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In this episode of The Future of Selling, host Rick Smith dives into one of the most disruptive shifts shaping sales organizations today: Decentralized Talent (or "DeTal"). Joined by Conquer's Chief Revenue Officer Jim Trimarco (JT) and Chief Financial Officer Demian Costa, the conversation unpacks how companies are rethinking sales staffing, team structure, and global scalability.
From JT’s deep experience leading global sales organizations to Demian’s journey from Navy SEAL to CFO, this episode offers a unique perspective on what’s driving the evolution of modern sales teams—and why the traditional outsourcing model has failed.
🔍 Topics We Cover:
From JT’s deep experience leading global sales organizations to Demian’s journey from Navy SEAL to CFO, this episode offers a unique perspective on what’s driving the evolution of modern sales teams—and why the traditional outsourcing model has failed.
🔍 Topics We Cover:
- What "decentralized talent" actually means and how it differs from traditional outsourcing
- Why global wage arbitrage is an opportunity, not a risk
- How to align remote, global teams with your company culture and goals
- The tech stack and leadership mindset needed to make DeTal work
- Why the Balkans could be the next big thing in talent sourcing
- Actionable takeaways for sales leaders looking to grow while cutting costs
Whether you're scaling a startup or leading a mature sales org, this episode breaks down how to reduce costs, maintain quality, and scale faster—without sacrificing culture or performance.
Creators and Guests
What is The Future of Selling?
The Future of Selling is the go-to podcast for sales professionals looking to sharpen their skills and stay ahead in the competitive world of B2B sales. Each episode features expert interviews, real-world case studies, and actionable tips to help you navigate the complex B2B buyer's journey. Whether you're dealing with long sales cycles, multiple decision-makers, or rapidly changing technologies, we’ve got you covered. Tune in to discover the latest trends, best practices, and proven strategies for closing more deals and building lasting relationships in the B2B space. Perfect for sales leaders, account managers, and anyone aiming to master the art of B2B selling.
This term DeTal, it it what it really is, it's the evolution of traditional outsourcing. And when people think about outsourcing, they think about offshore call center challenges with, you know, potentially certain accents, you know, really start to consider, well, what would a true, you know, basically distributed workforce look like? Can ultimately be integrated into your company's core functions. So the challenge with more traditional outsourcing, quite frankly, is that it's failed. If you're watching this podcast, you might be saying,
Demian:like, DeTal still sounds a little bit like outsourcing. Well, there's a there's a pretty big difference there, and that is that sort of cultural exchange between the worker, the team that's being built, and then the leadership that is running that team. Like, that's the big difference. You are truly building a team. It is an extension of what you are currently doing wherever you're located in a different region.
Demian:Right? And if you find different regions that obviously have lower costs but equal or equivalent talent levels, that is sort of that golden, you know, that golden opportunity that you're trying to unlock.
Rick Smith:Hey, everybody. Welcome to the future of selling podcast. My name is Rick Smith and I'm your host. On this podcast today, we're gonna be talking about a developing trend in the little and just work overall. Right?
Rick Smith:But certainly in the industry of sales. So we're excited about our guest today that we've got on the call and ready to introduce him and then get and then get started. So first off, I've got Jim Trimarco. So I'm calling JT, and JT was our is our CRO or chief revenue officer here at Conquer. So JT has really, really deep experience as a CRO.
Rick Smith:He's worked with startups. He's worked with large enterprise organizations as well and everything in between. And and to kinda cap that off a little even a little bit more, he's also not just worked within The US, but he's as well worked with global sales organizations, and that's really gonna feed into the to the the conversation that we're gonna have today. Also, we've got with Demian Costa. So Demian is our chief financial officer at Conquer.
Rick Smith:Prior to to coming to Conquer, Demian actually served as a Navy SEAL, which is really cool, and and did that for it is cool, Demian, and did that for a number of years. So thank you for your service, man. We appreciate that. And then after serving as a SEAL, Demian moved into the private equity world and did that for a number of years before coming to Conquer. So personally, I'm really glad to be able to work with both of you.
