MMS #112 - Strategic Sales Mastery: Building Scalable Growth with Liz Heiman

[00:00:01] Welcome to Mastering Modern Selling, Relationships, Social and AI in the buyer-centric age. Join host Brandon Lee, founder of Fistbump, alongside Microsoft's number one social seller Carson V Heady, and Tom Burton, author of The Revenue Zone and co-founder of LeadSmart, as we explore the strategies and stories behind successful executives and sales professionals.

[00:00:24] Dive into business growth, personal development and the pursuit of excellence with industry leaders. Whether you're a seasoned executive or an aspiring leader, this podcast is your backstage pass to today's business landscape. This is Mastering Modern Selling, brought to you by Fistbump.

[00:00:48] All right, welcome back. Episode number 112, Mastering Modern Selling. We're all here.

[00:00:55] No, well, we do have wind storms. Liz has a wind storm, so one of us is still battling weather problems, but anyway, so far so good. So, Liz, welcome to the show and join us today.

[00:01:08] Liz Schauffer, Thank you.

[00:01:09] Dive in Staff, Director of Fistbump. We'll do a little bit of your background in a minute, but before we start, Brandon, I think again we need to, uh, I can't talk today, we need to thank. We need to thank Fistbump for being our sponsor.

[00:01:23] and you have kind of an interesting promotion that you're doing with fist bump where

[00:01:30] you're going to produce a live show for somebody for free.

[00:01:35] Yeah, that's, uh, that's our, our, our Thanksgiving November offer is, uh, it's like, it's,

[00:01:43] it's our $2,500 a month service. It's managing, producing, and promoting a LinkedIn live show

[00:01:51] like this. We also push it to YouTube. We convert the audio and publish it to podcasts. And it's not

[00:01:57] just marketing. We have a very specific strategy around it that helps with outreach and creating

[00:02:04] pipeline. And so, uh, we've got the details. I mean, I can always throw a link in there. We've

[00:02:09] got details, but if you go to get fist bumps.com, you can learn about the details of that or ping me.

[00:02:16] I'll chat with you. Love to chat with you.

[00:02:19] And you're doing that for, and you're doing that for free.

[00:02:22] Yeah, there's, there's free with purchase. Um, they're joined. We have our, our LinkedIn group

[00:02:26] coaching program that says more of like, Hey, now that you've got this live show and all the stuff

[00:02:31] that we produce for it, what else do you do with it? How do you comment? How do you create commenting

[00:02:36] lists? All that type of stuff is what we teach in there. So our group coaching 795 a month. So the

[00:02:42] first 10 people that sign up for that, we're going to give them our $2,500 a month, um, live show.

[00:02:48] And podcast management promotion services free. Uh, it's good. You're a numbers guy. That sounds

[00:02:55] like a good deal to me. Don't you think? Carson?

[00:03:00] That's it. Yeah, no, I was going to say, uh, tell them it's only the first nine. I'm going to sign

[00:03:04] up for one of those spots.

[00:03:08] Bring it on.

[00:03:09] Come on, Carson.

[00:03:09] I love it.

[00:03:10] We'll get it done for you.

[00:03:11] All right.

[00:03:12] Thanks. Thanks for all that. And just the, the shout out to the fist bump team that does everything on

[00:03:16] the back end for us, Alec and Moore and the rest of the team, they do all of our editing and all

[00:03:21] that make us look good. And, Hey, we had like 600 downloads on the podcast this past week, which was

[00:03:29] pretty crazy.

[00:03:30] We've been, it's, it's, it's great to see is, you know, we're hitting 112 and this, this flywheel

[00:03:35] start to move. I mean, I think last, last week I look at the data and sometimes I forget, but we have

[00:03:41] like, um, 130 people log into the live. And then as I looked over the next like five days, it was up to

[00:03:49] over like about 300 people had logged in and watched the video on LinkedIn only. And then there was like 50

[00:03:56] ish people on YouTube. And then we have the podcast. So I share all that for everybody is

[00:04:02] like, this is the power of doing these LinkedIn and YouTube lives with the podcast. As you get

[00:04:07] all this content going out in different places and it lives there forever. And it's got this long shelf

[00:04:13] life and that doesn't even count the social shorts that we create from it, uh, taking the transcripts

[00:04:19] and turning those into newsletters and publishing a newsletter. It's, it's just, you know, I've learned

[00:04:24] and realized over the time of doing mastery, modern selling, how powerful this is, especially

[00:04:30] knowing that like 65% of our fist bump leads come through mastery, modern selling and all the,

[00:04:37] the activities that we do along with my personal LinkedIn. Um, that's why it's just such a easy

[00:04:44] and powerful tool. Well, another great X factor let's, let's not, we'd be remiss not to point

[00:04:50] out as great guests case in point like today. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Liz falls into our big dog strategy,

[00:04:59] right? This is our big dog strategy. If you want your audience and your network to think you're a big

[00:05:04] dog, well, you got to hang out with big dogs. So we go and invite them to come be guests on our show.

[00:05:10] And then we get to hang out with the big dogs and learn from them. That's right.

[00:05:16] Well, Liz, welcome. Welcome to the show. I've been excited to have you. Liz and I have had several

[00:05:22] chats over the last couple of months. So this would just be a continuation of our nerd fest when we

[00:05:28] talk about sales. Yes. So yeah, Liz, welcome. And if you don't mind, take a minute, tell everybody a

[00:05:36] little bit, if they don't know you already, your background, what you do and, and all of that. And then

[00:05:41] I know we have some really cool conversation. We're going to, we're going to dive into today.

[00:05:46] Thanks. Yeah. So, you know, you guys know, but other people wouldn't know, I literally grew up in

[00:05:53] the world of sales, right? So my dad wrote a book called strategic selling. I grew up in the office.

[00:05:58] I grew up, you know, doing everything from answering the phone to proofing the books. I grew up in the

[00:06:07] language. I grew up in the thinking. I grew up in the philosophy, right? So I didn't know that there

[00:06:14] was another way to sell. I didn't understand that something else was happening out there that was not

[00:06:20] win-win taking care of people kind of selling. And I, and I was never going to be in sales. I went to

[00:06:29] school, got my degrees in international political economy, the role of public opinion in U.S.

[00:06:33] Japanese trade negotiation. And I studied messaging and decision-making and politics. And I was going

[00:06:40] to save the world and be a trade negotiator and, you know, make all of the world even. So nobody was in

[00:06:47] poverty. So there was no reason to fight. That was my, my mission in life. And when I was in graduate

[00:06:53] school and tired of write 300 pages into my dissertation and tired of the whole thing, my dad said,

[00:06:59] hey, come run Asia Pacific for us. We need somebody who understands. I didn't mention, I lived in Japan

[00:07:04] for many years and we need somebody who understands Asia and we need somebody who understands the

[00:07:09] business and we're losing money hand over fist and we need help. And so I went in and ran the Asia

[00:07:16] Pacific division, worked with companies like Coca-Cola and Hewlett Packard and Johnson Controls and

[00:07:22] Kodak. Kodak, one of my favorite moments in my career was helping the Kodak microfiche team.

[00:07:29] When CDs came into reality, which many people are listening, don't know what either of those

[00:07:36] things are. But I, so I started my career working with very big companies and learned later in life

[00:07:42] that my passion was smaller or more mid-sized companies where I could really impact lives,

[00:07:48] you know, make founders dreams come true, you know, truly impact the way people work and live.

[00:07:56] And so that's what I do now. I build sales operating systems for growing companies so they can scale.

[00:08:03] And Liz, will you, that little company that you grew up in, you want to go and say the name of it?

