0:06

Welcome again to the Push Pull podcast. I'm Varun Rajan and we interview professionals about their career transitions and specifically the push and pull factors that informed those transitions. in today's episode, I speak to Marshall Robbins, somebody that I went to high school with, and haven't reconnected with in several years. Marshall has a fascinating story. He started off doing construction on job sites, moved into finance, then had a stellar career in tech sales before coming back to financing construction projects in his current role at Herser Financial. we had a really candid conversation about a couple of different things. the power of great mentors is something that comes up over and over again. the importance of people, network and relationships in finding work that is impactful and, is fulfilling, we also get into a really candid conversation about burnout, uh, the factors that go into burnout and also the impact of macroeconomic factors on the expectations. Placed on people in sales roles. So, um, absolutely, super, super interesting. You might hear a couple of different things if you're not super familiar with, sales roles. S-D-R-B-D-R, that's Sales Development representative or Business Development representative. Marshall explains that a little bit. you might hear SMB thrown around, which is small to medium sized businesses. and so just a little note to to to make sure everyone's on the same page. if you can, obviously please share this podcast with anybody that you can, wherever you listen, or if you're watching this on YouTube. gimme a like, and subscribe, a comment, If you have any questions or even have anything that you would've liked me to dig into a little bit more, you can always shoot me an email at Varun, that's V-A-R-U-N, at push pull podcast.com. So, without any further ado, here's Marshall.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 1:53

All right. I'm here with Marshall Robbins. Thanks for joining us, Marshall. Of

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 1:56

of course.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 1:56

Give us a 30 to 62nd overview of who you are and what you care about today.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 2:02

I would say that, um, been fortunate enough to wear a bunch of different hats, and right now my focus is really on delivering high quality capital to folks that are looking to do construction and really any kind of real estate transactions in the state of California. And, it's been a windy road to get to where I am today, but every single one of those, stepping stones has been invaluable and just super feel super fortunate to, be chatting with someone like yourself.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 2:30

If I were to ask you like where your career started out or how you would want to inform the beginning of your career, how far back would you go?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 2:37

I would say generally speaking, getting out of school, high school especially, and I, I know you and I went to the same high school, so you, and

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 2:45

Yep.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 2:45

we have a shared Shared experience there, I I think,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 2:47

think,

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 2:48

at the time. It was this unknown, right? We're a relatively deeper recession. And,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 2:53

Right?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 2:55

I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't also, I didn't have the drive to push towards any direction and kind of figure it out. I was little too preoccupied with figuring out what Step 30 was instead of what step one was.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 3:06

tell me a little bit about what that means, like step one versus step 30. did you have a sense of, like a vision for yourself? where were you when you graduated high school? What was in front of you and what were the things going through your head at the time? Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 3:18

Yeah, I'm gonna, I'll be transparent with you vain. I was pretending to go to community college. I enrolled but didn't go to class. I was a little too preoccupied with surfing and, having fun with friends and doing what I wanted to. And part of that was because I just didn't, this kind of comes back to that step one versus step 30 thing. Step one doesn't feel particularly interesting if you don't know what it's leading to. And if you're a young person that, that kind of, you don't have that foresight. and I certainly did not. And for me, yeah. Step one would've been, attending that class, Or, and then step two or three, is that normal career progression that I think a lot of folks that are. I'll just say white collar professionals are accustomed to,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 3:59

Knowledge work.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 4:01

progression through, school into career and beyond. And, I just, it was very hard for me to take this kind of abstract idea of a job that might, may or may not exist in the future for me, because I took step one or step two or step three, all right? And so that, I think that was the most difficult part at the time. And in terms of, the kind of being lost

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 4:23

Yeah. and let me see if I'm understanding this correctly. step 30 is this kind of ambiguous, you are successful as a knowledge worker in some kind of like ambiguous corporate, environment. And you're okay, that sounds great. That would be nice to like, get there, but what does that actually look like? Why would I care about that? And then every part of the path to getting to this ambiguous place is not, is just not that tight. I'm not excited about it.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 4:49

Yeah,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 4:50

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 4:50

it, it was a lot of, I was immature too. I mean, it's a confluence of a lot of different things. It's,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 4:54

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 4:55

where I was and again, not understanding where that path was gonna lead and just not generally being interested in, learning and taking that next step. And so I ended up in construction. I ended up working for a general contractor for a little while. and that was That was great a lot of focus. I think it it shone a light on just the workforce in general. Just zooming even further out, Getting to work work. morning, right? Doing the things that you need to They do. both get through the workday, accomplish, be productive, right? Do all the things that you know you need to do to get a paycheck and to pay the

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 5:30

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 5:31

and all that good stuff. And it And it also, provides a sense of identity too. I think that was really important.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 5:37

were you still taking classes at community college or did you wrap up like you said, pretending to go to community college in order to start working. what was the decision point there where you were like, I'm not really feeling school. or maybe that wasn't the explicit decision, but, you talked a little bit about what you got out of that experience, but I'm really curious about like, why you made that decision to go into construction in the first place.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 5:56

It was two things. One, it was, yeah, I did at one point just have to be like, Hey, look, I'm. Why am I paying,$12 at the time? I know that's changed dramatically in the last 15 years, but, at the time,$12 a unit to go to classes that, to enroll in classes, I should say, that I'm not going to go to, knew in my heart I was never gonna seriously. and then how, how and why into construction. Truthfully, it was convenient. it was work that was available and I had the opportunity to something from somebody else who knew more than I did about something. And that just happened to be construction in that instance, it was actually good buddy of mine. His, his mother was, in a partnership with somebody who was a general contractor. And so how it happened. And so I just, I put what I had into that when he could give me hours and it returned dividends. it was important for me, in my kind of personal development to have that. Have that job and take it seriously and wanna do, wanna do right by, that person who at the time was a bit of a mentor.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 6:56

Yeah, that's really great. You had this kind of this social draw to make sure that you were like showing up, as your best self as well. Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 7:03

A thousand percent. Yeah. Yeah, 1000%. And the other thing too, I, my Social. right? They were all in school and things right. And in the idle time when I was both not going to school and not working construction, there was a bit of a gap there. that didn't feel great, for a variety of reasons. first thing, you look around and everybody seems to be doing the right thing. And, for myself, I just was kinda like, oh, what am I doing? What am I What I gonna do and so the construction piece came in at the perfect time for me.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 7:36

That's really interesting. we'll talk about this, I'm sure later on too, but it's like there's, the people are doing the right thing versus like people are doing something, in, in particular. And maybe you realize that school after a while of trying it, seeing that other people are doing it too. You realize like that's not the thing for you at this point in time. But there's still something that you wanna be pursuing and putting your productive energy towards.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 7:58

hundred percent. I think. I, I I wanna be careful. in making sure that I'm not like creating this distinction that, going to college right away is the right thing. I think what I was more concerned with is the right thing in that instance was something, Anything, just not being idle and doing nothing. I think that was the important piece, right? Where it was, those few months were. I really wasn't doing a whole lot other than surfing. And like I said, having fun with my friends. obviously not super productive. I learned a lot from that. Obviously it was, those were valuable experiences and I still think about them fondly.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 8:29

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 8:30

and for me in that moment, the right thing was to do something and pursue something that, would at least, gimme a little bit of money in my pocket one and two. again, gimme that sense of identity, sense of belonging in society more broadly. I, there's this kind of that nebulous feeling like, am I participating in the world?

