Inspiring Action - at the Intersection of Human Behavior and AI

Rachel Cossar: Everyone, and welcome to another episode of conversations in the future of work. I am your host, Rachel Cossar, and I am thrilled to be focused on the intersection between human behavior and AI and talking to a really interesting founder who’s just started their journey and, you know, looking at some of the ways that you can differentiate yourself in this sea of a very rapid, technological advancement. And so without further ado, Toby Sinclair. Welcome. Hey, Rachel. How are you doing? Great.

Toby Sinclair: I’m doing very well. Thank you. Awesome. Yeah.

Rachel Cossar: Tell us a little bit about your background, what you’re up to now, what you’re excited about. Hey. Hey. Yeah.

Toby Sinclair: So I’m the founder of a product called Real Talk Studio, where we’re focused on making hard conversations easier with AI. I’m a people pleaser, and I’ve always struggled with difficult conversations around conflict, giving bad news, handling bad challenging feedback. So I kind of created the product for myself. But I’m just overall just really curious about how technology, in particular artificial intelligence, can just help us with these really difficult, awkward, challenging conversations, which I think you are as well too. So we’ve got that shared interest, I think. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Awesome.

Rachel Cossar: Well, let’s dive right in. So I’m curious to hear because you have had a lot of other roles in some very, very large institutions in the past before striking out on your own. So what are some of the biggest learnings you’ve had or you’ve taken away from your roles in employee experience? Yeah. Good questions. Yeah.

Toby Sinclair: So before doing my start up, I was in a a very large well known investment bank in The US. I was there for just over a decade. During that time, I worked as a employee experience director and worked all the way across the employee life cycle from recruitment to onboarding to talent development to offboarding and everything in between. I think the biggest challenge was just around, the key thing is in that word experience. And often the experience for a lot of employees was that it wasn’t a great experience. It was fragmented. The processes were confusing. And internally a lot of the organization maybe didn’t come together in the right way to deliver a great experience. New hire being a great one where you need your HR, your technology, your real estate, security, all these people to come together to make sure that it’s a really successful first day. A lot of the time that experience was just not where it needed to be. So, so, yeah, I’ve kinda just learned that how hard it is, especially these really large organizations, to deliver great experiences across that employee life cycle is super challenging.

Rachel Cossar: Were you there in this role, over COVID? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How, like, how hybrid had the workplace been before COVID for you and then how much did it change kind of everything? Yeah.

Toby Sinclair: So prior to COVID, working in, like, a massive company like that, a lot of the time you’re spending on video calls. So a lot of the communication mechanism, I guess, was via video and stuff, which was, which meant that when we went to COVID, it was a massive shift in terms of behaviors. It was just that rather than being on video calls in the office, you’re on video calls at home, which to be honest, a lot of employees were probably happy about because it was always that thing even before COVID of why am I going into the office just to sit on calls for six, seven, eight hours a day is a valid argument. Right? So when people move from home, it was probably like, well, I’m doing the same kind of work, but it means that I can be at home with my family and all of all of that kind of stuff. Right? I think one of the things that was definitely interesting when COVID hit from an employee experience perspective was how rapidly some of the agendas and programs sped up during that period of time. So prior to that, I was actually involved in a project of rolling out Zoom to the organization. Oh. I think at the time, there was like a several months, if not year road map to kinda get it rolled out to the company. When COVID hit, it suddenly went from being twelve months worth of work to, like, twelve days. Because that was kind of like that urgency came in and suddenly all of the technology landscape for the employee experience rapidly improved, which was really fascinating just to kinda show that, when the right factors and conditions are in place, change can happen very, very quickly inside, what was traditionally a kind of bureaucratic, slow moving organization. Suddenly, that catalyst was there, and Right. It happened really quickly. That’s so interesting, and makes a lot of sense. You know?

Rachel Cossar: And I think technology in general and, yes, by extension AI has accelerated its primary role, I think, in connecting and facilitating different experiences and relationships within organizations, like, now more so than ever. And that’s that’s just got to have been a really interesting experience as someone who was in charge of design Yeah. Yeah. You know, right, these these, experiences. Yeah.

