Elevate the customer experience by aligning presales and CS teams

Adam Freeman: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to 2 Presales in a Pod episode 78. Including myself, Adam Freeman, and Todd. Hi, Todd. Hello. And we’ve got a very special guest. Todd’s not his own as a CS leader on this call slash presales leader. We’ve got the wonderful Susan Beal, Blue Yonder. Susan, thank you so much for joining us.

Susan Beal: Thank you for having me and hello presales world.

Adam Freeman: Brilliant. And just for people who are not familiar with you and things, do you want to give a little bit of an overview on what your, what your role currently is?

Susan Beal: Absolutely. A long time listener, first time presenter. Very happy to be here today. I’m Susan Beale.

I’m the chief customer officer at Blue Yonder. We are a supply chain company. We are reinventing supply chains across the world for huge manufacturers, retailers, and LSPs connecting together planning and execution systems. And it’s a really exciting time to be at Blue Yonder, to be in the SAS world, to be doing all the jobs.

My current role is chief customer [00:01:00] officer by background. I’ve done almost every role in SAS. I’ve developed software. I’ve implemented it. I’ve supported it. I’ve done pre sales, pre sales leadership, customer success, customer success leadership, um, secretly a huge pre sales passionate advocate today focused more on the customer success side of the world.

Adam Freeman: Yeah, we didn’t pay to say that, did we, Todd? So we, we, uh, we just valued the sales angle. Um, so Susan, you’re fresh from a conference, right?

Susan Beal: I just took a red eye back from Vegas, so I’m coming to you a little delirious with all of the thoughts bubbling up out of this event. Excited to talk about them today.

And it was a, it was a really cool conference that I don’t know that a lot of your audience knows as much about as they could slash should.

Todd Janzen: Let’s let’s dig in there. Like tell us all about this.

Susan Beal: So it’s interesting when I was in pre sales, I spent a lot of time reading pre sales books and [00:02:00] listening to like demo fest, which didn’t exist, but that’s what I would have done and joining the pre sales collective and doing all the things kind of in my swim lane, all about pre sales, maybe tangentially branch out into sales as well, what this organization does.

The conference I went to was TSIA, which is I’m going to slander this acronym. I think it’s technology service industry advisors, something like that. It’s a membership based conference. All of their members are SaaS software companies. And their charter is how do we connect all of the minds and leadership across these companies to improve that end to end experience for customers to really facilitate connecting the silos across those and make sass fulfill the dream that we’re all trying to bring it into the space.

I am part of their customer success board. So we’re looking at customer experience, the CSM function, all things around customer experience, voice of the customer. And [00:03:00] there are six main areas of practice that stretch from selling all the way to CS. And one of the items that really stood out to me at this conference was the lack of solutions in that environment and at that table.

So I would love to share more about My perspective on that. Why I think pre sales really should get in there, the conversations I’m having and things that everyone should learn from what we discussed in Vegas.

Todd Janzen: Wow. Um, so much to drill in on that. Uh, I mean, this is the topic Adam and I are talking a lot about.

We’re hearing a lot about this topic, um, on other podcasts. Just in the industry in general about solutions really does need to start broadening their influence. And it really comes down to the customer wants them, the customer wants their genius and, you know, historically really kind of pigeonholed into the sales org.

But You know, up funnel wants us, down funnel wants us, renewal wants us, as Adam and I, uh, [00:04:00] spoke about in London. Customers want our genius from the website to renewal. And so, um, you know, we obviously talk about it a lot, but it sounds like you were just at a conference where that was front and center.

Tell us more about what they were talking about.

Susan Beal: So first I want to pause and say, if you are in pre sales, you are in rarefied air, right? This is a, an incredible role where you are bringing all of that understanding of these products to an audience that really desperately needs to understand how are you going to make their life better?

And what are the outcomes that you’re going to drive? It’s an incredible job. You are really wanted and in really high demand across a company. A lot of times based on where you report is where you spend a lot of your time. I would argue 99 percent of the people that are listening, if you’re in pre sales, you report into sales, unless you’re part of some, um, pilot program where we’re looking at how do we put you someplace else, but you and your knowledge is needed [00:05:00] across the customer journey.

