How to Build a Sales Team That Doesn't Need You | Tim McEuen (AppFolio)

Carter (00:01.207)
Hey Tim, give the people a quick intro. Who are you? What do you do now? All that good stuff.

Tim McEuen (00:06.272)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Hello, everybody. My name is Tim McEwen. I am the BDR manager for the enterprise team here at AppFolio. I've been in tech cells. I've been in logistics as well. I was an individual contributor for about 10 years and a manager for five years. I've managed both AEs and BDRs. So far, it's been the most fun I've had managing a team, the enterprise BDR team here at AppFolio over last couple

Carter (00:36.769)
I saw that you're also a realtor and have a real estate business. Do you feel like those things have helped your job at AppFolio since they're kind of in the same realm, the same wheelhouse?

Tim McEuen (00:48.203)
Yeah, that's a good question. And I think actually it helped me get the job here. it was something to make me stand out and show that I know the industry, but yeah, absolutely. my real estate business, helps me understand things at a micro level. So it gives me a lot of sympathy for the customers we have here at Aptolio of what they go through when they're acquiring buildings, when they're selling properties. so let's me let the, insights to the team, like how the stresses that they go through and that whole process. on the other side,

With that portfolio, I get to learn a lot of the macro trends and I get to see kind of behind the curtain what's going on in the real estate market on the national and local level here too. So it gives me a lot of confidence giving advice and recommendations to my clients in my real estate business. So it's been very cyclical, which has been great.

Carter (01:35.555)
That is pretty nice. So you think it helped because what you were doing that at the same time as your last job or is it you were at your last place and then you were doing real estate full time and then you went into this and then you were doing it part time.

Tim McEuen (01:47.244)
No. So funny enough, at my last position, I was a tech startup and you know, rightfully so. think they made a good decision to really cut a lot of the revenue org out and that included the BDR department at the time. So I laid off, even though my team, felt very proud about the deliverables we made for the business. But I was pretty lying. Like they needed a pivot on their strategy.

And at the time I just really wanted to have a job where could always fall back onto, know, something that's, I can make money off of my skill and my income isn't being dictated by a larger strategy that I can't have a whole lot of say in. So that's what got me to real estate. Really enjoyed it. And then while I was getting my license, that's when I started applying for my next full-time management role. And I'm actually glad it took a while to get to that portfolio because I think the real estate part of it helped me.

get this job here.

Carter (02:44.953)
Yeah, that makes sense. You had a great year in 2025. Well, according to your LinkedIn, new dad crushed it at folio. Okay, good, good. Crushed it with real estate, became a paid guitarist. You said on that post, it required better structure and clearer priorities. How did you build that structure? Because that is a ton of different stuff.

Tim McEuen (02:50.763)
It was a great year. Yep.

Tim McEuen (03:06.378)
It is a lot going on. know, I think a lot of people might be looking for an answer like, Hey, I time blocked really well, or I was just really disciplined every single day. And you know, I don't have the willpower for that. like kudos to the people who do. But to me, it was twofold. was that year, I felt like there's a lot of tailwinds for me. I had hired the best team I've ever managed. had the product for Abfolio was really positioned well.

My real estate business was starting to get referrals off of my initial start with it. So things were coming in. My wife just got pregnant. So it was my last nine months of being able to just focus on my skill set. So I had a lot of tailwinds I want to maximize. So to me, it wasn't about having good structure that I make the most every day. It was more what frictions are going to prevent me from catching every tailwind. If I make a decision, let's say, for example, I have some friends who want to go out Friday night.

Now I'm thinking, okay, what is the, if I have all these tailwinds going my way, what friction will that cause down the road? If I've decided to go out Friday night, maybe it's next day I'm really hung over on Saturday and now I can't practice guitar as much. And I just know like, Hey, I really want to make the most out of this year. That's a friction point to me. That's an easy no for me. I'll catch up with them later. We'll do something different. Maybe it's we'll go grab coffee Saturday morning. I'll catch up on the night events then.

Carter (04:20.417)
Right.

Tim McEuen (04:35.176)
That just allowed me to every single goal I want to accomplish last year It just removing those friction points and catching those tailwinds at every moment That's what I was thinking about every time I made a decision on it

Carter (04:47.916)
Does that same concept influence your team? Like do you bring that to them?

