Rebecca Rose Payne 0:00

Hi, everyone, and welcome. Today's guest is Ian Campbell. He is the CEO of Nucleous Research and Wall Street Journal's best-selling author of the value set. For more than two decades, he's helped organizations separate technology hype from real business value, making him one of the leading voices on ROI leadership and the future of AI. Thank you so much for coming on.

Ian Campbell 0:24

Thanks for inviting me. I really appreciate it.

Rebecca Rose Payne 0:26

To start, um, you've built your career around separating what sounds impressive from what actually creates value. Where did that instinct come from?

Ian Campbell 0:36

Yeah, it's absolutely. And we we really focus as a company on looking at what the real results are as opposed to the marketing hype. And we've been doing that for a very long time. And it really, it really drove out of early work that I had done and early jobs that I had and uh a look at the analyst market and where there were holes. And really what I saw as I started Nucleus was uh a voice for, I'd like to say, reason. So there's a lot of hype in technology, it promises everything uh sometimes. And you know, if you go back 20, 20 plus years, it promised a lot, but it delivered not as much. So the idea of really looking at how does technology deliver value? Take a pragmatic approach. And unfortunately, I think it permeates my entire life and the entire life of my analysts. So my analysts will look at even simple purchases and say, does that make sense or not? So whether buying a car or anything else, you start to make that part of your everyday life. But we look at not what does somebody say it does, but what does something actually deliver? Is it really worth it is at the core of all our decisions and all of our research and everything that we our our point of view of everything we do.

Rebecca Rose Payne 1:48

Can you give some examples of things that are worth it or not worth it?

Ian Campbell 1:54

Well, sure. I mean, there there's a lot of things that that that get a lot of visibility in in the world that you sort of look at and say, well, well, doesn't does this make sense or when does something make sense? You can look at electric vehicles, for instance, and say they absolutely make a lot of sense for the environment. But if you're renting an apartment in a big city, it can be a really difficult thing to keep charge. So is it something that's worth the time and effort of trying to find a charging station? So for certain people it's it's worth it, especially if you can keep in charge. For other people, it becomes a lot more work to own an electric vehicle. So, you know, take a look and say, well, it's not exactly a great thing for everybody, but it's a good thing for a lot of people, and understanding where it fits and where it delivers a lot of value and where it might not. And we when we look at technology, we say the same thing. There's no one perfect piece of technology. There are a lot of technology solutions, some which are very good for certain kinds of people and some which aren't. And the sort of scale we might look at would be how easy is something to adopt? Is it easy or complex? Well, if it's complex to adopt, then does it offer a lot of functionality that offsets that complexity? Or is it easy to adopt? And then maybe is it easy to use, or does it offer limited functionality, but that's good enough? And we can see that in our daily lives. And going back to the car example, you might buy a pickup truck because you want to put things in the back and haul it around, but then a sports car probably wouldn't work for you. So other people, you know, that would work. So again, there's no one perfect thing. It's what's right for you at that particular moment and giving your particular environment, whether it's an individual decision, or in what we work with is big companies and their decisions. Is it right for me to buy this piece of CRM software or this piece of piece of your piece software? Or could I buy something else that might be less of a burden or less of a cost, but deliver greater potential ROI? And ultimately it's ROI, return on investment. Does that make sense or not? And to what extent we can maximize that ROI doesn't necessarily mean the most expensive product or the one that everybody's talking about. It means the right product. And that's the approach we take.

Rebecca Rose Payne 4:02

Interesting. So it sounds like it's a lot of the things you're looking at are very subjective to the individual or the company. Are there things you've looked at that are like universally worth it or like mostly worth it to almost everyone?

