Jason Inouye - A True Story of Sales Success

All right. Before we get started on today's podcast discussion, I got to do a little promo here and this one's a big one. So HubSpot's annual inbound conference is coming up September 5th through the 8th here in Boston. And it's right in my backyard. I go to it every single year. It's one of the marquee events that I absolutely put on my calendar. And even if I didn't live here in Boston, I'd come to this one because this gets some of the best and brightest across sales, marketing, customer success together to talk about what's happening in the industry and share best practices, tactics, and all sorts of different things about where the industry is headed and what we need to do to drive results in this crazy big world that we're all living in right now.

And with inbound, they get some super cool guests on this and speakers. I mean, including this year is going to be Reese Witherspoon. We got Derek Jeter coming up and I know he's a Yankee, but we'll let him come to Boston because he's actually one of the Yankees I like. And then we got people like Sam Jacobs, a good friend of mine who's going to be speaking. And myself, I got a speaking engagement. So they accepted my speaking engagement at this event. It's about sales-ready messaging where I'm going to be talking about a specific equation that we use to create sales-ready messaging that aligns sales, marketing, and CS. And you can use to implement into some of these AI tools to really drive some pretty impressive results.

So if nothing else, you're going to get some free training from me if you come to this thing. Now there's two types of passes. You can get the general admission pass that gets you all the speakers, trainings, and programs. And then the VIP pass, which is limited availability and gives you VIP lounge access, exclusive welcome parties, and access to some of the speakers that you might not have otherwise. So you got to come to this one again, September 5th through the 8th here in Boston. Sign up at www.inbound.com to get your ticket today. Let's make it happen. 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 Jason Inuit. Now Jason works for a company called Ari, A-R-R-I, and they do super high-end video production stuff and cameras like hardware stuff. So he's not my typical ICP, ideal customer profile that I personally go after, but he is the exact person that I love working with as part of the new membership that I'm bringing to the table these days. And again, for those of you who don't know, just go to jbarrels.com and you can sign up for the membership where you get my live training and coaching from me, AMAs and everything else. And Jason took that and ran with it. And Jason was literally at every single session I've done, every AMA being actively involved. And he went from being somebody who just sold into the movie industry and was doing his thing just like everybody else to all of a sudden cracking into huge accounts like LinkedIn and a bunch of others to sell massive amounts and really just change the trajectory of his entire business and the leadership in there about where they need to focus their time.

And he did it by engaging with all this content and really, really leveraging it. So I brought him on the podcast to share a little bit of his story and obviously do a little bit of self-promotion here with the platform for all the right reasons. So if you're thinking about it, it's $365 for the whole year. It gives you all access. And if you're somebody like Jason, you can get a thousand times your value out of it if you dive into it. So take a listen to this one and let's make it happen. Jason and I, how's it going, my friend? How you been? Great. Thanks for having me, John. Really appreciate it. I'm glad. I'm really happy to have you on this for a lot of different reasons. And you know, to give the audience a little bit of context here, we've been working together for how long now?

Like how long have you been kind of part of the membership? I feel like at least three years I've been following you for quite a while, listening to your podcast as well. Absolutely. So, and you're one who I think has, out of anybody I know and I work with, has taken the most advantage of the resources and the content. And also just the, you know, I always, it's funny. I always tell people like, Hey, here's my cell phone. Here's my email address, you know, use it, please. Right. And like 99% of people don't, I don't know whether they think, Oh, well, I don't want to bother him or whatever, but you're one of those 1% of the people to do. And your journey has been inspiring for me because, you know, we talk about this, like I live in the SaaS world for the most part.

Right. And, you know, training SaaS. And I always look at it and, you know, kind of freak out that my stuff is like, I got to keep evolving and doing this. But it's funny. Once I take one step out of SaaS, it's like sales, 1985 all over again. And, and so a lot of the stuff that is, that people think is not relevant is totally relevant because it's, it's across the board. It's about sales skills. So could you give the audience a little bit of your backgrounds about, cause I want to get into what you're selling, how you're selling, and then how you made a little bit of the shift to, to break out of the mold, if you will. But if you could give us some background on, on where you're coming from, Jason, that'd be great.

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like I have such a, what do you look at my LinkedIn profile? It kind of looks like, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up someday? You know, it looks like kind of all over the map because I came from the film industry, the film background, but you know, what, what really I learned was all my process of creating content and filmmaking that I really liked closing deals. Um, and I actually kind of would prefer someone else produce the content. Um, I had a boutique company. Um, we did a lot of TV shows, uh, support a lot of shows like Sons of Anarchy, uh, Mayans and all kinds of posters behind me. But, uh, but what I found was, is I really liked trying to get the work.

Like I enjoy talking to Fox universal Lionsgate and try to get them to use our services. And I, I just found that was something that was, I was more passionate about. And then I took a step out of the movie business and learn traditional sales. I, I did the Xerox copier sale and took the Xerox training too, as well. Um, I did work from Motorola channel partner and, uh, I did, I just, as a small, uh, SAS learning as well, but I, I feel like, you know, I wanted to come home. Like I, I feel like the, uh, Kool-Aid is, you know, what I loved was, you know, coming back home, which was the movie business, TV broadcast and working with product that I fell in love with and stuff. So, and that's what brought me back.

But, you know, it was very, like, it was kind of funny going just a little bit into SAS, but coming back where it was still, like you mentioned, you know, moving away from like state dinners and golf matches to work in the digital space. And, uh, I learned so much and I remember showing up to your, you were at this, uh, nutshell ensemble of speakers at a CRM nutshell, uh, online virtual conference. And what inspired me is when you said, you know, just take 1% at a time, get better every day. So then I really took that to heart and I was really trying to, um, you know, make myself better in sales. Um, and, and this whole, like taking people out for dinner and stuff like that, that doesn't work, you know, because it was a big generational shift in the filmmaking world too, as well, you know, the, um, you know, the millennials and the, even the Gen Z are coming up and remind kids next door, know more about cinema verity than I would ever in sixth grade, fourth grade.

