Why Fractional Executives Are a Winning Strategy for Startups | Interview with Roger Sowerbutts, Scale-Up Advisor and Fractional Commercial Leader

Ryan Purvis 23:15:16
Hello and welcome to the digital workspace works Podcast. I'm Ryan Purvis, your host supported by producer Heather Bicknell. In this series, you'll hear stories and opinions from experts in the field story from the frontlines, the problems they face, how they solve them. The areas they're focused on from technology, people and processes to the approaches they took that will help you to get to the scripts with a digital workspace inner workings.

So welcome Roger to the digital workspace books podcast, you want to tell us a bit about yourself?

Roger Sowerbutts 23:15:50
Yeah. Hi, Ryan. Yeah, I'm Roger Sowerbutts. I've just for the audience. I've just joined Ryan at ValuuExecs. So I've been a commercial leader in the IT software industry, particularly the software as a service SaaS managed services industry for the last 2025 years or so. My My background is I spent about 15 years or so in large American blue chips, like Microsoft and HP. And then the last 20 years I've spent growing startups and scale ups and selling them. So so that's my backgrounds, and I've just exited a recent business. And I'm going, I've decided to do some independent work as a fractional Exec. So that's me.

Ryan Purvis 23:16:35
Great. Well, and welcome aboard as our first inaugural member. My static question, obviously, is was the digital Express mean to you? So maybe we'll get that one out the way and then we can dig in to some of the other stuff. We've talked about overtime.

Roger Sowerbutts 23:16:47
Yeah, I mean, it's a broad topic, isn't it digital workspace. I mean, it's been talked about for decades and decades and decades. I remember going back to the start of my career, actually, in the 80s, when I worked for HP, and it was even talked about then, and then subsequently at Microsoft. But for me, I think it's all about in this day and age, it's about making people whatever their jobs happen to be more efficient, more effective, having to spend less time worrying about it, and making you know, your workspace. So for example, if you're in marketing, or sales or whatever, it means that you've got access to information, relevant access to information data at your fingertips without without having to go searching, you know, so for me, that's what I've spent a lot of time when I've been taking on commercial leadership roles is making sure the tools and the workspace is there for the marketing and sales, execs so they can actually do the difficult work to productive work, rather than fighting with IT, which drives people insane.

Ryan Purvis 23:17:50
You begin to be so much I mean, that's exactly what I do with the friction, get rid of that friction, whatever it is exactly. And, and sometimes I call it contextual computing. So the things that you need at the time you're doing something so that you are not looking for it or frustrated by it and all that stuff. So I think we're you know, that is completely aligned. When we spoke previously, we were talking about ValuuExecs and doing fractional work. I mean, have you done a lot of freshmen work as well as as full time or because it'd be sort of one more than the other.

Roger Sowerbutts 23:18:21
It's been more full time, less fractional work, actually. So all the roles that I've done previously have been I've done a couple of fixed term projects. So where people wanted me to come in and do a turnaround I did a about a year. Well, it ended up being nearly two years. But I joined a company about 10 years ago to do a turnaround of the business that they bought and hadn't integrated it into the main business. And while you wouldn't call it fractional, it was a fixed term project with a fixed set of objectives, because they thought this would last a year, it ended up lasting two years. But you know, that that's the basis on which I joined to do a project, deliver the results, turn the business around, get it back to profitability, and then that will be job done. And I'd move on, which is what I did. And I've done, you know, a couple of jobs that started out as sort of fractional, and ended up full time. So it all depends on where you go into and how big a task it is. And if they see the value. You know, I've had a couple of approaches recently where people are thinking about fractional because it's many companies that are at that stage. So you get to one 2 million, 3 million turnover, sometimes 4 million they hadn't hired that first commercial leader they're worried about it's often the founder who runs the business. They don't necessarily have a professional commercial and sales marketing background. So they're there and they're amateurs at it, but they're very nervous about hiring what they see as an expensive resource. So yeah, so I'm, I've I've done those things and done a few but largely on a you know, five days a week basis. But I understand the ones that want to do it on a two or three days a week it would make sense. Yeah. And I think that that transition, you know, from from having a founder own the business to having relinquishing control

Ryan Purvis 23:20:14
Yeah. And I think that that transition, you know, from from having a founder own the business to having relinquishing control is is a very difficult thing. I mean, it's a child in the end, that you've, you've taken it from birth to where it is now and and giving it up as is difficult. And also you have to trust somebody that you know, on paper and relationship looks okay. But you still have to give them the keys to the car and say, go drive.

