Pulse HR: Why Most HR Tech AEs Lose Deals Before They Even Start

Speaker 1 · 0:00Good evening, world. AJ here bringing you getting very different episode of the business of alignment podcast, and we're gonna call these episodes the e one b two collective Sunday brief. Now here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna pick random questions from my guy, Denzel, our head of creative. Let me let me just first shout out this guy.

Speaker 1 · 0:25Let me let me tell you a little bit about this guy. This young man came into this organization three months ago with not one iota of understanding of what we were doing, what we were building, and how we were navigating. And within three months, he's completely changed the aesthetic, the energy, the feeling, the perspective, the nuance of what I believe so many new customers, partners, employees, fellow executives are feeling and thinking when they see anything associated with the e one b two collective and anything associated with all the different verticals within this brand. I cannot tell you how thankful I am. I cannot tell you how proud I am, and I cannot tell you how hard this young man has been working.

Speaker 1 · 1:10And so I just wanna give him a shout out. I need to do more of this. I need to shout out all of my partners, all of my colleagues, all of my supporters, all of the people that have frankly been around me the last three months helping me redo, recraft, restructure what we know and what we have with the e one b two collective. Now very uniquely, we're gonna start doing different content per vertical because many of you don't have a full understanding of what the e one b two collective has turned into. We have the research arm of our business, which we are essentially putting out probably 14 to 16 pieces of deep research and thought per month, talking to many executives across the world, many different problems we're tackling at a workforce and technology level across the world, and understanding, learning, diagnosing, and unpacking how different leaders are navigating, the decisions these leaders are making, the technology these leaders are using, and the things these leaders are doing to make a change within the workforce at a global level.

Speaker 1 · 2:16We're obsessed. We love it. Now we also have Pulse HR. Now not too many people know about Pulse HR, and that's intentional. I I didn't wanna share too much about Pulse HR because, frankly, there's so many different pockets about how I'm trying to solve a few core problems that I don't think a lot of people are fully up to speed on how pulse HR is really being shaped and structured today.

Speaker 1 · 2:51So I'll give you a little hint and a little sneak peek. Pulse HR is three verticals. Pulse HR, which frankly many vendors in the space know is is kind of like my right turn my my right time, my right place business model where I've always tried to support vendors to understand more uniquely what it means and what it feels to build product, to build product sales experiences and partnership and ecosystem movement with and through and for our HR counterparts in ways that are productive, in ways that are healthy, in ways that are nuanced, fulfilling, impactful. Now we all know of the technology company that is aggressive. We all know of the technology companies that have AEs that are just so out of touch around what real workforce technology looks like and feels like.

Speaker 1 · 3:47You know, I had a a deep conversation with an HR leader just a couple days ago, and she was mentioning how she had to put a young AE in their place and let the young fella know, listen. This is not how this tool actually functions. I use it every day. You just know it at a surface demo level. And I think I'm giving these, you know, somewhat funny examples because at a very surface and macro level, but it's meta, many, many, many technology AEs do not know how to, frankly meet HR leaders where they truly are in the buying cycle and process.

Speaker 1 · 4:23Many vendors holistically don't have leaders and founders and CEOs and revenue leaders that have any realm of understanding of the most accurate and the most impactful ways of selling, of integrating, of merging, of blending, of building outbound and inbound, and just frankly productive sales experiences with our HR counterparts. And it's because they're so out of touch with the reality of how HR leaders are truly thinking about technology spend, truly are navigating the buying process inter internally, and truly are looking at the tools and the stacks and the opportunities that we have in this world, which is many. And so my job has always been, and I've loved doing this, and now it's turned into an entire company, which I'm proud to say. Now what I love to do is I love to help vendors understand how to frankly not just navigate the HR buyer ecosystem, and I can share more of a point of view around that in a moment, but really how to navigate the partnership ecosystem. I no longer believe, this is to my vendors, I no longer believe that outbound and inbound is the way.

Speaker 1 · 5:46I no longer believe that just creating content and brand and going to the local events, the macro events, and the global events is the way. I no longer believe trying to sponsor some sort of HR community is the way. I no longer believe that. What I believe and listen. When I say I no longer believe that, I no longer believe that that's how HR leaders are buying your tools and services.

Speaker 1 · 6:14Now how do I know this? Now I know this because the e one b two collective and what we really do and who we are at the foundation is we are researchers. We are thinkers. We are builders. And what I know is I've literally had we have literally had 80 conversations, unique conversations every single month with as many HR leaders from all different scales and sizes of companies that you can imagine.

Speaker 1 · 6:47And these conversations have been based in one simple route. These conversations have been based in trying to truly understand how HR leaders at scale at the biggest companies in the world and then how HR leaders at a micro level, at the smallest companies in the world, are making technology decisions. And for us, we've done that by literally just being researchers. We've done that by literally just building a relationship that is based in truth, that is based in research, that is based in honesty, that is based in in true practicality of how to not be intrusive, not be rude, not not put anyone in a tough spot, and we're proud of that. And we're proud of that because a lot of leaders that navigate the HR technology world have never known to do that, have never known to put research and understanding and and knowledge and updated information at the center of the strategy.

Speaker 1 · 8:06And for me, I just call that strategic empathy. But it's come it's but it's become so natural because the e one b two collective, Anthony Vaughn here, we are those HR leaders. We are those operators. We are those change management leaders. We are those TAs.

Speaker 1 · 8:20We are those CPOs. We are those recruitment leaders. We are those organizational psychologists. We are those change management thinkers. We are the Adam Grants.