About this episode

In this episode, Saurav Gupta interviews Tom Dingwall about the importance of human connection in sales and the role of AI in enhancing that connection.

In today's episode, I chat with Tom Dingwall, AI Growth Manager at Passionfruit, about why the future of GTM engineering is human connection enabled by AI — not AI replacing humans. Passionfruit is a freelance marketplace helping companies flexibly resource their teams, with an AI tool (PIP AI) built on top to help marketers free up time from repetitive work and focus on real relationships. Tom's role sits somewhere between SDR and AE — he runs outbound, takes calls, and works deals through to close — and he walks through what that looks like day to day, including how Passionfruit's cold calling unit of four optimizes not just on list quality but on what they're saying in the first few seconds and when they're calling. He makes a strong case for AI as a calendar-clearing tool rather than a headcount-cutting one: use it to find the right companies, research why they're a fit, and then show up to the call with nothing to do but actually connect. We also get into his path — PPE at uni, six months in recruitment, then a co-founder at Passionfruit reached out — and why he ended up in sales specifically because of how human the job is. His predictions for the next few years are clear…

People in this episode

Host: Saurav Gupta

Guest: Tom Dingwall

Topics covered

• human connection
• AI in sales
• GTM engineering
• freelance marketplace
• cold calling
• sales strategies

Keywords

• sales
• AI
• human connection
• GTM
• cold calling
• freelance marketplace
• marketing

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Passionfruit

Products: PIP AI

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