Roger Sowerbutts 23:20:34
Yeah, that's exactly it. And, yeah, I've seen it, I've seen it so many times where the founder CEO, you know, they may have won the first one or two projects, and they bootstrapped the company themselves, and that is their baby. And then you know, that transition is really tough. Because if you do hire somebody in, I think, in many respects, it's easier to hire a fractional person, because they're not necessarily a full time employee, they're not necessarily on the books with the full time contract. So I would think, you know, the CEO may feel a little bit more relaxed about giving them some of the work rather than if you bring somebody in as CRO or CCO, that person and level of seniority, certainly at the level I go in, I would expect it insist that I will be given the keys to the car as you put it, and not on the backseat driver and not being given driving lessons by somebody who doesn't have your own level of skill. That's when that's when friction really comes in. And I think that's a major risk actually, for founder owners, if they hire somebody in and then they start to kind of, you know, take over or start to grab one hand on the wheel or pull the handbrake on and change gear fall, and that person will simply leave, they will just get frustrated, annoyed, you know, so you've got to be really, really sure. And I think this is where I like the idea for your transitional startup. So we're moving into that next phase to bring in a fractional because then they can start to see the value. If it doesn't work, or there's a you know, maybe there's a personality issue, or, you know, either way it could go, there's an exit route, but you know, they can end it or they can turn it down. Or if it goes well, they can turn the dial up and do more. So just makes a lot of sense to me.

Ryan Purvis 23:22:27
Yeah, I think you're right. And I think it's that balance between risk and reward. And then I also think, you know, hiring somebody, I mean, I was talking to a friend at this morning, who's a sales guy, and I was just, I was trying to discuss a problem that I was having. And in the end, he just said to me, Well, what you want me to come and just help you for like, one day a week? I was like, Oh, I never thought about that. Like yeah, it's come and help you do X y&z But you know, just do it as a favor. And then that's a little bit of a, it gets, it gets me over a hump. Yeah, what I'm trying to do, he gets a little bit of satisfaction or for whatever his reasons are. But that that unplugs the pipes, we can go a little further forward, you know, that, from that point of view, there's no risk to me, bringing him on, I get a lot of experience, he's not gonna come on for months, you know, he's helped me out for maybe a week or two, just for some basic stuff. Yeah. But if I was selfish about it, or restricted, I'd probably bang my head against the wall for two weeks, not having anything, and not any progress. So as far as you know, that's the value to me is pretty clear. And I think that's the important thing is you need to be able to release that control. And then admit you don't know something that you get the things you thought.

Roger Sowerbutts 23:23:36
I think there's another dimension here as well, Ryan, and it's also speed to market and speed to value. Because if you think about it, if you're but you just described at that particular juncture where you're either looking to bring on your first sales guy, or maybe you've got a couple of salespeople, and you've got typically people have got like an outsourced marketing team, whatever, but you need to bring somebody in. If you're making a decision to say, right, I'm gonna go for it, I'm gonna hire a chief revenue officer or chief marketing officer or chief commercial, you've got to start the search process, you've got to write a job description. You don't really know how to write one because you're not sure having not done it, you don't know what the job content is, you don't really you don't know what you don't know. You then bring in maybe a couple of recruiters and you go through the mill with them, you select a recruiter, you go through getting CVS, you go through the you know, the process of filtering people out, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, then you go through all the interviews, all this can take you I would say minimum six months, then when you've chosen your final candidate, and everybody's happy and you make a job offer, they might be on a six month notice periods, so three to six months so then you know, they may join you in three months if you're lucky or four months that you've lost, you know 10 months from when you decided to do it you've done nothing other than waste a bunch of time your eyes been taken off the ball of your business. So bring you something fractional can you can hit the ground running you can get on with stuff and actually that person might aid might be your you might think I so this person is perfect. I'd like to offer them a job or or they can help you with that transition to hire the person you need, knowing in Dunnville, having built trust with them. So I think there's multiple dimensions to this.

Ryan Purvis 23:25:26
Oh, yeah. I mean, no, I had I hadn't thought about that to be quite honest. Because the world, the world I live in right now, I found somebody they stopped working tomorrow. So think about, but to hire somebody on a full time salary, we're going to invest a huge amount of money. I mean, most of my stuff is contract. So it's easy to bring somebody in for a part time to do some work, and they leave, they come back, again. Yeah, hiring, you say six months plus three. And then you might hire somebody, that's, that's not as good as you thought you gotta get, get rid of them. Yeah, good, because now they've hit the ground and haven't hit the ground running.

