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Join us on the Disruption Now podcast as we challenge the status quo and advocate for digital equity, ownership, and responsible technology.
All right, good.
We're good.
Thank you.
Perfect.
Yeah, let's make him bigger.
You want to make that camera
angle any bigger?
I also have the questions too,
so it's not that.
So it's not as critical.
I want to make sure I can
see him clearly to a bigger picture.
Yeah, that's good.
All right, cool.
Jared, how you doing, man?
Doing well, and yourself?
Doing well, man.
Thank you for, you know, walking me,
giving me a little grace through that,
you know, setup.
You know how it is,
because you got your own podcast, too.
Yeah, yeah, no worries, man.
Yeah, where are you based?
So, our headquarters are out of Tulsa,
Oklahoma.
Okay.
Yeah, so, that's basically it.
All right, so is that where you live,
or is that where the company's based?
That's where the company is based.
Are we recording for the podcast?
No, no, no, no.
Not yet.
I'm just doing intro.
But I'm going to be doing
back and forth between Houston and Miami.
Okay.
Okay.
That's good to know.
All right.
You ready?
Yeah, I'm ready.
I'll make sure I got these facts right.
So some of your background,
obviously the big tech energy podcast.
I love that.
I love that title.
I definitely want to be on it too.
Hire Black,
crack the code and you work with,
or you're,
I don't know if you work with
them or the writer C,
I don't know what that relationship is.
How do you want me to say this?
So Hire Black,
you can take that out of the equation.
okay hire black take out
yeah um so yeah definitely
hosted the big tech energy
podcast I'm the vp of
strategy for right c okay
so you can say vp of sales
and strategy at right c I
didn't forget about you all
right cool all right good
all right um do you want me
to mention crack the code or not
No, I don't do that.
I'll just mention Big Tech
Energy Podcast is the VP of
strategy at Writer C. All right, cool.
Write C. Write C. Yeah.
I'm going to watch it, Writer.
E-S-E-A.
Yeah.
So just write C.
But it's spelled like write,
like you're writing something.
That's where I got it from.
Write C. Okay, good.
All right.
Welcome to Disruption Now.
I'm your host and moderator,
Rob Richardson.
As always,
I love to feature people that
are disrupting the industry.
And with me is a big time disruptor,
has been for a long time.
It's always been about
empowering people who don't
think sales or tech is for them,
but showing people the way
and empowering them.
He's done it for a long time.
He's got his podcast,
which is a dope name of a podcast,
Big Tech Energy.
He's also the VP of Strategy
and Sales for RightSea,
which is an AI company that
actually helps people get into careers,
launch their careers,
and gives them kind of
career advice as well.
So it fits very perfectly
with what Jared's really
been doing his entire life,
disrupting the narrative by
providing opportunities for
all to enter into tech.
Jared,
it's an honor to have you on the show.
Hey, man, I appreciate you for having me.
Oh, yeah, it's good to have you on.
Yeah, I appreciate the introduction.
And yeah, like excited to get into,
you know, my career,
any advice that might be
helpful for other people and, you know,
just talk about what we're
doing in the AI space as well.
Absolutely.
So I want to get a little
bit of understanding of
kind of like how you got into this.
So when did you realize that
essentially
entrepreneurship and
empowering people was what
you wanted to do with your life?
Because that's clearly your passion.
Yeah, I mean,
I would say around the time
once I started getting
really comfortable as like
a leader within my tech
companies and just kind of realizing like,
OK, I have, for lack of a better term,
made it like consistently
making certain amount of
money consistently and be
able to afford a certain lifestyle.
I just wanted more people
that looked like me and you
in these spaces that I was in.
Right.
enjoying enterprise software
sales it's an incredible
career to have there's a
lot of money in it there's
a lot of job opportunities
there so I would say during
the pandemic during the
pandemic that's a lot of
people made a lot of
transitions during the
pandemic like tell me about
tell me about how the
pandemic was the transition
for the moment when you
knew that you wanted to be
uh that your life was going
to be about empowering
people and pursuing entrepreneurship
Yeah.
So it was kind of just like a right place,
right time.
So, um, a friend of mine, uh,
was early on this social
audio app called clubhouse.
And she was like, Hey,
there's some really like
dynamic conversations is invite only.
Would you like an invite?
I was like, sure.
Um, and so when I got into the app,
I really wasn't thinking
about being on stages,
talking about myself or
talking about different topics.
I was just really there just
to be a fly on the wall.
But one day in December,
it was December ninth, actually,
I ran into this room.
It was called a club called
Blacks in Technology.
And I saw hundreds of black
people in that space
talking about software
engineering and data science and
all different types of
opportunities in tech.
But I didn't hear anybody
talking about enterprise software sales.
And I was like, you know what,
this is a great opportunity
to expose some people to
another place that you can
do well in tech that
doesn't require you to be technical.
