S2E4: Navigating the Intersection of Product and Sales with Richard Cawkill

On today's episode, we're going to talk about the intersection of sales and product management,
which is a critical intersection in actually bringing in customers for a product.
I have a lot of respect for salespeople as it's far from an easy job to convince people to commit
to purchasing a particular solution for their needs. The other difficult part is that you find
a number of people for whom your product is only a partial solution that they'd be willing to spend
money on if only it did something different. This is often where product strategy butts heads with
the market over willingness to pay. To help us navigate this topic today, we have Richard
Caulkill with us. Richard is a sales manager at ProdPad and also the founder of the Sustainable
Watch Company. As a sales manager at ProdPad, he works to enable product managers with tooling that
takes away the more tedious parts of the job, enabling product managers to be more strategic
and do more of the fun stuff. Richard, glad to have you on the show. Likewise, Karl. Happy to be here.
Quite excited. This is actually my first podcast, despite spending a lot of time talking to people
in the product world. So I think it's a really interesting topic that we're about to embark on
and one that perhaps doesn't get enough airtime because it can be considered somewhat taboo because
of that kind of traditional clash that those two worlds do have.
Glad to have you on the show. I wanted to start out talking about a particular skit from the TV show
Silicon Valley, where they get the salespeople in a room and they're brand new to the company.
And they've got basically a product person is up there at the front of the room and he's
meeting the salespeople for the first time. And there's all sorts of tropes in there. I mean,
every time they speak, it's like Jan from Northeast Regional and she has to like announce herself and
her title. It's funny. It's comedy. What is really interesting about it is that they're meeting the
product manager. They don't really understand what the product is. The more that they talk to him,
the more they're like, yeah, we need to get rid of that. By the time they go through like taking away
all these things that they're like, yeah, that's not going to sell. We can't sell this. We can't sell that.
Oh, that would be scary. People might not like that. They end up going to something completely
different than what they started with. The product is a distributed cloud platform. And at the end,
they've got a single on-premise server solution that doesn't connect to anything so that nobody's
data gets out anywhere and there's no issues there. And then they're like, this is great.
It's a box. It's a server room and we can sell that. And it's just, it's really funny because it's
like, yeah, that's, you can see that happening. You can see like, we don't need that,
but a box. Yeah, we can sell a box. People like boxes and we know how to sell boxes.
So it's a humorous look at that discipline as it really does kind of hit close to home when
things don't go well. What would you say are some of the key things that you wish product
managers understood about sales? The first thing to pick up on is most people's experience of sales
is pretty terrible. It's your classic kind of B2C pushy phone contract or PPI or something of that ilk.
B2B sales is a somewhat different arena. The majority of us are surface level subject experts.
Let's use product as an example, because that's what we're talking about. And that's obviously
my discipline. I can't go into the same depths of understanding and detail as 99, probably 100%
of all the PMs that I talk to. But the slightly different aspects of my day-to-day that I do have
is that I talk to PMs across a broad range of industries, a broad range of businesses.
And that gives me in products, a very kind of unique insight into the industry that allows us
to add a lot of good context to a lot of conversations that we can then take internally
and share with the teams that we do work with and feedback to our product teams.
So I've gone off on a little bit of a tangent there. To come back to the question, one thing
that I think is important for not just PMs to remember, but the broader business in general
is that largely everyone, including commercial teams, we're all working towards the same goal.
And the goal is the growth of the business and the success of the business. And in that dynamic,
we have slightly different targets. And that's where kind of we sometimes butt heads. But ultimately,
we're all working towards the same thing. And products and sales are so heavily dependent
on each other. It's almost like a classic brother-sister relationship, like fighting the older sibling
sort of thing. Absolutely. And you kind of alluded to it a little bit before, but you know, working
for a product management company where your target customer is product managers and product
leadership, you know, those are the people that you've got to convince to then go back to the
purchasing departments to say, hey, we absolutely should buy this software. How does that kind of
help inform your perspective as a salesperson, you know, because you work at a product management
company doing product management software, you have product managers that you have to work with.
