Tech World Human Skills, Episode 91
Ben Pearce with Ryan Deeds (Alkeme Insurance)
Transcript. Times match the episode.
[00:02] Ben Pearce
Hi there, I'm Ben Pearce and welcome to the Tech World Human Skills Podcast. Every episode we talk through how to thrive in the tech world, not just survive. Now, if you want me to work with your team, just give me a shout. I love to help teams be more influential, memorable and successful with their stakeholders. Head over to www.techworldhumanskills.com to book a chat.
[00:30] Ben Pearce
Hi everyone and welcome to the tech world human skills podcast. It is a real treat to have you with us. And we're continuing to think about the human skills that help you thrive in the tech world. And today, we're thinking about employability in the new world. How do we make ourselves in demand and valuable as the world continues to evolve? Now, our guest today has got some real insight. He's had a very successful career and is currently head of AI and enablement at Alkeme, Alkeme Insurance. So please welcome to the show, Ryan Deeds. Ryan, it is wonderful to have you with us.
[01:16] Ryan Deeds
with you as well, man. I think it's cool that you've got content that's trying to help folks navigate, you know, with a scary kind of uncertain times for so many folks out there. So I'm glad to be with you today.
[01:29] Ben Pearce
Ah, well, the pleasure, the pleasure is all mine. Now, we've had a chance to have a catch up before this, which was lovely and get to know each other. But for people that haven't ever come across you before,
[01:41] Ryan Deeds
100%.
[01:41] Ben Pearce
could you tell us a little bit about your background?
[01:45] Ryan Deeds
I mean, I started in, it was funny, when I was, and it kind of portends to what we're gonna talk about today. So I used to work at a place, Tropicana Orange Juice. I was one of my first real tech jobs, and I got passed over for something for a more tenured person there. I'd been there like 18 months and it broke my heart. And so I go online and I start looking for a job and I find this place, an insurance agency in Lakeland, Florida. I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna go to try to get that job. I passed the first interview and then they had me do a working interview the second time.
And I'm working and I'm doing my thing and helping people. I was coming in for a help desk position. And it was funny because the lady that was interviewing me, she started walking around. She was like, "Golly, you're so much different than the other IT people that we've worked with." So as she was introducing, we had people in the shop. She was like, "This is still my working interview." She's like, "This is an IT guy you're gonna like." And it was because of soft skills. It was because of empathy. It was because you try to put yourself in the position of that user and try to help understand that problem.
And so I've always gotten joy in those roles from helping people. I mean, I love to solve problems for individuals and get their buy-in. And in my career, that's kind of what I focused on. I've been a bad programmer my whole life. And when I was early on at Lanier Upshaw, that first firm, I was there 10 years doing data extraction, data analysis, trying to figure out like what actions and behaviors drove data. And I went ahead and took that skillset to the next insurance agency, then five years later to a conglomerate and then to a InsureTech startup. And now I'm at Alkeme. But my whole life has really been about data and operations in humans and how do we get humans to embrace technology because I think every firm ever has issues with, hey, we're gonna bring in this great tool.
It's gonna change the world. It's gonna do all this stuff. And then the ROI you get on, it's like 12%. And people are like, ah, the tool didn't work. And is it the tool? Is it the culture? Is it the people? Is it the way that we shaped it? Maybe the problem wasn't aligned correctly. And so I spent a lot of my time thinking about, how do we build teams that can be high trust teams that then can expand that trust externally and kind of earn our users and our clients trust? So it's kind of my little story in a nutshell.
[04:15] Ben Pearce
Really, really interesting. And so then now you're at Alkeme Insurance. And so what is it you're doing now? Because your job title sounds quite interesting.
[04:23] Ryan Deeds
It is, it is. And it was cool. Like I'd met Alkeme Team while I was at Ennabl. Ennabl is a data aggregation platform for insurance agencies. And I'd been there for about four years. And I felt like Alkeme was doing something different that I'd seen in the industry. They had a lot of risk tolerance for doing IT things and interesting stuff. And so once I'd met them, I was like, man, you know, if I ever, I was kind of itching to go back to the agency. I'd been in the InsureTech startup world for four years. And then before that I was in like a conglomerate of doing data aggregation and data consulting for a ton of different insurance agencies.
So I was really ready to go back and find an agency home for maybe the rest of my careers, the hope. And so I left Ennabl in good terms and it was a great journey with them and joined Alkeme as the analytics leader. And I thought that was a cool title because I was like, bring me to your leader. And I always thought about the aliens like coming down. And I was like, oh, I'm the analytics leader. Super weird title, but they did, it got me in there. And, you know, at that point in time, Cursor had blown up and vibe coding had kind of blown up.
