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The secret sauce to your sales success? It’s what happens before the sale. It’s the planning, the strategy, the leadership. And it’s more than demo automation. It’s the thoughtful work that connects people, processes, and performance. If you want strong revenue, high retention, and shorter sales cycles, the pre-work—centered around the human—still makes the dream work. But you already know that.
The Unexpected Lever is your partner in growing revenue by doing what great sales leaders do best. Combining vision with execution. Brought to you by Vivun, this show highlights the people and peers behind the brands who understand what it takes to build and lead high-performing sales teams. You’re not just preparing for the sale—you’re unlocking potential.
Join us as we share stories of sales leaders who make a difference, their challenges, their wins, and the human connections that drive results, one solution at a time.
Jarod Greene [00:00:00]:
Hey, hey. Welcome to V5 where we spend time with some of the best leaders in all the sales, all the B2B SaaS, all the marketing, talking about some hot takes. This is going to be a fun one. If you know, you know, if you know me and you know our guest, Mr. Lucas Welch. You know, we tend to cut up a little bit and I don't expect anything any different. So please welcome Lucas Welch, VP, Corporate Comms at Highspot. How you doing, Lucas?
Lucas Welch [00:00:27]:
Jarod, it is a delight to be here and to hang out with you today. Like you said, we're just gonna, we're gonna talk shop, we're gonna chop it up and we're gonna have a lot of fun doing it.
Jarod Greene [00:00:38]:
Absolutely. So let's get into it. Lucas, what is, what is your hot take? You want to share?
Lucas Welch [00:00:43]:
My hot take comes from a conversation I had this weekend with AI about marketing in an AI world. My hot take is ironically, I believe, the human to human connection. The idea of going to that networking dinner that maybe a year ago you would have pushed off those moments, those touch points, I think AI will actually enforce and push us towards more one to one, one to few human connections. And it will be the marketing, the go-to-market teams that figure out how to create the best of those experiences and offer them in ways and in channels that people are going to be most likely to consume them that are going to cut through the noise that is undoubtedly already flooding our digital channels.
Jarod Greene [00:01:27]:
I love it. I think what jumps out for me is just knowing you, you're one of the most authentic marketers, more authentic humans I've ever met. I'd imagine there's something there when you talk about that human to human connection. I'd imagine that when people think of your company's brand you're associated with, people want to deal with you and you're a great human and so people are drawn to you and your team and that goes a long way to. The traditional channels are easy to capture, right?
Jarod Greene [00:01:53]:
I can capture how effective the email is. I can look at the open rate and the click through rate, I can look at the search engine results. But that human connect has been a little tricky. What say to you about folks who are thinking of ways to try to scale that? How do you scale it? Make it all make sense?
Lucas Welch [00:02:07]:
I think increasingly being your true self in the workplace, again relatively ironically, is the initial threat was AI is going to take your jobs. I have yet to see a ChatGPT or an agent built that can autonomously reason and act on its own with any level of strategy or effectiveness. But darn, they're really good. When smart people do give them the prompts and the commands and the context to go execute certain tasks. Doing those rapidly and at scale, people need to tap into what their audience cares about. And the good news, AI or not, is there are lots and lots of signals that can tell you before you ask them what they're interested in, intent topics and what your accounts are searching for. SEO trends are still going to be there, but then if you go a step beyond that, what we've been doing is actually opening up. So we've gotten some people to agree.
Lucas Welch [00:03:00]:
Yeah, I'd come to your dinner or I'd come to your workshop. Cool. Instead of believe that we know exactly what they want to cover in that workshop, we're going to have a core theme again, fueled and informed by intent and SEO and what's working on our website, etc. So we've got a frame, but we've started one of your favorite tools, Jarod sending mentee surveys. And so when you get to choose your entree for the event, you also get to submit a two question mentee survey. And in our space, what Highspot does bring go-to-market teams together to drive revenue growth, really that boils down to what's go-to-market priority number one. What's go-to-market challenge number one. We bring those in, we get a word cloud in advance of the event, we share that back out with all the attendees.
Lucas Welch [00:03:47]:
It's anonymous, of course, you don't know what each other put in, but you get to see the themes across. And then we use those to inform the dialogue both at the beginning, that kind of sets the frame and then how we're broken out into groups through the given event. And so I think by being our authentic selves and being open to sharing both our priorities and our challenges, whether it's my marketing team or any marketing team creating simple, easy to use avenues to take that input in and then fuel the conversation with it versus presuming to know what anyone might actually want to cover, we've been able to shift the dynamic from we're all going to talk about only this one thing to hey, we might not talk about what we planned to talk about today, but we're going to talk about what you care most about. And what we've seen is people stay, they don't drop off and they're much more likely to be open both about where they're struggling, but also where they found progress and share their ideas. Because we literally asked them.
