🎙️Transcript: Kiwi Landing Pad
Kiwi Landing Pad
"Sales Playbook"
Siân Simpson, Ralph Barsi
October 24, 2016
Summary
In this webinar hosted by Kiwi Landing Pad for New Zealand startup founders and small sales teams, Ralph Barsi (Senior Director of Sales Development at ServiceNow) and Siân Simpson explore fundamental sales strategies for early-stage companies.
Ralph oversees a 100+ person global sales development organization across seven cities including Sydney, Singapore, and Tokyo, managing the top of the funnel for ServiceNow.
The conversation covers three core themes: building a strong professional brand to escape obscurity, owning your calendar through productivity frameworks like the bookends approach, and leading inspired teams that stay motivated through the inevitable rejection of sales work.
Ralph introduces the Five Barriers that block salespeople from hitting quota: obscurity, lack of focus, inactivity, no conversation flow, and no purpose. He emphasizes that the modern sales stack combines technology tools (marketing automation, telephony systems, email sequencing, social media management) with disciplined processes to create efficiency throughout the entire funnel.
A key insight for the predominantly founder-led audience is to focus on attracting opportunities rather than pursuing them by building personal brand, leading with market data rather than product features, and understanding the prospect's world through deep research.
Ralph stresses that salespeople must transition from talking about their company, history, and offerings to discussing what's happening in the customer's world, their initiatives, and their challenges.
The webinar concludes with practical advice on event follow-up, scaling the sales process, and why New Zealand companies should master their local ANZ market before attempting to break into the US.
BIG Takeaways
The Five Barriers That Block Salespeople From Hitting Quota
Ralph identifies five critical obstacles that prevent sales success: (1) Obscurity - not being known in your marketplace, making it essential to build personal and professional brand; (2) Lack of Focus - being overwhelmed by information when you need to concentrate on near-term targets; (3) Inactivity - saying you'll do things but not following through on commitments; (4) No Conversation Flow - inability to carry engaging written or verbal conversations with prospects; (5) No Purpose - lacking clarity on why you're doing this work and who you're serving beyond yourself. Addressing these barriers systematically transforms sales performance.
The Sales Stack Enables Efficiency From Top to Bottom of Funnel
The modern sales stack is approximately five years old, derived from the IT services stack, and comprises technology tools that enable the entire buying and selling process. At the top of funnel: marketing automation (Marketo, Eloqua, Pardot) scores and assigns leads. Middle of funnel: telephony tools like Connect and Sell allow SDRs to dial 200-400 leads quickly, connecting only when prospects answer. Throughout the funnel: email sequencing, social media management, and deal stage technologies create efficiency. Companies should ask: Where do we need automation? Where do we need productivity gains? These questions drive which technologies to implement first.
The Bookends Approach Protects Sacred Prospecting Time
The best SDRs use Monday and Friday as "bookends" for administrative work, internal meetings, research, team syncs, and preparation. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday become sacred prospecting and lead follow-up time with "blinders on." Leaders must communicate this structure to the entire organization so executives and other business units don't schedule SDRs for meetings on Tue/Wed/Thu. This approach respects SDRs' revenue-generating time and ensures they're prepared for prospect conversations. Results at ServiceNow: meetings booked increased 2x, conversion to pipeline improved because SDRs researched prospects thoroughly on Mondays and Fridays.
Lead With Market Data, Not Your Company History
Following Chet Holmes' "The Ultimate Sales Machine," effective salespeople lead conversations with market data, not information about their own world. Example approach: "I saw these three statistics in the market. I've spoken to five companies doing similar work to yours - I keep hearing these three issues. How big an issue are these for your business? How would you stack rank them? Since we're planning for next fiscal year, where do these rest on your list of initiatives?" This positions you as a trusted advisor with market insights rather than a product pusher, and it gets prospects talking about their real priorities.
Talk About Their World, Not Yours
The biggest fundamental mistake salespeople make is talking about themselves - their company, history, and offering. This is interesting to them but never interesting to customers. Research the prospect's world thoroughly (LinkedIn, social media, industry reports like PwC strategy papers), understand their challenges and market trends, then have conversations about their initiatives, their problems, and their goals. When prospects pick up the phone, you should have a warm, engaging talk track about their business because you've leveraged your calendar to learn about their world.
Attract Opportunities, Don't Pursue Them
Shift from pursuit mode to attraction mode by building brand, creating valuable content, and becoming known in your marketplace. When you're well-known based on articles you write, videos you produce, and value you bring, people recognize your name in their inbox and have higher propensity to reply or look you up. When they Google you and find your LinkedIn profile, it should be a great storefront telling your story - not a silhouette or party photo. Focus on making your offering attractive and sharing client success stories, and the world opens up to you regardless of geography.
Focus on Mastering Your Local Market First
For New Zealand companies worried the local market is too small, Ralph advises: focus on New Zealand and Australian businesses first. The ANZ market is hot. Master the craft of serving customers in your backyard well, and expansion happens naturally. This parallels social media strategy - people obsess over gaining new followers when they should focus on serving existing followers exceptionally. Don't worry about breaking into the US or Asia Pacific until you've proven you can deliver extraordinary value to customers in your region.
