The Transaction

Craig, you were at the Final Four this weekend.

I was, it was amazing.

Can we talk about it?

Well, I'll just give you guys a couple of footnotes.

One is, I went last year, by the way, and last year was different because it was all football schools, except for Connecticut, which was, this was like their return here.

And it was like the amount of fans was a lot different than this year, where it was Indiana, where it's a basketball state, and North Carolina, which is a basketball state.

So these massive influx, I mean, there were so many people that last year, the ticket prices fell at the end and I played chicken, and then this year they bounced, and just like up until even game time, they were going up.

It was really, it was interesting to watch that, but it was cool because they were all there and there was like these, our hotel had a lot of Purdue people and you just had these folks that had been waiting who care about this and were waiting forever, right?

And there was just these stories of dad who was just a huge Purdue fan and he passed away, I think last year and they brought his ashes to the fire.

Holy smokes.

Yeah, so those kind of compelling stories were pretty cool.

Actually, I'm gonna leave it at that because it was a great game and the kids just, they had, oh, here's the second one is, this is the new sort of breed of kids, right?

They like the Convention Center had like, I forget what they call it, these booths with activities for kids.

And there was all these YouTube stars there who are like, my kids couldn't name the four coaches of the Final Four, probably the star players, but they were most excited, it was called Fan Fest.

Fan Fest, where there's YouTube stars that were doing like, you know, promos and whatnot, and like, that was their thing, running around finding these YouTube stars.

Amazing.

It was amazing.

Yeah, so, similar to all of our sort of social endorphin rushes, my one son did like this interview with one of these YouTube stars, he goes, I got 2,000 followers, dad, on my Instagram, which is a very innocent Instagram, it's just like his basketball prowess.

But yeah, so pretty fun.

All right, well, I didn't mean to, I was worried I was gonna go on too long, Matt, but thank you for asking.

Yeah, you're welcome.

From ABM to PLG, from Meddic to med pic, the world of business is constantly evolving.

We'll cover the who, what, where, when, why, and most importantly, how you get the transaction.

I'm Matt Amundson, and he's Craig Rosenberg.

Let's get started.

So Ashley, have you, you've never met Matt because Matt wasn't on the prep call.

That's right.

Yeah.

Well, I like that Matt's sort of coming in here and meeting you for the first time.

It'll make for good conversations as we talk about this.

But so we found you because John Barrows was like, oh, well, you got to talk to Ashley Welch.

And so, and then I went and saw some of your work and you have this theme, which I'm going to bring up in a sec, which actually can lead us perfectly into our first business question.

But the big one is, see, Somersault Innovation is your company, right?

Yep.

And your book is Naked Sales, which the second part of the title, the really intrigued me, which was, how design thinking reveals customer motives and drives revenue.

I love that customer motive.

So author, sales trainer, advisor, consultant, and a different way of thinking about sales is the reason we today have Ashley Welch on the show.

So welcome Ashley.

And I didn't go fully into your background.

I just felt like those were the two big things, but I don't know if there's anything else you wanted to add.

Yeah, I'll say that I've been in sales for over 30 years.

So I come to this profession with Somersault, which is now 10 years old with a background in sales.

I'm still in sales.

That's what I do for the business.

So I think I have firsthand experience with these tools and that's why I think they're so valuable because I've seen them in action.

I use them in action all the time.

We can talk about that.

And what else I'll say?

I mean, our clients have primarily been big tech.

So some of the hyperscalers and big tech, but really these tools work in complex sales.

That's the common denominator.

Are you in a complex B2B, B2C type sale?

Then these tools work.

So I had to see things.

Yeah, that's great.

I'm excited to dive in.

I did a little bit of research on you and listened to a couple of your podcasts.

So I'm so excited to chat with you today and to dive deeply in.

Craig, why don't you kick us off?

Wait, Matt, I do.

I gotta read on the, there's a lead on Ashley's LinkedIn.

Oh, wait, hold on.

Are you doing something with that cup?

Well, I was gonna put it to my mouth and consume the liquid within.

Okay, well.

Hey, I'll do the same.

Interesting.

Drink brick, drink brick.

Okay, so I'm gonna read this to you because this was like the perfect lead in to our show lead in, which is we are selling in unprecedented times.

The solutions we were selling have never been as complex or as exciting.

And yet our results often fail to rise to their full potential because we're still selling the same way we always have.

Boom.

You know what our first question is?

What's something that the market thinks they're doing right?

It's like the way you wrote it.

But actually they should be thinking about it differently.

And in particular for Matt and I, part of the podcast for us is to explore how selling and marketing and driving revenue in this new unprecedented times is happening today.

And so it's the perfect lead in.

But going back to the question, what would you say to that?

And let's just start with that and we'll go from there.

Sure.

Well, I thought of a little bit about this.

And I think, you know, this is a simple answer, but there's a lot of complexity behind it, which is I think there is this notion or myth that expertise trumps curiosity.

So if I know more about your business and know everything about mine and all the things that I sell, that that's going to win the day.

And I think that we do need to know a lot about the market, industry, what we're selling and our technology.

But really people connect first on trust and warmth.

So and where does that come from?

That comes from a lot of things, but it includes curiosity.

