Welcome to the The VICI Code, where we unlock real stories of small business owners who've battled chaos, crushed doubt, and conquered their challenges. Faith, family, and finances. No fluff, just raw, honest conversations that decode the path to victory, one story at a time. Thank you for joining us today as we explore tech, trust and transformation. Today's guest is going to walk us through leading with integrity, the intersection of high tech strategy and personal purpose. But first, as you all know, before we jump in, I just want to remind our listeners how excited I am to be part of the new AG1 Ambassador Program. I've been drinking AG1 for several years. Every morning I wake up and start my day with a scoop of AG1 mixed with water and fresh squeezed lemon. Just one scoop is packed with 75 high quality nutrients and combines multivitamin, probiotic, and blend of superfoods. AG1 has been clinically shown to improve gut health and close common nutrient gaps. As a longtime customer, they have offered me a special deal for you. If you're interested in trying AG1 yourself, you can use my ambassador offer found in the show notes. With the first order, you receive one free supply of D3K2 drops, 10 free AG1 next-gen travel packs, and a free 30-day supply of Omega-3 pills. This is $130 value, free for using my ambassador code. But this is why we're really here. Today's guest is a believer. husband, father, and entrepreneur. He's working to be the best version of himself and helping others do the same. After four successful years as a math teacher in the Baltimore County Public Schools, Dean Curtis started his tech career as a sales and engineer at Oracle. After Oracle, he spent some time as a sales engineer at IntelliSync and Palm. Then in 2018, Dean joined Apple as part of the first team supporting the iPhone in business. He was instrumental in helping architect and execute the strategy to drive the adoption of iPhone and iPad across the Fortune 500. He has served in leadership roles throughout his career and has a passion for the intersection of technology and business. A road that landed him at Ingage, I-N-G-A-G-E, in February 2017 as the Chief Revenue Officer. He then moved into the COO role shortly after and was named CEO in October 2019. engage his mission, empowering teams to create, share, and measure best-in-class content, ultimately helping people sell more and present better. Dean leads his team to help companies create professional, dynamic, interactive sales content. Now, Dean and I connected through a good mutual friend, Sebastian Russ. And as you may recall, Sebastian is the founder of Podcast Launch Lab. and actually helped get Vichy Code off the ground. Dean is also part of Dan Martell's elite mastermind group. His journey from the Ohio State to CEO of Ingage, with many stops in between, present a long career of purpose-driven breakthroughs. Dean, Wow. Joe, thanks so much for the warm welcome. I Yeah, you bet. And I just want to tell everybody this, Dean and I had no idea. We just realized we're from the same hometown. None of this came up in any of my show notes, but he's from Liverpool. I'm from Jamesville, DeWitt. Let's Upstate till the end. You know, we have to educate the audience that upstate New York is not Westchester County. It's actually central New York. You know, guys like me, I don't know about you, Dean, but I like to say I'm from the real New York. There's a lot more to New York than the concrete jungle. So really good to have a fellow central New Yorker on. What a great surprise. I want to start with, you know, beginning. Where are the beginnings? You know, your career and the corporate breakthrough. You started as a math teacher before pivoting to a highly successful career at Oracle, Palm, and Apple. What was the core breakthrough lesson you took from the classroom that you applied to leading strategy for the iPhone's adoption across the Fortune 500? Did the teacher in you help break through the fear of new That's a great question. When, back in the day of teaching, I loved, first off, I loved my time in the classroom. It was so formative for me in terms of building discipline, building rapport, building networks, like all of the things that help you in business actually helped me in the classroom too. I mean, one of my mentors actually said, if you can stand up in front of 12 year olds and teach them math, then you can probably teach anything to anybody. I think that carried forward. My good friend Jason, he reminds me of my beginnings as a teacher whenever we get together, because if you look at all the different things that I did, I was actually a teacher. As a sales engineer through technology, my job in the sales process was to teach the people who needed to know about the technology, the ins and outs of the technical natures of what they were buying. At Oracle, it was Oracle databases. At Palm, it was integrating that Palm device into your enterprise systems. At Apple, it was very much the same thing. We were there to help them secure, deploy, and manage all of the technology on their networks. I could go way back to the beginning of when in 2008, when we were first taking iPhone to market, we had to literally go into every chief information security officer in the Fortune 500 and communicate the value proposition, but not the value proposition of like marketing value proposition, the security value proposition. Very detailed, very technical conversations. That was teaching. I was teaching them 100% of