Steve DiNardo, Clint Reilly Communications

Arun: Steve, welcome to our first podcast. It's such a wonderful opportunity for us to have you as our first guest speaker. I think it's kind of stating the obvious, but we couldn't have had anybody better here in our very first session. So thank you so much for your time.

Steve: Most welcome.

Arun: It's been a great journey for us over the last few months, so thank you for your support. I do want to kick it off. There are about four segments we want to cover. The objective is for us to do a couple of things. We want to learn from you, from your experience. We want to understand your point of view on what's going on today in the sales world. We're trying to understand the role of technology, the role of AI, and more importantly we'd like to understand how you're envisioning things to evolve in the sales world. That's the overall objective. But before we get into the future it'll be great to start with your experience and learn a little bit about what you've seen and how things have evolved. You've had many years of experience. Let me ask you the first question: how did selling start for you? How did you start as a salesperson?

Steve: Oh, this is a great story. I went to school in Boston, I went to Boston College, and my family owned a home down on Cape Cod, which is a beautiful beach area in New England. So I graduated college and I went down to the Cape house and figured, oh, I'm just going to go to the beach for a while and enjoy myself. And about a week after I got there, my mom ripped an ad out of the newspaper from a radio station in Boston that was looking to hire salespeople. She tore the ad out, handed it to me, and said, call them right now, you need to get to work. That was the beginning of a journey that's gone on for, to say many years would be being kind. It's been quite a long time. But that's how I got into sales. I answered a want ad. I got a job selling radio advertising time at a small radio station outside of Boston.

I think sales is kind of like drinking scotch whiskey. Nobody is born with a taste for scotch whiskey, it's an acquired taste. But necessity being what it is, I got into sales. I quickly learned that it's very challenging. What I found exciting about it was, number one, you're kind of your own boss. Number two, there's no limit to what you can accomplish if you're willing to put in the work.

And that began a journey. The first thing I did was look around, follow the people who seemed to be succeeding, look at what they did, what they said, how they behaved, go on calls with them. That was the beginning of a journey that's lasted a lifetime.

Suffice it to say, sales was very, very different back then. There was no internet, there were no mobile phones. What we used to do in radio is look at the newspaper every day, because back then newspapers were king. All the advertisers felt they had to be in the newspaper or in the Yellow Pages, which is a phone book directory full of ads. So we would tear the newspaper apart every day, pull out every ad, fight over who was going to call on what, and then get on the phones and try to get hold of people. Or we'd go door to door in retail shopping areas and try to find owners or managers of businesses, learn more about what they were seeking to accomplish, and then explain how we could provide some kind of solution for them. But needless to say, it's changed quite a bit over the last 20 to 25 years with the advent of the internet.

Arun: One point that really stuck with me is the point you made that there is no limit in sales. I have my own experiences with some of the best salespeople I've worked with. They don't want to move out of being a salesperson to any other role, because as you said, there's no limit.

We talk about great selling. How has this evolved over the last many years, and what is your definition of great selling?

Steve: I have a lot of thoughts in this area. The first thing that springs to mind is that great selling is not just a transaction, it's an opportunity for both sides to gain and to accomplish an objective.

To be completely honest, when I began, I saw my mission as: I need to sell this. So I was focused on myself. I was focused on what I needed to do so I could earn a commission so I could pay my rent and buy something to eat. As I progressed and was trained and learned more, I got to the point of understanding that it's much less about your product, and that your product is a bridge. A bridge between where someone is now in their business and where they're seeking to get to. Whether that's generating leads, generating foot traffic, having a three-day sale and achieving a certain sales objective. Really, client-focused consultative selling, and understanding what someone needs to accomplish so that they'd be invested in a long-term business relationship.

The other thing that has really changed over time is that sales was very transactional back when distribution, meaning broadcasting, was very limited. There were only a few TV stations. There were only a certain number of radio stations. There was only one or two newspapers. So the distribution of messaging was very limited. And that meant that invariably customers would engage with you eventually and they would talk to you, because there weren't that many channels they could really use.

What's really changed in the last 30 years is the proliferation, or the democratization, of broadcast. Everyone is a broadcaster nowadays. When you think about what's happened over these last 25, 30 years, it has forced traditional media sellers to understand that they no longer have exclusive access to distribution, and therefore we have to be far more competitive. We're competing with digital distribution platforms and channels. The competition has increased exponentially.

