Key tactics to engage the decision-maker

Joe: Hello and welcome to another Lead Forensics webinar. This one is called Key Tactics to Engage the Decision Maker. My name is Joe Ducarreaux and I’m the Brand Awareness Manager for Lead Forensics and I’m joined today, as always, by an expert panel of speakers. So with us we have Toby Fellows, who is Global Head of Mid-Market Sales at Lead Forensics. Give us a wave, Toby. And we have Mattia Schaper, who is a founder at SDRs of Germany. We also have Hamish Stephenson, who is SaaS Sales Leader by day, Mentor of Future SaaS Sales People by night… Hamish, hello. Give us a wave.

Thanks very much for joining us. We will be using the questions function to take questions from the audience. This can be found in the top right hand of your screen. Please send your questions in throughout the presentation and we’ll answer as many as we can if there is time at the end. So let’s get to it.

So the first point that I’d like to put to you guys is why do we need decision makers on a call? Hamish, let’s come to you with that one first, please.

Hamish: I think it’s less about having necessary decision makers on the call from the get go and I think it’s more about multithreading your approach and having the right amount of personas on the call. Now, we’ve all been in situations before where we’ve sold a deal or we’re trying to sell a deal and we’ve got people from all over the company. But unless you’re actually solving the right issues and having the right people in the room…..you’re having the sceptic, you’re having the executive sponsor……,then your deal flow is going to really blow out of proportion. Do we need the decision makers on the call? Of course, at some stage. But it’s just about having a different set of buying personas.

Joe: And Mattia, what are your thoughts on that one?

Mattia: I think I probably, as in every webinar that I do, I’ll bring in the SDR perspective a little bit more. When I saw the question in the brief, I was thinking about it actually, because in the beginning when I had just started in SaaS sales, I had no idea what a key decision maker even is and what the persona is that I should be reaching out to. So for me, everyone with a ‘manager’ in the name was someone that is probably a key decision maker because I had no idea. So I was talking to marketing managers and I was always booking meetings with marketing managers, which was quite easy to do actually. But at the same time, when we got on the call, they had no decision making power. A lot of the time they didn’t even know what they were talking about and in the end, I would just be wasting my time because yes, I might get a couple of pieces of information out of them but then I still have to do the extra work to then actually engage the person that is going to make the decision on this. So I think just understanding who the decision maker is super, super, super important and then at the same time, if you don’t have the decision maker on the call, the deal is not going to go anywhere, right? You can always be talking about….. like, I remember talking to marketing managers about all of their problems and I was like, ‘yeah, it’s so clear that you have a problem and you need our product’ but they weren’t able to pull the handle or the trigger on it. So that just didn’t go anywhere. I think a lot of it has to do with just efficiency and also using your time wisely, to spend this time talking to the right people instead of just some people, right? I think that’s what I would say to that.

Joe: Yeah, so try to avoid duplicating your work and it’s almost double handling, if you like I suppose.

Mattia: Yeah 100%. I would even go as far as nowadays, most of the time I go to the highest person ever…. to the CEO for example because I know then that will make my time so much more efficient, right. I don’t want to be spending all this time with people that cannot take any actions.

Joe: That aren’t going to be too helpful to the call, yeah, exactly. Toby, we’ll come to you on that.

Toby: So I’m probably with Mattia in that, you know, I don’t want to really waste too much time with too many individuals that necessarily don’t have influence. So I think it depends on the type and size of company that you’re selling to, as to where you’re probably going to get in at the entry level. If you are working with a smaller company, it’s probably really easy to get straight in there at first attempt, whether it’s through marketing channels or SDR. Bigger companies, you might not get to that end person that you want ultimately to make the decision but it’s agreeing really where your minimum is that is viable…. that’s going to have influence, I think, to get those people in. So from my perspective, at the end of the day, a deal has a three times higher chance, in my opinion, of closing if you’ve got the decision maker on the call. So therefore I’m going to want to try and achieve that the majority of the time. You’re not going to achieve it all the time. Then as a process, we always attempt to know who our decision makers are, we’ll enrich data to try and get key people and then we’ll always target them at the top level and then you work your way down. You don’t want to work your way up, you’re always go in at the top and work your way down, it’s just more efficient for your time.

