something was managed very poorly along the way.

[15:39] Barb Huelskamp: And you don't want to put your organization at risk by doing that either. I mean, to your point, one, it's not fair to the employee totally. Because they should have been consulted along the way. Nobody likes that kind of surprise. And quite frankly, I think human nature, people want to do better. I love feedback and understanding where I could have had a better result because you've got great coaches around you. But I also think as a leader, you want to make sure you're protecting your organization and don't put the company at risk for any extreme word discrimination suits or lawsuits because this person wasn't given a fair opportunity and they never received any feedback.

[16:17] Michael McNary: Yeah.

[16:17] Michael McNary: And if there's any of that happening, there should be repercussions.

[16:20] Michael McNary: Right?

[16:20] Barb Huelskamp: Yeah.

[16:22] Michael McNary: But the more you can be upfront and I think that eventually speaks to how is your talent review infrastructure within your organization? Right. Do you perform quarterly reviews? Are you having constant meetings where you're assessing performance and contribution and going through all of the different you mentioned them at the top, the KPIs, the performance ratings, because all that stuff should be looked in upon frequently so that people know where they are. And then, as you said, people would love to become better at what they're doing, position themselves better for what's next, and contribute in a way that makes them more valuable. Sometimes they just need to be shown what those expectations are.

[17:09] Barb Huelskamp: That's right. Do they know what they're being measured against? And you and I could spend another 30 minutes session on that subject alone.

[17:17] Michael McNary: Couldn't agree more.

[17:18] Michael McNary: Yeah.

[17:18] Michael McNary: No, there's a lot to unpack there. Let me ask you a different question as it relates to making decisions during these difficult times. I've seen it handled kind of both ways, but what are your feelings about balancing the retention of talent versus the retention of specific roles? And what I mean by that is we all have our roles and responsibilities outlined within an organization, and then a major change like this comes. Should we be prioritizing keeping people in the seat that works best or keeping the person that maybe has the most diverse and expansive talent and getting creative with where they sit within the organization? How do you handle that?

[18:02] Barb Huelskamp: Yeah, this one I feel strongly about. I try not to be too resolute in an answer, but this one's easy. You don't lose great talent, especially if in your process, you've categorized them as a high potential. You can redefine roles, you can reclassify roles. At some point, as your organization pulls out of this challenge, you can create new roles.

[18:26] Michael McNary: Right.

[18:27] Barb Huelskamp: But a role can be eliminated, and you can have great talent in that role. But if you eliminate that talent and you're starting from scratch, attrition is very costly to the business.

[18:40] Michael McNary: Right.

[18:41] Barb Huelskamp: So I would rather see an organization find that talent, make sure they understand what motivates them, what drives them. Is there an opportunity to give them expanded responsibilities and grow in the midst of that potential change. Reassure them.

[18:57] Michael McNary: Right.

[18:58] Barb Huelskamp: Because in a riff, do they feel fear of losing their position and you're going to lose them a couple of weeks or a couple of months later.

[19:08] Michael McNary: Right.

[19:08] Barb Huelskamp: So I think you want to put your arms around those folks. You want to protect them, you want to give them an opportunity, find out what drives them, and make sure you keep feeding that.

[19:19] Michael McNary: Yeah. And I think going back to something that's occurred as a theme already is there are opportunities that can arise in these circumstances. Right. And if you can show one of these high potential or top talent folks that there might be some opportunity on the exit of this whole scenario, I think it's a way to keep people and convince them to maybe take on a different path, at least temporarily, because it might be a way to where they want to get to once things have kind of settled down or become more stable.

[19:55] Barb Huelskamp: Absolutely.

[19:56] Michael McNary: Right.

[19:56] Barb Huelskamp: In an example I've had in my career, we had to eliminate some leadership and took the opportunity to talk with my high potential individual contributor and ask him to take on team leadership role. And it did not come with a raise, it did not come with a title, but it came with some time and several of us in the organization surrounding that person with support to grow them into a leader so that when we could open up that position, we were grooming him for that role.

[20:29] Michael McNary: And that's great. And I think people are willing to do something that they know is temporary so long as they know it's temporary or they know that there's some sort of put differently, there's an end date on it.

[20:42] Michael McNary: Right.

[20:42] Michael McNary: People are willing to do maybe something that they didn't want to do or roll with the punches, so to speak. But if you ask them to do it forever, even if that forever is only in their minds, if you don't give them another way to look at it, that's how they may view it.

[20:57] Barb Huelskamp: Sure. And I'll share a personal experience. I was with an organization some time ago, post Riff, and they asked me to pick up responsibilities that were sort of lateral to what I was doing. Over time, because of that lateral responsibility, I became elevated for the next time a promotion came about because I had touched numerous areas of the business. So for anybody who's looking at that saying, you're just getting more work out of me for the same amount of money yeah. You're definitely being a soldier to the company. But with the right conversation, it can lead to what that next step in your career is also.