Ian Campbell 4:18

Sure. Well, I mean, to stick with the technology spin, and I I'm sorry, I I brought up the electric vehicles only because I have an employee that's decided to road trip up the East Coast, and he called in to do a call from a charging station and said, I've got a lot of time to read research as he goes 200 miles at a time to the next charging station. So he was sitting there reading, uh, which is why that example just uh fell to hand. Yeah, so some things are worth it for a lot of people. So take, for instance, the moving to the cloud for technology. That has been a significant change in the way we look at technology, the way we buy technology. And uh, if you look at a cloud-based solution versus an on-premise-based solution, there is almost never a situation where on-premises make sense. It's almost better, always better to use a cloud-based solution. You're spending less money up front, you're paying for it on a monthly basis instead of a large amount of money up front. You're able to match those expenses to the operational results you're likely to get. So cloud turned out to be almost universally a great driver of return on investment for almost every business that went to the cloud. And there are a few exceptions. There's always always exceptions, but the vast majority of folks, absolutely the cloud works. CRM as a concept, customer relationship management, works really well for just about everybody, but there are a lot of different CRM solutions. So which one's right for you? Well, that's a bigger question. And just going with the number one is probably almost always not a good idea that there are other solutions that are either cheaper or better focused on what your needs are. So you're a small company, you don't need a big CRM system, or you're a large company, there are some lightweight CRM systems that simply won't work. What's right for you is individual for your particular solution. So again, cloud being a great example of one that just drives huge value for just about everybody.

Rebecca Rose Payne 6:10

Yeah, and I think I would agree both companies and individuals, it's driving huge value for.

Ian Campbell 6:18

Yeah, I mean, it's funny, I've noticed at least in our company, our point of view about personal computers is different. So I'll tell you, we're entirely cloud-based. So when we need to replace a PC when it just gets old, we fold it up and throw it in the trash. Well, we don't even think about it. We simply get a new one, and that's the end of it, because everything that we do is in the cloud. So there's nothing local on the PC. If we lose a PC, we just shrug and nobody's lost a PC. If one breaks, we shrug. It's not a big deal. We throw in the trash and simply buy another one. So our view of even the hardware has changed where there's nothing special or precious about the personal computer because everything's in the cloud. So for us as individuals, for us as employees that that my employees that travel all the time, they're concerned about a PC. Realistically, if something gets lost or broken, they can just buy another one at a local store and within minutes be up and running. And um that's a very powerful way to look at as an individual how do you treat your hardware? It's not really a big deal anymore. But certainly as a company, how do you think about your hardware purchases? And how do you think about whether you want to support the hardware or not? We actually make a corporate decision that if a PC has a problem in any way, a memory problem or a virus, which which doesn't seem to happen as much anymore, but we just close it up and throw it away and buy another one. It's not worth the money to try to decipher what's wrong with it because hardware is so cheap. So yeah, for individuals, the cloud has allowed us to be a lot more flexible, a lot more flexible how we look at hardware, but also more mobile that we can pick up and move and know that, okay, well, I can just plug in anywhere and it's still okay with all of those corporate, corporate applications that I might use day in, day out.

Rebecca Rose Payne 7:58

And so how did you get interested in this topic and this line of work?

Ian Campbell 8:05

Yeah, so if I go go way back, you know, my undergraduate is in computer science and economics, and then I have an MBA, and I went on and worked for one of the other big research firms in the industry, and I looked at sort of the opinion-based firms, the big guys that had opinions about technology, and I said, well, that's great, but let me think about whether I can combine finance, which I was very good at at the time, and economics and computer science, and start to put that together and say, is there a room for a different company? And the big step with any company that you would start is that move away from the comfort of working for someone and having a regular salary to not having any of that and starting your own business. I think that was the biggest step for me. But I was pretty confident that that hole existed in the market, that I could fill that hole and that I could grow a company around that particular point of view in the research space. And it's worked out very well so far. But after 26 plus years, I'm gonna guess it's it's probably going to continue to be okay.

Rebecca Rose Payne 9:06

Were there any in doing this, like major setbacks or things that made you almost give up on it? Or is it always kind of been smooth sailing?

Ian Campbell 9:16

Yeah, I I think you know, anyone who starts a company faces uh a lot of setbacks. And yeah, I was talking to my CEO recently, and I said, you know, that the hard part for me, even at this point, is as you grow a company, you have folks that take care of day-to-day. So most of what comes to me, comes to me as negative. You know, it's something wrong that nobody else can fix. And it's it's nice something to fix easily. Usually it's some kind of crisis I have to deal with, or it's nothing. So it's either a crisis or it's just sitting there. And it's been an interesting ride in growing the company. Are there setbacks? Yeah, sure. You know, I'd say every day, but I think anyone who starts a company has um unemptying well of optimism that you have to put towards setbacks and continue to go through those. And I say it's I've heard before, it's the journey, it's constantly coming, constantly overcoming whatever barriers are in front of you that becomes the fun part of running a business, not necessarily the end point. Although having an end point in mind helps keep you aligned with where you want to be, but continuing to uh forge ahead and grow a team and and watch your employees grow, that's where you get the joy after time.

