[SPEAKER_00]: This is the Sales Grady podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, I'm Jeb Blunt, guest selling off their fanatical prospecting objection, sales EQ and ink.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm here to help you open more doors, close bigger deals, and rock your commission check.
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome back to the Sales Grady podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Jeb Blunt Jr. And today we have a special guest who came all the way up from Florida today, drove the entire six hours or so, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, drove a long ways to be insudio for the salesgrabby podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we invited him up because our good friend, Bren, who just released the LinkedIn Edge with Jeblet Sr. has recommended Brad a Brown LinkedIn Navigator because if your team is busy, but they're just not producing, this is the right conversation for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of teams are stuck in research paralysis,
[SPEAKER_02]: They're on social media.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're on LinkedIn, especially if you're going to the SaaS world and they're getting likes, but there's just not a lot of leads that are coming through and you don't know how to scale your best reps so that you can build a team around them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Also, if you're running your sales work on charisma.
[SPEAKER_02]: just like what I like to run on.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is absolutely going to be a great conversation for you because Brad is the founder of simplified sales where he is here to end chaos.
[SPEAKER_02]: Brad builds revenue operation systems that drive predictable growth replacing guesswork with a scalable go-to-market blueprint and turning social activity into real-trust-based revenue.
[SPEAKER_02]: Brad, thank you so much for being here and thanks for driving all the way for Florida.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, thanks for having me,
[SPEAKER_02]: super excited.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is going to be a fun conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to dive a little bit back into your background and kind of, you know, why you're sitting here with us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the second part of this interview, which is going to be the longer parts.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're listening to this or watching on YouTube, we're going to talk about some scenarios.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some places where reps are failing or succeeding but not succeeding enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we want to get your coaching in and hear your perspective on how you might solve these challenges.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it'll be a really fun episode.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I look forward to hearing
[SPEAKER_02]: about these three scenarios that we're going to bring to the table, but first, tell us a little bit about your simplified sales system and your company and what you do for businesses.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so simplified sales.
[SPEAKER_01]: I started at a couple of years ago and really, really came from the passion of like business development sales.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been in business development in sales for over 20 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did consumer tech and SaaS software sales work with many enterprise teams.
[SPEAKER_01]: lead teams and really this passion over the last couple of years to really empower enterprise sales teams with a right-go-to-market strategy.
[SPEAKER_01]: But really be crystal clear on a sales development, but at the pillar of it is really leveraging how do we best leverage like trust-based conversation?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we
[SPEAKER_01]: get into these conversations leveraging the right tools and that's where kind of like sales navigator and LinkedIn really came into play and the story behind that really is for me I dove into LinkedIn and sales navigator probably about 12 years ago and I was director business development and kind of moved my way into more leadership roles.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I was starting to find opportunities on LinkedIn, just trying to figure out, hey, how does this tool work?
[SPEAKER_01]: And all the things that write new people dive into that really kind of like, how do I even start or where do you even start, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I found a way to get into opportunities that I would have never found if it wasn't for sales now, and like the now
[SPEAKER_02]: It's evolved over the years and a lot of the new things that are happening today is really empowering sales reps to really gain access into those conversations that would never happen right so right one quick question before we dive into these scenarios and I know it's on the mind of sales leaders business owners people who are running enterprise sales teams.
[SPEAKER_02]: and sales navigator is a really big budget line item for a lot of businesses.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're quite an expensive product.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, there's lots of sales leaders who are looking at LinkedIn and saying, okay, well, my reps aren't using this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even see any effectiveness out of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the state of LinkedIn navigator in the state of LinkedIn in 2025 is much different than 12 years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: What are your kind of general thoughts around the investment until sales nav and what should the leaders kind of think about pros and cons when it comes to that particular platform for their sales teams?
[SPEAKER_01]: Great, great question.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think the older school of thought right around LinkedIn is just, hey, I'm going to put my resume up online.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to find a new job.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, over the years, as you know, it's kind of like morphed into this sales tool that reps can really leverage to establish relationships.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when we look at LinkedIn today,
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things that sales leaders really need to think about, and it's with any tech stack, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Any piece of software that they have doped.
[SPEAKER_01]: They really have to kind of create this culture first and foremost.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I would say to sales leaders that are investing in sales nav and LinkedIn really understand what the objectives and goals are for your team.
