134: New Technology Powering Prospecting Teams With Shruti Kapoor

Thank you to our sponsors, LeadIQ, Costello, SalesLoft, WorkRamp, and Dialpad for helping us produce this podcast. Head over to jbarrels.com slash blog for the highlights of this episode and explore resources you can use right away. Let's make it happen. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrows with Make It Happen Mondays. Hopefully you all had a fantastic weekend. So I am here with a very interesting guest, and she's actually all the way on the other side of the world for me right now. So I appreciate that. I wanted to bring in, this is the conversation we're going to have is about just-in-time learning, which is something I've been very fixated on for the past couple of years, and I'm really interested in this conversation.

So Shruti, the CEO over at Wingman, you want to say hello to everybody? Hi, everyone. Glad to be here on Make It Happen Mondays. Yeah, and thanks for joining us. So Shruti, first of all, talk to us about what is Wingman, and then I want to kind of get to your journey of how you got to starting Wingman, because I know you started, you know, like most people in sales or in general, we don't start in sales. We start in some other profession, and you come from an analyst background over at Morgan Stanley. So I do want to dig into that, your journey a little bit of being a founder here of this business. But talk to us a little bit about what is Wingman, first of all. Sure. So Wingman is meant as a wingman for salespeople on sales calls.

So the idea really is that can you provide just-in-time feedback and coaching to salespeople during their call? And of course, there are some intricacies to what type of coaching, what type of feedback, and how do you do it without distracting the sales reps? And the other part of it is also helping them take notes in real time without having them type out stuff or, you know, scribble on a notepad. I love it. Okay, cool. Yeah. So I'm, again, very interested in where this world is right now. Because I fundamentally believe in just-in-time learning. I genuinely believe that we are going to move into a world where a sales rep is basically sitting there with all this technology and really is just the last mile before the conversation with the client and then in the conversation being coached.

But I want to see where we are on that journey. But I do want to take a step back before we get there and talk to me about your journey to becoming the co-founder and CEO of Wingman. And walk us through kind of your background. I mean, again, you started, did you start as an analyst at Morgan Stanley? And what did you go to school for? Yeah, so I actually went to school for biotechnology and then spent a year doing research on migration patterns of Dengu. Which, you know, interestingly now with the coronavirus going on, you know, it's pretty interesting because that was one of the things that I studied. How do viruses migrate? But that's a long time back. So wait, wait, before, before, before you go, are you freaking out?

Like, because they're, I mean, people are freaking out about this virus. So with what you know about this, like, are you sitting there going, holy shit, we're in trouble? Or do you think this is going to be contained in some way? I'm just kind of more curious on my end. You know, it's kind of hard to answer that question today. I was in the middle of the SARS epidemic in Singapore at the time when it broke out. And what I realized is that there are some places that are better equipped to handle these things. Right. And I think that there are some places that where it gets to, it might really just be a complete disaster. So I think it will really depend on how much importance people give to handling it right.

And that's probably what's going to determine the outcome for that particular geography. All right. Yeah, I mean, it's scary. I mean, it's starting to hit here in the States, too. I think the first case was somebody came back in Chicago, their spouse or whatever, from an infected area. So we'll see how well it's contained. But let's talk about happier things. So you went as an, you started as a biotech analyzing trends and then you, then what happened when you graduated? And then I realized I didn't want to spend time in a lab just pipetting stuff and studying viruses. Went out and got my MBA from the Indian Institute of Management and, you know, went to do what was considered the most coveted job, which was being an investment banker.

So joined Morgan Stanley for their APAC division and very quickly realized that it was completely insane in terms of work-life balance. Also realized that it wasn't something that I wanted to do for the long run. So, but I continued to stay in finance and I continued to be very interested in technology coming from, you know, having spent four years doing tech stuff. And so my second thing landed up being investing in early stage technology with a fund called Intellectual Ventures. And what we were doing was we were investing in technology that was coming out of university research or by, you know, individual inventors sitting and tinkering in the lab. And then from there, you know, one step further went into a fintech startup, which was just setting up, you know, their office in a new market.

And very quickly realized that the most important job there was to figure out the go-to market in that new market. And slowly that became sales, hiring for sales, sales training, sales process setting. And all of that was completely new. I'd already spent 10 years doing all of these other things. And so, yeah, so it was kind of, you know, coming as an outsider into sales. And like you said, nobody plans to get into sales, but they somehow get there. And that's, so that's always, that journey is fascinating to me always, because, you know, I, thankfully, you know, I, you know, I got, well, thankfully, I kind of stumbled into sales and, but it was through the marketing angle. And what's, what's always interesting to me is, is how people who don't come from like a marketing or a business or a sales background, they come from more of the finance background or the technical background, right?

They, they have this idea that the product is like it, like, holy shit, I just created this awesome thing, or we just gave you a bunch of money, the product's great, go, and this thing should be successful. But in my experience, the main reason, and you're deeper in this than I am, the main reason that most companies fail isn't because they don't have a good product, isn't because the market's not there, it's because they can't figure out how to sell it. Is that a pretty accurate example, you know, description of what you've seen through, through your journey? Absolutely. And it's not to say that, you know, the product isn't important. Of course. I think in some sense, it's becoming more and more democratized, right?

