Evolving SDR Roles: The Future of Personalization and AI in Sales

Brandi Starr [00:00:34]:
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Revenue Rehab. I am your host, Brandi Star, and we have another amazing episode for you today. I am joined by Laura Zwelin. Laura is a founder and operator with over 25 years of experience in high growth technology companies, including the Liveramp, trial play and Panthenon Path platforms. After starting her career at Kaiser Permanente, driving operational effectiveness, she shifted her focus to building high performing go to market teams, leveraging strategies to drive effectiveness and efficiency. Laura has successfully taken multiple startups from the ground floor through acquisition or IPO. Laura and her husband are the parents of four children and are the founders of the Zwalen Bennett Rescue Ranch, located in Austin, Texas, which serves as a permanent home to dozens of rescue animals while offering aid and rehab to neglected animals in the state of Texas. Laura, welcome to revenue rehab.

Brandi Starr [00:01:41]:
Your session begins now.

Laura Zwahlen [00:01:45]:
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Brandi Starr [00:01:48]:
Yeah, I'm looking forward to talking to you. Really diverse background with everything you've done in marketing, and then also having a rescue ranch, which I think is super cool.

Laura Zwahlen [00:02:00]:
It's definitely been a learning curve. We moved from the Bay Area, gosh, about 15 years ago to Austin with the goal being that we wanted to somehow help animals. And in Texas, as they say, everything is bigger in Texas, and it's easier to get land, and so we were able to get a plot of land, and the rest is kind of history. So it's been a. It's been a learning curve, but it's been a great journey.

Brandi Starr [00:02:24]:
Awesome. Well, that's really, really exciting. And before we jump into our topic today, I like to break the ice with a little woosa moment that I call buzzword banishment. So tell me, what buzzword would you like to get rid of forever?

Laura Zwahlen [00:02:42]:
Oh, there was one that even hearing it today just makes my. It's like, fingers on it on a chalkboard. To me, it's in a prior company, it was overused on a massive scale. It was. Let's double click on that. Double click. I think it's just because I heard it so many times, it became just incredibly annoying. But, yes, let's double click on that.

Brandi Starr [00:03:03]:
Yes, I am with you on that one. I have never understood how that became the way of saying, let's dig deeper or continue to talk about that or go into more detail. But, yeah, I can promise that I will not ask you to double click on anything today. Now that we've gotten that off our chest, tell me, what brings you to revenue rehab today?

Laura Zwahlen [00:03:31]:
Yeah, it's really about the evolving role of the SDR. Obviously, that function today looks very different than it did even two years ago, and certainly very different than it did a decade ago. You've got a lot of different pieces of technology that are really helping to shape that path forward. So the question really is, how do we incorporate AI into an SDR workflow? There's been a lot of talk, and I've actually seen a number of articles and questions posed on LinkedIn around. Is the role of an SDR dead? I have some very strong opinions on that. I actually started my career as an SDR, so have a lot of passion toward that function. And I think it's, you know, we're kind of at that pivotal moment where you can actually really arm your SDR team with tools to drive both effectiveness, but then also efficiency to make them that much better. So I don't see AI at all as replacing.

Laura Zwahlen [00:04:23]:
I see it as complementing their current workflows, if used correctly.

Brandi Starr [00:04:27]:
Awesome. And I definitely have got lots of questions because this is one of those topics that does come up all the time, and it's not a function that I've ever personally owned, and I see a lot of the changes happening. So I'm looking forward to your insight. But before I start to dive in with the questions, I believe in setting intentions. It gives us focus, it gives us purpose, and most important, it gives our audience an understanding of what they should expect from our discussion today. And so what's your intention? What's your best hope for our discussion?

Laura Zwahlen [00:05:03]:
Yeah, I think it's honestly just to have leaders take a moment to pause and really think through specifically the efficiency play for the SDR team. And I definitely tend to be a more operationally focused CRO because I started my career in operations. So when you think about productivity in general, you've got the efficiency and you've got the effectiveness. Effectiveness is really, that applies some new skill training, et cetera, where efficiency, it's all about how do we remove some of that task saturation, that as sdrs, as AE's, as account managers, as any revenue generating person experiences that type of task saturation, heavy administrative type of thing, it slows us down. So I think in terms of the intention, it's really to kind of cause leaders to take a step back and think through, how do I remove that really, really just heavy task saturation from the SDR workflow? And it's rampant in every single company. They spend so much time doing things that actually we can leverage AI to clear up. So it asks the question, hey, how do I actually remove some of that from my workflows today to best set my teams and my sdrs up for success?

