Erik Kostelnik: Driving Growth in the Face of Market Consolidation

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Let's make this happen together. 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. And today's guest is Eric Kostelnik. Eric is the CEO and founder of Postal and Eric and I got to know each other at a golf outing that we had for the GTM fund and he was an absolute blast and a wealth of knowledge. He's an advisor to a ton of different companies, entrepreneur true and through, and also a founder of a couple of companies as well with a few great exits. And so we got into it talking about the state of where things are right now as far as the market is concerned and consolidation specifically getting back to the platform and really the challenge of point solutions right now.

And also what sales reps should be looking at and how they need to look at their companies to see, am I at risk here for getting fired or this company going out of business? Because I think so many sales reps get into tech sales and they get allured by all the stocks and potential of huge pops. But right now, everybody's looking over their shoulder. So Eric gave some great tips from the other side, from the executive perspective of what you should be looking for. And we talked about the trends and where things, well, at least where we think things are going. So I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Let's make it happen. Eric, what's going on? Welcome to Make It Happen Monday podcast, my friend.

How are you doing? I'm ready. Just born ready. I've been looking forward to this for a while, man, since we were in Scottsdale. I was going to say, right? That was fun, man. I'm glad GTM is putting those events together because it was good to actually get together with somebody like in person and shoot the shit. You know, I'm locked up here in my attic for a while now and I'm pretty happy about it. But every once in a while, I'm getting out and shaking it up a little bit. No, it was awesome. Yeah, like Max and Scott and those guys are doing a great job and bringing operators together and, you know, like-minded folks and having fun and talking shop. And I'm glad we got to connect there and that we're doing this together.

Love it, man. Yeah, and I think we've got some interesting stuff we're going to dive into as far as the consolidation of the marketplace and the impact of AI and a few other things because your background. But for the audience, let's do the origin story. And I don't mean just your work origin story. I want to go back and figure out kind of growing up, right? Where'd you get that bug? I always like to, especially entrepreneurs specifically, like where did you catch it? Nature, nurture, all that shit. So talk to me about parents growing up, school shit, and then bring us all the way to the future. Where are you going now? Yeah, cool. I'll be brief because it's a long story. But I grew up, I was born in California, so I'm a California native, but I grew up just moving all over the place when I was a kid.

So, you know, those stories that you hear of folks that are inventors or, you know, athletes or artists to where they just were always uncomfortable. I was always uncomfortable. And the fact that I was a new kid in school, and I'm also a large human being, I'm 6'6". And like when I was like 12, I was like 6'1". So you can imagine just like being this big human being all throughout the history of my life. And then going to these schools and moving across the country, you know, 10 times, basically by the time I was like 13. That put me in a situation where I had to really, you know, find myself and ensure that I knew how people worked and that I could, you know, just like try to join circles that I believe that could get me to where I wanted to be.

And luckily, my parents, you know, although we didn't have much, we all just like made it work. And we were super focused on athletics as well. My dad was an All-American football player. My mom was an artist. And so we just kind of made it all work, ended up in New Jersey, outside of Philly, went to high school out there, was really successful in high school basketball. We were like third in the country. So I had a lot of fun with that. And then went to school to play ball. And because honestly, I was not a good student. I was just like a stupid jock, you know, just like, and all my friends were super smart. And they got into Penn State or Duke or, you know, all these places, New York. I got into Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania.

And the only reason why I got in was because I got a basketball scholarship. Within a month of playing on the team, I quit because I'm like, dude, I cannot do this. Like, I can't. I just don't want to play basketball in college. So I still hold on to that. Like, I'm sorry to the coaches of Shippensburg, Roger Goodling. So anyway, I don't think I've ever said that. I'm like, yeah, I really apologize for that. It was kind of ridiculous. We'll cut this up and send it to him. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And yeah, so I studied finance in college and, you know, became class president and like really tried to figure out my network and graduated college. And then 2001 happened with September 11th. And I was going to go work in New York and the trade towers blew up.

And I was taking, you know, I was taking interviews during this like smoldering of the trade towers. And I had some crazy shit going on, like when I was in my early 20s and just kind of freaked out. And I moved to Baltimore, became a bartender. And then I like was just calling companies during the day to see if I could like find a job and ended up working for a fleet leasing company, like 100 year old company selling fleets of vehicles. And they moved me out to California to manage the West Coast when I was like 25 because I just had figured it out. And I was a natural sales guy. And then all my buddies out here were in technology. And I'm like, what is this? Like, what are you what are you doing?

You're driving all the best cars, dating the hottest chicks. Like, what is all this? Like, and I and I figured out that it was it was very much a game. And I love playing games. And once you figure out the game and understand the stakes of the game and then who controls the games, then you can be a part of the game. And I feel like I've done that pretty well over my career. And at the end of the day, it's all about, you know, and the ideas that you have and how you execute those ideas. And luckily, me and my co-founder, Jed, have been buddies, you know, since college days. And we just we figured out the game. So here we are. Let's said I love that, right? Because one of the things I've always said for me is I've never actually been able to figure out how to play the game.

And when I say that, I play my game, but like the politics and the, you know, and don't get me wrong. I know a lot of people and I have a lot of connections, obviously, but especially the corporate game, right? Where that's why I'm an entrepreneur. That's why I can't live underneath somebody else's umbrella because I just don't fit. So when you say you're self-funded, too. Right. Exactly. So when you say play the game, what do you mean by that? Because there's the corporate game of figuring out how to not piss people off and not, you know, and play in the political world, which I am a disaster at. Yeah. And then there's the game of being able to succeed in business. So help me to understand what's your definition of the game here and how'd you figure it out?

Yeah. So I also am very bad on the political side of things. I never was good at that. I never was part of, like, the boys club or whatever. Like, I never, you know, wanted to, you know, brown nose and go that direction. I always believe that, you know, the people that were trying to solve real problems that had real opportunity, those were kind of the folks. And those that didn't play that political game, those are the ones that were really interesting people. And generally, they live on the fringes, right? They don't really live in corporate America. They live in the fringe of, you know, not even academia because they can't even be teachers. It's just like they're kind of maniacs, you know?

It's just like super smart weirdos. And what I found was that when you kind of network around this, around Silicon Valley and being in California, moving from Baltimore to San Francisco in 2003 and seeing everything evolve and develop and meeting people that were early in Apple, early in Google, early in Amazon, you know, having eBay down the street from my house, you know, being kind of like in it. You just naturally meet people that are on the fringes that are just super smart. And what I found was that the people that were true technologists in the game that I play is a technology game. And those technologists generally are product-focused folks. And so what I found was that not many of them had the skill set that I had.

