Founder's Story - The CEO Betting AI Will Never Replace This | Ep. 427 with Vera Quinn CEO of Cydcor

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

Daniel opens by asking Vera Quinn, President and CEO of Cydcor, about one of the biggest questions in business right now: will AI replace human sales teams? Vera says Cydcor’s bet is that it will not—at least not for complex decisions where people want trust, context, and a real human conversation. She points to the Apple Store as proof that even when everything can be done digitally, people still line up to talk to smart people who can explain products and services in a personal way. The episode then traces Vera’s unlikely path from answering a newspaper ad for a door-to-door sales job to becoming Cydcor’s President and CEO. Along the way, she shares how sales taught her to handle rejection, why she believes selling is a life skill, how losing her mother and growing up with immigrant parents shaped her work ethic, and what she had to sacrifice to build her career. The conversation also dives into leadership, gender in business, her decision to keep learning for 15 years in preparation for the CEO role, and the volunteer trip to Belize that turned into a decade-long commitment to children in need. Key Discussion Points Vera says Cydcor is betting that AI will not replace human-to-human sales for complex decisions because people still want to speak with people they trust. She argues that simple purchases can be automated, but when people are choosing phone service, energy service, business services, or something complex, they often want a person to explain it in a way that fits their life. Vera says the uncertainty around what is real online may actually make in-person human interaction more valuable, because people increasingly do not know whether digital content is real, AI-generated, or trustworthy. She explains that door-to-door sales taught her that her attitude could not depend on whether the person in front of her said yes or no. Vera believes rejection is a life skill because life is full of no’s, and the real question is how someone chooses to respond and bounce back. She says many companies underestimate sales and often make the sales process too complex, when the goal should be removing friction for the customer. Vera explains that sales is not just a business function—it is part of everyday life, from selling an idea to a spouse to persuading a family where to go for dinner. She shares that she answered a newspaper ad for a summer job that promised “have fun, make money,” not knowing it would eventually lead to her becoming CEO. Vera says the appeal of the early door-to-door role was that it rewarded merit, effort, process, and work ethic without someone constantly standing over her. She does not believe only one personality type can succeed in sales, noting that she has seen introverts, extroverts, and very different kinds of people succeed when they are willing to work, fail, and keep going. Vera reflects on growing up in Toronto with immigrant parents from Eastern Europe and says her father, who did not know the language but built a 30-year auto repair business, shaped her belief that she had no excuse not to try. She shares that losing her mother at age four shaped her deeply and gave her a sense of always having something to prove. Vera talks about her rule that you cannot quit on a low—you do not quit a sales job after zero sales or stop a habit when you feel defeated; you make decisions from a high, not from emotion. She discusses the differences women may face in business while also acknowledging that every group has biases and blind spots, and that she cannot fully know what men experience in business either. Vera shares that one major sacrifice was moving from Toronto to California, away from her close-knit Eastern European family, to pursue an opportunity at Cydcor. She also opens up about the guilt of traveling for work while her son was young, including a memory of him sitting on her suitcase and asking her not to leave. Vera explains that a conversation with Cydcor’s leader Gary changed her trajectory when he asked whether she had ever thought she could become CEO. From that point, she spent 15 years intentionally collecting the skills she would need to become CEO, including finance, accounting, negotiation, process, communication, and leadership. Vera compares that development process to Pac-Man, picking up the skills, disciplines, and experiences she needed to become the leader the business would eventually require. She shares how a volunteer trip to Liberty Children’s Home in Belize became a long-term commitment after she saw children from extremely difficult backgrounds living with love, discipline, and hope. Vera says she was not searching for a cause; she simply found something that needed responsibility and decided to take responsibility for it. Takeaways Human sales still matters because trust, complexity, and personal explanation are difficult to fully replace with AI. Rejection is not proof that someone is not good enough. Vera frames rejection as “not now,” not as a verdict on identity or potential. Sales is one of the most valuable life skills because everyone has to move people to action in some form. Becoming a CEO was not accidental for Vera. It came from 15 years of deliberately learning the missing skills she would need for the role. Legacy can come from taking responsibility for something that was never originally part of the plan, as Vera did with Liberty Children’s Home. Closing Thoughts Vera Quinn’s story is about perseverance, rejection, and the power of staying human in a world rushing toward automation. From a door-to-door sales job she took for the summer to becoming Cydcor’s first female President and CEO, Vera’s career shows how far attitude, work ethic, and intentional growth can take someone. This Founder’s Story episode captures a leader who believes people still want people, that no is never the end, and that success means using what you have built to create opportunity for others. Today's Sponsors:  Start with Upwork, the one-stop platform to find, hire, and pay expert freelancers across marketing, editing, branding, development, operations, and more. Visit https://www.Upwork.com today to post your job for free and get matched with top talent ready to help your business grow. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I have always thought that if you can learn how to sell, you will never not have a way to make money. I think it is a vital scale for life. So you need to go figure out how do I present something to you in a way that can move you to action. Vera Quinn started door-to-door, hearing no 90 times a day. She never quit. Now she's CEO of Sidcor, one of the largest outsourced sales forces in North America. In the next few minutes, she'll show you how to turn rejection into a paycheck. I would say first, reframe what rejection is to you.

