87. Noah Sturm︱How Augment Redefines B2B Sales with Relationships, Empathy & AI

Episode Transcript
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Noah Sturm (00:00):
Everything we did in our division within Accenture.
A lot more of it could havebeen done with technology rather
than bodies, and I felt likethere was an opportunity in the
market to do things differently,because when we were with
Accenture, we were running 330go-to-markets on a daily basis,
and so we got this huge view ofall of the challenges that the

(00:20):
G2000 and large enterprise andmid-market companies were having
, because we had that visibilityinto the way that we ran their
business, the technology stacksthat they were using and some of
the implications that had inthe way that their customers
purchased their product and theway that their customers felt
about the brand in general.
And so I always felt like therewas a better way to execute B2B
sales.
And I think the thing that wasclosest and nearest dearest to

(00:43):
my heart, which is relationshipsit was existent in the mission
statement with Augment.
At Augment AI, we are focused onmaking your customers your best
salespeople, and what thatcomes down to is durable
relationships.
So what I mean by durablerelationships in general is how
do you have a relationship witha customer or with a prospect

(01:04):
that's strong enough to getthrough some of the challenging
times and the ups and downs thatexist inside of a sales cycle
and inside of a customerrelationship, and so that part
of the journey for me feltnatural when I had the
opportunity to leave.
And the other thing that reallyintrigued me about our
technology and what we weredoing is it was learning
situational awareness.
The AI native technology islearning the way I do things and

(01:27):
how I do them and when I dothem and where I do them and
what I do in those situations,and I just thought that was the
coolest concept that there wasthis opportunity and time for
all of my knowledge and all ofmy experience to be embedded
inside of a technology platform.
So I felt like there's nobetter time than now to take
that chance.

Klara J. (01:50):
Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the
Grand Slam Journey podcast,where we discuss various things
related to the Grand Slamjourney of our lives sports,
life after sports, and lessonswe have learned from our
athletic endeavors and how we'reapplying them in the next
chapter of our lives.
This journey, and more, is truefor my today's guest, Noah
Sturm, senior Vice President ofSales and Revenue at Augment.

(02:11):
Noah has had a fascinating lifejourney full of experiences
thus far and I'm super curiousto see what he and the Augment
team will continue to buildgoing forward.
In this episode, we cover manytopics related to his
unstructured upbringing,building resilience through hard
times and challenges, and howthat helped shape him into being

(02:34):
the sales leader he is today,grounded in empathy, true
relationships and care for hisclients to deliver trust and
credibility.
This episode is also availableon my Grand Slam Journey YouTube
channel.
Feel free to tune in If youenjoyed this episode.
I would appreciate if you couldleave a review on Apple
Podcasts, spotify or any otherpodcasting platform.

(02:57):
You listen to this episode andperhaps share it with a friend
who you believe may enjoy it aswell.
This is your host, klaraYagoshova.
Thank you for tuning in andenjoy the listen.
Hello, noah, fearless Leader,welcome to the Grand Slam
Journey podcast.
How are you?

Noah Sturm (03:14):
I'm doing amazing.
Thank you so much, klara.
I appreciate you having me.
It's a beautiful day here inColorado.
I think it's going to be 96degrees, so we are warming up
quickly here, yeah.

Klara J. (03:24):
It's going to be 96 degrees, so we are warming up
quickly here.
Yeah, you guys have warm.
It's been actually cooler herein Texas today, although we got
some showers, so that alwayshelps.
It's been good summer for theTexas summer.
I'll take it so far, sohopefully we'll stay that way,

(03:47):
and I'm so thrilled to have thisconversation with you.
I've shared, actually, with afew friends who are super
excited to tune in and hear yourGrand Slam journey from golf
through sales excellence to whatyou're now building at Augment
AI.
So brief intro from me You'rethe SVP of sales and revenue at
Augment AI, but actually how weknow each other is because you
were my people lead at Accentureand you spent there four years

(04:08):
scaling business for manydifferent clients.
If there were an award, youwould for sure get one from Inua
for the best people lead andmanager with the shortest amount
of time.
I really hoped to learn morefrom you, but I can't blame you.
You had some exciting thingshappening in your life and

(04:29):
there's been a lot actually thathas happened the past year.
Overall, I know you're growingyour family, your golf game and
new business at the same time,which are three exciting things.
I want to dive into all ofthose to a degree today, but let
me pause there and I want tohand it back over to you.
Anything you want to dive intoall of those to a degree today,
but let me pause there and Iwant to hand it back over to you
.
Anything you want to add to theintroduction you would like the

(04:50):
listeners to know about youWell, I think, first of all,
that was the best award I thinkI've ever won.

Noah Sturm (04:55):
It might be one of the first awards I've won for
that quick of time that we hadtogether.
But the thing, Clara, that Ilearned from you was empathy.
You're one of the mostempathetic people I know when it
comes to business, when itcomes to life.
You've always given yourclients a resounding sounding
board, and that's what youprovided me.
So the easiest job I ever didat Accenture was being your
people lead, because what I gotnot only to learn was more about

(05:17):
you, but also the way that youmanage clients, the way that
you're a rock star, the way thatyou kick ass when it comes to
leading the charge, not only forAccenture but in life, and the
way that you handle things.
So I'm looking forward todiving into all subjects, but
mostly diving into subjectsaround things that you and I are
most keenly interested in,which are sports, work, sales
and life.

Klara J. (05:37):
Yeah, and on the sales note, actually I do want to
start and insert here you havebuilt a reputation for yourself
as the expert seller, and that'snot just at Accenture but also
before that at N3.
So some of your colleagues havetold me, after even you have
left, that one of the bestthings that your leader at N3,
Andrew, did was to hire you.

(05:59):
So there goes an anonymouscompliment from our mutual
colleagues or former mutualcolleagues.
But diving in maybe a littlebit even deeper and going back,
I'm always curious about myguests.
Where they grew up, what wastheir upbringing like and what
are some of the key things yousee shaped you for the passion

(06:19):
you have had.

Noah Sturm (06:21):
Yeah, absolutely so.
I was born in Florida.
Oddly enough, I was bornoutside of Boca Raton in Fort
Lauderdale to my mom and dad.
My dad was a journeyman.
He was actually a founder andentrepreneur most of his life on
the psychology side of theworld he did and built companies
that focused on personalityassessments that were used by
companies like LinkedIn,matchcom and a ton of other

(06:43):
businesses.
I always say he was a geniusthought leader and was not a
business executive, so there wasa two really kind of distinct
paths for him, and I think youknow what I really learned from
him, outside of just creativityand kind of thinking about the
world and business, was to nevergive up.
My dad was a fearless believerin his children and in their

(07:03):
capabilities, and so, even as akid growing up, nothing was
unattainable.
No dream was too large, noopportunity was too big, no
imaginative approach was toowide.
I grew up in a family of four,but my dad was married three
times.
I have six older sistersranging from the ages of now 38

(07:24):
to 60.
And so we have a wide range,wide family.
My dad kept all three of thosedifferent families together
under one roof.
I was raised with, I would say,five different mothers, and then
, as I got older, my sister grewup six to seven different
mothers, all with differentopinions on what I should do
with my life, all with differentways of approaching it, all

(07:45):
with different opinions on mydating life, personal life,
business life, everything youcan imagine.
But growing up I washomeschooled, which I thought
really gave me an interestingperspective.
My mom was my teacher.
I spent the majority of thetime in a classroom, either
snorkeling, fishing, playingsoccer, doing things that I
really loved to do.
There really was a much lessstructured environment than most

(08:07):
kids grew up in and I thinkthat really helped me grow into
a person that's able to thrivein unstructured environments and
really build structure aroundthe things that I wanted.
But my sister and I were bothvery competitive growing up.
She was a far better athletethan I am.
I hate to admit that out loud,but she was.
She was a much better athletethan I was.
She was a better athlete,better learner, probably a

(08:28):
little bit smarter than I.
But you know, she and I havealways kind of competed
throughout our lives ondifferent things.
But the one thing that we havealways kind of held true and
kind of stuck together with isthere were some really
challenging times in our familygrowing up.
My mom was diagnosed with stagefour breast cancer when we were
I was probably 13.
We had moved to California aspart of our journey.

(08:50):
We moved from Florida toCalifornia to be closer to my
uncle, who's a corporateexecutive as well, and you know
my mom ended up going throughstage four breast cancer.
I'll give you one other nuggetgrowing up we were homeopathic,
which is interesting, so Ididn't eat meat or sugar until I
was 10 years old, and so Ialways say like the most

(09:11):
interesting thing about me, ifyou know me, you know me.
I am six four now, but Igraduated high school at five
four and so I grew a footbetween 17 and 18.
And a lot of that was because Iwas on an all organic diet, no
hormones, no additives oranything like that.
So it was a later bloom interms of growth and things like
that.
But yeah, I think one of thethings that really shaped my

(09:32):
sister and I in terms of ourperspective as well as in being
resilient, is going through thatkind of four or five years
where my mom was going throughpretty severe chemotherapy
treatment and radiology andthings like that and I think it
brought not only our family alittle bit closer together but
it also created this void in thefamily.
Where I was 14, going intofreshman year of high school, my

(09:53):
sister had just finished herfirst year of college.
She dropped out of college,came home and take care of my
mom, and so we kind of had allof these things kind of bubble
up inside of the family and ourfirst journey moving forward.
And I think a lot of that iswhat built the resiliency not
only in sales but in life andraising a family, and I think a
lot of the way that I look toraise my son and the way I look

(10:14):
at relationships I learned frommy father and from those tough
times with my mom.

Klara J. (10:19):
Yeah, and what a dynamic upbringing.
I want to go even a little bitdeeper, because there's just so
much, please do.
Number one I don't know howyour dad mastered to actually
get all of the wives and familyunder one house.
That just seems like amazingundertaking.

Noah Sturm (10:37):
The kids, the kids, the wives were in separate
places, but all of the kids heraised there was no like half
sister, step sister environmentin our family.
It was all.
These are my dad's kids andyeah, it was awesome.

Klara J. (10:49):
And just your upbringing seems like you being
homeschooled and having a lot ofdifferent hobbies and learning
through those differentendeavors and passions, assuming
that they gave you a little bitof intuition or things to
explore of what you actuallyenjoy doing and what you're good
at.