So I came on stage,
shared a little bit about my career,
how to break in, what it looks like,
what transferable skills make sense.
And I looked down on my
phone and I saw hundreds of
people had followed me off
of just this quick conversation.
And then I looked on my
Instagram and my LinkedIn.
I saw some messages about
let's host a room the next day.
So the long story short of
it is I hosted a space with
like four or five other
people and it just was organic.
It was flowing.
We like seven, eight, eight hours.
We're just really just provided value,
resources and connecting people.
I looked down at my phone
again and I saw hundreds of
people followed me from that.
So I realized amongst the
people that I was doing that room with,
hey, we have something here.
There's a real thirst for
knowledge of tech and opportunities.
And we got all these people
stuck at home that have all
this knowledge.
So we just started hosting
spaces every day where if I would see,
hey, Rob,
you're at Meta and you're an engineer,
I'd pull you on stage and
then start just asking you
questions about your career,
the technical
certifications you know what
can people expect how can
people do and it turned
into you know eighty
followers the day of that
first room to eventually
eighty thousand and through
those rooms spaces
connections and the whole
goal of just increasing
diversity in tech
especially getting more
black people in the room
that's when I knew like
okay this is kind of my
calling I'm really good at
this um and then it evolved
to me putting forty fifty
recruiters on stage
And then having recruiters
give roles and the people
shooting their shot directly.
And that kind of evolved
into everything today.
Yeah.
So it's, it feels as if,
one of the reasons that you resonated,
because a lot of people
talk about opening up
opportunities in tech, right?
But it feels like there's a
under appreciation for the
opportunity in tech sales, right?
So if you had to say,
like one of the biggest misconceptions,
if you had to just say,
what is the thing people
get wrong most often when
it comes to tech sales?
It's really just they don't
know what it even is.
Like when I would say I was in tech sales,
they'd always ask, oh,
you work at Geek Squad for Best Buy.
So there's a literal like
thinking that you're
selling like laptops or
you're selling like
physical technology when in
reality you're selling
enterprise software solutions.
that cost millions of dollars.
And I think another thing
that's a misconception is
that you need to be
technical to be in tech
sales where you're really a
business consultant talking
to business stakeholders
about business problems and
then kind of circling back
to how the technology
technology can help automate
certain activities,
can help decrease costs in
supply chain by creating efficiencies,
create employee productivity.
So it's really about being a
business consultant more so
than selling technology.
And I think that's a huge
misconception for sure.
And the last misconception
is that you have to love to
convince people into things
and talk people into things
when it really is about
asking really quality
questions to really qualify.
Like,
does this business really meet the
qualifications for the solution?
And can we get them the
results we get for others?
you're asking more questions
than you're actually like
trying to convince people
and then when you figure
out like okay we can help
them increase revenue by
three x that's when you
kind of dig in and you kind
of try to help somebody
help themselves yeah
exactly versus convincing
them to do something
Yeah,
so like walk through what people
struggle with the most then
after you open up the
opportunity for them.
Where do people kind of go
wrong when it comes to
entering into the field of tech sales,
right?
Do they struggle mostly with
how to approach clients,
how to actually ask the right questions?
Like what have you seen when
people are initially
getting in the door that
kind of really trips them up?
Um, yeah,
I mean that the first thing is
that the initial phase of
your time in tech sales,
you're gonna have to really
like fail a lot.
And that's just something
you gotta be comfortable
with is that you're gonna get told no,
a lot.
blown off a lot.
And that's just because
you're getting better at
talking about the value proposition.
You're getting better at
identifying who the right
ideal customer profile is.
Getting better at when's the
best time to contact people.
So it's just really just
getting through that initial failure.
And that you're going to
have to work really hard
initially to build up a pipeline,
to get really good at your
talking points.
You're just going to have to
fail a lot and you're going
to have to fail often.
And you're going to have to
put in the work, cold call, cold email,
cold link in.
It's unavoidable.
If you're going to be in this profession,
you've got to get through
that point where you're
getting people's attention on your own.
And then eventually you'll have like an S
that does that for you,
but you gotta pay your dues.
And although I didn't do that in tech,
I did that before.
You did that door to door, right?
If I remember correct,
you did that with IBM.
I was gonna ask you about that.
So let me just transition to
that question.
So what did that position at
IBM going door to door in
terms of doing sales teach
you about succeeding now
when it comes to tech sales
at your level?
Yeah,
so I did door to door educational
sales during college and
that allowed me to get an
interview with IBM because they're like,
wow, you're crazy to go door to door,
eighty hours a week in some
random part of the country.
I did one summer in Kentucky,
one summer in Minnesota.
So my path wasn't necessarily the most,
I guess, common, but
Once I got the interview for IBM,
I knew that if I could just get the job,
I would crush it.
And I just explained that to
them very clearly that, hey,
And I have that same sort of energy.
There's no reason why I
shouldn't be outperforming
your best reps.
And they were like, wow,
that's confidence.
