March 26, 2025 • 35 mins
What happens when a traditional salesperson collides with Agile principles?
Seth Carpian, Chief Growth Officer at Tricon InfoTech, takes us on his transformative journey from being the sales executive who promised anything to land a deal to becoming a trusted advisor who understands the realities of software development.
The turning point came when a delivery colleague essentially told Seth to stop overpromising to customers. Rather than getting defensive, Seth embraced the opportunity to learn, spending years understanding lean product journey mapping and Agile principles. This knowledge transformed his approach to sales, allowing him to have more intelligent conversations with CTOs and CIOs that built genuine trust rather than just securing short-term wins.
Seth shares powerful insights from his unique perspective of having worked in both sales and product leadership roles. The conversation tackles the thorny issue of technical debt head-on, with Seth explaining how "bubble gum and popsicle stick" solutions might temporarily satisfy a customer but ultimately breaks in multiple places when touched.
For sales professionals looking to adopt an Agile mindset, Seth references Patrick Lencioni's concept of the "ideal team player" who is hungry, humble, and smart. While hunger and emotional intelligence are common in successful salespeople, humility—the willingness to acknowledge what you don't know—is often the missing ingredient that prevents true Agile adoption.
Whether you're in sales, product development, or leadership, this episode offers crucial insights into creating healthier relationships between business development and delivery teams, ultimately leading to better outcomes for customers and more sustainable success for organizations.
Connect with Seth on LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/in/sethcarpien
Follow us on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-within
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the Agile Within.
I am your host, Mark Metz.
My mission for this podcast isto provide Agile insights into
human values and behaviorsthrough genuine connections.
My guests and I will sharereal-life stories from our Agile
journeys, triumphs, blundersand everything in between, as
(00:29):
well as the lessons that we havelearned.
So get pumped, get rocking.
The Agile Within starts now.
Before we dive into today'sepisode, I'd like to take a
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(01:13):
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(01:35):
That's impactagilityco, Well.
Welcome back everybody.
This is your host, Mark Metz,at the Agile Within.
I hope you're having anabsolutely fantastic day today
here in the US.
Spring weather has sprung in mypart of the country.
Here in the southeastern part,we had some rain come through,
(01:57):
some pretty nasty storms, sowash some of that pollen away.
That is very common at thistime of year, so everything
becomes bright yellow.
There's more to follow, I'msure, but I have a guest today,
and that guest is Seth Karpian,who comes from Winston-Salem,
North Carolina.
I want to say welcome, Seth,Welcome to the Agile Within.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Hey, mark, thanks for having me today, excited for
our conversation and chat todayas our icebreaker question.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
We always like to ask if I were coming to
Winston-Salem for a day and hadnever been there before, Seth,
what's one thing that you wouldsay that I absolutely couldn't
miss doing?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Based on the fact that we are talking on St
Patrick's Day.
I think the one thing that alot of people need to know about
Winston-Salem is that downtownwe have a bunch of breweries
that are actually fantastic towalk around to and visit.
When people think ofWinston-Salem, they don't think
of the downtown, and when Imoved here back in 1999 to go to
(02:56):
Wake Forest University forbusiness school, there was
nothing.
Winston-salem has really growninto a business and social city
and it allows you to really godown there and visit all the
different areas rather thanhaving to drive one place and
then drive to another.
So go to Winston-Salem, godowntown, park your car, have an
(03:18):
afternoon or an evening of itand then take an Uber home.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Well, winston-salem is not too far for me.
I say not too far, maybe fouror five hours I'm guessing
something like that fromColumbia.
So next time we make the tripup I'll definitely have to look
you up, seth.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Absolutely Happy to show you around.
I'll Uber home too.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
That'd be fun, All right.
Well, Seth is a chief growthofficer at Tricon Info World
Tech and they have a globalpresence.
He is also a father of four,he's an avid sports fan and he
is a product mindset enthusiast.
We want to talk about Seth'sjourney as an agile sales leader
(04:01):
.
We don't talk about the salesside that much, but give us a
little introduction into yourjourney, maybe where you started
.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, and I think actually, mark, you and I met
years ago when I was workingwith this company.
It was a company based out ofWinston-Salem called Small
Footprint and it was a customsoftware development company.
I was in a transition point inmy career at that time and the,
the CEO at the at that timeoffered me this role as the
(04:33):
sales executive at smallfootprint.
I had no idea what customsoftware development was.
I had no idea what a digitalproduct was, what Agile was or
anything and anything, and I hadto really learn a completely
new business.
We worked with enterprise andsmall to mid-sized companies
(04:56):
with building out their customsoftware, but we also would go
in and help them learn how tobuild things the right way.
So I always go back to thisstory and if you've heard me
talk before, you may have heardthis story.
After about six months workingat Small Footprint, I'm walking
down the hallway of our smalloffice and my delivery colleague
(05:17):
on the delivery side I reallydo believe that if he were
bigger than me, he would havegrabbed me and thrown me up
against the wall and said youneed to stop.
And I was looking at him andI'm like stop, stop, what?
So if you are not in sales Ithink you know where I'm going
on this, especially if you're inproduct or technology.
(05:41):
What salespeople are notoriousfor is telling a customer that
they can have something, whetherit's with a budget that they
make up, whether it's within ashorter period of time than the
team can actually buildsomething, or whether it's
something that doesn't evenexist.
And I spent six months doingthat.
So when he pulled me aside andsaid that to me, he said you
(06:03):
need to stop.
I said fine, teach me.
So I spent the next I guessprobably six and a half years
learning what was necessary tobuild digital products in the
right way understanding thequestions that need to be asked,
understanding lean productjourney mapping, but also to be
(06:26):
asked understanding lean productjourney mapping, but also and I
think that was very importantwhich has changed the way that I
do things in my career isreally understanding what is
agile and what it isn't, andthat it is not the same to
anybody, which I think wascritical to the career path and
ultimately made me moresuccessful in sales, because I
(06:48):
was able to talk about things inthe right way rather than being
a used car salesman.
That just kind of made thingsup and I could talk to CIOs and
CTOs and chief product officersand stuff like that.
So it really changed who I am.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I fully sympathize because it's it's a different
position than what your typicalengineer has to deal with,
because you're dealing withcustomers and customers want a
product and customers have moneyand they want to give money for
what they want, right?
Sometimes it's, it's veryurgent and they're like we will
(07:24):
give you this large sum of moneyif you can give us this Right,
and to stop and have aconversation unless you've been
there, that's a hardconversation to have.
Sometimes you really do have tohave a gut check and, let's
face it, for sales it's, it's inshort term, it's to your
(07:44):
advantage, right?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, yes, no, it really is, and it's getting away
from that that mentality of theshort term versus the long term
.
I equate the selling what Isold and what my company does
today, similar to financialservices.
So, being a financial advisor,people are working with you
(08:10):
because they trust you.
You're not selling anythingtangible, right?
So if you're not sellinganything tangible, they have to
trust you in order to work withyou and invest with you.
Much so, when it comes tosoftware development, they have
to believe that your company isgoing to actually deliver on
this.
