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How vs Who: Why Relationships Still Matter in the Age of AI · Sales Pipeline Radio

• 0:17
  Matt: All right.
• 0:17
  Welcome everyone to another episode of Sales Pipeline Radio.
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  I am your host, Matt Heinz excited to be with you here on another Thursday.
• 0:24
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• 1:01
  episode of Sales Pipeline Radio.
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  Past, present, and Future.
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  available at salespipelineradio.com, on demand download.
• 1:08
  lots of good stuff in the, in the archives.
• 1:09
  Great speakers.
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  Great authors, great, entrepreneurs.
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  Very excited today to have, joining us, the, the founder,
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  of Small World, David Rush.
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  Dave, thanks for joining us today.
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  Thanks Matt.
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  Great to be here.
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  So I've been really excited about finally getting you on the show, cuz I think,
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  the more tech we get, the more AI becomes part of the headlines, the more it just
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  reinforces to me that machines can only go so far and that it really is the
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  relationships we have with each other that has always been and will likely continue
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  to be the very backbone of business.
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  talk a little bit about what you're building with SmallWorld and why
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  that's so important right now.
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  Yeah.
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  Just what you said, relationships, matter so much in terms of
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  creating new opportunities.
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  the way we look at it is that, sales and marketing is about timing or
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  trust, and of course with timing, you want your brand to be top of mind
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  when vendor decisions are being made.
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  third party intent data is really important to understand
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  if people are in market.
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  But when we think about trust, that's an enduring thing and, it's
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  an asset that a lot of companies don't leverage as much as they could,
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  whether it's a personal relationship or a professional relationship.
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  if you think about, work alumni networks or people even in
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  your community, that trust is ultimately what drives a decision.
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  And so what we're building at SmallWorld is the ability for companies to
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  operationalize these warm introductions and referrals through the power of trust.
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  And so by combining, timing with trust, it kind of creates the ultimate bullseye
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  for, for sales and marketing teams.
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  This idea of trust is so important.
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  I wanna dig in on this further cuz there's relationships and then
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  there's trust and those are not equal.
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  I'd say we have a lot of relationships, but just think about people
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  that come to you and say, Hey, could you vouch for me on this?
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  Or, Hey, would you recommend certain person?
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  You may have a relationship, but unless you're willing to
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  stake your own relationship, put your relationship on the line.
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  There's gotta be a real amount of trust there.
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  So there's a depth of relationships that isn't always evident when you look
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  at shared connections on LinkedIn or when you look at someone's Rolodex.
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  So understanding and getting to that real meaningful connective
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  tissue is just so critical, and yet it's always been so elusive.
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  That's exactly right.
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  That's one of the reasons why we've given the connectors in our systems
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  the ones that are making those introductions, the ability to rate
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  the strength of their relationship so they can rate it from very strong
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  to very weak, and it tells us a lot.
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  We're able to measure.
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  The likely conversion rates, when those that have very weak relationships
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  are asked to make introductions versus those that are very strong.
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  Obviously the way in which those introductions might be made can vary
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  from a quick text to a close friend to, Hey, I'm having to make this
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  introduction, but I don't know them well.
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  So I'd like a, carefully crafted custom email that I can forward, that
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  will read a bit more appropriately.
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  So we're really learning, to your point, that strength of the relationship becomes
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  so important, because, it really is the connector in this transaction that
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  becomes the most important one when, warm introductions come into play.
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  when I think about some of the, rise in partner ecosystems and just
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  ecosystem led growth organizations, you've got tools, you've got more
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  people putting a focus on that.
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  It seems to me a lot of what's been done to date has been around.
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  mapping accounts to each other, saying, who are the accounts you care about?
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  Who are the accounts I care about?
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  And an overlap of accounts is kind of like that LinkedIn first connection, right?
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  It really doesn't tell me where the relationships are.
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  It doesn't tell me what your history is with those companies and your
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  history with the companies irrelevant because it's really the building.
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  You don't have a relationship with the people in the building you
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  have a relationship with, right?
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  And so finding ways to connect the people.
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  I could almost argue that this should be, part of your ideal
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  customer profile definition.
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  you have an overlap from a company needs standpoint, but don't have a relationship,
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  if there's a smaller deal where you have a relationship that can get that
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  deal done faster in a higher likelihood, shouldn't that get to the core of who
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  we're targeting in the first place?
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  That's right.
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  you described exactly how teams will use, SmallWorld to do account planning and
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  prioritization and really inform who's part of that team for team-based selling.
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  Right?
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  When you think about, the fastest path of connectivity into senior level
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  decision makers, it's identifying where those relationships exist.
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  And so, although that partner overlap and an understanding of where, you
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  know, there's mutual interest is important, to your point, getting
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  down to the person level, Allows us to really understand the best path there.
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  And frankly, we look beyond partners too.