And then I asked for a role at the end,
which was like unheard of.
And that was something that my manager,
you know, not my manager,
one of my mentors told me to do is like,
yeah, you got nothing to lose.
You're twenty three years old.
You're going to get a hires.
Most mouths don't get fed.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, I think you say it this way,
like asking boldly can change your life,
right?
So like,
how do you give that advice to people?
Like,
I try to say it because I'm bold by
nature, right?
Because it doesn't bother me.
Some people are, you know,
don't think that they should do that,
that maybe they're being rude.
How do you get over that
kind of imposter type of
syndrome that some have,
particularly in our community?
How do you approach them
when you tell them about asking boldly,
when people seem hesitant?
Yeah, I mean,
I just say like the worst
that they're going to say is no.
They probably won't get to a
no because you take that approach,
especially in sales.
I would just say this,
like for sales in particular,
you will always be rewarded
for being bold, for asking for the order,
and they'll always respect that.
So in a sales interview,
I don't think there's much of a risk.
But when it comes to just in general,
like you said,
close mouths don't get fed.
You know,
a no is one step closer to the next yes.
So don't be afraid of getting that no,
because it might not have
been the right opportunity for you.
But to stand out,
you have to be somebody
that will ask for it.
And if they, you know, have an objection,
you have to be comfortable
with clarifying, OK,
what is the struggle or the disconnect?
to see if there's a way that
you can maybe connect the dots, but yeah,
I'd say you don't,
you don't get what you don't ask for.
So to ask for it and then
take it from there.
My advice with sales and
really with life is about the three Ps.
The first one is persistence, right?
I can't tell you how many times I've got a,
usually a, not even a no,
just a non-answer or just
sometimes ignoring for long
periods of time.
I've tried to explain this
to some junior associates too.
They said,
but nobody responded after the
second time.
I said,
they don't count until you try it
fifteen times, right?
So like, and they look like, well,
what do you mean?
If they're not responding,
they gotta be immediate.
I said, no.
I said, in general,
you can't take it personal.
So, like, the first is persistence.
The second is patience on top of that,
right?
That's kind of the balance with this,
right?
Because you can do something
and you're not seeing those
immediate results month one, month two,
month six sometimes, right?
With some things, these have long cycles,
but...
you got to have patience to
figure out like how you
navigate that while you're
being persistent.
And then the third is to sometimes pivot,
pivot in what type of
client you're talking to,
how you're approaching the client,
when you're approaching the client,
you know,
learning to pivot about how you
actually do your sales pitch.
I'm just now learning, honestly,
because I had both the art
and the science,
but I just kind of had it instinctively,
but not really the
I had more of the art than
the pure science of it, I should say.
So I didn't perfect the process part,
which now I'm learning to do,
which is just as important to do as well.
So like,
it's the balance between all those things,
but getting back to you though.
So you've talked about your transition.
You went to, you were in sales,
you went from,
you were door to door education,
then you went to IBM.
using that experience.
And that experience, I believe,
probably taught you some grit, right?
When you talk about having
non-traditional backgrounds,
people don't understand
that a lot of the things
that make you successful in
any type of sales you can
do in tech as well.
So I want to actually get
into some of your strategy.
So you say you have a line
that says you talk about
relationships are more
important than technology.
So what are the three most
important things when it
comes to building valuable
long-term relationships?
Yeah, the first is to lead with value.
The more you can start
relationships off by
leading with value and
being genuinely interested in like,
how can I help Rob get to his next goal?
So like asking those
questions and being really engaged,
I find
When you're dealing with high value people,
they're so used to being
asked for things.
Can you help me with this?
Can you refer me to that?
Can you be my mentor?
Can I pick your brain?
You will be a breath of
fresh air if you're like, hey,
I really love all the
things that you're working on.
Is there anything that I can
do to help support
something that's really
important to you right now?
like that kind of energy
just in general helps
relationships but
absolutely um to get like
those high value
relationships like do that
authentically um I would
say number two is to follow
through on everything you
say I'm all about under
promising and over
delivering and if you're
somebody that consistently
does that in every part of
the relationship you are
somebody that's going to be
trusted and you're going to
be somebody that they go to
first because they also
have self-interest and the
self-interest is if I
connect them to jared he
always over delivers
they're going to see me as
somebody that brings value as well.
So you want to be an asset,
but always over-delivering
on everything you say.
Which is important to measure what you say,
right?
And I've had to learn this
because you can be wanting
to satisfy your client and say,
we're going to do all of these things.
But it's better, like you said,
to under-promise and over-deliver because
Once you've set a level of expectations,
those are the expectations.
And I think that's one of
those things that I had to
learn in sales.
Like you feel pressure
because the client
obviously has their own interests too,
right?
