Experts of Experience - #1 Brandon Kirk: The Secret To Mastering Customer Experience in Your Business

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

Join us as we dive into the world of data-driven results and customer experience with Brandon Kirk of Rogers Sports & Media. We explore how data shapes advertising and in turn enhances the customer experience.In this episode, Lauren sits down with Brandon Kirk, Vice President of Client Solutions at Rogers Sports & Media. Brandon is a sales executive with over 15 years of experience in companies such as CanWest, Time Inc., and Sports Illustrated.We kick things off by stressing on the importance of time and data in determining business results. We discuss Rogers Sports and Media’s move to content-rich partnerships to improve customer experience. We discover how Rogers leverages a large volume of data, from wireless data to set-top boxes, crafting unique advertising segments that hit right on target.The conversation flows into customer experience. Brandon breaks down the media landscape and the crucial role of feedback in driving excellence. We finish up by discussing the impact of tools like Salesforce and the influence of AI on predicting customer behaviors.Watch the Full Episode on YouTube: youtube.com/@ExpertsofExperienceIf you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to rate our show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Imagine running your business with a trusted advisor who has your success top of mind. That’s what it’s like when you have a Salesforce Success Plan. With the right plan, Salesforce is with you through every stage of your journey — from onboarding, to realizing business outcomes, to driving efficient growth.Learn more about what’s possible on the Salesforce Success Plan website: http://sfdc.co/SalesforceCustomerSuccess (00:00) Preview and Introduction(02:28) Rogers Sports’ Influence in Canada(05:42) New Age of Advertising & Customer Engagement  (08:33) Modern Metric Measurement Strategies & Tools(15:06) Leveraging Data Driven Insights for Growth(22:51) Harnessing Tech: Salesforce, AI, and Predictive Engagements(25:52) The Role of Collaboration in Customer Experience(31:25) Future of Media: Streaming & The Rogers-Disney Collaboration

Time is of huge value. And when we get into things that are, as I said, deeper work, being mindful of that is critical. And, you know, adapting to finding ways to do things more efficiently, to deliver on objectives is really important in our day to day. One of the things that we're really focused on, as I said, as a vertically integrated company is data. It is really what's driving the business today. It could be a great idea and it could be a great campaign, but if it didn't deliver on the objectives, innovation isn't as important if it's not driving the result. For this episode, I'm joined by Brandon Kirk, the VP of Client Solutions at Rogers Sports & Media. For those of you who aren't familiar with Rogers Sports & Media, it's huge.

If you've lived in Canada, you already know. But for those of you who don't, let me paint you a picture. Rogers is one of, if not the most prominent media outlets in Canada, reaching 95 percent, yes I said 95 percent, of the Canadian population each week. Approximately 76% of Canadian TV audiences use Rogers as their provider. The company owns 55 radio stations, operates nearly 30 podcasts, and owns more than 3,500 out-of-home screens across the country where advertisers reach millions of eyeballs. As I said, it's huge.

I think it's important to also note that Rogers Sports and Media is a subsidiary of the larger Rogers Telco brand, which operates cellular and internet networks across Canada. The brand's reach is massive, which means it needs to make a lot of people happy. So on this episode of Experts of Experience, I'm talking to Brandon to understand how this company sets out every day to create great customer experiences and the technology his team uses to power and measure the success of those experiences for their clients. Let's dive in. Well, hello, everyone. Today, I'm speaking to Brandon Kirk, the Vice President of Client Solutions at Rogers Sports & Media. Brandon, how are you doing today? Excellent. Thanks for having me today. It's a pleasure. Awesome. So excited to chat with you. So before we go any further, I also just want to make sure we're painting a really clear picture for all of our listeners. I had a stat from 2022 that Rogers Sports & Media reaches 32 million Canadians weekly.

