#602 AI Can Set Meetings. It Still Can’t Build Trust | Alex Grant

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Mehmet: Hello, and welcome back to a new episode of The CTO Show With Mehmet. Today, I'm very pleased, joining me, Alex Grant. He's the SVP of Sales at North, joining me from the US. Today, we're gonna talk about some cool stuff. We're gonna talk about, you know, AI in, in financial or fintech, let's say, building sales team in that domain and in SaaS in general.

We're gonna talk about also, like, what are the latest technologies in this domain. And also I gonna ask Alex about, you know, some tips and tricks, let's call them, for building sales force in that specific domain. Alex, I don't like to waste much of my guests' time, because the f- all show is about them, not about me.

So again, welcome to the show. My audience knows the first question I ask usually. Tell us a little more about you, your background, and what you're currently doing at [00:01:00] North. So the floor is yours. 

Alex: Thank you, Mehmet. It's awesome to be here. So what I've been doing, um, for the last 16 and a half years, I've been building sales teams in the fintech, the payments technology, software space, sometimes people call it the SaaS space, software as a service.

I've been building sales teams for about 16 and a half years at a large organization, and over the last year, it's actually my one year anniversary, over this last year I have been at a company called North. And, uh, North is a competitor of my, the former company. The former company I was at was a Fortune 500 company.

Um, this one's privately held. And what I've been doing for this last year is I've been building North's first ever outside sales coast to coast, a W-2 full time sales channel. For years- Before I got here, North's primarily, they, they primarily distributed their products through an agent [00:02:00] model. It's very profitable.

It's actually the typical model of the payments SaaS space. You know, the company, like North, historically builds products. They have 1099s that determine how they would like to go to market. Many of these 1099s actually become their own sales entities and sales organizations, not, of course, under the jurisdiction of the company like North.

And again, we- North has many competitors that have this distribution model. However, I was at a place in my career where after building sales teams under a very different distribution model, and the distribution model I was used to was one where we have full-time sales professionals, W-2 full-time sales professionals who have a career path.

We offer training, we offer support, we teach them our solutions, our best proven go-to-market methods, our best ways to run an appointment, different buying signals from business. We give you the whole playbook. And at many [00:03:00] products out there, maybe not in the technology space, it's a standard go-to-market.

W-2 sales force, the company trains you how to sell the product. In our new go-to-market here at North, we're doing that here for the first time as we're building a W-2 sales force from coast to coast. Again, I'm at my one-year anniversary at North. We, we hired our first sales reps last summer, hit the ground running.

We're growing at leaps and bounds. We're now in the Northeast, the Midwest, the South. We've got, uh, sales professionals on, on the West Coast. And, and the reason, Matt, we have sales professionals is I know this is a, a podcast about technology. I will tell you that despite the fact that we have amazing AI powering a lot of our solutions, we can get into that, it's fun, this stuff still needs a human that can help interpret for the buyer what the heck we're selling, how the heck it can help their business because everyone...

Look, you've got a show [00:04:00] that's built on, "Hey, what's AI doing for you?" This and that, and there's a lot of hype. How does that hype translate to the, the art of the conversation where you're not speaking over someone's head and they trust you at the same time, 'cause I've never been able to gain trust when I'm talking over a client's head.

So we're building a sales force that helps bring that connection together 

Mehmet: Great. And thank you again, Alex, for being here with me today. I want to start to talk about the tech little bit and, I mean, when I s- say talk about the tech, not the coding part of it and, you know, the engineering part of it, but- Yeah, please no, yeah

more about, you know, but more about, you know, some of the use cases because I, I want to go back to the, you know, building the sales team in, in, in, in the coming questions. So one of the things when I check the website, you, you offer a lot of AI features to your customers, and these AI features, actually they translate into business outcomes.

Uh, so [00:05:00] if you can, like, just tell us a little bit more about like, you know, what, what kind of AI technologies are deployed and how they are helping your customers, uh, from, from benefits perspective. 

Alex: The biggest The biggest feature that we could offer you right now is, it's interesting, but depending on the size of the organization we're selling to, they either think it's, they m- a must-have or not relevant to me.

Uh, let me explain that differently. You know, our, our solutions, you know, we, we can help your business accept payment, but e- accepting payment, that's table stakes. You have to be able to accept payment for any technology when you're moving commerce around. But we're talking if you got a storefront, and then you've got someone that's grown, and now they have an e-commerce business.

Now you've got someone that's gone a little bit bigger, and now they have four warehouses, and they're managing inventory. Now you get a little bit bigger, and you're managing logist- logistics. And here's this interesting thing. [00:06:00] Where we're using technology and AI to enhance our sale, forget about our sale, to enhance our security for the payment space.

That's the biggest feature we can offer. And I'm gonna talk about a second one in a second, but it's, it's security. I mean, how many data breaches- Mm-hmm ... are reported on a regular basis? How much fraud is out there? I mean, fraud i- is in the trillions globally when it comes... People's whole business model is fraud.

And so the answer is really a combination of using AI that's, it's watching for patterns of fraudulent activities, and it's a combination of AI and that human connection to interpret a lot of this data to actually have a, a plan to go and actually protect your business. So let me say why I, let me explain why I was discussing the small, a little bit bigger, medium, those enterprise businesses.