Roger Sowerbutts 23:25:59
The risks matter. I mean, it's, I've seen it happen over and over and over again. And then when you think about it, you might have put a one and a half to two year hole in your revenue development plans, you might have created damage to the organization, they may have hired in the wrong people. It can be it can be an absolute disaster. So, you know, I would always advise caution. And this is the bit like not, I wouldn't quite say try before you buy. But there's an element of try. And before you buy, plus, there's an element of that person will know how to advise you. So you know, they say to that person, well, your job is to fix all these problems, get these processes in place helped me build my business, and then find me the right person to take this on full time, then you haven't wasted any time and you're minimizing your risk as well.

Ryan Purvis 23:26:46
Yeah, and also that, you know, that that fractional, if that working for you, you can always it's easier to get out of that contract than it is to get out of an employment contract. And then also, if you've ordered a good fraction, or with a good network, tend to want, they're bringing in people that they know, because now they know the business that they're working in and say, look, I've got this person who's worked with me before, they're pretty good. You know, this is who I recommend, or at least this kind of profile. Yeah. And then you've got something to start with, which also helps.

Roger Sowerbutts 23:27:12
Yeah, very much. So now, I was thinking, you know, like, you know, having done turnarounds, and these, you know, sort of fixed term contracts, you know, and I've gone in to fix the business. But I've had, I've had to bring in some subject matter experts in say, finance, or HR to fix various issues and processes and things I've spotted, that were broken. And similarly, we can value execs, as you rightly said, Ryan, you know, you might you might bring somebody in who might be an expert in finance, but they might say, well, actually, I can see the your sales processes your pipeline, marketing's dreadful. I'm not the expert, for example, finance guy, let me bring in somebody who is or vice versa, you know, if I go in and say things are broken in finance, or not working, I can say, well, it's bringing, you know, I'll talk to Ryan, and we'll go and say, well, we've got, you know, him, her, him, him, him, they can do all of that. And we can bring the squad in, or I think you use the term pod, you could bring a couple of experts in and you might land that pod for six weeks, eight weeks, three months, fix the problems, move out, then move on.

Ryan Purvis 23:28:13
Yeah, and I think there's that level of A team sort of scenario where you bring in somebody, you bring in a bunch of to solve the problem. And there's a great music at the end, and they and they leave, and the business is in a better state than it was before they came. And then they're not far away, either, if you need the back again, because I think that's some of the other things is they can be sort of seasonal assistance, or becomes like a, like a virtual RSA board, because that sounds way too formal, but a bit of virtual, sort of brainstorming, advisory, trusted servants, service that they can lean on business, a relationship and the people know know more about the business.

Roger Sowerbutts 23:28:50
I think I think it's very different, isn't it than just a nonexecutive? Because I've worked with non execs, who tend to be either retired or semi retired. And they don't actually do any delivery per se. They their advisors, as non execs, and they're sitting on the board, maybe represented somebody's interests, but not actually doing any hesitant. I hesitate to say hard work, but, you know, actual delivery, you know, of things that matter to the business.

Ryan Purvis 23:29:21
Yeah, it's funny, I'll talk to someone about it yesterday, we're saying like that sort of fractional world role has now become the sort of middle ground between a operational person on the board. And a lot of people that go into non execs thinking they're going to be operational, and actually aren't operational. And they realize that that's not what they want to do. And the fractional thing has become more relevant. Now. To be fair, I've worked with some non execs that are very operational, they like to get involved they like to you know, they don't just do the meetings that come and visit they come in, really the accounting system they like like the one guy was telling me yesterday was involved in school, did the whole financial processes and pick up my package though using and all that kind of stuff, but he said at the time, and it was you know, they didn't have the money and you know, he's an expert, so you gave them his expertise. But not everyone's like that, you know, some some people just want the board meetings and all that stuff. I'm much more of that ilk where if there's something to be fixed, I really go and fix it. Then tell some somebody else, that there's a problem and how to fix it and then wait for them to fix it. Because that will just drive me mad. Yeah. So Yeah, makes sense. Yeah, with your experience, I mean turnarounds versus growth. I mean, what what is your preference? I mean, what do you like to do? What do you do like both predefined.

