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[Music] hello and welcome to stuff about sales i'm your host james triano today we have on roy eldon and i thought it was only fitting for my first podcast episode with a guest for that guest to be rowey rowey was my first sales mentor and he was instrumental in helping me transition from a non-sales career into a sales career he's located in israel we worked together remotely but i don't think i've ever been as close to anyone from a job perspective from a work buddy perspective as rohi and if you don't have a sales mentor just a bit of advice here if you don't have a have a mentor i highly recommend you search for one whether that's your linkedin network whether that's a person at work whether that's your direct leader having a mentor in sales is super super important for knowledge sharing bouncing ideas off of one another talking through your career path i highly highly recommend it rowey and i are going to talk today about the front end of the sales process the demo and discovery call portion we get into some other topics but that's mainly what we'll cover without further ado here's roy rowey l don the man the myth the legend welcome to the stuff about sales podcast would you mind giving us a little bit about your background please sure james so i'm the director of business development at a young startup called datos we're in the remote patient automation space which is kind of booming right now before that i was an account executive i was head of sales development at other startups so i come from a long background in sales in the sales process in the cell's development process process how to take a lead both from an outbound or an inbound background and convert it into a cell so when we worked together previously we sold into the smb and mid market space what size customer are you selling into now at dados i would say it's probably mid market plus or anything between meat market and enterprise our cells are not really templated like uh like in our previous place of employment where we have basically the one product with a few different functions uh but it all it all really it's already the same you installed in the same way you might define it a bit differently uh but it's basically the same product here uh this product requires a lot more i would say um you gotta be a lot more uh in the in the so i would say i would say with this product um there's a lot more involvement with the prospect in a very very early stage because what we do is basically take uh an existing process that's offline and we're digitizing it uh automating it and moving into a digital platform so a lot of the work flows that nurses or doctor had in the past were trying to get in that space and it really requires the entire organization's attention in order to make that work in uh in a successful manner so would you say that let me phrase it like this how would you say that your work previously in smb sales has prepared you for a role shall we call it up market into the mid-market enterprise space so you know my beliefs i i feel like all sales are really just conversations that you have with people um and if you can get that out of the way and i think i had the privilege of really going through a lot of smb and a lot of mid market prospects so i'm i'm in a position that i'm very comfortable with the customer and i'm very comfortable in asking questions and i'm very comfortable not over promising or overselling what i have i feel if you really want to provide excellent service you got to know where your customers at got to know their vertical you got to know their pains they got to know what what they're expecting when they go on a call when they go on the sales call or discover a call and um i feel and i know james and i we spoke about it in the past i feel like if you are the one doing most of the talking then you already kind of lost a good discovery call is about asking leading questions in a positive manner making the prospect feel relaxed not i i mean the whole point about tech sales is it's not it's not a hard sell right you're not selling refrigerators and if that person would leave your store right now they might find it somewhere else it's not like that you have to show knowledge you have to show that your solution will work for that customer you have to show ease of use as well and you can only do that if you're comfortable enough with that with the prospect i think that's a really good point and when i was transitioning into a sales role i think the biggest piece of the puzzle that you really helped me solve is the front end of the sales process how do you initially engage with that lead and prospect and then how do you position yourself during a demo to really maximize the demo but also your position and what are some things that we're doing so i'd really like to talk a little bit about that how you prepare for that first discovery call slash demo with your prospect sure so knowledge is power just like anything else in life you do a bit of research about the company if you have the name of that person who's going to be on that call that's even better to do a little research about that person their background um if you have additional information before before the demo before discovery call that's great if not you can just ask those questions um and i feel if they took a meeting with you they kind of know where you are as a company or what you can do maybe they don't know all the bits and pieces but did you know that you can provide them with some sort of a solution i feel like asking the right questions at the beginning allows you to adjust your pitch ingly and and and basically provide them with with where their experience on that call and i feel that's like if we're just circling back to that i feel like when you switched over from customer care which really it requires you to to to do most of the talking right because people come at you who come to you when they