So if you can have a much moreintelligent conversation with
them, you show them that youunderstand what it takes to
(08:33):
actually build something,they're going to trust you and
they're most likely going towork with you and your company.
The people that I'm talking toare smart.
They know that.
If I tell them and I'm going todate myself here, mark I think
you're, you know you're, youknow you, and I can agree to
this.
Now we're going back probablyabout 11 years at this point.
(08:54):
The big thing at the time wasmobile mobile apps, right?
And, if you remember, everybodywanted a mobile app.
Now, whether or not it actuallysolved the problem didn't
matter.
They just wanted something.
So if I'm talking to a CIO or aCTO and saying, oh yeah, the
team can develop that mobile appin about two weeks and we'll do
(09:16):
it for $5,000.
They knew that I didn't knowwhat I was talking about.
They knew the complexity thatit took to actually do things.
But if I could have theconversation and say, hold on,
hold on a minute, okay, you wanta mobile app?
Well, talk to me.
What problem are you trying tosolve?
Right, what is the businessoutcome that you were trying to
(09:39):
achieve?
Okay, well, this sounds complex.
This sounds simple.
Well, let me bring in one of mytechnical team, let me bring in
a product person from my teamto dig into that a little bit
deeper.
That enabled me to have smarterconversations, which then had
people trust me even more,because I understood what I was
talking about.
In the end.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, so as I think about that quite frequently, in
sales you've got customers andthey come to you and they're
looking for bids.
So they have some number of ofclients that they are looking to
work with and they want to toget bids from those clients.
And you know, I would think ifI'm, if I'm a customer and I'm
coming to Seth and Seth isreally interested in my business
(10:18):
and what I want, and I'mcomparing that to three other
customers and they're just,they're yes, men or yes, women,
right, Yep, we can do that.
No problem, yep, it'll be there.
When we deliver in six months,yep, it'll be there.
Who am I really going to trustto be a true partner in this?
I feel like, again, I'm comingfrom the engineering side of the
(10:40):
world, but that is the type ofperson that I want to deal with,
not just someone who is goingto say, yes, we'll make it
happen.
You can have all the confidencein the world, you can be
incredibly persuasive, but areyou really building that trust
and talking about short-termversus a long-term play?
(11:01):
I would hope that after afterthat process, then they're going
to be a reference for you andcustomers going to say, hey, I
worked with this seth carpe anddude, tell me how that went,
what was, what was that processlike?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
yeah, no, you're 100.
Right, yeah, and I will tellyou now that that was three
companies ago and in in currentrole, I actually connected with
and talking to and, you know,doing some business, potentially
doing some business with peopleI knew from back then Because I
(11:36):
was honest, then I knew what Iwas talking about, then I could
have those right conversationsand those relationships have
been maintained throughout time,you know.
So it's important, right,there's one of my favorite
authors and I'm a big fan ofPatrick Lencioni.
Right, and Patrick Lencioni, Icould talk about all different
(11:56):
books and all types of things,but he had this one book called
Getting Naked and right, and theidea behind in that book was
really about being very honestand open and forthright with
people, because it does buildthis trust, not only with
customers but also with yourteam, and that's a whole other
podcast.
Right, I really took that toheart and I wasn't trying to get
that quick deal Now.
(12:17):
Does it take a little bit longerfor deals to happen in that way
?
It does, but ultimately it setsup the company, which should be
your ultimate goal, the missionof the company, in order to be
successful.
I'll never forget a quick storyabout because this is about
Agile, this podcast, right?
So there was someone who I hadmet down in Charleston, south
(12:41):
Carolina, who I had severalconversations with, and this guy
, to kind of give you an idea ofwhat type of person he was, he
was an alligator hunter.
People would actually get himto go with them when they got
the license to hunt a certainnumber of alligators in South.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Carolina.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
He would go with them .
So he was kind of a tough dude,very forthright.
I think that gives you an idea.
We're sitting down having abeer one day and I made this
comment about Agile as aframework and he looked at me
and he goes what are you talkingabout?
I go Agile's a framework, right.
(13:20):
He goes, no, no, no, agile's aset of principle.
There's a methodology, there'sa belief around it.
But then there are differentpieces of Agile.
You know, like we were talkingabout SAFe earlier, we were
talking about, you know, scrum,kanban, whatever it is.
Those were the frameworks.
Before that point, I had beengoing and talking to CIOs about
Agile framework and I alwayswondered why they were giving me
(13:42):
this weird look or whyconversations won't continue
after that, because I had noidea what I was talking about
until somebody set me straightand then I was actually able to
have that and eventually it ledme to the point where it's like,
hey, no, company is not goingto be the same thing, because
(14:04):
all you're following is acertain set of principles and
maybe some guidelines, but it'sgoing to be different.
And I think that's the bestpart about Agile as well.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
So, seth, I do have to make one admonition to you.
I have read the book by PatrickLincioni that you're talking
about Getting Naked.
Yes, and I had a physical copyof the book.
And I was sitting on the couchreading that book and I could
tell by the look on her facesomething wasn't quite right.
(14:33):
I said, honey, something goingon.
She's like what are you reading?
We looked at the book togetherand I showed her.
So yeah, very provocative titlefor sure.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, I still get looks if I bring it up and no
one has ever heard of it.
It's always that look likegetting naked.
Well, hold on, I think this isthe wrong conversation.
Hold on, I think this is thewrong conversation.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
So, seth, what do you do when you've got a client and
this is a very high profileclient, maybe even, let's say,
it's one of the biggest clientsthat your company has dealt with
Sure, and they're saying Iappreciate this conversation
around Agile and the set ofprinciples, that's all well and
good, but we need a system.
(15:15):
In six months, are you going todeliver it for us?
And you know good and well thatyour system, that what you have
, is not what they have, andit's going to take some work to
get there.
But they're trying to put thepressure on you, putting the
spotlight on you a little bithere.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
But, seth, what do you do in those situations,
putting the spotlight on you alittle bit here?
But, seth, what do you do inthose situations?
Gosh, what do you do?
I mean, you have the hardconversation, right?
Or it's not necessarily aconversation, it's more along
the lines of okay, well, hold on.
What are you trying to achieve,right?
And how do you know, in sixmonths, that this is going to be
(15:54):
to building products, right,products it's.
You know what is the, the POC,what is the MVP?
Have those things been designed?
Have you validated this thing?
How do you know that this isexactly what you need, and why
do you need it in six months?
That's another question, right?
So why do you need it?
So you have to ask thosequestions.
Let me back up for a second,though.
There are ways to ask thequestions.
(16:16):
There are.
Hey, you know, if you want tobe truly agile, we want to
iterate and we want to test, wewant to fail fast, we want to
know what we don't want really,really quickly.
But here's the reality.
At some point, at some times insome companies, it does not
matter, they have to get it donein six months.
This is what they want in sixmonths, and if you can't do it,
you're not going to be workingwith them.
(16:37):
But you know what?
Yep, you need to walk awayBecause if it is not someplace
that you can succeed, it's notgoing to be worth it in the long
run.
Anyway it's not.
Oh, hey, we're going to get andI speak from experience because
in those first six months, heyguys, we got to get in there.
We got to build this thing.