Rick Smith:I'm glad to be able to call you guys teammates and and and as as as kindly as I can say it, I'm glad to be able to call you guys my friends. So looking forward to a good conversation today. And and today, we're gonna be talking about what we call d towel or d or decentralized talent. Right? So if you've never heard of that that term or that that phrase, that's what we're gonna dive in today.
Rick Smith:So appreciate you guys being here. If you're ready to get started?
JT:Let's go, Rick.
Rick Smith:Here we go. Okay. First off, as we think about decentralized talent, Joe too, can you define that for us? What does that mean decentralized talent? And then maybe also kinda compare that to, you know, traditional out outsourcing and, you know, offshoring, things like that.
JT:Yeah. This term, DeTal, what it really is, it's the evolution of traditional outsourcing. So it's moving away from this more rigid, when people think about outsourcing, think about offshore call center challenges with potentially certain accents. And then how do they really start to consider, well, what would a true, basically distributed workforce look like that can ultimately be integrated into your company's core functions? So the challenge with more traditional outsourcing, quite frankly, is that it's failed.
JT:You know, companies are relied on, you know, some third party. You know, I know we're gonna be talking about, you know, sales tasks also here, but they're trying to figure it out at a lower cost. Where the DeTal movement is coming in, it's really saying, look, we wanna find highly skilled people and talent. We wanna make sure it's flexible, but I need to make sure I can integrate it into my sales process. So just moving away from only high volume, you know, tasks, but actually making sure that they can win and be productive in my sales world.
JT:So that's probably the main difference.
Rick Smith:So when you think about, like, you you made the statement that traditional outsourcing has kind of failed. Right? So why so if that's failed, tell us why decentralized talent or DeTal is gonna be successful and whether that's JT or or or Demian, whoever wants to kinda answer that. Why is one why is this gonna be better and why is it gonna succeed?
JT:Yeah. Maybe I'll I could start. Maybe Demian, you you you color in either, prove or disprove. But, you know, the first thing is that you'd have more control over your talent selection. So a lot of times with outsourcing, you hire an organization, they say, hey, great, here's your team.
JT:We're gonna train them and this is gonna be how they're gonna execute. With the DeTal movement, the organization really has control over who you're picking, the type of person, the type of background that you're looking for. Because back to because we want that person or the company's gonna want that person to function as a true extension of their internal team. Right? So that's, I think that's the first big point.
JT:And then the second point, it's highly scalable where you can scale it up or down based on what you need. If things are working great, you're growing at the right pace, great. Add more talent. If for whatever reason you need to, you know, lower, you know, some spend or or reduce the size of staff, you can do that very quickly, you know, while you're you're leveraging and utilizing your tools and your technology.
Rick Smith:So you mentioned a minute ago, one of the barriers would be just kind of language or accent. So how are you guys, I mean, how is this new movement overcoming that if that's a known barrier?
Demian:Yeah, mean, there's a few different things that we've looked at. One, we actually do, you know, and conduct interviews of the individuals and we make that assessment on our own. Right? In certain roles, accent is going to play a larger, you know, sort of role, larger component of the decision making process than perhaps in others. The biggest thing, of course, is if that person's customer facing.
Demian:Right? And so a person that's gonna be engaging with a customer all day, every day, you we're gonna put a little bit more emphasis on the accent. Right? So if they're not, then there's there's really no no need for that to even be a consideration as long as communication can be upheld between the two different teams.
Rick Smith:Okay. Gotcha. So is this you know, when you think about shifts and and that that that companies have made in the last maybe three to five years, I mean, is this the biggest shift? Is this it? Or are there other shifts to be considered as well as you kinda look across the certainly, organizational, I guess, broadly, but let's you know, we're we're here to talk really about sales organization.
Rick Smith:So so what do you think, JT? Any any other changes or shifts?
JT:Yeah. Well, I think one of the the major shifts and and and it's really at the foundation of this DeTal movement is that you're seeing the rise of or or the continued rise of more remote decentralized teams, like literally by definition. And so where companies, again, pre COVID, we're saying, look, everybody's in the office. That's the only way I can build my culture. This is the only way that I can inspire my team and motivate them and drive people to winning, etcetera.