So when you look at, and I’ll encourage you to learn more about the customer journey at your company, there’s typically multiple phases, starting with sales to deployment, to to hypercare to ongoing go live. And a lot of times it’s a beautiful infinity loop because we want them to buy more. And how do we renew and keep them going through?

I’ll encourage you to look outside of your part of that journey. How can you add value in those other areas? How do you learn more about how do you use the tooling you have the skills that you have to go broader in that organization because that’s going to pay off for you as an individual contributor as well as longer term with additional career opportunities, mentorship opportunities, etc.

But when we look at that customer journey, I think solutions is typically pigeonholed into sales and sales speaks on their behalf. We’ve, we’ve got to do a better job as pre sales people of making sure that our value add is being applied across that journey.

Adam Freeman: I [00:06:00] love

Todd Janzen: that.

Adam Freeman: Just a quick question here, Susan.

I’m just thinking out as we go along. You mentioned about pre sales finance voice within sales. We’ve got sales people that listen to this podcast. What can they bring and what can people do to help elevate that voice? Because it helps create the outcomes, right? The revenue outcomes that we all want to see and it creates good quality revenue, typically pre sales.

So what can a salesperson do, do you think, that they’re not doing maybe?

Susan Beal: To elevate the pre sales role? Yeah. So first of all, hello, my salespeople. Um, I have carried a bag as well. And when I did carry that bag, I really valued my pre sales people. I encourage you to do the same. Uh, if you are, and there’s typically two flavors of salespeople, there’s the net new hunter where they’re just going to want pre sales for their immediate pursuits.

Then there’s more of the account manager where they’re going to own that ongoing relationship. And they’re using that pre sales person in a expanded way. They’re definitely using them up front, but they’re bringing [00:07:00] them in. on an ongoing basis, maybe including them in, um, steering committees during the project, including them in QBRs post go live.

How do we continue with new releases that come out to kind of just drip ideas, suggestions, stay front and center. I think we’re pre sales is leveraged today to get in the door. Prop that door open and get vendor of choice. We need to use them to keep that door open because the minute we disengage that expertise, another vendor is coming in with their pre sales team, making something else look really good.

And we want to make sure that we’re leveraging our team throughout that entire customer journey.

Todd Janzen: It’s a really good point. Um, you know, for those skeptics listening, right. And I, and I, I can just hear it, right. I can hear the thought process in people’s heads. I’m already stretched. I don’t have time for this.

Why would I possibly go do that? It’s not part of my comp plan. Um, I work for a big company. Things will never change. Right. I can hear all those thoughts going on. But what you just said about, well, your [00:08:00] competitors, presales, people are probably in there. Wow. That gets you thinking differently.

Susan Beal: Yeah. We tend to apply all of these great resources at the beginning of that buyer experience, and then we take them away.

And that buyer is, is once they become a customer, they still want to know what’s my value and, and am I getting it and what’s next and, you know, They think the project just started and we’re slapping ourselves on the back and walking away. We’ve, we’ve got to stay engaged. And let me speak to the, to the pre sales people directly, because I think everyone in tech right now is tired.

It’s a, it’s a rough time right now. And pre sales people, because gosh, we’re just so helpful. We’re always agreeing to do more. You’re always signing up for stuff. Let me encourage you to scale what you are doing. If you are doing something. Don’t do it one on one. If you’re building something, don’t use it once, please, please record it and, or write it in such a way that you can reuse [00:09:00] it.

I see if someone has 10 hours to get ready for something, they spend nine and a half hours configuring the most specific personal thing. And then it’s, it’s not throwaway work. You’re going to use it once, but if you had just done it a little differently, could you have reused that? Could you scale that?

Could you, could you do that? Parse that out and use it as part of a post sale cycle or save it so that when a new exec comes in at that company, you can send them that overview again and say, here it is. Um, let me catch you up on what you’ve missed because not only is, is our solutions in constant change, our customers are in constant change.

