Unlock Your B2B Sales Transformation Potential with airSlate SignNow

How to create outlook signature

hey we got a great one for you today what if you're selling something that disrupts the way the company does them your customer and how about finding the right person who's even responsible for solving the problem that you solve within the company there's no clear title like VP of Sales marketing engineering CEO it's hard to find that person and once you find them you have to engage them and stay in touch with them and keep the ball moving this what I call Direction momentum and control we know the direction general sense up and we know a little bit about momentum we certainly know when we lose it and because selling these new things people get excited they love the idea it's not that it's not a good idea and it makes economic sense but it requires change and then how do you sell it without doing a deep proof-of-concept how do you leverage other existing clients to prove that this works and what they will get out of it and how do you stay away from just send me a quote give me a proposal because you know that's the death that's where good deals go to die why because now they don't need anything and how do you keep it going where they want to talk with you not just half - if you're in the world of half - they will only contact you when they need an updated quote an extended eval a reference something they need we want to get into the world of they want to talk with us and that's outside the rep zone I think you're gonna like this episode there's a lot in this and how to sell this type of product is what I teach and closing the complex sale because it the nature of selling change is no change everyone's comfortable with the term no decision it doesn't call it whatever you want it's called no commish is what I call it and why work hard if you're not gonna get paid your base salary is just to keep you there and put up with the meetings it's the commission that's why we working so hard and it's not just the money of course we want to help our customers and we want to grow in our career but hey we'd like to get rewarded for our hard effort as well let's get into the interview make sure you're checking out our partners over at Co video video email is a game changer this year video changed my business this year even more than the previous year and continues to if you want to see some of my examples of funny videos I do go to YouTube Brian burns sales on YouTube maverick methods the name of the channel or follow me on LinkedIn ran out of connections so everyone sends me connection requests and then they follow up on them and it's like I ran out okay just follow you get the same thing you can send me emails my email is in the show notes lots of good stuff in the show notes audible you got a free month of audible I just check out the coupon code in the show notes also over a pipe try to get sixty days free pipe drive to check it out we all need a personal crm you know you're not gonna work at the same company the rest of your life but you could have the same contacts all those content that's your net worth and if you leave it at the company when you go why'd you spend all that time and money that's why they're hounding you to put it into Salesforce is so that when they you leave they don't need you what you want to do is leave with the investment that you've made all of that context and contacts and you might say oh I've got LinkedIn yeah but it doesn't have email addresses doesn't have phone numbers it doesn't really have context you decide it's up to you Kove IDEO and pipedrive let's get into the interview hey I'll sum it up and I'll teach you at the very end how I show you in the course how to control this how to keep the direction momentum control and prevent you from falling into the classic traps of the b2b sale here we go hey Brandon welcome to the show is way getting started tell us a little bit about yourself hey Brian yeah thanks for having me so I am Brandon flu Hardy I'm a strategic seller with live person we're a technology company based out of New York with global offices around the world and we are the conversational commerce company so you help make it easier for brands really large brands to communicate with their customers at scale using technology and a I powered automation and what's that sale like who you contact within the companies who's your ideal customer profile yeah so typically we we start with the contact center and typically brands with high volume of inbound contacts typically over voice we know that that the pains of you know calling an IVR press one for sales press two for billing is being on hold taking time out of your day so as long as that exists we are going to continue to build our muscle in the contact center so we typically engage with VP level and above in industries like travel you know telecommunications of mobile and cable companies financial services like banks and now we're starting to branch though out into some really unique use cases with using conversational commerce for communicating with quick service restaurant brands retail brands so I can actually bypass the web I can bypass an app that just sits on our phone and takes up empty space and communicate like we're communicating with our own friends and family to ask questions about a product by a product almost have a concierge experience a shopping experience and then even were you thinking marketing and obviously rethinking what the customer service and customer care experience is like so we do styptic least art in the contact center with like I