Toby Sinclair: And I think another thing that was interesting that change was that my role I I this was the really good part of the role as I traveled around the world, South America, North America many times, Asia. So did a lot of travel and did a lot of in person sessions. And I can remember when the lockdown happened, I had, like, quite a long agenda of different workshop sessions that was gonna be running around the world. So then I had to kinda think, how do I now create an engaging experience for 20 senior leaders in a fully remote experience and not just for, like, an hour? These were, like, multi day sort of Right. Rights workshops. How would you then create an environment? So I remember spending many hours with a colleague figuring out how we might use whiteboarding tools, how we were gonna do Zoom breakouts because it it sounds funny now, but at the time, Zoom breakouts was quite a novel thing that everyone was getting used to. Yep. So it was interesting to try and pull bring together all of these pieces in a kind of virtual space and create engaging experiences. I think what I learned from that was that you can you can do it if you if you kinda put the right pieces of the puzzle in place. And I think good good facilitation of those meetings, whether it’s in person or remotely, if you do follow the right principles, you can create very engaging experiences. Yeah. No. That’s awesome. And it makes a ton of sense.

Rachel Cossar: So switching tracks a little bit now focusing on this business that you started, Realtors. How do you foresee distinct like, there’s been a like, it’s interesting because on the one hand, it’s amazing that these advancements in AI have made it possible for so many people to say, I have an idea, and I’m gonna build it myself. Right? It’s amazing. How do you distinguish your platform from from other Gen AI products? Yeah. Good question.

Toby Sinclair: I think one of the things we’re very much focused on is AI video. So I’ve been experimenting with products AI products for probably two two, three years. Even when I was at the, the bank, we built, an AI product for onboarding. So I built AI products in the corporate world, but coming out, I’d kind of experimented over the years whilst I was kinda having a bit of a side hustle, kind of figuring out, kind of different ways to u a use AI products. Originally, we’d the pro one of the products I had was like text based chatbot. Yep. Engagement was very poor. We found that the ex the the kind of feedback, the kind of length of sessions was quite short. The the detail that was added was short. And I think that’s because a lot of us have been trained to be very concise with, like, messages, and it’s not always a great experience typing. So then we kind of experimented with voice, found some interesting enhancements there. And then what I personally just got really fascinated with over the last probably six months or so is video technology. So one of the ways in which we’re trying to differentiate now is, say, we’re just video first. So we’ve got a lot of clients that have asked us for more of a text based interaction or voice only, but we’ve kinda gone down the point saying, well, we would just wanna be really, really good at video based role plays. Mhmm. And, yeah, that’s one of the ways we’re trying to differentiate at the moment is real real time AI video conversations with hopefully realistic avatars.

Rachel Cossar: How have you found I have found that the real time AI avatar generation is just not there yet. Have have you found anything different? Yeah. Yeah.