Rebecca Rose Payne 10:23

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Did you, like in college or growing up, did you always want to be an entrepreneur? Or were you thinking that you were gonna just work for someone else most of your life?

Ian Campbell 10:36

No, and I I think it was always there that there was the desire to start something and to do something. I think I probably waited longer than I could have to find something to start this. But I think there's always the desire to do something on your own or the confidence to do that. And I think it's looking for that opportunity is is what you spend most of your time doing. And again, I sort of followed the path. I identified a problem in the market and decided that can be filled and that I could do that. But I think anybody who starts a business has got that desire and is then looking for that opportunity. So um working for someone else is fine. Probably wasn't the best employee when I was working for other people. Just doesn't go along with um the temperament of starting a company. But that's probably typical for any CEO.

Rebecca Rose Payne 11:20

Were there ever times like in your company? So your job is basically to help people figure out what's gonna be or help companies figure out what solution is gonna be right for them. Have there been times where you were wrong and were confident that you were right?

Ian Campbell 11:36

Yeah, that's a fantastic question. Yeah, so so what we do really is we work for both vendors, people who sell technology and consumers, people who buy technology and to understand the value around it. So for vendors, it's so that they could build a business case. Why should I buy Oracle, for instance? Is it worth it for me? So that when they walk into a customer, they say, here are the five ways we can deliver value for you, so that you as a potential customer can understand. And for the customers, it's the same thing. How do we build a business case? How do we show the value that they're going to receive, the ROI that they're going to receive? Is it worth it when they go and ask for money internally to buy something? Can they prove that it will deliver value? So there's a lot of focus on making sure we're right. And being wrong has uh you know certainly big impacts. We have a very structured process. We have great analysts to start with. Our hiring is uh pretty tough. So to become an analyst, it's not an easy process. And uh we're brutal internally of making sure people come up to speed and are rigorous in the way they do the analysis. But we have a very structured process in how we do all of our work, it's done the same way without any variation, and everybody knows that. So we're pretty good at making sure we don't make mistakes. If anything is the other thing is we have such a wealth of information that if anything is out of scale, we can identify that. For instance, for instance, just recently we did a case study where the numbers didn't look right, and we took a look at it and said, well, this is wrong. We know it's wrong. Where is it, where are the numbers not going to be on? The analyst did identify it. It wasn't going to be published until that was reviewed by a bigger team. And so we looked at it and said, Oh, okay, we think that this is why the numbers are wrong. Let's go back, see what's going on with the customers, see if our hypothesis about this is correct, and then reassess it. So we're very cautious. We feel more like accountants than sort of consultants. We make sure everything is done in a rigorous way. Have we made mistakes? Not that I know of. So not that I'm aware that there have been any material mistakes because we are so precise about reviewing what we put out that I would be hard-pressed to think that we've made anything that was uh dramatically wrong. And that weighs on all of our analysts as uh as a burden that they really can't get out from under, that they've got to be right every time.

Rebecca Rose Payne 13:51

Yeah, I mean, that's a lot of being right. I can imagine that would be stressful for everyone involved.

Ian Campbell 13:58

It is. I think we hire the right team, we make sure that there are no quick actions in our business. That when we do a case study, we look at it. When we write a research note, we look at it. We step back and say, does this make sense? Is there anything wrong? We have multiple eyes on everything that goes out. So we take our research very seriously when we publish it. And uh we've had analysts that we've hired over the years that that haven't measured up. And within a few months, the you know, we we part ways with those folks. There's a test we give analysts. We don't when we're interviewing, we don't trust GPAs, we don't trust uh resumes. We actually give them a test. It's a brutal four-question test. It's not easy. We try to look at how they not only not only the answers they give, but how they've answered the test and do they have the patience and persistence to do things correctly. So we've put all of those those pieces in place to make sure that our chances of um of making mistakes or of acting too quickly is is really minimized. But yeah, it's a certainly a burden for the staff to keep thinking about that.

Rebecca Rose Payne 15:02

Yeah. And then so moving towards your book, after studying thousands of technology deployments, what did you keep seeing that eventually became the central idea of the value sale?

