Empower your Administration with the strategic prospecting process for Administration

How to create outlook signature

[Music] this is an ultimate global podcast hello and welcome to our special weekly podcast on trending international and social affairs you're listening to saurabh korra and george mavros from sydney so welcome everyone to another exciting episode of ultimate global podcast and as you can see the excitement that i have at this point of time of course we have got a very different guest from another country which we are adding up to the pile but we are getting closer and closer to our first anniversary and that makes me more exciting in every episode because that takes me back to the journey when we started off with this podcast series uh with a hope to get connected with people with a hope to create an impact through the stories that we are sharing on this podcast and i'm quite happy that some of the episodes have in fact created the impact because we have got a lot of engagement on platforms like linkedin and we have also got feedback from people um and just for everyone's reference i had my graduation this year and when i went for my graduation in sydney some people just recognized me on the basis of the fact that i'm running this podcast i haven't even met those people and they said that i have seen you somewhere in one of the podcast series so i think that has been the influence and the impact um which i personally did not think that it will happen but definitely quite happy to do that today's podcast is about strategic prospecting for sales people recently we have been doing a lot of podcasts on sales um and personally because i'm also an sdr currently and i have been in tech sales for quite some time so i understand the miseries and sorrows uh nils person goes through and i'm sure our guest also goes through the same so our guest is caspian luke if that's the right way of saying your name it is caspian leaky 100 and he's an str at gong um and today we are talking about this topic of strategic prospecting for sales people that is something which i do every morning every single morning but would love to know from you caspian a bit about yourself to begin with and then probably moving into this part of what do you exactly mean by strategic prospecting from a layman's point of view and also from a salesperson's point of view absolutely well firstly let me just say it's a pleasure to be on the podcast uh sarah and congratulations on your upcoming one-year anniversary that's super super exciting uh really quick background on me i though i'm in the san francisco bay area now i was actually born in germany uh my my family heritage on my dad's side is german and i moved to the bay when i was very young moved back to germany for high school and then uh have moved back to california starting in la and then more recently to the san francisco bay area again so uh it's been exciting you know been back and forth across the uh in different countries but found myself in tech sales um and really for me strategic prospecting and strategic outreach really means three things number one understanding who you're selling to to be strategic you need to know who you're targeting and that plays into the second point which is knowing what their problem is in order to be strategic in order to be unique you need to understand what the people that you are selling to care about and number three once you know who you're selling to once you know what their problems are how do you reach out to them uh so really number three is standing out from the rest of the individuals the rest of the sdrs that are trying to get your prospects attention so again knowing who you're selling to knowing what their problems are and standing out as best you can from the rest of the people that are trying to reach out to them and i can go more into that but that's that's the highest level of what strategic prospecting strategic outreach means to me yeah i think that's a fantastic way to describe that i would love to know more in detail about the second point so how will you identify the problems that your customer is having or how will you identify what your customer is thinking at what time some people say that maybe check out the top executives the ceos the cfos of those those companies um and the best way to do that is probably go and check out the annual reports of the companies go and check out the linkedin profiles of those people what are they interacting with what are they liking what are they commenting on or probably you know just check their profiles and see you know what kind of activities do they like doing and that kind of tells you that those are the pain points they have yeah it's a it's a good question there's i think you can approach this from a macro and a micro level both in a professional sense and a personal sense so what i mean by that is on a macro level to your point from a professional sense checking out the 10ks of the company is very helpful understanding you know have have there been recent layoffs have there been recent product updates what is going on within the company overall and then on a more micro level but still in the professional realm understanding if they're a vp of sales follow you know listen to sales podcasts uh do research on what vps of sales care about which is often you know making sure their entire team is hitting their number if they are a startup making sure that they're hitting their annual revenue goals and really emulating best practices of top performers making sure that everyone on their team is as successful as possible on the flip side if you're prospecting someone like a vp of customer success they're more focused on retention understanding where risks lie within their customer base things like that so again macro level on the professional side would be understanding what's going on in the company you mentioned looking at their linkedin that is a great way to gain an understanding of what have they done in their past you'd be surprised a lot