And again, as I'd indicated, I've been a bad programmer for the vast majority of my life. And vibe coding really allowed me to accelerate my bad coding into larger purviews. And so when I got to Alkeme, you know, we had a bunch of projects and they had a bunch of data work, but they wanted to use Excel and I didn't want to use Excel because I just feel like Excel creates a massive amount of downstream work. And it's just, it has its purpose, but it's there's certain limitations. And so I convinced them, I said, hey, let me try something. So they gave me the resources that I needed from like a technological standpoint.
And they let me build stuff out. So I built something called Producer Portal at the time. And I built that for about eight months. And then once I got that to a place, they're like, oh, this is really cool. We want more of this. So I was like, all right, cool, give me a team. And so they started allowing me to staff a team. And then they changed my, I was able to get my title changed to head of AI. And it's really interesting because like, that was a year ago and AI, everybody's scratching the surface with, I don't care who you are. I mean, because AI means about tactical application into the organization and how do you get utilization?
It's not about like some chat thing or something over there. It's like, if you're AI, like how are you literally laying that in? Where does it fit? How does it work? And so we spend a lot of time doing that. But now I work with almost every business unit in an organization as we look at, you know, every freaking AI thing out there. And, you know, how do we build solutions that leverages that technology in a way that is conducive to compliance, security and efficiency? And where does that out? And it's a lot of learning, you know, but that's kind of, I have a team of eight today.
And, you know, we have a vibe coding team. And then we have a DevOps team that takes the vibe coded stuff and puts it into kind of real production and real things. And, you know, I'm lucky because I spent a lot of time in operations. And I had really great agencies that brought me into operational issues where they didn't keep me in like an IT closet, right? I wasn't like in the closet. They had me in business problems when I was in my early twenties. And so I really focus on how do we use technology to solve the business problem and not make sure that technology is kind of leading the charge, right?
Like it's the business problem we gotta solve. That's why technology should exist and not vice versa.
[07:47] Ben Pearce
Yeah. And it's great because I think you've got a really interesting perspective because your job is at the very vanguard, at the very cutting edge of technology and where it's going. But you're not at a tech vendor trying to tell us what the future is. You're actually applying it to a business, you know, and quite an old school business like insurance. So you go, well, actually, I've got this real business that I'm working in with these real cutting edge technologies. And at the same time, we're going to be talking about human skills. So that feels like a really interesting perspective you're going to bring.
[08:24] Ryan Deeds
Well, I mean, you know, it's, when I interview for people now, I think it's interesting because, and I feel, I mean, I think everybody in the space, nobody is like super happy about what we're seeing coming forward. I think that we're all, every, I haven't met like an AI professional that doesn't have some form of worry and concern about the long-term economic ramifications for friends of theirs or coworkers or folks, right? And so we do spend quite a bit of time thinking about like, how do you differentiate? And, you know, I might get five calls a week or a month maybe saying, "Hey, I'm looking for a job.
Can you help me?" Like, I'll see somebody on LinkedIn that'll reach out and be like, "Hey, can you kind of help talk me through what folks are looking for and all this stuff?" And so I think that in this age of uncertainty, you know, you gotta at least identify the things that you know will help, right? Like that, that to me. And so it's interesting because things have morphed a little bit. You used to look for technical acumen over all things. Like, "Oh, this guy's a super great tech. Oh, he can solve every problem." But now that's not the moat, right? Because now Claude Code can solve every problem.
You know, they may not do it pristinely as a handcrafted coder will, but being able to put code to paper is not the issue anymore, right? It's conceptualizing the solution. It's communicating that. It's getting by and it's the hearts and minds, the trust, it's the alignment. Like, those are the things. And that typically comes after you spend some time in a domain, in a space that you really get to know. And I think that for me, that's my moat, right? Like, yeah, I know AI. I'm a benefit because I work with a team every day to talk about AI every day, running, you know, doing all kinds of stuff.
But it's that moat grows because I get to work with that team and then figure out like, what that future looks like for us as humans and where do we fit in and what are we gonna be focused on?
[10:19] Ben Pearce
And so it's interesting, one of the things you said there is about this moat, this idea of the moat. And so you were saying previously then the moat was your tech skills, right? You've invested and got all these certifications and experience in this particular technology over the years. But now that moat's gone and now the moat is the application to the business. Can you unpack
[10:41] Ryan Deeds
I mean,
[10:41] Ben Pearce
that for
[10:41] Ryan Deeds
I
[10:41] Ben Pearce
us a bit?