In three months, we got to getthis thing done.
Come on, let's do it.
Close the deal Done right.
(16:58):
Ultimately, you create failurefor yourself because you're not
setting the expectations and alot of times you're probably
going to end up failing or it'snot going to be a sustainable
product.
So you got to be careful aboutthat.
Sometimes you just have to walkaway if you're not doing it the
right way.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
And, let's face it, some of these things, these are
extenuating circumstances andyou have to recognize that,
because you may have a situationwhere you have somebody at the
top and they're well-progressedin their career and they have
this one final objective beforethey go off into the sunset, and
(17:40):
it's this you want to have thissystem live in six months.
I really don't care.
We've done our due diligence,seth.
You just need to deliver.
Sometimes those are tough andthey don't want to engage in
those, in those discussions, andyou can get a lot of pressure
from your company, right,because a lot of money is on the
line.
Um, but if you're settingyourself up for failure I say
(18:04):
this because I'm an old guy, soI lived through the two
thousands boom when all thesesystems were going to supposedly
just absolutely die, wheneverybody was counting for two
digits for the year, right right, exactly, yeah, and everybody
was like do we want to spendthousands, if not millions of
dollars to upgrade our system,or let's just buy a new system
(18:27):
that already has the capabilitybuilt into it.
And, like you mentioned, thiswas customized software.
It wasn't centralized SaaSproduct.
This was back in the old clientserver days yeah, yeah, the
(18:50):
office, sometimes until the nextmorning on multiple occasions
trying to get these, get thesecustomers live.
And and it wasn't until yearslater that I had a boss that
really brought it into focus forme.
And and he asked me, he said doyou really think, if you really
sit and think about it, are youdoing your best work at five
o'clock in the morning?
(19:10):
What types of mistakes are yougoing to make when you're doing
that?
And I had a conversation withsomebody else about this and it
was like, hey, if you'rebuilding a house and you want to
custom build house and you'reputting pressure on them, you
know this is your dream house,right?
And you're saying I want itdone in six months and you've
(19:30):
got contractors working aroundthe clock, what do you think
you're going to walk into?
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Yeah, I mean corners right.
People are going to cut corners.
They're going to try and figureout a way to get it done.
You're going to open it.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
It's going to fall.
You know you're going to go toflush the toilet and toilet
falls over.
I mean it's.
People are like they're goingto cut corners because they have
to get it done based on time.
So anyway, sorry for the longdiatribe on that.
I agree?
Speaker 2 (19:57):
No, it's true and it's interesting.
So you and I have been talkinga lot like from my perspective,
about being, you know, a partnerwith with your customers and
going in turn, you know, goingin to help them do these things.
So after I left small footprint, I actually went.
I worked with two companies asa product leader, so I was
actually on the inside trying tolead and deliver these things.
(20:18):
I was fortunate in my firstrole as a product leader that I
was somewhat isolated, that Icould work with the team and we
set things up the right way andwe were actually delivering very
well went from a you know, ifthe customers were on a scale of
one to 10, from happiness, zerobeing unhappy and 10 being
extremely happy, they probablywere at a one when I first went
(20:41):
in and I would I would arguethat they're probably about a
seven or an eight, you know, bythe time I left.
So, having that, I felt reallygood about going into another
role and I was like I can dothis.
I have changed the way thatpeople are thinking internally,
but there are still companiesout there that, regardless of
what you share with them or whatyou tell them the right way to
(21:04):
do things.
They still want it done.
I always use this example.
You have somebody, astakeholder, come to product and
engineering team and say,listen, I need a blue button.
I need a blue button for thiscustomer.
Okay, well, let's talk aboutwhy do you need that blue button
?
Because you know what?
I have a pink button right herethat does exactly the same
(21:26):
thing as the blue button.
Can we use that?
No, no, no, no, no, we need theblue button.
Oh, and, by the way, I need itnext week.
No, no, no, we need the bluebutton.
Oh, and, by the way, I need itnext week.
Well, because of everythingelse that we're working on for
you, we have a brown button anda, and, you know, a purple
button too.
Which one of these are we goingto get rid of?
Well, I need it all, and Istill need the pink button or
the blue button.
Sorry, I'm confusing thebuttons, but I think you get the
(21:48):
point right.
I'm with you.
It's this idea even from inside, internally, there are so many
struggles and they hope that ifthey can bring someone in from
the outside, that they'llactually start listening.
And that's not always the case.
So I say to people, if you wantto be in product engineering or
even if you want to be in sales, really take a very hard look
(22:10):
at the organization and are theygoing to be willing to build
things the right way, or arethey just going to be chasing
that dime you know, for acustomer, or you know, or to
please the board or you know,the CEO of the company?
Those companies are going tostruggle, but those that are
willing to do things the rightway, I think, end up in a much
(22:31):
better place when they, when,when they understand the
consequences of changing andpivoting and not building things
for the right reasons.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
When you say building things the right way, the
engineering mind starts poppingup, because one of the things
that I see is with engineers,they like to do things the right
way.
I can say that because I was aformer engineer.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Right.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
But there is this negotiation that has to go on.
Yes, because there is abusiness.
This isn't a lab project, thisisn't a school project.
This is a business that has tobe run.
And sometimes you find yourselfin the situation of well, hey,
we need this done in a week, aweek, we can't do it in a week.
(23:16):
Our architecture is not builtthat way, so it's going to take
us six months to transform thearchitecture the right way.
We don't have six months.
This won't be marketable in sixmonths.
So what do we do?
And so this is where I like touse the term technical debt,
because I think that word getsthrown around so willy-nilly so
many times that it loses us.
But this is a situation where Ilike to use it because we are
(23:41):
consciously making a decision totake a shortcut or short-term
gain that we have to be able tohave time to undo that later and
do it the right way.
So that's a good compromise tosay, hey, well, maybe we can
give it to you in two weeks.
Is that okay?
Perfect, if we go from one totwo weeks, I can live with that.
(24:02):
Okay, great, if you do that,you've got to give us the next
two weeks to be able to not makethis a pain next time.
Because you know what, if wedon't the next time you ask me
to do this, it's really going tobecome a major pain and you're
not going to like the estimatethat I give you so many times.
People are open to that and youknow again, engineers, I am one
(24:26):
.
You know you want to buildthings the right way and it's
like no, I will not do that.
I will stake my job andreputation of I will not do that
and you shouldn't, but maybe inthis case you should.
If you can agree that you haveto promise I mean sign in blood
that you're going to give metime, not in a couple of months
(24:47):
or a couple of years, but thenext week.
You're going to give me time toundo the work that we did.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Mark, if you meet a stakeholder that will actually
agree to that and sign that inblood, I'd love to work with
that person, because I can'ttell you and I know you've heard
it too how many times okay,we'll just get this done this
one time and the next time I'llgive you the more time to do it.
And it's as though it's thisshort-term right, short term
(25:18):
memory loss.
It's just, the conversationsare forgotten.
I can't tell you.
Well, you know, sue Bob, we hadthis conversation a month ago
and you said that if I did thisfor you, that you were going to
give me, you know, more timebecause I had to hard code the
same.
This is one thing I've kind oflearned.