And that is, I'm a really good operator. I'm a really good salesperson. I like to coach people. I love managing people up. And I'm a maniac. Like, I love money. Like, I love selling and getting deals and beating our competition. And I'm hyper, hyper competitive. And generally, that characteristic did not really fit a lot of those folks that were the super smart, you know, brainiacs on the fringe. And so what I found was that if I can build that network of people and have them have confidence in me, then naturally, there's going to be doors that open that I independently couldn't do in the future. And so that's very much what happened. And luckily, you know, I still, I'm an inventor. I love coming up with creative ideas or try to fix solutions.

But it's not just any solution that I like fixing. I like fixing solutions, like fixing problems that actually have huge market impact and that can create a lot of wealth for myself, my family, and my employees and my partners. And so ultimately, that very much was, like, my superpower of, like, bringing people together and then solving massive opportunities, which the last, you know, four businesses I've been a part of have been doing. So it's been a lot of fun. Yeah, I think that the, you know, who you know, not what you know scenario is, is unfortunately very true. I mean, you got to know something, right? You can't be an idiot. But there are so many people I know that I look at, I'm like, you have no fucking idea what you're talking about.

But yet, they figured out how to play the game and are awesome at it. And I've realized I've stopped, I've stopped being angry because there's so many people I look at. I'm like, you have no actual skill other than, like, the ability to make connections, right? And I used to just be aggravated at that because I'm like, how the fuck? Like, they don't do shit, but they know how to. And now I actually envy it in so many ways because I'm like, man, you've been able to get away because the world needs that. The world needs people who can connect the dots and basically get out of the way and let, you know, the quote unquote smart kids do the work. But, man, when I realized everybody has kind of their own skill set and niche, then I started to really appreciate that ability to play the game.

Yeah. And you got to find, I mean, the thing that I've always understood from very early age was that you have to find the people around you that have an exact opposite skill set and mindset to you. And it's like you are just going to be such a better human being if you have people around you that are completely different than you because that just expands your knowledge and your reach. And I think that, you know, when you look at the best companies in the world, you look at the dynamics of the executive teams and they're just so diverse, like just such different people from different walks of life that bring different perspectives. But they're all centered around one thing, and that is creating value for shareholders.

And, you know, as long as the opportunity is big enough, the market's big enough, and then you can just bring good people together that are not like-minded, like that are opposite-minded, that you can have a really good chance of being successful. Actually, that's one of my first recommendations to reps, anybody who's starting their own business, is do not start a business with somebody that has your skill set. And I was a perfect example of this. Like when I went off on my own, like Basho, the training company, and then they fired us all, and then me and two of the other trainers ended up being in business together. We didn't decide to be in business together. We were just the three last men standing.

And we thought, oh, great, like let's go. But the problem was we all had the same skill set. We were all trainers and we were all sales reps. And so inevitably, I find that when you have that similar skill set, it inherently ends up being you judging that other person because you think you can do it better than they can because you know how to do it. Versus if I have a finance person- You're competitive with internal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I'll shred you apart because I'm looking at, like if you and I started a company together, I'd be like, fucking Eric, like I can sell better than him. Eventually, like if you missed your number, for instance, I'd be like, motherfucker, like let me go out and sell.

Like I can do better than him. Whereas if you're technical or if you're a finance person, I might push and ask you a few questions just to kind of test your hypothesis or where we are. But I'm going to fully let you have that because that is not my skill set. And I'm going to be allowed to go do my thing. And they complement way better that way. So it's a huge like starting point for entrepreneurs is like find people who have that massive diverse skill set as you do. Otherwise, you're going to tear each other apart. Yeah, 100%, man. No doubt. Where do you- You said that, you know, shareholder value. And I know we're going to get into some other stuff here, but you just brought some stuff. I don't want to- Where do you think, you know, because shareholder value, if we look back at the 80s, right, when that really started taking on and then capitalism kind of exploded and everybody now shits on the fact that it's not really, you know, like who fucking cares about shareholder value.

It's about the people. Where do you sit on like the values of the business and you and your ecosystem towards and shareholder value? And do you focus as a leader yourself, how do you balance the two, right? Like you just talked to me before we got on this call, you talked about how you were given Fridays, you know, you had to do some extra stuff for the team, right? Give them a few extra days off and some other stuff. So those are core values of yours as far as making sure that your employees feel valued and have the time and everything else. And that doesn't always align with shareholder value is chopping. And we're going to get into AI and how efficiency is and everything else. But I think there's a big kind of question right now in the marketplace of, hey, I can cut this to the bone and do almost everything with AI and make us massively profitable, therefore making us shareholder value off the charts versus I have fucking people here.

So how do you balance that as a leader? That's a really tough question. And it is sensitive. It is absolutely sensitive. Right now, especially, you know, we're sitting in 2024 in February, which obviously we'll see how well this ages over time, right? But like my whole concept on this is there's the long-term shareholder value and short-term shareholder value. And those are two very different things. And so the real question is, is like, what type of business do you have? Do you have a short-term business or do you have a long-term business? And you really have to decide that very quickly as a CEO or as an entrepreneur to figure out, hey, is this something that I want to do for the next 15 years?

Or is this the next, is this something I want to do for the next three years? So the decisions that you make as a leader and to your shareholders, which hopefully everybody has their employees as shareholders and ex-employees as shareholders and investors and yourself, obviously. But you have to really determine that because your actions will drive what that behavior is and what the outcome is. So a good example is, is that, you know, sometimes you build businesses for M&A, right? There's just natural, like, folks that are out there, they're like, hey, this is going to be like a five-year project. We're going to build this thing. We're going to raise minimal amount of capital or none at all.

And we're going to flip this thing in five years. Or it's going to be a lifestyle business. And we're going to, those businesses inherently are different businesses from a unit economic standpoint, as well as just a cost standpoint. They're just going to be super thin. They're going to be super thin, super aggressive around cost structure, EBIT, EBIT, profitability, all those things that make, a potential business that can be acquired, you know, get acquired in five years. Also, there's some growth hacking you can do in that to show, you know, double, double, triple, whatever, triple, triple, double, whatever you want to do on that side, on the growth side, depending on your industry and who you're building to exit to.

That's going to be kind of your focus. And your shareholder value is short-term. And everybody should know that. Then they're the business that are venture capital-based. And generally, venture capital-based businesses are long-term value companies. And those are the ones that I do well in, given the fact that usually the problems we're trying to solve in the last four businesses have all been really big problems and taken a lot of capital to create opportunity and create change in that market. And so you have to make sure that you're around 15 years later. So your decisions of what you're doing are going to change maybe on a, you know, every two years, every three years. But they're going to be three-year increments.