[10:42] Ryan Deeds
think the technical moat is still there to some extent, but I think the future is not that. I mean, it's easy today to build technology. Think about two years from now, it's, I mean, this stuff isn't slowing down. It's making itself smarter. You know, all of these things are learning. And so typically I don't even judge AI today, right? I judge AI on where I think it will be in two years. And that's constantly a moving target as things happen today, right? And cause you'll have people come out and like, you'll see every vendor out there say, oh, this stuff's terrible, you know? And so for me, I think that each person has to think about what their moat is, you know?
How long does it take? And when I think about a moat, it's changed so much. I used to think, all right, if I look at a human that comes into an organization, they make money based on how long it takes another human to learn their job. If I come into Burger King and it takes me one day to learn how to flip a burger, then my ability to drive revenue in, for myself, in Burger King is limited because there's a vast pool of individuals that can learn in one day how to do that job. I think, you know, we're in a different space now where it's, you know, you can't be that coder in the back, in the dark room, snarky as hell, like you're lucky to have me, I'm so brilliant, you know?
And I've known people like that, you know? I've, it used to be kind of a moniker of a good technician to be acidic to humans. And I think the number one rule that I have going forward and that I, you know, try to bring my team up with is there are no dicks allowed. Like you just can't, there's too many individuals out there today, and if you're gonna not be a kind, good human, that you're going to be removed. If you create friction in an environment that is not conducive, and obviously, you can have an opinion that's against the whole, and you can constructively criticize, but if your interactions are constantly draining other people's energies, then it's going to be problematic for you long-term in an employment environment where there are so many other humans that are willing to do that in a better way.
So I think, you know, my team, I coach them all the time on how do we communicate better, right? All of us, I mean, I'm 50 years old, I've been communicating for 50 years, and I've spent time and energy trying to figure out how to communicate effectively, yet I still feel like there's so much more I can do better at, and I'll be in meetings where I say something and I can see reactions, and I'm like, ah, okay, I should rephrase that, and I think, you know, if I'm looking at the number one thing that you really need to focus on is soft skills, is connectability, is empathy, is, you know, how do you earn trust rapidly?
I just, it's imperative. I've seen so many individuals that are good at their job, and they've been able to lean on that proficiency to offset their kind of jerkiness, and that's just not gonna work anymore. I mean, you have to be pleasant to work with, you have to be able to get along, you have to be able to bring cohesion and not separation, and I think, you know, when I look at individuals, I'm trying to figure out, show me illustrations of that, show me illustrations of collaboration. How do you deal with stressful situations, you know? And typically, you can tell relatively fast, like in a 15, 20 minute interview, you can kind of get a cadence for somebody's, you know, how they're gonna communicate effect, you know, and if that's gonna be a fit.
[14:13] Ben Pearce
So it's interesting, my mind has just been whirring as you kind of talked about that. And I'm just sort of thinking you're right, if you're working with people, the jerkiness, I like that. You can't, and I take it you can't be a jerk. not that you're like stuttered, like you've got a low frame rate. So I really like that. But I'm guessing there are people that have always preferred less people interaction, have always preferred perhaps the logic and less emotion, that kind of side.
[14:50] Ryan Deeds
Sure, you've got your introverts.
[14:51] Ben Pearce
And I wonder, is that a world where you've almost got somebody now who has got a digital workforce, a set of agents, they've got an idea, they're orchestrating the agents, other digital agents connecting to their agents, and they're almost like orchestrating, sorry, a digital workforce that is more logical in its communication, and therefore other people. I don't know, what if, I guess there's two things, there's the side where you go, right, I'm really going to invest now in my human skills, my ability to build trust quickly, in what my moat is, my ability to win hearts and minds, some of those things. Or you go, I'm just going to create this digital world around me and other people interface with my digital world.
I don't
[15:38] Ryan Deeds
Well,
[15:38] Ben Pearce
know, what's your sort of thoughts on that?
[15:40] Ryan Deeds
I think it's funny because I mean, okay, so like if you think about, I've had a lot of companies that have come up, and today, like, I don't really like humans, but I wanna have a business, and I don't wanna manage humans, right? And now, I think I can do that. And so, if it's a new company, then I think, sure. But if you're in a legacy organization where, you know, and again, this isn't today, this is not the second, but if you're paying attention to where things are going, all the work that you just talked about, right? Like, the stuff that maybe would energize an introvert, beforehand, I do think that there's challenges there because, you know, I have personal friends that are just like, I am not an emotionally expressive individual, and I am not somebody who is good at conveying that, especially to people that I truly don't care about, right?
