Alex McNaughten: Unpacking the World of AI in Sales Coaching

Someone gave me some really good advice once, which was spend your 20s like learning, don't worry too much about the money, and then cash in a little bit later. And I think there was something to that because you can then take advantage of opportunities a lot better. Hey, everyone, welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us. Now, today's conversation is with Alex McNaughton, he is the co-founder and co-CEO of Grow AI, a team performance platform that solves frontline management and coaching gaps across the sales organization.

Prior to Grow AI, Alex has been a seller, sales leader, and two-times founder supporting revenue teams. And this was a conversation about coaching, coaching, coaching, coaching, and the mess that we're in right now, and the mess we've always been in, quite frankly, you know, we talked about how managers are never, you know, usually it's the best rep that gets promoted to the management with no training on how to coach or train other people, and inevitably, it's just a recipe for failure. And so, we dove into some of my concerns recently about grit and also feedback, receiving feedback. I've noticed a lot of reps these days have a really hard time receiving feedback, specifically from their managers, and they take it very personally in a lot of ways.

And also, where I think AI is coming in spades here, which is coaching. This is where I think AI can make the biggest difference in the sales world right now. So, dove into a lot of stuff. Great conversation here. He's out in New Zealand, so he had an early morning while I had later in the afternoon here, but it was a great call. So, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Let's make it happen. Alex McNaughton, how are you, my friend? Welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast. It is great to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, man. Thanks for chiming in from New Zealand, right? That's right. Originally from London, but currently in Auckland, New Zealand. What? We'll get into this, but what brought you to New Zealand?

I've never been. I've heard incredible things. What brought you there, though? Why'd you end up moving there? My dad is from here originally, so he went to London on his OE like a lot of New Zealanders do. Ended up being there for nearly 20 years, and yeah, so I moved the family back here. I did high school here, and I've been here since. Not a bad place to be. I've heard great things, but it's on my list. There's only a few places on this planet I haven't been, and that's one of them. It's worth a visit. It's worth a visit. I've heard. So let's talk. We're going to talk coach. The focus of today is going to be on coaching and good, bad, and ugly of what's going on right now with coaching and always has.

But before we do that, as always, Alex, tell us your origin story. And again, back up before even high school and those type of things, like growing up, where'd you grow up? And I always like parents, what they do, love hearing the origin stories of people so I can kind of get that, where'd that entrepreneurial spirit come from, and what made you who you are. So give us some background, and we'll jump into it. Sure. So born in central London. Dad was an investment banker, but then started his own company probably 25 years ago or so now. And my mother was a West End actress, and then moved into a corporate career after that, and spent the first half of my life in London, and then shifted over to Auckland, New Zealand when I was a teenager.

Not happy about it. I was, you know, I just, so the English school system is like super, super, super competitive. So I just spent literally seven years of my life preparing to get into the high school that I really wanted to get into. And then first term, my dad's like, hey, we're moving to New Zealand. And I'm like, what do you mean? Like, what are you talking about? And anyway, shifted to New Zealand and been here ever since. So like 13, 14 years old is when you were? 14. Yeah, 14. 14 years. 14 years old. I was a very stroppy teenager. So it's funny, my daughter's 13 right now, and she's going into high school, and she's got, yeah, we're going to private schools and doing the whole tour. She finally accepted on Friday, thankfully.

But my wife and I were trying to convince her to move, because we just bought a place in Costa Rica. So my wife and I were trying to convince her. We're like, well, sweetheart, you kind of have to make this transition anyways. And none of your friends from your existing school are going to be at any of the schools you're applying to. So why not go to school in Costa Rica? Like, there's some cool stuff down there. And she was adamant about it. Like, she was like, absolutely not. And obviously, you know, we make our own decisions. But I told my wife, I'm like, if we do this, then we're in for like two years of straight up hell while she just hates everything about us for that reason. How long did it take you to get over making that switch until you were finally like, all right, okay, fine, this is it.

Versus just being ripping, ripping pissed off. No, do you know what's so funny? I was furious. But then of my two, I've got two younger sisters, and they were really excited for the move. Okay, good. I was the one within a few months who was like adapted and was like loving life. And they were the ones who took a bit longer, actually. No way, really? Yeah. So it was actually by the, once I got here, I really had a good time with it. Nice. Yeah, I think that's a lot. Like, a lot of people just have the perception, right? And then once they get someplace, it's like, oh my God, this is incredible. Yes, exactly. So yeah, that was kind of my start. And as a kid, I was sort of an introvert, reader, but also played a lot of sports.

Kind of did everything. I kind of like tried everything when I was young. And then as I got older, kind of zeroed in all the things I was more interested in. Now, how'd you stumble across? Because you've had a lot of, I mean, you've started a few companies here. You know, you went to, you're an advisor to a lot of stuff too. So how'd you get into sales? Like most people fall into it. So what was your kind of entree into sales? Because you didn't major in it, right? What'd you major in? So yeah, I'll tell you the story. So I was 19. I was studying finance and accounting. And the thought I'd given to it was literally this, because I was completely lost at that age. And my dad had started his life as an investment banker.