Ian Campbell 15:15

So with the value sale, um, we really wanted to take a look at how do I build a business case? And if I look at the sales process and I look at salespeople in general and how they go about building a business case, there's a lot of inconsistencies and a lot of work that possibly doesn't need to be done. And it really needed a way to structure how you look at value. So, for example, something really simple. There are only three things I can do for somebody. I can either increase the productivity, reduce their costs, or as a byproduct of those two, I can increase their profitability. That's it. That's all I can do. And once you realize that's all you can really do for somebody, it becomes a lot easier to say, well, if I'm selling a piece of pro of software, I can make it easier to think about what are the real benefits I'm driving for this customer. Or if I'm a large company trying to figure out how something will deliver value for me, it's not a big expansive project. We can actually narrow it down to how will I increase productivity or how will I reduce cost? And then really decompose that into simple steps. So if I look at someone and say, well, build a business case, well, that's overwhelming. But if I say, well, build a business case and here's a framework for doing it, it becomes a lot easier. So as we looked at all the case studies we've done, as I've done, we've trained thousands and thousands of salespeople over the over the years and worked with hundreds and hundreds of companies, thousands of companies really, the consistencies were really this difficulty in understanding value. And then once you look at productivity gains, that becomes very simple. Once you look at reducing costs, that becomes very simple. So decomposing that framework into let's really make this easy. This doesn't have to be a textbook. This can be a very easy-to-use book and an easy-to-use framework for, oh, how do I build that business case or how do I make it easier for somebody? One of my examples that I use with sales reps is my alligator example. I say, if I told you you could make money raising baby alligators in your bathtub, would you do it? And usually there's a chuckle and everyone's around. And then if somebody comes up and says, How much money am I going to make? And I say, Well, $5 million a year. And they say yes. And I say, okay, well, of course you would say yes. That makes a lot of sense. Even if it's the only bathtub you have and you have to close off your bathroom, you have to go down the street to use somebody else's bathroom, you will still do it for $5 million, or whatever number it is. There is a number above which you'll do it. And the point there is, I didn't tell you anything about the product. I didn't tell you anything about baby alligators that they're fun to play with, or no, they have two IT, they're great watchdogs, if you will. So I didn't tell you anything about the product. I only told you that if it could deliver value, you would do it. And really, with a lot of decisions we make, if I can perceive the value in it, it makes it a lot easier to make the decision. So if you lead with a value statement, this will help you be better. This will help you lose weight. This will help you to, this will be better transportation for you than walking because it's a car. This will increase the productivity of your sales routes because it's a CRM software. If you start with the benefit and then go back to how you're delivering the benefit, the entire conversation becomes so much easier. And of course, we focus on software, but it works across across everything that you're thinking about doing. Understand the benefit first, and you're likely to make it easier for someone to understand whether they should buy or not, and internalize what they're getting out of it. So the really the book, and it's a long way to say the book helps to structure how do I do that? How do I do that in a sales process? How do I do that in a conversation? How do I understand value in a way that I can talk about value in a very simple, uh easy to use and easy to deliver format.

Rebecca Rose Payne 18:54

That makes a lot of sense. And I think that probably applies to a lot of decisions that people make, not just business decisions, like what's in it for me.

Ian Campbell 19:06

Yeah, no, I I think it does. The what's in it for me is a valid statement. And you know, I think if we look at anything in any decision we make, it is sort of a what's in it for me, which is not being selfish. I think that's taking a look at it and saying, what's the value statement here? Why is this something that's important to me? So yeah, we can change what's in it to me to why is this important to me. But you know, either way, it's understanding, please articulate the one or two benefits that will help me understand why I should do this or make it easier for me to understand why I should do this. And if we lead with that, we should do this because we should do this because it's going to save the environment. Well, that's a great value statement. People relate to that. So what are we going to do that will do that? So the next part of this is how are we going to do it? So I think it's it doesn't really matter what you're doing. Leading with what's in it for the person to whom you're speaking makes it a lot easier for them to internalize why they should do it or what the value is for them participating, regardless of what it is.

Rebecca Rose Payne 20:07

Yeah, I think that kind of goes across the board. I mean, even in like a relationship with someone, you're like, okay, like what's the benefit? Or I don't know, getting someone to take their medications, all of it. It's your kind of fails.

