Why Human Connection Still Wins in an AI-Driven GTM World with Katrin Gurvich

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Now let's get on with the show. Hey everyone, welcome back to make it happen. Monday is 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. This week I have Katrin Gervich on the show. Katrin is a GTM business partner at Navin. And here's what grabbed me about the conversation. She was born in Israel, moved around a ton as a kid, didn't speak English and had to figure out how to make friends from scratch over and over and over again. And she was not a natural extrovert. She literally woke up at 5 a.m. before school and practiced small talk. She practiced at grocery stores and a lot of people gave her the side eye at first.

And she turned that into the muscle that helped her land her last two jobs through real human connections. In this episode, we get into why job searching is a sales process, why referrals have become a meaningless checkbox, unfortunately, and how the role of the sales rep is fundamentally shifting in the world of AI. We also talk about finding your own channel to build your brand instead of forcing yourself into someone else's and what companies should actually be looking for when they're hiring right now. So I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Let's make it happen. Katrin Gervich, welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast, my friend. How are you doing today? I'm doing well.

It's summer in New York. Can't complain. How are you doing? I'm doing fantastic. And New York these days does not have a lot to complain about. The Knicks, is the city recovered yet from the championship or is it still partying? I think it's recovered, but the party doesn't stop it. We have a parade on Thursday, so it's very exciting. I think the city's going to shut down. So 53 years, it's kind of a big accomplishment. So not that I had anything to do with it, but regardless. No, but I mean, look, as a Bostonian here, I think I grew up with a deep-seated hatred of New York just because. But I will tell you, I did feel good for New York to win this one because this was, I'm a huge basketball fan.

I grew up playing ball and New York, the Knicks are a team this year. They're an actual team. They seem to care about each other. They play well and they're unselfish. So they're everything that a team should be. So as much as I need to take the New York hatred out of the country. Yeah, exactly. And insert my respect. So super happy. Look at this. They're uniting folks left and right, both within the city and other folks. Well, and then we got the World Cup happening. So there's some other unification here. Like we got it here in Boston. You got it here in New York. So hopefully we're starting to see some things come together here in a world of division. So it's a nice thing. You know, it's funny.

I'm not a big sporty fan. Like I love playing sports. I'm not a big watcher unless it's like tennis. But this one really is different. So they're getting a wider audience, just like Taylor Swift is, right? Yeah, exactly. Awesome. Well, look, I think we connected at RevFest, right? A couple of weeks back. That's right. Yeah, and that was a really interesting. I actually want to talk to you a little bit about that as we unpack this. But because I did a rant about a week and a half ago on LinkedIn about something that came up because I love, first of all, Jen and what she put together is fantastic. It was one of the coolest events. But it was something when RevOps got up there and started asking about enablement.

And I don't know if you remember it, but when somebody was like, how many enablement people are in here? And there was a couple of hands went up and then a few boos kind of trickled in the crowd. And I was like, huh. And then the presenter, I don't remember who it was, but talked about how enablement was, you know, AI is really kind of shaking that thing up and RevOps. And it got me a little concerned about the alignment between all the orgs and it's us versus them versus this alignment factor. So I'd love your perspective on that. But before we get to that and then all the wonderful things about the hiring and the SDRs that you're looking for and career paths and everything else that we can unpack, I want to back up a little bit and start where you're coming from.

So again, this is all the stuff before LinkedIn, you know, I heard, you know, Israel, Michigan, tennis, and then college. You had some real unique backgrounds that made you, you. So give us a little perspective on where you're coming from and kind of what would the DNA, if you will, that got you where you are today? Yeah. Well, I was born in Israel, and so I think the name kind of hints at it, right? It's a unique one. And moved around a lot as a kid. First, I was within countries, so I didn't know English. And internally, I wanted friends, right? So I would actually, I got really good at charades. I would talk in different languages, whether it's Russian, Hebrew, to people that didn't know about it.

You know, I was five, right? So give me a little break. Finally learned English, moved to the States, or sorry, once I was in the States, moved neighborhoods. So as soon as I got my friends, I had to restart. And, you know, as a kid, you kind of, it's pretty easy to make friends. You would have come up to people and, like, can we, can we be friends? No, let's do it, right? You go to middle school, and you're, like, I have a good job. Like, do you want to be friends? Yeah, we're best friends. Give me two, and you've got to set up a deal. And I think when it really hit me at college, I think about my, like, most transformational year. I actually transferred. I used to go to tennis. It was, like, not for me.

I moved to, in fact, I went to, like, Michigan. I went to Yovan. And, obviously, Jimineers, people have the most close friends. Like, they have, let's say, click, right? And they're not as open to willing or not as open to making friends. And so I think that's really where I had to push myself and become this extrovert that I am today. Because I had to go to events for myself, right? I didn't have a chaperone who was, like, introducing me to others, et cetera. I really had to get comfortable with the uncomfortable. Like, I was, like, it was, like, a long six months, but it was, like, the best six months because I'm a completely different person now. And so, yeah. So, after Michigan, I moved around to another city, Chicago, started consulting, and really, like, helping people and figuring out, like, strategic questions, right?

Like, do we enter? What do we do? What's a certain product? And then I realized I didn't have enough fulfillment because you kind of give them a deck, a pretty deck. And then you kind of move on, right? You don't really know what's going on. And then move to, essentially, internal consulting on the go-to-market side across, like, different companies. Yeah. I mean, you, let's see. So, research, banking, healthcare consulting, then the tech world. But even before that, from your college, you majored in – what was your major and minor? I'm looking through my notes here because it was – I'm like, wait a minute. This is a very unique perspective that you can bring to the table as far as art and science and psychology and all that other stuff.