Transcript
Siân Simpson (00:01):
Okay. Hello everyone. Sorry for taking so long. We had some technical difficulties. Thanks so much for joining us. And I see we've got some questions coming through, so really excited to be here today. Another webinar.
Today we're going to get into sales and sales development. So keep your questions coming. So what are we covering today? We are covering some core themes around building a strong professional brand, owning your calendar, so how you can be more productive, what days, weeks, months, and quarters matter.
And then how to lead and develop an inspired team. How do you eliminate burnout and how do you drive peak performance? And I know that for some of you early stage guys, it's really, really important to be able to figure out how you configure your sales team, how you can motivate them.
And I guess how you sort of get them excited about facing rejection, which is something that we all have.
(00:50):
So really excited that you could join us today, Ralph. Thanks so much for joining us. And I guess, do you want to explain a little bit about yourself? So I met Ralph at a Sales Hacker conference, interviewed him, asked him a whole lot of questions and he's a great guy and very knowledgeable about sales. So over to you.
Ralph Barsi (01:06):
Hello, Siân. And good morning everybody. Thanks for joining us today and dealing with the technical difficulties that we had. It's great to be here. My name is Ralph Barsi. I am currently the senior director of our sales development organization at ServiceNow. I am based in Santa Clara, California, right in the heart of Silicon Valley. And I oversee the top of the funnel organization. So all the sales development representatives who are on the phones and sending emails and following up to the inbound leads that are received from our marketing engine, as well as all the outbound prospecting efforts that are done to engage our marketplace is the team that I oversee. There are over 100 folks in my organization based in seven different cities. The closest to New Zealand is we have an office in Sydney, Australia. We're also in Singapore and in Tokyo covering APJ out of those three cities.
(02:05):
And then we have two in the US and we have two in Europe. And my expertise and specialty really centers on sales development and that top of the funnel effort. I've been in sales for close to 23 years now. Over half of my career has been spent as an individual contributor where I've carried a bag, carried a quota, and I've been responsible for a territory. But the latter half of my career is really focused on building and scaling sales development organizations. And it's turned out to be a real passion of mine. So I'm happy to speak about it at any opportunity.
Siân Simpson (02:41):
Awesome. That is great. What's the biggest sale you've ever made?
Ralph Barsi (02:47):
It was just over a million dollars. It was to a healthcare system and I sold billing software. So I helped the healthcare system send out accounts payable and do remittance on accounts receivable.
Siân Simpson (03:02):
And worst sale you've ever made?
Ralph Barsi (03:04):
Oh. Well, the worst sale I ever made wasn't made. And very early in my career, Siân, I walked into a kitchenware store in Oakland, California. And I walked right to the back where the owner was and started to pitch them on the value of having a presence on the web. This was the late '90s. A lot of businesses did not have a web presence. And they ended up literally walking me out to the sidewalk out in front of the store and told me to get lost. So I didn't make that sale and it was one of the worst times. But you try to spin it into a positive as best you can.
Siân Simpson (03:41):
I bet you learned a lot from that one.
Ralph Barsi (03:43):
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
Siân Simpson (03:45):
Okay, cool. So I guess let's click into the themes that we want to explore. So how do you build a strong professional brand?
Ralph Barsi (03:53):
Oh yes. So building a brand and really owning time and owning your calendar, and then obviously embracing your purpose. Those three themes were really derived from a presentation that I did recently called Five Barriers That Block Salespeople From Hitting Quota. And just to review quickly what those five barriers are, the first one is obscurity. One of the toughest things that salespeople deal with is not being known in their marketplace. So obscurity is one of the real reasons why professionals today have to develop a personal and professional brand. It's imperative, especially in sales. If they want to penetrate the marketplace, if they want to engage the right accounts with some relevancy and some value, not being obscure is a pretty good place to start. The second barrier that I talk about is a lack of focus.
(04:52):
As you know, we are overwhelmed today by the amount of information coming across the wire, whether it be here on our mobile devices or on our laptops or in email, and just really being able to shift your mindset and focus heavily on what the target is that you're after even within the next hour versus the fiscal year. It takes a lot of effort and energy, but it too is imperative if you want to do well in your business and if you want to, as a sales rep, hit quota. Third one is inactivity. A lot of people say they're going to do things and they don't actually do what they say they're going to do. And just avoiding that mantra is critical if you want to be successful in sales. The fourth barrier is no conversation flow. A lot of people have a hard time, whether it's written or verbal, just carrying a good conversation with somebody.
(05:47):
So think about this. If you're a founder out there and you still don't have a good pitch about what it is your company is all about, your value proposition, your mission, your vision, all of those things matter and are critical especially early on. So honing in on that craft and learning and improving at that level, I think would be really important. And then the fifth one is really based on your purpose. And I tell this to my team all the time and people I coach and mentor. I always ask them, why are you here? Why are you at the company you're at? Why are you in the role you're in? Most people don't go beyond the superficial answer of, well, I need to make money and have a career. Well, that's only going to get you so far. You really want to dig deeper and think about those around you who you are trying to help, those who count on you and are depending on you every day. And make that the fuel that pulls you through the tough times that we all go through.
