#45 | From Luxury Watches to Agentic AI: The Future of Sales

Hi and welcome to this week's episode of The Digital Diaries. My guest today is currently a sales leader in Intercom. Prior to that, Zandesk, Ryka and six promotions in his career to date, but before tech, he was selling luxury watches in Switzerland. The most manual paper-based process one could imagine. So we're going to go on a journey from the most paper-based to a gentick AI selling. Michael, Kalini, Cenkko, very warm welcome to the digital diaries. Brilliant. Thank you very much, Peter. Yeah, really excited to be here and well done on the last name. It could be a bit tricky. That's, you know, as I said before, that's why when I book a table, it's Mike, Kali, just to make it easy for everyone. Yeah, you're spot on. It's been an interest in journeys so far for me, you know, from selling paper-based, very relationship-based sales in Swiss-made watches to Sass and Inferno's Never Look Back. Really loved the exporter to the world that Sass gives you. It does indeed, but six promotions, you know, in ten years, that's quite a headline. What's the und lamorous version of that story? Because there's got to be some late nights or some sweat and tears along the way. Tell us the darker side of it. Yeah, now that's fair, that's fair. And look, you know, we recorded this the day after the end of the quarter. So there was, you know, a stressful day yesterday. I wasn't, but as, you know, one of my late leaders likes to say is, nothing is ever as good or as bad as you think it is. Yeah. So, look, you know, I guess, you know, that's kind of that message or like that saying, I carried it with me throughout my career. And it's a bit of a grounding mechanism for me as well. Because, you know, yourself in sales, it's their highs and lows and, you know, that could destroy judgment a bit at times as well. So let's say, you know, on the last glamorous thing, like one mistake that highlights that, you know, that is very common for early career. What I started as an individual contributor. And to be honest, like, you know, I see that today, everyone how and then is assuming, like, you know, assuming that prospect wants to have the full-blown product walk through because that is the best thing enough to slice bread that you know of or that's, you know, the champion has all the authority and getting the deal done and they have all the budget and all the stops pulled or like assuming that's your customers where you think they are on the buying journey or that they have a full understanding of the technology, the way that you think about it. So, like, you know, going with that assumption into any of the situation is something that's especially relevant now within age of AI because there's been a massive disruption to the way people think and operate. And, yeah, look, you know, even some of the conversations that I have within a week, you know, it ranges from somebody who's like, yeah, we've automated 90% of our business processes with the gentex software and like, we have an orchestration line here and there and then there's another company within the exactly same industry who are like, yeah, well, look, you know, I know those chatbots five years ago, there's some, we're still considering if that's an interest, like if that has any value to our process or not. So, you know, my learning from this mistake that is kind of following me still a bit is, you know, never assume something. And especially never assume something that's, you know, something that is what it is, stay curious, always discovery on and it kind of relevant whether you are an IC or business later, leading, you know, multiple regions because, you know, something is always changing and somebody has, you know, always a different perspective and things. I couldn't agree more and, you know, when you say that, be curious, it's so true. It's more than just sales. It's life great scene in Ted Lasso and the dark board, you know, where he makes a bad guy look at that. But he just be curious, not judgmental because in that example, you're talking about where same industry and one customer is like, I'm not so sure. That can sound like they're on ambitious, but they might just be cautious and going, I'm not sure, you know, I'm hearing AI is making coding jobs. I'm very happy with my team and I don't want to rock that boat. Our success is in our people. So you really don't know and it's very easy to say, oh, they're not being adventurous or they're not being forward thinking where that could be a totally different mindset that you don't know. But one of the things I know that's going to look at your career is that you have a SaaS team with under 10% voluntary, voluntary attrition over seven years. Every single sales leader I've ever spoken to on this podcast or in life talks about culture, but the attrition numbers can often be low. What are you actually doing different to achieve that? Yeah, look, the honest truth is like, you know, I never really track the attrition per say. It's more, I see it more of a like a bite product of how I operate with the team. And I guess, you know, there are a couple of the stages there, how I like to at least translate it for myself, but I'm, you know, constantly learning. So to me, it first starts, you know, even before someone joins the team. So it's starting from the hiring perspective. And what I'm trying to achieve during the hiring process is to find an honest fit. And by that, I mean, is I'm quite direct and honest about the job, all the highs and lows, all of the ambiguity of the reason you all the true grind, all of the opportunity that there is all of the messy parts, you