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 8:48

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 8:49

and I didn't feel like I was.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 8:53

Yeah, totally. No, that's super important. when did you end up wrapping up your time in construction? What kind of led to that and what came next?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 9:01

as a young person, I was, again, I can't express this enough. I was so grateful to have that opportunity. I would say that, looked around at these job sites and there were older men maybe in their, like late forties and early fifties who, weren't moving around as well as maybe somebody who was in their late forties or early fifties, maybe should. So their bodies were just out. the other piece of this too is. I wasn't logging hours towards a general contractor's license either. it was just the nature of the, the way the employment worked. and so it wasn't really something that I was thinking about long term and, inversely, I wasn't thinking about the kinds of challenges or solving the types of problems that I wanted to. I was still curious. I was listening to reading like the Financial Times and, doing all kinds of other things outside of that kind of, took care of my curiosity, outside of the construction world. so I figured, all right, it's time to, seems like a good time to go ahead and buckle down and spend and, I should say commit myself to pursuing this a little more seriously. And so I started taking nine classes at community college and then eventually Yeah, I ended up in school full time.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 10:13

what was the kind of like timeline between you dropping, community college classes like that you knew you weren't taking, very seriously before to like when you started enrolling in some community college classes again, part-time while you were working? and

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 10:26

yeah, it was a few years. It

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 10:28

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 10:28

years, I wanna say two and a half, three years. my time in construction wasn't long. I don't want to, I don't want to get on here and pretend like I, I was swinging a hammer for 15 years. That's not true.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 10:37

Sure.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 10:38

I swung a hammer for, two or three years.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 10:41

Yeah. But that at that time in your life, like two or three years is 10 to 12% of who, your conscious life, right? it's a reasonable amount of time. and I'm really curious about like where in that curve of oh, okay, I can actually see the value in go into school of found this area of interest, like what was different two to three years later?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 11:01

I'd grown up, I'd grown up a little bit. I think that there's definitely I'm sure there's just a, like a literal physiological change, right? And brain chemistry and all that good stuff. So I think

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 11:10

mm-hmm.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 11:11

part in it.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 11:12

Fair.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 11:13

pressures, right? a lot of folks like yourself and, a lot of my really tight knit social circle, they were, getting through school. They were in their senior year of college, and I had zero units to my name, 0, 0 0 collegiate credits to my name. So it was one of those things where it's gosh, not only do I want to start thinking about different problems wrestling with different challenges, I do Wanna sure that I'm positioned to participate in kind of that knowledge base workforce. Later on at a time when it's not gonna be a huge disadvantage to me, graduating from college theoretically when I'm 40. That's not, that doesn't seem like a good option to me.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 11:52

Yep.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 11:53

so

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 11:53

So let's go ahead.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 11:54

and get this ball rolling and engage with that process, with a little more intention.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 11:59

if I'm thinking about you moving from construction into going back to school, it's like push factors are I don't know if I wanna be doing this for the rest of my life. I see the impacts that it's having on my colleagues. then there is a combination of pressures around you. You're seeing other people like go into the, maybe be about to go into a knowledge based workforce and be successful. That's probably something that you're a little bit more interested in doing longer term. That kind of the appeal, the allure and also like the pathway towards that. Step 30 is starting to become a little bit more clear as you're seeing your peers, mo move in that direction and you're organically getting more interest and stuff. You said you were like picking up the financial times and stuff like that, and part of it is also grow growing up a little bit. is that fair to say? Those are push and pull?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 12:39

fair to say. Yeah.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 12:40

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 12:41

and looking back, trying to clock the way that I was feeling kind of 15 years after the fact, that's the way I feel now. I, if you had asked me the same question, what were the things that were pushing you at the time, I may I may have given you a different answer. I'm not sure.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 12:54

I think that's fair. that's the whole, that's the whole point of this, honestly, Marshall is to be like, Hey, if we were to look back and try to put ourselves in our shoes from 10, 15 years ago or whatever point, how would we think about what our motivations were at the time? put a name to those things and be explicit about them? anyway. you, tell us about school. Where did you go? What did you study? what did you like about it?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 13:12

I went to, I went to community college at, Cabrillo College

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 13:16

Okay.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 13:17

Cruz. go see honks, and, eventually transferred to Humbold State, which I think is now Cal Poly Humble.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 13:23

Gotcha.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 13:24

which was fantastic. And, it was that decision making process in terms of just selecting that school, it was, they had a business administration finance program that was first checkbox for May, and they had a, matriculation agreement with, the. community college system. I just signed that agreement, fulfilled my obligations, and then chose Humboldt State as, as my landing place.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 13:47

tell us about your time there. What did you like about it? What did you not like about it? Was there anything in particular, that maybe, gave you an extra sense of clarity on what you wanted to do? next. Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 13:59

yeah. gosh, I got really lucky. so just hitting on the thing that went really well there. So what were the things that were absolute pros? I I got lucky. a fantastic, finance, professor. His, he is a guy named Ian K who, he was at one point the CFO of Atari, back in their heyday.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 14:22

Oh, wow.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 14:23

a company called US Leasing, which is one of those companies that you, nobody's ever heard of, but they do an insane number top line every year. Lots of large capital, capital intensive projects that they're involved in and like that. So I, he had done some adjunct professor, teaching, I guess at, like uc, Berkeley, Hawes. he had moved up there because his wife was in poor health. the way he told the story is the doctor recommended that she go to a place with cleaner air. and so Humboldt State was lucky enough to have him, as somebody that was on staff and teaching for five or six years, I think. And I was lucky enough to catch him for two of those. And, I think he did a really good job of keeping his expectations as of some pretty high. and he used a lot of course material from I. NYU, stern School of Business. there's a gentleman there named Oin runs the, the corporate finance side of the finance program. I think he chairs the finance program too, but I could be wrong there. So anyway, I,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 15:29

I.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 15:29

I think that was just from a mentorship perspective and instruction perspective, and like an expectations perspective, it was, it felt like it kicked me up a notch in kind of both my expectations of my education and then my expectations of myself once I left, that institution, what are you capable of doing? What are you capable applying for and learning how to do, right? Because nobody leaves school with the exact skills they need to do the job that they're gonna get,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 15:59

