[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 Group.
[00:00:23] Welcome yet another fabulous episode of the B2B Sales Trends podcast.
[00:00:28] This show that brings to you HACS tips, thought leadership for sales marketing and customer success.
[00:00:34] It's brought to you by Global Performance Group, our revenue improvement.
[00:00:38] Boutique that implements behavior change for sales people to engage based on outcomes with
[00:00:44] their clients and prospects to increase wind rates to reduce sales cycles and to protect margins
[00:00:51] throughout the sales process. My name is Harry Kendlbach and today I have with me for part two
[00:00:57] Danielle de Corsi, the VP of Sales Canada for Dark Trace. Welcome again Danielle.
[00:01:06] Thank you Harry, happy to be back.
[00:01:09] Fabulous we had such a cool first recording in part one. My dear listeners if you haven't
[00:01:16] had a chance to check it out go back and listen to the first one the first episode we've done
[00:01:22] you first before you listen to this. It's packed with insights and nuggets of value for you as a leader
[00:01:32] but also for sales people that I am sure you will find interested in. So Danielle if we can pick off
[00:01:44] or continue where we let off should I say last. One of the key full pillars that you have shared
[00:01:54] in part one of this was that there are four key things that you as a leader are implementing
[00:02:03] at your current organization which is first of all how do we go after the top accounts?
[00:02:10] prospect more from them and how do we win more of them? How do we create operational
[00:02:16] excellence in that process to close more deals? How do we hire nurture it? How do we create as an
[00:02:23] organization a culture of trust? Now let me ask you a couple of questions around some of them
[00:02:31] and when it comes to really focusing on the first pillar here that I've shared and focusing
[00:02:38] on these top accounts and breaking into these larger logo which everybody by the way has an issue with
[00:02:45] what strategies have you found most effective in gaining access to these decision-makers?
[00:02:52] A burning question that honestly everybody wants the answer to so maybe you can help.
[00:02:58] Here it's honestly probably the hardest part of the job and yet it is this single most effective
[00:03:07] thing that we can focus on to break into big accounts and influence large multimillion dollar
[00:03:14] transformational deals. It's something I certainly don't shy away from in my business
[00:03:20] and when I think about getting access to key decision-makers it really starts off with having
[00:03:26] a perspective and so doing your research what conversations have we had with this company in the past?
[00:03:32] What industry data can we glean? What public facing information can we glean about this company
[00:03:38] so that we can truly build a perspective on how does our product offer you value based on what's
[00:03:45] important to you and so having a very succinct perspective on what matters to this decision-maker
[00:03:52] is very important and making sure that the entire account team knows what that message is.
[00:03:58] Then it comes down to the outreach and with some of our top accounts they're very large,
[00:04:04] their matrix organizations. There are a number of decision-makers that play a part in making a buying
[00:04:10] decision and so doing a power mapping exercise who at my organization is going to own what relationship
[00:04:18] up to the highest level I would not shy away from asking my CEO to connect with the CEO of one
[00:04:23] of my top accounts because they probably share the same language. They're thinking through
[00:04:28] the same things whereas I can own a relationship out of UP level and it continues to go down the org
[00:04:34] structure and then the last piece that I would say is relationship building, we're humans, we're people
[00:04:41] and we're selling to people so building a meaningful connection with these executives is going to
[00:04:47] be instrumental to doing business with them. Such a great summary by the way, the one thing that we
[00:04:57] always come across in my organization and as you know we'll work with a lot of global large sales
[00:05:05] organizations and I think the start that's current there's a variety of stats out there but it's like
[00:05:12] 11 to 12 decision-makers in any one average deal at this moment. Now the challenge that we
[00:05:22] see a lot is that depending on where in the sales cycle you are but salespeople tend to
[00:05:32] want to have the conversation with the people that they are comfortable with so if you do a
[00:05:37] technical sale it's the IT people you know talk about the product, talk about how wonderful their
[00:05:43] product is and all the technical features and benefits and so forth so they're gravitating to
[00:05:50] the conversations that they like to have but once they have to upgrade let's say to one of the
[00:05:55] stakeholders in the sea level that's an issue. Do you see the same thing? Every day every single day
[00:06:02] it's a consistent it's a consistent challenge and that's why it's you know what thing we talked
[00:06:08] about in the last podcast this idea of winning and losing as a team right and so it's not the
[00:06:14] responsibility of the AE to look at every single executive relationship in an account. That's why
[00:06:20] they have leaders and we often lean into our AE's business and take those as coaching opportunities
[00:06:28] as well if they're in those meetings and they could hear how we're speaking to executives
[00:06:32] and then in a one-on-one setting we do a little bit of role playing perhaps on the next deal or
[00:06:37] next engagement they'll have a comfort level to have that type of conversation and talk track too.