And in the face of increased competition, what really sets you apart? What really sets you apart is your capacity for understanding your client's business and its objectives, being seen as a subject matter expert rather than just a peddler or a vendor, and the degree to which you can anticipate their needs. Share with them case studies and stories of what some of their competitors might be doing. Those are the kinds of value points that really set you apart.

In the early days, the fact that you had access to a radio station was one of your strongest selling points. Today it's your understanding of a client's business, and how publishing, which is obviously what we do now, how our storytelling capability can be put to use for the customer. So much more customer centric, much more focused on understanding your client's business rather than educating your client on the nuances of your product.

One of the leaders I encountered earlier in my career made a really good point to me. The gist of it was: when I come home at night and it's dark, when I turn on the light switch, what I really care about is that the lights go on. What's happening at the energy generation substation, how the power is transmitted, how the amperage is converted, is of no consequence to me. All I care about is that I flip the switch and the lights go on. The analogy being that the nuances of what we do in publishing, that's all well and good, but what the customer really cares about is: will I generate the necessary ROI on this investment? Will I see enough traffic come into my store or enough traffic come to my website? Will the customers that I'm educating be the right ideal customer profile? That's what they care about. And the degree to which we understand those things and lead with that at the forefront of our mind is what's going to make us worth talking to.

The other thing that comes to mind is one of my managers. I'd be trying to role-play with him, and what they basically said was, they kept saying, and I care because. So you'd be talking about yourself, or about your product, or whatever it was, and you're constantly thinking to yourself, and my customer cares about this because. Which forces you to think and to see things through the lens of their experience rather than your own.

Occasionally you do find someone who cares about your product, who's really interested in newspapers and publishing, and then it's kind of a bonus, because you can tell them about yourself and about your product and they're interested and they're engaged, and that's wonderful. But if you're constantly reminding yourself that this isn't about me, this is about them, that mindset has really guided me throughout my career.

Arun: That is so powerful, Steve. So will I be right if I say it's not a product that you're selling, it's mostly the outcomes, the benefit that the customer gets? I think that's a very important lesson and we also see that on a day-to-day basis. It's not about Kris@Work as a platform, it's about how we can make our customers successful, what kind of metrics we can drive for them.

One other point you shared was that over the last many years it's got more and more competitive. How have you seen technology play a role in this evolution, and what's your point of view around that?

Steve: Technology has been sort of the great multiplier. There's a degree to which one's understanding of and capacity for using technology is really table stakes. There's a certain amount of capability and capacity that you need to have just to be relevant.

For example, now that we're in an internet age, every seller who's in marketing and advertising needs to understand channels beyond just those that he or she may be representing. I need to be conversant in Google Analytics and how GA4 works, and I need to understand what the digital rights and privacy acts mean and how that impacts my customer. I need to use technology in order to level myself up.

In the old days, it was how many people can I manually dial on the phone. Nowadays it's, how can I use Kris@Work to multiply my capacity to do outreach? How can I use technology to do research so that I am educated? In the old days you would call someone up and say, hey Arun, I'd love to come and meet with you if you could give me 20 minutes of your time, I'd like to learn about your business. And the fact that you were asking them to educate you was not necessarily seen as a roadblock. Today you can't get in the door and you can't sit down with someone unless you can demonstrate ahead of time that you know something that will be of value to them. No one's got time to educate the salesperson about what they need, how they need it and why they need it. Those are all things that you need to come to the table with.

Technology is what has enabled us to, it's almost like going to step three is the new step one. And not to put a blatant plug in there for Kris@Work, but what I have found to be the most important and relevant aspect of this platform is its capacity to mine for insights and signals, take those signals and position them to establish expertise, and then tie those observations into why a conversation is relevant. That in and of itself is the process that we've all been striving for. But what this does is it's a great multiplier.

Here's a perfect example. I've probably isolated a couple thousand, maybe 3,000 prospects, and the scoring system grades the degree to which those companies are relevant to what we offer in publishing, both newspaper and magazine, storytelling, long form custom content. So it's grading all of these customers, and then the insights and the observations that are going out to those customers are spot on. I'm citing the philanthropic efforts that Airbnb is doing. I'm citing the advocacy issues that they are trying to push to civic leaders or government agencies. So I'm building a context for our first conversation.