Joe: And so how would you go about prepping the key stakeholders in advance, then? Would it be in a similar manner to how you’ve just described or..?

Toby: So yeah, I think everyone obviously will know their products and they know the individuals that they sell to or who buys their product and then you’ve got quite a few different channels really. So you know, for example, we naturally use our own product to find the businesses in the market and then we’ll use lots of different tools, things like, Cognism, Lusha, Datanyze etc. Companies that can then give you direct contacts into those individuals so that you’ve got the best possible chance. Since COVID and where there’s a lot of hybrid working and things like that, the office number isn’t necessarily or isn’t always the kind of the go to anymore. You have to look at different channels, plus Linkedin, plus emails, etc. So really we’ll get our key personas and profiles, get as much contact information for them as possible and then we’ll kind of go after them that way. Really we’re trying to target ‘the man’, whoever has either the money, the authority or the need for that product, you’re going to go after those who have influence. So LinkedIn is great, Sales Navigator….. there’s tons of tools and things that you can use but find out who you need, get as much information as possible, then go to them direct and keep working them until you get somewhere.

Joe: I suppose, the more information that you have on that person, you can then tailor your approach to a way that they are going to be much more likely to engage with, I suppose. So Hamish, we’ll go back to you on the same question, how would you go about prepping key stakeholders in advance of your call?

Hamish: You’re talking personal stakeholders inhouse?

Joe: Well, just whenever you’re attempting to get through to the decision maker to make the sale, if you like.

Hamish: But are you talking about the stakeholders within your company or prepping stakeholders at the buyer?

Joe: Yes, sorry. The second option. Yeah, the buyer.

Hamish: I think data is your friend. Now, where are we at in the sales process? Is it the first call? Are we still in the discovery phase? Is this pre-post demo?

Joe: Well, if you could talk us through the whole process, if you like. We’ve got time.

Hamish: If you’re in prospecting mode, I think clearly uncovering the personalised problem……what I coach with all of the SDRs that I mentor is that, picking your place within an industry market is your friend, being a specialist in the market. Being 20% of every industry means you’re 20% as valuable as someone who is 100% in that one industry. By speaking to the same kind of companies over and over again on a daily basis, you’re naturally going to be able to uncover a lot of information about competitors. You’re going to be able to gather a lot of information about the companies and the stakeholders of the people in those competing companies. So naturally, being able to prep with personalization….. being able to figure out what the problem is at company A, they’re probably going to have a similar problem at company B and then being able to target your approach with those two to similar processes. Then whenever you’re prepping the stakeholders of the buyer you have this information. You’ve got a problem……you don’t want to make too many assumptions, but you’ve got a problem that probably is going to be similar and then target in that way.

Joe: Fantastic!Thank you very much. Mattia, anything to add on that one?

Mattia: Yeah, I think I agree with what Hamish said 100%. I think it starts so much earlier. Even before you reach out to a prospect, understanding what their daily life is and what their world looks like because most of the time the prospects that we’d be reaching out to are busy, right? ….they don’t have time. When I send them a message, I’m just like ‘I’m Mattia, have a meeting with me’. They don’t have time for that, even though I might be a nice person and it might be a nice meeting. They don’t have time for that. So just understanding that and making sure that you understand what’s in it for them, if they take a meeting with me so that they don’t go out of this meeting thinking, ‘wow, just wasted 20 minutes, it was a nice chat but it doesn’t get me anywhere in my business or the goals that I’m trying to achieve’. So I think companies in general need to be really, really clear with what is their ideal stakeholder, what does their life look like without your product? What are the problems that they’re facing? And I think this is so difficult because as salespeople most of the times we have never done the job that our prospects are doing right and its super hard……I was selling marketing analytics software to Head of Data and I had no idea what their daily life looked like and it didn’t interest me that much if we’re being honest. So I switched to selling to salespeople because at least there I know what problems they have during the sales process and in the SDR teams, right. So I think just giving your salespeople a clear understanding about the key stakeholder will then enable them to actually engage them further down the line. If you have that, the only thing that it comes down to is probably standing out in your prospect’s inbox and getting that attention. If you have that value proposition ready to go and then if you catch them with that value proposition, I think it would be so easy to engage them on the call because it’s then actually something that’s interesting to them and something that they want to solve within their business and that relates to them. So yeah, I think data….. I’ve rambled on a lot now, but data and understanding your prospects is probably one of the key things that you need to do before even thinking about how you’re going to do your outreach at the end of the day.