JT:Post COVID, there's a continued debate out in the marketplace of, well, what should this look like? Should everybody come back? You have some very large companies out in the marketplace that are saying, you will come back five days a week. Yeah.
Rick Smith:I think
JT:you have the greater middle, which is probably 95 of companies that are trying to figure out some hybrid
Demian:approach. Many
JT:of them don't even have offices anymore. Maybe they have some type of co working space and something part time, but they're trying to figure out, okay, what do I do with the employees in order to really lead? And so that's probably the the the the biggest shift. But also what leaders, sales leaders, but then also all leaders, I think there's this massive shift from I'm I'm only gonna hire people with experience in my field. Right.
JT:Whether you're in finance, you're in technology, you're in healthcare, whatever that is, whatever your industry is. If I don't have somebody with all this experience within my field, we're not gonna win.
Rick Smith:Yeah.
JT:That's changing. So you're, I think now what's happening is people are saying, I wanna hire talent that's adaptable. Right. One that I can bring in, I can train them, I can educate them, they've got the core experience, but they don't necessarily have or need to have my industry experience. If I can find someone that's adaptable, here's where I can use technology, I can use AI, it's gonna be a big part of the conversation,
Rick Smith:to
JT:get them up to speed fast and to win. I think that's gonna be a major a major piece for us moving forward.
Rick Smith:Okay. Gotcha. Is cost savings a big piece of this? Demian, you're you're the CFO, so maybe talk about that a little bit. Right?
Rick Smith:What what's the is it that that that's gotta be one of the drivers, I assume, but but it's so where are most of those cost savings seen?
Demian:Yeah. I mean, it's a it's a huge driver. Right? And I think what we have seen as the world, you know, five years ago began with this explosion into the remote space Yeah. See a rise in what we have described as traditional outsourcing where there's you know, I guess the best way to describe that because if you're watching this podcast, you might be saying, okay, it's still to me, DeTal still sounds a little bit like outsourcing.
Demian:Well, there's a there's a pretty big difference there, and that is in that sort of cultural exchange between the worker, the team that's being built, and then the leadership that is running that team. There really is no agency barrier between that. Right? And so that's the big difference. You were truly building a team.
Demian:It is an extension of what you are currently doing wherever you're located in a different region. Right? And if you find different regions that obviously have lower costs but equal or equivalent talent levels, that is sort of that golden, you know, that golden opportunity that you're trying to And so what you'll hear is, yes, I found a group of folks that can do task x y z and it certainly is cheaper, but I had to hire more or they took longer or there was some other inefficiency. What you should expect at decentralized talent is that you are going to get the same or higher level of performance at just a reduced cost. And there should be no give on the on the performance side.
Demian:What you should see, however, is a savings that ranges from, you know, good to extremely significant. Right?
Rick Smith:Right.
Demian:And in the case of what, you know, Conquer has expanded into in this in this Balkan region,
JT:you know, it's which we
Demian:can get into a little bit later. I mean, it is really this this crazy, crazy unexplored opportunity, I think, many ways where you're finding this extraordinary talent and an absolutely massive savings. And I just don't think the world's figured that out yet.
Rick Smith:Yeah. So so good point. Yeah. So Conquer, I mean, we're we're definitely leaning into this. Right?
Rick Smith:This is part this is like a new product offering for us, which is really, really cool. We're all excited about it. But talk about so so two things you brought up, Demian. You brought up the fact that we're we're we're in an area of the world with this decentralized talent that has is kind of unexplored and unknown and untapped. I'd love for you to dig into that a little bit and kinda talk about that.
Rick Smith:And then the other thing I'd like to talk about is just another point you made is that the it's the difference is alignment. The difference is is the is the leadership and that because you're right. Normally, think about, outsourcing. Right? You just think, oh, yeah.
Rick Smith:I've got some I've got some guy that I talked to and he's got 30 people that work for him and he takes care of them. You're describing a different situation. So first, talk about where we're focused and, you know, where where the teams are coming from and then either one of you kinda talk about the the alignment with leadership and alignment with the team piece.
