Episode Transcript
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You were listening to bb revenue acceleration, a podcast dedicated helping software executive stay
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on the cutting edge of sales and
marketing in their industry. Let's get into
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the show. Hi, welcome to
be to be a rever a new acceleration.
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My name is Anim with you,
and I'm here today with Joe Grieves,
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training and development manager at operatics.
Allow you today, Joel. I
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am very well, Ray. I'm
very pleased to be here. As you
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know, I've been an ardent fan
of the show since it's conception. So,
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yeah, really pleased to be invited
on. There you go. There
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you go. You are the guests
now, not just the listen now,
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and I know, yeah, you've
been a promoting the shows to the team
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and trying to take all the necktill
the best practices and put that in place
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with the team. So, yeah, I know that you've been a Kinkin
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of the show. Funnics crime solutely. Yeah, love you. You've been
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a you've been a kin listener to
the show. So today we will be
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talking about the sixth question. Every
sarch person must on style. But before
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we go into that conversation, Joel, would you man introducing yourself to all
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audience and tell us a little bit
more about what you do at operatics,
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what your role is at operatics.
Yeah, absolutely. So, my name's
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Joe Grieve, so or Joseph for
for being more formal some the training and
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development manager here operatics. My role
is to not only train people coming in
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from various types of backgrounds. Maybe
they're coming new into it cells, maybe
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they're coming into cells for the first
time, is to provide them with the
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initial training but, more importantly,
the ongoing coaching, so working with people
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very closely to help them do the
job better and be better at sales.
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And I think you know, when
whatever, we have new people coming in
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it. I'd be lying to them
if I said what we do is easy.
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Then there's a lot of work that
goes into making someone very good.
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I think for me, my background
and how I got into sales is a
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little bit unusual. I think,
like most people, are kind of fell
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into sales. I actually trained as
a professional actor the Guildhall School of Music
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and drama long time ago and,
like most people who graduate from a drama
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school, I went on to become
a unemployed actor and to supplement my my
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lifestyle. Should we say. I
one of the types of work that was
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readily available was call centers and for
a long time I worked in that kind
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of environment. I sold pretty much
anything you can think of, wine,
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blinds, magazine Subscriptions, Charity Donations, music licenses, you name it.
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And I think you know initially most
people don't ever think I want to do
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cold calling. But for myself are
not only did I find I was very
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good at it, but I actually
really enjoyed it and and weirdly, I
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think with cold calling, I know
it sounds like a dirty word, but
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cold calling, the the adrenaline and
the buzz that you get from cold calling
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is very similar to doing a performance
or standing on front of an instant performing
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and you know me more on that. When he's not a call, call
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if you are prepared. So if
you do your research, and I'm really
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you do, you do all the
ground Wauky, it's it's a warm call.
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Cold call is it is just kind
of repeating the same thing to the
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same people and having a hoping for
a little bit of luck. But getting
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into a topic, one of the
first question I'd have got for you,
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and I think today you'll be sharing
a few of our internal secrets and and
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how we go about doing things and
all that anyway, and do absolutely,
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absolutely. But I'm sure you will
agree with me that when we kick off
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a program with clients, often we
get absolutely too much information. We get
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lots of PDF, lots of so
that we are truly don't in and even
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sometimes when we ask our client sells
team to some of the pitch, to
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really give us that high level elevator
pitch, they actually struggle to just go
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straight to the essense and actually summarizing
only a couple of sentences what that company
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does. So maybe we could start
there and maybe we would be wonderful if
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you could share with our audience the
sixth question. Every sells person must on
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sell. Absolutely, I think before
I kind of go into the question,
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so I'll give it a bit of
pretext to it, because I think there's
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an ongoing argument in sales as to
whether you go for the scripted method versus
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the more free style. And for
me, you know, what we do
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is very much an artful the analogy
that I use is like a Hollywood screen
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right. So they don't just write
the first draft of a screen playing and
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send that often and go there.
