Transcript
Speaker: John is an experienced tech sales professional, currently the APAC regional manager for a global software company.
Speaker: In this conversation, leveraging his experience and knowledge, we'll first take a deep dive into the software industry, learning about the key segments, the major players, their business models.
Speaker: Then in the second half, we'll transition our attention to the career side of this business.
Speaker: learning about what it's like working in the tech industry, working in tech sales specifically, including unfiltered stories of how he broke into the industry, how to succeed in a cutthroat environment, how to close deals with different clients, and perhaps most importantly, how much you can really make in this lucrative industry.
Speaker: So without further ado, Jiang, why don't we start by you giving us a quick intro of how you ended up in tech sales.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: I am CEO.
Speaker: First of all, thank you for having me here.
Speaker: It's really fun to do this so far.
Speaker: So I appreciate it, man.
Speaker: So yeah, a bit about myself, career-wise.
Speaker: I started my career actually in sales, actually back when I was in college.
Speaker: know i was pursuing a degree and during that time i actually ventured into uh the real estate industry as well so kind of like my side hustle you know yeah so that was year one of university i got my license um and then you know uh right after that i i just kind of dive into the real estate industry my mom was a realtor actually so we're kind of doing the business together right so that was my first foray into into sales into kind of like understanding how
Speaker: you know, businesses really work, you know, how to kind of build relationships with customers, things like that, right?
Speaker: So I did that for about three years.
Speaker: And then right after that, I just kind of noticed that there was like, there were gaps in industry, there were gaps in the recent industry.
Speaker: I mean, some of them I can just quickly share with you.
Speaker: So for one, you know, the industry is not always very customer centric, right?
Speaker: It was a bit resistant to technology changes.
Speaker: But so I was like, okay, I think, or rather I bet this industry is going to be disrupted in the near future.
Speaker: So that was when I decided to maybe look a bit into the direction of a growing space called PropTech, PropertyTech, right?
Speaker: So that was when I kind of stumbled upon a startup.
Speaker: It was kind of building the solutions to some of the challenges or gaps that I was seeing in the industry.
Speaker: So I joined actually as an early employee.
Speaker: Were you also in a sales role?
Speaker: I was in a serial store actually.
Speaker: I started as a business development manager.
Speaker: So it's funny, right?
Speaker: Because I was telling you the office is just running this building, right?
Speaker: So in fact, the phone booth is just right outside, you know?
Speaker: So looking at that phone booth really, you know, got me feeling nostalgic and all.
Speaker: I was grinding my calls out every day in that phone booth.
Speaker: So yeah, that was my first kind of...
Speaker: the foray into the startup world, into the prop tech world, right?
Speaker: It was fun though.
Speaker: I started as an early employee, a lot of grinding, right?
Speaker: So really building up the entire business from the ground.
Speaker: So that went on for about two years.
Speaker: And then, you know, later on I got kind of,
Speaker: put in a different role, a different direction where I was tasked to build up the sales team from scratch.
Speaker: So that was kind of build up a sales team from scratch.
Speaker: And then I led a team of about close to 20 or so sales reps.
Speaker: So that was what I was doing before.
Speaker: But it was a constant target in my heart.
Speaker: I wanted to maybe explore other verticals of tech.
Speaker: I wanted to maybe get exposed to a business where I can actually sell to other businesses.
Speaker: The prop tech company I was in was more of a B2C platform.
Speaker: I wanted to be in a more B2B environment.
Speaker: So that was when I decided to maybe try to
Speaker: move into other verticals of tech uh more specifically in the sas space as software as a service space right for me to kind of maybe just kind of learn how to do b2b sales in a more structured manner okay right yeah so that was why i decided to to move on so i got a bit lucky um why i say lucky because for someone to kind of break into the sas space right the software as a service space um it is quite
Speaker: impossible or rather i would say very challenging extremely challenging to break into this space without power software sales experience you know assess experience um and then you know kind of get into that um what we call account executive or closing role it's very difficult right um so just to summarize you came from a non-traditional background in the
Speaker: real estate space first as a property agent, then working out of the prop tech startup, then abandon the property side of it and pursue the tech side.
Speaker: And how long have you been with a software sales company?
Speaker: How long have I actually been working in the software industry?
Speaker: I would say about close to four years or so.
Speaker: Close to three, four years or so.
Speaker: What would you say are the differences between selling a software versus selling a property besides the B2B and the B2C difference?
Speaker: Yeah, it's very different, right?
Speaker: I mean, I think first of all, when you're selling to consumers or other customers, quite B2C versus selling to other businesses, right?
Speaker: The structure of the sales process is very different, right?
Speaker: So for instance, let's say, you know, I'm just giving you an example, right?
Speaker: So MC, let's say you're trying to buy a house, right?
Speaker: It's really that simple.
Speaker: It's like me maybe bringing you to see the house if you like it.
Speaker: And then we begin the whole commercial discussion, trying to put an offer for the house for you, trying to get the best price for you.
Speaker: And then later on, trying to walk you through the steps of how that whole closing process would be.
Speaker: It's kind of simple, not so layered, not so structured.
Speaker: Whereas for B2B sales, it's a lot more structured.
Speaker: It's a process to it, right?
Speaker: It's like, usually you'll be talking to what we call a champion.
Speaker: A champion is someone who is an advocate for wanting to maybe change the way they are doing things currently.
Speaker: So let me give you an example.
Speaker: Let's say if you're selling, let's say a CRM software, right?
Speaker: Customer relationship management software, right?
Speaker: So right now, the prospect might not have any softwares, right?
Speaker: They're kind of doing things very manually.
Speaker: They're managing their databases of customers or their prospects on Excel sheets.
Speaker: And it's kind of very clunky, very hard to use, very hard to scale.
Speaker: So someone will be like, hey, we need to change the way we're doing things.
Speaker: And the champion is usually internal or is it like an external?
Speaker: Yeah, champion is usually internal.
Speaker: And they can be someone who is very close to the pain points.
Speaker: So for instance, they can actually be, let's say, the sales managers.
Speaker: right?
Speaker: They want to change the way things are being done, right?
Speaker: They want to manage their deals better.
Speaker: They want to manage, you know, relationships with the customers better, right?