Right.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 15:59

They just have the skills and confidence in themselves that they'll be able to figure it out, and present themselves well enough to get that first job.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 16:08

Yeah. and do you think that's what, that's what you left with, as a result of this experience?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 16:12

A thousand percent. Yeah. that was, if you had told me, if you had looked at, 2010 construction marshal and said, Hey, in and a half, four years, you're gonna be in Boston at a private equity firm, running a due diligence process for an acquisition. I would've said, what? don't understand what I don't even know what a half that means. this comes back to whatever that next step was, and I think that, K my professor just encourage us to take those steps really seriously. That next. Part of your journey, whatever it is, just take it seriously. Do it with intention and make sure that, you're giving yourself yourself? opportunity for step, for whatever, maybe the steps right after those are. and so I was I I felt tremendously grateful for him. And I've tried to

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 16:56

try to stay.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 16:57

but I think he's fallen off the map a little bit. I haven't

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 16:59

Oh, really?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 17:00

I

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 17:00

Not able to get,

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 17:01

him, which is a shame'cause I'd really like to thank him for, so if he ever sees this or if he ever listens to this, Kim, you're the man. I really appreciate everything you do for everybody.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 17:10

That's sweet. one of the things I'm curious about, you, you said you overlapped with him for a couple of years. Did you have one class with him? You said you kept him on as a mentor. what was that relationship like? Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 17:19

Yeah. Um, took, I think, I wanna say 80% of my finance courses through him because I, the finance program. at Humboldt State was very corporate finance focused. So a majority of my classes were basically either accounting, or finance. really, I didn't, I think I took maybe one or two, like marketing classes or something like that. but majority of the classes I was taking were the finance classes that included, corporate finance. And I think there was a series of those, I wanna say three of them,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 17:48

Okay.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 17:49

if I'm not mistaken. And then there was, an international finance course that was really interesting. and that was more on kind of the, currency markets and arbitrage and all that good stuff. And then there was the, investment finance, which is how do you do Black shoals? How do all these equations that kind of dictate, pricing options and, the equities markets, really that's, that was its main focus. and Yeah. majority of the time that I spent there was with him, in one way or another. And He was just always, he was omnipresent because he really, in order to pass the class, you had to actively participate

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 18:23

Okay.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 18:24

with him. he designed the class in such a way where you really were forced to go to his office and him things one-on-one. And it would've been impossible to do if you didn't go to his office and ask him thoughtful questions about what you were trying to accomplish out of the classroom.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 18:42

Yeah,

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 18:43

that was really helpful. it was tough. that finance program, I think that first corporate finance class, which was your introduction to this professor, was rough going. I think e every single assignment and exam was on a curve. And by, I think of the 35 that started, I think seven of us ended up walking out with the finance degree.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 19:05

Dang. Wow.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 19:06

and yeah, it was just, it was, you really had to, want to like, work with him specifically.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 19:13

so you have this incredible kind of what sounds like, like a formalizing experience. you're interested in really pursuing a career, in knowledge work. You have this interest in finance. You go to Humboldt State, you find this professor that's truly inspiring and gets you to really uplevel in your expectations of yourself. Awesome. What comes next for you?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 19:32

Yeah. it was, then it was figure out how to, execute on those expectations. Anyway, I wanted an internship at

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 19:39

that's rough.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 19:39

least that summer. And so started calling around to everywhere that had, private equity, investment banking, debt markets, equity market, I mean, anything. and I finally, basically for those who are in tech and who are listening to this, now I basically s dd my way into this private equity opportunity out in Boston with a search fund, which is a unique private equity. Model. but I got in there and, I was lucky enough to have another good mentor, a woman named Liam Majid, who actually just, her acquisition not more than a year and a half, two years ago. the one that, we all worked on. And we. Yeah, I mean I was, it was a lot of deal sourcing. So that summer I spent a lot of time trying to fi you know, basically vet organizations, is this, does this, meet our investment criteria, right? Type of stuff. Then once we found something, then it became a question of, okay, now let's go through the diligence process, right? So now we have an LOI in place, and now we've gotta go and engage everybody. How do we figure out how to structure this deal, right? What you do? We have a data room, right? Do have the debt vehicles that we need to leverage this in a way that makes sense for us to exit later, right? all that kind of stuff. And so they kept me on for a little while longer, and so I came back to the West coast and worked remotely.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 21:02

So the summer wound down, but there was still some work and like your le your, lease on your apartment or whatever was probably up. And then you were like, all right, can I, okay.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 21:10

flew home. Yeah. Once I was done with Boston, I didn't, It didn't, I was just working so much, and no

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 21:15

No offense.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 21:15

people of Boston. I know it's a great city. I think, I just didn't, I was working so much and I had a long distance girlfriend, so I wasn't spending a ton of

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 21:22

Gotcha.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 21:23

to be social and build, my, network there. Really, I was just hyper-focused on that role and, I was 60, 70 hour weeks and, a lot of, just a very singular focus there. And so I, when, by the time it was over and, my short term lease and Boston was up, I was ready to go home.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 21:42

what came next for you? your internship wrapped up. were you hopeful for some kind of like full-time opportunity from these guys? was that on the table at all?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 21:50

no, but I knew I needed something on my resume that said, Hey, this kid isn't just, fresh outta college with zero experience. And so it was

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 21:56

okay, cool.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 21:57

I think in my mind I was like, okay, I just graduated with this finance degree. I would like to be in something like investment banking or private equity or whatever, right? but I knew that I'd be competing with graduates of some of the best schools in the country. And I knew that was ever gonna stand a chance, it was gonna have to be, I was gonna have to back it up a little bit. And to me, that was just at least having that private equity experience on there. I came back to the West coast, like I mentioned, moved in with my folks for a few months and started applying to. Anything and everything that was, finance related, so fp and a like I mentioned, the IB stuff, VC stuff, PE All pretty much anything that I could use my skills in, from like a modeling perspective really. I was like, okay, we're gonna go gung ho into this. And I had a spreadsheet as a finance person would Of every single application that I said, I had a little Gantt chart, all that good stuff. And,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 22:56

had a Gantt chart for your job search

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 22:58

sure did.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 22:58

Did awesome.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 23:00

Yeah. And for a long time I did not get past that first sell. I can tell you it was, I think I applied to 216 or something. it was in the two hundreds. It was a lot of applications and I got a callback from a big old goose egg, just none, no, no callbacks for anything, in that world. And

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 23:19

you've gotten this internship experience, you are hungry, you're ambitious, you have a space that you're targeting and some like credibility that you've built up and you are seeing like no response from the market.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 23:33

super disheartening. flat out, it was brutal. at a certain point it's like I just, I have to move forward. I have to do something. This obviously isn't working and seem like it's going to work. It was just, I also didn't have a tremendous number of connections in the industry either, which I think is huge. I think so many, a lot of my best jobs I've ever had right, came from. relationships. previous, with previous folks. And I think I just didn't have any. And so I was just coming in trying to basically cold call people with applications and

