SG EP 46
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[00:00:00] Richard Ellis: AI is flooding sales organizations faster than they can absorb it. Boards are anxious, executives feel behind. Tools are rolling out under the banner of innovation. While core processes remain unresolved, the research is blunt. AI amplifies whatever it touches in organizations with broken handoffs, core data, and unclear ICPs.
[00:00:21] Richard Ellis: AI doesn't fix the problem. It scales it. This episode is about AI's real impact on field sales productivity, not theory, not demos, the actual work sellers do, and why most AI initiatives quietly fail at the edge. Welcome to some goodness where we engage seasoned business leaders and experts to share practical guidance to help today's go-to-market leaders, execute, lead, and win in a fast changing world.
[00:00:48] Richard Ellis: Today I'm joined by David Howerton, CEO, and founder of VendoIQ. David spends his time where field selling actually happens, not in theory, not in dashboards, but in [00:01:00] conversations that start in hallways, client offices, and trade show floors. This conversation is about field productivity and why it breaks down.
[00:01:07] Richard Ellis: Not because sellers are lazy or tools are missing, but because the foundations underneath the work are shaky, field productivity doesn't improve by accident. It improves when reality is acknowledged and systems are built to support how selling actually happens. David, welcome.
[00:01:25] David Howerton: Thanks Richard. Uh, really happy to be here and, uh, look forward to a fun and in-depth conversation.
[00:01:32] Richard Ellis: Well, you've got a, an exciting background in, in tech and software and AI and all kinds of good stuff, so I'm, I'm looking forward to geeking out on another perspective on AI with you, if that's okay.
[00:01:44] David Howerton: Yeah, let's do it.
[00:01:46] Richard Ellis: All right. Well, let's kind of start at the high level. Uh, there's a lot of pressure I'm seeing from the board, from executive level, uh, leaders in terms of, you know, AI.
[00:01:57] Richard Ellis: Gotta use ai, we don't wanna be left [00:02:00] behind. So what, what kind of pressure are you seeing just at that, at the highest levels?
[00:02:05] David Howerton: Yeah. I mean, even if you look at Davos conference, which is traditionally not a tech conference, all the tech leaders are there, and the message coming from, even from sat andela at Microsoft is.
[00:02:19] David Howerton: You, you guys aren't adopting fast enough, so you're hearing it from the vendors, which that's a whole different discussion, right? Not to get into that, but that's trickling down from boards to ELT to management, and it's pushing people to make decisions quickly. And let's be honest, we're moving at unprecedented speeds.
[00:02:42] David Howerton: I read a lot and try to stay on top of it, and I feel like I'm behind every day.
[00:02:47] Richard Ellis: Right.
[00:02:47] David Howerton: So the communication streams coming down from governance inside organizations makes that even more challenging. And I think people feel like they're falling behind. I feel like they feel they need to do something in order to stay up, [00:03:00] uh, stay on top of their, you know, competition.
[00:03:03] David Howerton: Make sure they're delivering the right things to their customers. And that takes a lot of work, not just a lot of talk.
[00:03:11] Richard Ellis: Well, and you know, you, you and I have been around for, for longer than many, but, uh, just thinking years ago of the digital transformation movement and the move to cloud mm-hmm. And things of that nature, you know, there was some fear, uncertainty and doubt.
[00:03:27] Richard Ellis: There is a little bit of fear of falling behind, but nothing as. You know, accelerated as we're seeing now with ai. I mean, it's just moving so exponentially fast that that fear of falling behind and don't wanna, you know, uh, be lost or left behind is, is just at a magnitude that I've never seen before. And so I, I see kind of a tendency to.
[00:03:52] Richard Ellis: To make, you know, some hurried decisions that maybe aren't the right decisions. Right. And to kind of [00:04:00] throw AI at things when they probably couldn't. So I'd love to kind of talk to you about, you know, what's the right or wrong approach. Yes. We don't wanna be left behind. Yes. We have to adopt AI in the right way for our business mm-hmm.
[00:04:13] Richard Ellis: For our people. Help our people develop AI acumen and skills. Mm-hmm. Around it. But, um. AI in and of itself is not a strategy. Right. That's reminds me of the book years ago. Hope is not a strategy. You can't just say our guy using ai. It was like, well, that's not nearly enough. So, uh, te tell me kind of what are some, some risks or red flags or just some concerns that we need to be, you know, concerned about a, as we think about applying a AI and, and moving, moving forward.