So you can, like, you know, if there's a great product today, they're probably going to be 40 others tomorrow, because it's just so much easier to copy and build products. Right? So that's not really the bottleneck, figuring out whom to sell, how to sell, why would somebody want to buy it, is difficult. And the interesting thing is, it's difficult, because nobody can come up with a standard playbook that, you know, kind of applies to everyone. And, yeah, it's definitely a challenge. I'm sure if somebody were to dig deeper and even look at the Apple example, which is kind of touted as just a great product, it doesn't need to be sold, they would realize that there's a lot of intricacy in the sales and marketing there.

I mean, Steve Jobs goes down as one of the greatest presenters of all time, you know what I mean? Like, how he presented the vision. If it was just the product, and it was just, okay, here you go, but when he would stand up on stage and give those presentations, the world was enamored by them to say, holy smokes, and, you know, he was a sales professional. You know, I mean, he was a sales guy at the end of the day. Even though he was an engineer, true and through, and everything like that, he just knew how to connect with people and get the message out there about what that product was all about. And actually, that brings me to another part of it, right? And that's something that I didn't realize until I became a founder was sales is not just about selling to your customers.

There's so much other sales that happens, especially as a founder, you need to sell the vision to your team, you need to be selling it to the investors, you need to be selling it to so many different stakeholders. And each of those, while it looks different, it is all a sale, right? And you need to have that script, you need to, like, you know, if you were going out and raising funding, you would be doing exactly the same thing that you would do if you were prospecting, right? You would need to make a list, you would need to identify who's your target audience, why would they want to invest in you, and all of those questions need to be answered as well. Yeah, I just, I mean, obviously, I'm biased, right?

I just think life is about sales. Like, to your point, you sell yourself, you sell your ideas, you sell your company, you know, you sell that stuff. So that skill to be able to do that is critical. So let's talk about how to make sales reps better, right? I mean, I think over the years, you know, we've graduated from playbooks that sit on shelves and nobody looks at, to, you know, maybe some coaching, you know, people, now there's some coaching tools as far as, like, understanding what reps are doing and where their gaps are and that type of stuff. And for the past, and I want to say, and you've talked to Chris, have you talked to Chris, my CRO? Yeah, I have. Yeah, so Chris and I have really, over the, like, probably for five years now, been locked in on this whole just-in-time learning, right?

Because I've always been, like, from a training standpoint, when I took the training that I do now, which is Basho, right, it used to be five days. And what was beautiful, what I liked about Basho was that Jeff Hoffman, who came up with it, he took what was, like, a month-long program or this huge consulting engagement and boiled it down into some very execution-oriented type stuff. And there was five different programs, five, you know, five different, you know, like, prospecting, qualification, you know, those start, you know, closing. And then what I did, though, and the reason I gravitated toward it is because it was so tactical. It was like, hey, here's how to send an email, send an email.

Here's how to make a phone call, make a phone call. And so when I took the training, I then took what he had done and crunched it even further down into kind of micro, like, here's a tip, here's a nugget, that type of stuff. And that's where I think that the audience really appreciated because it's like, ooh, there's one very specific thing that I can do, and I can do that today. And so it's easy for me to do. And when I took this training, you know, most of the time you really need, most of the time training is an event, right? It's like you come in, you get all fired up, and then like a month later, it's like it never happened. And without the managers really reinforcing it and coaching to it, it tends to fall off.

The reason I gravitated towards this training was because even without management reinforcement, it stuck more than most because it was so tactical, okay? So with that, like, where are we right now? Because I think I want to always take myself out of Silicon Valley, out of San Francisco, right? Because I think that's a weird little ecosystem that is like, holy shit, look at all the innovation. But then you come one step out of that world, and you're like, okay, we're back in 1985 when it comes to selling, right? So where are we right now with coaching, with technology, with enablement and powering sales reps from nothing, no tools, all the way to fully automation? Like, where do you think we are today?

And where do you think over the next two to three years we're going right now? Yeah, so that's, you know, that's definitely a great question, because I think it's still kind of hard for people to imagine technology taking over sales, right? And I don't think it's going to replace salespeople. And so what is the happy intermediary state? Yeah. And I think that what's going to happen is, you know, there are a few parallels, right? So one is how people adopted the just-in-time concept into manufacturing, or how people adopted automation into aviation, right? So if you look at how manufacturing thought about just-in-time, it was two things. And one of that is, how do you identify what is the bottleneck, and then you try to improve that, because that's where you're going to kind of see the maximum gain.

And the other part of it was to think of, how do you reduce inventory, right? And now if you were to apply the same things to sales, what you're saying is, how do I quickly identify what is it that's causing my sales rep to lose that deal, right? And the second thing that you want to identify, do is to make sure that that inventory of information or things that they need to remember is small, right? So to your example of training, right, you wanted to condense it so that it's no longer a month-long program, which people forget about. What can you give them as a nugget that they will remember, right? And if you keep moving that forward, what you would want to be able to do is, hey, of course, I don't want to hire a goldfish for a salesperson who doesn't remember anything.