said VP level and above typically a CEO or a C suite would sign off on this type of initiative because of the the size of it it's a it is a full transformation it's not just a product that they're inserting into their tech stack this is a full operational transformation how they fundamentally contacts and communicate with their their customers at scale and but who owns that contact center is it it's it's not yeah it's it's a it's different at every brand I have to say I mean you've got a VP of a contact center sometimes you've got someone who is in charge of digital customer experience sometimes it's engaging with the mobile app group so it really does vary from brand to brand and it's yeah it doesn't make it easy for our SDR group to sort of just hone in on a persona attacking on them do account based marketing yeah so that title does vary from brand to brand so so they probably find somebody and like customer supports customer sat and worked their way up to see if it's in marketing or sales or some other group that's right and typically you know what what has been successful for me is we we do sort of latch on to this concept of immobilizer and we we find someone who can own it and it doesn't have to necessarily be the contact center we just have really good data around where we can immediately improve the the see SATs scores we can improve in decreasing effects and we can increase efficiencies in the contact centre so it's a great starting point but it doesn't have to be but if we can mobilize all the resources and then paint this vision across you know that the nine different stakeholders that we know are involved in these complex deals if we can align them all paint a vision of across the entire customer journey that's where we've been really effective is differentiate ourselves there now when you say transformation what does that mean yeah so today when you think about what for the past 30 years how do you communicate with your favorite brands whether it's your favorite airline that you're like I don't know if we could call them favorites but but but you know what I'm talking about your favorite tax yeah exactly representative representative represents yeah it's funny there are jokes there there are mocked videos out there on YouTube you know just talking about how painful that experience is but we need to think of your cable company we may think of your airline when you think of your bank and when you run into an issue a painfull of an experience is that so for the past 30 years really nothing has changed it's it's built on this idea of a digital fortress hey we don't really want to talk to you because it's expensive so we have built these walls of art off to a robot you're on on the phone for 30 minutes what happens when you get disconnected you got a call back in you get frustrated in fact there's a stat out there that 39% of people would rather clean a public toilet then call in and interact with that IVR that interactive voice recognition on most brands phone systems so that's based upon you this idea of session based communication which is extremely expensive it's extremely inefficient and it's not what the consumers want so we actually invented web chat back in the late 90s LivePerson invented web chat in 1997 and we we led that way for 20 plus years but five years ago we revisited into following consumer behavior which was hey we just message each other by within our personalized through SMS and messaging but brands didn't have that opportunity to communicate and build that personal relationship so what we do the transformation is saying okay move reduce your digital fortress that you built over the past 30 years that's gonna you know take some strategy and time and move into this concept of communicating with customers on their time not your time as the brand so that's the education that's the vision that I have to paint for these really large brands and strategically map out it's not a it's not a selling thing everybody believes in this concept it's helping them to by this transformation that's that's where I essentially come in and help yeah well let's get into that let's say you find somebody that has everyone has that pain Wow how active it is how prioritized it is varies I'm sure let's say that you have that initial conversation it goes well what's the next step yeah so the the initial discovery call goes well hey fully aligns yeah you're right that that is the customer experience that worth worth we're seeking so then we typically get into our sequence of events that that we've done really well kind of organizing on our side so I you know essentially have a framework for a blueprint of okay where do we go from here and I try to consult with the you know my stake holder understand hey do they have the capability of mobilizing change and getting the right resources in the room at a high enough level so that's that's my duty and then their duty is obviously let's get under NDA so we can share information and when we start to get access to quality data their contact volume today their the cost things like that so I've got to build that trust and then let's just say this is a the right contact at the brand it's immobilizer they've brought together the right resources then it's in person what we're trying to do is is show that vision and that's I think where we really excel and I personally put in a lot of effort to be successful and differentiate we come in and I you know tell the group hey the the only way that you're gonna get to believe me is I've got to differentiate myself from everybody else you've met with and my what