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  So if you think of customers or advisors or even, spouses of employees,
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  there's people within the ecosystem of a company who have relationships
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  and have intrinsic motivation to make those warm introductions.
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  So we really look a little bit more broadly at, how to enable that.
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  Talking today on Sales Pipeline Radio with David Rush, he's the
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  founder and CEO of SmallWorld.
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  We're talking about the power and importance of trust, and why
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  relationships and the connective tissue of those relationships
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  matter, in creating connections and helping people get stuff done.
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  you mentioned earlier the idea of the third degree relationships, and
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  I think a lot of times we rely on those who do, you know, second degree?
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  How far does trust go and when does trust start to weaken a little bit?
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  if I'm asking for someone's help, can they go a couple degrees down
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  and where does that trust play best?
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  Yeah, you made the point a little earlier about, investing in that relationship and,
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  and maintaining, social capital and trust.
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  And so those introductions that are made by the connector, need to be
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  carefully considered before they do so.
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  But when we find the connector has established and confirmed
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  a very strong relationship.
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  So this is someone you've known probably for a long time.
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  You're in communication with them, if not weekly, monthly.
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  And, there's a tremendous amount of trust built there.
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  a lot can happen.
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  And as an example, if you were to have a very strong relationship with, your friend
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  Christie and Christie used to work at, let's say, Adobe, right, for five years.
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  the idea is that you would be able to be a path of engagement for a
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  salesperson into Adobe based on the strength of that relationship.
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  Now, if we didn't know that relationship strength, it would be a little
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  presumptuous to think that just because you're connected, to her, that she
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  would be able to open up that door.
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  But if that's a close friend, she probably still knows some people at Adobe.
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  And so what we are doing is peering into things like work history to identify.
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  a path, of connectivity, into any target prospect.
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  the relationships we're talking about and the trust that exists like this
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  information isn't in a CRM right?
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  you may see that you know someone, you may see that you have a history with someone.
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  But really understanding is this someone I trust?
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  Is this someone I'd be willing to vouch for?
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  Is this someone I would stake my reputation on?
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  I don't know where that exists today, but my question to you is, will
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  technology improve to the point, will we be able to use machine learning
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  or AI somehow to be able to identify where those relationships truly exist
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  with some small margin of error?
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  right now, I've been deep into SmallWorld, and you go in and you rank who you know
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  and do that personal, definition I guess.
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  Will technology help bridge the gap there?
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  it's a tough thing cuz relationships are subjective.
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  And so we've taken the approach that if we can make it as easy as
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  possible for the connector to know who to rate the relationship with.
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  So curation of those people that you might know that are important to whoever
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  you're making introductions for, and to make that user experience so simple that
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  it's a, click and, give you control.
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  We can assure a hundred percent accuracy with that relationship strength to
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  where we're actually not having to guess, and use, other data points to
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  try to assume a relationship strength.
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  It is, impossible to do so.
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  Every person will, view a relationship, that they have
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  with someone else, differently.
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  And so, I think you really wanna combine the efficiencies of, what we can do to
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  scale and understand who knows who at the same time, giving those connectors
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  control also gives them the ability to know that they're, choosing who they
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  wanna make introductions to and when.
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  Totally get that.
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  the more, you talk about the efficiency of being able to do this in the time
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  you save, not just in finding people you can, work through and with,
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  but also eliminating the waste of people that aren't gonna be valuable
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  for you and you're not gonna be valuable for them and vice versa.
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  I've been thinking mostly about this in the context of sales and
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  business development, partnerships, but also that seems like, you
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  could use this in hiring, Right?
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  it seems like the use cases of being able to better get to the points
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  of trust..., what other use cases are you seeing people leverage this
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  technology and this opportunity in all different points of business?
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  when we, have, connectors in the system who have gone through and rated the
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  relationships, what we hear is you've really helped reduce the noise and I don't
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  get irrelevant requests anymore, and I've brought more, fidelity to my network.
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  And so we're looking at ways to, deliver more value to these connectors in, a new
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  version of a CRM where they can see who they know per personally, professionally,
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  They understand where they have strong relationships, where they don't.
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  as we, continue to, identify those relationships, to your point, a myriad
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  of use cases emerge where, hiring teams, business development teams,
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  customer success teams that are seeking to make sure that retention is high.
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  really again, tapping into that power of trust, can be applied in
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  a lot of parts of the business.
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  Love it.
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  talking today again, Sales Pipeline Radio with, David Rush, the
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  founder of SmallWorld and David, this isn't your first rodeo.
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  I wanna take a step back and just talk a little bit about the blessing
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  and the curse of entrepreneurship.
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  someone once described to me it is, it's kind of like chewing glass, you know?
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  It is not for the faint of heart.
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  you've been through this a few times.
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  I'm curious for people that are listening that either are going through
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  it themselves or thinking they may want to sort of start something down
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  the road, what are some of the lessons you've learned along the way that
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  are important to, keep in mind as you follow that entrepreneurial journey?