So if I'm not an engineer, soif I'm off base explaining this,
you got to keep me.
(25:38):
Keep me true to this If I hardcode something and then
something else has to be builtthat also needs to be in that
system but is affected by thathard code, you have to unravel
that.
You have to unravel what youhave hard coded in order to
build the thing that needs to beadded to it.
Or, I also like the term.
This is one of my favoriteterms I used to use all the time
(25:58):
spaghetti code Right Becauseyou have bubble gum, and you
have bubble gum and popsiclesticks right In order to build
something that someone neededquickly.
So you fix it on one page andthen it breaks four other pages
Because everything was sointermingled and not built the
right way, because you did itjust to meet a need right away
(26:20):
and I'm going to say eight timesout of 10, they're not going to
give you the opportunity tounravel it.
So that's when I also realized,if I'm in business development
and when I was in productleading product, that I had to
be honest because knew in thelong run it was going to hurt me
and I'll be honest, it did it.
Did you end up blaming productand development for things not
(26:44):
getting done when you tie thehands of product and development
together In order to not buildit the right?
Speaker 1 (26:51):
way.
That's interesting because thathas been a successful approach
of mine.
You have to be very disciplinedand you have to be very
determined with that.
Which is basically what I wouldsay is if, let's say, if you're
working in sprints, right, it'slike hey, if you give us, we'll
give this to you in this sprint, right, and it's not the best
(27:13):
way to do it, but it's going tocreate some debt and, like any
debt, you don't want it to growover time because at some point
you become upside down.
So you got to give me the nexttwo sprints to undo what I did,
to do it the right way.
So it's up to you.
However you want to do it, youcan wait for three sprints to
(27:37):
get it done, or we'll give it toyou with a, with a bandaid or
bubble gum, like you said, butthe next two sprints are going
to be off the table and I'vebeen successful in that.
But I know that that's just myexperience.
But when you put it that wayand so really you're giving
people options People don't liketo just be told no, there's no
humanly way possible.
We're not going to do it.
Give somebody, even if they'renot the best options, at least
(27:59):
you have options, right.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah, no, I agree, and I just think it depends on
the organization.
You're with right.
As I said, my first foray intobeing a product leader, I was
able to do those things.
I just think the reality is notevery company is going to be
that way and I think, dependingon who you are and what you want
to do and where your career is,you need to make sure what the
(28:21):
mentality is of that company, ofthat organization, or that you
are going to be working with aleader that will support you in
that endeavor, because if youdon't have that leadership
support, it's going to be anuphill battle for you and that's
where you're going to strugglea little bit.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
You know, that's a really good point, because I
could very well see that goingon to well, I got painted into a
corner, but if I go up to theCEO, the CEO can have that
leverage for me and the CEO canundo that agreement that you
felt like you were forced tohave.
So, yes, you have to know whoyou're working with and know
(28:59):
your organization for sure 100%.
So, seth, this 30 minutes hasgone by so fast and I've got so
much more.
It's like we could probablystop recording now, and then you
and I could have anothertwo-hour conversation about this
going forward, because I'm sointo this topic.
But you are amazing.
You are almost a unicorn of asalesperson with an actual agile
(29:21):
and product mindset.
You would be an absolute dreamto work with.
What about those listeners outthere that haven't built that
yet?
What advice would you give toteam members on how to support
their salespeople to get themmore into an agile mindset or a
product?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
mindset.
Yeah, I mean, listen, it's noteasy, I'll tell you right, I
think you have to have peoplethat are wanting to continue to
learn.
You have to have people thatare willing to listen.
So, actually, let me sum it up.
So Patrick Lencioni, back tohim, had a book called the Ideal
(30:02):
Team Player and in that book hetalks about hungry, humble and
smart.
Hungry, I mean, if you'resuccessful in sales, you have
the hunger, right, you're goingout there and you're trying to
get things done.
Smart, you have to have EQ.
You have to understand youraudience and who's around you
and read them right.
That's that EQ.
But I think the most importantpiece in order to help business
(30:25):
development salespeopleunderstand this space and be
able to think differently isthey have to be humble.
And they have to be humble toknow that, hey, maybe they're
not doing something the rightway, which is what my colleague
at Small Footprint taught me.
Right, I wasn't thinking theright way and I had to say, okay
, I need to learn.
So you can bring in people whocan help them understand the
(30:51):
basics of building technologyand why it's complex and why
it's difficult.
You can do all these thingsabout teaching them what is the
long tail, right?
You know you want to.
If you take a long-termapproach to this, you're going
to ultimately be successful andyou can teach people a lot of
things and provide them, showthem how they can benefit more
from this, but they have to bewilling to take it on.
(31:13):
I will say, unfortunately, oneof the things I've also learned
when you're trying to showsomebody how you're trying to
help them, they don't always seeit that way.
It's like this your house,right, Listen, you need to put a
fire extinguisher in your houseon different floors because if
(31:34):
a fire happens, you need thatfire extinguisher to put it out
and save your home.
I have found and one of mycareer coaches, I had this
conversation with them we weretalking about this and you find
that a lot of people don'treally react to that.
What they do react to is yourhouse is on fire.
You better go get a fireextinguisher.
This thing's going to burn down, right?
(31:54):
So taking that approachsometimes will help people to
understand it more.
Back to the humble piece.
I have a colleague that Iworked with in my first foray
into product, and this personwas working in comms and
communications transformationwithin the technology group.
We had conversations about howI had transformed my team from
(32:17):
basically may have beenwaterfall into more.
You know thinking with an agilemindset, right product mindset
and things of that nature.
And so when I was talking, Isaid you, you can actually do
that across your organization.
Your communications people, thePR people can all follow the
agile principles.
You can.
You can have roadmaps, you caniterate, you can have two week
(32:39):
sprints and in some cases it's,it's.
I say all that to you can turnyour sales organization into
something like that.
You can have stand ups on adaily basis to talk about your
pipeline.
You can have, you know, youhave your roadmap, you have your
deal pipeline right.
All of these things can betaken from the.
You know the things that youuse, the tools that you use in
(33:02):
order to help facilitate theagile principle or the framework
that can also help to educatethem.
But I've been going back tothis a lot because I've been
talking about product, I've beentalking about agile software
development, all of these things.
There are tools that you canuse in order to try and change
the way that people think, butit doesn't always work.
(33:24):
It's not always going to workand when we understand that and
we accept that we can try topush and change as much as
possible.
But if you need to fix it,sometimes the right people
aren't on the bus or you're notin the right situation.
So you need to either try tochange it, accept it or move on.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
The tools help us.
They're good, but they're notalways going to be the solution.
So if you don't have the rightmindset and the right people,
sometimes it's just not a goodfit.
Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Determine what your non-negotiables are, and then
that will help you determineyour career path too.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Well, Seth, I've really appreciated this.
Thank you so much for coming onto the show.
I've appreciated thisconversation.
Yeah, let's do this againsometime.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
No, I appreciate it, Mark.
Thanks for having me on hereand allowing me to just kind of
talk and share what's in thismind of mine, which is a little
bit scary sometimes.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Hey, if our listeners out there want to get in touch
with you, what's the best wayfor them to do that?
