0
SPEAKER_01
Folks, if you re liking what you re getting from 30MPC, the number one way you can support us is by subscribing to our newsletter.
0
SPEAKER_01
Every week, you only get two emails.
0
SPEAKER_01
On Monday, you get a content rollup of everything that dropped last week, and on Fridays, I pick one topic and I personally write a deep dive on things like how to cold call, how to run a discovery call, or even how to hire an AE.
0
SPEAKER_01
So if you re liking what you re getting here, take two seconds, go to the show notes, you ll see a button to subscribe to our newsletter, or you can go to 30MPC.com backslash newsletter and do it there.
0
SPEAKER_01
We ll catch you soon.
0
SPEAKER_01
Cheers.
0
SPEAKER_02
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to this episode of 30 Minutes to Presidents Club.
0
SPEAKER_02
My name is Armand Farouk.
0
SPEAKER_02
I m here with my co-host, Nick Siegalski.
0
SPEAKER_02
And today we have Miles Kane, the man who has been around since the legendary beginning of Drift, which is one of the best sales teams out there.
0
SPEAKER_02
Nick, why should people listen?
0
SPEAKER_00
Miles is one of the most direct negotiators that we ve ever had on this podcast.
0
SPEAKER_00
He doesn t play any games.
0
SPEAKER_00
The customer asks him for a discount and he asks them, what are you willing to bring to the table in exchange?
0
SPEAKER_00
If you want to learn how to challenge your customer in negotiations and drive a deal to close through the procurement and legal process, you may want to listen to the next 28 minutes of this episode.
0
SPEAKER_02
Three, two, one, wait.
0
SPEAKER_02
Before we move on with this episode, are you willing to give a subscription in return?
0
SPEAKER_02
Click the subscribe button.
0
SPEAKER_02
Otherwise, close this episode right now.
0
SPEAKER_02
You don t deserve it.
0
SPEAKER_00
Today s tip to optimize your sales day is brought to you by Boomerang.
0
SPEAKER_00
If you get an email and the action required on that email is going to take you less than two minutes to do, do it on the spot.
0
SPEAKER_00
It s not worth adding it to your to-do list, having to look at the item, remember what you need to do.
0
SPEAKER_00
That s going to take you more than two minutes anyway, so do it on the spot, get it off your plate.
0
SPEAKER_00
Now, we documented our best templates and tips to help you optimize your sales day with our friends at Boomerang, and you can get that documentation for free at the link in the show notes.
0
SPEAKER_00
Otter AI s Otter Pilot for Sales gives you the freedom to sell on your discovery calls by taking notes for you.
0
SPEAKER_00
One of the best ways to deepen your discovery is to ask your prospect about the impetus behind their goals.
0
SPEAKER_00
So when a prospect tells me they want to advertise on more sales podcasts, I ll say, well, it s not every day that you wake up and decide you want to sponsor a podcast.
0
SPEAKER_00
What s causing you to even explore this in the first place?
0
SPEAKER_00
Now, we put together the ultimate discovery checklist with our friends at Otter AI, which you can get for free at the link in the show notes.
0
SPEAKER_00
Today s prospecting tip is brought to you by Supercadence by Influ2, which helps cut through the noise of oversaturated prospecting channels.
0
SPEAKER_00
If you want to get your prospect s attention, you got to do stuff a robot would never do.
0
SPEAKER_00
One of my favorite plays is getting warm introductions to the accounts that I m targeting via salespeople who work at that account.
0
SPEAKER_00
Salespeople help salespeople.
0
SPEAKER_00
Another approach could be using Supercadence to run SDR ads to put a face to the name.
0
SPEAKER_00
Now, we worked with Influ2 to put together a special toolkit on ways to humanize your outreach, which you can get for free at the link in the show notes.
0
SPEAKER_00
Thanks.
0
SPEAKER_02
Here s my secret to being a sales superhuman.
0
SPEAKER_02
It s auto reminders for everything.
0
SPEAKER_02
If I expect any reply from a prospect, I press command H and superhuman pops it right back into my inbox.
0
SPEAKER_02
If I don t get a reply in two days, that means if you handle an objection, if you suggest times for a meeting, or if you ask for cuts back on red lines, always create a two day reminder task and assume they will not reply.
0
SPEAKER_02
So if you want to follow up on time, every time you can get a free month of superhuman by checking it out in the show notes.
0
SPEAKER_00
All right, Miles, welcome to the show.
0
SPEAKER_00
We start every single interview with your top three actionable takeaways.
0
SPEAKER_00
So let s get your three.
0
SPEAKER_03
Thanks, Nick.