Brandi Starr [00:06:08]:
I love that. And I do think that I won't ask the question, is the SDR role dead? Because I know the answer is no. I agree. There's still a need. And much like every other role, it's evolving. And so I know AI plays a big piece in shifting the responsibilities and making things more effective. But I would even argue that before AI sort of took off, there was still a lot of change happening in where people were leveraging sdrs. And, you know, it's like sdr Bdr.

Brandi Starr [00:06:54]:
I even saw the mdrs, the marketing development reps, and where does it best live, in marketing or in sales? And there was a lot of conversation around the effectiveness of this development rep role, no matter what letter you put in front of it. And so I'd love to hear, you know, I'd love to start with hearing some of your thoughts around, you know, and AI has been around for a long time, so I won't say AI, but I will say pre the AI boom, what did you see changing in how that role is evolving? And then we'll talk about some of the AI impact after.

Laura Zwahlen [00:07:32]:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think if you were to rewind back, you know, I mean, again, I started my career as an SDR when I actually first took that leap, it really was all about at that time, just email, email, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, occasionally make a phone call. And I think as things have happened and we've reached certain milestones, for example, frequency capping, you can't just send 1000 emails and not expect your account to get blocked. So I think it's required sdrs to become significantly more personalized in their outreach. And it does vary depending on how transactional your business is, right? So you can have a very transactional business versus one that's much more kind of enterprise level where you're selling to those with an institutionalized buying process that's a totally different machine than a very, very transactional SDR motion. And you'll see even the way that it impacts AE roles, for example. So in a really, really transactional business, you might have what they call basically like full cycle AE's a full cycle AE, really, that just means you're everything from your SDR to your closer. I've seen a lot of companies try to roll that out in lieu of an SDR team like, oh, like this.

Laura Zwahlen [00:08:40]:
Let's try to drive efficiency through just having a, you know, let's do a full cycle AE that can actually work quite well. In a very transactional business, it does not work well when you start to kind of get up toward mid market and beyond, because it's not realistic to expect an AE to be able to do all those things right. Like, that's not, that's way, way too much. Um, and so I think you kind of look at, number one, is this a very transactional business? Is this more of a enterprise grade, institutionalized buying process type of a workflow? And ultimately, I think that kind of dictates how we approach our prospects that we're basically trying to sell into. I mean, at the end of the day, it's really on the company to make sure that we have a deep, deep understanding of who is our ICP. When I think about SGR teams and motions that have had a really hard time, it's where the company was still struggling to really dial down on what is our Icpenna. Because ultimately, if you're asking folks to go a level deeper and really get to know these prospects and have a deeper level of personalization, if you don't have your ICP dial, then you're sending them on a goose chase. And I've seen that happen multiple times.

Laura Zwahlen [00:09:43]:
There's a number of folks, actually, that jump to mind when I think about really strong prospectors in general. Some of them have been AE's, some of them have been sdRs, but they all share, I think, kind of the common trait. Massive, massive curiosity. The one that comes to mind is actually a. He was an SDR at the time. He then was promoted up to be a rep, which wasn't surprising, and now he's a leader. But it was somebody that was actually selling into me from gong, his. I mean, honestly, I couldn't not respond to this gentleman.

Laura Zwahlen [00:10:15]:
It was so obvious that he had spent so much time getting to know me outside of work, just based on what I post on LinkedIn and even some other social media outlets. So he actually knew, for example, that I had a rescue ranch. He knew I was a vegetarian. So he's able to take everything that he knew about me by the way that I interacted on social platforms to really form a very, very deeply articulate message. Where I was like, I gotta respond to this guy. Lo and behold, that was at Pantheon. Pantheon did in fact sign on Gong, and I'm a big proponent of the Gong platform. So I think over time we've kind of realized that that need to get more and more personalized.

Laura Zwahlen [00:10:53]:
It just seems to be going up and up and up. Because if I think about me on the receiving end of a lot of reach outs on literally a daily basis, the ones that I pay attention to, it's because they spark my interest, because clearly they know me on some level. Like, hey, I heard the podcast that you recorded on x date. Or hey, I noticed that you're a big proponent of this book. They've actually taken the time to get to know me as a person, to try to understand what actually is important to me and motivates me. I think that over the last decade, it's become significantly more important because there's so much noise in the system, it's tough to parse out. What do we actually pay attention to and what do we ignore? The only way to actually catch somebody's attention is by getting to know them and showing that you've taken the time to do that.

