Why Heavy Industry Might Skip SaaS and Jump Straight to AI — Lance Hodgson, CRO at Sitemate

What good everybody welcome to another episode of the goats of growth and as of now there is no sponsor to this podcast yet But if you'd like to get out of spam folders and out of crowded inboxes and get the attention of go-to-market leaders and founders Like the people that I talk to on this podcast who aren't necessarily answering the phones anymore Maybe frankly because all the clutter of AI and all that stuff. Please reach out to me at J at the goats of growth.ai to find out how you can sponsor this podcast Which will also include depending on the guest and their openness to it introductions from me Today's guest is lunch Hodson a full stack revenue leader who's built go-to-market team go-to-market engines on both sides of the Pacific I'll be more specific about that in a moment He got to start with major Hollywood names like Sony Pictures and CBS before moving into growing startups across Los Angeles And Sydney Australia what intrigues me most is his growth at site mate which is now the number one frontline AI company for the built world And he'll explain more about that in a moment where he came just as the first go-to-market hire and climb through all every seat including head of marketing And growth VP of marketing VP of revenue general manager of specific region and now of course he's the chief revenue officer Lance welcome to the goats of growth Thanks Shay good to be here Yeah thanks for thanks for joining So let's just start a little bit there with what I just ended with tell me more about site mate and what you mean by the built world Yeah, so site mate yeah software you know software startup kind of transition into you know AI native or AI hybrid scale up now as well Yeah, basically service the the built world which for kind of people not in the built world pretty much like heavy industries So construction oil and gas mining manufacturing the common thread across our industries is that they have like a field based component So you know a lot of software is obviously designed for for the back office so to speak or you know I guess professional workers You know typical project management software etc the difference here is these teams are collecting information in the field So you know whether they're under manufacturing for construction site you know out with trucks or transport You know they're collecting data in the field hence needing a solution which which works both back office and you know on mobile app in the field as well It's safe to say that that audience or that market is slow to adopting digital technology and that messaging may have to certainly be different than it is to you As what you were just alluded to typical project managers and so forth working in within a more white collar world I think it's yeah I think it's true I think that they definitely have been slow to adopt technology you know historically I think part of it is some change management on on their side and you know probably a little bit of demographics and that's all things as well But I think a lot of it is that there hasn't been great solutions for them either so it's kind of like you know it's a bit of chicken and egg It's like you know is it their problem that they haven't been able to adopt technology or is it technology's problem that it hasn't been good enough for them to adopt And I think it's somewhere in the middle I think that there's an element of them you know it's also more a more complex world as well right like hence the technology needing to be better You can have like tens or hundreds of subcontractors interacting you know on a construction site whereas in the back office you have you know one company pretty like similar stakeholders or you know kind of rowing in the same direction So yeah it's it's a more complex like world to navigate as well so I think I think the solutions have just you know taken time and it's good I mean it's a good segue because like you know AI is obviously going to punch through some of this stuff And we've talked about it internally it may be one of those things where technology in these industries you know skips Platform shift so instead of you know them going from kind of paper into you know maybe cloud or paper into you know into SaaS they may just go paper into into AI right And just skip that you know skip that stage entirely which you see with different technologies in different countries They you know they don't kind of blah blah quote unquote with an incremental improvement or marginal improvement They they basically require the platform shift in order to to move into you know the new technologies Let me ask you this what did you see in site mate when you joined obviously you know it's it's you know the broad James as with where we're publishing this just came out And said that he's now going to the Philadelphia seven six and the most fast yeah it's crazy right I mean it's just we have all know the discussion about that But it's only one ball by the way we'll remind everybody but like I'm always fascinated by decisions and the role that they play in our Story in our journey in our personal success or personal learnings if you will tell me about the decision What you saw in site mate initially and walk me through your I would say a more unique or less traveled path to CRO than most of the CROs that I know Yeah, I'll unpack the first one first makes sense so my decision making yeah came across site mate it was construction cloud at the time so we later rebranded six months or so later to site mate But when I was thinking about joining site mate the main the main reason I was excited about it there was there was kind of two but I suppose the easiest one for other people to grasp is just the size of the market basically So like you know I mean Tam in kind of you know this asshole technology world but for me it's just so much easier to imagine like hyper growth and kind of sink your teeth into something where there's a big market And I mean it's the markets insane right like it's something like 20% of the world work in the built world right those you know the heavy industries So I just felt like I guess I did the math in my head and I thought you know kind of a slice of pie thing right if the pie is enormous and you take a small slice of that pie still then that chunk is still going to be quite large And it seems kind of simple but I see a lot of people go into you know build startups or go into industries where the pie is like kind of not that big you know like it's really not that big and so then even if you're successful in that space or even if you make it then then it's still not you know it's still not like a world changing technology you know generational style company You know maybe you sell it and get a good outcome so I just want to be part of something that was like you know truly had like big scale impact and for me in order to do that it was it was find something in a in a big industry And then worst case scenario you know you don't win that market say but like even if you don't win it then like it's still you know it's still a huge pie