(06:46):
It's very easy to get caught up in, wow, I made 50 calls today. No one picked up or everyone's hanging up on me. That's horrible. Well, when you have a real motivation behind what you're doing and who you're serving in your marketplace as a professional, those are things that actually make it much easier for you to actually engage and meet people and build your business. But the purpose part of it is what pulls you through.
Siân Simpson (07:10):
Right. So first one, being about obscurity. So I guess being known. Yesterday we had our Kiwi Landing Pad meet-up and a classic example is this person from Vend introduced himself to me with his 30-second pitch. And I had to interrupt him and say, you don't need to give me the pitch. I already know what you do and I know that you're awesome. So in a sense, I already knew what he was doing and there was a certain level of understanding of the space that he was in. So I guess that's your point, like people should already know your kind of stuff?
Ralph Barsi (07:41):
Absolutely. And that's the perfect example, Siân. And for a lot of people out there, if you're not building a brand through the vehicle of LinkedIn or Twitter or Snapchat or your blog or a video webinar like this today, if you're not building your brand by using the technology and the avenues that are available, you're really missing out. And you're going to really struggle in your day-to-day work. So whether you decide to invest time and effort on LinkedIn as your vehicle of choice, you can do a variety of things to really add value to the marketplace. And you can write posts on LinkedIn, whether it's short ones or long form posts. You can share what others have to say if you don't feel comfortable writing just yet. You can comment on what other people are saying. You can produce videos and upload them on LinkedIn. All of this while you're helping people through your thought leadership and expertise, it's also positioning you and placing you as a go-to expert and someone who has relevant information and a value to provide the marketplace.
(08:46):
So we as buyers today in 2016 going into 2017, we do our research on who it is we're going to do business with. I'm not about to buy something from some company when I don't know anything about the company and I don't know anyone at that company. So being obscure is really a big problem that needs to be addressed if you want to do well in business.
Siân Simpson (09:08):
Awesome. That's really great. I'm going to start posting some of these links out to like the LinkedIn blog and some of the other resources that we mentioned. So keep your eyes peeled for that. So why should you, I guess this might be a weird question, why should you invest time and effort, and money in building your brand as opposed to just doing more sales? So I guess the reason why is because you spend a lot less time on those sales calls if they already know you, et cetera. But how do you justify that? Can you speak to that at all or is that kind of clear?
Ralph Barsi (09:38):
Yeah, sure. Well, think about the amount of time it's going to take. We live in a twenty four seven world and there are certain moments in our week and in our month, for example, where it's a great time to write. Some of us like to wake up early in the morning before everyone else does and get up at 4:30 in the morning and you can write for an hour and then get on with your day. And that one hour you invest on, let's say, Tuesdays and Thursdays every week, week after week, you could publish a really good article and a really good blog post and share it out to your marketplace and literally help hundreds or thousands of people with your good advice or your expertise. That investment of an hour on a Tuesday, an hour on a Thursday, you could do it from your mobile device for those out there who don't work at the computer every day. Like I do for example, I'm very fortunate.
(10:26):
But yeah, I think it's just well worth it. And if you're about to ask me what the return on investment is and what the ROI is, I can't quantify that. I can tell you though, that the more value you bring to the marketplace and the more value you share with the marketplace through your thought leadership and through your expertise, the more valuable you will become in the eyes of your customers, in the eyes of your prospects, in the eyes of your recruiters. And it's going to be you who starts to dictate how you want things to play out in your career.
Siân Simpson (10:06):
Awesome. Can you also potentially touch on, I guess, the full sales stack as well? I don't know if Kiwis or if our businesses really look at or realize how much of a full stack sales have become from like, I guess sales development right through to sales enablement technology and what that actually means. We've had the full stack developers and full stack marketers for a while and now we've got full stack salespeople or how do you choose which part of the sales stack do you want to be in and what is the sales stack?
Ralph Barsi (10:37):
Sure, absolutely. Well, that term, it's relatively new. It's probably about five years old now and it's really derived from the IT or information services stack and the OSI model from back in the day. But what the sales stack really is, is it is technology and automated tools that enable and empower salespeople to manage the buying and the selling process from start to end. So an example would be at the very start, if we were to look at a funnel at the very top of the funnel, we're relying on marketing and demand generation efforts to basically drive brand new leads into the top of that funnel. Well, there are technologies that are available like marketing automation technologies. A few that come to mind would be Marketo or Eloqua or Pardot. Those are marketing automation tools that would identify a lead implicitly and explicitly and basically grade that lead A, B or C based on that person's behavior on your website, or if that person attended a webinar that your company hosted or saw you at an event or a trade show and your marketing automation system identifies that lead, scores it, and then assigns it if you have a company that has a sales development team, assigns it to the right sales development rep who is then responsible for picking up the phone and calling that lead back.
(12:07):
Now, fast forward to a company that has thousands or tens of thousands of leads coming into the top of the funnel, that process must be efficient and must be very fast in not only scoring the leads and sorting them and filtering them, but discerning quickly who to assign that lead to. And then a sales development rep who may be responsible for following up on hundreds of leads in a given day, they need technology like a telephony tool, for example, Connect and Sell, which allows them to pick up the phone and dial 200, 300, 400 leads in a very short amount of time. And the technology only connects that sales rep with people who actually pick up the phone on the other side. And as you walk your way through the sales funnel, there's marketing automation for telephone, for email, for social media outreach, for the middle of a deal when the deal has seven stages of its life cycle, there are technologies and tools that allow the efficiency and productivity of that funnel to take place.