And so you are more likely to make a sale, regardless of what you're selling, if you begin with curiosity and really trying to understand the other person, the other company, the end users, and trying to really understand the whole, what I like to say, the ecosystem of customers around your customer and what they care about first before you dive in with your expertise.

And I see it all the time.

We do this in part because we want to show that we're smart, that we're of value, that we've been told by the marketing department, all these things I need to talk about and what's the latest version of this.

But it actually gets in our way as an initial step.

Interesting.

So, you know, I think people who would be naysayers would say, but that's what discovery is for.

That's why I ask all these questions.

But you've got a whole line of thinking around this concept of co-creation, which I think is very, very different from discovery.

So I'd love for you to just talk to the audience a little bit about that.

Yeah, okay.

So it's another, I always say, there's another thing I say, it's like, have you ever washed a rental car?

Any three of you washed a rental car?

No.

Why not?

Because it's not mine.

It's not yours.

Exactly.

The same idea of co-creation is like, if you put your fingerprints on it, you want it, right?

And we are much, and especially in this world of complexity, which is what we're talking about, we need each other to figure out the solution.

So it's just going to be a better solution, number one, if we do it together.

Number two, you're going to be more bought in if we can co-create together.

Well, co-create is a big word.

So what does that mean?

Well, it's a range.

It can look anything from like, I've created this proposal, but I'm just going to present it to you as a draft.

I'd like to walk through it with you.

And could you tell me what you like and don't like?

And let's amend it.

If I can do it visually with you, amend it online with you, all the better or in a room with you.

Or if I'm doing a demo, a lot of people will say, well, they keep asking you for a demo.

I don't want to say no.

Do the demo, but say it in a way of like, hey, I want to offer this to you, sort of just to get your feedback.

I'd like to stop along the way and see what's working for you and not versus just running through your demo.

Or at the sort of end or the extreme of co-creation is what these big tech companies, Microsoft, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Kindle, IBM, they all have these sort of elite co-creation teams that work with their most strategic accounts.

I think of them as the sort of Navy Seals of design thinking.

And so they're brought in and they have a literally a co-creation process.

They come in, you're Disney, you're my strategic account.

I enroll you in saying, let's go through this process for eight weeks.

We're going to do it together and we're going to envision what our collaboration and partnership will look like.

Then we're going to determine the value.

Then we're going to figure out the implementation plan.

So I invite you into that journey with me.

Interesting.

So there's so many different ways that co-creation can take place.

But if you just use it as a mindset, how can I co-create my customer?

Things start to look different and new ideas emerge.

Yeah, you brought up co-creation.

One reaction, which was cool, which was like, all these various steps in a tech sales cycle.

By the way, we're incredibly thirsty today on the show, you know what I'm saying?

It's just we need the caffeine.

No, I'm not drinking tea in the mall water.

I'm doing sparkling water.

When you're talking about co-creation on every sort of interaction, these sort of classic interactions that happen in tech sales cycles.

So the demo proposal delivery or whatever they want to call it.

So it's just, as you said, mindset that made total sense to me.

I just wanted to react to that.

Sorry, Matt, go ahead.

And maybe I'll have something to drink.

Yeah, why don't you take a sip?

Because I'll do the talking now.

So are you advocating for then kind of a bespoke experience for each customer as they come through the process?

Well, let me understand more about what you're saying.

Say more about what you're thinking.

Well, I think oftentimes salespeople are like, here's the solution that we have.

Here are the use cases that it serves.

Here's the types of companies that have experienced beneficial results from using the product.

And there's a kind of a sell by rote methodology that goes along with that.

And that includes all kinds of different selling techniques where this is the process that we have and this is how we cycle people through it.

This is where we show the value of, this use case is where we show the value of that use case based upon whatever vertical you're in.

You're probably a good fit for something like this.

Whereas what I feel like you're saying is, in the utilizing the concept of co-creation, it's more, you know, what are you really trying to achieve here?

And let me only walk you through the parts of the product that are most meaningful to you.

Maybe I'll show you a couple of things if I have a hypothesis that this could be valuable.

But are you advocating from getting away from a process that's very scripted and one that is maybe self-serving to the sales team, but not necessarily serving the customer?

For the customer, yes, absolutely.

Now, I don't know that that answer supports people who are like, well, Jesus, I'm running a sales team.

I need to create consistency.

I can't have everybody bespoke.

So I understand that.

But I think that at the end of the day, how would any one of us like to be sold to?

We'd like someone to like connect with us.

And respond to what we're giving them versus I can't stand it when people say, you know, run your play.

And I'm thinking, but you haven't even talked to the customer.

How are you running a play?

You don't even know what they need or want.

Like you're running the play based on the industry or what you supposed to be true.

So yes, I am advocating for a more bespoke, customer centric selling motion.

How bespoke would be the question.

You know, it's enough that we're talking.

I'm talking in your language.

Like I understand your business outcomes.

I'm not just talking about my product.

I'm relating it to your business outcomes.

What I then provide, I don't know if I have that much leeway to make it tailored or customized for you, but certainly how we engage could be tailored.

Mm-hmm.

There's always this fine line that I think salespeople have to walk over, which is like the idea that, you know, each company is unique and each buyer is unique.