If you just look at LinkedIn and see where everybody’s moving around to folks on this call, included, right? There’s a lot of shifts in the industry. And when you go somewhere new, you’re going to take the tooling you like. If you move in somewhere, you might be bringing in the vendor that you knew before.

If you’re incumbent, we’ve got to get right in front of that person and make sure they know why we were chosen, what the value is, why the team want that, and are they getting what they need? And solutions is a huge part of that. [00:10:00]

Todd Janzen: I think that is such a key takeaway for this episode is just, you need to think about scale.

All the time, all the time. And that’s how you do this. So we’re not asking you to like, and that’s a time machine. So you can spend more time up funnel or with renewals and customers. Like you got to think about scale. And I, I use this analogy all the time about Hamilton. So Hamilton raving success on Broadway, they put it on Disney plus.

More people watched Hamilton in the first two days of Disney plus than the previous seven years on Broadway. Wow. Just because they recorded it. Yeah. And so I think, like, this is the mindset Essie needs to be in.

Adam Freeman: It’s nice all your views of Hamilton really got noticed there, Todd. Yeah. You know, in your house, right?

But, um, so I’m just thinking as well about the scaling element. You’ve picked on this a few times. It’s something Todd and I spoke about in the launch episode last week. How you scale your genius. Yeah. Whether you’re in CS or in pre sales, there’s an element of genius and I [00:11:00] think an element of empathy with the customer, actually, that is quite unique.

How do you, maybe live with AI, because this is something we’ve spoken about before, but how do you let, you know, scale that empathy, scale that genius, scale that brilliance, And is AI the way to do that, do you think?

Susan Beal: Boy, that was a huge part of the conversation this week in Vegas. Every role, every meeting is, how are you doing it with AI?

And whether it’s you’re buying new vendor tools that can bring in AI, whether it’s you’re just using it to write the first draft of everything you ever do. I mean, no one on this call should ever be writing a first draft of anything ever again. Or how do we look at how our companies are adopting AI? I don’t know.

Just look at all the things that you’re doing as part of your day. How many of those are manual. Let’s get rid of those things. How many of them require looking for things? How can we leverage our internal GPT versions since our security officers are cracking down, right? We’ve got to [00:12:00] be real careful with stuff.

How do we leverage these tools to. To scale to speed things up to drive self service. I mean, let’s be honest. A lot of our customers speaking of self service. They don’t want to talk to us. I was at this conference this week and God bless everyone in the boots. I was walking around with my hand over the QR code on my badge because I did not want the BD team.

God bless you. You do important work to send me an email, then follow up the next week saying I missed the email, then follow up saying. There was there. Did I offend them? Did something happen? You know what’s going on? Or Oh, my buddy, Adam said I should call you. I’m like, don’t just let’s be honest and direct with each other about is this something we need something we want.

But yeah, I mean, there’s AI everywhere. They’re huge opportunities for us. And it used to be how do we give people the right tools? The conversation this week was how do we give the tools the right people? Because it’s going to be all about the prompts. It’s going to be all about are we training the models?

[00:13:00] It’s going to be all about are we getting and are we feeding that machine the right content, the right understanding to drive that scale going forward. It’s a, it’s a, it’s definite paradigm shift. We’re not necessarily there yet, but it is like a time machine.

Adam Freeman: So do you leave that conference? Yeah. More excited by I or more scared of it.

Susan Beal: No, I’m I’m definitely more excited. I’m past the fear stage of the of the adoption cycle, and now it’s really Wow. What do we do? And I think one of the big conversations we had was it’s not just pre sales looking at how do we scale and how do we get AI?

It’s sales, it’s marketing, it’s professional services, and AI is coming for services first, right? There’s so much opportunity to drive efficiencies there. But how do we prioritize our initiatives at a company? Because there are going to be a lot of investment asks and there’s not going to be An unlimited number of resources available to do that.

So as you’re looking at [00:14:00] your budgets for next year, if you’re a presales leader or a leader in any other space, how do you carve out 90 percent for what you think you’re going to do and apply 10 percent to those AI initiatives? How are you going to really drive forward the investments that you need to stay competitive because your CEO is going to be coming to you and asking you.

