Bonus Episode: 2025 Wrap with Mick & Hitesh - Can't Take Your Call Right Now

Kicking Off with Guests and a Look at 2025 Welcome back to another episode of Can't Take Your Call Right Now with me, Harry Monkhouse. Speaker 2 And me, Lauren Reeves, and we're joined with some guests. So I'm going to hand it over. We're a we've combined podcast. So please injure yourself guys. Speaker 3 There you go. So I'm Hitesh, you may know me from the Revenue Revolution podcast, and I'm joined by. Speaker 4 Mick we've that yeah, weird accent. Mick, CEO and Co founder of Join for Us. Speaker 1 And also the world's clearest mind. Speaker 2 It looks. Speaker 4 Like you have to compensate. Like if I if I speak without a mic, it's even worse. Nobody will understand me at all. So at least it's clear. You don't understand it, but at least it's clear. Speaker 1 So we're recording on a Friday. First of all, Hitesh, Mick, How? How have your week's been? Speaker 3 Been good. Busy. Really, really busy. I thought I might get some time to wind down next week, but I don't know how much wind down time we'll get. But yes, it's the week has been good, not bad. What about yourself? Yeah. Speaker 1 I've had my final day in the office yesterday, so I'm going to be heading home tonight, back back up to close to Birmingham, and then it's family time and then it feels like I'm, well, I'm still working, but it's like Christmas runarounds and errands and Christmas shopping and rapping and all of that jazz. Speaker 3 Mate, you still got Christmas shopping to do. Speaker 1 I've only been organised for two people, I've still got, like everyone else to fight for. Speaker 2 That's so bad I got most of mind on a Black Friday. Speaker 1 Yeah, I know. Speaker 4 But we were discussing that we were. Speaker 1 Discussing that, that was the most organised stuff I've ever seen. That made me feel ill being that organised. Speaker 2 Yeah, I've literally I've got one person to buy for which is my 2 year old niece. So that's just like a go to Argos and buy a toy jobby. So it's nice. Speaker 1 Yeah, that's. Speaker 2 Super easy. Everyone else done by first weekend of December, wrapped under the fridge. Easy. Speaker 4 I was so late last year, I had to print the the presents I ordered because they hadn't, they hadn't arrived yet. So everyone got a little envelope was like, yeah, you're going to get that. Just be ready for it. It might be next week, it might not. I don't know. But aren't you so lucky? Speaker 1 Love it, love it. Key Learnings from 2025 and the AI Buzz So for today's episode, what we were actually going to discuss is a little bit of a recap of kind of how 2025 has gone, maybe some of the trends that we have seen as part of this. And yeah, I think we're probably just going to start, mate. What's your biggest take away from 2025? Speaker 4 It's been a tough year. I think for us a little bit for our clients as well and our our prospects. I think there's a lot of a lot of due diligence happening everywhere in terms of making decisions, buying stuff, trying things out, creating new initiatives. People don't pull the trigger as much as they would have maybe two years ago, three years ago. And this impacts all of it, like innovation cycles, feedback loops, speed, speed at which you learn. So yeah, it's been a tough year. And I hope, I hope that we're going into a better year, though with everything happening in AI, I'm not too sure, but it would be great to see what you guys think as well on this topic, maybe later on in the conversation. Lori, what did you learn this year? Speaker 2 What did I learn this year? I think, I think this year's been a really good year of kind of like just backing decisions that makes sense in the sense of like just I know that what I'm doing is right, I just have to wait for it to come to fruition. So just have like better patience, keep doing what I know is working and then obviously the results, which is pretty much what I feel like I've seen. So that's good. And then I think, yeah, it's been, I agree, it's been a really hard year. I think that I agree with all the AI stuff this year, like it's such a buzzword. I think it's me and Harry spoke about this, like just AI everywhere. It's like here, there, da, da, da. So I think AI, what that means for us, what that means for management, BDR, land, all of that jazz. And yeah, I agree. I feel like buyers don't buy the same way they used to. I've really feel that this year there's been a bit of a transition, but I'm looking forward to 26. I think it will be a good year. I'm really looking forward to it, so I don't have. Speaker 3 To imagine your team, imagine your team listening to this and you were like, 2026 is going to be even worse. Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm literally there like yeah, I'm dreading next year. It's going to be 4/4. No. Do you think next year's going to be? I think because like we things like the AI chat and all of that I think will just settle. It just won't be like as much of like a thing in your ear. I just feel like next year is going to be like a settling year and like, that's where like we'll see like a comfort in the change that's happening. That's what I think. Speaker 1 I disagree. Debating AI's Effectiveness in Sales and Email Outreach You know. Speaker 1 I, I disagree with that. I don't think the AI stuff is going to settle at all next year. I think businesses are starting to figure out what their AI readiness needs to look like and how they're going to implement it. So I think it's going to be a big year of trying to figure that out as part of