So, if there's going to be noes, it doesn't get in my head. It doesn't mean I'm not good enough. It doesn't mean I didn't do it right. It doesn't mean I'm never going to get it. It just means not now. And then I had this rule in my life, and it happened when I was younger. You just need to learn the... I have to know if this is true.

Everyone right now that is building some sort of... of AI-based company is saying our AI-based salesperson is going to replace your human sales team, whether it's in customer service, whether it's call centers. You are saying that the human-to-human interaction in sales is not going to be replaced. That's our bet. That is our bet. I understand that very simple things are going to be able to be done by AI and we're using it even at SIDCOR. but I believe that in order to make complex decisions, people want to talk to people. And I guess my biggest proof point is the busiest store at any mall. And that's the Apple store.

And there's everything that you can do in that store you can do on your phone. But it is busy all the time. If you go to Thousand Oaks to the Apple Store, there's a red car. carpet outside that Apple store and people line up and wait to get into the store. Why? People want to talk to smart people, their technology, their home services, what they want to buy. They want to have an informed conversation with somebody. And I'm not sure, unless the robots come, maybe they will. And we're going to train the robots to be as good as us. Until that time, people want to talk to smart people. And they want something broken down for them. They want a human

to be able to show them, especially when it's complex. No, if I'm buying a skirt on Nordstrom, I don't need a person. I'm good. How do I interact with this? I'll upload a picture of myself. The skirt, they'll show me the skirt on me, and I can buy. If I'm talking about my cell phone service, if I'm talking about my energy service, if I'm talking about business services, I want to talk to somebody.

It's like the trusted Honda dealer, right? I want to speak to somebody who knows about this. You can explain it to me in a way that is personal to me and my life and the way I use this particular service. And I think especially because now we don't know what's real and not real, I go on the internet, I don't know if something, if this video is real. I don't know if it was generated by people. I don't know if it was AI generated.

I have absolutely no idea of what they're saying this video is true. I think for a period of time, I'm going to double down on people and the fact that I can see you and touch you and you're with me makes me trust you very differently than when you call me or when you try and reach out to me digitally. Like, do you answer your phone if you don't know who it is? The worst thing, Vera, is when I answer the phone and I'm not sure if it is AI or a human and then I have to ask them, are you human or are you AI? My fear is, what if the AI starts saying it's human? Well, I mean, but what do you do? Let's say, you don't know somebody and they call you on your phone. What do you do? I know what I do.

Reject it. Exactly. Exactly. So how is that going to replace me coming to your door? How is that going to replace me coming to your business? How is that going to replace me talking to you in a big box retail store about this service? Let me tell you about a time that Upwork saved me. I had two hours to get a submission to a major media outlet and I thought there was no way I'd make it. I jumped on Upwork, messaged someone and within 10 minutes, they replied. 90 minutes later, the work was done in my inbox, submitted on time. And here's the best part. Two years later, that same person still works with me today. Upwork is where businesses find highly skilled freelance professionals for specialized work from software development and AI implementation to marketing,

business operations. With business plus, you can access the top 1% of talent on Upwork. AI shortlisting matches you to top freelancers in under six hours, and with over 170,000 five-star freelancers, you can hire with confidence. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is Upwork.com to connect with top talent, ready to help your business grow. That's upw-O-R-K-com, Upwork.com. Now, at some point in time, let's say 10 years from now, 15 years from now, we will fully trust this technology if we do, then maybe. But I see it going the other way.

