We’ve heard the phrase, “Be careful what you wish for…” It’s not unlike wanting to build pipeline quickly and how it relates to a kid in an ice cream store. What is the goal? Build as much – eat as much as possible to gain as much success and pleasure as possible. Think of the system of building pipeline like a child who isn’t sufficiently mature enough to handle all that ice cream. Belly aches will ensue. So the issue with too much too fast is you can’t find the bottleneck anymore. And if you can’t find the bottleneck anymore, you can’t manage.

In this episode, Corey asked Chris to visit the theory of constraints. Businesses are artificial, in the sense, that we say we’re going to do something for others, and they’re going to pay us money for it.  And then the question is, what are the inputs to the business? And whenever you have a system with inputs and outputs, you always have exactly one constraint within that system. That’s what the theory of constraints says. 

The reason that people like Mark Cuban, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musks, and the like are such outstanding business leaders is they put their eye on the bottleneck regardless of the noise that’s produced by the change that they are willing to induce in order to improve. Most of us can’t do that. Listen to this episode of Market Dominance Guys, “The Theory of Constraints and Ice Cream.”

 

Full episode transcript below:

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Announcer (00:06):

Welcome to another session with the Market Dominance Guys, a program exploring all the high stakes, speed bumps and off-ramps of driving to the top of your market. With our host Chris Beall from ConnectAndSell and Corey Frank from Branch 49. We’ve all heard the phrase, be careful what you wish for. It’s not unlike wanting to build pipeline quickly and how it relates to a kid in an ice cream store. What is the goal? Build as much, eat as much as possible to gain as much success and pleasure as possible. Think of the system of building pipeline like a child that isn’t sufficiently mature to handle all that ice cream, belly aches will ensue. So the issue of having too much too fast is you actually can’t find the bottleneck anymore. And if you can’t find the bottleneck anymore, you can’t manage.

(00:55):

In this episode, Corey asked Chris to visit the theory of constraints. Businesses are artificial in a sense that we say we’re going to do something for others and they’re going to pay us for it. Then the question is, what are the inputs to the business? And whenever you have a system with inputs and outputs, you always have exactly one constraint within that system. That’s what the theory of constraint says. The reason that people like Mark Cuban, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and the like are all such outstanding business leaders is they put their eye on the bottleneck, regardless of the noise that’s produced by the change that they are willing to induce in order to improve. Most of us can’t do that. Listen to this episode of Market Dominance Guys, the theory of constraints and ice cream.

Corey Frank (01:48):

And here we are once again. Welcome to the latest episode of the Market Dominance Guys with Corey Frank and as always, in the throne of wisdom, the sage of sales, the prophet of profit, the hawking of hawking, Chris Beall. Chris, Merry Christmas. Happy New Year to you.

Chris Beall (02:04):

Hey, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year to you. That hawking of hawking thing always gets me. You know my background’s in physics and-

Corey Frank (02:11):

Absolutely, yeah.

Chris Beall (02:12):

And Stephen Hawking’s one of them guys that I just think is marvelous. Sad he’s no longer with us.

Corey Frank (02:16):

Yes. Yeah, I will think of… It’s a new year. I should probably think of a fourth honorary title here, so give me some time, but I’m still in my post-holiday eggnog funk, but the Market Dominance Guys rules on. Here we are in another year, 2023. Was this year number four of the Market Dominance Guys, is that correct?

Chris Beall (02:34):

Eventually, we’ll just write the book and be done with this, but in the meantime, people have to put up with us.

Corey Frank (02:38):

That’s correct. And so Chris, I know it’s a new year for your company, for our company as well, and couldn’t resist having a quick episode with no guest, old school, just me trying to suck the marrow out of your brain here and try to selfishly use that wisdom for my own business, which is the intent. Not a book. Not a book. It was all for my own personal gain, you know that.

Chris Beall (02:59):

Oh yes, I forgot.

Corey Frank (03:01):

As I tell everybody, I haven’t had original thoughts since 1997, so this proves it. So but Chris, I thought what we talk about today is something we were talking about off air was the theory of constraints and how we teed this up was this concept of when you look at pipeline maturity and a lot of organizations are going into the new year, they’re planning their sales kickoff probably in the next few weeks or so, and we’ve all been there as a sales rep, as an executive, as a CEO, CRO. We’re going to saddle our folks very quickly with a number and that number is going to be 2 3, 4, 5 X what my quota is, right? And that’s the number for pipeline.

(03:43):

Hey Corey, if you want to hit your number, which is a number generally it’s picked like that, I need you to do three extra pipeline and you should be fine if you do that, or four extra pipeline, et cetera. And so we go through these machinations of as sales leaders, as marketing leaders of building pipeline for our folks. But it led to kind of a re-imagining of what we’ve talked about several times here, which is a theory of constraints. So I thought we would jump in and talk about that. You had a nice analogy with ice cream too, and little kids, you just had a new granddaughter, I think.

Chris Beall (04:15):

Yeah, granddaughter.

Corey Frank (04:18):

Your granddaughter. So very soon she’s going to be grabbing you by the hand and walking down to the Port Townsend ice cream authority there and she’s going to want some. And I think that plays very nicely in what we’re going to talk about with New Year with constraints in sales pipeline.

Chris Beall (04:33):

Fantastic. So theory of constraints to me, and I’ve brought this up many times before, is this, it’s a very simple, in a way, very simple mathematical view of life, which is that life consists of systems that are trying to get things done. Businesses are one class of those systems in which we come together in some way, or you could do a business by yourself, but they’re attached to the outside world in a funny way. So as organisms we’re attached to the outside world by having these inputs. We have food, we have water, we have the chemicals we generate when we exercise, which by the way I recommend everybody think that way when you exercise or taking good drugs and love all sorts of things like that. Those are our inputs. And our outputs tend to actually go back sort of in some similar directions, our relationships, people that we help. Outputs might be that we live for another day, whatever it happens to be. We do the things that we want to do.

(05:28):

In businesses we’re a little more constrained. Businesses are artificial in a sense that we say we’re going to do something for others and they’re going to pay us money for it. So we put that sort of paradigm on it and say, okay, we’ll limit ourselves to stuff like that. And then the question is, well, what are the inputs to the business? And whenever you have a system with inputs and outputs, you always have exactly one constraint within that system. That’s what theory of constraints says. And the theory of constraints can’t be wrong actually, although every time I say this to anybody, the 99% response is, oh no, no, we have lots of constraints. I’ll repeat this, I said it in an earlier episode, when you say there’s lots of constraints, you’re either a leader who’s trying to mollify your people by saying that they’re all important.

(06:14):

You were to say, “Oh, only Corey is managing the constraint within our system.” Then everybody else would feel bad because well are they important? And there is an actual challenge thing there, which is the number two part, which is, oh by the way, once we identify the constraint in our system, of which there’s only one right now, it’s the point where inventory builds up before it and you’re starved downstream from it. That’s it. And once we identify it, that’s where our investment has to go. Otherwise, we’ll invest in stuff that doesn’t make a difference because all investments in non-constraints will not increase the throughput of the entire system if you hold quality constant or the quality if you hold throughput constant or some favorable combination of those two things. And so people don’t like the theory of constraints.

Corey Frank (07:07):

It’s a hard truth. It’s a hard truth.

Chris Beall (07:10):

It’s a hard truth and it’s like in business, I think it’s the hardest truth because it fights all of our political feelings about everybody should be important. Helen wrote a book, right? Helen Fanucci, Love your team: A Survival Guide for Sales Managers in a Hybrid World. And Helen’s point is you’re going to kind of have a hard time identifying as a manager of constraints and working on them, but trust yourself by trusting your team, knowing that they’ll find the constraints which are buried, there are many of them in deals. They could be internal, they could be external, they move fairly quickly because deals themselves are very simple systems and they’re evanescent, they come, they go. So she works in a world where the relationships are pretty long-term, but that’s one approach. But as people who are leading companies, we can’t quite do that.

(08:04):

We can’t just say, hey love my team now you guys go figure it out. We actually have got to work together and say what’s the real constraint here? Otherwise, a competitor will do that hard work and face that hard truth and we’ll be screwed. Now here’s one of the difficult parts about it for you and me Corey. We both provide a service. You have Branch 49 in a comprehensive service and us ConnectAndSell in a simple way. Our simple way is push a button, talk to somebody. In both of our businesses we fairly quickly in all cases take a current constraint, which is universal, which is at the top of the funnel and relieve that constraint, increase the flow rate of equivalently qualified, that means same quality, prospects or opportunities down funnel. And we sit back and smile and go, “Man, that’s a great thing.” Right?

Corey Frank (09:00):

That’s right. Yeah.

Chris Beall (09:02):

And we don’t think about the fact that we’ve just put a burden on that customer, your customer or my customer that comes with urgency because now we’ve helped them build a whole bunch of pipeline. But is it real pipeline or not? And many are skeptical of it and their answer will be, well the proof is in how it goes through the funnel. That is when you turn the funnel into a pipe, how much flows, right? That’s the real question. And smart people are uncomfortable with our businesses when we apply them to them because they know that it is like a kid going to an ice cream store. It’s like, “Well what’s your goal?” Well it’s to have as much pleasure as possible here per unit time. Okay, “How much ice cream should you eat?” As much as possible.

Corey Frank (09:55):

That’s right. That’s good.

Chris Beall (09:57):

Is that a good answer? Not exactly. Because the system that we call the child isn’t sufficiently mature to handle all that ice cream.

Chris Beall (10:50):

Sure at some point the ice cream creates more of a problem than it solves and sometimes that happens with, you have a fair number of children. I’ve had a few myself and we’ve both been around a lot and we know that there are a bunch of problems that can occur, all of which would look from a business perspective like churn.

Corey Frank (11:10):

Well then Chris, to that point when you look at that, because I’ve been there, in fact when I was a client of ConnectAndSell at my previous company, I was the proverbial kid in a candy store, in the ice cream store and you showed me one scoop and just take that and I’m like, no, no, no. Give me a scoop of that. Give me a scoop of that, give me and took it all. And I’m sitting in a corner rubbing my belly cursing Chris for giving me so much ice cream.

(11:35):

And certainly there must be a problem with the ice cream. Not the problem with my ability to consume that over an X unit of time. So when you look at that, is there a formula or a best practice roster, a cosmo quiz, a cosmopolitan quiz that we should take as sales leaders, as executives to say, well where do I stand? How much can I actually consume knowing that a weapon like ConnectAndSell, an organization like Branch 49 will get you a lot of ice cream if you’re not careful in your ability to digest that per a unit of time, per a unit of how many sales folks is something you should be mindful for on the front end.

Chris Beall (12:18):

Yeah, I think there are some things to be looked at and understood, some answers to the quiz. One is, does a firm that’s about to generate more opportunities discontinuously? Because that’s the problem with both of our businesses. We don’t come in and go, oh, over the next six months to two years we will slowly ramp your opportunities. It’s like, no, next week you’re going to have four times as many meetings.

Corey Frank (12:42):

That’s right. Yes.

Chris Beall (12:44):

It’s always like really, and the bad news for you and me is that it’s impossible to believe that this kind of speed could descend on you, and therefore why prepare for it? We often get skeptical people buying from us ready to believe and they find out, yes, this is true. It goes really fast and you get a lot of opportunities and yeah, it might suck your data dry a little bit or it might expose some issues with your talent with regard to their ability to actually set meetings, but fact of the matter is you generate the meetings or we generate the conversation, something happens almost immediately. But did we ask the question if something happens has the next step or the next part of the system that has to absorb that something which in this case ultimately is meeting set with equally qualified prospects, is that part of the organization well enough understood that you know how to invest in it in order to scale it?

(13:53):

And do you know what the cycle time is between a decision to invest in that next step and the next step actually being capable of higher throughput with the same quality? And that’s generally a tough one. How many folks have actually scaled the next unit down? And often what I find is really, really small companies where the only salesperson is the CEO, these are the easiest as long as you don’t make this one mistake. So the mistake would be let’s hire a salesperson. And as I once told the CEO of a startup, here’s what we’re going to learn. You don’t know how to hire a salesperson but we already know that. So why do the experiment? There’s no reason to do it. Let’s do this instead. Let’s couple you with somebody who’s going to advise you on this flow of opportunities business and let’s pair you with this person and have them work with you just a little bit, say an hour or two a week and increase the flow rate of meetings for you because you are a resource or CEO who also sells in the early days of a company.

(15:06):

And the early days could be three, four years in. You actually know how to scale yourself because you’re an excellent time manager. And so you’ll be able to shift time around in your schedule to deal with this increased flow and then we can add a salesperson to be your assistant sitting in with you on discovery meetings, picking things up. And then we’ve split you, right? It’s like biology. We’re actually going to take the cell and we’re going to fatten it up a little bit and then we’re going to split it in two and then we’re going to do that again and now we have three. That’s scale. Scale is when you go from one to two to three, not when you go from 1 to 1.4, right? That’s not scale. Scale is always doubling or something like that. Really mature organizations have less trouble with this because they’ve already figured out how to scale that next part of the process and they’re overweight. So there’s no way they’re lean, they have too much sales resource.

(16:04):

And so the way that you deal with the excess flow in a big organization is you just aim it at your best reps. There’s nothing to it. I mean really you just have to kind of make sure that when you generate additional opportunity flow in the early days of that opportunity flow you must aim it at your very best reps because they look just like those CEOs. They’re great at time management, they’re great at qualification and they can adjust within themselves like a valve that can get bigger or smaller and it doesn’t bust. It’s all the ones in the middle that are the problem. If you have a small sales organization, say you have three people, do you know who your best is? Do you know, are they good enough to take two X best person, and what would happen if they took two X? Is your organization, I’ll call it politically and psychologically stable enough? Has it been through enough cycles of changing compensation, having new people come and go, dealing with change in the marketplace that you are not going to blow it up, they’re not just going to run away.

(17:14):

Your two up-and-comers are going to leave, but you’re trying to scale. It’s those semi-mature organizations in the middle, the guys like you and I or anybody in this audience who sells discontinuous change you’ve got to look out for. Companies that are in the process of evolving to be great dominant beasts are in one of two states. They’re either incredibly robust because they’re so small that they can’t be anything but robust because the flexibility is built into the founder or they’re incredibly robust because they’re so big they can’t be anything but robust because whatever change they’ve adapted to is now reflected in the way they run the people who are there, the processes they have and they’ve got slack built in because you can assign stuff to different people, but the ones in the middle, especially the lower end of the middle, when one’s going to two to three, those are fundamentally fragile and you need to feed them small amounts of ice cream. But they’re the ones who are going to want the most ice cream.

Corey Frank (18:19):

Yeah, right. That’s a great self-assessment if you will. Because it’s much like the US military sending equipment to our partners, sending them to Saudi, sending them to Ukraine, these high Mars missile systems. That’s a powerful weapon that can rapidly cause a lot of destruction, fire off rapid amounts of armaments. But in the hands of an amateur, in the hands of an inexperienced team, it’s also very dangerous. And I think what I hear you saying right is when you generate pipeline, you may have the aspirations, there’s all new shiny objects on the [inaudible 00:18:59] stack under the tree this Christmas that came and everybody’s unwrapping them. Everyone wants to take them outside. You and I, especially you are sitting, hey, you’re going to shoot your eye out, careful if you use too much of that one thing wrongly. Are you sure you have the right mechanisms in place to digest this? But does it really matter. If I’m getting more pipeline and if it’s fallen off the table, if it’s being wasted, I’m still netting out additional sales, why should I be so concerned about this?

Chris Beall (19:31):

It does bad things to your organization if you’re still learning how to just run and grow because whether you’re bootstrapped or whether you’ve taken venture capital or whatever, you’re always learning how to run and grow and grow and run. It’s a back-and-forth kind of thing. And so you grow a little, you run a little, you run a little, you grow a little and there’s a reason companies that grow really, really fast look crazy when you get into them. There’s a reason why you, and you’ve mentioned this to me before, when you’re working with certain sales tech companies, it seems that they have a new person supporting you every week. It feels like that. Why? Because they have a new person supporting you every week. Is it possible that person really is much smarter than you are about their product? You’ve been using it for a year, they’ve been with the company for a week, they’ve been through a training program, you’ve been to a school much more rigorous than their training program called using their product in anger with your business on the line.

(20:29):

So you growing really, really fast is fundamentally dangerous. And we see it all the time. In our own industry we watched one of the companies grow really, really, really fast. They took in hundreds of millions of dollars. Their ideas sounded great. It was a robust company made of people who were sincere, knew what they were doing, but they didn’t know what they were doing as soon as they started to add people at a certain rate because that’s a new thing and you haven’t done it before. And if you haven’t done it before, you haven’t made those mistakes in that context and you actually don’t even know if you’re working on the bottleneck. So the issue with having too much too fast is you actually can’t find the bottleneck anymore. And if you can’t find the bottleneck anymore, you can’t manage, you literally cannot manage.

(21:16):

You’re just doing what my sister used to say, playing business. You’re the kid, you’re put in the big shoes and you’re sitting at your mom and your daddy’s desk. Back in the day you’d be picking up the telephone. You have one right there and pretending to talk to people. And the fact is nothing’s actually happening. You’re like standing at the tiller of this boat we were on for five days off of Hawaii standing there looking like a captain. And I’m looking at the tell tales and yeah, I’m not doing nothing, but you could have replaced me with an autopilot and we would’ve done a little bit better. The real sailors knew how to make that boat work because they’d made a thousand mistakes and everything in their world was very orderly. But I’m the one who’s playing at being captain. And you can easily find yourself playing at being a company leader when you have so much flow that’s unanticipated into one part of what you’re doing.

(22:10):

In this case, it would be opportunities in the pipeline that all of the noise that comes out of that keeps you from being able to actually run the company. Your new thing will become this by the way. As soon as you have too much opportunity, somebody will raise their hand and say, oh my god, our churn levels have gone up, or our conversion rates have gone down. Right, one or the other depends on your cycle times. Well duh, right? I mean, if I had an infinite amount of additional opportunity, by definition, since I can only serve a finite amount of final business, my conversion rates go down. So you take your eye off of what you really care about, which is the flow rate of opportunities coming out the other end of the funnel. They turn into transactions, those turn into customers you actually get to service. Those turn into customers that are getting value.

(23:05):

Those customers that are getting value turn into renewal opportunities and referral opportunities. My goodness, look at the marvelous things that happened. If you just could keep your eye on that and go, yeah, it’s okay. I spend a little bit more, but I got a clear focus on my bottleneck and I’m not going to pay any attention to these other two things everybody else is paying attention to, which is my conversion rates and my churn rights. But nobody can do that because all those little voices will be out there. Now, there’s certain kinds of leaders that ignore all those little voices. They’re just few and far between and they have names.

(23:42):

They’re the Steve Jobs of the world, the Elon Musks of the world. These people just go, yeah, whatever. Thank you very much. Love that you told that to me, that got three-quarters of a second of consideration. We’re done with that now. Mark Cuban style. Got it, got it, got it, got it, got it and they go on, right. The reason that they’re such outstanding business leaders is they put their eye on the bottleneck regardless of the noise that’s produced by the change that they are willing to induce in order to improve. Most of us can’t do that. And when we’re picking our customers, we have another problem, which is we’re not in charge of that. We’re the vendor.

Corey Frank (24:24):

Yeah.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Scientific methods have a place in sales, whether it is to keep existing customers happy or to continue building the pipeline. David Dulany of Tenbound says, “You create a hypothesis of what your messaging is going to be, and then you run an experiment on it and report on the results of the methodology that you’re using, do a little bit more research, change it up, make a new hypothesis, and run the same structure over and over again basically for the rest of your life.” Unless you are willing to reevaluate what is working and what is not continuously, it will all stop working, and static growth or loss of business is inevitable. Chris, Corey, and David have solutions for you.  They suggest you look at the efficiency of the people, the processes, and the current technology you currently have in place. Many of these companies have a tech stack, and they don’t optimize it and look at it from the perspective of setting it up correctly to really be able to get all the juice out of it. Evaluate the value of what’s on hand versus coming up with some new silver bullet that will solve everything. Listen to this episode of Market Dominance Guys, “Science, Silver Bullets and Evaluating Variables.

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Here are the first two episodes of this interview:

EP 160: Prospecting, Inbound, or Pipeline Problems; Should You Hire an SDR?
EP 161: Hiring Pipeline Builders Who Can Build Trust

About David Dulany

He is highly-skilled and knowledgable in the SDR/BDR space. His training courses are personable, easy to understand, and most importantly- actionable. At a strategic level, he has the ability to effectively blueprint the entire Sales Development function.  From there, recruit, hire, build, mentor, inspire and lead a team of Sales Development Representatives to exponentially grow new business revenue and new logo attainment for start-ups or more established companies.

He considers himself a lifelong student of this craft. 

About Tenbound

Tenbound is a Research and Advisory firm focused and dedicated to B2B SaaS GTM Sales Development Performance improvement. The Sales Tech industry has exploded over the past few years; however, expertise in the subject is still rare. Tenbound aims to uplevel the profession through cutting-edge research, high quality events, and highly practical online training programs for all levels of the Sales Development team.

 

Full episode transcript below:

—-more—-

Announcer (00:06):

Welcome to another session with the Market Dominance Guys, a program exploring all the high stakes, speed bumps and off-ramps of driving to the top of your market. With our host, Chris Beall from ConnectAndSell, and Cory Frank from Branch 49.

(00:18):

Scientific methods have a place in sales, whether it’s to keep existing customers happy, or to continue building the pipeline. David Delaney of TenBound says, “You create a hypothesis of what your messaging is going to be, and then you run an experiment on it, and report on the results of the methodology that you’re using. Do a little bit more research, change it up, make a new hypothesis, run the same structure over and over again, basically for the rest of your life.” Unless you’re willing to continuously reevaluate what is working and what is not, it will all stop working, and static growth or loss of business is inevitable.

(00:52):

Chris, Corey and David have solutions for you. They suggest that you look at the efficiency of the people and the processes, and the technology that you have in place right now. A lot of companies have a tech stack that they just don’t really optimize, and they don’t look at it from the perspective of setting it up correctly, to really be able to get all the juice out of it. Evaluate the value of what’s on hand, versus coming up with some new silver bullet that’s going to solve everything. Listen to this episode of Market Dominance Guys, “Science, Silver Bullets, and Evaluating Variables.”

Corey Frank (01:31):

From a sales methodology structure, as Chris had said about the conversation earlier, what do you see out there? And from your position as a thought leader, having a purview of 40,000 feet to see what seems to be working, you can see the curvature of the earth, so to speak, in the space, more so than a lot of us who are myopically focused on today and today’s dials. So what is an effective structure to run a cold call at a tactical level that, if I’m a BDR manager, I should start to employ for my team?

David Dulany (02:05):

We kind of boiled it down, and there’s a blog I can give the link to you guys, into applying the scientific method to sales development. And essentially, if you think of the ancient scientific method of, you create a hypothesis of what your messaging is going to be, and then you run an experiment on it, and report on the results of the methodology that you’re using, do a little bit more research, change it up, make a new hypothesis, and run the same structure over and over again, basically for the rest of your life.

(02:42):

And so taken down to a practical level, if you’re an SDR manager and you’re sitting there, you have to start somewhere. So what is the script that has potential, and that you can hypothesize is going to work in your market? And for example, Chris, the 27 seconds script, right? Let’s start with that, and roll it out, and get enough conversations to be able to have some data, see what’s working and what’s not, and then report on it, make changes, and roll it out again, in a different format, until you can find something that starts to work. And then you got to start over with a new hypothesis and roll it out again. And if you think about it, it’s really applying just basic project management to script development and cold calling. You got to just keep doing it over and over again.

Chris Beall (03:40):

It’s interesting though. There’s a very interesting dynamic, and I’m an old physicist, as you know. So what goes on in the lab is not a mystery to me, at least from direct experience. The hardest thing about science is controlling the variables sufficiently that you can evaluate the experimental results.

(03:59):

Like hypotheses are easy, setting up experiments is mid-hard. Evaluating experimental outcomes is very, very hard, because you don’t know if you’ve controlled all the variables going in.

(04:12):

And when it comes to human interactions, the number of variables and the range of values that they can take is stunningly large, stunningly, like the variables around tone of voice within the first seven seconds of phone call. If I were to attempt to break it down and get a handle on it and say, “What are they?” I’ve got the words and then I have the timing, and then I have the tone, the up and down that’s going on, then I have the loudness. I have all this, right?

(04:45):

So what do I get? Probably I’m going to take a quick guess, 500 million interesting variations in the first seven seconds that could make a difference. So now I’ve got to make an assumption. A bunch of them don’t, but I don’t have experimental evidence that says they don’t, because I couldn’t control them in the first place. So I end up in a very funny place when I’m trying to do what I’ll call “good science” in a hard field, where the variables are just a bitch to put under control.

(05:15):

I once measured the speed of light in a room about the size of half of this condo. Now light goes really, really, really fast. So how are you going to, you can’t use a stopwatch. It took me four months every day, for four hours a day to set that experiment up to the point where I could push the button and try it, and it took another two months to analyze the data and see whether I found anything. That’s easiest, of just a beam light going down and coming back.

(05:45):

And I’m not the worst scientist who ever lived. I’m not the best either. I’m not a great experimental scientist, but I’m not a total doof ball at the stuff. I love the idea. But then I think, so where do our sales managers come from? Are they the ones that hung out with me in those advanced physics and math classes, and thought a lot about experimental protocols, and never go with the temptation to change two variables at the same time? Because, tell me, what could go wrong?

(06:15):

I have an example today, right now, today. I’m looking at it on the screen. My team is doing an experiment, and the idea of the experiment was to have four of our SDRs operate in a different regime, which we call “connect on live voice”, and do so with only what we call fast phone numbers, which is people that evidence from our 200 million phone calls most recently, tell us our real answers of the phone picker-upper types, right? Do you think that experiment was done cleanly? This is my shot.

David Dulany (06:48):

No.

Chris Beall (06:49):

I’m looking at it right now. They’re supposed to be running all on “connect on live voice”.  I go over to the session type. Let’s see if anybody ran on “connect on target”. The opposite. Yes. Why? Because they thought it would work better, and they get paid for meetings.

(07:05):

This is a hard field in my opinion. It’s such a hard field, that any of us are unlikely to reinvent very much of it during the 17 months we have before our asses are fired.

David Dulany (07:23):

That’s true. Yeah, that’s true.

Chris Beall (07:26):

So I think you’re recommending a great program, but when I watch it’s a little bit like, it has a funny feeling. It’s like, “Hey Chris, why don’t you become a world-class Sudoku player, but you’re not allowed to watch the YouTube videos of that dude.”

(07:39):

And you’re going to be in a tournament for 17 months and if you don’t win, we kill you.

David Dulany (07:46):

Easier said than done for sure. And if you look at the way that it’s done now in a lot of organizations, is they’re just either doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, which we know is the definition of insanity. Or they’re out there learning, and they’re getting feedback from the market, or getting utter silence from the market, but they’re not putting that learning into practice and trying to improve the message. So there’s just really no, even if it’s a loose project-managed experiment over the course of a couple weeks…

Chris Beall (08:26):

It’s better than nothing.

David Dulany (08:27):

Yeah.

Chris Beall (08:29):

I love “better than nothing.” By the way, we have a whole episode on something.

David Dulany (08:33):

It’s better than nothing.

Chris Beall (08:34):

I mean this podcast is really about hoping that some people will say, “Oh, those two old mothers are on that thing. It’s entirely possible. And they both seem like they read a lot, and think a lot about stuff, and they’ve done something. Maybe if they say, ‘don’t ever do that thing’, even if it works, it’s a bad idea.”

Corey Frank (08:57):

Yeah. It’s funny you say that, reading. So to your point, so this is my new latest read here. Maybe you’ve seen the podcast with Jerry Seinfeld? “Comedians and Cars.” And one of the elements they talk about here is this, they’re going to butcher it, but with George Carlin? The famous comedian who passed several years ago, and he was interviewed, Jerry Seinfeld who was interviewed, and he said, “How many times can you really kill as a comedian? Like slay it on stage? People are bent over just laughing, tears. Just kill.” And that’s their definition of a meeting, is, “Did you kill?” Not to just go out and just perform your set, but, “Did you kill?”

(09:36):

And Carlin says, “I believe that at the top of our profession, a comedian has no more than seven good hours of material inside of them.”

(09:47):

That’s it. Seven good hours of material. Now Seinfeld and Don Rickles and Zach Galifianakis argued that Carlin had much more, because he put out a special every year, for year after year after year. And you see how voluminous some of these comedians are, like Kevin Hart, and the content, and Jerry Seinfeld still going on the road.