What was your major and minor? Yeah. So, it kind of changed. So, in my case, it was econ and psych because I liked the whole concept of, like, behavioral economics. And then it was a minor in world lit. And then I transferred, so I lost some credits. I had to, like, adjust that a little bit. And it became econ and a minor in entrepreneurship just because, like, I was like, I wanted to meet new people. I always had this little side hustle, you know, from selling stuff on Facebook Marketplace to other parts of life. And when was that kind of – talk to me again about when you forced yourself to be an extrovert. Because I think – and was that a conscious thing? It was the – it was the junior in high school.

Was that it? Or was it right before? I would say, yeah. Yeah, you know, junior year is really when you go through these, like, you know, you recruit for internships, you have your friends, et cetera. And so, it was actually, like, a hit from both sides, like a personal and professional, so to say. And I don't – you know, I grew up in Michigan, but I don't – you know, I wasn't a popular kid in high school, so to say. Let's just put it that way. And so, I wasn't really close to a high school friend, so I really was starting from scratch. Like, yes, maybe I knew some faces on campus, but it wasn't like the same. And what I realized was I'm not going to make new friends if I'm going to keep sitting in my room and not doing anything about it, right?

Like, I have to take action, right? Like, I don't want to put it, like, in those kind of words. And I realized, like, I wasn't cooking. Like, I would go to these events. I was a little awkward because I felt awkward, you know. Like, I felt discomfort showed, right? Like, the whole concept of energy really showcases. And sometimes, like, maybe it's, like, you're feeling awkward or maybe it's you not even wanting to be there, right? Like, regardless, people feel it. And I actually sat down. And every morning, or I would look up at 5 a.m. before, like, school and tennis and all that started, and I would actually learn how to make smallpox, right? How to connect with people. Like, it sounds so silly, but it's literally what I did.

And I practiced. But I didn't practice just, like, at these, like, larger events. I practiced at the grocery store, literally. It's so awkward at first. You know, I kind of get rejected. Some people will give me, like, a side eye. And then over time, people will, like, look at me. They'll laugh and be like, you know, you're different. And then I'm friends that way because I said something that maybe I shouldn't have. We got bonded, blah, blah, blah. What I'm trying to say is, like, it's a muscle. It's a muscle that, like, I kept working on. And now it's very natural. Like, I don't have to think about, like, what do I say now? Like, or how do I make a friend? It's just natural. You make a comment.

There's something going on in the street. And whoever's sitting next to me or standing next to me, like, we talk about it. I love that because it's, you know, I think it's a networking. And I know that's one of the points we can get to is, you know, you talk about treating it less transactional and more meaningful and really sitting down with people. And instead of going to big, huge events and just trying to see as many people as you can meet to really sit down and be intentional with it. And it is practice. I mean, I remember my first job, you know, startup and somebody was like, oh, you know, networking events. You got to go to those networking events. And I don't want to say I'm an extra.

I'm more of whatever. Whatever. I don't like labels. But, you know, I think it's an ambivert, right, where I'm really introvert, but I force myself to be an extrovert when I have to. And I remember going to these events and, you know, everybody's kind of standing around in their little groups and, you know, doing their thing. And there was no opening to engage. And I'm sitting there. I'm like, what the hell am I supposed to do here? So, you know, a few drinks later, eventually just start barging into conversations and learning how to engage. And it's interesting because I feel like that is one of the best places for sales reps to go to learn, to engage, read body language, you know, small talk and see if you can just keep a conversation going and be interested.

But with COVID, I feel like it broke that a little bit because it forced everything remote. And now so many of these kids have grown up in this world that, you know, things are feeling a lot more transactional right now. And I'm curious if you're seeing the same thing. And now, you know, if there's anything, are you kind of encouraging your team to get out there, especially the younger professionals? Like, what are some of the things you're seeing right now as it relates to networking? I'll start with the first question, which is around COVID, 100%. Even after I built that skill set, I lost it. After COVID, I got awkward again. I didn't know what to say. Like, I got really tired really fast being around people.

And, yeah, there was a big impact. But, again, like, you kind of work your way up. You take a pause with Jim. Maybe you're not. You can't run a mile. Then you're doing it. And, like, you're back to doing good. In terms of your second point around, like, 100%, I feel that. And I think it really comes from this referral, right? It's kind of like in sales. Everyone's, like, personalized outreach is a new thing. Like, it works. Let me do that. Okay, great. Everyone's have AI. It's no longer special. Like, everyone gets that. Everyone's, like, you know, the AI does a really good job of building a commonality. It's like, oh, I also went to this store. Oh, so they've made whatever. Instead, like, everyone does it, you need something different.

And I think the same thing is happening in recruiting, which is people ask for that referral. So they can have it on their checkmark. And I think it's dead. But it's dead with a caveat. So the concept of referral, if you take a step back, is someone is taking their reputation, putting it on, and vouching for you, right? And now they got lost in this volume because candidates are thinking, like, I want this little checkmark on my profile. And now, because of that, it means nothing. We need, like, an internal champion who goes to the recruiter or the hiring manager and it's like, hey, I think this person will be good. And I've had that. And I'm curious to hear your thoughts. But, like, I have people, you know, email me and email me to be like, hey, nothing else.