You Go Hollywood. It's done. It
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takes countless iterations, you have to
put a lot of work in doing various
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drafts to make it what it is. But the idea is that, as
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well as sales being an art form, there's also a science to it,
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there's also a formula to it,
and we've cut very much perfected the formula
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and the idea of these six questions
is to really give us the skeleton for
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that formula. There isn't always a
one size fit or but the idea is
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with these six questions, if you
can answer these questions, that will give
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you a really good jumping off point
to actually build your pitch. And this
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pitch could be used for anything,
whether it's calling, whether it's facetoface or
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what appy. So I guess going
straight into the first one, the first
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question that I always ask is who
the target personas that you want to meet
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with and the target companies. But
what is it specifically about them that make
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them the best person speak to?
Because I don't think it's enough anymore just
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to say I'm calling you because I
see you are the chief information security officer.
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There's a wealth of information out there
that you have at your fingertips now
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with Linkedin and various other tools where
you can actually find out a lot about
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what people are already interested in and
by leading into the conversation talking about them,
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talking about their interests, that immediately
separates you from all the other salespeople.
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But even better, if there's a
specific reason why you want to talk
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to them about your product, that's
going to really kind of warm up the
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conversation from the off. The second
question would be how do you summarize who
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your company is and what you do
in two or three sentences? Now it's
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interesting whenever we ask our clients that
question they struggle initially. It's not an
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easy thing to do, but it's
very important because I think a lot of
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salespeople that would be the entirety of
their pitch. They start talking about the
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company, where they came from and
that kind of thing. But actually,
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if you've only got a short amount
of time, you need to make that
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very succinct and quite often if you
if you can't, if you'll find yourself
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struggling to do that. Marketing teams
spend a lot of time and effort actually
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doing that themselves. So you can
go to a company's website and you see
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maybe they've already done that. Another
great source of that is the CEO.
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If anyone's watched dragons den, you'll
see people who have these ideas for companies.
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At some point they've stood up in
front of investors and articulated what the
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company is and what they do in
a way that they can repeat, and
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they're often a good source. So
I find looking for interviews from CEOS of
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companies is a really great way of
finding that. If you're struggling to do
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it yourself, you're the third question
is one of the biggest pains that your
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solution or service solves. And if
you think about it, most technology is
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borne out of the idea that there
is a problem that you need to solve
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and they've created this technology to fix
the problem, and you want to really
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highlight that. Now there might be
more than one, there might be several
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problem ms that your solution fix,
but you do need to be selective,
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you do need to pick the ones
that are not in not only going to
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resonate, but something that they agree
with and they recognize almost immediately. Then
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the fourth question would be what are
the best business benefits to your solution or
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service, not features and it's very
important to make that distinction because in the
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beginning really people aren't necessarily focused on
what the technology does or how it does
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it. They're more interested in the
end now coming. And in business it
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always comes down to the same types
of things. Is it going to save
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me money? Is it going to
make me money? Is it going to
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save me time or or make me
more secure? What is it about your
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product? And often I'll say to
my clients, I'll say give me one
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good reason why people should buy your
product and then quite often that is the
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main benefit. And then the fifth
question would be who we are, current
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clients and what, if anything,
can you talk about? And I think
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that's very important because it's all well
and good to say you can do these
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wonderful things for companies, but unless
you've got the ability to back that up
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and actually show that you've been able
to do it for similar companies, then
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they may not always take your word
for it. So a lot of our
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clients they may have strict nondisclosure agreements
which which can make that somewhat tricky.
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But where you can talk about your
current clients, it's very important and you
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need to actually give specifics so you've
saved x company, you know x amount
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of money. Well, you need
to delve a bit more into that and
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give people an idea of exactly what
you're going to be able to do for
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them and how you've done that for
possibly of neck competitors. I think finding
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a suitable competitor, to someone who's
in the same vertical is very, very
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important. You can use as a
reference. And then the the last question,
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which is one that I think a
lot of sales people maybe struggle with,
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is, you know, what value, other than, let's say,
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a demo or a powerpoint presentation?