(10:05):

And the point is, is that in our profession, sometimes as sales leaders, BDR leaders, we think there’s nothing really new invented under the sun. I don’t have seven hours’ worth of new material, like the best that’s going to kill. I just have seven hours of mediocre material, does it really make a difference?

(10:24):

I’d rather lean on the marketing quality of the leads, the cleanliness of the data, to really drive my success. And what happens, I think, David, you see this more than anybody, is it probably reaches to the level of a VP of sales or a CRO, or a CEO, and they say, “If this is the best we can do for these folks in order to hit this number, I guess we got to hire more folks.” Hey Chris, you see that all the time?

Corey Frank (11:34):

So how do you combat that for your clients, David, in your content of saying, that’s a tree hugger mentality to say, “I just want to add people.” Now they cut all these people, we just talked about that in the last couple of months, but I still got to replace it. Am I giving the money for headcount to marketing? Is that what I’m doing? Hey, just make the phone ring or just give me more inbounds or double down on SEM, and what do you say to that?

David Dulany (11:59):

Well, right now they look at the installed base, and we work in the software as a service industry. So they’re looking at the customers that they have right now, how do we keep them and make sure that they don’t cancel their subscription? So they’re really starting to look at customer success, and taking that seriously, and turning away from pipeline development, which again, as we talked about, is not going to serve very well in the next few months, if you take your eye off the ball there.

(12:27):

And what I would say also is look at the efficiency of the people and the processes and the technology that you have in place right now. Because a lot of these companies have a tech stack, and they just don’t really optimize it and look at it from the perspective of setting it up correctly, to really be able to get all the juice out of it. There may be tools that they don’t even use, and they don’t even know that they have, and they need to get rid of, and open up more budget for more effective tools, and try to wring the value out of what’s on hand, versus coming up with some new silver bullet that’s going to solve everything.

Corey Frank (13:08):

Yeah, for sure. Sure.

Chris Beall (13:10):

Well salespeople are gamblers, so for Silver Bullet, pretty popular.

Corey Frank (13:16):

That’s right. Well hey, David, where do we find your information? How would companies use TenBound today? If I’m a software as a service company in cybersecurity, or UCaaS, CCaaS, how do I use TenBound services, and how should I engage with you?

David Dulany (13:33):

The best way to do it is just go to TenBound.com and sign up for the newsletter. We put out a newsletter every Tuesday, that’s just jam-packed with resources in this topic area to help people. And we put on a ton of events and different activities to activate the audience, and get people the value that they need. And that’s the best place to start, with the newsletter.

Corey Frank (13:59):

And you put on SDR workshops, SDR as a Service training workshops as well at TenBound?

David Dulany (14:05):

Yeah, we do. They’re online self-paced modules. You just go to TenBound.com and you can take them at your own pace, and do either the SDR training or the SDR Manager training today, right after the call.

Corey Frank (14:21):

Well, excellent. Well, Chris, it’s always great having a thought leader, again, the folks who see and feel the tectonic shifts under our feet here, and are able to dumb it down for those of us that are in the trenches.

(14:32):

So David, thanks for coming on. We can certainly talk shop all day. Love data like this. I think as you and Chris were riffing earlier, anytime that we can get some certainty in our trade craft about what works it doesn’t, by minimizing the number of variables in the system versus trying to fix too many things at once, gives an element of security and predictability, reliability into the machine here that we’re trying to build. And as our friend Robert Viera, Chris, right, he says is, “What we’re trying to do is build machines, not statues.” And too often, new SDR, VPs of sales, CROs, new funding, is they’re trying to build these statues, especially in the Silicon Valley area versus a machine. And we’ll take a machine coming from the manufacturing world. I know that sings to your heart, Chris.

Chris Beall (15:21):

Well, you know what I say? When you get something that actually works, you don’t have to know why it works, but it’s a really good idea to keep using it and refining it slightly, very, very slightly. It should become conservatively aggressive at that point. That is conservative, don’t imagine you know anything great, but aggressive tweaks here and there.

(15:44):

It’s like a guy with a, or a gal with a bad grip and a bad swing, and you’re out on the course with them, when they’re playing better than you, don’t ever bet against them. That thing works.

[NEW_PARAGRAPH]Don’t ever don’t go over there and go, “I think you could improve by going to this little more conventional grip.” There’s combinations of shit that work. David, you mentioned the 27-second thing. That was a complete accident. We didn’t know that it worked. We didn’t invent it.

(16:13):

Like the guy was doing it. We didn’t know that’s what he was doing that was different. The science we did was much cruder than most sciences. Put some people in a couple of rooms, have them listen to the two top performers for a couple of hours with ConnectAndSell, that 16, 17, 18 conversations and see what happens. This is actually Chad Burmeister’s idea and it was very good. Well, one of them caught measles, and started producing like the other guy. Then we went and compared and said, “Oh, the only thing they have in common is the 27 seconds, let’s use it.”

(16:45):

It took five years before it was explained to me by Chris Voss why it works. You don’t have to know why things work, but in a complex world, I mean prospecting, building pipeline is similar to hitting a golf ball.

Corey Frank (17:01):

Well it’s funny you say that, Chris. Just on LinkedIn today, there was an influential influencer on LinkedIn who casting aspersions, casting some stones on the 27 seconds. He referred to it as “37 seconds” and how it couldn’t work. It’s cringe, it should work. You diminish trust, and everybody has a right to our opinion. Certainly it’s not mathematics where it’s binary.

(17:24):

Chris Voss would disagree that there’s certain alchemy equations that can produce trust and they’re not all definitive, but the millions of phone calls that we make every month, the tens of millions of phone calls, Chris, that you make every month, I would have to respectfully disagree from my fellow connoisseur of the craft, because I don’t think that this particular person has ran a team or himself made thousands of phone calls using the 27 seconds permission-based opener the right way. So we get a lot of that, and that’s what I really enjoy, certainly, David, about your content, about your thought leadership.

(18:00):

This doesn’t come from an ivory tower. This comes from a respective of being in the trenches. You have the scar tissue to prove it. As you said, when something works, it’s two tablets coming down the mountain that David Dulaney and TenBound says does work or it does not work.

[NEW_PARAGRAPH]And that level of certainty in our profession, backed by a practitioner of the craft. When Seinfeld says something is funny, he’s been in Ottumwa, Iowa in front of four people at 3:00 AM doing a set. And if they laugh or they don’t laugh, he knows it.

(18:30):

And when David or Chris Beall and folks like that, in our profession, a Trish Bertuzzi, we have to stand up or sit tall, a little bit straighter in the saddle to say, “Oh my gosh, time for a hard right turn, or a hard left turn, based off of your feedback.” So I appreciate that. But Chris, I thought you would appreciate that. I’ll send you it afterward, what this particular influencer is saying about if it’s not working you could have cooked me over the last couple of years.

Chris Beall (18:55):

My dear friend Anthony Iannarino did two things this year that I found to be delightful. One is he signed a copy of his book, Elite Sales Strategies, when we were together at the Outbound conference. And he just signed it and handed it to me. I bought it, by the way, because I will never let him off. Give me a book and sign it. I always go buy it and ask them to sign it. So he was very kind and he signed it, but he didn’t say a word.

(19:20):

And then in the book there were two things. One is, he says that anybody uses something like that 27-second thing is a clown and won’t be taken seriously, and he’s right about that in a certain context. It was actually a context question.

(19:37):

And the other is I opened the book to the introduction, and it opens by saying, “People buy from people they trust to make a decision they don’t trust themselves to make. Chris Beall.” So he quoted me to open the book, and then made fun of the 27 seconds in it, and did so correctly. It was all great. I loved it. Every last bit of it.

(19:59):

The fact is, we’re in a complex field. It’s also very, very important. The work that David is doing is in the most important part. Your closers will not save your company. They will not. Your pipeline will save your company.

(20:14):

Your pipeline is the equivalent of a big fat ball of venture capital, that you don’t have to give away control of your company to get. You just don’t have to go create it. And it’s pretty straightforward to do. And if you have any sense at all as a practitioner, you join the TenBound community as a member.

(20:33):

And if you got a lick of ambition and you want to go have that audience listen to you, whether you are a service provider, or whether you are a vendor of tech or whatever you happen to be, you should really consider, as you look at your budget going into 2023, consider, here’s a place you can put some sponsorship money, where you’re getting into a community that is focused on the one thing that can save your company.

(21:01):

Because there isn’t another, there is only one. And that is a fat and reliably growing and flowing pipeline, which is what David’s all about.

(21:11):

So I’m going to make a simple recommendation, which is just go sign up, and if you got something to sell to those people, then go see if you can make a deal with this guy. Maybe he’ll let you do a sponsorship for a dumb lesson, and he’ll buy me a cup of coffee or something.

David Dulany (21:29):

Chris, I am saving this recording and I’m going to post it regularly. So thank you.

Chris Beall (21:36):

Put it out there. It’s the God’s honest truth. There’s not much that makes a difference. What you are doing makes a difference, and making a difference is kind of all there is.

David Dulany (21:47):

The religion of pipeline, and we’re converted.

Chris Beall (21:51):

Right. Pipeline’s a machine, not a statue.

David Dulany (21:55):

Yes, I love it.

Corey Frank (21:57):

Beautiful. Well, David, once again, thanks for carving out the time to sit in the Market Dominance hot seat here with me and Chris. It was fun.

(22:05):

So, another episode in the book, or maybe a couple of episodes with all this content, Chris, that you and David concocted here. So hopefully we’ll do wonders for organizations as they go into Q1. So for Chris Beall, this is Corey Frank with the Market Dominance Guys. Until next time.

Announcer (22:23):

Be sure to listen to the first two parts of the session with David Dulany, Chris Beall, and Corey Frank. The first one is episode 160, “Prospecting Inbound or Pipeline Problems: Should You Hire an SDR?” And the last episode was, “Hiring Pipeline Builders Who Can Build Trust.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

CROs, VP of Sales or VP of SDRs need to be able to persuade like Atticus Finch, write and email like Tarantino, and perform like DiCaprio. You’re actually looking for people to have a decent conversation with somebody that is built on trust and authenticity. You can’t solve that if all you want to do is hire more SDRs. David Dulany continues his conversation with Corey and Chris. He says, “The number one recommendation that I would make if people were asking is do not hire five SDRs First, hire a really good operational person that can connect the dots and set the stage and set the foundation between all the technology and the processes and the playbook to get that in place and then start to layer on the people that can actually execute on that. “  If companies have a good sales operations person that has the bandwidth to be able to help the SDRs, it makes a huge difference in helping them quickly learn how to create that trust. There’s more to this success plan than this, but you’ll have to listen to get the details on this episode of Market Dominance Guys, “Hiring Pipeline Builders Who Can Build Trust.”

—-more—-

Link to the first part of this interivew: Ep 160: Prospecting, Inbound, or Pipeline Problems; Should You Hire an SDR?

About David Dulany

He is highly-skilled and knowledgable in the SDR/BDR space. His training courses are personable, easy to understand, and most importantly- actionable. At a strategic level, he has the ability to effectively blueprint the entire Sales Development function.  From there, recruit, hire, build, mentor, inspire and lead a team of Sales Development Representatives to exponentially grow new business revenue and new logo attainment for start-ups or more established companies.

He considers himself a lifelong student of this craft. 

About Tenbound

Tenbound is a Research and Advisory firm focused and dedicated to B2B SaaS GTM Sales Development Performance improvement. The Sales Tech industry has exploded over the past few years; however, expertise in the subject is still rare. Tenbound aims to uplevel the profession through cutting-edge research, high quality events, and highly practical online training programs for all levels of the Sales Development team.

 

Full episode transcript below:

—-more—-

Announcer (00:05):

Welcome to another session with the Market Dominance Guys, a program exploring all the high stakes speed bumps and off ramps of driving to the top of your market, with our host Chris Beal from ConnectAndSell and Cory Frank from Branch 49.

(00:22):

CROs, VP of sales, and VP of SDRs need to be able to persuade like Atticus Finch, write an email like Tarantino, and perform like DiCaprio. Actually, you’re looking for people to have a decent conversation with somebody that is built on trust and authenticity. You can’t solve that if all you want to do is hire more SDRs.

(00:42):

David Delaney continues his conversation with Corey and Chris. He says, “The number one recommendation I would make if people were asking is, do not hire five SDRs first, hire a really good operational person that can connect the dots and set the stage and set the foundation between all the technology and processes and the playbook to get that in place. Then you start to layer on the people that can actually execute on that.”

(01:07):

If companies have a good sales operations person that has the bandwidth to be able to help the SDRs, it makes a huge difference in helping them quickly learn how to create that trust. There’s more to this success plan than this, but you’ll have to listen to get to all the details of this episode, Hiring Pipeline Builders who can Build Trust.

Corey Frank (01:36):

To your point, David, about Q1, it will be really interesting, Q1 and early Q2, to see with some of these cuts and changes in layoffs that folks are having, they’re moving away from a pipeline-first culture, which is where they really should be. Chris obviously lives this. Chris has one of the best weapons on the market to control your own future as an organization, to deliver the greatest ROI they could imagine to their investors, and of course, what we talk about, which is the namesake of this podcast, to dominate your market, because it’s just all math.

(02:07):

As Chris knows from the physics side of it, a blood pressure of zero over zero is dead. The pipeline pressure is a privilege that many deny. When you stuff more water or oil or gas or leads into the pipe, the law of physics takes over. And substances that move through the pipe, it’s flow, it’s F equals Q divided by T. Flow requires a pressure gradient between two points such that the flow is directly proportional to the pressure differential.

(02:38):

Higher pressure, more leads, will certainly drive greater flow rates. And I find that that’s fascinating when folks are trying to target an ABM strategy, which certainly has its place, as a replacement for general brute force ballistic SDR activities. Wouldn’t you say, David?

David Dulany (02:59):

Yeah, big time. I just heard that Warren Buffet has $100 billion in cash right now. And if you think about market domination, this is the time over the next 12 months when companies market dominate, if they really go hard on this. Because if you think about it, if everybody’s battening down the hatches and inverting because they’re trying to save money and the CFOs are taking over, then that means, and especially when you think about ConnectAndSell, there’s nobody out there actually having conversations.

(03:32):

That’s the thing, it’s all account-based and product-led growth and we can get rid of all the salespeople, we don’t need sales people anymore. That’s the trend in the software industry. So, if you zag it the other way, and this isn’t just a pitch for ConnectAndSell, honestly, if you’re out talking to people and having conversations and engaging the market, you’re queuing yourself up for market domination when the economy turns back around.

Chris (04:00):

Yeah, it’d be hard for me to agree anymore than I agree with that. I’d have to really work at it.

Corey Frank (04:07):

Even if you didn’t have to agree, you would agree.

Chris (04:09):

Even if I have to agree. It’s-

David Dulany (04:11):

You’ve got to do it right. You can’t just throw people at the problem, which is what, when we had a lot of money in the bank and everything was up and to the right and money was cheap, yeah, you could hire a team of 10 SDRs and hopefully they would produce something even if they didn’t have any management or operational support. But you can’t do that anymore.

(04:32):

You really have to work with them and set up everything correctly on the backend from an operations perspective to support them, give them training to be able to have those conversations, plug in the tools to be able to do it, and do it right. So, that’s the simple message of the stuff we do at TenBound. It’s, don’t be a dumb ass.

Corey (04:58):

Great tagline, “TenBound, don’t be a dumbass.”

Corey Frank (05:01):

Well, let’s talk about a bit, because Chris and I like to, certainly with the sheer volume of phone calls and conversations that Chris’ weapon allows you to do, we’re certainly a connoisseur and a practitioner of Chris’ methodology here at Branch, but there’s no spot price on the price of a conversation today or there’s no spot price on a demo meeting scheduled. So, maybe you could talk a bit about some of the research that TenBound has done.

(05:28):

This is what I love about Trish Bertuzzi and the Bridge Group, and you wait, like we used to always wait for the J.C. Penney Christmas catalog every year, you wait for that report to come out from Trish on what’s the state of our industry. So, from your perspective, on the view of an SDR, what have you seen the last couple of months? What are you looking for from conversations to methodologies to conversion rates, things of that nature that some of our listeners will appreciate and calibrate, especially in Q1?

David Dulany (05:57):

Yeah, it’s changed a lot in that, if you think about it, even just a few years ago, SDRs didn’t have the cadence capability that they have now with the tools that have come out over the last few years, and we’ve essentially turned them into many spammers. And this is, even if you went back like 10 years, marketing would be in charge of the tools that would automate email and outbound touches like that.

(06:26):

So, we’ve taken that technology and given it to a very new unskilled people who are just blasting the market with mainly email messages. But now it’s going into LinkedIn and any other things, Twitter and any other places where there’s executives gathering. So, the point I’m trying to make is that the conversion rate of non-conversational tools has plummeted. You are talking under 5% of emails are even being delivered, let alone being opened by executives.

(07:04):

And you guys probably feel it when you wake up in the morning, you have a 100 emails that actually get to your box, and then you got a 100 emails in your spam that never even get to it. In that spam folder there’s some SDR out there going, “Wow. Any minute now Chris is going to reply back to my email and I’m gonna be able to set up a meeting.” So, those channels have been so saturated that the conversion rates are abysmal right now.

(07:31):

So, again, people realize that you have to have conversations in the marketplace, and so you have something like ConnectAndSell. And you also have a number of technologies that are being developed that basically put the same spamming capability into the hands of the SDR that are phone calls spammers, basically. So, you can press one button and send 500 phone calls and hope that one of them clicks over, and those are starting to catch on now. So, now that channel’s being worked over. So, those are a few of the trends that we see.

Corey Frank (08:06):

Well, that’s powerful, because Chris and I have said that to be in the profession today, what a CRO or a VP of sales or VP of SDR, okay, you got to be able to persuade like Atticus Finch, you better be able to write an email like Tarantino, you better be able to perform like DiCaprio, you better be a technologist savvy like a Zuckerberg. You’re looking for the unicorns to do all those functions well, right, Chris? And when the root, the lowest common denominator, the epicenter of what we really ask them to do is, just have a decent conversation with somebody that’s built on trust and authenticity, right, Chris?

Chris (08:48):

Yeah. It’s funny that, to go back to the beginning of what I’ll call the earliest part of the SDR movement, it was predictable revenue, it was Aaron Ross’s book, and basically said “specialize”. I used to have wonderful discussions with people about specialization. And as you know, Corey, my background is in building manufacturing systems, and if anything’s about specialization of tasks, it’s manufacturing.

(09:14):

When you’re building a factory or a distribution center or whatever, nobody does everything, everybody does something, and the number of somethings you do is relatively small unless you’re building Volvos in 1974 and then everybody does everything and then the Volvos fall apart. So, it’s really interesting that what’s happened with the SDR function, to me anyway, is it morphed in a truly bizarre way into a generalist function.

(09:43):

So, do research. First of all, identify our market. We have some words, but you go figure out who the targets are. So, do strategic marketing research, do tactical marketing research, got to come up with the people, do organizational analysis, figure out where they are and who’s most likely to respond or buy or whatever. Then, do message development, think up what you’re going to say to them, and then do it in multiple media.

(10:12):

So, write it in an email, put it in a video, put it on LinkedIn, blah, blah blah, blah, blah. And please, do all of this extraordinarily well and you’ve been here for a month. So, it strikes me that it’s an oddity to me of the SDR function, which is, to me, a dead obvious function. We need human beings to create trust with other human beings because trust is the only thing that takes us forward in B2B because B2B buying is so risky that as a buyer you need to trust somebody more than you trust yourself. So, somebody better start that trust process.

(10:47):

Turns out the main feature they need is to be human, which is something that can’t be taught to a machine, and then you need to help them have conversations and then coach them on sincerity and conversational effectiveness and that odd conversation, that ambush conversation.

(11:03):

Then, what we did was we turned around and said, “Yeah, let them do everything,” or have them do everything. First of all, do you agree with that assessment? Do SDRs have a lot of different things they’re supposed to do, because that’s what strikes me.

David Dulany (11:17):

That is spot on, spot on. And I’ll flip it around. The number one recommendation that I would make if people were asking is, do not hire five SDRs. First, hire a really good operational person that can connect the dots and set the stage and set the foundation between all the technology and the processes and the playbook to get that in place, and then start to layer on the people that can actually execute on that. And nobody does it like that, but some people do.

(11:53):

But if they have a good sales operations person that has the bandwidth to be able to help the SDRs, then it makes a huge difference. A lot of their time is set to other sales operational activities and not necessarily the SDRs, but if they have a bit of that foundational support. Then, the other point that you made is the specialization of people’s focuses, because you have to be able to analyze the conversion rate of what they’re doing, which is more of an analytical position.

(12:26):

Then, you have to have someone who can really write effective messaging and help them with the scripts and the playbooks to make sure that they’re on point. And even beyond that is an enablement function to be able to have some training. A lot of them get absolutely no training. After a couple of days on the job they’re just, like you said, they’re set out to do a generalist position with five different jobs, and they really struggle.

(12:52):

The other quick thing is that they only have a short amount of time to produce. So, if they’re not regularly setting up meetings and building pipeline, within three months they’re put on a PIP and shown the exit after six months of being there. So, they’re set up to fail in a lot of cases.

Chris (13:13):

Does that mean that if they succeed, they’re shown the exit in eight months and they’re sent off to be a [inaudible 00:13:17] AE?

David Dulany (13:18):

Well, they’re promoted.

Chris (13:22):

One exit for another.

David Dulany (13:23):

So, the economics are tough. Salesforce.com, they have somehow worked out this assembly line of getting the brightest applicants in, getting them into a great SDR function. It makes sense financially. Then, they’re either up or out. And they’ve got this machine set up, and it’s worked for a number of years, but a lot of companies try to replicate that, and like you said, they end up with a generalist who’s really not very good at anything. And if they can somehow figure it out, they hang on long enough to get promoted to be an AE or in a different position in the company. But a lot of people unfortunately are either let go or managed out or stuff like that.

Corey Frank (14:09):

Well, the downside of that is, it’s these large organizations that probably have that type of structure, David and Chris, from a Salesforce or Zoom, et cetera, these larger organizations, that they get the best and brightest, is from a client perspective, we don’t have any continuity from an account management perspective. I don’t know how many different Salesforce introductions for, “I’m the new Arizona territory manager,” that I’ve had between Zoom or Outreach or Salesforce just in the last three years.

(14:38):

So, internally that may make sense, but customer-facing, I’m thinking, “Gosh, you guys got a hell of a lot of turnover. What’s going on over there?” And it may be upward a turnover, it may be not necessarily the wrong kind of attrition, but from a customer perspective, there’s not a lot of continuity and knowledge transfer there.

David Dulany (14:56):

And the prospects don’t like being qualified by somebody and asked a bunch of questions and then they finally get to it and then they get on another call with an account executive and they have to answer all the questions again. They’re, “What did I spend half an hour with the other guy for?”

Corey Frank (15:11):

I think we have about 20 episodes on the proper way to conduct a discovery call. It is not for you as the seller to discover whether you have any money, whether you have a fit for me, but nevertheless, that’s what a lot of folks do, right, Chris?

Chris (15:26):

Right.

Announcer (15:27):

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(15:49):

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Corey Frank (16:19):

On the flip side though-

David Dulany (16:22):

Somebody has to be prospecting and somebody has to be reaching out and engaging the marketplace constantly to build the pipeline. So, it may not be the best situation on both sides from the consumer and company, but on the flip side, we’ve got to have three to four X pipeline going into each quarter or we’re going to be in big trouble. So, we need somebody doing this.

Chris (16:47):

Well, let me jump in on this with my big question. This has been my question about SDRs forever. I remember going to somebody who’s still are our customer. They’ve been our customer now for nine years. They’re the folks I was looking at the data this morning who built a $100 million of pipeline, and about 12 people, two years of talking to people. That’s pretty much what they do because they talk to people.

David Dulany (17:09):

Wow.

Chris (17:10):

And they dominate their market and they’re now a public company and they do quite nicely. But I remember asking the head of that group about eight or nine years ago, “How do you actually square the circle on this dual mission?” So, your mission is to identify and groom new fresh account executives to go into the front lines of the business, and to generate pipeline.

(17:34):

And those seem like they’re contradictory missions, because if I were grooming account executives, I’d be having them understand the business, understand the customer’s problem, learning how to do great discovery calls, getting into the time management that’s required to be a great AE, because that’s number one, two and three things you have to do as an account executive is manage your time because that’s the big hard part. And yet here they are, they’re scrambling to make pipeline every day. Don’t those seem like contradictory missions?

(18:04):

And she told me, “My number one mission is to identify and groom new account executives. The SDRs are essentially fodder for that process.” She didn’t say it like that. I said it back to her like that because you know me, I always try to clarify, hopefully. Here’s my hopeful clarification, “They’re fodder for that process, aren’t they?” “Yes.”

David Dulany (18:27):

That’s true.

Chris (18:27):

I have a different view of the importance, and I just want your reaction to this, my view of the top of the funnel is, it’s your life. In fact, the theory of constraints says your business has one constraint and only one constraint. Now, the only question left for management is, where is that damn thing? Where is the constraint? Because managing anything but the constraint is always wasteful. This is a mathematical truth. This isn’t like some Beal opinion influenced by whiskey or whatever.

(18:55):

So, you can’t have two bottlenecks, you can only have one. That’s what it means to be a bottleneck, something is always the constraint. If the constraint is right there where we apply the SDRs, then wouldn’t it make sense to apply the most stable, competent, high performing professionals there and not let them leave, make it worth their while to stay?

(19:18):

To me, it’s, the best one I’ve ever seen, the best I’ve ever seen, Israeli cybersecurity company selling into hospitals to protect the equipment inside of the patients’ room from malware attacks, including ransomware. Can you imagine having your father or your mother or your child, their life literally held ransom by somebody in a foreign country somewhere, could even be in a non-foreign country, but they’re foreign to me if they would do this because they’ve managed to hack into the machines that are keeping that person alive, right?

(19:49):

Well, there are people who do that. There are people on our planet who seek to make their living by holding whole hospitals hostage or individual people. So, this company that we were working with has a way to prevent that. As a great mission, we were really excited by it. They hired three SDRs. The average age, the median age of the three, because there were three, you could compute a median by picking the one in the middle, was 67 years old, one year younger than I am.

(20:20):

So, we had one that was about 60, one that was 67, and then one of them was about 78. The mean age was higher than 67, the median was 67. These three SDRs produced, in five months, 68 million of pipeline, and the company sold for $300 million from a standing start in six months. Now, that to me is the SDR function. That’s what it’s for. It’s for market dominance.

(20:47):

So, if the first part is correct, the constraint’s just above the top of your funnel. And if you own that, you characterize it, you know how to invest in it, you can make flow happen, high quality flow happen there, and you can do it sustainably. You own markets. Then, why do we put junior people in that role? That’s like asking a junior physician, somebody who’s in med school, “Look, my heart is really important, but my brain is an even bigger deal. So, you’re the brain surgeon.”

David Dulany (21:16):

That’s so true. And I think you can sleep at night if you have a healthy pipeline. And the vetting candidates for your AE team and building your sales team over the long term, it’s great. And it’s been a successful strategy for very successful companies. And I point back to Salesforce because they’re the ones that have been huge proponents of this.

(21:40):

But if you have to choose between one or the other, wouldn’t you rather sleep well at night and have a healthy three to four X pipeline rolling into the quarter and be able to talk to the board about that versus, well, we just found this terrific SDR and promoted them to be an AE and they’re going to be great, they’re going to last a long time at the company.

(22:02):

It’s just, from a business perspective, I’m with you. The whole thing needs to be professionalized and run in a way that’s predictable. That’s the dream. And you’re not going to do it throwing the program together and hoping for the best, that’s for sure.

Chris (22:18):

Or populating it with the least likely to succeed.

David Dulany (22:23):

You go back to recruiting, even the root of the problem is, what’s the recruiting process for getting people into the role? How did you end up being an SDR? Not you Chris, but I meet some of these people and it’s just, have you ever been in sales? Have you ever sold anything? Have you ever done door-to-door-

Chris (22:39):

Door-to-door.

David Dulany (22:42):

… or any of that type of stuff? And it’s just completely foreign. It’s just, where are we getting these people?

Chris (22:48):

We’re getting literature majors-

David Dulany (22:49):

Right.

Chris (22:50):

… and we’re getting Poly Sci folks who can’t get a job in Washington because their party out of power. And we’re getting a lot of that stuff. We had a guest on this show once and we talked about “hire a grandma”. I wrote an article long time ago, 2012 I think it was, that basically said, the biggest untapped resource in the world of modern B2B sales is people at the end of their careers who are retiring, retired, or semi-retired, who would love to talk to people during the day, especially people in the field they came out of. And they’re out there.