So I thought, okay, I'll go study finance. It's worked out for him. I'm sure it'll be fine. Quickly realized I hated it. I'm now, I think it was in my second semester of university. And I'm like, oh my God, I don't want this to be my life. I applied on a whim for an internship at a tech startup. Because I was like, I need something to do in the summer period. So I was like, okay, I'll take this internship. Two months into my internship, they ended up hiring me as their first sales hire. And I ended up being their VP of sales. So I had a team of 15, zero to two mil run, crazy, crazy ride. And I never had to apply for a job after that. So I kind of caught the bug in my first few months as an intern.

Because as an intern, I was basically given a list and was like, go call, make some calls. And I was calling construction companies. I was trying to sell them some software, mobile payment software. Yeah, mobile payment software to construction companies. That's right. And then getting told to F off about 40 times a day. As you can imagine, my gruff tradies on the phone were just not happy. This is like young kid. But anyway, I did relatively well, well enough that they hired me. And we had a partnership with the largest telecommunications company in the country. And they distributed our mobile payments platform everywhere. And I led that roll out and then built teams. And yeah, it was a wild ride.

And then I did two corporates after that. HPE and Cornerstone on Demands are US companies. And then I did one more growth company here in NZ. And then it was 2018. And I'd started advising a couple of startups in my network. As you know, as you kind of do, just some folks who needed some help, really. That turned into my first business a bit by accident. And I became a coach slash advisor to 130 companies in five years. Everything from pre-revenue through to public list to corporate and everything in between. And I kind of just became one of the go-to folks in this part of the world for tech sales. And then during that period, I also co-founded a staffing, a hybrid staffing and sales training company and Apprento.

And that company started with creating pathways for young people or careers, which is into the profession and then wrapping training around them. And then that kind of broadened out into a broader staffing and sales training provider. And yeah, that was a crazy education into all that's working in sales, but also all that's horribly wrong with it. Yeah. Hey, I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. I want to take a quick minute to share with you what I'm working on these days with my new JB Sales membership. It includes live monthly training delivered by me on my two signature courses, which are filling the funnel and driving a close that cover all aspects of the sales process. It also includes monthly workshops that I'll be running on specific sales skills and different tech skills like ChatGPT and how to leverage AI throughout the entire sales process.

Finally, the membership gives you access to my entire online catalog with every course and every tip I've ever done. And as an exclusive offer to my podcast listeners, if you go to JBarrows.com, click on the individual membership link and use coupon code podcast at checkout, you'll get 25% off. Now let's get back to the conversation. Well, I think that's where I want to take this way is we're going to bridge to coaching here in a minute, but I want to get your perspective on grit and burnout first. We actually, even before, you know, we jumped on the recording part of this, we were talking about like, Jesus, it's fucking brutal out there. But I'm getting more now than ever, I'm getting a lot of reps reaching out to me asking, John, like, fucking A man, you've been in sales for 28 years.

Like, how in the world are you still doing this? Because I've only been in here for two years, three years, whatever it is, like some super short amount of time. And they're like, I'm already feeling super burnt out. So talk to me about like your journey as you went through sales, right? Because that first job, getting told, fuck off, you know, 40 times a day, that type of stuff, you know, you got to be a special kind of person. And my philosophy is that as much as cold calling is in many ways very ineffective, you know, I still train it. I still think it's an important part of the process, right? But I think actually one of the most important parts and why I still think reps should cold call is the grit factor, is to get through that grind because that's going to show you what type of person you are in a lot of ways and give you a lot more stamina, if you will, moving forward when you're not getting told, fuck off 40 times, right?

It's a lot easier when you're not doing that. So where was, I mean, you, you stumbled into sales, you kind of got that first job internship, and then it just took off on a rocket ship for you. Was there ever a point where you were just like, fool, I don't know, man, like this profession is, is, is tough? Or did you, did you have a bigger plan in mind for yourself that kept you going? Great question. I didn't have a bigger plan in terms of like, I didn't know what I wanted my career specifically to look like. But I really leaned into the pain, actually. You know, like I really leaned into the, this is hard. I don't know how to do it yet. I'm going to figure it out. And that's kind of always been my mindset.

And like, for context, like when I was 19, I was masked, like naturally, I'm a huge introvert. So for me, the idea of calling strangers was absolutely terrifying. But I thought, you know what, let's see if I can figure this thing out. Let's see if I can learn it. And I just got fascinated. And, and, um, you know, I think leaning into that, anything worth doing is hard, like anything in life, um, and you have to lean into the pain and, and, and, you know, that's how you get stronger. I don't think it gets easier. You just get better and stronger and more resilient. Um, and you know, back to kind of your, where you open that, which is like self-care and this idea of grit. And I think looking after yourself in all aspects of your life really makes it a lot easier to do that.

