🎙️Transcript: The Playmaker Podcast
The Playmaker Podcast
"Post Event Follow-Up Strategies"
Gabe Larsen, Ralph Barsi
April 30, 2018
Gabe Larsen (00:00):
Welcome to The Playmaker Podcast, a podcast for people who want to sell different. Playmakers wage war against traditional sales and win. Remember, success is just one play away.
I welcome everybody to The Playmaker Podcast. We're excited to get rocking and rolling. Today we're going to be talking about events, event follow-up strategies, and to do that, we've got Ralph Barsi, who is the Senior Director of Global Sales Development at ServiceNow.
Ralph, how the heck are you?
Ralph Barsi (00:42):
I'm fabulous, Gabe. Thanks for having me on today.
Gabe Larsen (00:44):
Yeah, like I was saying, sometimes on the podcast I'll say I try to bring on friends, and I've kind of considered Ralph a friend; but then I was saying I've actually never met him.
I'm one of the...like the...over the years, and I was surprised he said, I was like, he must've been a consultant at some point, but he's always been pretty active in sharing a lot of his learnings as a practitioner.
So I kind of feel like I know him, but this is the first time we met. So Ralph, my introduction probably wasn't great.
Can you tell us just a little bit more about yourself and what you guys do over there at ServiceNow?
Ralph Barsi (01:17):
Yeah, of course, Gabe. So I feel like I know you too. Our sales and sales development community is a pretty busy one, and I think that we're all pretty tightly connected, even though a lot of people don't want to admit it.
So anyway, I'm thrilled to be here and I feel like I've known you for a while too, and it's good to finally talk to you in person, put name, person, face.
So yeah, as you mentioned, I've been at ServiceNow for just over two and a half years. For those unfamiliar with ServiceNow, you could look up our ticker symbol, which is simply NOW or visit our website servicenow.com.
But the company was started in 2004, and when we started, our focus really centered on IT professionals and IT departments, and we offered them an IT service management platform that was so effective and so impactful to the work they were doing that we have since evolved to really address problems that the entire enterprise has.
So our SaaS platform now permeates HR facilities, security operations, customer service management, and at the end of the day, we essentially just allow companies to streamline the manual day-to-day work that they run into issues with on a regular basis. So we just make it easier for people to go to work.
So anyway, I'll let the listeners and viewers dig in and learn a little bit more about service now, but it's just a blast to be here right now, overseeing our sales development organization
Gabe Larsen (02:51):
And a large one at that. I was just looking at it here, and it's large. It's one of probably the larger that you've seen. Now.
We actually have old, some good friends. I have a couple of good friends. I mean, you guys are a big organization, but you have Dean Robinson who runs a lot of your customer success over there ish, who does a lot of your channel over there. I actually have a couple of people, Matt Oldner. Yeah, look, you guys have some good people over there.
Ralph Barsi (03:20):
We do. I'm partial of course, but we have a lot of fabulous people over here, especially those at the helm of the organization. We really believe in our leadership team and they're helping us head north.
Gabe Larsen (03:34):
Yeah, interesting. Well, I know you guys are doing some great stuff. One quick question before we get into this topic at hand, well, maybe two outside of work, anything you're passionate about, embarrassing moments, anything kind of come to mind?
Ralph Barsi (03:49):
Oh, too many embarrassing moments, number one, but sure. Yeah. I'm a family guy. I'm passionate about my wife and my three boys who are growing like weeds right now, which is unbelievable.
But I also am a co-founder and board member of a nonprofit organization. It's called Gable Heart Beats Foundation.
And essentially what we do is we put AEDs defibrillators in school gymnasiums and on sports fields and in sports complexes where they're needed most.
When an athlete, God help us experiences sudden cardiac arrest, there's something there to help them. And we also help fund heart screenings to mitigate sudden cardiac arrest altogether.
So that's what I'm passionate about right now.
Gabe Larsen (04:34):
And that's called, tell us the name one more time.
Ralph Barsi (04:36):
Sure. It's called Gable Heart Beats Foundation.
Gabe Larsen (04:40):
Yeah, I see it here. Gable Heart Beats Foundation. God, that is interesting. Certainly the cardiac arrest, I mean, that seems to be, we see these athletes kind of dropping.