the time the value of bringing these in to make employees happy, but also how it could protect the information in a secure way, protect the information on their networks so that it was a trusted device like things at the time, everybody remembers the BlackBerry, we had to compete against that, the incumbent. I look at teaching as the thing that I did to start, but it's the thing I've always done. Matter of fact, I taught a class this morning to a bunch of business leaders just today in Some say leaders, others say educator, one in the same, if you're asking me. I've been dying to ask this question and it's about, what was the most significant challenge you personally had to overcome when making that career pivot from public service to high stakes tech world? It's interesting, because I always thought I had the skills to go into corporate America, but I never had any basis or understanding for it. My whole family was public service, nursing, some banking, but more on the customer service side of banking, so I never had a business background. I remember in college, I was a bartender. One of my coworkers, this woman who worked the front door, I was a lunchtime bartender, didn't have much to do. We would get in these conversations. She's like, you should be in business. You have the personality for business. I'm like, I didn't have any context for business. I didn't know what I was actually getting into. When I look at that transition, what I carried forward was everything of just who I was. I just put it in a different context, in a different, a Speaking of going to market, you were instrumental in defining the strategy for the adoption of the iPhone and iPad in business. What was a moment of failure, if there was one, or a major roadblock that you had to strategically overcome to achieve that massive market You know, it really helps being at a company like Apple. When you call somebody and say, hey, would you like a meeting? Everyone takes your meeting. If anyone out there who has a business who's always struggling to get that next meeting or get that next lead, that wasn't a problem for us. The problem was overcoming the incumbent technology. So when you look at the challenge, the challenge was convincing people that the thing that they were doing, which was working really, really well for them, could be improved or could be done a different way. we would go into IT departments and literally, the guy would have the BlackBerry shirt and the BlackBerry pen and the BlackBerry notebook and the BlackBerry golf bag. These guys were diehard, so we had to convince them that something new would be okay, and that they could trust it. That was the biggest hurdle. The stakeholders wanted it. All of the VPs and the executives were like, hey, this is a great toy for a lot of them. I'll give you a specific example of one that we went into. It was a pharmaceutical company. If you can think of pharmaceuticals, massive requirements for data security. You know, when you go into a deli and it has the scrolling specials and it's like, you know, on tap today, chicken noodle soup or whatever, right? He had one behind his desk that says, no, you cannot have an iPhone. And that's all it said. And just scrolled and scrolled and scrolled, empanitum. It took us three years, but going in time after time, after time, after time, I won't say his name, but I can still remember the man's name. It said, yes, you can finally have an iPhone, visit website, website, and then to order yours now. I think that the meta point though, is when you're going up against an incumbent, sometimes you have to think outside the box in order to combat the preconceived notions that you're going up against. Because people come with biases that sometimes are going to be very hard to overcome. building good relationships, building good networks, I'm still connected with that guy, even though there's many jobs many years later because of the relationships we built. That, to me, is the most important thing, is that relationship really matters in getting the technology finally Yeah, persistence, yeah. And just, you know, you gotta know who you're talking to. And you know, the more you try, the more you understand, it's really great advice. I do wanna shift gears here a little bit to your current role. You joined Ingage as a CRO and then shortly after a COO and became the CEO in 2019. In a recent interview, you mentioned that the best leaders understand that work and life will collide. Can you share a candid account of a leadership challenge you faced, perhaps during the transition to CEO or the shifts over the last few years, that forced you to rely on empathy and transparency? How did that challenge ultimately lead you to a breakthrough in how you manage your team and When, man, that's a heavy question. There's, there's so much that goes into it. I mean, our, my transition from when I, the, the company I joined nine years ago here versus the company now completely different. We were brought in me and another, another guy. that was also from Apple, believe it or not, we were brought in to do a total pivot and turn it from a digital agency into a software company. With that came a lot of really hard decisions. Over a longer arc of time, we went from close to 100 employees down to 17. If you think about that reduction, it's a total remake, it's a recomposition of who you are and what you do. Part of it, we sold off to another entity. Part of it, we decided it was not going to be part of our core