We are back! by Two PreSales in a Pod

 

Adam Freeman: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome and we’re back to Pre Sales in a Pod relaunching episode 77 if you can believe it. We’ve had a hiatus, we had a six month break and as Arnie once said we’ll be back but we are back. So I am delighted to bring to you the guy with the best hair in Pre Sales. This is Todd Janzen, my new co host.

I told you before. 

Todd Janzen: Oh man, I feel like maybe I’m just here for my hair. No, just kidding. Um, this is, this is exciting. This is fun. I mean, I never thought I’d be part of the podcast that basically got me through the pandemic. So, um, I don’t know. Hopefully we can, uh, we can shed some light on some cool topics, bring some great speakers on and entertain you at the same time.

I mean, let’s be honest, like the podcast we love. Yeah. 

Adam Freeman: Yeah, absolutely. We want to have fun listening to this, right? Same format as we’ve always done. So, you know, we’re going to use this a bit of a relaunch. Okay. We’re going to get into some content in a minute, but just to kind of [00:01:00] level set where we’re going with this and probably why we’re doing this right, Todd.

Because when I kind of broached to you the idea of bringing it back and asked you to come and present with me, because, um, Don, who I had the pleasure of presenting this with for so many years and a good friend of both of ours, right? Um, has decided to retire. Okay, dry your eyes, everybody, but he has decided to retire and we wish him a lifetime of happiness in his retirement.

But we want to kind of fulfill the legacy of what Two Pretty Souls and a Pod was about, right? And when we chatted and, you know, we chatted some months ago about bringing it back and what that looked like, We kind of had a reason didn’t we and I think you articulated my reason for doing this probably better than I could right it was just democratizing our knowledge democratizing The people we know in our networks these conversations that were so privileged to have with so many people you and I used to do this You know when you were a guest on the podcast But just throw an idea around and chew on it and no script and we do not script these episodes But just throwing an idea around and maybe now and again You’ll learn something, but we [00:02:00] learned something doing it right as well.

And I think when I asked you to come on, that was, you kind of had your own reasons why you wanted to do this, right? 

Todd Janzen: Yeah. I mean, and we can probably talk about this later, but you know, you and I just both went through some career transitions over the last six months. So we had to go learn how to do some new jobs.

Um, but I think that itch to continue to give back is still there. And. You know, at Salesforce essentially woke up every day serving our solutions community inside the company, and I woke up every day thinking, How do I make people’s jobs easier? How do we help them? And I think for me, that inch is still there.

And, you know, I think there’s a way we can do it on a much bigger stage now, now that we’re, you know, not with our former employers. So, uh, I’m excited. You know, I think yeah. It opens up the doors and for a lot of new, new directions, but, um, I can’t imagine doing anything different. It’s what I’ve been doing for the last 20 years.

And so, uh, I hope this is a great outlet to, to continue that. 

Adam Freeman: [00:03:00] Absolutely. And we have got kind of about the next eight to 10 episodes lined up already. We’re already recording them and the aim is we’re going to release this every kind of couple of weeks. Um, we’re not going to commit to weekly right now, but I think every couple of weeks feels, feels the right cadence for us.

And some of the guests we’ve got. And not just pre sales. Okay. These are big hitters in the go to market world. People that Todd and I have had the pleasure of interacting with, and we know we’re going to bring value. Right. But also in a way that we know we like to interact, we like to have fun. We don’t like to take life too seriously.

Do we? You know, we, we can, we can have fun with this and explore topics. And some of the topics are going to be serious, right? And some are going to be a bit heavy, but we want to try and make it accessible where you can. It was just a joke about you walking your dog, Todd, and being the person listening to this podcast, walking your dog, because that’s where you listen to it.

Right. 

Todd Janzen: Yeah, yeah. No, it’s weird. Like, um, I’m certainly not going to listen to myself now walking the dog, so I’ll have to find a new podcast. But, um, yeah, it’s a bit surreal. Yeah. And I like what you we’ve been talking about, Adam, about bringing functions from across the go to market [00:04:00] onto the show. And the reason that’s so important is, um, you know, our industry can feel like an echo chamber, right?

Like we can just, we can pat ourselves on the back and talk about how good things are going. And let’s be honest, the last couple of years have been rough. Yeah, it’s been rough in tech. And so I think we need some straight talk and we need some straight talk from adjacent roles, um, CROs, people in marketing.