They're not going to be like one-year or six-month increments. You're going to make decisions based upon what's going to happen in the next three years. And so that's ultimately like how we run these businesses. And some of those decisions of getting to where you need to be, like an example over the last two years, which all of us know, with the lack of capital that's been out there and ultimately, you know, the venture market not investing in MarTech anymore and kind of our industry going into hibernation a bit over the last two years. And then, you know, Jenna and I coming in and disrupting a little bit of some of the components of marketing. But you look at this category, you know, marketing is never going to go away.

Like it will always be there. It's just a matter of how it gets done. So it's a long-term bet. But the way that Postal is now operating is significantly different than the way we operated the first three years. And we had to make this three-year like almost like reduction of investment, which is going to impact growth. And if we were worried about flipping the business in five years, I've been like, you can't get rid of growth. We have to still have growth because we need to get acquired. But now that we are in the mindset this is going to be a longer track, we got to make sure that we are there when things, you know, right size and when things turn around and also be there for opportunities for consolidation and actually picking up distressed assets, which could fit well within our business structure, which ultimately you can only do if you have capital to do those things.

And so that's where we're at our heads at right now. And I know there's a lot of leaders going through the same, you know, instance, even in, you know, later stage companies, you know, DEF, you know, public credit companies. But certainly there's, you know, there's, you know, that type of mindset and how we manage these businesses. I love it. Yeah. And I think that the AI stuff I want to get into as far as how's that changing the game as far as the investment that you need to make, right? Because marketing is super impacted. But quick question before we dive into that. You mentioned about, you know, three-year business, five-year, 20-year business or 15-year business. How transparent are you?

Like there's, well, two-part question. One is, do you believe in starting a business with the mindset of selling it, right? And then if you do, say you're like, hey, we're here for this. We're going to create this. And the goal is to get bought by whoever. How transparent are you with your employees about that? Because I see a lot of leaders who, well, no, no, no, no, no, we're lovey family. We're good, no. And then as soon as the fucking number comes, they sell that shit as fast as they possibly can and burn the thing to the ground and say, fuck off. So how, A, how do you, you know, do you build to sell or do you build for a good business and hope it sells? And B, if your mindset is I'm selling this, how transparent are you with your employees?

This may or may not have happened in our industry recently. I'll just say that because I have NDAs. So I can't speak directly about what's going on in our category. But at the end of the day, there's the distressed asset sale. And then there is the, you know, value sale of this is a valuable business and this is a good piece of this business. Generally, those are two operationally, two different things. You, when there is a value, when there's a distressed sale, generally you see the founder go away and a banker come in and run the company. That, like, you can look across every single industry that's been in that situation. You just, like, you are, and if you are an employee and you have somebody other than your CEO that, or somebody internally that is more of a growth-minded or even value-minded CEO, and you have a banker that comes in, you're like, you're in trouble.

Like, you should start finding a new job. Because, you know, even if they're telling you, oh, we're not going to sell this thing, we're going to grow, we're fine, it's going to get sold. So that's one thing. And those are kind of the indicators that you want to make sure you're checking. And then you have, like, this, the other piece of, like, the value business versus the growth business. And I don't think necessarily they can, like, the slower-growing value business that's just going to grow over time naturally, and it's not going to be super-funded by venture capital, but it's just going to fit a product market fit, and it's going to grow naturally. Generally, those employees are always, like, the ones that are like, yeah, I know everything about my business.

Like, I know where we're going. We're not taking additional capital. There's no new board members. We're not doing anything crazy. Over time, it's super-stabil, there's a lot of stability in it. There's, I'm getting, you know, comp increases every single year. I'm getting all these different things. And, like, and generally, like, they're pretty well-suited. Then you have, like, the growth businesses that are venture capital-based. And I would say that there's kind of two mindsets, and I'll tell you which one I am and why. But you have the executive leadership that is kind of in the glass castle, right? Or just not even a glass castle, up in the castle. And you can't even see what's in that castle.

And they're making decisions and all this stuff. And they're just telling you that, like, everything is fine, everything's good, and don't worry about it. Like, you're not privy to these conversations that's below your pay grade, or you're below our pay grade. Like, here you go. This is how you're operating the business. And there's a lot of companies that operate that way. And I'm not saying that's bad. It's, like, it's just not the way I run companies. And we have kind of a glass house here at Postal and in the glass businesses that I've been a part of. And the reason is, is because our employees need to know, they need to have confidence, and they know what's happening this year. They know what's happening next year.

We have families that I believe that we support, that we've created jobs for, that we support, you know, 60 families. I always think about that. It's like my driver. And so I just want to make sure that they feel like they understand what's going on and why, the why behind what's going on. And so we are very transparent in all those things. Now, do they know the exact numbers and all the, you know, the strategies that we have and the conversations that I have? No, of course not. But at the end of the day, they know the path of the business and the OKRs on the annual business and our plan for the business. Everyone knows it. And then our investors are totally, you know, open for conversations as well with our employees if they need to talk to investors or just the confidence level needs to be there.

Because at the end of the day, if you don't have employees that understand the trajectory of your business and how they fit into it, they're not going to put in 100%. No. Actually, they won't even. Yeah, they won't even put in. Yeah, they'll do just enough to do their job. They'll do just enough time to get fired. Exactly. They'll do. Yeah. And what I say, the same thing, like a lot of founders come to our younger founders come to me and they'll say, hey, John, you know, how do I get my employees to to work harder and, you know, and do more? I'm like, well, when was the last time you painted a vision for them? Like, when was the last time you took a step back and said, this is where we're going over the next 12 to 24 months?

This is what we're trying to achieve and then showed them how they fit into that. When was the last time you did that? Most executives, well, we have our mission statement. I'm like, fuck your mission statement. Like, like literally, like, like this year, like two years from now, like, are you going to sell this thing? And if you are going to sell this thing, give everybody shares, tell everybody the goal that we're going to try to sell this thing in two years and go to the boards. Because then you'll get people to do 10 times more than what they're getting paid for. There's an outcome for them, right? Yeah. But yeah, it's interesting. Like, unfortunately, we lost one of our board members, close friend of mine, Seth Shaw, about six months ago, which was which was just horrible.

But but Seth always told me that he was my mentor for the last 10 years. The one thing he always told me is that you got one job as a CEO, one job. Just don't fuck this piece up. Everybody needs to know where they're going. Everyone needs to know where they're going. And you tell them and you tell them again. And every single meeting you're with them, every single time you're in all hands. This is what we're doing. And this is why we're doing it. And if you can't do that as a CEO, he's like, then you got to find someone else to do your job, because that is literally the only reason why you exist. So it's to do that. And for us, you know, creating creating this product and this company and this and this solution to what we're doing and running it the way that we've run it is the reason why I'm still employed is because I continue to show.