[00:08:09] I find when, whenever I tell people the name of that, they go, oh, when I was telling people that

[00:08:16] you were going to be a guest on our show. Yeah. So the company is Miller Hyman. It's now owned by

[00:08:21] Korn Ferry and the book people are most familiar with the strategic selling. There were two other books,

[00:08:26] conceptual selling and large account management. And actually of the three, believe it or not,

[00:08:31] strategic selling is my least favorite, although it's still an amazing book. I love conceptual

[00:08:35] selling because it talks about really understanding your customer. And I love large account management

[00:08:42] because when I work with companies, that basis that I got in key accounts, large account management,

[00:08:47] you take a $45 million company, I can usually find $5 million in their key accounts that's sitting on

[00:08:53] the table, not being addressed. Wow. So hugely powerful stuff.

[00:09:00] So Liz, take us through what you consider to be a sales operating system. Like what, what is the,

[00:09:06] the anatomy of the sales operating system? And, and what are things that are commonly, I guess,

[00:09:12] missed or not included when somebody thinks about sales processes versus a true operator?

[00:09:18] Well, that's perfect because most people start with process. We need a sales process, but

[00:09:24] a sales operating system starts with strategy. So first you have to understand what you're doing and why

[00:09:31] you're doing it and how you're going to do it. So we need, we need a business strategy, which a lot of

[00:09:36] companies that I work with that are 30 year old companies haven't looked at their sales, their business

[00:09:40] strategy in 10 years. So having a really solid business strategy, having a plan, once you identify

[00:09:47] what the number is, that magic number, that 10% growth or magic number that you're going to hit,

[00:09:52] coming up with the strategy to get there, who are you selling to, what are you selling and who's going

[00:10:00] to sell it and really understanding how does that break down which markets, which verticals, because you

[00:10:05] can't implement something that isn't defined. You can only implement a strategy that's

[00:10:10] defined. Otherwise you're just throwing out numbers and arbitrarily selling.

[00:10:16] Having a communication strategy where people truly understand who they're talking to and what they need

[00:10:21] to be talking to them about rather than product pitching. And then there's the process. That's the

[00:10:26] second part. What are those processes and systems that need to be in place in order for the sales

[00:10:31] people to do their job? What is the buyer journey? What is the seller journey? How do those two interact?

[00:10:36] What tools and things need to be in place to do that? And the third piece is the management component.

[00:10:44] And you guys have seen this, I know over and over. We think that managing a sales team means getting

[00:10:50] everybody in the room together and throwing and going through funnel reviews in a mass environment,

[00:10:56] which we all know is not effective. But has anybody ever sat down with sales leadership and said,

[00:11:01] these are the kinds of meetings, these are the agendas, this is the timeline, these are the setups,

[00:11:06] this is the expectation rate. So building all of those things out so you have the foundation so that you can

[00:11:11] make the changes you need to and scale as you need to. There's something to support what you're

[00:11:17] trying to accomplish. That's to me what a sales operating system is.

[00:11:21] It's good. We've come a long way from my first sales job where I was handed the phone book,

[00:11:26] a shitty little desk and a phone and said, go get them tiger.

[00:11:31] And Brandon, what's a phone book?

[00:11:35] I got one right here.

[00:11:38] Right.

[00:11:41] So Liz, on the operating system part, I have a lot of questions. So

[00:11:47] Brandon and Carson just shut me up because I just, there's a lot of interesting

[00:11:51] points there.

[00:11:51] This is, this is your type of show.

[00:11:54] I know this is my kind of thing.

[00:11:55] You're being a nerd out on all of the operating details.

[00:11:58] But when you look at the strategy, are you looking at a broader

[00:12:02] go to market strategy that looks at how you're actually building pipeline,

[00:12:07] the marketing actions, how that pipeline is converting?

[00:12:11] Or, you know, what are the boundaries, quote unquote, of that, of that sales strategy?

[00:12:16] So I, I, I look at a couple of things again, first is we have to have a business

[00:12:21] strategy. We have to have an overall, why do we exist? What are we trying to

[00:12:24] accomplish? Where are we going? Right. That has to be the first thing.

[00:12:29] And then the second thing, once you understand the business strategy and you

[00:12:33] say, okay, this is what we need sales to do, then there's two parts of that.

[00:12:37] Right. One is lead generation. There are no sales if there's no lead generation.

[00:12:41] I, you know, I always joke about the companies that believe that every phone

[00:12:45] call that they have is going to close, right? Which is not what happens.

[00:12:51] So, so we need to generate lots of leads across many different medium or platforms

[00:12:58] or events. And, um, we need to have a plan, a strategy that combines sales and

[00:13:04] marketing in an effort to achieve that. So I need to have both a sales strategy.

[00:13:09] What is it we're accomplishing? Who are we selling to? What are we selling?

[00:13:12] And then we need to have, um, then we need to have a, where are those leads coming

[00:13:17] from? Are they coming from marketing? Is it going to be inbound? Is it going to be

[00:13:21] advertising? Is it going to be trade shows? Is it going to be cold calling?

[00:13:25] Is it going to be referral selling? What is it going to be through a channel?

[00:13:30] Like, how are we going to get the leads that we're going to get? Um, the very, very,

[00:13:35] very many leads we need to get and interactions in order to close each of the deals. And,

[00:13:39] and part of it is understanding from the very beginning, if I am going to hit this magic

[00:13:45] number that someone pulled out of thin air, most of the time, um, what is that number?

[00:13:50] How do you get to that number? How many sales at what value of what things get you to that

[00:13:56] number? Once I understand that, I can say, okay, that's what we need to close.

[00:14:01] So then how many proposals do we need to do and how many, um, conversations, qualifying

[00:14:06] conversations do we need to have? And how many outbound, outbound calls need to happen and how

[00:14:11] many people need to download things and how many, um, you know, marketing qualified leads and sales

[00:14:16] qualified leads, all of those numbers, how many people do we need to have conversations with real

[00:14:20] conversations with out an event, all of that gets tied together into this, um, the sales and

[00:14:28] lead generation strategy. And what is it going to cost? What is the actual investment and what is

[00:14:33] the return on investment need to be in order for us to decide that we're going to do that? And not

[00:14:39] just what is the return on investment this year, but what is the lifetime return? Um, and all of

[00:14:45] those things are the things that I build into. I love it. I, it's something you said that resonated

[00:14:51] the most with me there is the almost, and it's not ha ha funny, but the hilarity of the fact that

[00:14:57] so often it feels like those numbers are just plucked out of thin air. Um, I find that it's

[00:15:03] easiest for me as a leader to plug in and snap into a number. If there's transparency around the number,

[00:15:09] how did we arrive at this? And what I love is how you're building so much of, uh, the, you know,

[00:15:14] the, the, the common sense almost into the process as possible. I love how as part of your brand,

[00:15:20] you call out taking the chaos out of the sales process, right? Building systems for sustainable

[00:15:25] growth. I wanted to ask you from your experience working with CEOs and founders, what do you think

[00:15:30] are the biggest things that are often overlooked as they're trying to scale sales operations?

[00:15:34] Cause I believe that there's rarely is there malice intended that creates this chaos,

[00:15:40] but it almost happens out of a, a lack of consistency or execution. What do you think

[00:15:45] are the biggest things that these CEOs and founders are, are missing or are overlooking

[00:15:50] as they're trying to create process? There's a handful of things. One is understanding what

[00:15:55] it really takes to get from first contact to close, right? What is the, what is the real investment

[00:16:03] in time and resources to get there? And most companies don't start measuring until somebody has,

[00:16:08] has asked for a proposal. You're two thirds of the way down the sales, the buying process and the

[00:16:13] sales process. So you really don't know the resources that went into getting you to that point.

[00:16:20] So there's no way to measure it. So how do you really know how much one sales person can do?

[00:16:25] So that's the first thing. The second thing is if you don't have a strategy,

[00:16:31] salespeople, and I don't even have to answer this for you. What will salespeople do if you give them

[00:16:36] the number? Whatever is easiest, that may have absolutely nothing to do with your strategy.