And I think we just need to expand, um, our vision for the role. And look, we’re not the only ones talking about this. You know, I caught up with Chris Mabry from presales collective, right. And he’s a huge fan of this topic, right. And that is. We got to broaden our perspective and, you know, speaking of Chris Mabry and others like that’s what I’m excited about this podcast, right?

Like, yes, we work for a certain employer, but we’re going to try like heck to not bring that into this podcast, right? And really just serve the community. And so, um, you [00:05:00] know, we’re going to bring in all kinds of 

Adam Freeman: perspectives. The brakes are off getting us on the open road now. So anything could happen now and it’s unscripted.

Don’t forget. So 

Todd Janzen: I 

Adam Freeman: think just to level set the kind of format of these episodes for people new listening, because we’ll have new listeners. We’ll have people who have never been in pre sales listening. I was always amazed how many people weren’t in a pre sales background that listened to the show and reached out.

Um, welcome to you if you’re listening, but it’s a very conversational podcast. Okay. We don’t take things too seriously. Okay. Um, we invite you to. Ping both of us messages and ideas and feedback on the episodes. We love to have a debate. We kind of acknowledge that not all of our ideas are going to be in total agreement with everybody else and it’s all right.

You know, we live in a free world where everyone’s got an opinion and share yours with us, right? Because it challenges us. Um, but then come on an episode and help shape the industry as well, right? That’s, that’s the great thing about a forum like this. And I do feel over the last six months, we haven’t had that, you know, we haven’t had that real talk as you say, Todd, and I’m really keen to bring that up.

So. [00:06:00] Let’s start this episode. We’re not just talking about us and what we’re back. I think you and I have just stood up at DemoFest London, right? First of all, what an event. What an event. How many great people we met there, right? But secondly, I’ll let you kind of come back on the second is, there were some real big trends coming out of DemoFest London.

I think it’s worth us discussing that for people who weren’t fortunate enough to go to London, right? 

Todd Janzen: Yeah, for sure. Um, it was incredible to have almost 400, right? Pre sales professionals in the room and not just pre sales. There’s people there from marketing and sales and product and all over. Um, and it just, it just reminds me about this profession and how awesome it is.

People stayed till six o’clock. They were there from eight to six. And that is a real, real, I think, just testament to this industry is we are learners. We are lifelong learners. We’re naturally curious and, um, we enjoy each other’s company, right? Like there’s something amazing about being in solutions or [00:07:00] presales.

And I’ll use those two interchangeably, by the way. Um, and that is like, there’s deep curiosity. But there’s always a tinge of skepticism. And so it’s just, you know, as, as a lifelong se, it’s just such an awesome audience to be in front of because like, not everyone’s just buying a hundred percent of what you’re saying and it’s good.

It’s like. It’s such a good gut check. 

Adam Freeman: Do you not, do you not think you could measure the resonance of the contact and how the contact was landing by the amount of nods in the room? Like there was sections where I saw the marketing folk like really nodding along and it was landing and I, I thought that was Just showing the power of how the lines of blood actually of where, where pre sales interacts with the various functions that these other functional leaders like CS, you know, we have product people, like you say, we had marketing people in the room to learn about how they can create better outcomes.

Some of the, some of the content speakers were phenomenal, phenomenal, [00:08:00] right? Um, 

Todd Janzen: yeah. And that was a trend that, you know, you and I had been seeing out there in the industry. So we’re not sitting here claiming that, you know, we’re, we’re ahead of the curve. But, but the industry is that solutions is getting more involved with other go to market functions.

So that was, you know, we did the keynote. That was kind of a big part of our keynote. And then, you know, we were talking about why it’s important to work with these other teams, why it’s important to be cross functional. And I think the biggest point we’re trying to make was, Don’t just do it out of the kindness of your heart because, you know, we talked about this, the elephant in the room is that solutions gets pulled in every which direction.

We’re always doing things outside of our lane and the elephant is we never get credit for it. 

Adam Freeman: Yeah. 

Todd Janzen: It’s like, it’s like the unspoken truth of our profession. And so what we were saying was like, you should go work with these other departments. But you should, you should be looking at the KPIs that you can measure there.

