Revenade Sales Leaders discuss the best ways to hire new sales talent.Transcript Hello and welcome to the Sales Experience. A semi-monthly podcast where we will share insights, lessons learned and best practices from top sales leaders. Each episode will provide experience based information that can be immediately applied to help your company grow its top line.----more---- Sarah:                My name is Sarah Lohrmann and I will be your host and moderator on your journey through the world of sales. To kick things off today, I’m going to be talking to two of Revenade’s sales leaders about a topic that’s becoming increasingly more important across the country, how to hire new sales people. But first, let’s start with a brief look at this day in business history where we’re gonna highlight a key event that took place on this day.                                                                On this day in business history in 1867, the U.S. made a significant business decision and ratified a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska. This purchase allowed the U.S. to add over 586,000 square miles of new territory for only two cents an acre. Today, Alaska helps boost the U.S. economy through their oil, natural gas and fishing histories. Definitely not a bad purchase.                             Now I’d like to welcome back Scott Williamson and Tim Phillips from Revenade. Both Scott and Tim have been featured on previous segments of our podcast and we’re so glad to have them back with us today. Thank you both so much for joining us.   Scott:                 Thanks for being here.   Tim:                   Thanks for having us, Sarah, good to be with you.   Sarah:                Alright, so let’s say I’m a CEO of a new technology company looking to on-board new sales talent. What’s the first thing I should do and where do I go from there?   Scott:                 That’s a great question, you know, we get that a lot from entrepreneurs who find Revenade either though this podcast or webinars or just web searches and the interesting thing is that a lot of times, entrepreneurs are sales people and they have passion around a particular piece of technology, it could be hardware, could be software, could be some integration of those line of services. And they think it is whatever they’re representing is the single most powerful solution in the world and anybody ought to be able to sell it. In fact, words that we hear a lot are that it’s as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, that you just need to go out there, next thing you know, the sales are going to fall from the sky like manna from heaven and that’s almost always not the truth.   In fact, sales is just not an easy profession to start with, then you add on to the fact that the company’s brand new, then you add on to the fact of that that it's a technology oriented firm where by definition, you’re going to be selling a combination of technology related solutions and not just price based sale, it becomes very, very difficult. So the first thing to understand is sales is not easy and you will in fact have to find somebody who’s experienced and knows really how to sell.                   The second thing to understand, and one of the most common mistakes that startup CEOs make is they think well I need to go find somebody with a book of business. And so they hire some crusty individual who comes to them, they find them through their network, this person says I’ve got a large Rolodex of people or a large contact list in today’s world, I’ve got lots of connections on LinkedIn and I’m gonna find a way to get you in the door. Chances are, unless that person came to you, say, from a VC or through kind of a net worth arrangement, they don’t have that book of contacts and chances are if they did, they wouldn’t be talking to you because if they’re that valuable, they can get their money elsewhere.   So what you really want to do is find somebody who is seasoned and experienced, it’s not somebody who’s brand new. A person who’s brand new, which is one of the other problems we see new CEOs get into is they’ll go out and they’ll think in terms of cheap. So they’ll get somebody who’s inexpensive we see probably in the first half of their career and they think okay, again, it’s easy to sell product and so I’ll get somebody new and off I go, but you want somebody who’s a combination of those. You want somebody who’s probably in the first half of his or her career yet has 10 plus years of experience, who has a technology background or a technology sales background and you want that person to be someone who you would consider a partner in the business because chances are, you’re going to give them some sort of an equity stake or a minimum something like options for them to be able to participate in the growth of the company.   You also need to think about that person not just as a sales person today but somebody who can be a sales leader as the company grows. So initially out of the chute, the CEO is going to be doing a lot of the sales, he’s going to bring in—or he or she is gonna bring in whoever this sales player-slash-coach is, those two people will go out and do most of the sales but that person needs to be capable of growing your company. And so I think those are some of the key factors in that process.   Sarah:                Thanks, Scott. So as your company continues to grow, what traits do you think employers should really look for whenever they’re hiring new sales people?   Tim:                   Great question, Sarah. As we’ve dealt with a lot of clients and ourselves hiring hundreds of sales people, there are some unique characteristics and traits that the top performing 1% sales people all seem to have. Now there aren’t any universal truths in this but we were in an interview the other day with a CEO and it almost took all the air out of the room when we asked, so the last sales person that you hired, why did you hire them? And his answer was, he made me laugh. And yes, being affable and having a personality that’s engaging is a good characteristic to have as a sales professional and having a personality that will give you the ability to establish a rapport with someone is very important.                              So there’s some foundational traits that all top 1% sales people have that we’ve found over time that are very important and the key thing to remember is someone’s interviewing for a job whether it be a sales position or any position, that’s going to be the best sales job that they’re doing in order to get that job. So we want to peel back the layers, if you will, in the questions that we’re asking in the interview process, and several things we need to find in terms of those foundational elements are people that have a positive mental attitude, people that have the ability to find opportunity and solutions in any situation and in that, they’re tenacious.                           There’s an old adage that the sale doesn’t start until the first no is uttered. And it’s very true and so we want to find people that can handle not only the no but someone that might actually push back a little bit on them or find fault in what they’re doing or what they’re saying that they have the resiliency and tenacity to come back again with that positive mental attitude and showing that there’s an alternative or different opportunity or solution to what we’re trying to do.                             The other thing we find with sales people, and many times people gravitate towards, well I’m a people person so that means that I’m going to be good at sales. Maybe, maybe not and the reason I say that is, probably more important than being a people person per se, is someone that is a disciplined person because sales, quite frankly, is a very complex process. There’s multiple stages and understanding that process and looking at it in terms of how do I manage that process in discipline and investment in my time? And finding opportunities that are really bona fide opportunities that allow me to be an extremely disciplined, deep qualifier so that I move on instead of being polyan-ish or viewing every opportunity is, well I’m gonna close this one, is really what separates the true professional from the amateur sales person.                             The other real key element that you have to have to be an effective sales person is you have to have very strong math skills. You have to have the ability to—not only when it comes to pricing but also looking at what can I do in terms of discounts and percentages, looking at my quota, how do I break that down, and then how do I manage each of those, again, in a structured and disciplined manner? Again, the key thing that every sales person needs to have is strong communications skills. One of the big mistakes we see oftentimes is that we may interview someone for a position but we don’t use the right type of interview for that position.                              Let me give you a real example. We have someone who’s selling product and it's a pure inside sales position that will be done either online or in combination with the phone. There’s really no need to interview that person in person if it’s not required that they’re selling in person. Correspondingly, the inverse of that is if what I sell is a complex sale and it requires a life demonstration or requires that this person have C-level executive presence, then by all means, I want to see that person in action and in that interview process actually demo-ing my product or service in order to earn the position.                              I think the other thing we want to look for is someone that has a consistent track record of success. Now that includes selling success so in you prior role, what is that you sold, did you meet your quota, did you exceed your quota, if so, how much and so maybe for those that are entry level sales people that have not had much sales experience. One of the times that many reasons people hire college graduates, it’s not so much that they received this great body of knowledge earning a degree, what it really demonstrates, this is someone who can take a process with a defined goal in a period of time and they can follow the requisite requirements to earn a college degree. That shows someone who can make a commitment, follow through and meet the requisite requirements to do that.                                                                Am I saying that everyone, to be successful in sales, needs to have a college degree? Absolutely not, but that’s an indicator—and looking for those, what have you accomplished in your life, what are some of the key milestones or achievements that you had that you’re most proud of? And then tying back into that, what were some of the challenges that you had to overcome in order to attain that? The other thing, the last thing I will say is very, very important and becoming more important is very strong written communication as well as Microsoft Office tools and capabilities, using those tools to present a professional proposal; everything from Word to PowerPoint to Excel and having those baseline skills in order to be successful, so those are just some of the keys.                              Again, the leap of faith hire simply because wow, I really like this person and it was an engaging conversation and it made me laugh, probably the biggest pitfall that we see. The other thing is, I would recommend and suggest that multiple people within the organization interview the candidate and in that process, that they all ask the same questions of the candidate to look for consistency and continuity in the answers so that in your debrief, you have the ability to come together and make sure that there’s alignment and different people aren’t getting different answers just for consistency.   Sarah:                Thanks, Tim. I know that identifying traits can be really key in your sales success. Since the recession, I know that there’s been a lot of big variety of different age groups that are entering or reentering the workforce. What are, really, the pros and cons of hiring a newcomer versus seasoned sales people?   Tim:                    Excellent question. At a very base level, there are pros and cons to both but I’d say that the biggest pro to hiring a new hire that has minimal, if any, experience is that you are hiring that individual and they don’t have any bad habits that have to be undone or retrained, they’re more of a clean slate. So if your sales organization is a process driven organization, you have key performance indicators, metrics and are very organized and can train this individual, that lends itself to hiring the new hire.                             On the other hand, if I don’t have those types of things in place, let’s say I’m more of a startup and to what Scott talked about in the earlier question, I would tend to gravitate more towards the experienced hire but I really want to be focused and intentional and making sure that that individual is a good cultural fit with the rest of the members of my team with the organization.   One thing that can be highly destructive is as Scott was describing is I have this master network or Rolodex, I can sell anything, I’ll go sell it, don’t call me, I’ll call you when we’re ready to close and then they go out and you don’t hear from them and they’re this lone wolf, you’re always wondering, well when are they gonna close a deal, or six months into this and we’ve hired somebody, have not seen any tangible results and as a result, there’s usually a failing and a parting of the ways. Scott, what do you think?   Scott:                 Yeah I think what you said is right. Some other things that come to mind is I think about this, I mean, some obvious things, a newcomer, somebody who’s in the first, say, third of their career in sales is gonna be cheaper. Chances are, depending on what you sell, they’re not gonna sell as much as somebody who’s more experienced. If they’re more experienced, obviously they’re gonna be a little bit more expensive for you. I do think though that it depends a lot on what you’re selling. So it really kind of goes back to that first question you asked me, Sarah, in that if you’re selling something that’s a lower dollar figure, a lot of times the people who are newcomers in the market are a better fit because you’re selling a lower dollar product, whether it's a software product, hardware or whatever or giving a service, it's more of a numbers game. You’ve got to crank through many, many, many prospects before you finally get to somebody who’s a lead, before you finally convert that lead into a qualified lead and then work that all the way through the funnel to close.                             Somebody who’s more experienced has probably already been through that, okay? And so correspondingly, they don’t want that type of sale and they’re probably not going to put the effort out there to be able to really succeed in that market. So I’d say if it’s a lower dollar sale that requires more of a numbers approach to how you sell, then a newcomer probably has a lot of pluses there.   Kind of following along with what you said, Tim, about a clean slate, the person who’s in the earlier part of their career doesn’t know what they don’t know. And so they might blissfully walk into the line of fire with a market that nobody else would touch and they somehow find a way to pull it out and succeed, right? And so I don’t mean this as a condescending thing but they’re somewhat childlike in their view of the world and sometimes that can be really, really good; now contrast that with the experienced person.   I had lunch yesterday with the CEO of a $50 million software and services firm and he was expressing his frustration with some of his staff who are client facing from a sales point of view, account growth and new sales point of view. Like I said, we sell to vice presidents of these gas processing plants and chemical plants and things like that and somebody who walks in the door who’s 25 years old who’s super, super bright, very articulate and very, very good and will have a long and fruitful career. But they don’t have enough years of experience for the buyer to take them seriously.   So sometimes, especially in a very complicated, high dollar sale, you need to get somebody who’s more experienced because that person has to portray the image that you’re trying to get out there in front of your clients to show that you can sit at the same table with them, you’ve earned your right to be in the club and so that’s why you’re there talking to them. So I think it kind of depends on the product and some of the service depends on the stage of the company.   Sarah:                Thanks, those are some really good insights. My last question is, how do you see technology playing a role in all of this? Like do you advise people to search for talent online, use social media or do you think that face-to-face interactions are more beneficial?   