You know the old kind of powerpoint Karaokes
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that people like to do? What
value are they going to get from meeting
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with you other than that demo or
other than that presentation? And quite often,
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I think, the thing that people
get values learning something about their business
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that they don't already know. And
hopefully, if you're able to demonstrate that
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in the next conversation that you have, the next steps, that's going to
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be the hook that draws people in
because you know, if I'm going to
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take time out of my day to
talk about your product, I want to
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know that that our I spend with
you alone whether or not I buy your
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product is going to be worth my
time. So those six questions there.
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If you can get the answers to
those questions and you have them in in
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that order. Essentially what that does
it writes your sales pitch for you and
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if you can use that as a
jumping off point, use it as a
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skeleton and reading. What you're looking
for is a narrative. I think you
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know a good sales pitch is like
good storytelling. It's got to have a
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clear beginning, middle and end,
and this so this goes a really long
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way to giving you the ability to
do that. Okay, that makes perfect
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sense in it and one of the
point that you mention is around the feature
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of those thus versus the benefits of
the value. You did even and I'm
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a big believer, and I'm sure
you are now as well, in the
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fact that we don't need to become
expert of the products, particularly for what
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we do, which is the initial
part of the cells process. That demand
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generation, demand creation, that that
paper and generation. But really what we
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need to get is to get onder
the skin of the prospect, on the
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standing, the role of the prospect, on doesn'thing their challenges, on the
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something, what happening in their life. The solution is only secondary, because
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what we need to under some firsts
is the pain. So I'd like to
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under something from you, out do
you, because obviously we walk with a
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variety of clients in lots of your
own different space, from cloud to big
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data, to save or security to
marketing solutions. How do you go about
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adapting to each of this prospect I
would you go about finalizing compiling a pertinent
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sell speech or cell scenarios, should
I say, when you've got so many
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different potential person that you can target
into an account? That is a good
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question. I think it's about for
us, it's all about account based selling.
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You know, you really need to
understand the verticals and the types of
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people, the types of company,
understand the relationships between the people that you're
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going to be speaking to an importantly, you know if you get in the
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room with someone, they just going
to be an advocate or do they have
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the ability to sign off on on
the project? Sometimes, I think a
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lot of our clients, you know, they want to Wayim high, obviously,
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because you're looking for that decisionmaker,
you looking for that person who can
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sign off from the project. But
there's an alden saying which is you've got
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to kiss a lot of frogs before
you find your prints. So the approach
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that we take is trying speak to
as many people as you can. The
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more people you speak to, the
better you're going to get insight from them.
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You might not always get what you're
after, which is a meeting perhaps,
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but doing that kind of indepth research
and speaking to those people understanding the
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pains, not just from one part
of the business. I think you know,
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people make the mistake of thinking that
the decisionmaking process is always top down.
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Actually, a lot of companies have
a committee style decisionmaking process, which
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means you're going to have to speak
to multiple people within the business in order
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to get what you want. Okay, that makes perfect sense. And could
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you could you also develop a little
bit to explain to our audience which we
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called the deep dive when we do
a campaign, because I think it's just
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related to which you're mentioned, which
is what you need to have a stop
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the conversation somewhere, but then all
our they you need to develop this conversation.
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So is that a it's not a
one call when meeting, when deal,
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but is probably a few hundred calls, probably a dozen of meetings when
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deal. So can you just elaborate? Ad It did a bit on the
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on the deep day Fi audients and
Oh, you go about it, I
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know you go about training the team
about doing it properly. Yeah, I
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think. You know, one of
the big struggles for particularly in the technology
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sectors, is understanding what I talked
about before, which is the difference between
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the features of a product and the
benefits, because you've got to understand your
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audience. Think. Think about it
like this. Right, you call somebody
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out of the blue, they've never
heard of your company before, and if
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you're going to go off on a
huge kind of speech talking about the technology,
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saying things like it's a interconnected cross
platform network, when solution with edfire
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walls at this stage, that's all
meaningless and in you've got to understand what's
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important to the people that you're speaking
to. So it's bringing you know,
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if you've got a feature that is
going to speed up the process for someone,
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that is the key thing to talk
about, not necessarily how it works,
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but more the end result and give
people specifics as well. You know,
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it's no good me speaking. Someone
said Oh, I can save you
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a bit of money. People want
to know how much she you know,
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you've got to give them those kind
of examples. And when you're doing that
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kind of deep dive, if you
need to, aren't be asking the right
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kind of questions, questions depending on
where you're at in the stage of the
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process? If you ask the wrong
question at the wrong to wrong time,
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that can put some people off.