How are you going to adopt AI? And the only person that can answer that is you. And that’s where having a network of, of folks that are also in this situation to, to brainstorm such as this podcast, such as TSIA, such as your personal networks, you know, how do you get these ideas? There’s no manual for this.

We’re figuring this stuff out. And the companies that take charge on this are going to be exponentially further ahead, so much faster.

Adam Freeman: We are learning in public, aren’t we? I think that’s the, that’s the key with this and it’s whoever’s bravest to make that kind of first move and be, be bold, you know, and risk maybe a tiny bit of failure here and there, but chase that big win, isn’t it?

It’s, there’s some huge wins to be made. I’m on the [00:15:00] excitement curve of, of AI myself, but I know a lot of people are nervous in priest as a lot of people are looking over the shoulder saying, Hey, a lot of my tasks are repetitive, as you say. Will I, will I get taken out? Am I going to be replaced? And there is that fear mentality, isn’t there?

Susan Beal: I would just like to say, maybe, maybe there’ll be fewer people hired in. But if the first thing I thought when I saw chat GPT was hallelujah, I will never have to write an RFP again. Yeah. I mean, for so long, we kept all of those repositories of prior RFP responses. I built an army of people at a previous company who would come in Shop previous responses and just cut and paste them in just to free up my senior people’s time.

Now we can feed this into a machine, have the machine populate the RFP, write these beautiful, eloquent first draft of everything, right? You’re not just going back and hunting for what to use. What a time saver. So if you look at the [00:16:00] job of pre sales and what are you doing, there’s answering RFPs. No one wants that job.

I think we’re all happy to say, Take it. We will read the RFP. We will understand the customer’s pains, but we spent too much time filling out RFPs and configuring software and not enough time talking to the customer and having engaging dialogues with the stakeholders. We might even just get in and do a discovery call.

A demo and leave town. No, no, we need to be doing discovery calls that really drill in on the pains. What are the outcomes they want? We need to be configuring the story around how do they drive those outcomes and then use that time to stay in front of that customer. If we don’t stay in front of them, and we talked about this, you know, Um, as part of our prep for this call, we put a lot of resources up front.

If we stay in front of the customer consistently, it’s an easy job. If we don’t, when [00:17:00] we get to that end stage, when the customer’s frustrated and looking elsewhere, it’s going to be another sales cycle to keep them, the effort needs to be applied. If we smooth that out over their life cycle, instead of these heavy dips at the front and the end, they’re happier.

We save ourselves a lot of drama, and we can really impact not just revenue, but retention.

Todd Janzen: I’m so glad you brought up RFP, um, and shout out to all the RFP professionals out there. On top of the solutions, people that have to do it. I used to run an RFP team over at Salesforce. And, um, man, just hats off to those people.

Like they do God’s work. Um, and you’re totally right. Like, We brought in a solution. It ingested the entire RFP, no more point and click, you know, copy paste, which is kind of an addiction for people at some point, right? Like if you’re in the, in the RFP space, like copy paste is like tattooed on your arm.

Um, and so that was like the first big change. It’s like, no, we’re going to have this tool ingest the entire [00:18:00] RFP, take a first pass. And the beauty of AI in this whole thing, besides that was, okay, typically it’s now Friday, you have to get the RFP out and you have to write the executive summary. And by the way, like in the old world, you’re spent because you’ve been copy pasting all week.

So do you think you have any creativity left? No, it’s been sucked from your soul. And so AI is there to help you with that executive summary. On the Friday, right? Which is brilliant, but bigger, bigger thing that you brought up because we’ve been talking about a lot, right? Engage the customer the entire time, the entire time.

And I’m just listening to the skeptics on this call. They’re like, yeah, sounds great. Not going to happen. You brought up something really interesting earlier, um, around comp plans. Let’s be honest, like. It’s not going to change unless the comp plan changes. So let’s, you know, let’s, let’s drill into that.

Let’s, let’s get into the meat of it.

Susan Beal: Ooh, we’re going to get feisty. Okay. Comp plans. [00:19:00] Um, I know I love being a pre sales person, but I do it cause, cause it gives me a check. So I’m going to do what I need to do to maximize that check. And I’m going to do favors for people. And I’m going to, if someone calls and asks if I do something, I might, but it’s an exception, right?

