Listen to Carlos Dominguez on Top 1% Sellers Factory Podcast for High Tech Sales Audiences

Episode Transcript below as well: 

Ash:  Welcome, everyone.  This is the Top 1 Percent Sellers Factory Podcast.  And our guest today is Carlos Dominguez who is the President and Chief Operating Officer at Sprinklr.  I'm actually going to give Carlos an opportunity to tell us a bit more about himself and also about Sprinklr.  And the kind of world that he lives in currently in the technology space, what Sprinklr's customers are looking for, how Sprinklr is addressing that market.  And then we'll back into our conversation and take a look at what Top 1% Sellers need to be doing in the market that we're living in today and really succeed. 

So Carlos, let's get started, just if you can give us a little bit of background about yourself as well as also about Sprinklr. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Sure, Ash.  Hello to you and to all of your listeners.  Boy, it's always hard to try to talk about yourself.  But I've spent my entire lifetime in the high tech business, 23 years working at a small little company called Cisco.  Not the food company, the tech company, and doing a variety of different jobs, amazing company, amazing experience, and probably one of the exemplary companies of how to sell, and for the last year, when I left Cisco, I'm with a start-up so it's a radically different environment selling SaaS software primarily into large enterprises.  And it's primarily focused, currently, in the social media space and consolidating and organizing it for large brands.  But really moving much more into how to really build a front office architecture for companies.  And it's really architecture of the future. 

Ash:  That's fascinating.  And does that basically sort of touch most of the functions that the business needs to do whether it's marketing, sales, customer service?  That's pretty much the things that you're covering with that solution. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Yeah, it covers it all.  But as anyone of the sellers know, we can go in anywhere but you have to really understand what function you're selling to.  Because what a CMO cares about is radically different than what a CIO cares about versus what the chief revenue officer cares about.  So I'm always, as you know and all your listeners know, it's always understanding the problem that they're trying to solve by their function.  And then how do you translate what you do into solving it and value it, adding the value and really being able to give the ROI that they're looking for. 

Ash:  Exactly.  Exactly.  And that's exactly sort of what takes us to our theme today.  Because our theme today is focusing on how do today's sales and services professionals gear up given the technology consumption models that are changing today.  And I know you just talked about Sprinklr being a SaaS model.  So in that particular environment, in at least given again the extent of experience you have and looking at how technology over time has changed as well as sort of the sales approaches, what sales approaches do you think sort of the top successful sellers in today's market need to be using. 

Carlos Dominguez:  You know, it's really funny, Ash.  There's a constant here.  And I think it's irrespective.  I think since the beginning of sales, it's always about dealing with someone.  And I get a lot of calls, sales people calling me, and it's the most amazing thing.  They send me an email about something, number one, that I have no responsibility for nor do I care about.  And I'm going to them... in my brain, I'm going like, "How dumb are you?" 

And the emails that I do respond to is someone who has taken the amount... taken an effort to understand my company, to read up a lot on what's being said.  Because if you really just pay attention, there's so much being said by everyone today in this socially connected world that we're living in.  So they get to know my company.  They understand what the issues are.  They read my bio.  And then they really are thoughtful in saying, "Gosh, here's the products that I have.  I understand the problems that Sprinklr has.  I understand a bit about Carlos."  And I craft a very detailed email and solution that, when I read it, I know they know me.  I know they did their research.  And those kinds of things are the things that I would respond to. 

And again, I'm not saying that this anything new.  What is new is that the amount of information that is available to a seller today to really understand the people that they're trying to sell to is at an all-time high, and if you're not leveraging the social channels and all the data that is out there on your customers, and not at the company level only but at the individual level, you're missing a really, really huge opportunity.  So the notion is really trying to understand their company and the individual. 

The other piece that I don't think a lot of sellers do is if you're calling on a CMO in marketing, you got to make sure that not only do you understand the things we just talked about.  But what is the role of the CMO today in today's world, right?  How is it changing? 

Ash:  Exactly. 