that. Speaker 2 I just think it won't be as much like a buzz thing. I think this year it's will be like, what is AI? How do we do AI? Like next year it's going to be like, no, no, OK, it's here. Speaker 4 Publications. Speaker 2 Yeah, that's what I mean by like settling here. Do you know what I mean? Speaker 1 Yeah. Speaker 3 I think I think it might be a lot more of sticking. I think you made a good point earlier, Lauren, when you said that you learned this year that it's important to wait and see what happens and trust the decisions you make. And I think with AI tools and the speed at which they created now, like it's so easy, right? Like you can go lovable and just speak into it and do a bit of vibe coding and you've got yourself a product, right? People have been switching very quickly and there's a lot of try before you buy now as well. So you have the ability to, you know, 90% of the time go onto an AI platform's website and just, you know, with no barriers that will sign up and try it out. And what that means is people are less reluctant to do what you said, which is, hey, let's see it through, let's see how it goes. And so there's a lot of dropping and changing. I think that adds to a lot of the noise as well, which is why you end up in a position where, Oh well, we didn't hit target, but a lot of people are not seeing through initiatives either. Speaker 1 Yeah. And people don't understand it well enough. Sometimes though, like you've got a lot of people that are trying to set stuff out for the first time and like whether you're doing a trial period or you're doing like a paid pilot or something like that, like are you really getting the help that you need to stand that up in the correct way to see the full value? And I think a lot of that, I mean, you, me and Lauren go down some absolute rabbit holes. But like if you put that down to the like instant gratification now of like social media and stuff like that, like people need wins quickly in order to buy out. And it was the same when I was at 6th sense. Like ABM is not something that you just turn on magically and then all of a sudden, like, wow, we've got all of this revenue and all of this pipeline. Like it's very similar, like implementing like a sales methodology. You don't just like learn medic and all of a sudden everyone's closing deals. Like it's about the discipline structure of actually formulating it. And it's very similar to when people go through these trials and testing periods or trying to prove some form of ROI. Like, have we set it up in the correct way to actually be able to test it to see if this works? Like, realistically, you probably still need 12 months to figure out whether the fuck this works. And if you don't, then you can't really hang your hat on of like, that is actually going to be able to help our business or not. So yeah, I think this is the challenge. Yeah. Yeah. Go. Speaker 4 No, I was going to ask how this was. How how this has impacted you on the running your shop side? Because a lot of the noise I found was on top of the funnel activities like a ISDRS and list building and all the clay stuff. A little bit less post discovery like on actual deal progression, AI is not really there anymore than it was a year ago. You would transcript, you would process a transcript, which IGBT that would be the extent of AI. But how do you manage tech stack knowing that a lot of it is is top of the final soundtrack? Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, we've we've just done an episode on on text stack, which should be going live on Tuesday or if people are listening to this is probably already live. But we're still we're still learning how we release podcasts. But I, I think we, the, we, we think that there was basically some core essential things that we needed in regards to like a tech stack for again, we're commentary commenting more from ABDR perspective, right as both BDR managers, but it's very much like you need a sales engagement platform. We both agree that LinkedIn Navigator is still definitely on the top kind of three or maybe one of the top platforms and probably a data provider. It within a lot of these platforms you can do a lot of recording. There's other benefits that you can find or data you could. Most data providers have some form of web in traffic now or intent data or something. So there's little bonuses within age. But then Lauren went down the route of like still loves video and direct mailing. And I would go down like an AI platform that creates some efficiencies as part of this. But again, if we just look at those 3 core that we both were like that we're adamant about you both, we would both buy those three first. There isn't actually any AI within those other than like maybe like zoom info, you talk to build a list and then it builds the list for you. But again, you'd want to build it yourself to have more control anyway. So it's like I think elements of like that is still quite gimmicky. But in reality, there's not much AI that I think people are using other than like the research element consistently, which is an element. It's just a little bit like sometimes you can see you still now I still isn't at a point where it can go and do deep diving within websites or there's some tools that can. But again, you've got to pay for certain elements and stuff. So I think to your point, like wouldn't say AI is at all embedded into many companies processes yet truly as part of that. And I don't think it's moving the needle. But we did say about did a demo of actively AI and that was is basically like predefined AI