Roger Sowerbutts 23:30:36
It depends on what the turn having done a couple of turnarounds they are, they are quite hard because I prefer growth, if I'm honest. Now, you know, because there are less things in place, there's less history. And with turnarounds there tend to be a lot of skeletons and hidden problems. And often you can find with turnarounds, the the existing board and execs in place don't know how to fix the problems. So they want to bring an executive in who's got the experience to fix them. So by definition, they don't really, in my experience, know where the problems are or what to look for. And then all the ones I've done, they tend to be deeper, more systemic, lots and lots and lots of challenges. And it can be really painful and take a long time to fix. And not all problems are fixable. And it can mean wholesale changes in people's systems processes, it can be really, really quite quite painful. Whereas with growth, it tends to be, you know, a bit more exciting, a bit more dynamic, you've got a bit more of a sort of blank canvas to paint on. And so that would be my preference. I'm not against turnarounds. It depends what the turnaround is and what their challenges are. And you know, but I would take a good look at a turnaround and say, that's for me, I can really help or that one, I will pass. It just depends.

Ryan Purvis 23:32:09
Yeah, sure, I can understand. I mean, some turnarounds are really terrible like pivots. Here we go this way. But now if we pivot your business, you become another business. And that's yeah, that's Morphosis as opposed to do the same thing just more efficiently or more effectively?

Roger Sowerbutts 23:32:24
Yeah, exactly. I did one about while I actually joined, when I sold my first sort of big startup in 2005, I ended up joining a much bigger corporation who bought me and then they put me into morphed their business from being sort of in perpetuity software licenses, and one off projects, to more recurring revenue and SAS and things like that. So that was a pivot. So I wouldn't have I wouldn't call that a turnaround. But that was more of a pivot. And that was exciting and enjoyable, because you've got some resources in place, you've got the will, I got the global CEO behind me. And that was really interesting. Actually. That was exciting. So yeah, I completely agree with what you're saying.

Ryan Purvis 23:33:09
And with those sorts of the growth that you look for, I mean, do you have a playbook that you would play to things you always do as you as you sort of go to approach?

Roger Sowerbutts 23:33:17
Yes, yeah, yeah, it's obviously flexible. But the things I always look for, first thing I look for is, what's the value proposition? You know, I always say, start with the why, you know, why do people buy from you? Why do people buy your proposition? Why do people go to your company, a lot of companies get it back to front. So they start with the what and the how. So, you know, you can find that by going to people's websites, and they'll say, this is what we do. And this is why we're the best that, you know, installing these widgets and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That doesn't really excite anybody. You know, if you look at why people buy Apple, you know, as opposed to Samsung Apple don't, I don't think their phones are any better than Samsung, but they've got the branding. And people want an Apple because they want an Apple because they relate to that brand. So I would typically go in and look at the positioning of the company, and really digging into its value proposition and why is it different, better, more value to their customers than anybody else? And have they got their pitch right. So that's the starting point for me is to really understand how they got their pitch, right. And does everybody in the company share the same playbook in terms of the pitch because that's often the case, you'd be asked, you know, 10 people or company, what's your pitch, the law give a different version that will have a different elevator pitch. So fixing that to begin with is really, really crucially important thing and more or less everything flows from that. Because from that you can determine the size of your marketplace, which geographies you should target, who your competitors are, who your target markets are. And then you then the next level down is, well, you know, who which companies are you going for it by industry, by geography? And so target industry and then which persona you're selling to who's actually your target audience? Is it a chief technology officer as chief finance officers CEO is Who is it. And then from that you can build everything around it. You can build your messaging, your marketing, your go to market, your systems, you can buy in the data to target those people, you can build your content around it. And then of course, there are standard things that all companies need, like a good CRM system, a good data platform, good marketing, automation, good content. And that is all very process driven. So yeah, so I think there's a series of building blocks. The pieces of the Lego, if you like, might have different colors and flavors. But generally speaking, it's a it's a common sort of theme and set of a set of blocks.

Ryan Purvis 23:35:55
And what's the typical timeframe that you would start doing things that we would use day one, or you'd learn first and then move on? And what's your...