(23:26):

So, you can’t really say, “Oh, they’re too expensive,” because trust me, down at Quail Creek where Helen and I have got another place, there are out of 2,400 houses, there’s probably 1700 women over the age of 65 who would love to have a few conversations a day with folks and ask them if they’d like to have a meeting, and I guarantee you they would be hunter killer head-hunters. There would be 20% conversion rates to be looked at, and they’re not going to leave.

(23:57):

So, when I talk to people in Silicon Valley about this, well, as with many topics I talk to people in Silicon Valley about, and remember folks, I am a legit Silicon Valley CEO, but when I talk to people in Silicon Valley about this, they just look at me like, it’s not just the two heads and five horns, I’m now up to 16 heads and 18,000 horns. It’s, “What is wrong with you? Don’t you know that it’s all about hiring the youngest most able people you can, throwing them into the thing and seeing if they reinvent whatever?”

(24:28):

And it’s, “Well, but we know how to set meetings? Haven’t we been doing this for, oh, I don’t know, a 100 years or so? Don’t we know the craft and the rules of the road for setting appointments? Why are we trying to ask somebody to reinvent that because there are some other tools around that you could use somewhere in the process when we have, I don’t know, 25, 30 million people we could draw on who’d be happy to do this job, and they’d stick with you.” Again, nobody’s listening to me on this one. I’m just saying it’s an untapped resource.

David Dulany (25:03):

And I think you hit it right on the head in that you have to look at it from the problem and reverse engineer it back on building the sales development program at your company where the problem is, we need more pipeline, we need three to four X pipeline, and that is the problem that we’re trying to solve. We’re not trying to solve for the age range of the SDRs, we’re not trying to solve for a promotion path, we’re not trying to solve for all these things that are just the dogmatic approach of Silicon Valley companies. We’re trying to solve for that pipeline problem.

(25:37):

So, let’s build the program back from that and really figure out the best way to do that. It might involve plugging in ConnectAndSell, it might involve hiring people that don’t fit in the program, it might involve training programs and different things like that. You’ve got to start at looking at from the position of a business owner versus, okay, we’ve got some money now, let’s just build it the same way as everybody else.

Chris (26:02):

Yeah. Oh, man, what can I say? There is nothing that produces repeated utility more effectively than a flood of money asking you to do what the last person who took money did.

David Dulany (26:18):

Exactly. Yeah. It’s almost like you said, they look at you funny when you bring this up, but I think that if you try to go outside of the set Silicon Valley playbook, you’re looked at a little suspiciously because it’s, wait a minute, you’re not following the benchmarks and the plays that have rocket-shipped these other companies from the last few years. So, they look at you funny.

(26:44):

And that’s one of the things with running a business, being a business owner and not having any investment funds, you look at things completely different than I think if you’re a 25-year-old tech genius who just got a big funding round. So, you’ve got to look at it from a business owner perspective.

Chris (27:03):

Yeah. Well, you don’t get a lot of that from sales leaders because they’re only going to be there for 17 months. So, when you meet a-

David Dulany (27:10):

Sales don’t stick around, yeah.

Chris (27:11):

… you meet a sales leader on average, just random, and eight and a half months left in their job.

David Dulany (27:17):

Yeah.

Chris (27:18):

They’re actively looking two months from now. So, short timer doesn’t even cover it, as long-

David Dulany (27:26):

That’s true. As long as you get a 1.5 to two years at a place, you can be at five different companies in 10 years, or whatever the math is, and nobody looks at that funny. So, you’re just surfing the wave of company to company, picking up some equity and a nice fat salary, and do what everybody else does. Then, you come in, Chris, and you’re, “Hey, sensibility and logic, and my pipeline reports behind me,” and they’re just, “What? I don’t get it.”

Corey Frank (28:03):

How much of that is just lack of proper structure? We always say here that structure precedes culture. You can’t have culture without a proper structure otherwise it’s playtime with the ping pong tables and the unlimited PTO and the pre-lunches and the perks, and people try to force-feed the culture, particularly they dumb it down to the lowest common denominator, “Hey, I have a bunch of young people who are BDRs, so let’s make the place fun.” And it’s just adult daycare. I think everybody really-

David Dulany (28:33):

That sounds awesome, dude. I want to work there.

Corey Frank (28:36):

Well, the Google offices with slides in the office, it’s, “Come on, be a grownup. Can you just be a grownup and handle…” It doesn’t mean you can’t have fun, but I think that pervades it a bit why if you had a BDR manager who’s a couple of years removed from being a BDR themselves, now they have to hire someone who is a rent-a-grandma or hire a grandma, hire somebody who had this esteemed career in software. I think that’s probably part of the chasm there. Wouldn’t you guys agree?

David Dulany (29:09):

Yeah, big time. Talk about going out of the norms, if you were a 25-year-old BDR manager and you walked in to the VP of sales and said, “I just hired a 65-year-old lady in Arizona to do our calling,” that would be an awkward conversation. The other quick thing that you mentioned is, with all those ping pong tables and foosballs and everything, you’re seeing the flip side of that right now because there’s massive layoffs happening in the SDR world. And I think we’re flipping to more of what Elon Musk is doing at Twitter now of the grownups are taking over going, “Wait a minute, what’s going on here,” and making big changes. So, that kind of thing can’t last long in a more difficult economy it seems.

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

How are you tracking your pipeline’s success? If you are only looking at one quarter or two, you are missing the larger picture of the attribution. Most of the results are going to be 3, 4, 5, and 6 quarters later. Is it the SDRs, advertising, phone calls made, or conversations you’ve had? If you wait too long to look at where the pipeline is coming from and where it is weak, you may be behind by an additional three to six months at that point. Companies are cutting back on prospecting teams without fully appreciating the long-term effect on the pipeline. David Dulany, Founder and CEO at TenBound, joins Chris and Corey for the first in a three-part series on Market Dominance Guys. In this episode, you’ll hear why a vendor is like someone with one leg of a giraffe and the other of an octopus tentacle. How do you walk with those? Or is it like Wile E Coyote running into the tunnel the Roadrunner painted on the side of the road?  Chris sums up this episode, “Failure to prospect today will turn future good times into bad times that are worse than today.” How will you avoid this position? Listen to “Prospecting, Inbound, or Pipeline Problems; Should You Hire an SDR?” to find out.

—-more—-

About David Dulany

He is highly-skilled and knowledgable in the SDR/BDR space. His training courses are personable, easy to understand, and most importantly- actionable. At a strategic level, he has the ability to effectively blueprint the entire Sales Development function.  From there, recruit, hire, build, mentor, inspire and lead a team of Sales Development Representatives to exponentially grow new business revenue and new logo attainment for start-ups or more established companies.

He considers himself a lifelong student of this craft. 

About Tenbound

Tenbound is a Research and Advisory firm focused and dedicated to B2B SaaS GTM Sales Development Performance improvement. The Sales Tech industry has exploded over the past few years; however, expertise in the subject is still rare. Tenbound aims to uplevel the profession through cutting-edge research, high quality events, and highly practical online training programs for all levels of the Sales Development team.

Full episode transcript below:

—-more—-

(00:22):

How are you tracking your pipeline success? If you’re only looking at one quarter or two, you’re missing the larger picture of attribution. Most of the results are going to be three, four, five, and six quarters later. Is it the SDR’s, advertising, phone calls made or conversations you’ve had? If you wait too long to look at where the pipeline is coming from and where it is weak, you may be behind by an additional three to six months at that point. Companies are cutting back on prospecting teams without fully appreciating the long-term effect on the pipeline.

(00:52):

David Dulany, founder and CEO at TenBound, joins Chris and Corey for the first in a three-part series on Market Dominance Guys. In this episode, you’ll hear why a vendor is like someone with one leg of a giraffe and the other of an octopus tentacle. How do you walk with those? Or is it more like Wile E. Coyote running into the tunnel the Roadrunner painted on the side of the road? You’ll have to tune in to find out. Chris sums up this episode. “Failure to prospect today will turn future good times into bad times that are worse than today.” How will you avoid this position? Listen to Prospecting, Inbound, or Pipeline Problems. Should You Hire an SDR? Tune in to find out.

Corey Frank (01:35):

Alrighty, here we are again. Welcome to another episode of The Market Dominance Guys with Corey Frank and Chris Beall, the sage of sales, the prophet of prophet and my new favorite, Chris, the Stephen Hawking of hawking. And we are here today with David Dulany. David, we were creeping on your profile beforehand. Certainly, we’ve shared many of the same conferences, but I haven’t had the courage enough to introduce myself. This is the first time for me. It’s a thrill. Chris, I know you know David for a while, but David is the CEO and the founder of TenBound, which is a research and advisory firm. Certainly, David is one of those rare breeds you find nowadays, Chris, on LinkedIn, where you’re not just a poster of content, you are a connoisseur and you are a practitioner. You cut your teeth at Act-On and Cisco and Glassdoor, so you know what you’re talking about. And Chris and I on this show, the guests that we have, you have to know what you’re talking about to get in the hot seat with the Market Dominance Guys. Welcome, David. Welcome.

David Dulany (02:37):

All right. Thanks for having me on. I’m excited. I’ve got a PhD in the school of hard knocks, so hopefully I can keep up with you guys.

Corey Frank (02:45):

You can certainly keep up with maybe Chris. We’ll see. Depends how many fingers of scotch he has had. It is four. There it is.

David Dulany (02:52):

Oh guys.

Corey Frank (02:53):

So, we’ll-

David Dulany (02:53):

Where’s mine? Come on, guys.

Corey Frank (02:55):

That’s a custom on the Market Dominance Guys. You have to have… I thought our producer may have got with your producer and crept you for the… So, a research and advisory firm, TenBound. Chris and I have talked about this a couple of times when we’ve talked with other folks in the research space, and I mean, this in all the endearment possible, but we always say, “Don’t rely too much on research because it can be used like a drunkard uses a lamppost, for support rather than illumination.” However, looking at some of the downloadable material, a wealth of material, the Gartner of the SDR space, I certainly appreciate the very narrow focus, the trade craft, the juicy nuggets of the SDR world because, as Chris says many, many times, the SDR, the cold call, that is the most athletic part of sales and certainly the most overlooked in a go-to-market channel. So, anyway, welcome to the program. And let’s talk a little bit about what TenBound does as a research and advisory firm. And do you support the drunkards or is it more for illumination?

David Dulany (04:01):

That’s a good way to put it. I’m happy to be the lamppost. Use it as you wish. From the get-go, we tried to make content that’s useful and something that you can print out and have at your desk and actually use to figure out the problems that you’re trying to work on. And five years ago, there wasn’t a lot of great information for either the practitioner or the executives running an outbound or an inbound SDR team on how to do it and how to do it effectively. So, I had some experience in that and thought that this was a place where we could really help people and add value. And so hopefully peo,ple use it as a force of good versus just something to get a raise or convince the board of something, that type of thing.

Corey Frank (04:52):

Yeah, yeah. Well, Chris, since you’ve known David a little bit longer than I have, how do you see TenBound right there in prominent in the industry? Talked about everywhere, the conferences, et cetera. The research they do for SDRs, how do you see that really augmenting or raising the bar for what we need sales leaders, CROs, maand rketing folks to understand about inside sales and specifically about the BDR function?

Chris Beall (05:16):

Well, I think there’s two things that TenBound’s doing. One is by focusing exclusively on the sales development function, therefore on the top part of the funnel. And there’s some question as to how far down you end up going, but it’s, I’ll say, up there somewhere. They’re actually addressing the mathematical constraint of almost every business in the world. So, there’s a lot of folks out there talk about sales, and what they really talk about is, “Hey, how you, the sales rep, can make more money.” And that’s really it. I mean, my friends at Outbound even do that. It’s like, “What’s the pitch?” The pitch is, you want to take home a bigger paycheck. That’s the pitch. And then it’s like, “Do this, do that or do the other thing and then be brave and strong and all that other good stuff and things will happen.” I happen to believe that the math is clear. Fat pipes outperform skinny pipes for one reason, and that is they come with a portfolio effect that lets you, the company, make choices among who your customers are.

(06:16):

And they also allow you to go through difficult times with less stress on your business than folks who have skinny pipes going in. That is, a fat pipe is like a savings account. It’s an asset. And that asset yields not obviously in good times, but yields hugely in challenging times, which are where competitions are won and lost. So, you want to find out which football team’s the best? Go play in Green Bay in the winter, right? You’ll learn a few things. I think that’s super important. The other thing that’s super important is the whole sales development function became real hot, and things that become hot go insane. And by insane, I mean, they actually lose their minds and you have a flood of money and attention and fads. And fads come and go, and you get what I call not just a breakdown of specialists, but a fragmentation of hopefuls. Everybody’s throwing something out there. How many sales development tools are there in the world, David?

David Dulany (07:14):

We can tell you, yeah. Over 500. We have the market map for those. It has been crazy, for sure.

Chris Beall (07:21):

So, what David’s doing at TenBound is providing a way to actually talk about that stuff while it’s happening, but allow the practitioners over time to guide this into a useful channel. So, the stuff that works and the stuff that’s useful actually will end up coming out the other end. And it’s not a magical one-second process. It takes years. The third feature of David is, thank God he’s willing to hang in there for years doing something that, as I told him… David, you’ll forgive me for this, but David’s in a business that’s somewhat like this. It’s got two legs. It’s a two-sided marketplace. So, you have on one side you have all the practitioners and companies that SDRs and sales development heads and all that. On the other side you have vendors like us. And it’s like waking up every morning and looking down and going, “One of my legs belongs to a giraffe and the other one is the tentacle of an octopus. Now, how am I going to walk today?”

David Dulany (08:16):

Great analogy. Yeah.

Chris Beall (08:17):

So, David, you’ve decided to do this. So, my question is this. I’ll put it politely. What possessed you? Was it the giraffe side, the octopus side, or a vision of a giraffetopus that you had that possessed you to look down into what was either beautiful warm water with bubbles in it to dive into or a painting of the bottom of a swimming pool?

David Dulany (08:47):

It’s like when the Roadrunner sets up a painting of the road and the coyote goes right in it?

Chris Beall (08:53):

Yeah. Why’d you plunge into the tunnel there?

David Dulany (08:56):

It’s funny that nobody’s ever asked me that. That’s an interesting question. I had been sort of a wantrepreneur for a long time. A long time. Because I had been in the tech industry and in the working world for 20 years and always read about and thought about entrepreneurship as something that I wanted to do. And as you get older, you get the golden handcuffs. And I had the kids and the mortgage and all that stuff and it becomes harder and harder. But I had an opportunity because I got into two companies in a row. I won’t name the names, but very difficult experiences from the get-go.

(09:35):

And I was in between things and I looked at this industry and you hit it right on the head. It’s an exciting industry and it’s growing and it’s very complex. And I saw a lot of opportunity in helping the people on one hand that are trying to figure it out and then working with the tech ecosystem to try to connect them to the audience. And for me, it looked like a great opportunity. And it has been really every day in the last 5+ years that I’ve been running this, every day I’ve gotten up with interesting new challenges and it’s been amazing. On the flip side, entrepreneurship is really tough and I’ve got a lot of scars to prove it. And my wife is still around, hopefully somewhere.

Chris Beall (10:25):

Is she over there? Are you waving to her?

David Dulany (10:29):

I’m hoping that. I hope so. It’s an amazing experience and we could go in any direction there. But the industry itself, there’s a lot of energy behind it and it’s fun for me. And so here I am.

Corey Frank (10:41):

So, when you started TenBound… By the way, what does the name come from? I always like to ask, is there a story somewhere?

Chris Beall (10:48):

He counted his toes and then he realized, “Oh my God, they’re going to be in my shoes. They’re bound up. Oh my God.”

David Dulany (10:53):

That was a good one. Yeah, it’s funny. And people who know me have heard this, but-

Chris Beall (10:59):

[inaudible 00:10:59] Dead Monkey Handout. Good name.

Corey Frank (11:01):

Dead Monkey Handout.

David Dulany (11:43):

I’m still thinking of those two legs. That’s such a great analogy, Chris. But the name, it was interesting because when I thought about outbound prospecting and all the things that we do in sales development, I wanted to call it AllBound because it encompasses everything. But that name was taken. And I was sitting in 10-minute parking at the BART station in Daley City and I said, “I wonder if TenBound is taken?” And also 10x your pipeline, right? By coming to TenBound. So, it was not taken, and-

Corey Frank (12:18):

I took it as 10 fingers to do outbound because you’re doing this the old school way, right?

David Dulany (12:24):

Okay. Dialing manually. Yeah.

Corey Frank (12:29):

So, when you started TenBound, I bet you harken back to the first couple of pieces of content or interviews or research would be stuff or germane around the things that you wish you had when you were running those operations at Cisco or Glassdoor or Act-On. Is that a true statement?

David Dulany (12:48):

Yeah, exactly. I mean, the first couple of things that I came up with were a SDR 101 training program. And actually scratch that. Before that it was a SDR manager 101 training program and just a brain dump of everything that I would’ve needed as coming in as a middle manager. And usually they’re promoted from an SDR to an SDR manager after six months. And it’s like, now-

Chris Beall (13:20):

Then they get to be LinkedIn influencer shortly after that too.

David Dulany (13:22):

Oh right, right. That’s it exactly. I followed that pattern, so exactly. So, that was just a brain dump. And that actually ended up becoming a book that finally we released last year, and it’s gotten a good reception. It took way too long to write, but it’s out there now.

Corey Frank (13:41):

Did you hear that, Chris? It took way too long to actually write the book.

Chris Beall (13:46):

Oh my God. For the innocent in the audience who haven’t been with us for all seven episodes, this podcast is a lameass attempt to write a book, and so far we’ve got 160 episodes and no book.

David Dulany (13:59):

Oh my God. You guys, I wish I had the silver bullet there, but all I could say is you just got to grind it out, and it took way too long.

Corey Frank (14:09):

Yeah, we’re having too much fun talking problems to death versus actually doing the research behind it. It’s a different story.

David Dulany (14:14):

There you go.

Corey Frank (14:15):

No, one of the analogies, Chris, I don’t know if you’ve ever talked with David, particularly if SDR manager and leadership and 101, but how about, let’s talk about the surfer and the surfboard. We’ve talked about it several times in our episodes. But David, did you get this impression about how we see the world of an SDR and you coming from a very finely tuned mind on breaking down a methodology? But Chris, what do you think about that? I think David would be interested in hearing that.

Chris Beall (14:42):

Well, the analogy that I came up with, I was watching some people surf one day actually, and what can I say? I was in Southern California and I thought, “This is really interesting. Not one of those people out there surfing made their own surfboard.” And if they did, they’d surf pretty poorly, even if they were good surfers. Because making a surfboard is very, very different from surfing. In a way they’re unrelated, right? The expert at making the surfboard is drawing on 50, 60, 70, 80 years of tradition, knowledge, material science, what works in what waves. They’ve learned from masters. But the surfer has to learn to get on the board, use their balance, be courageous, get some artistry in there. And to me, in my narrow analogy, the surfboard is the script and the surfer is the SDR.

(15:27):

But I think there’s a bigger analogy, which is that the surfboard is all that’s being provided by management and the surfer is the SDR. In my analogy, my original one, it’s not that the surfer is the SDR as a human being, it’s their voice. The voice is what surfs using the script. But what do you think about that? Because management’s job can be a lot of things. Helen Fanucci, my wife, wrote a book called Love Your Team: A Survival Guide for Sales Managers in the Hybrid World. Her view is it’s all about the team because she starts from the proposition, they’re not on your team unless they know what to do. But I think in the SDR world, we could start at the opposite end, which is they’re on your team because they don’t know what to do. And-

David Dulany (16:12):

That’s a good point.

Chris Beall (16:12):

… hence starting with management training as your first offering. Well, as you think about that, first of all, does the analogy make any sense? Is it management’s job to build the surfboard because they know how. If they were a rep three months ago, maybe they don’t. So, maybe that’s an issue there. But as you think about it, if that analogy is apt, what are the pieces that you think a manager should focus on providing so that their SDR team members can learn how to and eventually actually execute beautiful rides? The conversation is like the ride. It doesn’t last long, but it’s a thing of beauty when it happens and the audience goes wild.

David Dulany (16:54):

Yeah, it is. It’s a good analogy. And I would go one step further, that a lot of SDRs are just sent out into the water with a foam piece and some epoxy and a cutter thing, and they’re kind of floating around out there trying to actually shape and create the surfboard so that they can then get a ride. And it depends on the company. And if you’re talking about a company that has a sophisticated pipeline generation program set up, then yes, they have a well-made surfboard and guidance and suggestion to go out and catch rides. But if you go to the other end of the spectrum with a startup, you’re basically on your own, kid, and there’s sharks in the water. You know what I mean?

And when people think about SDRs and pipeline production, I think they come at it with, “I have a problem. We don’t have enough meetings on the calendar. The sales reps are not prospecting enough. There’s not enough marketing inbound, and we don’t have enough pipeline. What do we do? Boom, let’s hire an SDR.” And then they’re, again, depending on the company, either supported or not, to be able to execute on the ride that they’re on. And a lot of times they really struggle and come up short. And now in this economy, it’s easy to look at that team and go, “Wow. I mean, we’re paying a lot of money and paying for a lot of things for this team to be in place and they’re not producing the pipeline that we need. So, let’s cut them.”

Chris Beall (18:31):

Yeah, I have a story about that from today, by the way. From today. So, I spent today, not the entire day but most of it, I also took a little walk down to Marination and had some kimchi fried rice with sexy tofu, as one should, but I spent the rest of the day working on showing one of our customers what their SDRs have actually produced. And it has some shocks in it. And I want to get your opinion about some of these shocking elements. So, here’s the number one shocking element that I found. The outbound calling that this team did in 2021, so for those of you listening to this, this is now December 14th of 2022 is the date we recorded this, so in 2021 they had a team of about 12 people, SDRs, and they were using our product, ConnectAndSell. So, they’re having a lot of conversations. But the basic impression that management had as they started to look into the future is, “Well, 2021 conversations create 2021 meetings.”

(19:31):

So, I went and looked at the 2021 conversations and only looked at the pipeline generated from them in 2022. So, the conversation was last year, or the conversations. Some of them continued. The first conversation was last year, pipeline this year. They had produced, with 12 people, 56 million dollars of directly attributable 2022 pipeline from conversations that started in 2021. So, when you look at that, then this is about out of 98 million dollars of total pipeline created. So, the majority of the pipeline was created from conversations from last year. And yet I would bet the mindset of almost everybody listening to this right now is, “That’s not how it works. You call or reach out on email or do something and you get a meeting and the meeting, it’s linear. The meeting turns into an opportunity, blah, blah, blah.”

(20:32):

But what we see in the real world is these very, very long positive tales from SDRs, and therefore when you fire your SDR team or shrink your SDR team, my opinion, and it was strengthened today, you actually don’t know what’s going to happen. You don’t know how much your future is tied to the tail of what they’re producing today, because you’re looking for in quarter results, and yet most of the results are going to be three, four, five, six quarters later. Do you see that or am I just the guy with too many numbers in front of me?

David Dulany (21:04):

No. I mean, the charts behind you, right? Attribution is a really tough problem to solve. And knowing what really caused the pipeline to be established and to close, it’s really tough. Because you could attach SDRs as one thing. You’ve got advertising. You’ve got phone calls that have made. You’ve got conversations. And so I think in the near term, if you’re looking at your pipeline and it’s unhealthy, you’re almost three to six months too late at that point. That’s the thing. With everybody cutting back on these teams and not having anybody doing any prospecting, I think it’ll be even scarier in the first couple of quarters because now there’s nobody prospecting. And it’s like, you think your pipeline is bad right now? Think about it. If you don’t put any energy into this activity and it takes three to six months, to your point, to really see the progress being made, then the Q1, Q2 of next year is going to be pretty scary.

Chris Beall (22:08):

You made me think of a phrase. Failure to prospect will turn future good times into bad times that are worse than today.

David Dulany (22:17):

Yeah, exactly. And it’s like, “Okay, well what can we control right now?” I think it’s taking a step back and looking at your pipeline production process from strategic level and recalculating and putting emphasis back into it versus just cutting the team.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

A company’s leadership – the lead singer, picks up the pieces and fills in the holes in a performance. Their drummers keep the rhythm of the deal moving forward so everyone can stay in time. But what about the sale professional making the calls – the lyricist? The correct tone of a single syllable can make or break a conversation before it starts. Corey and Chris continue their conversation with Paula S. White of Side B Consulting. They compare the ways different cultures start a cold call. We have more in common with all of our varying cultures than you may think when we start the call admitting we are an interruption and that we have never met the prospect on the other end. Paula takes us through the skill of being an unexpected listener and where that is valuable in every business encounter. The good news is it can be learned, like a memorable piece of music or a favorite song that takes us back to a favorite memory. Join these sales musicians in this episode, “Join the Band – How Sales Professionals Are like Lyricists.”

—-more—-

About Our Guest
Paula S. White is the Leadership DJ of Side B Consulting in New Albany, Ohio. Side B Consulting helps leaders combine their business-minded skills with their relationship-based people skills to more effectively lead their teams.

 

Full Transcript here:

A company’s leadership – the lead singer, picks up the pieces and fills in the holes in a performance. Their drummers keep the rhythm of the deal moving forward so everyone can stay in time. But what about the sale professional making the calls – the lyricist? The correct tone of a single syllable can make or break a conversation before it starts. Corey and Chris continue their conversation with Paula S. White of Side B Consulting. They compare the ways different cultures start a cold call. We have more in common with all of our varying cultures than you may think when we start the call admitting we are an interruption and that we have never met the prospect on the other end. Paula takes us through the skill of being an unexpected listener and where that is valuable in every business encounter. The good news is, it can be learned, like a memorable piece of music or a favorite song that takes us back to a favorite memory. Join these sales musicians in this episode, “Join the Band – How Sales Professionals Are like Lyricists.”

Corey Frank(00:00):

So what are these challenges that you see in companies? Cuz I would bet that there are folks maybe at the C level who wanna be more in touch with side B to communicate, to retain talent, to inspire more creativity. And you probably have folks who say, Hey listen, I didn’t sign on for this. I thought you hired me for my resume. I thought you hired me for my experience. How do you help workshop that out? So they do sing the same song. 

Paula White (00:29):

So interestingly enough, it again all comes down to culture and you’re gonna see resumes changing very, very shortly where some of those things, those side B traits are starting to show up on resumes. They’re looking for cultures of accountability, they’re looking for cultures that are going to give back. They’re looking for cultures who believe in their people. So how do you take what you have now and ensure that everyone is singing on the same page? I think it’s just getting in the studio. We have to get all ideas out on the paper or the whiteboard and start coming together as a band and making sure each instrument is represented for their own strengths. 

Corey Frank(01:28):

How is that facilitated? Do you expect that the leaders will drive that facilitation? I know certainly that’s what your practice is all about, but when the conductor leaves the building such as you and your team, how am I empowered or instilled with this sheet music to make sure that hey, drummer plays this, bass player plays this, et cetera? 

Paula White (01:53):

That’s a great question because after most workshops, people do tend to forget, right? Facilitating something really takes time. And there is a monthly plan that I do connect with the CEO or the leader that put the workshop together to ensure these things are still happening within the organization. But the most important part is really taking the survey for each person to understand what their intentionality and what they are on the inside is brought out. And if that is known by everybody, then we can hold each other accountable to being open-minded creative, to being experimental, to being laser logical. If we have a person who is laser logical, let’s use that and let’s create it together so that everyone knows what their skill sets are. Yes, it sounds great in a workshop and it can facilitate afterwards. And I tend to take the next six months and we take the next six months to ensure that that continues to go through the organization. 

Corey Frank(03:08):

, . No, that’s great. I think I keep coming back to this element of having the courage to do it. Yeah, because we read, right Chris, we read a lot of books, we listen to a lot of podcasts, we adhere to the philosophies of a lot of speakers where it’s about technique and not necessarily the connection. And certainly what Helen talks about and certainly Paula, what I hear from I understand from what your practice does is really we try to have that catalyst, that spark of that connection. And that’s what certain people are better at it than others. How do I develop that connection, that intentionality that you spoke about earlier? 

Paula White (03:54):

Well first you gotta really understand what that connection is within you. And we talked about that a little bit. It may not be vulnerability. Your connection may be that you are helpful or that you like to experiment with ideas. So understanding yourself first gets to the point of seeing yourself what hasn’t been seen before in this survey . And we take those three essential traits and three desirable traits and then we kind of pie fit them. What resonates with you? How are we to get you to be more open-minded because that is what is in you. So how do we get that to connect with your people? And we have different questionnaires and different things that people can do to become more open-minded, right? There’s different lessons in all of that. And I think what you’re asking mostly is one of the part of the workshops that I absolutely love is understanding how to become an unexpected listener. 