agents for salespeople. And I was like that I can understand because it takes us as managers or companies to build to build these agents can take quite a while. And these like a predefined things that you can just go and turn on and people can go and use to like hand over notes, full transcripts, classic, right? But and doing the research personas some multi threading building a countless like it does little bits of everything that you would need but it again whether you go and embed that in the process. Speaker 3 Didn't say. Where do you guys sit on like e-mail prospection through AISDRS? Speaker 1 We also disagree on that. Yeah. Speaker 3 It's a topic for many people. Speaker 2 We tested. Speaker 4 It I'm going to team up with Lauren here, I think. Speaker 2 Yeah, we've tested it a little bit and like, I just think it's shit. I just think that there's no good e-mail. Prospecting has personalisation, it's relevant, it's short, but it's to a point for the person you're emailing, right? And AI can't do that. It just can't do it still. Would it, would it be able to do it in the future? Probably with the rate it's going, but I just think that, you know, when something's written by AI, it's this such telltale signs when a post, like when I look on VTN, you can just tell when something's written by AI. There's just signs in it like it's the yeah, it's the extra long dashes. It's the way the sentences flow together. So it's like when you're then reading an e-mail that is done by by AI, fully automated going out, I think it just looks like shit. I just don't think that that a person's going to reply to that. I certainly don't. And I'm an I'm BDR manager. I literally intended my team to outbound when I get that message that I don't, I don't don't respond to it. I think it's rubbish. I just think that good e-mail prospecting takes the human element of it, the personalisation, linking it to the person, making it relevant, and AI just isn't there yet. It can't do it. It cannot get the tone of an e-mail right. Like it just can't do it at the moment. Like I said, I'm sure that will change in the future. So I am all for AI when it comes to automatic sending and building out your sequence so that things can happen in the background. I'm just not all for it, for the full on writing of it and like the doing of the doing of it. Like I think the youth should be the human writing it and then the AI just sends it for you. That's my attitude at the moment. I'm sure as it gets better I will. That will change, but right now I think it's loadership. Speaker 3 How are you on the other side of the defense? Speaker 1 No, no. I want to hear me, me. Are you agreeing with all of that, or is there anything that you want to add? Speaker 4 I mean, I would have added a few F words in much much more than that. I hate I hate it. I hate it. I I don't like the fact that so so for like my take is it should be forbidden by law to have multiple mailboxes you sent out from you Should you should not be able to do that. You should be capped by the number of e-mail you should send from your own primary inbox outbox and that should be it. And that wood forest, everyone to Lawrence Point to work on what they're actually sending so that it matters when it lands because you can't play the volume games anymore. It's dead. There was a post from Alex Ollie yesterday at the hour of Reach desk. He's using something like I think it's fixer or superhuman or something that, you know, label, auto label your inbox and get rid of the fluff. I think there was like 65,000 emails that had been filtered out automatically by AI. So you've got AI writing the e-mail, you've got AI spamming essentially the e-mail out and it's just a sense your game like it just doesn't go anywhere. And the result is we've got one less channel to rely on because e-mail now is just not worthy anymore unless you've got 1600 mailboxes. You can, you can spam the, the, the food market with that's my take. I hate it. Exploring AI's Untapped Potential and Agent-to-Agent Communication Yeah, so I have a again, I have a slightly different take and I think we give humans way to credit way much way more way too much. Speaker 2 Yeah. Speaker 1 That, that, that, that as. So as part of that, I think again, I wouldn't say I get hounded as probably as much as Alex over e-mail, but man, there is some absolutely fucking shit emails that I get and they're not even written by AI. They're just people thinking that this is a good e-mail. So I think I think the challenge is like, I just think for your top 10%, top 10% of reps in the world, probably not useful. Maybe you top 20, but there's that bottom 40% who I just think aren't good at doing good emails that actually AI get them into like that sweet that middle 30%, whereas I think the top 20% probably don't need it, right. So I've got that lens. I've also got the lens of I think when you think about marketing, marketing is a is a if you look at like HubSpot, Marketo, Pardo, all of these mailing marketing mailing platforms, they're just like marketing have just been writing emails the same thing over and over again. And actually, I think a lot of these AI tools that are coming in, whether you look at like 11X or success is conversation e-mail or some of the other tools that are in kind of this AI agent e-mail space. The difference is that you've got a market that hasn't been disrupted, but HubSpot par marketer hasn't been disrupted for like 1520 years and you just still sending out one e-mail. And then we build far, we build a basically a sequence of five emails that we send, send over