But I definitely don't want my sales reps to be, you know, going through those 25 Excel sheets, you know, looking at, hey, this is the list of integrations, that is all of my complex pricing models, because products have become so complex, right? So it's not about saying that sales reps don't need to remember anything and they can be stupid, but it's about saying, how do I enable them so that they can still deliver the best value to the customer? And I think in terms of the trend where it's going to go is, therefore, to make sure that information can find the rep rather than the rep finding the information. And I love that. And I think that, obviously, that's what Wingman's all about, because, but I'm curious, like, how real is that, right?

And let's talk about, because there's beginning, there's before, during, and after, okay? Let's talk about a sales process, right? So before I make a phone call to a client, before I have a meeting with a client, there's all this great intel that can tell me about, you know, I can even use Crystal Nose to understand your personality. I can use Owler to understand all the news and events that are happening in your organization. I can use the social scraping tools to tell me, but now I need information. Now, okay, what do I do with this, right? And so that's, that's, that's a little bit easier, I think, because it's like, okay, it's, it's not live. It's before the call, there's preparation. And then there's some tips that I can say, okay, use that information, say that.

And then there's during, where you and I are having this conversation. And as a sales rep, I'm hopefully picking up on cues. I'm hopefully picking up on that other stuff to make adjustments, but I might not be because of my tenure, my experience, whatever. But also then there's the questions that you're asking me that I need to get information on, right? Technical issues, like those type of things. And I really want to avoid these days getting to being like, I don't know that answer. Let me get back to you. And so there's that middle part. And then there's the post, which is, okay, analyze the call, John, you did great job on the intro. But, you know, when the pricing situation came up, man, you fell on your face.

So, so here's some content to, to, to go address that. So I think the, the before and after are, are more logical to me. I, I, I know there's tools out there that do this stuff. It can kind of analyze and say, yep, that was bad. Go look at this, learn. But it's the during that I think the most reps need the most help, but also is the, is the most challenging to help. Because in the conversation, I have so many different things going on inside my head about what I'm trying to accomplish with you during this call, that if I get alerted or pushed something or whatever it is, there's a strong possibility. I might throw up all over myself or be make, make it blatantly obvious that, you know, for instance, somebody is in my ear right now, you know, talking to me about what to say.

And I'll be like, uh, uh, Shruti, hold on a second. My boss is telling me that I need to ask you this, you know, impact question. So, you know, so, so how can we smooth that out so that a rep doesn't throw up? And, and, and it, how much is in your experience is the learning curve to be able to leverage a tool like that? So it is a complex question. Um, and let me ask you something. How long do you think was your last monologue? Uh, during this call? Uh, oh, ah, shit, probably less than a minute. Uh, right. But there's no way for you to know that during the call. All right. And if I ask you now, Hey, what do you think has been a talk to listen ratio in this call? Uh, you can't answer that question either.

All right. And while people have been pounding on saying, Hey, you know, this should be your ideal talk to listen ratio. When I go into a call, there is no way I'm going to be thinking about that. All right. I'm not acting on that. So irrespective of whatever people say, I'm still going to go ahead and fall into my comfortable pattern. Um, and so what I want to do is distinguish between things which, uh, you know, are content and things which are behavior. All right. Um, and so part of it is you can do a bunch of very simple behavior interventions that can still be very fruitful and only need me to kind of, you know, quickly look at something and say, Oh yeah, I can pick that pick on that. Right.

If I'm suddenly sounding too monotonous, if it tells me, Hey, you know what, you've just been low on energy during this call, I can quickly change that and I don't have to get distracted or, you know, some variety of those types of things. So it's like that, that talk to listen ratio. There could be like a, there's like a, a threshold that says, ding, ding, ding, John, shut up. Basically you've been talking too long based on that. And it can, it can help me. Oh, yep. No, I need to shut up now. Okay. So what it already does is in real time, it'll show me a cue card if I go on a long monologue. Okay. And so those are the type of simple things that don't, you know, hopefully don't take up too much cognitive load that I need to go back and, you know, just stop the conversation that I'm having naturally.

And then the second part of it is how do you encourage people to listen better beyond, you know, beyond the talk to listen ratio or the monologue piece. And what I've heard from a lot of salespeople is that, you know, often I'm very distracted when the other person is talking because either I'm trying to think what is the next question I need to ask them, or I'm trying to take notes because I need to be able to follow up on that. All right. And so that's why we kind of built the note taking part. But the third piece that I think is generally hard, and, you know, I don't think that I have a perfect answer to it today, honestly, is what type of, you know, content can you show them that will make sure that they don't get distracted and are still able to have a good conversation.

And I think that there are some easy answers to it. For example, one thing that people find hard to talk about is customer stories. And the reason is that I don't want to throw an Amazon customer story at you if you are an entertainment company sitting in, you know, Colorado. What you will instead want to do is you'll want to go back and tell me, hey, this is, you know, a few other companies that we've worked with, and this is what happened. But nobody is going to be able to remember the entire set of customer stories based on, you know, geography, size of the customer, industry of the customer. All right, so that's the kind of stuff where it can quickly come in and start showing you real results.