[SPEAKER_01]: And understand what is the cadence from an outbound perspective and prospecting perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are we doing this fast play?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are we doing this long term, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it really starts with this mindset around how do we leverage the tool in a way that we can get the right conversations with the right people at the right time?
[SPEAKER_01]: I will say that sales navigator in LinkedIn is really evolved into, you know, when you think about kind of some of the new features, right, that they rolled out this past year with account IQ and lead IQ, this idea of giving more insight and context has been super powerful with some of those integrations that they've actually came out with this past year.
[SPEAKER_02]: I agree with you, and as a sales trainer and consultant in the space, we have businesses that I will absolutely look them in the eyes and say, this is just not an investment for you, and it's typically because their sales teams don't have a clear goal of what they want out of it, you know, they're essentially using it to
[SPEAKER_02]: If you are a sales organization and you look at like little LinkedIn edge in that book, they talk about slow and fast prospecting, just what you brought up.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're looking at fast prospecting, there's a great tool for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think LinkedIn Navigator has processed for that and I think it can do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you have to have that system in place.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not just LinkedIn.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not going to solve it for you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: However, the long-term play, I don't think there's any other system that works as well as LinkedIn, outside of marketing because your sales reps are the ones who are building their own brands, they're the ones who are reaching out to people and getting in networks and networking is really powerful that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that those two lanes you need to take a perspective on and determine what you want most of the system.
[SPEAKER_01]: 100%.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's interesting because the sales teams that I've talked to, it's that whole question of like, gosh, we're not getting return on investment out of this tool.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it really just comes down to like really understanding like the expectations and how do we drive that.
[SPEAKER_01]: The other part behind it, too, is when you talk about data validation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like LinkedIn, I look at it in two different ways, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So one, you look at sales navigator specifically.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really the what and why and your CRM is who, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So that gives you a little bit more context on how you can kind of think about your text back in that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can obviously integrate sales nav in your CRM.
[SPEAKER_01]: So.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a really cool perspective on LinkedIn sales navigator, which is, it's the what and why.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, the context and even think about ICPs and IQPs and who you're going to go sell to.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, ultimately, the end of the day who you're going to go talk to, you have a prodigy service and why are they going to buy?
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you have that context, it makes the who way more relevant.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I'm talking to Brad and you're, you know, chief human resources officer, and I'm selling, we're talking about my role in the HCR and human resources software space.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you are talking to a CHRO, just because they're a CHRO, you're missing like 99% of the picture, and they're all different, and they all have different contacts in their different markets.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that you're absolutely right that the who is important.
[SPEAKER_02]: why is way more important.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you pair those things together, you have a wonderful tool in sales navigator and you help teams implement this day and day out, actually adopt it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: And start using it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I have a couple scenarios for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to get to the scenario part of this, which I called this, the social media vanity trap.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm hoping I captured this correctly, so we have a wrap who is doing all of the best social media practices.
[SPEAKER_02]: They commenting, they're liking, they're posting, they're active, they're profile is set up right.
[SPEAKER_02]: But problem is, they're doing all of this and they're not getting any leads.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no activity that's resulting in sales conversations and revenue.
[SPEAKER_02]: Their LinkedIn looks if you go into it, it looks like an echo chamber of validation.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a lot of people who are in the industry that they're in, which we're in sales training.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they're going to be in the sales training industry, a lot of other sales trainers in the sales training industry, as you well know.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's just a bunch of the same thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're not getting any revenue out of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: So all activity, no execution.
[SPEAKER_02]: What would you do to help this rap start to branch out and start building a pipeline from LinkedIn based on the situation that they have right here?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the first thing that I always tell the reps is to really be crystal clear on the problem that you're solving for your customers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason for that before you dive into any tool is because you have that context, it's more of a mindset methodology.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you're out there prospecting and you're engaging with the CHRO or whoever that might be, you already have it in your head as to kind of the controlling idea of what the problem that you're solving.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that would be number one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number two, the thing that happens is, and it's funny because I was just working with the sales team a couple months ago and one of the reps was exact same thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, I'm commenting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing all these things, but I'm not getting any meetings.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's great that you're commenting that's great that you're liking and that you're engaging maybe with potential prospects, but I would challenge that rep to take it a step further.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when they actually do comment and when they do like certain posts right that their target prospects are posting on LinkedIn is that you want to respond with context and you want to respond with relevancy of what their problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you got to take the time to really understand what the insight is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you comment on a specific post with a prospect, really take the time to understand what they're posting and really think about, hey, how can I add value here to this individual and do it really in a thoughtful manner you will versus, you know, the whole idea of like, hey,
[SPEAKER_01]: That's awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad you guys are growing this year.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and so forth, you know, it could be questions like, hey, what a great approach and how you guys go to market.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here is to learn a little bit more on how you guys are actually doing and how did you get to that point where you actually have a defined go to market strategy with love to chat or with love to hear a little bit more, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So then now you're actually starting to gauge in conversation with that individual and then ultimately that kind of opens up the door for that connection request or that in mail and take that conversation over there and then you know the snowball kind of there's a couple of things from this rep that I might if I was sitting in the room with you in your coaching man might come with like well there's two you know I'm going to I'm in complain.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's two things.