Seth?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yeah, just find me on LinkedIn.
I'm there.
Or you can go to thetriconinfotechcom I'm on there
if you want to reach out to methere.
But LinkedIn profile isprobably the best way to get in
touch with me.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
All right, great, we'll put a link to your profile
in the show notes to make iteasy for our listeners.
So that's great, seth.
Appreciate it so much, buddy.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yeah, thank you, mark .
Thanks for having me on, Iappreciate it.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
All right, everybody that brings it in to another
episode of the agile within.
We'll see you next time.
Thanks for joining us foranother episode of the agile
within.
If you haven't already, pleasejoin our LinkedIn page to stay
in touch.
Just search for the agilewithin and please spread the
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This has been your host, markMetz.
Welcome to the Agile Within.
I am your host, Mark Metz.
My mission for this podcast isto provide Agile insights into
human values and behaviorsthrough genuine connections.
My guests and I will sharereal-life stories from our Agile
journeys, triumphs, blundersand everything in between, as
(00:29):
well as the lessons that we havelearned.
So get pumped, get rocking.
The Agile Within starts now.
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That's impactagilityco, Well.
Welcome back everybody.
This is your host, Mark Metz,at the Agile Within.
I hope you're having anabsolutely fantastic day today
here in the US.
Spring weather has sprung in mypart of the country.
Here in the southeastern part,we had some rain come through,
(01:57):
some pretty nasty storms, sowash some of that pollen away.
That is very common at thistime of year, so everything
becomes bright yellow.
There's more to follow, I'msure, but I have a guest today,
and that guest is Seth Karpian,who comes from Winston-Salem,
North Carolina.
I want to say welcome, Seth,Welcome to the Agile Within.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Hey, mark, thanks for having me today, excited for
our conversation and chat todayas our icebreaker question.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
We always like to ask if I were coming to
Winston-Salem for a day and hadnever been there before, Seth,
what's one thing that you wouldsay that I absolutely couldn't
miss doing?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Based on the fact that we are talking on St
Patrick's Day.
I think the one thing that alot of people need to know about
Winston-Salem is that downtownwe have a bunch of breweries
that are actually fantastic towalk around to and visit.
When people think ofWinston-Salem, they don't think
of the downtown, and when Imoved here back in 1999 to go to
(02:56):
Wake Forest University forbusiness school, there was
nothing.
Winston-salem has really growninto a business and social city
and it allows you to really godown there and visit all the
different areas rather thanhaving to drive one place and
then drive to another.
So go to Winston-Salem, godowntown, park your car, have an
(03:18):
afternoon or an evening of itand then take an Uber home.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Well, winston-salem is not too far for me.
I say not too far, maybe fouror five hours I'm guessing
something like that fromColumbia.
So next time we make the tripup I'll definitely have to look
you up, seth.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Absolutely Happy to show you around.
I'll Uber home too.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
That'd be fun, All right.
Well, Seth is a chief growthofficer at Tricon Info World
Tech and they have a globalpresence.
He is also a father of four,he's an avid sports fan and he
is a product mindset enthusiast.
We want to talk about Seth'sjourney as an agile sales leader
(04:01):
.
We don't talk about the salesside that much, but give us a
little introduction into yourjourney, maybe where you started
.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, and I think actually, mark, you and I met
years ago when I was workingwith this company.
It was a company based out ofWinston-Salem called Small
Footprint and it was a customsoftware development company.
I was in a transition point inmy career at that time and the,
the CEO at the at that timeoffered me this role as the
(04:33):
sales executive at smallfootprint.
I had no idea what customsoftware development was.
I had no idea what a digitalproduct was, what Agile was or
anything and anything, and I hadto really learn a completely
new business.
We worked with enterprise andsmall to mid-sized companies
(04:56):
with building out their customsoftware, but we also would go
in and help them learn how tobuild things the right way.
So I always go back to thisstory and if you've heard me
talk before, you may have heardthis story.
After about six months workingat Small Footprint, I'm walking
down the hallway of our smalloffice and my delivery colleague
(05:17):
on the delivery side I reallydo believe that if he were
bigger than me, he would havegrabbed me and thrown me up
against the wall and said youneed to stop.
And I was looking at him andI'm like stop, stop, what?
So if you are not in sales Ithink you know where I'm going
on this, especially if you're inproduct or technology.
(05:41):
What salespeople are notoriousfor is telling a customer that
they can have something, whetherit's with a budget that they
make up, whether it's within ashorter period of time than the
team can actually buildsomething, or whether it's
something that doesn't evenexist.
And I spent six months doingthat.
So when he pulled me aside andsaid that to me, he said you
(06:03):
need to stop.
I said fine, teach me.
So I spent the next I guessprobably six and a half years
learning what was necessary tobuild digital products in the
right way understanding thequestions that need to be asked,
understanding lean productjourney mapping, but also to be
(06:26):
asked understanding lean productjourney mapping, but also and I
think that was very importantwhich has changed the way that I
do things in my career isreally understanding what is
agile and what it isn't, andthat it is not the same to
anybody, which I think wascritical to the career path and
ultimately made me moresuccessful in sales, because I
(06:48):
was able to talk about things inthe right way rather than being
a used car salesman.
That just kind of made thingsup and I could talk to CIOs and
CTOs and chief product officersand stuff like that.
So it really changed who I am.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I fully sympathize because it's it's a different
position than what your typicalengineer has to deal with,
because you're dealing withcustomers and customers want a
product and customers have moneyand they want to give money for
what they want, right?
Sometimes it's, it's veryurgent and they're like we will
(07:24):
give you this large sum of moneyif you can give us this Right,
and to stop and have aconversation unless you've been
there, that's a hardconversation to have.
Sometimes you really do have tohave a gut check and, let's
face it, for sales it's, it's inshort term, it's to your
(07:44):
advantage, right?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, yes, no, it really is, and it's getting away
from that that mentality of theshort term versus the long term
.
I equate the selling what Isold and what my company does
today, similar to financialservices.
So, being a financial advisor,people are working with you
(08:10):
because they trust you.
You're not selling anythingtangible, right?
So if you're not sellinganything tangible, they have to
trust you in order to work withyou and invest with you.
Much so, when it comes tosoftware development, they have
to believe that your company isgoing to actually deliver on
this.
So if you can have a much moreintelligent conversation with
them, you show them that youunderstand what it takes to
(08:33):
actually build something,they're going to trust you and
they're most likely going towork with you and your company.
The people that I'm talking toare smart.
They know that.
If I tell them and I'm going todate myself here, mark I think
you're, you know you're, youknow you, and I can agree to
this.
Now we're going back probablyabout 11 years at this point.
(08:54):
The big thing at the time wasmobile mobile apps, right?
And, if you remember, everybodywanted a mobile app.
Now, whether or not it actuallysolved the problem didn't
matter.
They just wanted something.
So if I'm talking to a CIO or aCTO and saying, oh yeah, the
team can develop that mobile appin about two weeks and we'll do
(09:16):
it for $5,000.
They knew that I didn't knowwhat I was talking about.
They knew the complexity thatit took to actually do things.