And a lot of this has to do with software, right? There’s software now that helps us scale ourselves without getting tuned to the weeds of [00:09:00] that. Um, that allows us to go up funnel. It allows us to go down funnel. It allows us to be involved in CS conversations, right? Technology’s unlocking that. So we’re not saying like going into time machine and invent another 12 hours in your day.

It’s not what we’re saying. We’re saying use tech today. Use software today. Okay. To go work with other places and go to market and dang it, go get some KPI credit for it. And I’ll throw out an example because I know it’s going to be super vague. Um, if you’re, if you’re producing things that go on the website.

Right. Like, like a demo that people can click around on or a video, um, tie that to a marketing campaign. 

Adam Freeman: Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd Janzen: Get, get some campaign credit for that. Right. And, and all of a sudden it’s like, wow, pre sales, sales solutions. We’re in, we’re in the business of a pipe gen. We’re in the business of, of deal qualification.

Mike. That’s, that’s what we’re talking about. That’s the thinking we need to help unlock. 

Adam Freeman: Yeah, you’re 100 percent right. And I’m going [00:10:00] to kind of pick out two sections from our keynote. I’ll let you do the other one because I think you’ll probably know where I’m going to go with this one. Um, I really want to pick out the whole, we had a, we had a slide and it was really impactful because people were playing it back to us.

After the event, which was the scaling your genius thing. And I think we are so blessed pre sales that you normally come to pre sell the solutions, having had a career somewhere, right. That nobody’s born and is just parachuted into the preference. Some are, I appreciate some. The larger orgs have a talent flow from unis and colleges straight into pre sales, and that’s wonderful.

But the majority of people have come from CS or product and just wanted a bit more commercial, right? And one of the things that really landed with people was we had that slide It was VendorGrant that said scaling your genius because actually it’s the multiplier effect that you’ve said of How can you get a pre sales person?

That’s always taking more on always taking more tasks on because it’s not that’s never going to change But how do you maximize their impact with all these functions [00:11:00] with marketing with cs because actually there’s a buyer At the other side or a customer who’s in that infinite loop and you you spoke about it, right that Wants that genius that they need that and we used the word genius very purposefully, didn’t we?

Todd Janzen: Yeah. Yeah Yeah, you know Um, you know, the whole concept was your genius, our platform to make that a little more generic for the audience. Like, how do you unlock your genius with software? And um, you know, we talked about one aspect of it of like, Hey, these other departments need your genius. Marketing needs your genius.

If they’re going to put something on the website, that’s anything demo related. Um, sorry, like you should be involved with CS, upsell, cross sell. Okay, that’s probably a demo in some way, shape, or form. You should be involved. So using software to unlock that genius, put an up funnel, down funnel. Um, but [00:12:00] to your point, the buyer, the buyer’s asking for this, right?

The buyer wants your genius. And, you know, you know, we talked about this. If you talk about the role that cares about the buyer, is passionate about the technology, um, cares about the experience the buyer, um, goes through, it’s solutions, it’s pre sales. 

Adam Freeman: Yeah. 

Todd Janzen: Like, I would actually question any other role that raises their hand and says, we’re better equipped to do it.

I don’t think it exists. It’s us. And so, so those two big reasons alone are good enough. 

Adam Freeman: I always used to describe a really good pre sales team as often being the voice of the customer or the buyer within the organization. You know, really taking that seat and challenging, holding product to be better, holding sales, but holding everybody to be better.

Because often I’ve seen pre sales people that can articulate the value prop as good as, you know, If not better than anyone in the organization and often better than the customer. They can kind of fill in the [00:13:00] gaps for customer. How are you going to generate the outcomes you want when you deploy this software?

Because nobody buys software because they want a new UI. You know, the very risk people understand that you’re buying business outcomes. What that looks like. Yeah, it matters. Of course it matters. But it matters what you’re going to do and it matters how you articulate that. And that’s why the genius needs to scale right to have impact.

But where I want to take this next. Was you had a really, really fascinating view. You’ve used solutions and pre sells interchangeably already in this podcast. And we were starting to do that, right? We, we, when we would riff on ideas, we would use it interchangeably. And you articulated why solutions and pre sells, why that Matters to be very, very personal in what you use, right?