[00:16:43] So if you, if it's easiest of a client and a client many years ago, who they were trying to

[00:16:49] build this whole ecosystem and they actually had time and money to do it, but they wanted to get some

[00:16:56] immediate sales. So their salespeople figured out they could sell to dentists, but they were trying

[00:17:01] to sell to people like manufacturers of tires and manufacturers, like big manufacturers and the

[00:17:07] companies that sell their products. But they're out here selling to dentists and building the

[00:17:12] product, building product to support dentists because that was, they could close those really

[00:17:17] easily, but it had nothing to do with the business strategy. So if you want your salespeople to help

[00:17:24] you build your business, they need to understand what your strategy is.

[00:17:28] Which brings us to the third piece is if you want salespeople to do anything, you need to incent them

[00:17:34] either through compensation or something else. You need to re, you need to set expectations and you need

[00:17:40] to reinforce. So if you're wondering why your salespeople are doing whatever's easiest, whenever

[00:17:45] they feel like saying whatever they want, it's because nobody ever challenges them on it. So they're

[00:17:49] going to do what's easiest. And, and logically. So if I get paid based on what I close, I really don't

[00:17:56] care what your long-term business strategy is. I care what I'm going to, how I'm going to feed my

[00:18:00] family this week. And we forget too, that other than the CEO, nobody else in the company is based

[00:18:08] paid on performance. Everybody else gets paid whether they perform or not. Now they may get fired

[00:18:14] if they don't perform, but they still eat while they have a job. Salespeople, that is not true. So if

[00:18:18] we want to understand why salespeople behave the way they do, we need to understand how we compensate

[00:18:23] them and why there's logic in what they say, in what they do. Poetry.

[00:18:32] Yeah. I wanted to hit a couple of comments here and get your take on,

[00:18:37] Bob had a handful of comments here that I think are relevant. He was talking about core competencies,

[00:18:43] right? Many companies don't even know what their core companies, I would assume that's got to be a,

[00:18:49] a key part of defining that strategy, right? That's there. But he also said chaos can't be

[00:18:57] removed from sales. It can only be mitigated. And he's right. He's right. He's right. But what can

[00:19:04] we do to mitigate it, right? There's a lot that we can do. Part of it isn't who we hire. Part of it is

[00:19:10] how we manage. Part of it is how we lead, right? So there's a certain amount of uncertainty and chaos

[00:19:17] chaos that is innate. But what we do know is you cannot scale chaos. So if you have a cowboy running

[00:19:23] around who can rope and ride, but then also does whatever they feel like doing and saying whatever

[00:19:28] they feel like saying, you can't replicate that and be successful. So the larger your sales organization

[00:19:34] is, the more structure is required to manage the chaos. And you need to hire the people that fit into

[00:19:40] the structure, will successfully fit into the structure that you're building. And you need to build a

[00:19:46] structure that supports the salespeople. So yeah, no, there's always a certain amount of chaos. And

[00:19:51] there's a certain amount of chaos in who we are as salespeople, right? That there's a reason that we

[00:19:59] choose to become salespeople. And let me first make a confession. I am like not a salesperson. I'm a

[00:20:04] researcher and process person, but I also sell. But people are salespeople because it gives them the

[00:20:10] freedom to be who they want to be. They're salespeople because they don't like the structure and

[00:20:14] structure. They're salespeople because they're dyslexic or they're ADD. And this is an environment

[00:20:21] where they're able to have a little bit of freedom and do the things that make them more comfortable.

[00:20:28] But we can still build a process that supports them to be successful.

[00:20:31] I think a lot of times leaders, they can become accustomed to this comfortable way of

[00:20:38] mediocrity or failing. And I would imagine when you're working with these CEOs and founders,

[00:20:43] sometimes there can be a resistance to change because you're asking for new muscle.

[00:20:47] There's a certain mindset that's required to adopt and adapt to the change.

[00:20:52] What do you think are some of the, if you were talking to CEOs and founders today,

[00:20:57] what would you say is kind of the core advice that you would give them on things that they need to be

[00:21:01] looking for or the mindset that they need to have to adapt to a better process?

[00:21:08] I think the first thing is understanding if you have a business-to-business complex sale with a long

[00:21:12] sales cycle, that the payout, the return on investment in this kind of change takes time.

[00:21:20] And I've seen it more than once where they've insisted, we have the time, we have the money,

[00:21:25] we're investing in this. And then before the payout comes, they quit. They fire all the salespeople,

[00:21:31] they eliminate that program. I just experienced, and I experienced a huge one a few years back where

[00:21:38] they literally spent millions on a large account plan and then decided they couldn't lose the

[00:21:44] short-term income to have that long-term gain. So if you are going to do this, you really have to

[00:21:50] stop and think about how much time do I have? How much can I invest? And how much time do I have to

[00:21:56] have the return on investment? If you have a six-month, nine-month, 18-month, five-year sales

[00:22:02] cycle, you're not getting payout from hiring an all-new sales team in a year. It just isn't happening.

[00:22:08] So that's the very first thing. The second thing is to remember that you're part, as a leader,

[00:22:14] you're part of the sales organization. And if you think that your sales organization sits on an

[00:22:19] island out in the middle of the Pacific by itself, you're wrong. It doesn't. It pumps the lifeblood

[00:22:25] through your organization and it has to be at the heart of your business. And if it sits there

[00:22:31] at the heart of your business, then you can see how it works and support it so that it works.

[00:22:38] I think that's the kind of mindset that I think you have to have to do this successfully.

[00:22:44] I love your unique perspective and voice in this, Liz, because first off, I love the call

[00:22:50] out that you said. I'm not a salesperson. I don't love to sell, but I do sell and I'm a

[00:22:54] researcher and I'm kind of embedded in the data. And that's what I love about your unique vantage

[00:22:59] point of this. I want to really dive in as well to just the nuances and changes that you've seen

[00:23:05] over time. On this show, we talk about a lot of how technology, how AI, how different things are

[00:23:11] changing the ecosystem. But the more and more things change, the more the fundamentals become

[00:23:16] so core and critical. What have you seen maybe change? And what would you say has definitely

[00:23:21] stayed the same in your observation of the sales ecosystem?

[00:23:25] So let me start with what stays the same. Good sales is good sales is good sales.

[00:23:30] Right? So if you have good selling skills and you're a good communicator and you ask good

[00:23:36] questions and you look for common ground and you're seeking to support your customer in

[00:23:41] making a good decision, those are all things that it doesn't matter what the rest of the,

[00:23:47] what's happening around you. Those things are core. And even more so when people started saying,

[00:23:55] you know, I don't know how to sell virtually. I don't understand how to have these meetings.

[00:24:01] And I'm thinking, well, one, I've been doing this for a really long time already.

[00:24:06] So I'm not really sure what the question is. And then I realized the question is that they're not

[00:24:11] used to really being face to face in it in this way with somebody and being able to acknowledge,

[00:24:22] be compassionate, ask really good questions. They have been selling an environment. So we go pre-COVID.

[00:24:30] We were selling an environment where people were buying in spite of the salespeople. Right?

[00:24:37] And even during COVID in a lot of industries, people were buying in spite of the salespeople.

[00:24:42] And so good skills are good skills. That's the first thing. Now, what has changed,

[00:24:49] one, is we talk about virtual technology, has become so pervasive. It's so much a part of our

[00:24:58] lives. You cannot get away from it. But then I look at some companies, I go in and look at their

[00:25:03] sales process. And I'm like, your sales team has to open eight different programs to do their job.