I mean, it doesn't happen every day, but surprisingly, I feel like I read about that. I don't know, once a month in the news some athlete just went, is gone. Right.
Kind of on the field of play, which seems odd, but yeah, how are we stopping that? Interesting Gable Heart Beats Foundation. We'll have to check that out.
Ralph Barsi (05:09):
Yeah, please do. And we're working very hard to prevent those types of situations, Gabe, because they're happening, although you said it is once in a while, it's still too many times.
Gabe Larsen (05:18):
Totally. Totally.
Ralph Barsi (05:19):
We're here to fix that.
Gabe Larsen (05:21):
Interesting. Then one other thing I like to ask, I mean, Ralph, you've obviously, you manage a big team, big org. You've been at multiple different companies doing similar activities.
If you ran into someone, a sales development rep or an account development rep trying to get up, wanting to be a leader, is there any quick words of advice that you'd say if you only had kind of that 32nd window?
Ralph Barsi (05:43):
Yeah, sure. I would probably say "act as if."
I think once you decide in your mind, Hey, you know what? I'm a leader. I'm someone who can serve this organization and the people around me and I can make an impact and I can inspire, suddenly you'll start acting like that and illustrating that in your everyday work.
And that's how leaders are born. They attract opportunities to them by treating people like that.
Gabe Larsen (06:08):
Man, I think someone gave me that advice once. Start acting in the job that you want and then you'll get that job.
And I love it. I love it, man.
Well, let's get into this topic here. I was going back and forth with you just a little bit as we were debating what we should talk about. I came across a recent LinkedIn article.
You had written very recent here in just the last couple of days, use these sales fundamentals for effective post.
And it sounds like you had a little bit of an experience, maybe not the best experience, but you turned it into a positive.
Sounds like it ended well, and there was certainly some key learnings in it, and I was hoping to get into mostly the learnings, but can you just set up real quick the context of what happened here a few days ago?
Ralph Barsi (06:52):
Happy to.
So yeah, I had not only attended a conference, but I spoke at a conference as a presenter and about a week had passed and I got a phone call from what turned out to be the team lead of their sales development team and just did the typical event, follow up with the attendees, but asked the question, you think it wasn't even, what'd you think of the event?
It was basically, we saw that you were at the event. Did you have any questions? And it took me aback. I asked the person, Hey, are you an SDR?
Turns out they were and were the team lead of the sales development organization, which really took me back because it's another passion of mine, of course, and it's the community you and I work in.
(07:38):
And I basically spun that conversation, which didn't last very long into as constructive a dialogue as I could. And I tried to be very tactful and kind and calm without losing my mind on this guy.
But I said, Hey, look, if you just did a few minutes of research, you would've noticed, number one, I presented at the conference.
I didn't just attend. Number two, I'm connected by first degree to eight of the people in your organization, including a lot of your senior leaders. And I think if you just had those two pieces of information and insight, this would've been a much better call and much better experience for both of us.
So you're representing me, you're representing Gabe, you're representing the sales development and sales profession and community.
Come on, my man. You got to represent us well and take the time to do that work and measure twice and cut once before you pick up the phone and make that type of phone call.
Gabe Larsen (08:38):
Yeah, I love that line.
Ralph Barsi (08:38):
So I wrote about it.
Gabe Larsen (08:39):
I love that line, this kind of measure twice cut once concept, but it ultimately just bring it to the end. I mean, it sounds like although there was maybe some words of coaching or some advice given, certainly, I mean I'm looking at it here, he wrote back and was very appreciative, and it sounds like it turned out to be very positive for both of you to be honest. Is that fair to say?
Ralph Barsi (09:04):
Yeah, that's fair to say. And I think it really came down to just my tone. I was talking to him like I'm talking to you. I didn't berate the guy.
I've seen far too often these days, a lot of sales development reps just getting ripped to pieces publicly on LinkedIn, Twitter, and other channels. And it breaks my heart that people treat others like
Gabe Larsen (09:25):
That. Yeah, that's right.
Ralph Barsi (09:26):
And so that's the last thing I wanted to do in providing this constructive feedback. He ended up reaching out to me to connect on LinkedIn.