Scott:                  Very interesting. I think the technology has dramatically changed the face of business in the last five years alone and when you look back longer than that, the change is exponential. Even five years ago when we were interviewing people, the job boards ruled big up on the internet, people posted their jobs on Monster, Get Jobs or whatever. But what’s interesting with those job boards is that they’ve gone through the normal type of evolution that you expect with any type of new offering like that. And it used to be that you could actually get a lot of people off those boards, and you still can, but I think what’s also happened is there’s been sort of a stratification of different types of job boards, so now the general job boards may be useful for certain types of roles but there are job boards now on the internet that are specifically focused towards sales and there are different online offerings that are specifically focused to industries so there’s a mix between those things.                              So I think that the online technology can be extremely useful in terms of casting a broad net if you want to, with general boards. You can also line—cast a very focused—one line in the water with some of these online boards. The thing to understand though is that frankly, there’s no substitute for a face-to-face interaction unless of course as Tim talked about earlier, where you’re hiring for somebody who’s just going to be on the phones. But if you’re looking to hire an outside sales person, somebody who’s going to be in front of your clients in whatever stage of the sales cycle, we strongly recommend that you do the face-to-face interaction with them and that you use the internet and other technology to help you draw those people in.                             You know, something that we’ve found has been very meaningful in creating sales people, the best sales people are already employed unless you just happen to be one of those sales people in a company that’s failed or you’re tired of that company, that does happen. But more often than not, the best sales people are already employed. So how do you find those people? They’re not necessarily out on a job board, right, and in that case, you might look to LinkedIn, you might do searches inside of LinkedIn for the types of companies you want to be like, right? Maybe you’re competitors or maybe a company that you have a very high admiration for in a related but different market but you might do some LinkedIn searching for them.                              So LinkedIn can be an extremely useful tool for that and then I also think there’s a series of screening technologies you can use. We know—we have one client who hired somebody with a criminal background and they were not aware of that. And so that hasn’t changed in the last 20 or 30 years, right? You still need to give fundamentals and basics, which is make sure that if somebody walks in the door and they put a resume in front of you and it looks fantastic that there’s actual truth behind that and so we still strongly recommend that people go and do the basic blocking and tackling for that.                              But technology does give you the ability to screen these people before they come in the door, we’ve all heard a million times, it bears repeating, go look for their LinkedIn profile, go look for their Facebook profile, go look for whatever the new whiz bang site of day is that people paste their pictures or their comments on and understand that if you’re not doing that, your clients might be. And so your clients may find that Joe or Jane who walks in the door and looks like a million bucks, who can throw three or four sentences together like it's music, may in fact have some personal habits that they don’t like, so that’s always going to be out there. Tim, what are some things you’ve seen?   Tim:                    I think I want to take this question from a different perspective because you were doing it from how am I finding the needles in the haystack and I thought that was really good advice. I think the other thing we have to be very aware of is the Gen Y Millennials that are going to be coming into this—that are already here and are going to continue to come into the work force and the increasing disproportionate rate and I think it’s imperative that as a business owner or a CEO that your website and beyond your website, your online presence be attractive and engaging to the highest value perspective, sales people that you’re wanting to bring into your organization because the Gen Y Millennials are the researchers. Simply because you posted a want ad on a job board maybe five or 10 years ago would get you a basketful of resumes that you sort out and go through, call down to the top three.   Think of this metaphor, I want to create a magnet that attracts the needles out of the haystack to me instead of having to dive into the haystack to find the needles. And it has to be the consistency and the message of who we are, what our culture is, is this someplace that best people want to work at? Is there meaning to what we do beyond just yeah, I can make a lot of money with my commissions, so on and so forth, that’s but a part of it. And I think the technology today—and you mentioned several of the channels, from LinkedIn to Facebook, Pinterest, all these other things, we need to be very thoughtful not just in our marketing to sell our products and services but to attract and then to retain the very best people that we can find. And going forward, it’s going to be more and more important. What do you think?   Scott:                 Yeah I agree, I think—I really, really like the needle in the haystack example. We have a client who two years ago, couldn’t hire people because nobody knew who they were. And so working with them, we posted job positions out on the various boards, we use outside computers, all the traditional mechanisms. Over the last few years, we’ve really focused on helping them increase the brand and in doing that, an unintended consequence of that was that all of a sudden, we get people submitting resumes to us. So the best people, the people we really want are finding us as opposed to us having to find them. So again, I think it’s a really good point and I appreciate the question, Sarah.   Tim:                   Yeah I think the last point I’d make on that is as a general recruiting process is leverage the law of like attraction. If you have a top sales person, look where that person came from, who are their friends and who are their colleagues where they worked before and recruit those. Find those people because it’s just the natural law of physics, water sinks to its own level, people are attracted to people of a like type and if you found a good one someplace, go back to that place and hire more.   That’s why many times, we talked early on about the characteristics and attributes we’re looking for and the baseline base level of discipline, showing up on time, being ready to work, being focused, requiring minimal supervision. I think that’s another key one we didn’t talk about but especially if you’re a startup CEO, that person is going to need to be very disciplined and focused and self-sufficient. So where would we find that type of individual? Prior service military. That’s another key area to look for.   So all of these things, there are no magic bullets, if you will, but it’s very important to look at it holistically and look for the characteristics and attributes of what it is that we’re trying to sell and where we are in the evolution of our business that will tell us and help us in finding, attracting, retaining and growing a team of sales professionals of a stable business enterprise.   Sarah:                I think we’re just about out of time now, thank you guys so much for all the great advice and insights today. Thanks again, Scott and Tim, for joining us to share your experience and best practices for sales. We hope that you guys enjoyed this session and we look forward to seeing you on our next podcast as we continue our journey through the world of sales.   Tim:                   Thanks, Sarah.   Scott:                 Take care, Sarah. For more information on Revenade’s sales predictability model, sales playbook or to see a transcript of this podcast, visit our website at www.Revenade.com. You can also find best practices on our YouTube channel.

Revenade sales leaders discuss the cost of your minute and time management skills.Transcript Hello and welcome to the sales experience, a semi-monthly podcast where we reach our insights, lessons and best practices from top sales leaders. Each episode will provide experience-based information that you can look by to help your company grow its top line.----more---- Stephanie:    Hi my name is Stephanie Jordan and I will be your host and moderator on your journey through the word of sales. To kick things up today I will be talking to two of Revenade’s sales leader about the money value of time. But first let’s start with a brief look at this day in business history where we highlight the key events that’s took place on this day. Stephanie:    On this day in history in 1968, Boeing rolled out his first 737 aircraft paving the way for commercial flying as we know it today. The 737 made such an impact that there are 1,250 airborne at any given time on average. This means two are departing or landing somewhere in the world at any five seconds. Today the 737 is the bestselling jet airliner in the history of aviation. I would definitely call that a great business innovation. Stephanie:    Now I would like to take a minute to introduce Scott Williamson and Tim Phillips from Revenade. Both Scott and Tim have been featured on previous segments of our podcast and we are so glad to have them back again. Thank you both for joining us. Scott:             Thanks a lot Stephanie. Tim:                Stephanie, good to be with you. Stephanie:    Well, Scott and Tim, there is one thing that holds true all across the globe 365 days a year, there are only 24 hours in a day. How each person decides to spend those 24 hours is completely up to them. But today I will like to talk to you two about time management and specifically the money value of time. First, why don’t you talk to me about what the phrase “money value of time” means to you? Tim:                Sure I will be happy to, Stephanie. Great question. It’s an unusual phrase and what it really does is it plays off of the fact that we all know what the time value of money is. We may have been in a financial analysis class or investment class, and in there we learned that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. It’s the basis for all compounding but also for discounting future cash flows so we could make financial decisions. What it really means, though, is that we turn that and talk about the money value of time.  And you mentioned the word time management as one of the things we are going to be talking about today. When you really talk about time, time is only the truly non-renewable resource that we have and frankly we can’t manage time. The only thing we can do is to make a decision on what activities will we invest our time in and so when we tie that to the money value of time, what activities will we invest our time in that are going to yield the highest result in the shortest period of time. That could be in terms of sales or return on that investment and so that’s why we use that term so frequently, “the money value of time.” It really helps give us a good mind-set and how we are investing our time and to be very judicious in that. Scott:             Yeah, I think that a really good point in that far too often, especially in the corporate world we see people looking at their effectiveness based on how many meeting they are on. Like “I am so busy I have got meeting after meeting,” and they confuse activity as being a measure of value instead of results. So I think Tim’s phraseology here about the money value of time really puts the emphasis on the fact that let’s look at the things that we have to do and think in terms of which of the things that I’m doing today can I order based on the priority of whether or not those are going to turn into results. So instead of focusing something like hey let’s get it in terms of “hey let’s get together and meet with a client or let’s meet internally” just focus in the terms of what do I need to do to move this particular opportunity the next stage, what do I need to do to close this opportunity, what do I need to do to set up prospects and try to turn those prospects into qualified leads and then how can I organize my time based on the money value of those items. Far too often I see people building to do lists and they say this is a high. Medium or low. I ask them, “Why did you decide what was a high, medium and a low?” and a lot of the time they’ll say it’s based on the due date. Sure dues dates are important but more important to the sales person is how was that going to help me get to a win and if that particular item is not helping me get closer to win, maybe I will reprioritize and think like why are my even doing that task. Tim:                Right. Stephanie:    Yeah, I think you can really tie together the money value of time and time management. And you know I was recently reading a Forbes article where they were highlighting how effective time management can lead to a greater work-life balance. Can one of you guys speak on this. Scott:             Yes I think that’s a really interesting topic and frankly it’s kind of near and dear to my heart. We recently we went through a values exercise at Revenade, where we brought the team together, and egad, we actually went out and hired an outside consultant and had someone facilitate the meeting to ensure the actual thoughts weren’t monopolized by one or two people. In the course of doing that, that values exercise is really interesting to me because first I became very apparent to me very early on with our team that worked life balance is an important value. It was something our team really strived to achieve. What was also apparent to me individually is that I found that was an affront to me, you know I’m a person born in the 60s, whether I am GenX or Baby Boomer is sort of irrelevant. I have many of the characteristics of a Baby Boomer, and as such I have the tendency to think like you tend to work and work so that you can have a life. So today’s generation of new sales people think very differently from me. So what we really came to is a kind of compromise if you will, or recognition that worked life balances maybe the wrong way to couch it. Maybe it’s more work-life flexibility, and understanding that we are trying to achieve balance but balance isn’t always achieved meaning every day and you spend half your time on personal things and half of your time on work things. Maybe it means there are sometimes where you spend the majority of your time working personal things because your personal life really requires that. Maybe it means there are other times when you are spending on professional items because in fact, that’s what your professional life requires. So if you then start to think about that in terms of the sales professional, the sales professional in some respects is at the mercy of his prospects and his clients and doesn’t always have the ability to tell their clients, “No I can’t do that because I have to go to take Johnny to the doctor or Sue to softball practice. So what is really going to require, I believe, in today’s world is much more organization on behalf of the sales professional to make sure that he or she has outlines of a week or month as much as possible well in advance. No one can plan for unforeseen things, but what we can do is make sure we have planned out the activities that we do have control over and that we understand when those things need to be done, what their relative priority is and then, as we just talked about, how they’re impacting the money value of time. If we do those things as far and advanced as we can, and if we effectively communicate that to all the various parties that we have to work with, including our family, and if we do all that and are diligent about it, what I’ve found at least is that it gives you a sort of fighter’s chance of being able to figure out how to get that work-life balance with that work-life flexibility at such a level where it’s such effective and meaningful to you. Stephanie:    That’s really  great information. Are there any particular tips that you’ve noticed throughout your career, Scott or maybe Tim, that have really helped you boost your time management skills? I know that it’s really beneficial for me to start my day by mapping out the to-do list of tasks and tackling the one that I see to be a little time consuming first just to start up the day with a sense of accomplishment.  