Tim McEuen (04:52.377)
Yeah, I mean, feel like that's the job. It's, it's they're gonna tell me, you know, I was an IC for a long time, I felt like I learned a lot and up level of skills. But in today's environment, it's a different cell than when I was in it. I'm there seeing it, but I'm not living it like they are every day. So I want to create an environment where they can tell me the frictions they're having. And then they and myself can figure out those friction points and try to remove them for them. So they they can catch their tailwinds and keep going forward.

Carter (05:21.866)
On LinkedIn, you talked about work ethic. You challenge your team at one point to see how many times they're able to get into the zone rather than focus on hitting certain KPIs. What do you mean by get in the zone? And do you still run sales challenges like that? Like try to make something fun.

Tim McEuen (05:36.75)
Yes. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, to me, is sales as a performance based activity, just like you would with an athlete or an artist, musician. It's all about not what you know, but how you execute with that knowledge. So getting in the flow is just paramount. It's, table stakes for being successful in sales. And so for my team, I think it's, it's not fun to think like, just gotta make $50 today.

You know, my conversion rate is X percent and that's how I'm going to get my dollar goals. Instead, I really want to challenge them. I want them to be stretched so when they are coming into the day, it's not like, hey, did I just come in and check in and check out? It's not like, did I push myself today? Did I get into a flow? Did I get into the zone? And that's to me is how you really create this high performing sales individuals. It's not about what your output is every single day. It's just how you control your input. Did you get in the flow and the environment they work in?

is really what helps them do that. So letting them know that that's what I'm focusing on, but also then creating fun challenges for them that's gonna push them. It makes them wanna come in every single day, I think is important.

Carter (06:46.712)
You talked about the paddle as one core value at AppFolio. Explain that concept and how are you screening for that when hiring BDRs? I know you said the best people on your team exhibit that.

Tim McEuen (06:57.58)
Yeah, absolutely. think that's a really, I usually hate corporate jargon and culture, like words. This is one of them. My first joint app folio. I just thought it was going be another one of those, but it actually is like is key to do to their success, the business success here. A lot of my upbringing in sales and tech sales was all about the individual contributor.

It wasn't much of a team environment. I wouldn't say necessary. It's cutthroat. Some environments were, uh, and that can make you a great salesperson, but it prevents you from sharing best practices. You're really looking out for yourself. Um, and it can create some just not fun and working environments. How does one here? It's really the opposite. And I think it's created this culture where people want to share and they want to help at each other and grow and challenge each other.

So even though you may be having success, the team isn't having success. It's the culture of like, how can we help everybody win here? Cause if we do that, then we're all actually going to win a lot more in this market. And you see that up and down from the leadership down to our individual contributors. So that's what I look forward to that. Because I want to people I hire, I hope I potentially work from one day. I want them to get the VP of cell level or as high as they want to go.

So if they can recreate that culture as they go up their career, think it's just gonna make great places to work across the nation there.

Carter (08:27.222)
Yeah, that's very nice. You know, and what someone else told me on one of these podcasts interviews is, and this is not, I mean, I guess I've thought about it a little bit before, but he was saying we're all on the same team. So some people maybe annoy you or they may an ops or whatever it is, you know, may get in your way, at least for us, like under, you know, as a mortgage banker. So underwriters, we were not always best friends with them at all times.

Tim McEuen (08:38.23)
Yep.

Tim McEuen (08:48.311)
yeah, no, right.

Carter (08:50.69)
But we do have, we work at the same company. We do have the same goals, at least for, you know, to close the deal or to get the loan closed really. So that, yeah, that makes, that makes a lot of sense.

Tim McEuen (08:57.514)
Right. Right. Right. It sounds like you've, you've experienced kind of more individualistic base culture and you're in your experience.

Carter (09:07.68)
Yeah, there was a lot of teamwork stuff too, but yeah, I guess it kind of was like that because at the end of the day, yeah, it was maybe there was some collaboration, but yeah, there was like, we've got to get, we've got to get loans closed and that's what your pay is based off of. So there is somewhat of a little bit of a mix for sure.

Tim McEuen (09:10.166)
Yeah.

Tim McEuen (09:17.683)
Right.

Tim McEuen (09:22.401)
Right. Right. Right. Right. And I think that's exactly what my environment was. Like it was encouraged, but it wasn't the core pillar of what we did. It gives a little bit more insight. A lot of our leadership, sales leadership here came from Salesforce. And there's this great saying from our RSCP, it's a ship mate and self. So every decision you make, it should help the ship first and foremost. If it doesn't help the ship, it's not a great decision.

Carter (09:35.191)
Yeah.

