The Death of a Salesman – Details, episodes & analysis

Employee Advocacy or Corporate Spam?

There is a fine balance to be had regarding Employee Advocacy.

In this episode, I am joined by the brilliant Andrew Seel, the CEO of Togethr. 

Andrew was been using the internet since the AOL days of CD-Roms and this started his career to where he finds himself today.

His mantra "At the heart of this is a belief that ultimately your people are your brand and that a shared purpose - which you act on and talk about - will set your brand apart in the modern world." 

Andrew and I chat talk through :

What is Employee Advocacy today?

Should Everyone in the organisation be part of the programme?

Do you need a technology platform to support it?

Data, Metrics, Tracking & Success.

How do you help people overcome "Imposter Syndrome"?

Corporate vs The Personal

The Rise of Community Voices in organisations.

And, of course, Generative AI.

To learn more about how Andrew and his team can help you launch your Employee Advocacy programmes, connect with him here >>> (6) Andrew Seel | LinkedIn

Or visit Togethr to access resources and more to help you get started. 

Welcome to the final episode of 2023, and what better way than to help us all be "our true selves at work".

I am joined by Liz Villani, founder of #BeYourselfAtWork, a global movement dedicated to creating a new narrative around the way we work.

Liz and the team do this by helping you understand who you are, through your iAM.

"When you have your iAM you understand what makes you happy. You know you belong, you feel you are valued for who you are. You know how to be your best, and to be your most productive as a leader, manager and a person. All lifting your enjoyment and success at work."

I have been through the process with Liz to find out my iAM. It was a thought-provoking exercise and revealing, too. 

Liz has been working on this for almost 20 years, helping individuals and teams to understand themselves better.

We discuss my iAM and what it means. This isn't about being labelled as everyone has a unique iAM, because we are all unique.

We also discuss how organisations in Financial Services, Professional Services and Private Equity are using this approach in pitching and helping them win by truly standing out from a crowd of grey suits.

As you listen to our discussion, I encourage you to pause and reflect on what makes you, well, you.

You can learn more about #BeYourselfAtWork here https://www.beyourselfatwork.com/iam

Follow Liz on LinkedIn here : Liz Villani - beyourselfatwork | LinkedIn

Read my iAM here : https://www.linkedin.com/posts/alexanderlow_alexander-low-i-am-activity-7137362034442018816-E0mv?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop 

Thank you for taking the time to listen.

Be kind to yourself.

Yes, it's another podcast about generative ai and its impact on sales & marketing.

Seth Marrs joins me as a returning guest. Seth is a research director at Forrester and is at the leading edge of "leveraging data, process and technology to transform global sales and service organizations."

Unless you live under a rock, you will have seen the explosion of conversation about generative ai and how it will change how we live and work, both at home and in the workplace. 

There is a narrative emerging that this will replace some aspects, and roles, in sales and marketing roles. 

Seth & I get into it, to try and cut through the noise :

What is generative ai?

Is it really that new?

Where are the main focus areas that Seth sees it being deployed?

What is the impact?

What will this mean for email copy and cadences?

Will we need to declare if something is purely AI generated?

Will there be a world where gen ai is talking to gen ai?

What do organisations need to consider when deploying gen ai across the enterprise?

My thanks to Seth, as ever, for his time and knowledge. It feels like we truly are at the dawn of a new era in sales and marketing.

How are you and your business using gen ai? 

Follow Seth here : https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethmarrs/

Forrester resource on Generative AI : https://www.forrester.com/blogs/category/generative-ai/ 

This episode was recorded on May 23rd, 2023; hence, no doubt what was discussed will have moved on.

In this episode, I am joined by the brilliant Julia Nimchinski, co-founder of the GTM Community, HYPCCCYCL.

We discuss why current GTM motions are fundamentally broken and how and why you should challenge leadership by dismantling the status quo.

Join the community here: https://hypcccycl.com/, where you will learn from the best of the best in the industry.

Follow Julia on Linkedin: (3) Julia Nimchinski | LinkedIn 

In this episode, I am joined by the brilliant David J.P. Fisher, or D.Fish. 

"David is an internationally-recognized keynote speaker, sales trainer, and business coach.  He focuses on bringing the human-to-human back into sales, social media, networking, and entrepreneurship.

He is the best-selling author of 12 books on sales, networking, social media, and entrepreneurship.  And he is also a prolific contributor to blogs in the sales and marketing space.

His goal is simple: help people become RockStars in their professional lives so that they can have a positive impact on those around them."

He is now the Global Social Selling Lead - Senior Sales Enablement Program Manager for SAS. 

