Stop Pitching, Start Listening :A CEO’s Guide to Mastering Sales

Speaker A: Welcome back to this week's podcast and it's uh, always good to have you guys with me on the podcast to share insights and ideas as ever to help you grow your business, especially from an IT perspective. And I'm absolutely, really, really um, chuffed a bit. So I've got a fantastic guest with me today, a man that um, had a long career, it's a long career in the IT industry at uh, including sort of nearly 20 um, or over 10 years as a CEO of a publicly listed company and wave eight years I should say. He'll give you his full buy in a moment. But also then working with another very large um, uh, msp, let's call it msp. IT Services Business we'll call it, we'll go through that in a moment. But a man that's achieved a huge amount in his career and very great to welcome onto the podcast David Brooks. Nice to have you David.

Speaker B: Thanks James. Good to see you. Thanks for inviting me on.

Speaker A: Look, I've done a bit of an introduction of you but for those that don't, you know, didn't know you and your background, obviously you're give everyone just a bit of a potted history of you went through the ranks at RM from, from number roles over uh, like a 20, 20 or 25 year period to CEO in the end. Tell everyone a little bit more about that journey.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, I mean I did a computing degree at Brighton Polytechnic back in the day. Came out there in the early 90s. There weren't really any jobs around and I really like Brighton so I was just looking to stay down there. My mum sent me a number of different letters that said for email letters saying you need to go and get yourself a job young man sort of thing. And she sent me uh, a advert out of a national newspaper for RM were employing people. Um, and I said well I don't want to do that. She said well you know, she's quite canny. She said well why don't you uh, go and do his practice? You know, practice for interviewing. Anyway, long story, got the job, joined RM on the technical support line, answering questions, uh, mainly from schools and colleges, um, about their uh, technical problems. And I stayed at Orem for a long time. I uh, did technical jobs for a while. Then I uh, moved into sales. I had a boss that made me go and go to the dark side, which was what we called it. Absolutely, um, and found it was the most difficult job I'd ever done. Did uh, sales for a number of years, sort of went back into operations, general management and then I ran, I helped run RM's Ah, IT services business. Then I ran RM's SaaS business for a number of years before I became chief executive. Uh, and I did that, you know, chief executive for eight years. And it was a start off as a turnaround and when we got IT growing both in the UK and internationally, we did some M and A, we did some organic growth and um, left them left there. When I got 50, um, when you're the graduate that turns the Chief Executive, you're Mr. RM and I didn't want to be Mr. RM anymore and I joined a private equity backed as you say, IT services business called Charterhouse and spent four years there. Ah, uh, sort of again a bit of a turnaround and then getting it growing back again, um, organically. So yeah. And since then I've come out of executive life and now I spend most of my time working with CEOs in UK backed technology SMEs as a sounding board, a strategic advisor to help them navigate growth, their scaling and any leadership challenges they have.

Speaker A: Amazing. So we're going to delve a lot into your career and the things you've done and what you've done over that period of time. Because we met at an event and I always, as you may remember, I remember thinking this guy knows his onions. When you, when you, I asked a question into the audience and you were the first one that came back. I was like, this guy knows his stuff. But talk to me a little bit about your mentioned about your mum, um, you know, sent you that job description. I mean was she. Because obviously one of the first things I do ask, you know, business leaders and experts is where, you know, who were their initial inspiration stroke men.

Speaker B: Well there's definitely a bit of, just wanted a job. She was definitely the most driven of my two parents. She was a uh, head teacher in a state school. Um, you know, we used to call her macho mum, which probably you're not allowed to say those things anymore but you know, that's what we called her because she was incredibly driven and she was the person when you came back from school and said I came second in the maths test, first thing she would look at you say who came first. Um, so she was definitely someone. I'm m, a very competitive person. I think I get it from my mum. And she, you know, she took, didn't understand the business world necessarily, but she knew that in order to be successful you need to really work hard and you needed to be, you know, competitive and look for the next opportunity all the time.

Speaker A: And I think whilst don't digress and we're not going to focus on your mum, but that sort of background. I'm the same. My mum and my dad were very much driven, driving me to always to do my best, but to succeed and to achieve and to work hard. I mean I say to people, I started my first job when I was 11 and that sort of ethic is that's not a bad thing, right? To have that element of, you know, there's a lot of people that talk about if you work harder than anyone else, you've got a bigger chance than anyone else.

Speaker B: I agree with that. I mean I think the two things I've got three kids and the two things I try to work with my kids on or thing is one, uh, have a good friendship group so really be judged by your friends and two is have some form of worth work ethic. And I do think I feel much happier when I see my kids with friends but also when they say, you know, they've all got part time jobs, etc. And I really like that work ethic because I think I certainly in my career always felt that uh, I've worked pretty hard. I've liked doing stuff outside work. I'm not a workaholic to the point where I impact lots of weekends and things. I do a whole bunch of stuff outside work. But when I'm at work I really have really enjoyed work and I really feel strongly that you need to work hard in order to get the results you want.

Speaker A: Yeah, sure. Uh, totally agree. So talk to me about it. You know, these days at, you know, the front line support desk, you know, which is obviously one of the things that people talk about is when you're a CEO and leader, people say, oh, they've never, you know, been in my shoes. They've never, they've never done the tough jobs, they've never had to answer the difficult calls from customers and all those sort of things. I mean obviously you've done a technical degree, but was that, was that open your eyes, tell me about those first experiences of actually engaging with customers and, and how did.

Speaker B: It was a real open advice. I mean uh, the thing about technology as we all know Lynn works such a broad area and suddenly even though I've done a computing degree, I knew nothing about really about PCs and networking and um, application software that sat on top, I didn't really own. So it was a real learning curve. They put you, they purposely put you on the hotline Pretty quickly. And you were in pods of four of you sitting around the same desks. And basically you'd have to put people on hold a lot and say, jeff, Hazel, um, uh, what is this sort of thing? So you had to learn that way. And literally it was the days when you pretty much had to ask to go to the loo type thing. So you were on the phone, you got in the morning, you had a loo break and a lunch break, but pretty much you had to be full time in the office. Obviously there was no working homes those days. And you just learn a massive amount. And the big thing I learned there was a guy that was just coming up to retirement, um, called Jeff. And. And the big thing I learned from him was his approach and attitude to customers was excellent. So he was not very technical. In fact, he didn't know much about it. But because he treated his customers really well, really calmly, um, really respected them and always got back to them and did find solutions for them. Some of them he understood, some of them he didn't. Um, and that whole customer service side of things, he's really calm, collected. And I learned a lot from sitting next to him for 18 months. Um, and I think that's one of the things that, again with work, you just learn so much from spending time with people who know that, who know their onions.