Demian:Well, let's talk about the where. Right? You know, the the Eastern European here as a whole has been a wonderful area of rapid growth of talent, very much in the tech space. You're seeing a lot of development work coming out of there over the last decade or so. So it's not that Eastern Europe or that sort of lower cost region of Europe is necessarily unheard of.
Demian:But when you start getting into the Balkan region, it's just this this that's where it starts to get a little interesting. Right? And so Yeah. I I had, in my military days, a strong connection to the Balkan region. I spent time in, you know, conflict areas of Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Macedonia, and and in all these areas, Kosovo particularly, I was there during nine eleven.
Demian:I fell in love with this place. Right? There's just this underlying spirit of, you know, of being the underdog. Right? Of like wanting to over challenges.
Demian:Wanting to like fight and earn and prove and make your mark in the world. Right? And you couple it with a leader like a sales leader like like Jim Trimarco, right? Like JT on our side or or anyone in an organization that says, look, I can't teach that innate skill that some people have to get up every day and just like grind and wanna really make their lives better. I can't teach that, right?
Demian:What I can teach is how to sell what I have. Right? I can teach a sales process, but I need to find someone that wants to learn. And so when you find that, that's that cultural piece that we've sort of unlocked. And when my first return trip back to Kosovo, which was a couple months back, I hadn't been in twenty three years or whatever it was.
Demian:And I went back and and and we got there because we had started to build this very, you know, very slow but budding relationship with a with a wonderful agency, customer facing marketing agency over there. And and we were shocked by the price versus the the quality of the output of the work we were getting through, you know. And so we get over there and and now all of a sudden we realize, oh, there are a couple of companies that have kinda figured this out. Right? There's a couple companies that are that are building, you know, leadership teams in other parts of the world and then just really driving growth in that core back operational team over over here in in Kosovo and in The Balkans broadly.
Demian:And so, you know, that just gave us a big what what's going on here. Right? Like, gotta figure this out and and the rest is kind of history.
Rick Smith:So you experienced it at a very different time twenty some years ago and you go back and you're just overwhelmed with the opportunity, the spirit of the people, just their their drive to make a difference and and really make a a a mark, you know, make a dent in the world, if if you will. That's incredible. JT, talk about the alignment piece. Right? Because even with everything you said, Demian, this group is still thousands of miles away if you're a US based company.
Rick Smith:Right? How do we stay aligned? I mean, if someone was interested in something like this, I mean, talk about the alignment piece. How do we, you know, how do we do that? How do we perform and all the things that are necessary?
JT:It needs to be an intentional strategy, I think, is the the first big statement. So as a leader, it doesn't matter what your role is in your company, but if you're a leader, in order to make any person or business unit or team successful, first off, you're gonna need clear and very transparent goal setting. Right? So again, back to the sales role. Whether you're using, you know, OKRs and thinking about objectives and kind of key results or whatever the framework is that you're using, every single person should know what's my responsibility, what's the company's responsibility.
JT:If I don't perform, I'm at risk, the company's at risk. Right? So the it's defining really what does success look like, which then clearly leads into, okay, how does leadership communicate? Right? Is it consistent or is it inconsistent?
JT:Do I run regular team meetings? Do I have one on ones? Do I provide updates to make sure people are connected despite time zone differences? Right? So here's where the, you know, whether you're just have employees in The US and someone that, you know, if it's if you're a West Coast company, well, how are you managing your East Coast employees?
JT:Is there a challenge If you have experience working across multiple time zones, you say no, there's not a challenge. There's a window, and we're gonna manage through that. You know, Demian was talking about, you know, finding, you know, really strong talent that's high quality in other areas of the world. I was in a great conversation the other day with a very large healthcare organization, and we started getting into this discussion around, I don't know if you've ever heard this term, but like global wage arbitrage. Basically, the concept is how can a company access top tier talent in regions with lower cost of living?