Let's talk about door-to-door sales. I tried it for one day. It was selling AT&T home phone and home internet service. And I was like, this is not something I want to do. I'm okay with rejection in sales, but that's a whole other level. What did door to door sales teach you a key part of selling? My ability to maintain my attitude has nothing to do with the person I'm speaking to. I think that was probably the biggest lesson.

Whether you say yes or no to me, my day goes on. and you say, you know, there are people who don't like rejection. Actually, none of us do. Who likes to hear the word no? Who likes to be personally rejected when I tell you something that I think is good for you? Nobody likes a no. But life is a series of noes. And so for me, what it taught me was you're going to get nose in your life.

You're going to get rejected in your life. Things aren't going to go your way. And it's how you bounce back from that. How do you have and maintain a positive attitude? I think that's the biggest lesson to today. All these things happening in my life, 52 years of my life, and I can go through highs and I'll go through lows. And I'm like, how do I choose to perceive this?

And it's my choice. I remember in middle school, I was rejected at the dance when I got the courage to ask for the final dance. So I could see rejection. It stains you. It's almost a trauma point. but I have always thought that if you can learn how to sell, you will never not have a job or you will never not have a way to make money

because every company needs to know how to sell. What do you think most companies miss when you talk to them around how they structure their sales or their sales organization? Well, we deal with a lot of companies that they're looking for, hey, I don't have the skill to create salespeople. I don't have the skill to teach them about the product. I don't have the skill to replicate that in another human being. I want to outsource my sales function.

So they're already looking for an option. And, you know, Sidcor is a good option for them. We have a national presence. So, hey, we'll do your sales for you. I think a lot of people underestimate sales. I think a lot of companies create maybe too complex a process for a sale to be completed. I see that a lot. There's a lot of like, well, if we want this customer, wouldn't I want to take all the friction

points of getting this customer into my system and on my platform out of the platform? So I see that a lot. And I agree with you. For me, you're married. You have a relationship. you have children, you are selling your ideas. You are selling your opinions. You are selling the restaurant you want to go to. You are selling what we're doing on Saturday or Sunday. I think it is a vital scale for life. How do I present something to you in a way that can move you to action?

When you answered that newspaper ad 30 years ago for a door-to-door sales job, did you think at one point, I'm going to become the president and CEO? No. No. I did not. Not even, wasn't even a thought in my head. I thought, I need a summer job. I actually didn't even think I needed the job. My friends thought it is completely unproductive of you just to sit around and do nothing and tan all day. So you need to go find work. And a couple of my friends, they were like, what about this job at? And the job ad said, have fun, make money. And I said, I could do both of those things. Those two things seem easy for me to do.

And I remember going in for an interview. And I remember not really understanding what it was about. I didn't really get it. And then they took me out into the field and we started talking to customers about this particular, you know, at that time it was a restaurant. And we had like a little certificate and we were selling to the restaurant. residents of the neighborhood, this certificate for this restaurant. And I thought, so what do I need to do? You just need to learn the pitch. Okay. And I just need to knock on doors. Yep. And I need to have a big smile on my face. Yep. And you're probably speak to about 90 to 100 people. And I was like,

okay. And you'll get 10 yeses if you do this well. And then I'm like, and I'll get 90 no's. Yes, that is 100% the math. And I thought, and there's nobody that's going to watch me do my work, like stand over me and tell me what to do. No. There's nobody that is going to like critique and, you know, no. No, this is all your merit, your effort, your process. And I thought, let's go. Let's go.

I can learn how to say my name, knock on a door, big smile on my face, talk about the particular restaurant. ask for $20, give them this certificate, hopefully enhance their life or their experience in this certain way. And I can do this 100 times in this day. I can get 10 yeses and I will learn how to take 90 notes. And I'm outside and I'm walking around and I'm not like in this little space where people are watching me all the time. And it's based on my work ethic and my merit. And I thought, okay, this is great. You think there's an inherent difference. that the best people in sales, no matter if it's enterprise sales or residential sales or commercial sales, whatever it is, do you think there's something that they have or maybe an experience that they've had in their life that others do not? I don't know how to answer the question because I've seen a lot of people in, especially in our business, who they're so different and they do well.