[00:04:44] David Howerton: Yeah, so I mean, I think the number one thing that comes to mind is that your organization is already doing stuff, right? They're doing things in different departments, um, using your LLMs to accomplish different things, and that's all well and good, but it's not concentrated and it's very [00:05:00] likely not rolling up to a strategy.
[00:05:02] David Howerton: So I. You would agree? 'cause that's your business is coming in and helping people with the alignment process. So one of the concerns I have, and it's even in a small organization like mine, is what are we all doing and how does that ladder up to, uh, who, uh, the company's objectives, right? The strategy, our objectives and key results.
[00:05:24] David Howerton: And if we're discoordinated there, that it's, you know, I think. Crimes of passion, not crimes of mission. People are trying to do the right thing and help themselves and stay on top of it and learn, but there needs to be a formal program in there to help govern what all is happening. So let's start there.
[00:05:45] David Howerton: I mean, there's just so much to unpack with this topic in general. Now we've got chatbots that are talking to one another in their own. Forums and like, what the heck? You know, that's every, every week is something new. So it's, it's just a challenge right now for [00:06:00] across the board for everybody.
[00:06:01] Richard Ellis: Right. Yeah.
[00:06:02] Richard Ellis: I saw the, uh, the, the collective of AI agents building their own social, you know, social network and, and talking about us, right? Yeah. It's like what in the world is happening? But, but I think you bring a, bring up a great point that, you know, and, and our point of view, we, we. Focus on the revenue engine, right?
[00:06:20] Richard Ellis: The go-to-market engine. And so the front end of of businesses. And so I think about marketing and sales and customer success and channel all day long, and there's an underlying, you know, processes and procedures and workflows and use cases that you really have to understand, you know, how they're designed.
[00:06:40] Richard Ellis: Are they effective? Because in many cases if you just throw, you know, AI on top of it, you, you could amplify. Bad stuff or accelerate poor decisions versus fixing anything if your underlying processes are broken.
[00:06:54] David Howerton: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:55] Richard Ellis: Are you seeing kind of similar in your business?
[00:06:58] David Howerton: Yes. Um, [00:07:00] bad feed it, bad info, bad outputs.
[00:07:03] David Howerton: Right. So, and that's just gonna start, like you said, to amplify those things in a way that are, you know, was gonna create more noise in your organization. Um. If you have the wrong identified ICP and you're messaging to the wrong ICP, you're gonna do all kinds of great stuff for people that aren't gonna buy from you.
[00:07:23] David Howerton: Right? And so that can be invisible and it's gonna show up in, in pipeline. It's gonna cause some panic. So all kinds of things to. To think through there. So your governance and then your, your process is what are you trying to achieve? What's the, instead of just slapping it in there, like, I, we all know you can write better emails.
[00:07:44] David Howerton: Great, that's fine. That's, that's relatively harmless today. But what are you trying to accomplish with in your go to market strategy and start there so that you're kind of at a foundational level thinking through. Our objectives versus let's just put something on [00:08:00] top that we think will help us move faster.
[00:08:04] Richard Ellis: Absolutely. Well, and, and then if you think about the application on top of not only our processes but our data, I think about, you know, um, like we work, uh, I'm working, uh, with a client right now on account development and upselling and cross selling, and one of the big. Obstacles that they're coming up with is they've got some SLA concerns with certain clients and some service delivery concerns.
[00:08:28] Richard Ellis: And so obviously they're not ready to just spend more with you until you handle the concerns. And so we've been talking about applying AI to their CRM system to surface issues that may be. Um, are being overlooked. Right. And, and look for some of those signals, et cetera. But that can't work right now because the system is full of crappy data or insufficient data.
[00:08:51] Richard Ellis: Right? Right. And so while the technology is there from ais to go do that in a more efficient and effective manner than a human could. And [00:09:00] search through all kinds of meeting notes and all, you know, inbound and outbound messaging with all of our clients. If that data isn't quality, uh, or isn't sufficient, then uh, you're, you're gonna get bad answers.
[00:09:13] David Howerton: Totally agree with that. And we all know that CRM data is stale. It's outdated. We're now in an era where both in the virtual meeting world and in in real life, we can fix that. We have tools, meeting recorder, tools, gong, chorus, um, granola. There are plenty of tools that help us when we're not together that can get transcripts, that can get sentiment, that can help you score those things and create fresh information.
[00:09:47] David Howerton: Within the CRM, so that what you're talking about is improved and you're getting, uh, more relevant, more recent, uh, conversational information to bolster that data. Right. I do [00:10:00] think you've gotta go back and scrub the, so we don't need to belabor the fact that you gotta scrub the data, you gotta have the right information in there.
