87. Noah Sturm︱How Augment Redefines B2B Sales with Relationships, Empathy & AI

Noah Sturm, Senior Vice President of Sales and Revenue at Augment AI, shares his journey from an unstructured upbringing through professional golf aspirations to becoming a transformative sales leader building AI-powered relationship technology to transform and redefine how B2B sales are done.

• Raised in a dynamic, homeschooled environment that fostered creativity, resilience, and comfort with uncertainty
• Developed extraordinary resilience, helping his family through his mother's cancer battle and later his father's passing during his college years
• Transitioned from potential professional golf career to sales excellence, starting at RR Donnelly, where he grew from $70,000 quota to multi-million dollar accounts
• Joined N3 and later Accenture, becoming a vice president at just 28 years old by focusing on execution rather than conventional experience
• Now building Augment to transform B2B sales by focusing on durable relationships and addressing the 83% of buying decisions that happen without salespeople present
• Believes AI should enhance human relationships rather than replace them, focusing on making mid-performers act like top performers through situational awareness
• Advocates for kindness, empathy, and spending less time on social media to foster genuine human connection

Get in touch with Noah on LinkedIn at noah-sturm-augment or email him at noah@augmentco.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Leaving Accenture to Build Better Sales Technology
• 6:10 Unstructured Upbringing and Family Dynamics
• 8:39 Learning Through Experience and Creativity
• 18:34 Navigating Cancer and Building Resilience
• 23:45 Golf Passion and Life After Loss
• 30:18 Breaking Into Sales and Finding Success
• 49:50 Inside Sales at N3 and Accenture Journey
• 1:07:19 Building Augment AI: The Future of Sales
• 1:27:18 Closing Thoughts on Kindness and Connection

Transcript

Noah Sturm: 0:00

Everything we did in our division within Accenture. A lot more of it could have been done with technology rather than bodies, and I felt like there was an opportunity in the market to do things differently, because when we were with Accenture, we were running 330 go-to-markets on a daily basis, and so we got this huge view of all of the challenges that the G2000 and large enterprise and mid-market companies were having, because we had that visibility into the way that we ran their business, the technology stacks that they were using and some of the implications that had in the way that their customers purchased their product and the way that their customers felt about the brand in general. And so I always felt like there was a better way to execute B2B sales. And I think the thing that was closest and nearest dearest to my heart, which is relationships it was existent in the mission statement with Augment.

Noah Sturm: 0:47

At Augment AI, we are focused on making your customers your best salespeople, and what that comes down to is durable relationships. So what I mean by durable relationships in general is how do you have a relationship with a customer or with a prospect that's strong enough to get through some of the challenging times and the ups and downs that exist inside of a sales cycle and inside of a customer relationship, and so that part of the journey for me felt natural when I had the opportunity to leave. And the other thing that really intrigued me about our technology and what we were doing is it was learning situational awareness. The AI native technology is learning the way I do things and how I do them and when I do them and where I do them and what I do in those situations, and I just thought that was the coolest concept that there was this opportunity and time for all of my knowledge and all of my experience to be embedded inside of a technology platform. So I felt like there's no better time than now to take that chance.

Klara J.: 1:50

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Grand Slam Journey podcast, where we discuss various things related to the Grand Slam journey of our lives sports, life after sports, and lessons we have learned from our athletic endeavors and how we're applying them in the next chapter of our lives. This journey, and more, is true for my today's guest, Noah Sturm, senior Vice President of Sales and Revenue at Augment. Noah has had a fascinating life journey full of experiences thus far and I'm super curious to see what he and the Augment team will continue to build going forward. In this episode, we cover many topics related to his unstructured upbringing, building resilience through hard times and challenges, and how that helped shape him into being the sales leader he is today, grounded in empathy, true relationships and care for his clients to deliver trust and credibility. This episode is also available on my Grand Slam Journey YouTube channel.

Klara J.: 2:48

Feel free to tune in If you enjoyed this episode. I would appreciate if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts, spotify or any other podcasting platform. You listen to this episode and perhaps share it with a friend who you believe may enjoy it as well. This is your host, klara Yagoshova. Thank you for tuning in and enjoy the listen. Hello, noah, fearless Leader, welcome to the Grand Slam Journey podcast. How are you?

Noah Sturm: 3:14

I'm doing amazing. Thank you so much, klara. I appreciate you having me. It's a beautiful day here in Colorado. I think it's going to be 96 degrees, so we are warming up quickly here, yeah.

Klara J.: 3:24

It's going to be 96 degrees, so we are warming up quickly here. Yeah, you guys have warm. It's been actually cooler here in Texas today, although we got some showers, so that always helps. It's been good summer for the Texas summer. I'll take it so far, so hopefully we'll stay that way, and I'm so thrilled to have this conversation with you.

Klara J.: 3:48

I've shared, actually, with a few friends who are super excited to tune in and hear your Grand Slam journey from golf through sales excellence to what you're now building at Augment AI. So brief intro from me You're the SVP of sales and revenue at Augment AI, but actually how we know each other is because you were my people lead at Accenture and you spent there four years scaling business for many different clients. If there were an award, you would for sure get one from Inua for the best people lead and manager with the shortest amount of time. I really hoped to learn more from you, but I can't blame you. You had some exciting things happening in your life and there's been a lot actually that has happened the past year.

Klara J.: 4:32

Overall, I know you're growing your family, your golf game and new business at the same time, which are three exciting things. I want to dive into all of those to a degree today, but let me pause there and I want to hand it back over to you. Anything you want to dive into all of those to a degree today, but let me pause there and I want to hand it back over to you. Anything you want to add to the introduction you would like the listeners to know about you Well, I think, first of all, that was the best award I think I've ever won.

Noah Sturm: 4:55

It might be one of the first awards I've won for that quick of time that we had together. But the thing, Clara, that I learned from you was empathy. You're one of the most empathetic people I know when it comes to business, when it comes to life. You've always given your clients a resounding sounding board, and that's what you provided me. So the easiest job I ever did at Accenture was being your people lead, because what I got not only to learn was more about you, but also the way that you manage clients, the way that you're a rock star, the way that you kick ass when it comes to leading the charge, not only for Accenture but in life, and the way that you handle things. So I'm looking forward to diving into all subjects, but mostly diving into subjects around things that you and I are most keenly interested in, which are sports, work, sales and life.

Klara J.: 5:37

Yeah, and on the sales note, actually I do want to start and insert here you have built a reputation for yourself as the expert seller, and that's not just at Accenture but also before that at N3. So some of your colleagues have told me, after even you have left, that one of the best things that your leader at N3, Andrew, did was to hire you. So there goes an anonymous compliment from our mutual colleagues or former mutual colleagues. But diving in maybe a little bit even deeper and going back, I'm always curious about my guests. Where they grew up, what was their upbringing like and what are some of the key things you see shaped you for the passion you have had.

Noah Sturm: 6:21

Yeah, absolutely so. I was born in Florida. Oddly enough, I was born outside of Boca Raton in Fort Lauderdale to my mom and dad. My dad was a journeyman. He was actually a founder and entrepreneur most of his life on the psychology side of the world he did and built companies that focused on personality assessments that were used by companies like LinkedIn, matchcom and a ton of other businesses. I always say he was a genius thought leader and was not a business executive, so there was a two really kind of distinct paths for him, and I think you know what I really learned from him, outside of just creativity and kind of thinking about the world and business, was to never give up. My dad was a fearless believer in his children and in their capabilities, and so, even as a kid growing up, nothing was unattainable. No dream was too large, no opportunity was too big, no imaginative approach was too wide. I grew up in a family of four, but my dad was married three times. I have six older sisters ranging from the ages of now 38 to 60. And so we have a wide range, wide family. My dad kept all three of those different families together under one roof.

Noah Sturm: 7:32

I was raised with, I would say, five different mothers, and then, as I got older, my sister grew up six to seven different mothers, all with different opinions on what I should do with my life, all with different ways of approaching it, all with different opinions on my dating life, personal life, business life, everything you can imagine. But growing up I was homeschooled, which I thought really gave me an interesting perspective. My mom was my teacher. I spent the majority of the time in a classroom, either snorkeling, fishing, playing soccer, doing things that I really loved to do. There really was a much less structured environment than most kids grew up in and I think that really helped me grow into a person that's able to thrive in unstructured environments and really build structure around the things that I wanted.

Noah Sturm: 8:16

But my sister and I were both very competitive growing up. She was a far better athlete than I am. I hate to admit that out loud, but she was. She was a much better athlete than I was. She was a better athlete, better learner, probably a little bit smarter than I. But you know, she and I have always kind of competed throughout our lives on different things.

Noah Sturm: 8:34

But the one thing that we have always kind of held true and kind of stuck together with is there were some really challenging times in our family growing up. My mom was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer when we were I was probably 13. We had moved to California as part of our journey. We moved from Florida to California to be closer to my uncle, who's a corporate executive as well, and you know my mom ended up going through stage four breast cancer.

Noah Sturm: 9:00

I'll give you one other nugget growing up we were homeopathic, which is interesting, so I didn't eat meat or sugar until I was 10 years old, and so I always say like the most interesting thing about me, if you know me, you know me. I am six four now, but I graduated high school at five four and so I grew a foot between 17 and 18. And a lot of that was because I was on an all organic diet, no hormones, no additives or anything like that. So it was a later bloom in terms of growth and things like that.

Noah Sturm: 9:30

But yeah, I think one of the things that really shaped my sister and I in terms of our perspective as well as in being resilient, is going through that kind of four or five years where my mom was going through pretty severe chemotherapy treatment and radiology and things like that and I think it brought not only our family a little bit closer together but it also created this void in the family. Where I was 14, going into freshman year of high school, my sister had just finished her first year of college. She dropped out of college, came home and take care of my mom, and so we kind of had all of these things kind of bubble up inside of the family and our first journey moving forward. And I think a lot of that is what built the resiliency not only in sales but in life and raising a family, and I think a lot of the way that I look to raise my son and the way I look at relationships I learned from my father and from those tough times with my mom.