I applied to this role. Can you give me a referral? No, hey, how's it going? Like, I'd love to learn about you and you have such a cool experience. Like, whatever, whatever, just straight to business. Yeah, one of my least favorite things, and I'm very similar. I love helping people. I'm all about, right? But you've got to put in some work. My tolerance these days for people who take the lazy approach is zero. And one of my least favorite things, I mean, I've been on LinkedIn since the start, pretty much. I was, remember, 36,541. All right. Fun fact right there. And, but I can't tell you how many people say, like, hey, John, I see you're one connected to so-and-so. Could you make an introduction for me?

And, first of all, the likelihood of me knowing you, not very high. You know, I'm sorry, I have, like, 415,000 followers. I got 30,000 connections. Like, I'm sorry, and I have a bad memory. So the likelihood of actually me knowing, actually, the likelihood of me knowing them well enough to make a referral that is meaningful in any way, shape, or form is not high. But, actually, the likelihood of me knowing you well enough to put my name and reputation on you is almost zero. I'm sorry. And that's what's offensive to me and what I don't think people truly understand about asking for referrals. You're asking me to put my reputation on the line to introduce you to somebody else. And that is a positive or negative on me from a reputation standpoint.

So if I don't know you or if I don't even get a sense of who you are or if you're a good person or any of that stuff, and I then just flippantly, oh, yeah, yeah, you should talk to so-and-so, whatever, and that doesn't work out well, that's on you. That's on me, right? And now my reputation with the people that I'm referring you to is less. And so, you know, unfortunately, I, in the recruiting game, people ask me all the time, and I've kind of defaulted to I've tapped out of the whole recruiting referral recommendation game. Because I've been burned too many times on both ends, on the employee side, where I thought somebody was a good person because I met them a few times, and they seemed like they were cool, and they ended up being a disaster.

And on the other side, the company side, where I trained a client, they looked pretty good from the outside perspective, seemed like I got a cool vibe, but all of a sudden, the person joined them, and they're the absolute disaster of an organization. So I've kind of defaulted at this point, unless I genuinely know you, and I genuinely know that there's an opportunity that you can fit, my recommendation or my ability to make the recommendation for you to take a job there or whatever is very low. Now, to make an introduction, a kind of casual introduction, maybe, but not to say I'm putting any type of weight on this person from a referral standpoint. And I just don't think a lot of kids coming out of school understand that, and I don't think most business professionals these days understand that.

Yeah, 100%. And the way, for me, I find the balance is because, again, I did find my last two jobs. People injured me, or I multi-threaded on the last one. But I actually make it very clear to the hiring manager. I'm like, hey, I met this person at this event. I don't know them. I talked to them for 20 minutes. They feel like a good vibe. They seem personable, high IQ. But that's it, right? And you kind of just level set the expectation. It's like, I'm not putting my reputation on their work ethic, their work product, et cetera. Yeah. And I think that's the key. It's like, you know, it's the same with references, right? I always laugh at references. Like, hopefully, you're not going to give a bad reference.

Because if you do, the telltale sign of a bad reference is, yes, they did work here from January 2022 to… I do know them. Yeah. I've seen them in the hallway. So, how do you recommend – let's jump to that, though, on networking. Because it is a skill that you build. It is, you know, small talk is something that you can develop. For the team that you're working with, I mean, I know you're kind of connecting all the dots here and not necessarily working directly with SDRs and such. But how are you kind of coaching them or guiding them to build their – because you talk about building your brand and don't let it be something that somebody else is responsible for and it's really on you. But, you know, when you're an SDR, when you're relatively young in your career and you're getting told month to month, you know, hit your quota, make your numbers, hit your dials, there doesn't seem to be a lot of time for personal brand building because that is not a short-term benefit.

It's a long-term play there. And also, the networking thing. It's like, you know, like you want me to go to work all day and then go to an event at night and practice this stuff. So, how do you coach or suggest the younger generation who hasn't had the background that potentially you and I have had, kind of been forced into it, to now go force themselves into it? Yeah. And by the way, I want to be like – it's clear. It's like not just for SDRs, right? Like it's to anyone, like regardless of where they're at in your career, especially now, right? Like to our earlier point, it's like spray and pray, like tons of applications. Like most people want someone that like they truly know they met somewhere, right?

Like that's how you get through the door. So, in terms of like how you can start – to your point, everyone wants to reap the short-term benefits. They do – kind of goes back to that referral checkmark. They're like, okay, well, I went to one event. I should be known by now. It's like, no, no, no. Like it takes time. It takes years. It takes exposure to same people, right? Like sometimes you connect with someone, like you don't – you know, you exchange numbers. There wasn't like a meaningful connection. You see them again and it keeps building. So, kind of take a step back. I think it's like short-term or long-term. Short-term, you know, whether it's like to get that demo or to get that first-round interview, it's like just multi-thread, right?

Like go through, like do the coffee chats, like be curious, be genuine. And also like you thank people for their time, which is such a small thing, but I've done calls and nothing after. Like I have no idea if they got the offer or like whatever. And then I think the long-term, which is – I don't think you have to go like every week or every two weeks. I think it's just like when you have time, take the opportunity. And it can be small, right? Like it doesn't have to be a big event. It can be within your company, like a happy hour. Like stay after and like meet other people on different teams, whether it's like product, engineering, et cetera, right? Like talk to someone outside of your little circle.