to take a portion from as well Yeah I appreciate that and one of the things that I know that people look for when I'm recruiting at that stage right that early scrappy grow state you know raise the series A seed states company is people who are comfortable with ambiguity And I think what you just mentioned there to start off that answer was that it was called one thing and in change to site made I think six months after you got there which to me says a lot about you and your ability to sort of navigate those early waters and to stick through it especially some marketer right that of marketer you got there right when you know literally the name is the brand and the brand is the name and you're like oh and it changes right so tell me about that and as I mentioned your your journey from you know those early days to CRO And I wonder if you have any insight and maybe you don't into you know their decision to hire or or or move you into the CRO seed is supposed to somebody who is in come up from sales Yeah definitely a good question so yeah it was interesting I mean I think the timing was good even if you think about what I just said in terms of you know it was called construction cloud But we the kind of plans were in place to rebrand to a more industry agnostic name like site made right it's not tied to construction specifically That was kind of important because it also opened up that market and that Tim right which partly I'll see oh you know was and co-founder was like thinking about at the time it was like you know we were seeing interest from other industries And basically calling yourself construction obviously like closes other people off to that you know sales force has been battling against that for since it's since it's beginning and stuff right it's just hard to it's hard to get away from the name right so that was that portion and then yeah so you know I was a marketer for early stage companies Before that as well yeah I love the idea of kind of getting in on the ground floor and building something from nothing like that's always you know excited me It's kind of also a bit silly because it's hard but like you know it gives you a lot of that gives you a lot of fulfillment gives you a lot of room to kind of maneuver a lot of flexibility So yeah started in marketing and growth but like you know focused on marketing pretty much all like demand Jen really like you know as you would be kind of in that early stage I do see marketers kind of do that they gravitate towards other marketing when really it's all about demand Jen in the early days So focused on that yeah was was was a was a marketer by trade you know marketing background marketing and Hollywood studios marketing and start up so I definitely expected to continue down that track like I was you know thinking that I just continue to be a marketer you know move forward But then after after staying in that for getting going basically so we it was kind of funny the transition was basically we had I guess I did a good job on the marketing side We had kind of too many leads and we didn't have a sales team it was like you know myself heartily kind of on the go to market side and I've distinctly remembered the conversation heartily was kind of doing the A work so you know on the sale side And we didn't have anyone really to call the leads and he was like, Oh, do you just want to like call some of the leads? And I remember thinking like not really like, you know, that's not really something that that I want to do. And also as a marketer, I was always obviously, you know, obviously have a kind of negative perception of sales in general as you do. So, so yeah, so I started making calls and I ended up staying in like the quote unquote kind of, you know, SDR sales realm for a few years. It's like I did it with so I made through COVID. We really like doubled down me and hardly we just kind of stayed on the funnel. You know, just me and him work through that period because of the uncertainties of COVID, etc. But I actually ended up really enjoying sales like it wasn't what I expected it to be and I can go into more detail on that if you want. But like sales was not what I thought it was going in. So I actually started to, you know, started to enjoy it. From there, like after that sales kind of period, we ended up needing like systems as we scaled, you know, as you kind of do. So that was like the VP of revenue role was like building our internal system. So I built our sales force instance, you know, I started setting up the system so that people could, you know, manage the work basically on the sales side. So kind of for all of go to market. That was like the VP of revenue role building systems and it was quite easy for me because I had the context of the marketing side. And I had the context of the sales side and I was like early enough to also understand, you know, CS, etc. So I kind of could like thread the systems into, you know, into my understanding and thread my go to market context and marketing context across systems. But then went back into VP of marketing when we needed to grow kind of again a little faster. So I was like, okay, go back to demand Gen, you know, get things going again. When is it the GM role because we have a GM who didn't work out in Oceania, which is Australian New Zealand, heartily said out of the blue basically he's like, you know, the plan is basically for you to be the next jam. And I was like, oh, here we go again back into go to market just when I've like got out of it and was enjoying the system side. But then I really loved that as well, you know, I liked being, I like being back in go to market, I liked the intensity, the energy and go to market. So shifted back into there. And then once I've done that, I suppose like, you know, the CRO track was not really far fetched and you'd have to ask heartily specifically on his thread with me. But like we did talk about it, I think when I was in VP revenue and his gap or like the gap for me in his head at the time was like, I hadn't been in a hand done sales, right, which makes sense for CRO. So the GM role enabled me to kind of close that gap. And then, you know, after that, I was kind of in a position to, you know, to move into CRO. So I kind of did do the full journey marketing background. I think having a marketing background is super, super powerful, which I couldn't speak to if you'd like as well. So I think it's a really good kind of, you know, background. Went into sales understood how to do that sort of things got go to market context did the system side, which we talked about like understanding, you know, systems, all of that good stuff. And then I feel like the CRO just kind of wrapped it all up together, you know, it's, it's understanding demand gen into full go to market, it's understanding systems, it's understanding how to build, you know, build process through systems, et cetera. So yeah, it wasn't necessarily like a straight journey, like, you know, VP of sales, et cetera, but I guess in hindsight, it feels like it, you know, it made a lot of sense, I guess. Man, I love that so many questions that I have just based on all of that, but I