Klara J.: 10:19

Yeah, and what a dynamic upbringing. I want to go even a little bit deeper, because there's just so much, please do. Number one I don't know how your dad mastered to actually get all of the wives and family under one house. That just seems like amazing undertaking.

Noah Sturm: 10:37

The kids, the kids, the wives were in separate places, but all of the kids he raised there was no like half sister, step sister environment in our family. It was all. These are my dad's kids and yeah, it was awesome.

Klara J.: 10:49

And just your upbringing seems like you being homeschooled and having a lot of different hobbies and learning through those different endeavors and passions, assuming that they gave you a little bit of intuition or things to explore of what you actually enjoy doing and what you're good at.

Noah Sturm: 11:07

Absolutely. I mean, I always say that, like what homeschooling actually taught me was that you could learn anything.

Noah Sturm: 11:14

I think one of the things that like creativity is killed in kids because you end up in this very structured environment inside of school, inside of life like you're going to, you know, bouncing around all these different events. I lived a very chaotic, creative life where I was either fishing for alligators in the Florida ponds which my mom was never happy about or, you know, I used to build nets out of like fishing line and then use those to like catch all these different things and then draw them and do all this stuff. And so, you know, one of the things that my wife and I always talk about now is like and my sister, you know, oddly enough, she just moved her whole family to Mexico because she felt like the life that she and the way that she was raised wasn't being represented in the opportunities here in Colorado and in the U S, and so she moved my eight-year-old niece and her family to Mexico to live on the beach and go back to kind of how we grew up. But yeah, that upbringing really taught me a few things. One was the passions that I had. I mean I got to explore passions with golf, with soccer, with baseball, with sports, but also just an adventure I mean I can't tell you how many different parks and different quarries and different swamplands that we got to explore.

Noah Sturm: 12:22

We were always on the go with my mom.

Noah Sturm: 12:24

She was really focused on getting us out, showing us new things, doing different stuff, and I can remember as a kid we had all of the pictures of the snakes on our refrigerator and every morning my mom and I would wake up and she would go red on yellow, kill that fellow red on black, put them back, yada, yada y yada, because I had an affinity for picking up random snakes as we would be walking around different areas and so she was always worried that I was going to pick a poisonous one up, which you know happened a few times.

Noah Sturm: 12:54

But yeah, I would. You know there was like this. You know, it's like this constant learning of everything else. Um, you know, there were some side effects. Later in life I would always say, like you, I got to college and in high school and things like that. Kids were more advanced at school, like the actual curriculum style, like test taking and things like that, and writing and reading were always a little bit more of a challenge for me. But I would give those things up any single day to go back to snorkeling and fishing every day, even today.

Klara J.: 13:21

I agree 100%. Actually, I don't think I've shared this before, but when I was finishing up school, I was graduating. I did my MBA within like a year or a year and a half because I took some of the advanced classes in my undergrad and if I would not have finished that December I would have just quit because I felt like the only thing school teaches you is to like follow the process, which I think what school is good for. School teaches you is to like follow the process, which I think what school is good for and for, whatever it's worth. I actually was really good at it.

Klara J.: 13:49

I've always was good figuring out what the teacher wants and, through those lectures, kind of figure out what the test will be about. So I've always had A's, but I think it was mostly because I understood the professors and what they taught. But I always felt there's so much smarter kids in the class than me. They just weren't good at the test taking. And so the school thing is just. I felt like it was the biggest I'm going to use the word straight up bullshit sometimes Because if you just know how to follow the school rules, you're going to have an A and if you're not the sort of school, whatever that means. The rules, yeah, I don't think it teaches anything really smart for life. I mean, those are degrees that people often wave around, but I've myself obviously I say it many times learned much more from sports than I have from my college years.

Noah Sturm: 14:40

Absolutely. You know it's funny. I used to always say this. I was in a fraternity in college. I used to always tell the younger guys in the fraternity you don't have to have everything figured out in life in college. The point of college is to have as much fun as possible, learn some new things, potentially identify a path forward that you want to go explore. But the reality is that almost nobody figures out what they want to do for the rest of their life in college. Like when you go talk to executives and you listen to their stories. You know, I was just recently with a CRO who has a background in molecular biology. Right Now he's running go-to-market teams.

Noah Sturm: 15:13

So you know, you never know what you're going to be doing in life when you're in college, and so I always recommend to young people that I talk to go explore. You know, go fail, learn how to fail. Learn what it feels like to fail. Learn what it feels like to succeed. Learn what it feels like to have fun. Learn what it feels like to get your heart broken. Like go have all of the experiences you can while you're young, because reality is is life catches up to you and busy work does as well. Some of that creativity that you once had as you know, a younger person you have to learn how to kind of muster it up again and identify how to do it.

Klara J.: 15:45

Yeah, and network right. I think that's the one thing.

Noah Sturm: 15:49

Oh yeah.

Klara J.: 15:49

I think that's the number one thing that school gives you like access to a lot of people and you can actually try to test who you fit with or who don't, even from business perspective, I think that is really the number one benefit. Try to meet as many people as you can.

Noah Sturm: 16:05

Yeah, I was a bartender at a local cocktail bar in college in Davis, california, called Bistro, which just closed. I was there for a wedding recently. Sadly enough, they closed it, but that's where all of the executives that worked either in Sacramento or San Francisco that lived in Davis would go for cocktails Friday and Saturday, and so I would serve these people all the time and we'd have discussions. They'd always be asking me what I wanted to do in life and it's funny, like the most networking I've ever done in my life has been working in a bar.

Klara J.: 16:33

I can imagine.

Noah Sturm: 16:34

Yeah.

Klara J.: 16:34

That's interesting and fun fact. Next time I meet you, you need to craft me some cool cocktail. I need to get some tricks from you. Do you still have anything favorite that you mix? What's your favorite cocktail?

Noah Sturm: 16:46

Right now I'm making a Prickly Pear Mezcal spritzer, which is very good, and then I've always been known.

Noah Sturm: 16:54

A little bit of the smokiness with the mezcal, yeah, a little bit of the smoky with the mezcal this time of year, I would say my favorite cocktail. I don't know what we called it, but it's St Germain lemon juice, gin and sparkling water and that's it. Maybe a little bit of honey if you're lucky, but just something like really light, refreshing, smooth. They go down easy. They're great in a hot summer and you can drink more than one, which is my favorite style of cocktails.

Klara J.: 17:19

That sounds awesome. I feel like you should start new LinkedIn posts like every Friday. Probably do Like a cocktail recipe that I can follow and try myself. I think that would be fun.

Noah Sturm: 17:29

I will start that next week, clara, and then, if you're the only one that likes it, I'll continue it.

Klara J.: 17:34

That's worked for me Cool, I'll just follow it. That's like all right. What do I have to buy in total wines? What am I missing to make?

Noah Sturm: 17:40

this. I will make it happen.

Klara J.: 17:50

Yeah, I mean it's it's. My wife always says that there's two routes to my heart One's through red wine and the other one's through a martini, and those are my two passions. Well, from fun alcohol topic to the other big one. You had mentioned your mom having cancer and uh, I have gone through put something similar with my grandpa and I can imagine just especially that, something about the 13, 14 years old and seeing your loved one going through it. It literally took me decades, if that long, to actually get over it. And just my grandpa had a. Well, he smoked at the time, everybody smoked, so he had a lung cancer. But when you actually see somebody you love going through that every day, and just the chemo, even back at the time, was much, much different than it is even now just managing the side effects and everything Somebody you love I can't imagine how hard that must have been for you and your sister. How did you manage all of that? I can't imagine how hard that must have been for you and your sister.

Noah Sturm: 18:45

Yeah.

Klara J.: 18:45

How did you manage all of that? And I guess I'm going to fold in the understanding of the empathy that you have had since day one we have met.

Noah Sturm: 18:54

I would say I didn't manage it and I think that's part of what led to some of the challenges I went through kind of earlier than most people is how I would describe it. I think I ran away from it. So just for clarity on the podcast, my mom beat cancer. It took her about four years. She ended up in remission. She's still in remission. She lives 10 blocks from me. She spends half the year with me and half the year with my sister.

Noah Sturm: 19:16

So my dad was an older gentleman. He had me when he was, I think, 52. And so he was older and just in general by the time I he was in his mid to late 60s when this was going on and so I kind of always had this feeling that there was potential that I was going to lose both of them pretty early on in my life. And I think I kind of ran away from that feeling in general that my mom and sister spent a lot of time in San Francisco going through the chemo treatments, being there for my mom and a lot of the time that they were there I was spending time with friends or bouncing around different houses and doing things like that so that I could stay on a sports team and that I could stay in high school so I didn't have to leave all the time, and things like that. But yeah, I think the hardest part about going through any of those things right is the unknown that exists with it. You know, you just never know. I mean, I've had friends who've lost loved ones where the outlook was really good when they first started and then two or three years later they had passed away and vice versa. The outlook for my mom was really bad and she was very fortunate and ended up surviving and was in remission. But yeah, I think for me I ran away from that feeling and I ran away from the responsibility of really, I would say, being there. I was a little bit too young and going through a lot of stuff as a young man and I definitely have some regret in the way that I handled some of that.

Noah Sturm: 20:34

I would say Now, with my mom as my neighbor. I'll tell you a funny story. So I moved to Colorado to be closer to my mom. That was one of the reasons I moved here. I wanted to be closer to my mom and my sister and I had the opportunity to buy my mom a house about four years ago. And then I had the opportunity to buy the house next door to my mom, and so my mom and I were neighbors, literal neighbors, for almost three years, two years. And so when I met my wife, she was like where do you own this house? And I was like my mom and I live in this duplex. I live on one side and she lives on the other. And so my wife was like you live three feet away from your mom.

