In the final part of our interview with Reachdesk founder and CRO Alex Olley, we explore the role of AI in sales, emphasising its capacity to automate repetitive tasks while maintaining the human element in buyer interactions. Alex warns us against over-automation and AI champions, who aim to enhance, not replace, sales conversations. The episode closes with reflections on leadership, personal growth, and the long-term vision of giving back to the next generation of founders.

Hello. Welcome to the Growth Workshop Podcast with

myself, Matt Best and Jonny Adams, and part three of our

conversation with Alex Olley from Reachdesk, so founder, and

now CRO at Reachdesk. And so Alex, we've talked a little bit

about this offline, and I think it's really fascinating to dig

into it in a little bit more detail, which is the part that

AI has to play in a sales organization, and at SBR, we've

had this debate a few times. We've had a couple of

conversations on various different webinars, and there's

sort of white papers that have come out of the team, and of

course, those are all accessible via the website, but in that we

talk about like, where AI fits in sales. And it's just

fascinating, isn't it, to think of how much we're probably

already relying on this. But is there a point where you go, you

can go too far in the sales in a sort of sales team, and sales

kind of operating, operating with them. What's your thought

on that?

Yeah, I think you've probably guessed so far. I'm big

on, like the experience side of things, like a buyer standpoint,

and that's the bit I'm worried about. I'm worried that, like, I

took a look at an AI SDR, that essentially, like, spoke at me

and I would have a conversation. It was basically a means to,

like, qualify me. I didn't enjoy it, it, I wasn't very trusting

of the answer, because I think anyone could put any answer in

behind it. And the things that I don't think AI should even be

thinking about replacing is that the human interaction and

conversation. I'll give you examples of where I've seen it

work really well. We use, like, a power dialer. I've got lots of

we're very outbound heavy. We use a power dialer. And what

that does that AI should be automating the repeatable tasks

that essentially eroding productivity. You know, they're

then increasing effort so that that's bad, but at the same

time, it should be designed in a way that's going to elevate the

experience for the person, right, both the user and the

person. On the other end, I'm talking the concept of sales. So

we use this power data, right? What it does essentially dials

lots of numbers, right? It, when someone picks up, it gives the

information to the rep to say, these are the bullet points, but

the conversation should never it should never be a bot or

anything. It should be the human and the AI is dialing. That's

the repeatable task. It's doing the researching and surfacing

those insights, which takes a long time. It just allows the

person to have more, better conversations. And I haven't had

a single piece of feedback where it's like, this has been bad in

any way. So that's a good side of things. But I've also heard

of companies say, Well, we're going to now eliminate the human

and when the conversation is going to be with a bot. And I've

tested these things, I've actually been an advisor to

businesses that build these things, it's not playing out.

Well, it's not. And I've heard of like AI agents giving

ridiculous offers to people saying that you're going to get

50% off your credit card. It's like, no, no, that's not a

thing. Yeah, so it hallucinates and that's where I think we I

don't think we're even close to that right now. Maybe that will

change, but if you're, if you're doing it, where you're wrapping

it around those repeatable tasks that save them time, everyone

wins. That's where we should be. But I'm also seeing companies

just neglect the experience. And that's kind of my word of

caution to everyone, is think about the buyer. I say that a

lot, put yourself in the buyer's shoes, and ideally walk 1000

miles in them. Think about what they want. Do they want some of

these things to happen? Probably not. There are many use cases of

where it can work, but experience still needs to be at

the forefront of things. And as I said, we invest in AI tools,

but that's the first question, like, is this going to be a good

experience for good experience for the buyer? And if the answer

is no, don't even look into it.

And your point, you said, talk to the buyer, because

I think that's been missing in the marketplace a lot at the

moment with AI. Is that? You say, think, but actually, let's

ask our buyers in our ICP that we want to go to market with,

and say, how do you want to buy with AI at the moment? And a lot

of it's gonna be, I don't know what the future is, right, and

that's gonna be, and that's gonna be the first response.

That's absolutely fine, but what was the thing that you would

like to experience? And I think that would also help. And brings

me back to when I worked with another organization, it was in

B to C, you referenced something about, a lot about customer

experience today, and in SaaS, I can't see many CX directors

within SAS, and I just wondered that's just sort of become a

light bulb moment for me. Yes, CS, but CX customer experience

directors that do the full suite. I don't see enough of

those individuals, because when we were in B to C, we had to

have a CX director because of obviously, the market is very

led towards customer experience directors. But yeah, maybe

there's something to learn from that as well.

