[E277] Helping Agencies Sell More, with Dan Englander (Part 2)

Dan: I think that as opposed to figuring out like the perfect archetype for every situation, it's about figuring out what are the tasks that that person should not be doing that others should be doing. So that's kind of how I've identified it. Jason: Yeah. And I think it's really hard to find that. Person who has that personality and behavior characteristics that can do all of those things and can switch back and forth effectively in the moment to go from let's say creative to proposal creating to outbound kind of outreach to Then doing a presentation demo and closing a deal. And Dan: I think it's unrealistic to try to find all those in one person. And even if you can't afford to hire all those roles, it's like, if you're hiring a salesperson, then it might be, okay, I'm going to be stepping in and I'm going to be helping out in this regard every day or every week to support this person that I think I'm from just lots of experiences with. Either training salespeople or me messing up with this, me not giving a salesperson enough support, not just to put it on others. I think that good salespeople, it's like they need, it's not like you just send them off into the cold and over the best, right? Like you need that division of duties, basically. Jason: Yeah. And I think the biggest thing is that those people do exist, whether you can afford them or not, it's a separate category. But the challenge is, is you can't scale that way, right? You can find a couple of them if you're lucky, depending on the market you're at and physically where you're located in the talent pool, but you can't scale, you can't get bigger. And If you go under that model, you're putting a lot of eggs in one or two baskets. And if they leave or get sick or something happens, then you're out of luck and you're not very diversified. And I even take it to the point where personality wise, there's people who are really good at outbound, the cold calls, right? In that mode. And then there's more the inbound, the sales presentation, the demo, the relational, the closing. And. Sometimes it could be done by the same person, but they're two different attack strategies almost, right? Like two different fighting styles and it's like, it's tough to shift that, right? Like one is like a cold call is quick. You got to get their attention. You've got to move it forward. The other one is more slow. Let's take our time. Let's discover. Let's build a relationship. And a lot of times it's tough to do that. Dan: Right, right. Exactly. And I think however you approach it, the thing that I think we probably both agree on is it's more about starting with the right people. And so often I think we're all predisposed to focusing on the software or the systems and all of these other things that are just kind of like going car before horse. Jason: Yeah, because you can have mediocre systems and processes, but the right people and not even just the right people meaning superstars, but the right cultural fit that are bought in on the vision and understand it, you and they get in touch with their strengths and you put square pegs and square holes, right? Like you get the right people on the bus and then you put them in the right seats and then you You can build everything else around them, right? I've worked in organizations where the systems weren't great, the processes weren't nailed down, but the team like understood it enough and the right people were there and they cared enough, that entrepreneurial type where it's like, okay, we'll get through this together and then you can evolve over time. Dan: Yeah, exactly. And so much else just kind of falls into place when you have that. I think that I was just thinking about this today doing various operational stuff like for spreadsheets and this or that and I think that we all like if you're running a business we all kind of have this like myth in our head of the cleanly run organization where everything is just smooth like well oiled machine that everything's perfectly labeled and the software suite is perfect and never needs any maintenance. Fixes in there, you know, nothing breaks. And it's such a myth. Like the more I talked to be, I talked to friends, a family that are in big companies that should, that can invest anything, and they were the worst. Everything's a mess. And really what matters is just having good people that even if they operational systems messed up, they can still make it work and, you know, and get done what needs to get done. Jason: And I think that's really what it comes down to. I mean, at the end of the day, do you have people who know what they're doing? If everything else just goes to crap. Right? Like if everything else is falling apart or broken, can you still do it? And I spent some time working near the military and I know enough about them. And I'm just thinking like, if they're out on the battlefield and things are breaking resources, running out, they have issues going on and it just comes down to the people and the mission and how much they want to overcome that. And then they'll figure out a way, right? Like I almost think now that I'm talking about it, it's almost like my age. I loved the A team. When I was a kid on TV and it was, and MacGyver, right. And it was always about like, okay, well, things are falling apart. Like how do we overcome this together and good teams will do that. Right. And obviously that's not a long term strategy. That's a terrible way to live long term, but short term sometimes, or until you get to that next level and you can bring in resources and consultings and technologies, you know, that kind of stuff sometimes at the base level, it's the people, right, exactly. Dan: And in our world of B2B, sometimes I think people get. Too naive about or too overconfident with over analysis, like looking at spreadsheets and numbers and data. And there's this whole like, all you have to do is say the word data and people just really nod their head, right? Like, Oh, data. Yeah. Like all this data we have and we'll figure out the perfect answer in every situation. But the reality is like, we're just kind of fooling ourselves with randomness a lot of the time. Because the amount of time it takes to get truly meaningful data that tells you something in the B2B world is just a lot longer than B2C, which tends to kind of guide everything because the consumer world is where there's this constant fire hose of algorithms and things that really are informed by that, but it's just different when you're doing a selective sales campaign to a small group of people, this is going to sound conceptual now, but there's this German word that I love. It's sounds like something Rainier Wolfcastle