Latest / Rev-n-u Unplugged / "Advisory, Not Automated: Why Salespeople Still Win Deals" James Westlake

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"Advisory, Not Automated: Why Salespeople Still Win Deals" James Westlake · Rev-n-u Unplugged

• james: Hey, welcome back to Revenue Unplugged. So today I'm sat down with James Westlake, he's Chief Revenue Officer at Rencore. And before that, he was part of the team that took trust pilot UK business from nothing to 25 million in revenue in just four years. So yeah, he knows a thing or two about scaling. We get into some really good stuff in this one. Why the classic demo is basically dead, why AI actually levels the playing field between buyers and vendors. That whole vendor excitement versus reality trap and why James reckons the hiring bar now really just comes down to two things. Are you AI first and can you actually build relationships? A quick shout out, this episode was brought to you by Indigo, the go-to-market SaaS recruitment specialist working with fast growing companies around the world. And hey, if you're getting something out of this show, do me a favor and hit like, subscribe and follow. Helps more than you'd think. Right, let's get into it. Please welcome James Westlake James, welcome to Rev-n-u Unplugged. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. Been looking forward to this conversation for a long time now. I've enjoyed the chats we've had in between and planning and putting this conversation together. to bring our audience up to speed, I always ask my guests just to give them a little bit of a background as to who you are. James: Yeah, thanks very much, James. looking forward to it as well. So James Westlake has been giving us a CRO for a number of years and focusing on the scale up startup world. And sometimes you hit it, sometimes it's really challenging. Both of them are always enjoyable for different reasons. launching Trustpilot was a great exercise. We scaled to twenty-five million about a hundred people over four years. and I just enjoy the whole people side, the data side. And particularly buzzed now with how the AI can accelerate, but also challenge the way we think and the way we act. james: So we've got some interesting topics to talk about, new topics to talk about. So it's one of the reasons why I was looking forward to this conversation. We're gonna be looking at trust and difference beyond the classic demo model, product market fit, founders excitement versus reality, and how AI is accelerating that gap. And then we're gonna be looking at rocket ships at the end, the people side, hiring rights, and the director versus the transformative management. So lots to get into here. Let's start with trust and the difference beyond the classic demo module. firstly why did you want to to talk about this? James: Yeah, I'm fairly fascinated that post COVID we see everything on the negative side. And I think that sales has actually gone back to how we all started relationship building very one-to-one. But I'm not sure that many companies really think it through in terms of how to leverage or accelerate what they can how they can get hold of a client through the online only forums and where they need or how they can change the the sales process in doing so. So I'll give you example that's when we get from and the guys who are at my current Rencor organization will laugh when they hear me talking about it because I I talk about this quite a lot. But if you think about the whole process of going from a discovery environment, you're trying to understand more, and then people will just give away the give away the jewels, but not make it relevant. So I think that there's a large part to be played in the whole process where you can look at what the client's challenges and pains and metrics are and then actually make the make the the demo increasingly relevant. This is not new this is Sandler 15 20 years ago making you know the the demo is the proof of concept but I just wonder how many companies actually do this. So for us it's about how do you create the environment of advisory? How do you actually generate interest and excitement That you could be helping the clients rather than just showing them a toolkit. So those are the key pieces for myself is how do you differentiate yourself as an AE? How do you accelerate the the pipeline, sorry, the the velocity of a deal, putting yourself into that advisory position rather than going through the motions and getting to the demo and saying, How was that? Which bits were useful? We should be guiding people because we already know the challenges and the pressures and the metrics. Within their business. james: Super interesting this. So, why do you think the situation is rising where effectively a demo is here's all the features and benefits of what our technology can do, and not being specific to the challenge that an organization has. Is this a lack of knowledge from the AE, or is it it's really hard to Is it code or developer a demo that fits the needs of of one client? James: I think that we get into a habit of streamlining, and streamlining is carrying out the process and shaping it so that we can provide a scalable, repeatable capability. But if you think about what AI can deliver now, it used to be that the the the AE was differentiating themselves versus others by creating an amazing PowerPoint, or they were bringing together insights. The reality is now is that insight is generated