Like, I mean, I'm lucky because I have a lot of like natural empathy for humans, and I had natural connected this to humans, and natural curiosity about humans. But that's not everybody, and that's not wrong for them not to have that. But I think we all have to compensate, and we all have to learn what the skills are today. I mean, if you know that you're an in the closet kind of person that doesn't wanna deal with people, you better figure out what the special sauce is, where you're gonna fit, because if you're sitting in a closet doing some work, probably a bot can do that, you know?
I mean, in my mind, that's what I see. And, but that's an interesting concept because I really hadn't thought about the kind of segmentation of personalities like that, but I definitely feel like that is an interesting aside for folks that are less gregarious and less vivacious. You know, like, how does that negatively impact those individuals? Like with the layoffs that we see, I'd be curious to understand like, okay, say that Oracle let's go with 30,000 people, you know, was 75% of those introverts or were they extroverts or was there no, like, was there some kind of subtle data curve that you could determine in the, you know, I don't know.
But,
[17:34] Ben Pearce
I think it's interesting, but I guess on the flip side of that, and a lot of people that I work with, so you talk there about empathy, and whether people have it or don't have it, but I genuinely believe it's a skill that you can develop. It's like any muscle, you know, like down the gym that you can build it, because it seems to me like empathy, and there's a lovely quote from a lady called, oh, I forgot her name, doesn't matter, she wrote emotional agility, I quote her all the time and I've forgotten her name now, but what she talks about is empathy is just about the ability to take somebody else's perspective, and sometimes we over-emotionalise empathy as purely this emotional response, but actually, if you're talking about just being able to take the perspective of somebody, that can be quite logical, you can just ask yourself some logical questions, what's the pain they're feeling now, what are the problems that they've got now,
[18:25] Ryan Deeds
That's
[18:26] Ben Pearce
what are the objectives that they're trying to meet, they're all quite logical questions, they're not all deeply emotional questions, but perhaps individuals haven't considered those questions before, so just by simply considering these questions, already you're starting to build your empathy.
[18:41] Ryan Deeds
Well, I think one of the greatest things that I ever went through, and it sucks because I'm a little bit of a fan of the word "tragedy," but my sister died when I was eight. The byproduct of my sister dying was my parents put me into therapy for about 15 years. And to this day, I believe fundamentally that that is the number one thing that has allowed me to be the person that I am today. Because it's not about my technical ability. It's not even about my operational knowledge. It's about my ability to communicate at any level with any individual without making them feel stupid.
Right? And thinking about motivation and why am I talking to this human and what are they looking for is a native thing for me because of all the therapy. I went through like four sessions a week for freaking 13 years, like in my wet clay period. And so like I spent so much time talking about emotions and analyzing that, that for me, it just came natively. But I wasn't a great speaker. And so I spent a lot of time working on speaking, right? And I watched my father go to Toastmasters time and time again. He's one of the best public speakers I've ever seen. And so, you know, when you think about success in life, they say there's two things that are primary goal setting and public speaking.
And it makes sense because if I can convey my ideas effectively to you and you can and I can plant a seed of that idea in your brain, then I'm winning because it doesn't matter how brilliant I would be or you would be if we can't get that brilliance out today. Right? Like, and so I just think about that tremendously. And I coach my team on that quite a bit is like, how are we communicating? And just like you said, like I have some young members of my team that might look at somebody and be like, they don't want to do the work. They don't want to they don't want to try this tool.
And it's like, well, slow down. Let's let's like you said, let's put ourselves in those shoes. They've worked this job 20 years. They have 14 different things going on in their day to day. They've been blown up because they've made a mistake 17 different times in their career. They have a safe path right now that they know they're going to take. You bring a new tool with a nebulous result that may get them in trouble. And then you want to blame them for not using your tool. Like let the reframe your thought process, right? Like understand, go sit in that seat for a little while and understand that.
And so, I mean, I really, to me, that's what it's about. It's how can we be good humans together, make money in a capitalist society and try to help each other as much as possible? I mean, you know, and I try to bring that to the team. And obviously I fail often, but, you know, I do, I do, I do think I got a huge advantage from having parents that put me into therapy to be able to, you know, naturally just start breaking stuff apart and having conversations that are very emotionally driven. But yeah, I think BrenƩ Brown, I mean, BrenƩ Brown is like the person, one of the writers that I leverage a ton and, you know, in podcasts and stuff like that.
