Joe Vitalone.

Joe Vitalone — interview source transcript Machine-generated; source timestamps differ from the edited release. Pre-interview conversation omitted. Simon J Dudley (31:55.906) Hello everyone. It's the Before It Was Obvious podcast, but you knew that, or else you wouldn't have clicked on it, as we say every week. Today is a guest I've been looking forward to having on this show since we started. In fact, he was one of the people I thought we have to have on. And one of the reasons I even started the podcast, it's Joe Vittelone, a man who I have known for about 30 years. I I normally talk about new friends as anyone I've Simon J Dudley (32:25.066) only known for about 10 years or less. Joe is definitely an old friend. So Joe Vittelo, welcome to the show. Joe Vitalone (32:32.322) Yeah, hi Simon. Great to see you again. It has been a long time. And it is thirty years, by the way, almost to the almost to the day. I was as you said that I went back in in my head and said, When did I when did I? And it's been thirty thirty years and I've known Mimi for twenty some odd years. Yeah. Great it's great to see you again. Simon J Dudley (32:38.998) Almost sort of like months, I think. Simon J Dudley (32:50.262) Isn't that disturbing? So, so we thanks, my friend, and thanks for coming on the show. So, look, what we're gonna do is let's start with Vitalone, you've not been very public-facing for a couple of years. So, what are you doing today? And then once we've done that, we're gonna go all the way back in the Wayback Machine and trace how you got here and then work through all those decisions that got you where you are today. So Joe Vitalone (32:56.766) Sure. Joe Vitalone (33:16.950) okay. Boy, we got a lot to talk about. So let's about me. So I today I'm running mergers and acquisitions for a friend of mine that has a large MSP C LEC here in Dallas. And he approached me and said, I need help acquiring some companies. And so for the last eight months, we have bought a lot of companies and we're rolling those up into his organization. Prior to that I was Joe Vitalone (33:45.840) consulting for the last two years for companies like Ring Central and Black Box and Barco and and Wesley Clover companies and a host of others on a contract basis, which was really fun. and I went into that a little bit kicking and screaming, Simon, because I retired two and a half years ago. I I sh I shut the the clock off on a on a 40 year career. Joe Vitalone (34:11.748) I said when I got to five million miles or 160 quarters, I was gonna hit I was gonna hit pause. And I did, and I took a full year off where I played golf and caught every fish in the sea and enjoyed my grandchildren. I have three now and and did all the all those things. And then a friend came and said, Would you come help me? My business is broke and I've known that you've been able to do fix a few things. So I I did it. So I had to develop an LLC. Joe Vitalone (34:40.269) And one contract led to another, led to another, led to another, then all of a sudden I got way too busy. And I had to hit the pause button on a few of those. And and then as I was consulting for a company calling on a friend, he said, Why don't you do this MA thing with me? And so here so here I am. So it it's funny when you when you when you wanna stop, sometimes you can't, but it's been the most enjoyable two and a half years and it's allowed me to do a lot of retrospective stuff. Joe Vitalone (35:9.940) cathartic things like this and to do, you know, when you work at a at a craft sales and marketing for forty years, you you learn a lot, you get humbled by a lot. So so it's good to good to be here. And I'm and I'm happy to be on this side of the divot as they say on the the golf, still kicking and screaming and and I'm looking forward to this interview. Simon J Dudley (35:32.428) Yeah, you've had a career, some of which much of which I don't know about because I wasn't involved in your earlier days, because I'm obviously many, many, many years younger than you. not maybe that many years younger than you, but you know, I think I think a hundred and sixty quarters shows what the what the what that can do to the human body in both of our cases. It's a it's a tough job sales for 40 years. But Joe Vitalone (35:42.606) Yeah, easy, baby. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sixty five, so yeah. Joe Vitalone (35:55.630) Yeah, yeah. Joe Vitalone (36:0.587) Yeah. It yeah, I mean you you w as we've I think we talked in the past about it. You y you live your life ninety days at a time and it's you're flipping the hourglass over every ninety first day and you have to do it all over again and and and I've done it for a long time, fairly successfully and and been fortunate to be on some great teams. One with you back in the day and had great CEOs along the way, great mentors. Simon J Dudley (36:2.371) Before? Joe Vitalone (36:30.999) You know, and so we'll get into some of that I guess, but it's it's been a it's been I didn't expect forty years ago that my career would do what it did. And it wasn't by any design. It was just keeping my head down and and grinding along and surrounding myself with wonderful people and putting yourself in the right place at the right time is certainly part of it, but when you do it over and over again I call that a recipe. Simon J Dudley (36:35.266) Yes, we will. Joe Vitalone (36:58.001) And if you have the recipe and once you figure out the recipe it it kind of falls in your favor more than not. Simon J Dudley (37:5.858) Well, one of the things that you said to me, I don't remember how long ago now, at least 25 years ago, and it was probably more ago than that, was the trick is to get in luck's way. And and frankly, you you are famous in the industry for being one of the luckiest, and I'm for those of you on audio using parentheses, is the luckiest people in the industry. But you're lucky because you make certain that you get in the way of it. It's like a Joe Vitalone (37:21.401) Yeah. Simon J Dudley (37:32.878) Well he keeps getting hit by a bus. Well, yes, because he keeps running in front of buses and you do the same thing with luck. But we're gonna get into that later. So let's get do what we always do on this show and go back in the way back machine because the whole show's about decisions that look obvious now, but certainly weren't obvious at the time. So tell us about your early life. Where where was home when you were brought up? What did education look like? What were your first jobs like? That sort of thing. Joe Vitalone (37:37.120) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Joe Vitalone (37:57.515) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (38:1.322) Yeah, I grew up in a in a in a middle class family in upstate New York. My dad was a GE guy for thirty six years. My mom worked at home mostly as a caretaker for my self and my three other s three other siblings. And then I went to a a really good high school and then I and I lived almost up on the border of Canada. So I'm talking in the mountains of upstate New York, one of the coldest places in the world and and ironically I Joe Vitalone (38:29.492) And I don't know how I did this, but I can became a very good golfer. I was a New York State junior amateur champion several times, literally again in the coldest place. And so I went to college in a golf scholarship in Kentucky. And I thought I wanted to be a golf pro. And so that was my that was my childhood dream as a kid that I was gonna chase a white golf ball around a a field. And I learned in about my junior year that I was a little better at school than I was at putting. Joe Vitalone (38:55.685) And I figured if I couldn't win at the college level that I probably couldn't win at the professional level. So and and I'll I'll talk about why this is important in the business world because I made a decision early on not to not to chase that dream. And a lot of my friends did, spent a lot of time, not wasting their time, but they they spent a lot of times chasing a dream, not a passion per se, or not a you know, something that was gonna be real relevant in their life down the road. And Joe Vitalone (39:23.942) And I and I got but but through golf I met a person in nineteen eighty four when I graduated from school at Western Kentucky University. I played on an all American golf team with some Hall of Famers like Kenny Perry and and a and a host of others that were on this particular team and we won nine times my freshman year. I I learned that, you know, hard work and applying yourself. But it's an individual sport that you but it's part of a team. But your individual contribution Joe Vitalone (39:53.692) means a lot to the success of the team. And so going into sales and marketing like I did, the very same thing applies. That your contribution is such a big part of the team chemistry, a big part of the team success. And I learned and because you're doing it on your own a lot. My mom and dad didn't spend a lot of money on lessons because we didn't have it. I had to learn it. And it and they call it d you know digging it out of the dirt, literally practicing over and over. And I Joe Vitalone (40:22.877) So I dug a craft out of the dirt and I did the same thing when I got into sales, was I had to learn it from scratch. But you know, I was gifted with the ability to speak and and but I had to learn the craft of selling, and we'll we'll probably talk about that. But that was my early life, Simon, and then from eighty-four on it was a series of great companies that I got to work with early. MyTel was my first job in nineteen eighty-four. Joe Vitalone (40:51.748) And thirty years later I became the president of that company with a lot of successful startups in between, one of which you and I got a chance to work at. And, you know, then from my tell it went to, you know, Polycom and then from Polycom to Shortel, then to my Tel, then to Life Size and and Extreme Networks and and so on and so forth. But but it was my early life that I would say h had the biggest impact on Joe Vitalone (41:20.804) And what happened for the next thirty years? Simon J Dudley (41:24.566) Now, Mytel, telecoms, a company even in 1984 that had had a rich history. It wasn't a new company, even 1984, right? Joe Vitalone (41:36.412) No, no, they started in like seventy one. Simon J Dudley (41:39.822) So did they did they actually train people to be in sales at that era? Or did they do what I feel too many companies in the technology space at least do now, which is sort of w basically say, here's the product, you work it out? Or did they actually structure how you became a successful rep? Joe Vitalone (41:57.637) Yeah. Hey. Yeah. Great. Yeah, great question. Yes, they did train you. So we went, you know, in in my life, we went through the Xerox one, two, three, and then we went through all the Wilson learning. You know, if you look on the back shelf back up there, you know, a lot of that those books were the original books from my and I kept them specifically for that as a reminder was, you know, I I learned the classical way, the Xerox Joe Vitalone (42:28.249) style of selling and then the Wilson learning, you know, sts style of selling, the Fox and the Power Base and all of those