know, at any job, nothing is perfect. And if someone, you know, sells selects out before joining, that's also a good outcome for both them and me. So, you know, we're moving on with our lives and pursuing the right career or the like talent in my, on my side. But what I look when I'm hiring for people, what I look for is, my man, obvious things, you know, understanding the business, the skillset, etc, is the actually, whether they could add something to my team, whether they could add something that we don't have, whether they could add different perspective, different cultural background, a different experience. Can I learn something from this individual? And it doesn't matter if they're a peer, a superior or somebody reporting into me, because there's always something to learn from someone. So they could fit that. That's a massive benefit for them. Another thing is, you know, once they join, obviously making sure that the growth is visible, you know, in sales, it could feel sometimes, you know, another quarter, another number and you go on and go on and go on. It's a bit of a hamster wheel. But making sure that's, you know, we have those career conversations that we create, or I help them to highlight the opportunities where there's new experiences that could help them within their next step. And it doesn't necessarily, you know, next step within my team. It could be a next step within a different team. And often development doesn't necessarily come from the manager. Sometimes it comes from peers, sometimes it comes from the experiences. So looking with individuals to understand what was it that they are after and how I can help them to get where they want to be through the experiences they could have or through the network or what have you. And then, you know, another thing that is super important for me is, but it's probably like, you know, it's better to ask my team though. But showing up when it matters as a leader is, you know, joining those difficult conversations with customers, helping to navigate internal blockers or, you know, being available when somebody just hits a wall and like just need someone to brainstorm ideas. So how do they go through whatever the challenge is? Those things are, I believe, the ones that help me to build that right culture. But honestly, that's those are the type of the cultures that I strive in myself. Right. So I was kind of genuinely looking for leaders like that. And, you know, one other thing that comes into mind in this very noise environment this day is with all the AI and transformation and changes is helping the team to navigate the noise and making sure that they're focusing on the right things that they're within their control. Because there's constantly something changing either the markets or the targets or the territory or something else. There's a lot of ambiguity in what's going to happen here or there. So helping the team to focus on what is within the control, helping to translate the noise, absorb some of that noise and just like, you know, shield the team from some of the things that not relevant for them, that kind of thing. And, you know, just to make sure that uncertain doesn't become an anxiety and those are kind of some of the highlights that I put in there. I think that's really important. And as you're saying about being there for what's needed, like the best sales leaders I've had have always been able to, if you like, be a sounding board of, you know, when you're navigating a deal, because, you know, every, the one attitude I had from the IC perspective was myself, manager wants this close because it's their number two. So we're literally on the same team in every sense of the word. Yeah. Oh, someone who maybe wasn't on the call has a more objective point of view. Most likely your manager has more experience than you. So, you know, they've come across these things before, and, you know, even work on the solution engineer can kind of all feed into the culture. Whereas it's, we're trying to help do it because kind of you mentioned the quarter closing yesterday, we can all get focused on closing the deal in the quarter. But maybe that was never going to happen. And we're just upset in ourselves and set ourselves up for failure instead of going, you know what, this is a Q two or a Q three deal. Let's just run it at that pace and forecast it for then. And if we can pull it forward great, but let's not aggravate a customer just to make ourselves feel good in the interim, you know, yeah, that is, that is so true. So working in mid market enterprise thinks has definitely shifted in terms of how these buyers are going. What is the most surprising thing you've seen in how buyers are showing up on conversations in contrast with say 2023 to 2026? Yeah, this market is definitely constantly changing. The most surprising thing is, or look, one of the most surprising things is actually, you know, something that I touched a little bit earlier is the width of the spectrum of where people are and how it could exist within the same industry. Right. So like, you know, another example is, you know, I have a couple of customers in the account in software or which seem like they provide account in software and services. And accounting, they're based in different parts of Europe, but they operate within, you know, plan European spectrum. and like one of the customers has, you know, fully embedded the AI and they're like fully technology forward, they understand all of the benefits of, you know, the ways and how they could operate and whatnot. And then yeah, then the other customers still very much bogged down into like very traditional raise every quest and will