So like, like I had to learn how to speak to, you know, uh, a new audience that was up and coming. And by the way, they don't play golf and they don't eat steak dinner. So that's, that's made me really learn. And I feel I took away a lot from what you were sharing and, and how the outreach and the outbound needed to be. So that's how I got to where I am. So. Hey, I want to take a quick minute to share with you what I'm working on these days with my new JV sales membership. It includes live monthly training delivered by me on my two signature courses, filling the funnel and driving to close. It also includes monthly workshops that I'll be running on specific skills and different tech like ChachiBT and how to leverage it in the sales process.

And it gives you access to my entire online catalog with every course and every tip I've ever done. You get all of this for $420 a year as an individual or $5,000 for teams. And as an exclusive offer to my podcast listeners, if you go to www.jbarrows.com and click on the individual or team membership and use code podcast, you'll get 20% off. Let's make this happen together. And in just for a little bit more context, so what you actually sell now is super high end video, like heart, like not, you don't sell software as a service. You don't sell. Yeah. So there is a service to this, but the main thing is, is hardware, like really high end cameras that are like for the top of the top when it comes to production, right?

Yeah. So our products are used anything from Star Wars to Avengers to Marvelous Mismazels, chapter using the Game of Thrones. It's used on so many of that. So I really enjoy our conversation because we, you know, I, I, you know, always learn about finding the gap, finding the pain point. But when you and I talked, it's also about vision too, right? Cause it was like, you have a Porsche, but we've been sometimes branded as the Lamborghini of cameras, but you know, it's like, if you have Porsche, is that stick shift really that bad to jump that high? So it's like more having a conversation where you want to get to, then like not always a problem or pain. There are those two, but there's also another aspect that a lot of our clients we're dealing with too.

So absolutely. And that vision is getting that, getting out of that feature function, right? Cause in, cause in your world, I got to imagine that once you get into that feature function space, it's just, it's like a race to the bottom, right? It's like, okay, you know, we're slightly better, but then it's a pricing thing. It's like, okay, well, you got some cool extra features here, but are they worth 50% more than this other camera that I got? Right. That's pretty much the name of the game in the traditional sense, right? Exactly. And then, you know, we, we, we love in the movie business to talk tech and stuff too, and, and try to resist and hold back and, you know, really being a better listener too, is what I learned from you.

Absolutely. Cause it was, your urge to just kind of show up and throw up. Like you share is like, don't say it, don't say it, listen, listen, and stuff like that better. It's been very important and the stuff in the learning space. And you've taken it because, you know, and again, traditionally you would go to movie studios, you go to the Fox, you go to the HBOs and that type of thing. But what made you go and start thinking about corporate, like, cause we'll, we'll kind of fast forward and you got some really, really baller clients in the corporate space, but where in your journey did you kind of say, you know what, I need to expand my ideal customer profile here. I need to start looking in other areas.

And what was that driver for you? Yeah. You know, it kind of started, um, talking with a lot of outside of the box, YouTube creators. Um, you know, sometimes they actually weren't using high end equipment yet, but their vision of what they wanted to do. And they shared with some of their corporate clients. They also do work with too. And how quantity has reached quality and quality to reach quality. Like they all reach like kind of the same level now. So it was like, Oh wow. Okay. So those people want that quality as well, uh, for their brands. And I think that really started me to like investigate more and more to see like, huh. And, and the quantity went up too. That was the one thing they're not, our products pre, you know, uh, 10, 10, 15 years ago was very, only a rental product.

And so, um, but the quantity of content because of creators and brands need to shoot every day and film content and photography that didn't make sense anymore. And, um, a lot of people start building studios. That was the other big thing. I never heard of brands building studios before. That was very new insight for us. You said, I mean, you had told me that it was a Google or Apple who's building like 30 or 50 studios or something like that. Well, like, give me some numbers as far as these, cause these corporations are now, they're no longer outsourcing their, their production. They're, they're insourcing it quite a bit, right? Yeah. A lot of them have internal production teams, you know, some even have up to 26 separate production teams too.

And they're building separate studios. And, um, I think what's very an insight to me was that they were, I don't know if that's a Silicon Valley model, but a lot of siloing. Um, so I see a lot of teams not working with one another, which was, I thought was very interesting. Like, Oh, you don't know here to here. Um, so like, I, I would love a referral for one team, but there was no referral. It's like ground zero every, every time starting, uh, because like, Oh, I don't have no idea who that person is or what anybody would recommend. So I, I, I don't know if that's just them, but, uh, but it gave me great opportunity to meet new people and, um, it's incredible. Um, but the value, they, they take it just as serious as a $250 million feature film, right.

And the quality and value. And so there's no difference, um, and they want it and they need it. And the, just keeps going more and more and doesn't stop. So, and, and even with these layoffs that's happening, the production teams are still shooting or filming, you know, that's like that. Yeah. They understand the value. Well, I think it gets back to, you know, content is, you know, content is king in the sense that the, the better content you put out there, the more, the more exposure you get. And it's the easy, easy way to market. But it's also, I think you do reach a level of quality that, you know, you need to attain in order to maintain that reputation, that brand and everything else. And that's why, you know, a lot of the small startups, they, they might hack their way to it with the iPhone version or whatever it is.

But once you get, I, I, I experienced this myself. Like when I first started my, my online portal and all that other stuff, I was like, all right, let me just kind of get something together here to see if it'll even work. And then, because my original plan was, I wasn't going to actually charge people for it. I was just going to bundle it into my training to, to kind of increase my, my day rate, if you will. And then it just so happened that people were like, Hey, can I have just that? And I was, and then like charging them for it, I was like, Ooh, if I'm going to charge you for this, I, I kind of feel like it needs to be nicer. You know what I need? It needs to feel like it's a quality because anybody can pick up their iPhone and don't get me wrong.

