[00:00:00] Welcome to B2B Sales Trends, the podcast dedicated to sales leaders in the B2B space where
[00:00:11] we share conversations about innovative and successful sales transformations to keep
[00:00:16] you up to date on the latest trends this podcast is brought to you by Global Performance
[00:00:21] Group.
[00:00:22] Welcome yet another fabulous episode of the B2B Sales Trends Podcast, this show that
[00:00:28] brings you HACS tips, thought leadership for sales marketing and customer success.
[00:00:35] It's brought to you by us, who is our GPG Global Performance Group, a revenue improvement
[00:00:40] boutique that implements behavior change to sales people who need to engage based on
[00:00:45] the competence of the skills, the confidence to execute these well and the courage to negotiate
[00:00:53] and sell based on customer outcomes.
[00:00:55] My name is Harry Candlebach and today I have with me Daniel the Co-C.
[00:01:01] Daniel is the VP of Sales in Canada for Dark Trace, welcome to the B2B Sales Trends Podcast
[00:01:09] Daniel.
[00:01:10] Thank you so much, Harry.
[00:01:11] I am very excited about our conversation today.
[00:01:14] Thank you for your time.
[00:01:16] As a way to start this off, give us a little bit of background of yourself and a little
[00:01:22] bit of an introduction if you would.
[00:01:24] As you mentioned I am the Vice President of Sales for Canada at Dark Trace.
[00:01:32] Dark Trace is a cybersecurity company and we leverage self-learning AI autonomously
[00:01:38] to learn our clients environments and this really allows us to detect and respond to
[00:01:44] anonymous anomalies in their environments and this is a little unique from our competitors.
[00:01:51] Definitely kind of a cutting edge company and here at a moment where as most people know
[00:01:58] there's a ton of cyber disruption happening, attackers are becoming more sophisticated
[00:02:03] and we're really on a mission to free the world of cyber disruption so that's a little
[00:02:08] bit about me and the world that I have today.
[00:02:12] I love the mission and oh my god isn't that solution needed absolutely, absolutely.
[00:02:18] Great.
[00:02:19] We chatted a little bit before this recording and I was seriously impressed how many
[00:02:25] cool things you have in your mind and how you can help the world of sales and sales people
[00:02:32] and sales leadership.
[00:02:34] Can you talk a little bit about your journey in technology sales that you have been on
[00:02:41] clearly and how you found that that action of leadership and sales and building those
[00:02:48] high performing sales teams?
[00:02:50] Absolutely.
[00:02:51] So early in my career I started in sales bounced around at a couple companies until I landed
[00:02:57] in technology and really what attracted me most to tech was the speed, the speed of innovation,
[00:03:05] the pace of my career trajectory, the culture of constant learning and development and I
[00:03:09] really started my technology career at Salesforce.
[00:03:13] I spent just five, ten years there both as an AE and as a leader and when I reflect on
[00:03:19] moments that at my time at Salesforce that really stick out to me one was I moved to Boston
[00:03:26] at one point built out in East Coast sales team did that for two years leading the team
[00:03:31] to be the number one in a mayor and then my last role at Salesforce I was leading the
[00:03:36] Slack Enterprise Canada team post sales for acquisition, another building role really helping
[00:03:42] Slack come into the Salesforce ecosystem build out that go to market and then in the spirit
[00:03:49] of transparency I had a daughter and when I'm returning to leave and was impacted by
[00:03:55] the layoffs at Salesforce and truly it forced me to internally reflect on what do I want
[00:04:03] what fulfills me, what fills my cup and really I think about the moments where I was
[00:04:10] building these teams and it was where I was adding the most value to the business and
[00:04:15] where I was truly receiving the most amount of value and then this opportunity at dark
[00:04:19] trace came up and it was really a chance for me to get my fingerprints all over the sales
[00:04:24] team.
[00:04:25] The sales team is scaling aggressively so a lot of my focus is on hiring a nurturing
[00:04:30] top talent building out process for scale focusing on top accounts and creating a culture
[00:04:37] in environment of trust and accountability.
[00:04:40] And I've been here now for four months I could not be happier because it's really tapping
[00:04:45] into the skill set that I've developed over the past decade and it's also allowing me to
[00:04:50] really make my market impact out of company that's growing rapidly.