Joe: Please don’t worry about the length of your answer at all, it was absolutely perfectly fine. Thanks very much. That’s great, that’s entirely why we’re here, that’s absolutely fine. Toby, I’m going to swing over back to you for this one. How would you get engaged or get your product, your call to the top of their agenda ?…… to sort of tie back into what Mattia was saying about standing out in their inboxes. How would you go about doing that sort of thing?

Toby: Well, I think there’s quite a lot of levels to that. If you’re talking about outreach and content and things like that, they’ve got to be engaging to them and pique their interest. I think Hamish has probably covered that side of things. If you’re targeting them and you can get them on a call or a meeting in the first place, then you’ve got the opportunity. But I think probably for the benefit of those that are listening, the challenge that they probably have is, well, let’s say I don’t have the decision maker, how do I get them (the decision maker) engaged in wanting to get involved in this process because at the end of the day, if they had the decision maker on in the first meeting anyway, probably isn’t a problem. So that then gets in a bit meatier really because when it comes down to why would a decision maker want to get involved in that call, meeting, etc. or why would it be important for them to suddenly put it in their agenda? and that really then kind of comes down to probably a few things…….. so I’d say establishing a pain, like in any sales process, you need to understand what the pain is in that business, what is it they want to fix. When you think about sales desire, to gain and a pain,…..pain is 5 times a motivator, than gain. So really you need to be able to establish a pain and I’ll probably cover a point or two in that. Then obviously I suppose that’s for the business, then getting the DMs in is around obviously who and understanding what the buying process is that they have and then how do I actually get them in? I mean, we could get into a whole webinar on coaching how to do that. So the pain is that you understand for the business, what the problem they have? How have they tried to resolve it already? Did it work? How much do they think it cost them in the first instance? What impacts has it had them on personally? Do you have a timeline to fix it? So probably establishing really key things around what the problem is or the thing they’re telling you is an issue. Once you know you’ve got a pain, then you can go and pull in….. It’s easier to pull in other people,…. but without that you can’t really influence anything. Then how do you go about getting them into that process is probably then the next challenge. If I was in a call or meeting with somebody that wasn’t the decision maker and I need to bring a decision maker in, I would discuss ‘OK well, it sounds like these departments will probably be utilising x product’ or whatever you sell. ‘Is there anybody else you can think of?’ ‘Typically we bring the department Heads in to have their input and how they might use x product, should I explain what that meeting might look like to see if they should be invited’. Then after we’ve reviewed that, ‘what would be the next steps’ and then kind of do a follow up. But then I’d probably be quite honest with them…… ‘Look I understand that they’re (inaudible), you know, they’ve asked you to look at this product’. We don’t want to waste anyone’s time, but we know (and I think you can be really honest) that when a decision maker, a stakeholder isn’t part of the process, we’re actually three times more likely to then sit still because ultimately they don’t have the opportunity to see it for themselves or understand or see first hand what the issue is. And they don’t have the answer to their questions because they’re not involved and that’s when they get frustrated. So if we’re going to get them in, how do we actually make that happen? Ask your stakeholder how we go about doing that and get them on your side. So I think there’s lots of different levels from the very beginning first call to actually later on in the process. I think the biggest challenge that salespeople or anybody that’s trying to sell something is, is, if they don’t have them in the first instance, how would you then pull them in? Because that’s really challenging. So they’re kind of like the key three things I’d say probably we would be doing.

Joe: Hamish, we’ll come back to you for that. How did you get them engaged or how did you get your product or call to the top of their agenda?