So you need to be very smart about
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the type of questions you're asking in
order to get that person to divulge the
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information that you need, not only
to qualify the prospect but also to almost
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convince, have them convince themselves that
this is something they need. Okay,
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and then speaking about that, in
speaking about asking the right question and also
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the right way to ask this question. And we know that there is specific
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technique to work on the psychology,
the mind of the prospect to make sure
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the agreed to let more about the
company while representing and the solution at wells
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trying to push it in, but
can you show his our audience? I'll
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you do to actually do that.
Will that psychology called mind walk? Yeah,
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the way you as the question to
get them to agree to get into
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answer to get them to be interested. Yeah, absolutely, and I think
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the psychology is something I'd probably see. I'll probably go to detailed sometimes,
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so if I go off on a
tangent, do stop me. But it's
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really interesting because you've got to understand
how human beings work and how they relate
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to each other. One of the
things I was talking about is that,
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you know, particularly let's say in
the cold corese scenario, the very top
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of the core building, rapport with
someone from someone who've never spoken to before.
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It can be a difficult stage of
the process and initially you've got to
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get someone to like you because if
the fact, the fact is, if
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they don't like you, they're not
going to listen to you. So actually
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thinking about icebreaker questions, putting a
lot of thought into that. A lot
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of people just say Oh, you
know, how you doing or how's the
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weather, but you can actually put
a bit of thoughts into that. So,
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for example, there was a study
done recently where they looked at the
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best type of ice breaker question and
the one that came out on top and
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had the most successful results was how
have you been? Now the psychology there
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is that how have you been implies
that there is prior knowledge and it kind
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of scrambles the brain in the person
come of think. So I we spoken
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before. Another one I used to
use was how you doing? Are You
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well? And my theory was that
no one likes to admit their unwell,
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so they'd always say yes. And
again I hear. What I hear a
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lot is when you're trying to qualify
and make sure it's the right person to
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speak to. I hear people saying, Oh, I understand your responsible for
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cybersecurity. Is that right? And
by saying is that right, what you're
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saying to the prospect is, I'm
not sure. Actually, that shouldn't be
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a question, that should be a
statement. Saying a Renny and I'm calling
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you because I understand you are the
CEO. And then you stop talking,
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and actually that by knowing when to
stop talking is just as important as knowing
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when to keep talking. People feel
awkward and they feel like they need to
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feel that silence and because it sounds
like you know rather than you're guessing,
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you have a better result. But
the way I see it, in in
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any kind of sales environment, you've
got two objectives. Objective number one is
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to get someone to agree that they
have a problem. And how do you
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actually do that? And One way
we've developed that we know works really well
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is a multiple choice question, because
that what I hear a lot is people
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saying, okay, you know you've
got x, Y Zir problem. Does
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any of that resonate with you?
Do you see those challenges? And really
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what you're doing there's you're testing that
person's memory and they're trying to remember all
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the things you've just said, whereas
if you offer that out as a multiple
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choice question. Well, to give
me an example, I ask you a
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multiple choice question. What's your favorite
color? Red Or blue? Blue?
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What's your favorite food? Peter Spaghetti, actually like bread. But I know
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why you're getting what we're you're doing
is basically you're controlled the answer the question
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that you are getting strong gone for
all in the answer. So yeah,
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that that makes perfect sense exactly,
and whatever answer you give me is perfect,
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even if you stay. Well,
actually, I don't like either of
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those are like this. I can
use that information to lead me into the
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core, but subconsciously you've agreed that
you have a problem. And then the
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last point I make is when it
comes to the clothes and the closest I
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think you know, can be the
most difficult part of any sales conversation.