0
SPEAKER_03
Number one, the prospecting tip that helped drift scale from zero to $1.2 billion outcome in four years is all about using your outbound to fuel your inbound.
0
SPEAKER_03
What I mean by that is early on, we realized that
0
SPEAKER_03
Trying to expect a cold buyer that you ve never talked to to either answer the phone or actually reply to your email is really freaking hard to do.
0
SPEAKER_03
And so what we have done at Drift for years, and it s very successful, is very short, direct to the point, three or four sentences in an email, asking that person with a call to action to click a link and learn more on the website.
0
SPEAKER_03
When you do that, you re driving that outbound action onto the website to learn more using a product like Drift or any other of the million tools that are out there to greet them on the website with a very contextual message that says, hey, John, thanks so much for taking a look at this case study.
0
SPEAKER_03
Here I am to chat, learn more, book a meeting, et cetera, et cetera.
0
SPEAKER_03
All of a sudden, you get these hand raisers on your website actually saying, hey, I want to talk and learn more.
0
SPEAKER_03
Feels like an inbound lead, but it actually came from the outbound effort.
0
SPEAKER_03
So that s tip number one.
0
SPEAKER_00
Beautiful.
0
SPEAKER_00
What s number two, Miles?
0
SPEAKER_03
Number two is a give-get around negotiation.
0
SPEAKER_03
So there s nothing worse than you get to the late stage of the deal, you present your price, you re feeling good about it, and all of a sudden your buyer or person in procurement asks for a discount.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I see it often where an inexperienced rep will feel like, oh, we just have to immediately bend to whatever they re asking for, drop our price to try to get the deal done.
0
SPEAKER_03
Well, there s always creative ways to do that to help get the deal done.
0
SPEAKER_03
The best tip about this I like to say is,
0
SPEAKER_03
When the buyer asks for a discount, going back to them and saying, listen, Mr. and Mrs. Procurement, totally understand where you re coming from.
0
SPEAKER_03
We do feel strongly that based upon the expected value our product is going to deliver for your team, that we are priced competitively.
0
SPEAKER_03
However, before I go back to our finance team and ask for any additional price incentives, can you please let me know what you re willing to put on the table in exchange for that discount?
0
SPEAKER_03
And then the key there is to shut up and let that awkward pause simmer until they come up with something, because you want to know, is this a true partnership to work through in a negotiation?
0
SPEAKER_03
And you will see that they will come back and maybe offer a multi-year discount.
0
SPEAKER_03
Maybe they ll offer a customer reference or agree to be a case study, whatever it might be, but really putting them on the spot there to see what they re going to give you in return for that discount.
0
SPEAKER_00
Brilliant.
0
SPEAKER_00
Round us out, Miles.
0
SPEAKER_00
What s number three?
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, number three, I think, is a tried and true way of really helping understand a procurement process to help you accelerate your deals close to close quicker, as well as identify potential any gaps of why the deal might be taking longer.
0
SPEAKER_03
And it starts with three words, and then what?
0
SPEAKER_03
And what I mean by that is when you re talking to your champion or somebody in procurement and they say something along the lines of, oh, we just have to submit this order form to finance and it s going to come back to you.
0
SPEAKER_03
They haven t told you anything about the actual internal process.
0
SPEAKER_03
And so getting very comfortable with asking them in a very polite way, of course,
0
SPEAKER_03
And then what happens after it gets submitted to XYZ system or team or approval?
0
SPEAKER_03
And when they give you that answer, whatever it is, it goes to Susan in compliance first or John in finance has to review our T s and C s.
0
SPEAKER_03
Okay, great.
0
SPEAKER_03
And then what happens?
0
SPEAKER_03
Oh, now it gets sent into our CUPA system and there s five more rounds of approvers for that.
0
SPEAKER_03
Okay, great.
0
SPEAKER_03
And then what happens?
0
SPEAKER_03
And you want to keep pushing.
0
SPEAKER_03
It s a little awkward at first to do this, but it s a very critical part of the process to uncover every last piece up until the point they tell you who is the actual person or team who is going to physically or digitally sign that order form and send it back to you.
0
SPEAKER_03
Until you get that information, there are still potential gaps in your process that can lead to that deal slipping from a committed deal in quarter.
0
SPEAKER_02
All right, Miles.
0
SPEAKER_02
And so we start by asking that question.
0
SPEAKER_02
Before I go back, can you let me know what you re willing to bring to the table in exchange?
0
SPEAKER_02
What do people typically say to that?
0
SPEAKER_03
It s funny.
0
SPEAKER_03
You get all sorts of responses.
0
SPEAKER_03
It really helps you quickly understand what type of buyer you re working with.