Carlos Dominguez:  So I spend a lot of time pulling out research reports on top of minds of a CEO.  What does the future of marketing look like?  What does the future of a CIO look like in every single function?  Just to give me some insight, not only on the company and the individual, but what are the challenges that they're facing.  And it's amazing when you talk to a... I'll just use the example of CMOs because they're the ones that I deal with a lot.  It's very, very easy for me to have a conversation and say, "Mr. CMO or Mrs. CMO.""  These are really exciting times, right?  But it's also super challenging for you as a chief marketing officer, right?  And the reason it's challenging, you're being called upon in today's world, not only to build a brand or create some sort of compelling multi-channel communications strategy.  But you also have to figure out how to harness customer analytics.  You got to figure out how to create intersections between physical and digital.  And you got to kind of figure out how to help drive sustainable growth. 

Ash:  Across all these touch points, yeah. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Yeah, across all these touch points and the trends like globalization, intensifying competition.  You got activist customers that are out there in social media play well into what the CMO strengths and portfolio could be.  So having that context and speaking their language and understanding their challenges, it's amazing how they open up to me in, like, 30 seconds. 

Ash:  Absolutely.  It makes a lot of sense because you've done so much homework that you're really talking about what's going on in their own world. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Yeah, you have to translate it.  But you got to be informed.  One of the things I tell everybody, right?  Everyone says, "Oh, you know, you've had a lot of success, how did you do it?"  And it's really simple.  It's a lot of freaking hard work.  It's being very, very prepared in every single interaction that I have with my client base.  And frankly, my resolution and the mindset that I go when I talk to people is I'm really not there to sell them something.  We know we are, right? 

Ash:  Yes. 

Carlos Dominguez:  But I kind of remove that from my brain because selling is a result of someone figuring out that you're adding value to them and that you're solving one of their problems.  And you're giving them the ROI that they're looking for.  That will happen.  But if you just go in there with the intent, "I'm going to sell you something.  I'm going to sell you something."  You're just annoying like a gnat on a beach. 

Ash:  Absolutely. 

Carlos Dominguez:  So my whole notion is always, always be extremely prepared.  Know more about the company than almost the people that you're calling upon.  And always... don't even talk about your product.  Really seek to understand what's going on in their business?  What are the challenges they're facing?  But don't ask them questions about stuff that's already publicly known, right?  Get that data, interpret it, and then ask them questions, "Hey, I read this and I read that.  I'm kind of thinking that you're probably facing this challenge and that challenge as a result of what I read.  Is that so?  Or are you thinking about it differently?" 

Ash:  Exactly.  That is why a lot of literature is talking about the challenger sale.  You need to really be bringing in insight so that really speaks to what you're just covering now is not only having the insight but also having that conversation with that executive. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Yeah, absolutely.  Actually, it's one of those things.  But again, this is obvious.  For me, I don't think a lot has changed.  The environment changes.  The conversation may change. 

Ash:  Yes. 

Carlos Dominguez:  But the basics of adding value and knowing your customers, that's been around since the beginning of time. 

Ash:  Absolutely.  Absolutely.  And then as you're thinking about that especially how it's no longer they are buying something that they will bring in house, right?  They need to trust the fact that now this is going to be a service based conversation.  And a lot of the sales professionals haven't really been selling that kind of model where it's a transaction.  They know they need to give them the switch or the router and get the deal closed, know what their compensation is.  In this situation, it is really more about recurring revenue.  It is more about the customer really trusting.  Can you talk to that?  I mean, what are you facing in terms of that conversation?  How much trust people are now putting in at cloud-based or a service based model? 

Carlos Dominguez:  Well, I have to tell you I'm very, very blessed that I'm in this business today versus three or four years ago.  Three or four years ago, the whole notion of taking your assets whether it's hardware or software and putting it somewhere on a cloud, somewhere not on your premise was one of this... it's like you're talking to the devil, right?  Now, I mean just look at the numbers on Amazon web services or look at what Microsoft is investing in Azure.  The world has gone to virtual and it's all in the cloud, right? 

Ash:  Yes. 