Like, we have started with this vision of this company. We are currently here. It has not changed. We continue trying to be a billion-dollar company. And we're going to continue to do that. Now, if something crazy comes along, right? And you're just like, I mean, hey, guys, we have an opportunity. Someone's going to buy us for a billion dollars right now. You're like, you got to take it, because guess what? It's going to impact you positively. And they just have to know that whatever I'm doing that is – like, they have to have trust in what I'm doing is best for them. And you just have to show them that. And that's a very important piece with transparency and also just, you know, creating vision and purpose.

Yeah, I think that's – I told my team that you won't be surprised unless I am. Yeah, totally. Like, obviously, there's certain things I can't talk about based on investing, you know, those type of things. But unless I'm surprised, you're not going to be. Exactly. Right? Now, when I'm surprised, you'll probably be surprised, too, because I'm going to come at you and be like, look, a stack of cash is dropping to my lap. I'm sorry for my family and everything else. And here's your piece, but I'm the fuck out, right? So I can't ignore that paycheck. Like, everybody says, oh, I'd never sell. Yeah, there's a dollar figure every single person would sell. I can tell you, like, I exited my last business and it was – I mean, we took $3 million on this business and grew it to $20 million in revenue in four years.

And it was – so my co-founder and I owned the majority of the business. When we sold, which was a fantastic outcome, it was absolutely life-changing. Never thought I would have ever been in that situation. And the good news is, is that, like, all my employees were able to get houses or buy cars. You know, those that were, you know, depending on their level, but most of them had enough money to at least buy a car or a new house or something. So, you know, those are the things that you think about and that, you know, if you have life, you have to – also a rule, number one is you. You have got to look out for yourself. Although people are important, company, customers, investors, partners, all those things are important.

You have to look out for yourself. And, you know, and because I had such a successful exit and now, you know, we're set up with generational wealth, I never would have thought that would have been the case. Now you actually have the opportunity to not be blinded by dollar signs to say, I'm not doing it for this reason. Like, I'm not doing this for the cash. Like, I'm doing this to build a billion-dollar company. And so – and to solve this very big problem of offline engagement, trying to create the infrastructure around that and the ROI around that. And so because that, you know, because that vision is there and we're all surrounded to it, it's just a matter of it either working or not. And I'm totally okay with it not working too because I'm like, we fucking tried.

Like, if it didn't – if it doesn't work at the end of the day, it's like wrong market, market wasn't changing enough, capital markets are weird, customers aren't making decisions because of all the things. You're like, you know, at the end of the day, if it doesn't work, it's okay. But, you know, you just have to – you have to be transparent with yourself, with your company, and then also with your investors because you have to have your – if you did take money, like, you can't have that one investor that is against everybody else. Like, hey, we got to sell this fucking thing now. You're like, dude, like, you got to manage those investors telling them this is a 10-year project now from today.

So don't think that you're going to get a return on this thing in the next three to five years. So it could happen. It could. But we're positioning this thing for growth eventually, again, you know, significant growth. But I don't know. It's probably happening in all the boardrooms right now, honestly. Well, and that's exactly it. So let's transition to this consolidation world that we're in right now because it's interesting to me that, you know, there's such an expansion-contraction game. If you plot everything, and I'm not an economist or anything like that, but let's look at, like, let's just look at computers, for instance, right? But computers originally started as a mainframe, right? And it was like, all right, cool.

And then it went to the personal computer. And then it went to the cloud mainframe. And then it, you know, and then it went to the iPhone, you know, personal computer, right? So kind of almost every industry expands and contracts, expands and contracts. We're definitely in a consolidated because we were over bloated with too much money to grow too fast. Who gives a shit about profit? Go for it, right? So I want to take this from a couple of angles. One is, let's tie into what you had said earlier as far as, like, looking for the tea leaves, right? I think there's some obvious things that product market fits not right there, like renewals aren't happening. So if you're a sales rep right now, talk about the sales rep, like, what else to look for?

Because we're all nervous. Everybody's nervous right now as far as when's the next shoe going to drop? When's AI going to come and replace my job? What are some of the things that you would look for as a rep to say, I really need to start looking right now? Because this is it, regardless of what my boss is telling me, regardless of how shiny they're making this look, I need, this isn't right, right? Something doesn't feel right. Yeah, something's not right. So what would you look for? And then we'll talk about, like, what's happening in the marketplace. But I want to help that rep right now who's just, like, looking over their shoulder saying, when's the shoe going to drop? Okay, so I didn't tell you about this, but I was selling job postings during the last recession.

So I was at CareerBuilder.com. My first big technical job, like getting into tech, was selling job postings to technology companies. So I'm like, I was, dude, I was, I was in, I was managing HP. I was managing Sun Microsystems, Oracle, like literally in my business completely imploded. And so, but you figure out, you figure how to make it work. And like, you know, it's going to come around. So you just got to find like how you, how you can sell something to something else. Like you, you have to figure out what you can make out of the dog shit that you have. Right. And so, and if your business gives you enough creativity as a rep, then naturally you're going to find out how to do it. Like a good example was I was managing Apple and Apple was not hiring.

And they cut their, you know, cut their hiring forecast by like 50%. And like, I was just like, oh my God, this is like a big part of my number. How am I going to replace this? Well, I figured out if I went to the training and certification group at Apple, they actually were looking to certify people through like, which was a revenue driver of Apple, certify people on, you know, their technology and their development stack and everything. So I actually used our resume database for, to help them source training and certification contacts and candidates, which they ended up using and selling and like ended up a big opportunity. And I made a lot of money from that. And so I'm like, you just naturally have to look at what you got and then be creative as a rep to figure out how, how can I build something out of what I have?

And hopefully you have enough autonomy to do that. And I was able to do that. But when you're a rep and if you, there's kind of two things, one, if you feel like your ability to get another job is going to be super hard and you don't have your, you know, three to five paychecks worth of, of, of nest egg, you got to be careful. You got to be careful. And I think the majority of people actually are living in this, in this space, right? Where it's like, they don't have a ton put away. They probably overspent during the come up, right? So, so you really have to understand where you, where you personally are. Um, and if that's the case, then you have to be super secretive about it and like, go find something else.

If you have like no confidence in your business, go out there and find something. But I would tell you that like, if, if I'm a rep right now and I'm, and I am having conversations with customers that bought in the past, but today they're just like, I cannot do it. That's going to happen probably like a good amount of the time, just from budgets and stuff. If you don't have something in that is like a absolute core technology. Like if you're selling data, you're probably fine. Security, you're fine, right? AI, you're more than fine. Like, but those that are kind of ancillary kind of fringe technologies, you have to make sure that there's enough top of the funnel there and enough conversations that'll get you over the hump.