business. The other was the time had come for people to go. I had to actually let the founder go, the person who founded the company. The problem was, and I'll always admit this, I was not the most empathetic person back then. I think over the last nine years, my development of empathy, maybe it's the three daughters and son that I have that helped me develop that. It's the loving, caring wife that I have who helped me develop that. It's all those situations in business where I had to come at them with a totally different approach. Now you have to be your authentic self always. But I realized there were hard edges that needed to be softened. There were perspectives that I had to have. There were questions to be asked, not statements to be made. And I think that's the biggest change from nine years ago, Dean Curtis, to today, is nine years ago, I would have just come in guns blazing and said, this is what it has to be, with very little empathy for who's there. Today, I feel like I do a much better job. Am I a perfectly refined human being? Of course not. But I think there's been a nice journey where the tactic is questioning rather than statements. And I think that's the biggest change for me during that whole time to develop that empathy, that understanding so that we can move actually faster through Yeah, I mean, it's an important part of being a leader is empathy, understanding, discerning the situation and the people that you're working with. And sometimes you don't have to say the hard things, those conclusions kind of rise by themselves if What's easier, telling someone something or asking them questions and they tell themselves that and arrive at Exactly. Well put is exactly what I mean. Yep. How do you leverage the purpose of engage, empowering people to present their story, to build a strong, engaged team Wow. One of the things I love about what we do, we do help companies tell their story in a much more compelling way. It's just the core to what our platform brings. We get compared to other presentation tools in the market, but I very quickly say that we're the premium brand because we can help them tell a more compelling story through the technology we have. not here to sell you the technology, but it's the idea of really embracing the idea of storytelling in business. I think if you think about it, when you're selling something, no matter what it is. If I just come at you with the speeds and feeds of what I have, the feature dump of what I have, no one's gonna care. But if I take time to truly understand the problems of your business, and I can weave a story around what those features are of what we do to help you see us as the solution to those problems, that's sales. And that's what we try and help people do through great sales content. We think that's a great way to educate and edify the customer. That's core to what we do as a business. And I think that's really important and what sets us apart in the market Yeah, I mean, your team's in the business of helping those who have great ideas get to market, say, hey, here I am, here how we can help you and other business. Not everyone can sell, they have great ideas, but that idea will die without the proper delivery To go back to your question about culture, how does that drive our culture internally? We all have to be focused on the problem of the customer. Our key values are customer first, problem solver. Those are the two things that we want our team members to be. We want them to be problem solvers and only from the customer's perspective. For years, when I first got here, we were focused on our own stuff like, oh, isn't this really cool what we're building? Well, guess what? It doesn't matter what you build as a product or as a service if it doesn't solve the customer's problem. We try our best in our culture to drive that problem solver, customer first, and to always be bringing value. Not that I have good morals and values. That is a table stakes. You don't have good morals and values, I don't know who wants to hire you. The idea is that we're always looking at the value that we bring to the customer. In any software business, we're in a software business, we expect we're going to lose a certain percentage of our business every single year. Totally understand that. Businesses change, they go out of business, they get acquired. There's lots of reasons why someone would leave. What I don't want them to leave is because we didn't provide enough value. Because to me, that is the key to any business. The more value I provide, the higher premium I can charge, Completely agree. And speaking of value, I want to get into more of who Dean Curtis is. Purpose, values, legacy. We talk about the four pillars. Faith, family, fitness, and finance. all areas that you're very familiar with. In the relentless world of tech CEO, how do you intentionally incorporate your personal faith and family values into your daily leadership decisions? Has there ever been a time when your business purpose was in conflict So there's lots of times when I was traveling in my previous roles. So I had an international responsibility. I would be gone for a couple of weeks at a time. I would set personal guardrails to prevent myself from being in positions that would put me in a compromised state. I learned this from one of my VPs at Apple. And I could go through all of them here. I don't think that really matters. But the idea is, if you say this is important to you, What are the guardrails that you're going to put