#336 Interview with Wealth Advisor Martin Capel-Smith by Adrian Evans

One of the greatest challenges we have observed for enterprise sales professionals is – How to create an effective message and story to connect the customer pain with your solution. One of the most accomplished people we have seen, first-hand, is Mike Adams. Mike an over-achieving enterprise sales director, with 20 years plus industry experience. He taught himself storytelling on the job and shares this insight with ambitions sales professionals across the globe to craft effective business stories. Thank you, Mike, for taking time out: 1. Can you tell us about your career and how you have successfully moved from Enterprise sales to storytelling to enable other salespeople? 2. We know how important is it to gain executive level buy-in to influence the size and scope of an enterprise deal? How do you create a compelling story for these stakeholders? 3. In your book Seven Stories ever salesperson must tell – you say “recognise you are the guide not the hero” can you tell us more? 4. For our audience struggling between their own story and creating a business story – what are the first steps? 5. What do you wish you knew early on in your career, that you know today? Our purpose is to enable SaaS Sales Professionals to achieve their potential through the power of life-enhancing connections, shared experiences, and collaborative learnings. If you want to take your career to the next level, as well as improve your skills in Enterprise Sales, please contact me at [email protected]

One of the greatest challenges we have observed is – How to lead people and consistently deliver in the high-pressure environment of technology enterprise sales. One of the most accomplished leaders we have seen, first-hand, is Paul Evans. Paul an over-achieving enterprise sales director, with 20 years plus software industry experience. He is typically brought into an organisation to accelerate revenue growth - this is always achieved by creating high performance and a positive people culture. He has a rare ability to create compelling narratives that connect solutions to decision makers - enabling them to align with key business objectives. He is a stellar relationship builder and thoroughly decent human being. A declaration Paul is a client and we have worked together multiple times. Thank you, Paul, for taking time out: 1. How important is creating psychological safety within your team to delivering high performance? • Paul stated that he believes creating psychological safety is profoundly important, to deliver high perforamnce. • He believes that at its heart Enterprise sales is solving complex problems, we need to be in the place where the highest brain functioning is occurring. • Being creative, innovative, thoughtful, and empathetic to customer needs and relationship is vital. • As humans we are animals and from a biochemical perspective, the more dominant dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin rather than cortisol – (the stress hormone), the greater the likelihood of problem solving and high performance. • Safety is vital to performance and whilst not easy to achieve in the context of enterprise sales with targets to hit. • Paul sees it as his responsibility to set the tone each day for his team. 2. How do you shift your team’s mindset, so they view large deals as a possibility, then a reality? • This occurs at the intersection between vision of possibilities and successful strategy and execution. • Vision and clarity of what is the contestable market share for this account for this market? • What would this deal/account look like at its largest? • Then the hard yards – Paul proactively coaching his team through these stages... Our purpose is to enable SaaS Sales Professionals to achieve their potential through the power of life-enhancing connections, shared experiences, and collaborative learnings. If you want to take your career to the next level, as well as improve your skills in Enterprise Sales, please contact me at [email protected]

"Think like a jungle cat , instinctively, by feel, trusting your skills, backing yourself." This week I had the honour of interviewing Don MacPherson for the Enterprise Sales show podcast channel. Don is an internationally recognized mind coach who has unlocked potential within elite sports professionals from the fields of Formula One racing, Rugby union and even a Wimbledon tennis champion. Don is a warm and practical guide, who also helps members of the public with their anxiety and performance challenges. He shared his view on the noise presented by accidental mind coaches. How he presents a British Lion for optimal performance. How we in enterprise sales can achieve more and with a confident calmness using mental rehearsal. If you are struggling with anxiety or want to take your performance to a new level, I thoroughly recommend Don MacPherson’s recently released book, How to Master Your Monkey Mind - Overcome anxiety, increase confidence, and regain control of your life. "Think like a jungle cat , instinctively, by feel, trusting your skills, backing yourself." Enterprise Sales Club is now LIVE at https://www.enterprisesalesclub.com. Our purpose is to enable SaaS Sales Professionals to achieve their potential through the power of life-enhancing connections, shared experiences, and collaborative learnings. If you want to take your career to the next level, as well as improve your skills in Enterprise Sales, please contact me at [email protected]