What about you guys? Tim:                Yeah, I agree with you and I think it’s wise that you have awareness of your daily routine. Not that we want to be creatures of habit and routine, but having a structure in how we approach the day. I was very fortunate early in my career to have a great mentor and very frankly he said ‘’plan the work and work the plan’’ and in that, tying back to this money value of time, what activities do I have and, much like what Scott was saying, that only today but this week or this month or this quarter that are going to help me to close business to hit my quota and exceed my quota and then break that down into the basic elements of the activities. Now are we saying make a to-do list of every email that I need to send? No, but what we need to do is… what specific activity do I need to take to move an opportunity to the next stage in the funnel or the sales process and in doing so that gives me the ability to be working on multiple deals simultaneously because many times what happens is that we get borne in on a particular opportunity and it captures all of our time and the others fall way and through diligence we close that opportunity but then we wake up after the closing and we have nothing else in process so we are scrambling and trying to catch up. So, breaking it down into focused time for activities on each opportunity within the day really works well. The other thing is having the flexibility to be able to move an opportunity but more importantly to de-qualify an opportunity. I think one of the greatest times sinks we see in sales professionals is a lack of discipline and being a disciplined de-qualifier. The really great sales professionals are looking at every opportunity to de-qualify, to free up time that will allow them to focus on those pursuits that are genuine and bonafide rather than wasting a bunch of time on activities on something that may never come to pass. That really is the true differentiator between a professional and an amateur and then having the ability to leverage technology I think that’s another key and technology is great and we use to carry paper day timers and things of that nature. Now with technology it gives us the freedom that we don’t have to be desk-bound we are often in our mobile office and more importantly we are in front of a client or prospect and being able to conduct the activities face to face is really what helps us to get to those closes. Stephanie:    Those are great tips Tim.  As you said before time is a precious resource especially in our fast-paced world and going with that, do you think time management in the workplace today is different than it was ten years ago or do you see a change even more in the future with more technologies? Scott:             Yes I think it’s very different I think Tim started this just a second ago that if you look at the world ten years ago, certainly we had the internet but it was sort of a nascent internet in terms of how are we really using it compared to today. 10 years ago or even 15 years ago life was in some respects a lot easier. You could say today is my prospecting day and I’m not going to focus on anything other than making calls people would accept phone calls, they weren’t so jaded as they were today they will still accept phone calls but their level of success cold calling is much different than it is today. What I find is that work today is better than it was it’s better than any time in history right? I mean there are certain things that are easier and there are certain things that are harder what I’ve noticed is that my work life today, as a sales professional, is very time-sliced much more so than it ever was in the past. Again, in the past because there are some communication challenges we had and because we didn’t have much technology around to distract us, we are able to focus more on the task at hand. I’ve also found that from the time management point of view and just from a relationship-building point of view, technology has altered the way in which we work with people. So we no longer call somebody up and go to lunch we may just text them and say meet me at this place or not we may have we may have to conduct an entire communication channel just through text as opposed to picking up the phone and talking to them. So is that more effective in terms of time? Absolutely we are using our time much more effectively but we are losing the human interaction in that process. Also the things that kicked in because of technology and because the overall economic environment is globalization. I think it’s more global world today than it was 10 years ago and such, I live in the central time zone, I may be working with clients who are in the eastern time zone, pacific time zone, mountain time zone, I may be talking to someone in Dubai and so I have to think from a time management point of view, how do I factor in that I've got different people, prospects, clients, constituents or whatever. We are spread throughout the world. Technology is what enables us to do that. Yes there have being some listings of some economic barriers but by and large it is technology that has allowed us to become a global economy. So let’s think about where technology hurts us in this respect, I think there are way too many distractions today. You know the internet in particular is something where in every 5 seconds you feel the calling I've got to go check Facebook, I've got to go check LinkedIn and see what's on my favourite news site or sports site we have text messages that are reeling us in during the day, we have instant messages where we get a new email our laptop dings or we get a message on our screen so we get various distractions out there and it keeps us from being able to really focus. So I think the burden is on us to take this awesome power that we have of this amazing technology and use it to our benefit, so I think the tips that we've talked about today planning out your week, planning out your month, understanding the money value of what it is that you are working on and prioritizing your time those are very important things. Now I’m not a Carl Sagan and I can’t prognosticate about what the future looks like but I do believe that in the future that it’s going to be better and worse I think it’s going to be worse in the sense that we are going to have more distractions or different distractions. I think it will be better in the sense that there will be technology that we can use to actually parcel off administrative tasks and give it to that technology for it just to do it and we can focus hopefully back on what Tim started this conversation with which is the money value of time. Tim:                Yeah I like to echo a little bit about what Scott was saying is with all this distractions we have in the day and all the demands on our time, I think the thing in often time we allow to be short shifted is taking the time to think and having the activity to blockout on your calendar 30 minutes maybe an hour somewhere in the day to actually turn everything off and then think about what am I doing, what is the approach that I’m taking, what are some resources that I need, I think we've become so reactive to that ding or the text or whatever that we are losing the ability to have deep thought and through that to come up with creative ideas that are going to help us to do more. I think the only thing that, I want to go back because you picked it all in your question Stephanie, you were talking about what you do to get your morning going. I think it’s very important to have self-awareness and just to be honest with yourself am I a morning person or an afternoon person or a night owl and then build your day, however that may be to maximize your bio-rhythm as to when am I most effective or most creative so that I can harness that. I, for one, I’m an early morning person and that’s when the creative juices in sparks fly so I try to move those opportunities to the front end of the day where I need to be at my very best. So meetings, presentations, negotiations and things of that nature I want to do in the morning. In the evenings, that’s when I take my time to read, to catch up and do the mundane email but having the ability to have that awareness combined with the ability to triage the activities of the day then you are in control and you are empowered and you are making the decision, what activity am I going to invest my time to achieve the greatest results. So Stephanie it has being a great discussion and I thank you for the questions. They were really thought provoking. Stephanie:    That was a great advice thank for your time today, I will like to thank Scott and Tim for joining us today, to share their experience and best practises for sales. We hope you enjoy hope you enjoy this session and looking forward to seeing you on our next podcast as we continue our journey through the world of sales until next time this is Stephanie Jordan wishing you the best of sales. For more information about Revenade’s enterprise sales playbook visit our website at www.revenade.com.  You can also find best practise on our YouTube channel.

Revenade Managing Director, Tim Phillips, discusses the money value of time.Transcript Hello and welcome, this is Tim Phillips with Revenade, and today I want to share with you an idea called the time value of money. I know many of you have studied financial and investment analysis and in that we've all learnt about the concept of the time value of money that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow and it is the basis for all compounding and also the discounting of future cash flows and with it we can make sound investment decisions when we have competing alternatives. ----more----I want you to set aside now though, I want to shift your attention and change your paradigm and the reason for that is that the truly only non-renewable resource that we have is time. And I know many of us in our career have taken time management courses and we have day timers and we have all kinds of electronic devices to help us in scheduling ourselves, but the truth is that we can't manage time.  Time marches on, time has no beginning and time has no end and we are here for just a brief spark as we live our lives and our careers what we do have though is that we have the power and ability to choose which activities we invest our time and we want to invest our time in those activity that yields the highest value. So how do we define this? Hence, the money value of time is that we are having a business conversation that whether you are an executive, or a manager, a sales professional, think in terms of what is the value of an hour of my time. So let's say I want to earn a million dollar this year and there is roughly 2000 working hours in a year, so the money value of that one hour is 500 dollars. A million dollar divided by 2000 hourly equivalent is 500 dollars an hour if you want to earn 200,000 dollars it’s the same concept divide 200 thousand by a thousand dollars its 100 dollars an hour the reason why we are looking at it this way is that we can evaluate what activities am I doing throughout the course of the day that I should be, and I could be outsourcing or delegating to someone else that doesn't yield that higher value. So in essence if I can outsource an hour worth of activity to someone else that they can do effectively for less than 500 dollars an hour, then I should pay them up to 500 dollars an hour to do that to free me to focus my time in those areas and those activities that are going to yield the highest value. So if I'm an executive my focus is shareholder value always increasing shareholder value and the way that I do that is to be making decisions so instead of gathering information and doing analysis and comparative analysis to make a decision, I delegate that. What I want to do though is have as many hours in the day as possible to be focused on activities where I can invest my time that is going to increase my shareholder value. So I really want to be in a position to be making many meaningful decisions to maximum my effective hourly rate. If I'm a sales professional, we all know about the golden selling hours 7:30 am to 5:30pm Mondays through Fridays those are the time I have to speak with prospects to qualify them, to give demonstrations to submit proposals to make presentations in other to close. My activity as a sales professional should be focused on accelerating the sales process by finding more and highly qualified opportunities thereby investing the time to position and to present and to close, I can accelerate my sales performance. So anything that is strenuous or outside that or that will steal away from those hours, I want to outsource or I want to delegate. So I want to turn you on to two really cool web services one is called fiverr.com and the other is Elance.com even if you are a new sales professional or a manager and you don't have a full time executive assistant you need one. Now you have the ability to effectively hire one without having to hire a new employee with a salary and annual burden. What you have the ability to do now is to outsource specific functions that you need to have done to someone or to be negotiated on hourly rate then you can take all those mundane and time eating activities and give them to someone else. So as what, Writing reports, gathering contents, doing research, publishing an article, publishing a book there is plenty to count. Copying all of your expense receipt shipping them to someone who can input them for you these are opportunities that you now have without having to hire the traditional executive assistant. Moreover, what we want to do is to accelerate and maximize the hours of opportunity that we have to leverage all unique skills and abilities to position, to propose, to present and most importantly to close new sales opportunities. That's the way we accelerate sales performance, that's the means through which sales cycle-time, and simultaneously increasing our closing ratios. So I hope you find this helpful, check out those websites they are really great and I think they will really help you. So until we meet again, to your success thanks bye now. For more information about Revenade sales playbook visit our website at www.revenade.com

Revenade Sales Leaders discuss the importance of networking, especially during down times in the market.Transcript Hello and welcome to The Sales Experience, a podcast where we will share insights, lessons learned and best practices from sales leaders.  Each session we will do our best to provide experienced based information that you can immediately apply to help your company grow its top line.----more---- My name is Sarah Lorhrmann and I’ll be your host and moderator on your journey through the world of sales.  To kick things off today, I’ll be talking to two of Revenade sales leaders about the ever increasing importance in building your network but first let’s start with a brief look on this day in business history where we highlight a key event that took place on this day.   On this day in history in 1996.  IBM’s Deep Blue computer became the first machine to win a chess game against a reigning world champion under the regular time controls.   The publicity that surrounded this chess match was huge, although the world champion narrowly edged out the computer four matches to two, IBM garnered a ton of media attention and further established itself as a computer technology powerhouse.   Now I would like to take a minute to introduce Scott Williamson and Tim Phillips from Revenade.  Scott Williamson is the founder of Revenade and serves as the firms managing partner.  For over 25 years he has helped companies throughout the world developed and executes strategies that will accelerate profitable revenue growth.  His partner, Revenade, is none other than Tim Phillips who serves as the managing director. Tim brings over 30 years of professional leadership in executive expertise as well as a immeasurable knowledge and expertise in the sales arena.  Thank you both so much for joining us today.   Scott:                Thank you very much Sarah   Tim:                   Thank you Sarah, it’s good to be here.   Sarah:                Scott and Tim, the current market environment in Houston has really taken a turn recently, due to the declining oil prices.  Businesses are changing at rapid pace and individuals are quickly learning that they have to rely on relationships now more than ever to help their businesses to continue to thrive.  Can you guys talk to us a little bit more about the significant impact you guys have seen in building your customer network?   Tim:                   Yes, that’s a great question Sarah and you’re exactly right, we have seen a tremendous change in the Houston market, not only the Houston market but the overall energy market globally, due to the recent decline in oil prices.  But in that everything in life is a cycle and we’ve seen the boom bust cycle in this industry in particular probably every seven years.  And I think the main thing in looking at this is not in terms of how I do my network to take advantage of it but really building a network with the minds eye to seeing the value in people and how I can deliver value in helping other people try to achieve what they want to achieve.  So networks, often times people think well, I need to know all the different people in my industry and they’re doing it from a really mercenary position.  What can I get out of it, Instead of how can I help somebody else?                             Because usually what you find is, if you can help somebody else that will come back five or tenfold and now in a time when we are seeing reductions in force and constrictions and contractions in the industry, people need help.  