[00:00:30] Speaker A: Welcome to Power the truth behind the Business. I'm Jen Goday, your fearless host, investor, entrepreneur and business strategist. Why are we here? Because iron sharpens iron. And when we bring industry leaders, entrepreneurs, investors who have been there, done that successfully to share what's working in business and maybe even what's not, we are all able to learn and grow. As a result, our businesses grow and the ripple effect impacts not only ourselves, our teams and their families, our, but also our communities and our world. Today we're going to be joined by someone who has reshaped the way organizations sell, grow and build trust with their customers.
Stick around, grab your pens and paper. You're going to want to be here because Tom Leidy brings more than 25 years of executive experience leading revenue transformation for enterprise level clients. He is the force behind buyerlytics Revenue system, a structured, scalable, visibility driven approach to helping companies win more business while protecting their brand.
Today we're going to dive into what makes that so different, why it works across industries and how leaders can finally eliminate the guesswork in sales. Tom, welcome to the show.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: Thank you Jen. It's a pleasure to be here.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: I'm really excited about this because many entrepreneurs and executives watching today, they're overwhelmed by tools. And we've got CRMs, we've got all kinds of tools, tactics, yet still can't understand why our sales aren't scaling. You've addressed this confusion by offering clarity, visibility in a system that connects sales activity to real outcomes. Talk to me about buyerlytics. What is it and how is it different from all the other sales tools and CRMs already out there?
[00:02:16] Speaker B: Yeah, well buyerlytics is really starts with a philosophy backed by strong process technology enabled but it really focuses on some basic things that we often overlook. Things like the investment in people. You know, we hear talk about AI and I'm sure we'll get to that at some point today.
But the investment in people and just a very analytical, analytically driven, ROI focused approach to your, your go to market really makes a big difference and oftentimes our clients don't have access to the data that they need. They don't have segmentation of campaigns, they don't really have an integrated strategy to connect their systems and their execution. And so buyerlytics is just really this revenue system that connects that all together and it outperforms the standard sales models that we see in the market today.
[00:03:13] Speaker A: So take me back a little bit. How did this come to life? Like what gap did you see in the market that no One else is solving when you started on this path?
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Well, I mean, first of all, part of the motivation was I, I personally don't like to be commoditized. And what I saw in the BPO industry was, you know, out outsourced sales was really an ad hoc division within these very large call center and BPO companies.
And so there really was a niche out there for a very high value consultative sales approach where our clients wanted to learn and they, they realized they didn't have all the capabilities and all the technology and the investment in people to really drive results.
And so that was our opportunity. And as we started to put this viralytics platform in place, we just saw our performance accelerate relative to other vendors who may be supporting our enterprise level clients.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: So talk to me a little bit about this because you've been around the block and in this industry for many years.
In an ideal world today, what do you wish that every founder or every sales leader really understood about sales and business today? Because it definitely has evolved over the years. What is that one thing that you wish everyone would understand already?
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Well, I think we all hear about big data and the power of data, but it really isn't deployed often, you know, in our clients. I mean it's, it's overlooked, I mean there's mounds of data, but getting that into an organized manner, segmented properly so that you could really focus on specific campaigns that, that drove revenue and performance, that's often overlooked. And then I mentioned earlier the investment in people.
You know, traditionally an inside sales team has high turnover, lower compensation, often thought of as a frontline role. And with buyerlytics, we wanted to add a level of professionalism to this approach so that people looked at an inside sales role with buyerlytics as more of a career than just a job.
And so we did small things like we didn't title our people reps or agents, we call them account executives or lead generation specialists, but we just put a level of professionalism and then we worked with our clients to move into more of a rev share model so that we could make more money as we performed and then we could pass that, those dollars onto our people, which helped us with some of the industry problems like attrition and turnover.
So that was really our approach was focus on data, focus on the people, the enablement that makes all that happen and then be aggressive with things like offers, you know, people like a deal and so, you know, free trials and free months, you know, at the end of a contract where the ROI is still there, but just Being more creative on how we drive that additional revenue.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: You know, I really love your emphasis on people because I share that we've talked about that on this show many times. When we invest in people, the people that we invest in and we're supporting them and their goals and where we have a career path for them and they see that we don't see them just as a number producing revenue, that then they in turn really kind of take ownership in our companies. And then when we take care of our people, they take care of our clients and the money takes care of itself. And it seems like you've just put a really good system to this in the sales world. So let me ask you about this. You know, another thing that is really common is it's hard to be, it's hard to close deals if nobody knows who you are. So visibility and credibility are two of the most important things for entrepreneurs. Founders, really, any company. If you're not visible, you can't even get to the closing table. If you don't have credibility, it makes the close a lot harder. Can you spend speak a little bit to that and how data could help us with that?