things. And so yeah, there was it was fairly structured. Now having said that, I I I took nuggets of those things and and applied them to what I what worked for me. So I didn't I wasn't a robot about it, but but certainly they were really good steps on how to become and it was from there that I really learned that Joe Vitalone (42:56.004) that was what I was going to do. And I and I and I listened to even, you know, a lot of the corny Tony Robbins stuff. And I was a I was very much a reader and a learner, you know, post-college of the of the art of selling. And and I applied myself to that. And you and I did it, you know, even at Polycom. Simon J Dudley (43:14.572) You know, it's interesting. Simon J Dudley (43:17.878) It's interesting to me, and I've seen this with other guests. my own experience is that I I did a similar thing. I I was in office equipment when I first started in sales a couple of years after you, I didn't I skipped the whole college bit. so although I am a few years younger than you, I I didn't start work very much later than you did, a couple of years, 86. And in those days, organizations trained salespeople, or at least the good ones did. Simon J Dudley (43:46.700) I feel in the modern era there's too much of this. Well, we hire sales people. I remember one of my in fact, we shared a CEO, but we won't say who it was, who said, who who complained to me that our salespeople weren't very good. And I said to them, Isn't it odd that we hire salespeople from other companies and they were very successful there? And then they work for us and they're not wildly successful. And then they leave us and go and be successful somewhere else. What what what what do you think's missing? Simon J Dudley (44:13.388) And they said, well, they I expect them to know what to do. We pay them good money. Like, but if you don't tell them what you want, how are you, or how are they meant to know what to do next? It's it was like company name, you work it out. And I felt that that was something that happens too much in sales in these modern era. I feel we need to bring that back. but very Joe Vitalone (44:30.487) Yeah. When I when I it's funny you said that because when I started at MITEL in the second time in 2012 as the executive VP president of the Americas, I I get there and they had no sales training department. Joe Vitalone (44:48.054) Zero zilch. They they they had a technical certification and training department that most technical companies have, but there was no sales training. And so we I took a couple ahead count which was several hundred thousand dollars and and hired a a trainer, a a woman that you you know well, and and and we opened up my tel sales university and really made a whole curriculum around selling from from one one all the way up to four hundred level expert. Simon J Dudley (45:13.677) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (45:17.266) selling classes and and and we even started encouraging people to go get their MBAs and and thing whatever would would help. But but that those c and and we had our expert sellers, part of their matriculation at the company and in their learning was to teach in those classes. And and so the they every quarter they had to teach a certain amount of hours in in this in the university as a part of their Joe Vitalone (45:46.857) as a part of their function. And that turned out to be a great, a great thing. But in every I think in everything I did, Simon, after that, we had a level of sales selling classes in all of the companies that I did. Stream Networks had a a good one, Mitel, you know, Polycom, Logitech, there was a certain level of, you know, where you could go and and learn the craft. Simon J Dudley (46:16.066) Yes, I think it's one of those interesting examples of how the world and sales specifically because it's such a short term 90 day cycle, people too often don't think about a year, two, three, five years from now. Yeah. When I did some public speaking a few years ago, and one of the images I would show was a little octopus who lives at the bottom of the ocean and he's got ear he's got wings above his ears, and he's super cute looking little octopus. Joe Vitalone (46:25.556) Yeah. Simon J Dudley (46:45.036) And I would say to the audience, so what so what's the difference between this guy and your average salesperson or sales leader in your organization? And the audience, of course, didn't know the difference. And I would say, he has a life expectancy of three years, and your sales team has an average life expectancy of two. Why is that? Because you don't train them, they fail to hit the target, you cycle them out, and you start the same thing again, and you expect a different result. And Joe Vitalone (47:4.384) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (47:11.463) Yeah. Yeah. That is that is that's probably eighty percent of the companies today do the same do the same thing. And then they blame it on the the individual. The individual leaves and goes on to be super successful somewhere else. Takes all the training that you did give them and and competitive information and all the customers and and out the door they go and they apply and they take that as inspiration to, you know, stick it to the person that Simon J Dudley (47:14.679) You don't get a different result. Joe Vitalone (47:41.395) didn't give him the benefit of the doubt and or the company and I've seen that all too many times. Simon J Dudley (47:48.470) Yes. And then and then the company thinks they've stolen all the data or got all the information out of that person because they filled in the CRM. But no salesperson wants to fill in a CRM because they feel like it's stealing their soul. And it's a bit like, you know, those folks when they take their picture, it's like you've stolen my soul with the camera. You people companies think that the CRM is good, we've got all the com's customers' data in the CRM. It's like, well, one, have you tried reading your CRM? Because salespeople don't fill them in very well. Joe Vitalone (48:1.363) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (48:6.270) Yeah. Simon J Dudley (48:17.772) And secondly the relationships with the individual, not with the company. But we're gonna get in Joe Vitalone (48:21.361) And a lot of people don't wanna p and p and and the salespeople don't fill their CRM a lot of time because they don't wanna give the information up and they certainly don't want to give it up before they get to quota. You know, so they wanna know that they have a job and if they feel if there's trust there, you know, it's it's it's it's part risk and trust that that creates a really good salesperson. And those those are things that I think that we'll talk about in the show. But Joe Vitalone (48:49.403) I've been fortunate to have seen so many great salespeople over a long period of time. No, I'm not I'm not big on academia. I've I you know I I speak at a lot of big universities, USC and the University of Texas, where you are where you used to be in Austin, and the one here in Dallas at UTD. And and I'm not you know, I was a BC student in in college and was a spent a lot of time on a golf course, you know, trying to perfect that that craft. But Simon J Dudley (48:54.658) Yeah, yeah. So let's Joe Vitalone (49:19.242) when I go to these classes in these universities, they hang on every word because they want to learn more about the art of go to market and s and sales strategy and and what they're gonna do when they get out. They they've they've been so beat over the head with academia and studying and putting their face in a book that actually learning from somebody that had to to to to learn sales the hard way in the raw way is really inspiring to them. And so that's been a that's been a l an eye opener. Joe Vitalone (49:48.824) it to watch and to see people that wanna get into sales, marketing, business development, corporate development, those kinds of things. and there's only a handful in each class that are that will make it in this in this field. Simon J Dudley (50:3.896) But that's okay. it but sales is one of those funny things. It's hard to read it's hard to learn it out of a book. You you actually have to do it. I I personally I think that most sales most young people would actually benefit from a year in sales. Even if they never do it again, they actually understand what it's all about. very easy to sit, and we were talking about this before the interview started, about the people who sit there with a spreadsheet in a corner office who've never actually met a client. Joe Vitalone (50:4.868) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (50:11.450) Yeah. Yeah. Joe Vitalone (50:32.846) Yeah. Simon J Dudley (50:32.898) Who assume that the salespeople are all just gonna, well, we have this corporate message. Their job is simply to tell the customer that corporate message. And clearly, if they tell that corporate message to the client, the client will buy our product because clearly we have the best solution. It's like, but that's absolutely not how it works. But anyway, myTel. So you did MyTail for a bunch of years, then you did so after MyTail was short tell? Joe Vitalone (50:47.385) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (50:52.653) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (50:55.673) No. Joe Vitalone (51:2.144) I did two stints at Shortel. So the first it w the first I started at Shortel first in 05 and then left and went to Life Size, sold Life Size to Logitech, and then Shortel called and said, Would you come back? I said, Yeah, I'll come back on one condition. I wanna I want to run the marketing department, channel marketing group, because I bitched about how bad it was for so many years. I want to see if I can do something about it. Joe Vitalone (51:30.658) They had a really good guy in the sales role that I knew I would get along with. So I went back to Shortel for about a year and a half, and then I got a call from Mitel to come be the president. The the I guess the human interest story there is that I went to Mitel and we ended up acquiring Shortel. So two times in my life, I worked for a company, left to go do something I thought was better, and while I was there, we turned around and bought my form. Joe Vitalone (51:57.377) That was when you and I were at Polycom and we bought Picture Tell and Shortel got bought by got bought by My Tell. I I left shortly thereafter because I'd already done both of those things and I said I I want to go do something different. so I did. But there's something very rewarding about acquiring a former company that you had. Not only do you get to let all the jerks go that you didn't like working with, but you get to you you get to Joe Vitalone (52:25.760) You get to fix a lot of the problems you thought they had when you were when you were there. Simon J Dudley (52:31.276) Yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course it is often the case, as you ably demonstrated, that it's a lot easier to leave a company and then when you come back sometime later, kind of overtake all the folks who stayed at the company. There's a lot of growth in the early part of your time at any one company. So you grow faster. If you change companies, you can't do that too