Trust Is Given. Not Earned.

Welcome to the truckbound podcast. (upbeat music) - All right, here we go, another episode of the Trustbound podcast. And this time around, with another very special guest, I say this in every single episode, it's like, I guess the not worth that I have is extremely special. But, you know, this guest is a person that I admire a ton. And it's one of those relationships that started 100% business focused and it's been a decade now. And, you know, we're still like, of course, we have a relationship that spans across business, but I guess the relationship, of course, has morphed into more of a personal relationship. And I think that's incredibly special. Rania, thank you so much for being here with me and for just being, you know, gifting us your time, welcome. - Thank you, Maul Ritu. I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me. And I just wanted to let you know that you are also a very special human being. There are people you meet along the way. Like you said, you know, it starts as a business relationship and then you somehow connect on another level. And I think those are very, very meaningful relationships and, anyways. So thank you for being around for a decade and a bit now. And we have Oriola as well, my dog. That's okay. - That's perfectly fine. If you, if you, if, if you or anybody listening to your cats on the background, those are my, my cats just wanting attention. So that's, that's perfectly fine. - I'm so welcome. - Yeah, totally. So man, it's, you know, from Egypt to LaDam, to Europe, you guys have done it all and have seen it all. And, you know, we bat what, like 10 years ago when I was at Upspots and, you know, you guys were running IDS out of Chile right before, or not right before. That was for a couple of years. And then, then the, the rebrand to CRM toolbox and then the focus on the US. It's, it's funny because, I guess, and, and I asked this question to myself and, and sort of like when I'm with my wife, we just have conversations about this. And I think like you are one of those relationships that I not just cherish so much about the Upspot days, but I still maintain and it's, you know, a decade strong and that's something that is not easy to, not just to maintain, but to like, to grow and I guess to continue taking care of, of those relationships. So I guess thinking back all these years, like, what's most special for you when you think about the relationships that you've maintained across all these years and those relationships that are still, I guess, paying you back without the monetary element, of course, today. - Yeah. I think it's the ones where the relationship is beyond what is expected or required on a working level. So if I met you through work, we can deal with each other, you know, as co-selling with Upspot. But I think where those relationships that you maintain, whether putting in conscious effort or it's happening on its own is when you connect on other levels. So for example, the desire to travel, the hungry, I wanna grow and learn, we're both living in countries, the, you know, we sort of have to live a specific narrative or experience just because of where we're from as human beings. Like there's so many layers to the relationship that's beyond what we could do together, co-selling. And that is a very rare thing to find. Like, you know, even if you think of a classroom at school or university or workmates in the office, it's those few people that, for me, at least that I can connect with beyond and just be vulnerable, raw, real, and show up fully in my full authenticity, then I will definitely cherish that person. Because it's hard to find, I think. - It's hard to find. And I think that once you find it, it's also hard to maintain. And in this day and age, that's actually one of the reasons of this podcast and of trust-bound as a motion. I mean, when we think about what Upspot did with "Imbound," that is, it's not called "Imbound" anymore. - A motion? - Yeah, right. 20 years ago, they just did a beautiful thing and just coined the motion. I think that regardless of you go "Imbound" or "Imbound" now, there's a big element of trust and of care that just takes hold of those relationships. And at the end of the day, that is what ends up, or that's what matters and that's what ends up being the most important element of business and life, right? And it's funny because like, yeah, we started exclusively, where we made things to Jose Martins, a person that I cherish aton, we were very, very close when we worked together at Upspot and he's doing great things today. And then that exclusively started as a, I don't wanna say sort of transactional relationship, but a rep trying to sell a deal, a partner trying to service a deal, but then that just morphed into something completely different that just added up onto a very cool context. - I think it was setting the other up to succeed. I knew that if we worked hard on the deal with you, I help you close the deal, hit your numbers. And on the other side of the coin, I mean, I don't wanna assume what you felt. - But when you were co-selling with us and we got the deal, we were getting closer to our revenue targets. So it's like, and when you do that sort of really in sync, many times learning from each other and we're both the kind of person that can feedback and take it and challenge and push them, which also makes the relationship even more natural and rewarding. It's like constant dopamine hits, you know? I went with my