And then, of course, there are simpler things which people know the answers to, but you probably want them to use a particular vernacular for, right, so to handle an objection, or how do I want to ask for a demo, right, maybe something that we realize in the call script works better. And I just wanted to be a quick reminder to say, hey, you know, use this exact five words. And so the idea is not to have like a whole, you know, essay show up. The idea is to have like maybe a couple of bullet points show up, and those trigger what you already learned in your training program or in your coaching, so it doesn't replace that, it augments it. I love it. So where do you think we are on that journey, right?

Because my vision of sales reps in the future is, and I don't know, I thought we were way further down this path than we are, but my vision is Iron Man. I always use that example of Iron Man. I used to think it was, so, you know, Tony Stark, he's as a human being, right, he's got everything. He's rich. He's super smart. He's really good looking, jerk, right, whatever. So he's got all the tools as a person, right? But if he were to go out and try to fight all those aliens, he'd get killed, right? So he has to create the suit. Now, the suit is great, but the suit doesn't work without Jarvis, right? So you got the AI, you got the technology, like the suit, and then you got the person and those three together.

Now you have Iron Man and you can go kick ass. So my vision, and, you know, we sent Morgan to Gary Vita, I think it was about two years ago, he had this VoiceCon conference where it was all about voice and what it was doing. And Morgan talked to a lot of, like, Amazon and a bunch of, who were shipping thousands of these little echoes, right, to everybody so that they sit by their desk. And they were even saying, hey, look, in the future, not even in the future, right now, people are at their desk and they're going to come up and say, all right, Alexa, you know, I got a meeting coming up with, what's my day look like today? Well, John, you have a podcast coming up with Shruti, and by the way, her background is blah, blah, blah, so you might want to ask her this.

And you have two calls coming up with some really big customers, so you might, you know, da, da, da, da, and then being like, okay, cool, then, all right, let's call Shruti right now. And as you and I are having this conversation, information questions are coming up for me to ask you and all that stuff. So we're here, and we're right, I think, in the entry phase of this, I guess on a scale of one to 10, as far as 10 being I am Iron Man, I have Jarvis here, which is, you know, screen, I can see everything, you don't even know, and it's so seamless, versus zero, like we're still back in the stone ages of sales, of just, you know, I'm walking around with my briefcase here. Where do you think we are on that journey today?

I would say we are on a seven. Yeah, you think we're that far? Yeah, and I think that the reason is that, you know, so I've been thinking about a couple of technologies that have taken time, and a couple of technologies that have seen quicker adoption, right? So if you think about something as simple as the internet, right, which seems obvious today, it took a really long time to get adopted, right? But if you think about the smartphone, and if you think about the touchscreen being an important part of it, right, that was around for a long time before, you know, the smartphones came around. And in some sense, for some of those things to evolve, the use cases needed to evolve as well, right? If I didn't have a real use case, the technology didn't move as fast.

But what we've seen in the voice space, and especially for voice in customer interactions, right, is that the use case has always been pretty strong, all right? And so it's not going to be at a stage where, you know, and I would say that the 10 is really having that right armor for the Iron Man, right? 10 is not having a man inside it, right? Right, right. And so what needs to now happen is, over a period of time, as the technology gets adopted more and more, it's going to improve more and more, because it's going to get trained with the context of the people. And I think that's probably why we are at a 7 and not at a 10. But I definitely think that we are more than halfway there. Yeah, I think so too.

I just think that it's that, I think the switch from 7 to 8 to 9 is going to be a lot, there's going to be a lot to that switch, right? That it's, to your point, the adoption of it, the use cases, people getting comfortable with it, you know, because I'll go back to even like, let's use like Connect and Sell, okay? So Connect and Sell, I remember way back in the day, you know, it's the auto dialer, right? And, you know, and I've always been an old school sales rep where I'm picking up the phone, I don't need an auto dialer, but I get it. I understand the need for auto dialers because right now just connect rates are brutal, right? So, but I tried Connect and Sell, and this was, and I haven't tried the product in five years, so I'm going to just say that up front.

But when I tried it, I was like, all right, here we go. And I put the headset on and this thing just, you know, I could see the numbers going. And I was like, who, you know, I almost had a heart attack because I felt like I was like, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, bing. And then it was like, fuck, go shit, it's go time, right? And, and I, and I, I just couldn't do it. It wasn't because it wasn't me. You know what I mean? Like I just, and, and granted, I only tried it one day. So obviously there's, you got to practice anything, but I think that's where, you know, that's that, that, that comfortability of letting technology do things. I'm still struggling with. I mean, I know the younger generation, and I think that's why it's going to take a little while longer, because I think the younger generation, Gen Xers, we're a little bit set in our ways.