They want to get as much
value for as little as possible.
uh but you know often uh
that doesn't work for them
because you can't deliver
what they expect at the
price and at the time that
they expect so it's it's
it's something that I think
is a real tension for those
who start off in sales
thinking that okay yes you
definitely want to add
value as you said but you
also want to make sure
you're true to your word
and you got to be you got
to measure that so you said
that so lead with value
that's that that was number
one uh uh under promise
over deliver and the third
most important thing when
it comes to sales are
Being authentic.
So it kind of goes to that second point,
but just like being honest
about your shortcomings,
being honest about the fact
that you're not going to do
this overnight, but this is how we do it.
And being okay with the fact
that you will get told no,
If it doesn't deliver the
things they expect,
you should really be
focused on can it deliver it, period,
and just be honest.
And that's super key because one,
the transference of
authenticity is important.
uh and then also your
transfers to conviction
your real conviction about
what you can really do also
comes across if you're
always kind of bsing um one
people can feel it um and
then two well it just it
doesn't it doesn't your
conviction can't really hit
the same uh so I say that
because for me personally
like the way that I was
able to make so much money
in tech sales is through referrals
And so what I would do at
the very beginning or right
before I close the deal is like, hey,
if we're able to hit these
metrics after we deploy,
would you be willing to
talk to other CTOs and CFOs
and COOs about the impact
that we had to your business?
Jared, if you can hit those metrics,
I will scream from a
rooftop about how great your solution is.
And so I tell them it's going to do two X,
you know, increase in revenue.
We got them to three point
five X. So I said, hey,
remember how I talked about two X?
We actually looked at the
numbers and our impact has
been three point five X.
Remember how I said that
you're going to talk to other people?
I have the CTO of Pepsi,
the CTO of Walmart and the CTO of Kroger.
I wanted to tell them all
the amazing things that
have happened to your business.
And I want you guys just to connect.
They don't want to talk to me.
I'm just a sales guy.
They expect me to say great things.
But to hear from you,
somebody that's their
colleague will make a huge difference.
And it's also a great
networking opportunity.
you get to sound great
because you know you you
made the smart move about
working with us like oh
yeah I'll definitely talk
to them because people love
to talk about how great
they are anyways so if you
can get them in front of
another executive to talk
about how great they are
while in turn talking about
how great you and your solution are
Like it took year long sales
cycles and turn them into
two to three months sales
cycles where I'd be like,
how'd the conversation go?
Man, they really loved you.
And if you can do what for them,
what you're going to do,
you say you can do for us,
what you can do for them, then let's talk,
you know.
This goes to your point
about why your relationship
are your biggest currency,
not even the products that you sell,
right?
Your relationships and your
nurturing of those
relationships by making
sure you follow through
with what you're selling
and also constantly providing value,
right?
You talked like it goes,
Beyond seeing it as a direct transaction,
from what I'm taking from
what you just said,
not only do you make sure
that the product
overperforms what you said
in terms of the straight metrics,
you also look to see where
can I add value in other ways,
connecting them to other parts of
your network, uh, that also helps you,
but it also helps them.
And when you do that, it wants,
they want to help you more.
You know, one of my mentors, I was, uh,
I'm a recovering politician, right?
One of my former mentors said, uh, Rob,
remember that everybody's a
star in their own movie.
You're just paying,
you're just playing a casting role.
So don't try to make yourself the star,
like know that they are the
star you are casting.
You're just a casting role.
And if you do that,
you'll be very successful.
Very simple advice, but it's true.
Right.
So because oftentimes we try
to make ourselves the stars.
They think if you're
convincing people in sales,
instead of understanding
what their issues are and
listening and then working
to help solve their problem.
Yeah,
you're putting them on a pedestal and
you're talking about how
can we raise your pedestal even higher?
It's all about them.
It's not about me.
And I would say that's
another huge flaw that
people have in sales is
they're trying so hard to
get the money that people
can smell the commission on your breath.
They can tell like,
you're just desperate to close a deal.
You don't care about my solutions.
You just want that check.
And I think that's probably
the biggest thing that
screws over aspiring
salespeople is to take your
ego out of it and really
care about the person you're talking to,
care about their outcome,
care about their promotion,
of the year because they had
the best solution and it
was yours like if you
really care like that um
one you'll be picking the
right solutions to sell
because you'll be selling
things that work and that
have impact two you'll be
able to grow those accounts
easier because they're
actually getting value and
they're talking good about
you in rooms that you're
not in um and three you can
actually believe in what
you're saying and it's just
so much easier to sell when
you believe that you're
gonna do well for the person
and you can talk about yeah
we've done well for these
four or five different
companies and I personally
worked with three of them
so um and then like you
said beyond the product
it's about how fast you
respond to emails um you
know how do you navigate
you know challenges are you
do you concede do you push
too hard uh there's just so
many different ways nuanced
ways where your brand can
kind of become known as, you know,
Jared's product is more expensive,
but it gets the job done.
And the service you're going
to get from him and the
honesty is like something
that I wouldn't give up for a less price.