I think it's content is content, get it out there. Right. So for, for anybody listening right now, if you're like, Oh, I need a perfect, no, you don't know, just get started with it. But once you get to a level where you're charging people for it, for memberships and those types of things, that's where I think quality matters. And especially for these big brands, I mean, they're talking to me a little bit and you don't have to name names here, but how meticulous are they if they're spending 250, you know what I mean? Like if they're spending that much money, how meticulous are they at like the nuances of how their brand is filmed and represented? And, and do you get involved in helping that as, as, as part of the package?

Yeah, absolutely. Cause you know, like a product, like a, I use a car as example, they're super hypercritical about their branded red or blue or green or whatever colors. And they want it absolute perfect to the nut. And so that's been a big thing. And then there's other colors, like some brands have like funny purplish pink colors that they can never get right there. They have to get it there. Executives get really angry if you didn't hit that color exact and stuff. And then, um, I'm even working with a, believe it or not, uh, um, a window manufacturing company and they need to shoot from indoors, outdoors, outdoors, indoors, and hold this extreme dynamic range. And so these are conversations, uh, we have, yeah, they're, they're hypercritical because they're protecting the brand as well.

So it can't look. Yeah. You talked about the painting, the vision. What, what, give us some examples of, cause I think so many people are still stuck in the feature function. You know, you went to Xerox. It kills me right now that I still, to this day, get people coming to me being like, you know what, John, I, you know, and we need some help to transition to more of solution selling. My reps are still like showing up and throwing up and pitching. And I'm, you know, when they say solution selling, I'm like, you realize that Xerox came out with that back in like the late seventies, right? Like solution selling has been around for about 50 years at this point. So like where you been? Um, but I could easily see in your space, how feature function selling is, was the way to go.

Right. Cause look at how awesome this product is. And if I really, you know, Gong has this nexus of, and I believe in this truly, which it doesn't matter what you sell, it matters how you sell. Right. So when you made this, when you started making the switch to, to, to away from feature function and towards value, can you give me some examples of, uh, towards vision, if you will, can you give me some examples of how you were to paint that vision for them and then where it like really resonated with people and it elevated the conversation? Yeah. So we talk a lot about how you want to reach that intangible emotion from what you get from an image. And because we want to, and they all seen it, they all feel in like when you saw that Volkswagen commercial or saw some, so why did you buy it?

Right. That's the intangible emotions that you get from an image. So we're talking more on that level and stuff and how colors and light and how all that stuff works, because a lot of the people, what's slightly different, actually, the persona or ICP at the corporate level is they don't have in-house production people. So you're talking to video producers, you know, production managers still believe in the creative look, but they're, they're responsible for the overall package or the overall end of the content. So we are trying to really share that emotional impact that you get, uh, from our tools, but, uh, we don't go into the weeds and stuff like that too. Cause I just a total turnoff and they go, yeah, that's not my job.

I don't do that. Um, but a lot of things like that. The other thing we do is also is they do though, even though it's, it's not a feature film, they do shoot in crazy locations out in the sea. So reliability is also a big factor too, because even though they go, it's not a $250 million movie, they're still spending, could be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. So if their product goes down there. Yeah. Yeah. I can't imagine that. Well, I, I experienced that myself just with Salesforce, for instance, like they did this outside the box, um, uh, series and it was, and I couldn't believe I was invited to this by the way. Like it was, it was eight people. One of them was Tony Hawk. The other one was Damon John.

The other was like the CEO or the CRO of, of Forbes magazine. I was like, what the fuck am I doing here? Right. But like, so they came to Boston and they rented out. And this is when I knew like your world was like, like real and the amount of money and everything else. Cause me and Chris, my, my partner, we were like, all right, cool. We'll go downtown. Like we'll shoot this and then we'll get out of there. We'll grab lunch, whatever. Dude, we showed up and I'm not exaggerating. There was 50 people for, and this was just me. Like they were then going to go to New York and do the Forbes, uh, CRO. And I'm like, what the fuck? And like, they, they had rented out the entire top floor of this hotel overlooking the city of Boston.

And it was just for a two minute clip of me. And I'm sitting there like, there's cameras everywhere, there's production everywhere. And I'm like, holy shit. Like this is, I remember looking at Crispy. I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Right. Like, I, I think I probably should have taken this a little bit more seriously than I did. And it came out beautiful. Like they came up, but I, but I, it really struck me their attention to detail, their concern. I mean, they had a wardrobe for me. Like I brought some stuff that were my typical clothes and they were like, Nope, you have to wear this. And I'm like, okay. You know, and, and this is like, you'll appreciate this. They were like, well, we want you to be authentic.

We want you to be authentic. And I'm like, okay. I go, you don't, you know what that means as far as I'm concerned. Right. Like, so, and so I brought my clothes and they kept putting on all these other clothes on me. And I'm like, I would never wear this. Like I, not in my wildest dreams would I wear this stupid sweater that you just put me in. So if you really want authenticity, you're not going to put me in the stupid sweater because this is not how I dress. Right. And they were so meticulous with what they were, with their, what they were paying attention to. So how do you deal with that? Like, how do you deal with, cause, cause I think if I translate that to tech sales in some ways, like there's almost always the end, you know, there's the business buyer, then there's the technical buyer.

