Episode 78: The Role of Data Intelligence in Nailing Prospecting with Nick Caruso

Hi everyone, I'm Ben Wright, successful entrepreneur, corporate leader and expert sales coach to some of the most talented people our amazing planet has to offer. You're listening to the Stronger Sales Team podcast where we bring together and simplify the complex world of B2B sales management to help the millions of sales managers worldwide build, motivate and keep together highly effective sales teams. Teams who grow revenue and make their businesses actual profits along the journey. We also provide great insights and actionable steps to managing your personal health. A happy and productive year is not only better for your teams, but everyone around you. So if you're an ambitious sales leader who wants to build the highest performing 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 superpowered sales teams today. Special guest all the way from just outside of Washington D.C. we have Nick Caruso joining us. And look, we only had five or 10 minutes talking before this podcast started recording, but already I can see that Nick has a really different perspective on some of the very common topics that we talk about very regularly on this podcast. So I'm really looking forward to hearing what Nick has to say as we jump into things over the next 25 minutes or so. But before I throw over to Nick, I would like to of course introduce him. Nick has a career now spanning 20 plus years in the tech startup sector, which is a long time when we consider how fast that sector has moved over the last couple of decades. But for him, I think the line of distinguishment comes along. His innovative use of AI across national security in particular. Right. Quite different and quite unique to a lot of the guests that we have on here, but also financial services and Fortune 100 companies. So Nick launched Knowledgenet AI in 2019 and essentially to do that he used his experience that would help him dive into organizational data analysis, which we are gonna talk to in a different frame over the coming 20 minutes. So stay tun for that. That's going to be fantastic. His vision, well with knowledgenet AI is to enable companies to unearth and exploit intellectual capital both via internal and external networks. So he's looking at both sides of the coin here to then propel business development, sales and essentially really efficient salespeople. So for me, I'm really looking forward to hearing what Nick has to say today and particularly how around it helps us make better decisions, have better customer relationships, and really stimulate some great innovation and diverse thinking. So Nick, welcome to the Strongest Sales Teams podcast. Lovely to have you here today.

Thank you, Ben. It's terrific to be here.

Well, today we're going to talk about, in fact, we've done a full change about what we were going to go through versus 15 minutes ago we're actually going to talk about relationship intelligence, which I absolutely love how you've coined building relationships because, you know, in any negotiation, knowledge is one of the key drivers there. And I think intelligence we don't talk enough about when we're looking at relationships. So we're going to get straight into it, if that's okay. But for a moment before we do, please tell me a little bit about yourself, knowledgenet, AI and what you do.

Sure. So actually my career, as you stated, started in the US intelligence community back about 20 plus years ago. And if you're familiar around that timeframe, that's around 9 11. And that was obviously a significant moment for the US and there was a tremendous amount of money that went into relationship intelligence at that time. So it was all about finding the bad guys. And the US Intelligence community was collecting enough information to fill the Library of Congress every hour or so. So the Library of Congress is this massive data repository here in the US you know, details the entire history of the world. And the amount of data that we were collecting was just phenomenal. So sifting through that data to identify who's talking to whom, who has connections to whom, to try and identify the bad guys out there was a huge problem and a lot of money was invested in that. And I actually was part of that activity back then about 20 plus years ago, just a side bit. But do you use Google Maps today?

I do all the time. Yeah, absolutely.

Yep. So. And do you use like the satellite view from Google Maps and ever use that, et cetera?

I have, I have absolutely used it, particularly when I'm trying to find my way into a really big area where you might have five or six different type of entries. I like to use a satellite image to go, okay, well I need to be here. How do I get into that spot?

Y. Yep, yep. So actually a lot of people don't know is that that technology actually came out of the US Intelligence community. So there's actually a venture capital company called In Q Tel that that is funded by the US Intelligence community and Google acquired some of the products that came out of that. So there's been this huge incubation happening here in the Washington D.C. area and been part of it for the last 20 plus years. And all these technologies are spin outs coming out of that. So about Five years ago, I did a spin out and I called it knowledgenet, that AI, it's leveraging a lot of the same concepts to connect the dots, but instead of saying, okay, I want to reach out to Ben, who do I know in my network that may know Ben and all the different connection paths, not just LinkedIn, but any email exchanges, any activity of overlapping travel locations, harnessing all that data about Ben in order to really surface information, not only my connections, but my organization's connections. That's what knowledgenet is about. It's all about leveraging that knowledge to help build connections and surface those connection paths.

We often hear this called or referred to as cross threading, I think, across organizations. For me, cross threading is really powerful. Once you are, I guess, already talking with an organization and you want to spread that further or that web of involvement you have with the organisation further. But I think for me, relationship intelligence is almost that step before that, we're actually trying to have those initial conversations to then move into that broader discussion point. But let's talk specifically about relationship intelligence and spin off, I guess, from some of those skills that you've learned over the last 20 years or so. I'd love to hear you share some stories around how you've seen relationship intelligence evolve and how you've used it yourself across particularly some of the bigger Fortune 500 companies that you've worked with.