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 24:04

Yep.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 24:05

and just not gonna get picked up that way. And

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 24:08

Right.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 24:09

I, I knew it at the time too, but I wanted so desperately to be in that world. it just didn't work out that way, but. did end up expanding my scope and I saw this thing called a business development representative, and I had no idea what it was. and I just applied. I read through the description seemed simple enough. and so I applied And luckily a gentleman named Tom Johanek, who was a great mentor for my brief stint@bill.com, called me all the back. and went in for interviews. uh, ended up, working@bill.com as a business development representative for a little bit. And that was all cold calling, accounting offices to sell them business to business payment software.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 24:51

Yeah. How did that feel at the time, making that pivot? Obviously, you're like, I need a job. I like, let me be less specific about where I want to be. You land this role. what are you thinking when you get into this job, when you start making all of these cold calls?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 25:04

there there was two parts to it. one positive, one ego, ego piece of me was like, I would really like to be doing finance instead. Like I, I don't know that I want to be cold calling people, but, the other side, which is the pros, like I was getting paid well and I had health insurance for the first time in a long time, and I, had a 401k set up. I felt I felt I felt like hey, we welcome, it was it felt felt validating in some way And then, the, some of my ego was also keeping me from really appreciating for what it was. And it was a little balance there for sure. But

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 25:40

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 25:40

I did well, which was really cool and that also felt great. so I. A couple months in when it was clear that I was, performing, pretty well. And, I, it seemed like there would be some mobility there or I had some options, that kind of thing. then I was able to, I was more willing to let the finance stuff go,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 25:59

it totally makes sense. you come in and you start crushing it at a skill, at a skill that you did not really know that you had, is that fair to say? Or? yeah,

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 26:08

done like little odd jobs here and there. I actually sold Kirby vacuums for a period of time, door to door.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 26:13

oh, okay.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 26:14

I had done some canvassing for Greenpeace too. So So the whole, the whole, talking to strangers thing was not new.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 26:21

yeah,

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 26:22

been pretty good at that for a little bit, so I was

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 26:24

totally.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 26:25

grateful, that wasn't like a huge shift or make me, it didn't make me feel super uncomfortable or anything like that. Cold calling came pretty naturally and.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 26:33

explain the distinction, between like BDR and like why, what comes next in, in maybe that kind of like vertical of function. So you are gathering leads and warming them up and handing them off.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 26:45

there is a bit of a, there's a progression, a typical progression. Normally you start in as an SDR then you get promoted to something like an account executive, which is a closing role.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 26:55

Okay.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 26:56

so then, typically an SDR will hand over, Hey, I cold called, or cold emailed, or whatever into this prospect. They agreed to have a meeting. Now you take over and you run that sales cycle until there's an order form that's signed, I think SDRs are responsible for a little bit more these days, company. But, back then, yeah, it was cold call, a time on the calendar, right? Make sure that time's confirmed, the AE the account executive any texture that you were able to get from that call. So you were encouraged to do a little bit of what we call discovery, right?

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 27:30

Yeah,

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 27:31

thoughtful, well-informed questions, and trying to pull a little bit of information out. So the AE is just not going in absolutely blind. and so anyway, yeah, that, that role went well. But I was also. from Santa Cruz to Palo Alto, which rough. I was waking up at four 30 to try to beat the traffic and in the South Bay and it was just a drag. and

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 27:53

sounds awful.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 27:53

in the background there was this other company that was starting to grow quite a bit in Santa Cruz, and so I turned my attention that way.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 28:02

Yeah. okay. Te tell us a little bit about how that happened. you're in this BDR SDR role@bill.com. The commute is i is not great. and then this opportunity pops up. how did you find this role and then what were the other kind of pull factors or push factors of why did you transition to this new company, having it in your hometown or having it in your, like where, like closer to where you live obviously is one, but from like an industry perspective, role perspective, did you have a sense of what were the kind of like trade offs that you were weighing?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 28:29

Yeah. Two, there were two pieces to it. Like you said, there was the first one, which is, the commute,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 28:34

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 28:34

just a, like a very,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 28:36

It's a quality of life decision. Makes perfect sense.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 28:39

exactly. I mean that, that was a pretty good push, I would say

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 28:43

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 28:44

but on the pull right, bill.com is a great company. A fantastic product. They've done really well for themselves. But at the time, it, it was like da, data's the new oil and Looker, this company that was founded in Santa Cruz and headquartered there was a business intelligence platform still is. and I had gotten to know a handful of folks, at Looker. friend of mine was working there and my sister was working there. So I had gone to a few of their happy hours. I had met a ton of folks there, they were all surfers like me and they love mountain biking like me. And there was just like a lot of cultural fit. and they were also just really thoughtful people and I really, really enjoyed kind of being in the room with them. And I think of the things that. Since I had started going to school. and this is a piece of advice that a lot of people get. I got first heard it from, that professor that I love so much, Dr. F so it just never be the smartest person in the room. And I'm not saying that I was the smartest person in the room@bill.com, but could sense that the, the folks at Looker were operating at a different level. the product managers that were there were super sharp. just deadly. The sales leadership was really good, just across the board. It was just incredible. And I really, I tried to get myself in there as quickly as I could, and I got an offer and told the vp@bill.com, I said, Hey, look, I'm, this commute's killing me. I think Looker's gonna do great things. I think you're gonna do great things too. But I think I'm gonna go ahead and jump ship and, Andy Cohen, the VP at the time for bill.com was. It was awesome. He said, Hey, look, we'd love to keep you. Is there anything we can do? said, look, aside from letting me work remote and promoting me to account executive today, it's gonna be tough

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 30:31

Yeah. Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 30:32

for me to be able to do that. And he said, yeah, I get it. I totally understand. went to Looker, and started my SDR role looker, which was fantastic.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 30:40

Awesome. yeah, te tell us about that. really appreciate the depth that you went into when you made this transition. Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 30:45

of course. it was, SDR role, it was similar. I was what was called an inbound sales development representative, and I would say that I, I had been doing cold calling, off of a list. who had expressed zero interest in bill.com at Looker, I was calling a list of folks that had some kind of interaction with Looker. Maybe they submitted a demo request form through the website, maybe attended a webinar. There was some kind of existing, familiarity with Looker, right? And so my job was to call into those folks and effectively do the same thing, get as much information I can on a relatively brief call, and then book that meeting with an for an account executive. And so I did that for, wanna say three or four months. And then they had an opening, for, an account executive on the SMB team stands for small and medium sized businesses. And I applied and got it, which, was phenomenal. I couldn't have asked for, a better kind of progression, in my time there. And, I was super, super grateful for that.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 31:47