Ian Campbell 20:21

Yeah, you mentioned medication. That's an interesting thing. I I have a friend who's a doctor, and one of the things she says is that she will write prescriptions for people, but then they won't take them. And so she gets very frustrated with folks that won't continue to take the prescriptions even though they need it. And I think starting with, hey, if you don't take this prescription, this is what could happen. So there's a benefit to you for doing this. Might be an easier way to start the conversation than here's a prescription you should take. The why part is so much more important than the why. And if you explain the why, it makes it easier to understand the what the what part of that.

Rebecca Rose Payne 20:56

Yeah, and I think that's something that a lot of people have, I mean, do struggle with, or like, you know, I think sometimes it's easy to kind of gloss over that part. You're just like, just trust me, just do this. Right. Um, and some people, a lot of times people are like, okay, but why? Why should I?

Ian Campbell 21:14

Right. Right. A little more behind it helps people also. We talk about this in sales. When somebody makes a decision to buy uh technology, they're really sticking their neck out to make that decision. So they need to feel comfortable that it's it's the right decision as opposed to just trust me. And then they need to be able to turn around and articulate to their buying manager or their CFO why they're doing something, just as you would want to do that in a personal decision. Here's why I took this action. Let me tell my spouse why I did that. So, you know, understanding the why becomes really important to helping people feel better about the decision they make and helping people justify it both to themselves and to other folks that may say, Why did you do this? And it's a little bit more than, well, everybody told me. And that's not a good idea. And then that gets back to. Technology. We bought this because it's the number one product. It's usually a really bad idea. And yet someone will say, well, it's the number one product. So that's sort of not even making decisions. It's sort of defaulting the decision to whatever list happens to be on the internet, which is not a good idea. It may work out for you, but odds are pretty good it's not going to. So understanding the why helps everybody feel better about the uh decision to make it.

Rebecca Rose Payne 22:24

Yeah, I agree. And so why do you think that the value sale became a bestseller when it did?

Ian Campbell 22:31

I think the value sale that continues to sell very well. I think the value sale when it first came out really spoke to the uh bottom line. So while there are a lot of, in in this case, really around uh technology, while there are a lot of technology decisions, a lot of technology changes, most companies have limited budgets. So most people face two decisions. One, why should I pick you over your competitors? And the other part of the decision is why should I do this over the other things I could do? We all really have two choices. Why one thing, and why that thing over all the other decisions I can make. So the value sale really took off as a way, I think, and the feedback that I get in the emails that I get from folks, it's really around making it easier for people to understand why me and then why my product over other decisions they can make. For the end users that we work with, it's been an interesting, it kind of interesting feedback from them. A lot of it is around not making decisions. So, you know, we had one company, for instance, one very large bank, that decided not to renew a particular contract. They said we're going to extend our current contract, not upgrade, we're going to wait two years because the incremental value, and that was a $84 million deal for this particular company, they decided to push it off for two more years because it just didn't make sense. The ROI wasn't there. So they were able to save a lot of money, really push that money off for a significant amount of time, not make an early decision because they felt that the ROI didn't deliver value. So for end users, we see a lot of folks taking a more cautious approach. Do I need to upgrade software? Do I need to make these decisions? Or am I sort of being forced to do it because everybody else is? So it's it's been interesting with the end users as they look at the book, use that as they build a business case and say, well, it doesn't have to be as complex as we've made it. It can be a lot easier than it is. And if we focus on the one or two things that really matter, we can make better decisions instead of focusing on everything. We can narrow it down to what really drives the decision and is does it deliver value for me. So yeah, really two groups of people that looking at looking at the book in different ways and how they build a business case.

Rebecca Rose Payne 24:38

That makes a lot of sense. For you personally, was there a point where you started to feel genuinely successful, either through the book, the business, or both?