0
SPEAKER_03
If it s a seasoned buyer, they will know there are typically three or four things that the sales rep is looking for.
0
SPEAKER_03
Like I said, it s either a multi-year agreement upfront,
0
SPEAKER_03
referenceable customer, case study, speaking engagement, depending on where you re at in your own startup.
0
SPEAKER_03
If it s logos that you re looking for, getting their logo on your website can be worth its weight in gold.
0
SPEAKER_03
And so they ll usually offer something like that.
0
SPEAKER_03
You ll get, a lot of times it breaks the ice too.
0
SPEAKER_03
Like they will laugh and they ll understand that you re actually not just going to back down and give them whatever price too.
0
SPEAKER_03
So it, it shows a decent amount of experience on your side that you re willing to stand up to the buyer.
0
SPEAKER_03
And if they give you something in return that feels valid, okay, great.
0
SPEAKER_03
If not, it can be awkward and uncomfortable, but at least you re pushing back once before you re actually going back on any additional prices.
0
SPEAKER_02
What do I do when I get some people who have unreasonable asks?
0
SPEAKER_02
Because sometimes I think it s real when someone actually wants a 50% discount because you have that ankle biter competitor who s half the price.
0
SPEAKER_02
And then other times I feel like they re those people who just want a discount for the sake of getting a discount.
0
SPEAKER_02
How do I go about working them back up
0
SPEAKER_02
to a reasonable number and not just being like, okay, I ll see what I can do.
0
SPEAKER_03
I think it comes back to the work that you do with your champions leading up to that point.
0
SPEAKER_03
If you ve run a solid value-based conversation where you re showing the customer the outcomes they are going to achieve, and it s not just the feature functions classic demo that so many people fall into, but if you feel comfortable about the value you re delivering there,
0
SPEAKER_03
One of my best recommendations is not being afraid to walk away.
0
SPEAKER_03
Like a lot of times that 50% discount type customer, they also become the biggest pain for your customer success or support team.
0
SPEAKER_03
Because even though they got a 50% discount, they re going to expect VIP treatment on the backside after they sign up.
0
SPEAKER_03
And a lot of times in the SaaS world, signing up bad deals like that that are going to eventually churn a year or two later out, it s really you re better off not signing them up in the first place, which is really hard to follow that as a sales rep.
0
SPEAKER_03
But thinking bigger and longer term and really thinking about
0
SPEAKER_03
Good customers who are going to sign up be sticky with your product and stay with you for several.
1
SPEAKER_00
several years, like that s the most important part.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I would say like not being afraid to walk away if the price point becomes that aggressively low.
1
SPEAKER_02
So similar question here.
1
SPEAKER_02
Let s say that they re asking you for something that is not necessarily tied to price.
1
SPEAKER_02
This is what trips me up the most in a negotiation, where they ask for, like, these unconventional, structured deals, where it s like, we have a decay curve on the number of user licenses that we ve bought, or stuff that s, like, administratively burdensome or almost impossible for my business to deliver.
1
SPEAKER_02
And it s a weird, out-of-left-field ask.
1
SPEAKER_02
I don t even know how to respond in that scenario.
1
SPEAKER_02
And it sounds like if I say, hey, before I go back to my team and ask about this, can you let me know what you d be willing to bring to the table in exchange?
1
SPEAKER_02
I m sort of opening it up where it s like, oh, they think I can do that.
1
SPEAKER_02
So when I get asked for something that we legitimately can t do, should I be shutting that down in its tracks?
1
SPEAKER_02
How do you respond in a scenario like that?
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, if it s an ask that you know already that your finance or ops or deal desk is going to shut down, it s better to be transparent upfront on that.
1
SPEAKER_00
Buyers will appreciate that.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I think the tip I would give there is, as best you can, removing yourself from the conversation and letting the market feedback guide the conversation.
1
SPEAKER_00
What I mean by that, like a simple shift is instead of saying like, oh, I am not going to give you XYZ discount, it s, hey, Mr. and Mrs. Customer, totally understand where you re coming from.
1
SPEAKER_00
We ve actually heard that from similar customers in the past, including XYZ Reference Book customer you have.
1
SPEAKER_00
We d love to talk to you about how we actually got through it with them and look at these amazing results that they re seeing now.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so you re removing yourself of being like, oh, you can t do this because I tell you to.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it s more just, listen, we ve got tons of great customers already who have gone through this similar challenge they ve got on the other side.
1
SPEAKER_00
here s the results they re seeing.
1
SPEAKER_00
All of a sudden the buyer is going to look around and be like, okay, maybe what I m asking for is a little bit crazy and they will back down.
