who did it. It's a long, winding path, but of that way Ah e. I knew at an early age, though, that I would be in sales. Ah, my first. My first sales job was when cable television first started and it wouldn't rampant. I worked Ah, 14 hour week. Ah, telemarketing sales. And we got $10 for every person we signed up, and I quickly then knew what commissions were. I mean, I was young, I was 18 but within a year I got a manager's job and then managed 14 different telemarketing departments. Ah, so being at the right industry at the right time, Very good opportunity. And that was the start. Ah, but being in sales as you don't let's feast or famine. So if you get into a you know, So if you have a product or if the industry goes down, you know, you have to make sure that you have your backup plans. So at the time being young, my responsibilities weren't that heavy, so I could be a little bit more daring. Eso I moved quite a number of different jobs and ah, I'm originally from Chicago, But I moved Teoh South Carolina did some schooling down there and obviously got into the hardware manufacturing business where I once again was in sales. Ah, and service. And so it was a learning learning curve. And if you wanted to get any type of analytics report or any type of computer problem fixed, it was always get in line. The i T department will do your thing and so forth. And I'm thinking, Well, I can run my own reports. Aiken do all the i t. Why am I waiting on other people to get this information? So I decided, Well, I had two weeks vacation. So let me ride my bike from South Carolina to Chicago to clear my head. Ah, not a motorbike was a mountain bike. So it was a 14 days of grueling bike ride. But during that time, I decided, Well, why not just go back to school, get network engineering under my belt and then have the best of both worlds? I'm I'm ah, on an i t. I have the paper to back it up. I'm a techie, but I can talk to customers. So that's the both worlds. Eso When I graduated, that's what I did I? I got my degree. I got my certifications. And then as soon as I got that finished, within two weeks I had over 150 job opportunities and I was able to pick and choose the company I wanted to work for. And I wanted to move back home in Chicago. So I took a job, a small start up company, and it was a dot com. So I'm hoping maybe we could make it rich, right? Ah, but I was also able to wear multiple hats. I could be the sales guy. The techie guy. I didn't need a pre sales demo person. The demo jockey to help out with anything. I could close my deals quicker. Well, that was good, right? I was right on my path. Well, we got bought out by a big company and exactly what we wanted to do. Right? Get in there and get bought out. Eso But I went from being ah recognized as a person to a number now, right? Because his company's huge and you know, you have to build up your recognition and your your title again. Eso We were in the cloud business 20 years before that. The industry is right now we're hitting the cloud s. So it was very difficult for salespeople to actually sell. And I was more on the operational side and I'm thinking, Well, it's been five years and we're still doing good, but we're still having the wait for the industry to catch up to us. So I'm thinking, Well, maybe I need to take a week off toe ride my bike somewhere. And so my thought process was I'm gonna fly to port a port A Vallarta. I'm gonna find a place to live for six months. I'm gonna go online and study to become a personal trainer and then, you know, ride my bike back. Eso from Chicago Deported by art I was about 2000 some odd miles and I'm thinking, Well, I'll be in great shape. I'm already doing Ah, side gig. There's my There's my battle plan. Eso flew down the port over. After I check out my place, I find a place to live and I come back to Chicago to put it in my region nation and in my mail. My work in mailbox was ah on offer from the company to go over to the UK Teoh help with a lawsuit Because our department, when we took over the we got bought out, there was other companies. And, ah, there was a lawsuit of £55 million lawsuit. Ah, it's huge, right? Being attacked in our company. And they needed someone to go over and be kind of a liaison between product marketing, the development team, the customer and sales. So that's basically what I do now I'm gonna go to market. I'm the liaison between all these different fields. Eso I'm thinking to myself, Do I go overseas for the UK or do I ride my bike a couple 1000 miles? You know, I think that's my backup plan, right? Going to the UK was great. You know, it was ah, you know, let me to getting dual residency. It led me to get ah, top secret security clearance because I did a lot with the Ministry of Defense. Ah, so that's kind of ah giving me a good background of where things are. Ah, and you know that that lawsuit was something that you would never thought it would have happened, right? Eso That's kind of how it Ah, it took off. And that was kind of the basis of me coming back to the U. S. Ah, just couple of years ago in 2014. So, um yeah, that's kind of how I am today. I'm still in the sales division, but I'm a techie, and I have all the background and, uh, savoir faire. Yeah, it's learning curve. So, uh

In the epidemic? Yes. Oh, my current role is I'm the go to market for our commerce division. Commerce obviously being huge right now because of the pandemic. But it was huge Prior. Just wasn't that noticeable by everybody s o. Um, a liaison between our production team, You know, the developers, the sales reps and obviously the customer. So ah kind of gives me. I talked to all three and bring it back to our bosses. And we put together, um, you know, sales plays and build a pipeline and so forth. We're working hours are pretty good. On a normal basis, I'm usually on the road about 25% because they visit a lot of customers. I work with a lot of the sales reps on the calls. Eso in good 25 to 30%. Travel on. That's global. So I'm traveling anywhere. S are We have a global team. So where is your dog from? Okay, Yes. Need

If we go back to that lawsuit, I'll give you a little story there. Uh, when I first flew over to England, UK is pretty much a non confrontational society nowadays. Not in the old days, but Ah, when I flew out there, we had a team of our lawyers are vice presidents, Um, and a couple other your managers and we were going to the customer to speak about the lawsuit. Well, they had the similar team. They had their lawyers and their VP's and everything. And within a within about a half hour, shouting matches almost led to fisticuffs. Security had to come in and actually escort everyone off the premises. And I was the only one allowed to be on premise. Eso talk about a hostile work environment. Everything I did was watched by lawyers and security. Every statement email that I had to send had to start off with without prejudice because it could go to court s so everything had to be, you know, nonconfrontational. Even though it was letting led by that type of atmosphere. Eso it was, you know, £55 million at risk here on our side. My job was to go in. Ah, basically figure out they had a list of 100 some odd issues of the application s Oh, my jobless. To work with them, work with the development team. Ah, figure out what issues are. There's their responsibility and what issues are ours. And if it did go to court, do we have enough information to cover ourselves? So that was my And with that hostile work environment, I slowly worked over type of, ah, report with them where they, you know, treated me like a person not like you're the entity we want, you know, hating Gil. And so that taught me quite a lot. So when there's conflicts, you can solve it without having to get irate and kick somebody's and, you know, buttoned yelling and screaming. And and that's how I deal with conflicts. Nowadays, it's, you know, Ah, you go through, What's the actual work you need to do? How do you fix it, offer a solution and let them decide whether or not you know, that solution of fits fits them best, so ah, it helps out. Obviously, in my current role, where you know I'm still doing with customers, they want a from A product and our development team is saying we can't do a But we can do be your seat. Eso How do we get back the other way? How do we tell that to the customer? How do we say no to a customer s? Oh, you don't and you give them opportunities and options to do that. So ah, that's basically how I deal with a lot of customers. I've been in that separate situation and, you know, it's very difficult.