David Carlebach: The Hidden Currency of Revenue: Credibility

Business. Business. Business. Business. Welcome to Go to Market, a podcast for RevOps, sales, and marketing leaders to dive deep into industry insights and best practices. Go to Market is sponsored by Fulcast and Silicon Slopes. I am so excited to introduce to you today David Carlbach, the COO of the World Trade Center Utah. I had an amazing conversation with him earlier. He is a wealth of knowledge, and his whole job exists to help other companies go to market better. So David, thank you so much for joining us today.

Oh, you're very welcome, Amy. It's great to be here. I welcome the opportunity.

Oh, thank you so much. Well, I'd love to get started by just having you tell us a little bit about your background. How did you come to be in this position?

Yeah, well, thanks for asking. I am currently the Chief Operating Officer and Head of Business Services here at World Trade Center, and it is a great opportunity to give back to the community and, as you said, help Utah companies go to market, and in our case, go to international markets, whether it be for sales or for sourcing. And I'm in this role after— I've lost track of it— 35, 40-year career in multiple areas, but none of them were in economic development or even business development. And so for me, this has been a really interesting job and a job where I feel that I'm growing and learning. But to your question, it's really a job that builds on my experience. I've had 3, I think, meaningful careers before this. Most recently before this, I was at Goldman Sachs. I was Had multiple roles there. I won't get into great detail there, but two key roles were bringing Goldman Sachs to Utah back in 2000. And I led the office for 8 years and grew it from virtually nothing to over 500 people. And yeah, it was great for Goldman Sachs, truly. It was good for the city and it was good for me.

So, no, David, it was so interesting. Yeah, so I was at BYU in Provo from 1994 to 1999, and I remember very distinctly when Goldman Sachs came to Utah. And it's really fun to meet you now knowing that you were kind of the man behind the— there.

Well, you know, I look back and I— it worked out wonderfully for all the, all the groups I mentioned. And it's one of those things that you look back and you say, how did that all fall into place? I, you know, I, I certainly— there's this bit of serendipity involved, and, and I'm really thankful the way it worked out. Um, so So that was one role that actually got me exposed to economic development. I didn't realize it at the time, but we did interact with economic developers around incentives and around, you know, choosing a location and things like that. But that role more generally was one as a, you know, in corporate America as an executive. I also had an opportunity to work after that at Goldman Sachs in Asia, in Hong Kong, where I led operations for all of Asia. So that gave me exposure to corporate life, kind of on a, on a, on an internet, in an international role. Before that, I was a management consultant and there too for a prominent consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton. I did that for 7 or 8 years. And that also allowed me to work internationally. I spent 3 years in Germany working as part of the German offices team. And before that, I was an entrepreneur and in some ways that was the best part of my career. Totally different from the other roles. Really gave me an opportunity to work as a general manager because when you're working for an early stage or startup company, you know, there isn't much specialization. There aren't a lot of people to turn to. It's kind of, it wasn't truly just on me to give credit to the men I worked for, but I was a very close partner to the owners. And again, it was a great opportunity. I'd be happy to share details about that, but those 3 roles are kind of distinct. And I just love that in my current role, I've been pleasantly just surprised to see how useful those various experiences are, because in this role, I'm helping connect Utah businesses with the rest of the world and the types of people I interact with, whether it be here or abroad, it's varied. And I find that my breadth of experience and years of experience really allow allow me to be, to understand what they're saying and be effective kind of, you know, getting to the heart of the issue and helping effectively manage connections among all the people I interact with.

Well, I really love that. And it reminds me of my own career and how serendipitous, like I love the word that you used there, it can be. Like I started my career in healthcare marketing. I moved over to technology. I moved back to health tech and now I'm running a technology company with the healthcare industry. And so I thought, oh, all of these jobs I needed when, when I was going from building to building at a nursing home, trying to get people to come to my nursing home, like that's a really great foundation for 20 years later when I'm doing something different but so related, you know?

Well, you know, not to get too philosophical on you. And I, and I did mention serendipity and, you know, you could even say a blessing and an act of God that, you know, it works out the the way it does. Two related thoughts that I share all the time. One, of course, is that along that whole journey, the most important thing is that you were there. And the reason it worked out is not because you made all these right choices. You know, you could have come to the fork in the road and gone left instead of right. That would've also worked out. You know, the choice itself isn't so important as the fact that you're going to be there along the journey and make it work. I think that's one.

Very entrepreneurial of you to say, David. Yeah.

