Meet Chris!
Interview Transcript
James: At 729, we love to sit down and chat with the interesting people that work with us. It’s an opportunity to shine the spotlight on our amazing team and a chance to take a break, to connect with each other.
I’m James, Studios Director, and joining me from Austin, Texas is Chris Jones, our Senior Sales Executive for Enterprise accounts here at 729.
Thanks for joining me, Chris!
Chris: Hey James, it’s a pleasure to be on!
James: So let’s get things started by telling us a little bit about yourself. What do you like to do when you’re away from work?
Chris: Oh, I’m very much an outdoorsy person. Whether it’s mountain biking, camping, hiking, paddle boarding the Colorado River here in Austin. As long as I’m in the sun, doing something with friends and a few laughs. That’s where I’m at.
James: That is awesome! I can totally relate to that. I love getting outdoors. You weren’t kidding when you said you were an outdoors man, that is quite the list of things! One of the things that I know that you’re into are festivals. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Chris: Yeah. So, my girlfriend and I have fallen in love with Renaissance Festivals, where you get dressed up in time period pieces, and she and I are actually tournament archers. So we’ll shoot archery at a number of tournaments throughout the year. It’s a lot of fun to connect with friends, be somewhat competitive, drink a few bottles of mead and just enjoy yourself.
James: How long have you been doing that for?
Chris: I’ve been nerding out like that for about three years now.
James: Wow. And how are you ranking in the archery tourneys?
Chris: Not national yet, but I’m getting up there in the state. So I’m actually, the name is tossed around with a few other archers. So it’s pretty exciting. I’ve been shooting for about two years now.
James: Let’s talk about pets. Dogs or cats?
Chris: Dogs. I love all animals, but I’ve got a one-and-a-half year German Shepherd named “Roxy”, and she is the most adorable coworker anyone can have.
James: Yeah, we love seeing Roxy on conference calls.
Chris: Mosey on behind, and then… just plops right on the ground.
James: Yeah! She has yet to jump on your lap, which, you know, Fernando is a cat owner and his cats are constantly making appearances on his keyboard, which is hilarious. But this is not about Fernando. This is about you!
So as you know, at 729, we’re a team of 100% remote workers. And so we were fortunate enough to continue working without missing a beat when COVID stay at home orders were put in place, and that was a challenging time for everybody, and it still is. So, Chris, we’re curious, inquiring minds want to know, what did you do to entertain yourself at home during this time?
Chris: I actually started reading a lot more and I taught myself how to cook.
James: Okay. Let’s start with the reading. Any good books that you can recommend?
Chris: To be honest, I’m reading a lot of spy novels and thrillers and things like that. I haven’t gotten to the age of diving into Tom Clancy yet and submarines, but I’ll get there in a few years.
James: That’s cool! And you learned how to cook, tell us about that.
Chris: Yeah. So prior to the pandemic, friends or dates and I would always find ourselves going out. And then when you realize that you can’t live off of grilled cheese alone, you go, “Ok, I guess I’m gonna jump on YouTube, and maybe Gordon Ramsey can teach me how to cook a steak.”
James: Hopefully he wasn’t yelling at you!
Chris: Yeah, exactly! No, so I just kind of dove into that, and it’s fun. It’s a whole new aspect of showing love to family and friends when they come over to cook. And I feel like if I would ever win the lottery, I think I would jump into culinary school, not as a profession, but just as a way to hone my skills and just show the ones I love how much I care through food.
James: I love that you brought love into the equation when you’re cooking. That’s very cool!
Alright. So let’s get in a time machine. We’re gonna to go back in time here.
Chris: Okay.
James: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Chris: Oh, okay. Two things.
When I was really young, I would see our garbage men once a week picking up our garbage. And I went, “Oh my gosh, they work once a week. That’s what I want to do!” And then my parents politely told me that they pick up other people’s garbage the rest of the week.
And I went, “I want to be an Air Force pilot!”
James: So they crushed your dreams and you immediately pivoted.
Chris: Yup! Pivoted to be like, “Okay, what’s also really cool?”
James: That is awesome!
What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
Chris: Ooh, that’s a really good one. I got to think about that for a second. I have to say that we’ve always been taught the golden rule of: treat others the way you would like to be treated. And I’ve always been taught from an early age: treat others the way they wish to be treated because we are all very different people. And so that has helped me by finding out how people wish to be treated.
James: Well let’s talk a bit about your experience working here. What do you like about working at 729?
Chris: Easy! It’s the people that I work with day in and day out. There has never once been a “that’s not my job” or “go find this out.” It’s when a problem presents itself in Sales, and I jump onto a Slack channel, I’ll have no less than three people giving me a different perspective or an answer or a link to what I’m looking for within 5 to 10 minutes.