Is that still accurate? That is correct. Yes. And I think it's important. Oh, go ahead. No, I was just going to say, we always kind of pride ourselves on being able to reach roughly 95% of the population. So it's constantly growing. And, you know, as mentioned, you know, where we have new assets in the space, it makes it even more compelling for marketers and advertising agencies in Canada, for sure.

And it's, yeah, that's the thing. You guys are everywhere and it's amazing. So tell me a little bit more. Paint the picture of who your core customer is. Yeah. So our core customer, I would say there's probably, you know, obviously I'll start with the audience. You know, we are a, you know, through and through content company first. And in our area in media, it really is the customer groups would be combination of clients and ad agencies. So

we're dealing with, you know, everything from major holding companies, be it a group M, a publicist, an IPG, to local advertising. Local is very big. Given our assets, we have a large number of local advertisers, and that is very client direct. And then with larger national clients too, I think a very big part of what we do is working with VPs of marketing, CMOs, particularly when we get into, I'll call it the deep work. And when I say deep work, it really is about the idea of solving bigger problems and being held accountable for delivering on KPIs, which is a really important part of what we do and how we're measured continues to change each year. The expectations around ROI and delivering on objectives continues to rise. The bar keeps

getting higher and that's creating the demand for new tools in that space that help drive visibility on how a campaign worked. And when we get into some of those campaigns, it really is about going beyond the transactional. And when we get into some of those campaigns, it really is about going beyond the transactional. And when I say that, I mean, going beyond the 30 second spot on TV or in broadcast radio. It could be, you know, in show placement. I'm sure those in the United States and in several markets around the world are very familiar with the Got Talent franchise. In 2021, we launched Canada's Got Talent, the Canadian version of Simon Cowell's America's Got Talent. I think it's in 69 plus countries across the world now. And that really is, you know, about deep work,

you know, working with big organizations in Canada that some may be familiar with in the United States, but CIBC, Bank, and or Tim Hortons. And I think Tim Hortons was in the U.S. or still is in the U.S., but, you know, really going, you know, beyond the traditional approach to media and communications to really deliver standout executions that really connect with consumers that we can measure. Mm-hmm. That's great. And, I mean, I'm hearing a lot of, like, you're needing to innovate in standout executions that really connect with consumers that we can measure. That's great. And I mean, I'm hearing a lot of like, you're needing to innovate in order to continue delivering an amazing customer experience or delivering on what it is that your customers need. How have you adapted to the evolving landscape? And what are some of the tactics that you've implemented? I think it starts with, for us, the value chain.

And by that, I mean, you know, looking at the process from start to finish. So a lot of what we might be tackling on a day-to-day basis is large-scale RFPs, requests for proposal, that, again, are beyond the transactional. It's larger partnerships that utilize content to connect in bigger and better ways. So I think there's a couple of things that we need to consider constantly there is that thinking about the customer and whether it be the ad agency or the marketer, time is of huge value. And when we get into things that are, as I said, deeper work, being mindful of that is critical. And, you know, adapting to finding ways

to do things more efficiently, to deliver on objectives is really important in our day to day. And it really is about understanding what they're trying to accomplish and focusing on new ways that in some cases haven't been done to connect. And when you think about tactics there, it really is about in-show. And how in-show complements the overall plan. So there may be brand sell advertising, your stand in 30 second spot, plus in-show execution that really stands out. Because what we generally find is it provides a lift for the advertiser. And we measure that lift through brand lift studies, among other things, to determine, one, did it drive better recall? Two, did it drive increased brand favorability? And last,

but certainly not least, did it drive propensity to buy? And I can use that as an example because I'm trying to think that's probably been a very big part of what we do in the last four years. Before that, it was a lot of, and this is a good example of how the business is changing. Before that, it was, you know, they were using their metrics, obviously still do in terms of sales and how they delivered on KPIs against the program. But now it's incumbent on our side of the business to really deliver proof of performance. And with larger programs like that, it's incumbent on vendors like Roger Sports and Media to do that. And understanding the brief from the beginning before it gets into the value chain is a really key piece in that for sure. Interesting. So previously your clients were doing their own measurement and now you've taken on that responsibility and in some cases to really show the proof and show how your media placements are really impacting their business. In your view, tell me a little bit more about how you're doing that measurement