for both sides. So we understand where a client might be, where certain appetites may lie, because the CIO has already been talking about where that company wants to go with you know regards to a specific objective. So we as the the vendors, the solution makers, we can create a much better understanding before we meet somebody, but equally so can the clients themselves, the prospects. So they're in a position now where they've leveled up that information gap where before they'd have to ask us, tell me about james: Mm. James: your world, your solution. They come forearmed now. And that's not just through Capteira or G2, that's because they can use the LLM to create a really good, insightful understanding that relates to them or their sector or their challenge. So the salesperson's got to do much better job of now differentiating. And so I I always think of it like the body and the head, the body of the The sales process is driven by automation, enrichment, enablement, etc. So now you've got to use your skills of building trust and relationship. That's the differential. So the more you can do that, the more you can get out and actually show we're different from X, Y, and Z alternative platforms, you're then extending beyond the product or beyond the delivery, you're extending the relevance of why you might be better than the others. And you're more likely to create a better appetite. james: where does the demo fit in the journey now, would you say, to have the most effective demo? James: So different schools of thought. There is a school of thought that says by showing something in a starting a quick look-see, you're going to generate some better understanding on the client side that it gets them thinking more. So I think that there's a and the other is that actually you shouldn't be showing too much early because you'll have the wrong audience and it's too early to actually understand and really pinpoint down which are the key use cases. So I think it depends on. The type of buyer, and you're going to have certain buyers who come forearmed with don't ask me a hundred questions or expect a discussion, just get straight to the meat of the bones. So you've got that balance about positioning it versus the type of buying audience, how educated they are, but also how reticent they are. So you don't want to create frustration. So I think that it depends, but if you're leading a client into a journey and you're building up the business case, you're bringing in the right stakeholders. And creating much more of a 360 context, you definitely don't want to be running straight into the demo because after the demo you want it to be the proof of value. You don't want it to be going into the chasm where they've got everything they have from you and you're now just going to wait to hear back until they've then made up their minds about what they want to do next. So it's about trying to trade the value and make sure that they are getting what they need in the best way, but also at the right time. james: what advice would you give to any AE's at the moment about the process of building the knowledge that you have to know when you're ready to show them actually what the product is capable of doing to giving them an ROI, solving the challenge that James: think the first and foremost is if you don't if you can't articulate the value of the platform or the specific elements and relate that to use cases which relate back to the metrics and the pain, there's no point in showing anything. It literally has no value. So if you think that showing the platform is going to somehow articulate it will self articulate its relevance, don't even go there. And in doing so you'll actually create a better focus on building up the business ROI. And I think every company who wants to sell efficiently or effectively needs to be living in the business challenge world, not in the solution world. The solution comes down after. And it's the proof point of if we can demonstrate that everything you need is in the solution, let yeah, it would that would that be the right time then to show the solution? Absolutely. But then you can even skip it on and say, let's imagine we've just done the demo. Now what happens next? And imagine you saw everything. So you can actually just skip through mentally with a champion and say, let's assume that all works. Now what happens next? Now we're talking about building up, okay, what would be the success criteria of a proof of value? Okay, and then what happens then? So I would prefer that the reps speed, not speed, but they articulate this process. It generates much more confidence in the buyer that we know what we're doing. We do this all of the time, but that showing the demo isn't necessarily going to do anything more than just prove what we've spoken about. So james: Yeah. James: it shouldn't be the big wow. It should be a big, yeah, that's great. Tick, tick, tick, that's marvelous. Great. Now let's move on to the next steps. So it's just keeping it in the consultancy focus rather than I've got something to show, I'll show it, you tell me if it works for you. Just reducing that. james: how do organizations build technology or or build a capability of demoing to be so bespoke that it's showing exactly what the client needs? And how important is your relationship as an AE with a pre-sales or solution architect that's going to be able to show and demonstrate what this product's capable of doing? James: Yeah, my favorite