[00:10:07] David Howerton: You got remove duplicates and all the things that you could, could and probably do have at some level. But the current systems help. Build upon that so you're not obligating the bad habits from
[00:10:20] Richard Ellis: right.
[00:10:20] David Howerton: Years past.
[00:10:22] Richard Ellis: Absolutely. Well, let's spin it a little bit. So we talked a little bit about, uh, you know, you gotta get your foundation right, right.
[00:10:29] Richard Ellis: The data and the processes, the workflows. But, uh, let's flip it on the other end. Where are you seeing some genuine opportunities to improve, like, you know, go to market teams or field productivity? Uh, anything kind of come to mind that you're seeing in your, your business or, or. Companies that you work with?
[00:10:46] David Howerton: We do. We, we think that in real life is where things happen, right? We're, again, AI kind of commoditizing. Digital interactions are everywhere, and so human interaction becomes [00:11:00] scarcity. So when you do have a in-person interaction, we think the value is, is disproportionate to the, you know, to the meeting itself.
[00:11:11] David Howerton: You're going to learn things. You have the time to develop trust and authenticity, continue to build those relationships. And I think, and we will probably hit on this more, but humans are, are the ones that have the capacity to discern
[00:11:27] Richard Ellis: more
[00:11:27] David Howerton: carefully what's going on in that situation. So I think, uh, and hopefully I'll be proven right, that as we create this infrastructure to support, uh.
[00:11:41] David Howerton: Sales teams, we're actually gonna be able to empower people to be more effective when they're in person, whether that's at a coffee shop or at a conference, a golf course, or a dinner. It doesn't really matter, but we need to empower them to get the nuanced, critical conversations [00:12:00] memorialized and back into that source of truth.
[00:12:02] David Howerton: So leadership has a better view of what's happening. It's not just activity tracking.
[00:12:07] Richard Ellis: Mm,
[00:12:08] David Howerton: that will happen, right? It's better forecasting. And then you have from an executive level, the capacity to, uh, plan and allocate resources more effectively.
[00:12:17] Richard Ellis: Love that. So if not, Hey, I went to dinner with this prospect.
[00:12:21] Richard Ellis: It's here. Are the insights from the dinner at that prospect's captured? Yes. Yes. Memorial.
[00:12:26] David Howerton: That, that if you talk to sales leaders. I don't have a specific stat from that, but I think it's probably 60% or more will tell you, yes, we're missing that information. We sell, we send John Doe out to meet with a client.
[00:12:42] David Howerton: It's a day trip. Maybe you can cluster trips. That information takes time to get back in. It typically comes back with the traditional activity tracking. You've heard the term pencil whipping the CRM. Some sellers are great at it. Some people just. Check off the box, had a [00:13:00] meeting. Yeah. And while they have a notebook filled with information, or it's up here or it's on a whiteboard.
[00:13:07] David Howerton: Yeah. All of the goodness is contained by that seller and it's not shared back, you know, at least in a timely manner with the rest of the company. Sometimes that's intentional, sometimes it's not. But the physics of being out in the field. Often prevent the seller from doing those things in a timely manner.
[00:13:30] Richard Ellis: Right?
[00:13:31] David Howerton: We talk about context switching all day long. I have a quick story on that that I think kind of helps in a very simple way. I'd
[00:13:37] Richard Ellis: love to hear your story because I, I think it's that that's the real interaction between human behavior and in real life. Stuff, right? Mm-hmm. And how that translates into the systems and the, uh, the systems of record and things like that.
[00:13:52] Richard Ellis: So yeah. Tell, tell me your story.
[00:13:54] David Howerton: Yeah. I had, I took, um, a friend who is a senior account [00:14:00] exec to coffee, uh, not too long ago, and we were kind of contemplating. How we could meet people where they are, meet sellers, where they are in their workflows. And let's say we had, uh, spent an hour there at about the 45 minute mark.
[00:14:16] David Howerton: I saw the light bulb go on for my friend and he said, hold on, lemme pull out my phone. We had our phones down, uh, and he said, I'm gonna show this is, this is my day. I am going this. Remind you this is. Not even 10:00 AM he, he looked at his email inbox and he said, look, I've already got 27 emails that are piling up just from the time that I walked in here, and probably three of those are fires, their requests and their, I have to deal with that.
