Digital & Dirt
00:33:29 · Lucy Markowitz
[00:33:29] S1: Well, I'm definitely older than when I started at Vistar. But I think a couple of things. One is, you know, I was given an opportunity to sort of throw myself into the ring of going from, a seller, one of the first sellers at Vistar to then, hey, what if I try to lead this team? Now that's taking over the sales team, which I'm also going from being people's peer to then being a manager and trying to figure out like how do I balance the friendships that I have? Who do I go to? Who are the people that I should be venting to? How do I also get people to wanna believe in me that I'm the person that is gonna set them up for success and help them to accomplish the things that are important for them and not just look at it from like kind of that selfish mentality. So I think that was the first thing was kind of getting the sales team over that hump. And then over time it's been thinking about like how do you unify a group of folks that are working with clients? How do we make sure that the support teams are not viewed as just support, but as integral to the process? As I've kind of grown and had client services and analytics and partnerships be a part of the team, it's making sure that we're giving resources to all of those groups, making sure that actually we can balance where we need to optimize. And also making sure that I'm not in the weeds on everything anymore. I think I have a hard time turning off a lot of the times, but I think that in the same respect, part of that is there's a lot of people that I've had to learn to really trust. And I do, and I think I'm so lucky to have the team that I have, both the people that are directly reporting and the managers that are within their team that I know like will get anything done. If I tell them, Hey, I need help with this. I am sure that they are the people to do it. A lot of these people would be like my first call in jail as well.
00:35:42 · Ian Dallimore, Lucy Markowitz
[00:35:42] S0: Would Raj bail you out? [00:35:44] S1: I don't know. He'd probably keep me in there for like a little bit longer just to have some peace. But eventually he would definitely Yeah, get me exactly. But I think a lot of it is just like learning to trust a bit more. And I think the other thing I would say is that having a framework and a process is super important because I think if everyone can kind of follow, you don't just have like rogue warriors across. And I think that's the other thing that we've kind of had to learn over time is going from a company of 12 to over 300 people. You can't just have everyone operating roguely because we need to make sure that people are like staying in their lane are also being respectful to all the teams that work around them and kind of figuring out how we have that appropriate handoff process, but where everyone kind of has their like time in the light. [00:36:33] S0: Yeah. And it's beyond that, right? So the opposite side would be not rogue, but also just very structured. Hey, you guys all fit. And then that goes back to the not to knock Goldman in your very early days, but that could have been the same mentality. So it's... I love... And I wish I could name every one of your team members on the podcast, but every single one of them have a different personality. They have a different what drives them and what's important. And, you know, it's beyond what I've seen holistically across your entire team is it's beyond just like, Hey, are you hitting your budget? [00:37:06] S1: Oh yeah.
00:37:06 · Lucy Markowitz, Ian Dallimore
[00:37:06] S1: Oh yeah. [00:37:06] S0: It's very personal. And you have a lot of people that are now aging and have kids and what motivates them and for them to still be a working mom and showing up in a, you know, a solo dad that wants to provide for his family. And it's interesting. So managing personalities is, has that become a learned thing for you [00:37:26] S1: as Yeah. Well, I think it's both managing personalities as much as it also is knowing that you're not trying to develop an army of Lucy's. That would be frightening. [00:37:36] S0: That would be frightening [00:37:37] S1: for Exactly. Everyone on [00:37:39] S0: I love you but that would be
00:37:39 · Ian Dallimore, Lucy Markowitz
[00:37:39] S0: I love you but that would be [00:37:40] S1: No, no, I would wish that on literally no one. But I think that part of it is you need different personalities. You also have to understand that there's different styles of doing things. If they work, have people go with it. And I think that it's making sure that the piece that is structured isn't overly structured to your point that you're just trying to get everyone to act the same way. Because I think those different dynamics is part of what creates unique relationships in the market. I think the other thing too is you can't be everywhere. You need to not be a micromanager, but at the same time, you're also getting a lot of feedback from different teams and it's making sure that we're balancing, ensuring that people have the resources that they need, the ability to have some flexibility in how they want to operate, but also knowing that like we still need to operate somewhat within a framework to still get stuff done. I think that also creating opportunity for people to grow within Vistar. And I think that those paths can both be not just a manager path, but it can also be as individual contributors because I think that's super important that we need to also celebrate people that are really good at their job that can take on more. But that doesn't just mean that they have to manage a team. [00:39:01] S0: Have you seen, inside our note, I've seen your people in the wild and you could tell there's little pieces of Lucy, but they're out there in their own personality.
00:39:01 · Ian Dallimore, Lucy Markowitz
[00:39:01] S0: Have you seen, inside our note, I've seen your people in the wild and you could tell there's little pieces of Lucy, but they're out there in their own personality. [00:39:10] S1: Those could things that I learned from them too. Yeah, [00:39:13] S0: exactly. Yeah. And goes both ways for sure. And so have you had employees that were really, you mentioned the peer to peer and then becoming the manager, obviously that comes with some angst, but have you also seen employees that maybe were in certain positions where you've seen them and you're like, Hey, let's move you over here and try this out. Have you seen those type of evolutions as well? [00:39:35] S1: Yeah. And how [00:39:35] S0: did you approach that?
00:39:36 · Lucy Markowitz
[00:39:36] S1: I think there's a lot of people that are actually receptive to feedback when given the feedback in the right way. Like we have people that are, a little rough around the edges, but at the same time, those might be people that I know that I can count on. And so it's refining some of those pieces that have helped them to continue moving forward in their career. I'd also say one of the things too, you talk about, and I know I mentioned it before of kind of going from people's peer to then moving up. I've also been really lucky to have people around me that they might have a lot more experience than me, but they see the value that I can bring and have actually kind of helped me to build confidence within myself that I can still offer a lot, even if it's not necessarily because I've had X number of years of experience. And so I think part of it is people can prove themselves whether they have one year of experience or ten or fifteen or twenty. And so I think like my perception has changed as well. I think people's want to learn and grow are very different and kind of giving people pointers of where they can refine certain things can go a long way. But also I think I've tried to do more observing of some of those behaviors of even things that work really well for some, but also some of those things might not work for other people. So it kind of goes back to like that same lesson with Michael of like fail fast. That can both be with a new product, but it can all be also be with like trying out a new tactic or something along those lines, whether it's in market or just like a managing style that may or may not work, give it a try. If it doesn't work, abandon ship.