Ep. 82 The Rise of Forward Deployed Engineers, James Kaikis | 2 Presales in a Pod

Adam Freeman: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to episode 82 of two pre-Sales in a pod. And we are back. We've had a little holiday, we've taken some time, we've refreshed, and we are starting off with a killer episode. I'm annoyingly curious to speak to this guest, but before I do, I'm joined by my good friend, the one, only the best hair in pre-sales around Mr.

Todd Janzen. 

Todd Janzen: Oh, you're too kind, Adam.

Adam Freeman: Todd, you gotta introduce our guest. 

Todd Janzen: Yeah, I've been up since five 30 this morning in anticipation of this guest, 'cause we, actually talk a lot and we're pals, we're friends. And so, without further ado, bring James Kakis onto the stage for this episode. And before I let James speak, I just wanna tee James up because, you know, his resume is incredible.

You know, it's probably the hardest thing I'm gonna do this month is talk about James' resume. I'm kind of shooting for a B [00:01:00] minus this morning at best. But, you know, James, when I look back on what you've done, I'd say you kind of cut your teeth at Showpad, director of Solution Engineering, then moved over to Director of Solution Engineering at Salesforce.

That's where we had some awesome overlap. Yeah, you then went on to co-found Presales Collective, which has been just a gift to our profession. Yeah, cannot thank you enough. Uh, also, host of the Presales Collective podcast, which has just been a juggernaut and I look back, James, the first episode you had me on was October 18th, 2021.

Wow. Uh, and I was listened to a little bit of that last night and I just wanna thank you again for that. That was, that was cool, co-founder of Pre-Sales Academy, chief Revenue and Experience Officer at TestBox CRO and functional leader at Pavilion. And I will say most recently, founder of Go-to Market Shift, although you, [00:02:00] you founded that, over seven years ago, and I know we're gonna talk a little bit about what you're up to lately.

But, welcome to the program and just thank you for being here. 

James Kaikis: Thanks. Thanks for having me, Todd. Love, love the intro. I always like the joke that, uh, there shouldn't be Game of Thrones intros, but that one felt like a Game of Thrones intro. But, uh, I really appreciate the intro. I'm so happy you and Adam had, uh, asked me to be on the podcast.

Obviously long time listener, even from when Adam and Dawn were doing it, you know, it was like one of the still the first early podcasts for the profession. You know, I think continuously I kick myself at these moments. Right? It's very cool that the three of us are on this podcast. After you just mentioned like 4, 5, 6 years of knowing each other and talking about these topics, and we've all grown in our careers and evolved in our careers, and so.

You know, giving back and having this platform is fantastic. So thanks for having me. I'm excited to dig in. 

Adam Freeman: Yeah, that's, that's one of the things we should get melancholy about later. I think looking back [00:03:00] maybe what's changed since we all believed in this profession, right? And we, all of us on here, and many people, listeners found a voice, started posting.

There was very little about the profession. It was a bit of a, an unknown. I'd love to kind of explore what we think are the big shifts, at some point later, but maybe fill us in right. PSC was such a huge, that's where you kind of burst into the scene in terms of finding, I, I believe finding your voice and your narrative, right.

Of, 

James Kaikis: yeah. 

Adam Freeman: Of when a profession was trying to do that. And you, you definitely had a place in shaping what I was, but what have you been up to since then? So let everyone know. 

James Kaikis: Yeah, thanks Adam, you know, I, I tell people all the time, I, I learned, uh, being a solutions leader, that being a having a solutions background was really a superpower, right?

You get so much exposure and so many different teams and orgs and functions, and, try being a CRO and hiring for marketing and realizing how specialized that function is. You realize very quickly. How generalized, the solutions role is. And that taught me so much and [00:04:00] really gave me the confidence to go and be an entrepreneur with pre-sales collective.

And during that, I feel like, and I appreciate you saying, I really found who I was, like who I was as a leader, how I wanted to show up every day from a values and morals perspective, but I realized I had so much exposure into all these different areas. Then I'm like, wow, like I'm biased. But solutions leaders make amazing entrepreneurs.

And after pre-sales collective, and you know, we, we joined a, a, a private equity company that built and bought communities. After about 18 months, I realized it was time for me to take a step back and do something different. And I think for myself, I felt like I wanted to take. What I felt was like the next step in technology, and that was becoming A-C-R-O-C-R-X-O overseeing all of go to market because I thought, hey, I've got the solutions background, I've got, I, you know, I ran a business.

Let me go show other folks that, like I love the solutions profession. It taught me everything. There's a next step and next evolution that makes me feel like I've got a superpower. So [00:05:00] overseeing all of go to market and every customer facing function was an incredible experience. I mean, I tell people all the time that like you are more as a solutions professional, prepared for that moment than you think you are.

Right? You really are. And I think both of you guys. Are examples of that too, where you've taken on more functions, you've taken on different responsibility, but go back to that core ethos. And so I think overseeing all of go to market and really understanding how the solutions and the trust and the customer journey are at the ethos of everything that we do.

Right. And so, you know, it's just roles and functions and responsibility and jobs to be done on like. Who does what in that customer journey. And we had an incredible run at TestBox. It was super exciting, but I realized that entrepreneurial, uh, the entrepreneurial spirit was calling me again, right? Was calling me again.