Right. So there's the economic buyer. That's like, I see the vision and I want this and what, but then there's the technical buyer that has to make sure that the product does what it's supposed to do. And a lot of times that's where you get sucked into the weeds. So, so for your sales process, where there are those two different types of people that you deal with? Are there, are there the visionaries that are like, Hey, yes. And then there's also the technical people. And how, if so, how were, how have you been able to bridge the gap between the two? Because a lot of times the technical people will throw a grenade into the solution because it doesn't do this one stupid little thing. And now you're spinning your wheels and now the business person says, well, if it doesn't have that, cause I don't know, I'm not the technical person, but if they say, so it really screws things up.

So how were you able to balance the line between the visionary stuff and the tactical things, um, as you kind of navigated some of these larger organizations? Yeah. Good question. It is, it is a challenge. Um, I mean, cause yeah, we, uh, we, we do have also specialists too. Um, I know it's called solution engineer, but we call them specialists too. And, and they come in and support us too. And we do make so many different products though. Those that really get technical in the weeds, we do actually have products that could go into that for them too, as well. Um, but yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's a lot of what you taught me, John too, is, you know, I'm trying, you know, to have an omni touch approach.

I've been trying to not leave any of them out, you know, I'm hitting the top level, but I'm at the same time trying to hit, you know, the technical people. So I'm not just feel like I'm leaving anyone out. And I, I, I really use your line that you say like, Hey, uh, in this conversation, you know, do you think there'll be anyone left out if we move forwards or someone? So that's been a big help too, as well. They say, Oh yeah, I'm so sorry. You're right. I should bring in so-and-so and stuff like that too. And that's, that's, that's been a big help as well. And so, yeah, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's, it is a challenge though, I would say, cause, um, you know, cause some are freelance, they bring in too.

That's the other challenge too. So the, the, there's 13 on staff, but of course the people that executed the technical people, um, could be just freelancers. So I have to in my discovery, find that out too. Cause yes, they could draw a total grenade at me. It's like, no, I don't like those guys. I like this over here. So I have to really do good discovery to find out, you know, do you hire a lot of freelancers? Cause in sales nav or so, I can't find any technical people too, especially in the corporate space. That's a challenge. Totally. Yeah. The freelance, that's always that kind of variable. You're like, Oh shit, how do I, you know what I mean? Cause you're not now you're just, you're a freelancer.

So you only really care about yourself. So, and then how your job is, you know, it's funny. I understand that reliability though is so important. Like if you shoot Bob Iger or Tim Cook or, you know, it's like, I I've, I've seen it like in some of the bigger top CEOs, like you have seven minutes by the time he walks in the door, you have seven minutes. So nothing can go down in that seven minutes. Like the time he literally, or a CEO walks in, it's like, you got him. Yeah. All right. He's gone. And you're never getting him back again. He or she back. Yes. And if you screw that up, you know, if you're the one who screws that up, your ass is in the, you know, in the firing line, right? And you don't want technology to be that reason for that.

Yeah. No, you can't, you can't have it be. And it's funny. I've been trying. So going back to decision-making process, who's else involved, right? Another way that I've been playing around with, which helps out quite a bit is when you ask somebody like, okay, what, why are you doing this? What's the main reason? And then you go, Hey, okay. So who, like, if this didn't go well, who else would be negatively impacted by this within the organization? Like who would pay attention, right? If it didn't go well, if it goes well, everybody's happy and everybody's doing their thing. But if it didn't go well, who, who does it impact the most? Right. By asking that question, because you're just like, okay, I'm trying to understand like the, the org chart here, basically in saying who, who really is impacted by this.

And then they'll tell you, well, oh, well, my boss, you know, whoever it is. And then it's an easy parlay to, okay, well, so then does it make sense to bring them in on this conversation? Since they're the ones who are most negatively impacted by this, if it doesn't go well. And then it's like, if they say no to that, it's like, okay, you're a, you're an idiot now. Like you just told me that these people probably who are above you are going to get significantly negative and impacted by this, but yet you don't want to have them part of this. Like, uh, doesn't make a lot of sense to me. So it's a, it's a small little shift that I've done recently that, that kind of gets people. It's almost like a no brainer to have them be like, Ooh, yeah, I, I got to get them involved here as opposed to, I got to be the one.

Right. Yeah. And with so much data too, it shows the, cause a lot of, uh, in the corporate world is the video marketing departments and, and they could see how well that content did or did not do and changes need to be made and stuff like that. So how do you, how do people get measured? I mean, that's a tough, so this one is, this is a tough industry because the output is the ultimate output, right? Like on this, like what I do, I can kind of carve it up in a bunch of different ways. Like the people, that I work with, for instance, like VPs of sales and, you know, there's a dotted, obviously a dotted line to revenue, a dotted line to conversion ratios, a dotted line to that. It's, it's rarely a direct one-to-one, but you know, in your space, there is an output period.

And that output is an extremely tangible output. And so I want to ask like, marketing is a weird thing to me these days because there's so many different ways they show ROI or pretend to show ROI. Is it MQLs? Is it SQLs? Is it this? Is it that right? What's the ultimate thing that they measure as an output for what you sell them? Good question. I'm trying to think when I last asked some of our clients, that's a good question. Cause I'm trying to think of like, they just, uh, they just, uh, you know, they deepest I've had conversations about this is mostly about, you know, how it's, it's that overall vision message, right? And then how well it's penetrating. Um, sometimes it's kind of secretive, so they can't really tell me the metrics on what they're actually getting from it, but, um, it's, it's, it's, it's to hit them in all different form.

There's so many platforms now too. That's the other thing too. So, um, but they got to make stuff or, sorry, this might sound like a roundabout answer, but you know, content went from shooting horizontal to vertical. And so there's such a big shift in that, that it's like, okay, the audience wants it, everything this way. Cause the iPhone is then there's your traditional content. So then the quantity has gone up to surface ads on Instagram, Facebook ads, totally separate from national broadcasts that they're also doing internally now, which is very surprising, not outsourcing it as much that I've seen too, as well. Um, and, but it's just this constant need to be out there every day. Um, I think YouTube was a big, uh, advocate, not advocate, but, um, what happened is because YouTube creators had to publish every day.