Speaker: That's what we call champion, right?
Speaker: Who wants a change, basically, right?
Speaker: And then, but,
Speaker: this champion might be reporting to someone above them, right?
Speaker: It probably could be reporting to a director, a manager, or even a CEO or the founder of the company, right?
Speaker: Who might be a bit further away from the pain points than a champion, right?
Speaker: Because for them, they are a bit more concerned about long-term strategy, you know,
Speaker: or rather sustainability of the company, right?
Speaker: They're a bit further away from like the everyday pain points that the champion could be facing, right?
Speaker: So then you gotta like, first you gotta talk to this champion, you gotta convince them to get on board, right?
Speaker: But more often than not, they kind of convince themselves, right?
Speaker: That's why they come to you, right?
Speaker: In some cases, right?
Speaker: And then after that, you gotta like bring in, you gotta work to bring in
Speaker: the decision makers, the other stakeholders in their company are selling you, even the managers who might not be so close to the paying points, you're gonna bring them into the sales process, right?
Speaker: And then you're gonna like try to structure the sales process for the company.
Speaker: you can kind of see what I'm going.
Speaker: It's a bit more, it's a lot more complicated.
Speaker: It's a lot more structured, a lot more layered.
Speaker: So an analogy of that would be if you're in property sales as an agent, you have one member of the family wants to buy the property, but his relatives, his parents, his cousins, his kids have some resistance to the idea.
Speaker: So you have to work with the person to convince the whole family.
Speaker: to to pull their capital together to change where they live so that's the right kind of a how i describe the more complicated process with software sales right yeah i think that's fair i think that's fair um and also like in software series right it's like you're not just dealing with one function sometimes you're not just dealing with business one particular business function sometimes it's
Speaker: You got to deal with multiple business functions within the prospects company.
Speaker: So for instance, you might be dealing with the finance department, who's kind of controlling the budget, right?
Speaker: To procure the software, right?
Speaker: So we always say they control the purse or the wallet, right?
Speaker: And then you got to as well, you got to last with the procurement department.
Speaker: You know, there's a lot more people you have to kind of deal with or manage in terms of stakeholder management.
Speaker: Whereas B2C shows, I would argue, it's usually a bit more straightforward.
Speaker: Usually you just manage one or two person or maybe a bit more.
Speaker: It's not a transaction or just one time you get the deal done, then if they want to sell the property again,
Speaker: they could look for another agent, right?
Speaker: But the software, it's a recurring, it's usually subscription-based.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the post-DO process also matters.
Speaker: Yeah, I would say so, right?
Speaker: And I think another element of like B2C SEOs, from my experience and in my opinion, it's a bit more of like,
Speaker: leveraging relationships.
Speaker: So, I mean, for instance, right, what are your typical B2C kind of setups?
Speaker: You have your real estate industry, you have your insurance industry, even banking, right?
Speaker: So a lot of that is kind of like, you got to close the deal, you got to make business through building relationships.
Speaker: Now in tech series, it's kind of the same as well.
Speaker: You have to also build that relationship.
Speaker: Basically, you have to build a rapport and trust
Speaker: with your prospect before they can kind of trust that you're the guy, you know, you're the company that can help them to solve their challenges, right?
Speaker: However, it's not just that, right?
Speaker: There's also another element where you have to really be able to convince them that the challenges that they're going through right now, right, they need your product, they need your solution to solve those challenges.
Speaker: And that actually requires...
Speaker: I would say skill sets beyond just relationship building.
Speaker: You got to be able to do active listening, problem solving, things like that.
Speaker: Before we go too deep on that train of thought, let's get back to the basics and talk about... Sorry.
Speaker: What is this industry we're dealing with here?
Speaker: It's software...
Speaker: people use software nowadays, applications on their phone, on their computers.
Speaker: But I think what we're talking about are the enterprise softwares.
Speaker: So if you could give us a quick one-on-one crash course of what
Speaker: is this industry?
Speaker: What are the players and segments and how they make money?
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: So like SaaS, you know, software as a service is essentially a distribution model, right?
Speaker: Where, you know, you have third party vendors or like providers, you know, hosting, giving access to companies, right?
Speaker: To the software without being on site, right?
Speaker: So they're hosted by this third party of vendors through usually the internet or the cloud.
Speaker: So let's say if your company and you want to buy SaaS software, they don't have to be on your premise or your onsite to provide you access to that software.
Speaker: It can all be hosted over the internet or the cloud.
Speaker: And then you as a company can have access to that software.
Speaker: So essentially, that's kind of like the definition of SaaS.
Speaker: And then usually in terms of, let's say, subscription and pricing model, that's where you have to kind of pay a recurring fee.
Speaker: whether annual, whether monthly, to have access to that software.
Speaker: And so in SaaS itself, there are many different verticals, but the way I like to frame it, personally for me would be, you have your commercial verticals, and then you have your technical verticals.
Speaker: So commercial verticals are essentially maybe service providers that
Speaker: is aiming to help you to essentially elevate or increase your performance for most of your commercial functions.
Speaker: I'm going to go to that a bit more later on.
Speaker: And then your technical verticals would be helping you to essentially basically manage infrastructure, data infrastructure, data security, cybersecurity, things like that.
Speaker: I'm not going to go into that too much.
Speaker: So that's really the commercial verticals and then that's the technical verticals.
Speaker: And of course, you have some verticals which are arguably in between.
Speaker: So for commercial verticals, you have verticals like HR Tech, which is currently the space I'm in.
Speaker: You have even like sales enablement, sales productivity tools.
Speaker: So it's not that commercial verticals are completely external facing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Excellent phrasing.
Speaker: HR tech is more internal operations, mid back office.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So I couldn't get your question.
Speaker: It can also, essentially it's just, I would say verticals where, you know, it's to help you, like you say, it can be to manage your internal processes or functions better, but not so, not necessary in a more technical sense, maybe more in a commercial sense, right?
Speaker: And then you have your, for instance, customer relationship management providers as well, or to help you to really manage your relationships with customers or manage your deals better.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: You can use acronyms here.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: And then drop the big players as well.
Speaker: Yeah, so I mean, like, those are some of your examples of commercial verticals, right?