Like that's where you want
your brand to be is like
he's worth paying more for
as well as employee.
Like he's worth giving a higher salary to.
Absolutely.
He's going to hit quota.
He's going to communicate the forecast.
He's not going to tell you
what you want to hear.
You'll have a very clear,
authentic view of where the business is,
but he'll also figure out
ways to get the business to
where it needs to be.
Yeah,
I think you dropped a lot of gems there,
Jared.
One,
I want to talk about this current
generation a little bit that I love.
They do a lot of great things, Gen Zers.
And although we both look young,
neither one of us are Gen Zers, right?
You know,
I've worked with quite a few of them,
and I do through the time.
And I'm making some generalizations,
but...
you know one is that I think
they are very good when it
comes to raising
expectations for what
should be expected at the
workplace right workplace
work life balance and I
think that has a lot of
good things I think there's
also some there's another
side to that right because
you know people have to
understand right when
you're first starting off
like you have to work a lot
more than you think
because you don't know that
much and you don't know what you think,
you know,
just because you came out of
college and you were, you know,
you were it,
that means nothing for this
actual part of your career.
You have to actually like
put in more work than the nine to five.
If you want to succeed,
you have to lead with value
and don't just say, okay,
I stop here at five o'clock.
You can do that,
but I'm going to guarantee
you something like you will not, you're,
you will not level up like you, like,
like you think you will, right?
You have to value, I believe,
early on in your career,
learning over money.
I didn't say all forever,
but learning in
relationships over money
early on in your career,
because those are the
things that actually lead
to long-term money and results,
not the how much can I get
paid right now to deliver
the least amount in terms
of how I can put up the
least amount of work.
Like you can do that once
you actually gain
relationships and actual
knowledge skill set.
But that's not going to happen at,
you know, twenty five,
ninety nine percent of the time.
I think people have that kind of mixed up.
So I think I think what
you're saying is very valuable.
Right.
When you talk about when you
talk about adding value,
it isn't just in sales either, per se.
I mean, every life is sales, really,
because everything's a negotiation,
including with your boss,
everybody else around you.
and you need to be doing
everything you can to show value,
there is definitely
politics and all that stuff.
But early on in your career,
relationships and learning
is what you need to lean
into and that leads to the
greatest results.
I think people need to
understand that applies to
tech and everything else.
You don't have to be an expert in tech.
Let's actually go,
I want to dive a little bit into that.
You talked about not needing
to be technical per se to
get into tech sales.
But how do you balance that
when you have to sell a
technical product?
What does that look like in balance?
What should you know at the
basic level and how do you
go about navigating,
not necessarily being all
the way technical,
but still selling technical products?
Yeah, that's a great question.
So basically,
there's the account executive
sales specialist called different things.
But then what we have
typically is a solutions
engineer or a sales engineer.
And the sales engineer's job
is to talk to the technical
counterparts at the organizations about,
hey,
here's how the security system works.
Here's how the storage
platform duplicates tape.
And they get into the weeds
of the technical,
and they do a lot more of
the technical demonstrations,
answering of RFPs,
requests for proposals.
Whereas my job is really
focused on understanding
the organizational chart,
understanding the challenge
or the need of the customer.
So from my perspective,
what I really need to know
is just what is the impact of
you're not having a solution
like ours like if you do
nothing what is the impact
we're gonna lose money
we're gonna lose employees
we're gonna potentially
have a cyber attack so I
honestly only need to know
like the problem that we're
solving from a business perspective
And then what I need my
solution engineer to do is
reverse engineer how our
technology achieves that business result.
And so that's where like the I.T.
team at the company is going to really
like scrutinize do you
actually integrate with
other systems you know do
you have the security
protocols to avoid xyz
what's your uptime like
those questions I don't
have to answer I have a
sales engineer answer those
questions um and I'm really
focused on like the
business owners just
talking about and that's
where I have business
owners talk to other
business owners because
they're like yeah I don't
know what the hell the
technology does but I can
tell you what it did to my bottom line
And that's all I need to focus on,
honestly.
And then I need to focus on
driving momentum, you know,
getting in front of the
right stakeholders,
making sure everybody's bought in,
understand the procurement process,
understand the technical review process,
the legal process, the budget,
the competition,
who are we up against and
what are they saying about
us and what should we be
saying about them and how
are they pricing and what
should we price?
So I'm more of a quarterback
bringing in the right
resources from my company
to explain the things that I don't know.
But ultimately,
my goal is just to get the
ball to the end zone.
So I don't need to know everything.
I just need to know when to
call in the right players
to get in front of the
right players on their side.
You don't need to know all of.
every single part of the process,
but you need to have an
overall kind of vision of the board,
it feels like,
when you're dealing with
sales to do it in a correct manner.
So I want to transition to
what you do at Right C,
and particularly this kind
of transitional moment, I think,
of what's really happening
within not only tech, really,
but the current disruption of careers,
period, because of technology, right?