Brandi Starr [00:11:37]:
Yeah, and I, you know, it's funny, I'm in multiple executive CMO communities and almost everyone has some channel where people are ranting about the SDR reach outs and the utter fails that happen in, you know, simple things where it's like an attempt to personalize where, like, you know, they saw that you went to a particular school, so they ask about the football game without any understanding. If you've ever, you know, even watched football or if you care, you know, or it's like, because you appear to be of a certain age, they, you know, make some assumptions. And there is a lot of that that I would say where people are getting it wrong. And I definitely agree. The ones that I respond to are those ones that connect in that way. And there's been a handful that, you know, because of my title, I get reached out to a lot by companies that we couldn't use. Like, we're a 25 person consultancy. There's no office.

Brandi Starr [00:12:42]:
You know, there's like a number of reasons, but I'll often respond and be like, you nailed that. Like, I'm not your target audience, but if I was, I totally, you know, respond to you because this was such a great reach out.

Laura Zwahlen [00:12:56]:
Yeah.

Brandi Starr [00:12:57]:
And so what do you think makes the difference besides the effort? Because I do think, like, just the effort that the individual puts in, but thinking about it more systematically, what do you think is the difference between a good SDR team and a bad one?

Laura Zwahlen [00:13:17]:
So, a couple things. I think, number one, there has to be really clearly articulated process that every single person abides by. It's really interesting. I'm kind of, like, reflecting back to the SDR teams that I've inherited in the last decade. Very often, process was all over the place. And so when you think about operational efficiency, it was very, very clunky. So it's kind of like a toddler learning to walk with bricks attached to their feet, right. It was just slowing down.

Laura Zwahlen [00:13:48]:
So I think that's certainly one piece of it, for sure. And I think another piece of it, and I'm hugely passionate about this. For really every role in a revenue generating capacity, it's role clarity. Really, really strong SDR teams, I believe you have to have the bifurcation of functions. So, for example, you've got this very, very process oriented inbound lead flow, right? You've got marketing that's drumming up leads. Data tells us that if we don't respond to that MQL within basically under 1 hour timeframe, we have seriously, seriously dropped the ball. So there's that very heavy process element where it's like tight SLA's process. You are super on it.

Laura Zwahlen [00:14:30]:
I would refer to that as I'm saying, marketing response team. And then on the other side, you have the outbound motion, where you have sdrs that are actually out in the field, they're hunting. Oftentimes, those skill sets are mutually exclusive. And I've seen so many organizations, and I talked to so many of the revenue leaders where they're really struggling with the SDR team. One of the first questions they ask is, is there role clarity? Are you asking your sdrs both to manage MQL with a tight SLA? And you're telling that, Huntley, because if they're trying to do both of those, more often than not, one of those things gets ignored. One of the really interesting learnings for me, actually, at next role has been, I think was maybe one weekend. I asked the question. I was like, hey, help me understand.

Laura Zwahlen [00:15:11]:
For the leads that are coming in from marketing, we're spending all this effort bringing these leads in. What is our SLA? The answer at the time was 72 hours. I almost fell out of my chair at that point. They've already gone with a competitor. It's like, whoa. And then I started digging in. Hybrid role, there was no role clarity. There were no guardrails, no clear swim lanes.

Laura Zwahlen [00:15:32]:
Process was so there's a lot. There's a lot to be cleaned up there. So I think really kind of that process element, really that role clarity element, I think that's really, really important to best set everybody on the team up for success and recognizing that sometimes those skill sets, truly they are exclusive. You don't have to basically hire an SDR that walks on water. Cause that's gonna make hiring very difficult. If you hire somebody that's really processed SLA tight, great. And then somebody that has that hunting, I will run through a brick wall type of mentality to go out and prospect that actually can be incredibly effective. And I found, actually, my kind of thinking back, my strongest hunters in my career were actually not the ones that had the tightest sla on the marketing side of the house, but, man, could they hunt.

Laura Zwahlen [00:16:18]:
So it's just different DNA.