and what some of those KPIs are that are so important for you to be really tracking to show the success. Obviously, we're using traditional metrics in terms of measurement, and there's new technology that's helping, and I'll speak to that in a moment. But we use third-party research, and it has to be. I think this is another important piece, and I'll use this as an example because what really drove the onset of getting to this third-party research was Meta or Google. They've got so much at their fingertips to measure and deliver back proof of hitting the KPIs, whereas when we're looking at traditional media sometimes,

in addition to our advanced advertising solutions, we really need to look at solutions that can meet both, you know, the needs of measuring traditional media and more, you know, digitally focused media. And with the more traditional media, you have to use third-party research. And it is costly, but it's becoming a table stakes part of the business because it can't just be, let's execute. And ideally we drive sales, we drive store traffic, whatever it might be, depending on the KPI of the marketer. But now it's so incumbent to really go a lot deeper and demonstrate not only brand lift, propensity to

buy, but how did they do against their competitors, measuring against benchmarks, demonstrating unique good and bad sometimes. Because a little bit of, ideally, you're driving something that's executing well and creates the best outcome for the advertiser. But you might get some really good intelligence about how to connect even better for the next program. And I think that leads to the why in all this as part of the how, but it's to drive renewal. You're creating a relationship with a large market or be it a P&G or a L'Oreal. And it really is about demonstrating that we had the right strategy. We worked well together. We executed with excellence and it drove the

results we were looking for. Now, in other areas, it's getting very interesting because here's an example of a very traditional media that is evolving. And when I think about out of home and let's talk about where that's going, number one, it is becoming so much more digital and it's exciting because it's moving so fast. So out of home five years ago, programmatic trading would have been unheard of. Now, depending on the network that you have, it could be anywhere from 20 to 40% traded programmatically. And that offers some pretty good movement for marketers to understand. And when I look at out of home, I see a huge opportunity for growth. Canada is about, let's say, if I were to look at out-of-home percent of expenditure, it might be about 5%. In the US, it might be closer to 8% and 10%.

Now, demonstrating the efficacy of the platform now via a more digitized version of it is going to be huge, and it's going to move things forward in a big way. And, you know, when I think about that, it's really interesting that, you know, you can, overnight we've moved to being able to measure footfall attribution, to even be able to measure engagement, which I can give you an example of in a second, with clicks. And I'll give you an example because it's really, it's a fun and exciting one in the AI world. And I think it's a matter of time before it's adopted in a wider way across the industry is engagement measurement. We are in an engagement economy and we have a partner and part of our out-of-home network is an organization called Vertical Impression. Now, why we wanted to partner

with them is, one, it's a great offering. It's residential elevator screens across Canada. Now, the interesting part is it offers engagement metrics. And this is a very good, and I'll touch on privacy in a second. What it does is measures the engagement of people in the elevator. Now you think elevator, okay, that's great. But wait a second. You can measure how long somebody is spending with an ad, how engaged they are. How long they're looking at it? Absolutely.

Absolutely. Okay. And I will say this, I'll add, because it's a really important point, is they are certified by privacy and design, and that is critical. You're not recording people, you're just tracking their eyeballs. No, and it's important because it's a technology that allows you to not hold the data, but to make split-second decisioning on the data. us who is, how an ad is resonating in Calgary against 18 to 24 year olds versus Toronto against 18 to 24 year olds. It can determine if you're wearing glasses. It can determine the amount of your gaze. And I think I touched a little bit on benchmarks. We can then start building industry benchmarks. So how did QSR ads, how did your Starbucks ad perform versus the category

and really make decisions? And we've actually used it as a marketer as well. So I'll give you an example of that with Sportsnet. We're looking at marketing opportunities for, it could be NHL puck drop. It could be the MLB playoffs as owner of the Toronto Blue Jays. And we're able to drive decisioning from the data that we're getting from there that can be applied not only to the advertising on that platform, but for other platforms. We can use it as a proxy for connecting with Canadians in a bigger and better way. So it can give us insight as to when we should run ads, what time of day works better, what type of ad, and a lot of A-B testing that you really can't do very easily in the market today.