I call the diamond standard is I need to know that their customer experience better than anyone in that room and I've successfully won you know Airlines and you know large telco a large Restaurant Group by basically saying hey I am your your best customer I've got a distinct point of view because I'm on your plane every week and I also have a good point of view because I just happen to be working for an industry leader who has effectively mobilised this change with with other brands that you compete with and other brands that you probably aspire to to look like and so do we pay for that vision and then you know from there it's it's it's obviously getting the education and the by n and then eventually moving into the procurement that's blue sky but is there a proof of concept stage at all because I can see people getting excited yeah right I've sold new technology my whole lighter excitement is easy action is that's right hard yeah um I'll tell you I've been able to have been fortunate that I've got the resources behind me as well I think it's really critical for a salesperson if you are looking to make that jump up to hey what is next really do your due diligence to find a company that is almost a crack in the universe kind of perfect timing of an industry perfect timing of like their their growth they've got the right resources so I'm really grateful that live person is this best combination of feeling like a late-stage startup in many ways we were nimble or fast and feel like this cool young tech company but we're also a public company that's got the resources of a 20 year plus public company so I've been successful in leveraging those resources to almost show a brand through this sales experience that's really compelling sales experience they don't need to do a proof-of-concept that's always an option but if we can get them to what we call our commute or executive community events where they can see firsthand what it's like to be a client on yeah that has been a very effective selling tool if you know some brands are even open to our customers are even open to saying hey look at what we've done come in and see it for yourself so you can actually visit a contact center and see this best-of-breed solution in action those have been hyper successful and I have allow me to go into immediate you know three-year you know multi-million dollar deals without needing this proof of concept that slows us down slows down momentum and how do they justify it internally so many oh yeah from an economic standpoint yeah so what we also really effectively do is build really strong business cases and that's been a good lever for us as well as an organization so you know I'd like to think that I build that trust and and I know what I'm talking about because I know their customer experience so they they they want to lean in a little bit further this idea is is not foreign to them so we just need to show them how to rally it we have really good data around other use cases that are applicable to their industry and now when you can layer on collecting the data because we built that trust and plug that into a business case and justify that business case and return on investment that's how we justify it and then if you align that and anchor that to their strategic Northstar initiatives which are typically hey we need to improve our Net Promoter Score so hey we have to have a better customer experience and we need to decrease our effects our operating expense if you can sort of align it to those strategic initiatives then it's just like it's almost foolish for the brand to not and this further but I'm sure a lot of them gets stuck where it makes perfect and most products make perfect business sense yeah yeah but you need to you know the running back to take that business justification and go through all the gauntlet yeah right into procurement so that goes back to yeah the fixing the buying problem it's not a selling problem that we have it's the brine problem which is okay did I have the right mobilizer do I have somebody who is willing to put their career on the line that's that's a common theme that we see across every brand that we've set up and is doing this effectively everybody we have onstage at those community events there's somebody who escalated their career by doing this so that's critical point number one as quickly as I can do that within a brand and identify that is super helpful that's almost critical I would say that somebody is willing to believe in this so much that they're putting their career at risk but they're gonna get all the research they're like you said they're gonna do the faculty those it betas brunt and and as much as I can equip them and align with them build a good rapport through good human connection that's that that's a key absolutely and how do you know when you have that person what do you look for yeah I think it's it's somebody who's almost willing to push back when you get yes yes yes yes he almost you know it's no no no it's a pulse immobilizer right yeah but you can you can build a rapport that person to get good information yeah but ultimately you're gonna lead to a dead end and I need to figure out how do I maximize my return on time successfully because you know I I don't want a sales cycle to be twelve months I want to be nine months and then if I can get control of nine months I want to move that to six months and so forth are these really large transformation so challenging back with really good questions you can almost also sense in the room when you you you're in a group of ten twelve fifteen people who you know