[SPEAKER_02]: One is that pushy to always be having the longest comment on someone's post and delivering the most added value to their post.
[SPEAKER_02]: They see what I'm doing here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe they see the kind of work that you're doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: They see that you're trying to get a meaning with them or whatever and it can kind of feel salesy, I guess.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the second part is, man, it feels salesy.
[SPEAKER_02]: No one's responding to me and it is taking so much of my time.
[SPEAKER_02]: to comment on these.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't scale this very well.
[SPEAKER_02]: So those are the two problems I'm seeing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can't scale anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: It takes way too much time and I feel salesy doing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you help the sales rep kind of overcome that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Once you've told them, okay, look, you got to change your mindset about those.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't just be the platitudes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So good to see your posts.
[SPEAKER_02]: You look like you're doing good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Congratulations.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not working, but this next step might feel really uncomfortable for them for those two reasons.
[SPEAKER_01]: For sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a great question.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things is that, look, if you're not getting a response back, that's okay, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there's going to be this long play with these, especially if you're trying to get in the door with the C suite, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're trying to get in with these decision makers, sometimes they're not going to respond right away.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what you're doing is, is you're building awareness around who you are, your brand, providing those insights in over time, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: The hope is, is that those conversations will open up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I will say that I get a lot of questions on like, hey, when's the right time to like reach out to this prospect?
[SPEAKER_01]: They haven't responded back to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do we do here, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of the things that I always recommend for those sales reps is that not only do you provide insight there, but you always want to have this mindset of leading with insight and value.
[SPEAKER_01]: So here's what I mean by that.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're working in enterprise sales team, it's really, really important for you to work with your marketing team to understand some of the information that you're sharing and educating your perspective prospects with, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And that can come in the form of a webinar, that can come in the form of an event that can come in the form of maybe a PDF, something along the lines of that you're always like trying to add value and insight.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of the things that I coach the rep the other day on was that, hey, if you're not getting traction here, keep in mind, like this is a long play, you're building your brand, you're building your awareness, like you're not going to be just somebody cold coming in asking for a connection request, they've seen your posts, they've seen your comments, you're providing value and insight, the next step is is to invite them to something that you're putting on.
[SPEAKER_01]: that would add value to them, could be a webinar, could be event, whatever that might look like.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so now you're kind of taking that relationship kind of then in the next level of inviting them into your house per se, right, in teaching a little bit more about you and what you have to offer so on and so forth.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's kind of the next step of what I typically recommend that these sales teams do in really working with the sales enablement team and marketing and have that kind of like flywheel
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to come back to this in just a moment so hold that idea because there's really good scalability yep so the next part well it all sounds great Brad
[SPEAKER_02]: If I was just talking to you, I think I could do it, but I've got 400 prospects in my market that I'm going after right now and that's not even counting all the thousands of people that I could go talk to.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do I do that over a month or a week or a day to make sure I'm not wasting my time on LinkedIn and I'm actually picking phone calling people and I'm emailing now out and field and all of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So how do you help teams scale their effort?
[SPEAKER_01]: love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Great question.
[SPEAKER_01]: So from an activity perspective, when you look at LinkedIn, what you want it to, you're not going to be able to attack all 400 of those prospects.
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, in a week, two weeks, even a month, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But what you want to do is you want to chunk those leads down into bite size activity every single day.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I typically do is I teach teams, and even myself for that matter, but you want to block out at least an hour a day,
[SPEAKER_01]: and you want to be able to hit and there's this rule called five three one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Five three one rule is this and that is you want to pick five prospects right or leads and you want to go on that alert page and you want to do that comment like, you know, action.