Speaker A: Couldn't agree more. And it's that aspect, like you say, of someone that, um, I remember, you know, working in my early days with in three Common and Allied House, and even before that working m with people that really cared. And I always remember one, um, one guy, you know, telling me that, you know, when you get back, someone get back to them. And I learned, it was a great quote. I learned from Marilyn Monroe afterwards, I didn't know from the time, but they said, you know, she said, oh, promises are worse than hope because you give people no. So promises are worse than lies because you give people hope as well as expectations. Yeah, that aspect of communication and making sure that because most of the time customers can deal with bad news, what they can't do if it's not being communicated with, isn't it any. Was that something that sort of became really integral to your. As you went through the sort of, you know, the ranks of rm, um, and other companies. Was communication big for you? Is it as sort of an element for engaging with customers in another team?

Speaker B: Absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, I would say, you know, one of my skill sets is being a good communicator. I've learned to Listen a lot more than I used to do. Um, but I've always felt that communication is something, is a real strength to me and I really enjoy engaging with, with other people. And when I became chief executive, coming back to the sort of frontline staff, I made a commitment, probably quite naively at the time, to go and see a customer every single week. So every week I would go and see. And we mostly sold to schools, local government and central government. Um, and so I would go and see a customer every week and I would blog about it every week. And that meant for me I really leaned into that. I learned a massive amount. I really enjoyed it. Sometimes it was a bit ball ache because you really did have to do it. I, um, but it also set the tone with the organization, which is don't go and talk to David about customer stuff unless you really know what you're talking about because this guy is still talking to customers every single, single week. So it was, for me, I really enjoyed it. So it was an easy thing to do in lots of ways, but it was a very powerful message to the organization.

Speaker A: I love the fact that you did that and the fact that especially when RM was a FTSE listed company, was a listed business, you have huge amounts of expectation on you from the markets, from shareholders, from, from, you know, lots of different people and lots of different sides. But the fact that you made it your goal to actually go and visit a customer every week, and I'm guessing they'll build, but I'm guessing the main you kept that. And I guess what it also did is I guess it kept you close to the coal face. Right. To really find out what was going on from a client perspective.

Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, you kind of, it was so helpful because, you know, you go into all these internal meetings and someone comes with a proposal about, oh, we should do this to the product, we should do this to the service, etc. Well, I just had a great uh, set of people, connections that uh, either I could ask the nearest person I met that week or I'd met hundreds of these people over time. And some of them, you know, you meet some people and you never meet them again. And some people you keep in contact. So I had a set of head teachers in particular who I could just drop an email to, said, we're thinking doing this. What do you think about it? And they'd come back and say, either that's the worst work idea, uh, in the world, or m, oh yeah, that sounds brilliant. When can we have it sort of thing. So I found that very, very useful.

Speaker A: I think, I think there's more chief executives that need to do that. And I think, uh, you know, the ones that I work with and you work with, you know, now I'm sure is you keeping your ear to the ground. And it's difficult because everyone gets told, you know, got to work on the business, not in the business. But actually it's very difficult to work on the business if you don't understand the dynamics that go on day to day. Like you say, what's happening in the market, trends, what, what's going on, what are the pressures you're facing, you know, uh, what are the challenges? And I think we'll talk about sales in a moment. Which one of the things I think great sales teams are very good at doing is they're great market researchers and educators and they're great at being able to feed back information into the organization. And without that, you're a bit blind.

Speaker B: Well, no, and the knock on effect I found from going to see a customer each week was usually I would either go with a salesperson, um, or I would go with, you know, ah, a service delivery manager or someone that was doing the support, support and services for them. And of course you have the pre meet and you have the post meet as well. So I was able to talk to frontline sales people, frontline support people all the time about so what are your other customers saying? What do you think? And you know, and them saying, you know what, Our expense system is absolute nightmare. Let me show you. And, and it's those kinds of things that um, the knock on effect of going to see customers was that I spent a lot of time with frontline staffers as well. And sometimes you don't want to hear it. I mean bluntly, you know, you go, oh, I know. And because, you know, you haven't got an easy solution. But it is a really good way of staying much closer to what's happening in the organization.

Speaker A: Yeah, sure, sure. Uh, look, you mentioned, you know, when we came in you had, you had someone, a boss that moved you into sales. Tell everyone a bit more about that because you've told me about a bit about it. But you know, obviously you were in this technical role, but then someone, you know, David, you're coming into sales and you're going to learn. Talk to us about that.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean it was, it pretty much was as simple as on a Friday afternoon. Um, this was a guy that, who in the end went on to be chief executive RM a guy called Tim Pearson, a real mentor and inspiration for me. Um, he basically came, saw me on a Friday afternoon and said, look, I've spoken to he. And he ran a lot of the technical teams. And he said, I spoke to the head of sales. We both think you've got a chance to be in sales, so you're starting your sales on Monday. And I was like, tim, I'm not. There's no way I'm going to the dark side. You know, you can see everyone around me going, well, you know, if you go over there, we're not talking to you again. Brooks, you know, forget it sort of thing. And he said, no, it's not. We're not debating it, David, you need to go and work in sales. And so I was thrown into it, um, thinking that, well, you know, all I need to do, it'd be really easy. All these sales people don't do very much. They talk a lot, but they don't do very, very much. And of course, then you're three months in, you haven't. You're nowhere near your quota. Uh, um, you're trying to. Your customers want a whole bunch of things that you don't provide, and everything you provide, they don't want. You're trying to build a relationship with them. Um, and, you know, and you're. You've. Everything's in your car, so you're living in your car all the time. Something. And it was just a very, very interesting and very good process. I wouldn't have become a chief executive if I hadn't had to go and sell earlier in my career, because you just have to find out another way of doing things. And everyone sells differently, you know, um, but you have to find out how you sell as an, as an individual.

Speaker A: It's such a good point in terms of being able to sort of work those elements out. Was there any. Did they, you know, obviously you were starting on the Monday. Did they give you any sort of blueprint, any elements?

Speaker B: They were very good. They gave a lot of training, actually. Um, and so they, you know, the whole. How to ask the right questions, um, how you, you know, how you close a deal, all of that stuff. And it was quite a systematic. You need a pipeline, you need to forecast accurately. If you're not forecasting accurately, you're not doing so. There was definitely a machine. I was very lucky there was a machine there. And once you got your feet a bit on the table, there were a whole bunch of other sales people. They're very competitive, but they're also people that like to be liked. And therefore, if you build a relationship with other salespeople, I would just spend my whole time saying, how do you do this better? How do you do that bit? But there was a lot. I was lucky. We're an organization of a certain size. There was a lot of, um, formal training. One of the things that they, that I did quite early on was they did a bunch of role playing where you had to go sort of sat in front of other salespeople and the sales director would say, I'm a customer. And they would role play what you were being asked. And the sales director was very good at being a really difficult customer. And you could look like an idiot in front of all your colleagues. But my goodness, you learned very, very quickly. Um, and you saw how the really good salespeople did it and you were like, oh, okay. Um, so you could see what good looked like. Which for me was, was I found very useful.