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Yeah, well, first of all, I agree and I think part of credibility is your experience and part of your credibility is your thought leadership and your differentiated model. And so often I start with prospective clients and they ask about buyerlytics and one of the first things I tell them is it's disruptive. And that message, it doesn't always resonate with every prospect that we have. But the ones who truly want to learn and be consultative and make 10x changes in their revenue systems really gravitate. They know some of these industry issues. They know that, you know that there's turnover, that, you know, frontline salespeople often don't make as much as they should. And so they want to learn and, and they want to hear and data. You know, at the end of the day, ROI is the biggest driver in the boardroom. You're not going to have a long term relationship without an roi. And so we've always arranged both our campaign data along with the outcome data so that we could connect those two and make sure that our clients knew that we were adding lots of value.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: Do you have a, like really quick, a quick story that illustrates the before and after? Like what does it look like before applying the data and the processes that you use at Biolytics and then what does it look like after? Do you have something that you can share with us just to illustrate this point?
[00:09:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean Thought you'd never ask.
So one, one client that comes to mind, you know, was we had a 14 year relationship and the only reason we're not doing business with them right now is that we hit their product life cycle. But it was a software company from the Northeast, a billion dollar plus company, and they were really stuck in this old BPO model where they wanted to pay us by the hour and therefore our account executives by the hour. And we convinced them that we should look at this differently, that, you know, cost is one part of the roi, but the, the margin and, and what we could produce performance was the other part. And so we took a team of roughly 50 people and we reduced it to 15.
We took the spend that was under the hourly model with 50 and we invested that same spend into these 15 individuals, which allowed us to upscale, in some cases, hire new talent and then pay them for what they they made. And so we had, we had developed this sort of culture around you own your own seat and you have an opportunity to be your own business owner or entrepreneur.
And so you're responsible every day for the outcomes that you generate and you're rewarded accordingly. And so we were able to triple the production on, on an account executive basis by just shifting the investment to the people and to very focused campaigns. If, if you have 50 people dialing your target market at some point you're, you're going to penetrate that list fairly quickly. You have 15 who are very skilled and you're going to see a much higher conversion rate and you're going to be able to penetrate that list at a, at a reasonable level so that maybe you can reach that target twice a year, three times a year.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: That's fantastic. So this is what happens when we invest in our people. We're able to increase our throughput. We're able to see a faster ROI on their time and on our efforts and really escalate what it is we're doing. We do have to take a brief break, but coming up next, what happens when the consulting company behind the system hits its own ceiling? Tom's going to open up about the reset that changed everything. Stick around.
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So now we're here with Tom Leidy. And in this segment, we're going to turn the lens inward. Even the strongest systems that are working brilliantly face moments where they have to evolve.
And Tom and his company itself reached that point where growth required some deep internal change. Today, he's going to reveal what that pivot looked like and what you and other leaders can learn from it.
So, Tom, we all hit a wall, every one of us. No matter how great we are at strategy, no matter how much momentum we are, something happens. We don't have control over everything. Maybe it's an economic shift, maybe it's an industry disruption, but this happens in all of our business life cycle where something that was working, maybe it stopped working.
Talk to me a little bit about when you realized that your company needed its own, own reset.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: Well, I think when we, when we decided to evolve into this biolytics model, I underestimated the amount of work and perseverance that it was going to take.
It was a lot.
First of all, I realized I had a minority business partner.
Great guy, brought a lot of value to our existing model, but really was comfortable with the lifestyle that Infinity was providing and didn't necessarily share the vision and the ambition of putting in a disruptive model like Viralytics. And so that alone took about a year to work through. And ultimately, we decided a buyout was the good outcome for everyone.
And we're still great friends today, so that worked out. But it was a lot of work and a lot of time, a lot of emotion.