Corey Frank(05:07):

Unexpected listener. 

Paula White (05:10):

There are levels of listening. So the first phase of listening is listening. You go in ready to defend your ideas and all you’re listening for is an opening. Next level is active listening. You’re gonna actively listen to somebody, show them that you care. But you still have that little ticker tape going down at the bottom of the screen that is in your back of your mind, but you’re listening to them cuz they’re up on top of the screen . And then the unexpected listener actually reacts on what their people are saying takes the time to do, takes the time to react and do what is being asked of or listening to what they need. 

Chris Beall (06:04):

I always have this question about anything where there’s change. So when you’re working with a leader, are you working with individual leaders or you working with the whole team? 

Paula White (06:13):

So interestingly, if I do both, I look work with individual leaders, but for the most part my workshops are with high potential emerging leaders throughout organizations. 

Chris Beall (06:25):

So within an organization they’ll bring together the high potential is their idea who’s high potential, 

Paula White (06:32):

And that’s a whole nother topic. 

Chris Beall (06:35):

, yes. I always say there’s, if you wanna find out what’s going on, look at the filter first before you look at the processing. 

Chris Beall (06:45):

So you have these folks together, you’re working with them, you are listening to them hopefully in an unexpected way, but you’re finding out that you’ve brought whatever you brought to the party that day. Also you’re just another human being. There’s got to be in a pattern to what happens in cuz there’s always patterns to what happens and somewhere in a pattern. I always look for that thing that I call the first unit of change. . It is what actually is something that changes, that’s concrete that you can say, okay, that actually changed. I could validate it, I could test it, I could be concerned that it’s going to change back. That’s one of the ways that I can tell that the unit of change is a real unit of change is when it bothers me a little after it happens that I’m concerned it’ll flip back whether it’s in myself or somebody else. What is it that you are looking for listening for? Probably listening more than looking in a group. Say you’ve got seven emerging leaders that together you’re at the end of the first whatever it is, hour, two hours or sometime when you’re hoping that there will be a change of a kind, what is that unit of change? What’s the thing you’re looking for listening for that you would be worried or concerned later? I hope that doesn’t flip back over to side A. 

Paula White (08:10):

So I’m always listening for diversity of thought. Do I have seven drummers in there or do I have a full complete band? Do I have two vocalists that are dominating the whole session? and I really listen for what does their band or what does their group consist of? What is their talent? And then how can we cohesively work together to bring out everybody’s talent to add loyalty and creativity and innovation, right? Because that’s really the meat of emerging leaders are that’s where you’re going to get your creativity, your innovation, your next level thinking for the company to move forward in five to 10 years. The people who are in the seats now are already thinking five to 10 years out. So now we need the next group to start thinking five to 10 years beyond that. 

Chris Beall (09:25):

Which is interesting given the way the world works now, right? Because five to 10 years far exceeds most people’s anticipated employment with any given company. 

Paula White (09:34):

I mean exactly. 

Chris Beall (09:36):

We’re running a funny operation here at ConnectAndSell where the average tenure company’s 15 years old and the average tenure is 17 years. So we flipped, I dunno how we did, 

Paula White (09:47):

But think about everything. Think about if you could actually, cuz I’ve been with four companies throughout my entire 30 years, my career. And if you could retain that type of loyalty, that type of belief, that type of innovation for the long haul, what that would do for a company, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and people, the bands that weren’t one hit wonders, they have a legacy and we need to leave a legacy for the people that we serve. And so as we continue to grow that the only way that you’re gonna do that is by hoping more people stay loyal and not leave the company and have that type of culture. 

Corey Frank(10:54):

Interesting. I wonder if Paula, in your practice to that point, if you have I’m sure you’ve seen CEOs that were more the drummers or maybe the CFO was more of the lead singer which is counterintuitive to I think how most people think, right? Chris, when you have those roles and what have you learned from those type of dynamics that it doesn’t necessarily match up with the archetype of the org chart and they’re not right outta central casting as you had thought. Marketing isn’t the drummer rather it’s a financial person. Maybe it’s not a good thing to have the drummer be the CFO, but I dunno, maybe it is 

Paula White (11:37):

Actually the way that I did this and I worked with a neuroscientist, a psychologist, a musician, and myself. The four of us worked together. So we took the position of the drummer because we’ve been talking about the drummer and we asked ourselves, what is the primary role of the drummer? The primary role of the drummer in a band is to keep the beat, to keep everything moving forward, to keep the song moving forward. So what would be the side a side A is usually the visionary, the forward thinker, the person that is always ready to move and keep moving . So what their side B would be is curiosity, because they need to understand as a visionary what’s happening in the market, what’s happening with their people, what’s happening with their customers. They’re always curious to move forward and innovate. So we did this really so methodically that I think it would be interesting to see if it’s not based on title necessarily, but what their skill set is. So the lead guitarist, 

Corey Frank(12:54):

, 

Paula White (12:56):

When you think of a lead guitarist, what do you think of? What is their primary role? 

Corey Frank(13:03):

Getting the groupies in the drugs. 

Paula White (13:05):

They  

Corey Frank(13:07):

You talking during, you’re talking when they’re on stage, not after. I thought we were talking about 

Paula White (13:12):

They’re pretty close though. 

Corey Frank(13:15):

Probably 

Paula White (13:15):

Guitar riffs, right? Yeah. 

Corey Frank(13:17):

The riffs that have the unique sound that is the band. You think about The Edge, you two has a unique sound. Led Zeppelin had a unique sound because of the lead drummer. Right? Exactly. That’s the 

Paula White (13:30):

Lead guitarist. So you’ve got that lead guitarist and they are so passionate about it. , . So passion is the side B trait. 

Corey Frank(13:41):

You can’t be a tourist in a band and be the lead guitarist, right? You don’t just show up. I mean you are committed, 

Paula White (13:51):

You are 100% committed and you take initiative and you’re enthusiastic. And you’re even authoritative. , right? 

Chris Beall (14:02):

. And you’re most likely to be pissed off if somebody else blows it. 

Paula White (14:07):

Exactly. 

Chris Beall (14:08):

Explicitly guitarist. That’s the most pissed off. 

Corey Frank(14:10):

Yeah. 

Paula White (14:13):

And for the optimist or the vocalist, think about the vocalist for a moment. What is their primary role? 

Corey Frank(14:25):

What is the primary role of a vocalist? I suppose mean if we’ve all been parts of bands or watching bands at bars where the musicians are incredible, but the lead singer is horrible. And also where the lead singer is incredible and maybe the band isn’t up to tune. So I would say it’s, it’s really the face of the band. It’s the identity of the band. Everybody knows Bono up front or Axle Rose up front, right? Or Mick Jagger front I. So I would think it’s really more the branding but I don’t know. What do you think Chris? 

Chris Beall (15:01):

As a singer myself, and this is something I actually even think I react to when I’m here at home. I’ve got my piano right over there and I play and sing most evenings. And I think as the vocalist, I feel as the vocalist, what I’m doing is I’m telling the story, I’m helping the audiences emotions move with the whole song. Cuz the song includes the lyrics, it includes the tone as the vocalist. I have a bigger range than any of the other instruments in terms of subtlety. I can do more things with my instrument than they can do with theirs. 

Paula White (15:42):

That is why their side B is advanced business acumen because they do the whole thing when they’re on tour, they’re providing direction, they’re providing clarity, they’re getting people set up. They know when the song ends. They analyze the pit balls in the audience. I mean, I’ve been in a concert recently where the vocalists literally stopped the concert because he saw someone pass out in the mosh pit and get help and get them. So it’s that type of brain. 

Chris Beall (16:24):

Yeah, that’s interesting. It’s a funny thing. I mean it’s also a big power position. I mean the drummer can drive the thing like an engine, but somebody is gonna decide when they’re gonna slam on the brakes, when they’re gonna make a hard turn. And there’s a lot of power in that. And that always comes from the vocalist. The vocalist also ends up catching and basically gluing things together when it didn’t quite work. One of the problems with pure instrumental music is when it doesn’t work, when it’s a little off. And this is especially true when you’re listening to jazz, jazz trios, when it’s a little bit off, it’s really bad. It falls apart and there’s almost no way to catch it. It’s like, who’s gonna catch it? What are they gonna do? And what you do is you simplify down to something that continues to work. That is you actually lower the qualities so to speak. And jazz, the quality comes not just from the execution but also from the imagination. You reduce the imagination, lower the temperature and let the music come back together. But if you add a vocalist to that trio, when it starts to fall apart, they can actually pull it together with their voice 

Chris Beall (17:39):

, and then everybody can get back together with the vocalist without having to abandon their imagination or tone it down. I mean I really like, this is some interesting stuff, so I kinda know Paula, so everybody feels differently about music as a consumer of it, but more similarly to each other than the fact they might like some genres more than others. I didn’t know that I loved rap until I went to a play yesterday, I think it was day before yesterday called. It was the Christmas Carol done as the Q Brothers Christmas Carol. And I realized what, that’s what I really like about that music. Even though I don’t like the music now, I really like it because it was funny and it told a great story and so forth. As consumers of music were all similar in that we all know how to consume the music that we like 

Chris Beall (18:34):

As producers of music. Whether it’s just your voice when you’re speaking or whether it’s actually making music by yourself or with others. I think we diverge a lot. I think that there’s a lot of issues around performance anxiety when it comes to music, especially . You were raised giving piano recitals at the age of four. There were, it’s like, how scary is that? It’s not that scary cuz you just don’t know anything. But for some people it’s okay to perform musically. For some people it’s not. And yet when you’re bringing out your side B in a sense, you have to be okay. You have to learn to be okay performing, so to speak, from this other side of yourself. How do you help people do that? Cuz that’s a wide divergence of capabilities that are built in and then hammered in through childhood. That’s just hammered in it’s some people are way over there and they’ll say, I could never sing or I could never play. I could never do whatever. And some people will walk into a room having a tune the like or break out into Broadway show music, a regular basis, diovan, . 

Paula White (20:02):

It really is getting people to see really. So I am not a vocalist. I am a lyricist. I’ve written six songs for my book and produced those with great musicians. But it’s really seeing the unseen and once somebody sees that they can be what they are truly within themselves, bringing their whole self to work, it’s easier because that’s what they’re used to. For example, I was a competitive swimmer. I naturally leaned into music because I didn’t hear anything or rhythm really. Keeping my strokes in rhythm, keeping my beat going, breathing at the right time. I would make up songs in my own head. So when we’re doing that, those songs in your own head are just these voices of chatter. We’re just trying to change that language to your side. B 

Chris Beall (21:13):

, . I love that you used a rhythm of, was this going on in your head, the songs? It 

Paula White (21:19):

Was absolutely going on My head actually in seventh grade, I’m gonna give you a little tip here. Seventh grade, I wrote a whole play Broadway play for Billy Joel’s album. The Stranger. What I did with it, I don’t know, but I wrote it about the Italian restaurant, the red wine, the white wine, the Brenda and Eddie. And I had the whole scene mapped out in my head. , I know because I love music 

Chris Beall (21:56):

By the way. I played from that play which somebody stole from you and put on Broadway. I was just playing from it the other night. . Yeah, it was very songs. I didn’t know you wrote that stuff. That’s fast. 

Paula White (22:08):

Oh no, no. I wrote it in my own. Oh, I wrote it. I never gave it to anybody, but I wrote one when I was in seventh grade. 

Chris Beall (22:19):

I think probably the early, well by the way, the power of rhythm I think is really quite astonishing when it comes to stabilizing performance. So as some unfortunate to among our eight listeners, I do barefoot endurance running for fun. And some people think that’s oxymoron. How could that be fun? It’s actually kind of a gentle relaxing activity for at least the first few hours. And I recall once because I always have a song in my head and it’s always challenging to find a song that will help you, that really will go along and help you. And I did a 50 K once in the almond and Quick Silver Mountains behind my house two weeks after running the big serve marathon. So this was not a good idea. And these mountains are really up and down and up and down. And I did it on a whim and I ate the wrong thing beforehand. 

Chris Beall (23:15):

And so I had these sort of stomach cramps for the first two, two and a half hours. And this thing took nine hours to run. And what I found helped me for especially about the last five hours, oddly enough, was the odd rhythm of take five. And the reason was it kept my mind occupied because at the end of ever measure, you were on the other foot. Really? That sounds ridiculously stupid, but it never got boring because when you you’re doing a run like that, it’s hard to keep your focus. Some things are going on in your body and your mind. But there was just something about going, I wonder which foot it’s gonna because I’d forget. Right. 

Corey Frank(23:58):

Well what is that? Let’s see, Breck, I mean four is all kind. I don’t know what the time is 

Chris Beall (24:04):

But Well it’s got five beats. It’s five four, so it’s quarter, it’s quarter notes, but there’s five of them in a measure. And so it’s got this extra beat and that extra beat I kept falling into. That’s what I felt like is I can always fall into that fifth beat and then the next measure starts. I did that for the last five hours or so and then I finished the run and had a nice piece of peach pie and went home . I’ll never forget that. The power of the music and I don’t listen to music when I run. I don’t let it come in through my ears. It’s always inside of me. But I’m a big believer in that I actually think that music runs inside of us in a way to maintain our sanity. 

Corey Frank(24:49):

Wow. 

Paula White (24:50):

Wow. I would agree with you because music also is the only form that allows us to use both sides of our brain simultaneously. 

Chris Beall (25:01):

And we remember it differently. I mean otherwise why would there be named that tomb? We talk on the cold calling technique world of market dominance guys, which is all about paving the market with trust by effectively, by singing to somebody in seven seconds, you have seven seconds to get your voice to do something magical inside of that person. And when you’re thinking about like, well what’s really going on there, , if somebody were to say, well what’s really happening there? What’s happening is the words, we have a thing, we had a whole episode on this. The words are a surfboard and the voice is the surfer, the artist. And somebody has to shape the words. We probably shouldn’t be shaping our own words when we’re out in the world of repetitive performance because that’s right. The words, unless there’s a whole bunch of ’em, we’re probably not gonna get it quite right. 

Chris Beall (25:59):

But we can incorporate the words as poetry and then sing them. And it’s like name that tune. Why could name that tune ever be a show. Think about it. It’s crazy, right? Oh, right now that tune in one or two seconds and yet if you walk around in the world and you hear the beginning of a song, it make a mistake. You might think it’s one of three, but you’ll, you’ll not think it’s one of a hundred. It’s very, very quick. We can’t remember our children’s name. Well, I have a problem remembering names after 3 27 in the afternoon. I have real issue with that. But the ability to remember that this is that song, even if you can’t name it, you can continue it. Sure. That is deep. Deep memory stuff. And when you think about relationships we have with people, what we’re essentially doing is we’re building memories with them. And it’s those memories that are the glue of the relationship. It’s like when we are remembering before the show here being on at this conference and then going onto this little podcast that was happening, we were actually reinforcing our relationship by remembering something together. , . And that is the essence of how we build businesses, is we create what we call culture is actually a matrix of shared memories that are interpreted in a common framework 

Chris Beall (27:26):

That’s deep. 

Corey Frank(27:28):

It’s funny, Chris, I just had a client of ours came and pay us a visit and she is of Japanese heritage and we were talking about the phone here and the phone that I was keeping the back. And now when we pick up the phone, we always say hello. And we were talking about this very thing about the surfboard and tonality and the musicality that you have to have the right. It’s like if a lyricist as Paula, sometimes you just looking for the right word to hit the right beat if it’s too short. We all know those songs that it could use another word or syllable here, . And in Italy, when you pick up the phone, you say Poto, right? And she’s saying in Japan, cuz I was talking about cold calling in different cultures and the musicality of what we try to do here in the US and would it translate well to Italian when it translate to Japanese. 

Corey Frank(28:25):   

hajime-mashite

 

And she said a beautiful thing. She said, the Japanese, when you answer the phone from a business to business, not mushy, mushy when it’s more informal, but that a traditional first encounter and the word actually means, the phrase actually means greetings with a first encounter. It’s Hajimemashite! Which means nice to meet you first encounter. It’s almost like now I would never do it. So the first time we meet Paula, let’s say Hajimemashite!, right? Corey Frank, right? Nice to meet you. First encounter Corey Frank. And it was just something Chris that was, I thought was just very beautiful about our profession. That the person on the other end of the line, instead of saying, listen, this is a cold call, you can hang up if you want Chris Vos stuff. Or it’s really a variance of the 27 seconds. I know I’m an interruption. Yes. Labels you as the monster. You as the invisible stranger. When you say that Hajimemashite!, like this is the first time we’ve spoken and had she was speaking in Japanese, she just had such a musicality of it that I thought was such a beautiful tradition to connote. I’m the stranger. You’re being vulnerable here right now by picking up the phone. I want you to know that we’ve never met before. 

Paula White (29:46):

Wow. I love that. Wow. 

Corey Frank(29:49):

Yeah. And talk about that vulnerability that you have to have in business. We talk about it. Paula, here as we wrap up about the vulnerability you have to have to explore your side B, right? The person I have talked for years now about the vulnerability that you have to show, the courage you have to show because of this highly athletic act of cool calling here that we do here, . But I tell you what, Paul, I love to learn a little bit more. I think there is so much to be learned from these things about ourselves and the synergies and the opportunities to talk with you and Helen together. Chris, that would make a wonderful episode to have the love your team and the side B consulting here, experts in action. So Paula, we would go to paula s white.com if we wanna learn a little bit more. And side B consulting, are you on the Twitter verse everywhere else? And 

Paula White (30:44):

Connect me on LinkedIn. Paula S White, Instagram side B, and YouTube side B. What’s your legacy? 

Corey Frank(30:54):

What about, 

Paula White (30:56):

I am not on TikTok. I still believe that there’s more to say than 15 seconds. 

Chris Beall (31:05):

Is that what TikTok is? 15 seconds. I was unaware. Thank you for that 

Corey Frank(31:09):

Education. I don’t think that would work for us then. Chris. 27 seconds is all we need. That’s 

Chris Beall (31:14):

Gotta have 27, 27 

Paula White (31:17):

Seconds. 

Corey Frank(31:17):

Well Paul, it’s been a pleasure. We look forward to hearing from you again on future episodes of the Market Dominance guys. And for Chris, be the sage of sales, the profit of profit, the Hawking of Hawking. This is Corey Frank. Until next time, 

Paula White (31:29):

Thank you so much.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

What helps make someone an effective leader? According to our guest, Paula White, the Leadership DJ of Side B Consulting, it’s all about employing a leader’s human side along with their business side when they connect with their team. Using music and musician metaphors, Paula helps leaders discover the aspects of their flip side — Side B — which define their humanity, and how they can combine their Side B aspects with their business side to become intentionally connected with their team members. Our hosts, Corey Frank and Chris Beall, bring their own experiences as team leaders to this topic, discussing with Paula how an imbalance of power can often impede an honest exchange between a leader and his team members, and how the application of a leader’s Side B traits can diminish this. Curious to discover your own Side B? Get some insights from today’s Market Dominance Guys’ episode, “Your ‘Side B’ Is a Leadership Tool.”

About Our Guest
Paula S. White is the Leadership DJ of Side B Consulting in New Albany, Ohio. Side B Consulting helps leaders combine their business-minded skills with their relationship-based people skills to more effectively lead their teams.

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Full episode transcript below:

Corey Frank (01:20):

We’re back, post-Thanksgiving version of the Market Dominance Guys. Welcome to another episode of the Market Dominance Guys with Corey Frank, and, as always, the sage of sales, the prophet of profit, my personal favorite, the Stephen Hawking of hawking, right, Chris Beall. And here we have another incredible special guest. We have Miss Paula White from the Leadership DJ, raise your leadership style, and always, Chris, because generally you sit with the most interesting people at either trade shows or on a plane, or you’re introduced to some of the most interesting people in sales and sales leadership today, so I can’t wait to hear how you met Paula. But first, Chris, how was your Thanksgiving, good time all around?

Chris Beall (02:05):

It was grand, it was grand. And, Paula, it’s fabulous to have you here. Paula, we can try to remember how we met. Paula’s the only person who’s ever succeeded in getting me to jump on a plane and go to Columbus, Ohio, just to have breakfast

Corey Frank (02:20):

Really? On purpose? Wow. No coercion, nothing.

Paula White (02:24):

No coercion, just maybe the Ohio State Buckeyes. Yeah.

Corey Frank (02:31):

Perfect. And so this breakfast was what a breakfast it was.

Chris Beall (02:35):

And a graduate from the Ohio State University, who has a PhD in clinical psychology, cooked our Thanksgiving turkey. There’s a connection right there, Paula.

Paula White (02:48):

There it is, right there. That person cooked your Thanksgiving turkey and, unfortunately, the Buckeyes did not win and lost to Michigan, the state up north.

Chris Beall (03:01):

Well, that’s actually fortunate for me because Sean McLaren, our executive chairman, is a Michigan guy, so I have to deal with him on more occasions than Paula. Paula, I’m so sorry-

Paula White (03:16):

Well-

Chris Beall (03:16):

… but out of self-interest. Paula and I met recently at the OutBound Conference, which is a tremendous conference that Jeb Blount and Anthony Iannarino, it used to be Mike Weinberg, anyway, but the Sales Hunter, Mark Hunter is there. And we met and just were having a bunch of conversations about something that’s near and dear to my heart, which I’ll call it the other side of sales, and she calls it Side B, and Paula’s an aspiring DJ or a practicing DJ. I don’t know what you are-

Paula White (03:46):

Yeah, yeah, right now, I’m aspiring.

Chris Beall (03:53):

… just as good a DJ as I am a piano player. We were just talking about a whole bunch of stuff, and it also came together in my mind in part with what Helen is doing with her book, Love Your Team: A Survival Guide for Sales Managers in a Hybrid World, Amazon bestseller in multiple categories, and so it was like, “Hey, why not get on Market Dominance Guys?” Because we talk all the time about what I’ll call technique, right, but, when we had Helen on, we talked about this other side, which is the human side. We do a lot of the human side on Market Dominance Guys about what’s going on in that person’s mind and their gut in the first seven seconds of a conversation? Paula is helping folks discover their own human side so they can bring it into the arena, so to speak, and be a whole person and still be a fantastic performer. I think that that just led to this. Here we are. Paula, welcome.

Paula White (04:47):

Well, thank you. What an amazing, amazing introduction there. Although I will say, Chris, that our very, very, very first meeting was seven years ago at the AAISP Leadership Summit.

Chris Beall (05:04):

Was it the leadership summit or the executive retreat?

Paula White (05:07):

Oh, the executive retreat. You’re right. Right.

Chris Beall (05:09):

We were sitting at the same table-

Paula White (05:11):

Same table.

Chris Beall (05:12):

… when we were being challenged to solve some problem of the world that I can’t remember. Yes, that was exactly right. And we were, from the speaker’s vantage point, in the back on the left table, you and I [inaudible 00:05:29].

Paula White (05:28):

Pretty close.

Chris Beall (05:29):

I was to your right and you were two seats over and then we started talking. And, Corey, that is what’s wrong with me, right there?

Corey Frank (05:37):

There, there. It all came back in a flourish, right? You just had to unlock the right little [inaudible 00:05:42] cube in there, the brain, and now it all comes forth. When you say become a rockstar leader, and I really like this phrase, I want to learn more about it, called you intentionally connect to people.

Paula White (05:56):

That is correct.

Corey Frank (05:57):

What does that mean versus just a bumbling fool like me who accidentally connects with people, or what do you mean intentionally connected to people?

Paula White (06:06):

First, let me describe, if I may, if you remember these old 45s or old 45 records that had one song on it on Side A and, Side B, they recorded it, but unpublicized it, right? You had a Side A, Side B in these 45 records, and RCA started that about 1942. I decided I would think of your leadership as a Side A, because, as you know, many, many, many great hits came from Side B recordings. Your Side A is your resume building skills, all those things that you do with negotiating and budget planning and sales growth and all the things that you would put on a resume. Side B, I call your hidden hits. That’s your humanity, your relationship-based, your people skills, and that’s where you really start to intentionally connect with your people. And, when I say intentionally connect, it truly means understanding what your gift is as a leader, because all people are not, and I hate to ruin this or say something out there, but not all people are empathetic or vulnerable.

(07:32):

There are other Side B traits that we could tap into without making people feel that they have to be empathetic and vulnerable. There’s curiosity, there’s courageous, trustworthy, passionate, and once you understand what you are internally, this comes up from how you were raised, then you can intentionally connect with your people. If you are the drummer and of curious behavior, you’re naturally going to be open-minded, experimenting, and communicative. What do you do? You ask a lot of questions. That’s what curious people do. They ask a lot of questions of their teams, of their people, of their environment, and that’s how you intentionally connect as the drummer. If you are the vocalist, then you are optimistic. You intentionally connect people with sheer optimism. That’s what I mean by intentionally connect. It’s really finding out what your Side B trait is.

Corey Frank (08:41):

A guy like me, with no discernible talent whatsoever, I just play the tambourine, do I have a [inaudible 00:08:47] on the side?

Paula White (08:48):

You do. It’s an assessment that I have that I worked with the Harrison Group on. But we take 175 traits and we narrow them down to what your traits are specifically. You may be a drummer, even though you only play the tambourine.

Corey Frank (09:06):

Yeah. What about Chris? Now that you’ve spend some time with Chris, what position of the band … is it the roadie? Is there a roadie or there’s a-

Paula White (09:12):

There’s a roadie? No, not a roadie this time. But, if I were to really take Chris into everything that he is, I would look at Chris as being very gracious, right, and so being gracious is just one of those skill sets that is so hard to come by. But I want to get my list here, as I’m talking to you about this, because it’s so amazing. Being gracious is one of those things that we come by and he is always thinking how he can help other people. Wouldn’t you agree?

Chris Beall (09:54):

No, I’m not allowed to agree with this.

Paula White (09:59):

You’re not allowed to agree?

Corey Frank (10:01):

I would [inaudible 00:10:02].

Chris Beall (10:04):

It is true that, when I get up in the morning, that is my number one concern actually. I’ll never forget my mom saying to me, when I was about four and I was being a little pisser, she said something that really stuck with me, she said, “Chris, there are,” and I believe, at the time, it was true, “there are three billion other people in the world. There’s only one of you. Do the math.”

Corey Frank (10:27):

That’s right.

Chris Beall (10:28):

It is true that we have a lot more opportunities to help other people than we do to help ourselves and that’s a steadying thing. It’s like you don’t have to worry, “Gosh, I wonder if there’s anybody I could be helpful to.” It’s like, “Eh, probably run across somebody soon enough.”

Paula White (10:47):

You will. And here’s the beautiful thing is the graciousness, or as I call the saxophonist because, if you think of a saxophone, it’s rich and deep in tone, those essential traits that Chris taps into is open and reflective, warmth, and I’m going to say it and, Corey, I’m ready for you to come back at me, diplomatic, right? He really likes to develop and is open to a lot of different things. There are traits to avoid in these as well, and I don’t see him as defensive or self-critical.

Corey Frank (11:30):

No, very, very curious, and, if you’re a regular listener, which all eight of our listeners are, I think, over the years, right, you’ll understand that that level of curiosity that Chris has has helped him be very successful in multiple professions and avocation as well, from mountain climbing to selling bug spray to selling Fuller Brush door to door and waiting tables. We could go on. We should do a show, as we’ve always threatened, one of these days, just to do dirty jobs of all the jobs that Chris has had over the years.

(12:00):

With this, Paula, my first instinct, in this hardened world of ours or so, is this, these are really, really soft, small S soft. Does that make me a weaker leader? Do I cry with my people? Because I still have this stigma where I’ve got to be … we were talking about somebody, before the recording here, I don’t know what role they would play in the band, Chris, it would probably be more like the one-man band. They try to do it all and they don’t believe in this stuff at all. What do you say to that? Can I succeed in business or is it I have to have my B Side and my A Side to succeed in business today?

Paula White (12:37):

Well, I’m so glad you asked that question because I would love to answer that. I get that question a lot. And that’s why I say you have to be both business savvy and intentionally connected because you really have to be both, taking the both/and approach to business to be successful today. Employees are looking to be valued and respected. That doesn’t mean that, if their dog goes missing, that you shut down the office and go help them, but you can add a level of accountability with kindness at the same time.

(13:19):

If you were all Side A and all resume, I’m going to say, most of the time, your employees are going to think of you as very blunt, very rigid, and really not want to work with you. If you’re Side B all the time, you may be seen as weak and soft and really not respected because they can get one over on you, right? The balance of both, and having that accountability with kindness or that discipline with graciousness, is really the effect of taking it to the next level where you’re going to get loyalty, you’re going to get productivity, you’re going to get retention, which, in business, all leads to the bottom line, profitability. If we don’t have that, people are starting to churn. Employees want to be respected. They want to be connected to their leaders.