Speaker: Or you're going to have things like what we call MarTech, Marketing Tech, AdTech, AdTech, right?
Speaker: But then when you move into the more technical verticals, you have things like, say, you know, like cybersecurity, you know, like data security.
Speaker: These are the technical verticals.
Speaker: yeah this is a more technical uh softwares right yeah so i i you know that's the way i would free me yeah right so yeah so again like take a step back here so all these software saas providers yeah what are their uh
Speaker: on-site capability so so they outsource this function for other companies they host all the all their datas uh what do they need to have i guess the data centers what are the infrastructure they need to build themselves like if i want to start a software company today sas company yeah besides just hire the programmer to write the code what else i need
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, I mean, first we got to start with the product, right?
Speaker: You got to have a great product, right?
Speaker: So obviously that's when, that's where you kind of need like a technical team, developers to kind of help you build that great product out.
Speaker: And then you probably need to have a commercial team as well, you know, marketing team, sales team, right?
Speaker: It's kind of really help you to, you know, push that product out, right?
Speaker: Although I would say some companies, right, are a bit more, I would say they grow, you know,
Speaker: we call it product-led growth, right?
Speaker: They really emphasize on building great product and they let that product do it.
Speaker: It's all talking, right?
Speaker: And that's how they grow.
Speaker: And then there are some companies which are, you know, a bit more, I would say, customer-led growth, right?
Speaker: So they really try to make sure the product they are building, you know, really sits with the customers, you know.
Speaker: So that's when they kind of really kind of take the feedbacks of the customers and really build their product out, right?
Speaker: And of course, you have some companies which are,
Speaker: a bit more commercially driven, right?
Speaker: So, I mean, commercial-led growth, right?
Speaker: So they build a somewhat decent product, but they have a really great marketing assistant to kind of push that product out, right?
Speaker: So I think really being able to build that product out, I think that's one of the most important things in terms of infrastructures.
Speaker: You'd be surprised to know that a lot of the software companies, they don't really even have their own data centers.
Speaker: So for instance, they can use AWS or other cloud computing companies to really host their data.
Speaker: And that data can be, say we're in Singapore right now, but the data can be hosted somewhere in the US or Europe.
Speaker: So all they essentially provide is this software.
Speaker: that the clients use, which sounds to me a very front-loaded work.
Speaker: You just build the software and after that, all you do is to sell, to maintain the relationship, maintain the client, be up to date with what client needs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So 90% of the work is done upfront and after that you just collect the rent essentially.
Speaker: Yeah, that's why, you know, like I was reading somewhere, I can't remember the figures, but software, you know, as an industry, is one of the industries where they have the highest profit margins.
Speaker: Yeah, right.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: Prof margins in this industry, I think everyone kind of knows that, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But interestingly enough, in the industry today, what we are seeing is that the
Speaker: cost of acquiring a new customer, right?
Speaker: It's getting higher and higher.
Speaker: And that's where a lot of companies are trying to put a bit more emphasis and focus on client retention, on retaining accounts or customers, right?
Speaker: Rather than going out there to acquire a new business, right?
Speaker: So we're kind of seeing that as well.
Speaker: And so that's interesting because
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Is that because the growth of the pie is slowing down?
Speaker: The market is not as growing as fast as before?
Speaker: Yeah, I would think so, right?
Speaker: A couple of reasons.
Speaker: One could be like you say, the demand for software.
Speaker: I mean, it's always growing, but probably it's kind of slowed down a bit as compared to maybe post-COVID era, right after COVID, right?
Speaker: And the market, depending on which verticals you're in as well, is obviously getting more saturated.
Speaker: So for instance, I'm kind of working right now at the HR tech vertical, right?
Speaker: It's a very, I would argue it's a pretty, a very saturated space, right?
Speaker: And then, there are other reasons like marketing costs are going up, things like that.
Speaker: So the cost of acquiring a new customer is getting more and more expensive.
Speaker: So it just makes more sense for companies to place a bit more emphasis on retaining accounts instead.
Speaker: which one is more challenging obviously retention is sounds easier than acquiring new customer right oh yeah for sure right i mean we can kind of take a step back and and put yourself uh put yourself in the shoes of a customer right say you're using a software right now uh software is working well for you right it can be better but it's working all right if he does his job right
Speaker: I would say the cost of switching to another software, right, sometimes it's going to be quite hefty actually, right?
Speaker: Not just, you know, in a monetary sense, right?
Speaker: The time needed, the resources needed, especially if your company is a bigger enterprise, right?
Speaker: You need to put together resources and teams of people just to make that switch happen, right?
Speaker: So what I would argue that for a company, trying to retain a customer is easier than acquiring a new one because the customer is incentivized to stay as well instead of switching to another software or not using the software altogether.
Speaker: And customer retention, does that also fall in the purview of your sales team?
Speaker: For me right now, not really.
Speaker: I'm kind of, you know, helping to take care of the new business team.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I don't really have to... Still at the acquisition?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So more like acquiring new businesses.
Speaker: I mean, from time to time, I might have to help on the, you know, retaining account side of things, but that's not really my key scope right now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So while we're here, can you walk us through a typical process, continue on what we talked about, the process of...
Speaker: closing the deal from first, you know, finding the champion in the customer company.
Speaker: And then where do you go from there to essentially sign the paper, have their check sent to your bank account?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: So I mean, we can start at the top of the funnel, right?
Speaker: So usually a lead will come either as what we call an inbound lead,
Speaker: you know so these are the best leads right they are the warmest leads right see they are look at a website um okay let me use let me use uh example of a product uh you know i'm selling as an example right so let's say we're selling a hr software right now right so inboundly will be someone looking at your website and then they'll be like hey yeah i need to talk to these guys find out more right
Speaker: leave their details behind on the contact us form on your website and it comes in as an inbound lead, right?
Speaker: But sometimes, you know, not all leads obviously come in as an inbound lead.
Speaker: There'll be times where, you know, the sales rep or the business development rep will have to go out there to, you know, do outreach, to reach someone, to convince them to talk to us, have a conversation with us.
Speaker: So those are what we call outbound leads, you know.