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  I think you have to be really passionate about the problem you're solving.
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  my background and experience, I've been a, a salesperson, a sales leader.
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  I've also been someone who's asked for warm introductions and I knew.
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  something was broken, and that there was a better way to do it.
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  And so that drives me every single day.
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  I know that there's a business outcome if we get this right to
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  where there's, tangible benefit.
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  And so I almost feel obligated to solve this problem for, all the
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  companies out there that can, drive more efficiency, in their business.
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  Cuz I've seen it firsthand.
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  and I think you, do have to love the battle.
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  You've gotta love the fact that you are gonna get 19 no's
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  every day for that one yes.
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  And just be a hundred percent comfortable with it.
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  And, have conviction, but also have, humility and an open mind to take
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  in, feedback and understand how to make adjustments, whether it's from
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  an investor or from a customer.
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  you have to love the battle.
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  You have to be, hyper-competitive and also, build a strong team around you.
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  Yeah, absolutely.
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  it seems like, some of the barriers to entry for hanging up a shingle
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  and doing something on your own continue to go down, right?
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  the ability to work remotely, the ability to use, cloud computering resources
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  to build, the cost in some cases, depending on what you're building,
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  starting small growing, that could be a blessing and a curse, right?
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  just because it's easier and cheaper doesn't necessarily mean it's right.
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  You've had a lot of different things you could, have focused on in small roles
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  and leveraging this power of trust and I, what I think is the blue ocean in front
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  of it, seems like a really good decision.
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  But how do you, decide if the risk is worth it?
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  How do you decide that the chewing glass, that is not guaranteed ever is
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  gonna be the right path to move forward.
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  And, I ask that in part because especially in this market where a lot of great
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  companies are born during recessions, people get laid off when they decide,
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  okay, I'm gonna go do something.
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  Some people do it, some people don't.
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  what do you think the calculus should be to decide I've got
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  an idea, I'm gonna go for it?
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  I truly do believe, the, ability to be so committed to the mission that you're
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  on to where it never feels like work.
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  mm-hmm.
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  You know, Mondays feel like Fridays, you have to balance, family
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  commitments and, other things.
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  But this isn't a job.
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  it's, a mission, right?
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  And I think if you approach it that way, You know, that, there
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  could be, a financial outcome, but that's not your primary motivation.
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  all the stories you read on Twitter and LinkedIn, if you're caught up in that,
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  you're doing it for the wrong reasons.
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  You really need to be a creator.
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  and you need to be able to, tap into that, imagination.
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  And so it, it's a combination of, right brain and, and left brain.
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  you either.
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  would feel underwhelmed, I guess, not doing it.
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  and feel like you were, not fulfilling something that you,
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  know, were supposed to do.
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  And if you don't feel that way, then it's certainly worth looking
• 13:14
  a little bit closer at it.
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  I think going in eyes wide open is, is really, really important, right?
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  Cause you see a lot of, headlines full of a lot of success stories and
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  right now you see a lot of companies doing layoffs, but, the startups
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  that don't succeed don't typically get written about at the end, right?
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  And so, certainly eyes wide open knowing that, the first one might
• 13:32
  not be what you want it to be.
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  I think there's so many examples of companies where...
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  investors and seed funders folks say this all the time.
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  It's, not always just about the idea, it's about the people, right?
• 13:42
  Yeah.
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  It's about the resilience and the mindset of the people that,
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  can pivot to something else.
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  And if your commitment and passion is there, you'll find something
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  that, will help you be successful.
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  Yeah.
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  Love it.
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  Absolutely.
• 13:54
  hey, listen, before we wrap up, for people that are interested in learning
• 13:57
  more about SmallWorld, I know you guys are in beta, you've got a super
• 13:59
  connector group that you're working with right now, but for folks that
• 14:01
  wanna get in line to be able to leverage this technology, where should they go?
• 14:04
  we're live in production, with, several customers.
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  We're in beta with, as you mentioned, an external network concept,
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  and we should be live with that, later this quarter, early next.
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  but you can find us at SmallWorld.ai so, yeah, reach out.
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  We'd love to, give you a demo and, share with you how we're
• 14:19
  helping other companies.
• 14:20
  Awesome.
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  Well, thank you so much for your time.
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  Love the ability to talk a little bit about trust, relationships,
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  and delve into a little bit of entrepreneurialism as well.
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  David Rush, founder of SmallWorld.
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  Thanks so much for your time today.
• 14:31
  Thanks Matt for having me.
• 14:33
  Awesome.
• 14:34
  Well thank you everyone for watching.
• 14:35
  look forward to seeing many of you again next week.
• 14:37
  Thursdays 11:30 Pacific, 2:30 Eastern.
• 14:40
  My name is Matt Heinz.
• 14:41
  We'll see you next time on Sales Pipeline Radio.