Brandi Starr [00:16:20]:
Yeah, I definitely have seen that. Because if you've got something coming from marketing, there's things that have already happened, and you have to respond to them fast, and you need to respond to them in context of, like, how did they get to you? Which is a different conversation that, you know, compared to someone who has to, like, drum up the person and spend the time doing the research. And there is a little bit more time that it takes to get some traction, more effort. You know, you're creating the narrative as opposed to, you know, being told where they've already engaged. And I can definitely see how those can be two very different people. Yep. Yeah. And that I do think that, you know, I'm definitely, I'm a process person.

Brandi Starr [00:17:08]:
I lead operations and marketing, so you're. You're definitely speaking to my heart with having those really, you know, really clear process of how we're going to do things. And I think that's a good shift in talking about AI. And so if I think about, say, five ish years ago, I remember where there was a technology that, and I don't even know if they still exist. I know they're not dominant anymore, but it was the equivalent of an AI SDR team. And you could, like, I remember when we were piloting it, we had to come up with a whole fictitious person, and we gave them a LinkedIn profile and all of the things. And it was intended to be able to interpret enough of the conversation that it can respond to get someone ready to actually talk to a live person. And, you know, we had a few clients that piloted it out as well.

Brandi Starr [00:18:10]:
And I, for the most part, it was not super effective. And it was, it was like this mentality that we could replace this. And I know that there are other companies that have had that effort. And, you know, I think so many people now are kind of in tune to it, so much. So I just had a situation where I got conflicting information from seemingly the same person who was emailing me. But one time they told me, yes, we can do this. Here's a link. The other time they said, no, it doesn't do this, but we could do some custom build for you.

Brandi Starr [00:18:45]:
And so I went to their chat and I was like, hey, is John Doe a real person or am I talking to someone from AI? Because I think they got it wrong and they were like, no, John's an actual real person. It's just sort of a communication mishap. But it is like, as a buyer, I am so much more sensitive to, like, let me talk to a human. You know, kind of like how we are with, like, phone systems where you have representative. So where do you see, because I do agree, you know, it was my very long winded way of saying, I don't see AI replacing SDR teams. Where do you see the best use of AI when it comes to that role?

Laura Zwahlen [00:19:37]:
Yeah. And there's, if you think about kind of the SDR, even an AE workflow, there's kind of so many stages along the funnel where you actually can leverage AI. And honestly, thinking back to my, my strongest reps, both SDRs and AE's, those that have actually leaned in to AI are, they're starting to take the lead. So I think it's actually a really, really important step. Step to take. It's a tool that can be used to make us better, but it's not obviously going to replace. So I think a couple of things. I think, again, going back to that task saturation, how do we remove some of that from the SDR workflow you can use? And there's a lot of really cool AI tools out there.

Laura Zwahlen [00:20:12]:
I won't rattle off a list, but they can be used at different points in the funnel. So you can use AI to basically identify high value leads for the SDR. I was thinking about, again, back to my comment about the Icpenna. How do we as a business best set these sdrs up for success? If we can basically leverage AI to surface those that actually have the best shot of converting into a sales qualified lead, they're going to be better suited. I've also seen AI used, and actually we did this at Liveramp. There was a, I don't know if I'd call it AI or not, that was kind of before AI, but when I think about kind of the way it was used, it sort of was AI, but it was basically a. A tool that we had built within our playbook, where literally you're on the phone with a customer, they basically present to you an objection. And real time, you would actually see the content pulled up on your screen from our playbook.

Laura Zwahlen [00:21:03]:
And so you could basically, right there in front of you, you've got the talking points. It was a pretty powerful tool, especially for SDR, is where they're still kind of wrapping their head around that objection. Handling muscle, et cetera, et cetera, that ultimately is needed if they're going to move into an AE role. So I think there's a lot of different kind of places around the funnel that you can use that AI component to both kind of prioritize the actual leads you're working on. You can fine tune your talk tracks. There's just. There's so many different kind of parts that I think would make the just kind of like a day in the life of the SDR significantly more pleasant than it was a few years ago. Even though things have gotten harder as it relates to what used to work doesn't really work anymore.

Laura Zwahlen [00:21:45]:
But that's just sales, right? It's always changing. I mean, it's what, the best advice I got in my career from somebody years ago was, you know, in sales, just have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. And the only consistent thing about. About being in sales is that it's consistently inconsistent. It's always changing. Right. Because the world's changing. We have to change with it.