Speaker A: It's funny you mentioned, but Rob and I do, you know, people sometimes call it simulation or role play. I think role plays the most important thing you can do in the sales environment. And people hate it because they hate doing it in front of their colleagues. But as I say, there's no better place to do that sort of stuff than when you're in a safe environment. Pretty safe compared. You know, there's always a bit of competition, but you're going to then learn and practice and practice ultimately for in sales is the going to be a key factor to getting, getting success. But just to go back to your sales career then so you in, you know, you're in this sort of sales environment. Sales is one of those things that especially if you look at now sort of the technology space, one of the things that I learned, you know, again, key mentors for me were people that sold not on the technology, but on the benefits and the outcomes. But yeah, it feels like sometimes that text a lot of technical sales people still. I don't know if it was like when you, you know, in charge house as well and the teams you've had. There's still this obsession sometimes with selling tech, isn't it? Without necessarily selling the outcomes and the impact that it gives to people. And is that one of the sort of challenges you've seen as or not challenges that businesses have in terms of in the technical space, they're still too focused on features and functions rather than benefits and outcomes?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think there is still a lot of that. I mean what I found is most of the time through my original sales career. And then when I was running sales teams, then I was chief executive of other things was we were often selling to technical people. And therefore, um, when you're selling to technical people, both sides of the partnership like to talk in that technical way. The best salespeople I found were able to sell to technical people so they could talk techie, but were able to equip those technical people to be able to sell internally to their stakeholders, whether that was a cfo, a CEO, whoever, business people. And they found the way of saying, right, so we're going to talk about all the bikes and whatever and what this functionality does, but actually for your stakeholders, they're going to be talking about, well, how, you know, how. How is this going to improve the issue that we've got over here? And what is it? What is, what's the business challenge that it's focusing on? And the really good salespeople are able to have the techie bit, but also be able to equip, uh, the techie people to internally go and help sell. And also they would feel comfortable in going to talk to the stakeholders. You know, the classic thing is, right, you know, this is what I think. You've talked with stakeholders. I don't think I can. Well, why don't I come with you? You know, I'll come and see you, or, you know, in my case, our head teacher or bursa or whatever, let's come and say, I'll sit down with them, let's go through them. And at that point, they don't understand anything about the technology. So it is all around, this is the business problem we're solving. And also a lot of it, particularly with services, is, um, this is why you can trust us to be able to deliver on these promises that we're making. Because there aren't the kind of features and things. It's just like, you know, you provide the service. This is why you can trust us.

Speaker A: Yeah, and you're right. It's having that ability to be a bit of a chameleon sometimes, isn't it, in certain situations and to adapt your, you know, I say this to a lot of salespeople. You know, if you're talking to a CFO versus a cto, then actually you've got to be able to understand the CFO is going to ask questions around payback and results, and you've got to understand that business case scenario, but you've also then got to be able to understand the CTO is going to be thinking about technology futures and whatever else as a Result of it. So, you know, getting some of the great, best salespeople I learned from in three combinations, have that ability to coordinate and engage with both, which, um, is a real skill.

Speaker B: It is a real skill. And the best of them are, ah, brilliant questioners. They work out. If you sit in with the cfo, however, um, dogmatic they look, however, if you just ask them a few questions, if you get someone talking about themselves and their own issues, it immediately opens up the conversation and suddenly you've got a CFO that's telling you all the things that are important to them right now. And you. You're able to then link some of that to some of the stuff you do. And I think that whole ability to be able to question people in a really good way that allows them to talk and open up is one of the biggest skills that I learned, um, as a salesperson. Interestingly, in the work I do now where I'm talking a lot to chief executives, I'm spending my whole time needing to ask them good questions to get them to open up. And I learned most of that from my sales experience.

Speaker A: Incredible. You say that, and it's so true. It feels to me, and being in your view on this, if I always say to people I think 80. Well, I'd probably say 80% of people sell badly. It still feels to me that most salespeople, sadly, even in it, and, you know, obviously we're in an IT environment. Both of us traditionally go into pitch mode rather than listen mode, in my experience. And it's one of the biggest mistakes I've seen with them. But what about you? Mistakes you've seen from working with people, you know, technical and salespeople and business owners. What's that? Would that resonate with you?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think that is it. I mean, we all. Anyone that's been in sales hates being sold to like that. Um, and I do see, you know, you start off with the deck that says, this is why we're brilliant, right? And any deck, any sales debt that starts with this is why we're brilliant. Any senior person just, oh, well, I'm not. I'm not listening to any of that, you know, because everybody says that, uh, this is why. Why we're. We're brilliant. And it starts with that pitch. Whereas the really good sales processes get to the bottom of what is your business issue and can we help? I mean, one of the things that I found very powerful when I was doing big ticket sales, where you would go in and talk to organizations about implementing you know, an eight year program of implementing software and then managed service, etc. Is you would, you would be quite open with the. We might not be the right people for you. Well, let's get to the bottom of what your problem is. M. I've got a bunch of things I can do, but I'm also. And that immediately, even if you don't bloody mean it, that immediately gets into, oh, right, okay, well, I thought you'd come and sell something now. I mean, we've got some great stuff. Don't, don't. But let's get to the bottom of where your issue is. And you know, if I can't help you, then I probably know some of the people who can help me. And all of that initial engagement really helps. And you're right, the bit that gets people that they just turn off is, look, we're brilliant. Here's the picture. Uh, our, um, product does this. The services. Anybody that uses the word world class in the first five minutes of speaking to you, the switches go off, you're like, well, boom. M. And so I think that there's still that danger of trying to pitch something when you really don't understand what the business problem is.

Speaker A: And it's funny you mention it. Um, and you know, we're going to talk about more about your career, but I guess, you know, when you, you were CEO for a long time of a big company and one of the big worries that a lot of sales people have is pitching at CEOs, right? They, they, they get, they worry about it. They think you're some, you know, sort of demigod that you can't talk to and that, you know, and I, and

Speaker B: I always used to say we are.

Speaker A: What are you talking about exactly? But, but I always used to, and I say to sales people all the time, your job in sales is to think. And I say to them, imagine, you know, for those listening, you can't see, but you know, imagine literally that person on their desk today rubbing their eyes going, that's a problem. Today. I said, your job is to work out what those issues are. What those things are that are making that CEO go, God, what an issue we've got today. And that's the same issue we've got time and time again. And then be in a position where you come and try and help them solve that issue, right? Because ultimately the best thing about selling to C suites and especially to CEOs is those guys just go, well, if you can show me you can fix it and you make it happen. Why Would I make the money available to invest in it? But it's very. Was that the case when you were CEO? Did you get approached much, actually, in terms of. By salespeople?