Like when I was younger, I didn't do that very well. And I was, you know, like a classic youngster, you know, you're out partying and you're, you know, doing things that aren't conducive to a healthy, strong mind. Um, but as I've got older, you know, I'm 11, over 11 years now in kind of the sales world. And I got really good at that side of things too. And then it just becomes easier. So like working out, eating well, um, you know, making sure you've got good people around you who are supporters and having those strong relationships, all of that actually. Funnily enough, leads to more success in sales or any career. Yeah. Yeah. I think, and that's the one thing I'm, I'm a little concerned with, you know, but again, I always look at us, sound like my dad every time, right?

It's like, these kids are not, you know, they don't work hard enough, whatever. But I do think grit is something that is not as prevalent these days as, you know, it used to be because there is a lot of easy ways to make money. There are some, some, some hacks now that weren't even available when I was graduating. Yeah. I know you talked to Richard and Scott, uh, you know, on their podcast, Richard got me to open up my mind a little bit because he said, you know, all this shit that we give millennials and Gen Z and that type of stuff. A lot of it stems from jealousy in the sense that we, we, we didn't have those tools. You know what I mean? We didn't have those resources. So these damn kids, like it's so easy for them.

So yes, I do think there is a work ethic because I'm, I'm noticing it personally, right? Based on who I train and all this other stuff. But I do think there is something to the fact that, you know, it's, it, there is a lot of more options these days for reps to make money or, or, or do different things. So they don't necessarily have to sit through the bullshit and the pain that we did. So I'm, I'm, there's a blessing and a curse to it, I think. Yeah. I think there's something to that when you, you know, when you can catch a pump on, you know, an NFT or something, and then suddenly you're an overnight millionaire because you bought the right JPEG. Um, you know, if that happens to you early on and enough in life, then your whole perception of work and reward is different because you haven't had to do the reps to get the reward.

Um, and you know, I think there's something I remember someone gave me some really good advice ones, which was, um, spend your twenties, like learning, like spend the early part of your career learning. Don't worry too much about the money and then cash in a little bit later. And I think there was something to that because you can then take advantage of opportunities a lot better. Oh, absolutely. I tell people all the time, take as many risks as you can in your twenties. Cause you're, you don't have as many responsibilities and your failure, you know, you can bounce back a lot faster, right? So in your twenties, you should try as many things as you could possibly try. To try to figure out what you like to do and what you're good at too.

In your thirties, you start, you should kind of pick a lane, you know, and start to have a focal point, that type of thing. And then your forties are like your wealth generating years. Like that's where you figured it out. You've arrived and you need to fuck, you need to put as much cash in the bank as possible in your forties, right? To cash in on all that hard work that you've done. And then that sets you up for the rest of your life. So that's kind of where I'm like right now. All right, I gotta, you know, I paid my dues. I did my thing now, I gotta cash in at this point and I got probably five years left in me before I'd probably fall apart. But let's hope not. Yeah, we'll see. So, you know, I work ethic, I think, you know, I beat that to death over the past, you know, few years here.

But one of the things, and this translates to coaching, I wanted to get your perspective on feedback right now. Okay. Because I think, I actually, I actually think AI, the best application for AI in the short term for sales specifically is coaching. Okay. But there's a specific reason for it. Not only is it 24-7 and that type of stuff, but it is pseudo objective. Yeah. I mean, we can all argue that with AI and objectivity, subjectivity type of thing. But the subjectivity component of feedback is what has always been a challenge, but I think now is a challenge more than ever. Because reps, and I've experienced this with some of my previous reps, where when you give them feedback, especially relatively new sales professionals in the industry, they don't take feedback well.

Like, at least in my experience, the ones that I have coached or ones that I've worked with, like when you give them just honest, direct feedback, you know, not trying, not saying you suck or, you know, anything like that. Hey, you know, constructive feedback. Here's what you should do. It's almost like this allergic reaction in a lot of ways where they're like, ah, and they're getting very sensitive in the sense that I find that managers right now are having a hard time even giving feedback because they're worried about the HR ramifications of it, right? Now, a rep is sitting there saying, I might be giving that rep direct, really good, positive feedback, but that rep might not think that I like them for whatever reason.

Yeah. And so, even though my feedback is 100% spot on as far as what the challenge is and it had nothing to do with them personally, it's about the situation, they don't receive it because their perception is, well, he doesn't like me. He likes the other, you know, he likes the other reps better and he gives me shit and so, right, so I'm actually seeing the coaching gap grow with frontline managers, even though it's always been an issue. So, let's talk feedback first and let's talk coaching after. Yeah. Where do you see the challenge in feedback right now? I think there's a few things there if we unpack it. I think if we start on the manager side and we think about the experience for any manager, it was like me, you're the salesperson that suddenly gets promoted and now you've got people reporting to you.