But if I could have theconversation and say, hold on,
hold on a minute, okay, you wanta mobile app?
Well, talk to me.
What problem are you trying tosolve?
Right, what is the businessoutcome that you were trying to
(09:39):
achieve?
Okay, well, this sounds complex.
This sounds simple.
Well, let me bring in one of mytechnical team, let me bring in
a product person from my teamto dig into that a little bit
deeper.
That enabled me to have smarterconversations, which then had
people trust me even more,because I understood what I was
talking about.
In the end.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, so as I think about that quite frequently, in
sales you've got customers andthey come to you and they're
looking for bids.
So they have some number of ofclients that they are looking to
work with and they want to toget bids from those clients.
And you know, I would think ifI'm, if I'm a customer and I'm
coming to Seth and Seth isreally interested in my business
(10:18):
and what I want, and I'mcomparing that to three other
customers and they're just,they're yes, men or yes, women,
right, Yep, we can do that.
No problem, yep, it'll be there.
When we deliver in six months,yep, it'll be there.
Who am I really going to trustto be a true partner in this?
I feel like, again, I'm comingfrom the engineering side of the
(10:40):
world, but that is the type ofperson that I want to deal with,
not just someone who is goingto say, yes, we'll make it
happen.
You can have all the confidencein the world, you can be
incredibly persuasive, but areyou really building that trust
and talking about short-termversus a long-term play?
(11:01):
I would hope that after afterthat process, then they're going
to be a reference for you andcustomers going to say, hey, I
worked with this seth carpe anddude, tell me how that went,
what was, what was that processlike?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
yeah, no, you're 100.
Right, yeah, and I will tellyou now that that was three
companies ago and in in currentrole, I actually connected with
and talking to and, you know,doing some business, potentially
doing some business with peopleI knew from back then Because I
(11:36):
was honest, then I knew what Iwas talking about, then I could
have those right conversationsand those relationships have
been maintained throughout time,you know.
So it's important, right,there's one of my favorite
authors and I'm a big fan ofPatrick Lencioni.
Right, and Patrick Lencioni, Icould talk about all different
(11:56):
books and all types of things,but he had this one book called
Getting Naked and right, and theidea behind in that book was
really about being very honestand open and forthright with
people, because it does buildthis trust, not only with
customers but also with yourteam, and that's a whole other
podcast.
Right, I really took that toheart and I wasn't trying to get
that quick deal Now.
(12:17):
Does it take a little bit longerfor deals to happen in that way
?
It does, but ultimately it setsup the company, which should be
your ultimate goal, the missionof the company, in order to be
successful.
I'll never forget a quick storyabout because this is about
Agile, this podcast, right?
So there was someone who I hadmet down in Charleston, south
(12:41):
Carolina, who I had severalconversations with, and this guy
, to kind of give you an idea ofwhat type of person he was, he
was an alligator hunter.
People would actually get himto go with them when they got
the license to hunt a certainnumber of alligators in South.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Carolina.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
He would go with them .
So he was kind of a tough dude,very forthright.
I think that gives you an idea.
We're sitting down having abeer one day and I made this
comment about Agile as aframework and he looked at me
and he goes what are you talkingabout?
I go Agile's a framework, right.
(13:20):
He goes, no, no, no, agile's aset of principle.
There's a methodology, there'sa belief around it.
But then there are differentpieces of Agile.
You know, like we were talkingabout SAFe earlier, we were
talking about, you know, scrum,kanban, whatever it is.
Those were the frameworks.
Before that point, I had beengoing and talking to CIOs about
Agile framework and I alwayswondered why they were giving me
(13:42):
this weird look or whyconversations won't continue
after that, because I had noidea what I was talking about
until somebody set me straightand then I was actually able to
have that and eventually it ledme to the point where it's like,
hey, no, company is not goingto be the same thing, because
(14:04):
all you're following is acertain set of principles and
maybe some guidelines, but it'sgoing to be different.
And I think that's the bestpart about Agile as well.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
So, seth, I do have to make one admonition to you.
I have read the book by PatrickLincioni that you're talking
about Getting Naked.
Yes, and I had a physical copyof the book.
And I was sitting on the couchreading that book and I could
tell by the look on her facesomething wasn't quite right.
(14:33):
I said, honey, something goingon.
She's like what are you reading?
We looked at the book togetherand I showed her.
So yeah, very provocative titlefor sure.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, I still get looks if I bring it up and no
one has ever heard of it.
It's always that look likegetting naked.
Well, hold on, I think this isthe wrong conversation.
Hold on, I think this is thewrong conversation.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
So, seth, what do you do when you've got a client and
this is a very high profileclient, maybe even, let's say,
it's one of the biggest clientsthat your company has dealt with
Sure, and they're saying Iappreciate this conversation
around Agile and the set ofprinciples, that's all well and
good, but we need a system.
(15:15):
In six months, are you going todeliver it for us?
And you know good and well thatyour system, that what you have
, is not what they have, andit's going to take some work to
get there.
But they're trying to put thepressure on you, putting the
spotlight on you a little bithere.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
But, seth, what do you do in those situations,
putting the spotlight on you alittle bit here?
But, seth, what do you do inthose situations?
Gosh, what do you do?
I mean, you have the hardconversation, right?
Or it's not necessarily aconversation, it's more along
the lines of okay, well, hold on.
What are you trying to achieve,right?
And how do you know, in sixmonths, that this is going to be
(15:54):
to building products, right,products it's.
You know what is the, the POC,what is the MVP?
Have those things been designed?
Have you validated this thing?
How do you know that this isexactly what you need, and why
do you need it in six months?
That's another question, right?
So why do you need it?
So you have to ask thosequestions.
Let me back up for a second,though.
There are ways to ask thequestions.
(16:16):
There are.
Hey, you know, if you want tobe truly agile, we want to
iterate and we want to test, wewant to fail fast, we want to
know what we don't want really,really quickly.
But here's the reality.
At some point, at some times insome companies, it does not
matter, they have to get it donein six months.
This is what they want in sixmonths, and if you can't do it,
you're not going to be workingwith them.
(16:37):
But you know what?
Yep, you need to walk awayBecause if it is not someplace
that you can succeed, it's notgoing to be worth it in the long
run.
Anyway it's not.
Oh, hey, we're going to get andI speak from experience because
in those first six months, heyguys, we got to get in there.
We got to build this thing.
In three months, we got to getthis thing done.
Come on, let's do it.
Close the deal Done right.
(16:58):
Ultimately, you create failurefor yourself because you're not
setting the expectations and alot of times you're probably
going to end up failing or it'snot going to be a sustainable
product.
So you got to be careful aboutthat.
Sometimes you just have to walkaway if you're not doing it the
right way.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
And, let's face it, some of these things, these are
extenuating circumstances andyou have to recognize that,
because you may have a situationwhere you have somebody at the
top and they're well-progressedin their career and they have
this one final objective beforethey go off into the sunset, and
(17:40):
it's this you want to have thissystem live in six months.
I really don't care.
We've done our due diligence,seth.
You just need to deliver.
Sometimes those are tough andthey don't want to engage in
those, in those discussions, andyou can get a lot of pressure
from your company, right,because a lot of money is on the
line.
