Announcer (00:05.442)
Get ready business leaders. This is Prompt This, the podcast that cuts through the endless chatter of AI hype to deliver the real deal. Join Clint and Greg as they tackle the noise head on, bringing you sharp analysis and practical playbooks to unleash the power of AI in launching your next big idea, scaling your business and ensuring you're not left in the dust. Now, let's meet your dynamic host.
Hey everyone, welcome to the podcast. I'm Greg. My co-host Clint and I started this podcast to explore how business leaders are using AI in the real world. We found that our friends and colleagues aren't just talking about AI, they're actually building with it. So we decided to bring them in one by one to share their stories. And that's prompt this. Now I'm from the sales leadership side of the business. I've run many teams during my career so far.
like to harness the power of blending AI systems with human effort to succeed.
Clint, my background is more from the entrepreneur mindset, starting, buying, selling software companies. I really wanted to learn what's happening in the world of AI and figured we could turn that journey into a podcast. So Greg, tell me a bit about our guest today.
Our guest today is a sales leader selling AI software in the state and local government.
Clint (01:26.606)
I thought what was really cool in the interview was that in his world, AI isn't replacing people. It's not replacing jobs. It's rescuing them from burnout. He calls it the silver tsunami. All those government veterans retiring and how AI is stepping in to fill the gap.
Yeah, that was an interesting point. You know, I liked when he went into talking about performance reviews and he's taking a traditionally painful process in sales and turning it into an enjoyable exercise that creates a meaningful conversation for both parties involved.
Well, let's jump into it. Let's hear what he's got to say.
Clint (02:12.366)
We've got John Sassen with us today. He's going to share how AI is transforming his own sales team and the public sector, which he sells into. He's not just a VP at a Fortune 100 company. He's someone who's worked across startups, government, and enterprises. He knows how to speak tech, policy, and sales, and he's using AI to bridge those worlds.
If you've ever wondered how AI fits into government sales, this is the episode for you. So stick around till the end where we've got this week's AI challenge and it's one you'll want to try with your own team.
Let's get into it. Welcome John Sassen.
Hey guys, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
This is great, John. I'm really excited to have you on today's show. I like the very different point of view that you have in AI as you look at it through that government lens.
John Sasson (03:04.654)
Thanks. mean, think government is actually, a lot of governments are in sore need of using and leveraging AI to help deliver those services that their constituents and businesses so sorely need. It really is going to up the level of transparency with government than any time before. Really excited about the next few years. And actually it's happening so quickly, quarter by quarter, the changes and...
You see all over governments from Seattle to Boston, mayors from every big city are figuring out how do I adopt AI and how do we become more efficient with not only our applications but the services they provide. So it's a really exciting time.
So you kind of let off there with a comment that I keyed in on about transparency. Is that the main benefit about how AI is being used in the government world or is it more than just that?
Well, it's a lot more than just that, but that is a big driver for cities around the country, providing more transparent services, which reduces frustration, but it also creates economic vitality. If you think about it, if it's easier, faster to open up a business or start a business, a restaurant, or build a warehouse in a city that's leveraging AI that's super transparent.
than the city next door where you have no idea how long the process is gonna take you because there's little to no transparency with the processes behind the front counter. You wanna invest in those agencies that are way more transparent. And I think AI is just pushing the boundaries of that significantly. For example, our AI allows for zoning ordinances and things like that to be conversationally searched.
John Sasson (04:52.366)
can I do this on this piece of land? Whereas before you might've hired to hire someone, right? And then get them to go and do the research to find out, can I do this where I wanna do it? Now, using conversational AI, citizens are easily able to go online and find out information and find out processes leveraging AI. It's an exciting time to be there.
What do you think the biggest misconception about using AI in public sector sales is?
Well, from a sales perspective, I can tell you that when Oracle started to encourage everybody to use AI and delivered to us tools within our Oracle ecosystem, it really changed the way salespeople communicated. You had some salespeople that were really good at intuition, but not very good at writing prose. And when you combine somebody's really strong intuition on a customer,
of what their pain points are. With a generative AI tool, you now have a combination that takes that C player or B player into an A player. And their executive summaries or their communications back to the customer are that much better.
that makes sense. So your team's even just bringing a better engagement when they walk in the door and walk into these meetings because of AI.
John Sasson (06:19.37)
Absolutely, absolutely. A better engagement, the impact that it's had, the independence, instead of having to rely on so many shared services and people that are having to serve as multiple teams, it's really given some of these salespeople a sense of freedom.