Brandi Starr [00:22:04]:
Yeah, I would agree. And I know one thing. One place that I have seen AI used really effectively, especially for those hunters, is some of that research in understanding who you're talking to. And I got into a conversation and someone challenged me to do this for myself in just using chat GPT to, you know, act as if I was prospecting myself and getting chat GPT to, you know, feed it back so much about me. And my mind was blown, like, at how it pulled together both what I talk about online from a business perspective on into some of my personal, like, it pulled in some of my philosophies on dating. And it was like, what did I put out there that allowed, like, it was accurate? So, like, I couldn't be mad, but I was, like, trying to think of, like, where did I talk about this publicly that allowed it to pull in this information? And, like, you know, and it almost makes me that much more disappointed in the bad reach outs that I get because I'm like just a simple chat GPT query, you know, gives us so much relevant stuff about me. And so, like, that was one of those places that, you know, it was kind of, again, a similar conversation to this of like, how do SDRs leverage AI? And that was one of them that, that research can take a lot of time that can be streamlined there.

Laura Zwahlen [00:23:43]:
Absolutely. One, as you're kind of talking through it also brought one example of mine that was, it was really, really good. This was a recent event. We have a relatively, relatively new leader that has come on board to help out with some of the revenue facing teams. And this gentleman, he's always been an incredibly strong prospector. I mean, he's able to craft incredibly creative reach out, but it just resonates with people and that shows in his results. And one of the things he did very recently was to leverage AI to do exactly what you just described. He basically, we had a big prospect.

Laura Zwahlen [00:24:19]:
We knew we needed to get in front of their CMO. We could not get this person to respond to anything under the sun. He used AI to find out that this person had basically endorsed an author that had just released literally days prior, a new book. We bought him the book, shipped it to. Ultimately we got a meeting. And now that CMO is a huge advocate, not because of the book, but because we were able to get in front of him and show the value of the roleworks and next role platform. But it's that type of your point, like, holy smokes, AI can actually piece together and it's tough. It's content that you're like, where in the universe? They put that out there, but you did it at some point.

Laura Zwahlen [00:24:57]:
Right. And it's also a good reminder to be careful what you do put out into the universe. But they'll pull it all in. But yeah, it really is, to your point, poor reach outs. Now it's like, oof, it's even worse because it's actually, AI has made it that much easier.

Brandi Starr [00:25:14]:
Yeah. So I like to not, you know, I think we've laid a good foundation around, like why this is important and some of kind of the big picture things. If I'm listening, and I own the SDR team or BDR MDR, like, any of those roles, and I recognize that my team probably falls in the bucket of not as effective. What should I be thinking about and focusing on to really pull that together and improve both that effectiveness and efficiency.

Laura Zwahlen [00:25:54]:
Yeah. So a couple of things, I think. Number one, I think you really need to do a deep dive into what I would describe as like a day in a life of an SDR. So actually do a listening tour with your team. Where are they actually spending their time? Because the reality is a lot of it is going to be a lot of that heavy task saturation from there. When you look at where they're actually spending their time, you can actually figure out, okay, what are the specific strategies and tactics and even tooling I can deploy that will help address these things. And there's, again, there's a bazillion different cool AI functionality tools out there. I mean, there's one called Hemantech AI that's super powerful.

Laura Zwahlen [00:26:29]:
There's tact AI, there's sales directory AI. You could go on and on. And each of them have ways to start to poke away at some of this task saturation. I think a lot of it really involves as a leader taking a step back and drilling in with your teams, like, hey, where are you actually spending your time? Because I think what it tends to on earth is they're spending their time in ways that could be automated. And when you actually start to automate that stuff, you've given them back a huge chunk of their day. And that's at the end of the day, that's time is money, right? That helps you deliver a more material result.

Brandi Starr [00:27:05]:
I love that. And that is, I think, and that's just general good advice for anyone looking to deploy AI in any area of, you know, like your team in just looking at where are they spending their day to day time and how do we better automate that, make it more efficient, et cetera. Are there any places that you are seeing, like any parts of the workflow that you are seeing, like the biggest impact and time saver consistently in the organizations that you've worked with?