Noah Sturm: 21:06

That's, you know, that's yeah right, yeah so that's like I would say that's my fun fact, but no, going through the cancer stuff with my mom. I think it just put it into perspective that my mom was one of the healthiest people you would ever meet, like she didn't drink, she didn't smoke, she ate like clean as you can imagine. And for someone like that to still get cancer and to get sick. You realize that. You know it's really up to your genetics in some way in terms of exposures, one, what you do to yourself is another, but then the other one is just what your gene pool is.

Klara J.: 21:39

Yeah, Obviously I've gone through something similar, just myself. Obviously was the best case. I'm cancer-free now. It was a very quick process. But it definitely makes you realize that, like I'm like, I eat all organic stuff, I order all my food from like grass-fed, regenerative farms, I do my cold plunges, I work out every day and obviously I get skin cancer. That is now in my family. Actually, my grandpa also had melanoma back in every day and obviously I get skin cancer. That is now in my family. Actually, my grandpa also had melanoma back in the day. But yeah, it's funny, it does make you realize that you never truly know how much time you have, because things may happen and so you must make the best out of it and take chances when they come to you.

Noah Sturm: 22:22

Yeah, I would say that the four years that my mom was going through cancer, I've spent the last 15 years making up for my behavior. That's how I would describe what happened during the time my mom was going through cancer. I was definitely a wild card. I was definitely doing a lot of the wrong stuff, but I always look at it as that time in my life not only kind of shaped me to the person I am today, because I did stuff that most kids did in their later lives. You know, I went through a bunch of things that most people would never go through and a lot of it just made me fearless in terms of the next conversation, being able to walk into a room and have a presence. A lot of that fearless behavior that I feel like I exude comes from those four or five years that I am still making up for now.

Klara J.: 23:11

Well, I think what you're highlighting and that builds on your background really how you were brought up is like this experimentation and learning through trying different things. That builds, I think, more than anything, self-awareness and because you get to test what does and doesn't fit, and who you may want to be or not, whether you're doing consciously or subconsciously, I think that route sort of takes you through different things that you're able to then tweak and change your path, and so, on that note, golf I have read, actually, a beautiful post recently, also on your LinkedIn, about your dad, who inspired you, I believe early on, with some of the passions towards picking up golf and you were aspiring to be a personal golf player. How did that start, and tell me a little bit more about your golf passion?

Noah Sturm: 23:59

I got a golf passion because my soccer passion ended. So actually, growing up, soccer was my marquee sport. My dad was a scratch golfer for much of my younger years. He had a stroke, a pretty severe stroke, when I was about eight years old, and so that was the last time that my dad and I ever really played together is how I would describe it. Like he was still mobile, he could walk, but he lost a lot of that balance that he once had when we were younger. So I can remember playing soccer with him in the backyard and then, about eight or nine years old, that was kind of the last time that we played, and so he was always my biggest coach and supporter. And you know and this is going to get me teared up it's interesting to grow up that way because you have someone who believes in you so strongly, like anything you wanted to accomplish is what he used to say to me. He's like you could play soccer overseas, you could go play in Europe, you could do this, you could do that, and I believed him and I was on the US Olympic development team growing up until I was about 15.

Noah Sturm: 24:56

And then I went through this kind of when my mom had cancer. I went through this realization of going down the wrong path, doing a bunch of other stuff, and I kind of lost motivation around competing again, and so I ended up dropping out of high school at 17. And I went to a secondary school, got my diploma and then. So I was 16 to 17 years old, and then I went and worked at a golf course full time. Because I said to my dad I said I want to be a pro golfer and he said you can do whatever you want. It's your choice. If you want to drop out of high school, go ahead. And so I made the decision to leave high school junior year and actually went and practiced and played full-time as a junior golfer. And so I worked at a golf course. That passion started burning inside of me. I played alongside of the likes of people on PGA Tour now, like Bryson DeChambeau and several others in the California Junior Circuit.

Noah Sturm: 25:48

And then my real goal was to play in college. I was the number two golfer at Cabrillo College, which was like the number one in the state for junior college at the time. And so what golf taught me in general is that life is hard and so is golf. My real goal was to make it on the professional circuit and play professional golf and I felt like I had a really good chance. I was always qualifying for the right tournaments, I was playing really well in some of the more competitive places.

Noah Sturm: 26:14

And then in college my dad passed away when I was 19 or 20. I was going into my second year at Cabrillo and he passed and there was something that changed in the sport for me and this is where the passion exists now and I kind of ran away from it. But what my dad always offered me was a shoulder to cry on, an arm to lean on and then also a smack on the back to get back in there and go play and work your ass off. But the reality was is that after he was lost, that drive, motivation and kind of having a sounding board not only for life but also for golf really took a different turn for me. I kind of lost the motivation on a lot of different things for about a year.

Noah Sturm: 26:59

I ended up finishing up my years at Cabrillo College. I got an education scholarship to UC Davis and so I took that with the goal of playing sports at UC Davis. And when I got to Davis I just realized I didn't have it in me anymore, and so I gave up golf. I didn't pick up a golf club for, oh man, it was almost seven years, seven and a half years. And then I moved to Colorado, met a really good friend of mine who caddied for me in the most recent tournament, and I started playing again for fun.

Noah Sturm: 27:28

And then, about 15 to 18 months ago, I decided that there was something I wanted to prove, not only to myself but also to my son, with him being born in October, which was you can't just give up on your dreams just because someone else isn't there to help, support you and be there for you. You have to be able to be resilient enough to go, chase the things that are unknown, break through the barriers that hurt and identify a better path forward on what your real mission is and what your goals are, and whether or not anything comes of it. Now, for me, it's about persevering through the fact that you know, although my dad's not there to be with me every single day, he's there in spirit to watch me do something that he would have been proud of.

Klara J.: 28:09

I love that. I feel like we should clip this. I'm going to clip it out and you can give it to your son to listen as he's growing every day Seems like to be the same motivational speaker that your dad has been for you, and I can imagine just how hard it is. Yeah, being almost at the peak, you continue to grow your game and then you lose something and just that deep sorrow that comes with that, especially in the earlier 20s. I think we're still quite immature, or I was for sure. I don't think I still knew how to control my emotions at that point, even through tennis losses. And just this on top of all else. Yeah, I can imagine.

Noah Sturm: 28:54

I was hanging out with the wrong crowd.

Noah Sturm: 28:55

At the same time, I lost three friends between the age of 16 and 19 to either gang violence or drugs or drunk driving, things like that, and so you know there was a lot of other things going on in my life. My mom would always say that I was living two different worlds, like I'd be playing in golf tournaments during the day and then at night I'd be doing whatever, and my dad was such an interesting man in the fact that he used to always tell me that I don't care what you do, I just want you to be the best at it. It doesn't matter to me what you do, I don't care what avenue you go down, what road you take. I'd love for you to be safe and not do stupid things, but if you're going to do stupid things, be the best at them. I always thought that was the most interesting way to raise a kid, which is just like whatever you're going to do, I just want you to be the best at it. That's all that matters to me. I will take some of that Did.

Klara J.: 29:49

freedom of choice that he gave you In many ways. I think that's very rare. It reminds me of this Montessori type of upbringing that is very in right now. But it's like figure out who you want to be and go after it with your full heart and soul.

Noah Sturm: 30:05

Yeah, 100%, and that's when I talk about unstructured environments. That was my upbringing with my dad and my mom was like whatever we wanted to do, like whatever our heart desired within means, right, there's always, like you know, things that you weren't allowed to do, but, like I think it was always so interesting that my dad was so focused on the fact of just, I don't care what you do, I just want you to be the best at it, I want you to be fully bought in, committed to doing it, waking up every single day, being committed to getting things done, and that carries over to my life now in a positive way. It was a very interesting way to grow up, for sure.

Klara J.: 30:36

Well, and that definitely carries over to really your profession too, in sales and being the top seller at Accenture, at NN3, and now scaling Augment AI as well. But I'm sure nothing is that easy. Again, you have to practice your skills. So how was that addition from the Gulf? And yeah, lead me in into how you transition into sales and what are you? Seeing. Some of the similarities or differences are from the mindset perspective.

Noah Sturm: 31:05

Yeah, absolutely so. When I was in college I had no idea what I wanted to do and I was probably the least prepared person to graduate college. Everyone else had everything figured out. They knew they wanted to get a job here, they were going to a tech job in San Francisco or San Jose, et cetera. I had always worked, I've always been, I would always been bartending, I'd always had a job. So, like everybody else was trying to figure out what they wanted to do, I wanted to figure out who I wanted to be and how I wanted to live my life and kind of where I wanted to live my life. And so I ended up getting a few tech jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area and I had the opportunity to come visit my sister in Colorado for her first child and I never left. So I ended up sleeping on a couch and then in a friend's parent's basement for three months while I figured out what I wanted to do.

Noah Sturm: 31:51

I always knew I wanted to be in sales. From the day I was born until now I knew I wanted to be in sales. And the reason I wanted to be in sales is because I'm a people person. I am an extrovert, I love conversation, people person. I am an extrovert. I love conversation. I love learning things about people. I truly enjoy building relationships with other human beings and starting to understand and this probably goes back to my dad really understanding the way that they react to information, the way they think about things, the way their personality matches, the way that things shift as conversations get more challenging. I've always really enjoyed the human dynamic and EQ element of sales and conversation and people, and so I knew I wanted to go into sales. I knew I wanted to be in a role that did not cap me commission-wise. I always thought that was the funniest concept. I never understood how you would go into a sales job, which is absolutely probably one of the hardest things you could ever do, and then you have capped commission rates. I always thought that was like a. I could never get over that concept. So I turned down all the tech jobs because they kept trying to cap me and I ended up taking a job with RR Donnelly selling paper for $28,700, I think a year in salary, and then there was maybe low 30s low enough, but it was uncapped commission. I was like, heck, yeah, I'll take any job you got for uncapped commission. I have no idea how to sell paper, but I will learn how to do it. But oddly enough the thing, when I was living in Santa Cruz I actually worked in a paper mill, worked at a small paper distribution company, so I had that familiarity with that business growing up. I worked there for about six years at Sentinel Printers in downtown Santa Cruz, so I had that familiarity.