Carlos Dominguez:  And I think the acceptance of that is there.  The models are different in the sense that they're not touching and seeing something, right? 

Ash:  Exactly. 

Carlos Dominguez:  So it's a piece of software and it's there and it's adding value.  It's different in the sense that it's not a box.  You got to show functionality.  And in the SaaS world, it's always around not only selling it but making sure that you got adaption.  Because since it's mostly all driven by licenses, not only do you have to get someone to say, "Yes, your product does what you say it does and it's something we need."  And then you got to train a group of people.  But where the deals get bigger is where you have adaption.  So a lot of the thinking is always around, "Okay.  Now, you got it in this department.  How do you get into this department?  And what's the value of having it in multiple departments?  And how do you connect to this and that?" 

Because ultimately what you want is you want more and more users on the platform.  So it's a whole different mindset on how you go do it.  Because it's almost like it's grows more organically, if you want to think about it that way.  But it's almost like you got to conquer one hill at a time. 

Ash:  It makes a lot of sense.  And as you were talking and I'm thinking about when I was at Oracle, we had a big number of people on the sales team.  And that even is typical sometimes in a Cisco environment or a Juniper environment, or IBM.  As you're thinking about that conversation and sort of your sales team as well as the customer's team, how do you think through what value or part each one of these members can play and how do you have sort of the number of people that's enough for the conversation?  How do you drive that ratio or who goes with you on the deal in terms of what value you're trying to bring to that conversation? 

Carlos Dominguez:  Wow, that's a really complicated question.  And it's complicated because it's got multiple dimensions, right? 

Ash:  Yes. 

Carlos Dominguez:  So almost if you look at it from Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, you know, you go at the base foundation in sales, for me, by using the Maslow's Hierarchy in sale.  The first thing is coverage.  Do you have the right people on the account in the right locations?  And it sounds like a very simple statement.  But take a large global multinational with a number of subsidiaries.  And just trying to figure out to truly cover them in a very enterprise like way, where do people need to be, who's responsible for it, what are the compensation plans to do it?  How do you bring people together on a singular strategy?  How do you share information among the teams?  That in itself, you can probably get a PhD on, right? 

Ash:  Yes. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Because of the level of complexity.  So you got to get the base done.  Then as you move up as the opportunities come in depending on the problem you're solving, depending on who you're calling upon from a level perspective, depending on the function that you're going after, then you need to bring resources that can accomplish that, and from a sales leadership perspective, when I think about those things, and putting the right resources in front of the right people at the right time. 

Ash:  Yes. 

Carlos Dominguez:  And our world was simple three years ago when we had a very simple product.  And since I've arrived here in January, we've done six acquisitions.  We've written that software and code into the product.  So now, like most organizations, when you have a complex product that has a lot of dimensions to it.  In the case of Cisco, you had routing, you switching, you had data center stuff, you had you know security.  And all of them have really deep point solutions nuances.  So what you need to do is you need to bring that right talent at the right time because you're competing against a point solution that has a deep knowledge on that very singular thing.  So it's a balancing act.  And as I said, I'm not trying to skirt the issue. 

Ash:  Sure. 

Carlos Dominguez:  But I don't think there is one size fits all to that question. 

Ash:  Absolutely.  And I think your point about bringing the right person given who you are going to be talking with or the customer, it just reminds me of what you were just talking about, the research you've done on the CMO and the conversation you're having from a business perspective.  How do you then think about that second layer, how IT fits into the picture, and, again, given the fact that their own world is changing?  They're no longer thinking about they need to manage all these applications inside the company but rather really be comfortable with that SaaS model.  Is that a conversation that happens at the same time?  How are you managing what you're saying to the CMO line of business buyer versus the technical teams?  And how do you sort of pace that into your process? 

Carlos Dominguez:  So it really varies, Ash.  Again, it's such a complicated world.  And the thing I can assure of is that everything is in flux.  And every business is undergoing incredible transformation to adjust to the changing world.  I kind of joke around.  I think you and I had this conversation. 