have some sort of a problem and you have to first you have to be kind of apologetic you got to run through the uh through the solution so the heavy lifting is on you but i feel like in a good sales call uh the heavy lifting should not be on you should be on the person that is currently trying to get uh some sort of a solution for the company and they chose you or at least giving you a shot in proposing um your solution so i feel that's very important i feel if uh if you don't know if you don't ask the right questions then you're basically flying blind that's that's really good advice and as you know i had a lot of trouble with that when i first transitioned over into into a sales role so i was i'm a talker by nature anyway and i think that it was it was trouble for me to not get into the product piece very early and whenever a prospect would say something about their needs i would just get right into how we can deliver on that need via the product usually was how i would position it and that didn't really give me a fighting chance on some of these calls to really understand what was going on uh from the from the prospect's perspective what was going on with their organization what are their objectives what are they really looking for so i think that's that's really good advice and i think there's a couple ways that you can limit that one is to ask really good questions like you said and the other is i think that if you come into these demo calls or discovery calls whichever some organizations do it differently some will have a discovery call before they do a formal demo some will be just a calendar invite with a demo and you kind of run through both but i think that you can do some some preparation prior to the call but i think if you approach the call genuinely interested in the organization that will go a long way because you'll be naturally curious you won't be on that call looking for the hard sale you will be joining the call with the understanding that you need to understand about this business so you can properly position the right product or service depending on on what the uh what the objectives are exactly and i think that's uh just to add to that i think it's very important to understand the person that you speak with what's his position within that organization did he just get an assignment from his boss to get a new solution and he's just running through the motion to knock them down one by one is he is he or she like are they uh generally interest interested in the solution what's their uh are are they the decision maker and you have to adjust your peach ingly because if they're not the decision maker you just have to give them a little bit in order for them to do add the decision maker to the next call you don't wanna uh you don't you don't you don't wanna kind of throw away all uh all your heavy weapons there so let me let me stop you there for a second so if you're an organization so say that i'm an account executive and i'm selling a product and my typical my typical prospect isn't the dm on the call maybe it's a maybe it's a stakeholder or maybe it's a partner who is gathering quotes or something along those lines and you don't have that final decision maker on the first call what's a good tactic to engage that decision maker or have your point of contact understand that it would be best for you as the account executive to engage with that decision maker so it's it's all about i and again that's what i said you have to understand what their position from within the company if they're an ambitious type that would like to get this going maybe they just started maybe they're they had the same solution in the previous line of employment and they're trying to introduce this to their new company then that's great even if they're not the decision maker you can still give them enough ammunition to take that into their leadership and and move the cell forward and i feel like it's very important to identify where the person if if it's not the decision where are they coming from and with that i believe like if you ask a question it should always be on the positive side uh i choose my words very carefully i try not to contradict myself i try not to be negative in any way so even when i do ask a question is it it's going to be a question if it's not the decision maker as along the lines of can you see the value that this can provide for your for your uh for your company maybe not in so many words and also i would say i would then add a few words about look how easy it is i would try to take all the all the things that can hold back me giving the perfect speech or perfect speech for that customer understand who you're speaking with understand what their objectives are learn how to provide them with the questions that they need to move the deal forward within their organization even if they're not the decision maker whether it's providing with resources provide them with similar solutions that you've dealt with with similar companies maybe they're not seeing the bigger picture at the moment maybe they came in and they're looking for something very very narrow but you as a professional as a trusted advisor can take that initial thought that they have and maybe expand on that and maybe that is something that you can tell to a person that is not the decision maker in order for them to do to get that decision maker on the call because that's your objective so it's important to understand what the prospect objective is in the call and what your objective is so you can modify your behavior you can modify the way you talk you can modify what you have to offer ingly so there's a couple points there that i want to elaborate on because i think that's all of that is amazing advice and interesting information so the first thing i want to touch on what percentage of influence do you think let me rephrase that again so from a decision maker perspective how much do you think it increases your win rate to get in