Episode 48: Fad or Long-Term Play? Opinions on AI Social Selling and Video with Darcy Smyth and Steve Claydon

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And engaged teams, stronger sales teams is right where you need to be. Welcome back to Stronger Sales Teams, the place where we provide real world and practical advice to help you develop super powered B2B sales teams. Last week we had a fantastic episode, one of my favorites with Darcy and Steve Clayden. Both terrific guys. In fact, the conversation went so well that we actually broke it out into two separate episodes. So what you're about to hear is the second part of our recording where we turn the tables a little bit and Darcy and Steve took control, they took the reins and really were firing the questions at me. So again, a conversation that I really enjoyed because both of these gentlemen have significant experience in the industry, but also it gave me a chance to actually contribute in a way when I wasn't the MC of the podcast, but I was someone who was contributing. So please buckle in. Enjoy the next 25 minutes. Paul. Part two of my recording with Darcy Smyth and Steve Clayton.

One thing I was really curious about, Ben, as I've, you know, consumed your content on LinkedIn, got high quality stuff that you're putting out there, you know, really high quality lived experience lessons which I kind of see more as it sort of transcends to a point of wisdom because it's like, hey, actually live this. And this is what I found in some of those journey challenges on the growth journey. How important is it to you now in terms of like social selling, documenting, content, producing, even what we're doing now. Like how important do you think that is in this day and age? And as you've seen, you know, you're working with lots of businesses now as well. Like how important do you think is that social selling game and. Or is it a dying trend?

I personally made the mistake with social selling 12 months ago of trying to do everything, trying to get into the every platform, be everything to everyone. And she said hurt cause I spent so much time and got nowhere. And for me, what came out of that was goal setting, right? I've spoken to you before guys before about actually having your goals about whatever you want to do. And I looked at social selling and said, hang on, what are my goals? And for me, two things really jumped out. One is it's a lead generation platform, right? Plenty of people use it for lead gen. 2 is it's, I call it proof of life as your platform, right? There is so much information out there about almost anything now that you want to look into. Unless it's a real emerging technology or an emerging category, there's lots and lots of information out there. So social or proof of life is we actually use it so that when people are going through their buying journey that by the time they may meet with you, Steve, you mentioned earlier, right, you're six or seven years creating content, right? By the time they meet with you, they know you. Or when they're struggling to make a decision, you've got those extra proof points. They to be able to say, actually, you know what, this is not just someone who did a terrific presentation in front of me, this is someone who actually knows their stuff. So for me I had to look at those two and make a decision. And I originally went in, to be honest around lead generation and said, you know, I want to be generating business out of this and you invest money and you know, you've got a marketing spend and away you go. But I've complete pivot. I don't use social selling for lead generation at all now. I use it for social proof because I want people to really get to know me before they get into business with me because I think that results in a much better, a much stronger and deeper business connection before you even get started. So for me, social selling is now really important because it's my way of showing people my experience in a content that they're going to consume. It's all well and good having this great big bio, but people don't tend to read in my experience, as much on email as things they're sent anymore, right? It's a quick flick through attachments. They'd far rather look for those consumable bite sized chunks of content and that can build out a bit of social proof. So yeah, I think the world's changed in how people look for experience. And so for me, I think if you're walking past social selling, that comes down to me that you're failing the plan, which means you're planning to fail. I think every salesperson now must have a presence in social selling. And I think you'll see that the next generation that comes through will really make our generation look like we've missed an opportunity.

We were speaking before about people in sales leadership and things like this or their company. Not okaying the fact that they're on LinkedIn, you know, not okaying the fact that they want to make a podcast for the company and things like that.

Yeah.

How do you see that playing out, Ben? And what do you think that actually costs businesses of the future?