[00:04:58] So we're talking about building and scaling high performing sales teams and the experience
[00:05:05] that you brought obviously from your past roles to dark trace here.
[00:05:11] You know how what role does leadership play in this process of building and scaling
[00:05:19] high performance sales teams in your opinion?
[00:05:22] It's a great question and leadership is so important.
[00:05:27] I think about high performing sales teams and there's typically three constants.
[00:05:31] The product is awesome, the market potential is great and they're strong leadership.
[00:05:36] The reality is Harry I can't control the first two.
[00:05:40] I'm not in product.
[00:05:41] I cannot control the macro environment so coming to dark trace I feel super excited about
[00:05:47] where the products are in the market potential where I can really lean in as leadership.
[00:05:52] And I talked about this before but I really kind of call it my leadership six staff
[00:05:56] equation and these are the four areas where I focus my time on day in day out pretty exclusively.
[00:06:04] The first is topic count so how are we breaking into the biggest businesses in Canada?
[00:06:10] Operational execution so when I think about building and scaling a sales team what are
[00:06:15] we operationally focused on so that we're all working towards the same goals and we're
[00:06:20] driving the same degree of accountability across the entire sales team.
[00:06:25] The next is hiring and nurturing talent.
[00:06:27] I mean how are we bringing the right people into this business and coaching them to success?
[00:06:33] How are we making dark trace destination sales team?
[00:06:36] It's really my mantra and my mission being here is making this a destination sales team
[00:06:40] for any sales professional in Canada.
[00:06:42] And then the last and really the foundation of a lot of teams is having a culture of trust
[00:06:48] and accountability.
[00:06:50] So those are really the four areas that I really lean into when I think about how I'm leading
[00:06:54] type of forming sales teams.
[00:06:57] Absolutely love it and you know great nuggets for our listeners here.
[00:07:03] We're going to each one I think over the course of the next few questions a little bit.
[00:07:12] We were talking before and you mentioned how critical it is to have common goals throughout
[00:07:16] the entire ecosystem here from individual contributors to management and so forth.
[00:07:23] Can you elaborate a little bit on that and what do you do at dark trace to ensure that
[00:07:29] that's the case?
[00:07:30] Yeah absolutely I mean I really subscribe to the fact that in any sales organization we
[00:07:37] win and we lose as a team and the success of my sales team requires an army and an ecosystem
[00:07:45] to really lean on and lean into the business.
[00:07:48] And so the way I think through it is truly top down.
[00:07:52] So how am I creating a team selling infrastructure?
[00:07:57] And so that comes down to you know QVRs, a monthly all hands call with the entire go-to-market
[00:08:04] team weekly leadership meetings with my go-to-market leadership team even go to go-to-market
[00:08:09] team chats to make sure that we're always in constant connection.
[00:08:14] And the way that you're building your compensation plans needs to really encourage a team selling
[00:08:18] environment.
[00:08:20] And then at a more tactical level I would say that the first thing is to define success
[00:08:26] criteria.
[00:08:27] So across the entire go-to-market team what does success look like?
[00:08:31] Sharing what it all looks like and getting buy-in from the entire team.
[00:08:35] The second is around accountability so having clearly defined metrics for every member of
[00:08:40] the go-to-market team and define swim lanes so that people know what their responsibility
[00:08:45] is for the sales team and the responsibility to our customers.
[00:08:48] And then the last piece is measuring and iterating constantly.
[00:08:53] We are in a high growth industry that's evolving rapidly and the way that we go to market
[00:08:58] and the way that we interact with our customers is evolving very quickly.
[00:09:02] So establishing a constant feedback loop and creating an environment where we can offer
[00:09:09] feedback and receive feedback in a really safe way is so important.
[00:09:14] That's great on paper and I fully agree with every word that you say, we come across
[00:09:20] a lot of organizations where there is on the agenda obviously how do you measure?
[00:09:27] How do you reiterate the message?
[00:09:29] How do you reiterate the culture?
[00:09:31] How do you coach people effectively to the right behaviors and so forth?
[00:09:36] A lot of the times we see though that managers are just not doing it.
[00:09:42] What's your opinion on why that is?
[00:09:48] And so what do you mean by that?