in place to prevent it from even happening, to prevent it from even being a thing? I'll give you one example. I would only eat alone at a public place at a table. Which is weird, it's like, why wouldn't you just sit at the bar and eat with other people? Because that's a danger zone. Even though I don't drink, I'm not going to put myself in that compromising position. I would eat at a table and read a book, or I'd read a magazine, or I'd read something. And that was just my personal way of avoiding the opportunity for something to happen. If I'm going to be the husband and the dad that I want to be, and I want to be the man that I want to show my kids they want to hang out with, whether it's my daughters and their spouse or my son, the man he wants to be, I need to live by these codes. I can't just say them. I need to live them and exhibit them at all times. You always hear this statement, your kids might not hear what you say, but they definitely catch what you do, right? They will learn more from what they see you doing than they do from the words that you say. And I always wanted to be that example for my kids. Am I perfect? Please, not even close. But at the same time, you wanna try and live by the example that you're trying to say to the people in your sphere. whether that's my team members here at Ingage, whether that's people at church, whether it's my kids, whether it's my friends, the kids that I coach, all of Yeah, I had a guy in my church group recently tell me, and we had a men's retreat, it was great. And he had said to me, because his kids are a little bit older now, and I've got a couple of teenagers, I got a couple of younger kids, Life's crazy and fast. And he just gave me something that was so powerful. He says, they may not always remember what you say or what you do, but they remember how you made them feel. And your actions, like you said, Dean, that creates feelings and emotions and memories and how you lead by example. Yeah, yeah, they will see that. They will remember how they felt in that moment when they saw that. And when you trip up, you know, as long as it's not something too crazy or insidious, you know, it's like you got to own it, right? You are, you are human and you got to let them know you're human because they need to know that messing up is also okay on their end too. So, you know, great advice. I want my kids to mess up. If the first time they mess up is outside of my house, that's a problem. I have kids from 23 to 15. When you look at their journey, we intentionally not put them in harm's way, but we want them to make those mistakes so that they can learn from them. As I see my older children now thriving in their post-college world, it's amazing to see that those failures have been the lessons that they learned in order to live a life worthy fail early and fail often, right? The entrepreneurship motto, you learn. That's where you learn is by making mistakes and just, you know, fail forward, right? Fail forward and pick yourself up and have that mindset that, you know, well, what did I learn from this? And that's something that I learned a lot also with my faith is, you know, trying to discern what is it that I'm supposed to be learning from this? And it's helped me deal with the ebbs and flows of life. And when things aren't going right, Why, right? Talking to God and really saying why has really helped me and it's something that I pass along on to my kids as well. And I can tell that's the conversations that you've had with yours. Let's get into physical activity though here a little bit. How does your dedication to fitness translate into So one of my daily non-negotiables is to sweat every day. And I believe that that not only helps me physically, it also helps me in preparing for how I'm gonna feed myself, right? I look at food as fuel, like how can I make sure if I'm doing something physically to stay in shape, that's fine, but I need to pair that with great nutrition in order to keep the engine running, the mind clear. And if I'm doing those, I'm showing up way better for my team at work. And I know there's facts to the data of when I did not have that much discipline and focus on nutrition as well as exercise, I did not show up as well clear-headed for the team. So to me, those two are 100% linked No doubt about it. Like I've been on both ends where I've slept even like as recent as this summer, you know, just, Towards the end of the summer, you just got a lot of end of summer things going on and my fitness and health, not health, I mean, I just slipped a little bit. I could feel the difference. The energy wasn't there. The motivation was slipping a little bit. And since the tax deadlines have ended, I've gotten back into it. And I was just texting my nutrition coach this morning. I'm like, I'm back. you know, two, three solid weeks of being back with CrossFit and eating right. You know, I'm back on track to hitting my goal as far as, you know, my body fat percentage. And, you know, we owe it. As leaders, we owe it to our team to bring our A game every day. And a critical part of that operating system is eating right and working out. So I love that one of your non-negotiables is, you know, sweating every day because on the other end of that struggle is, you know, really something, you know, miraculous, you know, it just hardens I think there's also my goal or my measure of success cannot be the same as yours. So if someone's listening and they're like, well, I could never sweat every day or I