Speaker: so anyway uh let's say a lead comes in whether inbound or outbound right um the next thing we really want to do is to set up a meeting with them to have what we call a discovery call right discovery session right so doing that call itself is when you kind of uh
Speaker: deep dive and try to figure out what are the challenges right now the prospect and their company are facing, right?
Speaker: And then what sort of goals they would like to get to, right?
Speaker: Well, what sort of challenges are sending their way, you know, what's stopping them from going the way they want to go essentially, right?
Speaker: And then once you figure out those challenges, once you figure out their goals and their requirements, right, and you will have to then decide whether or not your software, your solution is a good fit to help them, you know.
Speaker: And, you know, if it's a good fit, if it's a good fit on your side and, you know, it's a mutual feeling as well, the next step,
Speaker: is really usually for you to run a product demonstration for them, what we call a software demo, basically.
Speaker: But that software demo has to be a bit tailored, a bit customized.
Speaker: Taking what you learn from that discovery call.
Speaker: So for instance, if they tell you, I mean, a lot of managers, their main concern will be doing reporting.
Speaker: right but they don't have some of them don't have a software you know or unified platform to do the reporting right so um if you uncover that during the discovery call during during the uh during the software demo that's when you have to show uh the reporting site and how it can help them to really solve the challenges right now right so that that's kind of how the flow works and then after the software demo right
Speaker: the next step is to obviously determine or not whether or not the prospect is interested.
Speaker: If they are interested, then you kind of have to steer that process towards a commercial discussion.
Speaker: That commercial discussion will include things like pricing negotiation, procurement processes, legal, like you got to run it through maybe a legal department contract, terms and conditions, make sure everything works.
Speaker: That process takes a while, that commercial process takes a while.
Speaker: We call it procurement process as well.
Speaker: If successful, then obviously the last part would be signing that contract.
Speaker: Signing the contract.
Speaker: Once the contract is signed, the deal is kind of concluded.
Speaker: Then usually what would happen is
Speaker: the account managers or the implementation team would take over the deal for them to run the customer onboarding and implementation process, right?
Speaker: Then that's kind of up to, I would say another team to handle that deal.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So from A to Z, how long does it take usually?
Speaker: What's the duration of the sales process?
Speaker: until they hand over?
Speaker: Yeah, that's a really good question.
Speaker: So I think kind of jumping back to the basics, right?
Speaker: I know we talk about, you know, in Texas, how there are different verticals, right?
Speaker: Can be grouped under commercial verticals or technical verticals, right?
Speaker: There's also another element I need to talk about, which is what we call segments, right?
Speaker: The segment of the company or rather the business size of the company, right?
Speaker: So you have your SMBs, which is small, medium businesses.
Speaker: You have your mid markets, and then you have your enterprise segments, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the definition of it varies from, I would say, company to company varies depending on the product you're selling.
Speaker: But let's just maybe use an example, right?
Speaker: Maybe SMB will be a company with maybe, just picture a fast growing startup, but they're still pretty lean right now, maybe five employees.
Speaker: That's probably the SMB space.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So how long did you do close the deal?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just come to the numbers.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So SMB space, right?
Speaker: I would say probably would be... It can be as fast as one month.
Speaker: Sometimes even within one month itself, right?
Speaker: But if you go a bit beyond their company size-wise, like you're dealing with an enterprise company, you know, a few thousand people, that can be... It can take you about...
Speaker: Maybe anytime within three to six months fastest, some can even be up to a year or even longer, depending on the product you're selling.
Speaker: Those are the deals that come to fruition, that comes to a close.
Speaker: But for those that failed in the process, if you could summarize, what are the, let's say, top three or five reasons that the deal failed?
Speaker: Which part does it...
Speaker: does it becomes the point of contention?
Speaker: Is this usually the pricing or is usually, you know, after a demo, they find out it's not what they need or they found something better?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think the very first reason is there isn't a clear why, right?
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Usually when we talk to a prospect, we'll ask him three UIs, why are you looking to change?
Speaker: Why now?
Speaker: And why us?
Speaker: If you don't make them feel like they should change the way they're doing things, and you don't make them feel like they should change now, then they're simply not convinced.
Speaker: And so sometimes,
Speaker: Yeah, when you orchestrate a deal, it's quite frustrating when you kind of go through that whole process only to reach that point where, you know, the champion in the team says, yeah, what you have is really good, but I don't think we need it right now, you know.
Speaker: So what can you do as a sales rep to nudge the customer across the line to say now is the time?
Speaker: Yeah, so that's when the discovery call really comes into play, right?
Speaker: So that's a time as a sales rep, you have to really try to qualify the prospect based on whether there's a clear, compelling need for them to change right now.
Speaker: Because if they don't have a need to change,
Speaker: then just tell them, you know, yeah, I think we're not goofy for you right now, right?
Speaker: I think you should continue the way you're doing things right now, right?
Speaker: Don't force it through.
Speaker: Don't force any issues, right?
Speaker: But if you really feel like, hey, there's a need for them to change right now, you see certain challenges they're going through right now, and then you're very confident your product can help them,
Speaker: then the way to drive urgency through is to get them to kind of see the consequences of not changing, right?
Speaker: And then, so for instance, when you're trying to dig out for pain points, right, you need to try and be able to quantify those pain points, right?
Speaker: And then you need to be able to speak, right?
Speaker: in the language of the stakeholders you're dealing with.
Speaker: Let me give you an example.
Speaker: So let's say if I'm dealing with the champion, the champion is probably someone, you know, a bit closer to the ground, right?
Speaker: So he or she faces the pain points of not changing a bit more severely, right?
Speaker: Then maybe their manager that is sitting a bit above, right?
Speaker: Because they don't really feel the pain point as much.
Speaker: So you gotta be able to kind of help them to understand, hey, if you don't resolve these pain points, right?
Speaker: you're going to face these consequences, right?
Speaker: And then when you speak to the managers, right, then you need to kind of convince them that, hey, if your team is not changing, these are the consequences you will suffer.
Speaker: And as a result, your business, your strategy, your business, will be affected.
Speaker: So once you can get them to see the consequences of what will happen if they don't resolve their pain points or blockers right now, that's when you kind of really get them to say, hey, yeah, you're right.
Speaker: I do see the value of changing right now.
Speaker: If not, I don't think I can leave with the consequences of not changing the way I'm doing things right now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: How much of this is a science versus an art?
