Enjoy the benefits of our Saas inside sales model for enterprises

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good so hey guys welcome to the sessions podcast I have two amazing guests with me here today Morgan Ingram who is an empowering who is the say it's expert he runs his own show called HDR Chronicles and you know he empower sales teams to become prospecting rockstars at J barrows consulting and training and Brecker gent who's an associate director of sales here at what fix and also colleague of mine hey hey Morgan he broke our welcome to the podcast Thank You thanks a lot for hosting us yeah so today we gonna talk about you know what types of sales is you know best for any SAS company is it inside sales were outside sale or is it something different right but before you know let's let's get to know a bit of our guests and this hafidh Morgan so you know Morgan so how did you get into seals and you know you started as an SDR and now you're training other STRs to become better at that shock so you know tell us a bit about your journey yeah so what I figured out is no person is growing up in the like marijuana need sales I just Parker so nobody I don't think I don't think I met a person that's been like you know I want to get in this like I have not met that person yet hmm so in that obviously that's the how I started so I actually wanted to be a sports agent and in that you know I saw Jim aguar I don't forget to seen that movie before and in that it talks about being a sports agent all that stuff and I was like that's me so throughout college throw high school that's all I care about and I got to the end of my college career and I realized that wasn't it wasn't for me they told me I'd go to law school and all this stuff I didn't want to do so I was like that's not happening so I wanted to go into marketing and get any marketing jobs and so I will actually wanted to work with a marketing company but I felt the only way I could get there was by being an SDR so I cold called the Director of Sales at the time the cold call probably sounded terrible but they let me in the interview I don't even know how I even got there and so now I'm there interviewing finesse your role I really have no idea what it's about and end up taking it and so in that role it was obviously setting meetings photos you get contacts sales development rep setting meetings like being cold calling and in that I struggled at the beginning a lot and I learned over time as I got better and better that there was a process for success and in that process it got me excited because in sales the more that you learn and the more that you grow the more you can earn as a whole and also you just become better as a person so in that that's why I really have joined sales so far and that's what got me into it and then from there started the scr chronicles which you mentioned and that bolstered my personal brand in my career and then that's how John Barrow so I worked for today found me and then brought me in to be a sales trainer teaching on prospecting and sales development it's not what I've been doing for the past year and half two years so that's like my backstory that's what I'm coming from a lot of stuff that I talked about today are just best practices of what I've seen what I've learned and just mistakes that I made across the way that's an amazing journey I mean you said like you didn't meet anyone who's you know who are dive right into sales and who's who knows that they are made for sales hey so that that's an amazing thing and you know what what about you prefer you know how did he get into inside sales and now the associate director at one fix you know tell us a bit about your journeys well yeah sure I think Morgan has laid it out really well because it's I can't you know contradict him right here saying that I knew that I wanted to be insane I actually wanted a digital market here you know the first job that I got into was after my MBA so I completed my MBA as a gold medallist and you know paying to another you know top to two colleges they thought of India it was more around that yeah so being with others and I wanted to be a digital marketer that's how I started my journey I joined what six was the first employee so it was just the founders they thought oh sure trust in me and my CEO kybun brainwash me into sales and he was like no you're a sales guy and I was like no I'm not because I think I'm good at marketing but then his entire idea was that why don't you try this out and let's see if you like it and you know this is where I am today in the journey of four and a half years in terms of you know growing the company from for customers to 500 plus today they're ten percent of Fortune 500 companies work with us etc but it's been one of the journey in terms of I can't imagine myself today doing anything but it just happy that's nice so much agree with more than that I never thought I would be at this time so I would agree with you that nobody knows that right no you don't and and there has to be right uh there it's almost like you wish that you could have that as an option like cuz I didn't know until like I was like seeking it and even today like even being on podcast about speaking are you gonna do that either so it just everything kind of cultivates together and it's funny like probably looking about it when you're like what do you want to be when you grow up sales is probably the millionth thing I'm gonna last the list there yeah awesome so that that's pro Kerrang Mormon guys and you know I don't want to keep my listen the reason is waiting so let's start dive into a topic which is you know inside sales versus outside sales and what should you guys do for your SAS so Marvin can you first get it tell us about you know what's the difference between inside sales and outside say it's you know how are these two different yeah I think it starts with the super high level that outside sales is a lot easier right because you have face-to-face conversations there's no one who could say like Oh face-to-face conversations like that's that's super hard like I can I could tell your language I can tell your body language if I'm saying something off I can always switch like we obviously have video now inside sales but looking back at it there wasn't