95% of sales managers don't get taught how to manage a team. They don't get any sales management training. So, you know, I think there's that aspect of it, which is we've got people managing teams through no fault of their own who actually don't know how to give feedback, coach, lead. And then there was a really interesting piece of data that came out. I'm going to forget where it's come from, though. Classic. But one in 10 leaders have no inherent leadership capability. Right. So, that's the kind of the people who are tasked and responsible with giving the feedback is they're not really set up to do it because no one's really showed them how. And then you've got busy, stressed salespeople who, you know, you put yourself in the shoes of any AE today and you've got pressure on pipeline.

You've got you're dealing with customers. You're dealing with all this. And now suddenly you've got a clumsy manager coming in and giving you feedback, probably not when you want it, probably not given particularly well, again, through no fault of their own. So, I think, you know, there's a lot of factors to it. And, you know, there's simple things that can help, like asking for permission to give feedback before giving it. That was something I learned and made a huge difference in terms of how receptive people were just by letting them opt into it rather than just giving it. But, yeah, I think it's a tough one. I think, obviously, we need to give feedback to sellers. But I think part of the challenge is we haven't shown people how to give feedback or created the space to do it in the right way.

Yeah. And I think I agree. I mean, it always kills me that the best rep always gets promoted to be the manager. And it's like, that's usually the worst person you can promote because a lot of times they're the artist, right? They're the one, they just do what they do. They know how to manage their time. They know how to have what conversations to focus on. And when I say they're an artist, there's obviously science behind what they do, but they don't look at it that way. They just, it's a lot easier for them in some ways. So, when you put that person in a position to now teach everybody else that to do that, that don't have the same skills as them, it's like, what are you talking about? So, you know, okay.

And then that's where I think the feedback is bad because I'm now giving you feedback on what worked for me as opposed to what works or what might work for you. I'm giving you my feedback on what worked for me. And I tell this to the reps all the time, you have to manage up and you have to become a scientist because if you don't become a scientist and you can't kind of pinpoint where your need is, if you will, in the sales process, right? Is it getting, is it getting connects? Is it getting through gatekeepers? Is it getting that initial discovery call? Is it just, what is it? Because if you can't tell me, then what happens is you sit in front of me and I'm your manager. I don't know why you're not, it's not working or anything like that.

So, I kind of guess. I'm like, all right, well, why don't you try this? And then you try whatever I told you and it's probably not going to work as well because you're not me. And then you're going to come back the next week and I'm going to tell you to try something else and then I try something else and then eventually I'm going to get super frustrated with you, right? And so, that's why I think AI has a huge potential here. And to be that immediate feedback loop, first of all, the endorphin rush of getting immediate feedback is huge, right? So, I'm on a call and I can have that thing called. But then the practice component to it in the role play scenario, those type of things. So, talk to me about why, for you, why was coaching a focal point that you wanted to solve that problem?

And what were you seeing out there that either supports or conflicts with some of the stuff I just said? Don't think most of what we talk about when we talk about coaching is coaching. You know, like we see a lot of platforms out there saying we're a coaching platform, but you're not. You're an information platform. You're surfacing things. But coaching is an act of helping someone figure out a problem for themselves. It is not telling. So, like coaching is actually often question-based. It's mostly question-based. Yes, there's a showing element to it, but it's question-based. You're like helping someone figure out a problem. It's a slower process. Training is, I'm going to show you the thing.

Coaching is, I'm going to help you unpack something and help you think through a problem so that you learn from it. And I'm not having to do this again. And, you know, so I think that's, I think most people don't know what coaching is. And I think what often happens if we think about, again, we go back to the sales manager and I'll stress it. It's no fault of their own because no one showed them, is they're not coaching their people. They're coming in and either taking over because they revert to doing what they are really good at, which is selling. So, they'll take over or they will quickly show how, what worked for them exactly as you said. I 100% agree with you. They'll show them what worked for them, but maybe actually doesn't work for this particular person or they will give some poorly delivered feedback that might just not get listened to.

Whereas the only thing that really actually elevates capability consistently is coaching. So, training will, you know, what is it? Like the 10% of something post-training is actually remembered a month later. Yeah, 17, 18, whatever. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas coaching actually will elevate capability. So, I think that's part of the problem is like we talk about coaching a lot. There's platforms out there that claim to be coaching, but they're not really coaching. They're just surfacing information, then expecting the leader to translate that into coaching. But the leader doesn't know how to. Yeah, I mean, again, the analogy of the sports, right? Your coach on sports doesn't shoot the ball for you.