a period of time. But there's no form of personalization or dynamic changing or fields or there's no way of replying back to them. So these tools, what they allowed it to do is I think those tools are replacing how marketing should be going to market because they can do some form of personalization, they can do some form of outreach, they can do some form of replying, they can do some form of engagement. That then links back into a lot of the sales platforms as well and then piggybacks on that. So I definitely think there's a market for it to both of your points, like is the level of messaging sometimes there? No, but good people that understand how the GBTS are writing them and some of the what not to do. So if you build a really, really good comprehensive prompt structure, actually that solves a lot of it. The challenge that we see a lot of people with now is everyone I think is using AI, but how good are they at using AI? So how many people can actually know how to build good prompts and good things to say, oh, exclude this, don't do this. I talk like this like it takes ages to build your own little agent, but no one is willing to put in that time. So that's why I think to both of your points. That's why I think it's shit today is because people aren't putting the effort in needed to make it good. Or if you are being lazy and you want to go make it, you've got to go and spend a fortune on buying some of these tools that kind of do it all for you out the box and then you can't afford that. So I think it's a human thing. I think it's people being lazy. I think there's other combinations of things, but I definitely think there's going to be disruptors in market. But my final point is to your point about the the fixer stuff, because we spoke about this, I think as in one one of our AI conversations, which then went down a full rabbit hole. I think we're going to get to a world where AI agents talk to AI agents and we'll have an AI agent on an inbox and we'll have someday talk to each other. So we won't, they'll be having a conversation in the background just based off our prelim conversation and that'll be how it filters. So you'll have basically have an AI agent at every single point. Like we're already seeing it on the phones. I now have my Google Assistant that answers all of my phone calls for me. Speaker 2 You turn it on. Interesting. Speaker 1 I've had it on for like 2 years because it's Apple released it this year and Google have had it for ages. Speaker 3 We're always so behind on Apple. Always so behind, yeah. Speaker 2 It's. Speaker 4 Just so funny. Speaker 3 I get so hyped up with these releases and then I have a Android mate and he's always like had that for ages mate. Is that what? Speaker 1 Honestly, the, The funny thing is, you know that what always makes me laugh and people always tend to piss out at me for being an Android person. But it's like, you know how like Apple have just released like the live translation on headphones and stuff like that. Like that's their new big thing. We've had that for like 2-3 years. Was that you? Speaker 3 Know what's crazy? The marketing team in some of these Android companies are absolute dog shit. And because I never knew about it, I could have potentially switched. But now I'm locked in, man. I've got a MacBook, I've got an iPhone, I've got an Airpods, I've got iPads. Like I can't, I can't change anymore. Speaker 1 The challenge is it's the aesthetics. I think Google are probably the phones that are the closest feel to an iPhone. I don't like the feel of the Samsung's. Anyway, that was a complete tangent, but I think that we're getting there in regards to AI. But I think it's it's now about an education point of like which training reps how to be good at AI. And I think that kind of needs to come from the educational system as well. Like I think AI needs to be taught in schools as well now as part of that. Speaker 2 I mean, we still don't get taught proper finance in schools that. Speaker 1 Yeah, I know. Yeah, fucking government's useless, so yeah. Unpacking Inauthentic Content and Sponsored Posts on LinkedIn OK, so we obviously went on tantrum there, but OK, so on the note of like things we hate, what is something that happened this year that a trend or something you saw that you absolutely hated? Speaker 1 Mick's going to say AI. Speaker 3 Is the AISDRSI can see it? I can see it, it's coming. Speaker 4 I've got two I've got. I've got 2 problems. First one is AISDRS. I hate it. I will repeat. Speaker 3 That can, I guess it's not. Speaker 4 God, the second one is maliciously hidden. Sponsored sponsored posts on LinkedIn. I can't stand that. It's fine. If you're advertising on LinkedIn, please do it. We do it all the time. But if you do it on behalf of a company that you get paid for, you know that to do those posts, just just say it like, I'm being sponsored to do this or put a little #sponsored post, you know, so everyone know that this was this, this is advertising happening here. The value of the post is the same, the content is the same, but don't disguise it as your own take on what is. And I see so many people with a high influence level on LinkedIn that are going into going to get a ticket. I don't know how much they pay like 1 thousand 2000 LB ticket for a post. And they're going to, they're going to post slut like this, like four months, two months, like just just go, go get the money. And then and I think that just these people have they have high influence because they do good content. And suddenly they're going to squeeze in a little ticket and announce that