[00:14:48] David Howerton: So as soon as I transition out of this meeting, I am invariably hit over the head with other things that I haven't done. That I need to contend with. [00:15:00] Maybe it's a contract that hasn't been signed or a deal that might push. Maybe it's an angry customer that isn't get when they want an implementation.
[00:15:07] David Howerton: Maybe it's, I haven't finished my compliance training inside the organization and that, um, distraction and interruption. Is why sales is so inherently discontinuous. We're constantly switching between things and we lose context. So if I had a really high value meeting, and again, could be a coffee shop, it could be at the client site, the longer it takes me to document that, the less relevant information I'm going to actually record.
[00:15:44] Richard Ellis: And
[00:15:44] David Howerton: as we know, as time goes on, we're gonna have memory decay. That is going to limit what we have in a source of truth for that reason. And that's how we see executives using old, or, I don't wanna say [00:16:00] it. In some ways, it's fiction. We're mm-hmm. We're running companies on a bit of fiction. It's not intentional, but we need, we need the reality of that.
[00:16:08] David Howerton: So anyway, I share that because that's a great example of. All environments in real life. So we need to help these sellers do more so they can be using their time to intuit what a customer prospect really needs, and then it advancing the relationships from a human level, not from automat.
[00:16:34] Richard Ellis: Right. Right. And so from that perspective, it, it's, it's not a concern that AI is gonna replace them or do things, you know, instead of them take their job, et cetera.
[00:16:46] Richard Ellis: But it, it, it really offers the opportunity to create efficiency and scale and speed Yes. At what they need to be doing, uh, to free up the time for them to do things that AI can't. Right?
[00:16:59] David Howerton: [00:17:00] Yes. Let's help them do. The not critical selling activities so they can focus on closing deals.
[00:17:10] Richard Ellis: Yes. Yeah. And so
[00:17:11] David Howerton: to me is the promise of what we are, the season we're in right now, we're on the cusp, if not there.
[00:17:18] David Howerton: What outcomes are you trying to achieve? Well, we need to hit our numbers right? Right. To, we've got a forecast, let's hit that. What constraints do we have in the organization that are preventing us from doing that? Then break that down into the process. Tasks that need to happen and build up from there.
[00:17:33] Richard Ellis: Well, David, I know that you're, you and your company are doing some really cool things these days with AI and technology to kind of solve that in the moment, in, in real life capture of conversations and insight. Tell me a little bit more about what you've kind of, you've painted the need, right? Mm-hmm.
[00:17:51] Richard Ellis: And the challenge. So how are you guys kind of solving that?
[00:17:53] David Howerton: Appreciate you asking? Um, we believe, again, just to meet. Sellers where they are. So our [00:18:00] mandate is to, uh, support the field sales team, and of course field marketing team across all of your in real life interactions. Not just, you know, at a, at a conference, not just at a coffee shop, but everywhere you are.
[00:18:17] David Howerton: Representing the company and we believe that the voice interface is the unlock here. I like to say that sellers are talkers, not typers.
[00:18:28] Richard Ellis: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:28] David Howerton: Yeah. So let's create that unlock that allows them to do more with voice inputs, uh, that can help alleviate the non-selling activities.
[00:18:42] Richard Ellis: That's, that's really, uh, that's really cool because kind of thinking back to your story about your, your friend.
[00:18:50] Richard Ellis: Um, that has 27 or, or more, uh, emails waiting after you're finished. Your, your, your breakfast, you know, he could talk into his phone, I'm guessing, [00:19:00] on his way to the parking lot mm-hmm. And capture some critical insights and then not worry about losing that in the memory decay that you mentioned.
[00:19:08] David Howerton: That.
[00:19:08] David Howerton: That's right. I think today we, you know, sellers get fussed at for not updating a CRM, and so the obvious starting point is helping to fill out and create. Relevance and accurate information, depth of information so that we can plan and strategize better, but with all of the different distractions and demands, I, I think my vision is that assistant that helps actively do many things at the same time.
[00:19:44] David Howerton: So, a, a, if you think about today, putting something into a CRM. It's a one-to-one thing. I need to log a call. I'm going to log a call. It's one thing, and that's what takes time. It's these, it's a lot of activity that happens [00:20:00] in a meeting, and when you start multiplying many meetings over the course of a day or a week, and you start factoring in the interruptions and context switching, it's very obvious as to why people fall behind.
[00:20:14] David Howerton: So if we can create a way. To use a voice input to do many things. That's a radical unlock for people that often, you often hear people say, and we probably say it the same, is, yeah, it's five o'clock, it's time to start the work day because you finished all of the talking and now you've gotta go back and backfill it.