come back to you via email thing because they feel like there has to be a lot of control and they are operating within the same market, more or less a market presence, more or less a market share or whatnot. It's like, you know, with the end of the spectrum with more advanced customers, you know, that's where that's where it's actually getting interesting sometimes as well because a couple of years ago when all of the AI, new era of the AI kind of launched into the space, the assumption was like, all right, the vendor is the one who is, you know, bringing the insight, bringing the knowledge. So it is enablement and, you know, we help customers to navigate this, which is very much the case still. However, it's not very unusual this day as well to feel to meet a customer who are like even more advanced than you are and then like you're sitting down and listening to like, okay, what's going on here? And, you know, I've just recently been to Berlin for like a dinner with the enterprise leaders in the local markets. And I was so fascinating to have a conversation. It was focused on AI initially like, you know, you have your usual executive dinners. Let's discuss the AI transformation of the markets and, you know, all of the jazz. And within first 15, 20 minutes, the conversation slipped completely to how they implemented in their personal lives. Like, you know, somebody sharing like, oh, yeah, this is like, you know, the meal plan that I've built with, you know, this model of that model. We've been chatting about like the future of AI or like, you know, in general, where this transformation leads us and with, no, it's very interesting to observe the market currently, how people actually evaluating not only the software itself, but like taking it through their own lens or their personal experience. It's of understanding the technology and implementing the technology and using it in day to day. And I know, even your examples that you've shared in some of the podcasts, like, how you created your own training plans and whatnot, like, no, we're all trying it everywhere. And it's so fascinating right now. That's like, you know, something that still keeps me, keeps me going and like very, very surprising at times. I did hear a great one from a guy I was coaching recently, which is that he goes into the fridge and his store co-boards tells chashupt what ingredients he has and it gives him what recipes he can make off the back of it. I think it's like his journey to be a Michelin star chef. He's learning new things every day, but that totally brilliant news case that I hadn't hadn't popped into my head. And I think that's what you're saying is the real magic of if we're all on this journey together. And the fact that it crosses into our personal lives makes the business conversations even more exciting. Yeah. Yeah. No, definitely. Yeah. It's wild. You know, especially when when you hear those stories, I bet they're probably using, you know, the latest and greatest, like son at 4.7 to run, you know, a meal plan. Because why not? Well, look exactly because why not? But you're running right now. When a me ago to market for a company headquarters in San Francisco, well, joint headquarters with Dublin, the playbook gets written there, but assumptions can be very baked in. And it's challenging a lot of companies where they're headquartered in San Francisco, but then they've an amyly, Holbin, Dublin. Things are different in Amia and there's so many markets with nuances. How are you managing that and keeping the team energized and delivering the same message in the right way? That's actually a very interesting area to explore, especially in the taxi. And though it's not unusual to have a headquarter based in North America, you know, because it's this spot to be with. And I think when fairness working in the Amia markets for the past decade or so, I think my role as a leader is to make sure that, you know, that playbook or approach is properly translated into the market realities of the Amia is, you know, like even recently when when we're in San Francisco and workshop, you know, developing the next iteration of outcome based price in versus compensation model for sellers, which is a very interesting topic right now in itself. There was like, you know, a cross-functional strategy session with sales, leaders, vineu operations, finance, data, LLM scientists and what have you. And I am as a representative of Amia where they're not necessarily like definitely not to push back or anything, but more so to make sure that the Amia realities represented in the room in the right way, because there are loads of things in Amia that are quite, well, quite unique or could be challenging or over or missed at times, because you know yourself, there are like, you know, workers' council in duck regions or you have a completely complete difference in cultural in the way of the cultural norms from like north of Europe where it's like very direct and but give me my space whilst if you go further south or like Middle East is like, no, come here, look me in the eye. Let's have relationship first. And then we talk business. It's like completely different and you know, and that's on that topic also one thing that was really interesting to me, you know, exploring with one of the customers, you know, back to those a little bit more philosophical discussions is, you know, that's where it fits with the current AI approach as well really nicely. There's one start there, right? So English speaking world, right? So there's around 20% and like, you know, probably not exactly 20% but around 20% of global population speaks English and then native English would