video at some point right so it's obvious a lot harder to gauge tone and to get people's attention so I say obviously outside sales it more so leads to behaviors on body language and obviously meeting with that person face to face right it's a different way and while you're prospecting is different too because you're at more events and things that nature so yeah I feel face-to-face sales obviously a lot easier inside sales is a lot more tough because you're dealing with everyone else who's doing inside sales right you're dealing with SDRs that are looking to make cold calls and emails you're also dealing with tonality you you sometimes can't get that person on the phone right you can't you have to negotiate sometimes via email because that person doesn't want to answer your phone call so it's a little bit harder because you're dealing with multiple channels obviously sales you're doing so much face-to-face if you have a problem it's like all right unfazed meeting right with the inside sales it's just so much harder because of everything that's going on from the Avenue standpoint so I'm not saying that it's a walk in the park or doubts that sales I saw what I'm saying but the distinction is that like hey look I'm having face-to-face conversations and we're meeting at events versus I'm making cold calls and doing emails and it's just a lot more different from that it's a sales perspective and also the type of people that are inside sales and outside sales is different as well right there's different ways you're gonna go about that the way that you're gonna talk in people conversations are different as well so that's how I see the differences I know obviously there'll be probably different insights across the board from different people here but that's kind of how I see it awesome and anything to add there broker I mean your your gear I know that you were leading inside sales and you have turn inside saying so you have anything to add in terms of that no I think I agree with Morgan you know in pieces all the outside sales you know body language plays a huge role in terms of you know just getting to know your buyer you you're pitching your solution their body language clearly tells you how interested they are you're asking the right questions but if your product is not a fit you clearly see that with the body language you give them a licensing post it clearly shows up on their face whether it was a sticker shop or whether it's in line with their expectation in inside sales you're you know completely you know you have video conferencing too but then a lot of times like Morgan mention in terms of as we are calling it that while you're completely shooting in the dark and it's definitely much harder right awesome that's interesting so Marvin you know we're gonna discuss about three scenarios here for three different types of sass there are you know one sass is let's say which is just starting out there's another sass who has just discovered their product market fit and this is the third sass which is you know they have just crossed their go-to market stage so you know and we're gonna talk about you know how inside sales and outside sales are different and you know which is better at what stage of what scenario of these SAS companies so now let's start with the company who is just a company just started out so you know what what should they go with you know what what's their best thing to do instead is there inside sales or this outside seems I have no idea but this is why because I don't know I don't know who you're targeting right so obviously if I have a contextual conversation on someone they're like hey this is our ICP this is our a CV this is what we're looking to grow then I could be like I can give the exact answer but I mean because there's so many people probably listed in this podcast right now I don't have the exact answer I'll give you an opal insights on what I would do right so if let's say if I have a company that has what 3 to 5 mud sales cycle most likely I might not be doing an outside sales right because you think of outside sales they probably longer sales cycles like at 8 to 12 months that means that they probably have to continuously meet with that person to make sure they can accelerate that deal if it's 3 to 5 months or it's a 90 to 120 days it's your you're actually wasting money by saying people to do outside sales because your company is growing and you're not and you don't even in the enterprise realm yet so you're actually more so focused on an SMB mid-market model for success so in that I would say you're really gonna be focusing on inside sales mostly first and if I'm just starting out from that sales perspective I'm definitely going to look at other competitors that are in the space and then I just go after their clients that's what I would do honestly I'd create a listen go look through their clients look at their customer portfolios and then I'm going to list off that and LinkedIn selves navigator and I would start running and seeing who has differentiy points are they ours their client is that customer meeting their expectations right and then move from there and then it moves and then also if they have a product market fit then they probably have some customers who do you probably have good at baseline understanding and then at that point you're probably gonna probably get some people are outside sale those but again depends on market you're trying to go and also your sales cycle length and then also that last one you mentioned is who was that last question you asked there but for a company who is into you know growth market stage that sort of scenario yeah okay thirsty girl mark okay cool so at that point that's probably where you probably will have some people who are remotes and I consider them outside sales at this point because they're pretty much on their own I'm gonna pretty much shot probably the budget they probably got hired in from experience standpoint the budget to go meet these people face to face which is if I'm gonna remote rep that's what I'm do because essentially like I'm a full cell cycle rep and I do a lot of inside sales but I still have an option to do remote like I have the option about meeting people face to face which we all know if you meet someone face to face that