who or others looking to write you know so you can sort of pick up on that yeah I think that's really important and it's also kind of just looking you know ahead of time till when you join your research you look look at the career look on LinkedIn are they new we do sometimes see that that's really effective if you if they're coming and trying to make an impact why are they switched after being you know ten years somewhere else but then they've been brought in so that's usually a good sign as well if somebody's been there for thirty years that might be a red flag but but not necessarily barrier until you can communicate with them but we do find that if you're fresh you're looking to invigorate some change in the brand for a reason I think in my experience it's been the same thing that who does everybody look to yeah a natural leader either new to the role or clearly a climber somebody who doesn't want to waste time and is willing to run that gauntlet a thirty-year person who's looking at their pension isn't gonna ruffle any feathers yeah because if it goes south right they know what they're affected yeah right they're gonna get that benefit or the penalty right right yeah I think we don't say what that push back they want evidence when they're really digging in yes and they want to meet a client and talk to the client you take the three of you out to dinner yes that that magic yeah absolutely and since you've been doing this a reasonable amount of time to kind of go through a couple of deals what did you learn along the way I'm sure you you're in you know into a waste of time that you would shake in your head like what the hell did I do yeah I mean we're starting to put together the pieces and I've put together some of the pieces I wish the puzzle was the same at every single friend what do you as you know it's it's different right everybody every brand has their own little processes and intricacies and hurdles but it finding that that person that that is the same at every brand so as quickly as you can identify that true mobilizer of change that's critical I have also found that if you can start to peel back you know without like you know cost being a barrier to entry if you can put yourself in the mindset of them not only their customers but also how would I need to buy this to to be effective I think that's something that's critical as well and you got to be really creative that's just Oh our pricing is one way you've got to be flexible in that in the sense of modeling the way and aligning with how they need to purchase this and sometimes that could be outcome based sometimes it could be just pure you know enterprise license agreements sometimes it could just be yunkai as you go kind of thing so you got like stress that out pretty quickly as well and be really confident in how you you talked and just be someone like a CEO who can kind of just analyze it effectively from their brand so that's a second piece alone with identifying the mobilizer quickly the third thing that I've learned is that you've got to give them a taste of what its gonna be like to be a client and I think we've done a really good job with the sales experience in in and differentiate ourselves from everybody else they're speaking to that stuff has become very clear and that starts to become repeatable but what we're learning is because this is do this idea of conversational commerce it is it's it's still kind of risky it's like hey how do we move commerce from our website an app or communication over phone and email and social media that we you know that's been you proven out to messaging and and using automation and BOTS along with our human agents takes education and it takes expertise and it tastes experience so I have to link up really well with our group our delivery group and it's it's not so much the external sale it's sometimes the internal sale that is really impactful I found that my biggest deals thus far have been a harder internal sale not in the sense that anybody is like no I don't want to do this it's just you got a rally the troops internally because we're a high-growth company everybody's busy but if you can be respected within the organization you can partner well with those people who can help you to uncover those hurdles and get over those hurdles you be the quarterback and find the people who can effectively catch the ball or run the ball run those players effectively that's our role I think there's good strategic sellers we've got and work well with our team that's it because when you're selling something like this where it's complex you need a reason to stay engaged with them yeah because once they have the business justification proposal they've seen the demo they've seen other customers there has to be a reason that you want to talk to you yes because they're going to be going through that gauntlet and you got to keep that momentum you got to have the third fourth fifth date yes you gonna have to meet the parents and cut it out yeah build out those steps that's exactly right and yeah if you're trying to get straight to marriage without living together a little bit like how do you peel back the layer like I'm the one for you I know and so you've got a really think creatively and it's utilized and you can't do it yourself you can't do it with just your solutions consultant you've gone and give them hey this is the family that's coming along right when you're getting married it's not as you that they're right it's the whole network so family package the package deal that's right and what or a where do your deals get stall where do they seem to slow