often. but you have to do it reasonably often. I I would say my own downside is that I didn't move companies very much. Joe Vitalone (52:47.863) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (52:54.230) Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Simon J Dudley (53:0.534) I've only been in three companies in twenty-seven years. That that's not the right answer. You need to move more often than that. That was a failing of mine. Joe Vitalone (53:0.769) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (53:5.302) Yeah. Yeah. Joe Vitalone (53:8.340) Yeah, the the the corporate the corporate ladder is a jungle gym. It's not a rung over rung ladder. You've got to go left, right, down, up. It's it's something that's a little more fluid. I mean I it's something you do after forty years when you retire, I throw all my business cards in a bucket and those are you know, those are all the business cards I've had over, you know, forty years and there's a lot of them, but it's a jungle gym and Joe Vitalone (53:35.838) I guess one of the things that I look back on that I did right was I changed fairly quickly. never a year, never more than five. and so in that three to four year period when I felt like I've learned everything I could learn and I s and I stopped having fun, I decided I'm gonna move on. Even when the stock was at the high, even when it was financially maybe not in my best interest because I was leaving, you know, some Joe Vitalone (54:5.332) back compensation commission, stock option grant, whatever. I I made a decision to leave. So I never did anything for the dough. I did it for the career and to to have fun and and it guided me right most of the time. Not always, but most of the time. Simon J Dudley (54:24.802) Yeah, but you you took more bets than most. And one of the things that you are in in the in the UC, VC, whatever industry, you are famous for being lucky. I mean, every I don't know anyone who doesn't know you who says, I wish I had the luck of Joe V. I mean, truly, that is a fact. But I've studied you for a long time and I've realized that one of the things you do. Joe Vitalone (54:27.764) Yeah, I I took. Joe Vitalone (54:34.911) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (54:46.046) Yeah, I yeah. Simon J Dudley (54:53.622) Is make certain you get in luck's way. It's a the analogy I think I'd use is probably not a great analogy, is it's like that one about the guy keeps getting hit by buses. Well, why? Well he keeps running out in front of buses. Just a terrible don't do that. But you do run in the way of another opportunity, much more than many of the rest of that, much more than I ever. Joe Vitalone (55:7.050) Yeah. Yeah. Joe Vitalone (55:12.678) Yeah. I've Yeah I've been pretty good at knowing which bus to get on and when to get off. And I guess when you do it you do it you do it once or twice you it's luck. You do it three times, it it starts to be like, okay, there's something there, maybe a recipe. Because I started to ask that. And then, you know, I've had six successful exits in my with the teams that I've been on, which is rare. I've had some failures too, but that's Simon J Dudley (55:20.440) So so listen. Joe Vitalone (55:41.725) Pretty uncommon that you're that you're in Lux way that that many times. And what it was was I was technical enough to know the industry to get into, video conferencing, for example, way before video conferencing was in vogue. And and we were chatting about it a while ago about we were doing 128K connections. And if you looked around my office, it's like literally a museum of video conferencing technologies from from Polycom, Picture Tell, Logitoc. Joe Vitalone (56:10.577) You know, WebEx, you know, Ring Central, Zoom. I have literally every one of those here in this in this big office, home office of mine, and I've been doing it for for 30 years. So I knew early on when to when to be in in video, when to be in physical security, surveillance, when to be in voice over IP, data networking, you know, all of those things s now with AI have Joe Vitalone (56:38.833) you know, really starting to swell. But but the success came from the the great teams that I was on and that I helped build. And that recipe is really what allowed us to have the exits we had. You know, we sold you know we sold via video to Polycom early on. we sold life size to Logitech for 430 million cash. Joe Vitalone (57:7.802) You know, we sold Shortel, got bought by MyTel, Polycom bought PictureTel. I mean, all of these things you couldn't have dreamed of when we started, but they became a reality later on. And it was because we just built really good sales teams. And you know, I think I told you this once before that I'll take a great sales team over a great product any day of the week. And and I was fortunate to be on some really good sales teams with mediocre products. Joe Vitalone (57:36.993) and built some billion dollar companies with, you know, average products, not great. and then had some great products that just failed. And you know, so there was one or two of those. Simon J Dudley (57:51.450) So how do you before you join a company? What would you would you have a gut feel or would you have a a spreadsheet or would you have something in between that said this is gonna be let's use video collab, right? Because you got involved in video conferencing in what about ninety-six or something, ninety-seven? Ninety-six. So you'd been a Joe Vitalone (58:4.057) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (58:11.407) Yeah, ninety six ninety six. Actually, no, ninety two. So I went to Picture Tell in ninety two and then I went to Polycom in ninety six. Simon J Dudley (58:21.424) I'd forgotten you're at Picture Tel. Okay, so 92. I mean, I was selling Picture Tell. I didn't work for Picture Tel, but I I sold Picture Tel. These for the audience who doesn't maybe remember back that far, these things were hundred thousand dollars entry price. they were dozens of dollars a minute to make an international call. They were monstrous. They took two days to install. I mean, they were very rare. You know, the if you sold two of them in a month, you were doing pretty well. Joe Vitalone (58:27.287) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (58:38.783) It's this wall. Yeah. Yeah. Joe Vitalone (58:51.085) Yeah, you'd hit your quota. That's for sure. Yeah, yeah. Simon J Dudley (58:51.299) So Simon J Dudley (58:53.738) You hit the quota, which was doing pretty well at the era. So what made you go, That's a thing. I'll I'm gonna get involved in that. What made you think it was the answer to a problem that people would have? Joe Vitalone (59:3.489) Yeah, great question. And I did a lot of really investigating w it during the interview process before I selected technology. And then I also did a lot of back back channel checking on the sales team. So in the case of PictureTell, for example, when I went there, I did deep research way before AI. So you had to look it up. You had to, you know, the internet was starting, but not really at that available back then. Everything was still Joe Vitalone (59:33.205) ISDN and T1s and ADSL and DSL and and those things. but I did a lot of research on the technology and on the people specifically and on the CEOs that were working there. In a case of Picture Tell was a guy named Norman Gott. Mike Hickerson was the VP that that hired me and I knew Mike from MITEL. And so but I knew video conferencing was gonna change the world. I I always advocated, Simon, even before then, that work is not a place you go, it's a thing you do. I have been Joe Vitalone (60:2.432) I've been more successful from working right here at home than I could ever be from being in an office because I'm I was disciplined. That came from the golf background and the the upbringing I I my parents were nice enough to to afford me. And it and and then so I was able to apply it. and it's worked really well because I could make more calls than anybody else. And I so I knew early on that that technology was going to explode. Now, I didn't know there was gonna be a pandemic. Joe Vitalone (60:31.275) That was going to set it on on fire. certainly you and I lived through the 9-11 event in 2001, which exacerbated, you know, the video conferencing agenda during that time. but flights were only grounded for a few weeks, not a few years, where we're all sequestered at home and so on. But but I knew pretty early on that that was gonna be a thing. Same with data networking and AI. Simon J Dudley (60:51.660) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (61:0.843) You know, if you look at the data center explosion right now, that is all now if you're in the if you're in the the the data business, like extreme networks and the data centers are exploding, or Cisco or Juniper HP and Orista, and they're gonna enjoy a very good future for the next five, ten years, because the data center thing is real. way bigger than video conferencing, way bigger than even the internet was when it came out. Joe Vitalone (61:31.133) And AI is a is just accelerating that. So if so if I was not, you know, in the role that I am now and I wanted to be go this to be the CRO of a of a company today, I would align myself around data centers, energy, real estate, technology, physical security, cybersecurity, all of those things are gonna be the next big, big thing. Simon J Dudley (61:56.300) I I would agree, and we're going to talk about this later. I think one of the problems now is the speed of change has picked up so fast that it's very hard to pick who's going to be a winner. But but we're going to come back to that later. So you won Pichatel, very an early major player in the video collab space, but then you joined via video, which was a little spin-off, well, not really spin-off, a bunch of renegades from VTEL who were their major Joe Vitalone (62:2.396) Yeah. Yeah. Joe Vitalone (62:7.539) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (62:9.917) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (62:19.017) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (62:23.772) Yeah. Yeah. Simon J Dudley (62:23.970) Picture sales major competitor started via video in Austin. And you joined them. You were you were the first sales leader for them. Joe Vitalone (62:31.124) First sales guy. Yeah, number one. Me and David Bud were number one and number two. And and Craig Malloy called me. I was at Picture Tell and he says, I've got this startup. The actual name of the company was Wave Software. Stood for What of You. And somebody had Wave, so we had to change the name to via video. That's how early I was there. And so I was employee number six or seven or eight, somewhere in there. Early, got founders' shares of stock. And Joe Vitalone (63:0.347) Left a great job at Picture Tell at the height, it was eighty-eight dollars a share, flying, number one in the space, and I'm I'm jumping ship with two kids, seven and three, to go to a startup in Austin called What of You? My wife goes, Are you kidding me? And I had socked away enough money in the bank, Simon, that I knew that if it failed, I had enough to get me by for a while, and that I could probably beg for my old job back. Joe Vitalone (63:28.880) So that was my safety net was