As a result of creating In The Zone - How Champions Think and Win Big, Clyde Brolin has peeled back the curtain and revealed why champions achieve ground-breaking results. During his seven-year writing quest (yes, that’s right, seven years!), he interviewed hundreds of the world’s top sports stars including current Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic, seven-time Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton, and one of Britain’s greatest ever Olympians, Sir Chris Hoy. More insights from Clyde: Clyde’s conclusion is that these winners Conceive, Believe, Achieve. They dream big, they visualise, they build their skill relentlessly, believing in themselves to go on and achieve remarkable feats. I was discussing this recently with a mentor of mine, who expressed his mild irritation how visualisation is dismissed by so many. In our hyper-rational, data-driven world it is called mental preparation but is often dismissed as a bit “whacky” and “woo-woo”. Sceptics go further still and promote the disempowering belief that it only works for a select few. It struck me that in the highly-prized legal profession, all is looked at through the lens of the past, with questions such as “What is the legal precedent?” Whilst this prism is essential in many contexts, it is not always the most helpful when trying to deal with the presently uncertain world, definitely not the optimal place to start when creating a compelling future – trying to create beyond what we think is possible for us – and certainly not helpful when trying to reach our potential. As many of you know, when I get frustrated or hear others I care for getting frustrated, I get very curious and seek the truth. So, I decided to stop and reflect on whether this is ‘just for the few’ or whether we can all visualise and make our careers and lives more successful. I did not have to look too far. One of my clients recently became deeply frustrated by the lack of opportunity in his current role. I too was frustrated because he deserves better, he genuinely cares about his customers and the service and technology experience being delivered. He has the ability to create an uncommon level of trust, so I knew he would connect well with those who could reinvent his career. As he is always up for a challenge, I suggested to him that we could create a new job opportunity within three months. Whilst slightly reticent at the beginning, he threw himself into the process quickly. I knew he was ‘both feet in’ when he created a vision board of what his new role would look like within 90 days from now. He started the process of connecting with senior decision-makers, identifying how he could solve their most pressing business problems. He had open, curious conversations, which led to deeper dialogue and gained further referrals. After 23 calls and follow-up actions, I am thrilled to say he has created a new role for himself! ‘The difference that made the difference’ was his attitude – having a vision and trusting the process. In a recent interview for the Enterprise Sales Show, Rob Howes and I asked overachieving Sales Director Paul Evans, “How do you achieve 8-figure deals?” Paul shared how a $27 million deal started out in the account executive’s mind as a $50,000 opportunity; it would have stayed there if they had not thought differently and asked: “What could this deal mean at its largest?”... If you have found this podcast valuable, please like, re-share and pass onto a work colleague or someone within your network whom it could help at this stage of their career. To discover exclusive content for our community, go to https://www.enterprisesalesclub.com.