Sure, yeah. So the bigger that the company, the bigger the problem and the larger the opportunity. So let me just give you a classic example that literally happened today within our own company. But this happens all the time. You know, we had a lead come in, it got automatically assigned to a sales rep and the sales rep scheduled a meeting. Right. But along the path we leveraging our own technology, we could identify that lead that the company that that lead came in from is closely connected to one of our advisors, one of our partners through LinkedIn, and one of our sales reps closely works with that partner. So it's connecting the dots to automate that process, to identify all those different connection paths to better route that lead to the appropriate sales rep to help it. So before that lead gets even worked or a meeting happens, we're going to be reaching out to that partner and saying, hey, we realize that you're closely connected to this company. Can you serve us some insights? Can we work together to help close that deal, et cetera. But for a human to do that would be virtually impossible, you know, to check everybody's emails, check everybody's LinkedIn connections, understand who's already talking to whom is virtually impossible to do and to automate, that is just an incredible benefit. So to answer your question regarding Fortune 1002s or Fortune 1000 companies that just further explodes that, you know, those Fortune 100,000 companies, they have so many incredible connection paths. So how do you leverage your organizational knowledge and connections in order to help close deals, grow your pipeline? It's in the goldmine of an opportunity.

Yeah.

Wow.

Okay, so I'm assuming that there's a fair bit of AI involved in trying to work through how we map all of our networks. I heard you refer to that as augmented intelligence rather than artificial intelligence. Can you explain to me why augmented intelligence and what that means to you?

Yeah. So when I, you know, AI in the commercial world is blown up ever since ChatGPT, right. But it's really been around for 20, well, 30, 40, 50 years. I've been doing, working very closely the last 20 years, but I hate the word artificial. And AI the key, they should really rebrand it to be augmented intelligence, where you're augmenting a human. You're also hearing term copilot now. So it's all about making a human more productive, more efficient in order to close more deals, open up, you know, explore opportunities, build the pipeline, etc. It's all about augmenting their abilities. You know, as you look at the technology progression in our space, before my time there were, well, I came in right around the era of cell phones, right? So before cell phones, when you were on the road and you need to make a phone call, you were, you know, pulling up to a phone booth and you're putting in the quarter in order to make the call. Right. But once cell phones came out, it really made the sales professional so much more productive. And I see AI in that same vein. It's all about augmenting them, you know, making them even more productive, you know, 2x productivity than they are today.

Yeah. Interesting. We talk about Google Maps a few minutes ago, and I'm 41. When I was in my early 20s and learning how to drive, it was all about street directories. And now if you think how much more efficient you are on the road driving, just driving from point to point, and we have sales teams that still spend the majority of their time on the road. The evolvement of technology over the last 20 years, it's well beyond AI, whether it be artificial or augmented, it doesn't matter. But technology really is just continuing to help us be more and more efficient as sales individuals, but also sales leaders. And I Think if we jump back now to the piece around data intelligence and using the relationships across our businesses to leverage, I guess, introductions into prospects or other types of customers we want to be involved with, what's the difference that you're seeing this ability to make or to utilize a broad network across a business, what's it leading to for organizations?

Yeah, it's a great question. It's transformative in building the pipeline. So unfortunately, way too many organizations are still doing way too much code calling today. Right. They're still generating a thousand lead lists. I mean, I'm sure you're inundated with emails every day about, oh, I can create a lead list for you. Right. And then organizations that are saying, yes, we will make a hundred calls a day on your behalf and you know, we'll book one or two meetings a week. Right. It's much more transformative to say, let's look at the network. Let's start with the network that you and your team has, which if you've got a team of 20 people or 30 or 50, you know, if everybody's got two plus thousand connections, all of a sudden that's a network of hundreds of thousands of people. And then triangulate those hundred thousands of people based upon buyer intent, your ideal customer profile and so forth and start there. That's the best way to build your pipeline. And we're seeing a tremendous growth from organizations that are doing that.

Yeah. Wow. And this is particularly effective when you're in organizations that have larger numbers of team members anyway, you're finding that businesses who have perhaps smaller numbers of team members can be overcoming that gap.