Toby Sinclair: So there are mixed experiences with using the kind of real time avatars. The ones we’re using, I I think one of the things I look for from user feedback is a sense of emotion. And what we are finding is people get frustrated in a positive way, not necessarily because of the avatar, but they feel in a sense of frustration, confusion, challenge, which we hadn’t seen when you we were in, say, the text mode, for example. We’re seeing these kind of emotions come out. People are getting, like, saying this like, I did one Monday at user session, and they said that I hate this person. And it wasn’t because it was glitchy. It was just like they’d created some kind of relationship because they could could see the person. It maybe didn’t help that the the general member’s like an older guy in a suit, in an office. So I think all of that visual cues had kinda set up the scenario and added an extra layer to it. So I think that’s the good thing is just the visual aspects talking to an avatar. It creates a a more realistic experience. The challenges with real time video avatars at the moment, one is that you’ve gotta be in a a quiet environment really. So one of the things with text, you can be on the bus, in the supermarket, where you can just do it on the go. With the video avatars, it takes more of a quiet environment for you to have those conversations. Mhmm. The other thing is the emotional range of the video avatars isn’t great at the moment either. I had another client where we were doing a scenario, and they were saying, can you make it stand, hit its fist on the table and then walk out the room? Not yet. But I believe in the very near future, that kind of interaction is gonna be possible. Yeah. So I’ve kind of accepted that with the video avatars, there are some constraints, but from what I’m seeing, the rates of improvement is very fast. So I think in the future, it’s gonna be the kind of at least for learning based scenarios, which is where we’re operating. I think that’s gonna be a big part of the learner’s experience. Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel Cossar: It’s interesting because there have been, you know, AR, VR, immersive learning experience for a while. It’s so funny that, you know, AI has really almost overshadowed those technologies in its ease of application. It’s, like, realistic kind of human like qualities. I’m always I’m I don’t know if you found this, but I find there is such a gap now. With all the media that has been promoting AI and, like, the amazing demos we see and, like, the amazing capability, And then when people actually try it out and have an experience where, like, maybe the delay in responding is, like, half a second longer than you would expect from a human or whatever. And it’s just like the level of expectation is Yeah. They’re actually higher than than the expected average performance of any of these AI applications. Like, do you have to do you have to manage that a little bit? Yeah. Yeah.

Toby Sinclair: So so what we do is we try and set the expectations with our clients that this is a training environment. And I think that’s what helps with our products is that this is role play. We’re not recreating the conversation. So I think that affords a level of where it’s not super accurate, but it’s accurate enough is probably what we aim for. We do kind of when users go through the role plays, we kinda set it up to say this is obviously an AI. It might be buggy. It might respond in different ways.

Rachel Cossar: One of the things we’ve also done is told people if you’re sounds stupid, but if the AI isn’t responding how you want it, just tell it to, like, slow down or or guide it in a certain way, which can really help as well. Right.

Toby Sinclair: I think one of the other products which I, saw is, like, there’s this thing called Boardie now, which is going around LinkedIn. This thing you can call and talk to. What’s interesting when you phone I think just for the first time, I don’t know if it does every time, is it’ll say, like, just to let you know I’m an AI. I’m still in development. I might interrupt you. I might do some weird stuff. So that’s another thing we’ve done is kinda just add some of those caveats just to just to kinda temper them expectations, I guess. Right. Because you’re right. Often, especially with the video layer, it can be the bar is quite high. Yeah. Yeah. I would just think it’s so funny.

Rachel Cossar: Because then sometimes it’s like I wanna remind. It’s yeah. Yeah. You have to kind of constantly be reminding people that, you know, it’s it’s technology. It’s not a it’s not a human. And it’s funny because in some ways, sometimes the AI is just so much more intelligent than your average person. And so you actually have to, like, dumb the AI down a little bit in how it might, like, respond to, like, feedback if that’s one of the challenging conversations you’re handling. I don’t know if you’ve experienced that. But it’s just the expectation versus reality. Conversation is really an interesting one, I think, especially because people are in some ways being set up to expect a lot more than what is actually possible, especially when we’re talking about conversations that are being generated in real time. Yeah. %. Yeah.

Toby Sinclair: And it’s interesting going back to the virtual reality. I also did do a lot of work. This was 2020 around the COVID time with virtual reality and coaching. Mhmm. So I did a lot of stuff. I actually had a a group at one stage, which was like a community around VR coaching. What I found with that was the cognitive load was just too great for clients. So I had this kind of phrase at the time, which was like VR fluency, which was if you were working with someone that had, like, a high fluency in VR, they used it a lot, they played a lot of games, and they were very familiar with it, they could put the headset on quickly and get straight into the conversation. For those that hadn’t used VR much or were new to it when their fluency was quite low, the cognitive load was just so distracting that what’s this thing on my head, what are these gear sticks, or what’s that over there. To do any kind of meaningful work with them was just a waste of time, really. So I actually found that when clients wanted to do work in VR, I would say to them, like, over the next six weeks, go and play mini golf. Go and play some games. Once you feel comfortable, come back, and we can actually do work together in there. The problem is most people didn’t come back because it also requires a degree, I guess, of, like, behavior change and habit formation to get to that point. Whereas contrast that to my experience now with artificial intelligence and like video technology is the behavior change isn’t that great. The experience of talking to one of our interactive avatars is similar to what we’re doing now, which lowers that barrier, lowers that kind of cognitive load of this being different. You obviously still spot the differences in the avatar, which is good because it’s kinda like the ethical and transparent thing to do. So you actually do know it’s an AI, which means that it’s just much more accessible than at the time that VR just wasn’t and still isn’t, to be honest, accessible to most people. Right. Yeah. I, I agree.