Tim McEuen (09:51.457)
Because if the ship goes down, doesn't matter how well you're doing, you're coming down with the ship. Second one is, is it good for your shipmates? Is it going to help your shipmates be better? Because if the ship isn't, like it could be a float, if we're not rowing in the same direction, it's going to be really hard for you to go farther with your career. And last one is, is it going to help yourself there? So that balance there, like that is something every decision we make is it's ship, ship, mate, and self.

Carter (09:56.193)
Right.

Carter (10:15.872)
Yeah, and to talk about that last point where you were saying you hope the people that are on your team, you know, make it to VP of sales and you work for them one day or that'd be awesome. You said on LinkedIn, the most successful approach to business is to develop employees to become leaders themselves. How do you actually do that? What does that look like in practice?

Tim McEuen (10:24.221)
Yes.

Tim McEuen (10:32.127)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I don't remember if I was coached this or if I read it somewhere, but the concept of you don't really manage the individual. You can help them and coach them, but they should manage themselves. But our job as leaders is to create environments and that environment is what you control. And so I have found when I make an environment, while I allow my team to step up, they can, they can lead the charge on if they're, if we are down or some headwinds we're facing and we need to strategize how we're going to get through that.

Me, the leader, I'm actually wanting to be the last one speaking with my ideas. I want the team to feel really encouraged to bring their ideas and to test them out. So that's the environment I'm always trying to create with all of my teams. And if somebody isn't comfortable being a leader, then that to me is like, I need to shift the environment a little bit. Do I need to push them a little bit more, make the environment where they have to speak up, where they have to their ideas? And to me, that just creates these better, stronger teams that help each other out.

I can't joke, I wish I make my job obsolete. I want them to come to me only if they absolutely need help. But that's like, if I can optimize my team to the point where they're working with each other, they help each other out and they know how to execute so they don't need me, then I feel like I've actually done my job.

Carter (11:53.11)
Yeah, seems like a good principle. You're basically Bezos. I just watched a video where Jeff Bezos said that saying, he said, I'm the last one to talk in meetings or something like that.

Tim McEuen (12:02.493)
Yeah, yeah, well there's a few billion dollars between him and I, but yeah, it's a good principle.

Carter (12:11.416)
How do you actually coach someone? Walk me through what a coaching session looks like with, I know you said your team's awesome, but with a rep who's underperforming.

Tim McEuen (12:19.057)
Yeah, I mean, there's always opportunity to improve. We're always picking up skills. This is my 15th year in my career. I feel like I'm learning more skills than ever this year, which is great. And that's what you want. So there's always opportunities to coach, even if you're performing at a high level. for, for underdevelopment, it's, back to just the skill versus will. I'm going to look at the will first. Is their head in the game? Is this what they want to do? Is this making them happy? Cause the motivation's out there. It doesn't matter what I teach them.

They don't self-apply, don't have the will to do it, it doesn't matter. And there's two ways to do that. It's either I help them communicate with me that they are in it or they're not, or I help show them why they should be in it to help them with the will. Just to give an example, like some people, think of this as a job and not an opportunity. So it's an opportunity for me to help them realize like where this gets you in 10 years. What happens if you don't get there in 10 years? What's really at risk if you treat this as a job?

Maybe it's you're starting a family and 15 years from now your kids are asking you why they can't go to college Because today you didn't make it your own you didn't make the most out of this opportunity today And some people just don't realize that and that's something I can really help them with So that's really on the will side skill side then it's it's we can't improve what you can't measure So I'm always trying to instrument. What is the best practice? we need to change what's best practice? And then how do we?

measure that every single day. And that typically tells me a gap in their skill pretty quickly. If I see they're really good at converting on the phone, but their email reply rate is 1%, great. That week we're looking at emails, we're looking at their writing skills. I am big on the, I don't know you've heard of the adult learning theory, how our brains work. Yeah, so both my parents are teachers, so this is how I know about this.

Carter (14:06.514)
No, I've never heard of that.

Tim McEuen (14:12.986)
The neuroplasticity in our brain, just walks up the older we get. It's like when you learn a bike when you're younger, you're trying to learn a bike today as an adult would be a lot harder than you do as a kid. It's like with language, can't, it's hard to learn new language when you're Yes, same thing here applies with skills here. Like when you're in your career, you're an adult, your brain is hard. It's harder for you to learn new skills. So for me, it's, you can't just show them the skill.

Carter (14:26.676)
Okay, I've heard that. Yeah, I've heard the concept.