1
SPEAKER_01
So Miles, I want to go back to some of the commercial side of things.
1
SPEAKER_01
So let s say I ve gotten them to a reasonable amount.
1
SPEAKER_01
So they originally were asking for a 50% discount and then eventually they re like, okay, I ll give you some timeline and dah, dah, dah.
1
SPEAKER_01
And maybe it doesn t have to be 50%, but I still want a discount.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now, how do I make it such that I don t have to go back and forth 17 times?
1
SPEAKER_01
Because I ve seen some deals where a rep goes back, they re like, all right, we can give you 20%.
1
SPEAKER_01
And they re like, great.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now I want a free month.
1
SPEAKER_01
Great.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now I want an extra year.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now I want premium support, all this stuff.
1
SPEAKER_01
How do I end it one time?
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, great question.
1
SPEAKER_00
The first counter I would say to when they ask for that discount is the whole goal.
1
SPEAKER_00
You re absolutely right.
1
SPEAKER_00
You want to expect some negotiation, enterprise sales.
1
SPEAKER_00
It happens in every single deal.
1
SPEAKER_00
But getting it down to one turn is the ideal scenario.
1
SPEAKER_00
And the best way I ve seen that work is in that scenario, they ask for XYZ discount.
1
SPEAKER_00
And depending on their ask, you know in your head what you re willing to actually give.
1
SPEAKER_00
But before you give it, you go back to the customer and say, listen, totally understand where you re coming from.
1
SPEAKER_00
willing to put my head on the line here internally.
1
SPEAKER_00
However, before I do that, I need to know if we do get this granted, you will agree to sign on the date, referenceable customer, whatever it might be.
1
SPEAKER_00
So you re getting them to agree to saying, listen, if we give you what you re asking for, this is done.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s not a back and forth of like several things after it s if we give you that what you re asking for, you agree to close the deal on this certain date in month, in quarter, whatever it might be.
1
SPEAKER_00
If they don t give you that, there s no point in going back to your finance team and asking for a discount because your finance team, the first question they re going to ask is, what are they getting in return?
1
SPEAKER_00
Are they signing early?
1
SPEAKER_00
Are they doing a multi-year?
1
SPEAKER_00
Whatever it might be.
1
SPEAKER_00
So you re just preempting whatever that internal conversation you re going to have with your finance team.
1
SPEAKER_01
So this happened the other day with me.
1
SPEAKER_01
It was at beginning of the month, so beginning of April, and we were negotiating with procurement.
1
SPEAKER_01
And we re like, where do you guys need to be?
1
SPEAKER_01
And they re like, we need to be here.
1
SPEAKER_01
And we re like, okay.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s like a 15% discount, not completely unreasonable.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, okay, does that mean you guys can commit to getting this done by April 30th?
1
SPEAKER_01
And the guy goes, we re going to try.
1
SPEAKER_01
But when it s in the hands of the lawyers,
1
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes there are some things that are out of my hands, so I can t hard commit to that, but we ll try.
1
SPEAKER_01
What do I do in that scenario?
1
SPEAKER_00
I think there s a bit of humility that goes back to this, where we have to remember a couple of things.
1
SPEAKER_00
One is like, especially if you re selling to larger companies, I don t care who you are, you have to remind yourself that
1
SPEAKER_00
these buyers are dealing with, at times, dozens of vendors and contracts at the same time.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so just being transparent with yourself and your team to know that it s not just, oh, they re only looking at my product to try to buy it on this month.
1
SPEAKER_00
Sales is a fascinating world to be in because our results are black and white.
1
SPEAKER_00
You either hit your number or you don t, but the process is very great in that scenario.
1
SPEAKER_00
And the other part, though, I would just add to is if, again, you ve done your job earlier in the process of building a strong champion internally, leaning on that champion to say, listen, got to your legal team.
1
SPEAKER_00
Sounds like a bit of a stalemate here.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s going to come down to it.
1
SPEAKER_00
Is there anything you can do to get us to the top of the pile?
1
SPEAKER_00
Because it could literally just be a case of your champion going internally who happens to be buddies with their general counsel and saying, hey, I know you re looking at five MSAs right now.
1
SPEAKER_00
Can you put this one to the top?
1
SPEAKER_00
I m trying to get it done by April 15th.
1
SPEAKER_01
So Miles, this is one problem where I find that a lot of reps who are first closing enterprise deals, they just think legal is a process.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s like a stage.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s like, oh yeah, it s in legal, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
But there are multiple stages to legal, like you just referenced.
1
SPEAKER_01
There s getting it assigned in the queue.