How does that all kind of come together? Because that's a really neat and kind of unique side of
this puzzle. Massively. And that's one of the reasons I want to start having more of these
conversations is because I think I'm very lucky to have quite a unique position in the market and
quite a unique perspective on this because I am still sales. So I've still got those commercial
quos. I'm still working towards that target, but I'm lucky in that I work for ProdPad, which is a
thought leader in the product space. So those kind of good product practices have been installed in me
by the product people that we have. I'm sure Janet, our CEO, most of your listeners will be more than
aware of her content. So I've had the privilege of learning off people like that. And I suppose
the trigger point for me in terms of really buying into that product way of thinking was when I did
join ProdPad. And I'll quite openly admit that pre-ProdPad, I didn't really submit feedback. And I think
that's one of the age-old challenges is that it's difficult to get feedback from salespeople because
we are busy. It's not because we just don't want to, it's because we have heads on the chopping
block with numbers. When I came to ProdPad, I was actively submitting feedback and I actively saw
the impacts of that. And that really shifted my mindset in terms of being listened to and how
valuable that feedback actually is. It's the first time I was able to see a tangible impact on, okay,
I tell the product team X, Y, Z, and I can see that being factored into the roadmap. I can see that
in the deliverables that we're doing. And I could see it helping us close more business, helping us
grow and all that good stuff that comes as a result of the good work the product teams do to enable
sales teams. When you get into those scenarios where you've got a customer that likes most of the
product, but maybe not all of it, how do you see handling that with product? What are some of the things
that go through your mind when you're talking to that customer about those things?
I know for a fact that this is different for a lot of salespeople, especially in sales-led
orgs where there's huge amounts of pressure on salespeople as well, which isn't something
that we should forget about. One piece of feedback isn't necessarily as important as another. They're
all created equal, but we want to look for things like volume of feedback, value of account, or all
manner of different aspects of that feedback that contribute to something becoming something we want
to do discovery work around and something we might eventually build. So just because one customer
says they want X doesn't mean that X is going to help us deliver on our business growth goals or
that customer Y and Z are going to want that thing. It's important to consider how those things gather
momentum to make sure that you're building the right things for the market. When I'm saying that
last part there, it seems obvious because that's the primary thing that sales want is the right
things to be built for the market. But sometimes when you've got that number in front of you,
it's difficult to get the other 99% of the market because you're just focused on that number
now. And it can be difficult to separate the two, again, because we are under pressure.
We have those targets to hit.
Well, you're under pressure and you see a path to a finish line.
Exactly. Exactly. And the path to the finish line is, I can't believe I'm going to use this
analogy, but the tortoise and the hare kind of analogy, isn't it? The hare would be, right,
we need this now to close this deal. The tortoise is, okay, well, let's take a look at the other
feedback that's coming in and try and pace this with all manner of different features that are
coming in from other requests in the business, current customer base, or all manner of different
things. Depending on what stage of your company's life you're in, it makes a big difference because
when you're in an early stage startup and you're just trying to get off the ground and revenue is
the absolute most important thing you could possibly generate, not that revenue is not important in a
bigger company too, but it is life or death when you're in that early stage startup.
And yeah, it's very tempting to want to say, hey, these people have a couple million that they're
going to throw at us if we just race to the finish line right now, as opposed to if we said no, we
might actually get more business over the next few months. But there is like, sometimes you're about
to die. Like this is about to go under if you don't get the revenue in. And there is a, that's just
very, very tricky. That's a really hard spot for everybody to be in product and sales and everybody
involved. Look, there is a point in which I think everyone agrees. Like if there's a certain size
of deal on the table, should we say, and I think even the best product people in the world would
agree that sometimes you do have to kind of adjust the roadmap a little bit. I don't think anyone's
completely ignorant to that fact, but it doesn't mean that every single time we want to win some
new business, we have to completely tear the roadmap up and start again. I think that's something
which I've learned at ProdPad and I'm now a huge champion of.