And so, working remote in previous companies, you could send an email out to marketing.com and not hear anything back for a day or two. And it just slows the process down. Whereas here at 729, you throw the question out and everyone jumps on it. I mean, I’ve had people respond back to me the day after saying, “Hey, did you get everything you needed?”
James: Yeah. We’re really good at swarming on those kinds of things. We’re a big team of problem-solvers so yeah, that’s not a surprise that you’ve been experiencing that.
Do you have a favorite project that you’ve been a part of so far?
Chris: You know what, they’re all so different. I mean, there’s been a few big wins and a number of companies that we didn’t know if we were going to get the business, but in the 11th hour, jumping on the phone and speaking of our services and our expertise that kind of swayed their decision. So I can’t say that there’s been one exact time where I went, “Ooh, this is it!” Each win has its unique highs.
James: What is the most inspiring part of your job?
Chris: I think it would be helping others. I always try as a salesperson to come in and not be sitting on the other side of the table when discussing projects with clients. When I talk about a budget with them, it’s not about how wide I can pry their purse open. It’s what solution can we tailor to them? And so in sales, if all we’re trying to do is sell our expertise to others, it becomes just a day-to-day operation of trying to sell people something that they might not exactly need.
Whereas you come in as a consultant on the same side of the table, you’re now helping to facilitate those problems or fix those problems that keep somebody up at night.
James: 100% agree. That is something that I really, I enjoy that part of working at 729 as well. We have this kind of collaborative instinct and this kind of collaborative nature, especially with our clients. We really are there to help. And I do feel like that does come across in all of the projects that we take on here.
What’s one piece of advice you would give to someone interested in joining our team?
Chris: Great question! I would have to say that this goes back to my days when I was a server, back in like end of high school, early college: slow, is steady. And with that, too often, we hear, or at least in sales, somebody comes to us with a problem or they’re looking for a solution. And we, we dive in quickly into the nuts and bolts and everything that we can sell to the person. And rather than selling just time and material, we’ve got to sell solutions. And so I can create a solution that’s a hundred thousand dollars, but if their budget is 1/10 of that, we’ve just wasted everyone’s time.
So, if you’re joining 729, be sure to just keep your ears open on the scoping calls and ask the pertinent questions, go back with emails, and form a plan properly the first time, rather than having to create something many times over.
James: Let’s move on to the “random question lightning round.”
Chris: Oh, no! Turn this off so HR doesn’t hear. I’ll be lightning fast!
James: Randy, plug your ears!
Alright, here we go. What is your favorite word in the English language and why?
Chris: Oh, “Yes.”
James: “Yes.” And why?
Chris: Because it usually makes both parties happy.
James: Okay. Fair enough. What is your favorite word in a foreign language and why?
Chris: Um… “Sí.” Just kidding. I have to say, you know, the running joke is, “Mariposa” (butterfly.) It just rolls off the tongue. And it’s part of a really, really funny stand-up comedian’s bit with the different words of butterfly.
James: Interesting. I’m going to leave it at that. People do your Googling. I am not in on that one. So I’m going to have to Google that. If you were a superhero, what super power would you have?
Chris: Ooh! I’ve always been drawn – because I’m in sales – to the power of persuasion. And I’m trying to remember exactly which X-Men hero had that power where she had the ability of just touching somebody’s shoulder, and you know, “I want you to go walk down this block and turn left”, and they went, “That’s a great idea.”
James: That sounds Jedi to me. I don’t know the Marvel Universe, but, uh… If you were a pasta shape, what shape would you be?
Chris: I want to say spaghetti: thin and lean, but I’m more fettuccine.
James: Hmm, okay.
Chris: A little bit thicker, but still tasty.
James: What is your opening move in the game “Rock, Paper, Scissors”?
Chris: Ooh. I’ve got to say, I usually go rock.
James: Let’s wrap things up, Chris. Is there anything else that you’d like the world to know about you?
Chris: You got 20 minutes? I’m just thrilled to be working with such an amazing group of talented individuals here at 729, and I definitely feel like I’ve found my home at a company that I can grow within for many years to come. It’s a pretty phenomenal experience to wake up, whether it’s Monday or Friday and still have the same excitement of coming to work rather than only living for the weekend.
Definitely, definitely that.
James: Chris Jones, Senior Sales Executive for Enterprise accounts here at 729 Solutions where we are a full service agency providing design, UI/UX, software development, and professional services. If you need help with your project, please set up a call with Chris. He’d love to speak with you about your needs and talk about how 729 can help make your project a success.
Thanks for taking some time out to have a chat with me, Chris. It’s always fun catching up with you!
Chris: Thanks James. It was a pleasure!
Chris Jones – Senior Sales Executive, Enterprise at 729
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