1
SPEAKER_01
Then there s actually having someone do the first cuts.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then there are the follow on cuts and all this other stuff that happens in the legal process.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so there are multiple micro steps within the legal process.
1
SPEAKER_01
Do you have any best practices for making sure that legal does not drag out for months and months and months on end?
1
SPEAKER_00
It all starts earlier in the process, deep quality discovery questions where once you re through the initial discovery, you re doing the product, you ve got some ROI going, you re entering that purchasing phase.
1
SPEAKER_00
the concept of discovery in an enterprise cycle happens continually up until you get that signed order in your inbox.
1
SPEAKER_00
And what I mean by that is once it s entering that purchasing phase, asking your champion, hey, can you walk me through the process that you ve gone through for similar types of software purchases in the past?
1
SPEAKER_00
What does that time frame look like?
1
SPEAKER_00
Who is involved on the back end on the legal team?
1
SPEAKER_00
How many approvers are there?
1
SPEAKER_00
What have you seen just so that we can get a rough idea so that we can
1
SPEAKER_00
better forecast, not only the time to closure, which is of course important, but also giving our own customer success team a heads up as to when we may be able to actually begin onboarding process.
1
SPEAKER_00
So just asking better, deeper, qualifying questions, discovery process early on in that purchasing cycle, I think is very helpful.
1
SPEAKER_02
Miles  question on the legal process.
1
SPEAKER_02
I sell to law firms and it s amazing because what will happen is I ve got a contract, right?
1
SPEAKER_02
I ve been working with a set of business leaders and lawyers who are reviewing the software and they re like, all right, we want to buy this thing.
1
SPEAKER_02
And then they send it over to a lawyer who wasn t involved in the demos and sales process and they re reviewing this contract and they have no idea
1
SPEAKER_02
what my software does.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so they re redlining things and striking things totally and utterly out of context.
1
SPEAKER_02
What are you doing to brief the counsel of your buyer so that they don t end up in a scenario like that?
1
SPEAKER_02
Are you doing anything special in your communication with them?
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, very, very good question.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I think back to our legal team at Drift.
1
SPEAKER_00
I have to give them a plug.
1
SPEAKER_00
Best legal team I ve ever worked with in my career.
1
SPEAKER_00
And the reason I say that they have a very revenue focused mindset where they re trying to help us close deals faster versus trying to get in the way.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I absolutely love working with lawyers who feel that way.
1
SPEAKER_00
One of the things they did early on was build our MSA very custom and specific to the Drift platform and offering.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so it s not a 15-page boilerplate enterprise technology agreement where any lawyer is going to do exactly that.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s two and a half pages, I think.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s very short and succinct and gets to the point of exactly our software, what it provides, all the legal limitations and everything that s in there.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so beyond that though, our best reps, again, working with their champions, once it gets to that MSA portion, they will brief the team to say, listen, we are going to send you our MSA because it is 100% custom to the software that you re going to be buying.
1
SPEAKER_00
getting that out ahead and talking to that legal team to let them know, hey, this is a specific MSA to the product or service that you are buying so that they know it s not just an off-the-shelf one that we got from lawyers.com or something like that.
1
SPEAKER_00
In addition to that, also being proactive to say that we understand that there will probably be some red lines and back and forth.
1
SPEAKER_00
However,
1
SPEAKER_00
We also highly recommend, in the most efficient process, our legal team is willing and able to jump on a Zoom call to review any of those questions live.
1
SPEAKER_00
There s nothing worse than just the back and forth on email because it just drags that cycle out longer and longer.
1
SPEAKER_00
So proactively getting their legal team on the phone or Zoom with your legal team, all of a sudden it s like, oh, they can talk about it as humans and come to a resolution right there versus hiding behind email for weeks at a time.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s killer.
1
SPEAKER_01
One of our favorite things to do to that point is after first cuts, we re going to know how ugly this thing is going to be.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so our limit internally is two cuts.
1
SPEAKER_01
The moment it goes past two cuts, we are setting up a call with people because it goes endlessly, endlessly, endlessly on.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now, Miles, I m curious from your standpoint, one of the things that I oftentimes have challenges with is
1
SPEAKER_01
Companies will just be sitting on first cuts or they ll be sitting on security reviews.
1
SPEAKER_01
We ll meet with our champion every single week
2
SPEAKER_01
And it s like, yep, they ll work on it soon.
2
SPEAKER_01
And sometimes I feel like things just aren t moving at all.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so I m curious, do you have any ways to wake people up or get things prioritized or even get the ball rolling when things aren t moving at all?
2
SPEAKER_00
The best sales cycles and the best sellers we have will literally start after a first solid discovery call.