Yeah, that's awesome. And that's awesome to hear that that's your position because I have
worked with some people before that they aren't there yet.
No, no. And I actually, I think that the disconnect, well, it is just, it's disconnect,
right? That's what it is largely. But coming back to my first point that I made, it can be a
misunderstanding of we're all working towards the same goal. Like no salesperson just wants to sell
a mishmash of things that is no longer a product and no product manager wants to build a mishmash
of things that is no longer a product. We work for the same business for a reason. The salespeople
have to buy into the product because if you don't buy into the product, it's very, very difficult
to sell anything. And the product people, it's their baby. So of course they want to advance that
with whatever brain children they have running around within the teams.
What are some of the things that you feel salespeople can better understand about product managers and
what are some of the steps that they can take to start better working with their product managers?
My immediate response is to refer back to that initial point around us all going on the same
journey, but we've talked about that a lot. And I think we're quite clear on that. So
if I was to come up with another, it would likely be that understand that product teams want the
feedback, like understand the importance of the feedback and also the value that feedback can unlock
for you. So I think that's something that's really lost. And I caveat that with, it does have to be
handled in the correct way once we do submit that feedback, which is a whole another podcast in of
itself. But I think that the importance of what feedback can do for a commercial team is something
that isn't really often realized by commercial teams. It's not often talked about in our sort of
meetings. We might have the monthly product teams as a pitch on all the new features of the sales team,
and that's about it. But that closer collaboration between sales and product and that more free and
open comes around when new feedback submitted, who that is, actually, what is the problem they're
trying to solve? And all the stuff that comes with that can unlock a lot of opportunities, both in
product market fit, but also in the dialogue that salespeople are actually having with prospects and
the way that they can articulate what it is that the product's trying to do and what it is that
product are building. Because, and again, to refer back to my experience with ProdPad, it's the why
that's so important. And making sure that you're always building stuff with a why behind it can
unlock a lot of really nice narratives for when we're actually talking to our customers, to our
prospects, to make sure that we are addressing the problems that they do have, as opposed to trying
to force a square peg into a round hole, which never works long term. And I don't think many
B2B salespeople generally strive for any way, to be honest.
People that I've worked with in B2B sales are usually pretty good about wanting to
actually solve the problems of a customer base, as opposed to trying to just push something on
somebody for the sake of meeting that quota. It is interesting. You talk about talking to
prospects and trying to get down to the why. Are those conversations that you find you're able to
bring your product people into?
Are they conversations that we're able to bring? If they had time, it'd be great to bring them along.
There's one thing from that perspective that I think is important to remember in commercial
conversation. And that is, and it's part of the reason why we do sometimes guard these conversations
is because it's really important to have one voice through these processes. And it can sometimes
dilute what the salesperson is trying to do, and also what the prospects try to achieve in terms of
an efficient evaluation. Because the people that we're talking to, in my case, they're product people
as well. They're busy. They've got loads going on. So taking up loads of their time in the short term
isn't necessarily good for anyone. But having the product people involved in the call is super
valuable in articulating where we're going. So if there's questions around why we're doing stuff,
where we're going, bringing a product person into that call can be super helpful. And actually,
a team that I think doesn't get enough props can be support as well through those processes.
So when we're talking about things like trial periods and actually product testing and that sort of
stuff, support teams are really invaluable for sales teams in terms of actually getting those
things set up and running and helping customers realize the value that we've talked with them
and showed them so much about, but realizing that in their own hands. Despite the salesperson leading
that, it's so multifunctional when you actually start to peel bits away like we are now.
Everyone involved in that, whether it's been in crafting the thing that we're selling,
supporting the actual narrative through that, all manner of different things go into that process.
It's not quite as linear as some people might assume it is. Again, referring back to that sort of
B2C sales culture and the experience that a lot of people have had whilst they kind of build up
into their career. Yeah. So product managers like to have conversations with customers without
sales there. Why is that so hard for salespeople to let go of and let a product manager just have
a conversation? And what could we do to make that better?