[00:07:00] Here's, here's some irony for you. You go meet with this, this startup business, and I, by startup, they, they're doing a million a year. They're successful, but they're not yet, like, in rocket ship mode where they're- Mm-hmm ... totally kicking butt and what's possible. When you go to the, when you meet with these entrepreneurs that are on the smaller side, they'll often say when we bring up different versions of how we protect your data, they'll often say to myself or my sales professionals- Mm-hmm

"Well, Mehmet, we're to- we're, we're just this one location. No one's, no one's thinking of, of hacking us right now." Right. "We're not really, we're not, uh, it, it, uh, we're too small for it to happen to us." Well, Mehmet, when you see the data breach that, that hacks Target or some monster conglomerate or some healthcare company, th- that wasn't their first attempt at a data breach.

We, we have the internal stats on who's getting breached. And my [00:08:00] friend, Mehmet, if you and I are gonna go hack for fun and try to get to a healthcare company or, or get to a huge database of some national chain, we start local with the individual that doesn't take it serious. So one of the best reasons that I'm fired up about a lot of our technology is that even if you don't know you're buying it from us, even if you give us the impression that you don't care about security or payment card industry or using AI to watch out for the, the billions and trillions of, uh, fraudulent threats out there, the fact is that we, we include that now at this point.

It's like you can go get unsecure payment processing with another solution that's been built by some guy that used AI that, that hasn't brought it through all the security tests. 'Cause it's one thing to have a shiny inventory management system, but what [00:09:00] about the shiny army of AI agents and bots that you put to then secure it?

So what's great is we're selling to a local, m- little bit bigger, medium, large, and it's ... Look, most fraud these days, I mean, 20 years ago fraud was something that took place face-to-face. It's happening online. It's once those transactions hit the internet, it's once your inventory's on the internet, it's once your customer data hits online to maybe ping the card brands to determine if that card should go through or not.

But the number one thing is it's not sexy. It's protecting what's yours. It's security. And it, sometimes that doesn't sell well to everyone. What I will tell you this, Mehmet, you go to that, that third tier or that larger tier, they won't let you in their boardroom unless you're leading with security and different ways to protect transactions.

They don't even consider an appointment with you. The little guys are like, "Eh, we're too [00:10:00] small." And that's where you go to hack first 

Mehmet: Right. Alex, let me ask you just a follow-up question on this because you mentioned something about trust just a couple of minutes ago also. Now, we know that anything related to financial institutions, anything related to payments, it needs a lot of trust, and usually it used to be very slow-moving also as well, both as technology adopting something new to the technology or from sales motion perspective.

Now, AI, again, by itself, it's like, you know, taking the world by storm, agents, new models, everything there. So now from your point of view, and because I'm s- I'm sure you talked to a lot of business from all the sizes, like what, what's, what's this, you know, general sentiment now? Are they eager more than any time before to move faster and adopt these new technologies when it comes to, to, you know, payments and, uh, you know, financial [00:11:00] services in general?

Or is it like still the skepticism that, you know, "No, man, I... You need to prove this to me, you know, and I need to test it in a, you know, sandbox or isolated environment, and then we will see what will happen"? So how this is affecting also, because you mentioned about how the startups and the new startups, you know, they, they come and sprint very fast.

They, they come up with eight iteration, 10 iterations, you know, in just no time. Uh, so, so how this is, you know, affecting also the buying process for fintech products in, in, in, in your opinion? 

Alex: Wouldn't you ag- would you, would you agree AI is something that everyone feels like, especially on the business owner or the buyer, like, "Man, we've, we've gotta do something with AI"?

I don't know about you, Mehmet, but when I'm on LinkedIn, I see a lot of the funny memes where people like the, the CFO says, "We need AI," and the, the, the employee's like, "Yeah, we do." And one of the employees says, "And what are we gonna do with it?" And he, and, and the chief technology officer's like, "Not [00:12:00] exactly sure, but we definitely need it."

I actually find those memes, if you've seen any version of it, and, and again- Yeah, 

Mehmet: I 

Alex: loved them ... you know? Right? M- Me- Mehmet, they are so unbelievably true and accurate. I am telling you that it is... But now, now that I actually think they do, but I'm telling you very, very intelligent people will admit... Now, they're not gonna meet when you, when you first shake their hand, but they will admit, they'll say this to you.

You know, you're, you're, you've had a couple of p- meetings with someone. They'll be like, "Yeah, listen, we know we need something with AI and security, but can you just tell us what you think we need?" Like, once people get vulnerable, um, the buzz, I think it comes from truth that there is a lot of a- awesome things that can help secure your business with AI.

I also think people don't even know what to buy that comes with AI. But they [00:13:00] know if I'm a sensible chief technology, I, I definitely have to have it. Our organization had, uh, we had some consultants come in and meet with our entire dev team and, um, IT team up at our headquarters about a month ago for this exact topic.