So, you know, us adopting a new technology that fundamentally changes the way we've been selling for the past 20 years, probably not going to change us. Whereas millennials and Gen Z, they've grown up with this stuff, and they like playing with these things. But now the key is they don't have the experience to have the conversation. So we can use these tools to actually give them that experience and shortcut that a little bit, right? Is that kind of the whole theory behind this? Yeah. And I think that, you know, there might even be an intermediate step, which is where, you know, you have people trying to coach these people, right? Like external sales coaches or internal sales coaches. And often you're flying blind.

And so the idea is that maybe first you use the technology with them, where they are able to maybe use that to coach someone better, right? And so it doesn't completely take away from the coaching piece. But then as they start coaching people and they see that there are patterns to it, that's kind of where they can have the AI takeover, right? So if I see myself repeating to 7 out of 10 sales reps that, hey, your talk-to-listen ratio is really horrible, or, you know, you didn't handle that objection correctly, that's kind of where I say, okay, you know what? I've had enough. Let me just go and make sure that. And what's going to happen is over a period of time, more and more things are going to get pushed into the bucket.

Probably the hardest thing that's going to not get pushed in is how to ask the right follow-up questions. Right. And I was going to, so that's a great transition, because that was where I was going to go with this next, which is, and I've asked this to multiple people on my podcast here, is do you think that you can teach genuine curiosity? Because I've been blessed, and I'll give you some context here, I think I've been blessed with a, I've always known I'm not the smartest kid out there, right? I didn't go to Harvard, I, you know, I did okay in school, and I'm not dumb, but my EQ is much higher than my IQ is, and so, and I think because of that, I've always known I'm not the smart kid, so I've always been genuinely curious to learn from other people who are smarter than me, right?

And so, when I have a conversation, that's why my podcast, for instance, like, this is one of my favorite ways of learning, because I get people like you who are smarter than I am, and I ask questions, and I'm like, well, what about this? And tell me more about that, because I'm genuinely curious about what you know, so I can learn from that, because I don't read books, I don't enjoy, you know, I fall asleep when I read. And so, this is how I learn, but I've been blessed, I think I've been blessed with being genuinely curious, and I guess my question for you is, with what you do, and the insights that you have in this world, can you, how much of is a nature nurture, I guess, with, when it comes to genuine curiosity?

Because I think that is such an important skill for great, the best sales reps I know, are genuinely empathetic and curious about the clients, about the client they're talking to, without caring at all about what they're trying to sell them. It's really hard. And I think it's, you know, I usually don't agree with the fake it till you make it. Yeah, me neither. But I think this is one place where I've seen it actually work. So I was in a coaching workshop a few years back, training to be an executive coach. And as part of the role plays, one of the things that they did was, you know, just, you know, like a few active, active listening exercises. And what happened during those exercises was, while you knew that the other person was doing something, like, you know, maybe just paraphrasing whatever you just said back at you, you actually did feel that that person had listened to what you had said, right?

Which is why I kind of feel that that's one place where, you know, the fake it till you make it works. Because while you know what the other person is doing, there are some more deep-rooted wirings in your brain which are still responding to that, right? So I think that's probably the only way that you can kind of move the needle on that. You're probably not going to be able to get everybody to a 10. But I think with enough iterations, you can probably keep getting people to a 7, maybe a 8. Yeah, so there's some kind of, I think you're right, I think there's some shortcut things you can do. And actually, I was just watching, I just re-watched, I had Chris Voss on my podcast a while back and, you know, his book Never Split the Difference.

Have you ever read that? I haven't yet. I am reading those. Yeah, you have to read that. And you have to watch, I actually just posted, you should check it out on LinkedIn. I just posted, it's an hour-long video of him standing up there and talking about, you know, like, so he, it's basically, he's telling you what he's wrote in the book. But he was teaching this gentleman, because he's a hostage, he was a FBI hostage negotiator, and he had this, like, guerrilla warfare guy who had cut off, you know, was just a mercenary. People would cut off heads and all that, and he had kidnapped an American, and they were trying to negotiate. And this guy was like $10 million, and as he was, he had some other intermediary negotiating.

So Chris Voss was coaching this guy to negotiate with this mercenary, like, just awful, awful person. And it was like, I want $10 million for reparation, you know, for all the oppression that you've given us over the years in the Philippines and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they thought it was $10 million for this guy, right? So screw you. And as Chris listened, he said, this isn't, this isn't for this guy. This is for the hundred years of oppression that he feels like he's been under because of America. So all he had the other guy do, and this guy was not an expert like Chris, right? Chris is like a psychology expert and everything. All he had him do, active listening technique, was to rephrase that guy's stance and go deep on all the negative stuff.

So on the next phone call, he was like, so you're not really mad about this. He's like, what I hear from you is that you're mad about, you know, the hundred years of oppression, how the American government has supported this regime that has kept you down and how it's da-da-da-da-da-da. And he, and he went like really like horrible, ugly, like, yes, this is, this is how you're feeling because this is what we've done to you. Is that what I'm hearing from you? And he said that there was this really fascinating because he talks about what, when you rephrase to somebody, what you want them to say is that's right versus you're right. If they say you're right, that's them pushing you up. Oh yeah, yeah, you're right.