of people include things like they played soccer in university or they're really passionate about golfing or they're they love outdoor fishing those are ways that you can begin to tailor your outreach right you make it relevant to their company and their role from what you learned about their company and knowing what they care about in their role right if they're a vp of sales at a growing tech firm you know what to uh to say to spark their interest but you can add an extra layer of personalization and uniqueness by understanding what they care about personally right if they played soccer you can throw in a soccer punt or you can do research on their favorite team and for me i enjoy being a bit goofy in my outreach uh which i can go into a bit um but i enjoy i enjoy doubling down on um kind of mirroring the personal and the professional interest if that makes sense i think another question here can be for a lot of sales people how can one learn this art of strategic prospecting because it might not come naturally to everyone so are there any courses available online i saw that you have taken recently one course because i research well on people before i invite them to my podcast so i saw that i've been a part of a social selling course recently it has kind of helped you to understand how you can build your personal brand on linkedin what kind of content you should be posting on linkedin and i think that's what you shared in that short snippet which you have posted on their website so what do you have to say about strategic prospecting and social selling in general how can people build this art yeah it's a it's a great question um fortunately to your point there are a lot of courses on this and for me i would say there are there are several and i i don't know all of them i wish i did um three which have been really impactful in different ways and i haven't completed all three i'm still kind of in the core i'm different stages of each one if you will um and have you know i'm still learning more about this but one is to your point landon meyer's social selling course he really does a great job of helping you understand not only how you can build your brand on linkedin but how you can begin to interact best with your prospects right so you no longer are strictly doing outbound you might be because of your brand that you've built be receiving more inbound requests which of course is the dream of every str and every sales person right um so landon myers course is excellent and i'd say it's a very holistic approach to building your brand the katherine caldwell is also excellent um she also focuses on linkedin and social selling but more so tailored to unique outreach in terms of making videos and what do you see in those videos um so i would say it's a different it approaches a similar problem but from a different angle which is great uh and then finally again if you want more something that encapsulates everything and is more of uh tailored towards accountability and understanding best practices there's something called brand 30 which i'm a part of which is led by andrew newborn who's at outreach and again it does a really good job of helping you understand not only how to build your brand but how can you build consistency in the content that you're posting and understand how to tailor what you are posting to what your prospects might care about while also bringing in a bit of your personality so they each landed myers catherine caldwell's andrew newborn's courses approach social social selling differently but in an amazing amazing way um and i'm just very blessed to have gotten a chance to learn from each other in different ways yeah absolutely and are there any specific sales people on linkedin or in general that you find are an inspiration for you and you might want to list them down for our listeners absolutely so i gotta i gotta give credit to the goats you know for me sam nelson when i was first uh getting into the seo world and first getting into the tech world uh you might know him he's the guy with the blue hair was at outreach for a long time um just phenomenal at what he does really cares about helping current sdrs succeed in their role and aspiring sdrs break into the tech world so for me sam will always be kind of the the goat of sdr of the sdr world um more holistically josh braun phenomenal right that is a true salesperson through and through um and he always posts he posts extremely consistently and he also addresses especially more recently um the importance of mental health in sales right not the fact that you're not your number of course we're judged on our number we all want our number to be great but you are a human you are a person you are more than that and so i love that he calls that out um so those are the two you know i think more well-known people i follow to be honest uh i know i mentioned him already but landon meyer if you haven't checked out his content he started posting more consistently only a few months ago but it's been inspiring to see how he how he has grown how his career has grown how his following has grown um in over the past few months and um finally uh heidi solomon orlick she's founder and ceo of girls who sell while also being svp of business development at arise and is is just an inspiration in in so so so many ways um and again i just feel blessed to have gotten a chance to learn more about these people through linkedin so we mentioned social selling in terms of you know often reaching out to prospects but there's also a huge upside of linkedin of just learning from other people right just getting a chance to to see what it is that they care about and uh striving to to yeah emulate some of their best practices and things like that so for me uh those are two different categories of influencers but amazing amazing amazing people yep um i think um those are some really great suggestions that you have just provided but just moving away from that now and trying to dig a bit deeper about your day-to-day challenges in your sales