I don't know is the short answer to that because it's not something that I've ever struggled with.
Once they're a paying customer, I always love to be there and will be part of any sort of issues
that they might have or if they need any support triaging issues. I'll still be their buddy for
their entire time that they're with the business and sometimes even far beyond that. But once a
salesperson has completed the initial part of that, if you like, I don't see any issue to product
becoming involved. You can even add value at some points in that pre-sales process. But as I just
talked about, you've got to be very careful with that because you don't want to create too much
friction. And I'm very lucky to work with product people because you have lots of questions and
stuff like that. But the challenge with that is when we're trying to get something to one way,
we don't want to open up too many sort of avenues in and around that for everyone's time, really.
I think what I've seen in this space is salespeople who, and I honestly, coming from a support
background and seeing sales from that side and then seeing it from product, I think that the
salespeople are very much in the right who want to be protective of their account because they've
worked to build this business, they may have a deal that these things can get really tricky.
I mean, there can be political situations within a company that you're trying to navigate to be
able to get this thing to closure. And there are just a variety of different variables that could
be at play. And so there are times in an account's life where the salesperson really doesn't want
anybody else talking into that customer because they know exactly what's going on and they're managing
it very closely to try and achieve a result. In those types of situations, what I think works,
and I'd love to get your feedback on this, is just being very transparent about what you are going to
be talking about. And also these days, we've got great technology and being able to provide
transcripts of a call without necessarily having to provide an audio recording. We could provide an
actual text transcript of the call. I think that that really helps take some of that pressure off,
but I'd be curious to get your take on that. I personally err on the side of trust with stuff
like that. And that's probably my pedigree at ProdPad that I know that product's done well at
my org. So I don't have too much issue relinquishing. Control is the wrong word,
but I'm going to use the word control. You make a really good point on wanting to kind of guard
accounts and stuff like that. And I think part of that comes from we've built relationships with
these people and we care about the outcomes. We care about the people that we've worked with.
And we have some sort of attachment to that common goal that we have with a prospect whilst
we move through these evaluation processes. These evaluation processes, by the way, depending on
what we're talking about, they can go up to two years. And obviously that completely depends on
the sort of scale that we're talking about, but you can develop quite deep relationships with these
people. And if these are then managed badly, when it passes on past your immediate jurisdiction,
it can reflect badly on the relationship that you've built and on your face as an individual.
So yeah, of course we have investment on protecting the people that we've worked with,
but also protecting our own reputation in those relationships post-sales as well.
Like I said, I'm blessed with the team that I've been able to work with at ProdPad because I don't
have any of those worries. I think you're right to acknowledge that some people might. And I think
as the world does shift towards this more product way of thinking and product way of working,
that will become less and less as we do progress on that journey.
Yeah. And it's interesting that you talked about B2B sales and you talked about a two-year
close time. Yeah. Some of the times this software does take a lot of time to sell and it takes a lot
of time to close these deals. And it's really why onboarding, especially in B2B products is such an
important part of the story because the faster you can make the onboarding process, the smoother you
can make that, the less time it takes to actually get acclimated with the product and see how it would
work in a particular technical environment, the closer you can get to sales. But what are some
of the things even outside of the onboarding process that can contribute to such a long sales cycle?
Let's talk about money for the first time. So imagine, and this happens all the time and it's
no one's fault. It's just the way that the world works. Budgeting cycles are annual, right? With almost
every single company I've ever worked with. They're not always calendar year. They're not always tax year.
It depends. Companies have weird and wonderful ways of running that. Let's imagine that if I use an
example that I got recently, this 4pm got an evaluation dropped on them just before Christmas
and their renewal was up in mid-January, I believe it was. The board said, we're not totally happy with
product tooling, do this evaluation, for which they had about a month to do this evaluation.
With the numbers that we're talking about, it's not necessarily enough time to be able to do that.