Noah Sturm: 33:36

When I got to Donnelly I was really excited, I was jazzed. I worked Monday through Friday in sales, friday through Sunday in bartending. You know I was making a living, living in Denver, colorado, starting to figure things out, and ended up running into one of my best friends who's in sales at Rippling now. But the thing I learned at Donnelly was the world was your oyster. They gave me a don't call these accounts list and then go figure everything else out. I used to walk the shelves of Target and pull the products off of the shelf that had boxes on them, take pictures of the name, look at the way their design was done, look at if there was any askew of the barcode or if there's differences in color. I'm also colorblind, so that was a little bit more of a challenging one for me.

Noah Sturm: 34:19

I really invested the time in really immersing myself in the environment and the approach and I ended up building a book of business at Donnelly with some of the like marquee brands known in the US, both in kind of the cannabis, the tobacco space and then also in like the home fitness world, and so we won some really big brands really early in my career. So like within the first eight months of me working, I went from I think my first quota was like $70,000. I think I did 2.1 million all through cold outbound, all email, all LinkedIn, all phone, grew a book of business to about 2 million, grew that book of business in the second year to about 10, and then the third year to about 20, and then to about 50. And so I was able to really see that meteoric rise in printing. And printing was the best place to learn because everything would go wrong, like you talk about an industry where things would be sent to the wrong location or boxes would be printed with the wrong color, or so you customer management relationships were the only way that you could survive in that business because everybody had similar capabilities. The real difference was NOAA. And so I really realized that part of the reason people buy from people is that when things go wrong, you need to have a reliable resource on the other side, and so I always felt like I was that reliable resource.

Noah Sturm: 35:42

There's a great story. I was just with my old SVP of sales actually two weeks ago talking and there's a story where we get this order form right and clients want us all this different product and we're telling them we can't deliver. And I'm like what do you mean? We can't deliver? Like we have X, y and Z in the warehouse and storage? And they said no, we don't have any product in the warehouse and storage. And they said no, we don't have any product in the warehouse and storage.

Noah Sturm: 36:04

I knew that was wrong and so I flew from San Francisco to Durham, north Carolina, on a red eye, got there at seven in the morning, went from seven to five having them walk me through all the different things. They said they didn't have it. They said they didn't have it. They everyone left at five. I wasn't allowed to go on the warehouse floor. I took my laptop, walked the warehouse floor from 5 pm to about 3.30 in the morning doing inventory by hand on a spreadsheet. Everybody woke up the next morning. We covered 95% of the orders. I was never able to go into that facility ever again, but my client was not upset and neither were my bosses, because we were able to deliver on that promise, and so that to me was like. One of the things I learned was like there's no mountain too high and there's no challenge too big for you to solve, and if you're creative enough, you can solve those challenges pretty easily. And then obviously, from there, n3 and then Accenture, we can dive into that.

Klara J.: 36:53

Yeah, but there's just such an amazing example and I think it beautifully ties in your upbringing, just that passion and the grit you have gotten through golf, but even more so through the challenges that I think you had gone through, because, again, what you had described your mom having cancer, then your dad passing away it seems like there was an accumulation of what you mentioned, this turbulent time six, seven, eight years that you probably had to read people quite a bit, and even through your bartending endeavors because I'm imagining a bar, music is quite loud typically.

Klara J.: 37:30

So when you're networking with others, just catching up on that EQ and reading people, and then applying all of that into your role to be able to just, you know, I'll figure it out, I'll roll up my sleeves, whatever it is that needs to be done to figure out. You know, I'll figure it out, I'll roll up my sleeves, whatever it is that needs to be done to figure out how I can meet my clients' expectations. I find it's very rare that people are able or willing to do that. Do you think? Is it because of, again, all the accumulation of your upbringing, even the unstructured upbringing? Then you just had the intuition, naturally, to figure stuff out.

Noah Sturm: 38:08

Yeah, I think what happened to me in general was there was like this you know I was talking about this age from like 15 to 19, where I went through a bunch of different things and kind of wasn't as present as I wanted to be for my family. I think what happened after my dad passed away was that I realized that there was now a void in the family that you know. There's a whole other story that you and I will go through over cocktails after he passed away. But you know there was a whole bunch of stuff that took place after my father passed away where there was financial challenges, there were, you know, all kinds of different things taking place that were impacting my mom and impacting our family. And I can remember when I graduated college, I knew that I never wanted my mom to have to worry about anything again and that whatever it took for me to be able to solve that problem and be able to go after and build a life where I could take care of her you know she's still working, she's a speech and language therapist today but I'm able to, you know, take care of her, take care of our family and be able to pull us out of these situations and go back to the life that we really wanted to live together. That was the motivation that really got me out of bed every day and really provided me with kind of a fearless attitude that there was no opportunity to fail, like there was no optionality in this, like this was the path forward and you know I was going to go do it. And you know I think that for me was the big thing. I mean most people like there was a opportunity.

Noah Sturm: 39:30

When I was with R R Donnelly, I needed to move from Colorado to San Francisco overnight. Basically, we want a big opportunity. They wanted someone in the office. We had nobody that would be able to go in the office and I moved from Colorado San Francisco at 24 hours notice with a bag, put everything else in storage. My friend that I was living with was like what the heck? You're just leaving me behind. I was like I got to go. I lived on a friend of mine. My three best friends now couch in the city for two and a half months and so when you have that type of I always look at it as like community.

Noah Sturm: 40:04

I think a lot of people talk about success as an I thing. There's a huge we thing in this there's a team of people behind me, whether it's friends, family, mentors, leaders, people like that were my father's friends or my mom or my friends, like they all stuck their hands out to help me kind of go after this. You know, rise in sales and rise in my career, because I always had something to fall back on, like I always had friendships that I could sleep on a couch if I needed to, like all these things that took place that most people would think you know they would not go do. I was willing to go do it. When I was with Donnelly, I was traveling anywhere between 150 and 200 days a year, if not a little bit north of 200 sometimes, and I think most people would never have done that. And I think that's really for me was I knew what I wanted and I knew it was hard to get there, but I knew I didn't want to wait is the thing that I always tell people.

Noah Sturm: 40:59

The next stage after that was becoming a VP at 28. And so when I went from Donnelly to N3, andrew, who's now our CEO at, andrew Fritz, ceo at Augment, who's the best salesperson I know, right, I think he'll say the same thing about me. It's just funny. I always tell people now there's two decisions you have to make in life. You can make a decision on I want a job because they're going to pay me more money, or I want a job because I'm going to work for somebody who's going to teach me something new. And I think those are decisions that you have to make pretty early on, because a lot of people chase the money, they don't chase the leadership and they don't chase the learning opportunity that's there, and I always chase the learning, and that was one of the things.

Noah Sturm: 41:37

Whether it was with Donnelly, I had one of the best chief commercial officers and SVP of sales you could ever imagine. I rolled up to them as a junior seller, which is like a very rare opportunity. I was in the role for three months. They fired my direct manager, my VP of the region, or he left, and so it went from. You know, my boss was now the SVP of global sales for a company with 55,000 people and I was 24 years old 23 years old and so there was a big difference in the expectation of me in general, whether I was building decks, preparing for meetings, providing notes, providing updates, like things that I wasn't really prepared to be doing. I learned pretty quickly and he taught me a lot of that stuff. Like he was patient with me, he knew there was an opportunity. He saw something in me that most people didn't. He knew there was a huge opportunity, not only for him to get me into the right place, but also for me to learn.

Klara J.: 42:31

Yeah, I love that and what you're highlighting and what also stands out. I wanted to challenge you on a couple of things and then add an observation. Number one you know the fact that you have people around you and you have friends. To sleep on somebody's couch, I mean, yes, that is important, but I would argue a lot of people do have that you can fall back. So I don't know if that's as big of a differentiator.

Klara J.: 42:55

What I really see is your ability to go after opportunity instead of being a fear-driven, because a lot of people let's say you mentioned that moving to San Francisco on 24-hour notice, and even probably my younger self I don't know if I would have done it. I would probably be thinking about it and overthinking it and is this right or not? And phone a friend, but you're like, oh hell, yeah, it's an upgrade, it's an opportunity. They don't have anybody I got to deal with. So it's like your quick intuition, as you just kind of see the positive, and then you make a quick decision, move on, commit and keep going. Is there anything you see again from your upbringing that helped hone that skill?

Noah Sturm: 43:37

Yeah, I think both my mom and dad taught me that fear was something that was typically internal. Like there are external fear factors, don't get me wrong. Like my dad was a very street smart person. He raised me that way as well, but I think a lot of time fear and anxiety are the things that people need to learn to break through. Like I did not grow up in an environment where things that I was doing or that seemed unattainable that you know I couldn't just change at the click of a button and kind of like go do something else.

Noah Sturm: 44:04

I think my upbringing really taught me that there was always a different opportunity. There was always a different way to think about something. There was always a different path. I think the thing that my upbringing really taught me was that I'm different, like that I am a different type of human being. That I think the thing that my upbringing really taught me was that I'm different, like that I am a different type of human being, that I think differently than most people. That I'm comfortable being uncomfortable is how I would describe it. I am very comfortable being uncomfortable and I think part of that was my upbringing with my dad, you know. I think he taught me that being uncomfortable is just a part of life. You know, that's a feeling that you get when you're actually trying to achieve something great, and so, learning how to feel comfortable in those uncomfortable or high stress environments where decisions need to be made, things need to change. I just stopped thinking whether or not it was the right decision and just started thinking this is what I have to do to get to the next opportunity or to the next place, and what's the worst that's going to happen.