You know, when you work with someone over 10 or 15 years, you develop a friendship and affiliation.
So that change alone was really dramatic. But then once that was done, all the other challenges came in. But mostly, I would say it was around culture and productization.
It's hard to change culture, especially with several hundred people.
And so I learned a lot about early adopters and how you can use them to kind of create the magic and the excitement, enthusiasm.
We did a major rollout at a local Marriott hotel and, you know, serve breakfast and just really made a big deal about our Buytics launch.
And we made sure that we made it relevant to each individual employee so that they could see what was in it for them.
And this, again, didn't happen overnight. But you need to. You need to have that belief system, just that unrelentless focus on the vision that you have and then utilize the experts that you have around you to help you get that implemented.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: So there's a couple of things that, I mean, total gems that you just dropped. First of all, if you have a partner in business and you guys, you saw the writing on the wall, it was time for the company to evolve, to be disrupted, to move into the next stage and your partner wasn't on board with that. That is one of the hardest things that most of us face. Whether it's a new partner that we're bringing on and then it doesn't go so well, whether it's a capital partner or whatnot. Let's dive deeper a little into that because this is one of the areas, and I work with so many entrepreneurs that really struggle to part ways because they're friends, you've built what you have, et cetera.
So what was the moment when you realized that, hey, this has to change and talk to me about the mindset shift that you had to go through and how were you able to let go?
Because it really is hard to let go when you've built, when you've built a company such as yours and you decide to part ways with a partner.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Yeah, well, the first indication was there was a lot of buy in at, at the whiteboard.
But the hard work comes when you're actually executing on that strategy. So I call that vision to execution. And it's very difficult, especially for entrepreneurial companies, because you lack resources, you don't have people in very structured roles. You don't always have the industry expertise and skill.
And so that, that was sort of my first indication that the adoption was slow.
And so I hired an outside consultant to do employee surveys and client surveys to help me diagnose and assess, you know, what the situation is. And one of the biggest outcomes from that was just that disalignment and mixed messages that we were sending based off how we saw the world.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: You know, it's really funny because most founders, they struggle to diagnose what's really broken. And that's why people like myself have a job. Really, people like you as well in the sales world is we're able to see from that objective perspective. And so had you used outside consultants before this particular point in time? And when do you know it's a right time to hire someone externally to come in to help you, to see what's broken, what's bottlenecked and how you move forward?
[00:17:54] Speaker B: Well, fortunately, my Persona has always been someone who wants to learn. And so I look at outside consultants today. The, the big, the buzzword is fractional.
But I, I think of it in two ways. If you're climbing a mountain with a lot of rocks and very steep mountain, there's two ways to get up there, one is to climb. And to me the analogy is that school hard knocks because it takes time and there's tuition to pay when, when you're trying to learn things on your own.
And so I look at experience and expertise as sort of that escalator up that mountain where you can get there quicker and, and less costly. And so that was always a philosophy, you know, sort of that self development, always the quest to learn.
And then as I developed confidence, as I started to use outside consultants and saw the value of their expertise.
And so this is. Many of my resources that I have today are fractional and helps fit some of the skills gaps that we have, partly because a lot of our leadership has grown up in the business.
And the other part is that we simply are sort of in that tweener stage between entrepreneurialism and scale. And most of our resources are in hybrid roles.
[00:19:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really common and we see that a lot, especially if we bootstrap our business or when we self fund our business. We get it to a certain point and then all of a sudden we have a great team, but they're not the team that's going to break through to that next level. And we see it a lot of times somewhere, usually it's usually in the first one to 20 million or so of revenue when all of a sudden the shift happens and we realize that team that got us to here isn't necessarily the one that's going to help us break into that, you know, 50, 100 million. 150 million in revenue range. So it's really fun to watch everything evolve. And I salute you for recognizing where the limitations were. Now I want to ask a little bit deeper about something else you said, and that was something that I've talked about in the AI world. And I want everyone watching to pay attention to what Tom says about this. He said he had to find the early adopters and he also was looking for advocates so that he could shift the culture. So talk to me about how you fix the plane mid flight and how did you find those early adopters? How did you recognize who they were in the general masses, if you will, when you were shifting to the viraltics disruption.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: Yeah, well, some of it's luck.