life because a lot of people have different kind of challenges and sales is not sales is not easy all right it's not it's not everyone's cup of tea as well and of course a sale is a sale is a sale only when somebody pays you you might talk to 100 people in a day you might get out of that 20 people in a meeting and you might out of that get 10 sign ups into your system and you might just get one customer to buy your product um you know so such as the such is the life of a salesperson but what kind of challenges do you face on a day-to-day basis and how do you overcome those challenges uh it can be challenges related to you know the mental effect that it has or the anxiety that it has so would you love to list them down for yourself yeah oh one thousand percent i mean this this first problem is not unique but rejection of course you know sales people especially sdrs deal with a lot of rejection you're uh i always joke that you can really put cold in front of every method of outreach and that is a lot of what an sdr does right cold calling called emailing cold linkedin messages whatever whatever like the case may be and so understandably not everyone that you reach out to is going to want to talk to you and that's okay that's that's that's completely fine um so understanding and i know i mentioned this already but that you're not your number that it's not you know a good day isn't defined by did i book a meeting did i not book a meeting um a good day is defined by well i could treat this more holistically and you know talk about spending time with people you love things like that but if i'm speaking more in the professional sense a good day is understanding have i done what i set out to do and if not why not and applying those learnings for the next day so for me number one definitely a challenge is rejection um and tied into that is understanding how to deal with that and and that removing yourself from the outcome right it's not unique but it is definitely a challenge um if i speak more specifically to to some of the other challenges i face you know gone phenomenal company and has grown a lot and um some challenges now is that people have preconceived notions of what the product is things like that and so i need to be really specific and tailored in my outreach because i need i need the messages that i use to to hit home to resonate with the people that i'm messaging because there's no longer well there is always green field but i have a book of business that i'm responsible for going after i have target accounts and so i need to make sure that if you will if you think about it like shooting an arrow i need to make sure that that arrow is directed as well and as strategically as possible which is why i strive to do as as unique outreach as possible right i i send gifts i write a lot of hopefully goofy and like funny emails they i think they're funny i hope other people do as well um and so for me just really making my outreach count i would say is is important because um because i have a certain amount of accounts that i'm going after and um and that's yeah that's that's ultimately the account that i'm responsible for um for beginning conversations with so i would say on a personal level dealing with rejection understanding that i'm not my number uh and removing myself from the outcome and in a professional sense holding myself accountable to making my outreach as impactful as possible is both a challenge but also something that's pretty exciting and that you know is a constant constant work in progress just like i am yeah absolutely and i think um in the last one week i have been discussing a lot of sales because there have been a few topics that we have discussed in the last one week itself in terms of the role of storytelling in sales or i think one week back we were joined by a guy called benjamin from the uk and he was he says that he's considered to be uk's most hated sales trainer and he asked i asked him why do you consider yourself like that he says sorry that's my usp because nobody wants to be hated everybody wants to be an expert in sales or a guru in sales now when i say that i want to be a hated sales trainer even if somebody would not want to visit my profile they'll just go and see what does that guy mean by it saying hated sales trainer so that's a usp for him and he was saying that actually the rejection of any idea is not a rejection on you as a person so you should never take it personally it's a rejection of your product or the solution that you're offering and just co-relating it what my co-host said a few days back george mavros he said that you need to sell the right product to the right person at the right time only then you can make the sale count and otherwise you are not selling either to the right person or you're not selling at the right time or you're not selling at the right place that's why you're not able to sell the product so if you are able to think these three things um and i think that's a very good point i feel what do you think about that yeah oh one thousand percent i mean you can have um you can have the most amazing product in the world but if there's not the budget if there's not the need and it there won't be a fit right ultimately i think sales is about finding a fit is there a fit here um and if not that's okay because there are to your point and two um to to your um to the to the co-founder of this podcast point there are a lot of things that need to be in line in order for that sale to take place right um and even you know this is also sometimes um uh even in our personal life we might experience this right if i go into a shoe store and i i really like these shoes um and they seem incredible but then i realized that you know i don't have the budget for them i could have the desire i could have you know i'm the decision maker um but i just don't have a budget right and that's that can stop a sale on its tracks and that's just an example from our personal life uh of course in b2b sales things are that much more challenging