Yeah.

And sort of addressing what may or may not be their unique problems.

But also, there is a benefit, I think, for a lot of people to believe that their problems are common and that that vendor sees those problems all the time and solves them, you know, seven days a week.

So how do we sort of navigate that tricky part of saying, yes, you're unique and your company is unique and this use case is different from the other folks, but also we've had experience doing this.

We know how to handle it.

Yeah, I don't, well, it's not a simple answer, but I think we're creative human beings and we can figure it out.

I think like when we offer our program, let's say Selling by Design, you know, there's always so much in it that I can change, right?

But I'll always do discovery upfront so that I really understand how, you know, like what's the sales process you have?

What are the challenges people have?

What's the language you use in your organization to talk about yourselves or your products and services so that I can tailor the offering with the language?

Like the components of the learning, the coaching, you know, manager involvement are all the same, but how we talk about it might be a little different.

And you know, if there's some things that I can tweak to support a different offering because it meets their needs, I will, but it's not everything's going to be bespoke.

So, you know, I think part of it is just you being smart around, not you, but in general, us being smart around, what is our, what can I tweak or how can I engage with the customer so they feel like I'm really listening to them and I've got their back.

Not everybody, you know, not everybody liked them, but then.

Yeah, it's an interesting way of selling.

And what I will say is being somebody who has bought a lot of software over the course of my career, I know when I'm being brought through a highly scripted sales process and I know when I'm being brought through one that feels like I'm actually working with them.

Yeah.

I don't always, it's weird.

It's more of a feeling than it is.

Like these steps happen that made it feel like it was me co-creating with them.

So I think that that makes it a tough implementation for a sales leader.

Yeah, I agree.

And I just always put our, just like you said, you being in the customer shoes in that example, you know how it feels and you know what you were more drawn to in terms of buying.

So, Rian backing into, okay, what do I need to teach my sellers to do?

Which is really about how to think for themselves, right?

We used to say, we don't say it anymore so much, but just don't be weird.

Like, you wouldn't go on a date and just talk about yourself the entire time on your first date.

Like, that's weird.

No one was gonna date with that person.

Same in the sales cycle.

So, use that as a guiding valve.

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, it's pretty funny because I've always been in odd positions that are really sellable.

Right, I was an analyst, a consultant.

I sold, now I'm sort of, you know, a help, you know, I'm gonna go to market advisor here at the, at Scale Venture Partners, right?

So like, I'm not really a buyer.

So, I can really, I too take calls for tech and sales and more tech.

And it is always, the weird thing really, is crazy to resonate, but it's like, why, dude, if you knew, like, why would you ask me that question?

It's the weirdest thing.

And the other thing I notice, because they do it to me and it's so cringey, they feel like it's not a discovery as a co-creation process.

They always have, it's this question where they think they're gonna get me.

They're gonna get me.

Well, the language of some sales trainers is all about how to get you.

I just read the other day, I can't remember what it was, but it was like, I know one organization used to have, take people into the Valley of Doom so that you can lift them up and say, I'm your answer.

And I'm like, that is not co-creative or collaborative.

And there are a lot of those gotcha questions that they do try to pose, which again, I just think our work in the world, I think is helping people return to their best human, curious, empathic selves, because that's what sells, I think.

Right, yeah, no, and like if you did a sales call with Matt, he generally goes in knowing, he just knows what he's got so well and can imagine what you do off the website before, I've seen him take briefings, I'm like, you gotta do differently with Matt than you do with, like co-create, you should actually just throw the ball to Matt, as quickly as possible, because he'll tell you all the things he's very clear on that, you know what I mean?

Where it's like, yeah, there's buyers where I'm sure you get on, that actually there are buyers where something akin to a scripted, templated sales process might work, right?

They come in with like that sort of one set of problems that they've defined as a sales enablement organization or whatever, and they just go down that path, and there's probably some, but like a really good buyer, like a Matt, You have to really, co-creation has to be a creative process.

You'll probably, out of Matt probably has like a 40% cringe rate on the questions people ask.

It's probably higher than that.

He worked at Worketto.

If you're selling the guy in marketing, technology, I mean, he's been in the game for so long, you should just know that and start at a different, well, head down a different path in your co-creation process.

Did you almost say approach vector?

You almost said it.

No, I didn't.

I didn't want to do that to Ashley.

I don't even know what that means.

Neither do I, but I say it all the time.

The thing that I'll say is I think it often depends upon who you're chatting with, right?

Because we see this all the time, right?

Sometimes you're dealing with somebody who's the buyer, they're above the power line, they're at the power line, et cetera.

And then sometimes you're dealing with buyers who are like, yeah, I got tasked with evaluating five vendors, then I'm gonna cut it down to two.

And so in those situations, I think co-creation may be a little bit trickier because they're looking to check off a list of boxes as opposed to necessarily thinking about the end state of how a product or a service might actually benefit their company.

Somebody said, hey, we need a new marketing automation system.

It needs to do X, Y and Z.

It needs to be able to serve ads, send emails, connect to the cloud data warehouse.

It needs to have a really simple UI.

And so someone's just gonna do the evaluation, do those checkboxes.