Roger Sowerbutts 23:36:00
There's a, there's an element of discovery at the beginning. So I'd say there's a few weeks of discovery two, three weeks of discovery, which is going around talking to people meeting people questioning people, interviewing people, looking at their, their information, their decks, their collateral, their website, meeting with the marketing people in the sales people, and just getting a good flavor and going through with the sales and sales leadership on how they manage sales and marketing and CRM and sales processes, how they define their pipeline, how they do their forecasting, which is always a dark art and a bit of a mystery in lots of companies. So really getting a firm understanding of that, then making a decision as to well, what are the priorities? What, what's the thing that needs fixing? First? Where are the good bits? Where are the bits that really need sharpening up? And then focusing in on those and then saying, Okay, well, this is the program of works that you need, we're going to start with this, then we'll go on to that, and then we'll fix that, and so on, and so on. So yeah, and then installing things like he might need a new CRM, or it might need a new definition of sales stages and forecast process that takes a week or two, and then you've got to go through a few cycles of sitting in our meetings and getting the salespeople used to the new process. You know, it's like teaching somebody to drive a car, when all they've ever done is ride a bicycle, you know, you know, they actually need to understand the controls and repeat it again, and again, and again. So the meetings are smooth. And then the leadership has the confidence that all the salespeople and all the marketing people are on the same page, using the same language using the same methodology. That's where you get this consistency and repeatability of sales processes. Similarly, with content creation, and things like that, in marketing, and the website, everything has to gel, and everything has to be consistent. So yeah, so this will phase a few weeks. And then it can be a couple of months, if you like, of the things I just mentioned. And then it might be a little bit of a lighter touch as you go through just to kind of dip in and out to have checks and balances and make sure that people are continuing to do the things that you'd all agreed on.

Ryan Purvis 23:38:16
Yeah, no, it's perfect. And the only thing I would add to that is I'd probably go look at it, they think if you're selling a service or a product, like what are the gripes What are they like? That sort of thing. But, I mean, I'd follow somebody. And I think that's, that's the nice thing about coming in from the outside in, is you don't necessarily have the baggage of the legacy stuff top of mind, you're coming from a fresh perspective with with knowledge and elsewhere that you can help with them repurpose.

Roger Sowerbutts 23:38:46
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've gone into companies before I've worked for companies who said, you know, things like, I want to mention the particular software, but they'll say we're an XYZshop, we use this a CRM, because the CRO or the CEO used it in his previous company. And that's what we use, and you go in, and it's like a dog's breakfast, you can't find anything. You can't get to any data. You can't find out any sales history. And it's just a disaster, but they're all married to it. I find that really strange. You know, why? Why would you be married to a particular piece of software? You know, it's not, it's not that that makes you successful? It's the processes and it's everything else behind it. Yeah, so sometimes it's hard to change systems. Sometimes you have to live with what you've got. And then you have to adapt it and add a few things in. That's possible as well. But yeah, and then it's got to be the ongoing coaching as well. Because often the CRO, if you're advising somebody like that, or a CEO, things like how you do account management, how you do target accounting, how you run workshops with your salespeople, and talk the same language so that you can start to build effective sales strategies. All of that sort of stuff is important as well. And that takes experience.

Ryan Purvis 23:40:06
Yeah. Yeah. And and it's a sometimes that evolution for the people is good as well. He has a big, you can culturally get caught in the as you say the fact under the sway, so we always do it this way. And you probably find there were people that were saying, Well, I want to do a different way, and they didn't have the political capital, let's say or to go against it. So they didn't, but now that you've come in as a fractional, now they're gonna voice who's been brought in to get to, to, to change the business, that's what the mandate is. And now they've got someone who could talk to and they can bounce those ideas off and, and really change their lives here with a couple of companies now, where they've been working with where even with major swap outs of people, they still have the same core culture. And that's because of, you know, groceries. And so it was good, some was bad. But sometimes you've got to really find out what's causing their culture. That's not good. Yeah, and then cut it out, or whatever the nice way to say it is to get hurt.

Roger Sowerbutts 23:41:08
Yeah, I mean, I've, I've said before, it's not I didn't invent this phrase, but I heard it somewhere. I don't know who it's attributed to, but you can't find your way to success. But many organizations, particularly large American ones, or, you know, bring somebody and I've heard this time and again, you know, oh, we're bringing them in this really aggressive chief revenue officer, and we're really excited. And this, this CRO joins and starts firing everybody and then hiring in all his mates from his previous company. And it's an even worse disaster than before. And then two years in, he gets fired. And then the back to square one. And then, you know, CEO loses his job, and the board appoints a whole new bunch of people. And so the merry go round continue, never actually got to the root of the problem ever. Yeah. And the root of the problem could be, you haven't defined your market properly, you haven't defined your value properly. Yeah, you haven't, you know, there's lots of cultural issues, you know, the list goes on and on and on.