[00:06:42] Absolutely that's a great way of doing it if you can manage that from a leadership team also
[00:06:51] to get everybody engaged that's very cool. Sometimes we see that the AE sort of are protective
[00:06:58] about their little relationships that they have and so forth but the reality is nobody's good at
[00:07:03] everything so let's just pull all the resources together that we have in order to serve the common
[00:07:08] objective which is get to feel closed right and engage everybody at the right level that they have
[00:07:15] now obviously the other the second perspective of that is obviously one thing is winning
[00:07:23] bigger accounts or large accounts. The other piece is how do we penetrate these large accounts?
[00:07:33] How do we sell more to existing clients and what's to stop these days that if you need to have
[00:07:40] what 70 to 80% of existing business or revenue needs to come from existing businesses versus
[00:07:47] all the time new business I'm not quite sure how that plays in for your organization but obviously
[00:07:54] growing existing accounts is key. What are the strategies that you find that are important
[00:08:01] when it comes to their topic? When it comes to breaking into these top accounts?
[00:08:08] Well breaking into it we I think we've discussed but also penetrating them and growing them once
[00:08:13] few weeks. Right so when I think through how to work these large accounts especially ones that have
[00:08:22] a footprint there's kind of four areas that I really focus on the first week covered which is
[00:08:28] executive relationships I mean truly just big deals don't get done without them so we need to be
[00:08:33] constantly thinking about that. The second is ground swelling the account so with a lot of these
[00:08:39] larger accounts there's multiple business units so how are we account mapping all of these business
[00:08:45] units? Who has our product who has incumbents where are the champions in each of the business units
[00:08:52] where are the coaches in the business units and how can we make them our internal advocates because
[00:08:57] once we have internal advocates at the business unit level they almost become part of our sales team
[00:09:03] and so ground swelling an account is a very strong tactic to growing a footprint. The next piece would
[00:09:11] be operationalizing the entire ecosystem so anyone touching that account be it BDR customer success
[00:09:19] our technical resources leadership how are they all owning different relationships? How are we
[00:09:25] building swim lanes so that everyone is charging towards the same mission in growing the relationship
[00:09:30] in this account? And then the last piece I would say is really really leading with customer success
[00:09:36] and business value. If we can take some of these smaller use cases and build a value story around
[00:09:43] that to say here's what we solved for and here's what the business impact was that becomes our business
[00:09:48] case that we can take to the higher levels at this company to other business units and again
[00:09:54] that kind of does our selling for us. That idea and this is a huge and up in the sales learning
[00:10:02] and sales training industry for 24 years now so a long time and the big buzz is just what you
[00:10:11] have described right now there is this idea of how do we sell based on used cases and how do we
[00:10:17] sell based on customer outcomes and any other conversation in any direction and there were many many
[00:10:24] over my tenure in this industry right there was value selling there was consultative selling there
[00:10:29] was you know quite different questioning techniques and then inside selling and there was challenging
[00:10:35] selling you know and all these different things in the end of the day nowadays if you don't
[00:10:40] facilitate a conversation based on the outcomes that you can help to create for your customer
[00:10:46] and their organization you're not going to fall on receptive years here not at all and you know
[00:10:54] it's it's a different conversation and people need to get out of comfort zone to do it.
[00:11:00] You mentioned the term groundswelling about explain that a little bit for our listeners including
[00:11:08] me to be honest with you so explain that term and the significance of it in the sales strategy
[00:11:16] so I mean I feel like visually it makes sense so executive alignment would be kind of like going to
[00:11:22] the top of the pyramid and ground swelling would be starting from the ground up.
[00:11:27] And it really starts with as I mentioned before mapping out what all those business you know looks
[00:11:34] like how they make money who the power players are where we have a footprint where's the white
[00:11:40] space where are champions and and building those swim lanes with the internal account team so that
[00:11:47] we're effectively groundswelling this account and the idea is that it's bubbling to the top.
[00:11:58] I think they will resonate a lot with with with our listeners. Now in the first part of the podcast
[00:12:07] we talked a little bit about AES owning their goals and so forth you know operationally
[00:12:16] how do you drive accountability within your sales teams and to to ensure that everybody is aligned
[00:12:23] with the overarching goal that needs to be achieved. How do you do that best?
[00:12:30] Yeah I mean it really starts with me and in my organization I am very clear and very
[00:12:38] transparent about my strategy and my mission and I share that with every single member of my
[00:12:45] organization and I share often as well. And so once I've kind of developed that strategy
[00:12:51] and I put a number around it it's about then defining metrics for my sales team. And so based on
[00:12:59] the goals and objectives I've defined and their role what is expected of them week over week,
[00:13:04] month over month that thing is hairy with sales it's a metrics driven role and so it's very easy
[00:13:11] to define what is expected to reach success and then driving accountability around that. So I
[00:13:19] would say using metrics and defining them making sure that everyone agrees and subscribes to them as
[00:13:26] well visibility. So using tools like sales force we use sales loft internally I mean there's so
[00:13:32] many fantastic technologies out there that give visibility into the behaviors of our sellers.