I've got small kids at home. I've got a daughter who's gonna be in high school here soon who lives distance. And it was like, this is a different chapter of my life. And. I want to go back to that entrepreneurial seat and I'm leaning on those, those core [00:06:00] values that I learned as a solutions engineer day to day and talk to salespeople, to, and sales executives to start thinking about trust and thinking about value as currency.

And so now I'm continuing to try to do that and highlight leaders who are doing that day to day to be an inspiration for folks, right? Like that's what's so critical is I don't know everything, but if I can have a platform to, to share that as well, that's where I wanna focus my time. 

Todd Janzen: Yeah. James, I'm so, I'm so glad you, you talked about your family and, just all the stuff you've been doing.

Like you, I gotta spell this out for the audience.. You are a very busy human and you talk to a ton of people. Mm-hmm. You and I spoke last week and on Friday I had people talking, uh, texting me, saying I'm on with James cake is right now. And it's just like, I, I I'm pretty sure you don't sleep. I know you travel to go be with your daughter quite frequently.

Um, like I, I, I, I gotta say it because [00:07:00] we're gonna di dive into some topics today. Mm-hmm. You don't just poke at these topics from the side, like you are living it, you are in it, you are talking to people every single day, multiple times a day. Mm-hmm, and so the trends and the things that you're seeing are real.

Um, and I just like, I've gotta emphasize that and honestly to goodness, like, when do you sleep my friend? I, 

James Kaikis: I appreciate that, Todd, I think if I take this like a, like a sports reference, it's like I'm a student of the game, you know, like I always have been. I'm a lifelong learner. I'm always trying to understand and unpack things.

And I think to, to Adam, your question earlier. That was actually one of the things that I felt like I, when I went back into being a, a head of go-to-market, CRO, I felt like I needed to put my money where my mouth was. Like, I felt like, like I'm like, it's easy to like pontificate on LinkedIn, right? And talk about all these things.

And when you're not in the seat, especially after a couple years of pre-sales collective, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna go NC and I'm gonna build this model. [00:08:00] From the ground up and prove to people that it works. Right. And I'm thankful that Consensus allowed me, uh, to be the keynote in London. And I talked about a lot of what I built, and I had a lot of people come up to me like, oh my gosh, I didn't know that.

Like, you know, you could do that kind of stuff. And so I think for me it's like putting your money where your mouth is, but then like talking to the folks that are living and breathing and doing that, right? I think, I've learned that I've got a special ability to see trends, right? My, my, my dad kind of jokes with me about this, right?

It's like being able to see trends. And here trends. So I'll have like 10 conversations and I'll start to be able to pick out, okay, what's happening, where are things going? And like a small fact, and I think I talked to Todd about this recently, is Consensus had me at the demo fest in San Francisco, which was almost three years ago now, and I made a i I, I presented on pre-sales redefined and talk about the collapsing org structure of professional services and cs.

And most people remember the. Baton handoff, uh, slide that I had, and most people referenced that that failed baton handoff. And I [00:09:00] remember there were some people in my network, some people at some of the biggest companies in the world that I trust and, and they trust me. And they said, James, you're crazy.

That's, that's never gonna happen. Right? That'll never happen. A company like ours, two years later, three years later, it's happening, right? And I think what I've learned is it's not like I told you so, or Oh, you're right. I don't actually like that feeling. I want the feeling of like, I shared something to you and you heard it first, so that when you hear it later you're like, oh, James brought that up.

James is knowledgeable on this topic. James knows people that are knowledgeable on this topic. Let me go learn. And I think, like, as I think about, I've been really thinking about what I want to be known for. Devin Reeds buddy of mine and you know, has been really helping me try to be like, oh, be the go-to-market operator.

But I've realized. And maybe this is the wrong thing. I wanna be known for impact, right? I wanna be known for making an impact. And if I can do that in a, a plethora of different ways, and that's. Highlighting the people that are doing really innovative experimental work, like, that's cool to me. So, I get a lot of joy.

I get a lot of [00:10:00] energy from it, as you can tell. I'm getting fired up just thinking about it and talking about it, so yeah, I appreciate it and I, I think, not everyone in their day to day has the ability to have all these conversations, and I think that's why I wanna share my learnings, you 

Todd Janzen: know?

Yeah. I, I wanna get into the main topic in just a bit. We're gonna talk about f des forward deployed engineers in just a bit, but, but. Since you brought up kind of trends and where things are going, I think it would be very interesting for our audience, you know, overlooking the pre-sales professional over the last several years, where have things progressed faster than you thought, and where are we lagging?

Kind of what's, what's your take on that? Yeah. 

James Kaikis: Well, I think I want to answer the start of this by saying that the core fundamentals matter more than ever. You know, I'll talk to people all the time, and it's like the core fundamentals of the role in the profession matter. Where I think things have not evolved.

Maybe I'll start there is I still think we can be stuck in a very [00:11:00] myopic approach of what the solutions engineering role and function is and the outcome oriented. Yeah, I've been a little more aggressive on this talk track, but like, what, what I think is, a sin of the profession is like we think that everything's about the demo, right?