Ash:  Yes. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Is that, think about it, in the last 25 years, we had the birth of the internet, the birth of mobile, and the birth of social. 

Ash:  Yes. 

Carlos Dominguez:  They didn't exist before, 25 years ago. 

Ash:  Exactly. 

Carlos Dominguez:  And I kind of joke with my kids.  I said, "I used to call my friends at their homes on a corded phone that was stuck to a wall.  And by the way, I had to talk to their mother and dad first because they were the ones who answer the phone."  And it's really cute.  One of my kids said to me, "Why?  Why did they answer his phone?"  I said, "It wasn't his phone."  As a matter of fact, they could have been a party line that some other family is answering it. 

Ash:  Exactly. 

Carlos Dominguez:  So having this really clear kind of understanding that the world is being turned upside down is really, really important.  And what we typically do is... again, forgive me for a second, I'll speak specifically for my world. 

Ash:  Sure. 

Carlos Dominguez:  We normally insert in one of three areas.  It's either in care, in marketing, or the head of digital.  And it’s not in my typical world, it's not the IT and CIO.  That comes in, in phase two or three. 

Ash:  Got it. 

Carlos Dominguez:  So what we go in is, we'll go in, if it's marketing, we help them kind of get their arms around what's being said about them.  And start understanding what people are talking about on the brand.  When they start creating content, who gets what content.  So it's really this notion of optimizing what they're doing.  And we normally consolidate anywhere from eight to 15 vendors when we come in. 

Ash:  Wow. 

Carlos Dominguez:  People are doing campaign management, listening, et cetera.  So what we do is we make that process for marketing much more saleable, manageable, and also providing credible amount of insight because everything is on one platform.  Now, through that process, you got to go through IT.  And what IT will say, "Let me check security.  What systems are we hitting?  And et cetera."  What ends up happening is they get a lot involved anytime there is integration.  So the power of these platforms are you've got all these independent systems that are out there.  What we try to do is not only integrate a bunch of our stuff that is point solution but then also take things like CRM and ERP and .com that will never... they will always live forever.  They'll have a life forever and ever and ever as you know. 

Ash:  Exactly. 

Carlos Dominguez:  So what we try to do is interface into them and either enrich their data or take some of their data to make the functions more efficient.  So they get involved but not in day one.  Now, what we're seeing today though is at some of these customers that we're looking at are looking to do something much bigger and doing it across a multitude of function.  Now, we're seeing the IT and the CIO getting engaged in a much earlier level.  But it's highly dependent.  The real big ones that are doing a large enterprise role out yet you get involved early. And many of them, they get involved in phase two or three. 

Ash:  That makes a lot of sense to me.  When you think about that process, there is always that piece that happens sort of making sure that the business outcomes get realized for that customer.  Are you engaging your own sort of post sales team in the process?  Where specifically do you bring them in so that the customer knows that once they sign off on the deal, their life afterwards is being taken care of?  There is this comfort in what's going to happen afterwards. 

Carlos Dominguez:  I think it's really important for a customer to understand lifecycle management of how things are done.  In our world, you have the sales organization.  And when you finish that piece and it's sold and you get the contract, then they bought off on the value and we got a whole presales team.  After that, it goes to enablement which are the people that take our software, customize it, get it installed.  And then it goes to success or ongoing management. 

Carlos Dominguez:  The whole lifecycle is explained very early on.  And I think it's a major differentiator for us.  We've invested very heavily and we know how to do that very, very well.  But explaining it to a client is very, very important.  And then having the engagement, where all of these things either work or fail, is when there are handoffs.  Every time there's a touch point that it moves in the cycle from one group to the other, if that is not done really, really well, the customer may interpret it as, "You folks don't understand me." 

So we pay a lot of attention not only in what each one of those groups are responsible for.  But what I really concentrate the whole company on is making sure that the handoffs and the touch points are flawless because that's where you're going to either deliver an incredible experience to the client or they're going to feel like you drop it.

Ash:  And exactly, yeah. 

Carlos Dominguez:  That's the way we do it. 