right normally there's more than one decision maker sometimes you've got to get budget and pull uh approval from multiple people you need to communicate the the need and there needs to be a strong enough need again felt by different stakeholders uh for things to move forward so and one thousand percent agree and it's it's it's something we might not uh always think about in our personal life but but again we experience it i use the shoe store example kind of jokingly but um but if i had a limited budget i'd be on amazon way way more way more yeah and i think with the one of the facts that we discussed just two podcasts before was that fact of storytelling and what kind of impact storytelling has on on the lives of a great sales person a lot of sales people who are good in sales are most often are not generalizing it but most often they are also good storytellers they they understand how to narrate the story of their product they understand how the story can be sold to a customer one of the key elements of storytelling is also called humor which i think i discussed with you before we had to record this podcast um and that's why i wanted to bring humor in fact a part of storytelling when i talk to a customer and bring it the humor element um make it a bit lively make it a bit uh funny people will definitely want to listen it even if they don't want even if they don't have time or they don't like the product but they'll still give me a one you know give me one chance to talk to them isn't it oh one one thousand percent i uh i might i sometimes feel like i might use humor as a crutch you know in a variety of scenarios but it's it's um you're so right i think that humor is a way you know in sales and in the professional world sometimes we can feel the need to be really buttoned up right really formal and that's great professionalism is is is important um but at the end of the day we're all people right and everyone has a different sense of humor but uh i i think that humor is important in communicating that you're a person and that you know that the person that you're selling to is a person right we use these terms like prospects buyers decision makers and and people can be that but again they're also people they're humans right human beings so i really um i enjoy humor and and that's where i think kind of bring this back to initially like strategic outreach strategic prospecting when you learn about a person you can gain a better idea for what their humor might be or a particular area you can joke about right so for example there was um a prospect of mine i knew really enjoyed this specific tv show so i wound up sending them a mug with this tv show like a mug from the tv show and then tailored all my messaging around this this goofy tv show and kind of referred to a lot of the characters and and it was great and and you know we went up have a gun uh having a great conversation and that would have never happened had i not well of course i first noticed that that they liked this tv show but um had i not tailored my outreach to that so i think that humor is a great way again of of just expressing that you're a human being they're a human being um and as long as you keep it professional i think can be a great way to to build rapport and and also have some fun to be honest so i think it can be anything can be well done and poorly done um but i i i love using human my outreach and i hope that people that i reach out to you think think that some of my messages are funny and if not that's that's fair as well i'm not uh i'm sure not everyone thinks i'm funny and that's okay as well yeah and i think it it it just catches the attention of someone um even if you know you're not selling to the right person um like i have experienced this if you give a call sometimes to a wrong person as well but if you are having a good storytelling ability or if you are just telling about the product in the in a very experienced and mature way and not just marketing it but actually showing your expertise um i have heard from some of my customers that i really liked your story and i would refer it to someone if there is any anyone who might know in the market is in need of your product so you know that's the kind of impact that you can create but before we end today's uh podcast caspian i would uh like to ask you one last question and that's like a tradition of this podcast that um if you know you have to sum up this episode uh in the top or three points especially for people so i think it's going to be daytime for you uh sales people are going to start their day for me tomorrow when i share this episode some sales people will listen to this as a motivation uh what will you say to them uh in two three points um that they should take away from this episode oh really good question i would say if i could encapsulate it all do my best one is strategically prospect and outreach you got to know who you're selling to what their problem is and stand out from the rest number two is understand you are not your number you're much more than that you're a human being and rejection is okay right that doesn't define you and three is also enjoy work you know for me that means being kind of goofy joking around a little bit do whatever that is for you at the end of the day again we're all human beings and uh i think life is meant to be enjoyed so that's what i would say if i could sum up this podcast absolutely fantastic i think it was really lovely talking to you caspian and i'm sure that uh people are going to learn something new from whatever you have shared in this episode um and i'm sure we are going to get some really engaging comments and discussion points when we post it out on linkedin and other channels so thank you so much i really appreciate you spending time with us today absolutely thank you for having me [Music] this is an ultimate global podcast hello and welcome to our special weekly podcast on trending international and social affairs you're listening to saurabh korra and george mavros from sydney