[SPEAKER_01]: The second one is when we talk about the three, right, and the five or three framework, the third part or the the number three is you want to be able to actually go in and thoughtfully pick out those prospects and figure out like, okay, I've got three people here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just invite them to an event and invite them to a webinar, whatever that might be, and then the last one is just do a connection request right so you can do that five, five, three, one framework within like a 30 minute, a 40 minute.
[SPEAKER_01]: time block.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you could spend a little bit more time working in an hour kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you pick that off every day, right, prospecting as you know, right, it's a compounding effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we think about all these activities, it's really a compounding effect that you're starting to build your pipeline that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, the things I pulled away from this, the 531 framework and time blocking, and, you know, we talk about, listen, fanatical prospecting is picking your day apart and saying, okay, I've got golden hours and I got platinum hours and these are the hours to sell.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if I am not actively in meetings, if I'm not actively doing sales activity, then I need to be filling my calendar with things that will bring me pipeline.
[SPEAKER_02]: And because the number one reason for failure in sales is an empty pipeline.
[SPEAKER_02]: and this is a great strategy for doing that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But in order to make sure that you can scale this up, you do it in time blocks and then you go back to the value and you talk about inviting people in your house.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love this and this is a part of the partnership that sales and marketing should have.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I am running my marketing department and I'm thinking about my relationship with sales, we are ideators.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are people who are creative, where people who sit back there and say, okay, how do I add value to my customers, be a PDFs or webinars or whatever, and use a sales rep?
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't need to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: You use a sales team as a sales leader.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not your job.
[SPEAKER_02]: job is to generate pipeline.
[SPEAKER_02]: So come talk to the marketing team and say, I need to support and generating pipeline, what can we do to invite people into our house, social media, if that's messaging, if that's emails, whatever that is, and start using LinkedIn as a medium or delivering that kind of relationship that doesn't feel salesy, just commenting to try and get a meeting with somebody.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I love those two things I took away from that scenario.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to
[SPEAKER_02]: called the research black hole.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we talked about time blocking the little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I know this is going to come up in this scenario, but just.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I make one comment about the sales and marketing side?
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to make one comment, but the sales and marketing side.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for all those sales leaders that are out there and marketing leaders, you have to get in a rhythm together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, here's the thing, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I work for a company where it was that push and pull mentality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, marketing is creating the pitch decks and the messaging and sales is out doing the thing that they're doing, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Going wild.
[SPEAKER_02]: doing one like marketing say.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you got these two pistons going that are going in completely different directions.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for those sales leaders and marketing leaders, it is super, super important to get in a monthly meeting rhythm between the leadership teams.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason why is because we are living in an age, as you know this, where marketing and sales is really
[SPEAKER_01]: So as a sales rep from an outbound perspective, the number one thing that I can really provide is insights, right, and value, and part of that really comes from content that marking can create all the different kinds of things because I mean we live in the digital world right AI it's digital that very first.
[SPEAKER_01]: spot right where sales reps are it's online.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, yes, we have events.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have other things that kind of are in that whole entire ecosystem, but we have to leverage each other as a sales and marketing team together as one revenue team that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: I agree with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And one of the things that I had to shift my mindset around in terms of marketing and I look, I've grown up and tech and telecom and blue color sales and then in sales training and consulting.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was like, kind of, there's been in a couple of different industries.
[SPEAKER_02]: And marketing always hates sales sales sales marketing.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the same thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the reason that I've seen is exactly what you pointed out is it's there, there's two departments running with two engines and they're going in different directions and
[SPEAKER_02]: marketing says, well, I want to dictate all of the messaging and all about you and you need to listen to us and sales says you guys don't sell stuff so yeah show with a son don't shine and I'm going to do what I want to do and you know and I love both of them because they're both competitive but you're right you have to have conversations with each other because in this day and age and I'm telling you as a young sales rep as somebody grew up with all of this technology and exists in the world of AI.
[SPEAKER_02]: email from a sales rep that's just a bunch of text is just not covered anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're just not delivering an a value and unless you're picking up the phone and calling people, which I know most of you are reluctant to do every single day, you know, you're going to fall short, so lean on the marketing team to help you build that flywheel of assets and content and value.
[SPEAKER_02]: we have a really fun scenario, which is I've dubbed the research black hole.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this company, they have a sales team that has been taught to personalize, I'm air quoting, personalize, and now they're stuck in this deep research black hole.
[SPEAKER_02]: They need to make every message exactly right for the person they're talking to.