Ash:  No, that's terrific because that typically where a lot of other companies don't succeed.  They don't think about these handoffs.  They don't have someone that's covering that white space. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Yeah.  It's the most critical point anytime there's a handoff.  In our case, I mean, we paid a lot of attention to it.  It's really operationally driven because the only way you can reach scale is it's got to be a process and there's got to be technology behind it.  So we really have done a really good job at scaling that in a way that I know that once I get a customer in, the output is going to be pretty predictable. 

Ash:  That's fantastic.  For the next ten minutes or so as we get into our third portion of the conversation here, is really look ahead a few years from now, again given what you see is going on in that space.  And as you think about these changes, I'd like us to start talking to the listener who's either an account manager or a systems engineer or someone who's working in the services teams specifically about how they are approaching what they do on a daily basis so that they are much better on what they do.  And again, being really ready for what that future is looking like.  And then we'll back into a few specific questions to you again about how do you actually do to maintain your own development and how you think that can also happen for these sellers. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Okay. 

Ash:  So let's start with the view on what you think of the next three to five years are looking like from a technology space evolution, if you will. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Wow.  It's something that I have a big passion about, right?  So for everyone that's listening, you got to have a couple of very basic understanding and where the world is and where it's going.  So there's a foundation that I think everyone needs to understand.  There's a wonderful guy and I had the privilege of interviewing him and spending some time with him by the name Ray Kurzweil.  He has written a number of books, The Singularity, and a number of other ones.  And what's really interesting about Ray is that not only is he a genius, right?  And you got to give him that.  But he really looks at everything in a deep sort of way and then is able to make some predictions.  And if you Google Ray Kurzweil predictions, you'll find that he's made 200 predictions of where the world is going over the last, I don't know, decade or so. 

Ash:  Yes. 

Carlos Dominguez:  And he's got an incredible amount of accuracy, I mean, in the 90 plus range of what's come to be.  And it's really interesting if you drill down on the ones that haven't come to be, it's primarily more around regulatory or some other things.  It wasn't a technical limitation.  It was some other context that stopped it.  The reason I'm saying this is, as a very curious person, I kind of say, "How could anyone do that?" 

Ash:  Exactly. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Whether it’s Sam or Nicholas Negroponte in the early days doing a TED talk and really describing an iPod, an iPhone, and all the other things that came to be.  How do you that?  And what he's got, he's got this theory called the Law of Accelerating Returns.  And what you're able to do if you understand the Law of Accelerating Returns is that if you take very basic stuff and say, "Hey, compute power.  We'll continue to increase in double every 12 to 18 months.  Storage cost is going to go down by half every 12 months and I'm just picking a couple of technologies. 

Ash:  Yes. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Flash, right now, was expensive by another two years and this is the price point.  What you begin to do is you can understand any limitation.  If you say, "I want to do X, Y, and Z but it's not feasible today because the computing power is not there or the cost of compute would be too expensive with storage."  You can kind of model out and say, "This is when technically and price wise would be available."  And when you start looking at it through that context, what you begin to see is that there are a whole host of things.  They're going to turn the world upside down.  Right? 

Ash:  Absolutely. 

Carlos Dominguez:  And my biggest advice to the sellers here are, you got to allocate a lot of time for your personal development.  And it's not only about selling but really being... if you're in the tech field, you better understand your technology, who are your competitors which is normal, but also where is it going.  And just understand the moves that are going to happen and what potential implications it's going to have. 

So I didn't basically answer your question but I gave you the input.  I'm trying to do, instead of giving you a fish, I'm trying to teach you how to fish. 

Ash:  Absolutely.  Absolutely.  And I remember one time, we were going into a deal when I was at Oracle and we're really trying to catch up reading this book.  And then when we went into the conference room, every single client representative in that room already has the book in their hand and most of them had finished it.  Because everyone to your point is really looking at, "We're going to buy this today but what is it going to actually look like five, six years from now."  So that they know what their investment cycle is going to be like and how they can stay ahead of their next door competitor.  And I think to your point, the sales professional then really needs to come into the room having really gone and learned what's going to be coming down the line.  You've probably, ..