Todd Janzen: Yeah. And, you know, I preface it with, um, I’m not trying to convince anyone here to like drop the word presales or not use it or use solutions. Use like, I don’t care. Um, and you know, the last time I saw a thought leader in our space, a [00:14:00] very brilliant thought leader, you know, try and make a stand on it, like.

There was a bit of a revolt. Um, so not going to, not going to cross that line by any means. 

Adam Freeman: We’re not going to rename the podcast either.

Todd Janzen: Like, it just works. Um, but, you know, when I think of pre sales, pre sales feels very kind of mid funnel. Right? It’s, uh, Rob Dean says, pre sales were the masters of the mid funnel. It’s such a good quote. Um, and it feels very, um, shall I say, kind of headcount driven. Because if you want to do more demos, you need more headcount.

If you’re just thinking about new business. Like those three things all have to like be in alignment. When I think of solutions and it’s a little bit of a kind of a mental shift. I want people to make solutions is revenue focused. Right. And in our, in our work, [00:15:00] um, it’s not just about new business. It’s about the entire life cycle from someone hitting your website all the way through to renewal.

And if you think about revenue versus just ARR or ACV, You start to think differently about your role and you start to think differently about the profession and it’s no longer just about headcount and live demos. It’s how do you unlock your genius across the entire go to market, right? How do you put that genius to work to drive revenue for the entire company?

And I think that’s the unlock people need to start, start making. I think a lot of people have, right? Most teams are calling themselves solutions or solutions consultants or solution engineers. Um, so again, not trying to force a rename on anyone, but solutions is revenue focused. Resales is sales focused.

And there’s a big difference in those two 

Adam Freeman: huge huge huge difference Um anyone attending demo fest new york talking about [00:16:00] they’re doing that session again So that’s fourth of november in in new york city, right? So and we’ll be doing that that session live for everyone who attends i’m going to move this on slightly then So we we kind of touched on what we think the future of Pre sale bit, and I think that’ll be a big element as we go through this podcast, right?

A lot of people are kind of trying to find their place right now. What are we in the orgs? How do we serve the buyer? How do we live with this technology that we’ve got going on? We’ve, we’ve probably never lived in a period of change for pre sales quite as intense as what this is going to be. And like you say, the economic climate around us, the political climate around us, the fact that there are layoffs in the industry, let’s, let’s talk about it.

No, no, yeah. Um, that’s why we wanted to bring the podcast back now so that we can talk about these things and talk about some of these thorny subjects in a really safe space. So if you want to join us and come and talk about something, come and do it. But I want to shift gears slightly here, Todd. Why are you excited?

To be in and around pre sales and solutions right now. [00:17:00] 

Todd Janzen: It’s simple. I mean, I think it’s, um, it’s evolving fast. Um, and if it doesn’t feel like it’s evolving fast for you, um, pay attention. I think we have kind of been doing the same old stuff for a very long time. Like this is just me being really blunt and honest.

And I’ve talked to other thought leaders about this. I’ve talked to Chris Mabry pre sales collective about this. Like, We talk about seat at the table. We talk about how we’re gaining ground and, you know, it’s changing in a good way. Um, kind of, no, it’s not like we, we kind of just, we need to have some honest conversations.

And, um, I think a lot of people are open to that, but I’ll give you one, one example. So, you know, here in my new role at consensus, um, I have a group called buyer enablement. This is essentially solutions, but we’re 100 percent digital. And the other group I have underneath is customer success. And in [00:18:00] my first week, I realized that customer success is a number that goes in front of the CEO.

It goes in front of the board. If you’re a public truck company, it’s going to go in front of Wall Street. And it, and it’s two, two KPIs. It’s NRR and GRR. Um, net retention and gross retention. And these two metrics, especially right now, are looked at to judge the health of an organization. And it was kind of in that moment, I was like, wow, like, if you have a KPI that goes in front of the C suite, the board, and Wall Street.

Well, then you have a seat at the table and, um, I mean, that’s pretty obvious, but I don’t know why that didn’t really hit me earlier. And so we as a profession need to look at that and go, if we don’t have a KPI that’s going in front of the C suite, the board, Wall Street, um, we can talk about seat at the table till we’re blue in the face.

Probably not going to happen. And so I think this idea of us working across the go to market is really [00:19:00] interesting because we don’t have to invent a new KPI. Like that would be, I think, insanity. Um, but we can be a part of KPIs that currently go to the board and the C suite. And we need to be part of that narrative.