team So the solution architects are the people who are able to validate for the client that the pain and the use cases are achievable, and then they can go into great depth as to how and why the way we do it is beneficial so they connect the pain. So for ourselves, we use an automation process through AI to take all of the information before, the calls, the emails, etc., bring those together with. A data set of problems and goals, and out of the problems and goals, we then get the use cases. So it maps these types of problems and goals with the use cases, which then relates down to the product. So we just have a simple process which is all automated, and that enables the essays to then pick up, okay, this is where we are with this client. The client, the essays might be, the solution architects might be in the discovery phase as well. If we know the discovery phase has had a high technology component to it, we'll actually get those guys in earlier. But also it might be we don't have enough information. And so we'll they will reach out without the salesperson, they'll reach out into the world of the clients and they'll then further discuss again. So we remove doubts or the chance or the risk that the demo isn't actually going to have the the power that we expect or that we need it to. But also to make sure the right people are. viewing this as well. There's no point in doing demo if you haven't got the right audience. james: And do you think the world has moved more to needing sales reps to have a better understanding of technology and almost know what's going on? 'Cause I think there was a part where the demo was nothing to do with the salesperson. James: Yeah. james: it was passed over, pre-sales would do the demo, salesperson would organise it, orchestrate it. James: Yeah. james: Is that days gone by? Now do The A's have to really understand what the technology is, what it's doing, how it does it, why it does it. James: I think that if they can't articulate the relevance of the product to the challenges face, then then they're gonna have a pretty superficial conversation. They james: Yeah. James: should be able to relate those pains to other clients who we've worked with and how the solution has focused on the goals, the right goals, the right outcomes. So I'd say that they have to be able to take the the challenges and the pains. to re-articulate those into use cases. So they need to understand how the solution. Do they need to know which button does what and and express that? No, because the client won't care either. The client james: Yeah. James: will care that it gets into a position of, wow, if you could solve that, that would be awesome. And then it's great. I've got some guys who are absolutely brilliant at then explaining it, but also highlighting why. It's not just we've got the features, but it's the way we've put features together. That becomes super compelling. james: have you noticed by get reimagining how the demos are done and repeatedly doing the demos in this way, have you seen a significant ROI or you know, I hear the sales leaders talking about pipeline constantly. what have you noticed before we move on to the next topic, what have you noticed from running demos in this way that has helped you predicting business, working the right opportunities, James: I think there'll be a couple of points. We notice that the demos become much more two-way. They become a second discovery process because you're already pre-articulating which pieces you're going to focus on, which use cases. And that's a shared understanding. So you're not coming into a room and just being shown the crown jewels and you're just sat there listening. You know what we're going to focus on, and the SA team will then engage. How relevant is that, but why is it relevant? And they'll kick start that discovery. It's like a secondary discovery, but based around the actual solution. And that then tends to lead into a further technical discovery where we've gone into specifics, and those then might have further questions that both sides want to then further discuss. So I think it's a higher level of engagement, and I think it's that proof point again, rather james: Mm-hmm. James: than Here it is, you go away. I think it's about giving people a greater confidence around because you're not asking them in the classic problem is when someone says, Look, here it is, what do you think? And actually, james: Okay. James: what you're doing is you're putting the risk back to the prospect to make that connection between the feature and their pain. So by james: Yeah. James: spoon feeding this process of engaging with the use cases and really focusing on that, we're taking away all of the gaps. We're literally saying, you know that pain you've got and that metric when this person tries to do this and it's not working, this is how this helps. So you're literally connecting the dots and removing you're you're you're continuing the business case right now. So you're removing risk, they've got to articulate it or understand it, and you're moving straight into this is how it works, and this is the pain that that solves. james: Well, I really appreciate you talking about that. I think is actually a critical part of the world moving forward. there's a lot of AI involved and people trying to automate stuff as much as they can in that sales enabled environment. I think this is a crucial part where a a sales rep, a human, can add a huge amount of