Everyone's expects something from you every day. Like, uh, you guys have content every day now, too. Every day. It's a pain in the air. Yeah. And that's the metrics they say is like, we got to be out there every day. It's like, this is like, we got to make something. So that's, that's, that's the big deal. And that's the, see, that's what's interesting to me, right? Because it's funny. Once you get, like, if you sell on that vision, if you sell on the alignment with what they're trying to accomplish, ROI needs to be there. Like, this is just at least my, my thought process here. Like, yes, now, especially now more than ever in general, like things are going to the CFO and they have to point to, to impact and ROI and those types of things.

But really when you get down to ROI of whatever the investment is, it's clients have a really hard time articulating what the baseline metric they're even looking for is. And so I feel like a lot of the ROI conversations are very, check the box. I'm asking you for the ROI as a vendor. Like what is the ROI of this thing? But they rarely measure nuance, measure the true ROI. Like that's what, for me, for instance, like when somebody says, well, John, what's the ROI of your training? I'm like, okay, you want to get into this conversation? Like, great. All right. What are your current conversion ratios for your email campaigns to your tier one accounts with this specific persona? Like what's, what's that conversion ratio?

Uh, I don't know. Okay. Um, what are your cold call conversion ratios to this persona in this industry? Blah, blah, blah. Well, I don't know. Okay. So then how are you going to ask me about ROI when you don't even have a baseline metric for it? So I think so many people are, are a little bit too stuck in the, let me show you the ROI of this and that's what I'm going to sell to versus aligning with vision, aligning with value, aligning with direction. And okay. Yeah. We'll check off some of those ROI boxes as we go down. Is that, was that a shift for you? Um, in your mentality of like kind of feature function, ROI versus like, no, no, no, let's, let's level up here. Yeah, absolutely. Because our previous and still existing customers were people in the motion picture industry.

Uh, like, cause it was such an expensive product. It was only rental houses. They would always come back to us and tell us like, we're not making our return on our investment and you're going to come out with a new product in three, I don't know how many years. So they're the ones always complaining, but I would say in the corporate space, I haven't got that because they're buying it, but they're not complaining. It's not being rented or used enough and they're, they are using it and stuff like that. So I haven't really, I apologize. I haven't really heard the ROI from that side, but from the traditional, yeah. Yeah. They, they tell all the time and am I going to make my money back? Am I going to, you know, you've got technology changed so fast, you know, you're going to come out with something next year, which we don't.

And that's why people find us, uh, people like us is that we have a roadmap. We don't come out with new product every six months. And, and when we do come out, we find a path of least resistance to transfer over to that next technology. Um, we don't do that. Oh, I'm so sorry, Eric. You gotta wear the next new thing, you know, and stuff like that. So how is with that, where do you see, like from an innovation standpoint, right? Cause I look at our, you know, the sales and the SAS and the tech industry and stuff, you know, all the AI tools that are coming out right now and things are moving so insanely fast that it is really hard to keep up with this stuff. But in the, in the film industry, if you will, or the camera, like, I mean, there's only so much higher quality you can get, right.

It's incremental. And I mean, I just look at the iPhone, right? Like the first version of the iPhone, the final phone was okay. You know, the camera was okay. And the next version was, it was better, you know, and, but now, you know, with the portrait mode and stuff like that, it's like, how much better can this sucker get? Okay. Maybe I can zoom further and get clarity, that type of thing. So how is, or is innovation impacting your industry as, as what, for what you sell not forget about like what's happening socially and all the, that, that type of stuff. But where are you seeing the biggest impact that innovation is having in your, in your space? Yeah. It's, it's very interesting. And that's where the feedback, you know, it's funny.

You think you can't go any farther, but the creative people is that really push us. Um, and that's what I, I love my industry is because we make high precision product for a creative person. Yeah. So it's really funny sometimes you're like, this is the cleanest, sharpest lens you're making there. Yeah. But I don't want that. I want like aberrations or other, you know, so it's kind of, it's, it's, it's very wild that it's like, wow, we just made something. And then sometimes they go, oh yeah, but I'm a creative person. Like, so the, the drive is actually comes from that. It's like, yeah, you've got, you went 17 stops at dynamic range, but I really want 20. It's like, okay. So it's like, so they're the ones that are actually pushing us the most and stuff.

And, and even in the tech stack tool, what's really crazy is I had my first request last year to have a meeting in the metaverse. Oh God, really? They wanted to have a demo in the metaverse. I hope I'm out of business, man. If we're, if we're meeting in the, in the metaverse, I hope I'm on a beach somewhere in Hawaii and I'm not doing, I don't have to work anymore. Cause I actually started a long time ago. Um, and it was, it was so weird. I, I, I guess if it does come to the point where you can put glasses on and it's like an augmented reality and we can do that, so it's kind of cool. But if I have to sit there and look at you as a cartoon and you know what I mean? Like what the metaverse is right now, I want nothing to do with that.

Yeah. Well, that, that was one ROI. I reached out to an animation studio, see how much it would cost to do this. And it just said, it's too expensive. It's not just like, hi, just meet you there. No, they want to put the camera on their shoulder, play with it. Do like all, you know, it's not just like walk around the car and just, Oh, that's cool. The metaverse. No, no. I want to play with it. You know? Yeah. So, you know, it's, it'll get there, you know? Um, you know, but, but I think that's the biggest thing for us is we have to be so open minded. All right. We're going to take a quick break here to highlight the HubSpot podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals. And I love listening to the podcast on this network and specifically another bite hosted by John Dick, Jory Monroe, and Ariel Bosworth.