[00:20:33] David Howerton: Yeah. In my prior life I worked with physicians in, you know, documentation, clinical documentation, EMR, and. That's what they'd all say. I've gotta go put in my notes before I can bill for this procedure, but I can't do that until I see my patients for the day, and so they call that pajama time. Same is true for sales teams except instead of pajama time, it's after we've gone to dinner.[00:21:00]
[00:21:00] David Howerton: We've, you know, if you're at a conference, you've, you've taken people out, you come back, you're exhausted. Maybe you've gone, you've finally caught up with your kids and gone to a ball game, taking your wife to dinner, whatever the case is, the last thing you wanna do is come home at 10 o'clock at night and start documentation.
[00:21:16] Richard Ellis: Right. Absolutely. Yeah. So kind of meeting them where they are in the moment in real life, capturing that in the most, you know, user friendly and efficient way as possible. Mm-hmm. So that it's more organic, you know, to their workday rather than just an administrative burden and, mm-hmm. Because that's why CRM is, you know, missing all of the, you know, the meeting notes and the tasks aren't even being used by most of the companies that I work with.
[00:21:42] Richard Ellis: Uh, just there's no time to do it. Nobody wants to do it after dinner.
[00:21:45] David Howerton: They're built for different purposes, storing information, and we are evolving as we always do. I do think there'll be some, there are new CRMs coming online that will help. [00:22:00] Remove some of this administrative burden with connectivity. My lens though, is that we don't have avatars in real life.
[00:22:07] David Howerton: I represent me, and again, back to trust, authenticity, and relationship building. I contend that the human interaction is going to be gold for organizations in the future when we're overly. Recorded and transcribed. We need that lane where we can talk to one another without fear of being recorded. Where does that go?
[00:22:30] David Howerton: What did I say? Where's that gonna show up? I don't know. So let's have those real interactions where we can talk freely without fear of being quoted outta context. And I feel like we'll see business deals get done the way they used to.
[00:22:49] Richard Ellis: Yeah. That's awesome. Well, and just kind of thinking of it as your personal assistant, uh, in a way, right?
[00:22:55] Richard Ellis: For efficiency, for scale, for brainstorming, whatever. Uh, [00:23:00] yeah. I was working with a small group of sellers, and they were a little boxed in, in terms of how to use ai. I mean, they were doing like basic account research, but their prompts weren't great, et cetera. And, and you know, we've fixed some things like that.
[00:23:12] Richard Ellis: But, but one thing that I, I challenged them with, I said, if you had a personal assistant at your beck and call. For work purposes, what would you ask them to do? Right? And, and we just did this brainstorming exercise and came up with some really unique use cases for AI to help them, uh, in their workflow, in their day-to-day life, right?
[00:23:31] Richard Ellis: Mm-hmm. And so I kind of think about your solution. You know, if I'm out to. A meeting or a breakfast, or a coffee or something. I had an assistant there just kind of, Hey, take a note, right? Mm-hmm. Or on my way back to the car or the parking lot or whatever. Hey, take, take a note. You know, just kind of viewing that as a, a real time assistant can be just, I think, game changer.
[00:23:50] David Howerton: And, and let's take it beyond the ta just taking a note. Let's actually do those things, right? Mm-hmm. That's the pro, that's why we get to the five o'clock [00:24:00] point, and I've gotta go set up a Zoom meeting. Gotta go follow up with an email. I need to, uh, call my, my boss and tell him that, um, you know, the, the client budget's changed or that there's a pricing conflict, whatever that is.
[00:24:15] David Howerton: Those thing, that's, let's create those
[00:24:18] Richard Ellis: I connection executed. Now
[00:24:20] David Howerton: go do that for me. Go schedule the meeting, write the email, let me edit it. Or maybe I have all of my emails written for me and queued up so I can review them at five o'clock and tweak them and send them. I don't want to have to go do the work anymore.
[00:24:34] David Howerton: That's, that's the thing. Escalations, proposals, emails, meetings, um, you know, submitting into other systems that communicate with other people. So you're prewiring other departments for things that need to happen. Like we talked earlier about the problem that shows up at, uh, you know, at a trade show and a customer's angry.
[00:24:53] David Howerton: Why are we waiting to do those things? And I think that's the world we need to move to as proactive [00:25:00] actions and workflows, rather than just the basics of let's update something.
[00:25:05] Richard Ellis: Well, in that, that situation, you're equipped ahead of time. These are the concerns. Mm-hmm. Uh, here's what we've done to resolve those.