[00:25:10] And you're wondering why they're not working in the CRM. If you want them to work in the CRM,

[00:25:14] put everything in the CRM where they can use it. And they don't have to be in their email,

[00:25:19] in this, in that, in this drawing program, in that adding program, whatever it is. How many places can

[00:25:26] one person be and be successful? So we think that adding more technology is going to make the world a

[00:25:33] better place and or make our sellers more effective. Okay, great. We have AI. So now I can have one

[00:25:39] salesperson instead of 10. No, no, no, no. That's not how it works. How does the technology you're

[00:25:45] implementing support your sales team to be successful? How do I make them more efficient?

[00:25:51] And not how do I bog them down in technology? I think, you know, and I think that the hands off,

[00:25:57] well, they're in another place. They're in another town. They've got their technology. I don't need to

[00:26:04] be in their face. I don't need to be in their way. Just let them go do what they're doing. They know

[00:26:09] what to do. We don't know what to do. I mean, we kind of do, but we all need support. And we all need

[00:26:14] coaching and we all need engagement. We all need to be celebrated. And so those things don't,

[00:26:20] they don't change just because somebody is not in the room with you. I think those are the big

[00:26:24] changes I see. Well said. You know, Liz, we talk a lot on the show too about the challenges with

[00:26:31] outreach. Like I built two of my companies with call centers, man. I loved cold calling.

[00:26:37] When it worked, I loved cold calling. It was great. And it worked well because I think buyers

[00:26:45] didn't have such easy access to the information they needed. And they saw sellers as a channel to

[00:26:52] get information and it created sales opportunities. But that need for information by buyers has

[00:26:59] changed. They can get information anytime they want, whenever they want, and they don't need sellers.

[00:27:05] So what are, what are some of the ways that you are finding, like we, Tom likes to say the,

[00:27:11] the pedal faster strategy. Oh, you used to make a hundred calls a day. We'll make 150. Oh,

[00:27:16] that's not working. Make 250. It's pedal faster instead of being more efficient. What are you doing

[00:27:23] to address that with, with customers that you work with? So, so the first thing is that if you,

[00:27:30] if you read the data and you talk to buyers, the reason they don't want to talk to salespeople and they

[00:27:34] would rather do their research by themselves is they don't trust their salespeople. They have been

[00:27:40] cheated. They've been manipulated. They have been coerced. They've been lied to, and they,

[00:27:46] they're, they don't trust. So I am much better off to go do my research by myself without being

[00:27:52] bothered. So that's the first thing. Um, if you want to sell successfully, you have got to build trust.

[00:27:58] And there are lots of ways to do that. I'm not the expert on that. There are lots of ways,

[00:28:04] Brandon, you're better at this than I am, that you can use LinkedIn and other social media to build

[00:28:09] brand integrity of brand trust so that people will, will reach out, you know, be willing to trust you.

[00:28:15] So first thing is we have to be trustworthy. So this, and you guys will forgive me because I'm sitting

[00:28:22] in here in a room full of men who are good sellers, but this, this, um, old fashioned male, uh, uh, used car

[00:28:33] sales guy, snake oil sales guy, kind of historical sales person, um, is not trustworthy. And, um, as we

[00:28:42] try to force people into this way, this model, everyone is uncomfortable, the sellers and the buyers

[00:28:49] included. So that's the first thing. Um, the second thing is, so Brandon, you and I've talked

[00:28:56] about this idea that I have a, this idea of selling like a girl, right. And, and if you guys, some of you

[00:29:03] will remember there was a commercial a long time ago, um, where they did, you know, what is, what does

[00:29:07] a girl run? Like, what does a girl throw? Like, what is, right. How does a girl hit? And they were like,

[00:29:13] you know, and then when you ask little girls, eight-year-olds, and you said, what does a girl run? Like,

[00:29:19] they're like, they run. What does a girl throw? Like they throw, how do they hit? They punch, right.

[00:29:24] And, and this idea of selling running like a girl became a positive thing. I want to think about

[00:29:30] selling like a girl for a second here. Good sellers do things that women tend to do

[00:29:39] intuitively and that men have to work a little harder at. So good male sellers do these things,

[00:29:44] but we are curious. We are compassionate. We are creative and we are really good communicators.

[00:29:52] We don't talk about our product. We talk about linking our product with solution, with problems,

[00:29:58] solutions with problems. We are really creative about how we outreach, how we communicate, what

[00:30:04] channels we use. We get to know our customers so we can figure out what's the thing I need to do to

[00:30:09] get their attention. So it's, it's that in this noisy world where I don't know about you, I got 4,000

[00:30:17] emails last month. I can't answer them. I can't even see them. So how are you going to get my

[00:30:23] attention? You're going to have to figure out where I am and what I need to hear in order to get my

[00:30:29] attention. The best salesperson I know is my wife and shout out to her tomorrow's her birthday. So yay.

[00:30:35] Yay. Brandon, did that answer your question? It does. And you know, Reem asked a question earlier

[00:30:44] and Reem is on my team. She's moving into sales. And she's, she did a little telesales before

[00:30:54] in a B2C environment, but she's going to be new to B2B. And she had asked that question,

[00:30:59] what's your top advice for someone. And I think you said right there is like embrace you're selling

[00:31:06] like a girl. And what I heard you say is you're more focused on the relationship. You're more focused

[00:31:12] on the curiosity side to really understand what the need is. And then you speak in terms of how to solve

[00:31:20] things, not about your product. Is that the summary I heard?

[00:31:24] Yeah. And then being really creative. So all of that enables you to be creative about what you say,

[00:31:30] how you say it, what, what channel you use to say it in, because you're not stuck in your own agenda and

[00:31:36] your own way of thinking. You're, you're now standing or, or looking at the world from their perspective

[00:31:42] instead of yours. Congratulations, Reem and welcome. Right? I'm excited. I'm excited. I am too.

[00:31:51] I pray one or more of my daughters goes into sales. So, you know, I, I always forget this,

[00:32:00] but I actually, I, my first job in sales was retail. My second job in sales was in a, I was cold calling.

[00:32:10] So I think that we need to include sell like a girl, hashtag sell like a girl. That needs to be a key

[00:32:18] mantra of mastering modern selling. I think that's one of our great things. I think it's really a great,

[00:32:25] it's like when in doubt, think about that. Think just about that concept that you were talking about.

[00:32:29] I think it's a real, and going back to Reem's question, just keep that in mind. And I think

[00:32:34] you'll do great. Right. From, from that perspective.

[00:32:38] So it's all about people and process, no matter where you are and realizing that the people you're

[00:32:43] talking to are just that they're people, they have unique needs. They have wants out of these,

[00:32:49] you know, these relationships. And if you focus on helping them achieve an outcome,

[00:32:54] you know, you're, you're halfway there. And I think that's where a lot of sales people fall down.

[00:32:59] And I think that's also why somebody like Liz, who isn't a traditional salesperson, somebody like

[00:33:04] me, I wasn't a traditional salesperson. You, by default, we don't come in with these predisposed

[00:33:10] thoughts about following a script or, you know, pitching our product relentlessly. It's more about

[00:33:15] how do I attune to where this person is in their journey and how I can add value for them. That's it.

[00:33:21] So, but Carson, I want to back you up for one second. Sorry.

[00:33:24] Randy. You're the guest.

[00:33:26] It's not just the sellers that are doing this. The sellers get pushed into this bad behavior by

[00:33:32] the leaders. Yes. And so if you want your sales team to practice good behavior, if you want them

[00:33:37] to treat your customers well, figure out how to support them in doing that. You know, when we set

[00:33:43] up the CRM so that they have to have the answer to every single one of these questions before they can

[00:33:47] move on, that puts the salesperson in a position where they're not able to communicate with the seller

[00:33:53] the way the seller wants to communicate going through the journey that the seller wants to go

[00:33:58] through. So really as, as sales leadership, how do we build the process to support the buyer's journey

[00:34:05] and the seller's journey? We never talked about the seller's journey, right? But the seller's taking a

[00:34:10] journey too. How do we support them so that everybody is finding common ground, looking for good solutions,

[00:34:18] not selling things that aren't a good fit, that are going to create chaos for the rest of the company?