front of that decision maker directly as somebody that's invested in the sale as opposed to having to work through somebody who isn't the final decision maker so it's a double-edged sword james it really is because that the person who's not the decision maker is still your gateway to that decision maker so you gotta you gotta get him on your side you gotta get him on your side maybe by um again not over promising but very sadly explaining that if they do push that solution forward they're gonna come off looking great they're gonna really make a difference in their role in their position in the company and i feel like if you have someone like that on your side most times the decision maker just doesn't have the capacity the time to take the deal and push it through push it forward through all the different angles of the company uh so you do need that champion you do need that person that will uh that will push it through and i feel like if you ask the right questions on that first discovery call and understand where they're coming from maybe they're new maybe they've been there for for ages maybe they burned out with another solution the more information you have the more leverage you have and then you can really um offer something that that can show the person who's not the decision maker why it will be beneficial for them to work with you and get that decision very chronicle yeah i think that's a great point are there any strategies that you've used in the past to make sure that your message gets conveyed through that point of contact to the decision maker because i think in sales especially i would say in small business and mid-market sales there's a high chance that you won't always be talking to the decision maker they'll leave the they'll leave the information gathering to somebody in their organization to vet maybe multiple solutions and oftentimes what we find at least currently even within my own organization now we run a really good sales process with our prospect but our prospect isn't the decision maker and when we get to the final stage after we've run a really good sales process it's hey send me your final proposal i'm going to take this to my ceo i'm going to take this to our board of directors i'm going to take this somewhere else and we are then left holding our breath waiting for this final outcome so do you have any strategies anything that speak to that can help with that piece sure first learn to learn the person you're speaking with go on his linkedin see what they did before ask them on the first call what are the other solutions you're looking at where are they in the process you know it might seem blunt at times but it just makes them makes the prospect uh know that they're you're not wasting your time and then they'll respect you more nobody likes you remember what i told you once about emails nobody reads because people just don't read they just came through that especially if you send you know long long long emails you have to be sustained in your point and i feel like if you go through that person linkedin you know where they're coming from you know even if you and you know what other solutions they're looking into your body up with them you know you buddy up with them you tell them that they know that they have someone to trust on the other side that goes a very long way it goes a long way obviously there are the solutions out there some can do this some can do other whatever it's usually people selling to other people and that solution selling to other solutions and they need to know that they have a counterpart in the organization that they can trust and i think in order to get to that level of trust you have to be clear in your objectives and you got to learn quickly what their objectives are yeah i think that's a really good point i also think that there's a piece to that where you have to come off as a a valued partner to them and a value consultant like you mentioned and if you just pump yeah if you just come off as hey i'm trying to sell you this i'm going to educate you really well on my product you're going to know everything there is to know about my product and i understand that you're evaluating competitors but i'm selling my product and that's what i care about you knowing i think that there's a piece where you have to say hey you're evaluating products in so and so category or so and so field and our product is one of those products i'm going to educate you on what people are looking for in your vertical in your industry i'm going to educate you on that and then i'm going to tell you how our product can help you deliver on what your competitors are doing what other organizations in your industry are doing and i think that's a great way that that you can build trust as an account executive because you're not just telling them here's what my product does it does this this this this this that and this and what you're going to what you're essentially doing there is you're going to uh educate them on what's going on within their industry in their vertical um based on your current trends or what your current customers are doing and then you're going to deliver them a valuable solution so i would just tweak it a bit instead of educating i would say share my experience i would share my experience working in this field and learning what other customers have done and i'm gonna share my knowledge with you so you can make a more informed decision and then if that's the way you approach prospects um they'll be much more acceptable to whatever you have to say because in a moment you just turn from like you said a salesperson into a trusted advisor that really knows a lot about the industry that really has their foot on the ground they know the competitors they know the other solution you don't have to trash out a solution you can give them credits when credit's due but you do have to highlight what you are doing best or how quickly sometimes you can deliver as opposed to