(13:12):
And that is a long answer, but it does define what a sales stack is. So companies want to really start thinking about where do we need automation, where do we need efficiency, where do we need productivity gains? And that should drive what technologies you consider first for your sales stack.
Siân Simpson (13:33):
Awesome. Thanks. Let us know if you guys are following and I guess what you think about what we're talking about at the same time. Just a sidebar, I just created a poll and we've got a lot of questions. So have a look at them and see which ones you want answered the most once we get through this stuff. Okay. Let's talk about owning your calendar and the mechanics of productive days, weeks, months, and quarters.
Ralph Barsi (13:54):
Yeah, absolutely. So I want you to get rid of the myth that work happens on Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. That is over, especially for the A players out there that are doing very well in their career. It is a twenty four seven world and technology allows us to live twenty four seven and actually still get some rest and still get some free time and still be able to create space in our personal and professional lives. The better you can get at owning your calendar and owning time, the better you're going to do in your career. So there's a lot of ways out there to do that, starting with whether you are an Outlook user or whether you use Gmail and use Google Calendar, you could visit YouTube, for example, and type in tips, tricks, techniques for Outlook or tips, tricks, techniques for Google Calendar.
(14:46):
And you're going to learn a bevy of different shortcuts and fast ways to get through your calendar and really better organize your time.
(14:58):
There's a lot of methods and habits that you can create and disciplines that you can execute on to own your calendar. The best sales development reps that have worked in my organizations take what they call a bookends approach to the week. And what I mean by that is they actually have their weekends, but on Monday and on Friday, they actually see those days as the bookends of the week. And on Monday and Friday, those are the days when they can do a lot of administrative work. They could do follow up from emails that came in last week or over the weekend or overnight. They can reach out to internal stakeholders that they're working with that they might need help from throughout the week. A lot of team meetings take place on Mondays and Fridays, one-on-ones take place on those days. And essentially, they're using those days to prepare for the middle of the week, which is Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and that is when sacred prospecting and lead follow-up time happens.
(15:56):
And in my organizations, I would actually, as the leader of my team, communicate to all the executives and different business units in my department what Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday meant to sales development reps. Essentially, their blinders are on, they are very focused on lead follow up and lead generation. Please do not schedule them for meetings. Please do not walk by their desk and tap on their shoulder and ask them if they'd like to have a cup of coffee with you or walk around the block. Again, it's sacred time that can happen on Monday and Friday, and that's a super effective approach to your calendar. A third one that you can consider is from a great speaker named Brendon Burchard, and he spells his name B-R-E-N-D-O-N B-U-R-C-H-A-R-D. A few years ago, he created what's called a one-page productivity planner. And on that one page, which you can download for free as a PDF, he has, at the very top of the page, the three most critical projects that you need to work on either today, this week, or in this quarter.
(17:03):
Beneath that, he has people, people that you need to hear from, as well as people that must hear from you in a given timeframe. And then finally, at the bottom of the page, he has three priorities. What are the top three priorities that must get done or must get addressed right now? So again, it's projects, it's people, it's priorities, it's approaching your calendar or your week with a bookends approach. And then you could do what the CEO of a company called Zappos does. Tony Hsieh is his name. He has succumbed to the fact that he gets so many emails in one given day that he can't look at them until the following day. So he actually takes all the emails from one day and he puts it in what he calls his yesterbox. And then the next morning, he filters through all the emails he got the day before because he's got a finite amount of emails.
(17:58):
He knows how many he has and how much time it's going to take for him to get through, prioritize, and obviously follow up on. So those are just some techniques that you might want to apply right after this webinar and you're going to find your efficiency and productivity in your own life is going to increase exponentially without question.
Siân Simpson (18:19):
I think that's pretty amazing. So what sort of time have you been able to gain back from, or how much has your sales increased or like whatever metric you want to use as a result of using some of these methodologies?
Ralph Barsi (18:31):
Absolutely. So when you pair up the methodology, Siân, with good technology from the stack that you are building, you're going to find, especially in the sales development effort, people are getting after leads in record time. And for those in my world in sales development and in marketing and in demand generation, the value of leads depreciates by the minute. So the faster you can have your sales development reps responding to inquiries about your offering, the higher the probability is that you're going to convert those into real viable opportunities for your pipeline. So in terms of metrics, the number of booked meetings has increased 2X, the number of completed meetings that actually convert to revenue pipeline has improved because the sales development reps have the focus. And if they're taking the bookends approach, for example, on Monday and on Friday, they're thoroughly researching who it is they're going to be following up with and who it is they're going to be pursuing in a prospecting effort.
(19:36):
So when that C-level executive or when that key contact that you're trying to reach actually picks up the phone and answers your phone call, you actually have a talk track and you're prepared to have a very warm conversation that's engaging and is really about them because you've really taken the time and you've leveraged your calendar to learn about their world. And some of the biggest, most fundamental mistakes that salespeople make is they talk about themselves. They talk about their company, their history, their offering, which is interesting to them, but it's really not ever interesting to your customer. You need to be talking about what's going on in the customer's world and the better you could do that, the better everything's going to be for everyone.