It's so cool like to hear people's lives, right? And like their projects and their kind of like emergencies every day. And then you kind of expand, right? Like there's different avenues. And I kind of think of them as like five. And again, it depends on where you're at in your careers. So you kind of can tailor it a little bit accordingly. But it's like what you said, events, whether it's within the company or external. You could also do like standards, right? Like there's types of events that are intimate versus like large scale. There is like intimate activity, like engagement on like larger posts and topics. It's not just like saying congratulations on the promo. Like obviously like that's really good.

It's a bit of cool if they connect it and like you guys know it's more on their accomplishment. But, you know, it's not building that muscle. And then you have like conferences or, you know, podcasts or YouTube videos or like the influencer of Instagram, right? What kind of posts? So obviously you might need to know something about like the topic for people to get that reach. But it doesn't have to be everything. It doesn't have to be like all the time, right? Like you have an evening where you're like five or six. Well, there's an event down the street. No, you don't have to go for hours. Just go for an hour. I mean like so it's small. And you should kind of pick your channel too because everybody always says, you know, post on LinkedIn and whatever.

But some people just aren't comfortable or don't feel like. I'm not comfortable, by the way. I hate these things. Yeah, same here. As much as I do, I'm not a huge fan. Well, I don't mind posting. I'll say that. The scrolling on LinkedIn these days is I have this love-hate relationship with the platform because I actually feel quite bad about myself frequently if I scroll on LinkedIn because you see – well, because you always see everybody's success. You know what I mean? Oh, IPO. Oh, we just closed this huge thing. I just got hired here and whatever. And it's just this – and I'm not taking anything away from those people. I'm not saying that's false. But there's a lot of people out there struggling right now.

And when you're not, you know, killing it, crushing it, doing your thing, and you see just post after post after post after post of people doing that, like it starts to eat away at your psyche. Even somebody like me who has as many followers as I do, you know, I get caught in the, well, why didn't my post get that many likes? And that one did. And why is that person in my industry doing better than me, right? It's almost inevitable of the comparison period. So I think there's a lot of people out there that are like that who are, you know, A, don't want to face the ridicule or don't think that getting no comments or likes or something like that on their post is a reflection on them. So how do you choose your lane?

How do you choose where you personally, like, are comfortable but also can build in a meaningful way? Because I think there is something about getting it to your point, about getting outside of your comfort zone. Like you said that you had to force yourself to be an extrovert in a lot of ways. And I think that's really important. So how do you, what's your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think figure out like what we talked about. Like there's five of them. I'm sure there's plenty more. Those are the five that come to me. And just do like one of everything, right? And see like what is easiest to you and then pick that and just try to go to more events, right? And then like it becomes easier and easier or like LinkedIn posts, right?

Like be more and more engaging if you're an introvert, right? And kind of like you're really good at writing. Fantastic. Like do that, right? Like, but just, I think it's trial and error, right? Like picking a sport. You go to a sport, you do it for a few months, you figure out like it's really not clicking. Like as much as I love it, it's like it doesn't come natural to me even after some practice. It's the same concept. And then the last part is I think it just like goes back to the mindset, right? You're not going there to network. It's like my biggest pet peeve because a lot of my adult friends, by the way, are from these networking events. Like genuinely best friends. And it really bothered me and I was trying to figure out like what is the difference and it's the mindset that I alluded to earlier.

And I think the way to essentially like break it down is there's three different types of events in my mind where people are willing to talk to you and like make friends, right? You have like parties where you're like friends are hosting, dinner party, whatever, cocktails party. You have the hosts in common. Cool. You have events like community events. You have social clubs in like bigger cities. You have like leagues of some sort where you have like a sport, some kind of interest in common. And again, the similarity of like you want to meet people, right? Like you're there for a reason. You actually sometimes pay for that to meet others. And the third, which is happy hour. But as soon as you attach that like tech happy hour or finance happy hour, like an industry where that is what your commonality is, everyone gets sick and they're like, I don't want to go to that.

So to your question around like, well, how do you expect me to go, you know, to all these things? It's like, well, do you have this expectation that you have to go to a party? It's like, I don't know. You're going because you want to meet people, right? And if you don't want to go, you don't go or you go for an hour. And so I think it's really like the mindset of like how you walk into the room and what you're trying to get out of that. Yeah, I think mindset is everything right now. Well, an intention too. I think that to your point, like people can feel the transactional nature of a relationship and a conversation. And I think that's the benefit of the face to face component to it is because, you know, reading body language is definitely a skill.

And it's something that, you know, if you're not paying attention to it, it doesn't do you any favors once you get over Zoom. Let's put it that way. Because even in this environment, right? Like just seeing your head, my head, that type of thing. We can kind of read body language. But man, when you're standing in front of somebody and having a conversation and watching their eyes look here instead of here. Or you're watching or they, you know, quickly say, I got to go grab a drink or I got to go to the bathroom, even though they probably just came back from the bathroom. It's like something's not clicking here. So and that for me was a really, you know, when I first started coming in strong and like pitching and hey, this is what I do and everything.

Like you could literally feel people want to leave the conversation. And that feeling stuck with me. And so now I'm much more able to read people, relate, adjust. And I think it's a component that a lot of people are missing right now. And to your point are, you know, think of it as a check the box. I got to go do this thing. I got to meet 10 people. I got to meet, you know, get to business, go to leads out of this events. And it's people smell it from a mile away. I actually maybe it's a little controversial, but sometimes like I prefer not to talk about business at those happy hours. This is like post-work activity. I'm generally just trying to like learn about you as a person, learn your story, right?