But I think all of us should spend time in that space. And I think that increases your moat. You get into an interview and you can communicate effectively. It's going to differentiate you from somebody who doesn't. You work on your not script, but your ability to connect with a human. And it's tough because I've know so many individuals. I mean, my girlfriend, she's not hugely like warm when you sit down with her, right? Like in a job interview, she's not going to be a super warm, super like, oh, person. And so she's got to figure out ways to compensate for that. And, you know, she's done mock interviews over using using different AIs to try to because she's understood that that was a weakness of her.
So I think the other, you know, another key component of the future is be honest with yourself. What are you good at? What are you bad at? What do you need to work on? And how do you improve? Because self-improvement, flexibility is the other thing. I mean, the flexibility kind of aligns with self-improvement, right? What I knew yesterday may not be valuable. I need to know new stuff today, right? Like, how do I know new stuff today and then apply that effectively and understand that that may be wasted effort because maybe tomorrow it's not valuable anymore.
[22:31] Ben Pearce
Yeah. Yeah. And that's a mindset thing in its own right, isn't it? Because that can, that can by its definition feel like a hamster wheel, that can feel like a grind. Unless you're kind of in the mindset that learning new things is what I do. My job is like I'm a professional learner, because I work in tech and we've got to keep up all the time. Whereas if you go in, "Oh no, I've got to learn a new thing. Oh no, I've got to learn a
[22:54] Ryan Deeds
Well,
[22:54] Ben Pearce
new
[22:54] Ryan Deeds
you're
[22:54] Ben Pearce
thing."
[22:54] Ryan Deeds
not an IT
[22:55] Ben Pearce
That's a...
[22:55] Ryan Deeds
if that's the deal, right? Like you're not you're not going to be. Oh, I don't know what happened. Yeah, because I mean, and I've gone through periods of my career where it has gotten very drudgery, right? Like, hey, I've learned Python, I've learned node and I've learned C sharp and I've learned this and I've learned sequel. And I know even as I'm learning it three years from now, I'll be learning something new. But for me, the learning component of that is part of the joy as well. Yes, it can be frustrating. Then I have it then. And how do I combat that? I have another hobby that does not diminish.
So I love history because history is exactly the opposite of technology. The more I learn about one thing, the more I read about Rome, the more I read about, you know, World War II or ancient history, that layering just gets better and better, right? And your understanding of it gets better and better. Or in technology, you know, if you went and learned, you know, Python, obviously, Python is still a big deal. I mean, it's huge. But another language or something else, DAX, I learned DAX. I spent tons of time with Power BI and DAX. And I don't use that at all anymore. And so, but I think it's part of the process.
And it's also the challenge is I think most humans are going to have to be that I think because when you think about where we're moving, I mean, you're going to have unified prompts that are doing most work for you, I'd say in three years, four years where most of your interface is coming through. Hey, what's on my email? Send us the Bob. Check this. Do that. Right. That's how most corporate environments will be sooner rather than later. And so I don't know, it's it's you're going to just have to constantly be flexible in your mentality. And it's a different thing than we've had before where you could come in and I'm going to work the same job for 10 years and I'm going to do the same tasks for 10 years.
That's not employable. That right there is replaceable. Employable is, hey, I come in and learn a new thing. I can I know tomorrow I can learn a new thing. Solutioning. I think about solutioning that word. If you are a solution or regardless if you build with freaking AI or you build with wood, if you solve problems and you communicate effectively, you're going to get a job. You're going to be employed.
[25:05] Ben Pearce
And even that solution, that comes back to the empathy bit we were talking about before, because to design a solution, you've got to understand the problem and be able to solve something for another human. So you've got to understand their perspective to solution something that's going to be useful.
[25:19] Ryan Deeds
Well, I asked where domain expertise comes in, right? I mean, why am I good at my job? I'm good at my job because I spent 15 years sitting with account managers, watching their struggle, watching their pain, watching how they were not as valued as other individuals. You know, they're always kind of. And so when I come into a meeting and I can convey that to them and they've never heard that from a leader before that they've been seen like that, it changes everything. Right now, you've got people that are like, oh, that person knows and he understands and he's not afraid to convey that to others.
So then you create a fan base. If you create a fan base in your organization, again, you're building a moat, right? And a fan base is folks that you've helped that you make their existence better by you being there, that when you are not there, their experience is diminished. If you have a wide swath of individuals in an organization that are like that, that is going to be a moat for you. You know, 10 people are talking to folks about, hey, how good this person is and how much they help them. That's awesome. That you can't get better things than that. And it takes a long time and it's interesting, Ben, because it's not like you can go out and be like, okay, I'm going to get close to Ben now.