Speaker: How much do you think about psychology or game theory?
Speaker: Yeah, I really love that question.
Speaker: So I remember when I was giving sales training, I would always pull up this Venn diagram.
Speaker: This Venn diagram is essentially what is sales to you.
Speaker: And then you have that circle and then these other circles, and this is like science, this is like art.
Speaker: So for me actually, sales, not just tech sales, sales in general, is really intersection point between science and art.
Speaker: That's where the magic really happens.
Speaker: right so let me give you an example right um to kind of do text shows you need to be uh structured right you need to be able to uh do critical thinking problem solving right so those are a bit more like i would say uh more like uh science that you can kind of adopt right uh and do you have an example of where like the art comes in to dominate because the science part i think we all understand
Speaker: Yeah, so the art part is kind of like, it comes a bit more intuitive for some people, right?
Speaker: So for instance, the way you build relationships with people, the way you build rapport with people, right?
Speaker: The way you build trust with people, the way you speak, right?
Speaker: The way you present yourself, right?
Speaker: That's what we call art part, right?
Speaker: So let me throw you a very direct question, like straightforward.
Speaker: Do you play hard to get when it comes to closing deals?
Speaker: That's a really good question.
Speaker: You know the client's interested, but it might not be enough to cross the line again to close the deal now.
Speaker: But you could tell them very upfront, hey, I don't think you're interested enough.
Speaker: Let's not proceed further.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, sometimes you have to do that actually.
Speaker: Or do you play the other side, which is to be very eager?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, more often than not, for sure, you have to play a bit harder to get than to be eager.
Speaker: But again, this really depends on the personas you're dealing with.
Speaker: And that's where the art part comes in.
Speaker: The art part comes in when you're like, okay, I'm dealing with this persona.
Speaker: how do I deal with this persona?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because you can't, you can't, you don't have a one size fits all approach.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, so someone, you know, who isn't very intuitive about the art part, they probably come in like, Oh, you know, the structure of talking to people is like that.
Speaker: I'm just going to like talk to everyone like that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But that's where the art part comes in, you know, from experience, from your intuition.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Say I'm talking to this persona, right.
Speaker: Uh, what's the best way to, to approach them to close this deal?
Speaker: Is it playing card again?
Speaker: Is it,
Speaker: maybe being a bit more eager, putting them on a pedestal, you know?
Speaker: So that's where the art part comes in.
Speaker: So it's really like a, you know, a marriage or both, art and science.
Speaker: If you have arguably both, yeah, I'm sure you can probably cover a pretty nice career in sales.
Speaker: What type of people, what types of people that are hard to get works better?
Speaker: What kind of personas would that work better on?
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: Well, I mean, personally for me, I would say it's probably someone who I would see,
Speaker: If they give you the impression that, you know, if you're a bit too eager, you come always a bit too desperate, right?
Speaker: You're like, you know, hey, you know, anything you want, I can do it for you, right?
Speaker: Just tell me, how can I help you?
Speaker: You want me to give you a discount?
Speaker: Sure, I'm going to do that for you.
Speaker: I think the more you come across like that, there's some personas who find that a bit very turned off.
Speaker: They're put off by that.
Speaker: right um i would say a lot a lot of people are like that right maybe maybe yourself as well right you know that hard self feeling right yeah uh but then there are some people who actually like it right if you pandered to them if you say you know uh anything you want you know i'll get it for you uh some people they appreciate it right yeah it makes my life easier right then to go with you right so it really depends i can't give you a yeah makes sense yeah yeah makes sense you know people uh people are different if everyone has you know
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Ways to work, you know, to get under their skin or to, you know, uh,
Speaker: work their brain the way they didn't plan to.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I joke with my friends sometimes, but sometimes I see some parallels between tax years or sales to dating, you know what I mean?
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: If you come across as too strong sometimes, that person might be able to turn off, right?
Speaker: But if you give some space, I'll play hard to get it.
Speaker: Sometimes it works for you.
Speaker: So, yeah, it really depends.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, okay.
Speaker: Perhaps now we can transition to talking more on the career side.
Speaker: I think to begin just to lay the ground of what is the typical career path for someone fresh out of university wants to get into tech sales.
Speaker: What are the roles and typical progression?
Speaker: Yeah, so I would say for someone fresh out of college,
Speaker: looking to make a foray into tax years, right?
Speaker: The most logical step would be for them to probably start out in what we call a business development representative or a sales development representative.
Speaker: So companies usually have these two positions as the most junior position.
Speaker: So what they do essentially is to build business pipelines for the account executives who will be the ones closing the deal.
Speaker: So they usually do this whether through what we call outbound again.
Speaker: going out there to really hunt for new businesses and then setting up meetings for the account executives to try and close the deals.
Speaker: Or they could simply be nurturing inbound leads, right?
Speaker: And then same thing, right?
Speaker: Nurturing them and then setting up meetings and appointments for the account executives to close the deals.
Speaker: So they probably, someone fresh out of school probably start in this position, right?
Speaker: For...
Speaker: maybe a good one to three years, fastest I've seen probably one year, right?
Speaker: On average, probably two to three years, right?
Speaker: And then after that, they would try to maybe progress into what we call a account executive position, right?
Speaker: That's when you can get to handle full sales process, what we call full cycle to you, and then you can actually close the prospects, right?
Speaker: I mean, honestly, that's where the money is, right?
Speaker: That's where the money is, right?
Speaker: And then of course you progress in that position and then you then decide, do I wanna keep doing this?
Speaker: Do I keep wanting to be an individual contributor, doing sales as an account executive?
Speaker: or do you want to maybe move into other roles, right?
Speaker: Maybe a leadership role, a sales leadership role, or maybe you want to stop doing new business sales altogether.
Speaker: You want to maybe move into other functions in tech sales, right?
Speaker: So you have your account management functions,
Speaker: Account management is usually also called customer success, right?
Speaker: So, you know, you work on cross-sell, up-sells, renewals, right?
Speaker: Where retention is your key metric, right?
Speaker: So there's a function that you can go into.
Speaker: There's also the sales engineering function you can go into.
Speaker: Okay, so let's tie this conversation of progression together.