And it's, and it wasn't so much our current product suite, but- How can we use AI to actually leverage it more than just another subscription to another, you know, generative service? Like, what can we actually do to... We're not actually looking to reduce our staff. What we're looking to do as an organization, like, talk about us selfishly, not, not selling my client, what we're using AI for is to actually keep up.

Um, because the companies that don't use it in the... Like, think about technology. Every year it's like the Richter scale. It amplifies the speed of which things are happening. I mean, look at, in our short time over two years, what ChatGPT did, did to... Hey, [00:14:00] is ChatGPT even the best one? I mean, we're, we're talking Claude now- Yeah

Gemini, all the others. And we're at this just amplified, there's an amplified belief that someone's probably out AI-ing us, and I actually believe that belief is real. And I can tell you that over the last even 90 days, I've watched our organization, because we've really invested in not just buying it, but training our people to leverage it, I have watched solutions come out.

Um, I always thought this company moved fast. I've only been here a year. But now that we have fast, hardworking developers actually authentically leveraging AI for their coding, I have seen solutions that I'm gonna tell you would be two to three years to code. I literally have rough drafts of them that, uh, some of the dev team has shown me that they just started working on 90 days ago because we just gave them the idea.

And [00:15:00] it's lowering our risk to invest in a solution that maybe we don't use, right? You have a lot of software that's built out there that's never used. Well, it was a higher risk if it was gonna take two years. But now I've got a rough draft of something, and it's actually given me a whole nother idea and influence.

I'm like, ooh, if we can do this, let's do this. So for our products, our products will be enhanced because of AI. Now, as a buyer Everybody feels like they need it for some sense of security. A lot of people are, are leaning on the payment technology companies, the software companies that give them the impression they know what they're doing to say, "Where should we spend our, our, our, our, our AI budget?"

I guess. That's a lot of what the conversation is. 

Mehmet: Right. Now, talking about what's happening in the field, I'm sure also, and here I'm talking about, [00:16:00] um, the sales motion and the field sales, a lot of things are changing, I believe dramatically. Actually, it's been changing for a while. Like before we start the recording, we were talking about, you know, the, you know, how, how actually the buyers are becoming like more informed and, you know, they know what they want usually and just, you know, uh, the way we used to do it maybe 10 years ago is different th- than the way, regardless of AI.

But now with the AI, what do you think something that gonna stay, it will not change ever when it comes to, you know, sales for any organization and specifically in your domain, Alex, and what do you think, like something very soon it gonna start to fade? Like few maybe traditional approach that gonna quietly die.

What do you think? 

Alex: Boy, when you say, you know, fade forever, that's a bold question- ... uh, [00:17:00] of, of predicting things. I can tell you I do have a few opinions on this. The first one is I believe that, um, AI for companies that need to distribute products, maybe with some sort of sales teams, maybe they've, they have an SDR team, or they've always wanted one.

Um, I am telling you that companies, including ours, are investigating and, and some of them already have the practice fully, fully automated where AI is generating opportunities to have more appointments, more qualified appointments than ever. For years, there's always been those companies that reach out to you and say, "Hey, we're an appointment setting company.

We'll reach out and, and we'll set appointments for your organization." And they've always had depending, like a, a flirting success. It's never been astronomical. It's rather pricey. Well, I mean, if you look around even online, go to LinkedIn, and you're looking for companies that are now setting [00:18:00] appointments with AI where the entire conversation is with AI and, and Mehmet, you actually go and you hear a couple recordings, it is shockingly awesome.

And I hate to say that because it's like, gosh darn it, like this is changing the game. I believe that a lot of appointment setting call centers... I mean, think about it in your life all the times you had a, a call from a call center, and you can hear like it's noisy and there's all this n- you know, distractions in the background.

But then you get this masterfully written AI that's having a full-fledged conversation to set an appointment. So I believe that there's gonna be a lot of business opportunities for those companies that invest in the SDRs. But I believe where the hand-in-hand goes is the complexity of these technology solutions that are out there.

Whether it's my company, there's so much software out there that needs to be sold. Um, [00:19:00] I think I... You said never ever change. I think where it's gonna be really tough to change is for the connection between the buyer and an actual human to say, "Hey, let me tell you how this is gonna make, um, your business operate more functionally speaking."

Could it happen? I think it could that AI could take over that, but what, what you really are selling at that point, especially when you think about some of the price tags of some of the software, is, yes, software is a part of the transaction. What you're selling is trust, and you're gonna write that check for whatever big six-digit, seven-digit number And, and the trust can be conveyed.

So many, so many sales reps struggle when they're new because they think, "I need to learn everything about the product before I talk about it." And the funny thing is that a lot of our best performers, they focus more on what are the most important things that I need to convey with that human [00:20:00] touch to create that trust.

So I think that's here for the viable future, the human-to-human connection, to buy the product that's infused and secured with AI, that maybe the appointment was actually helped set by a robotic SDR team or some brand new CRM to help the, the rep find opportunities. I think for the complex software, man, if I'm gonna...

If I'm, if I'm running a company, I'm gonna go write a check for seven digits, I think I wanna sit down across from you, a sales professional that can walk me through the, the human touch of why this is gonna make my business operate more secure or better. 