That's probably not the right person to do co-creation with, but I'd love your thoughts there.

Yeah, well, I was just seeing as you were saying.

I think, I wanna go back to the idea like, I think co-creation is a mindset, right?

So, and it may look different depending on who you're working with.

So, in this, that situation, I think co-creation might be more like, well, let's make this two way.

You know, I'll answer your questions, but I'll ask you some too.

Like, well, what do you think, you know, should be here?

Like involving them in thinking through, like whatever we're trying to complete, maybe it's not the end solution.

People wanna feel involved.

They wanna feel included.

They wanna feel like they matter.

At the end of the day, I think everybody just wants to feel loved and listened to.

Like, that is your job as a seller.

Love them, listen to them.

If you do that, people will fall in love with you and then start to open up and give you all sorts of things in terms of whatever you, you're looking for information, you're looking for a new relationship, a new introduction, whatever it may be.

So I think you have to figure out what does co-creation, this big term, look like in the conversation that you're engaged in.

Yeah, I love that.

By the way, is there any way we could do this just for me and if anybody needs to hydrate, I'll stop here and allow you to please hydrate.

But on design thinking, so I've used the term because I just want to look cool.

I'm not sure I understand it.

Can we just lift up, because I'm loving the co-creation thing and I know we could talk the whole time on it.

It sounds like it's part of it, but I just keep looking at your stuff here and just go with design thinking.

Okay, maybe I should understand what it is.

Yeah, it's a great question, great question, because I think most people don't know what it is.

So, design thinking is simply a creative problem solving methodology.

So, I put it in the same vein as Six Sigma, Agile, Lean.

It's a new process that people fall in love with because they think it's going to transform their organization.

Usually, or in the past, design thinking was a process people used when they wanted to innovate or create something new, new product, new service.

Now, design thinking is used everywhere, in every organization.

They use it to figure out how to solve a problem.

So, what's unique about design thinking, and it's usually sort of five phases and series of tools in each phase, what's unique about design thinking is that it always starts with the customer and ends with the customer, meaning the customer and what they care about is at the center of every question you ask, everything you do.

So, if we were to come up with the next edition of the Trader Joe's Sparkling Lime Water, most of us, or most of the world would be like, oh, I've got a great idea.

It is gonna be watermelon grapefruit because I know it's just gonna sell off those charts and we're gonna set it up and do everything we need to do to set it up.

The better way to strike it would be to be like, okay, put my best idea aside and I'm gonna talk to Matt like, when do you drink?

Why do you drink?

What flavors do you like?

You know what, flavors have you never tried?

And I'm gonna study my customers and figure out what they really care about and use the insights I learn and even the customer motives that I learn to inform what I create or the solution that I generate.

And that really sounds very simple, right?

Shouldn't we keep the customer at the center?

Shouldn't we create whatever we're doing with them in mind?

But we get lost all the time in our best ideas or what someone tells us to do or the price pressure, and we forget the customer.

And so a design thinking process is like, let's start with discovery, let's empathize with the end users, really understand them, and then let's build insights based on what we learn.

And then once we've learned, let's start to test things small, you know, fail fast.

That's out of the design thinking world.

Like, let's test something, do you like this flavor?

Or not?

If you don't, let's try something else.

But the testing is part of the process of co-creating a potential customer relationship or after?

So if I was using a product example, but in our sales process, I'm trying to think of a real example.

Like I'm in a sales process right now, where it's actually about creating a co-creation process for a customer.

But I'm in the sales process.

They haven't bought it, right?

So I'm trying to, like, I've sort of start offering small things.

Like, what do you think about this?

Something small.

Like would this work?

Would this not work?

And then we sort of build from there.

So instead of offering the entire solution, I'm offering something small, getting their feedback and input, then we're growing it together.

So that would be sort of in a sales process of services, that would be a little bit of a test.

Got it.

Okay.

So that makes sense.

Matt, did you know that that was the definition?

Is it just me?

I just want to make sure.

Well, I think it's I love the application of it to the sales process because I do too.

Yeah, I think of design thinking as like product innovation and doing market research and utilizing that to either develop new features or new product sets entirely.

But this is exactly how I would want to be sold to.

I think one of the things that's, yeah, one of the things that's always been true about me is like I always have a perception of what a software could be, not just what it is.

And I love when I have the opportunity in the midst of a sales cycle to explore that and to have an understanding of, you know, maybe if you can sort of meet nine out of my ten needs today, are you at least thinking about the tenth thing that I want as a part of your roadmap?

And if you're not, can I be the type of customer that can inform that decision process?

I think when you think about like love and empathy and not just being a vendor, but being a partner to your customer, opening up the doors a little bit for them to understand the way you think and the way your product team thinks and the way maybe your customers are thinking is really interesting to me as opposed to just feeling like I'm part of a transactional process.

Yeah, exactly.

Matt, that was a great redirect because I was trying to, and yeah, you brought it back because it is true that and by the way, actually, I'm pretty sure that what you're saying today would have been applicable 30 years ago.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely, but we do have, so like, because you're talking about complexity and that's one part of it.

The other, like on the failing, you know, the sales and the dropping sort of conversion rates for sales is the buying environment.