other companies or whatever whatever kind of differentiate you from from the rest of the pack but that only comes after the prospect trusts you enough to also share listen they might tell you we've been down this road in the past um it never really materialized because you'd have to go through this department in that department blah blah and you get all that information and if you know your product well enough and if you know the industry well enough then you can address it very very quickly and kind of like make the prospect much more relaxed and when they're relaxed they're they share more information they're much more acceptable to what you have to say and i think that's the most important thing is an ae as an sdr as well you know build the connection with someone that sometimes it's even it's it's it's more than just a product you have to sell now they might be in another company in a few years you might be in another company in a few years and what you're doing now is you're just making a connection with that individual and i think that's that goes a long way yeah those are great points and well i need to have you back on uh some point soon to talk through some some of the sdr tactics and and your share of some of your experiences working on the front end i think that would be valuable to to our audience for sure yeah i think look i think that's a great point i think that some of it is you know i think okay let me just say this both of us have backgrounds in sas software as a service i think that it's easy as a sas seller to get caught up in the product piece get caught up in the demo piece you think if i know everything about my product i'm head and shoulders above the competition because i'm going to get them on a demo and i'm in i'm going to slam it home i'm going to tell them about all our great features i know everything if they have any questions i'm going to slay it and i think i think we get caught up in that and i think that it's important often times to take a step back and understand that you may have a great solution and that's that's part of it having a great solution and we can get into this if you you know if you want to i know you feel strongly about this as well i think it's important as an account executive to feel strongly about the product you're selling you have to believe in the product you're selling because you have to believe in what you're saying and i think that comes through during a sales call if you don't believe in your in your product the the point i'm trying to make is to defer to the customer and not get right into what your product can do without really understanding how it can help i feel like that you 100 correct you have to believe in the product but you also have to believe in your ability to um make the pro the product accessible and make it seems even if it is a complicated product or even if it has complicated bits and pieces your job as an ae is to make the product accessible to to people that are not from your world because they might use your product as a component in a much larger scheme that is their business um and i feel like learning your product that's amazing great but you also have to understand where does it come to play in the greater in the grander scheme of thing and for that you also have to understand the verticals that you're talking to because if you speak with someone from an airline or someone from an insurance company it's not always going to be the same your product is the same but it's not going to be the same solution it's not going to be the same pain points and you have to go through whatever whatever you gotta you gotta you gotta tell the story to the prospect in the way that they can adapt it in a way that is accessible for them that is not only just the technology of what the product can do but a story that tells them what problem can it solve in their organization i think that's the most important thing um because there are other products out there and your job as an ae is to make the tech accessible sometimes you have to dummy down sometimes you you know and and that's what i said earlier about learning really who you speaking with so you can modify the way you talk ingly yeah that's a great point so i think the takeaway from that is that selling to the director of business development isn't selling to the operations manager isn't selling to the cfo those are different conversations and that's part of that that ties back to the initial conversation we were having sometimes the decision maker isn't the role that you're speaking with and you need to make sure that your messaging comes across to the person who you're speaking with but also there's you know you're positioning yourself with good information through that um through that point of contact to convey a good message to these other roles for example if i'm talking to the operations manager about a solution but the cfo is going to be signing off how am i making sure that through my point of contact the operations manager i'm getting information that the cfo would care about now one way to do that is obviously get the cfo's direct contact information that would be amazing um but um what would your advice be for somebody who can't get that and has to try to sell a cfo or sell a different role uh through a role who you may have as your point of contact so that's a really good question it's a really good question and it goes into two things that we spoke about earlier one is riding a champion so you would have someone to lean on i mean we all been there when we have the first conversation with someone and we have a larger demo with three or five other people first conversation goes great then the demo is uneven because some aspect asks different questions they have different you know different requirements they hang up on that and you lose all control of the conversation so i would address it by whenever there's a new person that's on the call i would do a recap i would ask