Shapeshifter
Team Letter | November 8, 2024 | Kaitlynn Kool's Second Anniversary
November 8, 2024
You’re a drifter, shape shifter
Let me see you run, hey ya - hey ya.
– First Aid Kit, “The Wolf”
Nearly everyone I know wants to transform themselves in some way. They want to grow in their career or build better habits or see more of the world. But most people want to transform themselves within their own comfort zones. Change my life, but make it comfortable, if you please.
Because of that, most of us fail to change in the ways that move the needle for us personally, or for our companies, our fitness, or our families. Those who find transformation do it by stepping outside of their comfort zone not once or twice, not a toe or a pinky finger, but a full scale, full breath, full send leap outside of what they know. And then they do it again the next day, and again the day after that.
The way I define Kaitlynn’s second year at Alpaca is that full send into a not-remotely-comfortable zone, in pursuit of seeing who else she might be in the world. In pursuit of seeing what’s possible. In pursuit of a shapeshift.
The result, for Alpaca and for Kaitlynn, is a marketing specialist who is also an account executive. A sales development representative. A writer. A traveler. A pick-up-the-phone-and-make-20-calls-to-total-strangers queen. A product demo expert. A conference booth host. A ride-or-die teammate. The low-key funniest person in the room, every time.
The story I’ll point to for years to come when people ask me what kind of career they can build in our company is about Kaitlynn, and it’s from May of this year. Deep in fundraising mode and incredibly overwhelmed, I Kaitlynn and I went to lunch for a ‘skip-level 1:1,’ largely because we just hadn’t seen each other much the past few months. I know I was visibly exhausted. Kaitlynn got real quiet, and I think was working up a bit of courage, and then said “KB, what do you NEED?” I looked right at her and said “I need help with sales. I can’t do this by myself, and stuff is falling through the cracks.”
A day later, Kaitlynn added herself to a sales demo I was giving.
A week later, Kaitlynn raised her hand to handle a demo herself.
A month later, Kaitlynn sold her first deal and got her first commission check.
A quarter later, Kaitlynn started cold calling prospects every day, regularly selling her own deals, and building new ideas for revenue for the company.
By the end of this year, Kaitlynn will reach her revenue goal, and just maybe we’ll see her book her first trip out of the country. ;)
The leap outside of that comfort zone and toward something new hasn’t just shapeshifted Kaitlynn, or the marketing department, or our revenue goals, though it has made a difference in each of those things. Because of Kaitlynn’s work this year, we’ve built a sales playbook that we can now hire for and replicate. We bring on customers to Alpaca that I’ve never heard of or met (that’s growth!). And most importantly, we’ve added more than $20,000 of ARR that Kaitlynn directly sold. That’s a big impact, and I feel pretty sure that we’ve only seen a tiny glimpse into what Kaitlynn will do to transform our company’s future.
By every measure, Kaitlynn shapeshifted her year. She transformed her current and future self from a single-track marketer or designer into a revenue professional. This transformation happened because even though Kaitlynn didn’t know what was on the other side of the door when she asked “what do you need right now?,” she knew she was going to try to say yes to it, however far outside her comfort zone it might be.
Why? Because it’s what our team and company needed, and Kaitlynn saw a chance to grow personally and professionally by delivering exactly what the company needed. She keeps doing it, too. She’s damn good at it. And our company is stronger every day because of it.
Happy two years, Kaitlynn Kool. We wouldn’t be us without you, and I cannot wait to see what shape the next year takes.
♥️
KB