Mehmet: Right. Now, speaking of, of, you know, these changes as changes, uh, Alex, um, how, as a leader, how do you think, you know, or what, what, what are like some of the things that are being done or should be done, uh, to enhance the salespeople to be prepared for this new era?

And, you [00:21:00] know, because you just mentioned also a, a few minutes ago about, you know, how it's d- disrupting industries, right? So the AI is disrupting industries, and I know, like, there's a lot of fear, not only in sales, like in every profession today, "Oh, is AI going to take my job?" Now, where also we can put, you know, this training effort to enhance the salespeople for keeping what, you know, every company today they are calling it human in the loop, right?

So, so this is where- Mm ... even when the... Yeah. So even when the AI is taking the decision or, like, advising you for a decision, so you need the, the judgment part of it. So here the question, you know, what can be done to enhance and train the salespeople in this, uh, uh, in this AI era, I would say? 

Alex: So the first thing is that it's amazing that, uh, how many salespeople have, have held on to success by fighting AI.

And, and I [00:22:00] actually think it's the very reason that some people are on the market looking for a new job is because maybe their skills and their confidence to discuss the topic, maybe they weren't where they needed to be. But we've also found that as people are entering our organization, they've never been more open-minded.

However, you know, everyone has a different journey on how they get to your organization. But as people are coming to us, they wanna know about it. They wanna know how to speak about it. So what needs to be done is really what we alluded to before. You have to focus on the most relatable parts of the conversation about AI.

And the reason you have to focus on that is you, you typically don't need to get to that third or fourth level with your average buyer. They, the, the buyers, I believe, are as, as scared, and everyone's posturing like they know what they're shopping for. I am very confident the buyers are as, as scared as some of these newer sales reps [00:23:00] are to have that initial discussion.

And what we're finding is as we're openly talking about our tools, our security, um, you know, we've never sold with, we've never sold with phrases like in our space, like security, because that to me is directly related to AI. Y- y- you're gonna have trouble keeping a, a online platform, an inventory management system, a point-of-sale system, you're gonna have trouble keeping up with the hackers that are coming at you using AI.

So if we can't at least hit that, like, level one and level two discussion to convey the message, a lot of people are, are, are freaked out that they, they need to almost go and be a, a dev person to be able to convey that message. You don't, you don't have to get that, that deep because the buyers are as scared as a lot of these people are to ta- talk about it.

They really are. 

Mehmet: Do you think, Alex, but sometime, you know, the message is too much, uh, in a sense that- [00:24:00] It, it, it looks like everyone is, is scaring, quote-unquote, "The buyer," and this might affect the trust sometime. Like, so how... I mean, I don't know how it can be done, but, like, how important is to show the empathy here rather than just, you know, this fear effect.

Like, "Hey, you're gonna be hacked. You c- you know, you're gonna lose." You know, like h- how from sales perspective we can keep also this empathy when, when speaking to, to the customer? 

Alex: Let me, let me ask your own... I wanna get clarification. Are you saying with all the hype in AI, how-- where's that line that we cross where we're capitalizing it too aggressively?

And it's, it's, it's taken... Yes, there's a lot of hype out there online. I mean, go to Instagram and type in any of this stuff and you're gonna see that they're gonna come knocking at your door and, and imprison your whole family. Um, are w- are there too many companies going too far in the extreme and, and [00:25:00] selling with that fear?

Is that really what you're, you're getting at? Am I missing- Kind 

Mehmet: of ... 

Alex: the question? Yeah? 

Mehmet: Kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Alex: Well, I mean, I, I do agree with you. I think there's a lot of fear. But when you really... So what can we do about it? I mean, I think the best thing we can do is have open dialogues. A lot of these, a lot of-- With our, with our business owners.

And I, I will tell you, a lot of, um, these c- technology companies... I mean, by the way, I say technology companies. If your company isn't involved in technology these days, I don't even know how they're surviving. So almost all companies have to be a- Sure ... a retail store these days is a technology company. So I wanna make it clear, I'm not just talking about software people selling more software to software people.

Right. I- if you're distributing purses these days, you need to have an inventory management system and a fulfillment center. The real theme of this, I feel like your question is- For all the years, and I've been selling this now for 18 years, and I've been leading sales teams for 18 years, I've never... [00:26:00] We've never had to overcome the empty hype fear versus the reality like we have now.

It's almost like you sit down at an appointment and, and people are like, "Yeah, but we're gonna get hacked. Yeah, but we're gonna get hacked." And, and listen, the, the hackers are trying, but- 

Mehmet: Yes ... 

Alex: I'm gonna tell you from five years ago, it, it's not like, uh, you're seeing boarded up buildings everywhere due to another data breach.

The, the same ratios are out there. Because remember, remember, as the bad guys get more sophisticated, the good guys are equally getting sophisticate. Both sides are being compensated. True. So it's become something that you have to have, but before you had to have something as well, it just didn't have the name AI.

It was a hacker. I mean, I... You know what the, the analogy, this is different, but have you noticed in your life, your personal life, whatever, [00:27:00] six years ago when you would see a picture that was weird, you and your family, your friends would say, "Oh, they photoshopped that." 