what's important for them to see even if they if there there were other people from the same company that uh saw the product demo the product even tried the product i would still need a recap as to what you would like to see now what what's what i mean and i would recap what what went on in those previous conversations so last time around we went through this and this and that and we and and then i would make a definitive assessment and we solved such and such and such and such issues what other issues what other pain points would you like to solve today by showing you the product i felt once you do that you kind of eliminate um some of those because i mean at some point when when when you do a demo with multiple people um if it's just like it it it's just like anything else it's just like any other momentum if the momentum is positive everything goes your way it's kind of like a surfer you cut the wave it's amazing but if the momentum is against you then people will start piling on because they're gonna they're gonna you know especially if the ceo said something negative then the vp would say something even more negative and everyone will stop piling on on you because you lost control of the conversation it happens it happens to all of us so i think in order to take ownership of that you really have to define at the beginning small recap one went on what was the always what was the positive aspect that we took from our last conversation that's why we're in our current conversation and work how can we take this forward how can we move from the position we are at now forward um and i think that gives you a lot of tools when controlling a larger crowd yeah that's that's awesome i completely agree so i think that yeah that's a common challenge that we all have um you have a great champion and you had an initial amazing discovery call with that champion and the next step naturally is okay your solution looks good to me let me get some of these other people on the call from various other um positions in the organization that might be using your tool and you get on that call and someone's not feeling it you know so one of the one of the stakeholders isn't feeling it and they ask you you can tell usually and yeah sometimes they pile on and i think that it's at that point it's it's important to um you know look i think you said it you said you know when you the beginning of the call it's important to i think as sellers let me just say this i think as sellers we oftentimes lose track of where we're at in the sales process so we'll have a good call we'll send a recap email we'll schedule a demo and we'll get on the demo and we won't recap at the beginning of that conversation anything that we've discussed during the previous any at any previous point during the sales process all the successes that you've already made otherwise a second call would not be scheduled if you didn't have success in the first call exactly and you have to make that uh make the the the entire group aware and it can be really challenging sometimes there are seven or eight people on the call you hear different voices you know it can be really overwhelming at times but if you just do a recap you take that out of the way you ask a few other leading questions to make sure that that is done and buried before you move over to the next uh to the next highlight i think that goes a very very long way i think that uh i mean really our job is to eliminate any uh i don't i don't like to say the word threats but any shortcomings whether it's in the product in our page in in the fit of the product to that specific customer we have to gap that as a is and and i feel like if you don't do that uh then you might fall into a hole so it's one of those things where we know that as an ae or not perfect there's going to be some things that happen sometimes during the sales process that a good account executive in my opinion limits those types of missteps or limits those types of issues by having a good sound sales process that they continue to go back to time after time and one and the way to do that on that initial demo when you have a group that you haven't spoken with before is exactly what you just talked about it's to recap the successes and i think that really sets the table for the conversation that you're about to have so if there's somebody who's not feeling it you can head that off by saying hey these are some things that were valuable so far to your organization based on my conversation with so and so and you set the table for the rest of the conversation and if joe schmoe isn't feeling it for his particular group or he has some concerns about the product you can talk through that as a one-off but it doesn't completely deflate the whole conversation and and devalue the whole conversation like oh this product sucks because so-and-so is on the call he's not feeling it we know the product's valuable some point of contact that you've had has said that the product's very valuable so if somebody disagrees with that or has a particular issue you can address that individually and and try to build that consensus and include that person in the in the consensus the the positive consensus hopefully but it doesn't have to be the end-all be-all for that initial uh i'm sorry for that conversation that you're having when you're all together on that call completely and i would even add to that and say that if there is someone that's being negative on the call you can either address it you don't want to fall into that chap and then it's going to be all about your shortcomings because that guy is clearly being negative but you can say is i understand your concern you can be sympathetic sympathetic and say i will follow up offline with additional information to address whatever concern you just and you kind of eliminate uh eliminate them and you push forward with whatever your agenda is really we are about out of time but before you go i do have one listener email that