Corey Frank (14:26):

Chris, I think it’s so interesting. I’d love to have Paula and Miss Fanucci on a podcast too. I remember, from Helen’s book, and I think I have a product placement as well, Love Your Team-

Paula White (14:40):

Nicely done.

Corey Frank (14:42):

… [inaudible 00:14:41], but she talks about the categories … Paula, I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to tackle Helen’s book yet, but there’s 17 different conversation chapters and they’re broken down really succinctly into five categories, and the first category mirrors a lot with what you’re talking about. It’s called Conversations of Connection. And because the first thing, right, as Helen talks about, is that a manager, a leader, needs to do when they take on a new team, for instance, is make sure that they’re connecting with that team, and you can’t do that with just A Side type of content, I’m hearing you say

Paula White (15:15):

No, you cannot, and I usually call that, the first 30 days, a new leader needs to listen, learn, and observe, right? They need to listen to their people. They need to observe and learn, right, and get connected with them, learn about what’s going to drive them. Because I’ll tell you what, money doesn’t drive everybody, but if I know one of my employees is looking to buy a new house or is looking to go on a vacation, I am now going to motivate that person with that connection, right, because that’s where they want. If you hit your number early, my goodness, what if we gave you an extra day vacation for that vacation.

Corey Frank (16:01):

Yeah. Chris, I think Paula’s on to something here too, certainly, I know Helen is too, with this concept of loving your team and focusing on the leadership style of a DJ with A Side and B Side, right? Helen talks about the two ways a new leader should talk to someone, right, when you’re talking about what a traditional sales manager would do and then what a love your sales manager would do. You obviously talk … love your team and had a conversation with Paula about this. You see a lot of the similarities there, that I think maybe this is prime for business today.

Chris Beall (16:35):

Well, I think there’s two things that are interestingly similar. One is that, while we have conversations with a lot of people, a lot of the conversations we have are with the people we work with every day. In a leadership position, I think there’s a fundamental deep, deep issue with those conversations, and those of us who end up with the no good deed goes unpunished, we get made CEOs or it comes to a head, so to speak, which is what I call the Lonely Minds Club problem. When you’re in a leadership position, your conversations are fundamentally asymmetric and you’re a little bit stuck with that, right? If somebody wants to ask me, “What’s the problem with being a CEO?” and it’s like you have nobody to tell you the truth. You just don’t, right? And you’re not obliged to tell anybody the truth, but how can you be helpful leading people if nobody’s going to tell you the truth?

(17:25):

And I don’t mean they never do. I just mean that, at the margin, folks are obliged to protect themselves and their careers and you hold an excess of power as a leader, which is inevitable. It’s just built into the position. You can’t pretend the power is not there, but you have to figure out what do I do with this asymmetry? And there’s a lot of how-to in that. We’ll teach you how to read P&L, right, a profit and loss statement, in business school, or we’ll teach you how to even something like go to market, right? There might be step, step, step.

(17:59):

But what’s the how-to that allows you to bring out the side of yourself that allows folks at the margin to tell you the truth and to allow you to help them without them being suspicious of your motives, because that’s actually how you take teams to the next level. That’s where the magic is is you can’t abandon the position. The position is fundamentally corrupt. The position of leader is fundamentally corrupt because you have access to power that other people don’t have and, therefore, at the margin, you’re always tempted to use it. Now you can’t deny that position, but what do you do with it?

(18:38):

And something that Paula is suggesting, I think, in a strong way, and something Helen talks about, is counter that problem that you have of being the leader with a solution that includes who you really are, and that’s a different approach. Helen’s approach is very much … it’s a cookbook, “Here is the step-by-step,” remember, she’s a mechanical engineer, Here’s the step-by-step to handle this kind of conversation, this kind, this kind. This is when you do it and this is how you do it and this is how you know if they happen,” right? She doesn’t talk much about what’s inside of you, other than to say, “If it’s not there, don’t do the job, right? If it’s not there, self-select and do something else for a living,” right?

(19:20):

Paula is actually going about it from the other side and saying, “Well, know what’s inside of you so you can consciously and intentionally bring it out in connecting with other people,” knowing that the connecting with other people, the building of relationships, the ability to work together honestly, which is the hardest part of business. How do you work together honestly, when you have too much power with somebody that has less power than you? It’s always a runaway train. It’s the boulder that wants to go down the hill. You know where it’s going to go, right? How do you do that? And she’s suggesting, “Well, flip the record over and play the other side, not your greatest hits, how you got here, but who you are, which is still in there somewhere.”

Chris Beall (20:45):

I think. Right, Paula? Is it something along those lines?

Paula White (20:50):

Exactly. You are speaking my language, exactly. I say Side B as a metaphor, but also as a tool, because I think sometimes we need to understand who we are on the inside, and not just by words, but by feelings. And what’s the best way to feel, it’s to listen to music, and music because it is the universal language. Now some people like to paint, some people like to do other things, but music is around us every day.

(21:23):

When you’re grocery shopping, intentionally listen to the music that they put on their sound system, when you’re in a restaurant. Those are specifically there to set a mood, right? When you’re getting ready to go into a big meeting, let’s say, with your boss, with your people, I talk about taking that one song of yours that’s going to get you in that mood so that you can enter that room from a place that’s authentically you, bringing your whole self in, and not ready to defend your position, but to listen, right?

Corey Frank (22:03):

It takes a little bit of courage though, doesn’t it? If I’m not around necessarily, somebody’s got to go first. From a cultural perspective, there could be a lot of risk inherent to that. How do I bypass that? How do I find that cheat code to just … it’s okay to be my authentic self on the Side B?

Paula White (22:20):

First thing to do is put together your leadership playlist, right? Write down the moods that you select or that you’re fully aware of while you’re at work. Would it be that you’re disrupted, that you get angry, that you’re joyful? What are those specific moods that you have? You’re stressed, you’re overwhelmed. And find one song that’s going to get you out of that for each one of those moods and create a leadership playlist. It should not be longer than 10 songs because the last thing we want to do is go down a rabbit hole, right? Start that way. Another way is to play your favorite playlist on your way to work to get yourself prepped for that. Then, on the way home, play a playlist that’s going to get you prepped for home. Those are the ways that we can use music as a tool.

(23:15):

But, as a metaphor, I’m not sure we’re going to be able to change the culture as it is right this minute, but we can start with our emerging leaders, the ones who want that respect, who want that value, who want to be seen, and we start coaching them on their Side B skills and their Side B traits and how to understand that those can be used and, actually, when they are used, they’re very powerful. If I’m talking to a CEO today, the first thing I’m talking about is bottom line, profitability, productivity, retention. They’re having trouble keeping people. Why is that? Well, people don’t like to work. People want to be flexible. People don’t want to come back to the office. That’s not necessarily true. People want to be seen and valued.

(24:16):

Again, it’s not that you’re going to go out and hunt for the dog, but you’re going to care about that dog when that person comes in, right? And, yes, some people will strike the iron saying, “You’re weak. You’re motherly,” I don’t know how many times I’ve been told I was motherly, “You’re nurturing.” That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying you’ve got to use both. You’ve got to use both your business savvy skills and your intentionally connected skills, and you’re going to get the retention, you’re going to get the profitability, and your P&L is going to look a lot better.

Corey Frank (24:57):

Well, Chris, you come from the venture world, private equity world, entrepreneur-in-residence, hired gun as a CEO. You probably had to turn around many cultures that you’ve been a part of, or asked to participate in, either as a board observer or member or an investor. What do you say to that? How do you get that sense where a culture is just missing the Side B and that usually is maybe one of the largest constraints that they have in that system?

Chris Beall (25:27):

Here’s a test that I tended to do. It’s like let’s look at the problem that we’re solving. And somebody just told me, “Draw the circle on the whiteboard and have no name in it. This is us, right? This is what we do. A little arrow comes out of it and there’s a little stick figure. Who is that person that we help? What is that thing that we provide? How much money do they make or lose when that little arrow ships something to them, so to speak?” I’m not really asking the question. Usually, it’s a pretty obvious answer. What I want to know is, can we talk about it together? It’s like making music together. Can we talk about it harmoniously? Can we enjoy the conversation? Can we agree and disagree? Can we be confused? Can we do all the things that it takes in order to start to work together within a conversation?

(26:20):

I’m much more focused on the mood. Are we being honest with each other? Is it fun? Can we poke fun at each other? Do people know each other’s little foibles and, without being mean, can they point them out in the way that people who are really on a team can do? Everybody thinks somebody else is funny in a particular way, right? I just think that that’s the essence of making teams work. Teams work when teams can work together. And, most of the time, when things aren’t going well, folks retreat into their own corners and then they can’t work together on the hard stuff. They can only work on their own job. But, until you can work together, you can’t really work on the hard stuff, and the hard stuff is always out there. It’s always there. It’s either something competitive, or you’ve run into the limits of your ability to make the system that you’ve built build, or you’ve got a scale issue, or you’ve got a quality issue or whatever it happens to be. How do you work together on it?

(27:18):

You got to learn to sing together. And I actually think the song that I listen for, in a group like that, is honest laughter. When you come right down to it, if you’re not having fun, you’re not taking it seriously enough. And getting to the point where you can have fun together is the essence of making teams actually work. There’s no such thing as a grim team working effectively together, right, “I hate you, you hate me, but we’re going to get this done,” kind of thing, right, or big boss is hitting us with the whip and making us go in the same direction. Well, at some point, we’re going to cut the traces and we’re going to go somewhere else.

(28:02):

But I love this idea of Paula’s about the music, by the way. As you know, Corey, I’m an occasional musician, right? As I asked Helen on the podcast the other day, I said, “You got married this summer, didn’t you?” And she said, “Yes, and it was so nice of you to show up and play the piano.” [inaudible 00:28:19]. I’m not a very good musician, but I’m a big believer in the power of music to get inside of us without us having to invite it in.

(28:32):

And it’s something we talk about on Market Dominance Guys with regard to the nature of the cold call and information. When we speak with somebody, the music of our voice goes directly into their mid-brain at 20,000 bits a second. That’s four emails a second that are going into that person. It’s mostly in the song and very little of it’s in the lyrics. That is the words we put in the script are a very small part of what we communicate to somebody with a purpose, and the purpose is to help them trust us enough that we can explore helping them with their business problem. Step one is trust. Act zero is ambush. We go from between ambush and trust. Well, we sing to them.

(29:20):

I remember being in a board meeting once at a company that I was asked to come in and help, and this is a company that I wasn’t allowed to know who it was. I was given an address to go to. And so I went to this address and the person who opened the door expected me and they put me in a room and I sat in the room for half an hour and then some people came in and I listened to what they had to say. And, when it came time to ask me and a couple other people what they thought, they got to me and I said, “Well, your problem is your product is a fake, right? It’s completely fake. It’s just a bunch of fancy slides and there’s a fake.”

(29:59):

They hired me and stuff like that, and I went to the first board meeting and came out and this brilliant guy I worked with said, “What did you just do to those people?” I said, “What do you mean?”, a venture board, he says, “You changed your voice and you sang a song to them that caused them to decide not to shut us down.” And I think that, to me … music done by professional musicians is especially compelling, that’s why they’re professional musicians, but when it comes to actually interacting with people and helping them along the way of working with us, it’s actually the music of our voice that is going to carry the burden. We can’t actually go to the professional musician, say, “In the meeting today, what we’re going to do is we’re going to listen to Stairway to Heaven and the P&L is going to go crazy.” But we do sing to each other all the time and we feel different and can act differently and can actually be a little bit different when somebody helps us out with the way they use their voice with us.

Paula White (31:15):

I agree with that 100% because it’s like being in the recording studio. Everyone that comes in needs to check their ego at the door and whatever comes out is the best idea and that is really where it comes to. If you were to go into a boardroom and ask them, “Name a song that describes your company right now,” they would be all over the place, but, by the end of the meeting, you want them all singing that same song and that song being the same.

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When you’re nearing the end of the quarter, especially the fourth quarter, do you tend to panic and offer a discount in order to close any deals hanging fire? Oren Klaff, New York Times bestselling author of Pitch Anything and Flip The Script, discusses the downside of this neediness on today’s Market Dominance Guys podcast. Our two hosts, Chris Beall and Corey Frank, explore with Oren what happens to the status you have so carefully built with your prospective customer if you blatantly display just how needy and desperate you are to close the deal. Does showing your soft underbelly increase your chance of closing the deal? Or does your neediness kill the deal altogether? Oren’s advice is to stick to the sales process — and HOLD, no matter what. Join these three sales analysts as they caution the sales reps of the world about the pitfalls of a needy mindset when a sales deadline is looming on today’s Market Dominance Guys’ episode, “Hold Everything!”

—-more—-

More Marketet Dominance Guys episodes with Oren Klaff here:

https://marketdominanceguys.com/category/guest-oren-klaff 

About Our Guest

Oren Klaff is one of the world’s leading experts on sales, raising capital, and negotiation. He is the New York Times bestselling author of two sales-related books, Flip The Script and Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal. Employing his securities markets experience in capital-raising advisory leadership, Oren is Managing Director of Capital Markets at the investment bank Intersection Capital, where he manages its capital-raising platform. Since 2005, Oren has grown the firm to approximately $2 billion in aggregate trade volume across a diversified portfolio of companies and transactions.

 

Full episode transcript below:

Announcer (00:05):

Welcome to another session with the Market Dominance Guys. A program exploring all the high stake speed bumps and off-ramps of driving to the top of your market with our host Chris Beall from ConnectAndSell and Corey Frank from Branch49.

(00:21):

When you’re nearing the end of the quarter, especially the fourth quarter, you tend to panic and offer a discount in order to close any deals hanging fire or in clap. New York Times bestselling author of Pitch Anything and Flip the Script discusses the downside of this neediness on today’s Market Dominance Guys Podcast. Our two hosts, Chris Beal and Corey Frank, explore with Oren what happens to the status you have so carefully built with your prospective customer if you blatantly display just how needy and desperate you are to close the deal.

(00:51):

Does showing your soft underbelly increase your chance of closing the deal? Or does your neediness kill the deal altogether? Oren’s advice is to stick to the sales process and hold no matter what. Join these three sales analysts as they caution the sales reps of the world about the pitfalls of a needy mindset when the sales deadline is looming, on today’s Market Dominance Guys episode Hold Everything.

Corey Frank (01:20):

And here we are. Welcome to another episode of the Market Dominance Guys with Corey Frank and the sage of sales, the prophet of profits, the hawking of Hawking, does that make sense? And we have, Oren, I’m sorry I don’t have any nicknames I’ve rehearsed in my shower for the last few weeks for you, we have Oren Klaff, best-selling author of Pitch Anything, Flip the Script, and Sales Connoisseur. I don’t know, that’s all I got. So welcome, Chris, we got to a great special guest in the hotseat today and what brings the three of us together? What could possibly top the last podcast we did? Oh I don’t know, a short six, eight months ago or so. We probably have something to announce, do we not, Oren, Chris, that we could talk to a little later in the podcast?

Chris Beall (02:07):

I think we do. For one thing, let me just point out, I recommend some sales books but I don’t force any of them down anybody’s throat except for Flip the Script. And the reason I do is Flip the Script says, “Don’t force this book down somebody’s throat,” and I just love the delicious irony of utterly failing to apply every single principle in this book while pushing this book on people. I don’t know, the dynamic tension in that just works for me.

Corey Frank (02:36):

It’s like don’t push this button [inaudible 00:02:39].

Chris Beall (02:39):

Yeah, it’s like peeps, look, if you have only two books you can read in this coming year and for some of you that is a stretch, read Flip the Script and learn how to do simple things like get a little status alignment going and learn how to flash roll. I’m still trying to teach our people how to flash roll. They tend to want to drift into teaching at that point. Learn how to flash roll. And then when you’re done with all that and you realize that you’re not going to do all this, that you’re a manager and your people are going to do it, pick up Helen Fanucci’s Love Your Team and go and read that, and you put those two together, and I don’t know, I’m not going to be responsible for you failing, I’m just not going to be responsible.

Oren Klaff (03:18):

In the military, those super sauced up guys, so calm guys, they have these banana clips they put in the clip, and then they shoot the 28 bullets or where the 30 bullets are that clip, and then they flip it right around, and then they shove the next clip in because it’s already attached. I feel like Flip the Script and then Love Your Team, you shove that in, you shoot all those 30 bullets, you’re out, then flip it over, and then Love Your Team flips in.

Corey Frank (03:42):

I love it. That’s right. Well, hey, I thought getting you two fine gentlemen together, here we are coming up on the end of another quarter and the end of another year coming up in Q4, and Oren, we always talk about no neediness, right? I think what you’ve hit me over the head for the years we’ve known each other. Chris, certainly that’s what you talk about on this podcast many, many times.

(04:04):

But here we are coming up at the end of the year and so I wanted to grab you two gentlemen and talk, certainly maybe about a pending event that we have coming up, but also what do you do so we don’t just drop the price and create all these insulting kind of promotions to finish the year strong but still have a little pipeline left going into Q1. So, from a neediness perspective or what are you going to think to that?

Oren Klaff (04:28):

I like to think in visuals. There was this movie, The Perfect Storm, towards the end they’re like going up this wave and however, they shot this wave is like a thousand times bigger than the boat, and they’re going straight up it. The captain’s telling the kid at the wheel to hold because he wants to turn it, and he’s going, “Hold!” And they’re climbing up this wave and it’s just terrifying. He wants to turn, “Hold, hold, hold.” That’s what I think is like [inaudible 00:04:52], is you want to turn the boat, you want to turn around, you want to run to safety, and you need Corey, or me, or Chris get saying, “Hold, don’t turn the wheel, just hold.” Right? And you get yourself in this impossible situation in which there’s no possible way to get out. But you have somebody who’s been in that situation saying, “Hold, don’t be needy, don’t turn the wheel.” And then it becomes, “Now! Turn the wheel.”

(05:23):

But you have to be able to hold through that period where most other people would cave, collapse, run away scared, start discounting. So, if you could remember, hold your position. If you built the position but then you’re afraid of the position you built and back away from it, you haven’t done any good. You cannot be needy. I don’t care if this is the last account on earth for you, because the other side of being needy is it definitely will not close. You have to hold strong, hold. Get a tattoo on your forearm. I mean, I’m not advocating that you get a tattoo, but go ahead and get a tattoo that says hold, based on this podcast and Corey will sign it for you. I don’t want my name on it because I don’t know who you’re married to, but you know.

Corey Frank (06:15):

All right. Chris, from your perspective, you have obviously ConnectAndSell. You have a weapon that brings more prospects to your doorstep, more than they can even handle. So, what do you tell your clients, your fellow CEOs, your fellow CROs, CEOs, VPs of sales, when they come to this time of the year that, “Hey, I can bring you the prospects, I can bring the conversations to you, but be careful you don’t do x.”

Chris Beall (06:42):

Well, one of the things is there’s a mathematical thing, right? It’s like driving on a one-lane road. You have a problem. And that is if anybody’s slow in front of you, then you got to decide to either be as slow as they are or go off-road. And sometimes you got to go off-road, and sometimes you got to go up the wave, and sometimes you got to hold and hold and hold. A really good idea, and it’s getting a little late, but a good idea is to just, if you widen a little, you widen a lot. That is, if your portfolio is a little bit bigger, it’s a lot bigger. And that’s just the way it is. With risk management, we all think, “Oh, if I add one more opportunity to my one opportunity, I’ve reduced the risk by something.” You don’t know what it is.

(07:29):

You’ve cut it in half, my friend. But you add a third one and you actually cut it two less than a third. Now, you’ve cut it to one over three to the third. Ooh, you’ve cut it to by 26, 27th. Life gets a lot better because you only need one lane to go down. Now, do you need it or not need it? Well, you might need it but you better not act like you need it because it’s like Oren drives the best cars. And when Oren shooting a gap between two cars or he’s making a decision to pass in someplace that’s a little tiny bit marginal or whatever, once he makes that decision, he’s got to actually hold that line. He can’t kind of half unmake the decision part way into whatever it is that that maneuver is, right?

(08:19):

There’s just a rule in all, I’ll call them ballistic acts. A ballistic act is where the performance outcome, the thing you want, depends on what came before, therefore what came before, therefore what came before. It starts somewhere and once you commit to it you’re really screwed unless you go through with it. I used to be, Corey, and Oren keeps trying to forget, I used to be a very serious rock climber mountaineer, and there’s a word used in climbing and there’s a word that’s used as an adjective and it’s used as a noun. As an adjective, the word committed. That’s a really committed route means once you start you better finish it or you’re toast. You start that move, you got to finish the move. That’s like the same thing. It’s like look, once you’re here and you’re in a committed situation, you have to ignore all outcomes and you simply have to go; that’s just a truth of the world.

Oren Klaff (09:16):

And so I think what happens is ultimately we tell people run the process. And so if they go, “I forgot the process,” or, “What process?” Then there’s a problem. But if you have a process and you just go, yeah, outcome independent, don’t be needy, run the process, trust the process, and then if you don’t like still the nervousness that brings with it, then have Chris bring you lots of other pipelines. So, we run that process in a very high stakes, high tension situation where there’s a couple of leads, we got to close two out of four. And it’s very challenging.

(09:54):

That’s where we learned this never be needy, but if we know Chris is going to bring us another 18, then we’re flipping. We come to meetings in T-shirts, we say things we wouldn’t, we take risks we otherwise wouldn’t take. We come late, we come early, we do what we want because we’re like, “Yeah, that didn’t work out. Let’s not do that again. But still, Hey Chris, bring that wheel barrel over here. Jumps some more leads off.” We just figured out a couple of things that are not going to work, so the great thing is if you have a process you can run it, that allows you to hold and stay the course. But if you can run a process and you’ve got pipeline, there’s a name for that.

(10:29):

I’m not sure how it’s pronounced in German, or Swiss, or whatever you speak, Chris, but in English we call it a business. Where you have prospects, you have a process, you’ve got a technique in which you can close them, and then you also have new leads coming in case something goes wrong, you don’t close the lead that you wanted to. That’s called a business.

Corey Frank (10:51):

Oren, talk a little bit about with neediness, we’ve had a number of conversations about this, you need some status with that neediness. And I think that if you built up a good status in your previous conversations with this prospect, with this company, with this executive team, you’re expecting that status is going to hold, right? But as you’ve always talked and you’ve written about, it’s temporary, and so you need to establish it throughout. And it seems like a lot of sales reps will abandon all that status they’ve worked to hold and maintain at the last month of the year, the last few weeks of the year to try to get a deal.

Oren Klaff (11:29):

Yeah, I think there’s one way to address this. Okay, yes, we’re having an event… Sorry, what was your question?

(11:42):

Let me try to run this down. So, Chris, Corey, and I said let’s have an event and it was in June and it became July and then it became August. Back then in August, August we could’ve had any event, like Chris and Corey debate politics and crypto, and that would’ve been a good event. Then it became September, end of the year, busy. We didn’t do the event. So finally we got serious. We said it’s now.

(12:06):

All right, December and we’re still having an event. And then Corey pointed out, it better be really good if we’re going to have an event in December. So yes, we’re having a really good event in December. Actually, it’s too good because when you hear about it. The event’s too good when I don’t want to speak at it, I just want to go to it and benefit from the event. Because like hey, my business can use the event, but I’m actually in the event and part of it, but I’m too busy to do what I’m doing at the event for our own business. So, this thing is amazing and I really want to be there. So status.

Oren Klaff (13:32):

I think what happens is salespeople very carefully and intuitively curate their status going in. And so they appoint themselves well, they give a good presentation, but now you’re sort of a move out of your domain into their domain and people come out of nowhere that know more than you. It’s like a video game. You’re going up higher levels and bigger bosses come out. My favorite analogy, as you know, is you think you’re fighting the boss to win the level and this giant foot comes out of nowhere and crushes the boss you’re fighting, right? The big boss cares so little about… He just crushes his own team, and what’s going on here? And that’s where salespeople lose their status is where somebody who has much stronger frame, much more expertise, much more knowledge, and actually controls the contract comes out of nowhere. And that’s where status goes to die.

(14:29):

And I think it’s not a status event, but we’re definitely covering how to hold your status not at the beginning, because there’s like no teaching about status that you need at the beginning, right? Yeah, I dress good. I talk politely. I have a presentation. Everybody can hold it together at the beginning until the stress comes on. And then the things we’re talking about, never be needy, hold your status together, make sure you’ve got pipeline, widen your lane, stuff that Chris and Corey know how to do really come together once you’re later in the deal and there’s real stressors.

(15:05):

And if you think about it, last thing then I’ll turn back over to you, you’re at the beginning of a deal all the time, right? There’s a lot more first downs than there are fourth downs, I think. I’m not sure. We’ll have to check that. But anyway, you’re at the beginning of deals all the time and so you’re good at the beginning. Chris and I had a call with Andreson, one of the big venture firms today, which is great, but how often are you on a call with Andreson Horowitz versus on a call with somebody about something? So, you’re good at beginnings, but how good are you at controlling those later stages when status falls apart, you fall apart?

Chris Beall (15:41):

[inaudible 00:15:41]. That remind me of a story by the way.

Corey Frank (15:42):

Go ahead, Chris.

Chris Beall (15:43):

There’s a story [foreign language 00:15:44].

Oren Klaff (15:44):

A story about our event?

Chris Beall (15:46):

Yeah, this is a story [inaudible 00:15:49]. This is the kind of thing you learn at this event is to do what’s in the story. So, first of all, this event is so important, I might actually show up. I might not because I have a very dear family member who’s having surgery the day before and might need my care, and I’ll be approximately 1400 miles away, but I could be there. The story is sometimes you have to be somewhere else in New York. You find yourself at the end, you don’t even know it’s going to be the end. So this particular story, I was called by the general counsel of the General Electric Company who told me, “I need to talk to you and I need to talk to you tomorrow.”

(16:23):

And so it was a Sunday. I went and did my usual thing. I was living in Denver, went down to the airport, asked them at the red carpet club where I was going. They told me. I got on an airplane, I got off, I went into a building up there in Connecticut. And the general counsel of General Electric put me in a room, a big boardroom, the one right under the CEO’s office, right under Jack Law’s office. And he sat down and he dressed like Mr. Rogers, which I think was one of his best tricks. And he literally pounded the table, which I thought was hilarious.

(16:54):

I almost laughed out loud, but I held it. “You are destroying the General Electric Company.” Now, that’s a case where you’re kind of at the end because this had to do with a huge renewal opportunity for 11 out of the 12 general electric companies. Now, what are you going to do there? You must have something wired into you that allows you to hold your status. And I have a fondness for humor. I just said, “Well, there must be some amount of money you’d like to pay me to get me to stop destroying the General Electric Company.” It’s an example.

Oren Klaff (17:29):

That’s where he pressed the button underneath this desk, and security came in, escorted you out the building.

Chris Beall (17:34):

No, no. He started laughing. And you know what? We ended up doing the deal I wanted to do.

Oren Klaff (17:39):

Oh, I have a great story about the other call that I have to be on right now [inaudible 00:17:48]. The good news, well, so the bad news is it’s not a good story. The good news, it’s a very short one. Corey, can you run down the dates of the event and a little bit of information for people and then I will call both of you in a while.

Corey Frank (18:00):

Yes. We are going to do this on December 7th and December 8th coming up here in a very short period of time. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to put you and your existing sales process through the ringer. We’re going to take and rip up your sales script, turn it into a screenplay, and start from scratch building up a brand new December Q4 sales machine for you with a screenplay that’s tailored to your business. And Chris’s team, Oren’s team, our team, the Branch 49 team, we’re going to walk you through step by step through this Pitch Anything formula, through the best practices and how we create a screenplay, and apply it to the industry and business. So the best part, Chris, right, Oren, as you know, is we’re going to perfect your pitch and you’re going to practice it.

(18:45):

If this is your first time at Fight Club, you will fight. If it’s your first time dialing with ConnectAndSell, you will dial and we’re going to jump right on the phones right alongside you. And by the end of the event, you’re going to have a brand new pitch process. You’re going to have a brand new screenplay that drives qualified leads back to you that are ready to buy. And we are going to guarantee that you’re going to close enough meetings to at least equal the cost of the event, or Chris’s team, orange team, our team, we’re going to work with you until you do. That’s a pretty good guarantee, would you say, Chris?

Chris Beall (19:20):

That’s crazy. Corey, has anybody ever in the history of, I don’t know, life on Earth, have they ever actually done this particular kind of event? This exact thing.

Corey Frank (19:32):

I recall when you visited our sales team at my previous company, you swooped in with the jump boots and one or two of your cohorts, and you walked us through a mini version of this. I think this was one of the origins, I know you’ve had others, of the flight school because as soon as we started utilizing the weapon of ConnectAndSell, and I think it was the first monosyllabic construction we put together, you said, “Stop. What are you saying? Stop. Don’t ever say that again.”