conversation is a lot easier than that inside sales if you talk to on the beginning so you know that was a broke those answers down but from a contextual standpoint it's very hard for me to answer that question without understanding where they're trying to go because there could be a company that's like starting out and they're like we only want to get the enterprise then they probably only have outside reps maybe right so it all depends yeah right and let's let's say you know in this thing let's give this thing a more context so for example you know slack just at that IPO right so you know just just take slack as an example you know slack as a SAS example for this scenario so you know when they were just starting out so you know I think they did a lot of a lot of outside sales is what I have heard often what I've read off you know they were going out in companies and the words think the marketing was done a lot of work through word of mouth and you know so what what would have been you know the best case for slack in in terms of you know inside failures without side sailor to likes that hearted so that because I was the IPO so they did the right thing let's take do like slack into consideration you know what if you know might never know they if they had done inside sales and you know they might have done IPO much sooner you know that that might have been the case too yeah so I mean I know that they just now been developing in thread sales I mean in that model what they did is a lot of it was word of mouth from what my understanding was and they did a ton of great brand marketing so I think with that such a good brand marketing they could have inserted inside sales in a different way like if you get I don't know their model to a tee so obviously my life is just based on what I've seen for the outside but from my understanding it would have been probably a little bit interesting if they would have done maybe an earlier model cuz they probably gonna turn it in back from word of mouth but if they would have done that SDR DDR model and just fed outside reps and just like telling them where to go and then those outside reps have their territories and they just make those rounds on the fitness basis I think that would have been very unique and interesting if they didn't do that or they did cool but I think that would be interesting if they had okay we're having SDR be DRS outside of the inside sales teams right so as their video spoke with Vince and the marketing teams within inside sales team they do their regular calls and email and then all the other apps are just outside sales it's just meeting people on-site and then just name a flying on the top of that I think that would be an entry model if they didn't do that or did do it but I think they're pretty cool awesome and you know I agree with the point that you know you cannot determine you know what the sash should do in whatever stage they are without knowing a lot of their background you don't need what's that I mean you what's their sales cycle and you know what what segments they're targeting you know but still prokhor I'd like to know from your perspective you know what what should the SAS company in these three stages would have done you know depending on what niche they are you know from your experience what will be same right I think a large bit of that has been covered by a Morgan already but you know bringing more context if you buy I'd look at two things you know one is the sort of product you have if it's a product led growth model that the company wishes to achieve with somebody like a flag or the conferencing system that we are using right now to cite me something not all in you know basically you know an organization where a group of people start using it and the word of mouth was Morgan Rielly highlighted is the one that is contagious which actually takes it across teams and then turns it into an enterprise sort of a deal so I think in these sort of cases you know it completely depends I think a lot depends on the product a lot depends on the sale cycle of course because if you have a low ticket size at $99 you can never afford an outside team right I mean an outside salesman you're gonna cost you much higher budget I'm either gonna be you know single large amounts on their lunch in those sessions that said how much at that for a price point for a product you'll never be able to afford as a company in grow so that's important I think also what is important is what industry are you selling to and the buyer persona are you selling to so in terms of unit is selling to technology companies in general you know in you know companies Amazon Facebook and you're in that space it's very different when you compare to a manufacturing company there are you know some other companies about tradition and then also depends on if you're selling it to an IC buyer versus a functional buyer who's a business person right so you know a lot of factors actually could change the entire game or you know what models may work I think Morgan Whitely highlighted you know the advice that is it what what slack would have ideally done I would go with that as well and in fact that's exactly what we do today as what fixes all right it's a hybrid model so we have a mix of inside sales versus outside so you know your SD odds open up the conversation you probably do some of these sessions remote and then if there is a requirement then you add that face-to-face to it as well to make it more efficiently so so you know completely from one stage to another what I would say awesome and then you know Morgan they just think procore highlighted that you know there should there's a good balance between inside sales and outside sales that a company is doing you know as they're growing they should have that same balance grow as well right one tip one weight one weights the other one over then you know it can fall apart I guess so you know how well how do you think you know a company should balance you know what are the factors that a company should look at when they're you know balancing inside and outside sales I don't know I would say awesome like I think it was rights the factors that we talked about is what are the expectations right as a whole so if they've gotten the C round funding how fast as