Rachel Cossar: I I remember during, like, the early days of of COVID when people, I think, were really trying to recreate that, like, more full bodied immersive experience or whatever versus the two dimensional one. And I just I just, you know, I I agreed with you to your point of behavior change and how hard it is to get people to change habits, voluntarily. Right? Like, if there’s, like, a real neat like, COVID was a perfect example. Right? Video was not very popular before, and and now it’s a go to channel of communication. But it was it was forced in, like, a wild way across the globe. Right? That way that we’ve, like, almost never seen before, for our generation at least. And so that’s I do I I think in the workflow, learning or in the workflow coaching and feedback is the optimal goal because then you’re not even requiring people to do anything extra. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Toby Sinclair: And what we found with our product is what works best, I guess it’s probably similar to you, is that it works well when it’s combined with other like, the the students are part of a program or there’s some other wrap around learning, which creates that accountability. When I first started with our product, I and even now, we’re kind of experimenting. We had, like, one which is where you as an individual could go use the product. Found the uptake was very low on that. Because, again, I think without that kind of your part of a program or an experience, their incentive maybe isn’t there unless you’re kind of just intrinsically curious about becoming a better conversationalist. Yep. So we tend to find it works best if it’s in, like, some kind of wrap around pro. You’re part of the leadership development program or something like that is is generally where we see it work best. Yep. Same. Abs absolutely same. The positioning of it is critical.

Rachel Cossar: So I, you know, I’m curious. I I I like to ask all AI founders about about where they see, AI really excelling without reducing that human touch or that that human quality that is really, like, why we’re doing anything. So what what are your thoughts on that? Yeah.

Toby Sinclair: So what springs to mind is when we’ve kinda spoke to clients and kinda gone through our products, a couple what something that’s come up a few times is, so so our product basically helps people practice difficult conversations, for kind of role play and and those kind of things. So it’s kind of meant as like a learning aid and as a training support. What some clients have asked this for is they don’t want the they don’t want the training. They just want the script. So don’t teach me how to have a better conversation. Just give me the script that I need to have to go do the conversation. And I think what we’re trying to promote is I’m kind of very much in more of this is a learning tool to help the human find the answers versus me just give you the answer and you just read from a script. What’s interesting with that is when I think about my start up, you you’ve probably heard this kind of phrase, like, are you selling a vitamin or a pain killer? Mhmm. The learning can often be the vitamin of, like, I’m I’m saying, like, here’s your vitamins, do your exercise, and then you get better at your conversations. Yeah. Probably most things that sell well are really the painkillers. Yeah. Right. The script. Right?

Rachel Cossar: I don’t wanna get I I don’t wanna do the the hundred press ups to get a six pack.

Toby Sinclair: Just give me the six pack, which really in my mind is the scripts. Right? Just or even more so, have the converse send an AI and have the conversation for me so I don’t even need to have the conversation at all. Yeah. Right. Where we’re heading, I guess, with some of these advancements is I believe there will be a number of solutions that come in. They’re actually the script or the replacement for the human. Yeah. So you don’t even need to have it. Now where that makes me uncomfortable is, again, in kind of space we’re operating around really important employee conversations. You can imagine the scenario where some managers freaked out by telling people they’re redundant, so sends an avatar to the employee to have the conversation for them, that feels like the wrong thing to do, but also feels in the future very technically easy to do. So, yeah, that’s I don’t know. At the moment, from a values based perspective, we’re very much focused on the enablement, but I am also in this kind of conflict that that isn’t always what sells or what isn’t always the painkillers solution, I guess. Yeah. No.