You know what I mean? They don't score for you. They show you how to score. They get repetitive motions. They give you critique and feedback on your abilities, not theirs. And I think that's a big piece of this. And I was, you know, horrible when I was a manager because I was basically like, keep up. You know, my managers, I was keep up. Like, you'll learn a shitload if you're paying attention and you can keep up. But I can't slow down because I was a player coach. And I'm still seeing that a lot. So, what made you tackle this? What made you say that this is, you know, my next thing that I want to build? And was it something that you wanted to do before AI and then AI just made it real for you?

Or was AI an eye-opener for you and you said, ooh, now we can do something cool? So, I was doing this, but in human-led businesses. So, my two previous businesses were people businesses. So, we were doing this and we were seeing the results. So, like, with Apprento, my prior company, you know, we would do longer-term coaching programs. And we were noticing that new high failure rates were less than 3%. People were ramping up in half the time. People were getting promoted faster. So, I was like, all right, there's something there. So, that was that side of it. And then the other side of it was I just felt the problem and experienced it. And I was just getting sick and tired of still seeing it.

And then when I really dived into the data, I realized just how bad things were, you know, like 39% quota attainment, 14-month average tenure for a salesperson, 16 months or 17 months for a sales leader, one in four new high failure rates. And I was like, oh, my goodness, has it always been this way? And I went back and I was like, yeah, it kind of has. It's always been that way. And so, you know, maybe somewhat crazily thought, let's fix it. And it just so happened I reconnected with two buddies of mine at the start of 2023. I'd known them for a couple of years. And Alistair and Dan, Alistair, they're both my now co-founders. Alistair had just graduated with his master's in machine learning and machine intelligence from Cambridge and was looking for a chunky problem.

He's exited founder and he's looking for a chunky problem. And then Dan's a kind of engineer, data scientist, like product wizard, like build, like incredible building. And they're best friends. They were looking for a problem. And I was like, look, this problem has been around forever. Let's try and solve it. Actually, let's not try. Let's solve it. And we started experimenting in May. And by July, we were all in and we co-founded Grow AI and started charging our first customers in January. Nice. Very cool. That's always a good thing, right? Did you get funding? No, so I seeded the company and then we bootstrapped since then. Good for you. Yeah, I think that's the funding always scares me these days, not just because of what happened over the past year, but that extra stress, that extra pressure from somebody else.

Sometimes it's a good thing to push you in the right direction, but other times it's a boat anchor that is just a stress that I know I never wanted. So kudos for you for going on your own. We will take funding, but we wanted to be confident that we were solving the problem and confident that we knew what we were going to spend money on before just saying, hey, just write us a check and we'll figure it out. We wanted to actually know exactly how we're going to spend this. What's it going to enable us to achieve? So let's talk about coaching specifically outside of any tech or anything like that. You had said, you know, it's about question, right? Question-based and teaching them how, you know, not doing it for them.

What does good feedback sound like? Right? So forget AI for a second, but what does good feed, like I'm a rep, I just got off some calls, you listed some calls, whatever, right? And you're about to give me some feedback. You know, I've heard people say the compliment sandwich, right? Where you say something good, then you say something challenging and then say something good again, make them feel better. But what to you is a way to make sure that a rep is open to receiving feedback to your point, like asking for permission? Yeah. What does it sound like to you? It's something along the lines of, hey, you might not like what I'm about to say, but can I give you some feedback, please? And then, but even before that is actually, that person needs to know that you have their best interests at heart.

So you need to have built a relationship with them or at least earned the right where they're actually going to listen to you. So what does that mean? That means that, you know, I've, they've seen through my actions that I care about them, that I want them to improve and I'm there to help them to do that. So I think if you set that foundation first, then when it comes to the feedback, it's going to be received a lot easier. And then if you ask for permission and say, hey, you might not like what I have to say, but I'm going to, can I give you some feedback? I think it's going to really help you close this deal or help you with whatever thing. They're going to listen. Then at that point, just tell it to them straight.

Like, yeah, maybe a compliment sandwich works, but I don't know. Like, I think a lot of the time it's better just to tell them straight and then ask them what they think. Like, hey, did that land with you? Do you disagree with any of that? And how, what are you going to do next time? It's not that complicated, but it's amazing how doing it that way gets such a different result. Yeah, I think that's the, from an approach, I think that's where most people are afraid to, is like, how do I even approach this? Especially when it comes to negative criticism, right? And I think I read something with Chris Voss where, you know, he does what you do, which is straight up comes out, lets them know this is going to be a shitty conversation.

So he doesn't kind of fluff it up. Hey, how you been? You know, what's up? You know, how you doing? And then get into it. Because now you're creating this false sense of what this is all about. And so he eats the frog right out front and he'll be like, hey, look, this is going to come across harsh. But the reason I'm giving it to you is because I believe in you. You know what I mean? The reason I'm giving you this feedback is because I believe you can fix it and I can believe you and I believe you can get better. And so here it is. And I think that approach of this, you know, up front of this is going to be harsh, but the reason I'm giving it to you is because I believe you can fix this. I can believe you can get better puts people in a much better position to be open to whatever that feedback is.