value and get things right. Moving on, talking about product market fit. Founder excitement versus reality, which I love, and AI accelerating that gap. You compared the current pace of AI when we was we were speaking before development, which I love, is to walking into a toy shop and just saying words and having a toy appear. I love that analogy. So what does the speed do to founders' judgment and how do you stop excitement running ahead of what the business can actually support? James: Yeah, I think the I've I've been really lucky to work with amazing founders, including currently, who are really in tune with either the marketplace or the technology fit around the marketplace. Where I think it comes unstuck is because you can move so quickly and with Such positivity as a founder, you can really believe you've just hit the next thing. But what you may have done is shifted 10% away from the original IPC or the proposition focus, in which case you might be talking to different people or solving a different problem, and it feels just so compelling. And for the founder, it might just be, yeah, but we've naturally moved on to this. That's cool, but you've got the product team who need to obviously do the you know the creation of the engineering around it. You've got the testing of that. You've got the monolith of whatever you've built before, irrespective of whether that's a on you know driven by AI or not, there is some james: Yeah. James: degree of how does it work with that. And then you've got the rest of the go-to-market team who are then focused on, you know, everything from the market, the exploration, into the yeah the building up with the account-based marketing whole profile and then the the sales motions. It's a easy move, I think, for a founder just to switch five or ten percent. But then you've got the tail wagging the dog, and then the dog is slightly out of step. So I think it's amazing from an opportunity perspective, but what it needs is that coherence between product and sorry, product and engineering and the GTM and the founder. And the founder's got to be a CEO, not a founder. Because if he's a founder with the founder mentality, all of oneness. or my god, this is so interesting. I think it's a great recipe to quickly maneuver out of the comfort zone of where the c yeah, where ever everyone else in the business is. james: how do you recommend particularly it's more straightforward for an early stage company to do that? I think I would probably say over 50% of startups products is probably not the same, or they're not solving the same problem that they initially felt they were going to be solving when they when they started James: Yeah. james: up. Where it is so quick now. And you know, I talk to founders that are constantly worried that someone else is going to invent the next thing. how do you set up an environment where you can try and keep pace with an ever changing exterior market? Because the last thing you want is the external world to develop faster than your internal. James: Yeah. So so I think it almost goes back a step before that. It you've got to achieve product market fit. I mean that's james: Yeah. James: that's the goal. and yeah, without that nothing works. And it's very much what is it, for whom and why. So nothing everything's gone back twenty years to be honest. So it's you've just got to james: Yeah. James: go back to basics. But I think once you've got the product market fit, it's are you deepening it or are you changing it? So I agree that most companies change from what they started to where they end up. But it's are you constantly flimflamming because james: Mm. James: there's something intrinsically interesting in something else, or do you need to double down? So I think that there may be a couple of scenarios. One is where you haven't achieved product market fit. This accelerates the opportunity to find it, to test it, to reassure, et cetera. But the other one is where you actually have found your product market fit. And I think that's the piece which I'm talking to slightly more. Because AI is brilliant to find a product market fit because everything is accelerated. But with the way you have got it, then I think it's about cadence, it's about internal cadence of what is your process for engaging change and how do you actually navigate those next opportunity steps. The way I would see it, the way you know I think quite a few companies will look at this is you have the bulk of the focus on what you've agreed to deliver on roadmap. That gives clarity internally, it gives clarity to clients and prospects because you're promising the next, you're wrapping up and adding features to what for the existing who are you know waiting for some some change. And then you might say, okay, but we take 20-25% and that's opportunity areas of development. But if you're going to have that roadmap visibility and you're saying at the same time you have new opportunities that are completely different. you've immediately got friction. So it's aligning the product roadmap with new opportunities. And then you can revise. But I think the product roadmap gives guidance to people internally and externally. And without that coherence of narrative, you're just going to be going back to founder days of look, this is shiny. And clients using clients, using projects, actually road testing ideas. Getting people in front of prospects, using storylane, whatever you use to sort of bring things to to