that that gets me angry. I did a full post on this which which cost me a lot of followers. Speaker 1 But they. Speaker 3 I remember that post love. Speaker 1 That love that they should be. I mean, they have to by law, they have to show that there is some form of advertising. So they either have to add the brand and partnership. Speaker 2 Tag, you can switch on the brand partnership tag yeah or. Speaker 1 Say they or they have to do hashtag add because I, I remember I, I, I think I did my first ever one last year and I didn't do that and I didn't do add and they were like, you have to delete the post because we can't, we can't pay you otherwise because it you're basically it's basically I don't know what they call it, but like. Speaker 2 Probably malicious. Speaker 1 Yeah, malicious advertising, false advertisement, something like that. And you can, you can actually go after companies for stuff like that. Like there's people, there's people on like Instagram and TikTok that go after people that do false advertising and then create a lawsuit around. And that's how that's like their career and stuff. Speaker 4 Well, say that again once ago, can you just? Speaker 1 How much? Speaker 3 Business coming up. Speaker 2 I do agree with you, Mick. I I also think this year has like, I love LinkedIn. I post all the time, you know, duh, duh, duh. One thing I have noticed this year is that transition of LinkedIn becoming a influence platform, which is fine. I think get your back like no issue with that get paid, get your money. I'm all for people doing what they can to get all of that right, but I've then I've just seen a lot more like ingenuous, what's the word I'm looking for? Like just not disingenuine. Like there's just so much more disingenuine posts. And I think that I, there's a lot of posts now that I read and I'm like, you posted that because you wanted to go viral on LinkedIn, not because you believed what you were saying. And I really felt that this year, it's always been an issue for it. You've always had people that are like, do weird shit on LinkedIn. That's just normal. That's just the go to, right? But people that I think have genuine voices and are trusted on LinkedIn definitely are pushing the boundary a bit more on being authentic. And I don't like that. I agree. I don't like that. Like, I everything I post on LinkedIn is genuinely something I believe. And yes, I obviously word it in a way that's going to like be LinkedIn friendly and it's going to maybe like, you know, get more likes and obviously like, you know, play the game. But I back what I'm saying, Like whatever I'm saying is definitely my opinion 100%. I'm not just saying it for the sake of LinkedIn, But yeah, I've really felt that. And I I don't like that. And there's been a few posts that are like, you know, those posts that are saying it to like also go go viral. Like I've seen people be like, I hate LinkedIn influencers, but they, again, they're doing the post in a way that means the post will go viral. So they'll get loads of followers and, you know, you're like, well, you're doing the same. You're doing the exact thing that you're complaining. Like it's another form of like just trying to like get. Yeah. So yeah, that's irked me this year. I've really felt that as someone that's really been putting time into their LinkedIn and is actively increasing their following, I'd rather grow slower but grow authentic than grow faster. And it's like, it's not real followers. It's there's inauthenticity in what I'm saying. I don't want that. I'd rather grow slower. But yeah, that's why. Navigating Personal and Professional Content on the Platform Is is this why the LinkedIn algorithm keeps changing? Because you know, I'll always. Speaker 2 Change that. Yeah, I. Speaker 3 Did consistent impressions ever? Like one day I post something and I'm like, that's going to be the best and I'm going to get like 50 impressions on it. Speaker 2 I did the LinkedIn creator program a few years ago actually, and they said that they constantly changed the algorithm to avoid bots. Like that's one of the main reasons they're doing it. Like they're actually actively trying to give real people a voice because half the time, like it's like people posting drivel and it's bots and it's automated. And also I think LinkedIn is this weird platform where it's social media, but it's work. And so like, what's the balance between those two things? Like every, all the time I see every month, I'll see someone do a whole post about the fact that there's selfies on LinkedIn. And oh, I didn't realize that LinkedIn was Facebook. And it's like, shut up. Like it's a, it's a social media platform. Like people are going to post personal shit on here. This is the reality of it. Now go over it. There's always someone that does that kind of post always. And I think that Linkedin's trying to figure out where it sits because it is, it is weird. Like everything I post on LinkedIn is associated with my company like you have. Speaker 4 To where would you draw the line though, in terms of what's too personal for LinkedIn and what's what's acceptable? Speaker 2 I think it's just whatever your personal boundary is. I don't think, I don't think that anything is necessarily too personal for LinkedIn. I just think it depends on what you're happy to share on your personal profile that's associated with your workplace. So like I'm pretty open on LinkedIn, like I share a lot on there, but there's things that I still don't share that I would share on my Instagram because it's still still associated with work. Like you go on my