I ended up meeting him in person, and it's all good now, and I hope it was the real teaching moment for him. And he can go back and again, pay it forward with the SDRs that he now oversees.
Gabe Larsen (09:48):
I believe it and I believe he will. So let's get into this concept. I mean, number one, certainly this is not, I think it happens all the time.
I mean, we run this event and then for whatever reason, and I'd be interested on your opinion on that kind of first and foremost, but for whatever reason, people, we dump a list to these sales development reps and they kind of just start calling.
Do you feel like one of the reasons this happens, is it more on the marketing team, meaning they just gave them a list and it's just here's everybody who went to the event, kind of wink, wink?
Or is it more, and I'm not trying to get to the blame, I'm trying to get to the crux of the problem. Is it more on that sales development rep just being lazy and having a name but not spending the time? Or is it maybe the combo?
Ralph Barsi (10:40):
You know what, it's the latter. I think it's everybody's fault, Gabe. And I mean that from the leadership of that company to marketing, to sales, to the sales development leader. And also, let's think about this.
We're all big boys and big girls. We're all professionals. If somebody just dumps a list on your desk of attendees that just attended your conference or one of your events that you happen to have a booth at, for example, and give you no intel or insight, we've got Google, we've got all the names of the people that are on that list, look up those people and just start with open-ended.
Why did you go in the first place? What was it piqued your interest? Who were you there to see? Do a little due diligence and find out who the keynote was if you weren't there, and find out what did they talk about.
And maybe you could say, Hey, I understand Gabe Larson did the keynote, and I also understand he talked about A, B, C. Are these business issues right now that your organizations experiencing?
And if so, how would you stack rank 'em worst to least worse so that maybe we can help you address some of them. It's common sense.
Gabe Larsen (11:48):
Yeah. Do you feel like, I mean, I've debated with some sales development leaders. I mean, it probably is the combination of multiple guilty parties.
Sometimes the sales development rep or the account development rep is a little too lazy to do anything, and sometimes the marketing team maybe just did throw a list and they didn't even know, and a lead appears in front of them and they just pressed the button to call.
Do you feel like, well, I guess maybe the obvious answer is yes, but sometimes I've heard people say it doesn't matter that much. You can just say, Hey, did you attend the events? Oh, you didn't. What questions can I answer? Will you buy my service? Do you feel like that context you were just kind saying?
I mean, if I knew from that list that he did attend or she did attend that session, and I could reference it and say, Hey, it looks like you attended the keynote or this breakout. Did you find it interesting when they spoke about X? Y?
Does that added contacts really make a lot of difference, or is it it's not worth the effort to try to align those two pieces?
Ralph Barsi (12:54):
What you put into it is what you're going to get out of it. So if you want to put in those yes no questions from the outset, you're going to get yes no answers right out of the gate, and you're going to have a hard time establishing flow of conversation.
So connect the dots for people. Gabe, I saw that you attended this event. In fact, I just got a list of all 50 attendees that were at that session, and I do know that the session talked about A, B, C.
I just wanted to reach out to you today to let you know who we were, who I was, and should it make sense further down the line for our companies to start talking.
I want to make sure that you know how to reach me and that we get a seat at the table if you're looking deeper into evaluating what we might be able to offer you. I mean, just be human about it.
Gabe Larsen (13:39):
Yeah, yeah. It just humanizes it and personalizes a little bit. What is, as you think about, and certainly guys if you haven't seen the article, you'll find it on Ralph's LinkedIn profile.
You mentioned the concept of the three by three research. You even give a couple examples of way to do that, but obviously the audience isn't looking at that.
Can you, as we think about best practices around that, and you've hinted at a little bit, you get what you put in, make it a little more personalized.
Can you talk about some principles you've found to be effective like the three by three that does allow you to maybe move from generic to personal?
Ralph Barsi (14:13):
Sure, sure. So first of all, three by three or three in three I got from my good friend Steve Richard from ExecVision, and Steve was also a co-founder of what's now VorsightBP.
And the concept is before you pick up the phone and make a phone call into a company or to a key call point, you've got to have three pieces of intelligence or insight that's going to make the conversation, which will probably last three minutes relevant.
So what three pieces of info can you bring up in three minutes time that's going to move the needle?