would say and it's finger spritzing gefällt and it means fingertips feel in German and the idea of that is like, it's kind of like gut feeling, but it's gut feeling contingent on you having domain expertise. So I don't know anything about real estate. So if I was just like, this seems like a good real estate investment, that would not be a good version of this. But I do know something about sales campaigns from ad agency. So something's going up or down in the campaign. I can say, okay, we got a few positive responses, a few medium, and probably have a pretty, probably trust my gut a little bit and say, yeah, we should probably change the campaign, change the copy, do this, do that, and feel good about that. So I think in reality, that's what a lot of experienced salespeople are doing every day, but yet they're being told, Oh no, you need to go build this complex spreadsheet to figure out what's happening or look at this open rate or something. So anyway, that's kind of what I've been thinking about lately. Jason: One thing I've seen is that salespeople worry about only being able to win if they use manipulation, tricks, tactics, and hard closes. So they end up struggling to close deals, make their quota, or earn the kind of money that they want to make. If this sounds like your current situation, or maybe you want to make more money in sales without feeling like you're selling, then my upcoming book called Selling with Authentic Persuasion will help. In it, I'm going to take you on a journey to transform from order taker to quota breaker. If you're ready to become an authentic persuader, crush your goals, and create success in your sales career, then go to jasoncutter. com. Again, that's jasoncutter. com and pre order the book today. How much of that do you think? Is the world of B2B and all the people who are selling B2B to B2B companies telling them they need new data, they need new platforms, they need insight, they need predictive analytics. Like again, going back to the inception kind of thought where it's like if you have a B2B sales company. Then there's all these things from the outside saying like, you need these things because that's what we sell. And then you kind of fall into that trap. Right? Dan: Yeah. Do not get me started. That's what I think is driving. This is that the data, the software, these things are really attractive to sell. As a value proposition, the idea of I'm going to sell you this thing that's almost infinitely scalable, that all you have to do is buy this widget, buy this software product, and you're going to have everything you need. That's an amazing value proposition if it works, right? Both for the buyer, but mostly. For the seller. I think what's a lot less attractive is like the way that we tend to sell things, which is like, Hey, this is hard. It's going to be unclear. It's going to be chaotic. It's going to make things easier. That's the only thing we can promise is it's going to make things easier than if you hired in house or did it alone. And I think that that's less attractive, but it's sort of, is more kind of reality. And I think probably you're doing some version of that with the consulting practice as well. I think that. Getting beyond that, I think there's just a lot of power to telling the truth and just trying to get closer to the reality of the situation. So, so yeah, I think that it's a lot about bad incentives. Jason: And I think a lot of it is just the extension of humans because we're all this way, right? And some of us might fight it better than others, but everyone has this part extended to the business ownership, business to business sales world. Which is we want the quick fix. We want the silver bullet, right? We want the magical data or tech platform that will then identify all of our ideal client profiles that then jump out and then bring them into the boat willingly. And so then we can just sell them. And so you see that a lot. I mean, I see companies that. They don't want to do the hard work, right? As much as like I talked to them, and I'm sure you do as well, where they need a consultant, you add more tech, you add more data, you add more leads, you add more anything, it's just going to be wasted because the foundations aren't there. But a lot of companies don't want to do the hard work, right? It's like people want to be healthy. How do you get healthy? Well, you eat right and you stay active, maybe go to the gym and that takes work and effort. And it's much easier to not do that and try to find a quick fix. And I think that's what happens a lot with these companies is they want the quick fix. They don't want to do it. And that's where like in my book and a lot of stuff that I focus on, it's not even about the tactics or the technology or the lead so much. It's about the foundations, because if you pour more crap, if you pour great stuff. It's just going to ruin it and it's just going to be wasted. I mean, I have a couple of clients where it's like, I know there's some solutions that could get them better leads and more focused stuff, but it wouldn't do any good at the time. Right. That long term yes, but short term it would be ineffective. Dan: I totally agree. And I think that that's the rub. That's the bad news. But I think the good news is that it may also an easier than what's being sold to you by. Software companies and data companies or whoever. And an example of that is there's often this parade of distribution, each pointy principle where you might not need to be everywhere. You might not need to do everything. It might be about one to a few channels might be about really. Cutting off the clay to form the beautiful port, the beautiful sculpture, it might be a destructive exercise as opposed to one where you're just adding more complexity. So I think that that's what we see a lot of the time. There are ways in which certain things become simpler and easier. Once you get focused. Jason: All right, that's it for part two. I will see you tomorrow for part three, the conversation with Dan Englander. That's it for another episode of the sales experience podcast. Thank you so much for listening. If you find yourself on iTunes, can you leave the show a rating and a review? It helps other sales people and sales leaders find the show and please subscribe to the show and share episodes you find valuable with anyone you know in sales. Help me on my mission of changing the way sales is done. And if you're ready to work together, go to Jason cutter. com again, that's Jason cutter.com. To find out how I can help you or your company create scalable sales success. I will see you on the next sales experience podcast episode. And keep in mind that everything in life is sales and people remember the experience you gave them.