Ian Campbell 24:50

Well, you know, I I'm not sure. I have friends who run businesses, and I think, you know, day in and day out, you're always sort of thinking about I don't think I've had the time to sit back and say whether it's successful or not. I think other people have said, look, you know, things are going well, you don't have to do anything. This is, you know, I had a great call with with one of my staff members today, and you know, it's just part of the part of the deal. I don't think I don't think I ever take that for granted. I know that you know every day I look at competition, every day I look at what's going on with our staff. Every day I'm spending a lot of time, I'm spending more of my time now coaching, which for me personally is has become more and more on what my job is, and I get more reward out of watching my staff as they grow and and do better. I have you know one employee that started working for me out of school, and he was just uh just an analyst. And now you see him on stage with some of the most senior people in technology holding his own, and I just I couldn't be happier watching that. I have another at junior analyst that's she's absolutely fantastic, and I watch her as she grows and she's getting ready to do her first uh her first speaking on stage. And you know, I know that she's gonna do a spectacular job. So, you know, the little bit of coaching, the little bit of encouragement that keep them growing is is what I do. So I'm not sure how you define success anymore. It's is it money? Probably could be, you know, a lot of people define it that way. I think you know there comes a point where that's not the issue. I think you look at how's the staff, how's the company, how healthy is everybody? Are we doing the things that that feel good? We have a uh five tenants of our company, and ethics is a big part of it. Are does everybody know the right thing to do? Is everybody working the right way? Are our clients happy with us? Those are questions I ask everyone. We do a Monday morning company meeting every Monday. Do we have any problems? Is there anything wrong? Are there any problems I need to look at or I can help with? And you know, usually it's a no, but I'm always paranoid about that. So I think success and you know, when you start a company, it's about making money. But as you grow the company, it's about growing the staff and about looking at all the pieces and being able to step back and say, well, wow, that's all working well. Uh and then you turn around and say, okay, what's wrong? Because I like to say when everything's fine, it just means the bullet is still in flight and I haven't caught it yet. It doesn't mean that everything's fine. It just means I haven't heard the sound, but it's there. I know it's there. So it's that healthy paranoia that keeps things going.

Rebecca Rose Payne 27:16

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And it also makes sense that kind of as you as your career continues on, your definition of success kind of starts to change.

Ian Campbell 27:26

It does because you know, you get the rewards. I've done plenty of speaking and I wrote I wrote the book, you're a bestseller. That's been fantastic. So I have my own rewards, but I I tell a story of one of my analysts who she's spectacular now, but she started with me uh as a uh admin. She was a temp. So she came in and worked as our temp admin. And I looked at her after a couple months and realized that she had been sort of doing work on the side. She was extremely bright. And I called her to my office one day and I had a few of the other analysts there, and I called her in my office, I said, Look, I'm sorry, you're fired. And it's about me. I can't have you working for me anymore. That's it, you're done. But there happens to be an analyst job available. Do you want that? And it pays three times, which we're making, four times what it was at the time. And so she came out as an analyst, and I'd say she's probably one of the top analysts in her market right now. And you know, absolutely fantastic to watch her trajectory and how she's done. And she's just stunning. Absolutely fantastic analyst, super bright, uh, super nice person, and just genuinely a great person as an analyst and to watch her grow has been really rewarding. So you start thinking one thing, it's about the money, but it really isn't. Once you reach a certain point, that the marginal increase in happiness from that is just not there. You know, there's no there's no big change in your life. The increase in happiness is then working with how do I take and cultivate a group of people to make them? What do I have to do differently? How do I have to how can I motivate them? How can I educate them? How can I guide them? You know, I'd almost say it's a more fun task because you can make big decisions as a CEO, but in guiding people, it's usually tiny movements, very tiny things, because you can't really tell somebody to do something completely different. You have to guide them a little bit at a time, and that's a puzzle that you're constantly working on. So it's a lot more fun, I think.

Rebecca Rose Payne 29:14

Yeah, I mean, sounds a lot like being a psychologist.

Ian Campbell 29:18

It it probably is without being able to turn it off at the end of the hour. I think I don't know. Uh but yeah, I think, you know, I feel like most of my days are spent. Well, all of my days really are spent. Unless I'm doing accounting or the stuff I absolutely hate to do, it's it's I'm guiding folks and seeing how they're doing. You know, I'd like to say it's a family at our size company, which is is fewer than it's about 25 people or so. It still can be family esque. Uh, so we get to have that. But yeah, it's it's it's a great thing to uh to watch each employee just get get better and better at what they did.

Rebecca Rose Payne 29:50

Well, that's wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on and um talking with us today.

Ian Campbell 29:56

Rebecca, thank you very much for including me. I really appreciate it.