down you get nervous really yeah it can always be it's sort of the you know the when you talk about a complex deal they can always saw at the procurement stage and the legal and security all the traditional areas right things can slow down so you gotta also anticipate that how you reduce the barrier to friction try to get ahead of things security audits almost offer up hey let's do a you know full site security audit of our systems get ahead of it their procurement almost equipped with the the business group if you can build a good good rapport they'll that they're willing to battle through a procurement and understand hey you've you've done their job for them so you can kind of go into the negotiation stage really strong and confident because you know the data that's key if you know their data it's gonna be hard for procurement to come back and try to get a lower cost you know that hey you've already built the business case you've already built the ROI don't try to tell me your cost per contact is here when I know it's it's it's here yeah and what would you have done differently two years ago that since you're now trained yeah certified yeah yeah that's a really great question more focus or you know that sweet spot where you does most people get to the point where they they can tell yeah you know yeah this is good that's not so good yeah I would say that anybody going especially in the technology space don't dive so deep on the products don't ya we're an expertise culture and and we we do praise you've got to know your stuff and I do believe in that but my level of you know my expertise needs to be focused on client acquisition and and and and getting new logos so I would say focus on being a good business minded person don't necessarily have to be a solutions consultant if you're CEO person yo no enough enough know how you're going to affect the business and be confident to speak to that you don't have to dive so deep that you know you're three months in and you haven't generated any pipe I would be ready to hit the ground running with opening doors I think that's that's super important yeah I think if you can have you know three to five great questions to get your counterpart your champion your mobilizer to talk yeah exactly that's because you don't need to know how everything in full dialogue don't get caught up and I can't answer every single question right solution yeah you wait forever you're right for example ears yeah and everything's gonna change anyway exactly yeah exactly exactly yeah just be ready for that change and just know that you gotta know enough to keep keep progressing be ready to hit the ground running cool hey where can people go to connect with you and follow you yeah so you can find me on Twitter at Brandon tech exec or on LinkedIn Brandon last name is flu hardy FL you T Y find me on LinkedIn connect with me there I love to connect further and engage in sort of dialogue now what I like out of an interview like this is that we learn that no matter how hot of a product no matter how well we present it no matter how much they want it and that they can afford it that so many deals go to stall or die that is the nature that is the default in the complex sale it is not it is the exception that they buy it and we don't think about that we think hey they love it it makes sense ah why aren't they buying it somebody has to be that running back has to take that and run the gauntlet you can try and do it and I've tried to do it and you can do it in certain cases but you usually need somebody there and this we called it the challenge of the immobilizer or the champion or the maverick internal maverick it doesn't matter you call it in a lot of cases you need somebody of that extent where they have a personal win they're a climber there's somebody that gets something out of this not just for the company they want a feather in their cap they want a promotion they want something out of it and when you find that person it's hard to build trust with them but once you have it you have loyalty and if you look back at your deals how many of them got done without this type of person I'm not talking about repeat business I'm not talking about building up an account I'm talking about getting into new accounts and that's the hard part and that's where the money is and b2b sales anyone can manage an account anyone can process an order very few people can get into a new account and close a large enterprise changing deal but that's where the seven figures are I know it's a lot of money you know and your bank may call and complain you might have to pay some taxes but it's a nice jacket and that's where we want to be isn't it don't if you're gonna work why not get paid the most for it why not play in the big leagues if you don't why are you listen to a sales podcast you know there's so much entertainment out there I hope you're listening to this because you want to become good at it and how do you become good at anything you train yourself I mean Jim Rome said you know get a formal education will get you a living self education will catch you success now self education yep sure part of its listening to a podcast but the other part is having a structured systematic way of learning from other people's mistakes that is the world of genius learning from your own mistakes that's good ignoring your mistakes bad I got a story for you when I first moved to a new city I moved into this apartment and the door my apartment door was spring-loaded meaning would automatically close and it would automatically lock so one day I was out putting the trash down