And honestly, I'll get a response. I'll go back, I'll look at the three, four, five, six emails that have been sent, I'll look at the canvas inside Kris@Work, and in a matter of 10 minutes I'm up and running. I'm ready for that conversation. For me to have done all of that, and to be able to retain it so that it's at the top of my mind, would not be possible without this technology. So it's a great multiplier effect.

It enables me to do what I was taught so many years ago, which is lead with insights. You know something about them, you demonstrate expertise, meaning I know enough about your business and how my services can impact your business positively. And then the final thing is problem solving. I understand your business, I can show you that I'm an expert, and here's an example of how I've helped someone similar and we could do that same thing for you.

So the technology is amazing. It's not reinventing sales, but I see it as a multiplier effect. It's almost like, if you can get one man to do the work of 10 men, you've got something there. That's what's so exciting about it.

Arun: Thanks for that, Steve. As you said, it's fantastic the way we see how technology is helping in different areas. That's a good segue into the next segment, which is about the present. Artificial intelligence. Everybody talks about it, you hear AI everywhere. You just touched upon some of those use cases as well, how AI is helping your team. But if you take a step back and think about AI in general and the hype, let me use the word hype for the moment. Do you really think it's hype, or do you think it's here to stay and it's delivering some amazing benefits?

Steve: I think absolutely it is here to stay, and there are benefits to be had. The word hype, I suppose some of that is interpretive. When I hear the word hype, I don't necessarily see hype as a bad thing. If something is truly great and really powerful and there's a lot of capacity and power that it holds, then I feel like hype is a great word. Now, hype is not a great word if we're talking about something that ultimately doesn't deliver any lift or any rise in productivity or efficiency.

Being in San Francisco, which ostensibly is, at least in the US, ground zero for AI, I've seen an amazing amount of transformation in this city over the last couple of years. I guess it's really coming on four years since ChatGPT was first released.

So I think there are two things happening. One is all this big picture prognostication. There are the essays written by Dario Amodei and Sam Altman, and there are a lot of really big civic and government issues, societal issues, that need to be looked at, and governance needs to adapt. There's a very logical and strong case for how technology is evolving so quickly that our capacity to really understand its implications and to provide guard rails, if you will. I think that's a very legitimate and important conversation, and we need to rely on our leaders politically and civically to make sure that we don't make some of the mistakes that maybe we've made in the past.

That's one conversation. From the standpoint of, I'm a person who's in business, I run a company and I need to find the most efficient and effective ways to maximize my people's productivity, I can't imagine AI not being a part of that conversation.

So the short answer to your question is, I think AI is absolutely here to stay. I think its capacity for good is tremendous. But I do think there are dangers to anything, and making sure that we understand how to implement these tools into our society in a way that doesn't cause harm is equally important. But those are two separate conversations.

Arun: I just hope politicians can catch up to the technology in time.

Steve: Right. Right.

Arun: I'm going to share a personal experience that I have working with you, and then I'm going to follow it up with a very important question for the audience.

What we have seen out of our experience is that we work with many sales leaders who come with many years of experience. There's a good section of sales leaders who are very old school, because they've spent years selling in a certain way. You can call them the traditional sellers. And one of the challenges I've seen is the resistance to change. I don't see everybody adapt and come with an open mind towards technology the way I've seen you do. You come with many years of experience, but what we've seen is the curiosity, you want to see what else is coming up with technology. That's the journey we've been through with you with Kris@Work as well, and you've actually helped us bring a lot of use cases and capabilities to life using the help of AI.

Now, one very important question. While you come with an open mind and you're open to exploring new technology and AI, what are some of the guidelines that you have for yourself? Because technology can go in multiple different directions. Are there certain things that you tell yourself, hey, while I'm evaluating, these are the things I have to make sure are in place?

Steve: That's a very good question. Technology in and of itself is a great enabler. Your mindset toward learning probably has much to do with how you utilize or resist technology.

Personally, I strive to be a lifelong learner. I hope I'm learning new things on my last day. Why am I like that? I don't know. Maybe I just got lucky. Maybe it was my parents. Maybe it's just the situations I've been exposed to.