One of the greatest challenges we have observed from the current sales environment is – How to manage and motivate a diverse and remote global sales workforce. Jeff Riseley is currently the Founder of the Sales Health Alliance and Mental Health Advocate. With over a decade of sales experience – Jeff understands the importance of Mental Health in achieving peak sales performance. Jeff combines his sales and Mental Health expertise to improve sales performance through a mix of sales mentorship and mental health best practices. His strategies have helped sales teams improve their sales process, while helping them become more motivated, resilient and better equipped to tackle stressful events within sales. Who is on a mission to end Mental Health stigma in the workplace. Welcome Jeff thank you, for taking time out: • From our previous call you have an incredible backstory; would you mind sharing that with us please? An over performer, all looked good on the outside not the case on the inside. Cancer survivor. Sales people are corporates athletics, we need to give them, the pads, gloves… • Can you share some of the statistics on mental health within the sales industry? General population, sales and now post Covid. 58% of salespeople struggle with Mental Health. Unfortunately there is still a stigma around addressing this in the workplace. • What specific steps can sales professionals take to improve their mental health, whilst still performing? Challenge their leaders to create a psychologically safe environment. • What advice do you have for the sales leadership community to support their teams and individuals at this time of increased uncertainty? Listen rather than be a problem solver. Data from the World Health Organization shows that for every $1 put into scaled up treatment for common mental disorders (anxiety, depression, burnout, etc), results in a $4 return on improved health and productivity. • What do you wish you knew early on in your career, that you know today? Take off the mask and create human connection and be authentic self. Always positive intent. FOMO and companies will lose top sales talent if not allowing them recovery time. • How would you recommend one follows up if interested in discussing your services further? Email: [email protected] Wanted to share a recent post from Jeff that illustrates the value of building resilience as sales individuals: Sales enablement teams should emulate Formula 1 car companies in their hunt for higher sales performance and efficiency. They are missing these 2 key buckets: When you envision a Formula 1 race and you think about a Ferrari racing around the track... What do you see? You see a multi-million dollar car with the best car technology in the world. In sales this is your tech stack - comprised of all the best sales technologies on the market. You also see a driver who is being fed insight from their team on the sideline. This is your salesperson who is receiving Training and Coaching from their manager. But sales enablement usually stops there. They are missing: 1) Resilience - Practical strategies the driver and salesperson can use to respond to stressful situations (near death experiences or missing target). Tools that protect their Mental Health and keep performance high. This also includes pit stops during the race or quarter that keep the driver, car and salesperson from breaking down. 2) Recovery - Time between races when drivers and salespeople can recover from the stress of competition. Often times, salespeople are never allowed to get off the track. Without these 2 buckets a sales team will never reach peak levels of performance.

One of the greatest challenges we have observed for enterprise sales professionals is – How to win 7 or 8-figure ($10M+) deals. A lot of salespeople talk about closing mega deals, but the reality is that most don’t achieve it or at best had a deal driven by their management. We’ve found that its usually a small percentage of sellers who’ve cracked the code and have done it multiple times. We’d like to unlock the mystery of closing these deals. One of the most accomplished people I have seen, first-hand, is Paul Evans. Paul an over-achieving enterprise sales director, with 20 years plus software industry experience. He is typically brought into an organisation to accelerate revenue growth - this is always achieved by creating high performance and a positive people culture. He has a rare ability to create compelling narratives that connect solutions to decision makers - enabling them to align with key business objectives. He is a stellar relationship builder and thoroughly decent human being. A declaration - Paul is a client and we have worked together multiple times. My Key Takeaways: • Be authentic. • Have greater ambition that you can currently see. Ask “What could this deal mean at its largest?” • Adrian observed that for a customer to sign off an 8-figure deal - 26 million technical spend there must be at least 40 million if not more of value. • Implication for ESC community if you want to sell a £26 million deal identity and solve a £40 million problem, for someone with the purse and power. • Create early executive engagement. • Consultative selling builds trust and enables bigger wins. • When you know what your do best in this world, you can enjoy it and be excellent at it. Paul feels his career like a Catherine Wheel a slower start but now fully energised operating at speed. If you have found this podcast valuable, please like, re-share and pass onto a work colleague or someone within your network whom it could help at this stage of their career. To discover exclusive content for our community, go to https://www.enterprisesalesclub.com.