(20:00):

And you completely deconstructed and then built up our screenplay to an effective breakthrough screenplay that changed the trajectory of our business. And hence, since many thousands of folks in flight school later, many thousands of folks at our Pitch Anything events later, many thousands of events or phone calls that we’ve made here at Branch 49, I think we’re pretty dialed in on how to do cold outreach.

Chris Beall (20:27):

And it’s fascinating to me because some people don’t like that word, cold outreach. They think it implies, well, I don’t know, it’s December and it’s cold or something like that. Or maybe you don’t like people, you’re so cold when you’re reaching out. Of course, it’s technical. It’s a term of art. It means outreach to people you haven’t spoken with before. And if you have half a brain in your head, these are people that you would like to speak with. You have a hypothesis and that is a conversation with anybody on that list of people, anybody in that target set has a reasonable shot of moving forward to something better than where you are than talking to a random person. That’s not a big hypothesis. That’s an important one. What’s so interesting to me, and this is what this event is going to be about, is it doesn’t have anything specifically to do with what you’re selling.

(21:15):

It has to do with one universal truth, which is you’re speaking to a human being and that is bedrock. That’s the thing I always come back to and somebody goes, “Well, does it work in this industry? That industry?” We don’t want to come to this thing like that because what we do is we sell something so high value, customized, so bespoke, so thought through, that nothing that you guys could teach us or that we could practice in an event like this could possibly fit us.

(21:46):

But you know what? It’s kind of like a pair of gloves. As long as I know you have fingers, even if you’re missing one or say, you have an extra one because well, maybe you do. Maybe somebody killed your father and they should prepare to die, but you still have got something that pretty much looks like a hand, it’s going to fit pretty much in a glove and you’re about to go pretty much out into 20 below and you’re better off with gloves than with no gloves. You’re going into a world where it’s better to have something on your hands. And that’s really where we’re taking it, that’s what’s cold, is that world you’re going into. I think it’s going to be quite a fascinating experience for folks. I dearly do hope I can physically show up. It’s extremely inconvenient.

Corey Frank (22:32):

Well, it’s your weapon. It is your weapon and probably a member or two of your team. So, ConnectAndSell will be represented fully in spirit and in practice. And you’re mentioning cold outreach, Chris, I think maybe we could finish with this concept because we’ve talked about it a lot. I know the esteemed Jerry Hale posted something on LinkedIn several months ago about this concept of survivorship bias and particularly how germane that is probably to Q4. Listen, we’ve always done a discount at the end of Q4. We’ve always extended our contracts for another month to allow our folks to make it easier to jump on board. So, maybe just talk a little bit about not just cold outreach in the approach, but how survivorship bias really kind of diminishes your opportunity to grow as a sales organization because of that’s how we’ve always done it this way.

Chris Beall (23:25):

Survivorship bias is funny because everybody I think, I hope they know the story. It was invented as a concept looking at the damage done to bombers that were flying over Germany in World War II. And the ones that came back that where they had the holes in them, what they were doing is basically saying, “Well, this is where they got hit. We should put armor there.” And that’s incorrect. This is where they got hit and they made it back. So, those places don’t need armor. Put more armor in the places where they got hit and didn’t make it back.

(24:00):

Now, it’s a little actually more challenging to figure out what that really means, but anything’s better than putting armor in a place that you didn’t need it, because we know it always adds weight. So, when we come to the end of a quarter or a year and we’re looking at last year and we’re going, “Well this worked last year.” What worked is like a plane coming back, it “worked.”

(24:26):

Do we really know which part of the plane went down? Or the ones that didn’t work and are maybe it was one of those that would’ve made it? Did we even select correctly which deals to focus on and where to put our armor, so to speak? Survivorship bias is the most insidious, I think, of the intellectual failings that we embrace in groups. So, groupthink is bad, but groupthink is amplified by survivorship bias because we can all see the same thing and seeing as believing. We reason in very simple ways about these situations and the simplest way is let’s do what we did last year.

Corey Frank (25:06):

Yeah, absolutely. Well, we’ve talked about false positive versus false negatives and how most organizations… I think we talked about this with Jeb when we were on the phone, is that how most organizations look at false positives and they should be, similar to survivorship bias, looking at the false negatives, correct?

Chris Beall (25:22):

Yeah, false negatives kill businesses. False positive, they cost you a little something, you have to do some work that you throw away. Dying is not as attractive, frankly, as doing some work you throw away. Now, the fact of the matter is management of ignorance is what it’s all about. And it’s really interesting. If you want to hold, you want to do it what Oren said, which is hold, one of the things you oddly have to do to be so committed is you have to embrace your ignorance. You have to admit you don’t actually know based on the information you’re getting right now, what your reaction should be.

(25:58):

And since you don’t know, your best course action is probably to be proactive, to run your process. P-R-O, as the beginning of both of those words because your lack of knowledge is actually your savior, in this case. It’s like, “I don’t know, so I may as well do what we decided to do, whatever that happens to be.” And it is that change of course. It’s like, “well, what if we offer them a discount right now?” I have a couple of them right now. I’ve got a couple of deals that are… One of them, one of my very best customers will expire at the end of the day. I’m sitting here talking to you.

Corey Frank (26:38):

That’s right. That’s right. Well, I’m sure the rep on the deal is…

Chris Beall (26:42):

I am the rep.

Corey Frank (26:43):

Oh, you’re the rep, too. Even better.

Chris Beall (26:44):

Well, we have another principle here, and I think a lot of people practice it, but we’re pretty hard over here at ConnectAndSell. We all sell from the front lines and we don’t sell the special deals. We just sell deals. And in fact, I sell the most experimental deals. The ones that are the weirdest. People turn their nose up at and go, “Why’d you do that?” Because I can endure the most reputational damage without being damaged. Being the CEO, as long as you hold and people make fun of you like, “Oh, that’s a stupid deal. That was idiotic.” It’s like, yeah, well, it’s part of my job is to explore the possible on behalf of all of us. Som I get to go to the top of some mountain that turns out there was nothing over on the other side that was worthwhile, but I’m kind of a sunk cost, right? As the CEO, you kind of a sunk cost.

(27:30):

So, we sell from the front lines, but one of the reasons we do it is that there’s a hidden set of signals that go on in a company that cause reps to waiver. And it’s this thing that says, “Hey, do the right thing in the deal. Go do the right thing.” We all know what that is. Oh, and by the way, make the number no matter what. It’s like those are a little bit at odds with you there and that’s fine. I mean, dynamic tension is the essence of good stories, but at some point you have to decide what are we going to do as a company? What’s our real goal? Was it to make this number?

(28:07):

It’s very rare, by the way, that making a specific number on a specific date makes all the difference. I’ll never forget my eldest, and I think I told this story once in a previous episode, we were in a meeting and everybody’s talking about it, making this number on this date and all these numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers. And we came out and my eldest kid, Serenity, at the time said, “So, dad, I have a question.” I said, “what’s the question?” She said, “Well, do they think by talking about the numbers, they’re going to change them?”

(28:43):

And I said, “Yes, they do.” And she thought for a while said, “That’s really sad,” and walked off and led me over to Starbucks for hot chocolate. Talking about the stuff is actually a bad habit. Talking about what’s going to close, talking about when it’s going to close, talk, talk, talk, talks a bad habit. Go run the process and take your spare time and fill up with other opportunities because they’ll make you stronger.

Corey Frank (29:09):

One of my good friends, our good friends, Robert Vera always talks about you can’t out exercise your fork. So, as much as you want to do a lot of activity, you got to make sure that the biggest constraint in your system is tackled and it takes… You’re a mathematician and a physician. It takes 3,500 calories to burn every pound of fat. These are the laws of thermodynamics. The same for celestial mathematics and the laws of physics. And those exist in client acquisition and revenue. And you have to eliminate that biggest constraint in your system, as we’ve said time and again. And for most folks, it’s establishing that trust-based conversation game at scale and no conversations, no product-market fit, no conversations, no core Q4 achievement, no ticket, no laundry, right? And so if you’re not doing five to six pitches in your tam, as you said many times, guess what? Somebody else is.

Chris Beall (30:05):

And those are the good ones.

Corey Frank (30:05):

[inaudible 00:30:07].

Chris Beall (30:07):

Most are the good ones. It’s prima facie evidence that they’re good. They’re actually happening. [inaudible 00:30:16]. And it’s so fascinating when folks talk about the quality versus quantity thing, and there’s all these sort of notions that people have like, “Oh, if I just think harder about the quality, then there’ll be better meetings.” Embrace your ignorance. Your ignorance is your friend. Freedom is your friend. Just go in knowing nothing and have a conversation.

(30:38):

I mean, you know one thing. You have a range of capabilities, you have a range of things that you could bring to bear. You’re representing your company, that’s why you’re called a rep. You’re representing what your company’s capable of doing. Now, you know what that range of capabilities are, but you really don’t know where the problems for the other person or the challenges, the gaps where they are. Okay, your ignorance is your friend. That’s what enables you to be curious and ask those curiosity-based questions. And when you’re needy, you want to see where neediness shows up first. Neediness kills more deals in discovery, then it kills at the end of a year by a lot. Not a little.

Corey Frank (31:23):

There you go. Absolutely. Well, I think we also need to mention the event one more time since Oren’s not on here, right?

Chris Beall (31:31):

Yeah, when is it?

Corey Frank (31:33):

December 7th and December 8th at the Top Gun Studios in Carlsbad, California.

Chris Beall (31:37):

Wow.

Corey Frank (31:38):

Yes. Sunny, sunny California, right on the beach. You’ve had many events over the years there, Chris, you’ve been there many times. We’ll try to maybe take a few of the cars out for a spin, maybe a couple of Ducati’s since Oren’s not on here, we can guarantee that. We’ll have a blast. We’re limiting it. If you would like some more information, please reach out to me at corey@branch49.com. Go to orenklaff.com, go to chris.beal@connectandsell.com. christ.beall, correct?

Chris Beall (32:06):

Yeah, chris.beall.

Corey Frank (32:09):

[inaudible 00:32:09]. Okay, great. And with that, Chris, I think we’re going to put together another episode in the can here, since we do have our own Q4. Of course, you’re not sitting around, you’re waiting for the prospects to come to you. So, if he buys, he buys. It’s only your number one client. We’ll wait to hear how that story ends in the next episode. So for Chris Beall, this is Corey Frank with the Market Dominance Guys. Until next time.

Chris Beall (32:34):

All right, thanks, Corey.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

“It costs five times more to get a new client than to keep one you already have.” Today, Rick Elmore, Founder and CEO of Simply Noted, elaborates on his commitment to customer retention and to his company’s practice of over-delivery with our Market Dominance Guys’ host, Chris Beall. Rick believes that building relationships with clients is vital to any company’s success, so he begins by onboarding each new customer himself, answering all the frequently asked questions, and personally checking back to make sure the customer’s initial experience with Simply Noted’s products and services is a happy one. “When you’re truly on your client’s side, they’ll hear it in your voice,” Rick explains. Listen to this podcast, and you too will hear the commitment to customer retention in Rick’s voice in today’s Market Dominance Guys’ episode, “Focus on Over-Delivery.”

 

About Our Guest

Rick Elmore is founder and CEO of Simply Noted in Tempe, Arizona, a company that utilizes software and robotic technology to create personalized handwritten notes for its 300,000 monthly users.

—-more—-

Full episode transcript below:

Announcer (00:06):

Welcome to another session with the Market Dominance Guys. A program exploring all the high-stakes speed bumps and off ramps of driving to the top of your market, with our host Chris Beall from ConnectAndSell and Corey Frank from Branch 49.

(00:23):

It costs five times more to get a new client than to keep one you already have. Today, Rick Elmore, Founder and CEO of Simply Noted elaborates on his commitment to customer retention and to his company’s practice of over-delivery with our Market Dominance Guys’ host, Chris Beall. Rick believes that building relationships with clients is vital to any company’s success, so he begins by onboarding each new customer himself, answering all the frequently asked questions and personally checking back to make sure the customer’s initial experience with Simply Noted’s products and services is a happy one. “When you’re truly on your client’s side, they’ll hear it in your voice.” Rick explains. Listen to this podcast, and you too will hear the commitment to customer retention in Rick’s voice in today’s Market Dominance Guys’ episode, Focus on Over-Delivery.

Chris Beall (01:20):

Pretty fascinating. Here’s a modern problem. So we have this massive work from home thing that showed up in 2020. We actually got to watch it, the day everybody went home in our customer base. We knew what day it was. It was like everything still worked, which was pretty cool. We thought that was amazing. Our people who navigate these phone calls all went home too. That shocked me that that worked. We dodged more than a bullet that particular day, because at 200,000 plus dials navigated a day by human beings. You got to have people who can navigate those styles and suddenly there are centers they were working at. We didn’t know that had happened. But now I’m kind of looking at it going, okay, everybody’s going to work from home. My wife’s book, Love Your Team, A Survival Guide for sales managers in a hybrid world, in a hybrid world means a bunch of people are working from home.

(02:06):

How do you solve that problem of knowing how to get to them working from home? People send stuff to me in my office in Los Gatos and I will go there, something on the order of twice this year maybe. Partially because when you set foot in California, they tax you for that day of work, but for some other reasons too. What do you do there? How do I get my customers or even my team? So my innocent team right, there they are, I got 10 SDRs and I got 10 AEs and they’re talking to say 85,000 people a year. How do they get that physical note to the right person?

Rick Elmore (02:43):

Yeah.

Chris Beall (02:43):

How do they get the address part to happen?

Rick Elmore (02:45):

So most of our clients have addresses already. Work with tons of nonprofits, political affiliation, political action committees, real estate, mortgage, insurance. All these people usually have those addresses, but there are a lot of creative ways you can find people’s address. What we’ve seen people do, we don’t do it, is they’ll find a list of people they want to contact, at least the city they live in, and then they’ll hire VAs to scrape list off of Reference USA match names and addresses or Data Axle or PropertyRate. I mean there’s tons of ways to find someone’s address, but I would say majority of our clients already have this information. But if there is a need to find it, you can get creative and find it. It’s just a little extra work but [inaudible 00:03:30] off of Upwork or Fiverr, give them a list, tell them here’s the three web addresses to use to scrape and match names in cities, and they do it. They do a good job.

Chris Beall (03:39):

Interesting, interesting. So in the B2B world, we live in B2B right. We have a couple of customers use ConnectAndSell for B2C. We’re not hugely enthusiastic about it, even though it works great because the regulatory surround on phone is non-trivial, right? And on business call somebody. So B2B is kind of funny because getting their work address is probably easy, getting it to their desk is probably easy. Are they ever at their desk is probably an unknown. Now I suppose we could ask them, but what do you see in B2B? I want to get it to their home probably, I think. Who’s doing B2B and how are they doing it?

Rick Elmore (04:15):

B2B is a lot of medical software, corporate gifting. A lot of those types of companies, they usually have addresses and they’re sending straight to the buildings. But if they want to get addresses, we just point them in the direction of how to do that. I’m trying to think of a good case study of somebody going B2B. Yeah, we had this CRM company for veterinarians and what they did is they just sent a handwritten note to every veterinarian office and just said, dear office manager, dear doctor, whoever was registered at that address. But if you have a more specific question on B2B, what type of industry, I can probably pull up an example of some client we’ve worked with over the last four or five years.

Chris Beall (04:53):

Sure. We can always be pioneers.

Rick Elmore (04:54):

Yeah.

Chris Beall (04:55):

I mean in this space we may as well try yours, right? No reason not to. I think it’s fascinating actually. I mean we’re all about this human touch element and breaking through the noise with the human touch. So this what you’re doing, we’re doing it with the human voice, which goes straight into somebody’s mid brain.

Rick Elmore (05:10):

Yeah.

Chris Beall (05:11):

I mean you can’t turn off a voice once it’s coming in your ear and now it’s down to your skill. It’s down to your tone of voice. It’s down to you. Do you have a message that works? Do you know the psychology of the first seven seconds of the cold call? All that kind of stuff.

Rick Elmore (05:24):

Yes. The psychology behind a handwritten note is a hundred times more impactful than you believe. People appreciate it. You stop them in their tracks for seven to 10 seconds, right? You’re engaging them on a level that they’re not being engaged by anyone else. You’re competing somewhere, no one else is competing. But it’s super impactful when you put something down that’s tangible that they can hold in their hands and that’s shelf life too.

(05:46):

So we’re going into the holidays right now. We’re sending out tens of thousands. I think we’re going to do somewhere near half a million holiday cards in the next six weeks. These have six to eight week shelf lives. What piece of material can you get in front of your customer’s hands that’s going to sit on their fridge, their counter, their mantle for eight weeks. Where they walk by and they’re going to constantly see that and be reminded of you. Like that’s real estate you can’t buy in any other type of marketing form. And it’s personal, it’s impactful, and it can be measurable if you get creative with the QR codes and call tracking and driving traffic to landing pages and stuff like that.

Chris Beall (06:20):

That’s fascinating. It’s fascinating. I really like it. Gosh, you got my little tiny wheels and my little tiny brain turning here. As you look into the future, you’re doing pretty big numbers already. How big is this? You’re attempting to bootstrap your way into what looks like a billion dollar TAM. Is that, am I getting that right?

Rick Elmore (06:40):

So we’ve been completely bootstrapped so far. We should make that aim 5,000 this year pending a couple orders. But the purpose of never getting funding was for a few reasons is one, how big can this be? I didn’t want to give up too much too early. I knew that this was something that could be special if it was built right. And we’ve laid the platform for getting the engagement, the footprint. We have the largest web traffic of anybody in our niche going to our website every single month, plus the technology. But my goal is to get it to somewhere close to eight figures in yearly revenue before we go get funding. But in order to go from eight to nine figures in revenue, we’re going to have to have a much more advanced platform and have more product offerings outside of just handwritten notes. A little bit maybe more gifts or something more digital. Something that’s more built out as an engagement platform where the handwritten notes is one of the tools that we offer.

(07:33):

But yeah, I mean we’re 11 full-time employees. We’re small but mighty and I think we’ve only had one employee leave our company in the last three years. So everybody’s really committed. It’s a really strong family atmosphere here. Everybody looks out for each other. We use tons of VAs. I have this method, trying to remember who it was, but they taught me basically like you mind dump all your information you need done about a job, you wait 30 minutes, you come back, you reorganize it, you build systems and processes and just scale your work that way versus trying to come on and try to hand teach everybody. So Michael E. Gerber Built To Sell really impacted me work on your business versus working in your business.

(08:09):

So yeah, we’re just excited. We’re way too early to think about funding because we’re just getting done with a huge project of building our machines into manufacturing now 30, 40, $50,000 checks I was cutting for engineering. Now we can put that into operating expenses, growth capital, PPC. My PPC budget’s been only $800 a month for the first four years. Literally nothing. We have people who spend $50,000 a month. So we’re excited. We’re just scratching the surface of our potential for sure.

Chris Beall (08:40):

Well fantastic. By the way, our PPC budget is zero, so.

Rick Elmore (08:43):

Oh really?

Chris Beall (08:46):

Yeah. I remember we met with Google once, we were once called over to Google and they wanted to talk to us about something we’d done for them and something we’d done for them actually helped them shut a business down. So they prevented themselves from going too far down the road. Because when you talk to people, you get quick intelligence as to whether a business makes sense. And they finally decided not to compete in that particular space as a money loser. So they wanted to tell us, this is Google’s idea of an award. They wanted just have us come over and say, “Hey, you’re our vendor of the year.” What do we get for that? Well, nothing we just wanted to tell you.

Rick Elmore (09:21):

That’s what you get yeah. [inaudible 00:09:23]

Chris Beall (09:25):

Yeah. It was funny because during that conversation their very, very, very, very senior guy who was there said, “Do you realize you’re the only Silicon Valley company that we’re aware of that doesn’t pay Google one penny?”

Rick Elmore (09:37):

Wow.

Chris Beall (09:37):

And I said, “Yes and we intend to keep it-“

Rick Elmore (09:39):

I had a mentor once, tell me Google is God. There’s a lot of power there, but a lot of scary power. They have the power to take away a lot of traffic. I remember two years ago we signed up an SEO company, just organic stuff and they were doing some shady backlinking and we actually got dinged and they literally tank you. And it’s just overnight we are getting all this traffic and it goes down to 90% less. It scares you.

Chris Beall (09:39):

Oh yeah.

Rick Elmore (10:01):

And Google did it. They just stop indexing your stuff. They take it off, they push you down rankings and it’s just like, oh my gosh so yeah.

Chris Beall (10:08):

Yeah, it’s tricky and then there’s an element of independence that you want to keep from that but you need it anyway. We’ve avoided it because the nature of our, we just call people.

Rick Elmore (10:17):

Yeah, relationships. Yeah, that’s the thing. You got to get people to believe in you. Buy into you.

Chris Beall (10:22):

Yeah.

Rick Elmore (10:22):

And that’s the thing, we’re really lucky… we don’t have a… you do have people that are price shoppers, but my background was building relationships. I obsess when we bring on business accounts, I call them, I onboard them personally and it’s probably not the right thing to do, but I have to make sure everything goes good and call them after the order. What did you like? What didn’t you like? Obsessed to make sure everybody’s happy.

Chris Beall (10:43):

Well to me, you’re doing it right. It’s obvious I’ve been doing this stuff for three quarters of a million years and I still am involved at that level in the business. Somebody the other day was saying, “We kind of like CEOs that put their feet up and look out the window and think big thoughts.” I’m going, well when I put my feet up and look out the window, I have a blank mind. But when I engage with something like why is this person getting hung up on? I had one yesterday. Guys getting hung up on. Mind you 200 and something thousand dollars a day, there was a lot going on. But there was something about this one that I just thought, this is not a tech problem. There’s a subtle problem hiding in there and I won’t learn it unless I jump in and have a look.

(11:23):

So I went in and had a look, listened to his conversations. It turned out, on his follow up calls he was getting hung up on the easy calls. Why? Because he was so confident on the easy calls. He was talking for eight to nine seconds before he let the other person say anything and he was getting hung up on. Is he aware of it? Of course not. So I made a little coaching email for him, showed him the wave forms. This is where you’re talking. By the way, when you’re on a cold call, you let him talk in three quarters of a second, actually it’s about a second half. But on these follow up calls, the easy ones, you’re going too far. I learned something, which is now I’ve got one of my data engineers looking through all the data for a particular pattern of short call, long call, but nothing in between. And we’ll go find those and then we’ll be able to proactively help those customers. I don’t think you learn anything in business by having somebody else do something and tell you how it went.

Rick Elmore (12:15):

You got to get your hands dirty right. You got to have that experience. So when you talk about it, you can talk confidently about it. So you talk from an understanding, not from just memorization or somebody else telling you what to say.

Chris Beall (12:26):

Yeah. When people put together presentations for you, you know the purpose of the presentation right? And it’s not to move the business forward. So that’s all there is to it. I mean you’d love if it were true, but what’s in it for them? Well, you’re the boss. As I say, we belong to the lonely minds club here in the CEO biz. At the lonely minds club means people think we have no hearts. We do, but we don’t dare to let them simply rule. Bring them out, but you can’t let them rule. And second is, it’s lonely because everybody who works for you, regardless how close they are to you personally or professionally, is obliged to lie to you at the margins in ways that do not feel like lying. They’re obliged to because you have this concentration of power that’s fundamentally corrupt and there’s nothing they can do about it except adapt for their own safety.

Rick Elmore (13:14):

Yeah.

Chris Beall (13:15):

It’s a problem. It’s a problem.

Rick Elmore (13:16):

It is. I like that lonely mind club. I like that analogy.

Chris Beall (13:21):

That’s what we’re in.

Rick Elmore (13:22):

From being on the other side to not being on this side. I totally understand what you’re saying.

Chris Beall (13:26):

Yeah, well some of us can’t kind of handle that thing where we’re reporting to somebody, whatever that means. I always thought that was a funny term anyway. What am I reporting to?

Rick Elmore (13:35):

Yeah.

Chris Beall (13:35):

What am I supposed to not know it myself? As you look at the next stage of this, you mentioned adding products, that’s one kind of thing. Do you operate truly globally now? Do you feel like people are writing notes in French and everything else under the sun? Is all that happening?

Rick Elmore (13:51):

Yeah, we can. I would say 99% of our business is here in North America. But yeah, we definitely would have to expand globally to reach the ambitions that I have for this company. But to do that we would need to expand globally as well. So we would need a production facility in the UK, Australia, China, just so these are not having national stamps on them. So if you ship from the US to Australia, it has a ginormous international stamp right and that’s a problem because it’s be like, why did this handwritten note from John who lives a mile from me be shipped from the states and it took three weeks to get there, but then it takes three weeks and it has a big international stamp on. It doesn’t make sense. So in order to expand globally, revenue’s going to have to be a lot higher. We’re going to have to have some channel partners spread out throughout the globe to make sure that happens. But yeah, that’s definitely a vision.

Chris Beall (14:41):

Yeah, it’s always so tricky to get to that unit of expansion. When you’re expanding globally, it’s suddenly you’re carving out part of the overhead of the core business. You’re adding a lump of pure overhead because it’s always going to take a while to get going. And then you’re also adding the risk of unfamiliarity. The things you don’t know that you will find out. How you’ll know if you don’t know them.

Rick Elmore (15:02):

And that’s the thing, I think we would expand through acquisition because there are some smaller little mom and pop companies trying to do this across the globe, but they’re using really outdated technology. And what we would do is basically come in and basically give them a business in a box and say, “Hey, here’s our technology, here’s our systems, here’s our software. This is how we have built an eight figure business.” More like a franchise and say, “Hey, we’ll start feeding you business, but we’re going to acquire you in your business but we’re going to make your business a lot better with our technology and our platform.” So yeah, I mean that’s definitely the pie in the sky where we want to go. But there’s just so much business just here in the US. I mean there’s like 60 or 70 billion with a B, pieces of first class mail sent here in the US and that’s not including marketing mail. So if we get to 50 million pieces a year, it’s a fraction of a fraction of possibilities.

Chris Beall (15:02):

Yeah.

Rick Elmore (15:53):

Yeah and we’re excited about it and plus it’s a new tool. That’s why I always tell our clients, your clients put food on your table. We always try to tell them to work on the relationship, right? Because it costs five times more to acquire a new client. If you have good customer appreciation, you make them feel appreciated. They’re going to make repeat purchases, they’re going to tell their friends, they’re easy to upsell. It’s easy to sell a new offering to a current client who feels appreciated. And then if they don’t, they just… They’ll go price shopping and go somewhere else. So yeah, we think we have a cool tool to build relationships and build loyalty and trust for sure.

Chris Beall (16:25):

Yeah. Yeah. Might not even be a tool, might be a weapon. Never know.

Rick Elmore (16:28):

Yeah.

Chris Beall (16:28):

That’s what we’re into.

Rick Elmore (16:33):

Yeah.

Chris Beall (16:33):

Tools, that’s for gardening. We use weapons to dominate markets, right?

Rick Elmore (16:36):

Yeah.

Chris Beall (16:37):

That’s where it’s at.

Chris Beall (17:18):

So I have a question about the thing that came up last night. So I was talking to somebody who was here having dinner and for her own privacy, I won’t say who it is, and she said that’s such a cool idea. I once got a job based on one and only one thing, which is I wrote a handwritten note and nobody else did back to the person I interviewed with, but I wanted it delivered that day. So I couldn’t get that to happen easily. So what I did is I hand wrote the note and then I took a picture of it in my hand and I sent it to the person and said, Hey, I would send you this but it’s going to take too long to get there. And I just wanted express my appreciation for the interview that we did today and for the thoughtful questions you have and blah blah blah. It was something intelligently handwritten.

(18:01):

So it struck me as the most unusual hybrid. It’s in a way it’s guaranteed to have been personal because she’s holding it in her hand and taking a picture of it and yet the delivery was instantaneous and it was a B2B thing even though she was… She’s a business so to speak. Does anybody do that kind of crazy stuff?

Rick Elmore (18:22):

So that’s what I’m talking about expanding our platform is having a digital aspect, engaging them through text or email or socially. I mean there’s a lot of cool tools out there now that we can leverage APIs to scrape information and pull it into our platform to engage them with a personalized email somehow with some type of creative copy or message or picture, send a text message, hit them up on LinkedIn or their social account. So I think that’s a really creative thing to do. Write the note, take a picture, send it, right? It’s kind of witty and personal at the same time. But that’s what I’m talking about expanding our platform is doing something like that where you can have type in your message, our system would create the note, impose it on a mock up image for you where it looks like it was just handwritten and then you can send a text message. So yeah, that platform idea is definitely the future of expanding and growing this to a much bigger business. But yeah, that’s just a really cool way that that person stood out for sure.