ritio, my ritio, went with the Cioran toolbox from him and it just goes on and on and on and on and on, on top of that, having the really good fun while doing it, the really meaningful conversations, the really small, thoughtful human check-ins and in a genuine way, it's not like this easy, it's like salesperson, you know? It's just like good people doing good things together for good outcomes somehow. - Right, right, and I think that when it comes to, and I'm gonna do the same, I don't wanna put like words in your mouth, I guess like walking back to or thinking back in my time as a rapid hub spot, I think that what helped me really change my perspective about selling or about sales and I'm also deeply appreciative of Rick Robers and Cioran Mahoney 'cause they helped me sort of like change that chip and change my perspective. I stopped seeing selling as a it's about me to a, it's not about me. I even remember that Carol and I think my first inbound, right from my second inbound, It must have been my second inbound, so this was 2017. I wore the shirt that it had upside down, not about me, like hashtag, not about me. And that was, she gifted me that shirt. That was her, yeah, she gifted me that shirt at that second inbound, and that was my end of month shirt. That sort of like became my mantra every single end of month. I wore the same shirt, and it was cool because like you could walk, like you could like, walk down, and you would read not about me because of what's upside down, so I could read it. And I think that that really started to change the way, not just how I see sales, but also how I see relationships. And it's like, and even when I transition to leadership and coaching of my reps and my people, it also transitions to life, and you talked about this because it's like we're working most of the day, right? So we spend a big chunk of our lives working, and if we're doing something that we don't get value from, that we don't enjoy, that we don't have fun doing, Rick Romeridge says, if you're not fun, you're doing it wrong, right? So if you don't enjoy, if you don't enjoy it, if you don't, I guess get a career from it, and also use it as a catalyst to meet people, to expand your network, to add value to that network, to care for that network, 'cause at the end of the day, yeah, they might be partners, clients, co-workers, but at the end of the day, they're humans, and it's relationships that you are building, maintaining, caring for, I think that is very, very important. And I guess you've been, so on my end, I was rough for a long time, that was in sales leadership, I guess I've been in sales and go to market my entire career as an operator. I'm also a advisor, a coach, a mentor, to startups, and living in the pertinence of multiple funds, and venture partner, and yet a bunch of cool roles. And now I'm a founder. So I guess I haven't seen it all yet, but I think that you have, I mean, I think that you've sat on like on every side of the table, if a table has sides, you know, you've been a founder and operator, a partner, vendor, everything, and I guess where does trust break down most often? 'Cause I also talk about this, like, we took care of our relationship, but that didn't live in the CRM. Even before we were using Cups about CRM, we were using Salesforce CRM, and the context about our relationship didn't live in that CRM. So where do you feel that it breaks down for you, where that context about like the trust and the relationship breaks down? I think like, it's definitely not in the CRM, that's for sure. I couldn't agree more with that statement. It's more in, if I have a conversation with someone and we in a work environment, and we agree on the next three steps. And then the next time I meet this person, the discussion is around how those three steps never existed. That's where that trust will break. Not like, I'm very okay with change. I'm very, that's the story of my life. I'm very okay with pivoting, we've pivoted businesses and regions and service lines and products. But I'm not okay with not sticking to a gentleman agreement. And if you, of veribull, these are our next three steps, then those are our next three steps. I don't, you can come back to me the next day and say, you know what, I slept on those three steps are the worst idea ever. I totally gave it that. But to consistently and repeatedly go through working relationships with that, to be someone in your team or even a client or your partner or your vendor, or whatever, where that source of that relationship is, for me, that is a very difficult thing to fix because I'm the type of person where trust is given or earned. And so if it's given and it's broken, I got a problem. I do know there are people that are, trust is not a given, it's an earned. So this is different schools. So my school is, I'll give you the trust, that's my default. But once it's, that gentleman agreement is gone, no. No. Hmm. How do you rebuild the then? How do I rebuild it? I have a good question. I think in the business context, my gut responses I don't, I walk away. And I've seen, you know, I, I think there may have been a few clients that we sold together that I did walk away from. Because it's like my, it's sort of gut kick, the response, the thoughts, response, emotion is, I can't fix it. I can't fix it unless I fix my, approach which is trust is earned, not given. Because if you earn it, then you, you know, this person needs to do things to make me feel, "Oh, okay, I can trust this person, it's a feeling." But if I give it, and then I get a few slaps in the face, then that's on me. So, so I walk away, yeah, actually, it's quite an interesting realization thing that. It's the first time in this podcast that we've had sort of like a, yeah, - Realization moment. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because I'm thinking, oh my God, when did I fix it? But I can't actually think of, like, there was nothing that came to my mind. And it's funny because I, you know what they call the human design? You know how you can have different profiles based on human design. So I had recently done mine and I'm a generator, and this school of thought of human design. And so I was just doing a lot of reading recently around generators and how we function, how we think, what to do, what not to do. And as a generator, it's all solar plexus. So it's all gut, it's all intuition, it's all, it's all, like one sentence that I read that I read earlier today, and I just giggled and smiled because I thought, "Is he going to love this one?" As if you are communicating with a generator, give them yes, no questions. Because if with a yes, no answer, it will be based on how gut you don't need to think about it. But I just did that right now with your question. And I wanted to find the, "Oh, I fixed it by doing this." And I was like, "Fuck, I can't find one." So it's a no. And it's funny because it wasn't even, it was an open-ended question. It wasn't even a question. Yeah, so my gut is, I don't, I walk away once that trust is broken, it's gone. That's just absolutely crucial because when I see, so I guess that's, I guess that's the other side of the coin 'cause when I think about life of relationships and business, it's, and like the saying goes, like trust takes years to build and it can take a second to destroy and you might never recover from it. So I guess like going back to HubSpots and I think that's the only way to get it. And thanks to not just just amazing humans like Rick, like Carol, but I was surrounded by amazing humans, like David Torres, like Paul Rios, like Jose Martins, like Jesse Gonzalez, like Thiago Correa, like Fio Cardenas, like Stefano Casbarrino, like John Machado, like Corin Ortiz, it's like we had such an amazing team that trust was the default, but it was the default because, and I think a lot of this gift get, right? It was, I give a lot and I don't expect pretty much anything back, but what I got back and returned, and sometimes it was not immediate, sometimes it was, but it was so much that what I was giving, so it just felt so natural and so special and so cool. And I guess that that's why I ended up doing what I'm doing. Now I won't talk about the solution, the platform. I said in the first episode that this is not an Ito guy podcast, but rather the motion behind it. I think you feel like you have something to say, go. Yeah, I think there's, like given get and trust are separate things. Given get is like just think of it as energy, think of it as balance that could be the Libra in me. Trust is, it's not about giving or getting. It's, I think it's a feeling. It's trust of feeling. Right. Oh, I know. Let me go. Yeah, that's a good. I was about to say I was just going to do it. I'm going to ask quad. I put very close. Yeah, but you know, for the environment, my daughter made me feel very guilty that every time I use the robot, I destroy earth. So I'm going back to Google. It's so yeah, apparently it is a complex emotion. I made a emotion or emotional state. I. I. I didn't want you really creepy. Sorry to cut you go ahead look at what tattooed on my and Confia trust. Beautiful. That's awesome. This is my reminder. Yeah. To me, trust is, and I don't know why as you asked the question, I have remained. So I was thinking it's like, huh, it's trusted feeling. To me, it's more like. Because like. Yeah, you get the gut feeling, but to me, it's more like intuition. And I think it's a mix between, because. I don't think that intuition or that gut feeling is only a feeling. I'm thinking of like, for example, the sixth sense, right? To me, I got feeling it's more of a sense than a feeling itself. So to me, trust is like, I don't know, when you walk into a room or when you meet somebody new, those first 30 seconds, you could be entirely wrong about the person, but that got feeling that vibe that you, you know, you said of that energy, that intuition, I think is is very, very important. And it's important, of course, not to judge, but, um, yeah, I guess trust. It's here in some instances. Yep. So it's like, it's like a frequency in a way. Hmm. Somehow, um, I don't know if you're. Read about like 3D and 5D and, you know, new earth, old earth and the frequencies and how you have a trust piece, love like all the high radiating ones are more 5D. And then you have anger, jealousy, fear that that's more on the spiraling down. So maybe trust is one. That's on the frequency spiraling towards the higher frequencies. And that's why like trust your gut feeling, trust the universe. They're quite big. You know, think trust the process. You know, it's interesting because I, I don't know why you got me thinking about physics. So I don't know if you watched Big Bang Theory. By, of course, like the two big theories in physics is, you know, the, uh, string theory and, uh, I think it's waves. The other theory is, is like wave theory or like things are connected either, either by, uh, strings or, or loops. I think it is. Uh-huh. It's interesting. I