Speaker B: Yeah, got approached all the time. And the first thing I would say is, um, I would not engage with anybody that approached me directly unless they were recommended by someone. So whether that could be an external person that's recommended them or an internal colleague. So if they, you know, someone in my team said, oh, I've got this person who wants to come and talk to us about things, then that's fine. But they wouldn't get in the room and I wouldn't engage with them, um, however good their problem solving was, unless I had some form of personal recommendation somewhere that gets you in the room. And then once you're in the room, as you say, it's about understanding what the issue is. And often you can find that out by good questioning. But you also need a hook to start with, and you need whoever's got you in the room to be providing you information about. What do you think David's point is? Because the other thing is you're. You're so busy, you've got so many things on that you, you just want people to get to the point. So you don't want any faff around it. It has to be. I've come here to see you because, um, so and so's introduced me for this reason. I think we can help. Can I just start off by asking you a couple of questions also? And it's. It's that, uh, but you need to be. Here's the agenda. I mean, you know, here's the agenda. This is why I'm here. This is what I'm doing. Uh, I'm not your mate. I'm here to do that. And I might become your mate in time, but I'm not your mate. And. But can I just ask you a couple of questions? And for me, as a chief executive, it's like, right, we've got to the point originally. That's good. That's what I thought the meeting was about. That's fine. Yeah. What do you want to know? Yeah, what do you want to. Boom. And that's. So, yeah, that would be my suggestion when you're selling to CEOs.

Speaker A: Uh, great feedback and great insight there in terms of being able to get through the door. And actually, interesting enough link about. We've talked a couple of times there about the idea of a champion or an internal person. I guess it links into sort of sales methodologies like MedPick, which are really good sort of ways in which to have that entry point in on that champion. I've done a couple of videos around sort of those elements. But just, just going back to, you know, before we get into the CEO part, I want to talk about the sales momentum you had and two things. RM when I knew rm, one of the benefits, I always remember RM having just focused on education. Education was the sweet spot. Do you think that was a, uh, uh, blessing or a curse to rm? Because m. In many cases now I look at a lot of organizations and I say pick your market, you know, if you bear everything to everyone, not submit to someone. But obviously it was, you know, a challenge in some cases, I guess, because if people in government times and spending was less, it was a, it was an issue. But what's, what's your sort of view on that because. And how important is picking a niche for, especially for service providers, even like when you're in Charterhouse. And

Speaker B: I mean, I think a niche is really important, particularly for IT services businesses. I think for businesses generally, I do think you've got to focus and work out what you want, um, and what you want your customer to be in. RM overall, I think was a real positive. Um, and, uh, I'll explain that one is because. And we did dabble with other, um, sectors at certain points and other adjacent markets, but never really got it right. So it was really good from a customer point of view in that you could go and see a customer and you could present yourself as an expert in their area and you could talk their language and their jargon. Whether that was talking to teachers or head teachers or local government, local authority people or central government. You were talking in their language about what they were. And particularly in education, you need to get that language right because they're very, um, suspicious of commercial organizations. And if you don't have that language correct, that's a problem. Second thing is you do get a set of people working for you that often like the sector and get to know the sector very well. And that's a very powerful thing. Um, and then thirdly, when you put things together and you're doing it, you're able to focus on the business problem in a lot of detail and a lot of depth. And often that really is the difference between you winning an IT services contract and not winning because you really are able to get to the depth of what's the business problem, what we trying to sort and how do we as an organization work with that. So I Think it was a really, it was a positive thing with rm. I mean the downside we had as a listed company was, uh, it m. Was very government, um, uh, you know, government funding, um, ah, very reliant. Sorry, that's the word on government funding. And when government funding was great, as it was in the 90s and the 2000s for education. Blair. Education, Education, Education. And then the coalition government came in 2010 and uh, they decided tech in schools wasn't very good and they weren't going to think like that. And that really meant that we were, you know, scrabbling around for growth. We had to go internationally more, we had to go into other parts of education. So it can. You need to recognize that if you, if you put all your eggs in one basket and there are sort of factors that change that. But overall I really leaned into that when I became chief executive and I said, look, we're an education business. We just sell to education and we want to. That was part of the going to see a customer every week. We want to get to know the education sector better than anybody else.

Speaker A: Yeah, I couldn't agree more on it. One of the things I talk to a lot of business people about is in customers that I work with is, you know, this phrase of inch wide, mile deep, um, is a phrase that Morehouse used to. I think he kind of ran Rackspace in Europe and you know, you know, know your customer base and solve focus problems for them. And I think it's a really good essence to do that. Just, just lots of, I'm kind of diversing across lots. You've got so many things that you've got done in your career and things you've had that you, you've achieved. And it's, it's, it's interesting to um, to, to talk through these things when you were obviously growing and, and you know, you got into your senior roles in um, in RM and you were obviously before you got to see to CEO. Did uh, that give you an inclination into. Because obviously you, you weren't just in the sales team then. You were running different divisions and different areas of the business. How critical or how critical to sort of the, the operational running? You know, you obviously were speaking to senior, very senior people that, how, how important was like the sales engine at that point to the business and, and what did you sort of, did you change much when you sort of came. Came into the role to, to sort of finesse that a bit more? Talk to me because I think a lot of people, the reason I asked the Question is because a lot of people, I say, for me, uh, senior business company and companies, and I learned this from working for a NASDAQ company. Your sales and your forecast and your engine is everything. If you don't have that certainty and that clarity on what you're doing, you're pretty much going to get beaten out of town.