I could sell my way back into a a real job if if this thing failed. But I leaped and went to work with these six guys in Austin and you know the rest is history. It you know, we were acquired by Polycom a year later, then we bought Picture Tell two years after that, and it just snowballed into went from three dollars a share to a hundred and forty three. Simon J Dudley (63:48.899) Yeah. Simon J Dudley (63:57.078) Now, I think many of us Picture Tel, sorry, Polycom is a is a a fixture, a fixed point within the universe of UC and video collab, right? And the view station was a remarkable product. I joined Polycom in 1999 because I was working for a reseller in London selling Picture Tel Concords, and a guy called Stuart Henderson came along and showed us the view station, and I went, Well, that's the future then. And my bosses said, Joe Vitalone (64:6.438) Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Joe Vitalone (64:19.356) Well yeah. Simon J Dudley (64:27.010) Well, we can't make any money selling that new $10,000 product. We we need to sell the $100,000 product. So we're going to ignore the new product and hope it goes away. And I realized you're mad and that's doomed. And so I joined Polycom. And that's when you and I first got to know each other, I guess. But here's a question for you. Because a lot of people remember Polycom as an alloy super success. But it wasn't all super success, was it? I mean, Simon J Dudley (64:55.970) I've I've got a word for you. Show station. Joe Vitalone (65:0.687) Well okay well, everybody knows polycoms because of the star shaped speakerphone. So that thing had eighty percent market share. I actually had to testify to the DOJ that we weren't a monopoly, that there was actually other technologies that could compete with us because the DOJ said polycom is a monopoly on speakerphones and now they're gonna buy picture tell and they're gonna have a monopoly on video conferencing. well the lawsuit got that Simon J Dudley (65:5.613) Yes. Joe Vitalone (65:27.598) got dropped because it it truly wasn't a monopoly tambourge and other things came along. But but Polycom had some duds. And you know, the show station was for your viewers, was was a projector, for lack of a better way to put it, that worked over the the over the web or over Pots lines or DSL. And and you would use foils and you would put them on this overhead projector and you could transmit it to a far location and do a Joe Vitalone (65:56.290) a presentation. But this thing was sixteen I think it was sixteen thousand bucks for this thing. And it was all glass and it had, you know, really high amount of heat and and and Brian Henman what a genius of a man, right? That started he's the only guy I know that started three billion dollar companies. He started Picture Tell, he started Polycom and he started Two Wire. Now he's designing mobile helicopters you know literally Joe Vitalone (66:27.651) y you know, who b you know, aircraft that help don't have people in So like drones but that you can fly in. And he's gonna be successful at that and that'll probably be but the point is is that, you know, when he was at Polycom he started this and one of the products that he just swear by was the show station. And it turned out to be just a a dud of a of a product. But we s I sold a lot of and they're probably still there. I think I think I I think I'll Joe Vitalone (66:55.809) The North supply sprint north supply still has them up in Overland Park, Kansas. Simon J Dudley (67:0.428) Now, just to confirm, I should say for the record, sh selling show stations at that time wasn't actually a war crime. I mean, it clearly is now, but it it wasn't then, right? So was it I forget there's a there's a funny story about that product, and I can't remember who ended up having to have CPR because of show station? Was it Henman or was it you? Joe Vitalone (67:7.995) It had a huge quota to sell that thing too. Joe Vitalone (67:21.913) It was Brian well Brian electrocuted himself and and so I got Brian to speak back when MCI was the biggest name in technology in the carrier space. he I got him a role as the keynote speaker for their kickoff meeting in Dallas. He said, I'll do it in one condition. I want to do my presentation from the show station. I said, Okay, Brian, I'll work that out. So I work it out. He comes down, three or four thousand people in this grand ballroom at the Hyatt Regency in Dallas. Joe Vitalone (67:51.461) And he's got the show station and the light bulb doesn't come on. And we're five minutes before he's to go on stage. And he takes the as w what amounted to like a paper clip and he says, I have to release the heat capacitor, the power in the show station, there was a little button you could place and it would it would it would drain the energy that's stored in the in the system. And so he puts this thing in there and he literally electrocuted himself. Joe Vitalone (68:20.638) A few thousand volts went through his body, it it seemed like his what was left of his hair literally stood up on end. And he's laying on the ground. And I, Brian, are you okay? And he just fried himself. Literally he's on the ground. And Stacy Saxon and I and Ravel Lively at the time are, you know, literally like comforting him to see and he and he gets to his feet. And ladies and gentlemen, Brian, and he goes on stage. And the show station works and he's putting his foils on there and his hair's sticking up and Joe Vitalone (68:50.367) But that was a that was the biggest dog of a product I think that I've that it now his other two products were amazing and they became so big that they were thought of as a a bit of a monopoly in the space. I still think the speaker phone has got seventy five percent market share, something like that. Simon J Dudley (69:8.271) Quite quite I mean, when you y you were pull it you said you had to talk to the DOJ. I mean, I remember we went from ninety two to ninety three percent market share at one point in Europe. And so the idea that we weren't a monopoly at Polycom at the time is kind of a a little bit of a yes, we were. We just you're just better at convincing people. Joe Vitalone (69:17.759) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (69:23.039) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (69:25.739) Pretty pretty in pretty incredible though that you start from zero, six employees when I went, no market share, and then in three years you have the GOJ saying that you're a monopoly in video conferencing. In three years. So that was a that was a success story with a you know, a great group of individuals that came together at the right time with an industry. but but that was, you know. Joe Vitalone (69:54.334) That was I rolled the dice huge on that one. That was my biggest roll of the dice, leaving a great company at $88 a share to go to a startup of five or six, eight people in Austin. We didn't even have an office. We were working from apartments and and and then we raised we raised eleven million dollars from three venture capital firms. And we only ended up spending seven of the eleven. Simon J Dudley (70:1.453) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (70:21.085) million before we were acquired by Polycom for fifty four million. And their stock went from three dollars a share where had it languished for eight years to one hundred and forty three because of the view station. Simon J Dudley (70:36.162) So the whole point in this show is that we we talk about the before it was obvious. So you saw the opportunity at the View Station. And as you suggested, Brian Hinman, but there's lots of of genius people who start companies and build build a brilliant product like the show station. sorry, like the View Station. But somehow they're also capable of building a product like the ShowStation. And you know, other companies have have done Joe Vitalone (71:1.875) Right. Simon J Dudley (71:5.218) horrible things in the past as well like that. How do they make how do they end up being such a genius in one angle, like the show station or the view station, and such a horrible decision making process in another, like the show station? What have you got a sense as to how they come to those decisions? Joe Vitalone (71:22.905) Yeah, I think with founders what I have found having gotten to know and I'm I'm still friends with Brian is, you know, a lot of think, you know, all their babies are beautiful. And they don't know when to cut their losses on some of the things that they start. Yeah, I think Bri Brian may have g been guilty on that. His other two products were just off the chart great looking and this one product wasn't as much. And they wanna keep that going and keep that Joe Vitalone (71:52.742) product going. And so it, you know, I I was I was one of the they bought he the PolyCon bought our company and then I was named the VP of sales, which pissed a lot of people off because hey, we're the big whale. We just bought this little company in Austin and you're making this guy the VP of sales. Well this other product was was stuffed down my throat. I had to sell it, you had to sell it. A lot of other people were forced to sell it. I was given a monster quota. So when the boss tells you you got to sell this dog of a product, you got to sell it. The good news was Joe Vitalone (72:22.874) the other products masked whatever we lost in terms of quota retirement on that product. So but but your question is, you know, what why does that happen? Why do they they just, you know, they spend so much time on it and they really believe it and they believe it and they believe it. And they don't know when to pivot. And I think people now are, you know, if you look at even take, you know, Gates with the internet, you know, he he at Microsoft, he pivoted. Joe Vitalone (72:51.376) You know, he was going down this road, you know, to go do one thing. And Jim Barksdale was creating a browser at Netscape, and Gates said, Drop an everything I'm doing, and I'm gonna go create Internet Explorer. And so he pivoted. And so there's a person that didn't get so caught up. Had he had he kept going down the road he was going, he it would have Microsoft would have been a much different place today. Simon J Dudley (73:9.197) Yeah. Simon J Dudley (73:19.979) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (73:20.511) And back in the early days of you know, the internet browsers. but a lot of founders get really caught up in thinking that their products are all great looking and they're gonna be the end all be all and they're not all g they're not all Simon J Dudley (73:36.238) Another thing, I don't know if you would agree with this. One of the things I perceived was that we got an ever bigger number to hit at at Polycom in those early days. And Showstation was meant to be, you know, a third of the revenues. If a third was showstation, a third was conference phone, a third was video. And and a one of the legs of the stool effectively fell off, right? Because no one in their right mind was going to buy ShowStation. And so what it forced us to do were Joe Vitalone (73:50.936) Right. Yeah. Use station. Joe Vitalone (73:58.978) Right. Yeah. Simon J Dudley (74:5.494) I mean, deeply unpleasant things. If you were a reseller or a distribution