JT:Right. You can do that, but at the same time you can't sacrifice quality, back to what Demian was saying. It's one thing to lower cost somewhere. If you don't get the quality or the output or the productivity Yeah. It it doesn't really matter.
JT:You're just lowering your your your cost of sale and your spend. So you've gotta make sure that you're actually getting the the the output and the the productivity with it. So, you know, back to, you know, final point I think on the alignment side, if you can work on goal setting, you work on integrating culturally into your team, and you make those teammates part of your organization. Not you hire them, give them some goals and say, hey, good luck. Let me let me know how you do by the end of the month.
JT:That's not gonna work. They have to be a consistent part of your team.
Rick Smith:That's one of the things I've noticed, right? So so you got three things there. Right? The talent and, you
Demian:know, there's just a level of talent there,
Rick Smith:and Bloom talked about that. The alignment piece around around, you know, what what's our vision, what's our mission, what's our targets, all those things. That's got to be there. But then also, I think one of the things I've seen is that next level of engaging them as part of just what you said, JT, engaging them as part of the culture. So they're not just a group and this is I think this is this is a key I think this is a key difference.
Rick Smith:They're not just a group of people in another part of the world executing a task or tasks. Right? But we're pulling them in and giving and giving them a little bit more of a white glove experience because we're opening our arms even though we're thousands of miles away and saying, hey, you're you're you're part of the team meetings. You're part of the things that we're doing. You're part of the culture.
Rick Smith:And I think that's I think that's a a big key for making this successful as well.
Demian:If you look at the way that our JT and and my worlds generally collide, right, historically in any organization that you have been a part of. You know, my world will tend to analyze the sales world very analytically. Right? We have a spend of x and then an output of y in the form of revenue growth. Right?
Demian:And this is gonna be in your collective worlds more than mine. But if you watch the way that you have had to morph and change and shift to to allow your organization to be successful over the last one, three, five, seven years. Right? There's been a lot of change. And so, you know, if you've got this sort of traditional solution where you're you're buying a lead.
Demian:I mean, many of us wake up every morning, right? And you get that 65 emails, right, from I'm gonna do this and and, you know, delete, delete, delete, delete. Yeah. So, you know, if you're if you're sort of stuck in this very a you know, one plus one equals two, a plus b equals c. Right?
Demian:If you're stuck in that process of I'm gonna purchase this very defined outcome, you're not setting yourself up for success in my opinion. Right? So but if you bring somebody into your organization and make that person part of it, that as your organization changes strategy. Right? And from my world, I'm just watching ratios, you know?
Demian:But as that strategy starts to change and more, these people are coming along with you in that change. Right? It's not like the agency customer relationship where I'm buying outcome. Well, you know what? The outcome is an important thing anymore.
Rick Smith:Right.
Demian:I got 500 leads and I didn't close a single one. How good were those leads? Right? So so sales leaders like yourself and like JT are gonna be morphing and changing. You want that extension of your team to morph and change with you.
Demian:Right?
Rick Smith:Yeah. Yeah. I agree. You know, I just finished reading leaders eat last and then Demian, you and I were talking about this the other day. Right?
Rick Smith:And just how much we both enjoyed the book and we were kicking around different ideas. But one of the things that stood out to me in that book was just talking about the circle of trust. Right? And how as human beings, like it or not, that is the way we're wired. Those are the chemicals that fire in our brains.
Rick Smith:Right? And when we are a part when we're inside that circle of trust and we're we're we're appreciated, we're valued, know, doesn't, you know, it doesn't mean we can be slacker either. Right? But but if we're appreciated, valued, and we're working hard, it causes us to lean in and it causes us to be a part of the solution. Right?
Rick Smith:Being able to reach those targets, being able reach those goals. So, yeah, I completely agree with you. I think that's a a huge a huge piece of it. What what about the technology that's needed to make this work? Right?
Rick Smith:I mean, there's probably some obvious things, but but talk a little talk a little bit about that. What kind of technology makes this come to life?
JT:Yeah, Rick. I I well, I'll go back to the difference, I think, with more traditional outsourcing versus tomorrow's DeTal strategy. Old school outsourcing, hire a team or a person or multiple people. Yeah. And that organization says, here are the tools, we've already got them in place, they're trained on them, and we'll send you over the information when good stuff happens.