We don't wanna do pipe gen work, we don't wanna build relationship. You know, I'm teaching AI proficiency trainings and I've had SCS be like, account research. Why would I do account research? Mm-hmm. And I'm like, why would you not do account research? You know? And, I think we've gotta take that lens off like the demo.

You know, trust Radius will still say it's a very core, important asset to a sales cycle. But I think as you guys know better than I do, the way people consume, uh, content, including the demo is very different than it used to be. And I think that like. We are business drivers. Like something I tried to teach at pre-sales, collective Elevate, uh, frontline leadership training program was pre-sales is a business.

I think people need to think about this profession a little bit differently and [00:12:00] you know, just 'cause you do a demo and a demo has someone's name and color and a logo on it doesn't make it a custom demo. And I've been guilty of this myself. I'm pitching the same demo to the CEO. That I am to the admin.

Right. And I, I know like, you know, uh, Garrin did a lot of really great thought leadership on this, but I still don't think it's the standard in the profession. And I think that's where a lot of the friction lies. And I think that's where I get a little frustrated is like, we've gotta evolve right? Go to market and the world is evolving around us.

And to answer that, like the other part of this question, tech is moving faster than I think anybody. Has ever been a part of, right? Like even in the last 20 years, it is moving so fast. For example, in my AI proficiency training class, we were teaching that nano banana, you know, was the best nano. Banana three was the best image generator, literally.

Like by the time this goes out, two days into our workshop, Chatt BT came out with a new image generator that is really, really good, right? Like things are moving so fast and it's unlike [00:13:00] anything that we've seen before. And I think there's a lot of macro trends that I could talk about a lot. Uh, but why does that apply to this profession?

Right? Is I think you're hearing things like FTEs for deploy engineers. You're hearing things like go to market engineering, you're seeing more solutions leaders take over professional services and customer success. And I'm not saying that the SES are doing the implementation, I'm just saying that the leaders.

Are maybe overseeing the function so that incentives and outcomes are aligned, right? Incentives and behaviors, uh, are aligned. And so I, I think what's happening though, and why this is all happening is that we realize that, you know, the. It sounds cliche, but the playbook is broken. Like things are different today and buyers are different and they don't trust us and value orientation is different.

And so that is speeding up. And the way that I think executives get happy years too, and like, you know, a lot of fomo is that you're starting to see new roles being created and these roles are being plugged in. And sometimes [00:14:00] without like a, what does this role actually do? Because it, what we need to start orienting around is the jobs to be done and what are the jobs to be done, and then what are the functions and the roles that are actually doing them.

And I think that is what's changing so fast. And the solutions profession is so uniquely equipped to do so well in a, in a world where trust and curr, uh, trust and value are the ultimate currency. And sales gets more technical, right? Like, so I think this is our moment. I'm very biased in that, but I think that's what I wanna see.

And that's why, you know, think about what hasn't changed and what's not moving fast enough versus what's, what's going. And like, it's a, it's gonna be a collision course, right? And you're gonna have some leaders that lean in and experiment. And many that unfortunately get left behind 

Adam Freeman: and you, you make a good, you've just reminded me of an exercise I used to, this is, this is like a trip down memory lane.

I'm, I'm absolutely loving like what's going through my head as you talk, right? Yes. Love it. Some one of those movies where you see like 6, 8, 10 years. Flash in an instant, but one of the exercises I remember we used to do [00:15:00] was I used to ask people that I meant to saying, write down what you do day to day, and then go back and look at your job description.

If you were to advertise and you were advertising for an SE right now. See if that job description actually matches what the doing of the job is, because they are two completely different pieces of paper. Yes. And that's part the problem that you are hiring for a skillset. And I, I really wanna ask you about skillset of why you think this profession's going in the moment, but.

Are you hiring for the skillset that's gonna achieve the actions? That creates the outcomes? And yeah, that's kind of what you are saying, right, is that at the minute there is, it seems to be a disconnect between what the profession's able to do and knows what to do, but what it needs to do to create the outcomes in this modern go to market engine.

And they are different, right? They, 

James Kaikis: they are. And, and like, you know, I've, I've been no stranger to say the predictable revenue model, and that's like the SDR, the ae, the se, like all these functions that we've created over the last, you know. Two decades. It is fundamentally broken, right? It's, it's built around an internal process to de to [00:16:00] deliver value to the customer.

But the pendulum has switched in terms of the power, right? Like the customers and the power, uh, seat and the decision making seat. And we need to be building CU journeys internally to meet them where they're at, right? So I think to, to that question, right, is like. Yeah, any job description you read. Right.

Um, you know, I think we as scs, we kind of, again, the generalist aspect, we kind of know there's some difference there, but, but you're totally right and I think what's different about this Adam two is like, let's just even apply this to AEs. And SDRs is start to think three years from now, five years from now with AI and advancements.

What actually goes away on the job. Yeah. And like I've talked to SCS or like, I love building demos. Look, I, I love delivering the demos. I like the strategy. But if I have to spend 20 hours building a demo environment, count me out. And as an executive, you are expensive and Todd knows this world really, really well.

You know, it's expensive resource. And so I [00:17:00] hear you on that. And I think, it's scary to change, right? It's scary to change and actually you get fired if you, you know, institute change and it doesn't work, right? If I'm just being, you know, Frank, right? It can be hard. That's the joke of no one got fired for buying SAP or Oracle and you know, maybe now Salesforce at this point.