So that then leads us into a position where we spend six weeks doing that evaluation and then
the budget's reset. And then we have another year where we have to keep up to date with what's
going on in each other's businesses, how well that fits going to be in 12 months time, all that good
stuff that comes into that. That's one use case. The other use case is just admin. I think people
underestimate how much admin goes into some of these sales processes. That's admin on both sides.
But I think for me personally, I love to take that off whoever I'm working with. I want to take that
off their hands and make their life as easy as possible. But some of the vendor forms and
security processes that you go through and stuff like that, all for good reason,
but it takes time. And the evaluation processes as well. If you've got a huge RFP or something,
which is a request for proposal with hundreds of different aspects that you want to grade against,
and say you're grading five to 10 different vendors on that, that's a lot of work that goes
into that on the prospect side as well. Even getting down to a shortlist that you want to do more work
in. And then imagine that takes two, three months to get to that point. You've then got two,
three months of evaluation on those two to three vendors that you might have shortlisted.
And then you go down to one, and then you do another two to three months on that one.
And then you go through procurement. And that was another tip. So it can just roll on easily and
easily depending on what numbers and what sort of dynamics are going into structuring and negotiating
and closing and all that different stuff that goes into sales.
Yeah. I always dreaded getting those evaluation forms because you're right. Hundreds of questions is not
an exaggeration. And it literally can be like, you've got to fill out these hundred things about
your product. And then they're comparing those hundred things to three or four other products
in the market. And, you know, you're going through that list and you're like, we don't have that.
We don't have that. We do this really well, but it's a form. So it's like, okay, we can put a 10 down
here, but so can these other competitors as well. And it's hard to show your differentiation on some of
those things when they're the ones giving you the criteria on which they're going to judge three
different competitors who have similarities, but are going to have differences. And it's really hard in those
types of processes to write the questions in such a way that the differences are going to necessarily
show up. As a product manager who's seen this before, in some ways it kind of feels futile
because it's kind of like, regardless of what we put on this form, they're going to make the
choice they're going to make. You know, they'll take this data, they'll read into it, but sales is
very much like you said, it's about relationships. And so the people that make them feel the best about
what it is they're selling are probably going to be the ones that went out regardless of what the
evaluation says. I'd agree with that to an extent that that is a big part of it, whether or not it's
feel the best because of that human relationship side or just feel the best requirements gathering
is so important. And there isn't enough emphasis placed on that in a lot of sales processes, but
understanding what someone needs in depth early on saves everyone time, which is why when a salesperson
gets this huge request, box ticking exercise, do you do this? Do you do that on their desk? All we want
to do is talk to that person because you can get so much more context and we can tell you in 15,
20 minutes, half an hour, whatever it might be, whether or not it's going to be worth us investing
more time in this. Save you the time, like save me the time filling out a tick box form and you the
time reviewing like 20 of these because we can just do it in 15 minutes. So we've talked a lot about
sales and product management and the intersection in terms of just the jobs and what types of skills it
takes to do the jobs. What do you see as some of the similarities between sales and product?
That is a good question. I've never thought about that. I think a desire to collaborate is something
which I think probably bridges both roles more than we realize. And the difference is that one
of those collaborations is perhaps a little bit more external and one is a little bit more internal,
but both of those roles, products and sales are highly communicative, should we say?
Yeah, I think that's quite a big similarity. And I think in a weird way, another one would probably
be planning. Just like a product person wants to know to the best of their abilities when stuff's
happening, why it's happening. So does a salesperson when they're trying to understand what's going on
in that evaluation process for that prospect that we're working with. We want to know why they're
doing stuff so we can help. We want to know when it's going to be done by so we can align what we're
doing to that timeline. Yeah, I think that they're probably the two key similarities that
would immediately jump to mind. I'll have to do a little bit more digging on that one.
Those are excellent. I hadn't thought of the planning aspect as much as you just pointed out.
So that's really cool to get to hear. What are some of the differences between the skill sets
needed for these roles, do you think?