Um, but if you're settingyourself up for failure I say
(18:04):
this because I'm an old guy, soI lived through the two
thousands boom when all thesesystems were going to supposedly
just absolutely die, wheneverybody was counting for two
digits for the year, right right, exactly, yeah, and everybody
was like do we want to spendthousands, if not millions of
dollars to upgrade our system,or let's just buy a new system
(18:27):
that already has the capabilitybuilt into it.
And, like you mentioned, thiswas customized software.
It wasn't centralized SaaSproduct.
This was back in the old clientserver days yeah, yeah, the
(18:50):
office, sometimes until the nextmorning on multiple occasions
trying to get these, get thesecustomers live.
And and it wasn't until yearslater that I had a boss that
really brought it into focus forme.
And and he asked me, he said doyou really think, if you really
sit and think about it, are youdoing your best work at five
o'clock in the morning?
(19:10):
What types of mistakes are yougoing to make when you're doing
that?
And I had a conversation withsomebody else about this and it
was like, hey, if you'rebuilding a house and you want to
custom build house and you'reputting pressure on them, you
know this is your dream house,right?
And you're saying I want itdone in six months and you've
(19:30):
got contractors working aroundthe clock, what do you think
you're going to walk into?
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Yeah, I mean corners right.
People are going to cut corners.
They're going to try and figureout a way to get it done.
You're going to open it.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
It's going to fall.
You know you're going to go toflush the toilet and toilet
falls over.
I mean it's.
People are like they're goingto cut corners because they have
to get it done based on time.
So anyway, sorry for the longdiatribe on that.
I agree?
Speaker 2 (19:57):
No, it's true and it's interesting.
So you and I have been talkinga lot like from my perspective,
about being, you know, a partnerwith with your customers and
going in turn, you know, goingin to help them do these things.
So after I left small footprint, I actually went.
I worked with two companies asa product leader, so I was
actually on the inside trying tolead and deliver these things.
(20:18):
I was fortunate in my firstrole as a product leader that I
was somewhat isolated, that Icould work with the team and we
set things up the right way andwe were actually delivering very
well went from a you know, ifthe customers were on a scale of
one to 10, from happiness, zerobeing unhappy and 10 being
extremely happy, they probablywere at a one when I first went
(20:41):
in and I would I would arguethat they're probably about a
seven or an eight, you know, bythe time I left.
So, having that, I felt reallygood about going into another
role and I was like I can dothis.
I have changed the way thatpeople are thinking internally,
but there are still companiesout there that, regardless of
what you share with them or whatyou tell them the right way to
(21:04):
do things.
They still want it done.
I always use this example.
You have somebody, astakeholder, come to product and
engineering team and say,listen, I need a blue button.
I need a blue button for thiscustomer.
Okay, well, let's talk aboutwhy do you need that blue button
?
Because you know what?
I have a pink button right herethat does exactly the same
(21:26):
thing as the blue button.
Can we use that?
No, no, no, no, no, we need theblue button.
Oh, and, by the way, I need itnext week.
No, no, no, we need the bluebutton.
Oh, and, by the way, I need itnext week.
Well, because of everythingelse that we're working on for
you, we have a brown button anda, and, you know, a purple
button too.
Which one of these are we goingto get rid of?
Well, I need it all, and Istill need the pink button or
the blue button.
Sorry, I'm confusing thebuttons, but I think you get the
(21:48):
point right.
I'm with you.
It's this idea even from inside, internally, there are so many
struggles and they hope that ifthey can bring someone in from
the outside, that they'llactually start listening.
And that's not always the case.
So I say to people, if you wantto be in product engineering or
even if you want to be in sales, really take a very hard look
(22:10):
at the organization and are theygoing to be willing to build
things the right way, or arethey just going to be chasing
that dime you know, for acustomer, or you know, or to
please the board or you know,the CEO of the company?
Those companies are going tostruggle, but those that are
willing to do things the rightway, I think, end up in a much
(22:31):
better place when they, when,when they understand the
consequences of changing andpivoting and not building things
for the right reasons.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
When you say building things the right way, the
engineering mind starts poppingup, because one of the things
that I see is with engineers,they like to do things the right
way.
I can say that because I was aformer engineer.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Right.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
But there is this negotiation that has to go on.
Yes, because there is abusiness.
This isn't a lab project, thisisn't a school project.
This is a business that has tobe run.
And sometimes you find yourselfin the situation of well, hey,
we need this done in a week, aweek, we can't do it in a week.
(23:16):
Our architecture is not builtthat way, so it's going to take
us six months to transform thearchitecture the right way.
We don't have six months.
This won't be marketable in sixmonths.
So what do we do?
And so this is where I like touse the term technical debt,
because I think that word getsthrown around so willy-nilly so
many times that it loses us.
But this is a situation where Ilike to use it because we are
(23:41):
consciously making a decision totake a shortcut or short-term
gain that we have to be able tohave time to undo that later and
do it the right way.
So that's a good compromise tosay, hey, well, maybe we can
give it to you in two weeks.
Is that okay?
Perfect, if we go from one totwo weeks, I can live with that.
(24:02):
Okay, great, if you do that,you've got to give us the next
two weeks to be able to not makethis a pain next time.
Because you know what, if wedon't the next time you ask me
to do this, it's really going tobecome a major pain and you're
not going to like the estimatethat I give you so many times.
People are open to that and youknow again, engineers, I am one
(24:26):
.
You know you want to buildthings the right way and it's
like no, I will not do that.
I will stake my job andreputation of I will not do that
and you shouldn't, but maybe inthis case you should.
If you can agree that you haveto promise I mean sign in blood
that you're going to give metime, not in a couple of months
(24:47):
or a couple of years, but thenext week.
You're going to give me time toundo the work that we did.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Mark, if you meet a stakeholder that will actually
agree to that and sign that inblood, I'd love to work with
that person, because I can'ttell you and I know you've heard
it too how many times okay,we'll just get this done this
one time and the next time I'llgive you the more time to do it.
And it's as though it's thisshort-term right, short term
(25:18):
memory loss.
It's just, the conversationsare forgotten.
I can't tell you.
Well, you know, sue Bob, we hadthis conversation a month ago
and you said that if I did thisfor you, that you were going to
give me, you know, more timebecause I had to hard code the
same.
This is one thing I've kind oflearned.
So if I'm not an engineer, soif I'm off base explaining this,
you got to keep me.
(25:38):
Keep me true to this If I hardcode something and then
something else has to be builtthat also needs to be in that
system but is affected by thathard code, you have to unravel
that.
You have to unravel what youhave hard coded in order to
build the thing that needs to beadded to it.
Or, I also like the term.
This is one of my favoriteterms I used to use all the time
(25:58):
spaghetti code Right Becauseyou have bubble gum, and you
have bubble gum and popsiclesticks right In order to build
something that someone neededquickly.
So you fix it on one page andthen it breaks four other pages
Because everything was sointermingled and not built the
right way, because you did itjust to meet a need right away
(26:20):
and I'm going to say eight timesout of 10, they're not going to
give you the opportunity tounravel it.