I just happened to stumble across the Rockefeller approach to running a company and it's based off gratitude and cadences and simple plans. And so we, we started to do energy meetings on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and we had slightly different purpose. Monday was sort of company updates, Wednesday was more training and learning. About what's going on with our clients and our investments in the company.
And then Friday was recognition. But through those cadences, you could see the people who were excited, the people who would email you after an energy meeting and say that they're in and they want to learn more. And so we started to develop those feedback systems, not just feedback to me, but to our leaders and to our managers. And that really helped us identify the people that were passionate and were excited about. Even though it was a lot of work, they wanted to do the work because they really were passionate about that vision.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: I love the idea of internal advocates. I call them our cheerleaders for our next initiative. We use them in AI with every company that we work with when we do AI strategy and integrations, because if you don't have those cheerleaders, those early adopters, to pick it up, get excited about it, and do it internally, it's very, very hard to shift towards adoption. And that's why you see a lot of times in the news, a lot of AI integrations fail. It's because they're not. They're failing to be adopted. So they're an expensive paperweight. But when you do this in the way that you did, you're able to get that buy in. You actually are planning for adoption. So the big takeaway, if you're at home and you're listening and you're watching to this, is, how can I plan for adoption? What can I do to ensure adoption of whatever I'm doing in my culture, no matter what it is, whether it's tax, technology, or otherwise?
Tom, thank you so much for sharing with us. How can people reach out to you? If they'd like to learn more.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: They can reach out to me at our website, www.infinitydelivers.com. i'm also on LinkedIn.
And so those are two great ways to reach out to us.
One other point, though, Jenna, on that adoption that I think is important is you have to be patient. Like, it just doesn't happen overnight. You know, oftentimes we want that instant gratification.
So what I did is I created symbols that represented sort of this cultural shift. And one of them was really simple. We've all boiled water before, and if you think about what happens, the water gets a little bit hotter and it simmers, and then, you know, it starts to bubble a little bit. But when the water gets really hot, it bubbles over the pan, right? And that's the vibrant culture and adoption that you want is that big pan of boiling water. But you have to be patient because it simmers first.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: Absolutely. Thank you for that. What a great analogy. Now we do have to take a brief break, but next up, Tom's going to open up about his biggest lessons learned as a founder and the wisdom every leader watching needs before scaling. Don't go anywhere.
Welcome Back to power CEOs the truth behind the business.
We are back here with Tom Leidy and we kind of dove into the challenging moments and what happened when he had to kind of redefine and re evaluate and evolve his business and introduce spiralytics, what that looks like, some of the challenges. Now we're going to dive into some of the lessons that shape great leaders.
His journey wasn't linear. None of our journey is linear. And the insights gained from the hardest moments that we have often become the most transformative moments for us. Behind every successful company, there's painful mistakes, costly missteps, uncomfortable realities. We all face it. Whether it's in investing, whether it's in founding a business, whether we're scaling. We all live this and this conversation. Really what I want to do is I want to talk about how you can learn from other people's lived experience and wisdom. So Tom, thank you so much for being where, being here and sharing this with us. I want to ask you, what is the biggest mistake you have ever made as a founder?
[00:25:22] Speaker B: Probably getting ahead of myself without proof of concept. And you know, lots of times founders and entrepreneurs like the shiny objects.
And so, you know, I've signed some long term leases that maybe I shouldn't have, you know, or invested in the technology without really understanding the deployment.
So there's, you know, there's those types of investments that are long term that really need to be thought through, especially when they hit your balance sheet.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: You're not lying. So talk to us a little bit more granular on this. Like think about that biggest mistake that long term.
Yes. That you didn't do due diligence on. What did it cost you financially, emotionally? Did it impact your, like your belief in yourself? Did it impact your confidence and how did you come back from it?
[00:26:17] Speaker B: Yeah, from a very transparent standpoint, I went through a time where, you know, I live in a midwestern city in Iowa and small community.
People know the leaders in the community.
And when you go through a hard time, it's surprising how people all of a sudden don't recognize you anymore. And they, you know, there's that whisper behind and it's one of the most uncomfortable positions you can be in. But what started all that was we had a large enterprise client that would not do a long term contract, only 90 day sows. And we let, we became concentrated with this client and we were called the gold standard of sales by the leaders with this client. But what happened is the leaders went on to other divisions or left the company and they brought in new leaders who had a totally different strategy about what to do domestically and what to outsource offshore.