Like what makes you you. And, you know, if people want to talk about business, I'm happy to like revert to that. But it's actually not what I lead with. Like, of course, like I think high level, if you start with, like that's like usually the question is like, are you from around here? And like, what do you do? Right? Because I think it's just like we have nothing else to kind of anchor back on. But once that's done, it's like, okay, cool. It's like talk about anything else, right? But that. And then, yeah, it's again how you make friends and then you stay in contact. It's a small world. Then like you naturally, like everything else naturally comes up, right? It's like, hey, I thought of you.

There's another event. Actually, someone did that to me the other day. It was really cool. Or like I had this job opportunity. Like you have a friend. Or are you interested, right? Like all of that follows and yeah, I think it's just, it goes back to the mindset to your point and being intentional. So let's talk about mindset as it relates to kind of the teams that you're seeing out there, right? Because you have the SDRs and I personally think the SDR position, you know, a lot of people see it as a stepping stone or like I just got to get through this to become a real AE sales rep. And I think it's probably one of the most important skills and proving grounds from a sales standpoint, but also from a business standpoint, right?

Grit and all that fun stuff. Because you talk a lot about hiring for grit and looking for it. First of all, let's talk about what you look for in an employee, especially today, because this is such a pivotal moment for us. I think AI has fundamentally shifted a lot of things. And I think the hiring profile is one of them at this point. But there are some intangibles that I've always looked for that I think are perpetual in success. What are you looking for as you hire? And then when you get, you know, let's go through the progression of SDR to AE and how these roles now should be viewed from a mentality standpoint, because things are shifting, the ground is shifting underneath all of us. And traditional approach of this, plus this, plus this, now I get to go to this career is not high.

So what are you looking for these days in candidates? And how are you growing your org to make sure that they're the business professionals, not just the siloed piece of the equation? Yeah. I think some of these are not going to be just to us, right? Like, I think it kind of goes across different companies, but obviously EQIQ, right? So, like, when you read the room, all of that, the third will probably work ethic, right? That's really important. Integrity. Like, do you do the right stuff? And you test that through, like, little things, right? Because it comes up, right? Like, if you, if there's an error and you don't come up and later on it continues to leak and you lose a million dollars, like, you could have been caught, right?

Like, are you honest and truthful? And the other one is getting, getting it done. And that's part of, like, work ethic. But I think what I mean by that is thinking quite literally outside the box, right? Like, I think, I forgot if it was Musk or who said that. He's like, I love to hire lazy people, which I know goes against my work ethic. But what I want to double down on that is can you think creatively? Like, can you actually, like, push back on an approach because you think something is different? Like, can you reshape how the business thinks about something or how you view something? That's really kind of, like, what leads to breakthroughs, right? Like, if you were just a copy and paster or if you just take orders and you move on, like, that's not going to do anything for you.

And then that kind of goes into the last part, which is how are you using AI? And I think we talked about that, right? It's just, like, people, there's different levels of how people use it. You have people that are post-grad and don't even know what they're looking for. So it genuinely feels, I'm not saying everyone, this is just my opinion, like, what I've seen. It's, like, a copy paste. It's, like, well, I need a deck, I'm doing an interview, or, like, I have a pitch deck. Give me a deck, I'm like, that's it. They don't do any adjustments. They don't own the product. They don't really know what's on there. And as soon as you ask a question, they kind of lose it. And you get that, like, they don't really know what they're presenting.

Where kind of we actually, like, test is how did you use AI to actually improve your deck? What did AI help you learn that you may be doing test? And that not only just tests, like, their ownership, it also tests, like, how do they use the tools that are available? Everyone has it, Matt, right? It's just, like, the difference of how you use it. And not only how you use it, but, like, are you still the product expert, right? Like, do you really know what's going on to speak to it? Because the AI isn't in the room. The AI cannot take control, at least not yet, your body language over what you're speaking, right? So I think those have been, like, the key things of, like, what we look for. Yeah, and that's, I'm curious, like, because all roles right now, I mean, let's bring it to the RevOps side of the house.

That was one of the things that, the reason I was concerned when I heard a little bit of the boos when it came to enablement was because, you know, as great as RevOps is or can be, quite frankly, with the data and the insights that it brings to the table to surface to us, said sales professional, to then articulate that to the client. Unfortunately, I think that we have not done sales reps any favors over the past 10, 15 years with the predictable revenue. I mean, I did a, I think I talked about this. I did a presentation at Pavilion called Anything But Predictable, and it was effectively how the predictable revenue model broke sales. The segmentation of roles, it turned it into this assembly line.

And we taught a lot of these kids, you know, basically on process, on tech, on, and not on the fundamentals. And so now we've treated them like robots, and now they're getting replaced by robots. And so I understand, but the person, the human component of this is still the connective tissue for the clothes, the sale. I mean, outside of pure transactional sales. So how do we need to retool this environment to keep the human touch? Because I just don't think a lot of reps are positioned right now well enough to be able to use all this great information that RevOps brings to us to be able to have that conversation with the client because it's become so transactional. So how do we need to retool the sales professionals, SDR, AE, I don't care, even CSMs, to make sure that they have the right tools to engage at this level, to make a client feel comfortable, to ask questions that they might not be familiar with asking?

How do we develop this new generation, if you will, of sales in the AI world? Yeah, I think, I mean, it's like the million dollar question. So, but I think it comes to your point on human connection. How can you have human connection? It's actually pushing for more onsites, right? Like doing the exact same thing we used to do on the Zoom call in person, right? You read the body language a little bit more. You see the side eye that maybe like if you're off camera, you can't tell, and you adjust quickly. It's doing little things instead of personal outreach, which I'm not saying is bad. I think it's great. It's needed. But it's like doing the extra step of like maybe delivering cookies, right?