Ryan Purvis 23:42:07
Yeah, that does seem to be a very Americanized way of I mean, I've worked in a few American corporates, and it does seem to be like that. And I wonder if it's where that came from? Is this Hello, Jake? Jake, well, Jack Welch sort of thing where, you know, that was his way. And that's how you end GE. And that's how you do it, or, I don't know, it's just because the European way is not that way. And the South African way is not their way. Typically you, you work with what you've got, and you just, you just add the people you need. And you slowly change out the people you don't. But you never never lose that momentum, which I think sometimes you lose momentum when you do those messages pop up.

Roger Sowerbutts 23:42:41
And it destabilizes people as well. I mean, you know, I am a fan of some of Jack Welsh, his stuff, you know, I was a big fan of his, his first book was a winning, wasn't it and, but he, they had this corporate policy to get rid of the bottom 10% every year. Now, the problem with that, and I worked for Microsoft for a long time, and they had a points based scoring system. And the problem with all of these kinds of systems in larger corporates, and then some medium sized, and smaller companies think they can adopt them as well, because they think, well, if it's good enough for GE, and Microsoft, it was good enough for them. The problem with it is it creates politics. And then you end up with people fighting each other internally to not be in the bottom 10%, as opposed to focusing on their jobs and doing, you know, innovation and looking after customers and what have you. So we ends up quite toxic if you're not careful. Yeah, so my advice has always been to the other, you know, assume that people want to do a good job, and coach people. So I've always been a fan of the One Minute Manager, which is a different way of looking at things, which is positive coaching and positive reinforcement. Of course, if people aren't performing, then and they're simply not capable of it, or they're incompetent, or you know, they Ned, they're uncoachable. Ultimately, you do have to get rid of people, but it shouldn't be your first knee jerk reaction. Because you need to look at yourself as an organization first to say, Well, is it something that we're doing? Do we now have the right systems tools, value proposition marketing, so because if you just change the people, and you don't change, everything that sits behind it, the same thing is going to happen again, and all you get is massive staff turnover, and huge costs, and you make no progress. So you've got to look at the fundamentals first before just swapping people out.

Ryan Purvis 23:42:58
Yeah, yeah. And I think that's where having having the outside of the doesn't have a vested interest is helpful because they can they can have those conversations and and talk to talk at all levels and and understand things. And one of the things that I learned through consulting over the years is you want to talk to the people that are actually doing the work of the frontlines the most. Because they'll have the best handle on what works and what doesn't work and not the other people at the top and we'd be at the top as well. We know what's going on, but it's becomes an excellent exercise, not a real exercise.

Roger Sowerbutts 23:45:03
I told them what they think you want to hear as opposed to Yes. You know, if you go in as a fractional, then you can ask all the daft questions that nobody else maybe dare ask. Yeah, yeah, because you're not. Any organization, you're not, you're not coming up to your annual review, there's nothing in it for you other than you're there for two, three months or whatever. And you're there to be honest and try and make a difference and improve things. And if that means asking tricky, difficult questions that nobody else feels able to, then that's part of the job, isn't it?

Ryan Purvis 23:45:35
I think there's a reputational thing to that too, or professionalism with because you're at the fractional ticket, you got to show value the whole time you're there. Otherwise, you're out. So you need to ask questions, maybe you're not comfortable, because that's how you posted to showing the value that you're willing to show? Yeah, if you ask the right, if you asked all the easy questions, then they would need you in the first place. Yeah, exactly. So. So what are your thoughts now with with the way the technology is changing? I mean, do you think now that we've got aI coming in, that's gonna solve all the problems? Do you think that's creating more opportunities?

Roger Sowerbutts 23:46:07
I think it creates more opportunities. I don't think it solves all the problems, I think, you know, if you look at things like chat, GPT, for example, you know, I've used it a couple of times, and it's quite, it's quite spooky, how smart it is, in terms of coming up with, you know, messaging and phraseology, and so forth. But I think it's just there to be used. I don't think it's taking over the human element. But I think what it does, I think it elevates people, you know, people have taught for decades and decades and decades about, you know, even from the Industrial Revolution onwards, you know, soon we won't be plowing our own fields with horses. When tractors come out, as the end of that, yeah, well, people find the roles you become more knowledge based, and so on and so forth. And it's, you know, when computing first started to become mainstream in the, you know, late 50s 60s, so many tasks will be automated, etc. And I just think this is another evolution in that process. So I think people need to embrace it and use it. And I just think it's an evolution.