Hamish: It’s so easy to say, just go for the CEO and then don’t look back and then engage them because they’re going to be the executive sponsor, they’re going to have the money, they’re going to have the cash. But how often is that actually a viable option? Like it’s unless you’re selling to SMEs and start UPs, the chances of actually getting a CEO on a discovery call is like next to nothing. You probably won’t see them for the whole process. So I think it’s being able to do the appropriate research, use your industry knowledge to target that first person, don’t just target anyone. Make sure that first persona, that first piece of outreach is going out to a similar position at each company, each time and then that’s your ICP and if you’ve got that ICP ironed out, then it’s going to be a much easier process for you because you’re going to have your specialism, you’re going to have your ICP, you’re going to know exactly what questions to ask. You are going to make some assumptions but don’t actually voice them and then use these proper leading questions to actually be able to uncover what Toby said, the pain point. Because the difference in selling to a sales manager, first line sales manager is going to be a very different pain point to what Elon Musk is having. The first level salesperson is probably going to be more interested about keeping their job through a pandemic or a recession, whereas with Elon, you’re going to be…… OK, well instead of this is how it’s going to make you $10 billion, this is how it’s going to save you $10 billion. So the difference in those two problems is monumental and the further you go up the process to the decision maker. the more you just have to basically do your research and also be able to write down, document your answers each time, report them in your sales tech, report them in Gong. Make sure you’ve got the recordings sorted and then be able to hand that data to other people in-house, other stakeholders when you bring them on, when you bring customer success on, so they’ll know what to say, when your bring on your VP, they’ll know what to say and through on in the process.

Joe: As you were talking about that I was thinking, you know, heading straight for Elon Musk and just saying, ‘hey, well, maybe we can help you buy Twitter. I don’t know’.

Hamish: I mean, you might need some help with that.

Joe: Might need a few more pocket monies there. Mattia, your thoughts on that one getting to the top of their agenda?

Mattia: In mine, I like to work with examples most of the time. So if I’m thinking about what I do right and I sell SDR software to sales teams and the key decision maker most of the time would probably be the CSO or the Head of Sales but a lot of the time the CSO and the Head of Sales actually doesn’t…….. like they’re so far away from the SDR team that they don’t even understand the problems that the SDR team has. So sometimes it’s very difficult to actually engage the Head of Sales on the call because he’s just so far away from what is happening on the ground. So a lot of the times I don’t mind speaking to the SDR Manager first because even though he might not be the one that’s going to sign the contract, I’m actually going to be able to uncover everything that is going wrong within the SDR team and why they should buy a solution like my solution, like SalesLoft. Then with that, if I do that correctly and the SDR Manager leaves the call and is like **** you know we need to get this software to get to our growth goals this year’, then he’s going to champion that to the Head of Sales and then all it takes is for me is to write a quick LinkedIn message to the Head of Sales and be like, ‘hey, just spoke to, Max, your SDR manager. He was of the opinion that SalesLoft would actually help you guys to get to your growth goals, and would love to get you on the call the next time as well’. Then if he gets my message and the SDR manager is also championing this, then they’re going to be engaged in my world. I think it’s always difficult to generalise these things but I think all it takes to engage a key stakeholder is an internal champion and a clear problem that we’re solving with this. If we don’t have a clear problem that we’re solving and the SDR Manager that’s going to work with the software is going to say, ‘oh, I don’t know if we need this’ then you don’t even need to talk further because then the CEO or the CSO is never going to sign the contract. So I think it’s got a lot to do with just being an expert in what you do and actually being able to uncover the problems and then use these problems to engage your key stakeholder.

Joe: Go to them with the solution straight away.

Joe: Toby, I’m going to come back to you for this next question. How do you go about handling when someone is asking for more time or they need to think about it. They’re sort of stalling a bit. How would you navigate that sort of thing?