So always be on the lookout to help because at the end of the day, businesses don’t do business with businesses.  People do business with people and if you have a personal relationship with a person there is a much higher likelihood that you’re gonna be able to do business with that person.    Scott:                 Yeah, I thing Tim brings up a really good point here. A clear network of people who will just go out there and try to get as many business cards, as many links and connection, as many email addresses that kind of thing.   And when I get hit upon those people I may decide to go ahead and accept their link and request or go and have coffee with them.  But I’m more than likely, especially in down times, to respond to somebody who truly took interest in me and found a way to try and give something good to me in that interaction as opposed to somebody who’s just trying to get to know me so that they can get through to me and somebody else. The other thing I think is really significant   in this kind of a market is that there is never a bad time to start rebuilding your network so you don’t have to always be… oh my gosh the market is bad and I don’t know what to do.  Go out there and start with your friends and then branch off from there.   Sarah:                Thanks Scott and Tim it really seems like the growth that you guys have seen in Revenade through networking alone really have been almost immeasurable.  Can you guys talk a little bit about what you think the most important networking tactics are?    Scott:                 Yeah, I think Tim and I hit a little bit on this in the previous question but just to explain all of that amid Tim’s advice of taking it from a sort of a servant point of view as opposed to trying to get something out of it individually, yourself is the key thing. And then I would tell you flat out, I’m not a good networker.  Tim is a great networker.  We have a common friend who is probably one of the best networkers I’ve ever met in my life.  And the thing that I’ve done that’s work well, and the thing I’ve seen Tim do well and this other gentleman do well, is that you can just start with who know  and start with areas of common interest, knowledge ,that type of thing and then just sort of branch out there. But I’m going to throw back over to you Tim. I think you are probably one of the best networkers I’ve ever seen.   Tim:                    Well thank you and that’s a very kind compliment but the real key to, I think, building a network is it takes time.  And if you have intention and you have focus and view it as value then you invest the time and the effort.  So the main thing is what I like to call the power of presence is to meet people you have to be present.  And that may be live at an industry function or a professional association meeting or it can even be online now with social media capabilities, LinkedIn is great, Facebook is more B2C oriented and the other key thing is making it a point to meet as many people as possible.  A great tactic, especially if you’re new in an industry or if you are perhaps changing jobs and you’re in a new geographic location and you join a professional association. Take the job in that association and nobody else wants to do and that’s to be the person who is on the membership committee that sits at the signing table when persons come to the meeting and be the person who is there to sign the minutes.  The beauty in that is you get to meet everyone, but before you go to that have a define list of people that you want to meet and as they are coming in and they’re signing in you can greet them and no where in the rule book of life does it say that you can’t give them your business card and say, I’d really like to visit with you but I’m gonna have to man the table until everybody gets in but I’d like to find you after the luncheon or the happy hour or whatever it is.  So having a focus and a plan going in to, who are the people that you would want to meet and then from that leverage the sixty degrees separation.  Everybody knows somebody who knows somebody.  And if you let people know that you have a desire to meet someone, most people are going to be happy to introduce you.  Then again, you want to be courteous and you want to provide introductions to other people, who are you interested in meeting? Who would you like to meet? Would it be helpful to you and your business if you met so and so?  I’d love to introduce you.  And that could be electronically online, just a simple email of if you are at a function, I’m gonna be at that, you’re gonna be at that and the person you want to meet, you know is gonna be there I’m gonna make it a point to make sure you get introduced to that person.  That’s my role, my responsibility.   Scott:                 You could flip that around and just… what are the things that you have seen that we talked a little bit about the people that are career networkers and I did too… What are the things you see that are just dumb?   Tim:                    The thing that I find that is not working is probably the most annoying is the callous and unsophisticated net worker who walks around with a stock of cards and almost as if they are dealing out cards and they’re counting volume instead of quality and running up to people and this very impersonal, disingenuous, I am so and so, may I have your card please and then running off like they are going to go home and count the number of cards.  It’s the people that are important.  And the other key thing I would say in that is your reputation, so if people call you, if people email you, you want to be responsive to those.  Don’t take them for granted. And everyone is someone and they all have values and again in this world of this sixty degrees separation which is really closing more in on five and four, everybody knows somebody and so I would like to meet someone I’m going to be engaged with someone in order to do that.   Scott:                  And being in the moment, that’s another element what I call the power of presence is being in the moment with the other person.  There is nothing more off putting if you will than if I am in a conversation with you and we have eye contact and you’re looking over my right shoulder and or left shoulder looking to see who the next person is that you want to meet, I mean it would shut me out.  So eye contact, I’m in the moment,  the whole rest of the room could be vaporized and we’re gonna be standing here and I’m still gonna be having a conversation with you because you are the most supportive person in the room?   Scott:                 Sorry sir, one more question for you just as I’ve watched Tim speak so much about this. What do you think about the professional, sort of round table weekly or monthly networking groups where you all get together and maybe seen the kind of exchange cards, what do you think about this?   Tim:                    It depends on why you’re in the group and also what business you’re in and most importantly, if you are going to those types of networking events you are going because you wanted to drive business relationships and that’s fine. If you go to those, always come with references but more importantly, referrals to other people based on their business and in exchange they’ll provide you with the same. Be a giver first and a taker second. And if you are a giver first you will receive far more in return than if you simply take. A lot of times what will happen is people who comes to those groups that are takers, they are not only ostracized many times they are asked to leave because their view is, they’re mercenary and they are not engaged in a give and take exchange. So always give value to get value.   Sarah:                Those are some really great tips that I’d like people to take away.  I was actually reading an interesting business insider article entitled the importance of networking and the author discusses how networking is obviously important for marketing but not only your company but also yourself.  And I know we touched on that a little bit when you were talking about reputation but can you guys speak on this a little more and making connect with yourself and your own personal networking brand?   Scott:                 We may be beating a dead horse here by repeating ourselves so much but I can’t speak enough to the fact that you have to be who you are and I can say for instance when we started   Revanade the first dozen clients we had were all people we knew. They were all referrals, they were all based on personal relationships and it wasn’t a matter of going out there and just trying to like Tim said passed business cards to the next person.  It was a matter of saying, how can we find a way to serve whoever it is we are working with?  And each person has to sit down and make a conscious decision about what their brand is, who they are and what they are going to be.  The business world is no different than who you are in the personal world.  So if you see one of those people who at home is mean to their kids and their spouse and then that’s not somebody who you wanna do business with.  I think it’s very careful to think about your business life and your personal life are very integrated.  Whoever you are is going to show up in the brand and when you are talking with and meeting with other people whether its industry, forums or networking or anything else.   Tim:                    Yeah, I would like to amplify that point.  From a professional perspective and thinking back over my career and depending upon where you are, age, experience, career development, however you want to cast it, there is a term that I’ve heard and I’ve found it intriguing which is ‘fake it till make it” and I thought about that and I think that is probably the worst advice that you can give to anyone because faking it ‘til you make it seems to infer that I’m not worthy of where I am, as I am therefore I have to be something or someone rather than who I truly am.  And people see through that.  People have the ability very quickly discern through conversation or online interaction.  Is this person really who they are representing themself to be?  And at the end of the day the best question, this is where we kind of go back to the fundamentals of going to networking events and having conversations with people is having great questions.  You don’t have to be the expert on anything but if you’ve got great questions and you’re in the moment and you’re engaged and you are focused on that other individual and you are asking very genuine how and why questions rather than fact questions you’ll be amazed how people will engage and they’ll open up and the main thing is being a very proactive listener.  You don’t have to be the most eloquent person in the room. You don’t have to know all the facts on anything.  The great questioners are the people that are viewed as a great conversationalist and that’s because they are very intentional listeners.  Listen to the other person because so often we become focused on, I want to tell you all about me, I want tell you all about my company, I want to tell you all about my solution because it’s so great.  No!  Tell me all about you and maybe not even your company, we’ll get to that at some point.  A lot of people, and I remember when I was younger, and say I was going to a meeting and there were going to be executives at a meeting with my major target clients or key accounts, you know and these were men and women in their fifties and very successful and he I am maybe I am in my twenties or early thirties.  I’m at a totally different point in life, how am I going to relate to that person, how do I you know, what am I going to say to that person when I see them?                            What is the great about all of us?  We all have to be from somewhere. So the great question is, anybody we can meet regardless of whether it’s at a focus networking or not.  Where ae you from and people will naturally answer you and say well, do you mean where do I grow up?  Yeah, where are you from?  Oh, well I was born in such and such and I grew up in such and such.  I went to… so now I am hearing the story. People love to tell their story, I wanna hear your story.  Tell me your story.   Scott:                       And next thing you know, you’ve started to build a brand of the person who listens really well. And so then people reach out to you and they look for ways to share your stories with you, share their problems with you because they know that Tim is that guy that I can talk to and he will listen.    Tim:                   Right.   Sarah:                I know you have kind of talk about the power of presence, but do you think there is a big difference between networking via social media platforms and networking face to face?                            Do you think one is more effective than the other?   Tim:                    That is an excellent question.  And there is a difference, so let’s talk about the differences in them.  I tend and prefer to network face to face because I can see their body language, I can see their facial expression, I get verbal cues when I am talking to them and I can adjust. When I am   online it’s hard to really understand that.  Here is the other thing about online because we do have different   facets, if you will, in the social media so I would say in a cautionary way don’t allow your personal and your professional social media beliefs and persona to become blended in that social media environment.  So if I was meeting with you for the first time socially, I probably wouldn’t immediately enter into a conversation with you with regards to politics, religion or sex.  Don’t do that online because if you are in a social media environment and somebody, a lot of these formal groups especially, you see people come in and they would, you know, want to put the whole load out there in terms of, somebody said something that spark and you are like, but that’s really not appropriate at this point, so I think that’s something that we want to be caution about.   Scott:                 Yeah, and I’ll even add on to that so good intention to me is probably the most useful mechanism for social media, at least for business. And I was stating an example the other day there was this article, a CEO write t of a software company wrote an article saying, this CEO would never hire another sales person. Don’t know how many of you saw that. It was an extremely interesting article and its clear this guy was writing this to invoke response and he was masterful at what he did.  The responses that follow that bordered on fantastic in a good way to fantastic in an absurd way.  People saying you are an idiot, I can’t believe you write this, blah, blah, blah and on and on and other people agreeing with him.  Some people taking a position of that’s a very interesting conjuring point of view. Here is why I would disagree with that, but thank you for sharing that. Obviously that last answer that I just put out there is probably the right answer to put out for something like that.  You come out here and you start immediately taking offence to a post that somebody has made in a social forum.  What is it gonna show?  Its gonna show that you are hot headed, Its gonna show that that’s your brain.  Like Tim was talking earlier and you were talking earlier, it showing that you’re wearing your emotions on your sleeves. So it’s a matter of in a written form your words mean more than when you are face to face because there is no body language to go with it.  So I find at least that when I’m writing, I need to be a little bit more careful, and a little bit more thoughtful, a little bit slower in my response than when I’m doing it verbally because again I could say something that I think is very innocuous next thing you know, I just offended ten thousand people. So you have to be very, very careful and also be very purposeful in what you’re saying.  One last thing I’d say on the LinkedIn side is that I get requests all the time from people saying please join my LinkedIn network and that’s all it says.  Ninety percent of the time, because I don’t know them, I say no to them.  If I don’t know you then the least you can do is put a little message in there that says, I saw your profile I notice that you work for this place or that place or I saw you in this forum and I really think you are the kind of person who I would like to connect with and get to know.  Can you please add me to your network?   Sarah:                That makes a lot of sense.  I think we are just about out of time guys.  Thank you guys for all of your input today, it was really helpful.  It seems like surrounding yourself with a strong network is really a key to success throughout your career.  I’d like to thank Scott and Tim for joining us today to share their experience and best practices for sales.  We hope you guys enjoyed this session and look forward to seeing you guys at our next podcast as we continue our journey through the world of sales.  Until next time, this is Sarah Lohrmann wishing you the best success.   For more information on Revenade enterprise sales predictability model or to see a transcript of this podcast visit our website at www.revenade.com.  You can also find free best practices on our YouTube channel.