One of the greatest challenges we have observed for enterprise sales professionals is – How to win 7 or 8-figure ($10M+) deals. A lot of salespeople talk about closing mega deals, but the reality is that most don’t achieve it or at best had a deal driven by their management. We’ve found that its usually a small percentage of sellers who’ve cracked the code and have done it multiple times. We’d like to unlock the mystery of closing these deals. One of the most accomplished people I have seen, first-hand, is Paul Evans. Paul an over-achieving enterprise sales director, with 20 years plus software industry experience. He is typically brought into an organisation to accelerate revenue growth - this is always achieved by creating high performance and a positive people culture. He has a rare ability to create compelling narratives that connect solutions to decision makers - enabling them to align with key business objectives. He is a stellar relationship builder and thoroughly decent human being. A declaration - Paul is a client and we have worked together multiple times. Thank you, Paul, for taking time out: 1. How do you achieve such big deals? · Three possible routes: · RFP, by that point written by someone else and have another in mind. · Defined project, or · Consultative approach - you proactively discover what the customer really needs. · Third option whilst harder enables you to help the customer more than they know themselves. It is the most uncertain. · Reading the annual report will give you the investment intentions of the company. Discovery work, contacts in the company to build up a picture of what the need is. Joining dots and aligning your solution to these is the optimal route to larger deals. · Early executive engagement - win the psychological and social contract before commercial contract. · It feels authentic to Paul to know the executives at the beginning of the process and have relationships in place rather than last few days before deal sign off. · A $27 million deal started out in the account executive mind as a $50-100,000 opportunity, it would have stayed there if they had not thought differently and asked: o “What could this deal mean at its largest?” o Burning platform, a high level of pain allows larger deals. 2. One of my observations is how you connect with senior level executives and create a compelling narrative; can you tell us more about that? · Paul paints the pictures of where the customer is now, a vision of an outcome and how the technology will close that gap. · At a human level we are ready for story. For business, a compelling narrative arc. So, tell that story well. · Rob recalls the time when working with Paul at an offsite sales conference at Juniper Networks Rob and Paul in the same team to create a pitch for client business. Paul created a compelling narrative which became the winning pitch. · A 2-year active customer engagement process led to the eventual signing of a 26million deal. · Consultative selling builds trust and enables bigger wins. 3. What do you wish you knew early on in your career, that you know today? · Take more risks, not unmeasured, yet explore possibilities. Be braver. · Paul like a Catherine wheel, gaining speed and energy. Would have challenged himself to step into the unknown more. If you have found this podcast valuable, please like, re-share and pass onto a work colleague or someone within your network whom it could help at this stage of their career. To discover exclusive content for our community, go to https://www.enterprisesalesclub.com.

One of the greatest challenges we have observed for enterprise sales professionals is – How to win 7 or 8-figure ($10M+) deals. A lot of salespeople talk about closing mega deals, but the reality is that most don’t achieve it or at best had a deal driven by their management. We’ve found that its usually a small percentage of sellers who’ve cracked the code and have done it multiple times. We’d like to unlock the mystery of closing these deals. One of the most accomplished people I have seen, first-hand, is Paul Evans. Paul an over-achieving enterprise sales director, with 20 years plus software industry experience. He is typically brought into an organisation to accelerate revenue growth - this is always achieved by creating high performance and a positive people culture. He has a rare ability to create compelling narratives that connect solutions to decision makers - enabling them to align with key business objectives. He is a stellar relationship builder and thoroughly decent human being. A declaration - Paul is a client and we have worked together multiple times. Thank you, Paul, for taking time out: 1) Can you tell us about your career and how you have successfully moved from Individual Contributor to Manager to Director? • Early career spent at IBM and a systems integrator; sales foundation skills built here. Spent eight years at Oracle and moved through these positions from account director to lead to sales director to country leader. Now at IFS on the senior leadership team. • Paul a self-confessed “Bit of a geek”, enjoys and understands the technology and loves what it enables. • Paul’s long hinterland of experience - he has sold every type of technology from, consulting, infrastructure to applications, feels an authenticity when leading teams as never as them to do something he has not. • Nothing gives him great pleasure than ensuring his teams are successful and him contributing to that success. As a sales leader my success is assured through their success. • A key inflexion point for Paul was when we started working together. He invested in himself at a time when he wanted to be more assertive about his future. He felt that as a coach I brought him an independent lens which allowed him to see a path beyond what was visible and known. Allowed him to build a stronger narrative about himself. 2) How have you been able to make the transition from working for a globally recognised brand that employs 100,000+ people to a smaller business culture yet still overachieve? • Raise the level of ambition and scale of transaction. • Transformed UK Sales team at current company IFS. Changing the culture, mindset, expectation, and execution resulting in significant success during the last challenging 18 months. • Coaching and supportive of his team and specifically being wingman for high performing Account Executives on significant opportunities. 3. How important is it to gain executive level buy-in to influence the size and scope of an enterprise deal? How do you navigate a complex organisation? · Alignment to value. · Build an impactful business case and investment case. One or two-page executive summary. · Go deep and broad in the customer organisation, multi-level engagement. Create early executive engagement, its genuine and authentic. · 3 areas where software add value by enabling: Do more with it to drive revenue. Reduce costs. Managing risk or Compliance. Blend these together. Build a solid business case to take to the board. If you have found this podcast valuable, please like, re-share and pass onto a work colleague or someone within your network whom it could help at this stage of their career. To discover exclusive content for our community, go to https://www.enterprisesalesclub.com.