Noah Sturm (11:07):
Absolutely.
I mean, I always say that, likewhat homeschooling actually
taught me was that you couldlearn anything.
I think one of the things thatlike creativity is killed in
kids because you end up in thisvery structured environment
inside of school, inside of lifelike you're going to, you know,
bouncing around all thesedifferent events.
I lived a very chaotic,creative life where I was either

(11:29):
fishing for alligators in theFlorida ponds which my mom was
never happy about or, you know,I used to build nets out of like
fishing line and then use thoseto like catch all these
different things and then drawthem and do all this stuff.
And so, you know, one of thethings that my wife and I always
talk about now is like and mysister, you know, oddly enough,
she just moved her whole familyto Mexico because she felt like

(11:51):
the life that she and the waythat she was raised wasn't being
represented in theopportunities here in Colorado
and in the U S, and so she movedmy eight-year-old niece and her
family to Mexico to live on thebeach and go back to kind of
how we grew up.
But yeah, that upbringingreally taught me a few things.
One was the passions that I had.
I mean I got to explorepassions with golf, with soccer,

(12:12):
with baseball, with sports, butalso just an adventure I mean I
can't tell you how manydifferent parks and different
quarries and differentswamplands that we got to
explore.
We were always on the go with mymom.
She was really focused ongetting us out, showing us new
things, doing different stuff,and I can remember as a kid we
had all of the pictures of thesnakes on our refrigerator and

(12:35):
every morning my mom and I wouldwake up and she would go red on
yellow, kill that fellow red onblack, put them back, yada,
yada y yada, because I had anaffinity for picking up random
snakes as we would be walkingaround different areas and so
she was always worried that Iwas going to pick a poisonous
one up, which you know happeneda few times.
But yeah, I would.

(12:55):
You know there was like this.
You know, it's like thisconstant learning of everything
else.
Um, you know, there were someside effects.
Later in life I would alwayssay, like you, I got to college
and in high school and thingslike that.
Kids were more advanced atschool, like the actual
curriculum style, like testtaking and things like that, and
writing and reading were alwaysa little bit more of a
challenge for me.

(13:15):
But I would give those thingsup any single day to go back to
snorkeling and fishing every day, even today.

Klara J. (13:21):
I agree 100%.
Actually, I don't think I'veshared this before, but when I
was finishing up school, I wasgraduating.
I did my MBA within like a yearor a year and a half because I
took some of the advancedclasses in my undergrad and if I
would not have finished thatDecember I would have just quit
because I felt like the onlything school teaches you is to
like follow the process, which Ithink what school is good for.

(13:44):
School teaches you is to likefollow the process, which I
think what school is good forand for, whatever it's worth.
I actually was really good atit.
I've always was good figuringout what the teacher wants and,
through those lectures, kind offigure out what the test will be
about.
So I've always had A's, but Ithink it was mostly because I
understood the professors andwhat they taught.
But I always felt there's somuch smarter kids in the class

(14:07):
than me.
They just weren't good at thetest taking.
And so the school thing is just.
I felt like it was the biggestI'm going to use the word
straight up bullshit sometimesBecause if you just know how to
follow the school rules, you'regoing to have an A and if you're
not the sort of school,whatever that means.
The rules, yeah, I don't thinkit teaches anything really smart

(14:28):
for life.
I mean, those are degrees thatpeople often wave around, but
I've myself obviously I say itmany times learned much more
from sports than I have from mycollege years.

Noah Sturm (14:40):
Absolutely.
You know it's funny.
I used to always say this.
I was in a fraternity incollege.
I used to always tell theyounger guys in the fraternity
you don't have to haveeverything figured out in life
in college.
The point of college is to haveas much fun as possible, learn
some new things, potentiallyidentify a path forward that you
want to go explore.
But the reality is that almostnobody figures out what they

(15:01):
want to do for the rest of theirlife in college.
Like when you go talk toexecutives and you listen to
their stories.
You know, I was just recentlywith a CRO who has a background
in molecular biology.
Right Now he's runninggo-to-market teams.
So you know, you never know whatyou're going to be doing in
life when you're in college, andso I always recommend to young
people that I talk to go explore.
You know, go fail, learn how tofail.

(15:23):
Learn what it feels like tofail.
Learn what it feels like tosucceed.
Learn what it feels like tohave fun.
Learn what it feels like to getyour heart broken.
Like go have all of theexperiences you can while you're
young, because reality is islife catches up to you and busy
work does as well.
Some of that creativity thatyou once had as you know, a
younger person you have to learnhow to kind of muster it up

(15:43):
again and identify how to do it.

Klara J. (15:45):
Yeah, and network right.
I think that's the one thing.

Noah Sturm (15:49):
Oh yeah.

Klara J. (15:49):
I think that's the number one thing that school
gives you like access to a lotof people and you can actually
try to test who you fit with orwho don't, even from business
perspective, I think that isreally the number one benefit.
Try to meet as many people asyou can.

Noah Sturm (16:05):
Yeah, I was a bartender at a local cocktail
bar in college in Davis,california, called Bistro, which
just closed.
I was there for a weddingrecently.
Sadly enough, they closed it,but that's where all of the
executives that worked either inSacramento or San Francisco
that lived in Davis would go forcocktails Friday and Saturday,
and so I would serve thesepeople all the time and we'd
have discussions.

(16:25):
They'd always be asking me whatI wanted to do in life and it's
funny, like the most networkingI've ever done in my life has
been working in a bar.

Klara J. (16:33):
I can imagine.

Noah Sturm (16:34):
Yeah.

Klara J. (16:34):
That's interesting and fun fact.
Next time I meet you, you needto craft me some cool cocktail.
I need to get some tricks fromyou.
Do you still have anythingfavorite that you mix?
What's your favorite cocktail?

Noah Sturm (16:46):
Right now I'm making a Prickly Pear Mezcal spritzer,
which is very good, and thenI've always been known.
A little bit of the smokinesswith the mezcal, yeah, a little
bit of the smoky with the mezcalthis time of year, I would say
my favorite cocktail.
I don't know what we called it,but it's St Germain lemon juice
, gin and sparkling water andthat's it.

(17:06):
Maybe a little bit of honey ifyou're lucky, but just something
like really light, refreshing,smooth.
They go down easy.
They're great in a hot summerand you can drink more than one,
which is my favorite style ofcocktails.

Klara J. (17:19):
That sounds awesome.
I feel like you should startnew LinkedIn posts like every
Friday.
Probably do Like a cocktailrecipe that I can follow and try
myself.
I think that would be fun.

Noah Sturm (17:29):
I will start that next week, clara, and then, if
you're the only one that likesit, I'll continue it.

Klara J. (17:34):
That's worked for me Cool, I'll just follow it.
That's like all right.
What do I have to buy in totalwines?
What am I missing to make?

Noah Sturm (17:40):
this.
I will make it happen.

Klara J. (17:50):
Yeah, I mean it's it's .
My wife always says thatthere's two routes to my heart
One's through red wine and theother one's through a martini,
and those are my two passions.
Well, from fun alcohol topic tothe other big one.
You had mentioned your momhaving cancer and uh, I have
gone through put somethingsimilar with my grandpa and I
can imagine just especially that, something about the 13, 14
years old and seeing your lovedone going through it.

(18:11):
It literally took me decades,if that long, to actually get
over it.
And just my grandpa had a.
Well, he smoked at the time,everybody smoked, so he had a
lung cancer.
But when you actually seesomebody you love going through
that every day, and just thechemo, even back at the time,

(18:31):
was much, much different than itis even now just managing the
side effects and everythingSomebody you love I can't
imagine how hard that must havebeen for you and your sister.
How did you manage all of that?
I can't imagine how hard thatmust have been for you and your
sister.

Noah Sturm (18:45):
Yeah.

Klara J. (18:45):
How did you manage all of that?
And I guess I'm going to foldin the understanding of the
empathy that you have had sinceday one we have met.

Noah Sturm (18:54):
I would say I didn't manage it and I think that's
part of what led to some of thechallenges I went through kind
of earlier than most people ishow I would describe it.
I think I ran away from it.
So just for clarity on thepodcast, my mom beat cancer.
It took her about four years.
She ended up in remission.
She's still in remission.
She lives 10 blocks from me.
She spends half the year withme and half the year with my

(19:15):
sister.
So my dad was an older gentleman.
He had me when he was, I think,52.
And so he was older and just ingeneral by the time I he was in
his mid to late 60s when thiswas going on and so I kind of
always had this feeling thatthere was potential that I was
going to lose both of thempretty early on in my life.
And I think I kind of ran awayfrom that feeling in general

(19:36):
that my mom and sister spent alot of time in San Francisco
going through the chemotreatments, being there for my
mom and a lot of the time thatthey were there I was spending
time with friends or bouncingaround different houses and
doing things like that so that Icould stay on a sports team and
that I could stay in highschool so I didn't have to leave
all the time, and things likethat.
But yeah, I think the hardestpart about going through any of

(19:57):
those things right is theunknown that exists with it.
You know, you just never know.
I mean, I've had friends who'velost loved ones where the
outlook was really good whenthey first started and then two
or three years later they hadpassed away and vice versa.
The outlook for my mom wasreally bad and she was very
fortunate and ended up survivingand was in remission.

(20:20):
But yeah, I think for me I ranaway from that feeling and I ran
away from the responsibility ofreally, I would say, being
there.
I was a little bit too youngand going through a lot of stuff
as a young man and I definitelyhave some regret in the way
that I handled some of that.
I would say Now, with my mom asmy neighbor.
I'll tell you a funny story.
So I moved to Colorado to becloser to my mom.

(20:40):
That was one of the reasons Imoved here.
I wanted to be closer to my momand my sister and I had the
opportunity to buy my mom ahouse about four years ago.
And then I had the opportunityto buy the house next door to my
mom, and so my mom and I wereneighbors, literal neighbors,
for almost three years, twoyears.
And so when I met my wife, shewas like where do you own this
house?
And I was like my mom and Ilive in this duplex.

(21:01):
I live on one side and shelives on the other.
And so my wife was like youlive three feet away from your
mom.
That's, you know, that's yeahright, yeah so that's like I
would say that's my fun fact,but no, going through the cancer
stuff with my mom.
I think it just put it intoperspective that my mom was one
of the healthiest people youwould ever meet, like she didn't

(21:21):
drink, she didn't smoke, sheate like clean as you can
imagine.
And for someone like that tostill get cancer and to get sick
.
You realize that.
You know it's really up to yourgenetics in some way in terms
of exposures, one, what you doto yourself is another, but then
the other one is just what yourgene pool is.

Klara J. (21:39):
Yeah, Obviously I've gone through something similar,
just myself.
Obviously was the best case.
I'm cancer-free now.
It was a very quick process.
But it definitely makes yourealize that, like I'm like, I
eat all organic stuff, I orderall my food from like grass-fed,
regenerative farms, I do mycold plunges, I work out every

(22:01):
day and obviously I get skincancer.
That is now in my family.
Actually, my grandpa also hadmelanoma back in every day and
obviously I get skin cancer.
That is now in my family.
Actually, my grandpa also hadmelanoma back in the day.
But yeah, it's funny, it doesmake you realize that you never
truly know how much time youhave, because things may happen
and so you must make the bestout of it and take chances when

(22:21):
they come to you.