You're right. But if they say that's right, then you got them. And so he said this, this mercy, like this horrible, horrible human being after that guy rephrased his situation. And that, and that took no technique. It was just like, like, this is what, this is what you told me. Like you, you, this is why you said you were pissed off. Right. And the guy, there was a pause on the phone and he said, that's right. And he said, it went from a $10 million bounty down to zero. They never talked about $10 million anymore. And then a month or two later, it diffused the entire situation and let, and the hostage let go. And it was even interesting. He said, uh, he said afterwards, the, the, the mercenary guy called the negotiator that Chris Voss was, and he said, have they promoted you yet?

And the guy was like, excuse me? He's like, I don't know what you did or how you did it, but that conversation saved that man's life. He's like, I was going to kill him. Um, but your conversation with me and understanding and being empathetic with me got me to stop thinking that way. So is it, can we get somebody? I mean, I guess that is what, talk to me about the tools that we have right now. Cause I think that's a, that's a training thing. I can tell you, Hey, a Shruti take some notes, uh, and make sure that, you know, before you move on to the next step, uh, just rephrase what I just said there. It, is that a training thing? Is that a just in time thing? Is that a learned thing? Like, what is that shortcut right there?

Cause I think that's a great shortcut. And before I answer that, I have a follow-up question, which is if you know, that mercenary had also been trained in negotiation tactics, or if that mercenary also knew about, you know, the whole active listening thing, would that person have reacted differently? According to Chris, no, according to Chris, even if you know that what's going on right now, people, empathy is, is the key to almost anything, right? Is like, if you can show that you understand someone's situation better than almost better than they do in some ways, then they will, um, they will look at you in a completely different light, even though that they might know you're using a technique on them.

Right. Um, so according to him and according to, you know, and he's a master psychologist that he got like, nope, it doesn't matter. It's, it's, it's human. Cause he said like, he's like the, um, what do you, he made an interesting point. He said, negotiators all around the world, all of them use the exact same technique. So if you're in Japan and, and you're in, uh, South America, like if you're taught the same techniques, because you know what the common denominator is between all of the different negotiators and all the different regions is, well, we're human. And there's limitations of being a human. There's certain things that just are ingrained in us of how we react to things. What, regardless of what culture you're from, you know, a smile is a smile in any culture, right?

Uh, cause we're humans. And so that's what he was saying is like, there's, there's limit, there's actually limitations of being a human because of how we react to things, no matter what, how bad you are, how good you are, what language you speak. And I think that's exactly why, if you started out with training somebody on, you know, just paraphrase every time you listen or just pause for three seconds before you answer an objection, you're probably still going to get very good results, even though that person might not necessarily have internalized everything. Right. But to your question on when is the right time to tell them some of these things, um, I think it depends on two things. All right.

And I don't, and I won't say that I have the perfect answer yet. It's still something that's, it's probably in the works, but one is, I think before and during the training session, what you need to do is you need to introduce the complex ideas, uh, and you need to get them, get their buy-in into saying that this actually works. All right. Uh, and so that's kind of where the training plays a part, which is if you tell them the story of, Hey, you know what, you could actually get a hostage, uh, to change their mind with enough empathy, uh, sorry, the mercenary to change their mind. And then you're kind of, at least selling to them that this needs to happen. All right. And then what you do just before or during, or just after the conversation is a quick reminder of saying, Hey, I know you wanted to do this.

Uh, right. It's, it's a bit like how, uh, when people try to change habits, what's been shown to be effective is to put an anchor in your day and then say, you know what, I will go and exercise after I brush my teeth. Uh, right. Similarly, if you were able to create a strong correlation between a situation and, uh, you know, an action that you want someone to take, that's probably the best way for them to change something that's become a very innate behavior and habit. Um, and I think the toughest part is, uh, you know, when you're trying to change something in a stress situation, it's the hardest, right? Think about you trying to eat healthy when you're really hungry. Um, that's actually, you bring that up.

Yes. Yesterday I was like, shit, I gotta go. I only had like 10 minutes for lunch and there's a Wendy's right by my house. And I really wish there wasn't because I was like, screw it. I'm just going to Wendy's. And I was like, uh, and every time I do that, I'm like, oh, boo. There goes another, you know, five days at the gym for me to get, work that off. Right. Cause in that, it's in that moment, like I could use, I could maybe go into the fridge and make something good, but it would take me too much time. So fuck it. I'm just going to have a burger. Right. Yeah. And that's exactly the same thing with the salesperson when they're on the call because they're in a high stress situation. Uh, right.

So it's that much harder for them to necessarily do the right thing unless they are being supported. Cause we revert back to what we know. Right. I mean, in those highs, like my experiences in, in high stress situations, nine times out of 10, you revert back to what you're comfortable with, what you know, as opposed to trying something new or being, you know, open to like, you know, just, you know, not knowing, you know, what the, what the situation is. Right. And this actually came to me when, you know, last year we were part of the Y Combinator program and I was presenting during demo day and, you know, it's like you present to a thousand odd investors. It's a very standard, you know, it's a very standard, uh, two minute pitch that you go out there and do.