Laura Zwahlen [00:27:44]:
I think the biggest one is really how do we prioritize what leads need that personalized touch? Because personalizing it takes a lot of time and you have to kind of long gone is the day of just kind of spray and pray. When you send out a bazillion emails into the ether and you might get a hit or two like that, it flat out just doesn't work anymore. So by default, we know we have to be more personalized. That AI being able to actually understand the person that you're reaching out to, what makes them tick and what's going to resonate with them and help kind of prioritize, I think that's really, it's just, it's an incredibly powerful way to actually get your foot in the door, because that is, again, as a former SDR myself, I believe one of the hardest things to do is just to get that baby toe in the door. Once you get tiny, tiny bite, then from there it's. The rest is kind of a pill. It's just, it is really, really hard to get your foot in the door of an organization, especially a bigger organization.

Brandi Starr [00:28:39]:
Yeah. And that, that is a great point. And a lot of times, you know, the sort of, the larger the organization and the larger the value of what you're trying to sell, the harder the role is, you know, to get your, to get that door to be at least practiced.

Laura Zwahlen [00:28:56]:
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, internally, they've got gatekeepers. I mean, it's. That's literally what their job is. Right. And that's a whole separate podcast. But yeah, I mean, it's. There's some very interesting things there.

Brandi Starr [00:29:10]:
And so given that this isn't one of my areas of expertise, my last question is a bit of. I don't know what. I don't know. And so I always like to ask, is there anything that I haven't thought to ask you about that you feel important to share around the changing role of SDR teams, how they leverage AI, etcetera?

Laura Zwahlen [00:29:32]:
Yeah, that's a great question. One thing that I have a lot of passion about. So rewinding back about a decade, I ran field excellence at Liveramp, and I learned very quickly that sales enablement, it's really not about training. Training is a piece of it. It's really, it's 10% whatever training you put them through, and it's 90% driving adoption. And so whatever leaders are looking to do from kind of a tooling perspective, or maybe it's new specific strategies and tactics, it's really driving the adoption of those tools, et cetera. So you can roll out a tool and you can put people through a 1 hour training, and then everybody's going to fall on their face because nobody said anything after that. And so you have to have buy in at literally every single level of the organization.

Laura Zwahlen [00:30:20]:
So when I roll out a sales methodology framework, whether it's Sandler or Miller Hyman or MeDPic, it really, the actual framework doesn't matter as much as do I have buy in? And how are we actually going to drive adoption? And there's a lot of really interesting ways to drive adoption, through certification programs, et cetera. But so many organizations, they do invest in tooling. It's like, great, have this awesome new AI tool we're going to train everybody, and then boom, they're off and running. And then a year later, it's like, oh, it didn't work. It's like, well, it's not that it didn't work. It's that you don't really think through the enablement and adoption. So I think that that piece is certainly kind of part of this journey. It's not just, let's plop a pool on top of the team and they'll be good to go.

Laura Zwahlen [00:30:58]:
It's more complicated than that.

Brandi Starr [00:31:00]:
Yeah, I definitely agree there. And I mean, honestly, that is where I see most change. Failing is, you know, there's a lot of effort that goes into thinking through the planning and the rollout, but not much effort put towards the adoption, or it's too short of a period of time. It's like, you know, that adoption window is like, oh, the first 30 days, we're going to lean in really hard. But if, you know, if it doesn't really become a part of someone's day to day practice and they don't totally see the value, as soon as you stop talking about it, they stop using it.

Laura Zwahlen [00:31:36]:
Yep. Yeah.

Brandi Starr [00:31:38]:
Well, awesome. Talking about our challenges is just the first step, and nothing changes if nothing changes. And so in traditional therapy, the therapist will give the client some homework. But here at revenue rehab, we like to flip that on its head and ask you to give us some homework. And so I'd love to hear your one thing. For those people who are listening and what you said has resonated with them, what is that one thing, that first step that they should take next to help to effectively evolve the SDR role in their organization?

Laura Zwahlen [00:32:12]:
Yeah, I think, honestly, it's that inspection. It's taking the time to do a day in the life. I have done it in every organization, and I have taken the time to actually go down to the ground level. Where are these folks actually spending their time? Hour by hour, like, getting that granular? Because that's going to tell you exactly where you need to focus. Because the reality is not everything's broken. There's probably some things that are actually working quite well in the workflow, but that can obfuscate what actually is not working. It's a balance. Right.

Laura Zwahlen [00:32:44]:
So by actually doing a day in the life and going very, very deep, hour to hour, that will tell the leader where they actually need to be focusing. And then from there, when you discover, okay, here's what is broken. What specific AI capabilities can I leverage to fix this? Okay.