You're going to have a little bit more of flexibility from, from like being on a PIP or whatever, because it's just like, no one's really hitting target. If that's another indicator, if you're, if no one's hitting target, then like, you're going to be okay. Cause the company is going to be trying to figure out how to get everybody to target. Um, and even if they have to let, just don't be below the 50% because they're going to cut the 50% to get the top 50% at a hundred percent. Right. Like as a CEO, I'm like, I want to see all of our reps at, at a hundred percent. Like, cause we did do some reduction to like, try to get these people super successful. So you want to be there for that. Um, but you really got to figure out like, can I be creative in what I have to sell into different ICPs?

Or can I actually change the conversation to try to go, you know, and, um, and, and, and try to find more of the businesses that are being successful, you know, in, in the technology. You also have to look at the, at the churn. You have to kind of see like, Hey, are the companies that I'm bringing over actually seeing value in the product that I'm selling? And you have to be kind of a part of that in the first six months, because if you, if you don't have confidence that the thing that you're selling is actually creating value for customers, like you're fucked, bro. Like you gotta, you gotta walk, you gotta go. Um, and so that is like, I think those are the things that I think about. And, and as a, as a sales, sales leader, CEO, and founder, my whole concept around this is like, it's our top of the funnel has never been the problem.

Like it's never, we've always had super strong reasoning of why you do this. It's actually the change behavior that is important. And so helping customers change. And, you know, we probably have figured out more in the last 18 months on that piece, because we weren't growing fast. That has allowed us now to be a little bit more agile and help reps understand like, okay, what is the true value of this product that we're selling? So this is why I hope, you know, the predictable revenue model has been breaking for a long time. Um, and this is the, the, um, transition out of this. I've talked to a few people about this that I love is SDRs or BDRs, whatever. And instead of making SDRs graduate to an AE, they actually graduate to CS or AM because that way they get to look, they get to close, but in a safer environment, cross sell up, sell renewal.

And then they get more importantly, they get to learn the use cases and what happens when a sales rep stuff, something, something down somebody's throat without really doing it and the baggage shit that they have to deal with. So they get use case, they get empathy, they have, they have stories and then they become an AE. And if we could make just that simple shift, I think it would solve a lot of problems out there right now. That's a great, I, I mean, I haven't heard that like position that way. A hundred percent. I totally agree with you. And just naturally, I think about our business. I'm like, yeah, that absolutely did happen. Um, and those people that were sales first CSMs tend to do better as CSMs as well.

So yeah, really interesting. What, what CSMs don't really understand. And that's why it always cracks me up when I train them is it's the exact same thing as sales. Like say your success in account management, it's you're helping people solve problems or achieve goals, period. And if you can't do that, get out of the fucking way. And, and just because your sales, you're trying to, you know, quote unquote, convince, I don't believe you try to convince people. If you're trying to convince people in sales, I think you're doing it wrong, right? You're helping them buy at the end of the day to solve a problem. And then as a CS or AM, you're just helping them solve that problem, right? It's interesting.

You said, um, you were talking a little bit about the predictable revenue model breaking over time. And I was just thinking about that as you were talking a little bit too. You're so right around that. The fact that when there's like tremendous amounts of capital that you can just put in, the top of the funnel, you can just, I mean, and there's a hype cycle around what you're selling. It's naturally just going to attract all of this bullshit revenue that just comes in. And you're like, people were never even ready to solve the problem that you had. It might've been a problem, not saying it wasn't a problem. And like, they shouldn't be buying something to solve this problem, but they just were never ready to solve the problem.

And then it just goes away, right? Like they just, they don't renew or they don't use the thing. And they're like, I don't know why I did this. And, you know, and you run into that problem and, and I, and man, this is something that we should talk more about around the change that's happened now in the 18 months, how it's good. Although it feels like scary and, you know, top of the funnels is weakening. And, you know, you just have more research being done before people are buying signals and all the things. It's actually really good because you get a healthier customer in. I think it's fantastic. I think we were so over bloated for the past 10 years. I'm positioning 2010 and two to 2022 as the golden age of sales.

Oh, a hundred percent, dude. We made so much money. I mean, if you got into fucking sales, tech sales after 2010. Yeah. Right. It wasn't that hard. Like all sales, med sales, like med tech, pharmaceuticals, like manufacturing, everybody's like money was free. Everybody. And, you know, people have heard me say this before, but we, we, we were literally able to like, we over-engineered the sales process. We were able to blast out template, shitty cadence emails, set up fucking disco calls with anybody with a pulse, ask bank questions, drone through demos, let our SE do the majority of the work and then offer a massive fucking discount. Like that's what sales was for the past 10 years. It's used cars.

It's used cars, dude. It's used car sales. That's exactly what it is. And now the sales is hard because consolidation. And I think, and that's where I want to take this is like, now you actually have to sell now skills matter. And so many sales reps don't, I think we have, I I'm worried right now because I think we have a whole generation of sales reps who actually aren't sales reps. They're pseudo order takers and technologists who know how to use tools, but they don't know how to have a fucking normal conversation with somebody about their business. So with the Martech, the space that you're in, sales Martech, who, I mean, obviously we're in a consolidated market right now. Money isn't free anymore.

Value matters. ROI matters. All these point solutions are getting thrown away back to platforms. Who survives this consolidation so that they make it out on the other side? Who, from your perspective, like who's going to survive this, this, cause it's just, and I'm going to put AI to the side for a second. Yeah, totally. I don't think that has that much impact on what's going to happen in the next three years. I think it, I think. Like in the consolidation space is what I'm saying. Like, yeah. Like, I think AI is going to have an impact. I just, it's going to be separate from what is going to happen based upon the, you know, the kind of finances of all these businesses. Yeah. So who survives this mess right now before we talk about AI?

Who survives this consolidation? What type of companies, especially in the Martech or sales tech space? Is it straight, straight to platforms? Cause, and I'll give you one more piece of context here. Um, my, my, I'm saying in a lot of ways, like I don't fundamentally understand, especially with the AI stuff, how Microsoft HubSpot Salesforce don't win the day. Right. Because before those companies, those huge companies, they were like the Titanic. They'd buy all these little companies. They'd try to cobble them together under this, or they do, they'd create something with 70% as good as the point solution. So fuck it, but you're on our platform. And it never really kind of worked together. My hypothesis is that with AI, you're just going to say, go fix that fucking problem.

And it's going to do it. Right. And it eventually will all of a sudden connect sales navigator with LinkedIn. You know what I mean? Like why the hell are those two stupid things different or why don't I have LinkedIn embedded in my office 365 shit immediately? Like that stuff's going to happen. So with that, I don't understand how the big boys don't win the day, but help me understand who else wins the day outside of the pure big consolidation, massive platform that everybody already uses. Yeah. All right. So I think it starts with this big companies are not innovators. They, especially public big companies. What they are, are really good, big public companies. And so they literally are just building for shareholder value, but they're building for shareholder value every single three months.