Like you think it's funny, but it works. People take that demo call, right? Like it definitely works. So I think that's the second part. And then I think the third part is like, and I think it's a little bit uncapitalized, is essentially going to events, right? Like I think marketing overall in most companies is naturally doing more events. Like I think people are using Salesforce, Dreamforce, right? And trying to do something of their own kind of like their own twist to it. And that, again, it's the same concept. We're going to bring everyone, whether it's customers or prospects, right together. And who sells it better than the customer who's using your product, right? So I think it's like shifting of like how you actually sell, and it's like putting it into that human touch validation from like customers, right?

And then when it comes to SDRs, it's like them being there. Like them being on the floor, being like, hey, come to our, you know, process on QBTA. Come to our booth. Like let's show you exactly like how we demo, et cetera. Because it's so much harder to quite literally like walk away after you start the conversation, right? It's easy to say, okay, now thank you after the hello. But once you're like standing there, and they're like clearly a cold call, but in person, you're not going to like hang up and like, that's just rude, right? So you catch them for at least 30 seconds, and then you can kind of do your pitch. So that's, I think, the new way of selling that people are trying to like lean in on.

Well, let's talk, so the challenge I'm seeing outside of the kind of the interpersonal skills is also the conversation of value and what value does a sales rep bring to the equation when almost every answer can be found through ChatGPT, through Gemma, you know, pick your poison, right? I mean, I had this wake up, you know, when I switched from ChatGPT to Claude Cowork, you know, it was this aha moment, like, oh, you know, and the blog post that I wrote was, I know Kung Fu. And it was, oh, my God, look at what I can do. And after going deep for two days, you know, over a weekend, seeing everything that I could do and all this crazy stuff, I woke up afterwards going, uh-oh, I don't think I'll ever talk to a sales rep.

Now, again, I'm a two-person company, you know what I mean? So I have the risk and all that fun stuff, and Claude runs my world and everything else. But I don't think I'll ever talk to a, personally, ever talk to a sales rep ever again because I can go so far down the path of educating myself on a solution to figure out whether I need it or not. I guess my curiosity is from your perspective with what you're seeing at your organization. Like, are clients coming far more educated to the conversation? Are we there yet? Or are we still in a legacy buyer model that is kind of facilitating the transition with the legacy selling model? I think it depends on your company. We sell, like, our ICP is, like, companies, obviously, we're going to enterprise.

And so I think as you go up into enterprise, you have these a bit more, like, legacy old school folks that want that human interaction. They actually want someone to kind of sit them down. Even though, like, you can go on LinkedIn or whatever, like, ChaiJBT and that same thing. But I think if you combine and look at it from a holistic point of view, yes, awareness is definitely there, which helps from a first level, right? It's like the first screen. It's like, okay, I know you're good enough. I'm taking this call because I've heard about you guys from whatever, you know, prospect or customer or other users of you guys. But to me, I think it's, you get, actually, the technical aspect of things much faster, right?

Especially as you're going to larger companies, like, the integrations are so complex. You actually can't find that, right? And then there's also the element of pricing, right? Like, we have a mind. There's obviously some kind of bundling and there's a whole process of negotiation and sales. You have one thing, like, to the person's use case. And I think the third part, which is, I think through these conversations, you actually, your problem is X, but then your solution can actually be something very different. Like, you might be asking for, I don't know, you say, like, travel, but you're actually, like, what you're trying to fix is your leakage in your expenses. And obviously, they're not mutually exclusive, but then you're like, okay, cool.

Through that conversation, you're like, I didn't realize everyone's working on a policy, right? Like, using one as an example because it's, like, top of mind. And then that's where you kind of, like, get the upsellers from a sales perspective, but also leverage that human interaction. You're like, I never thought about it this way. Do you think that, how fast do you think that's going to change? And I ask that because I look at pattern recognition. You know, one of the benefits of getting older is pattern recognition, right? And it was, I go back to when we put a credit card online, right? Like, when Amazon first came out, it was like, oh, my God, are you crazy? No way am I going to put my credit card online to buy something.

And then it was like, oh, for $10, I will. For $20, I will. Whatever. And then all of a sudden, I bought a Tesla, you know, online. SaaS. You know, at first, it was cute and it was adorable. Look, if you didn't have enough money for on-prem, like, okay, you can do this little adorable cloud thing, right? And then all of a sudden, Salesforce, $150 million contract with State Farm. So, there's all these examples of how it started at this level and then just exploded to this. And my fear is my comment about, hey, I, as an individual, you know, two-person company, will probably never talk to a sales rep again, quite frankly. Because, you know, I can tell it to act as the best sales rep and ask me questions that I don't even know and give me a different perspective on this and how am I looking at it differently and those type of things.

How fast do you think that will creep up to mid-market and enterprise and how does the sales rep, does the sales rep need to go back to being the pure quarterback, if you will, of the, where bringing all the pieces together? Do they have to have deep product knowledge at this point to be able to answer those questions? Should they be using AI to do that? Like, where is that fit? Because, quite frankly, within five minutes now, I can jump on a website and be like, okay, what's, or, you know, Claude and be like, okay, tell me about this, you know, do I even need this? What should I care about? That type of thing. So, five minutes before we get on this conversation, I can be fully up to speed. Well, not fully, but very up to speed.