Ben and I are going to be pals. Let me figure out how I can do it. I mean, it's got to be like, and again, it's a learned thing that you have to work on over and over and over because you really have to care. And if you don't care, then it's very hard to fake caring. You
[26:45] Ben Pearce
yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, one of the things that you mentioned there, and you did when I talked before, and I particularly wanted to talk about it, was this idea of accelerating trust. You just talked about there, about how it can take time, how it takes time to do this, but there's specific things you can do. And I remember you said to me, you designed your LinkedIn profile, and
[27:06] Ryan Deeds
know?
[27:06] Ben Pearce
it was there to accelerate
[27:07] Ryan Deeds
Oh,
[27:07] Ben Pearce
trust. So there's tactical things that you can do to help accelerate trust with people. Can you talk to us about your thoughts
[27:16] Ryan Deeds
Yeah, well, it's funny. So if you think about most help desks, especially back in the days where early odds, you know, everybody's got a desktop on their thing. There's printers in the environment, right? And typically a user would call the help desk. The person would come out, put out the fire and go back into their little den. When I got there, especially as I started leading larger teams, I was like, yeah, we don't, that's not how we do it. You get up, you go talk to those individuals in the morning, you walk around, you see three people, you talk about their dog, their aunt, their grandmother, because if you show up when there's a fire, you are equated with a problem.
You need to be equated with a solution and a partnership. Like that is your job. Yes, your job is to solve that immediate issue. But more importantly, it's to make sure that human knows that you are an advocate for them and that you are on their side. That happens by you spending time with those humans. And like I've got team members in Utah right now and that's my coach to them is like, yeah, you can come in and walk into your room and we can stay in this room all day long. But you're here with humans that you can go and learn from and build on.
And that is really the job because you earning their trust is more important than you solving this problem today. Promise you that. And I mean, and that's just one small way, right? So as you look at your role, whatever you do, there is a way that you can go. You sit down with somebody for 15 minutes in the middle of a day that wants to have a community that maybe is having a rough day. You talk about their dog or their family member or their kid or their latest adventure. You do that five or six times. You are going to build a rapport with that individual that will in some cases protect you from work and work and be an advocate for you, but also enrich and deepen your experience at work.
I mean, I spend, I run remote teams, so I try and I fail, but I try to spend 15 to 20 minutes twice a week with each one of my team members. Not about work, like what's going on in your life. How's your girlfriend? How's your travel? What's happening? Right? Because if you don't have those connections, what are you doing? Who are you working for? They have to know what, you know, the year I'm in the fight with them. I'm looking out for their best interest. And so I think in every job you can probably find ways and sometimes it's emotionally draining. And sometimes you don't want to do it.
You're like, screw it. I want to work on the success sheet, but career wise, it's probably more beneficial for you to get up, spend 15 minutes, 20 minutes communicating with individuals in that room. I just think that that helps tremendously. And then yeah, my LinkedIn, it's funny, especially when I was in ennabl, I was selling, you know, for about 18 months, I was selling ennabl product. So, but I'd always been on LinkedIn and I always had authentic content. It was kind of my thing, like, hey, I'm going to say shit that shouldn't be said probably on LinkedIn. Like, I'm going to have conversations that, you know, everybody's talking about all this other stuff.
I'm just trying to talk about being a human in a workplace. How do you navigate this thing? How do you go through all the things we got to go through and still keep everything balanced and juggled? And what I found is through that content, like I'd come into meetings and people would be like, hey, you know, I heard about your daughter and it wasn't the intention. Like my intention was not, ooh, I'm going to, let me get these guys, right? Like, but a byproduct of the way that I naturally communicate on LinkedIn is an acceleration of trust. And I saw that. And so again, I think that if they can know you before you come into the meeting, if you're authentic, if you're real, if you're, you know, out there a bit, they come in and they're like, oh, I saw this.
You went to, you went to Jamaica. How was that? That one thing is accelerated your ability to connect with those folks. And if that opens it up, now you have the ability to communicate back with them and ask them questions. And obviously it depends on the audience. If I'm with a sales group, then it's like, yo, let's just get to brass tacks because you're trying, you know, like I just, but if I'm with other folks and I'm just trying to help, it's, I'm, I'm very, very open. Yeah, that's, it wasn't, it was weird because it wasn't like my strategy. I didn't have in 2006 is when I started on LinkedIn and I definitely wasn't like, oh, this is, but the nature of the conversations, I've seen that as a significant byproduct.
And to be honest, LinkedIn has been such a powerful thing for me. You know, I've had people come up and give me hugs and, you know, it's been, it's, it's, it's provided some very, very cool connections and very cool moments for me. And I've invested heavily in that platform.