[00:34:22] You've got to build that into it if you want that outcome.

[00:34:26] And that's like talking directly to the CEOs, to the founders, to the leadership.

[00:34:30] You've got to create a culture that is conducive to your team, knowing how to do it the right way.

[00:34:35] You've got to incentivize them the right way. You've got to understand their motivators,

[00:34:38] but you've also got to make sure you're teaching them the right thing. Don't come at them

[00:34:41] around do more of this, make more calls, sell more widgets. It's got to be transparency around what

[00:34:48] are we trying to achieve here as an organization? Let me give you the resources, the training,

[00:34:52] the tutelage to empower you to be your best self. You know, my first sales gig, I was leaving the

[00:34:57] office right out of the gates because I was a communicator. I was listening to my customers and

[00:35:03] I was incorporating that into the end result. I got written up like my first month on the job

[00:35:07] because I didn't follow this script to a T. And so the following day, I started following the script

[00:35:14] to a T. My sales results plummeted. My manager actually removed the performance plan and the

[00:35:20] rest is history. I went back to leading the team, but that's the thing. We can't be so rigid in our

[00:35:25] guidelines. You can't green light every seller to just go out and do carte blanche. You've got to

[00:35:29] have some parameters and guardrails, but you've got to let them flourish. You've got to let them bring

[00:35:34] their own unique superpowers and strengths and skills to the table in their quest to earn the

[00:35:38] right to be the trusted advisor. And Liz, that, what Carson said, we're all shaking our head,

[00:35:45] but that sounds hard for a lot of companies. I mean, it takes continual effort. It's not like you

[00:35:52] don't, you know, throw a little bit of holy water, baptize them and say, off you go and expect results,

[00:35:56] right? It's continual conversation, continual refining. And there's a trust factor in there.

[00:36:04] If we are going to be seller or buyer centric, which I would argue everything you said about sell

[00:36:11] like a girl is being buyer centric, be curious, ask questions, be solution oriented, not pushing your

[00:36:18] product or your service. But for us to be buyer centric, it takes a lot of effort and a lot of trust.

[00:36:25] And I would imagine that's the reason why a lot of companies move towards like, okay, here's the

[00:36:32] script. Just go do this and rinse and repeat as often as possible. Number one, is that accurate?

[00:36:37] And then number two, how does a company move out of that into a different culture?

[00:36:48] So this starts with the mindset at the very beginning. What is our vision? What are our values?

[00:36:52] What is our mission? Hire salespeople that share your values, hire salespeople that understand your

[00:36:59] vision and want to support it. That's the first thing. So we have all of this stuff written up and

[00:37:03] then we hire salespeople who are manipulative and pushy and sound really good on the phone,

[00:37:08] right? We know nothing about hiring what a salesperson really needs to do if it's successful.

[00:37:14] Then we get them in the office and they're doing whatever it takes, saying whatever they feel like

[00:37:18] saying, skipping steps, doing whatever. And then we're like, oh, you got to rein these guys in.

[00:37:22] They're wild men, right? So we start building all these rules that, that, that, you know,

[00:37:30] put a chokehold on them instead of saying, let's put the structures in place that support your effort,

[00:37:36] give you the information that you need so that you're not, you know, giving misinformation.

[00:37:40] Let's, let's build this out to support you instead of handcuffing you to your desk. So you can't

[00:37:45] misbehave. There's a huge difference between those two mindsets. The second is if, if you've ever been

[00:37:52] in a sales conversation with leadership, it sounds like this, what are you selling this week? What's

[00:37:57] closing this quarter? What's closing this month? What's closing this week, this month, this quarter,

[00:38:01] this week, this month, this quarter. It's all I care about. What's closing, what's closing,

[00:38:04] what's closing, what's closing. Oh, you don't think you can close that? Let me get in there

[00:38:08] and close it for you. Right. This is not, this is not how you build your pipeline so that you will

[00:38:16] continually hit your goals. What I'm selling this week, this month, this quarter started six, nine,

[00:38:21] 12, 18 months ago. And if nobody's looking at the top of the funnel, then all I can do is control

[00:38:28] what you say. Right. I can control, but, but support what's happening at the top of the funnel,

[00:38:35] bring more really good leads down into the funnel. More will close. Right. So communicate better,

[00:38:43] find better leads, have conversations that matter. Those are the things that get the results,

[00:38:48] but because we are not willing to look at that stuff, we focus on what we can control and gong.

[00:38:55] Don't be upset at me. I've said this before. Um, you know, the people who ran, who created gong

[00:39:01] have this great tool that helps us see what words get said that have the best result. Well,

[00:39:06] those are great in the right conversation at the right time with the right person, but don't tell

[00:39:09] me I have to say that every single time because that is not, that is not what good salespeople do.

[00:39:15] That's not selling like a girl. That is not selling. You mean pushing square peg round hole isn't going

[00:39:21] to work? I, I have never in my life planned a sales conversation and had it go the way I planned.

[00:39:29] And, and it can't go the way I planned because my whole purpose is understanding what's going on with

[00:39:35] them. And as they tell me things and I learn more and I ask more questions, the conversation goes the

[00:39:39] direction that the seller, the buyer needs it to go in order to make a good buying decision. So

[00:39:44] if you think you can structure what words I'm going to say, when there is no way I can have a good

[00:39:49] conversation. So it sounds like we need salespeople have a map, but not turn by turn directions.

[00:39:57] Right. You get to choose. Do you want to take the highway or do you want to take the outer road?

[00:40:03] Do you want to go with the one that has a toll or the one that has the most stoplights?

[00:40:07] Like those old choose your own adventure books that I read when I was a kid and you like,

[00:40:11] you know, you can choose your path and then, oh, dead end.

[00:40:14] That's why you're so good at sales, Carson.

[00:40:17] I don't know. I think the key element.

[00:40:20] That must be it. I think the key element, and this,

[00:40:22] this episode is so full of key value anecdotes. I, I, there's a lot of sales organizations that

[00:40:29] need to hire you immediately, Liz. Um, it's what I think is incredible about what you've just

[00:40:34] articulated is by default. And there's, I like to say this, there's no malice intended. I think

[00:40:42] there's a lot of leaders that go in and to your point, it's the control thing. They don't know how

[00:40:47] to seed control of things. So they default to things like, where's this deal? How do we close

[00:40:53] this deal? And focusing on that pipeline, you wouldn't be in that predicament. If you had a

[00:40:58] process that developed more high quality conversations, relationships, more pipeline.

[00:41:04] And that has always been my philosophy is how do we go out and create so much, so many relationships,

[00:41:10] conversations, opportunities, where if this deal goes awry, doesn't matter. I got 10 more that are

[00:41:15] lined up. It will by default close. And so many of these things though, they have their seeds that

[00:41:19] are planted six months ago that impacted and influenced these things. We can't be short-sighted

[00:41:24] as leaders. Yeah, it matters if there's a deal, you know, I got a couple weeks left in the month,

[00:41:29] or I've got a month left in the year. Don't get me wrong. Yes. We need to be laser focused on the

[00:41:34] processes and helping our sales team see around corners to be asking questions right now. Hey, what's

[00:41:39] your process look like? You know, who all needs to bless and see this deal before it comes to closure?

[00:41:44] Yes. Those are important questions. And so guiding our sellers right now in those types of things for

[00:41:49] Q4 deals is important, but we also need to be selling into next year. We need to be planting the

[00:41:54] seeds that six months from now are going to be the deals we close. And so I'm not suggesting that we

[00:41:59] shouldn't be doing funnel review, that we shouldn't be having conversations about specific deals.

[00:42:04] Look, I grew up in Miller-Hyman. The funnel is the core of how you manage your sales organization.