I imagine, I imagine. you seeing, you know, executing higher quality presentations, work output, or are you seeing that translate into results? Are you finding your team is selling more consistently if you look maybe year over year from where AI came in and before you had it?
think the results that we're seeing is quality pipeline. If you're pure sales, Like just using it for your own personal research, right? Instead of having to go and figure out a website, I can use a conversational AI tool to go and tell me about a particular customer. If I'm looking at a particular city or county across the country, since they have a publicly available website, it's easy for AI to bring back.
some really salient points that you're looking for. just think about that. mean, doing the research against your customer. Now, probably a little tougher to do in the private sector. I mean, while there's websites out there that say what we're doing, but there's probably a little bit less transparency on the pain points that particular business is going through. if it's a public business...
They're publishing everything aren't they? There's a ton of content. Trying to figure out what that content is saying is hard.
John Sasson (07:53.014)
Yeah, I mean, that's like the concept of being able to look at multiple documents at the same time and have a conversational experience against those documents. And some of them could be hundreds of pages or thousands of pages. That same thing is happening in research for salespeople, right? Information coming from all over the place and AI is allowed to to summarize that for them. Being more effective with their time. It's amazing.
I'd imagine a ramp up for a new rep coming into a sector that maybe they're not so strong at government yet, but maybe they're great sales people to ramp up in that education must be different, faster.
Yeah, definitely. mean, ramping up and being able to do research on your territory. I mean, imagine doing your territory plan. I mean, just that alone. I mean, all the information isn't in the CRM system, right?
It's not.
It's definitely not. The good stuff is...
Clint (08:51.822)
I'm told you have their name their address their phone number everything's in this
Yeah.
Greg (09:00.718)
love having two sales against one CRM person. This is just, this is going to be a great, great hour. Awesome. All right, half hour, whatever we ended up publishing. This is going to be fun.
So give me a few other examples, Jon, besides doing the research where AI is helping your team.
Well, mean, from an individual perspective, obviously communication is big. You know, from a seller's perspective, leverage our internal systems to really draft those communications in a better way, a more salient way, a more meaningful way. I think a lot of salespeople are really good editors, but they may not be the strongest persuasive writers. They might be very persuasive in front of an audience as a performer.
and be able to take a point of view that they've learned. But then to make that their own is a really intimate experience and leveraging AI makes it feel like you're making it your own and your communications to the customers. That's a really important component piece that's helping a lot of salespeople with the internal tools that we have available to us.
That's great from the rep perspective, but John, let's talk about it from the manager perspective, managing the team. For those listening, John and I went to high school together. So we've watched each other's career for many, many years and John's run teams and startups and large organizations. And it's been a great seller, but what I've really liked to watch is how John kind of manages a team and, and an entire like sales motion across his, across his teams as well. So.
Greg (10:40.258)
John, let's dig in over there. What's AI done for you in terms of managing a team?
So I think when I went through last year's performance reviews specifically, I think leveraging in Oracle's HCM system, the AI tools doing those performance reviews was just eye-opening. In the past, it took a lot of time to really get to really communicate with the rep and then craft a performance review that was actually meaningful.
And in this last performance review, I found that actually spending that hour with the rep and looking at the questions that they were asked to answer and then providing my feedback and then, you know, leveraging AI to summarize that and then reading that back to them before, you know, we went ahead and executed that particular line. Oftentimes they said, wow, that really is true. That makes a lot of sense.
And when it got to the final summary and leveraging the AI assist to go through that entire 20 and 30 question performance review, it summarized it so well because it was their voice, my voice as a manager, and then it put it together in such a way that was cogent. It was understandable. It really reflected where that person was exceeding expectations and then where that person
might need to, you know, do better. I really enjoyed actually the experience of leveraging the AI assist within RHCM system. It was eye-opening.
Greg (12:26.382)
I think I've ever heard anyone in sales say they enjoyed the process of performance reviews.
Clint (12:39.086)
C.M.
breakthrough. And I, I, I've done them on large teams. And so you, you know, it's a, I can understand how big of a breakthrough this is. don't know if the audience does, but it's hard to be effective and you want this to be the biggest conversation of the year internally. And by the time you get to the end of the process, it's diluted. So that's huge. What you just said.
Hey John, you're deep in the world of process automation and processes in general. How are you finding AI making this different?