2
SPEAKER_00
We call it internally a discovery letter that gets sent out after a discovery call.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a template but it gets very custom after every single company and deal that you re working.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it has every single step of our sales process that is mapped to their buyer s journey with
2
SPEAKER_00
actions, owners, and dates on it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so we will actually, in that first discovery call follow-up, have the legal process piece very much down at the bottom.
2
SPEAKER_00
We re not going to get to it for probably a couple of months, but it starts with that first call so that they understand.
2
SPEAKER_00
One of the things at Drift where we run into is, Drift is a public-facing chatbot.
2
SPEAKER_00
You see it on a website.
2
SPEAKER_00
A lot of customers think, oh, we re just here to buy a chatbot, like off-the-shelf, boom, can we just get started quickly?
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s like, on average, it takes two to three months of a sales cycle, two to three months of an actual onboarding process.
2
SPEAKER_00
We re talking to companies in May right now.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re not going to be live with Drift until maybe Thanksgiving, realistically.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so calling them out on that and reorienting them from the first conversation so that they understand, yeah, there s actually a lot more power and work that goes into this.
2
SPEAKER_00
The results are there and meaningful and worth it, but you have to be honest with yourselves about that process so you can work backwards from that.
2
SPEAKER_00
So answering your question long-winded, but it s every single call to reorient them.
2
SPEAKER_02
Well, I want to ask you something about this, because one of the things you said earlier in the interview was you were talking about having a value-based sales conversation where you re focused on results and outcomes.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I don t know if I do this enough in my sales process.
2
SPEAKER_02
When you show up to a meeting where maybe you re deeper in discovery and you re finally talking about Drift or you re in a demo,
2
SPEAKER_02
Are you sitting there being like, not showing the software and saying, when people use Drift, they increase inbound conversion 48%?
2
SPEAKER_02
Are you like talking about outcomes that way?
2
SPEAKER_02
Or are you doing it in a more nuanced way?
2
SPEAKER_02
I m curious, like, when you talk about what Drift does, how do you say it?
2
SPEAKER_00
I think it s the proof points and the follow-ups to your discovery questions, because leading with the value and the outcomes and the great ROI doesn t really mean anything to a customer without the right context as to their current state.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like the other like simple way we try to boil it down is like every single deal we have starts with a current state, understand the future state, what s the gap, work backwards, that s your deal cycle.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s the very like 30,000 foot view of it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so before you can talk about the outcomes and the results, first of all,
2
SPEAKER_00
We all remember, too, that 60% to 70% of the buyer s journey happens before we even talk.
2
SPEAKER_00
So, like, these customers, they re on your website, they re on G2 Crowd, they re in LinkedIn talking to their community of users about what products and services to use.
2
SPEAKER_00
So, hopefully, they re a little bit educated there, but it s back to those early discovery conversations.
2
SPEAKER_00
And one of the best lines I ever heard from one of my coworkers years ago was he looked at me with a straight face and said, I really enjoy challenging my customers.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it was kind of like a tongue in cheek thing and we laughed about it, but he was so true and spot on.
2
SPEAKER_00
And still to this day, like asking your customers about their current state, what is it about there?
2
SPEAKER_00
For us, it s a lead gen strategy.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, what is it about that strategy that s either failing, where are they looking to optimize?
2
SPEAKER_00
What s the opportunity to grow?
2
SPEAKER_00
So once they start giving you some of their current state, then you can start to feather in, wow, this sounds just like what we did with Okta in the 2018, 2019.
2
SPEAKER_00
They started with us on this platform.
2
SPEAKER_00
These are the results they had after 12 months.
2
SPEAKER_00
Love to send you that case study, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it s backing up from the discovery calls and referencing those proof points afterwards.
2
SPEAKER_01
Once you ve established this, you re reciting this again in every single call so they stay anchored on that, but you re also sort of marching this journey, this buyer s journey forward with them.
2
SPEAKER_01
What are the major steps that you know you need to teach a customer to take to bring your deals from point A to B?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, the core components very straightforward.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a quick recap of what you heard what you recommend next steps and including in again actions owners and dates associated with that and so.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think the best way to think about it is.
2
SPEAKER_00
helping customers understand how you have worked with similar like minded customers to be successful.
2
SPEAKER_00
And again it s I talked about it earlier I think but the more you can take yourself out of the process of selling and actually you re just guiding the customer through their buyer s journey and coaching them on how
2
SPEAKER_00
they can get to the point of all of our amazing customers.
2
SPEAKER_00
Even if you only have a couple customers and you re an early stage startup, you can use this to your behalf of saying, this is how we helped one other customer to achieve the results you had.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s these three or four pieces of the process.