And I think that’s where the opportunity is and I could go on and on, but I’m just going to stop right there. 

Adam Freeman: I like you getting passionate. I love you getting passionate about it, right? That’s, that’s the whole point that was doing this, that I think that passion for just being better, you know, in everything we do, just up leveling everything we do, but more particularly articulate your outcomes, not just for the organizations you work with.

And if you’re listening to this and you’re in a pre sales role and you’re not feeling about it, good, change it. Yeah. You know, like good, because if you’re not feeling that way. It’s because you can’t articulate your value and that’s in any walk of life, right? In any role, doesn’t matter if you’re pre sales or customer success or anything.

It’s just, I think customer success is a really good example of what we can look to that can be achieved. When you have [00:20:00] measurable and clear and outcome focused KPIs, am I keeping my customers happy? Are they renewing and is that good business? That’s what 

Todd Janzen: yeah, 

Adam Freeman: it’s gonna articulate, right? 

Todd Janzen: And here’s a trend that people maybe didn’t see.

So, you know, with all the tech layoffs, right? What, what kind of happened there? Well, all of a sudden tech was evaluated, used to be evaluated from growth, right? It was all about growth, growth, growth, growth, new business, blah, blah, blah. 

Adam Freeman: Growth at any cost as well. Growth at any cost. 

Todd Janzen: And money was cheap. It was cheap.

Money was cheap and that’s what fueled it. And then when money wasn’t cheap. Almost overnight, it switched from growth, profit to margins. And if, if, you know, if you didn’t have a finance background, like, like yourself, like me, I’m sitting there, like, I’m kind of learning this after the fact, the rules of the game changed.

Adam Freeman: How massive? 

Todd Janzen: And so, and so why was solutions hit as hard as any other group in [00:21:00] tech with, with layoffs? It’s because of that flip and I think it’s important to talk about because, um, you know, if you’re, if you’re feeling bummed, like if you were impacted, these things rarely have anything to do with you or your performance or your skillset.

And that’s just not me saying it. Like I’ve listened to so many podcasts, I’ve read so many books on this, it has nothing to do with you. So if you’re sitting there feeling like, man, like I could have done better or what was I not doing? Like, just stop that noise right now. 

Adam Freeman: Stop that. 

Todd Janzen: Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

The economy is driving this, um, back to my point, because we flipped from growth to profitability margin, the rules changed. And I will tell you the spotlight was shown on CS all of a sudden it’s like, like customer retention is a big metric of health. It was all about retaining your current business. And that’s kind of the new hotness right now, if I’m being honest and it’ll probably [00:22:00] flip.

I don’t know when it’s going to flip. Like you and I are not fortune tellers. Um, but that’s a, that’s a KPI that, I mean, VCs, like everyone is really. 

Adam Freeman: Absolutely. A hundred percent. So we kind of, I think we’ll start to think about kind of closing this episode out for those who listen and we get very passionate.

We could talk about this all day. Um, right. But just to kind of, again, call to action, I think something that we always historically on every 77 episodes we’ve done is I kind of have a golden takeaway, a call to action at the end. And I know you’ve got a brilliant one here, here, Todd. Um, mine’s going to be.

Just to be brave and bold, right, in your decisions in your everyday life, use, you know, listen to these podcasts, great, you know, share it with your friends. If we can help someone, great. We do not, I just want to be really clear, we have never made a penny out of this podcast. Never once have I made a single cent, dollar, yen, I don’t care what currency you’re in, right.

You’re a noob. A single any of them out this podcast and nor will we [00:23:00] we have had sponsorship offers We have had big offers to do stuff with vodcast. We’ve never taken it why we’ve never taken it because we just want to give back We’ve been we’ve been really fortunate You and I have been very fortunate to have great careers build world class teams like really great teams right and I think to a point we have had a seat so and we have had our voice heard and I think that We’ve got a lot of experience to offer, good and bad.

We’ve made a lot of mistakes, you and I have spoken about this. And I think if anyone can listen to us, and Our guests or come on the show or share it with someone that might need to hear some of this stuff Please do that’s my my kind of golden takeaway this year. It sounds like it sounds quite deep actually that one So maybe you’ve got a better one tod.