[00:09:50] They're not actually buying into the whole winning as a team mentality?
[00:09:55] Yeah, they may be brought into it intellectually.
[00:10:00] Sometimes their behavior is no different and I think personally
[00:10:05] it comes from the fact that sales managers are typically promoted to their managerial
[00:10:12] position from being excellent salespeople.
[00:10:15] But that's two different very different skills and instead of their coaching their sales
[00:10:21] people mentoring it and nurturing it as you mentioned, they jump in a lot of the time and
[00:10:28] solving the deal themselves, rescuing them last minute and so forth.
[00:10:31] But that's not the right coaching activity that they have.
[00:10:35] This might take on the reason why they don't coach a lot of the times in the right way.
[00:10:40] Do you have anything to add?
[00:10:41] What's your opinion to that?
[00:10:43] I mean, I would say that's something I'm certainly faced with today.
[00:10:47] I think that this company has had a culture of promoting from within which is fantastic
[00:10:51] for career progression but definitely limits our leadership team because it's hard for
[00:10:59] them to get to the next level because they don't know how to scale themselves across
[00:11:03] one team let alone get to a second line role.
[00:11:06] And so something that I've recently done is bring in external leadership and even
[00:11:13] I'm thinking about my two directors in the Toronto office, one of them number one sales
[00:11:18] rep in Canada four years in a row.
[00:11:21] Other one an individual who came in externally didn't know dark trades, didn't know how we
[00:11:26] go to market knows how to lead and having those two folks on my leadership team and then
[00:11:31] leaning into one another has been so effective.
[00:11:35] They're essentially a super manager together because they have the best of both worlds
[00:11:40] and so that's been really effective thus far.
[00:11:43] Nice, absolutely.
[00:11:44] Okay.
[00:11:45] I can see that really working.
[00:11:46] I hope it works out for you guys.
[00:11:47] Sounds good.
[00:11:48] Now, you mentioned the first topic is top account and how to break into those.
[00:11:56] Obviously, that's a key part of your strategy.
[00:12:00] In order obviously to do that, you have to create pipeline right now.
[00:12:06] So if you were talking to a sales VP listening right now to this episode that is struggling
[00:12:14] to build enough pipeline for their account teams to close these top accounts, what are the
[00:12:20] top two or three things that you would advise them to do to effectively generate that pipeline
[00:12:26] in order to lead for top account closures?
[00:12:30] I love this question because pipeline as any sales leader knows, this is the lifeblood
[00:12:35] to our business.
[00:12:37] So it's something I think about all day long.
[00:12:41] Here's what I would say very simply and I can go deep into these two.
[00:12:45] One, make it easy for your AES to make it fun and then three measure it.
[00:12:54] I can use an example even from this week.
[00:12:57] So we're struggling generating pipeline on one of our sales teams.
[00:13:01] And so we picked a topic, we picked a persona, we packaged it up with talk track email templates,
[00:13:08] we got our BDR team, our AES team and our CSN team on board with all the content.
[00:13:14] We created call blitz power hours two times this week where we're measuring how many calls,
[00:13:23] how many meetings are being booked.
[00:13:24] It's done in the office so we can all hear and learn from one another.
[00:13:28] And then the winner of this, this is the make it fun part gets a half day off on Friday.
[00:13:33] And so generating pipeline and cold calling is a very hard part of the job.
[00:13:38] But if we make it super easy for them, we make it fun and we measure it.
[00:13:42] I found a lot of success with that.
[00:13:45] Right, right.
[00:13:46] Right, love it.
[00:13:47] We did, we didn't exercise it out organization.
[00:13:52] A while ago now where we did the same thing and under the, or a similar thing should I say.
[00:13:57] And under the sort of the motor off, who are stakeholders?
[00:14:02] Who is who in the zoo and that discussion evolved to us describing certain stakeholders
[00:14:08] in our sales process as animals.
[00:14:11] So this stakeholder are the bears then this stakeholder are dolphins,
[00:14:17] and these are the lions.
[00:14:20] And so for now, everybody is referring well, I'm going after this lion here or this dolphin there.
[00:14:25] And so it's actually quite fun exercise to do for people.
[00:14:29] And these little things do make a difference for sure.