Mehmet: Yes. They 

Alex: photo- Right? They photoshopped it.

But now they say, "Oh, that's AI." 

Mehmet: It's AI, yeah. Right. 

Alex: So I'm using that analogy to, to bring it back to security, cybersecurity. There were hackers before. They were relentless. They were relentless. They had floors in office buildings hacking together. Hack, hack, hack, hack, hack. But the word AI comes with so much fear because most people feel like they need to be a developer to understand it.

I'm telling you they don't. Whatever you're buying, whatever solution a company's buying, research the company and make sure they're on the cutting edge of AI for the software. I don't think every company needs to totally freak out about it, because maybe you just weren't freaked out [00:28:00] about data breaches seven years ago when you should have been, because there were very many non-sophisticated billion-dollar data breaches seven years ago before anyone said that acronym of AI.

Mehmet: Right. Uh, Alex, you mentioned at the beginning about the change that you made at North going from, you know, uh, 1099 to full-timers, right? 

Alex: Yeah.

Mehmet: Why this is important, and I'm asking you this question because, so for people who are not aware, who listen from outside of the US, so basically the main difference is to make it very simple, it's like agent, so he's not a full-time or she's not a full-time employee. They get, you know, different, different kind of, uh, uh, I would say compensation versus someone who is full or she's full-time and they get a pay every, every two weeks and as they do it in the US.

Um, a- [00:29:00] and they are part of the company, so they can get stocks, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 

Alex: Yeah. 

Mehmet: Now, first of all, why this is important move? Second, how was that also important to retain the talents, the top achievers at the company? 

Alex: All right. So to frame it out The software space in the US is often sold, whether it's my company, it's, it's the, the standard go-to-market for a lot of software companies is that the company, you know, my case it's North, the company builds the software, they build the solution, the payment technology secured by AI, all that stuff.

And then they allow 1099 agents and agent model to distribute, sell the solutions however they'd like. And a lot of these agents even become their own, like, sales companies. They don't, um, report to a company like North, [00:30:00] but that might be the primary software that they sell, but they also might sell for a competitor of North as well.

So these agents could... Let's pretend we have five products. We have way more than that. They might pick two products from us they like, and they might actually pick three products from another one of our competitors that they like. And since we're not their boss, because it's a 1099 relationship, they pick and choose from a Rolodex of all the different payment technology companies out there- Right

on what they choose to distribute. Now, my, my focus has always been building a W2, and, and here, here's why. Um, first of all, I wanna make something clear. My company did not stop their 1099 channel. They absolutely still have that. That's just not my area of expertise. I've spent my career building a sales team to sell against that model.

So my reps, they sell for North. They're loyal to North. [00:31:00] They get a career path and sales training. In the 1099 relationship, North would offer those agents a product training. Here's how the product works, but North does not say, "You must sell it this way. You must use this CRM. This is our sales process.

These are our proven methods." The 1099, we do not, uh, in a 1099 model, you can't tell them how to convey the message. In the W2, you say, "These are our best practices. Not only would you be crazy not to use this sales training that we wanna invest in you and have you have a career path, these are proven methods."

So the reason for that it's always been important to me is Meh, I'm gonna tell you why. You have this podcast because you like talking to people, you like meeting people. I like this distribution model because I like hiring a sales rep that joins [00:32:00] North that's maybe they've been underpaid, felt like, uh, just a number on their boss's Excel document, and I wanna invest in someone to the point that, yeah, we've trained them enough that they could leave if they wanted to and do very well.

But I wanna invest in someone so one day they can take my job, and I want them to be a part, 'cause one day I'll be done, whenever that is. I wanna leave a legacy of an organization of people that have found the balance that they can not only sell a solution that's awesome and they feel good about, but they can do it in a stand-up way where they don't have to at the...

'Cause salespeople, some of them have, Meh, I know you're a former salesperson. Some of them have this reputation they'll say anything to get a deal, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I've had a really great career of never having to be a part of that, and it's, it's probably a blessing that somehow I stumbled into.

And, and, and the reason that [00:33:00] I like the W-2 model, it has to do with people. You know, we're sitting here talking about AI, and I'm selling AI, and our solutions are protected by AI. But the truth is that I like the W-2 model because I like to build a group of people that love what they do. Look, we, we all, mo- most people need some sort of income.

Mm-hmm. And you might as well surround yourself and build a culture and environment where you, you not only ha- or have customers buy from you because they know, like, and trust you, but you actually have teammates that you can call even though sales is, is competitive. I like the W-2 model because i- if facilitated correctly, you can have a model of people with like-minded, hardworking, in a hard job, in a hard, changing industry actually enjoy what they do when they're away from their family during the day.

I like the W-2 model 'cause it offers a career path, and I love working with good people. 

Mehmet: Great. Now let me ask you this, uh, [00:34:00] Alex. Um, as a leader, right? And, you know, because you want to, to have the impact, you want to help people build their careers. You mentioned something very touching, which is you want them one day to even replace you.