Scott Williamson shares 10+ tips about how to prepare and get the most out of your demos.Transcription You know I just finished a very tough, but rewarding day. I conducted demos all day long. Some in person, and some remote. And the good things is, they all went really, really well.----more----So before I finish my day, get a big bowl of ice cream and sit down and watch Seinfeld re-runs, I’m going to share with you some of the tips that we have in our Revenade Sales Playbook that allow us to conduct excellent downloads.The first is to make sure that you have an agenda that is established well in advance of the meeting. Make sure you sit down with your client or multiple client, prospect-type personnel and hash out an agenda that’s going to meet all of their needs. But don’t forget to consider your needs. A demo is a very significant investment of your time. You need to make sure that that time is being used wisely. You’re building credibility with your client, but you’re also hoping to learn something in that process and move the sale to the next step.Now, the next thing that you’re trying to do is make sure that you have information on all of the attendees who are going to be in the meeting. Those attendees have titles, they have roles, they have expectations. Do your homework well in advance, get information off of Google, get information off of LinkedIn, off of Facebook—wherever you can find it on the internet. But also, don’t be afraid to just ask your prospect about the people who are going to be in the room. What are they expecting? What are their likes? What are the things they don’t like? And try and find out as much about those people as you can before you get into that meeting. Now the third thing is to confirm technology. And again, this is a really basic thing, I can’t tell you how many demos I’ve been on where the person who’s conducting the demo didn’t do his or her homework in advance and shows up with a laptop or a computer that’s VGA and they only connection they have in the room is HDMI. Make sure that you understand in advance what projection device is going to be there. What the resolution on the monitor is going to be or the projection device. That you have the correct connection cables and so forth. If it’s a web demo, make sure that you understand that you have a conference line that everybody can dial into and that there’s not some kind of limit on the line itself.The fourth thing is when you’re actually conducting the demo and you’re kicking the demo off, this is your opportunity. You’re the master of ceremonies. You have the ability to set the stage and make sure that everything is going to go according to your plan that you’ve agreed to with your client prospect.So, recap the agenda. Do introductions. And this is a great opportunity for you to go back and confirm with each person in the room, I heard, Sam, that you are looking for this? Sally, I heard that you want to see these types of features? And here’s the time that we have allocated. We’ll go through this, we’ll take questions during the demo, we’ll take questions at the end—however you want to run it, you set the guidelines at the beginning of the demo itself. Next, or fifth tip, is make sure you’re making eye contact with the people in the room. Don’t demo by looking all over the place, look at the people you’re demo-ing. Yes, obviously you need to look at the machine where your software is running. Or if you are running where the software is being projected on a big screen on the wall, you might have to look at that. But they’re there not just to see your product, they’re there to see you. So make sure that you are letting them see you and that you are looking at them to gauge their reactions to various functions and features that you are showing them throughout that demonstration. The sixth thing, is if you are remote, you have to engage the people in the room. Okay? They’re probably dialed in from a conference room or you’ve got some in a conference room, some on the phones spread throughout the country. Maybe somebody is working out of their house, whatever the case might be, it’s very easy to lose your audience when you’re doing a remote demo.You’re clicking away, you’re showing functions and features. You think you are maestro. You think you’re some sort of magical music conductor and their falling asleep, or they’re on the internet. So ask them questions throughout that process. Make sure that you’re confirming that they understand what you’re showing them. Don’t just say do you have any questions, ask them specifically something about what you just showed them and say, Frank, I understand coming into this meeting you wanted to see the following three things. I just showed you one of those things. What comments do you have for me about that feature and can you see that working in your business process today? Frank, can’t just say, I don’t have any questions. Frank all of a sudden is now put on the spot and he has to answer you and he has to stay engaged. And because you did that to Frank, Frank is—I guarantee you is going to be engaged throughout the rest of that demonstration.Now next, number seven in our list of tips here, is do the same thing when you are in person. Just because you are in front of people and they’re nodding away, as people are prone to do. Don’t assume that they are actually engaged. It’s amazing how often somebody can look like they are engaged when they’re not engaged. So ask them the same questions in person that you would remote.Now, the eighth thing that you want to do, and I find myself doing this all the time. In fact I’m probably doing it today, avoid using minimizing words. Filler words. Uh, um, so, well, kinda, sorta—what do those words mean? Those words mean nothing. Or those words mean no. Scott, can your software do the following things? Well, yeah it can kind of do that by doing this—no, that means no. Tell them, yes, absolutely, our software can do that.The ninth thing that you want to think of as you’re going through these types of demos is handle questions with questions. Now, there are times, if somebody asks you a yes/no question, and you understand what they are asking you and you have a good answer, the answer is yes. But if they ask you a long detailed question or very short question and you don’t know the answer, or certainly you don’t understand what they’re saying, make sure that you ask them a question about what they just asked you. That’s okay. You can say things like, I’m not really sure I understand what you’re getting at, can you provide me a little more detail.You can also ask questions about the questions to understand what they’re really getting at. Sometimes people will ask a question and what they’re looking for is not the immediate answer. They’re looking for what comes after that. And so you have the opportunity to say, I think I understand your question. But before I give you a full answer, what’s driving that question because I want to make sure I understand the full context of that question. So it’s another way for you to engage with your audience. The tenth thing is, be careful with your cursor. I see demos all the time, particular when it’s a remote demo and the person who is demo-ing is moving their mouse around nervously. Oh, we go to this feature, we go to that feature. And then while somebody is asking them a question, the mouse is going all over the place. And what you see is you see what I call the cat phenomenon. If you shine a laser on the wall, a cat’s all over it trying to go after the laser. They are no longer focused on anything else in the room except for that laser. And so be very, very careful and very, very purposeful with your cursor as you’re demo-ing.And the plus one, since you’ve been a good audience, and you hung in with me throughout this whole thing, is that make sure that you take into account the lag time of a demo when you’re doing it remotely. And what I do with this is I’ll have one machine set up that is not my demo machine that I have dialed into the web conferencing software and I demo from Machine A. Machine B is dialed in and as I’m moving around on Machine A, I can see what the latency is across the internet connection on Machine B. Now this isn’t exact duplication of what you’re prospect is going to be seeing in the demo, but it gives you some kind of an understanding as to what the latency might be. Now, when you’re doing that, and you’re demo-ing and you’re moving from screen to screen, or from function to function, report to report, whatever it is in your software. Don’t just wait when there’s an empty space. Make sure that you’re filling the air, not with uh, um, so, but make sure you’re filling the air with functions and features. Business capabilities, benefits, whatever it might be so that there’s a consistent set of words going throughout your demonstration. This is also a great, great opportunity for you to ask questions of your clients.So I’ve taken you through 10 plus one on this. I think we’re done. Hopefully you found these useful. I’m going to go ahead, have my big bowl of ice cream and plan for tomorrow, cause I’ve got another day of demos and I expect them to be very, very successful.Until next time, this is Scott Williamson. Thank you very much, and make sure to look in the Revenade Sales Playbook to look for this and other great tips that can help you sell.

Revenade leaders, Scott and Tim, discuss insights about how selecting the right people for the right roles helps businesses operate to the best of their abilities.Transcript Hello and welcome to the Sales Experience, a podcast where we will share insights, lessons learned, and best practices from sales leaders. Each session we will do our best to provide experienced based information that you can immediately apply to help your company grow its top line.----more----  Hi, this is Sarah, and today we’re going to be continuing our series on people, process, and technology. Last time we talked about how process and technology seamlessly work together. So today we’re going to be picking up where we left last time with people. Before we dive in, let’s take a brief look at this day in business history where we highlight a key event that took place on this day. This day in business history marks the birthday of the Rose Bowl. Since 1902, the Rose Bowl has been a definitive marker of college football excellence. Along with providing entertainment for millions of households across the nation New Year’s Day, the Rose Bowl serves as a sponsorship mecca. Sponsors pay up to $20 million dollars to get their name tacked on as a presenter of this famous game, and corporations dole out big bucks for commercials, up to a million dollars for 30 seconds, but it’s well worth it. An estimated 35 million viewers will be tuning in to this year’s game and over a hundred thousand attending the event live. So if you’re looking to get your company’s out there, this isn’t a bad marketing strategy.  Sarah:                Now I’d like to take a minute to introduce our current guests, Scott Williamson and Tim Phillips, from Revenade. Scott Williamson’s the founder of Revenade and serves as the firms managing partner, and his partner at Revenade is Tim Phillips, who serves as the managing director. Thank you both so much for joining us today.   Scott:                  Sarah, it’s great to be here again.   Tim:                    Thanks, Sarah! Good to be with you.   Sarah:                Great! Well, Scott and Tim, we all know that people are really important to selling, and, in this industry, there’s kind of a huge turnover rate as far as sales people and sales leaders go. What are some red flags and common mistakes in finding the right sales people for your organizations?   Scott:                  So, you know, Tim and I talk about this all the time with our clients. In fact, we’ve talked about it internally as well, and hiring a sales person is a very, very difficult thing. When you think about it, sales people, in general, are very good at talking about how good they are. And so the best sales job that a sales person will ever do is in the interview cycle. Every deal that was ever closed at every company they’ve ever worked at in the past is automatically attributed to them. So the challenge in any organization that’s trying to hire a sales person is to get that interview cycle correct, and that’s very, very difficult.                              Now, Tim, you’ve interviewed many, many people in the past. You’ve hired lots of people. What are you seeing as some of the common pitfalls in that process?   Tim:                    Well, I think there are several pitfalls, but last cast this, if we may, in terms of best practices that people can use. Number one is really understanding what type of sales person we need at what point in time given the evolution or the maturity of our organization. So this ties back fully to our last conversation, Sarah, on process and why we said we really need to define what is our sales process, and what are the roles that are required to manage that process? That, then, leads us to know what type of sales person do we need to be looking for?                              So, let me give you some examples of different types of sales people. We all have heard of the term the hunter and the farmer. A hunter is someone who goes out and sells new deals and closes new opportunities with new customers or clients. Whereas a farmer, on the other hand, is more of an account manager that scales that relationships and sells the depth and breadth of our product and services to a particular customer.                              Well, we need to know where we are in our evolution as a business. Should we be hiring hunters to go out and find more good customers? Or do we have enough customers, but we’re just not selling enough of our entire suite of products or services, and we need an account manager? And what I’ve found is, as much as we would like the unicorn, if you will, that everyone is seeking, is someone who can do both of those things equally well. And in my experience, that is a very rare, if ever to be found, individual. People are either very good hunters or they’re very good farmers. So, step one is let’s decide where we are, which one we need.                              Second thing is the interview process itself needs to be much more structured in terms of asking questions to really reveal is this person a hunter or a farmer from the answers that they give us and then making sure that not just one individual is interviewing the candidate, but an entire team of individuals, and that they’re all asking the same questions in those interviews. And we could use different phrasing in the question, but it’s structured in such a way that we’re looking for consistency and that throughout the interviews, as we come together at the end of the day, they have a round table to review the results. Was there consistency in the answers that the candidate gave us? And do those answers support our belief collectively that this is the type of individual that we’re looking for and we need?   Scott:                  And I think those are really good points. One thing I’d add to that is that the maturity of the organization I think you talked about is important. I think a lot of times, especially with smaller companies, but I’ve seen this from big companies as well, I mean with multi-billion dollar, multinational companies, we’re so desperate to fill a position, whether we’ve gone through the appropriate analysis that Tim talked about to say this is the type of person we need or not, that we’re looking for love in all the wrong places. We’re trying to find somebody who we’re going to turn into this person we want, this unicorn that you talked about. And so one of the things I’ve seen people do very effectively, one of the things that, actually, we’ve helped people with is having an outside party be a part of that interview cycle so that the outside party who’s not necessarily tied to the fact that that person has to get hired can say, you know what? This person is the wrong person or, in fact, say this person is the right person.                              A lot of times, especially, again, with small companies, you get a certain culture that evolves that is so pervasive that it may, in fact, keep the right sales person from being hired. So I think that having an outside party is very important in that cycle. And then I just can’t emphasize enough what Tim talked about, which is making sure that you really understand the type of role you’re trying to fit so that you can identify the appropriate person for that.   Tim:                    And I think the other big pitfall, if you will, and this is just human nature, is we unknowingly, at an unconscious level, we tend to look for and we hire ourself. And ourself, especially if we’re the business owner or the CEO, and we’re hiring a sales person, or more importantly a sales leader, I don’t need to be hiring myself. I need to be hiring a sales leader that has the experience and the expertise and the abilities that compliment me that satisfy that leadership role, not simply when he said all the answers just as if I’d answered them if I’d have been asked that question, which is really, again, tends to fall in that trap of human nature.                              As Scott said, and I’ll echo that, having an outside, objective third party that doesn’t have as near a vested interest in the hire is really a good practice to find the right person.   Sarah:                That all makes a lot of sense. So what exactly—what kind of characteristics would you look in to kind of like find your ideal sales person.   