could never eat great all the time. That's fine. The question is, what is the measure of success for you? And that may change over the seasons. You mentioned tax season, right? Well, maybe during tax season, achieving your daily non-negotiable of sweating every day is a 15-minute walk with 50 push-ups because that's what that season allows. And then there's other seasons where it could be an hour and a half workout, and you're absolutely crushing it and your shirts are drenched. Like whatever your measure of success is, give yourself the grace to know that different parts of the year, different part seasons of your life are gonna allow you to do different things. So it's not my standard, cannot be your standard for fitness. It can't be. You could look at me and ask me questions that I could help you, but you have to understand where it fits in all the things you do and make the standard the standard and give yourself grace to Yeah, seasons is a really good point that, you know, things come and go. You know, also remember that, you know, We all have different ambitions too. And if you're ambitious, sometimes doing the thing that most people won't do, that's a path to success. For me, I do the 75 hard for the first time. I've tried it a few times and I was like, you know what, I'm gonna do it in a time where it's the hardest to do it, tax season, January 1st, 2025, it was the first time that I started 75 hard and actually completed it. And sometimes when your back's against the wall, when you have the least amount of time is when you really kind of show up. So I'm kind of a believer that we're more, we're more capable of what we really think we are. And when you put your back against the wall, pretty amazing things happen. So, but we're, we all, it's all about, you know, where you, where you see your life, where you fit in. And for me, it was like, you know, no coffee at the beginning of the year, the couple other non-negotiables. And I fought through for the 75 hard all the way to the point where it was more like 85 hard. Cause I was like, there's no way I'm going to stop between, you know, 75 days. And I'm like a couple of weeks away from the April 15th deadline. I Well, at the end of the day, any goal has nothing to do with the goal. It has to do with the person you're becoming as a result of doing the thing that got you to the goal. So 75 hard, 85 hard, okay. Well, who's Joe at the end of 85 days and are you the person you want to become? I always tell the story. I ran a marathon back in like 99, 2000, something like that. I didn't all of a sudden become a marathon runner. I actually didn't really want to run another marathon again. I checked the box, but I didn't actually realize during the time that the goal wasn't helping me move towards the person I wanted to be. The person I wanted to be was a fit, dad that could make sure I get to the point where I'm totally able to be active when I have grandkids. That's why I want to stay fit. It has nothing to do with how much I weigh or my body fat. None of that matters. I want to be a great husband, a great dad, and fitness, to me, is going to allow me to be a great grandpa, too. That's hopefully a long way away, but to me, that's what drives me to continuously Yeah, and I think what you hit on is something really important, and it's something that it took me almost 40 years to find out. I was like, you've got your purpose, but what's your identity? What is your identity? you realized it wasn't to be a marathoner, it was like just to be a great dad, to be in good health so that you could be that dad. So your identity is father, husband, son of God, right? And when you know that identity, things A lot more simplified what's really important. Totally, it gives you a framework on which to make all your decisions. So not Well, let's talk future focus. Ingage helps sales teams connect and present better. You've also spoken about the evolving role of AI. How do you see the future of technology, specifically AI, integrating with sales enablement in a way that supports the human connection I think the adoptable, if you're not adopting AI, you're behind already. Some people might not like to hear that, and some people may say that I'm crazy for saying that, but I don't think that's a false statement. I think if you are like any technology, there are people who are going to be at the forefront, they're going to be people who are lagging behind. but AI is changing so fast, and it is impacting business so fast that to not understand and put our head in the sand is probably a bad decision to make. I think what AI will do for what we do is allow hyper-personalization at scale. The most impactful way to sell somebody is through personalization. Imagine I were to try and sell you anything, But I could know enough about you from research or know enough about you from data that I have in my CRM or wherever I know about you. And I can tailor the sales process to understand demographic, firmographic, any kind of information. So I could tailor that sales process to you. If I'm the person who walks in and does that, and you're evaluating me against two other people, and I can make you feel yourself in the materials that I'm using, in the process that I'm going through, that I can educate you faster than that other person using AI to shortcut that, you're going to win. That's what you want to do when you're in sales. You want to be a winner. I think AI will play a huge role in that. I'd love to connect with anybody who