profile, you can see where I'm working. You can see where I've worked. You can like that's all there. Whereas on my Instagram you can't. It's not on that. It's different. It's like there's, there is like a separation. But I think that, yeah, I think that's a personal boundary. Like I, I don't say my partner's name on LinkedIn, for example. I mean, if you go through my post, he comments on all of them. So you'd find him. But like I will I call him my partner on LinkedIn just because that's my personal relationship and I don't feel like I need to put that on Lington. Like obviously if we get engaged, if we get married, I'd post that, but like I don't talk about that because don't need to if you never know, you know, I might dump him. It happened. Keep him in there. Do you know got keep him on his seat? But yeah, so I think I think that like, it's whatever you feel most comfortable with. Like some of the things that I post people wouldn't be comfortable with. They'd be like, no, that's that's that's too far. Like I wouldn't feel I wouldn't, I wouldn't share that. So, yeah, but I think it's rubbish and people are like, oh, it's Lincoln, don't shut up. Get over it. Speaker 4 How are you? Where do you draw the line? Speaker 1 I think it's what, like Lauren said, I think it's whatever you're comfortable with. Like there's the I got engaged this year, didn't post about that on LinkedIn. And that that was something that I didn't feel like I needed to announce to my network, but it's something that I've made a big deal in on Instagram. I'm telling friends like that. That for me was where I drew the line. There's some people that post some very, very personal things. And like, I gave credit for being that vulnerable for those moments. It's not something that I would personally do in some senses. Like again, I think that sometimes, sometimes someone said to me once it's the way sometimes stuff comes across. So I got told off for always posts. Like I've been told off for always being one of those people that posts. It's like you're doing badly at work. You're maybe not hitting target, but you have posted every day for like 90 days straight. Like you've got to think about how that comes across. And there are moments and that's something I've really struggled with more so this year being like, I am giving my team advice and then I'm taking that advice and then post it on LinkedIn. And sometimes that there's, there's elements where it's like I'm asking the team to get their head down and get focused. And I'm just like Gallivan and posting on LinkedIn about all of these different things. So sometimes I have it's what you're comfortable with, but also what you're comfortable with people interpret interpreting your posting schedules or what you're posting about as as well. I've definitely, I feel like this year I've definitely started to think more about that. And I think that's part of the reason why we started doing a podcast, right? Was like, we were like, look, we, we already talk every week. So we were like, we might as well start to record some of these conversations. And then that's very organic created content that we were already discussing. But it never now what I feel like is that doesn't take away I could be posting everyday about the podcast, but that's just because it's we've recorded for an hour and then it takes all the clips for us. So that actually means that now I don't have to think as much about the posting. I don't have to think as much about what I'm saying. It's just very organic of what we were already discussing, which hopefully is therefore helpful for some people. So. Speaker 3 Yeah, You know, I also feel like it's part of the job now. So for a lot of people, you have to build your own personal brand as well. Like it or not, your network isn't on your Instagram profile, and you probably don't want them there either. So LinkedIn is the place to do it. And so people just need to get used to it. They need to figure out what works for them. They need to figure out how to breakthrough the noise, because that's part of the job. If you can't breakthrough the noise, you can't bring your brand. And I think some people just find it difficult to come to terms with that. Speaker 2 Yeah, what about you guys? What's your boundary with LinkedIn? Speaker 3 Me, me, like I'm quite binary in it. You'll never see a personal post from me on LinkedIn is always linked back to either our podcasts or to joint flows or to like like a learning I've had or something that I see that is working. But it's always of a professional nature, other than maybe once. I went to the Coldplay concert this year and like this. It was like a lifelong dream of my posted. But I still linked it somehow to work. I don't remember how I did, but look it up is a great post. And then there was a couple of posts. Well it was 1 post because I'm a big Arsenal fan. There was one post around something that Sacker had done, I don't remember what it was, and then we signed a player called Essay and we stole him from Tottenham. But I linked that back to work as well. So yeah, yeah, that was it. But other than that, usually professional. Speaker 2 You're a classic what Arsenal taught me about B2B sales. Speaker 3 Yeah, I did. I did that one. I did there you. Speaker 4 Go, I didn't chance not much and then. Speaker 3 With the Saka one, I started with what Saka taught me about B2B sales and I went just joking, just just appreciation President. Speaker 2 That classic 1. Speaker 3 That is a classic 1. So you make people click it, it says just kidding. What? Speaker 2 About