Scott:                 Yeah, I think that’s good, right. We’re all looking for, and Tim talked about the unicorn, but we’re all looking for that ideal candidate. To me, and this is something that, you know, unfortunately for those around us, people have heard Tim and me debate about this on and on over the years, but I think we agree that, you know, there are a core set of characteristics, regardless of whether somebody’s a hunter or a farmer, the scout that we’ve talked about in days gone by, etc., whatever role they’re in, organization is a key skill in any sales role. You can’t just do this stuff winging it. You can to a certain extent, and there are people who are amazingly good at impromptu sales, but when you get into the world of compound complex sales, where you’ve got multiple parties, you’ve got different buyer sets inside of an organization, you’re dealing with procurement, you’re dealing with executives, you’re dealing with technical members of the selection committee, you’ve got to be very, very organized.                              And when you think about it, organization’s not just about doing to do lists. Organization is about really understanding what the end goal is, what the process is to get to A to Z through that, and being able to understand how to prioritize things. And prioritization is, I wish we were teaching this in school sometimes as opposed to some of the things we teach our kids, but prioritization is all about being able to say no. We have to be able to say no to certain things. So, for instance, if I’ve got a list of 20 different things that I have on my to do list, there may be certain things that I’m just going to say no to, which means that I’m going to have to deal with a certain amount of conflict inside my internal organization or in the company I’m selling to, but that’s okay. I just need to go ahead and prioritize those things.                              And then, the second part of organization is making sure that I have the follow through throughout that process, once I’ve got my to do list of A to Z that I’m actually executing on that all the way through and that I am persistent enough to carry something all the way through, regardless of what types of road blocks get in my way. So that’s probably the first thing I would point to.   Tim:                    I think the other thing that is really needed is you do have to have good interpersonal skills. You have to have the ability to establish rapport with people. But beyond that, I’ve found that most of the highly successful sales people that I’ve had the opportunity to work with have an innate sense of curiosity.   Scott:                 Yeah.   Tim:                    And they have a curiosity around what are the motivations and behaviors of other people, and how can I understand those to position whatever my good or service or product may be to help them. It’s a combination of curiosity and care, if you will. They have a genuine sense of care in helping the customer or client to solve a problem and that their product or service is going to make their life easier or better and then the ability to communicate that clearly.   The last thing I would add to that would be you have to be nimble. You have to have the ability to think on your feet. You have to be able to answer questions, not necessarily in a robotic fashion, but really asking a question of the questioner to get understanding behind what is the real root of the question? What is the issue, and why is this person asking the question so that I’m really answering and satisfying that versus simply being right in the answer that I give? So, it would be very nice if we had a spec sheet for the ideal sales person, and unfortunately, we can create characteristics and attributes, but we’re dealing with people, and so we have to look at the skills and strengths and abilities of those individuals that align with characteristics and attributes versus specifications.   Scott:                  A couple of things I’d add to that. I completely agree with what Tim’s saying. I’d also add, though, that I’m really looking for driven, goal oriented people. I want somebody who is not satisfied with just good enough because it’s way too competitive an environment. And whether it’s one person against another salesperson, so to speak, or it’s our company competing with another company, you can just never rest, in a sense. So I’m looking for somebody who is driven, and when I say driven, I don’t necessarily mean that they want to make the most money. Great, if they want to make money, good. Sales is a good profession for that. I’m talking about people who want to succeed at what they do.                              We’ll talk here in a little bit, I’m assuming, about some of the ways in which we would ferret some of that out on the interview cycle, but I want that person who wants to see that they are achieving everything they can possibly achieve and not just being good enough.   Sarah:                Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I know we’ve kind of just been talking about the regular sales person, but I know a lot of companies also struggle with finding good sales leaders and managers. How do those characteristics shift from finding the ideal sales leader versus salesperson?   Tim:                    Well, the biggest mistake we always see is, and it’s done with the right spirit, in that we want to reward people that have demonstrated consistent performance and achievement, and many times what that, in the sales world, means is we’re going to promote the top selling salesperson to be the sales manager. And often times what we find is we don’t ever consider the salesperson that they really aspire or want to be a manager or a leader within the organization. We simply assume that, and many times what we do is we almost, we make two mistakes in that. One is that we take our number one, top producing sales person, and put them into a managerial role, taking them out of the production cycle. And the second thing is many times those individuals don’t have the right skills, management skills and people skills to be effective. Moreover, managing self is far, far different than managing others.                              And I think the other key thing that we’ve got to take into consideration when having that conversation with people is allowing them, as Scott said, to have the polite no thank you. I appreciate the opportunity for the promotion, but I really enjoy selling. And that they don’t somehow feel that they will be penalized for not taking that leadership or management role and that they will continue to be successful in that individual contributor role. I think in a lot of organizations, again, it’s assumption, a sense of meritocracy, but we want to make sure that we’re putting the right people in the right role for the right reasons for us to be successful.   Scott:                 Yeah, and there’s some characteristics of a great sales person, I think, that translate naturally into a great sales leader. I still think those organization skills are paramount because now you’re organizing more strategic things as opposed to individual sales opportunities and the tasks that it takes to close that deal. So I think organization skills, those transfer very nicely into a sales leader. I think the driven nature also translates nicely. I think the curiosity you talked about, the nimbleness also translates into that. But the biggest difference that I see in successful sales leaders versus those who aren’t are the ones who are able to actually enable their team to succeed. So it’s not about the sales leader. The success of the sales leader comes from the success of the team. So the sales leader’s able to get in there and help the new sales reps understand how to sell, why they’re doing what they’re doing and get better at what they’re doing there. Help the seasoned sales reps by reducing any institutional friction. And so your A++ sellers, you just want to get out of their way. You want to make sure the organization does not impede what they’re doing. The ones who are on the bubble, you want to try to find a way to coach them and get them to be more successful. The ones who are bad, hey, guess what, life’s tough. We’re going to have to get you out of the organization. So they have that ability to coach and drive all the way through.   Sarah:                Thanks for sharing, guys. So I know we’ve talked a lot today about kind of finding the right people and putting them in the right roles, but in order to find the right people, this goes back to the interview process. What are kind of some of your favorite interview questions to ask sales people or sales leaders and why?   Tim:                    Great. First of all, I’m a process person, as we talked about in the last conversation we had. And so typically when someone comes in, I like to set out the structure of what we’re going to do and what we’re going to talk about. So I would say, Sarah, I’m glad to meet with you today, and let me share with you, we have 30 minutes, or 45, whatever it may be. What I’d like to do is take the first third of our time and really get to know you far beyond just the words on your resume. Second third is I’d like to share with you what this role is that you’re interviewing for to make sure that we have alignment in that in terms of what your aspirations are. And then the third third, which will probably be the most valuable third, is for you to ask any questions of me that you may have, and so at the end of the day, we’re going to know, in the investment of that short amount of time if there’s really a fit here and if it’s worthy of going onto the next step. Does that sound fair?                              So then, what I typically do is I like to—the first question I like to ask people is one of two questions. One is, so Sarah, tell me, if you will, what do you believe? And then invoke the power of silence because that question really comes from a different perspective. In that, usually the secondary answer to that is about what? You tell me. What is a core belief that you have? What do you believe? And then see where people go from there.                              A more traditional approach is, so, tell me about Sarah. And usually the secondary answer in that is where do you want me to begin? And the answer to that is always, anywhere you want to. And then from that is, what I really want to see, is if the person can start to try, the trial closes in taking control of the interview from me is what I really want to see.   Scott:                 Yeah, I agree with that. Maybe an alternative approach to this is, and this depends on the experience level of the role you’re looking to hire. If you’re hiring somebody who’s in the first half of their career, I think it’s incumbent upon the interviewer to take more control up front, lay out the structure that Tim talks about. If you’re interviewing somebody who’s more experienced, hey, let’s face it, when Tim or I or anybody else who’s a sales professional goes out to sell a product or a service to our clients, we don’t just show up and wait for them to interview us. Right? And when the sales person’s coming in to interview, yes, it’s a two way street. We’re trying to sell our company. They’re trying to sell their skills and their experience. But I would expect a more experienced salesperson to call me before the interview, to do research, to ask questions, to understand what my expectations are. So in my respects, before that person’s even stepped in the door, I know whether or not they’re in the plus or the minus column because I can tell if they’ve done a lot of inquisitive, driven, organized research on me, working with me before they even step foot in the door, okay? Then I know that they’re really serious about this job. If they just show up and I’ve got their resume, and they expect me to drive the conversation, they’ve got a long and steep hill in front of them. I’m probably not going to hire them.                              So I look at it a lot, not just based on the interview itself, but what preparation do they do before and what engagement do they have with me before that meeting if that’s more of a sales leader or a very experienced sales person.   Tim:                    The other thing I’d add to that, and I like Scott’s approach there very much, especially with the seasoned senior sales people, especially sales leader candidates, is I really want to find out, if I had that section in there on questions, I want to see what kind of questions they ask of me.   Scott:                  I agree.   Tim:                    The lame candidate or the thin candidate, if you will, is the person without prompting might say, well, this has been great. I really don’t have any questions. If you don’t have questions, we’ve just wasted our time. I want to hear really powerful, thoughtful, how and why questions of me that move me to think and express opinion so they, then, can align and position themselves with their value to make a fit and to close me.   Sarah:                Thank you guys for your input. You know, it really seems like surrounding yourselves with good people is the most critical resource for success along with process and technology. Looks like we’re kind of running out of time, so I’d like to thank Scott and Tim for joining us today to share their experience and best practices for sales. We hope you enjoyed this session, and we look forward to seeing you on our next Podcast as we continue our journey through the world of sales.   Tim:                   Thanks, Sarah! That was fun.   Scott:                 Appreciate it, Sarah.   For more information on Revenade’s Sales Predictability Model, or to see a transcript of this Podcast, visit our website at www.revenade.com. You can also find free best practices on our YouTube channel.

Revenade leaders, Scott and Tim, discuss insights about how sales processes and technology help businesses operate to the best of their abilities.Transcript Hello and welcome to the Sales Experience. A podcast where we will share insights, lessons learned and best practices from sales leader. Each session we will do our best to provide experienced based information that you can immediately apply to help your company grow its top line.----more---- Hi, I’m Sarah Lohrman and today I’m going to be leading our podcast where we’re going to be discussing a common theme across all businesses. Most businesses and organizations have one common thing in order to execute and operate to the best of their ability. They have to use a combination of people, processes and technology.   Excellence and success occur when the three of these flow seamlessly together, but today we’re just going to be focusing on process and technology.   Before we dive in, let’s start with a brief look at this day in business history where we’ll highlight a key event that took place on this day. In 1851 Charles Henry Dow was born in Connecticut. Who was Charles Henry Dow you ask? Dow was a prominent American financial journalist who along with Edward Dee Jones inaugurated the Dow Jones Averages and helped wed media to the stock markets. Dow and Jones worked to produce news reports for Wall Street brokerage firms and quickly formed Dow Jones and Company. Dow Jones was known for creating salary reports of market action and developing a statistical method for measuring the market that to this day is still used to calculate the Dow Jones Average.   Sarah:                     Now I’d like to take a minute to welcome back to the program, Scott Williamson and Tim Phillips from Revenade. Scott Williamson is the founder of Revenade and serves as the firm’s managing partner. For over 25 years he has helped companies throughout the world develop and execute strategies that accelerate profitable revenue growth.                                       His partner at Revenade is none other than Tim Phillips who serves as the Managing Director. Tim brings over 30 years of professional leadership and executive experience as well as immeasurable knowledge and experience in the sales arena. Thank you both so much for joining us, again.   Scott:                       Thanks, Sarah.   Tim:                          Good to be with you, Sarah.   Sarah:                     Great. Today we’re going to be tackling some topics that are important to any business, specifically process and technology. I’ve asked you guys to talk about processes and technology together because it seems that you can’t really have one without the other. Scott, can you talk a little bit more about what makes processes so important?   Scott:                       Sure. So, when you think about it, sales is really no different than any other kind of business process in the fact that, if you don’t have something outlined and people understand how to use it, then you don’t know how to track it, you don’t know when you’re done, you don’t know when you’re halfway done. Imagine FedEx without a process for shipping products. Right? So, I go to the FedEx store, I drop off my product and say, I want to get it from Houston to Cincinnati overnight and imagine there is no process. How in the world would FedEx get that product from Houston to Cincinnati.                                       The same thing is true of sales. If I were to walk up to you as your sales manager and say, I need you to meet a three million dollar quote, but I had no process for doing that, how in the world would you know what to do?   Sarah:                     I completely agree. I’ve seen it time and time again with certain clients that I’ve worked with. Sloppy processes lead to sloppy sales. Tim, can you discuss what makes for a successful process within a business versus an unsuccessful process?   