Rachel Cossar: It’s really tough, like, early on because our focus, at least from the coaching side, is on the nonverbals, right, and the a lot of those behavioral aspects of communication in addition to what you say. A lot of people, especially investors, like, early on, were like, this is great, but what about just removing the human? Like, what about just like, can’t couldn’t you just, like, you know, use the same technology to develop these, like, highly behaviorally intelligent, like, AI avatars or whatever, and I just, like or, like, you know, deep fake on top of a person. It’s similar to the eye gaze redirection issue I have with that. Right? It’s like, I believe that the conversations and the communication is is that intrinsically human thing and that a human wants to talk to another human, and they wanna know for sure that that’s a real person, and that’s how that person’s really showing up. Right? Like, I don’t wanna get the idea that, oh, I’m talking to Toby, but Toby’s in his pajamas right now, and he’s got, like, a deep fake suit on. Right? I’m like, I wanna know what your reality is like a little bit. Right? It’s it’s it’s trust. It’s rapport building. And I think, you know, we’re very set on that. I don’t think we would ever want to have our products be replacing versus amplifying human connection. That’s a good way to put it. Yeah. But it is a question that comes up a lot, and I think there will there will have to be, I think, some some very strong value sets that keep the human in the loop in a very strong way even though there is a big tug to, like, have the bots do the meeting. Right? And just have my bot talk to your bot and and I I I get it. There’s some efficiencies there. But at the end of the day, I’m like, what are we even doing? Yeah. The yeah.

Toby Sinclair: And I I again, I think what’s interesting is we’re at the stage where all of these things are technically possible. So it becomes more of like a value based decision or ethics, moral decision around what you do and don’t want to do. The challenge the like, the challenge is just that we many of us just want the pain killer, the shortcut. Yeah. And as we know, building, like, strong, meaningful relationships takes time and effort, which is why when we think about conversations, so many of our hard conversations are avoided is because they’re really difficult. Mhmm. So will we will we decide that actually the hundred sit ups is worth it to get that better conversation? Or if a solution comes along that actually means you don’t need to put the hard effort in and actually can find a shortcut. I don’t yeah. It’s it’s it’s it is fascinating. Right. Yeah. TBD. Very much TBD on that.

Rachel Cossar: So, for this last question, I I I’m very impressed with the following you have on LinkedIn. I think, it’s very engaged, and you’ve got a great kind of banter with your community. So how do you I’m just curious how you structure your con content and how you think about, constantly or consistently providing value to your audience.

Toby Sinclair: I’m I’m I’m at this I go through roller coasters, but I’m at the phase where I, like, hate LinkedIn. Totally. I totally get it. Yeah. Yeah. I’m I’m like, sometimes I’m, like, okay with it over time over time. So at the moment, I’m in the hate LinkedIn. So all of my opinions at the moment might be, mixed on that. I think one of the things which is interesting, though, is I’ve been posting on LinkedIn probably every weekday for about five years Mhmm. Maybe, consistently. When I started posting on LinkedIn, it was more of a learning journey, a journal. So it’s more about I would read a book. I would share some insights. I’d read an article. I’d share share some insights, I’d try something out, I’d share some so it was more about me building a learning habit, and I found it really good as a way to kind of do that. You read a book and then it’s an accountability partner to share it because you get the dopamine hit of someone liking it, sharing it, saying thank you, and so it kind of incentivized my learning. Since I’ve become a business owner, I’m in this real tussle at the moment of sharing learning content isn’t necessarily enough to win clients, but then selling too much on LinkedIn doesn’t then also win clients. So I’m this is maybe why the reason I said I hate LinkedIn or I’m in this kind of challenge mode of how do I operate LinkedIn as a business. And, yeah, I don’t know at the moment. So a lot of which is interesting because a lot of the following, I think, has come because I was sharing interesting content that was useful, but that doesn’t necessarily convert to the customers that I wanna now get. And, unfortunately, I I know it sounds bad to say, but sort of monetize or turn into clients. Right. So I’m in that mode now where I’m I’m kind of lost a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. What about you? Yeah. No. It’s interesting.