realized we have limited time. So let me just pick on, well, a couple of things. Tell me what you, what your perception of sales was before you actually took on took on that role. Yeah, my perception of sales was that you had to like do sales basically as in like, you had to, you had to like become different and like, you know, intentionally sell or like try to sell, which I think is like quite a natural thing to think is all just why I think a lot of people are turned off by sales in general. And then I went and did it and like, I don't know if I was my authentic self at the start, but like, I hope I was, but like quickly, quickly, I was just like, this is just conversations like this is actually just talking to people, solving their problems. And I realized like the more myself I was and the more authentic I was like the better the outcomes were as well. So yeah, my initial perception was like, oh, no, like I'm going to have to be a sales person, right? And then I went into and I was like, oh, this is just like this is just kind of like arguing with people in a polite way, right? And like solving their problems and, you know, and I like that. And I like, you know, I like talking and working through problems and solutions. So yeah, it was, it was very different. And now I have to try to teach and help other people, you know, change their mindset in that way as well. For me, the big unlock in sales came years ago, and frankly, you know, when I talk about like a feeling you get or negative connotation, you get about sales, I sold used cars, right? At a rental car place. And when I first started selling, I felt that way. Like I felt the stink of being a sales person, but then, or at least that was my perception. I started this book by Zig Ziglar, and one of the things he said, one of these mantras that I've repeated over and over again, which, and I share with my kids, this is that you can help as long as you help enough people get what they want in life, you can have anything that you want in life, right? And to me, that just completely flipped it on its head for me. And I got, I got much better selling those cars because I didn't look at it like I was a sales person trying to convince you of something that you didn't necessarily want to buy, but I was more helping you and I became more consultative. So that's interesting to hear you say that for sure. So let me double click on that, you know. Yeah, I had a thought back when I was in marketing, which is kind of similar. I was like, you know, marketing is about, it's about kind of convincing people to do the thing that they want to do or that they should do. But you still got to convince them that they should do it. It's not manipulation because it's like mutually beneficial, but that doesn't mean that you have to like do stuff to convince them that they should do it. And sales feels the same. It's like people are kind of their own worst enemy and they won't take action. There's like, you know, there's inertia there. So your job is like to get them through that to a better world, right? To a better place. So it's not it's not manipulation because it's like mutually beneficial as long as you're selling a valid product, but it still requires like tactics and all that stuff because you're overcoming like human inertia. Yeah, it's amazing. We'll get into the AI angle of this in a moment, but just one of the questions I think it made of table with what we were just mentioning, which was. You said that a lot of marketers are more inclined to stay away from demand and go to other areas of marketing. Tell me why you think that is. I think unfortunately it's a bit of an obvious one. I think because it's scary to be held to a number, right? Like, you know, it's it's scary to be accountable for a number. It's quite easy. And I was actually talking about this the other day with someone where like, you know, there's a lot of there's quite a few departments in companies where like, you know, yes, of course you have to do a good job. But there's not really tight accountability, right? It's like, you know, as long as you're kind of turning up, you know, doing doing the job, you're okay. Sales is obviously the opposite of that where like you're held to a number fully accountable and demand gen is, you know, much more like sales, right? It's like if the number is not there, then that's your problem. And that's like on you and you're accountable for that. I've always gravitated like towards that because I like the objectivity of it. But I think that's why people don't like it is just because of, you know, the quote, I'm quite pressure of a number. Yeah, for sure. That's kind of what I, what I assumed in what you were, what you were getting at there for sure. So one of the reasons I reached out to the main reason I reached out to you is because as you know, I've been personally on my own. A genetic building journey, if you will, to try to optimize everything that I'm doing and shorten the ultimately to shorten the time takes me to position for my clients, right? And as I started building any genetic ecosystem, I started sort of having more questions about it. And every time for every success is like a failure or there's something that's not working or something that's broken or I'm building something and I'm like, okay, this is good, but what is better and how can it be even greater than it is now? Right. And I just got into this constant loop and I'm like, you know what? I can't just have all these conversations with cloud code. I'm turning into like some sort of, yeah, you know, it's like, where are my emotions? Like I just started getting that way. So I said, I got to have more human conversations and here what other people are building and the impact that AI and building agents is having on their jobs, their functions within the companies. And the overall impact that it's having commercially to reach out to you, you're obviously kind of enough to come on and talk about your experience and everything that you're building over there at SiteMate. So for context, give me a sense of, you know, obviously you changed the name since once after you got there, you mentioned earlier in this conversation how, you know, it was cloud-based and now starting to be more AI centric, if you will. Tell me about how long as a company you guys have been on that journey and then talk to me about, I know there are four major sort of agents that you focus on and build within your operation at SiteMate. Tell me about those. So tell me about like where you guys began to sort of start to make this shift, if you will, and then how you've seen it help you and your daily outcomes. Yeah, so I think you'd probably have to isolate like EPD, so product, you know, product and engineering and the, you know, the AI focus there from, from like go to market usage of AI. But like the timeline is, you know, the timeline on the product side started a lot earlier, you know, the team they're starting to think about how to incorporate slash integrate AI into, you know, into the product internally. I'll focus on internally because it's where I kind of have more context as well. Internally, I'd