Tim:                          Yeah, I think the best way to look at it is, we use the process in that the word itself sounds a little bit mechanical. But one of the things that we’ve found that sales people in particular really relate well to is the concept more of having a playbook, if you will. As if you had a professional sports team, and we have people that were playing various positions, so let’s think about a football team. I’ve got linemen, I’ve got running backs, I’ve got wide outs and I’ve got a quarterback and everyone on the team has a particular role. So, what we want to make sure is, is that we have the right people in the right positions, given their gifts, skills and talents.                                       But moreover is they know when we’re running the play, what are the other people doing and what is my responsibility to the team? So, in terms of that, is we want to look at the processes really, what is the process of the sale from start to finish? We find a lead, we need to qualify it, we then need to make sure that in that qualification they have a compelling need for our product or service, they have the means with which to purchase it, and we’re talking to the right person who can make the decision.                                       Now, all of the people who are involved in that, we can have inside sales people, we can have field sales people. And we can have sales manager that are all involved and particularly in complicated sales, it really is a team effort. So, the idea of the process but then taking it to the next level which is the execution of that process in the form of a playbook, we found it really helpful for a lot of people.   Sarah:                     That’s a really good analogy, it really sums up process perfectly.   Tim:                          Well you know the team metaphor is always the good one because unfortunately, a lot of people have the misperception that sales is a lone wolf activity, and it really isn’t. Sales is truly a team activity as various people have different roles in the overall process for us to be successful. And so, it’s really important that everyone not only understand what their role responsibility is, but also the supporting cast and other team members so we know where the touch points are if you will.                                       Using a little bit different sports metaphor is if we had a relay team. And so we’ve got 4 people on that relay team and they’re each running 100 meters, we have different people that are put into the team at different levels given what their capabilities are, but if we don’t pass the baton successfully, between each individual member of the team, then we’re disqualifying, we’re out of the game. So we want to make sure everybody knows, in addition to my role, how will I receive and pass and receive the baton so to speak.   Scott:                       I think that’s right because if you go back to the analogy of the playbook, if we don’t have the playbook, then all we have is a group of individuals, performing individually, and I call that chaos or randomness. So sales may happen but we don’t know why they are happening and we can’t guide or coach anybody to make sure they happen more efficiently. So if we have that playbook, we understand that plays that are going to be run. We understand how and why we are doing certain things, what that really does, and a lot of times, you’re right, Tim, process, people think of that as a cold mechanical word, but in essence what it is, a process is a liberator because it takes certain things off the table that I as the individual sales person don’t have to worry about it anymore, so that in fact, I can actually be more individual.                                       The individual genius, so to speak, of the sales person comes out because here she now longer has to worry about the rote things that we do every single time. They’re just there. So the, in going back to your analogy of the playbook and sports, think about this, how many times do you see a very mundane play that’s run in football, let’s say, since we’re a football crazed nation, and the quarterback goes and knows that a wide receiver is going to be in a certain area, but protection breaks down, next thing you know he’s improvising. The only reason he can improvise is because he knows he had a play to start with. And that individual genius comes out and the next thing you know, he scores the touchdown.   Tim:                          I think also, it depends upon the, where we are in the maturity of the enterprise also, because a lot of times start-ups and smaller companies often it’s the owners themselves that are wearing all the hats and they are selling and delivering or they’re selling and manufacturing or whatever it is. But as they are start to grow and they bring on sales people, and I thought your word was spot on, so many times we see it, is they get to the point where they have some sales people and then they devolve into chaos.                                       Because we aren’t aligned, we don’t know who’s doing what, and bringing that order to the chaos is what the process does. The beauty of that though is, we have the ability to measure it, if we can measure it we can manage it and if we can manage it, most importantly is we grow the team, we can also teach it.   Sarah:                     Exactly. So, switching gears a little bit, technology is a huge buzz word and topic and now-a-days in the business world, does technology affect processes positively, or are they creating more problems than they’re worth.   Scott:                       So I think it’s a little bit of both. And Tim and I probably speak in analogies more than the average human being, so I’m going to switch from football to, let’s talk about car racing because I love cars. And I can give anybody a fantastic very fast well handling car. And that doesn’t mean they are going to win the race. It just means they have a lot of technology at their disposable now and if they put the pedal to the metal they may hit a wall or they may win the race. It depends a lot on the person, but it also depends on the process.                                       Think about NASCAR. I think NASCAR is one of the most amazing things in the world. You’ve got a bunch of guys and gals who are fearless in these cars that probably go way too fast for their own good. And they’re just making left turns continuously. Right? And yet somehow with inferior technology, certain drivers consistently win. It’s not just the drivers, could be the pit crew too. So when the car comes in, there’s a certain process that goes along with that technology. There are tools, and so in addition to the car, there are tools that allow them to get those tires off the car quickly and they can track it, which they do. The technology allows them to track it, the technology enables their process and it allows that team to actually perform the way they should.                                       Same thing with sales. The big technology of course, that I’m sure we’ll end up talking about here today is CRM. CRM is not an end-all be-all, it’s just a tool.   Tim:                          Right. Well the biggest pitfall and mistake that I think we’ve all witnessed over the past 5, even going back 10 years, is the belief and I think it goes to great salesmanship, I think hyperbole salesmanship, in the fact that the CRM can become an auto pilot for your sales organization. And in that, what has happened is, we started our conversation, Sarah, with regard to process, process always comes first. Because it’s the process that leads us to decide what is the appropriate and best CRM based upon what our process is. Unfortunately, I think there was a period of time where we saw CEOs and business owners, with CRM envy.                                       One had one and one didn’t and they came back from the weekend and they told their CIO, well they just got a CRM and by god we better get one and I want it now. And so what did they do? They ran out and they did a quick evaluation and they picked one, without any consideration whatsoever for what we sell and how we sell and the process through which we sell. And what happened in that was, taking it out of the box, that out of the box configuration then became the defacto sales process for the enterprise, and actually can be extremely dangerous and it can also really hurt the performance of the overall sales team.   Scott:                       Or they go crazy and they customize a solution to the point where it adheres now to all their bad process. I was actually on the phone this morning trying to get the cable or the internet restored in my home and I was on the phone with, in this case a customer service agent, but in today’s world the customer service agent is also the salesperson. And it took me 5 minutes to get through a series of questions that I had already answered just to get on to talking to that person, and then this very, very kind, very polite and efficient person took me through the same set of questions again, and that was all because they had decided to implement it the way their own, in this case, stupid process was as opposed to rationalizing and saying, how do I implement the right way.                                       Same thing with CRMs. I see it over and over again. I see people do either what Tim talked about, which is adapt their process to the CRM out of the box. And I don’t care if it’s Salesforce, or it’s Oracle, or Zoho, or whomever. Those are process that are made for everybody. And each business is a little bit different. But again, you’ve got to be careful on the other side not to spend the rest of your life customizing your CRM to meet your sales process. So it’s a tool. It’s something that’s there to aid you, but it’s not the end-all be-all.   Sarah:                     Great. Most of our listeners already have CRMs in place. Tim, can you discuss some of, kind of the top issues with CRMs that actually directly affect the sales team?   Tim:                          Sure. The main thing with regard to the CRM like any other system, it’s only as good as the quality and the timeliness of the information that users put into the system. And unfortunately, a lot of people, especially sales people, really haven’t been trained, nor do they see the value in it to helping them sales more faster. So, they view the CRM as this negative system to which they have to be the slave to constantly be putting information into it, because I am going to walk into the sales meeting Monday morning, and what’s going to happen? The sales manager, first words out of his mouth are, this isn’t up to date, why is this opportunity shows a particular close date was two weeks ago, how can that be?                                       So, there’s a balance and finding the right balance, and I think the key is finding through education of the sales person, is how do you best use the CRM, to help you become a more effective sales person, leveraging the process and the technology then becomes a force multiplier for the sales person to position and close and sale more faster.   Scott:                       I actually think there’s a generational gap here. Or there’s a differentiation based on age of the person who is using the CRM. People more like you and me, Tim, sales traditionally has been more of that, at least maybe a couple decades ago, that loan wolf activity and I mean there are movies about this, the quality of the leads. You tried to make sure that you horded your information so that, that was part of the value of what you brought. You wanted to make sure that nobody knew what was going on with your accounts so that, that was some job security for you.                                       So what I’ve seen are people who are, what I’d call in the second half of their career, are much less willing to enter data into the system because there is a fear factor associated with it there. People in the first half of their career, these people have been wired since the time they could utter their first sentence, or before that, these people who have been on AOL, they’ve been on the internet since childhood and they’re not afraid to share information. They’re not afraid to put anything out there, so I’ve found with our clients that actually the younger folks are much better at putting data into the system.                                       So, the thing to do as the business owner, or the VP of Sales or whatever, is how do you put the appropriate incentive structure in place to make sure that people actually get that data in? The people from Tim’s and my generation, we’re kind of viewed as a stick. I’m going to have to do this, or somebody is going to beat me if I come to the sales meeting without that. So I’ve done things that have worked fairly well, where we’ve put certain stipulations in place for those people, who probably react a little bit better to a stick, that says that, you won’t get paid your commissions unless your opportunity data is in the system. Unless your contact information is in the system, so you have to just, not just close the deal, but you also have to make sure that that certain set of data is in there.   And then for the people who are more able to do that, we need to make sure that we highlight that and we reward them as well, so that when deals do close, or when deals change hands, that we have the ability to reward them  through that cycle. So if you have an environment where changing accounts a lot, if that data is in the system, then even the folks in the generation that don’t want to put data in the system, see that, oh you know what? I’m changing—we change accounts a lot, and so I know that if I put my data in, and if somebody else puts their data in, that’s probably better for me when that account changes over to me. Right? So it’s a little bit of give and take here and there. But I completely agree that aside from not implementing the system properly to start with, then it’s operationalizing it, and not getting data in.   People don’t see an advantage and we’re not training them. So, we need to train them. We need to give them the proper incentives and we need to highlight and reward those types of actions.   Sarah:                     So I see most of these scenarios, over and over again, with all of my clients that I’ve had. As we kind of wrap this up, can you guys give us two big key take-aways about how to make process and technology flow seamlessly together? What would the big ones be, training first or—   Tim:                          You know, Sarah that’s a really good one. I think that probably before training the number one thing that people need to focus on, is getting their process documented either electronically or on a piece of paper within the four corners of a piece of paper. What are the actual steps that we go through as an organization to sell what we do? And then, define who has what role, responsibility for doing that. So that is really the basis for a process. And then with that, it simply becomes refinement and then of course we’ve got to be able to communicate it, and then it would lead to the training. What do you think, Scott?   Scott:                       Yeah, I think Tim’s right on. I would document it and I wouldn’t turn that into some big never ending project. I like your advice of, on the four corners of a sheet of paper. Again, certain sales organizations are a little more complicated than others, but for most people I think you could, literally take one sheet of paper and say, here are the boxes that represent the steps that we take and here are the people that are involved. Whether to swimlane or something else and just say, this is our core process. And I wouldn’t just have one person do that, I would work with the team. I would certainly assign one person to be responsible for doing that, but have the person work with the team, and in the course of doing the discovery, figuring out and documenting what that process really is, we’re doing a couple things.                                       One, we’re documenting a process, but the second thing is we’re also getting our team to participate in this. So, we’re getting them to debate and share best practices across the board, because I guarantee not everyone is doing it the same way. And then once I had that documented, I would formulize it a little bit more then I would communicate and train people on it. And I wouldn’t touch technology until I did all of that.   Now, in the process of doing the discovery, you may find, here are the touch points with technology. Here is where technology, either supports what we’re doing, or is in fact, an inhibitor of us. And so I think we’re going to find, going through that cycle, where there are parts where maybe we use a spreadsheet or the CRM or whatever it is, and we do it just because it’s there, not necessarily because it’s the right thing to do. So I would kind of recapping, Tim, I would document the process. Make sure I understand who the players are in there, understand the time frame by which different steps happen. Make sure I understand the technology touch points, communicate and then train.   Sarah:                     So really the take-away is that if you clearly communicate your business processes and streamline them throughout your enterprise, you’ll have much more success across the board and you’ll be able to leverage the latest and greatest technologies to make your day to day jobs easier.                                       You know this was a really interesting discussion, and I can’t wait until we dive into the third area next time, people, but for now I’d like to thank Scott and Tim for joining us today, to discuss and share their experience and best practices for sales.                                       We hope you enjoyed this session, and we look forward to seeing you on our next podcast, as we continue our journey through the world of sales.