Toby: I think that’s the bane of anybody that’s either in sales or works with salespeople…. is controlling the sales process. I think forever going through, trying to understand the pipeline, where it’s at and where in process it’s at and what needs to happen. So I think it is actually prevention rather than cure. I think in this instance that you’ve got to be better earlier on in your process to actually understand the importance of timelines and things like that. I’ll give you a quick example …..So if you think about when you’re asking about pain, right, which we mentioned about that a little bit earlier…….. you’re establishing what the pain is, how much it cost them. ‘So I think the main reason why we’re talking today is because hopefully we can help you with this. Do you have a timeline of when you need to have that resolved?’ So that might be they’re launching an SDR new team or they need the software. You need to establish what the issue is and when really they want to fix it. That’s the first thing because if it’s not a big enough problem, it’s actually not that important to them or they’re not fussed about it, then it’s going to be really difficult to try and hold that opportunity and close it when you want it to be closed, it’s going to work to that timescale. So you need to understand what that is early on. Then when do you want to solve that by etc. and then ‘what typically are the key steps that you’ll need to go through to ultimately make a decision on something like this, given that you want it to be resolved by x date’. You need to have those clear timelines and timescales and then I’d also be establishing ….because every business is different…… ‘How does your organisation usually assess the value of something like …..(what your product is or lets say Lead Forensics, etc) in order to ultimately make a decision? Is there a criteria process case that you need to run through?’ The problem that you have is, not people necessarily thinking ‘OK, I need more time to think about it’, it’s because the salesperson doesn’t understand the steps and the process that businesses need to go through to buy something. If it’s a mom and pop shop, a one man band, it’s probably a very straightforward process. They’ve got an issue, you’ve solved the problem, they’re happy to pay to fix that problem. If it was a bigger business, there’s normally steps and processes that you need to go through, it’s more of an issue that you don’t know what that is than the actual timeline itself, you know. Outside of that, then it’s all about controlling that. So back to basics, right? Never get off a call without a follow up meeting, always referring back to the timeline. Then, you’ve got things like incentives, etc. and having key deadlines. But you’ve got to understand ultimately what the timeline and decision making process is for that business, for you to be able to control it, to relate back to ‘Well, you said you needed it fixed by this and this is how much this is costing you’. Suddenly, then it creates a lot greater desire for them to actually want to go and get it done as soon as possible.

Joe: Yeah I imagine that’s as you said, pain is a much more powerful motivator and I suppose if you can demonstrate it. So ‘you said this, so now this is how much it cost’ That’s a fantastic answer. Hamish, same question to you.

Hamish: I agree with a lot of what Toby said. The one part that I probably wouldn’t do myself is the too many pain points in regards to the objection handling, I think there’s definitely a reason why there’s a roadblock in the process and I think prodding the bear in that situation has definitely got us all in trouble at some stage in the sales process before and it tends to leave a little bit of a bad taste in the mouth. What I do, I think it’s all about being able to ask the right questions early in the process. It’s all about multi-threading, it’s bringing the right people onto the call so that you’ve got your champion in the room, you’ve got your friends, you’ve got your allies so when the sceptic comes in and that roadblock comes in, you’ve got people battling for you behind closed doors. So that even if it’s a roadblock, it will come back in the future. Not getting ‘happy ears’…… for people who don’t really know what I’m talking about, it’s when as a salesperson you ask the questions that you want answers to and you don’t ask the questions that you know are going to be negative, even if you subconsciously aren’t actually doing that. I think an example of that is just knowing the answer to a question before you ask that. I think a lot of people overestimate the wealth in that because if you already know the answer, then you’re not actually being a terribly good salesperson. You want to actually uncover some more information and then with all of that information, if they still don’t want it….. just walk away like it’s OK to say no, it’s OK to walk away from a deal, if it’s going to waste another 10 hours next week or the next month from your executive team jumping on sales calls. Because at the end of the day, as salespeople we’re quite emotive people and if we stick to one deal and let it get to us, then it’s not going to do wonders for anyone.

Joe: Mattia, you seem to be nodding in agreement. Is that a fair assessment or you’ve got anything more to add for us?