Siân Simpson (20:19):
That's really interesting. I think the same goes for speaking, right? So yesterday, really small example, or actually, I guess my interviews with people like you are a good example. So I guess as a sidebar, every time I do an interview with a speaker or a thought leader for a video production, which is one-on-one, I know everything about the other person. And so I go in and I'm like, "Hey, I know that you have a daughter and a dog. How are they doing? I know that you've worked here, but you actually studied philosophy at university and why did you go to Nepal for three years and what were you doing there?" And then they're like, "Wow, you know so much about me." And then you start asking all of these sort of diagonal questions. I wouldn't go that personal with your sales calls, but I guess the example there is like the more research you do and the more you know about them, the more invested they are. Helpful tip.
(21:08):
Sorry, you go.
Ralph Barsi (21:09):
I'm sorry, Siân. I was going to add to what you were saying, which goes right back to what we were talking about with brand.
(21:16):
If you are reluctant, for example, to build out a social media profile, be it on Twitter or on LinkedIn or Snapchat, think twice about where your prospects live. And if they live on those social media channels, then you too should live there. And then you can catch the conversations that they're having and you can catch the insights and intel that they're really giving you through their social media posts. So if they're talking only about business and their marketplace, there's a lot of gold nuggets there that you could pull from and start your conversations with. I'm glad you brought that up.
Siân Simpson (21:50):
So another thing that I've realized recently is that PwC does these strategy papers on most industries around the world. So if you need some sort of just like a high level overview of what's going on in your industry, if you are going into some of these meetings, sort of catching up on the last three years of those trends. So you go in and you're like, "Okay, this is my solution, but I know that over the last three years you've had to change your business in these three ways. This is where the market's going, this is what you need and this is your biggest challenge right now." I guarantee you'll have a fundamentally different conversation because they're like, "Oh, you understand what my challenges are and you actually understand where the industry is going at the same time." Which I think will enable you to have a different conversation.
Ralph Barsi (22:32):
So there's a great book that was written many years ago from the late great sales author, Chet Holmes, and the name of that book is The Ultimate Sales Machine. And what Chet talks about in that book is really leading with market data. Don't talk necessarily about data in your world. Again, it's about them, not about you. And if you lead with market data, it's going to really resonate well with, for example, in a B2B world with the business that you're trying to engage. And then when you lead with market data like that and you have really good insights that are relevant to the business you're speaking to, a great conversation starter could be around their initiative. So we're getting into September of 2016 right now. And believe it or not, so many businesses who have a calendar fiscal year are preparing for 2017 already. So it's a great conversation starter to say, "Hey, I saw these three statistics in the market.
(23:34):
In addition, I've spoken to five different companies who do similar work to what your company does. You don't necessarily have to name them, but I keep hearing the same issues coming up from these businesses. It's these three things." So with respect to your business, how big of an issue is it for your business and how would you stack rank it on your list of business issues? Oh, and by the way, since we too are planning for the next fiscal year, talk to me about where those rest on your list of initiatives for the fiscal year. What are you really trying to tackle first, second, and third? Because I think it makes sense based on what we've learned about you, because we've been researching you and tracking you for some time. We think it might make sense to at least begin a conversation so that when it is a real issue for you and you are looking for offerings like ours, at least you give us an opportunity to have a seat at the table and have a real discussion about what we know about your marketplace.
Siân Simpson (24:32):
Awesome. That's great. I'll put a link to that book in the comments for anyone who wants to jump on that. Awesome. I think that's really great. If you have any comments about what we're talking about, let us know as always. So I guess the last point before we get into some questions, so I guess this is probably the biggest issue, right? So how do you lead and develop an inspired team? And I guess sales can be very uninspiring. At some point I'll ask you how many calls and follow ups or how many calls and emails you should do until you get a meeting and then until you get a sale because there is a structure to that in the US. I don't know if you've seen any differences between Australia and the US, which you probably have. Motivating people is hard. So let's give us some tips for leading an inspired team.
Ralph Barsi (25:18):
Sure. So let's cut to the chase and get to the metrics part first. So in a B2B world, depending on the size of your company, which there's so many variables now, it's tough to just pinpoint an exact metric that is the formula for everyone because I don't think it exists. However, your sales development reps, let's say they're managing a thousand accounts in a territory, there's probably three key people in every account that they could have a conversation with that's relevant and valuable to your business. So at the very least, they should be doing 60 dials a day and you figure they'll get just a portion of those dials to actually pick up the phone. So when you manage expectations that, look, you're going to make a lot of dials, you're going to send a lot of emails, no one is going to reply to you, at least for the most part, you're going to be told no, should you get someone on the phone, you have to manage the expectations about branding and avoiding obscurity upfront so that number one, you mitigate the non-responsive feedback that you'll get from people.