revenue looking to grow right what's the str2 AE model is it a 1.25 so one is it a two-to-one whatever that is so I think when growing it I think it's the expectations of who do we want to meet and then mapping out how many like its reverse engineering like the equation of okay how many meetings that we need to get or how many business doing your clothes for my outside sales perspective and then we need to map how many reps or to that so that would be my advice there's like come up with a formula of like when the revenue we're trying to hit okay how many outside sales reps did it happen for that then that's when you should program that as well awesome and you know what's your take on this broker you know I mean you've been doing treating and SWAT feeds and you know how how is what fix balancing you know inside seeds and outs it seems you are from from our perspective you know I think Morgan stated this earlier as well that you know until it's a requirement of a must have face to face like you know some really large ticket sizes are being sold in the inside sales model itself where we have face to customers that we would like to meet you but because the entire world and they come in is moving well since Isis nobody really wants because they want to save you some travel times as they want to save themselves some time is that something good and it is when you're making you know it's not that you're just talking to one stakeholder you're probably talking to a team we spread across the entire nation or probably globally now anyway if you go and meet a couple of folks is not gonna integrate the other force which is there anyway not there so you know tying those things together and sort of maintaining a balance in terms of just looking it you know when you're actually analyzing a theme or event shad companies are actually selling you have to look at which particular deals do require a face-to-face touch in terms of you know the organization itself how do they typically make for changes etc and that I think is a key component in terms of if you want to meet or not so I don't want to take names here because you know it's a podcast where our listeners are doing so any company calling them from the way they bone to be right on my path but you can easily figure out who are some of the traditional buyers with the modern awesome and you know super curly you know I this question which is coming to me which is like you know what are some problems which are faced you know by inside sales and what are some problems which are faced by the outside sales I mean you you might have you have done both so you might know you know what other technical problems which are sees you know well inside is I think the biggest one is you know you being hosted you did everything right you've got that experiment do you think you were top-notch your product the motivation was awesome hits this part and then nothing you know you just hear nothing from you can do much about it you're trying to call you don't want to be a pest as well so you're trying to find perfect order line between being persistent but not being a fail and in at that again some that a lot of time to get ghosted I think in outside sales you know the work that has happened to me is that I was on a run once when I was covering six cities in eight days and it was on the East Coast and a couple of my meetings one in New Jersey another one is in DC and these two were you know a day and the next day so right after both of them get canceled because of different reasons so you know a lot of time and you know money can actually get wasted when you're on the run and you know these things definitely arise because this happens in inside sales as well but doesn't hurt you so much because one prosper cancels the meeting you go on to another you pick up the phone and start again right in face to face or of scenario you can't unfortunately do that because your entire plan or the set up of the entire trip is now set up in a particular place so yeah that could happen top two things that I could probably think of awesome so more than this makes me think of two scenarios okay and one and inside and one and outside sales so in inside sales you know an SDR is making calls throughout his day right and you know he makes like say 20 25 30 calls and you know one picks up or there's like no one shows up but you know then then there's the thirty first call you know and then he white all in all these 30 calls he is already frustrated and you know he's in some different mindset and he's saving your pattern that no one is picking up and you know the 31st caller picks up and you know so how should an SDR you know tackle this you know because he's in some different mentality and I'm sure you know he's been disheartened coffee or you know his hisses gone crazy that you know thirty of my calls wasn't picked up and you know the thirty first one did it so you know how should an STR tackle this scenario I mean I think you're the best person when I first saw this rep out the same way I mean I I uh I did not like Coco know it's kind of funny because like the whole thing was just like all right no one's answering the phone like maybe Coco's so yeah I essentially call that the value vomit is what I call it because what is it happening is you finally get some on the phone you're not prepared you say some random thing that you learned during training and then now you can't get the meeting because that person it was like I don't know what you said the best way to prepare for that is to make sure that you have a formula in place oh I don't have a process in place they just are like treating it as an event so like I gotta make cold calls today so hopefully someone or no one answers and whatever I say I hope they like so I get a meeting that's the worst way to go about it so the way to set yourself up such success is one practice mote cold calling with your other co-workers reps leaders it doesn't matter that's gonna actually prepare you to be on this call because you gotta think about it just like with anything people practice to get good at things people don't just show up like I'll use crickets a great example alright people don't just go out and just play cricket and they're amazing they practice before they go get on the field so