And if you are trying to push me through your sales process and ask me BANT questions and then let me wait a week to walk through a demo from some AE who's going to give me some generic crap, like, I have zero patience for that. And so, how fast do you think that's coming? And then what are you doing internally on your org to meet the moment from a value standpoint and help the reps do that? Yeah, so, to your point, I think it depends on, like, the company size. So, I think from a consumer perspective, yeah, like, we're way more willing to drop, you know, whatever it is on a new appliance, new car, et cetera. I think, like, there's so much research up there and there's, like, not really, like, discounts.

There's no negotiation, like, the price is what the price is, right? Like, this is not like a farmer's market. You can't really, like, haggle. Then we go into, like, what we just call, like, SMB. I think that's where, like, the sales cycle is going to quite significantly shorten, right? It's the same concept, like, we're pretty similar use case through some repetition. I think that, to your point, that says our goal problem is to have some, like, product knowledge to jump on your more technical questions right away. Like, you don't need a demo anymore, right? And I think the biggest difference is, like, don't start with a demo if the person doesn't want it or they don't need it, right? Like, we'll just get to the point.

It's good for both of us, right? Like, certain sales cycle, you get your payment or your quota, whatever. And the most important, like, the customer, the prospect is happy. Like, they get what they need. And then as you move up, the first part of the question, well, how long will that take? I think we're still, like, five to ten years away. Obviously, I don't know AI is moving quite rapidly. But I don't think the fundamentals are going to change. I think it's going to be just, like, a shorter deal cycle. And it's going to mimic what I just talked about with the SMB, right? Which is, they don't need that demo. They're already seeing it somewhere. They're going to want to understand the technical details, like, the integration.

That's where, like, the essays come in, right? Like, solution architects. And maybe that's where, like, the blend of the A&E and the solution architect will become a new role, right? It's not just, like, being the quarterback and kind of putting all the dots. It's, like, really knowing things end to end. And frankly, right, like, we just got to be more efficient, I think, as a, just overall as companies, right? Like, as they grow, like, AI is more useful. And, like, the only way to make profit, it's, like, your productivity goes up and your headcount goes down, right? Like, it's not, it can't be all the same rate going up. So what are you then training, like, your sales team right now? What are you teaching them on?

Are you revamping your sales process or, you know, how are you evolving the org now? Because you're a publicly traded company. There's a lot of pressure on you, a lot of eyeballs on you. I'm sure from a board standpoint and everybody else, there's pressures across to be more efficient, to grow higher. And are you fundamentally changing anything within your org as far as how you enable them, how you train them, you know, how you look at the sales model, if you will? I'm more on the strategic side, but from an enablement, I'm obviously, like, pretty involved overall. So I think there's a couple elements, which is one, what I mentioned earlier, it's, like, how can we introduce more human touch?

We know it works, which is, like, on-sites. I think that's, like, really helpful. It really makes a big difference, whether it's, like, in the beginning or the end towards, like, execution. Like, we do, like, the negotiation phase all at once. There's no back-and-forth with, like, red lines and Gmail, whatever. And then onboarding or enablement perspective, yeah, like, the concept of, like, once you – I'm going to go back to the workout phase. Like, you run around the same way every day. Like, you're not going to have the same impact in the same thing, right? Like, we need to constantly change. And the way we're thinking about that is, like, well, I'm always looking at, like, onboarding and coherence.

So, like, what can we do differently? Like, what did we change last year? And how does that compare to, you know, this year's, like, cohort? Are they getting better or worse? And so, for example, like, what we're doing is we're getting into the product a bit more. Let's start with the fundamentals around, like, pipeline. Like, how can we actually build those rules? Even actually going down to how do we build connections? Like, how do we kind of think about being different and standing out, right? Like, to get that demo. Like, it's not just, like, the outreach and the sequences. Everyone can do that. Like, you don't need to be getting 400K to do that sequence, right? So, I think it's just, like, doing the little things.

And to your point, it's, like, finding pain. It's not just, like, pushing a demo because our first part of a safe demo is giving you a demo. It's, like, no. It's, like, really meeting the prospect or the customer if you're in CSM, like, where they're at, right? Like, don't go with an agenda. And that, by the way, doesn't go just sales. Like, go with the flow and meaning. Right? Like, if the person doesn't want to talk about something, hold on. Like, it's not like a checkmark. It's not a referral checkmark, right? And so, I think it's putting more emphasis on that and just being agile. Like, even if, again, you walk in and you decide you're going to talk about demos, like, let's get technical.

Like, that's why you get to know more about the product, more about the competition to answer the questions, well, how are you different than, you know, a competitor, right? Like, what do you think about the latest pricing? So, it's really just, like, you have to be more on top of things because your prospects are, your competitors are, right? Yeah, I mean, that's the challenge. When IQ and information is, you know, anywhere and everywhere, it is abundant. Like, how do you stand out? And I think that's the challenge, the balance that we're all in right now. And we can finish on this, which is, you know, how are you personally striking the balance of staying up to date on AI and all the craziness that's going on while maintaining the human connection and staying grounded?

Because I think you can, you know, there's an argument to unplug and just be like, you know what, I'm just going to go and do my own thing and ignore all this stuff. You know, I don't think that's an option right now unless you are really willing, you know, you're, you know, wealthy enough to unplug and see you later because I think this is fundamentally shifting everything about us. So, how are you dealing with it yourself? Is there a certain amount of time you play with it and integrate it versus, you know, conscious time outside of it so that you stay sane but also stay up to date? Yeah, I think depending on what it is, I do certain things daily and certain things like weekly or frankly like depending on like my ability and like mood to like go out and do those things.