you, Mack. Speaker 4 Well, I'm a bit old school, I think I, I take it as a professional social network and I tried to limit the post to that. Every now and then I adventure into the, the Facebook world of of posting, which is like, I've got an elf, elf on the shelf. I've posted a picture of it. That was great. Great post. Nothing to do with work, nothing to do with learning anything, just just my elf on the shelf. But I've seen stuff that had made me feel bad. So like dead, dead uncles and people on Yeah, like taking picture of their grandmother passing away in hospital. I feel, I feel like this is bit like that made me, I shouldn't see this. I feel like it was too personal because it's people you don't know, right? Which is the difference between network in Instagram and Facebook and all of that and LinkedIn is everybody seeing everything. I was exposed to this very like private moment because the person was happy to share. I didn't. I didn't like it if it was going too far. Speaker 2 I think it's funny because I think, you know, like we all, you know, I'm sure all of us follow influences and influences that we follow on Instagram, TikTok, whatever. People that, you know, we follow their lives, we see what they're up to on a regular basis. You know, there's some people that I followed for years and it's like, I feel like I know your life quite well actually, which I think is a bit weird. But like, I don't know, you like you're an influencer. And I think that that's what the transition is with LinkedIn is that I think that it's becoming like that on LinkedIn where there's people that you follow, you don't, you'll never meet, you won't ever work with them. You might not even cross paths, events or whatever. But you actually know a lot about what they're doing, what they're doing in their work, all of that because of what they post on LinkedIn. And I think that's where there's that transition is happening with the LinkedIn influencer, like you are following along with them. Now the difference I would say is that I do agree there's still, there is an element still separation between real life and LinkedIn. So like, I wouldn't go on LinkedIn and do a story about like going out last night and get drunk like I would, I wouldn't do that. Whereas on my Instagram there's a story of me drunk. You know what I mean? Like there's, there's like, there's a balance still. But I've had people come up to me at events and stuff and they've been like, I followed you on LinkedIn for years, like, and I'm like, well, that's, that's a really weird feeling you. And they're like, Oh yeah, like I, you did this, you did that. And I'm like, Oh my God, like, you know so much about me. Like, what the hell? But I guess like I choose to do it because it does open up opportunities for me. And that's why I think it's a good thing for LinkedIn is that the difference between like, say, Instagram and LinkedIn is that if I share my ideas, if I share what I think works for my team, if I share failings, all of that, that only adds credibility to me as a person in my ability to do my job, which therefore means that if I want a new job or if I'm looking or opportunities come to me far more than they would if that was on Instagram. And that's actually what I find is way better about influencing on LinkedIn in comparison to say Insta is that, you know, I get people message me asking if I'm looking for a role and like they send me possible things and like, I'm like, you know, I'm not even, I'm not even looking for this. They just come to me with it. And it's like, well, that wouldn't happen if I had 10K followers on Instagram. And that's actually why I think spending time in your personal brand and sharing on LinkedIn is actually way better for you than other platforms. Obviously, if you become really big on like TikTok, Instagram, different story. Whereas 10K on LinkedIn does so much more for your career than 10K on Instagram does. So I think I agree with you, Mick. Like there's definitely like a balance between personal and like oversharing for sure. Like, you know, with my Nam password, I didn't post that on LinkedIn. Like whereas I did on Instagram, for example. You're right. However, people are thinking of LinkedIn influences as people that they buy are buying into and so I think people are silly to not jump on that, which is why I've jumped on it. It's clear. Speaker 1 Yeah. Celebrating Community, Growth, and Wrapping Up the Year I mean, just to finish on that, I think, I think we're bang on. I think that Sarah Yu is a great example. She's the girl that does all the cold callings with the iced coffee, right? Sarah, which was she used to be Sarah from Prito and now she does selling, selling Sarah. And I think she's like a LinkedIn content creator and she started to pepper in through her Instagram and her TikTok, like the personal stuff of like her getting married story, like dress shopping and stuff like that. And that started to be like, I think now there is an element where you can be a business content creator that starts to pepper in some of the personal stuff. And I think that's going to be a really exciting transition. And I think I keep saying to my reps I'm like, look, I guarantee if you had a large following and you move into an AE role, companies will be willing to pay additional money for that. Social followers. Speaker 4 Yeah, 100. Speaker 1 Percent. We're talking like 10 like this. Some people I know will be charging 20 grand, 30 grand more, either total comp or even more than that just because they've got 30,000 followers on LinkedIn. That makes a little