Ryan Purvis 23:47:09
Yeah, I totally agree with you. And I think the problem that I'm worried about is the people that aren't embracing it now. So they're just gonna be left far behind as this stuff becomes more and more prevalent. Yeah. And it's, and when I say that, I mean, yes, you'll, you'll end up with tools like Microsoft released copilot, now, that will be part of your subscription, and you'll get it. That'll be baked in to you, too, suddenly, we have to use it. But I'm talking about the other tools that are not mainstream, that will give you an edge if you can, but no one knows about it. So yeah, get the edge because you know about it first until everyone else catches up. Yeah, it's those things that I think will make life interesting for a lot of companies, a lot of people.

Roger Sowerbutts 23:47:45
Things like robotic process automation, there are so many tedious, repetitive tasks that are just like my, my eldest son is a scientific researcher in cancer research. And his intellectual capital is in the science. It's not in data entry. And it's not in preparing data, or charts and things like that. He needs to be able to spend his time with his research team, analyzing the data, and looking at the trends and then producing the conclusions and results then adjusting the experimentation. Well, that's just one example of where robotic process automation. And lots of other examples could automate a lot of those tasks in the background of the data management and so forth. There's lots and lots and lots of examples of where RPA just takes that out of it. As I said before, it just then it elevates people to using their, their intellect and their knowledge and experience where it should be applied.

Ryan Purvis 23:48:46
Yeah, yeah, I was reading a really interesting book series, I think, where they're picked up with, though they're dealing with disease. And because of the launch last language model, which is really all the reports, the medical reports coming through, it found a correlation, just because it was it was looking at all the reports that they had, that they hadn't seen. Yeah, which is like the trick to the story and how they solve the problem. But it's very feasible that that would be happening right now, if you go that's running across all your medical research. And it's finding correlations that no one else has had the time to do that, because not everyone read every article, so you need somebody to read every article. And then, you know, abstract it, and then join the dots really. And so if you see that you if you chew nicotine gum, and you drink coffee, your blood, your heart, your blood pressure goes up, you know, 200%, whatever, whatever the stupid analogy is, yeah, but it's those things that if you weren't combining them together, you'd never see and I think that's what, you know, I'm very excited to see opportunities like that, or even developing new types of medicines, because the compounds can be synthesized and processed based on their properties. Before they even run the experiment. In simulated,

Roger Sowerbutts 23:49:57
Exactly, do millions of them millions of the main, you know, they could run it overnight and come back and you could have done, you know, whatever, you know, millions of iterations and then they can actually run the real life test but hone it right down to the ones that matter as opposed to having wasted six months trying to simulate all this stuff in the lab themselves.

Ryan Purvis 23:50:18
Yeah, exactly. And I still think you have to do a level of the manual step, even though you get all the simulations just to verify that the simulations are still legit. But you're probably doing a sample as opposed to, as you say, six months, it might be a week's worth of work with two weeks or a month, but not six, costs and cost of time, and in resources to do all that stuff. It just brings everything so much more down to be achievable, palatable for people to take it on.

Roger Sowerbutts 23:50:44
Well, that's it. I mean, and it's a great example, in the pharmaceutical industry, but just, you know, medical research in general, before it even gets to mainstream pharmaceuticals. But, you know, they're spending billions on researching one therapy. And if you can collapse that down by few months, that's hundreds of millions of pounds saying, Dan, time to market and ultimately probably, you know, less sickness and life saved, ultimately.

Ryan Purvis 23:51:09
Ya know, 100%. And I mean, I've been quite surprised. I'm sure you've seen this, a lot of the amount of marketing sales tools that are coming out that are automating, like outreach and profiling. And, I mean, obviously, using public data to do that. Because I think medical pharmacy was very difficult because a lot of privacy rules and legislation, which I don't think is a bad thing, either. I think it's good to have the privacy piece in there. But I've been fascinated by Apollo IO, just the one I was looking at last week. Yeah. You know, the way it's figured out the sort of the birth of the people it's finding and their profiles, to the point that you can be so so what's the word? Search? Yeah. On Google, you're going to talk to or send it send a sequence to? Yeah. And even the sequences are quite well developed during these templates there that are thought out.