be, you know, even less than that, so around 12%. And then there's also like this definition of the Western world, which is again, around 15 to 17% of the global population or all of the most advanced frontier LLM models are actually builds based on the English-speaking data inputs and the Western culture, which is an interesting thing in itself. So they are by definition would be biased towards one particular pattern of thinking, decision-making, building the whatever analytics you're looking at. And it may totally miss the at the reality. So the aspect, you know, if you look in the mirror, there's like more than southern languages spoken in the mirror. There's like hundreds of different cultures, hundreds of different ways of approaching things. And I think that is really important to keep in mind whether for, you know, navigating the or translating the reality of playbooks, built in norm to emea, but as well as, you know, as sellers or like once we're building those go-to-market motions, having the representatives of the cultures who could actually understand what is the decision-making process and, you know, what's the better way to approach it. I think it's something really important to keep in mind. Completely like I was delivering an enablement session and I had one of our A's in who is currently working at a buy market, but he only moved there last year and before that he was two years in the UK. And he said it's just, it's two different markets. And the motion is different, the behavior is different. And he said, neither one would work in the other market. And it's a really, really important thing to be, to be cognizant of. And then when you mentioned the, the language models, a very interesting point about it being fed English and the natural bias. But the other thing that people fail to recognize is that it can't predict the future because everything it's doing is based on the past. That's where all its intelligence, so to speak, actually comes from. So it can't say to you, Michael, this, this should happen. It can make recommendations based on, on past, but it can't realistically tell you what might or might not happen. It can just give very good analysis on the past. Yeah, yeah. That's a very good observation indeed. Like, it is a, it's very good predict predict in predicting patterns based on the data that happened, but create a new unique and also like going back to, you know, deal making with AI, what's changing, what's not kind of thing. The irrational behaviors of human beings, that's also an interesting aspect to it. And they're different based on the culture, the irrationality of the behavior might be completely different depending on what culture you represent and what your experience so far. Yeah, completely. And like I remember one time, the product sales were acquired years ago called Quip, which is like a little spreadsheet and word docs, I think. And I shared it with the guy and it wouldn't work in internet explorer. And I said, Oh, can you just install Chrome? My god, it was the biggest ask I'd ever given an IT manager and got a scathing email back about how he wasn't going to change his policies. And I said, Okay, that's fine. We'll move to email. It just would have been nicer because this is what I demoed on a goal for a collaboration document, but it was a really kind of to your point about humans being a bit irrational. He was just offended by the even ask. I think he took it as I was telling him to, but I actually wasn't. But as we look at kind of sales and where it's still fundamentally human, and I really believe that, where do you say AI can do this, you know, personalization research, objection, handling forecasting, negotiation, where's your line of I'm happy with AI to do this part, but humans most do this. Where's your balance? Yeah, that's something that is kind of constantly part of the conversation. Actually, I found a lot of interest in insight into the podcast series that you run. So I have a quick question for you afterwards because I'm genuinely interested in your product upon this. But from my side, from what I'm observant is, you know, some part, let's start with the parts that I believe would still stay human is the judgements, the critical thinking, like the ability to break that part in what we've been spoken about, like, you know, the AI is, you know, a predictability machine based on the previous experiences. It is not really meant to be recognizing the, you know, reading the room literally or vertically, because, you know, that is not something that you could train for an AI model, at least in this day and age, right? It's, you know, it's really extraordinary in part and recognition. I'm like, building all of the analytical data, analyzing massive amounts of information. So I think one thing that is because come in a true differentiator for great sellers, or even if you go broader for like go-to-market professionals, is personality and authenticity, because if we look at the perspective of personalization that scale is pretty much table stakes. If you don't know anything about me and you send me a cold email, where are you? Come on, we'll pass that mark many moons ago. So it's more about the true personalization that bringing your personal judgment, bringing your personal opinion, creating even like, you know, does it was an interesting article I read about the Starbucks having an interest in pivot to experiences of like, you know, automating everything they can. It is clear and rational that, well, I mean, at the end of the day, a human being coming into the shop, they want to have a good coffee, they want to have it fast, and pretty much in and out. But