why are we doing the same thing with cold calls awesome yeah and so you have to have that Marco call with that rep in order to be successful to be to make sure you don't value vomit and also the same time you got to come with the process informally people go to quit cricket they know this how am I gonna pitch just how I'm gonna hit and most people don't know what let's they get up to the plate of actually getting a prospect on the phone they don't know what they're gonna say that's like someone go to the cricket be like I don't want forgot how to hit like okay that's that person I can do the team very long the same thing has to be a cold calls you gotta figure out what's your intro what's your attention grab your value prop and then it also said to him what is that close statement you have to make so in that that's what's gonna make you more effective and that's how you not do oh my gosh oh my god on the phone today you're always from here because you know what you need to say awesome and you know the second scenario which comes to me is you know I'm from from records experience you know which he mentioned just right now so you know let's say you're into outbound sales and you know you're traveling from the west coast to the East Coast for a meeting and you travel there you arrive at the East Coast in New York and you know you found out that the meeting is cancelled for you do some emergency for any reason so know how how do and as how do you know the outside sales guy you know the scenario because he's already traveled you know from west coast to East Coast he spent time he spent money there and then he has to travel back again to the west coast so you know how how Allah saves guys time with this scenario I've dealt out the scenario for so here's the thing if you this is important and I got this piece of advice because every time I think about it now it makes sense like don't just set one meeting and then go for that just one meeting like met multiple things in place because if one thing falls off at least you're like okay cool I got something else to do so that's the precedent like don't be like I'm gonna come from San Francisco to New York for one meeting like make sure you set so even if it's like hanging out with a friend or maybe it's a clock whatever you just set that up so that's my whole ethos and so that goes into the answer to the question which is how do I set how do I make sure that doesn't how do I make sure that as an effect me I set other meetings in place so I tell people hey I'm gonna be in this area and maybe it's a client maybe it's not even a person that's gonna be bit by business for me it's someone that already has my business so me with that client say hey how's the product going how's the solution going right and then maybe asking for maybe a referral or one or two in that area so hey you might have missed on that big-ticket meeting but now you met with the client they gave you to other people to meet with maybe that same day maybe during that lunch that you meet with them they bring two other people that are now prospects so don't just lean in and be like I'm gonna go here for this one meeting find other meetings that stack up with that so you maximize your time cuz you're already going there you might as well meet with other people there as well and then also just look at your LinkedIn Network or whatever you have and see who else is gonna be in the area and reach out to them maybe you haven't connected with somebody maybe there's someone else in the area that's in your sales role and you can maybe get quick lunch with them best practices that then lead into write another conversation and they actually can refer you someone else so maximize your time when you're somewhere that's how I make sure to do that but let's say for the scenario that I scheduled nothing right and and I don't have any meetings and I was our only meeting that's when you just need to go in places where you can network with people find out maybe is there an event that day is there somewhere else you could go is there someone else you can talk to email real quick go to their office and just maybe they can show you around and maybe you can meet with someone just be very adaptable in situations and make adjustments don't be tied to your schedule and if it all falls and just you falter like be adjustable in the process awesome and you know that that's kind of bring us to the end of this episode but you know when there's one last thing you know I'd like to ask both of you you know let's see you both out you know of easy SDRs as well so you know what's what's your first line when you wake up you know when someone picks up what's the first thing that you mentioned let me know about like something cool so I do simcom Bob hi I'm Bob thanks for talking thanks for taking my ecology of a few moments I leave a curiosity and I don't lead with my name so in that the innate human nature is to respond with who are you and in them responding with who are you that I can dive into that and like really talk about the stuff that I want to talk to them about so by doing that it sets me up for success to do my value problem awesome and what about you brother is there anything that you follow yeah yeah any tricks that you follow can only last so long I feel because you know it's picked up by a boxer it keeps coming up with new one I think one of the ones I can think of that is always worked a lot for me is because you know I used to get a lot of phone calls so I could be late I would just go with hey Hank fish thanks for taking my call and you weren't expecting my call but I just need a minute of your time to talk about something very interesting yes something on those life you know be more to women the way to just tell them hey you weren't expecting my call so then knowing the cause obviously is and then leave from there but usually you know people respond sometimes I hear a giggle and you know it's just you know lighten the mood and then I can take it forward from there but yeah it's been very make awesome awesome that's that's amazing guy and I mean that this this has been a very insightful conversation with both of you thanks a lot Morgan for taking time and thanks a lot for doing this thanks ron perkins well absolutely yeah some peace out yeah