2
SPEAKER_00
For us, it s usually we have to bring in
2
SPEAKER_00
Marketing ops or it or the inside sales team outside of just the digital or demand gen team and so Coaching them on those gaps because a lot of times you re talking to somebody who is either a first-time buyer of your product They might be a first-time buyer of any product and so they don t really know what they don t know you actually have the advantage here of
2
SPEAKER_00
We spend all day long talking to prospects, coaching them through this process.
2
SPEAKER_00
So the more you can specifically give them a path in an email format that you can go back and reference.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you re kind of politely calling them out to say, hey, listen, you know, a week ago we agreed to this step.
2
SPEAKER_00
Where are we at in this process?
2
SPEAKER_00
Have we got this next person bought in?
2
SPEAKER_00
So very concrete steps in that email.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I m curious, one of the things you mentioned earlier was you don t want people to think of Drift just as a chatbot.
2
SPEAKER_01
You guys do a lot of different things.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oftentimes the way you expand that mindset is by getting certain people involved in the deal cycle that that person may not normally get involved.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so I m curious, are there certain steps that you re adding into that?
2
SPEAKER_01
that your buyers might not normally expect to multithread the deal so it becomes a bigger deal or to get more users into it.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m curious, like, what are you doing in the steps of that cycle to make the deal as big and wide as possible as well?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s a great call out and something we spend a ton of time working on.
2
SPEAKER_00
Drift is a very interesting opportunity where we sell to the marketing team because they typically own the website and the budget for anything that touches the website.
2
SPEAKER_00
But the marketing team s internal customer is the sales team that they re on the hook to develop more leads for, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
Early on, very first conversation, having a good conversation with the marketing team.
2
SPEAKER_00
If the rep has done their research and knows who the key inside sales leaders are at that organization, even if we haven t talked to them, but we did a little LinkedIn search and saw that Nick and Armand happen to be the VPs of inside sales, we will ask the marketing team, hey, I noticed that Nick and Armand are the guys that are running the inside sales group.
2
SPEAKER_00
Have you brought this up to them about this potential project with Drift?
2
SPEAKER_00
And again, the key there, shut up, let them answer.
2
SPEAKER_00
A lot of times they say, Oh, actually, no, we haven t thought about that.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like this is a marketing tech spend.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that gives us that opportunity to coach them to say our most successful customers have equal buy in with the sales team.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because again, your whole job as a marketer is to develop more leads from your website to your sales team, we can then bring that sales group on to the next call, all of a sudden, the sales team is there.
2
SPEAKER_00
they re also become a champion for you internally because they re going back to the marketing team saying, hey, when are we getting this drift thing?
2
SPEAKER_00
We want more leads, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
And all of a sudden, you re wider, you re multi-threaded, and also potentially that deal size is going to go up because marketers, historically, they want to start with a smaller crawl, walk, run approach.
2
SPEAKER_00
Sales leaders, if they see the value, they re going to go all in.
2
SPEAKER_00
If they ve got a 200, 300-person sales team, you re going to get 200 or 300 seats out of it versus just going to marketing.
2
SPEAKER_02
This has been a phenomenal one, but we are running out of time.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so we got to move ourselves to our final question of the interview.
2
SPEAKER_02
And the final question is this.
2
SPEAKER_02
We ve talked about a lot of really great things salespeople should be doing.
2
SPEAKER_02
Well, let s turn that should to a shouldn t.
2
SPEAKER_02
The final question is what is one bad habit that you see a lot of salespeople exhibiting that you think they need to break because it hurts them more than it helps.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think the best sellers that I ve ever worked with are, like I said before, jokingly, but sincerely mean it, being okay with challenging your customers.
2
SPEAKER_00
It is such a bad habit to just kind of take the customer at their word and just sit back and hope and pray that the deal is going to come in.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think that s the best one, I would say, and getting comfortable with asking the uncomfortable questions.
2
SPEAKER_01
Demandbase uncovers hidden deal killers with buyer intent data.
2
SPEAKER_01
One deal killer is when your champion s problem isn t a business problem.
2
SPEAKER_01
So drill from situation to problem to impact.
2
SPEAKER_01
When I sold compensation software, the situation was they were planning comp on 300 spreadsheets.
2
SPEAKER_01
The problem is that led to poor manager oversight.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the impact was that poor oversight led to compensation inequities.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that was a big business problem.
2
SPEAKER_01
Go get all six question frameworks to spot hidden deal killers from our friends at Demandbase.
2
SPEAKER_01
Link in the show notes.