Um, you know, but like. Those things are safe bets and I think like we're entering this world of experimentation and testing and like we've gotta get out of our box and like start to realize like we as solutions professionals can be deployed in so many valuable ways. And like taking the, the hats off, the hat off and the preconception on like what we should or shouldn't be doing and focusing on the customer is the orientation that I think we've been missing.

Yeah. 

Adam Freeman: But the, the other side of this, is that people want to work for leaders where they feel they're adding value. Everyone wants to go to work in a day and feel I've made a difference. I've, I've added value. And I think we're starting to see people follow leaders more and more. I mean, you see it at the highest, highest levels down to [00:18:00] the, the, the, you know, leaders of, of very small team level.

Mm-hmm. People will follow leaders where they feel I'm going to that leader. 'cause I believe in their vision and I believe in how they're moving because I feel safe totally. In that state of change. I think. As leaders, you know, if we're talking to a subset of the community and the listeners now, wherever you are in the go-to market motion, I think all of us leaders have to look and go, what's the amount of change we've delivered this year versus last year?

Mm-hmm. Are we tying into that new motion? I think you make a really, really good point there, James. 

James Kaikis: Yeah, I, I appreciate that. And I think we've all worked for really great leaders that we would go work for in the moment. We work for leaders that we would never work for again. Right. And you have to ask yourself like.

Why wouldn't I wanna work for that person? Or why would I wanna work for that person? And I've always found that, you know, I, I was actually talking about this with, with someone the other day, and it's, as a leader, I always love and appreciate this response of hire good people and get outta their way. I also entirely.

Disagree with that methodology that you have to be able to deliver value to these people and help them do their job. And it's not get out of the [00:19:00] way, but it's support them to learn and to grow. And actually as a leader, you know, you're only as good as your worst employee and what you allow them to be able to do or not do.

And so I've always believed from a leadership perspective, your job is to raise the floor and raise the ceiling of your team. And like people want to go work for those leaders. Now, Adam, I will say I've learned in my career. There are some people that are in different places in their life that they just want to show up to work.

They don't wanna put the energy in. Yeah. They wanna do a fine job and that's it. And I think that's okay. I actually appreciate and respect that. Mm-hmm. More than maybe I did 10 years ago, but I think you're exactly right in like we don't have the tolerance anymore for in competency and for someone who doesn't have my best interests in mind as an individual.

Todd Janzen: Yeah. 

James Kaikis: Yeah. 

Todd Janzen: Let's,. I think we, we've done a good job of, of teeing up this, the, the main topic here, and again, I think the point of, of exploring this is we don't wanna leave anyone behind in the profession. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. So that's why [00:20:00] we're exploring this today, and I hope there's some aha moments, and I hope we can, we can dig into the, to the details a little bit of, you know, like for those that are convinced, they're like, okay, what are my next steps?

So yeah. James, we want to talk about this trend that you're seeing called Ford deployed. Engineers. 

James Kaikis: Yes. 

Todd Janzen: And you've seen this trend for a long time, and I'll admit, I'm only new to the trend, in fact. Mm-hmm. You sent me some, some reading material before this episode, and so I feel super late to it, so let, let's dig into it.

What is an 

James Kaikis: FDE. Yeah, and it's better laid than never Todd, right? It's better laid than never, the FDE, and I'm gonna give my own interpretation of it, right, is a Ford Deploy engineer is a very technical resource that works alongside customers to build. Production or almost production level code within [00:21:00] a product.

And this role was made famous by Palantir 20, 25 years ago, because a lot of what they're doing is very. Custom, it's very bespoke, they'll go and build production ready instance for someone and then let them see the value and then start charging them, right? So it's a very services oriented lens that is starting to become more and more popular.

Now, let me just say that. I've also learned from friends, in Germany that they say that the FDE has existed from SAP for a long, long time. There was a world before, even pre-sales where, you know, technical resources would go on site, configure, hardware devices and let them test it right before they actually purchased.

And I think, the throughput for me, and this is where I can really get, you know, deep, is like. This is all about proof. If you start, like some people hear the FD title, like, oh, that, that won't work for me, that won't work for our [00:22:00] company. That only works in large enterprise. It only works in, in, in, in, uh, small companies.

I've heard the argument every way, shape, humanly possible. But the core fundamental is that buyers in, prospects. Customers don't trust you anymore. They don't trust what you say, and they don't believe that your solution's gonna do everything your fancy demo tells them. And then they've gotta wait six to 12 months for you to even deploy the software for it to be a fraction of the version that you showed them and sold them.

That world is changing and, I think we're starting to see a collapse of the sales cycle generally when things like FDE or AI companies get involved. But the, the, the core thesis here that I wanna highlight, especially for the solutions audience, is it's all about proof. Customers want to know that you can deliver on what you say you can before they commit.

This is why opt-outs are an all time high, you know, uh, [00:23:00] POCs are, are, you know, you know, more important than ever, the long sales cycles are very long. Pipelines have dried up, you know, slow cy sales cycles have slowed down. It's all around this burden of proof. And so I, I can, you know, dig into in many different ways, but like, that's how I see this.

