The Future Of Sales Is More Human ft. Tom Dingwall

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: companies will split into those that overshoot on AI and lose the human side, those that ignore it and fall behind, and the ones that get the balance right and compound hard. He closes with two pieces of advice: if you don't genuinely enjoy talking to people all day, GTM isn't for you — and if you do, go deep on AI tools, because the people who combine both will be world-class.Enjoy 🙂(0:00) Introduction to The GTM Engineer Podcast (0:21) Tom's Role as AI Growth Manager at Passionfruit: SDR, AE, and Everything Between (1:29) Creative Campaigns and Cold Calling Optimization at Passionfruit (3:59) How Tom Uses AI to Build Lists — and When He Steps Away From It (5:18) Why Teams Enabling SDRs With AI Beat Teams Replacing Them (7:31) Tom's Journey: PPE, Recruitment, and Landing at Passionfruit (9:49) Predictions: The Three Types of Sales Teams That Will Emerge in the AI Era (13:35) Advice for Aspiring GTM Engineers: Grit, People Skills, and AI Literacy🔗 CONNECT WITH TOM 👥 LinkedIn  💻 Website 🔗 CONNECT WITH SAURAV🎥 YouTube Channel🐦 X (Twitter)📸 Instagram💻 Website👥 LinkedIn📧 Email - [email protected]🙏 LEAVE A REVIEW If you enjoyed listening to The GTM Engineer Podcast, we'd love for you to leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts to help others discover the show :)👋🏼 GET IN TOUCH You can also reach out with any feedback, ideas or thoughts about the lessons you've learned from the episodes.