(26:31):
And when you do send an email to someone, if you're well known in your industry based on the articles you write, the videos you produce, the value you bring to the marketplace, people will probably recognize your name when it comes across their inbox and there's going to be a higher propensity of them to actually reply to you or at least look you up. When they look you up, they will likely Google your name and more often than not, one of the first search results that comes up in Google is your LinkedIn profile. So when they go to visit your LinkedIn profile, is it a great storefront that shares your story and the story of your offering with the marketplace when visitors visit? Or do you not have a profile picture up yet? And it's instead a silhouette? No one wants to do business with a silhouette.
(27:21):
So do all that upfront work to start attracting the marketplace to you versus pursuing the marketplace and you're going to have less and less days of all the calls with no one picking up the phone or no one replying to you. That's number one, right?
Siân Simpson (27:37):
Just quickly. Yeah. So I guess I did a poll and so you've got about 60% of the audience is founders doing sales and then you've got about 40% who have one to five people in their sales team. So I think with that in mind, and maybe we can go over this kind of back through and I guess as a founder and with a small sales team, like how do you really manage this process?
Ralph Barsi (28:07):
So let's talk about the motivation inspiration factor. If you as a founder of a business are not motivated or are not inspired, you certainly are not going to motivate or inspire others. So it's a great time to check your head and check yourself with respect to your own purpose and why it is that you are there. I have a wife that I've been married to for 20 beautiful years. She's the light of my life. We have three beautiful boys. I have a lot of nieces and nephews who are very important to me. I have a large organization that I am responsible for and that I need to continue to lead by example for. All of those factors inspire me on a daily basis and really give me a reason to come to work every day and just serve the organization that I am building and maintaining and help others.
(29:00):
So getting back to the question. If you're a founder and you have one to five or 10 reps, you need to know each and every one of those people personally. You need to know what their professional results are that they're after, what their personal passions are, and what their sense of purpose is. And when you identify and know those three things for each of those people, you'll be able to push the right buttons to get through and to lift them up during the dark moments when they're on their 60th phone call and number 60 hung up on them as well. So personally getting to know people that you're working with every day is just critical. And then leading by example, make sure that you're not asking a team to do something that you yourself wouldn't do. So if you're, for example, as a founder, avoiding using a social media platform and you're asking your reps to use them to help build your brand as a business, you've lost a lot of credibility right there. So making sure that you lead by example is key as well.
Siân Simpson (30:02):
Great answer. Any tips on finding out what a person's passion is?
Ralph Barsi (30:07):
Yeah, have a conversation. Have a conversation. If you're a founder and you're recruiting, for example, a new salesperson, some of the best foundational questions that you can ask is why are you here? Why are you in sales? What is it about building a career in sales that really excites you? And a lot of times, depending on the person, they might not share because they're not very comfortable sharing right off the bat. But that should tell you a lot about the person as well. Whereas there's other people who just love to share and they'll tell you, "Oh, I love this. I'm doing it because of this, this, and this." So really just asking people about themselves and what's important to them and what drives them and why they're doing what they're doing, it'll tell you a lot about the person you're working with.
(30:53):
And an alternative to that is the companies that are really progressive. For example, Google encourages people to pursue their own interests for 20% of their time. I know they do that at Salesforce. I think it's 1% of the time is spent doing something that kind of follows your passion. Those are great tells and great scenarios where you're going to learn about people who aren't so comfortable sharing it upfront.
Siân Simpson (32:57):
Awesome. I think that's really, really great. I think if you guys don't have any more questions on that, I think we might dive into some of these questions. There's a few of them. Starting off with, what are the tools and techniques to streamline your sales strategy when you only have a small team?
Ralph Barsi (33:16):
So I would start with CRM. Doesn't matter what CRM platform you use. I'm assuming that you use a CRM system, but the best way is, for example, if you want to just outline a number of plays that you want to take against a different lead or a different account, if those are mapped in your CRM where most salespeople live, especially sales development people, then more often than not, it's going to serve as a great roadmap or guide for that salesperson's conversation on the phone or knowing what steps to take next. Often people miss the most fundamental steps and things slip through the cracks early on in the process and you end up losing a deal very late in the process when you should have lost it in the first round. So making sure that those steps and fundamentals and tips or techniques are really mapped within an environment that the salespeople live in.
Siân Simpson (34:10):
I feel like half of the people just got reset on Crowdcast or something because they all just went to zero and then up again. That was really interesting. Hopefully I'm not boring them too much. I don't think so. I think it was a platform issue maybe. Okay. Let's start with, as a sales leader and professional, how do you build presence when there's so much noise?
Ralph Barsi (34:33):
That comes down to focus. That comes down to a great acronym that's used by Tony Robbins and it's RPM. It's identifying the results that everyone is after. It's beginning with the end in mind. And then it's talking about the purpose. Why are we trying to go after these results? And then it's taking massive action to get to that goal and really thinking and acting a lot bigger towards that goal. That's a very easy way to become a signal in the noise, is to just get focused on what the target is. And another analogy I'll share is what's talked about by Simon Sinek, and it's the golden circle, really starting with the why, and then going to the how, and then going to the what. So if the entire organization knows why we're doing this and why we are bringing our offering to the marketplace and why it helps customers, then everybody usually lines up pretty quickly and gets pretty excited about getting after the goal together.
(35:36):
And then you have a collective effort.
Siân Simpson (35:40):
I'm finding these things online. RPM by Tony Robbins and then Simon Sinek, the Golden Circle.