That's it. And then give them an opportunity to have a small conversation and it doesn't have to be hours, but have a conversation about it. It's like, hey, like, how did that land with you? What are you going to do next time? How are you going to incorporate that? And like, those kind of questions get them thinking about the implementation piece, which is crucial because it's all well and good. I've given you the feedback, but unless you're going to do something about it. So like actually get them to think through and articulate and speak out loud, like, how am I going to change or like, what am I going to do next? And that way you're already partly on the, on the journey to improving whatever it is you were trying to improve.

Yeah. I think again, it's getting them to, to buy into it versus you telling them, right? The whole can't, you know, bring a horse to water, can't make them drink type of thing. It's if they don't want to get better, if they don't believe they can get better, then there's not much you can do. But if they're open to, and that's why obviously I think hiring is the biggest key to all of this, right? Making sure that you have the right people on the bus to give coaching to. How can, how do you determine if someone is coachable in the hiring process? Um, I think pretty much everyone is coachable really. Like I think anyone can be taught something. Um, that's my default stance on this stuff. I think, yes, there are outliers and there are some pigheaded people that would just never listen to you like, but like in general, I think most people are relatively coachable.

Um, I think we're just not coaching very well. Um, but how do you figure out like someone's aptitude for, you know, like how open they are? Um, you can do psychometric tests to figure some of the stuff out. And, you know, I'm a big fan of doing that in a recruitment process is using some sort of objective testing. And we, we did that a lot in our staffing firm and that helped a lot. Um, I think you can ask people how, uh, you know, behavioral type questions as well during an interview that can give you a sense of that. Um, but no, my default is most people are pretty coachable. Uh, and if you approach it in the right way, that's the key. Yeah. I think that, and, and the challenge with managers is you get 10 different reps who are reporting to you and you have 10 different ways of receiving information.

You have 10 different ways of, of, of having to relate to these people and understand what their individual priorities are so that you can coach towards and get them motivated to do what they do. Correct. Um, actually just on that, it's something, you know, on this topic is this idea of sort of like push notification style, um, you know, feedback coaching from some of these platforms out there. Um, I think one of the reasons that it doesn't actually impact performance or capability much is because of that natural human inclination of being like, I'm not, I'm not ready to listen to this. Um, you know, so if, you know, I'm on a call and like, you know, hypothetically, but we were on a call right now and I had a pop-up notification saying, Hey, you should bring this up with John.

I'm like, what, what the hell do you know? I'm here with John. I'm talking to him. Yeah. That's the, I, that where I, there was a tool I was checking out the other day where it was like a phone dialing thing. And one of their big things was, Oh, you can jump right in on a call and, and basically, you know, either a do some coaching. So the rep had their headset on and in their headset, their boss is in their headset while they're talking to the client and the boss can tell them certain things, what to say. And I'm like, does that really work or, or they could even jump in on the call and, you know, and kind of just, Oh, cool. Hey, Alex, what's going on? I'm Jim's boss, you know, that type of thing.

And I'm like, maybe some people need that. Maybe some, maybe that's the way people, but if you, if that did, if that happened to me, I, I would, I would lose it. You know what I mean? I, I, there's no way I would lose my entire train of thought because you're in the moment, right? And I mean, a lot of, you should be. Yeah, exactly. The sales should be, you are in the moment. We are talking about this thing right now and I'm reading your body language and I'm trying to make some adjustments. And yes, I know as a junior rep, I could do a lot better on this stuff, but you popping into my ear immediately is not exactly what's going to help this, this, you know, let's move the dial. No, no, it's really not.

Where do you see this all going? Where do you see the AI coaching going? I mean, is this going to replace managers in a lot of ways, since managers are so inept at doing it, or is this going to significantly reduce or empower them? I see it as the third option. I'm talking, you know, what we talk about as a company is AI co-management. So, you know, we, you've got AIs across your team helping you do things and helping you be in 10 places at once, um, helping you coach, helping you surface the things that you need to bring up with your team when you're with them one-on-one or in a team setting, helping you make better decisions. So I see this as a massive enabler and empowerer of sales management versus a complete replace.

And I think I was, I might've been Richard Harris. I've talked to about this, but, um, there's, there's, yes, there's like the programmatic systematic parts of managing a team, but then there's also like the random human ships that comes up and AI certainly for a while and probably forever won't be able to do that very well. Yeah. I mean, we'll see, right? It's getting better and better every day. And I, I'm, and it's, I am curious because I think, you know, I saw a few years back, a lot of clients that I worked with, they almost gave up on the manager coaching stuff because they just, again, investing in it and, and all that stuff. And so what they started to do was let the managers be managers, effectively deal chasers.