So, like things I stay daily on, it's like the morning brew, I'm not, this is not a plug, but just like I need to understand the news, right? Like I need to know what's going on so like become knowledgeable whether it's about competition or just what's going on in the world, right? Like, why are people sad today? Why are people happy today? I think that's like a, you need, you should keep up with it. And then there's other things where like I don't force myself because again, it goes back to the energy. Sometimes, frankly, like the last two weeks I've had events every single night because it was like tech week, it was like rep fest, right? There's like dinners for all of those. And now I'm a little tired.

Like I'm not doing anything for a few weeks and I just want to catch up on my own life. And so I think it's just like finding a balance and just like maybe like once a week think about like, okay, well, what did I do this week? Like did I accomplish like staying up with like news? Did I accomplish, you know, connecting with others if that's important to you, right? Like whether it's family, friends, you can't check off every box. And then if you see like, hey, I actually haven't done anything like outside of like my work and my personal life, well, like go next week, look at the events and try to go to some. But again, like don't force yourself, right? Like just be mindful of how you're thinking about it.

Sometimes it can be two weeks in time and then nothing for two months, right? But as long as you just keep doing it over the year, I think that's what happens. Yeah, it's the compound effect, right? I think it's the same thing just a little bit every day. I talk about, you know, some type of routine where it's, you know, 30 minutes every morning where you're checking whatever it is to see who, you know, what's going on in the industry. It's 30 minutes a day of just playing around with AI just to see what it can do to try something different. But then don't get stuck in the rabbit hole because I think the rabbit hole is easy to go down these days. And I've found myself after two or three hours being like, wait a minute, what did I actually do here?

Did I actually do anything or did I just kind of have some fun going down this rabbit hole of AI, which, you know, has its benefits to figure things out. But I think the productivity, I still think that I still think we're in the phase of AI that we're in the productivity phase and the efficiency phase, not necessarily the results phase. Because I have yet to see too many companies or individuals say, oh, I've been able to use AI to, you know, increase our revenues by X percentage or whatever it might be. I've seen a lot of savings and efficiencies, but not there yet. So I think we're still finding that out. Yeah, 100%. And to your point, I think people are, what is it, meta, like hiring people back, right?

Like, we're just getting smarter. And I think there's, I think the other thing we talked about is like build versus buy, right? Like, I think everyone's building. There's a little bit of inefficiency there because people aren't talking. And I'm doing the same thing as my, like, colleague. It's like, why are we doing this, right? So it's going to take some time to kind of work through those swings or quirks that we've kind of like had with other parts in our, in our business. But I think we're working towards the right way. And I think maybe in five, 10 years, five years, maybe is really where we're going to see like the impact. But right now it's just a lot of inefficiency, but also efficiency, right?

Depending on kind of like on an individual basis, but not on an advocate basis. And that's, that's the part that I think is the, the interesting part right now where it's, it's throwing such a monkey wrench into like, and I was just directly in sales of people because the build versus buy and, oh, well, I can do this and why, and I can do it cheaper. So there's a lot of angst in the industry right now, just as far as the buying cycle, because I've, I've personally never been in a situation more where I've had people, you know, myself included and others that I coach and train. On, you know, you do all the right things. You multi-thread, you get the executive alignment, you get everything and you're, yep, let's do this.

And then like a week later, it's, ah, sorry, man, priorities changed. We got to do something different. Something else came up. Let's push this till Q3 or four or whatever. And man, when you hear a, let's push this till Q4 at this point, you might as well just tell me to go piss off because it's that, that deal ain't happening because things are moving too fast. So I think that's the, that's the, the scary part right now that I'm seeing is that the indecision, quite frankly, across the board, because of all the question marks that AI is throwing into the equation is really challenging sales reps to figure out how they can create urgency or, you know, uncover urgency and drive that urgency in a time where urgency is a, is a fluid thing, quite frankly.

Yeah. Yeah. And again, it kind of starts small, right? Like now you don't have to spend hours trying to do these personalized emails, right? Like either we built internal things where it's like whatever charge of a T and it actually does the research for you. You have the prompt and you get the perfect email sequence, right? And then great. That time can now be leveraged for something else. So to your point, like it's just a reallocation of our energy. Now it's like maybe they can get more technical, more quicker, or, you know, they can stay on the competition a little bit tighter, right? Like you just, it depends. Like this will be like how you use the extra time, right? Like do you log up at three because you did your work or do you continue because like, wait, I actually just earned three extra hours to do something else and I can get better.

Right. And I think that will be like the biggest difference between like what makes someone good versus like the best. Yes. Yeah. And I think that's that continuous growth mindset that we all, if you haven't adopted it yet, you need it now more than ever. So I think that's a great place to land. We'll talk to the audience here where they can find out more information about you, what you're working on, Navin, everything else. Yeah. You can find me on LinkedIn. If you ever need any help or support, I'm happy to answer questions about my career, how, you know, mentorship, et cetera. And thank you so much for having me. Yeah, absolutely. It's been a great conversation. I hope the audience enjoyed it as much as I did and I know they will.

So thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Thank you. All right. And everybody, thank you again. And like I always say on all these podcasts, go out there and make somebody smile today because no matter how bad your day is going or how bad you think it went, if you make somebody smile today, 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. Hey, thanks again for listening to the show and for all your support throughout the years. This is one last reminder to check out my training programs at jbarrows.com or leave a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform or G2 if you've already gone through my training or sign up for my newsletter.

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