Noah Sturm (22:22):
Yeah, I would say that the four years that my mom
was going through cancer, I'vespent the last 15 years making
up for my behavior.
That's how I would describewhat happened during the time my
mom was going through cancer.
I was definitely a wild card.
I was definitely doing a lot ofthe wrong stuff, but I always
look at it as that time in mylife not only kind of shaped me

(22:45):
to the person I am today,because I did stuff that most
kids did in their later lives.
You know, I went through abunch of things that most people
would never go through and alot of it just made me fearless
in terms of the nextconversation, being able to walk
into a room and have a presence.
A lot of that fearless behaviorthat I feel like I exude comes
from those four or five yearsthat I am still making up for

(23:09):
now.

Klara J. (23:11):
Well, I think what you're highlighting and that
builds on your background reallyhow you were brought up is like
this experimentation andlearning through trying
different things.
That builds, I think, more thananything, self-awareness and
because you get to test whatdoes and doesn't fit, and who
you may want to be or not,whether you're doing consciously

(23:31):
or subconsciously, I think thatroute sort of takes you through
different things that you'reable to then tweak and change
your path, and so, on that note,golf I have read, actually, a
beautiful post recently, also onyour LinkedIn, about your dad,
who inspired you, I believeearly on, with some of the
passions towards picking up golfand you were aspiring to be a

(23:54):
personal golf player.
How did that start, and tell mea little bit more about your
golf passion?

Noah Sturm (23:59):
I got a golf passion because my soccer passion ended
.
So actually, growing up, soccerwas my marquee sport.
My dad was a scratch golfer formuch of my younger years.
He had a stroke, a prettysevere stroke, when I was about
eight years old, and so that wasthe last time that my dad and I
ever really played together ishow I would describe it.
Like he was still mobile, hecould walk, but he lost a lot of

(24:19):
that balance that he once hadwhen we were younger.
So I can remember playingsoccer with him in the backyard
and then, about eight or nineyears old, that was kind of the
last time that we played, and sohe was always my biggest coach
and supporter.
And you know and this is goingto get me teared up it's
interesting to grow up that waybecause you have someone who
believes in you so strongly,like anything you wanted to

(24:44):
accomplish is what he used tosay to me.
He's like you could play socceroverseas, you could go play in
Europe, you could do this, youcould do that, and I believed
him and I was on the US Olympicdevelopment team growing up
until I was about 15.
And then I went through thiskind of when my mom had cancer.
I went through this realizationof going down the wrong path,
doing a bunch of other stuff,and I kind of lost motivation

(25:06):
around competing again, and so Iended up dropping out of high
school at 17.
And I went to a secondaryschool, got my diploma and then.
So I was 16 to 17 years old,and then I went and worked at a
golf course full time.
Because I said to my dad I saidI want to be a pro golfer and
he said you can do whatever youwant.
It's your choice.
If you want to drop out of highschool, go ahead.

(25:27):
And so I made the decision toleave high school junior year
and actually went and practicedand played full-time as a junior
golfer.
And so I worked at a golfcourse.
That passion started burninginside of me.
I played alongside of the likesof people on PGA Tour now, like
Bryson DeChambeau and severalothers in the California Junior

(25:48):
Circuit.
And then my real goal was toplay in college.
I was the number two golfer atCabrillo College, which was like
the number one in the state forjunior college at the time.
And so what golf taught me ingeneral is that life is hard and
so is golf.
My real goal was to make it onthe professional circuit and
play professional golf and Ifelt like I had a really good
chance.

(26:08):
I was always qualifying for theright tournaments, I was
playing really well in some ofthe more competitive places.
And then in college my dadpassed away when I was 19 or 20.
I was going into my second yearat Cabrillo and he passed and
there was something that changedin the sport for me and this is

(26:29):
where the passion exists nowand I kind of ran away from it.
But what my dad always offeredme was a shoulder to cry on, an
arm to lean on and then also asmack on the back to get back in
there and go play and work yourass off.
But the reality was is thatafter he was lost, that drive,
motivation and kind of having asounding board not only for life

(26:50):
but also for golf really took adifferent turn for me.
I kind of lost the motivationon a lot of different things for
about a year.
I ended up finishing up my yearsat Cabrillo College.
I got an education scholarshipto UC Davis and so I took that
with the goal of playing sportsat UC Davis.
And when I got to Davis I justrealized I didn't have it in me

(27:11):
anymore, and so I gave up golf.
I didn't pick up a golf clubfor, oh man, it was almost seven
years, seven and a half years.
And then I moved to Colorado,met a really good friend of mine
who caddied for me in the mostrecent tournament, and I started
playing again for fun.
And then, about 15 to 18 monthsago, I decided that there was

(27:32):
something I wanted to prove, notonly to myself but also to my
son, with him being born inOctober, which was you can't
just give up on your dreams justbecause someone else isn't
there to help, support you andbe there for you.
You have to be able to beresilient enough to go, chase
the things that are unknown,break through the barriers that
hurt and identify a better pathforward on what your real

(27:53):
mission is and what your goalsare, and whether or not anything
comes of it.
Now, for me, it's aboutpersevering through the fact
that you know, although my dad'snot there to be with me every
single day, he's there in spiritto watch me do something that
he would have been proud of.

Klara J. (28:09):
I love that.
I feel like we should clip this.
I'm going to clip it out andyou can give it to your son to
listen as he's growing every daySeems like to be the same
motivational speaker that yourdad has been for you, and I can
imagine just how hard it is.
Yeah, being almost at the peak,you continue to grow your game

(28:31):
and then you lose something andjust that deep sorrow that comes
with that, especially in theearlier 20s.
I think we're still quiteimmature, or I was for sure.
I don't think I still knew howto control my emotions at that
point, even through tennislosses.
And just this on top of allelse.

(28:52):
Yeah, I can imagine.

Noah Sturm (28:54):
I was hanging out with the wrong crowd.
At the same time, I lost threefriends between the age of 16
and 19 to either gang violenceor drugs or drunk driving,
things like that, and so youknow there was a lot of other
things going on in my life.
My mom would always say that Iwas living two different worlds,
like I'd be playing in golftournaments during the day and

(29:15):
then at night I'd be doingwhatever, and my dad was such an
interesting man in the factthat he used to always tell me
that I don't care what you do, Ijust want you to be the best at
it.
It doesn't matter to me whatyou do, I don't care what avenue
you go down, what road you take.
I'd love for you to be safe andnot do stupid things, but if

(29:36):
you're going to do stupid things, be the best at them.
I always thought that was themost interesting way to raise a
kid, which is just like whateveryou're going to do, I just want
you to be the best at it.
That's all that matters to me.
I will take some of that Did.

Klara J. (29:49):
freedom of choice that he gave you In many ways.
I think that's very rare.
It reminds me of thisMontessori type of upbringing
that is very in right now.
But it's like figure out whoyou want to be and go after it
with your full heart and soul.

Noah Sturm (30:05):
Yeah, 100%, and that's when I talk about
unstructured environments.
That was my upbringing with mydad and my mom was like whatever
we wanted to do, like whateverour heart desired within means,
right, there's always, like youknow, things that you weren't
allowed to do, but, like I thinkit was always so interesting
that my dad was so focused onthe fact of just, I don't care
what you do, I just want you tobe the best at it, I want you to

(30:29):
be fully bought in, committedto doing it, waking up every
single day, being committed togetting things done, and that
carries over to my life now in apositive way.
It was a very interesting wayto grow up, for sure.

Klara J. (30:36):
Well, and that definitely carries over to
really your profession too, insales and being the top seller
at Accenture, at NN3, and nowscaling Augment AI as well.
But I'm sure nothing is thateasy.
Again, you have to practiceyour skills.
So how was that addition fromthe Gulf?
And yeah, lead me in into howyou transition into sales and

(31:00):
what are you?
Seeing.
Some of the similarities ordifferences are from the mindset
perspective.

Noah Sturm (31:05):
Yeah, absolutely so.
When I was in college I had noidea what I wanted to do and I
was probably the least preparedperson to graduate college.
Everyone else had everythingfigured out.
They knew they wanted to get ajob here, they were going to a
tech job in San Francisco or SanJose, et cetera.
I had always worked, I'vealways been, I would always been
bartending, I'd always had ajob.
So, like everybody else wastrying to figure out what they

(31:26):
wanted to do, I wanted to figureout who I wanted to be and how
I wanted to live my life andkind of where I wanted to live
my life.
And so I ended up getting a fewtech jobs in the San Francisco
Bay Area and I had theopportunity to come visit my
sister in Colorado for her firstchild and I never left.
So I ended up sleeping on acouch and then in a friend's

(31:47):
parent's basement for threemonths while I figured out what
I wanted to do.
I always knew I wanted to be insales.
From the day I was born untilnow I knew I wanted to be in
sales.
And the reason I wanted to bein sales is because I'm a people
person.
I am an extrovert, I loveconversation, people person.
I am an extrovert.
I love conversation.
I love learning things aboutpeople.
I truly enjoy buildingrelationships with other human

(32:10):
beings and starting tounderstand and this probably
goes back to my dad reallyunderstanding the way that they
react to information, the waythey think about things, the way
their personality matches, theway that things shift as
conversations get morechallenging.
I've always really enjoyed thehuman dynamic and EQ element of

(32:31):
sales and conversation andpeople, and so I knew I wanted
to go into sales.
I knew I wanted to be in a rolethat did not cap me
commission-wise.
I always thought that was thefunniest concept.
I never understood how youwould go into a sales job, which
is absolutely probably one ofthe hardest things you could
ever do, and then you havecapped commission rates.

(32:52):
I always thought that was likea.
I could never get over thatconcept.
So I turned down all the techjobs because they kept trying to
cap me and I ended up taking ajob with RR Donnelly selling
paper for $28,700, I think ayear in salary, and then there
was maybe low 30s low enough,but it was uncapped commission.
I was like, heck, yeah, I'lltake any job you got for

(33:15):
uncapped commission.
I have no idea how to sellpaper, but I will learn how to
do it.
But oddly enough the thing,when I was living in Santa Cruz
I actually worked in a papermill, worked at a small paper
distribution company, so I hadthat familiarity with that
business growing up.
I worked there for about sixyears at Sentinel Printers in
downtown Santa Cruz, so I hadthat familiarity.