David and I have been connected on LinkedIn for a while and have always been inspired by his balanced approach to selling in the modern world. Hence I was delighted when he agreed to be a guest on my podcast.

David cut his teeth in the world of sales, selling door to door, cutlery for Cutco, an American high-end cutlery company - the rest, as they say, is history.

We discuss :

Have the fundamentals of sales changed that much?

We talk about the evolution of technology in sales & marketing and the impact this is having.

With access to data we have today, the importance of being insight-led.

Does the issue of change sit with Sales Leaders?

Are we going back to a full-cycle sales approach?

Why David believes sellers should think and behave like a Sherpa on a mountain.

I also put David on the spot and asked him about his views on Generative AI.

And the fact that David was a rapper...

Thank you, David, for your time and insight on this episode.

To follow David and this thinking, do so here on LinkedIn David J.P. (D. Fish) Fisher | LinkedIn

To buy his books and more, you can go to his website here Hyper-Connected Selling - David J.P. Fisher (davidjpfisher.com) 

Do you have Sales Sherpas in your team?

Ask ten salespeople what Sales Enablement means to them, and you will likely get ten different answers. 

Therefore, I thought who better to have as my guest today than the brilliant Imogen McCourt, Head of B2B Sales Transformation and Enablement at The Economist Group and one of the founding members and President of the UK Sales Enablement Society Chapter.

Imogen has not followed the "traditional" SaaS path of Sales Enablement if such a thing exists. 

Imogen started her path to Enablement in 2010 as a Senior Director at Forrester, where they wrote research papers. She then moved into the execution of their research.

The rest, as you will hear, is history.

We start by trying to define what we both believe Sales Enablement means today and go from there.

We end up, unsurprisingly, talking about technology, generative AI, and what role we believe this will play.

Imogen gives us brilliant advice on how and where to get started.

Whether you are just starting or are a seasoned Sales Enablement pro, Imogen brings some refreshing perspectives.

You can follow Imogen here https://www.linkedin.com/in/imogen-mccourt-svpleader/

and join The Sales Enablement Society here https://www.linkedin.com/company/sesociety/mycompany/

We now live in a quasi-virtual, hybrid, video-meeting-led world.

Albert Mehrabian, a researcher of body language, who first broke down the components of a face-to-face conversation. He found that communication is 55% nonverbal, 38% vocal, and 7% words only.

Therefore, what does this mean for us in nonverbal communication, in a video-led world, where we can only see one's head and shoulders in a small box on a screen?

In this episode, I am joined by Rachel Cossar, Co-Founder and CEO of Virtual Sapiens.

"Rachel Cossar is a leader in the field of nonverbal communication and leadership presence facilitation. As a former nationally ranked athlete and professional ballet dancer, Rachel has a knack of translating unique skills into relatable business skills and competencies. Virtual Sapiens, Rachel's most recent venture, comes as an evolution of her combined work as founder of Choreography for Business, a nonverbal communication consulting firm as well as a faculty member with Mobius Executive Leadership and as a leadership presence facilitator with Ariel Group. Rachel has worked with leaders from GE, BCG, Pfizer, Accenture, McKinsey, HBS and more. Rachel believes in the power of leveraging unique channels of communication in their own unique ways. Whether it is in person, on stage or on video, human connection is the key to organizational impact. At Virtual Sapiens and in all endeavors, Rachel is known to lean in to the future, to uncertainty, and to strengthening human experiences in business and beyond. Rachel's thought leadership has been featured on the TEDx Northeastern stage, Harvard Business Review, The Boston Globe, Psychology Today and more.

In this episode, Rachel breaks this down for us into what we need to consider when meeting people for the first time in a video-first environment, be it an initial meeting, demo, pitch and more. 

Rachel shares the types of nonverbal cues one would see and react to in an in-person meeting and how this becomes more complex in a video environment. 

This includes speaking to listen to ratio, lighting, background framing, camera angle, standing vs sitting, hand, head and shoulder movement, and eye contact. 

And what impact this has on the person you are talking to.

This all leads us to why Rachel founded Virtual Sapiens, "is a machine-learning SaaS platform to help client-facing professionals master communication skills over video. Like a virtual coach, Virtual Sapiens leverages expert knowledge in body language and presence, providing users with individualized and consistent coaching prompts as well as in-call feedback over time. Virtual Sapiens amplifies human connection, builds human skills and leverages cutting edge technology to do so at scale."

This episode will give you food for thought and where AI technology is heading in this space - do we even need to be present?