So that's where the three and three concept comes from. And once you start to drill into what those three relevant pieces of intel are, it runs the gamut. It could be about the marketplace, it could be about their competitors.
It could be about their company or the person in particular you're calling. You might have a mutual connection to them, something that's going to establish some common ground and get you working on building your credibility and rapport within those three minutes so that you can earn the right to have three more minutes in the conversation.
Gabe Larsen (15:16):
Yeah, and it seems like that's not too much to ask. I like to your point, Steve's point, I mean three minutes.
I've often found sometimes I've joked with Steve and said, I'm sometimes like a three by 30. Sometimes I can find three things in 30 seconds.
I mean, just while sometimes the phone is, I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's not that difficult sometimes to find, like you said, eight connections, common connections. That's literally a five second activity.
And I only say that is certainly sometimes more the better. Well, to a certain degree, let's not research for hours, which I've seen now.
Ralph Barsi (15:50):
Yeah...
Gabe Larsen (15:51):
But come on guys. I mean, it is one of those quick things that you often can fairly quickly pull something out outside of that, and you hit on a couple examples and making sure that you hit kind of the right conversation flow or mentioning the actual session.
Has there been a couple other principles you've found an event follow up that you've thought, Hey, man, this is just a great way to make sure that you tie the bow on it or put the cherry on top.
Ralph Barsi (16:14):
So we could get specific. But just to stay at a macro level, the best practices I've seen Gabe really center on having the three and three second would be have a list of conversation starters that are open-ended questions, for example, versus what we mentioned earlier, the yes nos.
Because when you start pulling out the yes nos out of your back pocket, you only have a handful of them to use.
And if it's no, no, no for the first three questions, you're painting yourself into a corner and now you're kind of screwed and you've got to come up with an open-ended question quick to kind of get out of that predicament.
And then lastly, I would say it's just about connecting dots for people. Tell them why you're calling, what the aim of the call is or the objective.
And hey, if this works out, I would eventually like to connect you to my colleague, Gabe. He would talk to you either next week or next quarter, whatever accommodated your need and your schedule.
But I'm probably going to ask you about five to eight questions over the next three minutes just to get some information and intel because you attended our conference, and we want to make sure that it was top-notch experience for you, et cetera, et cetera, and connect the dots for them.
Gabe Larsen (17:23):
I like those three principles. You right, the roots. Yeah. It sounds like you've been around the block here just a few times.
Ralph, one more question before I kind of let you get back to your day job. I mean, I'm taking out of event follow up for just a minute and go just big picture account development or sales development here.
I mean, you've obviously managed large teams, you've been an individual contributor, you've managed smaller teams.
I assume here in probably the deeper path, if you had to give kind of this SDR leader a couple pieces of advice who's taking over a team of 12, 15 or 20 and it's maybe their first management experience or it's the first time they've got a big team, is there some real key principles for managing and scaling a sales development team that you're like, man, you've just got to nail you guys in order to win?
Ralph Barsi (18:13):
Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. So we could spend an hour on this one.
Gabe Larsen (18:16):
I know I'm throwing a curve on you.
Ralph Barsi (18:20):
So Number One, and these are in no particular order. Okay. I'm just going to rattle off a couple of that come to mind right away. Number One, you have to be such a great communicator.
(18:31):
You have to know that if you're speaking to people in person, for example, in a team meeting setting, you have to use inflections when it's important or you have to quiet down when it's important, or you have to leverage silence and let the silence do the work.
That's critical in your communication efforts, both speaking and writing. They must be consistent. They must always reinforce the mission, what the team is aiming to achieve, and by when and how everybody in the organization plays a part in the collective effort to achieve the mission, acquire the target is imperative.
And that's just the communication thing. I'll pause in case you want to elaborate or ask a question on that.
Gabe Larsen (19:16):
No, want to see if I, I've got one or two things to maybe follow up, but keep going. I want to get this quick list of top three here.
Ralph Barsi (19:22):
Yeah, another thing that comes to mind is it doesn't matter, in my opinion, how big your organization is. You as the leader must make the effort to get to know as best as you can each individual person in your organization.