If we take it right back to the video, the skit that we're discussing, I think that probably
articulates some of the more traditional or trivial differences, if you like. Product people tend to
be much more analytical. Your salespeople are a little bit more extroverted, a little bit more
brash about things, perhaps a little bit more pragmatic. Those two skill sets, they're invaluable
to have working alongside one another. One doesn't work without the other, which is why this whole
sort of intersection between sales and product is such an interesting topic that we can dig into in so
many different ways because those two characteristics of those two groups are never going to change,
but they need each other.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, sales can't build product and product can't get their product out into the
world without sales actually getting it out there and getting money brought in for it. So you're
absolutely right. There's a dependency there. And it does feel like a sibling relationship at times.
You have to love each other to the extent that you both have the same goal in mind, which is
growing the company. But then there is the infighting that naturally happens for having
slightly different ways of attacking that. It's a fascinating intersection. So you talked about
both sides having collaboration as a skill. These groups are two that definitely have to collaborate
quite a bit. How do you see AI starting to shape how sales and product collaborate with each other?
I think the big one is the ease of getting sales feedback into product hands. Time is the most
precious commodity that we have in sales, which is why we want to get things qualified quickly,
make sure that it's the right fit for the person that we're talking to. Saves everyone time. And I
think that's one of the reasons alongside not feeling that feedback gets listened to. I think
that's one of the big reasons why most salespeople don't submit feedback is we are just busy.
A world where we can get feedback in the hands of our product compatriots much more seamlessly
through AI is going to be invaluable. And I think there's multiple places that we can
start to capture things like that, whether that's internal tools, whether that's email,
whether that's transcripts. And we're moving towards this way. We're not a million miles away
from it, but that's going to be something which I think is going to see a massive uptick in the
amount of valuable feedback that we actually gather from these sales interactions. And the second part of
that is analysis. If we're turning up the dial on how much we're getting, we don't want to take the
work for analyzing all of that. Seeing an uptick in the automation of gathering,
and then a downtick in the work spent on analyzing that is going to be the golden ticket,
if you like, to being able to action market-led product iterations at a much faster pace.
That should really help hit the gas in a couple of situations.
Yeah.
And I know that ProdPad is largely targeted at product managers, but you've made a lot of great
points about how sales are a big consumer of product information and also a major input into
product consideration. What types of features and functionality are being written into ProdPad to
enable salespeople?
One of the biggest recent ones would be Copilot. So you know what an AI Copilot is,
they're cropping up everywhere now. We've written one and it's live within the app now.
And the way that I talk to other salespeople about that feature is it's going to read everything that
the product people are putting into the tool. We've also fed it our entire back catalog of content
and how we think it's best to do product. It's for me like taking a product person into every call.
If there's something I want to know, if we've got it on the roadmap, I can bang it into this
to Copilot and I can get an answer to that within a few seconds. If I want a summary of all the feedback
that we had from a certain persona or a certain company, all manner of different things, just quick
surfacing of information within the product world right at the fingertips of a salesperson is super
valuable. And that's where we can actually even surface it in Slack as well. So for me,
I can just query the ProdPad app in Slack and get whatever query that is in my hands within a few
seconds whilst I'm talking to a customer, which is really valuable for both the salesperson and the
customer. Well, and the product person, because product people, like you said, are very busy.
They're not always around to answer that question. So the fact that you didn't have to interrupt a
product manager's day right then and like pull them from whatever they're doing and say,
I need you in this conversation right now. Yeah, exactly. And it saves the arguments as well.
So we also mentioned earlier that you are the founder of the Sustainable Watch Company.
And as a founder, you have to do a little of everything. So tell me about that role and
kind of how that plays into what all the other things you do with ProdPad and whatnot are.