So it's really opened the doors to bigger, deeper conversations. And I think it's a matter of time before that proves to be a technology that is embraced even more by more vendors and marketers alike. Wow, that's so fascinating. And just as you're talking about benchmarking, I'm assuming that's something that really sets Rogers apart in the fact that you have such a broad reach. You can really be looking at kind of what every advertiser is doing in this space across all these different channels,

which is so fascinating. Absolutely. I'm sure you're like swimming in data. We are swimming in data. When you're using Salesforce to tackle your company's most important goals, failure is not an option. At Salesforce, they get it. highly skilled advisors, Salesforce CTOs available to help you with expert guidance and implementation support at every step of your journey. Learn more about Salesforce CTOs at sfdc.co slash professional services. One of the things that we're really focused on at Rogers, as I said,

as a vertically integrated company is data. It is really what's driving the business today. And as a vertically integrated organization, there are a few different sets that we're using to draw upon for signals. One would be our wireless data. We are the largest wireless carrier in Canada, which is fantastic. And that gives us a wealth of data and insight to work with. We also have our enterprise group, which is Roger's business. So we can draw from that. And last but certainly not least, our media business. And if you were to look at our media business, where things are going today is, you know, pulling data off of set-top boxes. So being able to determine who's spending time with what content at an anonymous and aggregate level, but that can help us build segments. And a number of years ago, we launched something called RED,

and RED is short for Rogers Enabled Data. And what that allows us to do is create segments that can go across all of our media platforms. So simply by drawing from the signals that we have access to, to build a segment of auto-intenders or moms or fashionistas, you name it. We generally, we have about, I think about 22 kind of common segments we offer in the market. But what's great is, as I said, time is the huge value to our partners, and we can make it easy. So if you are Ford Lincoln and you're looking to go to a certain subset of the auto and tenders group, we have it ready to go.

So it's very easy, and we can say, okay have it ready to go. So it's very easy and we can say, okay, here's how we can deliver it across conventional television. Here's how we can deliver it across connected TV and streaming. Here's where we can deliver it across out of home, digital, and even radio to a degree. Yeah. It's a full package. So I want to take a step back a little bit and just talk about like the customer experience that you're providing and what you're seeing in just the whole realm of customer experience. How do you feel like organizations can really set themselves apart when delivering on that customer promise? And I guess specifically for you, for your advertisers? First and foremost, I think it's about listening, really. And media has changed drastically.

It went from a position of, I'll say crudely, but, hey, customer, here's what we've got. That's the biggest mistake. And anytime I see that anywhere, I just say, this is not the way to behave in a market like this. It has to be about working very closely with the customer, understanding their needs, you know, understanding their expectation from a process standpoint. And obviously KPIs fall into that in a very big way. And one of the things that we do, and just recently, actually, I was looking at, we did an NPS study for our customer base. And we went out to a combination of agency, local clients, you know, VPs of marketing, CMOs. And, you know, with an NPS, it really is a very, I guess the best word is it's a high bar. Because with an NPS study, as many may know,

you're basically only taking your promoters, those who rate you as a nine or 10, your seven and eights don't count and your one through sixes are detractors. So, you know, to, you know, an organization getting an 85 is spectacular. And so we generally use NPS. And then we also try to put in a few other directional questions as well. But again, name of the game, you can't put massive surveys out into market. It's got to be NPS plus a couple of other quick things to help you develop some actionable intel. And one of the things that I'm proud of, so speaking of listening and solving the big