We don't have a CS team. We have a CX team. We have

client experience reps. We have a head of CX. We so we do but

again, it's a proponent of what we do, right? We it's funny with

all this AI, boom, it's helping us massively as business that

more people are thinking, I want to create this physical

interactions, what I call these moments that matter, gifting

direct mail swag, these tangible things that people get their

hands on. It's actually like having this massive resurgence,

which obviously I'm incredibly happy about, but that's just one

example of something you can do to give a better experience for

a customer. I've actually got an AI agent in my inbox. Box that

filters out all the really bad outreach and marketing emails.

So I'd have to look at it. When something's good, it stands out

and actually pops into my inbox. And so we do this. We train our

customers out to this. I'll give you an example, one to one

outbound prospecting. We have this thing called the Amazon

Rainmaker, which essentially it researches you. It finds out

something like, you might like golf. You said you like golf. It

could say, like, notice this about you just had a promotion.

Yeah, great. Everyone does that. But I noticed specifically this

one thing that you said about a challenge you're trying to solve

around, like, low response rates, for example. Now notice

you, you're big into your golf. Here's a box of personalized

golf balls with your face on it. Let me know if the problem we're

trying to solve is of interest to you. So open question. If so,

like, let's talk. Hang on a second that it's like, well

researched. It's tied to a problem. There's an offer in

there that's not conditional upon me taking a meeting, and

it's a yes or no. It's quite binary. That's like, I think

that's a really good experience for someone. And so we're trying

to do more and more of that, and that's what's helping companies

break through the noise.

Yeah, and it's, and it's again, using it, using the

AI in that context, as a tool right to help shortcut the

research, to shortcut finding the information, not to replace

the human. I was talking to a friend just the other day,

actually, and he's an expert in AI and in as a developer. And he

was talking about, you know, the long term future being people

wanting to buy non AI stuff, and people want to go back to that

human you know, because if we keep just recycling the same

thing, then there's no where's the innovation, where's the

thinking coming from, and where's that sort of human

connection that I think people will start to be able to

recognize more clearly. I think right now, we're all just a bit

blown away by how good it can be. And I've worked with Johnny

you, and I work with with with clients all the time who are

saying, Well, okay, but I hate, I hate the idea of an automated

email. So we're not asking you to write an automated email.

We're asking you to use or we're suggesting that you might use AI

to shortcut some of the research to help build you out the body.

It's not an, it's not, it's not a way of getting out, of lifting

a single finger and just sort of the old Homer Simpson with with

the bird, right? Just pressing the key over and over again, and

something blows up....

Another good analogy.

You know, that's that I think is, is a really

important thing for people to recognize, isn't it? And it's

that sort of okay. I know. I know how to make this work for

me and not see it as a sort of as a replacement, yeah, but it

goes right back to what you said right at the beginning, Alex,

which is that we're going to be really customer or client

focused, do what it is that we need to do to that, and we're

going to go at it with everything that we've got.

That's it, I think, more specifically in the term,

like AI and like, go to market predominantly sales, right? And

I think you just got a choice, like, do you want to invest in

the AI sales rep, or do you want to invest in the AI enabled

sales rep? And that's the obvious one for me. It's like,

it's one or the other. I'm yet to hear of a company that has

been successful at building something autonomous that can

replace what seller does. And it all comes back to the

conversation, right? Every word, every word of every conversation

a seller has with their prospective customer, their

existing customer, like those all matter and like, one

mistake, one hallucination, it's game over. And those could cost

people a lot of money. And we're just not there yet. We're just

not maybe we'll get there one day. I can't see it happening

anytime soon?

Really, really curious. Alex, you referenced

something really interesting earlier around founder, CEO at

one point, and then vacating that position to then move into

the CRO role. I mean, listening to you, I can see why you're so

very good at being a CRO but a lot of people have the pride and

maybe the ego that they want to be the CEO. So what was that

reason? Was it business, or was it personal?

