[E293] Solving The CRM Problem, with Jeroen Corthout (Part 3)

Jason: Welcome to part three of my conversation with Yerun Korthout. We are going to keep going with this conversation. If you haven't checked it out, make sure to listen to part one and two, where We're talking about what he's doing with sales flare, what it was designed to help overcome with the challenges in business with sales teams, with sales reps, and what they should be focusing on, what they're good at versus historically what they're not so good at. And if you're in sales, you can relate to this. If you've led a sales team like I have or running a team, then you can relate even more. And so we talk about his whole journey with sales and what he thinks makes for effective, authentic persuasion. in the sales process. And I really like some of the stuff that he says throughout this episode. So here you go. Part three, enjoy. Jeroen: Since the very first product we had, we waited about two years. With offering a trial sign up without me being involved in line during that whole period, I would take people through it end to end, usually on Skype back in the day, Jason: back in the day, pre zoom explosion, back when all that stuff was done via Skype. So funny. And I love the fact that you share that because that's usually what it takes. It's getting in there and going through it and doing it enough times. And then what I appreciate about your story too, is that you then built the system and then built it so that others are doing it and you haven't done it. I see a lot of founders, a lot of leaders where they feel like no one else can do it like they can, or they're just not good at building the systems. And that's where they need help, which is like to extract them from the trenches, if you will. Yeah, Jeroen: I believe that at some point you need to get out of the trenches to a certain extent. It's good to do it first yourself. So at least you can more quickly iterate. There's not like one person between you and the customer, for instance, or whatever you're trying to fix. You can find out how it should be done that helps to quickly get something going that Works and that also helps and afterwards to understand the job one who to hire and to also how to actually get that person up to speed and then hopefully that person is Better at the job than you are but in the very initial stages you was maybe worse at the job Need to do it yourself anyway Jason: I love that point. A lot of times I see people, especially sales leaders and or executives where they're worried about someone being better than them. There's too much ego wrapped up in that. And I love the fact that you pointed out, the goal is to get people who are better than you at. Those type of tasks so you can move your way into what's an even better fit for you with your current states of where you're at, extracting yourself from that onboarding and the trial setup, how much of your current day and role is selling like what percentage would you say Jeroen: you're selling to customers? Yeah, I would say 5 to 10%. Of course, I have a lot of other sales roles as well. It's a lot of different types of partnerships. If you add that all together, it's more around 25, 30%, I would say. Got it. And then a lot of marketing and product management and general stuff. Finance, etc. HR. Jason: Makes sense. So if we're talking about sales, and you mentioned already your sales style, but for you, with the podcast and what I focus on, What does it mean for you to be authentic? Jeroen: I think it's not trying to oversell. Listening very well to what the other person wants and applying a certain amount of empathy there. Instead of selling whatever it is you think you have, make sure that you first very well understand their situation and what they're looking for, so you can point them to the right place, even if that may be Another service, like I think two days ago, we got with someone on a call and they explained what they wanted. And I was like, no, that's not us. That's active campaign. You should go to active. I hope they are signing up there and become a happy customer. But it was, I just immediately saw that it wasn't a great fit and keeping up your values for me is also an important part of that's defending the thing you believe in and the thing you're trying to change. And. Finding a common ground between that and what the customers are expecting of you. Jason: Got it. I love it. Where has persuasion fit in your success? Jeroen: I think there's persuasion probably in every sort of Sales conversation and partnership on my end. It's mostly, I really tried to understand the other person, maybe better than our own interests. And I never tried to force someone into something beyond that. So I try to understand what will make them make certain decision and then work on that. And try to understand also very well what the limits are there for them then. So I can work with these things and persuade them to, whatever, get on my podcast, get me on their podcast, get them to integrate with us. Put us on our, their marketplace, get them to feature us, whatever. There's all kinds of partnerships that we do. Jason: Yeah, I love it. And the fact that you've said it obviously makes me happy because I feel the same way, but that persuasion is in everything, right? And not just persuading a customer to buy, but all of those various things that you talked about, perfect examples that, like I say on my podcast. At the end, every time everything in life is sales, right? And so there's some aspect of persuasion and selling and wanting to move somebody towards whatever your goal is. But like you said, with the authentic side is doing it with their best interest in mind and as a team event, right? Not just one sided forcing or manipulating. Jeroen: Yeah, I want to say like they usually say in a sort of cliche kind of way, like win situations and all. Jason: Yeah. And I think that's important because, and this kind of goes to something we talked about early on. There's the classic salesperson mode that people don't like, or people are afraid of, or have struggled with as a customer. And that's generally win lose. Like they don't care what happens to the customer. They just want to win. And then there's the other side, which is the order taker, which is so afraid of doing that and don't want to be that person, right? Because they don't like it. And then generally those people go lose, win, where they want to help somebody else win, even if it's at their own expense. And I see a lot of salespeople who they can close some deals, but usually the price is low. They're giving away terms. They're giving away lots of things that then make it not a good deal. Yeah. At the end of the day. Jeroen: Yeah. That's part of it as well. Knowing where the limits are when a customer is, for instance, asking for a discount just because they see a discount field. They're going to sign up at the last moment to see the discount field and feeling when that's the case versus when they really need a discount. For instance, there's all kinds of little things like that, where you need to feel where the win situation lies, where you can make it interesting for both parties in a fair way. Jason: Now, obviously, one of the things for you and your experience is working with other salespeople, seeing salespeople. In your situation now, obviously you're dealing with business owners and helping them with their CRM, but also seeing salespeople and interacting with them at some level. What do you feel like the best salespeople do? Jeroen: On a completely different subject, not at all about authenticity, but having a system being properly organized to make every customer. Feel like they are the only customer, not like you're a number in a large series of customers, which in the end, every good salesperson should have a large number of customers, but you cannot make these customers feel like a number. You need to make them feel like you're only having a conversation with them basically, and you're super important to them. And you can only do that if you have a proper system. So a proper system that you get in touch with them at the right moments, that you exactly remember what you talked about last, what sort of the points are that are important to them, what the next step is that you'll logically get to. And that might not be the next step in your generalized sales process for them. The buying process on their end might look slightly different than it is in your sales pipeline, and even knowing that subtlety. For every single customer is I think what really distinguishes the sort of one off Accidentally good salespeople from the systematically good salespeople. Jason: That's it for part three Hopefully you enjoyed my conversation with yaroon. Make sure to come back tomorrow catch the final fourth part And I will see you then 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.