Yeah. Now, and this is I'm asking, you know, for, for other sales leaders who might be listening to us today i- i- in this space, I mean, in the tech space. You know, there are a lot of discussions about this, like best approaches to do, leadership style, how things should be done. From your perspective, beyond quarterly reviews and, you know, all this stuff, what have you seen really successful and really motivates people to give, you know, from all their hearts?

You know, they come in the morning to the work, and they just want to go and crush it. And when I say crush it, it's not like to be like these, uh, uh, you know, pushy salespeople or [00:35:00] doing any, any of the thing that, you know, you, you just mentioned, uh, moments ago. Really come to the work all in. They want to do their jobs.

They want to help their customers. But how do you help as a leader in establishing this culture? 

Alex: All right. This is an awesome dialogue, question, topic. I for years actually struggled on to even verbalize what the, what the real magic was, the real formula to r- to really address what you're saying. And there's a combination of things, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna summarize it in, in one word in the end, but it's a combo of you're investing in them, you're actually in the time, you're in the field, uh, investing in them, helping them close their, their deals and, um, offering them, sure, like I said, career path, all that stuff.

There's all the standard stuff that you- you've probably heard elsewhere, and, and it absolutely contributes. You've got good solutions, [00:36:00] you're paying people well, all that stuff. But I gotta give credit to one of my sales managers who said maybe 10 months ago to me, and she said, her name's Sterling Jackson, she's one of my leaders in Boston.

And she said, "You know what salespeople really want that, that technically I want, that technically you want is they want access." They want access, not, look, sure, do they wanna go sell something that's good, that pays them well, that they, they feel good about? Sure, they, they absolutely do. But you can kinda get that anywhere.

You can get a lot of that from a lot of companies, the opportunity to sell a good product and be paid fairly and product works. But what salespeople really want is even those that don't want to get into sales management You can be a leader regardless of your title, and what salespeople at their core want is, is a core thing all of us want as humans, is they want [00:37:00] access, and by that it means to be able to have a chat with me or one of my VPs or one of my directors, or not just have a chat, but to be able to speak into what we're building.

Obviously, we can't all be on the dev team and talk about features and benefits, but when she says salespeople want access, they wanna be able to contribute to the way we build things here. They want their voice to be heard. They want to have, to know that if they need to talk to me, if they need to speak into something that's broken.

At different points in my career with different leadership, sometimes it's, like, based on this leader, "Oh, I know he doesn't like feedback about stuff that's broken." 

Mehmet: Mm. 

Alex: Which is crazy. But it's like i- if you mute people too much, then you actually never get their ideas that could make your company billions.

And [00:38:00] it's funny, but while salespeople, to contribute to an organization to their full capacity, want and need access, even if they've never thought that word in their head. Mm. The actions that they want, th- while they want that access, I'm saying it is, it is too costly to not give them access because they're the ones in the trenches selling to those chief technology officers or local entrepreneurs, and they're getting...

You can go ahead and run all the, the analysis you want. What about talking to your people that are in the freaking trenches? Have you given them access? It doesn't go one way, that I'm doing a rep a favor- Mm ... when we give them access. Like, thank heavens I'm on the phone with this rep. She just told me 12 things I had no idea were broken.

And if you mute them, they will learn that it's not a safe place. And it's not just about, like, "Well, we're trying to be good people." Man, there's money in [00:39:00] hearing from your people that are freaking out there selling the solutions that you think you built so masterfully. Salespeople wanna be a part of something.

They're people. The word people's in their title. They're salespeople. Come on, Mehmet. 

Mehmet: I would, you know, it's my personal opinion, uh- And this is how I always looked at it. When I joined, or if I would join again any organization, of course, you know, being part of the team, building something big, I want to be loyal.

And if I criticize something, it's not because, you know, I, I want just to criticize, because I want to fix things, you know? To, to your point, right? We might disagree, which is fine, because I might... not seeing the full picture the same way maybe the person who decided to go a specific way, uh, is seeing it. I [00:40:00] totally get this.

But of course, I'm, I'm saying this now, maybe, like, if you asked me seven, eight years ago, I would go mad. "Oh, these guys, they don't under-," but, but, you know, let's be realistic. But to your point, Alex, I think, you know, a- and I have, I have, uh, you know, this assumption that everyone is good unless they prove me the opposite, right?

So, so I have this good faith in people. Uh, e- by the way, if, if... and I'm thinking about here as a hiring manager, so if I interviewed them, other people said thumbs up, of course, there are, like, always some 0.01% that they could trick everyone. But usually, if you took someone to your organization, that means you found kind of a match with the culture, with the team, with what the company is building, and of course, the experience.

Now, I assume that this person, he or she's coming here to be loyal. And I say loyal, loyalty is not saying yes. This is my humble [00:41:00] opinion. Loyalty is saying yes when, yeah, it is a yes, but to challenge you when it might be a no From my perspective. And of course- That's 

Alex: really, I love the way you say that. Go on, go on.

Mehmet: Yeah. So, so just, you know, I'm thinking out loud now. Usually I don't talk much on the podcast, but you you, you, you brought this nice conversation here, Alex, because I think this is what... And I'm talking about both sides, right? So from leadership perspective, I can understand, yeah, we just need to do it because the board needs it.