That said, some of the most important things for me are making sure that technology does not replace the personal touch. That you make sure you're speaking in an authentic voice. You can't rely on technology to form a human relationship. So the guard rail in my mind is, I want to make sure that in everything I use technology and AI for, I don't lose my own personal voice, that I don't skip the human side.

For example, I would always offer to meet someone in person rather than just corresponding over email. To be honest, it's much harder to get in-person meetings today than it was pre-pandemic, so we do a lot more video calls. But at least on a video call you're looking at that person, you're present, your camera is on, you're engaged, and you're making sure that you fold some human connection into it. It's more than just facts and figures or observations, it's humanizing the process.

For me, as long as you remember the importance of the human element, and ultimately you need to be concerned with your customer. Get to know him or her, remember something about their family or their hobbies, personalize it. In the old days you could just be good friends with someone and they might buy from you, but there were a lot fewer choices. Now you want to develop legitimate human bonds with people, and you also want to make sure that you're earning your keep, so to speak, in every interaction you might have with them.

Because let's face it, I could fall off the face of the earth tomorrow and people would still be able to market products and services. Audiences can be found in a million places. Remembering that who you are as a person and your relationship with your customer has to be a point of differentiation. We can buy anything anywhere, anytime, any way we want, through a variety of platforms. So you need to create value in how you interact with people.

Arun: As you said, Steve, that human element you cannot replace. It's very important. I'm picking up some very nice phrases in the process: humanizing the process, you've got to think about step three as the new step one.

One thing I'm very curious to learn from you: while you are out there embracing technology the right way, is your team keeping pace with you, and what are some of the challenges you see in terms of driving adoption with them?

Steve: It's a very good question. My role here is to run sales for the entire organization. In addition to that, I'm coaching and trying to manage a group of 7 or 8 people, and in addition to that I'm trying to lead my own sales effort. Generally I'm trying to approach larger, enterprise-level clients, but I'm doing the same thing I'm asking my individual team members to do, in the sense that I'm on the front lines having sales conversations. I'm trying to uncover needs. I'm trying to build trust and credibility. I'm trying to secure homework assignments, if you will, come back with solutions and close deals.

What I have found is that to the degree that we're dealing with human beings, everybody is different. Some people gravitate to new technologies, to new ways of doing things. They're very open, they're curious. Some people are perhaps more hesitant, or they're set in their ways. So I've found varying levels of the degree to which someone is receptive to learning and integrating these new capabilities into the way that they go to market.

The short answer is it's choppy. Some people will take the ball and run with it, and as a leader you need to catch up to them and guide them so that they don't go astray. Some people you need to pull to get them engaged. So some people you're chasing, or you're gaining inspiration from them, and some people you're pulling along.

But the most important thing as a leader is to demonstrate the behaviors and the attitudes that you're trying to drive adoption to. Every time I have a great response, and wow, I just got an appointment with a top level person at a 20 billion dollar company, I want to share that information with my team. I want to share with them the words on the page that Kris crafted. I want to show them the interaction that happened, and I want to encourage them and inspire them to try it for themselves.

As long as I've been dealing with human beings, I've found that as a manager your number one skill is to be adaptive. Some people you're chasing, some people you're pulling along, some people are right there beside you, and you need to adapt your approach as a leader to each individual, because management is one thing that is very human. I guess that's a good thing if you're a manager, because you're less likely to be replaced.

But being adaptive is really critical. Trying to inspire, trying to encourage people, and occasionally just being flat out honest with them and saying, hey, I believe this is the best way for us to achieve our goal. I encourage you. I'll support you. I will assist you to the degree that I am able, to enable you to use these tools. But ultimately the choice is yours. I'm here to try and show you a way, my way. I'm open to customizing that way. If you want to have input, if you can find your own way and it works just as well, I'm okay with that too.

So you have to be realistic with people. Here's what we need to accomplish. Here's why using these tools feels completely necessary to me. But if you can show me another way to get to my number, I'm open. Just being honest and forthright with people, I think, is the key. And some people don't want to adapt.

Another great lesson that somebody taught me a long time ago was, when people tell you that they have 20 years of experience, always remember there's 20 years of unique experiences, and there's one year of experience 20 times. Which is it? Just reminding people that if I tried to do what I did 20 years ago, I won't have the same outcome that I may have had 20 years ago. So saying 20 years of experience means a lot less to me than learning about 20 distinct years of new experiences and how those have shaped what I might do tomorrow. A good thing to remind yourself of at all times.