Like they have to, they have to show that they're hitting targets every single three months. And you can do that one of two ways, selling more stuff or cutting. That's literally the two things. So are they, are they really focused on innovation? Absolutely not. There wouldn't be an open AI that Microsoft just dumped how many billions of dollars into. It would have been Microsoft to start. So the thing that like all of us have to understand, especially in, in sales and MarTech, where is the majority of funds have been distributed over the last 10 years. I mean, this, these are the two categories, this and data infrastructure and security. If you just look at this and you go, why the hell is it doing?

I just wrote this down before, before we, before we joined in 2011, there were 150 MarTech companies, 150, bro. There's like 10 years ago. Like I remember 2011, right? Like, like that was like yesterday. There's 10,000 today, 10,000. Okay. So, and that's from Scott Brinker. And you're like, look at this stuff. You go, okay, that I totally get it. But why are there 10,000? Sure. There was all this money in this capital and all these things. But the reason is, is because that these point solutions to where you look at the, where, where companies have been focused, they are just, they've been better at creating that point solution and that solve to that one problem better than the big providers out there.

So if you just look at that and you go, you know, a great example is, is like Calendly. You're like, how the fuck did Calendly become Calendly? Like that is a calendar tool. And now there's like a thousand of them for every single different industry. Like how is Chili Piper, Chili Piper, how did they get so, it's crazy to me that that, that happened just in the sheer fact of just trying to schedule some time on somebody's calendar, you know, multi a hundred million dollar, you know, plus companies. Anyway, in revenue. And then you're like, okay, the reason is, is because big companies are really bad at innovation and they don't really listen to what their customer need is. They just try to upsell and get more and then create top of the funnel because they're still capturing market share.

So they're still super focused on like the market share of Salesforce, which I think they own like less than 30% of the market. You're like, dude, they have a huge market. Why would they buy anybody else? So, so the, the, the concept around that, like all of us technology, all of us technology companies that, you know, are in a position right now to where we're call it two to three years post our last raise. Everybody's kind of created the financial stability for us, hopefully to like stay and like not die. Certainly there's going to be a big percentage of these companies that are going to be gravestones on Silicon Valley alley. Right. So like, you're going to, you're going to look at that and go, well, they didn't manage their capital correctly.

They deserve to die by. Right. But then there's going to be a good, like 25% of these funded businesses that were, and if it takes this just in our industry, 10,000, 2,500 businesses that are point solutions and you go, okay, these 2,500 companies, how much money is not going to go buy on all those? Like Salesforce doesn't give shit. Like, so what's going to happen? And in my mind, their private equity is just, dude, it's 10 years from now, we're going to be like, boy, I wish I was in private equity back 10 years ago, because these guys are going to slay. They're going to make so much goddamn money. It's going to be insane. And the reason is, is because they're going to figure out who the best operators are, who the best point solutions are, who the best, like who, what the best financial structures of a business are.

And they're just going to pick them off and put them together and, you know, and like maybe us as, as, you know, as, uh, as founders will get something on the, on the long tail. But ultimately some founders will be forced in the position where they have to sell and they'll have to consolidate. But, you know, I just think that that day is, is coming. It's probably not going to be this year because they're going to wait until there is like, it becomes a distressed asset and not an asset. And so it's like, they're going to find out a lot in Q4. My, my prediction is Q4 2024 is going to be the big M&A consolidation by private equity. Like all the big boys are going to come through in Q4 and just like pick up all the pieces.

And they're already having conversations and everything. But, you know, like I think, I think Gong and Zoom Info and, and outreach and, you know, some of these guys that have been around for a while that haven't gotten picked up or gone public. Well, Zoom's gone public, but I think Henry's going to make moves too, like that are kind of the smaller market cap guys. Like they have, they have an opportunity to kind of start creating these systems that you can kind of bolt everything together. Six cents is another one in MarTech. Like, you know, Adobe is, is kind of thinking about how to change their, their structure and how to capture more of the marketing spend. But like, it's really interesting to see like what, what could happen.

The biggest problem with consolidation is preference stack though. And preference stack is the number one, I think it's going to be the number one blocker of anything happening. And let me tell you why. Preference stack is essentially how much you raised. Okay. So if you, if you had a, let's say that you, in your series A, you raised $5 million, series B, you raised $20 million. You have $25 million of preference stack. Okay. So that $25 million, even though you might be valued at a hundred million dollars, that is going to pay, be paid back one and sometimes even two X before anybody else makes money in that company. So in order for like everybody to be aligned to say, yeah, we should like consolidate, you're going to be running into these preference stacks that all these boards are going to be like, fuck no, like we're not like, and then like, they're going to like, why would I be above or below?

Why would I be below their preference stack? Like if we're consolidating two companies that raised $25 million and they, and it's a $50 million preference stack, the company has to sell for over $50 million in the future, just, just to admit for anybody to make any money. So it's like, there is this like dynamic of preference stacks. That's really going to like, it's going to hinder the ability for mass consolidation happen quickly. Um, so distressed assets are going to happen first, meaning that at the end of the year, those that are running out of money and can't do it or don't want to do it anymore, they'll kind of consolidate or be a kind of an add on to these other businesses. And then those that are kind of in a good financial position, but can't grow anymore because they can't raise any money because they were growing at less than 20% in AR growth over the last two years.

They have a churn problem. All of those businesses, which is generally like every MarTech company are going to be kind of screwed. And so it's like, so there's just like really weird dynamic that's going to happen. It's a whole other episode for us to talk about, but end of the day, that's what I think is going to go down. Yeah, man. It's, uh, I think there's a lot there. No, it's interesting. Right. Because like, I, I, I hope people are paying attention now because you know, you can easily get caught up in the chaos and the panic, but it is pretty fascinating to watch. Um, it's a business study. It's, it's a case study, man. It is insane. And, and I am curious how AI is going to play into this, right.

From an impact standpoint, because, you know, I think what's his name from open AI came out and said, we're going to see the first one person billion dollar company, right. In the, in the not so distant future, because historically for finance, um, you know, VCs or whatever it is, the reason that you need 50 million is because you have to have a whole go-to-market team. You have the whole engineering team. And now a couple of smart nerds with AI and a couple of kids who know how to play around with these tools. Like you can go to market pretty quick with a pretty bad-ass product. So how are you seeing, like, where do you see, I mean, everybody, when, when AI hit, everybody went to the front end of the funnel automating all this shit.