Speaker B: So, yeah, I probably took it for granted at RM because I think for years and years the sales engine had been set up and was very good. And we had very much a blueprint. Um, we had to change some of it when we were looking internationally. We had to change some of it when we worked with partners, not just going directly to the business, but that whole cadence of building your pipeline, forecasting accurately, looking at how you, um, uh, qualify leads and then close them down, etc. There were some good metrics and it was really good in rm. I think the thing I've learned probably from founders more than anything else, is that it is the lifeblood of a, uh, organization. And you know that because when you've got a founder of a technology business, they either, uh, do it themselves, so they are the lead salesperson in that organization and they prioritize it, or they hook up with someone else that does sales, um, and they keep that person for an extended period of time and they work with that person. And so most of the things. And the reason I say that is because often founders instinctively know what's right for their business or what, because they have to feel it and touch it and it's things and they know that sales is important. So they either do it themselves or they find someone and they, who really gets it and they, they go with that person and they support that person. So I did know it was important. I probably took it for granted, if I'm honest at RM because it was a good machine that we built for a number of, a number of years. Um, and we didn't, you know, and so I didn't have to rebuild a machine at, uh, RM in Charterhouse. It was my second. I had to bring in a whole new, A whole new sales director and we had to change a lot of what we were doing. Um, and again, if I had my time again, I would have been more niche than I was, than we turned out to be. At Charterhouse. We tried to sell too broadly at times, mainly because we were chasing, just chasing, chasing any form of revenue growth. The business hadn't grown for a long time. It was six acquisitions that put together. It hadn't organically grown for, uh, a Period of time. And we were looking for any business possible, uh, any revenue, because we're looking to sell it. And we just needed to have some organic growth. On reflection, that meant we were asking too much of our salespeople and we weren't focusing on, you know, a few verticals that would have actually made a difference. Now, interestingly, when we did start to grow, it was in verticals that the sales people got used to. And it wasn't a strategy that we did. It was more the sales people saying, well, actually, stadia are a good place to go. We really think that we're working well with that. The NHS is, you know, we've got. And so we did do it, but it wasn't strategically. Uh, I didn't. I didn't. Yeah, I didn't learn my lesson, really.

Speaker A: It's interesting you mentioned it. And again, something I will say to, you know, to sales teams is that, you know, people always think they've got to have a strategic driven. And I always say to salespeople, you don't need that. Actually. Look at where your success has come. If you've done work in an NHS organization, then go and find three or four others locally and say, I solved that problem for these guys. Can I help you solve the same problem? Because I was a problem pos follow pain. And so go and find where the pain is in that environment. And then suddenly you've got three or four. And then, like you say, it becomes a, uh. Well, maybe there's lots of other organizations around the country that have got this.

Speaker B: No. And instinctively, good salespeople get that and know that because good salespeople want their life to be as simple as possible, they'll go to the customers that they know are most likely to listen to one thing. And, and particularly in services having that track record and that credibility of a customer that looks like the customer you're selling to is so important. And nhs, a classic example of you just say to them, you know, we've done this elsewhere. Ring them and ask them. And they're like, yeah, well, we will. We'll bring you. We'll talk to you once we vote to them. And of course, hopefully you've primed the person. But. But even if you haven't, that's what you've got to be able to do. You've got to deliver a good service so that when that phone call comes in, I'm talking to Charterhouse, you go, oh, yeah, they're done a really good job for us. Right, okay, we will talk to you. And, and so yeah, uh, that people want to buy stuff that they see other people like them are buying and it's being successful.

Speaker A: Which is exactly the same way as what we talked about when you were a CEO and people got in and you got in the room, if they actually knew other people, they had that referral link in there. It's the same conversation, right. People noted that know like and trust. And one of the things I say to a lot of IT organizations is they don't spend enough time building that, that, that you know, Google zero moments of truth. 7, 11, 4. Seven hours of content across four, um, different media, across 11 different interactions. You know, people need that time to trust you to then go, you know what, they're consistent all the way through. I quite like these guys, quite like what they stand for. They fix that. Okay, let's have a conversation. And it's that part where, that's where I always think sales marketing hour into like aligned. If you don't have a, especially in a modern environment now, if you don't have that marketing engine that talks about those elements alongside the sales team, you're going to fail.

Speaker B: No, agreed. And the other thing is in the world we live in, um, UK businesses actually quite like buying from other UK businesses where they can see that business and they know it's got a chief executive and so that they can meet and say hello to and whatever. We used to use that a lot in Charterhouse with our customers is that there would be a senior uh, member of the team, whether it was me or one of the other um, exec members who would sponsor uh, particular deals and you would get to know the customers and that really reassured the customer that they were dealing with someone senior and that that person was a real person and it wasn't just a big corporate etc. And we really leaned into where we're only an SME. We're big enough so that we're not going to go bus tomorrow and we can deliver it and we can show but we. You can also get to the top people if things aren't going right. And I think in a services environment particular, uh, people really value that.

Speaker A: Yeah, for sure, 100%. Um, obviously as you went through your career you've obviously built lots of relationships and you know, had, you know, built lots of how important was your leadership team for you? Because obviously one of the other things around MSPS and providers that I talked to at the moment is especially some of the smaller ones and you know, they've obviously got. It is quite Reliant still on them themselves. But actually you obviously were in some businesses that were very growing and were strong. But how important was your leadership team in helping, especially in maybe the sales and marketing angle, to be able to put the structures and things in place that you wanted to. And to also know that because as a CEO, your job is to cover so many different areas. Right. You've got a myriad 101 things on your to do list. So how important was your leadership team for you in both roles?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean it was incredibly important. And as an individual, I am quite a generalist. I mean, I get bored very quickly as well. So I do need people around me who are, ah, driving the business forward and I can support and help them in my first. You know, one of the mistakes I made with RM is that I didn't engage and change my team enough early enough in the whole process, um, which meant I didn't have a set of people that were really driving the business. When I came into Charterhouse, I changed pretty much the whole team reasonably quickly. Not because the people that were there were bad people or I just knew I needed a set of people that could really drive the business forward. And my role wasn't to do that personally. My role was to support and help the team and make sure they work together and make sure as a team we were doing the right thing. So for me, I remember, you know, I did, uh, uh, an interview someone after I left rm, um, and then they said, you know, what's the biggest, what's the one piece of advice you give as a chief executive? And I said, well, it's difficult. One piece of advice. But if it is one piece of advice, get your team right. If you get your team right for my personality as well, everything follows. And don't be misunderstanding. Getting your team right is really difficult. Yeah, because they might fight with each other. Everyone changes their opinion on things. There are times when you have to do stuff for the business that doesn't help the individual in your team. They're like, what I think. So it's a really difficult thing to get and keep and motivate a really good team in this over a longer period of time. But if you can get that right, you can do anything in a business, is my view.