To learn more about Virtual Sapiens and take their free assessment, follow this link : https://www.virtualsapiens.co/

You can follow Rachel on LinkedIn here : https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-cossar/

Thank you to Rachel for her time and insight and to you, my listeners.

Welcome to the first episode of 2023, where Ketna Mistry joins me.

We all see it on our news feeds on LinkedIn, the same bland corporate post being shared or re-posted multiple times. We also all know that our employee networks are potent when activated correctly - this can help with brand positioning, recruitment and pipeline generation. 

How do you get an Employee Advocacy programme off the ground with meaning and purpose - both for the business and the employee?

Ketna joins me today to share just this. Her career spans 17 years of helping businesses with their social media strategy and execution.

Her most recent role was with Savills, helping them drive an Employee Advocacy programme, which has both a b2b and a b2c angle - some say the 2 are now the same thing.  She has now set up her own practice to provide consulting advice on social media, strategy and more.

Let's get to it :

What is Employee Advocacy?

Are the reason some fail because of leadership, lack of resources or both?

Is Employee Advocacy and Social Selling the same?

Should all employees be part of a programme?

How do you begin the conversation with leaders about engaging in an Employee Advocacy programme?

How can you make your content work harder for you?

We will we finally see B2B Influencers in the mainstream? 

If you are starting one, what are the considerations you must give?

We cover a lot in this one; my thanks to Ketna for her time and insight. I

If you need help with your social media strategy and execution, connect with Ketna on LinkedIn.

As ever, my thanks to all my guests and you my listeners.

I reflect on where we are in the sales world in this episode.

I consider the 3 main channels to start a sales conversation:

The telephone

Email

Social Selling

- all of which are dead and don't work. Or do. Depending on whom you follow.

I then take a look at Gartner's 7 new technologies that will completely change sales between 2024 and 2030 :

Multimodality

Generative AI

AR & VR

Emotion AI

Digital Twin of the Customer

Digital Humans

Machine Customers.

I consider each of these and how they may or may not fit in sales as we believe them to be.

I then reflect on a post I saw from Tom Goodwin, challenging business on "disruption" and how this is the same for Sales. 

This leads me to talk to the podcasts I recorded with Jenna Pipchuk of Smart Technologies, born out of the article by Brent Adamson in Feb 2022 - Sales & Marketing is Obsolete.

I end with my thoughts on the most essential aspect of these predictions.

Your customers, past, present and future.

What do you think the future holds for Sales?

Links :

Podcast with Brent Adamson - Death of a Sales man https://alexanderlow.podbean.com/e/the-death-of-a-sales-man/

Podcast with Jenna Pipchuk - Are you becoming obsolete https://alexanderlow.podbean.com/e/are-you-becoming-obsolete/ 

Gartner https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/7-technology-disruptions-that-will-completely-change-sales?utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=SM_GB_YOY_GTR_SOC_SF1_SM-SWG&utm_content=&sf262825364=1

Tom Goodwin LinkedIn Post https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7010598777816240130?updateEntityUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_feedUpdate%3A%28V2%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7010598777816240130%29 

Humans can only do so much with data and decision-making. No matter how good the data is, or the human. 

Therefore are we getting swept along by too much hype and hyperbole in the world of AI? Do we, therefore, need to re-think it?

Daniel Hulme, CEO of Satalia, believes we do. Daniels's pedigree in this space speaks for itself: Having received a Master's and Doctorate in AI at UCL, Daniel is also UCL's Computer Science Entrepreneur in Residence and a lecturer at LSE's Marshall Institute, focused on using AI to solve business and social problems. Daniel Hulme (PhD) is a leading expert in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies and is the CEO of Satalia. Satalia is an award-winning company acquired by WPP in 2021 that provides AI products and solutions. Daniel is also the Chief AI Officer for WPP and helps define, identify, curate and promote AI capability and new opportunities for the benefit of the wider group and society.

In this episode, Daniel shares his insight into why both business and society need to re-think AI and what it can, and should do for us, whilst not losing sight of the ethical questions it can create.  

Daniel wants AI to be understood as Cool and not Creepy.

Daniel shares his take on what he believes the 6 categories of AI can be broken down as thus :

Passive Automation

Generative AI

Humanisation of AI

Machine Learning

Complex Decision Making

The Extension of yourself

Daniel breaks down each one before we deep dive into complex decision-making, as this has the most day-to-day application. Daniel shares re-world examples too.  Followed by a blend of generative AI and the Humanisation of AI.

We then end with a discussion on the metaverse, which leads us to Daniel's vision for society and how he is trying to build it. It's mind-blowing.

You can connect with Daniel here https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielhulme/ to learn more about how he and his team can help you.