Yeah, yeah. So it's going to change. I'm pretty comfortable with that. And the main reasons it's going to change is the people that move into leadership are going to be people that have grown up with this. So they're going to be far more comfortable. Just like when email came in. Right. People that grew up with emails and computers became far more comfortable with their team spending time behind computers and emails and using that as their mediums. So it will change. But how long are we until that change of the guard happens? It's, I mean, it could be anyone's guess. We're talking years, right? A number of years before, I think before it becomes really, really mainstream. So between now and then, I think there's going to be vigorous debate at a company level. Right. And even at an individual level, I've always worked around facts win, Right. Facts should win over emotion. So the good businesses are going to debate these topics and they're going to let their teams, they're going to build out a structure or they're going to build out the map, right. For their team, the territory for their teams to be able to work within and allow them some free rein to experiment with social media or social selling. Right. But with some clear boundaries around it. That's what the good businesses are going to do. And they're going to try it, they're going to ideate, they're going to test it and it's going to become part of the strategy for sales teams. I shouldn't say the good businesses, the forward thinking businesses I think are going to do that. The others that have either more things on their plate, right. And they just can't afford the time on social selling. They're going to have, I think, a tougher journey with their teams, which means they're going to fall further behind. Right. So for me, I think as a sales leader, if you're someone that's really wanting to drive social selling into your business, it's actually on you to be bringing some social proof Back into your business, show the leadership in your business how it's working, tell the story, take them on a journey, try and find some openness to test it. Then you can prove it, then you can roll it out. Right? But for me is approach social selling with a business case like you do anything else. For me, I'm seeing people saying we got to do social selling. We just got to do it because everyone's doing it right. Ten years ago we just got to do email because everyone's doing it. Or we've just got to move on to video because everyone's doing it right. We just have to. Doesn't work. Right. You gotta put a good business case forward like you do anything else. And don't treat social selling as something flashy, just like AI, treat it as something to put really good thought behind and negotiate and influence and let good logic win your way through to doing it. That for me is I think how businesses are going to succeed and leaders are going to succeed in that transition period.

Yeah, I like your perspective on that. It's almost like you could view social selling as a business case like you would part of a tech stack. Right. Like when you think about actual what social selling is, is we're engaging with a tech platform and it just so happens to be called social media. But then behind that is content production which is essentially under marketing, right?

Yeah.

So I think where companies get weirded out about it is they're like they fail to see the difference between viewing it as a tech platform that we can engage in versus this is the way people engage in the platform. It's two very different school of thoughts. Right? Like you could be a 50 year old, you know, like my mom and dad or whatever and my father in law who has a Facebook account, right. And they consume content, which is ridiculous to view Facebook and like, you know, developing that as a strategy in a tech stack point of view because you're viewing it through the lens of Steve, my father in law is like, that's a massive mistake. Like it's the same reason when people like oh TikTok, you know, it's just crazy. You know, don't do anything with TikTok because you know all those kids and looking at weird videos and you're like, no bro, like that's how some people in the platform are choosing to engage with that platform. But that's not the platform. I think that's the biggest change in thinking is like if you view it as a tech stack. And how would you introduce that tech stack to Your business, you're seeing it with logic and fact.

Yeah. And it's meeting people where they're at, right?

Yeah.

Meeting your customers, your partners, whatever you want to call them. Right. You are meeting them where they're at now because you want to be easy to work with. In fact, I did a strategic planning day with a really sizable global business a couple of weeks ago. And one of the key things that came out of that planning day was we want to be easy to work with. And this was a terrific time. Right. This was. There was 17 in that session. They were super focused around improving one of the better teams I've worked with with that focus. You know, you can't name them. Right. But it'd be a great plug for them. But at the end of the day, it was, let's be easy to work with. And one of the things came out of it that was, how do we engage with customers and meet them where they're at rather than what we want to do?