Todd Janzen: Oh, you want me to lighten it up? All right. Um I’d say, you know for those that have been impacted over this, you know with this economy the last couple years. Um, it’s real and man, like i’ve I’ve been in the middle of it. You’ve been in the middle of it You [00:24:00] Um, you know, if you’re hurting, reach out to us, um, you know, I think let’s, let’s be human.

And, uh, that’s one thing I always loved about this podcast, Adam, like whether it was you or Dawn, just quick side note, like I remember this episode where Don was just talking about mental health and I, you know, I was walking the dog and he just said something like, Hey, I just realized it wasn’t okay. And I just remember like, Tears well up in my eyes ’cause I wasn’t okay at the time and it was just like really good to hear some people talk about it.

Um, so I guess that would be kind of, kind of one takeaway. The second one, maybe a little more, more business focused would be start looking at the KPIs in the Go-to-market outside of sales. Look at my outside of pre. 

Adam Freeman: You know how I feel. Yeah, 

Todd Janzen: I, man, I know. I know, I know how to get you excited. 

Adam Freeman: I 

Todd Janzen: thought 

Adam Freeman: the fact Paul touched it was brilliant because you, you take me back there.

I remember recording that episode and it was probably the hardest one ever. We were kind of in our groove with the podcast but then we were recording regularly, we had a, [00:25:00] a lot of fun. Oh, that was a hard one to record. Like it was the one we needed to record that we didn’t know we needed to record. So everyone says, go look at the back catalog, but if you are, just go listen to that one.

’cause that, that, that was a good one. That was a, that was a good one for a lot of people to listen to. 

Todd Janzen: Yeah. I mean, I think it was just a, a wake up call for mental health. Right. And yeah. Um, anyway, um, but yeah, you know, start, start to look up the other KPIs that go to market. Figure out how you might be a part of it.

And again, I’ll go back to an example. Um, you know, if you’re using something like consensus to, to make automated demos, um, you know, marketing found those really valuable. We started tagging them with campaigns. The next thing, you know, um, that campaign was one of the top five campaigns in the entire company.

And you should absolutely be getting credit for that. And so let’s stop looking at the traditional things. Let’s stop looking at the same old things. And let’s, let’s start bright, just broadening our horizons a bit. 

Adam Freeman: [00:26:00] Yeah, a hundred percent. So we’re going to end on, um, I’m going to start asking people to two questions.

I’m going to ask you, Todd. So I’m going to treat you as the first kind of interviewee here. Um, first thing. Favorite bit of tech in your world right now? 

Todd Janzen: Yeah, and I’m gonna go, uh, a hardware and a software, if that’s okay. Oh, you’ve changed the 

Adam Freeman: rules. You’ve changed the rules. Oh, yeah. 

Todd Janzen: Oh, yeah. Let’s do this.

Um, and this is not exciting, but just my Apple AirPods. I just don’t know what I’d do without them. You know, whether you’re traveling, you’re at an airport, like, and I’m sure there’s better, better quality out there, but they seem to just work. They, they cancel noise and they need to, I don’t know if like people heard the dog whining behind me earlier, but they just seem to work and I can’t imagine life without them, whether it’s work or just, you know, taking a hike.

And then, uh, software wise. Oh boy, that one’s a little tougher. You know, I just love what Eleven Labs is [00:27:00] doing. So they take text to speech. I can train Eleven, um, with two minutes of my voice. And it nails my inflection and then I can translate it to like over 35 languages and it, and it nails the inflection.

So, you know, when I’m speaking English with my American accent here, you know, I’m hitting highs and lows. Well, when it translates me to German or Spanish, it totally changes those highs and lows so that I sound like a native speaker. And, um, there’s a podcast I listened to, um, for Scott Galloway. He just put out a thread this week that he’s using 11 Labs to translate his podcast in multiple languages.

And so it was cool to see 11 get some recognition just out of, like, out of our space and into, like, Oh, we’re gonna need to do that now. Yeah, like, you should bring them on. They’re, they’re awesome. Anyway, that was long. But, uh, back to you. What’s, what’s your go to? 

Adam Freeman: I like that. So I’ll do a hardware and software then.

I think I’m going to use the [00:28:00] controversial one for software. I think just having sidecar on my iPad. I love it. Like I can go on hot desk anywhere I need to, and I’ve got a second monitor, right? I think just having that ability and so many people I speak to don’t know you can do that, that you can use your iPad as your second monitor, you know, and just connect it up, drag onto it.