And the reason I love this one is because they focus on one of my favorite shows on television, which is shark tank. And what's cool about it is they take the episodes and they break them down and talk about how they can apply to our own businesses and a real world application of it. You know, a lot of us, you can look at it for entertainment for that show, but what they do with another bite, they talk about how it applies to us, which I absolutely love. And one of the episodes that they had recently was called when community is more valuable than unit economics. And this was with the magic five spike ball and you're a kayak. And they talk about magic five's value and human data and problems to scale spike balls, community building tactics and targeting issues, and also you're a kayak social proof problem and missing customer acquisition costs.

So again, all super applicable to all of us in the startup world. And I absolutely love listening to their analysis and dissection of these shows. So listen to another bite wherever you get your podcasts and keep supporting the HubSpot podcast network. Now let's get back to the conversation. Yeah. I remember like 10 years ago, a filmmaker, because he publishes videos every day and said, I want to shoot straight to the cloud. I don't want to record in a camera. I want it to land in my computer. I edit it, I publish it. And at that time it was science fiction, you know, science fiction, but a company made that today and sold it to Adobe for a 1.3 billion dollars. So it's, it's just, you have to be very open-minded.

I think that's the biggest challenge. Are your customers being impacted by the AI generation of, I mean, because right now I, you know, it's funny things are, I mean, they're moving at a mind numbing speed right now. Like chat GPT came out and I was like, holy shit, this is insane. And I started diving into it and I'm like, I got to learn this because it's, it's, it's, this is it. Right. But then just recently I started paying attention to like, uh, auto GPT, right. Where you can literally, it ties together four or five different things that I can literally say to it, um, make me a movie, uh, you know, about Jason Bourne and, but make it in Sesame street. And I want big, I want big bird to be Jason Bourne.

And I want you to do it in a virtual world where they're in space doing this. And you know, the outcome is blah and it'll do it for you. So it'll render the images. It'll make the movie. It'll, so where, like, are these conversations coming up in your conversations and how are you staying on top of that component of the trend? Cause there's the video production recording of this thing. But my fear right now, where we're going with AI is that creators it's, it's, it's a different level of creativity, right? Because the original creator that created the original Jason Bourne movie, the original movie track or, you know, audio, what AI is doing is it's learning off of that. Right. And it's creating this whole new thing, but it's doing it.

It's such a rate that it's going to, you know, copywriters now like out of business, you know, coders are kind of out of business. Where do you see the biggest impact that these type of tools are going to have in your space? And, and how do you think the industry is going to evolve to it? Yeah, it's a, it's a very interesting time. I mean, there's a big conference called HPA in our industry, where people showed new technology and they did show a script that was written, I think with chat GPT 3.0 and stuff. And it was pretty good. So, you know, yeah, it's a, it's definitely a conversation piece, you know, but I, I think like when I, when at least we saw scripts and stuff, man, there's still a level of creativity that wasn't there.

It sounded formulaic, but you know, I know it's going to keep learning. I get it stuff too. But yeah, it's definitely open up a bunch of conversations on, you know, what that means for us creatively wise. Well, and I guess like for you, right? So I'm trying to tell some, some of my friends and in other industries that don't pay attention to this, like all these tech, all this new tech. And I'm like, you know, for instance, I got a bunch of lawyer friends. I go, and, or financial, financial advisors, right? Where they pick stocks and that type of stuff. And I'm looking at them going, guys, it's, I can already talk into, oh, you know, auto GPT and say, Hey, here's my risk profile. Go find me accounts.

I got a thousand dollars, go invest in the most internet and, and it'll do what I want them to do. And it'll actually do it better than you. And it'll do it 24 seven lawyers. Same thing. You're like, as long as there's a lawyer, um, as long as you have to go to trial and there's a judge and a jury of people, then the main lawyer is going to absolutely be necessary. Right. But all those paralegals that run around looking for case precedent and all that other stuff, like they're unnecessary at this point, I look at your industry and I say, and I go back, this is where I'll be off four or five years ago. Remember the movie of Vida that was kind of half CGI. It was mostly CGI and a couple of humans.

Right. I mean, that shit was, and this was like four or five years ago where it like the, the main woman, the main woman character who was CGI, right. Looked really fucking close to a human. Now you can tell, right. So let's talk about cameras, right. If I can now render a human almost perfectly and it looks like a human and it's, you know, it's a little bit off, right. Where does that leave your, like literally your physical space of recording? Right. Do you think it's going to continue because there's always going to be a need for original content that is, that is, you know, for a human, or do you think eventually it's going to be like, I don't need cameras anymore because I can just do this all in high def on my computer and do edits that way without, because I can pull different recordings that are already out there of all these different people.

Are you seeing it moving in that direction? Um, I mean, they're, I, I feel so blessed to have such amazing product managers and we're German company that are very open-minded. They're listening. Um, cause you know, things are changing. So if it's new products and we are always developing new products, this is a big thing. One of the big things in our industry is mixed reality, which is the actual actor against the LED wall, you know, which blew up with Mandalorian. That was the big show that kind of really blew it up, but 300 building 300 was the, wasn't 300 the first movie that was all, uh, all, all green screen, basically green screen. Yeah, absolutely. And stuff. And, uh, and yeah, and, and if things change, I, I, I feel very confident we're able to adapt because they listen and they're, they're, they're not, you know, just like we make this, so you have to do it this way.

Um, we're always looking for feedback and, you know, if it's, if our company transitions over, maybe it is someday more software driven, uh, company too. It's, it's just changing, you know, that was the one thing I don't know if I can share a Xerox story, but what scared me when I was at Xerox was my manager at the time told me, this is why we're, you know, the best. I go, okay, well, you know, tell me we're, we're, we're the best because this is the only thing we make. And at the time, this was when Kodak was kind of an interesting child, you know, they're like, you know, went down like, Oh, Oh, Oh, that's it. And there was, there was more than a few red flags at Xerox when I was there. Like I, I was just like, okay, wait a minute.