Can I ask when you're in like these SDR roles what is the reporting structure like? Like you are obviously like serving these leads into account executives. Are you reporting to them as well or is, does SDR exist as like a separate function that is like a service angle to, to the account executives?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 32:03

more the latter. so at least in my experience, I'm sure there are organizations that have them bundled that way. But generally speaking, accounting, SDRs are not reporting out to account executives. Account executives are almost always individual contributors a vast majority of account executives do not manage, they don't do any people management,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 32:21

I'm curious, you had even told your former boss, like, if you could promote me to an account executive today, that would be maybe that's the only way that I could stay. At what point did you know, that was the role that you wanted to be in next? Especially when it's not necessarily like in the same kind of like function vertical, did you ever consider'cause you were really killing it as an S-D-R-B-D-R in your last role. hey, I could be managing people as a people manager, in this function. was that ever something that came up to you or for you? Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 32:46

and actually it's, I'm so funny you bring that up. So when I was doing that, I, started doing team lead, responsibilities, which is great, which means I was not people managing. I wasn't doing any of the HR pieces, but, it's the functional stuff like day to day, I was helping out with, Making sure that everybody's software was working correctly. We're on a number of different platforms that had to all talk to each other in the right way in order for you to do your job efficiently. And so I was helping out with that stuff and doing like a little bit of coaching for new hires and just and so yeah, I actually had, wanted to manage an SDR team. That was my real goal.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 33:21

Cool.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 33:22

but then one day when those, AE slots account executive spots opened up, got called into the office with my frontline manager, guy named Brady Park. Hey Brady, I hope you're out there. And then another guy named Kyle Coleman, who has gone on to do amazing thing, shout out to you, Kyle. your experience was, mentorship was invaluable. And they called me in and they said, Hey, look, we have these AE roles opening up. Are you interested in applying? And I was like, I don't know. I was really thinking of, I was thinking I wanted to manage a BDR team. either because they thought account executive would be a better career choice for me or because they didn't see me as a good fit as a manager. I don't know. maybe a bit of both. Who

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 34:06

Huh.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 34:07

They were like, no, you should do the account executive thing.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 34:09

I'm very curious about this point, because there's a potential fork in the road here. There is an opportunity that exists, right? that is actually for your career advancement, better pay, more prestige, but it's not necessarily in the realm that you wanted. And you have a couple of folks that kind of brought you into a conversation that like as mentors and you your verification of whether this was the right move for you was to basically ask, are you sure? And they said yes. And you were like, all te tell me about, was it just a gut feeling? they were like, I trust these guys. let's just do it and see where it goes. Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 34:38

I, I think also, things were just moving so fast, at the company and it was take an opportunity where you can grab it.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 34:46

Cool.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 34:47

if you could pull yourself up a rung, then do it. And I did any SDR who's tried to go for an account executive position will be familiar with this process. I practiced my demo as best as I could. I practiced my discovery as best as I could for a couple of weeks, And so I, I just sat down and did my best and then ended up getting it, So anyway,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 35:06

Yep.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 35:06

an account executive at Looker and at that's where the lion's share of my professional career started.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 35:11

That's great. and so tell us about that. You you get into this account executive role. this is your career for the next however many years, at a bunch of different companies. Let's talk about it. What was being at Looker as an account executive? Like, and then how did that, how did it change over time?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 35:25

I loved being an account executive at Looker. the people were amazing. The product was fantastic. The company was awesome. the typical kind of account executive progression is some version of SMB to mid-market, commercial to enterprise. You're basically just going up in company size, so

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 35:43

That's your progression as an account, as like an ic? an accountant. Exactly. Okay. Gotcha.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 35:48

and you have a number of choices as an account executive. You can hang out an SMB and then, try to become an SMB manager. And the same is true for every one of those kind of buckets, those tiers, right?

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 35:59

I see.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 36:00

but more commonly, most people will start an SMB then go to the larger segment segments. And so I was lucky enough to through a couple of those segments at Looker. We were acquired by Google kind of 20 20, 20 21. and that changed the company a little bit, right? We are now part of a much larger organization the writing was on the wall. Processes were gonna change. Team structures were gonna change. The way that, we interacted with the rest of the company was gonna change. I used to have access to, product people pretty regularly now. There was a fairly. There was a process in place then that, obfuscated your access to, product managers or folks that could walk through product roadmap with prospects and access just got a little more limited. And

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 36:47

Hmm.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 36:47

just a product of being part of a company that's really big. and that's okay. It just wasn't what I was looking for at the time.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 36:54

At what point did you start looking for your next thing or kind of deciding that you were gonna move on? Because, acquisitions take time. There's all of these sorts of processes and stuff. introducing a lot of bureaucracy At what point in time were you like, okay, this is my time here. is wrapping up?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 37:10

yeah, during the acquisition, the regulatory processes took a long time. So there was a long freeze on career progression, for I wanna say a year.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 37:19

Okay.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 37:20

and by the time that was, that kind of moratorium was lifted, right? Because they don't wanna move people around in the middle of a transaction, right? they're not trying to change payroll a whole lot. They're, they've gotta try to keep things almost frozen in time from the

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 37:33

Yep.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 37:33

the, the agreement was signed. and that meant we were frozen in our career progressions as well. And that's not to say that we weren't looking forward to being a part of Google.'cause we certainly were. like I said, the same thing with the private equity piece. If you had told 2010 Marshall that hey, you're gonna have a Google badge, I would've told you're nuts.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 37:51

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 37:53

And so that felt like a, there's a huge sense of accomplishment there too. It was like, oh my God. Yeah. You and I grew up in the valley. Like we, you and I knew what that word meant,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 38:01

totally.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 38:03

so yeah, it fluff the ego. It did all these things, but the career progression piece really slowed down.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 38:08

that makes a lot of sense. you get this thing, it's Google, you get the Google badge, it's awesome. You've had this accomplishment in your career, but Career advancement gets a lot harder. and the actual facts on the ground, make it so that you can't do the things that you enjoyed about the role to begin with in terms of being closely tied to the product and your other stakeholders.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 38:23

And

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 38:23

Um,

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 38:24

uh, so we were all working remote,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 38:26

ah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 38:26

one of the things that I loved about working at Looker was being in the office with all those good people. And swallowed by a large organization, not being in the office with all those folks that I really enjoyed working with, really it just, all those things compounded. And so I ended up another role at, and after it took about a year and a half or two years, I forget what the exact timeline was, but I think it was almost a couple of years I spent at Google. And then, I got an opportunity to be, an enterprise account executive somewhere else. and that is, that's pretty typical. You'll see that a lot if you're a, a mid-market or SMB, even account executive at a large organization like

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 39:05

Yep.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 39:05

can. Pick up enterprise account executive jobs and enterprise is like the biggest companies you can sell to. that's the idea there. can pick up enterprise account executive roles at smaller companies.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 39:17