And I think it's more shit in the front of the funnel. It's not, to me, it's no fucking different than an automated cadence from a sales upgrade. Just more noise. So I don't see that as being, I, I actually personally think that, that the, and I'm curious to your take on this, that the SDR model has gone away in the next three to five, through two, two to three years, quite frankly. And it's going to roll up under marketing and operations. They're going to be salaried positions playing a lot around with all this AI stuff to give true account-based marketing back to full cycle sales. Because my, my analogy on this is the reason we hate spam is because it's irrelevant. Like who fucking cares? Like it's a bunch of shit that I don't care about.

But the reason I like Instagram is because I've trained that out. Well, that, that algorithms trained me on staying on certain things. So literally every ad is something I want. I mean, the amount of shit that I buy off of Instagram right now is quite frankly embarrassing. It's pretty incredible. Yeah. So my theory is, is that with your LinkedIn profile, the stuff that you're putting out there on social, the stuff that's about your business, that AI is going to get smart enough where every single email in our inbox in the next year or so is going to be hyper-relevant and hyper-personalized. And I don't shit whether that's coming from a human or not, quite frankly. So with that aside as, okay, cool.

Let the front end of the funnel do what it's going to do. That's table stakes. Yeah. Right. Where do you see AI having the biggest impact with this consolidation with product to market? Because I do believe last year was a fundamental shift from a business. I think we're all currently living in a legacy model. Yeah. Like we are in a legacy model and we're trying to figure out this new world. So where do you see AI fitting in the impact of these businesses with the consolidation and also new product launch? Yep. Okay. A lot to unpack there. I'll be as brief as I can on this one. So I studied this. I, I, I, when I was in my last business called text recruit, it was a, we basically took all the, the recruiting that was happening in these legacy ATSs.

And we basically created a text message platform to help companies communicate via text message with millennials. Wow. Okay. There you go. It was just like, that was it. No one else wanted to build text messaging. So we were like the Twilio of HR tech. And so that grew extremely fast and big, but during that whole entire time, I'm like, we got to put some chat bots on this thing to create, you know, conversations because when UPS is hiring through text recruit, like they cannot support 10,000 messages at a time. They don't have enough recruiters. So it was naturally like, it was a problem and I was like, I have to solve this. So I went and took some courses at MIT, which was like a Coursera course, right?

Nothing big, but it was like, it was, it was taught by the machine learning and, and, and artificial intelligence folks, uh, in, at MIT. And basically that helped us understand the practical application of what was being built and how you use it inside of your business, not externally, but actually in your business and how to make your business be more effective. So I was kind of trained on, on what I wanted to do of this, um, through that. And then you start looking at like areas of, um, so after I kind of learned that, then I'm like, okay, here, I'm going to create this chat bot. I started working with, with Watson team at IBM and that's who we use as our backend system of, of the AI that, that tech recruit had.

And you kind of fast forward into postal now, and you start looking at these data sets and you're like, when you have, when you have data sets that are massive, you can start learning from that. And ultimately you put these tools, these, these AI conversational tools and it understands from your data set and then spits out information, right? So that, so Postal did that with our smart collections. And like, we can continue to iterate on how AI will help people make, you know, less decisions and more educated decisions on what to send, when to send, who to send it. That's our postal side of things and story. But I don't necessarily think that the, the true value of AI is going to be in the product side.

And that's really what everybody is doing right now. They go, oh my God, I need to put AI into my product offering. I like it's, that's again, table stakes where I think you actually have real opportunity is if you look internally, the easiest way to look at this is the copywriter. You know, you're like, just fundamentally, we all had copywriters, we had marketing teams and they were creating copy that basically told the story of our, in our voice about what we were trying to do. And then we use it for SEO and we use it for education. And we did that. That has now been replaced. Everybody's replaced that with, with conversational AI. So if you just think about that component and say that, that, that represents, you know, less than 5% of your cost structure of your business, what are other cost structures of your business that you can save money and create efficiencies in?

And I honestly think the next one that it goes to is finance. So if you look at, and no one's really talking about this, but if you look at, finance and legal, actually, those are the two finance and legal. So I'll talk about the legal after finance, but finance, really, if you look at the finance makes decisions based upon the numbers that come in through your, your system, your NetSuite or your whatever. Right. And like, and if you have a plan set up, it can iterate based on that plan and like show you what's up and down, but it's not making decisions for you. So what you're trying to do is you're trying to actually build a system with AI that actually can help you predict what is happening in your business, what will happen in your business in a way that's like instantaneous.

And I believe that using it in finance is super important. And I haven't found anybody that's done it well yet because finance is kind of scary. FinTech kind of sucks. But it's like, I think there's an opportunity there. Company called Lexcheck, who I invested in two years ago, these guys did it for legal. So you lit, dude, it's the craziest thing. And the demo was amazing. And I'm like, I'm going to invest in this. I don't know how much you guys want, but I, whatever. And so he literally was like, Hey, where's your MSA at? He has my MSA. He marked, he, he has a, so he marked up my MSA and then basically said, okay, email the markup MSA to this email address. There was no front end. You literally emailed to, it comes back in five seconds with your markup.

So it does the work of your, your lawyer. And I'm like, this, this is it, right? Bye bye lawyers. Like, why do we need you anymore? So it's like, so I think that those, those are the two that people really aren't seeing because it's not sexy, but lawyers, legal, super high cost finance. This is where the 80, 20 rule comes into play. And I think this is where everybody needs to watch out because, you know, and this is the track I've been taking for a while. I do not think that we're going to get replaced by AI. We're going to get replaced by people who learn how to use AI. And that's going to be a smaller segment of the marketplace. And so lawyers, for instance, I said, like, as soon as I saw it a year ago, I was like, lawyers are fucked because how does, because if you think about like, what's a, what's pre-law, right?

So you graduate, you get, you go to the bar. Great. And then your first job is basically bitch work, right? Like he's precedent. You're looking through case files. You're trying to find the perfect for the lawyer. Who's going to then argue it right now. Hey, AI, could you scan the library of Congress for me and find the exact case? The three top cases that are perfect fits for my case and help me be off of this and tell me which one's the most highly relevant so that I can get my client off. But ring, bing, there you go. I don't need those massive amounts of admin lawyers basically doing that homework anymore. Yep. It's the same thing with the healthcare. Healthcare is the same thing. It's like radiologists, right?

Radiology. Radiologists. It's like, I had a buddy that created an AI radiology company and he did this four years ago and here's where the problem is. I mean, the government's smart, man. Like they don't want all these people to be unemployed. These are some of the biggest earners in our capitalistic society. So what's going to happen is, is that like, I believe the government's going to ruin innovation by regulation. And you and I talked about this, man. There is a matrix. There is, there is, there is a path that ever, you know, that Illuminati wants us to go down. Right. And like, certainly they have the control of how technology can advance and how fast it can advance based upon what the end game is.