problem, we just did our NPS and we found that, you know, we were number one in Canada against all other media vendors with respect to who do we turn to first for RFPs. Now, this is a big market and that's including everyone from Rogers to Bell Media to you name it. There's a lot and we take pride in that. And that's a really important piece to take away. But it's really equally important to look at, OK, where can we improve? What's the sentiment on pricing? What's the sentiment on innovation? And where do we need to improve for sure? Well, congratulations on being number one. I'm not surprised at all. Well, I'll have to say, you know, when someone is answering, they may be slightly biased,

but we'll take it as directional. And we have such fantastic competitors. And, you know, it's good to compete with such a strong group of people in the market because we do better when we do things together in some ways. And being strong for our advertising partners is important.

Mm-hmm, totally. And surveys are hard, specifically NPS, as you're describing. It's information that will guide you and it's also not the full picture. So how do you kind of fill in the gaps there? How else are you gathering information from your clients outside of that NPS survey? Yeah, I think, you know, generally we do, a big part of the value chain would be posts. So, and it's really critical to do this and do it well. And that's really, you know, the report card that we're coming back to the marketer and the advertiser with and demonstrating

where we hit, where we delivered. If there was a shortfall, how we're making it up, and really getting their feedback. And this is going to be very, very overly simplified, but one of the things that I really love is keeping an eye on unsolicited feedback. It's the unsolicited feedback that I love to see that's coming to people on the team

that really speaks to, okay, coming to people on the team that really speaks to, okay, how we over-delivered, how we went above and beyond to drive the overall objectives of a campaign. That's important. I know that sounds simple, but it's one of the things that make me and I think our entire team at Rogers Sports and Media the happiest. And it's important. And I think our entire team at Rogers Sports and Media, the happiest. And it's important. And I think we do a great deal in the world of awards. In Canada, we have something called the Media Innovation Awards. And that, too, is a good example of how the business has changed. We all have experience entering awards. And with the Media Innovation Awards, great.

It's about how did you innovate? How did you disrupt an existing landscape to drive a result? But equally important, as I said, it's the results. So when you're preparing something like this for customers, it's critical. I'm not customers, but for the judges, I should say, is the results. So really going deep, what did it actually do? Because it could be a great idea and it could be a great campaign, but if it didn't deliver on the objectives,

innovation isn't as important if it's not driving the result the partner's looking for. Yeah, for sure. For sure. I think just going back to what you said about the unsolicited feedback and kind of what you're hearing from your clients in those meetings or those moments where you get to kind of get their unfiltered feelings. Is there any technology or how's your team like, is there any technology that your team uses to really connect and share those insights that you're hearing from people? Absolutely. So we are big Salesforce users and we obviously linked into Salesforce is interesting and it's a good example of a part of the tech, it's going to help drive us quite a bit. And it also will get into the world of keeping people aware very simply of what's going on with the business. Start pulling insight at a category level. Start pulling insight at a predictive forecasting level, which is great. I'm going to sound like a nerd, but that kind of gets me excited because forecasting

is such a big part of what everyone's doing. Whatever business you're in, you know, at some point, we're all kind of planning out where things are going to land for a quarter or a year, as well as long range planning. And when existing tools are utilized as they should be, and that is really another point that's worth making, is anything like Salesforce or CRM tools, it's garbage in, garbage out, and it takes time. And I think so many people would agree that these things do take a little time to get to a point where you really do have high quality data going in. And there has to be a benefit to the people using it to understand that it's going to save them time. So when we can operationalize, you know, very real time reporting versus, Tom, can you give me a sales report?

It should just be keys away. And at the top of the house, it should be, we should have the president of Rogers to be able to look at, you know, what is going on with Procter and Campbell and just have that at their fingertips. And we're very close to that. And that wasn't overnight. And I think that's an expectation that people should feel okay about, that it does take time, but it's worth it when it works because it does make us all fast. And if it makes us faster, it makes us better for our customers. And it keeps focus on, you know, the big thinking versus administrative work, which I don't know if anybody really loves. Totally. I mean, I don't know if you've checked out any of the Dreamforce

news and just all the things that they were talking about in terms of upcoming Salesforce technologies and where they're going in the world of AI. It's like so exciting. I'm trying to remember the last time. So when we had Salesforce in the office, I was blown away. It was just like all of these things. And it got great.