i'd like to run through with you first episode we got one email so that's amazing um just some background before i started the project i put out a note on linkedin for people to submit questions it could be general sales questions questions about coaching deal strategy anything related to the day-to-day sales challenges that we all have and it was really great to see we did get a little bit of engagement we did get an email without further ado i'll read it and i'll let you take it away dear stuff about sales i'm currently selling to small business customers at a mid-sized publicly traded company i've been there for less than three months i'm having some trouble juggling product learning with process learning at my new company my previous experience is as an sdr at a smaller company and we did not have as many processes and internal things to learn what do you suggest i prioritize and do you have any tips right so obviously internal processes are important because they allow you to get things done within the company product learning is obviously very important but i think what's more important is to understand the industry and what are the pain points of your customer and then you can bring in what you know about the product what you've learned in the company about what the product can do because again if you get too bogged down about different features and how this connects to that and all that stuff you're missing the big picture and i feel like in order to be a successful ee you have to understand the bigger picture um your solution is probably going to be part of other solution in that organization in an organization in general and you have to understand how that come to play that is something that's more than just features or how it is connected or where is it situated or located and all uh all that stuff that's really really great uh i feel like what's more important is to really understand how your solution solves a problem to your customer and if you can talk about that then you don't need to talk about the product you just need to speak about it in terms of in more general terms as opposed to getting to the nitty-gritty and decision makers in general they would like to get the bigger picture as opposed to um as opposed to a more granular loop granular look at your technical solution that might come to play with the i.t team or the cio or i don't know whatever product you're selling but decision makers would like to get the bigger picture they don't have a lot of time they're very busy they want to know that your company can provide the solution then then later on you can they can battle it out about the about if that feature can do x or that feature can do why if your company can solve the other company's solution uh problem then that's what's that's that's the most important thing so completely agree with that i think that something that you need to keep in mind when you're an account executive at a new company is that they've hired you for your skills ability and potential as a seller they didn't hire you because you are an expert in salesforce likely most likely they didn't hire you because you're an expert in whatever product they're selling they know coming in an organization should know that there's going to be a ramp up time for product training and there's going to be a ramp up time for you to learn their processes but what you can do to hit the ground running as a an account executive is you can run a really smooth sales process and you can have a great discovery call and you can be curious about the organizations that you're selling to and i think that if you do those things you will set yourself up for success while you're being brought along on the product and the operational front a hundred percent and don't be uh don't be afraid about involving other aes or the tech other salespeople from that company in the process ask questions ask questions that's much more valuable than to learn how a certain feature does what ask other ease what's the what's the way to do about it what's it what's their way to go about it when they are asked a certain objective how they're ending it i feel that's group learning and learning from the team i feel that is one of the most valuable things even if your organization is not very inclined to do so some organizations are like that it should not stop you from progressing it should not ask you from for asking questions and and it should not stop prevent you from learning how to highlight the product without being uh what's the word i'm looking for here james a person that knows every little bits and pieces about the solution that they're selling you don't need to be a know-it-all yeah exactly you don't want to come off as a no at all exactly well i think we can leave it with that that was some great advice roy thank you um again appreciate you coming on um you know you were my my first mentor and i think it was only fitting that you join as my first guest of this podcast so appreciate your time and thanks for coming on let's do it again soon thank you james appreciate it i hope you enjoyed that podcast with roey as much as i did it was great catching up with him it had been a while and i think that he had some amazing insights on the front end of the sale and how to tackle the issue of your champion and some strategies to take with you into your next discovery or demo being my first episode with a guest i'm sure there's plenty of feedback that you have if you'd like to contact the show you can email me at stuff about sales gmail.com or follow me on twitter at stuff about sales and you can find us on linkedin by searching stuff about sales also one last thing if you liked the show please go to apple podcast spotify wherever you get your podcasts we're everywhere at this point and like and subscribe and if you could leave a comment that's just a cherry on top it would mean a lot to me and mean a lot to the show thank you for listening see you next time you