Well, it's actually an interpretation I heard of the road less traveled, Frost's road less traveled. Like, what was the real message? And it was he didn't like that people were complaining that, woe is me, I made the wrong choice. And his point was take responsibility and own, you know, whatever happens along the way regardless of the choices you make. But the other thing is that you look back, you know, at least at my age, maybe not at yours, but I look back and you say, how could How could a path that is so perfect for me have unfolded? And, and, and, and the kind of key to that question, that quandary is, uh, there, that pondering is, of course, you've changed along the way. You are who you are because of the path. And it seems like the perfect path for who you are, but it, there were many paths that were perfect for the person you were. It's just now that you've developed and evolved along the way, Of course, the path you look back on is the only one that fits who you are, but that's because you've evolved and changed.

And I think that is mind-blowing as well. I totally agree with that. Yeah, that is, that's so what, that is so interesting about how our, how we affect life in the, with our agency, but how also how we are affected by our experiences. I think that, that was so well said how you said that. Well, so tell me now that you're at the kind of at this new, you know, maybe not totally new, but at this point in your life with the World Trade Center Utah, how did all of those, how do all of those experiences that you've had enable you to help other businesses find new and meaningful ways to go do business with other countries and other locations?

Yeah, I alluded to this earlier. Hopefully I'm adding something here with this answer, but I mean, our basic role is to understand the needs and interests of different groups, whether it's groups in Utah. Take as an example a company trying to maybe attract capital or find a new market for its products, and then find the people on the other side of the, of the world who, who can help them with that. Um, and I think to do that requires at least 2 or 3 things. One certainly requires understanding and understanding it quickly. You know, I mean, you don't have days or weeks to study it. You have to pretty quickly assess, you know, in a meeting or two, what really the heart of the matter is and what they want and be able to communicate that. So I think that takes a certain amount of business acumen that, yeah, some people are maybe born with it, but at least for me, you know, it's developed only after, as I said, 40 years of being in challenging environments, varied environments with good people. And so I think I bring that to the table. And again, I was, I mean, I'm not patting my own back here. I was as surprised as anyone to see that in fact that, you know, that corpus of experience really is valuable and it makes me a better counterparty or partner to these, you know, to these companies in Utah or these, you know, our network abroad. And closely aligned with that is just being credible, you know, and earning trust quickly. I mean, they're all related, of course, but, you know, someone— and earning goodwill. I mean, like, we're always out there. We talk about our network abroad, and it is a big network, but they're helping us because there's a certain amount of goodwill and chemistry that's developed quite quickly. It's not like we've worked with some of these people whether it be in India or Japan or Germany or the UAE or what have you. I mean, we're constantly interacting with people all over the world. And if we're not credible and earning their goodwill, again, quickly and over and over, I think the network would kind of crumble or not be so useful. So I think those are some of the aspects of my background that allow me to be useful in this role.

Yeah, I love how you said that. So based on your role, like, what was the What's the best way that somebody either— do you work with entrepreneurs? Do you work with, uh, business line owners? Like, who's your ideal person to work with to help with this trade?

Yeah, I mean, maybe I'll answer the question from two perspectives. So our kind of bread and butter ideal situation would be helping a company find a new market abroad, either to sell or to source. Let's just keep it simple. We're focused on selling. And I think in terms of an ideal company, it would be one that's big enough to have the resources to develop international business and have the maturity and the, you know, the leadership to really be contemplative about that and committed. You know, it's easy to say, oh sure, that sounds exciting, that sounds interesting, but it's hard. And if they don't have the resources or they don't have the the commitment, it's gonna be for naught. Often we see companies that are a little smaller or maybe a little less committed and, and you know, you see that, but when you find that company that really, really is ready and capable, you know, it's so, it's, we're so much more effective when we have a, a good company to represent. I guess the other perspective would be on the investment side. So besides helping with trade, finding new markets, for sourcing or sales. We also try to attract capital to help companies and the economy more generally grow. You know, they're often actually the one I think of, the company we're working with is, is, and again, there are alternatives here, but would be like an international company that wants to come to Utah and, and put down roots, make, make Utah their US headquarters. And they're bringing with them potentially financial capital, but certainly human capital, intellectual capital. They're bringing valuable assets here to the community and they do help the economy grow. And for that, I guess, you know, it's somewhat the inverse of what I said. I want them to come with a commitment and a strong team, or at least a strong leader, a strong pitch, you know, clear idea about what they need, clear plan about how they want to go about it. We try to help in, in multiple ways. Can be introduction to capital, but it can be also introductions to a first customer. It can be helping them find potential partners. I mean, just to give you an example, a recent example, there's a company out of Taiwan that does factory automation. They do, you know, software, kind of an ERP+ kind of platform to help, to help run and control a factory. Um, but they— I don't even think their platform, uh, works for, you know, true automation, like true autonomous robots and, and maybe other, other equipment that would be in the factory. And so they want to come here and sell their software because of the booming manufacturing economy, but they also want to upgrade their software for this next level of automation or, or autonomy. And so they want partners in the universities, you know, who are, who are the leading scientists in either mechanical engineering or electrical and computer engineering, or maybe they, maybe they even have an institute or some group of people working on these challenges. So, you know, it's, it's so fun and interesting to, to hear about the businesses and then try to think, you know, through your mental Rolodex, who, you know, who might, who might they work with? And again, it's that you can see from that example, it goes right back to being quick to understand the issue and then having credibility. Like when you contact, I don't know, the head of the, you know, engineering school at the University of Utah, you know, I mean, he's got a lot of things, he or she would, you know, in general have lots of things crossing, you know, crossing his or her plate. And, you know, you got to be able to quickly say, no, this is it. And it, you know, and I believe it's, you know, would be interesting, it'd be a win-win for, for, you know, for the, for the school and the professors, but also for the economy and, and obviously this company coming from Taiwan. So we love making those kind of matches and, and getting those get those discussions started.