Mattia: Yeah, I think that makes total sense, what Hamish said. I think from my perspective, every time someone tells me, ‘oh, no, not today’ or ‘in 10 months’ or whatever. I always think OK, is it actually because now is not the right time for them? Or is it because they are, you know, not focusing on it and they’re just trying to get rid of me as a salesperson? So I think that it’s always really, really important to understand because if I know that I can then take action on that, right? Like if I have the feeling he’s just trying to get rid of me and he doesn’t want to prioritise this now, then I can very honestly and authentically talk to him about this and be like, ‘hey, I have the feeling you are just pushing me away. What is the actual reason that this is not moving forward?’ And then they are going to be much more receptive to that and actually tell me the reason and then I can work with that, right? If they then tell me, ‘well, it’s because we still need to implement Salesforce before we implement something else’. And I’m like, OK, fine, that is OK. We can work with that. That is a reason, let’s get you in front of a customer that has done both at the same time and let’s work on that problem. But as long as I don’t know why there is a roadblock and why we are not moving forward with this, there’s nothing that I can authentically be doing about it. What Hamish said of just letting a deal go as well, you know, like sometimes I work so hard for a deal and opening up an opportunity and I’ve prospected them for three months and we’ve done the discovery and we’ve done the demo and then we just find out it’s not the right time. They’re not focusing on it and then that hurts my heart because I’ve spent so much time opening this business, right? But at the same time, that’s just how life goes. That’s how sales life is and then I put a note into my calendar and I’m like, OK, in three months I’m going to reach out to them and they’re going to be ready and they’re not completely lost, right? They’re just moved into the future and it’s an opportunity for the future, it’s just not an opportunity now. So let’s focus on the opportunities that are actually going to close now rather than sulking about it. So yeah, I think asking honest questions and really getting to the bottom of some of these time excuses is probably the way forward for me.

Joe: Did anyone have anything more to add on that? Because there were a couple of exchanging views. Does anyone have any more to add on that one? No, we’re all happy, amazing! So what would you recommend is the best approach to follow up on a decision? And Toby, again, I’ll come back to you to start with this one.

Toby: Well, trying to as much as possible, understand what their processes are. Because if you don’t know………. we’re talking about further down the sales process, right ……..So if you don’t ultimately know what steps they have to go through in order for them to make a decision on anything, then what you’re going to do is just be persistent as you possibly can to try and figure out what’s going on until you get to a point where you feel the fight’s through, then you kind of just let it go. You need to understand, I suppose, what their decision making process is, what are the steps that they have to go through? Is there a legal or is there procurement they have to go through? Are there different decision makers, finance and budgets and things like that who have some involvement. So I think having a good grasp of that in the first instance is, I think, really important because you can then choose the right action to follow up with because otherwise you just can come across as needy, persistent, etc. So I think it’s as fairly straightforward as understanding you generally have a champion, a stakeholder in the business that is going to be there for you. You can, I think, pull on them to understand those kinds of timescales, etc. but actually it’s very basic. It’s very straightforward, 1) to know what their actual distribution process is so you’re not stressed out worrying, like, why isn’t it happening? why haven’t they come back to me, etc? Maybe they just have a set process they’ve got to go through. And then, following up and always having clearly defined next steps. You know, when you’re next going to go on a call, schedule it in, book it in, etc. I think there’s plenty of other things that you can kind of get into but I think the important thing is understanding what their buying process is as a business and then working to it, to make sure that you’ve got clear touch points throughout the process to keep you top of mind.

Joe: Absolutely! We are slightly running short of time so I’m going to put up a poll question for you but while you’re doing that I want you to have a think about this question for a final takeaway. So could you give us three Do’s of engaging decision makers and three Don’ts …..like what to do less of? So have a think about that and in the meantime I’d just like to remind everybody that this webinar is brought to you by Lead Forensics, which is software that tells you who is visiting your website along with providing you with valuable contact information so that you can close those deals. OK Hamish, we’ll come to you first. Your top three Do’s and Don’ts when engaging the decision maker. Go for it. Take it away.

Hamish: For my Do’s, it kind of follows up on the last question I had, I guess it’s the same answer as my first point….and that’s Dos is the same way you’d address a follow up. I’m a strong believer in IBM’s BANT. Have you heard of that Joe?

Joe: No, talk us through it. Go for it.