And so, you know, unbeknownst to me and our performance, it just a decision was made to move all of the business that we supported here in the US offshore. And so we lost a large percentage of our business.
And what it cost me was, you know, a seven digit number of having to put back in and reinvest and put some working capital through our bank in place that we had never had before.
And so that was very painful.
[00:27:53] Speaker A: So you're talking about customer concentration. And for those of you who are watching, this happens a lot. Many times when we're in our, I guess, ascension and we're growing our business and we're, and we're, we're really excited because we chase those, I call them like the elephants or the whales, right, the bigger clientele and then they take up more of our resources. But what happens if that client is no longer there? It can literally punch us in the face. So talk to me, Tom, about how that particular mistake, that, that customer concentration issue, that was completely out of your control, you were still performing, but it just was a change in executive leadership that resulted in that going away. How did that change your approach to risk, to decision making or to how you build your teams internally?
[00:28:39] Speaker B: Well, what I learned is entrepreneurs are known for risk taking, right? Probably not as much as advertised. But what I really learned from that experience, that a big part of my job was not just chasing that big opportunity and investing in that, but it was really risk mitigation.
It really was more about making sure you had good contracts in place, that you weren't afraid to charge for your service, that you didn't have to say yes to everything that your clients would ask you.
And so that became very stylistic after I experienced the loss of that large enterprise client.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a huge challenge. And so let me ask you, did you reach out for support when this happened? Because what I experience a lot, and this is very common as founders, we're kind of on a lonely mountain and we feel like we're the only one expert experiencing this. Guess what folks, if you're watching, everyone goes through these kind of challenges, but it sort of Feels like there's no one who understands in our, maybe in our family or in our communities because they're, you know, maybe they're W2 or they have just a different approach or maybe they're not at the same level of business. So did you reach out for support? How long did it take you to reach out for support and then maybe weigh on why most founders wait entirely to late to bring in help and how to break that pattern?
[00:30:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll address why it takes so long first. And then I think there's a certain amount of shame associated, you know, with having a setback or failing at an initiative. And so a lot of our, the entrepreneurs tend to internalize that and are afraid to be transparent because they're going through a hard time.
That's why I think sometimes it's too late.
What I did is I reached out to a trusted consultant that I had worked with in the past and there was experience in terms of turnarounds and, and you know, some of the short term working capital needs that we had and even some of the negotiations with our bank in terms of what we needed to, to get through and weather this hard time. And so that saved our business. Had I not done that, I'm not convinced I'd be sitting here today.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: Wow.
You know, and kudos to you for recognizing it because another, another thing is you got over that. You reached out and you did what it takes because sometimes we reach out for support and we don't like the answer that we have. The answer that we have means, oh, we need to raise capital or, or oh, we need to look at a loan or oh, we need to change some things about our lifestyle, maybe even so that we can put more funding into the business to survive over this bump. So a lot of people really are challenged with that.
Talk to me about people who are at home because we're living in those times right now.
We are in an AI disruptive, I'm going to call it an evolution of the way we do business and the way we work and the future of work is changing very rapidly and a lot of people are either like sticking their heads in the sand and pretending that this isn't happening and they're going to find themselves in a lot of trouble and others are really scared or they're already seeing their industry completely disrupted. So if people at home are feeling that pressure but they haven't reached out, what is the one thing that they can do and maybe put it in frame of if, if they're already impacted by some of the changes. And then if they're afraid and they're kind of sticking their head in the sand. Cause those are two different responses. Like what is one thing that those people can do today to sort of shift the momentum in a positive way?
[00:32:35] Speaker B: Well, don't lead with obstacles. There's always reasons that you shouldn't, that you are unwilling to try new things.
And obstacles in my world equal procrastination.
And so I think it's really important to continue to get energy from the potential outcomes or vision that you have.
And that will fuel some of the perseverance and investments and just hard work that you need to do to dig your way out.
But if you don't have the energy and you don't have that vision, it's going to be very, very difficult.
[00:33:13] Speaker A: I would agree with you.
So Tom, talk to me about what is the one thing that you are looking at right now that scares you the most and what is the one thing that you're excited about the most with the direction of how things are moving?