It's and it's tricky and so being able to co-create into a customer who's got lots of of fear, uncertainty and doubt about just buying something that to me, even though it's, you should always be in this co-creation process right now, you have to co-create or you got nothing.

So I want to get your reaction to that and then I have a follow up to that.

Well, on the face of it, I agree with you.

I think what you're saying is like, if I'm fearful, I'm not going to, I don't want to hear all about your technology.

But you got to first help me overcome my fear before I'm even open to this.

To overcome my fear is like how you start to engage me.

And it could be even actually not about this at all, the technology.

Just start with like, what are you concerned about?

Or like, tell me about your experience that has led you to feel this way.

Like if you can get me to open up and then have a conversation with you about my fear and also about possibilities, then we can, then you sort of earn the right to have the next conversation, which is about the, whatever you're selling.

Big shout out to our friends at Ringmaster for making all this possible.

If you or anyone you know is thinking about putting together a podcast, I can't think of a single better partner for them to work with in terms of the creative, the editing, guests, the management of two ginormous egos like mine and Craig's, they're just tremendous.

Dennis Ringmaster, write them a check.

Right.

But actually what I was saying, that was really good.

So thank you.

What I was saying is, because like, let's face it, there was a moment in time in tech where you could pitch and get a deal.

It was like a, it wasn't, you know, John Barrows says, what the golden age of sales, what did he call it on our podcast?

It was 12 years.

Sure.

But there was two or three where it was absurd.

Yeah, I was even selling, I wasn't selling tech and my phone would ring and my husband would be like, you're not in sales.

You're just answering the phone.

Exactly.

Those are the great days.

Yeah.

And so, and then what we, here's what I saw was like, so there was obviously just almost a shutdown of buying for a minute.

Then when they came back, though, deals were falling out all the time.

And that was because, you know, we left some sort of an era where it was like, oh, I want this product.

I can go buy it.

Lots of shelf where ended up as a result.

And now you can't do that, that the buyer actually has to have a story that's compelling internally to help get the deals through.

That's what I'm saying is that by co-creating, you are actually building what they need together.

That's very interesting, yes.

So you're giving them the story now because it's their story that they can tell internally.

And to combine what you said to be empathetic and to love your customer is critical now because guess what?

You have to embrace their fear and certainty and doubt and understand that so that as they co-create their story, they're building confidence in what they're buying.

Like that was what I was saying is I love it for right now.

If you don't do it, I think you're going to lose a lot of deals.

You're always like, well, the CFO bought us a deal.

I'm like, yeah, but what did the person say?

I've got this thing.

It's really cool.

Instead of like, here's the story of the solution that we've created and be able to sell it.

So that's why I was saying like right now, this idea and this mentality is a huge X factor that you'll need to be successful.

Yeah, I agree.

I always come back to this idea of like, it does sound pretty simple, doesn't it?

It sounds intuitive.

And I think the why this doesn't happen more often is you are a little bit in this ambiguous space.

If I don't have a playbook and I don't have a very rigid process, I don't actually know exactly what's going to come up.

So you have to be okay with ambiguity.

You have to be confident enough to say, I'm willing to walk into this conversation with Matt and Craig, and I don't know where it's going to go.

And it's okay.

We'll figure it out together.

Or I'm smart enough to be able to ask good questions and figure it out.

Now, let me ask you a question.

Do you believe that we can still have our pre-existing sales stages and pre-existing sales process?

But what you're advocating for is sort of a different approach to how you engage with the customer.

So, in a lot of cases, what you get is like, if you've got this sales structure that you like, but you're not necessarily putting the customer at the heart of that process, you can merely by adapting a different set of questions or a different mindset as you go into each one of the calls and interactions with these folks.

I mean, I think we've always said that this is like putting salt on your dinner.

Just gets better, tastes better.

So all of these tools of better discovery, more curiosity, better empathy, more co-creation, better insight generation, wherever you are, all of that is going to be applicable.

I do feel like I'm evolving to a place where I'm not so sure anymore that these rigid sales steps make the best sense.

I don't have an alternative though, because I think discovery is not a stage or a phase.

You should always be doing discovery.

It should be this continuous loop of learning more.

So we've put discovery like in a stage.

So I think of sales as very much of a non-linear process.

And therefore, we've tried to create something very linear because we want to measure it.

We want to know where you are.

And yet, at the same time, we're consistently terrible at forecasting.

And I think there's partly, maybe because people sandbag or there's all this pressure and you put in the wrong thing.

But I think there is this part of it's not linear.

So it's really hard to forecast in a very accurate way.

But what do you think?

Well, I think when you look up and down the go-to-market process, we are, whether it's marketing or sales development or even customer success, we're thinking about what are the ways that we can adapt our process in a scalable fashion that feels more customer centric.

And this could manifest itself in something as simple as we're not going to gate our content anymore, or we're not going to force you to speak to a BDR before you speak to an account executive.

And so I think the process itself is getting more customer centric, and you look at new technology out there that allows you to do kind of a self-driven demo.

These are all the things that the customer wants, and they're like, yeah, I want to see it, I want to evaluate it, but I don't want to talk to anybody.

But in the sales cycle, you have to talk to somebody.