[21:41] Michael McNary: No, you're investing in yourself. And it's also good to think about the long game. Right. I think we say it all the time, right. Time flies. Right. Or wow, I can't believe it's already this month or this date. And we think about it passively. But then when we're looking ahead and saying to ourselves, oh, I've got to do this. For how long? We kind of lose the reference point of how quickly that time can go by. And by taking on something that might not be the ideal or is maybe more difficult, you're setting yourself up, maybe over before you know it.

[22:16] Barb Huelskamp: Absolutely. And if you love the company, you believe in what you're doing, you believe in the mission. You do have aspirations to move up that career ladder or even find another opportunity within the company based on some new interest. Keep asking for it.

[22:37] Michael McNary: What are some ways that a sales team can be supported as they're asked to be doing more with less.

[22:45] Michael McNary: Right.

[22:46] Michael McNary: How does leadership support them in that mission?

[22:48] Barb Huelskamp: I think first, everyone has to be unified on the message.

[22:51] Michael McNary: Right.

[22:53] Barb Huelskamp: It's making sure you've given the organization that time and space to process, but also help them manage through the event and get them on board with the why and to what you said earlier, to what we're trying to accomplish, what is the future and what is the opportunity. We talked a little bit about, I think, a natural human reaction for the team is, am I safe? Am I next? And hey, you terminated my buddy, right? So how are you reassuring them through that and going through those business reasons? We talked a little bit about the realization of, now, who's going to pick up that abandoned workload? So prioritizing employees should speak up about any gaps that they're seeing that might not have been addressed, and some of them might take a few days to expose themselves.

[23:47] Michael McNary: Right.

[23:48] Barb Huelskamp: But I would highly encourage everyone to speak up and not just speak up with the complaint, but bring forth ideas. I often say I collaborate better with my team. I might have a rough idea. And then as I collaborate with the team, we turn it into a nice and shiny outcome. So bring some rough ideas for it. It might not be completely thought through, but that's what you've got a great team to work through.

[24:15] Michael McNary: I love that solutions oriented feedback. Right. Instead of just identifying a problem or a gap, come with something about how we could handle it differently. And I think if we're thinking about how to make things better and how to close the gaps, it's always more productive than just pointing a finger and identifying that the gap is there.

[24:34] Barb Huelskamp: Right. And I think a couple of things, right. We always talk about, hey, there's no dumb ideas. You really want to promote a safe space for everyone to speak up. But the other thing I've seen is, well, we've tried that or no, this is the way we do it.

[24:49] Michael McNary: Right.

[24:49] Barb Huelskamp: So if you've got some tenure in an organization, open your aperture and listen to the newer folks or whether it's the older generation or the younger generation, because what didn't work three years ago might work now.

[25:05] Michael McNary: Right.

[25:05] Barb Huelskamp: Where are you in that maturity journey. So just open your aperture to ideas and create that safe space for everyone to bring them forward.

[25:13] Michael McNary: Yeah, I love that. And beyond that, right. Just building off of what you said, if it didn't work, what did you learn when you went through the process? So there's a lot of different ways to try to get to the same place, right? Okay, well, maybe we won't go down that road again, but maybe we can find a path to the goal by trying something different or taking a slice of what we did there with a new and creative facet of the strategy here. So I really like that. And what I wanted to kind of close with is we're talking about this through the lens of sales and marketing, right. And sales team that's left behind. And the marketing team that's left behind. You mentioned a lot of different ways to support the folks that are now trying to do some more work than they used to or different responsibilities. What are some ways that a sales team can hit its goal with fewer salespeople and maybe even a slash budget? Right. You talked about there's a lot of different ways to get the money that you need to. Is it always people or is it a slash in your tech stack or maybe is it something else so you have less money and less people? What do you do?

[26:24] Barb Huelskamp: This is going to sound really self serving as a channel leader, but the number one answer has to be channels. It's a proven strategy right, to gain scale by building that virtual sales team.

[26:36] Michael McNary: Right.

[26:36] Barb Huelskamp: So if you already have a channel strategy, inspect, is it driving incremental revenue and where can you double down or where should you focus? Whether you're looking at certain partners at certain regions or certain customer segments, does pivoting some of the dollars get you more scale? Do you have the right talent in place to drive the incremental sales through channels?

[26:59] Michael McNary: Right.

[26:59] Barb Huelskamp: I'm a big believer in having joint business plans. And having that joint business plan means that you and your partner have agreed upon quantifiable growth goals, right. And the composition of growth matters. How much business are you bringing each other? What's the pipeline requirements to get to the revenue goals? Are they a hunting organization? Are they a farming organization? And they're working on customer expansion? What's their renewal, what's their customer satisfaction? Right? So I think you can inspect the joint business plans and channels is a proven lever. Alliances. Do you have solid go to market plans with your alliances? So that includes your cloud providers, other technology firms you may integrate with MSPs or OEMs. Do you have growth oriented goals with demand generation activities? There's tons of no cost, low cost demand generation marketing initiatives you can do together. Most cloud providers have some nice marketing funds and programs to help you accelerate your growth right. If your solution is in their cloud or if you're a solution provider with products in their marketplace, they've got lots of staff and programs and MDF available to you. And last but certainly not least, look at your customer list, right. Which customer segments are growing and why? Try to find the underlying reasons. Are partners helping you grow? That right. Or is your direct sales force doing well and double down on that? I read a recent report that showed as an example, I'm not picking on SMB, but it said SMB sales is slowing while large enterprise and global customers are growing. So do you shift your focus to that growing customer segment, improving your productivity levels until the SMB market rebounds?