I'm curious what you guys think about 

Todd Janzen: that. You know, it was funny, after we spoke James, I started to look around our own organization and although one person wasn't like the FDE here. I saw some new experiments going on where like this group was doing something very similar. This group was doing it from a value perspective.

This group was doing it, you know, from kind of a, a rapid proof of concept mm-hmm. Side. So that's what the light bulb hit me was like, oh my gosh, this is actually happening. Mm-hmm. And it, and it happened very organically because as you said, this is what customers are demanding. [00:24:00] They are and demanding it, they want it.

Right. And so, maybe I'm fast forwarding a little bit, but you know, I'm, I'm thinking about the, the solution leaders out there listening to this, the, the individuals listening to this. If I'm a leader, I'm like, oh gosh, like I've got people in seat now. Am I converting these people? Am I hiring new people?

Like what are your thoughts there? 

James Kaikis: Yeah, maybe I'll take a little bit different approach to, to start on that answer is that I did an interview with Jeff Margolis from ServiceNow, who, uh, their business has been deploying FTEs. And if you look at, you know, I've given examples of Palantir and ServiceNow right now, right?

Two large companies, massive ACVs, massive contract. Very customized and workflow oriented, so it's very easy for folks to say, okay, well yeah, that works in those bigger types of environments. At my last company, I ran an FDE LO motion before we actually called it an FDE. We just had a full lifecycle solution architect who was responsible for being [00:25:00] the the solutions engineer on the, on the pre signature.

Building the POCs, kind of scoping things out from an architecture perspective, and then going and actually doing the delivery and the implementation so that we can work faster, work more effective, in that model. So, this isn't new from that realm, and so I think it works in big companies and small companies.

Um, I'm gonna go back to the burden of proof. If you are a solutions engineering team that is just doing demos, you are, you know, maybe doing POCs, you're pushing back on the POCs. The POCs are not bringing the product to life. This is why CEOs are getting happy years around what Palantir's doing with and saying, we need an FDE team.

I mean, I talked to an executive the other day who's like, look, my CEO. Is just, he says we have to use that FTEs. And he's inserted them into the go-to-market motion. And I brought up the jobs to be done and we had an interesting conversation. He's like, it feels like the jobs to be done are a lot of the solutions engineering role.

And I was like, [00:26:00] well, how customized is your product? He's like, well. You know the FDE is building with code in the production environment. And I was like, well, do you want to have solutions engineers that are hands on the keyboard and can do that work? Or do you want to have that experimental role with the FDE?

And I think this is where I'm still trying to evolve my thinking, and this is probably a hot take for many folks in the profession. Is this the original ethos of the sales engineer, right? Like is this the original ethos of like what it started as is like very technical resource that was very hands on the keyboard that literally, you know, did a lot of the technical plugging and playing and configuration until like the boom of sas.

And then what ended up kind of happening is. You know, we bifurcated into like the technical solutions engineer and then the business savvy. You know, I've heard some people say like, you know, big T, little E or Big E, or E and B, right? Sorry, on those. Right.. It depended on the motion, right? And I'm the business savvy, se I always have been, [00:27:00] right?

I can configure things, but I'm never gonna be able to write code. And so I think for me, I start to ask myself, where is this role coming from? You know, why? So, Todd, to go back to your your question, I think again, let's break down the jobs to be done, right? This is the one thing that I don't think we talk about a lot.

I think a lot of, when I first heard that term, I was like, ah, this. Feels like very educational, like very higher education talking about this, you know, a lot of product and engineering teams use these terms, but understanding what do we need to do to get somebody to that aha moment, right? What do we need to do to that?

Get to that level of proof. And if we've got a solutions engineering team that is not able to really build out POCs to a level of expectation, we might need a more technical role to do that. And I've actually had those in my career. Where I had like POC teams, right? Where POC teams where came in and did some deployment.

Um, so to further answer that, I'll say it's all about experimentation. You know, find some people out there because we're in such a weird. Golden era of AI where things are [00:28:00] moving so fast. There are is definitely somebody on your team or some people on your team who want to try new things, who are really leaning into ai.

You might say, Hey, you're only allowed to use copilot. They're definitely using Gemini and Chatt BT, right? Like the, the data will tell you everyone is, is using things outside of the system, right?, it doesn't mean they're putting customer data in there, but they are testing. So it's like, Hey, look at some of the jobs we've done.

And understand where can we take like a couple of people on our team and test and experiment? And the place I like to experiment is with at risk customers or deals that have stalled and closed lost. Where can we run some sort of experimental motion to get those people back on the hook or before they churn?

Because I think we all know as ess, how many times did we get called in at month nine because somebody said they're gonna churn and like they need our help. You know? And like. We're not comped on it, you know, like we're not incentivized on it. So I think, again, that's a longer answer and like a journey.

But, there are a lot of nuances and complexity with this [00:29:00] conversation. 

Todd Janzen: I'd say what you just said really resonates with me. So at Salesforce I built an organization called Q Branch, you know, we ran the demo strategy for the entire company. We invented the demo engineer role. I had designers, I had videographer, like all these different roles and, and that came about from experimentation.

Mm-hmm. It was like, oh, I see a need here, let's try this person out doing it for a little bit. Oh, mm-hmm. That's working. Okay. Let's add a few more people to it. So, yeah. Oh man. Does that resonate? And I think, I think, I think that is the right approach, right? Yeah. You're not gonna like change things overnight.