Tim McEuen (14:41.25)
read it to them, they tell you what it is, and it's good. You really have to redrill it, redrill it, redrill it. I try to find three different ways to explain the same thing. I try to find a video. There's a lot of great YouTube videos on the concepts I'm teaching, so it's not just my voice. I try to bring in examples from others on the team. And once again, not my voice again. And then third, I want to build some sort of written content where they can just keep coming back to it over and over and over again. So having those three different ways, it's...

Carter (14:57.752)
Mm.

Tim McEuen (15:09.772)
it starts getting in their brain a little bit more and they can start executing, start filling it. And I can go on if you want me to on the doll learning theory. think it's fascinating, but.

Carter (15:19.0)
I'm curious. Yeah, I keep going because my dad's a teacher. He never told me this, so maybe I need to get back at him with that. Yeah, but yeah, keep it going. Yeah, I'm curious.

Tim McEuen (15:22.681)
nice. Come on, pops. Yeah, come on. That's funny. Yeah, so there's really four levels of learning. The first one is you're unconsciously incompetent. You don't know what you don't know. So sometimes if you're looking at skill, they may not know what they need to work on. That's the first bottom layer. That's an easy one. I showed them what they need to work on. Level two, it's they know they're consciously incompetent.

They know what they suck at. So they know like, hey, this is a skill gap. I can work on it. I need to work on it. This is my main focus. Next one up is you're consciously competent. I can do it, but I really have to think about it. I'll stumble through it if I can do the thing. And the last one is you're unconsciously competent. can just do it. It's hardwired into your brain. It feels natural to you. You ever see a natural salesperson? They're kind of at that level forward with that skill.

So I think of it just like metaphors like learning piano. You may not know the notes on the keyboard. That's, that's level one. Level two, it's okay. I know I need to learn all the notes on the keyboard. Level three is I can play a melody about the really think about it. Well, before is I can sit down and jam. I can really play. Uh, so that's why I'm helping my team realize I'm trying to meet them where they are on those four levels with each skill set that we're entering to.

Carter (16:45.686)
Okay, so you try to see where they're at and then you try to get them to the level four. That's really the... That's how you do it usually.

Tim McEuen (16:50.091)
Yeah, man. Exactly. Exactly. And then that means my job's obsolete and we're good. I don't have to work anymore. They can do their thing.

Carter (16:59.166)
Yeah, yeah, that sounds like the way to go for sure.

Tim McEuen (17:03.102)
Yes, yes, absolutely.

Carter (17:06.88)
What advice would you give a BDR right now who wants to be in your seat in five years?

Tim McEuen (17:12.19)
Yeah, in my seat, I would say learn the full sell cycle. Don't just go from BDR to BDR leadership. I think you're going to really miss a big gap in your understanding of what generates quality pipeline that closes and generates revenue for the business. So first, the first three, four years, I wouldn't worry about the dollar amount. It's just go to go work the places where you pick up the most skills. Don't go to the easiest place to work.

You want to be in a place where you're challenged and you're grown and it pushes you out of your comfort zone. Or else you're just going to fall behind people who've been down that road. It's years five, six, seven. I think that's where you can really turn what you learned into real leverage in your commission dollars and what you negotiate on your base pay there. So that'd be my best advice. Leadership, it's not for everybody. You really have to put your ego to the side. So it's learning a lot of self-famility and

wanting to care for others beyond yourself. If that sounds interesting to you, then just keep developing those skill sets as well.

Carter (18:20.022)
Yeah, that makes sense. I thought about leadership for a while at my last company, but my leader was working more than me and sometimes getting paid less. So I thought, that's a tough, seems like a tough, tough way to go at times. There's a lot, it seems like there's a lot of pros, but it does seem tough at times.

Tim McEuen (18:24.404)
Mm.

Hahaha

Tim McEuen (18:33.667)
Yes.

Tim McEuen (18:37.406)
Well, then you see he wasn't working absolutely his job. That's that's it. It's his issue. Yeah, yeah. Try to optimize. I'm telling you, man, my end goal is just I just want to come in. I make sure they're happy. They're fed. They know what they need to do and they can execute without me. So there's some times where I am working a lot less and there's other times where I have a lot of people where I really need to up level their skills. I'm working more, but I think it bounces out about the same in my opinion of an individual contributor.

Carter (18:42.144)
That's very, that's true. Yeah, that's a good point.

Tim McEuen (19:06.995)
over the aggregate.

Carter (19:11.0)
Alright, well I think we got some pretty good stuff here. I will end it here.

Tim McEuen (19:14.216)
Sweet.