[28:58] Michael McNary: Right.

[28:58] Barb Huelskamp: In my last organization, all of our SMB leads went to our partners and they did a great job.

[29:05] Michael McNary: Yeah, that's really interesting and I love that. I think we try to get our individual contributors within our sales organization to think like that. Right. Replicate success. Even with our sales development team, where are you having success? What meetings are you booking that end up having a great alignment between value and need? We'll go out and get more of those because we know it's working, right?

[29:34] Barb Huelskamp: That's right.

[29:34] Michael McNary: And I think thinking about it on the bigger scale, of course, is the responsibility of a leader, which is we're primarily talking about today. But I love that the replicating what's working well and leveraging those partnerships. Because here's the reality. I've been in organizations that have had reductions in force since I know you have. You cited a couple of instances, Barb, you don't get your number changed. Right. No one's going to say, hey, guess what? We're going to lower your quota or we're going to expect less from your organization. Unfortunately, that's rarely how it goes.

[30:08] Barb Huelskamp: That's right. If you can do a bottoms up approach on how you're going to get there right. Based on the metrics that you have, how much pipeline do you have? What's your close ratio? What's your average deal size? I'm a metrics geek. And then start looking at your channels, your alliances, your cloud providers on where you can gain incremental. If customer expansion I'm making this up, but if customer expansion is blowing up in Europe for you, then focus on that. Where if your new logos and your new customer acquisition is performing better in Asia Pac, then double down in that area again. Get comfortable getting uncomfortable, not peanut butter. Spreading yourself across 100 things, do three things great.

[30:52] Michael McNary: Yeah. You got to place some bets, right? Yeah. You got to place some bets and say, this is where I'm going to put my money or my effort or my people, and we're going to go with it. Right. Sometimes you've just got to do that and you place a few bets like you said, and a couple pay off and you're fine. Right. But if you don't do. That what you end up doing is becoming mediocre at a lot of different things. Right?

[31:14] Barb Huelskamp: Well said.

[31:15] Michael McNary: Listen, Barb, a very touchy topic for a lot of folks, understandably. So I just loved your takes here and if I'm thinking of a few key takeaways from our conversation, one is make sure that you have your goal in mind at all times, right. Focus on what you're trying to accomplish and make decisions that support that mission statement. Right. You have to know during a time of layoffs what you're trying to achieve and you'll make the best decisions if you keep those kind of front and center. Secondly, keep great talent, right. Do what you can to keep the folks that are high potential big contributors have that institutional knowledge because it's very difficult to replace them on the back end. One and two, they are the ones that will help or be most helpful in getting you through a tough time or a time of budget constraint or market turn. Those are the folks that are really going to give you the highest ROI and then finally the number doesn't change. So if you want to have a lever that is going to bring you more with less, maybe less people and less money, explore channel sales. It can get you more with less and may just be the answer to your prayers. I love think go ahead, Barb.

[32:43] Barb Huelskamp: Sorry. Those are perfect key takeaways and everybody is dealing with the impact of a layoff. And I love quotes and there's a great quote from Richard Branson said, “business opportunities are like buses. There's always another one coming.”

[33:00] Michael McNary: Right.

[33:01] Barb Huelskamp: You just got to be on the lookout and do your homework. Work on your strategy, leverage your team and you'll get through it. Take advantage of that week because you're not alone in trying to achieve that.

[33:14] Michael McNary: Yeah, I love know even though it feels like it sometimes you're not alone, right. Someone else is going through something very similar and I think that's really important to remember. So Barb, if anyone in our audience wanted to reach out and get in contact with you, what would be the best way for them to do so?

[33:32] Barb Huelskamp: Direct message me on LinkedIn. It will go right into my inbox and not only welcome the communication, but if I can help anybody, whether you were impacted or impacting I have been impacted, I have had to deliver the message and I've been the team that's been left behind. I have been blessed with mentors and a lot of great coaches and really do enjoy paying that forward to help others. So please reach out.

[34:02] Michael McNary: Love it.

[34:03] Michael McNary: Barb, thank you so much for your time today, for your insights and expertise. We appreciate it and hope to talk to you again sometime soon.

[34:10] Barb Huelskamp: Thanks for including me in the discussion today. Really great.

[34:13] Michael McNary: Talk of the trade is hosted by Mimeo the better way to print. Find out more at www.mimeo.com.