can see the visual. Yeah. Um, you tell guy in the background that like that in the lecture. Yeah. Like when you were talking about like, hey, trust break. Like if I, if I cannot trust you and, and, and if you don't do good by the relationship, then that trust breaks. And I, and I won't be able to come back to it. I immediately thought it was like great. That, that's, that's a string. And of the string breaks, like you can, you can tie a knot around it, but the natural element of the string breaks. And, and, and I mean, ito, ito is French Japanese. So the string breaks, the thread breaks and it's, um, and that's what your product solves. It's how do we keep those strings in such a digital, ironically connected yet super disconnected world? Yeah. So the, like, my, my dream or like my mission and I, and I guess like, ito guy started as a personal, uh, as a personal project. Like I was, uh, and, and the name is ito guide. I can't remember if I already said this. So I apologize for the people are listening in if I, if I did. But ito guy isn't makes of two words, two Japanese words. Um, I, of course, there's no perfect, uh, place culture. But there are a lot of things about the Japanese culture that I admire. And my wife has from her dad's side, Japanese, uh, they come from Japan, Japanese background. And from her mom's side, they, um, they have Austrian background, both, uh, both sides of the family or both families, flat their respective countries before the war, for a world or two. Um, and my wife, she kept a lot of, and don't ask me why because like, I don't know, she, she's, she's just very, uh, more identifiable or identifies a little bit more with the, with the, uh, Japanese culture. So when I was thinking about, um, my ikigai, we were on a trip and I was like, just looking at those and I was like, just asking myself those hard questions and there's an amazing book called the five levels of leadership. And I even, I even have this, uh, I wrote it down, uh, because I read this book like five years ago and there's, it's boiled over, but there's, there's a question in the book that says, um, what did you do in your life? To make a difference in the world. And I wrote it down in my phone. And this was like five years ago. And when I was, you know, when I was at the, at the beach and I was just having this conversation with my wife, that just question came back to me over and over again. And I'm like, what do I want, uh, my, not just my wife, but like my children and like what's going to be my legacy? What do I want? Like, um, my, my family, my friends to, to be proud of the things that I did on a daily basis to add value. to other people and then what is my ikigai? What is my purpose? And then I realized that I absolutely love just adding value to people and connecting with people and adding value to my network. And there is where the guy comes from and then ito is there in Japanese. And then I thought of the mission and then I guess like, and what started as a personal project just like spiral very, very quickly and I guess snowballed into into a product. We just would love that via ito guy, people can thread purposeful connection so trust and scale. Because at the end of the day, regardless what you do, regardless the line of work that you are and like at the end of the day, like people, people buy from people, people sell to people, people build relationships with people, people maintain relationships with people. And I think that's something that AI will never, ever, ever take from us, from us humans. And the moment that happens, they'll become the matrix in real life. So I guess that is the concept around ito guy and why I was just putting two and two together. So trust connection, energy, feelings, sharing, community, winning together, setting each other's, you know, like I like seeing people like care about, feel, I feel good today. If I can really help with that, be it for whatever, whatever it is that it was, I will joyfully do that. And because that's my default once that, yeah, once that string is broken. I'll just create another one somewhere else. Totally. It's like Michael Scott. I'll just create another company and another company and another. And I feel that it's interesting because it's like, man, we worked together at HubSpot. And then I think I worked for five other companies before founding my own. And now it's 10 years later and we're at this podcast together. And that just like keeps me coming back to the power of your network. And I just, I'd be remiss if I don't ask, you know, you've been a founder, an operator, a partner, a vendor, just like you've done it all. When you think about everything that you've done in your professional career that also makes us a bunch of personal stuff in there. And I, I got to do it because it's a trust bound podcast and I got to take a stab at cold outreach. How much of the effort that you've put in and everything that you've built and everything and the amazing things that you've done have had an influence of your network versus, I just called outreach, but how much did your network help versus just, you know, you alone delivering the work. It's 100% network. I never succeeded with cold outreach. Thank you for clearly. Let me, let me just pause there for a moment. Let me think because, yeah, even when we moved to Chile where I had no network. Back in 2014, I think that was our first clients was through a network. It was through someone who my dad, you know, who connected me to