I mean, they're advancing their industry and we're a customer of theirs. So that's a good example. It's five big know, five big things coming down. They're going to change your world. And, you know, it takes, you know, collaborative work to get there, but it's huge. And I'm always like, I guess it makes me sound more like a nerd, but yes, I get really excited about that, that advancements in that area for sure. Oh, totally. I'm, I'm right there with you. I have hacked together way too many spreadsheets in my day and I have PTSD. I can't wait for the future. You just

mentioned collaboration. I'd love to tap on that because when it comes to creating a great customer experience, we know it takes many people to really provide that. So what role would you say that cross-functional collaboration plays in really delivering on an excellent customer experience? It's critical. And we have, at Rogers, there's so many interlocks. And we have, I think it's a good example also for people development too. We have to work with content. We have to work with producers.

We have to work with the insights team. We need to work with content. We have to work with producers. We have to work with the insights team. We need to work with data. We need to work with our advanced advertising team. We need to work across platforms. And from a people development standpoint, it's really exciting because while you may not be a manager, it does offer you, if you're leading a project to deliver something for, you know, any, you know,

partner, you're going to, you know, have to marshal the resources, you know, internally, where you may not lead with authority, but you're going to have to lead with influence. And I think that's a really big part of the day-to-day. And it's, I've heard the term used so often at Rogers of being a matrixed organization. And you hear that often. I don't know if that's still something everybody uses, but the bottom line is you have to be nice. You have to understand where everybody is in their day-to-day. You have to be empathetic. And we are, you know, living in a time where the demands are large and, you know, resources can be, you know, under pressure sometimes. So it really has to be about, for one, planning ahead in a big way and, you know, understanding where you need to go to get to where a project needs to land. And planning ahead is a very, very big part of that. Definitely. you know, understanding where you need to go to get to where a project needs to land and planning ahead is a very, very big part of that. So. Definitely. Are there any like tactics,

strategies or tools that you use to really support that matrix organization and support that connection through all the teams? Yeah, I think, you know, communication, we really use group communication. You know, for example, it's really about setting clear objectives. And that can be weekly, too. So we do kind of a, you can call it a weekly scrum, where everybody gets the information that they need with respect to what, you know, happened on the week that was and what are the priorities for the week ahead. And, you know know starting to use tools in a bigger better way you know we use Microsoft Teams and you know some things can be very very simple but if you can keep a project moving through tools very easily you can save

time and some of these are like I don't want to be oversimplified but some of it really is it's what's going to be our fastest way to keep everybody informed on a project. How do we use existing technology such as Teams in this case? And, you know, I'm even more excited about where, you know, Microsoft is going with a lot of the AI tools with Copilot and things like that. So we're starting to look down that road as well. But things that save time, things that, you know, add clarity to everyone's day, because everybody should be informed as to where we are as an organization at a macro level, but also on a project by project basis, where everybody is, who's responsible for key areas, and, you know, really implementing a very simplified RACI where people

can understand what role they're playing on a given project. And, you know, Teams is the centralized tool we're using internally. And, you know, externally, working with customers, obviously, we use social in a big way to update customers. You know, we use traditional newsletters and things like that. But I just like things that we can start to measure. And we started looking at new tools in the, call it the presentation area, where it's a little bit of a, rather than your traditional PowerPoint,

start creating something that is much more robust, that understanding the customer has limited time. You need to engage them, whether it be a pitch or a presentation, where they can kind of navigate through almost a mini website. There's a number of tools, I won't name them all, but out there that I think are going to change the game in terms of how we communicate with customers. And I think it has application, not only in media, but anywhere. And what's important on that when you bring it back to the data is if I send something out, be it generalized market communications or even a follow-up on a proposal, it's there. It's gone via email.