Jarod Greene [00:04:47]:
That makes a ton of sense. And as I've been in those type of forums, when marketing leaders like us get together, one of the topics is okay, how do I do this AI thing for real, like in a safe space? I'm going to ask you something about practical use cases, security concerns, adoption. There's a whole litany of questions that come up when you get into those spaces. Let me ask you, like the usage of AI on your team, has that been top down, bottoms up, combination of the two as it's kind of ascended to like these must use and kind of must have solutions.
Lucas Welch [00:05:18]:
The game changer for us was when the business invested if you could make a business case that you know was viable in enterprise GPT licenses for those that were approved by the business case. And so, you know, we're a Google workspace company and you can of course request Windows, but the standard on your Mac is going to be Google. So we've got Gemini and I think Gemini is getting better and better and for certain kind of more tactical in document, in email type of use cases. I think there's value there, you know, as they say, create an agent and have an ongoing project driven dialogue. Enterprise ChatGPT really does, I think currently hold the standard, at least in my experience. And what I've seen for my team specifically is once we could feed it to your point about security and trust. Microsoft is backing this. So we know we can give it information and trust that it's not going to train it on that information, is not going to put that information anywhere.
Lucas Welch [00:06:22]:
Our very, very rigorous security team has vetted every aspect of this. So now when I can give it my demand channel analysis to my hot take point, right? I can give it content performance, I can give it all these inputs and let it learn with me and let it understand our message, our differentiation, our competitors, our brand, tone and voice that has helped every member on my team. So it's been both bottoms up and top down. But it started with having the security and the trust to be able to give it business critical information so it can learn and become a part of the team versus something outside of the team without the context.
Jarod Greene [00:07:01]:
I almost remember exactly about two years ago we're going down the path of like the experimentation. And I remember for a lot of people this is the one thing I heard through the halts. Like this feels like cheating. Like I can actually just input this analysis or I can request this thing to be done and it will just do it and I can pass it off like it's my own work. It feels like a lot of those concerns have kind of either gone away, it's become more commonplace, or do you still see it?
Lucas Welch [00:07:27]:
I still feel like I'm cheating. It's like Barry Bonds, right? I mean, if everybody's cheating, you just want to be the best at cheating. What I have noticed, you needed that security and trust to really put it all the way into your workflow and push it to the limit. And what I've come to believe is I'm not seeing it replace most jobs. And you sure as heck better be great at it. Because the kids in college right now who are going to come into the workforce, having built and worked with and learned and then been learning with AI as their co pilot as their thought partner, they may very well take my job if I'm not able to myself be great at augmenting and learning and accelerating what we can do to optimize a given program, a given part of our business. Because that's where I think the innovation is going to come from. I do think there is a generation of youth who are getting an education now interwoven with the ability to push what AI can do for you to the limit.
Lucas Welch [00:08:33]:
And that is both exciting, but also, if you're in your workforce today, you need to be embracing it with that same curiosity, that same learn it all mindset.
Jarod Greene [00:08:42]:
When we work together, I think one of the things that, like, I always admire was just, you know, your ability on just getting people rallied around the cause, right? Or getting people to believe in a vision, to be able to communicate that vision clearly and have people follow along. And I think that's the piece back to, like, what's something AI can't replace? Like, you can't do that, can't do the Lucas thing. You can't do the Lucas magic. Why is that so important for you guys as a company? But talk a little bit about why that's so important. It is remaining important for you guys as you grow through the space.
Lucas Welch [00:09:14]:
I think kind of back to what we were talking about earlier, like the idea of authenticity, which really boils down to me in saying, are we creating space for everyone to both be themselves and feel safe bringing what that means to the collaborative process that is doing work, if you think about that, plus the goal with AI included, to find the best idea as fast as possible and then execute against that idea? Those things go hand in hand. And so for me, it's. I feel like I always intrinsically knew I'll be my best if I'm being true to me and I'm telling the truth and creating a space where people can do the same. If you don't really know what's going on, how could you expect an individual to be truly effective? Because they don't see the full picture. You know, my interest, my desire to authentically communicate, be transparent about my own experiences, my emotions, my feelings, comes from the belief that if I can model it, hopefully others will do the same. And ultimately, that produces the best ideas and the best experience because, like, we work a lot, right? So let's create environments where we can really do our best, be our best, because that starts with being ourselves and then ultimately give that experience to other people, because that's where positive energy is going to come from.