Yeah. Huge. How are you? And this is a question to you as well, das, I suppose, with the different things that we've viewed with teams around the world, how are the best teams embracing tech? Because if you think about tech at large, you've got two schools of thought. Some schools are like, it's a sin to use AI ChatGPT, it's not allowed. Other schools are like, no, we have to teach our kids how to use ChatGPT and AI because they're going to have to use it in the world. You can't live under a rock here. It seems like there's a weird fine line of how much tech should you introduce? You even think about this when you're a parent, right? Like when your kid. Kid's one year old, you're just like, how much tech should I introduce? Like, that doesn't change. What are you noticing in this conversation? For Das and Ben, how are the best teams navigating that balancing line of how much tech should we use?

So a couple of things around tech. For me, I think ignoring tech is catastrophic as a business. Now, that doesn't mean you have to embrace it, but I think not keeping abreast of everything that's happening so that you're ready to move when tech's right for your business. Right. And you might move slowly, and that's absolutely okay. But your knowledge and your understanding of tech, you need to be moving really fast. Right. We certainly don't want businesses to act in haste and repent in leisure. But if you're keeping up with Everything that's happening and you're jumping in at the right time for you. For me, I'm cool with that if you're going. Do you know what? We got a lot on the agenda this year. Let's look at tech next year. And not spending any time keeping up with the changes, you are starting so far back, you are 100 meters behind in a 1500 meter race with 20 meters to go. Right. You can give up that 100 meters really early, but you certainly can't give it up with 20 meters to go. So for me, you've got to stay up to speed with what's happening in the market around tech. So that's the first piece for me. The second piece is, and Steve, I've heard you say this before as well, and Darcy, is that I'm huge on using tech for the areas that don't necessarily need personalization. Right. So use it as an assistant. A great piece of advice. I had a podcast with a guy called Ryan Staley earlier this week, and one thing he said to me was, if you're not sure what to do with tech, what you're using Google for now, jump onto ChatGPT instead.

Yeah.

So love it. Right? What an easy way as a sales leader to jump in and get exposed to tech, but at the same time, then use it as your assistant rather than your actual driver. Right? It's not your leader, it's a contributor. Contributor to everything that you're doing and if the sum of which gives you a great operation. So I love that approach and I'm certainly adopting that. But I think also. Right. If you're able to keep that personalization in what you're doing, you won't get overtaken by tech.

I think it's the key, right? Like, been working with our dev team recently and you know, there's parts of the platform that we need to automate certain tasks.

Right.

And the terminology that you use, like, I'm no coder, right. I've just been immersed in that world for three years because I've had to. But they call it a worker, right? Like you code and develop a worker. And this worker is something that's just working in the background, doing the work, you know, And I think that's how we should ultimately view AI and automation. I like what you said, Ben. It shouldn't be your leader. If you're using it to be the face of your business and trying to make a human interaction and connection with them, it's probably not going to work because we're far Too intuitive. We know that, hey, that there's no humanness in that. But if it's a task where you have to dissect 110 page contract and define it down into the three core parts and then whack that in a spreadsheet and then put that into some report mate, build a worker. There doesn't need to be a human intuitive element to that. There's a right or wrong answer to it. Just go and do the work. And I think that's like the best way to view tech moving forward. Is, is it a worker or is it a leader? If you're making it a leader, it's probably not going to work. If it's a worker, it'll probably work.

Applying it to the parenting thing, Steve, it probably really does come down to what your philosophy of life is. Isn't it like the earlier you bring in tech would say something about what you think life is all about. If you delay tech and you'd rather encourage imaginability and imagination, I should say, and creativity, natural creativity, and, you know, send them to a Steiner school and have them play with natural things and all of that, all that sort of world, then you've probably got a whole different philosophy on, on life. I think that question, although on the surface level it's a conversation, how early do you introduce tech? Underneath it all is a. What's your philosophy on life?

Yeah, we should do a whiskey webinar on that one time, boys, and you know, have a sip and go deep into the philosophy of that. It is a deep question. I got a couple of quick fire questions for you boys, if you're up for it.

All right, I'm up for it.