difference now. Speaker 3 It's also just the point of so you got Mick. Speaker 4 I was going to agree with Lauren. I think 10K followers on LinkedIn is a million on on Instagram. I mean, that's the, that's the ratio the same. Speaker 1 What's my X10 X 10,000 is 100,100 thousand is 1,000,000? Speaker 3 Let's not get over excited make. Speaker 4 1010 billion. Speaker 2 If I was on Instagram, I'd have a million followers. Speaker 4 UK is about 10 billion people. Speaker 1 Well, look guys to just to wrap it up what let's just wrap on maybe a bit more of a positive note. What's been your favorite thing about 2025? Nick, we'll start with you A. Speaker 4 ISDRS bitching I love bitch about SDRS No, I love. I think there's AI found faith in in cells again, I think there's a there are a lot of people who are trying like you 2 guys. I think a lot of people take care about what they're doing. The cherish the industry, the vertical, the sector, and they're genuinely trying to do to do good things for spread knowledge and all of that. And I find that this gap between, I call it actual influences, people who are trying to do good for the industry and the rest is kind of breaking a little bit and people are are getting closer together. I like it. I like that you can have a conversation. I like to go on this podcast today. It was simple to organize, good fun. I had a lot of fun just trying to get this recorded just the 510 minutes before the actual recording that that's the kind of things that's try if I think if we can all have a little bit of more community feeling and actually helping each other, I think we would all benefit from it 2. Speaker 1 Percent in a great role, Hitesh. Speaker 3 Yeah, I kind of echo that. I think wherever I speak to people, a lot of people have had a tough year. It doesn't mean they didn't hit the targets they wanted, but maybe they struggled to get there. Some people didn't hit target. But what I've found is, is tough. It has been is kind of bought professionals together. So like, I'm part of many communities and many groups where people are always willing to help each other out, always willing to lend advice, talk about the experiences that they've had. And, you know, sometimes there are people who on paper are competitors, right? But they're happy to sit down, have a coffee, have a conversation, talk about what's working and what's not. So there's a bit of renewed faith there. And I don't feel as if it's as cutthroat as maybe in my eyes it used to be. Speaker 1 Lauren. Speaker 2 I think for me, I think I've had like a just a lot of like professional and personal growth this year. I think it's just been a very, it's been a really hard year, but I think actually all that's done is make me better, which I think has been really great. Like I'm coming to the end of this year and I think about how I've dealt with some situations. I think God, like Lauren a year ago would not have responded the way she did this year. And I'm like, I love that. I love the growth that I've had. And yeah, I think that I, I, I love what I love your guys points on like community and like the sales. I've always, that's what I've always learned about tech sales is that I've always felt like you can lean on the people around you. It doesn't feel toxic. It doesn't feel like, oh, like everyone's for themselves. It actually feels really nice. And I definitely have seen a lot of that this year, which has been really lovely. And I think, yeah, like, like actually doing some passion projects, like doing this. Like we've been yapping on about it for like a year. And like, it's so nice that we actually, we did it. I love that. I love that actually. We're trying to stick to things that we know you want to do. Yeah, I've, I've, I love that about this year. Well then, what about? Speaker 1 You, yeah, I, I'm going to probably piggyback on what Lauren said. I think for me, this is my first full year in management. So like for me, there's a selfish element of like, one, I survived and two, I've taken on more responsibility and I honestly, I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Like there's been so many learning moments through it. And then like launching this podcast has just been a massive master. Like we're talking about community, right? Me and Lauren met in a WhatsApp community six years ago. And like, we've then just been getting to know each other ever since and then being on nights out and then eventually we ended up going for dinner. And then this was like part of an idea that we had. And we've kind of just slowly, slowly started to think about it more and more. And then we were like, yeah, fuck it, let's do it. So like, this has been a huge thing on my list of things that I wanted to achieve before I was 30. And then we're able to, we're able to achieve that now. So now it's been really exciting. I'm excited for next year as well because we'll have this time next year we'll be like we've done a whole year of podcasting. Speaker 3 Yeah, nice. Speaker 1 Which will be a really good achievement. Speaker 3 Let's circle back this time next year. Speaker 1 Yeah, we can do it again. Rap, Rap 2026. Yeah, we'll get another podcast involved next year and we'll make it 6 people and we'll just keep adding another podcast until it's like way too big, then I've run out of storage on my Riverside account. Well, that guys, thank you very much for listening. Tesh, Mick, thank you very much for coming on. Pleasure that we could collaborate as part of this. Speaker 3 Absolutely. Speaker 1 Cool. Well. Speaker 4 Christmas. Speaker 1 But Merry Christmas.