Brandi Starr [00:33:00]:
Yeah, I love, you know, sort of taking stock of what's happening is generally always a great first step. And I think, you know, the way that you talked about that, doing that deep dive day in a life will provide lots of insights in terms of what's working, what's not. And you know, if nothing else, you're hearing firsthand from those people who are doing the job, you know, what they're doing, where they're spending their time, where they have challenges, which always gives some insight, whether it's solved by AI or not.

Laura Zwahlen [00:33:29]:
Absolutely. Yep.

Brandi Starr [00:33:31]:
Well, Laura, I have enjoyed our discussion, but that's our time for today. But before we go, tell our audience how they can connect with you and definitely give the shameless plug for the rescue ranch.

Laura Zwahlen [00:33:46]:
Yeah, absolutely. So I probably best reached via LinkedIn. I'm on there all day, every day, so you can hit me up on LinkedIn. You can also just do my email, just. Laura swalenxtrolled.com the rescue ranch, it's been eye opening, I think, animal welfare, I've always had a big heart for animals. I knew I wanted to help, but I didn't really know how to best leverage myself as a resource for them. And I think animal welfare is one of those things where you see both the. The best in humanity and also the worst, depending on the situation.

Laura Zwahlen [00:34:22]:
So it's been a very humbling journey. We've taken in about 100 different animals. There are 18 of them that are permanent residents of the rescue ranch, and they all have unique stories. I know each one by name, but I would say the journey and kind of where we are today, I think the best impact and really the most profound one has been to see the impact these animals have had on my children and the empathy that has developed. I think empathy is. It's a lost art these days. And so by seeing that really come out in my own children through helping, is incredibly impactful. My husband retired from his data science role at Logitech to run the rescue ranch and to be a stay at home dad, which I think is incredibly admirable.

Laura Zwahlen [00:35:07]:
And so for our family, it's just been a very. It's been a very humbling blessing. But it's definitely been a blessing that.

Brandi Starr [00:35:15]:
Is amazing, especially when you can do something good for the world and also see how it positively impacts your own family, is such a win win. During the pandemic, we did a lot of virtual socials to keep everyone connected, and there's a rescue ranch that our CRO is connected to. Um, and they, you know, they brought the animals on. We had a zoom. And we got to, like, you know, they did the cameras out on the farm and, you know, brought some of the animals, and it was. It was just like, at first when, you know, he was like, yeah, we're going to, you know, have a virtual animal visit. I was like, I don't understand. Why are we.

Brandi Starr [00:35:57]:
Yeah, like, why are we going to look at animals on zoom? Like, I don't understand why we would do this. And then I was so sad when it was over. Like, wait, come back.

Laura Zwahlen [00:36:09]:
Yeah, it's. We actually did. We did a live ramp sales kickoff one year out of the ranch, and it was so nice because you think about sales kickoffs usually, like, they're in Vegas. You'd, like, spend all day in a hotel conference room, and you come out of the trip exhausted. This was a very different vibe. And we had people doing breakout groups in the barn outside. Like, it just. You think differently when you're in a different environment and just to be surrounded by animals, it's.

Laura Zwahlen [00:36:35]:
The best way I've ever heard of describing a horse is horses are a direct reflection of their handler, which that's why they use horses and, like, for PTSD, et cetera. But it was for me, as an individual, when I think about my own growth, that needs to happen, both as a professional, but also as a human being and as a mom. Horses in particular have been very helpful to me because whatever I'm projecting, I see mirrored back, even if I don't realize that that's what I'm putting out of the universe. So it's fascinating. They are a direct reflection of you, which can be pretty humbling, to be honest.

Brandi Starr [00:37:07]:
Interesting, as I say. Now I gotta go learn more about horses.

Laura Zwahlen [00:37:14]:
Yeah, I'm still learning, and it's been a decade of doing this work, and we're still kind of on the steep learning curve because they are remarkable but delicate creatures.

Brandi Starr [00:37:24]:
Well, yeah, no, I'm glad we got a chance to just talk about that a bit, because I do find it really, really interesting. And we will definitely make sure to link to your LinkedIn and link to the rescue ranch in case, you know, anybody else is curious about what you're doing as well. So I really, really appreciate you joining me.

Laura Zwahlen [00:37:46]:
Of course. It's great to meet you. I appreciate the time.

Brandi Starr [00:37:48]:
Nice to meet you as well, and thanks, everyone, for joining me. I hope you have enjoyed my discussion with Laura. I can't believe we're at the end. Until next time.