Transcript
Intro:
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 Teams 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 you 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.
Ben Wright:
Welcome back to Stronger Sales Teams, the place where we provide real world and practical advice to help you develop super powered sales teams. Today, special guest all the way from just outside of Washington, DC, we have Nick Caruso joining us. And look, we only had five or ten 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 that 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 organisational data analysis, which we are going to talk to in a different frame over the coming 20 minutes, so stay tuned 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 Stronger Sales Teams Podcast. Lovely to have you here today.
Nick Caruso:
Thank you, Ben. It’s terrific to be here.
Ben Wright:
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 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.
Nick Caruso:
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 time frame, that’s around 911. 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. It 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 was part of that activity back then about 20 plus years ago.
Just a side bit. But do you use Google Maps today?
Ben Wright:
I do, all the time. Yeah, absolutely.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. So. And do you use like the satellite view from Google Maps and ever use that, etcetera?
Ben Wright:
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. Yeah.
Nick Caruso: 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 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, DC area and been part of it for the last 20 plus years. And all these technologies are spinouts coming out of that.
So about five years ago, I did a spin out of and I called it Knowledgenet.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 organisation’s connections.
That’s what Knowledgenet is about. It’s all about leveraging that knowledge to help build connections and surface those connection paths.
Ben Wright:
We often hear this called, or referred to as cross threading, I think across organisations. For me, cross threading is really powerful once you are, I guess, already talking with an organisation 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.
Nick Caruso:
Sure. Yeah. So the bigger 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. We had a lead come in, got automatically assigned to a sales rep, and the sales rep scheduled a meeting. But along the path, 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 route 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 realise that you’re closely connected to this company. Can you serve some insights? Can we work together to help close that deal, etcetera? But for a human to do that, it would be virtually impossible 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 100 or Fortune 1000 companies, that just further explodes that. Those fortune 100, 1000 companies, they have so many incredible connection paths. So how do you leverage your organisation's knowledge and connections in order to help close deals, grow your pipeline. It’s in the goldmine of an opportunity.
Ben Wright:
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?
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, so when I, you know, AI in the commercial world is blown up ever since Chat GPT. 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 the term co-pilot now. So it’s all about making a human more productive, more efficient, in order to close more deals, open up, explore opportunities, build the pipeline, et cetera. It’s all about augmenting their abilities.
As you look at the technology progression in our space. Before my time, well, I came in right around the era of cell phones. So before cell phones, when you were on the road and you needed to make a phone call, you were 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, making them even more productive. Two x productivity than they are today.
Ben Wright:
Yeah, interesting. We talk about Google maps a few minutes ago, and I’m 41. When I was in my early twenties 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 just driving from point to point, and we have sales teams that still spend the majority of their time on the road. The involvement 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 involved with what’s the difference that you’re seeing this ability to make or to utilise a broad network across a business, what’s it leading to for organisations?
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, it’s a great question. It’s transformative in building the pipeline. So unfortunately, way too many organisations are still doing way too much cold calling today. 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 organisations that are saying, yes, we will make 100 calls a day on your behalf and we’ll book one or two meetings a week. 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, 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 organisations that are doing that.
Ben Wright:
Yeah. Wow. And this is particularly effective when you’re in organisations 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.
Nick Caruso:
Yep, you’d really be surprised. And it’s much more than just LinkedIn. You and I Ben were talking earlier and I think you said you had a four year old and there’s probably like future soccer or football or other sports your child will be involved in, etcetera. 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, 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, Knowledgenet 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, parenthood. And I had no idea. So no matter how the larger the organisation, the more opportunities. But then you need AI to try and sift through that, to prioritise 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.
Ben Wright:
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 families, through school groups, through community groups, through sporting organisations. We are connected in so many more ways than we often realise. 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, though, I really feel quite compelled to actually ask you today.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, I mean, it’s fundamentally what we’re trying to do, so that’s 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 gold mine 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 that connection you have. Hey, Bob, I see that you’re closely connected to Sue, I would really appreciate if 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 a business.
Ben Wright:
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, fantastic. I can tell you one thing I’m going to be spending a little bit more time on is Knowledgenet 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 twelve 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 twelve months.
Where would you start?
Nick Caruso:
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, you 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 not being tapped into.
Ben Wright:
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 kick start that both directly through them, perhaps through new businesses by now, or perhaps they have new needs. So I really like that. Nick, for me, practicality is something that it will 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.
Nick Caruso:
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 the sales team at Knowledgenet.ai, so we’d love to give you a one on one demo or 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. It’s been a pleasure talking to you then.
Ben Wright: 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.
E78 The Role of Data Intelligence in Nailing Prospecting with Nick Caruso