life. But getting that clarity is more important than a great idea. Great idea until it's clear and obvious how it plays to where you currently are is just a a potential threat. But if you do weave it in and use you you identify great opportunity, then fine. move the roadmap, but it's to get you move the 75% roadmap or you split it out and you start having extra separate capabilities. But I would just say using the the roadmap and having cadence is is pretty key. We use OKRs and it keeps everybody on the same track irrespective of where they are in the business. james: I you mentioned earlier about a founder to to CEO. I think that's an important part to to touch on here. What's the tipping point when a founder becomes a CEO and what's the difference? James: I mean, I'm probably not going to introduce anything new into people's minds on this, but a founder is someone who's got the ability to create the dynamic of influence, to motivate others and to be involved in pretty much most of the different areas of the business need. So they'll be selling, they'll be helping steer product direction, they'll be helping if they come from a techie background, they'll be definitely in the picture and helping out with that side of life as well, together with networking. So it's a very much involved in everything going on. And I think the CEO understands that they then pivot and they then enable others to start to own those areas. And it's the degree to which under pressure they come in and then take over. So on a good day, every founder's amazing. On a bad day, every founder goes back to Founderville and they start putting their paws all over everything because that's where they feel most comfortable. And under pressure, we all revert back to our safe zone. So a f a founder's safe zone is just do it yourself. And so I think that that's the challenge. It's not on the good day you see a founder CEO. It's on the bad day. That's when a a true CEO will stand up and a true founder will stand up as well. james: And and where's the line in the sand where you need to stop being a founder and you should be a a CEO? Is there a a revenue target? Is it team members that you've got in in play? I know I've spoken to a a a few VCs and they often talk about the conversations with founders when they say, Right, you've got to pick your job now. James: Yeah. james: and and that's your and that's your role. When do you think that should be happening? James: Guess it depends on your go-to-market motion because the need to have if you're product led and you are a heavily technology focused founder, you're probably going to be able to leave it a lot later. Because you can bring in marketers to be actioning the paid, the organic, the the the SEO GEO strategies, but you're still going to have a very firm hand in how the product's direction moves forwards. If you're focused much more on a sales-driven motion, you've got a few bigger moving parts. And that that's where typically there is a lack of innate experience that then helps to scale salespeople. Because you might bring the same pressure you would put on yourself to a team. And that dynamic doesn't necessarily work. So I think bringing in experts who can talk about velocity, who can talk about different stages and the you know, top, middle, bottom of the funnel. I think that is one of the areas I see founders wanting to bring in people. So I guess it depends how that motion is working rather than it being a particular scale. And also it depends on, you know, what what the sales what yeah, what's the the the the velocity, is it one week or is it 12 months? So again, it's how many balls are they juggling at the same time in and whether they start being ineffective or where someone else can come in. And it's quite clear there'd be an acceleration because there's a gap. james: And before we move on to the final topic, we we've spoken there about the importance of of understanding where the business is, where the product is, the roadmaps that go into it, and kind of reigning the the founder, the founder in from excitement. What about the opposite side? How do you personally judge whether or not you're ahead or falling behind the curve and needing to do more. James: As an individual or as a business? james: As an individual, as a CRO. James: I think that the I think one of the challenges of being a CR at the moment is there is so much to focus on, just typically. You're you're you're orchestrating the different relevant pieces, but then you're pushing the acceleration button in the partnerships in CS, sales and marketing and the SAs. So you're now accelerating change across five teams. You're now trying to keep hold of those and you're reorchestrating as one moves in one direction. The playbook just moved. Okay, how's that then affecting? We've just gone through a quite significant series of changes around the GEO strategy, and that leads into changes in some of the other motions that go on, some of the other activities. So I think that there is a challenge for a CRO to force change, but then to force alignment. So I can understand. I I'm quite a in the weeds person to some people's delight or not. But I think if you're not in the weeds and you're hoping that things will self-manage or self take ta take get to the right outcome by chance, I'd see that as a grave error of judgment. But will you keep on top of everything all of the time in a scaling organisation? That's the constant challenge. james: some