First one video. Is it a fad or is it here to stay? Linking it to AI, like video production has never been easier to do, right? Like, you can produce video very quickly. Every human on the planet pretty much has a device in their pocket that will allow them to create video at high quality at a press of a thumb. But then you add in AI tools and you can make the weirdest AI commercials in the world that are hilarious. And that technology is only going to get better and better and eventually AI will be able to make videos that are unbelievably good. So is it. Have we reached the peak of video? Is it a fad or is it going to emerge and it's here to stay?

I think it's here to stay. It's here to stay because people, man, since the TV was introduced, people have been sitting in front of the tv. I don't think we have any issue with video going away. It's just going to get better and better and it's going to lend its hand to the creative types. The creators of the world are going to love it because they're going to be able to create all the videos they want. You can do that on TikTok now. Create all the videos you want with, you know, four flicks of your thumbnail. So it's only just going to get better and better. What I'm interested in is how the best split themselves from the rest. Like, if creating videos is so easy and intuitive, at what point do we reach where it's like diminishing returns on how good a video actually can be? So I'll be fascinated by that.

Yeah, I agree with you, Darcy. Videos here to stay. Number one, I think, is that with the rise and rise and rise of AI, words are going to become a good friend of mine and someone, you know, Steve Plummer, he talks about words being spells and I love it. But I think words are going to get harder and harder because of AI generation, right? Harder and harder to differentiate yourself via words. But video is still going to be real, right? Still going to be your face. It's a. We're a fair way away before AI can replicate me, right? And all my mannerisms and my nervous twitches and my slow blinks and all that type of stuff, right? You gotta live in, you gotta embrace it. Sorry for everyone that has to watch me. The second thing is I actually think it's a part of a journey, right? For me, I can't wait till video becomes something where you put your phone down and you actually pop up out of your phone or equivalent, right? And it's not that far away, right? Where videos become 3D modeling and the actual video plays up in front like you're having that conversation, right? Like someone's got too close to their computer screen on a video call and wow, you're right in front of me, right? So I think there's some cool iteration coming with that. And those. It's like tech. Those that embrace video now will be so much better prepared to do your full body videos right when they pop up out of your phone because you're comfortable with it and you've practiced it and you know what you're doing, right? So for me, again, it's another one. If you're not getting comfortable with video, you're going to get shown up by the next generation. It's just going to happen. So get on the boat, right, and start embracing it would be absolutely my advice.

Here's what a fad is, Steve. I think the marketing strategy of personalized videos. Hey Steve, Darcy here. Hope you're well, mate. Yep, just sent you over the proposal. I think that will be a fad that will fade out like, or just become part of the background noise of all the marketing strategies that have gone before potentially.

I actually think what we'll see is we do a Casey Neistat and this has been a prediction I've had for a while that I think with AI and tools being able to execute this so much quicker, I think we will see more like highly curated, edited, high production value, personalized videos being recorded and sent. Quick fire question. It hasn't been so quick, but I've enjoyed the conversation regardless. It's a topic of training and it kind of links back to the previous conversation we had around learning and development. Is it voluntary? Is it mandatory? How do you do it? We can tackle training in a whole lot of different ways. Right. Like I think there's three maybe buckets here. Playing devil's advocate. Maybe the best training is purely on the job training and that's the best way to grow skills and talent is build a culture where it's almost like peer learning that if you work at the company and you're on the production floor, it's kind of part of the culture that the guy next to you teaches you the best way to do the job and you ask questions and whatever. That's one way of doing it. Pure internal, pure. It's all on the job training. You learn from your neighbor. Then there's like the other end of the spectrum where you engage people like us, externals people that have, you know, maybe got a broader or narrow skill set and they come into the business and they bring their knowledge and they facilitate the training and they're hands on and they do the work and they collaborate with the team or whatever it may be. That's the other end. There's probably somewhere in the middle as well where it's like a hybrid collection of online learning, training content, you know, evergreen resources that people can walk themselves through with maybe an external facilitator somewhere in the middle. You have to, you can't go anywhere across the spectrum. You have to bet on one and pick one as the most effective way of growing a team. What do you reckon, Ben?