You know, like investors needs it, right? Like this is the way to go to market. This is what we should do. At the same time, you know, field people, oh man, these guys, they don't understand. It's, it's not working. And when you put these very, how I would call them, like very rigid, you know, uh- Walls ... walls.

[00:42:00] Restrictions 

Alex: and rails and too- 

Mehmet: Yeah. Man, like of course you're gonna lose your best people, no surprise, because as I was telling you, you don't want them to just do the thing for the sake of that to show you that they are doing it. Because actually they will not be doing it, actually. Right, right? They, they will be watching drama.

It's better to go, uh, to watch a, a, a, a show in Broadway, maybe in New York City, so it's, uh, gonna be more entertaining in my opinion. 

Alex: Yeah. 

Mehmet: But the point is, you know, about discussion, I like, I liked you the way you just described this because I think we need more of this, Alex. And the good thing about AI, it's my perspective, and this is where I want to hear from you.

It's giving us this opportunity to try things faster than before because we can do things much faster than we used to do. Like you want to try a new marketing campaign, you can, you can automate and of course use AI much faster. [00:43:00] It doesn't work, that's fine. Yeah. You mentioned something about like how some organizations, you know, they become, you know, very slow, right?

Because they, they don't like change, they keep doing things. And actually I always tell them, "You, we need to go and read this book." Uh... Which book? Ah, I will remember the title. It's just behind me in my library here. Uh, about disruption, right? So, so, so, uh, the- The dilemma, what was that? Uh I'll remember it in, in a- 

Alex: Uh, well, listen, disruption, how many people their disruption stories start with Mehmet?

Let me tell you about this company. Disrupted the industry. They move so slow it's incredible. Like, I, I don't have too many stories like that. I don't know about you, but it's, it's pretty much the ones that are, are cranking out [00:44:00] whatever it is that they do. 

Mehmet: Yeah.

Alex: You know what we were talking about moving fast is that, you know, you don't wanna move reckless, but I think that when it comes to building new solutions, we, we touched on this before, but if you can move faster, your risk is lower to try new things out, and then if you scrap it, oh well, I mean, it was only a few weeks worth of time, where that same thing might have taken 10 months, and that's expensive.

And, you know, i- is A gonna, AI gonna take people's jobs? I think it's going to change them. Right. And for those companies or people that refuse, then yes, then I think it's almost self-inflicted. I mean, we're in a, we're in a world right now where the education of technology to enhance what you do is part of the resume or you're probably not getting the interview.

Mehmet: Right. Disrupt or be disrupted, as simple as this. I, I remember the [00:45:00] book name. It's The Innovator's Dilemma. Now I remember the book name. Anyway, um, and I was trying to, to get it. I don't cut these, Alex, and the audience would see this discussion, because the way I like to do it is I want people to see me and my guests, of course, unless it's a technical issue, as much a- as, as we looked like, right?

So this is part of, you know, because people ask this question, and why I'm mentioning this. People, they say how, you know, how we can do it in the age of AI, especially if we work in sales. Be human. Be, be, be as you are always because you mentioned something, Alex, and I want to repeat what you said, and maybe I'm paraphrasing.

Now I'm paraphrasing you- 

Alex: Yeah ... 

Mehmet: a- about trust, right? Trust. Trust. Because people will trust always a human being more than anything else. 

Alex: Someone recently said to one of my sales managers, "Hey, um, I bet you in, in what you do," 'cause we often do cold calling. We do face-to-face. We'll walk in doors and- Yep, yep

such. [00:46:00] And, and someone made the i- I felt crazy comment to one of my sales managers, "Hey, I bet you, you know, in this world of AI, I bet you your reps aren't pulling doors anymore." And even though we sell technology, supported, secured, enhanced by AI, actually couldn't be further from the truth. I'm gonna tell you right now, we successfully interrupt your day and cold call.

And I'm gonna say I've been, I've been building sales teams that have done this now for 17 plus years, and for different reasons it absolutely has not gone down. 'Cause we track everything. We probably measure it with AI, ironically, but we track all of our ratios. And pulling doors the old-fashioned way absolutely has not gone down Ab- like our success rate, it abso-- probably 

Mehmet: for different reasons, it stayed steady, 

Alex: and maybe one of those is the human connection.

We get a [00:47:00] lot of people when we pull doors in our dist- in our go-to-market. I'm gonna say this, over the last three years, people have said to my sales reps, "You know what? I do get called on by a lot of you people, but when I say called on, on the phone. You actually came in here." Like, we're actually getting that said to our face as kind of like, "You're actually here."

And they like that. Even though, by the way, even though their door says no soliciting, they still give us a little bit of that love when we're having that first dialogue. It's true story. 

Mehmet: Yeah, because people are, are sick of automated robotic stuff. 

Alex: Like your phone when it rings all day long. Like, it used to not, but now it rings from a bunch of automated weird stuff.

I don't like it. 

Mehmet: Ad messages. 

Alex: Right? Isn't it amazing? They've infiltrated that too. Well, what are you gonna do? 

Mehmet: Yeah. So people appreciate your, you know, staying natural, [00:48:00] staying- 

Alex: Yeah ... 