Hamish: BANT is an acronym. It’s Budget, Authority, Need and Timeframe. It’s being able to establish early on in the process whether they’ve got money, whether they’ve got the authority to make a decision, whether or not there’s actually a need for your platform and whether or not you can fit it in that time frame. Within the follow ups you’ll be able to know if someone’s going on holiday, if someone’s actually interested in the platform, if you’ve had everyone on the call that you need to have on the call and then you’ve got the actual authority and the need and everything to actually make a decision. Once you’ve got all that information being able to do the follow up and be able to close the deal once you’ve actually got all of that. Bringing back to what Toby said earlier, are the pain points actually being addressed rather than, I think most deals they’re lost in the process rather than lack of product name. So that’d be my first point. Second point, be creative. there’s so many salespeople out there and there’s just so many people that just don’t even bother doing the bare minimum. There is literally something on my LinkedIn profile that says I love LinkedIn. Yeah, I love LinkedIn, I love NFL and I love skiing. About 3 people in 10 years have commented on it. It’s in my About Me section. Someone could literally send me a GIF of someone skiing and then they’d get a demo! Like now I’m going to get 15,000 demos! But it’s true…….just do something different, bring it back to contact marketing. If they like hiking, like a mountain backdrop, send them a $15 compass, like something like that. It is just so easy to be able to get people’s interest in having a conversation with you by doing just literally the bare minimum. And that brings up creativity…….well, that’s two. I like to live my life by ABH – always be helping. Now, if you’re a bit stagnant in the process, there are so many other ways to have an excuse to talk to the decision maker. Comment on all of their content, have conversations publicly like that and then if there is something that they need, give them some free advice, make them a free introduction and that means when push comes to shove, you’re going to be at the top of their mind. Now, do you want Dos and Don’ts as well?

Joe: Yeah go for it.

Hamish: Another acronym, DBAD- Don’t Be A Dick. Just don’t be pushy, ever! It’s never going to work in your favour and just really make sure that however you’re talking to these people it’s just with that voice of integrity. Don’t get your research wrong, I see it a lot. Someone the other day tried to sell me an auto dialer and they were like ‘hey, Hamish, I know you’re using this’ and I immediately lost interest in the process because I’d never told them I’d been using them. Apparently it was a different Hamish which made it even worse. It’s just like, all right, you’re English…… there’s a lot of Hamish Stephensons! Just don’t don’t get your research wrong.

Joe: It’s nearly as offensive as trying to send you some water skis, I suppose.

Hamish: Yeah, I’d love that. I’d sell them and buy some snow skis. That’s probably it from me. I can’t think of the third one.

Joe: No, that’s great. Hamish, Thank you so much.

Mattia: I’m not going to be able to come up with three. So that’s totally fine.

Joe: That’s fine. If we keep it, in the interest of time, let’s keep it to one then go for it. Go on Mattia.

Mattia: I was going to say, because I also need to leave at 5.15 on the dot. I think the only thing that you need to be focusing on is to be yourself, to be authentic, to be curious within the sales process, to actually uncover the pains and never……… I always feel like when I started as an SDR, I was thinking of all these different sales techniques and how to do this and how to manipulate people like that. I would scrap all of that if I could start over again, I’d scrap all of that and just be myself, ask the right questions, be curious, not be afraid to fail sometimes. I can only echo what Hamish has just said about creativity. I think we need so much more of that. We need to scrap all the automation and all the bots on LinkedIn and within the mass emailing campaigns and just be ourselves and create that personal experience for a buyer. I think then we also don’t need to follow up that many times because we got this connection with them already and just be a little bit more human than anything else…….. With that, I’m going to need to say my goodbyes. Thank you very much, Joe. You’ve been a wonderful host. Hamish, I’ll see you soon. Toby, it was great to meet you and have a good day.

Joe: Thanks for joining us Mattia. Thank you so much. Be more human! Toby, see us home then. Let’s go for just one Do and one Don’t.

Toby: Alright. OK, I’ll go quick. Dos – ideally try and speak to the right people in the first place, it helps. Identify a pain, understand the decision making process so you’re not chasing your tail. That’s good. Don’ts – Don’t make a decision when they tell you it’s their decision because everybody says that, probably isn’t. Don’t assume they’re going to sell it for you because you know your product better than them. Make sure you try and get in front of those decision makers and I love Hamish’s DBAD- Don’t be a Dick and harass people and sound desperate. No issue and it’s going to help you a lot easier. Done, there you go.

Joe: Amazing and very, very quick, you did that as well. I appreciate the time, Guys, thank you so much for joining. It’s been a real joy chatting to you and yeah, please join us for the next Lead Forensics webinar. Thank you so much. Cheers, guys. Bye