[00:42:10] Yes, you need to be having conversations about individual deals. Yes, you need to be making sure

[00:42:14] that they're talking to enough different buyers and that they've identified things that can get in the

[00:42:18] way of the sale. All that stuff should be happening. But it's not bullying. It's not nagging. It's not, right?

[00:42:25] It's supporting and coaching that gets the result. And planning. Somebody posted up here,

[00:42:33] plans are useless, but planning is invaluable. Yeah, we do need to plan. We need a plan. It's not always

[00:42:40] going to go the way we planned, but we got to create them.

[00:42:45] Bob, we love that you're chatty.

[00:42:47] Yeah, he's bringing, he's got the lyrics down to the...

[00:42:52] Yeah.

[00:42:54] So, yes.

[00:42:55] Don't they play that song in the movie, The Goods with Jeremy Piven, that sales movie? Don't

[00:42:59] they play some 38 special in there? So, anyway, you just took me off on a tangent, quoting 38.

[00:43:06] You got the movie references.

[00:43:08] I know, the old movie references.

[00:43:10] That's right.

[00:43:12] I've got a question, Liz. In the world I'm in, right, I'm in the tech space. And tech companies

[00:43:20] right now, not Microsoft, but, you know, mere mortal tech companies, the majority of them

[00:43:26] right now are having, it's an epidemic of what they're, a pipeline problem, right? And the

[00:43:32] reason is, is that tech companies, and I'm generalizing, I realize that, but a lot of venture

[00:43:37] funded tech companies got in the mode of spending $5 to get a dollar of pipeline. And those days

[00:43:44] have been kind of changed. And now it's been very, very difficult for a lot of tech companies

[00:43:49] to build pipeline that is profitable pipeline, right? That isn't $5 for a dollar of pipeline.

[00:43:57] What do you recommend for the type of companies? And I think, you know, granted, we see this,

[00:44:03] right? Pipeline is a constant problem for companies. And I'm sure even Carson in the Microsoft world,

[00:44:10] right? There is a constant demand to build pipeline, especially...

[00:44:14] I hear rumors. Yeah.

[00:44:15] Yeah, I hear rumors. Yeah. Not in your world, but I'm sure in other parts.

[00:44:19] Not for my team. We build a lot of pipelines.

[00:44:21] But Liz, what would you recommend for those types of companies that are struggling with this

[00:44:27] pipeline problem? And what would you kind of quickly have them do strategy-wise that might

[00:44:34] maybe even just illuminate why the pipeline problem is happening?

[00:44:39] So like an hour, I could spend an hour just on this. So...

[00:44:43] I'll say it, you will. I'm loving this.

[00:44:47] So we have to remember that pipeline is made up of multiple things, right? It has to do with

[00:44:53] conversations that salespeople are having with existing customers to get referrals, to grow

[00:44:58] existing customers. We tend to think of pipeline as all new business. Pipeline is not all new

[00:45:02] business. What's happening in your existing customers? That's one thing. Another is how are...

[00:45:08] You know, what is marketing doing? And does marketing truly understand the voice of the customer

[00:45:14] so that they can speak to the customer about what matters to them?

[00:45:20] We also don't need a huge pipeline if it's a focused pipeline. So we... Yes, if we're going to talk to

[00:45:28] one person, if we're going to close one deal, we may need to have a thousand interactions on the

[00:45:32] website. That may be true. But the better you are at finding your ideal customer and targeting them,

[00:45:39] the better the pipeline will be. So then it becomes more about the quality of the leads coming in,

[00:45:48] instead of just the volume of the leads coming in. We're going to have to adjust that a little bit.

[00:45:54] And the other thing is stop talking about our product. Stop talking about our product. Stop

[00:45:58] talking about our product. Start talking about problems. And understand, here's another thing

[00:46:04] that I see a lot of is marketing focuses on getting the right person to the website. The right person

[00:46:10] to the website is the person that got told to go research this. How much authority does the person who

[00:46:16] got told to go research this have? Virtually none, right? We used to call them the gatekeeper

[00:46:23] at Miller Hyman. They were given a checklist and they're going to go find the companies. And then they say,

[00:46:29] okay, I need a quote. They need a quote because nobody in their company has a clue what it's going

[00:46:33] to cost to do this. Way, way high up in the sales process early on. And so now everybody in the company

[00:46:41] goes, great. Download, call, demo, proposal, close. Where's the close? We're ready. We've set a proposal.

[00:46:54] Let's close this thing. Well, they're not. The person you talked to, the proposal you made had

[00:46:59] absolutely nothing to do with the people who are going to make the decision. And so if we want to

[00:47:05] have better pipeline, we need to talk to all of the people who are involved in buying decisions.

[00:47:11] Don't make your website so it talks to the person who was sent to go out and get the information.

[00:47:17] Make part of your website, talk to the CEO. And part of it, talk to the COO. And part of it,

[00:47:24] talk to the people who are touched by this problem so that when your salespeople get in there, 90% of

[00:47:30] what they're doing isn't just filling out paperwork for the flow level. So building a more robust pipeline

[00:47:40] instead of just a bigger pipeline. Don't get me wrong. It's still a funnel, not a pipeline.

[00:47:46] You're not going to close every deal you talk to, but what can we do to narrow it a little bit?

[00:47:51] Does that help? I don't know. That was a lot of thoughts.

[00:47:54] No, what I heard you say there is quality, right? Again, a lot of these companies that have

[00:48:02] struggled or spent $5 for a dollar of pipeline is all about volume, right? It's about quantity.

[00:48:08] And they're spending tons of money on Google ads and all kinds of things just to get names

[00:48:14] in that top of the funnel, whether or not those names had any real qualification at all.

[00:48:20] And that's very expensive and not very efficient, right? So what I hear you're saying is,

[00:48:26] is your first step is kind of reverse that funnel and maybe look bottom up and say,

[00:48:31] how do I attract more quality and less quantity? And then obviously work the quality a bit more

[00:48:38] efficiently as that around the way that we're targeting. I think that's a simple overview of

[00:48:43] what you said. Yeah, and the corollary to that is we went to a trade show and we got people to give

[00:48:49] us cards so they could get a prize. So now I want all my salespeople to call every single person who

[00:48:53] gave us a business card. No.

[00:48:56] Those are very expensive business cards too, usually.

[00:49:00] So, right. How many really good conversations were you able to have there? Let's focus on that

[00:49:06] and let's put the others in the marketing funnel and let them get nurtured along the way. Let's

[00:49:11] focus our salespeople on good quality leads. Yeah, I was with a sales team a few months back

[00:49:20] and we were going to talk about using LinkedIn to grow reputation, to get better responses to calls

[00:49:27] and emails and all that. Well, I logged in and they weren't ready for me. They're like,

[00:49:30] oh, just sit tight. We'll be ready in a second. So I sat there listening and one of the marketing

[00:49:35] people was on saying, okay, we got all these fresh leads from you. So-and-so went to this trade show

[00:49:40] and we got like 600 new leads from the show and all the salespeople just sat there and the marketing

[00:49:47] person's like, okay, go get them. And then she left. And then I'm just like a fly on the wall

[00:49:53] listening to all the sales team go, oh crap. And, and of course I was curious. I said, um,

[00:50:01] why so down? They just, you know, I knew the answer, but why so down? You guys just got 600

[00:50:06] leads amongst all of you. You're like, these trade show leads are crap and we have to make calls

[00:50:12] and we have to put them through our calling process. We have to make their eight calls to all

[00:50:17] 600 people. And we know that we're going to get no fruit out of it, but this is what we have to do.

[00:50:23] Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, man. The leads are weak.

[00:50:27] This is why we don't just send marketing people to the trade show.

[00:50:32] Send salespeople to the trade show. Like, I don't understand that.