[00:13:40] And then the last piece I would say is I mean just celebrating right not even the success but the
[00:13:45] outcomes I think about my monthly all hands call we certainly celebrate the AE that has the most
[00:13:51] amount of revenue for the month prior but we also celebrate all the AE's that have a lot of wins
[00:13:56] along the way who had the most phone calls, who generated the most pipeline, who has a deal
[00:14:03] execution that was rock solid that others can learn from, who broke into an executive suite out of
[00:14:09] top account that took a while to get there and has a great story around it. So I think it's about
[00:14:14] celebrating the process as well as the outcomes.
[00:14:20] I'll be a salesperson, would look for a job I would apply it. I would apply to your team. I think
[00:14:27] you have a great thing going there well really good. In the interest of obviously transparency and
[00:14:38] you know we're talking a lot about the great things that you do in there but you and me know
[00:14:44] that a lot of the times we learn how to do these great things by certain challenges of failures
[00:14:51] or setbacks that we had beforehand. So do you have any lessons that you can share that you have
[00:14:59] learned maybe from setbacks of challenges that have influenced that approach that you have just
[00:15:07] shared? Absolutely and I would say that the reason why I've been able to be successful in my
[00:15:15] leadership career is because I've had really really hard years and I've had great years
[00:15:20] and I think one thing that I always come back to is trusting the process. And in those really tough
[00:15:27] years when nothing's closing going back to the process using the tools in front of us like MedPick
[00:15:35] like a sales force and by trusting the process and sticking to it, success will follow even if
[00:15:41] it takes a while. And then that kind of leads me into my next point and I think this comes
[00:15:46] with just years of high highs and low lows but this concept of adjusting your altitude right? So
[00:15:54] when you're having big wins being cool about it and then when you're having big losses not taking
[00:16:00] it too seriously and I think that it's truly a superpower to be able to regulate that.
[00:16:09] I love that superpower, I remember very famous soccer manager, one of my team here in England
[00:16:18] said once you know let's not get over arrogant if we're winning a lot and let's not be too
[00:16:27] down if we lose something. Let's find a consistent level and that's easier said than done,
[00:16:34] isn't it? Oh yeah, I thought trying to say it takes a while to actually live that.
[00:16:44] Don't you have one last question for you and that's typically the question I finish
[00:16:48] on the podcast up these days which is you have seen so many salespeople, you have seen great
[00:16:54] ones, you have seen mediocre ones and if I can call it that way I've seen rubbish ones too.
[00:17:02] Talk to me about what is the behavior that or what are the behaviors and skills
[00:17:10] that top elite salespeople have in order to be at that level and think about it for me,
[00:17:19] what are those top three and even think about it for me, number one, number two and number three
[00:17:25] order. What are the top three skills and behaviors if you can draw up a salesperson to its perfection,
[00:17:32] his or hers perfection, what would those three skills and behaviors be?
[00:17:39] I mean the first thing I would say is generally in my interviewing I look almost exclusively
[00:17:46] for soft skills. I truly believe that if you are smart and have some of the traits I'm going
[00:17:52] to say in a moment that I can really teach you anything and so in my sales tenure and my leadership
[00:17:58] tenure, I've hired people from wildly different industries and coach them to so much success
[00:18:04] because I focused on the soft skills and the ones that I see always have led to success,
[00:18:12] the first one being individuals with a high degree of EQ that are extremely self-aware.
[00:18:20] The second would be grit and so somebody that just shows up every single day regardless
[00:18:27] of how tough it gets and the last I would say is coachable. Somebody that's willing to learn
[00:18:36] somebody that's okay with a little instability and is willing to consistently learn and improve.
[00:18:47] It's interesting these three if I go back to my top three and whether they write that down now
[00:18:55] either the four pillars, one of them was hiring and nurturing talent, the third one, right? So
[00:19:01] the question is when you have those three soft skills EQ grit and coachability,
[00:19:09] that those really fall under that pillar and how do you hire these people? I guess that's another
[00:19:14] podcast right here. That's the third podcast yeah. Daniel, you've been an amazing guest over two parts
[00:19:23] of this podcast. Thank you so much for your fabulous insights and our listeners.
[00:19:30] Very much appreciate your input. Thank you Daniel.
[00:19:33] Thank you, it's been a pleasure and I really love the conversation.
[00:19:38] My dear listeners, two calls to action. Number one go to our website www.globalperformancegroup.com,
[00:19:45] check out the latest news podcast webinars and so forth all to do with the topic of sales
[00:19:50] negotiation and how you engage with different stakeholders. Point two is to apply what Daniel
[00:20:00] has said. I think the top three things, the soft skills part, if you want to be in a lead level,
[00:20:05] go and develop those, learn that make sure you implement some grit and show up every day
[00:20:11] and make sure you receive constructive feedback and be coachable in the process. Thanks everybody
[00:20:18] for tuning in again until the next episode. Look after yourselves. Happy selling everyone. Bye bye.