(33:36):
When I got to Donnelly I wasreally excited, I was jazzed.
I worked Monday through Fridayin sales, friday through Sunday
in bartending.
You know I was making a living,living in Denver, colorado,
starting to figure things out,and ended up running into one of
my best friends who's in salesat Rippling now.
But the thing I learned atDonnelly was the world was your

(33:56):
oyster.
They gave me a don't call theseaccounts list and then go
figure everything else out.
I used to walk the shelves ofTarget and pull the products off
of the shelf that had boxes onthem, take pictures of the name,
look at the way their designwas done, look at if there was
any askew of the barcode or ifthere's differences in color.
I'm also colorblind, so thatwas a little bit more of a

(34:18):
challenging one for me.
I really invested the time inreally immersing myself in the
environment and the approach andI ended up building a book of
business at Donnelly with someof the like marquee brands known
in the US, both in kind of thecannabis, the tobacco space and
then also in like the homefitness world, and so we won

(34:39):
some really big brands reallyearly in my career.
So like within the first eightmonths of me working, I went
from I think my first quota waslike $70,000.
I think I did 2.1 million allthrough cold outbound, all email
, all LinkedIn, all phone, grewa book of business to about 2
million, grew that book ofbusiness in the second year to

(35:03):
about 10, and then the thirdyear to about 20, and then to
about 50.
And so I was able to really seethat meteoric rise in printing.
And printing was the best placeto learn because everything
would go wrong, like you talkabout an industry where things
would be sent to the wronglocation or boxes would be
printed with the wrong color, orso you customer management
relationships were the only waythat you could survive in that

(35:25):
business because everybody hadsimilar capabilities.
The real difference was NOAA.
And so I really realized thatpart of the reason people buy
from people is that when thingsgo wrong, you need to have a
reliable resource on the otherside, and so I always felt like
I was that reliable resource.
There's a great story.
I was just with my old SVP ofsales actually two weeks ago

(35:47):
talking and there's a storywhere we get this order form
right and clients want us allthis different product and we're
telling them we can't deliver.
And I'm like what do you mean?
We can't deliver?
Like we have X, y and Z in thewarehouse and storage?
And they said no, we don't haveany product in the warehouse
and storage.
And they said no, we don't haveany product in the warehouse
and storage.
I knew that was wrong and so Iflew from San Francisco to
Durham, north Carolina, on a redeye, got there at seven in the

(36:09):
morning, went from seven to fivehaving them walk me through all
the different things.
They said they didn't have it.
They said they didn't have it.
They everyone left at five.
I wasn't allowed to go on thewarehouse floor.
I took my laptop, walked thewarehouse floor from 5 pm to
about 3.30 in the morning doinginventory by hand on a
spreadsheet.
Everybody woke up the nextmorning.
We covered 95% of the orders.

(36:30):
I was never able to go intothat facility ever again, but my
client was not upset andneither were my bosses, because
we were able to deliver on thatpromise, and so that to me was
like.
One of the things I learned waslike there's no mountain too
high and there's no challengetoo big for you to solve, and if
you're creative enough, you cansolve those challenges pretty
easily.
And then obviously, from there,n3 and then Accenture, we can

(36:52):
dive into that.

Klara J. (36:53):
Yeah, but there's just such an amazing example and I
think it beautifully ties inyour upbringing, just that
passion and the grit you havegotten through golf, but even
more so through the challengesthat I think you had gone
through, because, again, whatyou had described your mom
having cancer, then your dadpassing away it seems like there

(37:14):
was an accumulation of what youmentioned, this turbulent time
six, seven, eight years that youprobably had to read people
quite a bit, and even throughyour bartending endeavors
because I'm imagining a bar,music is quite loud typically.
So when you're networking withothers, just catching up on that
EQ and reading people, and thenapplying all of that into your

(37:40):
role to be able to just, youknow, I'll figure it out, I'll
roll up my sleeves, whatever itis that needs to be done to
figure out.
You know, I'll figure it out,I'll roll up my sleeves,
whatever it is that needs to bedone to figure out how I can
meet my clients' expectations.
I find it's very rare thatpeople are able or willing to do
that.
Do you think?
Is it because of, again, allthe accumulation of your

(38:00):
upbringing, even theunstructured upbringing?
Then you just had the intuition, naturally, to figure stuff out
.

Noah Sturm (38:08):
Yeah, I think what happened to me in general was
there was like this you know Iwas talking about this age from
like 15 to 19, where I wentthrough a bunch of different
things and kind of wasn't aspresent as I wanted to be for my
family.
I think what happened after mydad passed away was that I
realized that there was now avoid in the family that you know
.
There's a whole other storythat you and I will go through

(38:29):
over cocktails after he passedaway.
But you know there was a wholebunch of stuff that took place
after my father passed awaywhere there was financial
challenges, there were, you know, all kinds of different things
taking place that were impactingmy mom and impacting our family
.
And I can remember when Igraduated college, I knew that I
never wanted my mom to have toworry about anything again and

(38:55):
that whatever it took for me tobe able to solve that problem
and be able to go after andbuild a life where I could take
care of her you know she's stillworking, she's a speech and
language therapist today but I'mable to, you know, take care of
her, take care of our familyand be able to pull us out of
these situations and go back tothe life that we really wanted
to live together.
That was the motivation thatreally got me out of bed every
day and really provided me withkind of a fearless attitude that

(39:16):
there was no opportunity tofail, like there was no
optionality in this, like thiswas the path forward and you
know I was going to go do it.
And you know I think that forme was the big thing.
I mean most people like therewas a opportunity.
When I was with R R Donnelly, Ineeded to move from Colorado to
San Francisco overnight.
Basically, we want a bigopportunity.

(39:37):
They wanted someone in theoffice.
We had nobody that would beable to go in the office and I
moved from Colorado SanFrancisco at 24 hours notice
with a bag, put everything elsein storage.
My friend that I was livingwith was like what the heck?
You're just leaving me behind.
I was like I got to go.
I lived on a friend of mine.
My three best friends now couchin the city for two and a half

(40:00):
months and so when you have thattype of I always look at it as
like community.
I think a lot of people talkabout success as an I thing.
There's a huge we thing in thisthere's a team of people behind
me, whether it's friends,family, mentors, leaders, people
like that were my father'sfriends or my mom or my friends,
like they all stuck their handsout to help me kind of go after

(40:23):
this.
You know, rise in sales andrise in my career, because I
always had something to fallback on, like I always had
friendships that I could sleepon a couch if I needed to, like
all these things that took placethat most people would think
you know they would not go do.
I was willing to go do it.
When I was with Donnelly, I wastraveling anywhere between 150
and 200 days a year, if not alittle bit north of 200

(40:45):
sometimes, and I think mostpeople would never have done
that.
And I think that's really forme was I knew what I wanted and
I knew it was hard to get there,but I knew I didn't want to
wait is the thing that I alwaystell people.
The next stage after that wasbecoming a VP at 28.
And so when I went fromDonnelly to N3, andrew, who's

(41:06):
now our CEO at, andrew Fritz,ceo at Augment, who's the best
salesperson I know, right, Ithink he'll say the same thing
about me.
It's just funny.
I always tell people nowthere's two decisions you have
to make in life.
You can make a decision on Iwant a job because they're going
to pay me more money, or I wanta job because I'm going to work
for somebody who's going toteach me something new.
And I think those are decisionsthat you have to make pretty

(41:27):
early on, because a lot ofpeople chase the money, they
don't chase the leadership andthey don't chase the learning
opportunity that's there, and Ialways chase the learning, and
that was one of the things.
Whether it was with Donnelly, Ihad one of the best chief
commercial officers and SVP ofsales you could ever imagine.
I rolled up to them as a juniorseller, which is like a very

(41:47):
rare opportunity.
I was in the role for threemonths.
They fired my direct manager,my VP of the region, or he left,
and so it went from.
You know, my boss was now theSVP of global sales for a
company with 55,000 people and Iwas 24 years old 23 years old
and so there was a bigdifference in the expectation of

(42:07):
me in general, whether I wasbuilding decks, preparing for
meetings, providing notes,providing updates, like things
that I wasn't really prepared tobe doing.
I learned pretty quickly and hetaught me a lot of that stuff.
Like he was patient with me, heknew there was an opportunity.
He saw something in me thatmost people didn't.
He knew there was a hugeopportunity, not only for him to

(42:28):
get me into the right place,but also for me to learn.

Klara J. (42:31):
Yeah, I love that and what you're highlighting and
what also stands out.
I wanted to challenge you on acouple of things and then add an
observation.
Number one you know the factthat you have people around you
and you have friends.
To sleep on somebody's couch, Imean, yes, that is important,
but I would argue a lot ofpeople do have that you can fall

(42:51):
back.
So I don't know if that's asbig of a differentiator.
What I really see is yourability to go after opportunity
instead of being a fear-driven,because a lot of people let's
say you mentioned that moving toSan Francisco on 24-hour notice
, and even probably my youngerself I don't know if I would
have done it.
I would probably be thinkingabout it and overthinking it and

(43:13):
is this right or not?
And phone a friend, but you'relike, oh hell, yeah, it's an
upgrade, it's an opportunity.
They don't have anybody I gotto deal with.
So it's like your quickintuition, as you just kind of
see the positive, and then youmake a quick decision, move on,
commit and keep going.
Is there anything you see againfrom your upbringing that

(43:35):
helped hone that skill?

Noah Sturm (43:37):
Yeah, I think both my mom and dad taught me that
fear was something that wastypically internal.
Like there are external fearfactors, don't get me wrong.
Like my dad was a very streetsmart person.
He raised me that way as well,but I think a lot of time fear
and anxiety are the things thatpeople need to learn to break
through.
Like I did not grow up in anenvironment where things that I

(43:58):
was doing or that seemedunattainable that you know I
couldn't just change at theclick of a button and kind of
like go do something else.
I think my upbringing reallytaught me that there was always
a different opportunity.
There was always a differentway to think about something.
There was always a differentpath.
I think the thing that myupbringing really taught me was
that I'm different, like that Iam a different type of human
being.
That I think the thing that myupbringing really taught me was

(44:18):
that I'm different, like that Iam a different type of human
being, that I think differentlythan most people.
That I'm comfortable beinguncomfortable is how I would
describe it.
I am very comfortable beinguncomfortable and I think part
of that was my upbringing withmy dad, you know.
I think he taught me that beinguncomfortable is just a part of
life.
You know, that's a feeling thatyou get when you're actually

(44:39):
trying to achieve somethinggreat, and so, learning how to
feel comfortable in thoseuncomfortable or high stress
environments where decisionsneed to be made, things need to
change.
I just stopped thinking whetheror not it was the right
decision and just startedthinking this is what I have to
do to get to the nextopportunity or to the next place
, and what's the worst that'sgoing to happen.

(45:00):
I moved to San Francisco.
I don't like it.
Well, tough luck.
My wife will tell you that wemoved again together.
We moved to San Francisco whenI was with Accenture, and my
wife always says that I reallyforgot to tell her that we were
committed to leaving.
And I told her you know, we hadbeen dating for two years.

(45:20):
I wasn't sure if she was goingto come, and so I just kind of
glossed over it and didn't sayanything.
But I was committed.
I told everybody I was movingand about two and a half months
before we were supposed to leave, I was like okay, I'm just
going to let you know this.
Now I'm moving to San Francisco.
And she's like what do you meanyou're moving to San Francisco.
We've been together for twoyears.
I think there's more of like awe in this decision.

(45:40):
I said, look, there's always awe, whether it's long distance
or us being together.
But I need to make this move.
This is something that I needto do to advance this part of my
career and do it again.
And I found a partner later inlife that was willing to deal
with that craziness, and I thinkhaving a partner that's willing
to chase these adventures withyou and do things differently is

(46:00):
it makes you unstoppable insome sense.