And that's sort of the last leg of the journey is how do we adapt the sales process to meet the needs of the customer.

And I think that that's been really hard.

And when you're a salesperson, you're just like, oh my gosh, I got this quota, I got to close these deals, I got to show up to my one-on-one with my boss and talk about what I've got brewing, I've got my forecast, like I've got bills that I've got to pay, et cetera, et cetera.

So that can be really challenging where I feel like the other aspects of go to market are pretty simple, right?

You're like, hey, there's a form, we don't have that form anymore.

We used to have BDRs do qualification before discovery.

People don't want that.

So we've removed that process.

But once it gets to a salesperson, that's really hard, especially because salespeople have been doing it for a long time.

Maybe 10, 20 years and they've got a process that they like.

But also the internal pressure that they feel from the organization, the external pressure that they feel from their life.

It's not as simple as just, hey, you got to change the way you sell, bud.

I agree.

I think it's like healthcare.

The whole thing needs to be changed.

It's the whole system that's getting in the way of success because money just corrupts us.

People sell all the time things that their customer doesn't need because they are paid to sell it.

I've never worked at a company like that ever.

Well, it doesn't make for a long term customer relationship.

It makes for a quick sale.

But the pressures are real and someone said to me, a sales leader said, as soon as that person's bought a boat, they're mine because they're going to want to pay that off forever more.

And, you know, and I know they'll just keep selling, but they will also keep selling things that aren't necessarily what the customer needs.

And that's not good for your long term business.

But I do think they're so I'm not sure exactly how to express this.

So you guys might have to unwind me, but there's this there is this you can layer the co-creation process into sort of now the you know, the tech sales process is actually kind of standardized.

But I would argue that you still have these gates that happen as a result of, you know, so one is you would layer a co-creation mindset across all of those steps.

The buyers are used to those steps.

They're used to discovery, demo, trial, if necessary, stakeholder, you know, going wider with the message across multiple stakeholders, proposal, negotiation, you know, those things that sort of end up in the sales process.

I do think you can layer everything you're talking about into that.

And I do actually think it would be helpful just because what you guys are bringing up is really important, which is, well, look, if the person doesn't want a demo and they want this step, the idea of the process isn't for you to say, no, I think you should do a demo.

That you should be able to take right turns and left turns there.

To me, the most important thing is if you're going to forecast something properly, and if you took what you're talking about, Ashley, you would say, look, like, you're not putting anything on the forecast unless I have some understanding, like, explain to me the co-created story that you two have created.

You get that.

It seems like that is your ultimate signal.

Right now, timing might be different than what the organization wants, but to me, that's a big gating step that we can put into it.

Yeah, I agree.

And I think one of the things we coach our managers to say or to do is instead of asking how much you have, what do you got me by Friday in terms of numbers, tell me a story about what your customer cares about.

That is a better determinant of whether you really know your customer and we've got something going on than you just telling me a number because I want to hear a number.

So that's exactly what you're saying.

Tell me your story about your customer, the story you're co-creating with your customer, whatever it might be so that I understand that you really understand your customer and their customers and what everybody cares about.

Yeah, I think we would all have better forecast meetings with that.

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Yeah, because part of the drill sergeant thing is I tell reps this all the time.

I know it's ridiculous.

You know, it's like a firing line, but you're not really giving the information they need to sort of visualize the deal.

It's so like, we can fix that, you know, by like what you said, it's like, no, the first question is, you know, tell me the story that you've co-created there.

And I think that can be put into it.

Not that I'm some process freak, but you do kind of you do need a little, at least a roadmap that we know we might detour from.

And I do think it will work fine just because the buyers are generally speaking following that same path.

If they're not, then you should change your sales process.

Well, exactly.

It should map to how your customers want to buy.

I also think we haven't we haven't talked about this, but one of the things we're really pushing and advocating for is more creativity in the discovery process.

And I just had a great example of this the other day.

Gentlemen, Andrew, we were chatting and he's like, you're going to love this.

Look what I just did because we've worked together in the past.

He went to the Thomson Reuters shareholder meeting.

He said I was the only one there that wasn't a banker.

He sells a sales enablement technology.

And he said you could just walk in.

I went to New York City.

I booked a night.

I went and I got a badge and I was there in the meeting.

And after the meeting, he made a video of himself with his badge to the person he wants to talk to and said, hey, I was just at your shareholder meeting.

Here's what I learned and said some things that were interesting.

And said, here's how I think it relates to what you're doing.

I'd love to get your opinion.

Like, is there any other salesperson in his space who did that?

Probably not.

Probably not.

What he learned.

That is badass.

Right?

That was a really badass story.

Yes.

I'm going to agree.

Badass.

Yeah.

And he's also the guy who we were working with and he was trying to get into this media company.

And he did all this discovery and did very similar things like this.

Finally takes them from an at-risk client to a $3 million client, doing all this great discovery, building relationships.

Anyway, long story short, the customer then says, I like how you sold to us so much.

I want you to come to RSKO and get on stage and tell our sellers how you sold to us, because that's how we need to be selling.

That's amazing.

Well, that's the ultimate.

I mean, wow.

Wow.

Yeah.

Tell me about the...