It’s, it’s not a focus. It’s not a key area for me unless it’s. Something that I’m being specifically asked to do for my review or that I’m going to get comped on. A lot of folks on this call are part of the sales organization and their number is their sales leaders number. Their number is not retention.

Their number is not, um, retention. Focused on anything other than the beginning of that customer’s journey, I’m seeing and experiencing a big change. And even our company around. Is that the right approach? Should we be looking at more? There’s um, there’s an inflection point, I think, in our industry around.

Should we be looking just at growth versus as SAS companies? The promise is They stay with [00:20:00] you and they renew. It’s no longer set it and forget it. And part of that relationship requires ongoing solutions dialogue. So I would always reach out and ask for presales assistance. Can I get someone in here?

Can I get someone to come in? And the answer was always, if there’s time, right, it was an afterthought for them and for that job. It shouldn’t be. It can’t be as we move forward and look at what is the right experience for the customer. So in my role at Blue Yonder as chief customer officer, the CEO has asked me to reimagine the experience for our customers.

How do we make it a differentiated and incredible experience to be a Blue Yonder customer, not just to buy Blue Yonder software. And part of that involves pivoting beyond what are you trying to achieve. To making sure that you’ve achieved it right. It’s all about outcomes. It’s all about. Did we deliver what you want?

Did we partner? Well, did we achieve all of the goals that you set out for so [00:21:00] that you renew and are willing to be a positive reference for the company. That is the promise of SAS. Right now we’ve got solutions relegated to the front end of that. We desperately need that expertise throughout the relationship.

And right now in CS, a lot of times we’re big borrowing and stealing for that. If the compensation plans reflect what we need to correctly support the customer, I would argue that that should change, that the comp plans should be more balanced. I absolutely need pre sales out front driving new logos. I also need them driving expansion.

And the way that we earn expansion is through adoption. And the way that we drive adoption is through achieving outcomes and understanding what they’re looking for. So it’s a virtuous cycle. And I would argue that the comp plan should support that.

Todd Janzen: Yeah, Elon. Again, listening to to, you know, taking the other side of this, it’s like, well, why would I want to add that stress?

Why would I want to add that to my comp plan? And, you know, we were talking about this earlier. Um, CS has [00:22:00] metrics that go in front of Wall Street. CS has metrics that go in front of boards. And so, you know, I hate this phrase, but I’m going to say it for the sake of saying it. The seat at the table conversation.

Right. If you want a real seat at the table, you have to have a metric that goes in front of the board and the CEO.

Susan Beal: Yes.

Todd Janzen: And so we can’t just sit back and say like, Oh, well, someday it might happen. Like, it’s not gonna happen. No. Um, and we’re going to continue to be relegated to where we’ve been. And so for those that really want to.

To move that conversation forward. If you’re really serious about seat at the table, you’re going to have to be compensated differently. You’re going to have to have different skin in the game and you’re going to have to be tied to a metric that is, I will say right now in this climate of tech is forefront, like almost maybe in some ways more than new business.

Susan Beal: Yeah.

Adam Freeman: So Susan, I just want to kind of ask you about the metrics. So Todd said, getting a seat at the [00:23:00] table is. Pretty much directly linked. I’m not putting words in your mouth there, Todd. Directly linked to having a metric that goes in front of the board, right? Um, what’s your view there?

Susan Beal: I completely agree, you know.

Pre sales to me is such a critical role, but it’s a support role. And you’re supporting a revenue number. You don’t You can attribute all kinds of success and where are you and how you could do better when you’re there and what are the slices and where should you participate and what’s the best use of the time, but it’s a support number.

One of the key reasons I came over to the customer success side was to was to own a number was to own retention and to own. These accounts and to own the renewals of these specific accounts, because that is a board metric. And as much as I wish it was, or, or as much as I wish we had more of a specific dedicated number, the number of demos is not a board metric.