[00:25:12] Richard Ellis: Here's our plan going forward, all as already. So you're not caught off guard.
[00:25:16] David Howerton: That's right. That's right. It's fresh and it can be bumped up against. Prior virtual meetings that do have transcripts, recordings and sentiments. Are we on track here? Where are we off? Let's use all of the great information we can get.
[00:25:30] David Howerton: I just see the gap as when we're face-to-face versus when we're doing what we're doing now, and this will become and already has become the standard for us, but let's say 80% of the sales process. 85% happens virtually the 15, maybe 10%, depending on where it does, when it happens in person. That's gotta count.
[00:25:52] David Howerton: And everything that happens there needs to be captured, memorialized, and pushed back in and create, you know, workflows out of [00:26:00] as quickly as possible. So we're not delaying.
[00:26:02] Richard Ellis: Love it. Well, as we wrap up our AI conversation, you know. We, um, we, we've talked about, you know, a AI is a good amplifier and it can amplify the good, but it also can amplify the bo, the, the ugly, the broken, all of that good stuff.
[00:26:18] Richard Ellis: Um, we, we've talked about it can be your assistant and, uh, actually not just take notes, but take, you know, take action and, and help you do more. Uh, I like to think of it as, you know, you want to set it up so that it's doing the heavy lifting and frees you up. To leverage your expertise, wisdom, discernment, to make the right decisions, uh, for, you know, yourself or the business, et cetera.
[00:26:41] Richard Ellis: A any other just advice on this human and AI interaction just as you've worked with others and your team on bringing the two together. Uh,
[00:26:51] David Howerton: don't delay, right? There is a, there's a need for you to be engaging now in understanding how AI is [00:27:00] going to propel your company forward. If you're not. You're going to lose out to somebody who will.
[00:27:04] David Howerton: So I think the, the step is making sure that everybody's aligned in the organization, that we need to solve problems, and let's identify, again, business processes, business outcomes that we want to improve and then layer in. But I, I think there's still some hesitancy in some pockets of the sales and marketing world.
[00:27:30] David Howerton: Um, uh. That maybe don't want to embrace, and I, I think that's a mistake. I think the lean in and learn and do is critically important. Right now, if you're a leader, you need to actually have your hands dirty in projects so that you know what you're talking about. You may not be technical, but gosh, we have a whole host of things that can help you.
[00:27:57] David Howerton: At least get a point of view [00:28:00] on what needs to be happening within the organization. So I'll encourage leaders to be as hands-on as they can be.
[00:28:06] Richard Ellis: Really good. Agreed. Well, as we wrap up, uh, any goodness outside of AI and business that you'd like to share with our audience?
[00:28:14] David Howerton: Yeah, thanks. I have, uh, had the pleasure of, of being work from home primarily for the last few years, which has given me an opportunity to kind of be more present with my family.
[00:28:27] David Howerton: And so recently being able to help support my youngest, my daughter, uh, in her college search has been a lot of fun. So, getting to be present, see some of the wins, and see some of the evolution and kind of her, uh. Coming to life around where am I gonna be? Um, you know, in my next journey of education has been, uh, delightful and something that I'm just, I'm, I'm just so thankful that I've had an opportunity to be more involved in, [00:29:00] whereas being in the office, I might have missed a lot of that.
[00:29:02] Richard Ellis: That's really good. Well, my youngest daughter as well is graduating from college, uh, this August. She's taken an extra semester to finish things up, and so we're, we're in the middle of the job search. So after this, we, we may have
[00:29:15] Announcer: read notes
[00:29:16] Richard Ellis: and, uh,
[00:29:17] David Howerton: I'll, I'll be learning from you. That's right. Absolutely.
[00:29:19] David Howerton: Congrats on that. I know. It's, uh, you know, there's,
[00:29:22] Richard Ellis: that's
[00:29:22] David Howerton: good stuff. My older will be in that process relatively soon, but, uh, it's, it's a joy to watch and I'm just so, so proud of them.
[00:29:31] Richard Ellis: Absolutely, absolutely. Families are good. So, uh, thanks for sharing and thanks again for being on the show.
[00:29:37] David Howerton: My pleasure.
[00:29:37] David Howerton: Thank you for having me. It's been, uh, it's been a wonderful conversation and, um, excited to, to stay in touch and look forward to future conversations.
[00:29:47] Richard Ellis: Absolutely. Thanks, David.
[00:29:49] David Howerton: Thank you.
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