Speaker A: And I think you're so right in what you said though. I guess one of the interesting things for me is also one of the reasons when I was in you know, a, uh, larger organization, the politics that go on in, especially if you're a listed company like you guys, there's a lot of. Ultimately there's a lot of money and success and promotions and all those other things involved. How did you keep. You know, because I've seen plenty of organizations where it's like ferrets fighting in a sack and it's very difficult to. So was there any tips you'd give for how you kept. Because you need everyone to be competitive and to push and to drive forward and to be the best they can be in their area. But you also need that cohesion to bring them together as one unit. Was there, uh, any tips you. That you used to use on doing that?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think. I mean there's a. There's a lot of things to unpack there. I mean, fundamentally, every organization has politics. Yeah, Good and bad politics. It's just inevitable. You know, you have a group of five people all get together. There's some politics in there in some way, shape or form. As organizations get bigger, then there is always a liability, there can always be more politics, etc. I mean, I always was trying to be a very straightforward leader and a very open leader. In fact, there are times when I've been probably more open, um, than my board of directors or my PE backers would want me to be about things. But I found if you treat people as adults and you're really open with them, then the majority of people treat you the same way and you do cut through some of that politics. I think, uh, m. Communication is absolutely key on all of it. Internal communication, talking to people, making sure that your top team are really clear of what the priorities are. So, you know, I did set. And not everyone would do it, but we did set a vision and a mission and a set of values in both the organizations I ran. And I found that very useful. We did set objectives for the year that we reviewed that were very clear in the sort of customer and the financial and the employee point of view. So you kind of doing, uh, that. But, uh, for me it was get the right top team and be really open and as honest as you can be and to be pretty straight with people. And that's. It doesn't stop politics. Um, but I think it does help people realize that, uh, um, getting politics isn't going to get them up the organisation.

Speaker A: And it's funny, isn't it? Because we're talking this, um, recording this the day after England played in the World cup yesterday evening. And one of the things I was listening to, uh, um, was, was that um, the England manager, this guy, Thomas Tuchel, um, when he announced the squad, he phone and, you know, one of the things that's, you know, talk about communication. He announced the squad by FaceTime. And, uh, I've listened to a podcast. We said that one of the players was told he wasn't going to go even through a FaceTime call, which is probably, you know, most people can say, oh, sorry, you're not going to get. You get a text or do a normal call. And he. And then they were like, why did he do this? Because he wanted to see my reaction and he wanted to see. To see my face and he wanted to see. And there's been a lot of talk that the England team. Well, again, I'm not going into football in this conversation, uh, has left out people that were seen as being a bit disruptive and a bit sort of not, um, good for the team, you know, element. And, you know, obviously the. They got, you know, early stages, they got a good result last night. But that's quite critical, isn't it, to be able to work out, have that straightforward element, but also be a bit, not, no nonsense, but a bit like, actually, we're not going to play games here. We're going to be and clearer down the line on what we need to do and how we need to operate.

Speaker B: And I think you need to call it out. The other thing is, if you, you know, you've got a, uh, as. As a senior team, there are times that you need to make some really tough decisions. You can't die away from those tough decisions. And I think you need to be pretty open about making those tough decisions. I think you also need to share when things aren't going well as well as when they are going well. So, you know, I will meet a lot of people, particularly Chief Executive, who just don't talk about when things aren't going well. They're always positive. Now, everybody on the ground floor knows at the coal face that something didn't work. A project was rubbish. And if you're sitting there going, well, it's what we're going to do. Version two of something that's rubbish. Everyone's going, oh, yeah, whatever. If you say, do you know what? It was a complete nightmare. It didn't work. Um, I put my hand up and say, we shouldn't have sponsored that. You suddenly get a bunch of credit. Oh, right. This person's finally, you know, how many leaders do we just want to go, do you know what? I messed up? We really mess it, uh, up. There's no excuse for it. I'm sorry, we're going to try to do things differently. But here's. How many times do you get that? And you go, oh, well, I'm actually going to listen to you because, you know, etc. So I think that that honesty, and I'm not saying you should dwell in the failures. I'm not saying you should always just talk about the bad things, but I do think you should be being honest and open with people when things don't go well and then saying, and this is what we're thinking, doing in order to change that. That gets you a lot of credibility with, with people, um, as a leader.

Speaker A: I think, I think, I think we're so obsessed in this country of failure being a bad thing. Whereas actually, if you look at America and a lot of our, you know, their whole ethos and, you know, elements is around actually. Failure teaches you so many things, right? And the ability to, you know, we're obsessed by everyone's decision. Every decision's got to be perfect. No, actually, you're going to make some mistakes if you, if you're going to, you know, make 10, 15 different project investment decisions as a company. I mean, I remember talking to an American VC once that literally was going to buy a my football club. And he was like, I invest 100 million in seven organizations. He said, Five of them will fail. That's okay. Two of them, and I'll lose money on those, but two of them will work and I'll sell for it. Sell them for half a billion each and I'll make 300 million at the end of it. And I was like, that was his ethos. He was like, I'm going to make 300 million, but I know five are going to fail. I'm okay with that. And I was like, he was investing 100 million in each of these organizations. But that mindset, we just, we don't sometimes have that so much in the uk, do we? People are looking for a scapegoat sometimes.

Speaker B: Yeah, they are. I mean, I think that what's interesting though is that if you hide from it, people don't believe you. So, you know, there's a level of cynicism which means they don't really believe it's all going well. It's all going great. I think. Um, I mean, there is a flip side that sometimes we can be a little bit down on ourselves in the UK as well. So that the thing about the States is that they often take more risks and they just get on with it and like, right, let's just Push through it. Whereas we can sometimes wallow in. Oh, isn't it terrible? Aren't uh, we, aren't we telling. But I do think that openness to show where things are failing and where they're not, that then drives people wanting to put their hand up and say I'm not going to get into trouble for saying this isn't working. Which is what you want from your uh, from many of your employees. You don't want people just moaning that everything's not working, working. You want a, uh, this isn't working. And I suggest you do it in a different way. But you do want people putting their hands up to say this isn't working and not feel as though they can't do that.

Speaker A: Yeah, for sure, for sure. We've talked for 50, 45 minutes already and we could talk for a long time. There's a few things I want to ask you in terms of before we finish. I know your time is incredibly valuable. Um, question around growth now and scaling. Obviously you work with a lot of MSPs and business owners. It, you know, and you know, if you were to give, you know, someone's listening to this, that is, you know, running a business, maybe they've turned over, I don't know. And typically, you know, the ones especially at some of the turn over a couple of million pound or a million pound and they're growing, they've built this engine, they've got five to 10 people working for them and they've sort of got the seed of something, but they're sort of maybe struggling to scale or grow that. What would sort of the top sort of bits of advice you would give as uh, someone that's been in those, you know, in those positions with other organizations to sort of helping them get to that next level.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean our first thing I say is well done because getting to that level is not straightforward and there'll be a bunch of things that they're currently doing that they need to keep doing and that will really help them. I think there is a difference between growing and scaling. I think that growing you can do by a small number of people all doing a lot of things and getting it and going. And you need to do that when you're smaller organization. If you really want to scale, then you do need to think about what's your top team look like, what some of your processes are you going through it. I mean I do think that um, sales is a science. It's not a, you know, it is a science. It's not an art. Obviously some people do it better than others and whatever. But fundamentally the, the business of selling is, is, is there, you can, there's lots of people that can help you and support you. That I think your point about what is it that we're trying to solve for our customers and is that still relevant and can we see as relevant? So the one thing about going from, let's say a, uh, 2 million pound business to a 5 million pound business as an example over a period of time is that you need a market that really can do that. And there's nothing worse than being in a market that's so small that you're fighting for every scrap. You do need something where what you're offering has got enough market headway so that it is possible to make those things. So yeah, it's, what are you doing currently that's working really, really well. Double down on that. Look at your team and the capabilities of your team. You need to have a sales engine that does, uh, follow some basic principles around pipeline forecasting, conversion rates, those sorts of things where you're just, you know, what are the stages that someone, I mean, I worked with a founder recently and he was great at articulating. I didn't tell him at all the different stages that a customer made decisions in order to buy their stuff. And he'd been running this business for 14 years and he'd written it all down basically. And he said, this is what happens. These are the stages that they need to go through. And so as an organization internally, they talked about those stages and um, they said, well, which stage are we at? And all the was, well, which stage are we at that? And it was their own language. It wasn't, uh, you know, it wasn't an external language, but they'd worked out what those stages are and they knew things. And I think that sort of approach really helps as you start to grow.