Noah Sturm: 45:00

I moved to San Francisco. I don't like it. Well, tough luck. My wife will tell you that we moved again together. We moved to San Francisco when I was with Accenture, and my wife always says that I really forgot to tell her that we were committed to leaving. And I told her you know, we had been dating for two years. I wasn't sure if she was going to come, and so I just kind of glossed over it and didn't say anything. But I was committed.

Noah Sturm: 45:25

I told everybody I was moving and about two and a half months before we were supposed to leave, I was like okay, I'm just going to let you know this. Now I'm moving to San Francisco. And she's like what do you mean you're moving to San Francisco. We've been together for two years. I think there's more of like a we in this decision. I said, look, there's always a we, whether it's long distance or us being together. But I need to make this move. This is something that I need to do to advance this part of my career and do it again. And I found a partner later in life that was willing to deal with that craziness, and I think having a partner that's willing to chase these adventures with you and do things differently is it makes you unstoppable in some sense.

Klara J.: 46:02

Yeah, and it adds more fun to it, right? That's awesome yeah.

Noah Sturm: 46:07

I tried to get her to move to Austin. I was trying to get her to move closer to you, Clara.

Klara J.: 46:10

Well, I hope, like this story is amazing, I'm really curious to meet your wife, actually, and your son, so I really hope you all can come visit anytime. We have an extra bathroom and a bedroom. You can have it any day, so I hope to meet you in person. Actually, that's the weirdest thing. I'm just realizing we haven't really met in person. We've had this virtual relationship for over a year.

Noah Sturm: 46:33

Yeah, that's the post COVID environment. I had a client for almost three years that I'd never met in person and we finally got together in person and they were like, oh my gosh, you're much bigger than I thought you were. I always imagined you as a much smaller human being and I was like that's such a funny thing that, like you could go all of this time working together, being on daily standups, doing all these things and you never get to meet.

Klara J.: 46:52

Yeah, I get told that every time, but I think if you're a little bit taller than the average human, people think that you're very tall. So me being six foot four women also that's the first thing people tell me oh, you're much taller than I thought you were. Well, and three. I'm curious what was the jump and how you and Andrew met, because it seems like there was a beginning of something, that you guys have very good relationship now and are becoming unsuperable. That was actually the one thing that came quite clear to me early and when I was at Accenture I saw Andrew leaving and I forecasted so it's actually a funny story.

Noah Sturm: 47:28

I was pretty happy at Donnelly. I wasn't, you know, intending to leave, and I'm also. It's always interesting that every job I've found and every kind of opportunity I've found has always been from people that I know really well and those types of things. And this was really the first one that something from the outside and actual recruiter out of nowhere reached out to me and was trying to interview me for an account executive role or something at N3. And I told the guy I was like look, there is no way you're getting me to leave my job to come work for you as an account executive. I'm doing X amount in sales. This is my earning structure. There's no way I'm leaving for any job like that. And he was like okay, well, that's really interesting. We have a director role.

Noah Sturm: 48:08

Before we go any further, why don't I introduce you to Andrew? And so I ended up interviewing with Andrew. We immediately clicked. Andrew is one of the brightest minds I've ever gotten to work with. He and I we tend to have mindshare on almost everything possible. But the thing I love about Andrew is even today we record all of our conversations at sales. We've been working together for almost six years. Even today, he'll listen to sales calls that I always just got a ping from him a few hours ago. He'll listen to sales calls I did yesterday and then still have critiques for me. Okay, you could have positioned this this way or done things that way. And even in that interview I talked to him about my upbringing, what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go, who I wanted to be, all of these things. And he was like oh my gosh, okay, you're perfect for this role. We have to do this.

Noah Sturm: 48:59

I interviewed with Jeff and Marcel and all the other kind of leadership team at N3. They ended up offering me a role and I ended up turning it down. And I was in an Uber in San Francisco going to a client meeting for my previous job and I got a call on my cell phone and it was Andrew and he was like are you out of your mind? Like you're walking away from the best opportunity of your life. Like this is a huge mistake. He's like I totally respect your decision, but I just wanted to tell you like this is a big mistake, I'm not going to end, this is not over yet. Like we are going to get you to work for me. There is no way I'm giving up. And he chased me for about a year and after that the Accenture acquisition happened. And so Andrew always says that he chased me for a year and the only reason I joined the company is because Accenture acquired them.

Klara J.: 49:41

That's right.

Noah Sturm: 49:41

Because I wanted to work for Accenture which is not true, by the way, which wasn't true, it's just better timing in my life. It was like peak COVID, like a lot of uncertainty thinking about moving to a company with 2000 people that I didn't really know that well, trying to build a new book of business that I didn't really know that well, trying to build a new book of business. There was just a lot. I was playing golf four days a week. You know there's a whole bunch of stuff going on that I was like there's no way I'm walking away. It's too good of a life and I got bored and I wanted to go do something different. I wanted to chase something that was truly unique and I was really interested in Donnelly's division. They had a digital marketing capabilities and things like that. So I was always very interested in that side of the business.

Noah Sturm: 50:22

And when Andrew offered me the job the second time this is the best story when I turned down the job the first time, I went out to dinner with my now wife. She's like are you out of your mind? Why would you turn that opportunity down? Same thing, andrew told me and I was like look, the world has a way of working things out If it was meant to be. There'll be an opportunity later. It's just not the right time for me to do this and I feel that inside of my gut and I've always been a gut feeling person, like I always listen to my own instincts and gut over anything else Like if I don't feel like it's right, it's just not right and that's the decision I'm going to make. I don't get swayed easily and so when I turned down the role I was always hopeful they would come back to me. I was like man, this would be pretty disappointing if this was my only chance. And then when they came back, I got to join. And when I got to join the second time, they hired me as a VP of sales. And so Andrew jokes that it was both the title and Accenture, but he's right.

Noah Sturm: 51:13

I felt like that what I had accomplished in my first five years of work outweighed time and longevity and market. I mean I always say I remember I was interviewing with the CEO of N3 and then I had to interview with one of the heads of Americas for the acquisition team before they would hire me, because everyone thought N3 was out of their mind for hiring a 28-year-old vice president of sales. I still stand by this in my hiring practices and in life, that there is a difference between experience and execution. Some people bring both, which is very rare, but I think there is two avenues.

Noah Sturm: 51:47

You can go in a hiring, you can go from experience, or you can go with people that execute. And I can remember I was sitting in the room and the guy said why should I hire you? And I said there's two paths to go down. You can go down the experience path or you can go down the execution path. I guarantee you that I will be the best hire you've ever made in your entire life and then I'll blow every number out that you put in front of me, because that's what I do. And they ended up hiring me and the rest is history.

Klara J.: 52:10

I love that and I love the confidence with which you articulated just that awareness. Again it goes back. I think that can be quite hard too. Has it come naturally to you or really you were leaning on, obviously, the results you have had and you outperformed everybody else in the previous job, so that obviously helps give you confidence. In sports you always say the confidence comes from preparation. So because you know you hit so many balls and you put in all the hours, that's how you get confidence. It doesn't come from fake or just the air falls on you suddenly. Right, yeah, but any other tips on that or observations?

Noah Sturm: 52:48

I would say I think my family and my wife would say that it's just confidence. Like I believe in myself, I always say that there's no one you should believe in more than yourself. So if you can't fully invest in the idea that you're the best person for the job, that you're the best person at whatever you're doing, then you're probably missing something. Like I would say I'm the best basketball player in the world. I know it's not true, but hey, you know there's always opportunity. I think that comes from my upbringing with my dad of like anything's possible and you have to have the vision in your head and you have to have that ability to compartmentalize doubt and courage and have the courage to take on things that you know are really hard that moving from a high paying job into a world of unknown, into a very high risk environment where you know you could be out of a job in six to eight months if you don't deliver on it. I really like the idea that there is struggle in the reality of those decisions. There's a fear and change. There's a fear and doubt. There's also a huge number.

Noah Sturm: 53:47

I think my first quota with Accenture was $35 million and I had about six and a half months to hit it. We ended up hitting that target. In the first round it went to 50. When I left we were closer to 100. So I've never really doubted my ability to kind of build that book of business. But I think it comes back to just believing in yourself. And I think that comes back from my upbringing of like is there someone better for the job? Probably, but I don't know who they are Most likely you, you probably, but I don't know who they are.

Noah Sturm: 54:17

Yes, Most likely you. You're probably one of the. You and Andrew are one of the only two people that I would say that about.

Klara J.: 54:22

You know, having this conversation makes me realize how much more time I wish I have had and spent with you both. But how do you actually do it? How do you achieve it? And do you also use any visualization tools? Are you aware? Are you actually visualizing again through sports or upbringing, to create that plan and execute?

Noah Sturm: 54:42

I am constantly visualizing a better path for but it's mostly daily, daily, weekly, monthly my sister, melissa Wells. She owns a company that does vision boarding and so I'm constantly doing vision boards with her. I'll invite you to one of our next sessions, clara, we'd love to have you. And so my vision board. I always outline a vision board every year in January of like what I want to do that year. But for me, in general, my vision into the future is to treat people with respect, earn people's trust and then deliver on the promises that I make. Those are really the three things that I focus on in life is like I want to make sure that the people I love are taken care of, that they feel respected, and the people that I'm around. I want people to trust me. When I tell them I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it, and then any promises I'm making, then I'm delivering on those.

Noah Sturm: 55:24

I think if you safeguard those three things in your life and make sure you're focused on them, and some of the other things tend to fall into place. My wife always says like we go on walks multiple times a day, once in the morning, once at night together, and I will be visualizing a conversation with a client or playing it back in my head all day, whether it's something that has happened or will happen, like if there's something coming up that's a tough discussion, or if it's just a sales pitch. I'll be talking to myself while we walk and she's like what are you talking about? I was like, oh sorry, no, because I'm constantly on thinking about the next thing, trying to think about how to position my words, trying to think about what I should say, how it's going to resonate, how that person's going to take it, and trying to kind of solve that problem before I get in the room, because then once you're in, just like you said, when you practice, you feel much more prepared.