this person, this person was married to someone who had a cousin who I don't know. Without that, I like your, you kind of have to do it through cold outreach. But growing a business, it's like this is business, Ranya hat. I think it's faster to grow through your network than trying to actually ever do it through outreach. And I think it's more pleasurable and enjoyable because you'll get inside on who you will help and work with. Like now you're in, you know, founder C. So it's a little bit different because you, you, you, you building a company is really tiring. And you kind of have to work with everyone for a while. But eventually, like I'm very cautious on who I spend my time with professionally and personally. And I think, I think going back to building a business when you are, when you get a referral or when someone who is in your network connects you with someone. Isn't that much better qualified lead than a cold person? And I know your, yeah, and it's not about I do it to help because at the end of the day, you know, world business leaders that need to make money to survive. But it's about doing it in a way that is at least for me, most enjoyable, most aligned with my values, my mindset. And for that, that's where my network is, is, is price us be it me helping someone or someone helping me and I could go both ways. I have a hunch of what the answer to the question, the following question is going to be. And I guess it's kind of obvious, but I got to close it with this because I, I, I want to, I want to respect your time. And if you think about the word trust bound, what comes to mind then? And I think of the word trust bound. What comes to my mind? I think. Like it's, I think of bound in the form of glue, make I'm bound to something. So I am bound to trust. It's like something in me, which is a reflection of me as an individual or a soul or a human. So if you have lots of these people with all of their strings. That's what comes to me. Does that make sense? Or what resonated with you in that or not? I know this is going to sound very weird, but I do not know I vaulted a more came to mind. And I'm thinking about Harry Potter's horror cruxes. And it's like you. Let's just, let's just eliminate the dark elements of, of the horror cruxes here. But in essence, I think that's for the way how I interpreted your answer. It's like similar to Voldemort depositing part of his soul and the horror cruxes. I think that it works. And again, it's not dark at all. It's completely the opposite. Let's look for the light people. And it's like you're depositing part of your trust in that network and it's all connected. So when you think about like adding value and extracting value or getting value in return. It's a compounding beautiful thing that if you use it incorrectly, it's going to bite you in the butt. Right on, right on and think like think of it. If we go back in time a little bit, think of the barter system. That's built on trust in a way. I can do this. You can do that person's head can do this and everyone can do something. So if we can all help each other by helping each other with that thing works and everything functions. And we don't live in this crazy world that we're living in today. And that's very much, I think aligned with it's a guy in that sense. where it's not necessarily bartering the service, but it's, I can, in my network, either I can help you with or someone I know can help you with. And that is priceless, 'cause at the end of the day that is what we have, like, you know, we, where we live and with our families and our communities, that's a community around you, you know, your neighborhood, your block, your family. But online in a digital world, you know, I've worked three continents, I don't know how many different countries. That's an online community. So I need to have something that keeps that community together because here in my neighborhood, you know, I'll go have a drink on the corner or hang out in the park. So online, it's kind of the same thing. And it's just helping, helping, helping, helping. Right. Yeah. - Ronny, thank you so, so much for your insights and the time. Last question, but before I let you go, if people want to connect with you, where can they find you? - Oh, that would be LinkedIn. And if you just go to LinkedIn and search for my name, which I think Maritu can share with you. - We'll take care of that. (laughing) - Happy to connect, happy to help. If there's anyone in my network that I can connect you to with anything, let me know. Always happy to help. - I'm sorry, I just got to say it. What you just said, that is literally what I say in every single call or what I still say, but what I used to say in every single call to every single startup that met with me asking for favors or asking for help. And that was how I used to close. And this was even before a guy, every single call. And that was the phrase that stuck with me. There's anybody in my network that I can connect you with. Let me know and I'll spark the connection. - Right on. - Spread the love. - Yeah, spread the love. And it's just amazing. Another human saying the same thing. (laughing) - Right on, only. - Rania, thank you so, so much for the time. - Thank you. - And this was another episode of the Trustbound podcast. - If this resonates, pay attention to a trust as I've already been doing this. That's where my minutes of service, learn more at me to that guy. See you next time. I'm Richard Lawrence and this is the Trustbound podcast.