say, you know, we started to become. kind of very aware of AI and like usage in you know AI usage in I guess every day kind of operations but also go to market probably about a year ago we the I think yeah so I'm paying the other day in Slack that we've had our Claude live in Slack for about I think 11 it was nine 10 months at the time so probably 11 or 12 months so that's when you know kind of like it's been in our ecosystem like you know every which way but lose so yeah probably a year ago you know like most people started using the LLM's just to support with like decision making and you know compressing simple workflows like instead of documenting things out in confluence I would you know do a loom video and then paste into LLM's paste it across into confluence like save time that way and then we started properly integrating AI into you know into our kind of core go to market probably about like six months ago seven months ago and it's it's really accelerated from about four or five months ago and you know now we're starting to kind of ship agents and and make changes that are pretty regular cadence. Got it and tell me about the the agents are these agents that you've built internally through your team specifically is it are the agents that that you've bought as a combination of the two tell me a little bit more about that. Yeah all all internal builds like you know external models but all yeah all internal like configuration so yeah between you know between our existing systems and tooling and then yeah LLM's you know and then middleware like Zapier etc build them with with all of that and then the you know the key part for us is obviously instilling like our logic into you know into those agents so that the output is you know as well aligned to site mate specifically as possible so so yeah all like internal configuration by using you know obviously the LLM's you know in every way to kind of house the logic and the work. Can tell me about so you have four agents collateral intelligence coaching and the other one workflow agents yeah workflow agents yeah so so first what's the process and let's just start with that one right that one's huge workflow agents what's the process for actually that you've gone through to to build and to optimize the workflow agents in a way that they're really useful and you can see you know obviously tangible tangible difference. Yeah I think I think we're pretty intentional about we've always been intentional about like documentation first versus like execution so you know like it comes back to my VP of revenue days where like I had to you know build Salesforce and like think about the systems and the integrations and all that stuff. I kind of tend to like map out anything before I kind of do something and by that I mean like do an information architecture diagram or like a process flow diagram and we kind of did that first so it was like what does GoToMarket look like today in terms of like our funnel from you know SDR AMCS and what are like the stages within those functions or parts of the funnel that could be you know automated via GoToMarket workflow agents right so we kind of define the buckets of agents that we wanted to kind of build and support with which like those areas are essentially just like you know solving specific problems so yeah they all do different things like coaching agents intelligence agents workflow agents in collateral and then it's like mapping out you know the end-to-end kind of process in GoToMarket and saying like where does it make sense to insert agents into this flow because then it's practical right it's like they're actually solving you know a problem which maybe was like an admin issue which is like the workflow agents are focused on maybe it was like a visibility issue which the intelligence agents are focused on maybe it was a you know a manual admin and like what we've sent to clients problem which is the collateral agent so we kind of started by like mapping yeah mapping out the end-to-end flows and saying like you know what are the areas where it makes sense to build agents to to do parts of the things that either the manager used to do the rep used to do you know I used to do as an example so I think it started with with mapping it out and then it's just like you know then you just go piece by piece right you just tackle tackle each part of that as you as you work through I like the geeky part of this stuff in the media part so forgive me if this gets a little bit too in the weeds but like what what are you what like when you say sort of documenting the workflow and getting all the like what tools you're using you put it in notion you put it like Google Docs like what's the actual mechanism where you begin there yeah I think it's so important to talk about the details because that's often like where most of the stuff happens right versus versus super high level yeah so we we use compliance internally for like you know internal documentation and compliance now has whiteboards which is where we do all our process flow diagrams we usually use Miro back in the day and then Confluence release whiteboards and we you know we have to turn from Miro to for the consolidation play so yeah use Confluence whiteboards and yeah super straightforward it just obviously is a bunch of sticky notes shapes arrows but the value of putting a bunch of sticky notes shapes and arrows together is kind of immeasurable in terms of in terms of thinking and time saving later down the track yeah for sure for sure and then what about the people side of it in other words are you meeting with folks on the front lines to say like walk me through your workflow what is this like what does that look like like and then once you have that what's the tech stack look like to sort of put it all together to make it an operational occasion yeah the the funny thing is is like I you know I quote on quote like probably should ask the team more stuff but like I am I'm kind of in it every day like that's that's kind of the difference between you know we're not a huge company but maybe other companies that ask I will like you know the arrow is not like doing sales and not in sales force and not you know doing the AM work I'm still doing that stuff for site mate so like I kind of know like all the process flows right I work with the CSM's like on a daily basis like you know for the most part have very very kind of good and deep context on each stage of the funnel we we've got a like kind of motto quote unquote internally and you know all managers hold like IC contribution targets still at site mate so no one's just like just a manager and I'm the same like I'm not just a manager I'm actually in the weeds so it's actually not that hard for me to understand all the details and say like this is where we can have the most impact with agents I of course do sessions with the teams like you know sometimes I travel to the other regions to do face-to-face and I do like data collection exercises there where like ask them you know what's what could be better you know what's not working well what is working well so I have all of that kind of context and detail but for