So I have to pick one or the other?

One or the other, yeah. You have to like no fence sitting allowed.

Okay. It's funny as you were talking about that and dash, you are going to call me old now, is it an old TV sitcom, Married with Children. It had the start of it was Love and Marriage. Love and Marriage. You can't have one without the other, right? For me my obvious answer was going to be internal and external training. You can't have one without the other, right? You've got to have both. And the old Ted Bundy I can picture in there right now, as you can see, you guys are going to make a meme or something out of this on me and I'm going to regret it for as long as I shall live. But go for your life, right? Because it'll come right back at you. So for me, look, I think the answer actually straightforward, I think, and you have a scenario for each. If you have strong leaders internally who have been really well trained and have the capability to do it internally, then you're going to lean to the internal training, right? So if you have internal capability, use it. But you've got to be really confident you've got internal capability. And it's hard to find, but it's certainly out there, right? So someone like a Google is going to have some pretty strong depth of internal training capability now. Sure. I think they should supplement it. Right. But if you're making me sit on the fence, I'd say if you get off the fence, right, I'd say if you've got the capability to do it on the other side, if you don't have the capability internally to try, don't try and build it. Because what you can lose through a poorly delivered training program around engagement is epic, right? You can burn an entire team through a training program that either doesn't bring you together, right. Or is involuntary, you know, voluntary, as you were talking about earlier, Steve. So if you haven't got the capability to do it, which is generally going to be smaller to medium businesses, so just don't, don't do it, right? Focus on coaching and let the training be done by external people. So I don't think I sat on the fence, but I think I gave you two answers. According to two scenarios.

You sat on two fences.

That's professional fence sitting if I've ever seen it.

Well, I've been around a little while, right? As you guys could say, I've done a few rounds. Right, There you go, There you go.

No, I agree with you. Like it has to be a combination of both. Kind of reminds me dust of that analogy. I think you shared this with me ages ago around the Turkey in the oven. It was Thanksgiving or something and, you know, they're preparing this particular turkey and before they put it in the oven, they cut the end off the particular turkey and they go cook it and comes out, it's beautiful, it's delicious and whatever. And you know, one of the kids goes, oh, hey, you know, mum, why do you cut the end off the turkey? And she said, oh, I don't know, it's just. That's how my mum did it, you know, Goes up the chain, goes up to the mum, hey, cutting off the turkey, why you do it that way? Oh, I don't know. That's just how my mum did it. They finally get to, you know, great Grandma Gladys or whatever and go, great Grandma Gladys, curious, why do you cut the end off the turkey? And she goes, well, back in my day, the oven couldn't fit the turkey so we always had to cut the end off. And it's this idea of sometimes if you've got poorly set up internal training, you can teach people, the next generation, the next generation, the next generation, a way of doing things. And sometimes it's not the best way of actually doing it. You know, ovens are big these days, you can fit the whole turkey in. It's that kind of concept that external eye sometimes can pick up parts of your business that you can never see yourself because it's. You're too close to it.

We've talked turkeys, turnip farmers. I'm just wondering what's going to be next.

Got two golden questions at the end of every episode.

Ben.

First golden question, Ben. Great chat, by the way. We've really, really enjoyed this conversation. Take the answer as far as deep or as personal as you want or as tactical as you want. You go take it where you want. What's something you've come to know and believe to be true that you know, a bunch of other people simply disagree with?