Mehmet: the way you are. I think, I think this is will be, in my opinion, of course. We, we don't know what happens and, but, uh, I, I see it, and this is also from my conversation from, with, with my, uh, guests here on the podcast and outside of the podcast as well.

Um, this is one of the mot, right? Like, staying human, sp- talking this for startups, and trying to go and see people face-to-face, talk to them. Um, don't, don't be robotic. Like, this is, this is something that I keep repeating. Don't be robotic. Like, imitating in a robotic way would not lead you to any result.

And trust me, uh, it's, it's like, uh, it's crazy stuff you don't want to be in. So. 

Alex: Well, I think no matter... Look, I think you're an example. Hopefully, I'm an example. But- Passion goes a long way. And [00:49:00] i- when you love what you do, and you clearly love what you do, Mehmet. Maybe I'm giving you a hint that I'm pretty fired up about what we do.

That passion, I, I couldn't tell you how to replace it with AI. Now, maybe AI will give me more at bats to share my passion with other people because maybe we found a different way to find better leads. Sure, I want that. I need that. I need more people- Everyone wants it ... I need more people to shout what I love doing.

I wanna shout it to everyone. But I'm not sending in a- an AI, uh, bot to go do what, what really closes the deal, and closing the deal really comes from shaking someone's hands, looking them in the eye, and saying, "I, I really would like to do business with you." And I think a lot of us getting to that finish line is enhanced by all these new tools.

Yeah. But I think the final, the final stroke there with the pen on the paper, it does come from a, a fist bump or a handshake between two people that actually trust each other. [00:50:00] 

Mehmet: 100%. 100%. But yeah, to your point, AI will help us in amplifying the passion and trying to reach to more people that we can at the end shake hands with them and do business with them, so- 

Alex: Yeah, we're literally building a CRM right now that I'm telling you, it's like a prospecting tool CRM.

It, it puts all of our best opportunities in it. I d- I don't even think without AI our, my company's even attempted to start building it. But since we've really been investing in AI, one of the dev- developers was like, "Hey, let me give it a try." And then overnight it started to evolve over, like, a week. It...

We got a demo mode of something that literally, this is true, did not exist like 14, 15 days ago. I have a working prototype of... Right now, I have a call about it a little bit later. I have a working prototype of something that- I've had g- gotten a chance to speak into. They've taken our crazy ideas because the risk is so [00:51:00] low.

It didn't even exist 15 days ago. Eh, let's just take their ideas and see what happens. Crazy. So that's an example of a prospecting tool that's gonna make my business have more opportunities to share what we love doing. I'm, I'm fired 

Mehmet: up. Crazy, crazy times. It's crazy times. Yeah. Well, Alex, you know, the conversation can continue on and on, but you know, we, we, we, we came to an end, and I'm sure you will be one of these guests who will come part two, part three with me.

Alex: I can't wait, Mehmet. And it'll be good. I, I've really 

Mehmet: enjoyed 

Alex: chatting with you today. Great 

Mehmet: discussion. Yeah. So, so traditional question to you, where people can get in touch and find out more? 

Alex: Listen, you can always go to my company's website, pretty simple, north.com. Easy. You can go there, learn a little bit more about our...

If you're someone, maybe a potential vendor or buyer. Um, but if you're looking for a career in sales, you can also go to north.com, go to careers. You'll find the direct sales force there. I'm always available for a dialogue. If you go to LinkedIn and just [00:52:00] type in Alex Grant North, I will come right up.

You'll probably see some silly videos I've put out there where I'm equally as passionate about what we do. But yeah, go to LinkedIn, look me up, and uh, I'd love to get on the phone or have a conversation with anyone that's, that's excited about all this kind of conversation. Just like it's been an honor to spend time with you here today, Mehmet.

Mehmet: Awesome. Also, the honor was mine, Alex. What I like to do for the audience, you don't need to waste time and search, so I'm gonna put the links for both- Cool ... North's website and for Alex's LinkedIn profile in the show notes. So if you're listening on your favorite podcasting app, you will find them there.

If you're watching this on YouTube, you'll find it in the description. And this is how I end my episodes, and this is for the audience. But before this, Alex, again, thank you very much for being here with me today. So for the audience If you just discovered this podcast by luck, I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, give me a small favor.

Share it with as many people as you know. I'm trying to just [00:53:00] reach as much people as I can. So subscribe and share it with friends, colleagues, family, whoever you might think they can benefit out of it. And if you are one of the people who keep coming again and again, and they listen or watch, and I can see the statistics, because of you, not me, we are able, since 2025-- I'm repeating this at the end of each episode.

I know I'm kind of boring, but I have to thank my audience for the loyalty wherever you are, because since 2025, we are in the Apple Top 200 podcast charts across different countries simultaneously. This cannot happen by itself. I don't use bots to get fake listeners or to fake viewers, so this happens natively and spontaneously.

So this has happens because of you, the people who listen to the show and share it. So thank you very, very much, and I'm hoping to see new countries. So every week, I see the country's flag change, so I'm hoping to see new countries very soon. As I say [00:54:00] always, stay tuned for a new episode. Thank you. Bye-bye.