You’re not going to be comped on hours spent prepping. You’re not going to be comped based on, [00:24:00] um, how many times did you rehearse that, that presentation, right? These, the numbers that matter are revenue. And retention. And as you look at those, how are you contributing to them? You need to learn your role in these pieces.

You need to learn and speak with different stakeholders across the company. You need to get really familiar with your finance business partner and how are they measuring things and how does that work? Make sure you’re talking to marketing about things. Make sure you’re talking to professional services.

How can we do the handoffs better? God bless us all your CS team. Like this is the pre sales of post sale. These people are in here. They are simpatico with you. They are the, the doers, the achievers, the over workers of the, of the post sale. If you’re looking for what are stories about outcomes, talk to CS.

CS is going to come to you for help with solutions, partner with them. This is a match made in heaven for how can you get into that post sale life cycle. And I would argue that your chief customer officer or your CS leader would be a huge advocate [00:25:00] for your pre sales teams and partnering internally. But the ability to speak to metrics more directly and more than just revenue will pay off for you as an individual contributor and for your career long term.

Adam Freeman: I’ve always thought the best pre sales KPIs, and I’ve spoken about this multiple times was not the revenue generate, but the, how you generate that revenue, you know, how you support that revenue, how productive you are, how efficient you are generating that revenue and goes back to your kind of doing more with less.

But I think that’s kind of for another day. I’m really interested on the, we’re seeing a career path, right. And almost like a two way career path between CS and pre sales. Both of you guys on this call have done exactly that, but even an IC level, right, I’ve seen pre sales leaders go and lead CS teams and I’ve seen CS leaders come over and do.

Do you think it’s getting more interchangeable than ever?

Susan Beal: I’ll take that one first. I would argue that a pre sales person could slip into a CS role more [00:26:00] easily than the opposite. Because there is still that underlying tech expertise that to me is so limited in companies. It is astonishing to me how few people at any company can really dive in and use that product at a level where they can speak to the value of it, not how do I configure it?

Not what if you click here, what would, what would happen if you choose this option, but able to listen to a customer and translate their needs to the product is, is rarefied error. And it’s, I don’t think it’s a skill set that a lot of our CS people have. I think they bring more industry expertise, more around outcomes and, and perhaps they were a practitioner themselves.

But I think it’s, it’s an easier path from one to the other. Todd, I don’t know if you’d agree.

Adam Freeman: I would Todd.

Todd Janzen: Yeah,

Adam Freeman: I think,

Todd Janzen: yeah, yeah. I think I, I agree. Um, you know, one thing and I’m new to the CS world, um, you know, these two roles are really cut from the same cloth. Like, like [00:27:00] they are motivated by very similar things.

They both care deeply about the customer. Um, they’re both extremely curious, which I think is at the core of, of pre sales, but it’s also the core of CS. So, um, and it’s just interesting, I’m thinking back in my career, like I had very little exposure to CS prior to my new role. And it’s so weird that these roles are so separated when they’re so similar and the people are so similar.

So, um, you know, maybe that’s a good call to action is like, go meet some people in CS if you’re in pre sales.

Adam Freeman: Yeah, well probably working towards that time right where we do think about call selection because Susan I think we could chat to you all Day long about this mainly because me and Todd are just fizzing with ideas right now on kind of how to do it And I think we’ve just seen the power in CS and presales being more aligned and we’re fortunate the company that we are very aligned in CS and presales that Tom and I work for but It’s nice to hear someone having that transition from being an elite pre sales leader into CS, but then taking the mindset and the skill set with it, but still having a mutual [00:28:00] respect for the differences between the two professions.

But kind of golden takeaways, um, I’ll kind of start if that’s okay, then we go around. So one of the things we always love to end a show on is kind of a call to action, a golden takeaway, something you’re going to take from this show and put into your everyday operating system. One of the things I’m going to do is even though I’m not in the CS world, I’m going to go and look at some of the Content because you, you have sent that to me and I’ve had a scan over it previously.

I thought there’s some real cool stuff. There’s playbooks, there’s all sorts of things to get involved in and I need to go back and revisit that. That’s my, that’s my personal call to action this week. So Todd, I don’t know if you want to go next before we end on Susan.