Klara J. (46:02):
Yeah, and it adds more fun to it, right?
That's awesome yeah.

Noah Sturm (46:07):
I tried to get her to move to Austin.
I was trying to get her to movecloser to you, Clara.

Klara J. (46:10):
Well, I hope, like this story is amazing, I'm
really curious to meet your wife, actually, and your son, so I
really hope you all can comevisit anytime.
We have an extra bathroom and abedroom.
You can have it any day, so Ihope to meet you in person.
Actually, that's the weirdestthing.
I'm just realizing we haven'treally met in person.
We've had this virtualrelationship for over a year.

Noah Sturm (46:33):
Yeah, that's the post COVID environment.
I had a client for almost threeyears that I'd never met in
person and we finally gottogether in person and they were
like, oh my gosh, you're muchbigger than I thought you were.
I always imagined you as a muchsmaller human being and I was
like that's such a funny thingthat, like you could go all of
this time working together,being on daily standups, doing
all these things and you neverget to meet.

Klara J. (46:52):
Yeah, I get told that every time, but I think if
you're a little bit taller thanthe average human, people think
that you're very tall.
So me being six foot four womenalso that's the first thing
people tell me oh, you're muchtaller than I thought you were.
Well, and three.
I'm curious what was the jumpand how you and Andrew met,
because it seems like there wasa beginning of something, that

(47:13):
you guys have very goodrelationship now and are
becoming unsuperable.
That was actually the one thingthat came quite clear to me
early and when I was atAccenture I saw Andrew leaving
and I forecasted so it'sactually a funny story.

Noah Sturm (47:28):
I was pretty happy at Donnelly.
I wasn't, you know, intendingto leave, and I'm also.
It's always interesting thatevery job I've found and every
kind of opportunity I've foundhas always been from people that
I know really well and thosetypes of things.
And this was really the firstone that something from the
outside and actual recruiter outof nowhere reached out to me
and was trying to interview mefor an account executive role or

(47:51):
something at N3.
And I told the guy I was likelook, there is no way you're
getting me to leave my job tocome work for you as an account
executive.
I'm doing X amount in sales.
This is my earning structure.
There's no way I'm leaving forany job like that.
And he was like okay, well,that's really interesting.
We have a director role.
Before we go any further, whydon't I introduce you to Andrew?

(48:11):
And so I ended up interviewingwith Andrew.
We immediately clicked.
Andrew is one of the brightestminds I've ever gotten to work
with.
He and I we tend to havemindshare on almost everything
possible.
But the thing I love aboutAndrew is even today we record
all of our conversations atsales.
We've been working together foralmost six years.
Even today, he'll listen tosales calls that I always just

(48:33):
got a ping from him a few hoursago.
He'll listen to sales calls Idid yesterday and then still
have critiques for me.
Okay, you could have positionedthis this way or done things
that way.
And even in that interview Italked to him about my
upbringing, what I wanted to do,where I wanted to go, who I
wanted to be, all of thesethings.
And he was like oh my gosh,okay, you're perfect for this
role.
We have to do this.

(48:59):
I interviewed with Jeff andMarcel and all the other kind of
leadership team at N3.
They ended up offering me arole and I ended up turning it
down.
And I was in an Uber in SanFrancisco going to a client
meeting for my previous job andI got a call on my cell phone
and it was Andrew and he waslike are you out of your mind?
Like you're walking away fromthe best opportunity of your
life.
Like this is a huge mistake.
He's like I totally respectyour decision, but I just wanted

(49:21):
to tell you like this is a bigmistake, I'm not going to end,
this is not over yet.
Like we are going to get you towork for me.
There is no way I'm giving up.
And he chased me for about ayear and after that the
Accenture acquisition happened.
And so Andrew always says thathe chased me for a year and the
only reason I joined the companyis because Accenture acquired
them.

Klara J. (49:41):
That's right.

Noah Sturm (49:41):
Because I wanted to work for Accenture which is not
true, by the way, which wasn'ttrue, it's just better timing in
my life.
It was like peak COVID, like alot of uncertainty thinking
about moving to a company with2000 people that I didn't really
know that well, trying to builda new book of business that I
didn't really know that well,trying to build a new book of
business.
There was just a lot.
I was playing golf four days aweek.
You know there's a whole bunchof stuff going on that I was
like there's no way I'm walkingaway.

(50:02):
It's too good of a life and Igot bored and I wanted to go do
something different.
I wanted to chase somethingthat was truly unique and I was
really interested in Donnelly'sdivision.
They had a digital marketingcapabilities and things like
that.
So I was always very interestedin that side of the business.

(50:22):
And when Andrew offered me thejob the second time this is the
best story when I turned downthe job the first time, I went
out to dinner with my now wife.
She's like are you out of yourmind?
Why would you turn thatopportunity down?
Same thing, andrew told me andI was like look, the world has a
way of working things out If itwas meant to be.
There'll be an opportunitylater.
It's just not the right timefor me to do this and I feel

(50:44):
that inside of my gut and I'vealways been a gut feeling person
, like I always listen to my owninstincts and gut over anything
else Like if I don't feel likeit's right, it's just not right
and that's the decision I'mgoing to make.
I don't get swayed easily andso when I turned down the role I
was always hopeful they wouldcome back to me.
I was like man, this would bepretty disappointing if this was
my only chance.
And then when they came back, Igot to join.

(51:05):
And when I got to join thesecond time, they hired me as a
VP of sales.
And so Andrew jokes that it wasboth the title and Accenture,
but he's right.
I felt like that what I hadaccomplished in my first five
years of work outweighed timeand longevity and market.
I mean I always say I rememberI was interviewing with the CEO
of N3 and then I had tointerview with one of the heads

(51:28):
of Americas for the acquisitionteam before they would hire me,
because everyone thought N3 wasout of their mind for hiring a
28-year-old vice president ofsales.
I still stand by this in myhiring practices and in life,
that there is a differencebetween experience and execution
.
Some people bring both, whichis very rare, but I think there
is two avenues.
You can go in a hiring, you cango from experience, or you can

(51:50):
go with people that execute.
And I can remember I wassitting in the room and the guy
said why should I hire you?
And I said there's two paths togo down.
You can go down the experiencepath or you can go down the
execution path.
I guarantee you that I will bethe best hire you've ever made
in your entire life and thenI'll blow every number out that
you put in front of me, becausethat's what I do.
And they ended up hiring me andthe rest is history.

Klara J. (52:10):
I love that and I love the confidence with which you
articulated just that awareness.
Again it goes back.
I think that can be quite hardtoo.
Has it come naturally to you orreally you were leaning on,
obviously, the results you havehad and you outperformed
everybody else in the previousjob, so that obviously helps
give you confidence.

(52:30):
In sports you always say theconfidence comes from
preparation.
So because you know you hit somany balls and you put in all
the hours, that's how you getconfidence.
It doesn't come from fake orjust the air falls on you
suddenly.
Right, yeah, but any other tipson that or observations?

Noah Sturm (52:48):
I would say I think my family and my wife would say
that it's just confidence.
Like I believe in myself, Ialways say that there's no one
you should believe in more thanyourself.
So if you can't fully invest inthe idea that you're the best
person for the job, that you'rethe best person at whatever
you're doing, then you'reprobably missing something.
Like I would say I'm the bestbasketball player in the world.

(53:09):
I know it's not true, but hey,you know there's always
opportunity.
I think that comes from myupbringing with my dad of like
anything's possible and you haveto have the vision in your head
and you have to have thatability to compartmentalize
doubt and courage and have thecourage to take on things that
you know are really hard thatmoving from a high paying job
into a world of unknown, into avery high risk environment where

(53:33):
you know you could be out of ajob in six to eight months if
you don't deliver on it.
I really like the idea thatthere is struggle in the reality
of those decisions.
There's a fear and change.
There's a fear and doubt.
There's also a huge number.
I think my first quota withAccenture was $35 million and I

(53:53):
had about six and a half monthsto hit it.
We ended up hitting that target.
In the first round it went to50.
When I left we were closer to100.
So I've never really doubted myability to kind of build that
book of business.
But I think it comes back tojust believing in yourself.
And I think that comes backfrom my upbringing of like is
there someone better for the job?
Probably, but I don't know whothey are Most likely you, you

(54:15):
probably, but I don't know whothey are.
Yes, Most likely you.
You're probably one of the.
You and Andrew are one of theonly two people that I would say
that about.

Klara J. (54:22):
You know, having this conversation makes me realize
how much more time I wish I havehad and spent with you both.
But how do you actually do it?
How do you achieve it?
And do you also use anyvisualization tools?
Are you aware?
Are you actually visualizingagain through sports or
upbringing, to create that planand execute?

Noah Sturm (54:42):
I am constantly visualizing a better path for
but it's mostly daily, daily,weekly, monthly my sister,
melissa Wells.
She owns a company that doesvision boarding and so I'm
constantly doing vision boardswith her.
I'll invite you to one of ournext sessions, clara, we'd love
to have you.
And so my vision board.
I always outline a vision boardevery year in January of like
what I want to do that year.

(55:02):
But for me, in general, myvision into the future is to
treat people with respect, earnpeople's trust and then deliver
on the promises that I make.
Those are really the threethings that I focus on in life
is like I want to make sure thatthe people I love are taken
care of, that they feelrespected, and the people that
I'm around.
I want people to trust me.
When I tell them I'm going todo something, I'm going to do it
, and then any promises I'mmaking, then I'm delivering on

(55:24):
those.
I think if you safeguard thosethree things in your life and
make sure you're focused on them, and some of the other things
tend to fall into place.
My wife always says like we goon walks multiple times a day,
once in the morning, once atnight together, and I will be
visualizing a conversation witha client or playing it back in
my head all day, whether it'ssomething that has happened or
will happen, like if there'ssomething coming up that's a

(55:46):
tough discussion, or if it'sjust a sales pitch.
I'll be talking to myself whilewe walk and she's like what are
you talking about?
I was like, oh sorry, no,because I'm constantly on
thinking about the next thing,trying to think about how to
position my words, trying tothink about what I should say,
how it's going to resonate, howthat person's going to take it,
and trying to kind of solve thatproblem before I get in the

(56:07):
room, because then once you'rein, just like you said, when you
practice, you feel much moreprepared.

Klara J. (56:11):
Yeah, I have that too sometimes.
Sometimes I feel I am just waytoo often in my head.
I thought it was more of likeindividual sports thing player.
You know that because you're bynature, just by yourself and so
you spend a lot of timeruminating and just playing
various different scenarios.
I wonder how much of that isalso maybe connected when you're

(56:34):
an individual sports player.