To.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 39:17

that's what I did.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 39:19

Tell us about the company that you went to. what attracted you to that opportunity? Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 39:23

It was a company called Assembled. and they do workforce management software for, basically customer service organizations. co-founded by a couple of brothers that came from Stripe they built a very clever platform that does really good things for folks that are looking to staff customer success or. Customer service organizations, there's a, it is very tricky to kind of staff, customer service and customer success organizations properly to meet inbound

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 39:52

Mm-hmm.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 39:52

so I got hired by a guy named Justin Schafer. Great guy. and he and I were on the same page, in terms of kinda the way that we the selling motion and kind of the way that we saw a process and all that good stuff. and eventually and I don't wanna speak for Justin or the board or the co-founders, but there were some disagreements and Justin, ended up, parting ways with assembled. And then I, was close to follow, I think is six, six to eight weeks later. I was also, asked to leave, which was the first time I'd ever been let go, from an organization. And that pretty painful.'cause I had been doing well, I had hit

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 40:31

Yeah,

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 40:32

and that good stuff. And, I, it was a tough, it was a tough hit to take, but,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 40:37

that's a, I'm really sorry to hear that. It's a rough place to be. when you joined this place, when I asked you what attracted you to it? there's obviously like the hiring manager and you really got along, saw things in a very similar way. you've talked about going to Looker. A big part of it was like the people and being like, oh, these people are smart. I like really vibe with them and I feel like they're very like honest, sincere people. So there's a little bit of that. The other thing that you mentioned that I thought was really interesting was like, you just went into a description of the company and the product. and like one of the things that you had mentioned about Looker was how much you appreciated the product and like how, like what it actually like accomplished. and when you are in a position, like an account executive position, does the belief in the product and liking the product really help you do your job?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 41:16

Yeah.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 41:16

yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 41:17

Yeah. It makes a huge difference. no doubt about it. I. I've, it's very difficult to sell something that you don't believe in. you've gotta be, gotta have ice in your veins to do that. And I, I can't say that I'm built for that.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 41:28

yeah,

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 41:29

I, always wanted to try to be a part of an organization who's product is, bleeding edge, right? It's at the, where the market is at least is, will be tomorrow and will hopefully be, a year or two from now, Because if you fall any further behind than that, you're in deep shit.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 41:46

yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 41:47

It's not easy, it's not fun, you're trying to get, product requests through engineering and all that good stuff, what you're doing anyway, all the time with any organization, no matter

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 41:57

Sure.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 41:57

the product is. but it's, it just gets so bad when, the thing you're selling is falling behind the marketplace more broadly. it's terrible.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 42:06

so you joined this thing. you had your push factors off of Google. Your pull is people in product is very similar to coming to Looker, I think.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 42:13

The other piece, you talked about the poll piece, and I mentioned this a minute ago, it was a title Chase too. I was, moving from a mid-market role at, Looker and Google and looking to have enterprise,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 42:27

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 42:28

that was part of it too.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 42:30

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 42:31

so I ended up, pivoting over to another analytics company called Mixpanel and Mixpanel, this product, product analytics. basically user behavior, things like that. you may be familiar

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 42:42

Definitely I've used, it's, I've used Mix panel. It's so funny.'cause yeah, I've used both Looker and Mixpanel in the past. Yeah. It's like I'm a product manager. Like you're selling to PMs,

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 42:51

Yeah,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 42:52

but, but yeah. Tell us about how you found Mixpanel. Did you have other offers on the table at the time

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 42:58

I think when you get let go, you, there's kind of you, you hit the panic button, And I started, blasting resumes out and, trying to talk to as many people as I possibly could. And so I ended up, reaching out to somebody I used to work with at Looker who had ended up taking a sales manager position at, Mixpanel.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 43:17

Cool.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 43:18

so we got to chatting and, we ended up agreeing that it would be a good fit and went through their process and ended up, as an enterprise rep for a Mixpanel, which great. we had a tough year that year, so it was pretty rough and I was starting to feel pretty burned out. I think after the assembled thing. that I might have been a little long for that world. I was starting to get pretty tired and, I was burned out really. and at some at some point. journey at Mixpanel, I knew that you had probably be a good idea for me to step away and some time. So that's what I did. At a certain point, I

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 43:57

Okay.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 43:57

a year and then decided to step away and I ended up taking nearly a year off.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 44:04

if you were to look back on your burnout, what were the things that kind of led to it and then because,'cause I've been in this boat, and I think a lot of people have, and I think, this is something that is really important to identify causes and for, and not just symptoms of.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 44:18

yeah.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 44:19

and I'm curious about, what reflection you might have done as to like when you get to that point. What you might be doing differently,

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 44:25

Yeah.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 44:25

where you see that happening in the future.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 44:27

it's like a number of different things. So it's, it's hard to pin down as you would expect. It's obviously not just one

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 44:32

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 44:33

I think that if something really candid, there are a few things that really stick out to me. One, when you work for companies that have taken venture capital and the market's taken a downturn, which it had at that point. Things get tense, really tense. And I think that there are organizations and a couple of them that I work for are guilty of this. There are stages in Salesforce, right? So you have an opportunity, it's in Salesforce and it's, maybe the first, however the company decides to name their kind of, deal stages, right? There's discovery

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 45:12

Funnel.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 45:12

demo, and then, whatever. There's usually anywhere between five and seven of these stages. And there seemed to be this kind of growing trend in sales management. and I've talked to other folks that are other companies who, who've have seen this too, where if you take an initial call, it's discovery and it moves into, say, demo, which means you've just ask'em a bunch of questions about their company and what they're trying to accomplish by working with somebody like you. And you're just saying, okay, this is like a good enough fit to show them the product. That's it. That's like the only commitment that they've made. got to the point, and I think there's just a lot of downward pressure from, VCs to board to C-suite, C-suite to, just all the way down the chain. it eventually gets to a point where if you move something from discovery into demo, expectation is there's no reason you shouldn't close that.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 46:07

Huh?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 46:08

And

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 46:09

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 46:09

it's just not true. One, it's an unreasonable expectation. And they'll, and look in their defense, they'll turn around and say, oh no, we actually bake in, a 25 to 35% close rate. But the pressure for each individual deal, it just gets, it becomes a lot,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 46:26

They expect you to close earlier in that funnel. that pressure is coming when things are not like, it's just like things are not going as well. The economy's going down. Funding is drying up like broadly in the economy.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 46:37

Or you're in a crowded space and getting outpaced by somebody else, or, or they, maybe their value got marked down or

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 46:43

right.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 46:44

there's like a number of things that can happen. I'm not saying any of those did, I think that there's just the downward pressure when things are not going as well as, some executives would