There's been multiple
studies that have shown
that by twenty thirty,
eighty five percent of the
jobs in twenty thirty don't exist yet.
Right.
Whether that's completely accurate or not,
we do know that many jobs
in terms of how they
function and what's what's
what's to be expected of you is changing.
Right.
So with with right.
See, you obviously help.
You know,
you guys are helping people get
into careers and be prepared, you know,
using A.I.
So before we get into the
technical product and what it does,
I want to just really talk
about how you feel at this moment,
like what are the most
important skill sets one
needs to have to be successful,
not only in tech,
but really in most positions,
given the nature of AI and
this emerging technology,
what would you say is the
most important one or two
skill sets you need to be successful?
Yeah, I mean, I would say for AI,
it's prompt engineering and
just constantly understanding, you know,
the different ways you can, you know,
nuance the type of inputs
and requests you put into
ChatGPT or Google Gemini or
Anthropic or Cloud and just
understanding what the
outputs could look like.
And also just doing like a top ten of like,
what are the things I spend
the most time on that bring
me the most impact?
And then identifying AI
tools that can help you do it faster,
more accurately or more
organized or more effectively.
And it's just really just
like analyzing the things
that you do that make you
successful and how can you
implement AI into those
different platforms or
those different activities
and just being really curious with AI.
I think that's just a super
important skill set.
And then, yeah, I mean,
there's other things,
but I would just say like
really diving deep into the
fact that there's not just ChatGPT,
there's hundreds of
thousands of AI platforms
that can do some amazing things.
So just identify like what
do you really either
struggle with from a time perspective?
What are the things you find
are tedious or what are the
things that make you the
most money and then see how AI can
help make those stronger.
And then putting in the work, honestly,
just learning it.
Yeah, I completely agree.
I talk to people about the
real AI is artistic intelligence,
really learning to
understand that you are a creator,
you are a visionary.
How do you use this tool as
a dance partner to help
amplify what you do?
But it's an important point that, you know,
I think you're making,
but I want to make clearly
that AI cannot completely
replace authentic human thinking, right?
And it can amplify it,
it can reduce a lot of tedious tasks.
But what I say is you still,
I think one of the most
important skills to have is
is to be able to see,
is to be a critical thinker
and be able to connect patterns.
Because I think if you understand that,
AI can help you become a
master at so many things.
And I break it down in three
different phases.
Like number one, what are you really,
really good at?
What are the one or two
things that you're
absolutely excellent at?
you need to go hard to use
ai to amplify that because
then you can go from that
and being in the top point
zero one percent if you're
really thoughtful about
that but you got to think
about what you're good at
and then the process for
how you will amplify that
because uh ai won't tell
you all of that you have to
think about that first
number two like what are
you medium skilled at right
in the forty or fifty
percentile uh but but are
still important skill sets
Whatever that is,
you can do that and take
yourself to the upper ten
or five percent using AI,
especially right now,
because still a lot of
people aren't using it.
The number three, to your point,
what are you not good at?
Right.
And you need to use AI to
help solve those pain points.
I'll give one example about something that,
you know,
I'm a person that even though
I'm an electrical engineer,
like processes is something
that I've had to just get better at.
But I've learned to
understand how to at least
frame processes, think about processes,
obviously, not only being an engineer,
but thinking about the
processes I want to solve.
Like I had to learn about
process ontology.
Like that's just something I
had to understand the basic terms.
It didn't take me a long time.
But once I understood that,
I can then begin to come up
with my own instruction
using ChatGPT that every
single time I have a sale call,
I use Otter or I use Gemini,
whatever I'm using.
I take that,
I have a process for the type
of questions I need to ask
that needs to come out of
that and to know what has to happen.
Then it gives me my recap,
making my deck proposals
time that normally would have taken hours,
probably take five minutes.
Same thing for my prep for my research.
I didn't always love doing
the prep for the research,
I got a process for how I do
it every single time.
And I got a GPT that would
normally take a long time
to find this to really cut that down.
So I think it's really understanding,
like I said, how to think in patterns,
what you authentically are good at,
and where you struggle.
And then coming up with,
you need to come up with
basic kind of thoughts
about how you would do it.
And then continually nuance
and dance with the algorithm.
It's not going to be one answer.
It's not going to be two.
But once you go through that process,
it's going to save you an
infinite amount of time, right?
I just think there's so much there,
which is part of what
RightSea is doing with your career.
Let's talk a little bit about that.
You're the VP of sales and strategy there.
So what is RightSea doing
and how is it helping
people in their careers
right now as they
transition through this moment in time?
Yeah,
so right now the job market is
extremely tough.
It's extremely competitive.