Game changer, game changer for productivity when you’re flying, when you’re traveling, when you’re anywhere. But now you love air pods. I don’t know if you found air fly as well, the little thing that you can plug into. Oh, game 

Todd Janzen: changer. 

Adam Freeman: Um, 

Todd Janzen: and it’s funny when you plug it in, when you’re on the airplane, you plug it in.

Like everyone’s like, what is that thing? Like, 

Adam Freeman: I 

Todd Janzen: can’t believe how many people are still taking the free headphones. They pass out down the aisle. 

Adam Freeman: What are you doing? A better way, there’s a better way. So yeah, we’re big fans of that. Um, I think we could do a whole episode on like luggage as well for traveling.

I think anyone who travels a lot has like a go to luggage. We should do that. Definitely. Like, 

Todd Janzen: like, have you ever like heard kit bag? Like, like at Salesforce for the longest time? Like it was like, [00:29:00] what’s in your kit bag? And like, you know, SCs, like we had physical bags full of like, Every adapter. It was like, it was like, what are you going to bail your A.

1. out with because they forgot it at home? Like, oh, you need a spare charger. Here you go. You know, like Anyway, 

Adam Freeman: I knew someone who used to kind of carry around one of those kind of wireless. Um, Adapters they plug into the tv. I was like it must be like a chromecast or something I don’t know thinking back and they would just take it with them everywhere and just turn everything to a wireless display It was just it was the coolest thing i’d ever seen so many customers were buying off the back of it.

Brilliant Anyway, 

Todd Janzen: we gotta do it. We gotta do 

Adam Freeman: it favorite piece of hardware I’m gonna go with my logitech spotlight anyone who’s known me more than 10 minutes knows how much I love that thing And even when i’m at home, right? So if i’m Doing a presentation. I love a standing desk. Okay. So, um, it makes you feel like you’re presenting live because we do so many of these things remote.

And I think I want to feel the same remote as I do when I’m in the room. I want to feel that presence. And you know, you and I are getting involved in some pretty senior meetings and you, you want to feel that presence, don’t you? And you stood up. So I think having a Logitech spotlight allows me to [00:30:00] laser point at home.

It allows me to kind of highlight, particularly if they’re busy data slides or the UI. Game Changers, so have a little look at that. They are pricey, but you know, we’ve got Black Friday coming up and I think Prime Day is just beginning, so you never know, they might be cheaper. You 

Todd Janzen: kind of had me at laser pointer for a minute.

Adam Freeman: I’m telling you, go for it. You can change the color of it, it vibrates when you get in contact with it. It does some really cool stuff. Anyway. Okay, final fun question. We’re going to ask all guests. We’re not going to tell them, so if they’re listening to this, you have to learn it. Favorite pizza topping?

Todd Janzen: Uh, I just got to go with sausage. Like, it just feels like the thing that I come back to every single time, and I’m judging your quality of pizza by the quality of your sausage. I 

Adam Freeman: can’t keep a straight face. 

Todd Janzen: I wasn’t even trying to be funny with it. I’m just like, I, yeah, I’m just going to leave it right there.

Adam Freeman: I’m going to go with spicy sausage then, so I got a big pepperoni mushroom, you know? Yeah. A [00:31:00] little bit of spicy with the mushroom, so you got to go there, but you have such better pizza in America than we do in the UK, you know, it’s hard to find really great pizza in the UK. So, um, 

Todd Janzen: We should talk about your trip to America in an episode coming up.

Adam Freeman: It’s like a culinary experience every time I go. Yeah. Cool. Right. So we’re going to end on that note. So say we’ll be back a couple of weeks time available on platforms. We’re going to do this as a video podcast as well for the first time. That’s why we’re actually wearing clothes today and collars. So it’s going to go out as a video format.

But I’m gonna say, Okay. Give us feedback, give us comments, drop us a LinkedIn, um, request, talk to us, and offer to come on an episode, right? If there’s something you want to talk about, come and join us. But Todd, great to kick off with you. That’s 77 Done, your first one in the bag as a presenter. Love it.

Awesome. 

Todd Janzen: Awesome. This is gonna be fun. 

Adam Freeman: Cool. Have a great week, everyone. Bye. 

Todd Janzen: Take care. Bye.