(19:38):
And when you get to know them personally, and if you can even take it a step further and understand their purpose, what their short, mid, long-term goals are, who in the professional world they're trying to emulate, where they're trying to get to, and by when they hit that rough patch or those dark days or that tough quarter, and you can help remind them of the purpose as to why they're getting out of bed every morning to come to work at your company, you will help relight the fire within them.
A lot of SDRs and salespeople and even the leaders feel like the leaders the one who's supposed to motivate everybody. No, no, no, no.
The leader's supposed to remind them of what motivates them so that fire is lit from within and they become self-starters and they feel pulled towards the goal versus pushed towards the goal by the leader.
Gabe Larsen (20:31):
Yeah.
Ralph Barsi (20:31):
The last thing I'll say is...
Gabe Larsen (20:33):
Go ahead.
Ralph Barsi (20:34):
Don't forget, and it segues nicely from what I just said. Don't forget, this is a business comprised of people. They're humans. Use basic human psychology.
Look people in the eyes, give people the benefit of the doubt. Put a 10 on their forehead, shake their hands firmly. Look at them in the eyes, call them by their first name, basically care. Care.
And also see yourself as best as you can as a servant leader. I'm so tired of leaders who think they really are at the top of the org chart and they're looking down on their people.
You need to look up and serve up into the organization and help move obstacles out of the way so people can get where they need to go.
Gabe Larsen (21:22):
Yeah, that is the advice I'd give.
Ralph Barsi (21:23):
Yeah...
Gabe Larsen (21:24):
And it's funny, especially in the sales development world, you'll see those posts on LinkedIn where someone, I mean, it's a tough job, number one, but number two,
Ralph Barsi (21:34):
One of the toughest....
Gabe Larsen (21:35):
Yeah. Sometimes it's like they're not lesser humans. And I mean, I say that obviously jokingly, but it's sometimes both sides of the barn kind of hit 'em, right?
The marketing team says they're terrible at doing what they're doing. The sales team says what? They're terrible. And sometimes I think they feel like they're lesser humans and they don't have a, I mean, it's tough.
And so I think if you want that, you're right. If you want that function to really roll, you got to say, I might be above them in an org chart, but they're still humans. We see eye to eye as humans.
Ralph Barsi (22:12):
You know what else, Gabe? And on the human psychology tip, in my experience, I've noticed as my teams get bigger and bigger, and I guess my brand in many respects gets bigger and bigger.
My contingent of haters or dislikes grows in proportion. And I think that's normal for all humans to keep in mind that, Hey man, you're not going to resonate with everybody. You're just not.
I think people are a lot like tuning forks, and they're tuned to a specific frequency or pitch.
And if I walk into a room and go, what up, everybody? Those who are tuned to the same frequency as me will go, what up, Ralph?
Where the others will be like, who is this guy? You know what I mean? So if I think if you go through life knowing that you're not going to please everybody, and frankly, you're not the center of the universe, it'll help you get out of your head and you'll stop tripping out so much on what people think about you, especially your team, and you'll stay focused on what is the mission, what is the messaging?
And really how can I still, even though this person isn't a big fan of me, how can I still help them go from X to Y and do a great job?
Gabe Larsen (23:17):
Yeah. I mean, you just can't please everybody, right? That's just the way it works.
Ralph Barsi (23:19):
You can't breaks my heart.
Gabe Larsen (23:22):
You're right.
Ralph Barsi (23:23):
I default to loving everybody, and it doesn't always work out the other. That's not always.
Gabe Larsen (23:27):
Yeah, they still don't like it. Totally. You win some, you lose some.
We'll wrap, I really appreciate as we wrap here, if someone wants to get ahold of you or catch some of your content, learn a little bit more about you, any recommendations on how to do that?
Ralph Barsi (23:39):
Sure, absolutely. So I have a blog, ralphbarsi.com. Pretty simple.
Go ahead and subscribe if you want to receive some consistent material and updates from me. Number Two, you mentioned on LinkedIn, it's in/ralphbarsi, and on Twitter I'm @rbarsi, and you'll find me all three of those.
Gabe Larsen (24:00):
You will just type in Ralph Barsi, guys. You'll find totally one of those channels. So again, Ralph, really appreciate your time. For the audience, remember, success is just one play away.