And so what RightSee is
doing with our platform,
Job Search Genius,
is giving job seekers a
twenty four seven on demand
kind of like AI career assistant.
to help with all the
activities that are
important in your job
search so resumes cover
letters preparing for
interviews managing the
people in your network that
can give you referrals or
opportunities managing the
jobs that you're applying
to and then also helping
with your negotiation of
your salary and benefits we
have an end-to-end ai
platform where people can
put in their resume and
update the templates,
update the bullets with AI
rewrites that will also ask
probing questions that if
you answer them
authentically will give you
some really dynamic bullets
that will help you compete
against everybody else
that's using ChatGPT or something else,
right?
And then cover letter wise,
cover letters can take
like a seriously long time
because by the way let's
let's let's stick on that
point a little bit because
people ask well why don't I
just use chat gpt right
what uh why should why
should I pay or be a part
of a platform like right c
when I can just use chat
gpt from their perspective
to do the same thing what
would be your answer to that
Yeah, I mean, so ChatGPT, number one,
the outputs are very robotic.
Ours are a lot more human sounding.
But two, our platform is a combination of,
you know, Meta's Lama OpenAI, Lama's,
you know,
open source AI and our own
learning language model
that's focused specifically
on these activities.
But I would say the biggest thing,
because when it comes to
resumes or cover letters, honestly, yeah,
you can utilize ChatGPT or us.
And it's kind of similar.
What's different with ours
is our interview prep.
So you put in a job description.
We put together really
detailed interview questions.
But you can't get on camera with ChatGPT
go through the interview
questions where an avatar
based off of the type of
role that they are within the company,
giving you different type
of questions based off of behavioral,
situational, technical.
So the nuance of our
interview part of the
platform is what makes us
significantly different
than a chat GPT because you're on camera,
everything's transcribed,
you're getting detailed
feedback that's categorized,
you're getting told what
things you can improve.
And then you can do that
same interview multiple
times and see your score improve.
Watch yourself improve.
Share that video with your
mentors or career coaches or professors.
And then from a school standpoint,
because we sell business to business,
they have the visibility of
all the analytics and data
of where our students applying.
Where are they getting hired?
How are they practicing their interviews?
What kind of resumes are they creating?
The ability to standardize
templates across students.
So our big focus as a
company is selling to higher education,
K through twelve workforce
development and
professional organizations
like MLT or SEO or En-ROADS.
that help job seekers.
But we do have a business to
consumer website, jobsearchgenius.ai.
And I would just say do a
free trial at seven days, you know,
create some resumes,
create some cover letters,
put in a job listing URL
and practice some of those interviews.
and see how that experience
is compared to a cloud,
anthropic or chat GPT.
And I think you'll see that holistically,
it's just a much more
uniform platform where
everything can be saved.
Your reservation cover letters,
the jobs you're focused on
that will help you get to
the outcome that you care about,
which is getting more
interviews and then turn
those interviews in the job offers.
You know, yeah, comparing both,
you're going to get a job
way quicker with our platform.
Yeah, Jared, I would say, you know,
when people think about AI and LLMs,
large language models,
those are just the data set
that trains behind all of
the generative AI because, you know,
AI gets thrown out.
There's a lot of different AIs.
I'm just going to say that it's, you know,
they're like a child that never grows up.
So if you,
it's not going to be able to give you the,
all the best answers for
what you need to do on an interview,
because you need to know
some of the background
questions and things that
have happened over the
years and you need to be
able to ask those things
and you know Jared through
his experience and
and the company have built
in those those those really
type of inputs so it's
already trained the child
to be really really good at
this right uh so I would
say that's that's that's
that's one of the biggest
differences and I love the
I love the avatar uh
interview it's a great
concept and idea and I
think it's one of the
missing kind of ingredients
when it comes to a lot of a
uh things with ai training
in general because a lot of
them tend to be non-interactive
And the fact that that you
guys have seen that is really, I think,
revolutionary and
definitely excited to see
the progress with that.
And I want to say that we're
proud to have you as a
partner with Midwest Con.
We have Midwest Con coming
up September tenth and eleventh.
And we're going to be
working with Jared and right.
See some, too.
And so before we get ready
to conclude with some other questions,
I love to just hear, like, you know,
what are you most excited
about coming to Midwest Con this year?
Twenty twenty five.
You've muted your mic, bro.
Yeah, sorry about that.
I'm really just excited
about being around
like-minded people that are
disruptive in the AI space.
There's so much I can learn
from being in these type of rooms,
not even just from the
speakers or the sponsors,
but just from the attendees.
We all have a passion for
taking technology and
creating incredible results.
um incredible work-life
balance um and innovation
so um I'm just excited for
the you know panels the
content the networking
events and the friendships
that can be formed in rooms
like this because if you
are really laser focused on ai
you're somebody I want to be
around so to be in a room
of hundreds of people that
are laser focused on ai
cyber software engineering
and how we can create some
incredible solutions and
results um in business but
in our personal lives as
well um that's the type of
energy that I like to be
around that's that big tech
energy that's that big tech
energy that was good
It's all right.