And then they hired full-time coaches. So an actual full-time coach whose job was to go in and listen to the gong calls. And have individual coaching plans for each rep. So the manager could again, be freed up to do what they're, what they're really ultimately good at, which is closing deals and working through that stuff. So I think the AI is going to take over that. And to your point, I think that we're, I am, all the stats are out there that the frontline manager is the number one reason people stay or leave their company. So if it's an AI bot, you know, to be determined the impact that's going to have, but that's where I think, you know, managers, the human factor of it is, is, is going to be the biggest part of management moving forward.

Yeah. Like, you know, it's, it's interesting, right? So what you just said around like hiring dedicated coaches across a team, I think you still have the problem is that you have everything between rubbish and great. What you have with AI and what we see is consistency. So you can have a human coaching experience, but consistently all the time. And also tailored to that specific individual. And then the other challenge you have is bandwidth. So as a human, like one, you know, and you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll no doubt appreciate this. Like when you're coaching people, uh, if you're switching between companies, switching between role types, um, there's only so much information you can remember.

And, you know, I've got a pretty good memory, but if you're working with a lot of companies and you're trying to remember what you spoke to John or Sally with two weeks ago, and you're like, it's a lot. AI doesn't have that problem. Uh, you know, so our vision for this is AI, like our AI co-management and our platform becomes the brain of the sales org that understands more about all the people and the team dynamics in it. Um, so that there's no knowledge loss. So if, if a leader does leave, that's okay. Cause people will still move around. Um, but you're not going to lose all of their IP and expertise when they go. And also for the new person who comes in, the team's still running and you can pick up where that person left off.

That, I will tell you, that was one of the better, you know, gong when it first popped out. You have a call intelligence, but even with that, like me listening to a recording and you know, again, unless my job is full-time coaching and that's it, me listening, like, you know, I always find it funny. Well, you can listen on 2X. No, you can't. No, no, no. Because the idea of me coaching is I need to listen for tonality and flexion and all that stuff. Right. And so, no, it had to be 1X. And then it was, oh, you just type in pricing and it jumps to the pricing section. Well, no, not so much because maybe something that I said at minute five dictated what happened at minute 25. And if I don't, you know, know what minute five was, I can't really give good enough coaching.

So, every 30-minute call for me was 45 minutes of me coaching. I just didn't have the time for that. What I did love about gong, though, was the snippet factor where you can cut out like, oh, there's a best practice. Like, you know, Alex, you just crushed that objection. So, take that, put it in the library. So, even if you leave, Alex, I'll still have your best, you know, your greatest hits, if you will, that we can all learn from. And so, what you're saying is AI is internalizing that, right? Yeah, exactly. And how's this team running? What's working? Where are the capability gaps? What are the challenges? Where are people struggling? Have you got any talent utilization challenges, retention risks, et cetera, et cetera, and scaling it out across an organization?

Because an AI doesn't forget. And, you know, having memory of every conversation that every single seller is having with that AI from a coaching perspective, but then also we do. Our AIs run one-on-ones across the team as well. So, then knowing more about the team than anyone is really powerful. Yeah, it's crazy. It's, like I said, it's going to be interesting to see where this all goes, man. I'm extremely optimistic in the short term, right? I think in the short to midterm, I'm actually extremely optimistic about this AI stuff because I do think, and I tell reps this all the time, you know, we're not going to get replaced or managers, same thing. We're not going to get replaced by AI. We're going to get replaced by reps and managers who are learning how to use AI.

That's who we're going to get replaced by. And my fear is that not enough people are paying attention. And that group that is going to be able to figure it out is a lot smaller than the masses, obviously. And the masses are going to be impacted pretty significantly. But I think in the short to midterm, we're in pretty good shape. I agree with that. I think long term too. Maybe I'm just an eternal optimist. But I think overall, the whole pot will grow and things will get better for just about everyone. Yes, there'll be some short term pain, no doubt. But I think in general, I think it's going to be good. And I think salespeople are going to be around. Like, you know, sales isn't going anywhere.

You know, I spoke to Todd Capone fairly recently. And we've had these conversations before around, you know, technology supposedly like getting rid of salespeople and every new technological revolution that comes along. Like, oh, we won't need email. We won't need salespeople anymore. And then what actually happens is the number of salespeople grow because the pot grows. Because more stuff needs to be sold and novel things get sold. And also, we forget that a lot of sales is not just the words. It's the relationships. It's the trust. It's the experience. I go back to what Gary Vee said to me a while back. You know, he said, you know, be the last mile. You know, let the AI do all the heavy lifting, right?