They're really different people, introvert, extrovert. You know, you'd think maybe the extrovert is better. seen a lot of introverts do great. So to your point of, I believe that we can learn how to do anything. Now, am I willing to work hard enough? Am I willing to screw up? Am I willing to keep going? Are people inherently born with those things? I don't know. I've seen perseverance and all different kind of personality types. I've seen people take rejection, all different kind of personality type. So I don't, I don't know how to answer the question. I don't, I think you can learn anything. I really do. Just am I willing to work hard enough? Do you think your work ethic and your drive, do you think these are built on what happened to you

when you were younger? I know you grew up in Toronto with immigrant parents. Unfortunately, you lost your mother early on. Did this shape you to being so perseverant, resilient? hardworking? Yeah, I think it did. I think it did. My dad and my mom moved to Toronto. My father didn't know the language. He opened up his own business. Now, all he knew how to do was fix cars, but he ran his own business in Toronto fixing cars. So it's, I think I'd be lying if I said, that didn't in some way influence me. I'm like, this guy who doesn't know the language can come to a country, open his own business, get customers, service those customers, be in business for 30 years. Well, what would be my excuse of the thing that I couldn't do?

Of course it influenced me. My mother passed when I was four and my younger sister was three and my father got remarried pretty quickly. This is Eastern European. in. And I think, you know, anytime you lose a parent, it's going to, it does something to you, as many, many years of therapy has taught me. It has definitely shaped me. And I think I always had something to prove. I always had something to prove. And so I just kept going. Okay, what's this thing now? This is what we're doing now? Keep going. Okay, now this is what we're doing. Keep going. Figure out

how to win at this thing. And then I had this rule. in my life, and it happened when I was younger. You can't quit anything on a low. You're not allowed to. You're not allowed to stop working out on a low. You've got to be on a high. You're not allowed to quit your sales job when you do zero sales. If this is a decision you want to make, you've got to do it on a high.

because emotions definitely hurt our persistence and our resilience. I was watching a video recently about men being asked questions that many times executive women or women in business get asked, for example, like, did you ever feel like someone has ever told you that you're being too ambitious? And the men thought it was a really funny question, though. And these were very similar questions. So what I've heard that a lot of women, women and executive roles have faced. Why do you think there's this difference, this stigma, and do you think it exists? If I think of myself in business 20 years ago to today, I think it was different.

I think it exists because, or the story I tell myself. It's the more empowering story. The story I tell myself is men have been in business together for a really long time. women joined that process later. So because we joined it later, right, the same things men had to learn, women also have to learn. Now, do men have biases against women for sure? Do women have biases against women for sure? Do men have biases against certain men for sure?

So do we face those things? Yes. Is it normal for all women to be ambitious? No, but is it normal for all men to be ambitious? No. So is there a difference being a woman in business? I have experienced certain things that I do not believe men have experienced. But again, I'm not a man in business, so I don't know what they experience.

I don't know what their thing is. You know, do you have to know all the sports so you're part of the group? What if you're not a sports guy? Do you get left out of the group? don't know. I don't know the answer to that question. So for a woman, I'm like, yeah, do people say things to me sometimes? And I'm like, you would never ask a man that. But then I'm like, yeah, but what questions do you ask men that you would, that are bizarre? I don't know. What has been the sacrifice, though, to be at the level that you are? We've had great conversations with people that have shared many sacrifices in their life. It's almost the sacrifice of success. What has that been for you? Listen, I think at different times, different things, I moved to California. We don't move.

Eastern European people don't move. Think of my big fat Greek wedding. Everybody lives within, you know, two, three, four blocks around each other. And my family actually does. It's like crazy. My brother, my sister, my parents. Everybody lives, like within four block radius of each other. We don't move.