JT:Yeah. The DeTal strategy is really a BYOT, it's a bring your own tool or tech stack. So we turn the organizations and say, whatever you're using for your CRM, whatever you're using for your sales engagement platform, if you do have something from an AI powered, you know, coaching tool set Yeah. Use that. The same people that you're gonna hire, and again, culturally integrate into your should be on the exact same system.
JT:If you have leaderboards, if you have celebrations on success, if you have team meetings, they should be using the same thing. If you're using Slack or Teams, they should be on every single communication, etcetera. There's this driver that, you know, says look, keep them on the same tools if you're lacking in any one given place as an example. Yeah. With with Conquer, you know, what do we provide?
JT:We provide a dialing solution. We provide a cadencing solution. We provide the opportunity to use texting or SMS. There's, again, AI powered coaching and insights that are associated. So we're excited about the tools that we offer, but we really turn to the market and say, whatever you're using, make sure that's coming to the party.
JT:That has to be part of this dance. Do not separate them and them be on a different system Because the second that happens, again, you have a broken process, you have a broken employee relationship, you have a broken, you know, set of results because if you're the person on the on the other side, you're saying, listen, I don't have the same access to the same tools that's gonna make someone else successful. So I think that's a it's a pretty important piece here.
Rick Smith:Yeah. And I think that goes it goes back to the to the really the three pillars, and that's what I'm gonna come back to. Right? You gotta get the right talent. You gotta be in a place where can get the right talent.
Rick Smith:It's there's gotta be some cost savings, but then culturally, you're integrating them. Right? Even you know? And because I think about it, and and I've had the personal experience with it. Right?
Rick Smith:A few of the folks that we're we're we're using right now to have the fast the the fast start onboarding process, you know. You don't treat them any differently, those individuals, than you would a full time employee. Right? You try to give them the same experience because that creates the same kind of outcome and improves the likelihood that they're going to be successful over time. That's that's what I'm hearing.
Rick Smith:So what do you what do you think some of the biggest challenges that organizations face when they try to make this transition or they're or if they want to make this transition to a decentralized talent approach?
JT:I think the first piece that an organization has to either get comfortable with or come to terms with, however you wanna say it, is are we ready? And are we ready means we're prepared to onboard somebody. We've, you know, created, you know, scripting and educational materials. We know what our ICP is. We know who we wanna target, and we know how we wanna go to market.
JT:It sounds simple, and you you you might say, hey, look, everybody has that, but they don't.
Rick Smith:Yeah.
JT:Right? So was in a couple of interesting conversations earlier in the week and they almost took the same path where someone said, this is really interesting to me. I know I should do that for all the reasons we've talked about. It can be at a lower cost. I I think I can get better productivity out of that person.
JT:But I don't think I'm ready because I don't have these other things in place. I don't have my coaching protocols in place. I don't have performance tracking set up. I don't have lead scoring in place. And the conversation quickly shifted to, I don't think you should hire anybody.
JT:You definitely shouldn't hire the next person in The US where you're gonna pay three times the amount for that person with labor burden. Yeah. They're gonna fail. In fact, the next person you bring on is probably gonna fail. Go build that first.
JT:Build your infrastructure first. You can probably do it very quickly, then you'll be ready to think about, quite frankly, building your team, growing your team and and and making sure anyone's going to be successful.
Rick Smith:Right, got it, got it. Demian, how about you? Point of view kind of on just the challenges that an organization might face in making this kind of transition?
Demian:Yeah, I mean, think just double click on what JT said. It's really gonna be where is that organization and their growth and their sort of life timeline trajectory, what have you. You know, are they are they an early organization? Right? Are they building out teams from a very early point in their development?
Demian:Right? Or it's just a mature organization that has a a current team, a current solution in place, and they're considering a downsizing or restructuring, a change, you know, the alteration. I think, you know, in the past few years, especially in our world, in the software world, we've seen a lot of headwinds in the software as a service industry. Right? Just across the board, There's a lot of stuff happening and changing where the good old days of way back in 2020, '20 '20 '1, we started to see a lot of change, right?