Speaker: and career path with comps so you said the sales manager that's when uh this becomes lucrative yeah so what's the typical comp structure when you know between um uh how much how what portion is fixed what portion is bonus and uh commissions yeah and what range should you expect yeah in apac versus other parts of the world if you're if you're a knowledgeable
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: So maybe I'll start with every position, right?
Speaker: So like, you know, like the SEA or VDR, right?
Speaker: You start out probably, I mean, I'm just giving an average, right?
Speaker: Like a competitive salary for VDR or SEA, I would say would be, in terms of base, somewhere between like, you know, like,
Speaker: say overall the, what we call OT, right, on target earnings, probably somewhere between like 70 to 90.
Speaker: That's what I probably see as a competitive average salary.
Speaker: And then out of the,
Speaker: total compensation package, you have usually like a 70-30 or 60-40 split, right?
Speaker: Which means your base is going to be like 70% of the entire OTE package, right?
Speaker: And then when you move on the ladder to become an account executive, and then you have your SMB account executive, you have your mid-market account executive, then you have your enterprise account executive, right?
Speaker: So SMB account executives, you know, and mid-market account executives,
Speaker: Usually your OT compensation package would usually be well into the hundreds range, right?
Speaker: So probably 100, 150, right, or even more, right?
Speaker: Again, the speed here is going to be usually around 50, 50 speed or like 60, 40 speed.
Speaker: But it really depends on the industry company as well.
Speaker: And then when you move out the segments, when you become an enterprise account executive, that's where you can make really, really big money sometimes.
Speaker: It's not uncommon for compensation package to be well into three, four, five hundred regions.
Speaker: I mean, if you go to this website, it's really helpful.
Speaker: It's called Repvue.
Speaker: What they actually do is they actually have data where you can kind of see across different regions, across different countries, across different industries, how much tax users are making on average.
Speaker: And I was just having a look just now.
Speaker: And then for enterprise account executives, yeah, it's not uncommon for your total package to be well into the three, four, 500, half a million mark.
Speaker: We're talking about USD here.
Speaker: Yeah, USD, yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: explain on target earnings or on target account on target earnings right so um maybe let me give you an example right so let's say if a person says my on target earnings package is 120k for instance right
Speaker: Usually what would happen is out of the 120K, maybe say half of it would be their base salary.
Speaker: So let's say 60K, right?
Speaker: The other 60K is what they would have to earn through the commissions by hitting their targets.
Speaker: So on target,
Speaker: earnings that number is the maximum of how much you can make if you meet the target it is not the maximum usually it is the amount you can expect to earn if you hit a target yeah for most companies they don't cap yeah i mean i would say for a lot of companies they don't cap their commissions okay right if you go above and beyond beyond the target you can make even more and some companies right you actually have accelerators as well so let's say you do 100 of your target
Speaker: You would expect to get your own target earnings.
Speaker: But if you go above 100%, that's when you can really earn even more because there are accelerators to help you to earn even more, incentivize you to earn even more to really go above and beyond your target.
Speaker: So how many months in a year do people make their targets recently in the last couple of years, your experience?
Speaker: I think the question is more like what percentage of people usually hit the targets, right?
Speaker: And is this target, the difficulty of making the target, does it vary a lot between companies?
Speaker: I would say it varies a lot between companies, between industries, or rather, sorry, between verticals within the SaaS industry, right?
Speaker: So, for instance, there are some industries where...
Speaker: arguably it's a bit easier to make a sale right uh the sale cycle is a bit shorter not as complicated and then of course you will see teams of reps maybe hitting targets a bit more for example what verticals wow what verticals um
Speaker: I mean, so for instance, let's say in the commercial space, right?
Speaker: Maybe you have things like, let's say CRMs, right?
Speaker: So arguably, you know, when a lot of companies are trying to digitalize, right?
Speaker: they would kind of need like a system for them to manage entire commercial functions, right?
Speaker: Manage their deals as well.
Speaker: So one of the first few things they probably would look at is getting a CRM, right?
Speaker: So that's when probably you have a bit more demand for that, right?
Speaker: So if you're selling CRMs, I would argue it is probably not as difficult as it is to sell maybe a vertical and construction type, right?
Speaker: right imagine you're selling a software you're selling to like contractors right construction companies where you know it's a bit more of a traditional industry right then it's a bit harder to convince people that they need to change right so it really depends on which verticals you go into right and it also depends on team structures right you have some teams where you know it's
Speaker: the team structure is a bit more saturated, right?
Speaker: And then you're entering as a rep.
Speaker: Then obviously competition is a bit more stiff internally as well.
Speaker: So that kind of affects your ability to hit targets as well.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I think we have a lot of things we can talk about with what you said.
Speaker: But my question is, should your expected probability of hitting a target drive your decision to working for this company?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Or more broadly, how do you select an employee to work for?
Speaker: What are the criteria you look for, like the earnings potential, the market, the team structure?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's a really good question.
Speaker: To answer you, yes.
Speaker: I think, you know, if I personally, if I were to do it again, I would probably give it a bit more talk to as to which company, you know, I joined if I were to break into the Texas industry, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think a framework that
Speaker: can be used broadly would be what we call the three t's of taxes right um this framework is kind of what can determine your success right what are the three t's yeah so the three t's are basically timing yeah talent and territory timing talent and territory right so timing you know it's kind of like um the way i interpret it is like right now you know the product that this company is selling the solutions they're selling is say a good product market fit right now
Speaker: Is the timing right for the market to basically receive and be receptive to these solutions?
Speaker: Essentially, is there an addressable market?
Speaker: Call it total addressable market.
Speaker: Is there a total addressable market?
Speaker: So that's timing.
Speaker: The other one would be talent.
Speaker: Talent is more about yourself.
Speaker: Do you have what it takes to do well in this industry?
Speaker: And then the last one is territory.
Speaker: But maybe jumping back to talent.
Speaker: Talent as well is if I were to choose a company
Speaker: Would they be able to provide me with the resources for me to kind of grow and nurture my talent as well?
Speaker: And then last one is territory.
Speaker: Territory is kind of like, which markets are you selling to?
Speaker: Geographic markets or...
Speaker: Yeah, geographic markets.