Klara J.: 56:11

Yeah, I have that too sometimes. Sometimes I feel I am just way too often in my head. I thought it was more of like individual sports thing player. You know that because you're by nature, just by yourself and so you spend a lot of time ruminating and just playing various different scenarios. I wonder how much of that is also maybe connected when you're an individual sports player.

Noah Sturm: 56:35

I think with golf in general, golf and business are very similar. You get into really bad situations. You have to make like a chancy decision or the right decision, and there's value to both, and I think golf teaches you a lot of that. In life is like there is always an alternative taking the safe play or trying to do something a little bit more miraculous and you see that on TV. Sometimes it goes really well and other times it goes really poorly. But I think, just like in golf and just like in business, if you don't take chances, calculated risk and taking chances on things, you're likely going to not hit the meteoric growth that you're looking for, and so really identifying and building out calculated risk is an important way of running your business.

Klara J.: 57:18

I love that and I'll hold you to the vision board meeting. Actually, I would love to join one.

Noah Sturm: 57:22

You don't have to. I'm actually the worst vision boarder ever.

Klara J.: 57:26

I've had a few coaches I've hired before and I always get a blank page. So maybe you and your sister will inspire me to go with something grand and good for myself. I want to dive a little bit more into M3 and Denix Center. Obviously, what are you doing now? But M3 was very different than the role you had before at R Donnelly Digital inside sales. I actually do love even your MIA that you all created early on automated AI to help digital inside sales teams suggest and navigate hard conversations to kind of level up and be more effective. But how have you made that jump, even just learning that expertise, that you were able to go quite quickly into understanding the differences of what you're selling and being able to communicate that effectively?

Noah Sturm: 58:13

I think trial by fire is how I thrive. I'll tell you a story and then I think that'll make my four years at Accenture calculated up. In my first two and a half weeks with N3, andrew and I were having some really big meetings with some high powered executives over at a company in the Silicon Valley area and we got a plan together. We did a prep meeting with them. We were presenting back to their C-suite and the client was the one booking the meeting, and so he and I went through the deck, we built the quotes, we did all these things and they didn't invite him to the meeting because he said I was the sales lead for North America and so they didn't think to invite my boss. They were like, okay, great. So the first meeting I did I think it was probably eight days into the role, five days into the role with Accenture the first meeting I did, I was sitting there, we're all waiting. Finally, the C-suite executive, obviously being like hey, you're wasting my time, why aren't we started yet, was like when are we going to get going? And I was like, well, we're just waiting on Andrew. They're like we didn't invite Andrew and so right then, like it's time to go all my preparation, whatever I think I know let's put it out on words things that I don't know I'll find out later and that was my first pitch. It was my first deal with Accenture and what that taught me was the real thing you need to learn in sales is saying. I don't know the answer to that, but I'm going to get back to you really quickly. I think I do that somewhat really well.

Noah Sturm: 1:00:01

No-transcript, that was really how I focused, but I was always really keenly interested at Accenture to understand how you stitch together the end-to-end revenue orchestration system from the applied data science all the way through digital marketing, sales and then customer success. And so, with N3 being the world's largest outsourced inside sales company just to touch on what N3 is, so everybody knows. So N3 was the world's largest outsourced inside sales organization that focused on full funnel revenue activity, so it wasn't just meeting, qualification or bookings or support etc. They were running things end to end from BDR solution engineers, technical engineers, all the way through customer success, and then they were getting paid on the revenue driven for those companies and we were running those in a performance based contracting system, and so you can imagine that when you do those things you really need to learn.

Noah Sturm: 1:00:56

How to run a lean, mean revenue machine is how I always said it, and with that that came with the technology, the people and the process that we had to execute with. And so when I got to Accenture, that really excited me, that idea that I could go out and sell a vision to somebody, that we were going to deliver on it, we were going to drive revenue, we were going to get paid on that revenue and that there was less risk to them of us kind of getting started because it was lower total cost of ownership for them. And then we typically beat internal teams by 10 to 15% above their benchmark rates. So we had a really good story, really good narrative.

Noah Sturm: 1:01:30

When we came into Accenture, we started stitching together all of these different service capabilities and when I thought about N3, a lot of what we do and how the brand works today is like we did all that stuff before we were acquired. We were running digital marketing. We were using data and AI with things like VIA and OneGlass. We've been using applied machine learning algorithms to be able to help coach sellers in live conversations to understand how to articulate themselves better, understand what use cases you should be talking about, and so a lot of that stuff that I learned with N3 carried over into my days with Accenture and I think it just with Accenture we were able to pour gasoline on the fire.

Klara J.: 1:02:05

Yeah, being just such a large company. But I do want to highlight there's, you know, I imagine or I've only lived at Accenture for a year, so you can kind of create this agile environment, but it is a huge company, 800,000 people. And so how have you navigated this? What I envisioned before unstructured in ways, chaotic, but very high goal driven mindset and then putting that and placing it and orienting yourself inside Accenture and maybe that's a big question, take it whichever way you want, but I know even my colleagues at Accenture and maybe that's a big question, take it whichever way you want, but I know even my colleagues at Accenture struggle with it daily. So any secrets, I'm sure they would love your tips.

Noah Sturm: 1:02:46

Still, so I always say that one of the things that helped me when I got to Accenture was the same thing that helped me in sixth grade when I went to school for the first time Was that you're the new kid on the block and trying to figure out where you fit in, what your group is, you know what you're going to do, what individuality looks like, things like that I always say like homeschooling to school really helped me in any new environment because when I walked into the classroom for the first time I knew nobody and I had to make friends, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, and I really wasn't that aware of what, like non homeschooled kids were doing in school and the way they behaved, et cetera. And you know the politics that exist and the bureaucracy that exists among sixth graders and I think that's the same thing walking into Accenture was, you know, I had some experience working for a larger organization coming from Donnelly. They're, you know, a very large company as well and when I walked into Accenture 780,000 people my goal was the same goal that I had at Donnelly with N3 and now with Accenture, which was to meet, achieve and exceed my targets and identify new ways to do things that nobody else was thinking about. That's really how I've always thought about that pressure. But I think the thing that I did really well at Accenture was when I first joined, I did one-on-ones with like probably a hundred people Like I wanted to learn. I'd, like you know, I wanted to understand what they were doing. I wanted to understand the different service categories. I wanted to understand what leadership priorities were. Where were we focused? Where was the business going? I went, you know, I interviewed people on the digital marketing side, interviewed people on the our executive leadership team. I interviewed people that were running operations that were running like completely you know different parts of the business, so that I could get like a pretty well-rounded perspective.

Noah Sturm: 1:04:30

And I think when I walked out of Accenture, I probably had met somewhere around a thousand people while I was there, and part of that was because I was committed enough to go out, listen to what other people.

Noah Sturm: 1:04:42

People love to tell you what they do for work. Like people love it, and so if you're able to go in and say, look, I just want to listen to your story, I want to understand how you did it here. I want to understand what challenges or pitfalls I might run into. There's people at Accenture that have been there for 28 years. They have 28 years of knowledge of how the company runs, how to grease the wheels, how things operate, how the gears turn. And then there's new people understanding how new joiners get in. And I think that kind of willingness to spend a significant amount of time in my week kind of interviewing and meeting people it really helped me find my, I would say, my inner circle at the company that I could trust and rely on and with that that really helped me kind of navigate the unknown when it comes to Accenture.

Klara J.: 1:05:27

Yeah, I love that and I remember you gave me that guidance and I did actually quite the same. I don't know if I've got all the way through 100, but I'm pretty sure I got somewhere around 50 to 90, maybe within the first two to three months that kind of gives you a really wide view and you, you can start making sense of this large 800 000 person startup, I guess, or yeah?

Noah Sturm: 1:05:50

yeah, well, I was gonna say I think when you're somewhere for too long, you get comfortable and you kind of you move on from the fact that there's more to learn, in some sense, like you just start running what you know. And I think part of the thing that's so interesting at Accenture is people get a new job like every single year or like every two years. I always thought that was the coolest thing ever Like. When I did all these interviews, people kept talking about how they've had like 14 careers with Accenture where they like did one thing and then they went and did another, and I thought that was like one of the coolest things ever was.

Noah Sturm: 1:06:22

Like, rather than changing jobs and leaving the company and going doing something else, it's such a big company that you could hold like 14 or 18 different roles in your 25 or 30 years there and those roles aren't in the same line, like it's not a linear progression of your career. You could be tasked to go run an account or be tasked to go run, you know, apac or EMEA or. It's so interesting like the maturity of the careers that people have at Accenture and it makes sense why you know, accenture executives make such good executives at other organizations because they've done and they've seen client problems across. You run the gamut of experience there.

Klara J.: 1:07:01

Yeah, feels like we're making a free commercial for Accenture.

Noah Sturm: 1:07:04

I know it's a great place to work.

Klara J.: 1:07:06

Yeah Well, you've been there for four years maybe anything you want to mention before and then you've decided to jump from this amazing entertaining people company to a startup that you're building, being the SVP of sales and revenue, so still doing a lot of what you're passionate about, building on your expertise and experience in sales and, in many ways, stitching together something better. Now, in the world of AI and Gen AI that you've mentioned, you've kind of built on from what N3 had, but nonetheless, it is a big change now, really going back to being the key salesperson and product tester, and I can envision a whole bunch of other jobs you have on top of that. What made you decide to do that? I don't know, and obviously N2's kind of decided, so it seems like you two had a great relationship.