Gee, there's actually two. And I'm going to give you two. Number one, there is no substitute for hard work. There just is no substitute for it. So often I see people say I've been successful without working hard. I've rocketed to success in social media. Things have gone viral. Yeah, I'm going to make it work, work. Everything's going to come my way. It's just not true. Right. At a point in everyone's life to be successful, you have to work harder. And I would challenge you to find an athlete or someone in entertainment or in business that hasn't had to work hard. But there's a lot of people out there that talk about work, life balance. Make sure that you're spending your time on the important things in life, which I agree with. Right. You should spend your time on important things. But there are times, if you want to be successful in business. Right. Where you have to sacrifice. So that's the first one. The second one for me, and I don't hear people often vocally disagree with this, but I think people's actions disagree with this and that is that it is never too early to start networking. The value of building a network from the first moment you recognize it. 10, 12, 14, 16. I think I was about 15 when I first recognized it. And I look back and it's the one thing I wish I had have done more of. I'm reasonably well networked. Right. I think I've got a great network and some terrific people around me. But I think people's actions disagree around the importance of networking. And I wish schools and education systems spent more time on the value of having the right people around you and building that network. Right. I mean, for me, I'd like to see it as part of your schooling and university degrees is how you actually build those relationships. You don't teach that in school. There's nothing around building relationships. Not really. So. So there you go. Two answers.

Sorry, mate, I'm glad you gave too. That's some golden answers, man. I think that's so true, particularly about the networking side of things. I think we would agree with that. Das. You know, we've probably heavily focused on partnership and network in the last three years, but we should have done that since day dot. We should have started from the very moment we started and joined forces in business. We should have been, let's start deliberately building our network every time we go.

To events, every time we get face.

To face with people changes the course of our life every time we do it.

Yeah, yeah.

Second question. Ben, final question for the pod. What is something you currently hold and know to be true but that you sense yourself starting to let go of.

At a business level? Oh, look, I actually think we're almost there. But IQ was something that was critical in leadership and EQ was important in leadership historically. I think there's a fine balance between the two. But I can rapidly see, and I don't think we're far off at all, if not there already, that EQ becomes the predominant driver in leadership in the future. Right. And the reason I say it's still balanced is because traditional interviews, which are still happening by the Majority of businesses are all around a focus more on IQ than eq. Right. I still think they are, but down the track it's going to be your ability to lead and manage because IQ can be supplemented so easily now. So I think you'll see in very short period of time the next generation of leaders. It's all going to be about aq.

Yeah. Have you heard of, have you heard of the school of thought around aq? It's adaptability, quotient, grit, agility, all that type of stuff. Yeah, yeah. So like with the bombardment of technology and the need to adapt quickly, that's like a skill, is almost like a level of ability to adapt quickly. And I think that's a big part of it. I think the combination of AQ and EQ is going to be pretty potent set of skills to have.

Yeah, yeah, I like that. You can trust the modern world to start complicating what used to be really simple. Right?

Exactly.

Then along came EQ and now comes aq. Right. I'm not sure what's next, but. And look, for me, adaptability used to just get wrapped into iq, but yeah, super important. A lot of the studies that are being done at the moment is showing agility and grit as being critical to success. And again, something I'd love to see taught in schools and something I'm trying to work on with my little one, my fierce three and a half year old. So, Darcy and Steve, thank you. Have loved our discussions. Right. For me, some really cool stuff I'm going to take out of it. Not just about turnip farmers and sand wedges and pitching wedges. Right. But also things like aq, but more importantly. Right. How important it is as leaders to be on a growth journey that doesn't stop. I think that's a theme that's really come through. So for those listening, where can they find out more about both of you?

Yeah, we're big on LinkedIn, so feel free to search. Steve Claydon, C L, A Y, D O N and Darcy Smyth, S, M, Y, T, H. We've both got those weird last names where you have to always explain that it's got a D in it and that it's not Smith, just Smythe with a Y. Come hang out with us there. But if you want to check out what we're doing with the gamification platform for sales teams, just head to Outbound game.

Awesome. It's been great today, gentlemen. And everyone else, thank you for listening. And until next time, keep living in a world of possibility and you'll be amazed by what you can achieve.

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