Demian:And so you might find an organization that's sort of very mature. And, again, if you're mature, then it is a very you know, you have to be very deliberate about how you think about this. You know, you can't just start throwing bodies at at problems and and I think in in our opinion. Right? But if you are a smaller growing organization that hasn't yet built these teams out, this is the perfect time for you to roll in the decentralized talent and figure it out.
Demian:Because, you know, it's gonna be harder, obviously, no question, to reverse back from a large organization that's heavily rooted in one area to this sort of model. It's not impossible. It certainly happens every day. It will happen one way or the other because you're gonna be forced to. But if you can do it early, hey, less friction.
Demian:Right?
Rick Smith:Yeah. Less friction, more flow. That's right, man. Good call by the way on that.
Demian:Thank you for that. Name of the
Rick Smith:podcast is future of selling. So as you think about DeTal, decentralized talent and where it's going from here, right, what what do you guys see for the future? What what do you think is gonna happen with it?
JT:There's this undeniable shift that's already happened. Right? And it's and it is moving to towards how do I think globally? How do I decentralize? How do I come back to look look, lowering our your operating costs is continues to be a key component of every conversation.
JT:If I can find really strong talent, quality talent that can produce, and I look at it at 30 to 40% of my spend, you know, in The US, that's a good option. People should be looking at that. There's a study that came out that said, and I think it was more specific to technology, but if your company's not growing at greater than 50% year over year, you can't afford to keep staffing in The US. Right. Doesn't mean you won't have sales roles in The US.
JT:So when you think more like customer facing, someone has to travel, someone has to go sit across the the the table from somebody in in a boardroom, etcetera, course, that should be a US based staff. But other roles, like SDR roles or BDR roles or business development, the normalization of this global work, you have to look at it. You have to that person does not need to be, and I think you'd argue, should not be in a traditional office setting based in whatever city you're at. Go look at that somewhere else and then use tools. We talked about technology before and where AI is coming in from a sales operation standpoint.
JT:Look at those tools and how's automation gonna help, you know, basically handle those more administrative type tasks. Right. So sales professionals, whether they're US based or they're somewhere else, can actually focus on the higher value interactions with the prospect or with the customer. If you do those things
Rick Smith:Yeah.
JT:You know, that you're you're gonna be not just leaning into, you're gonna win with a more global, you know, approach to your business.
Rick Smith:Right. Gotcha. Gotcha. Demian, anything to anything else to add to that or good summary?
Demian:Yeah. No. That's a fantastic summary. You know, I mean, I look I could say it I could say it differently using some of my, you know, fancy financial acronyms for different metrics that we look at, CAC, CAC ratio, etcetera, etcetera. But, you know, look, there's no there's no question that pressure is on sales teams today.
Demian:Right?
Rick Smith:Yeah.
Demian:It's harder to sell. We're spending more. We're getting less growth. And and if you think about, you know, this this opportunity here in decentralized tower, it actually helps when times are bad. Right?
Demian:When you get we have strong market headwinds and it is harder to sell. Well, we can reduce our customer acquisition cost by reducing the spend, by reducing the cost of the individuals that are on that sales team. So that's great.
Rick Smith:Right.
Demian:But what happens when that the tailwinds pick up? Right? Well, historically, happens is when we start hiring more of those very expensive folks and the ratios in my world look fantastic because, you know, you can pick up the phone and make a sale and everybody's clapping and cheering, right? But you end up right back in that same spot when the cycle repeats itself. And as we all know, if you've been in this industry longer than a handful of years, it's cyclical.
Demian:It's Yeah. Are cyclical, they just are. And so imagine if you were able to scale now, swap out your team now, implement a decentralized talent model now when those tailwinds hit. Well, now you're expanding at a much, much lower cost environment. Right?
Demian:So you're gonna you're gonna reap the benefits significantly and then when the headwinds come, you know, you're not not as stuck.