[00:33:30] Speaker B: Yeah, it's the same.
So in order for us to really realize our potential, we need to scale the company. And that's a totally different mode of operation than what we've been in where I'm the leader and I'm the rain man that brings in the deals. We need to take what's in my head and my experience and just continue to productize the process in place and balance the skill that you have internally with some good external skill that you can bring in, whether that's fractional or higher.
And so that, that is, there's a lot of anxiety around that because it's, it's a, it's a big challenge. You know, for 25 plus years, as you mentioned at the beginning, I've operated more in the entrepreneurial mode and my role is going to change.
And I realized that and I'm seeking help to help me through that. But I'm equally excited about that next step because it gives me some freedom, it perpetuates the company, it allows other people to have life changing experiences. So again, if you focus on those positive outcomes from your strategy, you're going to be energized by it, even if you have some concern about it.
[00:34:45] Speaker A: Thank you for sharing that. And for everybody who's watching, I want to really highlight what he just said. His biggest fear and his biggest excitement are the exact same. It's the change, the change of the role, the letting go of some of the things that he, he's been doing in his business so that he can actually get to the next level and scale in his business. And so I want to just highlight this because we've had so many amazing experts such as yourself, Tom on the show and the one thing that is common to every single one of them is we all have fear. I have fear. Every one of us has fear. It's what we do and how we move through that that allows us to get to that next level of success. So that's resilience, that's of part perseverance, that's moving forward in spite of fear and surrounding ourselves by the coaches, the mentors, the advisory teams that we need and hiring people smarter than us to take over those roles so that it could drive our business to that next level of scale. We do have to take a brief break, but up next we're going to talk about the future of sales, AI analytics and the human advantage. Stick around.
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listen. We're going to close out with a bang. We're going to talk about the future. We are forward looking and where is sales going? Where is this headed with the rise of AI automation, predictive insights and the irreplaceable human element that still drives buying decisions. I'm here with Tom and we have been diving into all of these things. We've talked about revenue growth. Now we're going to go into how can we be data powered and deeply human in the next level. Tom, thank you for talking about this with me. What should shifts are you already seeing and how sales is evolving across industries?
[00:37:21] Speaker B: Well, AI is here. I mean we, we all know that. But the real question is how do you deploy it and what comes first. So our approach is to really integrate some high volume, lower skill tasks and, and put those into AI agents so that our human resources, our human talent that is engaging with our clients, customers are doing that high value engagement and qualification as opposed to some of these routine tasks which would even include pre call research and post call transcription.
[00:38:03] Speaker A: And so we've talked about some of those lower level tasks and the automation side of this. Talk to me about predictive analytics and where do you see that humans have the edge?
What is it that we should be focusing on with our sales team or if we are the sales team, because that might be the case as well. Like where is the human edge when we talk about sales, when we bring in the predictive analytics play?
[00:38:32] Speaker B: Well, data is great, but you have to transform that data into strategies for your client or your client's customers, depending on where you're focused. And so I believe that the human element is beneficial in really understanding and learning the soft side of what a customer need is and being able to provide solutions that aren't routine or automated.
Now granted self service is out there and some people really prefer that.
But oftentimes people want to learn and they want to know that what they're buying is going to help them with some of the solutions they're looking for. And so I think the data is just an enablement for better engagement and as a result better targeting and better conversion and execution.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: Well, and let's be real, when we talk about business, our biggest business shifts are because of relationships. It's because of partnerships, it's because of strategic alignments, it's embedded partnerships, channel partners, what have you. And still at the end of the day, people do business with people they know like and trust.
And do you see that ever changing even in an AI world? Because the reality is we don't form relationships with computers, at least not at this stage in the game.
So talk to me a little bit about that soft side and what you see on the sales front for some of these higher touch point, more human element relationship businesses.
[00:40:08] Speaker B: Well, I mean if you just think of like LinkedIn, it, it's a tech tool, right? And it's an engagement tool. But most people are going to buy off LinkedIn, you know, especially at the enterprise level. And so there, there's a connection aspect there, there's a data aspect to AI, there's, there's an automated, more efficient, efficient process aspect. But still people buy from people and as you mentioned, they want to trust them, they want to know that their relationship is transparent and the best interests of all parties, sort of the win, win is there.