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 46:56

Uh,

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 46:56

see, just especially on the enterprise side, right? Because

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 47:00

right.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 47:00

is pulling in large logos. Like I, I worked with Honda and a number of other folks, these very large organizations and, part of the, OR enterprise Motion is you kinda have to map out an entire company and try to figure out how to sell into each one of those,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 47:18

Yeah. what I'm hearing from you is maybe some symptoms of some of the downward pressure that ends up being applied onto the company and the sales organization. What was happening on the ground? does the start happening at assembled, did that carry over into mixed panel? Because you talk about burnout, right? And it sounds like you're describing one of the symptoms. Were the facts on the ground in terms of what your close rates were actually changing at all? Was that actually getting worse? for the sales organization?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 47:43

yeah. I was, I was, I, yeah, I wasn't hitting, my number. I wasn't

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 47:49

okay.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 47:49

a quota, for that year. It wasn't atrocious,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 47:52

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 47:52

but it was one of those things where it was kinda like, ah, man, it

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 47:56

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 47:56

it's just a, it's just an icky feeling, you want to be at a hundred percent a quota. your comp is. 50 50 base and variable, right? At

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 48:05

Yep.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 48:05

of these account executive roles. And yeah, it sucks. It just doesn't feel good. You have to go every quarter, you do a QBR, quarterly business review, and you sit down and you say, Hey, these are the deals that didn't work out right. And the idea most of the time is to do, a constructive post-mortem, right? Hey, why didn't this close? What can we do the next time? And, I was just tired, Varun.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 48:30

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 48:30

really tired. I, I felt, I bounced between, Google assembled a mixed panel all within. a couple of years, and I, you, it takes a while to get your footing as a salesperson in any new organization, right? There's a learning curve on the product. There's building your book. There's, all the, mapping out the organization for yourself, just internally Hey, who can I go to

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 48:53

Totally.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 48:53

to get answers, through these sales processes? And I was just tired of it.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 48:59

a couple of things that I'm hearing, which is there's a lot of different factors. The actual, like the, there's a big one, which is essentially is like the environment became hard to, to. To sell. And so there's a lot of pressure like externally, internally, and then you're forced to make a lot of shifts,

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 49:17

I was just tired, I think it had, I. my push out was personal. I was just exhausted. And, I think it was time for me to figure out how to get my blood pressure down

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 49:29

Yeah. and the reason that I ask all of these questions is really we're tracking those like push-pull factors and like we're seeing the kind of trends in your polls of being like, like opportunity for advancement people and product. And it like you, it does seem like there was some elements of all three when you went to Mixpanel, but you were already in your like, beginning phases of burnout and those things are not necessarily enough. what happens on the other side of that? what, what was the point where you were like, I need to leave this job with nothing lined up. Speaking to you as somebody that has just very recently left a job with nothing lined up.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 49:58

to do,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 49:59

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 50:00

I gotta tell you, I, look, I was in a position where I could take some substantial time off without, being on the street, which I know is not a luxury. or a privilege that everybody can afford to take. and I fully appreciate that. And figured, hey, you know what, let's take some, let's take some serious time and kind of re circle the wagons

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 50:24

maybe just rewind back to a little bit when you started your first job in construction. and this was, the, there was a friend of yours that kind of pulled you into it, and there's this sense of needing to perform in order to make sure that you're maintaining that relationship and reciprocating in good faith by performing really well.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 50:40

Yeah,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 50:40

there was somebody that brought you into this job that you used to work with before. did you feel any of that pressure or guilt? yeah. yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 50:47

Yeah. he knew me as somebody who performed and executed when we were at Liquor Together.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 50:52

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 50:53

not hitting a hundred percent when I was at Mixpanel was, it, there was a bit of shame that came along with that and guilt.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 51:01

Yeah, that's hard. so burnout. Tough environment. and you leave, tell me about the time that you had off.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 51:10

Oh my God, it was amazing.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 51:12

yeah,

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 51:13

It was great. like I said, I surf and stuff like that, so spent some time centering around that. and, played a lot of golf. Went, went on vacation. Did, go a few camping trips, took care of stuff around the house I'd been putting off, just living life and, didn't get, it didn't get to the point where I didn't know what day of the week it was, but it cre it was starting to, it was starting to bleed into that. So that's when I was kinda, oh, we should

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 51:38

yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 51:38

start booking around a little bit. and funny enough, time, I breathed deeper, blood pressure went down, both literally and metaphorically.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 51:46

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 51:47

and, through a connection of my girlfriends, I ended up in a great, having lunch with somebody who is the president of a private lender, Herr Financial. And, we sat down and we talked about what he was, they were recently acquired by another company and he had taken over to run Financial on behalf of Kocher Capital. And we sat down and started talking about kind of the things that. my experience, things that I'm familiar with, the way that I approach the go to market motion, right? and so it started off as, hey, maybe you, run our a DU loan program. And I said, that sounds really interesting. we kept talking for a couple of months and then eventually sharpened our pencils and got something on paper that worked for the both of us. and I've been there ever since.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 52:36

and then when you ended up meeting this person for lunch or whatever it was it Hey, I'm looking for somebody to do this, or did this kind of come over organically? they were

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 52:43

This came up more more organic?

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 52:45

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 52:45

person who had recommended that we chat, was he is the CFO of the acquiring company.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 52:51

Gotcha.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 52:52

he was a very impressive person. got, a really good read from him and he was really transparent about what he was trying to accomplish. And we just kept the conversation going, right? is there a world where I fit into this picture? And. do you think that's a good idea? Is this kind of in line with your expectations? In terms of my experience and lack of experience also, I had not been in the debt space ever. not something that I had spent any time doing, but I had spent a lot of time learning how to move a deal from start to close and figure out sales process and documentation and, all the kind of the little pieces that when people think of sales, they think of somebody who's good at shaking hands and hosting dinners. But, reality it's mostly process,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 53:38

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 53:39

it's mostly just documenting as much as you can, bringing substantive information that's valuable

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 53:45

Yep.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 53:46

or of value to whoever the prospect is, right? That kind of thing. And so think that he has a vision for the organization that a little more centered around, That version of selling versus what the kind of what has been historically seen as a, outdated, but less digitally native, selling motion with, for loan officers specifically?

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 54:10

I see. tell me a little bit more about what you're doing right now and what it's like and this is really interesting. yeah. And what were the real pull factors here? It sounds like there's a people aspect to it. and like what were the other things that you were excited about when you were joining and not just joining? It sounds Really co crafting a role for yourself at this company?