partner of Polycom in the late 90s, early 2000s, they Polycom was pretty brutal to you. and they all learned how to game us in the end, and and we all ended up doing quite unnatural acts. But it kind of forced us to become one extremely aggressive and therefore extremely successful. I wonder if it hadn't been for the Joe Vitalone (74:23.207) Yeah. Simon J Dudley (74:35.074) Failure of ShowStation, we kind of all would have been smoking cigars and saying, well, this is all great. And we all would have grown at a more reasonable rate. I mean, just to give the audience a sense of scale here, the Polycom show Polycom View Station went from, well, it's basically zero market share because it didn't exist, to 65% market share in about two years. And and we crushed Picatel. Joe Vitalone (74:57.189) Yeah. Simon J Dudley (75:2.732) And I wonder if it hadn't been for the failure of Showstation, we wouldn't have been so aggressive and therefore we wouldn't have got to that market share in view station. Would would you agree with that? Or do you think there were other elements? Joe Vitalone (75:15.103) Yeah, I I would agree. I would agree with it in the sense that it the the thing that View Station show station did was it had a it had a partner group set up. So the sound station, the conference phone, the star-shaped phone that everybody knows and loves so well, and the show station were sold through resellers. When via video came out with the show state the View Station video conferencing product. Joe Vitalone (75:42.942) And Polycom acquired via video, Craig and Michael's company down in in Austin. we were able to introduce that view station. I became VP of sales, we were able to introduce that view station to that cadre of really good resellers and distributors that had all these show stations sitting on their shelf they couldn't sell, but all of a sudden this new product came in there and it took off. So the economy of scale that we got through the acquisition was incredible. Simon J Dudley (76:0.375) You get Joe Vitalone (76:12.202) And then this I remember the competitors, not just Picture Tell, but all the other V VTELs and all the other video conferencing companies, because there was about five of them out there. When we won Product of the Year Award for the View Station in nineteen ninety-seven, they actually asked me to raise the price of it because I we were charging, if you recall, fifty nine ninety-nine six grand for the initial hundred and twenty-eight kilobit version of View Station. And they said you're Simon J Dudley (76:35.362) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (76:40.080) d don't do that. You're gonna ruin the industry. I said, I that's price fixing. You can't tell me to change the price of my product because you guys are selling fifty thousand dollar gear. But Craig stuck to the fifty nine ninety nine and we crushed everybody, not just picture tell. We crushed we crushed that entire industry and we went from zero percent share to to sixty five. But but we did it with really good salesmanship. We had great resellers. We we established brand new markets all over the world. Joe Vitalone (77:9.417) Proctor and Gamble, Microsoft all standardized on the product. I mean, standardized on it, thousands of them around the world. They redesigned all their office furniture around the view station, as an example. And I remember Craig and I going to Cincinnati, and as we're walking out of Procter and Gamble, the picture tell guys are walking in. And we just closed the deal and we got in a cab back when you'd got in cabs. We got in a cab in Cincinnati and went to the airport with a with the order for Procter and Gamble worldwide. Simon J Dudley (77:14.413) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (77:37.437) And here's this little no-name company via video at the time. We weren't even we weren't even fully acquired by PolyCon yet. And so that that was an example, I think, of where great product meets a great sales opportunity organization and a really good reseller network. And a a lot of the a lot of the founders, I think, Simon, the big mistake they make is they create a great product and they don't have a good go to market opportunity or strategy. Joe Vitalone (78:5.779) So they come out with a product, but there's no way to sell it, whether it's direct, indirect, the resellers weren't aligned, they don't have the ability to inventory it. and that that that was some of the problem with Picture Tell because it's those things were fifty grand. And so resellers can't afford to inventory fifty thousand dollars systems, demo gear and all that. Simon J Dudley (78:27.182) Well and you ended up with a no network effect. This was always the problem with video in the early days, that it was always last mover advantage. That the last person to buy it bought the cheapest system with the highest spec and the most people to ring. And so selling the first few hundreds or few thousands was really hard because it's like I've got a hundred thousand dollar device for you, it costs you fifteen dollars a minute to ring. And who am I gonna call? Well, no one. No one else has bought one yet. It's like that that's a really hard sale. Joe Vitalone (78:35.387) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (78:56.571) Yeah, and the and the people that were making all the money were the carriers because now we're selling 128 kilobits, 384, 512 T1s. T1s were a thousand bucks a month, if you recall, and they were just ringing Sprint, MCI, all the carriers, ATT, they were just ringing the bell. And we were getting none of that action. And so in retrospect, you know, now that things are becoming cloudified and these resellers, like the Joe Vitalone (79:24.827) that that sell ring central and zoom, they're getting a piece of that carrier action on a reoccurring basis, either via commission or a but like the cellular industry did back in the day. Simon J Dudley (79:37.228) Yeah. Yes, it's funny. I remember walking into a client, it was Hitachi in London, and they brought me in and said, Look, we're really struggling to get people to adopt using video. can you help us? And I said, Sure, I'll come along and have a look at your office and see how I can help. And I walked into their boardroom and there was a piece of paper, scotch tape to the wall, and it said, Remember, ringing Japan, which was HQ for for Hitachi. Joe Vitalone (80:5.658) Yeah, yeah. Simon J Dudley (80:6.144) Is 18 pounds a minute. And I looked at the guy who brought me in. He goes, Well, I don't understand why aren't people utilizing the room? And I'd looked at the piece of paper and just ripped it off the wall. And I said, I suspect that'll help. Because everyone just stared at this thing. 30 seconds of silence in the room. And it cost them nine pounds. It's like no one everyone's just panicking all the time that this call is costing them a fortune. Joe Vitalone (80:24.921) Yeah. Simon J Dudley (80:35.874) So one of the other things I think that I'd like to talk to you about is you talked about great products. And I I've always had this thought that founders are generally product people. Not always, but the majority of them are product people. And therefore, they always seem to assume that if you as a salesperson simply explain the customer to the customer how good our product is. Simon J Dudley (81:3.340) The kind of scales will fall from the client's eyes and they will simply go, Well, well, it's obvious I should be buying your product, right? I would certainly argue that Brian Hinman and Craig Malloy and a and a few other CEOs I've worked for seem to be under the impression that the best product wins. But you've already alluded to the idea that that isn't always true. In fact, you said earlier that that you would you would take an average product and a great sales team above a poor sales team and a great product. Simon J Dudley (81:33.006) Do you want to expand on that a bit? and what do you define as a good sales team? Joe Vitalone (81:33.189) Yeah. Yeah, I think you know Yeah, I think you're I think you're you know, a lot of founders are pro you know, they're a lot of CEOs founders become CEOs, first of all, and they're not all good CEOs. Joe Vitalone (81:47.232) Because but they own the company, they started it, and so they have the privilege or the right to name themselves the CEO of the company. Some do a decent job at it, and some are just awful and they should turn over the reins. Kind of like Jerry Jones should turn over the cowboys, but he doesn't. But he's the owner and he can do whatever he wants, because it's his his his company. But the good ones know that they should turn over the organization. It's rare that a salesperson becomes the founder. It's he typically a lawyer. Joe Vitalone (82:16.054) Or somebody that's really strong technically that becomes the founder of the company and then they name themselves the CEO. but it's it's really it's it's I've seen really great products that they can't get to market because they don't have a channel to to get that product through in time before a competitor can react to it. The the goal is is to get so much share that it's tough to get beat. And one of the things that the view station did was. Joe Vitalone (82:44.352) captured so much market share, it became really difficult for the competitors to to catch up. we we established so much dominance in the in the channel. We stuffed them full of so much product that even when the product we even when they started to catch up, they couldn't get a beachhead. They couldn't get into the channel because the channel was all red at the time, all polycom. And so I think that's the, you know, Joe Vitalone (83:9.451) That's the the thing. But but if you build a great sales organization during those slow periods when innovation is not happening quarterly with new dot releases or new products, feature functionality, the next generation of stuff, a good sales organization can get you through those those periods of time. And if if if you have a great product but you don't have a good channel or good salespeople to sell direct and good distribution that will inventory your Joe Vitalone (83:38.218) your gear and take the risk with you, you're not going to be successful. And that has played itself out over and over throughout my, you know, my career. I've made a great living selling very average products, sold tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of what I would say you know, pretty average products. Because we had good sales strategy, great marketing, really good leadership, a channel that respected us and that trusted us and Joe Vitalone (84:8.194) And and wanted to partner with us. And so but building those partnerships with those channels is really where the art is. And all things considered, they won't turn their back on you. Now you see a lot of the partners flipping back and forth. I'll give you an example. One minute they're selling ring, the next minute they're selling zoom, then they tell the customer to Ling to go back to Ring because they get a commission. So they're flopping back and forth. Joe Vitalone (84:34.890) you know, between part the same partners flopping back and forth between technology, there's no real allegiance there. That wasn't