Rachel Cossar: It’s so funny. I, yeah, I I just I my issue with LinkedIn is that it’s so it can feel so trumpety. You know? You’re just, like, trumpeting. Yeah. Like, whatever. And, like, everyone and everyone’s, like, engaging with the content in a way that’s that sometimes, like, sometimes it’s really meaningful, and that’s what’s so great is that you can like, there are so many relationships that I’ve sparked on LinkedIn, that have become partnerships or whatever, and it’s it’s it’s awesome. But then so much of it is, like, just so surface level. And I think, you know, the thing that I’ve been challenged with is I don’t post every day. I I post, like, once a week. Right? And it’s interesting because I have you know, I think you also follow Roberto Ferrero. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. I I mean, you I’m sure you you’ve definitely interacted with some of his posts because I’ve I’ve been tagged them as well, and he is a machine. It’s so amazing. Like, he’s so incredible with his content. He’s, like, posting so frequently. I’m like, is this your full time job? And I know it’s not. I’m like, so impressed because I’m like, I just, like, at the end of the day, I just, like, can’t. You know? It’s bad because I’m like, I should. But it’s very do you still post once a day? Yeah. Yeah. Once every weekday. Yeah. Wow.

Toby Sinclair: So I mean so the so there’s like I said, I’m kind of in this mode of, like, I don’t wanna be too Trumpety, but I I actually put a post on there a couple of weeks ago about my dilemma with sales and the whole. Like, how much do I share content about my business? And then it’s like that tradition that stereotypical thing of, like, someone said, well, if you don’t shout about it, no one will. Yeah. Well, I don’t know if that’s, like, just incorrect conventional wisdom sort of thing, because it feels like yes and no. So I’m not so then I’m like, should I share more about just me as a person? Because, again, especially in the b to b space, I think people buy from people. Yeah.

Rachel Cossar: Maybe more about, like, your your your continued learning journey now as a Yeah. But then it’s kinda like Yeah.

Toby Sinclair: Is that is that gonna because, again, it’s like I think on my LinkedIn, I have a lot of followers, but maybe not a lot of potential buyers. Yeah. Again, conventional wisdom would say convert those followers might buy from you, and there’s all this thing about get hundred fans and all of this kind of stuff. But it’s all of it, I guess, what I’ve found is it’s a lot easier said than done. Yes. Yeah. And it’s easy to have these sort of, like, cute statements and stuff. But in reality, it’s much more complex. I think the last thing I would say on LinkedIn that I’m also really struggling with is more around the prospecting side, sending the emails, outreach type stuff. Yeah.

Rachel Cossar: Yeah.

Toby Sinclair: So the again, conventional wisdom, what the LinkedIn gurus will say to you is post every day. People will love it. They’ll come to you. Your inbox will be flooded with inbound requests, and you’ll be a millionaire. Hasn’t worked for me yet. Yeah. So when I started my business, I was like, I never really done, like, outbound outreach via LinkedIn DMs or anything. So when I started the business, I was like, well, I better start doing it. It’s bloody miserable. It’s like, like, sends, I don’t know, hundred messages. I get, like, I think I I put a post over there. I get, like, 40% response rate, which isn’t too bad. Yeah. And I’m converting that into actually a sale or a meter or whatever it might is even a smaller percent. So I’m now also in that mode of, okay. So do I just get the bots on it, which I know a lot of people do and just automate the hell out of it. And instead of sending a hundred messages a week, send 10 thousands and then a percentage of a percentage. Do I give up completely and just pick up the telephone and go to, like, it’s somewhere in between. Yeah.

Rachel Cossar: Yeah. The cold outreach numbers are, like, kind of horrible. Yeah.