Like you can't lean on. And you know, there's, there's example, I mean, in your space, Polaroid, right? I mean, think about Polaroid for a minute. Like they were, holy shit. Like they interviewed, they innovated, but then they just sat on that innovation and they're like, yep, we did it. And this is what it's going to be now. And now they're, or Kodak, right? Same thing. It's like, no, there's digital shit. Like nobody's going to buy into that. People want film. It's like, uh, I can evolve here, man. Right. And, and I think it's good to hear that, uh, that you guys are evolving along the way. Yeah. And then I think that's why I like, I always, I also know technology in our industry changed so fast.

So even learning how the SAS industry works and in sales and the tech stack tools that people use, you know, always helps me to stay on top of things too, as well. And apply it to our business as well. So, um, we're, we've implemented the same tools that you talked about, um, as well. And it's been very beneficial. So it doesn't have to be just SAS. It works and hardware sales, just the same too, you know? So that's what I try to give people. Like every time I talk to somebody like a client, well, we're different. I'm like, ah, okay. I, I, yes. All right. You're different. Like fundamentally. Yes. There's a, you, you're not the same exact thing as somebody else, but we all have to find clients to talk to.

We all have to do our research. We all have to have good conversations. We all have to uncover pain. We all have to align with values, like regardless of what the industry is. And so sales techniques to me are sales techniques. Right. And, and the, the profession of sales is, is relatively universal, which is why, you know, I wanted to have this conversation with you because I think a lot of people just kind of assume that all the tech sales is different. And, you know, I'm more traditional. It's like, if you're not adapting, if you're not evolving, if you're not looking adjacent industries or whatever it is to see what they're doing, you're going to get stuck in your echo chamber. And eventually that echo chamber is going to get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller, and you're not going to, you're not going to be able to get out of it.

And so I love your approach of, because I, because I mean, quite frankly, you did get a lot of, not a lot, but probably you did told me you got some pushback from like going into corporate being like, that's not our thing. Right. So, and you had to fight that battle internally to say, no, no, no, it's worth it. It's going to take a while, but it's worth it. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and what I also was trying to educate too, is like virtual, like I was able to sell without even, cause there's the old mindset, they have to touch it, feel it put on the shoulder and, you know, I have to find them. There's a filmmaker from Nebraska and Baton Rouge that say, we're not coming to your big trade show next year.

Can we do a virtual? And this was in 19, uh, 2019 before the pandemic happened and they were already go, Hey, can you do a virtual demo? And I was like, yeah, sure. So, you know, you have to adapt. Right. So I was like, sure, absolutely. So I did it all virtual and I have to think of find them because when the pandemic happened, I knew what to do, like I grabbed the gear, built a studio at home and I was doing everything virtual and stuff. And that was, that was a big headstart for me. Cause I was like, I knew what to do and, and was able to close without them ever touching it. You know, didn't have to touch the product. That was a, that was a big, big lesson. I was going to say, that's going to be a paradigm shift for what you're, you're used to.

Right. It's like, it's kind of the same thing where you, if you watch the evolution of SaaS, you know, I think when it first came out, people like when, when the cloud first came out, everybody was like, Oh, you know, I remember my parents like, Oh my God, no way. I'm not putting my credit card online. You gotta be, you know, you gotta be crazy. Right. And then all of a sudden, it was like, all right, you know, I'll buy something for 10 bucks, 20 bucks online and that type of things. Cause there's security and you know that. All right, cool. And then it went up to a hundred bucks, shoot a few hundred bucks and businesses, you know, there, there was vivid, I vividly remember Salesforce signed a, I think $150 million contract, um, with, I think it was state farm or something like that.

And it was the first, cause before that it was like, well, okay. Yeah. The cloud is cute. And if you want to drop 30, 40, $50,000 on the cloud, you can do it. But if you really want a real ERP solution or a real, whatever solution that's on-prem, you gotta have this conversation and Salesforce blew that out of the water with this $150 million contract. And then everybody was like, Holy shit, the cloud is real. And now let's adapt this. So there's, there's this evolution of like, yeah, no, but the people that keep trying new things and, and, and being open to your point, being open to, all right, okay, let me try this out. Like, I don't know if it's going to work or not, but you're asking me.

And sometimes it's, it's the customer that's forcing you to do it versus you coming to them and saying, okay, this is how I'm going to do it, which is to me the best way, because you're listening and you're adapting to what the client's looking for. So I really commend you on kind of being a, being in such a traditional hardware driven feature function space and, and, and kind of opening up your eyes to new opportunities and evolving. Cause I don't, there it's, it's, it, it's some, it's a trait that I think more than a few people need to adapt to right now, because if they're stuck in their ways of like, nope, this is how I've done it there. I am deathly afraid of what's going to happen to them.

Yeah. No, I, and I appreciate what you've taught me too. Cause I, I would never have heard of like bid yard or anything to that tools, you know, what's funny. I wish I did it here, but I, I actually set up my camera as my web camera when I do my virtual, and it's a great icebreaker. Cause we're in the middle of college and then they stop and wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Is that your product you're using as a web camera? And it's a great icebreaker. So you have a hundred thousand dollar webcam, a webcam in there. And they're like, I go, yes, it is. So, cause I leave all the data up around the edges so they can gel like, oh, wait a minute, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. And it's a great icebreaker, but you know, actually using our own product.

Yeah. The video has been a very, uh, icebreaker, but yeah, it's been, it's been, you know, a wealth of great knowledge. I appreciate it, John. Cause it's, and it keeps growing too, you know, and it's, um, and now we're onboarding our, more of our team, which is awesome. They're very excited about it the other day, by the way, I was psyched when I saw everybody. Yeah. All right. You know, cause they're, they're so used to like, I remember we had a meeting and they're like, man, you didn't, you didn't talk about the product to the customer at all. Right. And just like you taught me is like, well, we're not even there yet. We're like trying to figure out what it is. Figure out if we can meet this thing.