Rick Smith:Right? Yeah. So what what I'm hearing is that you've kind of what you're seeing in the future is that, yeah, this will this trend will continue, right, especially if companies stick to the three pillars that we talked about, right, of, you know, talent saving money and making sure that, you know, making sure they're engaged in the in in your company culture so they know they're a part of that company kind of in, you know, within the circle. Right? And so so that's kinda what you see happening.
Rick Smith:Maybe maybe it's even that there are certain sales roles that will be less US based than they are now as time goes. Right? To your point, JT, there's certainly gonna be some roles that you gotta be US based or, you know, wherever your home, you know, base is. Right? Wherever that that's at.
Rick Smith:Because you you gotta travel. You gotta be across the table, but maybe there's others that just don't need to be or are just as well served and through a decentralized talent. So it's awesome. So I always like to end with a couple of takeaways. I always you know, like, I try to put myself in the position of, okay.
Rick Smith:I'm a I'm a sales leader. I'm listening to the to to the podcast today. It's intriguing. It's interesting. But what are my three takeaway?
Rick Smith:What should I what should I be thinking about now? And so I'll kinda put that back to to you guys. What are the three takeaways you you want anyone listening this to to to know and to walk away with? The the biggest takeaway is really that this decentralized sales model that we're talking about, it's
JT:just not an experiment anymore.
Demian:Yeah.
JT:This is the competitive advantage and there's a big double line that we're gonna draw underneath that. If you don't engage, you're not going to be as efficient as you want to be. Right? So there you you always get into three conversations around, like, how am I gonna win? I've gotta increase efficiency.
JT:How do I access the best talent? Now we're gonna say the best global talent. Right? And then how do I drive scalable, consistent, another magic word, revenue? That's all anybody's gonna care about.
JT:Can I grow? Consistent? Can I forecast the right way? Right. How do you keep operating costs either in line or if there's pressure and the reality is with owners and investors, they're gonna say, look, you've got to figure out how to lower your operating costs.
JT:At the same time, you've got to figure out how to grow. Well, how are you gonna do that? Yeah. This is an opportunity to do that. That's where Demian, myself and many others, these are all the conversations we're having every single day.
Rick Smith:Yeah.
JT:Like how do I keep those costs where they are at or lower, yet increase firepower and make sure I have enough action in the field and in the market to make sure I can grow? If you can do that, now you're onto something special.
Rick Smith:Yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha.
Demian:Perfect.
Rick Smith:Demian, anything else?
Demian:No. Look, I mean, I think we've just said it over and over again. Right? And if you're not reducing your operational spend right now, well then you're probably in the in the very, very vast minority. So everyone is looking to do that.
Demian:And the point that we really need to take away here is that you can reduce operational spend without reducing inequality. Right? There is no quality loss when you use centralized talent the right way. Right? So that's what you really have to understand and and it does need to be managed.
Demian:It does need to be used an extension of your existing team. But if managed the right way, there should be no loss in quality, only reduction in cost.
Rick Smith:So if somebody's interested and wants to talk more about this today, what's the best way for them to to get ahold of us, talk to us?
JT:Best way is to go to Conquer and and find us and you can either request a, you know, demo, you can get our contact information and, you know, Demian and I and and others be be happy to to talk through, you know, what we're doing. By the way, we're doing this at Conquer. We're living the decentralized talent model. We've already hired and we're seeing productivity, we're seeing efficiency gains, but we can also share how our customers are doing it. So we can we've got both hats on right this second.
JT:So got some pretty good stories to share and and we think we can handle, you know, some good recommendations if somebody has some interest in it.
Rick Smith:Okay. Good deal. So we'll have we'll make sure to have the links in the show notes. So if anybody's interested, they can find it there or again, conquer.io. That's an easy way to get to us.
Rick Smith:But otherwise, JT, Demian, thanks so much for joining us today. Appreciate the conversation, and hope you guys have a great day. We'll talk to you again soon.
JT:Yeah. Thanks, Rick. It was fun. Thanks.
Rick Smith:Thanks, bro.
Demian:Appreciate you.
Rick Smith:Thanks. Bye bye.