the most part because I'm still in the weeds I can you know look at it quite easily and just say like you know where am I saying friction in the process and that that gives me a good steer and then yeah work with some of the other team just in terms of prioritizing you know what will have the biggest impact now what are you stitching together like you mentioned Zapier a little bit earlier but what are the what's in the tech staff actually you know make it work yeah so yeah so Zapier Claude and then basically the you know our existing staff tools so you know ties into those so Salesforce being a big one Slack being another big one we use air call for the soft phone we use Fathom for recording meetings there's a couple of other no taking tools but Fathom to go to market meetings so yeah it's pulling from from all of that and then confluence like you know I mean not so much confluence in the sense of it's not really pulling from there but using all the context from there on our playbooks frameworks operating principles like pulling that into into the agent so yeah the agent infrastructure you know and I think the interesting thing here is like Slack is oftentimes kind of our interface like we have the you know the conversational stuff in Slack now as well so you can go back and forth with the agents as well so yeah I'd say Slack on like output level but also systems of record on the output level as well so we like we pipe into front which we use the email one of the tools that I highly recommend plug for front and yes you know Salesforce system of record and then just pulling in all the data from those other areas you know Fathom air call email obviously so yeah that's that's pretty much the stack it's not it's not overly overly complex I think where we where we do quite well is actually on the context that the agent is using because you know we've always been really solid on documentation around like playbooks frameworks operating principles and that's the core of like making you know making agents valuable I think all right let's see if my brain goes in all different kinds of places let me just let me just stay there for one moment you mentioned context obviously and how important that is where would you say of all the the the agents that you have before agents let's just stay there or making the biggest lift or the most impact or the one that you can't look at out yeah you'd have to you'd have to ask who right like the workplace agents are the workplace agents are like awesome for the reps and you know for me as well in doing some of the sales work so a lot of people can't live without them anymore right it's like I get off a meeting and the emails like auto drafted you know as an example right like going back to a world without that is is going to be you know it's going to be pretty tough yeah there's a bunch of bunch of stuff there on the the workflow agent side the intelligence agents have been a huge lift for us one one of our values internally is high viz which is like a play on you know high viz viz in the construction industry etc but like basically means a high visibility you know culture we thought we were high viz until now you know it's like the difference is just it's just on steroids because instead of having to go into I mean it's like you know if I want to If I want to understand what's happening in GoToMarket previously, I have to go into Fathom recordings, right? I have to actually go watch and get in the weeds and pick apart details. Whereas now, the agents can just analyze the fathoms and surface that into us, right? Analyze the air call transcripts. All of this data that was basically locked away previously is now able to be surfaced via our intelligence agents. So now we can see our people are lining to our playbooks. Like our people utilizing our frameworks are people, you know, adhering to our operating principles. And it's funny because pre AI era, I like, I had this vision of what I like wanted in GoToMarket and it was impossible. Kind of like a lot of products. It was impossible to get where you wanted to go without AI. You know, in theory, it's great. It's like, yeah, like, you know, high views, like everything engineered, which is another one of our values. But like now in the AI era, we can actually build that, like, it's actually possible to do with the agents. So it's like, you know, instead of having to get in the weeds, they're the agents in the weeds. And then they, you know, they're doing that analysis at this level. And then you're only getting the important information, which is surface, which you can then use to, you know, take action, etc. So they've been massive for leadership, you know, the intelligence agents, it's just like surfacing, surfacing all that stuff in. Collaboration is good. You know, streamlining a lot of stuff there and obviously makes, yeah, makes what we're sharing with customers and prospects better. So they've been really good. And yeah, the coaching agents are awesome too, because like, you know, previously a manager would have to spend all their time coaching the team. But the agents can do a really, really good job at coaching as well. Again, stuff frameworks against our playbooks. So honestly, like, I kind of can't live without any of them, to be honest. It becomes sticky part of the family ubiquitous, whatever, analogy or visually you want to, you want to paint. Okay. If I'm, so now I'm in the, as we're talking, I put myself in the shoes of someone who isn't so far along, right? And maybe it starts to feel overwhelming to them. And they're like, theoretically, this sounds great. But a, I don't have the time. This sounds like it takes a lot of time, a lot of work, a lot of effort and all that stuff. First of all, tell me how much time you spent sort of building these agents. And then how much time you're spending, only word that comes to mind, frankly, is babysitting the agents, like optimizing them all use various and adult to make them continue to work. I asked this again, selfishly to answer my own, you know, scratch my own itch. And where would, where would somebody begin, right? I guess I'm asking a lot of questions. But where would somebody begin as they start to try to get to where you are? Yeah, I think the good news for me is I have a chief of staff who builds all of the agents. So that's been a game changer. That's when we really accelerated actually, because, you know, I'm obviously quite busy trying to run the Go-to-Market team and make sure we execute and hit targets, etc. And then, you know, a few other things as well. So the biggest lift for, the biggest lift for me and the dynamic we have internally is like, I think about the playbooks and the frameworks and the operating principles. Like, I think about how Go-to-Market should be done, you know, I guess probably the easiest way to put it, like, outside mates specifically. And then based off of that, Erin, who's, uh, Effect Chief of Staff or my Effect Chief of Staff, I suppose, she then basically like builds the agents which align with that. So we work through it together and she spends her time building agents. We, we ship now, like, it's common for us