the hall and I come back and I didn't have my keys with me I was locked out of my apartment in a new city where I knew nobody pre cellphones and you know so I had to go down to the front desk have some weight around have somebody come up and unlock me and guess what it never happened again I learned from my mistakes now you've heard that I always had my keys in the same pocket and I habitually tapped my pocket before I left my apartment now sales and everything in life is like this meaning that you can learn from other people's mistakes and when I say mistake it's kind of a pejorative where it's like a negative thing a mistake if you learn from it is in education and too many of us look at sales like college where we we go we take a class we pass a test we get a degree we are now a college graduate congratulations sales is not like that you can take the course you can pass the test but you still have to perform that's why you need a systematic way of getting better not just knowledge knowledge practice feedback reflection getting it out of your head and now analyze it and become better that is how you take the ten thousand hours and turn it into two thousand hours and get the money that you should be getting instead of just the labor I hear too many people oh I know this knowing it is nothing it if knowledge was all we needed everybody would be thin and rich we all know how to lose weight it's two elements exercise and diet and we all know what's good food and bad food and we all know we can walk we can crawl we can write a bike we can do whatever it takes but we don't do it and sales it's not just knowing it it's doing it and then analyzing how well you did it and did you do it with the right person that is what I try and teach in the course I teach you how to get into any account start the conversation get the meeting if you've heard anything in this podcast you want to have people want and enjoy speaking and communicating with you not just have to or force to a cold call is a force to they can hang up they can lie to you they can endure your pitch what if you could connect with people and communicate and they enjoyed speaking with you that's what the master salespeople do what you notice is they have conversations with people they turn into sales opportunities because of the conversation not because of their charm and personality that's an element of it but I show you with simple questions how to do it and then how they will flip it back onto you and then you get engaged in a sales conversation this is a skill it is a performance the same is true with closing the complex sale it's not just that you do all the right things you got to do them in the right way and you got to prevent the deal from getting stuck because that is the default to many of us only work on those top ones the ones that come inbound to us the ones that are gonna close anyway you know we are just a a website that performs and you can probably make a decent living doing that but you only have so much time because you're gonna get burnt out trust me I see a lot of my friends getting burnt out late in their career and then taking dumpy jobs and not having a retirement put in place why not have that nest egg why not maximize your time go to be to be revenue calm hit the training tab and if this sounds good make sure you self qualify and you are the type of person that wants to invest in you and don't ask me to invest in you if you're not willing to because that they're not expensive but you have to do it I can't drag you and I don't want to drag anybody and this is why I don't teach on premise anymore because I would be pulled in by the leadership team and the reps would just sit there with their arms crossed and I Brian fix this and it's like I'm not in the fixing business I'm in the helping business and the guiding business and the engagement business of let's analyze the game we're playing and when you listen to the one-on-ones in the course what we talk about deals is there one answer no there's several possible approaches to it and I always encourage you to pick the one because you're gonna own it you're gonna get the Commission or the loss and I'm there to just analyze it to give you a different perspective on it to get you thinking in a different way and imagine being able to do that through a community so you get content 100% access day one self-paced it starts when you start everybody says well when does it start like oh it starts when you start when you sign up you can binge it like Netflix or you can just take your time whatever fits you and/or everyone oh I'll wait another month and slike why why would you lose all that money all that time oh you know this is happening that okay excuses the house of failure is built with excuses there the nails that build the house of failure everyone's got an excuse and and you makes you feel comfortable good you're comfortable but but are you rich I want to be rich but let's be rich let's go sell something okay go to be to be revenue calm right now and schedule the time to talk sign up for the course let's get going let's move it time waits for nobody it's just gonna go by look how fast this year went by boom went right by make sure you're checking out the other two podcast sales questions brutally honest answers and the b2b revenue leadership podcast follow the company page on LinkedIn the brutal truth about sales and selling if you see my content fly by I appreciate a little thumbs up a little comment a little share and tell one sales person this week somebody you care about somebody you want to help about the brutal truth