To be honest it was both. I never set out to be a

CEO. I you can probably tell I love go to market. I love that

aspect. I think of certain things I wasn't particularly

interested in. We spoke about my old CEO, Jay was one of our

founders, and we would spend a long time talking about, you

know, he was a CEO. Was like, Hey, I'm a sales guy at the end

of the day. And I wish I'd done that. I wish I'd got it to a

level that I was really proud of, because then perhaps after

that's the next logical step. I think a lot of it was from,

like, his his journey a little bit. But I remember, because I

love selling stuff. I think I earned my first tenant when I

was, like, seven, I was like, really happy about that, and

I've always been naturally good at it, and I never really had

that, like, massive motivation do it. But also, as a business,

we decided to get to the US fast. And I think I just had my

first kid. I think my wife would be too happy lifting us out of

the UK, having to go to the US, because that was essentially the

ultimatum. But I think we knew we're going to be a venture

backed company, and having a US CEO to like spearhead, that

would be really important. The ultimate thing just was, was

like, I would spend all my day thinking about, how can we

improve our outbound process, how can we improve our

discovery, how can we improve pricing and negotiation? I

wasn't thinking like, how can. We raise more money, and how can

we improve, like, investor relations, or I really want to

be doing all that, I would just obsess over this stuff I still

do. So it's that nerdy aspect of me that just wanted to, like,

really, get get down. It was one of the best decisions I made.

And I'm like, really lucky to work with a CEO at the moment

who's just like, I mean, the gap between me and him, it's scary

in terms of, like, he's exited five businesses, being able to

learn from someone like him. That's one of my big things, is

I wanted to have someone I could learn from because perhaps that

will happen one day, not not here, I don't think, but I want

to keep going as a CRO but it was that revenue leadership that

I just obsessed over. And you know, when you sort of found

that, that sweet spot that you think, I think, I think,

shouldn't say this, but I think I'm quite good at it. I love it,

and that's what I live and breathe, and breathe, and

that's, that's what gets me up in the day. And the the thing

that really resonated with me was, I think it was, I think it

was J maybe someone else. He said, happy people are

successful, not the other way around. And that, that said it

all. I think I remember that that's always stayed with me

today, and I thought I'm really happy doing what I want to do.

This is what I love doing, and perhaps that's what's gonna be

thing that's gonna make things successful. If I'm trying to be

successful at something I may not be happy. So what's the point?

Unbelievable. And you know, we don't regularly ask

this question, but just the last thing, you know, you seem like

say one to watch, but you're not just one to watch. You support

so many other founders and other businesses in the marketplace,

and you give a lot. You talk about that, and your principle

is about the give to get that, the art of reciprocity, but

yourself in terms of that, like, in 10 years time, because you

give a lot back to the market, like, where do you see yourself

in 10 years time?

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say this or not, but

I think hopefully we've always built this company to sell it.

We want. We we put it in a position where this company can

last forever, right? But we do want to hopefully be part of a

great acquisition, perhaps. But I think 10 years from now, I

would love to have exited a business, but ultimately, I see

a world where I just spend all my time doing what Fergus and

Jay did with me, which was just like helping putting a mirror

up, and I get so much out of it. For some reason, I get a lot out

of just essentially, it having been really hard for me and

having had a lot of help, and knowing what that does,

sometimes, I sit down with other founders. I was speaking to one

yesterday, just raised that seed round. He's so happy, but he's

also just like, I just think this is going to really hurt.

What have I done? Like, quite negative conversation. I was

like, Dude, you should just take a step back and say, I'm really

fortunate to be in this position. And he called me this

morning, said those words, like, just motivated me in a different

a different way. Those are the same words that were said to me.

And so I'd love to be in a position where I can continue to

do that. And I'm not saying I've done anything great, but I think

that there is a lot to say for having someone who can, like,

put a mirror up, who can break things down with you, and who

can help you execute on them, and I get a lot of satisfaction.

I love it. Yeah, yeah. Resonate with that. It's brilliant.

Wonderful. Look Alex. Thank you so much for for

joining us on the Growth Workshop. Some really great

insights. And calling them tips would be, would be undermining

their value, I think, like some real depth in in some of the

advice that you've given, and I know our audience can really

appreciate that, so we thank you very much.

Awesome, look guys, thank you for having me. This

has been a real treat, pleasures all mine.

Brilliant. Cheers, Alex, thank you.