Yeah, mean, look, we just released the product line that I work on, nine AI agents that are going to change the lives of the people that use our software. Those agents are there to assist them and help processes streamline. mean, agents in the AI world are nothing more than robotic process automation and custom coding.
But now it's delivered at the speed of light and it's delivered in such a powerful way that it's gonna actually change the way people interact with the systems they use. Some examples of that are, like I said before, just a citizen being able to go online and quickly have a conversation with an agent a particular city is leveraging. Maybe it's a contractor agent or a homeowner agent. And then having that
John Sasson (14:13.582)
concierge type experience for that person and that agent follows them through and knows what's happening and knows the processes and is able to actually react in a much faster way for that customer. It's the same thing with the salespeople.
Is the vision there for government agencies to be able to reduce the number of phone calls or visits to desks of different agencies and have everything being answered online, or is it more than that?
It's way more than that. Just, I mean, you think about any type of regulatory process, whether it's a permit or an occupational license, getting that application right and the amount of information that you have to provide can sometimes be a really daunting task when you as a customer aren't the regular, you're not the expert. But now through AI, that expert is right there leveraging the content that that expert is relying on.
and providing that to the customer. just compressing the completeness of the application process is significant. 30 to 40 % of the time that a regulator spends potentially is on that upfront getting it right process. But that is gone.
I know I've done some building projects where I've had to work with a local planning commission in Los Altos and it took like six weeks for a turnaround on a permit. If that six weeks could turn into three weeks or even one week, wow, that's huge. That's money.
John Sasson (15:48.603)
not only is it money, but it's economic vitality.
So I gotta imagine tools like this are all about reducing the time and helping people get going with their projects much faster.
Yeah, I mean, especially when it's codified in law, right? Four foot side setback, right? State law, California, four foot side setback. individual communities have adopted their own policies, which is what the tools, like uploading their own documents so customers can interact with that in a conversational way prior to the application and having a more complete application.
I mean, how many back and forth do you have to have? Yeah. But the human, mean, the human, it's not solving everything, but just getting the completeness of what you want to do and what you're allowed to do in your location based on your parcel. Having that right upfront will save 30 to 40 % in the process.
The three
Clint (16:50.734)
So we've had a lot of examples around the planning department. Any other government agencies that stand out in your mind as some great examples?
Well, I mean, if you think about just the different roles that regulators have, right? You know, got planning, building, code, fire. Let's think about public safety, right? You know, I think if you just look at the different roles that people have, route optimization has been around for a long time, right? That's somewhat of a form of AI, if you think about it. Like, how do I optimize my own route? Now we're talking about optimizing and leveraging AI to do the research against the history before an inspector goes out. Or...
a first responder who is going to a fire to have AI go in and see is that building permitted for hazardous materials, right? Is there a couple cases of hairspray? Whatever, right? So it's bringing the data right up in front so that the time that it took to do the research on the way out has just been reduced, has just been dramatically reduced.
and it's looking at their data and then summarizing that and then being able to just get that history summary of that place they're going to and they hit a button and say, read it back to me. So they're driving in their car and the AI agent is reading back the history.
I that example. I've seen this in a few other areas as well, probably most notably in the sales world where people who spend a lot of windshield time going from site to site, customer to customer, having the AI system give a summary of what's going on in a very thoughtful way. Isn't that just cool?
John Sasson (18:34.21)
Yeah, and it's not only cool, I think that it's going to change the way they interact with technology. It's going to change the way people think about it. They'll start using it in their daily jobs. I've got friends who never use AI. I'm like, see you later.
Yeah, I think I've seen that in a, you know, a handful of friends where kind of just push them over the edge with, with an answer, just a simple answer and then hooked. I've seen that a few times. So I got a question for you with all this, like overhaul in government processes and everything. Yeah. What's happening with jobs within the government? Do you think this is taking over jobs or is this kind of.
Opening up people to retool.
Look, I think that it is absolutely not going to take over jobs. It's going to allow government employees to focus on the most important aspects of the jobs. It's going to allow them to be more effective on the larger aspects of their jobs. I don't think it's gonna replace anything. I think over time, in government we call it the silver tsunami. mean, the government people are retiring, right?
I love that the silver tsunami.
John Sasson (20:00.582)
the silver tsunami. so, you know, government is stretched thin. And so here comes AI and the people that are in government jobs today are like, thank goodness. Right? They can take a break.
This is the first kind of industry specific answer to this that took a different turn. Like welcoming AI, excited that it's coming, know, not that it's going to take over many positions like we hear in some of the other guests that we talk.