But with these types of new tools, I can start determining how much time people spent with what parts of a proposal. I can understand if they're spending more time with a video element of something we've sent out, whether it be just, as I said, general market communication, or even the follow-up to a pitch, or we're launching a very, very large scale new product. And we want to really educate the market. These tools are going to be big, big,

I think game changers in terms of engaging people. And I think we'd like to be first or among the first to start using those types of things for sure. Yeah, that's awesome. And I mean, again, the benefits there in terms of time saving, client engagement, just understanding them better without even having to ask, right? It kind of fills in some of those gaps. And that's the beauty.

Everything is about data. So it's all coming in. The more you do, the more you get, the better it gets. And so that's really exciting. So then we find, okay, the next time we're putting out, whether it just be a general, I'll give you an example. So we are launching our partnership with Disney Plus in Canada. We start November 1st. We are representing Disney Plus because they will have an ad-supported

opportunity starting in November, which is exciting. And again, very big for us in the streaming world is that as the world moves to streaming and you need to sort of find a very strong balance of your assets between linear, traditional, and advanced opportunities. And looking at ways to tell that story and really bring people in, educate them. How are we going to be working with them? What access will I have? What information do I need to know and get quickly to understand it? And it goes a lot longer than a PDF. It goes a lot longer way, I should say, than a PDF or or PowerPoint presentation. So it's really exciting in terms of looking at new tools to do that. And then we're going to learn from everything going out in terms of where people are spending time and where they're not spending time equally important. Yeah, definitely. Wow, that's so exciting. And it's going to give you so much

new information to be working with. I can only imagine. Absolutely. That's great. Well, this has been a really interesting conversation and so cool to see all the different ways that you're connecting with your customers and your customers' customers and bringing all that data together. To close this out, I'd love to know what one piece of advice would you give to customer experience leaders today? I would say really, you know, first, as I said, it's about listening first. It really is spend, you know, in the basic meeting, we can all go and present, you know, 40 minutes of content,

but really try to establish an understanding of that interaction to say that we're going to share, but we really want to spend more time say that we're going to share, but we really want to spend more time understanding what you're trying to accomplish because it's our job to turn our assets into the solution for that challenge or that problem. And I would also say, adapt, really, and test, learn, move on and take the good and move on from what didn't necessarily work. And I think it's really also finding ways to help people grow within an organization too, and bring them into a new world where everyone needs to understand that they have to work alongside new tools, new AI, and that it's

a positive and then demonstrating and showing them what the positive is, just as I said with Salesforce, helping a team who's using Salesforce constantly to understand the benefit of it. And I think that's critical. And I think it's just be empathetic to what everybody's looking to achieve and the challenges that they're faced with, whether they be short-staffed or under pressure, given a big pitch or a new client renewal, you name it. It's really just trying to understand where somebody's coming from and really trying to work within that understanding to make the best outcome a reality for those people.

Totally. Listening on all sides, listening to our teams, listening to our customers. It's the role of the leader today, especially in a client-facing situation. So, wow, that's great to hear. I love that answer. I'm a huge, huge advocate of, you know, internal engagement leads to external engagement. So, great. Anything else that you would like to say to our listeners before we end our conversation? Well, just thanks for having me. This has been great. Lauren, it's a pleasure meeting you.

And I really appreciate the time today. Awesome. Thank you so much. And have a beautiful day. Thank you. You are a business leader with vision. You've seen the future as an AI enterprise thriving with Salesforce's agent force, and it is bright. Getting there? It's a little fuzzier. Don't worry. Salesforce CTOs are here to work with you side by

side and turn your agent force vision into a reality. We're talking expert guidance and implementation support from the best of the best. To learn more about Salesforce CTOs, visit sfdc.co slash professional services.