Todd Janzen: Yeah. Um, I mean, this is, this is how I think and, and try and operate every day, but scale.

Susan, you mentioned it earlier, just. We as a profession need to think about scale more than ever. Um, and, and I’ve seen it. Some people are very scale minded and most people aren’t. Um, most people just don’t think that way. And so I think that’s a good call to action. It’s [00:29:00] just, you know, start with something simple.

How do you scale yourself? How do you scale your genius? Um, and, you know, you probably need to start looking at some software to do that.

Susan Beal: There’s definitely a lot of tech that can help. And that TSIA portal, I think we’ll have a lot of really good content for those of you that aren’t familiar with it. I think for my call to action, I’m going to go back to something Todd, you said, we talked about scale.

We talked about genius. You also use the word empathy and being in the customer success world today. That is just an area where my call to action for everyone is just be super mindful of your conversations that you’re having with everyone, especially your customers today, when they’re asking for things, the pressure that they’re under acknowledging and turning around things quickly.

Like if you get a customer email or a phone call, please, within 24 hours, respond to it, right? Watch the tone that you’re using in those beam, just be extra careful with these customers as you are, even internally with your teams. It’s a tough time. There’s a lot [00:30:00] going on. I think there are a lot of people concerned.

about what’s next. So actually let me pivot. I’m going to have a second takeaway. You

Adam Freeman: can do that. That’s all I get

Susan Beal: prerogative. My second takeaway is, is be bold. If you’re not jumping into AI right now, someone else is, whether you are an individual contributor, a team leader, leading a function, have a perspective on how you could use it.

Learn about new capabilities. Talk to your peers about this. See what others are doing. We’re at the we’re walking into the time machine, right? And get the right people in there with you because we’re about to do some really cool stuff in this space.

Todd Janzen: I’m giving such Brene Brown, uh, vibes from you and I’m such a huge fan of hers, but, but, you know, with empathy, I’m hearing be vulnerable, be human and be bold.

And, you know, for those that have never seen Brene Brown, there’s a Netflix special, go look it up. Um, it’s just, it brings tears to my eyes when I watched that. Cause, and I’m so glad you said that. Cause I’m going to start, I’m going to take [00:31:00] that with me right now. Like, cause I’m on a lot of those conversations right now.

And. There’s so much temptation to say the right thing and, and you’re just reminding me, just be

Adam Freeman: human. Yeah. Just be human. That’s the thing that sets us apart, right? So, one thing we always love to ask every guest, now, we did it last week, so we’re going to ask you, Susan. We want to know two things from you.

Number one, favorite pizza topping. What are you going for?

Susan Beal: Ooh, I’m a pepperoni lady.

Adam Freeman: There we go. It’s two of us. Classic

Susan Beal: choice.

Adam Freeman: Yeah. Brilliant. Second one, your favorite bit of tech. Can’t live without it. What is it?

Susan Beal: You know, for work, my favorite bit of tech is the remarkable electronic notebook. Had this for about two years.

I am a, I think by writing and I process by organizing the thoughts on paper. So for me, I love having a notebook and I love paper, but I never had the right notebook with me. So now, first of all, this experience feels like [00:32:00] using paper. Um, I always have it with me cause it’s digital. So it’s on my phone.

It’s on my computer. It’s easy to get to. It looks cool and neat when you’re in the room and Christmas is coming. So for my husband, if you’re listening, they are coming out with a color model this holiday season. So if you’re in the, in the there’s a cool new option coming, but it. Before you even get there, it is not the same as writing as your iPad.

I am very easily distracted and all those alerts and other things that I could potentially do on there will get my attention. So this keeps me focused, keeps me up to date and it brings everything I need. It scales my genius.

Adam Freeman: I love it. I love it. What a great place to end. We’re going to end on that because that is just the best place to end.

Susan, thank you so much for joining us, taking time out and coming straight off a flight from Vegas straight to talk to us too. But we really do appreciate your views and your perspective. So thank you so much.

Susan Beal: It has been a pleasure. Thank you, gentlemen.

Adam Freeman: Bye everyone. See you soon.

Take care.