Yep. You'd really be surprised. So, and it's much more than just LinkedIn. You and I, Ben, were talking earlier and I think you said you have about you had a four year old and there's probably like future soccer or football or other sports your child will be involved in, etc. But let me give you a story because that's where I'm going with this. I wanted to reach out to a person in salesforce, salesforce.com and my own platform surfaced to me that a parent on my daughter's soccer team was a senior person at Salesforce. And I had no idea about that. I wasn't connected to them on LinkedIn. When I'm on the sidelines and we're watching the soccer football game, you know, we're not talking about work. So I had no idea what they did. But because I was copied on some emails from the coach, knowledge that automatically connected the dots. So when I told my platform, oh, I'm going to reach out to Salesforce, who do I know at Salesforce, the number one recommendation was this parent. And I had no idea. So no matter how the larger the organization, the more opportunities, but then you need AI to try and sift through that to prioritize those connection paths. But even companies that have two or three individuals, it provides still tremendous value. There's so much knowledge about connections. Your spouse, your wife, you know, her best friend's husband could be a key contact for an account you're trying to get into. And that may not be apparent to you.

Okay, so this is something that I talk a huge amount with. Every sales leader and every sales team that I work with is that it's not just about the connections that you have within your business. It's about the connections that you have personally. It's about the connections that you have through your friends, that through your family, through school groups, through community groups, through sporting organizations. We are connected in so many more ways than we often realize. But the hard piece here is to be able to remember how to leverage that network. So this is rare for me to ask this, but very specifically, Nick, I'd love to know. Can you explain to me how knowledgenet AI actually does this? So how do you leverage off all of those platforms? And look, again, this is. It's very rare I ask a specific product question, but this is such an important topic to me around leveraging your networks to reduce the amount of cold calling that you have to do that I really feel quite compelled to actually ask you today.

Yeah, I mean, it's fundamentally what we're trying to do. So you asked how we do it. There's different data sources that identify your network. Right? LinkedIn is the first one. But those email exchanges that you're having, your business email, your personal email and your address book are all connection paths. The school you went to, when you went to that school, your prior employment history, what years you worked at those companies, what jobs you had at those companies. So there's all these hidden connection paths that if you can fully leverage them, provide a goldmine of opportunity. And to your point, it's not your first degree connections, it's your second degrees. Right. It's your spouse's connections. Right. It's your best friend's connections, it's how to leverage that. And then being able to say to your, you know, that connection you have, hey, Bob, I see that you're closely connected to Sue. I would really appreciate an introduction here. Is exactly what you can share with sue on my behalf that I would really appreciate. And that's a goldmine of an opportunity. And those are all untapped areas that can really help grow business.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, fantastic. I can tell you one thing I'm going to be spending a little bit more time on is knowledge net at the end of this, because I'd like to learn a little bit more. But, Nick, let's put yourself in the shoes of a sales leader of a team right now. Doesn't matter if it's a. In fact, let's call it an established team right now. And that team wants to really turn on the growth engine. That is absolutely without doubt the number one request I have had over the last 12 months is how do we generate more leads? So you're in the shoes of a sales leader wanting to really drive their business growth over the next 12 months. Where would you start?

Yep. Softball question for me is identify all of your customers that you've had. The longer you've had them, the better. Find out all of the people at those customers that interface with your product or service. Find out where they are now and reach out to them. Best untapped area to grow your business that companies aren't effectively doing. So that former person that loved your product or services know like two or three years ago. Where are they now and how can you tap into that? It's a goldmine of an opportunity that's. That's not being tapped into.

Yeah, great. Okay. So what we're talking about there is one of the three revenue streams I talk a lot about. To grow businesses. We need to either win new customers, get more from existing customers, so increase the basket size of an existing transaction, or have existing customers return to the business once more. So I think you're focusing specifically on those customers who used to be part of our business that perhaps aren't anymore, or who have significantly reduced their involvement and trying to kickstart that both directly through them. Perhaps they're in new businesses by now or perhaps they have new needs. So I really like that, Nick. For me, practicality is something that. Look, it'll be engraved on my tombstone. Right. Ben made things happen. That's absolutely about me. And I really like the practical approach here to say everything we need for lead generation and new business is often right in front of us or those around us. We just need to make sure we're leveraging that as effectively as we can. So thank you. I've really enjoyed this today. It's been fantastic. Can you please, for those listening, tell us a little bit more about where they can find you. Nick Caruso. Or find out more about knowledgenet AI.

Yep. So our website is knowledgenet AI. You can just Google it, you can get there. From there you can request a demo. I lead my sales team at knowledgenet, so we'd love to give you a one on one demo tour of the product. It's super affordable, it's designed for an individual, all the way up to a Fortune 1000 company. And you can also find me on LinkedIn. Been a pleasure talking to you then.

Excellent. Fantastic. Thank you Nick. And for everyone listening, please keep living in a world of possibility and you'll be amazed by what you can achieve. Bye for now. Want to be kept up to date with any of our free materials to help you build the best sales teams possible? Well, the easiest way you can do so is to follow us on your favourite social media channel. We're onger sales teams on most of them and if you DM us stronger, we'll send you right back some great resources to help you build your super powered sales team. If you'd like a little more help, please get in touch directly and book a free discovery call with me. I run a limited number of these sessions and they're free for my podcast listeners. I'd love to help you out. Until then, see you next week for another podcast of stronger sales team.