Revenade Managing Partner, Scott Williamson, and Revenade Manging Director, Tim Phillips, discuss the 3 core “abilities” every CEO, business owner and sales leader desperately needs for sales success.TranscriptHello, and welcome to the first episode of the Sales Experience. A semi-monthly podcast where we will share insights, lessons learned and best practices from top sales leaders. Each episode will provide experience based information that you can immediately apply to help your company grow its top line.----more----Stephanie:         My name is Stephanie Jordan and I’ll be your guide this week for success strategies in the world of sales. Today, I’ll be talking with two of Revenade’s sales leaders about the three core abilities every CEO, business owner, and sales leader desperately needs for sales. Let’s start with a brief look at this day in business history, where we highlight a key event that took place on this day.                           On this day in history, Charles M. Schultz introduced the world to the much beloved Charlie Brown comic strip. Charlie Brown and the Peanut's gang have since been used in the marketing world to boost for sales in such companies as Chex Mix, Bounty, Cheerios, Ford Motors, Kraft Foods, and even Met Life. In the sixty four years that the Peanuts cartoon has been running, it has brought considerable joy to both the readers and the marketing teams that have been lucky enough to snag the rights their images. I'm not so sure if Mr. Schultz knew he was creating a sales and marketing juggernaut when he first sketched the silhouette of Charlie Brown, but it just goes to show that even the most hapless of characters can be sales champions. If they're likeable and hopeful, that next time, they might just win, provided they keep their eye out on the football.Now I would like to take a minute and introduce Scott Williamson and Tim Phillips from Revanade. Scott Williamson is the founder of Revanade and serves as the firm’s managing partner. For over 25 years he has helped companies throughout the world develop and execute strategies that accelerate profitable revenue growth. His partner at Revenade, is none other than Tim Phillips, who serves as the managing director. Tim brings over thirty years of professional leadership and executive experience. As well as immeasurable knowledge and expertise in the sales arena. Thank you both so much for joining us today. Scott:                 Thanks Stephanie.Tim:                    Thanks Stephanie, so great to be with you.Stephanie:         Great! In looking at Revenade's website and YouTube channel, I see you have developed a tool called the Enterprise Sales Predictability Model. At its core are three elements or abilities that every CEO business owner and sales leader needs to run his or her business. Scott, perhaps you could share with our listeners what you and Tim mean by this? Scott:                 Sure, Stephanie. You see business leaders have an extremely difficult job in that they are under a tremendous amount of pressure, they have to make decisions without the full amount of data, sometimes they have too much data that they have to make, the thing is that not all of this is in their control, they've got people, they got processes, they got technology, and they can't control all of this and yet somehow they have to make a decision about the future before the future actually happens.Tim:                   Yeah, and you know the other thing, Stephanie is that we, through the shared experiences we've all had…all the parts that Scott just described is-you also have marketing conditions, you have competitor moves, and what we are really looking to do is finding the three- what we call-abilities and for working with a wide range of business leaders and their CEO's and sales executives the three things that they all desperately want and need are what we cast as the three abilities are: visibility, reliability, and then ultimately predictably. So that we can make informed decisions. It's almost as if having a form of extra sensory perception or ESP, and that what helps us to be able to forecast the future with greater accuracy.Scott:                 We all know how difficult it is to forecast, I mean think about the weatherman, or the weather.com or whatever it is, this is an entire profession that's been around for many, many decades. You have people whose entire lives on just forecasting the weather for tomorrow, and yet, they're only right about 50 percent of the time. In fact think of another profession where you're only right 50 percent of the time, and yet somehow you are hailed as a hero. The average sales leader if he or she's only right 50 percent of the time, is going to find himself or herself out on the streets, unemployed. So, think about those times when the weather forecast came out saying it was going to be bright and sunshiny yet, you spent the entire day in the rain.Tim:                   Yes, and I think one of the things that we've had in our experience, professionally, and one of the most stressful things, that any sales leader has to do as part of their role responsibility is to provide a forecast that the rest of the enterprise and the executive team is basically building all of the decisions on going forward. With that, there's pressure, there's stress as so, as a result of that, we need to become better in terms of how we forecast and so we do that with better predictability and reliability moving forward.Scott:                 Again, if you think of the whole process of forecasting, CEO, chief operating officer, MVP of sales, are all under this pressure you're talking about, Tim, to make sure they get the numbers right. They don't have enough data, or they have too much data, and they just don't really understand what they're supposed to do, to be able to predict what’s going on. The VP of sales, there's added pressure because the VP of sales is the first line of insight and visibility into what our top line is going to be in the next month, the next quarter, the next year.Tim:                   Yeah, and then spinning off of that is not only the top line, but how are in terms of operating as far as determining the margin and the most important measure at the end of the day quite simply, is cash. Do we have enough cash flow to make investments? Can we make payroll? Do we put money in the bank?Scott:                 Right so, a lot of times, we've got a VP of sales and his team and they sandbag the numbers. They think, okay we'll come in and add a forecast that's lower than what we think it's going to be. That's equally as bad. Stephanie:         Alright, that makes perfect sense, but these sound like pretty fundamental, some might even say basic tenants. Tim, why do you think it's to enforce these tenants and more important, what are some of the common mistakes you see businesses and sales leaders making when considering or perhaps, not considering these tenants? Tim:                    I think that is probably the best question of the day Stephanie, and quite frankly, sales leaders, CEO's, and anyone who is making a forecast, is-we're human beings, and predictability and forecasting is not a science- but it's an art. As we gather experience, we become better, we then should hopefully, start to develop better forecasting ability. We look at this in terms of the human side there are really four levels of learning or capability or competency and very simply, we start at level one which is an unconscious incompetent. We really don't know what we are doing and moreover, we don't know what it is we are supposed to be doing.So we are blithely going through life in the case of forecasting what that manifests itself into is people are making wild ass guesses. There also just picking numbers out and hoping that's going to be the number or their getting pressure from up above and the boss is saying ,"We've got to have this number to do these things" and so we say, " Yeah, sure, that's going to be the number." The other two levels that you find that you move out of though, as you become more experienced, is you become a conscious incompetent. I really don't know what I'm doing, but at the same token, I have consciousness and awareness that I don't know what I'm doing, therefore, usually people will go seek help, or they'll ask for guidance or they'll bring in a coach to help them do that. The third level, that's the conscience competent, that's the case where-I'm working through this-I'm getting better, and I'm trying to become ever more proficient in what I'm doing through experience. The fourth one I'm going to let Scott talk to you about that one. This is one that's equally as dangerous as the unconscious incompetent.Scott:                 Actually, that’s a good point, I think that it's most dangerous one. That's the one who the persons been doing a particular job for so long that they don't know they're good at what they do, they just sort of do it. That's why I guess you would call this the unconscious competent. That person is, again, just not aware of why they, excuse me, how they do what they do, they just get results. So, as from VP of sales point of view what you see is VP of sales, who are making decisions about forecasts and they are not really looking at the data. Now, I might take a little bit of exception to what you said earlier, Tim, I think forecasting, I think prediction, is both an art and a science. Not one or the other, so, the unconscious competent, is the person who is just seeing it as a gut feeling at this point. They've seen these scenarios over and over at this point, and they know why the answer is, but they can’t tell you what’s the data backing that up.                          The other thing with that type of person is they’re not fully aware of and have visibility of the data and the reliability of the data and the ability, they can’t teach that to other people. So you can’t learn from somebody who doesn’t know why they do what they do. You can’t just say hit the ball better. You have to tell somebody how you go about hitting the ball.Stephanie:         Oh, that’s super interesting. I’m guessing this is why you developed your enterprise sales predictability model to help people and companies have some kind of framework for correcting these basic challenges with something other than gut feeling guesses. Scott, can you give us a quick background on this model and help us understand how this can help business and sales leaders increase visibility, reliability, and even predictability related to sales.Scott:                 Yeah, absolutely. So you know Tim and I are sitting here today and we may sound like we are waxing on philosophical about all this stuff, but the fact of the matter is that we’ve been there and we’ve made the mistakes that we’re talking about. You can’t be a sales professional whether you’re a direct sales seller type person, indirect, or sales leader, and not have made some of these mistakes, and so what we’re trying to do at Revenade and what we’ve done through our analysis of our existing clients as well as looking at, you know, just other companies out there on the market, is find a way in which we can better deal with what we call this ability challenge and find a way in which we can form some sort of a model that provides greater visibility, reliability, and predictability. Tim, I know that you’ve done a lot of work specifically around the people process technology side. Tim:                   Yeah, the three points of view that we have found to be most beneficial is looking at the enterprise, but most importantly, the business development organization within that enterprise which is comprised of both marketing and sales, and looking at the people. First and foremost, that’s the most important asset that we have at the end of the day or the human resources that are the people that are making things happen through their actions, positioning, qualifying, prospecting, proposing and closing new business, but we want to make sure we also are putting the right people in the right roles to maximize their capability in terms of where they are in their development, whether it be through experience or expertise, their gifts and their talents.                           And the second thing that really helps organizations is having a defined sales process that’s documented. We find that to be a great failing, and even some very, very large organizations fail to have a sales process. The great thing about having a process that has discrete steps, moreover you can measure it and being able to measure it, we can actually manage it. But most importantly is being able to teach people this is how we sell what we sell. That process is the guide and the road map to do that. And the main thing about a process is it’s extremely difficult to scale and grow and organization without the process.                          The last area we look at is technology, and we look at technology as a force multiplier and enabler. Unfortunately, we find a lot of people that think technology is a magic silver bullet if you will. It’s almost a perception of being an autopilot. And we see a lot of companies that are failing as a result of that reliance on that, which does not align with the processes and the people then become frustrated and fail to perform at the top level.Scott:                 Yeah, it’s interesting to hear you say that because we do a lot of work with enterprise companies, large software companies, information technologies, those type of things, and I won’t mention the company by name, but there’s this one company that we’ve done business with where every six months they are changing. So they are changing their sales structure, they are changing the coverage model, changing their sales process. They have a tendency to do that in silos, so they don’t think in terms of how we do with our ESP model where you have these seven different points of view or seven different lenses that work in coordination with each other. So as you’re going through and doing this, you need to think in terms of not just changing one thing, but looking at it more holistically.Tim:                   Right. And I think just to pick up on that if I may briefly Scott is in terms of the ESP model itself, the enterprise sales predictability models. We have seven points of view or what we call the seven lenses of enterprise sales predictability, and many of those you just touched on, and that’s the sales organization, how we are structured depending upon what we sell and how we sell it. Number two is making sure that we have the right people and the right roles with the right skills and capabilities, supporting them with that sales process that we already talked about, and with that then, we have the ability to develop sales intelligence or defining the key performance indicators or KPIs that will really allow people to know if we take this action, this will be the result with ever increasing predictability.                           And then the other thing that really helps in that is making sure that we are designing our incentives for incentive compensation and the establishment of quotas, so it aligns with what we are trying to achieve, not only at the overall top line objective for the enterprise, but also they can be broken down to the discrete level for the individual so that they see that they have the ability to not only achieve quota, but exceed quota, and that there are rewards associated with that.                           And then the last one of course would be the tools and technology we already talked about which includes a wide range of things from your CRM system, but also now we’re seeing great advances and a lot of online coaching capabilities, incentive compensation management, the ability for salespeople to see and plan and predict their activities that will result in increasing sales, and allow the organization to have greater visibility into all the activities that are going on and then we can look at that, where are we relative to what our prediction is, and then we increase the quality, and more importantly, reliability of the forecast that we talked about earlier. Stephanie:         You know, this all seems so logical, but I would imagine putting that into place is a lot harder than it sounds or everyone would be doing it, right? Tim, how can our listeners take what you and Scott have talked about and put this into practice.Tim:                   Well, it’s really not that difficult, Stephanie, but let’s make sure that we’re answering the question and that we’re delivering value in that. Number one is first of all recognizing that we need to make a change. What has gotten us to where we are today is not going to be sufficient in order to allow us to move to where we want to be aspirationally in terms of growth. So having a learner’s attitude combined with curiosity, and also the open-mindedness and willingness to be that conscious incompetent if you will, recognizing that I’m a conscious incompetent, that I need to look at some best practices, that there are tools, that there are technologies, and there are abilities that I may not possess today to help me do that. So that’s probably the biggest one.Scott:                 Let me just jump in real quick. One thing I’d say with that, because I’ve—I’m not embarrassed to say it. I’ve failed at this various times in my career, and the biggest thing that I would recommend to people as I’m trying to become more effective in their predictions and provide greater visibility and all this is in addition to what Tim is saying about having a life-long learner attitude and being open to change is you need to start with a framework in mind, and that’s why we think this ESP model is so powerful is that is the road map if you will to make sure that the boundaries under which you can operate, and then don’t get overwhelmed by the fact that there are a thousand different things you can do. Start with one area and just get good at that one area, or start with all seven of the different areas, and find one thing inside of all those different areas to work on, but be consistent in just working on something and make it habitual so that your company culture and your leadership style is reinforcing that we are changing and we are going to get better, but it will take time. Tim:                   Right. And making the decision and the commitment as an organization that we are going to move forward, and whether that be in a crawl-walk-run approach, it’s the commitment to the end state or however we’ll define sales success that’s really what’s most important.Stephanie:         That’s really good advice and now that you put it that way, it sounds like none of our listeners should have any excuse other than to increase their visibility, reliability and predictability of sales.                          Well, it looks like we’re just about out of time and I would like to thank both you and Scott and Tim for joining us today to discuss and share your experience and best practices for sales.                          We hope you enjoyed the session and look forward to seeing you on our next podcast as we continue our journey through the world of sales. Until next time, this is Stephanie Jordan wishing you the best of sales. For more information on Revenade’s enterprise sales predictability model, or to see a transcript of this podcast, visit our website at www.revenade.com. You can also find free best practices on our YouTube channel.