Ralph Barsi (35:46):
That's right. That's right. I love that you can just share it right here. And forgive me for not having a slide deck to share upfront.
Siân Simpson (35:54):
Ralph actually has a really sore back. So we didn't want to cancel today because we wanted to serve you guys, but that's why we're getting through this quickly. So what are the three main skills you look for in a VP of sales?
Ralph Barsi (36:12):
So business acumen would be number one. And I think a subset of business acumen is really experience. This VP of sales would need to have a proven track record, not only of successes, but of failures, because I'm going to be looking for the resilience and how they made it through those failures. So probably business acumen, experience, attitude is critical. It's really important to hire someone who walks into a room and brings light with them versus sucks the life out of the room. Especially in a VP of sales role, they're going to be interacting and interfacing with your prospects and your customers, as well as your executive staff, your board members, your advisors. And it's really important that coupled with that business acumen and experience, they've got a fabulous attitude and a forward outlook towards things. Those are some key components I would look for.
Siân Simpson (37:08):
Awesome. Hope that answered your question.
Ralph Barsi (37:11):
Good questions.
Siân Simpson (37:12):
Okay. Next one. At what point should you transition from a founder-led sales to getting in a sales or BD person? And then at what point do you then hire a VP of sales?
Ralph Barsi (37:23):
Oh, that's a good one. Probably not the best question for me, but from my experience, I know in the startup world, there's basically milestones when you first hit your first one million, your first 10 million, so on and so forth. That usually drives the behavior of the entire organization to the point where maybe the original founder of the company is no longer the CEO at some milestone. And instead you bring in some more big guns, people who might be a lot more acquainted with bringing companies to market and taking them public, et cetera. So there are milestones that you as a founder and you as a business need to identify first to know when you're going to actually pivot or make a change as a company.
Siân Simpson (38:09):
I'm going to link you to a blog post. I had Daniel Barber do a sales development chat and I think he spoke a bit on this.
Ralph Barsi (38:20):
He did. I watched it. Yeah, Daniel's fabulous. And is he from New Zealand, Siân, or is he from...
Siân Simpson (38:26):
He's from Australia.
Ralph Barsi (38:27):
Oh, he is? Okay.
Siân Simpson (38:28):
He is very Australian.
Ralph Barsi (38:32):
He's a revered sales VP in Silicon Valley to say the least, let alone the US. I believe he's at Node and has just done fabulous work in all the companies he's worked for fromResponys, which was acquired by Oracle. I'm glad you mentioned Daniel. He's a wonderful resource to get a lot of value from and somebody who could better answer that question.
Siân Simpson (38:56):
Yeah. Awesome. And because you're all on the call, Daniel is actually coming down to New Zealand with us. We haven't announced this yet, but he'll be our sales lead for our upcoming sales and marketing jet. So you heard it here first.
Ralph Barsi (39:11):
Take advantage of that one.
Siân Simpson (39:13):
Yeah. It's going to be great. Okay. Next question. I guess...
Ralph Barsi (39:25):
I lost all my hair at age 25. I know that's a question. I started with a full head of hair, but when you go 23 years in sales, sometimes you can't keep it.
Siân Simpson (39:36):
You're trying to be encouraging people?
Ralph Barsi (39:37):
Yeah. Too many ups and downs.
Siân Simpson (39:40):
I guess let's talk about the differences that you see between sales in Australia and the US, if you can. Just a few examples. I know that the US is a big market and we definitely struggle with it. Not really enough sort of chutzpah to do big sales as Kiwis, but we're pretty similar to Australia. So I wonder if you have any sort of nuances you've seen or differences.
Ralph Barsi (40:07):
Yeah, absolutely. So we call it in my organization APJ. It's Asia Pacific Japan and it includes ANZ. And ANZ within APJ is the hottest market. I think it's really important to not worry so much about breaking into the US or breaking into Asia Pacific, focus on New Zealand businesses, focus on Australian businesses. The ANZ market is very hot. And I would liken it to, when we were talking about brand, Siân, a lot of people who have a presence or are building their presence on social media, they're so focused on gaining new followers, new followers, more followers. When you've got a group of existing followers already, make the best out of that group of followers. The same applies to the marketplace in New Zealand. Focus on the people who are in New Zealand and the businesses who are already in your backyard and learn to master the craft of serving them and serving them well, and the rest will happen on its own.
(41:10):
Things will line up naturally if you're just focused on serving your customers and your prospects.
Siân Simpson (41:16):
So what do you do? So a lot of people will tell you that the New Zealand market is too small and that's why they want to get offshore. I guess what's your perspective on that?
Ralph Barsi (41:26):
Yeah. So again, I would look within, and it comes back to the obscurity topic. I would really start to focus on attracting the audience that you want to attract as business partners. And it won't matter in the long run where those business partners are located in the world. But when you focus on making sure that you have an attractive offering and that you are sharing the stories of the value you're bringing to your existing client base, and you're, for example, connecting the existing clients you have with the prospects that you'd like to do business with, all of a sudden the world starts to open up to you. So I would shift from pursuit to attraction, and I think a lot of things will change for the better for you.
Siân Simpson (42:09):
Awesome.