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 54:27

yeah. They, so my official title is product manager, actually. Funny enough,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 54:31

Ah,

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 54:32

I function more as a loan officer though, when it comes to. if you were to try to get your feelers out across the industry and say, Hey, what does Marshall do? Most people would say loan officer.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 54:42

okay.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 54:43

they call me a product manager because I own the A DU loan program specifically, which was in its infancy at the time when I started, my boss, the person I was so impressed with, Roy, had started the program, but he needed somebody to really pick it up and the business development piece and we're seeing, great success. We're seeing a lot of traction, which is awesome. And then I also pivoted into, just construction writ large. So I also handle, ground up construction projects, for, mostly speculative projects, so what we call spec. So for sale or for rent, right? Or even more broadly, business purpose. And so I've spent a lot of time building relationships with contractors, brokers, all these other folks, and yet not very dissimilar from what a kind of a traditional loan officer would do.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 55:33

Gotcha.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 55:33

just spending maybe more time on the company's overall go to market presence. So that includes digital marketing, that includes events, that includes a few other pieces that I think are typically a little outside of, a normal loan officer's purview.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 55:50

tell me if I have this right. You're seeing the deals for lending for specific projects, starting with ADUs, but also you've expanded your scope to other construction projects it sounds like both commercial and residential, or, yeah,

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 56:05

it

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 56:05

for,

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 56:05

construction, gimme a call. I it's also worth mentioning that, we are a private lender and we have 70 plus years worth of construction experience, which, has been tremendously helpful for me and ramping up in this organization, right?'cause there's just a, so it's not a company full of brand new people. It's, a company that has a handful of really experienced, really talented folks that I can lean on, which is great.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 56:29

Tell me a little bit about what this means for you and your career going forward. or how you see it. this sounds really interesting'cause like you're doing a whole bunch of different stuff. It doesn't sound like there's a ladder for, what is your, like product manager slash loan officer? Yeah. Like

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 56:44

there's, I think that, the best thing that I could hope for is to grow my book of business to the point where I can't handle all of it, right? And I think that is right now my North Star. So how do I grow my book of business to the point where, I just don't have enough time and we can justify bringing on headcount.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 57:04

Sure.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 57:05

in terms of the, in terms of the kind of the frame of mind that you just mentioned, right? Like where do you go from here? That would probably be, where I would want to go. It's also worth mentioning that, hers are financial and se kosher capital. We are what's called a portfolio lender. So we are an alternative asset class for investors. So investors, accredited investors can put cash into our fund. We turn around, take that cash and lend it out on high quality, construction projects. In our case, in our instance. We have investors who are looking to get yield, and we have, borrowers who are looking to build, right?

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 57:39

Yep.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 57:39

I hope to get to the point where, the book of business is going really well, and then I get to help support increasing the size of the fund. So doing some more of the investor relations pieces perhaps, or, trying to figure out how to license ourselves so that we can expand our offerings the goal is growth, right? how do I support growth in a way that makes sense? Right now I'm just hyper-focused on sourcing loan opportunities. I'm really happy with the direction we're going in, which is awesome. I also don't feel the kind of the early signs of burnout or anything, and so that feels really nice. but yeah, right now I'm laser focused. I'm just growing the business. And then hopefully we can start thinking a little bit bigger.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 58:20

where you are now is meaningfully different than where you were before.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 58:22

yeah,

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 58:23

you had these kind of like external markers. I think that made it maybe easy to index on something that you're working towards, right? So like how you're contributing to growth at a company as A BDR or an account executive, right? Is like growing business for the company and then being rewarded with some kind of like promotion or new job or new title, et cetera. that process doesn't really exist here. and I'm curious, did you think about that as a trade off when coming? Into this company. because part of the way that I'm thinking about is that like you can contribute to the growth of this company in a way that's really freeing, right? you don't really have these markers and you can worry about that later and just focus on the work. but, and again, I,

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 59:00

I could not have said it better myself. And even, who doesn't love a bookend?

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 59:04

Yeah. Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 59:07

And I think going all the way back. And if we're thinking about kind of the emotional push pull of where you are in your career and the reason you make certain decisions about the, the work that you choose to do. in the beginning it was just find anything, find identity, find purpose. Then it became, oh wow, I have some expectations of myself that I didn't expect myself to have, but I'd like to execute on those. And then it becomes, okay, now I'm, now I have health insurance. That's pretty awesome. I have a 401k. how much career progression can I find in this space? I think it was so hyper-focused. On that. Like how, how can I continue to increase my visibility in a company that's of size and that's growing and that comes with its own pressures. you're asking for those pressures

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 59:55

Yeah.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 59:56

walk into those roles and you want that visibility and you want that responsibility. and now to to answer your question, I think I'm coming at it from a perspective that's a little more focused on balance. I am focusing a little bit more on making sure that whatever I'm doing is sustainable for me personally. Now I have more ambitions than that. I think I'd like to, I'd like to grow the help, grow the business and, you know, make sure that we're doing it sustainably from, both in, you know, a financial and emotional perspective.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 1:00:27

cool. Hey, thanks Marshall. This was a, an incredible conversation. Thanks so much for taking the time. it's been so good to reconnect and just learn about what you've been up to.

marshall-robins_1_04-04-2025_133346 1:00:36

It's been an absolute re and I appreciate you. you You need? always feel free to reach out. I'm always just a phone call away.

varun_1_04-04-2025_133345 1:00:44

Yeah, I'm, I'll probably dig i'll, we will probably hang if I swing back by the bay.

1:00:53

such an amazing conversation. we really summed it up at the end there, about how his transitions were in. Formed by the things that really motivated him over time. when he got into the S-D-R-B-D-R and account executive roles, how really wanting to perform and be successful and see how far he could go in that career was something that kept driving him until it didn't. One thing that really impressed me about Marshall. was his history of trusting his gut, taking the opportunity when you can grab it. like that one time he was moving from a BDR role into an account executive at Looker. he wasn't really over analyzing, going in that direction versus being a manager of BDRs. He had some input from people that he trusted and he said, okay, let's just keep going. I have a short window here. There's an opportunity. I'm gonna grab it. and even from, the time that he had burnout and resigning, getting a sense of needing to get back to work, the days weren't quite blending together, but he had a gut sense, that it was important for him to start figuring out what was next for him. I think we might all be better served if we trust ourselves a little bit more. To know when something is right or something's wrong. there is that internal sense of wanting to do the right thing and understanding where you need to pivot your attention. but early on we also talked about social pressure being something that was a positive motivator for Marshall. It's really in vogue to talk about how we should avoid all social pressure and not worry about what other people are doing. But when he saw his peers graduating from school and going into the workforce, that was something that actually motivated him in a way that he books back on as a positive step. it just goes to show nothing is really cut and dry. You need some balance between positive social pressures pointing you into a direction that you might actually want to go, as well as those moments where you need to actually take a break. Huge thanks to Marshall for being on the podcast. And, if you like this, Share this episode with anybody and everybody that you can, uh, like leave a review on any of the podcast apps that you're listening to this on. And if you know anybody that has a really cool career story, send them my way. I would love to interview them. every single one of these stories bestows a bunch of wisdom upon me and, hopefully gives you something to learn and chew on as well. So thanks so much again for listening, watching, and I'll see you at the next one.