Chris Beall (19:12):

I can think of some twists and turns around this. For instance, a book in Kindle, like when my wife Helen’s book comes out on the first right, I’ll buy a Kindle edition for 99 cents because that’s what you can do for up to the end of the week. And they have the ability to make a little poster. So the Kindle app, I use mine on my iPhone and I can highlight a sentence or whatever and then go share it and they’ll make a little poster and post it on LinkedIn and it comes with the citation of the book and a link to the book so you can buy the book. So it’s kind of a full viral loop. The posters cool, but the poster is just whatever font they have and whatever. If the poster were handwritten, if it were actually handwritten and it were a picture and it went up on LinkedIn, that would be cooler, I think. Obviously you’re doing runs of a few, I mean literally can you do a run of one where it’s completely unique?

Rick Elmore (20:05):

Yeah, so we help you send one, send hundreds, thousands or automated. So our website’s more like an eCommerce platform. Go on there, pick card, type your message, check out. That’s really not a big part of our business. We make some money on that, but it’s not really the money makers. Really why we do that is to allow people to try us out, send one or two, see how you like it before you really kind of dive in with two feet. It just gives them the ability to get a good feel. Yeah, I would say the majority of the people we work with are businesses. I would say it’s like the high 80% of our clients are businesses. We’re working on projects with them, they’re automating it, seasonal like things, holidays, anniversaries. Yeah, we definitely allow anybody to use our platform as of right now.

Chris Beall (20:45):

Got it. Do you follow or know Stu Heinecke? Okay, so Stu has written a couple books. He wrote a book called How to Get a Meeting With Anyone. He wrote another book, just wrote it called How to Grow Your Business Like a Weed. I think you’ll really like this book and I think you’ll like Stu. Stu is the guy who will send you a foam board with a cartoon that he’s drawn on it. That’s funny and it’s about you and he’ll send that to a senior executive to get a meeting, that kind of stuff. He’s a genius about this. He’s a Wall Street Journal cartoonist. He’s one of the nicest human beings on earth, by the way. Highly recommend. Just reach out to Stu and tell him that-

Rick Elmore (21:20):

I have to write his name down. I can we get them with this. Yeah, I’ll get that from you.

Chris Beall (21:25):

Stu Heinecke. And just seems like a lot of what you’re doing fits in with the Stu Heinecke way of looking at the world. Plus you’ve done your business his way. His point is look, weeds figure out how to grow in the middle of cracks and freeways. Get over it.

Rick Elmore (21:39):

You know what, I always look at that when I’m on runs, you’ll see those and it’s actually to me really inspiring. There’s a will, there’s a way. We’ve fought through a lot of challenges over the last four years, but I’ve always felt that way and when I see that, that is a nature’s example of exactly what I’m going through right now, there’s a will, there’s a way and that hits home for sure.

Chris Beall (21:58):

Yeah. Checked out his business, his book and check him out. He lives up on Whitby Island up in part of the Olympic Peninsula off the Olympics and the San Juan’s. Brilliant, brilliant guy, nice person, and you’re doing it, which is what’s so interesting but you’re also enabling him. I mean it’s an example of kind of a seed pod strategy. Stu is a guy who would talk about your business and that’s an awesome thing and he would talk about it in the right way too, because he’s got a huge audience. So I highly recommend reaching out to him and kind of seed podding up so Simply Noted become something that he use an example. Because when Stu uses an example of how to grow your business like a weed and it’s you, people are going to go after it and he’s kind of speaking to your audience. Those businesses that have a lot of outreach to do in order to get things to happen. So highly recommend.

Rick Elmore (22:49):

Nice. Awesome.

Chris Beall (22:51):

But I want to come by some time and watch the robots do their thing just down the road in Tucson so we’ll do that.

Rick Elmore (22:57):

Great. They’re a little pen wielding army. It’s a little army of robots you’ll love it. It’s really fascinating for sure.

Chris Beall (23:03):

That’ll be cool. And then someday we should do a little test drive. You said you’d do a little cold calling before we got on?

Rick Elmore (23:09):

Yeah that’s one of the major ways that we started this business was just getting on the phone. I mean I went through the BNI, the Chamber of Commerce, some of the EO stuff for networking, but really it’s… we’ve used our product, a lot of social, email and cold calling. If we have nothing to do, we’re on the phone smiling and dialing. I need to talk to you about what you guys are doing because it’s definitely something that is a major cornerstone in our business for growing.

Chris Beall (23:34):

Yeah, I mean what we do is so simple. We can talk about it, but it literally is you push a button, talk to somebody in your list in a couple minutes and while that’s going on, you don’t have to do anything. You can do something else.

Rick Elmore (23:44):

Yeah, I mean we have a dialer. I mean you can make a hundred calls an hour, but there’s a way to make it even more efficient.

Chris Beall (23:49):

Oh yeah. A hundred calls an hour. That’s crawling. We don’t talk about little numbers like that. That’s too weak. Plus you got to pay attention when it goes to a voicemail or whatever. You got to be paying attention.

Rick Elmore (23:49):

Yeah.

Chris Beall (24:01):

You pay it no attention. You just hit the button. I was on with small business up in Canada today. We do this thing called an intensive test drive and it’s basically you get it for a full day of production and it’s live. We don’t do demos, we don’t do any of that stuff. It’s live, it’s your list, it’s your people or you or whatever. And one of the principles I asked him, “Did you hate it?” And he said, “I didn’t hate it but it scared me pretty bad and I’m still sweating.” Yeah.

Rick Elmore (24:30):

Sounds intense.

Chris Beall (24:31):

Yeah. We call it the intensive test drive for a reason. Now you’d really like it with your approach to things. You’ll have a blast with it and the fact is, that sincerity you talked about, being on their side, it comes through in the voice and it is the one thing when you kind of look at it, people don’t make buying decisions based on the facts. They make buying decisions based on one thing, which is they grow to trust you more than they trust themselves with this decision. Anthony Iannarino opened his latest book, it’s called Elite Sales Strategies and he actually quoted me without telling me which shocked me. So the opener of the book is a quote from me that says, “People buy from people they trust to make a decision they don’t trust themselves to make.”

Rick Elmore (25:13):

Yeah.

Chris Beall (25:13):

That’s why they buy. And we know that trust is a subtle psychological thing. It’s not, it’s such a big deal. It’s so dangerous to trust somebody that we’re wired to not do it, but we’re also wired to do it when it’s done right. And just listening to you and thinking about how you truly are on their side and they’ll hear it in your voice. I mean your successful career in sales, a lot of it’s got to be predicated on that. That first conversation. When they’re done, they’re gone. Hey Rick Elmore knows what he’s talking about and he’s on my side, he’s an expert and he’s on my side. I trust him more than I trust myself right so that’s what our whole thing is about.

Rick Elmore (25:55):

Yeah, I just focused on over-delivering. I’m going to make it right no matter what. Make sure you have a good experience. I remember when I first got into sales, my first manager at Striker, he sent me to a Dale Carnegie sales training thing and I learned a lot there. Like you were just saying, people will listen to people they like, but they’ll buy from people they trust. I remember that’s something they taught me. But yeah, that’s definitely a 100% true in sales. Anything in business people are going to buy from people they trust for sure.

Chris Beall (26:19):

Right and how much they trust them. This is something I’m convinced that we’ve kind of figured out. Everybody always said, you got to be trusted more than your competitor. Your competitor is always do nothing. So how do you be trusted more than do nothing? That’s really interesting.

Rick Elmore (26:33):

For me. I invest a lot in social proof. So it’s getting good reviews, getting out there and having people seeing us. People talk about us that aren’t us. So even if I’m telling you something, go out and search it and see what else somebody else is saying about us. That’s another good thing. When I was a rep it wasn’t really as that important, but when you own a business, you got to make sure other people are doing nice things about you outside of your own walls, inside your building.

Chris Beall (26:58):

Inside the echo chamber.

Rick Elmore (26:59):

Yeah.

Chris Beall (27:01):

Well Rick, thanks so much for coming on to Market Dominance Guys. Corey didn’t join us. He must have business he’s doing, he’s always off there hustling too. Us old guys continue to hustle. There’s no age limit to it. When you come right down to it, you don’t build these things to sell them, you build it because frankly we don’t know what else to do ourselves. So we just do it. And I’m super excited about your business and gosh, you don’t need my good wishes, but I’ll wish you all the best anyway because I think you’re just going to blow it all away.

Rick Elmore (27:29):

I appreciate it, Chris. It was an honor to be on your show and share this with you guys, so thank you so much.

Chris Beall (27:35):

All right, well until next time, and we have no idea what episode this is. Might be two, might be three of them. This is Chris Beall for Rick Elmore. Thanks for being on and the absent but brilliant, Corey Frank, and I’m sure we’ll see him again someday.

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Who would have guessed that hand writing a note to 500 prospects would be a highly successful marketing campaign? Our guest, Rick Elmore, did! Founder and CEO of Simply Noted, Rick joins our host, Chris Beall, today to discuss his career path from college, to professional NFL football player, to a job in medical device sales and marketing, to a startup company now in its fourth year. It was the success of his handwritten-notes campaign that encouraged Rick to found his own business, offering this same service — now automated — to help individuals and companies utilize the personal touch of what looks like a handwritten note to reach out to their customers. Rick and Chris talk about the open rate of these notes versus the open rate of cold — or even warm — emails. You’ll want to hear it with your own ears on this Market Dominance Guys’ episode, “Duly and Simply Noted.”

About Our Guest

Rick Elmore is the founder and CEO of Simply Noted in Tempe, Arizona. Simply Noted is a company that utilizes software and robotic technology to create personalized handwritten notes for its 300,000 monthly users.

—-more—-

Full episode transcript below:

Chris Beall (01:20):

Okay everybody, this is Chris Beall. This is yet another episode of Market Dominance Guys. You’ll note that at the moment, I am not here with Corey Frank, and those of you who are used to Market Dominance Guys at this point, know what we talk about. We talk about the practical world of dominating markets using the human voice, but today we have with us Rick Elmore, Founder and CEO of Simply Noted, and it’s actually analogous, I believe. I’m going to have Rick talk about it, but we’re into the human voice. We believe you have conversations, you create trust, and you can pave markets with trust and harvest that trust at your leisure while your competitors try to get in where they can’t go anymore because the market trusts you. Rick’s actually got a very similar business. Rick, thank you so much for jumping on Market Dominance Guys today. I am really, really excited to hear what you have to say.

Rick Elmore (02:14):

Thanks so much, Chris, for having me here. This is great.

Chris Beall (02:16):

Cool. We run a pretty informal show here, so here’s the informal show part. I know you have a very, very interesting background. We both went to school at the same place. You for real, and me, did it for three years and then went off and became a professional blackjack player for a while. Your background is unusual, I think for anybody, much less in business. It’s something people want to hear about, but then, I also am dying of curiosity, as a guy who bought probably the second or third HP 7470A sweet lips pen plotter in the world, back in 1981 or two, I believe. I am fascinated with the use you have found for using a pen plotter to create artifacts efficiently that generate trust and more, so tell me the story.

Rick Elmore (03:07):

Yeah, well thanks for the intro. I appreciate it. My background’s actually in athletics. I went to the University of Arizona and played football for Mike Stoops back in the early 2000s. Lucky enough to have a good career, went to the NFL and played three years in the NFL, had the typical journeymen struggle to survive. Just super competitive there, but was fortunate enough to stay and thrive and play for three years, but then when I got done, like most competitive athletes, they’re looking for that competitive environment still, so reached out to some people who made that transition. Got into medical device sales, was rookie of the year my first year. Then I was top 1% or number one rep for the next five years. And then, just felt like there was something more. Saw that chip in my shoulder. I wanted to do something big.

(03:54):

So in 2017, went back to Eller, that’s University of Arizona’s Business School, got my MBA, and I was in a marketing class and a marketing professor was going over just all the success rates in marketing. Everything was super nominal or marginal, super low from cold calling, knocking doors, print mail, email. Everything was either single digits or low double digits, and being in sales myself at the time, I was trying to figure out what the competitive edge is and waiting for him to kind of drop the truth bomb and hallelujah moment, but at the end of the lecture, he said half jokingly, “Hey guys, you know what still works nowadays, even more now than ever, is a nice handwritten note. It has a 99% open rate,” and I was just like, that is a no brainer. Why aren’t we doing that now? It’s obvious, because nobody has the time, but I was like, why isn’t there a business out there doing this?

(04:46):

I got to researching. There was a company at the time named Bond, but they were focusing on the worst segment. They were funded with a million dollars and they were focusing on the wedding industry. I was just like, you’re dealing with Bridezillas. Why would you focus only on weddings? I’ve been married, tons of people have been married. Everything changes all the time, last second, delayed. This needs to be a business tool. Again, my background’s in sales and marketing. It’s not in software. It’s not in robotics. We actually tried using a plotter at first. Nice little AxiDraw plotter, holds a pen, does what you want it to do. Our technology’s much more advanced than that, but we worked with the mail house here locally, talked to them just about what we can do, our ideas, how can we get it done.

(05:28):

We sourced product from all over the world, south America, China. Worked with some Autopen companies, but over the last four and a half years, we’ve grown our platform to over 300,000 users a month. Going to make the Inc. 5,000 this year. We’ve developed our own technology, our own robotic technology from the ground up. We’re going to have six patents on it. We’re really excited about it. I’m really proud of it as well because we’ve done this with no funding, no investors. The product has always paid for the company, been cash flow positive since month one, leveraged my sales and marketing background. And then, I’ve really launched a pretty cool little business here in the last four years.

Chris Beall (06:05):

Well, it sounds like it might not be so little. 300,000 monthly users is actually a pretty big number. When you say monthly user, what is a monthly user?

Rick Elmore (06:12):

Just somebody who comes to our site and uses our site for whatever they needed to do. We’ve invested a lot in SEO over the last 18 months and we just drive a lot of organic traffic. Our conversion rate is anywhere from a half a percent to one and a half percent. It really just depends on the month and where the traffic is coming from, but we’re driving a lot of interest. People who are searching for products that we are selling, they’re coming to our page. We’re not closing every one of them. They’re not all making purchases, but they’re coming to our platform, signing up, requesting samples, sending one card. They’re just actively engaging with our website every month.

Chris Beall (06:46):

Got it, got it. Well, I’ve been to the site and it’s a thousand times better than ours, so I admire it.

Rick Elmore (06:51):

I appreciate it. Actually, the bane of my existence is building websites. It’s just so frustrating. Little things get tweaked all the time that cause problems.

Chris Beall (07:00):

It doesn’t take much. Well, you know what we say about networking, which is bad enough. It’s two bits away from not working. I think there’s a corollary over there on websites.

Rick Elmore (07:09):

Absolutely.

Chris Beall (07:09):

I don’t have a good little poem for it or something, but we need an aphorism for website development and it’s like Murphy’s Law on steroids.

Rick Elmore (07:17):

Oh my gosh. Anything in software, Murphy’s Law for sure. What can go wrong will definitely go wrong.

Chris Beall (07:24):

Well, software is funny in that sense. It’s fundamentally brittle and I’ve been building it since 1968, so to give you a sense of how the first time I ever put my fingers on a keyboard and wrote a line of code was in ’68.

Rick Elmore (07:37):

Wow. That’s cool.

Chris Beall (07:38):

That goes back a little ways. Some people probably think-

Rick Elmore (07:41):

That’s fine. I’m fine.

Chris Beall (07:42):

You aren’t dead yet?

Rick Elmore (07:44):

I’m actually going through a Harvard CS50s class right now, a little computer science introductory course and a Python course, just so I can get really well versed in this type of stuff, just so I can communicate and work with my developers better. There’s just so many opportunities within software and what you can get it to do in automation and APIs and machine learning, and all this stuff applies to our business, which fascinates me even more.

Chris Beall (08:08):

Well, it’s funny. You’re doing the right thing. In my opinion, most people who are founder CEOs don’t bother to learn what’s under the covers and it’s what’s really-

Rick Elmore (08:08):

Ignorance costs a lot of money.

Chris Beall (08:19):

Well, what’s funny about it is, you nailed it. The communication with developers is communication with anybody, which is that once you have a common language, now you’re down to how many iterations are you going to have to do in order to get to a finished product? Until you get to a common language, it doesn’t matter how many iterations you do, you never get to a finished product. Most founder CEOs, I believe, end up in what I call the world of the flying car. That is, they don’t know how the stuff is made, so they keep asking for flying cars and then after they get told over and over and over, “Sorry boss, you can’t have a flying car.” Then they stop asking for anything and the engineers take over and then you get an engineering run company, which is-

Rick Elmore (09:00):

That’s a good thing, that’s not the case for us because I literally understand… I’ve done everything with this company from building our websites, being engaged with the software team, the handwriting engine team, the robotics team, the sales and marketing, building out all of our case studies, all of our marketing materials, working… I guess that it is a bad thing if you don’t understand the depths of your business for sure.

Chris Beall (09:21):

When folks talk about software eating the world, they don’t actually consider the possibility that the senior executives who are running things are further divorced from how things run than they’ve ever been in history, and it’s a problem because I don’t know, you can give orders, you can tell people what to do, but if you don’t know what underlies it, you’re just [inaudible 00:09:41]. That’s all there is to it. You just got to fucking do it. By the way, I’m a huge Python fan. I taught myself Python on a Saturday morning in 2006, I believe it was. Yeah, 2006, when I just got off at my own developers at a company that I joined in Silicon Valley because I wanted a visualization of this graph network thing that I thought of, and none of them would write the damn thing. So I said, “Ah man, I don’t write much code anymore, but I’m going to do this,” and I went and found a package to help that was done in Python and I thought, I’m going to hate Python because it likes white spaces and it’s white space sensitive, which I used to teach programming languages to people, and here I am taking something I hate, which is why [inaudible 00:10:26], but why does it care about white space? I fell in love and about 10 minutes. I think it’s one of the best languages ever.

Rick Elmore (10:31):

No, we can have a whole podcast talking about just the challenges of working with developers and why it’s important to understand this and Python so far… I’m taking a course through Michigan right now in Python, so I’m only three weeks in, but I’m excited. I’m like the worst person to compete with because when there’s a challenge, I just run through walls until I figure it out, so I feel bad for my competitors because there’s no give up in me. If I need to know something, I’m going to figure out a way to understand it, even if it’s at the expense of my time.

Chris Beall (10:57):

Well, I don’t care about your competitors. I want to be crushed by you.

Rick Elmore (11:01):

I appreciate that.

Chris Beall (11:03):

That’s what this whole podcast is about is dominating markets. Our [inaudible 00:11:06] is really simple, which is either you dominate or you’re in peril. That’s it. And then, you trump the markets you dominate and the more markets you dominate by count, the less peril you’re in. It’s just because after that, it’s portfolio theory. It’s like each one, if I have five markets, I dominate, all five have got to go away before I lose the ability to adapt the simplest way, which is to reduce overhead to match gross profit flow, which is the key to everything in businesses. You got to make your overhead just barely below, or well below, your gross profit flow and then grow. That’s kind of it. There’s not much more to it.

(11:44):

If they have all those business courses, it’s like, guys, you get money from folks. There’s your cost of goods, there’s your gross profit, it flows into business. You have to reduce your overhead to being below that. Your final unit of overhead is your own salary. Figure that out. It’s not that hard. Figure it out. It sounds like you’ve done that. Month one, month two, month three, there you were putting this thing together. You say, “Let’s go.” What did you do in month one in order to become cash flow positive? That’s hard. That means you have to collect money from human beings for something they didn’t pay for before, and human beings hate to buy stuff they didn’t pay for before. They like doing today what they did yesterday.

Rick Elmore (12:27):

My background’s in sales and marketing. I’m extremely competitive, extremely driven, but we started researching this in 2017 when I was going to school, and in 2018, we really started messing around with product, different machines, Autopens, the axidraw plotters, and getting samples. I was talking to my current clients, current business executives that I respected. My wife works in fundraising development, so she works with a lot of businesses, so we’re really well connected here in the Phoenix market with people who run their own businesses, but prior to ever getting started, I probably had over 50 conversations with people that I respected, friends, family and business leaders, and when we finally got kicked off, I was just really excited about the product and people can see how excited I was about the product. I believed it down to my core, and I believe if your clients can see that in you, they get excited about it with you.

(13:16):

And then I was just obsessed with making sure those first clients that we had were successful. Even if it was at our expense, I wanted to make sure that they had a good experience because those first few clients that you have can make and break your business. You got to make sure they’re fans about your business. They’re lighthouse customers. They’ll refer their friends. They’ll keep buying from you if they know that you have their best interest in mind. So those first few months, looking back now compared to what we have now, it was a crappier product, but people just believed in it, and I talked to them about the problem that we were solving, connecting them with their clients in a personal way, in an automated way, in a more efficient way because if you think about it, everybody now is competing digitally for everybody’s attention. It’s all social, it’s all SMS or MMS or LinkedIn or Slack or Twitter.

(14:05):

Nobody’s competing in the mailbox, and with that high of an open rate and with how rare it is to receive a handwritten note and how expensive it is to require a new client versus just keeping a current client happy, it was actually a pretty easy sell to somebody who would listen, but now we have a much more complete platform. We have tools that automate it. We have better robots, we have higher capacity, we run our own printing press in house. That means faster, same day order deliveries. We have capital equipment that allows us to push out 10, 15,000 notes a day. We’re just a lot more mature, but early on it’s getting peoples excited about your journey, your product, your passion, your vision, get them to buy into you because they’re not going to buy into a product they know nothing about. You really got to hard sell them on why they need to do it.

Chris Beall (14:52):

Yeah, you do. What was the point, before you actually launched somewhere in there, you went from, hm, interesting to, I’m going to go do this.

Chris Beall (15:48):

My experience is, that’s what I call a mousetrap. It snaps. You don’t grade into it and go, Oh, I think I’ll do it. Maybe it’s like, at some point you go, okay, I’m doing this. What drove you to that point? What was that like?

Rick Elmore (16:00):

I call it the entrepreneurial seizure. When you had that aha moment where you’re literally, your whole body gets rushed with hormones where you just feel so good at, you had that moment, but when we were still testing this out in 2018, we were using plotters back in the day, and it took me forever. It took me weeks, I think it was four or five weeks to write 500 handwritten notes, but I was in medical sales at the time. I had a large territory across Arizona and Nevada. Again, I was in my class, my professor said a 99% open rate, and I was like, man, if I can get in front of my client 99% of the time, that is going to make me more successful. I wrote out 500 handwritten notes, basically pitching a product to doctors who never bought anything from me and really was really clear and concise who I was, how I can help them, can I buy them lunch and tell them more about it?

(16:48):

From those 500, I had over 30 people respond, which to me was new. I was just like, holy crap. People are calling me about a product and are about wanting to learn more. I always had to knock on doors and get people to sit down. And then from those 30 people, I sold $280,000 in equipment and it was $20,000 in commission from literally, from 500 handwritten notes. Literally, for that four or five, six weeks, my quota of monthly was $39,000, so when they saw $280,000 come across in six weeks, my whole company went crazy. My VP of sales were like, “Rick, what are you doing? It’s working. We got to get everybody doing this,” and I shared with them what I was doing, and really from that moment on, my business went on autopilot until January 2019 where I jumped in two feet with this.

(17:35):

But I saw it work firsthand and it was an idea that was kind of incubated during an MBA where we put a lot of work into just finding stuff that make it work, a lot of tinkering, and then weeks of getting this product together, and then I saw results and I was like, man, if we’re seeing results now, let’s solve a problem, build a platform, build the best technology, and we’re going to have a really good company down the line that we can sell. That’s really been my vision for this company, is to solve a problem, make it easy to use, build a robot, which we just did, and then scale it and sell it. We’re really excited. We’re only four years into this, but the next four years are going to be amazing.

Chris Beall (18:11):

Is it fun to watch the robots do their thing?

Rick Elmore (18:13):

I am obsessed with it. I was on a different call earlier today. I’m in here sometimes 11 o’clock at night, and I’m just still amazed seeing these little pen wielding robots. We build our own pens. There’s a lot of technology in this company. We build our own pen inserts, we design the pen insert. It has 300% more ink so it writes longer. Also, you can control the quality of the ink. This is how geeky we got into this.

Chris Beall (18:13):

Love it.

Rick Elmore (18:38):

We’ve really thought of everything. The viscosity, viscosity’s like how wet it is and how much it’ll smear, so we have full control of it.

Chris Beall (18:47):

Remember, I have a physics degree from the University of Arizona.

Rick Elmore (18:51):

We’ve gone everywhere from the pen to the robots to the software, to the handwriting engine, to the website. Everything’s been built from the ground up, which I’m extremely proud of.

Chris Beall (19:00):

That’s so cool. Do you show videos of the robots doing their thing?

Rick Elmore (19:03):

Yeah, there’s tons of them on my LinkedIn. I have them pinned up on the top. If you go to our LinkedIn, you’ll see them. The website that we have now is actually being rebuilt. It’s a two year old website. We’re actually rebuilding the web app and then just the front facing design. We’ll have a lot more of our technology highlighted on our website soon.

Chris Beall (19:21):

How personalized is the handwriting to me? I have a use case in mind right now. My team talks to 85,000 VPs of sales a year. I want them to follow up on every single one of those conversations with something-

Rick Elmore (19:34):

Automated.

Chris Beall (19:35):

Because once you talk to somebody, you may as well do something. We can actually get people even to open email, which we don’t like very much, but when you talk to somebody, you send them an email, 10 minutes later, five minutes later, three minutes later, it’s an email from somebody you just talked with, so we have the ability to scale the conversation side, but our follow up is, in my opinion, relatively weak. It’s email and then we have a follow up conversation mechanism for people we want to talk to more than once, blah, blah. All that’s built out. We put like, $55 million into this thing over time, so it does a lot of tricks, but it doesn’t do your trick, so if I want to do your trick, how do I do it so that it feels like it’s me writing that note, so I’m comfortable with it having come from me?

Rick Elmore (20:21):

Everything we do is custom to you guys. From your campaign, we’ll completely set up custom, but the magic is automating it. Depending on what software you use, what CRM you use, we actually think our automation’s a perfect follow up sequence. Say you had a call today and you book it and you want to set up an automation so once that trigger happens within your CRM, you would be notified same day either through an API integration or a Zapier integration, and we ship most orders same day, but it takes three to five days for them to be delivered. We actually think from that call to that landing in their mailbox within a week, five, six days, is actually a perfect follow up sequence for sales. Again, my background’s in sales, so I’m always thinking about ways to engage prospects to get them on board. Even though we try to sell this as a tool for appreciation and thank you because again, cost of acquisition is five times more than just keeping your current clients happy. We just automate it through a Zapier integration. Super simple to set up. Just create an account on our website, we give you an API token, you log into the Zapier app, set up the automation, you never think about it again. It’s pretty awesome.

Chris Beall (21:26):

Cool. We use Salesforce, so we know what’s going on and then we pull it out of there. I’m sure you have that pre-wired, right?

Rick Elmore (21:31):

Yeah, Salesforce is one of the most flexible integrations we have.

Chris Beall (21:35):

Absolutely. Well, that’s really interesting. How about on the handwriting side? It’s me. How much is it me or is it a choice? It’s like choosing a voice narrator for an audio book.

Rick Elmore (21:46):

This is a geeking out again, but the reason we had to build our own handwriting machines is these Axidraws or Autopens, they just have patterns when they write. It’s impossible. They don’t have super strong handwriting engines. They were built in the 80s and 90s, but can use your handwriting if you want. We can give you a handwriting conversion form, but what’s powerful about ours is, not only do we have the ability to build you an unlimited sized handwriting style, so if you want to give us 100 As, 100 Bs, 100 Cs, we can create a very custom handwriting style to you, but we go well beyond that. We go into ligature style, so how your T connects to an H, what two T’s look like together. What’s an E at the end of a word versus an E at the beginning of a word look like.

(22:28):

It takes about five days for one of our graphic designers to convert your handwriting style and create your handwriting style, but there’s a lot that goes into it, but everything about your campaign is completely custom, especially on our enterprise level accounts, stationary design, custom inserts, shift cards, business cards, bags of seeds, lumpy mill. You get really creative of what goes in an envelope, but we set up your custom campaigns. Really, when people come to us, they tell us about the project they have in mind and we show them the path of least resistance to get it done.

Chris Beall (22:58):

Got it. Well, it’s very interesting. Our customers pay, they’ll say an extraordinary amount of money to talk to people and follow up is everything, as you and I both know. I’m new to sales. I’ve only been at it for maybe 60 years, but as far as I can tell, I’ve learned very little and one of the main [inaudible 00:23:16] I’ve learned is follow-up is everything.