Noah Sturm (56:35):
I think with golf in general, golf and business are
very similar.
You get into really badsituations.
You have to make like a chancydecision or the right decision,
and there's value to both, and Ithink golf teaches you a lot of
that.
In life is like there is alwaysan alternative taking the safe
play or trying to do something alittle bit more miraculous and

(56:56):
you see that on TV.
Sometimes it goes really welland other times it goes really
poorly.
But I think, just like in golfand just like in business, if
you don't take chances,calculated risk and taking
chances on things, you're likelygoing to not hit the meteoric
growth that you're looking for,and so really identifying and
building out calculated risk isan important way of running your

(57:16):
business.

Klara J. (57:18):
I love that and I'll hold you to the vision board
meeting.
Actually, I would love to joinone.

Noah Sturm (57:22):
You don't have to.
I'm actually the worst visionboarder ever.

Klara J. (57:26):
I've had a few coaches I've hired before and I always
get a blank page.
So maybe you and your sisterwill inspire me to go with
something grand and good formyself.
I want to dive a little bitmore into M3 and Denix Center.
Obviously, what are you doingnow?
But M3 was very different thanthe role you had before at R

(57:46):
Donnelly Digital inside sales.
I actually do love even yourMIA that you all created early
on automated AI to help digitalinside sales teams suggest and
navigate hard conversations tokind of level up and be more
effective.
But how have you made that jump, even just learning that
expertise, that you were able togo quite quickly into

(58:08):
understanding the differences ofwhat you're selling and being
able to communicate thateffectively?

Noah Sturm (58:13):
I think trial by fire is how I thrive.
I'll tell you a story and thenI think that'll make my four
years at Accenture calculated up.
In my first two and a halfweeks with N3, andrew and I were
having some really big meetingswith some high powered
executives over at a company inthe Silicon Valley area and we
got a plan together.

(58:33):
We did a prep meeting with them.
We were presenting back totheir C-suite and the client was
the one booking the meeting,and so he and I went through the
deck, we built the quotes, wedid all these things and they
didn't invite him to the meetingbecause he said I was the sales
lead for North America and sothey didn't think to invite my
boss.
They were like, okay, great.

(58:53):
So the first meeting I did Ithink it was probably eight days
into the role, five days intothe role with Accenture the
first meeting I did, I wassitting there, we're all waiting
.
Finally, the C-suite executive,obviously being like hey,
you're wasting my time, whyaren't we started yet, was like
when are we going to get going?
And I was like, well, we'rejust waiting on Andrew.
They're like we didn't inviteAndrew and so right then, like

(59:14):
it's time to go all mypreparation, whatever I think I
know let's put it out on wordsthings that I don't know I'll
find out later and that was myfirst pitch.
It was my first deal withAccenture and what that taught
me was the real thing you needto learn in sales is saying.
I don't know the answer to that, but I'm going to get back to
you really quickly.
I think I do that somewhatreally well.

(01:00:01):
No-transcript, that was reallyhow I focused, but I was always
really keenly interested atAccenture to understand how you
stitch together the end-to-endrevenue orchestration system
from the applied data scienceall the way through digital
marketing, sales and thencustomer success.

(01:00:21):
And so, with N3 being theworld's largest outsourced
inside sales company just totouch on what N3 is, so
everybody knows.
So N3 was the world's largestoutsourced inside sales
organization that focused onfull funnel revenue activity, so
it wasn't just meeting,qualification or bookings or
support etc.
They were running things end toend from BDR solution engineers

(01:00:43):
, technical engineers, all theway through customer success,
and then they were getting paidon the revenue driven for those
companies and we were runningthose in a performance based
contracting system, and so youcan imagine that when you do
those things you really need tolearn.
How to run a lean, mean revenuemachine is how I always said it,
and with that that came withthe technology, the people and
the process that we had toexecute with.

(01:01:04):
And so when I got to Accenture,that really excited me, that
idea that I could go out andsell a vision to somebody, that
we were going to deliver on it,we were going to drive revenue,
we were going to get paid onthat revenue and that there was
less risk to them of us kind ofgetting started because it was
lower total cost of ownershipfor them.
And then we typically beatinternal teams by 10 to 15%

(01:01:26):
above their benchmark rates.
So we had a really good story,really good narrative.
When we came into Accenture, westarted stitching together all
of these different servicecapabilities and when I thought
about N3, a lot of what we doand how the brand works today is
like we did all that stuffbefore we were acquired.
We were running digitalmarketing.
We were using data and AI withthings like VIA and OneGlass.

(01:01:47):
We've been using appliedmachine learning algorithms to
be able to help coach sellers inlive conversations to
understand how to articulatethemselves better, understand
what use cases you should betalking about, and so a lot of
that stuff that I learned withN3 carried over into my days
with Accenture and I think itjust with Accenture we were able
to pour gasoline on the fire.

Klara J. (01:02:05):
Yeah, being just such a large company.
But I do want to highlightthere's, you know, I imagine or
I've only lived at Accenture fora year, so you can kind of
create this agile environment,but it is a huge company,
800,000 people.
And so how have you navigatedthis?
What I envisioned beforeunstructured in ways, chaotic,

(01:02:28):
but very high goal drivenmindset and then putting that
and placing it and orientingyourself inside Accenture and
maybe that's a big question,take it whichever way you want,
but I know even my colleagues atAccenture and maybe that's a
big question, take it whicheverway you want, but I know even my
colleagues at Accenturestruggle with it daily.
So any secrets, I'm sure theywould love your tips.

Noah Sturm (01:02:46):
Still, so I always say that one of the things that
helped me when I got toAccenture was the same thing
that helped me in sixth gradewhen I went to school for the
first time Was that you're thenew kid on the block and trying
to figure out where you fit in,what your group is, you know
what you're going to do, whatindividuality looks like, things
like that I always say likehomeschooling to school really

(01:03:06):
helped me in any new environmentbecause when I walked into the
classroom for the first time Iknew nobody and I had to make
friends, sometimes quickly,sometimes slowly, and I really
wasn't that aware of what, likenon homeschooled kids were doing
in school and the way theybehaved, et cetera.
And you know the politics thatexist and the bureaucracy that
exists among sixth graders and Ithink that's the same thing

(01:03:28):
walking into Accenture was, youknow, I had some experience
working for a largerorganization coming from
Donnelly.
They're, you know, a very largecompany as well and when I
walked into Accenture 780,000people my goal was the same goal
that I had at Donnelly with N3and now with Accenture, which
was to meet, achieve and exceedmy targets and identify new ways

(01:03:54):
to do things that nobody elsewas thinking about.
That's really how I've alwaysthought about that pressure.
But I think the thing that Idid really well at Accenture was
when I first joined, I didone-on-ones with like probably a
hundred people Like I wanted tolearn.
I'd, like you know, I wanted tounderstand what they were doing
.
I wanted to understand thedifferent service categories.
I wanted to understand whatleadership priorities were.
Where were we focused?

(01:04:15):
Where was the business going?
I went, you know, I interviewedpeople on the digital marketing
side, interviewed people on theour executive leadership team.
I interviewed people that wererunning operations that were
running like completely you knowdifferent parts of the business
, so that I could get like apretty well-rounded perspective.
And I think when I walked out ofAccenture, I probably had met
somewhere around a thousandpeople while I was there, and

(01:04:35):
part of that was because I wascommitted enough to go out,
listen to what other people.
People love to tell you whatthey do for work.
Like people love it, and so ifyou're able to go in and say,
look, I just want to listen toyour story, I want to understand
how you did it here.
I want to understand whatchallenges or pitfalls I might
run into.
There's people at Accenturethat have been there for 28

(01:04:56):
years.
They have 28 years of knowledgeof how the company runs, how to
grease the wheels, how thingsoperate, how the gears turn.
And then there's new peopleunderstanding how new joiners
get in.
And I think that kind ofwillingness to spend a
significant amount of time in myweek kind of interviewing and
meeting people it really helpedme find my, I would say, my

(01:05:17):
inner circle at the company thatI could trust and rely on and
with that that really helped mekind of navigate the unknown
when it comes to Accenture.

Klara J. (01:05:27):
Yeah, I love that and I remember you gave me that
guidance and I did actuallyquite the same.
I don't know if I've got allthe way through 100, but I'm
pretty sure I got somewherearound 50 to 90, maybe within
the first two to three monthsthat kind of gives you a really
wide view and you, you can startmaking sense of this large 800

(01:05:47):
000 person startup, I guess, oryeah?

yeah, well, I was gonna say I think when you're
somewhere for too long, you getcomfortable and you kind of you
move on from the fact thatthere's more to learn, in some
sense, like you just startrunning what you know.
And I think part of the thingthat's so interesting at
Accenture is people get a newjob like every single year or
like every two years.
I always thought that was thecoolest thing ever Like.
When I did all these interviews, people kept talking about how

(01:06:13):
they've had like 14 careers withAccenture where they like did
one thing and then they went anddid another, and I thought that
was like one of the coolestthings ever was.
Like, rather than changing jobsand leaving the company and
going doing something else, it'ssuch a big company that you
could hold like 14 or 18different roles in your 25 or 30

(01:06:33):
years there and those rolesaren't in the same line, like
it's not a linear progression ofyour career.
You could be tasked to go runan account or be tasked to go
run, you know, apac or EMEA or.
It's so interesting like thematurity of the careers that
people have at Accenture and itmakes sense why you know,
accenture executives make suchgood executives at other

(01:06:53):
organizations because they'vedone and they've seen client
problems across.
You run the gamut of experiencethere.

Klara J. (01:07:01):
Yeah, feels like we're making a free commercial for
Accenture.

I know it's a great place to work.

Klara J. (01:07:06):
Yeah Well, you've been there for four years maybe
anything you want to mentionbefore and then you've decided
to jump from this amazingentertaining people company to a
startup that you're building,being the SVP of sales and
revenue, so still doing a lot ofwhat you're passionate about,
building on your expertise andexperience in sales and, in many

(01:07:28):
ways, stitching togethersomething better.
Now, in the world of AI and GenAI that you've mentioned,
you've kind of built on fromwhat N3 had, but nonetheless, it
is a big change now, reallygoing back to being the key
salesperson and product tester,and I can envision a whole bunch
of other jobs you have on topof that.

(01:07:49):
What made you decide to do that?
I don't know, and obviouslyN2's kind of decided, so it
seems like you two had a greatrelationship.