some great answers there. moving on to the the final topic the rocket ships, the people side, hiring right. one of the things you said to me, you said the hiring bar has now come down to two things, being AI first and being a great relationship builder, which I think is totally true by the way. how do you actually test for the second one in an interview, given it's much harder to pin down than a skill? James: The relationship building side. I think you can intrinsically understand through discussions with somebody. You think you can be quite good at reading. We expose candidates to different types of roles. Might bring a board member in, might be with a member of the CS or marketing team or sales. So I think the more you bring people into the exposure with the same type of role, then you're probably going to get more similar discussions. And I think you're probably limiting the the chance of catching somebody out. james: So what are you looking for? So when those say you've got three or four people that are involved in the process, James: Yeah. james: what are you looking for those people to understand from that conversation to know if this person can build a relationship or not? Because you also I like I think there's people sit on two sides of the of the fence where the more people you have, the more chance that someone's not gonna like the person. and not want to hire the person. against what are you trying to find out and how have you coached the people that are interviewing to find out if this is a relationship builder or are you just saying like, did you actually like James: probably well we set different tasks and we'll set different goals on different calls so it's definitely around a part of it's always going to be how how natural are they in conversation, how curious, how much energy do they bring, how good are they at, how good are they actually wanting to get the other person to talk more? Or were they more interested in talking themselves to prove that they are useful versus the other person being given a chance to feel great about themselves because this person brought something out of them, which is ultimately what you need to be doing with sales. It's not about what you think, it's about what the other person thinks of you and how much they then build up that trust with yourself. So I think it's not I we definitely have not got a perfect task on it. But giving people the the the the focus on getting to know the person. But we will tell the candidates this is for you to be able to shine to get to know us and get us get to know you. So sometimes we might set more of an objective, but oftentimes it's just having that conversation. And we had a fascinating one. We got two candidates on the phone with with three of a particular team and they had great interactions with both candidates. When it came down to the face-to-face it was a really different experience. And what that taught me was you've got to throw different angles into this process. And although you need to be formulaic to the point of being able to measure in different scenarios, different different interviews, and if you can benchmark people against bench against people, it is about how do you try to throw in curveballs or how do you create some dynamism where they're having to think on their feet a bit more. So I think it's a moving piece. We definitely have not nailed it. But what I know is you've got to hire people who can really be good at building that trust and relationships. Because it's not what they've done that might be amazing, it's what they can do next and can they build that rapport and relationship. james: tell me why are you putting an emphasis on trust and relationships at the moment? And the reason why I'm putting it out there is at the moment there is a world of AI and automation. When people go to Tesco, they want to go to self-checkout. They don't want to go to the through the normal tills. We've seen it a little bit in the work that we're doing where Founders are looking for people that really understand AI and are using AI and are much more technology focused. you put in there that relationship building is still an important part. why do you see that? And why do you see maybe less of a maximum automation where people are saying that a large part of the process will just be automated, even conversations that are being had, which I still don't believe you can build. genuine rapport with a an AI bot. James: No, good question. When we spoke before and when we went through the what's important from a hiring, AI one, trust building second. If you can't automate or work out how to automate or enable or be in a group of people where it's happening and you know why it's good, etc., if you can't work in that way, you're now very, very slow. You you probably don't have a good rocket building mentality because if you've not achieved a level of understanding around AI, By now, after 18, 24 months of it being in everyone's face, that probably indicates that you're not that phased by it or interested, and that's okay. No issue at all, but you wouldn't be the person I wanted to hire to build a rocket ship. So rocket ship builders intrinsically are going to look out for how do I move forward? How do I help companies move forward? I'm a big fan of giving everyone in the team some projects to do themselves as well to help others. So sales and neighborment materials, that's not marketing. Each of the sales guys builds out those