[SPEAKER_02]: They spend 45 minutes reading companies financial
[SPEAKER_02]: they derive some message from that 10k, it's irrelevant, it totally gets ignored, their pipeline is completely empty, and this personalization is super high effort, but absolutely zero impact on the organization, even though they feel good because they're doing the right thing, quote unquote, by their leadership, but they're slow.
[SPEAKER_02]: they're really burnt out because it takes a lot of emotional energy to do this and then again their pipeline is completely empty talking with leadership now you're not talking with sales reps and leadership wants personalization because they've heard on a podcast not this one but other podcasts I cannot not this one
[SPEAKER_02]: They've heard on podcasts that you have to be hyper personalized, which isn't incorrect, but out of context can be really debilitating for sales teams.
[SPEAKER_02]: So how are you helping these teams start to leverage their research that they can do on LinkedIn Navigator efficiently, but also helping leadership change their mind around what they should be doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sales reps in those situations, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: We always hear like the adage of like analysis by paralysis or paralysis by analysis, however that goes, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But honestly, like a lot of these reps, they'll go in, they'll do the research, which is great, but they're literally getting in their own heads and trying to figure out the perfect message or the perfect thing that they can throw out there that will get them the meeting, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I typically tell sales reps,
[SPEAKER_01]: through AI or through other individuals inside of an organization, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: What you're trying to do is understand and relate back and it goes back to the beginning of our conversation today is that if you have like the context of the problem that you're solving for that client, the controlling idea, the controlling problem that you're solving in the back of your mind, you're thinking of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when you're doing research, what you're doing is you're trying to figure out the right triggers
[SPEAKER_01]: in your research that relate back to the problem that you're solving and the messaging leads with the problem that you're solving, not the product that you're selling, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if you can, you know, put that together in context in that way, that really goes along ways because you're really talking about the problem that they're solving.
[SPEAKER_01]: That like these leadership teams, that's what they care about.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll give you an example.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I had, I was working with the sales team, they were in HR, HR software, and they are basically I9 processing software.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know this world, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess when you start talking about this, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they can do a lot of different things.
[SPEAKER_01]: I9 processing, you verify, all the different things on there, but the controlling idea of what this company does really, really well is to solve compliance issues with companies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Companies that are out of compliance for I9 as an example, that was the controlling idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: So everything that we did from a research perspective, from a content marketing perspective, all of that related to this controlling idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when the reps did research around it, what we were doing is, is we are researching obviously the problems around any compliance issues that that company was having.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you kind of have like this idea of like this
[SPEAKER_01]: where you're not just going through one single thread in HR, how we can actually open up the doors with compliance, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this research that you're doing, you are more clear in concise because you have this controlling idea and you're servicing the triggers and really looking forward to what brings that back to the controlling idea and problem that solving if that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's about triggers, it's about relevancy, you know, the messaging to behind that is is another way to do that outside of the research because you have to have multiple ways to do it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Another way to do it, which you know while is when you're doing enterprise sales and your cultivating relationships with your champions and your influencers, that's another way to grab relevancy to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I agree with you, one of the challenges that, you know, I worked in this industry that, you know, they thought they're best buyer.
[SPEAKER_02]: It technically was true technically, but it was really difficult to open the door was when there was a new VP of XYZ position.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so if there was a new higher in the C suite or like a little bit below it, they believed that that was the best time to go jump on it, or they just got like a next series of funding.
[SPEAKER_02]: So series A to series C to series E, you know, a series, all of the series, if you ended up, you know, I was on
[SPEAKER_02]: crunch base, you know, doing all these tin care reports and trying to figure out if I could see if there was an acquisition and when they got acquisition and when what kind of funds they had in all the message sounded like and I'm sure you see this is I would and I was this is my mistake but I was going to these groups.
[SPEAKER_02]: to this buyer potentially and saying I'm JBJ at XYZ company on a meet with you because I saw that you had an acquisition and you got X number of dollars in funding and you hired a new person for this position and I thought it was an opportunity for us to sit down and talk about our product.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're just proving to somebody that you did research, like all you're doing is like I read online about you meet with me and what you're talking about is repositioning You're controlling idea, you know, they I solve empty pipelines for sales teams
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, I know that you've had some acquisitions and you're in the VP of sales position, you're your job is to grow and look, I want to learn more about your strategy, but I've worked with teams just like yours that have an empty pipeline and it's because they're doing everything but getting unlinked and navigator and using it correctly, I have some strategies for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought you might want to see them as 15 minutes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you've got a message that is geared towards them.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can research their business more specifically.