has ideas about that because we are at the forefront of doing a lot of that within our tech stack. To me, that's where AI is going to have the biggest difference, hyper-personalization throughout So true, hyper-personalization in all areas of business, even in accounting. We use AI, we're focused on AI. We just hit our one-year mark, so investing in AI is not at the very forefront, but it's in our purview. We know it's there and we're not ignoring it, so great advice. Let's talk about legacy. What's the legacy you ultimately want to leave as So the legacy that I want to leave is when people think of me, I want them to think of someone who cared deeply about the things that he did. And the care that I bring to the work is reflected in the people that I can build that will take the business forward or take forward things that they experienced here while working under our leadership into whatever they do next. Whenever I bring someone on, I'm very honest with them. I said, this will not be your last job. Very likely, I'm not gonna be your last boss. This isn't gonna be the last company you work at. But what I want to do is make sure people understand how much I cared about the work, because the work really matters to me, how much I cared about them, and how much I cared about their growth, so that when they go somewhere else, they say, well, when we were at Ingage, well, this is what we did. And not because it's some ego thing to say, oh, we want to be the greatest. But I think that if we're building the people and they take those things forward, it just makes everybody else's business that much better or their family or their social circle, or it doesn't have to just be business. I think a lot of what you can learn from the culture of a company can be applied no matter where Yeah, I mean, Dean, you sound like somebody I would want to work for. And that wasn't always the case when I went from job to job. You know, it brings us to like our closing remarks and some of our key takeaways, you know, the necessity of leading with empathy, right? Leadership is an art. And quite honestly, it's once you figure it out, it's just sensical, like care. care a whole lot, like take a page out of the Lorax, nothing will ever change. I'm sorry, I got to do it. It came to me. Nothing will ever change unless someone cares a whole lot. And that's what leadership's all about, is really caring about. Because in my, you ask anybody around here, they say, what's Joe's leadership style? Well, he works for us. And that's how I say, I work for you. What's going on in your life? What's going on in the personal business side? How can I help you win? And that's what we do around here. So you have to have a strong sense of empathy in knowing who your people are, knowing who you are, and making sure you're setting them up to win. Um, also, uh, the challenge of building culture of trust, you know, that all starts the, the cornerstone of that is having good leadership. It starts at the top, the tone starts at the top. So, you know, if you're building your business, you know, obviously we've taught, we heard Dean's story of that when he came in the, the within engage. It wasn't the same company that it is today. They had to start kind of from square one and rebuild things. And it sounds like there's a really strong culture of trust. I think there were some really good things that our audience can take away from your stories. And then the importance of allowing work and life to collide in a healthy, integrated way. Don't be scared. We've heard this on previous podcasts. Be your true, authentic self. And sometimes it takes us a while to figure out who that is. For me, my faith, my journey in faith, helped me to realize who my real identity was. Son of God. warrior, father, husband, leader. So everything that I do on a daily basis, if it doesn't contribute, if it doesn't relate to that, then I'm off course, I'm not going in the right direction. So don't be afraid to involve your life and who you are into your work culture because it's just a lot easier. It's just more authentic and genuine. Dean, thank you so much for coming on. I want to make sure that our listeners know how to get a hold of you. or follow you, you are on LinkedIn. If you go onto LinkedIn, Dean Curtis, DeanC23, if you're trying to do a quick search on LinkedIn, but you can also follow him on his personal Instagram page. He's got great content for leadership, at DeanCurtis23. Also, if you're a business looking to take your sales game up to the next level, using media and technology, you can visit the Ingage, I-N-G-A-G-E dot I-O to learn more about how they can help you sell better and sell more. Dean, any final words? DEAN KOWALSKI No. You know, Joe, it's been great to get to know you through the podcast. If anybody does connect with me, just type, like, shoot me a DM that says Vici, and I'll know that it came from the conversation here. I'm here to help. I'm here to serve. I want to make sure that if people could find value in what I can do for their company, whether our software helps, if I can answer questions, I just want to be of service There you have it, Dean Curtis. Thank you so much for joining. And thank you to our listeners. Join us next time as we continue to explore the journeys of our purpose-driven leaders. Thank you so much. Thanks for tuning in to the Vici Code, where the underdogs rise and the numbers finally make sense. If today's story hit home, share it. And remember, faith fuels a fight, and