Ralph Barsi (42:12):
An awesome question. And how are we on time, Siân?
Siân Simpson (42:15):
We are doing good. I think I might ask one more question and then we can jump off. And yeah, sorry about the platform today, guys. I feel like we're having a few more tech issues. I keep noticing that the numbers keep refreshing here. So we'll get that sorted with the Crowdcast team so that doesn't happen in the future. I guess this is a good question. So how do you support the client journey through the sales process and then scale that?
Ralph Barsi (42:42):
Oh, wonderful. So prospects and clients are looking for answers. They're looking for trusted advisors. They're looking for experts and people who have expertise in the marketplace. They may not have the answers. So again, when you're approaching the selling process, start to focus on the buying process. And a lot of times your potential customers don't know what they don't know. So the better you can show them the timeline of how long a process like this takes based on business you've done, it's really going to enlighten them as to what's needed from them, who they need to work with within their own organizations to kind of carry the ball across the line, but they won't know what to do if they've not purchased an offering like yours before. So the more you can educate them on what that process could look like and see them as a partner in the process where they can make ads, moves and changes to the process, you'll be just fine.
(43:45):
If you can lay out that path for them and let them contribute to the shaping of that path. And more often than not, when you do that, you'll expedite the process all together. Things can happen a lot faster so that you can start working together as businesses and you could start building what both of you, I hope, want to be a long lasting business relationship.
Siân Simpson (44:08):
Awesome. Great answer. Okay. Last question. And I think this is pretty relevant for Kiwis. So what are good practices for getting good outcomes out of trade shows and events? A lot of our Kiwi businesses come up to trade shows and events. I guess we've mentioned that conferences like Sales Hacker, SaaStr are really good. And those companies, especially companies like Salesloft just have this amazingly epic process for converting leads and talking to people. So I guess for Kiwis, how do they stand out? I guess we could do it from two things. So most won't buy a booth because they can't afford it or they don't want to spend the money on it. So how do you convert with just being there? And then also how do you convert if you have a booth or you are at the trade show doing it properly?
Ralph Barsi (44:53):
Sure. So think about doing a lot of preemptive work. What you need to do is get good at building anticipation for the event. So the more you can share with your community and with your audience that you're going to be present at the event, and look forward to A, B, C or D, you'll excite people and people will want to see you and they'll look forward to talking with you and your business. A great way that a lot of people don't take advantage of is video. Most of us have mobile devices like this where we can make a pretty good high definition, high quality audio and video that lasts maybe 20 seconds. Go ahead and make that video about how exciting it's going to be at the event in two weeks and blast it out to your network. Ask your network to share it with others, especially those that you really trust and know are going to be helping you out or willing to help you out and get that seen and heard by your audience and by your marketplace.
(45:55):
At the event itself, what's really important is that you look at people, listen to them and get enough intel and insights from them in your conversation to warm up the future conversation after the event. As I mentioned for the pre-event, if you are going to attend an event and you're not necessarily going to have a booth there, but you know a lot of your prospects are going to be there, try to book a meeting for just after the event, before the event. "Siân, it's Ralph. I'm going to be at the event next Thursday. Hey, I'm really keen to hear your thoughts on how the event went. I know that these three speakers are going to be talking about these three topics. Why don't we talk the following day at 9:00 AM for 15 minutes so I can get your thoughts?" And when you can secure a meeting like that, you're going to get more than 15 minutes if you're adding value and having a really warm conversation about how the event went.
(46:49):
So those are some things to keep in mind. On my LinkedIn profile, I actually put a post probably three months ago that came out of frustration where I spoke at a company's event. I was one of the speakers on stage and two days later, someone from the event who attended, they reached out to me with basically no intel or information and no understanding that I was actually not only at the event, but I was a speaker. So they led with some coldness to say the least. And it just inspired me to write a good post on LinkedIn about how to effectively follow up after a conference or after an event. So hopefully the audience here might want to check it out and can pick up some pretty good tips from it.
Siân Simpson (47:34):
I'll put it in the comments if you want to read it. Okay.
Ralph Barsi (47:36):
Cool. Oh, cool. Thank you.
Siân Simpson (47:38):
Well, this was really fun. I hope you guys enjoyed it and learned as much as I did. Thank you so much for coming, especially because you're in pain. And yeah, this was really fun. So we'll write a post about it. The recap will be available at the end of this. And if you would please fill out my survey. It's five questions. I've reduced it because I know how much you like filling them out and we'll keep doing fun stuff like this. So any last words from you, Ralph?
Ralph Barsi (48:05):
Well, I look forward to visiting New Zealand. I plan to be there in 2017 and I'm really looking forward to seeing a live All Blacks game. I played rugby at university. I've been a fan of the All Blacks for a long time. I actually featured them in one of my recent articles on Sales Hacker on taking massive action. So you could check that out as well, but I really look forward to seeing them play live. So looking forward to meeting a lot of you too while I'm there.
Siân Simpson (48:32):
Awesome. Cool. Thanks so much guys. See you later.
Ralph Barsi (48:34):
Thank you, Siân.
Siân Simpson (48:35):
Bye.
Ralph Barsi (48:36):
Thanks everyone. Bye-bye. Cheers.