[SPEAKER_02]: AI is huge.
[SPEAKER_02]: You said get specific.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, AI works best when you're specific and sit in general.
[SPEAKER_02]: So get really specific and then you've got research and look, it takes 45 minutes to build a message.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I tell the story a lot, but I sat down with this CEO at a, in a company and I was really excited to, I was like 22 years old.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know why they let me go talk to this guy and I was so nervous.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I did every bit of research before AI and I had this stack of notes on my on the table and I opened the first page and I went, I'm really excited to meet with you because I learned your business does this, this, this, this and this and I want to ask you more about that and he looked at me and went, son, that is, that is not what we do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And all of the research, I spent like three days on this research, I just went, I just took the stack of paper, and I went, boom, off the table, just threw it away, because what did it matter, and I tell us the reps, and you probably tell them to, like, look, do all your research, but if you have the controlling idea and you have some level of research in this industry, you've worked with them, you got champions, just go talk to somebody.
[SPEAKER_01]: for sure, for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they go talk to somebody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because you think of the idea of like research, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just AI, it's researching inside that organization.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when we think about like enterprise sales teams, multiple layers of leadership and decision makers and all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I'm talking about like multiple stakeholders in an account that you're trying to, you know, I heard actually a podcast the other day from sales gravy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a really good one, I bet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so Jeff was.
[SPEAKER_01]: talking about a sales rep that was trying to get in the C-suite and having trouble to get in a C-suite.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the problem was, is the whole business acumen, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this idea of the sales rep going in and actually just coming from the angle of, hey, I just want to learn.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to educate myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this idea of educating himself and learning a little bit more about that organization before closing up this week, it's the same approach in this right so AI and the research that you can do online right can can actually add more context in getting in the door maybe with some of those other individuals right that can be an influencer or champion that would be one way to do it and then you actually have kind of extra ammo and really more crystal clear kind of.
[SPEAKER_01]: date and insight.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you do go up top, you have actually something to say that's meaningful and relevant.
[SPEAKER_02]: A such gold, it's such great insight into how someone can be more successful, especially in enterprise role.
[SPEAKER_02]: Honestly, if you're selling complex services, this is the best way to learn.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like you said, the research you do with AI or Google or whatever your tools are out here is giving you knowledge, but it's not giving you context.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I always tell people, you know, I just, I don't want to level up, but I don't know who to talk to an organization.
[SPEAKER_02]: Call the sales team.
[SPEAKER_02]: They pick up the phone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: They need, they need, they need by-blend just as much as you do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my line is always, you know, if it's LinkedIn, or if it's email, is, hey, Brad, double and junior I'm over at this company.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a sales rep, just like you.
[SPEAKER_02]: look, man, I don't want to sell you on stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just, I want to love a lot, but I need to learn and it just sells person to sells person.
[SPEAKER_02]: Would you be willing to help me out?
[SPEAKER_02]: And like eight times out of ten, they're totally interested in helping out because they figure maybe they can sell back to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like we're all in this game together.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that, you know, walking into this next scenario.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is going back to scaling conversation and I called this a scaling catastrophe.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm noting this one for for the YouTube channel.
[SPEAKER_02]: So go to sales gravy at YouTube and you can find all of our videos.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's an executive failure.
[SPEAKER_02]: A high growth company is completely reliant on a few super star closers.
[SPEAKER_02]: Actually, let's just call it one.
[SPEAKER_02]: You got one person who's actually selling all the business and there's
[SPEAKER_02]: five other people in the sales team.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, they're there.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, they're they show up every day.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm happy for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But this one person's really crushing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a charisma driven organization, not a process driven one.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this person is not the founder, but they were there at the beginning.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they sort of have that kind of founder vibe to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are really inconsistent month to month.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if he pulls in a big deal,
[SPEAKER_02]: Great.
[SPEAKER_02]: If not, they're sunk.
[SPEAKER_02]: And these results result in turn.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the sales team keeps turning over.
[SPEAKER_02]: They can't find the right people.
[SPEAKER_02]: The sales director who's supposed to be leading this person keeps getting turned over.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they have no scalable good-to-market blueprint.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just not repeatable at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you've got that scenario you walk into the building.