The other thing I'd say is, when I look at one of my top employees right now. He is exhibiting this behavior. It's we're on the phone with a big customer or they're at risk and they're like, well, maybe we'll get around to trying it next week. We'll maybe build some things and he just goes in and builds it for him, and we show up to the next meeting and it's there and it's [00:30:00] a very different conversation.

Very different. And so I've, I've seen this firsthand working. 

James Kaikis: I, I think what's interesting about that is 'cause, you know, I have a hospitality background, right? So like, I worked in hospitality, I tell you, I won the best jobs in the world. I worn Aloha shirt and worked on the beach in Hawaii, right? My job as a VIP manager was to show people a great vacation.

I had budget to like, you know, make sure they had like a, you know, amenities in their room and could go and do cool things, right? And what I've learned is, you know, there's a lot of those. Surprise and delight and those things that you can learn from the hospitality experience that I think we've always lost sight of in, in B2B Tech.

And I think this has actually been a, a big win for me personally as I've kind of taken that ethos and brought it to the day-to-day of solutions. Because to your point, Todd, there's a very different conversation when it's you are sitting across from the customer trying to sell them something, trying to get them bought in to instead.

Moving next to them, right? You're essentially moving [00:31:00] next to them and say, let me build this for you. Let me show what your life would look like. Why don't you actually use this in a control pilot? We'll run the control pilot for you. That changes the dynamic and the relationship entirely, and people don't want to be sold to right now.

And so I think like that is the, the win that we're all looking for. And yes, there are companies, I talked to somebody, uh, this morning, uh, at breakfast who said their CEO, hired someone from Palantir. And build out an eight person FDE team in the last two months, they said it's actually causing a lot of issues because there was no real mandate.

Um, and these people are building custom content on a platform, yet the ACVs are actually very, very low. And so they're saying, Hey, like we're actually really busy. But when you look at the dollars and the investment, it's not paying for itself back. Right? So that's a lot of the argument that I hear is like, oh, you can't go put a 200, $300,000, you know, development resource on projects that are only doing [00:32:00] five 20 K deals.

Right? Like you've gotta think about the resource and the ROI. That's why I lean back into the jobs to be done. 

Todd Janzen: Yeah, we were talking last week, James, and I was trying to, I was trying to figure out like, what does spark this? All of a sudden, right? Like what, yeah, what all of a sudden, you know, accelerated this?

And I said, ah, I think it's actually ai, right? So, mm-hmm. AI is showing up and everyone's products now. And I think what's happening is people just don't believe it works or they don't believe. Yep, you know, they're gonna get the value out of it, that the company's claiming it will. 

James Kaikis: Mm-hmm. 

Todd Janzen: Mm-hmm. And so the thought I had was, wow, it's really AI that's accelerating this concept of an FDE because people just aren't taking us for our word anymore.

The demo isn't working anymore. People have to see it to believe it. Do you agree with that? Yeah. 

James Kaikis: So, Ooh, I could take this in a whole lot of ways. Right. So what's really interesting about AI native go-to-market companies [00:33:00] is that they have found a way to collapse the sales cycle unlike anything we've ever seen over the last 20 years.

And we can spend two hours talking about this topic, right? Where we just did, you know, back in the day we did four discovery calls before we let somebody see a product right before like, something like consensus existed, right?, even now we still do, you know, self, you know, service. We give you a couple demos, we do a custom demo.

You know, maybe we get your content and AI companies that show up in that first customer call with your data in their system. And they show you it right there and you're like, what the, how did this happen? Or it's happens after One call, once you give them the data and the time to Aha has been col collapsed.

And that in the AI world is super interesting because a lot of our, you know, historic companies can't operate with that type of speed. And so I think that is actually one of the aspects of the AI that isn't AI in the product, but like AI [00:34:00] product specific. But I also think that. You're right. The skepticism is everywhere.

People are selling their ai. And, I will say we, we did this well at my last company with Gong, right? Gong was a big customer of ours, and Gong came out with their ai. And so previously before us, you know, even, even like, I, I used to joke about this with Salesforce Einstein back in the day. Like, oh, like Einstein would like have AI and you could ask it a question, but we hard coded three answers in there, right?

Like you could only ask it the same questions and get the answer. What we were ha what we were kind of suggesting with Gong was. Hey, in the demo environment, 'cause it's based off synthetic data. Ask the customer to ask it a question and any question that they want because it's based off the data. And I think Gong did a really good job of trying to get the market to see, wow, this is real, right?

This AI actually works. And so I think that those are what we're kind of competing with, but again, I, I also think that there's macro issues of. Pipelines are drying up, deals are taking a lot longer. [00:35:00] ACVs are smaller land and expand is becoming more and more prevalent. And so it's a, it's a convergence of trends is what I, I like to call it.

Adam Freeman: And, and I do think that things like vibe coding have got a role to play here, right? Because there's a, a lack of trust because you've now got people with very, very, very high business acumen levels that are able to produce somewhat. Seemingly evident, products. And so people do. But when you're talking, I wrote something down in, in my notes.