So a couple of kind of closing questions.
If the last five years of
your life was was a chapter in a book,
what would that chapter be about?
That'd be the chapter would
be about enlightenment and
like aligning my purpose to
something that is bigger than myself.
So, yeah,
twenty twenty is a chapter of
being a public figure.
figure to lack of a better
term and seeing how much
impact can I bring to my
community that I care a lot about.
And I've been excited to see
the results of
relationships and the
evergreen content that will
hopefully inspire future generations.
All right.
If we meet a year from now,
what are we going to be celebrating?
We meet a year from now,
we'll be celebrating.
I'm trying to think if I
should go personal or professional.
Let's go professional.
Yeah,
we'll be celebrating the success of
my speaker agency.
So we're doing two different things.
One,
we connect subject matter experts to
tech stages.
And so shout out to Ty, who connected us.
He has a great website, Black Tech Global.
And a lot of those people
are in my network.
So we've been getting some
really dynamic people
placed on stages to amplify their brand,
create opportunities.
And I think what me and Ty
are doing is going to
revolutionize conferences
and their ability to have
dynamic speakers, sponsors,
community partners.
But it's also going to
impact a lot of great
people in the space that
just haven't had their
voice amplified on podcasts
or stages and what kind of
impact that will have for them.
So Big Stage Energy is the
name of the speaker agency.
So we'll be celebrating some
extreme growth and partners there.
Well, good.
MidwestCon, we hope to be a part of it too,
getting people on the podcast.
I'd obviously like to be a
part of it as well in terms
of getting on stages as well.
So I look forward to
figuring out ways we can support that.
And we'll talk a little bit
more offline about that.
All right.
So final question.
What advice would you give
to your younger self with
your knowledge now?
And what advice would you ignore?
Yeah, so my biggest advice is to,
for my younger self would
be never lend out money
that you actually need back.
Pretty good advice I've learned.
Yeah,
because they will gaslight you to
death about that money they
owe you and make you look
like the bad guy.
So invest that money in a
Bitcoin young self or something else,
real estate.
So, yeah,
that's advice that I would
definitely give my younger self.
Yeah.
And if you do get money,
just don't expect to give it back.
That's really what it comes down to.
Like if you do it,
do it out of because you
don't have expectations of that because,
yeah, you'll just get frustrated.
thousand percent thousand
percent that's a lesson
that has kicked my butt but
the you know god the
universe whatever you
believe in has definitely
uh reimbursed me in
different ways so it's fine
um and then advice that I
would ignore um I'm
honestly pretty good at
listening advice but if uh
advice that I would ignore is um uh
Dang, that's a great question.
That's like, I would, I mean, I would just,
I would ignore the thought that like,
you have to put off fun and
life to when you're like
you've made it like enjoy
life throughout your entire
process make sure that you
do have balance and you're
not all absolutely work and
stress and all that like uh
just have a lot of
gratitude and um enjoy
enjoy uh the hard work that you put in so
Yeah,
because this moment will never happen
again.
The moment we're having is
the only thing that's
actually true to us.
Right.
The past is gone and it's
not usually we're not always accurate.
Actually, we're hardly ever accurate.
And what we remember in the
future hasn't even hasn't happened yet.
I think there are
opportunities to enjoy the
moment like college was great.
I'd have I'd have a dollar in college,
but I had a great time.
Right.
um and I had a real I it was
an experience that I can't
do right now like time is
the only thing we can't get
back I can't be and nor am
I trying to be a college
student right but when I
was a college student it
was great right and I and I
had fun and so I think it's
being present is something
that we lose you know
worrying about the past or
focusing on it or focusing
on the future just doesn't
allow us to enjoy the
present and there are some things
You know, when we're sixty,
hopefully we have a lot
more money than we have now.
But there's no guarantee
we'll be able to travel
like we can in your thirties and forties.
So I think you got to take
advantage of where you are
in life because time is the
only thing you can't get back.
You can get back money.
you can't get back time.
It's just, it's just the truth of it.
So I think that,
I think that's really great advice.
Jared, Jared, Jared Alberton,
appreciate you on the show.
Look forward to
collaborating with you on
Midwest con as well as a right.
See,
and many others and really appreciate
all the work that you've
done to empower others.
Thanks so much for coming on the show.
Appreciate it, man.
Appreciate it.
And yeah,
if you are watching this and
you'd like to see more of my content,
check me on Instagram, Dr. J,
D-O-C-T-A-J.
And then my name below,
connect with me on LinkedIn.
And then YouTube, check out my podcast,
Big Tech Energy, and make sure that you
and you share and you
comment on Disrupt Now and
make sure you're spreading
this episode as well as
this entire channel and
make sure you're at MidwestCon.
Look forward to meeting you
in person at that event.
So I appreciate you having me.
Thank you so much.
All right, stay on.
I got to get the recording, so hold on.
I got to end it, then hold on.
No problem.