But right before you hit send, right before you make that call, whatever. Just make sure you humanize it. Because as long as there's humans buying, right? The challenge becomes when AI starts to buy shit. When AI starts to buy stuff, then we're in some trouble, right? But I think as long as there's a human on the other end of the phone, we got a chance. The question, but what I'm encouraging reps to do right now is if you don't think this is real, go into Perplexity, ChatGPT, whatever it is, and just act as a potential customer for your product. So, you know what I mean? Like if I was Grow AI, like say I wanted, I'm looking for a coaching platform, an AI coaching platform. Well, I'm going to go into Perplexity and be like, I'm John Barrow, CEO of my own company.

This is what my company's parameters are. This is some of the challenges I'm facing when I'm looking at coaching tools. I'm considering Grow AI. Tell me about Grow AI. Tell me about what it does and how does it work and da-da-da-da. Like how does it fit into my strategy? By the way, tell me the top three competitors of theirs and what should I be looking at then and how do they compare? When you realize you get more value out of that conversation than 85% of reps who are just going to ask a dumbass band questions and drone through demos, you know how in trouble a vast majority of sales professionals are. And that's why such a big key focus for us is raising their capability in a way that actually raises it because the barrier of like what is good enough in sales has gone up and it will continue to keep going up.

So, we need to lift people's capability so they can compete. And you're right, asking 20 questions on a disco call, the same 20 questions you asked the last 20 customers is not good enough. And that's what we're solving. Yeah, that's what a robot can do. Like that, asking those same questions, droning through your demos. Like the question I always tell reps, right, you have to ask yourselves is, right, what can you do that a computer can't? And that question is getting harder and harder to answer. But if you look at it as an augmentation and to help as a co-pilot, as you say, you know, then you can, you know, have the Iron Man mentality here of it's the person, it's the tech and the AI, not just one or the other.

And I think it would be people who figure out that balance of keeping the human element into it, especially coaching. Yes, there's a bunch of immediate feedback we can get through algorithms and what AI can tell us. But then there's the human side of this. I mean, maybe Sally just had a really bad fucking day. You know what I mean? Like, she was at home and something happened with her family and she came in and it was just a bad fucking day. Like, AI is not going to be able to pick up on that. But a human should. Well, AI can pick up on that. So, we've seen that. So, we've seen that. But yes, I know what you mean. Like, I know in that sort of instance. But yes, like, we have seen, like, through our one-on-ones that our AI is having across the team is actually Sally is burnt out, stressed.

She's a top performer, but she's struggling. You need to go talk to her because she's a flight risk because she is not happy with the state of the nation right now. So, it's going to be an interesting few years. But I'm very, very optimistic about how this makes life better for leaders, sellers, and buyers fundamentally. Because if sellers are better, then buyers have a better experience too. Buyers have a better experience. And they'll still want to talk to salespeople. You see, that's the stat that scares me a little bit, but I think it's going to come back around is that the Gartner stat, I'm sure you've seen it. But, you know, they averaged out boomers and everybody else and it was 43% of people want a rep-free experience.

They do not want a sales rep, but the other side of that is of those 43 that didn't want reps, they had a 23% higher regret rate, right? They regretted their decision more. And so, I always tell reps, that means there's tons of value for us to add to this equation. It's just not, it's just different than it ever has been before, right? It's no longer the bank questions, drawing through demos and those type of things. It's about adding value at literally every interaction and getting them to think and meeting the client where they are in their buying process, not your selling process. Exactly. Awesome. Well, Alex, we can keep talking about this. I love nerding out on AI right now. Not even nerding out, just talking about it because there's some conversations I freak the fuck out.

I'm like, oh man, this is matrix shit and we're all screwed. Other times I'm like, oh, there's a lot of hope here. So, I appreciate the conversation on this one. But tell everybody else where they can find out more information about you, about Grow AI and everything else you're working on right now. So, Grow AI, we're at grw.ai and you can find us on LinkedIn as well. And you can find me on LinkedIn. It's probably where I'm most active, Alex McNaughton. And yeah, look, absolute pleasure to come on my show. I've really enjoyed it. I've enjoyed the conversation. Thanks, man. Well, good luck with what you're working on too. And I'm eager to see kind of how you guys evolve and what information you're seeing and the impact that it's having.

So, keep up the good work, man. Thanks a lot. All right, everybody. Well, hopefully you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. Like I always say at all these, at the end of all these podcasts, go out there and make somebody smile today. Because no matter how bad your day went or how bad you think it's going, you make somebody smile and you know you had a good day. And the world needs a lot more of that right now. So, thank you all very much and I will see you on the other side. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. With your support and our incredible guests, we're one of the top sales podcasts out there right now and I can't thank you enough. Now, to keep the momentum going, it would mean the world to me if you could go and leave a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform and share some of your favorite episodes with your network.

Also, check out my new website, jbarrows.com, where you'll find even more ways to engage. There's a ton of free content and you can also get trained from me directly as an individual or for your team. Look, I'm out there selling every day just like you are and I'm doing my best to stay on top of all the latest trends in sales and technology. So, if you're looking to level up and you give a shit about this profession of sales, let's connect and make it happen together.