So the stakeholder map is often brought up by folks in your business and sales leaders.

How do we address that in what we'll call either...

What should we call this?

The design thinking sales motion here?

Well, it's Sell by Design.

Sell by Design.

Well, let's figure this out together.

I don't know that I have an answer for this.

Let's co-create.

Let's co-create this.

We're going to come from the answer that your listeners are going to want to know.

So when you say the stakeholder map, are you suggesting that as a sales leader, I might ask for your stakeholder map, meaning like, I want to understand who the different decision makers are, all the people that influence them, so we can see this ecosystem.

Is that what you mean?

No.

Yeah.

Well, I think that's part of the process, but I'll give you a different example.

So we had Chris Orlab on earlier and he talked about multi-threading the stakeholder map and you actually have to engage with these other stakeholders involved in the sales process.

Is there an approach that we can take from Selling by Design here as we go and engage with the other stakeholders that are going to have a stake in the co-created story?

Yes.

Okay.

So when I think about the mapping that we do with the people we work with, we create what is called your customer's customer map, a map of your customer's customer.

And what that means is I'm going to draw a stakeholder map, but it's going to look a little different.

So I'm going to have your customer, and then I'm going to say who are the decision makers you know, what are the different functions, we've got them.

But then let's go to the very bottom, I'm thinking of this visually, of who are your customer's customers.

So let's take an example.

So let's take an example.

I was doing this the other day with a tech firm we're working with, Los Angeles Airport is their customer.

They're trying to sell the technology in service of better internet.

Los Angeles Airport wants to be the best internet, fastest around the world.

So we said, okay, well, who are the customers of that Los Angeles Airport?

Well, of course, passengers, like who comes through?

Well, who else?

Then there's sort of internal and external customers.

There are the vendors who work at the airport.

There are so many of them.

There are the ticket agents who are at the booths checking you in.

Then there are different types of travelers.

There's the business traveler.

There's the family traveler.

So you can see, you start to see all these different people or customer sets that I would argue need to be on that stakeholder map because at the end of the day, they're the stakeholders that your customer cares most about.

Not who do you care about, but who does your customer care about?

If no one wants to travel through Los Angeles Airport, they don't have an airport.

And I just gave you a smattering.

There's so many other customer sets here.

So when we work with sellers, we say, let's look at this whole map of stakeholders and now think about who are the stakeholders that are most important to your customer because it's connected to some priority of theirs.

So one of the things that's really important for LAX is the Olympics.

I don't know which year.

This summer.

Okay, this summer.

No, no, no.

The France is this summer.

So four years from now.

Yeah.

So four years from now.

So if this is a priority, then who cares, like which customer set is related to this Olympic goal.

And let's talk about how we can get to know them better and bring that information to our customer and figure out who cares about that in your customer set and have that conversation.

Because if you can talk value about what your customer's customer cares about, that completely changes the game.

So that was a long answer to a very different view of what is your stakeholder map.

Yeah, I was like, well, she didn't want to talk about stakeholder maps.

So I better redirect.

Then you come with that, which is a way better stakeholder mapping exercise.

So I was pleasantly surprised as well.

That's a great idea.

And I don't think literally, I would argue nobody does that.

No, I agree.

I've never been in a sales process where anyone's ever asked me about what my customer, who my customer is, what motivates them, why do they buy from us?

Exactly.

That's what I'm like.

Even if you didn't do your customer map, ask that question.

Who are your customers?

What is a great customer to you?

Why do they love you?

When did you lose a customer?

Tell me that story.

Who doesn't want to talk about that?

I mean, no, that's incredible.

I can't believe I, Matt, you and I need to be stronger hosts so we can extract this out of our guests early in the show.

That is amazing.

That's snippet worthy for sure.

You know, everyone's sort of talking about partners and channels these days.

Yeah, everybody.

And I don't feel like, I do feel like everything you're saying today, actually, as we go and build partner relationships and sort of understand, I was just thinking, as you were talking about, it's like, well, do you ever ask the partner who their customer is?

It seems like that would be like number one.

And then number two, how can I help their customer base by partnering with you?

I mean, this is like, I don't know why I got well, I got on it because we talked about it a lot.

But a lot of everything you're saying today is would be helpful in building sort of strong partner ecosystems.

Yeah, yeah, and they are also like health care.

Like, it's just a cluster.

I think these partnerships in part, I mean, they're they're being set up because it's a great revenue channel, but they're also often in competition with your internal services group, let's say.

So it's and there's so much money on the table that it just makes it very, very difficult.

So anyway, I'll just say that, yes, it's a big deal right now.

And figuring out how to manage all those relationships is important to the end customer.

So if you again, if you put the end customer in mind and whether they care about and back into, therefore, how are we working with our partners?

That would be a great thing to do.

Yeah.

Okay.

In the short amount of time, I wanted to go back to something that was talking about earlier about how this can be hard for sales reps.

I mean, you had a better, I just didn't want to reiterate everything you brought up, but like as early in this call, Matt was like, well, you know, like this could be hard for the sales rep.

So I got two questions to end with.

I got yelled at by Doug Landis.

I'm not allowed to ask too, but I love Doug Landis.

We have the same birthday.