Arun: That is so very well said. Thank you for sharing that, Steve.

Now switching gears and talking about the future a little bit. A little bit of context: we talked about technology, we talked about Kris@Work and how we are helping you, we talked about AI. But from here on, what is your wish list? What else do you think, or where else do you think, technology can help you?

Steve: Here's a great story. One of my younger sons is in college right now, and he hasn't studied computer sciences extensively, but he's very clever and he's very curious. He created a number of AI agents over the course of the summer. I struggle even to explain what he's done, but he's essentially built algorithms that help him trade futures and commodities. He's been paper trading, but he just got to the point, and he's done this all in the matter of two months, where he's learned that whole space, he's created all these agents to help him, he's gotten certified and he's gotten funded. The bottom line is, here's a kid who just with his own curiosity has used AI to create a business model for himself. I'm just amazed at what's possible using AI.

So for me, learning how to create my own agents, learning how to build start-to-finish workflows, is fascinating. And I'm just scratching the surface. I feel like there's a mine of gold and I'm literally one shovel into the ground at this point. It's almost like everybody can be a genius now, if you just put in the work and learn how to harness what all these things can do.

Now, that said, the other thing I want to communicate is that we are a relatively small business. We do not have a big tech stack. We do not have some of the tools that other sales organizations I've been a part of have had. So what I'm looking to accomplish in the next six to 12 months is to level up our tech stack without incurring massive expense.

I've worked at companies where we did an 18-month install of Salesforce and a customization. And I've also seen platform creep, where your sales team says, oh, we just got this so we can figure out who's advertising where, and oh, we just got this which can help us with creative, and oh, we just got this which can help us with reporting, and we got this for data analytics. Each one of them is fascinating in and of itself, but when you try to string together 10, 15, 20 platforms for a salesperson to have to interact with in order to create a workflow, it's almost like you're dying in solutions.

So getting to a point where there's true sales enablement, where salespeople can focus on high value tasks, which is all about connection, building trust, demonstrating expertise, forming solutions, closing deals, gaining referrals, achieving renewal. Those are the high value activities for a salesperson. Everything else is all about enablement.

So how can we build small organizations to be as sophisticated as some of the larger ones, with an eye toward simplicity, toward the notion of a single source of truth? That's where these platforms are so exciting. The fact that Kris can interact with some of my other platforms, it can go do the research and bring it back, those are exciting capabilities. That will enable people in small business to compete with the big guys. Like my son, the example I just spoke about, he's basically a solopreneur. I think there's a great democratization going on with AI at the center of that.

Arun: That's very well said, Steve. We are seeing that across the spectrum as well. It's all about removing the fragmentation, trying to have the single source of truth, bringing everything down to one platform, which is going to make you lighter, faster, more sophisticated, as you said.

My final two questions, and the next one's going to be a little bit controversial. Every time I go to LinkedIn there are a lot of these posts around, hey, check this out, it's going to replace all the sales reps. This AI, this technology, you don't need to hire a sales rep, it's going to replace the entire team. So there's a debate going on about AI replacing humans versus enabling humans. You touched a little bit on what AI is doing today and the humanizing aspect, but what's your take on this, and how do you see this evolve?

Steve: Maybe another way to look at this question is that there are some business transactions that are purely transactional. I could easily see, and I think we are seeing to some degree, that there are some transactions that don't require a lot of human intervention, and I say the sooner we move to more of an AI world, that's fine.

But especially in B2B sales, when there are specific objectives that need to be achieved, there are nuances, and those require humans. If some of those low value, super transactional, price sensitive things are happening on a lower level in more of an automated fashion, what that does is it frees up the humans to pursue more of these custom solutions, or to try and solve problems that are more than just ones and zeros.

So do I see salespeople in a B2B space being replaced by AI? No. Do I see some of the BDR task work becoming more efficient and scaling? Absolutely. And I would say that is a very good thing.

They say that a rising tide floats all boats, and to the degree that AI is empowering so much more, I think it rises us up to a level where we can be confronting the kinds of problems and solving things that human intervention is required for. So I'm not in that doom loop. Whenever there are unknowns, our human personalities start to manifest. Some people are immensely positive, perhaps more so than they ought to be. Some people are immensely scared. There's a place for all of those. But somewhere between these extremes there's the reality of what's likely to happen.