Carlos Dominguez:  By the way... 

Ash:  Go ahead. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Yeah.  Before we move off of that... 

Ash:  Sure. 

Carlos Dominguez:  ... just another thing I would ask is, if you really want to know anything, just go into Google and say trends in retail, trends in pharmaceutical, trends in financial services.  Just Google it.  And what you're going to find is there are all these people predicting all sorts of things.  Just read that.  I mean, that just gives you some very simple insight.  And it's one of the things I tell my team all the time.  I said, "What's coming?  Why don't you just Google it and find out what people are talking about."  Then you can make your own determination of what makes sense to you and what doesn't. 

Ash:  Exactly.  Exactly.  And then you got the Twitter feeds, you can use hashtags.  And again to your point, it's interesting how much there it.  It's just mostly a function of how much time.  But to your point, if it's part of how you prepare yourself, that's what you will do on a regular basis.  Thank you for sharing that.  I'm sure our audience will go and check out this author and some of his books.  And again, as you just said, very simply looking at Google and looking up these trends. 

When you think about that seller again and we're going to basically wrap it up, if you look at their sort of day to day routine, there's definitely the personal development piece, there's the piece of sort of getting prepared for that sales conversation, how do you want them to think about the value they bring and how they can actually look not just at their own solutions but maybe at the universal solutions that exist out there.  Do you encourage your own sales reps to not only look at Sprinklr, perhaps, and look at what are the options that the customer can have?  And how do you sort of bring that conversation in the interactions with the customer? 

Carlos Dominguez:  Gosh, I hope every salesperson understand the options that are out there versus their solution because, if not, you're going to get killed.  You got to know everything.  You got to know your product better than anybody.  You got to know your competitors better than anybody.  You got to understand the customer better than anybody, and if you do your work and you... I mean, you can't put lipstick on a bad product and make it look good, right?  That doesn't exist.  But if you got a decent product and it's competitive and you're able to prepare, you'll win a lot.  But it's always, the thing I tell everyone, selling is an art, right? 

Ash:  Yes. 

Carlos Dominguez:  It's in art form.  And people don't want to be sold to.  I don't want to be sold to.  I mean, I dread every time I go buy a car and I got to go to a car dealer, I feel like killing myself. 

Ash:  Yes. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Because I don't want to be sold to. 

Ash:  Yeah. 

Carlos Dominguez:  But I want people to educate me on what I'm doing.  I want people to give me insights.  I want people to engage with me and have a relationship with me.  And what I tell everyone now is the things that you should be doing, we're living in a world where everyone is contributing out there.  And if you're able to listen, if you're able to harness it, and organize it in a way, there are so many insights you can learn about individuals, about companies, and about everything. 

So a lot of these is make sure you're leveraging the tools that are available today and make sure that you're doing everything you can to remain really relevant.  Because what's happening is the things are changing so, so fast that if you kind of bury yourself for a year and you pop your head up, the environment has totally changed.  So it's a lot of work but you got to make this a profession.  And you got to leverage everything that's available.  Because if not, someone you're competing with is doing it and they're leveraging the tools of today and they're staying relevant and they understand the customer, they're going to eat your lunch every single day. 

Ash:  Absolutely. 

Carlos Dominguez:  So a lot of emphasis on self-development and really spending the time learning what's out there. 

Ash:  Wonderful, Carlos.  We're going to get into the final stage here.  Thank you so much for everything you're sharing with us.  And what I'm going to actually be doing for each Podcast is I'm going to be asking our audience to submit questions to use with our guest and actually do that for this particular time.  And the one question that bubbled up here from one of our audience members is, he said, "If you were to ask Carlos anything, I'd love to ask him what was the biggest challenge that he had to overcome during his professional career and how he did it?  People are curious."  What comes to mind? 