So I think some people would call me crazy and I
wouldn't disagree with them.
We had our first born inOctober.
I joined a startup in themiddle to end of November and
then we bought a new house inDecember and we kind of did all
these things in two months.
I think.
Kind of a classic move on myend.
My wife always says I like topack all the hardest things in

(01:08:16):
my life into a 60-day sprint.
But yeah, I mean, I think thereason that I left the same
reason that I joined N3 was towork with people like Andrew, to
have a leader that not onlybelieved in me but also believed
that there was a better way torun business and to run B2B
sales organizations and to buildsales teams and to build a

(01:08:38):
brighter future.
A lot of what I worked on atAccenture actually informed my
decision.
I would say A lot of what I wasworking on at Accenture was
customer journey and buyerjourney development and
identifying what are thestreamlined events that take
place and someone's ability topurchase things and their
ability to go through entireinteraction with a brand, and
that part of the operationalfunction inside of Accenture was

(01:09:02):
always very interesting to me.
I always felt like everythingwe did in our division within
Accenture.
A lot more of it could havebeen done with technology rather
than bodies, and I felt likethere was an opportunity in the
market to do things differently,because when we were with
Accenture, we were running 330go-to markets on a daily basis,
and what I mean by that is that,you know, we were running, you

(01:09:23):
know, let's say, a hundred go-tomarkets in qualification, so
like BDR roles, and we wererunning a hundred go-to markets
in full cycle sales, so AE,field sales, partner executives,
et cetera.
Then we were running, you know,50 in partner ecosystem
optimization, partner recruit,partner, co-sell, partner
optimization.
We were running 50 in customersuccess, and so we got this huge

(01:09:44):
view of all of the challengesthat, like the G2000 and large
enterprise and mid-marketcompanies were having, because
we had that visibility into theway that we ran their business,
the technology stacks that theywere using and some of the
implications that had in the waythat their customers purchased
their product and the way thattheir customers felt about the

(01:10:04):
brand in general.
And so I always felt like therewas a better way to execute B2B
sales and I think the thing thatwas closest and dearest to my
heart, which is relationships.
It was existent in the missionstatement.
With Augment that, augment AI,we are focused on making your

(01:10:25):
customers your best salespeople,and what that comes down to is
durable relationships.
So what I mean by durablerelationships in general is how
do you have a relationship witha customer or with a prospect
that's strong enough to getthrough some of the challenging
times and the ups and downs thatexist inside of a sales cycle
and inside of a customerrelationship?
And so that part of the journeyfor me felt natural when I had
the opportunity to leave, andthe other thing that really

(01:10:48):
intrigued me about ourtechnology and what we were
doing is it was learning fromAndrew and I, like situational
awareness, the way that we wouldhandle different scenarios in
customer environments.
I felt like if there was adigital twin of me that could
help me stay on track, learnwhat I should say, help coach me
on things that I'm behind onand identify some of the more of

(01:11:10):
the administrative workloadthat exists inside of my system,
while always being one stepahead of me.
Then my ability to scale thenumber of relationships I
managed, the number of accountsI could manage, the amount of
revenue and goals I could manage, was.
You know, I think I believetoday that I'm managing anywhere
between two and a half andthree times the number of
relationships and the number ofaccounts that I could have, you

(01:11:32):
know, six months ago, and partof that is that the AI native
technology is learning the way Ido things and how I do them,
and when I do them and where Ido them and what I do in those
situations.
And I just thought that was thecoolest concept that there was
this opportunity in time for allof my knowledge and all of my
experience to be embedded insideof a technology platform that

(01:11:54):
allows other people to be ableto utilize and learn and
identify, pass forward based onmy experience in situational
awareness in platforms.
I felt like there's no bettertime than now to take that
chance, and that's why I left.

Klara J. (01:12:07):
I love that and also what stands out to me.
I know even at Accenture,everybody's been saying you know
, I want to be like Noah.
Noah is the sales expert.
How do we elevate more of theteam to be like Noah?
Noah is the sales expert.
How do we elevate more of theteam to be like Noah?
And it seems like that's alittle bit of the mission with
this platform that you'reenabling to elevate more of the

(01:12:28):
salespeople awareness.
I'm going to maybe go back toyour very first job you
mentioned, or second, rrDonnelly, like you realizing
that you're really the main keydifferentiator and it's really
that relationship becauseeverybody sells papers or
different SKUs.
Yeah, and that's really how doyou manage those escalations or
complaints and that seems to bequite a bit core to your product

(01:12:52):
.
I know you gave me a demo and Iwas actually quite listening
and taking it all in becausethere's a lot of different
functionality.
That's part of it.
But any specific things thatyou want to highlight for
listeners or that you want theworld to know about?

Yeah, our technology is intended to make your
mid-performers act like your topperformers, so we have built
technology called an expertlanguage model inside of our
platform that actually haslearned from our expertise
between Andrew, myself and thenour senior leadership team on
the board, who have over 150years of experience of managing
anywhere between 12 and 15,000salespeople, and so if you can

(01:13:27):
imagine that expertise is builtinto the platform, then we learn
from your top 10% of your team.
So what are your top performersdoing?
How are they acting?
What are they doing differently?
I would not recommend thateverybody follows Noah's path in
a sales cycle.
It's a little bit chaotic and Ido things differently than many
folks, but there are thingsthat I do really well when it
comes to remembering all the keydetails and really starting to

(01:13:51):
like live the experience that myclient's going through and
really being someone that'sreliable and understanding.
You know like you were talkingabout escalations, and so the
expert language model isdesigned to really glean the
insights from what your companydoes really well.
What are your top performersdoing?
What was the?
You know the key insightsacross the deal flow and then be
able to replicate thatinformation to other sellers on

(01:14:13):
your team so that people thatare in your mid to low
performing stack rank have theopportunity to glean, learn and
get coached on what they shoulddo, when they should do it and
how and I think you know thesales enablement side of the
business is one thing Likepeople could go through
scenario-based training.
That's not what I'm talkingabout.
What I mean by coaching is thatwe are giving them the next
best action or the moment iswhat we call it on what they

(01:14:36):
should do, how they should do it, when they should do it and
where they should do it, whetherthat's sending dinner
recommendations because yourclient mentioned on a call that
they're going to New York, orwhether it's, you know, sending
a get well soon card to theiroffice, or whether understanding
on a call that their kid had asoccer game on Saturday because
they talked about it, that wasone of the things they were
excited about on the weekend.

(01:14:56):
And then on Tuesday, when youjump back on that call, you
remember to have thatconversation and ask how the
soccer game went.
Those are the types of thingsthat I've done, naturally,
throughout my career, thatpeople now, by using our
platform, are going to have abetter opportunity to start
learning the way to thinkdifferently, to build value, to
identify really whatdifferentiation looks like.
And one of the things I alwayssay to Andrew is you know, I

(01:15:19):
can't wait for us to be able tobuild friction into this
platform, like because I thinkfriction is the greatest thing
to ever exist in a sales cycle.
As soon as, as soon as there isfriction in a sales cycle, you
have a much higher win rate.
I really do believe that, like,if there's a, you know, a
disagreement on pricing or adisagreement on contract
language or a disagreement inthe solution and functionality,

(01:15:40):
to me most people are like, ohmy gosh, like we're never going
to win this deal.
To me, I'm like, holy crap, thedeal pulse on this just went up
30%.
So I think some of the stuffthat we've learned throughout
our career being applied intothe platform.
And then, you know, the lastthing I'll leave everybody with
is really what we're intendingto do is to transform the way

(01:16:00):
that your buyers engage withyour brand in both a digital and
native solution.
What I mean by that is both, ina digital environment, how they
learn what information theythey have, the right information
for the right conversation atthe right time, which allows

(01:16:21):
them to naturally progress aconversation with the prospect
and really, to me, reduce theamount of time it takes for
individuals to get acquaintedwith the idea of what's being
committed to.
Because, to me, the world of AIhas created one big disconnect,
and I think that's trust.
We are eroding trust in themarket, and I think buyers are

(01:16:44):
getting wiser when it comes tothe trust gap that is
continually being existed, andso, with Augment's technology,
we're looking to build back abetter future by reimagining
decision making as a whole.

Klara J. (01:16:55):
Yeah, and what do you mean by the trust?
I mean one thing that comes tomind everybody sends out these
emails all the time, right,they're not thoughtful at all.
I'm sure you get a ton of them.
I get 10 of them I can get 10,15 emails a day, people wanting
to be on my podcast andsometimes like, all right, it's
not that hard to actually dohomework on my podcast.

(01:17:17):
Can you be a little bit morethoughtful about why you want to
be part of it and how thisguest fits in?
So many of those I actuallydisregard?

It took me 18 months 18 months to get on here, so I
think they just need to work alittle harder.
One cold email is not going toget you on Clara's podcast, okay
.

Klara J. (01:17:34):
I love kind of what you mentioned about the friction
.
That sounds really interesting.
Yeah, you know, love to seethat Very curious.
But what stands out to me?
That you're trying to build inand enhance this natural
authenticity and make genuinecare.
So, going back to your threeprinciples that you actually
mentioned treat everybody withrespect, deliver trust and

(01:17:58):
deliver on your promises itactually does seem to very much
align with the product and thesolution that you're building
Seems to be part of it.

Yeah, I mean, the thing I'm most interested in
this is you know, I think, whatyou do really well and you know
this better than anyone right?
You manage the influencer mazein a decision-making process
probably better than anyone thatI know.
You know what's behind thescenes because you're asking the
right questions, you'reidentifying, you know who's
going to be involved in thedecision-making process.
And when I was looking at someof the results from Gartner,

(01:18:32):
they came out and said that 83%of a decision-making cycle or a
purchasing cycle does notinclude a salesperson.
So, like 83% of the time doingresearch, having meetings,
having internal discussions,getting buy-in and approval from
your internal teams does notinclude a salesperson.
So that means 17% of adecision-making or purchasing
cycle includes a salespersontoday.

(01:18:53):
So that means that all thesefancy widgets that we're buying
and all these tools that we'respending all this money on can
only ever affect 17% of adecision-making cycle.
And what I found mostinteresting and you know this
really well working withAccenture is you're never the
only vendor, typically in a bid.
So there's typically three orfour different vendors in that
bid.
So you're taking that number of17% and either cutting it by

(01:19:15):
three or cutting it by four, sothe real expert sellers know how
to start affecting the otherside of that decision-making
process, which is identifyingwhat the influencer maze looks
like, what a decision-makingtree is, and really being able
to coach your champion and theirinternal teams on what the
value is.
I can remember when I was withAccenture, one of the things I

(01:19:37):
used to always do differently isthat I would give my champions
and coaches talking points forevery single gate in their sales
cycle or internal buyingcommittee, from IT to
procurement, to the CFO, to theCMO, et cetera.
We would build decks, we wouldbuild talking points, and I
always thought about this stuff.
Naturally, it just came to mein terms of the way I thought it

(01:19:58):
was the best way to execute it.
So we're taking thoseexperiences and putting them
into the platform so that thethings that you don't see in a
buying decision or in apurchasing decision you can
still use technology to supportthe person who's the most
important person in any decisionmaking cycle, which is the
customer.
As soon as you lose sight ofthe customer, you will lose

(01:20:18):
sight of any revenue growthopportunity that you have in
your business, and thetechnology that's built today is
unfit for the job of tomorrow.

Klara J. (01:20:25):
Yeah, and it seems like you're really enhancing the
focus as well of what is mostimportant at that specific point
to advance the sale and thedeal.
As you mentioned, being able tohave this intelligence allows
you to manage many more accountsAny specific client or industry
that you see this is resonatingthe most with or examples you

(01:20:47):
want to mention.