I haven't seen computer be able to do that yet. Maybe in the future, but for right now I think that's where that human engagement really is going to thrive.
[00:40:56] Speaker A: I couldn't agree more. Thank you for sharing that. So as we, as we evolve into this conversation, let's talk about future proofing our business.
What could founders and executives who are watching right now be doing right now or in Q1 of 2026 to future proof Their sales strategy.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: Well, I think they have to be more specific on their targeting who is the right fit customer and own that. Like, you know, there, there are times where people just want to sell stuff and that's not always like the best strategy. It's, it's to make sure that there's a fit there between the partnership. And so that's the way I look at our client relationships. I don't like our clients calling us a vendor because that just implies that we're not a partner and it implies that they want to tell us what to do just by old stereotypes of the vendor definition. And so we really strive for those who are partner friendly, that have great product, that are willing to listen to consultative help and are ambitious about their growth plans. So that's sort of where I think you can really maximize your effectiveness is just to be more specific about who you want to do business with.
[00:42:21] Speaker A: And you just gave us a pure gem. In case you missed it, this is Tom's words earlier.
Know who your ideal client is and own it. Be very specific, own it and move into it. Because when we do that, then we speak directly to them, their needs, what it is that matters most, and we can solve that hot button pain problem for them.
And then the other side of that is start thinking about your clients as stakeholders, as partners. We're going to partner in their growth, we're going to partner in the solution. I love that philosophy. So, Tom, I'm going to ask you one more question before we sort of close this out, because we are getting to the end of the episode. What is one belief or principle that every founder needs to adopt if they want to scale sustainably in the future of business? This.
[00:43:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I do too.
I think ROI is the foundation of how business decisions are made, at least, at least with successful companies.
And so building those elements of the value that you create for your clients and you know, what you expect out of certain investments, just really having a very financially oriented approach to decision making for both your engagement with your clients, but also for your execution with your, your company. And the second is process.
Whether it's AI enabled or just really strong, you know, tech process, that's, that's what allows you to repeat performance and, and key initiatives is just strong process. So those are two things that I wish I would have developed early, you know, at the very, very beginning, but I learned very quickly how important they are.
[00:44:11] Speaker A: Wow. Those are a couple mic drop moments, Tom, and I'm just going to repeat them for the audience. For those of you in the back who may have missed it. The mic drop is number one, process. Make sure you have a process to everything. It has to be repeatable. And number two, the ROI focus. If you're not living and conducting business by the numbers, you're doing it wrong. Particularly by the financial numbers because cash flow is the lifeblood of our business. If we're not closing deals, if we don't have revenue and we don't have money flowing through our business, we don't have a business. So start thinking about your decision making process from what is the ROI on this investment? Look at everything as an investment and what it is that it's go. What does it alternate align with so that you can actually maximize your business? Thank you so much Tom. How can people reach out to you? Follow your work and learn more about buyerlytics.
[00:45:00] Speaker B: Well, like I mentioned our website www.infinitydelivers.com I'm on LinkedIn and we're part of a lot of great industry associations that are highlighted on our website and our LinkedIn. So I look forward to anyone who wants to reach out and grow and learn from our experiences.
[00:45:25] Speaker A: Tom, thank you so much for sharing your insights, your experience, your wisdom with us today. Your story really shows us that systems scale companies, but it's really the courage, the persistence, the clarity that scales leaders. Thank you for your time. I appreciate you.
[00:45:37] Speaker B: Thank you for having me.
[00:45:39] Speaker A: Absolutely. And you. Yes you. I'm talking to you. If you're just sitting here watching for the last hour and you're not going to do anything, then we are not moving forward. So now is the time to take action. What is the one thing you heard today from Tom? Maybe it's to look at your belief structure, maybe it's to look at your ROI and shift the way you make decisions. Whatever it is that you heard today, I want you to take it and implement it right now. Not tomorrow, not next week, but right now. Because it is that action that creates the forward momentum that is going to grow our business.
Maybe today's the day you look at your own sales structure, your visibility and the habits that are shaping your growth. That one shift can change the entire trajectory of your business.
So we're going to do that today so we can all grow and experience the ripple effect that we want and the success that we desire with our business. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, including this show. But the good news is will be here same time, same station, next week. So until then, win today, win this week and I'll see you next time.