No.

Number one is I was born the same day as Elvis, by the way.

Not at the actual same day, but okay.

One is, well, I totally, oh.

So is there a different kind of sales rep that can go through a, you know, be successful in a sell by design process?

So that's one.

And then two, is there anything like, you know, the mats of the world as they sort of think about enabling a sales rep to, you know, besides hiring you, you know, to make them, get them closer to, you know, having the mindset of, you know, a design thinking mindset.

So there's two questions, but I wonder if they go together.

I'll throw them to you and see where you go.

Well, I want to understand the first question.

You said, is there a different type of sales rep?

Like different from what?

Well, if you look at who we hire, I think I'm not, I don't know if this is always true, but we sort of gravitated towards, let's just say, you know, closers and less curious.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes, I mean, I would hire for curiosity all day long.

I mean, they've got to be motivated, of course, and interested in all that in your business.

But I would way over hire for curiosity over your great closer because I think that that's what's going to enable them to create the big relationships that you want.

And, you know, and it's never all or nothing, right?

It's not like I'm just going to stay in the curiosity space all day long and I'm not business oriented, but that quotient of curiosity should be high.

And I think, you know, I was just saying, well, how do you vet for that?

And I'm not a great interviewer for that, but I think asking them about, tell me about a favorite customer of yours or a favorite anything and tell me what you know, you know, the degree and also observing what questions they ask you.

Are they co-creating intuitively?

Yeah, I coach my daughters when they go for interviews.

I'm like, you're interviewing them as much as they're interviewing you.

Go in there with the things that you want to know.

Yeah.

So I do think that there's a, you know, again, it depends on what you're selling and all that.

But yes, I think curiosity should be top of the list of one of the characteristics.

It's interesting because I think we've raised a whole generation of sellers up through the SDR organization.

Which is very process oriented and very for speed, not very customer centric.

Yeah, I totally agree.

You can see Matt's experiences.

It makes him a great host because he can sell to all the time.

Well, that and I, you know, I, you know, ran many sales development orgs that were not like designed to be curious.

They were designed to book meetings.

Their internal motivation was not to find out more about the business necessarily, unless what they found out met the criteria of a customer that could potentially buy.

Yeah, that's right.

Okay, your second question.

How do we enable sales reps to get more curious like this?

Well, I do think, you know, leaders and managers are the one of the highest levers you have.

Getting them, first of all, to be more curious and ask better questions of their reps, but also for them to say, like I said before, of like, tell me about your customer and what they care about.

Tell me about your customer's customer instead of leading with like, tell me how much they're going to buy or what, you know, where are you in the sales stage cycle?

And I think just, you know, having this conversation with your sales rep, people understand the value of curiosity in their own lives.

So talking about like, how would you want to be sold to?

And let's talk about how do we get to know our customers.

And, you know, this book, I am promoting our book.

It's short.

It's a one-play-and-ride read.

That's because I'm a seller.

There's no fluff.

There's pictures.

And it's all about practical, valuable tools.

And one of the things is about how to be more curious.

It's one thing just to say be more curious, but how?

So we talked about these different curiosity prompts, and I can leave you with these.

So when you're in a conversation, listen for four things.

And think of these four things as like doorways into more information.

If you hear emotion, like high or low, like I really care about this, or I'm so frustrated, like, wow, you sound frustrated.

Tell me more about that.

What's so frustrating about it?

If you are surprised by something, oh, I didn't know that person left, or I don't understand that acronym, or whatever it might be.

Hmm, that's a door.

Hey, tell me more.

What does that mean?

Or I didn't see that coming, did you?

Tell me more.

Inconsistencies.

Worker inconsistencies, like this is a really high priority for us, but we don't have any budget.

That's interesting.

That sounds like two different things.

Can you tell me more about that?

And the last is hacks.

People are very creative and create things to get around systems.

So it's a great example company we were working with.

They were talking to their client and the person said, we actually created our own software because the software that we had wasn't working.

Of course, the question is like, really?

Tell me more about that.

I love that.

So on hacks, that is this actually is, I mean, that was another sort of whammy at the end.

That is the things they have done because they don't have a solution.

Exactly.

Or it didn't work and they did something to get around it.

Tell me why.

Like, what didn't work?

What did you do?

So much great information for the seller.

Yeah, the mic is officially dropped.

Okay, well, let me just close this out.

This was great.

I'm so glad we got to meet you.

We're just starting to know you.

And this was a great conversation for our listeners, but also just selfishly for us.

We're sort of trying to piece together what works today.

And I learned a lot from you.

So I really appreciate it.

Please plug your book really quick.

All right.

Naked Sales.

You can get it on Amazon.

It's a fun read.

Promise.

Great tips.

Awesome.

I've been trying to do airline reading too.

The guest is Ashley Welch.

The book is Naked Sales.

The podcast is The Transaction.

Thank you so much for being on today.

This was awesome.

I feel like I have a new friend, a new thought leader in the space that I've not personally been introduced to.

So thank you so much for joining us.

This was awesome.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Thank you guys.

Really appreciate it.

See you.

Thanks for joining us for another episode of The Transaction.

Craig and I really appreciate the fact that you've listened all the way to the end.

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