Speaker: Yeah, as well as, you're right, as well as maybe business segments as well, right?
Speaker: So let me give you an example, right?
Speaker: So let's say a rep who is maybe selling a CIM system into, let's say, a
Speaker: a more mature market like Australia or even like Singapore, right?
Speaker: We'll probably have an easier time than a rep selling into, I don't know, like developing market, you know, let's say, you know, certain countries, you know, who is really used to, you know, developing compared to these mature markets, right?
Speaker: He's going to have a bit of a harder time, right?
Speaker: Just because those markets are a bit...
Speaker: not as receptive to newer technologies, right?
Speaker: So then he has to do a lot more work in educating them of the need to change, right?
Speaker: Whereas a rep who is working, let's say, the Australian market or Singapore market, a lot of times when he or she speaks to this prospect, they're probably in a more ready state to change, right?
Speaker: They know they need change.
Speaker: They know they need to get this software, right?
Speaker: So it's a lot more of an easier, so I would argue that, right?
Speaker: So yeah, these are the three T's that I would kind of use to choose a company as well.
Speaker: So what's hot right now?
Speaker: What are the softwares in the right timing?
Speaker: Yeah, that's a really good question right now.
Speaker: Verticals in Vogue.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, like, verticals, people love that.
Speaker: Kind of going back to, you know, the way of framing, like, commercial frameworks, sorry, commercial verticals as well as technical verticals.
Speaker: I would say right now, if you're a rep, if you're really trying to make, you know, the big money, it's maybe more in the technical verticals, you know, like, say, data, cloud, you know, so cloud, you have your companies like AWS, right, data, you know, Databricks, Datadog, companies like that.
Speaker: that's where you can kind of make big money, right?
Speaker: Not to say commercial vertical is not going to get you those money.
Speaker: You can still make a lot of money just in comparison, right?
Speaker: The market is more saturated, slower growth versus the technical.
Speaker: Yeah, but the point I wanted to make also, it kind of, again, depends on the market you're selling to, right?
Speaker: For me personally, I like to work on the commercial verticals a bit more in APAC itself because I feel APAC, this entire market,
Speaker: is really still trying to find its way it's placing in terms of digitalization.
Speaker: So a lot of companies are just starting out.
Speaker: So a lot of times when I speak to a prospect, we're not even competing against other vendors.
Speaker: We're not competing against other software vendors.
Speaker: Sometimes we're competing against Excel sheets.
Speaker: They're still using Excel sheets to manage their businesses, their database.
Speaker: From where I'm in right now, I'm in the hiring space, right?
Speaker: So a lot of times prospects will tell me, we don't have a software right now.
Speaker: We are managing all candidates on Excel sheets.
Speaker: We're still scheduling interviews manually, right?
Speaker: I think right now, APEC, a lot of places are still in that phase trying to digitalize.
Speaker: um whereas maybe in more mature markets right uh kind of a bit more advanced right that's when you look for the more technical particulars right okay now now we have you know all these basics uh fundamental set up now how do we protect our tech infrastructure how do we protect our data right um and then it's where probably you know it's much easier to have that conversation right so right yeah you need to have the capability to accumulate data to do something with it
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, I can summarize like why the regional difference is there is because without CRMs, without these softwares, without transition to digitalize.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: you're just not ready to talk about the conversation of technical softwares yet, right?
Speaker: Yeah, I would kind of agree that that's a way to frame it as well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So personally, that's why for me, I like to be on the commercial side of things a bit more.
Speaker: And for me as well, I just like having those conversations with prospects.
Speaker: You know, I mean, I like, personally, I like, you know, having business conversations, commercial conversations with prospects, you know, and I like the fact that, you know, you'll be speaking to, say, the sales team, the marketing team, the HR teams, where those conversations are a bit more, you know, business rather than being very technical.
Speaker: But for some people, they actually do prefer having those very technical conversations.
Speaker: So let's say if you're selling cloud or data, the personas you're selling to or speaking to is very different from the personas you're selling to or speaking to in the commercial side of things.
Speaker: you might be speaking to, let's say, a CTO, right?
Speaker: A CIO, right?
Speaker: You know, teams that deal with tech, basically.
Speaker: And those conversations are very technical.
Speaker: Some people actually do prefer that.
Speaker: And that's where the money is kind of made.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, I mean, you mentioned the market in APAC is very segmented.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Can you unpack that and tell us what do you mean?
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: I would say that the market in APAC is fragmented, is the way I put it.
Speaker: Fragmented.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's fragmented, right?
Speaker: I think the common consensus is that APEC is, is, is where, you know, uh, people should be, you know, the next, I mean, they've been saying that for, you know, the last five, 10 years, uh, longest time.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then they're still saying it now.
Speaker: And that's true.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's, it's a developing, it's the fastest developing region of the world.
Speaker: You know, you have many different markets, but the thing people don't usually talk about is how fragmented this, uh, market is.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: The reason why I say this is because APEC, you have your Greater China Regions, your GCR, you have China, you have Hong Kong, you have Taiwan, and then you have East Asia, you have Japan, Korea, and then you have your Southeast Asian countries, and then you have your Australian, New Zealand markets, right?
Speaker: It's all very fragmented because each country...
Speaker: each market has its own nuances, right?
Speaker: And then within those nuances, there are like sub-nuances, right?
Speaker: And when I say nuances, it can be cultural nuances, right?
Speaker: It can also be commercial nuances.
Speaker: Very, very subjected to that market and stuff, right?
Speaker: Let me give you an example, right?
Speaker: So...
Speaker: A couple of years ago when I was interviewing, trying to break into the Texas industry, there was this sales director who interviewed me.
Speaker: And then he was asking me, let me ask you a question, John.
Speaker: If you were to sell into, I wouldn't need a country, but it's a country in Southeast Asia.
Speaker: If you were to sell into this particular market, and then you have a prospect who's telling you, hey,
Speaker: I'll go with you guys, right?
Speaker: I'll go with your software, but, you know, I expect something in return, right?
Speaker: I expect monetary, you know, favors or incentives in return, right?
Speaker: Kind of akin to, you know, giving, perhaps if you will, right?
Speaker: How would you react, John?
Speaker: And I was like, why are you asking me this question?