the case in the nineties and two thousand. Simon J Dudley (84:41.804) I mean. Simon J Dudley (84:44.812) And that does also mean that the resellers are are in the catbird seat, right? They're driving the the vendors at that point. And of course, if if you do I mean when we were at Polycom, there was no question as to who was driving the relationship with the resellers. I mean it was it it could get a little bit brutal. I I do remember my boss ringing our distribution partner in Finland to inform him that if he didn't drive back to the office, he was driving to Spain from Finland. Joe Vitalone (84:50.994) Absolutely. Joe Vitalone (85:2.260) Yeah. Simon J Dudley (85:14.626) with his family in the car. And he was told if you don't drive back to the office right now and get us a a an order for half a million dollars, by the time you get back from vacation, there will be a new distribution partner in your region. it must have been a very quiet drive back to his office. I mean, I think he was about halfway to Spain. I mean it that's a two thousand mile drive. Joe Vitalone (85:15.837) Right. Simon J Dudley (85:39.146) That's how brutal it used to be. I don't believe that's happening in in any part of our world, at least in the modern era. Joe Vitalone (85:44.803) No, no what's happening is that you know the resellers they call it controlling the closet. So the closet has a lot of things in it, blinking lights in it. And then most companies today are doing things as a service. So these managed service providers, aka resellers, are they own the customer. And the customer most of the time has no idea what the technology is, whether it's a Simon J Dudley (86:10.499) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (86:11.423) Whether it's Ring, whether it's Extreme, Juniper, Cisco, HP, Palo Alto networks, they don't know what's in the closet, either in the cloud or on premise, or in a data center somewhere. What they know is the partner is providing them an SLA, a you know, a service-level agreement, a commitment that they're gonna keep their network up and running and their computers working and their applications running and security. Joe Vitalone (86:38.820) And surveillance, video conferencing, unified communications, all of that stuff today is now as a service. And so the reseller today, or MSP, is in the last mile, is critically important. And so all the manufacturers have really got to cater because it's the partners that really own the relationship with the customer. Truly own that relationship with the customer because the customer does whatever they tell them to do. Simon J Dudley (87:1.527) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (87:8.421) They can flip them back and forth as long as they continue to provide that SLA and and they keep them happy up rev with the latest version of software. In the case of the place I'm in right now, we have 12, 12 pillars as an example. We can sell them two of the pillars, Unified Communications or Contact Center as a service, or we can sell them the other 10, which are all the things that I just articulated, like security and storage and and hosting and all those, all those kinds of things. Joe Vitalone (87:38.117) But all of it is a service. They pay a monthly rate. They don't have to have anything in their in their office. It's all in the data center or or in the cloud. or they can mix and match, have some in in their office and some in the cloud. But but the point I'm making is the manufacturer is no longer really in charge of that relationship. It's it's truly the MSPs now that are. Simon J Dudley (88:0.524) Yeah, yeah, the the the vendors feel a bit like electricity providers. The client doesn't really care. is that electricity provided by a solar panel or a wind farm or a nuclear power station or whatever? It is irrelevant to them. They they're looking for the the output, not not the not how it works. So I wanna go Joe Vitalone (88:7.707) Thank you. Joe Vitalone (88:12.132) They don't they're relevant. Yeah. Now there's still a lot of companies that have CIOs and stuff that wanna, you know, create their own value. So they they make those decisions, but but at the end of the day a lot of the times they're doing it as a service. Simon J Dudley (88:30.658) So I want to go back a step and ask you about you talk about really good sales teams and I do agree with you by the way on this one. what do you define as a really good salesperson and how do you find them? Joe Vitalone (88:45.724) a lot of ways. A lot of times I find them from really unconventional sources. I've grabbed some out of out of MBA school when I see thirty people in a class, for example, and you know that two just stick out. They have zero experience at technology, zero experience really selling, but in their peer group you can just see the difference in the way that they handle themselves, the way that they speak. So there's that. Joe Vitalone (89:13.707) Some of them start as school teachers, decide that they don't want to, you know, be a school teacher every single day and do the same thing over and over every single day for 40 years. They want to get into sales because there's more money to be made. they want to travel. And so I've gotten them, you know, from academia. but what makes a really good sales organization are people that want to take risk and build trust. And and and and people that have the ability to be and have rapport. Joe Vitalone (89:43.094) And if you can create rapport with people, you can be a good salesperson, which leads to building trust, which leads to long term relationships. And good salespeople typically stay for a long period of time and leave when they want to, not because they have to. And and so I've I've s you know, I've seen all that. you know, pe people make, you know, decisions based on context and risk and incentive and trust. That's that's why people make Joe Vitalone (90:11.883) buying decisions. And if you have the ability to build rapport, build trust, and and be willing to take risks, you'll make a really good, really good salesperson. And not all salespeople become good managers or directors or VPs, senior VPs, and certainly C-suite, you know, kinds of people, but you can also find the leaders as well when you look at a group of salespeople. because they're not in it for themselves, they're willing to give up a little piece, Joe Vitalone (90:40.095) of a of a territory, for example, for the team and do do things that are a little different. And so over time you get to know who those people are. The people that you know are gonna end up becoming CEOs of companies or VPs or or or some of them go and start their own company, become entrepreneurs. And I've seen some really great ones in that in that area. Simon J Dudley (91:2.838) Yeah. Yeah, I think that's fair. Joe Vitalone (91:3.421) I I became a leader because I wanted to lead and you can tell when people wanna do that. You gotta really wanna do it. 'Cause you don't make you know, the people at Cisco were making more the salespeople were making more than the leadership for a long time. Maybe still are. but so you can't do it for the money. It's gotta be because you really wanna run teams and build teams and and it you know, there's there's a l million sports metaphors that you can use there, but they they've gotta trust you, your team has to trust you and they've they've gotta be able to build trust themselves with their Simon J Dudley (91:8.598) Okay. Joe Vitalone (91:32.919) customers and their partners and if they can do that, they can have a hell of a career. Simon J Dudley (91:38.008) I I think it's also interesting to me that many of the best managers aren't necessarily the best salespeople. I mean, to use a sports analogy, you know, how many how many managers of of big sports teams used to be great players? Reality is not that many. I think because because you need to be there's a different skill set in doing it than coaching other people to do it. which I think which is interesting. Joe Vitalone (91:52.105) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (91:54.526) Not not that money. Joe Vitalone (92:2.536) Yeah. And if you look and if you look at it, like i even if you want to use like, you know, I got a lot of baseball, so I'm a baseball nut. And you know, it's usually the catchers that are good managers because the catcher runs the game. The catcher deals with the pitches, the rest of the team, manages the the field. formerly they used to move people around, but the catcher, and I could name ten catchers that became Joe, you know, Joe Girardi and Bruce Bochi and Joe Vitalone (92:32.266) You know, there's been a Yogi Berra, there's been a lot of that but that's typical of a team. And then and and the same is true in a sales organization. you can see who the catchers are on the sales organization and those people become typically really good leaders. Simon J Dudley (92:48.534) Yeah. Or they're also more team players. I think the best salespeople are generally loners. because they've got to have that selfish streak to do what they need to do to get the deal, rather than worry too much about everyone else. and I think that the the best managers have a different mindset. It's it's perhaps another conversation or to or a idea to discuss another day. Joe Vitalone (92:49.672) Because Yeah. Joe Vitalone (92:54.697) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (92:59.273) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (93:8.712) Yeah, totally. Simon J Dudley (93:15.800) So I want to change gears on you a bit because we talked about and we've returned to this a couple of times, and I want to use a concrete example here of you'd rather have an average product and a great sales team. Now, I would argue in the early days of Life Size, we had a spectacularly good product. And I personally think the best sales team I ever worked in. Either them or Polycom were the greatest sales teams I ever worked in. Joe Vitalone (93:36.424) Yeah. Yeah, and a lot of them were similar people or or same yeah, yeah, the same people. Yeah. Simon J Dudley (93:46.322) And and they were the same people. But ultimately, Life Size, of course, after you and I had left, but maybe we both saw the writing on the wall, Life Size failed, even though it had a product that was ten times the quality of the next nearest solution on the market when it came out. Joe Vitalone (94:1.927) Yeah. Simon J Dudley (94:9.750) Why? What why did life size not not make it in Europe? And and for the record, for those of the those of you listening or watching who don't know this, the View Station era in the 2000s was a technology where Video Collab at the time was a whole 288 by 350 pixels. So you know those really, really old videos you'd see on YouTube of someone taking it taking a video with their flip phone? Simon J Dudley (94:37.014) And it's horrible quality, you can barely work out who anyone is. It was worse than that. And then we came out in 2005 with literally high-definition video. The quality of the experience was mind-boggling compared. And we got to about 20% market share. But we never got beyond that. Now, do you think that's because Polycom and Tanberg then had better relationships with the customers and the channel? Simon J Dudley (95:5.687) Or do you think there were other things that were, you know, you you talked about bridgeheads and not allowing people to break in? Do you think there's an angle there? What's your thoughts on this? Joe Vitalone (95:10.188) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (95:14.989) Well, li life size was, you know, so if you looked at Polycom, they came out with the most affordable video conferencing product on the market with the best sales organization. LifeSize came out with the highest definition video conferencing product on the market with the best sales organization. Polycom ended up acquiring PictureTell, a similar company. LifeSize gets bought by Logitech, a place that you have a lot of experience at. Logitech makes Joe Vitalone (95:44.205) These things makes. These things makes. These things. And it wasn't it wasn't a natural fit. What was great about the acquisition was it was cash and they allowed life size to stay as life size. So it was life size a Logitech company. But it was $430 million, if I remember correctly. It was an all-cash deal. And we had several other offers. I was front and center on. Joe Vitalone (96:12.607) On this whole transaction, but Dell was courting us at the time and also Cisco. But the offer with Logitech was we were going to leave you guys and ladies alone. and so we like that. Cash, leave us alone, let us keep doing our thing, stay the course. and then our CEO exited a lot of the great people. you know, I I I left, a lot of other folks left, and Joe Vitalone (96:41.160) life size ended up selling Logitech ended up selling the company back to the venture capital community. So it was a it was a company that acquired a company where there wasn't a natural fit. Logitech was all about desktop, mice, keyboards, desktop conferencing, right? and and LifeSize was an HD big system, big grand Simon J Dudley (97:8.225) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (97:8.841) video conferencing company. So it was a mismatch. I think it was an acquisition that made sense financially. Certainly people made money on it, me included, but at the end of the day, probably wasn't the right fit. And so a window was missed is the answer that I'm you know I would give you. That's a that's an example where, you know, an acquisition, sometimes one plus one can equal three, one plus one there equal one and a half. Simon J Dudley (97:33.474) Yeah, that's an interesting angle. I really hadn't considered it in those terms. And and funnily enough, I left Life Size in 2015 and joined Logitech in 2016, and it felt like an entirely different company. I mean, and we we and at Logitech actually came and developed the next generation of video systems which did change the market, but Joe Vitalone (97:47.703) Yeah. Okay. Joe Vitalone (97:54.839) Yeah. Simon J Dudley (97:58.594) But with almost no overlap. A lot of people say, well, you took all the life size technology. Actually, we didn't. I like to think I was part of poaching a few of the better people out of life size to Logie, but Logitech didn't use the bones of that of that life size business. They they reinvented it completely from scratch. Very, very interesting to see how that ended up working. Joe Vitalone (98:7.554) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (98:17.424) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (98:22.509) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (98:25.854) Yeah. I had to as part of the deal when we got acquired, I had to sign I signed an agreement to stay for two years, and I stayed literally two years to the day because I just felt like it wasn't it was a mismatch and wasn't gonna work. I didn't want to sell mice, I didn't want to sell keyboards, I didn't want to sell you know webcams. And the leadership was at the at the time and I and I got along great with the Logitech team. Actually still stay in touch with all the people that I worked with. wonderful. Joe Vitalone (98:53.835) wonderful group of of individuals. But there was a mismatch there and and and that and that played itself out. And then Life Size and then Serenova and and it just continued to flounder and and then finally fail in the end. Simon J Dudley (99:7.148) Yes, yes. Well, of course they they also had a hard when I was leaving, they were trying to move into services, but they were really a hardware mindset company in a world that was moving to a service delivery a sale. And of course that's when Zoom and and well, really Zoom, but Blue Jeans and Zoom and a few others then really took on the mantle and they understood that it was about delivering a service rather than selling someone a a box. And Joe Vitalone (99:20.267) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (99:35.903) Yeah. Simon J Dudley (99:37.046) It's interesting to note how how a product isn't really what matters. It's how you solve a client's problem. And whether you do that with an SLA or whether you do that with a high definition camera is less relevant than than how you make the customer feel about the solution. Joe Vitalone (99:50.269) Yeah. And and and it it goes back to my original comment, which was w we didn't get any economy of scale out of the reseller because the people that were selling moist keyboards and and webcams aren't gonna sell high definition HD. So we didn't get the benefit of the where in the polycom acquisitions it was like explosion because we introduced a product into a really strong reseller group and boom, without we got federal government. Joe Vitalone (100:19.399) got international. We got all of those things overnight through the acquisition. And that that kind of synergy did not exist or happen in the in the Logitech buying life size acquisition. all we got was a really big cash infusion. A bunch of people made a bunch of money. that created a lot of lethargy. people sticking around while they quietly vested. And and that's a that's a problem with a lot of companies. Joe Vitalone (100:48.979) when you have stock options and and acquisitions, it you get people lose their inspiration to keep working hard in that typical startup environment that you have. Simon J Dudley (101:0.236) I also think it goes back to what you were talking about earlier, you know, salespeople aren't necessarily good managers. But also there's this issue that people who are good at setting companies up from zero to, you know, fifty million dollar revenue are rarely the same people who are very good at moving the business from fifty million to a billion dollars or a billion to ten billion dollars. It's a different skill set. And I'm it's not always obvious to the people at the time. They assume that well, I'm great at running a company from nothing to one, but Joe Vitalone (101:12.467) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (101:27.283) Yeah. Simon J Dudley (101:29.960) One to a hundred is a very different set of skills, and it's interesting to know who does and who doesn't work that out. I think. Joe Vitalone (101:37.499) Yeah, and it's funny, you know, you you I had somebody the other day, young person, who called me and was gonna jump to a startup company. And, you know, you would think my my advice or you know my coaching to this individual would be more on the you know, technology, who's your boss gonna be, you know, what you know, it was more on, hey, can you financially afford to do this? Because you have gotta be in a position Joe Vitalone (102:4.806) To live really thin for a year, two years, three years. And if you've saved your money and you can afford to do that, then I say do it. But it takes a different person that's going to work more for the stock valuation and the equity that they're getting versus a salary, a bonus, quarterly business reviews, their boss patting them on the back, president's club trips. I could go on and on. I actually talk about this sometimes in some of the classes that we have, but it it that individual is completely. Joe Vitalone (102:32.614) completely different than the individual that's working at a hundred million dollar company that you know wants to be in the circle of excellence, wants all those kinds of, you know, validations and rewards and stuff. yeah, a startup person really loves the thrill of the chase and wants to build something from zero to fifty million and be part of the ground floor, dirt floor in some cases. and and I've done both. I like the early stuff great because when you succeed, the Simon J Dudley (102:55.020) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (103:2.425) The it is it is so fun and the people you meet and and you get so close to them because you experience something that most people don't get to experience. You know, my dad worked for GE for 36 years and when he passed away, I think two people came to his funeral. I mean, so you that's what you get at a a conglomerate, right? But when you work for a startup company, it's it's it's like, you know, winning the Super Bowl with people and you become very close or Simon J Dudley (103:12.908) Yeah, yeah. Joe Vitalone (103:32.224) even a military analogy, you become very close with these people because you go through a lot together. You sacrifice financially, your family sacrifice, you you raise kids during that period of time or get married and buy your first home, blah, blah, blah. And that that experience is is is but the success rate's maybe one in ten thousand. It it might not even be that good. It may be less than that. I don't know. I haven't done the the recent math, but Simon J Dudley (103:40.558) Yeah, yeah. Joe Vitalone (104:1.812) to do a successful startup and and see it either get acquired, go public, or turn into something where there's an exit event, which is what you're ultimately striving for and s 'cause otherwise what's the point? you know, that's really it. If you want to run a business or a biggest dynamic sales organization, go to Logitech, right? Simon J Dudley (104:17.666) Yeah, I think. Simon J Dudley (104:22.988) The other interesting angle there is that in my experience, in smaller companies, you have to be more of a generalist and you have to be quite good at lots of different things. And everything changes constantly, which it can be both wearing but also exciting. And I agree with you about that. That b that bonds people together. That trauma bonds people together. And working for small companies could be pretty traumatic on occasion. But in my experience at the really big companies, Simon J Dudley (104:51.170) And particularly the people who leave the really big companies having never not worked for a smaller one, they all seem to be one super specialist. Because if you've got a hundred thousand people in the company, then everyone needs to be really good at one thing. And when you put them in a smaller company, they go, well, you someone else deals with that. No, there's no one else to deal with that. And they also often seem to be under the bizarre impression, it was them who made the company a hundred billion dollar company. Joe Vitalone (105:3.144) Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. Simon J Dudley (105:19.106) When really it was, wasn't there? I mean, they they're the custodians of somebody else's model. So it's kind of interesting to know who works well