[00:50:37] It's fine. You need to touch these leads. Like I, I gotta say, like, I love marketing leads,

[00:50:42] but I know as a seller, if I reach out to one or two or five or 10 people, I'm either not going to

[00:50:47] get ahold of them. Nothing's going to happen. They're not interested in talking, but if I kind

[00:50:51] of put them on a nurture list, you know, there's many subtle levels. There's a line that I like to

[00:50:56] steal from ghostbusters where Pete Bankman talks about his many subtle levels of cleanliness of

[00:51:01] his laundry. Well, in my lead pipeline, there's many subtle levels of quality. If somebody has done

[00:51:07] something and interacted in some way, they're warmer than the ice cold lead that I'm calling

[00:51:12] out of the phone book, right? So it's something. Now I'm going to put them on a nurture list. I have

[00:51:18] a list of tens of thousands of leads that I've accumulated of people that have downloaded a

[00:51:23] white paper, gone to a webinar at some point in the last year, and they get my monthly newsletter.

[00:51:27] They get invited to our events and they show up, they engage, and they're going to interact on their

[00:51:32] schedule. You know, I like to call it passive education. It's light lift, low lift. It's

[00:51:37] free to me. And it keeps my sales team from having to call these folks because we all know that they're

[00:51:42] not going to answer. And I think that's a key for like our sales leaders that we're talking to again

[00:51:47] today. It's when you're wanting to reinforce the right behaviors, it's all about how you manage

[00:51:54] your pipeline as a sales leader and as a team as well. What questions are you asking your team

[00:51:58] about their deals? Hey, who are we engaged with? Because if we're talking to some lower level person

[00:52:03] who asked for a demo, they don't have the juice to get a deal done. And so we can't rely on that

[00:52:08] person to go back and sell the deal internally. We got to make sure we get to the right people.

[00:52:12] So who are we engaged with? You know, what's their timeline? What problem are they solving?

[00:52:16] And if we ask those questions as leaders and we start to condition our team to expect those types

[00:52:21] of questions, we're not filling a pipeline for pipeline's sake. I don't need a pipe. I don't need a

[00:52:26] deal in the pipeline that says that I'm going to close my gap if it ain't real. I want to know that

[00:52:31] we're engaged with the right people at the right time. We're solving the right problem. We understand

[00:52:35] their timeline, their priorities, and we're aligned with them. That's what matters.

[00:52:39] So, but Carson, what you're talking about is understanding the buyer journey. I know that's a

[00:52:45] hokey, you know, marketing word, but truly we go through a process when we purchase as a team or as

[00:52:53] an individual. And just because I, as the seller want to do things in a certain way, it has absolutely

[00:53:00] nothing to do with how our client wants to buy. And if we are not open to understanding how our

[00:53:05] client wants to buy and supporting that process, then we're failing. And when we, when leadership

[00:53:12] refuses to understand multiple buyers, lots of conversations, long period of time, six different

[00:53:19] demos, whatever, then we're missing, we're missing the boat and we're losing deals. We shouldn't be

[00:53:25] losing because we're not doing it the way they need us to do it. Hey, Carson, can I ask this? I'm going

[00:53:31] to ask this question. What I heard you say to you is you take those leads and then you're putting them

[00:53:38] into nurture campaign. You're inviting them to your webinar. You're putting them on Carson's newsletter,

[00:53:44] not the Microsoft newsletter, the webinars you do, you're leading, you invite them to this show or your

[00:53:51] other show. How important is it in that nurturing process? Because I believe what you've created

[00:53:58] is a Carson system that lets you sell Microsoft services and products. How important is that

[00:54:08] reputation that you've created over the years through LinkedIn and all this stuff you're doing

[00:54:14] that allows you to nurture them the right way? And Liz, my question is, Carson, once you answer it,

[00:54:21] Liz, my follow-up question for you is how likely is this to happen for a lot of these sales teams to

[00:54:26] have a system like that? It's not likely. I'll say that just because I know that I'm like a misfit

[00:54:33] toy, right? Like I've taken this money ball approach over the years and applied it. I had a manager

[00:54:40] upon years ago that didn't believe in it. And I fortunately got the results to back it up and it's

[00:54:47] propelled me to where I am. And now I implement it everywhere that I go. I even published my most

[00:54:53] recent book. I laid out the entire playbook. And so I think the key element is, Brandon,

[00:54:58] it's been critical of critical importance to me. I can say it from going to an event where earlier in

[00:55:06] the year I went to an event and there were a lot of executives there that were getting the newsletter

[00:55:10] and they were so grateful. Sometimes you get, I've actually had some that have said like,

[00:55:15] man, you email me too much or whatever. But by and large, that's the exception of the rule. Like

[00:55:21] these guys were so grateful. They were like, thank you so much. We've never had any level of

[00:55:26] information come from this part of the organization to this degree where, you know, you're giving us what

[00:55:31] we need. You're helping us make better informed decisions. We know where to look. We know what's

[00:55:35] available to us. We don't just look at you as a vendor. And so it was critically important there.

[00:55:41] It's also critically important where, I mean, I've had deals where I saw something hit the sales

[00:55:48] report, the landed revenue report. And I'm like, where did this come from? We don't even, we've never

[00:55:53] even talked to this customer. And we look back and they're like, oh, wow, they were on every single

[00:55:57] webinar we did. And then they just called their partner and purchased. And so it's, you don't know

[00:56:03] exactly where the buyer is on their journey at any given moment. You know, we do everything we can to

[00:56:08] listen to those signals. We do everything we can to attune and stay at the pulse of what matters to

[00:56:12] them. But you can't be on, you know, when you have hundreds of customers, especially, you can't know

[00:56:16] where every single one of them is in their buying journey, but you can absolutely passively educate,

[00:56:22] you can nurture, and they're going to do what they're going to do on their timetable. And I think that's

[00:56:26] the key element is be available, be proactive, seeking to serve and be responsive and communicative

[00:56:33] and transparent. And if you do those things, I've had so many customers tell me, Carson,

[00:56:36] you're more expensive than the competition, but I do business with you because I know you will respond.

[00:56:41] I can trust you, you're communicative, you'll refer me to the competition when it's the right thing to do.

[00:56:46] That's the key. That's the X factor.

[00:56:51] Liz, my follow-up question on that is, I know, I mean, I've said this before, like Carson's a machine,

[00:56:56] but it works. How difficult is that? I mean, I think number one, there's always culture issues

[00:57:02] that a lot of sales leaders or CEOs don't. Like Carson experienced, he got pushed back until they

[00:57:07] looked at his numbers. So they're not thinking it. And then even if they have someone internally who

[00:57:12] is thinking, reads Carson's book and goes, I want to implement this playbook, they don't have support.

[00:57:18] And yet, I think that a lot of the other tactics, you didn't use the word bro tactics,

[00:57:25] but you kind of implied the bro-ness of sales. We just know that's not working because buyers are

[00:57:30] tired of it. How challenging is it to get that type of Carson style of nurturing and selling

[00:57:38] implemented in these sales teams? So I think that one, most salespeople don't have the time,

[00:57:47] the skill, the wherewithal, the bandwidth to do what Carson's talking about.

[00:57:54] Carson is- Even though it works.

[00:57:55] Even though it works.

[00:57:59] But this is where the alignment between sales and marketing really matters.