Speaker: Of course, I'll do the right thing.
Speaker: I'll do things the right way.
Speaker: And then later on, I realized why he asked that question.
Speaker: Because it's actually quite common.
Speaker: For certain markets, for you to close the deal, people might ask you, champion might ask you, what do I get in return?
Speaker: And then again, that's part of the nuance of...
Speaker: doing business in that country, right?
Speaker: Let's get out of tax sales, right?
Speaker: Just doing business in general.
Speaker: That's one of the nuances of doing business in that country, right?
Speaker: So I think APEC is difficult because to grow, it's not like a one-size-fits-all approach where it might work a bit better, I argue, in countries or markets like the US market or like the EU-Europe market where maybe...
Speaker: things are a bit more homogeneous.
Speaker: The market is a bit more mature, right?
Speaker: Receptive to tech.
Speaker: Whereas in APAC, it's very fragmented.
Speaker: There's no one-size-fits-all approach.
Speaker: Let me give you another example, right?
Speaker: So let's say you were trying to sell into...
Speaker: the China market, right?
Speaker: And then that's when you need to download the right apps to talk to people in China, right?
Speaker: China uses WeChat, right?
Speaker: So you gotta close deals through WeChat.
Speaker: But if you're like, maybe selling, I don't know, like, let me give it an example, let's say Vietnam, right?
Speaker: They use another sort of app, right?
Speaker: Zalo or like something else, right?
Speaker: Even knowing these things are nuances itself, right?
Speaker: So I think a lot of time it's be,
Speaker: has to be spent actually figuring those nuances only when you figure it out then that's when you can kind of like say okay i i think i've got it figured out now i can scale you know skill growth in this region itself yeah right um i think we're close to the end of the um timing here but maybe perhaps
Speaker: onto the closing remarks.
Speaker: Can you give a pitch for prospects, perspectives to looking at joining the industry, especially those who are not from traditionally sales personas?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I would say this, right?
Speaker: I would say join tech sales, right?
Speaker: If you're interested or you think you have some of these following skill sets that I'll share, right?
Speaker: So one of it is active listening, right?
Speaker: So active listening is really, you know, having the ability to listen, but not at a superficial level.
Speaker: Listen and kind of really internalize the challenges and the requirements of your prospects, right?
Speaker: And I think one thing
Speaker: common misunderstanding here is that a lot of more introverted personas or people out there, they think, yes, this is not my thing, right?
Speaker: I'm not extroverted enough.
Speaker: But actually, you know, active listening is one of the skill sets that I would argue, right, a lot of introverts actually do better than extroverts.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, but you need that skill set in Texas.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So you need to be able to do active listening of your prospects, challenges and requirements.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then later on, taking those information you learn, right, to engineer that into a solution and pitching that solution back to the prospects.
Speaker: right so is that the second skill you're yeah so that's the second skill set so that skill set is a bit more i would argue having you know analytical skills problem solving skills right because every deal is going to be different right um so if you're someone you enjoy problem solving you enjoy the fact that not every deal is the same
Speaker: right uh you enjoy you know tackling challenges engineering solutions to solve those hurdles or blockers then i would say this is industrious as well for you and of course the last one is uh the uh you know the monetary incentive side of things right uh it's an industry that pays pretty well right if you make it you know the uh comms can be really generous can be really lucrative
Speaker: So if you have those skillsets and you're eager to, you don't want to maybe make a better living, I would say taxes, yes, please for you.
Speaker: And last but not least, if you want to be in an industry, that is at the forefront
Speaker: of all other industries.
Speaker: If you buy into the notion that tech basically is gonna like... Software is eating the world.
Speaker: Yeah, if you buy into that notion, then why not be at the forefront?
Speaker: Why not be at the forefront?
Speaker: Because if you're at the forefront,
Speaker: After that, you can go into a lot of other things, right?
Speaker: Correct?
Speaker: But it's harder to, you know, not be at the forefront and then later say, hey, I want to break into tech.
Speaker: It's going to be a bit challenging.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I think timing also matters as well.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Especially now, you know, when software, traditional SaaS is kind of taking a pivot,
Speaker: uh kind of leveraging on ai as well i'm not going to go into that too much but it's kind of taking a pivot right so when we're going to that new trend um then tradition says it's going to be a bit uh quote unquote like uh out today as well right so what do you mean by that's like software taking a pivot
Speaker: without a you mean ai is disrupting the existing software yeah yeah not necessarily disrupting right i would see right now a lot of uh software vendors right uh it's quite a critical moment for them actually because they have to figure out how to leverage on ai right uh into their software and do their software caterings and solutions right to really be able to uh you know still
Speaker: solve the challenges they need to for the customers but keep them happy as well right so it's really kind of thinking how to leverage on ai right um and then of course you have companies who are looking to disrupt software through ai itself right yeah so i don't want to go down that rabbit hole right um so i would say someone from someone looking you know from the outside like hey you know uh should i join tech is this a good time right uh yeah i would say it's probably a good time man yeah
Speaker: perhaps just a last rapid-fire question, like if you have to name some verticals or segments within software that won't exist or will be replaced by AI, which are these verticals people should be aware of?
Speaker: When you think about the careers, you know, longer term.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, it's a bit hard to really put it, MC, because like I suggest, I think...
Speaker: Okay, let me give you an example.
Speaker: I was thinking, I wanted to see MarTech, right?
Speaker: Because maybe, you know, like even posting ads on social media, things like that, maybe you can use like AI to do it.
Speaker: But the way it works right now is like,
Speaker: it's like, Marsec is like, the marketing software has to marry AI tech into the software.
Speaker: Someone has to still do it, right?
Speaker: It's not like completely, like, done by a robot or something.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: So it's really hard for me to answer that question, right?
Speaker: But I would say, if you think about it, a vertical that maybe is a bit...
Speaker: Right now, things are done in a very manual way.
Speaker: You don't really need any sort of like humors, is it?
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's where maybe AI will kind of really come in and disrupt even more.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: On that note, I think we'll end the conversation today.
Speaker: So thank you so much, John, for coming to the podcast.
Speaker: Thank you, MC.
Speaker: Thanks for having me here.
Speaker: It's been great fun.
Speaker: Yeah.