[31:44] Ben Pearce
I mean, it's interesting, this whole idea of building trust and how it's win-win, you know, so I think almost it feels manipulative. If you took it to one extreme, it's like, I'm going to be successful in my career because I know I need to build trust so that I can use them later. But for me, it's not about that, is it? It's about there's a win-win, so you're sort of going, actually, I get something from building relationships with other humans, just generally as I'm doing it, you know,
[32:14] Ryan Deeds
I
[32:14] Ben Pearce
I
[32:14] Ryan Deeds
do
[32:14] Ben Pearce
get
[32:14] Ryan Deeds
too.
[32:14] Ben Pearce
to learn
[32:15] Ryan Deeds
I mean,
[32:15] Ben Pearce
stuff.
[32:15] Ryan Deeds
that's my natural as well. Like,
[32:20] Ben Pearce
you get that, which is brilliant. But then I'll be really honest, you know, I started my own company a few years ago, and it's because of the network, because of the relationships, because of the people I built with, that is the only reason my business is still going four years later. Because people already trusted me and found out what I was doing and went, oh, come and do that with me, Ben, can you come and help this team? And that was all just because of, you know, relationships and trust that I built over the years,
[32:51] Ryan Deeds
Well,
[32:51] Ben Pearce
coming
[32:52] Ryan Deeds
and
[32:52] Ben Pearce
back
[32:52] Ryan Deeds
following
[32:52] Ben Pearce
and paying
[32:52] Ryan Deeds
through with your
[32:53] Ben Pearce
tenfold.
[32:53] Ryan Deeds
word and doing what you're supposed to do. I mean, you know, it's not just, it's not just, hey, you can talk to this individuals. It's, it's, you know, hey, your interactions have shown that you're consistent about what you said, right? Like the things that you talk about and the things that you tell somebody you're going to do, you can follow through with those things. And I think it's just a, it's, it's, but I do agree with you that some people would take this conversation as, you know, hey, there is, there, they could be manipulative. But in my opinion, if you like, that's who I am naturally, right?
I'm just that person naturally. And I'm lucky for that for individuals that aren't like that naturally. I think that they have to work on that component in a way that's authentic to them that, that, I mean, because obviously manipulation will be seen, you know, it, it, you can't come into it with that end result in mind, like, hey, I'm going to sell this and so I'm going to, I'm going to build trust with this person. It's, it's, I'm going to define myself in these ways. People that I resonate with will come, you know, come to me and we will, we will build that over time.
I think it's an interesting balance. And again, I'm just, I was blessed because I, you know, I think all the therapy I went through really helped make me a good communicator. Like people, like I love talking about emotional things. I suck at small talk and I'm not great at small talk. I like depth. I like, I would much rather get, be with one or two individuals talking about uncomfortable things in the dark corner of a bar than, you know, with 70 people walking around, milling around, like that takes my energy where the deep conversations absolutely energize me.
[34:28] Ben Pearce
Yeah, but I think it's any of these techniques we're talking about, or can be used for good and can be used for bad. So, you know, you went back to earlier, you said there's two things, and I love that that was goal setting and public speaking, you know, those are two things to index on. Now, you can use both of those for a great cause, and
[34:46] Ryan Deeds
100%.
[34:46] Ben Pearce
you can use both of those for a terrible cause. So,
[34:49] Ryan Deeds
Yeah, that's right.
[34:50] Ben Pearce
it's a great set of skills. It's what then motivates you and where it comes from, whether that is for good or that's for bad, that you use it.
[34:58] Ryan Deeds
Yeah, no, I agree completely. I mean, I think the main thing is, is, you know, if you think about employability, it's, you can't be a jerk. You got to be flexible. You got to be a learner. You got to, you got to be, how do you brighten the area that you're in if you're given that opportunity, right? Like, and again, I'm lucky because we're in these positions where, you know, I see so many people working their butts off and then they don't get seen. I love helping unseen people be seen. I love helping the voiceless have voices, right? That's like, especially at the stage of my career that I'm in now, it's, it's just, it is one of the biggest things that, that like gives me fulfillment in my experience, you know, and because I do think it's hard out there.
I think that plenty of people want to do the things that we're talking about, but maybe in a position that they're not able to. And so they got to figure out how do they do that effectively in the scope that they're in without ruffling feathers of other individuals, you know, and so I think it's easy to sit back and pontificate for me. Go do all this stuff. But then again, I put myself in the mind of, you know, a normal employee that's coming in, you know, earlier, middle career that is just holding on to a job. They've got a couple of kids at the house.