Roger Sowerbutts 23:52:02
And yeah, they are. And I'm a big fan. I've been using Apollo for a few years. There are others out there. But that's, that's one of the better ones for Europe. But then, you know, they figured out how do you integrate that data? How do you import that data into, you know, the likes of Salesforce or HubSpot, and run marketing automation, and sequences and campaigns and so forth, and even scraping contacts and cross referencing to LinkedIn profiles, and then automating that whole outreach program. Whereas before, even five, six years ago, it was very, very, very manual, you know, I had inside sales teams working for me, that will be going to 3456 Different places trying to stitch all this together, just horrendous task, and then you're asking most people to be making 50/60 calls a day as well, plus all that work. So if you can take that work away from them, and, and like you said, be very surgical, because if you're trying to target individuals, by name by job title in the in your target company, target geography, it becomes very, very, very rifle shot, as opposed to just scattergun, you know, firing into a dark forest and hoping something hits. So yeah, it's a big improvement.

Ryan Purvis 23:53:19
Yeah, no, it's like magic at the moment, because I think you don't know how it works. I mean, you could you could theorize how to working, but you actually don't know how to do it, per se. I mean, it's a very clever thing to get on top of, well, what would be your next thing that you'd be looking for from a, an AI? Or a way of working better for what you do? What would be something useful to you?

Roger Sowerbutts 23:53:45
Yeah, I think it will be around the sort of thing we just talked about. So you know, if you could start to get a lot smarter with the tools and have the tools more tightly integrated. So that once you defined in say, a, you know, the equivalent of a chat GPT or an RPA type tool, where you can say I am targeting pick an example. Pharmaceutical businesses globally, and associated laboratories between X and Y size and must be this number of people and we're targeting these these individuals. And it could just go out produce the sequencing produce the value proposition letter, email, LinkedIn requests, whatever it happened to be and then automate those sequences for you then collect the results as to who's ready who's seen it, etc cetera cetera. So have that much more automated and integrated. And then you'd have your salespeople your inside salespeople and your business development managers orchestrating it, but doing the follow ups and actually getting the discovery meetings after that. So yeah, that would be the Holy Grail and it would also link in with the, the whole marketing piece as well. You know, because as I said before with chat GPT I've tried it a few times, and it will come up with you don't have to tell it much and it will come up with some amazing marketing material for you. Sure. Content, quite incredible. So it's not going to take much, I think to start to stitch the components together with CRM and marketing automation and data sources like Apollo IO, and so forth. So that will be where I'd want it to go.

Ryan Purvis 23:55:27
Yeah, 100%. I mean, having, having spent hours trying to build all that stuff myself over the weekend, I would love to have the generated me, I have a chat running with chatty pupil just around some one specific topic. And I keep that because when I asked a question that answers in context of that topic, which is great. And I find that so useful, and I just wish that that sort of context, could we just take it with me to other things, and so can admin signup, Apollo, apply that context, but you can do the sequencing for me, or you can find your customers or whatever it is. And the same with dictation, or anything else you do? I think that would be really, I think that'll happen.

Roger Sowerbutts 23:56:05
Yeah, I think it'll help as well. I mean, the theme, there are little bolt ons, you can get there a little Chrome extensions you can buy, and they will automatically scrape LinkedIn profiles for you, you can just add them in there, just a Chrome extension. And they will start to do that. But if you could start to stitch that together, and maybe have an orchestration layer that would just say, Okay, I've got that running, I know what Ryan wants, I know, we're going to add this in, we're linking, we're comparing it to the Apollo IO database. And that's all going to go into my marketing automation. It's going to come up with a sequence and off it goes. And you know, it's gone from, you know, five or six data sources, and it's just doing in the background, and it's spitting back the results of people who've looked at your content, people who've requested further information, etc, cetera, et cetera. So that will be the next step for me.

Ryan Purvis 23:56:55
Yeah. If you want to get in contact with you, what's the best way?

Roger Sowerbutts 23:56:59
I'm on LinkedIn at Roger Sowerbutts. Obviously, through ValuuExecs as well. My contact details are up there. Yeah, they're probably the two best ways. Or on business email, which is our Sowerbutts@BTconnect.com.

Ryan Purvis 23:57:07
Great, brilliant. Well, thanks for the time. Roger was great chatting with you today.

Roger Sowerbutts 23:57:17
Thanks, Ryan.

Ryan Purvis 23:57:17
And we'll be chatting again soon.

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