[00:14:33] I love it that you give them half a day off if they achieve that piece.
[00:14:37] Nice.
[00:14:38] We all want it.
[00:14:39] Yeah.
[00:14:40] Why wouldn't you work really on on that?
[00:14:42] Cool.
[00:14:44] So one of the things that we talked before a little bit is about.
[00:14:51] So you mentioned your A's right, your account executives.
[00:14:55] And the fact that you said about the the accountability issue and the fact
[00:15:02] that they need to own their numbers in a way, what does that mean?
[00:15:05] And how does that play hard in your, you know, sales strategy?
[00:15:12] Right.
[00:15:13] I when I was in AE and this was, you know, taught to me a long ago.
[00:15:17] And I was encouraged to be the CEO of my territory.
[00:15:22] And I encourage my AE's and my directors to be the CEO of their territory much like I consider myself
[00:15:28] to be the CEO of Dark Trace Canada.
[00:15:30] And what that means when you're a CEO is that you have a plan whether it's every month or
[00:15:37] every quarter and you're rolling up a number.
[00:15:39] And so when I have my AE's roll up a number, what I want to hear from them is
[00:15:44] what are the deals that are going to get you there?
[00:15:46] Where is the risk in those deals?
[00:15:48] Where is the coverage on that risk?
[00:15:50] And if you don't have enough coverage, then what's your plan to build more pipeline?
[00:15:54] And so when we have forecast calls, that's how our AE's are thinking through this.
[00:15:59] This is their number.
[00:16:00] They're owning that number.
[00:16:02] If there's some deals that are shaky, they have a plan in place to fill it because
[00:16:06] this is their business that they're running and that they're accountable to.
[00:16:12] Right.
[00:16:14] Fabulous strategy, like it a lot.
[00:16:16] Like it a lot.
[00:16:17] You mentioned a Dark Trace.
[00:16:20] This was offline before we started the recording.
[00:16:24] You use a tool that's called MedPig.
[00:16:27] Most of the people, listeners, will be
[00:16:31] familiar with that.
[00:16:32] Lots of organizations are using it for
[00:16:35] for deal execution or qualification, I would argue.
[00:16:40] Can you elaborate a little bit on how a methodology such as MedPig
[00:16:45] contributes to that overall success that you're planning or executing at this stage?
[00:16:51] Yeah, and MedPig is fantastic.
[00:16:53] I've used a few different methodologies in my career.
[00:16:55] All are similar in a lot of ways.
[00:16:58] But really the goal of any of them is
[00:17:01] how can I use a framework to accelerate my deal progression?
[00:17:05] How can I use this framework to expose risk especially early on?
[00:17:10] And what I think is so important is
[00:17:13] sometimes getting to a no faster.
[00:17:16] As an AE, when you're in the deal, it can be so emotional.
[00:17:20] You have your blinders on.
[00:17:22] You can't see your blind spots.
[00:17:24] But when you have a framework like this in place,
[00:17:26] it makes it so much easier for all of us to say,
[00:17:30] it looks like we don't have an executive sponsor here.
[00:17:33] What can we do to fill that gap?
[00:17:35] And it really exposes the risk.
[00:17:37] And here at Dark Twix, we have MedPigDeal Reviews every week
[00:17:41] where the leadership team sits in on some of these bigger deals.
[00:17:45] And we put our heads together and think through the risk
[00:17:49] in any of these deals so that we can again win as a team
[00:17:54] and progress these deals or again get to a no faster.
[00:17:58] And I have this conversation quite a bit with people who use a similar framework
[00:18:05] for a deal qualification because in the end of the day it's all about,
[00:18:09] do we have everything in place to win that deal?
[00:18:13] Is it a winable opportunity for us to be able to stay cold as
[00:18:17] in the sales process?
[00:18:19] Do we have access to those and so forth?
[00:18:21] I speak a lot to people and companies who use something similar.
[00:18:28] And the opinion a lot of the time is, yes,
[00:18:33] this is deal qualification and it is what we have to do
[00:18:37] and it's really important to do that for all the reasons that you have mentioned.
[00:18:41] What we're lacking or what is not included
[00:18:45] is that how do we now execute that?