Yeah, mean, I don't know, man. think anytime there's change, people are going to be worried or fearful. I think there's a sense of relief because some of the mundane aspect of the job in government is just getting it right and have an assistant help you do that faster so that you can focus on the complex ones, the complex situations.
Well, you you talk a lot about, you know, AI in personal life. And I know you've got some great examples and you use it. there any tools that give you a rise?
I mean, I was first introduced to, and I started using ChatDBT when it first came out and have been using it ever since through all the iterations. And I just love it. It's fun, it's simple. My wife is a landscape architect. She's fooling around with some of the other ones. But for me, I think that ChatDBT 5 is a great tool in my personal life.
John Sasson (21:43.522)
you know, answer so many things that would take me a lot to research. I can't wait till the moment in time when I have my own concierge agent that's designed for me, that is just looking out for me. mean, you know, that knows that I like to fish, knows is the bait shop open, what time it opens, looks at the weather and sees that 60 miles offshore, the seas are calm and there's no wind and the tuna are biting, right? I mean, I'm begging for somebody to make me an AI agent that
understands the things that I do and how I recreate and allow me to now I still interact with all the different six different apps that I've got and you know I got my Coast Guard license it should know that you know 100 ton OUPV but it's not there yet right
Right. I think that's coming faster than we think it is.
it's right around the corner.
It's right around the corner. So I'm looking forward to actually being on this train from an AI perspective, both at work and personally.
Clint (22:47.006)
I've got two that I want to introduce you to on the personal AI assistant. There's one called OHI, O-H-A-I. And then there's another one called Fixer, F-Y-X-E-R. I've never done anything with Fixer, but OHI, I've signed up and done the free trial. My challenge is...
My wife has zero interest in any type of extra technology in the house. Here I am a technologist, I'm always like, nope, no interest. I'm not gonna, no, I'm not signing up for that thing. No, I'm not gonna communicate with you through that thing. But if you have success bringing it into your family, let me know. I'd love to hear how that works. But OHI, OHI is a good one, ohi.ai.
I'd ask you, what AI tools have you guys used, per in a personal life? You told me about Ohai, that's a good one. I'm gonna check out Fixer. Are you using anything Clint?
We just did a recent AI challenge for a podcast episode. We dug into a AI headshot tool called Sektah and I updated all of my headshots on LinkedIn and X and up on our prompt this website.
I've been doing a lot with the voice. like to mess around with 11 labs and in copilot they have the audio expressions. Yeah, copilot's cool. Yeah, I really like that audio expressions. Lately I've been doing a lot with that and that's been an eye opener for me. Exactly. Need some new tools, new tools. Definitely.
John Sasson (24:14.84)
producing a podcast now.
Greg (24:28.622)
Again, I changed the intro and outro voice. I think I nailed this one. I like it.
Definitely high energy voice. No doubt about it. That one really kind of took me by surprise. Opened up my eyes when I was listening to the AI speak.
Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm really settling on this co-pilot audio expressions. To me, of all the tools I've been doing this with, I keep coming back to this one because it's fun and, and it nails it every time. And there's so many different inflections on it.
You described to me it's really simple to use without having to get deep into a bunch of crazy esoteric audio knobs and stuff like that. Is that how it works?
It's simple. Yeah, you just kind of cut and paste a paragraph into a text box. Couple drop down menus, hit generate. That's it.
Greg (25:20.814)
All right, Clint, I think it's time to get into the AI challenge this week. You know, this is the challenge to get people that have never really worked with AI to just get their hands on it and try a new exercise.
Yeah, we got a pretty cool one lined up for this week. Picking up on what our guest, John Sassen, said about the power of performance reviews and how so much easier it is to do performance reviews with AI, that's this week's challenge. You go into ChatGPT, you upload meeting recordings, you upload email threads, chat threads, and then you put your company's
performance framework into the chat session and then out from chat, GPT comes a really outstanding performance review report for your employees. So that's what we're doing this weekend. It'll be a lot of fun.
Yeah, so look down into the show notes. You're going to see the link to our blog page. And that has all the instructions that you need. So give it a try and put a performance review together.
Greg (26:27.086)
That was a great time, John. It was just a great session. We appreciate you coming on the podcast. And for folks that want to learn more from you, where do they find you?
Yeah, of course, LinkedIn is a place to find me. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys. really appreciate it.
John, thank you very much.
Hey, that was awesome, man. That was really fun.
I can't wait to hear the final cut.
Announcer (26:50.678)
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