Carlos Dominguez:  The biggest challenge?  Wow.  There's so many, Ash.  There's multiple stages, right?  So I kind of got into sales by accident.  I never really wanted to do it.  I was more on the systems engineering side.  And what ended up happening was the sale rep got sick and there was a really, really big call to be made and I went out.  And this was when I was working for the phone company and I closed the deal with a big fiber deal.  And I closed it.  And I came back, I remember the head boss going, "Hey, how did the call go?  You were supposed to be with someone.  So I know he didn't make it.  I thought the call got cancelled."  I said, "No, I got the contract."  And he was like, "Wow.  That's never happened before." 

And I went out and they used to send me out two or three times like that.  And every time, I came back with a deal.  And what was really interesting was that I never, never ever tried selling them anything. 

Ash:  Amazing. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Because I wasn't a sales person, right? 

Ash:  Wasn’t the intention. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Yeah.  What's the problem you're trying to solve?  Well, let me tell you why this is better and kind of walked them through it.  And that's always been kind of the message and the stuff.  And always, I mean the thing I always do is be very, very prepared.  And I kind of joke around, I tell everyone, "I lived my life."  It sounds a little silly here, but I lived my life where I am constantly scared.  And the reason I'm constantly scared, I'm so damn over my head in everything that I'm doing.  Because as soon as I feel comfortable doing something, I want to do something more.  And because I'm constantly scared, you're always learning.  Think of your senses going all the time versus you're doing the same job for 20 years, it gets to the point where it's like, "You know, I know how to do it so well.  You don't even have to pay attention."  I always want to be paying attention. 

And the other side of being constantly scared is that I'm fearless because I'll try anything.  And I've gotten myself in situations that I go, "Oh my, God.  What the heck am I doing?"  Because it's so above what I ever thought I could do and you kind of weather it.  Whether it's hosting Cisco live in front of 25,000 people. 

Ash:  Exactly. 

Carlos Dominguez:  I mean, look out in the sea of 25,000 people, it's a hell a lot of people. 

Ash:  Absolutely, yeah. 

Carlos Dominguez:  And I remember going out on stage and going, "Oh my, God.  What the hell I'm doing?" 

Ash:  Exactly. 

Carlos Dominguez:  I was fearless in saying I want to do it and preparing for it but I'm constantly scared.  So the scared has pushed yourself to the limits. 

Ash:  Out of that comfort zone, yeah. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Out of the comfort zone but try anything.  And if you fail, you fail.  You try again.  That's kind of the philosophy of how I've lived my career.  And then the last thing to say is, find mentors.  It's amazing when you go to someone and you say, "Hey, you know, would you help me get better in this area."  I've done that in my career a thousand times.  I've never had someone say no. 

Ash:  That's wonderful.  And it makes a huge difference when you get some insights from other people. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Oh yeah, especially when you're young.  When you become an old dog like me, you've seen so much.  You got a lot of experience.  And you got to keep adjusting because experience... I tell everyone, experience in today's day and age is not necessarily an asset.  It could be a hindrance. 

Ash:  Absolutely.  Absolutely.  Well, I want to thank you, Carlos, this has been fantastic.  I think people are going to get a lot out of it, from someone like yourself who's really out there meeting customers and having these conversations.  I want to thank you for your time and your insights.  And I want to encourage everyone listening to us today to subscribe to this Podcast.  We would be bringing in a lot of experts and leaders from the high tech industry specifically.  That is the community that we want to serve.  And definitely also share with your colleagues internally as well as on all of the social networking channels.  We'd appreciate the shares that you can make.  Also, give us feedback on how to make these conversations much more useful for you as well.  We really want to make sure that when you walk away from each one of these Podcast series that you have a few nuggets that really make a difference in your daily life as well as the business that you are running. 

Thank you for joining us.  And thank you for your time, Carlos.  Thanks again, it's been an amazing experience to have you here.  And I think I cannot thank you enough.  And hopefully also, we'll bring you back at some later point.  I'd love to talk more in detail about Sprinklr and give our audience a much better vantage point on how they can also think about how they can integrate it in their own customer's conversation. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Thank you, Ash.  And thank you for letting me be part of the program. 