I just don't see salespeople going away anytime soon, but I do see them being able to do more outreaches. Again, jumping from step one to step three does not mean that steps four, five, six and seven don't exist. So I'm optimistic. It probably won't look exactly like we think it looks, but that's okay. As long as you're present and you're constantly learning, there will be a place for you.

Arun: So two things I'm taking away from this part of the conversation. A, what you're saying is that in B2B sales AI is not going to replace all the humans, because of the human aspect. And B, you're saying AI and technology definitely should be reducing the admin work. There are things that technology can do for humans so that it releases time for humans to spend with other humans, and sell. Those are the two key takeaways that I'm hearing.

Steve: Yeah. Absolutely.

Arun: Steve, as we come towards the close of this podcast, what would your advice be for the sales leaders, specifically the new generation of sales leaders?

Steve: The good news for new leaders is that you don't have to unlearn any of the things from 30, 40, 50 years ago. The opportunity for new leaders is to take the wisdom and the learnings of those who came before you and put them to work in a digital-native environment.

There's a reason that history is important. There's a lot to be learned from those who came before us, just as I did. That combination of, what are the truths that have always been there that your past leaders can share, how can you draw upon that knowledge and how can you leverage it in this new world where you're capable of so much more.

In other words, I don't think there's any reason to discount the experiences and the learnings of those who've been doing this a long time. There's an easy way to take the positives from what's been learned the hard way. There's a big difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is just knowing something intellectually. Wisdom is having seen the successes and the failures and all the twists and turns. Wisdom is a good thing. We want to capitalize on the wisdom of those who came before us. But now we can take those learnings and put them to work in a much more powerful way, using technology and everything that is to come.

For me that's very exciting. I look forward to the next generation taking this to the next steps. And I want to stay in the game as long as the game will have me.

Arun: This is wonderful, Steve. We learned a lot. It's great to see how you see the landscape evolve. The biggest takeaways for me were around the role of technology and how you see that play a role, some of the guidelines you need to keep, and you talked about adoption and how you've got to take the teams along with you.

There's one thing I'd definitely want to ask. It's a little personal. Is there one habit that you follow outside work that's made you successful at work?

Steve: I don't know if it's made me successful at work, but from a habit standpoint, curiosity. I'm just naturally curious.

I remember when we were kids we used to take long trips in the car, because nobody flew back then. Flying was something that only happened maybe once a year if you were lucky, and you put on a suit and tie, it was a big deal. But I remember my dad would get us engaged in things like spotting every make and model car that you passed. So an eye for detail and just being curious. I don't know if that's a learned skill or just a natural proclivity, but I consider myself to be curious. I like to notice things, and I think that's helped me greatly.

One other thought: when you're in the business of advertising and marketing, you encounter dozens, if not hundreds, of different businesses and business models. So when you walk into a business you become trained to see what goes on here. Where does this customer make his or her money? What are the things that they must do that don't really improve profitability? What are the things that are most profitable for them, and why? How is their store designed, why is it designed the way it is, how do they move people through a process? That kind of curiosity, and having been exposed to so many different businesses and business leaders, has been a great benefit.

The other thing I would say is having an interest outside of just your work is a very helpful thing, because it gives you perspective. My hobby happens to be music. I've been a musician my entire life. My brothers and sister were all musicians, I've got a lot of musician friends. That's something I do just for myself. But to be a musician and to play in a group, you need to be keen and you need to listen to others and you need to be able to harmonize so that you're doing something together. You're not so much in your head, it's more of a feeling. That ability to work with others translates into business as well, and I think it's helped me learn how to listen to others, how to respond to them in a way that's going to be helpful for them, rather than demanding that the world see things my way. To the degree that we're able to see through someone else's eyes, I think it aids us greatly in leadership and certainly in sales.

Arun: That's so wonderful. Steve, thank you so much. As I said, we definitely have a lot of learnings here coming from your experience, and more importantly it's great to understand your point of view. You've been truly inspirational for us, and we look forward to continuing to make you and your team more successful with our technology, with Kris@Work. So thank you so much for your time.

Steve: You are most welcome, and we are equally appreciative of you and all you've done for us. So thank you.

Arun: Thank you.