I'm just gonna read it 'cause it, it feels like for me it was a clarifying moment when you were talking. Now I just thought, and I wrote down is the Harbor demo is the Harbor Tour demo dead. And what I mean by that is. Yeah. That kinda show and tell look around, okay, the customer's own data working in a solution that is where they wanna be.

And it's, it's about that kind of, it's proof of concept is, is king now, right? Mm-hmm. And what you are really describing James, is that that that f, that FDE kind of becomes the POC in a way. Mm-hmm. [00:36:00] Because you're moving away from selling the, selling the dream and selling this idea and this notion and vaporware right to.

Delivering the reality before the customer's caught up with that reality. Yeah. You know, you're delivering so much tangibility before, 'cause we realizes they actually want it. Yeah. And it's a real interesting thing 'cause it shifts the power doesn't it? It shifts the power away from Yeah. Who can talk the best and sell the best to who can build the fastest Right.

James Kaikis: Adam, this is, you nailed it, man. You absolutely nailed that. Right? And I think that, yeah, my point of view as the Harbor Cruise and Harbor demo is dead. I, as I brought up earlier, as solutions engineers, you can find out so much about a company through these LLMs, whether they're public or private. There's a lot of information out there.

And so, you know, I, I've, I've been a, a big proponent of like. I don't believe in no disco, no demo. I believe disco is extremely important, right? But the buyer needs something for their time. And no longer are we [00:37:00] getting on that first call to learn what matters to them. I can pull podcasts, I can pull, I can go get LinkedIn posts.

There's so much out there to learn to show up with a point of view. And so I think to your point, like no longer do you talk really, really well and just like get someone across the line, you have to show them. And I think that you're right, that FDE motion. And that like show them that it works is that burden of proof that people have been missing.

Mm-hmm. Right. And I, I really like the way that you position that. 

Todd Janzen: Mm-hmm. The buyer needs something for their time that, yeah. That is really good. 

James Kaikis: I don't know about you, but I hate to be banted to death, just to be like, all right, we'll get on another call. You know, I'm like, oh, 

Adam Freeman: gimme some. Can I tell you what a Bria buying experience, right?

Because I still buy software, right? I, I actually really enjoy being a buyer. You know? He said, no one's buying, right? I do not want people up in my dms after I say this, right? Do not, do not get up in there. But, I, I recently looked at a piece of software and as soon as I went on the call, the person came and said, alright, so tell me everything you are looking for and what you want.[00:38:00] 

And I instantly said, okay, is this how we're doing it in 2025? Like, because I think we, yeah, and I, sometimes I forget. I, I feel sometimes on that, that spectrum you talk about of readiness for change, I always felt I was maybe on that edge and sometimes I'm very conscious and that not everyone has, but who I talking to was very much not even in a changed mindset.

They were fully bank qualifying me, literally working down the B, the A, the n, the T then went through the med pick straight after that. Almost an alphabetical order. Right. And that's why was you got both. Wow. The next question I said, listen, like we're not gonna do this, right? I want what you said there to, I wanted something for my time.

I'd given up an hour and I'd seen no product, I'd seen no value. I didn't understand what it was gonna do for me. And I left the call with an ask, which yours for more time. And I said, I'm sorry, I'm, yeah, unless you can send me a video and show me this. Right. I'm not prepared to invest more time right 

James Kaikis: now.

Right. Oh yeah. I gave you my time, right? Yeah. Like my expect, my expectation is I get something [00:39:00] in return, and this is why, you know, let me throw a plug that I think solutions engineers are going to make amazing account executives. Yes. In this next world of ai because. You know, I think that's what's made me, I think actually the three of us, like good salespeople is just like we care.

We have, we, we focus on value and we build trust. And so no one wants me band to death. Let's have a real conversation and like, let me know that you did your homework before this call. I'm way more willing to give you my time and be open with you if I've known you've done your homework. And I think that that's what we've lost sight of.

Um, in the last decade, which I think that's where the pendulum is switching, right? The pendulum is changing in that realm. So, yeah, man, I, I, Adam, I can't believe that that stuff still happens like that. That to me is like, I'm gonna send a message to the VP of sales and be like, Hey, man, like, just so you know, like, this experience really sucks.

Yes. Sucks. You need to go.

Adam Freeman: We are, I think we could talk for days and days. This has been a really, really good, I hope, listening to this, it comes across how [00:40:00] it feels like to be part of it. 'cause it, this is just, there's no editing goes on in this podcast. We may, we kinda spoke before we came on air saying, you know, we don't list a set of questions.

We sit and have a genuine conversation. Right. Yeah. And I think just, you've got such a view, James, and such an awareness actually of probably where we're all trying to head to. And I think you articulate. This vision of what we'll like to become, whether it's three months, whether it's three years away.

James Kaikis: Mm-hmm. I believe there 

Adam Freeman: is a subset that that will get there, at various paces and I think it's just so good. And just thank you so much for coming on, sharing this with us. It's great that we've got 82 episodes in. We've finally got you. On the podcast, it only took eight. Two better 

James Kaikis: late than never.

Right? When I told Todd earlier, so I glad to be good. We can before 

Adam Freeman: afford your attendance fee. That was the problem. You fee was just too high for this non-revenue generating podcast right now, you know. 

Todd Janzen:, so, so winding down here a bit. Yeah. If people are looking to understand more James, like what are some [00:41:00] resources, uh, that you'd recommend they go, they go search for?