materials and then we share and we iterate and we prove. So I think that that rocket ship mentality is super important. If if somebody comes to the party and they don't know how to do it, Why is important? if you talk about going to Tesco's, you don't need advice. So james: No. James: because so much is automatable, there isn't that much of a layer of difference now. So it sort of circles back to the earlier conversation about what makes a great salesperson, it's all about their ability to differentiate the product, the support, the other components around that delivery. You're building because you're advising. And if you advise, you're then steering what the product set should be. If you can't build the relationship and you've only got a small amount of a window of space to do so, with AI writing all of the emails, with AI writing all of the follow-ups, setting the tone of the the overall narrative, the thought leadership, et cetera, there is a small window now for buyers to be convinced that you're an advisory person. So that's why it's gotta be out there on a mantle. james: And also are you seeing over the last twelve months, but particularly in the last six months moving forward that the world is moving back to wanting face to face meetings now and not wanting to do everything over Zoom? James: Yeah. james: But it's looking like meetings and and people wanting to to see people seems to be on the uptick. Are you seeing that within the organisations that you've worked with? James: We're seeing the appetite with certain types of companies where they're people driven. We do a lot of work with partners, and partners are really relationship and trust-building people. So for them, I don't think the world changed. It's not that COVID passed them by, it's just they realize they can get generate much more influence by having face-to-face meetings. We see the value of the big events, big Gatlu events, which we've been doing this year, last year. Those are great places to really give people the opportunity to understand more about how a client might be, about the way that they they they go about their business from a human side. The challenge is, and this takes me back to working with people at Meta, is they're not in the same building themselves. So to talk to people about coming together, you're actually creating a pressure on the client side. And so whether they would want to or not, it's physically not possible. And as more companies have hired on a remote basis to really keep the level of skills up, they've had to then sacrifice the ability to come together. Then you throw in the piece which a lot of people don't want to meet. A lot of right brain people just do not have that appetite to engage in the hellos and the goodbyes. So for them, fifty five minute Zoom call, absolutely perfect. So I think it's not I think it's more contextual than is black and white piece. But I do think that there is always an appetite for those networking opportunities or bringing people together who are non-related. We have it with a group of companies we work with and they will come together about four or five companies, major organizations, and they will they will share thoughts and learnings and they'll do it face to face. So I absolutely agree there is a an increase in time and appetite for it, but I wouldn't say it's a a consistent trend across all james: Love that answer, appreciate that. moving on to directive versus transportative, and and you use the image of a rugby team when we were speaking before. You can't let people jog slowly at the start and hope that they speed up. why does that directive phase have to come first? And how do you know when it's time to step back and let the team run itself? James: Yeah, so directive for me, just just if anyone's sort of trying to work out what that means, it essentially means that you might be working through people in order to achieve the outcome and you're taking a slightly more t how would you say, this is how it's done approach. And it's not about saying that you're the best at doing it, but it's just giving others a very clear view of this is what we would expect. And that might be this is how we're going to drive change rather than asking someone to help with change and to manage it, in which case they might be going at their pace or not have all of the steps. It might be about running that project or really spoon feeding. For me, that is a typically a 12-week process, Max. And the reason is because otherwise the people in the seats who you want to keep who are good at what they're doing, actually they're going to get a bit disengaged. And and and even 12 weeks for some people who be like, well, hang on. That could be two weeks or four weeks, whatever. But I would say it's the max for an organization because you need to be able to create a certain amount of change in a certain time sphere and then switch over to transformative where you're now empowering and really supporting. That's going to be by its nature a slower pace of change and require a lot more energy and effort. But for me it's the right energy and effort because you're now focusing much more on the people side rather than the tooling and the process. So the big process and tooling pieces quick action, very deliberate, very dynamic, maybe trading on the odd toe, but you're just making shit happen. Secondly james: Yeah. James: then, now let's make sure the team are driving that themselves. But as I say, that could