Noah Sturm: 1:07:56

So I think some people would call me crazy and I wouldn't disagree with them. We had our first born in October. I joined a startup in the middle to end of November and then we bought a new house in December and we kind of did all these things in two months. I think. Kind of a classic move on my end. My wife always says I like to pack all the hardest things in my life into a 60-day sprint. But yeah, I mean, I think the reason that I left the same reason that I joined N3 was to work with people like Andrew, to have a leader that not only believed in me but also believed that there was a better way to run business and to run B2B sales organizations and to build sales teams and to build a brighter future.

Noah Sturm: 1:08:39

A lot of what I worked on at Accenture actually informed my decision. I would say A lot of what I was working on at Accenture was customer journey and buyer journey development and identifying what are the streamlined events that take place and someone's ability to purchase things and their ability to go through entire interaction with a brand, and that part of the operational function inside of Accenture was always very interesting to me. I always felt like everything we did in our division within Accenture. A lot more of it could have been done with technology rather than bodies, and I felt like there was an opportunity in the market to do things differently, because when we were with Accenture, we were running 330 go-to markets on a daily basis, and what I mean by that is that, you know, we were running, you know, let's say, a hundred go-to markets in qualification, so like BDR roles, and we were running a hundred go-to markets in full cycle sales, so AE, field sales, partner executives, et cetera. Then we were running, you know, 50 in partner ecosystem optimization, partner recruit, partner, co-sell, partner optimization. We were running 50 in customer success, and so we got this huge view of all of the challenges that, like the G2000 and large enterprise and mid-market companies were having, because we had that visibility into the way that we ran their business, the technology stacks that they were using and some of the implications that had in the way that their customers purchased their product and the way that their customers felt about the brand in general.

Noah Sturm: 1:10:05

And so I always felt like there was a better way to execute B2B sales and I think the thing that was closest and dearest to my heart, which is relationships. It was existent in the mission statement. With Augment that, augment AI, we are focused on making your customers your best salespeople, and what that comes down to is durable relationships. So what I mean by durable relationships in general is how do you have a relationship with a customer or with a prospect that's strong enough to get through some of the challenging times and the ups and downs that exist inside of a sales cycle and inside of a customer relationship?

Noah Sturm: 1:10:41

And so that part of the journey for me felt natural when I had the opportunity to leave, and the other thing that really intrigued me about our technology and what we were doing is it was learning from Andrew and I, like situational awareness, the way that we would handle different scenarios in customer environments.

Noah Sturm: 1:10:58

I felt like if there was a digital twin of me that could help me stay on track, learn what I should say, help coach me on things that I'm behind on and identify some of the more of the administrative workload that exists inside of my system, while always being one step ahead of me.

Noah Sturm: 1:11:16

Then my ability to scale the number of relationships I managed, the number of accounts I could manage, the amount of revenue and goals I could manage, was. You know, I think I believe today that I'm managing anywhere between two and a half and three times the number of relationships and the number of accounts that I could have, you know, six months ago, and part of that is that the AI native technology is learning the way I do things and how I do them, and when I do them and where I do them and what I do in those situations. And I just thought that was the coolest concept that there was this opportunity in time for all of my knowledge and all of my experience to be embedded inside of a technology platform that allows other people to be able to utilize and learn and identify, pass forward based on my experience in situational awareness in platforms. I felt like there's no better time than now to take that chance, and that's why I left.

Klara J.: 1:12:07

I love that and also what stands out to me. I know even at Accenture, everybody's been saying you know, I want to be like Noah. Noah is the sales expert. How do we elevate more of the team to be like Noah? Noah is the sales expert. How do we elevate more of the team to be like Noah? And it seems like that's a little bit of the mission with this platform that you're enabling to elevate more of the salespeople awareness. I'm going to maybe go back to your very first job you mentioned, or second, rr Donnelly, like you realizing that you're really the main key differentiator and it's really that relationship because everybody sells papers or different SKUs. Yeah, and that's really how do you manage those escalations or complaints and that seems to be quite a bit core to your product. I know you gave me a demo and I was actually quite listening and taking it all in because there's a lot of different functionality. That's part of it. But any specific things that you want to highlight for listeners or that you want the world to know about?

Noah Sturm: 1:13:06

Yeah, our technology is intended to make your mid-performers act like your top performers, so we have built technology called an expert language model inside of our platform that actually has learned from our expertise between Andrew, myself and then our senior leadership team on the board, who have over 150 years of experience of managing anywhere between 12 and 15,000 salespeople, and so if you can imagine that expertise is built into the platform, then we learn from your top 10% of your team. So what are your top performers doing? How are they acting? What are they doing differently?

Noah Sturm: 1:13:37

I would not recommend that everybody follows Noah's path in a sales cycle. It's a little bit chaotic and I do things differently than many folks, but there are things that I do really well when it comes to remembering all the key details and really starting to like live the experience that my client's going through and really being someone that's reliable and understanding. You know like you were talking about escalations, and so the expert language model is designed to really glean the insights from what your company does really well. What are your top performers doing? What was the? You know the key insights across the deal flow and then be able to replicate that information to other sellers on your team so that people that are in your mid to low performing stack rank have the opportunity to glean, learn and get coached on what they should do, when they should do it and how and I think you know the sales enablement side of the business is one thing Like people could go through scenario-based training. That's not what I'm talking about. What I mean by coaching is that we are giving them the next best action or the moment is what we call it on what they should do, how they should do it, when they should do it and where they should do it, whether that's sending dinner recommendations because your client mentioned on a call that they're going to New York, or whether it's, you know, sending a get well soon card to their office, or whether understanding on a call that their kid had a soccer game on Saturday because they talked about it, that was one of the things they were excited about on the weekend. And then on Tuesday, when you jump back on that call, you remember to have that conversation and ask how the soccer game went.

Noah Sturm: 1:15:03

Those are the types of things that I've done, naturally, throughout my career, that people now, by using our platform, are going to have a better opportunity to start learning the way to think differently, to build value, to identify really what differentiation looks like. And one of the things I always say to Andrew is you know, I can't wait for us to be able to build friction into this platform, like because I think friction is the greatest thing to ever exist in a sales cycle. As soon as, as soon as there is friction in a sales cycle, you have a much higher win rate. I really do believe that, like, if there's a, you know, a disagreement on pricing or a disagreement on contract language or a disagreement in the solution and functionality, to me most people are like, oh my gosh, like we're never going to win this deal. To me, I'm like, holy crap, the deal pulse on this just went up 30%. So I think some of the stuff that we've learned throughout our career being applied into the platform.

Noah Sturm: 1:15:54

And then, you know, the last thing I'll leave everybody with is really what we're intending to do is to transform the way that your buyers engage with your brand in both a digital and native solution. What I mean by that is both, in a digital environment, how they learn what information they they have, the right information for the right conversation at the right time, which allows them to naturally progress a conversation with the prospect and really, to me, reduce the amount of time it takes for individuals to get acquainted with the idea of what's being committed to. Because, to me, the world of AI has created one big disconnect, and I think that's trust. We are eroding trust in the market, and I think buyers are getting wiser when it comes to the trust gap that is continually being existed, and so, with Augment's technology, we're looking to build back a better future by reimagining decision making as a whole.

Klara J.: 1:16:55

Yeah, and what do you mean by the trust? I mean one thing that comes to mind everybody sends out these emails all the time, right, they're not thoughtful at all. I'm sure you get a ton of them.

Klara J.: 1:17:06

I get 10 of them I can get 10, 15 emails a day, people wanting to be on my podcast and sometimes like, all right, it's not that hard to actually do homework on my podcast. Can you be a little bit more thoughtful about why you want to be part of it and how this guest fits in? So many of those I actually disregard?

Noah Sturm: 1:17:26

It took me 18 months 18 months to get on here, so I think they just need to work a little harder. One cold email is not going to get you on Clara's podcast, okay.

Klara J.: 1:17:34

I love kind of what you mentioned about the friction. That sounds really interesting. Yeah, you know, love to see that Very curious. But what stands out to me? That you're trying to build in and enhance this natural authenticity and make genuine care. So, going back to your three principles that you actually mentioned treat everybody with respect, deliver trust and deliver on your promises it actually does seem to very much align with the product and the solution that you're building Seems to be part of it.

Noah Sturm: 1:18:07

Yeah, I mean, the thing I'm most interested in this is you know, I think, what you do really well and you know this better than anyone right? You manage the influencer maze in a decision-making process probably better than anyone that I know. You know what's behind the scenes because you're asking the right questions, you're identifying, you know who's going to be involved in the decision-making process. And when I was looking at some of the results from Gartner, they came out and said that 83% of a decision-making cycle or a purchasing cycle does not include a salesperson. So, like 83% of the time doing research, having meetings, having internal discussions, getting buy-in and approval from your internal teams does not include a salesperson. So that means 17% of a decision-making or purchasing cycle includes a salesperson today. So that means that all these fancy widgets that we're buying and all these tools that we're spending all this money on can only ever affect 17% of a decision-making cycle. And what I found most interesting and you know this really well working with Accenture is you're never the only vendor, typically in a bid. So there's typically three or four different vendors in that bid. So you're taking that number of 17% and either cutting it by three or cutting it by four, so the real expert sellers know how to start affecting the other side of that decision-making process, which is identifying what the influencer maze looks like, what a decision-making tree is, and really being able to coach your champion and their internal teams on what the value is.

Noah Sturm: 1:19:34

I can remember when I was with Accenture, one of the things I used to always do differently is that I would give my champions and coaches talking points for every single gate in their sales cycle or internal buying committee, from IT to procurement, to the CFO, to the CMO, et cetera. We would build decks, we would build talking points, and I always thought about this stuff. Naturally, it just came to me in terms of the way I thought it was the best way to execute it. So we're taking those experiences and putting them into the platform so that the things that you don't see in a buying decision or in a purchasing decision you can still use technology to support the person who's the most important person in any decision making cycle, which is the customer. As soon as you lose sight of the customer, you will lose sight of any revenue growth opportunity that you have in your business, and the technology that's built today is unfit for the job of tomorrow.