Toby Sinclair: And I hate one of the things I hate, which is a muscle I’m having to develop, is the chase, the follow-up. Because it’s I send a message, say to you, Rachel, and you don’t respond. And then I leave it a couple of days, and it’s burning in the back of my mind of, like, oh, I need how do how do I what do I say? Do I wanna seem too pushy? So I follow-up again, and guess what? You don’t respond respond again. Yeah. And then I’m like, do I follow-up again? Yeah. How how often do you do it? And all of that, especially if you’re not doing it in an automated way with, like, a tool or that process of just following up, just keeping track of all the people I’ve messaged. And there are have been a number of times where you might follow-up a second or third time, and they’re like, oh, yeah. Sorry. I was away or I was busy or, yeah, really interested. So it does show that there is value in the follow-up. Mhmm. But doing that consistently and keeping on top of it all, really hard. Yeah.

Rachel Cossar: It’s interesting because I have actually found that with this business, you know, communication upskilling, conversation practice, like, you know, that that whole space, I have found that buyers are very obvious. Like, you can say your bit about the value that this platform adds, And people are either like, yes. I I get it. I agree. And I I agree this is a value. And then or they’ll be like, okay. But how do you measure, like, good communication? And I’m like, okay. So I don’t like, I’m not I I I can’t educate someone. Like, I don’t find that it’s my role to educate someone on, like, why communication is important. You know? Like, I need to find people who are, like, absolutely communication is important. Yeah. Right? And then we can have a conversation. Right?

Toby Sinclair: That that’s what I found.

Rachel Cossar: I found it’s a total waste of time to try to convince someone that communication and the way you communicate is critical to any business success literally whatsoever. You know? Yeah. Yeah. %. Yeah.

Toby Sinclair: That’s been kind of my my, my thinking on that. But this is more like a like a muscle or a skill that I’ve had to was interested, obviously. Again, everyone says it, but starting my business, this is all building the product is easy. Mhmm. Figuring all that stuff out is quite challenging. Yeah. Totally. And I think even more so now. Right?

Rachel Cossar: Like, there was a time when building something in technology or building a software actually was, like, very expensive, required millions of dollars in the Yeah. Yeah. And that was the hard part because there was so much less competition on the space that you could if you built it, then, like, you know, you had a huge moat. And now it’s the apps. It’s the opposite. Like, sales is the competitive advantage. Cutting through the noise, you know, that’s that’s the it’s impossible. It’s so hard. You can have an amazing product. But if there’s someone with, like, a louder voice or more dollars for marketing. I don’t know. It’s it’s really hard to get the attention. Yeah.

Toby Sinclair: And all the channels are so, there’s so many people doing the same thing on the same channel. It’s Yeah. Yeah. Totally. But but, anyways, we’ll persevere.

Rachel Cossar: And, you know, I think what you’re doing is I think what you’re doing is very important. Toby, thank you for sharing your thoughts on from from employee experience to founding this AI company and, you know, social media and LinkedIn. Anything else you’d like to share with our audience today?

Toby Sinclair: I think one thing I would just share is, be curious. So I think I was at a session at a university early in the week, and they asked for about, like, one piece of advice, that I would give to the students. And I think it’s just, follow your curiosity. And that’s what I’m really happy to be doing now, having kind of left my corporate career doing my start up, is I can just follow my curiosity. And right now, it’s in the sort of AI video technology space and around difficult conversations. In the future, I might pivot to something else. But Yeah. I think what all of this kind of AI technology brings to us is just that for someone that’s super curious about all these things, it’s like a bit of a playground to go and explore and have fun stuff do fun stuff with. So, yeah, just, don’t be too too, fearful. Just embrace the curiosity and go go learn. Yeah. Awesome.

Rachel Cossar: What’s the best way for people to connect with you? Yeah.

Toby Sinclair: LinkedIn, as we talked about, post on there every weekday. So Toby Sinclair on LinkedIn and also, realtalkstudio.com is where you can go and practice the conversations you fear the most. Awesome. Great. Thank you so much, Toby.

Rachel Cossar: And as always, thanks to our audience. We’ll see you next time. See you later.