Yeah. Right. And they're just, cause they're my, you know, it's just, you know, just how tech is like, you know, like, yeah, it's just itchy. I want to jump in to do another. We don't even know why, why are you asking? Yeah. It's still, no matter how much we hear about it, as far as like solution selling or listening to the client or, you know, all that stuff, it still amazes me how the vast majority of sales professionals still ask very basic qualification questions and then hard shift to their pitch and don't engage at all. And it's like, here's my pitch. And you feel like you don't. And these days customers are liking it less and less. So yeah, I would say the one, one, one tech thing that works for us, and I know it's challenging for, um, some other industries, but we're able to text message, which is very interesting is because a lot of people are on set and we can communicate and say, Hey, you know, I know you're on set right now.

Just want to send you a little. And, and we're able to actually include that in our cadence is text messaging, which I know a lot of industry. It's like major taboo on the first touch, but, um, it actually works for us. It's kind of interesting. Well, you're, you're spot on because of, because of the personas you go after, right? It's, it's the same thing with people who go after people who are on the manufacturing floor. Like if you're going after people who are on the manufacturing floor, they don't have hard lines. They don't, they barely check their emails, but they're on their phones the entire time. So I think if you understand your audience and how they like to be communicated with, it's totally, you know, and, and I've started playing around with texts a little bit on cold.

Like I love it when you and I have a conversation, right? And then I say, Hey, what's up, Jason, you know, my, you might've, I, you know, text you, you know, can I get your cell phone that type of thing? That that's easy. But from a cold standpoint, I'm using it very similar to the way I'm using phone these days, which is when I leave a voicemail, it's not because I expect you to call me back. It's because I'm, I'm telling you I did something else. I'm like, Hey, you know, I just sent you this email. I just sent you this video. If you could take a look at it and let me know. So it's that other touch. It's the same thing with text. Now I'll send you that video. I'll send you that email. And then I'll text you and say, Hey, Jason, I'm sorry to bother you.

I know this is your cell phone. I just want to give you a heads up. I sent you an email with a quick little video. If you could take a look at it, I won't bother you again, but if you could take a look at that, let me know. I'd appreciate it. And that's it. I'm not asking you to text me back. I'm not pitching you on my text. I'm using it as a touch to tell you to go back and look at something else. And we're increasing the conversion ratios because of that. Yeah. Absolutely. Awesome. Well, let's, uh, let's wrap this up because, uh, you know, we're kind of coming up on the 45 minute range here, which is a good, a good little, uh, for the audience where, um, what do you want to leave the audience with?

And, and, you know, feel free to obviously tell them about, um, anything if you want them to follow you or take a look at some of your, your, like what you're doing out there as far as the products that Ari's putting out there. But, um, what do you want to leave the audience with here? Yeah. Um, I'm always open to talk to new people cause I'm always learning, always open-minded. So they could, uh, find me on LinkedIn if they like to, um, if they're interested to learn more about the industry, they can, you know, I use this app email address called biz dev at ari.com. They can reach me there if they're interested. And, um, yeah, I love to have more conversations cause I'm always learning and always trying to keep an open mind.

That's the biggest, you know, love it. And it's things are happening so fast. Is it a r it's a r r i.com, right? Yeah. I apologize. Yeah. It's at ari a r r i.com. Yeah. Perfect. It's two r's. Yeah. Perfect. And for those of you listening, it's Jason and it's, uh, what, how do you pronounce your last name again? Oh, we say in a way, like, in a way, I like vodka and in a way I like scotch. Love it. That's what I say. In a way, it's I N O U Y E. It'll be in the show notes and I'll put your LinkedIn profile in there. Jason, thank you so much for coming on, man. And thank you also for being, yeah, but you know, and I really genuinely appreciate your, your, how you take advantage of the content that I put out there.

Cause nothing's more frustrating than putting like, the reason I got into this space was because when I took this training, it had such a positive impact on me. And, and I, and I thought it was so good that I wanted to get it out there to as many other people as possible. So it's frustrating to me when I'm like, no, here's my cell phone, call me, email me, like, like take this content, the shit works and people don't. Right. Or they just kind of go through the motions. And you're one of those that does not go through the motions. You genuinely take advantage. I mean, you're on every AMA that we do. You show up to the sessions, even though you've seen the session, like half the sessions before you still come back home and everything else.

So I really do really appreciate you, uh, you getting engaged here and I love to see the progression of how you've been able to break out of the mold and, and kind of change the game a lot with, with what you're doing here. So thank you. Yeah. I really appreciate it too. I always think, man, more people need to come to your AMAs, man, because it's, you give them wealth of knowledge. I try, man. I appreciate it. I learned just like you, I learned just, uh, you know, from everybody else coming on board and sharing their perspective too. So awesome. Well, let's wrap this up and look, everybody, I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did here. And, um, you know, if you're one of those people out there just trying to, you know, either going through the motions or thinking that your industry's in some trouble here, just adapt, you know, start trying new shit and, and, and realize that, you know, you might be getting told that, Oh, we don't do it that way here.

But you know, if you keep hearing that you might want to either find a different place or try something else, because that's only going to lead to, uh, less and less results. Let's put it that way. Awesome. All right, everybody. Look, um, like I said, all the end of all these podcasts here, go out there and make somebody smile today because no matter how bad your day is going or how bad you think it went, you go out there and make somebody smile today. You know, you had a good day in the world needs a lot more of that right now. So thank you all very much for listening 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 at www.johnm.barrows.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 and technology. So if you're looking to level up and you give a shit about this profession of sales, let's connect and let's make this happen together.