what they found is that, you know, increasing the automation actually decreased the revenue, because while actually people didn't stay, they didn't buy more cookies or anything, and they didn't see this as anything different from just any regular machine that provides coffee, it started to hiring people back, and actually putting emphasis on the barista experience, because some of the experiences are people are willing or like the bias of that experience or services, are willing to invest more because of the personality of the person that they're dealing with, or because of the personal touch. So I believe those are the aspects that are definitely there to stay. The one thing to keep an eye on though, for, you know, becoming being an average seller right now is becoming significantly easier. However, because like, you know, having an average of, - Yeah, no, I agree with you. - It's like that. It's really getting much more commoditized at the moment. But then, so it actually helps also the incredible sellers who are like go-to-market professionals to actually stand out even more, because the moment you get outside of the computer, outside of the async conversation, and in-person conversation with a human being on the other side, the gap becomes apparent immediately, because all of a sudden there's no LLM feeding you with, you know, spore on data points that would help to, you know, generate a response from that human being. And also like if you're not trained on reading those signals, on understanding the irrational behavior or all the cultural aspects, that's where it could become difficult. So yeah, it's a great time to be alive and say, let's say, you know, especially if you're good at it, if you're not so good at it, it's actually great time as well. It's a great time to learn, because the barrier to enter is significantly easier. - Well, I know, and like when my own time in intercom, I was my first exposure to GONG as a seller, and my God, the insights at the time. And I know there are like Salesforce with their own tool now and a variety of others right there. But to see a breakdown of sentiment, the talk time, where you lost them, where you wound them, so to speak, is just incredible and you can kind of go, okay, I need to be more certain here. And you can like knowing yourself, you know, when you're watching yourself and recording, it's very sobering. You look at it and go, okay, I lost it here, and you can see I hesitated, or I didn't answer that question clearly, or I didn't own that I didn't know, and I'd come back to them, which would have been fine. All these little things that we've all done in our career, I think that is just worth this way in gold, and kind of to your point, you can get an average set of really easy, but you can also become that A plus. Like if you started your career within 18 months, I think you could be like top performing, crushing it, relatively easily, compared to what it might have been for, you know, the likes of ourselves 10 years ago when we started in the role. - Yeah, yeah, I know what I'm saying. And if you don't mind, I'd kind of like to throw a quick question - Yeah, go first. - Yeah, go first, because you know, over the 40 plus episodes that you have so far, and by the way, you know, great material for anyone watching, go back, watch a few, how all, because it's really interesting journey. But like you've been, you've had guests that are very between sales, enablement, leadership, CEO, as writers, you name it, like all sorts of walks of life, you know, based on your experience, working with those individuals. Like what's the part of the tour notice in people who are like thriving right now, versus those who are finding it a little bit harder to keep up the pace? - That's a great question. I think it's kind of a combination of two things. Firstly, a willingness to embrace the unknown. Every one of them is learning, like everyone will tell you, they're learning about AI, they're figuring it out. And if you look at the usage of AI, like less than 1% to the global population are using generative AI right now. So as much as for people like ourselves and tech, we think everyone's using it. So firstly, embrace what you don't know. And just jump two feet in on it. And all of them are doing it. Second consistent pattern and, you know, I've even had an Oscar winner on the podcast is trust. Trust is kind of the most important thing, whether it's sales with the customer, whether it's leadership, every sales leader how come on has talked about the importance of building a good team and making sure that they hire the right people, or if they inherit a team, they sit down and I say, hey Michael, you're in this position because you deserve to be. I trust you from now, it's yours to lose rather than to earn. Rather than to earn it with me, to talk to enablement leaders, they say, they gotta get their trust with their partners. So I think those kind of two things are massive and then the kind of the last piece which brings the first two together is reflect, review and iterate. So they're always trying to get better. And that is kind of the most important thing. It's that deliberate practice. And even from my own experience, if I think of where I was with this podcast and very kind in your praise, but I was really fortunate at my first guest, Wendy Harris, ahead of me, a ripling, when you look at that, like Wendy has had a stellar career. So firstly, I've pretty high profile, profile person, help with me out, but she also was an experienced podcast guest. So even if it's not necessarily noticeable to you, I know my performance as a podcaster was way down in contrast to