Yeah. So I suppose that's a little bit of my entrepreneurial side coming through,
which is why working with smaller sort of tech companies like ProdPad is so attractive to me
because I enjoy the multifaceted role that comes with working in small businesses and startups and
that side of things. I enjoy the day-to-day execution, but also the strategy side of things
and being able to see that the work that you're putting in is having a tangible impact on whatever
it is that you're working on. Referring back to the Sustainable Watch Company, I think the biggest
thing that it taught me taking into my role in the technology world was ownership and just how
valuable it is for startups and small businesses to have someone in post that will just own stuff,
that will make informed decisions and save the rest of the team time as opposed to trying to run
every single little query or change through the team at every opportunity. That side of my profile
developed a lot from kind of running my own business as small as it may be. And that's been invaluable
to take into my career with ProdPad. Yeah. And what is the mission of the Sustainable Watch
Company? That started as a love project. So I've always wanted to have my own little enterprise.
The goal of that one was largely to push myself for one, but I also wanted to try and see which
elements of day-to-day life can we take and make a little bit more sustainable without having to
compromise on functionality of those things. So I went on this kind of journey of product discovery and
did my research around what sort of things can we do with this. I was looking at like bamboo items
and all manner of different things. A lot of the bamboo things, they're very sort of high volume,
low margin. So it's pretty difficult to get off the ground, but stumbled upon another company doing
wood watches and thought for lack of a better term, I could do that way better. And so I started
building a brand around that, the initiatives that we have around the sales. So the fact that we
plant trees with every purchase, we remove bottles from the ocean with every purchase,
we remove carbon from the environment with every purchase, we're a carbon negative for every sale
that we make. So in a world where there's a lot of rubbish being pumped out, I didn't just want
to be another brand trying to make a quick buck selling something rubbish. The brand building and
the impact that the brand has alongside that was a really important part of that journey for me.
Really exciting to see that you've got that on the side as your day job is selling product
management software, but then working to build sustainable wood watches. That's really cool.
My passion bridges both entrepreneurship and tech. So it's a really nice intersection. And I think
that as I alluded to earlier, those two skill sets have positioned me in a really, really good place.
And I'm seeing my career in technology excel off the back of that experience and that exposure to
that part of my profile that I've had, which is pretty unique as well. There's not too many people
that do that and also run a full-time career alongside that. So yeah.
I've got one final question for you just to help our audience get to know you a little bit better.
And that is, what hobby do you think would be a lot of fun to get into?
What hobby do I think would be something that I've done previously or something like in my
wildest dreams, what would I like to do?
In your wildest dreams, what would be a lot of fun to get into that you haven't already done?
I mean, there's a few things I've flirted with. I mean, I love traveling, but it's pretty expensive
to pick up as a weekend hobby. So I think that one's kind of more of a lifestyle choice than
getting away as often as I can rather than every weekend. But I think music's a big one for me.
I grew up kind of playing the drums. So I played the drums for like 11 years, but
I actually sold my drum kit to go traveling, which some people will think is sacrilege,
but it's one of the best things. It built me as a person so much.
But it's something that I'd love to reconnect with. I picked up becoming a bit of a bedroom DJ
towards the end of my university years, but never really did anything with it.
Probably pretty rubbish at it right now, if I'm completely honest, but that's something
if I ever had the time, I would absolutely love to pick up again and maybe one day play some live
gigs somewhere or something. That's something which is always a little brainchild of mine
that I probably shouldn't let die, but I can feel it waning in the organs.
Who's your favorite drummer?
I've got to go super mainstream because my first drum teacher was basically my mom and dad's
friend's son. And he put me onto Travis Barker and Taylor Hawkins. So whilst they're super
mainstream, I think some of the videos that I watched Travis Barker play with his sort of 360
rotating kit hanging from the ceiling was a pretty big staple in the style that I tried to sort of
emulate. Although it did become expensive when I was cracking cymbals every other week.
I bet so. It's not cheap either.
No, no.
That means usually art.
Richard, it's been great getting to talk to you and this has been a fascinating intersection,
sales and product management to explore. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
It's been a pleasure. It's something which I think I owe to the world with my sort of sales
experience, but also with the intersection I've got with being part of a thought leading product
team is something I want to share with the world a little bit more about that interesting little
cross-section that we do have.