So that's when I also realized,if I'm in business development
and when I was in productleading product, that I had to
be honest because knew in thelong run it was going to hurt me
and I'll be honest, it did it.
Did you end up blaming productand development for things not
(26:44):
getting done when you tie thehands of product and development
together In order to not buildit the right?
Speaker 1 (26:51):
way.
That's interesting because thathas been a successful approach
of mine.
You have to be very disciplinedand you have to be very
determined with that.
Which is basically what I wouldsay is if, let's say, if you're
working in sprints, right, it'slike hey, if you give us, we'll
give this to you in this sprint, right, and it's not the best
(27:13):
way to do it, but it's going tocreate some debt and, like any
debt, you don't want it to growover time because at some point
you become upside down.
So you got to give me the nexttwo sprints to undo what I did,
to do it the right way.
So it's up to you.
However you want to do it, youcan wait for three sprints to
(27:37):
get it done, or we'll give it toyou with a, with a bandaid or
bubble gum, like you said, butthe next two sprints are going
to be off the table and I'vebeen successful in that.
But I know that that's just myexperience.
But when you put it that wayand so really you're giving
people options People don't liketo just be told no, there's no
humanly way possible.
We're not going to do it.
Give somebody, even if they'renot the best options, at least
(27:59):
you have options, right.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah, no, I agree, and I just think it depends on
the organization.
You're with right.
As I said, my first foray intobeing a product leader, I was
able to do those things.
I just think the reality is notevery company is going to be
that way and I think, dependingon who you are and what you want
to do and where your career is,you need to make sure what the
(28:21):
mentality is of that company, ofthat organization, or that you
are going to be working with aleader that will support you in
that endeavor, because if youdon't have that leadership
support, it's going to be anuphill battle for you and that's
where you're going to strugglea little bit.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
You know, that's a really good point, because I
could very well see that goingon to well, I got painted into a
corner, but if I go up to theCEO, the CEO can have that
leverage for me and the CEO canundo that agreement that you
felt like you were forced tohave.
So, yes, you have to know whoyou're working with and know
(28:59):
your organization for sure 100%.
So, seth, this 30 minutes hasgone by so fast and I've got so
much more.
It's like we could probablystop recording now, and then you
and I could have anothertwo-hour conversation about this
going forward, because I'm sointo this topic.
But you are amazing.
You are almost a unicorn of asalesperson with an actual agile
(29:21):
and product mindset.
You would be an absolute dreamto work with.
What about those listeners outthere that haven't built that
yet?
What advice would you give toteam members on how to support
their salespeople to get themmore into an agile mindset or a
product?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
mindset.
Yeah, I mean, listen, it's noteasy, I'll tell you right, I
think you have to have peoplethat are wanting to continue to
learn.
You have to have people thatare willing to listen.
So, actually, let me sum it up.
So Patrick Lencioni, back tohim, had a book called the Ideal
(30:02):
Team Player and in that book hetalks about hungry, humble and
smart.
Hungry, I mean, if you'resuccessful in sales, you have
the hunger, right, you're goingout there and you're trying to
get things done.
Smart, you have to have EQ.
You have to understand youraudience and who's around you
and read them right.
That's that EQ.
But I think the most importantpiece in order to help business
(30:25):
development salespeopleunderstand this space and be
able to think differently isthey have to be humble.
And they have to be humble toknow that, hey, maybe they're
not doing something the rightway, which is what my colleague
at Small Footprint taught me.
Right, I wasn't thinking theright way and I had to say, okay
, I need to learn.
So you can bring in people whocan help them understand the
(30:51):
basics of building technologyand why it's complex and why
it's difficult.
You can do all these thingsabout teaching them what is the
long tail, right?
You know you want to.
If you take a long-termapproach to this, you're going
to ultimately be successful andyou can teach people a lot of
things and provide them, showthem how they can benefit more
from this, but they have to bewilling to take it on.
(31:13):
I will say, unfortunately, oneof the things I've also learned
when you're trying to showsomebody how you're trying to
help them, they don't always seeit that way.
It's like this your house,right, Listen, you need to put a
fire extinguisher in your houseon different floors because if
(31:34):
a fire happens, you need thatfire extinguisher to put it out
and save your home.
I have found and one of mycareer coaches, I had this
conversation with them we weretalking about this and you find
that a lot of people don'treally react to that.
What they do react to is yourhouse is on fire.
You better go get a fireextinguisher.
This thing's going to burn down, right?
(31:54):
So taking that approachsometimes will help people to
understand it more.
Back to the humble piece.
I have a colleague that Iworked with in my first foray
into product, and this personwas working in comms and
communications transformationwithin the technology group.
We had conversations about howI had transformed my team from
(32:17):
basically may have beenwaterfall into more.
You know thinking with an agilemindset, right product mindset
and things of that nature.
And so when I was talking, Isaid you, you can actually do
that across your organization.
Your communications people, thePR people can all follow the
agile principles.
You can.
You can have roadmaps, you caniterate, you can have two week
(32:39):
sprints and in some cases it's,it's.
I say all that to you can turnyour sales organization into
something like that.
You can have stand ups on adaily basis to talk about your
pipeline.
You can have, you know, youhave your roadmap, you have your
deal pipeline right.
All of these things can betaken from the.
You know the things that youuse, the tools that you use in
(33:02):
order to help facilitate theagile principle or the framework
that can also help to educatethem.
But I've been going back tothis a lot because I've been
talking about product, I've beentalking about agile software
development, all of these things.
There are tools that you canuse in order to try and change
the way that people think, butit doesn't always work.
(33:24):
It's not always going to workand when we understand that and
we accept that we can try topush and change as much as
possible.
But if you need to fix it,sometimes the right people
aren't on the bus or you're notin the right situation.
So you need to either try tochange it, accept it or move on.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
The tools help us.
They're good, but they're notalways going to be the solution.
So if you don't have the rightmindset and the right people,
sometimes it's just not a goodfit.
Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Determine what your non-negotiables are, and then
that will help you determineyour career path too.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Well, Seth, I've really appreciated this.
Thank you so much for coming onto the show.
I've appreciated thisconversation.
Yeah, let's do this againsometime.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
No, I appreciate it, Mark.
Thanks for having me on hereand allowing me to just kind of
talk and share what's in thismind of mine, which is a little
bit scary sometimes.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Hey, if our listeners out there want to get in touch
with you, what's the best wayfor them to do that?
Seth?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yeah, just find me on LinkedIn.
I'm there.
Or you can go to thetriconinfotechcom I'm on there
if you want to reach out to methere.
But LinkedIn profile isprobably the best way to get in
touch with me.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
All right, great, we'll put a link to your profile
in the show notes to make iteasy for our listeners.
So that's great, seth.
Appreciate it so much, buddy.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yeah, thank you, mark .
Thanks for having me on, Iappreciate it.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
All right, everybody that brings it in to another
episode of the agile within.
We'll see you next time.
Thanks for joining us foranother episode of the agile
within.
If you haven't already, pleasejoin our LinkedIn page to stay
in touch.
Just search for the agilewithin and please spread the
word with your friends andcolleagues Until next time.
This has been your host, markMetz.
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