in mid-sized companies. I mean, personally, I'm I'm not very good at big companies. I mean Logitech, I suppose, is what, seven thousand people or some number. that was probably bigger than I would be generally comfortable in. I mean, I like to think I had a a a a very successful career at Loggy as an example. Joe Vitalone (105:27.258) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (105:44.459) Yeah. Simon J Dudley (105:48.632) But I'm much more comfortable in a a few hundred person company. It works better for me. Joe Vitalone (105:53.237) Yeah. Yeah, I I think and that and that's you have to recognize that. I think that's again goes back to the leadership question is you have to really understand who those people are. And it you know, there are people that are so talented that you want to give them the biggest piece of canvas for them to apply their brush to because then they can have the biggest impact on the company. And then there's other that are more laser focused on a task or a verticality or and and so y Joe Vitalone (106:22.088) Knowing where to put those people and where to apply it is is is part of the recipe that get you get you to success. You know, big companies they're really good at keeping people in their lanes. You know, when I was at startups, I was designing the business cards, I was doing the logo, the website, the all the stuff I'm not good at, but you don't have a choice. There's nobody that's gonna gonna do it. I mean half these half these business cards I helped with a logo on it. You know, we had no logo at Kovey and at at Joe Vitalone (106:50.831) at Raspberry and and we were part of of this but that's how that's the level of minutiae you get into at a startup. Where at a a company as big as Logitech or Stream Networks or Mytel, that they've got, you know, teams of marketing s people and PR people and website designers and you don't have to worry about that. You just stick to your task, which is closing deals. Simon J Dudley (107:14.626) Yes, and you better be really, really good at that and not get bored doing it. I mean, I think my advice to people listening to this if they're worrying about or thinking about careers is understand what you're good at and not the you a bigger company might really fit you, but it might also not. If you want lots of autonomy and the ability to do lots of different range of things, smaller companies are generally better. But some yeah. So Joe Vitalone (107:18.473) Yeah. Yeah. Joe Vitalone (107:42.409) Yeah, yeah. Simon J Dudley (107:42.594) But some people can't work in small companies. They don't know what to do beyond a certain range. It's it's an interesting it's an interesting thing. And you've mainly spent a career studying. Joe Vitalone (107:49.289) There's a there's a Joe Vitalone (107:52.799) Yeah, we just lost Dolly Parton. You I'm a big country music fan. We lost Dolly Parton and my daughter's a was a country music singer and spent a lot of time in Nashville. And she said that, you know, there's a big difference between your dreams and your passion and what you're good at. And so you've got to really it's okay to have dreams. It's okay to be really passionate about something, but you gotta have a skill and you've gotta take that skill and figure out how to create a a brand for yourself with the skill that you've been gifted with. Joe Vitalone (108:21.574) And that could be a variety of things. You could have really good analytically, you'd be really good technically, be really good with the with the written word or the spoken the spoken word or the ability to build rapport. All those things are gifts. And you can develop some of those things to an extent, but you know, if you can be good at something and then find a passion to apply it to, which is what I tried to do, and then it gives you the energy, which is really what you have to have, Simon. What gets you through the the Joe Vitalone (108:51.207) you know, pressures your face through the glass is the energy because of this unbridled drive that you have to succeed. And because you know you can do it and you can run out of energy. And a lot of people do that. They go to a startup, they've they're all inspired, they've got a passion, and then it just beats them into the ground. They and they can't keep up the pace. And for the most of my career I I had unlimited energy to Simon J Dudley (109:14.755) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (109:20.189) Get up every morning, get on airplanes, even despite the fact that half the companies I was running at the time were video conferencing companies. All it did was create more work, more deals to go close. I still flew all over the world most of my life, but but I loved doing it. I never ran out of the energy because, you know, what I was good at, I found a passion for and I and I fulfilled a dream or two along the way. So it that that is the recipe there. You've got to and everybody's different. Joe Vitalone (109:48.729) You we've all got kids and my kids my two kids are completely different in the way that they see the world, what they're good at. You know, one's more conservative and the other one's a little more you know, out there and probably be a good salesperson, but Simon J Dudley (110:6.732) Yeah, it's fun. So Joe, as as always happens, frankly, with these interviews, I always say to people, we should we we'll talk about your history and your experiences for about forty five minutes. And and we're about an hour and a half in. So you know, we've failed at our primary task on this one, which is fine because it's always a pleasure to talk to you. What do you want to leave our audience with, Joe? I mean, you've got you're probably one of the most successful if no. Joe Vitalone (110:23.205) Got it. Simon J Dudley (110:36.034) No, you are the most successful salesperson I have ever met. and you have got in Lux way in ways where in ways that astound me to this day, even though I was stood next to you when you did it. Joe Vitalone (110:49.861) Yeah. Simon J Dudley (110:52.834) What would your advice be to to younger people trying to to put together a career at this point? And what's next for you? Joe Vitalone (111:2.092) Okay. advice would be don't find your find what you're you're gonna know what you're good at. So you're if you're eighteen or older, you kinda know what you're good at. Find your what you're kind of passionate about. and and then don't don't let anybody tell you you can't do something. You're gonna be discriminated against it all the all along the way. Age, age. I'm sixty five now, so it you're you're starting to Joe Vitalone (111:30.455) You you see now where you're getting too old. I remember when I was too young and people didn't wanna make me a vice president because I was twenty seven years old, so I used to wear glasses to make myself look older. Now I wear because I can't see a thing. you know, so but people are gonna tell you you can't do something and you can't you can't allow that to get in your way. but don't don't chase a dream too long. It's something that I didn't do. I think I shared with you the golf analogy. I'm glad I didn't chase that dream 'cause I wasn't Joe Vitalone (111:58.966) I wasn't that good at it. I didn't win at the college level. And if you can't win at the college level, you're certainly not going to probably win at the professional level. So but I could have chased it for 15 years. So don't do something too long. you know, I a lot of president's club people that are the top salespeople in the company are fired the next year. And so it it happens all the time. One minute they're on top of the world, and the next minute they're getting their their severance package. And you know, I'm I'm fortunate that Joe Vitalone (112:28.194) You know, I didn't get shot by the starter gun too many times in my in my career. I was able to work as long as I wanted to and then leave kind of when I wanted to on my own terms. And I think that's what you gotta do. But find find your passion, what you're really good at, and and and create your own brand. Nobody else is gonna do it for you. You know, when my dad left GE 36 years, there was no brand there. He didn't he didn't so when he when he passed, fortunately I was able to talk to him, but one of the things he told me was Joe Vitalone (112:55.873) Build your own brand. And your own brand will take you to the next company and the next company if you want to do that, or you can build your own company. And it doesn't matter if you're a school teacher or an academia or if you want to be the CRO of a big, you know, S P 400 company. But if if you've got your own brand after when you retire like I did, then your phone rings and all of a sudden they're calling you because of your brand. And that's what will take you to the next years. And so it's a a series of steps. And the other thing I'll say is that the you know the corporate ladder. Joe Vitalone (113:25.874) Is is not rung over wrong. It's a jungle gym. You go left, you go right, you go backwards once in a while to take two forward. And and so just remember that if you want to have a successful career, but don't stay too long. And if something gets in your way, you gotta go left or right. And that could be leaving the company. And if you're not enjoying yourself, get out of there because you have to have the energy in order to go. So this is a it's a tough game if you want to play the corporate game, but if you're gonna do it, understand that it's a jungle gym. Joe Vitalone (113:54.560) And there's gonna be a lot of people in your way that are gonna try to either block you, keep you down, and you gotta do your best to move around those those elephants because they're out there. So that that would be my message. And and what's what's next for me is I'm gonna continue to do what I'm doing and and acquiring companies. And we're gonna this company that I'm I'm rolling up these companies in, we're it's getting really big really fast. I've just hi we've just hired some amazing people. So the effect of of Joe Vitalone (114:23.082) The brand again is attracting a lot of people to the group. We're buying a lot of shortel and my tell resellers right now, Simon, which is kind of cool. So people that I worked with for 30 years, I'm now part of acquiring their companies, which is great for their families. They're getting a nice exit and they're staying on board with us for as long as they want. and then eventually we'll be we'll be really, really attractive to a lot of other companies if we decide we want to. Joe Vitalone (114:50.230) We want to exit. But right now I'm having the most fun I've ever had. So this is this is it. And then spending time with my with my grandkids. Simon J Dudley (114:59.448) Well, what a fantastic career it's been. Joe Vittalone, I wanted to say thank you. I've been looking forward to this interview. I look forward to every interview, but I always knew this one would be profoundly fun and wise. So, audience, if you're still watching, which I assume you are, then thanks for joining us on this journey. Joe V, thank you, my friend, for being part of this journey with me. And we will see you all next week on the next before it was obvious. Joe Vitalone (115:7.017) Yeah. Joe Vitalone (115:9.489) Yeah.