My recent podcast, “How to visualise”, has certainly resonated with the Enterprise Sales community. Many found it a practical exercise; some of you commented it was a reminder to take back ownership of your own careers and a few of you have fully embraced the value of daily visualisation to create your next job opportunities. This quote from performance psychologist Dr Michael Gervais, has refined my ability to embrace and teach visualisation: “The visualisation process needs to be as real as possible… not just vision but all senses if possible. It requires a disciplined approach of embodying and experiencing life-like images.” Knowing the best route for your next large enterprise deal or career trajectory is tough at the best of times. Then add in the after-effects of the pandemic, little face-to-face contact, and pressure to over-deliver in the day job. The life of a sales professional can be really difficult. I recently explored outside our field to gain some inspiration and insights. I read the book The Outstanding Actor, by Ken Rea, Professor of Theatre at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, which outlines how to overachieve in this field. The book has three themes that we can learn from: · Embrace the learning of your craft and always get better · Know your values and build your character · Always be at peak condition, ready to perform This final one struck me. Sir Laurence Olivier, who was the outstanding actor of his generation, was still having weekly voice lessons at aged 68. He was ready for his next performance, even if not always sure when it would come to him. He was considered very gifted. Yet on further inspection of his back story, he was extremely hard working, always rehearsing, deliberately practising and refining his relentless work ethic at the Old Vic and his pioneering work at the National Theatre. His dedication, scholarship, determination, practice and sheer grit is what made him one of the greatest actors – if not the greatest – of the twentieth-century. This sounds like ‘the talent code’, rather than a gift from God, as highlighted by author Daniel Coyle in his exceptional book, The Talent Code – Greatness isn't born. It's grown: “Although talent feels and looks predestined, in fact we have a good deal of control over what skills we develop, and we have more potential than we might ever presume to guess.” There are many parallels with acting in enterprise sales such as long periods of work before consistently producing the ultimately exceptional performance. Recently, I have noted from a number of my clients that they are at the peak of their sales career, the more experienced they are. They are adding greater value to customers, having a broader impact, and closing larger deals than ever before. This is best summed up by Rob Howes, co-founder of ESC, who in his day job is an overachieving Strategic Account Manager at Collibra: “I could not have closed this significant deal at any other stage of my career. It is as if I needed all those previous experiences and engagements to bring this together.” ...As one of Britain’s most decorated Olympians, Sir Chris Hoy, said to author of the stellar book - In The Zone, Clyde Brolin: “People think champions are a different breed, but we all underestimate what we’re capable of…” Why not raise the level of ambition of the size of your next deal? You will be surprised at what can be achieved. Our purpose at Enterprise Sales Club is to enable SaaS Sales Professionals to achieve their potential through the power of life-enhancing connections, shared experiences, and collaborative learnings. If you have found this podcast valuable, please like, re-share and pass onto a work colleague or someone within your network whom it could help at this stage of their career. To discover exclusive content for our community, go to https://www.enterprisesalesclub.com.