Klara J.: 1:20:25

Yeah, and it seems like you're really enhancing the focus as well of what is most important at that specific point to advance the sale and the deal. As you mentioned, being able to have this intelligence allows you to manage many more accounts Any specific client or industry that you see this is resonating the most with or examples you want to mention.

Noah Sturm: 1:20:48

Obviously, coming from the N3 world, we walked out of that environment with about 100-ish C-suite relationships, so we're seeing a lot of traction in the enterprise space right now, specifically in technology like cloud tech, high tech, and then obviously in manufacturing. With my background before, I would say we're industry agnostic right now, but we are hyper focused on companies that have complex decision-making processes for any purchasing decision inside of their business. We feel like we're the right technology for them, and so if you're managing a sales cycle with anywhere between five, 10, 15 different stakeholders involved in a decision-making process, then our solution is definitely something that people should be evaluating, because it's not a one-size-fits-all. It's purpose-built for the way that you do business, not for the way everybody else does. So we learn about your business, the way that your business operates, and so that our technology conforms to the way that your organization needs things to run.

Klara J.: 1:21:47

And any specific objections or misunderstandings that you typically run into that you got to debunk on daily basis. Nothing, ever, is just an easy sell.

Noah Sturm: 1:21:57

Oh my gosh objections. Yeah, I think objections are a daily occurrence now. I always say like when I was with Accenture, it was far fewer objections to what I was selling because we're building a category disruptor when it comes to sales assist technology, because we're trying to stitch together everything from prospect to renewal one persistent system that a customer can utilize to be able to manage their relationship with your brand and your business. And I think there are believers and there are believers and there are non-believers that there is a better way, and I mean this like we disqualify opportunities based on, you know, a few different categories. The first thing I always ask somebody in any sales conversation is do you believe that more emails with better punctuation are going to make you hit your revenue goals for this year? Because that's typically what we're saying in our purchasing habits for products. Right now, we're basically buying products to automate all of the productivity aspects of our business. So if you believe that more emails, better punctuation are going to drive revenue, we don't want to talk to you. We'll talk to you next year after you miss your goal, no problem.

Noah Sturm: 1:22:57

But most of the objections we're getting is focused on the fact that people have been utilizing, you know, conversational intelligence platform or sales enablement intelligence platform for so long that they feel like they've gotten things to a point that there's not really a better way to do it, and so we're really finding that most of our objections sit in the we're not switching, because you know we've been doing this this way for too long and it's working, and we don't want to disrupt the way that we do things.

Noah Sturm: 1:23:24

So we're really looking for disruptive champions that are willing to do things differently and see a better path forward. Because it's not price, claire. Most people would think objections are around pricing. I think it's really around. Do you believe in your heart that there's a better way to do B2B sales and that the customer is the most important person in the room? I think 99% of people today would say, yes, I believe that, but they're not actually buying the right technology to be able to deliver on that promise. So I think execution and belief need to go together, and so those two things tend to be a little bit different.

Klara J.: 1:23:58

Well, it's funny just the status quo thing that everybody gets always wrapped up. I think every enterprise to a point that we've done it this way and we have these tools and maybe even remembering the pain that goes with implementing these tools, and so they're at times, perhaps falsely implying that it may be the same issue now, and just people envisioning something different or better. I think that's genuinely really hard for many people to do. I heard again every time I'll join my partner because he's building his own company and he actually runs into this every single time. It's literally the simplest solution that could exist and he's talking to these companies that are making everything so much more complex than it actually is. So I actually envision it kind of resonated because I'm envisioning you're running into the same issue.

Noah Sturm: 1:24:47

Oh my gosh. Yeah, and you know this about Andrew and I there hasn't been a lot of no's. I think we've gotten a lot of. I really don't know what it is that you're trying to tell me right now, but whatever it is, it sounds like something amazing and we definitely want to dive deeper, but I have no idea how to go deliver on this promise that you guys are making to me, and so I think it's about there's like three things that I focus on with clients, and I think this is how customers are thinking today.

Noah Sturm: 1:25:13

It's either how are you using AI to accelerate your business? Like what are the use cases you're using? How are you actually using practical application of AI? How do you save money? Like what is the path forward in saving money, whether that's reducing the number of people, reducing the amount of technology. Or how do you transact a better future, like how do you transform your business today for the digital future, ai, digital future of tomorrow? I think a lot of companies are really behind the curve on where business is going, and I think there's no better time than right now to start positioning yourselves as a disruptive champion, because disruption is prevalent in the ecosystem right now, and I mean you know this all too well like AI is taking over, that's the only thing anyone talks about. But it's like making really good decisions now are going to impact your business later, and so we're here to help you make really good decisions.

Klara J.: 1:26:06

Well, no, I'm looking at the clock. I know we're over. We could talk for hours, anything else. I have a few closing quick questions, anything else, before I dive into those that you want to mention about Augment AI.

Noah Sturm: 1:26:18

I think I've mentioned it all. We are looking for co-conspirators is how I would describe it. We are looking for co-conspirators is how I would describe it. We are a new company with a ton of experience doing things absolutely differently than everyone else in the sales assist technology space. Try to build a brighter, better future for your buyers by focusing on delivering a better experience for them. So if you're looking for a better path forward or have advice for us on a more effective way to build out our roadmap, build out our technology, we are looking for all the advice we can get and we are doing advisory sessions I would say 30 times a week at this point and a lot of it is just understanding how people are doing things, what they're doing and learning from them so that we can build some of that practical application into our technology so that it's purpose built for the future. So I look forward to any conversation, claire, you and I can drum up.

Klara J.: 1:27:09

Excellent and hopefully we can schedule some with some of my network too and people who will reach out. On that note, there's lots going on in the world. I realized I have been actually saying that for years now, as I've been having the podcast and it doesn't seem to be getting anywhere calmer, even with the topic of AI and what we have just been talking about. So there just seems to be a lot of noise and chaos and uncertainty in many different ways. What would you want to inspire people to be doing more of or less of?

Noah Sturm: 1:27:39

What people need to do more of is kindness. I think there is a kindness gap in our world right now, and I think empathy and being empathetic to the person next to you is really important in today's environment. You never know what people are taking place, and there's a lot of people in the United States that are dealing with those things overseas and impacted by some of the decisions that are being made, and I just think if there's ever a time in the world for us all to band together, provide more empathy and treat each other with kindness, together, provide more empathy and treat each other with kindness. And the last thing I would say to people is you know, I think words have a huge impact on how people feel, and so I would always tell people to you know, be a little bit more sensitive with the way they're talking and the words that they're using, so that the people around them feel more comfortable to be who they are and to live the life that they want to live.

Klara J.: 1:28:42

I love that.

Noah Sturm: 1:28:43

This is what I would tell people to not do. I would get off social media and I would get outside. I would go start exploring the things around you. I think we are spending way too much time on screens. I haven't been on social media in almost I don't know 13 years or 12 years, and part of the reason I left the platforms was because I really felt like it was consuming the way that I thought and the way that I thought about life, thought about things. I wanted to go. Do you know? I felt like I was always behind, and I think there's this like world and image being painted around us right now that is causing people to feel like they're behind or that, you know, they don't have enough, and I think that like consumerism effect is actually kind of bleeding into social media and like your vision of the world. And so kindness is one thing that we can always give back to each other, because with kindness, we can break down the barriers that exist between human beings. What I wouldn't do Judgment I would throw out the window.

Klara J.: 1:29:45

Love to outsource. I agree with all that. On that note, how do people reach you then? I know you're quite active on LinkedIn, though Is there a best way to reach out? Have a conversation?

Noah Sturm: 1:29:50

Yeah, absolutely On LinkedIn. It's noah-sturm-augment, or you can email me at noah-augmentco. My cell phone number is public, so feel free to text call. I am a open book.

Noah Sturm: 1:30:04

I think my last post on LinkedIn was about how I spend anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes a week listening to people pitch me on their products and cold calls, so you know I'm always available. Feel free to give me a ring. But yeah, you can absolutely find me on LinkedIn trying to build out my brand on LinkedIn to really focus on a better way forward and a better path forward in the way that not only we talk about things and making things more real on LinkedIn, talking about past experiences in my life, but also talking about a non-generic future. Right, because I think what AI is accelerating right now is mediocrity, and I think that we need to break down the barriers and go back to that creative, individualistic approach that we used to take before this existed, because creativity was one of the only ways to get into accounts and to interact with humans, and I think that human to human touch needs to come back to the world.

Klara J.: 1:30:54

I agree, I don't like these bot emails either, so I'm glad you're doing something to change that reality as well. Noah, Good job.

Noah Sturm: 1:31:02

You don't like em dashes. I was saying something to someone today. I was like what is an em dash? I don't even know how I would use that, but they're everywhere.

Klara J.: 1:31:11

Well, thank you so much for your time and the conversation. I've had fantastic time. Hope to see you in Austin in your real version, and your family at some point. Yeah, we'll keep in touch.

Noah Sturm: 1:31:22

Before we sign off, I just want to say, clara, you've done an amazing job with this platform. Everyone that you've worked with, everybody around you, has so much respect and admiration for you, and it's a testament to not only the person you are, but also the way that you conduct yourself and handle yourself by the people that you're able to get surround around you and come onto the podcast as well as I'm working with you. I hope my people lead capabilities persist for the rest of our lives, because you're one of the people I look up to and admire the most when it comes to business and personal life and I really appreciate you as an individual and everything that you do.

Klara J.: 1:31:53

Thank you, noah. I'm going to practice taking compliments. I'm not very great at it, but I appreciate that and I know you know. I share the same, so thank you.

Noah Sturm: 1:32:04

Absolutely Well. Thank you so much for having me on, and I'm sure we'll talk soon.

Klara J.: 1:32:07

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