We stay in our family. So that was a massive sacrifice. I am leaving to go find this opportunity for myself. So that was one. I sacrificed a lot of time with my son. He's 26 years old today. We have an incredible relationship today. But I remember, and I have a picture actually, of him sitting on my suitcase and saying

to me, please don't leave. Why are you leaving? And I had a business meeting. My suitcase is packed. And here's this little, you know, four-year-old kid. Please, mommy, don't go. And there was a lot of guilt, a lot of, a lot of sacrifice of time during that time in his life, where as a mother, I think your instinct, and probably as a father too, so I'm not taking that away from men, I don't know. But your instinct is, I should be here all the time.

So I think that was a big, massive sacrifice. And in many ways, I think back, and I'm like, you know, did it work out? I rose to this level of success. I believe I have a great relationship with my son. I also see things in our relationship that I don't necessarily see with his friends and their moms. I see there is a difference. Their moms were around all the time.

I'd have to call their moms to say, can you pick Stephen up? They didn't call me so much because I traveled a ton, right? And I was constantly working. So, you know, I wonder. I wonder how that's going to impact him. But that was a massive sacrifice for me. Definitely.

I've heard this before from more women being, I think, more guilty around it. And then men being more around, like how it kind of destroyed their relationships, getting divorced, things like that, because they weren't around. But what's more important is what's happening now into the future. Because I don't even remember anything. From my childhood, I barely even remember anything. But I remember my adulthood for the most part. Yeah, I think, I think Daniel, what's interesting is we don't know.

At that time, it felt like, what am I doing? Is it worth it? Am I going to get there? I'm putting all this time. Maybe I should be more focused on him. And so today, again, I think, you know, he's 26. We have a good relationship. But who knows how that impacted him?

who knows that's true every action we never know how is this going to impact the other person which is why parenting is such a challenge when you looked at the ability to move up and grow within a company what did you have to do within yourself in order to enable you to continue and why okay and because you couldn't play the game that's why that's why you were just like hey i'm i don't like these rules i'm out well i guess that i wasn't wasn't out because, but essentially, yes, essentially I realized I didn't want to and I get very bored. So if I'm like not doing things and I'm stagnant, I don't think I produce or do well in my job at that point. So I think that's eventually that's kind of what would just happen.

Yeah, I think there were two really big things that happened. When Sidcor was moving from Toronto to the U.S., the CEO at the time, who's now the executive chairman, you know, he looked at a lot of us in Toronto and he said, you know, I'd love for you guys to come and help build this in California. And I had never been around somebody like Gary from a business acumen perspective. He had built companies. He had sold a company. He was very successful. And I thought, I'm going to give this three years. And this is going to be, I'm just going to see how this business is built with this person that has a lot of experience. And my visa was up and it was either renew or go home. And my first instinct was, I'm going home. I'm going back to what I know.

My family's there. And I remember Gary asking me a question. He said, have you ever thought one day you could be the CEO of this company? I said, no. The thought never crossed my mind. We aren't a publicly held company. We are a private company. This place is about taking the opportunity that you want as far as you want, as long as you're willing to learn and do the work. And so I spent the next 15 years saying to myself, if I wanted to be the CEO of this business, what would I need to learn? Finance was not my strength. Okay, I took classes at SC, finance and accounting. And I remember sitting down with the

CFO and saying, can you teach me based on our financials when I'm learning in this class? I took a negotiations class. I'd never. I took a process class at Pepperdine University. First of all, who can go to school at Pepperdine with the beautiful ocean there the whole time? I was like, how do you even go to school here? It's so beautiful. And now I'm learning about process. I didn't know anything about process. I knew about sales. I knew how to talk to people. So I spent 15 years, and the way I describe it to people, it's like Pac-Man, playing Pac-Man, picking up the skills that I needed to learn if I wanted to be CEO one day. And that was never promised to me. It was never, it was just an eye-opening, like, if you wanted it, have you thought about it?

And then I started thinking about it. Who do I need to become? What do I need to know? What disciplines do I not have that I need to develop? develop. Who do I need to be as a person? Who do I need to be as a communicator? And I just started doing work. Fifteen years later, it was like, hey, I want to be the executive chairman. You're the CEO. Most people, I don't think, get to be so introspective around what do I need to learn, who I do I need to meet, who can I talk to. They just think about what they're doing

themselves and thinking, like, this should speak for itself. Now, Now, for you, I imagine your legacy isn't just all this. It's also the positive impact you have on the world, which is why you run the Liberty Children's home in Belize. Why was that so important for you to add? Yeah. One of our male sales leaders took a bunch of, you know, the sales leaders in the field, and they went on a hunting trip in Africa.