Obviously, coming from the N3 world, we walked out
of that environment with about100-ish C-suite relationships,
so we're seeing a lot oftraction in the enterprise space
right now, specifically intechnology like cloud tech, high
tech, and then obviously inmanufacturing.
With my background before, Iwould say we're industry

(01:21:09):
agnostic right now, but we arehyper focused on companies that
have complex decision-makingprocesses for any purchasing
decision inside of theirbusiness.
We feel like we're the righttechnology for them, and so if
you're managing a sales cyclewith anywhere between five, 10,
15 different stakeholdersinvolved in a decision-making
process, then our solution isdefinitely something that people

(01:21:30):
should be evaluating, becauseit's not a one-size-fits-all.
It's purpose-built for the waythat you do business, not for
the way everybody else does.
So we learn about your business, the way that your business
operates, and so that ourtechnology conforms to the way
that your organization needsthings to run.

Klara J. (01:21:47):
And any specific objections or misunderstandings
that you typically run into thatyou got to debunk on daily
basis.
Nothing, ever, is just an easysell.

Oh my gosh objections.
Yeah, I think objections are adaily occurrence now.
I always say like when I waswith Accenture, it was far fewer
objections to what I wasselling because we're building a
category disruptor when itcomes to sales assist technology
, because we're trying to stitchtogether everything from
prospect to renewal onepersistent system that a
customer can utilize to be ableto manage their relationship

(01:22:20):
with your brand and yourbusiness.
And I think there are believersand there are believers and
there are non-believers thatthere is a better way, and I
mean this like we disqualifyopportunities based on, you know
, a few different categories.
The first thing I always asksomebody in any sales
conversation is do you believethat more emails with better
punctuation are going to makeyou hit your revenue goals for

(01:22:41):
this year?
Because that's typically whatwe're saying in our purchasing
habits for products.
Right now, we're basicallybuying products to automate all
of the productivity aspects ofour business.
So if you believe that moreemails, better punctuation are
going to drive revenue, we don'twant to talk to you.
We'll talk to you next yearafter you miss your goal, no
problem.
But most of the objections we'regetting is focused on the fact

(01:23:01):
that people have been utilizing,you know, conversational
intelligence platform or salesenablement intelligence platform
for so long that they feel likethey've gotten things to a
point that there's not really abetter way to do it, and so
we're really finding that mostof our objections sit in the
we're not switching, because youknow we've been doing this this
way for too long and it'sworking, and we don't want to

(01:23:23):
disrupt the way that we dothings.
So we're really looking fordisruptive champions that are
willing to do things differentlyand see a better path forward.
Because it's not price, claire.
Most people would thinkobjections are around pricing.
I think it's really around.
Do you believe in your heartthat there's a better way to do
B2B sales and that the customeris the most important person in

(01:23:43):
the room?
I think 99% of people todaywould say, yes, I believe that,
but they're not actually buyingthe right technology to be able
to deliver on that promise.
So I think execution and beliefneed to go together, and so
those two things tend to be alittle bit different.

Klara J. (01:23:58):
Well, it's funny just the status quo thing that
everybody gets always wrapped up.
I think every enterprise to apoint that we've done it this
way and we have these tools andmaybe even remembering the pain
that goes with implementingthese tools, and so they're at
times, perhaps falsely implyingthat it may be the same issue
now, and just people envisioningsomething different or better.

(01:24:21):
I think that's genuinely reallyhard for many people to do.
I heard again every time I'lljoin my partner because he's
building his own company and heactually runs into this every
single time.
It's literally the simplestsolution that could exist and
he's talking to these companiesthat are making everything so
much more complex than itactually is.
So I actually envision it kindof resonated because I'm

(01:24:44):
envisioning you're running intothe same issue.

Oh my gosh.
Yeah, and you know this aboutAndrew and I there hasn't been a
lot of no's.
I think we've gotten a lot of.
I really don't know what it isthat you're trying to tell me
right now, but whatever it is,it sounds like something amazing
and we definitely want to divedeeper, but I have no idea how
to go deliver on this promisethat you guys are making to me,
and so I think it's aboutthere's like three things that I

(01:25:09):
focus on with clients, and Ithink this is how customers are
thinking today.
It's either how are you using AIto accelerate your business?
Like what are the use casesyou're using?
How are you actually usingpractical application of AI?
How do you save money?
Like what is the path forwardin saving money, whether that's
reducing the number of people,reducing the amount of
technology.
Or how do you transact a betterfuture, like how do you

(01:25:31):
transform your business todayfor the digital future, ai,
digital future of tomorrow?
I think a lot of companies arereally behind the curve on where
business is going, and I thinkthere's no better time than
right now to start positioningyourselves as a disruptive
champion, because disruption isprevalent in the ecosystem right

(01:25:54):
now, and I mean you know thisall too well like AI is taking
over, that's the only thinganyone talks about.
But it's like making reallygood decisions now are going to
impact your business later, andso we're here to help you make
really good decisions.

Klara J. (01:26:06):
Well, no, I'm looking at the clock.
I know we're over.
We could talk for hours,anything else.
I have a few closing quickquestions, anything else, before
I dive into those that you wantto mention about Augment AI.

I think I've mentioned it all.
We are looking forco-conspirators is how I would
describe it.
We are looking forco-conspirators is how I would
describe it.
We are a new company with a tonof experience doing things
absolutely differently thaneveryone else in the sales
assist technology space.
Try to build a brighter, betterfuture for your buyers by
focusing on delivering a betterexperience for them.
So if you're looking for abetter path forward or have

(01:26:39):
advice for us on a moreeffective way to build out our
roadmap, build out ourtechnology, we are looking for
all the advice we can get and weare doing advisory sessions I
would say 30 times a week atthis point and a lot of it is
just understanding how peopleare doing things, what they're
doing and learning from them sothat we can build some of that
practical application into ourtechnology so that it's purpose
built for the future.

(01:26:59):
So I look forward to anyconversation, claire, you and I
can drum up.

Klara J. (01:27:09):
Excellent and hopefully we can schedule some
with some of my network too andpeople who will reach out.
On that note, there's lotsgoing on in the world.
I realized I have been actuallysaying that for years now, as
I've been having the podcast andit doesn't seem to be getting
anywhere calmer, even with thetopic of AI and what we have
just been talking about.
So there just seems to be a lotof noise and chaos and
uncertainty in many differentways.

(01:27:29):
What would you want to inspirepeople to be doing more of or
less of?

What people need to do more of is kindness.
I think there is a kindness gapin our world right now, and I
think empathy and beingempathetic to the person next to
you is really important intoday's environment.
You never know what people aretaking place, and there's a lot

(01:28:08):
of people in the United Statesthat are dealing with those
things overseas and impacted bysome of the decisions that are
being made, and I just think ifthere's ever a time in the world
for us all to band together,provide more empathy and treat
each other with kindness,together, provide more empathy
and treat each other withkindness.
And the last thing I would sayto people is you know, I think
words have a huge impact on howpeople feel, and so I would

(01:28:31):
always tell people to you know,be a little bit more sensitive
with the way they're talking andthe words that they're using,
so that the people around themfeel more comfortable to be who
they are and to live the lifethat they want to live.

Klara J. (01:28:42):
I love that.

This is what I would tell people to not do.
I would get off social mediaand I would get outside.
I would go start exploring thethings around you.
I think we are spending way toomuch time on screens.
I haven't been on social mediain almost I don't know 13 years
or 12 years, and part of thereason I left the platforms was
because I really felt like itwas consuming the way that I

(01:29:03):
thought and the way that Ithought about life, thought
about things.
I wanted to go.
Do you know?
I felt like I was always behind, and I think there's this like
world and image being paintedaround us right now that is
causing people to feel likethey're behind or that, you know
, they don't have enough, and Ithink that like consumerism
effect is actually kind ofbleeding into social media and

(01:29:24):
like your vision of the world.
And so kindness is one thingthat we can always give back to
each other, because withkindness, we can break down the
barriers that exist betweenhuman beings.
What I wouldn't do Judgment Iwould throw out the window.

Klara J. (01:29:45):
Love to outsource.
I agree with all that.
On that note, how do peoplereach you then?
I know you're quite active onLinkedIn, though Is there a best
way to reach out?
Have a conversation?

Yeah, absolutely On LinkedIn.
It's noah-sturm-augment, or youcan email me at noah-augmentco.
My cell phone number is public,so feel free to text call.
I am a open book.
I think my last post on LinkedInwas about how I spend anywhere
between 30 and 60 minutes a weeklistening to people pitch me on

(01:30:10):
their products and cold calls,so you know I'm always available
.
Feel free to give me a ring.
But yeah, you can absolutelyfind me on LinkedIn trying to
build out my brand on LinkedInto really focus on a better way
forward and a better pathforward in the way that not only
we talk about things and makingthings more real on LinkedIn,
talking about past experiencesin my life, but also talking
about a non-generic future.

(01:30:32):
Right, because I think what AIis accelerating right now is
mediocrity, and I think that weneed to break down the barriers
and go back to that creative,individualistic approach that we
used to take before thisexisted, because creativity was
one of the only ways to get intoaccounts and to interact with
humans, and I think that humanto human touch needs to come

(01:30:53):
back to the world.

Klara J. (01:30:54):
I agree, I don't like these bot emails either, so I'm
glad you're doing something tochange that reality as well.
Noah, Good job.

You don't like em dashes.
I was saying something tosomeone today.
I was like what is an em dash?
I don't even know how I woulduse that, but they're everywhere
.

Klara J. (01:31:11):
Well, thank you so much for your time and the
conversation.
I've had fantastic time.
Hope to see you in Austin inyour real version, and your
family at some point.
Yeah, we'll keep in touch.

Before we sign off, I just want to say, clara,
you've done an amazing job withthis platform.
Everyone that you've workedwith, everybody around you, has
so much respect and admirationfor you, and it's a testament to
not only the person you are,but also the way that you
conduct yourself and handleyourself by the people that
you're able to get surroundaround you and come onto the
podcast as well as I'm workingwith you.
I hope my people leadcapabilities persist for the

(01:31:44):
rest of our lives, becauseyou're one of the people I look
up to and admire the most whenit comes to business and
personal life and I reallyappreciate you as an individual
and everything that you do.

Klara J. (01:31:53):
Thank you, noah.
I'm going to practice takingcompliments.
I'm not very great at it, but Iappreciate that and I know you
know.
I share the same, so thank you.

Absolutely Well.
Thank you so much for having meon, and I'm sure we'll talk
soon.

Klara J. (01:32:07):
If you enjoyed this episode, I want to ask you to
please do two things that wouldhelp me greatly.
One, please consider leaving areview on Apple Podcasts,
spotify or any other podcastingplatform that you use to listen
to this episode.
Two, please share this podcastwith a friend who you believe
might enjoy it as well.
It is a great way to remindsomeone you care about them by

(01:32:30):
sharing a conversation theymight be interested in.
Thank you for listening.

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Klara Jagosova

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