[00:18:47] So the skills and behaviors on the how to,
[00:18:51] I argue a lot of the times to say okay well,
[00:18:55] a deal qualification is one thing but deal qualification doesn't get the prospect
[00:19:01] or the buyer off their current status.
[00:19:03] So you have to really provocatively engage with them
[00:19:08] and create a certain level of urgency
[00:19:11] and a deal qualification doesn't do that for you.
[00:19:15] What's your response or your opinion on that?
[00:19:19] I agree with you fully and I can speak for the sales organization
[00:19:24] specifically that MedPick and the framework is fairly new to the sales team
[00:19:28] and we've been up against that where they fundamentally understand the framework
[00:19:33] but once we've exposed the risk then what?
[00:19:36] So an example that comes to mind is this concept of qualifying timeline.
[00:19:42] So in a deal we understand that we haven't qualified timelines so what do we do?
[00:19:47] And using something as simple as a mutual closed plan
[00:19:51] which is a tool that a lot of the AEs here had it used before
[00:19:55] so just doing some training around mutual timelines and the benefit of that
[00:20:00] and making sure that we're holding them accountable to doing it on every deal
[00:20:04] we're actually noticing deal acceleration
[00:20:08] and better forecast accuracy too. And so as we're seeing different skill gaps now that we're
[00:20:14] using this framework, we're building our AE training around it.
[00:20:20] Great and so necessary to be able to take advantage of all the
[00:20:25] the gold dust that you create in a way in the upfront early qualification for this.
[00:20:31] Daniel I have so many more questions for you so I suggest we'll do two podcasts if that's
[00:20:37] all right with you. So great. We'll I'm going to have one more question for you and then we'll
[00:20:45] break and then do another recording at the later stage if you are up for it because we haven't
[00:20:51] even touched a surface on all the things that you were mentioning so I really appreciate your insights
[00:20:56] on this. So yeah, if I can go a little bit on a personal level here outside of your professional
[00:21:05] clearly success that you have created in your current situation and everything you are. Our
[00:21:10] research says a traveler, a yogine, a wine lover is that is that true?
[00:21:18] There is. Yes, sure is. So how do these personal interests and the influence of it,
[00:21:25] influence sort of your leadership style or the approach that you're building to that
[00:21:32] to that team culture that you so keen to implement the culture of trust you mentioned. How does
[00:21:37] that influence that side of things? So a good friend and mentor and former leader of mine,
[00:21:45] one time used this term work life integration and I try to live that every day.
[00:21:53] How I show up at work, I am 100% myself it would truly be exhausting if I wasn't
[00:21:59] and one thing I did recently to really encourage this with my teams was we did a values exercise
[00:22:06] in my leadership QBR in January. And it was an opportunity for each of us to share our three core
[00:22:12] values and it allowed us to have a real human connection with one another but now we can actually
[00:22:18] hold each other accountable to live our values at work every single day. And so one of my core values
[00:22:25] is well-being which is you know plays into my yoga practice and it's often that if I'm having a
[00:22:32] really long day, I'll take a moment to go and practice yoga or practice a moment of meditation
[00:22:38] and I'm very transparent about this because I want my team to know that I am showing up as my
[00:22:45] authentic self every day and I'm giving other people the space to live their values as well
[00:22:50] because we spend a lot of time at work and I want people to feel like they can be their authentic
[00:22:56] selves and they can you know live their values and be true to themselves every day in their workplace
[00:23:01] and so that's how I show up in that way. Love it thank you for sharing some
[00:23:08] some personal insights on the podcast here too so I suggest we cut this in two pieces
[00:23:15] Daniel so thank you so much for your amazing insights that you've shared with our audience,
[00:23:22] our listeners I know very much appreciate your input so thank you for that. My dear listeners
[00:23:30] call to action go to globalperformancegroup.coms check out the latest news now
[00:23:35] relisten to the four key pillars that Daniel has shared the top accounts, a strategy, the operational
[00:23:43] excellence, hiring and nurturing talents at the culture of trust. I think it's really something that
[00:23:49] leaders or sales leaders should be looking into and implementing themselves that's your call to
[00:23:54] action. Of course the second call to action is listen to podcast number two take two shall I say
[00:24:01] with Daniel coming your way shortly thanks for tuning in again and until the next episode
[00:24:09] look after yourselves bye bye