to ship, you know, three, also three to four even new agents per week now, like, you know, like, you know, value add agents because the, the infrastructure is now in place, right? Like, we're mostly like, you know, copy pasting. We also have Revops who do a few Go-to-Market ops who do a few as well. But like, I think where to start, I still think with, with all of this stuff, you know, yes, understand the tooling, of course, is important. But, but really kind of draft out and think about like where, where the agents like should live in the process first, because like, that's where it starts, right? It doesn't start with like building agents and then like retrofitting them to the process. It's like, where should they fit into your process, build the agents in line with that. And you need the, again, you need the context, like, that's the important part. Like, if we didn't have all of our documentation around the playbooks and the frameworks and the operating principles, these like, you know, standard like approaches or like best practices that we have, then the agents got nothing to even refer to, right, which is like, which is the problem. So I think a lot of it, we've done the heavy lifting on the documentation side. We've had to close some gaps there. Then it was yet getting the managed agents infrastructure set up. You know, we're like all companies, right? Just trying to like figure out the best approach to that with EPD doing some stuff, you know, ops doing some stuff, revenue team doing some stuff. So, you know, we're all working through that. And then yeah, ideally, like, I believe our dynamic is really good at the moment, whereby, you know, our kind of ops team, some of the ops teams, some kind of dedicated roles, they're kind of like agent builders. You know, that's mostly what their role has become. And they just get like the detail in the context and like the projects or the scope from, you know, the leadership, whether that be like, you know, VP or myself or whoever. And then they build agents to align with that. And then we're able to deliver and ship, you know, pretty quickly week on week. Are any of these agents customer facing, are they all internal? They are all internal, yes, all internal process. I mean, the only ones who like, I mean, I guess they kind of touch the customer in terms of like drafted emails. We don't send emails by the agents. So drafted emails. And then the collateral obviously is, you know, created by the agents and then customers see that. So, so they touch it, but it's still, you know, driven or like, I guess, signed off or finalized by the go to market rep. Got it. Yep, that makes sense. And I think the takeaway that I heard, frankly, when you mentioned the chief of staff, I think you said her name was Aaron is I wrote down first two, then what, right? I feel like it's actually in the book. I think maybe it was good to great. It might have been in one of those on. Another book that I read about basically evaluating talent, but I think it's, it's, if you're not your, for instance, you're the operational expert. When it comes to go to market for your company, right? And I feel like if you're someone listening to this, whether it's the CRO or somebody else internally at a company, it's find the people. And it doesn't necessarily might be didn't have to be the chief of staff, but maybe even put together a committee, but find a group of people who are leaning into this stuff. Who are curious enough, who are forward thinking enough where you can start. They can start helping you operationalize and build these agents internally to take it off of your plate, because obviously you've got so much more to do that. I think aggregating it from different sources is a good way to go, right? Would you say? Yeah, I think so. And like to be honest, I'd love to be in it more. You know, I was used to building our systems, you know, like when, as I said, I built like Salesforce configuration. So I love building systems and doing that stuff. So I do need to stay connected to it as well and like get more involved, which I'm planning to do just trying to carve out time. But yeah, you want to, you want to like, you want to utilize your own leverage, right? Like in this case, my leverage is, is go to market context, right? Like that's where I have, you know, I guess the advantage or like can make the most impact. And like Aaron's just, you know, a weapon she was a VP of revenue for us before. So she's got that really good understanding of systems, great go to market context as well. So between two of us, we're just like, you know, we can just kind of like, there's not, it doesn't even need to be too much back and forth. And then yeah, the, you know, the agents are really powerful. And revops is, you know, it's again, like really good at the moment, like building pipeline review agents, you know, building agents that side of things. You just need a good, you just need a good, yeah, a decent thinker who like wants to map out, you know, process and that side of things. And then you need someone, yeah, who understands how to, how to build these agents, but that's becoming easier as well. Obviously, the agent building pieces is not really the complex part, you know, any more because you can ask the elements how to build the agents, right? Yeah. The, you know, the crux of it is becoming like, yeah, everyone can build agents, but like which agents do you build and like what context do you give to those agents? And what's the, you know, what's the, the surface or like interface with which people are interacting with those agents to utilize them, right? Like, I think everything around the agents is, you know, is super important. Yeah, for sure, for sure. One thing that I want to mention, and then I have another question, and then we'll end with rapid fire five is, you know, I was talking to a candidate of mine who was in accounts exactly to get hired at one of my companies over the last month or so. And something he said stuck out, and it's continuing to stick with me, which is that he as an individual contributor account executive has been using cloud code to build workflows for himself that aren't, you know, sanctioned to not the way we're, but not paid for by his company, right? Like, they don't have the resources and, or they didn't have the resources of the new company now, but, and I just thought that that was to me. A red-crumb, if you will, or an indicator of the kinds of people that will be more hireable, moving forward are people who are forward thinking, experimenting, building things, even if it's frankly building something at home for your own personal use, right? Just getting your hands on this stuff that because you don't need to have gone to school to be a computer scientist or all this other stuff to sort of to do these things. I feel like, for me, as a, as a recruiter, like, that's those are the kinds of people that I'm looking for. And I was just meeting with some people in the LP at states, you capital here in Boston. and I was meeting with some of those folks there and they were asking me like what are you seeing in terms of the way some of these leaders