I know, you sent me the interview that you did with, with Jeff, which was phenomenal, yeah, thanks. What are your thoughts? 

James Kaikis: Uh, so, you know, I appreciate that question. This is one of the things in why I'm doing what I'm doing. So go to market shift is really to be. An organization to help individuals and companies in this next era.

And so really focusing on it almost as a media brand. So, uh, go to market shift, uh, dot com or the YouTube has interviews. I've got a lot of interviews and a lot of articles written with leaders who are doing this type of work, I'm actually working on. Season, in person next year, I have my newsletter on gtm shift.substack.com, where I'm actually breaking these down into to more depth.

Um, I will also, I I get that. It's 

Todd Janzen: phenomenal. It's 

James Kaikis: a, it's a great newsletter. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. I, I will say in a world where I feel like a lot of people are focused on volume, I actually decide to roll my newsletter back and focus on depth.. Because there's a lot of people that I read their po, their [00:42:00] newsletters that haven't been giving me a lot of value, and so I want to kind of turn that, uh, around.

So that's one thing that I will say. As I lightly told both the two of you before this, I am very excited to, to highlight that I'm working on a new project that's gonna be going live in January, 2026, and it is a solutions project, and it is gonna be really servicing this profession, especially the executives in this profession.

On these types of topics. I think Todd, Adam, like, we've had an amazing conversation and like hearing this, it, it just gets me more fired up because people ask me these things and there is nowhere to go for this. Right. You know, and I, I think, there's some great content and assets and, and Consensus does a great job as well.

But I think there needs to be a hyper-focused place for solutions engineering leadership and solutions leadership, to come together to learn. And so I'm excited to announce, that I will be announcing, uh, something in January. Oh, I'm actually writing a book as well, I thought we were getting 

Adam Freeman: an exclusive [00:43:00] then, James.

I thought we were about to get a massive exclusive then. 

James Kaikis: I mean, this is the most I've told anybody publicly. So, you know, like I, I I think what's awesome is like, I think Consensus continues to do an amazing job for the profession, and that's why, you know, I, I long have admired, you know, the two of you in the business.

I also think that there's a, a place for, you know. A dedicated business that's for this, right? Totally agree. You know, a dedicated, a dedicated conference for executives. You know, I, I a dedicated programming for executives. And so, if you're not following me on LinkedIn, I'd encourage you to, to follow me and if you ping me and let me know you're interested in following along.

I've got a list of people I'm gonna be reaching out before I make a public announcement. So thank you guys for the platform to be able to share this and just for the opportunity. I really, uh, again, I admire the two of you guys. I, I love what you're doing and just so thankful to be able to be on the podcast and, and share my thoughts today.

Yeah. 

Adam Freeman: Well, I'm just, I'm so happy you joined us for our re rerelease. This is the third rerelease of this podcast course. We go and we get busy. We've got real [00:44:00] jobs, you know, we doing stuff, but you know, part of it's just recharging Right. And making sure we're to go. But Todd, I'm just so happy we're back on the microphones, Todd.

I love it. I love to, I 

Todd Janzen: agree. And, we can't let James go before we ask our final two questions. Yeah. The first one is, favorite pizza topping? 

James Kaikis: Oh. You know, it used to be pepperoni, but I, ever since I moved to Chicago, I'm a, I'm a sausage guy. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a sausage guy. 

Adam Freeman: Really? Chicago did it to me.

Chicago did it to me. 

Todd Janzen: I've answered the that question with sausage every time. But I recently had a pizza in New York with pepperoni and hot honey. Oh, ooh. So hot honey pepperoni combo. Ooh, give it a whirl. Ooh. I gotta try that. Alright, last question. Favorite bit of tech right now? 

Adam Freeman: Ooh, that can be hardware or software, right?

Yes. I think we've had people answer that two ways. 

James Kaikis: [00:45:00] Yeah. I, I, I, there are a lot of answers that I want to, to lead with right now, but I, I, I have to, I have to be very transparent if I think about what I use the most. It is very boring to say like chat. TBT has become such a good thought partner to do research and to run ideas past, and you guys talked about this earlier with me.

It's like I have conversations with people and I go back and say, Hey, like I learned, I heard about this topic. Like what do you know about this topic? Like what resources can you find me about this topic? Can you make sure these are real sources but like link your sources And, I use it to learn actually a lot as well and go validate what else.

Um, uh, I hear in a conversation I actually learned a lot about FTEs, and really dug in through like a chat GBT. So I hope that answers the question. It's a little boring, but it's just been a great thought partner that I think people don't realize. It can really just help you 

Todd Janzen: think about things differently.

Now, I, I think, you know, a lot of us [00:46:00] listening are, have the presale sales, DNA. I think that that's perfectly in line. 

Adam Freeman: Yeah. Cool. So we'll wrap it there. James. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming and being a part of this, Todd. Thank you. Let's, we're gonna commit, we're going to a hundred, we're going beyond.

Okay. We're recording and we're back. So again, if you're interested in kind of joining an episode, you've got something to share, reach out to us. Come beyond, just like James did, come reach out to us. It'd be myself or Todd, we're looking forward to hitting the mic soon, so see you later. Take care.

Bye.