They're trying to do the best they can, right? They're navigating all the different challenges of life and they just want to have a job and work and to make that, to make enough money for their kids and their family to be provided for. And I just think the rule set is so different today and it's, it's going to take folks that are really truly navigating that and it sucks sometimes, man. I mean, I do it. So I just, I think there, I think there's a lot of opportunity for folks that want to, and I think that even folks that don't want to, we're going to have to lean into this stuff.
Because it's not, there's going to be, there's going to be less jobs. There will be less jobs.
[36:48] Ben Pearce
Yeah, and so making sure that you're at the top of the queue when the jobs are being given
[36:58] Ryan Deeds
Well, I think so. I mean, to be honest to me, I mean, again, I'm a technical position. So, but the folks that I've had come to me and say, Hey, I'm looking for a job. What would you suggest? I'm always like, what are you Bill? Like, what can you show to somebody? So I had an accounting, a kid that was coming out of college for accounting and he was like, I really like to analyze this, this and this. I'm like, well, have you built anything to exhibit that, that and that? He's like, no, I'm not really a builder. I'm like, yeah, everybody's a builder today.
So like solution because when you think about like the hard and fast of what individuals are looking for, it's can you leverage AI in your job today and apply that in a way that makes a difference. You have this soft skillset that's going to get you so to a place, but you're also going to have to have that over there. Like, Hey, yes, I've built this. I can see this problem. I can apply these tools. I can do this stuff because if you don't have because to me, that's like brass that that that's basics. Now, everybody's going to be able to have that. You're not getting in the door without those skills and then the differentiation are going to be the soft skills like, oh, great.
This person can solve 98% of the things that I want to do right now, but he's a real jerk. That person can solve 64% but it's a lifetime learner and good to work with. I'm going with that individual at 64% with great soft skills that I feel like could be a better boon to the team long-term and come up to speed. And so I think, you know, you and I are talking about a very specific emotional set that you have to have going forward, but there's a there is a why do I want to employ you? What are you bringing to the table? You and so for my guys, I'm like, I love seeing things.
One of my guys brought built like a flight tracker. He built a crypto dashboard and then like a ski tracker, right? Like and just for me to see the ability to conceptualize a problem, identify the solution, put it out into the world. That gives me an understanding that he knows the whole product loop, right? He can see and complete all of that. And so most of the individuals that I've hired, I've hired college kids with no technical action with no technical degree, but they've been like, hey, I've put together these four websites. And I use these tools. Okay, cool. Come on, you know, start them off at very, very inexpensive.
They go six months if they do well. Cool. It's up here in rock and roll and my rock stars have been coming, have been coming from those kind of experiences.
[39:19] Ben Pearce
But right, I've just glance the clock we are rapidly running out of time this has been a fascinating conversation I could talk about this forever. So let's just start to wrap up a little bit. So what for anybody who's owned out off we've been chatting is just with clicking back in now there's only back in. How would you kind of wrap up your thoughts from the episode.
[39:38] Ryan Deeds
Don't be a jerk. Learn, learn your area. Try to build things in a show how you are a solution or I mean, I think those are the I am don't be a jerk is build trust, you know, have empathy, understand the problems, you know, because trust is the byproduct of all those components, right? And just understand that you're going to have to be flexible in the future and flexibility is going to be a major thing. And if every time something changes, you freak out, that's going to be a problem. But it's been great, man. I appreciate that. This is a cool conversation. And again, like you said, I can talk about this forever because I spend a lot of mental energy thinking about this specific topic.
[40:17] Ben Pearce
Yeah, I think I think it's fascinating for me like for the rest of my career for my kids, you know, that are coming up now, you know, they're in their teens that are going to be thinking about what their next career is. You know, if you're early in career yourself, I think these things are so important to think about the things that are, you know, that that you really just lodged in my mind of you as you've been speaking there. I love that idea of goal setting a public speaking being two of the most important things. I think that was really interesting. Love the whole conversations we've had about empathy.
Really interesting your take on them on the on the new moat and thinking about what your moat is and getting in that mindset of what your moat is and how do you build that out. I thought that was that was really interesting. And then and then the constant learning you've just got to be constantly learning and constantly adapting. Yeah, I think they they all really, you know, resonated with me and I thought were really interesting. So final, final thing for me to say is, right, thank you so much. You know, you got such great insight. You've got such great experience to share. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing it all with us.
Thank
[41:30] Ryan Deeds
I'm glad that you have this podcast man. I'm glad that there's focus on, you know, how, how do we as humans move forward together in this new environment? How can we help each other? And how can we, you know, lift each other up? And I think that's what this is about. I appreciate that.
[41:44] Ben Pearce
you.
[41:50] Ben Pearce
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