are thinking about you know a building agentic systems and AI and I was saying like honestly there's a lot of people who aren't like or they it's still it's still sort of far enough in the distance for them that they happen to not necessarily get in there they hands on it yet right and so again one of the reasons for having this this this podcast when doing these kinds of episodes is exactly that to start like bringing people together and educating them and obviously you've done a fantastic job here for sure as well I mean we do and I talk before and I feel like man so much more information that I got out of you now in the first time we we met could have been a whole another episode and of itself so I'm really appreciative of this one thing I want to mention before we wrap up is is or ask you about this headcount it's obviously can be controversial in many different ways as far as whether it's optimizing employees whether it's holding headcount down whether you end up having to let go of folks but you know how has it you know impacted site mate as it pertains to maybe headcount that would have been open say a year ago doesn't necessarily need to be open now because you don't need to hire for that for that role you know and and so forth so just tell me about what that looks like for you yeah so I think it depends okay so I'll just unpack it a couple of ways so it hasn't impacted our existing team much so like we haven't you know we haven't done layoffs etc so that's one one part of the question so that's been good it has definitely slowed down our hiring in certain areas for sure you know like without a doubt the way I'd probably like fork it or split it is I haven't noticed at least it's not made that it doesn't feel like we can not hire like go to market people ever like it doesn't it doesn't feel like we can not hire go to market people because of you know AI it's like it feels still feels like we need a hire like SDR still feels like we need a a still feels like we need I am CSM's like that still feels not the same but like virtually the same you know we've got fin which is like you know support agent etc but like that doesn't mean you can't hire CSM's like it's just answering like questions right you still need CSM to do activation and like get in the weeds with customers and and that sort of things so go to market we haven't seen like a massive change and I think like you know as you probably we'd scale headcount slightly slower than we otherwise would have but I think it would be like quite marginal the difference on the upside though and like in I guess support kind of roles it's definitely different you know so like now like we again we didn't really like people off but we just haven't had to hire people in those areas of the business so like revops go to market ops you know like instead of having a team beneath me like building process I've got a chief of staff who like builds you know the process that actually like drives a lot of automation so those roles have definitely changed and it's interesting like we have talked about this like me and Hartley and a couple other people at these large companies it makes sense why they have to do layoffs like versus smaller companies because they were like built in an era where you had people like moving information between systems right like you had entire roles and potentially even like entire kind of functions of divisions who kind of moved things between systems right or like analyzed information or whatever we didn't have that so like we didn't need to layoffs we've just been able to stay lean as we grow because like yeah people are kind of augmented by the agents it's definitely had some impact in in some areas and like the org thinking has changed a little bit from my side because I don't feel like I need as many people beneath me like holding the bar because like the agents can go and do a lot of that like the monitoring you know the support surfacing of information but yeah I think if I was to summarize like go to market still feels like you need human beings for sure at least for now ops revops you know those are the styles of roles we haven't personally laid anyone off but like does it feel like we can hire less of those people moving forward for sure and I don't have as much context on EPD product engineering side but we've been still hiring pretty rapidly in EPD because you know it's kind of like the faster you can build stuff now and like that's just been sped up by the agents you know and the faster you can integrate our well into your product obviously like you know it's becoming kind of a compounding race on the on the EPD side so it's been I don't think many companies would have slowed down hiring on that side yeah very fascinating very interesting a big one thanks for thanks for answering answering that okay so are you ready for the rapid fire five while I ask you five questions you give me five answers and then we'll ask in with the bonus yeah sounds good let's do it awesome by the way if you any potential sponsors that are out there this could be a spot where you could sponsor the rapid fire five I'm just saying who want to go in front of go to market leaders that tech companies or founders of tech companies this would be a great place for me to read your add to them and anybody who's listening right now so since not go to the go to growth.ai to learn more about me and and what I'd all right so first question rapid fire five is what motivates you so long it's a long question I think what motivates me I'll try to be rapid as wanting to like fulfill my own potential and like have an interesting and fulfilling life really good one I like that name it big goal you have right now and what would you like and when would you like to accomplish it so I've been on a bit of like an endurance event binge of late so I swam one of the channels in in Australia ran a marathon so the next obvious one is is the Iron Man so Iron Man 2027 where is it where's Austria Austria okay fantastic wow that's amazing don't get too many answers like that so that's that's pretty cool I'm gonna you're gonna have to follow up with you after that one and we can come back for sure for sure which your most preferred way to learn new information and to stay sharp yeah I'd say my preferred is reading but it's if I don't have the time which I don't at the moment with a busy job and two young kids and other things to try to maintain if I don't have time to read books it becomes podcasts I really like podcasts that's the great medium for you that great great great yeah and also you didn't mention the train for a Iron Man as well and all that stuff that was one of the other things in the video it must be one of my favorite questions that I got from a previous guest somewhere in the first 100 episodes what's your first I'm sorry who's your favorite character of all time could be could be fiction fiction this could be real it could be the person down the street just who would you who your favorite character it's a it's a tough question I love sport so like you know sport there would be a lot of sports people in there but I'd say the one that like comes to