Speaker A: It's so important. It's the marginal game theory. As I talk about it with people, it's that ability to go and work out. Like you say, if I've got five, six days in the process, whatever, what percentage do I get at each point, right? If I know I'm getting, you know, 50 people in here and I only get, yeah, 25 to here. Okay, so I'm losing 50 of them. Okay, what changes can I make, you know, at that first stage to get that 25 to 28 or to 27 and then how many can I then get from the 28 to knowing those numbers and be able to Be sure about those numbers on what's the, you know, what's the reason why we're struggling at that point and what's the, you know, it's why, you know, I'm preaching the converter here, but what's that framework? What's the frame? What's the questions that are asked? What's the stage of the, you know, how's the salesperson engaged? What have they done at that point? Um, because the one thing I see again working with a lot of you know, MSPs and IT providers is that there is a little bit of a. Funny enough. I was talking to one of my clients, um, yesterday around or sorry yesterday afternoon on about a lead that had come in and they said this leads come in and it's a relatively decent sized lead. He's our 80, 90 users. They want the business because again everyone's chasing and great looking for growth, growth. But you know, it's like they've gone out to six companies, they're looking for the price option and I said to them m. I said you really want that deal? Because actually you're looking at it and going it's one of those ones at the top. It's a lead at the top of the funnel. Is it really a lead? Is it really the level you want? They're looking at you, comparing you with five others. Realistically they're just looking at, you know, prices abruption to come out. Are you the right option? And, and, and actually the conversation was maybe we're not actually I was like now we're starting to see our positioning and that element of actually to be able to say thanks very much but it's not for us. We, we focus on this area. We're really good at this. I've been seeing your view on that because I don't think a lot of certainly it and MSP providers are doing enough of that to be everyone's hunting and looking for every bit of deal rather than going step back and saying this isn't maybe a good fit for us.

Speaker B: I mean it is a, it is a brave thing to qualify yourself out of what that type of business that you think, well we probably could win it. Um, and why wouldn't we? And it's not, it's that that is a judgment and over time sometimes you do just need some deals coming in. Um, whether that's because you need the revenue, whether that's because you need the morale of a few wins, because you haven't. So there are times you have to be pragmatic about it, but if, if you can, I mean we used to have a thing that we put in place because particularly for our bigger deals that were, you know, going to be quite material for us which is can we win it, can we deliver it, can we do it profitably? And every um, deal we would look through that lens and that the. Can you win it? You had to come up with the win strategy which differentiated you from the um, the competition. Unless. And um, and unless our strategy was price, which usually it wasn't, then you couldn't use prices as the, as the winning factor. We're going to give him a better price. You couldn't use that. So the sales teams had to come up with this is our uh, win strategy and this is the differentiation. And again it can't just be as simple as oh, I know the guy likes me, okay, so relationship is part of it, don't get me wrong. And that can be part of it. But if you can't, if you couldn't articulate why you were going to win it against a competition, then sometimes we would say we're not going for this deal. Now often what happened is once you went through that process it meant that the sales team then did, were able to define that, then use that in their proposal and then did win the deal. But yeah, can we win it? Can we deliver it? Can we do that profitably? Is something. It's a, you know, it's an obviously straightforward matrix but um, a methodology. But we found that very powerful particularly for the more complex deals where we were either doing something new or it was quite a sizable deal.

Speaker A: And just to add some. A couple more questions before we finish in your, especially in the time of rm, you know, price. The education market specifically would always talk a lot about price. You know, price being a critical factor because you know schools need books and all the stuff, the emotional stuff that we hear that they can't spend it on anything else. But how did you guys overcome that so much in terms of. So obviously you had a great niche position and I guess your pricing was probably. But you were the brand in that space. So um, so you were probably always going to be a little bit more expensive than some smaller organizations. How did you overcome that? And what's your big advice for anyone that's got, that's facing a quite a price sensitive market?

Speaker B: Yeah, get out of it. No, no, no. Uh, I mean we, we did a number of different things. We definitely Possession positioned ourselves as the premium brand for a long time and we're in the world of we just can't do it for that price. If you are going to get it for that price fine. But here's the three things that we think we're going to be delivering that you guys, you guys can't or sorry that competition can't in that way and it's your choice to do that. Um that was, that was something that we spent a long time working through which was how do we keep that premium brand um and therefore we can charge a bit more. We did take a load of cost out. So as an example with our services um, we did our software development in India. We set up our own Indian office and we did a lot of uh, our uh, back office network management and support through India which had some pros and cons but it did take in a schools market where price was really passive. It did take some cost out of there. So it's not one thing. It's a combination of. I think if you're in a market where it's really price conscious and everyone delivers the same thing then that's really tough. I mean we came out of um, the hardware market in universities because the customer just did these online auctions and it was all about bottom to the right, you know, race to the bottom and we just couldn't you know you'd win some deals but you'd be getting less than half a point of margin on it sort of thing and all it needed was one of the boxes to not be delivered to the right place and you'd lost money on it type thing. So I think where it's really easy to see that everyone's delivering the same thing and it's very price but I think in services there's always ways to differentiate. Differentiate. Um and you know the other thing we did do was that you, and it's a classic thing is that you sell them the basic service um, with a bunch of things stripped out and then you upsell over a period of time and that's not always easy and straight. Yeah it's not always straightforward to do that but it means it gives you an opportunity. Get the trust with the customer and build that level of relationship and then say well do you realize we, you know you get this. But we do have this as well and once and of course you know it's much easier to sell to existing customers who trust you. It's so much easier.

Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. 100 and look I'm conscious you know time we've been going for it uh and I wanted just to you know a couple of Things to finish off with in terms of um, any, you know, I wouldn't say, you know, final words or advice that you've got for any. Obviously you're working with it, you know, providers at the moment. We are in some sort of interesting economic times. Obviously the war, you know, the war stuff has hopefully changed that a little bit with the last couple of days. Any sort of top two or three other final tips from you on sort of on, you know, before we get that said, I'm interested in one thing that you mentioned about the aspect. See you had your downtime because one of the challenges when you're in business is you're consumed by your business a lot. And actually it was. How did you manage to make that? Um, especially when you're, you know, CEO of a, you know, a big company, there's always on mentality that's supposed to be expected of you. But you, you realized obviously you needed that time. Apart from that, how did you manage to juggle that? And I'm just intrigued by the. Did you have set rules that said, right, I'm not replying to emails after the next time or was it.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I developed over time. I mean fundamentally I love sport and I love playing sport. And so I was, you know, when I took over as I am still playing first team hockey and all that sort of thing on Saturdays and I had to train twice a week often, things like that. So there were things that I had to do if I wanted to carry on that and it was almost non negotiable. So I'm still going to play hockey type thing. I had three kids which, you know, between my wife and I, um, there's a lot of time and effort in bringing up three kids and they don't care. You're a cheated. So you get home and it's just like. Right. And particularly as I was working long hours, my wife works for herself often. She was right, they're yours, get on with them. I'm not thinking. So I can't even answer emails. I'm not an evening person so I don't like looking at things in the evening. So that helped. Um, and people got used to the fact they wanted me. It was an early morning, an early morning thing. I mean there's no silver bullet. The thing I would say is when you run a business you are thinking about it pretty much 24, 7, 7 days a week, even if you're not actively engaging with the business when you're doing your teeth in the morning and last thing at night. You often are thinking about it. So distraction of kids, distraction of other things is important just because that's something else to worry about that isn't work. But during the intense times which you often do have as a business leader, it is difficult to get that balance. But I would work slightly longer hours, I get in early and to work slightly longer hours during the week so that my weekends were not always. But most of the time my weekends were not work. My weekends were doing something else.

Speaker A: And I guess, you know, which is great. I love the advice, by the way, and love the idea. Like you say on the hockey pitch, no one's going to, no one's going to care whether you're a CEO or not. They just want to win right as the battle on the pitch. So. But I guess also that point that you said earlier on, maybe the one lesson that people can take from this is if you are going to meet with someone senior whose time is very precious, just be really clear about what it is. Like you say, what is the act? What's the purpose of this? What's the outcome? Get to the point, get, you know, uh, do it. I always say, you know, when to some of the sales team, I talk about making calls, win 15 second battles, but when you're engaging in meetings with senior people, you. It's winning five minute battles, isn't it? It's like five minutes at a time because you probably may only get 10, 15 of them and if you don't get it through at the end of that, you've probably got.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I agree with that.

Speaker A: Yeah, look, and then final sort of thing for anyone. Any, any final tips from you. As you know, we've. I wish so many more questions I wanted to ask and go through which I haven't a chance. Maybe we'll get you onto the podcast in a few months to talk about a number of things around sales deals and systems and engines and stuff that you built. But any other final sort of thoughts from yours? Because we're in a, as I say, strange sort of time at the moment. Um, you know, any, any final tips on how to, you know, you're helping people to grow, to build, to achieve what they want to.

Speaker B: I mean, I think with the strange times we have, the two pieces of advice I would definitely do is that forget whether it's strange times or not. The closer you are to your customer, the more you understand what your customer issues are, uh, the more likely you are to be able to provide them stuff that they're going to buy from you. And I know it sounds very trite, but it's still true. Uh, in our world today, the closer you are, and as a chief executive or as a senior leader, there are lots of things you can be doing that isn't engaging with customers, um, that isn't good enough. You've got to keep going with customers because they will tell you what they need in order for it to allow you to grow. So that would be my biggest thing, I think. The other thing, we haven't mentioned it at all, but the whole AI side of things, which I know would be a completely different, uh, podcast as one of the things I'm finding from working with tech founders is they are all over it themselves. They are, they really understand, they can tell you how their business could be completely destroyed by AI if it took off, if their customers used it in a certain way. And they are already building agents using generative AI, uh, regularly in their own business and their own personal life to work out what this technology can do. And I do think it's that disruptive that um, if I was a chief executive of any technology business right now I would personally be getting my head around that ah, properly because, um, it's, it's changing our market as we, we speak and there's a lot of rubbish spoken about it and what it can do. Like the only way you're going to find out is by using it yourself and working out how, how it can impact your business.

Speaker A: Love that, Love that. Brilliant. I mean, look, I think it's a great idea because we haven't, you know, we haven't focused on AI as such and there's lots of other areas I'd love to, to go into, into more detail with you on, but I'm conscious of sort of time now. So look, um, finally, where can people reach you, Dave? Where's the best obviously place? Because you know, I guess obviously LinkedIn is maybe your, your way, you, you're visible a lot. But where's the best place? Listening to this, wants to reach you and have a conversation.

Speaker B: That's, that's the best place. I'm, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm now posting regularly with, with, with LinkedIn. I've really engaged with that platform. So yeah, if people want to reach out at all, just message me on, on LinkedIn. I'd be great to, great to connect to people.

Speaker A: Amazing. M. Look, we've shared so generous in sharing so much of your, your time and, and uh, and, and insights there. As I say, so many things that I've got on my list. I haven't even covered, but time ran out. But that's always the nature of these conversations because you we showcasing so many different thoughts. But thank you so much for giving up your time to be on the podcast. It's an absolute pleasure to have you, um, you know, here and to sharing your insights and um, and your knowledge. And so in doing that so generously and so I know that it will be powerful. I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to invite you back on in a couple of months time to talk about but a number of other elements around build and sales engines, but also around the AI stuff because you're right, the, the world is um. I was talking to someone the other day and they were saying that AI, it was a podcast I was listening to. You know, we might have superhuman AI within two years. That can basically be the intelligence of us all. And it's like, whoa. You know, that's. That's quite scary, isn't it? But. But also how businesses can make enough use of that to really grow and do what they want to do.

Speaker B: Yeah. All right, lovely. Thanks, James. Thanks for inviting me on. It's been great.

Speaker A: Thank you, David. Really appreciate it. So. So that was David Brooks. He was the um, as I say, CEO of both Chartast and rm. Really great guy. Fantastic sharing so much knowledge and insights, um, on the podcast this week to help um, other businesses grow. So that's it for this week. Thank you as ever for listening to the and watching if you're watching online on YouTube. Thank you for listening to the podcast and we'll see you next week for another episode. Take care.