Um, and the thing about that pitch is, uh, you know, while it seems like, you know, it needs to be perfect and it's so hard to do that. And, you know, the stage fright, it's actually so much easier than getting on a sales call because nobody is going to stop you and ask you a question. Yeah, you go up there with your prepared script, you have it sat down, you go in, you have your intonations, you have your emotions, everything's perfect. Yeah, yeah. But you get into a call and, you know, you don't know what's going to happen next. Yeah, no, it's, I think that's, so one more question I have, I, I, because I could, I could talk to you for days about this stuff because I'm fascinated with it. Um, but where, where do you fall with, um, scripts versus structure versus free form in the sense that, you know, a sales rep, you know, a lot of companies try to control the message.

So they're, they literally map out, say this. And if the client says this, then say that if the client says this, then say that. Right. And it turns reps into robots. Um, that said, you know, early in your career, you don't know what you don't know. So maybe those are helpful. So where do you fall on the line of scripts versus structure versus just, Hey, let them, you know, give them some ideas and let them run. How do you prepare for these podcasts? Is it a script or a structure? Yeah. So I think that's a good question. I mean, I think that, um, let, let, let's, let's start with the kid who just got out, like just got out of school, just started the company. Um, you know, has been given a list of a thousand accounts in their territory that they have to make cold calls into.

And they, they're calling into a specific persona and they have a, not a overly complex product, but, uh, a product that is, you know, and, and really all their job is to get a meeting. Right. So that scenario where I'm just coming out of school, I don't know a ton about the business and I don't, I don't, I usually, I'm not going to sit there and do a shitload of research before I make a phone call. Cause I got to make my 50 dials a day. So, so where do you think the, the evolution of that script or is that, is, is, is a script helpful, uh, to start with and then how should, and then if so, how should it evolve? It's interesting. I just finished a training with the two new SDRs that I've hired and we were doing role plays and I started out with, you know, not giving them a script or a structure.

Uh, I just gave them a situation, uh, and, you know, one of them is experienced, one of them is not. And, uh, what I realized was that, you know, you needed to have a structure. So we, you know, then put a structure in place after the first run. Um, and after that, uh, what I realized was that one person was still, uh, you know, struggling with it a little bit. And so what I realized was that if we needed to go in and put some very well defined scripts, uh, right, maybe for certain parts of the conversation, uh, where you're like, you know, this is what the company does. So this is how you introduce the company, or this is how you initiate the conversation. Um, and then the idea is that you don't script out everything, uh, but for some of them, you still allow them to, in some sense, use their intuition.

To say, this is the reason I'm asking this question is to find out this information. And I can ask this in three different ways. Um, so, I mean, I think that, like you said, the answer is dependent on the experience level of the person. Um, and maybe their comfort with, uh, you know, just talking to people as well. Um, and maybe early on, it again, starts with the same thing, which is you are on the side of being more cautious. Uh, you put a script in there and then over a period of time, you don't monitor. You don't monitor them on following the exact script, but you see whether you're still getting the same outcomes. And then you relax that, uh, and you move to a situation where it can actually be almost completely free form as long as you have an end goal defined.

Yeah. I think that, and I think that's kind of that journey that I look at it. I used to like, just roll my eyes at scripts. And I just remember when I was brand new in sales, reading scripts and how gross I felt reading those scripts, but there it's important to, to, to at least understand the talk track of that. And then very soon thereafter, once you get to know it, then you can make it your own, right? I, you know, I'll use Morgan as an example. Like when he first started training for me, I'm like, I want to see you deliver the presentation exactly the way I deliver this presentation. Slide by slide, story by story, because I have to quote unquote, certify you that you can stand up in front of a crowd and you know, the timing, you know, that, you know, you know, the flow here.

But I told him, I go, look, if I come back and audit one of your classes two to three months later, and you're still, you're still telling my stories, the exact same talk track and that type of thing. And you haven't made it your own, I'm going to be very disappointed in you, right? So it's like, I think we, there is a room for scripts that leads to structure that leads to freeform. So it's kind of like that whole, you know, unconsciously competent, unconsciously incompetent, right? Where you don't know what you don't know. So you need a script and then you become consciously incompetent and you're like, okay, I know what I don't know. So I, I, I still need this script. Then you're consciously competent.

You're like, all right, I kind of got this. So the structure's there and then unconsciously competent where you just do it. But if you look at those unconsciously competent people, I almost guarantee you could, you could reverse engineer their structure. I mean, and, and does your, so like, if, if you would have put, would you say, or, and, and just in your experience with the, with the solution that you have with wingman, if you put that, like, for instance, 20, me, I've been selling for 24 years, right? If you have a flow, I have a flow, I know exactly how to take a conversation. Would you be able to kind of dissect my calls and say, yep, look at it and use that as almost like a best practice to say, hey, look, everybody, see how John intro that, see how John asked that question, see how he did that.