mind it's could probably gonna be if anyone you probably wouldn't have heard of before but is Rambo Sylvester's alone Rambo love that movie just saw just our part blood part two I'd say two months ago with my son yeah yeah and so like I just think you know with Rambo as people when I was young I just was obsessed with the movies and I think it kind of ties back to like my my first answer I just love you know the mentality right like just the it's it's such a great movie so like he barely talks and like he just does all of his talking you know through action super determined like you know super smart in the context that we're talking about there so yeah I'd say I'd say Rambo and again kind of like jack of old trades like you know jacked you know smart like winner like all the good stuff two of my favorite lines in that movie are Murdoch I'm coming to get you I recite that a lot my kids went bonkers the first time they heard that I love it they're 13 and a lot of and then the other one was at the very end when he says mission accomplished yeah yeah and even the way he says like they drew first blood it's just like yeah well you don't want to mess you don't want to mess with that guy that's for sure yeah I just I love every part of that movie and it was bonkers thing about um last question what's your favorite thing to do when you aren't working I love hanging out with the kids for sure so love doing that outside of that sport and exercise which kind of yeah it explains like I like you know I've always that's always been my outlet is just like sport and you know and or exercise so yeah love love doing that it's really the only thing that that keeps me keeps me time that's I love it bonus question from the last guest who's the founder of the Supercarl CEO co founder of Supercarl which is a AI Super connector competes with LinkedIn just for contacts that's he wants to know what's your biggest cause of learning is not the right to be the succeeder you learn how many what what you wouldn't think it's a loaded question obviously right so what would it be learned from some some of your learnings I guess life to date I'm gonna I'm gonna if I can I'll frame it as what I've had learned from my failures I think yeah yeah I think like obviously there's a spectrum of a failure which I think is what you know what they're getting at as well yeah I think I think what I've learned which I think has been beneficial is that like seeking perfection is you know is not the goal and shouldn't be the goal like there's been areas where like I've you know one example I did quite well at university and I actually was like close to getting a full point GPA like 4.0 GPA so like you know perfect grades quote unquote but then it was actually the best thing ever because like I like a 1B in like the last some lost semester last class I ended up it was like a 3.98 or 3.97 but the best thing about it was that like I was like that's the perfect example of like that you cannot be perfect you know it's like like even Even in that case, it's like something had to go wrong in that scenario, like as it would. So I think the lesson there is, you know, and like I had to not get hung off on it, you know, obviously. But it was almost like kind of therapeutic or cathartic and it was like, you put all that effort in and then like at the last hurdle, it's like, you know, you don't quite get there. So I think it's just on me yet. Don't seek perfection. Just like seek, you know, seek excellence, I suppose, or like, you know, a good outcome or maximizing your potential. And then you can be, you can be happy with that. Let me ask you just one follow up question to that again because my curiosity just won't let me let it alone. Where was it's, you know, hindsight's always 2020 and perspective and all that stuff. Like where was your head at in that moment when you realized that you had 3.98? How long did it take you to get your head out of that? Or did you run, run a marathon to get you back steamed like, well, it was actually funny because this is going to sound sad, it's not going to align with what I said, but the class that I got the result in, this can be validated. The professor actually got ill like right after the finals and I got my grade back and I was actually a bit confused because I was like, I was actually like feeling good going into the end, got it back and I was like, that doesn't really make sense. So email emailed him and didn't hear back, heard back the first time and then didn't hear back up that I was like, oh, can you please like review the thing and he's like, yeah, I'll go take a look. Never heard back from him spoke to the school while later, I kind of let it go. And they were like, oh, no, you know, he moved on like and I think he had some health problems. So the truth is is that like we'll never know whether or not it actually like could have or should have been an A potentially, but no, it was relatively easy because like, you know, it's just one step, right? It's like it's the grade is doesn't define you like the outcome. It's like, you know, you move on and you get a job and, and you know, at that point it doesn't even really matter. So yeah, just focusing on next steps versus, versus yeah, getting to like up on the moment. Interesting. Yeah. Now I'm, yeah, one would have happened had he been healthy and enabled to respond to that. Well, never know. But I'm actually kind of happy with like, again, like I think it's like a, it's a good thing. Like it's a good lesson, right? That's kind of the point. Which also is a good story. Yeah. Yeah. It serves, it serves two purposes at this point. That's fantastic. I love it. There's one last simple question, which is, excuse me, where can folks, you know, reach out to you. Perhaps maybe ask a question that I neglected to ask or maybe find an opportunity there at say. Yeah. So, I mean, class against like LinkedIn is fine. I do actually haven't had my personal email on my LinkedIn profile. So yeah, any questions, just fill for it to shoot me a message or email. I'm pretty, pretty good at staying at zero notifications. That's kind of in my DNA. So I can't handle having, you know, ones and twos on notifications. So I will definitely, definitely go back to you. Fantastic. And put the goods of growth in the subject line. He'll pay extra special attention to that one, right? Very true. Best podcast name that I'd say the goods of growth. Thank you. I appreciate it. Too kind of you, too kind. Well, thank you very much for doing this. Much appreciated. Everybody. Don't forget to check out Lance at site meet. If you're a potential customer or maybe you're looking for an opportunity somehow or just simply reach out to him to thank him. I want to thank everybody for listening to this episode. Please don't forget to share, play a friend, your co-workers and so forth. A great interview. That's how I signal people that it's a worthy podcast to listen to. And if you have anybody that is trying to get into go-to-market teams and would like to sponsor this episode, I'm open to that as well. Otherwise, until next time, thanks to everybody. Bye, Lance. Thanks, everybody. [BLANK_AUDIO]