what it is today, but isn't that totally normal that that's the case? It was my first time doing it. So I think don't be it kind of gone back to the first point of embrace. I was never going to get to a good podcaster if I wasn't prepared to be a bad one. - It's never about the boss. It's not about saying that there's no losses or it doesn't sting when you lose a deal or lose an experience. It's more like, well, you always have something to learn from to then get to that win at next step. - Yeah, like I mean, I think back to earlier in my career, very first time I was just closing AE and tech, and not my first closing role, but in tech. - I inherited an account that had one product I was trying to sell, you know, it's extensive products and there were a textbook fit, but what I didn't pay full attention to was their implementation. And I knew it wasn't going amazing, but I did antagonize that customer so much so that the CEO told me I wasn't going to contact them. And then somebody else came in and wanted to buy service. So I had to have a really strict conversation with him and I had to own my over-enthusiasm, just how would you did kind of forgive very quickly when he goes, he looked at the full picture, but now it's at a situation where it's like, okay, I know we'd never make that mistake again and it's kind of set the boundaries of communication, but I'm now still a connection with that guy on LinkedIn. So he's long since left the company that I'm referring to. He's moved country, he's an author, and we're still in touch with each other on a very, very regular basis. So it's kind of cool that that has happened. And I do think that any relationship can be repaired and recovered as long as it comes from a place of assuming positive intent. - Yeah, 100%. And like, on the same way, everybody deserves a second chance. 'Cause there's always something that you don't know. There's always something that's missing. The kind, everybody's carrying loads of with them that you have exported to a very tiny fraction of. - Yeah, and that's the thing. And because, like, let's say with sales, when I reach trying to be brief, impactful, personal, relevant, like we're trying to put so much into two lines. It's a big ask people have of us, you know? - Yeah, 100%. - Okay, my last one kind of marries to when I asked you earlier on, I asked you about sales three years ago. What's your vision for sales three years from now? - Yeah, that's a good one. Well, if I were a bad man, maybe three years ago, it's always easier to evaluate the past, but if you look in the future, yeah, well, I'll give you my honest take, right? In three years, in three or five years, yes. So I've probably like, let me break it down into like three layer approach here, right? So I think we've touched a little bit on the things that would disappear and there's a lot of like this traditional spray and spray outreach that is totally low personalization. I think that is all, you know, about to be completely diminished by AI or because it will just become better, which is a great thing for everyone, 'cause it will just be more useful. And I think even, you know, the traditional motion like the PIDL in generation at the top of the panel would translate into someone who is more of the agent conversationalist or like orchestrator of the user journey, rather than anything else, because that would be where the most impact on the volume would come. And another thing, I think, back to some of the things we've been discussing, like the cruel personalities, the AES, the AMs, the, you know, the in-a, women specialists, like the personality of the people would still stay as very relevant, because at the end of the day, people are buying from people that's an old saying, but it's more about that genuine, understanding the irrational behaviors, understanding the sentiment, understanding the change management that it would require and the change management journey, the storytelling, the empathy that is very human in the nature and bringing that personality to the table would be critically important. If, yeah, if I think in terms of like, you know, the hot counts and the mid market enterprise. I'd say it will become more senior by definition because we will Atomates well with inferners. We would automate a lot of things that no reps are doing at a good level anyways like all of these sales for Skijin and Making sure that all the notes are there like yeah, well, it's always a friction But now with all the tools it just it just disappears it is no longer a destruction You have brilliant tools to do that So all of the all of the go-to market specialist they could actually focus on the most impactful thing actually in helping the customers to navigate those things or like the change management the transformation and one other thing that I like to well that I'm that I'm thinking a lot recently is Even the way that we operate with AI something that I kind of trying to do on the slides in a way is Having a little bit of a break or like there's a digital detox approach What have you because I think you know if you look analogy that I that I use it in To explain it if you look at professional sports or like even no professional sports like you know a hundred years ago Been fit wasn't necessarily like a cultural thing. It was very in pockets And I don't know what sudden it becomes like you know bodybuilding and like going after your health because Not because we need to run away from a predator because you know that's no longer a need to be fit for that But because there are massive benefits, you know health benefits and mental health benefits and all things to go with it So I think