And there's a structure to almost every quote unquote artist you see out there. Was that, is that a fair assessment? So that's not something that we are trying to do right now. Right. What we're trying to do right now is more to understand if John was, you know, interacting with people for this purpose, what are some of the things that he needs to be able to talk about? Right. Like, so what are the questions that people might ask you or what are the common topics? All right. But not so much to, and so use that to say, hey, okay, so these are some of the things that I need to prepare the rest of the team on. All right. Maybe that's what Morgan needs to know. And then the idea is, you could go down two parts.

You could say, hey, let's see how can we copy John the best. Or we could say, okay, can we abstract out and see what is it that others can, you know, take from that structure, but make their own. Right. Now, the tool doesn't do the last part of it today. Right. So what it does is it does the first two things, which is it's able to understand what are the common themes that are occurring, what are the things that people are talking to John about. And then it can still show you how does John handle those situations, but it still needs a human being to go and say, hey, you know, I want to copy this exactly, or should I just abstract it out? Yeah, I gotcha. I gotcha. Cool. So, because I think that's a, you know, everybody always talks about like, what does great look like?

Right. And, and, and I think that's something that a lot of these tools can do to a certain degree. It's like, hey, let's extract, like, look at, let's look at the close ratios of the best reps and those types of things and say, okay, what are they doing? How are they answering these questions? How are they guiding that conversation that we can all learn from? And again, provide some structure to say, okay, look, talk to listen ratio. This is what happens when they object to you. Instead of answering the objection, they ask a question, you know, those types of things, which are all extremely valuable for other people to learn from. Right. Yeah. Love it. Cool. Well, like I said, I think we could, I, I'm, I'm, I've been fascinated with this topic of just in time learning and artificial intelligence coaching for a long time.

Um, I, I was probably about, I'd say three years ahead of my eagerness of, of where this, uh, this industry I thought was going to be. Um, and it, but it sounds like that we're, we're kind of back on real, uh, you know, tools now like wingman that, that, that are, have that opportunity to genuinely coach in a real time environment, uh, which is really encouraging to me. So I'm, I'm, thank you for the time here. I've, I've learned a lot. Um, is there, what, what can, um, just to finish things up, where can people learn more about, uh, what you're doing and, and wingman and all that other stuff to understand, uh, how they can leverage some of this stuff or just, just stay on top of what's happening right now with what you're doing.

Sure. Um, so our website is trywingman.com. Um, and I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. You can, anybody can reach out to me there. My name is Shruti Kapoor. Um, and yeah, it was a pleasure talking to you, John. And, uh, you know, it's, it's definitely an exciting time for the space and we'll see how it pans out. Um, and I hope it won't go down the path of augmented reality and take a much longer time to come to reality. Yeah. It's, I mean, that's another one, like, like augmented reality. I was again, freaking out. I saw, uh, what is it, was the movie ready player one. Have you seen that one? No, I haven't. So you should see ready player one. Cause again, that was, I was convinced that, holy shit, we're going to ruin this planet.

And then we're all just going to live in our basements with, uh, with headphones. You know, with headsets on and be artificial intelligence or be like virtual reality world. Right. Cause there's, there's actually a quick story before we get up. There's a place here in Woburn, uh, my hometown, Woburn, Massachusetts, that has the largest, uh, inside augmented reality, uh, virtual reality gaming room. And what it is, it's this huge, it's this huge warehouse, huge warehouse. It's all gridded out. You go in there with eight of your friends and you put these headsets on with a backpack and they give you this gun. And all of a sudden when they turn this game on, like you are in a spaceship or you are in a zombie world and, and I can look at you and I can look and you look bad-ass and all this other stuff.

And then they talk you through it. And then they like, get you through to this point. And they, they're like, all right, we don't know what's about to happen when this door opens, just be ready. And this door opens and zombies or aliens come screaming at you. And when I tell you it is like, there's no way that you can't freak out when that happens, because it is so real that it's just like, hold. I mean, you walk out, you're shooting everything and you're screaming and yelling and you're like, you have to, you have to run down, uh, ramps. And even though, you know, even though, you know, you're on a flat surface, you're in a warehouse on a flat surface that says, okay, run down this ramp and run up to the next side.

And you're like, logically that I know that's, but, but you, you literally, you feel like you're running down. It's, it's so crazy. Uh, but once again, I think we're, we're, we're, we're pretty far away from us being in a fully augmented reality world at this point, but it's coming, it's coming. And I, and, and I think so is this just in time. I think it's just in time learning is coming a lot. It's coming faster, thankfully, uh, than that. So, uh, cause I don't want to be completely immersed in a virtual reality world just yet. I still like this one. It's ironic because I just got off a game of Counter-Strike. Ah, nice. There you go. Very cool. Well, again, Shruti, uh, for those of you listening on the podcast, it's S-H-R-U-T-I Kapoor, K-O-K-A-P-O-O-R.

And it's trywingman.com. So go check them out. They're doing some really cool shit. Uh, and, uh, Shruti, again, thank you so much for the conversation. I had a great time. Thanks, John. No problem. Just like I say all the time, everybody, no matter what happens today, if you had a bad day, go make somebody happy. Go make somebody smile. Cause even if you had a really bad day, if you can make somebody smile, you know, you had a great one. So make it happen. Everybody have a great week. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.