[SPEAKER_02]: The CEO says we need revenue fix it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the sales director is bags under their eyes,
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're like packing their desk up like you walk in and they're about right.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're like, thank God, you're in.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're like, tagging you in like, I'm going home.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I haven't seen my wife in like six years.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, just swimming.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then there's one guy in the corner who's like talking it up at the water cooler like he's all that because he sold all the revenue in the business.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so what are they going to do fire me?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you've got that situation.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've walked into it.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you handle that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you build a good market blueprint around this kind of organization?
[SPEAKER_01]: So this this is a great question because I ran into this multiple times.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just just getting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I was literally just in a meeting last Friday with the CEO and owner.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were talking about all their sales reps and one sales rep has been with the company for like 15 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's the one that's
[SPEAKER_01]: I just did my research.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so here's what the problem is with that, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like a sales director of EPS sales, they can't go into that situation and just throw more gas on the fire and expect different outcomes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you have to back up and it's more about the culture.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we think about scalability, we think about leadership stepping in and building scalable systems and processes, it has to come from the top and it has to come from the owner of the company and say, hey, we are changing directions.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that hey.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been probably doing this for the last handful years with no right systems or processes, but we're at a point right now where we are looking to scale.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the only reason that we can scale or the only way that we can scale is a systemized way to go to market.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have to have everybody on board with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so,
[SPEAKER_01]: To answer your question, the thing about this JBJ, it all comes down to culture, so that leader has to instill a culture of excellence and accountability, that's super easy, Brad.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, you could do it overnight, not you can't, but the the owner absolutely has to instill a culture or a sales leader, B.P.
[SPEAKER_01]: CRO, whatever that may, a sales culture of excellence and accountability.
[SPEAKER_01]: The second part behind that is a scalable process you have to identify out of your entire sales team right who are actually the top performing sales reps right what are maybe one or two key actions that they do That really work well and can we put that in a way or a systemized process for the entire sales team to adopt.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, the pushback is going to be the sales reps. Well, I've never done it that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been doing this for the last 10 years, or five years, or two years, or whatever that might be.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not telling you to change the way and how you're doing things completely, because your sales style is your sales style.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what we're trying to do is, is systemize an outline and framework on how to execute high-level sales and revenue growth in this company, and so if the sales leader can come in with that expectation and build a sales process out in that way, then you're in a much better position with the business owner or the sales leader coming in with that expectation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And look, at the end of the day, they have to create this culture to empower their sales people and know like the leaders like actually really care about the sales reps and about their success, right, you'll have better buying with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's a big project to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like this idea of of putting an implementing a scalable sales process and it takes time and it takes time for everybody to get bought in on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it starts with the culture.
[SPEAKER_01]: It starts with
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that that's the first step of this blueprint where, you know, we talk about good market and blue prints and playbooks and you start talking about the technical things like you got to have upsells process in place and what does that process look like and then how do you hand things off and you said something that was really impactful and I think that leaders of businesses should pay attention to if whether you're in a
[SPEAKER_02]: Fortune 500 or your own, your own business, whatever it is, reps want to know that you care about them and here's the thing that you should know about the scenario with the one rep who's crushing it and everyone else's failing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Leaders who aren't stepping in, who aren't building culture intentionally and often that person who's crushing the other sales is holding all the others back.
[SPEAKER_02]: And while they have a bunch of revenue in the pipeline, they're not a fit for your business anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't fit the culture.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're not helping others.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as you if you as a leader are not stepping in, it tells the other people that you don't care about them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the only thing that matters about their life is how much revenue they bring to the table and look, I'm all about sales reps need to be measured by the amount of revenue they bring in.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is truly the only way to show success in business.
[SPEAKER_02]: But people are people first.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so if they feel you don't care about them as a
[SPEAKER_02]: Like look, your culture's gonna suffer in your scalability just plummets and that good market plan You've spent $400,000 on them with a consultant and they wrote it all up on a whiteboard and looked all pretty And then they put in the document and you went hey guys, this is a good market plan And then six months later you're like we have this plan what happened and Joe Schmo sales rep over here Is still selling everything and going I ain't care about your plan because I know what I've been doing for five years And I'm not changing what I'm doing and you're still in the same boat that you were in when you first started the conversation
[SPEAKER_02]: how do I fix the situation of scalability?
[SPEAKER_02]: Businesses sell, crumble, or have to be reimagined when scalable challenge, the scalable question is never answered correctly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Final thoughts on leadership.