be a two week, five week, james: So we could. James: depends on what it is. james: how would you advise any potential sales leaders or sales leaders listening to this to understand the key difference between directive versus transitive and how to know when to use the different styles of leadership? James: Yeah, I think if you're coming into a situation and there's significant change, you're going to have to map it out and drive a lot of it yourself. Particularly if the people who've been in that role before, or it's a new element, you're building out a new business or a business model, go to market model. You're going to have to drive a lot of that change. If you're trying to get people to understand what you mean and to deliberate and have to get people emotionally on board with you, you're slowing yourself and the business down. And you're probably failing on the act the the goals that you were brought in to achieve. So I think that there's a definite focus on this is where we need to go, this is how we're gonna do it. Definitely bringing people with you. It's not being bothersome and cutting others out, but it's just making sure there is clear mapping and there is clarity in what needs to happen. So you're driving a pace and a pressure for a period of time and then getting making sure people are on the same page. james: before I let you get back to to it, one last question. I think it's a quite important one. if you're pro if you're promoting from within, but the person hasn't led with an AI first mindset yet. You mentioned when we spoke before that you'll delay the promotion by a quarter, then force it through. walk us through how you come to that decision, what risks of promoting the person too early. on that front would be. James: Yeah, I think promotion if if you're in a if you've built the let's take sales, if you take the sales organization and you've built it correctly, I think you should be promoting within. I'm a huge fan of that. That being said, if you're expecting different behaviors of that next level up, then what you're doing is you're accelerating someone who may have just passed the probationary behaviors and attitudes and outcomes, the two the three things that typical you know we look for. if you promote them straight away, then they're going to be at the bottom of the la bottom of the skills ladder there. And if they have a tough quarter or if the team is having a tough quarter, you're then exposing them to being it's kind of like the premiership, I suppose. You know, you're at the bottom of the table. You've got to be better than at least half a dozen of the teams above. If you're only better than one team, And then you put pressure and you have a bad series, you're just going to feel worse, you're going to feel shocking. So I've always believed that if you're in a if you have that capacity and you can build this, give it one quarter. Let the person start to carry out a lot of the behaviors and take the attitude of somebody who's already promoted without the pressure of all of the goals. And that way you're giving them the best chance to succeed, you're putting guardrails on. And they know that the job is already theirs. They've earned it. They've d but now you're going through a a mentoring phase to make sure that they're not going to hit that next level up under the pressure that would sync them, but under the pressure that feels like a great goal. just on the AI side, if someone's been working with me for six months and they've not adopted AI, probably wouldn't be promoting them because the expectation james: Yeah. James: of automating their world and continually bringing the ideas in. continually focus on development. If they're a lag on the AI, they're not going to do that. And that's a key component of hiring people who've already got AI skills. As I mentioned before, if someone now hasn't got AI skills, that's a choice. They've chosen not to jump on the wagon, and I'm fine with that, but that won't work in the in the business we're running now. So I think you've got to choose. If your business is not going to be dictated by AI and for whatever reason, Don't don't pretend that it's it's crucial, but james: Mm. James: I can't imagine a scenario. But I think everything now is contextual. The type of people you hire, what's the exposure, or are you looking for salespeople who are greater process and less strong at building the relationships because you're talking about a particular go-to-market motion where that's just not relevant? I think I think it's james: How you see. James: really interesting time because so many pieces now. Are so dictated by what exactly what you'll you need of the person. It's quite specific. You've got your shopping list because of your go-to-market motion or your sector, whatever it is. I I think 10 years ago, generalist sales guys were probably females and males were probably more okay to get a job. The bar was lower. I just think now the shopping list, the expectations are higher and more specific. So Interesting. Good times. james: absolutely, I think you're right. James, I really appreciate everything you've done for this podcast episode, the conversations that we've had. I've really enjoyed getting to know you and I really appreciate you sharing some new topics, and and bringing some really great content for leaders like yourself to to hear. So, James, thank you so much for your time. James: Thank you very much, James, as well. It's been good fun.