2
SPEAKER_01
Today s tactic to triple your connect rate is brought to you by Rocket Reach, who provides data that lets you reach out to the right person at the right account at the right time.
2
SPEAKER_01
Every time you re reaching out to an account, pull down the contacts again.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes, I know it sucks, but the average tech tenure is two years, which means 50% of the workforce turns over every year.
2
SPEAKER_01
So look up the account, pull anyone who is hired and scratch anyone who is left.
2
SPEAKER_01
And one way you can pull verified and accurate data is with Rocket Reach.
2
SPEAKER_01
So if you like this, check out their toolkit on eight ways to triple your cold call connects in the show notes.
2
SPEAKER_01
This actionable competitive tactic from Clue is the trap question.
2
SPEAKER_01
Steer discovery toward the winning zone.
2
SPEAKER_01
If we re competing with a podcast that has no newsletter or webinar series,
2
SPEAKER_01
we might ask a trap question like, how do you figure out if those podcast listeners are making their way to your mailing list?
2
SPEAKER_01
And when you re in a head-to-head, there s no better way to prepare for your next competitive battle than with our trap questions and battle card templates from our friends at Clue.
2
SPEAKER_01
The link s in the show notes.
2
SPEAKER_01
Your Zoom Info Actionable Insight tactic is called Jane s Moving Up.
3
SPEAKER_01
Why?
3
SPEAKER_01
Because that s the email subject line you ll use when you get a real-time notice that your prospect, Jane, just got promoted.
3
SPEAKER_01
From there, in the email, explain how ZoomInfo helps rising sales leaders win their first 90 days on the job by highlighting coaching opportunities or supporting a team-wide prospecting push.
3
SPEAKER_01
And you can try out this trigger-based email template for prospect promotion and four other scenarios inspired by ZoomInfo s go-to-market plays.
3
SPEAKER_01
Link in the show notes.
3
SPEAKER_01
Beautiful.
3
SPEAKER_00
Miles, thank you so much for joining us.
3
SPEAKER_00
Everybody stick around for a 60-second recap from me and Armand coming up soon.
3
SPEAKER_01
Your top four takeaways from this episode with Miles Kane include, number one, what are you willing to bring to the table in return?
3
SPEAKER_01
Number two, and then what?
3
SPEAKER_01
Constantly be asking before you give concessions, before you lock up pricing, what are all the things that need to be done to get this deal done?
3
SPEAKER_01
Number three, after every discovery call, you re going to map out the buyer s journey and every single step that they need to take to buy software and where you stand today.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then lastly, number four,
3
SPEAKER_01
Prime your champion with the nuances of your product or your MSA, and be ready to jump on a call with their legal and your legal to get the final lines done.
3
SPEAKER_01
All right, Nick, those are our four.
3
SPEAKER_01
How can people help us out?
3
SPEAKER_00
If you listened to this episode and you didn t subscribe to 30 Minutes to President s Club, you broke a rule.
3
SPEAKER_00
Armand asked you in the beginning of this episode to subscribe, and if you didn t do that,
3
SPEAKER_00
His heart s pounding.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s sweating.
3
SPEAKER_00
He is an unhappy man.
3
SPEAKER_00
You do not want to make Armand unhappy.
3
SPEAKER_00
So please, please go subscribe and we ll be checking next week on 30 Minutes to Presidents Club.
3
SPEAKER_00
Today s prospecting tip is brought to you by Supercadence by Influ2, which helps cut through the noise of oversaturated prospecting channels.
3
SPEAKER_00
If you want to get your prospect s attention, you got to do stuff a robot would never do.
3
SPEAKER_00
One of my favorite plays is getting warm introductions to the accounts that I m targeting via salespeople who work at that account.
3
SPEAKER_00
Salespeople help salespeople.
3
SPEAKER_00
Another approach could be using Supercadence to run SDR ads to put a face to the name.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now, we worked with Influ2 to put together a special toolkit on ways to humanize your outreach, which you can get for free at the link in the show notes.
3
SPEAKER_01
Demandbase uncovers hidden deal killers with buyer intent data.
3
SPEAKER_01
One deal killer is when your champion s problem isn t a business problem.
3
SPEAKER_01
So drill from situation to problem to impact.
3
SPEAKER_01
When I sold compensation software, the situation was they were planning comp on 300 spreadsheets.
3
SPEAKER_01
The problem is that led to poor manager oversight.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the impact was that poor oversight led to compensation inequities.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that was a big business problem.
3
SPEAKER_01
Go get all six question frameworks to spot hidden deal killers from our friends at Demandbase.
3
SPEAKER_01
Link in the show notes.