[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't supposed to be a leadership site, but I think it's really important that you, you have a lot of experience in the space.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, based on what I've just kind of laid out there, anything kind of popped to your mind about what you might
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I would say in this situation, you got to be like, look in the mirror as a sales leader or a business owner and be completely honest with yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the question that you have to ask yourself is, hey, do I have the right people in the right seats on my team?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's one thing to create a sales process or a scalable process to grow.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's another thing to execute, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in order to execute it at a high level, which you already know, you have to have the right people in the right seats.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so as a sales leader, you have to be honest with yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you have to be honest with your team, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: And look, not all sales reps are going to be the right fit for your team, especially if you're making changes or there's certain things that a company's doing and moving forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: They may not be the right fit.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you have to make that hard decision to say, hey, are they going
[SPEAKER_01]: be on board with the changes or not, that whole thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's really, really important.
[SPEAKER_02]: A quote comes to mind about this particular situation, which is, you know, if you are a leader and you have that hotshot sales rep and look, I am more apt than anybody to be the hotshot sales rep, I love just doing my own thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a, you know, disprofiles ID, you tell me what to do, and I don't want to do any of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm going to do my own thing, but the quote that comes to mind is, if you want to go fast, go alone, and if you want to go far, go together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's so true for sales teams in that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, as a leader, you can put up into hot shots in there and you'll run really fast, but it's hard duplicate.
[SPEAKER_02]: They get burnout.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're excited about going to something new that they can go and then you have to build process because you grew and they don't like process.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they do their own process and then you have that same situation that you just can't get out of that sort of, yeah, my or of the one person doing everything or a couple of people who do all that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll say one thing about process.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the word process scares a lot of people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's me, especially like as a sales rep because you feel like you're pigeonholed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a certain way of doing things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's not what we're saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: What we're saying is within that process, if you look at like the definition of process, honestly, it really comes down to taking the right actions at the right time to get the right outcome.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when you string along the right systems and processes, you should be able to get the right outcomes when and how and with who every time now how you get there in each step of the process is really kind of really up to you and your style and all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not what we're saying here.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not trying to change the sales rep style.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are trying to organize the sales process in a way that everybody's on board.
[SPEAKER_01]: And honestly, it sets you up for better coaching and better leadership because then you can actually identify the gaps in that process that might be missing, so on and so forth.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: process is doing the right things at the right time to get the right outcome.
[SPEAKER_02]: Put that on a t-shirt and sell that thing on the beach.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I want to give you some space to tell people where to find you, where to learn from you, where to connect with you, because Brad is going to be back in the studios here at SalesGrabby in a very near future with some great courses that he'll be recording with our wonderful wonderful team who is adding that to SalesGrabby University.
[SPEAKER_02]: and before those courses come out, people should start to get familiar with who you are and what you do so that they can tile these concepts together, put it in context and start leveraging every single day.
[SPEAKER_02]: So give people a little bit of your business card.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, we're simplified sales.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: that would be a great resource for anybody that wants to jump on there.
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll find out all the programs and everything else that I'm doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then number two is just LinkedIn.
[SPEAKER_01]: Really easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jump on LinkedIn, jump to my profile page, connect.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm always open to connect with people.
[SPEAKER_02]: So go connect.
[SPEAKER_02]: on LinkedIn, so before we leave this podcast, look, if you're watching this on YouTube, thank you so much, but if you're not, go check our videos out on YouTube, you can watch these conversations just to get yourself some professional development, and then also give us a like and subscribe to the channel really helps us out.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're listening to this on Spotify, Apple Music, or any other platform, give us a five star rating, give us a review,
[SPEAKER_02]: You are our marketing department when it comes to this podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: You are the reason that we are able to go out and help more people sell more every single day.
[SPEAKER_02]: So spread the word, give us a like, give us those five star ratings and go follow us on YouTube.
[SPEAKER_02]: We really appreciate y'all listening to the sale to every podcast and we'll catch you next time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, I'm Jeb Blunt, bestselling offer for a fanatical prospecting Cells EQ objections inked, and my brand new book, The LinkedIn Edge.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, companies and people from all over the world come to me to get answers to their toughest Cells and growth questions, and that's why I created Ask Jeb.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a segment on the CellsGrabby podcast where you can come and ask me anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to get on the show, just go to sellsgrave.com forage-ask.
[SPEAKER_00]: That sellsgrave.com forage-ask.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of our great producers will get you on and you can ask me anything about sales.