And we don't even know the end game. They know the end game, right? Like they have the 50 year, a hundred year, a thousand year plan of the United States. We don't. So I think that you're going to see the most regulation for AI in finance, in legal and in healthcare, because those lobbyists in those are certainly going, not in my house. No, I like, I'm not going to lose all my, you know, like you just look at the things that are happening like JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley let go of like 25% of their wealth managers last week. And they're like, why is that happening? Well, people are using Robinhood. Why are people using Robinhood? Because it's getting easier to invest yourself. And it's like, is there, and there's going to be AI that's telling you what to do and when to do it and like how to do it.

And so I think we're going to be in a, yeah, we're going to be in it here. I think my, like, I look at it the same way as sales coaches. So I, I, again, I, I intuitively knew this as soon as I saw it, I'm like, I'm fucked. I have to get into this space to create an AI version of me. The reason is, is because I'm John Barrows, 28 ish years experience in sales. I got an opinion. I've, I've seen some shit, right? But I'm one guy. And so, or there's this AI little thing over here that I can take every piece of content I've ever created, every blog post, every podcast, everything else, dump it. So there's John, but then I can bring in, uh, Sandler, Miller Hyman, Taz, spin, you name it, throw it in there.

So now you have Uber John of like the most thought, you know, they can answer not just in general, but, uh, 24 hours a day, seven days a week in any language you want with context. So who would you rather get training from, right? AI John that's always there for you or John Barrows who now don't get me wrong. I think you're going to want to see like have a beer and get the show. But from a day-to-day standpoint, uh, sales coaching, I, I see sales coaching is actually because coaching doesn't happen. I actually think sales coaching is one of the highest impacts that AI can have on sales is frontline sales coaching by analyzing this call and immediately giving me feedback on very specific criteria.

Yep. And Quiris was going there, you know, before they got me up. And, you know, I think that, um, that, that Gong and some of these more, these revenue intelligence companies are doing that. But at the end of the day, I think that there's just going to be more decisions made prior to getting to the sales rep. And it's, it's just more of like, you're more of a traffic cop in the future, um, depending on what industry you sell into. But yeah, there's going to be a lot of change management that's going to happen within sales and the go-to-market machine for sure. Um, but I also think that we underestimate, we underestimate what the new generation wants. Okay. So we look at this and you and I, when you were born?

Uh, 75. So I was 79. Okay. So we're seventies babies, right? So we're like, I'm on the cusp of millennial, you're an ex. And so you kind of look at this and you go, you know, we represent the majority of leadership now as boomers are kind of aging out and we're the next, the future of the next leadership of, of America. And you look at this, you go, okay, cool. And we were solving as technologists and people that serve the technology community and all this other stuff. And we're kind of building for what we think is the future, but we really have no fucking idea. Like, we don't know. I don't know what my 10, my 12 year old son wants. Like he might, he, or my eight year old twins, like, I don't know what they're going to want to interact with brands and how they're going to want to, you know, do business.

We have no idea, but I have a bet about this. I think, I think what's going to happen is that, and I hope we're teaching our kids around this too, is that I almost think that there's going to be a adverseness to new technology. I think they're going to put up the stop sign. I think they're going to slow it. And if you think about it, like some early indications have started to happen. The flip phone came back. You're like, what the fuck is that? Like, why did that happen, dude? Like that's a huge dog shit, but yeah. Right. And you're like, wait a second. Are they actually like, are they saying that they don't want a personal computer in their hand all the time? Like that, if you look at the buying behavior of, of, of, uh, of VR and kind of all those components, it is us.

It's, it's the older generation. It's not these, these younger generations that are happening. So dude, we might be in a situation to where people would just say, no, I don't want to buy from a robot. I don't want to buy from a robot. I want to buy from a human. And that is value. Uh, and I want to be coached by a human and I don't want to interact with humans. I do think that that it's some component, like there's going to be that, that reckoning. I feel it too. It's just, it's just like remote versus on site, right? Like now on site takes a whole different, um, priority than it did before. Before it was like, yeah, whatever. We just fly around because we can, and this is the way it's done.

Now. I think people are a lot more purposeful with their, with their flying around and meeting in person. And it's, it's, it's a lot more value. And I think it's the same thing with purchasing. I think there's going to be a whole host of shit that people are like, yeah, fuck it. I don't want to talk to a rep at all. I just want to buy this stuff. But when it comes to certain things, no, no, no, no, no, no. I absolutely. And I'm going to value that over anything. And so that, those soft skills, I think are going to come into play a lot more than, than they have in the past. I think you're going to be just fine, man. I wouldn't buy, I wouldn't buy a sales coaching from a, from a fake Barris. I'd be like, no, we're going to get Barris.

We're going to get him in here. We're going to do it. Right. Although you might be able to create more opportunity for those and create more consistency in the market of like how, what salespeople do, if you can do that. Right. So naturally you could like create the AI version of yourself and it's going to lift people up. PLG is going to change like a product led growth strategy and like how you consume things that you can just show up and start using tomorrow. Like that absolutely is going to be a huge for AI, but the stuff that you really care about that you really want to know, like, I think that that still resides with humans. I think like you want to buy from humans and learn from humans, interact with them.

So I believe the last thing I'll say before we got to get out of here is it, is it until like, until computers start buying shit, once computers start buying shit, then we're fucked. Right. So I ordered the rabbit. Have you seen the rabbit? No. Oh dude, this is crazy. So the rabbit is effectively, it's like a hand, it's a handheld AI tool that actually has masked what websites look like. And so it knows the infrastructure of how websites are set up. So you can say, I need to buy tickets to Cabo tomorrow and it'll actually go by for you. So look it up. It's super interesting. I bought the, I bought the, the most recent one. It hasn't come yet because I think it was on back order, but like, I just wanted to see what the, what it was, but it's effective.

It's a, it's a personal assistant that you don't have a screen. It's like a little screen. It's like a little, you know, the thing that clips. Yeah. I think. Yeah. Have you seen that thing? Yeah. So, so anyway, we'll see how that goes, but yeah, there's going to be, yeah, it's going to buy stuff for sure. Awesome, man. All right. Well, we could give, we could go into the matrix and have an old, but we're going to tie this up. So Eric, tell people where they can find out more about you, more about Postal, what's going on. So where they can find out. Yeah. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn and, and I love hanging out at conferences. You'll see me at all the major marketing conferences this year and, you know, at the GTM events and stuff.

Feel free to reach out to me on, on that and come check Postal out. Oh, they love it, man. Well, awesome. It was great catching up and hopefully we can hit the links again one more time here coming up in the new year, at least hang out and grab a beer. So yeah, let's do it. Thanks, man. One time, man. All right, everybody. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. And like I said, at the end of all of these, go out there and make somebody smile today because no matter how bad your day went or 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.

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