for for people to stay on top of their game to maintain their expertise It is important to go through some of the experiences every now and then fully manual So like when you're doing a research every once in a while go for a manual research when the over relying on the AI Automation is a blessing and a curse. It's like if every email is written by AI all of a sudden You know you just lose that muscle and like you know if poor every isn't this An autist or you ran out of tokens Who's gonna write that email or like when you're meeting with a customer? Like driving, you know exactly. Yeah Like my wife's car is sent his front and back mine only hasn't the back because it's a bit older So she drives mine. We just the wall is the stopping point She will listen to this and I don't care. I'm putting it out there in the public Michael But the point being is that she is relying on a technological assistance that she's used to in her own car Which we all do in different areas and we have to remember the traditional manual way of doing these things and that will also keep us the appreciation for how AI Will service as we continue to go forward Michael. This has been absolutely fantastic conversation today Anyone wants to get in touch with you? Learn a bit more about intercom. What's the best way for them to reach out to you? Yeah, absolutely LinkedIn. I'm an open book there feel free to DM reach out and you know Obviously check out the the intercom pages. We have all the contacts there. You can try out AI agent and have a chat with it. I Like it Yeah, brilliant and Peter was absolute pleasure really insightful conversation and if you don't mind one last question before we close. Yeah, sure Based on all of the episodes that you have what was the episodes where you a whole or not a house to your house Where a guest said something that's really changed your mindset or like given you an idea of like wow That's a totally different thing. That's a great question because I've had a lot of really really interesting people I know it's a hard one. Yeah I think one of the things that just kind of consistently comes up is actually the sentiment of what goes around comes around and Everyone says that everyone you know, it's so easy it like I mentioned when he harrow's been thinking of you know Derek Murphy and Paul Terry as well very senior sales leaders when you look at their LinkedIn profiles You might think their career just went like that straight up into the right all of some total stories of where things Kind of didn't go as well as they did and for me it was the affirmation of Resilience not taking things personally and and stop telling yourself negative stories because they all like you know We all have what I will call at some points in our career that the nemesis you know this colleague of ours that we build this whole story about When actual fact they're probably the same as you just working trying to advance their career trying to provide for themselves and You're all that energy has been wasted into creating a narrative about what somebody else is when they're nothing like it So I think what I learned was always kind of stick with positive intent keep going understand that setbacks will happen That's just part of us and keep on trucking like you know, I don't mind Disclosing like on this, you know, I thought I was been strategic leaving intercom and I took voluntary redundancy at the time There's a lot of restriction was just before a gen II the market went really really bad here in Dublin everyone attended that at the time I would have preferred in grand scheme of things and unreflection to state intercom at that time But I made the choice and I had to work with it and you know 2023 was a particularly difficult year in Dublin tech So it was just about kind of going this is this the situation I have and I am a hundred percent accountable for fixing it No matter the reasons even if I want to externally blame somebody else. I am responsible for fixing it I think that is one of the most empowering things you can do is to take ownership like that 100% and look at where you are now. Oh my god. You totally fixed it. Hey Story of thank you for that and look and the reason I say it is that every time I talk to someone they take these things So personally like I totally was the same if somebody get back to me on LinkedIn I was like oh what does it have the time and I'm like because they're busy and every so often when I get back to someone later than I'd like I go I actually always start with apology. I'd like to have got back to you sooner now I am and here's what I can do for you Because I just am very aware of those things and I think that's probably the biggest thing I've learned From being on the podcast over the last year and a half. That's brilliant. Thank you so much for sharing that I'm actually that's just a quick last month like just rereading the choice but I did a gear now that no never heard of us Oh, it's an amazing learning from this book Michael It's actually very long. We're good to just share it like you know It's always within you to like you know, you cannot control a lot in your life There's a lot things that you know just happen But whenever you do with it, it's totally up to you and it's up to you to build something great of it or just move on You know, or like you have full control. It's your life. Yeah, well look. I'm in a good place Intercoms in a great place. It's a joint Irish American unicorn and a lot of good friends are still there and doing really really well So in the long run everybody won. Yeah, there you go. Okay. We'll leave it there. Thank you so much Michael. Brilliant. Have a good one