Ash:  Absolutely.  Thanks a lot.  Goodbye, everyone.  

Guest Audience Gift: So Carlos, I promised the audience that as much as we can, we'll try to give them a nice surprise at the very end.  And I know you wanted to talk to me about an upcoming book you're working on.  Why don't you just take a couple of minutes here and just give us a sense of what the book is about.  And also how can our audience reach out to you and really connect with you and hopefully  get to read this book in the future as well. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Thanks, Ash.  So the problem I keep thinking about, being a 50 something on the long tail here guy, remaining relevant is something I worry about all the time.  When social media came out and everything, how do I really adapt and how do I really remain relevant?  So over the last couple of years, I've been jotting notes and writing.  I'm a terrible writer but I'm getting to the point where I'm almost completing it.  And what I've created is kind of word called becoming a tech nowist.  A couple of playing words but really this notion of being a tech nowist is remaining relevant in a changing world.  And in the book, I actually written a couple of chapters on what do you do, where do you go, how do you remain relevant, what site should you be kind of keeping track of. 

And what I'd love to do is, if the audience wants to see some of those chapters, if they send me an email at technowist at gmail dot com, I'm happy to send them a note and show them where it's posted.  So I just want to share that with them and I hope that it will help them in the quest to remain relevant in this crazy world we're living in. 

Ash:  Wonderful, Carlos.  If you don't mind just spelling out the email address again. 

Carlos Dominguez:  T-e-c-h-n-o-w-i-s-t at gmail dot com. 

Ash:  Perfect.  Fantastic.  Thank you very much, Carlos.  And I definitely recommend everyone to reach out to Carlos.  It's amazing how much knowledge and experience he has built and the insights and the tools that he will point out to you will definitely make a huge difference for you.  Thanks again, Carlos, for sharing this information with us. 

Carlos Dominguez:  Thanks again, Ash.  Take care, everyone. 

About Carlos:

Guest Bio: Carlos Dominguez, President and COO, Sprinklr Follow Carlos on Twitter

Carlos has more than 30 years of enterprise technology experience and an unparalleled passion for innovation. Previously an active member of Sprinklr’s board of directors, today Carlos guides strategic direction for Sprinklr and leads the marketing, sales, services, and partnerships teams for the most complete enterprise social technology company in the world.

Prior to joining Sprinklr, Carlos spent 22 years at Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) in a variety of roles. Over the last seven years, he served as a technology evangelist and representative for the chairman and CEO of Cisco, delivering keynotes to audiences worldwide. During his tenure at Cisco, he cemented the company in the strategic markets of financial services, media, and pharmaceuticals. He also helped establish and lead Cisco’s Service Provider organization to generate more than $14 billion in annual revenue. Before joining Cisco, Carlos held management positions at Timeplex, Inc. and New Jersey Bell/Bell Atlanticom.

Carlos also serves on several boards of directors, including Medidata Solutions, Inc., the CDC Foundation, Cisco Foundation, NJIT Board of Overseers & Catalyst, and Princess House.

Host Bio

Ash Seddeek founder and CEO of the Top 1% Sellers Factory: The Quota Busting Specialists.

Ash is the expert on top 1% High Tech Sales and Leadership Strategies and Behaviors. Ash worked for Fortune 500 companies such as Deloitte Consulting, Oracle, BroadVision, and Cisco Systems on top 1% leadership development, strategic account manager sales training and strategic content for large scale corporate experiences such as Cisco Global Sales Experience and the Partner Summit with 25000 annual attendees. Ash also founded Fremont Consulting, a boutique contract staffing and consulting services firm that he developed into a 7-figure revenue business with benchmark clients including HP, SAP America, HGST and, Trustmetrics and WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff among others.

Ash is co-author of the forthcoming book: MEANING: How Leaders Create Meaning and Clarity during Times of Crisis and Opportunity. You can get his first book: Start with a Vision on Amazon. Ash studied at Harvard & Stanford Business Schools & has an MBA from the Leavey Business School at Santa Clara University. 

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