So they go to Africa. It's great. They have a great time. And a couple of the female sales leaders called and said, well, what will you do with us? I said, well, we're not going hunting in Africa that I can promise you. And they said, we should all go on vacation. I said, no. At that time, my son was 13 years old.

I'm not taking a 10-day vacation with you guys. That's not going to happen. And they said, what if we volunteer somewhere? I said, yes. I could sell that to my family. I am doing good work with great people at my business. This is a great thing to do. So we went to Liberty and we went to volunteer for nine days.

And something amazing happened. I met these beautiful children who came from horrible, horrible, horrible backgrounds, horrible, like the worst of the worst. And they were loving and beautiful and were doing our homework and lived in this place in this community. And they asked us, after our trip, will you come back? Yes, of course we will. The three of us said. Everybody says that they said. So we booked our tickets then and there, and we went back that Christmas. As you go somewhere, we went back three months later, we went back three months later, and as you go somewhere, you start noticing things, there's no food, their clothing is not great, their transportation is not great. And then I started inquiring with the woman who founded it.

And she lived in the UK at the time. When she founded Liberty, she was, you know, in her 20s and a Montessori teacher, and she went to bullies to do something great. And, you know, X amount of years later, she has, I think, five kids under the age of 11, it was. So she couldn't commit. And I said, I could. I brought my son and my husband. I said, I like you to see this place with me. And I don't need any more bags in my life or shoes or our house is nice enough.

I don't, I'm not a very materialistic person. But I want you to come see because if we're going to take some of our income, our family income, and redirect it to liberty, I want you to come. come see and agree. Of course, my husband and my son said, yeah, this is awesome. And so we've gone back to Liberty over the last 10 years. I think I've done, you know, 30, 35 trips. And I bring people at Sidcor and from the field to come and be with the kids and help and do projects there. I wasn't looking for it.

I was not wandering the world going, what's my cause? I just went to volunteer and then I just took responsibility for something that needed taking responsibility for. And I love it. I love it. I think I get more from that than they get from me. When you see them years later, what's that feeling like? Oh, I mean, you know, some of the kids, I, like, you know, there's a little boy there, Simeon. He shouldn't say little boy.

Now he's 16 years old. And we met him when he was three, now like six. And you see this child grow up. I like to think, and I could be wrong, we're constant. We go two, three, four times a year. They see us all the time. We care about them. We know about them.

Now that they're a little older, they're on social media. So they have their Instagrams and they do their, you know, little Instagram messages. Hey, Miss Vera, how are you doing? doing when are you coming back? Yeah, I just feel like, I don't know, I just feel like I did something great. And where would Simeon have been if we didn't do this for the last 10 years?

Who knows? Can you imagine he's 30, 40, 50? Super impactful. Yeah. Final question for you is if there's a 22-year-old out there watching this, because a large demographic of the viewers, I would say maybe 30% to 40%

are between the age of like 20 to 28. So they're watching this. They're terrified of rejection. It doesn't have to be sales. It's just rejection in general. What would you tell them is on the other side of a thousand doors? I would say first reframe what rejection is to you. I don't know what it is to everybody, but there is some rejection means I'm not good enough. Rejection means I'm not good at this. Rejection means maybe I can never get there. I don't know what it is for you. Reeferection. frame it. Reframe it. Your life will not be a bunch of yeses up into the right. That is not what life is. Okay? It is not what life is. So if there's going to be noes, the only thing that I control is how I respond to them. And at the end of a thousand doors, when I hear no, I don't. It's just next. It doesn't get in my head. It doesn't mean I'm not.

good enough. It doesn't mean I didn't do it right. It doesn't mean I'm never going to get it. It just means not now. So that is what I would tell them. Sometimes it's so hard because we get caught up with life to stop and think like that and then say, oh, wow, that happens to me all the time. Vera Quinn, president and CEO of Sidcor, I'm very excited about what you're doing. I hope humans and humans can still interact in the future and we're not all replaced by AI unless everything in the world is free. And then that seems kind of nice, you know, 100 years from now. But thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks, Daniel. It was really fun. Thanks for having me.