Rick Elmore (22:58):

Oh it is.

Chris Beall (23:18):

If you don’t follow up, nothing ever happens in this world, and there’s another thing which is courses for courses. We’re calling people on the phone, not that you use a phone when you use ConnectAndSell. You push a button, you talk to somebody on your list, but to them it’s a phone call. Then the question is, well, did you get everybody? You can get, roughly speaking, initially, you can get about 35% of the market on the phone right away. They’re phone answering people, and it’s not all about their mobile. It’s actually all about what they actually answer on, and we do 60 million dials a year, so we know what everybody answers on, so we’ve got all of that information, but on the other side, what about the people, not just following up with the ones you talk to, but what about the people you can’t reach? What about that note? That’s still 60% of the market, roughly. You’re saying to my customers right, and I have a fair amount of them that pay attention to this podcast, that if they want to reach the other 60%, that I don’t know what the open rate will be. At a 99% open rate, is that still the case or whatever it happens to be?

Rick Elmore (24:27):

Yeah, there’s tons of studies published online. We actually verified this. We took six different types of envelopes. One of them was handwritten, the other ones were print, different colors, different sizes. What we did is, we put a $10 check inside and told them what we’re doing. “Hey, just scan this QR code. We’re testing an open rate case study, but here’s a $10 check,” so we confirmed it by checks being cashed and then QR codes being scanned, and over 99%. We verified it, but there’s tons of case studies out there as well showing the open rate is 99% as well.

 

 

 

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Most sales reps think discovery isn’t sexy: Closing the deal is. But “Deals are won or lost in discovery,” cautions Sales Gravy CEO Jeb Blount, today’s podcast guest. This successful author of 15 sales-related books advises that “80% of your time in the sales process should be in discovery,” especially during a recession, when the discovery call becomes even more important. In this second of two interviews with Jeb, our Market Dominance Guys’ hosts, Corey Frank and Chris Beall, share sales-success nuggets taken from Jeb’s most recent book, Selling in a Crisis: 55 Ways to Stay Motivated and Increase Sales in Volatile Times. You’ll want to listen closely as these three like-minded sales gurus explain their own discovery-call practices for establishing trust and how they get prospects to open up to them. All of this and so much more in today’s Market Dominance Guys’ episode, “Discover the Power of Discovery.”

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Listen to the first half of this interview here:

Ep153: How to Dominate Your Market in a Crisis with Jeb Blount

About Our Guest

Jeb Blount is CEO at Sales Gravy, Inc., which is a global leader in sales acceleration and customer experience enablement solutions. He is the author of 15 sales-related books, including his most recent release, Selling in a Crisis: 55 Ways to Stay Motivated and Increase Sales in Volatile Times. Jeb is also the host of the Sales Gravy Podcast, the world’s most downloaded sales podcast.

Full episode transcript below:

Corey Frank (01:19):

Getting to discovery is one of the things that we certainly do here at Branch 49 and Chris’s insistence all those years ago is we’re not just a revenue ops agency, top of funnel, but we also do discovery as a service. And Chris has identified that years ago as one of the key frontline bottlenecks in organizations discovery. So I was pleased buttress by the fact Jeb, that you dive quite deeply into this as well, is that if you say that deals are one and lost in discovery, not in a presentation or the closes or even the negotiation, but in you have to learn to increase sales to do discovery better. And so let’s talk a little bit about that, Chris. I know you have some opinions on that too, but what do you mean by we have to learn to discover better and to do discovery calls a little bit better than we’re doing today?

Jeb Blount (02:10):

Well, let’s start with the reason why we don’t do them. Discovery is the weakest link in most sales processes because it’s not sexy, it’s boring, Sexy is closed the deal. Sexy is do the presentation. Walk into any room of salespeople and ask them what would you like to know? And they’ll what to say. They want to know what words should come out of their mouth that are going to suddenly woo everybody and wow everybody into saying yes to them or complying with a request. But the truth is that in sales a question you ask is more important than anything that you will ever say. But that’s boring. It doesn’t make us feel good to ask questions and listen. So discovery has a tendency to get put on the back burner even though 80% of your time that you spend in sales conversations and inside the sales process should be on discovery because what you said, Corey is true. Deals are won and lost based on the questions you ask and the information that you get.

(03:12):

It’s really no different than if you think about attorneys, lawyers going to court. If you’ve ever been in a case, you know that you went into depositions and there was a ton of discovery that was done up front. Pretty much cases are won and lost during that period of time, not in some spark of inspiration in the middle of a courtroom. That happens on TV, it just doesn’t happen in real life. In sales there’s typically not this magical plays where like in a movie scene, you push the pen over to the buyer and say, “Sign here”, and you’ve delivered some amazing message to them and they just comply, sign it and you go out and you celebrate. It doesn’t really work like that.

(03:53):

Typically, the deal is closed somewhere in discovery because you ask a question that provokes their awareness that they need to change and then as you’re listening to them, you’re making them feel important. You’re learning their story. And so as you build your business case, you begin to build these value bridges. You’re connecting the dots between what you learn in discovery about their aspirations, about their pain, about the problems that they have to solve and you’re connecting it to what you can do for them, but you’re using their language. That’s the point where they begin to feel like you get them and they begin to trust you and you begin to close more deals. Now as we move into recessionary period, discovery becomes even more important and it becomes more important because, as we’re in an economic downturn, buyers begin to change their buying behaviors. The most important change that they’re going to make is it going to be much more risk averse.

(04:48):

They’re always risk averse, but in an economic downturn, in a crisis, in a time where they’ve got to be very careful about the decisions that they make because it could impact their job or impact their company, you’ve got to build a much better business case in order to mitigate that risk, in order to lower their fears and show them the value of doing business with you. The only way that you can build that business case, a business case by the way that is laced with math to show them the outcomes that they’re going to get from your business proposition, the only way you do that is through discovery.

(05:24):

So it’s always important, far more important in an economic downturn than in any other time because that business case truly matters. They are not going to give you their money unless they feel like the risk of giving you their money is low relative to the gains that they’ll get from giving you their money and the return on the investment for doing business with you. But otherwise you’re dead in the water and you’re not going to be able to talk your way out of that. There’s not a close or an objection turnaround that’s going to talk a buyer off the cliff if you haven’t demonstrated that the value or the outcomes that they’re going to gain from doing business with you, they’re going to derive from doing business with you, are a lower risk than spending their money with you in an economic downturn. Six months ago, they’re throwing money at you. Today, not going to happen.

Corey Frank (06:18):

Yeah. Chris, we’ve spoken about that several times where a half wounded Jeb, what do you think about this theory, that a half wounded prospect, when they have a poor discovery interview thrust upon them and maybe that sales rep trips over one or two compelling questions that makes that prospect think or two, but then there’s no follow up, there’s no elegance. That prospect is at risk of being taken off that chess board for three years, average life cycle of a SAS deal, 36 months. And so to do poor discovery, does it mean there is a zero sum game there? You lost that opportunity to convert that prospect. Chances are that pain still exists, that prospect is going to get zapped up by somebody who’s much more confident. Did I say that correctly, Chris, from some of the things we’ve been talking about?

Chris Beall (07:10):

Yeah, I mean there’s a reason that some years ago I gently suggested that you put together an agency that would go all the way through discovery because it’s clear to me, has been for quite a while, that discovery actually doesn’t have a lot to do with your product and therefore it can be done generically. Somebody who is great at discovery, could do discovery for anything that any of us sell and do it with very, very little preparation around what that thing is, how it works and blah blah blah. Except they need to know basically what are the classes of problems that it solves, what are the knobs that get turned and what are the outcomes that might happen as a result? And then they should stay away from all of that except to ask the questions that might clue them in as to how this works.

And I think, I love what Jeb said and what language they use in order to talk about their world so that you can talk about your potential to be helpful to them in the language that they know how to reason it. Something that there’s been a lot of research done on how language changes, how we think. I was just talking to somebody the other day who spent some time in part of Africa where in that particular place, people didn’t talk about left or right. They didn’t have words for left or right but they had very, very good words for north, southeast, west, northeast and so forth and so on. So you wouldn’t say, you would get a snake that’s right off your right foot. You’d say you’d have a snake that’s right off your north foot. It changes how your brain works when you use language in a certain way and you have the big problem in sales. If you want to succeed, you have to be able to adapt to somebody else’s language so that your brain works like their brain works.

(09:00):

And the way to do that is to ask questions and get into not just what they say but how they say it, what’s behind it, where they get confused by the question. All that stuff is of huge value to you and is the differentiator between them being willing to part with their risk. I mean, Jeb says their money, but actually I think unless you’re talking to a business owner, you’re never talking about their money, you’re talking about somebody else’s money, but you’re always talking about their risk and their risk is so much higher than the owners. It’s easy to sell value to owners. You cannot sell value to agents, to functionaries. You must sell risk reduction to them.

Jeb Blount (09:40):

And that’s a good point because when people are asking a simple question, “Do you get me”? So there’s five questions that people are asking of you in discovery, “Do I like you? Do you listen to me? Do you make me feel important? Do you get me and my problems when trust and believe you”? And Chris is right, in most cases when you’re in sales, you’re selling to someone who is using someone else’s money to solve their problems. So when we are giving a business case, there’s really three outcomes that we want to be able to demonstrate. There are personal outcomes. So for that individual stakeholder, what do they get from that? What is important to them that’s going to help them and their life be better, their job be better? There are emotional outcomes. That’s things like peace of mind or less stress. What does that look like?

(10:22):

We talk about pain a lot. I’m not a really big fan of pain in sales. I know it’s a Sandler thing and I know that everybody likes to get ahold of it because it’s an emotional thing. But pain is not the only reason why people buy. It’s sometimes a reason people buy. And then there are measurable business outcomes. That’s the math. We have to talk about all three of those things. So what discovery does is it helps me understand, it helps me get that person. This is very, very important. And let’s just take the context that Chris said. When you’re dealing with a business owner, it’s one thing. When you’re dealing with people who are typically buying, which is most of the time you’re not dealing with a business owner, you’re dealing with someone else who is using the business owner’s money to solve problems.

(11:06):

This idea of get matters greatly. Think about it like this. The most important, the most valuable relationships you have in your life, you describe like this. This person gets me. Those mean more than anything else. So what Chris was saying about language, which is just brilliant, is that language is a way to demonstrate get. You’ll never have that level, like the level of get that I have with my wife, you’re I’m not going to have that with someone I’m doing business with. But the same psychological blueprint is in play. Does the person feel like I get them or at least that I’m trying to get them? So Corey, let me back you up real quickly. You are a salesperson and you ask a good question, but you’re so focused on the next question that you ask, using your words, Corey, I’m not being eloquent about it.

(11:55):

So rather than ask a follow up probing question that demonstrates that what I just noticed was important to that person and allow them to talk more, which makes them feel important and significant because I’m trying to get them, I just move onto the next question that’s on my list. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and the tattoo. I was 24 years old, I was just reading questions off of a list. So I don’t demonstrate that. But if I do the follow up question, if I probe, if I listen deeply to what’s being said behind the words and I’m get all that together and I start repeating it back to them, it’s amazing sometimes when I say something back to someone in their words, they just look at me and they go, “Wow, you’re the only person that’s really listening to me”.

(12:37):

And I’m like, I just literally took the words out of your mouth and gave it back to you. And you feel that I get you. Yeah. What you’re doing with language is you’re saying, and when I say outcomes, pain is one of the outcomes, aspiration is an outcome. The chance to capture an opportunity is an outcome. An opportunity to, if you’re a business owner, I want be at the same level as my competitors.

(13:02):

That’s not a pain, that’s an aspiration. It’s something that I want to accomplish. So if I start repeating back to you, we can help you do these things. You told me, Corey, that when you were in this situation, it made you feel this way and that was awful. I can’t even imagine what that was like. What I can do for you in this particular situation is if we deploy these three solutions, it’ll solve that problem for you and it’ll reduce the chance that you’re going to feel that way again. How do you feel about that?

(13:35):

How people respond to that is extraordinary because all I did was use their language. Language matters. It connects us as groups and it taps into the human similarity bias that is always in play. No matter how hard we want it not to be in play, it is in play. We trust in people who are more like us, but because we sell in a diverse economy to people who are not like us, the easiest, fastest way to tap into that is by speaking their language. And their language is their language of their company, their language of their jargon, their language of their team, their language of their aspirations and their pain.

(14:15):

The only way you get there is through great questions in discovery that compel them to tell you things that get them to the point where they stop thinking about hiding stuff from you because you’re the salesperson and they begin opening up and allowing you to get below the surface where they teach you their language and then you bring that back. You don’t get that if you’re doing shallow discovery or you’re so caught up in what you’re going to say next, you only get that organically when you’re in the moment and when they begin to lean into you. And that takes, I love the word eloquence, it takes eloquence, it takes nuance. But the real key to doing it is essentially just being a good human being and stop selling and start just really listening to them and allowing them to express themselves and then coming back with how you’re going to help them achieve their desired outcomes.

Corey Frank (15:09):

Love that. I mean that’s a book right there. What you say, Chris? That’s number 16 right there, we get it. Forget 60 days, you just did it in six minutes.

Corey Frank (16:01):

But Chris, a lot of things that Jeb’s talking about, we’re in a different world than maybe five, 10 years ago where I jump on a plane and I go see a client. Right now a lot of clients don’t even turn their Zoom on because they’re afraid that the Zoom gods will steer their soul or something like that. But they don’t turn their camera on or we have the cold call. Chris, how do we, and Jeb, how do we deal with that extrasensory perception that we have to have on the pauses or listening for the typing in the background. What do we do to awaken that empathy, that great amount of empathy that you talk about? And Chris you’ve talked about for years.

Chris Beall (16:35):

I do discovery in a funny way. That’s all I got to say, because to me everything in sales is always about the other person’s emotional journey. And my favorite book of Jeb is Sales EQ. And Sales EQ has to do with, it’s not so much our emotions, it’s their emotions. And it’s the same. Jeb works with animals, he works with horses. I grew up in a world of all animals. It was, I didn’t have any people, I just had animals. And when you’re working with animals, especially animals bigger than you are, you realize the only thing that counts as their emotions, that’s it. They have their capabilities which tend to be substantial and multidimensional in ways we don’t understand and every once in a while they surprise you. I didn’t know that one could bite so hard, for instance is a good one.

(17:24):

But when you come right down to it, it’s the emotions. The emotions move fast when they move. They tend to be stable islands. And then when they move, they move fast. To me, what Jeff just said is you want somebody in discovery. Your only goal, in my opinion, is you get to the point where they start opening up to you. That’s it. If there were another goal in discovery, I think I would’ve found it by now. The goal is, and we have a whole episode on this somewhere in the archives called The Confessional is now open. You want to get into the confessional, you want them to tell you their truth. And what I’ve found is oddly easy. It’s just like cold calling. Cold calling’s very easy in one way because you know where they start emotionally. They’re afraid of you. You’ve got to build trust. You got seven seconds to do it. Great. There’s a lot of ways to do it, but you better do it otherwise the emotional journey towards curiosity and commitment just ain’t going to happen right, until they trust you that little bit.

(18:20):

I think the emotional journey and discovery starts with apprehension. They’re apprehensive. They’re pretty sure you’re going to try to sell them something. They’re pretty sure you’re an expert, may aren’t. And they’re pretty sure that they don’t want to have you have the better of them. So they’re apprehensive. They don’t want to go into the room, they don’t want to go into the confessional. How do you get them out of apprehension? You have to replace it with another emotion. I mean emotions are always there. So the question is, well what’s the replacement emotion? The one I choose is pride. Because everybody, if you think about it, it’s impossible to be apprehensive and proud at the same time.

(18:54):

It’s actually like they’re incompatible emotions. You can’t have both. So it’s very easy to provoke pride in somebody in a very innocent question. Mine sounds funny. People think like Anthony and Arena would laugh at me for this and think I’m a total idiot. But when you see the results, you might think otherwise. I just ask a simple question. So Corey, it always helps me to know where somebody is in the physical world. Where are you right now on the face of our blue whirling planet? And I ask it exactly like that. And then I wait and I can go 25 minutes listening to your answer and I’m happy because you’re in a place of pride of place. And pride of place is a universal for human beings. Every human being has pride of place. I don’t care where you live, you’re proud of it. And then I want to go from pride of place to pride of mission.

(19:48):

Because until I know why they’re doing their job, why they get up every day and go and do that job, I really am going to have a hard time getting underneath all of that to the confessional. Why are they even doing this? It can’t be for the money. Nobody does anything for money very long. They give it up. I don’t want to deal with them anyway, so then I ask this other question which is, “Hey, when everything goes great and it goes great, it’s fantastic, product is right, timing is right, the budget is there, everything’s great. Your people do what they have to do, other guy does what they have to do. How does your product change that person’s life”? And then I sit back and wait.

(20:24):

A lot of people think that’s two stupid discovery questions, right? Oh Chris, you’re trying to get empathy, blah blah blah blah blah. The fact is, most of the time after that second question, somebody after they’ve confessed their mission, pride of mission is there, they will start to talk about what’s in the way of them accomplishing that mission. And that’s where you want to be because that’s where you want to be. You don’t know is it economic, is it emotional, is it strategic? It’s something, because everybody is frustrated that they can’t do their job as well as they hold themselves accountable for.

Corey Frank (20:58):

That’s beautiful. Can you teach that curiosity, Jeb? Can you teach that or is it what you had said earlier about prospecting that the way to do it is just to do it and to say the questions and eventually you’ll start meaning the questions. Or is there another bio life hack that you’d suggest to engender that level of curiosity and empathy?

Jeb Blount (21:22):

Yeah, you can teach it. I mean there are people who shouldn’t be in sales. Let me get clear about that. There are people who should not be in sales, but people who have a core set of talent, you can teach that. The problem for younger salespeople is they haven’t developed the emotional intelligence yet to have the patience that Chris does to allow the answer to begin to build. They step on it. You can teach people how to control their emotions. A lot of cases what’ll happen is the person’s in the middle of telling you where they live, are telling you what’s important to them. And you blurt out what’s important to you too. Because when you’re talking, it makes you feel important. And when you’re not talking, it makes you feel unimportant. So with salespeople, you can teach that. You can teach the patients. I learned it. I learned it from masters like Chris who taught me these things and sometimes through a kick in the rear end. But I learned it.

(22:11):

You learn it through trial and error, but you mostly learn it by just learning human skills. One of the ways I teach people this is just through science. So Chris did two things there in those questions. One is he recognized something called the negativity bias, which is when people start telling you about something that’s good, they’ll almost always tell you what something is bad. So if I say, “Tell me what you love about your competitor”, they’ll go blah, blah, blah blah blah, but they don’t do these things. I know it’s going to happen every single time. I don’t got to worry about it. It’s always a pattern. He also stumbled into the self-disclosure loop. And this is pure science. When a person is talking, they are getting a dopamine hit to the pleasure centers of the brain. It makes them feel good. Some people, it’s harder to get them into that state than others, but you can get every single person to that state because it’s science.

(23:02):

They talk about themselves and they get the dopamine hit. They talk about themselves, they get a dopamine hit. So what I teach young salespeople is if you will learn to have the patience to pause, to allow them the space to talk, in most cases they’ll continue talking, continue talking, continue talking until they cross over what I call the TMI zone. But they move into this place and Chris describe this, where they begin pouring out their soul. And even when their brain consciously says, you shouldn’t be saying all these things, they can’t help themselves, but because they’re so hopped up on brain crack that it’s like they’re almost uninhibited. And so when you get them doing that, they start telling you all these things. And then Chris left out one little part of this, which is pre-framing or framing. When he initiated the conversation, where on this great blue planet world are you?

(23:58):

They knew why he was there. They made the meeting with them. They know he is from ConnectAndSell. They know it’s a conversation about their salespeople. They know it’s a conversation about software. So Chris is right, I don’t have to talk about any of that stuff. They’ll do the work for me. All I got to do is ask them an open-ended easy question that they have pride in, like they enjoy answering. And I get out of the way because they are pre-frame to talk about ConnectAndSell, talk about more meetings, talk about prospecting, talk about their sales results. If he just waits long enough, they’ll bring it full circle and start telling him all the reasons why they need him and their business. So it’s almost a game. And Chris, I don’t know if you play this game, but the game that I play is how few questions can I ask to get the most information from a prospect?

(24:48):

And it’s like a symphony plan. When I see it happening, I see them starting to roll downhill, sometimes on a virtual call where in situations where I can do it, I just look at my salesperson and go. “It’s coming, you can see it’s happening”. And so the art of doing this, and this is really is an art. There’s science in it, but it is an art to be organic in the moment. You can absolutely, totally teach salespeople that. And by the way, you asked about virtual selling. I did write an entire book on this on how do you leverage empathy in a virtual call. It’s the same thing. Once everybody gets over, “I’m on a camera”, look at us, we’re all having a conversation. I’m not even thinking, gosh, I’m on a camera. Once we get over that process and we start paying attention to those emotional cues and all the probing questions we ask around those cues, it gets brutally simple because science does all the work for us.

Chris Beall (25:45):

Yeah, it’s like a boulder rolling down a hill. All you have to do is get it started. You don’t have to figure out which ones it’s going to hit if something’s going to happen and you’re going to get to the bottom of the hill.

Jeb Blount (25:56):

And that’s what we call a self-disclosure loop. Because then that boulder’s rolling down the hill, the only thing is going to stop it is you throw yourself in front of it.

Chris Beall (26:02):

Right.

Corey Frank (26:04):

Well yeah. Was it Uncle Zieg? I think Ziegler said, “Feed your family or feed your ego. You can’t do both in sales”. And I think as your point, Jeb, as a lot of us as young pops coming up, we want to, “Hey, my managers gave me all this stuff. I got to say my marketing people gave me all these decks and I want to showcase how much I know about the industry even though I’m a 23 and a half year old person and I step in the way of the prospect way too much and I can’t build that trust or that empathy”, it sounds like. So man, great tips galore. Got to ask, of the 55, I think we only went over one right? One tip so far. But of the 55, two, there’s got to be one that has a greater atomic weight than the others. I mean, we love all our children as parents certainly and certainly all 15 of your books. But of the 55 ways to stay motivated and increase sales in a time of crisis, what’s the favorite?

Jeb Blount (26:59):

Let’s ask Chris that first because he’s read the book twice.

Chris Beall (27:05):

Here’s my favorite. It’s the opening chapter of part two. “The pipe is life. Talk with people”. And here’s why it’s my favorite. In a crisis, we tend to clam up, we tend to clam up, we tend to go internal, we tend to, companies, to have internal conversations in a crisis instead of external conversations. You only have so many hours in the day. You only have so much emotional juice you. You’ve got to actually deal with a lot more stuff in a crisis. One thing we didn’t really talk about is everybody goes home to something that wasn’t as good as before the crisis. And so they gave it the office, but they got to give it a home too. It’s going to be challenging. So I love that the simplicity of chapter 14, the opening, I think it’s 14 if I remember correctly, the opening of this entire section, and by the way, “The Pipe is Life” is a mathematical statement actually.

(27:58):

It basically is a statement that everybody who’s an investor understands. You have two things you can do as an investor and all you’re doing when in sales or businesses you’re investing. You’re investing time in order to hope to get some sort of a return. As an investor, everybody knows when risk is high, portfolios must be broad. That’s just a truth of every market back until the beginning of life. I mean, way before there are humans investing, if you are in a high risk situation, high fundamental risk, high external objective risk, you must have a broad portfolio because you don’t control outcomes and you don’t control timing. But you need outcomes within the amount of time you have available to cover your overhead so you don’t starve to death.

(28:50):

That equation’s running at all times. And so in really great times, you can sometimes narrow your portfolio and go for some big thing, whatever it happens to be that you really believe in. But in tough times you got to talk to people because that’s step 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 million to broadening your portfolio and otherwise you are living in fantasy land. You’re going to walk into that risk buzz saw and observe your parts all over the place and look at the blood on the floor and then realize, maybe I should have been talking to more people.

Corey Frank (29:25):

If there was only a weapon out there on the market that allowed you to talk to more people, Chris maybe should-

Chris Beall (29:32):

If only. I wouldn’t use it. Sounds like shocking to me. Sounds like [inaudible 00:29:39]-

Corey Frank (29:38):

Like grouch marks, you would never belong to a club that would accept yourself as a member. [inaudible 00:29:42]

Jeb Blount (29:42):

But what Chris does at ConnectAndSell is he facilitates conversations. The more people you have conversations with, the more you were going to sell. It is just that simple. It truly is a mathematical equation. My favorite chapter, by the way, following up from that is “Be the squirrel”. I think that in a downturn in a crisis, I’d look in my own pecan trees in my backyard and look at the squirrels in the trees. They’re relentless, they’re unstoppable, nothing holds them back. They fall on the ground, they hit their back, they get back up, they do it again. They 24/7, 24/7, all they think about is prospecting for nuts and seeds and stacking them up for winter. And the great sales people during a crisis are going to be focused 24/7, dialed in. They’re going to broaden their pipe, they’re going to fill it up and they’re going to be relentless, unstoppable prospectors because when all is said and done, no matter what we say, all of the noise around sales, in sales, persistence always, always finds a way to win.

Chris Beall (30:46):

Yes. And creativity. When I read that chapter at Jeb, I was beyond smiling. So here’s a blog that I wrote in on May 16th, 2017. Here it is.

Jeb Blount (30:57):

Oh really? Look, there’s [inaudible 00:30:59]-

Chris Beall (31:00):

Go nuts. Think like a squirrel. And it came about from watching squirrels get to our bird feeders in the backyard. And I would devise extremely diabolical means to keep them from doing it. Now, I have unfair advantages. I have a degree in physics. I know some stuff other people don’t know, but guess what? I don’t know anything a squirrel doesn’t know. They can get by everything,

Jeb Blount (31:24):

Anything. And that’s wonderful, wonderful videos on YouTube of like you said, diabolical ways of keeping them out. The problem is that you would think about the way and then you would go to work, and you were thinking about something else. The squirrels, the only thing they thought of all day long, all night long is how am I going to get past this thing that Chris erected to keep me out of the bird seed? And that’s how they beat you because they just figured out a way around it and they would work at it until they would. And that’s the problem for a lot of salespeople right now is that they have been living large, they’ve been doing so well. We always talk about how hard sales is. I mean, every time somebody says to me that selling now was harder than it’s ever been before. I just laugh at them. I’m like, “You got to be kidding me”.

(32:14):

For the last 18 months, if you showed up at work and you could fog a mirror, you were probably going to make your quota. You were probably going to be able to survive. Right now, that is not going to happen because folks, nobody is going to call you and the sales people who have been living in that fantasy land of everything is good, suddenly they’re going to start hitting those obstacles. If they pack up and go home, if they complain about it, if they whine about it, they’re going to fail.

(:

But if they become the squirrel and they say, “Okay, I hit that obstacle, I got to figure out a way around it, under it, through it over it, or I’m going to tear it up. Well I’m getting to the other side of this obstacle”. Those are the folks that are going to make it rain during this terrible time that we are moving into and we’re going to go through. They’re going to win. And by the way, if you’re a salesperson and you’re listening to this, look around you on your sales floor. Half of the people that are there with you right now aren’t going to make it because they’re not squirrels.

Corey Frank (33:13):

So instead of Sales Gravy, I think it should be Squirrel Gravy for the next 1824 years. Squirrel. Gravy, I think [inaudible 00:33:21]-

Jeb Blount (33:20):

Well, I’m from the south Corey, so let’s just be careful. I’ve actually had Squirrel and Gravy. It’s one of my favorite things, like with some homemade biscuits in the middle of it. Down here where I’m from, we call them tree chickens.

Corey Frank (33:34):

I love it. Well, beautiful. Listen Jeb-

Chris Beall (33:37):

We got a… You got a title now for this episode?

Corey Frank (33:41):

Yeah, I do. [inaudible 00:33:42]

Chris Beall (33:42):

Be a Tree Chicken.

Jeb Blount (33:42):

That’s right. Be a tree chicken.

Corey Frank (33:44):

Be a tree chicken. Right. We’ll give that to Austin when you hear it. We’ll give it, Be a tree chicken. I love it. Jeb, it’s an absolute pleasure to finally get you on the podcast here with Market Dominance Crew here. I think we got to have you back and talk about the other 51, 52 we didn’t talk about yet.

Jeb Blount (34:03):

That’s right.

Corey Frank (34:04):

But by then you’ll probably be ready for your book number 16. So for all that want to get ahold of Jeb, obviously best selling author, Fanatical Prospecting, in Sales EQ, Objection Selling in a Crisis, and 10 others. So go to salesgravy.com, jebblount.com. For the esteemed Chris Beall, this is Corey Frank from Branch 49. Until next time.

 

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