[00:58:03] If as a salesperson, I can say, hey, marketing, this is what I think we need to do. Can we test

[00:58:11] this out? Can we try this? And marketing is in a position where they don't believe they are just

[00:58:16] top of the funnel, but they actually understand that their role is throughout the buying process

[00:58:22] and that sales and marketing can align around things. Then we can make things happen. So

[00:58:31] yes, any salesperson who can do it themselves, usually their bosses don't even know they're doing

[00:58:36] it. Frankly, they have not a clue what they're doing, but more often it would be valuable if

[00:58:42] sales and marketing could align. And we don't have this, I just got you 600 leads. I want you to follow

[00:58:48] up on them kind of nonsense, but instead, great. You just got me 600 leads. Let's sit down together

[00:58:55] and come up with a nurturing process that will help bubble some of these serious ones up to the top

[00:59:01] that I can then go after. I think again, marketing thinks they're top of the funnel. Sales thinks

[00:59:10] marketing should never touch anything that once it's been put into my funnel. And if we can bring

[00:59:15] these two teams together and have them actually work together on lead generation and lead development

[00:59:22] instead of top of the funnel and bottom of the funnel, you then can accomplish what Carson's talking

[00:59:29] about. Well, I'll vouch for that in that I've actually gone to marketing proactively and said,

[00:59:34] look, this is what I'm aiming to do. I want to make you guys heroes. What metrics do you care about?

[00:59:38] How can I evangelize this stuff? Marketing has used me as a conduit or a mouthpiece to basically say like

[00:59:44] to rally behind some of these leads to basically say like, I know that my salespeople have no faith

[00:59:49] in these leads. Here's how you can use them in a different way. Here's the results. It works.

[00:59:54] Marketing has given me so many opportunities because I proactively sought out ways to help

[00:59:58] them win. And I believe I agree with you. Sometimes somebody has got to reach across the aisle and

[01:00:03] create a valuable partnership internally. Sales and marketing can work magic together.

[01:00:08] Yeah. Liz, I don't know if you remember when we met and this was like 2015, 2016 at sales 2.0 conference.

[01:00:16] That was where I on stage talked about, we have to blow up the silos between sales and marketing

[01:00:22] because the new breed of buyers demand that salespeople do more marketing activities and

[01:00:29] marketers need to understand more of the sales activities. And if we keep them separated,

[01:00:34] it's just not going to work. And you probably don't remember this. I was on stage when this woman in the

[01:00:40] fourth row just could not shake her head and disagree with me enough. I've shared that story on our

[01:00:46] show before. And finally, it was so disruptive, I stopped and I said, you know, like, what's going on?

[01:00:52] She's like, you're wrong. They are completely different disciplines. They're completely different

[01:01:00] ways of communicating. And I said, they have been in the past. But with the way buyer behavior is

[01:01:07] changing, if we keep those separated, your sales will plummet. And I think, you know, now we're eight,

[01:01:13] nine years later than that was. And we're definitely seeing that.

[01:01:19] Yeah. And the way that we do it, though, is with a lot of automation now. And a lot of this automation

[01:01:27] is, it's not customized. It's not appropriate for the point where things really are happening,

[01:01:36] because it's just an automated sequence that happens without any thought. And I think that if we

[01:01:41] can bring marketing in to make things that are more appropriate, it's better than just having

[01:01:49] cold automation that goes out and says, and things that don't make sense.

[01:01:57] Yeah. And we're going to have to keep this conversation going another episode. I know

[01:02:01] Tom's got to leave today and I want to keep going.

[01:02:04] Well, you know, we could see if we could break our record. What was an hour and nine minutes

[01:02:08] or whatever? Donald Kelly. Yep. But I think, and I agree, Brandon, I think we could definitely go

[01:02:15] for another hour. But what I really am, I really liked about today's conversation. To me, this was

[01:02:21] the perfect example of what the show Mastering Modern Selling is about. I think we've talked about,

[01:02:28] and even this, like I said earlier, the sell like a girl and all of those sort of tactics are what

[01:02:35] is modern selling is all about. And I think Liz, that's what I hear you say is you're going into

[01:02:40] these companies and trying to take these legacy sort of old school mentality as much as anything

[01:02:48] and mindset and really switching that to the modern world. So I think it's been perfect for

[01:02:54] mastering modern selling. So thank you.

[01:02:56] Well, Liz, I realize as much as we've talked after today, how brave you are to do what you do.

[01:03:03] You've got to deal with a lot of resistance and a lot of challenge of people that don't want to do

[01:03:08] it. I mean, I, I hear people, you know, I hear sales leaders like when I was coming up and this is

[01:03:15] what we did and this is the way we made money. And it's like, yeah, but that was 20 years ago.

[01:03:21] The buyers changed, the technologies changed, like you've got to change. Nope.

[01:03:25] This is the way you do it. It's like, well, okay.

[01:03:28] One of my favorite, one of my favorite responses is, you know, okay, how are you going to have

[01:03:33] communication, you know, with your salespeople? How are you going to acknowledge them? How are you

[01:03:39] going to reward them for kind of being what you want? And they look at me and say, I pay them.

[01:03:43] Oh, great. I'm like, well, that's a really old fashioned way of thinking. Sure. You pay them,

[01:03:50] but people still need to be able to do it. I had a boss like that. I had a boss that was exactly

[01:03:55] like that. In fact, he was the antagonist of my first book. So. You know what I think we need to do

[01:04:00] one week is we need to have a show called Mastering Old School Selling. And we'll talk about all the

[01:04:06] things that were, Brandon, that were done. Wouldn't that be kind of fun? Hey, I still know,

[01:04:11] I still know my script from, from my, my call center in 2002. We'll bring a phone book.

[01:04:18] We'll hold up a phone book. We've said it that many times that I still remember it.

[01:04:22] I repressed way too many memories from that time. So I don't remember my script, but. Okay.

[01:04:27] Well, we'll bring a phone book and we'll hold it, hold it up. So everyone knows what that is.

[01:04:31] That one is. Yeah. Hey, I used to sell the yellow pages, so I get it.

[01:04:35] All right. Well, thank you again.

[01:04:36] Thank you. Tom Ream, I see you on there saying it was fantastic. And thank you, Liz. Ream,

[01:04:42] please follow Liz, connect with Liz and listen and learn with her.

[01:04:47] Bob's all in for our legacy. I think we need to do that. Maybe one of the holiday shows that we

[01:04:52] have. I'm going to wear a striped shirt, suspenders, big phone, Gordon Gekko. Yeah.

[01:04:58] There you go. All right. We got to plan that one. We got to plan that one. Liz, this was awesome.

[01:05:02] Thank you. Thank you, Liz. You're welcome.

[01:05:05] We just keep getting better, better shows. I think we've been getting better guests. And so

[01:05:08] our shows just got better. We've leveled up for sure. These are awesome.

[01:05:13] Yeah. All right. Well, thanks again to everybody. Thank you.

[01:05:17] Carson, do you want to wrap us up?

[01:05:18] Wait, Liz, wait, Liz, how do people find you? We didn't give Liz an opportunity to shout out.

[01:05:23] Sorry.

[01:05:24] Two things. One is just find me on LinkedIn and tell me where you met me. I'm Liz Hyman. I'm the only one,

[01:05:29] H-E-I-M-A-N, or go to my website, which is regarding sales.com. And you can schedule a meeting

[01:05:37] right there on the website if you want, or you can download or read whatever you want about sales

[01:05:42] operating systems. And I have lots of articles. So lots to read.

[01:05:49] Thank you, everyone, for being a part of the chat, listening today. Liz, awesome episode. Tom,

[01:05:55] Brandon, always good to see you guys. And until next time, happy modern selling.

[01:06:00] Thanks, everybody.

[01:06:01] Bye, everybody.

[01:06:09] Thank you for joining us today on Mastering Modern Selling. If you enjoyed this episode,

[01:06:14] don't forget to subscribe for more insights. Connect with us on social media and leave a

[01:06:18] review to help us improve. Stay tuned for our next episode where we will continue to uncover

[01:06:23] modern strategies shaping today's business landscape. Learn more about Fistbump and our

[01:06:28] concierge service at GetFistbumps.com. Mastering modern revenue creation with Fistbump,

[01:06:34] where relationships, social, and AI meet in the buyer-centric age.