I love that. Well, what's so exciting to me, and I didn't know this about what World Trade Center Utah does, is that it's a two-way street. You connect businesses— like, a business can come and work with you and say, hey, I want to go international, or an international business could come to you and say, I may— I need, I need resource capital, I need human capital, I need intellectual capital. What do you have here in the state? And what's exciting to me is that Utah's got a lot of all three of those.

So you do. Yeah, no, it's It's true. And, you know, the funny thing about that second category, the one that you hadn't thought about, the other direction on the street, is we call that investment. And again, I think when we say the word investment, at least my mind would have in the past gone to financial investment, money. Exactly. And that is true. And that is interesting. But the more common is companies coming here to operate. And sometimes it's a big company like I don't know, ideally BMW opening up a manufacturing plant. And people can relate to that too. But there is a lot that's kind of below the surface and much more nuanced and smaller and takes more creativity to kind of figure out how to advance that.

That's really exciting. Well, David, you are clearly at the top of your game. It's really fun to see how you're pulling from all 3 different careers to really help people internationally and in Utah. How do you stay at the top of your game?

Well, some things, I guess some things I'm working on now and some things I kind of baked into the cake years ago. I, you know, I do think in a career in general, not just in this, at this moment in my career, but in a career in general, having a good family situation and a good, you know, partner or spouse. I try to have my wife here all the time. You know, thank you for taking care of the four, taking care of things at home. I know when I moved to Asia, they spent so much time making sure things were okay at home. You know, this is kind of a lesson for expats is, or at least in managing an expat, is make sure he or she has things sorted out at home 'cause they're not gonna be effective at the workplace if the kids aren't in the right school or the, you know, wife doesn't have transportation or whatever it might be, the spouse. So, but I mean, much more general than that. Situation, having a wife who is a good partner and, you know, dealing with all the things that I can't deal with when I'm focused on work is absolutely key. I would say, you know, beyond that, I think staying healthy. And I recently have been working on diet and, you know, not to get political and, you know, into the MAGA movement, but there are just so many things about our diet and our healthcare system that are at least worth questioning. I like, I don't wanna be polemic and, and say I, I absolutely, what's bad and what's, what works. But there's just so much that one, especially with, you know, all the LLMs these days and just how much information there is, there's so much, you know, individuals can do on their own with, without, you know, quote unquote an expert or a doctor or what have you. And, and can tweak things. And just as one example, I've been recording my diet for, for years, you know, every day. But I only recently had the LLM look at, hey, look at my, what I ate today, tell me what you think about it, you know, in terms of these goals, whether it's around, you know, glucose management or fat management. And he, and the, the LLM comes, in my case it's Copilot, comes back with extremely specific things. You know, there was very little fiber, you should have added flaxseed, you know, and then, you know, now I've become a regular, you know, user of flaxseed in my yogurt in the morning and it, and you know, just wouldn't, I don't know, the likelihood I would have done. Yeah.

Yeah. So what do you think that the LLMs are going to say about my idea of intermittent fasting with Monster energy drinks? Is that a good idea?

The good news is they're really online.

I'll get back to you on that one.

They're also pleasers, so they'll probably, they'll probably like it.

I agree. I'll be like, I'll be like, Gemini, please tell me I'm amazing in every way. How is it if I intermittent fast with Monster Energy drinks?

Deeply insecure.

And, and, well, David, thank you so much for coming on today. What a pleasure. I'm so grateful to know that there are people like you out there that can use your vast experience and expertise to help the rest of us. So thank you for everything that you're doing, and I really appreciate your time today.

Oh, you're very welcome, and thank you for listening.

Business, yes, that's business. Business, yes, that's business.