Jarod Greene [00:10:44]:
Couldn't agree with you more. I think the notion of kind of authentic selves to work is one I really explored in working with you. Like, I remember, like, the first couple months I had joined the company. We're still kind of work from home because of COVID So you join a new job and everything's a certain way until you get to a moment where you're like, wait, what? And I remember I hit the. Wait, what? And I remember you hit me and was like, hey, let's, let's. Let's go out. We got to know each other on, like, this very, like, personal level. And I think that established the foundation for us to continue to, like, work together, but, like, be incredible friends.
Jarod Greene [00:11:18]:
It made the work better. And it was one of those things where he's just like, I got you. So when we got to those moments in the workplace where it was like, I understand where Lucas is coming from. And it's because we put in the work and we put in the time to build that. So I never looked at it like, well, this is weird, or it's coming. I know exactly what the agenda is here, and it's a good one. And he knows exactly where I'm coming from. And it's rooted in a good place.
Jarod Greene [00:11:40]:
And if there was ever a disconnect, we go talk about it, it's because we put in that effort to build that it wasn't just something that, like, through the course of work that's, you know, heavy and intensive, no creativity is going to flourish when it's just the hours in between, or it's just the projects, or it's just the deliverables, the real creative stuff, the, like, industry moving stuff we did, I felt came from that place of we know each other, and through that lens, there's really nothing we can't accomplish.
Lucas Welch [00:12:07]:
It was epic. And you know, a time period in my career that, to your point, is some of the best work I've ever done is an example of trying to model and put out in the world that, yeah, work is called work, it's not called fun. So it's going to be hard. That's what happens. Because you won't be friends with everybody you work with and you won't like everyone you have to partner with. But if you can find those few key folks that you can build that real relationship and that foundation with, that's going to enrich the experience so fully, even for the folks you don't build those friendships with. Remember, you still have to start with respect and curiosity. You know, it's tell me more, not stop telling me.
Lucas Welch [00:12:50]:
Because that's how you can learn. That's how even when you might not be arm in arm after work, you can still respect each other and create an environment in which good discourse, good dialogue, and back to my other point, the best ideas are going to show up because everybody ultimately is at work to be successful. Start with that commonality, build respect and trust. And hey, you're not going to go out, hang out with everybody after work as long as again, you're working on that environment where people can be themselves, there is the opportunity to build those friendships and those foundations with people. But no matter what, there's respect for everybody.
Jarod Greene [00:13:26]:
You've done just about every job. You've ascended the ranks. You're in a great spot now. Someone who's like a, you know, junior level kind of marketer out in the world that says, yeah, I want to aspire to do this. What advice would you give? Whether it's AI-related or not?
Lucas Welch [00:13:39]:
Advice number one is you have to ask. And that goes to. For promotion, for a new project, for a new challenge, for the context you need to be successful in your current role. If you're just trying to say, hey, I know I just need to crush it this year, do you know that your boss views crushing it the same way that you do? Because if you don't, you better find out. And what I've learned at each stage of my career and you still got to look out for you. Which can sound selfish, but really means ask the question, what do I not know that you think I need to know so I can be successful in what you're asking me to do? On all the way down to the classic question is what am I not asking you that I should be? And I think that perspective is going to help you no matter what level you are, no matter what role you're in, where you're trying to go. Because if you don't ask, the likelihood that someone will tell you goes significantly down. And not because they don't want to give you information, not because people aren't going to look out for you.
Lucas Welch [00:14:47]:
But they're busy too. They got their own things going on. They're asking their own questions. If you're not asking them, you're unlikely to get the answers. And number two is do the work. Like, I have never met anyone who became a raging, incredible top tier success without putting in work. And that doesn't mean that it's only work. And you've got to work a hundred hours a week every week and just look at your screen until it's, you know, you can't look at it anymore.
Lucas Welch [00:15:15]:
But it does mean kind of similar mindset, asking those questions like ask yourself, how can you go further? Ask yourself, what's one more thing you can do? The classic example of sales? Make one more phone call. That might be the phone call that has the deal. But there's so many areas where a little bit more, not forever, but a little bit more and embracing and rising the challenge of work and being grateful for work. There are so many people, to be totally blunt, who don't have jobs and want them or are stuck in bad jobs and would just love a job that they could flourish in and thrive in. And if you have an opportunity like that, being grateful for it and rising to it and embracing it, you combine that with that questions, everyone's going to see that you want it, that you're capable and you're going to find those opportunities.
Jarod Greene [00:16:06]:
Absolutely. Lucas, man, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for enlightening the audience here. I will see you. We will link up soon. But really do appreciate and value your time, brother. Love you very much. And thank you for spending a little time with the audience today.
Lucas Welch [00:16:20]:
Absolutely, my pleasure. Much love.