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It's you need to phrase a lasting
question that's going to stick with them.
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And you know if it surely,
if you turn around to someone and you
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say that we can save you x
amount of money now if we did that
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for your company, what would the
benefit be for you and your team?
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And then by asking that question in
that way, they give you the answer
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and then they've convinced themselves that actually, this is something I need to look
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at. So very subtle kind of
things you can do, but it's important
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to spend a lot of time thinking
about it because it makes all the difference.
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Absolutely no, I agree, I
think it. There is nothing more
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for rustrating at the gay killing me
last week, and he was actually trained
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to quality fay me. So it's
give me quality, faint question before I
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even didding me what he was about, and and you just kind of think,
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what, what a you doing?
I don't even know who you are,
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what you do and you try to
qualify me as if I should know.
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And I think you know, starting
the concoction, as you mentioned,
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with getting the people to answer.
Yes, you know, having that positive
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start from the beginning where you've got
a few years answer and then you can
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go into explaining the value. Then
you can go into explaining how you deliver
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the value to similar clients. So
then you know, you get that kind
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of that validation. Then you explain
the value of meeting and and then when,
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ultimately they say yes for the meeting, this is when you should as
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a qualifying question. This is when
you will say we look now, we're
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going have one hour and I want
to make the most of that time.
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All we're going to have set us. Let's make the most of that time.
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So I've got a few questions to
ask you so I can make sure
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that my colding in cell will be
able to come with all the right informations,
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etc. Etc. But I think
that, although it is very important,
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you need to make sure there is
a pain, if there is a
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pain, you explain that you can
solve the pain and you give an example
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of all you solved the pain for
someone in a similar situation. Then you
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explain the value of the medication and
then you explain use them if they've got
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any allergies and stuff like that,
and and then you plot it off basically
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a so you make sure it when
you get there, you know that you
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go with the right pill. Absolutely
that makes perfect sensual. Thank you very
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much, Joe, for all your
insights the having. It was pretty interesting
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to are you going through the the
six question that we should ask and how
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to formulate the pitch, but also
that conversation around the take, Brito G
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and know the mind walk is obviously
quite quite interesting and intriguing. But if
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anyone wants to get on the conversation
offline from this podcast, what's the best
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00:20:30.380 --> 00:20:33.380
way to get old of your job? So you can connect with me on
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00:20:33.579 --> 00:20:37.170
Linkedin. Always happy to have a
chat with people that way. Alternatively,
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00:20:37.210 --> 00:20:41.890
you can email me, Joseph dot
grieves at operatics dotnet. Always happy to
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00:20:42.569 --> 00:20:47.089
speak to people about what we do, as I'm sure you've experienced. Really
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and I could talk about the theory
behind what we do all day and would
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00:20:49.000 --> 00:20:52.079
happily do so. So if anyone
wants to pick up that conversation with me,
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00:20:52.359 --> 00:20:56.680
be prepared for a lung chat.
NST, wonderful. Thanks for your
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00:20:56.799 --> 00:21:00.680
time today. You'll really appreciate everything
on this show and glad you made it
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00:21:00.759 --> 00:21:04.869
as a guest. Absolutely is a
pleasure. Thank you. Ronning. operatics
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00:21:04.990 --> 00:21:11.349
has redefined the meaning of revenue generation
for technology companies worldwide. While the traditional
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00:21:11.509 --> 00:21:17.630
concepts of building and managing inside sales
teams inhouse has existed for many years,
325
00:21:18.029 --> 00:21:22.339
companies are struggling with a lack of
focus, agility and scale required in today's
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00:21:22.420 --> 00:21:29.500
fast and complex world of enterprise technology
sales. See How operatics can help your
327
00:21:29.619 --> 00:21:36.410
company accelerate pipeline at operatics dotnet.
You've been listening to BEDB revenue acceleration.
328
00:21:37.130 --> 00:21:40.369
To ensure that you never miss an
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